Prof. Norman Finkelstein is a prominent and well-respected scholar of the Israel/Palestine conflict. He has written several books on the topic, most notably The Rise and Fall of Palestine and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. His most recent work, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, is a devastating rebuttal of both Alan Dershowitz’s The Case For Israel and, more generally, defenders of Israel’s human rights record.
For some reason, Prof. Finkelstein’s views are often referred to as “controversial” or even “radical”. In fact, the position he articulates is supported by international law and such “radical” organisations as the World Court and Amnesty International. Several of Prof. Finkelstein’s talks, and much else besides, can be viewed on his website.
I asked him a few questions about the current state of the conflict (embedded links added by me, obviously).
Israeli PM Ehud Olmert recently declared that “I’ll never accept a solution that is based on their [the Palestinian refugees] return to Israel, any number”, and “I will not agree to accept any kind of Israeli responsibility for the refugees. Full stop.”, on the grounds that the refugee problem was created when Arab countries attacked the newly-formed State of Israel (hence, one presumes, he places the responsibility on the aggressor Arab states). What do you think of this view?
The refugee question is a red herring. It serves the same purpose now as the Palestinian Covenant did in the 1970s-1980s; to divert attention from Israel’s refusal to fully withdraw. Israel knows that the international community will be sympathetic to its stand regarding the refugees but not sympathetic on borders/settlements, so it’s trying to divert attention from the latter, and towards the former.
Israel and its apologists consistently justify such policies as the annexation wall and, indeed, the occupation in general on security grounds. To what extent do you feel they are actually about security, and to what extent do you feel they would be justified even if they were?
There isn’t a scratch of evidence that the occupation has anything to do with security. It’s already widely admitted (Shlomo Ben-Ami, Zeev Maoz, even Dennis Ross) that keeping the Jordan Valley for security reasons is a myth. And the wall could be built on Israel’s border and provide the same security (even more) to Israeli citizens. It’s a land-grab disguised in the language of security. If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels (Johnson), then security is the last refuge of scoundrel states.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - JustOneMan
Gee...the Jews worst enemy...self hating Jews...
JOM
2 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
Wow, what a stupid thing to say.
3 - JustOneMan
Mr. STERN WEINER...(lol)
Thanks for proving my point!
Jew hating Jews are a bigger problem than the Radical Muslims,,,
JOM
4 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"Jew hating Jews are a bigger problem than the Radical Muslims..."
Wow! Who woulda thought? Jamie, JOM has got you (and Normie Finkelstein, Ilan Pape, Noam Chomsky, George Soros) nailed on the head. Or should I say nailed in the ass.
Wow! Who woulda thought?!!
ROTFL
5 - JustOneMan
Finkelstein SUCKS!
Only months after Sept. 11, 2001, Finkelstein asserted his support of terrorism. In a 2001 interview, Finkelstein exclaimed, "Frankly, part of me says"even though everything since Sept. 11 has been a nightmare"'You know what, we deserve the problem on our hands because some things [Osama] bin Laden says are true.'"
This guy is a FUCKING ASSHOLE..why do you worship him?
JOM
6 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"This guy is a FUCKING ASSHOLE..why do you worship him?
JOM, the chief feature of self-hating Jews is that they are always trying to talk themselves out of a beating. And they talk and talk and talk and talk. It's like reading Ha'aretz. And it is sickening. Jamie, as we both agree, is a self hating Jew. Do you have the patience to read seven paragraphs of justification? Or maybe Jamie will just tell you to re-read his article - you know, the "if you don't believe me, ask me again" routine...
JOM, you are making sense. What happened? Do you need an Acamol (Israeli equivalent of Tylenol)?
7 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
Ruvy, you really are pathetic. You've already retracted and apologised to me before for calling me a "self-hating Jew", and now you're at it again. It's ridiculous.
More generally, anyone who is so absurd as to feel pleased about themselves after responding to an interview with a promininent I/P scholar by posting crap about "self-hating Jews" deserves to be pitied, and not much else.
8 - JustOneMan
Finkelstein is no more a scholar than Adam Ashe or Marthe!
JOM
9 - Zedd
I am always baffled why the consideration of the Palestinian plight is somehow morphed into a hatred of Jews.
I see this disconnect in logic or reason to be the fundamental problem with seeing the issue clearly. In Israel there are many Jews who want this issue resolved and are angered about the manner in which the Israeli government has dealt with the Palestinian issue.
Confusing a political situation with a religious identity is HIGHLY problematic.
Ones Jewness is supposed to have an internal impact (correct me if I am wrong Ruvy). The purpose is not to have something to claim, like a club affiliation, it is supposed to affect the individual and how he relates with the world around him. I sense that many on these boards view Jewness as a club or a gang of sorts that one is born into. The effect of Judaism on the spirit, is hardly ever a consideration, as insults are hurled and EXTREME improperly considered ideas are thrown around.
Supporting the Israeli state has NOTHING to do with supporting the laws of Moses. Supporting the actions of Jews has NOTHING to do with the religion.
What you "pro-Jewish" contributors on this blog are doing is supporting the club of people like yourselves, you are not supporting Judaism. You are practising prejudice and selfish agendas and not your Jewness.
Its time for people like yourselves to face the fact that your current policies are not part of the Torah, that what happened in the 40's is not in any way related to the Bible. It has more to do with selfishness and a distorted idea by frightened and paranoid people of self preservation.
Lets stop hijacking Moses and the great prophets to justify our current foibles. They would be disgusted!
10 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Zedd,
"It's time for people like yourselves to face the fact that your current policies are not part of the Torah, that what happened in the 40's is not in any way related to the Bible. It has more to do with selfishness and a distorted idea by frightened and paranoid people of self preservation.
Lets stop hijacking Moses and the great prophets to justify our current foibles. They would be disgusted!"
Zedd, the Torah and Prophecy applies very much to this situation.
This was originally on a different article, but it applies here as well...
Marthe,
Thank you. It was interesting indeed. I found a couple of interesting books that I looked at. I'll relate what I found in one of them to you, as it has to do with this article indirectly, and as you can understand some of what was foreseen, based on your own people's history of genocidal suffering at the hands of European settlers in the United States.
In a book about the great Jewish scholar and rabbi, the Chafetz Chaim (R' Yisrael Meir Kagan, z"l), R' Moses M. Yoshor, the author, talks of his prophetic insight. After WWI most people wanted to believe that the world had been made "safe for democracy." From his home in Radin, Poland, the Chafetz Chaim (a title of honor for R' Kagan) foresaw a "final catastrophe, a holocaust that would occur after several decades." He termed the peace of Versailles "the preface to the next war, which in its cruelty will be more dreadful than anything we have seen till now."
In the month of Nisan 5690 (April 1930), in the middle of a discourse he was giving about "the birth pangs" (severe tribulations) that must precede the advent of the messiah, he stopped, groaned deeply and, after a few moments of reflection, said, "A stormwind is coming. A dreadful holocaust is approaching; and in comparison with the conflict ahead of us, the world war we experienced a short while ago will be considered a plaything. You know nothing of it, but I - I see what will happen ten years from now."
This stormwind that the Chafetz Chaim foresaw was the murder of the vast majority of Europe's Jews in a terrible war that killed far more than the 55 million who died in World War I.
The chilling thing about all this is that it had been foretold in prophecy - just as I believe this coming war in the Middle East and elsewhere has been foretold in prophecy.
The Chafetz Chaim quoted Amos 9:9: "and I shall shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve." Only after this, does Amos predict the restored sovereignty of the people of Israel - "On that day I will raise the sukkah (booth, indicating royal house) of David that is fallen there..." [Amos9:11]
Please note, Marthe, that Amos talks about the restored royal house of David, not this pathetic joke of a state we have now. G-d's "day" is a little longer than yours or mine.
At the end of the chapter, R' Yoshor relates the story of the head of a yeshiva in Poland consulting with the Chafetz Chaim about his predictions three years later after Hitler had become reichskanzler in Germany. The head of the yeshiva asked the Chafetz Chaim if Hitler would succeed in eliminating the Jewish people. The Chafetz Chaim said, "we have a clear explicit statement in our Scripture: 'If Esav (Esau) comes to the one camp and strikes it down, the other will escape.'" [B'reshit/Genesis 32:9] From this, the yeshiva head understood that not all the Jews would be killed off. Asking further, he inquired "If heaven forbid, this dire enemy of ours succeeds in exterminating the Jews of Europe - the largest part, in numbers and importance, of world Jewry - where will the other camp be that will escape?" The Chafetz Chaim answered, "This too is told us explicitly - in the words of a prophet: 'But on Mt. Zion, there shall be those that escape, at it shall be holy.'" [Ovadia 1:17]
Jamie's interview was a fool talking to another fool about something neither of them understand.
I'll get back to this later after dinner...
Can't afford to get the wife angry.
11 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
Oh God - why does the discussion (if it can be called that) always have to turn to religious bullshit? For once, just once, can't we focus on the facts? The evidence? The reality? Not what some make-believe mountain God didn't say thousands of years ago. That really would be swell.
12 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"Oh God - why does the discussion (if it can be called that) always have to turn to religious bullshit?"
Because, Jamie, IT IS FUCKIN' RELEVANT!!! WHAT THE CHAFETZ CHAIM SAID IN 1930 WAS PROPHECY! Millions of your people, not to mention my people were killed and there was clear prophecy as to what would happen. And, additionally, there was clear prophecy that the remnant would be here. We see lots of Jews in America and Britain - Jews like you and Finkelstein who haven't got a clue. They are assimilating into foreign cultures and being lost to our people. But there is a remnant HERE that escaped, as the Chafetz Chaim foretold. YOU are no longer among that remnant - neither is Finkelstein.
If you are too stupid to see that, it is not my problem. If idiots like Norman Finkelstein are too stupid to see that, it is not my problem. As I said, this interview was by a fool of a fool. I stand by my words.
And now to return to the points I wanted to make before dinner. The specific reasons why I am so convinced of the Truth of the Torah.
In the Song of Witness (or Song of Moses) [Devarím/Deuteronomy 32:1-43], wherein G-d tells Moses to call heaven and earth as witnesses against the Children of Israel of what will happen if they disobey the commandments given at Horev, commonly known to Jews as Parshát Ha'azínu, we see what the future was to hold for the Children of Israel.
One line is very recognizable to anyone who has studied the history of Eretz Yisrael for the last hundred years. It stands out like a sore thumb.
"They provoked Me with a non-god, angered Me with their vanities; so shall I provoke them with a non-people, with a vile nation shall I anger them." [Devarím/Deuteronomy 32:21]
So who is this "non-people?" One hundred years ago, there was no such thing as a Palestinian. There was no entity "Palestine." There were the Turkish provinces here that were called south Syria by the locals, inhabited by Arabs, Cherkessim, Druze and Jews. Christians, retaining their heritage from the Roman savages, called this place "Palestine", the name the Romans gave this country to insult the Judaeans whom they systematically persecuted and slaughtered for 600 years.
What would you call a people that beheads innocents and makes videos of the execution? What would you call a people that dances in the street and hands out candy when innocents are blown up at restaurants, weddings, schools, seders; when riding buses, when picking up pencils from the ground? What would you call a people that tears apart, bone from bone, children who play in a cave when skipping from school?
Vile is a polite term. So we have in the Palestinians a non-people who are vile.
When I saw this line in Parshát Ha'azínu the very first time I read it, I realized that what I was reading was not the angry rantings of a man who was going to die but prophecy. I have in my own lifetime seen how the "Arab refugees" were transmogrified into "Palestinians" by propagandists and how even the Israeli government had bought into the bullshit being sold.
The evidence in is front of our eyes, for those of us who are willing to see it. And for those who refuse to see, like Jamie; and the writers on this site who curse G-d and insist He does not exist - they will continue to be blind to the truth until it stabs them in the stomach and screams "Allahu Akbar!" When their blood drips from them on the ground, only then will they comprehend what they have been told - maybe.
13 - Zedd
Ruvy
There is a point where one has to take personal responsibility for his own thoughts and attitudes, let alone, actions. Viewing your neighbors (your brothers) as individuals is the ONLY way that you will be in the right. To continue to clump an entire group of individuals into one is a sin because it is wrong and you know that. In the same way that Jews are different and hold different views, so are Palestinians.
At some point, the madness will end. The question is will you be among the fools of the past or will you be brave enough to stand with truth and reason. In this situation, it is far far more difficult to support reason. It is far easier to go with the crowd and do/say what is en vogue. Time will end this foolishness. Which side will your children's children say you were on. The side of hatred and stubbornness or the side of good and prosperity for their sake?
All of the madness of Hebrews through time eventually ends and God makes an example of their wanderings. This too will end. What matters is YOU.
14 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Zedd,
The following essay is long, but it establishes clearly the concept in Judaism that there is no sin without punishment and no punishment without sin - the only way to avoid punishment for sin is to repent, admit the sin and attempt restitution. There was a terrible sin that provoked the holocaust, one foreseen in prophecy, that Rabbi Kahane examines below.
Similarly, there has been a terrible sin, also foreseen in prophecy, that has provoked the rise of a "non-people," the "Palestinians," to cause us to suffer, and the inability of Israeli authorities to appropriately deal with this non-people. That sin is the denial of G-d by the "Jewish" authorities of the State of Israel. And there has not only been no repentance by these "authorities," there has been further sin.
Examining the record of Arab terror in this country stretching all the way back to the massacres of the Temaním in Ir David, south of the Jerusalem city walls, to the massacres of Jews in Hevron in 1929, we see the nature of this people. Not only do they persist in killing innocents, they take joy in the murders they perpetrate!
EVIDENCE for the one willing to look the facts in the face - conveniently ignored by the author of this article and the idiot he interviewed for his article.
Read the words of a great man and learn from them, as I have.
CONFRONTING THE HOLOCAUST, JEWISHLY
These excerpts were taken from an article written by Rabbi Meir Kahane, ZTUQ"L, HI"D (may he be remembered for his goodness, may he be a blessing in his holiness, and may his blood be avenged by G-d) published in Kahane magazine, Nov. 1985
What is the fundamental issue of the Holocaust that we avoid speaking about and that, when mentioned, is dismissed with a curt and swift non sequitur?
Why, surely it is the issue that, unless raised and discussed and answered, will guarantee yet another and another national catastrophe. Surely it is an issue that goes to the very nature of the Jewish People, its meaning and role in life, its direction and fate.
What is the fundamental issue that must be met and grappled with?
Why surely the one that asks the question: Where was God? How could He have permitted it?
Our failure to grapple with this issue (instead we corrupt our souls by the terrible reply: It is a question no one can answer) has caused us to be silent accomplices in the worst of all Jewish sins and crimes - Hiruf v'giduf, blasphemy against the Lord; open insult and attack on His Name - Hillul Hashem (cursing G-d).
How dare we sit by quietly while Jewish ignoramuses and blasphemers speak of the "death of God", and His Name is dragged through the mud of a theology and philosophy of heresy?
How dare we allow Him to be blasphemed and our children to be turned down the path of apostasy and atheism because our reply to the attacks of the blasphemers is: "No one can answer the question!"
Of course there is an answer! It is a Jewish answer. But, of course, it is the kind of answer that the irreligious Jews, the secularists, the impossible Reformers and Conservatives simply cannot cope with.
It is an answer that can only come from a Jew who believes fully and completely and it is the answer that can only enter the mind and soul of a Jew who believes fully and completely.
And since the non-Orthodox Jew is essentially an atheist (though lacking the courage to admit it), the answer to the Holocaust is simply impossible for him to accept.
And as for the Orthodox Jew, in such great measure, he is responsible for laying the groundwork for the inability of Jews to understand or accept the Jewish answer to the Holocaust. Let me explain and you, dear reader, study the words carefully, They will pain you, but they can also save you.
The reason for the Holocaust, the Jewish reason and answer, is the one that rises out of the fundamental of fundamentals of Torah. What happens to the Jewish People is dependent on their actions and they way they live their lives.
The Jewish People is a Chosen people; chosen for a mission it cannot avoid or escape. At Sinai, the covenant bound us to a life of truth or falsehood, of life or death. "See, I have set before you this day, life and good, and death and evil... And if thy heart turns away and you will not hear... I tell you this day that you will surely perish... I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse; therefore choose life, that both your and your seed may live. [Devarim/Deuteronomy 30:15,17,18,19 selections therein]
The clear, direct mission and warning to the Jewish people. The open message of reward and punishment. If the Jew will obey the Torah in all its ways, he will have life, glorious and majestic. If not, he will have death, terrible and
cursed.
Of course we can answer it; but the irreligious Jew, the one who does not accept the Divinity of Torah, refuses to accept an answer that lays the blame upon him, upon the Jew who - knowing of the warning - ignored it and disdained it.
No, since it is impossible to accept the relationship between Jewish suffering and failure to obey the Law, one must blame God. One must create the image of Jewish people in Europe that was saintly and pious and observant, and thus one must ask how the modern God, a beaming Santa Claus who would never take serious our desecration of mitzvot (commandments), could do such a thing. And, of course, using that as a premise, "there is no God..."
And the Orthodox Jew joins in. He creates a picture of European Jewry that must lead to agonized and perplexed questioning of God. He creates a picture of saintly men that must lead to a vision of a God that is a cruel God who punishes a people who, for the most part, were religious and observant and if so, how could He do such a thing unless He does not exist or "there is no answer..."
The picture that is handed down to the American Orthodox youth, of the yeshivas of an East European Jewry that was pious and traditional and observant is one that must be destroyed because it is false.
It is an image that the yeshiva world gave us in its desire to negate the present material western one. But by their falsely idealizing Man, they have laid the groundwork for the desecration of God.
By painting the East European Jew as a saint, they designed a God of cruelty and irrationality. And that most terrible of sins must be ended: We must save God and sanctify His Name by telling the truth about European Jewry in the years preceding the Holocaust. Then and only then will we be able to tell our children and all Jews the truth of the Holocaust.
The false idealizing of the Jewry of Eastern Europe is worse than foolishness. In the words of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes), "Say not: 'How was it that the former days were better than these?' For it is not out of wisdom that you inquire concerning this." [Kohelet/Ecclesiastes 7:10] Then and only then can we save God from blasphemy and ourselves from future horrors. Then and only then can we honestly and truly say: "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies." [Tehillim/Psalms 25:10]
Of course we know the real truth of the situation and from that comes the answer, if we wish to be honest. Then and only then can we reply to the wicked and the honestly confused both - honestly. For in the words of Tehillim: "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and His covenant to make them know it" [Tehilllim/Psalms 25:14] and Mishlei/Proverbs: "Men of evil will not understand justice but those who seek the Lord will understand everything." [Mishlei/Proverbs 28:5]
Yes, as the nineteenth century passed into its third quarter, the Jew of Russia and Poland was, indeed, observant. But what else could he be?
The overwhelming number of Jews lived in a Pale of Settlement that restricted them to the shtetl, the village, where they were isolated from the gentile world, barred from participating in anything else except the society of the shtetl. And that society was religious in toto.
What Jew, even if he wanted to, was prepared to rebel against the society that laid down the religious rules of life?
Who was prepared to accept the ostracism that would be his inevitable punishment if the dared to throw off the halacha that was more than religion in the shtetl, but the entire social fabric of the life of the Jew?
And so, of course, the Jew was "religious". He had no other choice.
But once that choice arrived, look at what happened! And in such a short span of time! The Enlightenment that began to arrive in Eastern Europe in the last third of the nineteenth century swept away, in a relatively few years, a society and structure that had been built up for centuries. The great Torah centers spawned, overnight, a rebellion and revolution that uncovered the reality of Jewish "religiosity".
The same Vilna that had become a byword for piety and Torah learning, the home of the Gaon, the "Jerusalem of Lithuania," now gave birth to' the Jewish labor movement, the Bund, a bitterly anti-religious and anti-nationalistic group that saw Jews, who just yesterday were "religious", flocking to its ranks to spout atheistic socialism.
The Poland and Russia and Lithuania and Galicia, the areas of the Va'ad Arba Ha'aratzot (Council of the "Four Lands" of the 17th Century Kingdom of Poland), the places that had given us the Rama and the Shach and Chassidism and the great yeshivas, overnight gave birth to Jewish communism and socialism and secular Zionism and assimilation. The door was barely opened to enlightenment and emancipation and the Jew rushed to be a Universalist and to throw away Judaism.
This was "religion". This was a "pious, saintly, committed Jewish community" that was cruel and unjustly allowed to be slaughtered by God? Hardly. The Jews who, arriving in America from centuries of "religion" and who threw away their tefillin (phylacteries) and their Shabbat at the first opportunity, symbolized so many other Jews who remained behind. It was not "religion" that had marked them but a social system of ritual that was observed by most only because the outside gentile world refused to allow them entry to it, and there to throw off the yoke of heaven.
The moment the barriers dropped, the Jew rebelled. This was the reality, and the fault dear Jew, lies not in our God but in ourselves.
And there was of course, more. There was the terrible class struggle within East European Jewry.
There was the terrible oppression of Jewish workers and proletariat by the wealthy Jews, the parnessim, the communal leaders.
Not for nothing did the Bund and communism succeed so easily in attracting poor Jewish workers to their ranks.
The low wages and horrible working conditions in the factories owned by Jews are epitomized in the classic story told in the name of the saintly Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev who once visited a matzah bakery on the eve of Passover.
There, he saw the terrible conditions from dawn to dusk. "Dear God", he said, lifting his eyes unto heaven. "What liars are the gentiles! They accuse us of using gentile blood in our matzah. It is not true. We use Jewish blood..."
And too few know of the black chapter of the Hatufim, the kidnapped Jewish children of Czarist Russia. When the Czar decreed that Jewish children be drafted as "Cantonists" in the army for 25 years, the rabbis declared that the quota imposed on each community be filled by casting lots to see which child would be drafted.
Tragically, the wealthy communal leaders would hire gentiles to kidnap the poor Jewish children, lock them in the synagogue and keep them to be turned over to be Czarists.
The lack of Ahavat Yisrael, love of Jews, cried out to the Heavens! Was this "religion"? Was this a saintly Jewish community that was cruelly and unjustly slaughtered by God? Hardly. The fault lies not in our God, but in ourselves.
And this lack of unity and love was epitomized, too, in the incredible number of machlokes, of bitter arguments and splits within the Jewish community, a sinat chinam, a needless hatred that split communities and families into warring camps of enemies.
What we have seen in the disgusting attacks of hatred between Satmar and Belz or Satmar and Lubavitch is only a small portion of the bitter hatred between misnagdím (religious Jews who disagreed with Hassidism) and Hassidim and between Hassidic groups themselves, in Europe.
The bitter divisions between Jews was told to me as a child by my father, of blessed memory, who described to me the bitter split between the Sanz and Rizhin, a hatred that reached its climax with Hassidim going to the Western Wall to put the Sanzer Rebbe, the great Divrei Chayim, into herem (a term similar to excommunication). And at a Shabbat seuda shlishit (third Sabbath meal, eaten shortly before the prayers ending the Sabbath), a Hassid attempted to stab the Divrei Chayim...
Families were broken up because of disputes. Needless hatred ran through East European Jewry as a thread, and the classic example of the Munkatcher Rebbe declaring, concerning the Pressburger Yeshiva founded by the Chasam Sofer: V'hivdilanu min ha'toim - "and He has separated us from those who err," even as the Pressburger Yeshiva refused entry to any baHur (student) who was a member of the
MizraHi...
And this terrible, terrible hatred was long ago, set up by the Rabbis as an unpardonable sin with a terrible, terribly clear and precise warning:
"How severe is maHloket, division and split! The Court of Heaven does not punish until one is over the age of 20 and the court on earth from the age of 13, but in the dispute of Korach, children of one day were burned and swallowed up by the earth..." (Tanchuma, Korach 3) And the Rabbis in Shabbat (33b): "When there are righteous in the generation, the righteous are caught for the sins of the generation. When there are no righteous, then little children are caught for the sins of the generation (this is the explanation for the million and a half Jewish children murdered by the Nazis in the death camps). Let each of us think long and carefully about this. And let us search our souls.
And let us remember, on top of all the sins and the reality of Jewish crimes, the refusal to grasp the Land of Israel to our bosom. "And they despised the desirable land," is the Biblical condemnation of the generation of the desert and its great scholars and leaders who preferred to return to Egypt rather than go to the Land of Israel.
Their actions led to the night of "weeping for generations," Tisha B'Av. What shall we say about the rejection of Eretz Yisrael in the decades preceding the Holocaust by so many great religious leaders in Europe? That, too, must be added to the reality of East European Jewry.
It is time to put an end to the nonsense of "we cannot know the reasons". That answer guarantees the turning away of Jewish youth.
It is time to bury the myth of East European Jewry that was pious and saintly. That insures the creation of a Jewish God who is senselessly cruel.
It is time to put an end to the indictment of God, to hiruf v'giduf, blasphemy against the Lord.
A Jewish People that clings to the Law, truly and completely, will be saved from Holocausts.
And one which rejects it and which turns it into a ritualistic sociological fraud will suffer for it.
And until we learn this, that which was will, God forbid, be again.
But do not blame God. He remains the One whose duty compels us "to declare that the Lord is just, He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him." [Tehillim/Psalms 92:15]
15 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, please back off with the pompous religious fervour. You have absolutely no idea if what you believe is true or not. You just desperately hope it is so as not to have to consider the possibility that you have invested so much of your, and your family's, future in a delusion.
Oh, you can't fix bad html coding in a subsequent comment either, I or another editor have to do it manually. Please exercise greater care with both the code and the codex you choose to deploy.
Cheers!
16 - Jamie Stern-Weiner
Great, Ruvy. That's so enlightening. I'm still waiting, perhaps in vain, for anyone to talk about reality, about the actual issues that were touched upon (albeit v. briefly) in the interview above. I was not hoping for a Bible lesson.
17 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"Ruvy, please back off with the pompous religious fervour."
Chris, I wouldn't expect you to say anything other than what you have said - unfortunately. We have discussed this before, and the blunt truth is that if you were confronted with real evidence of the truth of the Bible, you would dismiss it. You always have in the past.
There are three kinds of proof that one can offer for the truth of the Torah. One is to be found in inscriptions on rocks; a second is to be found in artifacts found at digs; the third, the one dealt with here, is demonstrating that what was forewarned by shepherds with visions - prophecy - has or is occurring as we speak now.
The essay above - dismissed by you as "pompous religious fervor" - falls in the third category. My comments prior to this to answer Zedd (I won't waste time on Jamie - he'll have to see his own way home) also fall in this category.
Now, since you can fix the error I made in comment #14, if you would be kind enough to fix it, I'd appreciate it immensely...
18 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, you really need to pull your head out of the mystical nonsense it's immersed in.
You can't possibly KNOW that the bible or any other so called "holy" book is the work of a god. You simply take it on faith.
Whilst it may be true that I can't know for sure it's all total BS, there is zero evidence to support your faithist conjecture and posturing. Given the choice, I'll take the evidence as it stands and continue working for good honest reality based upon the collective efforts of my species.
None of the "proof" you offer above makes any kind of sense at all - and this is the true corrupting influence of religion; it requires a peculiar warping or abandonment of reason to be taken on board. To me, that is a true work of evil and it makes religion a real enemy of humanity and all we hold in common.
19 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
As I said in comment #17, I wouldn't expect you to say anything other than what you have said - unfortunately. We have discussed this before, and the blunt truth is that if you were confronted with real evidence of the truth of the Bible, you would dismiss it. You always have in the past. You do so here.
No surprises, my virtual friend. But thank you for fixing my error in using HTML codes. I'll endeavour to use more care in future...
20 - Christopher Rose
Ruvy, I don't care what the truth is one way or another. I'm quite prepared to believe anything at all BUT I'm not prepared to believe it just cos a bunch of mystical types say so.
I'm actually deeply offended that you say I would dismiss "real evidence of the truth of the bible" for that is a craven lie that I've directly rebutted to you before. Either you know that or you're choosing to ignore it.
The fact that you claim I have done so, both before and here, is simply more evidence that you have a fixed mindset that is determined to ignore any inconvenient truth. Such spiritual and intellectual corruption serves only to demonstrate the bankrupt nature of your philosophy.
Now, if this god of yours showed up, I'd be down the front in a heartbeat and be entirely happy to do so. Obviously, as "his" creation "he" would be delighted to see me. However my confidence is high that this will never happen, not in a million lifetimes.
As to your html, judicious use of the preview button would help you fix any potential problems. I always use it when I have written more than appears in this tiny comments window. Clicks "Preview".
21 - JustOneMan
Why do Jews hate Jews so much?
JOM
22 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Chris,
Let's try this one more time.
You cannot "prove" G-d. That is impossible. But proving G-d is not the issue here. The historicity - and therefore the truth - of the Torah is. You can find archaeological evidence of the existence of Abraham. This is referred to in the book "The Twelfth Planet", by Zecharia Sitchen. In addition, there is evidence of the existence of "plagues" attacking Egypt including th4e crossing of the Sea of Reeds (written from an Egyptian point of view, which is far more important than something written from our point of view), corroborating evidence of which Pharaoh it was who Moses had to contend with, and Egyptian archaeological evidence referring to what I would identify as G-d - a "G-d with no name."
But this all costs. You need to pay Lightcatcher Books for the book, "The Riddle of the Exodus," written by Jim Long.
23 - Leslie Bohn
Ruvy, please see a psychiatrist. Seriously. Your words are deluded and violent, and you need help. You have a mental disease that causes you to hate others, deny them their humanity and wish them dead.
Your "explanations" are nonsense and make no sense to others. This sounds like a medical disorder, and I urge you to see a qualified mental health professional.
24 - JustOneMan
Will you Jews stop beating each other up!
25 - Zedd
Ruvy
What do you do with the notion of the Messiah?
Does it not cause you to pause just a little to recognise the existence of THE most popular Jew better yet, the most popular being that has lived on this earth.
What are you awaiting?
Could it be possible that he has come and you missed it. Could it not be that if he is who he is that he would be inclusive of all humanity as apposed to just a small population. Could it not be that He would free one from laws and introduce a concept of personal responsibility (which eventually lead to our idea of democracy btw).
Would it not be possible that He would show you how God relates to the rest of his creation other than just Jews. Wouldn't a real God love and be concerned about all humanity, instead of just Jews.
Is not the hanging on to Judaism a sort of arrogant refusal to acknowledge the love that God has for everyone equally; the refusal to relinquish a self absorbed view of the world, where gentiles are equal players?
I mean If you are still waiting for the Messiah, would he be more impactful than Jesus Christ? In this day and age, would his massage even be received? What more are you looking for. Why reject Jesus? Whats wrong with seeing him as the Messiah?