Bartholomew's Notes

The Boston Globe reports on the travails of Neturei Karta, the ultra-Orthodox Jewish group that took part in Ahmadinejad’s recent Holocaust denial “conference”:

Now, the ultra-Orthodox group is being ostracized on three continents, denounced by rabbis, banned from synagogues and harassed in the streets.

Other religious anti-Zionist groups are among those appalled:

…”They brought shame on the Jewish people,” said Rabbi Shimon Weiss, a leader of the Eida Haredit, an umbrella group of anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox Jews based in Israel. “If they come to a synagogue, they will be kicked out. They disgust us.”

…The Satmars, a Hasidic, anti-Zionist group seen by some as their spiritual cousins, lamented in a statement that “the unavenged blood of the millions of Jewish victims cries out in pain and abhorrence, to these reckless outcasts, ‘How can you sink so low?'”

However, one of those who attended, Rabbi Ahron Cohen, from Manchester (UK), remains bullish:

“We know what we have done, we know the value of what we have done, and we think that in the course of time that will come out clearly.”

Neturei Karta’s stated purpose was that it was attending the conference in order to offer a corrective to the Holocaust deniers, although a photo of Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss warmly embracing Ahmadinejad was hardly an encouraging start. Meanwhile, Khaled Mahameed, a Palestinian who runs a Holocaust museum in Nazareth and who wished to attend specifically to challenge the deniers’ claims, was denied a visa – no doubt because he couldn’t be used as a propaganda tool by the Iranian regime.

So what did the Neturei Karta delegation actually do? The latest Searchlight (Feb. 2007, p. 26, article not online) describes an incident that occurred during a speech by British anti-Semite Michele Renouf:

…During the course of her rambling and rather dull anti-Semitic speech Rabbi Moishe Freidman, head of the Orthodox Neturei Karta sect in Austria, got up to leave the hall only to be told by Renouf, “I’m sorry for those who feel thay have to leave the room in order not to hear de-conditioning!” Amid peels [sic] of laughter the pliant rabbi politely returned to his seat.

Searchlight goes on to note that Iran has decided to establish “The International ‘Holocaust’ Research Committee” (quotes around “Holocaust” in original)

…to determine the penalties to be imposed upon those found guilty of having perpetrated the “Holocaust”; in case the “Holocaust” is found to be a lie, to determine the reparation to be paid to those who have been unjustly sentences and to determine the form of punishment for those who are found to be liars.

The Committee will consist of Renouf, Christian Lindtner, Bernhard Schaub, Serge Thion, and Freidrich Töbin, under the direction of Iranian anti-Semite Mohammad-Ali Ramin.

(Hat tip: Bulldada Newsblog)

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