Malgré l’occupation et le racisme israélien, 500 chrétiens se rendent à Béthléem
Un demi-millier de chrétiens (sur les 3 500 parqués dans la bande de Gaza par l’Etat criminel d’Israël) sont parvenus à quitter ce territoire, soumis au blocus par l’entité sioniste, pour se rendre à Bethléem pour fêter Noël et la naissance du Christ.
Manifestations juive anti-chrétienne et anti-musulmanne à Jérusalem
Plusieurs milliers de Juifs ont manifesté hier à Jérusalem pour approuver un manifeste raciste adopté par plus de 400 rabbins appelant à ne pas louer ou vendre des biens à des non-Juifs. Les extrémistes sionistes protestaient également contre de pseudo-projets de concessions territoriales aux Palestiniens.
par Eric Adelofz
S’ajoutant aux vexations et discriminations habituelles à l’encontre des chrétiens (et musulmans) de Palestine, le maire juif d'une banlieue de Nazareth n’a pas hésité à interdire les arbres de Noël sur les places publiques de la commune. Sur les lieux où le Christ a passé une grande partie de sa vie, Shimon Gapso n’a pas hésité à comparer, lui l’occupant agissant aux ordres d’un État criminel, les arbres de Noël à une « provocation ».
« La demande des arabes de mettre des arbres de Noël sur les places dans le quartier arabe de Nazareth Illit est une provocation. Nazareth est juste à côté, et ils peuvent faire ce qu'ils veulent là-bas. Nazareth Illit est une ville juive [sic], et cela n'arrivera pas, ni cette année, ni la prochaine, tant que je serai maire. »
a déclaré le double élu sioniste.
Nazareth-la-Haute jouxte la commune de Nazareth. La première municipalité est aux mains de Juifs, la seconde est dirigée par des musulmans qui, eux, autorisent les arbres de Noël. Dans les deux cités, les chrétiens forment une importante minorité.
« Nous lui avons dit que décorer un arbre, c'était seulement une manière de partager le bonheur et la joie avec les autres habitants de la ville. Les gens ici vivent en harmonie, les juifs, les chrétiens et les musulmans, mais quand le maire fait ça, cela n'arrange pas les choses »
dénonce Shukri Awawdeh, un conseiller municipal arabe et musulman.
Paix sur la terre aux hommes de bonne volonté.
Et pour les autres ?
Le maire d’une banlieue juive de Nazareth a provoqué la colère d’une partie de ses administrés en interdisant aujourd’hui les arbres de Noël sur les places publiques de sa commune, qu’il considère comme “une provocation”.
Nazareth Illit, ou Nazareth la Haute, est adjacente à la ville où, selon la Bible, Jésus a passé la majeure partie de sa vie, dans le nord d’Israël [ndlr : Palestine occupée]. Les deux villes comptent une forte minorités chrétienne, mais Nazareth Illit est à majorité juive et Nazareth à majorité musulmane. (…)
Ces propos n’ont pas plu aux arabes chrétiens de la ville. “Ce racisme qui refuse les arbres n’est rien à côté du racisme réel que nous subissons ici”, a dénoncé Aziz Dahdal, un habitant de 35 ans.
SOURCE : http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2010/12/22/97001-20101222FILWWW00474-nazareth-des-arbres-de-noel-interdits.php
(Michael Collins Piper, The Confessions of an Anti-Semite: The First-Ever Critical Analysis of the Linguistic Legerdemain Underlying the Propaganda Techniques of the New World Order, 2012)
VIDEO - Christmas in Bethlehem
Bethléem se vide de ses chrétiens
Hasidic Judaics are honored by President George W. Bush in the White House in 2008
“Christmas Eve is one of the few occasions when Hasidim refrain from Torah (Talmud) study, do not conduct weddings or go to the mikveh (ritual bath). But they do play chess and work on their bills. On Christmas Eve, known in Jewish circles as Nitel Night, the klipot are in total control. The klipot are parasitical evil forces that attach themselves to the forces of good.
"According to Kabbala, on the night on which ‘that man’ — a Judaic euphemism for Jesus — was born, not even a trace of holiness is present and the klipot exploit every act of holiness for their own purposes.
"For this reason, Nitel Night, from nightfall to midnight, is one of the few occasions when Hasidim refrain from Torah (Talmud) study. On this horrific night, they neither conduct weddings nor do they go to the mikveh. An entire folkloric literature has developed around the unusual recreational activities of Nitel Night. The customs, it should be emphasized, are practiced only by Hasidim...
"The Knesset correspondent of the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Hamodia, Zvi Rosen, relates that celebrated Hasidic admorim (sect leaders) would cut a year’s supply of toilet paper for Sabbath use (to avoid tearing toilet paper on Sabbath) on this night (Christmas Eve).
"Actually, this disrespectful act has profound kabbalistic significance, because Kabbalistic literature extensively discusses Christianity as waste material excreted from the body of the Jewish people....”
The preceding information is excerpted from the book Judaism Discovered: A Study of the Anti-Biblical Religion of Racism, Self-Worship, Superstition and Deceit
L'Antéchrist arrive-t-il?
New Jerusalem tunnel will damage Temple Mount, Palestinians say Despite Israeli claims to the contrary, parts of tunnel pass just meters from the Western Wall.
Un rabbin sioniste appelle à se préparer pour construire le prétendu temple sur les ruines d'Al-Aqsa
El-Qods menacé par des projets militaires israéliens
“Israel” Eyeing Reoccupation of Sinai
L'Unesco déclare AlQods comme capitale d'Israël
http://www.amfirstbooks.com/IntroPages/Book_Preview_Pages/piper-michael_collins/New_Babylon/New_Babylon-12-Chapter_Two.html
CHAPITRE DEUX
L'Utopie Juive:
Le Nouvel Ordre Mondial
par Michael Collins Piper
L'Utopie Juive:
Le Nouvel Ordre Mondial
par Michael Collins Piper
En 1932, Michael Higger, Ph.D., a assemblé un livre remarquable intitulé 'The Jewish Utopia', qu'il dédia à l'Université hébraïque de Jérusalem, décrit par lui comme [le] "symbole de l'utopie juive". L'ouvrage de Higger est un document remarquable que le regretté Robert H. Williams, un écrivain nationaliste américain des années 1950 et 1960, décrivait comme une somme de la philosophie derrière ce que Williams a appelé "l'Ultime Ordre Mondial" - qui n'est autre que le Nouvel Ordre Mondial.
Ce qui est remarquable avec ce livre de Higger est que la copie que Robert H. Williams a découvert le premier pour ensuite le populariser auprès les nationalistes américains, a été trouvé dans la collection Abraham I. Schechter d'ouvrages hébraïques et judaïques de la bibliothèque de l'Université du Texas, offerte par la Kallah des rabbins du Texas. Donc le livre de Higger était pas un simple "document de réflexion" d'un auteur isolé. L'organisation de rabbins du Texas tenait l'œuvre en si haute estime qu'ils ont offert cette copie à la bibliothèque de l'université de l'Etat.
Le livre du Dr Higger était une compilation de ses propres études de ce que Williams a décrit comme "la somme totale des prophéties, des enseignements et des plans et des interprétations des plus éminents rabbins et des chefs tribaux sur une période de près de 2500 ans", depuis l'époque de la loi orale et du début du Talmud de Babylone, dans lequel on retrouve ce que Williams a décrit comme un "double standard entre Juifs et non-Juifs et son interprétation nationaliste, militariste de la Torah" (la Torah étant, bien sûr, les cinq premières livres de l'Ancien Testament - les "cinq livres de Moïse", le Pentateuque).
Les livres parlaient de "justes" et de "non-justes." En fin de compte, selon l'interprétation de Higger de la tradition juive, "le 'non-juste' périra". Higger écrit:
Pour comprendre la conception rabbinique d'un monde idéal, il nous est utile d'imaginer une main balayant d'une terre à l'autre, de pays en pays, de l'Océan Indien jusqu'au pôle Nord, marquant «juste» ou «méchant» sur le front de chacun des 16 cents millions d'habitants de notre globe terrestre.
Nous devrions alors être sur la bonne voie pour résoudre les grands problèmes qui pèsent sur les épaules de l'humanité souffrante. Car l'humanité doit être divisée en deux groupes -- et seulement deux -- distincts et indiscutables, à savoir, les justes et les méchants. Les justes posséderont tout ce que le monde merveilleux de Dieu a à offrir; les méchants ne posséderont rien.
Dans l'avenir, les paroles d'Isaïe, dans la langue des rabbins, seront accomplies: "Voici, mes serviteurs mangeront, mais vous aurez faim. Voici, mes serviteurs boiront, mais vous aurez soif; Voici, mes serviteurs se réjouiront, mais vous aurez honte. "
C'est la force de la prophétie de Malachie, lorsqu'il a dit, "Alors vous discerner à nouveau entre le juste et le méchant, Entre celui qui sert Dieu et celui qui ne le sert pas."
Et il est clair, à travers les écrits de Higger (basés sur son analyse des oeuvres de grands rabbins et chefs spirituels juifs) que les "justes" sont les Juifs et ceux qui choisissent de suivre les Juifs et de devenir leurs serviteurs, et que les "méchants" seront ceux qui sont perçus par les Juifs comme des entraves à leurs intérêts!
Higger cite les mots du Talmud: "C'est un patrimoine pour nous [les Juifs], pas pour eux [c'est-à-dire tous les autres -- tout autre être humain sur la face de toute la planète]."
Higger poursuit en soulignant que sous ce Nouvel Ordre Mondial (qu'il appelle "l'Utopie juive"): "Tous les trésors et les ressources naturelles du monde finiront entre les mains des justes" Ceci, dit-il, serait conforme, avec la prophétie d'Isaïe: «Dans son gain et son salaire doit être la sainteté du Seigneur, il ne doit pas être chéri, ni étalé au grand jour, car son gain sera pour ceux qui se tiennent face au Seigneur, pour manger à leur faim et pour des vêtements majestueux. "
Mais ce n'est pas tout. Les Juifs et leurs mercenaires posséderaient encore plus de richesses d'après l'Utopie juive. Higger a noté que: "De même, les trésors d'or, d'argent, de pierres précieuses, de perles et de navires de grande valeur qui ont été perdus dans les mers et les océans au cours des siècles émergeront et seront remis aux justes..." Higger ajoute:
Dans l'ère présente, les riches méchants ou ordinaire jouissent de nombreux conforts de la vie, tandis que les justes sont pauvres et manquent les joies de la vie. Mais à l'époque idéale, le Seigneur va ouvrir tous les trésors aux justes et les injustes souffrirons. Dieu, le Créateur du monde ... ne sera heureux, pour ainsi dire, que dans l'ère à venir, quand le monde sera régi par les actes et actions des justes.
Voici l'étonnant résumé de tout cela qui nous est présenté par Higger:
En général, les peuples du monde seront divisés en deux groupes principaux: les israélites et les non-israélites. Les premiers seront justes, ils vivront en conformité avec la volonté d'un Dieu universel, ils auront soif de connaissance et de volonté jusqu'au martyre afin de répandre des vérités éthiques au monde. Tous les autres peuples, d'autre part, seront connus pour leurs pratiques détestables: idolâtrie et actes similaires de méchanceté. Ils seront détruits et disparaîtront de la terre avant l'avènement de l'ère idéal.
En bref, il s'agit effectivement d'une discussion sur l'extermination massive de ceux qui s'opposent à l'Utopie juive - le Nouvel Ordre Mondial. Il continue:
Toutes ces nations injustes connaîtront leur jugement avant d'être punis et condamnés. La peine sévère de leur damnation sera prononcée seulement après qu'ils aient eu droit à un procès équitable qu'il soit apparu évident que leur existence empêcherait l'avènement de l'ère idéale.
Ainsi, lors de la venue du Messie, où toutes les nations justes rendront hommage au juste leader idéal et lui offriront des présents, les nations impies et corrompues, en réalisant l'approche de leur malheur, apporteront des présent similaires au Messie. Leurs dons et leur prétendue reconnaissance de la nouvelle ère sera rejetée du revers de la main, car les nations vraiment méchantes, comme les individus vraiment méchants doivent disparaître de la terre avant qu'une société humaine idéale de nations justes puisse être établie.
Et si l'on considère le fait que le concept juif du Messie est souvent définit de telle façon que le peuple juif serait lui-même «le Messie», ce que Higger a décrit est riche de conséquences.
Qu'est-ce de l'Armageddon? C'est de ces choses dont sont faites les légendes. Armageddon, dans la tradition juive, c'est la bataille finale dans laquelle les Juifs établiront une fois pour toutes leur domination absolue sur terre. Selon l'analyse de Higger de l'enseignement juif portant sur cette question:
Ainsi, Israël et les autres nations justes combattent les forces combinées des nations méchantes, injustes sous la direction de Gog et Magog.
Réunis pour une attaque contre les nations justes en Palestine, près de Jérusalem, les injustes subiront une défaite écrasante et Sion restera dès lors le centre du royaume de Dieu.
La défaite des injustes marquera l'anéantissement de la puissance des méchants qui s'opposent au Royaume de Dieu, à l'établissement de la nouvelle ère idéale.
Notez l'utilisation du terme "nouvelle ère idéale".
Ce n'est pas un hasard si la terminologie reflète et rappelle le terme "Nouvel Ordre Mondial" car c'est précisément ce en quoi consiste l'Utopie juive - cette "nouvelle ère idéale".
Cette lutte ne sera pas seulement une lutte d'Israël contre ses "nations ennemies", elle sera le point culminant de la lutte entre les «justes» et «injustes». C'est ce que disent les sages juifs.
Qui sont les "méchants"? Higger a expliqué que «la méchanceté» est «un obstacle au Royaume de Dieu». Il a dit qu' "aucune définition exacte" ne peut être formulée, mais que des passages rabbiniques traitant du sujet nous donnent une idée générale de la signification de "méchant" et de la "méchanceté" du moins en ce qui concerne l'Utopie juive. Et notez qu'il précise que ces termes sont définis par rapport à l'Utopie juive. Higger affirme:
Tout d'abord, aucune démarcation ne sera tracée entre les mauvais Juifs et les mauvais non-Juifs.
Il n'y aura pas de place pour les injustes, qu'ils soient juifs ou non-juifs, dans le royaume de Dieu. Chacun d'entre eux aura disparu avant l'avènement de l'ère idéale sur cette terre. Les Israélites impies seront punis à égalité avec les méchants des autres nations. Tous les justes, d'autre part, qu'ils soient Hébreux ou Gentils, partageront le bonheur et l'abondance de l'époque idéale.
Contrairement à ce que le Chrétien Américain moyen pense de tout cela, ou à ce qu'il perçoit dans le cadre de sa foi chrétienne, qui attend avec impatience un royaume universel de Dieu au Ciel, le paradis visé dans l'Utopie juive décrivant une "nouvelle ère idéale" -- le Nouvel Ordre Mondial -- est "un paradis universel de l'humanité ... établis dans ce monde », sans aucune référence à un monde futur quel qu'il soit.
Qui va gouverner ce Nouvel Ordre Mondial? Selon l'évaluation de Higger de la tradition juive: "Il sera un descendant de la Maison de David."
Higger nous informe que la tradition talmudique annonce qu '"un descendant de la Maison de David apparaîtra comme le leader de la 'nouvelle ère idéale' seulement après que le monde entier ait souffert, pendant une période ininterrompue de neuf mois, à partir d'un gouvernement méchant, corrompu comme le méchant historique et traditionnel Edom. "
(Note: Aujourd'hui, il existe une organisation juive internationale formellement établie, Dynastie Davidique, qui travaille ouvertement à retracer et réunir tous les descendants de la Maison de David. Ce n'est pas une "théorie du complot". C'est un fait. Sachant ce que le Talmud enseigne sur qui doit gouverner le monde, nous pouvons peut-être comprendre la motivation de ce groupe.)
Et, comme Higger le proclame, le monde entier "prendra peu à peu conscience que la divinité est identique à la justice", et que Dieu "est attaché à Israël et qu'Israël est la nation juste idéale".
Selon ces enseignements rabbiniques qui sont au fondement du rêve juif immémorial d'un Nouvel Ordre Mondial, les peuples de la terre proclameront ensuite aux dirigeants juifs: "Nous irons avec vous, car nous avons appris que Dieu est avec vous. "
C'est ainsi que, comme les rabbins proclament: "Le peuple d'Israël conquerra spirituellement les peuples de la terre, de sorte qu'Israël sera élevé au-dessus de toutes les nations dans la louange, dans la renommée et dans la gloire."
Notez le concept de "conquête" -- comme dans une bataille. Notez le concept d'Israël élevé au-dessus tous les autres - comme dans la suprématie et la supériorité. La violence et le racisme envers les non-Juifs: aussi simple que cela.
Ce n'est pas un hasard si beaucoup d'autres écrivains juifs et philosophes conséquents ont dit qu'il y aurait éventuellement une religion mondiale et, en fait, nous avons vu des efforts être déployés en vue d'infiltrer toutes les religions du monde, de les rapprocher les unes des autres, et cela, comme le rapporte Higger, fait partie de la prophétie: "Les nations s'uniront d'abord dans le but d'appeler le nom du Seigneur à le servir."
En d'autres termes, il y aurait un gouvernement mondial et une religion mondiale, et comme Higger et d'autres l'ont noté, la religion internationale serait le judaïsme. Ce serait la «conquête spirituelle» du monde.
Qu'en est-il d'or? Qu'en est-il la richesse? Selon Higger , bien que l'or ait joué un rôle dans la conquête par les justes, à qui il a été donné par Dieu, dans la nouvelle ère idéale "l'or sera d'une importance secondaire dans le nouvel ordre social et économique. Mais la ville de Jérusalem possèdera la plus grande partie de l'or et de pierres précieuses du monde ... La dépréciation de l'importance de l'or et des autres matériaux précieux n'impliquent pas nécessairement l'introduction d'un système de propriété commune des avoirs. "
En d'autres termes, les Juifs auront le contrôle de tout cela étant donné que les Juifs - via la ville de Jérusalem - contrôleront l'or, il ne sera plus vraiment d'aucune conséquence dans le Nouvel Ordre Mondial dirigé par les Juifs.
Higger ajoute:
L'importance secondaire accordée à l'or dans le nouvel ordre social aura deux raisons principales:
1) La répartition égale de la propriété privée et d'autres nécessités de la vie dépréciera automatiquement l'importance de l'or et autres objets de luxe;
2) Les gens seront formés et éduqués à la différence entre les valeurs réelles, spirituelles et les valeurs matérielles.
En effet, ce sera le pouvoir juif, assis à Jérusalem, dirigé par un descendant de la Maison de David, dénommé "le Saint" - qui divisera toute la propriété du monde.
Qui va obtenir cette propriété? La réponse, telle que définie par l'autorité rabbinique: "Les justes posséderont toutes les richesses, les trésors et les gains industriels et autres ressources du monde Les injustes ne posséderont rien".
Les nations injustes "n'auront aucune part dans l'époque idéale." Leur règne sera détruit et effacé avant l'avènement du Nouvel Ordre mondial. La «méchanceté» de ces pays consistera principalement à avoir accumulé de l'argent appartenant "au peuple" et d'avoir opprimé et volé "les pauvres".
Bien que Higger n'insiste pas sur ce point, ceux qui sont familiers avec la tradition, la logique et le raisonnement talmudique, le «peuple» et les «pauvres» sont les Juifs. Le Talmud enseigne que seuls les juifs sont l'humanité et tous les autres sont des animaux, ainsi, bien sûr, seuls les Juifs peuvent être le «peuple». Les «pauvres» sont - bien sûr - les Juifs qui se sont toujours présentés comme des victimes et des opprimés - comme des "pauvres Juifs persécutés."
Un autre groupe de nations "méchantes" subira le même sort que le premier: «Leur iniquité sera caractérisée par leurs gouvernements corrompus et par leur oppression d'Israël."
En d'autres termes, tout gouvernement qui se dresse contre les Juifs sera donc considéré méchant et injuste s'il ose défier l'agenda juif global: le Nouvel Ordre Mondial. (...)
intransigeants.com:
Alain SoraI en grande forme…face aux marchands du Temple
January 30th, 2011
Oui, nous le pensons très sincèrement, lorsqu’il s’exprime ainsi de façon frontale face au lobby communautaire fanatiquement anti-chrétien, le discours d’Alain SoraI est christique… On peut ne pas partager toutes les options philosophiques du penseur marxiste, il faut lui reconnaître une pugnacité exemplaire dans le combat contre l’Empire du Mal, contre le sectarisme talmudique et communautaire. Dieu reconnaîtra les siens. Quelques morceaux choisis de sa réponse à ceux qui lui intentent des procès. La meilleure défense, c’est l’attaque :
(…)Inquisiteurs jusqu’à l’hystérie
Suite à une interview vidéo accordée au sympathique site catholique Ripoublik.com, et qui portait sur les dangers pour la France d’un retour aux guerres de religion, ainsi que sur cet étrange consensus anti-islamiste actuel qui va de la gauche maçonnique à l’extrême droite racialiste, un site insignifiant, pour ne pas dire nul : Street-press (pour presse de caniveau ?) titrait pour tout commentaire : “Alain SoraI sur la sainte chambre à gaz, le fond de commerce des juifs et le projet talmudique”.
Une lecture hystériquement judéocentrée, tenant plus du travail d’indicateur de police de la pensée que du journalisme, où un pisse-copies amateur qui se présente déjà de dos sur la photo de ce qui lui sert de carte de presse (conscient sans doute qu’après l’Occupation, viendra fatalement la Libération puis l’Épuration) se réjouit pour toute critique, lui, l’inculte de 25 ans, que ce long entretien puisse me valoir, selon ses désirs inquisiteurs et les dires de maître Michaël Ghnassia, “spécialisé en droit de la presse et avocat de SOS-Racisme” sollicité par ses soins – un an de prison ferme et 45 000 euros d’amende : soit la ruine d’un écrivain et la destruction de sa petite famille. Effectivement de quoi se réjouir quand on fait profession d’humanisme et qu’on se prétend soi-même homme de lettres !
…
Connaître le judaïsme
Passé ma stupeur devant un tel tombereau de hargne, de stupidité et de mauvaise foi, je suis surtout étonné que tant de Juifs – souvent ceux qui aboient le plus fort à l’antisémitisme (pour des raisons de trésorerie il est vrai) – connaissent si mal leur religion.
Cette religion du fameux Peuple du Livre fondée sur deux textes : D’abord la Torah, appelée Bible chez les chrétiens – Pentateuque chez les Grecs –, suivie du Talmud.
La Torah exprimant les valeurs du judaïsme de l’ère préchrétienne. Le Talmud celui de l’ère chrétienne et contemporaine. Un judaïsme post-chrétien donc, et farouchement antichrétien, aspirant à la chute de Rome, à la fin du règne de la chrétienté sur le monde occidental ; soit la destruction de ce que les talmudistes appellent le IVe Empire.
…
Des goys racistes envers le Peuple élu, ou l’inverse ?
Judaïsme homophobe donc, mais aussi Talmud proférant des valeurs explicitement anti-universelles et antichrétiennes. Le Christ notre Sauveur y étant décrit comme un rabbi apostat, fils d’une putain et d’un soldat romain, dont la destinée éternelle, paraît-il, est de bouillir jusqu’à la fin des temps dans une vasque d’excréments !
Un Christ méprisé et haï dont le Sanhedrin – sorte de CRIF de l’époque romaine – complota et obtint la mort en s’efforçant d’en faire porter la responsabilité, devant l’Histoire, au préfet Ponce Pilate qui s’en lava les mains. Une vieille habitude de la manipulation triangulaire qui pousse aujourd’hui cette même élite communautaire à faire endosser la montée de l’islamophobie par l’extrême droite, quand cette islamophobie est dictée par les intérêts d’Israël, où cette extrême droite prend désormais ses ordres.
Comme nous le rappelle l’Évangile selon saint Matthieu, le Christ fut donc persécuté par le Sanhedrin – élites politiques juives de l’époque – parce qu’il était porteur de la Nouvelle alliance, de ce judaïsme élevé à l’amour universel annoncé par le prophète Jérémie, mais rejeté par le judaïsme talmudique au profit de ce monothéisme primitif et vengeur réservé au seul Peuple élu.
Talmud, Coran et mépris du chrétien
Un mépris rabique envers tout ce qui n’est pas juif – le goy étant considéré comme un être sans âme – qu’on vérifie aussi aujourd’hui par la façon dont sont traités les chrétiens d’Orient en terre sainte, quand les musulmans, eux, au moins sur le plan théologique, sanctifient le Christ, considéré comme le plus grand des prophètes, et honorent la Vierge Marie… Bref cette petite leçon de religions assénée à mes diffamateurs incultes pour rappeler à l’union communautaire et sioniste des étudiants juifs de France, qu’elle n’a aucune légitimité pour me donner des leçons d’antiracisme, pas plus que de républicanisme…
Source: ER
Les crachats de Jérusalem...
Lorsqu'ils se promènent dans les rues du vieux Jérusalem, les Chrétiens se font régulièrement cracher dessus par des Juifs orthodoxes.
I am truly flabbergasted as I have never heard of such a thing before. I am unsure what is inspiring the small section of Jewish heritage people to spit on Christian heritage people, nonetheless it should be condemned. In no way this represents all Jewish people same like all other religious groups. Here is a recent article trying to find the source of this whole phenomenon:
Father Samuel Aghoyan, a senior Armenian Orthodox cleric in Jerusalem's Old City, told the newspaper “that he's been spat at by young Haredi (God-fearing religious Jews) and national Orthodox Jews “about 15 to 20 times” in the past decade”. Father Aghoyan added: "Every single priest in this church has been spat on. It happens day and night."
Similarly, Father Athanasius, a Texas-born Franciscan monk who heads the Christian Information Centre in Jerusalem’s Old City, said he's been spat at by Orthodox Jews "about 15 times in the last six months".
Jewish spitting is not exactly breaking news, I myself have explored the issue more than once. The Israeli Professor Israel Shahak commented on Jewish hatred towards Christianity and its symbol, suggesting that “dishonouring Christian religious symbols is an old religious duty in Judaism.” According to Shahak, “spitting on the cross, and especially on the Crucifix, and spitting when a Jew passes a church, have been obligatory from around AD 200 for pious Jews”.
Interestingly enough, Jewish spitting has had an impact on the European urban landscape. The following can be read in a Travel guide for Jewish Europe.
“In Prague’s Charles Bridge, the visitor will observe a great crucifix surrounded by huge gilded Hebrew letters that spell the traditional Hebrew sanctification Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh Adonai Tzvaot, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts”. According to various commentators, this piece, degrading to Jews, came about because in 1609 a Jew was accused of desecrating the crucifix. The Jewish community was forced to pay for putting up the Hebrew words in gold letters. Another explanation is that a Jew spat at the cross and for this he was to be put to death as a punishment. When this man begged for his life, the king, seeking to have good relations with the Jews, said the Jewish community had to rectify the offence…” (To read more, click here.)
Shahak maintains that “in the past, when the danger of anti-Semitic hostility was a real one, the pious Jews were commanded by their rabbis either to spit so that the reason for doing so would be unknown, or to spit onto their chests, not actually on a cross or openly before a church.”
Source: www.redress.cc...
I am curious though why Israeli Govt. have not enforced hard laws against this practice or why have any Rabbis/ Priests not condemned it yet as the below Haaretz article suggests. And is it really true Christians locking themselves into their quarters during any holidays/ceremonies being celebrated by Jewish religion people, it's kind of hard to believe such a claim.
A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman in Israel attended a meeting at a government office in Jerusalem's Givat Shaul quarter. When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came and knocked on the window. When the clergyman let the window down, the passerby spat in his face.
The clergyman prefered not to lodge a complaint with the police and told an acquaintance that he was used to being spat at by Jews. Many Jerusalem clergy have been subjected to abuse of this kind. For the most part, they ignore it but sometimes they cannot.
On Sunday, a fracas developed when a yeshiva student spat at the cross being carried by the Armenian Archbishop during a procession near the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City. The archbishop's 17th-century cross was broken during the brawl and he slapped the yeshiva student.
Both were questioned by police and the yeshiva student will be brought to trial. The Jerusalem District Court has meanwhile banned the student from approaching the Old City for 75 days.
But the Armenians are far from satisfied by the police action and say this sort of thing has been going on for years. Archbishop Nourhan Manougian says he expects the education minister to say something.
"When there is an attack against Jews anywhere in the world, the Israeli government is incensed, so why when our religion and pride are hurt, don't they take harsher measures?" he asks.
According to Daniel Rossing, former adviser to the Religious Affairs Ministry on Christian affairs and director of a Jerusalem center for Christian-Jewish dialogue, there has been an increase in the number of such incidents recently, "as part of a general atmosphere of lack of tolerance in the country."
There are an increased number at certain times of year, such as during the Purim holiday."I know Christians who lock themselves indoors during the entire Purim holiday," he says.
Former adviser to the mayor on Christian affairs, Shmuel Evyatar, describes the situation as "a huge disgrace." He says most of the instigators are yeshiva students studying in the Old City who view the Christian religion with disdain.
"I'm sure the phenomenon would end as soon as rabbis and well-known educators denounce it. In practice, rabbis of yeshivas ignore or even encourage it," he says.
Evyatar says he himself was spat at while walking with a Serbian bishop in the Jewish quarter, near his home. "A group of yeshiva students spat at us and their teacher just stood by and watched."
Jerusalem municipal officials said they are aware of the problem but it has to be dealt with by the police. Shmuel Ben-Ruby, the police spokesman, said they had only two complaints from Christians in the past two years. He said that, in both cases, the culprits were caught and punished.
Source: Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
I also found another article from year 2004 from Telegraph Israel's Christians spitting mad and a more recent article from JPost of Nov 2009 Mouths filled with hatred which suggests the problem is occurring from a long time now but no concrete steps have been taken to address this on a wide scale.
So is this a small section of people from Jewish heritage spitting on Christians due to some old text from a bible/book or is there something more than that? Well whatever, it may be I hope people come in their senses and stop abusing each other in name of religion or some old text.
Church Flap In Jerusalem: Bad Blood — And Saliva
Ultra-orthodox Jews 'must stop religious abuse'
Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
Stop spitting at Jerusalem Christians: Jewish leaders warn
Why do Jews spit on Christians in the streets of Israel?
Jerusalem: pious Jew spits on Christians again
Jewish leaders condemn harassment of Christians in Jerusalem
Jews move to halt spitting at Christians in Jerusalem
VIDEO - Spitting on Goyim in the Holy Land
Sauce For The Goose
Spitting on Christians in Jerusalem draws rabbinic rebuke
Armenian Catholics in Jerusalem are regularly attacked,spat upon
Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
Mouths filled with hatred
Israeli 'spitter' being carried away by Israeli authorities and left unpunishedFather Samuel Aghoyan, a senior Armenian Orthodox cleric in Jerusalem's Old City, says he's been spat at by young haredi and national Orthodox Jews "about 15 to 20 times" in the past decade. The last time it happened, he said, was earlier this month. "I was walking back from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and I saw this boy in a yarmulke and ritual fringes coming back from the Western Wall, and he spat at me two or three times."
The Jewish Hatred Towards Christianity
by Israel Shahak
Dishonoring Christian religious symbols is an old religious duty in Judaism. Spitting on the cross, and especially on the Crucifix, and spitting when a Jew passes a church, have been obligatory from around AD 200 for pious Jews. In the past, when the danger of anti-Semitic hostility was a real one, the pious Jews were commanded by their rabbis either to spit so that the reason for doing so would be unknown, or to spit onto their chests, not actually on the cross or openly before the church. The increasing strength of the Jewish state has caused these customs to become more open again but there should be no mistake: The spitting on the cross for converts from Christianity to Judaism, organized in Kibbutz Sa'ad and financed by the Israeli government, is a an act of traditional Jewish piety. It does not cease to be barbaric, horrifying and wicked because of this! On the contrary, it is worse because it is so traditional, and much more dangerous as well, just as the renewed anti-Semitism of the Nazis was dangerous, because in part, it played on the traditional anti-Semitic past.
This barbarous attitude of contempt and hate for Christian religious symbols has grown in Israel. In the 1950s Israel issued a series of stamps representing pictures of Israeli cities. In the picture of Nazareth, there was a church and on its top a cross -- almost invisible, perhaps the size of a millimeter. Nevertheless, the religious parties, supported by many on the Zionist "left" made a scandal and the stamps were quickly withdrawn and replaced by an almost identical series from which the microscopic cross was withdrawn.
Then there was the long-drawn-out battle about Christian influence in elementary arithmetic. Pious Jews object to the international plus sign for it is a cross, and it may in their opinion, influence little children to convert to Christianity. Another "explanation" holds it would then be difficult to "educate" them to spit on the cross, if they become used to it in their arithmetic exercises. Until the early 1970s two different sets of arithmetic books were used in Israel. One for the secular schools, employing an inverted "T" sign. In the early '70's the religious fanatics "converted" the Labour Party to the great danger of the cross in arithmetic, and from that time, in all Hebrew elementary schools (and now many high schools as well) the international plus sign has been forbidden.
Similar development is visible in other areas of education. Teaching the New Testament was always forbidden, but in the old time conscientious teachers of history used to circumvent the prohibition, by organizing seminars or sending the students to libraries (not the school libraries, of course). About 10 years ago there was a wave of denouncing such teachers. One in Jerusalem was almost sacked, for advising her history pupils, who were studying the history of Jews in Palestine around 30-40 AD, that it would be a good thing if they would read a few chapters of the New Testament as a historical aid. She retained her post only after humbly promising not to do this again.
However in recent years, anti-Christian feelings are literally exploding in Israel (and among Israel-worshipping Jews in Diaspora too) together with the increase of the Jewish fanaticism in all other areas too.
The real enemies of truth here, as in many other aspects of the Israel reality, are the socialists, "liberals", "radicals", etc. in the USA. Imagine the reaction of the US Liberals, and of such papers as The Nation and New York Review of Books, not to speak of the New York Times if in any state whatsoever, the government financed spitting on a Star of David? But when here in Israel, the government finances the spitting on a cross, they are and will continue to be, quite silent. More than this, they help to finance it. United States taxpayers, who are of course mostly Christians, are financing at least half the Israeli budget, one way or another, and therefore the spitting on the cross too.
Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Introduction - MUST READ!), by Elliott Horowitz
Jesus in the Talmud, by Peter Shaefer
Retour sur Pourim
La guerre en Irak était une célébration de Pourim
"Le visage de la vengeance juive"
Pourim: notre ennemi traditionnel a gagné la Seconde guerre mondiale
Qu'est-ce que le judaïsme?
Les Vengeurs
Quelques jours avant l'attentat du nouvel an survenu en Égypte, un réseau d'espions du Mossad venait d'être démantelé
Répression des chrétiens palestiniens: mutisme absolu des médias et des organisations de défense des droits des minorités et de lutte contre la haine
VIDEO - La mafia juive même les chretiens sont persécutés en Israel. C'est le Talmud qui l'exige
VIDEO - Jews burning a New Testament in Jerusalem Une religion de haine
Flashback: Orthodox Jewish youths burn New Testaments in Or Yehuda
Jewish persecution of Christians in Yemen continues
FLASHBACK 2002 - Israël : Discriminations contre les non-juifs tant chrétiens que musulmans (partie 1/4)
Jérusalem: une église incendiée par des colons juifs israéliens
VIDEO - Growing Jewish anti-Christian attacks in Israel
Shown is an image of a statue of the Virgin Mary which an Israeli Army tank fired upon on March 14, 2002. The hated statue stood high above the Roman Catholic Holy Family Hospital and Orphanage in Jerusalem adjacent to the Vatican flag. The Israelis fired on the statue at close range. It was not an accident. It was an act of hatred reflecting a traditional Jewish hospitality to Christian sites and relics in the Holy Land. (Inset, the Virgin's face.)
by Willis A. Carto
As early as December 1955, not long after the institution of the Jewish state of Israel, Father Leonard Feeney, a Boston-based Roman Catholic clergyman, compiled the following list of Christian churches and other institutions that had been attacked or otherwise destroyed by the newly-ensconced Jewish occupation regime in the Holy Land.
In assembling this shocking list -- which would come as a complete surprise to modern-day Christians who believe that Israel has been a good friend to Christians in the Holy Land -- Father Feeney noted that his list did not include the loss in lives and property suffered by the nearly one million Arabs (Christian and Muslim alike) who had been evicted from their ancient homes during the then-seven years since Jews had seized power over Palestine. And, needless to say, since Feeney first compiled the list, there have been many more examples of such Jewish attacks. The clergyman's summary of Jewish destruction of Christian sites follows....The Jews have defiled and destroyed the following Church buildings: the Church of Saint John the Baptist at Am Karim; the Church of the Beatitudes at Capharnaum; the Church of Mensa Christi on the shores of the Sea of Galilee; the Church of Saint Peter at Tiberias; the Cenacle (the place ofthe Last Supper) at Jerusalem; the Convent of Mary Reparatrix at Jerusalem; the Convent and Hospice of Notre Dame at Jerusalem; the Convent of the Sisters of Saint Ann at Haifa; the Franciscan Convent at Tiberias; the Patriarchal Seminary at Beit-Jala, the Salesian houses at Cremisan; the Sisters' Convent at Am Karim; the School of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Sion at Katamon; the Sisters' residence at Capharnaum; and the church and rectory at Ikret. Catholic authorities have estimated that the Jews have destroyed Church property in the Holy Land at the rate of more than two million dollars' worth a year. To enumerate only French Catholic institutions, they have demolished four hospitals, 16 dispensaries, two hospices, four seminaries, 32 schools and orphanages, and seven retreat houses.Among the countless other desecrations we might mention, none is more heart-rending than that of Jerusalem's Church of the Dormition -- the magnificent Romanesque shrine to the Mother of God which was pillaged by Israeli soldiers and then turned into a Jewish dance hall for the young men and women of Haganah. It was only after a hundred such incidents that the Apostolic Delegate, Archbishop Hughes, unequivocally charged that there is now in operation a "deliberate Jewish effort to decimate the Arabs and to destroy Christianity in Palestine."December 30, 2009
Increasing Jewish persecution of Christians in Israel enjoys support from repugnant Israel-first evangelical Zionists
ISRAEL'S INCREASING ANTI-CHRISTIANITY
(National Prayer Network) -- By Rev. Ted Pike --ISRAEL'S INCREASING ANTI-CHRISTIANITY
The period of the Great Crusades saw the forces of the Christian west and Muslim east engage in futile military efforts to decide who would control Palestine, with power to exclude others. After millions died, the exhausted combatants finally reached a compromise that has proved amicable for nearly a millennium: Each of the three great religions claiming special kinship to Israel—Christians, Jews and Muslims— would have freedom as pilgrims and even residents to worship in the sacred places of the Holy Land.
Yet, with return of Jews to Israel in the 20 th century, a different mentality emerged, one shared by Christian evangelicals. The Jews returned to a land they considered entirely and unconditionally theirs—a land in which Jewish worship, customs and laws enjoyed a Biblical right to predominate.
Now Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox rabbinical authorities in Israel increasingly assert that Israel has the right to actually exclude Christians and Muslims from full participation in the religious life of the nation.
Although Israel’s population is largely secular, the official religious position of the state is Orthodox. The Encyclopedia Judaica: “There are very few Reform or Conservative congregations in the State of Israel. Orthodoxy is the official religious position in Israel with the majority of rabbis belonging to the old school of Talmudic jurists.” [1] The Grand Rabbinate in Jerusalem determines what is “halakah,” or binding Jewish law, not only to lesser rabbinic authorities but in every level of the nation’s life and commerce—even in the military.
Unlike in America, there is no separation of synagogue and state in Israel. And, unlike in America, which was founded largely on respect for the Bible, Orthodoxy in Israel is established squarely on the teachings of the ancient Pharisees as embodied in their Babylonian Talmud and its mystical/revolutionary companion, the Zohar or Kabbalah. [2]
Both Talmud and Zohar are vehemently anti-Christian. The Talmud views Christ as the bastard son of Mary, a loose woman. He was also a false prophet who led Israel into apostasy. It says Jewish leaders righteously had Him crucified and He now languishes in hell, writhing in boiling semen. (See actual pages from the Talmud confirming this at the end of this article.) Considering such anti-Christian animus from Israel’s highest religious authority, it is understandable why Christian inhabitants of Palestine have fared poorly over the last century. The Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem documents hundreds of acts of discrimination and persecution against Christians almost since the beginning of the Zionist experiment. [3] These include profanation of Christian churches and holy places as well as a general program of unpublicized harassment and discrimination. Much of the energy behind such anti-Christianity has emerged from the Grand Rabbinate in Jerusalem and the many Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox rabbis under its influence. (Ultra-Orthodox haredim differ from Orthodox primarily in their exaltation of the authority of the Zohar above the Talmud.)
At the turn of the 20 th century, upwards of 20 percent of the inhabitants of Palestine were Christian; but as a result of incessant, long-term discrimination, only 2 percent are Christian today – and that number is shrinking.
Rabbinic War on Christmas
Recent events in Israel leading up to Christmas confirm efforts by the Grand Rabbinate and lesser rabbinic councils to exclude Christianity from Palestine. A recent Ha’aretz article says the Rabbinate stands behind the “'Lobby for Jewish Values" in its attempts to eradicate Christian symbols from Jerusalem, especially during Christmas. They are “condemning the holiday and inciting the public to boycott restaurants and hotels that sell or put up Christmas trees and other ‘foolish’ Christian symbols…” Their intention is to revoke kosher certification for any business that allows a Christian symbol to be displayed, thus probably ruining them. (See Rabbis versus Christmas: Religious rivalry in Jerusalem benefits no one)
Such behavior reflects a deep loathing for Christianity within Talmudic Orthodoxy. WorldNetDaily recently published Ha’aretz’s article “Christians in Jerusalem Want Jews to Stop Spitting on Them.” It begins: “A few weeks ago, a senior Greek Orthodox clergyman in Israel attended a meeting…When he returned to his car, an elderly man wearing a skullcap came and knocked at the window. As the clergyman let the window down, the passerby spat in his face...
Anti-Christianity in Israel is not only fueled by the Orthodox establishment but, incredibly, by evangelical Christians themselves. The Jerusalem Post (Oct 23, 2009) says that evangelicals have donated $70 million a year to Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein’s “International Fellowship of Christians and Jews,” one of a number of Israeli charities accepting millions annually from Christians. But Eckstein admits now that much of it has gone toward support of the very Orthodox and haredi groups most responsible for harassment and persecution of Christians in Israel today! The Post says, “Various haredi organizations in Israel and abroad receive money from the IFCJ or have received support in the past.” Part of the evangelical millions, according to Eckstein, goes to fund orthodox and ultra-orthodox rabbinical organizations as far away as the Ukraine and Morocco, including the Rabbinate in Turkey. (See Christian donor to out haredi recipients)
Every Christian is bound by Scripture to donate first to “those of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10) i.e. Christian churches, missionaries and charities. “Israel-first” evangelicals have no justification for this ungodly drain on Christian resources to assist the persecutors of their brethren...MORE...LINK
Christian Persecution in Israel
Posted: January 18, 2008 by Alan Higgins in The Persecuted Church
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37)
Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. (Romans 10:1-4)
When we think of Christians being persecuted, we normally think of countries such as Afghanistan, China or North Korea but seldom do we think about Christians getting persecuted in the holy land itself. I went to Israel a few years ago (by the way, I would recommend every Christian go there at least once in their life) and went down to the Wailing Wall where many of the orthodox Jews gather to pray. Even though there was a part of me that had the utmost respect for these Jews, the other side was sad that they were still blind and waiting for the Messiah when he has already come in the person of Jesus (Yeshua) Christ.
Below are some videos to give you an idea of what some of the Jewish Christians have to live with in Israel
As Romans 10:1 says, please pray for the nation of Israel that they may be saved
If you are a Jew and you are not a Christian (you can be both), click HERE to see how you can receive salvation
Related Posts:
How to Pray for Persecuted Christians
Thought for the day – The Squeezed Christian
VIDEO - Ministry and Persecution in Arad, Israel
‘The Battle for Israel’s Soul’ – Channel 4 on Jewish fundamentalism
Jewish fundamentalism is something the mainstream media torch is rarely shone on, with recent articles about spitting at Christian clergy being confined mostly to the israeli press. Few exceptions exist: this year, Australian journalist Anne Barker reported on her experiences on getting caught in an ultra-orthodox attack, and in 2006 Brian Whittaker had a piece on the Haredim’s medieval sexism which has resulted in more than a few public beatings of women who dared to sit at the front of the bus.
BETWEEN REPHIDIM AND JERUSALEM
IN the spring of 2004, as this book was slouching toward completion, Jeffrey Goldberg reported in the New Yorker about a series of disturbIing interviews he had recently conducted with Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza. "The Palestinians are Amalek," he was told by Benzi Lieberman, chairman of the Council of Settlements. "We will destroy them," Lieberman continued. "We won't kill them all. But we will destroy their ability to think as a nation. We will destroy Palestinian nationalism." And Moshe Feiglin, a leading Likud activist, told Goldberg: "The Arabs engage in typical Amalek behavior. I can't prove this genetically, but this is the behavior of Amalek."
Goldberg explained to his readers that the Amalekites were a "mysterious Canaanite tribe that the Bible calls Israel's enemy." In the book of Exodus, he added, "the Amalekites attacked the Children of Israel on their journey to the land of Israel. For this sin, God damned the Amalekites, commanding the Jews to wage a holy war against them." Although the New Yorker's legendary fact-checking staff allowed no flagrant errors to enter this thumbnail portrait, I would like to make clear to my own readers that in the Bible the Amalekites are neither Canaanites nor particularly mysterious. They are desert-dwelling descendants of Esau, the elder son of Isaac, through his own eldest son Eliphaz (Gen. 36:12). And although it would not be incorrect to say that they "attacked the Children of Israel on their journey to the land of Israel," the book of Deuteronomy chose rather to stress that the attack, at Rephidim, occurred as the "faint and weary" Israelites "came forth out of Egypt" (25:17-18).
The Amalekites, their distant cousins, were the first enemy they encountered in their forty-year trek through the desert. Although by the battle's end the militarily inexperienced Israelites, led by Joshua (with Moses looking on from a hilltop), somehow "mowed down Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword" (in the mellifluous rendition of the Revised Standard Version [RSV]), enough Amalekites survived for God to vow that He would continue to wage war with Amalek "from generation to generation" (Exod. 17:8-17). In the book of Exodus the perpetual struggle with Amalek is described as God's war, but in Deuteronomy the Israelites themselves are commanded to "blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven."
In his New Yorker article Goldberg gallantly came to the defense of the Jewish tradition, asserting--again not quite accurately--that the commandment to exterminate the Amalekites "is perhaps the most widely ignored command in the Bible." He did not mean that it was ignored in the Bible itself but that "the rabbis who shaped Judaism," who, according to Goldberg, "could barely bring themselves to endorse the death penalty for murder, much less endorse genocide," solved the moral problem by ruling "that the Amalekites no longer existed."1 This, however, is patently false. Not only did the "rabbis who shaped Judaism," that is, the Talmudic sages, never make such an assertion, but even Maimonides, in his great twelfth-century code, clearly suggested--as many commentators noted--that unlike the "seven nations" of ancient Canaan, who were also doomed to extermination by biblical command, the Amalekites were still alive and kicking.2
How seriously the command to "utterly destroy" Amalek was taken in biblical religion may perhaps best be seen from the account, in the first book of Samuel, of Saul's ill-fated war against the Amalekites. Saul, Israel's first king, was commanded in God's name by the prophet Samuel, again following the RSV,3 to "go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (1 Sam. 15:2-3). Although Saul and his army did indeed defeat the Amalekites, whom they "utterly destroyed . . . with the edge of the sword" (1 Sam. 15:8-an inter-textual allusion to Exod. 17:13) they spared both King Agag, who was taken captive, and "the best of the sheep and of the oxen and of the fatlings," purportedly in order to sacrifice them to God (1 Sam. 15:9). Samuel powerfully expressed God's ire at this partial fulfilment of His command and then dramatically executed the Amalekite king in the presence of his belatedly repentant Israelite counterpart (1 Sam. 15:22-33).
What does this have to do with relations between Israelis and Palestinians in the twenty-first century? Very little or a great deal, depending on how one defines the term "Amalekite." If it is defined genealogically, the Palestinians, as Arabs and descendants, in biblical terms, of Ishmael (Isaac's half-brother), have no relation to Amalek, the grandson of Isaac's elder son, Esau. In fact, for centuries, as we shall see, Amalek was associated by Jews with the Roman Empire and its medieval Christian inheritors. If, however, Amalek is seen as a moral or metaphysical category--a notion that first merged in Jewish thought, as we shall see, in the Middle Ages--Palestinians may be classified as Amalekites. This is evidently what the Australian-born Feiglin meant when he told Jeffrey Goldberg that although he could not link the Arabs with Amalek "genetically," their "behavior" was "typical" of Amalek. Indeed, the association of Arabs with Amalekites has become widespread enough for at least one Israeli-Arab journalist to have developed the habit of referring to himself, with some measure of irony, as an Amalekite.4 Not surprisingly, after the death of Yasser Arafat, in November of 2004, "Pikuach Nefesh," an association of some two hundred rabbis who oppose territorial concessions on the part of Israel, announced that "the day of Arafat's death should be a day of rejoicing," since the Palestinian leader was "the Amalek and the Hitler of our generation."5
Several months earlier Goldberg had published a short piece in the Op-Ed section of the New York Times ("Protect Sharon from the Right," August 5, 2004) that began with the description of a circumcision ceremony he had recently attended. The ceremony had taken place in a trailer that served as the synagogue of an outpost outside one of the Jewish settlements on the West Bank. Like other Jewish outposts in the area, many of which are technically illegal, this one too was home to a handful of families who belonged to what Goldberg aptly described as "the avant-garde of radical Jewish nationalism, the flannel-wearing, rifle-carrying children of their parents' mainstream settlements, which they denigrate for their bourgeois affectations . . . and their misplaced fealty to the dictates of the government in Jerusalem."
Not surprisingly, the young father--a goat farmer--found occasion, when he rose to speak, to raise the (to him) timely subject of Amalek. "I am looking at our life today, and what Amalek wants to do is swallow up the people of Israel," he said. Then, using an image that had been first developed in the Zohar, he added: "This is the snake. This is the snake"--although "serpent" would arguably have been a better translation, since the Zoharic allusion is to the sly and slithering creature in the book of Genesis. Goldberg then turned to a young acquaintance seated next to him, Ayelet, a pregnant (married) teenager who wore a long skirt and carried a semiautomatic M-16, and asked her whether she thought Amalek was alive today. "Of course," she replied, and pointed toward one of the Arab villages in the distance. "The Amalekite spirit is everywhere," she added, "it's not just the Arabs." When asked by Goldberg who else might be part of Amalek, she replied, "Sharon isn't Amalek, but he works for Amalek."
The teenaged Ayelet was hardly the first Jewish ideologist to suggest that misguided fellow Jews might be in league with Amalek. Ironically, in fact, this position had been advanced by such fervent opponents of Zionism as the renowned Lithuanian Talmudist Elhanan Wasserman, who early in the twentieth century asserted that Amalekites could be found among those Jews who had "cast off the burden of the Torah," both in the Diaspora and the Holy Land. By the time Rabbi Wasserman was killed by the Nazis in 1941, the latter had become the universally recognized Amalekites of their day, temporarily blotting out the memory of all others. Yet late in the twentieth century the notion of Jewish Amalekites again gained currency, finding expression, for example, in an article by the Bar-Ilan professor and West Bank resident Hillel Weiss that appeared in Ha-Zofeh, the newspaper published by Israel's National Religious Party, on Purim of 1994. On that very day Dr. Baruch Goldstein--another West bank resident--opened fire, with his army-issued semiautomatic rifle, on dozens of Muslims who were praying inside the mosque at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, killing twenty nine.6
At the time, I was living in Jerusalem, barely an hour's drive north from Hebron, and was working on a Hebrew version of an article about the history of Purim violence that became the genesis of this volume.7 The realization, as the news came in sometimes contradictory spurts over the radio, and as I saw the raucous celebrations in the center of Jerusalem continuing unabated, that there was a clear connection between past Purims and the present one was both exhilarating and disturbing. It became clear to me that another chapter had written itself into the history of Purim--a carnivalesque holiday of reversal that celebrates the triumph of the Jews, during the days of Mordecai and Esther, over the genocidal plot of their archenemy Haman, who was hanged on the gallows that he had planned for Mordecai.
Haman is referred to repeatedly in the book of Esther as an Agagite--that is, descendant of the Amalekite king Agag. The Torah reading for the morning of Purim is taken from the account in Exodus (17:8-16) of the battle at Rephidim, after which God vowed that He would have war with Amalek "from generation to generation." And the Sabbath before Purim, called the "Sabbath of Memory," is even more infused with mordant memories of Israel's encounters with its archenemy. The special Torah reading, drawn from the book of Deuteronomy (25:17-19), from which that Sabbath draws its name, opens with the command to "remember what Amalek did" and concludes with the ringing (yet to some chilling) exhortation to "blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." And the reading from the Prophets for the Sabbath before Purim is taken from the aforementioned account (in 1 Sam. 15) of Saul's ill-fated war against the Amalekites, from which their king alone was spared until the prophet Samuel dramatically "hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal."
Although my article on Purim, whose treatment began in the fifth century, stretched ambitiously into the nineteenth, I decided after the Hebron massacre of 1994 to be even more ambitious and extend my story to the present. The editors of the journal Zion, published by the Historical Society of Israel, wisely advised me to delete the hastily written appendix, which was not sufficiently integrated with the rest of the article. A decade later, however, I feel that there is no longer any excuse for me, as a historian or as a Jew, "to keep silence at such a time as this" (Esther 4:14). I have therefore chosen, somewhat recklessly, to begin not at the beginning, but at the end, inspired, in part by the words of Esther herself (Esther 4:14), "if I perish, I perish."
In May of 1982, shortly before I immigrated to the state of Israel, the "Karp Commission" issued its findings regarding Jewish violence on the West Bank--under Israeli control since 1967--including events that had transpired in Hebron over the (extended) holiday of Purim, 1981. Although at that point the Jewish presence in Hebron itself had not yet been renewed--most Jews had abandoned the "City of the Patriarchs" after the massacre of 1929, and the last had departed in 1947--on Friday (March 20), the first day of Purim, settlers from neighboring Kiryat Arbah came to celebrate the holiday in Beit Hadassah, which had once housed a Jewish infirmary and a synagogue. By Friday evening they had managed, allegedly through their spirited dancing, to bring the roof down over the Arab-owned upholstery shop downstairs. Since Purim in Hebron is traditionally celebrated over two days (the fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar) the settlers settled down in Beit Hadassah for another day of boisterous festivity, which in 1981 coincided with the Jewish Sabbath.
The Arab upholsterer, who had closed his shop before noon on Friday as was his custom, returned the next day to find a large hole in his ceiling, and proceeded to the local (Israeli) police station, but did not file a formal complaint--hoping, he later explained to investigators, that after repairing the hole quiet could be restored. He began work on repairing the ceiling, as he had been advised by the (Arab) municipality, but his new neighbors upstairs insisted that he stop, "on account of the sanctity of the Sabbath." When the upholsterer returned on Saturday evening, he was forcibly prevented by the settlers from continuing with the repairs. Around midnight an officer from the (Israeli) military governor's office arrived and saw that the entire ceiling had collapsed, and that young settlers were removing the contents of the shop. When he asked them what was going on, they replied that the shop's ceiling had collapsed and that they were removing the cotton fabric so that it would not get soiled. When the same officer returned some two and a half hours later, after having been informed that the shop's door was open, one of the settlers reportedly told him (in Hebrew) that he was witnessing the renewal of Hebron's Jewish community.
On Sunday the upholsterer returned to find his shop devastated. While he was sitting at its entrance mourning his fate, three armed settlers emerged from Beit Hadassah and asked him to leave. When he replied that it was his shop, they pushed him away violently. He then returned to the police station and filed a formal complaint. The police investigation was completed nearly a year later, in February of 1982. The state attorney's office decided the following March to close the case, both on the grounds of insufficient evidence and because the Arab upholsterer had by then received financial compensation. The Karp Report, however, found it both "highly disturbing" and worthy of note that, according to the police superintendent's affidavit, Hebron's military governor had instructed the commander of the local police station not to investigate the incident.8
On Purim of 1986, five years after the festive reconquest of Beit Hadassah, Jewish settlers paraded through Hebron carrying puppets of various images from the book of Esther, including, of course, that of Haman. When they arrived at Beit Romano, one of the other local buildings that had been owned by Jews prior to 1948, one of the settlers, as reported by Haaretz correspondent Uri Nir, placed a kaffiyeh on the effigy of Haman, which was being hung. The local Arabs, understandably, took offense, and only the timely intervention by a representative of the military government--who demanded that the settlers remove the kaffiyeh--prevented a violent confrontation. It is not unlikely that Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who immigrated from the United States to Kiryat Arbah in 1983--and who by 1984 already had a police record in Hebron--participated in the Purim parade of 1986.9
Three years later, according to the same correspondent's report, the (by then) traditional Purim parade through Arab Hebron was even more provocative. Jewish settlers carried a skeleton with a kaffiyeh on its head and a noose around its neck, and also burned Palestinian flags. Some Jewish children carried toy rifles, which they pointed menacingly at their Palestinian counterparts. From the city's central square the festive settlers, many in masquerade, continued to the Tomb of the Patriarchs into which they sought to introduce a Torah ark--contrary to regulations--during the time normally set aside for Muslim prayer. "The shoving match . . . continued for some time," reported Nir, "and provided such surreal scenes as [Israeli soldiers] struggling with [Jewish] settlers dressed as Arabs, in an effort to protect the 'real' Arabs who were in the vicinity."10
The following year, in 1990, the Purim parade departed from Beit Hadassah toward the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and in that year, too, Palestinian flags were burned in the streets of Arab Hebron. Some of the Jewish participants were again provocatively dressed as Palestinians, but Noam Arnon, then spokesman for the settler organization Gush Emunim, chose to wear a "Peace Now" t-shirt with a kaffiyeh on his head--suggesting an inner affinity between those two sartorial objects. Four years later the holiday of Purim coincided with the first Friday of Ramadan--as delicate a situation as one could imagine in the embattled city of the Patriarchs. On that fateful Friday morning Dr. Goldstein brought his semiautomatic rifle with him to Purim prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and fired into the neighboring room where Muslims were at prayer. Since then, for me and for many others, Purim has never been the same.
In Hebron, however, little changed, even after the murder, in November 1995, of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir, a law student at Bar-Ilan University (where I was then teaching) and an admirer of Goldstein.11 On Purim of 1997, according to Haaretz correspondent Amira Segev, Hebron's traditional Purim parade, which by then departed from the Jewish "neighborhood" of Tel Rumeida, was headed by a Lubavitch "mitzvah tank," and Noam Arnon, who by then had become spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron, (cross-) dressed as the outspoken left-wing parliamentarian Shulamit Aloni, who had been a minister in Rabin's government. One young woman was dressed as Margalit Har-Shefi, a Bar-Ilan law student and West Bank resident who had been arrested in connection with her classmate's assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
In 1998 the Purim parade again stretched from Tel Rumeida to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the site of the 1994 Purim massacre. Noam Federman, a Kahanist resident of Tel Rumeida, was dressed, according to Haaretz correspondent Tami Sokol, as Leah Rabin in witch's garb, with a sticker that ominously read "Shalom, Leah"--a ghoulish allusion to Bill Clinton's famous words of farewell to Yitzhak Rabin at the latter's funeral. And one of the settler children was dressed as the local Jewish saint, Dr. Baruch Goldstein, wearing a stethoscope and carrying a rifle. He was apparently one of many local Jewish children that year who chose that macabre masquerade--presumably with the approval of their parents.12
Purim in Hebron after 1994 was like Purim in Hebron since 1981, only more so--with a new Jewish hero for Jewish children to dress up as. And in Jerusalem the fashion of categorizing fellow Jews as Amalekites reached new highs--or lows. In late February of 1996, after a bus blew up on Jaffa road, a reporter for Ma'ariv heard a passerby exclaim: "This is all due to the leftists of Meretz. We will take care of them. For us they are Amalek."13 Four years later Israel's controversial Education Minister Yossi Sarid, one of the founders--with the aforementioned Shulamit Aloni--of Meretz, had the distinction of being designated an Amalekite by no less an authority than Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, the founder and spiritual leader of Israel's Shas party, and the most widely respected rabbinical figure among Oriental and Sephardic Jews throughout the world. In a public address delivered in March of 2000, shortly before the holiday of Purim, Rabbi Yosef compared the veteran left-wing politician to Haman, adding that "he is wicked and satanic and must be erased like Amalek." The office of Israel's attorney general pursued a criminal investigation (on grounds of possible incitement to violence) but the great rabbi was never charged.14
In contemporary Israel, it is not only Haman who is conjured, but also his stubborn nemesis Mordecai, whose refusal to bow before the evil minister has reverberated for centuries, as we shall see, both among Jews and Bible-reading Christians. In the spring of 2003 the Israeli painter Moshe Gershuni, who was to receive the coveted Israel Prize on Independence Day of that year, announced that he would not attend the ceremony in order to avoid shaking hands with Education Minister Limor Livnat, with whose government's policies he sharply disagreed. Livnat, in response, decided to revoke the prize. Writing in Haaretz the conductor Itai Talgam compared the story to the book of Esther, and asked rhetorically: "Why couldn't Ahashverosh's chief minister abide this one exception and write off Mordechai as just an eccentric old geezer?" Talgam saw Gershuni as a contemporary Mordecai who represents "the Jewish spirit, that does not give in; and the temptation to try to break this spirit cannot be assuaged by all the pleasures and power of authority."15
In modern America, too, the ancient book of Esther could be brought to bear upon contemporary politics. In southern California during the Watergate investigations of the 1970s, members of a left-leaning Havura (prayer community) accompanied the reading of the Megillah with a dramatic enactment of the Esther story. One of the participants, the local campus Hillel rabbi, chose for himself the role of Haman. Rather than merely masquerading as the biblical villain, he chose to impersonate Richard Nixon's senior aide H. R. (Bob) Haldeman--whose surname also began with an H. In addition to wearing a three-piece suit and a hat, he walked onstage carrying a briefcase on which was written H. R. "Bob" Haman, and from which audiotape trailed. Riv-Ellen Prell, the participant-observer who has described the performance, notes that the character had no spoken lines. "His entire performance was visual and succeeded because of his ability to effectively associate Haldeman with Haman and Haman with Haldeman." Both had access to the highest corridors of power and both had been stripped of it when their evil intentions were uncovered.16 On the East Coast not long afterward members of the Jewish Defense League in Brooklyn decided, on Purim of 1977, to burn in effigy another person who had ascended to the highest corridors of power under Richard Nixon--their coreligionist Henry Kissinger!17 This, however, was not as paradoxical as might appear, for as we have already seen, it had long been claimed that Jews too could be Amalekites.
This book, however, is not only about Jewish myths and their legacies, but also about myths told and retold concerning the Jews, whether about their "passionate hostility to violence," as Jean Paul Sartre put it, or their predilection for particularly peevish forms of predation, such as the ritual murder of children. As recently, in fact, as March 2002 the Saudi scholar Umayna Ahmad al-Jalahma revived the canard that Jews require the blood of non-Jews for their Purim pastries. But whereas in the nineteenth century, especially after the "Damascus Affair" of 1840, the claim had been made that Purim was one of the occasions for which Jews required the blood of Christians, Dr. al-Jalahma seems to have been the first to discover that Muslim blood can also be used for filling the three-cornered Hamantaschen.18 Both Purim and the book of Esther, as we shall frequently see, are subjects that have impelled both apologists and antiSemites to show their true colors, as they have impelled me to show mine in this introduction.
In the fall of 2004 the local news in Israel again inserted itself into my narrative. On Sunday, October 10, when the Armenians in Jerusalem's Old City were observing the "Exaltation of the Holy Cross" (or "Holy Cross Day"), a cross was carried by the local archbishop in the traditional procession near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Natan Zvi Rosenthal, a twenty-one-year-old student at the (ultranationalist) Har Hamor yeshiva, happened to be passing by, and spat upon both the processional cross and the archbishop, who responded by slapping Rosenthal. Both were consequently questioned by the police--who decided, however, to charge only the student with assault. An editorial two days later in Haaretz under the title "Jerusalem's Disgrace" saw the incident as revealing "a little bit of the increasingly wild Jewish-nationalist-religious atmosphere" in the city.19
Some have suggested that it is the spatial proximity of the Armenian Quarter to that of the Jews in Jerusalem's Old City that has been responsible for Jewish attacks upon religious processions and clergymen. Yet Rosenthal, who has since apologized for his action,20 encountered the Holy Cross procession neither in the Jewish Quarter nor the Armenian one, but near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the Christian Quarter. I would suggest, therefore, that acts of enmity toward Armenian processions and clergymen should be seen against the background of a long Jewish tradition reaching back to the tenth century, whereby Armenians were referred to, not always in a hostile manner, as "Amalekites."21
This tradition, which shall be examined in greater detail in chapter 5, was still very much alive in the nineteenth century. In 1839 the British missionary Joseph Wolff, who was active in both Palestine and Yemen, found it "remarkable that the Armenians, who are detested by the Jews as the supposed descendants of the Amalekites, are the only Christian church who have interested themselves for the protection and conversion of the Jews." Similarly, in their 1842 account of their extensive missionary efforts among Jews in both Europe and the Middle East, the Scottish missionaries Bonar and McCheyne suggested that "the peculiar hatred which the Jews bear to the Armenians may arise from a charge often brought against them, namely that Haman was an Armenian, and that the Armenians are the Amalekites of the Bible."22
On Saturday, March 11 1995, when a procession of Armenian priests was making its way, with a large cross, from Jerusalem's Armenian Quarter to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Moshe Ehrenfeld, a Jewish resident of the city, spat conspicuously as the procession passed. Although newspaper reports concerning the 1995 incident--for which Ehrenfeld, who was found guilty of "interfering with a religious ritual," was fined and given a (suspended) two-month prison sentence--failed to mention that it occurred on Shabbat Zakhor, the Sabbath before Purim, there can be little doubt that Ehrenfeld himself was aware of that momentous date.23
Moreover, the hostility to the cross that he evinced was by no means limited, even then, to a small group of fanatics. In the spring of 1992 a minor crisis had erupted in Israel when representatives of the education ministry discovered, to their horror, that a film marking five hundred years since the expulsion of Spanish Jewry that had been commissioned from Israel Television contained scenes in which some of the major figures (e.g., Ferdinand, Isabella, and Torquemada) wore crosses. What was particularly upsetting was that the film was to be shown in connection with that year's International Bible Quiz for Youth in Jerusalem, whose dominant theme was the Spanish Expulsion. The education ministry demanded that the film be reedited and the crosses removed.24 We shall return in chapter 6 to the Jewish relationship with, and history of violence against, the cross, which for centuries was commonly referred to as an "abomination."
In its editorial on the recent spate of anti-Christian incidents in Jerusalem Haaretz referred to "the increasingly wild Jewish-nationalist-religious atmosphere" in the city, which, I might add, is equally true of Hebron. In both holy cities holy tombs have become sites of religious violence, and in both cities acts of violence against non-Jews have clustered around the days between Shabbat Zakhor and Purim. It was over the holiday of Purim that religious settlers from Kiryat Arbah festively reconquered Beit Hadassah from an Arab upholsterer in 1981, it was on that holiday that Dr. Goldstein of Kiryat Arbah gunned down twenty-nine prostrate Muslims at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994, and it was on the Sabbath before that holiday that one year later Moshe Ehrenfeld spat conspicuously in the presence of an Armenian procession in Jerusalem. It may be added that Daniel Rossing, a former advisor on Christian affairs to Israel's Religious Affairs Ministry, recently told a reporter that antiChristian incidents tend to occur at "certain times of the year, such as during the Purim holiday." Rossing, in fact, knows Christians in Israel "who lock themselves indoors during the entire Purim holiday."25 Some may derive a measure of solace from recalling that for centuries Jews in Christian countries would do the same between Good Friday and Easter.26 Others may be upset that I am packing so much dirty laundry between the covers of an academic book instead of leaving it to fade on the pages of soon-to-be-forgotten newspapers or consigning it to the dreary darkness of the microfilm room. But in doing so I am following in the path of many worthy predecessors, including the biblical author of the book of Esther.
Luther and His Legacy
At the end of the book of Esther's seventh chapter Haman is hanged "on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai," and the anger of King Ahasuerus abated. Had the author abated his (or her) account there, Martin Luther would never have commented, in his infamous essay "On the Jews and Their Lies" (1543), on how much the Jews "love the book of Esther, which so well fits their bloodthirsty, vengeful, murderous greed and hope," nor would his eighteenth-century countryman Johann David Michaelis have accused Esther herself of "insatiable vindictiveness."27 But that is not what the author of Esther did. He/she went on to report not only that the "Jews had light and gladness and joy and honor" (Esther 8:16), but that they "smote all their enemies with the sword, slaughtering and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them" (Esther 9:5), with the consequence that more than seventy-five thousand of these "enemies" were slain. And not only was Haman, but also his ten sons were hanged (Esther 9:7-10), presumably because they, like their "Agagite" father, were descendants of Amalek.
Not only in his 1543 essay did Luther criticize the book of Esther, but also in his "table talk" he condemned it, together with 2 Maccabees, for being "too Jewish" (my translation) and containing "too much heathen corruption," prompting him to express the wish that both books "did not exist"--a wish that continued to command respect, as we shall see, well into the twentieth century.28 And the eminent bible scholar and polyhistor Michaelis, who taught at Göttingen for nearly half a century until his death in 1791, not only accused Esther of "insatiable vindictiveness," but also complained that Haman had been put to death without trial. His attitude toward the Jewish queen was evidently colored by his rather negative stance vis-à-vis her co-religionists in eighteenth-century Germany, the granting of citizenship to whom he publicly opposed. Michaelis, whose position toward the Jews has convincingly been described as "racial antisemitism with a theological pedigree,"29 was an ardent believer--like his older contemporary Montesquieu--in the impact of climate upon peoples and their cultures. As products of a "southern climate," he argued, the Jews could never be fully assimilated into a German state. Moreover, he felt that their religious obligations prevented them from fully merging with any another nation. "As long as the Jews keep the laws of Moses, as long as for instance they do not take their meals with us," he wrote, "or with simple folk, over a glass of beer, are not able to make friends, they will never . . . fuse with us."30
It is not clear which law of Moses, according to Michaelis, stood in the way of Jews sharing a glass of beer with "simple folk"--except, of course, during the holiday of Passover. And it is rather ironic that whereas Esther had been guilty, in his view, of "insatiable vindictiveness," he saw her modern co-religionists as "a people that [on account of the Sabbath] cannot bear arms, and defend the state under which they live," and therefore "can never be on a footing with other citizens, nor enjoy equal rights."31 In a later chapter we shall return to the question of European attitudes concerning the suitability of Jews for warfare, and the implications of that question for the historiography of Jewish violence.
Early in the nineteenth century W.M.L. De Wette of the University of Berlin, who is considered to have "inaugurated a new era in critical Old Testament scholarship," wrote of Esther that it "refers nothing to the operation and direction of God, and contains no religious element." This assertion went hand in hand with De Wette's view that the book displayed a "blood-thirsty spirit of revenge and persecution."32 Although he was forced in 1822, on account of his critical views, to abdicate his professorship at Berlin, De Wette's scholarship, like that of many nineteenth-century biblical scholars, was informed by a strain of enlightened Protestant piety that posited a stark dichotomy between religiosity and revenge. A book that was full of one, he evidently believed, would necessarily be quite empty of the other. De Wette's student Friedrich Bleek also saw the absence of God's name as "characteristic of the untheocratic spirit" of Esther, in which a "very narrow minded and Jewish spirit of revenge and persecution" prevailed, to the extent that "no other book of the Old Testament" was "so far removed . . . from the spirit of the Gospel."33
In referring to the book's "very narrow minded and Jewish spirit of revenge," Bleek seems to have meant, by way of hendiadys, its "very narrow-mindedly Jewish spirit of revenge." For many nineteenth-century German Bible scholars (and some even in the twentieth) the words "Jewish," "narrow-minded," and "revenge" formed an unholy trinity that characterized the reified religion of narrow legalism and rough justice that Jesus came to rectify.34 And the text that was seen as most typifying this preredemptive state of Judaism was the book of Esther, which Bleek--and many others after him--explicitly contrasted with "the spirit of the Gospel."35 Later in the nineteenth century Heinrich Ewald famously remarked that in moving to Esther from the other books of the Hebrew Bible "we fall as it were, from heaven to earth"--and this acerbic comment continued to echo for decades.36
Even during the Hitler years German biblical scholarship saw little reason to reconsider the harsh condemnation of Esther and its "spirit" that had become standard during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1934 Otto Eissfeldt of the University of Halle (who was an ordained Protestant minister) asserted that Esther's inclusion into the biblical canon could only be explained by "the close connection between Jewish religion and the Jewish national spirit."37 Four years later his younger colleague Johannes Hempel, at the University of Berlin, published Das Ethos des Alten Testaments, in which he described the book of Esther as showing, through its "hate-inspired wish-fulfilment" (hassdurchglühte Wunschtraum) how far the fantasy of pursuing vengeance could go among the Jews. In 1964 Hempel, who had been associated during the Nazi years with the infamous Institut zur Erforschung des jüdischen Einflusses auf das deutsche kirchliche Leben (Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life) established by the German Christian movement, published a second edition of his Das Ethos des Alten Testaments. Yet even in that revised edition he saw no need to change his earlier description of the book of Esther as showing, through its "hate-inspired wish-fulfilment" how far the fantasy of pursuing vengeance could go among the Jews.38
In 1953, the year of my own birth, Curt Kuhl, writing in German, asserted that the book's enthusiastic embrace by the Jews, among whom it "became a great favorite," testified to their "narrow-minded and fanatical nationalism."39 I had been conceived in the city of Tel-Aviv, which may well have been seen by Professor Kuhl as a different sort of testimony to the narrow-minded and fanatical nationalism of the Jews. But if not for a different nation's narrow-minded and fanatical nationalism I probably would have been conceived and born in Germany, and perhaps even studied there. And then, had I become a Bible scholar, perhaps I too would ask rhetorically, as Werner Schmidt of the University of Bonn has recently done, "Does not the book [of Esther] emphasize too much the superiority of Judaism?" Since, however, I had the good fortune to be born and bred in New York, I regard Professor Schmidt's narrow-minded question as akin to a Teutonic tourist asking of that city's sometimes self-applauding residents, Do they not emphasize too much the superiority of the Yankees?
Postbiblical Purim Violence
This book deals not only with the theme of Amalek and responses--Christian as well as Jewish--to the book of Esther over the centuries, but also with Jewish violence connected with the holiday of Purim, from the early fifth century to the late twentieth. This is a subject fraught with historiographical complexities. For Jewish scholars living in Christian countries writing about Jewish violence against Christians or abuse of Christian symbols on Purim--especially by linking the similar fates of Haman and Jesus--was, as we shall see, no simple matter.40
Christian scholars, of course, discussed these matters more openly, and sometimes also quite enthusiastically. In his widely read Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, based on lectures delivered originally in his capacity as professor of ecclesiastical history at Oxford, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, who was appointed Dean of Westminster Abbey in 1864, referred to the "natural objection of the civilised--we may add, of the Christian--conscience, to the Book of Esther and the Feast of Purim."41 Stanley, who acknowledged that "every Jew throughout the world felt with Mordecai, and has felt in many a time of persecution since, as he raised . . . his loud and bitter cry [Esther 4:1]," but this did prevent him from asserting that "the continuance of that bitter animosity in the Jewish nation renders the Feast of Purim the least pleasing of their festivals." He noted also that Purim "was long retained in all its intensity as the natural vent" of the hatred that Jews felt towards "their heathen or Christian oppressors in each succeeding age"42--anticipating, thereby, the central argument of this book, which, I suspect, the learned dean would have found more "pleasing" than the Jewish holiday upon which it focuses (although I am not sure how much that pleases me).
Both Dean Stanley and other nineteenth-century scholars who commented on Purim as the "natural vent" of Jewish hatred toward "Christian oppressors" had in mind particularly the 408 edict issued early in the reign of Theodosius II instructing the governors of all provinces in the Roman Empire to "prohibit the Jews from setting fire to Aman in memory of his past punishment, in a certain ceremony of their festival, and from burning with sacrilegious intent a form made to resemble the saint cross in contempt of the Christian faith."43 Even before it was discussed in Stanley's Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, the fifth-century edict had featured prominently in Henry Hart Milman's treatment, in his pioneering History of the Jews, of Jewish-Christian relations in the Roman Empire after its Christianization under Constantine.
Both Stanley and Milman, moreover, shared similar biographies. Milman (1791-1868) had prepared for Oxford at Eton whereas the younger Stanley (1815-1881) "came up" from Rugby. Both were ecclesiastical historians as well as Anglican divines who became deans of leading cathedrals. Milman was appointed Dean of St. Paul's in 1849 and fifteen years later, as noted above, Stanley became Dean of Westminster. It was during the decade of his tenure as professor of poetry at Oxford (1821-1831) that Milman composed his History of the Jews, in which he wrote memorably of the "furious collision" that occurred between Christians and Jews early in the fifth century after "great, and probably not groundless, offence" was taken by the former "at the public and tumultuous manner in which the Jews celebrated the holiday of Purim."44
A third polyhistoric Victorian to address the subject was the religiously eccentric though enormously learned naturalist Philip Henry Gosse (1810-1888), whose History of the Jews drew heavily on Milman's popular work--though Gosse's pungent (and ardently alliterative) prose had its own distinct character. Describing the relations between Jews and Christians during the reign of Theodosius II, Gosse noted that the resentment of the former "against the contempt and hatred of their opponents found vent in a singular manner, when no other opportunity presented itself of avenging themselves." This was done, explained Gosse (a member of a strictly Calvinist sect known as "the Brethren"), through the feast of Purim, which "has not infrequently been celebrated with bacchanalian orgies more befitting the worship of an idol-demon than a thanksgiving to Jehovah." During the fifth century, he asserted, the holiday "was made the vehicle of much that was outrageous and offensive to Christians." The Jews represented Jesus "under the similitude of Haman . . . and the gibbet on which they were accustomed to hang the effigy of their enemy, they now made in the form of the cross."45
Gosse's own Calvinist hostility to the veneration of the cross ("the object of idolatrous adoration") seems to have equipped him with a rare degree of empathy for the "outrageous and offensive" conduct of the Jews. He also understood intuitively that the Jews of late antiquity had not only conflated Haman with Christ, but also the ancient Amalekites with contemporary Christians. "The smart of personal insult would add pungency to the indignities with which the infuriated and intoxicated Jews would avenge the old and the new quarrel, venting their impotent malice at once upon Haman and Christ, upon the Amalekites and the Nazarenes; and blasphemies would be uttered, which might make the ears of those who heard tingle."46
As we have seen, infuriated (and sometimes intoxicated) Jews in the Holy Land are still avenging "the old and the new quarrel" against those they consider to be "Amalekites," but their malice is hardly as impotent as it was in the distant days of Theodosius II, and the concept of Amalek has been amplified to include not only "Nazarenes" but also Ishmaelites and even some Israelites. And while some of the statements recorded by contemporary journalists would indeed make the ears tingle, I must confess that many of the hostile comments about the book of Esther that I encountered in the learned tomes that I consulted in some of the world's greatest libraries made my blood curdle, and sometimes caused my hand to shake as I transcribed them. Readers, I suppose, will often hear the jingle-jangle of these discordant voices reverberating between the lines of this book, not to mention vague traces of Bob Dylan and Billie Holiday. I hope, however, that this will not prevent them from also hearing what the Victorian poet and translator Edward Fitzgerald felicitously called "the brave music of a distant drum."47
A Brief Guide (and an Apologia)
What I have herein performed, I had rather the Reader should tell
me at the end, then I tell him at the beginning of the Book.
--Thomas Fuller, Pisgah-Sight of Palestine (1650)
This book is divided into two sections; the first is devoted primarily to the book of Esther and the difficult questions it posed--and continues to pose--for both Jews and Christians since late antiquity. Was it a book that promoted cruel vengeance or one that sought primarily to show the hidden hand of God in history (chap. 1)? Was Esther a greater heroine than Vashti or vice versa (chap. 2)? Did Mordecai "the Jew" do the right thing in refusing to bow before Haman (chap. 3), and was the latter's enmity against the Jews personal or tribal (chap. 4)? Chapter 5 moves from the book of Esther to the biblical theme of Amalek and examines the ways in which this archenemy of the Jews (and their God) was defined and imagined over the centuries. Since according to Jewish law the Amalekites, including women and children, had to be utterly destroyed, thinking about Amalek involved, as we have seen, thinking about the possibilities of, and justifications for, Jewish violence.
Chapter 6, which opens the second part, examines one specific form of Jewish violence over many centuries--the desecration of the cross and other Christian images. The following chapter examines discussions over the centuries, in both Jewish and Christian literature, as to whether Jews were by nature--or divine punishment--less capable of violence than other peoples. The impact of such discussions upon the historiography of Jewish violence informs chapter 8, devoted to violence against Christians, sometimes within the context of Purim festivity, in the fifth-seventh centuries. Chapter 9 carries the subject of Purim violence into medieval and early modern Europe, especially against the background of the often violent rites of Carnival. The final chapter is devoted to the history of local Purims, to the question of their origins, and to the problems of continuity and discontinuity in "invented traditions."
Along the way we shall encounter such diverse figures as Saint Augustine, Bernard Berenson, Miguel de Cervantes, Benjamin Disraeli, James Frazer, Blu Greenberg, Adolf Hitler, Christopher Isherwood, Lyndon Johnson, Meir Kahane, Benny Leonard, Cotton Mather, Friedrich Nietzsche, George Orwell, Philip Roth, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Pope Urban II, John Wesley, and Leopold Zunz, and this sometimes dizzying diversity will undoubtedly annoy some readers as much as it delights others. Hopefully the latter will outnumber the former, to whom I offer my apologies in advance. And I should perhaps add, following the great (though controversial) French scholar Ernest Renan, that any reader who thinks that the word "perhaps" has not been used frequently enough "can fill it in at his own discretion."48
2001
A Jewish Holocaust of Christians
Israel Shamir Things move really fast nowadays. Just yesterday we hardly dared to call the Israeli policy of official discrimination against Palestinians by the harsh word ‘apartheid’. Today, as Sharon’s tanks and missiles pound defenceless cities and villages, the word barely suffices. It has become an unjustified insult to the white supremacists of South Africa. They, after all, did not use gunships and tanks against the natives, they did not lay siege to Soweto. They did not deny the humanity of their kaffirs. The Jewish supremacists made it one better. They have returned us, as if by magic wand, to the world of Joshua and Saul.
As the search for the right word continues, the courageous Robert Fisk proposes calling the events in Palestine a ‘civil war’. If this is civil war, the slaughter of a lamb is a bullfight. The disparity of forces is too just too large. No, Virginia, it is not ‘civil war’, it is creeping genocide.
This is the point in our saga, where the good Jewish guy is supposed to take out his hanky and exclaim: “how could we, eternal victims of persecutions, commit such crimes!” Well, do not hold your breath waiting for this line. It happened before and it can happen again.
Jews are not more bloodthirsty than the rest of mankind. But the mad idea of being the Chosen ones, the idea of supremacy, whether of race or religion, is the moving force behind genocides. If you believe God choose your people to rule the world, if you think others but subhuman, you will be punished by the same God whose name you took in vain. Instead of a gentle frog, he would turn you into a murderous maniac.
When the Japanese got a whiff of this malady in 1930s, they raped Nanking and ate the liver of their prisoners. Germans, obsessed by the Aryan superiority complex, filled Baby Yar with corpses. As thoughtful readers of Joshua and Judges, the father-pilgrim founders of the United States tried on the ‘Chosen’ crown and succeeded in nearly exterminating the Native American peoples.
The Jews are no exception. Outside of Jerusalem’s Jaffa gate (Bab al-Halil), there was once a small neighbourhood called Mamilla, destroyed by real estate developers just a few years ago. In its place they created a monstrous ‘village’ for the super-rich, abutting the plush Hilton Hotel. A bit further away, there is the old Mamilla cemetery of the Arab nobles and the Mamilla Pool, a water reservoir dug by Pontius Pilate. During the development works, the workers came across a burial cave holding hundreds of sculls and bones. It was adorned by a cross and a legend: ‘God alone knows their names’. The Biblical Archaeology Review, published by the Jewish American Herschel Shanks, printed a long feature[i] by the Israeli archaeologist Ronny Reich on this discovery.
The dead were laid to their eternal rest in AD 614, the most dreadful year in the history of Palestine until the 20th century. The Scottish scholar, Adam Smith, wrote in his Historical Geography of Palestine: until now, the terrible devastation of 614 is visible in the land, it could not be healed.
By 614, Palestine was a part of the Roman successor state, the Byzantine Empire. It was a prosperous, predominantly Christian land of well developed agriculture, of harnessed water systems, and carefully laid terraces. Pilgrims came in flocks to the Holy places, and the Constantine-built edifices of Holy Sepulchre and of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives were among the manmade wonders of the world. The Judean wilderness was enlivened by eighty monasteries, where precious manuscripts were collected and prayers offered. Fathers of the church, St Jerome of Bethlehem and Origenes of Caesarea, were still a living memory.
There was also a small wealthy Jewish community living in their midst, mainly in Tiberias on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Their scholars had just completed their version of the Talmud, the codification of their faith, Rabbinic Judaism; but for instruction they deferred to the prevailing Jewish community in Persian Babylonia.
In 614, local Palestinian Jews allied with their Babylonian coreligionists and assisted the Persians in their conquest of the Holy Land. In the aftermath of the Persian victory, Jews perpetrated a massive holocaust of the Gentiles of Palestine. They burned the churches and the monasteries, killed monks and priests, burned books. The beautiful basilica of Fishes and Loaves in Tabgha, the Ascension on Mount of Olives, St Steven opposite Damascus Gate and the Hagia Sion on Mt Zion, are just at the top of the list of perished edifices. Indeed, very few churches survived the onslaught. The Great Laura of St Sabas, tucked away in the bottomless Ravine of Fire (Wadi an-Nar) was saved by its remote location and steep crags. The Church of Nativity miraculously survived: when Jews commanded its destruction, the Persians balked. They perceived the Magi mosaic above the lintel as the portrait of Persian kings.
This devastation was not the worst crime. When Jerusalem surrendered to the Persians, thousands of local Christians became prisoners of war, and were herded to the Mamilla Pool area. The Israeli archaeologist Ronny Reich writes: ‘They were probably sold to the highest bidder. According to some sources, the Christian captives at Mamilla Pond were bought by Jews and were then slain on the spot’. An eyewitness, Strategius of St Sabas, was more vivid: ‘Jews ransomed the Christians from the hands of the Persian soldiers for good money, and slaughtered them with great joy at Mamilla Pool, and it ran with blood’. Jews massacred 60,000 Palestinian Christians in Jerusalem alone. The earth’s population was probably about 50 million then, 100 times smaller than today. A few days later, the Persian military understood the magnitude of the massacre and stopped the Jews.
To his credit, the Israeli archaeologist Ronny Reich does not try to shift the blame for the massacres onto the Persians, as it is usually done nowadays. He admits that ‘the Persian Empire was not based on religious principles and was indeed inclined to religious tolerance’. This good man is clearly unsuitable to write for the New York Times. That paper’s correspondent in Israel, Deborah Sonntag, would have no trouble describing the massacre as ‘retaliatory strike by the Jews who suffered under Christian rule’.
The holocaust of the Christian Palestinians in year 614 is well documented and you will find it described in older books, for instance in the three volumes of Runciman’s History of The Crusades. It has been censored out of modern guides and history books. It is a pity, as without this knowledge one cannot understand the provisions of the treaty between the Jerusalemites and Caliph Omar ibn Khattab, concluded in year 638. In the Sulh al Quds, as this treaty of capitulation is called, Patriarch Sofronius demanded, and the powerful Arab ruler agreed to protect the people of Jerusalem from the ferocity of the Jews.
After the Arab conquest, a majority of Palestinian Jews accepted the message of the Messenger, as did the majority of Palestinian Christians, albeit for somewhat different reasons. For local Christians, Islam was a sort of Nestorian Christianity, but without icons, without Constantinople’s interference and without Greeks. (The Greek domination of the Palestinian church remains a problem for the local Christians to this very day.)
For ordinary local Jews, Islam was the return to the faith of Abraham and Moses, as they could not follow the intricacies of the new Babylonian faith anyway. The majority of them became Muslims and blended into Palestinian population. The accommodation of Jews to Islam did not stop in the 7th century. A thousand years later, in the 17th century, the greatest spiritual leaders of the new-founded Sephardi Jewish community of Palestine, Sabbatai Zevi and Nathan of Gaza, the successors to the glorious Spanish mystic tradition of Ari the Saint of Safed, also embraced ‘the law of mercy’ , as they called Islam. Their descendants, the comrades of Ataturk, saved Turkey from the onslaught of the European troops during WWI.
Modern Jews do not have to feel guilty for the misdeeds of Jews long gone. No son is responsible for the sins of his father. Israel could have turned this mass grave with its Byzantine chapel and mosaics into a small and meaningful memorial, reminding its citizens of a horrible page in the history of the land and of the dangers of genocidal supremacy. Instead, the Israeli authorities preferred to demolish the tomb and create an underground parking lot in its place. It did not cause a murmur.
The Israeli guardians of the Jewish conscience, Amos Oz and others, have objected to the destruction of the ancient remains. No, not of the tomb at Mamilla. They ran a petition against the keepers of the Haram a-Sharif mosque complex for digging a ten-inch trench to lay a new pipe. It did not matter to them that, in an op-ed in Haaretz, the leading Israeli archaeologist of the area denied all relevance of the mosque works to science. They still described it as ‘a barbaric act of Muslims aimed at the obliteration of the Jewish heritage of Jerusalem’. Among the signatories, I found, to my amazement and sorrow the name of Ronny Reich. One thinks, he might tell them who obliterated the vestiges of the Jewish heritage at Mamilla Pool.
Why do I find it necessary to tell the story of the Mamilla bloodbath? Because there is nothing more dangerous than the feeling of self-righteousness and perpetual victimhood reinforced by a one-sided historical narrative. Here again, the Jews are not unique. Eric Margolis of the Toronto Sun[ii] wrote about Armenians inflamed by the story of their holocaust. They massacred thousands of their peaceful Azeri neighbours in the 1990s, and caused the uprooting of 800,000 native non-Armenians. ‘It’s time to recognize all world’s horrors’, Margolis concludes.
Censored history creates a distorted picture of reality. Recognition of past is a necessary step on the way to sanity. The Germans and the Japanese have recognized the crimes of their fathers, have came to grips with their moral failings and have emerged as humbler, less boastful folks, akin to the rest of human race. We Jews have so far failed to exorcise the haughty spirit of the Chosenness, and found ourselves in a dire predicament.
That is why the idea of supremacy is still with us, still calling for genocide. In 1982, Amos Oz[iii] met an Israeli, who shared with the writer his dream of becoming a Jewish Hitler to the Palestinians. Slowly this dream is becoming a reality.
The Haaretz published an ad on its front page[iv], a fatwa, signed by a group of Rabbis. The Rabbis proclaimed the theological identification of Ishmael, i.e. the Arabs, with the Amalek. ‘Amalek’ is mentioned in the Bible as the name of a tribe that caused trouble for the Children of Israel. In this story, the God of Israel commands His people to exterminate the Amalek tribe completely, including its livestock. King Saul botched the job: he exterminated them all right, but failed to kill nubile unwed maidens. This ‘failure’ cost him his crown. The obligation to exterminate the people of Amalek is still counted among the tenets of the Jewish faith, though for centuries nobody made the identification of a living nation with the accursed tribe.
There was one exclusion showing how dangerous the ruling is. At the end of WWII, some Jews, including the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin, identified the Germans with Amalek. Indeed, a Jewish religious socialist and a fighter against Nazis, Abba Kovner, hatched in 1945 a plot to poison the water supply system of German cities and to kill ‘six million Germans’. He obtained poison from the future President of Israel, Efraim Katzir. Katzir supposedly thought Kovner intends to poison ‘only’ a few thousands of German POW’s. The plan mercifully flopped when Kovner was stopped by British officials in a European port. This story was published last year in Israel in a biography of Kovner written by Prof Dina Porat, head of Anti-Semitism Research Centre at Tel Aviv university[v].
In plain English, the Rabbis’ fatwa means: our religious duty is to kill all Arabs, including women and babies and their livestock; to the last cat. The liberal Haaretz, whose editor and owner are sufficiently versed to understand the fatwa, did not hesitate to place the ad.
Some Palestinian activists recently criticized me for associating with the marginal Russian weekly Zavtra and for quoting the American weekly Spotlight. I wonder why they have not condemned me for writing in Haaretz? Zavtra and Spotlight have never published a call to genocide, after all.
It would be unfair to single out Haaretz. Another prominent Jewish newspaper, The Washington Post, published an equally passionate call to genocide by Charles Krauthammer[vi]. This adept of king Saul cannot rely upon his audience’s knowledge of the Bible, so he refers to General Powell’s slaughter of routed Iraqi troops at the end of the Gulf war. He quotes Colin Powell saying of the Iraqi army, "First we're going to cut it off, then we're going to kill it." For Krauthammer, with his carefully chosen quotes, multitudes of slain Arabs do not qualify for human pronoun ‘them’. They are an ‘it’. In the last stage of the war in the Gulf, immense numbers of retreating and disarmed Iraqis were slaughtered in cold blood by the US Air Force, their bodies buried by bulldozers in the desert sand in huge and nameless mass graves. The numbers of victims of this hecatomb are estimated from one hundred thousand to half a million. God alone knows their names.
Krauthammer wants to repeat this feat in Palestine. ‘It’ is already cut off, divided by the Israeli army into seventy pieces. Now it is ready for the great kill. ‘Kill it!’, he calls with great passion. He must be worried that the Persians will again stop the bloodbath before the Mamilla Pool fills up. His worries are our hopes.
FOOTNOTES:
1-BAR, 1996, vol. 22, No. 2.
2-Thus, 60,000 Palestinian Christians then would be equivalent to 6 million victims today.—Ed.
3-April 22, 2001.
4-Here and There in the Land of Israel, Amos Oz.
5-Nov. 21, 2000.
6-In 1 Samuel 15, Saul reportedly annihilated the Amalekites. However, this is contradicted by the story that the raiding party that later at- tacked Ziklag was Amalekites; and, although this group of Amalekites was destroyed by David, another Amalekite turns up in 2 Samuel 1, claiming to have killed King Saul—for which he is not rewarded, but executed by King David.—Ed.
7-Of course, the ancestors of the Germans never lived in or around Palestine.—Ed.
8-Haaretz, April 28, 2001.
9-Washington Post, April 20, 2001.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
“The Vengeance of the Jews Was Stronger Than Their Avarice: Modern Historians and the Persian Conquest of Jerusalem in 614,” Elliott Horowitz, in Jewish Social Studies Vol. 4, No. 2. (Website: http://iupjournals.org/jss/jss4-2.html.)
Le Nouvel Ordre Mondial est-il « l’Utopie Juive »?
D’après le rabbin Higger, dans la tradition juive les
juifs sont destinés à gouverner l’humanité. Les « non-vertueux »,
c’est-à-dire ceux qui résistent à la domination juive, doivent périr.
L’attaque récente d’Israël sur la Syrie peut être vue à la lumière de cette affirmation.
Les Juifs ordinaires sont face à un choix : désavouer cette idéologie démente ou encourir le blâme du reste de l’humanité.
En 1932, le rabbin Michael Higger, Ph.D. (1898-1952) publia un livre intitulé The Jewish Utopia (l’Utopie
Juive) basé sur « la somme totale des prophéties, des enseignements et
des plans des rabbins et dirigeants tribaux les plus éminents sur une
période de 2500 ans… »
L’ouvrage évoquait « les vertueux » et « les non-vertueux ». Au final, d’après Higger, les « non-vertueux » doivent périr…
Et il est clair, au travers des écrit de Higger que les « vertueux »
seront les Juifs et ceux qui les servent ; et les « méchants » seront
ceux qui sont perçus par les Juifs comme se tenant au travers de leurs
intérêts !
Les paroles d’Isaïe seront accomplies : « voici, mes serviteurs
mangeront, et vous aurez faim; voici, mes serviteurs boiront, et vous
aurez soif; voici mes serviteurs se réjouiront, et vous serez honteux. »
Higger poursuit : « Tous les trésors et les ressources naturelles du
monde seront entre les mains des vertueux. » Cela, dit-il, est en accord
avec la prophétie d’Isaïe : « Et son trafic et son salaire sera
sanctifié à l’Eternel ; il n’en sera rien réservé, ni serré; car son
trafic sera pour ceux qui habitent en la présence de l’Eternel, pour en
manger jusques à être rassasiés, et pour avoir des habits de longue
durée. »
(Cet article est extrait de cet ouvrage)
En bref, voilà l’extermination massive de ceux qui se tiennent au
travers de l’Utopie Juive : Le Nouvel Ordre Mondial. Il poursuit :
« Tous ces nations impies devront comparaitre en jugement avant
d’être châtiées et détruites. La sentence de leur destruction sera
prononcée sur elles après qu’elles aient reçues un procès équitable
lorsqu’il deviendra évident que leur existence compromettrait
l’avènement de l’ère idéale.»
« Ainsi, lors de la venue du Messie, lorsque toutes les nations
vertueuses rendront hommages aux dirigeants vertueux et leur accorderont
des offrandes, les nations méchantes et corrompues, en réalisant
l’approche de leur fin, viendront porter de tels présents au Messie.
Leurs dons et leur prétendu reconnaissance de la nouvelle ère seront
rejetés, car les nations impies, comme les individus impies doivent
disparaitre de la terre avant qu’une société humaine idéale de nations
vertueuses puisse être établie. »
Et lorsque certains considèrent le fait que le concept juif de Messie
s’applique souvent au peuple juif lui-même, ce qu’Higger a prescrit
entraine encore davantage de conséquences.
L’ARMAGEDDON
L’Armageddon, dans la tradition juive, est la bataille finale au
cours de laquelle les Juifs établiront une fois pour tout leur empire
sur toute la terre.
D’après Higger, « Israël et les autres nations vertueuses combattront
les forces combinées des nations impies avec à leur tête Gog et Magog.
Rassemblés pour une bataille contre les nations vertueuses en Palestine
près de Jérusalem, les non vertueux endureront une défaite cuisante et
Sion demeurera alors le centre du Royaume de Dieu. La défaite des non
vertueux marquera l’annihilation du pouvoir des méchants qui s’oppose au
Royaume de Dieu, un établissement de la nouvelle ère idéale. »
Il n’y aura pas de place pour les non vertueux, juifs ou non-juifs
dans le Royaume de Dieu. Ils auront tous disparus avant l’avènement de
l’ère idéale sur cette terre. Les Israélites non-vertueux seront
également punis au côté des autres nations impies. Tous les vertueux, en
revanche, qu’ils soient Hébreux ou Gentils, partageront également le
bonheur et l’abondance de l’ère idéale.
(Pendant ce temps, le DHS contrôlé par les Juifs Illuminati, stocke des armes et des munitions)
Contrastant avec ce que le chrétien américain moyen peut croire, ou
percevoir dans le contexte de sa foi chrétienne, qui languit après un
royaume universel de Dieu dans les cieux, le paradis auquel fait
référence The Jewish Utopia décrivant la « nouvelle ère idéale » – le Nouvel Ordre Mondial – est « un paradis universel de l’humanité… établi en ce monde », sans aucune référence à l’au-delà.
Qui dirigera ce Nouvel Ordre Mondial ? D’après les affirmations
d’Higger concernant la tradition juive : « Il sera un descendant de la
maison de David. »
LE CHEF
La tradition Talmudique déclare qu’un « descendant de la Maison de
David prendra la tête de « l’ère idéale » après que le monde entier ait
souffert, pendant une période ininterrompue de 9 mois, sous la férule
d’un gouvernement méchant et corrompu comme celui d’Edom. »
(Note : Il existe aujourd’hui une organisation internationale juive,
Davidic Dynasty, œuvrant ouvertement à la recherche et à la réunion des
descendants de la maison de David. Il ne s’agit pas d’une « théorie de
la conspiration ». C’est un fait. Sachant ce qu’enseigne le Talmud au
sujet de ceux qui doivent diriger le monde, nous pouvons peut-être
comprendre la motivation de ce groupe.)
Le monde entier « réalisera graduellement que la piété est identique à
la vertu » et que Dieu « adhère à Israël et qu’Israël est la nation
vertueuse idéale. »
D’après ces enseignements rabbiniques qui sont à l’origine du rêve
multiséculaire de l’établissement d’un Nouvel Ordre Mondial, les peuples
de la terre proclameront aux dirigeants juifs : « Nous vous suivons,
car nous avons compris que Dieu est avec vous. »
(Une
condamnation trop dure pour un homme qui sert le NOM & dissimule le
11/09, Newton et d’autres attaques sous faux drapeau ?)
A tel point que le rabbin déclare : « Le peuple d’Israël accomplira
la conquête spirituelle des peuples de la terre, afin qu’Israël soit
élevé au-dessus de toutes les nations, en nom, et en gloire. »
Notons le concept de « conquérir » renvoyant à la bataille. Prenons
note du concept d’Israël s’élevant au-dessus de tous les autres peuples,
renvoyant à la suprématie et à la supériorité. La violence et le
racisme à l’égard du non-juif : aussi simple que cela.
LA RELIGION GLOBALE = JUDAÏSME
Il y aura éventuellement une religion globale. Cela fait partie de la
prophétie : « Les nations s’uniront d’abord afin d’évoquer le nom du
Seigneur afin de le servir. »
En d’autres termes, il y aura un gouvernement mondial et une religion
mondiale, et tout comme Higger et d’autres l’ont fait remarquer, cette
religion internationale sera le Judaïsme. Telle sera la marque de la
« conquête spirituelle » du monde…
En effet, cela sera le pouvoir Juif, siégeant à Jérusalem, avec à sa
tête un descendant de la maison de David, référé comme étant le
« Saint » qui répartira les possessions du monde.
Quels seront les bénéficiaires de ces possessions ? Au vertueux
appartiendront toutes les richesses, trésors et gains industriels ainsi
que toutes les ressources du monde. Les non-vertueux ne posséderont
rien. »
Les nations impies « n’auront aucune part dans l’ère idéale. » Leur
règne sera détruit et disparaitra avant l’inauguration du Nouvel Ordre
Mondial. La « méchanceté » de ces nations consistera principalement à
accumuler l’argent appartenant au « peuple » et d’oppresser et de voler
« les pauvres ».
Bien qu’Higger ne le précise pas, les familiers de la traduction
Talmudique reconnaitront que le « peuple » et les « pauvres » sont les
Juifs : le Talmud enseigne que seuls les Juifs sont des êtres humains et
que tous les autres sont des animaux, ainsi, bien sûr, seul les Juifs
peuvent être un peuple. Les « pauvres » sont – bien sur – les Juifs qui
se sont toujours dépeints eux-mêmes comme étant les victimes et les
oppressés.
http://fr.sott.net/article/9756-Israel-Bibi-les-rabbins-et-la-fin-du-monde
Discours messianiques
Cette connivence entre les sphères politique et religieuse n'est pas du goût de tout le monde, surtout quand elle semble engager la sécurité de l'État hébreu et de ses citoyens. « Je n'ai pas confiance dans une direction qui prend des décisions fondées sur des sentiments messianiques », s'était agacé Yuval Diskin en avril dernier. À l'instar de cet ancien patron du Shin Bet - les services de contre-espionnage -, plusieurs ténors de l'appareil sécuritaire récusent l'alarmisme de Netanyahou et de son ministre de la Défense, Ehoud Barak, à propos de la « menace » nucléaire iranienne. Tous deux partisans de la manière forte pour l'éradiquer, ils sont accusés de vouloir précipiter le pays dans une guerre aux conséquences dévastatrices.
Car derrière un sentiment de responsabilité morale à l'égard du destin du peuple juif - que ses détracteurs croient sincère -, l'actuel chef du gouvernement israélien ne serait pas insensible à certains courants rabbiniques. Celui de Menachem Mendel Schneerson, par exemple, défunt leader du mouvement Loubavitch, que Netanyahou avait cité lors d'une allocution à l'ONU en septembre 2011. Ses adeptes, dont ferait partie le Premier ministre, estiment que ce rabbin n'est autre que le Messie et qu'il vivrait toujours au milieu des hommes.Dieu interviendra pour sauver le "peuple élu" froudroyant au passage ses ennemis
Un an plus tôt, dans un discours marquant la commémoration de la libération du camp d'Auschwitz, Netanyahou avait annoncé que la prophétie du chapitre 37 d'Ézéchiel, « Les ossements desséchés », était accomplie. Selon cette vision eschatologique, les prophéties des chapitres 38 et 39 seraient donc sur le point de se réaliser. Israël s'engagera dans une immense bataille, « Gog et Magog », où il essuiera de très lourdes pertes, mais à l'issue de laquelle Dieu interviendra pour sauver le « peuple élu », foudroyant au passage ses ennemis.
Guerre imminente
Dans un pays où la spiritualité guide le quotidien et les aspirations d'une partie non négligeable de la population, cette rhétorique messianique est loin d'être marginale. Sur internet, des dizaines de vidéos annonciatrices de la fin des temps apparaissent chaque jour. Des rabbins y décryptent les codes secrets de la Bible, présentant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comme la réincarnation d'Aman, ce vizir perse qui, jadis, avait planifié la destruction des Juifs. La guerre contre l'Iran y est même annoncée pour le mois d'eloul 5772, ce qui, d'après le calendrier hébraïque, correspondrait... à septembre 2012.
Alors que certaines fuites dans la presse suggèrent une attaque israélienne à l'automne, juste avant l'élection présidentielle américaine, des sages appellent déjà les Juifs à la rédemption. « Nous savons des choses que vous ignorez. Ni les abris ni les systèmes antimissiles de Tsahal ne pourront vous sauver », assure l'influent rabbin Amnon Itshak Chlita, qui prédit un déluge de feu contre les villes israéliennes. « Retournez à la foi, priez, respectez le repos du sabbat, et l'Éternel vous offrira sa protection. »
Minister calls for third Temple to be built
Potentially explosive statement by Jewish Home’s Uri Ariel breaks taboo against damaging status quo on Temple Mount
Attaques antichrétiennes, souillure du symbole de la Croix, le jour de la fête juive de Pourim: extraits de Reckless Rites - Purim And The Legacy Of Jewish Violence (p.68 et 157-158)
La première réponse de Radbaz , qui utilise le terme Kedushat ha- Shem (la sanctification du nom de Dieu), a laissé entendre que s’incliner devant Haman aurait pu être considéré comme un acte idolâtre, reflétant la tradition rabbinique selon laquelle Haman portait une image idolâtre sur sa poitrine. Abraham Saba, qui était comme Alashkar un exil d’Espagne, a également évoqué, dans son commentaire sur Esther, la tradition rabbinique concernant l’image idolâtre portée par Haman, ajoutant, toutefois, dans une veine plus contemporaine, que c’était « comme les rois Édomites [ndt : c'est-à-dire Chrétiens] dont les fonctionnaires arborent la croix abominable sur leurs vêtements, afin que quiconque les voit se prosterne ».) (…)
La croix comme abomination
Avant de procéder à d’autres cas de comportement indiscret vis-à-vis de la croix, permettez- moi de revenir sur le terme « abomination » et l’histoire de son utilisation par les Juifs comme un moyen de se référer cacophémistiquement (mon néologisme) à la croix. L’exemple le plus lointain que j’ai pu trouver se trouve à la fin des travaux midrashiques connus sous le nom de Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (Les Chapitres de Rabbi Eliezer) qui, tel qu’indiqué plus haut, a été évidemment composée en Palestine au huitième siècle. Comme nous l’avons vu, l’auteur de l’œuvre tente implicitement, en racontant l’histoire de Pourim, de résoudre un des problèmes les plus épineux dans l’exégèse du livre d’Esther : Pourquoi Mardochée a-t-il refusé de se prosterner devant Haman ? Selon PRE, Haman « avait une « image » [ tzelem ] brodée sur son vêtement, et tous ceux qui se prosternaient devant Haman saluaient également à l’ « abomination » [ to'eva ], qu’il avait faite. Madochée a vu cela et n’a pas consenti de se prosterner devant sa « chose dégoûtante » [ shikutzo ], comme il est dit : « Mais Mardochée ne s’inclina point, ni ne fit révérence » ». L’auteur de ce midrash tardif transforme Haman en un évêque chrétien portant fièrement sur sa poitrine le signe de la croix, appelée du nom peu flatteur de la trinité des termes hébreux – tzelem to’eva, shikutz. Et bien que l’auteur midrashique résida apparemment dans les Omeyyades de Palestine, il sentait néanmoins la nécessité de lier l’ancien ennemi juré du peuple juif avec le symbole central du christianisme. (…)
Mais les Juifs ne se sont pas seulement engagé dans le discours sur le christianisme et ses symboles. Les mots s’étaient, depuis l'Antiquité tardive, reportés dans les faits, comme dans la pratique, interdite par la loi de Théodose de 408, de la gravure d'une effigie d’un crucifié le jour de Pourim. Des siècles plus tard, les juifs convertis au christianisme dans l'Empire byzantin étaient requis non seulement de renoncer généralement à toute la loi hébraïque, ses coutumes et cérémonies, mais spécifiquement de "maudire ceux qui gardent la fête du soi-disant Mardochée ... clouant Haman au bois, le mêlant ensuite à l'emblème de la croix et les brûlant ensemble ». Un tel serment pré-baptismal, datant de quelque part entre les huit et au début du dix-sept siècles, est venu jusqu'à nous depuis l'Orient byzantin. (...)
Comme Basnage, l'historien juif du dix-neuvième siècle Graetz a pu imaginer plus d'une explication de la loi de Théodose de 408 interdisant de se moquer du christianisme et de ses symboles lors de la fête de Pourim. «En ce jour », écrit-il, « les jeunes lurons[le lustige Jugend] étaient habitués d’avoir à la main une effigie du pire ennemi des Juifs, Haman, sur une potence (gibet), et cette potence, qu’il était coutume de brûler, avait, soit par dessein, soit par accident, la forme d'une croix ». (Nous soulignons). Son contemporain, cependant, Ferdinand Gregorovius, l'historien de Rome né en Prusse, a présenté la question d'une façon un peu plus unilatérale. Gregorovius, contrairement à Graetz, appartenait à l'école qui avait tendance à considérer les Juifs comme étant eux-mêmes «responsables du mépris » dont ils faisaient souvent l’objet. Il est fortement étonnant, donc, qu'il a vu la loi de Théodose comme interdisant aux Juifs « de célébrer une certain fête [ Pourim ] au cours de laquelle ils étaient habitués à donner une expression sournoise de leur haine pour le Sauveur crucifié ». Selon Gregorovius, au cours de cette journée, « ils représentaient Haman crucifié et ... le brûlaient en effigie au milieu des cris et des festivités comme s'il était le Christ » (je souligne). Comme il l'a lui-même vu (et entendu) dans son imagination, il n'y avait pas deux manières d’aborder ce sujet. Les Juifs du cinquième siècle détestaient le Messie crucifié et donnaient une « expression rusée » à leur haine en l’évacuant « au milieu des cris et des festivités » le jour de Pourim.
La loi de Théodose de 408 évoquée par ces trois chercheurs informait les gouverneurs des provinces, tel que mentionné plus tôt, qu’ils devaient « interdire aux Juifs de mettre le feu à Aman en souvenir de sa peine (châtiment), dans une certaine cérémonie de leur festival, et de brûler avec une intention sacrilège une forme faite pour ressembler à la sainte croix au mépris de la foi chrétienne, de peur qu'ils ne souillent le signe de notre foi avec leurs moqueries ».
Radbaz's first reply, which used the term kedushat ha-shem (the sanctification of God's name), implied that bowing before Haman could have been considered an idolatrous act reflecting the rabbinic tradition according to which Haman had worn an idolatrous image on his chest. Abraham Saba, like Alashkar an exile from Spain, also referred, in his commentary on Esther, to the rabbinic tradition concerning the idolatrous image worn by Haman, adding, however, in a more contemporary vein, that this was "like the Edomite (Christian) kings who have their officials wear the abominable cross on their clothing, so that whoever sees them would bow down".) (...)
The Cross As Abomination
Before proceeding to other instances of indiscreet behavior vis-a-vis the cross, let me return to the term "abomination" and the history of its use by Jews as a means of referring cacophemistically (my neologism) to the cross. The earliest instance I have been able to find occurs in the late midrashic work known as Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (The Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer), which as noted earlier, was evidently composed in eighth-century Palestine. As we have seen, the work's author implicitly attempts, in retelling the story of Purim, to solve one of the thorniest problems in the exegesis of the book of Esther: Why did Mordecai refuse to bow down to Haman? According to PRE, Haman "had an 'image' [tzelem] embroidered on his garment, and anyone who bowed down to Haman bowed also to the 'abomination' [to'eva] which he had made. Mordecai saw this and did not consent to bow down to his 'disgusting thing' [shikutzo], as it is said, 'But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence'." The author of this late midrash transforms Haman into a Christian bishop who proudly wears upon his chest the sign of the cross, referred to by the uncomplimentary trinity of Hebrew terms -- tzelem to'eva, shikutz. And although the midrashic author apparently resisded in Umayyad Palestine, he nonetheless felt the need to link the ancient arch-enemy of the Jewish People with the central symbol of Christianity. (...)
But Jews did not only engage in discourse about Christianity and its symbols. Words had, since late antiquity, carried over into deeds, as in the practice, prohibited by the Theodosian law of 408, of burning a crucified figure on Purim. Centuries later, Jewish converts to Christianity in the Byzantine empire were required not only to generally renounce every Hebrew law, custom, and ceremony, but to specifically "curse those who keep the festival of the so-called Mordecai ... nailing Haman to wood, and then mixing him with the emblem of the cross and burning them together." Such a prebaptismal oath, dating from some time between the eight and early seventeen centuries, has come down to us from the Byzantine East.(...)
Like Basnage, the nineteenth-century Jewish historian Graetz was able to imagine more than one explanation for the Theodosian law of 408 prohibiting mockery of Christianity and its symbols on Purim. "On this day", he wrote, "the merry youths [the lustige Jugend] were accustomed to hand in effigy the arch-enemy of the Jews, Haman, on a gallows, and this gallows, which it was the custom to burn, had, by design, or by accident, the form of a cross." (emphasis added). His contemporary, however, Ferdinand Gregorovius, the Prussian-born historian of Rome, presented the matter in a somewhat more one-sided way. Gregorovius, in sharp contrast to Graetz, belonged to the school of scholarship that tended to regard the Jews as being themselves "responsible for the contempt" with which they were often held. It is sharply surprising, therefore, that he saw the Theodosian law as forbidding the Jews "to celebrate a certain festival [Purim] at which they were accustomed to give sly expression to their hatred for the Crucified Saviour." According to Gregorovius , on that day, "they represented Haman as crucified and... burned him in effigy amidst shouts and revelry as if he were Christ" (emphasis added). As he saw (and heard) it in his imagination, there were no two ways about it. The Jews of the fifth century hated the crucified Messiah and gave "sly expression" to their hatred by venting it "amidst shouts and revelry" on the day of Purim.
The Theodosian law of 408 alluded to by all three of these scholars had instructed the governors of the provinces, as mentionned earlier, to "prohibit the Jews from setting fire to Aman in memory of his past punishment, in a certain ceremony of their festival, and from burning with sacrilegious intent a form made to resemble the saint cross in contempt of the Christian faith, lest they mingle the sign of our faith with their jests."
Michael Collins Piper, The Confessions of an Anti-Semite
(...)
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