5/20/08

Haaretz (AP): Jews Burn New Testaments

Not a nice thing to do.
Orthodox Jewish youths burn New Testaments in Or Yehuda
By The Associated Press

Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land.

Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said missionaries recently entered a
neighborhood in the predominantly religious town of 34,000 in central Israel, distributing hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material.

After receiving complaints, Aharon said, he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and drove through the neighborhood, urging people to turn over the material to Jewish religious students who went door to door to collect it.

"The books were dumped into a pile and set afire in a lot near a synagogue," he said.

The newspaper Maariv reported Tuesday that hundreds of yeshiva students took part in the book-burning. But Aharon told The Associated Press that only a few students were present, and that he was not there when the books were torched.

"Not all of the New Testaments that were collected were burned, but hundreds were," he said.

He said he regretted the burning of the books, but called it a commandment to burn materials that urge Jews to convert.

"I certainly don't denounce the burning of the booklets, he said. I denounce those who distributed the booklets."

Jews worship from the Old Testament, including the Five Books of Moses and the writings of the ancient prophets. Christians revere the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, which contains the ministry of Jesus.

Calev Myers, an attorney who represents Messianic Jews, or Jews who accept Jesus as their savior, demanded in an interview with Army Radio that all those involved be put on trial. He estimated there were 10,000 Messianic Jews, who are also known as Jews for Jesus, in Israel.

Police had no immediate comment.

Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews frown on missionary activity aimed at Jews, though in most cases it is not illegal. Still, the concept of a Jew burning books is abhorrent to many in Israel because of the association with Nazis torching piles of Jewish books during the Holocaust of World War II.

Earlier this year, the teenage son of a prominent Christian missionary was seriously wounded when a package bomb delivered to the family's West Bank home went off in his hands.

Last year, arsonists burst into a Jerusalem church used by Messianic Jews and set the building on fire, raising suspicions that Jewish extremists were behind the attack. No one claimed responsibility, but the same church was burned down 25 years ago by ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

actually thats whats supposed to be done.
or at least thats what we were taught.
One of my friends once found a small book in hebrew, the entire 24 books of the tanach (old testament) and all the books of the new testament together in one thick book all in hebrew.
we were taught that it must be nurned, went out to the schoolyard and had a fire.

John D. Enright said...

Rabbi, thank you very much for your opinion, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I retract everything I've said about you being anti-Christian.

John D. Enright said...

I'm sorry, Rabbi, I didn't mention that I'm also sorry for anything I've said that offends you personally. (But I still don't like Obama!)

Anonymous said...

Nothing surprising there. They rejected Him then and they are rejecting Him now. They will soon learn.

Anonymous said...

If the version of the NT that was burned was one of the newer ones that are specifically edited to appeal to Jews, I don't have such a problem with it.

John D. Enright said...

andy said "If the version of the NT that was burned was one of the newer ones that are specifically edited to appeal to Jews, I don't have such a problem with it." In that case, it might be understandable, but I don't think its a good idea to burn any book with the exception of books like Mein Kampf which never should have been written in the first place.

Anonymous said...

All bibles should be burned old and new.

That way people will stop believing in sky wizards that aren't there.

The people that have faith that there is a GOD are wrong. Plain and simple.

The only God there is, is the one in people imagine to be real.

Burn away people! Burn them all!