It has been a heavy time for a lot of reasons. Trump and the horrible political climate right now is one contributor. And then I've been obsessively reading about Cardinal McCarrick and his predatory behavior towards his seminarians for decades. And the ongoing revelations that there are many active homosexual priests and bishops. This has been deep in the hierarchy for generations. Pope Francis, the one I love so much in so many ways, doesn't seem to be great at handling this stuff. Though I am so ignorant of what can and can't be done about it, so what do I know. But it has really shaken me up. I've been collecting all the sordid articles. I managed to make it through the pedophile catastrophe, which of course is still playing out, but it turns out it goes even deeper than that. The Church I love is horribly corrupt.
And all the while I've been reading this book on the history of antisemitism. And the Church was horrible there too. It was so depressing to read just how much evil the Church perpetuated. At times, it did try to speak out. A pope would say something at some point to try to control the violence and cruelty. But then another pope would help perpetuate it. It was too little and too ineffectual. Evil is an amazing thing. The blind hate of antisemitism is almost bizarre in how it reappears over and over again throughout history based on lies, misunderstanding, fear of 'others' and a weird blaming of Jews, collectively for the death of Christ.
This book is a very well written narrative of the history of antisemitism. The writing style is clear and succinct. It is not polemical at all. The authors are quite dispassionate and I think come off as being rather heroically objective and fair. They begin at the beginning, biblically, move into explaining the long antagonism by Christians against Jews and the various ways this was expressed by Western and Eastern Christian churches. Time and again they were persecuted, attacked and finally expelled from various nations at different times throughout the ages. And it all culminated in the Holocaust. Even after the Holocaust when you'd think people would be aghast with shame at what horror their bigotry had caused, people were still rejecting the Jews. Then came the whole founding of Israel. Even before that there had always been difficulty in Muslim lands. Even though there was the concept of 'dhimmi' for people of the book, they still were treated as second class citizens and taxed for not being Muslim. And how they were treated depended on the whim of whoever the local leader happened to be. The whole rise of Zionism and Anti-Zionism put another layer over everything.
At the same time I was reading this book, I tried to listen to a book by Mark Kurlansky on audio. I have read his books Salt, and The Basque History of the World, both of which I enjoyed immensely. So I was looking forward to his book on Non-Violence. However, I found it a really hostile book! I mean it was the angriest book ever on non-violence! LOL. Kurlansky had it really in for the Catholic Church in a way that I never felt from A Convenient Hatred. He just kept making snide, jeering remarks. Maybe it was Richard Dreyfuss' reading of it. His voice is abrasive to me, rather too nasal and irritating. Anyway, the book on Antisemitism was a better sell for non-violence then the bitterly resentful Kurlansky, who is so pissed off that nobody ever stuck to nonviolent principles. We've all let him down! So in contrast to that book, A Convenient Hatred comes off as possessing a lot of integrity and a real respect for its readers, no matter who they might be, Jewish, Christian or Muslim. It is tough stuff to read, but important to acknowledge. The authors are obviously sympathetic to Israel.
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