Rabbis can be misguided too

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June 20, 2010
When Bad Rabbis Happen to a Good People
By Stella Paul
Are you ready for Rabbis Gone Wild -- Boston Edition? In the latest installment of this tragicomedy, the progressive Jewish leadership of Massachusetts decides to break the arrogance barrier and set new records for dangerous egomania.

First, let's meet our cast: seventy distinguished rabbis in Greater Boston, including the Past President of Hebrew College. Boy, you could fell an ox with the collective weight of these worthies' credentials.

And now, the bloodcurdling story: On June 10, these seventy men and women publicly condemned and virtually excommunicated one of the finest American Jewish leaders and human rights activist alive today.

Why? Because Dr. Charles Jacobs has the chutzpah to present documented facts about the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, Boston's increasingly infamous, radical-linked, Saudi-funded mega-mosque.

In a broadside entitled "An Open Letter to the Jewish Community," published in the Jewish Advocate, seventy rabbis signed their name to a letter demanding that "Mr. Jacobs discontinue his destructive campaign against Boston's Muslim community, which is based on innuendo, half-truths and unproven conspiracy theories. We call upon members of our community to reject the dangerous politics of division that Mr. Jacobs fosters."

The rabbis then referenced the Torah portion in which Israelite scouts are struck by fear: "Because they succumbed to their fears, God condemned this generation to die in the wilderness. We refuse to allow Mr. Jacobs to spread his calumnies and paralyze our community in fear."

Way to go, rabbis! Stirring imagery! Biblical metaphor! Huge spiritual uplift! No, wait, that was my lunch.

To get the full flavor of the rabbis' epic stupidity, let's meet the victim of their "Jewish fatwa," Dr. Charles Jacobs. In the late '80s, Jacobs co-founded Boston's branch of CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, to expose and combat media bias against Israel. A few years later, he founded, along with Christian and Muslim Africans, the American Anti-Slavery Group. Charles Jacobs was given the Boston Freedom Award by Coretta Scott King for his work helping to emancipate enslaved black Africans in Sudan.

In 2002, he founded The David Project, a powerhouse organization that trains college students to advocate for Israel and fight back against the demonization of Israel on campus. He currently heads Americans for Peace and Tolerance, an interfaith group he founded in 2008 to protect American values from attack by radical Islamists and to support moderate Muslims. In 2007, Jacobs was named by The Forward as one of America's top 50 Jewish leaders.

So let me ask you, O Great Progressive Rabbis, this is the man you want to casually destroy? While you were risking nothing more than the stampede to the canapés at some interfaith blabberfest, Charles Jacobs was flying to Sudan to redeem slaves with money he raised and bring them to freedom.

While you were chasing the latest must-have fad in "social justice" and ignoring the rising storm of campus anti-Semitism, Charles Jacobs was doing the grunt work of establishing an organization on the ground to help besieged Jewish students tell the truth about Israel.

While you were playing patty-cake with Jew-hating imams, Charles Jacobs was investigating the facts about their disgusting affiliations and helping moderate Muslims stand up to the radical takeover of their institutions.

O Most Compassionate Ones, do we really have so many people like Charles Jacobs that you can afford to toss him in the trash?

Now let's look at the people you do like, those spicy characters you're staking your reputations on. They're all linked to Boston's mega-mosque, the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, which is run by the Muslim American Society, or as federal prosecutors like to call it, "the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood."

The Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) cavalcade includes its founder, MIT graduate Abdurahman Alamoudi, currently rotting in jail on a 23-year sentence for al-Qaeda-linked terrorist pranks; the loathsome Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, wart-faced "spiritual" leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who's banned from the U.S. but served as ISB Trustee; Osama Kandil, ISB Trust President, director of an Islamic charity designated as terrorist by the U.S. government; and Trustee Jamal Badawi, unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial who tells Boston Muslims they must live only under Sharia Law.

How do I know these facts? Because Charles Jacobs has worked doggedly to expose them, for which I'm immensely grateful. Now, Wise and Wonderful Rabbis, why aren't you grateful, too? Why aren't you saying, "Thank you, Dr. Charles Jacobs, for being our modern-day Paul Revere, the Boston hero who alerted us of invasion from a hostile power. Have an honorary degree on us!"

Instead, you flew into a rage at Jacobs' latest shocker: a video of Beantown's jihadi rock star, Imam Abdullah Farooq, instructing followers to "grab onto the gun and the sword. Don't be afraid to step out into this world and do your job." More chilling than Farooq's words is their context: urging Muslims to support two violent locals, "the Grey Lady of al-Qaeda," Aaafia Siddiqui, who's convicted of shooting FBI agents in Pakistan; and Tarek Mehana, the excitable Sudbury youngster arrested for plotting to murder shoppers in New England malls.

Does this Imam Farooq sound like the kind of fellow you want training your police force? Not unless you want police so "sensitive" they polish their badges while the next Tarek Mehana decides to give New England shoppers a side of bullets with their fries.

And that's why Jacobs' video criticized Governor Deval Patrick for publicly embracing Imam Farooq and accepting a $50,000 check of dubious origins from him to train police in "Muslim cultural sensitivities."

And for this act of supreme civic responsibility, you defame and slander Charles Jacobs? For this, you accuse him of a "destructive campaign against Boston's Muslim community" and expose him and his family to potential dangers from vengeful Islamists? For this, you sear the Scarlet B of Bigot on his forehead and cast him into the cold?

Dear Loving and Highly Spiritually Evolved Progressive Rabbis, you're always yammering about dialoguing with "the other," right? So here's an "other" you might try dialoguing with: any Jew who has an ounce of sanity.

You know, all those nice people in your much-vaunted "community" who aren't willing to have their throats slit just because you insist it's the tolerant, hate-free thing to do.

Quick question, O Learned Ones: What are you going to do when jihad-crazed maniacs like Tarek Mehana come after your family with machine guns in the mall? Swat them with your diplomas? Teach them the finer points of Rashi? "Dialogue" on which of your limbs to chop off?

As for all you lovely lady rabbis on the list -- enjoy sermonizing in your burqa! And just hope your daughters don't have to endure the female bris ceremony.

Now, rabbis, I say this only out of the deepest concern for your mental health: Ask a doctor in your congregation to check if your Galloping Smug-itis has reached Stage 4 yet.

Because I'd like to think there's still hope for you. But you're making it really tough.

And by the way, nowhere in your job description can I find "will work to self-righteously deliver congregants into the hands of genocidal maniacs who conspire to shoot people in shopping malls."

You want me to pay dues for that? Two thousand dollars a year for you to hand me over to the Jew-hating nuts? I want my money back!

And please spare me your teary speeches about the Holocaust and your bus trips to the Holocaust Museum.

To you, Never Again apparently means Never Again Will We Bother to Flick An Eyelash In the Annoyingly Icky Direction of Genocidal Threats.

And finally, here's something you may never understand: One Charles Jacobs is worth more than seventy of you. Why? Because he fights for the truth.

Stella Paul blogs at StellaPundit.