"Muslims join Jews to celebrate Passover," from The Age, with thanks to Daniel Pipes and Mark Durie:
Melbourne Jews and Muslims made history last night by joining for the first time to celebrate Passover, one of Judaism's most important festivals.
Nearly 100 people took part in the Passover ritual and meal at the Prahran community centre as part of the building bridges program to bring the two faiths together.
The real Passover, in a fortnight, commemorates Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt for the Promised Land some 3500 years ago, an event that is important to Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
Fred Morgan, rabbi of Temple Beth Israel, who led the Passover meal, said it was the story that bound Jews together.
"It reminds us that we are required to speak out for freedom for all people," Rabbi Morgan said.
Muslims present were fascinated. Before the ceremony began they had little idea of what to expect and most had no idea what it commemorated.
Hmmm. This seems to belie the earlier statement that Passover is important to Islam. How important could it be to Muslims if they have no idea what it commemorates?
Rabbi Morgan said the service was truncated to make sure it finished before midnight. And it was amended to avoid offending Muslims. Grape juice was drunk instead of wine and the final invocation, "Next year in Jerusalem", was dropped.
Yes, well, so much for ceremonial significance. Next year in Rahway, eh? Certainly not in, say, Tel Aviv. Why not just chuck the whole thing to "avoid offending Muslims?"
Unbelievably short-sited.
Moose
"It reminds us that we are required to speak out for freedom for all people," Rabbi Morgan said.
Muslims present were fascinated. Before the ceremony began they had little idea of what to expect and most had no idea what it commemorated.
Hmmm. This seems to belie the earlier statement that Passover is important to Islam. How important could it be to Muslims if they have no idea what it commemorates?
Posted by Robert at April 15, 2005 07:55 AM |
I'd say the Muslims present would be just as perplexed by the concept of speaking out for freedom of all people, as they would by Jews commemorating the exodus from enslavement in the Pharoah's Egypt.
Well, at least they're bothering to learn something about the beliefs and rituals of other people. With luck, a few more people like these, and the next time some Wahabbi screams about the JOOOOOZ using blood in their matzoh, other Muslims will stand up and tell him to shut up and go back to the Empty Quarter.
"Rabbi Morgan said the service was truncated to make sure it finished before midnight. And it was amended to avoid offending Muslims. Grape juice was drunk instead of wine and the final invocation, "Next year in Jerusalem", was dropped." --from the article above
Why stop there? Aren't there plagues mentioned that God would inflict on the inoffensive Pharoah and his people? Cut that out too.
And isn't the celebration one of the Jews managing to survive despite Egyptian attempts to destroy them itself offensive?
Rabbi Morgan ("Only in Australia" as the Harry Golden of Melbourne might write) sounds as if he is one of those useful idiots. He appears not to recognize several things.
1) this was not a real Passover ceremony, held at Passover, but a dim simulacrum, and the reason it was not the real thing is that Muslims would refuse to attend a real Passover. But he has fudged this, and so has the admiring newspaper article -- which fails to mention the fact that Muslims are instructed, in their texts, NOT to take part in non-Muslim religious ceremonies of any kind, and not even to wish non-Muslims well (even a "Merry Christmas" is forbidden, unless -- as some Muslim websites suggest -- it can be useful in "helping Islam").
But of course the innocent Australian reader would not realize that this was not "Passover" but a pretend-Passover, deliberately held as a public-relations event (with all of 100 people there -- how many were Muslims? Twenty?). This "event" as reported was a non-event, but it will have a bad effect -- it will help cause non-Muslims to be less wary, and perhaps especially Jews.
Let's just imagine how this little phony Passover, with a dozen Muslims watching the truncated, distorted, and untimely phony Passover, as reported above, plays out in minds all over the world.
Here's something like what will be said:
"See -- Islam isn't hostile to other relgions, why just the other day in Australia some Muslims -- I think it was a few hundred, which is practically the whole Muslim community, took part in a Passover service. Yeah, and they wore kippahs, and even took part in the whole ritual -- gosh, it was great. Rabbi -- umm, Morganfeld or something. See, things are really changing in Islam. And then there's that Irshad Manji. And even the Saudis are getting on board, I hear, with an anti-terrorism conference. I mean, they're running scared too. We're all in this together. See? I told you changes were coming."
Yada. Yada. Yada.
I agree with expanding certain concepts in order to be all-inclusive. Beauty is a good example: there are beautiful women all over the world as long as we don't try to limit them to certain characteristics: tall or thin or delicate noses, etc. I disagree completely with expanding our definition of tolerance. How can these Muslims be considered tolerant if they would be offended by an integral part of the ceremony?
It reminds me of the big get-together in Mecca this year. The New York Times had a nice write-up on it, how "cosmopolitan" and "tolerant" the city was: why even blacks were accepted and women could speak up! Except for one bitty little detail: no Muslims allowed anywhere in the city. Is this how far the West has fallen? We now consider this behavior a model of "tolerance?"
Passover without "Next Year in Jerusalem" is about the same as celebrating the 4th of July without being able to mention the Declaration of Independence.
What a bunch of idiots.
So who got the glory?
Were they sucking up to the muslims....or
were they Honoring God?
I think they for got God and left him in the parking lot..so that they were impress theirselves.
And we see the actions of another liberal...that is....don't do what is right, just do what feels good.
Hugh- not sure if this is what you're implying, but Pharoah and ancient Egypt are viewed negatively in Islamic tradition, precisely because of their role in oppressing God's Chosen. This is one of the reasons Muslim Egyptians were so ignorant of their cultural heritage until recently, though then again Islam always seems to wipe out native cultural traditions wherever it gains a foothold.
According to the book of Mo. Moses was a Muslim, as was Abraham, Jesus and all of the prophets. And thus so were the Israelites, todays crop of Jews (and of course Christians) are kufr, the word actually means liar. All persons since Mo are born Muslim so they say and believe, and only persist in their hard headed refusal to submit because they were raised as liars on distorted versions of their traditions.
According to Muslims the extant Bible (Old and New Testament editions) are perversions, wilfully distorted by the Jews (and Christians, since they don't believe that IHSus died on the cross or was the son of god).
All of this a way of clarifying why the Pha RA oh is considered negtively by Muslims, not because he oppressed Gods'Chosen, but because he oppressed true Muslims, the people of the book, Moses people. (note it is only one Pha Ra oh mentioned in the Qur'an, and incidentally he is referred to in present tense, Mo had no sense of time and thought that Mary was the sister of Moses and Aaron).
BTW, the people of the book are not cut any slack by the people of Mo, that they do or claim to do, is a political decision, a temporary expedient, or a political expedient because Islam needs dhimmi's to provide technology, science, labor, slaves, money to sustain their imperious, superior life style.
The Ottomans recognized this and thus did not try to convert the slavs, Croats, Greeks,Bulgars, Hungars, the Umayyad dynasty knew this and thus made conversion difficult if not impossible, they would violently flog those who asked to be converted or tried to convert.
For ninety years the Umayyads ruled from Syria, using the existing Byzantine Bureaucracy Islam they regarded as a racist Arab movement. Therefore they tried to convert all Arabs-Christians, Jewish and pagan-to Islam, but they made it hard for non Arabs to convert. They wanted a Muslim Arab aristocracy to rule a non-Muslim, non Arab tax paying population.
Kepha-
You can't be as stupid as you pretend.
"At least they're learning about the rituals of others..."
But, they are NOT. Because of the Muslims' oh-so-offendable sensiblilites, the Hebrew ritual was mutilated, truncated and castrated.
What does that teach the Muslims in attendance but that they can intimidate the Jews into bastardizing their most important rites to coddle those who are probably going home and laughing about it all anyway?
And the inane fantasy you tack on about these 'now educated' Muslims being ready to rise up in valor and brotherhood to stop their fellow fanatical Muslims from killing Jews is pathetically silly.
But I have a name for this new trend:
PASSE-OVER*.
*********************************************
(*Diacritcal mark over the E, to sound "pas-say".)
Well what a pack of stupid pagan loving Jews. As I read God's word it is totally forbidden for a Jew to have such contact with pagans. This is one of the reasons that the Israelites were forced from the territory given to them by The Almighty.
For a practising pagan to take of the symbols given to Israel could be very dangerous. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a jealous God and here a bunch of pagans have committed rank, blatant blasphemy. numbat
Giaour-
Thanks for the detailed elaboration on the relationship between Judaism and Islam. I was in a hurry to leave work yesterday so I had to cut it short.
Anyway, just wanted to add that Muslims' relationshp with Jews and Christians is somewhat schizophrenic, much like other aspects of their religion. Islam is no less aggressive intellectually than it is physically, and part of its multi-pronged attack is to deny the legitamcy and even existence of other monotheisms, both in the present and even in the past. In the Muslim view Jesus, Moses, and the all the other prophets and notable figures in the Bible are Muslims. In fact every creature that ever lived or will live is Muslim (even animals) so long as it submits to the ultimate creator. Supposedly every child is born a Muslim, but through the ignorance or peversity of its parents is stolen away from the one, perfert, primordial faith.
According to their own theory, then, Muslims should respect at least the ancient Jews, since they were once "rightly guided" by a "non-corrupted" scripture; in practice, though, Muslims inculcate a complete indifference and animosity towards Islam's predecessor religions. They have no interest in them except to dominate them as well as hide the fact the Islam is simply a barbarized form of rabinnic Judaism, heretical Christianity, and Bedouin paganism. Witness the fact that the Palestinians desecrated a Patriarchal shrine (I think Rebeccah's?) at the start of the current Intifada, despite the fact that the Patriarchs are supposedly "good Muslims".