Israel targets top rabbis for anti-Arab incitement backing “King’s Doctrine”
Israeli police briefly detained a leading rabbi Sunday as part of a widening probe into a treatise suspected of inciting the murder of Arabs. The investigation has pitted authorities in the Jewish state against far-right West Bank settlers and has led to scuffles outside government institutions in Jerusalem and a sit-down protest that choked off the main highway to Tel Aviv.
Rabbi Yaacov Yosef was seized by detectives on his way back from morning prayers, witnesses said, in a tactic similar to the arrest last week of a senior West Bank rabbi whose followers responded with street protests. ”They commandeered the car and took it away, together with my dad, to an undisclosed destination,” Yosef’s son Yonatan told Israel Radio. The rabbi was freed after an hour, police said.
The clerics had ignored a police summons to be questioned over endorsements for “The King’s Doctrine,” a book written by a more obscure settler rabbi offering justifications from scripture for killing innocent gentiles during religious war. ”Revenge, including strikes on the blameless and on babies, is necessary and important in fighting and defeating evil,” read a passage excerpted on Israel’s top-rated television news.
Israeli security officials fear such edicts could fuel Jewish attacks designed to scupper the eviction of settlers from occupied land they regard as theirs by biblical birthright but where Palestinians, with international support, seek statehood.
A police spokesman said Yosef had been interrogated in connection with “incitement to racism and violence” before being let go. Dov Lior, chief rabbi for the hardcore settlement of Kiryat Arba, was similarly questioned and released last week.
Dutch vote to ban ritual animal slaughter, Jews and Muslims unite in protest
The Dutch parliament voted on Tuesday to ban ritual slaughter of animals, a move strongly opposed by the country’s Muslim and Jewish minorities, but left a loophole that might let religious butchering continue. The bill by the small Animal Rights Party, the first such group in Europe to win seats in a national parliament, passed the lower house of parliament by 116 votes to 30. It must be approved by the upper house before becoming law. It stipulates that livestock must be stunned before being slaughtered, contrary to the Muslim halal and Jewish kosher laws that require animals to be fully conscious.
“This way of killing causes unnecessary pain to animals. Religious freedom cannot be unlimited,” said Marianne Thieme, head of the Animal Rights Party, said before the vote. “For us religious freedom stops where human or animal suffering begins.”
In a rare show of unity, the Netherlands’ Muslim and Jewish communities — numbering about 1 million and 40,000 respectively in a total population of 16 million — have condemned the proposed ban as a violation of their religious freedom. “The very fact that there is a discussion about this is very painful for the Jewish community,” Netherlands Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs told Reuters. “Those who survived the (second world) war remember the very first law made by the Germans in Holland was the banning of schechita or the Jewish way of slaughtering animals.”
Uca Octay of Rotterdam’s Islamic University said: “We will have to import halal meat from neighboring countries or find another way to meet the needs of the Muslim population. Becoming vegetarian could be an option as well.”
The law said religious groups could continue ritual slaughter if they proved it was no more painful than stunning, but it was not clear how to do this. The Jewish community has challenged a study on animal pain used to support the ban.
Chief Rabbi Jacobs said the exemption in the law stipulated “that we must prove the animal slaughtered the Jewish way suffers less or the same as with stunning, but this absolutely impossible to prove. You can’t ask the animal how it feels afterwards. Nobody can prove this.” He said that he’s been getting calls from many people in his constituencey to ask what the ban could mean for them. “Old people are scared and young people who are just married are calling me to ask if they should stay here, today it is the schechita and tomorrow what, circumcision? People are afraid.”
“Holland is a sophisticated country and other countries look to Holland as an example, and we are afraid of the domino affect, that other countries will follow. This is the reason so many countries are watching the Netherlands today, ” he said.
Speaking as a Jew, I would like to offer my support in your decision to abolish as unlawful the Kosher Slaughter method.
This slaughtering method inflicts a lot of unnecessary pain upon the slaughtered animal, which can and should be prevented.
Rabbis have been finding all sorts of ways to bend and go-around the orthodox Jewish traditions and laws, in order to enable acceptance of modern comforts into Jewish way of life. This important issue should be no different.
It’s time to stop this barbarous ceremony! It’s more than possible to be a Jew without it!
My congratulations on your initiative to reduce pain!
Criticised Israeli ambassador backtracks on rare praise of Pope Pius XII
The comments made last Thursday by Mordechay Lewy, the Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, were some of the warmest ever made by a Jewish official about Pius. Most have been very critical of his record.
In an indication of how sensitive the subject of Pius is among Jews, Lewy was quickly assailed by some Jewish groups, including Holocaust survivors. In a statement issued in what appeared to be an attempt to calm the dispute within the world Jewish community, Lewy said his comments were “embedded in a larger historical context”.
“Given the fact that this context is still under the subject of ongoing and future research, passing my personal historical judgment on it was premature,” Lewy said.
The question of what Pius did or did not do to help Jews has tormented Catholic-Jewish relations for decades and it is very rare for a leading Jewish or Israeli official to praise Pius. Many Jews accuse Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust. The Vatican says he worked quietly behind the scenes because speaking out would have led to Nazi reprisals against Catholics and Jews in Europe.
Lewy, speaking at a ceremony to honour an Italian priest who helped Jews, had said Catholic convents and monasteries opened their doors to save Jews in the days following a Nazi sweep of Rome’s Ghetto on Oct. 16, 1943. In his speech on Thursday night, Lewy said: “There is reason to believe that this happened under the supervision of the highest Vatican officials, who were informed about what was going on.”
“So it would be a mistake to say that the Catholic Church, the Vatican and the pope himself opposed actions to save the Jews. To the contrary, the opposite is true,” he said.
Elan Steinberg, vice-president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, called Lewy’s comments unsustainable. “For any ambassador to make such specious comments is morally wrong. For the Israeli envoy to do so is particularly hurtful to Holocaust survivors who suffered grievously because of Pius’s silence,” Steinberg said in a statement. He said Lewy had “disgracefully conflated the praiseworthy actions of elements in the Catholic Church to rescue Jews with the glaring failure of Pope Pius to do so”.
ambassador lewy did not praise the pope!
he objectively said that jews were saved by the church and by clergy, and there is some chance that pius 12 knew about this. all this is a moot point. it cant be proven one way or the other – possibly not even after the vatican releases whatever records it sees fit to release.
Lewy has time and again also said that pius was silent on the holocaust. he remained silent even though american diplomats pleaded with him to speak up. (the response was that the nazis may make it worse for the jews. worse! get it. how much worse i dunno)
for this silence his being beatified may raise questions, but none that can be addressed by the State of Israel, for which beatification is an internal vatican matter. the catholic church can define as a saint whomever they wish, and certainly worse people than pius12 have achieved this questionable status. if the church wishes to demean the term, so be it. latin is their language and they can use it as they wish.
Favorite (0) Flag as Abusive oferdesade: ambassador lewy did not praise the pope! he objectively said
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what IS on record and IS a problem is Pius’ blatant antisemitism and his almost fascist objection to the state of israel. and lewy – as the editor of the JTA well knows – has gone on record on this account as well (drawing much more heated reactions from the vatican than what he’s received from the jews on this latest comment).
he referred to the jewish state as a communist virus (now there are those calling it a theocracy... sigh); the first time he mentioned the term “concentration camp” was in reference to palestinians (justified or not, one has to admit that concentration camps DID exist before the zionist state used them to round up and gas all those millions of palestinians to death). one can go on and on. the long and the short of it is that he was a product of that world in which the jews were to be eternally damned for killing christ, never to achieve statehood, to be the dregs of humanity for their religion... shame this kind of attitude still exists, but what can you do
Israeli envoy to Vatican voices rare praise of wartime Pope Pius XII
A leading Israeli official has praised Pope Pius XII for saving Jews during the Nazi occupation of Rome, a surprise twist in a long-standing controversy over the pontiff’s wartime role. The comments by Mordechay Lewy, the Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, were some of the warmest ever made by a Jewish official about Pius. Most have been very critical of his record.
Lewy, speaking at a ceremony on Thursday night to honor an Italian priest who helped Jews, said that Catholic convents and monasteries had opened their doors to save Jews in the days following a Nazi sweep of Rome’s Ghetto on October 16, 1943.
“There is reason to believe that this happened under the supervision of the highest Vatican officials, who were informed about what was going on,” he said in a speech. “So it would be a mistake to say that the Catholic Church, the Vatican and the pope himself opposed actions to save the Jews. To the contrary, the opposite is true,” he said.
In an indication of just how sensitive the subject of Pius is among Jews, Lewy was quickly assailed by a group of Holocaust survivors. Elan Steinberg, vice-president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, called Lewy’s comments unsustainable. “For any ambassador to make such specious comments is morally wrong. For the Israeli envoy to do so is particularly hurtful to Holocaust survivors who suffered grievously because of Pius’s silence,” Steinberg said in a statement. He said Lewy had “disgracefully conflated the praiseworthy actions of elements in the Catholic Church to rescue Jews with the glaring failure of Pope Pius to do so.”
The question of what Pius did or did not do to help Jews has tormented Catholic-Jewish relations for decades and it is very rare for a leading Jewish or Israeli leader to praise Pius. Many Jews accuse Pius, who reigned from 1939 to 1958, of turning a blind eye to the Holocaust. The Vatican says he worked quietly behind the scenes because speaking out would have led to Nazi reprisals against Catholics and Jews in Europe.
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Witch hunt or wise move? Cannes ponders expulsion over Nazi “joke”
Witch hunt or wise decision? That was the question on the lips of movie-goers, critics and executives at the Cannes film festival after the sudden expulsion of Danish director Lars Von Trier. The annual cinema showcase is the world’s biggest and well-known as a haven for provocative voices like Von Trier’s. But organizers clearly decided the 55-year-old director had overstepped the mark when he jokingly told the world press on Wednesday that he was a Nazi who sympathized with Hitler.
And while the festival cracked down on Von Trier within 24 hours, revoking his accreditation, reaction was more divided from the crowd on the famous palm-lined Riviera waterfront. “I’m against the decision. Everyone here is on two hours’ sleep and anyone can say something stupid at a press conference. He apologized and that was enough,” said 20-something filmmaker Christophe Monsourian.
At Wednesday’s bizarre press conference, Von Trier, in Cannes to talk about his movie “Melancholia,” launched into a rambling monologue about his Jewish/German heritage before making the remarks that forced his exit. He jokingly said he was a Nazi, sympathized with Hitler “a little bit,” deemed Israel a “pain in the ass” and muttered the phrase “the final solution for journalists.”
Cannes normally thrives on controversy and scandal, as when Von Trier brought his ultra-violent, sexually explicit “Antichrist” to the festival two years ago that prompted jeers at the press screening.
Jobless ultra-Orthodox Jews weigh on Israel’s economy
Meir Gross is a Jewish ultra-Orthodox father of five who does not work. Despite warnings that Israel’s economy may be threatened by his fast growing, often unemployed, community, he does not want a job. Gross advocates a pious existence geared to study. He spends nearly his entire day learning Torah (Jewish law), which he says is the most important edict bestowed on the Jewish man, and it cannot be combined with a job.
“Torah study demands utter and complete devotion. We’re not interested in making money or in material luxury. We are content with very little and our true joy, and highest duty, is learning,” Gross said.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews, or “Haredim,” are a devout tight-knit community who make up 8-10 percent of Israel’s 7.7 million population, with eight children per family on average. Many are supported by the state and live well below the poverty line. A Bank of Israel report in March said about 60 percent of Haredi men don’t work.
But in 20 years the Haredim will make up 17 percent of the work force and many analysts say Israel’s economy will suffer enormously if things do not change.
“They are a real danger to Israel,” said Omer Moav, economics professor at the University of London and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “If we go bankrupt it’s the end of the story for us. Our strong army rests on a strong economy.”
The Haredim traditionally keep to their own towns or neighborhoods, where men walk the streets in traditional black garb and broad hats while women wear long dark dresses and cover their hair with hats, scarves or wigs. While some Haredim choose not to work, others say they would like to earn their keep, but face too many cultural hurdles searching for jobs among Israel’s secular majority.
The author either hasn’t done the job, or chose not to reveal a part of truth. And that truth is – the quirk about army conscription laws in Israel. According to it, the men are not subject to otherwise mandatory service as long as they are full time Torah students. It’s the military service they’re trying to avoid in fear that they might be compelled to desecrate Shabbat or eat something not sufficiently kosher (hint: OU isn’t sufficiently kosher for them), or do something else not compatible with their narrow worldview. That’s why Haredi women, who don’t face mandatory service, easily find their place in modern Israeli economy, unlike the men who keep their full time studies until their age makes them not eligible for service
Youth volunteers sought for campaign against bigotry
Two U.S. State Department employees — one who speaks out against anti-Semitism, the other against Islamaphobia – have teamed up to promote a global campaign to get young people to combat racial, ethnic and religious bigotry by volunteering their time for people unlike them.
“For instance, a young Jewish person could volunteer five hours at a clinic that services a Muslim community. Or a Muslim could volunteer several hours to read books to a Christian pre-school. The list goes on and on,” said Hanna Rosenthal, the State Department’s special envoy focused on anti-Semitism.
The campaign, “2011 Hours Against Hate,” grew out of Rosenthal’s friendship with Farah Pandith, the State Department’s special representative to Muslim Communities. Attending a conference two years ago in Kazakhstan, the two arranged to swap speeches decrying hatred against Jews and Muslims, catching the the ear of conferees.
They were accompanied by young people from six non-governmental organizations who asked them to promote deeds, not just statements. They said they were inspired by U.S. President Barack Obama’s call for more volunteerism and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appeals for ”citizen diplomacy.” The concept also paralleled Europe’s declaration of 2011 as the year of volunteerism.
So, on February 17 at another conference in Vienna, the two introduced their idea.
“Over a dozen ambassadors came up to us and said, ‘This is great. We want something for our governments to do to reach out to our younger generation.’ We’re seeing young people embrace this wholeheartedly,” Rosenthal said in a conference call with reporters.
“One can look at this and think this is a gimmick … and it’s not. It’s beyond religion. It’s about gender, it’s about race, it’s about ethnicity,” Pandith said.
Pope’s Jesus book raps religious violence, explains exoneration of Jews
Pope Benedict has condemned violence committed in God’s name and personally exonerated Jews of responsibility for Jesus’ death in his latest book, released on Thursday. The book, the second in a planned three-part series on the life of Jesus, is a detailed, highly theological and academic recounting of the last week in Jesus’ life.
Publishers have printed 1.2 million copies of the book in seven languages. A blaze of international publicity included teleconferences with the media in several countries.
In one section, Benedict writes that there can be no justification for violence carried out in God’s name, an assertion as applicable to Islamist militancy today as to violence that the Catholic Church itself committed in the past as it spread the faith.
“The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all,” the pope writes. “Violence does not build up the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity.”
The part of the book that may have the most far-reaching effect on Catholic relations with other religions is one in which the pontiff details the events of Christ’s trial before Roman governor Pontius Pilate, and his sentencing to death. In that section, he repudiates the concept of collective guilt of the Jews at the time and of their progeny for Jesus’ death, a charge that has haunted Christian-Jewish relations for centuries.
It was the first time a pope had made such a detailed dissection and close comparison of various New Testament accounts and concluded that there was no basis to the charge, first officially repudiated in a Church document in 1965.
Read the full story here. Here’s a Reuters video on the book, with my interview with Rome’s Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni and short explanation of the argument the pope makes in the book.
New pope book says Jews not guilty of Jesus Christ’s death
Pope Benedict, in a new book, has personally exonerated Jews of allegations they were responsible for Jesus Christ’s death, repudiating the concept of collective guilt that has haunted Christian-Jewish relations for centuries. Jewish groups applauded the move. The Anti-Defamation League called it “an important and historic moment” and hoped that it would help complicated theology “translate down to the pews” to improve grass roots inter-religious dialogue.
The pope makes his complex theological and biblical evaluation in a section of the second volume of his book “Jesus of Nazareth,” which will be published next week. The Vatican released brief excerpts on Wednesday.
The Roman Catholic Church officially repudiated the idea of collective Jewish guilt for Christ’s death in a major document by the Second Vatican Council in 1965. It was believed to be the first time a pope had made such a detailed dissection and close comparison of various New Testament accounts of Jesus’s condemnation to death by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
“Now we must ask: Who exactly were Jesus’ accusers?” the pope asks, adding that the gospel of St John simply says it was “the Jews.”
“But John’s use of this expression does not in any way indicate — as the modern reader might suppose — the people of Israel in general, even less is it ‘racist’ in character,” he writes. “After all John himself was ethnically a Jew, as were Jesus and all his followers. The entire early Christian community was made up of Jews,” he writes.
Benedict says the reference was to the “Temple aristocracy,” who wanted Jesus condemned to death because he had declared himself king of the Jews and had violated Jewish religious law. He concludes that the “real group of accusers” were the Temple authorities and not all Jews of the time.
Elan Steinberg, vice-president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, welcomed the pope’s words. “This is a major step forward. This is a personal repudiation of the theological underpinning of centuries of anti-Semitism,” he told Reuters.
Iran Nazi website reopens, raising issue of anti-Semitism
An Iranian Internet site for devotees of Nazi Germany has been allowed to reopen after being blocked briefly by government censors, a news website reported, raising questions about the official attitude to anti-Semitism.
The site, irannazi.ir, says it is the home of the “Historical Research Society for World War Two and the Third Reich.” According to conservative news website TABNAK it was blocked temporarily but then reopened, saying the suspension had been due to complaints by Iranian Jews.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has many times denied the Nazis’ extermination of millions of Jews during World War II. Ahmadinejad angered Israel and its allies by calling the Holocaust a “myth” and a “lie” and has predicted the end of Israel as a state.
The Nazi website does not appear in any way linked to the Iranian state, but with strict controls on the Internet blocking many sites deemed undesirable, TABNAK criticized the government for granting permission to the Nazi website. “Why has the Culture Ministry given permission to the so-called Iran’s Nazism society … we hope the authorities have a proper reason for that,” TABNAK said.
The Culture Ministry was not available to comment.
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The National Socialists also thought it was right and necessary to kill the blameless and babies. Remember? How do people reach the point where killing the innocent is part of their doctrine, part of their phylosophy for living a life of service?