sanpaku_backup | on the goddamn warpath today, part one

To the editor of the RI Jewish Voice and Herald:

One can’t help but wonder what the JFRI officials who attended the “Night to Honor Israel” (as reported in your issue of May 16) thought upon hearing this week’s news that the gathering’s main speaker, Rev. John Hagee, described Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust as working God’s will.

Hagee’s remark underscores the naivete with which Jewish community leaders have approached “pro-Israel” evangelical Protestants such as Hagee’s Christians United for Israel. The evangelical community comes to its support for Israel through a belief in the supplanting of Jews and Judaism by militant Christianity. That Federation officials would attend an event rooted in these premises betrays either ignorance or disinterest in how Christian “friendship” for Jews has often been expressed in anti-Semitic beliefs and repression over the past two thousand years.

Jewish participation in an event featuring Hagee is also disgraceful given the notoriety of the pastor’s remarks about Roman Catholicism being a “great whore” and a “false cult” whose beliefs inspired Hitler. How would Jews react to a Catholic participation at an event addressed by Louis Farrakhan? We demand a strong stance against bigotry by our Catholic neighbors, and they surely have the right to demand the same of us.

Finally, I was disappointed in the enthusiastic tone of the Voice and Herald’s coverage of this event, which seemed to whitewash the significance of the proceedings. The sidebar on Hagee provided a forum for his reactionary political views without providing any depth or context. Rabbi Alan Flam’s cautions were buried on the fourth page of coverage.

Hagee’s remarks on the Holocaust this week were entirely predictable given his other vitriolic statements and his bigotry toward Roman Catholicism. Our community leaders have disgraced themselves by lending Jewish support to these views.

Sincerely,