Category Archives: Islam

Martyrdom In Mumbai Un-Jewish

Iraq, Islam, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Judaism & Jews, Terrorism

Rabbi B. Isaacson, my father—also a scholar of Judaism—imparted a bit of Jewish Halacha (law) during the bi-weekly telephone conversation I put through to South Africa, where he (sadly) resides.

The topic: Chabad Jews and their outpost in India, which is a hotbed of Jihad, anti-Hindu and other.

But first, with society’s unfaithful watchdogs (media) pretending that the larger population is statistically as likely as are Jews to be the target of Islamic terrorists—Mark Steyn’s wry reminder of the reality of anti-Jewish Jihad is warranted (via Jihad Watch):

At the Chabad House, the murdered Jews were described in almost all the Western media as “ultra-Orthodox,” “ultra-” in this instance being less a term of theological precision than a generalized code for “strange, weird people, nothing against them personally, but they probably shouldn’t have been over there in the first place.”

Are they stranger or weirder than their killers? Two “inflamed moderates” entered the Chabad House, shouted “Allahu Akbar!,” tortured the Jews and murdered them, including the young rabbi’s pregnant wife. Their 2-year-old child escaped because of a quick-witted (non-Jewish) nanny who hid in a closet and then, risking being mowed down by machine-gun fire, ran with him to safety.
The Times was being silly in suggesting this was just an “accidental” hostage opportunity – and not just because, when Muslim terrorists capture Jews, it’s not a hostage situation, it’s a mass murder-in-waiting.

[Snip]

Dad, who considers Chabadniks a dubious sect, avers that they should not have set up a post in India.

For long—since the 8th century—Jihadis have waged pitched battles against the “infidels” of India. India is a dangerous place, especially for Jews.

Jews don’t missionize; Mormons do. The object of the outpost was to provide a kosher meal for Jewish travelers.

More significantly, Jews don’t martyr themselves. Jewish law forbids the wanton endangerment, or squandering, of life. Giving one’s life unnecessarily is a sin in Judaism. The Palestinian culture of death banks on the Jewish culture of life to sustain its murderous momentum.

According to the Talmud, “To save one life is like saving the world.”

SIDEBAR: As a matter interest, this verse was later on claimed by the Quran, which quickly qualified the otherwise-universal Jewish credo. The Qur’anic ayah states:

On that account: We ordained
For the Children of Israel
That if anyone slew
A person—unless it be
For murder or for spreading
Mischief in the land—
It would be as if
He slew the whole people… (Verse 5:32)

“Mischief in the land” gives the Muslim wide discretion in killing Jews.

Back to Mumbai’s Jewish martyrs: Had they followed Jewish law, demurs dad, they would not have endangered themselves and their child.

Jewish law calls for martyrdom under these three contingencies only:

MURDER: If a Jew is instructed to kill another human being on pain of death, he must refuse, and prepare to die.

The Talmud states (in Sanhedrin 74a): “It happened with Rava: A man came to Rava and told him that the governor of the city had ordered that he (the man) slay a certain man or himself suffer death, and Rava said to him: ‘Rather than slay another person, you must permit yourself to be slain, for how do you know that your blood is redder than his, perhaps his blood is redder than yours?'” [Beautiful metaphor]

IDOLATRY. If a Jew is threatened with conversion to an idolatrous deity or death, he must choose death.

There is a famous example that can be found in the Babylonian Talmud Gittin 57b, the apocryphal II Maccabees 7, and other sources about Hannah and her seven sons, a story associated with the holiday of Hanukkah. Rather than prostrate before an idol of Zeus placed in the Second Temple, Hannah defies the Greek-Assyrian King Antiochus IV and allows her sons to be killed one by one before she herself is killed.

[Wikipedia]

SEXUAL IMMORALITY. If a Jewish woman is threatened with rape on pain of death, she must prepare to die.

[Source: Monty Python, “The Life of Brian.” Brian the Hebrew is told by his mother that his father was a Roman. Brian cries, “Tell me you were raped, Mother.” She/he replies, “Well, at first.” Sorry dad, I couldn’t help that.]

These teachings are expounded on in Wikipedia (bar “The Life of Brian” citation.)

Unexplained is their proper application. No other rabbinical authority that I know of has applied the teachings to the strange specter—and subsequent martyrdom—of members of a Chabad mission in Mumbai.

In any event, according to Rabbi Isaacson, had the unfortunate Chabadniks adhered to the letter and spirit of the Jewish law, they would not have decamped to India and died there.

‘Hindus, Jews, And Jihad Terror in Mumbai’

Iraq, Islam, Judaism & Jews, Terrorism

“Hajj Amin el-Husseini, ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, and Muslim jihadist, who became, additionally, a full-fledged Nazi collaborator and ideologue in his endeavors to abort a Jewish homeland, and destroy world Jewry, was also a committed supporter of global jihad movements. Urging a ‘full struggle’ against the Hindus of India (as well as the Jews of Israel) before delegates at the February 1951 World Muslim Congress, he stated:

We shall meet next with sword in hand on the soil of either Kashmir or Palestine.”

SO WRITES ANDY BOSTOM AT THE AMERICAN THINKER. The article, “Hindus, Jews, and Jihad Terror in Mumbai,” fills in the lacunae left by the media, which “offered no speculation about Islamic Jew hatred as an obvious potential motivation for the transparently selective attack on Mumbai’s Chabad House — a focal point symbol of the miniscule [sic] Jewish community of 5000 (or 0.03%) in a city of some 15 million inhabitants. More egregiously, this neglect of any hateful Islamic motivations for the targeted murder of such innocent Jews — including a young Lubavitcher Rabbi and his wife — was accompanied by consistently dehumanizing and demeaning references to these victims as ‘Ultra-Orthodox,’ and their entirely false characterization as ‘missionaries.'”

MOST POIGNANT WERE THE ASPIRATIONS OF “Sir Jadunath Sarkar (d. 1958), the preeminent historian of Mughal India,” who “wrote admiringly of what the Jews of Palestine had accomplished once liberated from the yoke of jihad-imposed Islamic Law. The implication was clear that he harbored similar hopes for his own people, the Hindus of India, and those of their Muslim neighbors willing to abandon the supremacist, discriminatory, and backward mandates of Islam”:

Palestine, the holy land of the Jews, Christians and Islamites, had been turned into a desert haunted by ignorant poor diseased vermin rather than by human beings, as the result of six centuries of Muslim rule. (See Kinglake’s graphic description). Today Jewish rule has made this desert bloom into a garden, miles of sandy waste have been turned into smiling orchards of orange and citron, the chemical resources of the Dead Sea are being extracted and sold, and all the amenities of the modern civilised life have been made available in this little Oriental country. Wise Arabs are eager to go there from the countries ruled by the Shariat [Sharia; Islamic Law]. This is the lesson for the living history.

The complete article is “Hindus, Jews, and Jihad Terror in Mumbai.”

'Hindus, Jews, And Jihad Terror in Mumbai'

Iraq, Islam, Judaism & Jews, Terrorism

“Hajj Amin el-Husseini, ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, and Muslim jihadist, who became, additionally, a full-fledged Nazi collaborator and ideologue in his endeavors to abort a Jewish homeland, and destroy world Jewry, was also a committed supporter of global jihad movements. Urging a ‘full struggle’ against the Hindus of India (as well as the Jews of Israel) before delegates at the February 1951 World Muslim Congress, he stated:

We shall meet next with sword in hand on the soil of either Kashmir or Palestine.”

SO WRITES ANDY BOSTOM AT THE AMERICAN THINKER. The article, “Hindus, Jews, and Jihad Terror in Mumbai,” fills in the lacunae left by the media, which “offered no speculation about Islamic Jew hatred as an obvious potential motivation for the transparently selective attack on Mumbai’s Chabad House — a focal point symbol of the miniscule [sic] Jewish community of 5000 (or 0.03%) in a city of some 15 million inhabitants. More egregiously, this neglect of any hateful Islamic motivations for the targeted murder of such innocent Jews — including a young Lubavitcher Rabbi and his wife — was accompanied by consistently dehumanizing and demeaning references to these victims as ‘Ultra-Orthodox,’ and their entirely false characterization as ‘missionaries.'”

MOST POIGNANT WERE THE ASPIRATIONS OF “Sir Jadunath Sarkar (d. 1958), the preeminent historian of Mughal India,” who “wrote admiringly of what the Jews of Palestine had accomplished once liberated from the yoke of jihad-imposed Islamic Law. The implication was clear that he harbored similar hopes for his own people, the Hindus of India, and those of their Muslim neighbors willing to abandon the supremacist, discriminatory, and backward mandates of Islam”:

Palestine, the holy land of the Jews, Christians and Islamites, had been turned into a desert haunted by ignorant poor diseased vermin rather than by human beings, as the result of six centuries of Muslim rule. (See Kinglake’s graphic description). Today Jewish rule has made this desert bloom into a garden, miles of sandy waste have been turned into smiling orchards of orange and citron, the chemical resources of the Dead Sea are being extracted and sold, and all the amenities of the modern civilised life have been made available in this little Oriental country. Wise Arabs are eager to go there from the countries ruled by the Shariat [Sharia; Islamic Law]. This is the lesson for the living history.

The complete article is “Hindus, Jews, and Jihad Terror in Mumbai.”

Update II: Mumbai Mass Murder: The Aftermath

Islam, Terrorism

Did the Mumbai mass murderers hail from Britain?

Reports DEBKAfile: “The Foreign Office in London denies the ‘British connection’ highlighted by UK media, some of which say seven of the terrorists were Pakistan British citizens.”

Well of course they would. Let’s wait and see.

Times further reports that the “ten coordinated attacks which began on Wednesday night, when terrorists struck two luxury hotels, a backpacker bar, a Jewish community centre, and Bombay’s main train station, have left at least 195 people dead, including one Briton, and 295 injured.”

DEBKAfile, on the other hand, estimates that the “figure … is expected to rise to 350 as bodies are collected from hotel rooms.”

Important: “tensions swelled between India and Pakistan, where officials insisted that their government had nothing to do with assisting the attackers and promised that they would act swiftly if any connection was found within their country.”

As I’ve pointed out: “American media sentimentalize the reality on the Pakistani ground. The truth is that Musharraf is caught between Scylla and Charybdis. There is indeed a faction of liberals that wants democratic reforms in Pakistan. But among the demonstrators forever punching the air over there are also ‘Islamists, who resent the military crackdown on extremists.’ There are also ample al Qaida and Taliban sympathizers in the tribal regions and among the Pakistani military and Inter-Services Intelligence.”

And: “Evidence unfolded that the gunmen had killed their victims early on in the siege and left the bodies, apparently fooling Indian security forces into thinking that they were still holding hostages.”

What the New York Times finds most troubling “was how, if official estimates are accurate, just 10 gunmen could have caused so much carnage and repelled Indian security forces for more than three days in three different buildings.”

Troubling, maybe, but not surprising. Even more troubling is American parents taking their precious progeny to India to enjoy a spiritual experience. Irresponsible, naïve, and worse.

The Shin Bet isn’t planning to outsource special ops to India, not just yet: “In hostage situations, the first thing the forces are supposed to do is assemble at the scene and begin collecting intelligence,” said a former official in Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency. In this case, it appears that the forces showed up at the scene and immediately began exchanging fire with the terrorists instead of first taking control of the area. … Mr Barak had offered Mayankote Kelath Narayanan, India’s National Security adviser, any assistance possible, either humanitarian or professional.”

DEBKA: “The number of murdered hostages in one of worst, most deliberate terrorist attacks ever on an Israeli-Jewish community outside Israel rose to nine Saturday, Nov. 29, after the Indian government wrested control of its financial center from Islamist terrorists. The name of Ms Yocheved Harpaz, 59, mother of four from Givitayim joined the four victims from Chabad Center so far identified: Rabbi Gavriel, 29, and Rivka, 28, Holzman, taken hostage in the Chabad Center during their assault on Mumbai Wednesday, Nov. 26. Their 2-year old son, Moshe, was brought to safety by his Indian nanny.

Two more victims identified were Betzion Chroman, 28, father of three, who held dual US-Israeli citizenship, and Leibisch Teitelbaum, an American from Brooklyn. Pathologists from Israel will help identify the others. Chabad Center was seized together with two big hotels and attacks on other high-profile targets across the city.”

Update I: DEBKAfile, as always, is ahead of the reporting curve. It now reveals that “the Mumbai terror attack’s first prototype [was] Mike’s Place, Tel Aviv, 2003”:

“Five years ago, al Qaeda enlisted two Pakistani British Muslims to land by sea in Tel Aviv, seize a large beachside hotel and the nearby US embassy, take hostages and shoot as many as possible. Recruited at London’s radical Finsbury Park mosque (like Shoe-bomber Richard Reid), Asif Muhammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif were trained for their mission in neighboring Syria and Gaza Strip.”

“But they missed their main objectives. Instead, they hit Mike’s Place, a bar, killing three Israelis and injuring 60. Those directives, however, recurred strikingly – albeit on a mega-scale – in the Islamist terrorists’ method of operation in Mumbai, on Wednesday, Nov. 26.”

“Mumbai was attacked – not by two but an estimated 30 terrorists, who were assigned seven targets in a world city of more than 16 million. Had the pair of bombers carried off their Tel Aviv mission as instructed, less than two years after 9/11, it would have resonated hugely for al Qaeda. The two British Islamists were prepared as meticulously as the much larger group of Mumbai attackers, spending months in Gaza taking instruction from Hamas in suicide tactics with bomb vests, after their initial indoctrination in Syria.”

“The 2003 attack started going askew when, at the last moment, Hanif and Sharif’s al Qaeda controller changed the original plan. Instead of landing in Tel Aviv by sea, the bombers were told to make their way from Gaza to the Israeli town several days before the target date, register at a hotel with their British passports and thoroughly scout the targeted locations.”

“Although by 2008, al Qaeda had advanced from bomb vests to commando tactics, careful reconnaissance and mounting operations from neighboring countries were abiding elements of their mode of operation, as revealed in the Mumbai assault.”

“The 2003 operation began to unravel after the two bombers, instead of making for a hotel and the US embassy, attacked a bar, only to find their bomb vests were defective. Hanif’s detonated only partly, killing three Israelis and himself, Sharif’s did not work at all and he ran off.”

“Then, too, the UK government disowned any British connection in the incident, which was easier then, given the small scale of the incident.”

“The full story came out only four years later in May 2007, when US forces in Iraq captured Al Hadi al Iraqi, who turned out to be the al Qaeda operative who trained Hanif and Sharif and sent them to Tel Aviv in April 2003.”

Update II (Nov. 30): “Captured terrorist says Israelis were specifically targeted in Mumbai.” Well dah! With society’s unfaithful watchdogs (media) pretending that the larger population is statistically as likely to be the targets of Islamic terrorists than are Jews—such clarification is indeed necessary. “Read on.