Navigating Between Zionism and Anti-Semitism

[00:00:16] Due to historic antisemitism, many Catholics in response have embraced Zionism today. However, in recent years, due to dominant Zionism, some Catholics have creeped towards anti Semitism. How is a Catholic supposed to navigate these tricky waters? That's what we're talking about today on Crisis Point Home, Eric Sims, your host and in chief of Crisis magazine. Before we get started, as always, smash that like button. Let other people know about our channel. Subscribe. Subscribe to it. Don't bother hitting the Notify button because you have a life outside the Internet. I haven't said that in a while and I realized that the other day. So I wanted to remind people, yes, subscribe to our channel. You don't need to hit the notify button though. Also, you can subscribe to our email newsletter. That's the best way to find out what's going on at Crisis. Just go to crisismagazine.com, put your email address in, and you can follow us on social media at Crisis Mag. [00:01:11] Okay, so also, the last thing is, if you're watching this live, feel free to jump in the live chat. At the end of the chat, I'll try to answer some questions, address some comments, things of that nature. Okay, so first of all, I suspect there's a chance this video will either get kicked off of YouTube or shadow banned or something like that. So hopefully people will see it. Otherwise, we will have it on Odyssey. And I'll probably upload to Rumble. We've been having some problems with our Rumble channel, but upload there as well. Just make sure. So the past week, Crisis has. We've been called both Zionist supporters as well as unhinged anti Semites. And so I feel like, okay, we must be doing something right or something wrong. Last week we ran an article by David Larson that was talking about a Nazi that makes a bad Catholic. Got a lot of pushback for that. People saying that, oh, we must be a bunch of Zionists, you know, whatever the case, whatever adjective you want to use there. And then yesterday we ran an article by Jason Jones that was arguing against what the State of Israel is doing today in Gaza, very strongly arguing against it. And so we are called unhinged antisemites. And then I had an article today that wasn't really about this directly, but about kind of these issues, navigating these issues, where we have a dominant narrative, typically pushed by the elites, by the left. And then what's the alternative? And my concern is sometimes the alternative is just as false as the dominant narrative being told by the elites. And that's kind of what we're going to be talking about today. I realize some people will act like, oh, you're just being on the fence. You refuse to take one side or the other. Okay, guilty as charged, I guess. But I do think for Catholics we do have to navigate the streams of the narratives. And just because somebody's against a certain narrative doesn't mean we're for them and vice versa. [00:03:15] Now, I will be honest, I'm not that interested in discussing these topics typically. And the reason for that is I feel like it's almost impossible to have a good discussion online about it. Maybe if I sat down with somebody, somebody I was friendly with, we could have a good long discussion that I would actually enjoy. But an online discussion, either on social media or even a podcast form like this is very difficult because what happens is typically you get flooded by a bunch of usually anonymous accounts that just kind of push. They don't really, they're not really interested in arguing. They're more just making ad hominems. They're posting up quotes that, you know, taking out context or even not just like an act like that's their entire argument. It just becomes a, you know, not a really a means for a rational and reasonable discussion. Also, it's kind of hard to gauge support because I know certain communities are very online and so they're gonna, they're gonna appear a lot stronger than they really are potentially. But I do think this is an important issue. I mean, obviously what's going on in Middle east right now with the state of Israel at war with Gaza. There's a lot of discussion about the, the, the, the status of Judaism, how Catholics should view Judaism. Like I said, I've gotten a lot of heat from both sides at crisis because we've run articles very critical state of Israel, but also articles that are, are very critical of anti Semitism. And so that, that's kind of why I want to address this here. [00:04:48] Now I do think it's important to define our terms to get started. I think for, I think first and foremost, let's just say what do I mean by Zionism and antisemitism? Because I think that's important because both terms can be very catch all, can be used in various ways. So I just want to define my terms as I'm using them today. The first one is Zionism. Historically what Zionism simply means it's the political movement to establish a nation state for the Jewish people that began in the 19th century, really latter half of the 19th century. [00:05:23] And so that's what really Zionism is in a modern context. Now, it also can mean. [00:05:30] It can. It can apply more kind of a philosophy, attitude, love of Jews and the Jewish people. And so it doesn't necessarily always mean the political aspects of Zionism, but just in the sense of supporting the Jewish people, often without question, often without ever being willing to criticize, perhaps what some Jews are doing and things of that nature. So that's kind of Zionism. And what I'm really specifically talking about when I talk about Catholics is theological support for Zionism. So like I said, Zionism is a political movement in the modern world. It's a political movement to establish a nation state for the Jewish people, which of course happened. [00:06:20] But when it started, obviously the desire was make it happen. Now we do have a nation state of Israel. And when I really talk about Zionism in the Catholic context is Catholics who support that, not just for political reasons, which is one thing, but for theological reasons, arguing that there's a Catholic theological support for the nation state of Israel. So that's kind of my definition of the term Zionism, what I'm kind of talking about in general. So Zionism also like a soft Zionism, a philosophy, Semitism, where you. A love of the Jewish people. [00:06:56] The second is. So my other definition is anti Semitism. Now, we all know this term. It's like racism in a lot of ways. It's been abused. It's a loaded term. It's often used to shut down any arguments. I mean, when people said that Jason Jones yesterday in his article is anti Semitic, that's not an argument, that's just simply trying to shut down the argument, trying to shut him up. The irony is, now Jason doesn't want to advertise this, but he has literally been involved in saving Jews and helping Jews throughout the world through his charitable organization. [00:07:31] He literally saved Jews, rescued Jews in Afghanistan after the American withdrawal. And so just kind of saying he's an anti Semite because he's strongly against the actions of the state of Israel when it comes to Gaza right now is just a way to shut people up. What do I mean when I say anti Semitism? Well, first of all, the obvious example of anti Semitism, the textbook definition is a racial hatred of Jews, basically believing Jews as a race are inferior to other races in this, this hatred of the Jewish people as a race. That's classic antisemitism. That's what really we mean. But I would also say, like I had Zionism, I was. It's an umbrella term. I also Think anti Semitism can be an umbrella term as well. So an irrational or unreasonable suspicion of Jewish power, for example. Now you might not want to call it anti Semitism. I'm not saying it's the same thing as straight up anti Semitism, but I am saying that it is a, it's a problem. It's, it's a, it's a problem from a Catholic perspective. So while it's not anti Semitism, maybe textbook definition it is, it is an issue and we can debate the term. Like for example, I understand not wanting to use the term anti Semitism for that. I get that. Because the way it's been abused perhaps like I've noticed some people say noticers, like people who notice Jewish power, Jewish influence in society. Maybe that's the term we could use, noticers. I'm actually open to terms. I don't want it to be a big debate about terminology. I think that gets silly because we start to debate the grammatical and linguistic definitions. Like also I know some people, they don't like anti Semitism because of course it's not just the Jews who are Semites, but we all know in modern terms the phrase anti Semite means against Jews. I get that that's not technically accurate. But again, those debates I think are just end up going away from the issue. So when I'm talking about anti Semitism, I'm talking about the umbrella term. You could also the noticers, whatever the case, whatever you want to call it. I don't mind, like I said, using a different term, but just the idea that people who notice or who are suspicious of Jewish power. So that's, that's my definition. What I'm talking about when I talk about this today. [00:10:03] I also want to kind of break down the demographics a little bit. What generally seems to be the demographics when it comes to Zionism, this is very prevalent among mostly older people, like most boomers, baby boomers. I'm Gen X, by the way. Everybody calls me a boomer whenever I take their side, but you know, I'm Gen X. But the idea, older people, typically over the age of 40, 50, it's not just boomers. They're typically much more lean towards a Zionistic viewpoint. In the Catholic Church in America at least, I mean most bishops and priests, if not almost all of them, you, you would fall in the Zionist category or at least that direction. I will say this though. Pope Francis doesn't seem to fall into that. I mean, just by his words and stuff, I wouldn't put him this in that camp it's the def. Like a soft Zionism or philosophy is kind of the default for most Catholics, let's be honest. That's, that's the majority also. It's both political parties in this country. I mean neither political party, you know, you could say, is not. I mean they're both Zionists. So that's kind of the demographics there. [00:11:12] The, the, among the, like the antisemitism notice or crowd, whatever you want to call it. It's mostly younger. It's very difficult to gauge the size however, because it's very online, which kind of in keeping with it being younger people, you don't really hear almost at all in real life. That's, I mean that, that and now some would argue that's because they're afraid they might lose their job because of the dominant Zionist narrative. Whatever the case may be, the reality is it's very, very rare to hear somebody in real life talk about this in a. And be suspicious of Jewish power, be anti, you know, that aspect. So it's hard to gauge how prevalent it is. I would say it seems to be more in the Catholic world, more prevalent among traditional Catholics than conservative, obviously progressive Catholics. And so like I said, I'm not really sure, but it is definitely, it definitely exists. How big it is? Is it 1% of Catholics, trad Catholics, is it 5%? I don't know. I don't think it's much more than maybe 10% or something like that just because just in real life you just never hear it. And so I think if it was much more dominant, you'd hear it more. So kind of doesn't matter that much how dominant is it exists though. [00:12:28] Okay, so that's kind of all in way of introduction. So my 12 minute introduction there. Now what I want to do is actually go through Zionism a bit and antisemitism a bit and talk about them and kind of the problems with them with Zionism. [00:12:45] I feel like there is no such thing as an expert on the history of Zionism. The reason I say that is it's so super complicated. So it originated, the modern movement of Zionism originated in the late 19th century. [00:13:02] And really it was a response to an increased antisemitism in Europe, particularly in Russia. There were some very vicious anti Semitic pogroms in Russia where they were killing Jews, persecuting them, mercilessly, driving them out. And so this was going on in the late 19th century. And we have to be honest, there's been anti Semitic movements in Europe for over a thousand years. To pretend like they don't exist is just ridiculous. That doesn't mean it's always been that way or in every country like it's always been like, Jews have succeeded in Europe throughout history as well as been persecuted. So but the fact is there has been persecution. [00:13:48] It was very great in Russia in the late 19th century. [00:13:53] And so because of this, and let me take one step back again, it's so complicated. I'll probably jump around here a lot. [00:13:59] Among Jews, the response to this persecution over the ages has varied. It's not like they've all thought the same thing. Some have very much wanted to assimilate into society so they wouldn't be persecuted. Others wanted to stay very firm in their faith. Others wanted to try to escape areas in which the persecution occurred. There wasn't one answer among the Jews of like, okay, this is how we're going to respond to persecution. [00:14:26] But in the late 19th century there was a movement, a growing movement of the idea of the Jews, we need our own nation state. We need a place that's ours that we run so that we can have a place that we're free from persecution. This is mostly among European Jews because in America the persecution was nowhere near. I mean there wasn't, I mean, not that there wasn't any anti Semitism in America, of course there was, but it wasn't like it was in Europe. [00:14:54] And so among Jews, particularly in Europe, there was a growing movement for a state and was called Zionism is what was kind of labeled. And here's the thing about this, it's not like all the Jews jumped on board with this at the time. In fact, if you look at, in the late 19th century, for example, it was very rare. It was very. A minority opinion among the Jewish people in support of this idea, the Zionistic movement. And so it's not true. And even today you can't claim that like if you're Jewish, you support the Zionist cause. The nation of Israel, there are Jews that don't support it, that oppose Israel today. So it's somewhat, it's very complicated. I think this is important because of the fact that we kind of equate sometimes, okay, to be friendly to Jews means you're pro Zionism, you're pro the Israeli state. That's just simply not historically true or even true today. [00:15:56] Now, the movement for Zionism grew in the early 20th century. After World War I particularly, you saw a big increase because the Balfour Agree Declaration and other things. I'm not going to go into all the details here. You can research it now I would argue this is. I just want to take an aside real quick. I personally think when you research this stuff, you should read and why as much as possible, various sources. I mean the problem is everybody's opinionated about it and so nobody's going to be completely objective. But I do think we should try to look at all the sources. But the point is after World War I, what happened was the Ottoman Empire fell. [00:16:37] The Allied forces, particularly Britain and France, were carving up the Middle east and the Jews basically got. Some Jews got an agreement from the British people to try to help establish a Jewish state in the Middle East. Now I actually want to bring up one thing. Originally in the Zionist cause, it wasn't always assumed it would be Palestine. There was like a movement, for example, to an idea for that was floated out to maybe establish a Jewish nation state in Uganda and some other. And I think another place was like in South America or somewhere like that. I can't remember. I think, oh, in upstate New York. There was a movement to potentially set up a Jewish like state or something in upstate New York. So even the idea that it had to be in Palestine wasn't, wasn't unanimous even among the Zionists. But ultimately that's of course where it led. [00:17:26] And so after World War I, you see a growth in the Zionist movement, a growth in real actual Jewish people moving to Palestine. There had been Jewish people there before, but very small numbers. They started moving more and more there to Palestine. So this is before World War II. This is before the rise of Nazi Germany, is before the Holocaust. And it's just a mess. I mean, there's no other way to put it. 1920s, that era, because there were Arabs living there, of course, and they weren't too happy. And they were under the Ottoman Empire. Now they're under either the French or the British, depending on what part of Palestine they're in. They're not happy about this. They're. They actually briefly set up their own kingdom of Syria that gets taken down by France. I mean the, the, the. [00:18:11] It's so complicated. During this era and again during this time, not all Jews were supportive, just like today, but even less so then of a Zionist call of the Zionist cause. And so then of course after the Holocaust, after Nazi Germany and Holocaust, now we get a real like the worldwide support in a sense for the nation state for the Jews. And of course it's implemented after World War II. [00:18:39] I'm not going to hold history there. But the point is now we actually have a nation state of Israel. [00:18:48] But the truth is, I think that if you. And again, I don't claim to be an expert on this because I actually don't think there's any expert. I think some people know more than others. I think you get the Ben Shapiro type who have a very specific narrative they want to give and they leave out lots of information. [00:19:08] And I think narratives against the Zionist cause that probably do the same as well. [00:19:14] But the point is that I would say that the problems in the modern Middle east today really trace back to World War I and the Allied powers kind of taking over the Middle east and carving it up and saying, okay, we're going to put the Jews here, we're going to have Arabs here. I mean, at one point there was the idea that the Zionist cause kind of made it that, yeah, Jews will move to Palestine, but they'll just be part of the existing government, they'll be part of that nation, they'll live together, they're not going to take over. But then it became, no, we're going to take over. And so ultimately they did take over a section. And then the Arabs who had lived there for a very long time were not happy about that. And so they resisted. And so there's. It's just been a mess ever since then. And essentially what happened was Britain and America then came in. A lot of the Western world came in support for Israel, and in fact, in America, it became just complete unapologetic and total support for the nation of Israel. And this really did a cause of a lot of problems. And obviously we're in the middle, literally, of a war right now. I don't even want to call it a war because it's mostly Israel kind of just taking out Gaza. There's not a lot of pushback, because there's not ability to have a lot of pushback right now. [00:20:36] So one of the biggest issues, I think, from a Catholic perspective, in this complete support for Israel, is this the relationship between biblical Israel and modern Israel. [00:20:50] And here, in as simple as possible, I'm going to explain the relationship between biblical Israel and modern Israel. [00:20:59] None. There's none. Yes, it's physically in the same area. Yes, it has the same name, but there's no actual relationship between the two, because the nation of Israel, the biblical state of Israel, it fell thousands of years ago. And from a Catholic perspective, it rose again in the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is the state of Israel in a certain sense, theologically at least, it is Israel. And so in that sense, we can't say that when people talk about they have a right to this land or they have their, you know, Jews, they write this land. The Arabs, they write this land. I just don't think it's that simple. I do understand why the Jewish people pick Palestine. Don't get me wrong. In their minds, that area is the chosen, you know, the land for the chosen people. It is the Promised Land. I totally understand. It makes sense why they, they want that land as their. When they, when they said, okay, let's look around the globe, find an area for a nation state. Well, look at Uganda, upstate New York, somewhere in South America. Ultimately, I think we all know where it was going to end up, is going to end up in the Holy Land in Palestine, because that is what they consider their land. At the same time, Arabs lived there for a very, very long time and they consider it their land. In fact, they were the ones who actually controlled, you know, they were living in it when the Zionists came, when the Jews came. So I understand their perspective. I also would say, I think Christians have a certain stake in the Holy Land. I mean, we were there. We were kicked out by the Muslims during the Crusades. I mean, I'm sorry, we were trying to take it over by the Crusades. We were kicked out before the Crusade. We were kicked out when Islam grew, we were there. I mean, we were kind of the inheritors after the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire, of course, controlled it for a long time. We inherited it. The Catholic Church, the Christians, I mean, and Islam kicked us out forcibly by violence, by war. And then later the Crusades, we tried to retake it. We took it kind of sort of for a little while, and then we were kicked out again. So there's a lot of claims on this land. And that, of course, is the whole problem. That's where we have the problem. But I think acting like it's, it's definitely for some biblical theological reasons, it's the Jews land. I don't think that's, that's, that stands up to the test, the theological Catholic test, at least. I think ultimately it's not their land per se. Although, like I said, I understand why they consider it that and also understand completely why the Jews want a nation state, why they want a land after all the persecutions they've gone through for so long. I get it. I don't blame them for that at all. But I don't think it's like they have an intrinsic right to Palestine. And that's the end of the argument because of the fact that in the Old Testament, the Old Testament Israeli Jews, they controlled the Lamb. I just don't think that works in a Catholic theological or even political aspect. [00:23:58] So ultimately Zionism, you can tell I'm pretty critical of Zionism, but yet I also understand in a lot of ways the defense of it. [00:24:07] Ultimately, I think as a Catholic, it's okay to support Israel for political reasons. I personally have a lot of problems with the modern state of Israel politically. Like I think it's what's doing in Gaza right now. I agree with Jason Jones. I think what it's doing in Gaza right now is awful. It's horrific. Again, I don't want to get in logistic linguistic debates because could you call it a genocide what they're doing in Gaza? [00:24:34] As soon as we say that word, then we get into debates about what the word means. I do think what they're doing there is horrible, immoral, horror, horrific. [00:24:42] But I do think a Catholic can support Israel, the nation modern state of Israel, particularly as if they see it as a hedge against Muslim domination. If they see it as a way to kind of keep Muslim domination in check and that's their argument. [00:25:01] I might disagree with it politically, but I think it's legitimate for a Catholic to hold it. That's not something a Catholic cannot hold. It's not a theologically problematic attitude. I do think if they then support theologically and say as Catholics we have to support the nation state of Israel today, it is, you know, their biblical right and all these things. I think that's nonsense. But I do think you could make a political argument for Zionism for the nation state of Israel, particularly as it comes to as a hedge, as a defense against Muslim dominance. [00:25:35] Okay, so also before I move on to the anti Semitism, I we. I had a. I hosted a podcast in interview professor from theology professor in Christendom, Matthew Zach. [00:25:46] Second. Oh, I can never pronounce his name. I meant to write it down. I forgot to anyway, search it up. It's about Catholic Zionism and he does a very good job, I think, going against the theological arguments against the theological arguments for Catholic Zionism. So I recommend that as well. [00:26:01] Okay, now I want to talk about anti Semitism noticers, whatever you want to call it. Now it's funny because I'm sure when I'm talking about against Zionism, the online crowd isn't going to be as critical. They might even support me. But now when I talk against the anti Semitism notice or crowd, all the, all the bots will come after me. And I don't think you're all bots, by the way. I say that in love. [00:26:25] But I do think it's like arguing. It's why I don't really having desiring more to argue about City vacantism because it's just, it's, it's impossible to have a, A like rational charitable disagreement argument online about it because you just get flooded with the non accounts who, you know, post their memes of quotes from popes and in the past and all that stuff and think that they've won the argument and you just can't really have a discussion. And I think this honestly happens. This is honestly what happens whenever you. I mean we had an article at Crisis called Nazis make bad Catholics and that caused the whole crowd to go up against us. I mean, if that statement isn't just obvious that Nazis make bad, bad Catholics, I mean, you're wrong. I mean, look at. If you are sympathetic to Hitler, if you think something is good about Hitler, I'm talking about the more extreme, you know, people here in this crowd, then you're just wrong. You're on the wrong side of the Catholic Church. I mean, Popes condemned it, saints condemned it. You know, the German Catholics condemned it. I mean, so it just, it's not something that you can support. But let's talk a little bit more nuanced than just like opposing Hitler. [00:27:34] What I've seen is an increase in Catholics who are noticing, to use that term, like conspiracies, Jewish conspiracies, Jewish power, Jewish influence in lots of places. And they will, they will point to various examples. I know a classic one today is the guy who, one of the owners of pornhub is a rabbi. But although I'm pretty sure he's actually not a, a practicing rabbi and I think he, he never was. But anyway, he's Jewish and, and, and he, he owns part of, or maybe he's the dominant owner, I don't know, of pornhub. Obviously there's Jewish influence in Hollywood. I mean, it's funny, I was reading a book recently that was not, I mean, pro Jewish in, in a sense about the history of Jews and it was talking about Hollywood. It basically was founded by Jews. I mean it was saying this straight it this in a bad way or a good way. Just simply that's the historical reality that Hollywood is founded primarily by Jews. There's a lot of historical reasons for that. There's a lot of demographical reasons, sociological reasons, but that's just a fact. [00:28:37] And so Catholics are noticing that and coming and making conclusions from that. I Think that's where we're getting. That's where I'm kind of. That's what is where I'm disagreeing is the conclusions, not necessarily noticing certain things. Like, yeah, there is a large Jewish influence, a disproportionate Jewish influence in the corridors of power. I mean, the fact is that the Israeli lobby in Washington has total control. And I mean, other than Thomas Massie, I hardly know any congressmen or senators or presidents who aren't swayed by it. At the very least, if not controlled by it. All these things I notice as well. And. But the question becomes like, what do we. What are our conclusions from that? I think that's where the, the more anti Semitic crowd, that's where we run into difficulties. And so, I mean, one example historically is the connection between the Bolsheviks and Judaism. A lot of people back in the day and even and in some today are basically like Bolshevism is basically a Jewish conspiracy, a Jewish setup. And mostly they go because of Trotsky. You know, Trotsky obviously was a dominant figure in early, you know, the Russian Revolution and he was Jewish. However, but if you notice of the like the three power players in the early Russian Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, only Trotsky was Jewish, yet that's the focus. And there were Jews involved in the Russian Revolution. [00:30:09] However, there's things that just seem to be ignored that there is a great amount of diversity within Judaism as far as how people practice. It's like Catholicism today. In fact, a lot of ways these conspiracies remind me of the conspiracies. They talk about the Jesuits, how you get like anti Catholic people talking about the Jesuits control everything. You find Jesuit influence there, there and stuff like that. And I feel like lies. Jewish conspiracy theories are very similar. They find Jewish influence everywhere. Like, just like the anti Catholics find Jesuit influence everywhere. And also. But. But it even goes deeper that like there's no acknowledgement that Judaism is very diverse, more diverse even than Catholicism has been historically. But definitely. But like you can think of like Catholicism today. [00:30:57] Joe Biden and Bishop Athanasia Schneider are both Catholic. [00:31:04] I think we all know who watch this, who are following this podcast, know that that doesn't mean a lot. [00:31:11] The differences between those two are probably greater than the similarities. [00:31:16] And so just saying somebody is Jewish, like Trotsky was Jewish or there was Jewish people involved in the creation of Hollywood or the Russian Revolution, it doesn't mean a whole bunch. What matters is, okay, was there an effort within Jewish people? Was it part of their Jewish faith and things like that. The fact is like for example, the Bolshevik Revolution, like I said, Trotsky was a major figure, ultimately turned on the Jews, became very anti Semitic and lots of Jews were against it. And in fact, if you look at the actual biographies of the people who were very involved in it, they were non Jewish Jews. What I mean by that they were non practicing often they were born Jewish, weren't even raised Jewish or they rejected their Judaism or they're atheist. Now I know among the noticer crowd they'll kind of dismiss that. They'll, they'll just simply say, well Jews are, you know, they're hiding it. They're really Jews, they're just kind of hiding it. I mean that's just silly. It's like saying that like you know, Joe Biden's supportive abortion, he's really just hiding his Catholicism, but Catholicism really is supporting abortion on demand. Or that Anthony Schneider by opposing is just hiding the real agenda, which is abortion on demand. It's just silly, it's nonsense. The fact is among Judaism there's a lot of different types of Jews practicing, non practicing and that's like the most generic categories because within the practicing there's a lot of different categories, but even within the non practicing there's a lot of different categories. [00:32:46] And so I think that this is where I really start having problems is that we start to think that because somebody was born Jewish, therefore it's part of a grand Jewish conspiracy. Now the fact is that the Jewish people do have a common, have a culture, a common culture. Like you'd say Catholicism has a common culture. It does not mean every Jew follows that, just like every Catholic does not follow Catholic culture, but it does influence them. And so for example, I think the fact is the Jewish history, the history of the Jewish people, particularly the persecutions they've had to endure, how they've had to move constantly and therefore set up themselves in new places and make a life for themselves. It has created a culture of people who really are become very highly, very highly intelligent, hard working, dedicated to succeeding in life. I mean, think about it. When your culture consists of over a thousand years of persecution against you, of trying to make it when you're the very small minority, hated, often hated minority, and you're trying to succeed in life, that's going to develop a culture of go getters. I mean, for lack of a better way, they're not going to be a lot of lazy Jews when that's the case because they all would have died a long time ago. And so it just kind of led to a culture that very much succeeds in this world. And that's another thing is like, success in this world is more highly valued in Judaism because of their views of the afterlife. How they differ from like Catholicism. [00:34:31] I mean, we see it like between Protestants and Catholics in the Protestant work ethic and things like that. This is not some great conspiracy, but it basically is just simply a matter of reality and historical fact. And so you get Jews that are going to be very influential. They're going to, they're going to succeed in life. That's not a religious thing though. It's more of a sociological thing. And so the religious beliefs and morals of those people are going to vary greatly. They're not always going to be the exact same. In fact, they're going to conflict a lot of times. So you're going to get Orthodox Jews who very much disagree with the morality of maybe a more liberal Jew or an atheist Jew to use that term. [00:35:13] And so I think this is, this explains a lot of the influence. And also I think, though, what about the fact that often it's influential in things that we would consider as Catholics, immoral, like pornography, things like that? [00:35:26] I think actually Sigmund Freud said this. Well, he said, because I was a Jew, I found myself free from many prejudices which restricted others in the use of their intellect. And I think that that's something to go for as well. Like, they don't necessarily, you know, and by the way, Freud was not a practicing Jew. He was not embarrassed. He wasn't like, you know, some of these, many of these atheist Jews actually want to reject their Judaism, want nothing to do with being. Marx was like this. They wanted nothing to be associated with Judaism. That wasn't necessarily Freud. But he wasn't a practicing Jew. He wasn't a believing Jew. But he's kind of saying like, you know, because he's outside the kind of the dominant culture, which means the dominant cultural mores, he's more willing to look at things that perhaps the Catholics, the Christians were not willing to look at. And you know, Freud's psychology is awful. And so, you know, you can argue that, but what you see is like, just because some. So what happens is with that kind of the anti Semitic crowd, the noticer crowd is if something has Jewish origins or Jewish people support it, therefore they say, okay, we have to reject that out of hand. And I just don't think that's the case. Two examples of this are, for example, in Austrian economics with people like Mises and Science, astronomy, things like that, with cosmology, with Einstein, both of those. Mises and Einstein were both Jews. [00:36:50] Again, they're not, they weren't orthodox Jews, practicing Jews, like full. You know, Einstein's a funny character if you've read, I've read a biography by him recently and his relation to Judaism is just kind of all over the map in his life. But anyway, it's not like all of a sudden the theory of general theory relativity is a Jewish idea. It's just a scientific idea that had to get proven. It was. Now what's funny is here's a good example of how kind of the anti smit crowd really makes a mistake. When the general theory relativity by Einstein first came out, people thought the relativity relativity meant relativism, which meant a moral relativism. And so they rejected for that reason, of course, if you understand the general theory of relativity, which nobody fully does other than Einstein, but like, if you understand the basics, it has nothing to do with relativism. [00:37:41] And so, but people say, like, look at the Jew who founded, you know, who started general theory, relativity, relativism, and the whole thing is silly. Likewise with Mises and his Austrian economics. If you look at it, you can argue it on the basis of whether or not it's true or not. Does it really reflect reality and how people act, human action, you know, economic action, things like that. I personally think it's very good at explaining that. And the fact that a Jew was a big promoter of it means nothing to me and it shouldn't mean nothing to any Catholic because what matters is is it true or not? Not whether or not a Jew was the first to kind of think it up. And so I think that among the noticer anti Semitic crowd there is this clumping of all Jews together into one whole and pretending that they're all that like basically their influence is part of a vast conspiracy. Not like necessarily even a crazy conspiracy, but just like it's kind of just the movement towards, you know, it's a movement among Judaism. Whereas you're going to find great diversity and arguments among Jews about many of these things. [00:38:51] I also think, and I think this is, this is something that's sad is among the anti Semitic notice, however, is there's a real degrading, a diminishment of the real persecution that's happened against Jews over history. I've mentioned this before, but the reality is the Jewish people have been one of the most persecuted races groups where you want to call it in history. Does that mean today they are as persecuted as they were in the past? No, I actually don't think so. I think Christians are the most persecuted class in today's world. If you look worldwide, persecutions happen more against Christians than against any other group, including the Jews. In fact, I would say since the Holocaust, Since World War II, the Jews have not suffered any great persecution, not only large scale. I'm sure there are, you know, anti Semitic people here and there and they've had, you know, not just like Christians in America have that happen. [00:39:45] But that does not mean just because today the there isn't a great persecution against the Jews and there is against Christians. That doesn't mean there haven't been historically. And I think just to act like it didn't happen, there's a reason why, because this all comes together. If you deny that, then what happens is you start to explain a lot of the Jewish influence on the world with faulty premises. The fact is, is the reason Jewish culture is like it is, has a lot to do with their history. Their history, particularly post Temple, post, you know, revolt in 135 that got crushed, all those things. [00:40:26] They've been a persecuted nomadic race basically, not really in the true sense of nomads, but they've had to move around a lot. They've been greatly persecuted. They've only been allowed to do certain jobs often. And so therefore that develops their culture. To act like that isn't a major reason why the culture is the way it is and act like it's some inherent thing in their race or in their religion, I think is wrong and as a problem. Now, that being said, I also think that it's true. One of the big things you'll hear, kind of the noticer, anti Semitic crowd, whatever you want to call it, they'll talk about is the narrative after the Holocaust, the problems with that. And I agree with them in a lot of ways in that aspect, the Holocaust was horrible. And the whole debate over whether, Whether it was 6 million Jews, I think killed, I think often is a matter of just trying to diminish the persecution of the Jews throughout history, including at the Holocaust. [00:41:26] But the reality is after World War II, after the Holocaust was revealed to the world, there was a collective guilt among the west. And I, and especially in Germany. And I understand that. And perhaps there should have been on some level. I would say actually there should have been on some level. But in response to that, all of a sudden it became the fact that now we no longer could criticize Jewish people, we could no longer criticize the Jewish race. The Jewish religion or anything like that. It was like basically we had to act as if anything that. That they did was right and nothing was wrong with it. And I think this caught this, like a pendulum had swung. We see this particularly, we see this in a lot of places, but in the Catholic Church as well, that I think among Catholics, including Catholic leaders, there was this idea that, yes, persecution happened and often it was done with by Christians and given a Christian veneer, a Christian support. And so now we have to resist that. But let's go the other way and basically say we don't have to even evangelize the Jews, that Judaism is basically just can be left alone, that it's a dual. A dual covenant theology, the idea that their covenant is still binding and still salvific. These are things that just simply aren't true. And so in our guilt or our worry that we don't want to have a return, another Holocaust, we no longer allowed ourselves to criticize Judaism or any Jewish people, for example, in Israel or things like that. So we had this pendulum that swung. And I do think that's an issue. And I think that's the reason why there's an increase in antisemitism, increase in like the noticer phenomenon, whatever you want to call it. And I mentioned that in my article today that, you know, the people who are trying to diminish or deny the Holocaust, I understand what they're trying to do, and I'm not completely against their. What they're actually against, which is the narrative that came out of the Holocaust. What I am against, though, is the idea of let's just go ahead and throw away, you know, historical facts or historical, you know, events, because we're trying to make another point, which is that since the Holocaust, there has been a. [00:43:43] A refusal to criticize in any way the actions of Israel or Judaism in general. [00:43:51] Okay, so what is the. The Catholic kind of. What do I think is. How do I think we navigate between anti Semitism and Zionism? How do I think we navigate. I think ultimately a lot of it comes down to don't play identity politics. That's basically what we're doing here. It's the. It's a Marxist leftist thing to play identity politics that, okay, this group of people is one whole and should be treated as one whole. And anybody who's a member of that just, you know, should be. Is other if they're not in our group, and if they're in our group, then they're one of us. And I think this is a Real problem, because you see that this is a soft form of racism in a way. Here's the reality. All Jews aren't good, All Jews aren't bad. This is just. This is reality. We have to treat each person as an image of a God, as an image of God and also as a fallen son of Adam. [00:44:45] This is who we all are. And so to act like some group, the reality is the world's so much more messy than that. There isn't one. There are powerful people in this world, don't get me wrong. [00:44:56] But to act like there's one group that's like, basically controls things is simply not the way the world works. [00:45:02] And to engage in identity politics of saying, okay, the Jews are to blame for this, I just think that's ridiculous. It's irrational. It's not Catholic. It's identity policy. It's the same as the left saying whites are the cause of our problems in America. [00:45:17] And so if you fall into that, do you see a Jew under every corner, every. Every stone? You know, no matter where you go, there's Jews behind it. There's Jews that are the problem here. It's really the Jewish problem. Whatever you want, you know, the Jewish problem, whatever you call it. I think you're engaging in the same identity politics, the Marxist type of identity politics as the left when it comes down to it. And so I don't think Catholics should do that. [00:45:43] Now, is it okay for a Catholic to be a fellow Semite, a lover of the Jewish people? I mean, yes, on some level, as the fact is that they're made in the image of God, so we should love them as that, the Jewish people. By the way, I know there's an argument, and there's a good argument in a lot of ways about the disconnection between Biblical Judaism and modern Judaism, because things did change once the temple was destroyed. There's no question about it. And you know, the Talmudic Judaism is not the exact same as Biblical Judaism. At the same time, it is in a line. I mean, there is a line. And so a Catholic who has a certain appreciation of Judaism as, you know, the bib, the religion of the Old Testament, I think that's okay. I just think you got to be real careful. Got real careful not to take that too far and act like modern Judaism is the equivalent of Biblical Judaism, or more importantly, that it's still salvific, it's still a valid covenant. I mean, the fact is, is that the New Covenant fulfilled the Old Covenant, period, end of story, Israel is Jesus Christ that is the new Israel is Jesus Christ is the church. And so I think ultimately what I think is Catholics, our attitude towards the Jews should be our attitude towards all people who are not Catholic. We should work for their conversion. We should want them to convert to Catholicism. Some Zionists act like from biblical passages that because there's talk about the conversion of the Jews as a corporate body at the end of the world, that somehow that means we kind of leave them alone, we don't have to do anything. That's not the case. The end of the world could be a million years from now. What about all the Jews until then, their religion? They need to convert to Catholicism. And if you look at Jews who have converted to Catholicism, they will tell you this as well. And so the problem is you have the Zionists, they discourage conversions to Catholicism. They don't want to evangelize Jewish people, which is awful. I mean, that goes completely against St. Peter, the apostles, St. Paul. I mean, they preach to the Jews first. They work for their conversion to Catholicism. That's what we need to do as well. On the other hand, I've noticed a lot of the anti Semite crowd, the noticers, whatever you want to call them, they suspect converts. Like, I know there's people who like, think Edith Stein, they don't like her because they don't think she truly, she. She kind of retained too much of her Jewishness or something like that. And you see, they have suspicion. And this is a historic thing, by the way. And there's some reasons for this, because if you look back in the Middle Ages and stuff, the forced conversions of the Jews, a lot of Jews were not really sincere about their conversion to Catholicism. And so therefore there was reason to suspect that they weren't really practicing Catholics. However, in modern times, to act like somebody who's converted Catholicism should be suspect if they're Jewish. You see this. I mean, I literally, there was a video made by a couple crazy people, like, suspecting that I have a Jewish background. And they're like, I'm probably not really truly Catholic because. And by the way, I don't. I mean, I don't know of any. I mean, literally, I've done my genealogy back hundreds of years. And so if there are Jews, if I have any Jewish ancestry, it is way back or it's a convert or something like that. But the point is they were suspecting. And it's this idea that, oh my goodness, because he's saying certain things, he probably is actually a secret Jew or something like that. That's Ridiculous. That's anti Semitic, frankly, to think that, okay, somebody who is Jewish converts to Catholicism, we have to suspect them of not really being kept. They're probably still secretly Jews. That's, that's ludicrous. So ultimately what we want to do is we want to work for the conversion of Jews. And you know, really, I think it's that, that's just like we want to work for the conversion of Muslims. Well, we're conversion of atheists. We want to work conversion of Buddhists, everybody. So I think that that's ultimately what we are here about. Okay, let me go ahead and get. I got some comments here I wanted and questions from the live chat. Again, I want to encourage people to join the live chat and ask these questions and comments when we do this. John asks what defines irrational and rational suspicion? Eric, good question. I would just say honestly, if, if the, if the suspicion goes beyond what the data, what the evidence, what of understanding of history, of, of things that happened, then it becomes irrational. Like for example, if a Jewish person converts to Catholicism and you suspect them of not really converting, that's irrational. If you have no data, if all of a sudden they start doing things that are like completely like you know, going to the synagogue still on Saturdays or something like that. Okay, fine, but it's irrational to suspect somebody just because they have a Jewish background if they convert. [00:50:35] Okay, Gus, TV123 says me evangelicals seem to be Zionist because of heretical, eschatological beliefs. Absolutely. And this is what frustrates me so much. When Catholics embrace this, this idea that they believe that the end of the world Christ will not come back until the Jews get back to their homeland, rebuild the temple. That is nonsense, people. That is nonsense. There is no biblical, theological, catholic way of looking at that. But a lot of evangelicals buy that. That's why they support the nation state of Israel, because they're, they're trying to further the second coming Christ. And the funny thing is a lot of Zion, Jewish Zionists, people in Israel, they use that to their advantage. They basically, you know, kind of let the evangelicals think that because they'll support their political viewpoints. So. Okay, let me see. Oh, I kind of lost that for a second. Let me pull next comment. [00:51:27] John, again I'm wondering, is it a positive. Actually, I don't know. [00:51:34] I don't really understand that this question, something about is a positive externality, that Ashkenazi or other Jews dominate Israel or Greater Israel in the view of the Catholic Church. I mean, I personally think that I Don't have a problem with the existence of a Jewish nation state just from in our modern context. Obviously what I really want is every nation to be subject to Christ the King. That's the goal. But I think we know lots of nation states are not right now. Most if any, are maybe, you know, obviously America is not. I want America to happen to America. So I don't have a big problem with the existence of a nation state. I think the problem is, you know, what there are are if they're treated differently than other nation states. Okay. KF Gabrielle says was there what, was there any reason for the pogo groms or was it spontaneous hatred? I mean, I think ultimately most of it was irrational. Most of it was because the Jewish people were, the others, they were scapegoats. I mean, if you look in what happened in Russia, I think there's ultimately, first of all, there's never a Catholic justification for if you basically go in and kill a group of people who are, I mean, there's a system of justice that needs to be followed. So if all of a sudden, let's say one Jewish person commits a horrible crime to go in then and attack the Jewish ghetto and kill people like that, that's never justified, just wrong. So I would say I, I, I, I haven't studied every single pogrom in the, in the history of pogroms. So I, I, you know, I don't think anybody has, but I would say the vast majority, if not all of them were, were illegitimate and should not be, you know, support. They were persecutions, they were evil. No matter what the g given reasons were, they were evil. [00:53:17] Eric S. Hey, another Eric S. There are a lot of Holocaust denial going on trad social media and it risked discrediting Traditional Catholicism. That is not meant to support defend the era of Zionism, you know. Eric S. [00:53:30] How can it be that I agree with you completely as another Eric S. One to another, that was not me who wrote that, by the way. I do think that this is a, this is a problem for Traditional Catholicism that you, we do see an increase of people who are wanting to resist like the woke elites and stuff like that. And they want to be based. I honestly see this, I mean, call me a boomer, fine. I don't care what you call me if you're, if your goal is to just basically be based. I don't want to be like, you know, the people who, the boomers who accept, you know, Zionism. So I'm going to go all in the other way. That's a discredit what I did. What I do notice though is that trad Catholic priests are very much not part of this. I'm not saying all of them, sure there's a few. But I've, when I have talk spoken out, for example, against, you know, the whole desire to be based by saying things that are anti Semitic, Holocaust denial, I get trad Catholic priests reach out to me and say thank you. In fact, some of them will then run it in their bulletins at their trad parishes because they do not support this. And I think that should tell you something. And these are younger priests too. I'm talking about like priests in their 30s, 40s. These are priests who have been well formed SSPX FSSP Institute or whatever the case may be. And they're not happy about this development. And so I would just say that as a point of conscience to those Catholics, young, particularly young men, Catholics who are flirting with antisemitism, flirting with Holocaust denial, things like that your priests are not supporting you and that should tell you something. And by the way, the popes and the priests and the bishops of the 1930s wouldn't support you either. So I think we should keep that in mind. [00:55:07] Okay, John, There has been persecution in many groups. Why should the church be more concerned with the persecution of Zionists or other groups of Jewish non believers more than other groups of non believers? I don't think we should. But I do think that historically there's been more persecution of, I mean in, in the Western world, in Europe there has been more persecution of Jews than historically over the past thousand, two thousand years than any other group. That's just a historical fact. And so that should be something we notice to talk about the noticers. And so that. But today that's not the case. And so we should be concerned with antisemitic persecution, but we should also be concerned with persecution of Christians. [00:55:47] Unjust persecution of any group we should be concerned about. [00:55:52] Okay, Palomeros, did ever occur to you probably not that the term antisemite is just like is Islamophobe. Islamophobe, sorry. Why are we morally required to like hostile religious groups? The lingo is a stealth weapon. Don't use it again. That's a debate about the term. If you think of a better term that can be used, I will use it. The fact is there are people who are anti Semitic and so, you know, that's just historically true. So I'm not going to support it and. But I'm. We're not. When you say Morally required to like hostile religious group. We're morally required to love our neighbor, period. And that includes the Jews. And so if a Jew is being treated unjustly, we are morally required to be against that, period, end of story. Just like we're morally required to be against the persecution, unjust persecution of Muslims, Catholics or anybody else. And so I just don't see this idea that like, again, it's a debate over the terms which I think gets away from the point. The point is we're required to love our neighbor no matter who they are. [00:56:59] KF Gabriel, I love this. Lots of comments today. Why were they ejected from one nation after another? Was it due to spontaneous hatred? Were reasons for these explosions? I think this was asked earlier, but yeah, I mean, I think it was a lot of reasons. I think it was not spontaneous hatred. Usually what happened. If you look at the history of most pogroms, I always want to say program, I know pogroms and other, you know, ejections from nations. It typically was a combination, you know, an excuse. Often when, like, for example, here's a great example, when Jews were persecuted in one area and they would flee to another area, typically it was the poor Jews, they would flee to an area and they would basically start to overwhelm a city, the ghettos of a season like that. And then what would happen is people were not happy about that. And so they'd start to say it's we gotta get rid of the Jews. And so they kick them out again. Now also it had to do with the fact that the Jews often were playing both sides for example, financially, you know, like, for example, if a nation was at war with somebody, often Jews who were not supportive necessarily of the Catholics in charge of them versus the Catholics in charge of somebody else, they'd play both sides. And so then when the a battle conflict was over, then they would be like, let's, let's go against these people who weren't completely supportive, weren't patriotic enough. So there's lots of reasons. I would say in general, most of them it was an illegitimate, you know, persecution against them for reasons that they were, they were a small other group that could be easily kind of used as a scapegoat in a lot of ways. Not that they were perfect, never did anything wrong, but the response to them was often overwhelmingly in proportionate to what, what they were doing. [00:58:47] Okay, I'm not even going to read this guy's. It's like th3 I guess I will read wr3ck Mr. Sam, if your definition of anti Semitism includes both something immoral, racial hatred and something outside of morality. Noticing, then there is bound to be a problem in your discourse. Again, we're talking about definition. I'm not saying. My point is that we don't have a great term. And so I'm just saying antisemitism and noticers. If, and by the way, noticers aren't just outside of morality, I think that's a better point. Obviously racial hatred is immoral, but I would also say it's immoral to suspect people of immorality of things that are not true because it's a crime against justice. If, for example, a bunch of Jews do something and then you, you blame the Jews on it, that's immoral because it's unjust. It's unjust against innocent Jews, Jews who did nothing. So there's not a problem in my discourse because they're both immoral. The noticers often who aren't necessarily outright. They don't have a racial hatred necessarily. They do things that are immoral and because they're unjust. [00:59:51] Okay, August TV123. I remember reading that Einstein was fascinated with the concept of transubstantiation. Yeah, Einstein was just a character when it came to religion because he had a, he had like, he did believe in God and he, and this is something to say, you know, you know, he had this understanding of the universe and he saw as very orderly and he believed there was a creator, somebody who put it into order. And he, he supported the Zionist cause in a lot of times, but he wasn't completely on board a cheerleader for it. Like a lot of people were. A lot of Jews were. He wasn't really a practicing Jew, but, you know, so it's interesting. And so the fact he was fascinated with concept trans substantiation, I don't doubt that I remember reading that, but I don't remember the details. Are Soros and Son actual Jews or atheist Jews? I mean, I, I would guess that they're probably atheist Jews. [01:00:45] You know, I don't, I don't have a. I don't know their specific practices. Eric S. Again, okay. I would actually like to see a list of pogroms that took place in Western Europe during the last 500 years. Hitler exclude. I don't see any records of any during the 1600s or 1700s. That's a great question because in my studies it's mostly been focused on the 1800s, 1900s. And you also see in the Middle Ages, I don't know, for a Fact, I mean the late 19th century, it was awful in Eastern Europe, in Russia because, I mean a lot of reasons the Russians actually kicked out all the Jews. But then they took over Poland which had Jews and that caused all these, you know, they were definitely very anti Semitic and wanted to get rid of the Jews. [01:01:24] How, how many there were during the 16 or 17. I know that like for example, Protestants, they also would do activities against the Jews as well. So it wasn't just the Catholics who were doing it. So when the after Protestant Reformation happened, it still continued. But I, it would be interesting to see a list. I, I agree that, that would be interesting to know. So. Okay, well, I'm gonna wrap it up here. Oh, we went over an hour. That's good because we had a lot of good comments. I do appreciate that. I, I appreciate it wasn't, you know, just completely, you know, take over by, by the non accounts or something with, with their memes or whatever. But, but I do think this, like I said, I think this important issue, it's very difficult to have a good discussion about it online because like I said, just it's, it's, it's just not something that that happens. I think as Catholics, I, I want, now my last thing I want to say is to traditional Catholics, I'm, I attend a traditional Mass, consider myself a traditional Catholic. And I do think as traditional Catholics we have to be careful of not falling into becoming just reactionary where we simply see the problems of the woke left, problems of progressive Catholicism, the problems of modernism within the church and say, okay, we're just going to go the other extreme. We're just going to reject all of that. And, which is fine to reject all that, but then don't accept alternative falsehoods. I think that's what my article is about this morning at Crisis magazine. And I would just encourage. [01:02:51] We have to love each person as the image of God. We have to love our neighbor. And so let's not play identity, identity politics. I think that's, that's, that's what the left does. I think as Catholics that's not what we should be about. Okay, I'll leave with that. Until next time, everybody. God love.