Benzi Gopstein’s latest “Behind the Flames” column in the Shabbat weekly “Matzav HaRuach”:
It’s Not Terrorism, It’s Judaism
What was preoccupying the Minister immediately upon taking office? Maybe the fact that every day stones and firebombs are thrown at Jews within the State of Israel…
Last week, the first week of Minister of Public Security Omer Bar Lev’s term of office, the new Minister sat with the Attorney General for a very important meeting. What was the Minister so concerned about, immediately after taking office? Maybe the fact that every day stones and firebombs are thrown at Jews within the State of Israel: In Lod, Jaffa, and even in Israel’s capital – in Shimon HaTzadik and in other Jerusalem neighborhoods? Perhaps the “Wild West” prevailing in the Arab sector, with the ‘settling of accounts’ by criminal elements on the streets of the country? Nope and nope…. Min. Bar Lev is preoccupied by something far more important: My war against assimilation!
To my sorrow, Omer Bar Lev didn’t even attempt to examine or clarify what exactly the Lehava organization’s activity is, that he calls ‘terrorism’. Instead, he feeds on the lies of the Reform (who today sit by his side in the government, to our great sorrow) and on the smears coming from figures paid for by the New Israel Fund. If he had checked it out himself, he would have known what the Lehava organization is involved in.
I’ll give you the short version which will really tell you only of our activities of the past week… A day after Omer Bar Lev’s request, my wife initiated a hearing in the Tel Aviv Beit Din in order to bring a Jewish woman who had met an Arab years ago, back to Judaism, who had fallen under the Arab’s spell and converted to Islam, and now – with G-d’s help and with the help of the Lehava organization – she has returned to Judaism. Is there a greater act of terrorism that this?
The same week, with the cooperation of the Israeli police, over whom Bar Lev is in charge, we located three girls who had escaped from the institution they were living in. They had been missing from there for a long time, but nothing was done until the Lehava organization entered the picture and exposed their location, and together with MKs we put pressure on all the various bodies. The Jerusalem police located the girls and returned them to the institution and to their families. Take note for yourselves of another act of terrorism, this time coordinated with the Israeli police…
And last week, we got a call about a girl doing her National Service in a hospital in the South of the country who wants to convert to Islam. And to our switchboard came the shouts of a husband whose ex-wife broke the agreement made in the Beit Din and is now with the children of her ex-husband in an Arab village. And on Shabbat (!) an email was sent to us about a Jewish woman who they met in a Tel Aviv bar, who is going out there with an Arab and looks really helpless. What would Rabbi Levi of Berdichev have said about Jews violating Shabbat by sitting in a bar, but concerned for their Jewish sister… To hear their cries – is this, too, considered ‘terrorism’?
And yes, we spoke with the director of the Ein Harod exhibition, and we explained to her most politely that it cannot be allowed to put on a show where Hashem’s name is burned, and after respectable dialogue, they did indeed decide to remove the shocking exhibit.
Are all of these acts of terrorism? This isn’t terrorism, this is Judaism. This is the positive commandment of Ahavat Israel!
To report/donate: 074-7871390
Comments: benzion444@gmail.com
https://www.mazav.co.il/23030
