There are crypto-Jews, today - in Lebanon

The former Jewish quarter in Tripoli

From The Arab News in 2020:

In 2014, when the Magen Abraham Synagogue reopened in Beirut, Lebanese politicians from across the spectrum were present, bathed in the glare of TV cameras. They all reiterated their support for a community they said they cherished as much as the other 17 sects that make up the Lebanese government. 

Former prime minister Fouad Siniora declared: “We respect Judaism. Our only problem is with Israel.” 

Even Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah weighed in: “This is a religious place of worship and its restoration is welcome.” 

Hussain Rahal, a spokesman for Hezbollah, likewise said: "We respect the Jewish religion just like we do Christianity. The Jews have always lived among us. We have an issue with Israel's occupation of land."

This is a standard lie we hear throughout the Arab world, and nowhere is it as obviously false as in Lebanon.

Because there are still a handful of Jews in Lebanon - modern day crypto-Jews, frightened to be revealed to their neighbors.

Monte Carlo Doualiya reports that there are only 27 Lebanese Jews left.  They live in great fear and hide their true religious identity. In Tripoli in northern Lebanon, the remaining members of the Jewish community are not known to their neighbors and practice Judaism in complete secrecy.

The Magen Abraham synagogue is not used as a house of worship. The Jews are too frightened to go there publicly.

If the Lebanese have no problem with Jews, then why do the remaining Jews have to hide?

The Arab News article, which is pretty good, describes the fear in starker terms:

The story has it that a Jewish woman from Beirut who was keen to meet other Jews heard of a coreligionist living in the town of Zahle, 50km east of the capital. She went there and searched for her. It was difficult as the woman had changed her name, something many Jews have done for safety reasons. But when she finally found her, the Zahle woman met her with a glacial stare. She spoke one word: Leave. The woman was obviously scared of the attention her visitor might awaken. 

Those who are still there preserve a total silence about their identity. They gather secretly in each other’s houses for their prayers.

The Arab News feature notes that  Lebanese Jews who now live in New York are nostalgic for the good times in the past, but in Lebanon they were attacked every time something happened in Israel.

True, Lebanese Jews were not rounded up and thrown out like their Egyptian, Iraqi and Syrian counterparts, yet “whenever something happened in Palestine, people would take revenge on the Jews,” said (author of a book on the Jews of Lebanon) Zeidan.

“They would throw a bomb at a synagogue or kidnap a Jewish man. Protests would erupt, inciting violence against the Jews.”

It seems almost unbelievable that there are crypto-Jews today, hiding their Jewish identity the way that their ancestors did in Spain and Portugal out of fear for their lives. But they still exist, and they are living proof that "anti-Zionism" always was, and always will be, antisemitism.

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There is lots more antisemitism in Morocco's official Religious Affairs Ministry site

Yesterday I reported that an official page at Morocco's Religious Affairs Ministry included an admiring article about an Arabic translation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

It turns out that there are plenty of other examples of state antisemitism on that site.

While most of Morocco's official websites are complimentary to Jews and talk about coexistence, the Religious Affairs Ministry site has a definite problem with Jews.

An article describes how crypto-Jews in the Ottoman Empire converted to Islam in order to subvert the nation and turn it towards Western ways, like changing the weekend from Friday to Sunday. It also says that Jews control the media worldwide.

Another expands on the popular Arab theme of how much Zionists hated Mizrahi Jews, making this absurd claim: "In October 1948, the Jewish Agency decided to stop the immigration of Eastern Arab Jews to Israel, and its spokesmen declared the following: 'We must not forget that the State of Israel was established on the Palestinian lands to solve the problem of Ashkenazi Jews.'" Then the Zionists changed their minds, the article says, because they couldn't attract enough Ashkenazi Jews.

This article about the tiny and irrelevant anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism starts off with classic antisemitic tropes:

Despite the strength and tyranny of the World Zionist Party and its control over many means of propaganda and media, and its control over the political and economic machine in many capitals of Western Europe, there is a group of Jews who have had enough courage to challenge it and challenge its domination.

Then we have "The Hostile Attitude of the Jews towards the Holy Prophet," an example of pure antisemitic incitement, which starts off with:

        Some people think that the war between Arabs and Jews is: the war of Arab nationalism on one side and Jewish nationalism on the other, and that the cause of the sinful Zionist aggression is: the love of Jewish national expansion at the expense of the Arab countries, as they are Arab countries only!

         So...some people think. But the truth is: The Jews’ motive for recurring aggression is the mean religious hatred that their innate nature - since their first day - has been imprinted on, and which they inherited from their ancient forefathers.

        The present war is: a war between Islam and Judaism, frankly and without the veil, and if the Arab countries embraced a religion other than Islam, they would not see aggression.

The article also says "Jews carry in their hearts the black hatred of all humanity, and believe that they are the dear children of God, and the rest of the people were from the breeds of mules and donkeys."

Another says that the Western Wall has no holiness for Jews, and they made up a story that it was sacred to them so that they could use it as a means to take over all of Jerusalem.

And here's one that starts with an admiring quote from a 1928 book:

The Jews traditionally hate other religions, and from this hatred arose in them a greed to plot against all humankind. From this plot they come to work for the demise of every non-Israeli entity and its replacement by a Zionist international rule. This is their plan that they followed.

These are just some of the articles, and only ones that talk about Jews. They also have a lot of articles about how Zionists and Israel are evil.

It seems incongruous that the official websites of a nation Israel is at peace with should still include so many examples of pure Jew-hatred and incitement.

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