chabad: the single most important asset in the jewish community (and i say that as someone who is definitely not frum).

wonderful idea… how can we get more of these buses?

slike the one they flew to the hague for the opening of the ICJ israel barrier case

its obvious that bringing the bus to duke u. is engaging in a battle aka “counting the bodies”. it is a pornographic battle where each side tries to show it is more of a victim.
fuck that. an officer cold bloodly murdering a girl in “vidui hariga” is no difference than a palestinian terrorist shooting from range zero into a car, murdering a mother and her children.
its time to move beyond the “counting the bodies” phase.
what a fucked up world.

do assaf/prplgrl realize how loathsome and ugly they really are? to them muslim terrorists who purposely try to murder jewish babies, and the israeli soldier whose bullet goes astray and kills a civilian, are equally evil, and to them israel and hamas are equally evil. this vile view of jews is at least as bad as those held by nazis or holocust deniers. not only are assaf/prplgrl vile creatures, they enable other antisemites to echo their views with “jewish” cover. im beginning to doubt jewish theology which says there is no hell…hell is the only appropriate place for the both of them.

Avi,
Chill out dude. Yom Kippur ain’t gonna come around for another 10 months or so.

Rapists and murderers is one thing…people who the cops THINK are rapists and murderers, as well as their whole families, is a whole different thing.
Avi–again with the insults. Give it a rest. Use some ideas instead of ad hominem attacks.

There should also be something that comemmorates and demonstrates the violence used by the IDF against many innocent Palestinians.
There will be. It’s called the Fourth Annual Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement.

PurrpleGrrl:
In the summer of 1990, there was a showdown between Native people, Quebec police and eventually the Canadian Army in Oka, Quebec. The clash was triggered by something as simple as a golf course and as complicated as native burial traditions.
You see, in Canada, we call in the army when an RCMP officer is shot by a rag tag group of Natives with some m16’s. One can only wonder how the Canadian government would deal with Natives blowing up buses in downtown Toronto…or Ottawa..or Vancouver.
I was there. I remember the conflict. I don’t remember anybody asking the Canadian government to demonstrate “how violence feeds itself.” BTW, I sided with the Natives on this issue.
The idea that Jews/Israelis/Likud etc. create homicide bombers and terrorists is a repulsive one. Because if anybody has a legitimate claim to demonstrate how “violence feeds itself” it is the Jews. Alas, according to your warped mind, we should have been blowing ourselves up in Germany, Spain, Egypt….

Purrrplegrrl said , “There should also be something that comemmorates and demonstrates the violence used by the IDF against many innocent Palestinians.
It’s important to show how violence feeds itself.”
~ I don’t understand this on two levels. One, does the IDF, as a matter of strategic and tactical policy, intentionally target civilians? This is different than accepting *collateral damage* in going after legit military targets embedded if you will amongst a civilain population.
And second, how does this show violence feeds itself? Is this implying that there is no moral culpability on either side of this conflict? Is it possible that one side or other must/can/will take moral repsonsibility? Does throwing up our hands and merely exclaiming that *both sides are wrong* afford us the best path to resolution of a seemingly intractable conflict?
And finally, why is there not a more thoughtful leftist poster on this website? I will give Asaf the benefit of the doubt that, as a non-native english speaker, he is not able to articulate nuances. But his statements seem to be cut and pasted from Indymedia. This is not a personal attack on him and i apologize if it comes across that way. But there has to be something better than stale sloganeering and potty mouth eruptions.

just to clarify, i said that prrpl gir might be the most DESPICABLE of the evildoers, not the most evil: hitler did what he did for evil, for power; her motive is to wash out her jewishness at the expense of murdered jewish babies. should i chill? maybe, but we must realize that the nazis and antisemites use statements like hers to justify their own actions. ok, prpgrbl grl is not a nazi, but she enables nazis: and there should be a special place in hell reserved just for her (except we dont believe in hell, dammit). guess i just couldnt chill afterall, sorry.

Re Purrrplegrrl:
Keep it up! I may not agree with everything you say, but A) I support your right to an opinion and to say it without being attacked and B) if this is meant to be a Jewish community where we can learn from one another and grow we need to share out ideas and debate them.
And to you Avi: You make no-one look bad in your posts but you. Rant’s dont translate well into writting. Next time try articulating a point without clouding your logic by adding personal attacks

hey prlpgrl, youre right, you have the right to express your opinion – and so do i. and my opinion is that you are enabling/justifying the nazis/muslimes of the world to kill jewish babies. and if you dont understand that equating errant bullets with purposeful targeting of of jewish boys and girls gives the pat buchanins of the world the freedom to advocate nazi-like positions, i suggest you read their statements. you are doing the muslims dirty work for them, and for that you are in your own spotlight of shame.

One thing a lot of people like to forget is that Jews lived peacefully in Arab lands (Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, etc.) for about two thousand years. And I’ll bet if they had remained in those places instead of going north into Europe there never would have been a holocaust. Think about it.

I agree with eyal. No one threw my family, who lived “peacefully” in the arab lands of north africa, into ovens or anything, But my Mom’s dislike for Arabs verges waaay past politically incorrect. And it’s not based on how well our people were treated when they were there.

That was a good analysis but I’m not so sure it can be helped entirely. We are a passionate people and these are issues that are very close to our hearts…
However- there is much to be said for ahavat Yisroel and repecting another’s right to have an opinion.
That said, I am in favor of banning references Hitler or all things Nazi except when refering to the Holocaust or topics of that type.
Why dimish our (collective) great loss at the hands of that genocial maniac by comparing everyone we don’t like to him?

Ren,
Shtreimel: “You state: “Think about it”. But what is there to think about? We moved…we left places. Oh la la. So should we have stayed away from USA and Canada as well? Or just Poland and Hungary. Perhaps you’re refering to our aliyah’s to Israel.
Besides, most of my friends’ parent’s who are Sephardic/Morrocan etc., have their own stories to tell about their VERY NOT peaceful lives in Arab lands. So I’m not sure what you are refering to.”
I think we should have stayed away from Poland, Hungary, Russia, Rumania, Lithuania, Austria, and especially Germany, which is where Ashkenazic Judaism began in the third century CE. These Jews came from Mediterranean lands (primarily Italy and Syria), and they and their descendants would have been a lot better off if they had stayed there and not gone to Germany.
If we had remained in the Middle East, where we belonged, there would never have been a holocaust. The Jewish community of Aleppo, Syria, dates from shortly after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. Jews were already living in parts of North Africa several hundred years before that. Under the benevolent rule of Islam, Jews for the most part enjoyed peace and prosperity until 1948, when all hell broke loose, because of Arab reaction to the establishment of Israel.

Ren,
You should read Semites and Anti-Semites where Bernard Lewis explains the anit-Semitism that is prevalent in Arab countries. One of his points is that Hitler actually communicated with the Arab leaders in the 1930’s and that anti-Semitism came from the Christian Arabs which then transferred to the Muslim Arabs. Also your statement is a bit simplistic, history is too complicated for people to make statements there wouldn’t have been a Holocaust if Jews stayed in the Middle East – other things wouldn’t happen either (Freu/Einstein – a few famous examples). We can’t treat history as addding and subtracting a few variables to get the result we want. The reason the Holocaust happend depended on much more than Jews living in Europe.

ren, so youd prefer to live as a slave? the alternatives arent germany (death) v. muslims (slavery): its slavery (or in the offical argot of the muslim religion “dhiminni” meaning xtians and jews are 3rd class citizens but are allowed to live in more or less peace so long as they pay a special tax, wear special garb, and are subservient to muslims) v. life in britain, the us, australia, etc. we helped develop the modern western world, were as deserving of anyone to be part of it, and i for one have no intention of being bullied out of it.

“Oh really? If there had been no Jews in Europe, there would have been no Jews for Hitler to kill, hence, no Holocaust.”
Ren, our great-grandparent’s flocked to Europe for the benefits that were provided to them. They were trying to better themselves as it were. As a group, it’s hard to forcast which doom will be the worst doom. The same way we, you and I, find it difficult to imagine exactly how we’re going to die. You just never know.

“ren, so youd prefer to live as a slave? the alternatives arent germany (death) v. muslims (slavery): its slavery (or in the offical argot of the muslim religion “dhiminni” meaning xtians and jews are 3rd class citizens but are allowed to live in more or less peace so long as they pay a special tax, wear special garb, and are subservient to muslims) v. life in britain, the us, australia, etc. we helped develop the modern western world, were as deserving of anyone to be part of it, and i for one have no intention of being bullied out of it.”
I’m not saying that you should go and live in some Arab country as a slave or 3rd class citizen. But I am saying that before you equate Muslims with Nazis, you should remember that in many Arab countries, for many centuries, Jews and Muslims enjoyed a peaceful coexistence with neither pograms nor the kind of relentless persecution that the Jews of Christian Europe were subject to.

“I would suggest Ren, that you research in to the statements and threats of various Arab nations during the UN debate over the partition of mandatory Palestine. Numerous countries threatened to expel their Jews if the Zionists formed a state. Not indicative of a positive peaceful coexistence in my opinion.”
But when did that happen? It happened after almost 20 centuries of Jewish life in Arab lands with no pograms, no death camps and none of the ferocious anti-Semitism that the Jews of Christian Europe were forced to endure.

Eyal: You bring up the example of Granada, which, while under Arab rule, was home to a large and dynamic Jewish population. Among the most powerful Jewish families of Granada in 1066 were the Ibn Nagrelas, who had become so powerful and wealthy that envious Muslims became enraged and caused widespread destruction and Jewish flight. According to the sources that I have consulted, there is no record of mobs killing all or even any of the Jews of Granada in 1066. In fact, Jews remained in Granada even after the persecutions of 1066 and continued to participate in every aspect of public life until its fall to the Christian conquerors in 1492.
Fez was often a particularly inhospitable place for Jews, especially after a fanatical fundamentalist Muslim dynasty known as the Almohades assumed control in 1147; but the persecution there waxed and waned. And in 1160, Fez became home to Maimonides and his family.
So, yes, there were occasional periods of persecution, but it was never as horrendous as what the Ashkenazim had to endure in Christian Europe.
“In addition, don’t you think it’s somewhat bizarre to blame people for not anticipating history 2,000 years in advance?”
Well, if there had been no advanced warning, then I’d say yes, you can’t blame them. However, by the time that the savagery of the Crusades was in full swing in places like Germany and France (1096-1196), that should have given the Jewish population an idea of what the future would be like for them and their descendants in Christian Europe. But instead of getting the hell out of Europe, they went east, to Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Rumania, etc. And we know how the story ends. So yes, I do blame them. I think they made a tragic mistake.

Ren said:
Well, if there had been no advanced warning, then I’d say yes, you can’t blame them. However, by the time that the savagery of the Crusades was in full swing in places like Germany and France (1096-1196), that should have given the Jewish population an idea of what the future would be like for them and their descendants in Christian Europe. But instead of getting the hell out of Europe, they went east, to Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Rumania, etc. And we know how the story ends. So yes, I do blame them. I think they made a tragic mistake.
what mistake did they make? choosing to exist? your right, they all should have just killed themselves because they were an inconvinence to everyone else. jews have been persecuted unmercifully where ever they were since their inception.
you view the world in a sick way and i pity you for that. and if you wanted to pull that stick out of your ass you would be able to get up and try to help make the world a better place to live in.

“where at least they would have been among their own kind.” wow..ren, are you jewish?

Ren:
The slaughter of the Jews in Europe during the Crusades was not limited to Jews in Germany, or in Europe. The Crusaders killed any one who was not easily identifable as a Christian or fellow Crusader.
In the early portions of this thread the discussion centered on “the equivalency of violence” in the Modern Day Middle East. What I find interesting is that ever time this kind of debate comes up (and actually even when discussing the issue of the Crusades) it seems that the issue of a cycle of violence or the equivalency of violence comes into it. IDF violence is as bad/worse/better than the Palestinians. Violence is violence, a dead person is a dead person. Neither side has any intrinsic value. When looking at the number of dead body that are innocent verses the number that are ‘militarily engage’ doesn’t completely answer the issue either.
What I see is that many time when the Palestinians are ‘attacking’ they are intentionally targeting innocent civilians. Why? Probably, though I won’t swear to it, because tactically it cause the most ‘terror’ and because those tend to be the softest targets. (This is not to say they don’t target military targets.)
When the IDF had killed civilians they tend to be because either the Palestinians were using them as human shields or because they were in the unforturnate situation of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
ASAF:
There is also some dispute as to exactly how the innocent young girl was killed and whether the officer just open up with a burst of bullets.

“ren, my point was that your wording is usually seen in a context of total bigotry: why dont you go back to the ghetto and be with your own kind; or, why are you dating my sister, why dont you date your own kind; or, why are you here on our streets, go back where you came from and stay with you own kind.”
avi: Phrases like “your own kind” or “their own kind” are double-edged swords. When used by others against Jews it’s called bigotry. When it’s used by Jews about other Jews, it’s called Zionism. You see, I am a proud Zionist. Just like Theodore Herzl, I believe that the Jewish people had no business being in Europe. They did not belong there. They were not wanted there. And they should never have been there to begin with. They needed to be among their own kind.

Ren,
Here you seem to be saying that Jews would have been better off with the arabs in middle eastern countries: “If we had remained in the Middle East, where we belonged…”
And yet here you say your a zionist: “You see, I am a proud Zionist.”
So which is it? Do you think Jews should be living with arabs or do you think that they should be in Israel?