Anti-Zionist Orthodox Rabbis meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (video)

On Monday Sep. 24, '07 in the Intercontinental Hotel, at 48th St. and Lexington Ave. New York City at 9:00am anti-Zionist Orthdox Rabbis met with Iranian President Ahmadinejad then participated in a counter demonstration against protestors of the Iranian President in the Dag Hamerskold Plaza at the United Nations followed by a counter demonstration during the speech of the Iranian president at Colombia University.

To understand why the Rabbis met with President Ahmadinejad and attended the counter-protest demonstrations against the Zionists who oppose the Iranian President, read the Press Release below.

Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, spokesman of Neturei Karta International, issued the following statement on the eve of the group's meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"It is always our pleasure to visit with President Ahmadinejad. This will be the third such meeting, in addition to our many visits to Iran in the past. We have each time emphasized to the Iranian leadership that, despite media hysteria and the statements of some misinformed Jews, we have found the Iranian people and their leaders to be friendly and respectful."

"Likewise, although we as Jews are not to be involved in politics, (According to Jewish law, Jewish people are required to be loyal citizens to the countries wherein they reside), We have found the Iranian President to be a deeply religious man, dedicated to a peaceful world, based on mutual respect, fairness and dialogue."

"Judaism seeks peace. Unfortunately, there are some Jews today, influenced by the barely century old, philosophy of Zionism, who feel that the proper Jewish response to enemies, be they real or fantasized, is aggression and calls for violence and unfortunately attempts to drag other nations down the path of war."

"It as sad that so few have actually attempted to speak to the Iranian President or seek the true opinion of Iranian Jewry who live in peace and practice their faith throughout that nation. We have met this man who has demonstrated time and again that he is sincerely interested in the well being of Iran's Jewish community and has deep respect for world Jewry and their Torah faith, The Zionist attempt to socially isolate this man and his people is immoral and disastrous"

"Zionism is antithetical to Torah beliefs. It believes in creating our own sovereign entity which is expressly forbidden due to the Divine decree of exile. This ideology leads to aggression against nations and is incarnated in the State of "Israel". This State continually oppresses other people in the name of Judaism and the entire Jewish people. This movement has exacerbated anti Semitism throughout the world. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad understands this distinction between traditional Judaism and Zionist distortion."

"We view our approach to Iran as a model for all Jews and all mankind. The Torah is the Almighty's blueprint of mercy and justice for all creation. We have followed this modal in our dealings with the Iranian President and found in him an individual dedicated to these same ideals. There is much to be gained by talking and listening and everything to be lost by raising the rhetoric in the direction of war." The grave tragedy of our era is the inordinate power garnered by Zionism, whose acceptance of force as the only means to reconcile conflicts, has influenced some to abandon Torah fundamentals. We hope and pray that they too will adopt the traditional Jewish approach of dialogue, respect and reconciliation."

"War is a horrible thing. The dark clouds of a future conflict are now on the horizon in the Middle East. Torah Jewry hopes and prays that this may yet be averted."

In conclusion says Rabbi Weiss, "Out of great respect to the Iranian Nation and their leadership we proudly welcome the Honorable President Ahmadinejad to New York, WELCOME!"

Rabbis meet Ahmadinejad in NY

PRESS TV reports: A number of Jewish rabbis carrying placards of "I'm a Jew, not a Zionist" have met President Ahmadinejad at his residence in New York.

The senior Jewish rabbi welcomed the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and called the meeting an extraordinary good fortune for the Jewish rabbis.

The senior Jewish rabbi said the memory of this meeting would never fade, adding that the Iranian President understands the Jews, and makes a distinction between the violent actions of the Zionists and Jewish religious belief which is of great importance for us.

President Ahmadinejad also expressed his delight at the meeting, saying, "All prophets share one mission, that is, the guidance of mankind. Today people of the world have come to realize the fact that Judaism is different from Zionism. Jews are followers of Moses and Zionists are seeking political opportunities."

The rabbis offered a silver cup to Iran's President in commemoration of Ahmadinejad's friendship toward the Jewish community.

Neturei Karta: Ahmadinejad wants peace

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants peace and is a friendly leader, Neturei Karta International spokesman Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss said in a statement issued ahead of a meeting between the Jewish organization leaders and the Islamic republic's president.

"It is always our pleasure to visit with President Ahmadinejad. This will be the third such meeting, in addition to our many visits to Iran in the past. We have each time emphasized to the Iranian leadership that we have found the Iranian people and their leaders to be friendly and respectful," Weiss wrote.

According to Weiss, the international accusations that the president is a warmonger are not true, and Israel is to blame for the tension in the Middle East. "Likewise, although we as Jews are not to be involved in politics, we have found the Iranian President to be a deeply religious man, dedicated to a peaceful world, based on mutual respect, fairness and dialogue."

"This State continually oppresses other people in the name of Judaism and the entire Jewish people. This movement has exacerbated anti Semitism throughout the world. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad understands this distinction between traditional Judaism and Zionist distortion", he added.

In the statement, Weiss added that Ahmadinejad had expressed his good intentions toward Iran's Jews. "It is sad that so few have actually attempted to speak to the Iranian president or seek the true opinion of Iranian Jewry who live in peace and practice their faith throughout that nation".

"We have met this man who has demonstrated time and again that he is sincerely interested in the well being of Iran's Jewish community and has deep respect for world Jewry and their Torah faith, The Zionist attempt to socially isolate this man and his people is immoral and disastrous." According to Weiss, the international community, and particularly the leadership in Jerusalem, should take an example from the Iranian leader

(For a more complete picture on Neturei Karta International you should also check out what the Anti-Defamation League has to say about them and the excellent Wikipedia article about NKI and its history - VS)

American Orthodox Jew donates 1,5 million dollars to rebuild Palestinian home

by Tovah Lazaroff for the Jerusalem Post

An Orthodox American Jew has donated $1.5 million to fund a campaign against the demolition of Palestinian and Beduin homes throughout Israel and the territories, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions announced on Monday.

The committee plans to use those funds to rebuild as many as 300 Palestinians homes it expects to be demolished this year either by the Interior Ministry, the Jerusalem Municipality or the Civil Administration.

Israel officials argue that Palestinian homes are only destroyed for security reasons or because they were illegally constructed, but ICAHD disputes both those arguments. Director-General Jeff Halper said that the government discriminates against Palestinians and therefore it is very difficult for them to obtain building permits.

Nor does he believe the security argument. "These are not people that have done anything or have been charged with anything. There is no security issues at all in terms of these homes," he said.

"This is really part of a continuing policy of displacement and dispossession" of Palestinians, he added.

He would not give the name of the US donor but said it was someone who did not want to be complicit with the policy of destroying Palestinian homes.

In the last 10 years, ICAHD has rebuilt some 35 destroyed Palestinians homes, but this is the first time that it has embarked on an anti-demolition campaign of this magnitude, in which it plans to rebuild each destroyed Palestinian home. It has already rebuilt five homes in the Jerusalem area and started on another eight, including four in Hebron.

To mark both the start of its campaign and the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, the group held a press event in the Old City in one of the few homes that remains from the Mughrabi Quarter which once stood at the site of the plaza that stretches out from the Wailing Wall.

While there have been few home demolitions in the Old City itself in the last 40 years, Halper said that the first act of the "occupation" in 1967 at the end of the war was to destroy part of the Mughrabi Quarter, including two mosques, to make space for worshipers at the wall.

Bulldozers came at night and 135 families were forced to leave their homes, Halper said. "We are coming back to the place where the occupation began," he said.

Speaking with him was the mukhtar of the Mughrabi Quarter, Mahmoud Masloukhi, whose family had lived there for 120 years. He himself was born in 1933 and grew up in the quarter. In 1967, he had recently remarried.

When he and his family understood that the quarter was being destroyed, they fled with only the clothes on their backs, he recalled. Now all he has left of his ancestral home is a few black and white photographs which he brought with him.

He recalled how at one time, Jews and Muslims lived peacefully together in the Old City. Jews were forced to leave the Old City after the War of Independence in 1948, when Jordan had control of the area. It also destroyed most of the Old City's Jewish Quarter.

After the Six Day War, it was Masloukhi and his family who had to leave. He and his sister are among the few who have returned to the Old City.

As Masloukhi stood with reporters and showed them the photos of his former home, a number of Jewish children in a school located above the courtyard threw large spitballs and water at him and the other people standing below.