Reporter feels mob's hate in the Holy City

[muriel_volestrangler]

...
But I have to admit no protest - indeed no story in my career - has distressed me in the way I was distressed at a protest in Jerusalem on Saturday involving several hundred ultra-Orthodox Jews.
...
So even opening a simple carpark to accommodate the increasing number of tourists visiting Jerusalem's Old City is highly offensive to Orthodox Jews because it's seen as a desecration of the Shabbat, by encouraging people to drive.

I was aware that earlier protests had erupted into violence on previous weekends - Orthodox Jews throwing rocks at police, or setting rubbish bins alight, even throwing dirty nappies or rotting rubbish at anyone they perceive to be desecrating the Shabbat.
...
As the protest became noisier and the crowd began yelling, I took my recorder and microphone out of my bag to record the sound.

Suddenly the crowd turned on me, screaming in my face. Dozens of angry men began spitting on me.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/06/2617502.htm

Because, to those fundamentalists, a non-Jew turning on a recorder is sacrilegious. And that means they all get to spit on her. :banghead:

[YOY]

1. I predict a certain one-issue DUer coming to this post sometime soon.

n.t.

[LiberalEsto]

2. They behaved like thugs nt

[Meshuga]

3. It is ironic how they themselves desecrate shabbat by acting as they do

One biggie "sin" they are commiting as well is called khillul hashem. But who cares as long as others don't go against Jewish Law, right?

According to Jewish law, a non-Jew cannot possibly desecrate the Shabbat since the law is to be followed by Jews. In other words, these ultra-orthodox are morons. Actually, crazy morons.

These are some crazy people indeed and they deserve jail time for attacking others.

[juno jones]

4. Are they allowed to handle shitty nappies on the Shabbat?

Let alone fling them at non-jews. How does that square with their onerous 'purity' laws? Besides I always thought the Shabbat was a day consecrated to God for reflection, worship and meditation, not flinging trash at non-believers.

The usual fundie hypocrites.

[ZombieHorde]

5. Atheists do this in the name of No Gods all the time, oh wait, never mind. nt

[trotsky]

6. Yup, the fundie atheists are no different.

Worse, even, 'cuz they like write, uh, books and say things and stuff. So yeah, no difference at all. :eyes:

[DeSwiss]

7. These "spitters" were the Haredi Jews of Israel....

Religious Nutjobs in Israel

ThinkAtheist
Posted by yonny zohar
July 6, 2009 at 11:30am





...

In this post I want to focus on the Haredi Jews of Israel. This is a strain of Judaism which rejects Zionism, i.e the existence of Israel, because it interprets the bible as saying that Jews aren’t allowed to build a state but rather wait for god himself to manifest and give it to them.

Most Hareidi Jews do not work, but live on social security - as they claim it is the jew’s job to devote himself to studying torah. Also, although army service is mandatory in Israel- the hareidi Jews enjoy a special status, and are exempt from serving in protection of a country they do not believe has a right to exist. As mentioned earlier, this does not stop them from living on the back of the tax payer.

This strange and enraging situation in the eyes of working Israelis stems from a status quo agreement which was signed when Israel was created sixty years ago between the first prime minister and the leader of the hareidi Jewish community- which then numbered a few hundreds only.

However, thanks to high birthrate and low mortality of babies which comes as the result of combining the outdated religious commandment to breed as much as possible with modern medicine- hareidi Jews number in the hundreds of thousands in Israel today.

It is a group obsessed with the rituals practiced in the days of the Jewish community of Poland during the Middle Ages, which is apparent in its insistence to dress according the dress code in of that place and time- black wool coats. Only the Middle Eastern weather of Israel is a bit warmer than that of Poland, which doesn’t stop them... The group openly declares that it wants nothing to do with Israel, and that its insistence to live in the country lies in the holiness of the land, regardless of its apostate secular democratic government.

http://www.thinkatheist.com/profiles/blogs/religious-nutjobs-in-israel">MORE

[Meshuga]

9. They still dress like they are in 17th century Poland. n/t

[DeSwiss]

10. Which is ironic.....

...since they're so single-minded in their pursuit of authenticity of their Bronze Age beliefs, that they'd settle for attire that is so clearly inauthentic to those times.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

14. I've always wondered about that.

Why black robes? Why not whatever the fashion was in Bronze Age Canaan?

[Why Syzygy]

8. Aren't they required to stone apostates?

(snark) Of course it's against their law to pick up stones on Shabbat. Not so rubbish apparently.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

13. Can they perform executions on the sabbath?

I've never been able to find that out. I know they are allowed to mutilate their sons' genitals on Saturday, but I'm not familiar with the the rules concerning execution. It doesn't say if they stoned the guy picking up twigs before or after sundown.

My favorite restriction is the prohibition on the use of lightbulbs on Saturday. Virtually all Orthodox rabbis agree that it is verboten, but there are several schools of thought on which of the 39 restrictions it falls under; they decided it was illicit first, and then tried to come up with the justification afterward. True to form they decided the answer first and twisted to facts to conform later. It's the perfect illustration that it's all just made up.

[Meshuga]

17. One would think they would consult the oral law as opposed to the bible

Besides watering down the biblical passages by claiming that some harsh execution practices were not literal and were meant to represent the degree of the offense, Talmud sages still believed in death penalty for heinous crimes (such as murder).

But they wanted the death penalty to be as quick as possible, as painless as possible, to cause as little disfigurement as possible, and to preserve the dignity of the condemned. So, for Rabbinical Judaism, stoning is not a real option. Also, conditions were put in place that it is impossible to impose the death penalty.

I mean, orthodox Jews will look in the more recent texts for answers about Jewish Law rather than the Hebrew Bible. So one would think that these guys follow Rabbinical Judaism but I have reasons to believe that some of these haredim would love to bring back the raw biblical law, such as stoning, if they had the chance.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

23. That didn't really answer my question.

What do the more recent texts have to say about executions on the sabbath?

Oh, and I love the "not literal" thing. I was talking to a friend of mine back during the Swine Flu scare; she mentioned that her pastor had told the story of the Gaderene Swine that morning, which she had never heard before. Personally, it's one of my favorites. The guy said that the demons in it were a metaphor. I remarked that it seemed very popular in Biblical times to write something completely different from what one meant, usually in the form of something factually incorrect and/or morally abhorrent. Their real meaning, the one that they didn't write down, is always something relevant to our modern society, oddly.

[Meshuga]

25. I am not trying to answer the question. Just saying the question is irrelevant

Stringent rules about capital punishment make it impossible for the death sentence to be administered and according to the Mishneh Torah, for example, stoning a person to death is considered cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Law.

About stuff being literal or not literal, the Talmud and other Rabbinical texts had to make the bible somewhat irrelevant to reflect the moral values of its time and became the place for answers. Biblical Judaism died with the fall of the temple almost 2000 years ago. So the Bible being literal or not is not what matters in Judaism. What matters is following Jewish Law and tradition, not certain belief. In fact, Jewish tradition goes as far as labeling literalists as fools.

Some of these ultra-Orthodox make me believe they are literalists. I am not sure, but I know one ultra-Orthodox personally who believes the story in the book of Job actually happened. Granted, he became religious (and ultra-religious) at the age of 30 (he is what we call a "born again Jew") so I don't know if he was taught that in his community or brought it with him after living in a society where the majority is Christian. But again, seeing the craziness and the attitude of these individuals, they give me reason to believe that they would be fine with going back to stoning people regardless if it is on the sabbath or not.

[Why Syzygy]

19. I just assume

that since they are forbidden to pick up stones, there would be no executions on those days.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

21. What about other forms of execution though?

There aren't that many stonings these days. It's more of a Nigerian or Iranian thing right now. Though I suppose that's really all we'd have to worry about, because any execution by these people would probably be mob-style.

[laconicsax]

11. Obligitory "This has nothing to do with religion" response

Did anyone poll every member of that mob to see if the only reason they were in a 10 mile radius of that car park, the only reason they were protesting, the only reason they became agitated, and the only reason they assaulted the reporter was religious?

Clearly they were a very secular crowd protesting something for secular reasons and you are all blaming simple mob mentality on religion.

<Bible quote taken out of context>

See the mob wasn't at all motivated by their religion and my interpretation of this passage proves me right.

<Quip about DU being hostile to religious people>

[ChadwickHenryWard]

12. Glad to see no one is defending this yet.

Apparently we are all in agreement that this is wrong, which is encouraging. I have often remarked that there are several practices that, if not for religion to justify them, would result in commission to a mental institution. I had a friend back in middle who had a waking circumcision at the age of fourteen. His parents had emigrated from the Ukraine, which, when my friend was born, had outlawed circumcision. They never got it done until after the temple had found he had been bar mitzvah'd without offering his pound of flesh. Somehow it's normal to hire a strange man in a black robe and a shawl to cut of a piece of your son's dick without anesthesia or painkillers.

[Meshuga]

15. There is no prohibition in Jewish Law as far as anesthesia and painkillers

Especially for a 14 year old who would require stitches in a circumcision and the procedure is not as simple.

I also have a Russian friend who decided to have his brit milah at 16 and it was more for traditional reasons than religious reasons. These people lived in a place where being Jewish was prohibited and it meant a lot to them to follow tradition now that they were allowed to follow it.

With this said, I don't know what a bris has to do with a bunch of crazy assholes attacking others who don't follow shabbat.

[ChadwickHenryWard]

20. Now that you mention it, it does seem unusual.

I mean, you know, besides already being batshit crazy. It's not like they were members of a hardline congregation. Their rabbi was gay, and often brought his lover to social functions. You're kind of making me wonder about that. Why was he denied anesthesia?

My point about the waking circumcision is that there are certain things that would be undeniably insane if not for the "oh, it's just their religion" defense. Although admittedly, no one has trotted that out in defense of this situation, which should be taken as an encouraging sign.

[Meshuga]

22. Couldn't he ask for another mohel?

I mean, a 14 year old being circumcised without anesthesia? Ouch! :-)

[ChadwickHenryWard]

24. I don't really know, I never delved too deeply into it with him.

It was kind of a sensitive subject. It might not have been the mohel. It might have been his parents.

[Meshuga]

26. That's nice of his parents

But I see where they are coming from. Sometimes my son makes me wish he'd go through a circumcision without anesthesia. :-)

[moggie]

16. Whoa, don't go there!

Discussions about circumcision invariably turn into a huge flame-fest, and achieve nothing useful.

[rrneck]

18. When it becomes more

about the religion than faith that's what always happens. Tribes is tribes no matter where you go.