US religious freedom commission leaves Saudi Arabia after rabbi co-chair is told to remove his kippah

JTA ^ | 3/11/2024 | Luke Tress

[Nextrush]

(JTA)-A U.S. government delegation tasked with monitoring religious freedom around the world cut a visit to Saudi Arabia short after Saudi officials demanded that a prominent rabbi on the trip remove his kippah.

Saudi officials told Rabbi Abraham Cooper, co-chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, to remove his kippah while in public, the commission said in a statement on Monday.

Cooper, an Orthodox rabbi and the director of global social action for the Simon Wiesenthal Center advocacy group, "politely" refused the request with the backing of US embassy staff, the statement said.

Saudi officials then escorted the government delegation from the premises of Diriyah, a UNESCO world heritage site on the outskirts of the Saudi capital, Riyadh. The delegation decided to end its visit to Saudi Arabia prematurely following the incident...

[Nextrush]

The Land Of Osama Bin Laden, the Land Of Mohammed Bone Salman, the land with wealth lusted after by the competing nations of the world.

Still very medieval and intolerant still in its heart Bin Laden Land.

[ASOC]

Thier country - their culture, their rules.

The Saudis don’t like Jews. Why is anyone surprised?

[jdege]

That Salafis are intolerant bigots?

No one is surprised.

[frank ballenger]

If necessary for some reason an observant Jew can go without a head covering (yarmulke or hat) including when bathing. They are supposed to put on the yarmulke before putting their feet on the floor to start the day out of bed.

According to the Shulchan Aruch, a code of Jewish law, observant Jewish men are required to cover their heads and should not walk more than four cubits without one.
The distance between thumb and outstretched finger to the elbow is a cubit sometimes referred to as a “natural cubit” of about 1.5 feet. This standard seems to have been used in the Roman system of measures as well as in different Greek systems.

In one book about the Holocaust I read it said as some defiant Jews who were led up the wooden steps to a gallows one by one the Nazis they would try to wear a head covering. One took a hidden yarmulke and quickly put it on. The soldier punched him and took it off. He had a second one hidden in his clothes and put it on. The soldier hit him harder and threw it on the ground. Finally he had one more under and put it on in defiance just before his hands were tied and he was having the noose put on his neck. The soldier hit him in the head with a rifle butt and then they hanged him.

[EEGator]

So who witnessed this story?

[frank ballenger]

Do you mean the Saudi Arabia story or the 1940s story?

[EEGator]

1940’s.

[frank ballenger]

Sorry, can’t remember which book.
Probably The Theory and Practice of Hell by Eugen Kogon but it could have been another.

Hundreds of people were brought to view hangings in order to discourage people. I met a middle aged Jewish man in the 1970s who as a boy in Poland (a part later ruled to be in the Soviet Union) was brought into a large room and there was a row of dead people all hanging from the rafter.

One of the several stolen childhood books (which? I can’t remember) said all the local Jews were awakened in the middle of the night and brought out to witness a baker being hanged for violating the new prohibition against Jews baking bread. This was to make an example of him. Soon they weren’t allowed to ride on public transportation, meaning walking miles to and from work.

[alexander_busek]

In one book about the Holocaust I read it said as some defiant Jews who were led up the wooden steps to a gallows one by one the Nazis they would try to wear a head covering. One took a hidden yarmulke and quickly put it on. The soldier punched him and took it off. He had a second one hidden in his clothes and put it on. The soldier hit him harder and threw it on the ground. Finally he had one more under and put it on in defiance just before his hands were tied and he was having the noose put on his neck. The soldier hit him in the head with a rifle butt and then they hanged him.

It's reported that one of the other condemned Jews standing on the gallows whispered to him, "Hey! Cut that out! You want to get us in trouble?!"

A little gallows humor to start the day!

Regards,

[alexander_busek]

So who witnessed this story?

One of the other people standing around, watching.

That's why they're called witnesses.

Regards,

[Albion Wilde]

Acting in bad faith. Why would they agree to host such a delegation and then try to impose shari’a on people of other faiths?

[Wuli]

Many Muslims are so seriously feeling a religious inferiority complex such that they are threatened by displays of someone else’s religion. That is a not a halmark of being sure about their own faith.