Unfortunately, the other thread on anti-Semitism degenerated into personal battles that, ultimately, had little to do with the topic. Resurgent anti-Semitism, though, is too important a topic. I hope that this thread will be spared the trvialization that occurred in the other one.

Nat Hentoff, the brilliant columnist and life-long civil libertarian, has an excellent column on anti-Semitism, and the effect of Gibson's film on it, in this week's Village Voice.

An excerpt:

Aside from The Passion of the Christ—and how it may or may not play out in Europe—before the movie opened anywhere, a National Public Radio report on January 28 noted that "the 59th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz was marked yesterday with remembrances across Europe."

But not only remembrances. Sylvia Poggioli, NPR's first-rate reporter, noted that on the eve of Remembrance Day, "a poll [of nine European countries] on European anti-Semitism showed that 46 percent of those asked said Jews and their nations were different." (As historically the Jews have been the aliens within.) "And 35 percent said Jews should stop playing the victim for the Holocaust."

In view of the sharp resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe—not only among Muslims but also some intellectuals on the left—Poggioli also interviewed Gianfranco Fini, deputy prime minister of Italy, who said: "It was Europe that generated this monster and gave birth to this madness. . . . Anti-Semitism does not belong to the past. It can still reproduce itself in different forms."

Added Elie Wiesel: "If Auschwitz couldn't cure anti-Semitism, what will?"

This is not the time to sha shtil.

Here is the whole article.