Culture, Israel, Religion

Who Said It?

You cannot mix pure with impure. Of course we have to keep apart from all the other nations. You must stand in the breach and prevent this. One cannot mix light with darkness. [We] are pure.
[They] are a nation of donkeys. They are an evil plague, an evil Satan, an evil pestilence. One may ask, ‘why did God not create them to walk on all fours?’ for they are donkeys. The answer is that they have to build and clean, but they have to understand that they are donkeys. There is no place for them in our schools.”

A. A Palestinian imam giving a Friday sermon from the Temple Mount
B. The Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan
C. A bishop allied with the Nazis during WWII
D. Rabbi David Batzri, the noted Kabbalist presently being primped to succeed Rav Yitzhak Kaduri
If you said ‘D’, you are correct. The cough “Rabbi” made the remarks in protest to the establishment of an Arab-Jewish school (aimed at promoting co-existence) in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Paht.

17 thoughts on “Who Said It?

  1. Nice, very nice.
    I’m so glad there are so many Jewish alternatives to Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.
    And now I think I’m going to go vomit.

  2. There’s something about these ultra-conservative Kabbalists… some wires got crossed somewhere, I’ve seen it a few times now…. kinda makes me want to really get into their theology and figure out how it happens…

  3. Sad to say…but I heard a Vancouver Chabad rabbi – well known and liked by many – claim the Palestinians are the same as Nazis.
    I don’t shy away from generalizations based on deeds and speech. But it would seem that Batzri’s comments are fueled by fear, perhaps loss of money, and not a concern for Jewish people.

  4. I dunno man, i didn’t hear him say anything that isn’t pretty much the essence of judaism. what did y’all think “kodesh” meant? implied? This is only what the chumash seems to be saying. right?

  5. Yeah, yoseph Leib , dehumanizing people into donkey’s is obviously quite appropriate and biblical.
    So, I’m gonna go ahead and just call you an ass… I mean, nothing wrong with that, right?

  6. “I dunno man, i didn’t hear him say anything that isn’t pretty much the essence of judaism. ”
    Yes, if you define Kabbalah as the essence of Judaism. Kabbalah has the need to look at reality and then construct some underlying cosmic significance to the phenomena it sees. So while the rationalist Jew sees Jews as a force in the world with a special mission (not unlike, say, the Army Rangers who are somewhat separate from the rest of the Army and are no doubt proud of their status, but at the same time are still a part of the Army and are concerned for all of its members), the Kabbalist often ratchets up the differences between Jews and others on a cosmic scale. (Note that I’m not anti-Kabbalah when it’s understood non-literally and as completely subordinate to the classical texts of Judaism, both Halachically and Hashkafically. The trouble starts when everything becomes subordinate to Kabballah.)
    While classical texts like the Talmud do contain some material that is Jewishly chauvinistic or negative towards non-Jews, there is also material that offsets these.
    “what did y’all think “kodesh” meant? implied? ”
    “Consecrated”. For a particular mission.
    As for Shtreimel’s Chabad rabbi, Nazi comparisons are very different from donkey comparisons. The latter is simply racist. For the former, I would ask how the percentage of Palestinians who want to see Jews dead compares with the Nazi percentage, or whether what the Palestinians would do to the Jews if they could differs from what the Nazis did. I will concede that the comparison is not so apt concerning formidability or the ability to speak German.

  7. and i would argue if palestinians had full human and civil rights they wouldn’t want to “do” anything to us…but, you know, that’s just me and my naive worldview

  8. Yes, it is naive. How then do you explain non-Palestinian Arab and Muslim hostility towards Israel? Or do you think Israel is responsible for human and civil rights deficiencies in Syria or Pakistan?

  9. hmm…how would you explain north american jewry’s hostility to the soviet union? or world jewry’s hostility to nazi germany? do you mean to say the persecution of jews in europe was responsible for the fact that you couldn’t join a country club in the 1950s if your last name was cohen? solidarity with your co-religionists? hah! we all know muslims aren’t civilized enough to care about each other when they’re on break from killing one another!

  10. you know, i actually used to think you had something valuable to contribute to the conversation here. now i realize what a fool i was to believe…

  11. Response to comment 10: Despite your prophylactic remark at the end, which tries to paint me as a racist if I question the Arabs’ tender concern for Palestinians, as you well know, the Arabs don’t actually give a damn about the Palestinians. Whether it’s Jordan in 1970 (where was the outrage?), Kuwait in the 90’s (ditto), the fact that the Palestinians could easily have been absorbed in the Arab world but instead languish in camps, the steady stream of evidence that Arabs consider Palestinians to be troublemakers and worse… Wake up, the conflict is not, and never was, about the Palestinians. It’s about whether the Jews (or, possibly, any non-Arab people) should be permitted sovereignty in any part, however small, of the Middle East.
    “you know, i actually used to think you had something valuable to contribute to the conversation here. now i realize what a fool i was to believe… ”
    Standard tactic. Instead of bolstering your argument with substance, you just spit venom. Hopefully, this will be obvious to everyone. I said nothing to prompt that, and had I said that to you, you’d be very offended right now.

  12. as you well know, the Arabs don’t actually give a damn about the Palestinians
    right… because absorbing the palestinians wouldn’t have eliminated the urgency underlying their claim to palestine. that would in no way have worked against their national interests.
    everything you’ve just said is entirely anti-arab rhetoric. no one likes palestinians. they’re nothing but trouble for everyone. the muslim world doesn’t really care about them. the muslim world is just using them to fuck with us, because they hate us just a teensy bit more than they hate them.
    well that’s very diplomatic of you. i’m sure the muslim world is racing to confirm your thesis. that’s clearly why every arab nation flanking israel is pressuring hamas to negotiate with israel and accept a two state solution…

  13. “right… because absorbing the palestinians wouldn’t have eliminated the urgency underlying their claim to palestine. that would in no way have worked against their national interests. ”
    How thoughtful of them. “Go live in squalor; it’s for your own good. Me, I’m going to Monte Carlo with the oil profits.” Did they offer the Palestinians a choice?
    “everything you’ve just said is entirely anti-arab rhetoric.”
    No, Jordan 1970 and Kuwait actually happened. And the Arab view of Palestinians is well documented.
    “i’m sure the muslim world is racing to confirm your thesis. that’s clearly why every arab nation flanking israel is pressuring hamas to negotiate with israel and accept a two state solution… ”
    Out of the goodness of their hearts? Hah. More like “grab what you can now, and we’ll get the rest later”.

  14. did they offer them a choice? it was called all palestine, and it was centered in gaza and presided over by the muffti. the hashemites toppled it.
    i also didn’t deny the black september happened … the palestinians stood up for their rights and the hashemites, again, put them down. palestinians in jordan continue to struggle for the rights, but, as i understand it, those whose sole focus is israel undercut them because, again, it works against their national interests.

  15. “did they offer them a choice?”
    I mean, did the Arab countries offer to take in Palestinians. As, for example, Israel took in the Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
    (Gotta leave the computer now, but I’ll respond to anything further tomorrow.)

  16. right… because absorbing the palestinians wouldn’t have eliminated the urgency underlying their claim to palestine. that would in no way have worked against their national interests.
    It seems to me that this argument is exactly about how the Arabs couldn’t care less about the Palestinians. Of course choosing to make their lives as difficult as possible to buttress some pan-“Arab” claim to Israel was congruent with their interests. And of course that spoke to their dehumanization of Palestinians as a political battering ram rather than as people whose herding into refugee camps and denied access to, say, the right to apply for a job or live outside the reservation might actually not be a nice way to live in Lebanon. God forbid the easy life or, well, regular meals might dent their ardent hatred of the illegal Zionist foreign settler regime in Tel Aviv!

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