In light of the big Jewish/Israel ‘suckfest’ today…
Orthodox Jewish youths burn New Testaments in Or Yehuda
The Associated Press
20/05/2008
Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land.
Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said missionaries recently entered a
neighborhood in the predominantly religious town of 34,000 in central Israel, distributing hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material.
After receiving complaints, Aharon said, he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and drove through the neighborhood, urging people to turn over the material to Jewish religious students who went door to door to collect it.
“The books were dumped into a pile and set afire in a lot near a synagogue,” he said.
The newspaper Maariv reported Tuesday that hundreds of yeshiva students took part in the book-burning. But Aharon told The Associated Press that only a few students were present, and that he was not there when the books were torched.
“Not all of the New Testaments that were collected were burned, but hundreds were,” he said.
He said he regretted the burning of the books, but called it a commandment to burn materials that urge Jews to convert.
“I certainly don’t denounce the burning of the booklets, he said. I denounce those who distributed the booklets.”
Jews worship from the Old Testament, including the Five Books of Moses and the writings of the ancient prophets. Christians revere the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, which contains the ministry of Jesus.
Calev Myers, an attorney who represents Messianic Jews, or Jews who accept Jesus as their savior, demanded in an interview with Army Radio that all those involved be put on trial. He estimated there were 10,000 Messianic Jews, who are also known as Jews for Jesus, in Israel.
Police had no immediate comment.
Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews frown on missionary activity aimed at Jews, though in most cases it is not illegal. Still, the concept of a Jew burning books is abhorrent to many in Israel because of the association with Nazis torching piles of Jewish books during the Holocaust of World War II.
Earlier this year, the teenage son of a prominent Christian missionary was seriously wounded when a package bomb delivered to the family’s West Bank home went off in his hands.
Last year, arsonists burst into a Jerusalem church used by Messianic Jews and set the building on fire, raising suspicions that Jewish extremists were behind the attack. No one claimed responsibility, but the same church was burned down 25 years ago by ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/985362.html
Israeli Rabbis to Shun Christian Event
Israeli rabbinic authorities have abruptly called on Jews to shun a major Christian tourism event, baffling and upsetting evangelical groups that traditionally have been big supporters of the Jewish state…
last week the chief rabbinate urged Jews to stay away from the event, saying some of the groups want to convert them to Christianity. Israel has laws against missionary work, and for many here, proselytizing is dangerously close to the forced conversions European Jews endured for centuries…
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3641143
Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=487412&contrassID=2&subContrassID=5&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=487412
Rapture Ready: CUFI (Christians United for Israel)
Among the rapture ready was Republican Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. None of this seemed to matter to Joe Lieberman, who delivered a long sermon hailing Hagee as nothing less than a modern-day Moses. Lieberman went on to describe Hagee’s flock as “even greater than the multitude Moses commanded.”
Tom DeLay: I quit for Israel
DeLay was one of Israel’s fiercest defenders in the House, at times deriding bills driven by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the main pro-Israel lobby, as insufficiently pro-Israel.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/100806.html
Among Evangelicals, A Kinship With Jews
Some Skeptical of Growing Phenomenon
The Rev. Donald E. Wildmon, chairman of the evangelical American Family Association, warned in a Dec. 5 radio broadcast that Foxman was “in a bind” because the “strongest supporters Israel has are members of the religious right – the people he’s fighting.”
Christian Zionists lobby for US attack on Iran
Hagee established CUFI as a Christian congressional lobby in support of Israel, modeled on the pro-Israel congressional lobby AIPAC (the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee)
http://www.jewsonfirst.org/06b/cufi.html
– Henry Ford
Reality clashing with propaganda…
The Wexner Analysis: Israeli Communications Priorities 2003
4) Conveying sensitivity and a sense of values is a must. Most of the best-performing sound bites mention children, families, and democratic values. Don’t just say that Israel is morally aligned with the U.S. Show it in your language…
- “SECURITY” sells. Security has become the key fundamental principle for all Americans. Security is the context by which you should explain Israeli need for loan guarantees and military aid, as well as why Israel can’t just give up land. The settlements are our Achilles heel, and the best response (which is still quite weak) is the need for security that this buffer creates…
http://www.counterpunch.org/israel04292003.html
