Monday, January 12, 2009

Should Jews hate Arabs?


Jersey Girl
has left a new comment on your post "Arab propaganda war against Israel":

We were sitting in the vestibule of the synagogue on Shabbos, a group of mothers and children waiting for the service to end.

Two young pre teenage boys were playing a game, "I'm shooting Arabs","pow,pow, pow" "I'm blowing up Arabs", "I can kill more Arabs than you".

The mothers were horrified and one sends a child to go get her husband who questions the boys.

"Where did you learn this type of thing, this is terrible?" asks the father.

"Oh, the youth director, from NCSY," replies one of the boys. "We play a game on Shabbos called the "Settlers of Catan" and it is about an imaginary place, but we make it to be Israel and the object of the game is to kill as many Arabs as possible to win the game."

After Shabbos, one of the parents googles and learns that the game, developed in Germany, is played in nearly every NCSY youth group in the country.

During the 2006 Second Lebanon War Rabbi Sholom Wolpe, a prominent figure among Israeli Chabad told the local Kiryat Gat weekly "that the war should continue "until the enemy has been totally eradicated." [Interview with Shalom Dov Wolpo, Kiryat Gat Net (Hebrew), July 13, 2006]

Fortunately, the Orthodox Union issued a statement in response to Rabbi Wolpe's
racist and hateful remarks: “We unequivocally condemn Rabbi Wolpe’s statements. They are beyond the pale of legitimate democratic protest and have no basis in Jewish law or hashkafa (philosophy)".

But Chabad leaders have not distanced themselves from Wolpe and other extremist Messianics who call for genocide against Arabs.

Children in a local yeshiva bring home a parsha sheet in which the Ramban is credited with saying "that Arabs have been the evil enemies of the Jews since Avraham and Sarah".

A quick look at the referenced sefer, perek and passuk, shows that the Ramban never wrote such a thing. In fact, those who know history, know that the Ramban was expelled from Christian Europe and granted refuge in the Moslem Levant.

Where did this come from?

There is a great deal of Anti Arab and Muslim hate in our Jewish communities, so much that it is often shocking. This is not part of Judaism or our Torah. It is frightening to note how much Judaism has changed in the past 50 years. Our great grandparents would not recognize it.

35 comments:

  1. Tehillim 18:38

    ארדוף אויבי ואשיגם, ולא אשוב עד כלותם

    I will pursue my enemies and I will catch them; I will not return until their destruction.

    Where do we get the idea that we are not supposed to defeat our enemies completely during war?

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  2. I am not so sure that Rabbi Wolpe's remarks were understood. To eradicate one's enemies does not necessarily imply genocide. Note that he did not say that we should exterminate our enemies.

    The Rabbi was talking about Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This is obvious. After September 11th Bush said that he wanted to eradicate evil (it didn't work out). Nobody thought that he was planning on killing everybody from Morocco to Pakistan.

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  3. Jewish Israeli said...

    That's bdieved (in the context of a last resort), certainly not what we would glorify to our children.

    R'DE - did you check with NCSY as to the specifics - is it played and is this the goal in the game?

    KT
    Joel Rich

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  4. Where do we get the idea that all 375 million Arabs in the Middle East are our enemies?

    During WWII 50,000 Nazi SS tragically succeeded in wiping out the majority of European Jewry (HY"D).

    Yet we do not consider ALL European people to be our enemies.

    Given today's technology, it would not be hard for 37,000 Arabs, if they so desired to destroy every Jew on the planet. That is .001% of Arabs in the Middle East.

    And yet we are told by Zionist leaders that we should consider all Arabs to be the enemy of the Jewish people?

    Furthermore, our Torah tells us that we should despise idolators and support Gentiles who are monotheists rather than idolators.

    Muslims and Sikhs are the only monotheists in the world aside from Jews. There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and 25 million Sikhs. Islam is the second largest religion in the world.

    There is something tragically wrong when Jews are educating their children to hate monotheism while at the same time socializing them to consider the Evangelical Christian Right to be our ideological and practical allies.

    Zionism is a Christian theology that is forbidden by our Torah. Our Rabbis who opposed Zionism (including the previous Rebbes of Lubavitch) understood the consequences of Zionism, we failed to heed their warnings and we are suffering the tragedy today.

    We can only hope and pray that it will not be the end of Judaism and the Jewish people.

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  5. The game is a fantasy card game that portrays a medieval place and time.

    The players in the game represent the eponymous settlers, establishing a colony on the previously uninhabited island of Catan.

    Starting with two settlements and adjoining road sections, players build roads, settlements, and eventually cities as they settle the island. Roads are built along the edges of the hexes, and settlements at the corners; no two settlements may be built on adjacent corners. Positioning of roads and settlements allows a player to deny other players access to essential resources, and good building is one route to victory.

    There is no combat. Players may harm each other by moving the robber, refusing to trade, cutting off building routes, taking the "longest road" and "largest army" cards, and using certain development cards.

    It is easy to understand how this very popular game has glorified paramilitary extremist movements around the world and there has been a movement to ban the game in the US.

    It is also easy to understand the parallels between the "Settlers of Catan" board game and the Israeli Settlers movement which may be why the game has such obvious appeal among NCSY leaders.

    I ran Shabbat youth programs for 20 years. In my youth groups we played games such as Torah Trivia,
    Parsha Challenge, Torah Slides and Ladders, Mitzvah Match, Aleph Bet Adventure, Kosherland etc. which are obviously too boring compared to the "Settlers" paramilitary fantasy.

    The shul I attend with my family, fired the Israeli teacher who ran the youth groups for many years in order to bring the NCSY program in.

    Parsha quizzes and Torah trivia obviously no longer promote the real agenda of our Rabbis and Jewish leaders.

    Needless to say, my children are either in the sanctuary with their father or at home on Shabbat. I am hoping to raise observant Jewish adults, not Armageddanists.

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  6. Settlers of Catan is a popular shabbos game for children and young adults, I have never seen any connection mentioned to Arabs, settlers, Jews, or any enemies. It is a competitive game about amassing resources to enable your team to conquer more land.

    Sounds like these children who were playing fantasy games of Jews against Arabs (rather than Cops n Robbers)are listening to the daily news, rooting for their favorite team "The JEWS (ISRAELIS)" to win. Quite similiar to the battle cry of "Go, go GIANTS, kill the Dolphins".

    "And yet we are told by Zionist leaders that we should consider all Arabs to be the enemy of the Jewish people?"
    As usual, some comments are contrived to fit a certain idealogy. If you have listened to the Zionist leaders of the last 10 years, the dialogue and statements have been to embrace, engage and include the Arabs as peace partners, neighbors, employees, and potential marriage partners. Open the doors of selected Jewish communities and allow Arabs to buy real estate, and rent apartments. There has been encouragement by Zionist leaders to hire Arabs in every sector of employment even in security circles SO the statement of "Arabs are our enemies" have never been part of the Zionist leaders agenda. **Unless you consider Rav Chaim Kanivesky and Rav Lior as Zionist leaders who have forbade schools and work places from hiring Arabs and instead employee "Avodat Ivri".

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  7. Except that the parents were appalled and took their children out of the youth groups.

    When the parents questioned the children, they said it was "the settlers game" we play with the youth director.

    That is what has everyone upset in the shul.

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  8. It is evident that the youth director needs to be reprimanded, if found to be guilty on this count.

    "Parsha quizzes and Torah trivia obviously no longer promote the real agenda of our Rabbis and Jewish leaders".
    Once again, who are you vindicating as 'our Rabbis and Jewish leaders'?

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  9. Hi, everybody! I just happened to see this and couldn't resist.

    "Settlers of Catan" is a totally non-violent game. It no more glorifies paramilitary groups than does Monopoly.

    To my knowledge, there is no movement to ban this game anywhere.

    Why did the kids blame the game, I dunno. Better to blame something else than themselves, I guess.

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  10. I'll say this for Jersey Girl - she's consistent in her ability to coddle Israel's enemies and give them more sympathy than her fellow Jews.

    Where do we get the idea that 375 million Arabs are our enemies? Could it be because all 375 million of them live under dictators who are all Jew haters and who had raised and educated them to think we are devil spawn? Could it be because their religious leaders consistently tell them all the lies Jersey Girl is so found of repeating in her comments?

    As for "Jews and Arabs" games, that's nothing new. When I lived in Israel in the mid 80's it was the standard game for kids to play. Back then cable hadn't come to Israel so the kids had never heard of cowboys and Indians.

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  11. Christians have banned Settlers of Catan in favor of their version called Settlers of Canaan.

    Players play the roles of various tribes of Israel which, according to the Old Testament, settled in this geographical region. The game progresses very similarly to the Settlers of Catan: as players expand their settlements throughout the land, they trade resources and make strategic choices to outmaneuver their opponents.

    http://www.amazon.com/Mayfair-Games-Settlers-of-Canaan/dp/B000065CRT

    I am not sure if this youth director adapted Settlers of Catan or is he is playing Settlers of Canaan.

    The parents were very happy with the Israeli lady who did the youth groups before. She teaches in a local Orthodox day school and did parsha and Torah Trivia games.The children love her and still congregate around her Shabbat morning.

    One of the big donors brought the new youth director in recently and several of the parents are concerned about a number of his Shabbat activities including raffles and contests with a $50 cash prize (redeemable after Shabbat).

    The Settlers game is only one of the problems.

    The biggest problem with NCSY is their policy of proselytizing Gentile children of Jewish men.
    It has, quite effectively, reached out to non-Orthodox and unaffiliated youth and led them to Orthodoxy. NCSY is a proselytizing organization, because, although its target audience is Jewish, they encounter a significant percentage of non Jews who identify as Jews because they have Jewish fathers".

    NCSY's policy is to proselytize these Gentiles for conversion. So what happens in reality is that intermarried Jewish men drop their kids off at an NCSY program hoping this will solve their intermarriage problem.

    Our synagogue now has so many non Jewish kids being driven in by their Gentile mothers Shabbat morning that they have had to hire a traffic cop to prevent those who arrive on foot from getting run over! (The parking lot is of course closed, but that does not stop them from driving up onto the sidewalk to drop their children off).

    Some of the members do know these children and do know that they are not Jewish. This has become a source of contention between NCSY, the Board members who hope to grow the membership via NCSY programs and the parents who do not bring their children to synagogue to play games about becoming a "Settler" (in Catan or Canaan) or to socialize with Gentiles.

    Along with EJF, Rabbi Bomzer, Aish and Chabad, it would also be of great interest if DT/R'DE could look into NCSY and their prostelyzing Gentile children of Jewish men.

    It seems that more and more Jewish children are being pushed out of the shuls and yeshivas in favor of Gentile children who are are being proselytized for conversion and while there seems to be endless money for proselytizing Gentiles, there seems to be none for educating halachic Jews.

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  12. Yes, Rabbi Kahane came to speak at our school twice when I was in 9th grade. I came home saying "I'm going to go to the West Bank to pick up a rifle and shoot every Arab I see as soon as I turn 18". A few of my classmates did just that.

    My father (who was not alone) took me out of that school and enrolled us in the Friends School (it was that or public school). There were so many frum kids there, they had a minyan in the morning and a kosher dining room. We left school at 12:30 to go to Talmud Torah taught by some of the community Rabbis and Rebbetzins.

    My father had one of the Syrian Rabbis sit me down and explain why it was not a mitzvah to go shoot Arabs. I didn't get it at all until many years later when two elderly men who were both eyewitnesses to the events of 1948 told me everything that they had seen and produced pictures and original manuscripts they had collected(they were customers of ours).

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  13. > My father had one of the Syrian Rabbis sit me down and explain why it was not a mitzvah to go shoot Arabs.

    I'm pretty sure it is when they're shooting at you!

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  14. I wonder if it ever bothers Jersey Girl that she's putting huge amounts of energy and emotion into supporting people who would kill her without blinking because she's a Jew and to them we are all the same regardless of our personal thoughts about Zionism.

    Does it ever bother her that she never, ever seems to have something positive to say about Jews that she philosophically disagrees with? Is she so certain in her beliefs that she can easily dismiss millions of Torah observant and partially observant Jews with arguments made by some of the worst Jew haters of all time?

    In the end, hers is quite the lonely portion although she doesn't realize it. The "poor Arabs" she so sympathizes with her don't care about her political stance except where they can use it to further their war against us. And she alienates herself from the rest of the Jewish people. Who does that leave her with? I mean, other than those weird looking guys with the dirty sidelocks and the "I love Ahmadenijad!" posters?

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  15. "she alienates herself from the rest of the Jewish people. ?????"

    I live in the Syrian community.

    Jack Avital, President of Sephardic National Alliance, has been a long time advocate of talks with Syria. Avital along with Jack Kassin, son of Chief Rabbi Shaul Kassin took a trip to Syria to extend condolences to President Assad on the loss of his father.

    http://joshualandis.com/blog/?p=96&cp=all

    http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/040512/2004051208.html

    A few of my cousins married Satmar and among the 800,000 Satmar Jews in the NY area, the belief that Zionism is forbidden by the Torah is unanimous.

    Among my friends who are Lithuanian yeshivishe, even those who live in Israel do not participate in elections or the Zionist gov't. They forbid acknowledging Israeli Independence day.

    Even the previous Rebbe of Lubavitch, the Rebbe Rashab was a fierce opponent of Zionism:
    http://failedmessiah.wordpress.com/2006/12/21/chabads-anti-zionism-the-rebbe-rashabs-letter/

    Orthodox Jewish leaders and laymen have fought Zionism continuously since its inception and up until the present day.

    I am hardly alone nor am I "alienated" from any of the Jewish people I know, except for those who are non religious or involved with Chabad which has degraded into a Messianic cult outside of Judaism in the opinion of many Poskim.

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  16. Jersey Girl said...
    Christians have banned Settlers of Catan in favor of their version called Settlers of Canaan.

    No, like many popular games, "settlers of Catan" has inspired numerous variants and spin-offs. No one has banned "Settlers of Catan".

    As for the Jersey Girl's general theme, being an non-Zionist or even an anti-Zionist does not equate to being pro-Arab. This is generally well understood in the anti-Zionist camps, such as Satmar, who broadly reject the behavior of the nuts who participate in Ahmadenijad's Holocaust denial conferences and similar behavior.

    It is possible that there is a degree of philo-Arabism in some Sephardic circles for a variety reasons. However, in our current world such sentiments are as reasonable as a German Jew allowing his sentimental attachment to the "Fatherland" to blind himself to the realities of Nazi Germany.

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  17. "The biggest problem with NCSY is their policy of proselytizing Gentile children of Jewish men".

    Worked with and for NCSY for over a decade, the Syrian version of your NCSY is quite different than the Midwest Chapters. IOW's, what the heck are you talking about? Kids of Jewish men, is this a reality or a way for your shul to up its membership. We ran shabbatons in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Winnipeg, Chicago and sent the day school children on to Yeshiva high schools. (with a tad of a love for Israel BTW). We ran day camps in communities that the only camp was the JCC, taught Torah, Tefillah and worked with the Jewish parents. The NCSY that you are describing is off the wall........

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  18. Jersey Girl, to get a view of the Muslim Arabs that are peaceful, compassionate, and friendly, check out the blog, "ISRAEL MATZAV" and you will see why the Jewish nation is looking to eradicate its ARAB enemy.

    "You can take a Muslim out of Gaza but you can't take Gaza out of a Muslim

    Gateway Pundit has an appalling bit of video from a pro-Hamas demonstration in Oslo over the weekend. The pro-Hamas demonstrators smeared their kids with fake blood, pushed them to the front of the line against the police and then started throwing things at the police! And you thought that once they leave the Middle East they don't do those kinds of things?

    To watch the videotape, go here."

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  19. Are you calling for an Israeli genocide against 375 million Arabs?

    Or are you calling for an Israeli genocide of 1.5 billion Muslims in the world?

    What does Hamas have to do with Islam? They are a Messianic death cult whose teachings and beliefs are in conflict with Orthodox Islam. (And numerous Muslim leaders have written and said so. If you do not read Arabic or subscribe to any English language Muslim press, you would have no way to know this as the Western media conveniently does not publish these).

    The entire Muslim world is suffering from these extremists.

    Israel has been a victim of a small fraction of their violence.
    (CIA statistics are online).

    Hamas is a cancer created within the framework of European colonialism, nurtured and supported by Israel's leaders who founded, funded and trained Yassin and his followers as an antidote to Arab nationalism.

    The Messianic extremist cancer has infected and afflicted the entire Muslim world along with Al Qaeda and other Salafi extremists funded and trained by the CIA.

    If I read you correctly, you are calling for a Muslim genocide.

    Or, would you instead have the 1.5 billion Muslims of the world choose to either convert to Christianity or die by the sword?

    You write as a Crusader and not a Jew.

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  20. Rav Moshe Feinstein, according to Agudah Dayan, Rabbi Shmuel Fuerst, paskened that NCSY can proselytise Gentile children of Jewish fathers to participate in NCSY programs in hopes that they will seek to convert.

    NCSY by its nature will very often have teens participate who are not Halachicly Jewish... but who think that they are because they have Jewish fathers.

    Rabbi Fuerst based on what he had clearly been told by his Rebbe Rav Moshe Feinstein, has Paskened that NCSY can actively encourage these children to continue participating in NCSY and to seek a proper conversion. Rav Moshe held that by not encouraging these youngsters to convert they would none the less continue believing they were Jewish and seek to marry other Jews That would actually increase inter-marriage in Klal Yisroel.

    NCSY EVERYWHERE proselytizes Gentiles. It is their official policy and it is nothing new.
    My father heard this out about NCSY 25 years ago and would not let us go. (It was a good thing given that Baruch Lanner was the group leader).

    The practical reality is that in the US, kiruv means proselytizing Gentiles to convert to Judaism.
    And most community Rabbis have either not heard or have not accepted the fact that these "conversions" which are fictitious and valueless and done only to either permit an intermarriage or to kasher the offspring of an intermarriage in order to permit the next generation of intermarriage were never accepted in Israel or by the EU Rabbinate, RCA/BDA any longer.

    Our shuls, schools, youth groups, kollels and every other Orthodox Jewish institution in the US is full of people who are not halachically Jewish.

    It seems as though US Rabbis either do not know to care or do not care to know.

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  21. Not sure who you are directing your words to.

    "(And numerous Muslim leaders have written and said so. If you do not read Arabic or subscribe to any English language Muslim press, you would have no way to know this as the Western media conveniently does not publish these)".
    It may pay for you to get acquainted with the in-the-street Muslim who works in Manhattan or around your neighborhood, or attends college with you. I have met hundreds on the college campuses and in the workplace. If they feel secure in the relationship they will tell you, 'loud and clear', "WE ARE ALL HAMAS", so the fantasy that it is a fringe group, small cancerous growth (those do spread quickly), a minority is a falsehood that the Western Media is not telling YOU.
    My great grandfather in law was slaughtered and sliced through the neck by his peaceful, friendly, drink morning coffee with, share happy occassions neighbor in IRAQ, (who BTW hated fundamentalist and Messianic Arabs).

    "Israel has been a victim of a small fraction of their violence".
    SO VERY TRUE, therefore we must support the global war against terror, since every terror act initiates by and with Muslim ARABS.

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  22. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  23. Not sure who you are directing your words to.

    "(And numerous Muslim leaders have written and said so. If you do not read Arabic or subscribe to any English language Muslim press, you would have no way to know this as the Western media conveniently does not publish these)".
    It may pay for you to get acquainted with the in-the-street Muslim who works in Manhattan or around your neighborhood, or attends college with you. I have met hundreds on the college campuses and in the workplace. If they feel secure in the relationship they will tell you, 'loud and clear', "WE ARE ALL HAMAS", so the fantasy that it is a fringe group, small cancerous growth (those do spread quickly), a minority is a falsehood that the Western Media is not telling YOU.
    My great grandfather in law was slaughtered and sliced through the neck by his peaceful, friendly, drink morning coffee with, share happy occassions neighbor in IRAQ, (who BTW hated fundamentalist and Messianic Arabs).

    "Israel has been a victim of a small fraction of their violence".
    SO VERY TRUE, therefore we must support the global war against terror, since every terror act initiates by and with Muslim ARABS.

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  24. NCSY EVERYWHERE proselytizes Gentiles. It is their official policy and it is nothing new. *****************************

    If you like I will forward to your home address the offical booklet of NCSY so that you can read it yourself. NO where does it speak of proselytizing Gentiles. Many of the pasakim of Reb Moshe zt"l were asked in theory.... Since I worked in the Midwest Chapter and had much shimush with Rav Fuerst,
    this 'little tiny secret' seems to be yours and your dad's.

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  25. To Tzipschum -

    "It may pay for you to get acquainted with the in-the-street Muslim who works in Manhattan or around your neighborhood,"

    The neighborhood I live in is a mix is Sephardic Jews and Muslims from North Africa. The Muslim women I am friendly with talk about where kosher meat is the cheapest,buying henna dresses, what to cook for Eid and where to find skirts with no slit.

    Today's conversation with my Egyptian Muslim neighbor was about downloading music since my Sfatayim CDs were held up by customs for 8 weeks and then returned by the Post Office because I would not sign for them on Shabbat. The neighbor advised that the only way to get music is by download.

    If anyone knows of a website where I can download Sfatayim or Haim Ulliel's music, I would be grateful as my favorite CD broke and I cannot replace it now.

    To RebEb:

    Rabbi Shmuel Fuerst, Agudah Dayan is the Posek for NCSY and this is how he rules. This Psak certainly would not be part of the NCSY official booklet which I have just reviewed.

    Since you are very familiar with NCSY, you should call Rabbi Fuerst, who has had a long term relationship with NCSY as well as a special interest in kiruv.

    The above mentioned Psak has been justification for the admission of Gentile children of Jewish biological fathers to numerous Jewish day schools throughout the US.

    It would be a great mitzvah to correct the Rabbis, teachers and Roshei Yeshiva all over the US who proselytize Gentile children in R'MF's name if this Psak is incorrect.

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  26. And most community Rabbis have either not heard or have not accepted the fact that these "conversions" which are fictitious and valueless and done only to either permit an intermarriage or to kasher the offspring of an intermarriage

    Okay, conversion for marriage is sometimes seen as invalidating the conversion itself — but converting children of intermarriages is only "fictitious" according to that absurd ruling coming out of Israel recently. You convert a child, and they don't reject it when they come of age, they're Jewish. HALAKHICALLY so.

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  27. "absurd ruling coming out of Israel recently."

    So you are qualified to rule this over Chief Rabbis and Gedolei Hador in Israel, the US, Montreal and the EU who have all adopted this ruling???

    (which BTW has always been the case in Israel, it was just not publicized until the reporter from the Jewish Week made it an issue in May of 2006).

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  28. I just saw this post for the first time. Looks like I've missed some fireworks.

    It's distressing to see Jewish people making statements that condemn and entire population on the assumption that ALL of them believe a certain way.

    Those of you who espouse the "kill them all" mentality shouldn't complain about how unfair it is when the world blames their economic woes on the Jews because of the actions of some very high profile Jewish criminals, combined with the fact that Jews have above average incomes in the U.S.

    Surely, all Jews are crooks right, so why not just take all of the American Jews' assets as partial compensation ? By the logic of the anti-Arabists who claim they are ALL Hamas, this would be fair treatment of American Jewry.

    It's absurd that anyone can seriously believe that ALL Arabs and ALL Arab nations hate the Jews when Morocco is openly advertising begging Jews to return, Syria is doing extensive trade with Jews in the U.S. and is inviting Jews to return (Assad himself arranged and funded a Pesach program last year), Egypt is maintaining abandoned synagogues and asking Jews to return, the Iranian Jewish community who is free to leave chooses to stay, and Qatar has passed a "right of return" law welcoming Jews to come.

    Arabs control the majority of world oil. If they really hated Jews, all they would have to do is cut off all oil outflows for a week and demand that the rest of the world cut off Israel and end the regime there. (it's not like some big coalition could instantly be put together to stop it, and the Arabs could booby trap the wells threatening a scorched earth policy that will wreck the global economy if attacked).

    Surely nobody sane believes that a million Jews on a tiny piece of worthless land would stand between the world and its oil.

    The reason this doesn't happen is because they're not as anti-Israel or as anti-Jewish as you are lead to believe.

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  29. > A few of my cousins married Satmar and among the 800,000 Satmar Jews in the NY area, the belief that Zionism is forbidden by the Torah is unanimous.

    So what? Among hundreds of thousands of Dati Leumi Jews the belief that Zionism is a chiyuv is unanimous. Other than an over-inflated sense of self-righteouness, how are the Satmars more right than us?

    > Among my friends who are Lithuanian yeshivishe, even those who live in Israel do not participate in elections or the Zionist gov't. They forbid acknowledging Israeli Independence day.

    Yet they have no trouble sucking its money for their yeshivos and protesting when the government they don't recognize cuts back on funding. Hypocrites.

    > Even the previous Rebbe of Lubavitch, the Rebbe Rashab was a fierce opponent of Zionism:

    Well it's a good thing the Zionists helped get him out of Europe. Ah, those inconvenient facts again.

    > Orthodox Jewish leaders and laymen have fought Zionism continuously since its inception and up until the present day.

    Leaders like Rav Reines? Leaders like the Ohr Chadash? Leaders like the Netzvis and Rav Zvi Hirsch Kalisher?
    I am hardly alone nor am I "alienated" from any of the Jewish people I know, except for those who are non religious or involved with Chabad which has degraded into a Messianic cult outside of Judaism in the opinion of many Poskim.

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  30. Garnel, in your last response to Jersey Girl you have actually succeeded in making Jersey Girl appear to be be the more reasonable participant in the discussion. While most of us (including anti-Zionists like myself) disagree with Jersey Girl, your responses are so knee-jerk and emotional that they entirely fail to respond to her points.

    Jersey Girl is fundamentally wrong in equating anti-Zionism with philo-Arabism and in denying the clear evidence of the overwhelming antisemitism that exists in the Arab world today (regardless of the blame that the Zionists may bear for creating the problem).

    You, Garnel, are making a number of logical errors in interpreting what Jersey Girl is saying (e.g. she never claimed that all Jews agree with her, only that she is not a lone voice; thus the opinion of the Dati leumi are not relevant).

    The fact is that the bulk of the Torah leadership in Europe opposed the Zionist movement. Leaders like R' Reines were renegades (a fact that they recognized). To this day, the bulk of the leading Torah figures do not see Zionism as an acceptable Torah ideology.

    R' Kalisher and the Netziv were never involved in the Zionist movement - they were involved in the Chovevei Tzion movement. Chibas Tzion was also controversial, but was not broadly opposed by the gedolim.

    (BTW, who is the Ohr Chadash?)

    Opposition to Zionism does not mean claiming that Zionists are incapable of doing anything good. The fact that some Zionists were involved in rescuing various individuals (such as the Satmar rav - NOT the Rashab, who died in 1920) from the Nazis does not mean that Zionism is a correct ideology. Or are those Jews who were saved by Christians no obligated to acknowledge the validity of Christianity?

    And so on... but I'm out of time.

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  31. Jersey Girl, I would like to show my support to you. Im and a muslim and arab background. I makes me happy to see that are some decent jews who have ccompassion and understanding. In history jews lived under arb/muslim ruler in relative peace and harmony example the golden age for the jews in spain before the christians took over and forced the population to convert to chirstianty or die. What is happening in israel/palestine is sad and tragic. And for the muslim on the street supporting hamas well who should they support when there are innocent civilans being killed, and no democratic government is ding anything to stop it. Zoinist turned to terrorism pre 1948 killing many innocent people.

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  32. I played cowboys and Indians as a child and never had the urge as an adult to kill Indians.

    However, if I were attacked every day by Indians then I wouldn't need a game to convince me what I would need to do and it wouldn't involve pretending to play a game.

    No Arab is the enemy of Jews. In my city, Bayonne, there are very many Arabs, none of which are a direct threat to me, my country or western civilization. Perhaps that's becasue they are not Muslim.

    Muslims per se are not a problem. If there were one Muslim in my town I'm sure he would be like most Muslims, just want to have a nice home, make a living, feed his family and go about the business of being a decent human being.

    However, bring in more Muslims and soon you have the mob mentality take over and previously when our local Ahmed had no nerve to demonstrate alone in the street in support of Hamas, suddenly in numbers, the true Islam comes out.

    Only a dhimmi can ignore the number of demonstrations in America supporting a group of thugs who use children as shields in order to later display them as innocent dead or wounded.

    The present conflict has nothing to do with Jews but as usual we are the pawns again in a war for global domination.

    If we recall the fatwa of Osama bin Laden, one of his major grievances was the presence of crusaders in the lands of Arabia. Even without Israel, there would have been Muslims eager to establish dar-al Islam over the globe.

    You know what Muslims call countries that are not ruled by Muslims? dar-al Harb, the house of war. Those who fail to see that Islam is at war with the infidel world are as blind as Europeans were when Hitler said all he wanted was a little more space for Germans to live. The only difference was Hitler wanted to be called Der Fuhrer instead of Caliph.

    Jersey Girl, there is nothing wrong with being blind as long as you are not trying to lead other blind.

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  33. Arab-Muslim said:
    "In history jews lived under arb/muslim ruler in relative peace and harmony example the golden age for the jews in spain before the christians took over and forced the population to convert to chirstianty or die."

    Oh, so why did the Rambam flee spain? Oh it was the fact that although there were times of moderate rule among the Muslim countries at some points, there were other points that the extremists took over and either killed or expelled the Jews. It is true that they were better than the christians at some points, but there were also times that the Jews lived more peacefully in christian lands than in Muslim lands.

    Also, can you blame the Israelis for not liking their Arab neighbors. I mean the second they declared a state they were attacked by not one, not two, but 6 ARAB countries. So if from your inception a people as a whole want to destroy your very existence, it is hard to get along. It is hard to be tolerant when the pro-arab groups are screaming at you to go back to the ovens. So do demand Israeli tolerance when the Arab countries do not seems hypocritical. True, there are most likely several Arabs and muslims that are moderate, but they don't rule the countries or the organizations for some reason.

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  34. "800,000 Satmar Jews in the NY area"

    That figure is way too high, real number is much less.

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  35. It is time we learned how to serve Hashem from our cousins, the Arabs. They are our brothers. They are the descendants of Yishmael. And they are the children of Avraham and Keturah (Hagar).

    The deeds of Keturah were extremely pleasing, and she is to be praised.“Keturah” means “untouched.” Keturah lived longer than Sarah. Sarah lived until 127 years. Keturah lived until 135 years approximately. When Avraham sent Keturah away, she did not allow herself to be touched by any other man. Why? Because she loved Avraham. She always remained loyal and true to Avraham. And because of that, Avraham came back to her, and re-married her.

    (Note that the name, “Keturah” is also very similar to “Ketoret,” which is the sweetest and most holy of all the offerings. It is the incense offering of 11 spices. And it is only the Ketoret which is offered by the Kohen HaGadol on Yom Kippur in the Kodesh HaKadashim.)

    The Arabs pray to Hashem. They have only ONE G-D. And they pray to Hashem no less than 5 TIMES a day.

    Although they have twisted the Torah, they have taken to heart 2 basic principles from the Torah - “Truth” and “Emunah in Hashem”.

    Their service of Hashem is far more pleasing than us – and they are putting us to very great shame. And that is why they are flourishing.

    The Jewish People is steeped in idolatry. Idolatry of Money. Money is their God, and their idol.

    We have dealt treacherously with Hashem, and we have become traitors to Hashem (Read the Parshiot of Nasso through to Haazinu).

    Our G-d, Hashem, is a “Jealous G-d,” and He will not tolerate this level of idolatry and immorality in the Jewish People.

    Are we going to wake up or not?

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