Did Benjamin Franklin say it in 1934?

Submitted by jennifer solis (United States), May 13, 2008 at 18:59

Hello sTs,

You write, "Check out what Benjamin Franklin said about the Jews [while] addressing the constitution convention in 1789".

How predictable.

You are refering to what is widely known as "The Franklin Forgery", an anti-Semitic speech falsly attributed to Benjamin Franklin. It first appeared in 1934 in the pages of William Dudly Pelly's pro-Nazi weekly magazine, Liberation. Along with it's linguistic anachronisms, lack of cross-reference support, and one-hundred forty year "absence", Benjamin Franklin's collective writtings surely would have corroborated to some extent such anti-Semitic view; none do.

Not surprisingly, "The Franklin Forgery" has found widening acceptance on anti-Semitic websites, as well as in Muslim and Arab media. Osama Bin Laden used it briefly in his November 2002 "Letter to the American People".

Benjamin Franklin was, in fact, a friend to the Jews of 18th-century America, and contributed toward the building of Philadelphia's first permanent synagogue.

http://www.nmajh.org/weblog/press/2005/12/benjamin-franklin-and-religious.html

With regards to the word "Semitic" - you are accurate. While the term "anti-Semitism" is most often defined as opposition to, prejudice against, or intolerance of the Jewish people, the term "Semite" is descriptive of much more. Jews are but one branch of the Semitic peoples, which include the ancient Assyrians, Midianites, Chaldeans, Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, as well as the present Arabs, Syrians, Armenians, a considerable portion of the people of Ethiopia, and of the Middle East in general.

Most understand, however, anti-Semitism to be the terrible evil of anti-Jewish sentiment and action which has plagued history.

Does the Qur'an ever state Allah will bless those who bless the Jew? And Allah will curse those who curse the Jew?

I guess that's one "prophecy" the Qur'an missed out on.

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