On April 19, 2019, Frontpage Mag published Milo Yiannopoulos’ lamentation on the burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral. While I share his grief over this irreplaceable loss to Western Civilization and Christianity, I was shocked to discover that he felt the necessity to trash the Jews. He did so under the convenient cover that he is a Jew — as he states, through matrilineal descent. But, more significant than his bloodline, his belief system seems to be Catholic as evidenced by his adoration of the Virgin Mary:
Mary—the ‘Our Lady’ of Notre Dame—is proof of the incarnation. It is her body through which God becomes incarnate and it is she through whom the Word became incarnate and who is taken as a patron by educators. Notre Dame was built to support this understanding, a belief unique to Christianity. Jews deny that Jesus is Christ, which is why, in the story of her dormition, they attack the bier as the apostles carry Mary to her tomb and why they are described as ‘blind.’ The Talmud is explicit about this rejection of Christ. But Mary prays for them and wants them to convert anyway. She never calls for violence against her fellow children of Abraham.”
The cathedral burning, as he correctly states “…is an especially Christian tragedy. It is a tragedy emblematic of the rapid destruction of Western civilization in the past few decades, a visual reminder of the inferno that has already gutted the Academy.”
If, by the “Academy,” he is referring to the great canons of the West, its art and literature, the university itself that supposedly bequeaths the gems of Western civilization to succeeding generations, the idea of freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, the rule of law and its equal application — in short all of the attributes and characteristics that define and elevate the individual over the mentality and tyranny of the reactive mob, I heartily concur.
But, what is not comprehensible to me is the apparent contradiction between his love for what is best of the West, and his ostensible adherence to what is worst: the Christian blood libel against the Jews. Obviously, Milo doesn’t see it that way:
One miracle story of the Virgin, first recounted by Gregory of Tours, concerns a Jewish boy who was friends with some Christian children. He took communion with them, but when his father, a glassblower, found out, he threw the boy into his furnace. The Virgin protected him with her cloak, as with the three boys in the furnace in Daniel. I have been meditating on this story as I have watched Our Lady fail to protect herself from the flames….
The blood libel of the Jewish glassblower reads more as parable than fact to illustrate the perfidy of the Jews. But, Milo seems to believe that Gregory of Tours’ account is actually true. Whether Milo intends it or not, he is invoking all the atrocities justified in the wake of the numerous blood libels afflicting the Western mind. Thus, Milo has contributed to the gutting of the very Academy which he so laments.
Milo’s first little ding directed at his “fellow Jews,” is shameful enough even without the legend of the furnace. Still, I would very much like a few citations of Jewish conservatives’ supposed insufficient pain over the loss of Notre Dame in order to learn something about the context of their remarks. He describes them as having “been superficially sympathetic but a little self-serving” and that they “have been anxious to remind us that Jews have suffered too, that Christianity has ‘Jewish roots’ and that Jews have suffered terrible violence in the European countries now awash with third-world migrants.”
Although he doesn’t say it, it is clear that he means that these migrants are Muslims, and will be referred to as such hereinafter. And then, parenthetically, Milo states: “(At this risk of upsetting my fellow Jews, this is a bit like someone using the tragedy as an excuse to brag about their summer vacation to Paris.)” Finally, he goes on to conclude that “…it has escaped no one’s notice that those in the media pushing most aggressively for generous accommodation of Syrians in the West have themselves been Jewish.”
If he is laying the blame on Jewish commentators for Europe’s current decline and possible demise due to uncontrolled Muslim migration, he might have come up with some names. He says that the Jewish influence in promoting Muslim migration “escapes no one’s notice.” But, did Milo intend to imply that Jewish activity escapes no one’s notice as long as the behavior in question is viewed as nefarious?
In truth, it takes more than a flock of chattering magpies, however Semitic they may be, roosting on the media airwaves, to orchestrate the seemingly unstoppable flood of hostile Muslim migration that threatens to overwhelm Europe’s Christian civilization. Though it is not the purpose of this piece to delve into the well-documented scheme promoted by Europe’s mostly non-Jewish leaders (including unreformed Nazis) — since the early 1950s until the present — to replace indigenous Europeans with migrants from the Middle East and North Africa, Milo should have been well aware of this known, but very real conspiracy, emanating from the Euro-Arab Dialogue, the umbrella organization created to facilitate the transformation of Europe into a Euro-Arab hybrid. Milo also should have been aware of the United Nations report on replacement migration which clearly envisions the replacement of indigenous Europeans by migrants under the pretext that Europeans are not doing the job of replacing themselves.
But, the tendency to lay Europe’s decline at the feet of the Jews seems to be a normal response, not only for Milo, a self-styled Jewish Catholic, but for Europeans in general. I am reminded of the frenzied, crazed celebration of Easter by the entire Polish town of Pruchnik on Good Friday, this past April 19th. An effigy of a Jew was beaten, dragged through the streets, and finally burned to the joyful, enthusiastic participation of the very young, under the keen leadership, supervision, and participation of mature and able-bodied adults — parents and grandparents, no doubt.
Although this was a revival of a time-honored Polish custom in the tradition of the most noble and righteous of Jew-haters, no Catholic priest intervened to object. A dear friend advised me that this collective ritual was a direct reaction to the ineffable, immutable, and sublime law — instituted by the Jew-hating Jew, George Soros himself, through his various and sundry nongovernmental organizations — that to criticize George Soros is to be deemed anti-Semitic.
Apparently, if my friend’s reasoning is correct, the Polish townsfolk of Pruchnik did indeed connect the dots between Soros’ pro-uncontrolled migration policy and the culpability of all Jews. Makes perfect sense. Since Soros is a Jew who promotes uncontrolled Muslim migration, and criticism of his policies is anti-Semitic because he is a Jew, even though he hates Jews, it is safe to conclude, logically enough, that the Jews, en masse, who invariably stick together, also favor uncontrolled Muslim migration.
Similar to Milo’s assertion that Jewish media personalities who favor Syrian migration into Europe “do not escape notice,” the Poles noticed the fraternal connection between Soros and the Jewish people whom he hates. The fact that hostile Muslim migrants are importing their own time-honored anti-Semitism into Europe, and victimizing European Jews accordingly — therefore, acting as self-appointed Soros proxies — is of no consequence whatsoever and must be overlooked entirely in the interest of fairness and logic.
Thus, it is incontrovertible: not only did the Jews kill Jesus 2000 years ago, the Jews are killing Europe today! So why not burn a Jew in effigy to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus! It only makes perfect sense.
Question: the Pope also favors uncontrolled Muslim migration into Europe. But these Polish Catholics did not burn an effigy of the Pope. If the Pope were a Jew, would they have burned his effigy too? It would only make perfect sense.
As Milo’s “fellow Jew” — but, one who does not practice Catholicism as he does, I am, indeed “upset” by his contemptuous depiction of the Jewish reaction to the loss of Notre Dame, just as he predicted I would be. I find his characterization amusing, but unjust. Even as a “fellow Jew,” well aware of the nearly two thousand year-long persecution of Jews by the Vatican and its priests, and well aware of the atrocities committed against the Jews even from the auspices of the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, I too feel the loss of this magnificent symbol of Christendom because of what it represents to the civilized world today. I oppose the destruction of statues of American Civil War figures, simply because I don’t have a gripe with reality: it is what it is. If historical reality sucks, I still want to know about it. Therefore, I am capable of recognizing the historic value of monuments for their own sake, even though I don’t harbor sympathy for the symbolic intent that was inherent in their creation. Does that make sense, Milo? No, I am not bragging about my latest trip to Paris, which, incidentally, occurred directly after the Saint Sulpice arson which pained me greatly for the reason I just stated.
You meditated on the legend of the glassblower throwing his apostate son into a furnace. Did you realize you were perpetrating a blood libel similar to Chaucer’s Nun’s Tale? Or are you telling me that what I interpret as a legend crafted to defame the Jews, and incite hatred against us, is actually an historic account? If so, names, dates and places, please.
Jewish law abhors and condemns such behavior. Nevertheless, let us suppose that a Jewish glassblower really did throw his apostate son into a furnace. Under that assumption, wouldn’t it be fair to mention the fact that the Vatican and countless churches throughout Europe, burned thousands of Jews who had been forcibly converted to Catholicism and were later denounced as apostates? They were burned because they were suspected of reverting back to their Jewish ways.
This is the same crime in reverse for which the glassblower in Milo’s meditation justified the burning of his son. In short, the church tortured and burned thousands of heretics, over many centuries, on the basis of denunciations supplied by the devout and faithful who stood ready and eager to acquire the wealth and property of the Jews they denounced. I will mention in passing the huge collection of priceless temple candelabras, wrought in gold, and spanning centuries that reside in the Vatican’s secret storehouse. They only recently came on display for a brief period in 2018 after years of negotiations with the Italian Jewish community–on condition that no questions could be asked of the Vatican concerning how these treasures were acquired in the first place.
But let us continue with Milo’s meditation. The boy apostatized because some Catholic friends had him take communion. Never mind that Catholics were forbidden to have Jewish friends during the time of Gregory of Tours except for purposes of conversion lest they commit the crime of “Judaizing.” The boy’s “friends” lured him away from his Jewish faith and Jewish family. Assuming the veracity of the tale, wouldn’t it have been fair for Milo to have mentioned that thousands of Jewish children throughout Europe, over many centuries, were routinely taken from their families by church authorities under the pretext that they were no longer Jewish, that they had been secretly baptized, that holy water had somehow been administered, and that church regulations forbade a Jew from raising a Christian child?
Yes, Milo, it’s true! The child would have been removed from the bosom of his family anyway because he was no longer a Jew, but a Christian.
The Virgin Mary intervened to save the Jewish boy (now Christian) from the wicked designs of his Jewish father who tried to kill him because of his apostasy from Judaism. She saved the boy by entering the furnace and protecting him from the flames with her cloak.
But what priest entered the flames to free Jews burning at the stake for the crime of apostasy from Catholicism? What priest intervened to restore Jewish children to their families?
The practice of abducting Jewish children was widespread throughout all of Europe. Most of these children were lost to Judaism and their families forever. The only way a family could recover their child was to convert to Catholicism. And the church would be ready and waiting for them to do so. In 1543, Pope Paul opened the House of Catechumens for that purpose. In 1554, Pope Julius III “imposed a tax of ten gold ducats on each of the 115 synagogues in the Papal States to cover the cost of maintaining the converts. Subsequently the tax was borne by the Jewish community in Rome alone, which had to pay 1,100 scudi yearly.”
Milo, you excel in the art of irony, and I do admire you for it. So, surely you appreciate the irony of burdening the Jews with a tax to pay for the loss of their own brethren and the diminution of their own communities through apostasy, whether forcible or voluntary.
The House of Catechumens was still operating in the 19th Century when the most famous case of the abduction of a Jewish child took place in 1858 in Bologna.
The parents were incarcerated for days in the House of Catechumens where they were interrogated, threatened, intimidated, blackmailed and bribed to convert if they wanted to reclaim their six-year-old son. They refused to convert and they lost their son forever. He died a priest in 1940, mere weeks before the Nazis invaded Belgium. He died a priest but would have been murdered as a Jew. But, never mind that.
And, oh, I almost forgot to mention that even after the Holocaust, the Jews had great difficulty retrieving Jewish kids who had been harbored in convents and monasteries for their protection. The church refused to give them up. But, again, never mind.
All I’m saying Milo, is that there should be some balance if you want to repeat as true the hideous tale that is the object of your meditation. After all, wouldn’t your Jewish side have had something to meditate on if you really were to think about it?
But, now to conclude: I ought to mention certain Jewish imagery contained in Notre Dame — fertile subject matter for Milo’s future meditations. Specifically, in prominent images, it celebrated the demise of Judaism at the hands of the church — the happy anticipation of genocide. To that very end, Louis King of France, and now, Saint Louis, obeyed Pope Gregory IX’s request to seize Jewish books for examination. Under his authority, the Talmud was put on trial in Notre Dame Cathedral and 10,000 handwritten volumes of holy Jewish texts were burned in 1242.
I know, I know. Milo, I’m just another conservative Jew who is superficially sympathetic, and a little self-serving over the loss of Notre Dame because “Jews suffered too.” But, that’s not the point, Milo. My point is, if you want to talk about a Jewish father burning his newly-converted Christian son as though it were true, then really talk about burning. There is a lot of material to cover. Happy meditating to you!
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