ITALY'S STRANGELY ANTI-SEMITIC CELEBRATION

It turns out some Italians, overly excited by Italy's World Cup victory, decided to paint a few swastikas on the walls of Rome's ancient Jewish cemetery. I have yet to grasp the connection between winning the World Cup and vandalizing old Jewish graves (as if Jews in general represented a major football threat to the Azzurri), but apparently there exists one.

Maybe they think that Jews are behind the French team's prowess on the field - in which case they are wrong at least twice. First, because the French star and captain (Zidane) is Muslim, and Frank Ribéry is a Muslim convert. And second, because France does not have a particularly strong history of support for and tolerance of Jews. If in doubt, one can always remember the following: the Dreyfus Affair, Vichy France, and more recently the kidnapping and murder of Ilan Halimi.

But the Italians went all out: the Roman Jewish cemetery incident happened almost at the same time an Italian former minister decided to announce that the French squad was comprised of "Negroes, communists and Moslems". It seems that we Jews are in good company in Italy...