Jerusalem – Burning Churches Kosher? ‘Halachic Nonsense,’ Says Torah Professor

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    FILE - An Israeli police officer inspects a house that was badly damaged from a suspected attack by Jewish extremists on two houses at Kafr Duma village near the West Bank city of Nablus July 31, 2015. REUTERSJerusalem – With his inflammatory statements in favor of burning churches, Rabbi Bentzi Gopstein spoke not only against democratic values but also against Jewish values, said Dean of the Shaarei Mishpat Academic Center, Professor Aviad HaCohen on Thursday.

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    Professor HaCohen dismissed as “halachic nonsense” comments by the extremist leader of the radical Lehava anti-assimilation and anti-missionary organization, made during a panel debate Tuesday on idol worship. Citing Maimonides’ ruling that due to various aspects of Christian practice and theology, Christianity is idolatry, Gopstein asserted that idolatry needs to be destroyed in accordance with the commandment in Deuteronomy to destroy idol worship in the Land of Israel. Thus, in theory, Gopstein said he was in favor of burning churches in Israel.

    “You can’t take halacha from Maimonides that was written 800 years ago and put it into today’s reality as though nothing has happened in the meantime,” countered Rabbi HaCohen, saying that anyone who knows anything about Torah should reject Gopstein’s comments. “The Jewish people always knew to differ between theoretical halacha and practical issues.”

    He added that in a country where 25% of the population is not Jewish, one must respect the rest of the population and protect their places of worship even if they don’t agree with them.

    HaCohen referenced a letter about minority rights in Israel written by Israel’s first chief rabbi, Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog: “One of the reasons the UN gave us permission to establish the state of Israel, was our duty to give freedom to all religions and to protect the holy sites of all religions.”

    He added that modern-day Christians are not the same as worshipers of ancient times and are not considered idolaters, according to Jewish scholars. Citing Rabbi Menachem HaMeiri, a famous Catalan Talmudist, HaCohen added that Christians do not want to abolish the Jewish people, therefore, Jews should respect them and should not interfere with their freedom of religion.

    Moreover, he said, “Jewish halacha scholars always knew that you have to take into account not only formal halachot but also implications of the halacha on the whole Jewish people.”

    “Just imagine what will happen if we demolish christian holy sites in Israel – what will happen to Jews in Europe and America? If we do it to them, they will do it to us too.”


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    7 Comments
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    yellowzebra
    yellowzebra
    8 years ago

    so it seems from the end of the article he does not disagree with Rabbi Bentzi Gopstein. the basic halacha is that you burn places of avoda zara, and he does not disagree with that. Rabbi Bentzi Gopstein said not to burn churches and the great professor agrees with that. so who is arguing?

    thegreatone
    thegreatone
    8 years ago

    In the end of article it says,quote:
    “Just imagine what will happen if we demolish christian holy sites in Israel – what will happen to Jews in Europe and America? If we do it to them, they will do it to us too”

    This is exactly the Zionist ideology. To make exiled Jews uncomfortable amongst the nations they live in and to be forced to move to the supposed homeland Israel.

    The fanatic extremist yarmulke wearing Zionist could care less about the safety of worldwide Jewry. They want Jews to live in fear.
    We must fight them and counter attack them in newspapers and publications spreading the word that real Torah Jews are against anything Israel does and anything religious looking Jews do.

    yonasonw
    Member
    yonasonw
    8 years ago

    What a glorious, wonderful, delightful way to incite Christians to hostility against us.

    And, why, if they don’t like Rabbis publicly advocating the burning of their churches…or publicly branding them idol worshipers…then they’re…they’re just a bunch of no good Anti-Semites…that’s what they are.

    A moshul from baseball:

    As his intellectual tolerance level is just so Talibanesque totalitarian and anti-democratic, we should consider trading Rabbi Gopstein for a couple of moderate Muslims living under Taliban control. Good riddens.

    Tzi_Bar_David
    Tzi_Bar_David
    8 years ago

    The Christians do seem to dance around a lot of avoadh zoarah however. Down the street from where I work there is the annual mobster fest known as San Gennaro. The abominations with dried blood at that event would even disgust Ba’al. I an understand why someone would want it out of E’Y.