Nisht gut

Vos Iz Neias?  Texas Congressman and Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul (L) shakes hands with Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss head of the Neturei Karta ... following a Town Hall meeting in Meredith, New Hampshire, USA 08 January 2012.   EPA/MATT CAMPBELL

 

Comments

[Joel]

To Luap Nor all Jews are alike so he meets with Neturei Karta and thinks "Hey look I don't hate Jewish people!"

[yeshiva son]

Wow. That's nice.

[Jessica]

Not the sticker on the NK's lapel says: A Jew Not a Zionist.

[Jessica]

I meant: NOTE the sticker says: A Jew Not A Zionist.

[Mannie Sherberg]

Oy! Of all the rabbis in the world, Paul picks this one to shake hands with. I'd love to know the back-story here. Who on Paul's staff arranged this meeting? What does Paul expect to get out of it? Surely he doesn't see this as a way to garner votes from Jews -- or is he deluded enough to believe that NK controls a huge bloc of Jewish votes? Eccentricity, said Ambrose Bierce, is something "fools employ to accentuate their incapacity." As far as I'm concerned, Ron Paul didn't have to do anything to accentuate his incapacity; I was convinced of it long ago. Still and all, if anyone needed confirmation, this photo should do the trick.

[Tom Glennon]

So, my day is not wasted, because I have learned something new. I had never heard of Neturei Karta before. Went to their web site, and read their basic tenets. I was struck by the following "Neturei Karta oppose the so-called "State of Israel" not because it operates secularly, but because the entire concept of a sovereign Jewish state is contrary to Jewish Law." Now I wonder, do they believe that the biblical kingdoms of Israel and Judea were in violation of the Talmud? Mannie, Yael?

[yeshiva son]

No, they don't. They hold that it is contrary to Jewish Law when we are in exile.

[Mannie Sherberg]

Tom -- to add to Yeshiva Son's succinct -- and wholly correct -- response: Naturei Karta believes that a Jewish state in the Land of Israel can be re-established only with the coming of the Messiah, and that the current State of Israel is the result of "forcing" history to comply with a human rather a Divine timetable. Lest you get the idea that this is merely a theological squabble and nothing more, I should note that the rabbi in the photo has also been photographed embracing Ahmadinejad (yes, he went to Tehran), burning an Israeli flag, and attending a meeting of Holocaust deniers. He is not, shall we say, everyone's favorite rabbi.

[Tom Glennon]

Yeshiva Son and Mannie - Thank you both for clearing up my confusion. I now know more than I did, and that is always a good thing.