Such a finding seemed inexplicable in a nation where 34 Jews serve in Congress — including both senators from Wisconsin, that overwhelmingly Christian and heavily German state, as well as from California, site of Furrow’s rampage — and where the rate of interfaith marriage hovers between one-third and one-half by various estimates. But the primal fears borne of two millennia of exile, culminating in the Holocaust, yield only begrudgingly to the reality of American tolerance — some might say ardor — for Jews.

What has been striking about the reaction to the most visible and odious recent instances of anti-Semitism is the behavior of gentiles. A spate of bigoted vandalism four years ago in Billings, Montana, stirred 10,000 Christian households to display logos of a menorah in solidarity. The arson of three synagogues in Sacramento, Calif., in June brought 1,500 non-Jews, including 200 clergy, to a public meeting.

Yet against all this evidence of decency there persists a belief in many Jewish hearts, minds and institutions that anti-Semitism is immutable and omnipresent. Anti-Semitism persists, of course, and the proof has come in this summer’s wave of hate crimes. But it persists on the loony margins, far from the American mainstream that 50 years ago gladly tolerated anti-Semitic quotas at Ivy League colleges, white-shoe law firms, tony neighborhoods and elite social clubs. Those actions harmed perhaps the majority of American Jews, if in insidious, bloodless ways.

Jews will be giving an undeserved power to one crackpot like Furrow — a would-be mental patient with an assault rifle and a headful of white-supremacist dogma — if they make him stand for anything larger than a tiny, albeit toxic, margin of American life. They will invest him with the very sense of importance the avenging Aryan surely craved when he bravely sprayed 70 bullets at unarmed children.

I am hardly immune to the panicked impulse to believe that America harbors a multitude of Jew-haters. My children go to day camp at a Jewish community center much like the one Furrow attacked, and the shootings terrified me. On the morning after, police officers monitored every arriving vehicle at their camp. Strolling through the hall on the way to my 5-year-old daughter’s “Campfire Time” sing-along, I was interrogated by the camp director. The canvas bag holding my camcorder, I later realized, must have looked mighty suspicious.

But shouldn’t reflex give way to reason? It is one thing — and quite a sensible thing — to track such fanatical groups as Christian Identity and the Order, as the FBI, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League already do. It is another to let bigots become the only catalysts for Jewish identity.

A history of dispersal, oppression and persecution taught Jews a truth that might be distilled this way: I am what I’m not. In other words, only hatred by gentiles gives being Jewish meaning. Too many Jews identify not by positive factors — religion, ethnicity, culture — but by believing that only fellow Jews can be trusted. And when the American Jewish community is riven as it is now, torn asunder by the countervailing forces of assimilation and fundamentalism, then the default setting of self-definition is to be an anti-anti-Semite.

A few months ago, I was paging through my local Jewish newspaper. It included an interview with a Hadassah leader. Asked to name the biggest problem in the Jewish community, she said, “They do not realize the extent of the danger from the fanatic right wing. I use the Nazi definition of a Jew — to me a Jew is anybody that a Nazi would consider to be a Jew.” She meant, of course, to make a plea for communal unity. Reading her words, however, I could not help but wonder if she had just given Hitler his posthumous victory.

Her reductive formula, one heard routinely among American Jews, spares them the anguish of balancing the parochial and universal elements of their existence, of figuring out how to be part of both a tribe and a nation. When Buford Furrow is convicted and locked away, however, the larger crisis for American Jewry will remain.

Much of the coverage of this week’s shootings has harked back to the 1984 murder by white supremacists of Alan Berg, a Jewish talk-show host in Denver. Then and now, the reportage reified an image of Denver as a hotbed of anti-Semitic sentiment — an image readily believed by that majority of American Jews who live on the urban coasts.

But Denver, in fact, elected a Jew named Wolfe Londoner mayor more than a century ago. It sent another Jew, Solomon Guggenheim, to the Senate at roughly the same time. When the Ku Klux Klan briefly controlled Denver’s political establishment in the 1920s, Jews and Catholics together routed them from office.

And in the years leading up to Berg’s murder, Denver’s Christians, far from hating Jews, were falling in love with them at a staggering pace. Seventy percent of Denver’s Jews in their 20s were wedding gentiles. So which was the truer barometer of American opinion — or, to put it another way, the greater threat to Jewish continuity — one murder, or thousands of mixed marriages?

The San Fernando Valley, site of Tuesday’s attack, typifies the kind of upper-middle-class suburbia that, once resistant to Jews, no longer thinks twice about selling them homes and sending their own children to Jewish Community Center day-care programs. And maybe that hints at the larger meaning of Furrow’s fusillade: Far from proving the resurgence of anti-Semitism in America, it was a dying gasp from a deformed version of Christianity that knows it has lost this nation’s acceptance.

Though much of the opposition to the mosques in Murfreesboro and Temecula alleges that the projects violate local zoning laws because of expected traffic or noise, the ADL says such complaints can be smokescreens for anti-Islamic bigotry.

“If a community is expressing hatred, the burden is on them to show that there are compelling issues” that should prevent the projects, said Deborah Lauter, the ADL’s civil rights director, who is active on the group’s coalition on mosque construction.

For the mosque construction projections is has supported so far, the ADL’s legal arguments revolve around the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a 1990 law requiring government to show a compelling interest if it imposes land use regulations on houses of worship.

Does this mean the ADL has suddenly become a Jewish ACLU? Hardly. It’s still primarily a pro-Israel advocacy group that also does some civil rights work. (The current feature story on the group’s home page reads, “Israel’s Flotilla Raid Justified.”)

ADL chief Abe Foxman will no doubt continue to do things like condemn Jewish Voice for Peace. Or support Glenn Beck because Beck supports Israel. Or oppose the trip of a group of imams to Auschwitz. But the mosque initiative seems honorable, and credit should be given where it’s due.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R., Va.) said the vote demonstrates that Democrats “just don’t get it” and “are still not ready to listen” to the American people after getting thumped on Nov. 2. He suggested that House Republicans will pursue another vote on the matter when the new Congress convenes next year, when the outcome is likely to be different. “If the Democrat majority wants to continue to ignore the will of the people that’s their prerogative, but the new Republican majority will not follow suit next year,” he said.

Democrats just don’t get it. Republicans know the American people want Congress to defund NPR because defunding NPR won an online poll, the modern equivalent of a Constitutional Convention.

Why did it win that silly poll? Because it’s a dumb thing that Fox won’t shut up about, and that is all the House of Representatives will tackle for the foreseeable future.

Fox hates NPR for cultural reasons — one strives to present an objective view of world events in as fair a style as possible, while the other one is a media experiment in infusing everything from a relentlessly mindless morning show to a psychotic Bircher’s revival show with Republican propaganda (with one hour set aside for car chases and bear sightings) — but the event that led to the pointless foofaraw was NPR’s long-overdue dismissal of official Fox Liberal Juan Williams, who explained that he was scared of “Muslims” in their Muslimy clothes, and then refused to actually apologize when told that that offended his Muslim co-workers at NPR. Fox gave him $2 million to sit around being a symbol of the culture wars.

Rupert Murdoch, Fox’s owner, has waged war against public broadcasting in every nation where he has a media presence. (His father, Sir Keith Murdoch, began the campaign by complaining that Australian Broadcasting Corp. — their BBC — would be “improper competition” to his newspapers.) His newspapers and his son are currently battling the BBC.

But public broadcasting tends to be popular, so whipping up popular hysteria takes some work — especially in the U.S., where it’s barely public, and it’s so … completely harmless.

Meanwhile, the head of Fox News revealed this week that he’s lost his mind and believes all his network’s bullshit, in a series of interviews with Howard Kurtz. Roger Ailes said a lot of wonderful things, but this line really hammers home how much this incredibly rich and powerful and successful man hates the very existence of a very popular media outlet not built on rage and resentment:

Then he turned his sights on NPR executives.

“They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.”

Yeah, when I hear Robert Siegel, all I can think is “this guy has a Nazi attitude.”

Ailes headed off criticism by writing an amazingly disingenuous letter of non-apology to his good friend, Anti-defamation League head Abe Foxman, in which he bitches about some rabbis who criticized Fox and misstates his own remarks about NPR.

This morning you might be receiving calls because I used the word “Nazi attitudes” to describe the NPR officials who fired Juan Williams. I was of course ad-libbing and should not have chosen that word, but I was angry at the time because of NPR’s willingness to censor Juan Williams for not being liberal enough.

Yeah, Roger, you actually said, “They are, of course, Nazis,” which I’d argue is a bit more insensitive than the “Nazi attitude” line you followed it with. (And then you called them Nazis again.)

But, yes, instead of apologizing to the people he called Nazis, Ailes sought his official absolution from the man who always explains that offensive conservatives didn’t really mean it, Abe Foxman.

Ailes:

I’m writing this just to let you know some background but also to apologize for using “Nazi” when in my now considered opinion “nasty, inflexible bigot” would have worked better. Juan Williams is a good man and like you a friend. And my friends never have to worry about me sticking up for them—even if I’m occasionally politically incorrect I never leave any doubts about my loyalty.

Foxman: “I welcome Roger Ailes apology, which is as sincere as it is heartfelt.”

Translation: He’s on our side, so we can forgive a little “political incorrectness.”

It was after that conversation that Foxman softened his criticism of Beck, telling Salon that while Beck is sometimes insensitive, he is in the end “a strong supporter of Israel and the Jewish people.”

ADL has had good relations with Fox for some time. The group recently honored News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch with its International Leadership Award. (And in this picture from last month, Ailes and Foxman posed for a picture together.) In his acceptance speech, Murdoch called for an end to what he called “the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel.”

The question of the Middle East — and Fox’s pro-Israel coverage — goes far in explaining why the ADL backed off Beck, despite serious charges of anti-Semitism.

“But I also believe that there are certain things he doesn’t understand, which have led him to make insensitive remarks,” Foxman continued.

Foxman had criticized Beck this week on fairly narrow grounds — that the Fox host went too far when he (falsely) accused Soros, who as a boy survived the Holocaust by posing as a Christian, of helping send Jews to the death camps. Beck also called Soros a “puppet master” who, he claimed, was personally responsible for many of the catastrophes of the 20th century and who is now setting his sights on America.

In response to the ADL’s criticism, Beck’s news website today posted a letter from Foxman sent on Oct. 22 in which he apologized to Beck for mistakenly including him in a list of celebrities who had made anti-Semitic comments. Foxman wrote: “Even though we disagree from time to time, I know that you are a friend of the Jewish people, and a friend of Israel.” (See the full letter below.)

Salon asked the ADL if Foxman still felt that way in the wake of the Soros documentary. In response Foxman offered the affirmation quoted above.

The dynamic here is a tension between the ADL’s dual identities as a civil rights organization and a pro-Israel advocacy organization. This same dynamic was at play earlier this week when Foxman came to Soros’ defense but was careful to note that the ADL often disagrees with Soros, who is not a Zionist.

On his anti-Soros show Thursday, Beck himself preemptively invoked his support for Israel against charges of anti-Semitism:

I think the most popular is going to be – if I had to guess, their attack is going to be that I’m anti-Semite, which does not even make any sense. First of all, no one is a bigger defender of Jews and Israel than me. Name them on television.

I’ll tell you what – George, you and I will walk down the streets of Israel together. Let’s go to Jerusalem – you and me. Let’s see which one of us is more popular. It doesn’t make sense.

The basic argument is that support for Israel and anti-Semitism are mutually exclusive. 

Foxman called Beck’s remark, made on his radio show Wednesday, “completely inappropriate, offensive and over the top.” 

Beck has been attacking Soros all week as part of a series called “The Puppet Master?” which has blamed Soros personally for most of the world’s problems in the past half-century. Writing in the Daily Beast, Michelle Goldberg called Beck’s Soros documentary “a symphony of anti-Semitic dog-whistles.”

Foxman is conspicuously silent on the whole of Beck’s show. And Foxman is careful to mention his own disagreement with Soros on many issues (read: Israel). 

The full press release:

New York, NY, November 11, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today criticized as “completely inappropriate and offensive” remarks by Glenn Beck on his radio and television programs, in which he inaccurately connected George Soros, who was then a young boy, to the actions of others in sending Jews to death camps during the Holocaust.

On his October 10 radio show, Beck described how Soros, who was born in Hungary to Orthodox Jewish parents, “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off. And George Soros was part of it. He would help confiscate the stuff. It was frightening. Here’s a Jewish boy helping send the Jews to the death camps.”

Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor, issued the following statement:

Glenn Beck’s description of George Soros’ actions during the Holocaust is completely inappropriate, offensive and over the top. For a political commentator or entertainer to have the audacity to say – inaccurately – that there’s a Jewish boy sending Jews to death camps, as part of a broader assault on Mr. Soros, that’s horrific.

While I, too, may disagree with many of Soros’ views and analysis on the issues, to bring in this kind of innuendo about his past is unacceptable. To hold a young boy responsible for what was going on around him during the Holocaust as part of a larger effort to denigrate the man is repugnant.

The Holocaust was a horrific time, and many people had to make excruciating choices to ensure their survival. George Soros has been forthright about his childhood experiences and his family’s history, and there the matter should rest.