If you can follow that twisted logic, perhaps you too could work at Yale University.

David Bernstein writes at the Washington Post.

Yale Episcopal chaplain Rev. Bruce Shipman digs deeper

Time to revisit Rev. Shipman, the Episcopal Chapman at Yale.  Readers will recall that Rev. Shipman wrote a letter to the N.Y. Times, responding to an op-ed about growing violent anti-Semitism in Europe, suggesting that the “best antidote would be for Israel’s patrons abroad to press the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for final-status resolution to the Palestinian question.”  I pointed out that by holding Jews responsible for anti-Semitism, Rev. Shipman was engaging in unacceptable victim-blaming. Let me put it even more bluntly now: he is blaming the victims of racism for the existence of racism.

A few updates.

First, my disgust at Rev. Shipman’s letter has been widely shared, but not by some who want to turn this into another opportunity to debate Israeli policy.  Most of those people, not being anti-Semites themselves, but rather due to ideological blinders being immune to recognizing anti-Semitism when it arises in a context related to Israel, would recognize the appalling nature of Shipman’s letter if the context was different.  Imagine, for example, a right-wing Christian who, following an attack by “Christian Identity” type on a synagogue, wrote the following: “Critics of the synagogue attack and other manifestations of anti-Semitism make far too little of the relationship between the immoral trash that Hollywood produces and growing anti-Semitism in the U.S. and beyond…. the best antidote would be for all Jews of goodwill to press their friends who run major studies to stop using movies to push an anti-Christian agenda that mocks traditional moral values.”

I use this example, by the way, because I actually once read an article making exactly this argument in a right-wing Catholic newsletter I happened upon in a student lounge at Marymount University in Arlington.  The message, from that article and from Rev. Shipman, is “if you want me to be your ally on combating anti-Semitism, you had better adopt my ideological agenda; otherwise, while I’m not necessarily saying you get what you deserve, that kinda is what I’m saying.”