Jews can be Jewish without Israel. Discuss.

JCCV’s John Searle speaks on prejudice with gay abandon

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On May 1 2011 at the Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Commemoration Evening, Jewish Community Council of Victoria president John Searle delivered an address, in which he said:

It is up to us to play our part in ensuring that another holocaust never occurs. Be it attacks against Jews, blacks, homosexuals or political rivals, we must be ever vigilant in bringing the message to the world – never again! We must educate our children; help them to understand that we cannot turn a blind eye, not to racism, not to stereotyping, not to suffering, not to prejudice of any form, not ever. We must send the message, that racism and prejudice in all its evil forms will not be tolerated.

Just to refresh you, John Searle published a media release earlier this year in which he gave tacit support to the notion that organisations representing gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people would not be welcome as a members of the JCCV, the organisation he is currently president of.

John Searle also told me in person late in 2009 that he believed it was acceptable for (orthodox) Judaism to be intolerant of homosexuality.  He refuses to discuss this (or any other) matter further as he knows it will blow open his facade of tolerance toward GLBT people.

I am in complete dismay at the absolute arrogance of this man, who on the one hand declares publicly that prejudice against homosexuals will not be tolerated, and on the other hand dishes out homophobic prejudice with gay abandon.

Is your Passover really about freedom?

Passover has become for me a time of great conflict between what I have grown up with and what I now know.  I find it a time of mixed emotion and I struggle to deal with it very well.  I don’t like the message of human suffering and destruction that the traditional story of Passover glorifies.  I also don’t like the lie it perpetuates that invokes the notion of a supernatural deity, or “god”.  I find that offensive to my intelligence and that of the people with whom I am sharing the Seder table.

Essentially Passover is a celebration of the freedom of the Jewish people, but in that freedom, there are many Jews who have become slaves of the bondage of the more fundamental aspects of the Jewish religion.  I talk about the gay and lesbian Jews, the bisexual and transgender Jews; those Jews who are forced to live a life of lies and deceit, and who struggle in trying to do so.  And then there are also those who have had their freedoms reduced by the Jewish people.

If you are inclined to think about Passover and what it stands for, think about freedom and the people who have it, and the people who don’t.

I have been shown a Haggadah that offers a more meaningful look at the Passover celebration and offers a more dignified Seder service than the one that many of us have been brought up with.  You may want to use this Haggadah at your Seder and, in doing so, tell a better story of freedom.

To demonstrate your support for those who are denied the same freedoms as everyone else, put an orange on your Seder plate alongside the other items.  There’s an explanation why in this Haggadah.

It gets better for Gay Orthodox Jews

Last month Joe. My. God. posted the “Gay Orthodox Jews” video from the It Gets Better Project.

Please click here and watch it.

Alex Fein & Yaron Gottleib, Sensible Jews engaged in anti-secular intolerance

Alex Fein is “The Sensible Jew“.  Yaron Gottleib has been a regular contributor on her blog.  They announced their engagement to each other this week.  I don’t believe there has yet been a disclosure of their relationship status on the blog.

On Alex Fein’s Facebook wall she takes a swipe at the Secular Party:

Alex Fein: It’d be frightening if they ever had a real chance at power – Socialists, Fascists, Secular fundamentalists with bizarre Israel policy… Yaron looks at the ugliest candidates standing at the coming election.

This is a reference to a blog on the analysis of the “ugly” political parties running candidates in the coming election.  The analysis is mostly pathetic and shows a lack of maturity by it’s author.

I posted this comment in reponse to her statement on Facebook:

Alex, you remark that the “Secular fundamentalists” are [amongst] “the ugliest candidates standing at the coming election”.  How do you justify this assertion?

Gregory Storer is the Secular Party candidate for Melbourne Ports. His name will appear on your ballot paper.  In the lead-up to the election he has written a number of articles regarding upholding human rights and equality, including equality for women.  He critiques Michael Danby’s poor performance on some of these issues.  How does that make him one of the “ugliest candidates”?

I ask you read what he has to say (http://gregory.storer.com.au/) and would appreciate you then justify what I would consider your outrageous claim.

Michael.

Let’s see what engaging response the Sensible Jew comes back with.

Islam is a fraud (but please, send chocolates, not a fatwah)

Apparently Allah can still hear your prayers, even when you have been facing the wrong direction.  Reuters reported it here.

Ridwan said Muslims need not fear that their prayers have been wasted because they were facing the wrong way.

“Their prayers will still be heard by Allah,” he said.

Nonsense.  Allah cannot be getting the clearest message if you’re not facing him when you are talking, otherwise what would be the point in having to face him.  He needs to hear it directly, with you facing the right direction, all the time, every time.  Otherwise he’ll be getting a garbled version of the prayers, muffled by the walls of the mosquitos (those little Spanish mosques), and everything else in his way.

This would precisely explain why when Muslims pray for world peace and harmony, love of all fellow humans, especially love of homosexuals (particularly those who engage in anal intercourse – but not love of heterosexuals who engage in anal intercourse because we know heterosexuals don’t engage in anal intercourse, don’t we?), and also the love of Jews, he hears it incorrectly and gets messages like “send planes into the World Trade Center towers”, “send suicide bombers to blow up bars in Bali”, “send suicide bombers into Israeli cities”, “send suicide bombers into hotels in India” and so on.  He really must be getting such mixed messages to be confusing love and acceptance with death and destruction.

You know what?  Islam is just as evil as the Catholic Church.  There is no validation for it’s existence.  No amount of praying in any direction will ever get a message out to a god or profit that doesn’t exist.

If I get a fatwah from this blog I’ll put it down to Allah having misheard a message of “Send Michael chocolates and love” because some deluded Muslim was facing the wrong direction when he was praying.

Insalata.

Michael.