Every week on Monday, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or daily living. This week’s question: Why Antisemitism?

Bookworm Room: The obvious answer, of course, is that in the West, the Jew is the perpetual outsider and in the Muslim world, the holy book instructs Muslims to be genocidal antisemites. Another obvious answer is that the medieval laws forcing Jews into being financiers (because they were barred from so many other professions but, unlike Christians, they were allowed to charge interest on money) meant that they became inextricably intertwined with the idea of capitalism.,  Leftists therefore hate them reflexively — never mind the actual facts on the ground, which is that for the majority of Jews throughout history have had little or nothing to do with capital and capitalism.

Honestly, though, I think the real answer is a more abstract one and it relates to the second and third core issues in the Bible. The first core issue in the Bible, of course, is God and each Jew’s relationship with God. While I suspect many are jealous of the Jews’ special relationship with God, I doubt that it drives too much antisemitism.

On the rare occasion I’ve had people speak sneeringly to me about the Jews’ status as “God’s chosen people,” I’ve reminded them that this covenant hasn’t always been a blessing to the Jews, reminding the snarkers that, while it’s true that Jews have outlasted all other societies on earth, this longevity has too often been paired with genocidal antisemitism.  As Teyve said in Fiddler on the Roof, “We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?”

As I said, the real issue for antisemites lies in the second and third issues the Bible raises.  The second core issue is the moral demands Judaism places on people. These are hard demands that require us to be our best selves in relationship to God, our spouses, our family, and our society. And finally, the third core issue is the Biblical obsession with justice — not fairness, not equality, not feeling good, but justice.

Morality and justice are concepts that are antithetical to totalitarianism of any stripe, whether it’s economic, theocratic, aristocratic, oligarchic, fascist, nationalist, or something I haven’t named or that hasn’t even come into being. These concepts are inimical to immorality and cruelty.  By their very existence, they mean that evil people and evil societies know, deep down inside, that they are evil, and that they put the actors outside of God’s love, protection, and his covenant.  Even atheists, deep down, know that, if there’s an afterlife, they will not fare well there if they deviate from Biblical rules for good conduct.

In other words, Judaism is a mirror in which people are forced to acknowledge whether they are good or bad, moral or immoral, just or unjust. And for the bad, the immoral, and the unjust, every living Jew they see is an painful reminder of their existential failures.

Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum with short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture or daily living. This week’s question: What Do You see As America’s Greatest National Security Challenge?

GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD: During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was the center of U.S. foreign policy and comprehensive strategy. Today’s Russia is not important enough to merit that role.But Russia is important, hostile, and active enough to take seriously.

A long time enabler of uncool regimes, Russia has the ability to totally queer the mix on a global scale. Just lucky perhaps, the Commonwealth’s ginormous size guarantees global consequences whenever She acts out.

Yes, once again, it’s time to present this week’s statuette of shame, The Golden Weasel!!

Every Tuesday, the Council nominates some of the slimiest, most despicable characters in public life for some deed of evil, cowardice or corruption they’ve performed. Then we vote to single out one particular Weasel for special mention, to whom we award the statuette of shame, our special, 100% plastic Golden Weasel. This week’s nominees were particularly slimy and despicable, but the votes are in and we have our winner… the envelope please…

Breitbart News!

Bookworm Room: I nominate Breitbart News, which is so committed to the Trump candidacy that the organization turned on one of its own employees, even when video footage supported her version of events: It does indeed seem that a high level Trump aide assaulted Michelle Fields. If you’re going to identify yourself as a news agency — and hold yourself out as a true news alternative to mainstream media outlets that have abandoned journalism in favor of partisan advocacy — you destroy your credibility in the most weasel-ish of ways when you do exactly the same thing.

Well, there it is.

Check back next Tuesday to see who next week’s nominees for Weasel of the Week are!

Make sure to tune in every Monday for the Watcher’s Forum and remember, every Wednesday, the Council has its weekly contest with the members nominating two posts each, one written by themselves and one written by someone from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council. The votes are cast by the Council and the results are posted on Friday morning.

It’s a weekly magazine of some of the best stuff written in the blogosphere and you won’t want to miss it… or any of the other fantabulous Watcher’s Council content.

It’s time once again for the Watcher’s Council’s ‘Weasel Of The Week’ nominations, where we pick our choices to compete for the award of the famed Golden Weasel to a public figure who particularly deserves to be slimed and mocked for his or her dastardly deeds during the week. Every Tuesday morning, tune in for the Weasel of the Week nominations!

Here are this weeks’ nominees…

The Drudge Report!

The Noisy Room: The Drudge Report for taking up a leftie talking point against Ted Cruz this weekend in a HUGE HEADLINE that just happens to bash Christianity. It was incredibly offensive: ‘Ted Is The Anointed One’ – Holy Ghost Video Revealed – Dad Speaking In Tongues – Supporters ‘Lay Hands’ On Cruz At Rally. There was no mention of Donald Trump getting a similar blessing some time ago.

Per Fox News, bestselling author and senior editor at Conservative Review, Michelle Malkin, called Matt Drudge “anti-Christian” for his choice of headlines regarding an event involving Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, characterizing it as a “cheap tabloid shot” that exposes “ignorance and bigotry.”

The headline, posted to the Drudge Report Friday, involved a story of Cruz receiving the blessing of Pastor Gaylon Wiley, the man who not only baptized Cruz, but brought his parents, who’d been atheists, into the faith.

“Laying of hands” on someone who a person is praying for is not uncommon in many faiths and, as Malkin points out in her video, was done for Donald Trump in September of 2015. Malkin called this a “100 point font sized double standard.”

For being so in the tank for Trump that it is deemed okay to bash Christians in general just to take a cheap shot at Ted Cruz, Drudge should get a HUGE golden weasel.