It Just Keeps Getting Worse For Neturei Karta
Poor Neturei Karta.
They just keep getting the fallout from their appearance at the Holocaust conference sponsored by Mr. Holocaust Research himself, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and it doesn't seem to be ending.
After one rabbi's wife left him, after being thrown out of a hotel in Boro Park, now there's tires being slashed and even stronger condemnations.
From the Associated Press via the Boston Globe:
"We know what we have done, we know the value of what we have done, and we think that in the course of time that will come out clearly," said Rabbi Ahron Cohen, a Neturei Karta member from Manchester, England.When Cohen returned from Iran, he needed police protection. His house was barraged by hundreds of eggs, his window smashed by a brick and a billiard ball and he continues to be pelted with pebbles, eggs and insults in the street, he said.
Last week, two tires on his Volvo were slashed, he said, and his synagogue has closed its doors to him...
Jewish communities around the world were furious.
An Israeli chief rabbi called for banning Neturei Karta from synagogues. In New York, where several members of the delegation live, hundreds protested against them and they were repeatedly harassed with prank phone calls.
The Satmars, a Hasidic, anti-Zionist group seen by some as their spiritual cousins, lamented in a statement that "the unavenged blood of the millions of Jewish victims cries out in pain and abhorrence, to these reckless outcasts, 'How can you sink so low?'"
The Jewish community in Vienna expelled Moishe Arye Friedman, who traveled with the Tehran delegation but does not belong to Neturei Karta...
Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for the ultra-Orthodox Agudath Israel of America, said Neturei Karta's trip to Tehran was the last straw.
"They have overstayed their welcome in the community. No one has patience for them," he said. "Their actions are beyond the pale."
Well.
Overstayed their welcome in the Orthodox Jewish community? Whoa. While slashing tires is in direct violation of laws of nezek (property damage), I can't say that I disagree with at least the sentiment -- Neturei Karta can not just be, carte blanche, assumed to speak for all of Torah Judaism.



Comments
I used to, if not entirely agree with, espect the NKs for taking a position that seemed to them principled over expediant. After witnessesing this Holocaust debacle, my respect is gone. I have patience for those who deny the blood of innocents for political purposes, whether Holocaust deniers (Nazi or Muslim), Turks who deny the genocide of Armenians, or Jews who will not admit to Israeli atrocities against Palestineans (or, in this case, their own people). It is wretched and inexcusable no matter who does it.
Posted by: DA | January 30, 2007 04:26 AM
Avi Shafran, who should know better than to spout drivel within my earshot, is playing open-mouth-insert-foot again.
"...My good friend Kolko, however, is fully welcome in the Orthodox community."
Posted by: Sholomanarchy | February 1, 2007 05:07 PM