A young Muslim discovers he is one of “the most intense of the people in animosity toward the believers” (Qur’an 5:82). This Qur’an verse and other anti-Semitic passages are taken seriously, and are a principal reason why “Mordechai says he received an anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic education. ‘In Kuwait, wherever you go, you hear comments against Jews – in the classrooms, in math or English lessons, and even in Arabic lessons.'”
“Kuwaiti Muslim discovers he is ‘the Jewish enemy,'” by Shimrit Shaked, Ynet News, December 4, 2014 (thanks to Maxwell):
He was born as a Muslim in Kuwait, never heard a good word said about Jews, and then suddenly, in the middle of his life, Mumtaz Halawa’s entire world turned over. He discovered that he was Jewish.
After quite a difficult crisis, he immigrated to Israel and changed his name to Mordechai. Until this very day, he has yet to tell his father – a member of the al-Masri family from Nablus who lives in Jordan – about the change has gone through.
“My house wasn’t a religious home,” Mordechai told Ynet and Orot TV. “We called ourselves Muslims, but we didn’t really live like Muslims.
“As a child in my grandparents’ home, I remember seeing my grandmother reading from a printed book of prayers which wasn’t in Arabic or in any other language I understood. But she sat with the book and cried.”
One day, Halawa found a document with a foreign surname: Mizrahi. The document was in Hebrew, English and Arabic and had been issued in “Palestine.”
“I knew that my grandmother had converted from Judaism to Islam,” he says, “but since I was born I was educated that if your father is Muslim – you are Muslim.”
Mordechai says he received an anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic education. “In Kuwait, wherever you go, you hear comments against Jews – in the classrooms, in math or English lessons, and even in Arabic lessons.”
After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the family was forced to leave the country and move to Jordan. As a student, Mumtaz began studying in Syria, and two years later bought a plane ticket to Canada and changed his name to Marc.
One evening, he met a man wearing a large black skullcap in the library. He began talking to him, expressing his desire to create a dialogue between Jews and Muslims.
“My grandmother is Jewish,” he said innocently. “She is a very nice woman, not like the bad things people always say about the Jews.”
The man replied that according to Jewish Law, he is also Jewish, but Halawa find it difficult to believe him.
“I said, ‘That’s a very good joke. But it’s impossible, because my father is Muslim.’ But he insisted, saying that ‘according to Judaism, it goes by the mother’s side. And because your grandmother is Jewish, your mother was born Jewish and you were also born Jewish.’
“I thought that man was just old, and I said: ‘No, come on, my grandmother married a man named Muhammad al-Masri from Nablus and converted to Islam. Believe me that anyone born Muslim leads a Muslim life.’
“I spoke with a lot of confidence, and he interrupted me: ‘A Jew can convert to a different religion 10 times and he’ll still be Jewish. So your grandmother passed the ‘Jewish genes’ on to your mother, your mother was born Jewish, and you were born Jewish.'”
Halawa was shocked. “It was too much. I had just been told that I was the enemy I had been educated against. It was a shock. That day, I felt like I had been living my whole life in a sort of dream and that I had just woken up. It was as if someone had slapped me and woke me up.
“I told my grandmother and she said, ‘Don’t ask any questions. We are Muslims, and that’s all there is to it.'”
“O you who have believed, do not ask about things which, if they are shown to you, will distress you….A people asked such questions before you; then they became thereby disbelievers.” (Qur’an 5:101-102)
But Mordechai couldn’t shake off the new recognition. “I spent all my time checking anything Jewish. I had studied many things in Kuwait, but I had never learnt about World War II. I didn’t even know who the good guys and bad guys were. I said to myself that if I want to know, I should go see things myself.”
‘When you cut off a branch, it slowly dies’
After visiting the concentration camps in Poland, Marc decided to change his name to Mordechai and immigrate to Israel, where his grandmother and grandfather first met.
As he had no proof of his grandmother’s Jewishness, Mordechai underwent a conversion process “so I could get married and have Jewish children. That’s all I wanted.”
Mordechai has been fulfilling his dreams one after the other. He recently got married and lives in Jerusalem. The guy with the skullcap, who speaks fluent English, has come a long way since answering to the name Mumtaz Halawa. A decade ago, he says, he had no idea that he would live in Israel one day.
“I occasionally I stop my life and imagine myself living without Judaism, and I immediately feel said [sic],” he says. “I haven’t told my father to this very day. Perhaps he knows about it and perhaps he doesn’t. I think it’s better not to trouble him. Both Judaism and Islam teach us how to honor our parents….
He probably knows that he could be killed for leaving Islam, and that the Qur’an teaches that a Muslim should hate even family members who are not Muslims: “There has already been for you an excellent pattern in Abraham and those with him, when they said to their people, ‘Indeed, we are disassociated from you and from whatever you worship other than Allah. We have denied you, and there has appeared between us and you animosity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone” (60:4).
Buraq says
Imagine waking up every day as a clown, and then one day waking up to find there’s no greasepaint smudging the pillow case anymore; the wire-wig, the baggy trousers and the red nose are all in a pile on the floor by the bed.
Mordechai, you lucky guy!
mortimer says
Not just ‘Mordechai’. As many as 80% of ‘Palestinian’ Arabs have Jewish DNA. Those Arabs from the Holy Land region are descended from Jews forcibly converted by the Ottomans 300 years ago. DNA doesn’t lie.
Aardvark says
Earlier than that, mortimer. The ‘contamination’ of mohammedans started when Mohammed and his bandits attacked Jewish settlements in Arabia, killed all the men and took the women as sex slaves.
By now, I would guess that 100% of Arabs have at least a trace of Jewish blood!
So by their own silly rules, they are all descended from pigs and apes!
Bettina says
Some forcibly converted, some forcibly raped by those muslim zealots. This is why many Jews from arab countries are darker than European Jews, and can be actually mistaken for arabs, sad to say.
Don McKellar says
As religion is completely made up nonsense, and there is no discernable genetic difference between jews and moslems and christians of the middle east, and people choose to be whatever religion they want or don’t want, this story doesn’t make any sense at all! It may as well be: Bob, after all these years thinking he was christian, found out that he was born from a father who was born an Aztec sun worshipper, and his mother was a moslem before both had converted to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then covered it up. Bob was so confused when he found out, having grown up to hate Pastafarians, he had himself casterated so that his religiously polluted genes could not be passed on!
cassandra says
Spoken like a true ignoramus! You should check what comes out of your mouth/computer/whatever before writing such garbage. Jews are a race, obviously those who converted from other races are not, but they are welcomed into Abraham’s tent. There are many muslims who are actually Jews but their female ancestors were abducted or seduced by muslims and they converted.
Jews and Arabs have very similar DNA but there is scientific proof of Jewish genes.
Kepha says
Cassandra, you really need to wake up an realize that Don McKellar is sooooooooooooooo much wiser than all of us put together. Why, he has a ejjikashun, and we’uns is jes iggerent as a pack a skinned mules. How do I know? I grew up among people like that.
Silvia says
Jews are NOT a race. Jews are a religion and ethnic group or rather “groups”.
The reasons why Jews go by the mother line (used to go by the father) are many :
1) You always know who the mother is.
2) In the last 2000 years of exile and persecutions Jewish women got raped so as to keep them and their children inside the community, those children are considered Jewish.
3) An attempt to prevent Jewish men from marrying non-Jewish women. Didn’t help much because according to DNA research, most Jewish women of European descent have a great similarity in DNA to non-Jewish ITALIAN women!
4) The reasonable assumption that women are the child caretakers who spend the most time with them and therefore follow the religious rules, traditions and contribute most to the development of identity.
Phil says
Agreed, Sylvia. The comments about “Jewish genes” is misguided. The “Jewish genes” refer to SNP’s (Single nucleotide polymorphisms) as hereditary markers which show a high frequency among the various Jewish populations and certain Y-chromosome markers associated with identifiably Jewish groups like the Kohanim and Levites. In terms of heredity, the Jewish population is compromised of three major strains : Ashkenazim, Sephardim and the Mizrahi – and the Ashkenazi definitely show strong convergence with European populations – is this a surprise? It doesn’t make them any less Jewish. The only point I might disagree with is that the incorporation of Mediterranean gentile genes into the core Jewish population weren’t all or overwhelmingly a product of rape – as you know, by the early fourth century AD around 10% of the Roman Empire’s population was Jewish and conversions from Paganism were not that uncommon. But then came ‘Judaism Mark 2’ (a.k.a. Christianity) which really made inroads on the population.
The arab population in Palestine has a historically verified partial Jewish ancestry, albeit they are overwhelmingly of a mixed Egyptian and Trans-jordanian arab stock with a good but small admixture of Balkan genes due to Ottoman population migration programs in the 19th Century. The Jewish component was a result of (largely forced) conversions in the late 18th and 19th Centuries. Not exactly an ‘indigenous’ population, it seems.
Bettina says
To which I would add, Silvia, that the idea of maternal lineage protects the tribe from outside challenges posed by Gentiles who claim to be the progeny of Jewish men, and would be eligible as inheritors.
Because of historical male promiscuity, no concrete proof of paternity could be obtained, so the kid could be anything at all — including an impostor laying claim to Jewish heritage.
Therefore the only sure way to ascertain Jewishness was to see a woman carry that baby.
Tradewinds says
No, religion is not completely made up nonsense. You’re insulting a lot of people here who are Christians, Jews and Hindu. Islam is the enemy, no other belief system.
Champ says
“Don” has an agenda here, and that’s to make derisive comments about any and all faiths, but “Don” has a special hatred for Jesus Christ …
Check-out what he wrote last week about Jesus:
Don McKellar says
November 28, 2014 at 9:32 pm
By the way, the suggestion will accomplish absolutely ZILCH. NOTHING. JACK.
But it will make people like Wellington happy — because then they won’t making fun of the fictional crucified vampire-zombie with the beard for a while.
This thread: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/11/john-cleese-says-you-cant-make-jokes-about-muslims-theyll-kill-you/comment-page-1#comment-1155619
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Don” ridicules Jesus by stating this about Him …”the fictional crucified vampire-zombie with the beard”.
Fictional? False! For one thing, Jesus Christ DID exist …
Question: “Did Jesus really exist? Is there any historical evidence of Jesus Christ?”
Answer: http://www.gotquestions.org/did-Jesus-exist.html
Secondly, not only is Jesus God in the flesh, but He was a good and sinless man that healed the sick, gave great comfort to those in need, and then gave His life for our sins.
Why would “Don” criticize such a good and decent man? …says a lot about “Don”.
Save the ridicule for one who’s worthy: evil muhammad (perdition be upon him).
Bezelel says
Champ, I totally agree with your point (Why would “Don” criticize such a good and decent man? …says a lot about “Don”) His remarks are offensive, and as in an offense vs defense ie chess every offensive action leaves an opening for a counter. In this case he is telling us much more about himself than the object of his comment. What really makes his kind fume with rage is the bottom line to Christian experience means that we know something that he does not and sadly, he may never discover the truth.
Champ says
What really makes his kind fume with rage is the bottom line to Christian experience means that we know something that he does not and sadly, he may never discover the truth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Good point, Bezelel, I completely agree …
But even if “don” considers Jesus Christ to be a fictional character (and you and I both know that Jesus did and *does* exist), then “don” should offer a certain measure of respect for the most loving, kind and ‘sinless’ man who ever lived …instead “don” offers ridicule and malice by referring to Jesus as a “fictional crucified vampire-zombie with the beard”. What a vile remark about the kindest man who ever lived. Based upon that ALONE “don” ought to apologize for his sick remark. But he won’t. He strikes me as a very proud and vain person.
Phil says
The Historicity of Jesus is beyond question. We have far too many sources dating from just after the time of the crucifixion to doubt the existence of Jesus. Josephus, a meticulous historian even when he was buddying up to the Flavians and who was no friend of the Jerusalem Church had no doubts about Jesus’ existence and wrote about him (twice!) in the ‘Antiquities of the Jews’. Tacitus who utterly despised the Christians and was quite happy to see them slaughtered, recorded the execution of Jesus under the prefecture of Pontius Pilate in his Annals. Unlike the majority of Christians I’ve met, Tacitus took the teachings implicit in Galatians 3:28 very seriously, and saw them as a threat to the social order of the Imperium. Not to mention the Jewish sources from the mid-1st Century AD – which don’t even try to claim his followers were dealing with a fictitious person. Blasphemer, false messiah – yes, they called him that and more (including half-Roman bastard); but made-up character – no. Given that Jesus was seen by non-Christians as nothing more than a rabble-rousing Galilean rabbi, it’s a measure of the extraordinary effect of his teachings that we have as much data from that time as we do
eduardo odraude says
Don says,
“All religion is completely made up nonsense…”
Gosh. Where to start.
Well, first, imagination has often mediated truth. That’s true even in science. The fact that something is “made up” doesn’t always mean it’s false. In fact all the structures of perception are “made up.” That doesn’t mean they are false or purely subjective.
Second, while I understand it when someone finds it impossible to simply believe a religious dogma, religious dogma is not all there is to religion. The basis of religion is experience of the sacred, which is to say experience not of an intellectual proposition pushed on you by a priest, but rather experience of something that has the quality of absolute reality, as in Being, Meaning, Truth, which are probably best mediated by the most intense, authentic, and pure forms of love, which however are perhaps only rarely experienced, unfortunately.
When people say (for example, the Bible says), that God is love, that’s not just a trite dogma. Rather, at certain points in their lives, some people are fortunate to experience a kind of love that conveys as immediate experience that it is absolutely not made of matter, and does not behave in the fashion of matter, but it is absolutely real and wonderful, glorious, and beautiful, indeed, more real than other things. Once that experience is had sufficiently, one realizes that, even if “God” is not what this or that preacher or dogma claims, there is something that exists, knowable through direct experience, that is in some ways just like what some people say about “God.” And once you realize the world is not just matter, that there are immaterial phenomena (or noumena), then you look at religion differently. You realize that part of the religious dogmas — some parts surely better than others, or more suitably to modern human beings — are attempts to express experiences of the spiritual world or the kingdom of heaven. Then you might find that you start studying the various existing religious traditions, to try to understand which one, if any, is closest to your direct experience of the spirit, or which one seems most true and suitable for modern human individuals. Personally, I find Christianity — combined with evolution — the tradition, together with Judaism, that is most persuasive, and tends most toward incorporation of a consciousness of the individual and individual history, and is therefore most suitable for today’s human being. But the main point I’m making is that without the direct experience of the spirit, what others have said about the spirit might have no meaning to you and seem like nonsense. A bit like colors for someone who is color blind. Except that a color blind person cannot learn to see colors, whereas people can learn to love deeply enough that the spirit becomes direct experience.
Bezelel says
Well said
Phil says
Wonderfully well said, mate.
voegelinian says
Don McKellar also, like most atheists, seems incapable of ranking the many items of a category. I doubt he lives his life this way on a practical level. Does he go to the supermarket and survey all the apples in the bin and say to himself, “all apples are the same, so it doesn’t matter which ones I pick” and load up his basket with bruised and overripe or underripe apples along with the good ones? Etc. Just because all religions are all in the category “religion” and just because he has some abstract reason for disliking that category, that does not mean that there is not one religion causing horrendous human rights crimes & catastrophes, to a degree so marked, it would be strangely irrational to treat that one religion in the same way as the others, whose followers are demonstrably not doing the shit Muslims are doing. When the conversation gets to this point, atheists like Don McKellar try a bait-and-switch, and bring up the past — “What about the Crusades? What about the Inquisition? What about the witch-burnings?” — or they try to adduce the Exception to the Rule (some loony minister in the Bible Belt who rails against homosexuals).
Nah. I’m done with atheists like Don.
Bettina says
Frankly, McKellar, I couldn’t done without so much cutesy talk and trumped-up analogies, which all lead to one thing: your sneering contempt for all religions. Why not just use plain English to lay down one simple analogy and spare us the rest of your nonsensical iterations? You embarrass yourself, don’t you know that yet?
Note also that we JW posters are far from egalitarian in our approach to religion, and even the lack thereof, as we reserve all our contempt for islam and its devout moon-god worshippers.
Instead of posting your arrogant weirdness on JW, you’re better advised to find a site that measures up to your reactionary views of all religions. Just leave.
Zebo says
Well,he definitivly looks far more semitic than all these pale faced slavic looking blue eyed blond jews from russia.
I wonder how he would have reacted if he was a fundamental muslim.
(i’d advise him to read Andorra from Max Frisch + he should be invited to tv shows to talk about
systematical anti-semitism in muslim countries.Maybe than some leftist dumbfucks would stop crying istantly
Islamaphobia when some criticizes the religion of poos and realise that intolerance and hate are part of islam.)
debbie says
Zebo – his Jewish grandmother is also pictured, and she’s far more pale than he is. Her family is semitic – they’re native to Jerusalem. Does she look semitic enough for you?
cassandra says
He has obviously never looked at other groups from the Middle East, like the Kurds and Yezidis, many of whom are blonde and blue or green eyed too.
Sorry we don’t fit in with your stereotype. Not.
zebo says
blond and blue eyed originate 100% from northern europe,and from nowwhere else.
That’s scientifically proven.
Blond people know in arabic/persian cou.tries are descendents of greek/romans or
from iran=ayran(home of the arians=caucasians which moved from europe to persia)
Sorry for destroying your lack of knowledge and your “racial” blabla,
but either you are semitic or you are blond and blue eyed-you can’t have both.
This does not mean you can’t be jewish while blond,but those blond jews are as semitic as those turkish jews from the khazar kingdom as they simply converted to judaism per decree of king bulan.
But i am pretty sure-with the necessary potion of fanatic believe and ignorance you can keep up your illusion.
(of course you can educate yourself by reading eg the books of jewish historic shlomo sand,but i guess you are more interessted in keeping your point of view)
cs says
I read Shlomo Sand as well. And he does not put things black and white as you are, and he is wrong if he is. Jews came from Spain into Germany, then Poland and met this other Jews who intermarried with this Jews who converted but also had intermarried Jews coming from Syria into Armenia, so they were not only Turkish Kazharians as you put it.
All this argumentation tends to fuel the idea that the Fakestinians are the true Jews and crap like that, sorry it won’t stick.
The land of Israel is connected to Judaism, you dig a hole you will find a synagogue and there is you find it texts either in Aramaic or Greek. Not Arabic. ok? Arabic is the language of the invader colonist who forced converted through the Sharia and Jizia, we all know how this crap works, better than anyone else.
Jews were passing the tradition of saying Le Shana Rabah bi Yerushalaim (next year in Jerusalem), every day there is the prayer of Kaddish about Israel and Yerushalaim. All Jewish history is connected to the Land, it is not about genes only, it is about tradition, it is not about a people who were foreigner, and attacked the poor oppressed Fakestinians.
Fakestinians because they are imprisoned on this fake Islamic tradition, who force to treat the others the way they do, and impede any possible and reasonable agreement.
Hope that clears your mind.
And still they do have semitic roots mixed with other roots, but really who cares?
Kepha says
Where I teach, he’d be taken for Latin (probably Dominican Republic) until they found he couldn’t pronounce Spanish correctly. Incidentally, I know a couple of Assyrian girls from Northern Iraq who are paler than a LOT of Ashkenazim I’ve known.
No Fear says
The headlline for this story sounds like it is from “The Onion”..
Naomi says
Interesting content but the grammatical mistakes are kind of embarrassing.
Salah says
“My house wasn’t a religious home,” Mordechai told Ynet and Orot TV. “We called ourselves Muslims, but we didn’t really live like Muslims.”
Nominal Muslims.
Yep, Nominal Muslims are our best allies in this war against Islam. The vast majority of them are NOT True Muslims, they don’t care about Muhammad, they don’t know about his filthy life, and most of them are indeed Muslims BECAUSE their ancestors embraced Islam out of fear.
Most Muslims are actually from Jewish, Christian, Hindu, etc. descent. All they need is more knowledge and more courage.
Some of us tend to put all Muslims in the same basket, they are unable to realize that some people weren’t that lucky, some people were simply born under the rule of Islam, and many of them had no other choice but to embrace this cult in order to survive.
cs says
I say this all the time.
gravenimage says
Salah wrote:
Nominal Muslims.
Yep, Nominal Muslims are our best allies in this war against Islam.
………………………………..
I wish this were the case—but most nominal Muslims are not like Mordechai.
Most of them just keep a low profile, and hope to deal with their more pious coreligionists as little as possible—but sadly, few of them are willing to actually openly oppose the savagery of the creed that they were born into, and even fewer would side with the “filthy Kuffar” when orthodox Muslims victimize us.
Few of them will actually actively ally with us. God knows I wish it were otherwise.
cs says
The root of Avraham, Itzaak and Yakov is very strong, and it will never perish. Tanach, Talmud and Kabbalah are incredible constructions, it influenced, influence, and will influence as long as there is a human being on planet Earth. People try to destroy us, but out of nothing we come back again, I can;t explain it.
Bezelel says
His teachers spent so much time on hating Jews that they forgot to cover WWII. DNA testing the entire ME would reveal alot more of these cases. The results wold be Earth changing.
Bezelel says
Typo: would
Arthur says
I was struck that any “history” class, anywhere in the world, could omit discussion of World War II. It would be interesting to look at the educational curriculum for some of these states (Kuwait, Arabia, Iran, etc) and see just how much is kept from them. Must be quite a culture shock to see such a different history on Wikipedia.
gravenimage says
Bezelel wrote:
DNA testing the entire ME would reveal alot more of these cases. The results wold be Earth changing.
……………………………
I’m afraid I doubt it, Bezelel. Most Muslims realize that their ancestors with filthy Infidels—they just ignore that time of “Jahillya” (pre-Islamic “ignorance”).
The idea that if Muslims understood that their ancestors were Jews, or Christians, or Hindus, or Buddhists that we could see a flood of apostasy and re-embracing of their ancestral faiths seems unlikely—after all, “reverts” from other faiths to Islam today just despise their Infidel relatives. I don;’ see how this would be any different.
And some Muslims are so far gone that they would never even agree to DNA testing in the first place, considering it nothing but an anti-Islamic Kuffar “innovation”, like the polio vaccine.
Max Publius says
To be perfectly frank, this reads like an Onion story. I mean, how can you “discover” in midlife you’re Jewish? Then change your entire life and move to Israel? Its like saying one discovered he is a physicist one day at 40. If you don’t know physics and never worked as a physicist a day in your life, and even hate physics, just because you discover your grandmother was one doesn’t make you automatically a physicist. Not that I blame him for converting from Islam. That I totally understand.
cassandra says
What have your job choices to do with your genes? Why do people make these ludicrous comparisons? My friend from Chile is tall, blonde and blue-eyed, she’s also Jewish through and through.
But according to “Max Headroom” this is not possible, because in his opinion, Jews are all dark – and probably bent over with sidelocks…
Max Publius says
Like wow, did you read a word I wrote past the first sentence?
pumbar says
When I turned forty I woke up to find that I was an out of shape middle aged bloke with a beer gut. This sort of thing happens all the time.
Max Publius says
Yes, but did you then move to Oregon and start a micro-brewery?
pumbar says
Wish I had. I’m still in I.T 🙁
Champ says
“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” — Romans 12:9
islam is wholly evil, so I hate islam …
And the good shepperd was a Jewish carpenter, and I cling to Jesus for love and guidance.
Champ says
oops: shepherd 🙂
Oliver says
This reminds me of two different stories, at different times, that http://WWW.CHABAD.ORG had.
One was of a Hungarian politician, who was violently anti-Semitic- and the leader of an anti-Semitic political party in Hungary, and discovering that he is Jewish.
The other was of a Polish skin head who discovered that he was Jewish.
Both,as i recall, had been in the 30’sw or older when they discovered that they were Jews.
(Both stories were well over a year ago-but the site should have an archive area-if one cares to find the stories).
Bettina says
Yes, Oliver — this was published by a lot of media out there, who are always craving stories with definite shock value. I enjoyed the viewing on some networks.
Arthur says
We’ve all got ~3.2 gigabases of DNA and we all came from somewhere. But even monozygotic twins have genetic differences, so we are all the first ever ‘us’ that has or will ever exist. Who we are is what we do with our lives. Justifying actions based on supposed inheritance is to surrender the responsibility to choose one’s own path. The greatest people who have lived all exceeded their parents example.
And don’t be fooled by looks: the South African apartheid machine was proven wrong to its foundations when a ‘black’ girl was born to ‘white’ parents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Laing
Genetics is good for understanding biology, medicine, and evolution. It is useless for defining who a person is.
Roderick MacUalraig says
Best comment on this thread.
Bettina says
Agreed!
Jay Boo says
This would make any Muslim say both:
OY and VEY.
Thersites says
This is just like the movie “The Reluctant Infidel” – a Moslem in the UK learns that he was adopted, decides to find out who his biological parents are, and discovers they are Jewish. A good comedy, recommended.
voegelinian says
I would bet my entire bank account this movie subtly, slyly purveys the notion that Muslims are decent people.
veritas says
There is a comedy titled “The Infidel” that I recommend on the same subject. Very funny.
Lia Wissing says
Dear Don & Zebo,
Aren’t you grateful that you can say such things about our faith? If we were Islamic you couldn’t …
Anonymous says
This story is the basis of the UK film by David Baddiel, a British Jewish comedian, “The Infidel”. Sometimes art imitates life!
Darren says
Reminds me of the skit on the Dave Chapell show. The blind black white supremacist. Pretty funny.
Kepha says
My guess is that this young man got sick and tired of being taught to hate, and then found out he had options. Good for him.
I am a Christian, and would like everyone else to be one, too. However, you can’t deny that Judaism is a much more life-affirming religion than Islam!
cs says
Hamas says, “we love death, but the Jews love life, that’s why we are going to win.”
nope, that is why you are going to lose.
Bettina says
Unc, I found myself shocked at your statement, “Judaism is a much more life-affirming religion than Islam!” It was also hurtful.
What has prompted you to make any sort of comparison between a religion of such honorable and enlightened standing, and an evil death cult?
It’s like saying, science and technology in Israel are superior to those in arab countries, where no such contributions have been found!
Oliver says
Bettina, I think that UNC meant the same thing that you state.
Perhaps- his phrase ” much more life affirming” could be modified, but the meaning that I got- was- Judaism is better then Islam.
Just my interpretation.
Bettina says
Unfortunately what I got was all together different. I felt offended, esp. considering that Uncle Kepha has contributed so greatly to JW with his intelligence and erudition.
OF COURSE Judaism is better than islam — DUH!
And so are all the religions in the world!
gravenimage says
After years of being taught to hate Jews, Muslim discovers he is Jewish
……………………….
Kudos to Mordechai for using this to reclaim his Jewish heritage—all too many Muslims would be convinced that the discovery was just some sort of Jewish plot intended to undermine Islam.
voegelinian says
1) Until this very day, he has yet to tell his father – a member of the al-Masri family from Nablus who lives in Jordan – about the change has gone through.
2) “My house wasn’t a religious home,” Mordechai told Ynet and Orot TV. “We called ourselves Muslims, but we didn’t really live like Muslims.
If his family is only nominally Muslim (you know, the harmless mortimer-type Muslims who constitute over 85% of all Muslims), why doesn’t he feel free to tell his father?
Oliver says
Mr. v.
As to your question at the end, only he can answer.
However, I will offer my 5 cents opinion.
He is (somewhere in his 30’s or more, I believe it was mentioned)- which would make his father probably in the late 60’s or early to mid 70’s. (SWAG- scientific wild- ass guess).
He (Mordecai/Marc whatever) MIGHT FEEL THAT THE KNOWLEDGE would be fatal (especially if his father is in ill health).
There could be other reasons-inheritance (money); siblings; etc.
But the 2nd sentence is would be my first guess.