IMPORTANT STATEMENT cum RANT (PLEASE SHARE)
One of the leading UnJews in Jewish studies has posed the question whether anyone has the right to say how other express their Judaism.
It's a fair question.
Obviously, as an Orthodox Jew who believes in the existence of Absolute Truth in Torah, deriving from an Absolute God, I think that many forms of Jewish expression are in error. At the same time, I am not God's Accountant, nor would I ever want such a position even if the Almighty offered it to me (and He won't). Each person has freedom of will to choose to express their Judaism as they see fit (though may who do so out of Hebrew illiteracy and Jewish ignorance might be challenged as to the sagacity of their methods).
In the end, all Jews are heirs of the covenant and are beloved brothers and sisters.
HOWEVER, that freedom of Jewish self-expression ends when it puts the lives of others in danger. At that point, such people like the UnJews become a menace to the Jewish People and to Judaism. They lose any and all credibility and standing in the Jewish community. They must be unilaterally condemned and excoriated by the entire Jewish People, nothing less.
Many of these 'scholars' and 'intellectuals' (some knowledgeable, some ignoramuses and all worthy of Orwell's remarks about intellectuals) have for years worked to criticize not only the policies of various Israeli governments, but to actively de-legitimize and demonize the State of Israel per se. Directly or indirectly, they empower and make common cause with the forces of evil who seek the eradication of the State of Israel and its over Six Million Jews.
In their short-sidedness, paternalist ignorance and outright colonialist racism they deny the genocidal motives not only of Hamas and Salafi Islam, but of much of the Palestinian National Movement since its inception. This they blithely dismiss with the bromide of the rejection of 'Islamophobia' (a term coined by the Soviet KGB in the 1960's). [The irony is that those who have really studied Islam, respect Islam and Muslims understand the lethal elements of Islam which drive much of the Palestinian leadership and people, EVEN IF THEY ARE ON THE POLITICAL LEFT!]
Then came October 7th.
Everyone who witnessed (first or second hand) the indescribable horrors worked by Hamas and hundreds and hundreds of Gazan civilians (who hold ten percent of the hostages) knows that they came to murder Jews, period. Indeed, they slaughtered people who spent their lives to build a Palestinian State and withdraw from Judea and Samaria. They and their leaders celebrated the rapes, dismemberments, burnings, beheadings, baking of infants and kidnapping in the streets of Gaza.
And what do the veddy veddy sophisticated UnJews do? True, they express outrage at Hamas' 'excesses' (for which they helped to pave the way by demonizing Israel and calling for our dismantling/destruction). They also blame Israel for fighting back. They cover themselves in the unctious glory of cheap virtue signalling through the aggressively asserted obscenity that Israel is no less to blame than Hamas, because tragically Gazan civilians are caught in the fighting, even though there is literally no other way for Israel to fight its enemies. (And remember, Israel is PROTECTING Gazan civilians who are fleeing the war zone while Hamas shoots at them to keep them in place).
So, in answer to the question of this leading UnJew...Yes, we have the right to call you out and cast you out. Technically, God in His Wisdom, made it impossible to deprive a Jew of his being a Jew. Teshuvah, even a Teshuvah as unlikely as yours and those of your acolytes and minions, is always possible.
[And ALL of the above applies equally to the obscenity that calls itself Neturei Karta. Ironically, the far from traditionally observant UnJews find themselves together with the fanatics of Neturei Qarta. The extremes really do meet in the middle.]
