Hitler's Rabbis Return

As you may remember, last year I reported about the dangerous antics of Rabbis Yaron Reuven and Yosef Mizrachi. First, they created a video in which they declare that fourteen rabbis (including yours truly, but also such luminaries as Rabbi Sacks ztz"l) are evil heretics who are worthy of execution. Then Reuven declared regarding a student who had asked challenging questions in his lecture that "it's my job to destroy him - if it was legal, I would kill him." All this might be just silly and amusing, were it not the fact that Reuven and Mizrachi count violent criminals and unhinged people among their devoted followers, and suck in many others. 

Then, they did something even worse. Reuven published an appalling video in which he declared that it was understandable that Hitler wanted to exterminate the Jews, since they morally corrupted German society and destroyed the economy. This false and horrific claim was gleefully picked up by antisemites of various kinds as proof that even Orthodox rabbis acknowledge that Hitler was justified in hating Jews. Yosef Mizrachi also published a video in which he refers to Mein Kampf in order to claim that Hitler hated us "because we went away from Hashem" and thus "technically we brought it upon ourselves."

(Someone made a video with extracts from all these lectures, which Reuven managed to get deleted from YouTube - I can send it to you if you email me, and I would appreciate it if people can find ways to share it.)

And now, Reuven and Mizrachi returned with another way to harm the Jewish People. One prominent rabbi that these little jackals are particularly jealous of and despise is the very successful Rabbi Efrem Goldberg of Boca Raton Synagogue. Yesterday, Rabbi Goldberg hosted an important event about celebrating solidarity with Israel, which included Pastor Mario Bramnick. Reuven and Mizrachi saw an opportunity to attack Rabbi Goldberg, and started campaigning about how Rabbi Goldberg is inviting "proselytizing Christian missionaries" to his synagogue. One of Reuven's associates even faked a letter from Rav Hershel Schechter condemning the event. And other followers sent graphic death threats to Rabbi Goldberg.

Unfortunately, even some decent people have been misled into thinking that there was something improper about the people invited to the event. (Note that I am not getting into the political aspects of the event, which are an entirely separate matter.) The claim goes that since Mario Bramnick has issued statements about how he would like to see Jews convert to Christianity, surely he is clearly a missionary and must not be invited to synagogues.

On the face of it, this may seem like a reasonable claim. But if you understand more about Pastor Bramnick, and about religion, and about history, then you realize that this claim is not only baseless, but also dangerous. 

I discussed the matter with Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein, who has been working in matters relating to other religions on behalf of the Wiesenthal Center for many years, and he put it as follows: Mario Bramnick was vetted extensively, and shows no sign over many years of engaging in missionary activity directed at Jews. Like all good Christians, he would like to see everyone in the world accept Christianity. But what is important to us is not what he would like, but what he does. And what he does is run a very large network of Hispanic churches that teach people to be good and to be warm and supportive towards Jews and the State of Israel. In this day and age, that is of crucial importance.

Rabbi Sacks, ztz"l, was an extraordinary teacher and ambassador of the Jewish People. Rabbi Efrem Goldberg, shlita, is a tremendous asset to the Jewish People. Pastor Mario Bromnick is a crucial friend to the Jewish People.

Yaron Reuven and Yosef Mizrachi, on the other hand, are a menace and danger to the Jewish People.

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