from the heart of jerusalem: rabbi binny freedman

Hatred. Pure and simple, old fashioned hatred.

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A Jew defining (and dressing) himself as Ultra-orthodox goes on a stabbing rampage at the LGBT pride parade in Jerusalem, murdering a 16 year old girl and seriously wounding five others.

Iranian leaders, while smiling for the cameras, lead marches declaring death to America and promising to destroy the State of Israel and every last Jew on Earth, reminiscent of another Persian’s attempt to do just that some 2,500 years ago in the story of Purim. 

A suicide bomber walks into a crowded pizzeria in Jerusalem on a beautiful August afternoon in 2001 and detonates his bomb, murdering 15 people and injuring scores more.

What do these events share in common? 

This week, while standing on our yeshiva’s rooftop in the Old City overlooking the Temple Mount above the Kotel, a few of us had the chance to watch and listen to a group of dozens of Muslim women, covered from head to toe in their religious garb, screaming and hurling epithets at a group of what appeared to be Western and Jewish tourists who were visiting the Temple Mount.

And what do all of these people seem to share in common? Hate. Pure, unabashed, unbridled and unmitigated hatred for others who are different, simply because they are different.

Why do they hate us so much? Why is a country like Iran, with 10,000 people for every Jew, so dedicated to our annihilation? Why is Hamas’ charter dedicated to the eradication of Jews everywhere? 

As a young soldier, I spent time in Lebanon. Such a beautiful country, it remains devastated and constantly on the verge of conflict, largely because Hezbollah cannot make peace with the fact that there is now a State with a Jewish majority on its borders. Hatred has blinded them to what life could be.

Historians and philosophers have debated what caused Germany and other countries to so dedicate themselves to the destruction of the Jews that they murdered close to seven million people including one-and-one-half million children.

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