Jewish Group Campaigns Against Anti-Christian Sentiments in US

Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation is on a mission to help combat anti-Christian prejudice in Hollywood, the new media, and the courts, and from activist organizations including the Anti-Defamation League and the ACLU. According to their website (www.jews4fairness.org), the group was organized a year ago "because we recognize that Christians are the last remaining obstacle to the moral deconstruction of America, because attacks on Christians are motivated by hatred for the values they espouse."

Don Feder, president of JAACD, said that although the group is composed of an entire spectrum of Jews from Orthodox to non-observant, they are united by a determination to respond to attacks on the Christian faith. "As Americans, we are deeply troubled by the injustice done to Christians in a country founded on the tenets of Christianity, by believing Christians," Feder said. "It’s because devout Catholics and evangelicals are opposed to abortion on demand, euthanasia, gay marriage, and the panoply of social positions embraced by the National Democratic Party, academia, the judiciary and much of the media, that they have incurred the establishment’s wrath."

In an interview with World Net Daily last year, Feder said, ""Particularly pernicious is the leftist idea that it's legitimate to base your politics on anything except religion," he said. "You can say that my politics are based on the views of Karl Marx or Ayn Rand or Jane Fonda…and that's okay, but as soon as you say your worldview is based on the Bible, that's considered an illegitimate basis for embracing certain political views." Feder says that the organization’s purpose is not to thank Christians for supporting Israel, but rather to raise the public’s awareness of the increasing number of attacks on Christians in a country that was founded by Christians on the principles of Christianity.

JAACD has made public appeals on several occasions on high-profile controversial issues such as prayer in schools, abortion rights, and the celebration of Christmas. When the Anti-Defamation League sought to ban prayers in Jesus name during meetings of the village council in Wellington, FL, JAACD opposed the efforts. "The ADL should change its name to the Anti-Christian League," said Feder. Wellington allows Christian clergy to pray in Jesus name prior to village meetings, but Florida ADL Regional Director Andrew Rosenkranz claims the policy violates a Supreme Court ruling by advancing "a particular religious belief." The ADL believes that the law stresses inclusiveness, meaning that as many people as possible should feel included and no one feels left out of a particular prayer. Such nonsense makes no sense, says JAACD, because atheists and agnostics are excluded from prayers anyway by definition, and if prayers are said by members of other religions, Christians never object about feeling excluded.

Comedian Jackie Mason, one of the founders of JAACD, pulls no punches in interviews where he discusses the group’s mission. "I have never seen anything so offensive to me," he said. "All my life, I was always worried about Christians persecuting Jews. And who knew that Christians would start persecuting other Christians? And who knew it would take the Jews to defend Christians from each other?" When asked about the debate over use of the word "Christmas," Mason was outraged. "You would have to hire the CIA to find a Jew who is disturbed or offended by anything representing the word Christmas. Jews are thrilled and delighted to celebrate Christmas because, you know, we don't see it as a threat."

Mason added that Jews applaud saying "Merry Christmas" because it celebrates brotherhood and friendship, and encourages the extension of love and happiness to everybody in the world. "Pornography is allowed in this country because freedom of speech protects it," Mason said. "Rappers are singing songs about killing everybody in the streets, and it's protected. But if, God forbid, you say ‘Merry Christmas’ a whole fight breaks out. Love is the only thing that they hate. Hate is protected. Love is obnoxious to them. How nuts could you get? If a store is selling rap music, it's protected. But if that same store hung up a sign that said "Merry Christmas," they would be in all kinds of trouble.

The latest source of dismay for JAACD is the recently released movie "V for Vendetta," a thriller set in Britain circa 2020, which is ruled by a right-wing Christian dictatorship. It’s hard to imagine what else the movie could have done to tie a loathsome regime to Christianity," Feder said. "The state’s slogan is ‘Strength Through Unity; Unity Through Faith.’ Its symbol is a stylized cross. Its enforcers are a quasi-religious police. One of the leaders is an Anglican bishop, who’s also a pedophile."

JAACD observes that the movie is very much in keeping with what has become Hollywood’s standard anti-Christian message—that Christians are hypocritical hate-mongers with tendencies toward violence, who are waiting to seize the reins of government and persecute unbelievers. "There are no shortage of Islamic theocracies and quasi-theocracies where ‘infidels’ are persecuted, homosexuality is outlawed and women stoned to death for adultery," Feder said. "Why isn’t Hollywood making movies about them? Because it fears reprisals? Christianity is the only religion Hollywood can mock and slander with impunity."

Feder and JAACD believe that the ADL and other groups whose mission is to eliminate all public manifestations of Christianity in a nation founded by Christians should find something more productive to do with their time.