Jayjg writes:
I've had a chance to briefly peruse RK's lengthy complaints about me regarding the [[Relationships between segments of Judaism]] article. Needless to say, I dispute their accuracy and veracity.
So what? One man's disputation of facts is no excuse for forgery and libel. You have publicly attacked the leadership of Reform Judaism as haters of Orthodox Jews, by falsely claiming that they view Orthodox Jews as 9/11-style terrorists. Yet the text you keep inserting is a series of proven libels based not on fact, and not on quotes. There are zero Reform sources which back up your claims.
Rather, your text is based on the claims of one Rabbi Avi Shafran, a fantic ultra-Orthodox rabbi who has publicly stated that all Reform and Conservative rabbis are heretics that should be put to death. (Quote below) The quotes and positions Shafran states about Reform Jews DO NOT EXIST ANYWHERE. He is making them up. In contrast, you disingenuously keep deleting actual verifiable quotes from the leadership of Reform Judaism. How you can delete verifiable quotes, and substitute paranoid claims from a fanatic person who admits to hating the subject?
By the way, most of us here agree that incitement to murder non-Orthodox Jews mark one as a most unreliable source. (Shafran's quote is included below.)
Jayjg's claims about the founding documents and principles of Conservative Judaism are equally false. THE QUOTES AND BELIEFS HE MENTIONS DO NOT EXIST in any of those documents or principles of the movement. The quotes do not exist on any of the websites of Conservative Judaism. They do not exist in any of the official publications or classroom materials of the Conservative Jewish movement. His repeated claims are provably wrong.
I myself own a large library of documents and books related to Conservative Judaism, and have access to the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. I have never found any official or quasi-official teachings of the Conservative movement which take the position you attribute to them. No textbooks have them either.
Perhaps Jayjg's rabbi may somehow believe that Conservative Jews teach that Orthodox Jews are "stupid" (your own words) and that Reform Jews are "insane". But the Conservative movement simply doesn't teach this, and never has. Thus, NPOV could allows us to write that "According to a few right-wing Orthodox rabbis, the Conservative moevement views Orthodoxy as "stupid" and Reform as "insane"; However Conservative rabbis and leaders dispute this, and no official documents, wesbites, books, or classroom materials contain any such teachings."
That would phrase the same information in accord with our NPOV policy. The problem is that Jayjg is not writing in an NPOV way. He is taking ultra-Orthodox propaganda and presenting it as if that was the POV of Reform and Conservative Judaism, and is deleting actual quotes from the movements! That is unjustifiable as well as dishonest.
In some cases I am simply baffled; for example, he has insisted on inserting numerous quotes from Haredi Rabbis into the article,
You aren't baffled; you are just trying to hide the discussion of these events within their historical context. Our NPOV policy demands that we not only present a position, we are obligated to try and present such positions within context. (e.g. What chain of events led to a particular position?) You keep removing any and all discussion of chains of events and historical context, thus destroying the article.
Jayjg writes:
I have pleaded with RK to work with me on the article. I have on many occasions requested that RK support his edits in the Talk: page, with limited
success.
That is outrageously false. As anyone can see, I have spent a month patiently working with him, spending a vast amount of time writing in the Talk page of this article and many others. I have even complimented him and worked productively with him on many articles.
Jayjg responds by reverting all quotes and verifiable sources from articles, and inserting unsourced ultra-Orthodox propaganda as if it were fact.
And now, as promised, here are words from one major source of many of Jayjg's claims about Reform and Conservative Judaism, the ultra-Orthodox rabbi Avi Shafran, author of "JewThink: A Guide to Real Judaism for the Thinking Individual" (New York: Sepher-Hermon Press, 1977).
Shafran states that Conservative and Reform leaders "qualify for the infamous titles of min and apikoros" and "are the followers of Korach;" Shafran states that "these man-made 'religions' [Conservative and Reform] are the most destructive forces in the history of the Jewish people and all those who seek to spread their noxious heresies are mesisim, instigators whose aim is to lead astray the masses;"
Shafran writes about Conservative and Reform leaders that there is "a law which orders loyal Jews to kill these types of people if at all possible," a law which was declared inapplicable today by the Chazon Ish but which "remains valuable for the light it sheds on the way Real Judaism" regards such people.
Rabbi Shafran then elaborates "These people are not so much meant to be hated as enemies and wished dead for the sake of 'revenge' or to see them dead. The way we hate such people is not like the 'cat hates the mouse,' but rather like the 'storekeeper hates the vermin' which infest his store, not hating the vermin themselves but wanting them gone in order to arrest the damage they are causing. We resent their existence. So, in lieu of the fact that we are not allowed to physically harm these people today, we should still treat them with utter contempt and disrespect, avoiding contact with them as one would with any destructive fiend."
(These quotations are from Chapters 15 and 18 of the book, which is available on an out-of-print basis through Amazon.com. )
Does any of this sound familiar? His identity of "non-Orthodox Jews" with "vermin" that should be exterminated should cause readers to pause and consider who else has such violent teachings.
Robert (RK)
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