To “Egygirl”,
1- With all due respect,I resent your condescending efforts to keep us Copts as Dhimmis. enslaved by the Islamic supremacy.
It should be fair to name things for what they are. If our pope conveyed a message that was construed as hostile towards Israel, then he should know that and apologize for what he said. He should apologize to Israel as a nation and he should not try to appease his muslim masters anymore.
2-I pointed to “Debbie” her wrong generalizations against Copts. I understand that she does not have the whole picture and probably does not know the Copts that well, thus I am forgiving her insensitive title of her brief article.
3-I am speaking for a considerable percentage of Copts that have been set free from the “Dhimmutude mentality”.
4- As Christian Copts we love all people. We love muslims and jews as well.
5- We as Copts freed from the Islamic enslavment declare that we respect the country of Israel and her right to live peacefully among her neighbours.
6- At the end, you seem to be a professional correspondent, and I wonder if you are on the payroll of the Egyptian government?

Emad Guirgius on January 12, 2011 at 10:28 pm

This thought did cross my mind when I was reading about the Copt-Muslim feud some time back (About the Copts harbouring antisemitic attitudes).

It should also be noted that many of the Crusaders held antisemitic views themselves. It is also said that the Knight Templars were the worst in that respect.

UCSPanther on January 13, 2011 at 1:12 am

I don’t understand why Jewish intelligencia hate any devoted Chritians all over the world. I thought that era has ended. I feel sorry for you. I hope you see people for who they are, not bundle them in one pack. I respect Jewish people, despite their obvious hatred to us.

Sherif on February 13, 2011 at 6:21 pm

I will not claim to represent all Jewish people even though I am myself, and I live in a Jewish community. I can only tell you that the majority of Jewish people do not trust the Christian community. I have met very few who express any true hatred. Christians and Jews do not the have best history. Christians, all over the world, persecuted, murdered, and raped us for hundreds of years.

I personally support solidarity between Christians and Jews, but that doesn’t mean I will do so blindly. If a Christian community has a history of antisemitism and it continues to stick to this ugly tradition, I will not show any support for this group of people. If Christians want solidarity between them and Jews, they have to show it with their actions, and condemn this ugly history. In other words, they have to regain our trust. We will support you, but only if you demonstrate that you are not spiritually ugly like many Muslims in the world now.

Roman Isayev on March 9, 2011 at 6:58 am

Mrs. Schlussel, has hit the nail right on the head! The Coptic Church is anti Semitic and will always be. During the time of Gamal abdel Nasser, the Egyptian Jews were hanged, imprisoned, and had their properties confiscated. The Coptics in Egypt would push the Muslims against the Jews and helped to harass the Jews whenever possible. The Coptics today are getting what they deserve! They would always speak about religion with the Jews of Egypt and put them down. The Coptics are hypocrites and two faced. The Muslim at least is direct and stands for something! I do not feel sorry for the Coptics!

Isaac Abadi on May 11, 2011 at 3:29 pm

Goodness me. These are 10,000,000 people who may soon be slaughtered like the Jews were in Germany. Their prejudices do not justify that. Life is paramount. Remember the book of Jonah. Jonah resents having to go save his people’s enemies. God sets him aright. Same thing here. WE MUST DO WHAT WE CAN TO PREVENT 10,000,000 DEATHS. NO ONE DESERVES THAT.

Martial on July 7, 2011 at 10:22 pm

Dear Debbie,

I’m a 30 year old Coptic man. I am here to share a secret with you, that neither me nor my fellow Copts dare discuss in public.

The reason I mentioned my age above is to show you that I belong to a younger generation who were never part of any wars with Israel

or the anti-Israel rhetoric of the past. What my generation knows about Israel and Israeli Jews revolves around a few basic ideas:

1. A never-ending conflict with Palestinians
2. A very advanced and free society under a democractic government that we regard with much respect (secretly, of course)
3. Plenty of anti-semitic stereotypes that our fellow Muslim Egyptians share with us every day in school, at work, or in the media,

but we take them with a grain of salt, seeing that Islamic culture is often seen as “unfriendly” towards other cultures from Western

Christians or Hindu Indians.
4. Israel is iron-fisted and sometimes brutal if necessary to defend her own citizens against Palestinan terrorists.

I will not comment on any extracted religious anti-semitic texts that were written hundreds of years ago, as most of Christendom till

the 20th century was hostile towards Jews.

Regarding your mention of anti-Jewish statements by Coptic bishops and priests. Their writings on Jews reflect purely religious

opinions from a biblical viewpoint about the New Testament Jews not today’s Jews. I realize by Western standards, no longer an

American or European pastor/bishop would ever get away with such criticism of Jews even if it falls under “traditional” Christian

thinking. That is bound to change in time with younger priesthood.

Sometimes, our priests would mindlessly go as far as to condemn today’s Jews based on their sentence of Christ to cruxifiction, as was

the case in most of Western history. But repeating those statements from ancient writings by men of religion does not mean much for

the common Coptic man and woman and their views on the brilliantly successful Jews in many fields including technology, business or

entertainment. Once you step out of the Church, it’s a different outlook, especially when it comes to antagonizing a whole

nation/community that has proved to be more successful in many ways than all its Middle Eastern neighbors.

Two generations ago, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was mainly about politics and national sovereignty. Over the past fews decades,

religious hatred has creeped into the conflict making it much more complicated. And as the conflict became religious (Islamic), the

more alienated we are with that conflict, which is seen by us as two foriegn nations fighting.

Even with the most harsh Coptic criticism of any sort, the old convention is the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and with the scourge

of Islamic terrorism taking its toll globally, we are increasingly viewing Jews and Israel favorably. The more the Palestian conflict

is becoming Quran-based and calls for action are coming out of mosques, the more we feel we’re not a part of that conflict.

Besides having not fought a war against Israel, my generation of Copts is also not cultured to hate Jews. We use common sense to

differentiate between Jews of the Old Testament and today’s Jews who established a very prosperous country or Jews around the world.

To summarise, outside of Church teachings, Copts, most of us, admire Israel. We dare not share this with our good Muslim friends,

neighbors or coworkers, but we do admire Israel. We admire Jews who thrived despite all the hardships and persecution. As ironic as

this may seem, with the revival in Islamic fundamentalism over the past decade, many open-minded Coptic Christians see Jews as

comrades in the face of the common enemy of Islamism.

I hope that brings light to some confusion about how the Coptic minority view Jews.

My heart will continue to shed many tears over any victom of terror, whether they’re Copts, Jews or Muslims, regardless of their faith

or lack thereof.

Anonymous Copt

Coptic Man (Anonymous) on July 12, 2011 at 8:13 pm

Dear Debbie,

I’m a 30 year old Coptic man. I am here to share a secret with you, that neither me nor my fellow Copts dare discuss in public.

The reason I mentioned my age above is to show you that I belong to a younger generation who were never part of any wars with Israel or the anti-Israel rhetoric of the past. What my generation knows about Israel and Israeli Jews revolves around a few basic ideas:

1. A never-ending conflict with Palestinians
2. A very advanced and free society under a democractic government that we regard with much respect (secretly, of course)
3. Plenty of anti-semitic stereotypes that our fellow Muslim Egyptians share with us every day in school, at work, or in the media, but we take them with a grain of salt, seeing that Islamic culture is often seen as “unfriendly” towards other cultures from Western Christians or Hindu Indians.
4. Israel is iron-fisted and sometimes brutal if necessary to defend her own citizens against Palestinan terrorists.

I will not comment on any extracted religious anti-semitic texts that were written hundreds of years ago, as most of Christendom till the 20th century was hostile towards Jews.

Regarding your mention of anti-Jewish statements by Coptic bishops and priests. Their writings on Jews reflect purely religious opinions from a biblical viewpoint about the New Testament Jews not today’s Jews. I realize by Western standards, no longer an American or European pastor/bishop would ever get away with such criticism of Jews even if it falls under “traditional” Christian thinking. That is bound to change in time with younger priesthood.

Sometimes, our priests would mindlessly go as far as to condemn today’s Jews based on their sentence of Christ to cruxifiction, as was the case in most of Western history. But repeating those statements from ancient writings by men of religion does not mean much for the common Coptic man and woman and their views on the brilliantly successful Jews in many fields including technology, business or entertainment. Once you step out of the Church, it’s a different outlook, especially when it comes to antagonizing a whole nation/community that has proved to be more successful in many ways than all its Middle Eastern neighbors.

Two generations ago, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was mainly about politics and national sovereignty. Over the past fews decades, religious hatred has creeped into the conflict making it much more complicated. And as the conflict became religious (Islamic), the more alienated we are with that conflict, which is seen by us as two foriegn nations fighting.

Even with the most harsh Coptic criticism of any sort, the old convention is the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and with the scourge of Islamic terrorism taking its toll globally, we are increasingly viewing Jews and Israel favorably. The more the Palestian conflict is becoming Quran-based and calls for action are coming out of mosques, the more we feel we’re not a part of that conflict.

Besides having not fought a war against Israel, my generation of Copts is also not cultured to hate Jews. We use common sense to differentiate between Jews of the Old Testament and today’s Jews who established a very prosperous country or Jews around the world.

To summarise, outside of Church teachings, Copts, most of us, admire Israel. We dare not share this with our good Muslim friends, neighbors or coworkers, but we do admire Israel. We admire Jews who thrived despite all the hardships and persecution. As ironic as this may seem, with the revival in Islamic fundamentalism over the past decade, many open-minded Coptic Christians see Jews as comrades in the face of the common enemy of Islamism.

I hope that brings light to some confusion about how the Coptic minority view Jews.

My heart will continue to shed many tears over any victom of terror, whether they’re Copts, Jews or Muslims, regardless of their faith or lack thereof.

Anonymous Copt

Coptic Man (Anonymous) on July 12, 2011 at 8:14 pm

All I see here is a bunch of whining about Anti-Semitism. Jews seem to turn every opportunity possible into a crying fest about anti-semitism and the holocaust. I will be crying no tears for you, Jew. That is a promise. God bless the Coptic Pope Shenouda.

Michael on July 27, 2011 at 2:19 pm

Hi, thank you for giving your oponion so freely, and to solve the misunderstanding we have to be honest and raise the issues openly. I am a coptic christian who would like to give his opnion on the issue freely and honestly. We as christians of the middle east suffer from the brain wash that the muslim media does to the citizens of that area. We as christians do not blame the jews for killing Jesus Christ, but we embrace that because without that we as christians we wouldn’t have been granted salvation, and in the bible Jesus Christ said ” Forgive them Father for they do not know what they are doing,” and if Jesus Christ didn’t put blame on them we his followers can’t blame any Jew for that action, and defently we can’t blame the jews of today for something that happened 2000 yrs ago. As for the Pope Shenoda he did say to the coptic christians not to visit Jeruslem, he did so to protect the christians in Egypt. If a christian has an Isreali visa in their passport he/ she will be murdered and called a traitor to the country and the Egyptian governement will call all christians as traitors and perscute them even more. To avoid problems, the Pope Shenouda said to all coptics of Egypt not to go to Isreal. I am not sure about the other statments of the Pope and if he did say that, he is not right. And not to mention, the Egyptian newspaper and media lie all the time and I wouldn’t be surprised that they would have made these statments up.

Also, Christian coptics as any nation or people they are divided, some of us think that to have a democratic egypt we will need to work with the Egyptian muslims aganist the injustice. Another group of coptic Christians who are educated and understand the muslims we believe that a muslim will kill, christians, jews and even the muslim that disagree with him and they can’t be trusted. But unfortuanlty most of Egyptians are not educated and christians especially are golabal and they believe the lieing islamist media of Egypt. And I do not know if you have dealt with muslims, muslims are the best decivers they lie and decieve and unfortuantly some coptic christians believe their lies.

I am a coptic christian who live outside of Egypt, so I am free from the brain wash of the islamic Egyptian media that all day long play hate messages aganist the Jews. I as a coptic christian believe that Isreal is the only democratic country in the middle east and I wish all the middle east would become like Isreal. And as a jew I think it is good to side with the christians instead of the muslims, and the main reason is that a muslim will go out of his way to kill a jewish person, but the worst a christian will do if he has hate for the jews is say that the jews killed Jesus Christ, and that is all he can do. So even if you want to chose the lesser evil the lesser evil is the christian. I am sure you have seen many middle eastern christian support isreal and the jews that is because they live in a free country that does not have a lying hating jew media. To be fair you must understand that christians in that region wake up to messages to hate the jewish people, and that message plays 24/7. And most of us christians of the middle east have not met a jewish person, we do not know the jewish history, we are isolated from the jewish people so obviously you will see some christians do not feel warm towards the jewish people. But again I a coptic christian in the west believe that the coptic christians freedom will first come from God, then from the Jewish people in and out of Isreal and the christian people of the free west. Trust me the educated Coptic Christians study and use Isreal as an example to prove to the chrisitans of the middle east that we can have our own country like Isreal. And do not forget that South Sudan the christians who were persecuted by the muslims when they recieved their independence they went to Isreal and now they have Isreali bases inside of South Sudan. So if you help the Coptic Christians break free from the brain wash of the islamist hating jews media and you will have a friend in the hating jews middle east region. Thank you for your opnion and I wish the best for you and I hope that I have changed your opnion or atleast make you rethink your view. Thank you and I hope to hear a reply. God bless you.

coptic on January 22, 2012 at 12:58 am

To Roman Isayev, yes well, as a Christian should not fully trust Jews. Jews have been merrily doing their very best to topple Christian/Gentile/Western civilizations for hundreds upon hundreds of years (and running – turn on the Jewish run media – television, print, movies, music, etc, for this – take a look at the Jewish run education system also). I used to think of a Jew 100% as a brother/sister/ally, no longer, Jews have changed my mind on this, Jews (as usual) have done this to themselves.

Gregory on March 15, 2012 at 1:38 pm

Go make a research about the relationship between Arabs and Israelis , and find out how they like each other so much, pss. go look up what Zionism really means and how it is NOT the same as Judaism, and then go back to the Pope of Egypt’s quote and read it again. I dont get it, you guys dig for the nearest opportunity to show how the world hates you and persecutes you. “Nothing is more anti-Semitic than Zionism.”

People's on March 17, 2012 at 2:33 pm

The question is whether or not we believe in the word of G-d and are truly born again or not. It does not matter how much one may be religious or talk about Jesus/Yeshua. Do we have a relationship with Jesus/Yeshua or just talk about him and show ignorance of the scriptures.

To blame the Jews for Yeshua’s death shows ignorance of the scriptures. Luke chapter 4 verses 29 and 30 show that Yeshua was always able to slip away from those who were trying to kill him. Yeshua gave his life willingly as a ransom for all of us.

Larry on May 27, 2012 at 9:58 pm

Your commentary reveals that you have no understanding of the situation for Copts in Egypt.

If you have any sources within the intelligence community, use them. If not, shut up.

As Copts is a persecuted minority, what they are saying publicly does not reflect neither their real theology and/or political stance.

Please watch the follow video for background information. Especially 23 min and on-wards specifically targets the misconceptions in your commment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVWnfdG1K0k

You are arrogant, but that is OK. You are intelligent. But I am more intelligent than you are, so don’t give me any crap or just dismiss me.

ScandinavianDude on March 10, 2013 at 9:36 pm

i say to the coptics what goes around comes around or from the bible upon your head will fall your own evil

jeff isreal on June 24, 2013 at 11:32 pm

it looks like the coptic christains are going the jews wentin the 30s and 40s no wan ts to let them into thier country yet they are still anti semetic the iggnorance of europe is back to supporting anti semitism these countries in the very near future will find israelis refusing to buy their products and with arab nation having no middle class india and chinia not buying their bpoducts the euro will find itself deeper in debt israeli are going to put up europes hate and anti semtic ways always believeing lies if i were a businessman i would write europe off as complete loss of the present and future and than they do not know whats right and wrong they should be very worried about souls going to heaven if i have anything to say about i will remind god of their hate

jeff isreal on July 1, 2013 at 10:04 am

what the palistineans really wamt is to remain in israel they do not want a private state for the following reasons they would loose their freedon of speech and the freedoms they have in israel they would not be able to earn a decent living they want no part of a seperate state of course they are scared to toll because of what would happen to them in they want the world to go away and THEY ARE PROTECTED from the TERRORIST BY THE ISRAEL GOVERNMENT i understand if they are attacked or harmed any way ISRAEL WILL RETALIATE WITH VENGENCE ON THEIR ATTACKERS

jeff isreal on July 1, 2013 at 10:21 am

Copts are not Christian. They are Mary worshipping pagans. The pivotal doctrine of Christianity is “Justification by Faith Alone without the Works of the Law”. All who reject this Doctrine (ie. Copts, Catholics and Orthodox) are NOT Christian.

Baptist on July 24, 2013 at 3:09 am

I am a 45 year old Copt and I certainly have seen my fair share of Coptic antisemitism. But things are never totally black and white. First of all there are “good Copts” who feel alienated by all this religious and political hatred. Personally, I have always believed Jews to be ambassadors from God – “a light unto the nations”. In fact if you really want to know I’m in the process right now of converting to Judaism.

I believe it is a basic Jewish trait to seek peace in difficult times and to show restraint when others simply are unable to. What a wonderful light (God’s light) that shines from the Jewish people!

aldo on December 18, 2013 at 7:51 pm

I am half Copt and my Egyptian family likes Jews and I have been taught that Jesus was Jewish and without Jews there would be no Bible… I met some though, to my surprise, who attacked my defense with the Jews killed Christ-thing. I always tell myself, it is never “the”, it is always some, in any case, it is never all of one kind. Hope you also don’t throw all Copts in one pot. About pope Shenouda, I want to say, you have no idea under what pressure the Copts are, since the Islam rules Egypt. The hidden fear…forces the Christian clerics to talk like this frequently, cause I tell you I know Egypt and talk with many Muslims, many of them have that cliché or belief that most Copts had Jewish backgrounds and “hide” with being Christians now. I guess the clerics want just assure the survival od the few left…

Best regards

Claudia on December 14, 2014 at 2:02 pm

Reality put all men together. Human concepts are can be irrational and are limited.
Religious, ethnic hatred and competition exist. Ponder the question as to the purpose this serves!
Remain calm, man is a small part of existence and pour actions and beliefs have small consequences in the scheme of God.

George Plechaty,MD on December 30, 2017 at 4:11 pm