Yohanan Ben-Zakai Synagogue: 1893 installation of the Hakham Bachi of Jerusalem

Over the millennia we have seen how lies about Jews turn into hate, which turns into violence.

To quote Natanyahu–“All the massacres against Jews were preceded by horrible vilifications. The lies about Jews spread across the globe.  We were poisoning the wells, we were carriers of disease, we slaughtered Christian children in order to drink their blood.  This spread from country to country and created massacre after massacre culminating in the worst massacre of them all, the Holocaust, when 6 million Jews were led to the slaughter.  Today the Jewish state is facing similar vilifications.  They lie about us.  They say we are deliberately starving Palestinian children.  That’s a bare faced lie….”

Sadly, we know the old saying “repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth”–and so it is when it comes to Israel.  One lie that is the basis for so many others is that there was a “Palestinian people” and Jews just came along and “stole their land.” This is another bare faced lie.

While much of the antisemitism we see today is driven by emotion, i.e. hatred, it still helps to have some facts on hand.  Are you prepared to counter the lies about Israel and the Jewish people?  Take this short quiz to test your knowledge.  Good luck!