1/15/07

"Neturei Crackpots, Leave Monsey!"

The backlash against the Neturei Karta is heating up. The NY Times carried a story today about vocal protests in Monsey.

The lesson learned here is, If you kiss the enemy, you better be prepared to move to his country too.
Back home, Rabbi Weiss and the others were met with anger and scorn. Since their return, they have been ostracized by synagogues, denied service at kosher stores and vilified in Jewish discussion boards on the Web. Posters have surfaced in the Satmar Hasidic enclaves of Brooklyn, calling the members of Neturei Karta “rebels” and “outcasts” and asking Orthodox Jews to “totally cut off ties with this gang.”

On Jan. 7, about 300 people, most of them Orthodox Jews, including several Holocaust survivors, protested outside Neturei Karta’s base on Saddle River Road here, chanting and holding signs that read, “Neturei Crackpots, Leave Monsey.” A much smaller contingent of Rabbi Weiss’s supporters held a counterprotest nearby.
But wait. Israel Insider reports that there is more. Mrs. NK-Nut in Vienna has left her husband. And a third member of the notorious band from London has been put in Cherem there and is under police protection.

Lesson learned, If you kiss the enemy, better stock up on Kosher TV dinners.
After cult 'rabbi' kisses Ahmadinejad, his wife leaves him, files for divorce

A senior member of the fringe group that participated in Iran's Holocaust denial conference was left by his ultra-Orthodox wife for his misdeeds.

Moshe Aryeh Friedman, a senior Neturei Karta member, who passionately kissed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will now be forced to look for a woman who will agree to kiss him, as his wife has decided to leave him following his participation in the Holocaust denial conference which took place in Tehran about a month ago.

The participation of six Neturei Karta leaders in the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran continues to strip up emotions in the ultra-Orthodox community.

Friedman, who lives in Vienna, is the harshest person among the Neturei Karta representatives who arrived in Iran, and was even photographed kissing the Iranian president. He also stayed in Iran for another two weeks after his friends left, visiting universities across the country in order to speak against the State of Israel .

The 'Ultra-Orthodox Voice' service reported that when Friedman finally returned to Vienna he found out that his wife, following her parents' advice, had fled to the Satmar community in Williamsburg, New York City. There she approached rabbis and asked them to help her divorce her husband due to his misdeeds.

Friedman is not the only Neturei Karta member who is in trouble following the Holocaust denial conference. The group's British representative has been put under tight security for fear he would be hurt after the Jewish community in the United Kingdom decided to banish him.

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