The Jews' exclusivity, their resistance to assimilation, their alien traditions and customs, all these factors have contributed to a reaction from the Christian world that at times became extreme. With each persecution the Jews suffered, their own distrust and antipathy toward Gentiles became intensified in their own writings and in patterns of behavior that engendered still more persecution. A cycle of recrimination began that still continues as we approach the end of the 20th century.

A whole generation of Jews is now growing up inundated with stories of Gentile perfidy. Not only are the Germans and Eastern Europeans blamed for the Holocaust, but now there are many Jewish-authored books arguing that all the Western nations share in the guilt, as well as President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Catholic Church, and, indeed, the entire Christian world.¹

I discovered that to draw attention to the writings of the Talmud and to quote the very words used by modern Jewish leaders and writers, invites the charge of anti-Semitism. It seemed to me that if repeating the words of Jewish leaders is anti-Semitism, then there must be distasteful elements in the words themselves. Maybe, the historical Jewish attitude toward Gentiles should be considered when assessing the causes of anti-Semitism.

Bernard Lazare, a popular Jewish intellectual in France in the 19th century, investigated his people's role in age-old conflict with other peoples. In the widely circulated book L'Antisemitisme, he wrote:

If this hostility, this repugnance had been shown towards the Jews at one time or in one country only, it would be easy to account for the local causes of this sentiment. But this race has been the object of hatred with all the nations amidst whom it ever settled. Inasmuch as the enemies of the Jews belonged to diverse races . . . it must be that the general causes of anti-Semitism have always resided in Israel itself, and not in those who antagonized it.²

Some might argue that the anti-Gentile tone of the Talmud and the founding Zionists has little relevance to the Jews of today. The evidence, however, is that the core of Judaism, orthodoxy, is steadily becoming more extreme against Gentiles than in previous generations. The Encyclopedia Judaica³ says as much in its articles on the subject.

Perhaps such should be expected with the advent of modern film. Cinema and television wield an enormous influence on human emotions. Serial accounts of the persecutions of Jews, all the way from the Torah to the Holocaust are now propagated in an irresistible format. In thousands of well-crafted films, from The Ten Commandments⁴ to Schindler's List,⁵ Jews are reminded of Gentile perfidy, while Gentiles are softened to the Jewish cause. The incessantly repeated horrific stories of the Holocaust can only serve to heighten the suspicions of the average Jew toward Gentiles while underscoring the need for Jewish solidarity.