That wasn’t my point. I’ll repeat it just in case I wasn’t clear. There are elements in Israel that would prefer to see Israel a country ruled by “Torah and God.” Their reading of what that means may be less violent than the imams in Teheran and then again, it may not. These people exist. Some of them want to see a Third Temple. Some of them are willing to blow up Arab mayors or Arab schoolgirls. Some are willing to call those who don’t think like them all kinds of vile names or simply exclude them from consideration as part of the Jewish people. They exist. They don’t hold power and they are far from having too much political power other than, say, as partners in coalitions. But they exist. Perhaps the muddle of which you’re thinking is the one where we see shit like this being said – again – by a particular leading rabbi with a large constituency and voices rise up and protect him or attack those who vilify him.

That has nothing to do with all the Orthodox or with Orthodoxy. I don’t believe that the majority of the Orthodox buy into this garbage that he and Eliyahu expressed as quoted in these two respective posts. See? Simple.

It’s not a valid comparison – because the Imams’ statement is backed up with the heaps of severed limbs, burnt bodies, and other evidence of the violence that put them into power, and reinforced by the violent thug squads that patrol the country.

Did you notice any of that during your last trip here, or in TV coverage of the courts these rabbis have built around them?

No? Oh really?

Just standard-issue political patronage? No kidding!

And speaking of kidding – their pronouncements are widely, roundly ridiculed without anyone getting their hands chopped off for it?

You don’t say!

So we are left with the bald truth: this is another example of The Muddled One hastening to think the worst of Orthodoxy, and Orthodox Jews.

Let me take a read of the terrain here…and then I will try to say something coherent.

But at three hours of sleep a night, and other time zones and no personal supply of proper coffee (that was a huge mistake) I am sure this may take a day at least to materialize.

There is of course the well known curse placed on bloggers placed by the Merkaz Ha Shtuss, which would stop an average blogger dead in their tracks.

Does anybody have a substantive response to that other than to tell me that it’s not a valid comparison?

Disneyland, maybe…

These folks are not Israel’s ayatollahs. They are Israel’s Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons – experts at race-baiting and victimology politics. And it’s no accident that both these charlatans are “Reverend” gents.

It’s most unfortunate that a scholar like R. Ovadiah has gotten himself so politically enmeshed. Or perhaps it’s just the modern version of the political haggling that pops up as far back as the Talmud – even in the Bible, prophets and kings were doing it.

Anyone who knows anything about how Judaism and the Jewish people work knows that we will never suffer ayatollah-type tactics very long.

Your Muddled whining is typical of secularized Jews who go ballistic at any public display of Orthodoxy.

Second, the site runs way better now. Thanks for fixing it. Do you have any idea why it won’t remember my info in the commenting area? It’s tiresome having to retype it in there.

Third, I have to disagree about Iran and what certain elements of the population would like to see happen to the state of Israel. Admittedly, those folks are a very significant minority, but they have some powerful friends…