Boston Jewish community split on how to deal with anti-Muslim bigot

I am still waiting to read a statement from the ADL and the Museum of "Selective" Tolerance (MOT) denouncing the Nazi-style hate speech of Geert Wilders which was sponsored by Daniel Pipes' MEF and the Republican Jewish Coalition. Of course, I will not be holding my breath.

It is just very puzzling for me to witness how, of all people, a Jewish person can support or even accept this new form of Nazism, but this time against a new group: the Muslims. Aren't the horrific memories of the Holocaust and Auschwitz on their mind? May be the ADL and the MOT should sponsor free visits to the MOT for such people. You know what, I would love to contribute to such a project, especially if Pipes would go. May be he can learn something.

Fortunately, I hear from enough Jewish friends and activists denouncing such bigotry that I would never judge the whole Jewish community by the actions of the few hatemongers such as Pipes, Emerson, and others.

Such expressions of support for hate and racism makes me even more committed to continue challenging anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and all forms of racism.

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Synagogue Hails Dutch Lawmaker as a Hero
Stoughton, Mass.
Penny Schwartz
JTA Wire Service
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

In his home continent, Dutch politician Geert Wilders is something of a pariah, banned from the United Kingdom and facing prosecution in the Netherlands for his harsh views of Islam.

His calls to end immigration from Muslim countries and ban the Koran—he compared it to Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and said it incites to violence—have earned him broad condemnation in Europe and forced him under the protection of a security detail, a rarity for Dutch leaders.

But in some quarters of the American Jewish community, Wilders is more akin to a hero. At the very least, he was greeted as such by about 250 people last week at a Conservative synagogue in this Boston-area town.

The boisterous crowd at the Ahavath Torah Congregation gave Wilders, who heads the Dutch Party for Freedom and serves in the parliament, a standing ovation and shouted “Bravo” at the conclusion of his speech.

In an event co-sponsored by the Middle East Forum’s Legal Project and the Republican Jewish Coalition, Wilders made his only synagogue appearance on his recent tour of the United States, where he appeared on cable news networks and radio talk shows, spoke at the National Press Club and held a private showing of his anti-radical Islam film “Fitna” for senators and their staff on Capitol Hill...

“If our collective voice is impeded from speaking” or “shut down,” said [Daniel] Pipes, then “the way is paved for radical Islam to move ahead.”...

Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matt Brooks takes a similar position, saying that while he also opposes banning the Koran, he believes Wilders’ views should still be given a hearing...

Bjorn Larsen, whose International Free Press Society arranged Wilders’ U.S. tour, said the Dutch politician was invited personally by the rabbi at Ahavath Torah, Jonathan Hausman...

There were no protests at Wilders’ speech—there was little advance publicity—and many in the crowd were sympathetic to his arguments. Andrew Warren of Sharon said he wanted to judge for himself whether Wilders is xenophobic, and said afterwards that Wilders had not crossed the line.

“The unfortunate reality is that a lot of troubling passages in the Koran are being embraced by militant ideology,” Warren said.

Louise Cohen of Brookline described Wilders as a hero and a man of courage...

While unaware of Wilders’ call to ban the Koran, Cohen said his film makes a case that the Koran is a hate document.

That view troubles Ron Newman, who said Wilders took certain verses from the Koran that appeared to promote violence and used them to generalize about all of Islam.

Saying that a similar approach could be used with portions of the Torah, Newman cautioned that the line of reasoning could be used to produce an anti-Semitic film.

“I don’t like that being done to us,” he said. “I don’t support people who do that to others.”