Israel Hit by Bible Burning Row [Open]

BBC News ^ | 05-21-2008 | BBC

[Atlantic Friend]

Messianic Jews in Israel say they want an inquiry into the burning of hundreds of copies of the New Testament by Orthodox Jews in Or Yehuda last week.

The books were given to the town's Ethiopian Jews by the Messianic Jews, who believe in Jesus as a saviour.

Or Yehuda's deputy mayor says he received complaints about the books, and arranged for them to be burnt.

He has now apologised (...)

Proselytizing to Ethiopian Jews is sensitive because historically they were the target of missionaries who converted many to Christianity in Ethiopia - though they later argued the conversion was forced and they had never really abandoned their Jewish faith(...)

The dispute is revealing growing tension between Messianic Jews and their Orthodox opponents who do not recognise them as Jews, our correspondent adds.

'Dumped and burned'

Many of the details of exactly what happened in Or Yehuda are now disputed.

But the deputy mayor says Messianic Jewish missionaries had targeted an area of the town where many Ethiopian Jews live, distributing packages containing New Testaments and pamphlets.

He says he received complaints and then drove around the area with a loudspeaker urging people to hand over the material to Orthodox religious students who went door-to-door collecting it.

The books were then dumped in a pile and burned.

Messianic Jews complain of institutionalised discrimination and are demanding all those involved be put on trial.

Meanwhile, Orthodox Jews are applauding the destruction of texts they say urge Jews to convert.

[Atlantic Friend]

This is pretty disturbing news. Israeli guys from a forum I visit from time to time told me that people could actually end up in jail if they tried proselytizing in the country.

[Recovering_Democrat]

Burning Bibles is wrong, but I doubt this is a policy/common event among even the most devout Jews.

Probably a few kooks.

[GulfBreeze]

While most regular Christians could be, the Messianic Jews are pretty safe.

Unless these Orthodox Jews intimidated the people somehow into giving up the literature I guess it’s their business what they do with it.

I used to go handing out Christian literature in a lot of places. While it always disturbed me to see it dropped or thrown aways or torn up, I always figured that it was theirs once I gace it away and there was not any reason to whine over how it was treated.

[The KG9 Kid]

Messianic Jews are seen as weirdo troublemakers in Israel.

Proselytizing is one thing, but the 'Jews For Jesus' people are creepy moonbat cultists. I have practically had to push them aside in San Francisco coming out of the BART station.

Basically, imagine an obscure sect of hyper-Fundamentalist Baptists walking door to door in Provo Utah waving snakes and trying to convert the heathen Mormons into tent-preaching tongue-speaking screwballs and yelling in 17th century language that they shalt burn in hell and so forth.

They're lucky they got out of those Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods without a beatdown.

If they don't want to be offended, they need to stop proselytizing.

[DManA]

I would call having the deputy mayor driving an official car around town, over a loudspeaker telling people to bring out your Bibles is VERY intimidating.

He says he received complaints and then drove around the area with a loudspeaker urging people to hand over the material to Orthodox religious students who went door-to-door collecting it.

[DManA]

The issue is proselytizing by kooks. The issue is throwing Bibles into a pile and burning them.

[DManA]

The issue ISN’T proselytizing by kooks

I sure wish you could edit a post after postint it.

[Alex Murphy]

Messianic Jews in Israel say they want an inquiry into the burning of hundreds of copies of the New Testament by Orthodox Jews in Or Yehuda last week.

Ping to read later

[Alouette]

The issue is throwing Bibles into a pile and burning them.

Would it be an issue if they threw a bunch of Korans into a pile and burned them? How about copies of Darwin's Origin of Species? Battleship Earth? Harry Potter?

[GulfBreeze]

Yea, I thought about that when I was typing.

It certainly could be intimidating. So could having someone knock on your door and ask for the materials when they know that they had been delivered just recently.

I guess someone ought to look into the circumstances of how exactly that went down.

I just meant that once they received from the missionaries they could do whatever they wanted with it no matter how insulting it was to the missionaries.

[SJackson]

This is pretty disturbing news. Israeli guys from a forum I visit from time to time told me that people could actually end up in jail if they tried proselytizing in the country.

Not true, it's only against the law to evangelize minors or to pay for conversions.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

High volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel, WOT

..................

[TSchmereL]

I do not advocate burning other people’s sacred texts. However, this is a good example of why Jews don’t try to convert non-Jews.

One of the reasons we don’t distribute our sacred texts to non-Jews is because we realize that they might desecrate them.

These books were given to the people who burned them. Thus they were burning their own property. (I would have preferred they gave them back).

[SJackson]

Earlier thread-- Orthodox Jewish youths burn New Testaments in Or Yehuda [Open]

More detailed article from the Jerusalem Post

Or Yehuda deputy mayor: I'm sorry about burning New Testaments

By AMIR MIZROCH

The burning of hundreds of New Testaments by yeshiva students in Or Yehuda last week was regrettable and unplanned, the city's deputy mayor, the man who spurred the students to act, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon of Shas used the opportunity of speaking to the Post, which publishes a monthly Christian Edition, to apologize to Christians worldwide, saying he hoped the incident would not inflame tensions between Jews and Christians.

Following the publication of the story on Tuesday, however, many messianic Jewish and other Christian groups expressed grave concern over the increasingly violent nature of anti-missionary activity in Israel.

Aharon had a very busy Tuesday. In the morning, Ma'ariv ran a story on how he organized to retrieve and burn hundreds of New Testaments given to Ethiopian Jews in his city by local messianic Jews. By 9 a.m. he was on an Army Radio news-talk show defending his actions, which he called "purging the evil among us."

At 10:30 he was on Channel 2's morning news show saying that Ethiopian immigrants in Or Yehuda were being encouraged to go against Judaism by messianic Jews. "We need to stop being ashamed of our Jewishness and to fight those who are breaking the law by missionizing against us," he said.

But by the early afternoon he had already been interviewed by Russian, Italian and French TV, explaining to their highly offended audiences back home how he had not meant for the Bibles to be burned, and trying to undo the damage caused by the news [and photographs] of Jews burning New Testaments.

But then he also told The Associated Press that he didn't condemn the Bible burning, calling it a "commandment."

Aharon then told the Post that he was very sorry for the book burning and that it was not planned, and that he was aware that the incident may have caused damage to relations between Christians and Jews. The deputy mayor said he had organized, together with "three or four" yeshiva students from the city's Michtav M'Eliahu Yeshiva to go to apartments in the city's Neveh Rabin neighborhood, which has many Ethiopian immigrants, and round up packages given to them several days earlier by messianic Jews. The packages contained a New Testament and several pamphlets, which Aharon said "encouraged on to go against Judaism."

"I wasn't even on the scene when the boys rounded up all the Bibles and brought them all to one place [near the synagogue in Neveh Rabin]. They started burning them before I got there. Once I arrived the most I could do was pull a Bible out of the fire. I put it in nylon and its now in my car. I am really sorry for the book burning, but I did not organize it, it was a spontaneous thing by the yeshiva boys," Aharon said.

"We respect all religions as we expect others to respect ours. I am very sorry that the New Testament was burned, we mean it no harm and I'm sorry that we hurt the feelings of others," he said.

However, he added, Israel could not allow messianic Jews to "come into our homes and incite against our religion, and turn our children away from Judaism. That is against the law."

Aharon said he had received phone calls from Neveh Rabin residents complaining about the packages. "They called me because they know I've been fighting missionaries for years," he said.

Last Thursday, Aharon drove around the neighborhood with a loudspeaker asking residents to gather all the New Testaments that were given to them. The yeshiva boys then went from apartment to apartment and picked up the books.

Hundreds were burned in a scene that reminded some of past atrocities.

The incident in Or Yehuda is the latest sign of rising tension between segments of the modern Orthodox and haredi sectors and the messianic Jewish community. Two months ago, the son of a messianic Jew was seriously wounded by a parcel bomb left outside his home in Ariel. Earlier this year, haredim demonstrated outside messianic Jewish gatherings in Beersheba and Arad, and there were instances of violence.

And just before Independence Day, a group of religious Zionist rabbis called for a boycott of this year's International Bible Quiz after discovering that one of the four finalists from Israel, Bat-El Levi, an 11th-grader from Jerusalem's Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood, was a messianic Jew.

The rise in tensions is partly due to an increase in the number of messianic Jews in Israel over the past few years, with some estimates putting the community at 15,000, and partly due to increased fervor within haredi anti-missionary groups.

Sources familiar with the Falash Mura - whose Jewish ancestors converted to Christianity under duress in Ethiopia, and who made aliya under the understanding that they would return to Judaism - say that some continue to be Christians in Israel, and that this makes them amenable to messianic Jews. Several messianic Jews and at least one Christian group in Israel contacted by the Post on Tuesday expressed fear that if they spoke on the record, they would be attacked.

Some of the New Testaments burned in Or Yehuda were published by the Bible Society in Israel, part of a worldwide organization of 140 Bible societies that publishes in some 200 countries.

The society's director in Israel, Victor Kalisher, the son of Holocaust survivors, spoke to the Post about his shock and dismay at the burnings. "As Jews we were raised and taught that were books are burned, worse things can happen. That's what I think when I see the pictures of what happened in Or Yehuda. What worries me is that nobody has stood up against this. It seems there is a war against messianic Jews in Israel. Nobody cares about many, what I believe to be cults, in Israel. These cults, which are not based on the Bible, don't pose a threat to the establishment. But God forbid a Jew learns about the messiah from the [Christian] Bible," Kalisher said.

He said he did not know who paid for and distributed the New Testaments that were distributed in Or Yehuda, but that there was demand for the books from many quarters. "The Bibles are not forced on anybody and are not forced into any homes. The book has never harmed anyone, you can choose to read it or choose not to read it. If this happened to Jewish books overseas we would be screaming anti-Semitism. This sort of thing happens in some regimes around us that we don't like," he said.

Kalisher noted a recent increase in tension between the messianic community and their opponents. "Bombs have been sent [in Ariel] and now books have been burned. This cannot be allowed to happen here," he said.

Michael Zinn, who heads a Christian organization called Beit Far Shalom, which "brings good news to people all over Israel," said the book burning was "unacceptable behavior which reminds me of the Middle Ages."

What happened in Or Yehuda, Zinn said, could spread to other parts of the country. What is important to watch now, Zinn said, was the reaction of the general Israeli public. "I expect Israeli society to put a large question mark on this incident," he said.

According to Calev Myers, a lawyer representing messianic Jews in Israel, the incident in Or Yehuda was an "illegal act" committed by Aharon and his yeshiva charges. Myers added that there was growing institutionalized discrimination against messianic Jews in Israel.

Myers said that according to Criminal Code section 170 and 172 it was illegal to harm in any way a place, symbol or icon of religious importance to a community who imbues that icon with religious significance. Furthermore, it was illegal to speak publicly in a way that is offensive to people of any religion, he said.

Likewise, it was illegal to actively convince a minor to convert to another religion, or to pay someone to convert, he said.

Myers is waiting to see whether Or Yehuda police open an investigation into the incident, and if they don't, he will petition, through the Jerusalem Institute for Justice that he runs, for Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz to order a probe.

"I expect the police to investigate everyone who was involved in the book burning, including those who incited the youths to the act, even if that includes Mr. Aharon," Myers said. Myers said the book burning was tantamount to incitement to violence.

"Israelis have to understand something: Messianic Jews here have strong ties to American evangelical Christians, and there are hundreds of millions of people in the world who see the burning of the New Testament as a very serious issue. The New Testament is believed in by hundreds of millions of people. It is not in Israel's national interest to allow the burning of their holy book," Myers told the Post.

Myers is not worried about opening up a legal battle over missionary activities in Israel. "Messianic Jews distribute literature here and are very careful about it. Chabad is a much larger group that distributes material and literature," he said.

[Aharon says it is okay for Jews to give material to Jews, but not for Christians to target Jews.]

"The messianic Jews in Israel are Jews like anyone else. They are registered with the Interior Ministry as Jews. So they are just as entitled to hand out pamphlets as anyone else, as long as it is from adults to adults and does not involve minors. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 there has never been one case of proven missionary work that has led to an indictment," Myers said.

David Parsons of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem said the burnings "would be offensive to most Christians."

"We need to understand that in the past some Christians burned many Jewish holy books, and so it seems that this is an outdated mode of dealing with these issues. In today's world, the public burning of anyone's books is considered unacceptable," Parsons said.

By the evening, Or Yehuda's deputy mayor said he had heard nothing but praise and thanks from residents of his city. Aharon said that he had never met or held a dialogue with any Jewish messianic group or person, but that he would welcome such a meeting.

[MEGoody]

The dispute is revealing growing tension between Messianic Jews and their Orthodox opponents who do not recognise them as Jews, our correspondent adds.

I would hope the Messianic Jews know that it doesn't matter how Orthodox Jews 'recognize them'. What matters is that Jesus recognizes them.

[Alouette]

One of the reasons we don’t distribute our sacred texts to non-Jews is because we realize that they might desecrate them.

I believe the custom of not spelling G-D came about as a result of the widespread distribution of religious tracts.

[MEGoody]

Basically, imagine an obscure sect of hyper-Fundamentalist Baptists walking door to door in Provo Utah waving snakes and trying to convert the heathen Mormons into tent-preaching tongue-speaking screwballs and yelling in 17th century language that they shalt burn in hell and so forth.

Baptists don't do those things, even the most fundamentalist of them. You might be thinking of some forms of Pentecostalism.

[Raineygoodyear]

Jews for Jesus are not Messianic Jews for one thing and if someone hands you a Bible a Quran a Book on Darwinism a tract on Hare Krishna should people raise cain and burn them?

No one can convert another, Conversion comes from a personal revelation that is how many jews and gentiles have
come to know Christ

[The KG9 Kid]

The issue is two groups of fanatics meeting head to head.

Ultra-Orthodox Hasidim aren't beloved by the typical Israeli any more than the Messianic Jews cultists are.

This story is just an account of two groups of ideologically charged screwballs running afoul of one another.

[SJackson]

It certainly could be intimidating. So could having someone knock on your door and ask for the materials when they know that they had been delivered just recently.

There's no indication that happened, but I've no doubt there will be an investigation of sorts, even though it's a stretch to find anything here beyond despicable behaivior.

We do know the Falasha fled to Israel from a nation where they were victimized by, among other things, forced conversion. To Christianity. So it's possible they're intimidated by the evangelization effort of JFJ.

Ironically Israel does have laws against incitement which could be stretched to cover something like this.

[The KG9 Kid]

Thank you for the correction. Pentecostals, I meant. Whoever those people are that act that way.

[TSchmereL]

The Torah does not prohibit writing the Name of G-d per se; it prohibits only erasing or defacing a Name of G-d. However, observant Jews avoid writing any Name of G-d casually because of the risk that the written Name might later be defaced, obliterated or destroyed accidentally or by one who does not know better.

The commandment not to erase or deface the Name of G-d comes from Devarim (Deuteronomy) 12:3. In that passage, the people are commanded that when they take over the promised land, they should destroy all things related to the idolatrous religions of that region, and should utterly destroy the names of the local deities. Immediately afterwards, we are commanded not to do the same to our G-d. From this, the rabbis inferred that we are commanded not to destroy any holy thing, and not to erase or deface a Name of G-d.

[carton253]

I have seen the Jews for Jesus on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and they are nothing like you describe them. They are respectful of the wishes of the people they stop on the streets.

[ROTB]

Nah! There’s a question in the Talmud on whether it would be right to burn a handful of books because they had the name of God in them.

1) probably New Testaments
2) question answered

[ROTB]

>If they don’t want to be offended, they need to stop proselytizing.

Nah! They won’t.

Mind saying what your world-view is? I’d be happy to go a few rounds here in this forum, with you, to see if you know anything at all.

For the record, I doubt it. But I am happy to risk being proven wrong, and welcome you to start by describing your world-view, since you consider Christianity to be worthy of such contempt.

For the record, I am a Christian who hails from a Jewish family. Messianic Jew. “Jew For Jesus”

What is your world-view, and why?

[ROTB]

>However, this is a good example of why Jews don’t try to convert non-Jews.

Why? God, even in the Tanakh invites all peoples to him (Isaiah 50s), set Israel between 3 continents, and gave the Jews a magnificent Law, that all peoples might know God, and come to Him.

There is nothing Jewish about sitting on your hands. Did not Jonah get SENT to Ninevah by God.

[ROTB]

>We respect all religions as we expect others to respect ours.

Read the Tanakh, what Christian call the Old Testament. God has no respect for “other religions”, and told the Jewish people what to do with false gods.

You’re not practicing Judaism.

[The KG9 Kid]

"... Mind saying what your world-view is? I’d be happy to go a few rounds here in this forum, with you, to see if you know anything at all."

It's spherical, bulging slightly at the equator from centrifugal force, narrowing slightly at the polar regions to compensate. In addition, there is a slight axial tilt.

Also, I didn't say that Christianity is worthy of contempt. I said no such thing.

[ROTB]

>Also, I didn’t say that Christianity is worthy of contempt. I said no such thing.

Indeed, you did not spell it out, but you strongly inferred it.

I knew you didn’t know anything. You can’t even say what you believe, and why you believe it.

[DManA]

One of the groups had the deputy mayor on their side.

[The KG9 Kid]

I'll take your word for it about Tel Aviv, you take my word for it about San Francisco. That's where they're based.

The kooky-eyed fat nebbish I encountered who stepped in front of me all of a sudden trying to push a pamphlet into my wife's hands looked like 'Newman' from TV's Seinfeld and had breath like a donkey's ass.

[The KG9 Kid]

"... Indeed, you did not spell it out, but you strongly inferred it."

Indeed I did not, but you strongly internalized it.

Speak coherently or shut your lips.

[Flycatcher]

The kooky-eyed fat nebbish I encountered who stepped in front of me all of a sudden trying to push a pamphlet into my wife's hands looked like 'Newman' from TV's Seinfeld and had breath like a donkey's ass.

Just curious... what do you look and smell like?

[Alouette]

They are respectful of the wishes of the people they stop on the streets.

Someone who stops me on the streets is not being respectful of my wishes to get where I want to go.

[The KG9 Kid]

Not like that.

[The KG9 Kid]

Precisely. The kook we ran into accosted my wife in front of me. Some of these people are looking to get knocked out.

[Flycatcher]

Relieved.

[Raineygoodyear]

If they don’t want to be offended, they need to stop proselytizing.

The travesty here is that people can slam GOD his word with no problem, quote scripture in some countries will land you in jail...

[SJackson]

Read the Tanakh, what Christian call the Old Testament. God has no respect for “other religions”, and told the Jewish people what to do with false gods....You’re not practicing Judaism.

I have, I've seen nothing to suggest that Christians are idolitors, and so I respect Christianity. Your opinion that I'm not parcticing Judaism is of complete disinterest to me. BTW, same goes for non-jihadist Islam.

[SJackson]

Just as a matter of curiousity since you post a lot of threads as well, does it strike you as odd that what seem to me to be news stories are posted in the religion forum, under Judaism, yesterdays [Open] as in open season, with keywords like ignorant; israel; pharisees; saducees; unsaved;?

[Salem]

Here's another one.

---

If you'd like to be on or off this
Christian Supporters of Israel ping list,
please FR mail me ~
    

There failed not ought of any good thing which the LORD had
spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. (Joshua 21:45)
Letter To The President In Support Of Israel ~
'Final Solution,' Phase 2 ~
Warnings ~
The Nature Of Bruce ~

"The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews, even more significant than God, religion, and the prophets...."—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Holocaust Chronicle ~



" ... It's time we recognized the nature of the conflict. It's total war and we are all involved. Nobody on our side is exempted because of age, gender, or handicap. The Islamofacists have stolen childhood from the world."—FReeper Retief
"Palestine is the wrong name for their State. It should be called Anarchy."—FReeper sgtbono2002
"Then let's wait and see what the Arabs do after they take Gaza. There's nothing like Arab reality to break up a Jewish fantasy."—FReeper Noachian
A student told his professor he was going to "Palestine" to "fight for freedom, peace and justice,"—Orwellian leftist code words that mean "murder Jews."

[gogogodzilla]

I look like a rabid wombat and smell like peaches, horseradish, and Frosted Flakes.

Then I flap my arms and shout “The Hottentots are coming! The Hottentots are coming!”

:-P

[The KG9 Kid]

You can thank your lucky stars that you're an American where you don't get arrested by a SWAT team for publishing cartoons offensive to Muslims like in The Netherlands, won't get tossed into prison for bringing a crucifix into the country like in Saudi Arabia, or get burnt at the stake for being a Protestant like in Medieval Europe.

That's why America became the nation that it is. If you support a ban on burning a bible in the United States, in ten minutes we'll have the Hare Krishnas suing you for tossing their stupid postcards featuring a nine-armed five-faced elephant diety to the sidewalk after they force it into your hands on your way into a San Diego Padres game outside PETCO stadium. They'll shop around for judges until they find some liberal hippie judge who will have you charged with a hate crime.

[Salem]

Not at all odd. When, at any time previously to 1948 and the rebirth of national Israel, has traditional Judaism been in a position to be able to "call the shots" in any cultural arena?

That little, trivial, local dust-ups like this, blown completely out of proportion, engender international attention and exaggerated condemnation, is revealing.

[processing please hold]

Here's another one.

Yep. Someone's pushing an agenda to divide Christians and Jews. I could be wrong but that's how I see it.

[Alouette]

does it strike you as odd that what seem to me to be news stories are posted in the religion forum, under Judaism, yesterdays [Open] as in open season, with keywords like ignorant; israel; pharisees; saducees; unsaved

Well, those are not keywords that I would use, but once a thread is posted anyone can add keywords.

My opinion of this whole kerfuffle is, what's it anybody's business? The same people getting their panties in a wad over this, will offer creative suggestions for barbecque'ing, toilet-soaking, pork-wrapping, target-shooting a Koran. If Muslims, Jews for Jesus, J-wits, Mormons, Scientologists, Wiccans, Harry Potter fans, leave tracts in my mail box, I can do whatever I want with their literature. If they don't want their literature disrespected, DON'T FREAKING LEAVE IT IN MY MAIL BOX!

[Oztrich Boy]

The books were then dumped in a pile and burned.

They should have used them for target practice - that gets a pass.

[SJackson]

My opinion of this whole kerfuffle is, what's it anybody's business?

You sound like an American, next you're going to tell me you oppose hate crime laws which would stop things like this.

Of course once it hits the news, and that was predictable, it becomes an issue for commentary. And misuse.

J-wits? What are those?

[americanophile]

Well, one’s things for sure, this kind of discord is music to the ears of the Islamists.

[SJackson]

If they don't want their literature disrespected, DON'T FREAKING LEAVE IT IN MY MAIL BOX!

BTW, mailbox would be a crime. Israel really needs to get up to speed on these things, any community in the US that didn't want door to door solicitations, there'd be a multitude of violations here.