Bloodthirsty Liberal

Ignorance

Why am I laughing?

What is a Tefillin?

By FRANK CARNEVALE

A teenager strapping a tefillin, or Jewish ritual prayer box, to his head and arm caused a flight enroute to Louisville, Ky., to be diverted to Philadelphia International airport Thursday morning.

The tefillin are two small cube-shaped, leather boxes painted black. They are attached to black leather straps which are used to tie the boxes to the observant’s head and arm. The boxes contain scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the first books of the Bible and are worn by observant Jewish men during weekday morning prayers, but not on the Sabbath or on most Jewish holidays.

They are worn as reminders of God and of the obligation to follow Jewish law during daily life.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library boys are trained to start wearing tefillin one to two months before their thirteenth birthday and putting on the tefillin is the first mitzvah, or Jewish law, assumed by a Jewish male upon his Bar Mitzvah.

The airline left NYC? And no one was able to help the stewardess figure this out? She saw “wires”? I don’t think so.

I guess the good news is that we all know what this is now.

- Aggie

Another in a series of reports on the heartless cruelty visited upon the Palestinians by the Israelis.

What’s Christmastime without a little oppression by a colonial overlord?

In anticipation of the upcoming Christmas Holiday, beginning December 24th, 2009, the IDF and Civil Administration have presented a number of goodwill gestures to the Palestinian population in the Judea and Samaria region.

…

The goodwill gestures include issuing an unlimited quota of one month-long permits for Palestinian residents of the Judea and Samaria region, allowing them entry to Israel for religious and family gatherings. More than 10,000 permits, valid between December 20th and January 20th were issued up to now.

In addition, 300 Christian-Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip over the age of 35 will be permitted entry into the Judea and Samaria region for 24 hours during the holiday. Another 300 Christian Palestinians will be permitted to cross to the Ben Gurion International Airport. These permits will be issued subject to a security clearance.

…

All crossings in the Bethlehem area will continue to operate on a 24 hour basis, with a reinforced presence of Civil Administration personnel who will ensure that all visitors can cross into the city unhindered.

Israeli security forces will continue to operate in order to ensure freedom of religion and normal way of life for Palestinians uninvolved in terrorism. This is in accordance with security assessments and while continuing to combat terrorism.

I could make some crack about the scarcity of “Palestinians uninvolved in terrorism”, but in observance of the season, let me instead thank a nation of Jews for making the Christmas of a few thousand Christians a merry one. I’m sure no one else will thank them, or even notice.

May they not live to regret their kindness.

The display, the first of its kind in the nation, will feature characters that are quite a bit different than the standard crèche.

“We’ve got Gary and Joseph instead of Mary and Joseph in order to symbolize ACLU support for homosexual marriage, and of course there isn’t a Jesus in the manger,” said Chairman Tony McDonald. “The three Wise Men are Lenin, Marx, and Stalin because the founders of the ACLU were strident supporters of Soviet style Communism. The whole scene is a tongue-in-cheek way of showing the many ways that the ACLU and the far left are out of touch with the values of mainstream America.”

The scene will also display a terrorist shepherd and an angel in the form of Nancy Pelosi.

“The ACLU and other left-wing extremist groups are working diligently to destroy American’s rights to the free expression of religion,” said Executive Director Joseph Wyly. “We’ve already seen in Chicago an attempt to censor the nativity by a city government this week. It’s just more evidence that there is a War on Christmas being waged by the far-left in this country.”

Still, it could be worse:

And perhaps wose still:

Aggie and I have noted several recent despicable acts, statements, and decisions to come out of Britain.

This one should stand proud with its colleagues:

The British Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a London Jewish day school used racist and discriminatory practices against a boy who was not accepted to the school because his mother is not considered Jewish by Orthodox Jewish law, the British Broadcasting Authority reported.

According to the court ruling, the school’s policy of measuring students’ Jewish identity based solely on Orthodox Jewish law is unlawful and breaks race relations legislation.

Earlier this year, an appeals court ruled that the Jews’ Free School, located northwest of London in Brent, was racist when it denied admission to a 12-year-old boy whose father is Jewish and mother underwent a Reform conversion that is not recognized by Orthodox law.

Maybe you and I wouldn’t agree with the school’s decision, but it’s a private religious school. Can’t it decide who meets its religious criteria?

Do we really want a state—a European state—labeling who is a Jew?

I’m also puzzled by the “racism” charge. The story doesn’t provide enough details about mom—only that she converted to Judaism. It’s not a surprise to me that an Orthodox school would find it hard to accept a Reform conversion. In actual racial terms, it would be like Bobby Seale accepting Al Jolson as a blood brother.

Again, I may not agree with the school, but unless Britain is also butting into Catholic schools and Saudi-sponsored madrasahs—what do you think—I am deeply troubled.

I have no way of knowing if this scurrilous charge is true, but since one complaint about the bloggers is that we’re not “responsible” like the mainstream media, I’ll just pass it on without examination—as they do all the time with libels about Israel.

I feel so journalistic! Call me Scoop. Call me Chris Hedges.

Every three minutes a Christian is being tortured in the Muslim world, and in 2009 more than 165,000 Christians will have been killed because of their faith, most of them in Muslim countries, according to a human rights organization that is visiting Israel starting Sunday.

“Hamas digs up the bodies of Christians from Christian burial sites in the Gaza Strip claiming that they pollute the earth,” said Reverend Majed El Shafie, President of One Free World International (OFWI), who will head a delegation of human rights activists, members of parliament from Canada and religious personalities.

…

El Shafie said that between 200-300 million Christians are being persecuted in the world, 80 percent of whom lived in Muslim countries and the rest in communist and other countries.

Maybe so, but do they build settlements?

Why can’t we be more like that nice continent Europe? They’re always so polite and tolerant:

Swiss voters are deciding in a referendum Sunday whether to accept a ban on the construction of minarets, which right-wing parties regard as symbols of militant Islam.

The move - led by the Swiss People’s Party, which has campaigned in previous years against immigrants - has stirred fears of boycotts and violent reactions from Muslim countries.

Polls indicate growing support for the proposal, but doubt remains about whether it will pass. The seven-member Cabinet that heads the Swiss government has spoken out strongly against the initiative.

…

Business leaders say a ban on minarets, the distinctive spires attached to mosques, would be disastrous for the Swiss economy because it could offend wealthy Muslims who bank in Switzerland, buy the country’s luxury goods and visit its resorts.

I suppose that’s as good a reason as any to abandon your national identity and sacrifice women’s rights.

I’ll confess I’m torn. Obviously, any government ban on religious expression is detestable. But what if the religious expression is the burka, as the Swiss People’s Party suggests? I get a little itchy and sneezy around European political parties with the word “people” in their name, but I’ll accept their point.

Countries are comfortable with immigration as long as the immigrants make an effort to integrate themselves into their host country’s society. They get a little twitchy when the immigrants remain insulated and segregated, intentionally, and when the newcomers hold on to ways that are anathema to the mores of their new home. The ban on minarets can’t be the best way to solve this problem, but we must at least acknowledge that Switzerland—and all of Europe—has a problem.

Is this how Switzerland sees its future?

Doesn’t get any slower than this:

In this photo taken Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 residue is seen on the bottom of an electric iron at the home of Mary Jo Coady, in Methuen, Mass. Coady says an image of Jesus Christ that she sees in the pattern on the bottom of the iron, which she first noticed on Sunday, has reassured her that “life is going to be good.”

It’s all about the power of suggestion. Where she sees Jesus, I see a little bit of Anne Frank, a little bit of Tiny Tim.

But I can see the marketing opportunities at Black & Decker or Rowenta: “Creases for Christ” “Wrinkles are for Heathens” “Not too much starch in the collar, Savior”.

I’m going to speculate here, if you’ll allow me.

I recently heard someone mention that the Obama’s still haven’t picked a church to attend in Washington. It makes no difference to me, I don’t attend church, either (and the president might find it easier to get a tee time during services). But it seemed to be a big deal to them.

As this reporter from Time (hardly anti-Obama) observed:

The Obama family attended services at St. John’s Episcopal this morning [Sunday, October 11, 2009], and the Secret Service even let them walk the two blocks across Lafayette Park on this gorgeous October day. It marked the first time the family has gone to church in Washington since Easter, when they also visited St. John’s, although the Obamas have been worshipping at Evergreen Chapel at Camp David whenever they spend the weekend at the Maryland retreat.

It has also been three and a half months since the White House insisted that the First Family continues to look for a church in Washington to join. Few people would blame them if they decided it would be too disruptive to upend a local congregation–Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all chose to largely avoid Washington churches for similar reasons, and conservatives defended their decisions to do so. It’s all the more surprising then that the White House has chosen to dig in on this point and continue to maintain that the Obamas will choose a local church as their main place of worship. It only becomes a Church Watch if they make it one.

Well put.

Now, one could point out the obvious and say Obama, who dismissed the pious as “bitter clingers”, needs at least to pay lip service to a search for church.

But I wonder if there isn’t something else going on, something deeper, something more illustrative to who he is. And, again, I’m paraphrasing Rush here, who frequently declares that Bill Ayres and Van Jones and Valerie Jarrett and Jeremiah Wright aren’t anomalies. They are Obama. And he is they.

Check out this speech Wright gave recently to the publishers of Monthly Review, a “no-nonsense” Marxist magazine, and see if it doesn’t sound like someone who inspired the wealth-spreader-in-chief, the Great Apologizer:

“You dispel all the negative images we have been programmed to conjure up with just the mention of that word socialism or Marxism.”

He called America “land of the greed and home of the slave.”

“My work with liberation theology, with Latin American theologians, with the Black Theology Project and with the Cuban Council of Churches taught me 30 years ago the importance of Marx and the Marxist analysis of the social realities of the vulnerable and the oppressed who were trying desperately to break free of the political economics undergirded by this country that were choking them and cutting off any hope of a possible future where all of the people would benefit.”

President Obama can’t bear false witness, can’t turn against the one faith that speaks to his soul—and I wouldn’t want him to. Rev. Wright was his pastor for 20 years, performed his marriage, baptized his children. I bet Wright feels the pain and disappointment of Jesus when he told Peter that he would deny him. And I bet Obama feels the shame and guilt of Peter.

The only other reasonable interpretation is that Obama arrived on the scene in Chicago a young man on the make. Smart man that he is (and articulate! and clean!), he quickly saw that his path to bigger things went through Wright’s church. When Wright was no longer useful to him, when no religion was of any use to him, he dropped him, dropped it, like a heavy load. Who needs it.

But I don’t believe that. I believe Obama is a true believer. And I don’t see why he should deny himself his spiritual shepherd, or why we should be denied the truth of his beliefs.

I hate to say it (do I ever), but I think this guy has a point:

Following are excerpts from a sermon delivered by Sunni scholar Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, which aired on Qatar TV on October 30, 2009.

…

Let me tell you, with regard to the Christians, in general, there is a problem, which I raised at the third conference, held in Doha, as well as at the interfaith dialogue conference in Mecca, convened by the Saudi monarch a year and a half ago. I said: Brothers, the problem is that [although] we recognize Christianity, and we recognize Christ, his holy book, and his religion… A Muslim’s faith is not complete unless he believes in this, because it is incumbent upon him to believe in every book that was sent down and in every prophet who was sent [by God]. “And what was given to Moses and Jesus and other prophets from their Lord – we make no distinction between any of them, and to Him do we submit.” But these [Christians] do not recognize us. [They say]: “Muhammad was a liar. The Koran is a fabrication. They created the Koran and attributed it to Allah.”

These things have practical implications. We were at a conference in Cairo, called “The Christians of the Middle East.” I wanted to say, in the closing statement: “The people of the divine religions agreed…” But [the Christians] said: “Stop!” I asked: “What is it?” They said: “We do not recognize Islam as a divine religion. It is not a divine religion.” They agreed to say all kinds of things, but not that Islam is a divine religion. I wanted to include another sentence, about “Godly values.” They said: “No, we do not recognize Islamic values as being Godly. They are human values, brought by a guy who claimed to be a prophet.” I exploded and said: “So what are we convening for? If you do not recognize our religion and our values as divine, what are we meeting for? Go away.” And I left the meeting.

Brother, there is a problem with our dialogue with these people, who look at our Prophet, our Koran, and our nation this way, while we flock to them, and do not achieve a thing. Give me one practical thing that these conferences have achieved for the benefit of the Islamic nation. I cannot find a thing.

I’ve always had a cognitive dissonance problem with the whole issue of “interfaith dialogue”. It’s not bad or wrong, just illogical. One can explain one’s faith to another person—describe the practices, outline the beliefs—but it’s faith, not auto mechanics. And the person of another faith can listen politely, nod solemnly—and think to himself, what a crock.

He died, and then was resurrected? Are you serious?

The Red Sea did what? The oil lasted how long?

She was how old when he married her?

The Christians quoted by the sheikh above were impolite to be sure, but they were honest. They have their Savior, the Muslims have the Prophet, the Jews are still waiting for the Messiah. Like for a cab at rush hour. In the rain.

Ann Coulter got in a lot of trouble for saying Jews need to be “perfected” (made Christian), and that Christians considered themselves “perfected Jews” (believers in the Old Testament, yet accepters of Christ). She wasn’t calling for forced conversions, by the way, just stating what she and many other Christians (and Jews—like Dennis Prager, who defended her) believe is Church doctrine.

And this sheikh is saying the same thing: we Muslims are cool with the Jewish prophets, cool with Jesus—they’re from the same God as ours (whom we call Allah). But where’s the love in return?

He doesn’t get into the other side of Islam, which treats the infidels with considerably less respect, calls for rocks and trees to betray Jews on Judgement Day, and engages in most of the violent, murderous actions in the world today.

But that’s for another post (most of them, in fact).

That’s the word count in President Obama’s respective remarks on Ramadan and Rosh Hashanah.

Care to guess which was which?

Rosh Hashanah marks the start of a new year - a time of humble prayer, joyful celebration, and hope for a new beginning. Ten days later, Yom Kippur stands as a day of reflection and repentance. And this sacred time provides not just an opportunity for individual renewal and reconciliation, but for families, communities and even nations to heal old divisions, seek new understandings, and come together to build a better world for our children and grandchildren.

Well, that sounds nice. I’m all for reconciliation between communities and nations.

So, did we hear the same message to the Muslim community? Lord knows, some of them could use some reconciliation here and there from time to time:

Like many people of different faiths who have known Ramadan through our communities and families, I know this to be a festive time - a time when families gather, friends host iftars, and meals are shared. But I also know that Ramadan is a time of intense devotion and reflection - a time when Muslims fast during the day and perform tarawih prayers at night, reciting and listening to the entire Koran over the course of the month.

These rituals remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.

Guess not.

Head of group accused in Mumbai assault arrested

Ahmadinejad proud of Holocaust denial

Israeli troops kill 2 Palestinians on Gaza border

Yemen offers cease-fire to Shiite insurgents

Police say attack on Pakistani minister foiled

Philippine troops clash with Abu Sayyaf militants

3 US troops die in Afghanistan, 1 in combat

That’s enough. And that’s just the last couple of days.