A Good Example Of How Islamist Apologists Lie About What's In The Bible

I frequently find that Islamist apologists ( and many atheists) have a cute if deplorable habit - they attempt to rationalize or make trivial the brutality committed in the name of Islam by citing out of context Biblical verses to show that 'all religion is the same' or that the Qu'ran and the Bible are similar.

Here's a good example I'd thought I'd share with you that appeared in the comments section of a Breitbart Article about the scandal of Muslim pedophile rape gangs in Rotherham, UK and the local police and government's deliberate and knowing failure to deal with it in the name of political correctness while over 1,400 young British girls were victimized.

In response to a statement that there's nothing in the Bible that allows this kind of behavior, one 'Dr. Polidori' responded:

"... kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, save alive for yourselves." - Numbers 31:17-18

Sounds pretty damning, doesn't it? At least until you know the whole story.

This verse specifically refers to the Midianites and it is not a guide to behavior towards any other  people or wars in the future. Numbers 25 tells how the Midianites, specifically the women, led the Israelites astray into worshiping the idol Baal, and kindled G-ds anger so that He struck the Israelites with a plague, which only ended when Pinchas, the grandson of Aaron, killed an Israelite man and the Midianite woman he brought into his family (Numbers 25:6-9).

That's why the women 'who had lain with man' were to be killed but the ones whom hadn't were spared. Moses was concerned that the Midianite women 'who had lain with men', including Israelites would corrupt the Hebrew nation and lead them into sin and idolatry again.

This verse also implies ('save alive for yourselves') that the Isrealites took the Midianite virgins as spoils and sex slaves. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For one thing, it would have been sinful for the Israelite men to rape the Midianite girls because rape was (and still is) abhorrent and sinful to G-d (Deuteronomy 22:23-28, esp. 25).

And secondly, the Torah, unlike the Qu'ran with its' 'What thy right hand possesses' doctrine (Qu'ran 4:24) specifically forbids such behavior.

In Deuteronomy 20-14, it states explicitly that female captives are NOT to be raped or sold into slavery but to shave their heads and cut their nails ( to make them less desirable to their captors) and are to be allowed 30 days to mourn without being enslaved,molested or coerced in any way - after which they are free to leave or to be married to their captors.

Only a truly perverse mentality would attempt to rationalize what's being done in the name of Islam by promulgating a vile lie about something that was actually an attempt to mitigate the fate of women captured in war and their status as booty.

The usual disclaimer..many Muslims likewise would never indulge in the sort of behavior  characterized by Qu'ran 4:24  and numerous other places in the Qu'ran and Hadiths. But the fact remains that there is definitely a religious justification for this treatment of women, especially non-Muslims, and that a substantial number of Muslims adhere to that interpretation of Islam, including many prominent imams,  Qaddis, clerics and scholars of both Sunni and Shi'te Islam.

We see this in action every day, and until we admit it instead of rationalizing it, it's going to not only continue but to become even more blatant.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef , Zt"L 1920-2013

 

Rav Ovadia Yosef, the former chief Sephardi Rabbi of Israel made the passage yesterday at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. He was 93.

Rabbi Yosef was born in Baghdad and emigrated with his family to Palestine Mandat at the age of 4 receiving his ordination at the age of 20.

His main teacher was the famous Rabbi Ezra Attiya.

The story is told about how Rabbi Attiya helped keep the young Ovadia Yosef in Torah studies. When his young student missed several days of study in a row, Rabbi Attiya went to the Youseff home, where the family was living in poverty. The father explained that he ran a small grocery and needed Ovadia's help, since he could not afford to pay a helper.The Rabbi was unable to convince him to let Ovadia return to school.

The next morning, when the father entered his store, he found Rabbi Attiya standing there, wearing a work apron. The Rabbi explained that he had come to the store early that morning when Yosef was opening up, told him that he had found a substitute worker who would work without pay, and sent him back to yeshiva.When Ovadia's father protested against the noted Rabbi working as a grocery helper, Rabbi Attiya replied, "You said that you needed someone to help and could not afford to pay. I am that someone. Your son's learning is more important than my time!"

Ovadia's father relented and allowed him to return to yeshiva.

Ovadia became the Chief Sephardi Rabbi of Israel in 1973, after a long career of incisive and erudite Torah commentary and the establishment of a number of yeshivot with the help of his sons. (He had 11 children). Among his other many accomplishments, he was a strong advocate and a major force 
behind Israel's rescue of Ethiopian Jews.

In later life, he settled in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof, and became active and involved in politics from a Torah perspective as the spiritual leader of the Shas party. He was known for his criticism of the Israeli Supreme Court, his love of Zion and his outspoken comments on what he believed. He was a fierce opponent of the disengagement from Gaza and of Oslo, (Shas voted against both Oslo I and Oslo II), although he said that Torah supported the trading of land..but only for a genuine peace.

Yosef's funeral procession began at 6 p.m.Local time at the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem's Geula neighborhood and continued to the Sanhedria Cemetery.An estimated 560,000 people marched in his funeral procession, an unbelievable 9% of the entire Israeli population. The equivalent in the U.S. would be 22,000,000 people turning out for a funeral.

Rav Yosef was a giant and a man of unbelievable spiritual power, who was addressed by his peers with the honorific Maran, master. Yet he always remained humble and never lacked the common touch, or stopped caring about ordinary people. He was noted even by those who disagreed with him as one of the greatest Torah scholars and authorities on Jewish law of his time.

Zt"L.

UPDATE: It appears that the number of Israelis mourning at the funeral of the great man is now estimated at 850,000

Obama Administration To Return Stolen Jewish Artifacts To The Iraqis Who Stole Them

This is truly despicable.

Harold Rhode over at Pajamas Media has a piece ( h/t, Liberty's Spirit)  that outlines how Jewish historical artifacts, Torah scrolls and holy books stolen from the Iraqi Jewish community before they were forcibly expelled from Iraq were recovered and preserved...and are scheduled to be returned not to the Jews that they belong to but to the anti-semitic country of Iraq that stole them:

The National Archives is readying an exhibit of Iraqi Jewish artifacts due to open on October 11. Appallingly, the U.S. government has agreed to then return the Iraqi Jewish archives — including holy books — to Iraq, which systematically expelled its Jewish community, by June of 2014.

How did the Jewish Iraqi community — which dates to 721 B.C.E. when the Assyrians conquered Samaria and eventually deported the population to central Mesopotamia, and which was one of the two main sources of Mishnaic and Talmudic learning — lose, find, and lose again its patrimony?

The incredible story of how this unlikely turn of events came to pass has never been told in its entirety until now; I am one of the few who can tell it.

After American forces entered Baghdad in May 2003, the head of the Jewish and Israel section of Saddam Hussein’s Mukhabarat (intelligence agency) came to the Iraqi National Congress (INC), offering information about Saddam’s intelligence operations against Israel and Jews. He did this in order to curry favor. Former Iraqi officials frequently came to opposition groups to tell their stories, in return for which they would get “safe passage” documents stating that since they were cooperating with post-Saddam authorities, they should not be harmed.

The tipster visited the INC to talk about the rumored Jewish archives hidden in the basement of the Mukhabarat headquarters. After his visit, INC chairman Ahmed Chalabi called Judy Miller, the former New York Times reporter then embedded with a mobile unit looking for WMD, and me. I was an Arabic/Hebrew speaking policy analyst with the Office of Net Assessments in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, then assigned to the Coalition Provisional Authority, at the time.

We rushed over to talk with Chalabi, who told us that a former Mukhabarat employee reported that a huge treasure trove of Iraqi Jewish and Israeli material was amassed in the Mukhabarat building, and that he was prepared to show us where it was located. He also said there was an ancient copy of the Talmud written on leather or parchment.

Miller and I then went off to the Mukhabarat building with the former Saddam officer and an INC contingent.

The tipster indicated from outside the building where in the basement the Jewish and Israel sections were located. Then — he promptly disappeared. Despite the bombed-out structure’s instability, looters were overrunning the building. Danger was everywhere.

We were, in fact, standing beside a large metal device which had lodged itself halfway into the ground. We later learned that this live, undetonated bomb had penetrated through three or four stories of the building and destroyed the building’s water system. It had pierced the wall almost at ground level. We saw, through the hole it made, that the Jewish and Israel sections were flooded.

Rhode goes on to relate the amazing story of how the artifacts were rescued, restored and shipped to America, with the aid of Ricard Perle and Dick Cheney, among others. And then
tells how they were stolen in the first place:

After Israel became a state in 1948, martial law was declared in Iraq and many Jews left in the mass exodus in 1950-51. Almost all of those who remained behind left by the 1970s. They were not allowed to take much with them.

In 1950-51, they were allowed one suitcase with clothing — sometimes not even their personal documents — and nothing more. They were forced to leave everything else behind, including their communal property. For many years, Jews were not permitted to leave Iraq at all and were persecuted. With time, the few Jews who remained in Baghdad transferred what communal holy books and religious articles they had to the one remaining synagogue which functioned. This was in Batawin, a section of Baghdad which in the late 1940s was the neighborhood to which upwardly mobile Jews moved. The remaining Jews stored this property in the synagogue’s balcony, where the women sat during prayer.

The Jews did not freely relinquish this material. They did it under duress, having no other option.

In 1984, Saddam sent henchmen with trucks to that synagogue. Those scrolls, records, and books were carted off to a place unknown. Local Jews who were at the synagogue at that time witnessed this thievery, and described to me personally how the material was carted off against their will.

The post-Saddam Iraqi authorities agreed to the Jewish artifacts being taken to America to be restored, but guess what? These thieves now want 'their' stolen property returned. This is the equivalent of heirs of Nazis demanding that artwork stolen by Hitler's henchmen from all over Europe be returned to them as rightful owners.

Moreover, considering how Iraq feels about Jews, there's no guarantee the artifacts will be given the care and reverence they deserve.

They belong to the Iraqi Jewish community, almost all of whom now live in Israel. And their proper home is the Babylonian Jewry Heritage Center outside of Tel Aviv, the only museum in the world dedicated to the history of Iraqi Jewry.

There's a petition you can sign here to stop the transfer and return these historic and holy artifacts to their rightful owners.

These holy artifacts must not go back to the people that stole them.

Pro-Abortion Democrats Use Jewish Sabbath To Try And Ram Through Amendment

In a cynical and disgusting ploy, pro-abortion members of the New York State Senate attempted to use one of the senator's Orthodox Jewish faith to keep him from voting against a pro-abortion amendment.

The Jewish Sabbath begins at approximately sundown and extends until approximately Saturday sundown. Jews whom observe the Sabbath are forbidden to work or travel or during that time, and will schedule their lives and business so as not to violate this prohibition.

One of the Senators is pro-life Brooklyn Sen. Simcha Felder, an Orthodox Jew who is a Democrat but caucuses with the Republicans.

Here's what happened on June 28th, a Friday:

Pro-choice Democrats in the state Senate plotted to ram through an abortion-rights amendment during the Jewish Sabbath to prevent pro-life Brooklyn Sen. Simcha Felder, an Orthodox Jew, from casting a vote, critics charged.

The controversial June 28 deliberations put Felder in a quandary. If he left Albany to observe Shabbat, the abortion proposal had a chance of passing. But if he stayed, he would be violating religious observance.

“The Democrats were counting votes. They were waiting for Simcha to leave. They thought they were going to get away with that,” said Deputy Senate GOP leader Tom Libous.

“I told Simcha, ‘They’re waiting for you to leave.’ They didn’t care. It was extremely insensitive,” Libous added.

Felder agreed it was wrong to have a conscience issue like abortion brought up on or just before a religious observance.

“I was told that they [the Democrats] were waiting for me to leave,” Felder said. “I was pretty dumbfounded why the vote couldn’t take place a day or two before the Sabbath.”

What Senator Felder did next was to phone his rabbi and ask for advice. And his rabbi reminded him that since this was a matter of life and death, he was compelled to stay and cast his vote.

When the Democrats saw that Felder wasn't leaving and they also wanted to adjourn for the day, Senator Jeff Klein, head of the four-member Independent Democratic Caucus, finally brought the amendment up for a vote at 4:50 p.m.

Felder voted no, the bill failed to garner the 32 votes needed to pass and Felder then raced to get home before the Sabbath started.

What's most disgraceful is that the plot to keep Felder from voting was probably hatched by a non-observant secular Jewish Democrat, who knew just enough about Jewish law to understand that Felder would have to leave without voting because he was Sabbath observant - but not enough about Jewish law to understand that the saving of human life supersedes that.

(H/t, The Lid)