"Community Memorial For Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and Rivka," delivered by Rabbi Marvin Hier at the Chabad House, Westwood, November 30 (from the Wiesenthal Center, thanks to Pamela):
What is there to say or speak? What has become of our world? First, let me express my heartfelt sympathy to all the victims in Mumbai of this horrific attack – Jews and non-Jews, the families of the murdered, the maimed and the traumatized.Every Saturday night when Shabbat concludes, Jews around the world make a special blessing, “Blessed are you Almighty…who has separated the holy from the secular – light from darkness.” Never has there been such a clear distinction between the world of light and the world of darkness.
In one community, a wonderful 29-year-old Rav Gavriel Holtzberg and his 28-year-old wife Rivka, of blessed memory, were in their Chabad house and what were they doing my friends? Helping people – meals for strangers, places to stay for travelers, counseling for the downtrodden and forgotten, Kosher food and a place to pray and study for those seeking spiritual sustenance.
They could have stayed in Israel or in the United States. They had a child who died of genetic illness and another who is hospitalized with the same ailment. They had no political motivations – all they wanted to do was work hard for a better world.
On the other hand, the young men who came by boat - they too had a task – who should they murder? Should it be the doctor making his hospital rounds, nurses at their stations, a mother shopping for her family, a grandmother walking near the hotel with her grandchild or anyone who just happened to look in their direction?
The world has never experienced such a plague of darkness like the plague of Islamic fundamentalism that reveres death over life – that teaches young people that the preferred way to get to heaven is by murdering and maiming. Even the worst murderers in the history of mankind, the Nazis, who gassed millions - for themselves would do anything to live another day. That’s what Eichmann and Mengele did when they were on the run.
The world should be very clear – achieving martyrdom by killing innocent civilians is an abomination – it is a concept that desecrates religion, denigrates humankind, and defames G-d himself.
But it is not only the terrorists who bear the responsibility – it is the religious leaders who programmed them, inspired them, and sent them, who are equally culpable. Joseph Goebbels and Julius Streicher never killed anyone – but they were named as war criminals at Nuremberg because on a daily basis, they poisoned the minds of tens of millions of Germans. That is exactly what the Imams of the Islamic Fundamentalists do.
The world must not remain silent. We have the tools to at least do something. The United Nations must make suicide terror a priority. Why is it that the General Assembly can call special sessions on drug cartels, on AIDs, on disarmament, on apartheid – all crucial issues – but it has not yet called for a special session on the greatest crime of the 21st century – suicide terror?
The other day, I saw someone on television making the point that we must understand the grievances of the terrorists – that the world has neglected them. My friends, if there is anyone who has grievances in history – it should be the Jewish people and, particularly, the generation of survivors of the Holocaust – who witnessed 1/3 of world Jewry gassed and murdered. They too had grievances – but did you ever see children of survivors blowing up hospitals, hotels, schools, and restaurants?
Yet what was their reaction? They picked themselves up by the bootstraps, taught themselves how to smile and love again, educated their children to dignify the world and not to destroy it – to contribute to it and not to demean it.
In keeping with that tradition, I’m sure that 2-year-old Moshe Holtzberg who was miraculously saved, who has no parents to bar mitzvah him or to escort him to his wedding, will learn about his parents and will grow up following in their footsteps – teaching kindness and love and finding good in people.
And to you, the supporters of the terrorists, wherever you are – your concept may be new, but we’ve seen your prototype before – you’re not the first to threaten our humanity. For 3,500 years, we’ve seen your likes during the pogroms, the Inquisition and the Holocaust and we’ve never changed our belief.
To use a metaphor that is appropriate for the forthcoming Chanukah festival - that one cruise of light that emanated from of the Chabad house in Mumbai has contributed more to humanity than your whole ideology and way of life. The Jewish people whom you seek to destroy will still be here – long after you and your haters have been deposited in the dustbins of history.
Don't become a terrorist and don't become a Red Crescent Memorial Victim who glorifies what killed their family members and glorifies the "grievances" of the killers. What was their alleged grievance? It was, as Lawrence Auster pointed out, that they suffered injustice.
What was the injustice? That Islam is not ruling over Kashmir and India, and really the whole world. Because if any land is not under Muslim rule, the whole word is in a state of injustice. That is their "grievance".
This is not a time to only mourn, but to fight back. Don't let the MSM hide what happened. Get photos of the victims and make the MSM look at them. Put them on Youtube. Make the politicians in every Western land look at them.
Make our politicians show them to the Muslim politicians and ask why? Make our politicians demand that the leaders of every country with the word Islamic in its official name take back what was done and say its just for Islam not to be the law in the world.
One the one hand, we have these beautiful thoughts and words by Rabbi Marvin Hier.
On the other hand, we have mindless brutality and killing.
It is time to ask the citizens of the world - whose side are you on?
Amen.
They are here, and they are getting closer:
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) -- An FBI informant testified Monday at the trial of five men accused of plotting to kill soldiers at the Army's Fort Dix that a trip they took to Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains was intended as training for a holy war.
Besnik Bakalli (BES'-nik bahk-AHL'-ee), an illegal immigrant from Albania, said he had hoped the trip in February 2007 with some of the defendants and other men would merely be a relaxing vacation.
Deputy U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick asked him what the trip turned out to be.
"Training, for jihad," Bakalli said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FORT_DIX_PLOT?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US
I just got the bug out of this video player and could actually watch/listen. A very moving, strong, and right on speech...
”But it is not only the terrorists who bear the responsibility – it is the religious leaders who programmed them, inspired them, and sent them, who are equally culpable.”
I would say that the hateful programming religious leaders are primarily to blame for such atrocities. That is why I believe that in any major military incursion of war to nutralize an Islamic enemy, besides military instillations, the targets must include the poisonous Islamic clerics. The mullahs of Iran for instance, should be considered a major strategic target in any war with Iran – and I even suspect many Iranians would agree. Likewise, should India ever go to war with Pakistan it would be stupid of them not to try to eliminate the radical imams there.
So mote it be.
"The United Nations must make suicide terror a priority. Why is it that the General Assembly can call special sessions on drug cartels, on AIDs, on disarmament, on apartheid – all crucial issues – but it has not yet called for a special session on the greatest crime of the 21st century – suicide terror?"
We DO KNOW what the UN can do and has done. It has BANNED all criticism of Islam.
However beautiful and moving Rabbi Vier's words might have been, they mean absolutely nothing to those who appease muslims; or those who might not be muslims, but who bend over backwars to help create conditions for the spread of Dar al-Islam; or those who choose to uphold political-correctness instead of opening their eyes to the threat that islam poses to all the progress, the freedoms and the enlightenment for which the generations that preceded ours fought and died.
But those of us who are and can be moved by those words, they're yet another reminder of what makes this fight worth fighting.
"The world has never experienced such a plague of darkness like the plague of Islamic fundamentalism that reveres death over life"
Exactly why I named my book
A Plague on Both Houses
Please consider buying a copy.
Just a quick post. Take this incident to help the un-informed know who the enemy is. I had that happen this morning on the way to work.
Other had brought it up and were talking that only 10 of the animal had caused all of the mayhem. They were talking around the subject without connecting the dots on who were the terrorist. I asked that question and got blank looks or vague responses. I then had the opportunity to explain who the enemy was. Sometime this get a negative reaction, it did not this morning.
Keep bringing this subject into polite conversation whenever possible. If challenged tell them to prove what was said was wrong.
Why don't the u.n. make it an issue one reason is muslim countries are the biggest voteing block
in the u.n. and really the only united one look at recent vote to make religious criticism a crime [basicallu only against islam will be enforced] the vote went something like this.
57 THE VOTING BLOCK FOR
42 AGAINST
142 COUNTRIES ABSTAINED
Basically in the u.n. we are alone we the people of the world fighting this better then speaking out now would be letting your senaters and your congress men exactly how you feelon things like this and the so called fairness doctrine.
All the worlds needs for evil to prevail is good men to do nothing
AS FOR WHO TO BLAME
Try the parents seven generations of muslim parents who teach there kids infodels are a mix of ape and pigs they are not innocent.
7 GENERATIONS OF BRAINWASHED CHILDREN
By tv programs cartoons glorifying suicide bombing telling kids jews want there eyes
THE PARENTS
Are as much to blame as any imam even more so as they hand out candy for there children blowing themselves upon buses.
A great documentary movie band of brothers shows when a concentration camp was found near a town all the germans in the town acted as if they new nothing of whar went on there .
THIS IS THE MUSLIM PEOPLES OF THE WORLD
They say why blame us attack after attack why i say stand up and speak out loudly against this abomination yet the silance is deafening now some muslims do speak out this is very true.
THE VERY LARGE MAJORITY OF MUSLIMS
Not only do not speak out they chear it on as they brain wash there kids to hate.
ISLAM MUST BE DEFEATED
Like in ww2 we must defeat islam as "nazism and japanese imperilism" as a whole people we cannot pick and choose the few good guys. This creates confusion we are fighting an idology that has corrupted a min of 1 billon people idology of muhammad and allah thery don't get caps they have not earned it.
WE MUST DEFEAT ISLAM AS A WHOLE
Because as a people they are whole in there belief of domination or they do not follow there religion.
Spcbat right on.
I have written about this before. The Nazis were evil, but even they did not have the gall to think that they were going to be rewarded in heaven for their crimes. They tried hard to hide what they were doing, thus instinctively and deep down, they knew that were doing something evil.
But from Muslim murderers and beheaders, there is no such remorse or attempt to hide their evil acts, which would atleast indicate some kind of guilty feelings. On the contrary, they revel in their evil acts, not just in private but even when they are in a court of law.
As for the moderate Muslims, all they do is whine - in effect, taking the media spotlight off their evil compatriots, so that the spotlight does not swing to the ideology of the murdering Jihadis. They are complicit.
DP11 great point fact is they think they will be rewarded for what they do.
I love the Bush Doctrine. I really wish we had implemented it. You really are with us or against us. Ignorance is no excuse, whether you're 10 years old or the the President. Terrorists can have their safe havens, but those safe havens should have no dealings with us or any country that we have any business recognizing.
This speech was very powerful. I just wish that he hadn't used the word 'suicide.' They are murderers of others. They commit homicide, not suicide. Screw their lives, like we're supposed to care about the most degenerate scum who kill people because they are evil sickos. It's homicide. Homicide. Mass freaking murder.
Good post, spcbat.
Posted by spcbat: DP111 great point fact is they think they will be rewarded for what they do.
And that is why the moderate Muslim is a key element in the violent Jihad. Not only does the so called moderate muslim community provide shelter in the community to the Jihadis, but they also provide two other key elements in the violent Jihad
1. They immediately start to whine and moan, thus taking way the spotlight from where it should go next - the koran and the hadiths, which are the ideological well springs of the Jihadis.
2. By their incessant whining and moaning, they also take away for themselves, the sympathy that should really be directed to the genuine victims.
spcbat and dp111,
Right on!
It's more than imams. It's family and friends who encourage terrorists and who look on anyone who says otherwise as some kind of traitor to the cause. It's those who give in to this emotional blackmail that are the problem. It's the "silent majority" of Muslims who need to be dealt with. Without their support, financial and material, the terrorists couldn't function. Never give credence to Muslim complaints about being persecuted or targeted. Until Muslims vigorously join the fight against anyone and everyone who preaches jihad, their claims should fall on deaf ears. If they aren't willing to fight back against the jihadists then both are on the same side.
What a great and moving speech. Everybody should listen to those wise words.
I realy can't understand that their are 'people' in this world who HATE Judaism, Zionism and Jews. Jews don't go around the world trying to convert (by hook or crook) and add new sheeps to their flock, they don't go around bombing and killing non believers in the name of their fate, whereever in the world they live they have never contributed to religious or communal unrest, they do not seek world domination etc etc.
All they want is a piece of this earth to call their own, yet they are surrounded by neighbours whose intentions (secretly or openly) is to whipe them out/ to destroy them.
Well the Rabbi has said it well, Judaism has survived many attempts to destroy it and i am sure they will also survive this islamic onslaught.
Go Israel
"The world has never experienced such a plague of darkness like the plague of Islamic fundamentalism that reveres death over life"
I could never have expressed it better. Time to unite and rid the plague from our beautiful planet.
Posted by PMK: If they aren't willing to fight back against the jihadists then both are on the same side.
Exactly. By their "deeds you will know them", and "birds of a feather", come to mind.
On top of the anger at this continuous Muslim carnage, is that whenever Muslims go on the rampage, killing hundreds of innocent people, immediately the Muslim community start to feel "discriminated", stared at, etc etc. They shamelessly, and now Im beginning to believe, deliberately, take steer the sympathy that should be to the genuine innocent victims, to and for themselves.
Of course, it could be argued that in Muslim eyes, only Muslims can be the innocent party - non-Muslims can never be innocent. Therefore they are doing nothing wrong.
Sorry for the delay in response. Typkey is proving to be a headache.
"But it is not only the terrorists who bear the responsibility – it is the religious leaders who programmed them, inspired them, and sent them, who are equally culpable. Joseph Goebbels and Julius Streicher never killed anyone – but they were named as war criminals at Nuremberg because on a daily basis, they poisoned the minds of tens of millions of Germans. That is exactly what the Imams of the Islamic Fundamentalists do."
PAGING Ali Gomaa, Sheikh Quadrawi, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Muqtada al-Sadr, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Anjem Chaudary, Tariq Ramaden...you have an important message waiting for you in the lobby...
Zack; to which two houses do you refer in your book?
I see that BHO has named Hillary as his nominee for Secretary of State. He should have chosen Rabbi Hier instead.
Of course, maybe BHO is saving Rabbi Hier for presidential foreign policy advisor....
In a few days the leaders of the world will be reminding their people that this heinous atrocity, meticulously planned for over a year, was the work of another "few" radicals upset over Kashmir or Israel, or whatever convenient, contrived grievance they can invent. "Root causes", "injustice", and every hackneyed cliche that inevitably emerges when muslim savages ruthlessly butcher innocent people will fill the airwaves and the newspapers. And we will be warned not to look at our lovely muslim neighbors with suspicion or malevolence because they are patriotic, law abiding, taxpaying, citizens just like you and me.
A few slick imams will sullenly stand before the cameras and microphones and denounce terrorism in emotionless monotones but they will not mention jihad, so the uninformed masses will believe the lies coming from these wolves in sheep's clothing, especially Americans, because Americans know their own priests and pastors wouldn't lie. They don't know anything about jihad, taquiya, or the demonic islamic cult and since 9-11, they have been consistently fed a pile of propaganda and lies about islam by their own gutless leaders and the dhimmified MSM.
Even those few politicians who know the evil of islam won't speak out, terrified of the wrath of the P.C. Gestapo and being branded radicals, alarmists, bigots, and xenophobes. The multiculturalist social engineers will continue to shove islam down our throats, lauding its non-existent contributions to humanity and to our own culture. That magnificent, multicultural mosaic they so adore would be incomplete without muslims. The federal social engineers have officially decreed that all cultures are equal and those of the "noble" savages so disgracefully exploited by the evil West deserve special consideration, so they shall have their rightful place in the Balkanized West and be granted the respect they deserve regardless of their intent to dismantle our society and government and kill or enslave us all.
But the most enraging reactions will come from muslims themselves, who will launch their "poor, pitiful muslim" routines around the world to elicit sympathy from their dhimmi useful idiots like the BBC and the NY Times, which will focus more on the alleged "backlash" against muslims than on the actual attack committed by the rabid jihadist muslim scum that emerged from a bottomless pit of potential candidates just dying to participate.
How can the islamic clerics who inculcate hate, intolerance, and superiority complexes in millions of muslims be silenced? They're only teaching islam so unless islam is banned, the hate and malevolence of islam will proceed unchallenged and before we know it, America will be mass producing native muslim jihadists just like the U.K. By allowing the practice of any belief system under the religious freedom clause in the Constitution, we are committing suicide. So between Obama and islam, I guess the Constitution will turn out to be a suicide pact after all.
Or we just need to survive 4 really bad years. Unlike Clinton, Obama will not benefit from an economy built by Republicans which then blossomed under his Administration. There will a serious conservative backlash in 4 years and we will get everything we want. Americans will be aware of the changes that have happened in Europe. The first act of our next President will be to pull us out of the UN. Mark my word. But our country will go to hell in a handbasket first.
Concerted efforts by the pakistani media to say that the mumai terror plan was planned by India, US and Israil.
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=FHQ0WXzY9sc&feature=related
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=EoNooCnS3XU&feature=related
Big propoganda by these muslim pigs
The address by Rabbi Mavin Hier is something very special and touched me deeply. It makes me wish I was Jewish. Perhaps it is their 'nowhere else to go' situation that makes them so strong.
Why doesn't the Pope and our leaders speak out in a similar vain and criticize the hypocrisy of the UN, the appeasement culture for Muslims and the failure to take a firm stance with terrorism and terrorist organisations.
It makes me so angry that the looming threat is so obvious to Jews and yet accepted as just part of our ethnic culture by our government who just shrug off their responsibility's to us and our future and that of our children.
The address by Rabbi Mavin Hier is something very special and touched me deeply. It makes me wish I was Jewish. Perhaps it is their 'nowhere else to go' situation that makes them so strong.
Why doesn't the Pope and our leaders speak out in a similar vain and criticize the hypocrisy of the UN, the appeasement culture for Muslims and the failure to take a firm stance with terrorism and terrorist organisations.
It makes me so angry that the looming threat is so obvious to Jews and yet accepted as just part of our ethnic culture by our government who just shrug off their responsibility's to us and our future and that of our children.
The address by Rabbi Mavin Hier is something very special and touched me deeply. It makes me wish I was Jewish. Perhaps it is their 'nowhere else to go' situation that makes them so strong.
Why doesn't the Pope and our leaders speak out in a similar vain and criticize the hypocrisy of the UN, the appeasement culture for Muslims and the failure to take a firm stance with terrorism and terrorist organisations.
It makes me so angry that the looming threat is so obvious to Jews and yet accepted as just part of our ethnic culture by our government who just shrug off their responsibility's to us and our future and that of our children.
I have just been told that I have submitted too many comments and have to wait before submitting any more. Perhaps the system is counting all the submissions that fail.
Ops sorry for the multiple entries above but not my fault. I was only following orders.
Yes Rabbi A plague of darkness......
and it is a shame that a lot of Jewish people don't understand the danger.They should be the first ally of the Christians who are fighting the plague . Unfortunately, and especially in the Mid South of the USA , the Jewish community is totally ignoring the problem.
Ladies and gentlemen
There are three great festivals of lights: Hindu, Jewish and Christian.
The earliest in the year is Diwali (it was 28th October this year) which "marks the victory of good over evil, and uplifting of spiritual darkness. Symbolically it marks the homecoming of goodwill and faith after an absence, as suggested by the Ramayana."
Let us pray that non-Muslim India may rally, and rise, and triumph against the abomination that is the ideology of Islam. Sandra Samuels' courage and love in defence of a guest are not unique in Indian history; not unique in the stories of those who resisted Jihad and sharia slavery for over one thousand years.
The battle will not be over by next year, I suspect: so perhaps next year Diwali greetings should be offered to all Indian posters. Indians: when you light your little lights next Diwali, remember the Jews and the Christians and all the others who, like you, are assailed by the great darkness, the Nothing, that is Islam. And while we are lighting our lights, we will remember *you*.
Hanukkah is coming soon: it runs from December 22 to December 29.
It celebrates the historic victory of the Maccabees over the evil persecuting king Antiochus (who had tried to erase the practice of the Jewish faith, and had desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem), and the cleansing and rededication of the Temple.
Overlapping with Hanukkah we have Christmas.
Perhaps those who stand with Israel should, this year, display Hanukkah lamps in solidarity with the Jews: and as you do, remember the great battle on whose flaming front lines stand both Indians and Israelis. Pray that the courage of the Maccabees will inspire Indian and IDF soldiers, and indeed, all non-Muslim police and soldiers who must confront and defeat Muslim aggression and deceit, violence and lies, even within our own cities and neighbourhoods.
This Hanukkah, this Christmas, let us light up our houses and our neighbourhoods! Especially if there are Muslims in the vicinity.
As we kindle the lights, let us remember all non-Muslims murdered by Jihadists in Mumbai...and Jaipur...and New Delhi...and Madrid, Bali, London, Beslan, New York, Jerusalem...the list goes on.
And let those of us who are Christian recite these words of St John, as an act of defiance and hope:
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never overcome it".