>Just stumbled on this verse from Ezekiel 23:20 on
>the Landover Baptist Site
><http://www.cafepress.com/landoverbaptist/75582>:
>"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were
>like those of donkeys and whose emission was like
>that of horses." As a reminder of just how psychotic
>scripture can be, here's the RSV text of chaps. 23
>& 24 <http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ezekiel%
>2023-24;&version=31;>:
>
>23
>Two Adulterous Sisters
>
>1 The word of the LORD came to me: 2 "Son of man,
>there were two women, daughters of the same mother.
>3 They became prostitutes in Egypt, engaging in prostitution
>from their youth. In that land their breasts were fondled
>and their virgin bosoms caressed. 4 The older was named
>Oholah, and her sister was Oholibah. They were mine and
>gave birth to sons and daughters. Oholah is Samaria, and
>Oholibah is Jerusalem.
Why are secular leftists as literal-minded as fundamentalists are said to be?
Ezekiel was talking about Samaria and Jerusalem (cast metaphorically as women), how they ought to conduct their foreign affairs. Unwise foreign relations will destroy the Jewish states, and cultural assimilation, being absorbed into the Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and other ways of life, will destroy the Jewish identity. He was instructing the Jews thus while he was living in exile in Babylon, living the consequence of the former and fearing the prospect of the latter.
Today, it is Iraqis, Saudis, Jordanians, and Egyptians who might most benefit from Ezekiel's teaching on foreign affairs, but Israelis, too, ought to remember it: what will be the consequence of prostituting Israel to Washington?
Eventually, however, the Babylonian exile came to an end. How? Cyrus the King of Persia conquered Babylon and liberated Jews from captivity:
The Proclamation of Cyrus 2 Chr. 36.22, 23 1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, Jer. 25.11 ; 29.10 the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, 2 ¶ Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, Is. 44.28 which is in Judah. 3 Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem. 4 And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, besides the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. <http://www.bartleby.com/108/15/1.html#S1>
Let my Persian Prince have Iraq, and Jerusalem, Judaism, and Jews will
be liberated from Zionism*, and Jerusalem will be again made the house
of God, worshipped by the faithful of three religions of the Book.
:->
My Persian Prince, in turn, ought to emulate the example set by Cyrus, apologize to the Jews for his crackpot remarks on the Holocaust, and thank the Jews of Iran** for their patriotism and Jews elsewhere for their humanism***.
* "The Orthodox Jewish Response to the Criticism of the Iranian President," 28 October 2005, <http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Statements/2005Oct28Iran.cfm>
** Ishak can't wait to get "home" to Teheran.
After he immigrated to Israel two years ago, said the short man with dark circles under his eyes, his life became increasingly miserable.
Standing and fretting inside his empty shop on Jerusalem's Rehov Ben-Yehuda, Ishak (not his real name), a 51-year-old Jewish-Iranian who is in Israel now only for a final visit, said the jewelry shop he opened here never sold anything, the renters to whom he leased a property did not pay and his heart began to fail him from the stress of monthly mortgage payments and no income.
So 10 months ago gray-haired Ishak gave up on the Zionist dream and began to move his family and belongings back to Iran. He filled some of his numerous suitcases and trunks with the Persian carpets, silverware, and home decorations he came here with, and flew to Turkey with his two sons. There they sent their new Israeli passports by express mail back to his daughter in Israel. Then they took out their Islamic Republic of Iran passports and boarded a flight to Teheran.
When he arrived, his Muslim friends were incredulous.
"I have a lot of Muslim friends and they all knew I'd moved to Israel," he said. "They asked me, 'Why did you come back?'" His Jewish friends in Iran already knew the answer.
Despite the declaration last week by Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Israel must be wiped off the map, the Shihab missiles displayed in Teheran with "Israel" painted on them, the broadcasting of anti-Semitic films on national television and the much-publicized trials of 13 Jewish Iranians on spy charges, Ishak insists that life in Iran is far better for Jews than life in Israel.
"If you have problems there, people help you - and they know you are Jewish," said Ishak, who has now briefly returned to Israel to sell his shop and leave for good. "But here, everyone is looking out for himself. You can't trust anybody."
Ishak is not the only recent immigrant who prefers his Islamic birthplace to his Jewish homeland. Jerusalem's Jaffa Road and Rehov Ben-Yehuda are lined with shopkeepers originally from Iran who say they are desperate to go back - some to visit, some to live.
And while most outsiders might believe that routine contact between the citizens of the two sworn enemies is impossible, in fact, not only are the phone lines between Teheran and Tel Aviv used actively, but so also are flight routes via Istanbul.
Jewish Iranians travel frequently to Israel. To avoid getting the Iranians in trouble back in their home country, Israeli border authorities do not stamp entry visas into their passports. As with journalists, the entry visa is stamped on a separate slip of paper, which is later thrown away upon exit from the Zionist state.
"My parents came for a visit and left two months ago," said Avi, who owns a shoe store on Jaffa Road. But the elderly couple has no intention of moving here.
"The Jews there live very well," he explained. "When [Ayatollah Ruhollah] Khomeini got in power he said there is a difference between Persian Jews who are from Moussa (Moses) and Zionist Jews."
Avi acknowledges that initially Jews were not allowed to travel. "No one was," he said. "But now it's no problem."
Summertime is the most popular season for travel but sometimes Iranians come for just a wedding.
At Avi's, all the shoe salesmen are Iranian Jews. One of them is expecting his mother-in-law back in Israel from a two-month visit to Teheran. Meanwhile, his wife speaks to her mother regularly. "My mother-in-law buys calling cards there for $10 and they speak one hour."
But even more curious is the cooperation of Iranian authorities in allowing Iranian-Israelis who don't have an Iranian passport to visit the country of their birth and roots.
"My uncle's cousin had not been in Iran for over 20 years," said David, who runs a gift shop on Rehov Ben-Yehuda with his brother and parents and asked that his last name not be printed because he does not want the Iranian government to know who he is. "He went to the Iranian embassy in Turkey and told them, 'I am Persian and I am now Israeli. I want to go back to Iran. If you give me a passport great, if not that's fine, too. And they gave him one,'" said David, who is considering trying the method. (Orly Halpern, "Exclusive: Immigrant Moves Back 'Home' to Teheran," Jerusalem Post, 3 November 2006, <http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1131043721479&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer>)
*** "When our president spoke about the Holocaust, I considered it my duty as a Jew to speak about this issue," Mr Motamed said in his office in central Tehran. "The biggest disaster in human history is based on tens of thousands of films and documents. I said these remarks are a big insult to the whole Jewish society in Iran and the whole world."
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Although he took on Mr Ahmadinejad over the Holocaust, Mr Motamed supports the president on other issues, including the stand-off with the US, Europe and Israel over the country's nuclear programme. "I am an Iranian first and a Jew second," he said.
He acknowledged there were problems with being a Jew in Iran, as there were for the country's other minorities. But he said that Iran was relatively tolerant. "There is no pressure on the synagogues, no problems of desecration. I think the problem in Europe is worse than here. There is a lot of anti-semitism in other countries." (Ewen MacAskill, Simon Tisdall, and Robert Tait, "Iran's Jews Learn to Live with Ahmadinejad," The Guardian, 27 June 2006, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1807160,00.html>)
See, also, Mehr News Agency, "Iranian Jews Condemn Qana Attack," 1 August 2006, <http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=361528>; and Associated Press, "Moroccan Jews Ask Court to Try Amir Peretz for War Crimes," 3 August 2006, <http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/746169.html>.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>