Comment is Free has published today my piece on Irving Moskowitz, the American Jewish financier of the settler movement. Among the more insidious things he has done is orchestrate a major project to rid major Jerusalem neighborhoods of their Arab residents. Rabbi Haim Beliak calls it “ethnic cleansing.” Others call it “Judaizing” Jerusalem. I also like to call it making Jerusalem Arabrein.
Moskowitz owns the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah and plans to turn it into a major settler residential complex with the connivance of Jerusalem’s rightist mayor and Israel’s rightist government. All this has become part of the political tussle over the Obama settlement freeze with Israel’s ambassador, Michael Oren, being summoned to a dressing down by the State Department over the deliberate provocation of the project.
That sounds odd:
More importantly, its mission calls for rebuilding the Holy Temple and re-instituting animal sacrifices from the time of King David.
Not the temple, I have heard that before but animal sacrifices?
Yes, restoring the priesthood and the rituals of animal sacrifice of the Holy Temple. I did make a mistake though in using information from another site referencing King David. David didn’t built the first Temple. His son Solomon did.
The phrase “animal sacrifices” can be rather misleading if you don’t realize they eat the meat. If it were a matter of killing the animals and simply cremating or burring them I’d take issue with that, but in fact it is basically just a community BBQ, with a bit of religious ritual mixed in.
Not sure you’re right about that. I seem to recall reading in the Bible about the smoke of the sacrifices wafting into the air. That doesn’t mean they went up fully in smoke. But I don’t recall any Biblical text mentioning they were eaten.
See Leviticus 6-7, which talks about burring the blood and the fat, and eating the meat. However, checking the around a bit, it seems that Leviticus 6:9-13 is commonly understood as referring to burring the whole animal, so it seems I wasn’t comely correct.
As for your referencing the time of David, I’d say your good there as a general indicator, seeing as how Leviticus speaks of times prior to David and the sacrifices continued well after.
I meant “completely” rather than “comely”, not quite sure how that happened.
Thanks again for that information. I have to admit that the priestly offerings and laws pertaining to them weren’t the most appealing parts of the Jewish Bible for me when I studied it. In fact, they made my eyes glaze over…
The Bible mentions various kinds of sacrifices, some burnt in part and some burnt completely on the altar.
I found it interesting upon first glance; seems like the system was set up to keep the priestly class rolling in good food.
It is indeed an interesting system. Remember however, that the tribe of Levi, to which the priestly caste belonged, was given no land, so they were supposed to make a living by taking a cut (literally!) of the sacrifices brought to the Temple, as well as various tithes – in return for public services rendered. Just think of them as civil servants paid out of the fiscal contributions of the “productive” sectors of society.
For Arabs El Kuds
For the Arab- speaking Christians and Judeans Yirushalaim
1. You seem to be implying that Arabs = Muslims. If that is what you believe, then you are lacking the most basic knowledge of both Arabs and Muslims.
2. Arab (sic)-speaking Christians do not call it Yirushalaim, they call it Al Quds (not Al Kuds), because that is its name in their native language, Arabic. Arabic-speaking Jews sometimes call it Al Quds depending upon the context of the conversation, because that is its name in their native language, Arabic.
Thanks, kylebisme.
Thanks Richard, kylebisme. So it stands for some kind of literalism.