Islam And The West

A prominent Israeli expert on rabbinical law recently stated that visits by Israeli nationals to Nazi concentration camps in Poland are forbidden by rabbinical religious law. Rabbi Aviner’s judgment was published in the religious “Ma’ayaney Hayeshua” journal.

The Rabbi believes that Israelis are only allowed to leave the land of Israel to perform mitzvah. A mitzvah being one of the 613 commandments said by Judaism to be found in the Torah.

image by: Ariel Horowitz

The Rabbi also made clear in a later interview with Ynet News that any such trips to Poland only benefited in raising revenue for the descendants of Polish Nazi collaborators:

“Educational school trips to the Nazi death camps in Poland have become common among most Jewish sectors in Israel, but prominent Zionist Rabbi Shlomo Aviner recently claimed that they are in fact forbidden for halachic reasons, and urged schools to cancel them….

…In a conversation with Ynet, Aviner explained: “As is well known, leaving Israel is permitted only for the sake of mitzvah, while visiting the death camps is not defined as a mitzvah by the Halacha. There are important figures and great rabbis who have not visited there.

…Another argument against visiting the camps, according to the rabbi, was the fact that the Polish people “collaborated with the Nazis” and were now making a living off of these visits. “I’m not busy holding a grudge against the Poles, but we shouldn’t provide livelihood to people who allowed death camps to be built on their land and who are now making a profit out of it.

“They are not my friends and I don’t want to support them.”

According to Aviner, it was not accidental that the Nazis chose to erect the extermination camps in Poland. “They knew that the people would do nothing. One person was enough to blow up the railroad tracks. Why wasn’t this done? Because they all said, ‘good,’ smiled and waited for what needed to be done to be done by the Nazis…..”

(Source: Ynet News)

For more on the rabbi see “Rabbi Shlomo Aviner: Rabbinical Law Forbids Democracy For Arabs“

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A recent poll conducted in Israel found that 34% of secular Israelis viewed Christianity to be a form of idol worship. This compares to 75% of religious Israelis who believe that Christianity was indeed a form of idol worship.

image by foxtongue

The survey conducted by The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews found that although American evangelical Christians send tens of millions of dollars to Israel each year more than 40 percent of Israelis do not want the money:

“More than 40 percent of Israeli Jews, including nearly 80% of the Orthodox, believe Jewish groups should not accept charity from evangelical Christian organizations, a survey released Sunday found….

…Fifty-five percent of respondents said Israel should accept charity from Christians missionaries, while 41% were against accepting such funds, according to the survey carried out for the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations. Seventy-nine percent of Orthodox Israelis said Jewish groups should not accept such charity, compared to 70% of secular Israelis who said they should….

…”The vast majority of the Israeli public is not mistaken: Twenty-five years of the existence of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews are the unequivocal proof of the unwavering sympathy of the evangelical Christians toward the people of Israel and to their long support for the State of Israel,” said Limor Bar On, a spokeswoman for the Chicago-based Christian charity group.

The organization, which is headed by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, said it received $87 million from evangelical Christians last year for a variety of immigration and absorption programs, as well as social welfare and defense needs….

…Forty-one percent of Israeli Jews believe that Christianity is the closest religion to Judaism, compared to 32% who cited Islam, according to the survey.

Eighty percent of secular Jews believe they are allowed to enter churches, and 92% of them visited churches when abroad, while 83% of religious Jews said that visiting churches is forbidden by Jewish law.

More than three out of every four religious Jews believe Christianity is “idol worship,” while 66% of secular Jews do not, the survey found…”

(Source:Jerusalem Post)

For more on Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein see: Jews And Christians Caught Deceiving

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Image source: Ariel Horowitz

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner is a prominent Israeli scholar of Halacha- Jewish law. In a ruling taken from his weblog it is claimed that the esteemed Rabbi said that Halacha forbade non-Jews from taking positions of power in a Jewish state:

“A prominent Zionist rabbi ruled this week that according to the Halacha, a non-Jew cannot serve as a Knesset member in the State of Israel, even if the public agrees to it. “This is irrelevant,” said Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, “This is a Jewish state and Jews are the ones leading the Jewish state.”

Aviner was asked on his weblog whether the election of non-Jews to parliament does not undermine the government’s authority, and “is it even allowed for non-Jews to be part of the Jewish state’s leadership?”

The rabbi replied that this was indeed against a halachic ruling issued by Maimonides, and that although later there were those who sought to allow it “if the nation agrees to it,” Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook ruled this out as an “irrelevant” consideration.” (Source: Ynet News)

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A group of 100 South African Muslims has publicly rejected calls for a Muslim boycott of Jewish businesses.

The Muslim condemnation published in the Cape Times went further by labelling any such moves as being anti-semitic:

“A group of more than 100 South African Muslims has condemned calls to boycott Jewish-owned businesses.

In a letter to the daily Cape Times, the group refers to an anonymous e-mail making the rounds calling for such a boycott in response to Israeli attacks on Gaza. In the letter, the Muslim group says it is “appalled at the occasional manifestations of anti-Semitism in our community.”

…To single out Jews for any kind of attack or action in this manner is racism, something that all of us deeply detest and many of us have fought against for much of our lives.”

…While the group supports a boycott of “Israeli, settler-produced” products and companies that “support the Occupation,” the letter says it is “unacceptable to link such a boycott to the ethnicity of people living in South Africa.” Such a call, the letter says, “sullies the history of our community’s struggle for equal rights during apartheid” and also “tarnishes the struggle for freedom and justice for the Palestinians.” (Source: JTA)

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Many in the west and especially in America speak about the common Judaeo-Christian heritage. The notion behind the construct being to bring closer together the two religious communities while at the same time disenfranchising Islam and Muslims.

The term is often used to show a commonality between Jews and Christians while at the same time affirming that western civilisation is founded upon these common pillars to the exclusion of all others. How far this is true is debatable. In reality the relationship between Jews and Christians is one that is littered with mutual hate and extremes of violence. One need not look too far back in history to see this played out in the Nazi Holocaust and even further back in time to the Christian Crusades of the Middle Ages which not only killed Muslims wholesale but also Jews.

Image: Kyle Simourd

Trinitarian Christianity has always tried to gain religious legitimacy through claiming a connection to the Old Testament. When in fact Judaism whole heartedly rejects everything that trinitarian Christianity stands for, to the extent that trinitarian Christianity in the eyes of Judaism like Islam is considered a form of crude idol worship.

In March 2007 I wrote about the worsening relations between the Catholic Church and the world wide Jewish community after Pope Benedict XVI made public his plans to re-introduce the Latin Mass which includes prayers for the conversion of Jews.

Since that time the false facade of Judaeo-Christian love has been taking a battering on a number of occasions. First we had the Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schonborn and a delegation of Austrian bishops who were refused entry to the Wailing Wall because they did not hide their Latin crosses. Then we had statements from Archbishop Pietro Sambi a former papal envoy to Israel who lashed out against Israel for failing to keep promises related to church land, taxes and travel restrictions on Arab clergy.

In the latest round of deteriorating ties between Judaism and Christianity news comes from Italy where representatives of the Jewish community (Rabbi Laras, Rabbi Amos Luzzatto, and the president of the Italian Jewish youth association, Daniele Nahum) have refused to hold an inter-faith day with the Catholic Church.

They cite Pope Benedict XVI and his relaunch of the Latin Mass as being the reason for the split and allege that the Catholic Church is trying to use Jewish-Christian dialogue for anti-Islamic purposes:

“In the area of geopolitics, the war in Gaza has sharpened the disagreements between the Catholic Church and Israel….

…because of Israeli intransigence, there is no progress in the negotiations to implement the 1993 accords between the Holy See and Israel. Nor is there any sign of the willingness to remove from the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem the caption dismissing Pius XII as an accomplice of the Nazi extermination of the Jews…..

…January 17, the Italian bishops’ conference has announced a “Day for the exploration and development of dialogue between Catholics and Jews.” This day has been held every year since 1990, since 2001 the Italian Jewish community has been promoting it together with the bishops, and in 2005 both sides agreed on a ten-year program of reflection on the Ten Commandments. But this time, the Catholic Church is alone. The assembly of Italian rabbis, headed by Giuseppe Laras, has decided to “suspend” Jewish participation in the event.

Laras announced the withdrawal of support last November 18, during a conference on interreligious dialogue held in Rome in the chamber of deputies. And he attributed this to Benedict XVI’s decision to introduce into the ancient rite for Good Friday the invocation that God may “enlighten” the hearts of the Jews, “so that they may recognize Jesus Christ, savior of all men.” Laras views this invocation as unacceptable, because its intention is the conversion of the Jews to the Christian faith…..

…Rabbi Laras, Rabbi Amos Luzzatto, and the president of the Italian Jewish youth association, Daniele Nahum…blamed the Catholic Church and the pope in particular for the rupture, described Benedict XVI’s positions as “a retreat with respect to the victories achieved in the recent decades of dialogue and collaboration,” and accused their critics of wanting to use Jewish-Christian dialogue for anti-Islamic purposes.

..Laras, Luzzatto, and Nahum concluded: “It should be remembered that relations between Judaism and Islam have generally been more productive and serene than those between Judaism and Christianity.” (Source: Chiesa)

For more on the relationship between Christianity and Judaism see:

• Video: “Proud To Have Killed Christ”
• Video: Jewish Hatred Of Christ & Christians

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