When Ms. Freeman first said that there was a quote by Benjamin Franklin that displayed these deeply resonated feelings of anti-Semitism, I was not that surprised. To me, the supposed "founding fathers" or what I like to call them "the thieving fathers" have always been these racist, wooden toothed, wig wearing hypocrites. But as I looked further into the ADL.org site, I began to realize that the quotes were most likely fabricated, but that does not retract any part of the statement I made earlier. (I meant that!)
Pelley's use of these comments, was a good tactic. Often, the thoughts and philosophies that people build as there own are greatly influenced by role models and historical and cultural icons. In the cased on many American, as well as many Europeans, who would be a better role model than Benjamin Franklin.

I think propagandas like these definitely have killed many of these Jews because many people were thinking that these Jews deserve to die since even our Founding Fathers believe they should too. Propaganda blindfold the world and what the people can only do is trust that person who is leading them. It's scary. Also I think propaganda made people deny that the Holocaust happened because if people can buy into that Jews should be killed, then they can also buy into that the Holocaust never happened. - Secretme

I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. I think that we have seen a lot of evidence of this with both the holocaust as well as countless incidents of discrimination. I don't necessarily think that it was solely propaganda that contributed to the atrocities surrounding the Holocaust, no doubt it played a significant role, but I think that it assisted an already deeply resonated these feeling of hate. Revelations like William Dudley Pelley's, even if false, will give people that extra push to commit there internal hate into this physical and physiological evil.

I agree - it almost sounds like a Johnathan Swift "Eat Your Babies, Ireland!" type of thing...

When reading this, I was most appalled by some of the more simple statements. These were intended to be the most effective, and they definitely were the scariest:
-"The menace, gentleman, is the Jews."
-"...they have lowered its [the country's] moral tone."
-"They are vampires, and vampires do not live on vampires."
-"We Americans..."

The Introduction to The Franklin "Prophecy" on the ADL site says "Today, more than sixty-five years after it was manufactured, the "Prophecy" it is still circulating, a staple of anti-Semitic propaganda. It can be found on a number of web sites maintained by haters and hate-groups. The article is, therefore, still timely and instructive".
... and today in class, Ms. Freeman mentioned the free speech dilemma on this issue. Referring back to our discussions on the StormFront/Hate websites, I think free speech is a very important right; however, I do not think it is apropriate when it is the main cause of destruction. And, in this case, if it IS on these hate sites, it might very well be the cause...

The date of the Prophecy shown on Jew Watch is 1787, however on the ADL site, it says it was published in 1930. The fact that this was written circa Nazi Germany is very important. Obviously this was meant to influence and can be categorized with the anti-semitic propaganda floating around Europe during this time.

Looking around the ADL website...
Hate music has become an important source of income for white supremacists.
This cartoon (off of Jews for Jesus)--> http://www.adl.org/images/jfj2.gif , which is kind of funny, just because of the 3 random "likes" of the Jews - Pastrami, Spielburg, and Jesus.
17 Percent of Americans Hold "Hardcore" Anti-Semitic Beliefs.
and...
I agree - I had no clue that Hispanics and African Americans were the top anti-semitic people. Who knows anymore...

Responses!
 

Of course everyone is flawed; all I meant was that more often than not, it is the positive aspects of what they did that is more well known rather than the negative. Especially because Boston is such an historical city and all, and we're proud of our patriots, we try to keep under wraps that some of them may have supported slavery or were anti-Semitic. If there were things negative things about Benjamin Franklin that we didn't know, I wouldn't have been surprised. – popsicle616

Hmm ok, fair enough.

Why do we care so much? We care because as a whole, I think Americans have a sense of pride of how the USA was founded, how we live in a country that is governed by the people (so we think). How we were able to fight against people who were like bullies and we finally stood up for ourselves. We'd like to think the people who made all of this happen were perfect, obviously not, but like you said we all have our flaws. But it is the fact that these flaws seem to be kinda big ones. We have a man creating one of the most famous written documents that says "all men are created equal" and we find out we owned slaves and actually had a mistress who was a slave. We have one of the most influential men in American history who appears to be anti-sematic. It is a big deal when the people we look up to have such big flaws. What if you lived in a newly formed country and found out that your leader openly hates and dicriminates all Christians? Wouldn't you expect more from the peolpe that are shaping foreign opinion about your country and how it is perceived by others? – pugdiddy05

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from - everything that you say is very true. But there's something about our anti-establishment view of the Founding Fathers that seems to be a bit misguided. As you yourself say, these flaws look like really big ones. I think the problem is that we fail to look at it in the perspective of their own time. Of course, today, we see slavery as a huge wrong - but back when Jefferson was writing the Declaration, the people who saw it as that were considered radicals. I just feel like we blow it out of perspective a bit. It's not as if it diminishes the magnitude of what they did accomplish, is it?

Benjamin Franklin
 

Although once I got to the first site it seemed to be a little extreme, I assumed it to be true. I was pretty shocked when I went to the second website only to find that what I had just read in the first one was completely false. However, I found out that the Franklin Prophecy was first published in February, 1934, in William Dudley Pelley’s publication, Liberation, even though Benjamin Franklin was long dead by then. This prophecy was copied and put all over public places, such as buses. It eventually reached Italy and Germany and even became a part of the Nazi bible. In my opinion, the reason for the spread of this myth was to get more people to hate Jews. By taking such a great figure like Benjamin Franklin and making him hate Jews, the people who started the myth were sure that other people would soon join them in hating Jews.

While looking through the site, I realized that there have been many myths created about Jews. I think that they should stop, and people should start making their own judgements and not have people tell them what to think.

As a lot of other people have said, I was completely ready to believe that Franklin had made this "prophecy". There's always more dirt to be found on the founding fathers. I was very relieved to find out it was a forgery (couldn't bear for another one of my idols to be smashed!), even though it's also a bit disturbing. The website that the Franklin Prophecy was on didn't suprise me, or even really disturb me that much. We all know that there's crazy stuff on the internet, and forgeries flying around all the time.

What did disturb me were the cold, hard facts on the Anti-Defamation League website. I tend to think of anti-Semitism as being either a nazi type thing, or as just another form of everyday racism. It's hard to think that racism directed so precisely and virulently towards Jews has persisted for so very long. I do know some people (more lovely family members) who might be described as anti-Semitic, but I tend to think of them as just your garden-variety racists. Their hostility and prejudices towards Jews don't seem to be any more serious or entrenched than those towards, say blacks. Reading the two websites tonight made me realize one of the things unique to anti-semitism: its unbelievable persistance. I mean, we have basically 2000 years of anti-semitism here, all over the world. I don't think any other prejudice is quite so widespread.

This persistance of anti-semitism is interesting to think about in light of the lengthy life of the Franklin Prophecy. This document pretended to be from 1787...that would have really been an example of the persistence of anti-Semitism. But it was actually a forgery from the 1930s. Still, from the 1930s to today is still quite a long time for a forgery to persist, especially when it has been repeatedly disproven. Why do the same accusations and even the exact same words keep getting thrown at Jews? I don't know what accounts for it.

Finally, I wanted to address the topic of the percentages of Americans who are anti-Semitic. Several people remarked on the fact that African-Americans and Hispanics are proportionally more anti-Semitic than Caucasians. I'm going with my general theory that economics can explain everything: that same study also showed that there were few college students or professors harboring anti-Semitic sentiments. I believe that education levels and socio-economic status could account for the discrepancies between hispanics and blacks and the general population. It would be interesting to actually see a study controlling for those factors.

hmmm
 

The Prophecy was first published in the 1930s by anti-Semitics in a sort of chain letter mass mailing. It was adopted by Nazi Germany and the Fascists in Italy. I think the reason for the spread of this information would be as propaganda to spread anti-semitic views. When people really want to get their point across to a large audience it makes sense to publish work to propangandize their beliefs. By using Ben Franklin- a well known, respected historical figure as creator of the Prophecy, it made the message of the document all that more believable-- and to most modern day readers, all the more astounding.
I focused mostly on the adl.org site, and wondered about how they had developed some of the statistics they came up with, like the one cited by iliketowrite about which ethnic group is most anti-semitic?! But if this study is valid, i definetelyt agree with what dorchester7 had to say about this, that economics plays a big role.
In our recent studies of the Holocaust, I always return to the same question-- How did this all happen? How did people stand by and watch this? And thus it is always shocking to me to see a continuation of anti-semitism today, as is evident in articles on the ADL site.
I think propagandas like these definitely have killed many of these Jews because many people were thinking that these Jews deserve to die since even our Founding Fathers believe they should too. Propaganda blindfold the world and what the people can only do is trust that person who is leading them. It's scary. Also I think propaganda made people deny that the Holocaust happened because if people can buy into that Jews should be killed, then they can also buy into that the Holocaust never happened. - SecretmeLike aliyah, I totally agree with what secretme had to say about this. This sort of propaganda is seen throughout history in efforts to subordinate a partiular ethnic/ relgiious group. It generally gives people the extra boost, the extra affirmation that it is okay to hate others- to commit atrocities.
It was interesting for me to see how close to home some of these occurrences are taking place. In Worcester, Massachusetts, more than 120 gravestones were overturned in three separate attacks on the Hebrew Cemetery of Auburn. I've never considered Boston as an anti-semitic city, any more than i'd considered Boston a racist city... But maybe that's just because I've never felt the blunt of that discrimination?!

“Although once I got to the first site it seemed to be a little extreme, I assumed it to be true. I was pretty shocked when I went to the second website only to find that what I had just read in the first one was completely false." - DJDeck33

If I hadn’t been clued in to the true nature of Ben Franklin’s “Prophecy” before I read it, I might have accepted it as truth too, despite the fishy-sounding style and diction of the writing (it sounded somehow different from other 18th-century writings that I’ve read, probably because it wasn’t written in the 18th century). I admit, I conduct extensive research online on a daily basis, and I rarely question the authenticity of what I see unless it’s blatantly suspicious. I guess that’s why the Internet is such a great medium for hate groups to spread their propaganda—it’s convenient and accessible, and people often forget that anyone can make a website and that the Internet isn’t regulated for fraud and libel the way books are, meaning that half the stuff I read online could be false and I wouldn’t even know it.

So if I were actually researching Ben Franklin’s take on Jews for history class and I stumbled across this page only briefly, I might never have realized that this “Prophecy” was actually invented in the 1930s by William Dudley Pelley and disseminated by anti-Semitic groups. They did it probably because Benjamin Franklin is such a highly esteemed historical figure who is generally thought of as just-minded and extremely intelligent. Patriotic Americans might hear this ‘prophecy’ and think, “hey, if even Ben Franklin believed this about Jews, it must be true!”

I first explored the Jew Watch site a little, which was very interesting. Apparently, atheism, egalitarianism, and secular humanism are all Jewish religions, and the author even includes Christianity as a religion “corrupted” by Jews. It seems like the website is attacking not only Jews, but also all kinds of people with liberal views. What an interesting association.

I was astonished by the statistics on anti-Semitism on the ADL page (17% of Americans are strongly anti-Semitic, and the percentage is much higher among Hispanics and African-Americans). I had no idea that anti-Semitism is so prevalent in this country, and particularly among minority groups. I guess I’ve always seen anti-Semitism in connection with “white” Europeans—like the German Nazis—and never considered that African-Americans would hate Jews as well. Anti-Semitism is everywhere!

Like some others, I was also attracted to the “Project Schoolyard USA” link on the ADL page. I then read the article on hate music groups, and saw quite a long list of these bands, which exist in at least 35 countries in the Western world. That’s very disturbing, because music is such a profound force in teenage culture. I went on livejournal.com (a popular blog site) to see if there were actually any fans of white power bands, and there were quite a few. Some of them did not seem like rah-rah white supremacy people either; they could possibly simply be music enthusiasts who might now be influenced by racist (and anti-Semitist) ideas. So even though the ADL statistics say that the younger generations tend to be less anti-Semitic, we know of forces that are very determined to change that.

Benjamin Franklin and Anti-Semitism
 

The "Prophecy" was written in 1934 which is pretty recent when you think about it. While reading the document you can obviously see that it had to have been modern. The first thing that came into my head was that this thing has to be a lie because the first thing that hit me was that it casually mentioned 200 years, as if we weren't going to notice it. I thought that's funny how would Benjamin Franklin automatically assume that 200 years later things like this would be happening, why not 50, 30, or 90, but 200 that just seems too weird for it to be a coincidence, I don't believe in coincidences anyways.

The document was spread around by a series of chain letters, which is a pretty efficient way of getting your point across. Although knowing how people hate chain letters I don't understand why you'd keep sending them, the same goes for today via e-mail. It's just a waste of time why not throw it away, but of course if it has Benjamin Franklin's name on it, it'll get all the publicity it needs, which is pretty clever.

Benjamin Franklin has always been revered for his works, so why wouldn't people look at the document and think hmmmmm, maybe he has a point, but of course if you read it carefully there are places where the author slips up and uses modern terms, ones associated with the 20th century.

You heard it here first, folks...
 

...that's right, the Founding Fathers are now nothing more than 'racist, wooden toothed, wig wearing hypocrites.' Wow.

When Ms. Freeman first said that there was a quote by Benjamin Franklin that displayed these deeply resonated feelings of anti-Semitism, I was not that surprised. To me, the supposed "founding fathers" or what I like to call them "the thieving fathers" have always been these racist, wooden toothed, wig wearing hypocrites. But as I looked further into the ADL.org site, I began to realize that the quotes were most likely fabricated, but that does not retract any part of the statement I made earlier. (I meant that!)
Pelley's use of these comments, was a good tactic. Often, the thoughts and philosophies that people build as there own are greatly influenced by role models and historical and cultural icons. In the cased on many American, as well as many Europeans, who would be a better role model than Benjamin Franklin. - aliyah01

Wow, aliyah, sounds like you have some real issues with people who have to wear wooden teeth, or are ashamed of going bald and have to wear wigs to cover it.

I jest, I jest. But seriously, I find this statement... well, a little outrageous. While I can see where you're coming from, do you find most historical figures this... I dunno, one-dimensional? Even if the 'founding thieves' were 'wig-wearing hypocrites,' does that mean that the things that they accomplished - the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, winning the Revolution - actually never happened? Yeah, it's true that they weren't perfect human beings, by a long shot - none of us are - but they certainly had a lot of admirable qualities. Why else would we look up to them in the way we do today? It takes, to say the least, some good stuff up in the noggin to start a country.

To put this another way, or at least to use another example - Ms. Freeman told us about Wagner's The Ride of the Valkyries in class the other day, and showed us some evidence that Wagner was actually anti-semitic. Does that, however, reduce his genius as a composer? How do we know that he was not in other respects a mostly admirable composer? Henry Ford, as we now all know well, was and anti-semitic weird-ass wacko. However, while this certainly gives us a good reason to demote him on our mental celebrity food chain, does it diminish the fact that he was able to become something of a business mogul?

Wagner was an anti-semite, Ford a weirdo, and the Founding Fathers were 'wig-wearing hypocrites,' but those aren't the only facets of their personalities that we should be looking at: for Wagner, we should look at the music first and foremost, for example.

Also, I don't think any of the Founding Fathers came out and published anything as totally, blisteringly terrible as Ford's publishing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or Wagner's thing that we read, with the obvious exception of Jefferson's - what was it, a letter? And even that wasn't nearly as wide-circulation as things like Ford's magazine.

In conclusion, there's more to this than just one thing!