Memory through universalism at Ground Zero

When Rabbi Shmuley Boteach approached me to read the manuscript of his newly published book “Kosher Jesus,” I was reticent and even a bit cautious, given the massive and diverse audience of people likely to be affected by his unique perspective on the subject of Jesus. Having now read the book, however, I can say that I was pleasantly surprised to find that his approach resolved many outstanding questions that I myself have struggled with in my religious studies, particularly as they relate to Christianity and its impact on Judaism throughout history.

Still, I felt the need to interrogate Boteach further in order to discover what his intentions had been for penning this latest work on a conspicuously controversial topic. As it turns out, his earliest efforts to uncover the real facts regarding the origin of Christianity stemmed from his exasperation by the treatment unsuspecting Jews received from Christian missionaries who would target them in an attempt to convert yet another Jew to Christianity. So alarmed was Boteach at the pervasiveness of this kind of missionary work that, as a young scholar learning in yeshivah, he was often memorizing long passages of the New Testament in his Hebrew Bible classes. After all, how could he counter the words of others if he had no real knowledge of what they were saying and why they were saying it?

BEIT SHEMESH — It is raining as I write — a rare, cold, hard rain that is welcomed by Jerusalemites who know that it is good for them and the country. Water, like patience, is a treasured commodity here in Israel: temporarily inconvenient, but better for you in the long run.

Rain is a blessing. We pray for it.

Patience is a blessing. We pray that we have enough of it for each other.

It is a good day to stay inside and reflect on my trip to Israel and to Beit Shemesh, a city about a half-hour west of Jerusalem. Beit Shemesh and the Washington Jewish community have been partners for many years, and partners share responsibility for each other.

Suddenly, it seems, gender segregation is everywhere in Israel — buses, army bases, Jerusalem sidewalks, Beit Shemesh schoolyards and, above all, the front pages. What is going on here?

Let’s start with the buses. In the late 1990s, at the request of some charedim, the Transportation Ministry created bus lines that served charedi neighborhoods and cities. On an officially “voluntary” basis, women would enter the buses and sit in the back. These buses were deemed legally permissible because Israeli law allows discrimination when it is necessary to provide access to public services and does not harm the common weal. All the fundamental questions (necessary? common weal?) were left wide open.

WASHINGTON – Anti-Israel sentiment in the Middle East is not merely characterized by sharp political differences. It mimics and is fueled by the most defamatory and dangerous of historical anti-Jewish themes. For confirmation, we need look no further than a widely published political cartoonist, a Jordan-based Palestinian named Emad Hajjaj. His cartoons regularly feature blatant incitement, equating Israel with the Third Reich, crudely caricaturing Jews as bloodthirsty monsters, portraying menorahs as weapons, and showing the “crucifixion” of Palestinians on a cross marked by a Star of David.

None of this is exceptional. What is surprising, or should be, is the international indifference to — indeed, complicity in — vile and incendiary Arab anti-Semitism without parallel, quantitatively or qualitatively, on the Israeli side of the regional divide. Yet B’nai B’rith has found that among those claimed as clients by Hajjaj’s public relations firm Abu Mahjoob Creative Productions Company are not only several local government bodies, but also foreign organizations such as the British Council and the major corporations Visa, Orange, the German industrial giant Siemens, and others. If this was not bad enough, the firm’s client list features multiple agencies of the United Nations — including the United Nations Development Fund for Women (now merged into U.N. Women), the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF.

Over the past weeks, protests have spread throughout Israel calling for a response to racism targeted at the country’s Ethiopian community. Sparked by a Channel 2 story on discrimination in Kityat Malachi, citizens have taken to the streets to show their outrage at the status quo. Although the despicable slurs and actions that triggered these protests are blatant examples of these grievances, they conceal a deeper issue.

Beyond more overt examples, Ethiopian Israelis are often considered less desirable neighbors, and frequently have a harder time finding a job. They are perceived as a poor, underprivileged community, and face the stigma of lacking the capability to contribute equally, even if this myth is belied by reality. Some of this is outright racism, but the rest is symptomatic of a deeper and far more widespread prejudice: indirect or concealed racism.

JERUSALEM — The recent violence in Beit Shemesh and in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood has led me to speak out against the so-called “sikrikim” in the harshest possible terms, equating their actions to terrorism. Sikrikim — Sicarii-ites — is the name given to a fringe anti-Zionist vigilante group, loosely linked to Neturei Karta and said to have been at the forefront of many of the recent violent attacks against innocent Israelis.

In my mind, there is a dangerous similarity in their actions and those of Islamist terrorists. I do not use this comparison lightly. As the founder of the ZAKA rescue and recovery organization, I know only too well the horror of terror.