Holocaust denial conference attendee beaten by a group of Israelis

[Hugo Chavez]

A fervently Orthodox Austrian Jew who embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly was assaulted by a group of Israelis in Poland. Ma'ariv reported Monday that Moshe Aryeh Friedman, who attended the Holocaust denial conference hosted by Ahmadinejad in Tehran in December, was spotted while visiting the former Auschwitz and Birkenau camps over the weekend. A group of fervently Orthodox Jews from Israel also touring the sites set upon Friedman, who was born and raised in Monsey, N.Y.

"We gave him a good beating, the kind we have not given in a long time," a member of the Israeli group, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, told Ma'ariv. "We took off his coat and hat, so he would not look like a Jew." According to the newspaper, Meshi-Zahav, who is one of the founders of the Israeli volunteer emergency service ZAKA, was later honored with a special Torah reading in the synagogue.

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/100521.html

[Deedee]

This is totally a shanda on their mishpucheh. 

[OKMike]

I see no problem with this.

[Al-Gebra]

A fervently Orthodox Austrian Jew who embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly was assaulted by a group of Israelis in Poland. Ma'ariv reported Monday that Moshe Aryeh Friedman, who attended the Holocaust denial conference hosted by Ahmadinejad in Tehran in December, was spotted while visiting the former Auschwitz and Birkenau camps over the weekend. A group of fervently Orthodox Jews from Israel also touring the sites set upon Friedman, who was born and raised in Monsey, N.Y.

"We gave him a good beating, the kind we have not given in a long time," a member of the Israeli group, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, told Ma'ariv. "We took off his coat and hat, so he would not look like a Jew." According to the newspaper, Meshi-Zahav, who is one of the founders of the Israeli volunteer emergency service ZAKA, was later honored with a special Torah reading in the synagogue.

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/100521.html

ROFLMAO . . . sounds like he needed to be taken behind the woodshed.

[Deedee]

Since when is it okay to beat someone for having a political opinion, or for hugging someone?

Not to mention it was a gang beatdown... how cowardly.

[Al-Gebra]

Since when is it okay to beat someone for having a political opinion, or for hugging someone?

Not to mention it was a gang beatdown... how cowardly.

hmmm . . . it says the Polish police stood by and watched . . . I wonder why?  Perhaps a sense of history?

Idealism's great in the lap of American safety. . .  People who have to live in a nation surrounded by larger enemies openly calling for their blood play by different rules.

[Thin Lizzy]

Since when is it okay to beat someone for having a political opinion...

Denying the Holocaust is a political opinion?

You must be an idiot.

[Deedee]

Denying the Holocaust is a political opinion?

You must be an idiot.

No I'm not an idiot. 

To holocaust deniers it's a matter of political opinion regarding the existence of Isreal and whether it should or not. This guy looks like he belongs to an anti-zionist Chassidic sect.

[ieffinhatecardio]

No I'm not an idiot. 

To holocaust deniers it's a matter of political opinion regarding the existence of Isreal and whether it should or not. This guy looks like he belongs to an anti-zionist Chassidic sect.

I'm not sure I'm following what you mean.

The man that was beaten up didn't believe the Holocaust happened, correct? If that is in fact correct how is that a Political view?

What exactly is a "Holocaust Denial" conference?

[Al-Gebra]

To holocaust deniers it's a matter of political opinion regarding the existence of Isreal and whether it should or not.

 

[ieffinhatecardio]

Interesting article.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6171503.stm

Why are Jews attending a conference on the Holocaust in Tehran at which star guests include deniers of the genocide? Clue: they also want an end to the Israeli state.

A handful of Orthodox Jews have attended Iran's controversial conference questioning the Nazi genocide of the Jews - not because they deny the Holocaust but because they object to using it as justification for the existence of Israel.

With their distinctive hats, beards and side locks, these men may, to the untrained eye, look like any other Orthodox believers in Jerusalem or New York. But the Jews who went to Tehran are different.

Some of them belong to Neturei Karta (Guardians of the City), a Hasidic sect of a few thousand people which views Zionism - the movement to establish a Jewish national home or state in what was Palestine - as a "poison" threatening "true Jews".
   
A representative, UK-based Rabbi Aharon Cohen, told the conference he prayed "that the underlying cause of strife and bloodshed in the Middle East, namely the state known as Israel, be totally and peacefully dissolved".

In its place, Rabbi Cohen said, should be "a regime fully in accordance with the aspirations of the Palestinians when Arab and Jew will be able to live peacefully together as they did for centuries".

Neturei Karta believes the very idea of an Israeli state goes against the Jewish religion.

The book of Jewish law or Talmud, they say, teaches that believers may not use human force to create a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah.
   
But how do Neturei Karta and other Orthodox Jews such as Austria-based Rabbi Moishe Ayre Friedman justify attending such a controversial conference?

Rabbi Friedman told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that he was not in Tehran to debate whether the Holocaust happened or not, but to look at its lessons.

He says the Holocaust was being used to legitimise the suffering of other peoples and he wanted to break what he called a taboo on discussing it.

The main thing, he argued, was not Jewish suffering in the past but the use of the Holocaust as a "tool of commercial, military and media power".

In what many other Jews would consider the height of naivety, he commended Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for wanting "a secured future for innocent Jewish people in Europe and elsewhere".

In his speech to the conference, Neturei Karta's Rabbi Cohen said there was no doubt about the Holocaust and it would be "a terrible affront to the memory of those who perished to belittle the guilt of the crime in any way".

However, he also argued that the genocide had been divine will. "The Zionists, with their secular pompous approach behave in complete opposition to this philosophy and dare to say 'Never Again'.

"They have the audacity to think that they can prevent the Almighty from repeating a Holocaust. This is heresy."

Neturei Karta's views are regarded with abhorrence by most other Orthodox Jews, according to Rabbi Jeremy Rosen of the Yakar centre in London.

"And I think, frankly, even among the Hasidic world, by and large Neturei Karta are regarded as freaks," the Orthodox rabbi told the BBC News website.

[Deedee]

That article pretty much sums up what I was going to say.  Most holocaust deniers, of the Jewish faith at least, are vehemently anti-zionist... working for the annihilation of a country comes under the heading of "political" doesn't it? Although I suppose you could argue that anti-zionism has roots in religious belief, still the manifestation is political.

[Camel Jockey]

I see no problem with this.

You see no problem with the beating of an innocent man, yet you bitch about aborted fetuses. You're a piece of shit.

[Camel Jockey]

Denying the Holocaust is a political opinion?

You must be an idiot.

I don't think this dude denied that the holocaust took place, but instead disputed the numbers.

[Thin Lizzy]

I don't think this dude denied that the holocaust took place, but instead disputed the numbers.

Gimme a break. The guy has nothing better to do all day?

[Al-Gebra]

You see no problem with the beating of an innocent man

About as innocent as your average hyena.

As long as we're trotting out our Yiddishisms . . . it's a shanda fur die goy.  He's shaming Jews in front of non-Jews.

How would you feel if some Bengali born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska came out and said that Pakistan's actions against Bangladesh were brought on by Bangladesh?

Since it's a hypothetical, I know you're going to say it's ancient history and that you would feel nothing b/c you have no connection to bangladesh.  but trust me, if Pakistan had killed a few million more bangladeshis, and if someone really did say it, you wouldn't care if he got his ass kicked.

[Fury]

hahahaha, those sound like some cool Israeli's. Sounds like it was justified too.

[Camel Jockey]

Since it's a hypothetical, I know you're going to say it's ancient history and that you would feel nothing b/c you have no connection to bangladesh.  but trust me, if Pakistan had killed a few million more bangladeshis, and if someone really did say it, you wouldn't care if he got his ass kicked.

Good point. I can't bring myself to say that he deserved it, but I guess people of jewish origin would beg to differ.

As long as we're trotting out our Yiddishisms

Off topic here but I was in Brooklyn the other day and it seemed as though everything was written in yiddish.

[240 is Back]

Denying the Holocaust is a political opinion?

You must be an idiot.

The Holocaust was a historical event.

Research and study has shown some of the death toll estimates to be inaccurate.

To deny anyone died is incorrect.  To say that 6 million or more were killed is actually inaccurate now.  The number is somewhere between 1 and 5.9 million.  History will sort it out.

Read about it Lizzy - the original numbers aren't true.  It was a horrible thing, absolutely.  But the numbers have proven to be lower than originally stated.

[OKMike]

You see no problem with the beating of an innocent man, yet you bitch about aborted fetuses. You're a piece of shit.

I have a problem with someone selling out his own people by consorting with a group that wants to exterminate his people from the face of the earth.  So he was hardly innocent.  A fetus didn't ask to be put there, but it was.  A well deserved beat down can't compare to the murder of an innocent, helpless being.  Idiot.

[Thin Lizzy]

The Holocaust was a historical event.



Read about it Lizzy - the original numbers aren't true.  It was a horrible thing, absolutely.  But the numbers have proven to be lower than originally stated.

That's not the point. Of course, the number isn't exactly 6 million, but what difference that make? You're never gonna get the exact figure.

[Tre]

At least now I know what 'zionist' means in today's political terrorist climate.  

There's some logic in what this guy believes.  We know the Holocaust 'happened', because the Nazis left us videos and photos to prove it, but it sounds like this Jewish guy is saying, "To hell with Israel - you Arab losers can have this filthy patch of sand! We'll establish Jewish states in America and Europe."

  

[Deedee]

Why is it a shanda for the goyim AG?

As you well know there were a number of the very orthodox who originally opposed the formation of the state of Isreal because technically it's opposed in the old testament...that there should be no Isreal until the time of the Messiah. But they later embraced both the idea and the place itself.

Everyone should be entitled to their religious/political beliefs. I don't think Evangelical Christians should be beaten by more secular Christians... et cetera, et cetera. Just an opinion.

I've actually met a few of these guys, and while crackpotish, they don't really seem (or look) like fighting men.  They carry signs, not big clubs. Maybe because I'm a woman, I find violence in general abhorrent.  I can imagine how frightening it is, and how much it must hurt, to be set upon by a crowd of angry men.  I find it odd that they saw nothing wrong in saying that removing his hat and coat made him seem less like a Jew. I also find something fundamentally wrong with high fiving it at schul later. 

[240 is Back]

That's not the point. Of course, the number isn't exactly 6 million, but what difference that make? You're never gonna get the exact figure.

If it was actually 50k, or 6 million, makes a huge difference to some people.

Mainly, those who believe their land was taken based upon the 6 million number, when the world wouldn't have permitted that action if only 50k had died.

I have no idea who is right, and I don't care about the isr/pal argument.

[Camel Jockey]

I have a problem with someone selling out his own people by consorting with a group that wants to exterminate his people from the face of the earth.  So he was hardly innocent.  A fetus didn't ask to be put there, but it was.  A well deserved beat down can't compare to the murder of an innocent, helpless being.  Idiot.

I doubt he's golfing buddies with Iran's prez or condones terrorist states. He went to Holocaust conference to dispute the number of people that were killed and to stand out as an anti-zionist. Funny how you give a fetus the same rights as a human being, yet you think someone deserves to be beaten by an angry mob for expressing his opinions. Pathetic.