Orthodox rabbis embracing Ahmadinejad?
Amidst the general western dismay at Iran's absurd "Conference on the Holocaust" (whose main objective seems to be to plan another), these Associated Press photographs - published widely - cloud and confuse the issue.
Yes, certainly, it is known that there are anti-Zionist orthodox Jews who do not support Israel for various reasons historical, religious and political, but is it really possible that a Jew would have so little respect for his own Jewishness as to be photographed embracing the Jew-hater Ahmadinejad at a conference such as this?
Well the answer seems to be: It's a big world, there are bound to be some sick, publicity-crazy meshugoim in it.
These nuts have been turning up in the news for years. The important thing to note is that there aren't actually very many of them, it's just that the few there are manage to get around a lot. Their cabal numbers no more 35 or 40 men worldwide: 10-20 each in Israel and the US, and perhaps 5 in London and 1 in Vienna; that's about it.
They use the name "Neturei Karta", because it sounds cool and historical, and there's nothing the real Neturei Karta can do to stop them. (Not that there's much of the real NK left any more: most members have stopped using that name because they don't want to be identified with these kooks. But there are still a few NK institutions: a study hall in Meah Shearim, two schools and a newspaper, and these weirdos are not welcome at any of them.)
But nothing much can be done to stop them prancing around the world, so they continue to appear at every anti-Israel event they can possibly get to, attracting media attention left and right. They are funded by antisemites, so they have no need of any support from other Jews, which they certainly don't and wouldn't get.
Their leader in Israel (or should I say Palestine?), Moshe Hirsch, was found to have been on Yasser Arafat's payroll, and attended his funeral. Documents discosed by Israel's Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center and the Center for Special Studies (CSS) revealed that Arafat paid more than $50,000 to Hirsch, as "foreign minister" of Neturei Karta.
As to why the secular Israeli political and legal establishments leave Hirsch to run around the world when they could easily have him jailed for treason: one theory is that they see the embarrassment to religious Jewry in general (not only ultra-orthodox Jewry) as in their interests.
For an interesting article on a related type of cynicism of the secular Israeli political leadership, see this cogent article by Larry Derfner, a secular jouralist. He writes, inter alia: "I get incensed that every official visitor to Israel has to stop first at Yad Vashem - to be softened up and put on the defensive before the give-and-take of diplomacy with Israel can begin."
Added Dec. 14th: As a result of the publicity during the last few days, the Eda Haredit issued this condemnation. Also, here, Jonathan Rosenblum writes how the British member of the delegation, Ahron Cohen, has been told he is persona-non-grata in the Satmar synagogue in Manchester, where he lives, and similarly at "Rav Huna's" in Golders Green.
