Israel has a new conservative government and its enemies, and by that, I mean anti-Israel leftists, couldn’t be angrier. Ron Kampeas at the JTA has another anti-Israel press release disguised as a news story promoting a push by anti-Israel activists to boycott members of the incoming Israeli government.
“More than 330 American rabbis, including some who occupy prominent roles in major cities, are pledging to block members of the Religious Zionist bloc in Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government from speaking at their synagogues,” Kampeas gushes.
The list largely consists of anti-Israel clergy, many, if not most of them, also members of the ‘Rabbis for Hamas”. This was a list that Annie of Boker Tov Boulder put together back in the day of leftist clergy who signed a letter urging “constructive engagement” with Hamas.
Over the years I’ve noted the same bunch of names on assorted anti-Israel letters as the ‘Rabbis for Hamas’.
Sure enough, Melanie Aron, a speaker at the Islamic Networks Group, has signed both letters. As did Elliot Baskin, James Bennett, Phil Bentley, Leila Berner, Jonathan Biatch, Rena Blumenthal and Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus. And that’s just the A’s and B’s.
That’s impressive considering that a number of these people must have died or retired since then.
While I won’t bother going through the list, a few names do pop out. Most notably, Sharon Kleinbaum.
Sharon Kleinbaum, the girlfriend of teachers’ union boss Randi Weingarten, is infamous for her role at a gay temple in New York City where her hatred of Israel was so extreme that it drove the members away.
As the ZOA noted,
In 2014, dozens of prominent CBST members quit CBST because of Kleinbaum’s obscene anti-Israel antics, including mourning and reading the names of Hamas terrorists during synagogue services. Kleinbaum then claimed that those people called terrorists were “children” aged 18 and under―while knowing full well that many Hamas terrorist operatives are 17- and 18-year-olds.
A CBST gay Jewish activist wrote that Kleinbaum “bashes Israel all the time, making people get up and leave services. . . . She is very vocal in her hatred towards Israel.”
On Nov. 26, 2019, Kleinbaum tweeted that she was “so proud of those standing with [BDS activist and Israel-demonizer] Omar Shakir.”
Moreover, Kleinbaum retweeted Randi Weingarten’s tweet describing antisemites Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory as “warriors for justice and I am honored to know them and work with them & call them friends.. glad to have this meeting today w/ them & @Skleinbaum,” together with a photo of Sarsour, Kleinbaum, Weingarten and Mallory standing arm-in-arm. (Sarsour called throwing rocks at Israelis “the definition of courage” and Tamika Mallory called antisemite Louis Farrakhan the greatest of all time.)
How many Religious Zionist officials were up for speaking at Sharon’s Beth Hamas Temple anyway?
An honest headline would be, “300 Opponents of Israel Continue Opposing Jewish State”.
Instead, JTA and Ron Kampeas decided to whitewash fervent haters of the Jewish State while pretending that their signatures on an anti-Israel letter was a recent development occasioned by the election.
But Kampeas, JTA and much of the media allow them to recycle this scam every year or two when the same anti-Israel crowd signs another anti-Israel or pro-antisemite letter and they act as if this is a reaction to something rather than another example of their ongoing hatred for Israel.
But let’s come back to Melanie Aron for a moment.
Remember, Aron, like Kleinbaum and assorted J Street clergy signed a letter claiming that the members of the new Israeli government are too “extreme” for them to tolerate.
Here’s Melanie Aron, who is big on Muslim interfaith, describing how she doesn’t really want to have standards for the Islamic antisemites she partners with.
“We have had some criticism from the greater Jewish community, and we have struggled with the issue of how ‘pure’ our Muslims partners have to be,” Rabbi Aron continued. “If we set the gate too high and don’t talk to anyone who has ever talked to anyone we object to, we really cut ourselves off unnecessarily from people who are open to dialogue with us. We have found in our very diverse community … that there is more to be gained from participating in broad interfaith efforts than there is to lose.”
When it comes to Muslims, Aron believes that there’s “more to be gained” from providing them with a forum and dialogue, but when it comes to Jews, she believes in boycotting them as a “demonstration of our commitment to our Jewish and democratic values”.
Behind all this hypocrisy is a simple statement of allegiance. The signatories to this letter stand with Israel’s enemies. They always have and unless they repent, they always will.
I have had the unfortunate experience to see a thriving synagogue shuttered, ruined, by the hiring of an extreme leftwing rabbi.
Granted, there were vulnerabilities prior to the passing of the longtime rabbi and the hiring of this new rabbi. While perhaps this situation was not of major significance, local Jewish families lost the option of a longstanding place to belong.
I myself heard the ranting and anti-Jewish hatred of this person. I had to leave the room. Later, many families left the congregation. It closed.
Was that always the plan? .
The Left prefers to take over and control institutions, but if they can’t control them, they would rather destroy them.
So the anti-Israel clergy serve a dual function, either they convert a synagogue or they destroy it and religion.
Either way they win.
I actually think they ultimately lose: these “jewicidals” as Pam Geller calls them, are just that. They do not really understand islam or the goals of islam, as soon as Muslims gain control these useful idiots will go the way of all other Jews that are demented enough to take this stand against Israel and think that supporting muslim goals are also their goals. The Muslims are laughing up their sleeves at these gay Jewish fools. And hopefully the Jews that abandoned the synagogues have woken up.
So sorry to hear about this, Cat. It’s always sad when something like this happens due to normal circumstances like ageing congregants and changing demographics, but this deliberate destruction of a good community resource is just dreadful. I hope that you and most of your fellow congregants have, like other cats, landed on your feet and found or created a new religious community. It happens all the time, and you can do it if you band together.
These Muslim activists she’s calling her friends would turn around and execute her and her wife the minute they took over.. These nitwits must have a screw loose, and this explains a lot of what’s happening in the schools regarding grooming. .
There is no way “canceling” members of the new Israeli government from speaking are “Jewish and democratic values.” They don’t seem to understand either value.
Jewish values are that we argue about everything and democratic values allow everyone to talk – especially if you disagree with them. These are not religious rabbis, but left wing political operatives who consider “woke” to be their new religion. It is left wing politics in the guise of Judaism.
At least they signed a letter that revealed who they truly are.
The new religion is very unified. It is like the Borg, assimilating Christianity, Judaism, and every other religious faith.
It destroys its adherents at precisely the moment when they no longer have utility. It is a devouring monster of satanic hate.
Sadly so-called progressive Judaism is bigger threat to Jewish identity and survival than any external enemy. This phenomenon is not unique to Jewish nation. We are seeing the same forces working within The U.S trying to reshape, redefine U.S national identity into something foreign. Throughout human history every civilization large or small have been destroyed from within. This time around is no different. Basically history is one big continuous loop.
Hopefully American progressive Judaism will end up destroying itself before doing any real damage to Israel and The Jewish nation.
“Progressive” Judaism will certainly destroy itself; it contains the seeds to do so. Of course it has destroyed a great many Jewish souls in North America, but there are always those stubborn few whose love of G0d causes them to find other ways to worship, generally in either traditional Litvish or Chassidic congregations. The Jewish world is now full of baale teshuvos and their descendants, just as it is full of lost Jewish souls cut off from Judaism by the Progressive movement, who unfortunately stand for nothing.
I’d be grateful if Jewish luminaries such as Mr. Greenfield would stop buying into the Reform scam and finally reject their pretend Jewishness. These are impostors and it is absolutely normal and expected they turn out to be siding with the Jewish People’s genocidal enemies since they are enemies themselves.
Calling them a “bigger threat to Jewish identity and survival than any external enemy” is giving them way too much credit and it reeks of panicky paranoia that is neither justified by these groups’ numbers or actual power and influence.
Outside the US and maybe Canada, they are extremely marginal and nobody listens to the message they are attempting to convey. Parts of the Reform movement a.k.a. Progressive Judaism may be genuinely Jewish and still somewhat loyal to their communities and to (half of) their ancestors’ principles, so there’s some hope they see how ridiculously shallow and phony what they call a “religion” really is, and go some way towards “t’shuva”, or cease and desist altogether to preserve at least their own dignity. In any case, Reform’s days are numbered, for want of any genuine spirituality and for very obvious demographic reasons.
So, I’d like writers like Mr. Greenfield to find other topics to sharpen their quills on, or to at least relate to these fake “Selbsthassjuden” with the derision they deserve, and do it as sparingly as possible. Let them slip into the darkness of oblivion in silence.
I think you have the wrong end of the stick, the very wonderful Daniel Greenfield is exposing the reform and other far left group for what they are: useful idiots for the ummah.
The anti-Israel, so-called Human Rights groups, have yet to call upon Hamas to stop the execution of political rivals, throwing gays off rooftops, the subjugation of women, and engaging in the war-crime of using their women and children as human shields. They are delusional hypocrites whose actions, words, and misdeeds are the result of a severely damaged moral compass.
I am not a medical professional, but I do believe these so called “rabbis” are suffering from some form of mental illness. Like Kanye West can give the impression of being normal on occasion, these people at first glance do not appear to be suffering from anything yet they are far from what society would define as normal. My father, z”l, could talk to you for almost 20 minutes before you caught on to his dementia. These women and those that follow them need professional help. They should not be seen or heard in public. We have institutions for people like this, Why are they still on the street?
So the high priestess of the Baal says Kadish for the new Nazis …. stick to Orthodoxy for authentic
judaism these people will fade like the kararites etc