It would appear that the bush-leaguers at SUN TV are once again abusing their guests. In the wake of some forgettable broadcaster’s pummelling of Margie Gillis, Michael Coren has now taken the opportunity of an interview with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, ostensibly about his new book Kosher Jesus, to . . . well, read on. Rabbi Boteach issued the following statement this afternoon.
By Rabbi Shmuley Boteach
Today I had what was probably the most unpleasant TV interview of my life on Canada’s Sun News Network (national). Interviewed by host Michael Coren about my book Kosher Jesus, I expected to be asked about the book’s content. The interview started that way. But then Coren quickly got to a question that seemed to be bursting from within. You’ll have to see the exact show, airing tonight at 7pm, for complete accuracy, and I am writing this about an hour after.
Coren essentially asked me why Jews depict Christians so negatively. He went on about how much the Catholic Church and Christians in general have done for the Jews of late. Yet the Jews continue to be so unappreciative, always questioning Christian motivation, always finding fault with Christians no matter what.
I asked him to justify his claim that Jews depict Christians negatively. He said something like, “What do you mean? Just look at Hollywood.”
Hollywood? I was confused. Weren’t we just talking about Jewish-Christian relations? Where did Hollywood come in, unless, for Coren, Jews and Hollywood were synonymous.
What was the connection between Hollywood’s depiction of Christians and the Jews, I asked. The show went downhill from there, with the anti-Semitic stereotype of the Jews controlling and influencing Hollywood dominating the interview. I defended my people against this disgusting slur, a tributary of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that the Jews control whole segments of society, in this case the motion picture industry, which they use to negatively depict Christians as a bunch of illiterate and primitive bumpkins.
From there Coren went on to speak about the negative Jewish depiction of Pope Pius XII, which I battled him on further. This was amazing. The Jews were defaming the saintly Pope Pius? For the record, I have written a great deal on Pius XII, the man John Cornwell, a non-Jewish British journalist, famously called Hitler’s Pope in his best-selling 1999 biography of the same name. Pius was the wartime Pope who never once condemned the systematic murder of Europe’s Jews through all the years of the Holocaust and who, after the war, allowed the mass kidnapping of Jewish children who had originally been given by their families to Christians in order to save their lives. Pius advised, in the form of a typewritten directive discovered in a French church archive and dated Oct. 23, 1946, that church authorities not return to their relatives Jewish children who had been baptized. They must remain Christian and should not be returned to Jewish families.
He was the Pope who famously refused, amid unmistakable evidence of thousands of Jews being shipped to slaughter in Nazi concentration camps, to ever speak out against the Holocaust. This followed Pius’ successful efforts to prevent the publication of an encyclical commissioned by his dying predecessor to condemn Nazi anti-Semitism. This is also the Pope who sent Hitler birthday greetings every single year and who refused to excommunicate Hitler or any other top Nazis who were on official Catholic rolls (to give this context, the singer Sinead O’Connor was 
excommunicated). He ignored the pleas of President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to denounce the Nazis. He later refused to endorse a joint declaration by Britain, U.S and Russia condemning mass murder of Europe’s Jews, claiming that he simply could not condemn “particular” atrocities. The most he ever did was a single pronouncement during the war on the murder “of hundredsof thousands.” By then, of course, there were millions, and he did not mention Hitler, Nazi Germany, or the Jews in the statement. Most infamously, he was silent when the Germans rounded up Rome’s Jews in October 1944 for slaughter. They were being processed for extermination in a military school a few hundred yards from his window in St. Peter’s. An Italian princess, Enza Pignatelli, forced her way into the Pope’s study and warned him about the imminent assault on the city’s Jewish citizens. “You must act immediately,” she cried. “The Germans are arresting the Jews and taking them away. Only you can stop them.” The Pope assured her, “I will do all I can.” He made no protest and nearly all were later gassed in Auschwitz. Curiously, amid the Pope’s inability to find his voice to condemn the extermination of European Jewry, when the Catholic archbishop of Berlin issued a statement mourning Hitler’s death, the Pope did not reprimand him.
Those who have read my writings, and especially those who have read Kosher Jesus, will know that I have unbridled love for my Christian brothers and sisters, a deep respect and affection I have written and spoken about on countless occasions. They will also know that I was given the great pleasure and honor of being greeted by Pope Benedict in Rome in 2010. They will further know that I am invited to address Christian audiences the world over, including in Israel. And I wrote Kosher Jesus in response to the great Christian yearning to discover the Jewishness of Jesus.
But people like Coren who perpetuate the anti-Semitic canard that Jews both control Hollywood and have contempt for Christians are a serious obstruction to the new era of Jewish-Christian brotherhood and rapprochement. It is an absolute lie that Jews have contempt for Christians. It is likewise a lie that Christians are victims of Jewish hostility, as Coren implies. The truth, of course, is that Jews have suffered mightily at the hands of Christianity for nearly two millennium. But thankfully a succession of great Christian men and women in modern times, led by Pope John XXIII, the greatest of all popes, and then by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both outstanding friends of world Jewry, and joined especially by the 80 million born-again Christians in the United States, the vast majority of whom are phenomenal friends of Israel, have reversed this trend and made Catholicism and Christianity stalwart allies and friends of G-d’s chosenpeople.
Denying the past is not going to increase our friendship just as being limited by it will not either. This is a new time for Jews and Christians. Let’s forgo the old animosities, the old prejudices, and especially the old and ugly stereotypes. Michael Coren owes Jewry an apology. If he’s man enough to give it I will overlook his foul treatment of me, both during the interview and after it was over.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” was the host of TLC’s Shalomin the Home (which won the National Fatherhood Award), was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium, and received the American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. The international best-selling author of 27 books, he has just published Kosher Jesus. He is currently mulling a run for Congress from New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District, running as a Republican. www.shmuleyforcongress.com
Just more nonsensical religious pot-stirring. It’s mystifying and fascinating to me that so many apparently intelligent people believe in a god, or many gods, when it is so blatantly obvious that religion, in all its myriad manifestations, is simply a human-invented tool to wield power and control over people.
Once one recognizes and comes to terms with this fact, the world is so much easier to understand and live peacefully upon.
The only bigot (and idiot) is Rabbi Boteach. For heaven sake, the JDL issued a statement defending Coren, not the Rabbi. I’ve met Mr. Coren personally, very briefly, and he is a gentleman and scholar; speaking of which, didn’t the Rabbi’s mother teach him any manners and if she did, was he paying attention? Furthermore, his revisionist history of Pope Pius the XII is incredible! Rabbi David G. Dalin wrote a book entitled, “The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: Pope Pius XII And His Secret War Against Nazi Germany.” I think Rabbi Boteach should educate himself and realize the truth: 1) Pius saved more Jews during the Holocaust than Oscar Schindler. 2) The chief Rabbi of Rome at the time, Israel Zolli, converted to the Catholic Faith and changed his name to Eugenio, Pius’s first time, to honor him. 3) The New York Times commented on Pius’s 1941 Christmas address: “The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas.”
The smear of Pius was started by Rolf Hochhuth, himself an anti-Semite, who in 1963 wrote a play called “The Deputy”. This is a play that viciously attacked Pius and fabricated the truth about his record because Pius saved Jews from Nazi brutality. Rabbi Boteach: some very basic and simple research and reading is required on your part as well as an apology to Mr. Coren.
Coren never said Jews control banks or media,but he did imply Hollywood.There are usually 3 pillars of anti-semitism..Hollywood,banks and media and as Shmuley pointed out,once one is mentioned the two others soon follow.Why didn’t Coren discuss the book ? Coren had raised his voice and interrupted Shmuley at least 3 times before the rabbi called him on his assertion the Hollywood Jews portray evangelical Christians as bumpkins and anti-semites at heart and interrupted Coren to press for examples.Coren didn’t provide any examples and took Shmuley to task for interrupting him !!! Dish it out but can’t take it Michael?…The fallout from all this has Coren asserting that Shmuley alleged he was an anti-semite, which NEVER happened and the anti-semite label is now being championed by Bnai Brith as being factual.Coren has masterfully portrayed himself as a victim.Coren’s jealous introduction tried to diminish and ridicule rabbis association with MJ+Oprah.Coren loves to argue,but he was way out of his league ,so he called time,took his ball and went home.What an aggravating man.His phony accent should have been lost long ago…he can’t even pronounce Australia>>>Australier.
I watched the Coren/Boteach interview on Sun News in its entirety as well as the follow up of the interview on Sun News the next day. It is clear to me that our good Rabbi was spoiling for a fight from the outset and was looking for the first comment from Coren he could find to twist to his advantage and Coren soon provided him with one by citing the Jewish influence in Hollywood as an example of Left-wing Jews promulgating negative stereotypes about Christians as ignorant country bumpkins and anti-Semites. Boteach, without taking a breath, quickly twisted Coren’s example into Coren implying that the Jews controlled Hollywood as well as media, banks etc., none of which Coren said or even implied. The interview quickly degenerated into a shouting match from there.
Clearly Boteach knew very little if anything about Coren’s background either personally or professionally. Coren himself is half Jewish on his father’s side going back several generations and he has always proudly talked about his Jewish inheritance. Coren never converted to Roman Catholicism until 1985. Professionally Coren has been a stout and consistent defender of Israel and the Jewish community in both Israel and Canada. If our good Rabbi had even done the most superficial of investigation into Coren before the interview he never would have stuck a major foot in his mouth as he clearly did by accusing Coren of anti-Semitism.
Everyone, but the most bigoted Roman Catholic hater or hater of Coren, knows that our good Rabbi Boteach owes Coren a major public apology.
I watched this segment yesterday on Sun News. Rabbi Boteach’s version of what transpired is not what I bore witness to. The Rabbi badly reacted to one comment Coren made that the Rabbi heard as being antisemitic. Thereafter it was a shouting match, between the Rabbi insisting what Coren said was antisemitic and Coren trying to explain to him in a number of ways, that neither he nor what he was saying was antisemitic.
It was Rabbi Boteach who acted in a way, no reasonable fair minded Jew should have acted, least of all a Rabbi.
The Rabbi’s article penned soon after this Coren interview is an effort to defend his indefensible behavior.
Coren is not only a well known friend of Jews and Israel, he is a more vigorous enemy of antisemitism than most Jews are.
Rabbi Boteach needs to give his head a shake and maybe, just maybe he will realize it is he who owes Coren a big apology.
The ‘bush-leaguers at SUN TV’ at least show two sides to the story, where is the response article by Michael Coren?
JEWISH DEFENCE LEAGUE STATEMENT ON MICHAEL COREN
The Jewish Defence League of Canada rejects the smear and false claim of anti-semitism made by Rabbi Boteach against Michael Coren. Rabbi Boteach has a responsibility to issue an apology.
Michael Coren has supported and defended Israel for many years. The following links are some examples of this support. Michael Coren on Why Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism, Michael Coren on Israeli ‘apartheid week’ Michael Coren & Brian Lilley Celebrate Palestine House De-Funding Michael Coren & Rabbi Kaplan: all things Hanukkah
Michael Coren is a very honest man and the JDL will continue to support him. The JDL demands that Rabbi Boteach issues an immediate apology. The JDL also calls on the Jewish Community to reject the false accusation from Rabbi Boteach of anti-semitism.
http://www.jdl-canada.com
Good for you Rabbi. Nice to see someone stand up to that pompous Catholic bigot.
Speaking of “bush-league:” one person insults the guest, so that means all of SunTV (not the company’s name anymore, so that’s two bush-league points for you) did it, apparently. Sloppy, sensationalist writing here. Coren would be the same bigoted bastard if he worked for CBC. And you’d probably still be bad journalists.