Jew-hatred alive and well in Jordan

In 2006, Pew Research asked people throughout the world their opinion of Jews.

The country that came in dead last, with 98% saying that they do not like Jews, was Jordan. (Egypt came in at 97%.)

That's all the background you need to understand this:

It has been a while since Israelis entering Jordan were first required to deposit items of a Jewish-religious nature in order to cross the border for "security reasons." Most recently, Israelis have been asked to removes their yarmulkes.

A., an Israeli businessman who visits Jordan often was amazed when he was asked to leave his yarmulkes in a safe on his most recent visit to the country. "We know tefillin are confiscated and we recently heard brimmed hats were being taken, so we came with regular hats," he told Ynet.

"The man in the counter asked us to take off our hats and we thought it was standard procedure for passport control. But when the man saw the yarmulkes, he took us to the tourism police. The officer there said that the ban to wear yarmulkes was 'for our own benefit,' put it in the safe and gave us a form with which to receive the yarmulkes when we return."

Perhaps that is just because they are anti-Zionist and not anti-semitic? Not quite:

A. said that in light of such limitations he makes a point of not staying in Jordan for more than a day in each visit. "I don’t carry tefillin so I can't stay the night," he said. "What's really annoying about the whole thing is that together with us at the border crossing was a group of post-army youngsters with IDF training t-shirts who were so obviously Israeli citizens. They didn't give them any hard time, while with us they insisted."

Even if you agree that the border guards are simply protecting the Jews for their own good, it means that Jordan's government admits that its citizens are rabid Jew-haters - and it has no interest in doing anything about it.

Well, not quite true. They are willing to do something.

Because when Pew Research returned in 2008 to ask the same question about Jordanian attitudes towards Jews.

And Jordan refused to allow that question from even being asked!

(h/t Joel)