This commentary references a posting I put up a few weeks ago, the Rosh Hashanah sermon by Atlanta Rabbi Shalom Lewis, “Ehr Daw”. This controversial sermon has been savaged in the media, though the facts Lewis presents have not actually been disputed. Many more examples abound on Religion of Peace website.
JERUSALEM POST
by Daniel Gordis
October 14, 2014
Then, at least, American Jews acknowledged that there was an enemy.
It was one of those idyllic Israel moments – a gorgeous succa, spectacular food, thoughtful and well-read people talking about things that truly matter. Suddenly one of the women present posed a question that gave us all pause. “We all criticize American Jewry for all that it failed to do during the Shoah,” she said, “and rightly so. But we see the threat to the Jewish people and Western civilization everywhere, and what are we doing? Are we any better?” “We need to awaken people to the danger,” someone responded, “because they still just don’t get it.”
“Like the sermon that Rabbi Lewis gave in Atlanta,” said another participant in the dinner. I was shocked – Rabbi Shalom Lewis is a Conservative rabbi, and here was this leader of a landmark Orthodox synagogue saying, “It’s one of the best sermons I’ve read in years.” hadn’t heard of the sermon, so he promised to send it to me, and did. “Three years ago on this bima… I cried out, ‘Ehr kumpt – they are coming,’” Rabbi Lewis said to his congregants. “Three years later on this bima… I cry out not ‘Ehr kumpt – they are coming’; I cry out, ‘Ehr daw – they are here.’” The “they,” of course, is radical Islam. “Time is no longer a luxury we possess,” said the rabbi. “We are being threatened like no time before, by an enemy obsessed with an apocalyptic endgame that will bring only disaster.”
The rabbi then noted that if there are one billion Muslims in the world, and if authorities agree that about 5 percent of them are committed Islamists who embrace terror, that means there are 50 million such people. But he addressed non-radicalized Muslims, too, people he explicitly stated were decent, committed to democracy, potential partners in building the societies in which we want to live. Still, he said, for the most part, they’re not speaking out. “A silent partnership is no partnership. Sin is not just in the act of commission – it is also in the act of omission…. Stand up righteously or get out of the way.”…..
ArchitectGuy on Israel 