The Sons of Pigs and Apes: Muslim Antisemitism and the Conspiracy of Silence by Neil J. Kressel, Potomac Books, Washington, D.C.; ISBN 978-1-59797-702-9 ©2012, $29.95, p. 206, plus addenda and index
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California — The word “anti-Semitism” is a relatively new word to the English language, being coined sometime after 1860. Jews fought for both political autonomy and religious freedom against both the Syrian Greeks in the second century BCE and the Romans in the first and second centuries CE. Though bloody in every sense of the word, these struggles lacked the vitriolic hatred, known as anti-Semitism, thrust at the Jews, which came with the firm establishment of Christianity.
By the early Middle Ages, Jews found themselves under the laws of various Islamic rulers and although a portion of that time is affectionately called “The Golden Age,” this term can only refer to the degree of intellectual freedom accorded the Jews. Jewish massacres at the hands of Muslims happened with some regularity during this “Golden Age,” but the Jews fared far better under Islam than under Europe’s Christian monarchs. Christianity vilified the Jews, but under Islam, the Jews were classified as dhimmī, non-Muslim citizens accorded protection and rights of residency in exchange for taxes.
In The Sons of Pigs and Apes, Prof. Neil Kressel, who directs the Honors Program in Social Sciences at William Patterson College, in New Jersey, builds a firm foundation for the shift in Islamic perception about the Jews from a submissive, protected class to a hated group deserving of derision and a vicious form of anti-Semitism. This change emerged from the collaboration between Arab-Islamic leaders and the Nazi government before and during World War II. In particular, Muslims came into contact with Mein Kampf and the long-discredited The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Kressel provides an extensive list of documents written by radical fundamentalist Muslims portraying Hitler as a hero and Jews as the sons of pigs and apes. In fact, the basis of the Hamas Charter, he notes, is Allah and the Koran, yet the Protocols are “directly and centrally” invoked. These same fundamentalists spew the claptrap that the Jews are working behind the scenes to take control of the world. Arab and Islamic leaders have picked up the fallen Nazi banner and continue to parade it on the world stage.
With all the existing anti-racist organizations, Kressel assures us, one should expect a “robust and far-reaching outrage in response to well-documented anti-Jewish bigotry in many Muslim and Arab communities.” However, to the contrary, the outrage is a whisper: University administrations silence professors for speaking out about anti-Semitism, while their colleagues call for the end of support for Israeli research; films mitigate the extent of the Holocaust, students shout down pro-Israeli speakers with impunity, and so on. In fact, because of the Arab-Islamic spin, anti-Semitism has become anti-Zionism.
Kressel concludes with a chapter about those who fight back against bigotry in which he describes small groups of Muslim and non-Muslim intellectuals who vocally reject at least some portions of anti-Semitic propaganda, as well as Muslim and Arab activists who “call out” religious and civil leaders who espouse anti-Semitism. He calls on western nations to reject all forms of bigotry and prejudice and oppose Holocaust denial in any form.
Kressel is relentless in his desire to shine a bright light in the corners where bigotry hides, and raises a rallying cry when he finds people with the courage to publicly battle anti-Semitism. In doing so Kressel offers us a concrete plan, and along with it, hope that the Arab-Islamic venom of anti-Semitism, spewed out during the last seventy-five years, might actually be cast into the dust bin of history along with the rejected ideas of the Nazi regime.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and Reclaiming the Messiah. The author may be contacted via fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com.