I don’t speak for any Jewish organization, but I think that it’s important to defend historical definitions of words, and keep history intact. The erosion and morphing of meaning is happening very quickly, before our eyes, and mostly we let it pass.

From the perspective of Jewish literature, words do have power, they can break bones more than sticks and stones. Not so in Western culture, and we tend to let people fudge meaning, adjust history a little bit here and there, and before you know it, we wake up to a world where it is questionable whether or not the Holocaust occurred, and terrorism is a viable tactic for warfare—even though terrorism does not have a definition.

The working definition of terrorism is that when Jews defend themselves, that’s terrorism, and if terrorists commit terrorist acts, that’s self-defense. It’s gotten to the point that if a Jew builds a house in Israel, that’s considered terrorism. All of this is the reason that it is most important to defend language and history.

If the meaning of words is clouded, if basic history is distorted, then what can people stand for?—meaningful principles can only be expressed in language. In other words, principles can only be expressed in clear language, and without clear language, it becomes much harder for people to have principles.

And this brings us to the ‘new’ shade of meaning for the blood libel. The blood libel was not just some headline in the National Enquirer. The blood libel provided a justification for people to go out and murder Jews. Jews, we Jews, have to make this clear. When we use the term ‘blood libel’, we are saying that these words will lead to violence, if not murder. It is not used to say that once again we are poor victims, please stop calling us bad names.

Jewish organizations should condemn Sarah Palin’s use of the term for the same reasons we condemn the actions of many nations and press organizations covering the Middle East—because it changes the meaning of words, it allows for rhetoric which does have consequences, it breaks down moral principles, and as we have seen, it can lead to death.

This is the principle upon which we should stand. If the criticism of Sarah Palin is that she used language irresponsibly, then she should respond by making sure she uses language responsibly, not changing the definition of more words. What she has done is show that the only principle for which she is willing to stand—is Sarah Palin.

If she apologizes, it should address these issues. Or else it’s nothing but more nothing.