Posted on 01/15/2007 7:30:11 AM PST by shrinkermd
It was a bizarre sight: a cadre of Orthodox Jews, with their distinctive hats, beards and sidelocks, standing alongside President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran last month at a conference in Tehran debating the Holocaust.
Among them was Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, spokesman and assistant director of a small anti-Zionist group with a foothold in this town in Rockland County, home to one of the nation’s largest communities of Hasidic Jews.
Unlike Mr. Ahmadinejad and most of the others present, including the former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Rabbi Weiss does not deny or question the Holocaust; his grandparents died at Auschwitz, as did several of his aunts and uncles, he said. What he and the Iranian president have in common, he explained, is their belief that the Holocaust has been exploited to justify the existence of Israel....
...Back home, Rabbi Weiss and the others were met with anger and scorn. Since their return, they have been ostracized by synagogues, denied service at kosher stores and vilified in Jewish discussion boards on the Web. Posters have surfaced in the Satmar Hasidic enclaves of Brooklyn, calling the members of Neturei Karta “rebels” and “outcasts” and asking Orthodox Jews to “totally cut off ties with this gang.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Pretty weird. I'm always baffled by the faction of self-loathing Jews that cozy up to the islamics and vote DemonRat. Must be a weird suicide thing with a torture fetish.
87% of self-identified Jews voted Democrat in the 2006 election.
And 70% of observant Jews voted Republican. Don't think Judaism is the issue; it's Secularism.
They continue much older tradition which used to be a part of the mainstream. I will explain:
Before WWII the conservative Jewish leaders were condemning Zionism together with Socialism/Communism and Assimilationism.
They have seen Zionism as a godless pseudo-messianic attempt to "force the hand of God" and to build a secular nationalist utopia in the Holy Land. One of the centers of anti-Zionist preaching was Wilno/Vilna/Vilnius.
The situation changed with the WWII when the rabinic establishment in Poland was wiped out and Zionists moved to the center of Jewish life.
The Neturei Karta setlled in the Holy Land BEFORE Zionist settlers:
"For the most part, the members of Neturei Karta are descended from Hungarian Jews who settled in Jerusalem's Old City in the early nineteenth century, and from Lithuanian Jews who were students of the Gaon of Vilna, who had settled earlier. In the late nineteenth century, they participated in the creation of new neighborhoods outside the city walls to alleviate overcrowding in the Old City, and most are now concentrated in the neighborhood of Batei Ungarin and the larger Meah Shearim neighborhood.
At the time, they were vocal opponents to the new political ideology of Zionism that was attempting to assert Jewish sovereignty in Ottoman-controlled Palestine. They resented the new arrivals, who were predominantly secular, and claimed that Jewish redemption could only be brought about by the Jewish messiah."
[...]
"Adherents of Neturei Karta stress those portions in rabbinic literature which state that the Jewish people were first sent into exile from the land of Israel for their sins. Additionally, they maintain the view - basing it on the Babylonian Talmud - that any form of forceful recapture of the Land of Israel is a violation of divine will. They believe that the true Commonwealth of Israel can only be re-established with the coming of the Messiah."
If they disagree with the goals of Zionism, that's one thing.
But to align themselves with a regime that wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth is unfathomable to me.
A hassidic Jew is secular? LoL!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The creation of the Jewish state of Israel in 1948 by the UN can be considered devine will. God works through the nations of the earth; or "Babylon" as the world is sometimes called in scripture.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I've seen this guy on Fox... all I can say is I guess I don't under Judiasm if he is an example of an orthodox Jew.
Can't be, Christians don't vote Democrat.
Speaking as a person who has worked and will work in campaigns I must say if you read: THISyou cannot be impressed with the very accurate forecast of the Jewish vote made a full month before the election.
I suppose we can quibble over the number of Jewish voters who vote RAT but I can't imagine anyone not recognizing that Jews overwhelmingly vote RAT. This is important for two reasons--on international matters it weakens Israels case and on domestic matters it identifies at least nonobservant Jews with liberalism especially in respect to social issues.
When I say this to Israel's advocates they usually lapse into a rage that makes Hamlet's death wish sound like the happy chuckle of a freckle faced boy. Making ad hominem attacks on James Baker III or others is less than convincing either personally or politically.
My final thought on this is how can such staunch defenders of Israel vote RAT full well knowing almost every Muslim does likewise. Also, note that people like George Soros who wish to see the right of return and pre-1967 boundares and are willing to spend 200 million to defeat us are also members of the RAT party.
It was not a "tradition", but an opinion that was held by many Hassidic Jews prior to the establishment of the modern state of Israel. Many Hassidic Jews still reject the primacy of a modern secular democracy in Israel. What they do not reject, is the defense of the Jews that have chosen to make the land of Israel their home, nor do they reject Jewish control over the land now.
Most Hassidic Jews utterly reject the views of the NK or the Satmars- that the way to bring peace is to lay down their arms and let their ememies retake the land, putting themselves at their mercy. This is looked upon as being the height of stupidity. The NK and Satmar are considered the fringe nutjobs now, encouraging the enemies of Jews everywhere to continue their hate giving and it legitamacy.
Oh, and one other thing. The rest of the followers of the Vilna Gaon now demand of their brethren that they make aliyah (move to Israel and live there). This constitutes many more observant Jews.
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