From an Israeli Settlement, a Rabbi’s Unorthodox Plan for Peace
Rabbi Froman, 63, is a founding member of Gush Emunim, the ideological, messianic [really?] settlement movement that sprang up after Israel’s conquest of the West Bank, with its biblical landmarks, in the 1967 war...Among his close friends, the rabbi counts not only Mr. Arafat, who was reviled by most Israelis by the time of his death in 2004, but also a wide array of Muslim sheiks. He believes in making peace with his Palestinian neighbors and has engaged in “thousands of hours” of dialogue, he said, with Palestinian leaders, including Mr. Arafat’s rivals in the militant Islamist group Hamas.
Rabbi Froman used to travel to Gaza for talks with Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas who was killed in an Israeli missile strike in 2004 after his group spearheaded a years-long suicide bombing campaign that killed scores of Israelis.
The rabbi said he used to shout at the sheik and tell him, “you will go to hell because you are taking Islam, a religion whose name has connotations of peace, and turning it into a religion of terror.”
The sheik would reply that he was only defending himself, Rabbi Froman said.
This is BS.
See this picture here with him smiling and extending his hand, a hand the Sheikh refused to shake.
...he has an intriguing proposition for President-elect Barack Obama. The idea is to bring a delegation of two rabbis, two sheiks and two bishops from Jerusalem and the Holy Land to bless the new president on Inauguration Day, an effort to rekindle faith in the possibility of peace.
“I believe that he was elected by God,” Rabbi Froman said of Mr. Obama. “I want to create an opening for God to perform a miracle here.”
Rabbi Froman, who was born in the Galilee, was pulling hard for Mr. Obama, posting clips on YouTube and praying for his victory at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on the day of the American election. Now, Rabbi Froman said, he wants to put some practical content into Mr. Obama’s concept of change.
It would be easy to dismiss Rabbi Froman, who peppers his speech with talk of miracles and references to mystical texts, as a maverick, an eccentric and a kook.
You can say that again.
...“The Holy One tossed me into Tekoa,” he said, “because from the rooftops there is 2,500 years of Jewish history looking down on us.”
A settlement of about 250 families just south of Jerusalem, Tekoa has a reputation of being relaxed, with a mixed population of religious and non-religious Jews. It is in the shadow of the flat-topped hill of the Herodion, a fortress cum palace built by Herod the Great.
And when will they toss him out?
“From all my long talks with the Palestinians,” he said, “I came to the conclusion that while the problem is also political, about control over territory and so on, the core of the problem is religious.”
The quest for peace “won’t succeed without a religious, spiritual basis,” he said.
Is Hamas spiritual in its religion? That's the question.
Posts
1 comment:
years ago, tekoa was informed by the then Misrad HaDatot [ministry of religion] that even if 100% of Tekoans did not want froman as the yishuv rav, it would not matter. He is not accountable to anyone insofar as his paid position as rav of tekoa is concerned. Froman WAS voted out as rav of the central Tekoa shul. he likely spends more time romancing the Hamas than he does serving the religious needs of tekoa. he is a write-off.
A tekoa observer
Post a Comment