THE COLD SPOT IN TOO MANY HEARTS

“In the warmest of hearts, too often there is a cold spot for the Jews.”
Irving Howe

How many among my gentile readers of Abrahamian background (whatever beliefs they may have or have discarded at this point) will spout vehement and violent negatives to this statement?
True, some among these deniers are also ones who, with equal vehemence, deny any racism in them whatsoever. And we all know what such denials often indicate, don’t we?

On the other hand, there are those who, while they will vehemently argue with Irving Howe’s observation, will also patiently nod when they are told how deep racism and/or racist structures are within themselves and how much work, both external and internal, needs to be done before they, and the rest of us, are free of such pernicious tropes.
How now?
I could hardly agree more heartily with the urgent necessity for such work to proceed with each and all of us, but tell me this: isn’t at least an equal amount of work necessary to rid ourselves of tropes which have been with us for not four or five, but fifteen or sixteen, centuries concerning the Jews?

Are so many of us that deceived by 1) Israel’s current military strength, all of which is still necessary to prevent a second Shoah and/or 2) the purportedly high socioeconomic standing of most Western, especially North American, Jews today and 3) the rate at which the latter have been…