Going, Going...

Professional movie reviewers of the new German Film Postal - generally agreeing that it is of abysmal taste- 'The best we come hope for is to forget' and so forth, are perhaps lacking a crucial bit of information, indeed of general culture. The expression «going postal» actually means something. It is a reference to serial killing, as a result of the fact that postal workers (fired postal workers) have been known to go on murderous rampages at their ex-place of employment. This phenomenon is documented on Wikipedia. Why should this phenomenon be the case? Now there is a question worthy of being forgotten, and I am planning to.

Murderous rages are not new. The classical historian Suetonius informs us of the expulsion of Jews from Rome in the following terms: "since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, Claudius expelled them from Rome" a phrase understood to mean that the emergence of Christianity -at this point, 49A.D.- as a sect among the Jewish population of Rome led to a lot of noisy in-fighting. The whole lot were asked to leave. The Jewish religion had always been very progressive, and from ancient times non-Jewish followers were accepted so long as they followed Noah's laws prescribing: Idolatry, Murder, Theft, Sexual Promiscuity, Blasphemy, Cruelty to Animals (Do not eat flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive) and the requirement to have just Laws. But things got worse in Jerusalem where Rome wanted to impose it's own cult. The ensuing destruction of Jerusalem in 73 A.D. led to a siege that decimated 600 000 people, all of whom preferred death to surrender and the destruction of the Temple. Intolerance!

Ashkernazi (German) Jews make up some 80% of the current world Jewish population, but religious tolerance issues are at the fore yet in the Middle East. Maybe a little laughter at suicide bomber jokes isn't such a bad thing after all...