Dancing the Apocalypse, ISIS and The Christian Right’s End Times Danse Macabre

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast

By Jay Michaelson

Evangelicals & ISIS Feel Fine About the End of the World

End Times prophecies for Evangelical and the Islamic State are eerily similar. God help us if they ever become self-fulfilling.

What if two mortal enemies both wanted a cataclysmic, world-ending battle, at roughly the same time, in roughly the same place?

Can you say “self-fulfilling prophecy”?

As Americans become better acquainted with the apocalyptic beliefs of the Islamic State, thanks to a spate of recent presentations of them, it’s worth noting that there are end-timers on our side as well: over three-quarters of U.S. evangelicals believe we’re living in the End Times right now. And while evangelical millennialists are not calling the military shots at the moment, their prophecies align in potentially terrifying ways with those of our enemy.

ISIS, as Graeme Wood unveiled in The Atlantic recently, is an apocalyptic death cult. It is Aum Shinrikyu and the Branch Davidians, but with machine guns, brutality, and a swath of territory with 8 million people living in it.

(Many have criticized Wood’s article, but only that it does not emphasize enough that there are many other streams of Islam, that ISIS’s brand is on the fringe, and that there are alternatives to Wood’s literalistic reading of the Koran. Which is fine—and says nothing about his analysis of ISIS itself.)

ISIS’s “prophetic methodology” (Wood’s translation) involves not just a revanchist revival of slavery, crucifixion, and excommunication but also the reestablishment of a territorial caliphate that is necessary for the coming of the Mahdi, the messiah. Its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is said to be the eighth of twelve caliphs—which may mean that Armageddon will not take place for another few decades, or that the caliphs’ reigns may be short.

Wood proposes that ISIS’s military strategy is driven by millenialist zeal. The capture of the Syrian town of Dabiq, for example, was heralded as a great victory not because it is strategically important (it isn’t) but because it is prophesized as the place of the final battle. Just like Megiddo, the plain in Northern Israel that gives Armageddon its name.

Dabiq is also the name of the Islamic State’s newsletter.

The specific prophecy is that the armies of “Rome” (in Islam and Judaism, Rome is a euphemism for Christianity—though some experts say it may be a stand-in for the Byzantine empire, or infidels more generally) will come to Dabiq, and lose in a great battle. Then, the victorious caliphate will expand.

But things will not go smoothly. The dajjal, an Antichrist-like figure, will arise from Persia—conveniently, ISIS’s current nemesis, Iran—and defeat most of the caliphate. The remainder will retreat to, you guessed it, Jerusalem.

And then? Remarkably, the figure who will save the caliphate is none other than Jesus, who will kill the dajjal and enable the caliphate to re-form.

This may sound familiar—because it is. It is very close to the Christian apocalyptic narrative. Indeed, as a student of millennialism for some time (my dissertation was on a false messiah), it was shocking to see the congruence between the Islamic State’s vision of the End Times and that of evangelical Christianity: a large battle somewhere north to northeast of Jerusalem, a final battle in Jerusalem with the near-defeat of the heroic believers by an Antichrist figure, and then Jesus appearing from heaven to win the battle once and for all.

It was shocking to see the congruence between the Islamic State’s vision of the End Times and that of evangelical Christianity.

A recent post on one End-Times site, raptureready.com, noticed and endorsed this alignment. It describes the period between the battle of Dabiq and the battle of Jerusalem as “a time of warning,” similar to the Great Tribulation in Christian theology. Dabiq itself is close to Damascus, about which Isaiah 17:1 prophesized, “Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.” (Especially if ‘Damascus’ is interpreted as a metonym for Syria in general.)

There are many reasons for these alignments. Islam and Christianity have long drawn on one another’s ideas, even when they are superficially antagonistic. There may also be something archetypal about the millennial narrative: the evil forces come close, they are defeated, but then they emerge stronger, until finally supernatural help arrives.

Or, of course, they may be right. I don’t mean that ascetic visionaries in the 3^rd or 10^th centuries actually predicted the 21^st—but if enough people believe that a particular narrative is true, it can become true. Especially if those are the people with the guns.

Evangelical-led Christian Zionism has already had a substantive impact on U.S. policy, and has been driven by theological propositions. Congressman Dan Webster (R-Fla.) said in 2011 that if “we stop helping Israel, we lose God’s hand and we’re in big time trouble.” Christian Zionists point to Genesis 12:3, in which God tells Israel, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” With Judgment Day nigh, it’s best to be on the right side.

But what “blessing” Israel means has a very specific meaning, and a very specific endgame. Christians United for Israel, led by Pastor John Hagee, has long pushed a hard-right agenda when it comes to Israel. This week, for example, its website features a pop-up saying “Bibi Did His Job. Now We Must Do Ours.”

Hagee has put his money where his mouth is. Since 2001, the John Hagee Foundation has donated over $58 million to hard-right Israeli organizations, including settlements and Im Tirtzu, a extreme nationalist group which has depicted liberal Knesset member Naomi Chazan with horns, helped pass anti-NGO laws in Israel, and led a years-long campaign against the liberal New Israel Fund.

And, of course, Christian Zionists have paid millions of dollars for Jews to immigrate to Israel, on the belief that at least half of world Jewry must be in the Land of Israel for the End Times to proceed. Last October, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, the largest evangelical Christian organizational supporter of Israel (annual budget, $111 million) even announced that it would set up its own immigration program, in competition with the Jewish Agency.

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told the Jewish Daily Forward that such efforts are “ for their own salvation, not for Jewish salvation, it’s so they will see the second coming of the messiah.” Foxman added, “a campaign of Christians to send Jews to Israel is morally offensive.”

That may be, but it is also a billion-dollar business, and a popular one: over 60 percent of white Evangelicals believe that the State of Israel fulfills a prophecy about the Second Coming. In this view, Jews living in Israel will catalyze the End Times, culminating in a huge battle with the forces of evil—first in Northern Israel or Syria, and then in Jerusalem itself. A very similar goal to that of the Islamic State.

Of course, there the comparisons end. Christians United for Israel cannot be compared with ISIS. They may share a millennial view of the near future, but CUFI is not executing, torturing, beheading, or enslaving anyone. Christian Zionists are not building a theocracy. And while they can boast of many high-level allies in the Republican elite, most of those favoring a stepped-up military campaign with ISIS are foreign policy hawks, not messianic crazies.

But the crazies are out there, not on the fringe, but in CPAC, AIPAC, and the Republican establishment. And they are numerous. Seventy-seven percent of U.S. evangelicals believe we are living in the End Times, as do 40 percent of all Americans. They are avidly proselytizing not just to save the rest of us from sin—but also to save us from the tribulations that are imminent.

That America has twice been at war against Babylon (ancient Babylon’s ruins are adjacent to Saddam Hussein’s former summer palace) added fuel to the fire. Now, we find ourselves on the brink of yet a third war there.

But this time is different. When it comes to apocalyptic warfare, it takes two to tango. And now, apocalyptic Christian Zionists have found their perfect partners: a savage, bloody cult that wants to drag “Rome” into war and is doing everything possible to provoke it. God help us if both sides decide to dance.

MK Candidate Joked with Church Group about Dome of the Rock being “Blown Up”

MK Candidate Joked with Church Group about Dome of the Rock being “Blown Up”

Posted by Richard Bartholomew

This one is being reported widely; from Haaretz:

Atlanta-born Jeremy Gimpel, who moved to Israel at the age of 11, is angling for a seat with Habayit Hayehudi and serving as a voice for English speakers in the West Bank.

…Now Gimpel, who sits precariously at number 14 on the party’s list, faces a more uncertain future following Channel 2′s broadcast Friday of a video in which he makes controversial remarks about the Dome of the Rock, the Muslim shrine located on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Speaking at the Fellowship Church in Florida in 2011, Gimpel… reads from the book of Ezra then adds: “Imagine if the Golden Dome – I’m being recorded so I can’t say ‘blown up’ – but let’s say the Dome was blown up, right? And we laid the cornerstone of the Temple in Jerusalem. Can you imagine? None of you would be here. All of you would be like, ‘I’m going to Israel, right?’ No one would be here, it would be incredible!”

Gimpel now explains that this was a “joke”. I noted Gimpel back in 2006, when Agape Press (now OneNewsNow) unaccountably described him as being an “IDF spokesman”, based on the fact that he’s an IDF reservist with an unrelated radio show. At that time, Gimpel was visiting New Orleans to talk to a group called “Manna from Heaven Ministries“. He also met up with Maggid ben Yoseif, who is a ”Joe”; this is someone who has an inner conviction that he is a member of the lost tribes of Israel, and destined to replace the Palestinians in the West Bank.

The Fellowship Church, based in Winter Springs, is typical of a growing strand in American Evangelicalism in which Jewish cultural forms are appropriated as “Hebrew roots”; according to the church’s blurb:

…We identify with all who know God and serve Him through Jesus the Messiah. We identify with Israel and the international Jewish community as the elect people of God. We identify with upright men everywhere who both fear the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and seek to walk uprightly before Him. We identify with the person in bondage to Sin because we all have a sinful past from which God, by His grace, has rescued us. Our two-fold mission is to confirm God’s promises to His people, Israel, and to demonstrate His grace toward all men as expressed through Messiah Jesus (Romans 15:8-9).

Further:

An exciting area of ministry has developed in Israel. We as a congregation have become active in the settlement movement in the Land of Israel and in the struggle for the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Both of these areas are crucial for the continuation of God’s redemptive purpose in the midst of His people Israel.

The site also mentions “our sister Israeli community, Kedumim, ‘The Vanguard of Jewish Resettlement in Biblical Samaria’”.

Returning to Haaretz:

Gimpel has also hosted church groups in his home in the settlement of Neveh Daniel, where he lives with his wife Tehila, a Cleveland-born lawyer, and their three children.

He denies speaking to or accepting donations from Messianic Jewish groups.

This highlights a particular problem for Gimpel from the right: forging links with right-wing Christian groups is one thing, but associations with “Messianic” Jews would be controversial: just the other day, the MK Ben Ari was reprimanded for ripping up a Christian Bible he had received in July (“those who sent the book to MKs wanted to trample the bodies of the millions of martyrs who were murdered for being Jewish”). Gimpel himself has spoken out against missionaries in Israel. “Manna from Heaven Ministries”, where Gimpel spoke in 2006, describes itself as a “Messianic congregation”, but this again appears to be a congregation of Judaizing Christians rather than a community of Jews who accept Jesus as the Messiah.

Apocalyptically-minded Christian Zionists are indeed known for their Taliban-like hostility to the existence of the Dome of the Rock; Billye Brim, a Regional Director for Christians United for Israel, was recorded in 2007 promising that “that Dome is coming down!”, and a mentally-disturbed follower of Herbert Armstrong made an attempt to burn down the adjacent Al-Aqsa Mosque in 1969. Gimpel’s “joke” has led to calls for his disqualification.

Habayit Hayehudi is headed by Naftali Bennett; he and his party were recently profiled by the Daily Telegraph.

Related articles

• MK Candidate Joked with Church Group about Dome of the Rock being “Blown Up” (barthsnotes.com)
• Watch: Israeli-American on Bennett’s list for Knesset imagines blowing up Muslim holy site (mondoweiss.net)
• Israel considers ban for far-right candidate over mosque gaffe (updatednews.ca)
• ADL chastizes Israeli candidate over Dome of the Rock comments (jta.org)
• Knesset Candidate Suggests Dome of the Rock Should Be ‘Blown Up’ (loonwatch.com)
• Disqualify Jeremy Gimpel over Dome of the Rock comments, opponents ask (jta.org)
• Right Wing Zionist Orthodox Party Ignores Injunction Over Deceptive Campaign Ads, Is Fined (failedmessiah.typepad.com)

The Dangerous Apocalyptic Visions of Mitt Romney and the Mormon Theocratic Edifice | The “war that’s coming in to kill all the Jews”

Romney and the End-Times

Post by SARAH POSNER

There’s a lot of chatter about a video, made in 2007, when Romney was running for president the first time, that has (naturally) surfaced again just a few days before the election. Apparently filmed by hidden camera, it shows Romney arguing with conservative Iowa talk radio host Jan Mickelson, in studio but off the air, about his Mormon beliefs. Mickelson appears to be goading Romney into admitting or explaining ways that Mormonism differs from evangelical Christianity, and Romney gets pretty angry and heated throughout.

Earlier this year, Joanna Brooks wrote about how journalists who focus on, for example, Romney’s citation to Mickelson of Cold War-era Mormon figure W. Cleon Skousen (long a religious right, tea party, and Glenn Beck favorite) miss the mark about the Mormon world in which Romney functions, “a powerful multinational network of financial and political influence brokers connected by a profound common bond: their multigenerational membership and service in the LDS Church.”

This week, one part of the Mickelson video in particular has generated some discussion: Mickelson asks Romney about the end-times, and about whether he believes the Second Coming of Christ will happen in Missouri. In the video, Romney tells Mickelson that, no, the LDS Church teaches (as do evangelical churches) that the Second Coming will happen in Jerusalem. He then goes on to explain, rather clumsily and without much detail, “what the church” teaches about this.

Mickelson seemed inspired to broach the topic by an interview Romney gave to George Stephanopoulos. Here’s part of that transcript:

George Stephanopoulos: In your faith, if I understand it correctly, it teaches that Jesus will return probably to the United States and reign on Earth for 1,000 years. And I wonder how that would be viewed in the Muslim world. Have you thought about how the Muslim world will react to that and whether it would make it more difficult, if you were president, to build alliances with the Muslim world?

Former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.: Well, I’m not a spokesman for my church. I’m not running for pastor in chief. I’m running for commander in chief. So the best place to go for my church’s doctrines would be my church.

Stephanopoulos: But I’m talking about how they will take it, how they will perceive it.

Romney: I understand, but that doesn’t happen to be a doctrine of my church. Our belief is just as it says in the Bible, that the messiah will come to Jerusalem, stand on the Mount of Olives and that the Mount of Olives will be the place for the great gathering and so forth. It’s the same as the other Christian tradition. But that being said, how do Muslims feel about Christian doctrines? They don’t agree with them. There are differences between doctrines of churches. But the values at the core of the Christian faith, the Jewish faith and many other religions are very, very similar. And it’s that common basis that we have to support and find ability to draw people to rather than to point out the differences between our faiths. The differences are less pronounced than the common base that can lead to the peace and the acceptability and the brother and sisterhood of humankind.

Stephanopoulos: But your church does teach that Jesus will reign on Earth for the millennium, right?

Romney: Yes.

Mickelson asks Romney whether, contrary to what he told Stephanopoulos, he believes the Second Coming will take place in Missouri. After mentioning that a Skousen book explains LDS teaching on this, Romney seems either unwilling or at a loss to go into too much detail. Romney adds:

Christ appears, it’s throughout the Bible, Christ appears in Jerusalem, splits the Mount of Olives, to stop the war that’s coming in to kill all the Jews, it’s—our church believes that. That’s where the coming and glory of Christ occurs. We also believe that over the 1000 years that follows, the millenium, he will reign from two places, that the law will come forward from one place, from Missouri, the other will be in Jerusalem. Back to abortion.

A few things here. First, except for the part about Missouri, what Romney is saying about LDS belief about Christ’s return doesn’t deviate that much from what many evangelicals believe. I’m not in any way endorsing apocalyptic biblical literalism or proof-texting here, or saying that all Mormons or all evangelicals believe this. I’m just pointing out that Romney was relying on the same parts of the Bible many evangelicals do about Christ’s return. For example: “‘In the whole land,’ declares the Lord, ‘two-thirds will be struck down and perish; yet one-third will be left in it.'” (Zechariah 13:8) and “On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in two from east to west, forming a great valley, with half of the mountain moving north and half moving south” (Zechariah 14:4). I’ve seen preaching on this by evangelicals; I’ve talked to evangelicals who believe these verses to be true, accurate, and undeniable prophecy of what will happen in Jerusalem. (N.B.: Zechariah was not talking about Jesus, and what exactly he—or more than one he—was actually talking about is far from clear. But anyway.)

The question that’s being raised now, as this video resurfaces and generates discussion, is: does Romney himself really believe this? Does he somehow revel in a “war that’s coming in to kill all the Jews,” or see it as inevitable? I think that’s not evident from the video, or from his answer to Stephanopoulos. (Of course Romney’s a notorious liar, so we may never know.) Romney’s very defensive in the video, under questioning by Mickelson who clearly is trying to get him to admit that Mormon end-times theology is wildly different from evangelical end-times theology (which has many variants, incidentally, but none that include Missouri as a locus for anything except the second coming of Todd Akin). But Romney appears to be suggesting that “our church believes that” rather than saying, “I believe this is a literal prophecy of how world events will play out.” I’ve written before about how Romney’s public pronouncements on the Israel-Palestine conflict are out of touch with non-apocalyptic, contemporary Mormon thinking, but still, he’s never discussed his own beliefs on the end-times, or disagreements, if any, with LDS doctrine.

Apocalyptic beliefs are a Republican problem, though, not just a Romney problem; for example, George W. Bush, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee are all evangelicals who forged relationships with apocalyptic preacher John Hagee. I would very much like to know whether they co-sign Hagee’s apocalyptic visions.

I want to know the same answers about Romney, but not because he’s Mormon. Equally as pertinent to what Romney himself believes is what he thinks his base believes, and to what extent, as president, he’d be worrying about placating them. Remember, he was trying to show Mickelson he believes the same things evangelicals do. He’s running for president, for Pete’s sake!

Related articles

• Romney’s Testy ‘Mormon Video’ Goes Viral (newser.com)
• Paul Ryan Attacks Obama Over Judeo-Christian Values, What About Mormon Mitt Romney’s Flipping On Them? (crooksandliars.com)
• Video: Romney (in ’07) on how the second coming will save the Jews (mondoweiss.net)
• Watch Mitt Romney Explain How Jesus Will Reign for 1,000 Years When He Returns, Jerusalem… and Missouri (alternet.org)
• Mitt Romney Explains How Jesus Won’t Be Making a Comeback in Missouri (patheos.com)
• Mitt Romney’s Insane Mormon Apocalypse Rant Caught on Video | In Mormon Prophecy Jesus To Rule the World From Missouri (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)
• The Man We Never Saw (slate.com)
• 5 Take-Aways from the Newly Viral Romney End-Times Video (religiondispatches.org)
• Romney and the End-Times (religiondispatches.org)
• Video: Romney (in ’07) on how the second coming will save the Jews (sott.net)

Mitt Romney’s Insane Mormon Apocalypse Rant Caught on Video | In Mormon Prophecy Jesus To Rule the World From Missouri

Mitt Romney rants about his Mormon faith during a commercial break of radio interview (VIDEO)

Watch Mitt Romney Explain How Jesus Will Reign for 1,000 Years When He Returns, in Jerusalem. and Missouri.

Doubtless, all the Jews that aren’t killed off by then, have converted to Mormonism!

Video emerges of Romney citing the thinking of a wildly fringe conspiracy theorist and his belief in the strange intricacies of the Mormon faith.

Watch Mitt Romney get in a heated exchange with a radio host from a radio interview in 2008 about where Jesus will reign and rule over the Earth for 1,000 years — in Jerusalem and Missouri. Romney displays deep familiarity with the thinking of a Mormon hermit-conspiracy theorist Cleon Skousen, who was also Glenn Beck’s great inspiration .

 

In a radio interview Governor Mitt Romney got irate while talking about his Mormon faith. The radio host made the interview into a religious interview and Mitt Romney became upset.

Mitt Romney began ranting about Mormonism during a commercial break during a radio interview with Richard Dawkins before walking out of the studio.

Do you feel as though the radio host pushed him overboard or could Mitt Romney have handled the situation any different?

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• Watch Mitt Romney Explain How Jesus Will Reign for 1,000 Years When He Returns, Jerusalem… and Missouri (alternet.org)
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Jewish Synagogue Gabbai Raped Disabled Boy

Synagogue Gabbai Who Repeatedly Raped A 14-Year-Old Developmentally Disabled Boy Gets Light Sentence – Even Though He Fled The Country To Avoid Prosecution

In another example of Israel’s ethically challenged legal system, a synagogue gabbai who fled prosecution for the repeated rapes of a developmentally disabled child gets a short prison sentence on his return to Israel.

Yehezkiel Greenbaum, a 41-year-old Jerusalem synagogue gabbai, was convicted in a plea bargain today to charges of sodomy and indecent assault against a 14 -year-old boy with low mental function and personality disorders, Ynet’s Hebrew website reported.

Greenbaum fled the country in 2010 just before he was to slated to sign the agreement. When he recently returned to Israel, he was able to get some of the related charges dropped or altered, which reduced his sentence.

But Greenbaum also tried to claim that he had not forced the boys, a claim the judges rejected because of the boys’ mental states.

“The age gap and the close relations between the defendant and the complainant, as well as cognitive and emotional state [of the complainant], made the complainant easy prey for the defendant,” the judges said.

Greenbaum was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

The victim was so traumatized by the ongoing sexual abuse that he needed psychiatric hospitalization.

Related articles

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Kosher Mafia | Religious Jewish Extremists Dictating Diet, Limiting Choice

Indian Restaurant Drops State Kosher Supervision Over Rabbis’ Vegetable Demands

An Indian restaurant in the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem is reportedly the latest in a long line of food businesses which have dropped kosher supervision after facing what they say are “impossible demands” made by the state Rabbinate’s kosher supervisors.

Ynet reports that an Indian restaurant in the Machane Yehuda market in Jerusalem is reportedly the latest in a long line of food businesses which have dropped kosher supervision after facing what they say are “impossible demands” made by the haredi-controlled state Rabbinate’s kosher supervisors.

Ichikidana dropped its kosher certification after Shmuel Zamelman, Machane Yehuda’s new kashrut supervisor, reportedly began forcing restaurants in the market to buy their vegetables from specific stores.

Lehava Silman Herman, who owns Ichikidana, told Ynet that having a kashrut certificate just wasn’t worth the trouble.

“We are a vegan restaurant,” Silman Herman said, “so the kashrut is irrelevant, but we decided to cooperate with the Rabbinate because of religious Jews. After [Zamelman] arrived and decided that we must only buy in certain stores, I decided that I would not cooperate any longer.”

But the Rabbinate claims the change in the market’s long standing practice is actually no change at all.

“Every restaurant which receives a kosher certification must take leaves and vegetables [i.e., leafy vegetables and non-leafy vegetables] from a supervised place only. This has been a Rabbinate order for the past 30 years. The Rabbinate does not profit from this arrangement.”

There can be several kashrut issues with vegetables, primarily related to bug infestation and tithes.

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Jewish Zealot’s Outrageous Holocaust Lies – AGAIN!

Updated: Haredi Rabbi Lies About The Holocaust – Again

“According to some experts, between 50%-70% of those murdered by the  Nazis, were “traditionally religious Jews.” There is no reason to assume  the percentage of survivors who were religious was any less.”

Rabbi Meir Wikler

Yad Vashem only honors Holocaust’s secular victims Haredim have authored their own Holocaust history books, developed their own curricula to teach it to their children and are building their own museums to memorialize the martyrs.

By Meir Wikler • Ha’aretz

When Yad Vashem in Jerusalem opened its new wing, known as The Holocaust History Museum, in 2005, it was much ballyhooed as a state of the art, multi-million dollar Holocaust museum to top all others. While praise for the new museum wing has poured forth from dignitaries and laymen, the unified opposition of so-called ultra-orthodox, or Haredi Jewry, has stuck out like a sore thumb. Why have Haredim been so upset?

While Jewish religious life before World War II is illustrated at the museum, the testimony of haredi survivors is largely missing.

According to some experts, between 50%-70% of those murdered by the Nazis, were “traditionally religious Jews.” There is no reason to assume the percentage of survivors who were religious was any less. But in the rooms of Yad Vashem only one of the 50-60 video monitors playing taped testimonies of Holocaust survivors shows a Haredi Jew. By choosing to record and display taped testimonies of mostly secular Jews, Yad Vashem is giving a distorted picture of the religious affiliations of the survivors. This gives the false impression that few ultra-orthodox Jews survived the Shoah.

The spiritual heroism of the Holocaust is almost completely overlooked. The abundant examples of incredible courage to study Torah and perform mitzvot despite unspeakable suffering and incredible hardships are relegated to footnote status and all but eliminated from the museum. The clandestine yeshivot and Torah study groups in the ghettos, the lighting of candles on Channuka, the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashana and the daily donning of tefillin in the concentration camps – all under the penalty of death – are not mentioned at all.

The massive rescue work of Haredi Jewry has effectively been purged from the historical record of the Holocaust as presented by Yad Vashem. Rabbi Michoel Ber Weissmandl, for example, and the heroic efforts of his Working Group, are impugned and dishonored. Instead of crediting them with successfully delaying the transports from Czechoslovakia by bribing and outsmarting the Nazis, the paragraph written about them makes it sound as if they were the ones who had been duped.

Yad Vashem’s responses to queries on this subject have been disappointing. At one meeting, the Yad Vashem representative requested that the discussion be kept “off the record.” The institution’s written responses to published critiques have attempted to obfuscate the issue. The spokesperson cited, for example, the online services available to the Haredi community. They also pointed to the special Orthodox division of their tour guide training school and they emphasized how many Orthodox students make use of Yad Vashem archives for research purposes.

Yad Vashem’s underlying motives for all of this are open to speculation. Some Herdim believe that Yad Vashem feels that dealing more favorably with ultra-Orthodox Jews is antithetical to their secular, Zionist agenda. Others see this as a reflection of the anti-Haredi bias of some segments of secular Israeli society. And still others suspect that Yad Vashem simply suffers from the, “We know best,” mentality, so prevalent today in Jewish establishment circles.

However, there have been a few improvements made to the new Museum wing. For example, the immodest pictures of victims which were originally on display when the museum opened have since been removed. In addition, while the new building opened with no videotaped testimonies from any Haredi survivors, now there is one.

Unfortunately, these changes fall far short of what is needed. As the premier Holocaust museum under Jewish auspices, Yad Vashem dishonors the memory of the six million by continuing to present a distorted and incomplete record of the Shoah. No, not all those who perished in or survived the Shoah were Haredim. But many more Haredim did survive than the 2% represented by the one videotaped testimony currently on display.

In spite of the extremely rare but highly publicized Haredi use of Holocaust imagery against the State, the overwhelming majority of Haredim today take Shoah remembrance seriously. Yad Vashem, however, is seen by many as irrelevant. As a result, Haredim have authored their own Holocaust history books, developed their own curricula to teach it to their children and are building their own museums to memorialize the martyrs.

If many ultra-Orthodox Jews see Yad Vashem as irrelevant, why are some so outspoken in their criticism of the new Holocaust History Museum? Millions of visitors, both Jew and non-Jew, stream through Yad Vashem each year. The vast majority of them would never visit a Holocaust museum under Haredi auspices. Yad Vashem needs, therefore, to make further corrections to the new building for those visitors. And world Jewry must insist on it.
Yom HaShoah observances are designed to memorialize the martyrs. Nothing would honor their memory more, however, than being remembered as they would have wanted. We cannot save a single life that was lost in the Holocaust. We can, however, protest the distortions at Yad Vashem that dishonor the memory of religious victims because they can no longer do that for themselves.

Dr. Meir Wikler is a Brooklyn based psychotherapist, author and lecturer.

Meir Wikler is dishonest. He’s also a fool.

As I noted in May of last year in response to an ‘interview’ of Wikler in The Jewish Week [the quotes are from that ‘interview’ but are similar to what he wrote now above]:

1. “At least half, if not more, of all survivors were haredi.” This is complete hogwash. At the dawn of WW2, 2/3 of Warsaw’s Jews were  secular. The number of secular Jews was even higher in Paris, Amsterdam  and Denmark. And most of Budapest’s Jews were secular, as well. Even  smaller cities like Munkatch had large secular populations. And all  these areas had large populations of what we would call Modern Orthodox  or Zionist Orthodox Jews, as well. The vast majority of Europe’s Jews in  1939 were secular or non-haredi Orthodox. There are to my knowledge no  studies, no academic research, and no evidence to back up Wikler’s  claim. But there is much evidence against Wikler. Satmar, Bobov,  Klausenberg, Chabad and other American hasidic groups were broken by the  Holocaust. Most of the people who today call themselves hasidim are  descended from people who were secular or non-haredi-Orthodox after the  Holocaust, but who were recruited by hasidic leaders, many of whom had  difficulty getting a quorum for prayer in 1946.

2. “The description of Harav [Rabbi] Michoel Dov Weissmandel,  of blessed memory, [who led an effort to save Jews from the Holocaust]  depicts him as having been naïve and duped by the Nazis. The truth is  just the opposite. He was a brilliant rabbinic leader who outwitted the  Nazis at every turn.” All available evidence shows Rabbi  Weissmandl – the Slovakian rabbi who was courageous and tireless as he  tried to save Jews from the Nazis – was, in fact, duped by the Nazis and  achieved little. The only way to interpret the evidence differently  (besides lying, of course) is to say that the Allies would have allowed  American and Palestinian Jews to give the Germans tens of thousands of  trucks and other war supplies in exchange for Jews in the middle of war  they were fighting against those Germans

3. “There are videotaped testimonies of only two haredi  survivors in the New  Wing of the museum. Compared with the 50 or 60  testimonies of  non-haredi survivors, it gives the mistaken impression  that hardly any  haredi Jews survived, and by extension, that haredi  Judaism did not  survive the Holocaust.” I’ve known dozens of  Holocaust survivors on three continents. They include parents of  friends, Jewish communal leaders, Holocaust educators, simple Jews, and  even a Nazi hunter. Only one or two could be honestly described as being  haredi after the war. Before the war that number would be four or five,  at best. What Wikler does is define haredi in terms so broad the word  no longer has meaning. Therefore anyone with a onetime connection to the  haredi community, no matter how tenuous it may be – even if that  ‘connection’ comes from grandparent’s affiliation only, or even if that  ‘affiliation’ comes from Wikler defining non-haredi Orthodoxy as haredi  for the purpose of his argument – is defined by Wikler as haredi. That  pumps up his numbers and allows him to  lambaste Yad Vashem for, in  effect, following the normative definition of the word and then acting  on it. On top of Wikler’s behavior, there is the overall behavior of the  haredi community that did survive the war. Their leaders generally  refused to cooperate with Yad Vashem, which means haredim are  underrepresented there – but not to the degree Wikler claims. The fault  is not Yad Vashem’s – it is Yoel Teitelbaum’s and the other haredi  leaders who refused to cooperate with it.

4. It isn’t just that haredim do not commemorate Yom HaShoah. For  years, they did things that flew in the face of it, just as for years  haredim refused to stand still and be silent for the one minute of  silence observed for Israel’s fallen soldiers.

Past all this, Wikler ignores key facts that surely influenced and continue to influence Yad Vashem:

A. Haredim propagated and continue to propagate the most base and  bizarre conspiracy theories to ‘prove’ Zionists collaborated with the  Nazis and to delegitimize Israel. The ‘facts’ these conspiracy theories  are based on are largely false, and the little that is true is taken out  of context. They do this because the existence and success of the State  of Israel is an existential threat to the validity of their theology.

B. Any fair representation of haredi behavior during the Holocaust  must include the behavior of hasidic rebbes who ordered their flocks to  stay in Europe and then fled, leaving their followers to die horrible  deaths. The Satmar Rebbe did this. So did the Belzer Rebbe and his  brother. So did the Lubavitcher Rebbe.  And then there was Rabbi Elchanon Wasserman, a non-hasidic haredi  leader who forbade his followers from fleeing Europe, even telling  students not to accept offers to study at Yeshiva University in New  York. Wasserman hated YU because it was Zionist and because it was  Modern Orthodox. On a visit to New York, Wasserman himself turned down a  teaching position there and went back to Lithuania. He and many of his  students were killed by the Nazis shortly after.

C. There were rabbis – some haredi, some hasidic, some Modern or  Zionist Orthodox – who refused to leave their followers and accompanied  them to the killing fields and death camps. Most of them who survived  came out of that hell as Zionist or Zionist leaning.

D. Scholars who study the haredi reaction to the Holocaust –  including at least one haredi academic, Esther Farbstein – note that  haredi rabbis’ strong opposition to Zionism before the war, coupled with  Israel’s subsequent success and the poor behavior of the rabbis noted  in section B above, largely account for the haredi community’s rejection  of Holocaust studies and Holocaust memorials and its ambivalent and  sometimes hostile relationship with Yad Vashem. And, as I noted in  section A above, it is this cognitive dissonance that is the foundation  for the bizarre anti-Israel and anti-Zionist conspiracy theories common  in haredi communities.

Wikler lies with appalling regularity.

The sad thing is that haredi leadership and the haredi rank and file don’t even care.

Update 12:22 pm CDT – Here’s Yad Vashem’s response to Wikler’s lies:

Yad Vashem responds: We do pay tribute to Holocaust’s ultra-Orthodox victims Meir Wikler’s op-ed that the museum is biased toward the secular Jews who perished in the Holocaust is full of misinformation, writes Yad Vashem spokeswoman. By Iris Rosenberg • Ha’aretz

Meir Wikler’s latest article on what he perceives as bias against Haredim at Yad Vashem is replete with misinformation.

For example, Wikler says there is only one testimony of a Haredi survivor in the Holocaust History Museum; this is not true. He claims that blowing the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, donning tefillin, lighting candles on Hannukah “are not mentioned at all”. Again, this is false.

Rabbi Weissmandl and the Working Group’s efforts, under impossible circumstances, to rescue Jews are respected by Yad Vashem and all the guides trained here. It’s unfortunate that Wikler chooses to see insults and slights where none exist.

To state that “spiritual heroism of the Holocaust is almost completely overlooked” is wrong and misleading, demonstrating a perception unrelated to reality. Yad Vashem seeks to meaningfully impart the story of the Shoah in all its complexity and variety with a special emphasis on spiritual heroism. The activities of Yad Vashem – its museums, exhibitions, online material (viewed by over 12 million people last year), educational approaches, publications, and more – prove the contrary.

Wikler says that Haredim have authored their own Holocaust history books, developed curricula and teach their children. Indeed, for nearly a decade, an ultra-Orthodox department in Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies has been working closely with Haredi educators and leaders to prepare educational material such as the multi-volume textbooks Years Wherein We Have Seen Evil in Hebrew and English and seminars – at Yad Vashem and elsewhere – serving Haredi educators and students throughout Israel.

Sincere dialogue between Yad Vashem and the leadership of Haredi Jewry and their representatives over the years has resulted in productive educational activity with the Bais Yaacov and other Haredi educational systems, and many Haredim participate in seminars at Yad Vashem, in genuine partnerships with Agudath Israel of America and the Belz community in Israel, to name just a few.

To claim, as his headline does, that “Yad Vashem honors only Holocaust’s secular victims” is outrageous and can only be a result of an unfounded bias.

I invite Haaretz readers to join the hundreds of thousands of people, including Haredim and other Jews and non-Jews of all backgrounds, who visit the Holocaust History Museum, and other sites at Yad Vashem, and experience it for themselves.

Iris Rosenberg is the Spokesperson at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem.

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Violent Jewish Religionists | US Issues Travel Warning

US Issues Travel Warning About Haredi Violence

Concerned by violence against women and children by so-called extremist haredim in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh, the United States Department of State has issued a travel advisory for US citizens traveling to Israel recommending dressing in “modest” attire and not driving through or adjacent to haredi neighborhoods on Shabbat. “Most roads into ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhoods are blocked off on  Friday nights, Saturdays, and Jewish holidays. Assaults on secular  visitors, either for being in cars or for being ‘immodestly dressed’  have occurred in these neighborhoods,” the US Consulate in Jerusalem wrote.

Haredim throwing stones at police in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel

US warns tourists against ‘immodest attire’ in Jerusalem Concerns over recent haredi extremism in Israel’s capital prompt US consulate to publish Jerusalem travel recommendations for American tourists Itamar Eichner • Ynet

The US State Department is concerned over recent violence exhibited by extremists in Israel’s haredi community and has published a travel recommendation for tourists: Do not walk around dressed immodestly in haredi neighborhoods for fear that extremists would assault you in the street.

The travel recommendations which were updated by the US State Department two weeks ago with the recent phenomenon of women’s exclusion and haredi violence in mind, calls on American tourists to dress appropriately when visiting religious sites in the Old City and in haredi neighborhoods and to avoid driving through those neighborhoods during the Sabbath.

“Most roads into ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhoods are blocked off on Friday nights, Saturdays, and Jewish holidays. Assaults on secular visitors, either for being in cars or for being ‘immodestly dressed’ have occurred in these neighborhoods,” the consulate said.

The travel recommendation follows on the heels of statements made by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who, speaking at the Saban Conference two months ago, expressed her shock that some busses in Jerusalem allocated separate seating areas for women.

“It’s reminiscent of Rosa Parks,” she said, referring to the black American woman who refused to give up her seat to white passengers in the 1950s.
Referring to the decision of some IDF soldiers to leave an event where female soldiers were singing, she said it reminded her of the situation in Iran.

[Hat Tip: Seymour.]

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Jewish ‘Taliban’ On The Rise | Turning Tel Aviv Into ‘Teheran’

The Growing Influence of the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel

By Juliane von Mittelstaedt

Einat Keinan / DER SPIEGEL

Veiled women, radical rabbis and gender segregation: Israel is facing a rise in the influence of ultra-Orthodox Jews. Their efforts to impose a strictly conservative worldview have led to growing tensions with the country’s secular society. A resolution to the conflict is vital for Israel’s future.

Read More:-

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,808252,00.html

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Female Is a “Slut” Says Jewish Religious Fanatic

Female Soldier A “Slut” Who Deserved It, Haredi Man Claims

Doron Matalon, a female soldier who tried to sit at the front of a public bus last week and who would not move to the back when Shlomo Fuchs told her to, deserved it, Fuchs reportedly said today. “She stood amidst the ultra-Orthodox men,” Fuchs said. “It’s the most  basic concept: A woman should not stand amidst men, just like no woman  would go into a man’s bathroom. So I called her a slut.”

Updated at 1:58 pm CST

Shut Your Mouth And Move To The Back You Uppity Little Woman

Via:- Shmarya Rosenberg

For many haredim, a woman’s place may not be exclusively in the kitchen and the bedroom, but it certainly isn’t at the front of a public bus – especially if she dares to open her mouth to defend another woman being harassed by a haredi male.

Shlomo Fuchs, a haredi man arrested last week for harassing Doron Matalon, a female soldier who tried to sit at the front of one such bus and who would not move to the back when Fuchs asked her to, now says Matalon deserved to be harassed because she intervened in argument Fuchs was having with another woman, Fuchs told Ynet today.

And even if he she hadn’t done that, according to Fuchs she deserved to be harassed anyway because she acted like a “slut.”

“She stood amidst the ultra-Orthodox men,” Fuchs said. “It’s the most basic concenpt: A woman should not stand amidst men, just like no woman would go into a man’s bathroom. So I called her a slut.”

Fuchs, who claims he only saw Matalon’s head but not the rest of her body, described the incident this way:

…He was traveling from his home in the Neve Yaakov neighborhood [of Jerusalem] to a yeshiva in [the Jerusalem haredi neighborhood of] Mea Shearim last Tuesday when “some Russian woman stood by the men’s seats at the front of the bus.”
“I told her: ‘Lady, you don’t have to present a ticket if you have a monthly pass.’ She said, ‘Thank you very much, sir.’ Suddenly I heard someone from the center of the bus saying, ‘She’ll stand wherever she pleases.’ So I answered ‘What business is it of yours?’ I couldn’t see who was speaking, because the bus was full. I only heard her voice. I didn’t see it was a soldier. I could only make out her head, and I yelled ‘slut.'”
At this point, Fuchs claimed, Matalon said “Look at you; parasite; parasites, taking money from the State. I protect you.”
“She protects me? I sit at shul from eight in the morning till midnight and study, and she’s protecting me? I protect her,” the ultra-Orthodox man told Ynet. “I understood who I was dealing with, so I went back to studying for my test and things calmed down.”
However, Fuchs said, Matalon continued to argue. According to him, she said “these haredim do what they want. We will bring an end to it. Take him to the police.”
Fuchs claimed he was not aware of the significance of the word “slut” in the secular world. “I am completely detached from the (secular world). I don’t own a television set and I never have newspapers in the house. People laughed at me because I don’t have any idea what women’s exclusion is and don’t know what happened in Beit Shemesh,” he said.
“I do not forgive (Matalon). She cannot give me the hours of studying that I lost; she cannot take away the fear that I have when I go out to the street. She shamed us all and made us out to be criminals,” Fuchs said.
He claimed Israel Police had deliberately assigned female investigators to handle his case. “I always thought police were supposed to protect me, but I will never forgive them for the nightmare they made me go through. Yes, they harassed me only because I am haredi,” Fuchs said. “This is a blood libel.”
Asked about the controversial Holocaust display at a recent ultra-Orthodox rally in the capital, Fuchs said, “I sympathize with these feelings of persecution. They tried to present me as though I were the worst criminal in the world, and from this perspective it is just like the goyim treated the Jews for generations.
“Let me live in peace. I too sang “Hatikva” (national anthem) once. I want to be free in our land. Leave me be.”

Ynet also reports that two female passengers on the bus, almost certainly haredi, claim Matalon was not the female soldier involved in the incident because the soldier involved “does not fit Matalon’s description.”

[Hat Tip for the video: Shish.]

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Jewish human rights group condemns mosque burnings

“The Jewish State has a sterling record of providing an environment in which people of all religions can worship freely and in safety. Whoever is responsible for this recent vandalism, attacks also that core principle. The houses of worship of every religion should be considered sacrosanct.”

“We condemn the mosque burnings that have taken place in recent days and urge the authorities to use all resources to find those responsible,” said Frank Dimant, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada.

TORONTO, – B’nai Brith Canada has condemned the recent mosque burnings in Jerusalem and the West Bank and called on the Israeli Government to ensure that the perpetrators are apprehended.

Israel is in the midst of a culture war

The right has been in power for a long time now, and now, in its 35th year in government, in the 64th year of the state, it has turned to the task of reshaping the country’s character and faces almost no opposition.

By Gideon LevyTags: KnessetIsraeli ArabsHaredimJerusalem

Anyone who says this is a matter of a few inconsequential laws is leading others astray; anyone who claims a reversible procedure is being deceptive; anyone who states reassuringly that this is a passing phase is trying to put one over. Even the person who thinks it’s just an attempt at regime change is under a delusion. What we are witnessing is w-a-r.

This fall a culture war, no less, broke out in Israel, and it is being waged on many more, and deeper, fronts than are apparent. It is not only the government, as important as that is, that hangs in the balance, but also the very character of the state. Our way of life is about to change, from cradle to grave. For this reason, it could be the most pivotal battle in the country’s history since the War of Independence.

We always knew that a few years without an external threat could strain the delicate seams: When the guns go silent, the demons roar. But no one predicted such an outburst of demons of every kind, all at once. The assault on the existing order is an all-out war, on every front; a political tsunami, a cultural flood and a social and religious earthquake, all still in their infancy. Those who call this an exaggeration are trying to lull you to sleep. The defeats and the victories up to now will determine the course of events: In the end, we will have a different country. The pretension of being an enlightened Western democracy is giving way, with terrifying speed, to a different reality – that of a benighted, racist, religious, ultranationalist, fundamentalist Middle Eastern country. That is not the kind of integration into the region we had hoped for.

The ferocious combined assault is highly effective. It targets women, Arabs, leftists, foreigners, the press, the judicial system, human rights organizations and anyone standing in the way of the cultural revolution. From the music we listen to, to the television we watch, from the buses we ride to the funerals we attend , everything is about to change. The army is changing, the courts are in turmoil, the status of women is being pelted with rocks, the Arabs are being shoved behind a fence and the labor migrants are being forced into concentration camps. Israel is barricading itself behind more and more walls and barbed-wire fences as if to say, to hell with the world.

There is no single guiding hand mixing this boiling, poisonous potion; many hands stir the revolution, but they all have something in common: the aspiration to a different Israel, one that is not Western, not open, not free and not secular. The extreme nationalist hand passes the antidemocratic, neofascist laws; the Haredi hand undermines gender equality and personal freedoms; the racist hand acts against the non-Jews; the settler hand intensifies the hold not only on the occupied territories but also deep into Israel; and another hand interferes in education, culture and the arts.

You can’t see the forest for the trees, and the forest is dark and deep. Take, for example, Friday’s paper. The news pages of Haaretz reported on a few such rotten trees: the managers of dozens of businesses in Sderot have begun requiring their workers to dress modestly; in Mea She’arim, the polling places are gender-segregated; nonobservant Jews in Jerusalem have been asked to wear a kippa at work; Carmiel’s Palmach School has been turned into a religious school; discrimination against Sephardic girls at schools in Jerusalem, Modi’in Ilit, Betar Ilit and Bnei Brak; withdrawal from a physicians’ training program for Palestinians as a condition for tax relief; the government’s new plan to fight illegal immigration. And one final touch: The foreign minister gave his imprimatur to the Putinist election in Russia. All in a single day, one ordinary day.

In 1948 the state was established, and in 2011 a war is being waged for its never-crystallized character. In between these two years, the state has been rocked by waves of immigration, by different governments and by contradictory trends, and throughout loomed the threat of war and other external dangers. Various islands formed, some of them beautiful, and sometimes it seemed as if an open, enlightened country was taking root. Now that belief is on the verge of being shattered. The right has been in power for a long time now, but it lacked the self-confidence to launch this crucial assault. But now, in its 35th year in government, in the 64th year of the state, it has turned to the task of reshaping the country’s character and faces almost no opposition.

We’ll meet again in a few years, in that other Israel, that will be different and distorted beyond recognition.

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