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How Gullible Is Christopher Hitchens?

He's gullible enough to believe that Orthodox Jews have sex only through a hole in the sheet, and gullible enough to repeat that myth in his latest book. Ok, ok, a lot of people fell for this one, including Hitchens' editors, reviewers, Larry David, and me. But we're not Christopher Hitchens, and we didn't write The Missionary Position: Mother Theresa in Theory and Practice. Mark Oppenheimer blogs:

As a lie, it's not as bad as the blood libel, but it's not so far from the old tales of sexual perversion in Catholic monasteries and convents -- it's a lie meant to discredit a whole people by making them seem sexually bizarre and far outside decent society.

One possible derivation of the urban legend:

Seeing Jews in religious neighborhoods hanging their "talitot katan" out to dry. This poncho-like garment is about two feet by four feet, has a fringe on each corner, and a hole in the center for the wearer's head, and it looks somewhat like a small sheet with a hole, and many people have vivid and warped imaginations.

Hey Hitch! Did you know "gullible" isn't in Wikipedia?

Posted by April Rabkin on 05/16/07 at 2:14 PM | Comments (0) | Email | Print

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