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Dec. 3, 2008

Steven Emerson: Yes, the terrorists are winning

Don Terry: Lifetime, no see

Dec. 2, 2008

Melanie Phillips: The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack

Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Dec. 19, 2006 / 28 Kislev, 5767

Impostors in Chassidic garb

By Jonathan Rosenblum


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Who were those bearded, black hatted men at the Holocaust denial conference?


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | One need not attribute the decision to splash a large photo of a Jew in Chassidic garb kissing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the conference of Holocaust denial in Teheran last week to a desire to cast Torah Jews in a repugnant light. What photo editor could resist such an eye-catching shot?


But I will confess to a certain resentment at feeling forced to disavow a handful of clowns who cannot claim the support of one Torah authority for their actions and who have been spit out by the entire Torah world. The Satmar Chassidic leadership in Brooklyn put it succinctly: "[Those who went to Iran] trampled on the memory of their ancestors and people. They embraced the disciples and followers of their murderers."


As reported by Matthew Wagner in last Thursday's Jerusalem Post, Ha'eda, the official organ of the fiercely anti-Zionist Eda Haharedis, characterized those attending the Teheran conference as a "tiny group of insane people, who are liable to incite hatred against fervently-Orthodox Jews." The paper's editor, Rabbi Shmuel Pappenheim, lambasted them for having ignored the "opinion of the Torah Sages" in pursuit of their distorted anti-Zionist zealotry.


Ahron Cohen of Manchester, England, one of the attendees at the Teheran conference, has been sent a letter informing him of his expulsion from the chevra kadisha (burial society) to which he belonged, and requesting that he not show his face in the vicinity of Machizkei Hadas, the largest fervently-Orthodox shul in Manchester. He has also been told that he is persona non grata in the Satmar beis medrash (study hall) of Manchester. Rav Elchonon (Huna) Halperin, the senior figure in the fervently-Orthodox community of Golders Green in London, has issued similar instructions for his beis medrash.


NOR WAS this stance anything new. More than a quarter-century ago, Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz, the rosh yeshiva of the Mirrer Yeshiva in Jerusalem, ordered Moshe Hirsch, the self-proclaimed "foreign minister" of a tiny splinter sect of Naturei Karta, out of the Mirrer beis medrash. And a joint statement by Satmar and other American Chassidic groups last week noted that these "evil associates of our enemies" were "ejected from our shuls and communities decades ago."


Rabbi Elazar Shach said many times that just as one who denies one mitzva (religious duty) of the Torah is classified as an apikorus , or heretic, so is one who elevates any mitzva (or supposed mitzva) of the Torah above all others. At a 2002 Hamas rally in Washington D.C., a speaker dressed as a Chassid justified violating the Sabbath in front of the assembled on the grounds that destroying Israel supersedes the prohibitions of Sabbath.


But even were this tiny group that turns up at every anti-Israel rally where there are likely to be cameras scrupulous in their observance of Sabbath, their behavior would mark them as imposters posing as religious Jews. Only a Jew driven mad by hatred of Zionism and the state of Israel could ever join hands with the greatest butchers and would-be butchers of Jews in modern times. Documents captured in Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 show Hirsch to have been on the payroll of Yasser Arafat, whom he publicly embraced on many occasions.


Decades ago, Hirsch was chosen to be rabbi (emcee) of the Purim shpiel (satirical pageant in which one undeserving of stature becomes a "sage" for a few hours) in his American yeshiva, and he has been playing the part ever since, long after the joke turned sour. Once aroused, the love of attention, even negative attention, is hard to curb.


"The seal of the Holy One, Blessed be He, is truth," say our sages. Yet those who traveled to Teheran last week willingly and knowingly gave credence to the greatest lie of modern times.

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THE LEADING theological opponents of Zionism never mistook the enemy of their enemy for their friend. Nor did a theological opposition to Zionism ever detract from a concern with the physical well-being and security of the Jews of Israel. Agudath Israel from its inception was non-Zionist. Yet Rabbi Moshe Sherer, the long-time president of Agudath Israel of America, often said that he took a second-seat to no one when it came to the security of Israel.


He repeatedly placed his web of congressional contacts at the service of Israel's leaders. At a June 17,1970 meeting in the Israeli Embassy in Washington, for instance, Rabbi Sherer offered ambassador Yitzhak Rabin "our help in whatever way we could be used."


Even Agudath Israel's general policy against making common cause with non-Orthodox groups gave way when it came to Israel's security. Thus Agudath Israel found a way to participate in a general protest demonstration in front of the UN against the grant of permanent observer status to the PLO.


Passionate concern with every Jewish life has characterized every Torah leader throughout the generations. Those who provided aid and comfort last week to a madman who has repeatedly threatened to wipe Israel and its five million Jewish citizens off the map demonstrated thereby that they have no place in the camp of Torah.

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JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is founder of Jewish Media Resources and a widely-read columnist for the Jerusalem Post's domestic and international editions and for the Hebrew daily Maariv. He is also a respected commentator on Israeli politics, society, culture and the Israeli legal system, who speaks frequently on these topics in the United States, Europe, and Israel. His articles appear regularly in numerous Jewish periodicals in the United States and Israel. Rosenblum is the author of seven biographies of major modern Jewish figures. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Yale Law School. Rosenblum lives in Jerusalem with his wife and eight children.


© 2006, Am Echad Resources