See “Ahmadinejad and Munich Nostalgia” at http://www.mistermoleman.com.

I strongly suspect that Andrew Bostom has done so at great financial cost. Most non-fiction books are perceived by authors as lost leader products. They normally hope to earn tenure or gain half way lucrative speaking engagements. It is outrageous that presently few Islamic studies professionals are willing to direct confront the Muslim nihilist threat. Thank God that Dr. Bostom is willing to fill the void.

Christendom has nothing to be proud of, about the way it has treated the Jews to whom it owes, well, everything; but at least one can say that had Christians consistently sought to obey *the* command, which is central to their scriptures, to love one’s neighbour and yes, even one’s perceived enemy, the persecutions would not have happened.

Whereas the Muslim scriptures explicitly *command* the cruel treatment – ‘humiliation’ – of non-Muslims. I too am haunted by the story of Sol Hachuel.

My own thought is that if someone like Stephen Sondheim were brave enough to rise to the challenge, Sol’s story would make a powerfully dramatic – and emotionally wrenching – chamber opera. Can anyone think of any other contemporary composer (preferably Jewish), under whose nose one could wave Bostom’s essay telling Sol’s story?

I think by the time the audience arrived at the moment where – facing the executioner with his scimitar, and surrounded by an ululating, hysterical, hate-crazed Muslim mob in 19th century Morocco – Sol chants the Shema Yisroel, there would not be a dry eye in the house.

Not only should Bostom’s “Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism” – or at least its ‘Part One’ – be on the desk of every elected representative in the entire Western world; it also needs to be in the library of every – and I mean, every – theological college of every variety of Christian, and in the library of every yeshiva or rabbinic training college. If every aspiring priest, pastor or minister, and every rabbi-in-training, were to read it, and grasp the unpleasant facts it contains, in the course of their first year of training, we might be spared some of the more egregious follies displayed by our religious leaders in their shockingly naive ‘dialogues’ with Muslims.

Norman