The Neturei Karta Effect

The Neturei Karta Effect

On December 11, 2006, just 60 years after WW2 and the attempted genocide against the Jewish people, President Ahmadinejad of Iran held a conference to discuss the “myth” that 6 million Jews were exterminated. The President claimed that “more research” is needed on what events took place. The fact is that WW2 is probably the most documented event in human history; there is still living proof of its occurrence; there are still survivors who lost their families with us today. If that is not enough there are thousands of pictures, videos, recordings, and the death camps are still there.

To be honest, I was not extremely surprised that a conference was being held about this issue. The Jewish people have been discriminated against for the past 3000 years; there will always be people who are stubborn and so full of hate that no matter how much proof you present to them they will never change their views. Why should the year 2006 be different? What really got to me that day were the members who attended the Holocaust denial meeting. There were 67 atrocious people, mostly anti-Semites who attended that day, including former Klu Klux Klan grand wizard, David Duke, who I would expect to attend. But the people I didn’t expect to see there was five Orthodox Jews, who had the traditional Hasidic look with their distinctive hats, beards and peot. (Side locks)

These five men who attended are part of a small group of Jews which consist of less than 300 men located mostly in Jerusalem and upstate New York; they call themselves Neturei Karta. This phenomenon started in 1935,in a way to spread their “message” against Zionism, against the idea of the Jewish people having a land to call their own, without the fear of mass extermination. They believe that the Jewish Nation, according to the Torah should be in exile until the messiah arrives and leads the Jews to the holy land, Jerusalem. Although this theory has been disproved, they continue to express their ideology by using extreme movements throughout the world. Gaining mass amounts of popularity, with the stunt they pulled in Iran. The Neturei Karta present an unfathomable problem to the Jewish people, which is nearly impossible to counter.

One of the worst negative commandments a Jew can do in this world is a concept called hillul hashem, which means to desecrate or defile G-ds name in public for the world to see. This sin is so powerful that G-d will reject a Jew from entering the next world to a person who commits this dire deed. Now, with respect to the “opinion” that the Neturei Karta have on the issue of a Jewish governed land during exile, what business do they have attending a conference about denial of the Holocaust? What possible reason could they give to attend this horrific event? Billions of people world wide, who saw the meeting take place in Iran, eye witnessed 5 rabbis appearing at a conference that is trying to denounce the Holocaust! I can only imagine the thoughts racing in gentiles mind that day. Many people viewing the event understood that “Orthodox Jews also deny the Holocaust, and if they deny the Holocaust who knows maybe it is a myth.” It also gave a scapegoat for many anti-Smites to claim that they “don’t hate Jewish people, just Zionists, we like Neturei Karta,” which consists of just a tiny portion of Jews. The Neturei Karta have rallies in Washington regularly against the Israeli Govt. claiming that they are murdering innocent Palestinians and are committing a Holocaust against the Palestinian people. What kind of image are they portraying to the world about the Jews? They are showing the world, that many Jews are against the Israeli Government as well. These people have met publicly with former PM of the Palestinians, Yassir Arafat numerous times to discuss the “barbaric” attacks against the Palestinians.

All these actions fall in the category of 100% being hillul hashem. Even if the Neturei Karta are correct and being in Israel is against the Torah, which I highly doubt, expressing their views radically and publicly against their own people regularly for media coverage is in G-ds eyes intolerable.

The Neturei Karta received tons of criticism from the Jewish communities after their stunt in Iran, which included two wives out of the five men leaving their husbands; they were also put in cherem (Isolation) by all Jewish communities around the world. However, nobody sees these events in the media. They only see irrational acts of the Neturei Karta. These men are so foolish and radical that even after all the objection by the Jewish communities, they presented Ahmadinejad with a silver grail as a sign of friendship. Again, what does being friends with the man who denies the holocaust show the world?

The acts that the Neturei Karta has done in the past couple of years are just incomprehensible. They are appalling, and do nothing but cause more hate, and misconception about the Jewish people. These people actually wear tie clips of Palestinian flags on their orthodox black robes at all public events. From where to where? It is one thing to have an opinion about Israel, and it is another to go out publicly against your fellow Jew and flaunt it to the rest of the world. The Neturei Karta follows in the path of representing the Jews in a thoughtless manner, it is amazing how a nominal amount of Jews, 5, could cause so much attention in the gentile world.