The Jews ( Yehudim ), also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos is equal to those born into it, have been absorbed into the Jewish people throughout the millennia.

In Jewish tradition, Jewish ancestry is traced to the Biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the second millennium BCE. The Jews currently enjoy political autonomy in the State of Israel, an independent state which is located in their national homeland, the Land of Israel. It officially defines itself as a Jewish state in its Basic Laws, and is the only country in the world where Jews constitute a majority of the population.

Jews also experienced political autonomy twice during ancient history. The first of the two ancient eras spanned from 1350 to 586 BCE, and encompassed the periods of the Judges, the United Monarchy, and the Divided Monarchy of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, ending with the destruction of the First Temple. The second era was the period of the Hasmonean Kingdom spanning from 140 to 37 BCE. Since the destruction of the First Temple, the diaspora has been the home of most of the world's Jews. Except in the modern State of Israel, Jews are a minority in every country in which they live, and they have frequently experienced persecution throughout history, resulting in a population that fluctuated both in numbers and distribution over the centuries.

In 2010, the world Jewish population was estimated at 13.4 million by the North American Jewish Data Bank, or roughly 0.2% of the total world population. According to this report, about 42% of all Jews reside in Israel and about 42% in the United States and Canada, with most of the remainder living in Europe. The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics believes the number of Israeli Jews to be 5.6 million, and the U.S. Census Bureau calculated the American Jewish population at 6.4 million. The total world Jewish population, however, is difficult to measure. In addition to issues with census methodology, there are halakhic disputes regarding who is a Jew and secular, political, and ancestral identification factors that may affect the figure considerably.

The Ladino name is , Djudio (sg.); , Djudios (pl.); : Yid (sg.)}}; , Yidn (pl.).

The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., "Jude" in German, "juif" in French, "jøde" in Danish, "judío" in Spanish, etc., but derivations of the word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jewish person, e.g., in Italian (Ebreo), and , (Yevrey). The German word "Jude" is pronounced , and is the origin of the word Yiddish. (See Jewish ethnonyms for a full overview.)

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000):

It is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew, in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics, is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on the council, which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun.

Origins

The Jewish people claim to have originated from the Israelites of the Southern Levant, who had several independent states before being overtaken first by the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and later the Roman Empire, with a large portion of the population being taken scattered throughout the world. According to the Hebrew Bible, all Israelites were descended from Abraham, who was born in the Sumerian city of Ur, and migrated to Canaan (commonly known as the Land of Israel) with his family. Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide do indeed bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East, and that they bear their strongest resemblance to the peoples of the Fertile Crescent, with only minor contribution from their host populations (historically due to the taboo on intermarriage in Jewish tradition, the low number of converts to Judaism, as well as the general isolations and persecutions of Jews throughout history). According to some Biblical archaeologists, however, Israelite culture did not overtake the region, but rather grew out of Canaanite culture.

Judaism

Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief, and has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life," which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture, and Jewish identity rather difficult. Throughout history, in eras and places as diverse as the ancient Hellenic world, in Europe before and after The Age of Enlightenment (see Haskalah), in Islamic Spain and Portugal, in North Africa and the Middle East, and China, or the contemporary United States and Israel, cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from the interaction of Jews or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself. This phenomenon has led to considerably different Jewish cultures unique to their own communities, each as authentically Jewish as the next.

Who is a Jew?

Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation, an ethnicity, a religion, and a culture, making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether a religious or national approach to identity is used. Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion; those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent); and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of the religion. At times, conversion has accounted for a substantial part of Jewish population growth. In the 1st century of the Christian era, for example, the population more than doubled, from 4 to 8–10 million within the confines of the Roman Empire, in good part as a result of a wave of conversion.

Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. Historical definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the oral tradition into the Babylonian Talmud. Interpretations of sections of the Tanakh, such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5, by learned Jewish sages, are used as a warning against intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews because "[the non-Jewish husband] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others." Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This contrasts with Ezra 10:2–3, where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children. Since the Haskalah, these halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged.

Ethnic divisions

of late 19th century Eastern Europe portrayed in Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur (1878), by Maurycy Gottlieb.]] Within the world's Jewish population there are distinct ethnic divisions, most of which are primarily the result of geographic branching from an originating Israelite population, and subsequent independent evolutions. An array of Jewish communities were established by Jewish settlers in various places around the Old World, often at great distances from one another resulting in effective and often long-term isolation from each other. During the millennia of the Jewish diaspora the communities would develop under the influence of their local environments; political, cultural, natural, and populational. Today, manifestation of these differences among the Jews can be observed in Jewish cultural expressions of each community, including Jewish linguistic diversity, culinary preferences, liturgical practices, religious interpretations, as well as degrees and sources of genetic admixture.

Jews are often identified as belonging to one of two major groups: the Ashkenazim, or "Germanics" (Ashkenaz meaning "Germany" in Medieval Hebrew, denoting their Central European base), and the Sephardim, or "Hispanics" (Sefarad meaning "Spain/Hispania" or "Iberia" in Hebrew, denoting their Spanish, and Portuguese, base). The Mizrahim, or "Easterners" (Mizrach being "East" in Hebrew), that is, the diverse collection of Middle Eastern and North African Jews, constitute a third major group, although they are sometimes termed Sephardi for liturgical reasons.

Smaller groups include, but are not restricted to, Indian Jews such as the Bene Israel, Bnei Menashe, Cochin Jews, and Bene Ephraim; the Romaniotes of Greece; the Italian Jews ("Italkim" or "Bené Roma"); the Teimanim from Yemen and Oman; various African Jews, including most numerously the Beta Israel of Ethiopia; and Chinese Jews, most notably the Kaifeng Jews, as well as various other distinct but now almost extinct communities.

The divisions between all these groups are approximate and their boundaries are not always clear. The Mizrahim for example, are a heterogeneous collection of North African, Central Asian, Caucasian, and Middle Eastern Jewish communities that are often as unrelated to each other as they are to any of the earlier mentioned Jewish groups. In modern usage, however, the Mizrahim are sometimes termed Sephardi due to similar styles of liturgy, despite independent development from Sephardim proper. Thus, among Mizrahim there are Iraqi Jews, Egyptian Jews, Berber Jews, Lebanese Jews, Kurdish Jews, Libyan Jews, Syrian Jews, Bukharian Jews, Mountain Jews, Georgian Jews, and various others. The Teimanim from Yemen and Oman are sometimes included, although their style of liturgy is unique and they differ in respect to the admixture found among them to that found in Mizrahim. In addition, there is a differentiation made between Sephardi migrants who established themselves in the Middle East and North Africa after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal in the 1490s and the pre-existing Jewish communities in those regions. Only in Israel is the Jewish population representative of all groups, a melting pot independent of each group's proportion within the overall world Jewish population.

Jewish languages

Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed l'shon ha-kodesh, "the holy tongue"), the language in which the Hebrew scriptures (Tanakh) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. By the 5th century BCE, Aramaic, a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea. By the 3rd century BCE, Jews of the diaspora were speaking Greek. Modern Hebrew is now one of the two official languages of the State of Israel along with Arabic.

Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by Eliezer ben Yehuda, who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It had not been used as a mother tongue since Tannaic times. For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, often developing distinctive dialectal forms or branches that became independent languages. Yiddish is the Judæo-German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Central Europe, and Ladino is the Judæo-Spanish language developed by Sephardic Jews who migrated to the Iberian peninsula. Due to many factors, including the impact of the Holocaust on European Jewry, the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct Jewish languages of several communities, including Gruzinic, Judæo-Arabic, Judæo-Berber, Krymchak, Judæo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use.

Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language, closely followed by English and Hebrew (if modern and biblical are counted as one variety).

Genetic studies

Genetic studies indicate various lineages found in modern Jewish populations; however, most of these populations share a lineage in common, traceable to an ancient population that underwent geographic branching and subsequent independent evolutions.

DNA analysis further determined that modern Jews of the priesthood tribe—"Kohanim"—share an ancestor dating back about 3,000 years. This result is consistent for all Jewish populations around the world. The scientists estimated the date of the original priest based on genetic mutations, which indicated that the priest lived roughly 106 generations ago, between 2,650 and 3,180 years ago depending whether one counts a generation as 25 or 30 years.

Male lineages: Y chromosomal DNA

A study published by the National Academy of Sciences found that "the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population", and suggested that "most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora". Researchers expressed surprise at the remarkable genetic uniformity they found among modern Jews, no matter where the diaspora has become dispersed around the world. Skorecki and colleague wrote that "the extremely close affinity of Jewish and non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations observed ... supports the hypothesis of a common Middle Eastern origin".

A study of haplotypes of the Y-chromosome, published in 2000, addressed the paternal origins of Ashkenazi Jews. Hammer et al. 20.0% of the Ashkenazim results and 12% of the Sephardic results. However, J1 is most frequent in Yemen(76%), Saudi (64%) Qatar (58%).). It is also very common among other Arabs such as those of the Levant, i.e. Palestinian (38.4%), Syria (30%), Lebanon (25%). In Europe, higher frequencies have been reported in the central Adriatic regions of Italy: Gargano (17.2%), Pescara (15%), Fairly high frequencies have also been reported in other nearby Mediterranean areas: Crete (8.3%), Malta (7.8%), Cyprus (6.2%), Greece (5.3%). is found mainly in the Fertile Crescent, the Caucasus, Anatolia, the Balkans, Italy, the Mediterranean , the Iranian plateau, Central Asia, and South Asia. More specifically, it is found in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Greece, Italy and the eastern coasts of the Iberian Peninsula, and more frequently in Iraqis 29.7%, Lebanese 25%, Palestinians 16.8%, Kurds 28.4%, Saudi Arabia 15.92%, Jordan 14.3%, Oman 10-15%, UAE 10.4%, Yemen 9.7%, in Israel,

Female lineages: Mitochondrial DNA

Before 2006, geneticists largely attributed the genesis of most of the world's Jewish populations to founding acts by males who migrated from the Middle East and "by the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism." , though no genetic relation was found between Jewish and non Jewish female lineages. However, more recent findings of studies of maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA, at least in Ashkenazi Jews, has led to a review of this archetype. This research has suggested that, in addition to Israelite male, significant female founder ancestry might also derive from the Middle East-with 40% of Ashkenazim descended from four women lived about 1000–1500 years ago in the Middle East. Approximately 32% of people with Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry belong to the mtDNA haplogroup K. This high percentage points to a genetic bottleneck occurring some 100 generations ago.

Research in 2008 found significant founder effects in many non-Asheknazi Jewish populations. In Belmonte, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Bene Israel and Libyan Jewish communities "a single mother was sufficient to explain at least 40% of their present-day mtDNA variation". In addition, "the Cochin and Tunisian Jewish communities show an attenuated pattern with two founding mothers explaining >30% of the variation." In contrast, Bulgarian, Turkish, Moroccan and Ethiopian Jews were heterogeneous with no evidence "for a narrow founder effect or depletion of mtDNA variation attributable to drift". The authors noted that "the first three of these communities were established following the Spanish expulsion and/or received large influxes of individuals from the Iberian Peninsula and high variation presently observed, probably reflects high overall mtDNA diversity among Jews of Spanish descent. Likewise, the mtDNA pool of Ethiopian Jews reflects the rich maternal lineage variety of East Africa." Jewish communities from Iraq, Iran, and Yemen showed a "third and intermediate pattern... consistent with a founding event, but not a narrow one".

In this and other studies Yemenite Jews differ from other Mizrahim, as well as from Ashkenazim, in the proportion of sub-Saharan African gene types which have entered their gene pools. African-specific Hg L(xM,N) lineages were found only in Yemenite and Ethiopian Jewish populations.

A 2006 study by Seldin et al. used over five thousand autosomal SNPs to demonstrate European genetic substructure amongst the Ashkenazi. The results showed “a consistent and reproducible distinction between ‘northern’ and ‘southern’ European population groups”. Most northern, central, and eastern Europeans (Finns, Swedes, English, Irish, Germans, and Ukrainians) showed >90% in the ‘northern’ population group, while most individual participants with southern European ancestry (Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Spaniards) showed >85% in the 'southern' group. Both Ashkenazi Jews as well as Sephardic Jews showed >85% membership in the “southern” group. Referring to the Jews clustering with southern Europeans, the authors state the results were "consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups".

A 2007 study by Bauchet et al. found that Ashkenazi Jews were most closely clustered with Arabic North African populations when compared to Global population, and in the European structure analysis, they share similarities only with Greeks and Southern Italians, reflecting their east Mediterranean origins.

A 2010 study on Jewish ancestry by Atzmon-Ostrer et al. stated "Two major groups were identified by principal component, phylogenetic, and identity by descent (IBD) analysis: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews. The IBD segment sharing and the proximity of European Jews to each other and to southern European populations suggested similar origins for European Jewry and refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry.", as both groups - the Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews shared common ancestors in the Middle East about 2500 years ago. The study also found that the population most closely related to Ashkenazi Jews are modern-day Italians. The study speculated that the genetic-similarity between Ashkenazi Jews and Italians may be due to inter-marriage and conversions in the time of the Roman Empire.

A 2010 study by Bray et al, using SNP microarray techniques and linkage analysis, estimated that 35 to 55 percent of the modern Ashkenazi genome is specifically traceable to Europe, and that European "admixture is considerably higher than previous estimates by studies that used the Y chromosome". The linkage disequilibrium in the Ashkenazi Jewish population "matches signs of interbreeding or 'admixture' between Middle Eastern and European populations". In their press release, Bray stated: "We were surprised to find evidence that Ashkenazi Jews have higher heterozygosity than Europeans, contradicting the widely-held presumption that they have been a largely isolated group".

Demographics

Population centres

There are an estimated 13–14 million Jews worldwide. |style="text-align: right"|1.68% | |- |France |style="text-align: right"|490,000 |style="text-align: right"|64,102,000 |style="text-align: right"|0.8% | |- |Total |style="text-align: right"|13,156,500 |style="text-align: right"|6,455,078,000 |style="text-align: right"|0.2% | Israel was established as an independent democratic and Jewish state on May 14, 1948. Of the 120 members in its parliament, the Knesset, currently, 12 members of the Knesset are Arab citizens of Israel, most representing Arab political parties and one of Israel's Supreme Court judges is a Palestinian Arab.

Between 1948 and 1958, the Jewish population rose from 800,000 to two million. Currently, Jews account for 75.8% of the Israeli population, or 5.4 million people. Israel also has a large population of Ethiopian Jews, many of whom were airlifted to Israel in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Between 1974 and 1979 nearly 227,258 immigrants arrived in Israel, about half being from the Soviet Union. This period also saw an increase in immigration to Israel from Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States

A trickle of immigrants from other communities has also arrived, including Indian Jews and others, as well as some descendants of Ashkenazi Holocaust survivors who had settled in countries such as the United States, Argentina, Australia and South Africa. Some Jews have emigrated from Israel elsewhere, due to economic problems or disillusionment with political conditions and the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict. Jewish Israeli emigrants are known as yordim.

Diaspora (outside Israel)

The waves of immigration to the United States and elsewhere at the turn of the 19th century, the founding of Zionism and later events, including pogroms in Russia, the massacre of European Jewry during the Holocaust, and the founding of the state of Israel, with the subsequent Jewish exodus from Arab lands, all resulted in substantial shifts in the population centers of world Jewry by the end of the 20th century.

greeting card from the early 1900s, Russian Jews, packs in hand, gaze at the American relatives beckoning them to the United States. Over two million Jews would flee the pogroms of the Russian Empire to the safety of the US from 1881–1924.]] Currently, the largest Jewish community in the world is located in the United States, with 5.3 million or 6.4 million Jews by various estimates. Elsewhere in the Americas, there are also large Jewish populations in Canada, Argentina, and Brazil, and smaller populations in Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, and several other countries (see History of the Jews in Latin America). There are 295,000 Jews in the United Kingdom. In Eastern Europe, there are anywhere from 350,000 to one million Jews living in the former Soviet Union, but exact figures are difficult to establish. The fastest-growing Jewish community in the world, outside Israel, is the one in Germany, especially in Berlin, its capital. Tens of thousands of Jews from the former Eastern Bloc have settled in Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Arab countries of North Africa and the Middle East were home to around 900,000 Jews in 1945. Fueled by anti-Zionism after the founding of Israel, systematic persecution caused almost all of these Jews to flee to Israel, North America, and Europe in the 1950s (see Jewish exodus from Arab lands). Today, around 8,000 Jews remain in all Arab nations combined.

Outside Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and the rest of Asia, there are significant Jewish populations in Australia and South Africa. Assimilation took place in all areas, and during all time periods, The advent of the Jewish Enlightenment of the 18th century (see Haskalah) and the subsequent emancipation of the Jewish populations of Europe and America in the 19th century, accelerated the situation, encouraging Jews to increasingly participate in, and become part of, secular society. The result has been a growing trend of assimilation, as Jews marry non-Jewish spouses and stop participating in the Jewish community.

Rates of interreligious marriage vary widely: In the United States, they are just under 50%, in the United Kingdom, around 53%, in France, around 30%, and in Australia and Mexico, as low as 10%. In the United States, only about a third of children from intermarriages affiliate themselves with Jewish religious practice. The result is that most countries in the Diaspora have steady or slightly declining religiously Jewish populations as Jews continue to assimilate into the countries in which they live.

War and persecution

:Related articles: Antisemitism, Islam and antisemitism, History of antisemitism, New antisemitism

that they were required to wear) being killed by Christian knights. French Bible illustration from 1255.]] The Jewish people and Judaism have experienced various persecutions throughout Jewish history. During late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages the Roman Empire (in its later phases known as the Byzantine Empire) repeatedly repressed the Jewish population, first by ejecting them from their homelands during the pagan Roman era and later by officially establishing them as second-class citizens during the Christian Roman era.

According to James Carroll, "Jews accounted for 10% of the total population of the Roman Empire. By that ratio, if other factors had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million." Of course, there are many other complex demographic factors involved; the rate of population growth, epidemics, migration, assimilation, and conversion could all have played major roles in the current size of the global Jewish population.

Later in medieval Western Europe, further persecutions of Jews in the name of Christianity occurred, notably during the Crusades—when Jews all over Germany were massacred—and a series of expulsions from England, Germany, France, and, in the largest expulsion of all, Spain and Portugal after the Reconquista (the Catholic Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula), where both unbaptized Sephardic Jews and the ruling Muslim Moors were expelled. In the 19th and (before the end of World War II) 20th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good antisemitism" and "bad antisemitism". The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc.

Islam and Judaism have a complex relationship. Traditionally Jews and Christians living in Muslim lands, known as dhimmis, were allowed to practice their religions and to administer their internal affairs, but subject to certain conditions. They had to pay the jizya (a per capita tax imposed on free adult non-Muslim males) to the Islamic state. Many of the disabilities were highly symbolic. The one described by Bernard Lewis as "most degrading" On the other hand, Jews rarely faced martyrdom or exile, or forced compulsion to change their religion, and they were mostly free in their choice of residence and profession.

Notable exceptions include the massacre of Jews and/or forcible conversion of some Jews by the rulers of the Almohad dynasty in Al-Andalus in the 12th century, as well as in Islamic Persia, and the forced confinement of Morrocan Jews to walled quarters known as mellahs beginning from the 15th century and especially in the early 19th century. In modern times, it has become commonplace for standard antisemitic themes to be conflated with anti-Zionist publications and pronouncements of Islamic movements such as Hezbollah and Hamas, in the pronouncements of various agencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and even in the newspapers and other publications of Turkish Refah Partisi."

, 1941. Before World War II some 40% of the population was Jewish. By the time the Red Army retook the city on 3 July 1944, there were only a few Jewish survivors.]] Throughout history, many rulers, empires and nations have oppressed their Jewish populations or sought to eliminate them entirely. Methods employed ranged from expulsion to outright genocide; within nations, often the threat of these extreme methods was sufficient to silence dissent. The history of antisemitism includes the First Crusade which resulted in the massacre of Jews; the Spanish Inquisition (led by Torquemada) and the Portuguese Inquisition, with their persecution and Auto de fé against the New Christians and Marrano Jews; the Bohdan Chmielnicki Cossack massacres in Ukraine; the Pogroms backed by the Russian Tsars; as well as expulsions from Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, and other countries in which the Jews had settled.

The persecution reached a peak in Adolf Hitler's Final Solution, which led to the Holocaust and the slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews from 1939 to 1945. According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics 19.8% of the modern Iberian population has Sephardic Jewish ancestry, indicating that the number of conversos may have been much higher than originally thought.

The most notable modern day persecution of Jews remains the Holocaust — the state-led systematic persecution and genocide of European Jews (and certain communities of North African Jews in European controlled North Africa) and other minority groups of Europe during World War II by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. The persecution and genocide were accomplished in stages. Legislation to remove the Jews from civil society was enacted years before the outbreak of World War II.

Concentration camps were established in which inmates were used as slave labour until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where the Third Reich conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings. Jews and Roma were crammed into ghettos before being transported hundreds of miles by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, the majority of them were killed in gas chambers. Virtually every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics of the mass murder, turning the country into what one Holocaust scholar has called "a genocidal nation."

Migrations

. The text says: "1380 persons old and young were counted at the exit of the gate"]] in the Shanghai Ghetto during World War II. Shanghai offered unconditional asylum for tens of thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe escaping the Holocaust.]] Throughout Jewish history, Jews have repeatedly been directly or indirectly expelled from both their original homeland, and the areas in which they have resided. This experience as both immigrants and emigrants (see: Jewish refugees) has shaped Jewish identity and religious practice in many ways, and is thus a major element of Jewish history. An incomplete list of such migrations includes: The patriarch Abraham was a migrant to the land of Canaan from Ur of the Chaldees after an attempt on his life by King Nimrod. The Children of Israel experienced the Exodus (meaning "departure" or "exit" in Greek) from ancient Egypt, as recorded in the Book of Exodus. The Kingdom of Israel was sent into permanent exile by Assyria, initially to the Upper Mesopotamian provinces of the Assyrian Empire, from whence they scattered all over the world (or at least to unknown locations). The Kingdom of Judah was exiled by Babylonia, then returned to Judea by Cyrus the Great of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, and then many were exiled again by the Roman Empire. The 2,000 year dispersion of the Jewish diaspora beginning under the Roman Empire, as Jews were spread throughout the Roman world and, driven from land to land, and settled wherever they could live freely enough to practice their religion. Over the course of the diaspora the center of Jewish life moved from Babylonia to the Iberian Peninsula to Poland to the United States and, as a result of Zionism, to Israel. Many expulsions during the Middle Ages and Enlightenment in Europe, including: 1290, 16,000 Jews were expelled from England, see the (Statute of Jewry); in 1396, 100,000 from France; in 1421 thousands were expelled from Austria. Many of these Jews settled in Eastern Europe, especially Poland. Following the Spanish Inquisition in 1492, the Spanish population of around 200,000 Sephardic Jews were expelled by the Spanish crown and Catholic church, followed by expulsions in 1493 in Sicily (37,000 Jews) and Portugal in 1496. The expelled Jews fled mainly to the Ottoman Empire, the Netherlands, and North Africa, others migrating to Southern Europe and the Middle East. During the 19th century, France's policies of equal citizenship regardless of religion led to the immigration of Jews (especially from Eastern and Central Europe). The arrival of millions of Jews in the New World, including immigration of over two million Eastern European Jews to the United States from 1880–1925, see History of the Jews in the United States and History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union. The Pogroms in Eastern Europe, the Holocaust, and the rise of Arab nationalism all served to fuel the movements and migrations of huge segments of Jewry from land to land and continent to continent, until they arrived back in large numbers at their original historical homeland in Israel. When the Soviet Union collapsed, many of the Jews in the affected territory (who had been refuseniks) were suddenly allowed to leave. This produced a wave of migration to Israel in the early 1990s.

Orthodox and Conservative Judaism discourage proselytism to non-Jews, but many Jewish groups have tried to reach out to the assimilated Jewish communities of the Diaspora in order for them to reconnect to their Jewish roots. Additionally, while in principle Reform Judaism favors seeking new members for the faith, this position has not translated into active proselytism, instead taking the form of an effort to reach out to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried couples.

There is also a trend of Orthodox movements pursuing secular Jews in order to give them a stronger Jewish identity so there is less chance of intermarriage. As a result of the efforts by these and other Jewish groups over the past twenty-five years, there has been a trend of secular Jews becoming more religiously observant, known as the Baal Teshuva movement, though the demographic implications of the trend are unknown. Additionally, there is also a growing movement of Jews by Choice by gentiles who make the decision to head in the direction of becoming Jews.

Jewish leadership

There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine. Instead, a variety of secular and religious institutions at the local, national, and international levels lead various parts of the Jewish community on a variety of issues.

Notable Jews

Jews have made contributions in a broad range of human endeavors, including the sciences, arts, politics, and business. The number of Jewish Nobel prize winners is far out of proportion to the percentage of Jews in the world's population.

See also

More complete guides to topics related to the Jews is available from the guide at the or of this page. Some topics of interest include:

Ashkenazi Jews

Antisemitism

:Category: Jewish ethnic groups

:Category: Jewish history by country

Interfaith marriage in Judaism

Israel

* Basic Laws of Israel

* Law of Return

* Politics of Israel

Jewish diaspora

Jewish identity

Jewish languages

Jewish population

Jewish population by cities and city areas

Judaism

Lists of Jews

Mizrahi Jews

Pogrom

Sephardi Jews

Notes

References

Baron, Salo Wittmayer (1952). A Social and Religious History of the Jews, Volume II, Ancient Times, Part II. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

Lewis, Bernard (1984). The Jews of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00807-8

Lewis, Bernard (1999). Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice. W. W. Norton & Co. ISBN 0-393-31839-7

Poliakov, Leon (1974). The History of Anti-semitism. New York: The Vanguard Press.

Ruderman, David B. Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (Princeton University Press; 2010) 326 pages. Examines print culture, religion, and other realms in a history emphasizing the links among early modern Jewish communities from Venice and Krakow to Amsterdam and Smyrna.

Stillman, Norman (1979). The Jews of Arab Lands: A History and Source Book. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. ISBN 0-8276-0198-0

External links

Jewish Virtual Library

Judaism 101

Maps related to Jewish history

WORLD JEWISH NEWS AGENCY

The Future of Judaism series at Patheos

Secular organizations

American Jewish Committee

American Jewish Congress

Anti-Defamation League

B'nai B'rith International

Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life

United Jewish Communities: The Federations of North America

Religious organizations

Aish HaTorah (Orthodox)

ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal (Renewal)

American Sephardi Federation (Sephardic)

Chabad Lubavitch (Chabad)

Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (Reconstructionist)

The Karaite Korner (Karaite)

The Orthodox Union (Orthodox)

Society for Humanistic Judaism (Humanistic)

Union for Reform Judaism (Reform)

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (Conservative)

Zionist organizations

Ameinu

Hadassah: the Women's Zionist Organization of America

The Jewish Agency for Israel

Religious Zionists of America

World Mizrachi Movement

Zionist Organization of America

Category:Ancient peoples Category:Ethnic groups in the Middle East Category:Ethno-cultural designations Category:Semitic peoples Category:Religious identity

Coordinates	21°18′32″N157°49′34″N
Name	Sarah Silverman
Caption	Silverman at the 2010 Brooklyn Book Festival
Birth name	Sarah Kate Silverman
Birth date	December 01, 1970
Birth place	Bedford, New Hampshire, United States
Pseudonym	Big S
Medium	Stand-up, television, film, music
Active	1992–present
Influences	Steve Martin
Notable work	Saturday Night LiveSarah Silverman on The Sarah Silverman Program
Domesticpartner	Jimmy Kimmel (2002–2007; 2008–2009)Alec Sulkin (2010)

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Sarah Kate Silverman (born December 1, 1970) is an American comedian, writer, actress, singer and musician. Although usually credited as Sarah Silverman, she is sometimes credited by her nickname, Big S. Her satirical comedy addresses social taboos and controversial topics such as racism, sexism, and religion.

Silverman first gained notice as a writer and occasional performer on Saturday Night Live. She starred in and produced The Sarah Silverman Program, which ran from 2007 to 2010, on Comedy Central. She often performs her act by playing a caricature of a Jewish-American princess, mocking bigotry and stereotypes of ethnic groups and religious denominations by having her comic character endorse them in an ironic fashion.

Early life

Sarah Silverman, the youngest of four daughters, was born in Bedford, New Hampshire. Her mother, Beth Ann Halpin, was George McGovern's personal campaign photographer and founded the theater company New Thalian Players. Her father, Donald Silverman, was a social worker by training who ran the discount clothing store Crazy Sophie's Outlet. Her family is Jewish, the descendants of immigrants from Poland and Russia.

She appeared in community theater at age 12, most notably with Community Players of Concord, New Hampshire in Annie and also appeared on a local television show in the Boston area called Community Auditions at age 15. At seventeen, she performed stand-up comedy in a restaurant, singing a song she called "Mammaries."

After graduating from The Derryfield School in Manchester, New Hampshire, she attended New York University and continued her stand-up in Greenwich Village.

Career

Silverman first received national attention in the 1993–94 season of Saturday Night Live (SNL) as a writer and featured player. She was fired after one season because only one of the sketches she wrote survived to dress rehearsal, and none aired. Bob Odenkirk, a former SNL writer explained, "I could see how it wouldn't work at SNL because she's got her own voice, she's very much Sarah Silverman all the time. She can play a character but she doesn't disappear into the character — she makes the character her." In 2007, she placed #29 and appeared on the cover. She made the cover of The Observer in the United Kingdom, with an article naming her "the world's hottest, most controversial comedian".

In June 2007 she hosted the MTV Movie Awards. During her opening act, she commented on the upcoming jail sentence of Paris Hilton, who was in the audience, "In a couple of days, Paris Hilton is going to jail... As a matter of fact, I heard that to make her feel more comfortable in prison, the guards are going to paint the bars to look like penises. I think it is wrong, too. I just worry she is going to break her teeth on those things." In September 2007 she appeared at the MTV Video Music Awards. Following the comeback performance of Britney Spears, Silverman mocked her on stage, saying: "Wow, she is amazing. I mean, she is 25 years old, and she has already accomplished everything she's going to accomplish in her life."

In January 2008 she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to show Jimmy Kimmel, her boyfriend at the time, a special video. The video turned out to be a song called "I'm Fucking Matt Damon", in which she and Matt Damon sang a duet about having an affair behind Kimmel's back. The video created an "instant YouTube sensation". Kimmel responded with his own video a month later with Damon's friend Ben Affleck, which enlisted a panoply of stars, to record Kimmel's song "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck". On September 13, 2008, Silverman won a Creative Arts Emmy for writing the song "I'm Fucking Matt Damon".

In October 2008, Silverman visited the United Kingdom to promote the release of The Sarah Silverman Program on Paramount Comedy, but her media and stage performances failed to impress audiences. Her debut stand-up performance at the Hammersmith Apollo was widely panned by the critics and audiences alike. The performance bombed when Silverman's warm-up act failed to appear and Silverman rushed through a short 35–40 minute set. The heckling audience, who had been charged £40–50 a seat, refused to leave the theatre and Silverman, sporting a pair of after-show slippers, was forced to return to the stage for an impromptu question and answer session. Steve Bennett from comedy website Chortle declared that "minute for minute, there are sex phonelines that are cheaper than Sarah Silverman."

Silverman sold her idea of a book of humorous essays to HarperCollins for $2.5 million. The Observer reported that David Hirshey was her editor. The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee was released in April 2010. In early May 2010, the book made The New York Times Best-Seller List. Critic Julian Heller said of her book, "This is the single best collection of personal essays ever conceived. I plan on starting a new religion, and The Bedwetter would be our bible. 8 thumbs up."

She also appears in Strange Powers, the 2009 documentary by Kerthy Fix and Gail O'Hara about cult songwriter Stephin Merritt and his band, the Magnetic Fields.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic

Silverman's concert film, Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic, based on her one-woman show of the same name, was released in 2005. Liam Lynch directed the movie, distributed by Roadside Attractions. Rotten Tomatoes gave Jesus Is Magic a "fresh" rating of 64% with 54 positive reviews and 30 negative ones, with the "cream of the crop" giving it a rating of 67%. It made US$124,475 on its opening weekend, showing on seven screens. The box office performance led to an expanded release in as many as 57 theaters, resulting in a box office take of more than US$1.3 million. The DVD was released in June 2006. The soundtrack featured songs and standup from the movie, and previously unreleased songs.

The Sarah Silverman Program

Silverman's television sitcom, The Sarah Silverman Program, debuted on Comedy Central in February 2007. The show proved to be a ratings success, scoring the highest premiere ratings of any Comedy Central show in three years, with 1.81 million viewers and the highest 18–49 rating of the night on cable. It portrays the day-to-day adventures of fictionalized versions of Silverman, her sister Laura and their friends. A number of comedic actors from Mr. Show have reappeared on The Sarah Silverman Program. Silverman was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for her acting on the show. At the awards ceremony, she wore a fake mustache.

Comedy Central canceled the Sarah Silverman Program after three seasons.

Controversy

In a July 2001 interview on NBC's Late Night with Conan O'Brien Silverman used the ethnic slur "chink" explaining that a friend advised her to avoid jury duty by writing a racial slur on the selection form, "something inappropriate, like 'I hate chinks.'" Silverman said she decided that she did not want to be thought of as a racist, so "I wrote 'I love chinks' – and who doesn't?" Silverman said that the joke satirizes the racist thought process. Guy Aoki, of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA), objected to her use of the slur. NBC and O'Brien apologized, but Silverman did not, later appearing on Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher in July and August 2001. Silverman questioned Aoki's sincerity, accusing him of exploiting the opportunity for publicity. On an episode of the show, Aoki appeared with Silverman, and stated that he did not accept Silverman's explanation, saying that it was not successful satire and that comedians should consult with groups such as his before performing such material. Silverman stated in an NPR's Fresh Air interview that she was asked to repeat the joke on Politically Incorrect, among other places, but she eventually dropped the joke from her act because she felt it was becoming stale.

A minor controversy also arose over Silverman's performance in the documentary film The Aristocrats (2005). The film shows Silverman giving an apparently autobiographical account of her life as a child sex performer and mentions how Joe Franklin, a New York radio and TV personality whose nostalgic programs have aired since the early 1950s, would ask her to perform privately for him in his apartment. Silverman looks at the camera and, in a deadpan voice, accused Franklin of raping her. The film was edited in such a way that it appears as if Franklin knows what Silverman said about him. Later, after her clip, Franklin is shown stating "Sarah Silverman is a young lady to watch". After the film came out, Franklin took offense to Silverman's using his name and considered suing her. A month later the New York Times noted he remained undecided, but said, "the best thing I could do is get Sarah better writers so she'd have funnier material."

Personal life

Silverman has said that she does not consume alcohol, because it nauseates her. She is open about her lifelong battle with clinical depression, crediting her subsequent emotional health to taking prescription drug Zoloft. She struggled with bedwetting from the time she was young until well into her teens and has stated that the last time she wet her bed was when she was fired from Saturday Night Live. She referred to the relationship in some of her comedy, "I'm Jewish, but I wear this Saint Christopher medal sometimes; my boyfriend is Catholic — but you know... it was cute the way he gave it to me. He said if it doesn't burn a hole through my skin, it will protect me." The couple attended the wedding of Howard Stern together, but split again in March 2009.

Silverman has stated she does not want to get married until same-sex couples are able to. She has also stated she doesn't want to have biological children to avoid the risk that they might inherit her depression.

Silverman's biological sister Laura plays her sister on The Sarah Silverman Program. Another sister, Susan, is a rabbi who lives on a kibbutz in Israel with her husband and five children.

Silverman is a fan of Jenny Lewis and appeared in Lewis' music video for the song "Rise Up With Fists!!" She is also a fan of comedian Steve Martin who was one of her major inspirations as a younger comedian. She credited comedian Tig Notaro as one of her best friends in an interview in The Advocate. and does not follow the religion claiming, "I have no religion. But culturally I can't escape it; I'm very Jewish." Her humor has also touched on other religions. In 2009, she suggested the Pope sell the Vatican and use some of the money for luxurious housing and the remainder to stop world hunger saying he would "get crazy pussy."

As of January 2010, Silverman was dating Family Guy producer/writer Alec Sulkin. By October 2010, they had broken up, but remain good friends.

Filmography

Features:

Who's the Caboose? (1997)

Overnight Delivery (1998)

Bulworth (1998)

There's Something About Mary (1998)

The Bachelor (1999)

What Planet Are You From? (2000)

Screwed (2000)

The Way of the Gun (2000)

Black Days (2001)

Say It Isn't So (2001)

Heartbreakers (2001)

Evolution (2001)

Run Ronnie Run (2002)

School of Rock (2003)

Bad Santa (2003) (deleted scene)

Hair High (2004) (voice)

The Aristocrats (2005) (documentary)

(2005)

Rent (2005)

I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With (2006)

School for Scoundrels (2006)

Fired! (2007) (documentary)

Certifiably Jonathan (2007) (documentary)

'' (2007) (voice)

Super High Me (2008) (documentary, cameo)

Funny People (2009) (cameo)

Saint John of Las Vegas (2010)

Short subjects:

Strippers Pole (2002)

Nobody's Perfect (2004)

Supermarket (2004)

Give The Jew Girl Toys (satirical music video)

Confetti

Television

Community Auditions (1985)

Saturday Night Live (writer & cast member, 1993–1994)

Mr. Show (featured performer, 1995)

The Larry Sanders Show (1994–1996)

Star Trek Voyager ("Future's End", two episodes, 1996)

Brotherly Love (pizza parlor waitress 1997)

Seinfeld ("The Money", 1997)

Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (voice as herself, "Alderman", 1998)

Smog (unsold pilot, 1999)

Late Last Night (1999)

Futurama ("The Cryonic Woman", 2000; "Futurama: Bender's Big Score, 2007)

Super Nerds (unsold pilot, 2000)

Rocky Times (unsold pilot, 2000)

Greg the Bunny (2002–2004)

Crank Yankers (voice, 2002–2007)

Frasier (Jane, "Maris Returns", 2003)

Pilot Season (miniseries, 2004)

Entourage (herself, 2004)

Aqua Teen Hunger Force ("Robositter", 2004, credited as Big S)

Drawn Together ("The Other Cousin", episode 1.5, 2004, Cousin Bleh)

Monk (Marci Maven, "Mr. Monk and the TV Star", 2004)

American Dad! ("Stan Knows Best", 2005, voice)

Tom Goes to the Mayor ("Pipe Camp", episode 11, 2005)

Celebrity Poker Showdown (twice, 2003–2004)

''Comic Relief (stand-up segment 2006)

Monk (Marci Maven,Mr. Monk and His Biggest Fan, 2007)

The Andy Milonakis Show (herself, 2007)

The Sarah Silverman Program (2007–2010)

Monk (Marci Maven, Mr. Monk's 100th Case, 2008)

8 out of 10 cats ("Herself", 2008)

Friday Night with Jonathan Ross ("Herself", 2008)

JAG (Blind Side "Lt. Schiparelli", 1997)

The Comedy Central Roast of Bob Saget (2008) (pre-recorded video message)

The Simpsons ("Stealing First Base", 2010, voice)

Vitamin Water Commercial (Voice, 2010)

Warren The Ape ("Black Lotus", 2010 as Herself)

References

;Notes

External links

Sarah Silverman Online

in 2010 in 2007 in 2005

TheJC.com: Interview with Sarah Silverman

Sarah Silverman's Guest DJ Project on KCRW KCRW Guest DJ set

Sarah Silverman questionnaire November 2007

Sarah Silverman interviewed by Antonella Gambotto-Burke

Guardian interview

AV Club article

Nerve article

Category:1970 births Category:Living people Category:American agnostics Category:American comedians Category:American comedy musicians Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American guitarists Category:American Jews Category:American stand-up comedians Category:American television actors Category:American television writers Category:American actors of Russian descent Category:American actors of Polish descent Category:American vegetarians Category:Jewish comedians Category:Jewish actors Category:Jewish agnostics Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States Category:Actors from New Hampshire Category:Women comedians Category:People from Manchester, New Hampshire

Coordinates	21°18′32″N157°49′34″N
Name	Ann Coulter
Caption	Ann Coulter at CPAC in February 2010.
Birth name	Ann Hart Coulter
Birth date	December 08, 1961
Birth place	New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Author, columnist, political commentator
Years active	1996–present
Alma mater	Cornell University (B.A.)University of Michigan Law School (J.D.)
Website	http://www.anncoulter.com

Ann Hart Coulter (born December 8, 1961) is an American lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events. Well-known for her right-wing political opinions and the controversial ways in which she defends them, Coulter has described herself as a polemicist who likes to "stir up the pot" and, unlike "broadcasters," does not "pretend to be impartial or balanced."

Early life

Ann Hart Coulter was born in New York City on December 8, 1961, to Nell Husbands (née Martin; a native of Paducah, Kentucky) and John Vincent Coulter (a native of Albany, New York). The family later moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, where Coulter and her two older brothers, James and John, were raised. She graduated from New Canaan High School in 1980.

While attending Cornell University, Coulter helped found The Cornell Review, and was a member of the Delta Gamma national women's fraternity. She graduated cum laude from Cornell in 1984 with a B.A. in history, and received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1988, where she achieved membership in the Order of the Coif and was an editor of the Michigan Law Review. At Michigan, Coulter was president of the local chapter of the Federalist Society and was trained at the National Journalism Center.

Law career

After law school, Coulter served as a law clerk, in Kansas City, for Pasco Bowman II of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. After a short time working in New York City in private practice, where she specialized in corporate law, Coulter left to work for the United States Senate Judiciary Committee after the Republican Party took control of Congress in 1994. She handled crime and immigration issues for Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan and helped craft legislation designed to expedite the deportation of aliens convicted of felonies. She later became a litigator with the Center for Individual Rights.

Media career

Ann Coulter is the author of seven books, and publishes a weekly syndicated newspaper column. Known for her polemical style, she also makes numerous public appearances, speaking on television and radio talk shows, as well as on college campuses, receiving both praise and protest. During one appearance at the University of Arizona, a pie was thrown at her. Coulter has, on occasion, responded with insulting remarks towards hecklers and protestors who attend her speeches.

Books

Coulter is the author of seven books, all of which have appeared on New York Times Best Seller list, with a combined 3 million copies sold, as of May 2009.

Coulter's first book, , was published by Regnery Publishing in 1998. The book details Coulter's case for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Her second book, , published by Crown Forum in 2002, became number one on The New York Times non-fiction best seller list. In Slander, Coulter argues that President George W. Bush was given unfair negative media coverage. The factual accuracy of Slander was called into question by then-comedian and author, and now Democratic U.S. Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken. He also accused her of citing passages out of context. Others investigated these charges, and also raised questions about the book's accuracy and presentation of facts. Coulter responded to criticisms in a column called "Answering My Critics", where she wrote "the most devastating examples of my alleged 'lies' keep changing" and that some accusations of her factual inaccuracy are either outright wrong or really just "trivial" factual errors (e.g., referring to "endnotes" as "footnotes", or incorrectly identifying Evan Thomas' grandfather, Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas, as his father).

In her third book, , also published by Crown Forum, she reexamines the 60-year history of the Cold War — including the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Whittaker Chambers–Alger Hiss affair, and Ronald Reagan’s challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall" — and argues that liberals were wrong in their Cold War political analyses and policy decisions, and that McCarthy was correct about Soviet agents working for the U.S. government. She also argues that the correct identification of Annie Lee Moss, among others, as communists was misreported by that liberal media. Treason was published in 2003, and spent 13 weeks on the Best Seller list.

Crown Forum published a collection of Coulter's columns in 2004 as her fourth book, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter.

Coulter's fifth book, published by Crown Forum in 2006, is . In it, she argues, first, that liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, and second, that it bears all the attributes of a religion itself. Godless debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Coulter published If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans, in October 2007.

Her most recent book was released January 6, 2009, entitled .

Columns

In the late 1990s, Coulter's weekly (biweekly from 1999–2000) syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate began appearing. Her column is featured on six conservative websites: Human Events Online, WorldNetDaily, Townhall.com, FrontPageMag, Jewish World Review and her own website. Her syndicator says, "Ann's client newspapers stick with her because she has a loyal fan base of conservative readers who look forward to reading her columns in their local newspapers."

In 1999, Coulter worked as a regular columnist for George magazine. Coulter also wrote exclusive weekly columns between 1998 and 2003 and with occasional columns thereafter for the conservative magazine Human Events. In her columns for the magazine, she discusses judicial rulings, Constitutional issues, and legal matters affecting Congress and the executive branch.

In 2001, as a contributing editor and syndicated columnist for National Review Online (NRO), Coulter was asked by editors to make changes to a piece written after the September 11 attacks. On the national television show Politically Incorrect, Coulter accused NRO of censorship and said that she was paid $5 per article. NRO dropped her column and terminated her editorship. Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of NRO, said, "We did not 'fire' Ann for what she wrote... we ended the relationship because she behaved with a total lack of professionalism, friendship, and loyalty [concerning the editing disagreement]."

Coulter contracted with USA Today to cover the 2004 Democratic National Convention. She wrote one article that began, "Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston..." and referred to some unspecified female attendees as "corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons." The newspaper declined to print the article citing an editing dispute over "basic weaknesses in clarity and readability that we found unacceptable." An explanatory article by the paper went on to say "Coulter told the online edition of Editor & Publisher magazine that 'USA Today doesn't like my "tone", humor, sarcasm, etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them.'" USA Today replaced Coulter with Jonah Goldberg, and Coulter published it instead on her website.

In August 2005, the Arizona Daily Star dropped Coulter's syndicated column citing reader complaints that "Many readers find her shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited. And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives."

In July 2006, some newspapers replaced Coulter's column with those of other conservative columnists following the publication of her fourth book, . After the Augusta Chronicle dropped her column, newspaper editor Michael Ryan explained that "it came to the point where she was the issue rather than what she was writing about." Ryan also stated that "Pulling Ann Coulter's column hurts; she's one of the clearest thinkers around."

She has criticized former president George W. Bush's immigration proposals, saying they led to "amnesty". In one column, she claims that the current immigration system is set up to purposely reduce the percentage of whites in the population. In it, she said:

Overall, Coulter's columns are highly critical of liberals and Democrats. In one, she wrote:

Television and radio

Coulter made her first national media appearance in 1996 after she was hired by the then-fledgling network MSNBC as a legal correspondent. She was dismissed from the network at least twice. First, in February 1997, after she insulted the late Pamela Harriman (U.S. Ambassador to France), as the network was covering her memorial service. They missed her jousting and quickly rehired her, only to fire her eight months later after she tangled with a disabled Vietnam veteran on the air. Robert Muller, co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, asserted that, "in 90% of the cases that U.S. soldiers got blown up [in Vietnam] – Ann, are you listening – they were our own mines." (Muller was misquoting a 1969 Pentagon report that found that 90% of the components used in enemy mines came from U.S. duds and refuse). Coulter, who found Muller's statement laughable, averted her eyes and responded sarcastically, "No wonder you guys lost." It became an infamous — and oft-misreported — Coulter moment. The Washington Post and others turned the line into a more personal attack: "People like you caused us to lose that war." But her troubles with MSNBC only freed her to appear on CNN and Fox News, whose producers were often calling.

Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post made a point to respond to the Time article to explain that his widely quoted reporting of Coulter's reply to the veteran in an article he wrote had its origin in Coulter's own later recollection of the incident. Describing his previous story, Kurtz added, "I did note that, according to Coulter, the vet was appearing by satellite, and she didn't know he was disabled."

In an interview with Bob McKeown on the January 26, 2005, edition of The Fifth Estate, Coulter came under criticism for her statement: "Canada used to be...one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?" McKeown contradicted her with, "No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam." On the February 18, 2005, edition of Washington Journal, Coulter justified her statement by referring to the thousands of Canadians who served in the American armed forces during the Vietnam era, either because they volunteered or because they were living in the USA during the war years and got drafted. She said, "The Canadian Government didn't send troops [...] but [...] they came and fought with the Americans. So I was wrong. It turns out there were 10,000 Americans who happened to be born in Canada." (Between 5,000 and 20,000 Canadians fought in Vietnam itself, including approximately 80 who were killed.). John Cloud of Time, writing about the incident a few months later, said "Canada [sent] noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972". The other two films were FahrenHYPE 9/11, a direct to video documentary intended to rebut Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, and Is It True What They Say About Ann?, a documentary on Coulter containing clips of interviews and speeches.

In 2006, Coulter refused permission to include a scene featuring herself and Al Franken in a debate in Connecticut in Franken's film, .

Personal life

Coulter has been engaged several times, but never married. In October 2007, she began dating Andrew Stein, the former president of the New York City Council, a liberal Democrat. When asked about the relationship, Stein told the paper, "She's attacked a lot of my friends, but what can I say, opposites attract!" On January 7, 2008, however, Stein told the New York Post that the relationship was over, citing irreconcilable differences.

Coulter owns a condominium in Manhattan and a house, bought in 2005, in Palm Beach, Florida. Although she says that usually she lives in New York, she votes in Palm Beach and is not registered to do so in New York. She is a fan of several jam bands, such as the Grateful Dead, the Dave Matthews Band, and Phish. Some of her favorite books include The Bible, Wuthering Heights, Anna Karenina, true crime stories about serial killers and anything by Dave Barry.

Religious views

Coulter says that she holds Christian beliefs, but has not declared her membership in any particular denomination; she has mentioned that her father was Catholic while her mother was not. At one public lecture she said: "I don't care about anything else: Christ died for my sins and nothing else matters." In a 2004 column, she summarized her view of Christianity: "Jesus' distinctive message was: People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky day because I'm here to redeem you even though you don't deserve it, and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it." She then mocked "the message of Jesus ... according to liberals," summarising it as "...something along the lines of 'be nice to people'," which, in turn, she said "is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity".

Confronting some critics' views that her content and style of writing is un-Christian, Coulter has stated that "I'm a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it." She has also said: "... Christianity fuels everything I write. Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy — you know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism." In , as well as in personal appearances, Coulter characterized the theory of evolution as "bogus science", and contrasting her beliefs to what she called the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death."

On October 8, 2007, Coulter ignited yet more controversy when she was quoted as saying that Jews should be "perfected" into Christians. She was talking about Republicans with Donny Deutsch, a Jewish CNBC talk-show host, and implied that she considered Christianity a virtue. Deutsch asked her, "It would be better if we were all Christian?", to which Coulter replied "Yes". Deutsch asked her, "We should all be Christian?", and got the same response, with an invitation to come to church. Later on, Coulter said, "we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say", saying that this was what Christianity was, and she compared the 'New Testament to Federal Express. Further, Coulter said that Christians considered themselves to be perfected Jews. Deutsch implied that this was an anti-Semitic remark, but Coulter said she didn't consider it to be a hateful comment. See also section on comments about Jews on The Big Idea below.

Political activities and commentary

Ann Coulter has described herself as a "polemicist" who likes to "stir up the pot" and doesn't "pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do".

Paula Jones–Bill Clinton case

Coulter first became a public figure shortly before becoming an unpaid legal advisor for the attorneys representing Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton. Coulter's friend George Conway had been asked to assist Jones' attorneys, and shortly afterward Coulter, who wrote a column about the Paula Jones case for Human Events, was also asked to help; she began writing legal briefs for the case.

Coulter later stated that she would come to mistrust the motives of Jones' head lawyer, Joseph Cammaratta, who by August or September 1997 was advising Jones that her case was weak and to settle, if a favorable settlement could be negotiated. However, in a later interview Coulter recounted that she herself had believed that the case was strong, that Jones was telling the truth, that Clinton should be held publicly accountable for his misconduct, and that a settlement would give the impression that Jones was merely interested in extorting money from the President. After the book came out, Coulter clarified her stated motives, saying:

The case went to court after Jones broke with Coulter and her original legal team, and it was dismissed via summary judgment. The judge ruled that even if her allegations proved true, Jones did not show that she had suffered any damages, stating "...plaintiff has not demonstrated any tangible job detriment or adverse employment action for her refusal to submit to the governor's alleged advances. The president is therefore entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff's claim of quid pro quo sexual harassment". The ruling was appealed by Jones' lawyers. During the pendency of the appeal, Clinton settled with Jones for $850,000 ($151,000 after legal fees) in November 1998, in exchange for Jones' dismissal of the appeal. By then, the Jones lawsuit had led to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.

In October 2000, Jones revealed that she would pose for nude pictures in an adult magazine, saying she wanted to use the money to pay taxes and support her grade-school-aged children, in particular saying, "I'm wanting to put them through college and maybe set up a college fund." Coulter publicly denounced Jones, calling her "the trailer-park trash they said she was," (Coulter had earlier chastened Clinton supporters for calling Jones this name) after Clinton's former campaign strategist James Carville had made the widely reported remark, "Drag a $100 bill through a trailer park, and you'll never know what you'll find", and called Jones a "fraud, at least to the extent of pretending to be an honorable and moral person."

2008 presidential campaign

Just as the 2008 presidential campaign was getting under way, Coulter drew criticism for statements she made at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference about presidential candidate John Edwards:

The comment was in reference to Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington's use of the epithet and his subsequent mandatory "psychological assessment" imposed by ABC executives. It was widely interpreted as meaning that Coulter had called Edwards a "faggot", but Coulter has argued on a couple of occasions that she didn't actually do so, while simultaneously indicating she would not have been wrong to say it. Edwards responded on his website by characterizing Coulter's words as "un-American and indefensible" and asking readers to help him "raise $100,000 in 'Coulter Cash' this week to keep this campaign charging ahead and fight back against the politics of bigotry." He also called her a "she-devil", adding, "I should not have name-called. But the truth is – forget the names – people like Ann Coulter, they engage in hateful language." Coulter's words also drew condemnation from many prominent Republicans and Democrats, as well as groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Three advertisers (Verizon, Sallie Mae and Netbank) also pulled their advertisements from Coulter's website, and several newspapers dropped her column. Coulter responded in an e-mail to the New York Times: "C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean." Gay rights advocates were not convinced. "Ann Coulter's use of this anti-gay slur is vile and unacceptable," said Neil G. Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, "and the applause from her audience is an important reminder that Coulter's ugly brand of bigotry is at the root of the discriminatory policies being promoted at this gathering." A spokesman for Sen. John McCain, a Republican presidential candidate, called Coulter's comments "wildly inappropriate."

By contrast, Coulter was critical of eventual Republican nominee John McCain. On the January 31, 2008 broadcast of Hannity and Colmes, Coulter claimed that, if McCain won the Republican nomination for president, she would support and campaign for Hillary Clinton, stating, "[Clinton] is more conservative than McCain."

In an April 2, 2008 column, she characterized Barack Obama's book Dreams From My Father as a "Dimestore Mein Kampf." Coulter writes, "He says the reason black people keep to themselves is that it's 'easier than spending all your time mad or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.' Here's a little inside scoop about white people: We're not thinking about you. Especially WASPs. We think everybody is inferior, and we are perfectly charming about it."

2010 Canadian university tour

In March 2010, Ann Coulter performed a speaking tour of three Canadian universities: The University of Western Ontario, the University of Ottawa and the University of Calgary. The tour was organized by the International Free Press Society.

A day before Coulter's speech at the University of Western Ontario, an e-mail to Coulter from Francois Houle, provost of the University of Ottawa, was leaked to the media. The e-mail warned that "promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges." Coulter released a public statement claiming that by sending her the e-mail, Houle was promoting hatred against conservatives. During Coulter's speech at the University of Western Ontario, it was widely reported that she told a Muslim student to "take a camel", in response to the student's question about previous comments by Coulter that Muslims should not be allowed on airplanes.

On March 22, the University of Ottawa made international news when Coulter's speech was cancelled because of protesters (the number of which there are conflicting reports). Event organizers and her staff cited security concerns, but Alain Boucher of the Ottawa Police Service said the police were not undermanned; there were 10 officers visible at the scene "plus other resources" nearby. There was initially disagreement as to who cancelled the speech, but Boucher said Coulter's security team decided to call off the event: "We gave her options" – including, he said, to "find a bigger venue" – but "they opted to cancel ... It's not up to the Ottawa police to make that decision." Boucher said the crowd did not get way out of hand, and that there were no arrests. CTV News reported "It was a disaster in terms of just organization, which is probably one of the reasons why it was cancelled", citing the small number of students tasked with confirming who had signed up to attend Coulter's talk.

Event organizer and conservative activist Ezra Levant blamed the protest on the letter sent to Coulter by Houle. After the cancellation, Coulter called the University of Ottawa a "bush league", stating:

Legal and professional disputes

Irregularities in public registration

In September 2002, Washington Post columnist Lloyd Grove wrote a column titled, "Mystery of the Ages", raising questions about Coulter's actual date of birth. At the time, Coulter was insisting that she was not yet 40, despite media reports to the contrary. Attempting to resolve the discrepancy, Grove noted that Coulter had given her date of birth as December 8, 1961 when she first registered to vote in 1980 (the year of the Reagan-vs-Carter presidential election), in New Canaan, Connecticut, where the legal voting age is 18. He said that Coulter's Connecticut driver's license also listed her birth date as December 1961, but pointed out that a driver's license issued to her years later in Washington, D.C., gave her date of birth as December 1963. In her emailed reply to Grove's inquiry, Coulter maintained that she was 38 years old. In April 2005, Time's cover story on Coulter reported, "Coulter says she won't confirm the date 'for privacy reasons' — she's had several stalkers. 'And I'm a girl,' she adds."

Factual inaccuracies, actual and alleged

Comedian, author and political commentator Al Franken has questioned the factual accuracy of her books, and also accuses her of citing passages out of context. Others have investigated these charges, and have also raised questions about the books' accuracy and presentation of facts. Coulter responded to these and similar criticisms in a column called "Answering My Critics", where she claims "the most devastating examples of my alleged 'lies' keep changing" and that some accusations of her factual inaccuracy are either outright wrong or really just "trivial" factual errors (e.g. referring to "endnotes" as "footnotes", or incorrectly identifying Evan Thomas' grandfather, Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas, as his father).

New York Times' NASCAR coverage

In the first edition of Slander, Coulter alleged that The New York Times did not cover NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt's death until two days after he died:

The day after seven-time NASCAR Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt died in a race at the Daytona 500, almost every newspaper in America carried the story on the front page. Stock-car racing had been the nation's fastest-growing sport for a decade, and NASCAR the second-most-watched sport behind the NFL. More Americans recognize the name Dale Earnhardt than, say, Maureen Dowd. (Manhattan liberals are dumbly blinking at that last sentence.) It took The New York Times two days to deem Earnhardt's death sufficiently important to mention it on the first page. Demonstrating the left's renowned populist touch, the article began, 'His death brought a silence to the Wal-Mart.' The Times went on to report that in vast swaths of the country people watch stock-car racing. Tacky people were mourning Dale Earnhardt all over the South!

The New York Times did, in fact, cover Earnhardt's death the same day that he died: sportswriter Robert Lipsyte authored an article for the front page that was published on February 18, 2001. Another front page article appeared in the Times on the following day. Coulter cited an article indeed written two days after Earnhardt's death—Rick Bragg, a Pulitzer Prize winner who grew up in the South, wrote a personal piece on Earnhardt and his passing—bringing the total to three days in a row in which the Times covered Earnhardt's death on its front page.

Canadian troops in Vietnam

Coulter has been criticized for a statement she made on The Fifth Estate, an investigative journalism program produced by CBC television. During an interview by host Bob McKeown, Coulter said, "Canada used to be...one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?" McKeown contradicted her with, "No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam." On the February 18, 2005 edition of Washington Journal, Coulter justified her statement by referring to the thousands of Canadians who served in the American armed forces during the Vietnam era, either because they volunteered or because they were living in the USA during the war years and got drafted. (Between 5,000 and 20,000 Canadians fought in Vietnam itself, including approximately 80 who were killed.). John Cloud of Time, writing a few months later, suggested that Coulter may have been right, on the basis that "Canada [sent] noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972". However, Coulter's initial assertion was that Canada sent troops into Vietnam in support of the American position; in this connection, FAIR countered that Cloud made "quite a stretch to prove that Coulter was correct."

New York Times Christians/Nazis controversy

In her book Slander, Coulter also stated that the New York Times made several statements comparing Christians to Nazis. As examples, she cites a headline reading "Did the Nazi Crimes Draw On Christian Tradition?" and a quote, "The church was co-responsible for the Holocaust." She does not mention that the first quote was from a book review in which the reviewer disagreed with the thesis that the Nazi crimes drew on Christian tradition. The second quote was from a discussion printed in the Times, in which a historian also states that Pope Pius XII was responsible for saving 750,000 Jews.

Controversies and criticism

Coulter's polemics - she has described herself as a "polemicist" who likes to "stir up the pot" and doesn't "pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do" - sometimes start firestorms of controversy, ranging from rowdy uprisings at many of the colleges where she speaks to protracted discussions in the media.

9/11 "Jersey Girls"

In Godless, Coulter criticized the four 9/11 widows known as the "Jersey Girls", writing:

These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. ... I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much ... the Democrat ratpack gals endorsed John Kerry for president ... cutting campaign commercials... how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy.

These statements received national attention after an interview on The Today Show, and were widely criticized. Coulter refused to apologize, and responded, "I feel sorry for all the widows of 9/11...[but] I do not believe that sanctifies their political message....They have attacked Bush, they have attacked Condoleezza Rice, they're cutting campaign commercials for Kerry. But we can't respond because their husbands died . . . I think it's one of the ugliest things 'the left' has done...this idea that you need some sort of personal authenticity in order to make a political point..."

Comments about the New York Times

Coulter has a long-running animosity toward the New York Times. Her book Slander accuses the news media of unfairly criticizing conservatives, and cites the Times as a prime example.

In an interview with George Gurley of the New York Observer shortly after the publication of Slander, it was mentioned that Coulter actually had friends and acquaintances who worked for the Times, namely restaurant critic Frank Bruni and correspondent David E. Sanger. Later in the interview, she expressed amusement at her recollections of the Times' gratuitousness in publishing two photos of George H. W. Bush throwing up at a diplomatic meeting in Japan, then said: "Is your tape recorder running? Turn it on! I got something to say...My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." Gurley told her to be careful, to which she responded "You’re right, after 9/11 I shouldn’t say that".

By way of context, during an interview earlier in June 2002 with Katie Couric to promote the same book, Coulter expressed frustration about "constant mischaracterization" through being misquoted. "The idea that someone can go out and find one quote that will suddenly, you know, portray me — just dismiss her ideas, read no more, read no further, this person is crazy... is precisely what liberals do all the time".

When asked by John Hawkins through a pre-written set of interview questions if she regretted the statement, Coulter replied by saying: "Of course I regret it. I should have added, 'after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.'" Lee Salem, the president of Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes Coulter's column, later defended Coulter by characterizing her comments as satire.

The subject came up again when Coulter appeared on the Fox News program Hannity & Colmes. Alan Colmes mentioned Salem's claim, and said to her that remarks like saying "Timothy McVeigh should have bombed The New York Times building" were "laughable happy satires, right?" He then said that Coulter was "actually a liberal who is doing this to mock and parody the way conservatives think." She replied, "Well, it's not working very well if that were my goal. No, I think the Timothy McVeigh line was merely prescient after The New York Times has leaped beyond — beyond nonsense straight into treason, last week". She was referring to a Times report that revealed classified information about an anti-terrorism program of the U.S. government involving surveillance of international financial transactions of persons suspected of having Al-Qaida links. Colmes continued in vein when he responded, calling her remarks "great humor", and that it "belongs on Saturday Night Live. It belongs on The Daily Show."

Comments on Islam, Arabs and terrorism

On September 14, 2001, three days after the 9-11 attacks (in which her friend Barbara Olson had been killed), Coulter wrote in her column:

Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

Responding to this comment, Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations remarked in the Chicago Sun Times that before September 11, Coulter "would have faced swift repudiation from her colleagues", but "now it's accepted as legitimate commentary."

David Horowitz, however, saw Coulter's words as irony:

I began running Coulter columns on Frontpagemag.com shortly after she came up with her most infamous line, which urged America to put jihadists to the sword and convert them to Christianity. Liberals were horrified; I was not. I thought to myself, this is a perfect send-up of what our Islamo-fascist enemies believe – that as infidels we should be put to the sword and converted to Islam. I regarded Coulter’s phillipic (sic) as a Swiftian commentary on liberal illusions of multi-cultural outreach to people who want to rip out our hearts.

One day after the attacks (before the culprits had been identified and when death toll estimates were higher than they later became), Coulter asserted that only Muslims could have been behind the attacks:

Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims -- at least all terrorists capable of assembling a murderous plot against America that leaves 7,000 people dead in under two hours.

Coulter has been highly critical of the U.S. Department of Transportation and especially its then-secretary Norman Mineta. Her many criticisms include their refusal to use racial profiling as a component of airport screening. After a group of Muslims were expelled from a US Airways flight when other passengers expressed worries, sparking a call for Muslims to boycott the airline because of the ejection from a flight of six imams, Coulter wrote:

If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.

Coulter also cited the 2002 Senate testimony of FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, who was acclaimed for condemning her superiors for refusing to authorize a search warrant for 9-11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui when he refused to consent to a search of his computer. They knew that he was a Muslim in flight school who had overstayed his visa, and the French Intelligence Service had confirmed his affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups. Coulter said she agreed that probable cause existed in the case, but that refusing consent, being in flight school and overstaying a visa shouldn't constitute grounds for a search. Citing a poll which found that 98 percent of Muslims between the ages of 20 to 45 said they would not fight for Britain in the war in Afghanistan, and that 48 percent said they would fight for Osama bin Laden, she asserted "any Muslim who has attended a mosque in Europe -- certainly in England, where Moussaoui lived -- has had 'affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups'", so that she parsed Rowley's position as meaning that "'probable cause' existed to search Moussaoui's computer because he was a Muslim who had lived in England." Because "FBI headquarters...refused to engage in racial profiling" they failed to uncover the 9-11 plot, Coulter asserted. "The FBI allowed thousands of Americans to be slaughtered on the altar of political correctness. What more do liberals want?"

Coulter wrote in another column that she had reviewed the civil rights lawsuits against certain airlines to determine which airlines had subjected Arabs to the most "egregious discrimination" so that she could fly only that airline. She also said that the airline should be bragging instead of denying any of the charges of discrimination brought against them. In an interview with the The Guardian she quipped, "I think airlines ought to start advertising: 'We have the most civil rights lawsuits brought against us by Arabs.'" When the interviewer replied by asking what Muslims would do for travel, she responded, "They could use flying carpets."

One comment that drew criticism from the blogosphere, as well as fellow conservatives, was made during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2006, where she said, referring to the prospect of a nuclear-equipped Iran, "What if they start having one of these bipolar episodes with nuclear weapons? I think our motto should be, post-9-11: raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences." Coulter had previously written a nearly identical passage in her syndicated column: "...I believe our motto should be after 9/11: Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about 'camel jockey'? What? Now what'd I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?"

In October 2007, Coulter made more controversial remarks about Arabs, in this case Iraqis, when she stated, in an interview with the New York Observer

We’ve killed about 20,000 of them, of terrorists, of militants, of Al Qaeda members, and they’ve gotten a little over 3,000 of ours. That is where the war is being fought, in Iraq, that is where we are fighting Al Qaeda. Sorry we have to use your country, Iraqis, but you let Saddam come to power, ha-ha, and we are going to instill democracy in your country.

In a May 2007 article looking back at the life of the recently deceased evangelical Reverend Jerry Falwell, Coulter commented on Falwell's statement after the 9/11 attacks that "pagans", abortionists, feminists, and gays and lesbians, among others, helped make the attacks happen. In her article, Coulter stated that she disagreed with Falwell's statement, "because Falwell neglected to specifically include Teddy Kennedy and 'the Reverend' Barry Lynn."

In October 2007, Coulter participated in David Horowitz' "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week", remarking in a speech at the University of Southern California, "The fact of Islamo-Fascism is indisputable," she said. "I find it tedious to detail the savagery of the enemy . . . I want to kill them. Why don't Democrats?"

2007 John Edwards controversy

The next year, Coulter drew criticism for statements she made at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference about presidential candidate John Edwards. Coulter said:

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I'm - so, kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards, so I think I'll just conclude here and take your questions.

This was an allusion to Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington's use of the epithet and his subsequent mandatory "psychological assessment" imposed by ABC executives. but Coulter has argued on a couple of occasions that she didn't actually do so, while simultaneously indicating she would not have been wrong to say it.

The audience laughed, but Edwards responded on his website by characterizing Coulter's words as "un-American and indefensible" and asking readers to help him "raise $100,000 in 'Coulter Cash' this week to keep this campaign charging ahead and fight back against the politics of bigotry." Coulter's words also drew condemnation from many prominent Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians, as well as groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). Coulter responded in an e-mail to the New York Times: "C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."

On March 5, 2007, Coulter appeared on Hannity and Colmes and said, "[f]aggot isn't offensive to gays; it has nothing to do with gays. It's a schoolyard taunt meaning 'wuss'". and several newspapers dropped Coulter's column.

Responding to the controversy, Coulter said:

Just for the record, I've never attempted to revise, or extend, nor have I apologized and the attempts to silence me have made me even more money…Those newspapers pay me about 25 cents per month, but I picked up a LOT of speeches...Attempts to censor me have really backfired.

She also said, "I wasn't saying it on TV. I was saying it at a right-wing political convention with 7,000 college Republicans. I didn't put it on TV." The CPAC convention was, in fact, broadcast on C-SPAN. In an interview with Glenn Beck, she said, "Sarah Silverman uses the word, and, oh, liberals don't mind it when she uses it."

This controversy revived an earlier dispute originating from a 2003 column where Coulter disparaged Democratic Presidential candidates who mention family tragedies in their campaign speeches — including Edwards, who, she stated, talks frequently about the death of his son Wade in a traffic accident.

In a June 25, 2007 appearance on Good Morning America, Coulter said: "But about the same time, you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack -- so I've learned my lesson: If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."

The next day, on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, Coulter received a phone call from Elizabeth Edwards, John Edwards’ wife, asking her to stop the personal attacks and to stick to discussing the issues. Coulter responded, saying that the Edwards campaign was “raising money off it” and denied "saying anything about him [Edwards], actually, either time." Mrs. Edwards also confronted Coulter for writing that they had a bumper sticker on their car saying "Ask me about my dead son" in reference to the death of their son Wade. Coulter responded by characterizing Edwards' call as an attempt to silence her and by attacking Edwards for his activities as a trial lawyer.

Coulter refused to apologize, and explained her response to Mrs. Edwards in a subsequent column: "Edwards is...the trial lawyer who pretended in court to channel the spirit of a handicapped fetus in front of illiterate jurors to scam tens of millions of dollars off of innocent doctors...Apparently every time Edwards began a story about his dead son with 'I've never told anyone this before,' everyone on the campaign could lip-sync the story with him... If you want points for not using your son's death politically, don't you have to take down all those 'Ask me about my son's death in a horrific car accident' bumper stickers? Edwards is like a politician who keeps announcing that he will not use his opponent's criminal record for partisan political advantage... As a commentator, I bring facts like these to the attention of the American people in a lively way."

Disenfranchisement of women

Time magazine's John Cloud observes that Coulter "likes to shock reporters by wondering aloud whether America might be better off if women lost the right to vote." For example, in a May 2003 interview with The Guardian, Coulter said:

Again, in an October 2007 interview with the New York Observer, Coulter said:

Comments about Jews on The Big Idea

During an interview with Donny Deutsch on his CNBC program The Big Idea (October 8, 2007), Coulter stated that the United States is a Christian nation and suggested Christians viewed themselves as "perfected Jews". Deutsch, a practicing Jew, told Coulter he found the comments personally offensive and anti-semitic; Coulter replied that she could not understand his reaction.

DEUTSCH: You said—your exact words were, "Jews need to be perfected." Those are the words out of your mouth. COULTER: No, I'm saying that's what a Christian is. DEUTSCH: But that's what you said—don't you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic— COULTER: No! DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You're an educated woman. How do you not see that? COULTER: That isn't hateful at all. DEUTSCH: But that's even a scarier thought. OK— COULTER: No, no, no, no, no. I don't want you being offended by this. This is what Christians consider themselves, because our testament is the continuation of your testament. You know that. So we think Jews go to heaven. I mean [Jerry] Falwell himself said that, but you have to follow laws. Ours is "Christ died for our sins." We consider ourselves perfected Christians. For me to say that for you to become a Christian is to become a perfected Christian[sic] is not offensive at all.

In an interview published in Adweek three days after the interview, Deutsch noted that when he challenged her comments, Coulter appeared "to back off" and "seemed a little upset", adding, "I think she got frightened that maybe she had crossed a line, that this was maybe a faux pas of great proportions. I mean, did it show ignorance? Anti-Semitism? It wasn't just one of those silly things."

Dennis Prager, a conservative talk show host, commented that although, as a practicing Jew, he obviously did not agree with Coulter's comments, they were not anti-Semitic. He noted that: "There is nothing in what Ann Coulter said to a Jewish interviewer on CNBC that indicates she hates Jews or wishes them ill, or does damage to the Jewish people or the Jewish state. And if none of those criteria is present, how can someone be labeled anti-Semitic?" Conservative activist David Horowitz's reaction was similar: "If you don't accompany this belief by burning Jews who refuse to become perfected at the stake why would any Jew have a problem?... Why do some Jews think that Christians should not really believe what they believe while it's okay for Jews to really believe they are God's Chosen People? I don't get it."

In response to Coulter's comments on the show, the Anti-Defamation League issued a statement saying it "strongly condemns Ann Coulter for her anti-Semitic comment", and that to "espouse the idea that Judaism needs to be replaced with Christianity and that each individual Jew is somehow deficient and needs to be 'perfected,' is rank Christian supersessionism and has been rejected by the Catholic Church and the vast majority of mainstream Christian denominations." The American Jewish Committee issued a statement asserting that "Ms. Coulter's assertion that Jews are somehow religiously imperfect smacks of the most odious anti-Jewish sentiment." The National Jewish Democratic Council, self identified as "the national voice of Jewish Democrats", called on media outlets to stop inviting Coulter as a guest commentator/pundit."

Bibliography

References

External links

Official Web Site

Biography at Notable Names Database

Column archives

Ann Coulter column archive for Human Events articles at BNet Find Articles with advanced search (1998–2007)

Ann Coulter column archive at Human Events (2002–present)

Ann Coulter column archive at National Review (2000–2001)

Ann Coulter column archive at uExpress.com (1999–present) [select headline archive]

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