Notes & asides

National Review, Feb 9, 2004 by Joseph De Feo, George W. Rutler

* Dear Mr. Buckley: Herewith Abe Foxman in his new book, Never Again. He is speaking about "circumstances in which an American military leader ... might be tempted to abandon our Israeli allies in a time of crisis." He goes on: "This is why I have paid such close attention to the signs of latent anti-Semitism--or of flirtation with anti-Semitism--in such prominent public figures as Pat Buchanan, Jesse Jackson, William F. Buckley Jr., and Al Sharpton. In time of personal crisis, latent attitudes become explicit, and individuals with influence and authority can do real damage if their attitudes are marred by prejudice and hatred."

Comment?

Joseph De Feo

New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. De Feo: You have to understand this about Abe Foxman. It is his business to find anti-Semitism, actual or inchoate or non-existent. If anti-Semitism departed from the scene, the Anti-Defamation League would be out of business. I published a book about anti-Semitism a dozen years ago, and had from Foxman a note pertaining to my exoneration of the Dartmouth Review: "[Your] piece clearly reflects your well-deserved reputation for ... intellectual honesty and will enlighten all who take the opportunity--and show the good sense--to read it." Not very long after that, the ADL gave an award to the president of Dartmouth for denouncing the Dartmouth Review,which, Foxman had said after reading my book, was not guilty.

The thing of it is, the ADL under Foxman (his predecessor, the late Nathan Perlmutter, was scrupulously honest, and wrote occasionally for NATIONAL REVIEW) has these days a Left agenda. I told him as much a few years ago in a letter which I published in this space. "I am pleased," I wrote, "that the ADL has recorded my very long opposition to anti-Semitism. But the ADL is about all kinds of things and you should understand the resentment some who back the basic aim of the ADL feel at being coopted, as you try to do, to such causes as: opposing English-only legislation, resisting a Colorado plebiscite that sought to prevent legislation giving gays special rights, challenging the Catholic bishop's right in Boston to specify what groups could participate in the St. Patrick's Day parade, deploring this & that involving the activities of the National Rifle Association, and applauding the end of the all-male tradition of the Virginia Military Institute."

I have an award in my trunk from the ADL, and continue to honor its anti-discrimination ideals. About a year ago New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier referred to me as the "most distinguished anti-anti-Semite in American Catholicism." Abe has to make a living, but he doesn't do much for anti-discrimination when he bawls out this kind of stuff.

Cordially, WFB

* Dear Bill: Regarding Mr. Reith's letter (Dec. 31) about the Mass translation: The real objection should be to the omission of "sub tectum meum," which I believe may be restored in the forthcoming translation, and this is proper because the Mass phrase is an allusion to the Centurion in Matthew 8:8. As any fifth grader knows, neither Greek nor Latin has the distinction of intensifiers that English has for the future tense: shall/will. The Greek texts with which I am most familiar (the Alexandrian and the Byzantine Majority) have "iathaisetai," which can be either "shall" or "will." Of course it is in the third person, instancing the Centurion's servant. The same is true of the Latin "sanabitur." All the classical English translations do use an intensifier--"My servant shall be healed"--so logically the parallel would be "I will be healed"--although the accurate translation would use "anima" (soul), putting it in the third person. It is helpful to consult a scholar's translation into an obscure language. One thinks immediately of Father Gailland's translation of the New Testament into Potawatomi. The verse there is: "n mitenno kikiton iw ketchi neset nin ochkinikim." But "ochkinikim" is as ambiguous as the Greek "iathaisetai." So I should think one is free to choose. "I will be healed" represents pious confidence and might be taken as an expression of faith. But it may also suggest a degree of subjectivity, as if the healing depended on one's enthusiasm. As our Lord praised the Centurion's pragmatism, there is equal justification for saying "I shall be healed" as a matter-of-fact description of objective grace.

Rev. George W. Rutler

New York, N.Y.

Dear Father Rutler: Ixnay capisco!

Thanks,

--WFB