THE PERSECUTION OF RELIGIOUS VOICES

You will meet today Hagai El-Ad and Andy Bannister, two exceptionally bright men who are both exceptionally
foolish educators.

Andy Bannister informs me that 75% of religious persecution in the world today is directed at Christians.  Andy Bannister would have me believe that the majority religion of Europe, the Americas, and much of Africa is subject to religous persecution.

Andy Bannister is wrong. I’ll come back to this below.

Hagai, whom I know slightly, informs me that free speech in Israel is threatened by a new law. He’s right.

Hagai’s assertions impose an American model of free speech on Israel. Hagai and I disagree vehemently about that. The American cost of free speech is very, very high.

It’s high time that the high cost of free speech becomes an private financial burden rather than a public one, in Israel and elsewhere.  The high cost of free speech is acknowledged in Canada, which has hate laws that prohibit certain types of speech. Civil libertarians, both on the left and the right, detest Canadian hate speech laws.

The Israeli law doesn’t follow the Canadian model: it  does not deny the freedom to speak whatever is on your mind. The Israeli law is directed at NGOs; it imposes a financial burden on inappropriate dissent, not on all dissent.
Burn an Israeli flag? Call the Jewish character of the state into question? See your budget reduced. And why not?

Israel was founded on the premise of protecting Jews by giving them a national state, it was not founded on the premise of free speech. Free speech is an American ideal entirely foreign to Jewish tradition, which prohibits lashon hara (literally, “evil speech”).

The American concept of free speech was necessary in its time to eliminate the tyrrany of the minority imposed by Britain. The American concept of free speech permits odious and deformed behaviours and is not worthy of emulation.

The American concept of free speech allows Westboro Baptist church to cause unforgivable pain and sorrow. The American concept of free speech allows Andy Bannister to teach that Christianity is subject to 75% of the religiouis persecution in he world today.

The American concept of free speech is ridiculous.

I was one of two rabbis in the room to hear Andy Bannister make his absurd assertion. I am embarrassed to admit that I subdued my warrior sage: I did not stand up in protest. The other rabbi present is a man with whom I am most-
oft in opposition. He is, however, a diplomatic sage; he presented a perspective on the panel that shamed Andy, and quite rightly so.

Christianity is the single largest religion on Earth.

Christianity is, among Abrahamic religious traditions, the majority religion. Of  3.2 billion Abrahamic adherents, 2.2 bn are Christians. The Abrahamic traditions include, in historical order, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Bah’i.

There were perhaps 10 million Jews in antiquity. By the 1930s there were 18 mn Jews among a world population of 2 bn. In the opening years of the 21st century there are 14 mn Jews among a world population of almost 7 bn. And I am supposed to believe Andy Bannister that Christianity is a persecuted religion?

I think not.

Andy would have me believe that Christianity is the great dissenting tradition in the world today. Hagai would have me believe that dissent without checks and balances is an essential value in a democratic society.

They’re both wrong.