They’re looking for incitement to religious hatred, eh? Have they looked at a book that calls Jews (and Christians) apes and pigs (2:62-65; 5:59-60; 7:166) and says they are under Allah’s curse (9:30) and are the “vilest of creatures” (98:6)? And that believers must wage war against them (9:5, 9:29)? Just wondering.
Oh, and while we’re on the subject, is Kitsur Shulhan Arukh the foundation of a global network of people who are committing violence in its name? Do people behead innocent civilians while chanting the praises of God and holding up copies of Kitsur Shulhan Arukh?
From AP, with thanks to Anthony:
MOSCOW — Prosecutors have launched an investigation into whether a Russian translation of an ancient Jewish religious text incites national and religious hatred, a move condemned by many Jewish organizations as anti-Semitic.
Moscow district prosecutors summoned Rabbi Zinovy Kogan for questioning last week as part of a probe into whether the Russian translation of Kitsur Shulhan Arukh, a code of ancient Jewish religious laws, provokes religious hatred, Kogan told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Monday.
The investigation was meant to review a ruling last month by Moscow prosecutors that the text did not inspire hatred and a criminal case was not warranted, said Kogan, chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations who published the translated text.
The Israeli government and Jewish organizations, including the Conference of European Rabbis, condemned the probe.
“To take a traditional Jewish text and try to ban it reminds us of the official state-sponsored anti-Semitism that we saw in czarist Russia,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said.
The original probe was initiated after two nationalist activists including a prominent far-right ideologue complained the text is aimed at “insulting human dignity based on national and religious affiliation,” according to an earlier prosecutors’ statement posted on the Web site of an anti-xenophobia group, Sova. The text was also accused of labeling Christians “worshippers of idols” in a reference to Christians’ main religious symbol, the cross.
That’s it? Sounds like standard religious polemic. Does it tell Jews to wage war against Christians? I think they’re looking at the wrong book.