Posted on 03/30/2009 5:50:00 AM PDT by SJackson
This past Shabbat my family and I hosted Rabbi and Mrs. Nachman Holtzberg, parents of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, the head of Chabad in Mumbai who was brutally murdered with his wife Rivkah. You'd think that a family that watched their son and daughter-in-law slaughtered on TV by Islamic terrorists would feel hatred and a desire for revenge. But what this saintly father asked of our many guests was simply their participation in rebuilding Chabad of Mumbai so that his son's selfless work would continue.
What a shame Christopher Hitchens did not join us. It might have dissuaded him from penning yet another ignorant and slanderous article about the murderous intent of Orthodox Jews. To read Hitchens these days is to be transported to an alternate universe where religious Jews are often terrorists inspired by racist Jewish ideology that is fomented by their rabbis. Of course, those who live in the real world and who never read about Orthodox Jews setting off bombs in Bali and Baghdad might be a trifle confused by Hitchens' regular rants against Judaism.
You should be. Most of the time he is simply fabricating, like this famous quote taken from his 2007 book God Is Not Great. "Dr. Baruch Goldstein... killed 27 worshipers... While serving as a physician in the Israeli army he had announced that he would not treat non-Jewish patients, such as Israeli Arabs, especially on the Sabbath. As it happens, he was obeying rabbinic law in declining to do this, as many Israeli religious courts have confirmed."
For this particular blood libel against Jewish courts Hitchens relied on a well-known hoax perpetrated by writer Israel Shahak, which was exposed as a fraud more than 40 years ago by Lord Immanuel Jakobovitz, chief rabbi of the British Commonwealth. This is the same Israel Shahak who once accused Jews of worshipping Satan. When I challenged Hitchens about his use of a well-known forgery, and when he could not cite a single other religious court to have ever ruled that a non-Jewish life could not be saved on the Sabbath, he wrote to me and agreed to amend the item in the next edition of his book.
He did not.
Now he is at it again, only this time he's outdone himself. Writing in the March 23 edition of the Slate website, Hitchens argued that the religious settlers in Israel are preparing for a future where "Torah verses will also be found that make it permissible to murder secular Jews as well as Arabs" as they all coalesce together to make the West bank into an apocalyptic Jewish theocracy.
What makes Hitchens so sure that his vision of Jewish mass-murder is just around the corner? He cites three proofs. First, Baruch Goldstein, whom he cites yet again. Second, OC Chaplaincy Corps Brig.-Gen. Avichai Ronzki who "said that the main reason for a Jewish doctor to treat a non-Jew on the Sabbath... is to avoid exposing Diaspora Jews to hatred." And third, the story in Numbers 31 of how Moses commanded the Jews to slaughter the Midianites. Of the story Hitchens writes, "The nationalist rabbis who prepare Israeli soldiers for the mission seem to think that this book might be the world of God, in which case the only misinterpretation would be the failure to take it literally."
THE FACT that Hitchens must consistently fall back on Baruch Goldstein proves the very opposite of the point he is trying to make. Jewish religious terrorism is rare to nonexistent. He must consistently use one lone attacker from 15 years ago as an example of Jewish terrorism. More importantly, Goldstein has become a symbol to Jews everywhere of evil and is almost universally regarded as an abomination to the Jewish faith.
By contrast, many of our Muslim brothers and sisters and many clerics have the tragic habit of elevating suicide bombers to the rank of religious martyrs. In contrast, any rabbi who was to praise a Jewish murderer would be fired from his post and banished from his community. The Torah is clear: "Thou may not murder" (Exodus 20) and "Thou shalt not take revenge" (Leviticus 19).
Second, no biblical story of massacre, which is a tale and not a law, could ever be used to override the most central prohibition of the Ten Commandments and biblical morality. Murder is the single greatest offense against the Creator of all life, and no Jew would ever use a biblical narrative of war or slaughter as something to be emulated.
IN OUR TIME Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, both universally regarded as moral leaders and outstanding men, ordered the wholesale slaughter of noncombatants in World War II through the carpet-bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin and Tokyo. Harry Truman would take it further by ordering the atomic holocaust of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
How did men who are today regarded as righteous statesmen order such atrocities? They were of the opinion that only total war could end Nazi tyranny and Japanese imperial aggression. They did it in the name of saving life. Which is of course not to excuse their actions but rather to understand them in the context of the mitigating circumstances of the time. I do not know why Moses would have ordered any such slaughter even in the context of war. But I do know that the same Bible which relates the story also expressly forbids even the thought of such bloodshed ever being repeated.
Finally, the Talmud's debate as to whether a non-Jewish life may be saved on the Sabbath took place at a time when the Jews were subject to brutal Roman oppression, and the non-Jews in question were cruel Roman centurions. Should we violate our religion to save the life of those who oppress us? It is remarkable that even then the rabbis of the Talmud answered in the affirmative, mipnei darkei hashalom, because of the ways of peace. But whereas Hitchens quotes a rabbi who translates this to mean "peace with our non-Jewish neighbors," the Lubavitcher Rebbe explained it to mean "because all of Judaism is about love and peace."
How sad that Hitchens, a self-proclaimed truth-teller and child of George Orwell, has yet again ignored evidence clearly presented to him in pursuit of preexisting prejudices.
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Ever since Schmuly Boteach came out and said Michael Jackson was his GOOD friend, I dismiss anything he says....can’t even read his articles....sorry.
< < ...Schmuly Boteach...I dismiss anything he says....can’t even read his articles... > >
Well, you ought to start reading again, or else you will be supporting those who spread the blood libels of the past.
Since I have no idea whether or not he said anything about Michael Jackson, there is no way for me to comment on what you claim, other than to say even Moshe Rebbeinu made a mistake (for which he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land - remember?) If Schmuly Boteach said he and Michael Jackson are (still) good friends, then one of his friends causes him to be a bad example. It does not mean thateverything he does or writes is wrong.
Schmuly ALSO called a woman I greatly admire, a PEASANT right to her face!!! No Class has he.
Are you paying any attention to what's going on in your own front yard?
Are you at least conversant in the last 60 years of history?
Its not for me to second guess God, however, imo, had the early Israelites not pursued a burnt earth policy its doubtful there ever would have been a Kingdom of Israel and consequently western culture would have been vastly, vastly different.
The name Christopher Hitchens says blind hatred as few others in history ever have.
It must be hell to be him!
Atheist supremacists do not see the hypocrisy in pushing for the erradication all faith (and imposition of atheism as the official State religion).
While I don’t see anything positive he’s done so far, including Afghanistan, I think Horowitz is right, Obama must be engaged on the issues. He’s vulnerable there. It’s the voters in the middle that need to be won over, and he’s Hitler, a muslim, the antichrist, a communist simply won’t win them over. His actions will. As to broad themes, Big Government anyone remember Reagan. The deficit, remember the little guy from Texas. Tax and Spend, he owns spending, and will own taxes by 2010. Personal attacks are nothing more than a distraction.
The more Reps continue to believe that they are superior to the Dems because they don't go nose to nose with them and are above the fray, the more we will lose. The other side is comprised of tough street fighters who will do anything to win. Prior to 1995 they controlled the house 60 out of 64 years and had a stretch of 40 years straight. They have also dominated the Senate, but not to the same degree.
Due to demographics, the Dems are poised to become the permanent majority party. 87 percent of the 1.2 million legal immigrants entering annually are minorities as defined by the U.S. Government and almost all of the illegal aliens are minorities. By 2023 half of the children 18 and under will be classified as minorities and by 2042, half of the residents of this country will be minorities. Generally, immigrants and minorities vote for the Democrat Party. Hence, Democrats view immigration as a never-ending source of voters that will make them the permanent majority party.
The U.S. adds one international migrant (net) every 36 seconds. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest it has been in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U. S. will be foreign-born. Currently, 1.6 million legal and illegal immigrants settle in the country each year; 350,000 immigrants leave each year, resulting in net immigration of 1.25 million. Since 1970, the U.S. population has increased from 203 million to 306 million, i.e., over 100 million. In the next 40 years, the population will increase by 133 million to 439 million. Three-quarters of the increase in our population since 1970 and the projected increase will be the result of immigration. The U.S., the world’s third most populous nation, has the highest annual rate of population growth of any developed country in the world, i.e., 0.975 percent (2009 estimate), principally due to immigration.
An amnesty will just hasten this process, destroying the country with the stroke of a pen. The Reps can sit by and watch this all happen or they can speak out. Obama will push for an amnesty, but he really doesn't need it as long as our current immigration policies remain in place.
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