<p>Chris Rock, the comedian, has a vivid way of describing anti-Semitism as a society's reaction to what ails it: "That train's never late."</p><p>Too true. Scapegoating, originating inthe Biblical Jewish rite for the expiation of sin, has been for millennia turned against the people who ritualized it. No livestock required. In pogrom after pogrom, the role of the goat was played byactual Jews. Because when things go wrong, someone must be blamed -- and we blame what and whom we most fear and mistrust, and we fear and mistrust what we least understand.</p><p>Bigotry andignorance. Those trains never stop running. Whenever a society is confronted with evil, or just plain tragedy, the handwringing begins in earnest. There must be a deeper, more sinister, morepernicious explanation. When a deranged kid, armed to the teeth, murders two classrooms full of children, it can't simply be about Americans' near universal access to unlimited quantitiesof firearms and ammunition. Something else must be making lunatics kill.</p><p>The Jews? Tempting, tempting. But, no -- it must be a force even more ubiquitous and immoral and malign.</p><p><a href="http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/190453/messaging-the-shooter.html">Keep reading...</a></p>