The Jews of Poland: Joseph Polak's July 28, 2007 editorial "The Silence Lifts on Poland's Jews" lauding formal acknowledgment by Polish leadership of its country's long held anti-Semitism and its attendant murder of Jews, I wax thoughtful about a phenomenon that has been called the world's longest hatred. After reading this article I did not know whether to shout bravo or shake my head in utter disbelief as to why, after so long, it is still necessary that the acknowledgment of a pervasive, rancid and unyielding Jewish hatred still needs to be acknowledged and an apology rendered by those who throughout the centuries were the perpetrators.

The hatred of the Jew is certainly not unique to Poland or to its past. It has been and still is a world wide pandemic with no permanent vaccine in sight. It has existed and still does in nearly every land, on every continent, among most all the world and there is no end in view. Where anti-Semitism allegedly no longer exists it rises from the dead. In countries which have no Jews the age old caustic canards of Jewish hatred can be heard. You don't even need Jews to have anti-Semitism.

A hatred born of early Christianity and certain New Testament texts progresses to the modern age and dogs the Jewish people nearly everywhere. The Middle East, an explosive tinderbox, uses anti-Semitism as one excuse to perpetrate its horrors. Jews there are threatened with yet another extinction. When will the malignancy end? When will these acknowledgments not be necessary? A tiny fraction of the world's population, the Jewish people have suffered far beyond what their small numbers might dictate. Anti-Semitism is a plague. I am waiting patiently for a cure.