Posted on 12/14/2006 4:56:02 AM PST by EBH
The unprecedented move came after a group of senior officials of the small hareidi sect were photographed embracing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The officials were attending a two-day conference in Teheran aiming to produce evidence that the Holocaust never took place.
The Chief Rabbi called on all rabbis and communities in Israel and around the world to honor the memory of the Holocaust victims by adhering to the cherem against the Neturei Karta members.
Rabbi Metzger said in his statement to Jewish leaders around the globe, “They betrayed the Jewish people and their heritage and particularly disgraced the Shoah [Holocaust] and desecrated its memory. With their shameful behavior, they tried to stain the Jewish people, who shy away from this low behavior.”
The Chief Rabbi’s spokesman Arik Eliovitz told the Ynet news service that Rabbi Metzger called for the cherem on his own, an unusual act. According to Jewish law, a Beit Din (rabbinical court) with a minimum of three rabbinical judges is required to enforce a call for cherem.
Former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who is currently the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, also condemned the group. "It is something completely insane," he said flatly. “Is it possible that there is any Jew, who for some reason or another, can support a Holocaust denier in a generation when people with numbers tattooed on their arms are still among us? It is an insanity that has no justification and no explanation.”
Eida Hareidit Slams One of Their Own The hareidi religious Eida Hareidit, an anti-Zionist Jerusalem-based council of Hassidic courts and other hareidi religious groups - including the Neturei Karta - was equally harsh in its response to the group’s actions.
In a sharply-worded editorial published Thursday, the Ha’Eida newspaper said, “That tiny group of wierdos is liable to incite hatred against hareidim.”
Editor Shmuel Popenheim wrote in his piece, “Those people’s distorted anti-Zionist zealotry, which is sanctified in their eyes above and beyond the opinion of our Torah sages, brought them to that conference.” He stopped short of endorsing the call for a cherem on the group, and estimated there were no more than ten people in all of Israel who supported the group’s actions and perhaps some 25 others worldwide.
Israel Hirsch, one of the Neturei Karta participants of the conference, said his group “shares a common platform with Ahmadinejad when it comes to the so-called myth the Zionist movement created around the Holocaust.” The resident of hareidi Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood said he "wanted to make it clear in Teheran that Zionism uses the Holocaust as an excuse for the existence of the Zionist state in the Land of Israel.”
Hirsch went on to say that the Iranian claim is logical. “They aren’t saying that there wasn’t a Holocaust,” he insisted. “But who perpetrated the Holocaust? The Nazis, the Germans. So they should at least pay compensation to the Jewish nation and establish a Jewish state within Germany and not within the land of Israel, which belongs to the Palestinians.”
This same group kissed and hugged Ahmadinejad when he appeared in New York to attend the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in September. They also exhorted Jews to pray for a Hizbullah victory during the second war with Lebanon after two IDF reservists were captured by the terror organization in a cross-border raid this summer.
They attended the funeral of former Palestine Liberation Organization chairman and chief terrorist Yasser Arafat, and have been funded by Palestinian Authority terrorist organizations.
Documents discosed by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center and the Center for Special Studies (CSS) reveal that Arafat paid more than $50,000 to Hirsch, considered the “foreign minister” of the anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect.
CSS stated that the documents uncovered during Operation Defense Shield carried out in Jenin by the IDF in April 2002 showed that Arafat paid $25,000 and $30,000 in January and February of that year for “expenses for activities.” The investigators noted that Neturei Karta frequently supported Arafat and served as a propaganda tool for him.
Bolton: Charge Ahmadinejad With Inciting Genocide Meanwhile, the outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton is backing a call for the president of Iran to be charged with inciting genocide because of his speeches advocating the destruction of the State of Israel.
Bolton is set to appear in New York Thursday among a panel of diplomats and lawyers calling for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be prosecuted. The panel will be convened by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
The call for legal action came as Ahmadinejad repeated his onslaught against Israel at the gathering in Teheran, where he promised participants that the State of Israeli would soon be wiped out.
A large percentage of all religious Jews are 'non-Zionist', in the sense that they do not regard the State of Israel as an actual Jewish government.
Many Jewish groups will not take part in the Israeli government, though thankfully almost none will co-operate with its enemies.
The Land of Israel is important, regardless of its governance. It is a good thing for Jews to live in a Jewish community, and Israel is a large one. And it is generally a good thing to be politically aware in whatever community one lives.
I can't imagine the deep self-loathing this Jewish man must feel to be able to literally suck face with a man who wishes him and every one of his kind dead. Amazing!
Silly rabbi, d***s are for chicks...
Is there actually a need for enforcement? This little band of obnoxious nuts are the Jewish equivalent of Fred Phelps' "church", grabbing every opportunity for an enraging photo op, while claiming to be on a mission from God. I have trouble believing that any Jew outside of their little band (or non-Jew for that matter) is buddying up to them.
I don't care who they are or what they profess to believe however as far as I am concerned these fools are not Rabbis. How can you possibly believe you can teach when you embrace the enemy of your people ?
This is totally separate from the Satmars. The Satmars are nuts, but they're too busy brawling with each other in their synagogues to run around hugging goyish terrorists. While the Satmars are technically anti-Zionist for theological reasons, they don't make a big deal about it, and from what I've read, many of them really accept that a state of Israel is a political necessity given the current political situation in that part of the world.
This "rabbi" is a putz.
Judas Iscariot also betrayed with a kiss.
That was my exact thought when I first saw this photo.
What, exactly, does a "cherem" do? Once someone has a "cherem" issued against them, what is their status?
Rabbi Metzger makes much sense here. Unfortunately, his own ecumenical activities are contrary to Torah and are ultimately just as damaging to the Jewish People (and the world) as what these NK's are doing.
Think how Ahmadinejad must feel. Truly, he believes that the enemy of his enemy is his friend.
Thanks for the explanation. I lived in New York for many years, and I guess I assumed it was the Satmars because they seem to be a little unpredictable and often have conflicts with other Orthodox groups.
I'm not Jewish, but I can understand that Jews wouldn't regard the state of Israel as the fulfillment of the promise. However, as you have all pointed out, it is a political necessity or at least something politically adviseable. I think that having a state provides at least some protection.
And certainly nothing, nothing, nothing at all justifies their hanging out with Ahmadinejad and publically supporting him. It gives him a lot of ammunition and confuses many non-Jews in a big way by making it look as if he and his positions are somehow acceptable to Jews and he's not so bad after all. This, of course, is exactly what he is trying to do.
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