The Real Desecration

When chillul Hashem reigns, we dare not be silent!

Talk about visiting the sick. Recently, while Professor Zeev Sternhell (yemach s'hmo) was convalescing from what we are told was an encounter with a pipe bomb, a handful of unkosher nuts from the leftist, "religious" Meimad party, paid him a visit. They were headed by MK, Michael Melchior who condemned the attack with the following histrionics:

"This despicable, criminal act is not only a crime against liberalism, democracy and freedom of expression. It is also a desecration of God's name since the immoral people who perpetrated it said they were acting in the name of Judaism."

Notice that Melchior first condemned the incident as a crime against "liberalism, democracy and freedom of expression", and only then referred to it as a "desecration of G-d's name". Torah values were last on the list. Perhaps this grasshopper forgot who Professor Sternhell is, a man who once advised "palestinians" to focus their attention against the "settlements and not plant explosives on the western side of the Green Line". Or when he declared in 1988 that, "In the end we will have to use force against the settlers in Ofra or Elon Moreh. Only he who is willing to storm Ofra with tanks will be able to block the fascist danger threatening to drown Israeli democracy." Does Melchior think he sanctifies G-d's name by visiting a capo who supports the murder of Jews?

What drives this kipah wearing pluralist whose commitment to Hellenism was spawned in the bowels of Europe? According to Meimad's website,'Rabbi Melchior believes that the social fabric of Israeli society must be built on the basis of tolerance, equal rights and equal opportunities'. (So much for his knowledge of the Rambam.) Lest one mistakenly think that Melchior is an armchair activist, it should be noted that he co-chairs the Knesset Caucus for Jewish-Arab relations, and is the creator of the Citizen's Accord Forum between Jews and Arabs in Israel, an organization which fights "injustices against Israel's Arab minority". In addition to his role as political grasshopper, Melchior is also a pulpit rabbi in Jerusalem and he retains the position of honorary Chief Rabbi of the Norwegian Jewish Community.

It is no wonder that Melchior is one of the primary leaders of Meimad, a political vehicle for disseminating Hellenism into the "moderate" Daati community. As an ideological movement, Meimad was originally co-founded by one of the roshei hayeshiva of a prestigious hesder yeshiva. If many religious Zionists today have a skewed understanding of such pressing issues as the status of non-Jews in Israel and on giving up territory, it is the influence of Meimadian Zionism and its offshoots, which have more in common with Gandhi than King David, which are to blame.

Melchior should stop rambling about liberalism and cite Torah sources to support his Quakerism. The problem is that are no such sources. The Halacha is clear that the hostile Arab population must be expelled. But Jewish Law is anathema to pacifism, and so the dove will always choose the latter.

In the end, what should we expect from a "Peace Now" surrogate whose activism has done so much to ensure pieces of Jews now and tomorrow? As the world saw with the late Yeshayau Leibowitz (yemach s'hmo), a skullcap that rests atop a soft-boiled brain, merely increases the abomination.

May this New Year be one, where the Nation of Israel begins a process of repentance which hastens the Messiah. And may the false voices with skullcaps who speak in the name of Mendelssohn while perverting the Law of Moses, be exposed.