No sooner have I finished blogging on one set of Nazi rabbis than another lot pop up. And whilst I’m teasing out the links between a religious ruling forbidding rent an apartment to Arabs and Nazi laws to do the same to Jews, then the Orthodox do my job for me.
I confess this blog has made something of a speciality of Israel’s racist and Nazi-like rabbis. See for a roundup of articles. Why? Because the Orthodox rabbinate are the ideological engine of Zionism today. They set the pace, they determined the next goal and always god legitimises whatever barbarity they are advocating.
Whilst Yaacov Shapira of Lubavitch fulminates that “There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults.” Lubavitch Rabbi Schochet in Britain cultivates an air of liberalism whilst uttering not a word of criticism of fellow Lubavitch rabbis in Israel.
But even I have argued that, for political reasons, Zionism in Israel is not exterminatory. It would appear that I spoke to soon. In a ‘family magazine’ Fountains of Salvation,of what Richard Silverstein calls the radical, right-wing Orthodox rabbinate, an article appears advocating placing the Amalekites, a code for the Palestinians, in death camps. That such an article can appear should not be surprising, as I’ve been detailing for some time things like the appearance of graffitti (in Hebron of course) saying ‘Arabs to the gas chambers’
What we are seeing today is the culmination of Zionism. It has shed its ‘left wing’ which used the phraseology of socialism whilst expelling and massacring the Palestinians, and the appearance of an openly racist and neo-Nazi Orthodox Rabbinate in Israel. What is remarkable is how they use the symbols and imagery of the holocaust, not of course to warn against the evils of racism or even racism against Jews but as a justification for repeating the same to the Arabs.
Rabbi Dov Lior is a well-known figure in Israel. He is not an isolated maverick. He is the Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba settlers. He is also a leading scholar of the Religious Zionist camp and reportedly the favourite student of the late Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, son of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. Avraham Cook is revered by the whole religious camp in Israel and acknowledged as the founder of religious Zionism. In his ‘honour’ the rabidly racist bastion of religious Zionism, the yeshiva of Mercaz Harav was founded in Jerusalem in 1924.
In the late 1980s the Attorney General barred Lior’s election to the Supreme Rabbinical Council following statements he made suggesting that medical experiments be carried out on captured Arab ‘terrorists’. [1] This Jewish Mengele has subsequently been elected and again barred from the Supreme Rabbinical Council. Although the Attorney General was forced to bar him, it is clear that Dov Lior, a true Nazi rabbi, is popular and revered by his fellow rabbis. He is also paid by the State and when he was summoned to appear by the Police for interrogation, after his support for Torah HaMelech, a book by Lubavitch Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira advocating the murder of non-Jews.
Rabbi Dov Lior has, with other rabbis, issued a halakhic ruling that Israel must shoot civilian populations in areas from whence attacks on Jewish communities originate, and another ruling which states that it is forbidden by Jewish law to employ or rent homes to Arabs.[2]
Below we give you a taste of the teachings of this wonderful sage. Jewish women must not use non-Jewish sperm because ‘Gentile sperm lead to ‘barbaric’ offspring’. Strange when you consider Lior is probably 100% Jewish! Here we seen the advocacy of Nazi race ethics, eugenics, which were at one time popular in the western world but which were discredited after the fall of Nazism and the revelation of the Nazi extermination camps. It is ironic that in Israel these myths are being recreated.
We have a Rabbi Yousef Falay advocating the ‘extermination’ of male Arabs and now the call to put Arabs in the ovens. The first step towards genocide is its articulation. This is the current role of Israel’s Orthodox Rabbis.
And is it any surprise that the holocaust itself, as commemorated by the vile Yad Vashem propaganda museum, is now seen as a justification for this type of racism by Israel’s youth?
Lior is also an expert on music, Jewish music in particular. One thing he doesn’t like are ‘jungle rhythms’ (as the National Front used to term Black music).
Tony Greenstein
References
1. Gershom Gorenberg, The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount, Free Press, New York 2000 p. 164
2. Nadav Shragai, ‘Top Yesha rabbi says Jewish law forbids renting houses to Arabs’’ Haaretz 20/03/2008
“There is no such thing as civilians in wartime… A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew’s fingernail!”
Rabbi Dov Lior of the Yesha Council & Kiryat Arba
12 January 2011
Back in the days of the Shoah, one of the slogans of the Jew haters was: “Jews to the Ovens.” Now, it causes me anguish to say, we have Israeli Orthodox rabbis saying the same about the Palestinians.
Thanks to Cicero for pointing me to a shocking passage in an Israeli Orthodox “family magazine,” Fountains of Salvation, which suggests that Israel will create death camps for Palestinians in order to wipe them out like Amalek. The article attacks Israeli rabbis who dispute the letter recently circulated from pro-settler extremist rabbis which urged that no Israeli Jew rent apartments or homes to Israeli Palestinians. It chided them for being “politically correct” [now where have we heard that phrase before?] and refusing to do their jobs and educate the populace in the true path of Torah (which is presumably to hate Palestinians).
The last paragraph (page 4 of the original) though is the whopper:
It will be interesting to see whether they leave the assembly of the Amalekites [Palestinians] in extermination camps to others, or whether they will declare that wiping out Amalek is no longer [historically] relevant. Only time will tell…
A few words of explanation. There is a Biblical command for Jews to wipe out Amalek because of the viciousness with which that people attacked Israelites. Essentially, this is a Jewish call to commit genocide against Amalek. We should note that the Bible records such Jewish campaigns against other tribes as well (Moabites, Jebusites) and no doubt others did the same to their enemies.
Rabbis throughout the ages have allegorized the reference to Amalek to connote any sworn enemy of the Jewish people from Hitler to Barack Obama (yes, prominent American Orthodox Jews wrote such garbage before the last election). But this is the first time I’ve ever read any Orthodox publication calling for committing genocide against Palestinians.
As Cicero pointed out to me, the articulation of this passage doesn’t only refer to Palestinians (though most likely this was specifically who the writer had in mind given the context). It can refer to any enemy of the Jewish people including you or me.
Now a word on who is behind this publication: it is the cream of the crop of the radical right-wing Israeli Orthodox rabbinate. It was founded by the former chief rabbi of Safed, whose son currently holds that position and who circulated the letter I refer to above. Another is the chief rabbi of Ramat Gan and finally Rabbi Avinar, suspected of sexually abusing a troubled woman who approached him for spiritual advice. Each of them holds paid government sinecures, allowing them to spew hate on the dime of the Israeli taxpayer.
This raises the important question: why does the U.S. government allow tax-deductible contributions to Israeli charities like Chabad given their propagation of such genocidal rhetoric?
Cicero first learned about the Chabad article from Udi Aloni’s Ynet column, which pointed it out. He points out that it has been his custom in criticizing Israelis who support the Occupation to attack the liberal elite which is characterized by the slogan “shooting and crying.” Instead, he says he now will have to pay closer attention to the radical Orthodox who “shoot and laugh.”
Aloni imagines the young Orthodox boy reading this publication in his synagogue where it’s distributed, who conjures to himself with a smile on his face the picture of Palestinians standing behind barbed wire in such a camp. This is the legacy these rabbis are bequeathing to their young followers.
Finally, since I know people of all ideological stripes may read into this story what they wish, I want to make clear that this is not Judaism. These wicked men may be Jews and rabbis, but they don’t represent normative Judaism any more than Osama bin Laden represents normative Islam. Do not make the mistake of conflating this idiocy with all of Israel or all of Judaism. Yes, these men are dangerous, they are hateful, and they must be challenged. But there is another face of Judaism and another face of Israel (though that is becoming increasingly difficult to see I concede).
Rabbi Dov Lior rules that Jewish Law prohibits sterile couples from getting pregnant using non-Jewish man’s sperm, as it causes adverse traits. On subject of single mothers he says, ‘Child cannot be 100% normal’
Kobi Nahshoni 01.12.11
Rabbi Dov Lior, a senior authority on Jewish law in the Religious Zionism movement, asserted recently that a Jewish woman should never get pregnant using sperm donated by a non-Jewish man – even if it is the last option available.
According to Lior, a baby born through such an insemination will have the “negative genetic traits that characterize non-Jews.” Instead, he advised sterile couples to adopt.
Lior addressed the issue during a women’s health conference held recently at the Puah Institute, a fertility clinic. His conservative stance negated a ruling widely accepted by rabbis, which states that sperm donated by a non-Jew is preferable to that of an anonymous Jew, who might pose a genealogical risk.
“Sefer HaChinuch (a book of Jewish law) states that the character traits of the father pass on to the son,” he said in the lecture. “If the father in not Jewish, what character traits could he have? Traits of cruelty, of barbarism! These are not traits that characterize the people of Israel.”
Lior added identified Jews as merciful, shy and charitable – qualities that he claimed could be inherited. “A person born to Jewish parents, even if they weren’t raised on the Torah – there are things that are passed on (to him) in the blood, it’s genetic,” he explained. “If the father is a gentile, then the child is deprived of these things.
“I even read in books that sometimes the crime, the difficult traits, the bitterness – a child that comes from these traits, it’s no surprise that he won’t have the qualities that characterize the people of Israel,” he added.
‘Kids born to single moms become criminals’
Lior condemned artificial insemination and sperm donation in general, saying that they lead to waste of sperm, unclear genealogy and other Jewish law offenses. He warned against undergoing intrauterine insemination at hospitals, where the workers may mix sperm samples for one reason or another – a major halachic violation.
On the subject of women who freeze their eggs to use at a later date, the rabbi asserted that instead they should concentrate their efforts on getting married younger.
“Our public has been influenced by a part of the Western culture in which every woman, instead of becoming a mother, needs to get a Masters Degree,” he lamented. “The role of women – child rearing – is not less important than an academic degree.” Lior noted that there is nothing wrong with attaining a profession, but it should not be a priority.
Moreover, the rabbi spoke against single women getting pregnant.
“We can understand the desire of every woman to have a child, but according to our Torah it is impossible to address the demand of a certain woman when it can cause someone else suffering,” he said.
“If a child is born without a father, he cannot be 100% normal.” He stated that rabbinical literature defines these kids as “criminals and subjects of other negative phenomena.”
“There are some honorable people among the goyim. A few, but they exist. I think that even in Hebron there are a few who are human beings – which doesn’t mean I’m saying they shouldn’t all be sent to Saudi Arabia. They should all be sent to Saudi Arabia!”
According to the rabbi, this good period among non-Jews has ended: “There has been a downfall since World War II. … I call this boogie-woogie and they call it pop. It expresses people’s animalistic and lower urges. This noisy, fast rhythm is unlike that of the Hasidim, who sang with devotion and could do so for hours. Its very basis is improper: urges without any elevating principle. It must absolutely be avoided. … That kind of thing is in the jungle.”
Lior says that music reflects the nature of a people, and gives the Arabs as an example. “Whoever is more barbaric is noisier,” he says. “Have you noticed, for example, when [Arabs] have weddings, the [Israeli] left has taught them to shoot these fireworks in the air, and they blend in real gunshots, and sometimes shoot each other. It is part of the amusement at their weddings. They cannot live without noise. And pop as a whole… there are those who worship this kind of god. Clearly this does not belong at all to Judaism, and not to composers who know how to express good and tender feelings and aspire to values for all humanity.”
May one take non-Jewish music and sing prayers to those tunes? Lior: “Music can get contaminated. Experts will investigate and see if the tune is ‘kosher,’ if it expresses an aspiration to goodness, or if it is taken from the jungle and stimulates negative emotions. With pop, you can see clearly that it’s negative. Something that belongs to the rhythms of kushim [a derogatory term for black people] isn’t part of our world. In America, Rabbi [Shlomo] Carlebach matched melodies to prayers, and what he made into something Jewish is all right. But not everyone can just take from this sewer of pop, from the world of lies.”
Wrote an article in a Zionist magazine under the title “Ways of War”, in which he called for the killing of all Palestinian males refusing to flee their country, describing his idea as the practical way to ensure the non-existence of the Palestinian race….”We have to make sure that no Palestinian individual remains under our occupation. If they (Palestinians) escape then it is good; but if anyone of them remains, then he should be exterminated”, the fanatic rabbi added in his article.”
International Middle East Media Center, “Jewish Rabbi Calls for Extermination of All Palestinian Males”, September 18, 2006