Sunday, January 07, 2007
Rabbi ripped for embracing Ahmadinejad
It was an unbelievable image - especially for Jews.
There, on their televisions and in their papers, was a New York rabbi embracing the Iranian leader who wants Israel destroyed and calls the Holocaust a farce.
But Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, who has followers in Brooklyn and Rockland County, makes no apologies.
His outraged neighbors will protest today.
"You don't negotiate with Hitler and you don't negotiate with the president of Iran, who is out to destroy the Jews," said Carol King Berkman, who works with Holocaust survivors at Rockland's Jewish Family Service.
While Weiss, whose grandparents perished at Auschwitz, doesn't deny the Holocaust, he accuses his people of using it to justify decades of bloodshed in the Middle East.
Weiss said he and seven other rabbis from the Neturei Karta sect attended President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's huddle in Tehran last month to reach out to the Iranians.
"We tried to appease them," he told The News. "We explained how the Holocaust is used to intimidate people who want to speak against the unjust Zionist regime."
That stance only further infuriates his neighbors in Rockland's massive Hasidic community.
Malkie Zamore said she and her husband will be at today's 1p.m. protest outside Neturei headquarters in Monsey.
"We don't consider Weiss one of ours," she said. "What he did was very wrong."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/486369p-409513c.html
It was an unbelievable image - especially for Jews.
There, on their televisions and in their papers, was a New York rabbi embracing the Iranian leader who wants Israel destroyed and calls the Holocaust a farce.
But Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, who has followers in Brooklyn and Rockland County, makes no apologies.
His outraged neighbors will protest today.
"You don't negotiate with Hitler and you don't negotiate with the president of Iran, who is out to destroy the Jews," said Carol King Berkman, who works with Holocaust survivors at Rockland's Jewish Family Service.
While Weiss, whose grandparents perished at Auschwitz, doesn't deny the Holocaust, he accuses his people of using it to justify decades of bloodshed in the Middle East.
Weiss said he and seven other rabbis from the Neturei Karta sect attended President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's huddle in Tehran last month to reach out to the Iranians.
"We tried to appease them," he told The News. "We explained how the Holocaust is used to intimidate people who want to speak against the unjust Zionist regime."
That stance only further infuriates his neighbors in Rockland's massive Hasidic community.
Malkie Zamore said she and her husband will be at today's 1p.m. protest outside Neturei headquarters in Monsey.
"We don't consider Weiss one of ours," she said. "What he did was very wrong."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/486369p-409513c.html
Comments:
As much as I am nauseated by these people and what I think is really their cowardliness in looking to appease ruthless degenerates, I'm starting to see another side.
The superficial way that their views and others' counterviews are being presented in the press is almost as ludicrous -- their saying that the shoah (holocaust) was the will from above is not arguable by anyone who believes in G-d, we have all come to accept it this way, although certainly in a wiser context. That these 'screwballs' went to appease the Iranians and help create a more balanced feeling for Judaiam in light of what they feel is the 'taint' of secular Zionism now affecting Israel, is actually very beautiful -- and very difficult to do when you 'stand alone' in your beliefs. So I don't begrudge them their beliefs or freedoms.
I think their views are foolhardy and immature though, but it's not difficult to understand how a G-d fearing and sensitive person looking to help change the world for the better can seek to apologize for liberal, secular and also misguided and often inappropriate 'countrymen'.
Maybe the nausea the secular Zionism and lifestyle bring really are ALSO enough to add confusion for people in the world; confusion that if footnoted could actually help.
It's not as crazy for me to understand their motives as it must be for others who were active at this protest.
If they don't take money from these Iranian reshoyim then their integrity would be helped. As it is now, their apparent lack of integrity makes me think instead, cowardliness, greed and self-made opportunism at the expense of other Jews who should be held by them in much higher regard. A shame for us, a greater shame for them, and more rachmanus for the world. Oiy.
The superficial way that their views and others' counterviews are being presented in the press is almost as ludicrous -- their saying that the shoah (holocaust) was the will from above is not arguable by anyone who believes in G-d, we have all come to accept it this way, although certainly in a wiser context. That these 'screwballs' went to appease the Iranians and help create a more balanced feeling for Judaiam in light of what they feel is the 'taint' of secular Zionism now affecting Israel, is actually very beautiful -- and very difficult to do when you 'stand alone' in your beliefs. So I don't begrudge them their beliefs or freedoms.
I think their views are foolhardy and immature though, but it's not difficult to understand how a G-d fearing and sensitive person looking to help change the world for the better can seek to apologize for liberal, secular and also misguided and often inappropriate 'countrymen'.
Maybe the nausea the secular Zionism and lifestyle bring really are ALSO enough to add confusion for people in the world; confusion that if footnoted could actually help.
It's not as crazy for me to understand their motives as it must be for others who were active at this protest.
If they don't take money from these Iranian reshoyim then their integrity would be helped. As it is now, their apparent lack of integrity makes me think instead, cowardliness, greed and self-made opportunism at the expense of other Jews who should be held by them in much higher regard. A shame for us, a greater shame for them, and more rachmanus for the world. Oiy.
Comment Credit ---This article posted by 
: January 08, 2007 1:53 AM
: January 08, 2007 1:53 AM
I second the above comments, as I agree, in general, with the posters sentiments.
Comment Credit ---This article posted by : January 08, 2007 11:09 AM
: January 08, 2007 11:09 AM
The first step to dealing with ignorance is confronting it. I am glad they went to the conference.
Post a Comment
Comment Credit ---This article posted by : January 08, 2007 11:12 PM
: January 08, 2007 11:12 PM
