Vatican: Jewish Extremist (Benzi Gopstein) Poses Threat To Holy Land Christians

[Dwyer]

JERUSALEM (RNS) The church body authorized by the Vatican to oversee the Catholic Church’s property in Israel has asked Israel’s attorney general to indict a Jewish extremist who, it says, recently incited violence against Israel’s Christian churches.

In a letter sent to Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein on Sunday (Aug. 9), the Custody of the Holy Land said Benzi Gopstein, sometimes spelled “Gopshtein,” head of the Jewish extremist group Lehava, poses a threat to Holy Land Christians.

The letter cited comments by Gopstein, who, during an Aug. 4 panel discussion for yeshiva students, quoted the 12th-century Jewish philosopher Maimonides’ ruling that Christianity constitutes idolatry. Gopstein said that the biblical Book of Deuteronomy calls for the destruction of idol worship.

huffingtonpost.com/entry/vatican-benzi-gopstein_55c92903e4b0f1cbf1e61874

Ben-Zion Gopstein is a political activist in the religious radical right in Israel and a follower of Kahanism; he is the man on the left in the photo.

 

[meltzerboy]

huffingtonpost.com/entry/vatican-benzi-gopstein_55c92903e4b0f1cbf1e61874

Ben-Zion Gopstein is a political activist in the religious radical right in Israel and a follower of Kahanism; he is the man on the left in the photo.

I would hope that Ben-Zion Gopstein and other religious Jews of the Orthodox persuasion would study the writings of Maimonides more carefully and in their entirety. The leap that Gopstein makes from what Maimonides says about Christianity in relation to idol worshiping to Gopstein’s call for violence on Christian Churches based on Deuteronomy’s attitude toward paganism is devoid of logic. Indeed Maimonides says a whole lot more about Christianity than what Gopstein has cherry-picked in his desire to incite havoc in the Holy Land without the benefit of reason or compassion. Nowhere does Maimonides encourage violence; indeed, just the opposite. The great Jewish philosopher encourages Jews to teach the Torah from a Jewish perspective to their Christian neighbors if the latter show a willingness to learn since, according to him, Christians, unlike Muslims who believe the Torah has been somewhat distorted, have already accepted the Law in its original form. Maimonides also praises both Christianity and Islam for spreading the Word of G-d to so many nations around the globe as well as preparing the world for the eventual Coming of the Messiah. Of course, these statements by Maimonides, and several others similar to them, do not neatly fit into Gopstein’s narrative of hatred and violence and therefore, as one might expect, he conveniently omits them.