[af_vet_1981]

men such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer , on him be peace, are inspiring for he spoke out for social justice to include the Jews.

On this point, Bonhoeffer was explicit about the church’s obligations to fight political injustice. The church, he wrote, must fight evil in three stages: The first was to question state injustice and call the state to responsibility; the second was to help the victims of injustice, whether they were church members or not. Ultimately, however, the church might find itself called “not only to help the victims who have fallen under the wheel, but to fall into the spokes of the wheel itself” in order to halt the machinery of injustice.

Who stands firm? Only the one for whom the final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all these, when in faith and sole allegiance to God he is called to obedient and responsible action: the responsible person, whose life will be nothing but an answer to God's question and call.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer1

Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer stands out among the Christian leaders during the Nazi era, for he was one of the few to actively resist the racist actions of the Nazi regime. In addition to his legacy of courageous opposition to Nazism, Bonhoeffer's theological writings are still widely read in Christian communities throughout the world.

While plans to topple Hitler progressed only slowly, the need to evacuate more Jewish refugees became increasingly urgent. In early 1943, however, the Gestapo, which had traced Bonhoeffer and Dohnanyi's large monetary sums intended for Jewish immigrants, foiled plans for a new refugee rescue mission. Bonhoeffer and Dohnanyi were arrested in April 1943.

Initially, the Gestapo believed that Bonhoeffer and Dohnanyi were embezzling money for their own interests. Then the truth began to leak out, and Bonhoeffer was subsequently charged with conspiring to rescue Jews, using official travel for other interests, and abusing his intelligence position to keep Confessing Church pastors out of the military. But the extent of Bonhoeffer's resistance activities was not fully realized for months.

In October 1944, Bonhoeffer was moved to the Gestapo prison in Berlin. In February 1945, he was taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp, and then to the Flossenbürg concentration camp, where he was hanged on April 9, 1945. Hans von Dohnanyi was executed soonthereafter.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, of blessed memory, laid down his life for the least of Jesus' brethren.

[BlueDragon]

Another month -- and Bonhoeffer would have made it alive...

That hurts just to think about, doesn't it?

So many lost.

But there also were those of the RCC who did their part in saving many thousands of Jewish lives, even in the midst of the rest of the difficulties of that war.

You may find this interesting;

Killing all Humanity: How Obama Misinterprets Quran 5:32 and Passes a Noble Jewish Teaching as Islamic

... from the Talmud (before Mohammed corrupted things);

Therefore the man was created singly, to teach that he who destroys one soul of a human being, the Scripture considers him as if he should destroy a whole world, and him who saves one soul of Israel, the Scripture considers him as if he should save a whole world. And also because of peace among creatures, so that one should not say: My grandfather was greater than yours; and also that the heretic shall not say: There are many creators in heaven; and also to proclaim the glory of the Holy One, blessed be He. For a human being stamps many coins with one stamp, and all of them are alike; but the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, has stamped every man with the stamp of Adam the First, and nevertheless not one of them is like the other. Therefore every man may say: The world was created for my sake, hence I must be upright, just, etc.

I would that the Talmud be gazing upon through lens of Torah (Tanakh) rather than how it seems in other portions of rabbinical teaching, to be the other way around. Perhaps some go from Scripture to commentary, hopefully allowing the Holy Writ itself to speak to them?

Yet for significant portions of traditional Talmudic scholarship & teaching, it is Talmud foremost, Talmudic framework of understanding only. It seems to me that what there can be gleaned of knowing God (thus the Son, Jesus also) often ends up being smothered, accessible only through Talmudic lens...

Along with peaceable & Godly enough(?) wisdom, amid that extensive pile of writings known as Talmud, complication and difficulties can arise in places. Such generally good things as what was quoted above were later yet further distanced, or else more fully corrupted from being God's own actual Word --- by Islam;

http://wikiislam.net/wiki/If_Anyone_Slew_a_Person#The_Worth_of_a_Non-Believer;

Narrated Anas bin Malik:

Allah's Apostle said, "I have been ordered to fight the people till they say: 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.' And if they say so, pray like our prayers, face our Qibla and slaughter as we slaughter, then their blood and property will be sacred to us and we will not interfere with them except legally and their reckoning will be with Allah."

Narrated Maimun ibn Siyah that he asked Anas bin Malik,

"O Abu Hamza! What makes the life and property of a person sacred?" He replied, "Whoever says, 'None has the right to be worshipped but Allah', faces our Qibla during the prayers, prays like us and eats our slaughtered animal, then he is a Muslim, and has got the same rights and obligations as other Muslims have."

And now; some mentions of the 'dark side' of ---- what could it be called(?) --- Zionist extremism, not as that perhaps known and in part accepted as justifiable by Christian "zionists" supporters of Israel, such as myself, but as it is known by the ultra-conservative Jewish Zionists/Nationalist, here below discussed by Jewish critics, one of them a convert to Christ (or so presents himself as). The links can be long reads. My apologies for that.

First, a now dated article from a Israeli blogger (Didi Remez) who we can find out more about here

The article from Didi, dated November 9, 2009;

http://coteret.com/2009/11/09/settler-rabbi-publishes-the-complete-guide-to-killing-non-jews/

Those settler-rabbis, surrounded by enemies (they moved in among those enemies) seem to have a mixture of fear (rationally enough derived) and pride in being descendants of Abraham in ways that you (yeah, you "over there") in their own eyes simply cannot be (unless born a Jewish male and study/adhere to Talmud).

And from the convert from Judaism, who (warning) may have something of an ax to grind, while also talking about elements of 'dark side' that hardly anyone else but Jew-haters will touch with the proverbial ten-foot pole, lest they find themselves seriously ostracized;

http://talmudical.blogspot.com/2010/09/truth-about-talmud.html [Michael Hoffman]

Book here --->Judaism Discovered: A Study of the Anti-Biblical Religion of Racism, Self-Worship, Superstition and Deceit

Awfully harsh title isn't it? I've not read it and likely won't, but found the reviews at the Amazon link of some interest.

The trouble with that sort of exposé is that in all the efforts to build argument and description of what I've referred to as 'dark side', if that sort of thing were taken myopically, what would that result in but that it become fodder for anti-Jew type of anti-antisemitism?

The interview with the Israeli Yossi Gurvitz was interesting, as that man spoke of the dark underside of ultra-religionist Jews in Israel.

Gurvitz's writings about such things are part of the present day make-up of Israeli sociopolitical complexity and reality. He ends up opposing adoption of so-called "two-state" solution -- which I found interesting, though Gurvitz may be pushing for dismantlement of settlements and retreat?

It wasn't clear to me just how that would be dealt with. I guess it's too late to annex territory from Jordan./// But what would Jordan have to lose (other than pride for possibly seen to be caving in to "the Joo-oos"), for if there were to be the two-state solution as Israel's future... wouldn't that still make Jordan a loser (of territory) anyway?

I guess it's more like the Kingdom of Jordan can appear benevolent in not contesting territory that would go to so-called Palestinians, while they could also be as much saying (under their breath);

"Take the Palestinians, please" --- said in the way Rodney Dangerfield says "take my wife...please".

More on Gurvitz;

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/the-radicalization-of-yossi-gurvitz

mondoweiss billing themselves as a news site devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective

I recall encountering something from 'mondoweiss' recently, and being so disgusted with their slant I swore I'd never put myself through reading anything from there again, but here I am linking to them. Not because I endorse any of the views discussed...but for reason examining a range of viewpoints and attitudes which are having some measure of influence upon world events, as part of the larger mix.

What would Jesus say...? I can't speak for Him right now...

though in the NT Jesus is attributing to having said (among much which He said);

John 5:22

For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son,

and if I may, recall here some of His last words spoken as He was dying in our place (upon the Cross);

Luke 23:34

Father, forgive them, they know not what they do

Today

[from Surrealistic Pillow, Jefferson Airplane]