Jewish protest gives Holy Land theme park more media coverage

ORLANDO, Fla. – Condemnation from two Jewish rabbis and the leader of the militant Jewish Defense League over the opening of the $16 million Holy Land Experience was a blessing in disguise for the “living Biblical museum” founder, Marvin Rosenthal.

Rosenthal, a Jewish Believer in Yeshua and founder of Zion’s Fire Ministries, said one of his most vocal opponents had been Rabbi Merrill Shapiro of Congregation Beth Am in Orlando. Prior to the theme park opening on Feb. 5, the Orlando Jewish community of about 25,000 people were told by Shapiro to stay away from the 16-acre park.

According to the Associated Press (AP), a major worldwide news agency, Rabbi Shapiro is quoted as saying, “Mr. Rosenthal says you can be a Christian [Believer in Yeshua] and Jewish at the same time, but that’s not true. We have a great interest in not attracting a lot of attention to this park.”

Irv Rubin, leader of the militant Jewish Defense League, headed up a three-man protest, and Rubin reportedly called Rosenthal a “soul snatcher.”

From the insignificant protest, Rosenthal has been interviewed from major media outlets around the world, such as CBS and NBC, as well as major newspapers including one from Russia.

On opening day, dozens of reporters showed up, as well as 800 people, who paid $17 each, to roam the park, which has a staff of 175 employees.

Since opening day, Rosenthal said more than 1,700 people visit the park daily that is located in the same area as other popular theme attractions such as Universal Studios and Seaworld.

Among the main attractions at Holy Land is a recreation of Herod’s Temple, the Garden Tomb, and a complete model of Jerusalem in Yeshua’s day. The Old Scroll Shop offers items such as the shofar that is blown during the Jewish High Holidays. There are also lectures, a teaching staff, and Bible studies.

Marge McQuiston, a visitor from Lakeland, Fla., viewed the park as an opportunity for Christians and Jews to better understand each other. The AP quoted her as saying, “If we can’t get along in a theme park, how are we going to get along in a place like Israel?”

Rosenthal, 65, was raised in a Jewish home in Philadelphia where his mother operated a luncheon-ette. During his teenage years, a woman named Fanny Miller visited his mother’s establishment over a two-year period, sharing the Gospel of Yeshua with them.

After accepting Yeshua as his Messiah, Rosenthal attended Dallas Theological Seminary in 1951. Besides teaching the Bible, he began taking tour groups to Israel. He has taken 75 groups to the Jewish homeland over the years.

Six years ago, he came across the Holy Land Experience property in bankruptcy and purchased the land through a number of Christian foundations and Zion’s Hope Ministries, which produce mag-azines and videos as well as sponsoring conferences. “However, it’s a faith ministry,” he said. Rosenthal told AP in an interview that, “the idea that we’re targeting Jewish people is a fallacy. We would be thrilled if Jewish people came to these facilities. They won’t be buttonholed. They won’t be coerced.”

Irv Rubin, leader of the militant Jewish Defense League, headed up a three-man protest, and Rubin reportedly called Rosenthal a “soul snatcher.”

From the Irv Rubin Bust To The Stern Gang -The Rich History Of Jewish Terrorism By Jason Vest VillageVoice.com 12-21-1

WASHINGTON, DC - At a moment when the popular mind-set once again links the words "Arab" and "Islamic" with all things retrograde and threatening¬óincluding terrorism--cue the new Charlie Daniels anthem and revel in the poetry: "This ain't no rag, it's a flag And we don't wear it on our heads. . . . We're gonna hunt you down like a mad dog hound" it came as a surprise to some that the latest malefactors accorded POW status in the "War on Terrorism" turned out to be Jewish. Arrested and charged last week with intriguing to do explosive little actions on a Culver City, California, mosque and the offices of Lebanese American U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, Jewish Defense League chief Irving David Rubin and JDL member Earl Leslie Krugel were, according to FBI wiretap transcripts, anything but circumspect about their devices and desires: Though Rubin lamented the wanting state of technology in the JDL's possession (not good enough to "blow up an entire building"), Krugel was adamant that "Arabs need a wake-up call" and that the JDL needs to do something to one of their "filthy mosques" - which may explain the five pounds of gunpowder and pipe-bomb materiel found at his house. "If the people responsible for September 11 are the quintessence of evil genius, these guys are at the Keystone Kops end of the spectrum," says Hussein Ibish, communications director for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. "The only reassuring thing about them is their absolute ineptitude and the fact that they were arrested." Mainstream Jewish groups were quick to condemn the JDL as well: Characterizing the activities of the organization - founded in 1968 by Brooklyn's own, now deceased Rabbi Meir Kahane - as "contemptible," the Anti-Defamation League's regional director issued a statement "abhor[ing] and condemn[ing] the potential terrorist plot." The American Jewish Committee said it "categorically condemns in the strongest possible terms the alleged JDL plot," and went so far as to follow up with a personal letter to Republican representative Issa, decrying "such wanton lawlessness," which is "so clearly contrary to the fundamental tenets of our faith, and to the basic principles of justice and liberty that brought our parents and grandparents to America's shores and that form the bedrock of our national values." Yet some observers of the current Middle East crisis see more than a bit of disingenuousness and historical irony here. While both the ADL and the AJC have condemned the JDL, they've unequivocally backed Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's indiscriminate use of force against the Palestinians and the cutting of ties with Palestinian Authority president Yasir Arafat¬óneither of which is universally seen as a particularly constructive way to slow the cycles of violence across Israel and the Occupied Territories. But what's even more vexing to others is the apparent inability or unwillingness to discern similarities between the current Palestinian milieu and Israeli operations of 50-plus years ago, which secured statehood from colonialist occupiers¬óas well as similarities between violent, internecine struggles among disparate underground groups. "It's peculiar, it's paradoxical, that Sharon and Likud should be the ones who are trying to equate any authentic resistance in Palestine with some of the terrorist activities, as terrorism in Israel really started with Begin and Shamir and later Sharon," says Clovis Maksoud, the former Arab League ambassador to the United Nations. "It's a very valid question as to why they see no similarities between themselves under the British and the Palestinians under their occupation." Especially, he adds, as the Israeli government supports museums that honor assassins and terrorists¬óincluding one located on a street named for a terrorist. The thoroughfare in question runs between Florentine and Emeq-Yisrael, and bears the name Stern Street¬óin honor of Avraham Stern, a 1920s Zionist and charter member of the Haganah, then a loose-knit Jewish militia organized as a self-defense mechanism against Arab violence. Finding the Haganah insufficiently proactive in realizing the goal of a Jewish state that would encompass "both sides of the River Jordan," erstwhile Mussolini follower and early-day ultra-nationalist Ze'ev Jabotinsky broke with the militia and formed the Irgun, which devoted itself to terrorist operations against the British. Once an enthusiastic Irgunist, Stern was appalled when the Irgun decided to make common cause with the British against the Nazis, and created the even more underground and more violent Lehi (Lohamei Herut Yisrael, or Fighters for the Freedom of Israel), also known as the Stern Gang, which held there was no greater threat to the Jews of Palestine than the mandate's British administrators. To this end, Stern actually made overtures to the Axis powers; September 1940 found him in dialogue with an emissary from Il Duce in Jerusalem, and in January 1941 he dispatched an agent to Vichy-controlled Beirut with instructions to convey a letter to representatives of the Reich. In it, Stern held that the "establishment of the historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in the Near East. Proceeding from these considerations, [the Lehi] in Palestine, under the condition [that] the above-mentioned national aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war on Germany's side." The Germans declined to take Stern up on the offer, but Stern held out hope as his organization continued to engage in terrorism against the British. After Stern died in a shoot-out with British police in 1942, his mantle was picked up by future Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir. Still, the Israeli underground focused on the British as the greatest of all evils, and on November 6, 1944, Lord Moyne, the British minister for Middle East affairs, was assassinated in Cairo by Eliyahu Beit-Tzuri and Eliyahu Hakim¬óboth members of the Lehi, who were later arrested, convicted, and hanged. After the state of Israel was established, the Lehi, displeased with what it considered the too pro-Arab views of the Swedish UN-appointed mediator for Palestine, assassinated him; on September 17, 1948, Count Folke Bernadotte¬ówho, as a neutral diplomat in World War II, had saved thousands of Jews from Nazi death camps¬ówas shot and killed by Lehi assassins, along with French colonel Andre Serot, the senior UN military observer, whose wife's life had been saved by Bernadotte. The Bernadotte assassination was so outrageous that the nascent government of David Ben-Gurion had little problem disbanding the Lehi (though none of the assassins were ever brought to justice). Yet, despite this history of terror, the Israeli Ministry of Defense underwrites museums commemorating the Stern Gang and the Irgun¬ówhich, under Menachem Begin, bombed the British headquarters at the King David Hotel in 1946, leaving 90 dead and 45 wounded (with 15 Jews among the casualties). Like Lehi, it wasn't until 1948 that the Irgun was forced out of existence, after its arms-transport ship, the Altalena, was blown up by the provisional Israeli government¬óa point analysts like Ibish say bears remembering. "There are streets named after the assassins of Moyne and Bernadotte. They are historical figures not disavowed by the rhetoric of the state of Israel, nor is there any reflection on the fact that two terrorist leaders later became distinguished leaders of the republic," Ibish says. "And now people are saying that Arafat must have his Altalena." Ibish adds that Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, "never moved against the Irgun and the Stern Gang until after the state was established and secured, which is definitely not true in the case of the Palestinian Authority. Essentially, the Israelis are asking the Palestinians to do something they themselves refused to do." http://www.villagevoice.com

How are they doing now? This article is almost 2 1/2 years old.

Judging by the following July 4,2002 Arlene Peck article,the Irv Rubin domestic terrorism trial is still pending.
http://www.jewsweek.com/editorial/195.htm

Defending Irv Rubin - - - - - - - - - - - -

By Arlene Peck/Jewsweek.com
Years ago, I knew Rabbi Meir Kahane. Contrary to many people's thoughts, I found him to be a strong and powerful leader. He walked softly, but carried a big stick. We worked together on a few projects. None of them violent, but, a few that I thought important to the Jewish people. Once, when Billy Carter was traveling around the country with his alleged Libyan terrorist under the guise of a Peace Treaty with Georgia and Libya I called in the 'boys of the JDL' to crash a party that Carter had arranged for the Georgia Legislature. Coincidentally, it was a couple of days before they were going to vote on the 5% disclosure law. In essence, these Arabs were in Atlanta to buy up my state and it bothered me, tremendously. I called the ADL to ask why nobody Jewish had been invited to this exclusive shindig and was told to mind my business. "We're working on quiet diplomacy." Yeah, right. TV TIME: Irv on Arlene's show The next call I made was to Rabbi Kahane. He sent in four of the JDL members on invitations that I had finagled and they caused a scene. As they were being carted out by the police, I was standing next to Billy Carter and I caught on tape his comment, "Them damn Jews ought to learn there is a hell of a lot more Arabs than there is Jews." A remark, incidentally, which made the national news. The following day, we had a press conference and I brought attention that Carter should be investigated as a foreign agent for the Libyans as that's what he was. Shortly after, that’s just what the Justice Department did. It was instrumental in bringing down the presidency of Carter. The years went by and Kahane and my path crossed when I had for six years chaired a Jewish discussion group at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary. During that time, we met, and traveled to upstate New York where we began groups in prisons, like mine, to bring in Passover deders and kosher food. This was unheard of in a federal institution until we broke the tradition. This was about the time that Rabbi Kahane moved back to Israel and told me about the new head of the Jewish Defense League who was named Irv Rubin who had decided would lead his organization in America. It wasn't until I moved to Marina del Rey in the early nineties that our paths crossed and I thought he'd be an interesting guest on my then-fledging television show. He was, and throughout the years came on as a guest to discuss Jewish interest from time to time. Once, after the bombings of the Jewish Community center in Argentina I had the Ambassador of Argentina as a guest. I also invited Irv without either knowing the other was there. It was an explosive show. He never failed me. I had to work to see that he didn't take control but he was always interesting. Throughout the years, I got to know him. He and Rabbi Kahane couldn't have been more different in their styles, but his heart, I believe, was in the right place. “… I might be going out on a limb defending a man who for all practical purposes has been convicted of a terrible crime, even before the trial ...” That's why I find it difficult to believe that the man I know, Irv Rubin could do something so stupid as the crime he is now charged with doing. I can see him standing outside somewhere and possibly making a fool of himself. However, I just can't imagine his having it in him for the random violence to blow up a building or an individual. I have thought what might the scenario have been and a few have come to mind. I know he and the FBI had a mutual dislike of each other. Irv's style might have been a little too vocal and abrasive for them. Someone there might not have liked his ridicule of his or her methods on local or national talk shows. And, with the mood of the public now, and the 'political correctioness' that we seem to be living under, who better than the JDL to show the 'fairness' of the FBI and their methods. In one swoop, an annoyance such as the JDL can be eliminated and at the same time, the country can see how even handed we are when it comes to treatment of Arab terrorists. I might be going out on a limb defending a man who for all practical purposes has been convicted of a terrible crime, even before the trial. And, let there be no question about it. I've been listening to the talk shows and reading the newspaper editorials. He has been crucified in both the national and the Jewish press for the supposed actions. And, truthfully, if he is guilty of such a crime, it's with justification. But, I'm also a strong American and I believe that we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. As far as this journalist is concerned, the verdict is still out. The man that I know isn't that stupid or evil to resort to such measures.

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