As cartoonist Garry Trudeau – creator of the syndicated Doonesbury cartoon strip – recently discovered, the difference between money changers and money lenders is not insignificant. Getting it wrong can lead to trouble.
Garry Trudeau: can't tell the difference between change and a loan
Money changers are the guys who cash you up in local currency when you go on overseas holidays. If you play the foreign exchange market, they make the swaps. Useful, hard-working service providers, those money changers!
On the other hand. money lenders are often considered a disreputable lot. It’s not the lending as such that usually annoys people. It’s the interest they charge. Money lenders are loan sharks. If they get big and respectable, they call themselves banks. Bankers have earned themselves a bad name, over the centuries.
Now, here’s a simple exercise. Don’t think too much about it… just give the first answer that comes to mind…. In the famous account from the New Testament, who did Jesus whip out of the temple? Was it money changers – or money lenders?
The Doonesbury cartoon that the Anti-Defamation League considers 'anti-Semitic'
The correct answer, according to most translations of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, is money changer. Abe Foxman of the US Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith believes that matters a lot. Along with a few other Jews who emailed the Doonesbury website to complain, Abe considers the Doonesbury cartoon above is an anti-Semitic slur. Not for the first time in his long career as a professional offense-taker, Abe is demanding an apology.
Abe Foxman: "we are not amused"
Subject: WE AGREE
Author: Abraham H. Foxman
Posting Date: 6/1/09
Location: New York, NY
We agree with the numerous people who are contacting us that Sunday’s Doonesbury misquotes the Bible, maligns Judaism, and promotes a Christian heresy, all within eight panels. It reinforces age-old stereotypes about Judaism that have been the cause of much suffering and pain over the centuries, and which have been rejected by a variety of Christian denominations over the last decades.
Jesus’ concern in the Gospels is with money-changers, not money-lenders. The money-changers converted the coins of the Roman Empire into the currency accepted by the Jerusalem Temple, as money-changers today convert dollars into Euros. To speak of money-lenders harkens back the stereotype of Shylock, when Jews were forced by Christians to engage in usury.
Christian teaching is clear: the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the God of the New Testament. Doonesbury’s Reverend Sloan is guilty of promoting anti-Jewish stereotypes and biblical illiteracy. He owes both Jews and Christians an apology.
Abraham H. Foxman
National Director
Anti-Defamation League
The notion that Christians forced Jews to engage in usury is intriguing. I think I know what Abe means, but he has a peculiar way of putting it. It’s rather like saying Muslims forced medieval Christians to go on crusades to the Holy Land. A bit rich, really.
El Grego's: Christ Driving the Derivative Traders from the Temple
In any event, how nice to see that Abe has now become the self-appointed spokesman, not only for all the world’s offended Jews, but for offended Christians as well.
Abe now takes umbrage on behalf of the entire Judeo-Christian tradition. It must be a heavy cross to bear.
As yet, there are no indications that the Christian masses have actually taken offense at the cartoon by Garry Trudeau. The Vatican is yet to comment. The World Council of Churches remains silent.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild: a money changer who got the whip hand
A pedant might point out to Mr Foxman that moneychanging and moneylending are not exactly mutually exclusive activities. The famous Mayer Amschel Rothschild, for example, combined both and made a very nice business out of it; modern institutions such as Goldman Sachs dabble in foreign exchange and banking.
But no normal person would be so pedantic. When it comes to petty-minded pedantry, Abe Foxman and his ludicrous equivalents around the world face little serious competition.
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A Brief Extract from the OLD Testament
1 Samuel 15
15:2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
15:3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
