The Eda Haredith, the leading ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist organization in Israel, slammed Neturei Karta last night for its participation in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinadinnerjacket's Holocaust denial conference in Tehran this week.
The ultra-Orthodox, zealously anti-Zionist Eda Haredit, a Jerusalem-based amalgamate of various hassidic courts and haredi groups, including Neturei Karta, attacked their own peers - those blatantly Jewish-looking participants in the Iranian Holocaust denial conference - for vilifying haredi Jewry in general and Neturei Karta in particular.
"That tiny group of weirdos is liable to incite hatred against haredim," warned the editor of Ha'edah, the mouthpiece of the Eda Haredit, in an editorial that will appear Thursday evening.
"Those people's distorted anti-Zionist zealotry, which is sanctified in their eyes above and beyond the opinion of our Torah sages, brought them to that conference," argued Shmuel Popenheim, editor of Ha'edah and author of the editorial that claimed to reflect the opinions of the Eda Haredit rabbinic leadership.
"Regardless of what they said at that conference, the very fact that they participated gave Ahmadinejad the justification to say: 'Look, the haredim feel the same way we do about the Holocaust.'"
Popenheim said the Eda Haredit, which has traditionally been chaired by the head of the Satmar hassidic sect, the ideological parent of Neturei Karta, has so far refrained from issuing an official cherem (excommunication) against the participants in the Holocaust denial conference and those who support them.
"But it is clear to all that their main purpose is not to fight Zionism; rather they are interested in sullying the Eda Haredit's name," said Popenheim, who estimated that there were no more than 10 extremists in Israel who supported participating in the Holocaust conference and about 25 worldwide.
The way the article reads, the people who attended the 'conference' are a break-off from Neturei Karta and not Neturei Karta itself. The implication is that even the 'official' Neturei Karta does not condone their actions.
Rabbi Israel Hirsch, a member of this fringe group who lives in Jerusalem's Mea She'arim neighborhood, defended participating in the Holocaust conference.
"The Zionists put so much emphasis on the Holocaust because they use it as a justification for the establishment of the State of Israel," said Hirsch. "Our message is that even if there was a Holocaust it does not permit us to subjugate another people. Israel must be returned to the Palestinians; only then will anti-Semitism end."
Hirsch said Zionism was to blame for the Holocaust.
"The call by the Zionists in Palestine and the Jews in the US to boycott Nazi Germany during the war is what pushed Hitler over the top. That is what made him call for the Final Solution," he explained.
What makes a big lie believeable is that it starts with an element of truth. I've highlighted for you what I believe to be the element of truth here. For those Zionists who have no connection to Judaism other than the State of Israel, for those who have abandoned Jewish traditions, the Holocaust does in fact provide justification for the establishment of the State. Anyone who has seen the Zionistic nature of the way Holocaust Memorial Day is treated here can understand that. But the rest of it is a lie. The Torah gives Jews right to the land of Israel, there are no 'Palestinians,' and no Arabs are 'subjugated' here. As to 'Zionism' being to blame for the Holocaust, that's also a lie, although - as anyone who has read Ben Hecht's Perfidy (which at one time had to be sold in secret here) knows, there were individual Jewish Agency functionaries who attempted to cut unsavory deals with the Nazis, and the manner in which visas to come to Israel were allocated during the Holocaust discriminated against religious Jews and the elderly. I hope I'm not telling you all anything you don't know already, but if I am, I can try to expand on it. Not today :-)
For Hirsch, it is a sin for Jews to attempt to take their fate into their own hands. Rather, Jews are relegated to a passive role until God decides to bring the final redemption. Zionism is a rebellion against God's plan because it is an attempt to provide an earthly redemption.
This is a reference to a discussion in the Talmud (Kthuboth 110-111) regarding whether it is permitted to leave Bavel - Iraq - to return to Israel. Most of the Jewish world rejects the interpretation that Hirsh is following (Satmar accepts it). But even if you accept the interpretation that Hirsh follows, it does not justify the actions he and his comrades have taken and are continuing to take against the State of Israel. Satmar would not justify them either.
Asked what he would do if forced to choose between joining the Arabs in a war against Israeli Zionists and defending Zionist Jews, Hirsch replied that he would join the Arabs.
"All Jewish Zionists, whether they call themselves religious or secular, are apostates who have cut themselves off from the Jewish people," he said.
Popenheim said that he, too, was virulently opposed to Zionism and agreed in principle with Hirsch that Zionism was equivalent to apostasy and rebellion against God. But he said that there was no justification for joining forces with Arabs or Iranians against Jews.
"If I saw an Arab terrorist trying to kill a Zionist Jew, I would shoot the Arab," said Popenheim.
For anyone who is interested in what makes the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) world tick, this article provides a window. But you should also keep in mind that the Eda Haredith is the most hostile to the State of Israel among the mainstream Haredi groups.
There are no anti-Semites Neturei Karta doesn't love
Hot off kissing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinadinnerjacket in Tehran, Neturei Karta is engaging in activities a bit closer to home here in Israel. Yesterday, Neturei Karta's local leader, Israel Hirsch (who did not go to Tehran) went to visit the protest test of the Islamic Movement - Northern Front's leader Sheikh Raed Sallah. Sallah is 'protesting' the fact that Israel is trying to prevent the ramp leading up to the Mughrabi gate entrance to the Temple Mount from collapsing by building a new ramp, which requires excavations first. Hirsch arrived in the Wadi Joz neighborhood of Jerusalem - which is within walking distance of Hirsch's home (and mine for that matter, although I would have a longer walk) - to visit Sallah with five other Neturei Karta members, continuing their warped 'Judaism' which has no basis in Judaism's tenets. It seems that for Neturei Karta, anyone who wants to kill Jews in Israel is a friend.
During the visit, Israel Hirsch, from the strictly Orthodox Mea Sheraim neighborhood, gave a rallying speech expressing his support for Salah, who also spoke at the meeting.
Earlier this month Salah was arrested at the Mugrabi excavation site after forcibly breaking through the police line guarding the area along with several of his followers. A court slapped him with a restraining order and he has since maintained the required 150 meter (500 feet) distance from the walls of the Old City.
"The Zionists have no right to change Jerusalem," Hirsch told Ynet on Tuesday. He also said that Salah and his followers greeted the Neturei Karta members "with joy and warmth."
Read the whole thing. The only inaccuracy in the full article is that Satmar had disowned Neturei Karta long before December.
I am sure that many of you have heard of the ongoing unrest in the Jerusalem corridor city of Beit Shemesh between certain anti-Zionist Haredim and parts of the National Religious community.
I don't want to get into a discussion of who is right and who is wrong - assuming that the dispute is a real one. That's not the topic of this blog. You can write me whatever you want about it by email, but I will delete comments that are going in that direction. Rather, I want to share with you an interesting theory regarding who might be behind the unrest.
Many think of Judaism as a single religion, but it has as many denominations and subsets as Christianity does. Orthodox Judaism equally breaks down into countless subsets. Most of the problems in Jerusalem concern 19th century immigrant sects which never reconciled themselves to the creation of the State of Israel, and have in some cases made common cause with Islam.
The Neturei Karta, who have been denounced by every mainstream Orthodox denomination, were friendly with the Ayatollah Khomeini and are friendly with Ahmadinejad. They held prayer vigils for Arafat and took blood money from his kleptocracy. They are best thought of as the Jewish version of the Westboro Baptist Church which pickets military funerals, complete with gloating messages after terrorist attacks and assaults on other Orthodox Jews.
One Neturei Karta leader who was famously photographed in a liplock with Iranian genocidal thug Ahmadinejad also met with Neo-Nazis and his children were expelled from school after being taught to cheer terrorist attacks. Other Neturei Karta leaders have met with Farrakhan and Hamas terrorists. But while some NK leaders forbid traveling to Israel, much of the movement (which despite its small size has its own splinter groups) is still embedded in Jerusalem. There it has engaged in a variety of violent incidents against Jewish businesses and residents. And like their Muslim brethren, their feelings for women mirror their feelings for Zionism.
Leftist media describe Neturei Karta leaders as "Anti-Zionist Jews" when they're doing a story on their participation in an Anti-Israel protest in New York or London, but when they attack bookstores or girls' schools in Israel then they are suddenly "Ultra-Orthodox Extremists" even when the people they are attacking are Orthodox Jews.
The Neturei Karta assaults on Jews and their support for terrorists have been a problem for some time. And the outrageous prayer vigils for Arafat and the harassment of Jewish schoolgirls are all despicable and depraved behavior by a corrupt cult which has engaged in kidnapping and child abuse. The NK are not the only ones involved, but they are at the heart of the problem.
However the Soros funded left is exploiting the anti-social behavior of their fellow anti-Zionists to demonize Israel, build a protest movement for their own purposes and launch a wider campaign against religious Jews. Their technique involves conflating violent incidents with local customs to create the appearance of a larger social problem. Thus an assault on a bus is equated to religious soldiers leaving a musical performance which violated their religious sensibilities.
Frankly, I'm not sure I buy into this. While Neturei Karta and Toldoth Aharon (the sect that is largely behind the Beit Shemesh demonstrations) are both anti-Zionist, they are not identical. Toldoth Aharon does not do things like travel to Iran to kiss Ahmadinejad. In fact, most of them refuse to leave Israel at all and have done so for seven or eight generations. I seriously doubt that Toldoth Aharon would knowingly take any kind of support from Soros. Of course, it is possible that Neturei Karta is egging Toldoth Aharon on (they both live in the same neighborhood in Jerusalem).
This little tidbit was buried in a lengthy Arutz Sheva report on the universal condemnation of Neturei Karta - across the entire spectrum of religious Jewry - for attending the Holocause denial conference in Tehran this week.
Hat Tip: Shlomo in Melbourne, Australia
Israel Hirsch, one of the Neturei Karta participants of the conference [I'm not sure that's correct. Hirsch is the head of Neturei Karta in Israel, but I don't think he attended the conference. He was quoted in the Post yesterday as saying he did not attend. CiJ], said his group “shares a common platform with Ahmadinejad when it comes to the so-called myth the Zionist movement created around the Holocaust.” A resident of Jerusalem’s Meah She'arim neighborhood, he said he "wanted to make it clear in Teheran that Zionism uses the Holocaust as an excuse for the existence of the Zionist state in the Land of Israel.”
Hirsch went on to say that the Iranian claim is logical. “They aren’t saying that there wasn’t a Holocaust,” he insisted. “But who perpetrated the Holocaust? The Nazis, the Germans. So they should at least pay compensation to the Jewish nation and establish a Jewish state within Germany and not within the land of Israel, which belongs to the Palestinians.”
This same group kissed and hugged Ahmadinejad when he appeared in New York to attend the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in September. They also exhorted Jews to pray for a Hizbullah victory during the second war with Lebanon after two IDF reservists were captured by the terror organization in a cross-border raid this summer.
They attended the funeral of former Palestine Liberation Organization chairman and chief terrorist Yasser Arafat, and have been funded by Palestinian Authority terrorist organizations.
Documents discosed by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center and the Center for Special Studies (CSS) reveal that Arafat paid more than $50,000 to Hirsch [I think that was Hirsch's father and not Hirsch himself. CiJ], considered the “foreign minister” of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect.
CSS stated that the documents uncovered during Operation Defense Shield carried out in Jenin by the IDF in April 2002 showed that Arafat paid $25,000 and $30,000 in January and February of that year for “expenses for activities.” The investigators noted that Neturei Karta frequently supported Arafat and served as a propaganda tool for him.
The local Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) free newspaper has a picture of these clowns in Tehran this week, with the caption "מהרסיך ומחריביך" (those who would ruin and destroy you). This is part of a verse in Yeshayahu (Isaiah) 49:17 that says that those who would ruin and destroy you will come from among you.
US taxpayers subsidizing terrorist propaganda and Holocaust denial in the Arab world
Tuesday's Wall Street Journal has an astounding article about the use of the Al-Hurra network. As you may recall, Al-Hurra is a US taxpayer subsidized Arabic television network that was started three years ago as a counterweight to Al-Jazeera. At the moment, it is anything but.
Almost six weeks later, on Jan. 20, Al-Hurra aired a follow-up story on the Neturei Karta, the fringe group of ultraorthodox, anti-Zionist Jews who met with Mr. Ahmadinejad. There was obviously world-wide media fascination with the Jews who ventured to a Holocaust denial forum hosted by the man who wants to wipe Israel off the map. Responsible journalists, though, were careful to provide the necessary context, the most important of which is that the Neturei Karta is a marginal group with world-wide membership, according to its Web site, of "several thousand." Responsible Al-Hurra was not.
The Neturei Karta were presented as mainstream Orthodox Jews, and Al-Hurra claimed that they number more than one million. The story's angle is clear from the anchor's introduction: "They always put Israeli officials in a bind, who can't seem to understand how Jews can oppose Zionism, or how a Jew can encourage Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his opposition to Israel." Various Neturei Karta members uttered outrageous falsehoods about supposed "Zionist" cruelty, including "torture, detention, [and the] burning of their synagogues." None of these libels were challenged, let alone debunked.
"There is no purpose in doing a soft feature of the Neturei Karta, except to pander to or bolster vicious Arab and Muslim propaganda about Jews, Israel, and the Holocaust," notes Mark Broxmeyer, chairman of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.
In fairness, there's no reason to suppose Mr. Register understood exactly what was being broadcast: He doesn't speak Arabic. Then again, there's no evidence that he bothered, or cared, to learn about the contents. Either way, Mr. Register clearly doesn't grasp Al-Hurra's mission.
Holocaust denial is rampant in the Arab world, even among the educated; there's a widespread embrace of conspiratorial explanations for world events, such as theories about Jews perpetrating 9/11, and notorious forgeries such as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," which is widely sold and read throughout the region. Arab media do not challenge this mindset, but usually indulge it.
Combating this nonsense should be ground zero in our quest to inject truth and information into the Arab world. If we can't do this, how will we ever be able counteract the jihadists who preach to the masses that America is waging war on Islam?
The person tasked with counteracting those jihadists, Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes, is a stalwart supporter of Mr. Register. At an April 19 House Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee hearing, after two congressmen gave Ms. Hughes a bipartisan earful about Mr. Register, she responded that she has heard nothing but "high praise" and "rave reviews." Just last Friday, Ms. Hughes went to Al-Hurra's D.C.-area headquarters, signaling that she still backs Mr. Register. Meanwhile, five of the six BBG members--outgoing chairman Ken Tomlinson was the lone dissenter--are ardent Register partisans, voting 5-1 against investigating Mr. Register's questionable editorial decisions.
The sham 'Holocaust Conference' opened in Tehran today, with Iran claiming that "it would not be an attempt to deny the World War II genocide but merely to discuss it in an unrestricted atmosphere." 'Unrestricted' as long as you have the right point of view of course. The Times of London reports this morning that 'Palestinian' lawyer Khaled Kasab Mahameed was denied a visa to enter Iran to attend the conference (Hat Tip: Pajamas Media), while Neturei Karta (do they actually deny the Holocaust?!?) was allowed in. Mahameed believes that his denial was because he carries an Israeli passport. I think there's more to it than that:
“I’m bitterly disappointed,” Mr Mahameed, who studied at a British university, told The Times. He was seeking a personal audience with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, to tell him that denials or questioning of “such huge, monstrous horror” harmed the Palestinian cause.
Mr Mahameed lives in Israel, where he has established the Arab Institute for Holocaust Research and Education, the Arab world’s first Holocaust museum, in Nazareth. He believes that the “study, analysis and acknowledgement” of the Holocaust by Arabs is important for a durable peace between the Palestinians and Israel. “It’s not enough to curse these Holocaust deniers as foolish. We have to convince them the Holocaust did happen,” Mr Mahameed said.
My guess is that Mahameed was denied a visa because he knows that the Holocaust did happen, and because he is one of those rare people known as a 'moderate Muslim,' who actually truly believes in reconciliation between Israel and the 'Palestinians.' We could probably make real peace with him in half an hour.
On the other hand, look at the cast of characters that is attending the 'Holocaust Conference':
Figures such as Fredrick Toben, a German-born Holocaust denier who lives in Australia, had little trouble getting a visa to attend the conference. There were reports that Lady Michele Renouf, an Australian-born model and socialite, was also on her way to Tehran. She was ejected from the Reform Club in London three years ago after attempting to get David Irving, the right-wing British historian, to speak there.
Irving was understood to be on the original invitation list to the Tehran conference when Mr Ahmadinejad first proposed the gathering last January. But a month later Irving was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment in Austria after disputing the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz.
By the admission of Manouchehr Mohammadi, the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister, the conference will address issues such as “whether the gas chambers were actually used by the Nazis”.
...
Tehran claims that 67 “intellectuals and researchers” from 30 countries, including Britain, Germany and France, will attend but has refused to name them. Iran is portraying the gathering as an exercise in free speech, claiming that open discussion of the Holocaust is denied in the West, where some countries make Holocaust denial a crime.
“For 60 years talking about the Holocaust was a crime in the West, but now there is a serious debate about the Holocaust in the media and also in political and popular meetings,” Mr Ahmadinejad said at the weekend. “Even some Western politicians have declared that the original foundation of the Zionist regime was a mistake,” he added.
There's another group attending that the Times of London was too kind to mention: the anti-Zionist nutcases of Neturei Karta, whose hatred of Israel and their fellow Jews apparently knows no boundaries. For the record, I don't categorize Neturei Karta as Haredi (ultra-Orthodox), because Haredim follow 'Daath Torah' (recognized Torah scholars) and Neturei Karta does not follow any. Even the anti-Zionist Satmar movement - with whom people often associate Neturei Karta - has expelled them because of their penchant for endangering fellow Jews.
The organizers, the Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International Studies (IPIS), said the two-day conference has drawn 67 foreign researchers from 30 countries.
In his opening speech, the institute's chief, Rasoul Mousavi, said the conference "seeks neither to deny or prove the Holocaust.
"It is just to provide an appropriate scientific atmosphere for scholars to offer their opinions in freedom about a historical issue," Mousavi said.
He said the conference provided an opportunity to discuss "questions" about the Holocaust away from Western taboos and the restrictions imposed on scholars in Europe.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki dismissed the foreign criticism as "predictable," telling conference delegates in a speech that there was "no logical reason for opposing this conference."
"The objective for organizing this conference is to create an atmosphere to raise various opinions about a historical issue. We are not seeking to deny or prove the Holocaust," Mottaki said.
There are no words for this treachery. No words. And for those who call themselves religious Jews who participate in it there is nothing but complete and utter contempt.
Remember the creepy Neturei Karta 'rabbi' who was photographed kissing Ahmadinadinnerjacket at the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran last month? Well, it seems that he is kind of extreme even by Neturei Karta standards, and YNet reported today that kissing Ahmadinadinnerjacket was the last straw for his wife - who has filed for divorce:
Moshe Aryeh Friedman, a senior Neturei Karta member, who passionately kissed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will now be forced to look for a woman who will agree to kiss him, as his wife has decided to leave him following his participation in the Holocaust denial conference which took place in Tehran about a month ago.
...
Friedman, who lives in Vienna, is the harshest person among the Neturei Karta representatives who arrived in Iran , and was even photographed kissing the Iranian president. He also stayed in Iran for another two weeks after his friends left, visiting universities across the country in order to speak against the State of Israel.
The 'Ultra-Orthodox Voice' service reported that when Friedman finally returned to Vienna he found out that his wife, following her parents' advice, had fled to the Satmar community in Williamsburg, New York City. There she approached rabbis and asked them to help her divorce her husband due to his misdeeds.
That makes two out of six. I wonder what will happen to the rest of them.
The connection between Ehud K. Olmert and Neturei Karta
Remember Neturei Karta? They are the despicable crew who attended Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial conference in Tehran in December 2006 (pictured above). You may recall that they were slammed by Jewish organizations across the spectrum (including some anti-Zionist ones) and that it came out after the fact that they are funded by the 'Palestinian Authority.' Over the weekend they should up at a conference in London sponsored by the 'Islamic Human Rights Commission' to deal with the 'suffering' of the 'Palestinian people' on the 60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel. Let's go to the videotape and then I want to tell you about one of the other participants.
Did you catch the interview with Yehudit Keshet? Some of you may not know who she is; the video does not give the name of the organization she founded. But she founded an organization called Machsom Watch, which I have discussed on this blog several times. One of Machsom Watch's star 'activists' is one Dana Olmert, the daughter of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud K. Olmert. Ms. Olmert also teaches 'creative writing workshops.' (Please follow that last link and read the rest of her brief Wikipedia bio - it's a doozer, and it may help explain why she fits right in with the two 'gentlemen' at the top).
So to summarize, the founder of a radical leftist organization that seeks to destroy the State of Israel from within, and in which the daughter of Israel's Prime Minister is a prominent 'activist,' attended a conference over the weekend that was dedicated to destroying the Jewish State of Israel with the leading 'activists' of Neturei Karta (who still consider themselves ultra-Orthodox Jews), a group that argues that Zionism and Judaism are incompatible, and which is even willing to engage in Holocaust denial to advance that goal.
Rich, isn't it? And you thought Barack Hussein Obama made some bad choices of associates. He's got nothing on Ehud K. Olmert.
Europeans like to distinguish between being anti-Jewish and
anti-Zionist. Neturei Karta is an anti-Zionist branch of Judaism so
opposed to the state of Israel that they’ve met with President
Ahmadinejad, presumably to hear his exciting plans for wiping it off the
map. Unfortunately, back in the Netherlands, this Neturei Karta rabbi’s
assailant didn’t get the memo.
...
“B-but I’m not that kind of Jew” doesn’t get you as far on the streets of Europe as it does in the presidential palace in Iran.
He eventually moved to Antwerp where (assuming that the news reports are correct) he has done something that ought to turn him into a moser (link in Hebrew) in the eyes of the Jewish community (leaving aside for a minute that he defied the ban contained in Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 26 against availing oneself of the secular courts against fellow Jews). Moshe Aryeh Friedman filed and won a lawsuit against a private Jewish girls' school in Antwerp forcing them to admit his sons to study there. The school is now facing fines of $2,600 per child per day if it does not comply (Hat Tip: Mrs. Carl).
At the end of 2011, Friedman relocated his wife and seven children from New York to Antwerp, but because of what Friedman calls “revenge” on the part of the Jewish community for his “opinion and good contacts with world leaders”, he has been unable to find a yeshiva which will admit his children. As such, Friedman said he had no choice but to apply for admission for his sons, ages 8 and 11, to the all-girls, Orthodox Jewish Benoth Jerusalem School in Antwerp.
According to a report in the local Belgian paper, Gazet van Anwerpen (http://bit.ly/VblYff), when Benoth Jerusalem denied admission to his sons, Friedman sued citing a recent decision from the Commission on Students’ Rights which held that a child cannot be denied admission to a school on the basis of their gender.
A Belgian judge ruled that because yeshivas are subsidized by the Flemish community, Benoth Jerusalem must admit the boys or face a $2,600 penalty per child for each day the boys are not permitted to attend.
The school board argued that Orthodox Judaism requires the separation of the sexes for educational instruction. Moreover, the board said it is not equipped to educate male students as it does not have male teachers on staff and lacks basic infrastructure such as separate restrooms.
The school board has until next week to appeal the judge’s ruling.
If this story is true, Friedman has assured his and his family's ostracism from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community for life (at least unless and until his children are old enough to denounce him).
For generations, Orthodox Jews have hired private teachers to educate their children at home if they could not find an appropriate school. That's what Friedman should have done if no school would accept his children. And if he could not find anyone to teach them (because he is probably in cherem - excommunicated - so no one will deal with him) he should teach them himself. If he has to send them to a school, let him either recant and have the cherem released, or let him send them to public schools until he does so.
Second, I mentioned the prohibition in Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 26 against turning to secular courts against fellow Jews (link in Hebrew).
Third, for anyone who believes that all ultra-Orthodox Jews support Neturei Karta, this should convince you otherwise. As I understand it, both the school in Vienna that expelled his children six years ago, and the school in Antwerp are operated by mainstream ultra-Orthodox communities.
And fourth, Friedman should have thought about this before embracing a Jew-hater like Ahmadinejad. Actions have consequences. No, I have zero sympathy for this guy. Look at the picture at the top to see why.
Earlier this week, I reported that representatives of the anti-Zionistanti-Jewish Neturei Karta movement were attending Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinadinnerjacket's Holocaust denial 'conference' in Tehran. Honestly, I wondered what they were doing there. Surely, they wouldn't deny that the Holocaust took place!
Neturei Karta is apparently not denying that the Holocaust took place. But they are also claiming that Ahmadinadinnerjacket isn't denying it, which is an out and out lie! And, they're claiming that if a Jewish state should be anywhere, it should be in Germany!
Former chief rabbi of Israel and current chief rabbi of Tel Aviv Rav Israel Lau is horrified by Neturei Karta's idea. He also doesn't buy the explanations provided by the Jewish conference guests that the conference does not aim to deny the Holocaust, but to oppose Zionism.
According to Lau, "This is something not tolerated by the intellect, something that is complete insanity, truly chaos. If it could be that any Jew, for whatever reason, who is capable of shaking the hand of a Holocaust denier in a generation when there are still people with numbers tattooed on their arms among us – this is insanity that not only has no justification, but also no explanation."
As a Holocaust survivor, Lau wants to remind people: "What is the meaning of the number on the arm? The meaning is that the Nazis and their collaborators erased the humanity in people and turned us into numbers. I, for instance, wasn't Israel Lau, not even Lulek, my Polish nickname. I was Buchenwald prisoner number 117030, while I was still 7 and a half years old."
He added a personal call and demanded Pope Benedictus XVI to publicly condemn the Iranian conference.
"Especially as a religious figure and a native of Germany, he is about to meet this week with the prime minister of Israel, which is a state that was established on the ashes of the Holocaust and its furnaces. He should make decisive and explicit statements condemning the conference in Iran," Lau beckoned.
I don't care what these lunatics say - they're entitled to their opinion. But in going to Tehran and encouraging Ahmadinadinnerjacket they are desecrating God's name and endangering Jewish lives. There will surely be hell to pay for that. Hopefully not by anyone other than them.
At least one of the Neturei Karta members who attended the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran last week has been placed in herem (excommunicated) by his local community in Manchester, England (Please note that I have no idea whether the picture above is of the subject of this article or of a different Neturei Karta adherent):
If anyone had told me it would take the actions of a Natorei Karta self-proclaimed rabbi to get the ultra-Orthodox anti-Israel community and the Zionists to stand side by side at a demonstration I would have probably laughed in their face.
But that is exactly what has been happening in a formerly quiet street in Manchester in the past week.
Ahron Cohen was previously familiar as he stood alongside Palestine Solidarity demonstrators around the world to show his hatred of the State of Israel.
While those of us who support Israel have not liked the message his personage sent out to the wider world, we have not questioned his right to freedom of speech and action, and the fact that tiny Natorei Karta and the much larger Satmar, among other sects, deny the right of Israel to exist is well known.
However once Ahron Cohen decided to attend the Holocaust denial conference in Teheran and was pictured shaking hands with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the man who has publicly declared he wants to see the elimination of the Jewish state, that was one step too far.
The Manchester community from the haredi to the secular has made it very clear this man is a disgrace, and brings disrepute to us all.
...
And the remarkable thing is that when Zionists took to the streets with their Israeli flags, singing "Hatikva," outside the home of Ahron Cohen, they stood alongside large numbers of the haredi community, including many Satmar congregants.
...
MANY SANCTIONS are being used to make it clear to "rabbi" Cohen that he is persona non grata here in Manchester.
Just how long his position here is tenable remains to be seen.
The Manchester Beth Din has issued a condemnation, as has the Machzikei Hadass leader. Satmar have dissociated themselves in the strongest terms. They make it clear that while they, too, do not recognize Israel, Holocaust denial - or aligning with Holocaust deniers - is an entirely different matter.
There has been call for excommunication; his fees to the burial society have been returned to make it clear there will be no future resting place for him among Manchester Jews. Holocaust survivors have expressed their horror and pain. Shops are refusing to serve him and all the synagogue's and shtiebels where he used to worship have closed their doors to him.
But here's the most ironic part:
It is rumored that he will try to travel to Israel this week. Will he be welcome there? I doubt it. Antwerp has been suggested as another possible place where he might seek respite from the onslaught he has faced.
I'm not sure that the writer - Joy Wolfe, who is life president of the Manchester Zionist Central Council and of Manchester Wizo and a member of the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester - is correct. Cohen might actually be welcome here, at least in some circles. He could probably melt into Meah Shearim without anyone knowing who he is or why he is there - if he can get past the Ben Gurion Airport security.
Boo hoo! Neturei Karta loses funding from 'Palestinian Authority'
The daughter of the 'Palestinian Authority's 'Minister of Jewish Affairs' was married last week in Jerusalem. The wedding was held in a private home at 7:00 am rather than in a banquet hall. Apparently, the 'Palestinian Authority' is no longer funding Neturei Karta.
As proof of their strong stand against the State of Israel's existence, they made sure to mention in the invitations that the event would be held at "the holy city of Jerusalem, Palestine." Accordingly, the time of the wedding ceremony was mentioned in Central European Time.
Ahead of the wedding day, the family learned that the wedding had sparked a great deal of interest in the haredi sector, especially in light of the fact that the bride observes strict modesty rules. Therefore, it was decided to move up the wedding ceremony from 2 pm to 7 am, and hold it in a private house outside the neighborhood.
The modest bride wore a white dress covered with a black coat. According to one of Hirsch's neighbors, before they decided to marry her husband looked at her just once during a conversation which last several minutes.
"I'm sure it was enough, as she's a beautiful girl," he noted.
The joyous occasion was celebrated in the evening, in a modest meal at the home of the bride's parents. The guests were greeted by a Palestinian flag decorated with the word "Welcome" in Arabic and English.
Both Roger Cohen and the Neturei Karta should be pleased. Iranian Jews came out on Tuesday to denounce Zionism and to demonstrate in favor of their country's pursuit of nuclear weapons. I'm sure they were (not) all there voluntarily....
Demonstrators held the Torah and banners with statements in English,
Hebrew and Farsi in support of Iran's nuclear negotiators, and performed
mass religious ceremonies, Iranian PressTV reported.
"Iranian monotheists are proud of supreme leader fatwa for prohibition of mass killing weapons," the banners read.
“We,
the Iranian Jews, announce our full support for Iran’s negotiating team
in the talks with the P5+1 and advise the other party to seize this
opportunity,” a statement issued by the Jewish community in Iran read.
The
statement added that the Iranian Jews "insist on standing by their
Muslim brothers in defending the right to use peaceful nuclear energy
for scientific and economic progress of Iran."
The statement also included a denouncement of Zionism, saying that it "has nothing to do with Judaism."
Isn't it amazing that they're free to demonstrate in Iran? (If you believe that, you are a useful idiot)
Video: Canadian 'Palestinian' leader tells Jews to leave Israel or die, Neturei Karta has no objections
In an earlier post, I reported on the al-Quds day rally in Toronto at which a Canadian 'Palestinian' leader told Israelis to leave Israel and Jerusalem or be shot.
I now have a brief video of that incident (which includes a two-minute warning for us to leave).
Let's go to the videotape.
I guess the Neturei Karta guys (from 0:38 to 0:57 of the video) didn't find his words objectionable. I wonder what makes them think he'd treat them any differently. Their hatred is truly blind.
Sickening video: Abu Mazen and Emir of Qatar shake hands with Neturei Karta's Hirsh
In earlier posts I mentioned the 'International Conference for the Defense of Jerusalem' which is taking place in Qatar. In this video, you will see Neturei Karta's Rabbi Meir Hirsh shaking hands with Abu Mazen and with the Emir of Qatar.
Truly revolting video of Ahmadinejad meeting with Neturei Karta in New York
This video is sickening and I'm sorry that it may ruin a lot of your holidays. It's a video of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meeting with representatives of Neturei Karta in New York. Simply disgusting.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Will).
There's so much wrong with this video and what he's saying, that I cannot begin to explain it to those who aren't well versed in Talmudic study (particularly Kethuboth 110-111). But what he's doing is endangering millions of Jews in Israel and elsewhere, and that is totally forbidden.
None of the other Jewish anti-Zionist groups (Satmar and Munkatch come to mind) would have pulled a stunt like this. Simply beyond belief.
The JPost examines the popularity in Europe of anti-Zionist Holocaust survivors - mostly Hedy Epstein who is not a Holocaust survivor - and concludes that their popularity derives from Europeans' desire to salve their own guilt over the Holocaust.
The Shoah as a cynical form of moral shock therapy for Diaspora Jewry and Israelis remains a ubiquitous bully club to pit a clique of anti-Israeli Jews against the mainstream European Jewish community.
Epstein told The Jerusalem Post last week that "when people are suffering it comes upon the rest of us to do whatever we can."
The pressing question for the critics of Epstein's human rights activism is, why are she and other activists not engaging in a hunger strike for persecuted Iranians risking their lives for democracy on the streets of the Islamic Republic? Where are the hunger strikes opposing the Islamist Sudanese government-sponsored genocide against its black population in the Darfur region?
The media appeal of catapulting Epstein into a poster girl for criticizing Israel's right to self-defense in Gaza resonates with a European audience starved for moral exoneration because of its complicity in the crimes of the Holocaust.
That's actually not a pressing question for the critics - it's a question for Epstein herself and her allies.
Please note this from the article:
The US State Department and the European Union both define parallels between Nazi Germany and Israel as a form of modern anti-Semitism.
Indeed.
The picture at the top is a Neturei Karta member kissing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the latter's Holocaust denial conference. In a disgusting display, which I refuse to link, four members of Neturei Karta spent the Sabbath in 'a Gaza hotel' (possibly the Gush Katif hotel that was left to the Hamas terrorists after all Gaza's Jews were expelled four and a half years ago. The JPost this morning featured pictures of these despicable excuses for Jews wearing Goldstone kafiyah's around their necks.
Those who would destroy us continue to come from within.
Sunday's New York Times featured an appalling article by Samuel Freedman (an author I used to enjoy) that portrayed more than sympathetically a group called the American Council for Judaism, a group that can only be described as an alter-ego to the 'ultra-Orthodox' Neturei Karta.
As shocking as Mr. Naman’s insistence on taking Israel out of Judaism may seem, it actually adheres to a consistent strain within Jewish debate. Whether one calls it anti-Zionism or non-Zionism — and all these terms are contested and loaded — the effort to separate the Jewish state from Jewish identity has centuries-old roots.
This is a gross mis-statement. What goes back centuries (to Talmudic times) is a dispute over whether and under what circumstances Jews are allowed to return to Israel before the Messiah's arrival. However, the entire notion of removing Israel and the return to Zion from the prayerbook text was a reform notion that dates back to sometime in the 18th or 19th centuries - not exactly 'hundreds' of years and not a 'consistent' strain of Jewish debate.
It is not that members are flocking to the council. The group’s mailing list is only in the low thousands, and its Web site received a modest 10,000 unique visitors in the last year. Its budget is a mere $55,000. As Mr. Naman acknowledges, the council’s history of opposition to Zionism renders it “radioactive” for even liberal American Jewish groups, like J Street and Peace Now.
To put this in perspective (and keep in mind that these people are probably mostly internet users so they don't have that excuse), this modest little website that you are reading (Israel Matzav) has over 80,000 unique visitors and 115,000 page views THIS MONTH. And no one at the New York Times has contacted me about doing a story yet. Anyone think there might be an agenda here - like that the original Times ownership (the Sulzbergers) were part of this group many years ago?
The rejection of Zion, though, goes back to the Torah itself, with its accounts of the Hebrews’ rebelling against Moses on the journey toward the Promised Land and pleading to return to Egypt.
And the rabbis tell us that was a small fringe group that wanted to maintain their own advantageous positions of power that would only be applicable in the desert.
Read the whole thing. It would take me an entire day's worth of posts to correct all the mistakes in this article. And I used to think Samuel Freedman was a smart guy....
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
The way the article reads, the people who attended the 'conference' are a break-off from Neturei Karta and not Neturei Karta itself. The implication is that even the 'official' Neturei Karta does not condone their actions. 
What makes a big lie believeable is that it starts with an element of truth. I've highlighted for you what I believe to be the element of truth here. For those Zionists who have no connection to Judaism other than the State of Israel, for those who have abandoned Jewish traditions, the Holocaust does in fact provide justification for the establishment of the State. Anyone who has seen the Zionistic nature of the way Holocaust Memorial Day is treated here can understand that. But the rest of it is a lie. The Torah gives Jews right to the land of Israel, there are no 'Palestinians,' and no Arabs are 'subjugated' here. As to 'Zionism' being to blame for the Holocaust, that's also a lie, although - as anyone who has read Ben Hecht's Perfidy (which at one time had to be sold in secret here) knows, there were individual Jewish Agency functionaries who attempted to cut unsavory deals with the Nazis, and the manner in which visas to come to Israel were allocated during the Holocaust discriminated against religious Jews and the elderly. I hope I'm not telling you all anything you don't know already, but if I am, I can try to expand on it. Not today :-) 
