Author Archives: bananabrain

free speech: we all scream for murder – at the oxford union

By bananabrain | Published: February 10, 2010

as you may know by now, the israeli deputy foreign minister, danny ayalon, was heckled pretty comprehensively at his speech at the oxford union on monday night. the high (or low) point came when, rather like the accusations of murder levelled at the israeli ambassador to the us, michael oren, at the university of california, irvine (which actually resulted in a few arrests) a man rose to his feet and launched into a diatribe which included one key arabic phrase, which has been widely reported as “itbah al-yahud”, or “kill the jews” – this phrase is, of course, familiar to me as the rallying cry for many middle-eastern atrocities, not least the baghdad pogrom of 1941 (that’s pre-state of israel, folks) known as the farhud.

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Posted in Activism, Freedom of Expression, International Affairs, Islamism, Israel/Palestine, Racism | 4 Comments

“well, they’re a bit extreme, but they do such good work bringing people back to judaism!”

By bananabrain | Published: January 29, 2010

david t from harry’s place forwarded me this cartoon by eli valley, whose satirical strips appear monthly in the leading us jewish magazine “the forward”.

scary kiruv cartoon

scary kiruv cartoon

on reading it, i didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. on one hand, it’s a caricature of the position of the kiruv (“outreach”) organisations, but on the other hand, once you start digging into their theology, their internal politics, their fundraising activities and their influence on the jewish community and israeli politics, it’s hard not to find them scary.

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Posted in Entryism, Freedom of Expression, Identity Politics, Interfaith, Jewish Extremism, Obscurantism, Politics, Sectarianism | 57 Comments

a few good rabbis?

By bananabrain | Published: January 18, 2010

for those of you who aren’t aware of it, this has not been a good couple of years for the orthodox, “strictly-”orthodox and ultra-orthodox communities. corruption around kosher slaughterhouses and conversions, sex scandals, money-laundering, drug smuggling, you name it. all the usual justifications are made, of course, all the usual people accept them and all the usual people sneer at them.

in such an environment, it’s extremely helpful to be able to point to people who can stand up and say in no uncertain terms: this isn’t right. excusing it is even worse. as it says in the Mishnah: where there are no men, at least you should try and act like a man. i am encouraged to see at least some orthodox rabbis swimming against the tide of denial although, of course, not that surprised to see the perennial awkward squad-nik and contrarian (and my own much revered teacher) rabbi jeremy rosen, writing in haaretz:

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Posted in Activism, Education, Ethics, Interfaith, Politics | 3 Comments

ray hanania on the stupidity of pro-hamas leftie activists

By bananabrain | Published: January 14, 2010

well, no surprises here – ray hanania, writing in the jerusalem post, finds plenty to criticise about the sort of activist that is perpetuating the sad situation in the gaza strip, in the now-established tradition of leftie imbeciles sucking up to clerical fascists as an act of anti-imperialist egotism.

and, of course there’s none more egotistical that our good friend, saddam-fancying cat-impersonator ”gorgeous george”.

george laps it up

george laps it up

These are strange bedfellows in the Palestinian extremist camps, religious fanatics shoulder-to-shoulder with secular extremists like the Popular Front and the rejectionists led by the activists and fawned on by the Arab media that mistakenly believe “freedom” means embracing the most extremist activists.

 you never spoke a truer word, ray.  for G!D’s sake, please keep doing this. palestine needs your sanity, rationality and humanity, rather than serving to remind us all of the intransigence and lack of compassion for real human beings – other than as symbols of something-or-other-from-la-la-land-ideology – demonstrated by these smug, self-satisfied self-publicists:

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Posted in Activism, Farce, Islamism, Israel/Palestine, Terrorism, The Far Left | 3 Comments

a modest proposal for wootton bassett: islamists love underpants!

By bananabrain | Published: January 4, 2010

pantsalthough the mainstream media has already picked up the story, we’re sure that the good folk of wootton bassett would nonetheless appreciate a message of support. it appears that they are the latest stop on the publicity circuit for everyone’s favourite islamist nutjobs, the al-muhajigoon squad. predictably, the edl have vowed to picket the mosques frequented by the leader of the group that currently calls itself “islam4uk” and, no doubt, stephen gash of “sioe” has ordered an extra copy of “soldier of fortune” magazine in his excitement.

in the spirit that got these imbeciles to cancel their most recent demo and, naturally, in tribute to the recent foiling of the detroit pants bomber, i humbly propose the following:

let all who wish to show this truly grotesque man up as the nasty, ridiculous bigot he is – FLY THE UNDERPANTS!

some pants yesterday

some pants yesterday

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Posted in Activism, Anti Fascism, Farce, Identity Politics, Media, Obscurantism, Politics, PVE | 23 Comments

beard-pulling update: are lubavitch a bunch of messianic heretics, or what?

By bananabrain | Published: December 8, 2009

it appears that the mainstream orthodox rabbinical council of america has picked a fight with the powerful chabad / lubavitch movement over the perennial problem about whether the last lubavitcher rebbe is dead, or the messiah, or both, or what. obviously, there is a slight problem with jews who start believing that the messiah has already come if the relevant prophecies haven’t been fulfilled. similarly, if the messiah in question hasn’t rebuilt the Temple, hasn’t ingathered the exiles of the jewish people or has, in fact, shuffled off this mortal coil and run down the curtain to join the choir invisibule, but his followers start coming out with terms like “occultation” and claiming he isn’t really dead and has Divine powers, G!D forbid, it does start to look a tiny bit like, well, er, christianity.

king messiah, or ex-parrot?

king messiah, or ex-parrot?

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Posted in Exegesis, Farce, Freedom of Expression, Obscurantism | Tagged | 3 Comments

Chiefy Fails to Address the Case in Point

By bananabrain | Published: December 4, 2009
no, i dont look or sound *anything* like that rowan williams

no, i don't look or sound *anything* like that rowan williams

generally speaking, i am a great admirer of jonathan sacks, or to give him his complete title: chief rabbi of the united hebrew congregations of the commonwealth lord sacks of aldgate (he’s a “sir” too, but i think it gets trumped by the “lord” bit) as a visionary thinker and one of the great voices of modern orthodoxy who is, as many visionary thinkers are, monumentally unappreciated by his own constituency.

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Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Are we really ready to start being reasonable?

By bananabrain | Published: November 24, 2009

This is a cross-post from interfaith.org, where I moderate on the Judaism board. I know we don’t normally talk about israel/palestine here at The Spittoon, but maybe this is one case where we might make an exception?

Ray Hanania, the Palestinian-American journalist, is proposing to run for president of the Palestinian Authority on a very interesting platform indeed, as detailed here at the Huffington Post:

It’s been picked up in the Israeli press by Bradley Burston of Haaretz – you’ll forgive the large c&p, but I think it’s important in this case:

1. I support two-states, one Israel and one Palestine. As far as I am concerned, I can recognize Israel’s “Jewish” character and Israelis should recognize Palestine’s “non-Jewish” character.

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Posted in International Affairs, Israel/Palestine, Politics | 2 Comments

why it is wrong to talk about “banning shari’a law”

By bananabrain | Published: November 19, 2009

it has been brought to my attention by my esteemed colleagues here at the spittoon that one of the aims of the “one law for all” campaign, who are organising a rally on saturday 21 november, to “expose the discriminatory nature of religious law” and “put a stop to shari’a once and for all” because “opposing shari’a law is a crucial step in defending universal and equal rights”.

i will reiterate the reasons that i cannot support this:

1. what about jewish batei din and anglican ecclesiastical law?

some might consider this selfish, but shari’a courts must be allowed if the state is not to be guilty of severe double standards in respect of both jewish halakhah and christian canon law. although, obviously, some of the speakers (like the british humanist association and the national secular society) would argue that they would ban the lot and, indeed, maryam namazie herself says:

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Posted in Activism, Anti Muslim bigotry, Antisemitism, Democracy, Freedom of Expression, Human Rights, Islamism, Obscurantism, Politics, Secularism, Sharia, UK Politics | 12 Comments

what is it with these maniacs?

By bananabrain | Published: November 9, 2009

oh, this is just too feckin’ much. i’ve long been aware of the ideological excesses of rabbi yitzhak ginsburgh, but his disciple rabbi yitzhak shapiro of the west bank settlement of yitzhar has really done it this time. according to the left-leaning israeli daily ha-aretz:

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement, wrote in his book “The King’s Torah” that even babies and children can be killed if they pose a threat to the nation.

Shapiro based the majority of his teachings on passages quoted from the Bible, to which he adds his opinions and beliefs.  “It is permissable to kill the Righteous among Nations even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation,” he wrote, adding: “If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments – because we care about the commandments – there is nothing wrong with the murder.”

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Posted in Interfaith, Obscurantism | 13 Comments

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