Jew-hating United Church members pretending to be self-hating Jews

Those who have encountered the anti-Israel group called "Independent Jewish Voices" could be forgiven for understanding them to be a group of emotionally-unstable fanatics whose primary purpose is to dispel the stereotype that Jews are smart. The group was founded under the leadership of 9-11 conspiracy theorist Diana Ralph while she was on a 'medical leave' from Carleton University, and its membership is made up mainly of old, unhappy, childless socialists who present themselves as Jews who want their opposition to Israel to be known.

But it turns out that Independent Jewish Voices may not be Jewish at all, at least if one of their representatives is telling the truth.

One of the group's spokesmen with the very Jewish-sounding name of Robert Allison did an interview  presented by the anti-capitalist website rabble.ca in which he was asked about the origins of Independent Jewish Voices. He answered that it began in 2006, when the United Church of Canada was considering a resolution (similar to one eventually passed this year) calling for the boycott of Israel. The resolution instigated accusations of the United Church being anti-Semitic, and according to Allison, "this alarmed some members of the United Church who happened to be Jews." They then formed Independent Jewish Voices of Canada.

The relationship between the two organizations is such that the United Church helped pay  expenses for Independent Jewish Voices' founding conference, making the organization a child of the Boshevist, weak-kneed branch of Protestantism.

The United Church of Canada is a Christian denomination that at least on paper accepts the divinity of Jesus Christ. Anyone who accepts that Christ is God and is a member of a church with that belief is a Christian.  Judaism explicitly rejects Jesus' divinity.

Independent Jewish Voices' claim that they are members of the United Church who happen to be Jews is about as valid as someone who says they are a Sunni Muslim who happens to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church.  These are mutually exclusive terms and you're either one or the other. By their professed beliefs and actions, it seems clear that Independent Jewish Voices is made up of Christians masquerading as Jews for the sole purpose of attempting to lend a sick pseudo-legitimacy to their demonization of the Jewish state.

Mr. Allison tries to explain in the interview that support for Israel violates the principles of Judaism. Nothing could be more indicative that he and his group understand nothing about the basis of the religion they claim to hold. All it takes is a reading of the Old Testament, the core document of Judaic belief, to see the inextricable link between Israel and Jews. It is repeated over and over in text upon text. By embracing the anti-Semitic Kairos Palestine document that seeks to deny a theological basis for the relationship between Israel and the Jewish people, these anti-Israel Jewish poseurs betray that their closest link to Judaism is when they eat bagels and lox.

Unlike most of the misfits of Independent Jewish Voices, I was born after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. My belief in Israel's validity is based not on religion but on the morality of a democratic, freedom-loving,  pluralistic western ally existing in the midst of barbarism and totalitarianism.

But anyone seeking to deny Israel on the basis of Judaism is doing something so absurd as to completely discredit their intellect if not their motives. Just what do they think "The Promised Land" means? Do they realize where it is, and according to the Bible, to whom it was promised and by Whom?

There is something else fake Jews and so-called progressive Christians who actually believe in Judeo-Christian principles should keep in mind.  It doesn't require a nuanced reading of the Bible, both the New Testament and Old,  to see that God always takes a very poor view of the enemies of Israel. If these people genuinely believe in the tenets of the religions they claim, they should be very, very worried indeed.


UPDATE- December 4: The pseudo-Jews of Independent Jewish Voices are again trying to give cover to pathological,  obsessive hatred of Israel, such as that promoted by the fanatical, neo-Marxist website rabble.ca, which is closely associated with NDP Deputy Leader Libby Davies.

A further bit of insight into the mind-set of the flakes in Independent (not really) Jewish Voices comes from an interview one of its founders, Sid Shniad, did with anti-Semitic author Gilad Atzmon.

Sid Shniad: For most of my adult life, I have been active in non-Jewish Palestinian solidarity organisations, antiwar work, and left politics and resisted becoming involved in organisations that were identified as Jewish. But I have come to the conclusion that Jews with good politics on the issue of Israel and Palestine have a uniquely important role to play in combating the influence of the reactionary Zionist organisations that tend to dominate the Jewish community and providing telling criticism of the Israeli government. 

GA: Now I am very happy because for the first time you really start to address my question. You also admit that, Zionist organizations dominate the Jewish community.    

Sid Shniad: This realisation has led me to become active in creating Independent Jewish Voices in Canada in the last two years, where we have found that the organized presence of Jews who militantly oppose Zionist organisations and the Israeli government provides breathing space and a degree of comfort for both Jews and non-Jews who are uncomfortable with what Israel and its allies are doing, but who have been reluctant to come out of the closet on these issues.

The interview is quite revealing - for all his malignancy, Atzmon, who was born a Jew, never cloaks his anti-Semitism or anti-Zionism in the pretense of a religion which he has renounced. Shniad, like his fellow Independent Jewish United Church of Canada Voices stooges, makes it clear that his self-identification as a Jew has come late and  for one and only one real purpose - to demonize Israel.

Is Religion a Tool of the Devil?

Religion has been giving God a bad name for all of recorded history, and probably before that too.

Abram, who later became Abraham and fathered what would become Judaism, Christianity and Islam, left his home because he was fed up with the local religion. So he took off and started a new one. And it has continued in much the same way since then.

The fact is that there are some astoundingly good people who are religious. The three Abrahamic religions are based on noble principles of justice and charity. Most people who devote their lives to their religion practice those principles to a greater degree that the average person. Critics of religion who point to all the evil done in the name of God by religion naturally provoke the sincere souls who practice the humanitarian aspects of their faith and participate in a community of others who do the same.

That religion has corrupt, evil practitioners no more makes it an inherently malignant institution than Tammany Hall made American democracy inherently malevolent. It is, however, undeniable that lots of very, very bad people do very bad things in the name of their religion, while claiming they are doing the work of God or Allah.

But in the increasingly heated debate between atheists and defenders of traditional religious practice, there is yet another approach.

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From the outlook of a believer, any obstacle between a person and God is an evil impediment.

Is organized religion something that fosters closeness to God, or is it a deceptive obstruction that encourages sublimation of our relationship with the Almighty in favour of a tellurian authority, making it a metaphorical tool of the devil?

To examine that question, let us begin with another: What is the most precious gift that God bestowed on Mankind?

Other animals have great strength, remarkable speed or the ability of flight, any of which in a human would be considered superpowers. It is man’s ability to reason, to learn, and to build upon this body of knowledge that distinguishes our species and has given us the ability to dominate and shape our world.

Yet organized religion frequently requires us to discard this gift that God gave us in favour of faith. But not a faith in God or our individual ability to be guided by Him. Religion often demands we stifle reason in favour of catechism. In effect, telling us to affirm obedience, not to God, but to humans claiming to know His will. Many of whom, throughout history, have had rapacious motives. What could be more an instrument of the devil?

Religion abhors atheism, but does God? If God lives, He is not an imaginary friend who ceases to exist if you don’t believe in Him. God can employ atheists to His purpose just as He does believers. In fact, atheists are frequently more moral, better people than many who profess religious beliefs.

God does not require worship and he does not require one insignificant being in His incomprehensibly large universe to defend his reputation from another.

The biblical story of Babel in the Book of Genesis describes God’s confounding the language of the peoples of the earth, ”that they may not understand one another's speech.” But people have the capacity to learn other languages. What they can learn but not accept is another’s creed.

What if the story of Babel is not about God separating and setting the peoples of the earth against each other with language, but with religion? And what if that was not the work of God, but of the devil?

Tower of Babel
MC Escher

The idea that religion can stand in the way between us and our relationship with God is not a new one.



Religions frequently become institutions concerned more with their temporal authority than being a conduit for the divine spirit. The Reformation and Luther’s 95 Theses were a reaction to corruption within a Medieval and early Renaissance Catholic Church which sold, for money, not only ecclesiastic authority but tickets to Heaven. Indeed Christianity emerged as a reaction to the stagnation and rigidity of Judaism.

The founders of the first monotheistic religion understood how codification of religious practice countered God’s design that our relationship with Him should be evolutionary. Judaism separated the Written Law, consisting of the Five Books of Moses, the books of the Prophets, and Psalms, from the Oral Law. Jewish tradition teaches that the penalty for writing the Oral Law was death. The motive being that old beliefs and traditions were supposed to die out as our progressive comprehension made them irrelevant.

The Babylonian Talmud was recorded in violation of the law to preserve knowledge that Diaspora Jews feared would be lost. By doing so, they created a template changing Judaism from an evolving body of understanding into a time capsule of antiquated rituals. And all major religions operate from similar templates.

If we are God’s children, then evolution can be seen as the maturation and education of mankind. Religion is the invention of answers of which the inventors have no way of knowing. As a caveman would not be able to comprehend the principles of advanced physics, we are far from the ability to comprehend neither the nature nor the will of God as it applies to the universe. Yet the arrogant presumption of that capacity is the embodiment of what religion represents.

To criticise religion is not a denigration of religious people. But just as Marxism has individual adherents who are good people, in practice, that system always leads to totalitarianism. So is religion a poison tree that sometimes produces beautiful fruit.

This is not an argument to discard faith. It is an argument to have faith in God and His ability to guide you personally and directly without an intermediary.

Every soul is its own cathedral, each mind its own bible. As God’s creations, we have the individual capacity to be a prophet and messiah to ourselves, if only we learn to listen and to use the gifts He gave to all of us.

Jews: "Sure! We'll take Leonardo diCaprio! Can we give away Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein?"

The Daily Mail reports:

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is thinking of converting to Judaism in what friends say is ‘the clearest sign yet’ he will marry girlfriend Bar Refaeli.

DiCaprio, 36 – a non-practising Catholic – has made several secret visits to Israel where Bar, his girlfriend of five years, comes from.

‘Leo’s sudden intense interest in Israel, its culture and religion is the clearest sign yet that he intends to marry Bar,’ said a source.

‘He has been staying with her in a hotel in Tel Aviv for a few days at a time recently so that he can avoid the photographers outside her apartment in a nearby suburb.

‘Now he is looking into converting for her.’

Thursday's This Vs That: Christianity vs Judaism

Not a cage match, a comparative chart prepared at The Resource Center Blog.