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CNN reports that John Hagee defended his remarks with the following:
Hagee is pastor of a 19,000-member evangelical church in San Antonio, Texas, and founder of a global Christian broadcast network.
In a statement released before McCain rejected his endorsement, Hagee said his words had been taken out of context.
"The intentional mischaracterization of my statements by an Internet journalist seeking to use me as a political football in the upcoming presidential race is a gross example of bias at its worst. I will not stand idly by while my character is assassinated and my views on the Holocaust are grossly distorted.
"To assert that I in any way condone the Holocaust or that monster Adolf Hitler is the biggest and ugliest of lies. I have always condemned the horrors of the Holocaust in the strongest of terms." He also pointed to millions of dollars worth of donations his ministry had made to humanitarian efforts in Israel.
The Washington Times (5/24/08) published defenses of Rev. Hagee's words - click link for full article
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Jews defend Hagee's words
By Julia Duin
Jewish allies of the Rev. John Hagee rushed to his defense yesterday to say the Texas evangelist is not anti-Semitic despite Sen. John McCain campaign's repudiation Thursday of the evangelist's endorsement.
"John Hagee is one of the Jewish people's best friends," Los Angeles talk show host Dennis Prager said on the air yesterday morning. "Identifying John Hagee with anti-Semitism would be like identifying Raoul Wallenberg, the great Swede who saved thousands of Jews in the Holocaust, with anti-Semitism."
Orthodox Rabbi Aryeh Scheinberg, of Congregation Rodfei Sholom in San Antonio, appeared at an afternoon press conference yesterday to say Mr. Hagee's "words were twisted and used to attack him for being anti-Semitic." In actuality, Mr. Hagee "interpreted a biblical verse in a way not very different from several legitimate Jewish authorities," the rabbi said."Viewing Hitler as acting completely outside of God's plan is to suggest that God was powerless to stop the Holocaust, a position quite unacceptable to any religious Jew or Christian," the rabbi said.
"I have devoted most of my adult life to ensuring that there will never be a second Holocaust," Mr. Hagee told reporters. "I have worked tirelessly to eliminate the sin of anti-Semitism from the Christian world and to ensure the survival of the state of Israel." At issue was Mr. Hagee's reference — in a late 1990s sermon and in his 2006 book "Jerusalem Countdown" to Adolf Hitler being a "hunter" used by God to force Jews to emigrate to Israel. In a reference to the Book of Jeremiah, whose author predicts a scattering of the Jewish people but saying God would bring them back to the promised land, Mr. Hagee says in the sermon: "How did [the Holocaust] happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel."
David Brog, a Conservative Jew who is executive director of Mr. Hagee's nonprofit Christians United for Israel (CUFI), said critics misunderstood the biblical context. "Leading rabbis have said the same thing," he said. "This is a legitimate effort to grapple with the age-old question of why God allows evil in the world. Pastor Hagee was not, as some are claiming, saying the Holocaust was good. He has said repeatedly, throughout his life, that the Holocaust was the greatest of tragedies."But there is a long-standing Jewish tradition of searching for divine explanations for tragedy. For people who are biblical literalists, God is omnipotent; therefore, they maintain, God must have allowed the Holocaust to happen. What you hear here is an effort to search for an explanation."
Mr. Prager agreed. "As a religious Jew, I don't happen to believe that God brought on the Holocaust," he said. "But my Orthodox Jewish father who fought in World War II and many other believing Jews do. There is nothing anti-Jewish about that belief."[...]
The Catholic League, which had criticized the televangelist over statements taken as denunciations of the Roman Catholic Church, defended Mr. Hagee over the latest charges."I ... found him to be the strongest Christian defender of Israel I have ever met, and that is why attempts to portray him as anything but a genuine friend to Jews — one for whom the Holocaust is the horror of horrors — is despicable," League president Bill Donohue said Thursday.[...]
Barry Block, senior rabbi at San Antonio's Temple Beth El, a Reform synagogue, says the local Jewish community has been divided on Mr. Hagee for years. [...] He added, "Anti-Semitic is a term I use sparingly and would not apply to Pastor Hagee."
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Rav Chaim Dov Keller wrote in the Jewish Observer:
[...] The Yishuv Hayashan (old settlement of chareidim) in eretz Yisroel had served as an unbroken link with the distant past. But in the 1930s the Yishuv was under siege. The new wave of Socialistic and secular Zionism was attempting to redefine Judaism as a nationalistic concept threatening to reduce Torah to a cultural curiosity. The current expansion of the Torah world then had already began with the arrival of Rabbi Eliezer Shulevitz in Eretz Yisroel in 1922 when he lad the groundwork for the founding of the Lomza Yeshiva in Petach Tikva (1924). And Rabbi Iser Zalman melter arrived from Slutzk, Russian to head Yeshiva Eitz Chaim in 1923. In addition the Alter of Slobodka...established his yeshiva in Chevron in 1924 [...] The Jewish poopulation grew dramatically in the mid-40s as a result of the horrific events in Europe, but the chareidim were in danger of being overwhelmed by the new forces. Miracles were needed - and Hashem provided them. From the charnel house of Europe came visionary leaders and builders like the Chebiner Rav, the Imrei Emes, the Beis Yisroel and Reb Arele Belzer. Members of the Mirrer Yeshiva came to Erretz Yisroel from Shanghai after the war, to be led by Rabbi Lazer yudel Finkel and Rabbi chaim Shmulevitz. And who can descrie the tremendous effect of Torah giants llike the Brisker Rav who escaped with nissim from the Nazis, stood at the helm of the battles for clear Daas Torah and restablished with a small group of talmidim that which is today the crowning glory of the Brisker yeshivs? How can one assess the awesome impact on the Torah world made by Harav Elazar Shach and the Steipler who later became the recognized leaders of the Olam HaTorah after the Chazon Ish and the Brisker Rav? [...]
I just listened to his sermon excerpt. He makes it pretty clear that his interpretation of the "Bible" declares the Jews must be "hunted" to return to Israel, since the "fisherman" Hertzl failed.
ReplyDeleteHe goes on to say that Jews are "spiritually dead" however.
This is the heart of our Christian Zionist "friends". They want the Jews in Israel, and in charge of Israel, because it matches their prophesies.
And once we're there, then those whose dead souls can be revived will be saved, and as for the rest......
Hagee is the pastor to 19,000 but his beliefs are representative of an estimated 30 million Christian Zionists.
ReplyDeleteJust in case the video of Hagee did not give anyone enough heartburn, there is this summary of Evangelical Christian beliefs about Israel.
http://www.theocracywatch.org/christian_zionism.htm
This video was first sent to me by a family friend, a Chazzan from the big Syrian shul in Brooklyn.
Can we reconcile this behavior with Torah Judaism?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=d1GDQYafAV8
BTW, Assad is also extremely upset about the treatment of Israeli Arabs by settlers who are brought to Israel, armed and financed by Christian Evangelicals.
More from Hagee:
ReplyDeleteHagee's apocalyptic support of Israel
By BEN SMITH | 5/15/08 4:16 AM EST
When Sen. John McCain was forced to distance himself from Pastor John Hagee earlier this year, he denounced the pastor’s attacks on Catholicism. But asked why he wouldn’t “repudiate” Hagee’s endorsement of him, McCain found something to praise.
“I'm grateful for his commitment to the support of the state of Israel, and I'm very grateful for many of his commitments around the world, including to the independence and freedom of the state of Israel,” he told CNN’s Campbell Brown on April 29.
Hagee’s commitment to Israel, however, is itself controversial: It’s rooted in the belief that the Jewish state will — soon — be the site of Armageddon.
Hagee, who leads the evangelical group Christians United for Israel, is a proponent of U.S. aid and support for Israel, and he is a major ally of Israeli conservatives who reject any “land for peace” formula in dealing with the Palestinians. But Hagee is viewed with distrust by some Jews and Israelis because his brand of Christian Zionism closely links support for Israel to the end of the world and the conversion of the Jews to Christianity.
Hagee’s predictions are very clear. Armageddon, the final battle, could begin, he wrote in his 2007 book "Jerusalem Countdown," “before this book gets published.”
The Antichrist “will be the head of the European Union,” he writes.
Using geographical calculations based on the Book of Revelation, he writes that Israel will be covered in “a sea of human blood” in the final battle.
The Jews, however, will survive the battle, Hagee says, long enough to have “the opportunity to receive Messiah, who is a rabbi known to the world as Jesus of Nazareth.”
“They will be blessed beyond their wildest imagination,” he writes.
A spokesman for McCain, Brian Rogers, said, “John McCain’s commitment to the state of Israel is clear, and he respects Pastor Hagee's commitment as well.
“As he has said many, many, many times, when folks endorse John McCain it doesn't mean he endorses all of their views,” Rogers said.
Many Jewish political leaders have also embraced Hagee. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) spoke to Hagee's group last year, and Hagee has been invited to speak to the lobbying organization American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Other Jewish groups have more nuanced views of the pastor.
“Support for Israel is something that we should welcome and yet be very much aware of where that support comes from and cautious about it,” said Michael Salberg, the director of international affairs for the Anti-Defamation League. Salberg said Hagee’s political stance on Israel “seems to us to be sincere, genuine and welcome.”
But Hagee has also been criticized, most recently by the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Eric Yoffie.
“Christian Zionists, and especially Christians United for Israel, do not offer unconditional support for the Jewish state. They offer support for a particular religious vision, particular Israeli leaders, and particular political factions, all of which reflect their own prophecy-driven view of the Middle East,” Yoffie said in an April speech, calling Hagee and his group “extremists.”
Yoffie thinks that Hagee “is not the kind of friend that Israel needs,” said spokesman Donald Cohen-Cutler.
Indeed, although McCain praised Hagee’s stance on Israel, he doesn’t appear to share it. Hagee has written that Israel’s plan to give up the West Bank and Gaza — a two-state solution backed by President Bush and Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as McCain — “violates the word of God.”
“McCain can say he’s a great friend of Israel, but he clearly doesn’t understand Hagee’s position on Israel,” said Ira Forman, the executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, a partisan group. “Hagee’s opposed to McCain’s own policy — he opposes the peace process.”
The film Gog u Magog has been going around for a while now. It is an overlay of the film Apocalypse Fire
ReplyDeletehttp://www.torahohr.net/gogumagog/
http://www.apocalypsefire.com/video.html
Torah Ohr and its affiliate Yeshiva Od Yossef Hai have filed 2 separate IRS 501C-3 applications as Churches (one Protestant).
It is not possible that the listing of these two organizations as Protestant Churches might be an accidental coincidence. The Form 1023 application which is just ONE part of 501-C 3 Tax Exempt Charitable Organization status filing is quite thorough and falsifying information on this is a felony:
"In order for the IRS to make a determination, specific questions must be answered relative to the organization’s legal structure, its governing board and potential conflicts of interest. More importantly, pages of detailed questions concerning the organization’s activities must be answered. This is in addition to a two-year budget (new organizations) or three years of financial history (existing organizations) and a written narrative essay outlining the organization’s programs, both current and planned, that will advance the organization’s exempt purpose. Add to that copies of supporting schedules and documentation and you have a basic application package. "
For supporting documentation, the IRS requires copies of the credentials for each of the directors of the organization (ie ordination).
Usually 501C-3 applications are prepared and filed by tax attorneys (officers of the court).
In what way is this more offensive than saying that the Holocaust was a punishment for Zionism / Haskala, commonly heard positions amongst Satmar travelers?
ReplyDeleteThe Holocaust was not a punishment for Zionism, but
ReplyDeleteZionists were collaborators with Hitler and the Nazis. I met and interviewed several eye witnesses from Hungary in the 1980s when they were still alive. There are several books which say the same.
A few of these are:
1. Perfidy by Ben Hecht
2. 51 Documents of Zionist Collaborators with the Nazis by Lenni Brenner
3. Rabbi Michael Dov-Ber Weissmandel in his memoir, Min HaMaetzer ("From the Depths")
In case the above does not make you ill enough:
4. Naiam Giladi's "Ben Gurion's Scandals (proves that the Mossad bombed the Iraqi Jewish community in order to encourage aliyah).
5.Yitzcack Shamir's creation and funding of Hamas in the 1980s in order to fight the PLO.
http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world
_order/zionism/zionist-Israeli_roots_of_Hamas.htm
THEODOR HERZL, THE FOUNDER OF ZIONISM
ReplyDeleteThe term "Zionism" was first introduced in 1893 by Nathan Birmbaum, but Theodor Herzl, an Austrian Jew born to a prosperous, emancipated Budapest family, is recognized as the founder of the Zionist idealogy when he published his book in 1896, "The Jewish State", where he declared that the cure for anti-semitism was the establishment of a Jewish state. As he saw it, the best place to establish this state was in Palestine.
While Herzl claimed that the establishment of a "Jewish" state would cure anti-Semitism, he also promoted anti-Semitism to further his cause.
Herzl stated in his diary:
“It is essential that the sufferings of Jews.. . become worse. . . this will assist in realization of our plans. . .I have an excellent idea. . . I shall induce anti-Semites to liquidate Jewish wealth. . . The anti-Semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the persecution and oppression of Jews. The anti-Semites shall be our best friends”. (From his Diary, Part I, pp. 16)
Benny Morris (the Israeli Historian), described how Herzl foresaw how anti-Semitism could be "HARNESSED" for the realization of Zionism. He stated:
"Herzl regarded Zionism's triumph as inevitable, not only because life in Europe was ever more untenable for Jews, but also because it was in Europe's interests to rid the Jews and relieved of anti-Semitism: The European political establishment would eventually be persuaded to promote Zionism. Herzl recognized that anti-Semitism would be HARNESSED to his own--Zionist-purposes." (Righteous Victims, p. 21)