Burning bibles in Israel

I didn't hear about this until I received an email from our synagogue, with the URJ statement condemning it. I don't care what the bible says - why couldn't they just throw the stuff away? See the last line of the story.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/985362.html

Orthodox Jewish youths burn New Testaments in Or Yehuda
The Associated Press

Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land. Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said missionaries recently entered a neighborhood in the predominantly religious town of 34,000 in central Israel, distributing hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material.

After receiving complaints, Aharon said, he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and drove through the neighborhood, urging people to turn over the material to Jewish religious students who went door to door to collect it." The books were dumped into a pile and set afire in a lot near a synagogue," he said.

The newspaper Ma'ariv reported Tuesday that hundreds of yeshiva students took part in the book-burning. But Aharon told The Associated Press that only a few students were present, and that he was not there when the books were torched. "Not all of the New Testaments that were collected were burned, but hundreds were," he said. He said he regretted the burning of the books, but called it a commandment to burn materials that urge Jews to convert. "I certainly don't denounce the burning of the booklets, he said. I denounce those who distributed the booklets."

Calev Myers, an attorney who represents Messianic Jews, or Jews who accept Jesus as their savior, demanded in an interview with Army Radio that all those involved be put on trial. He estimated there were 10,000 Messianic Jews, who are also known as Jews for Jesus, in Israel.

Police had no immediate comment.

Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews frown on missionary activity aimed at Jews, though in most cases it is not illegal. Still, the concept of a Jew burning books is abhorrent to many in Israel because of the association with Nazis torching piles of Jewish books during the Holocaust of World War II.

ADDENDUM 5/22/08

This is what our rabbi said in his weekly email:

For a Jew to burn the holy texts of any other tradition is an abomination. For an Orthodox Jewish politician to condone such demeaning activity in this day and age is beyond reprehensible. For peace to come to Israel and to the world we must come to know and to respect each other.