May 14, 2013 | 9:44 am

Stephen Hawking rejects the Zionism of Einstein

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

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Rabbi Shmuley Boteach with Stephen Hawking

Has Stephen Hawking really left the company of Albert Einstein, an avowed Zionist who worked to create the State of Israel, and replaced him with the august company of Elvis Costello and other Israel boycotters?

I hosted Hawking for a lecture at Oxford in 1998 where I introduced him to 1000 Oxford students. He could not have been more humble and approachable. Aside from his lecture, delivered through his voice synthesizer, on string theory – little of which I understood but which my students assured me was ‘brilliant’ – I remember his love of babies and practical jokes. Our daughter Rochel Leah had just been born and Hawking and his wife asked us if he could hold her. I can still picture in my mind how his wife took the baby, placed her on his lap, and then wrapped his enfeebled arms around the baby, which he stared at with a huge grin for minutes. He was enraptured.

After the lecture was over and as we walked Hawking to his car, he suddenly raced off in his wheelchair to Haagen-Dazs where we consumed in ice cream. His wife chuckled that he loved giving his hosts the slip as he indulged his childlike spirit.

All who heard and met him were deeply impressed with his humility and accessibility.

And now this, digging a knife publicly into Israel’s back.

Why would one of the world’s leading academic minds condemn the only democracy in the Middle East? Why would he attack a country, situated in a region of such deep misogyny, that celebrates women succeeding in every area of academic, professional, and political life? Why would Hawking pounce on a nation who, with neighbors like Hamas that routinely murder gays on false accusations of collaboration, grants homosexuals every equal right? And why would he condemn a country whose Arab citizens are the freest and least afraid in the entire Middle East?

Could it be because Israel has still not settled the status of the West Bank?

But if that is the case, surely Hawking knows that Israel has seen thousands of its citizens slaughtered in gruesome terror attacks ever since it granted autonomy to the Palestinian authority to control 97% of the Palestinian population?

Could it be because Israel has yet to facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state?

But then Hawking is a highly educated man and he knows that after Israel withdrew fully from Gaza – dismantling its communities and forcibly removing its settlers – that it lead to tens of thousands of rockets being fired at Israeli hospitals and schools. And besides, Israel has practically begged the Palestinians to come back to the negotiating table without any pre-conditions to discuss just that, the creation of a two-state solution, but the Palestinians have refused.

Perhaps its because Hawking believes the demonstrably false lie that Israel is an apartheid state. But then a scientist like Hawking would check facts before he would embrace such fraudulence and could easily discover that Arabs serve in the Israel Knesset – where they freely and regularly disagree with Israel – as well as the Israeli Supreme Court, the civil service, and every other area of Israeli life.

No, one must conclude that for all his academic brilliance Hawking might just be lacking in simple common sense.

In his statement embracing the boycott of the Jewish state, Hawking said, “I have received a number of emails from Palestinian academics. They are unanimous that I should respect the boycott. In view of this I must withdraw from the conference.”

One would think that Hawking’s response to these academics might be a call to, say, Hamas to start using the billions channeled to the Palestinians as the world’s largest per capita recipients of international foreign aid into building universities rather than buying bombs, or educating women rather than tacitly allowing the honor killings of young Palestinian women whose only crime is to have a boyfriend. No, Hawking decided instead to condemn the country whose scholars have won ten Nobel prizes, from a population of six million, while the entire Arab world, numbering in the hundreds of millions, have won two, outside the peace prize (another four).

Clearly, a knowledge of physics is no guarantor of a knowledge of foreign affairs.

Since Hawking is so often called the Einstein of his generation, it is worth reminding him that Einstein was a committed Zionist who traveled around the United States with Chain Weizmann to raise money for the creation of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, an institution that Hawking now refuses to even visit. In a 1921 letter to his friend Friedrich Zangger, Einstein wrote, “On Saturday I'm off to America - not to speak at universities (though there will probably be that, too, on the side) but rather to help in the founding of the Jewish University in Jerusalem. I feel an intense need to do something for this cause.”

Separately, in a letter to Maurice Solovine Einstein wrote, “I am not at all eager to go to America but am doing it only in the interests of the Zionists, who must beg for dollars to build educational institutions in Jerusalem and for whom I act as high priest and  decoy... I do what I can to help those in my tribe who are treated so badly everywhere.”

And when in 1948 President Harry Truman recognized the new Jewish State of Israel, Einstein declared it "the fulfillment of our dream.”

How unfortunate that a man as visionary as Stephen Hawking can peer so deeply into the Universe but it is so myopic as to fail to see the righteousness of Israel’s cause even as it stares him right in the face.

Shmuley Boteach, whom The Washington Post calls ‘the most famous Rabbi in America,’ served as Rabbi to the students of Oxford University for 11 years where he created the Oxford L’Chaim Society,which hosted world leaders lecturing on values-based leadership. He has just published The Fed-Up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

January 18, 2013 | 10:28 am

Does anyone give a damn about Syria?

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Syrian security personnel, members of the civil defense and civilians gather at the site where a large blast hit a neighborhood of the Syrian city of Aleppo on Jan. 18. Photo by George Ourfalian/Reuters

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January 9, 2013 | 11:14 am

Hagel’s homophobia

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

President Barack Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense, former Senator Chuck Hagel at the White House on Jan. 7. Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters

A few years ago I was out having dinner with my orthodox, gay, Jewish brother when a religious man walked over to me and asked if I was Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. From his aggressive posture I knew in my gut that I should not respond in the affirmative but was simply too tired to lie. So I said, yes, I was he. “I think you’re a dog and a disgrace to religion.” After offering a short, “Ruff, ruff,” I asked him what I had done to so offend him. He said, “You call yourself a Rabbi but you’re always out defending gays whom the Bible clearly says are an abomination.” I tried to reason with the man but his hatred for me was such that I had to let it go. What I experienced that day had happened often enough to me to kind of get used to it. But the irony was that my brother was sitting right there and he too has had to endure, since coming out in his late teens, the ugliness of some religious people treating him with vitriol. Still, he has held tightly on to his Jewish faith and its rituals and leads a charitable, compassionate life. He will not allow religious haters to tell him whether or not he is allowed a relationship with God.

This painful story came to mind when I read of former Senator Chuck Hagel’s radical opposition, in 1998, to James Hormel, President Bill Clinton’s choice to be ambassador to Luxembourg, on the grounds that Hormel was “openly, aggressively gay.” Here was a United States senator abusing his power and refusing to allow a nomination for an Ambassadorship to go ahead simply because the man was gay. And yes, I am well aware of the fact that Hagel has not apologized, albeit 13 years later, when political expediency would demand it.

Now, I understand that Luxembourg is an extremely vital diplomatic post and that our chief diplomat there is an essential cog in the larger wheel of national security. But just what was Hagel worried about?

If the issue was that Hormel was not living in accordance with Biblical teachings, then neither was the President of the United States in that fateful year of 1998. Besides, America is a country with separation of Church and State. So a man’s unwillingness to live in accordance with all the laws of the Bible should surely not weigh in any decision as to his worthiness for public office.

And unlike the President of the United States who was guilty of a moral infraction in deceiving his wife through infidelity, homosexuality is a religious sin that is not a moral infraction since noone is being lied to. The ban on homosexuality in the Bible is similar to the ban on lighting fire on the Sabbath. There is nothing immoral about it, but it contravenes religious law.

Perhaps Hagel was saying that, regardless, a man who openly defies the dictates of the Bible cannot be trusted in a public role. But then the Bible also says, regarding Israel and the Jewish people, “Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you.” (Numbers 24:9). But that did not stop Hagel from referring to pro-Israel activists as “the Jewish lobby,” with its Protocols of Zion overtones of Jewish manipulation of world affairs, and offered the further slur of saying that “the Jewish lobby intimidated lawmakers.” We can only hope that their intimidation is not as severe as those who are openly, aggressively gay.

The Bible further says concerning Israel, “For thus said the Lord of hosts, after his glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye.” (Zechariah 2:8) But that did not stop Hagel from voting against sanctions against Iran, even though Iran not only wishes to plunder Israel but wipe it off the map. As the New York Times noted, Hagel was only one of two senators to vote against the Iran-Libya sanctions act in 2001, “arguing that it would undercut efforts to engage with Tehran." Were these verses in the Bible less important to Hagel then those banning homosexuality?

Perhaps most famously the Bible says, “I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3)  But that did not dissuade Hagel from his most unfortunate comment of being “not an Israeli senator. I’m a United States senator,” with its disgusting insinuation of the old anti-Semitic canard of Jews and dual loyalties.

Now, why would the Senator insist on the Biblical teachings regarding homosexuality but not those of protecting Israel?

While we should always try and judge people positively, it would seem that the only real explanation is that his opposition to gays is motivated not by religious convictions but just good old-fashioned homophobia. As to the State of Israel, we can only wonder what motivates his lack of sympathy.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi” whom The Washington Post calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” this week publishes his newest book, “The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering.” Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.”

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July 10, 2012 | 9:50 am

Why a Jewish Democratic leader attacked Sheldon Adelson

Posted by  Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Sheldon Adelson. Photo by Bectrigger/Wikipedia

The most unpleasant people I have encountered in politics are those who put party before principle, partisanship before politeness, tribal political doctrine before common human decency. Since beginning my run for Congress I have been approached by Republicans convinced that Barack Obama is the devilish anti-Christ promised in the Book of Revelation and Democrats who have told me that all Republicans are cold, heartless, bigots. Hatemongers like these who make every political attack personal are ruining our country.

I was saddened to discover that David Harris, President of the National Jewish Democratic Council, has decided to join these ranks. In a below-the-belt attack on mega-philanthropists Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Harris forbade any Republicans from accepting their money due to allegations made against them by a disgruntled former employee. Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard, a Democrat, has already expertly eviscerated Harris for hypocrisy and political prejudice. (http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=276709)

Ordinarily, an attack by the political hack of one party about a mega-contributor to another party would not merit attention or comment. But what made Harris’s vitriol most unfortunate was that it was one Jew deriding the two foremost private supporters of Jewish identity and the State of Israel in the entire world.

Most Jewish Democrats – and they are a sizable number – do not agree with Sheldon and Miriam Adelson on their politics. But they certainly revere them for their philanthropy. Here is a business magnate who has given over $100 million to Birthright Israel, the single most successful Jewish educational program in the history of the Jewish people, which has taken over 300,000 young Jews to the Holy Land at zero charge. Surely Harris has countless friends and acquaintances who have benefited from Birthright. Could he not show some basic appreciation to the couple who have made so many of those trips possible? Could he not have broken with the Adelsons over their opposition to President Obama but still praised them for vastly increasing global Jewish attachment to Israel?

I have twice led 50 young Jews on Birthright trips. On both occasions the majority never even had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah, which we gave them, amidst song and dance, at the Kotel. For most the trip was transformative, conveying a sense of identity and peoplehood in young Jews who otherwise had little attachment to the community. At the end of each trip my group asked me how it was possible that anyone would fork out so much money for them to experience ten free days across the length and breadth of Israel. I would tell them that basic decency dictated that they emails thanks to the people who made it possible, with Michael Steinhart and Charles Bronfman, Birthright’s co-founders, and Sheldon Adelson, its biggest contributor, foremost among them. I’m assuming David Harris shares my belief in the Jewish value of gratitude.

The Adelsons likewise support countless other vital Jewish institutions, most notably Yad Vashem which is charged with preserving the sacred memory of six million martyred Jews and to which the Adelsons contributed $25 million dollars. I have no doubt that David Harris is as committed to Holocaust education as any other Jewish leader and would therefore applaud the Adelsons generosity.

I originally met the Adelsons through Michael Steinhardt. What I have come to appreciate in Sheldon Adelson is a billionaire’s commitment to a cabdriver father’s memory. At a ZOA dinner a few years ago Adelson received an award for his lifelong commitment to defending Israel against attack. In his acceptance speech he spoke of his father’s perennial dream of visiting Israel which was outside his means. Later, after his father’s passing, when he achieved wealth and visited Israel for the first time, he wore his father’s shoes so they could create traces in the holy land.

This past March I asked Sheldon what motivated his philanthropy and support of Jewish and medical organizations worldwide. He told me that when he was a little boy his father used to come home from driving his cab. He would take the change out of his pocket and put into a charity box for the Jewish National Fund. He asked his father why he put money in the box and his father responded that he had an obligation to help the poor. “But we’re poor,” he said. His father responded, “There are always people poorer than you. And you have to always help them.”

It would be proper for Harris to apologize to the Adelsons, even as he disagrees with them utterly over their politics. Full disclosure: the Adelsons have given my campaign $10k. But with or without their support, I am running a campaign largely based on universal Jewish values, one of the greatest of which is gratitude, and we who claim to be Jewish leaders must live by our own teachings.

The same might be said of a moral man like Senator John McCain who has been criticizing the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, in general, and Sheldon Adelson for his Super PAC spending, in particular.

I respect Senator McCain as a genuine American hero and a devoted public servant. But his railing against Super Pac spending seems to ignore his own thirty years in the House and the Senate where he has enjoyed all the privileges of incumbency. Officeholders have a vested interest in condemning external political interference since their mandate is to preserve the status quo. Notice that while McCain wants to impose limits on outside political contributions, he does not want to subject politicians to term limits. Thirty years is, after all, quite a long time to be in office.

I’m a challenger in a Congressional race in New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District. It’s easy to see why incumbents in the Senate have had an eighty percent reelection rate with incumbents in the House being reelected at an even higher and truly staggering ninety percent rate. Indeed, no more than 5 to 10 incumbents lose their seats every two years. OpenSecrets.com, who have a disturbing chart about incumbency (http://www.opensecrets.org/bigpicture/reelect.php?cycle=2010, sum it up well): “Few things in life are more predictable than the chances of an incumbent member of the U.S. House of Representatives winning reelection. With wide name recognition, and usually an insurmountable advantage in campaign cash, House incumbents typically have little trouble holding onto their seats.”

Bill Pascrell, against whom I’m running, has been in the House for 16 years. While I run against him I have to find a way to support my family (you’re obviously not paid by your campaign), raise money from people who think that as a challenger I am a certain underdog, build name recognition, and try to reorient all those who are afraid that if they come out and support me openly Pascrell will retaliate against them (you can’t imagine how many people have told me this, and I assume the same is true in other Congressional districts).

But while Pascrell runs he is paid his full Congressional salary with all its perks, is allowed to do franked mail (thinly veiled campaign pieces aimed at raising positive name ID) at the taxpayer’s expense, and has a huge compliment of congressional staff to assist him. And though they are not involved in the campaign, they still make life a heck of a lot easier. Most importantly, there is the pork barrel spending that an incumbent can claim to have brought into his district and these huge investments have the practical effect of simply buying business and voters off with money their representative says he brought from Washington. Gerrymandering further leads to approximately eighty nine percent of all districts being dominated by a party and giving the challenger from the other party little hope of prevailing.

No wonder that of 435 Congressional districts, only 15 are considered toss up seats. Beyond that only 46 of those seats even have a chance to change hands.

All this should be kept in mind before one swallows Senator McCain’s arguments uncritically. Citizens United, flawed as it is, is still not as flawed as a ninety percent incumbency, which makes you question the very foundation of American democracy.

And if the McCains of this world want to stop people like Sheldon Adelson and countless other concerned citizens from shaking up our politics, perhaps they should at least be honest enough to either promote term limits, or live by self-imposed limits themselves by simply not running in the next election.

To this challenger it seems a little unfair, not to mention a touch hypocritical, for professional, life-time politicians to call for money-men to limit their contributions when those same politicians refuse to put any limits on their own Congressional or Senate terms. Some consistency is in order.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is the Republican Congressional Nominee in New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District. His most recent bestseller is “Kosher Jesus” and his website is www.shmuleyforcongress.com . Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

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June 21, 2012 | 12:01 pm

The speech President Obama must give on Syria

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

President Barack Obama speaks at the conclusion of the G20 Summit in Los Cabos on June 19. Photo by REUTERS/Jason Reed

I believe that the first African-American president has a special responsibility to promote human freedom and the infinite worth of the human person. I believe the same obligation will be incumbent upon the first Jewish president, whomever he or she will be. Two communities that have experienced the wholesale decimation of their people have a special responsibility to promote the infinite value of human life.

For me, the greatest mystery of Barack Obama is why our president has failed to speak out forcefully and continually on behalf of the earth’s most oppressed people.

Now I’m more puzzled than ever. Virtually every week, the president returns to the island of Manhattan to raise money for his re-election bid. Could he not take off a couple of hours from gathering cash, drive across Manhattan to the East Side, and address the United Nations about the innocent Arabs of Syria who are being slaughtered like flies by the arch-butcher Bashar al-Assad?

Such a speech should go something like this:

“Citizens of the world, I have traveled to the United Nations to make an important declaration. As you and I sit here in comfortable, air-conditioned surroundings, our brave Arab brothers and sisters of Syria are being mowed down by machine-gun fire, slaughtered from the air by planes and helicopters, and murdered in their homes with gunshots at point-blank range to the head. Their crime? To wish to live as free men and women, which is their God-given right.

“But standing in the way of that most basic of all human desires is a tyrant who will hold on to power at all costs. If it takes brutalizing small children and having them shot at the family dinner table, he will do that. If it means shooting pregnant women to enforce his brutal will, he will do that do. He will stop at nothing to hold on to the levers of power.

“As the president of the United States, I am here today to tell Mr. Assad — I will not call him president because any man who slaughters his own people has lost all legitimacy to rule — that my nation regards him as a criminal responsible for crimes against humanity. I am urging the United Nations to immediately pass a resolution proclaiming the same.

“My country is right now engaged in a difficult war in Afghanistan. We are fighting terrorists with the help of Pakistan and other nations around the world, and we still have not extricated ourselves fully from our decade-long war in Iraq. In short, we are overextended. And while we may not be able to act against Mr. Assad in the short term, I want him to know that the long arm of American and international justice will find him, arrest him, and try him, providing that the vigilante justice of his own aggrieved people doesn’t catch up to him first, as it did Muammar Gadhafi in Libya. Mr. Assad will be held accountable for his crimes, either at the International Court of Justice in the Hague, or at a court in Syria.

“Mr. Assad, the eyes of the world are upon you and your dastardly deeds. You will not get away with them. I am personally telling you today that if it’s the last thing I do as president, I will ensure that you are arrested and tried for your brutal and unspeakable crimes. When we Americans say, “Never again,” we mean each word. We will never allow unpunished, wholesale slaughter to transpire in the world ever again.

“But as we all know, words are just that — words. So I am instructing American diplomats to begin the process today of indicting Mr. Assad for crimes against humanity and putting a price on his head of $25 million, which the United States will pay to whoever arrests Mr. Assad and delivers him for trial.”

What do we have instead of this forceful speech? We have the president making tepid remarks along the lines of, “What’s happening in Syria is unacceptable. Unacceptable, I tell you!” We have Hillary Clinton saying things like, “Oh my gosh, this is horrible. Just horrible. Will anyone do anything?”

And friends, we are all complicit. In the age of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, none of us can deny knowing what’s going on. We all know, but few of us care. And it’s got to change or people will just keep on dying.

Go tell an Arab whose child was killed by Assad that he should accept his rule because the person who replaces his president can still be worse.

Arabs are my brothers. Arabs are my sisters. I believe with all my heart that they will one day see the democracy of the State of Israel as the best friends they have in the Middle East, not the tyranny of Saudi Arabia or the murderous designs of Hamas and Hezbollah.

But regardless of my prediction for the future, I am today calling upon the president of the United States to employ his considerable mastery of words to take up the mantle of Martin Luther King Jr. and be a drum major for justice, a beacon for freedom. Sound the clarion call for liberty, Mr. President.

Get off the damn fence and stand up for Arab life and liberty. Stop the slaughter in Syria. You owe it to the brave African-Americans who died yearning and fighting for equality and liberty. You owe it to American patriots who founded the first modern republic by casting off British tyranny. And you owe it to the people of the world who look to America for leadership, hope and change.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who has just published the best-seller “Kosher Jesus,” is the Republican nominee for New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District. His website is www.shmuleyforcongress.com. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

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June 6, 2012 | 6:13 pm

Prime Minister Netanyahu tells me daughter, an Israeli soldier, protects America too

Posted by  Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Last night I was blessed to win the Republican primary in New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District and will face Congressman Bill Pascrell in the general election in the fall. As fortune would have it I was in Israel on the day of the primary for the wedding of my wife’s baby sister which fell on the same day and this morning I met privately with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his senior adviser Ron Dermer at the Prime Minister’s office. Ron was one of my closest students and friends when I was the Rabbi at Oxford University and is today regarded by many as the single sharpest mind on the Middle East. Prime Minister Netanyahu and I reminisced about his two visits to the University of Oxford where I hosted and he addressed thousands of students and where he mesmerized even his detractors in masterful defenses of Israel. We also spoke about his father, Benzion, who passed away last month at age 102 and whom I had befriended after a series of lectures we hosted where the great man discussed his opus on the Spanish Inquisition.

From there the conversation with the Prime Minister turned rapidly to a survey of some of the world’s most pressing issues, from the existential threat Israel faces from Iran, to developments of the Arab spring, to the humanitarian crisis in Syria created by Assad’s brutal slaughter of his own people. We discussed whether Israel could absorb some of the Arab refugees from Syria and the enormous challenges a small country like Israel already faces in its existing obligations in taking in refugees from dangerous spots all over the world. The key to the refugee issue was stopping Assad’s brutality so that innocent Syrians did not have to flee their own government.

I brought my daughter Chana, who is a soldier in the Israeli army, to the meeting and the Prime Minister welcomed her warmly. My wife and I are immensely proud of our daughter’s service in the Israel Defense Forces. There have been well-circulated press reports of how my upcoming opponent, Bill Pascrell, had refused to repudiate some Arab-American supporters who had accused Congressman Steve Rothman, the opponent whom Pascrell recently defeated, of dual loyalties over his support of Israel. In particular Aref Assaf, president of the American Arab Forum, had written an op-ed in the New Jersey Star-Ledger titled “Rothman is Israel’s man in District 9” where he asserted that “as total and blind support for Israel becomes the only reason for choosing Rothman, voters who do not view the elections in this prism will need to take notice. Loyalty to a foreign flag is not loyalty to America’s.”

With Rothman being accused of dual loyalties simply over a pro-Israel voting record in government, what could I, who has a daughter serving in Israel’s military, expect from these same opponents? What charges would they lodge against me? How ugly would the attacks be?

The Prime Minister looked at me solemnly and said, “Tell them your daughter is not only fighting to protect Israel. She’s fighting to protect America. Israel is the front line in the war for freedom.” Indeed. Israel, an America-style democracy in the world’s most dangerous region, seeks to live free amid being surrounded by an ocean of tyranny. And young Jewish men and women are prepared to fight so that a tiny country built around America’s ideas of freedom of religious practice, freedom of press, respect for women, and economic opportunity can succeed in the world’s most dangerous region.

I reminded the Prime Minister that about twenty years ago, as he was walking into the Oxford Union for his second address, a student officer said that in the introduction the Union would omit to the Prime Minister’s distinguished military service in the IDF so as not to offend students. Bibi responded that if his military service were deliberately omitted he would not speak. “I was involved in many anti-terrorists actions that preserved innocent life. I am proud of my military service however much my country is maligned.”

Ironically, Congressman Rothman was the man who nominated my 19-year-old son, Mendy to West Point, after he had triple qualified for the United States military academy. But Mendy has a beard and right now that’s not permitted in the military. We’ll see how his application proceeds in the future, as my son wishes to service his country. But how amazing it is to have nations like the United States and Israel where armies are employed to protect innocent life rather than suppress innocent citizens who simply yearn to be free.

Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi,” is the international bestselling author of 27 books including his acclaimed new bestseller “Kosher Jesus”. He is the Republican nominee for Congress in New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District. His website is www.shmuleyforcongress.com. Follow him Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

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May 1, 2012 | 10:38 am

A Warrior-Scholar Falls in Israel: The Death of Benzion Netanyahu

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara and their two sons Yair and Avner attend the funeral ceremony for Netanyahu's father Benzion Netanyahu in Jerusalem on April 30. Photo by REUTERS/Ammar Awad

I had already twice hosted Benjamin Netanyahu – at the time Israel’s deputy Foreign Minister – at the University of Oxford before I extended my first invitation to his scholarly father to lecture in turn. The elderly Netanyahu had recently published his internationally-celebrated opus Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain, and I was fascinated by his theory of anti-Semitism extending not to the beginnings of Christianity but five hundred years before the birth of Jesus. I was likewise taken by the monumental sweep of his Spanish Inquisition narrative, a subject that had long fascinated me, and wanted him to address the subject with our students. Finally, I wanted to meet the man whose fierce Jewish patriotism had raised two of Israel’s greatest sons, Yoni Netanyahu, the brave commando who fell leading Israel’s Entebbe rescue operation, and Benjamin, who, by the time we hosted his father was serving as Israel’s Prime Minister.

Professor Netanyahu, accompanied by his son Ido – whose caring for, and patience with, his father I shall never forget – would eventually lecture for all three of our L’Chaim Society branches, in Oxford, Cambridge, and London, with large student groups attending each. The lectures demonstrated the encyclopedic scope of his scholarship and, at about 90 minutes each, his ferocious mental stamina and laser-like focus, though he was greatly advanced in years.

What I enjoyed the most was the down time we spent together, with long drives between the cities he was to speak at and then sitting at his London hotel together. Here was a Jewish nationalist of phenomenal determination. Zionism was in his DNA and I have rarely met a more passionate Jewish patriot or a prouder Jew. He had a sweeping view of history and could clearly argue the precarious state of the Jewish people throughout time. He believed in the totality of the Land of Israel and that the Jewish State dare not make territorial concessions that would undermine its security and history.

As providence would have it, I was actually with him Friday afternoon, October 23, 1998, at his London hotel when his son, the Prime Minister of Israel, signed the Wye River Memorandum that committed Israel to withdraw from territory it was required to transfer to the Palestinian Authority. The agreement was all over the news and we watched part of it on TV. Professor Netanyahu seemed deeply agitated, severely criticizing the Herculean and unfair pressure being brought to bear by the international community on Israel, in general, and on his son in particular, to relinquish land. One could see a deep connection between father and son and he spoke lovingly of the unimaginable responsibilities his son faced.

After his visit to Oxford, I began visiting him at his modest home in Jerusalem on my trips to Israel a few times a year. He welcomed me warmly and humbly each and every time. Although greatly advanced in years, he would give me hours of his time. We spoke of history, Jewish identity, modern politics, and human relationships. He asked detailed questions about the welfare of our students back in the United Kingdom and the state of my activities.

I remember once summoning the courage to ask him about the loss of his son Yoni, arguably Israel’s greatest war hero. He responded quietly about the sacrifices all Israeli families had to make for the country to endure. He never boasted about his son’s military glory and spoke of him as he were a common soldier. It goes without saying that he rarely discussed his middle son’s achievement as Premiere of his country and on the occasions when the Prime Minister interrupted our conversations by calling his father, he never told me it was Bibi on the line. I only knew because he mentioned his son’s name while speaking to him. Indeed, at his UK lectures some in the audience praised him as the father of the Israel’s Prime Minister. He quietly thanked them and changed the subject. He was there to discuss the Spanish Inquisition and scholarship.

Professor Benzion Netanyahu was a man of rare humility, scholarship, patriotism, and sacrifice. His commitment to the State of Israel and the Jewish community will long serve as an inspiration and blessing to people everywhere. And there can be no question that the iron commitment toward the Jewish people’s security shown by Bibi, especially with regard to the current nuclear threat posed by Iran, was inculcated in a son who deeply loved, admired, and respected his learned father.

Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi”, is the international best-selling author of 27 books and has just published Kosher Jesus. He is currently running for Congress from New Jersey’s Ninth District. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. His website is www.shmuleyforcongress.com.

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April 19, 2012 | 2:56 pm

As millions starve in north korea, the west make jokes about their missiles

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Last week I held a press conference at The Korean-American Voter’s Council in New Jersey. I shared with them my strong feelings of affinity with the Korean community whose values and circumstances reflect those of the Jewish community in many ways.  South Korea lives under the threat of destruction from a nuclear-armed North Korea, just as the Jewish people have always historically lived under the threat of annihilation, even up to this day, with a nuclear-ambitious Iran and its proxies who threaten to destroy the State of Israel. Yet both our communities have shown resilience under the ominous shadow of thug regimes. Many other parallels can be drawn. The Korean-American community exhibits hard work, entrepreneurship, and industriousness, with a strong emphasis on the centrality of education. They are devoted to the Bible and build devoted religious communities. They have an innate sense of identity and maintain the uniqueness and beauty of their culture.  And recently, even ancient Jewish texts studied in Jewish religious institutions the world over, most notably the Talmud, have reached the attention of the South Koreans, who now study these works in an effort to learn from the timeless wisdom passed down from the Jewish Sages of old.

I have personally written numerous columns protesting the world’s relative inaction as Iran moves closer to attaining the bomb while continuously threatening to destroy a fellow UN member state and funding terrorists organizations who revel in murdering Jews.  And I must also ask, how is it that the world has allowed an evil and murderous regime like North Korea to continue its policies of aggression towards its neighbors and its own people without hardly any word of serious consequences.

In our news outlets, we look at this subject almost comically when we read about the recent failure of North Korea’s missile test, that after launch broke apart and fell into the Yellow sea. The lighthearted tone taken to the subject was added by the fact that the failure of the test was unknown to the North Korean minders assigned over the foreign press, who were forced to ask the foreign journalists normally kept under tight watch whether the rocket had launched or not. Yet we must all realize the true evil we face from this nuclear-armed regime.  Kim Jong-Un, the new Korean tyrant, seems intent as being as wicked as was his evil father.  An LA times report already spells out the executions and tyranny that he has unleashed on his country in an effort to assert his power. Here we have a man in his twenties intent on being another Joseph Stalin and Bashar Assad.

Yet, there is a difference. We took the threat of Saddam seriously. A man who gassed his own people was never a joking matter. Likewise, there has been no comedic perspective over the slaughter of the Syrian people happening at this very moment. Yet, for some reason North Korea doesn’t come across as such a pressing matter that must be dealt with forthwith.

When we look at the figures we may want to think again.  It has been estimated that between 2.5 to 3.5 million Koreans have died of starvation in the last twenty years alone. One can be forgiven if one sees these as genocidal numbers.

The WFP has estimated that 3.5 million North Koreans are today short of food.  Widespread ailments and disease caused from malnutrition have effected huge segments of the population. And yet, the estimated cost of the latest failed rocket launch was $800 million. That sum in itself would have been enough to eradicate starvation from North Korea for years to come.  And what we must come to realize is that what is occurring today in North Korean is caused directly by a brutal and murderous regime. The lack of food and starvation are easily preventable and only occur because they are organized and commissioned by the North Korean government itself.

This is reminiscent of the “holodomor” which translates literally as the “killing by hunger” that occurred under Stalin’s collective farming program that led to the deaths of an estimated 11 million people in the Soviet Union, most of whom were in the Ukraine. During these years the US along with the rest of the Western world sat by passively and allowed Stalin to commit this more passive form of mass murder.  The United States under President Roosevelt even chose to officially recognize Stalin’s communist government, and Russia was inducted into the League of Nations by the West the very next year in 1934.

Even today history has repeated itself in how we’ve dealt with North Korea. In 1994 then President Clinton sent Jimmy Carter – a man who rarely met a tyrant he did not seek to appease – to North Korea on a peace mission to try to come to some accommodation with the North and have them stop their uranium enrichment. The mission met with “success” as then President Kim Il Sung agreed to dismantle his nuclear program in exchange for aid and other concessions from the US government. Yet these agreements fell apart under the Bush administration, who labeled North Korea a part of the “axis of evil” after having strong suspicions that the North had been enriching uranium, which it then used to eventually build its own nuclear weapons.

So why haven’t we done more to help the innocent people of North Korea who must live under fear and tyranny, and who suffer the specter of state-organized famines? Many will say that our hands are tied due to the fact that the North has nuclear weapons, which just reinforces how important it is to stop Iran from acquiring nukes lest we be forced into the same inactive posture.  But there still must be more that we as a nation can do to stop millions of people from dying. As powerful as the United States is, we seem to sit back as the UN puts its flags at half staff when Kim Jong Il died, and it seems like diplomacy as usual when Jimmy Carter sent his condolences to North Korea’s newest dictator Kim Jong Un over the loss off his father. Carter, whose real condolences should have gone to the people of North Korea when yet another tyrant was placed over them to brutalize them, may be a national embarrassment. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to follow suit by remaining silent while a new and bloody bully slaughters his people.

Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi”, is the international best-selling author of 27 books and has just published Kosher Jesus. He is currently running for Congress from New Jersey’s Ninth District. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. His website is www.shmuleyforcongress.com.

Written in memory of Machla Dabakarov, the mother of a dear friend of Rabbi Shmuley, who passed away last year.

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