By Tim Rohr
I'm laughing, not because this is anything to laugh about. Well, not laughing really, just shaking my head with a crooked smile because there is nothing to be shocked at here. I "felt" this coming when I was ten years old. I'll explain another time. So for now, there's this:
By Tim Rohr
For decades, the timing of this march has approximated the date of Roe v Wade (Jan. 22, 1973) and our local march is usually in concert with the national march in Washington D.C. as well as many similar marches across the states.
Thanks in part to this annual outpouring of public support for life in the womb, Roe was finally overturned by Dobbs (June 24, 2022).
So it's time to move on.
By continuing to march on the anniversary of Roe, pro-lifers are diminishing and even sidelining Dobbs - which was exactly what pro-lifers, for decades, had marched for.
It's time to move all marches for life to celebrate the anniversary of Dobbs so that the decision in Dobbs becomes the overwhelming drumbeat behind every abortion battle that - thanks to Dobbs - is now in the hands of every state and territory including Guam.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the 2022 Supreme Court case that reversed Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the decisions that originally asserted the fundamental right to an abortion prior to the viability of the fetus. Dobbs v. Jackson states that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; and, the authority to regulate abortion is “returned to the people and their elected representatives.” - SOURCE
(Also accessible online at the Guam Daily Post website)
TEXT:
When I was first approached by this publication to be a columnist, it was clear to me that the editor was looking for some “Catholic controversy” on the opinion page.
For my first few columns, I chose to address otherwise mild subjects. However, perhaps now is the time to do what I was “retained” to do.
Currently, if one wants controversy in the Catholic Church one need look no further than the pope, who, at World Youth Day in 2013, shortly after his elevation to Supreme Pontiff, ordered tens of thousands of kids to “make a mess,” and has henceforth led by example.
“Is the pope Catholic?” used to be a rhetorical question - a joke. Not so anymore. But to the point.
This past December 18, as an early Christmas present to the Catholic world, a Vatican dicastery, with the approval of Pope Francis, promulgated Fiducia supplicans (FS), a declaration sanctioning “Blessings of Couples in Irregular Situations and of Couples of the Same Sex.” (FS, III.)
Because “Couples of the Same Sex” is such a firebrand for both haters and lovers, let’s not address that particular “irregular situation” and move our discussion to “irregular situations” of couples of the male-female kind.
Pursuant to FS, a sacramentally married forty-something man may now show up at his pastor’s door with his curvy twenty-something mistress and request (if not demand) a “blessing” of his “irregular situation.”
Since, by now, no one should be surprised at anything Pope (Make-a-Mess) Francis says or does, the real issue is not so much Francis or FS, but the apologists (aka “popesplainers”) who rush to silence dissent with the usual narrative: “the pope didn’t really mean that” - something they’ve been rushing to say ever since Francis became Francis and discovered microphones.
The popesplainers argument is that that FS does not condone the clerical blessing of unions, same-sex or otherwise, but only persons in those unions, or “situations” as Francis labels them.
However, as one African bishop recently said: “We already can bless anyone who asks for a blessing. We don’t ask who he slept with last night.”
And this is true. The priestly blessing of individuals, Catholic or otherwise, is already non-liturgical, spontaneous, unlimited, and flows directly from the priestly charism conferred by the sacrament of ordination.
There is no need for a document clarifying the blessing of individuals, unless…unless of course this is not about the blessing of individuals and about the blessing of couples in “irregular situations,” which of course it is.
Moreover, if Francis wanted to distinguish the blessing of “persons” instead of a couple/union/situation, then Francis could have titled Section III of FS: “Blessings of Persons in Irregular Situations and of Persons in Same-Sex Unions.” But he didn’t. Francis titled Section III: “Blessings of Couples in Irregular Situations and of Couples of the Same Sex.”
And for rationale, Francis said this:
“To make those people feel that they are still blessed, notwithstanding their serious mistakes, that…even if their closest relatives have abandoned them, because they now judge them to be irredeemable, God always sees them as his children.”
At the risk of a mere layman sounding off against a pope, this layman - a father of eleven children, and no matter my children’s moral choices - will never “abandon them” or judge them “irredeemable,” even if it means I must suffer and pray for them till my end.
And my guess is that most parents will do the same.
Someone tell the pope.
By Tim Rohr
(Sorry for being so cryptic, but longtime readers will understand. For newer readers - catch up at ORCHESTRATED.)
My recent little post, "So there are two chosen peoples?" which I wrote in response to The Diana's "I stand with Israel" has already had triple the traffic in half the time as any other recent post, and the traffic isn't a result of my brilliant writing but because of the attention The Diana brought to it when "she" (we don't know who or what "The Diana is) chose to "Correct the Jungle."
So that's nice.
But to the matter at hand.
In The Diana's "Correction,", The Diana, apparently unable to dismantle my position, opts for creating a new target in order to have something other than her foot to shoot at.
Quoting Catholic apologist, Jimmy Akin, The Diana maintains: "The Church rejects the idea that the covenant with Israel has been nullified or revoked."
The Diana goes on to quote then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI): "God has not, then, retracted his word that Israel is the chosen people? No, because he is faithful."
In my post, I did not claim that God's covenant with Israel had been nullified or revoked, as The Diana tries to imply. What I wrote was:
"...the TRUE TEACHING OF CATHOLICISM (is) that Jesus Christ is the MESSIAH prophesied throughout the Old Testament and that THE CHURCH is the 'New Israel'."
In other words, Catholicism holds that the Church Christ left us in the the persons of the Apostles with Peter as the head, is not the nullification, revocation, or replacement of God's Covenant with Israel (there is no need to label it "Old"), but the FULFILLMENT of said Covenant.
In fact, The Diana, in continuing the quote from Cardinal Ratzinger, supports the point:
Of course, we can see that Israel still has some way to go. As Christians, we believe that they will in the end be together with us in Christ. But they are not simply done with and left out of God's plans; rather they still stand within the faithful covenant of God. (Emphases added)
Yes, "we believe that they will in the end be together with us in Christ."
Zionists (including, apparently, The Diana) believe that the Jews must return to the physical/geographical/biblically historical Israel and rebuild the Temple before the Messiah (for the Jewish Zionists) will come at last, and (for the Christian Zionists) will come again.
However, the Temple has already been rebuilt:
“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn. 2:19).
And now it is the task of all Christians to bring the whole world into it.
As a P.S., and as long as The Diana is quoting popes (or at least a future pope), there is this from Pius X who spoke directly with the founder of Jewish Zionism, Theodore Herzl, upon Herzl's seeking the pope's approval for the return of the Jews to the biblical Holy Land:
‘We are unable to favor this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem — but we could never sanction it. The ground of Jerusalem, if it were not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church, I cannot answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized Our Lord; therefore, we cannot recognize the Jewish people.’" - SOURCE
Also, you may want to read Theodore Herzl's own account of his meeting with Pius X (here).
By Tim Rohr
And perhaps, here's one.
The DIANA, who claims to only speak for herself and not The Neocatechumenal Way (NCW) - which she constantly speaks for - says - within the current context of the Israel v Hamas conflict - that she "stands with Israel."
As an aside, I stand with the innocent on both sides - seeing that the innocent on both sides are victims of what Bob Dylan once labeled "Masters of War" half a century ago.
But beyond the current and terrible atrocities committed by both sides, there remains the issue that is at the root of this ongoing agony.
Contrary to much modern thinking that the current atrocities are simply the latest manifestations of an ancient, ongoing war that we can do nothing about...well, this is not true.
If the reader will permit me to reference the recent scholarly post by Frenchie, the current atrocities are a direct result of the Heresy of Christian Zionism, which not only dates back to the 1800's as some hold, but back to the 1500's and the Protestant Reformation.
In his post, Frenchie lays out the whole Zionist HERESY. However, for a short course, and if you prefer to just chill and listen, there are these two scholarly podcasts during which you'll get the gist of all this.
"Both the Jews and the Christians are His chosen people. The Jews are known as Old Israel, and Christians are the New Israel."
Diana, at the outset of her post, claims to be speaking only for herself and not "the brothers" (aka the rest of the NCW).
However, Diana's declaration comports exactly with the views of NCW founders (Kiko Argüello and Carmen Hernández) who clearly championed the rights of the "Old Israel" which include the "Old Israel's" right to the land from which they were cast out 2000 years ago; and which, per European Powers who wanted to be rid of them (the Jews) anyway - created an artificial state (1948) in which to dump them. And Hell has reigned ever since.
By Tim Rohr
----
In the case of Michael Ehlert, the disgraced psychology teacher at the University of Guam, it was reported that over 100 letters were used in the sentencing process. I would like to know who wrote letters for this guy who was sexually abusing his students.
If these people work at UOG, I want to make sure they know about the students who testified on the witness stand that they had been forcibly raped or sexually abused by Michael Ehlert. The PDN had news stories on this point, yet no member of the public can know who at UOG continued to support Michael Ehlert after his conviction.
Along similar lines, where were the follow-up legislative hearings about the Ehlert case? Where was the effort to reach out to these victims and help them?
Many years ago, I was asked to do a victimology estimate on child sex abuse cases in churches. My estimate was over 200 victims and no one believed me. How many victims were at UOG between 1999 and 2018? Hold a hearing and I will provide the estimate.
---
McNinch's comments lead me on two tracks. So let us take one at a time. I'll do the first one first, which is the Elhert episode.
I knew Mike Elhert, briefly.
In or around 2001-2002, I was the interim conductor for Cantate Guam, a magnificent choral group whose performances surpassed anything that could have logically emanated from somewhere so remote as Guam - but they did.
If I remember right, Mike was in the baritone section - along with my then 17 year-old son (Timmy) when we rehearsed and performed Handel's Messiah for Christmas 2002 - performances which were cut short by Typhoon Pongsana on December 8 of that year.
I liked Mike, as I pretty much did everybody in Cantate, and I would meet Mike - from time to time - away from Cantate. I believe he was a "paddler" - as was I during those years.
Of course I was sad to hear of what Mike was accused of sometime later.
I have no reason to doubt the accusations against Mike except for the fact that I was accused of nearly the same not long after, and not by just some students at some wild late night college party, but some of my own adult children.
While I do know that the accusations against me by own children were false - and I was able to somewhat prove that - I don't know if the accusations against Mike were false.
What I do know is that whatever the accusations were, Mike imperiled himself by allowing what we used to call "a good time," to become what can now be labeled "a compromising situation" and/or "sexual harassment, or even "rape," if there's no one to testify against it...or even if there is.
Not so long ago, such "situations" would have been just "good times." But not now. And the misjudgment of "the times" appears to have been Mike's real error.
In my own case, there was no "misjudgment" of anything. There were simply absolute lies in the context of an ugly divorce.
Ultimately I "prevailed" - though "prevailed" is still a very sad word - something I may elaborate on in a future post.
"Many years ago, I was asked to do a victimology estimate on child sex abuse cases in churches. My estimate was over 200 victims and no one believed me. How many victims were at UOG between 1999 and 2018? Hold a hearing and I will provide the estimate."
Given that Professor McNinch has not (from what I can tell) had to pay much of a public price for coming forward with actual names, accusations, and numbers, my questions are:
(1) just how many "years ago" was Prof. McNinch "asked to do a victimology estimate on child sex abuse cases in the churches;"
(2) which "churches" were those?;
(3) exactly what does Prof. McNinch mean by "child?" - are we talking real children (clinically pre-pubescent) or simply biological adults who are days shy of year 18?; and
(4) just WHO didn't "believe" him?
As this blog will demonstrate, at least by 2014, all Hell broke loose about the decades of sexual abuse of minors by Guam's clergy.
People, many people, including myself, but especially the now deceased John Toves, were publicly trampled on, threatened, and demeaned into archdiocesan gutters for "coming forward," against the august and then-all powerful Anthony S. Apuron.
And we might all have rotted in those gutters but for the 54 weeks of unprecedented pickets in front of the Agana Cathedral organized by Lou K. and her "Laity Forward Movement," functionally a small cadre of "old CHamoru ladies" who were "mad as hell" and weren't "going to take it anymore!"
I'll stop here. For now.
By Tim Rohr
I have no idea of how many columns I wrote, nor a record of those columns, since those were the "days before the internet" or at least before I started using it.
In addition to having a weekly column in the Umatuna, said weekly column was also a featured spot on KOLG, the archdiocesan radio station, and to which I was oft-invited by the station's manager to comment on my column.
It was all good. I thought.
But apparently I stepped on too many toes and got CANCELLED. Sometime in 2001 or so.
About ten years later, the Umatuna came under new management and I was once again invited to be a weekly columnist, a task I joyfully undertook for the next two years.
I loved thinking and writing about our Catholic Faith. However, the "powers that be" - the same powers who had cancelled me a decade earlier, were still "prowling about the world seeking for souls to devour" (1 Peter 5:8)
So after about a two year run with the new weekly columns - taking on just about everything no one else wanted to take on - I was again CANCELLED.
It's okay.
Getting CANCELLED by the then-unassailable archdiocesan powers opened the doors for me to seek other venues to seek truth and justice.
And that became JUNGLEWATCH.INFO which, as of this post, borders on 10.7 MILLION views in ten years.
Because I don't have a digital record of my early years in the Umatuna (1999-2001) I can't share much with you. However, I do have a digital record of my short re-emergence from 2011 to 2013, before I was once again CANCELLED.
So here is the LINK to those posts - though I include a few links to the stuff I wrote prior to 2011.
Thank you for reading. Many have encouraged me to "write a book." But there is no need. At least not yet.
All the best to you and your families. Stay faithful to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and Him in the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
By Tim Rohr
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Some want to rise up. Some want to resist. Others just fall away. However, the true faithful should be surprised at nothing. All happens in God's time and by His mysterious design.
In short, St. Pope Gregory the Great predicts the Church will be severely weakened prior to the unveiling of Antichrist. There will be fewer miracles, fewer prophetic voices, its penance will be less fruitful, and “the words of doctrine” will fall silent.
But, as he explains, this is all under the providence of God, who, as St. Paul makes clear in 2 Thessalonians 2 (see Katechōn #3) sends Antichrist as a punishment against “those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.” (2 Thess. 2:10)
For those who persevere in love of God, such punishment cannot but be for their good, as indeed their perseverance will be rewarded by the return of Our Lord in glory, who will bestow on them even greater rewards for their having believed without seeing.
By Tim Rohr
Today, in the Catholic Church, it is the Solemnity of the Epiphany, aka "Three Kings Day. From 2011 to 2013 or so, I was a weekly columnist for the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Agana, Guam.
Here are two columns that I wrote for this day. Thank you for reading.
In 2013
LET US NOT GO BACK THE WAY WE CAME: CLASS WAR AND THE MAGI
In 2012
By Tim Rohr
This is a good testimony (which was given via telecommunication on Bill 175-37) re THE REAL ENEMY of the people of Guam.
It is not the Military. It is not the Developer. It is not the Investor.
The REAL OPPRESSOR of "the little people" IS the Government of Guam, specifically the Legislature and the Governor of Guam, who collectively have failed to act while embracing the stupidest "other things" - such as mega-money spent on keeping legal the killing of CHamoru babies.
By Tim Rohr
Note: Guam stuff
I've been a fan of Senator Telo when she's on the right side of things. So no offense to her. But she was clearly out of her league when she tried to take on John Duenas on this issue - a real example of how we "regular folks" can rein in the people we elect.
(Posted by Frenchie)
Prior to Christmas, both Tim Rohr and myself wrote several articles regarding a Catholic approach to the conflict in Palestine, explaining the origins of Zionism, and the strange phenomenon of Christian Zionism, both of which are widely viewed as the origin, or at least as the major contributing factor to the quasi eradication of Christians in the land of our Lord Jesus Christ. A situation unseen prior to 2023, even during the darkest times of the Muslim expansion, the Crusades and/or the so called Western colonization of the Levant.
One issue that is largely occulted by the majority of the western media is the fact that the most anti Zionist movements have historically been found within the ranks of the Jewish faith practitioners who view Zionism as a dangerous heresy, which threatens Jews around the world. Hence, I felt it was necessary to equip the lectors and supporters of this blog with a concise analysis of that religious opposition to Zionism, in order for well meaning Catholics to approach this extremely divisive issue, with a good understanding of its background and a new wealth of knowledge, in order not to be manipulated by ill will groups, using this problem as an opportunity to weaken our faith, our beliefs and simply the truth.
One of the important thing I noticed since the rekindling of the Conflict in Palestine, is that most of the original demonstrators in western countries were actually different Jewish groups, both religious and atheist who supported Palestine or were against Israel. These groups were often labeled in our medias as pro Hamas, or pro Terrorist, a mantra regurgitated ad nauseum by an Army of well meaning useful idiots who use the tired old "ad hitlerum" arguments we have been bombarded with for the last 75 years.
In his excellent book: "Messianic origins and genesis of Zionism" Historian Y. Hindi contradicts the accepted Historiography that wants us to believe that Zionism's origin goes back to the end of the 19th century, in its laic version. Most historians who attempted to research an earlier source of this movement have all stopped at the British Calvinists of the XVII century . According to them, these British millenium advocates would be at the source of the original project of return of the Jews to the Holy Land, in order to hasten the return of Christ. In his book published in 2015, Y. Hindi traces back the genealogy of Zionism all the way back to the Medieval Period, throughout the Rabbinistic, Messianic, and Kabbalistic movences, and underlines how this active messianism had profoundly influenced the new millenium Protestant subgroups. The major factor that has rendered most Historians blind to the Jewish origins of Zionism (specially Jewish and Israeli, like Yakov Rabkin and Shlomo Sand) is in fact quite simple to understand: The Talmud forbids Jews to return to the Holy Land in order to found a Nation.
Rabbi Elbo (3rd century) master of the Talmud commenting on the Cantic of Cantics: 2,7 " I implore you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles and the does in the field, do not provoke, do not awaken love before they wish it" Declares: "Four vows are mentioned here: The Israelites are adjured not to revolt against the kingdoms of this world (the secular powers) not to "hasten the end", not to reveal her mysteries to Nations, not to rise from exile like a wall (understand in great number) " Why then the Messiah-King should return? To assemble the exiles from Israel." (Babylonian Talmud, Shir-ha Shirim rabba II, Ketubot 111a)
To resume simply, Jews MUST wait for their Messiah who shall bring them back to the Holy Land. They must NOT in any way hurry his arrival, or the messianic times.
Zionism a laicized Messianism
I shall not come back on this long History, simply I shall remind the reader that Zionism is the unleashing (in the meaning of letting loose, or freeing) of the interdictions, and the victory against the forces inside judaism, who held back the apocalyptic messianic tendencies, which implied the use of the Hebraic Bible, with its supremacist and genocidal books and passages (book of Joshua, the end of Deuteronomy), as a political manual, even by atheist jews, like Vladimir Jabotinsky ( the founder of the revisionist zionists, the far right wing of the movement), or like David Ben Gurion (socialist), and their heirs.
Zionism like other modern ideologies, is a laicization of Judaism and its Messianism.
Despite his own Atheism, the first leader of the State of Israel, David Ben Gurion was organizing bible Studies at his own home in the 1950s.
As head of State, he understood clearly the power of using the Biblical texts as political and strategic tools, and he did so intelligently. He used them as a background for the collective past, and in shaping the narrative of homeland for hundred of thousands of different new immigrants to tie them to the land, and unify them, as one people. Biblical stories were used to structure his daily political rhetoric, and his personal identification to Moises or Joshua were heartfelt, and appear to have been honest. In a similar way to the original French Revolutionary leaders who were certain to incarnate the roles of Senators of the Antique Roman Republic, Ben Gurion and many of the other leaders of the Zionist Revolution, Military leaders and State thinkers also believed firmly that they were replaying the conquest of the Biblical State, and rebuilding the kingdom of David. The events of contemporary History could only explain their justification on a set paradigme scenery of the past.
At the occasion of the conquest of the Sinai desert during the war of 1956, and after Tsahal reached Sharm el Sheik, Ben Gurion made a speech for the victorious soldiers, by using Biblical references in a stunning Messianic declaration: "...and we shall once more sing the Chants of Moses and of the sons of Israel....in a shared commun elan with the ancient armies of Israel. You have rekindled our links with King Solomon who made Eilat the first port of Israel, 3000 years ago...with Yotvata (known as Tiran) which constituted 1400 years ago an independent Hebrew State, which allowed it to become a part of the third Kingdom of Israel."
All the complexity and ambiguity of zionism reside in this contradiction between Atheism and Religiosity, between materialism and messianism. It is an ideology which takes root in the Jewish tradition, while violating Jewish Law; it uses the Hebraic Bible as its model, while breaking its own tenets.
The political zionism of the end of the XIX century is a form of messianism, without a messiah and without a God. In this contradiction it is a laicized version of the Lurianic Kabbalah, (16th century) according to which the Jewish people is an actor of its own redemption and of the reparation of the world (tikkun olam), by excluding God and his Messiah from this Historical Religious process.
After this brief introduction to the laicized Messianic Zionism, lets delve into the core of the subject.
As we said earlier, both a religious and an atheist Zionism exist. Yet, facing these two heretical zionism, exist both a religious and a secular anti zionist movement. To clearly understand anything further, the arguments of the religious anti zionist movement must be known and understood by all; first of all because they are directly linked to the Jewish Orthodoxy, but also because they can be useful and utilized on the field of religious arguments which we have been brought to by the Israeli leaders. Here we are specifically facing Netanyahu who is publicly declaring that he is fulfilling the prophesies of Isaiah, that Israel is the people of the light, while the Palestinians, they are massacring by the bushels are the people of darkness, and human animals.
It is also an answer to the atheist jews who do not believe in God, but believe that this same God promised them the Holy Land, without conditions. To both the religious Jewish Zionists and the Atheists who use the Hebraic Bible as a road map, it is important to answer them precisely with the arguments of Orthodox Judaism.
Promised Land, with or without condition?
When the Hebrews were ready to enter the promised land, after their escape from Egypt, God put conditions on their stay in what is now Palestine; so Moses warned the Hebrews:
"When you have children, and children's children, and have grown old in the land ; should you then act corruptly by fashioning an idol in the form of anything, and by this evil done in his sight provoke the Lord, your God, I call heaven and earth this day to witness against you, that you shall all quickly perish from the land which you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You shall not live in it for any length of time but shall be utterly wiped out. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples and there shall remain but a handful of you among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. There you shall serve gods that are works of human hands, of wood or stones, gods that can never see or hear, neither eat nor smell." Deuteronomy 4, 25-28
In another book of the Torah, leviticus, you can read this ominous warning:
"Otherwise the land will vomit you out also for having defiled it, just as it vomited out the nations before you." Leveticus 18,28
The Grand Rabbi, and famous Exegete, Rachi (1040-1105) commented on this passage that way: " otherwise the land will vomit you. This resembles a Prince who was fed a disgusting dish: he cannot keep it in his system, and has to vomit it". It is the same with Erets Ysrael (the land of Israel) it cannot keep the sinners. The Targum Angelos use the word to empty. "The land is emptying itself of them".
Still further in Leveticus, we can read this other warning: " Be careful to observe all my statutes, and all my decrees; otherwise the Land where I am bringing you to dwell will vomit you out." Leviticus 20.22
According to Or ha-Haim, Classical commentary written by the Morrocan Great Rabbi Haim ben Atar (1696-1743) the first warning is addressed to the sinners that the Land will vomit, while the second warning is addressed to the practicing and pious Jews who will also be vomited, because they did not opposed the sinners.
Expulsion, destruction and Divine retribution.
If the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians (- 722), if the Kingdom of Judah and the first temple were destroyed by the Babylonians (-586) and the 2nd temple was destroyed by the Romans AD70, it was due to Divine Retribution.
The Talmud is non equivocal on the subject, the cause of the destruction of the temple by the Romans is the sins of the Jews, in particular the "unchecked hatred" among the jews (Babylonian Talmud, treatise "Yoma" p.9b) According to the jewish tradition, the sons of Israel have soiled the Holy Land, therefore they have been punished and expulsed from it.
Redemption cannot be obtained by the establishment through physical force of a Jewish State. On the contrary, it is a violation of the Law, that can only lead to another punishment, because it amounts to usurp the place of God himself, as Columbia University professor Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi reminds us.
Redemption and Zionism cannot be put together, they are like water and oil. Redemption happens suddenly, and ends the exile; the creation of the State of Israel is not an act of redemption, in fact it hinders Redemption.
From there on, one can understand the reason of the opposition of the majority of the World Rabbis to the creation of Israel until after the conclusion of the six days war (1967). Three years before the first Zionist congress of 1897 in Basel (Switzerland) Rabbi Alexander Moshe Lapidos (1819-1906) the pre-eminent Russian Rabbinic authority, had expressed his deep sorrow while faced by the first attempts of establishment of Jewish colonies in Palestine, by the Russian movement Ovevei Zion (also known as Hibbat Zion, loosely translated as the lovers of Zion) starting in 1881.
"We first believed that this sacred mace would stay true to the Lord and his people, that it would restore our souls....but since its inception it has propagated bad seeds and a putrid odor which reaches far. We are pulling back our support, we shall remain on the outside, and resist to the best of our abilities, we must assembled all our forces under the banner of God."
When Theodore Herzl attempted to organize the fist Zionist Congress in Munich, he was opposed by the General Assembly of German Rabbis. This was the main reason he finally had to settle in Basel, in order to do so.
This opposition to Zionism by the religious jewish world is not limited. The attacks by Rabbis against the project of installation of a Jewish State in the Holy land are too numerous to count.
Moritz Gudemman (1835-1918) an Historian and influent Rabbi from Vienna rejects as soon as the Zionist Congress of 1897, any attempt to separate the Jewish Nation from its Monotheist faith, as he justly perceive Zionism as a project that is essentially Atheist. He analyzed that many Zionist members were free masons, socialists or bolsheviks. Furthermore, he concluded that ever since the Babylonian exile, the Jewish Nation is a "community of believers" and that the Jewish nationalism is always a step behind, in view of the waiting for a Messianic event of a Sublime Kingdom, rather than a man made one. A few years later the Russian Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan (1838-1933) raise a similar contradiction. Rabbi Joseph Bloch (1850-1923) hailing from Galicia (formerly Austro-Hungaria, then attached to Poland) shows his opposition to Zionism, during lively debates in the Parliament of Vienna. He compares Zionism to the false Messiah and antinomist Sabbatai Tsevi (1626-1676) . Rabbi Bloch further explain to Herzl the Talmudic interdiction of the return en masse to the Holy Land, before the arrival of the Messiah.
For the anti Zionist Orthodox Jews, the creation of a secular State of Israel, is nothing but a Satanical Act; an event that can only lead to further Divine Retribution, a catastrophe for all Jews. Famous Historian Yakov Rabkin, himself a devout religious Jew, explains : " the jewish tradition tends to interpret any calamity, even minor accidents, as a consequence of the failing of the Jewish behavior." This explain the meaning of this verse from the book of the prophet Jeremiah.
" your crimes have prevented these things, your sins have turned these blessings away from you" Jeremiah 5,25
This verse according to Yakov Rabkin "is the key concept of the Jewish Tradition. The consequences become worse, when the transgressions occur on the Land of Israel. This normative, contracted relationship with the Land of Israel, would affect the behavior of almost all Jewish religious groups, may they be partisans or adversaries of Zionism."
What could be called catastrophology at the center of the Jewish tradition, leads us to the interpretation of the Shoah by religious jews. As we highlighted earlier that the destructions of the Kingdom of Israel, Judah, and the Temple of Jerusalem, are explained by Jewish tradition as a punishment, a retribution from God. In the same way, Orthodox Jews saw the Shoah in religious terms. Rabbi Wasserman, a contemporary of Adolf Hitler, who will be killed by the Nazis, explained the persecutions against Jews as a direct consequence of Zionism.
"Today the Jews have chosen two idols to offer sacrifices to: socialism and nationalism.... These two forms of idolatry have poisoned the souls and the hearts of Jewish Youth. Each one has his own tribe of false prophets, under the shape of writers and orators who accomplish their work with perfection. A miracle has happened in the heavens with the fusion of these two idolatries into a single one: the national socialism. This is how in all corners of the world this frightful mace is hitting every jew with a vengeance. The abominations in front of which we prosterned ourselves are also hitting us in turn.
The judaic literature which embraces this vision of the Shoah is numerous , "it takes its sources in Jewish classics, and starts well before Auschwitz". Tells us Yakov F Rabkin. " the betrayal of the exile by the Zionists has led to the catastrophe, as the Zionist transgression is collective, so will the retribution be."
On the road to Auschwitz a Jew asked Rabbi Shelomo Zalman Ehrenreich, aka the Shimlauer Rov (1864-1944) why the Blessed Saint had unleashed this catastrophe on the Jews of Europe? He answered him: "because we have not fought the Zionists hard enough". Because any sin, even individual ones against the Torah falls back on the whole community.
The religious tradition which orders Jews to display Modesty and submit to the Nations they live in, find its source in the memories and the fears of the punishments of God, who used powerful empires to punish the Jews. These retributions shall continue to be the Archetype of the Jewish Religious History, and shall continue to lead the Rabbis to further explain the pogroms and the expulsions as retributions from God.
There has always been rebel elements, proud, arrogant, full of hubris, among the Jewish people: from Kore (who revolted against Moses) to Netanyahu, and many in between, like Bar Kokhba, Solomon Molcho, Sabbatai Tsevi, the Rothchilds, or closer to us the conservative guru Ben Shapiro and countless others who have brought Catastrophe to the Jewish people.
Today, we observe than secular Jews like Rony Brauman arrive to the same conclusions than religious jews like Yakov Rabkin, and the anti zionist religious jews of Neturi Karta. Rony Brauman declares:" for me as a Jew, I consider that Israel is threatening Israel and puts it in danger, just as they put in danger the whole Jewish population around the world."
