| To: goldsnow who wrote (1672) | 8/27/2002 9:38:04 AM | | From: Emile Vidrine | | | | Burning the New Testament by Orthodox Jews in Israel
Yediot Ahronot, March 30, 1997
By Yehuda Koren
Translation and notes by Israel Shahak
Every time Paul Smilansky gets into his car he checks whether he is being followed. He also is careful to check who is standing at the door before he opens it. Smilansky, 37, a building site manager, is a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses community in Lydda. Orthodox Jews consider them to be an idolatrous cult, but the members themselves reject this definition.
Two weeks ago on Saturday night hundreds of Orthodox Jews broke into the community's place of worship, totally demolished it and stole the public address equipment. The books and pamphlets they found there were piled in the yard and a large bonfire was lit. While the books were burning, Orthodox Jews danced around the bonfire. Alvin Neuport, a veteran member of the Jehovah's Witnesses community, said "Masses of Orthodox Jews attacked our building and broke into it using axes. They danced and sang around the bonfire, into which they threw even our Bibles.1 Although the destruction and arson took place on the main street, a short distance from the home of Member of the Knesset Maxim Levy, who is also Lydda's mayor,2 and hundreds of people danced around the bonfire, no one stopped them. Only when the owner of an adjacent shop feared that the fire would spread, were the police called in."
The violent attack on the house of worship was not the first time that Jehovah's Witnesses have been attacked by Orthodox Jews. Paul Smilansky told about the daily public curses, spitting and fist fights. "They throw stones all the time. Once they hit my father-in-law on the head, causing a concussion," Smilansky said.
Ten Jehovah's Witnesses communities currently exist in Israel. They have 750 members, not including children. Most of them are Jews, a minority Christians. About one-quarter of the members are from the former Soviet Union. There are 50 members in the Lydda community, which was established 30 years ago. Previously the meetings were held in members' homes, but in 1989 the community purchased a shop in the town commercial center.
"Because of the constant attacks by the Orthodox, we built a high fence, installed a fortified door and a closed-circuit TV that shows what is going on outside," Smilansky said. "Early this month, at the end of a gathering when we were starting to go home, we were met by a rain of building blocks and large stones. My wife and children managed to reach the car, but other members locked themselves inside. The small children were screaming with fear. We summoned the police and then went outside, but the hail of stones did not cease, even under the eyes of the police."
Orthodox Jews "throw stones all the time."
The present tension seemingly erupted because four months ago many Jews of Lydda received material by mail from Messianic Jews. "Although there is no connection between us and the Messianic Jews," Alvin Neuport said, "we bore the brunt of the Orthodox anger, apparently because we live here and the Messianics do not.
"They [Orthodox Jews] poured glue into the locks so we could not get into the hall," Neuport said. "They tried several times to set the place on fire and burned the air conditioner motors."
Neuport especially blames the Habad youth. "They work against us like a military organization with intelligence units that go around and write down our license plate numbers and contact us and threaten to set the cars on fire if we will not abandon our faith."
Following the burning of the books and the destruction of the prayer hall, three Habad rabbis were summoned for questioning by the police. Among them was Rabbi Yakov Glauberman, the Habad Youth leader, who denied any connection to the affair.
"We are Judaism with a smile and pleasant ways," he said. "True, they are the enemies of the Jews, exploiting the fact that during the day the men are at work. They knock on doors and entice our women to join them. They tear families apart and do not even have mercy on little children whose souls will perish in hell because of them."
Concerning the arson, Rabbi Glauberman said, "I happened to arrive at the place by chance. I do not know who attacked or broke things but I admit that I did see the bonfire and circle of dancers. We follow them constantly only to warn the Jews to beware of them, but I denounce all violence."
The public relations attack includes warnings and briefings. Children have been warned that "cult members" will kidnap them, bleed them to death3 or, alternatively, turn them into Christians. Women have been briefed on ways to withstand their many enticements and especially their offers to examine the mezzuzahs in their homes.
"They take off the mezzuzah," claims Habad, "remove the parchment, and when you aren't looking, erase the holy Name of God and write a cross instead. Then, every time you leave your home or return to it, you will commit the abomination of kissing the cross and not the holy words in the mezzuzah," the women were told.
Elisha Rogers, a Jehovah's Witnesses member, admits that he spends some hours of each week speaking with people in their homes. "In the Middle Ages Jews were falsely accused of drinking the blood of small children and now the Orthodox Jews are using the same lie against us," he said. "The story about the mezzuzah is also foolish: we are not Christians and to us the cross is a prohibited symbol of idolatry. We are a separate religion that is recognized as such around the world."
The Jehovah's Witnesses community members felt especially insulted by the graffiti words "death camp" sprayed on the walls of their prayer hall. "In World War II Hitler also sent us to the death camps," Rogers said.
The Jehovah's Witnesses have not suspended their activities, but they keep the location of their new meeting place secret. "If they return to the old place, we will not leave them alone," Rabbi Glauberman said. "We will continue fighting them until they leave the city and Israel."
Yossi Boker, the deputy commander of the Lydda police station, said, "The police have received many complaints about assaults, insults and provocations. However, since complaints against specific suspects could not be proved we were forced to close the cases. I summoned three rabbis in the city for a talk and I made it clear to them that we would react strongly if the harassments continued. We also asked the members of the community to notify us when they finished fixing the meeting place, so that we will be prepared and prevent the next attack."4
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NOTES (by Prof. Israel Shahak):
1. This is strictly according to the Jewish religious law and is often done, also in Jerusalem, since the Bibles contain the New Testament which pious Jews should burn, if they can. In Jerusalem, where Orthodox violence is more difficult than in a small town like Lydda, Bibles which contain the New Testament are often collected and ceremoniously burnt on a bonfire in an Orthodox neighborhood. No rabbi, and few politicians, have said a word about this. Needless to say, Western media will not report such events, although the Hebrew press does.
2. David Levy's brother.
3. This libel, like much Habad Nazi-like persecution of small and weak sects, is an adaptation of a prevalent anti-Semitic libel, which claimed that Jews kidnap Christian children and bleed them to death. I am afraid than many Jews (and also non-Jews) who are ready to condemn anti-Semitic libel will refuse to relate to the Habad one, although they are exactly alike in their evil intent.
4. Jehovah's Witnesses are especially attacked by the Orthodox Jews for three reasons: they are small and weak, unprotected by the diplomats of any foreign state, and their beliefs prevent them from hitting back. |
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| To: Emile Vidrine who wrote (1674) | 8/27/2002 9:45:00 AM | | From: Emile Vidrine | | | | Jewish controlled media in America carefully avoided giving this important issue broad the broad coverage it deserved in a Christian nation.
If a Jewish grave is vandalized anywhere in the world, the Jewish media gives such an incident front page coverage for weeks. |
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| To: Eashoa' M'sheekha who wrote (1478) | 8/27/2002 10:16:03 AM | | From: Thomas M. | | | | I don't see anything informative or helpful about Nadine's comments:
Sure, Israel got letters like this all the time. But October 1968 was less than a year after the Khartoum Conference, in which the Arab League spurned Israel's offer of the territories, saying No Peace. No Recognition. No Negotiations.
They had just offered all the land back and gotten a big fat NO. Khartoum was the high point of Arab intransigence. Who were the Israelis supposed to be flexible with, a brick wall? This letter was an effort to score points over the USSR, who were the only ones who had influence over the Arabs.
There was no Israeli offer of returning the conquered territories. And Nadine knows it. After the 1967 war, the Arabs wanted to settle a peace deal with Israel quickly. Israel refused. The Israeli intransigence led to Khartoum, not the other way around (as Nadine claims). And it is revealing that the countries which were attacked (the Arabs) are supposed to keep their heads bowed when facing the hostile aggressor (Israel). Was Czechoslovakia asked to show conciliation to Nazi Germany in 1938?
Message 17774686
Note that, at the time of Khartoum, Marshall Tito formulated a plan calling for Israeli withdrawal from the conquered territories, including full demilitarization and other security guarantees in these territories, and and "end ot the call for an Arab state of Palestine". Egypt and Jordan agreed, Israel rejected it.
The definitive text on the peace process between 1967 and 1973 is Finkelstein's "Image & Reality". But, you don't need to get into these nitty-gritty details. All you need to do is look at 1971, when Egypt offered Israel a full peace treaty, Israel recognized it as a valid offer, and Israel rejected it on the grounds that they were in a position of strength. In 1976, this offer was expanded to Syria, Egypt, the PLO, etc. Again, Israel rejected it (angrily). This has been on the table continuously for the past 3 decades, and it still is.
Your website doesn't mention either 1976 nor 1971. So, I would not consider it a useful resource.
mideastweb.org
Tom |
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| To: Emile Vidrine who wrote (1675) | 8/27/2002 10:23:12 AM | | From: goldsnow | | | | In History as Mystery, Parenti turns his critical eye towards the biases of historiography via politicians, popes, professors, text book authors and corporations, the mass media, and other class ceilings. He also examines the ascendancy and later hegemony of a social system: "Christianity", which Parenti adeptly argues, "supported secular and ecclesiastical autocracy [Paul, Augustine, and other Christian leaders urge servants and slaves to be dutifully obedient and lovingly faithful to their masters, "as unto Christ", and "we repeatedly encounter a ready acceptance of autocratic secular power and an eagerness to enlist it to hunt down heretics, free thinkers, reformers, and other purveyors of heterodoxy"], class oppression ["if early church fathers...championed a church of the indigent and oppressed, of slaves and penniless peasants, they gave remarkably little evidence of it...the established ecclesiastics usually sided with the princes against the peasants, showing little sympathy for the democratic rights of commoners"; "Rather than sharing the wealth, the upper clergy shared in the wealth"], slavery ["for centuries, the church was itself the largest slaveholder in Europe"], sexism ["male church leaders repeatedly proclaimed the inferior nature of women", piling on restrictions and burning "tens of thousands of women" for their various "transgressions"], and anti-Semitism [leading the way to the Inquisition, many unnamed pogroms, and "preparing the Holocaust", numerous Christian leaders demonized the Jews "for the better part of two thousand years [through] papal proclamations, church sermons, pastoral letters, hymns, council edicts, and the pronouncements of bishops and leading theologians". There are, unfortunately, many notable examples, such as "In 1239, Pope Gregory IX attempted to cleanse western Europe of Jewish books, especially the Talmud"]. Indeed, Christianity "had a severely regressive effect upon just about every area of learning" including "such fields as literature, philosophy, art, theater, science, medicine, anatomy, astronomy, mathematics, and commerce...The burning of books was part of the advent and imposition of Christianity" (chs. 2-3).
angelfire.com |
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| To: goldsnow who wrote (1676) | 8/27/2002 10:47:39 AM | | From: Emile Vidrine | | | | "even if true"
Why is it so difficult for Talmudic Jews to ever admit wrongdoing? Because the Talmud teaches that it is permissible for Jews to mistreat and even murder non-Jews.
In the Talmudic Jewish mind there can be no wrongdoing against the "Goy" because they are sub-humans.
Documentation proving Jewish wrongdoing is irrelevant in the mind of a Talmudic Jew. |
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| To: goldsnow who wrote (1678) | 8/27/2002 10:54:15 AM | | From: Emile Vidrine | | | | "[Paul, Augustine, and other Christian leaders urge servants and slaves to be dutifully obedient and lovingly faithful to their masters, "as unto Christ",
That's only half the story, and like most half-stories it conveys the wrong idea! In the other half, Paul teaches that 'masters should treat their slaves with brotherly love and should remember their debt to Jesus for the forgi.
Isn't it interesting how the anti-Christians always have to distort history and the writings in the New Testament to stretch their antichrist philosophies? |
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| To: goldsnow who wrote (1672) | 8/27/2002 11:18:40 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | School apologizes for burning New Testament
By Shoshana Kordova
BEIT SHEMESH (December 25) - The organization that administers Orot school in Beit Shemesh issued an apology yesterday for publicly burning a copy of the New Testament a student received from Christian missionaries.
"Everybody knows we made a mistake," said Jordana Klein, spokeswoman for Sha'alei Torah. "We wouldn't do it again. We don't think it's the right thing to do."
The book-burning took place in the school courtyard the week before Hanukka, after a teacher in the boys' school found that one of his sixth-grade students had brought in a Hebrew copy of the New Testament.
The student received it from local missionaries who, according to Klein, have been active in proselytizing Beit Shemesh children.
"The teacher said: 'God sent it and He gave us the privilege, and we'll be able to burn the New Testament," said Ariel Lesnick, 11, who is in the class.
The teacher consulted with the principal, Rabbi Yair Bachar, said Klein. After receiving approval, the teacher - whose name Klein refused to divulge - took his class outside.
Then, Lesnick said, "We took a few sticks and we burnt it." The teacher emphasized that the book-burning was an anti-missionary activity and not an anti-Christian one, Lesnick said.
[snip]
Message 16829592 |
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