13 Tevet 5776
Erev Shabbat Kodesh
I'd like to pause for a moment to express my outrage at those coming to express their outrage. This goes to show you how far distanced from authentic Judaism many religious people are today. They practice a "Judaism" made in their own image which ignores uncomfortable Torah truths.
The public knowledge that religious Jewish youth in Israel were locked up without charge, admittedly without evidence, without access to attorney or medical attention, denied their religious rights, TORTURED relentlessly... This did not concern the following groups enough to bring them to outrage or move them to public statements of disavowal. This did not concern these groups enough to make them worry about what has happened to our Judaism. No, that took a weird wedding video, which it now comes out was quite possibly photoshopped.
It seems that the most damning of the images involves one of the guests holding a molotov cocktail and a picture of the dead baby. As you can see in the picture below, the person is not attired like the other guests. There is speculation whether it could have been photoshopped in (apparently that's much easier than you could imagine) or whether this particular person was an agente provocateur.
Tzohar Rabbis Respond to Video Showing Participants At Wedding Dancing with Joy Over the Duma Arson Attack
The deeply disturbing video clip should be viewed as a source of disgust and embarrassment for all of Israeli society. We call on all rabbis, political leaders and educators and all those who claim to represent these extremist evildoers to condemn their actions and positions in all ways possible and work to expel them from our midst.
Our responsibility must be to defend and support our security forces who work tirelessly every day and night to defend us from those enemies who are committed to our national and personal destruction.
It is with the utmost pain that we view the phenomenon of encouraging violence against innocents. Such behavior is against the spirit of the Torah and against the most basic values which we hold dear.
NOT A WORD ABOUT THE CHARGES BEING LAID AGAINST SHIN BET ABUSES OF POWER.
RCA Condemns Video Showing Participants At Wedding Dancing with Joy Over the Duma Arson Attack
The Rabbinical Council of America expresses its outrage over the dancing, singing and celebration of the murder of Ali Dawabshe in the Duma arson and condemns the actions of these radical youth in the harshest terms. Rabbi Shalom Baum, president of the RCA, stated, “The vigilante and lawless calls for revenge and dancing with machine guns and knives are anathema to Jewish morality and religious standards.”
The RCA applauds the quick and decisive statements of Israeli religious and political leaders of the event. It echoes Chief Rabbi David Lau’s statement that “acts like these are not the way of Judaism. This is a rejection and repudiation of the values of the Jewish people, the Torah and the uniqueness of the Jewish people. ” It applauds the unequivocal statement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said that the “shocking pictures [of the celebration]” show “the real face of a group that poses danger to Israeli society and security.”
AGAIN - NOT A WORD ABOUT THE CHARGES BEING LAID AGAINST SHIN BET ABUSES OF POWER.
No doubt the OU will be next to line up, unless they were the first and I missed it! Had they simply addressed both issues together, I might have been less harsh with my criticism, but to come out so quickly, so harshly, with such vitriol, against a young and vulnerable population and without a WORD - A SINGLE WORD - of condenation for the police abuses. It's dishonest to say the very least.
What it says to me is that what concerns these "rabbis" most is the same thing that concerns the goverment - losing their own powerbase. None of them really wants Mashiach to come and when he does, they will fight him even more than they're fighting these kids now.
The thing is their day is done and there's nothing that can save them now.