petition: Demand That Christian Evangelicals/Missionaries Leave Israel!

petition: Demand That Christian Evangelicals/Missionaries Leave Israel!:



'via Blog this'

The War For Halachic Judaism

Disclaimer: I don’t like labels as it pertains to Torah identity. I don’t love the term “orthodox Jew”, modern-orthodox, etc. Personally, I would prefer the term halachic Jew, but some of the most aggressive religious innovators insist that they are acting in an halachic manner. On the other hand, I have zero patience for those who nit-pick with ridiculous semantics. In this article I use the term orthodox Jew, because sometimes terms become deep-rooted in a communal identity, and the desire to shake the root free is both wasteful, unnecessary, and sometimes counter-productive. I use the term when referring to religious rabbis who believe in the absolute Divine nature of Torah, and the mass revelation at Sinai.

Once upon a time, there were giants of Torah. Men with wisdom to combat the modern idols of secularization. Men who defended the integrity of the Jewish synagogue and the Jewish family from goyish modernization. Men who spoke with deep wisdom in defense of the deepest truths. Men who understood that modern definitions of feminism, woman’s rights, and similar minded ideologies spoke more of the faulty psychology of their respective advocates, than of any new-age modern revelation designed to liberate women from being women. Once upon a time, great men of Torah fought for yahadut.

Today, there are few if any prominent vocal voices. And so, whenever the new radical voices in the Torah community (who speak in the name of Torah) speak violence to the system, there is deafening silence. On issues that should transcend all labels and factions, and appeal to everyone concerned with protecting Halachah, one hears the void.

Ironically, some of the most blatant outrages occur in Israel, where unbridled Jewish messianic fervor renders many Jews vulnerable to aberrant belief systems. Consider the spectacle of orthodox rabbis giving a kosher seal to evangelicals and missionaries in Israel because of a distorted notion of achalta de'geula. Consider how one prominent Rabbi in the heartland of liberated Samaria opened up his community to evangelicals in order to benefit from their free labor. Today, these evangelicals have transitioned from living in tents to dwelling in cottages.

Consider that Tommy Waller, the leader of these evangelicals from the volunteer group "Hayovel", once infamously admitted in a promotional video that such opportunities will give him a chance to missionize (video):

"As we're working with these people, we'll be able to share with them this...this Jesus that we know." 

Further on in the video, a family member elaborated:

"Our family has begun a ministry called Hayovel. The vision of Hayovel is to develop a network of individual, families, and congregations who are ready to labor side by side with the people of Israel. To bless them, to stand with them, to share with them a passion for the soon coming jubilee in yeshua messiah. We extend the invitation to you, to join us."

Interfaith-Dialogue

And what of the growing number of religious rabbis who swim in the dangerous waters of interfaith dialogue? Perhaps most outrageous of all is that easily the most prominent individual involved in this lunacy repeatedly treads upon his deceased Rabbi’s famous stringent halachic ruling which prohibited such actions. (See Rav Soloveitchik's famous essay "Confrontation" and follow-up Addendum.)

On a more general level, how is orthodoxy supposed to cope with the following?

• Rabbis with kipot and beards who reflect on a morality independent of Halacha? Rabbis whose readings of Torah verse and Talmud require a torturous misreading of the written and articulated meanings? 
• Rabbis whose usage and defense (if only for application regarding what they believe to be “antiquated” injunctions, and not every day Halacha) of this tactic remind me of the perverse attempts of “Jewish Renewal”. 
• Religious Rabbis whose interpretations of of Divine injunctions mirror the tactics of maskilim new and old. Rabbis who see metaphor in the biblical injunction to destroy Amalek and the 7 Nations of Canaan.
• Rabbis who believe in a “new Halacha”. Rabbis who opine that Rambam and others spoke for their age alone.
• Religious Rabbis who advocate for homosexual marriage. 
• Rabbis for Hillary Clinton and her leftist anti-Torah positions. 
• Rabbis who engage in biblical criticism. 
• Rabbis who wish to free Spinoza from his well-earned excommunication.
• Rabbis for "open-orthodoxy" and the ordination of women.
• Rabbis whose well-intended but misguided notions will surely lead the next generations on the path to a new reform movement.

I worry about the future of Judaism. Not for its ultimate survival, since our tradition is stronger than any threat we face. But the war will come at a cost. The cost of souls lost to heresies new and old. Once upon a time, giants of Torah fought for truth against the reformation of Torah. Today the Torah community is as weak as ever. Not in terms of over-all Torah study. In that context, there is more Torah study today than ever before. But with the rise of social media, and the new movements pandering to all sorts of foolishness, Torah Jewry is intellectually susceptible. We lack sophisticated courageous Torah leadership to stand up for unpopular truth.  Even the RCA has shown an inability to reign in radical thought. How long did it take for them to take a stand against the growing clamor of the new “orthodox” to ordain woman?

The great men are gone. The classic men of past generations who fought critical battles for the preservation of Torah. Today’s religious rabbis shirk their duty to protect their flocks. Worse yet, many lead their flocks astray.

Factionalism render’s certain camps relatively insulated from some of these heretical voices. For the time, at least. One attraction of these new voices which will appeal to the disaffected of every community, is that some of these new prophets raise valid points about institutionalized rabbinical abuses which represent a chillul Hashem. These real issues act a springboard to hoist radical ideas. The fact that a stopped clock tells accurate time twice a day does nothing to change its general status as a broken instrument. 

Yet the willingness to admit abuse speaks of a candor which people find impressive. The answers are usually less impressive, and are usually more grounded in feelings than Jewish law. But one cannot ignore the real issues, and the attraction of those who address them. One must find better solutions reflecting Torah positions. “Orthodoxy” doesn’t need to change, despite the popular insistence that it must. Corruption is by definition contrary to Torah. If it is corrupt, then it cannot be orthodox despite the identification as such by the corrupt. We need to aggressively return to the truths of Torah.

Where are the giants who fought for halachic integrity? These great men are gone. Today we have silent men. Fearful men. People afraid to confront those who seek to ordain female rabbis in the name of orthodoxy, and those who would rather create a new Halacha to free chained women, rather than call for Jewish men to break open the heads of recalcitrant men. Today, we have Rabbis who in the name of compassion, will create leniency where none can be found, and in turn, will create mamzerim. The greatest and most sensitive poskim of the past, were sometimes hamstrung by halachic reality. They understood that non-halachic compassion will destroy the Jewish people.

In the name of political correctness, some may opine that the Rambam’s words were for his age alone, and that the Nesher could never have imagined a Jewish state in a modern age. My understanding of the Rambam is that he foresaw much more than his modern day detractors ever could. Unlike others, he wrote about biblical wars precisely because he understood that the process of redemption will occur, and war will be necessary. 

In the name of religious tolerance, many distort the Meiri in a way that he could never have imagined, as a source for all sorts of prohibited activities. The Meiri never could have fathomed a prominent religious America rabbi in America entering a national church for Obama’s initial swearing in ceremony. No one puts a gun or a sword to a Rabbi's head in America, and yet he entered  a forbidden place of his own volition.

Political correctness has infiltrated orthodoxy, and many of her supposed proponents are becoming increasingly susceptible to liberal sensibilities. Now is a time for intellectual zealousness for Hashem. Men of Torah need to face the new heresies and radical innovations, and intellectually combat the religious proponents of these foreign notions. 

An orthodox Judaism which fails to heed today’s call, will suffer in the coming years. The impact will affect even the most insulated communities. 

One day, the orthodox will awaken from their slumber and cry out for action. What will they do? They will create conferences to deal with the new “crises”. But by then, the bleeding will be copious.

Friendly Foes: The Subtle Missionary

In our war with the Arabs, the Jewish Achilles heel is personified by the neurotic need for gentile friends, and the desire to create such friends where there are none. In a world where too many Jews ignore the timeless truism, “Esau hates Jacob” we should ask ourselves the following: Who are our true gentile friends? Perhaps a better question would be: can Jews truly have friends whose views are contrary to Torah and the ideal values of a Jewish Israel? All too often, Jew label others as friends, even when these same groups have ulterior motives. Here are a few of my thoughts on such friendships and how to discern the validity of a friendship.

#1: True friends don’t have agendas. That’s the litmus test to determine if one has a true friend. True friends gain and benefit from the friendship itself, and require nothing in return. The friendship isn’t a forum for their own causes and agendas, or a platform to define their vision for Israel on our behalf. Nor is it a vehicle to profit and fund-raise for themselves. If a supposed friend is creating a false association to perpetuate an agenda, he may not be a friend. Not every person has the most nefarious motives. Oftentimes self-interest alone defines the supposed friend. An important note. A true friend has no interest in molding you, patronizing you, or defining you.

#2: Friends don’t have ulterior motives. Certainly not theological ones. The Jew has few if any real gentile friends in the world. I say few because there are gentiles who support Israel without dark motives. Yet the evangelical is not one of them, despite the millions of dollars pouring into Israel, and the sea of Christian pilgrims happy to take a dip in the Yardenit. The definition of evangelism precludes this possibility. One who desires to see Jews embrace Jesus can never be a friend. The Jew in Israel thinks he has a friend in the evangelical. The evangelical would not give a shekel (or a half shekel!) to Israel if his shekel didn’t earn him entrance. The millions thrown at Israel come with a heavy price. A foothold in the land. Without the latter, they would abandon Israel for other targets. If Israel’s missionary laws had any teeth, the evangelicals would love us from afar.

#3: True friends don’t associate with missionaries. Friends don’t align with those who openly declare their intent to convert Jews. And friends don’t ignore a telling honest website because of a smiling face, and the pastor’s ability to discuss the NBA, or a shared appreciation for American conservative values. The first and second degrees of separation are telling enough. “Woe to the wicked, woe to his neighbor.” Associations define us. If your parve evangelical friend has ties to missionaries, it means you didn’t heed Rule #2.

This should be obvious to any self-respecting person, but the lure of cash and benefits is enticing for many Jews. True friends aren’t interested in land deals or real estate in Israel. True friends don’t desire Israeli citizenship or long-term visas. Certainly, they have no interest in building missionary centers in Jerusalem. Those Jews who think evangelicals are our friends betray their ignorance of what it means to be evangelical.

The most dangerous missionaries in Israel today are not the coarse street missionaries (dangerous as they are) whose aggressive tactics are apparent. The clever ones are far more dangerous because they have a foothold and respectability. They are in our communities. They are even in our vineyards praising “The Father.” Torah Jews need to open their eyes. Stop fixating solely on the lightning rod of “Jews for Jesus.” The subtle ones are more dangerous.

We have enough problems in Israel with a skewed law of return, and the complicated problem of proper conversions. Our missionary laws are toothless, and yet they are the only tools to stop the predators. The spiritual dangers facing Am Yisrael threaten our spiritual integrity, and ultimately our physical survival as a Divine consequence, as surely as the Arab Amalekites who want to slaughter us.

The evangelicals have gotten Rabbis to declare that their presence is a sign of prophetic fulfillment. Social Media is inundated with more than a few Jews defending “Christian Zionists” and accusing those of us who oppose them as hateful, liars. The evangelical has learned that he can get away with murder if he tempers his word and his exuberance, and is quick to remove the occasional problematic video that an overzealous pilgrim posted. If he learns to constantly change the lingo for more parve semantics, he can go very far. Don’t say Jesus. Say “the Father”. Don’t talk about the new covenant. Say “Restoration".

The evidence is all around us in Israel, in every park with a CUFI plaque, and every interfaith-conference and prayer service comprised of Christian and Jew. Today, there are evangelicals living in Israel in a prominent Torah community, all with the collusion of religious Jews & rabbis. The few Jews who opposed them were cast out of the community. The hope of 2000 years? This is a veritable nightmare.

And the repercussions of these harmful unions are not monolithic. Those of us who are privy to the problem recognize that the infection will spread in unforeseeable ways. The day will come when Israel gives hundreds and perhaps thousands of evangelicals’ honorary citizenship as righteous gentiles. Jews will shake their heads and kvetch when the issue becomes a problem. They will say “you cannot do anything today; they should have done something then”. Today is tomorrow’s “then”. 

There is still time to rectify the mistakes. However, we need to get aggressive in exposing this multifaceted threat. As long as Likud leadership cozies up to evangelical money, then we have no recourse via the government. And as long as kipah wearing Jews shill for these predators, and Rabbis are blinded by a modern form of false messianism, things will only get worse.

The Heartland of Israel is riddled with missionaries who want Israel to retain every inch of our liberated land for a theological agenda. Jews who turns to Esau to fight Ishmael, has simply exchanged the armed crusader for the olive branch of evangelism. This is no victory.

I’ve heard more than a few of these Jewish enablers denying the danger of these groups, and assuring the public that neither they nor these groups have any association with missionaries. A proper search of the web reveals that these same individuals have on many occasion been caught on camera with overt missionaries. And their “parve” friends aren’t shy either when it comes to associating with the crudest missionaries. These self-appointed Jewish leaders recognize no boundaries. In truth, they are a byproduct of the collective rabbinic silence and reticence to discuss what they often bemoan in private.

In truth, the Jew has few genuine friends who come in the name of religion. The Bnai Noach represent the lone gentile community that can genuinely call himself a friend, since they desire the sanctification of Hashem’s name in the framework of the Torah. Of course, gentiles identified as Bnai Noach are hard to find, small in number, and they aren’t as well financed.

Choosing the hand of Esau to defeat the sword of Ishmael is suicide. The scourge of missionizing both classical and clever, and Heaven forbid the eventual likelihood of Jewish apostasy, idolatrous admixtures, deceptive conversions, and even Christian Jewish unions resulting from such poison alliances, will ensure Divine punishment. In the war with Amalek, we don’t arm ourselves with idolatry.

If we ignore the problem, and Jews today are ignoring the problem, our children and grandchildren will pay the price. And it will be a heavy price for the Jewish people. If we learn anything from the zealous Maccabees, it is that we Jews never traded Jewish blood for the Jewish soul. We fight for the latter with our dying breathe.

#withfriendssuchasthese

The New Peace Movements

My reflections on a pernicious movement coming from the camps of Jewish indigenous rights activists.
Download File

We Are Jewish, Not Jebusite.

A reminder for those who may have forgotten. Or for those who never knew. A few general ruminations to identify the self-serving hasbara snake-oil salesmen.

Blogging about "Jewish indigenous rights" is the domain of today's career social media jackass, both jewish and gentile. An expression of Irrelevant, irritating braying, which detracts from logical discussions Jews should be having, and creates false proofs for our Jewish reason for being. One who has zero knowledge of Torah or Jewish history should stick with issues he understands. One who does not, should shut his mouth and mind his own damn business. Seriously. HIS business, is not OUR business.

One example of this perversity is the chutzpadik tendency of outsiders to tell good dedicated Jews how they need to "find their true identity". These ugly people denigrate the long rich history of Ashkenazic Jewry which perpetuated some of the most vital, creative expressions of Judaism throughout our continuing exile, and enriched Judaism with a universe of Torah. To the Jewish frauds who run with this diseased way of thinking, I encourage them to study Torah and keep their naked ignorance to themselves. To the outsiders I say: find your own tortured identity (such as it is), and clean up your own dysfunctional house. Start with the withered tree out front, and ask it the critical questions.

There are real issues out there affecting Jews, both in Israel and the diaspora. In Israel, we have many physical and spiritual threats, and we don’t need those who align with missionaries and are anti-Torah to lecture us. Our own repressive government is more concerned with looking decent and appeasing anti-Semites than protecting Jews. While Arabs prey on Jews with knives, guns, stones, and explosives, our "Jewish government" continues the systematic abuse and incarceration of innocent Jews. Even an heroic soldier is punished for doing his job and destroying an Arab terrorist. These are the things that should inspire outrage. Not folk biology and pseudo-history.

In truth, the attempt to make Jews appear more exotic or native by presenting foolish arguments makes no sense to anyone with his head screwed on straight. It is a distracting ploy for hasbara shills to exploit foolish Jews. And it does nothing to help Israel. On the contrary, it merely lowers the collective Jewish I.Q. And we need every brain-cell at our disposal.

G-d gave the land of Israel to B'nai Yisrael. If you like this, or agree with this concept, good for you. Stick with it. If you don't, that's too damn bad. Go start your own indigenous country comprised of the descendants of savages who ate one another, but were displeased (hypocrites!) when the gun crushed their native forms of violence. Or go to a comic book convention and indulge in other fantasies. Or get a decent job and settle down. Find a good woman to love and live with. But mind your own damn business.

#wearenotaztecsnorincasnorcommanches

Reflections on Concerts

After reading about the recent concert in support of our imprisoned hero soldier Azariya, a few thoughts came to mind. 

While it is always commendable when Jews take public measures to highlight injustice against fellow Jews, I want to point out the following. Concerts will not help free this heroic innocent soldier, nor will any "civil" protests, which mean nothing to the government. The system is notorious for crushing all efforts which use the system to bring genuine change.

Nothing short of mass civil obedience will ever make a dent in the government's armor. When society wakes up and rises in unprecedented numbers to take to the streets, only then will we see the possibility for change. I thoroughly disagree with those well-intended people who view the recent concert as a new page in Jewish indignation against government corruption. It is a knee-jerk reaction to something which affected many people. It has happened before and will happen again. 

On a similar note, articles and video posts are not enough to bring about change. No matter how provocative, powerful, or reasoned. They may cause people to think and hopefully to act. They may inspire people. But nothing short of authentic Jewish activism, a societal grassroots effort on the ground, are the real means for rehabilitating the sickness which pervades our government, and our collective Jewish soul. 

A friend of mine agreed with my recent video which addressed the "sick nature" of the governments of Israel, but added that the Nation is also sick because it tolerates the abuse. I agree wholeheartedly. We are a sick and beaten people. My friend and fellow blogger at "Esser Agaroth" uses the psychological term "learned helplessness" to describe what is going on in Israel.

While the morally defective leftist editor of "Walla News", Roy Baharir Perl can call for Arab terrorists to attack a Jewish concert without consequence, Bibi and his cadre of traitors are torturing and imprisoning innocent Jews, and seeking our supposed "Jewish terrorists cells" which exist in their minds alone. If Perl was deemed a right-winger, he would be hanging upside down at this very moment while Shabbak capos pummeled him in his privates and vitals. A normal society would throw this judenrat to the sharks, or better yet, hang him for treason.

The real question remains: How precisely to coordinate and implement the proper framework for causing genuine change in Israel? This is the discussion we need to start having among ourselves. The answer will not be found in the sudden rise of concerts or the respectable efforts of social media activism,which may be important tools in disseminating the message but are insufficient themselves. In truth, this is the ultimate goal of this blog. To graduate to a grassroots movement engaging in more than intellectual ruminations. To become something more. 

Feel free to share your views. but do so with reason and discretion. Don't play into the hands of Israel's Bolshevik "Big Brother".

Chag Sameach. 

Hasbarite Syndrome (Guest Post) by Moshe Schwartz

In this guest post for "The Judean Hammer" Blog, my friend Moshe Schwartz shares his thoughts on the phenomenon he has coined as the "Hasbarite Syndrome". Click the link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/moshe-schwartz/hasbarite-syndrome/10154181330628534 and find out more about this pernicious malady.

Make sure you don't have the symptoms, and that you don't associate or support those who do. At the end of the day, most hasbarites are not interested in Zionist sweet potatoes.