Posted on 11/21/2005 4:44:23 PM PST by tuesday afternoon
HOUSTON, November 21, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the ultra-liberal Union for Reform Judaism, has lashed out at conservatives on the "religious right" who defend traditional morality and the family. He made his remarks in a speech Saturday, to about 5,000 during the movement's national assembly in Houston.
With unconscious irony, Yoffie attacked those who hold to traditional religious moral values about marriage and sexuality equating them with the murderous Nazi regime.
He said, "We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933 one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations," Yoffie said. "Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage. But there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry."
Yoffie avoided direct references to Christianity or evangelicals, the usual targets of accusations of bigotry, using instead the term "religious right" which he said was intended to include conservative Jews.
He said, "religious right" leaders believe "unless you attend my church, accept my God and study my sacred text you cannot be a moral person."
Isaac Levy, spokesman for the conservative Jewish organization, Jews for Morality, said that Yoffie's claims could be refuted by "any 13-year-old child" studying the Torah. "He should try at least to look into the English version of the Torah and he'll find that he's full of hot air," said Levy.
Levy said that Judaism cannot simply be anything, it has specific tenets and teachings that are found in the Torah, the five books of the Law, and a movement that denies them has ceased to be Judaism.
"The Reform religion is a different religion." Levy told LifeSiteNews.com. "It's not the Torah that Moses brought down from Sinai."
"Reform rabbis do not keep the Sabbath; they eat pork; they eat shellfish. Therefore any statement from any Reform rabbi is not the indigenous Torah perspective that we inherited from our forefathers and Moses our teacher," said Levy in comments to LifeSiteNews.com.
The Reform Jewish Union represents 1.5 million Reform Jews in more than 900 synagogues across the United States and Canada. The Reform movement is the only branch of Judaism that sanctions gay ordination and supports same-sex civil marriage.
ping
Levy is 100% right. Reform Judaism is not a branch of the Jewish religion, it is a branch of the Liberal religion.
Yeah, My sister married a nice Jewish boy from the reform branch. He was a Buddhist priest at the time. First visit at his folks home I was served peel and eat shrimp, which I love. It then dawned on me , "wait a minute. shellfish?" Ate politely, but I was expecting some good Jewish food, even if a very liberal family.
"Deformed" Jews are NOT real Jews. Don't be fooled, my Christian friends.
Unless it is spewed by a liberal.
If Eric Yoffie's mother was Jewish, then he is a Jew. Yisrael af al pi sh'chata, Yisrael hu ("A Jew, even one who sins, remains a Jew")
What is being taught in reform temples, is secular humanism, not Judaism.
"Levy is 100% right. Reform Judaism is not a branch of the Jewish religion, it is a branch of the Liberal religion."
I don't have an opinion on who is or is not a Jew - I'll leave that for Jews to debate.
But I hate to see this kind of argument within Christianity - I hate to see someone say that someone else cannot be a Christian because their politics are different.
I don't like it from the left and I don't like it from our side. It really doesn't help anything and but it does hurt.
A sustainable Judaism offers Jews help in remaingful faithful to their convenant with God. The politically correct neo-marxism that animates the reform movement offers nothing more than the shallow palp you might get from studying re-runs of Oprah.
It ain't the politics, it's fundamental beliefs. They call themselves Jews but they don't believe in God, they believe that men can be gods and their beliefs and practices show it.
Reform Judaism actually considered seceding from Judaism a few years ago and declaring themselves a separate religion. I guess they decided against it. They realized they would wind up with only a few fanatical leftwingers as members.
They worship the Golden Calf instead...
That actually happened a few thousand years ago with the Golden Calf. Many of them really suffered during the Maccabees revolution for their adoption of the Ptolemaic pagan practices. They got hammered along with the Greeks...
It is a Golden Calf...
well said
F R does it again. In one thread one can find a conservative Rabbi saying of a Reform Rabbi "He should try at least to look into the English version of the Torah".
And then a post accurately and humorously dubbing the Reform Rabbi a "Deformed" Rabbi. Thank G*d for FR.
Interesting to note that Rabbi Isaac M. Wise, founder of Hebrew Union College and the Reform Judaism in America, is the great great grandfather of none other than Pinch Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, another radical left wing extremist group.
You know, I'm getting sick of Reform Jews not being called 'real Jews.' I converted to Reform Judaism. I consider myself a Jew and stand with all Jews - Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform.
The Reform Rabbi with whom I studied kept the Sabbath, kept kosher in his home so every Jew would feel welcome, and tref food was not served on the synagogue grounds.
I keep the Jewish holidays in my home, light the Chanukah candles and often light Sabbath candles and keep the Sabbath. I don't eat forbidden foods during Passover. I don't have a 'Chanukah bush' or other Christmas decorations. I have a library of Jewish books and read and studied for over a year before my conversion - and this doesn't include the years I read about Judaism but was too afraid to go into a temple and approach a Rabbi.
I do this as the only Jew in my family, with no one to support me, and the only practicing Jew of the Jewish academics I work with - the only one who didn't go to work on Yom Kippur.
I'm a Jew.
I don't understand how one can be Jewish and sneer at the Mosaic law. Isn't the Torah the foundation of the Jewish religion? I'm not saying this to be mean spirited, and most of my Jewish friends that I grew up with are of the "Reform" variety, but I simply don't understand the point of Judaism without the Law. But then I don't see much point to Christianity that doesn't take the Bible seriously either...
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