Every Israeli “hostage deal” makes it worse for the next time. It means more Jews will be slaughtered later in return for fewer hostages now. The price is too high.

 

Exasperated

 

I oppose any pause. Hamas will use the pause to resupply tunnels with food, water, and fuel

 

Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer

  Nov 23, 2023

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I held back on writing this for a day because I am very aware that, living in America — whatever the reason (and my readers know that reason) — who am I, what business have I, to chime in on the hostage deal?

But I can hold back only for a day. If Joe Biden can give his opinion from America, so can I. But I am not on the scene, and I recognize and even ask that my readers take this all with a grain of salt, a “butt-in-sky” from California. Still, as I have quoted Yeshayahu (Isaiah) before: “L’ma’an Tzion — For Zion’s sake I cannot hold my peace, and for the sake of Jerusalem I will not be silent.”

I don’t like this deal. Not one bit.

I don’t trust Hamas, and even if I did trust them it would not matter. They must be obliterated. After they all have gone up in smoke, been buried under rubble, and been asphyxiated in their tunnels, I will think about them again. All they mean to me now is that they are poison to be expunged, rats underground in tunnels to be exterminated.

Every Israeli “hostage deal” makes it worse for the next time. It means more Jews will be slaughtered later in return for fewer hostages now. The price is too high.

I will share an example from The Exile where our specialty is Weak Jews:

Back in the 1980s, I think it was, New York City was amid a crime wave. (Come to think of it, New York City always is in the midst of a crime wave.) But this time a big story erupted: some drug-crazed street mugger approached an Orthodox Jew walking to shul on Shabbat and demanded money. The Jew explained it was his Sabbath, and Jews don’t carry money on the Holy Day. So the mugger stabbed him to death.

A big debate erupted among New York Orthodox rabbis. “It is forbidden to carry outdoors on Shabbat where there is no Eruv (a construct that permits carrying then). However, perhaps we rabbonim (Orthodox rabbis) should pasken (rule) that, for pikuach nefesh (to save lives), from now on all Orthodox Jews should carry $10 cash in their pockets on Shabbat in case they are mugged.”

Jews. Jews.

Jews.

The debate raged: Yes, they should carry the ten bucks. It will appease the muggers. No, ten dollars is not enough; it should be twenty dollars. Maybe ten dollars in each pocket. No, we cannot break Shabbos, and we have to rely on Hashem to protect us.

And then a very great rabbi, whose name, like that of Voldemort, may not be spoken in certain Israeli circles, chimed in: “Jews! Jews! Oy, my Jews! Once you have rabbis publicly ruling that Orthodox Jews should carry cash in their pockets from Friday sunset to Saturday nightfall, to give to muggers if approached, you will have every mugger in the neighboring states from Connecticut to Kentucky, from Maine to Alabama, coming to New York City every Shabbat and looking for men with black hats and beards, and women with sheitel-type hair covering, all demanding their fair share of the weekly Jewish Sabbath Mugger Entitlement. Jews! If you must temper halakhah (Judaic law) for pikuach nefesh (saving lives) by ruling that Jews suddenly may carry outdoors even where there is no Eruv, then don’t tell them to carry cash for the muggers. Tell them to carry guns for the muggers. Every Jew a .22, better yet something stronger but it doesn’t rhyme. ”

Eventually, the debate ended. Orthodox Jews did not carry cash on Shabbat. Life went on. Muggers learned to bother people with tzitzit on Tuesdays and Wednesdays instead.

I think back to that insanity as I react with exasperation to the present Hamas deal. As of this writing, it still has not been implemented. We shall see what transpires with our beheading and raping cousins.

This deal exasperates me because it is like telling the New York City muggers you carry money for them every Shabbat. Even before the disastrous Shalit deal, there were insane deals. Wikipedia actually has a page devoted to idiotic Israeli-Arab hostage deals: “List of Arab-Israeli prisoner exchanges.” Here we go with two highlights besides the Shalit deal:

Six IDF soldiers were released November 23, 1983, in exchange for 4,765 Palestinians and Lebanese imprisoned at Ansar camp during the 1982 Lebanon war and 65 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. (No typos.)

That’s all it took to create a precedent even more dramatic than telling American muggers that Orthodox Jews are carrying cash for them every Shabbat, so just look for the Mogen Dovid to start Muggin’ Dovid. (Say it out loud.) Schmendricks: 6 for 4,830. Gee, I wonder whether that tells Arabs that Israel will give insane amounts in any deal. Let’s see:

In 1984 Israel swapped 291 Syrian prisoners and the bodies of 72 others in exchange for six Israeli prisoners and five bodies. 6 living for 72, and 5 deceased for 291. And no Eli Cohen from Suria. More idiocy.

The remaining two soldiers from the Bhamdoun raid in the hands of PFLP-GC, as well as a third IDF prisoner captured during the battle of Sultan Ya'qoub, also held by the PFLP-GC, were released May 20, 1985, in an exchange known as the “Jibril Agreement” for 1,150 Arab prisoners held in Israeli jails. Among those released were 380 prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment. 3 for 1,150. And 380 whose victims were promised that the murderers would never see daylight again.

These insane deals were negotiated by Jews, a people deemed tricky and wily in business. Why can’t they negotiate? They have taught our enemies that, whenever you attack, no matter how gruesome and massive — replete with rapes, cutting fetuses out of live pregnant women and then stabbing all to death, burning others alive, putting babies in ovens, cutting off so many heads that ZAKA needs days, if not weeks, to figure out which heads go with which bodies — don’t forget to take hostages.

I believe Israel has to look at the families of the hostages — straight in the eyes — and say:

“You are our flesh and blood. We will leave no stone unturned, no hospital uninvaded, no tunnel unflooded or unbombed until we find and recover your beloved. But we simply cannot engage in a deal or an exchange with Hamas. The buck stops here. No more deals. We will bomb them to rubble if we have to. Moreover, Hamas has given us their list of people they want released, in the order of priority. We swear to you: for every hostage that does not come out alive, we will execute the next ten on that list.

“If we have to, we will execute the whole list. If they kill women and children, we will execute imprisoned Arab women and children who have blood on their hands. We know the world will accuse us of genocide, but that is the beauty of being accused that way already. The students on American campuses will call for our eradication from the River to the Sea, but they are already doing that. We are vaccinated from Jew-hate.

“The American Democrat liberals, woke, and progressives will be in shock? They already are in shock. And the Republicans are with us. We won’t have Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, but we will have Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis. But the buck stops here and now. It’s over. No more deals.

“ ‘No negotiations with terrorists — ever’ means no negotiations with terrorists — ever. We will wipe out everyone on their list if it comes to that. We have learned our lesson: every time we make a deal to save hostages, we end up planting seeds for the murders of ten times that number later.”

I oppose any pause. Hamas will use the pause to resupply tunnels with food, water, and fuel. They will re-arm their RPGs and launchers whose missiles have been emptied. They will lay new land mines. They will re-position attackers with RPGs, attack drones, and anti-tank missiles, based on the new positions they know the IDF has taken. They will relocate to different tunnels, and they will move hostages, too, down south. Israel’s tunnel bombing has cut off communications systems between tunnels with each other, and tunnels with above-ground command, and they will restore their communications networks. They may even kidnap an IDF soldier or two during the pause, and then it’s another deal.

I am for No Deal. Intensify the bombing. America will stand with Israel. America will not let Israel fall. Obama refused to veto Security Council Resolution 2334, and the snake Jack Lew defended that. So what happened? A few months later, Israel ended up with the unthinkable — an American embassy in Jerusalem, American recognition of Israel’s right to the Golan Heights, and America’s declaration that the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are legal. That is how Jewish destiny marches. Gerald Ford is gone. Jimmy Carter is gone. James Baker is gone. Obama is gone. Kerry is gone. Biden is temporary. Israel is eternal.

No deal.

And I don’t like this “unity” war cabinet. It is artificially elevating Benny Gantz to be next prime minister, though he consistently promoted the “Conceptzia” (the idea that giving employment and financial aid to Hamas will stop terror and that "mowing the lawn "of terrorists every few years will ensure that) over the years. Netanyahu and Gantz must be joined by the following four in a true unity cabinet that includes valuable views representing the broader, vast majority of the country other than the Lapid / Labor / Meretz / Ra’am Left:

1. Avigdor Liberman. Now is not the time to focus on his despicable views regarding religion in Israel. That is for tomorrow, not today. He is a tough-nosed, no-nonsense Russian who understands Hamas better than do most in the Israeli leadership who are obsessed with “American values and ethics” that America did not employ when they Dresdened Germany and nuked Japan. And, for goodness sakes, he was an actual Defense Minister, making him eminently qualified to sit in an expanded War Cabinet. He knows stuff.

2. Naftali Bennett. As with Liberman, his perfidy is unforgivable, but that also is for another day. He, too, has been Defense Minister, and some felt he was one of the best Defense Ministers Israel ever had. He knows stuff and,when Bibi starts fading from the scene, Bennett will emerge with Ron Dermer as Israel’s best spokesman in English, the language of America and England. He is a patriot, though a perfidious politician, formerly fought in the Sayeret Matkal commando unit like Netanyahu, and — although a proven liar — he belongs in the War Cabinet.

3 and 4. Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir. Their voices must be included on the inside during deliberations. Unlike Bibi and Gantz, they never bought into the “Conceptzia,” just as Liberman never did, and those views need to be included when strategic decisions are made. Compromises will be easier to sell to the broader Israeli public if they are part of the process.

That is what is needed. Kill the deal if Hamas does not do so first. Apologize to the families with the history included above. It’s gotta stop. These hostage deals have gotta stop. Israel can do everything in its power to find and rescue them, and the war must not stop — and the Dresdening of Gaza must continue — until they all go free or otherwise are brought home, and Hamas unconditionally surrenders. If any hostage has a hair touched, follow the Hamas list to execute them, one by one, on the order Hamas has indicated. Ten per lost Israeli, even though the Arabs have established that one Jew is worth a thousand of them. But ten are enough. Hang them for war crimes. They are not better than Eichmann.

Until then, I am just exasperated.

To receive Rav Fischer’s Weekly Extensive Torah Commentaries or to attend any or all of Rav Fischer’s weekly 60-minute live Zoom classes on the Weekly Torah Portion, the Biblical Prophets, the Mishnah, Rambam Mishneh Torah, or Advanced Judaic Texts, send an email to: shulstuff@yioc.org

Rav Fischer’s memorable two televised debates with a national leader of CAIR, the leading anti-Semitic Arab Muslim body in the United States, can be found here and here.

His latest deeply moving and informational program on the Hamas Gaza War may be found here on YouTube. Because of some sensitive subject matter and viewing content relating to Hamas terror, YouTube is restricting the program to viewers 18 and up. However, the program primarily includes inspiring video content and Jewish and Israeli music.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/380799?utm_source=activetrail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

The other point of view - with much merit, I add hesitantly!

 

Bibi Capitulates to Organized Pressure on Partial Hostage Release, Hamas Wins

Photo Credit: Noam Revkin Fenton/FLASH90

Israelis watch PM Benjamin Netanyahu on TV

 

At the end of a six-hour debate, PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s government early Wednesday morning approved a deal with Hamas to release at least 50 hostages from captivity in Gaza over four days, during which there will be a lull in the fighting.

According to the approved outline, 30 children, eight mothers, and 12 elderly women will be released. The release of every ten additional hostages would result in an additional day of respite for the Hamas Nazis, who will use it to reorganize, replenish their resources, and resume the fighting better prepared.

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The cabinet ministers were told that the first group of hostages would be released on Thursday.

According to a Channel 14 report, to make sure that Hamas does not drag out the deal, the government limited its entire duration to only 10 days, presumably starting Thursday. Assuming that Hamas brings more hostages, it will be rewarded with an additional day of respite for every 10 Israelis it releases, within a ten-day window. At the end of the ten days, the deal is void and a new government decision would be required for a new deal.

This clause convinced the Religious Zionism ministers to change their minds and support the deal. However, the three Otzma Yehudit ministers held on to their original objection to the deal.

According to the same report, Likud Minister Miki Zohar taunted Itamar Ben Gvir, asking: Why did you hold an “in-depth” discussion of your faction before you heard all the details? To which Ben Gvir replied: Because everything we heard here now, we saw before in the media, so it’s very good that we held the meeting. At which point Likud Minister Gila Gamliel preached to Ben Gvir: We need to be united in the decision! 

And Ben Gvir responded: But we are not united. This is a decision that will damage generations. It will hurt us badly.

Yes, it will. Prime Minister Netanyahu, not for the first time, capitulated to public pressure and ordered the interruption of a stellar IDF attack on the Nazi enemy so his enemies on the left would love him. He did it in 2011 when he capitulated before the same crowd and released more than a thousand terrorists with Jewish blood on their hands in exchange for a single IDF corporal named Gilad Shalit. Needless to say, those same murderers revisited the Jewish State on October 7, in an operation that was masterminded by Yahya Sinwar who, you guessed it, was part of that 2011 prisoner exchange.

From this point on, we can count on Bibi to be a crowd-pleaser and not a leader. He does not have that one essential quality of a leader that shone throughout PM David Ben Gurion’s tenure: the ability to give the people not what they wanted but what he believed they needed.

HAMAS WINS

Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh on a rare visit to the Gaza Strip

 

A rejuvenated Hamas issued a statement after the deal had been approved by Israel, saying: “Following difficult and complicated negotiations which lasted many days, we announce that a humanitarian ceasefire has been reached for four days, through the frantic efforts of Egypt and Qatar.”

According to the Nazi group, the deal includes a ceasefire on both sides, the cessation of all Israeli military operations throughout Gaza including the movement of military vehicles, the entry of hundreds of trucks with humanitarian aid, medical aid, and fuel, the cessation of Israeli aircraft traffic over southern Gaza for four days, the cessation of Israeli aircraft traffic over northern Gaza every day between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM, and freedom of movement for Gazans from north to south on the Philadelphi route.

Hamas also stated that Israel committed to not inflict harm or detain anyone throughout the entire Gaza Strip during the ceasefire. And they warned: “Our finger will be on the trigger.”

What can Hamas achieve under the Ceasefire?

1. Move the Gaza population back north with no one stopping them.
2. Move around terrorists using ambulances, tunnels, and thinly disguised as civilians
3. Reset the timers on hidden rocket launchers
4. Map the location of all IDF soldiers and units
5. Import more weapons via Rafah smuggling tunnels
6. Move hostages to new locations
7. Transfer “humanitarian aid” and fuel to Hamas units
8. Build up international pressure to keep the ceasefire going.
9. Build up international pressure to force the IDF out of Gaza.
10. Play psychological games with Israel using the hostages.

And a bonus point:

11. Give the Kaplan anarchists additional time to undermine Israeli unity and put more pressure on Bibi to end the war.

RON DERMER’S AUSCHWITZ FIB

Ron Dermer / Ron Dermer’s Facebook page

Now, if you thought Minister Ron Dermer was a thinker, even an intellectual, I must confess that I’ve changed my mind on that one. Minister Dermer told the cabinet ministers: “Even though the deal is difficult, I don’t think any of you cannot go for it.” And then, so help me, he said: “In the Holocaust, Jews wanted to bomb the tracks leading to Auschwitz. The State Department refused and claimed that it was not one of the goals of the war. For us, it is the goal. We have a country, we have the ability, it’s about saving lives. Grab it with both hands, to save many lives.”

Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer’s official job is to represent the Israeli side to the world media, a job that on occasion requires some fibbing. So, he fibbed on the Auschwitz thing, too.

As the US Department of War kept refusing to bomb the railroad tracks leading to the death camps, even on missions that targeted areas very nearby, by 1944 Jews began to demand the bombing of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex itself, complete with the thousands of Jewish inmates in it.

The first proposal to bomb Auschwitz was made on May 16, 1944, by Slovak Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl, the leader of a Jewish underground. At about the same time, two officials of the Jewish Agency in Palestine made similar suggestions – Yitzhak Gruenbaum to the US Consul-General in Jerusalem Lowell C. Pinkerton, and Moshe Shertok (later Sharet) to George Hall, the British under-secretary of state for foreign affairs.

On June 19, 1944, the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem received the reports summary of the industrial death operations in the Nazi camps, and David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency, immediately upon learning that Auschwitz was indeed a death camp, urged President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to bomb the camp and the train tracks leading to the camp.

Despite the certainty that thousands of Jews may die, these Jewish leaders did not dream of asking the Allied forces to stop the war effort for a single day to negotiate for their release, because you don’t negotiate with Nazis, you kill them, and kill them, until you force them down to their knees.

Israel’s mainstream media ignore a considerable contingency of families of hostages who demand that all the hostages would be set free, or no deal. They argue that no one Jewish soul is more important than another. Moreover, those families argue the national value of eliminating Hamas is higher than the personal value of releasing their loved ones. Also: among the kidnapped soldiers, if they are still alive, there are many wounded whose condition may be worse than that of the children, the mothers, and the elderly slated to go free.

Against their clarity of mind and heart, Netanyahu’s failure as a leader appears even more staggering. To those who still compare him to Ben Gurion, I must paraphrase the 1988 United States vice-presidential Democratic candidate Senator Lloyd Bentsen’s response to Republican candidate Senator Dan Quayle: “I knew Ben Gurion. Bibi, you’re no Ben Gurion.”

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/terrorism-news/bibi-capitulates-to-organized-pressure-on-partial-hostage-release-hamas-wins/2023/11/22/

We support the Israeli government in its painful decision, taken with the knowledge that the October 7th massacre was planned and executed by Yahya Sinwar, yemach shemo vezichro, a beast who was freed from an Israeli jail in a previous prisoner swap.

Douglas Murray Is Speaking To All The Bearded Jews With Black Hats Who Somehow Think They Are More Jewish Than Any Other Jew! Listen To His Every Word! And NO --- He Never Learned Daf Yomi! PM
 

We Support and We Hold Responsible

Today, the Government of Israel made one of the most morally and strategically complex and difficult decisions any group of elected officials can confront, making painful concessions to free hostages from the hands of their evil captors.

We support their decision. This support is consistent with the Orthodox Union’s long-standing policy to support the Israeli government’s positions on national security issues. We recognize and respect that this decision is based upon the primacy that the Government of Israel, the People of Israel, and the Torah of Israel place upon the infinite value of human life, a value that our enemies have not begun to embrace.

But even as we support the decision of the Government of Israel, we and all civilized people must hold responsible the many who made this terribly difficult decision necessary.

We hold responsible the Qataris whose ongoing hosting and support of the Hamas terrorists enabled them to massacre, rape, behead, and kidnap hundreds of innocents. The Qataris are part of the problem and not part of the solution.

We hold responsible the United Nations who have yet to find within themselves to unequivocally condemn the brutal massacre of October 7^th, offering instead lame and ignorant presentations of context to excuse the inexcusable. The UN was created to prevent another Holocaust and has chosen instead to be its greatest promoter.

We hold responsible the politicians and NGO’s who choose to focus their concern for humanitarian behavior on the world’s most humane army as it fights a war it did not start and never wanted, instead of shining the spotlight of moral and compassionate scrutiny consistently and completely on the brutal and monstrous murderers and kidnappers of Hamas.

We hold responsible the so-called progressives who will stand up for any victim if he is not a Jew, who will prosecute rapists as long as their victims are not Israelis, who forget the friendship and allyship of the Jewish community that has stood by their side in their every struggle, and who now oppose the Jewish people’s right to defend themselves.

We hold responsible the leadership of universities who have allowed their sacred spaces of learning to become places where Jews live in fear and where there is no room on their walls and bulletin boards to display compassion for the plight of hostages taken and held in unambiguous and undebatable violation of every law of war.

We hold responsible the biased media who fan the flames of hatred and antisemitism by their hopelessly imbalanced reporting, briefly telling the story of the hostages before turning their focus to the tragic plight of a population that – while certainly including thousands of innocents – is dominated by a majority whose values reflect those of Hamas in poll after poll, who elected the terrorist government it deserves, celebrated the massacre of Israelis, seeks one judenrein state from the river to the sea, whose so-called moderate leaders continue to play to slay, and who educate their children that Jews have no place on this earth.

We support the Israeli government in its painful decision, taken with the knowledge that the October 7^th massacre was planned and executed by Yahya Sinwar, yemach shemo vezichro, a beast who was freed from an Israeli jail in a previous prisoner swap.

We support the Israeli government and urge them to not let this pause in the fire provide an opportunity for Hamas to reorganize and rearm.

We support the Israeli government in this painful decision, and we hold the world responsible for their complicity in their having to make it. You have failed those men, women and children held captive and you must not allow this travesty to continue. You must not rest until each and every hostage from this conflict and from previous conflicts are returned home. You must support the Israeli army as it finishes the job of completely and totally destroying Hamas and does what is needed to ensure that the next plan for Gaza will not allow that territory to again breed the evil that the withdrawal of 2005 did.

We pray to God with all our heart that each and every one of the hostages return home safely, that they and their families find healing, and that they find their place in a welcoming world that has learned from its terrible mistakes and misjudgments and embraces a genuine love of both truth and peace, where Jews may live without fear.

 https://www.ou.org/we-support-and-we-hold-responsible/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Weekly%20Israel%20Week%20of%20November%2021%20copy%20(1)&utm_content=&spMailingID=35231479&spUserID=Mzc0Njg4NTUwNDk0S0&spJobID=2543971845&spReportId=MjU0Mzk3MTg0NQS2

The Ranting of an Incoherent Fool~!

FOR ONLY $2500 FOR A STANDARD ROOM YOU CAN HEAR MUCH MORE OF THIS HORRIBLE IDIOCY!

 

On "Moderate" Muslims Before Israel Was A Sovereign State.... A 2 State Dissolution Of The Jews Must Be Forever OFF the Table...

 

A taste of the myth of peaceful Muslim-Jewish coexistence

 

 

A letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the bloody history of Muslim-Jewish 'coexistence' in countries with Muslim populations.

Dear Secretary of State, Antony Blinken,

Eight days after the October 7th Hamas massacre, you met with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi. During the course of this meeting, he stated:

“You said that you are a Jewish person and I am an Egyptian person who grew up next to Jews in Egypt. They have never been subjected to any form of oppression or targeting and it has never happened in our region that Jews were targeted in recent or old history.”

You appeared taken aback by his statement and did not counter its veracity, merely responding with “I come as a human being.”

Unfortunately, el-Sisi was propagating an old myth. Indeed, there were periods of fruitful Muslim-Jewish coexistence - the most impressive being the so-called Spanish Golden Age, which tragically ended with the massacre of approximately 4,000 Jews in Granada in 1066 - but to ignore the long-history of “oppression” and “targeting” is a vile form of revisionist history. Notably, this revisionist history is also propagated by the Hamas charter itself (Article 31).

To counter El-Sisi’s claim, let me start with a quote from Maimonides, who, ironically enough, wrote the following from Egypt in 1173:

“Remember, my co-religionists, that on account of the vast number of our sins, God has hurled us in the midst of this people, the nation of Ishmael, who have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us… Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase and hate us as much as they…All this notwithstanding, we do not escape this continued maltreatment which well nigh crushes us. No matter how much we suffer and elect to remain at peace with them, they stir up strife and sedition.” (Epistle to Yemen).

Muslim killings of civilian Jews from 622-2023:

I have surveyed the available historical record of Muslim killings of civilian Jews from 622-2023. I have identified over 90 incidents between 622-1896, which was prior to the First Zionist Congress, an additional 30 incidents between 1897-1947, prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, and 37 incidents between 1948-1966, prior to the so-called “occupation” of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. These fatal attacks throughout the generations have occurred in over 30 countries.

Notably, this tally does not include attempted killings, brutal woundings, rapes, lootings, forced conversions, Dhimmi-status religious discrimination and financial oppression, and numerous expulsions. For example, regarding attempted killings, while there were over 400 terrorist attacks by Muslims against Jewish civilians, in over 40 different countries (not including Israel), from the year 1968-2003, most did not result in deaths. Similarly, there have been over 1,500 terrorist attacks in Israel from 1948-2023, with many “merely” wounding civilians and not resulting in deaths.

Yet, numbers do not tell the story of these brutal and savage attacks. To give you a glimpse into the horror, below are four accounts of massacres.

In a letter from 1884, J. Matalon described the massacre in the small-town of Demnat, Morocco:

“Within the last hour, a letter has come from Demnat saying that, following the Governer’s receipt of a letter from the Sultan, he has redoubled his cruelty. Shops have been looted, the doors of houses battered in, women raped, children butchered, the Chief Rabbi Joseph Elmaleh, an old man over 80, has been beaten to death by the Governor. In fact, the only men left in Demnat are in prison, all the rest have fled.” (Quoted in Jews under Muslim Rule in the late Nineteenth Century, David Littman, p. 73).

Sir Martin Gilbert, the esteemed historian, described the blood libel of Shiraz, Iran, in 1910:

“On 21 May 1910, four years after equality of religious worship was established in Persia, Jews in the city of Shiraz were confronted with an outburst of anti-Jewish sentiment that was harsh even by the standards of the time. An eyewitness, Nissani Macchallah, a young Jewish teacher at the Alliance school, saw a sayyid - a Muslim dignitary - beating two elderly Jewish men with chains. When he intervened and remonstrated with the sayyid, the Muslim stabbed Macchallah to death.

"As a result of protests from the European Powers, the sayyid was sentenced to three months in prison, and an order was promulgated that called for respect for Jewish lives. To avenge the sayyid’s imprisonment, his followers falsely accused the Jews of killing a young Muslim girl near the Jewish cemetery. They also arranged for copies of the Koran to be thrown into the sewage of the Jewish Quarter in an attempt to provoke an anti-Jewish riot.

"On 31 October 1910 the director of the Alliance School in Shiraz, Tunisian-born Elie Nataf, sent a full account of what followed to his head office in Paris. A ‘frenzied mob’ headed for the Jewish Quarter, he wrote. It arrived at the same time as the soldiers who had been sent by the military governor to protect the Jews. But, ‘as if they were obeying orders,’ the soldiers were ‘the first to break into the Jewish houses, thereby giving the signal to plunder.’ Nataf continued: ‘The carnage and destruction which then occurred for six to seven hours is beyond the capacity of any pen to describe.’...Not one of the 260 houses in the Jewish Quarter was spared…The mob - these ‘fanatics’ - then turned against the Jews themselves…twelve Jews were killed and fifteen seriously injured…

"The riot was a devastating blow to the Jewish community. Five or six thousand Jews had lost everything…This occurred in the same decade as the pogroms in the Christian empire of the Russian Tsars - pogroms that were similar in so many of their details, and that were sending millions of Jews to seek refuge in the United States, Canada and Western Europe. ” (In Ishmael’s House, pp. 129-131).

Describing the pogrom of Safed, British Palestine, in 1929, David Hacohen writes:

"We set out on Saturday morning. … I could not believe my eyes. … I met some of the town's Jewish elders, who fell on my neck weeping bitterly. We went down alleys and steps to the old town. Inside the houses I saw the mutilated and burned bodies of the victims of the massacre, and the burned body of a woman tied to the grille of a window. Going from house to house, I counted ten bodies that had not yet been collected. I saw the destruction and the signs of fire. Even in my grimmest thoughts I had not imagined that this was how I would find Safed where "calm prevailed."

The local Jews gave me a detailed description of how the tragedy had started. The pogrom began on the afternoon of Thursday, August 29, and was carried out by Arabs from Safed and from the nearby villages, armed with weapons and tins of kerosene. Advancing on the street of the Sefardi Jews from Kfar Meron and Ein Zeitim, they looted and set fire to houses, urging each other on to continue with the killing. They slaughtered the schoolteacher, Aphriat, together with his wife and mother, and cut the lawyer, Toledano, to pieces with their knives.

Bursting into the orphanages, they smashed the children's heads and cut off their hands. I myself saw the victims. Yitshak Mammon, a native of Safed who lived with an Arab family, was murdered with indescribable brutality: he was stabbed again and again, until his body became a bloody sieve, and then he was trampled to death. Throughout the whole pogrom the police did not fire a single shot.” (Quoted from Time to Tell: An Israeli Life, 1898-1984, by David Hacohen)

Finally, the infamous “Farhud” of Bagdad in 1941:

This is where the the evils of Nazism met Muslim anti-Semitism, and an estimated 180-600 Jews were killed:

“Bands of enemies were wandering inside the Jewish quarters and were killing and looting. Such events lasted until midnight, and many were killed. Heads of children were cut off like sheep, old men were killed, while women were disgraced…This was how the night passed. In the morning the Jews did not know what had happened to their brothers during the night, and they went out for work as usual, but it was only a short interval given by the killers, after which they resumed their terrorism under the management of policemen and ex-soldiers.

"They began at 9:30 a.m., completing their program of the night before...Killing and looting lasted until 11 a.m. that day…Bodies of the dead were thrown on pavements on both sides of the street…Every Jewish home sustained the loss of one of its members, or it had at least had one of them wounded. The remaining people lived in terror.” (Quoted in The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, by AG Bostom, p. 663-664).

Unfortunately, these accounts are chillingly similar to what occurred on October 7th, 2023. Hamas’s hideous massacre is part of a long history of Muslim antisemitism and terrorism that goes back centuries.

Secretary Blinken, next time you see el-Sisi, please do not be afraid or ashamed to “come as a Jew” and correct him on his revisionist history.

 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/380535?utm_source=activetrail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Check With Your Local Anti-Vax Rabbi If You Should Let Your Kid Die Or Kill Other Kids By Not Getting Vaccinated!

 

Salomon, Kotler, Kamenetsky

Measles Cases Surge Worldwide, Killing 136,000 Last Year

Measles deaths are surging worldwide, prompted by a wave of infections among unvaccinated children, public health experts say.

Deaths from measles increased by 43% globally in 2022 compared to the year before, resulting from an 18% increase in measles cases, the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say in a new report published Thursday.

The estimated number of measles cases stands at 9 million and deaths at 136,000 for 2022, mostly among children, the report published Nov. 17 in the CDC publication Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

“The increase in measles outbreaks and deaths is staggering, but unfortunately, not unexpected given the declining vaccination rates we've seen in the past few years,” John Vertefeuille, director of CDC's Global Immunization Division, said in a CDC news release. “Measles cases anywhere pose a risk to all countries and communities where people are under-vaccinated. Urgent, targeted efforts are critical to prevent measles disease and deaths.”   

In 2022, 37 countries experienced large or disruptive measles outbreaks, compared with 22 countries the year before, the report noted.

There were 26 African nations that experienced a measles outbreak in 2022, along with six in the Eastern Mediterranean, two in Southwest Asia and one in Europe.

Measles is preventable through a two-dose vaccination, but there were still 33 million children who missed a measles vaccine dose -- nearly 22 million missed their first dose and another 11 million missed their second.

The global vaccine coverage rate stands at 83% for the first dose and 74% for the second, well under the 95% two-dose coverage that creates herd immunity and protects communities from outbreaks.

Low-income countries continue to have the lowest vaccination rates, at 66%.

Of the 22 million children who missed their first dose of measles vaccine, more than half live in just 10 countries: Angola, Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Nigeria, Pakistan and Philippines.

“The lack of recovery in measles vaccine coverage in low-income countries following the pandemic is an alarm bell for action.  Measles is called the inequity virus for good reason. It is the disease that will find and attack those who aren't protected,” said Kate O'Brien, WHO director for Immunization, Vaccine and Biologicals. “Children everywhere have the right to be protected by the lifesaving measles vaccine, no matter where they live.“

https://www.medicinenet.com/measles_cases_surge_worldwide_killing_136k_people/news.htm?ecd=mnl_day_111723

An Old Movie That Repeats Playing For Thousands of Years...From Matzah Gentile Blood To Arab Jewish Blood...Same Producers, Actors and Directors

The Vatican is risking its relationship with the Jewish world 

 

The failure of Pope Francis and other Catholic leaders to unequivocally condemn Hamas is deeply troubling. 

 

Pope Francis

Relations between Israel and the Vatican have become tense in recent weeks.

In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem, an ecumenical group of Christian leaders that includes the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, issued a joint statement in which they made no explicit mention of the Hamas atrocities. They included only a vague condemnation of any act that targets civilians.

The Israeli embassy to the Holy See criticized the statement’s “immoral linguistic ambiguity,” which failed to be clear about “what happened, who were the aggressors and who the victims. … It is especially unbelievable that such a sterile document was signed by people of faith.” 

This controversy is only the latest in the fraught history of Israel-Vatican relations, which were officially established in Dec. 1993. Besides the Catholic Church’s historical antisemitism, the Vatican was long reluctant to formally recognize Israel for several reasons: Israel did not have internationally recognized borders, the status of Jerusalem and access to its holy sites had not been internationally guaranteed, and Catholics and their institutions were, the Church claimed, not adequately protected under Israeli law.

In addition, the Vatican had concerns about the treatment of Palestinians in the disputed territories and feared that relations with Israel could have negative repercussions for Catholics in Arab countries.

This may explain why, to date, Pope Francis has not labelled Hamas a terrorist organization and has not met with families of Israeli hostages. The latter has not gone unnoticed, especially because the families were received by many leading national figures, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

According to the Catholic news site Cruxnow, the pontiff’s behavior can be explained as “positioning the Vatican potentially to play a mediating and peace-making role.” In addition, “The bulk of the Christian population in the Holy Land is Arab and Palestinian, so Middle Eastern bishops and clergy tend to be strong supporters of the Palestinian cause.”

Moreover, Cruxnow sees a historic shift underway in terms of the Vatican’s interfaith priorities: “Since the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s, Judaism has been the Church’s primordial relationship, unquestionably the highest priority in inter-religious dialogue. Under history’s first pope from the developing world, that’s no longer necessarily the case, as other relationships, especially the dialogue with Islam, have become at least an equally compelling perceived priority.”

Given this, it is not surprising that, since war broke out, Pope Francis has spoken with numerous world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, but there are no reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been among them.

The larger Catholic world has shown equal ambivalence towards the war. Among Eastern Catholic leaders, the Latin Catholic and Eastern churches in communion with Rome have issued what Israel deems a lukewarm and insufficient condemnations of Hamas. Their first communiqué, issued on Oct. 8, contained a generic statement “against any acts that target civilians, regardless of their nationality.” The next, on Oct. 13, decried the humanitarian situation in Gaza and called for de-escalation. It singled out only Israel in connection with humanitarian issues.

Putting geopolitics aside, Pope Francis’s refusal to firmly condemn Hamas as a terrorist group is a moral failure. If he did so, it would demonstrate a serious commitment to combat antisemitism by action rather than vague ritual condemnations.

This is part of a larger problem. For example, the Vatican has yet to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which is opposed by many antisemites for including antisemitic tropes targeting Israel. In an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa this past May, the American Jewish Committee’s Representative in Italy and Liaison to the Holy See, Lisa Palmieri-Billig, asked Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, if it might adopt the IHRA definition in the future. He responded, “The answer is no, there isn’t any possibility. We feel that what comes out of Nostra Aetate and the position of the Popes for many decades now is very clear.”

Nostra Aetate famously condemned the Church’s historic antisemitism and rescinded the charge of deicide. This was commendable, but fossilizing the relationship between Jews and Catholics in a document that is now almost 60 years old does not help further that relationship.

Moreover, the current wave of antisemitic hatred involves tropes rooted in centuries of Catholic antisemitism. As an Italian Jew living in a predominantly Catholic country, I have seen this firsthand, such as images of a crucified Jesus used as a metaphor for the supposed plight of the Palestinians and Hamas. Together with statements like Gallagher’s, this puts the future of Catholic-Jewish dialogue in question.

On Oct. 27, Pope Francis issued a prayer for peace that also failed to condemn Hamas and its atrocities. As Chief Rabbi of Rome Riccardo Di Segni rightly stated in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on the same day, “Prayer is a weapon even if it does not shoot and its morality depends on its content. It is good to see multitudes gathering to ask for peace, looking beyond the terms of conflicts, wanting an end to suffering, but one must consider whether looking beyond does not mean flattening differences and making everyone equal; in every conflict there are not all the good guys on one side and all the bad guys on the other, but certainly there are those who are better and those who are worse. Prayer can become an alibi for unburdening one’s conscience, for establishing inappropriate equidistance, for erasing moral evaluations.”

Despite Francis’s problematic conduct, however, there are some courageous Catholic voices that have unequivocally condemned Hamas and expressed solidarity with Israel.

For example, the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin stated in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that Hamas’s attack was “inhuman” and “it is the right of those who are attacked to defend themselves.”

Similarly, on Oct. 11, Archbishop of Boston Sean O’Malley said, “This act of aggression requires a clear condemnation in human, moral and legal terms. Both the purpose of the attack and its barbaric methods are devoid of moral or legal justification. There is no room for moral ambiguity on this issue. Resisting such terrorism and aggression is the moral duty of states to be carried out within moral limits.”

The Vatican should listen carefully to O’Malley and Parolin, because not just its relationship with the Arab world and other political considerations are at stake. The Vatican’s reaction to the Oct. 7 massacre and its aftermath will play a decisive role in the future of Catholic-Jewish dialogue. If it continues to maintain its ambiguous position, the Holy See risks its entire relationship with Israel and world Jewry.

https://www.jns.org/the-vatican-is-risking-its-relationship-with-the-jewish-world/?_se=YW5uZS1tYXJpZS5mYXJvdXpAbGFwb3N0ZS5uZXQ%3D&utm_campaign=Morning+Syndicate+Thursday+16112023&utm_medium=email&utm_source=brevo

Hamas Barbaric Murderer bodycam shows how attacks on Israel began --- But CNN Needs More Proof....On Everything Jewish....

Rabbis' march (1943) - Rabbi Moshe Feinstein Was There - So Was Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz! "No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot(s)"

Despite the fears of their opponents, the rabbis’ march did not cause an antisemitic backlash. Ironically, the president’s snub ended up giving the protest the front-page news coverage that the president and his advisers had hoped to avoid. As a result, the march helped galvanize public and congressional sympathy for rescue. That boosted the subsequent efforts on Capitol Hill by Jewish activists, which, combined with behind-the-scenes pressure from the Treasury Department, eventually compelled President Roosevelt to establish the War Refugee Board. Despite receiving meager government funding and little cooperation from the president or other government agencies, the board played a major role in the rescue of more than 200,000 refugees during the final fifteen months of the war.

 https://x.com/HolocaustMuseum/status/1578080209596710914?s=20

 

1943

2023

 

Participants

Participating rabbis included the leading rabbinical figures of the era, including Rabbi Eliezer Silver and Rabbi Avraham Kalmanowitz of the Vaad Hatzalah. One of the participants was Rabbi Moshe Feinstein who would become one of the most important and famous American Orthodox rabbis and Rabbi Eliezer Poupko, a prominent figure in the orthodox rabbinic world. Rabbi Wolf Gold was also a participant and spoke at the protest.  

 https://x.com/HolocaustMuseum/status/1578080209596710914?s=20

The Rabbis' March was a demonstration in support of American and allied action to stop the destruction of European Jewry. It took place in Washington, D.C., on October 6, 1943, three days before Yom Kippur. It was organized by Hillel Kook, nephew of the chief rabbi of Mandatory Palestine and head of the Bergson Group, and involved more than 400 rabbis, mostly members of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada,^[1] from New York and cities throughout the Eastern United States. It was the only such protest in Washington during the Holocaust.

The rabbis were received at steps of the Capitol by the Senate majority and minority leaders, and the Speaker of the House. After prayers for the war effort at the Lincoln Memorial the rabbis marched to the White House to plead with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They were informed that the President was busy all day and were instead received by Vice President Henry Wallace. It was later learned that Roosevelt had several free hours that afternoon, but had avoided meeting the delegation out of concern regarding diplomatic neutrality and on the advice of some of his Jewish aides and several prominent American Jews, many of whom thought the protest would stir up anti-Semitism. Both Stephen Wise (head of the World Jewish Congress) and Samuel Rosenman (the President's advisor, speech writer and head of the American Jewish Committee) claimed that the protesting rabbis, many of whom were both Orthodox as well as recent immigrants (or first-generation Americans), "were not representative of American Jewry" and not the kind of Jews he should meet. In the November 1943 issue of his journal Opinion, Wise referred to the march as a "painful and even lamentable exhibition", calling it "propaganda by stunts" and accused the rabbis of offending the dignity of the Jewish people.^[2][3] Disappointed and angered by the President's failure to meet with them, the rabbis stood in front of the White House where they were met by Senator William Warren Barbour and others, and refused to read their petition aloud, instead handing it off to the Presidential secretary, Marvin McIntyre.

The march garnered much media attention, much of it focused on what was seen as the cold and insulting dismissal of many important community leaders, as well as the people in Europe they were fighting for. The headline in the Washington Times Herald read: "Rabbis Report 'Cold Welcome' at the White House." Editors of The Jewish Daily Forward commented, "Would a similar delegation of 500 Catholic priests have been thus treated?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbis%27_march_(1943)#/media/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-N0827-318,_KZ_Auschwitz,_Ankunft_ungarischer_Juden.jpg

MARCH FOR ISRAEL RALLY LIVE CAM

Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum - Breeder And Founder of Neturei Karta Movement - Encouraged Virulent Hatred Of The State of Israel!

 

Joel Teitelbaum Breeder Of The Neturei Karta Ideology

 Opposition to Zionism of Satmar as the forerunner of Neturei Karta

 Yoel Teitelbaum was famous for his vocal opposition to Zionism in all arenas and never acknowledged that Zionists had saved his life during the Holocaust. He encouraged his followers in Israel to form self-sufficient communities without assistance from the State of Israel and forbade any official engagement with it.

Before World War II, most Hasidic rabbis, as well as many other prominent Orthodox rabbis and leaders, believed that God had promised to return the Jewish people to the Land of Israel under the leadership of the Moshiach, who would arrive when the Jewish people had merited redemption. While awaiting the Moshiach, the Jewish people were to perform the mitzvot and were not to antagonize or rebel against the Gentile nations of the world. In the years following the Holocaust, Teitelbaum strengthened this position.

In Teitelbaum's view, the founding of the modern State of Israel by secular and religious Jews, rather than the Moshiach, violated a Jewish commandment that Jews should wait for the Messiah. Moreover, Teitelbaum taught that the existence of the State of Israel was actually preventing the Messiah from coming.^[10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joel_Teitelbaum

'Terrible desecration of God's name:' Satmar rebbe slams anti-Israel protesters

 

Satmar, a major hasidic group, is known for its extreme conservatism and anti-Zionism. Based in New York post-WWII, it maintains a strong Yiddish education and media system.

Zalman Leib Teitelbaum,of the Satmar Hasidic sect

The leader of the reclusive Satmar hasidic group, Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum, known as the "Satmar Rebbe," has publicly denounced the Neturei Karta group for their recent conduct, particularly their involvement in protests alongside “enemies of Israel.”

The rebbe's speech, shared on social media, included pointed remarks, stating, "It's a terrible desecration of God's name to support murderers in the name of the holy Torah and God's name." He lambasted the group for lacking traditional values and boundaries and acting without Torah guidance.

Last week, members of the extreme sect visited Jenin and met with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah leaders. According to a post on social media covering the visit, the representatives of Neturei Karta said: "We want to live in co-existence and in peace, our Jewish brothers want it too. We wish to live peacefully together with equal rights, on the basis that we all stand firm against occupation."

Members of the extreme group also demonstrated in New York with anti-Israel protests, where at times, antisemitic signs were held.

Satmar, a major hasidic group, is known for its extreme conservatism and anti-Zionism. Based in New York post-WWII, it maintains a strong Yiddish education and media system. Leadership split post-2006 between Moshe Teitelbaum's sons, Aaron and Zalman Leib, each overseeing separate communities.

Neturei Karta is a haredi Jewish group established in 1938 in Jerusalem, opposing Zionism and advocating for the "peaceful dismantling" of Israel, believing Jewish statehood must await the Messiah, with notable presences in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim and Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet.

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Members of the Neturei Karta orthodox group protest against Israel.

THE BIG JEWISH LIE:

"Satmar Rebbe: NK think they understand more than righteous leaders of the past

The Satmar Rebbe stressed, "There are those who have no tradition of ancestors, act independently, thinking they understand more than previous righteous leaders." He noted the distress this caused his predecessor, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, who also spoke against such actions."

 

Photos: Thousands, Led By Satmar Rebbe, Rally Against Israel in Front of UN

https://matzav.com/photos-thousands-led-by-satmar-rebbe-rally-against-israel-in-front-of-un/

Satmar Anti-Zionist Rally At Nassau Coliseum

https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/1533407/photo-essay-satmar-anti-zionist-rally-at-nassau-coliseum-part-2-photos-by-jdn.html

These statements not only reflect the Satmar community's non-Zionist stance but also their preference for avoiding public political activism, in contrast to Neturei Karta's active opposition to the state of Israel.

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/article-773037?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=IDF%3A+Soldier+held+hostage+by+Hamas+was+killed&utm_campaign=November+14%2C+2023&vgo_ee=pwIfKzQW3fVzDpMGD309Hf5uuhVH3b%2BOKdFaUyMYA1MrCA%3D%3D%3ATTcmal5OTPQbnQN44f8MmaG03feST91e

Oy Vey, The Goyim Too!

 

"The organization has spent the last several years grappling with revelations that its national leaders suppressed reports of abuse and resisted reform for decades. The brief, abuse survivors and those critical of the church say, offers the first clear look at the church’s true position on whether its leaders can be held accountable for abuse." You have to think about preserving the membership and preserving what we stand for.”

*****

Southern Baptists met in New Orleans in June

 

 

 

For six months, almost no one took notice of the brief filed quietly by Southern Baptists in a case winding its way to the Kentucky Supreme Court.

At the center of the case is a woman whose father, a police officer, was convicted in 2020 of sexually abusing her over a period of years when she was a child. The woman later sued several parties, including the Louisville Police Department, saying they knew about the abuse and had a duty to report it. Now, the state’s highest court is considering whether sex abuse victims can have more time to sue “non-perpetrators” — institutions or their leaders that are obligated to protect children from such abuse.

None of it appeared to have anything to do with the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. But in April, lawyers representing the denomination filed an amicus brief opposing expansion of the statute of limitations for lawsuits against third parties, including religious institutions.

The brief, reported by The Louisville Courier-Journal in October, landed like a bombshell in Southern Baptist circles. The organization has spent the last several years grappling with revelations that its national leaders suppressed reports of abuse and resisted reform for decades. The brief, abuse survivors and those critical of the church say, offers the first clear look at the church’s true position on whether its leaders can be held accountable for abuse.

It has led to a flurry of blistering reactions and efforts by S.B.C. leaders to distance themselves from the brief, which they characterize as a decision driven by lawyers. The brief says that the denomination has a “strong interest in the statute-of-limitations issue” in the case, and argues that a 2021 state law allowing abuse victims to sue third-party “non-perpetrators” was not intended to be applied retroactively.

“I’ve never seen such unmitigated and justified anger among Southern Baptists,” said Russell Moore, the former head of the denomination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, who is now the editor in chief of Christianity Today.

The brief has disrupted continuing reform efforts in the denomination, which have gained momentum since an investigation by The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News in 2019 revealed that hundreds of Southern Baptist leaders had pleaded guilty or had been convicted of sex crimes in recent decades.

Since then, the denomination has passed a resolution calling abuse both a sin and a crime, commissioned and published a third-party investigation into its handling of abuse and pledged to create a searchable database of people who have been credibly accused of abuse in Southern Baptist settings.

The denomination’s president, Bart Barber, who has supported abuse reforms, said in a statement that he takes “full responsibility” for the denomination joining the brief. He said he was asked for approval by the S.B.C.’s legal team and regrets not giving it the attention he should have. “I know that my credibility with you is harmed by this, perhaps irreparably,” he wrote in an open statement to Southern Baptists.

Yet, in that same statement, he said he is undecided on the matter. “I am not sure exactly what I think about statutes of limitation. I think they are a mixed bag,” he wrote. “I am uncomfortable with the harm statutes of limitations can do, but I also think that they play a valid role in the law sometimes.”

States including California and New York have expanded the statutes of limitations for filing civil suits in abuse cases. About a dozen Catholic dioceses in the United States are currently in bankruptcy proceedings.

Victims and their advocates say that the brief undercuts the intentions of the thousands of local pastors and other delegates at the denomination’s annual meeting who have consistently supported reform efforts.

In the last several years of votes on the meeting floor, “abuse reform is undefeated,” said Mike Keahbone, a pastor in Oklahoma who is on the denomination’s executive committee and its Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, established last year.

Mr. Keahbone said that members of the executive committee, the denomination’s top leadership body, were not informed about its lawyers’ intentions to join the brief.

Jules Woodson, who has said her youth pastor sexually assaulted her at a Texas church in the 1990s, said she and other abuse survivors felt the denomination seemed to be acting behind closed doors to oppose what it championed in public.

“This is exactly what us survivors have been saying all along,” Ms. Woodson said, describing the denomination as an institution that, when push comes to shove, operates as coldly as a business.

Ms. Woodson and two other survivors issued a statement calling the brief a “disgusting” move to “actively detonate any and all measures of justice that are rightfully ours as victims of abuse.”

The parties signing onto the brief include Lifeway Christian Resources, the denomination’s publishing arm, and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Both are defendants in a suit filed in Kentucky by a woman who says that her father, a Baptist pastor, abused her for years and that employees of various institutions failed to protect her.

Al Mohler Jr., the seminary’s president, said in a statement that in “questions of law” the seminary must defer to legal counsel. A Lifeway spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.

Jonathan Whitehead, a lawyer who often represents religious institutions in court, said that while the goal of rectifying abuse is a noble one, it may be too much to expect the denomination to provide pastoral support to victims, to accept legal responsibility for past abuses and to protect its own existence.

“It’s awfully hard to be the party of care and the party of responsibility at the same time.”

For reform advocates, the episode has been disturbing.

“We’re absolutely alienating women, and we’re alienating generations like millennials,” said Keith Myer, a pastor in Maryland who organized a fund-raiser to help abuse victims attend the annual meeting this summer. “It can’t just be about preserving our institutions. You have to think about preserving the membership and preserving what we stand for.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/07/us/baptists-abuse-kentucky.html