wombatwoody wrote on Jan 10^th, 2023 at 6:17am:


This is an important point.  Orthodox Judaism is much, much more like orthodox Islam.  But while modern Judaism has been tempered by Christianity and European Enlightenment and science - in which Jews have always been prominent- Islam hasn't been.

If the Arabs surrounding Israel were Christians or even post-Christian secularists, the latter's arguments and complaints against Israel, and importantly, their strategies and attitudes,  would move credible than those of the fundamentalist Muslims.
But the Palestinians' main sponsors remain Iran and Syria. Imagine if they were Sweden and Switzerland.

athos wrote on Jan 6^th, 2023 at 4:53pm:

Considering the wide range of racial types making up the population of China the notion of racial hatred of the 'Chinese' needs closer examination.

Ayn Marx wrote on Jan 10^th, 2023 at 8:46am:

A revolutionary Marxist. The wife of Marx and Engels's godson.

Lisa Jones wrote on Jan 10^th, 2023 at 7:29am:



The Challenge from Stefan Bialoguski

Originally published by Jews for Justice in the Middle East

Subject: Jewish Fundamentalism

Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 10:42:20 +1100


There is a link on your website to information provided by a Berkley, California-based group calling itself Jews for Justice in the Middle East.

Regardless of anyone’s political views, I believe there is an obligation to be truthful and accurate in information provided. The quotations from “Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel” by Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky provided by Jews for Justice in the Middle East are dishonest and misleading. Indeed, the following excerpts from the book quoted by Jews for Justice in the Middle East contain references puporting to represent Jewish religious law that are usually found on avowedly antisemitic websites such as neo-Nazi sites and Holocaust denial sites:

“Gush Emunim rabbis have continually reiterated that Jews who killed Arabs should not be punished, [e.g.]…Relying on the Code of Maimonides and the Halacha, Rabbi Ariel stated, ‘A Jew who killed a non-Jew is exempt from human judgement and has not violated the [religious] prohibition of murder.’ ”

Also: ” … Halacha permits Jews to rob non-Jews in those locales wherein Jews are stronger than non-Jews.”

Even a cursory glance at the Halachic (Jewish religious law) authorities proves that the above references have been taken out of context.

The standard compendium of Jewish law, the Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 158:1, rules that it is forbidden to kill non-Jews – even idol worshippers or members of the seven nations that the Jewish People have a Biblical obligation to destroy (not the Arabs who fulfill neither category). The Shulchan Aruch (the author of the book, who is also known by the title of the book itself) repeats himself, which is a rare occurence, in Choshen Mishpat 425:5. These Halachos (laws) are not contested by other authorities and they are sourced in much earlier works; see Babylonian Talmud Tractate Avodah Zarah 26a-b, Rambam (Maimonedes) Mishna Torah Madah Avodah Zarah 10:1.

With regards to whether it is permissible to steal, the Talmud, Tractate Bava Kammah 113b, states that it is forbidden to steal from non-Jews. That opinion is the only view mentioned in the Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 348:2. The Shulchan Aruch makes no diferentiation between Jews and non-Jews. The Siftei Kohen, ibid., states categorically that to steal from a non-Jew is a transgression of a negative Torah commandment. He writes that the Rambam (Maimonedes) and the Maharshal rule in accordance with this view. The Vilna Gaon rules, ibid. 8, that not only is it forbidden but that if someone did so the money cannot be used for any dvar Mitzvah (the fulfilment of a religious obligation) .

I hope your concern for truth and accuracy and a desire not to incite hatred of Jews or any other ethno-religious group will induce you to check the information I have passed on to you from Rabbi Lauffer of Jerusalem with a competent Halachic authority (eg an Orthodox rabbi) of your choice and, once confirmed, remove the defamatory material from your website.

Yours,

Stefan Bialoguski



The Response  from Israel Shahak


Answer to Stefan Bialoguski against “Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel” by Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky (Pluto Press, 1999).


Stefan Bialoguski thinks that intellectual and often public terror employed in the USA and other countries against Jews who speak the truth about Judaism, whether in the form it took after the inception of the Talmud or its continuation in Orthodox Judaism, will succeed against an Israeli Jew like me.

Contrary to the great majority of American Jews, Israeli Jews enjoy three great advantages with regard to the freedom of expression on Jewish issues: they read Hebrew and can read Halacha and other Jewish documents in the original, and are not dependent on the falsehoods circulated about those by rabbis and Jewish organizations.

They see, with the help of their Hebrew press, whose behavior is much more honest when reporting Jewish issues than the American one, what Orthodox rabbis (almost all Israeli rabbis are Orthodox) do when they have political power, and many of them noted long ago the close resemblance the Orthodox rabbis bear to the Ayatollahs in their aims, and also the close resemblance between the Halacha and the religious law now established in Iran. I have no doubt that had the common Israeli slogans “Israel will not be an Iran” or “Israel will not be ruled by Jewish Ayatollahs” – meaning the rabbis – been raised in the USA, American defenders of Jewish zealotry and discrimination if directed against non-Jews, would have protested as strongly against such typical Israeli slogans as they do against “Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel”.

Let me add that increasing numbers of Israeli Jews are beginning to see that it would be a very good thing for Israel if something similar to the First Amendment to the USA Constitution would become the law in the State of Israel.


CONTINUED HERE

wombatwoody wrote on Jan 9^th, 2023 at 11:04pm:


So it's not genocide if all the paperwork is in order?

Isn't it wonderful how much superstition of all kinds have done for our species.

Frank wrote on Jan 12^th, 2023 at 6:59am:


The awarding of Nobel prizes is a complete farce. That Bob Dylan can be awarded the prize for literature yet literary giants like James Joyce and Leo Tolstoy are ignored smacks of nepotism and favoritism.

While war criminals like Henry Kissinger receive the peace prize. What a total disgrace!

And what about before 1901? Let's say before 1803, when "the first work on geography in Hebrew (published in 1803 in Russia) could complain that very many great rabbis were denying the existence of the American continent and saying that it is 'impossible'."

Where were all the Jewish scientists, inventors, etc. then, i.e., before 1803,  when all the discoveries and inventions that fueled the industrial revolution were underway?

Rarely found, because, "Except for a purely religious learning, which was itself in a debased and degenerate state, the Jews of Europe (and to a somewhat lesser extent also of the Arab countries) were dominated, before about 1780, by a supreme contempt and hate for all learning (excluding the Talmud and Jewish mysticism)... Study of all languages was strictly forbidden, as was the study of mathematics and science. Geography, history, even Jewish history. were completely unknown. The critical sense, which is supposedly so characteristic of Jews, was totally absent, and nothing was so forbidden, feared and therefore persecuted as the most modest innovation or the most innocent criticism."

Spinoza was one of a few it seems. Then again he was more a philosopher than scientist or inventor. And Maimonides, Wikipedia says he was "one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars of the Middle Ages" with Mishneh Torah, The Guide for the Perplexed, his notable work. So he was a religious scholar, and personal physician of Saladin. But what did he invent or discover?

Quote:


Yet Islamic inventions, and there were many, changed the world.

wombatwoody wrote on Jan 12^th, 2023 at 10:15pm:



Zionism is about 120 years old. Let's focus on that period.

Jews have been disproportionate contributors to learning since their emancipation in Europe and certainly under Islamic rule in the Middle ages where learning in medicine, finance, translation was allowed. Islam itself frowned on science except for a brief period in the High Middle ages. It was shut down just as Europe turned to the Renaissznce and then the Enlightenment.

In Spinoza's time (17th century) and for another 150 years science and philosophy were not as separate as now.