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"Nazi's have done a lot to hurt Jews over the centuries"

Uhm, hate to tell you, but the Nazi movement is a post-WW1 ideology whose roots are founded in Marxism which, itself, is little more that 150 years old.

When the Nazis started their tirades against the Jews it was very fashionable all over the Western world to spew hatred on the Jews. Charles Lindbergh was an American Nazi and was unrepentant of it to his death. FDR is on record with nasty remarks about Jews and the only reason Henry Morgenthau couldn't kill Jews personally was because he couldn't find a way to get away with it.

Let's not put on the rose-colored glasses, here. Every non-Jewish person of Western descent has SOMEONE in their ancestry who did SOMETHING to a Jew in the past.

I often think that the reason Naziism and the Holocaust so struck a chord with Americans is that we knew how close we were coming to doing the same thing ourselves. The evil of the Nazis was in some ways a mirror in which we saw our own evil reflected back at us.

The WW2 generation cast off their hatred of the Jews in reaction to what they saw in Germany. And they realized that their own little comments over the years about the "dirty Jew" down the street, the "Jew bankers", and all of the other 'harmless' epithets they routinely uttered contributed to the climate that made possible Kristal Nacht and the Holocaust that followed.

I know I am not the only person who winced when he read that the Rabbi provoked and started a fight. I'm no fan of the jerk he hit, but that does not excuse a RABBI for losing his cool. I'd EXPECT a young hothead from the ADL or JDL to do this kind of thing, but a Rabbi?

The assault on the Nazi was wrong but the fact that a Rabbi did it makes it wrong on an entirely different level.

And I can only imagine the whispers going on in various places where both sides are starting to assess that something unmeasurable was lost when the Rabbi started this fight. A line was crossed.

I've never, ever disputed the right of Jews to fight back.

But this is different and I must say that I don't like the idea of holy men throwing down like common thugs. I don't like contemplating a situation where a Nazi's behavior could possibly be interpreted as more peaceful, more orderly, and somehow *better* than the behavior of a holy man.

Peter:

I appreciate your well reasoned thinking, but I have a little difference with your post. Lets just call it a point of view difference and agree to disagree. First, let me say this: I am of dual Christian/Jewish heritage, and my family is Jewish.

The nazis were preceeded in the 18th Century by a huge school of thought that was distinctly anti-semitic, this is true. This a well established fact, and you were correct in using it.

In fact, early nazism can trace its lineage back to this school of thought and the preceeding schools of thought in Europe that have caused pograms for over a thousand years. Whats the difference between the Goebbels inspired Nazi slander movies of the 1930's and the medievel Europeans slaughtering Jews because they did not die of the plague because they kept Kosher dietary laws?

Nazism is the current manifestation of a historical anti-Jewish animus which has been propagated by the European "elite", among others, for centuries. Another fact is Anti-Semitism is often used as a uniting factor for totalitarian movements, whether they have been successful or not in gaining power.

As for my experience, in the last few years, I have been on the other side of the Anti-Semtic aisle. My family has been experiencing the effects of the well publicized backlash against Jews, Zionists, etc, and I am literally fed up with it to my neck.

I can very easily see how a rabbi could punch this little Hitler youth in the snotbox. Because even good people can take only so much.

regards to you Peter, and thanks for your insight. It is appreciated immensely.