I should like to point out that I especially like the 12th Blessing of
the Amidah:
" And for the slanderers, let there be no hope;
and may all wickedness perish in an instant;
and may all Your enemies be cut down speedily.
The wanton sinners – May You speedily uproot, smash, cast down and
humble -
speedily in our days.
Blessed are You Hashem, Who breaks enemies and humbles wanton
sinners."
I realise that we are dealing with human nature, not with the nature
of angels and that there are hackers, hack writers and journalists,
even human refuse, being bankrolled by moneyed jihadists, to make
vicious propaganda against the Jewish State. We know that some of
them are prepared to even sell their own grandmothers for money.
And there are those who reel off a series of insults, such as "Israel
is in fact founded on racism at its core", other such blasphemies,
distortions, false charges, all of which we are expected to accept as
their own sacred contribution to objective truth and beyond dispute -
and - on top of all that, when they say that they don't want to
"debate" such controversial issues, that's a very tall order indeed.
I am often torn between these two poles, the tension that exists
between
on the one hand, after the Amidah the prayer which begins
"My God,
keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile.
May my soul be silent to them that curse me
and may my soul be as the dust to everyone....."
and the feeling that for me to be a doormat or as quiet as St.
Nicholas of Cusa at such a time
would be a crime.
Yes indeed, Kenneth Harrow loves justice, but I don't think that he is
being fair, the way he represents the dilemmas, without even as much
as mentioning the terrorists who belong to the Paradise Cult of the
Suicide Bombers and all the death and destruction they have visited
upon innocent Israelis and their properties :
http://www.google.com/search?q=Palestinian+Terrorists&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&lr=lang_en
Rabbi Meir Kahane states in his excellent " Our Challenge" published
in 1974 (page 128):
"The right of the state of Israel to exist is dependent upon the right
of the Jew to a land of Israel
The state can do nothing in denigration of the imperatives of the
land. And if the decree of the land of Israel through the Jewish
heritage is that every Jew has a right to enter and live there, then
no Knesset and no state can do anything to contradict that edict.
Here we have one more example of the corruption of the true meaning of
the State of Israel vis-a-vis the Jewish people. Instead of an
affirmation of the Jewish people as an indivisible nation with each
and every Jew entitled to the same rights from the Jewish state , we
find that there are indeed "Jews" and " Israelis". The criminal born
in Tel Aviv is not deported from Israel, but the one who tries to
enter the land from Chicago is. A 72-year old "foreign" criminal
becomes a "danger to the state", but a native born communist whose
allegiance is to Moscow is not. A "foreign"Jew who is deemed "
undesirable" cannot live in the land of Israel but hundreds of
thousands of Arabs can."
I really like most of what Rabbi Kahane has said:
http://www.google.com/search?q=+++Rabbi+Meir+Kahane+%3A+Writings&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&lr=lang_en
For many of us, honesty is the best policy: therefore I would like to
have more clarity about these doubtful matters:
You say that you "once considered israel necessary to the survival of
the jewish people".The fact of the matter is that the enemies of
Israel not least of all Iran, continue to threaten Israel, and this
means that the survival of the Jewish people of Israel is at stake.
Israel need only lose one war, and then most of the anti-Semites, the
anti-Zionists and the self-hating Jews who are currently yapping about
"occupied territories"would be yapping about occupied territories no
more and be happy that they had nothing more to yappy about.
And even more seriously, the fact of the matter is that the Jewish
Faith with all 613 Mitzvoth can only be fully practised in the Land of
Israel in which we all pray that the Beit Hamikdash will be built in
the Holy City of Jerusalem, soon, in our days.
So, cheer up everybody, all will be well in the end:
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/15933/jewish/Chapter-2.htm
You say that, "many would agree that israel lost its credibility when
it turned, since
67, into an occupier who abused palestinians."
Here's the nitty-gritty about Judea and Samaria which in more recent
history, some call The West Bank" - all of which you know better than
anyone, but not everyone knows:
http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_101.html
http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_102.html
http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_06.html
and from my trustworthy source:
"cornelius wants to claim that jews have a right to the eretz-israel.
we
have no right to anything if it means oppressing others. we forfeited
that right, gaza stands as a reproach to any religious claims for
legitimacy. "
Professor Harrow!!!!! Have a heart. Please!
It's the Almighty, and not Cornelius who gave Israel to the Jewish
people as an everlasting heritage!
And as for Gaza – it has a surplus of everything, apart from weapons :
they have food, medicines, shopping malls etc. Ariel Sharon uprooted
15, 000 "Settlers" and made it judenrein – as a result of which Hamas
and co-jihadists are still terrorising the Israeli inhabitants of
Sderot and environs with their rockets... and hope to be rewarded
with no less than 72 virgins each (in paradise) for murder....and
mass murder, for a Holocaust.....
For the religious-minded and the curious, Chapter 4's " Israel and the
Nations" on pages 133- 146 of Moshe Chaim Luzzato's "The Way of God" ,
is convincing:
Wishing everyone a pleasant weekend,
Cornelius
On 20 Juli, 21:58, kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:
> dear all,
> for me judaism is a complicated thing, israel is a complicated thing.
> with all due respect for cornelius's superior knowledge of the religion,
> i am writing as a practicing, though secular jew. a jew who had once
> considered israel necessary to the survival of the jewish people, but no
> longer does. and as a jew who does not recognize the authorities
> cornelius correctly delineates.
> for me, a jew born 5 years before the creation of the state of israel, i
> was taught to believe that it was our protection after the holocaust. i
> did not come from a particularly practicing family, and although i was
> bar mitzvahed, that had little to do with actual religious faith.
> i don't want to make this any more personal than that. i believe that
> the claims i will now make are commonly held by many jews in america or
> europe.
> we do not have to believe in god or attend synagogue to consider
> ourselves jewish. i never took the rabbinal dictates as applying to me
> or anyone i knew. i consider their rules worse than outdated; they are
> at times reprehensible or outrageous, especially when it comes to
> defining who is a jew. i know the standard rule is that one must be born
> of a jewish mother, or convert. my own belief is that we are all free to
> declare ourselves believers in any belief community. between the
> institutional understanding, and the individual there is a partial gulf.
> there are many branches of judaism, including not only orthodox,
> conservative, and reform. though raised reform, i belong to a
> reconstructionist congregation, and we believe that the rules of the
> past "have a vote," but not a veto over what the congregation decides.
> i would consider anyone who adheres to judaism entitled to consider
> themselves jewish. probably many would argue with me; but many would agree.
> many would agree that israel lost its credibility when it turned, since
> 67, into an occupier who abused palestinians. some would say we are in a
> post-zionist stage where the original raison-d'etre for the state has
> been vitiated by its oppression of the palestians. i can't speak for
> others, but i know i am not alone in stating this.
> as for the right of return, and other issues of debate over rights for
> palestinians, they are all legitimate, but practically speaking subject
> to negotiation. palestinian leaders have negotiated on that as well as
> any other issues.
> cornelius wants to claim that jews have a right to the eretz-israel. we
> have no right to anything if it means oppressing others. we forfeited
> that right, gaza stands as a reproach to any religious claims for
> legitimacy.
> if the argument is that god established the covenant which gives the
> land to the descendants of abraham, then the jewish leadership have
> abrogated that covenant by oppressing the palestinians.
> not all jews believe that. most probably don't. but many do. they love
> justice more than god.
> and maybe that is the best thing i can tell you all about judaism: we
> recognize that statement not as anti-jewish, but profoundly jewish.
> ken
>
> On 7/20/11 1:26 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Dear Pius and Ayo Obe,
>
> > It must no doubt be equally surprising to you that Muslims now usually
> > seek asylum not in Saudi Arabia the birthplace and Qibla of al-Islam
> > - or in other Islamic headquarters such as Iraq, Syria or the
> > Revolutionary Islamic Republic of I-ran, but in the non-Muslim kuffar
> > countries of Dar al-Harb and that we now find Muslims plentifully
> > seeking asylum in little Israel of all places, the country that Iran
> > calls the little Satan ( the US being Iran's The Great Satan
> > and this is especially surprising because,
>
> > 1.The Quran in Surah 82 of al- Ma'idah says that, "Certainly you will
> > find the most hostile of people to those who believe are the Jews and
> > pagans...
> > 2.One of Israel's major problems, a problem from which no other Muslim
> > country suffers is this: the space. Allocated by The Owner, the King
> > of Kings of Kings - a land and nation which Muslims falsely claim
> > and want to steal from God's Chosen People.
>
> > Muslim refugees are normally fleeing persecution from their co-
> > religionists, fleeing oppression, poverty or lack of opportunity in
> > their own countries, and they hope to find freedom, tolerance, Human
> > Rights, Democracy and possibilities / opportunity to live this life
> > in freedom and dignity, in the much criticized Kuffar West - in the
> > US, the UK, Europe, Canada, and Australia, in their hundreds of
> > thousands, annually.....no surprise then that on the future map,
> > Great Britain is renamed North Pakistan.
>
> > There are of course historic/ legendary examples/ precedents : the
> > trinity of Joseph, baby Jesus and Mary seeking refuge in Egypt for a
> > while. There's also the example of the followers of the prophet of
> > Islam fleeing persecution in Mecca and finding temporary refugee which
> > was granted them by the Negus of Ethiopia...
>
> > The case of Avi Bari serves to dispel a few myths about the Jewish
> > people and Judaism as does this book , The color of Jews . In reply
> > to the question, Who is a Jew? , the halachic answer is of course
> > that a Jew is one who is born of a Jewish mother or one who converts
> > to Judaism and thus becomes a member the Jewish people and their
> > Faith.
>
> >http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Color+of+Jews&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq...
>
> > with an interesting chapter in which Ricardo Lewis Gordon speaks
>
> >http://www.google.com/search?q=Ricardo+Lewis+Gordon&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8...
>
> > Curiously enough, Avi Bari emphasises that Judaism is a religion
> > What he does not point out in that article is that Judaism is not only
> > a religion but is also a people, a people-hood, and that when he
> > converted, like Ruth of old - the quintessential convert, he did not
> > only acquire a new faith (religion) he also joined a people and became
> > a Jew, a member of the Jewish people, like Julius Lester......
>
> > Those who are destined to be Jews, will be Jews.
>
> > As Ruth said, and that is the essence, Ruth 1.:16 :'Entreat me not to
> > leave thee, and to return from following after thee; for whither thou
> > goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people
> > shall be my people, and thy G-d my G-d;
>
> >http://www.ahavat-israel.com/texts/Ruth-Ruth.php
>
> > And that's what happened with Ibrahima, in short, when he became
> > Avi Bari, he took a ritual bath in the mikveh and acquired a Jewish
> > soul.
>
> > Just as your Chris Oyakhilome would say, if Ibrahima had followed
> > him and Jesus instead, by baptism, he would have become a New Man:
>
> > Which does not mean to say that Avi Bari will necessarily stop liking
> > Bemebeya Jazz Orchestra or Keletigui, although I suppose that living
> > in Israel and eating her fruits he will acculturate more rapidly than
> > those living in the Wild West......
>
> > Ayo Obe asks about mass conversion. This is a question for the rabbis.
> > In the meantime (before I become a rabbi) I know that the Jewish
> > people must follow the majority of the Jewish scholars.
> > There is the historical case of the Kazars - a whole nation - which
> > converted en masse along with their King and in an instant swelled the
> > ranks ( numerical strength ) of the Jewish people. (Most probably if
> > the prophet of Islam had not come along, in the view of many
> > historians of religion it's possible that the rest of the Arabian
> > peninsular would have converted to Judaism half of Yemen was already
> > Jewish at the time of the prophet of the Quran.
>
> >http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Khazars&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&cli...
>
> > At some Orthodox conversion courses Judah Ha- Levi's The Kuzari is
> > required study - in that book the author puts forward the case for
> > the Jewish Faith.The Afrikanist might be slightly taken aback by
> > exactly only one sentence in that book, an apt description of a
> > rudimentary African, a description of the times...
>
> >http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Kuzari&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&clie...
>
> > Abraham who was the First Jew, converted a lot of people in Haran.
>
> >http://www.google.com/search?q=The+Jews+of+Africa&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&a...
>
> > In theory would it be possible for all the so called Palestinians -
> > Muslims, Christians and atheists to convert to Judaism and so take
> > over the Holy Land? Well, the Muslim Sharia penalty for a born Muslim
> > who converts to another faith, is death. In spite of that you would
> > be surprised about these sort of figures:
> >http://www.google.com/search?rawq=Muslims+converting+&q=site%3Awww.is...
>
> > To place the Palestinians' The Right of Return at the top of their
> > agenda, is a non-starter. It is both unreasonable and illogical that
> > all the Palestinian exiles would want to be entitled to return, not to
> > their own state ( Jordan) but to Israel proper about 3-4 million of
> > them and then of course they would like to apply universal adult
> > suffrage and due democratic process - as if the demographic nightmare
> > is not enough already..... the majority of Israeli voters would then
> > be Arab and Muslim, they would rule the Holy Land wouldn't they ? As
> > they rule all the Muslims lands, like Libya.
>
> > Well, in short, that is hopefully never going to happen ina Israel.
>
> > By the way, Ali G's new movie is The Dictator. and the last thing
> > that the dictator wants to see in his country, is Human Rights and
> > democracy these are anathema to him .I suppose it's a humorous
> > flashback to life before the Arab Spring and I'm sure that the masses
> > in that area are also looking forward to seeing it, next year.
>
> ...
>
> läs mer »
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