Re: The Changeling
To the Editor:
The review of Walid Shoebat’s talk to Wesleyan University students in March, written by Josh Nathan-Kazis is a litany of inaccuracies and innuendo.
Instead of a review of what Mr. Shoebat really said and did, we have a distorted portrait through a jaundiced eye, looking for negative, hidden agendas that not only don’t exist, but are antithetical to the very mission to which Mr. Shoebat dedicates his life.
The piece is character assassination by innuendo, negative metaphor and simile, connotation, snide commentary and even punctuation. Note how he uses quotations marks to continually bracket Mr. Shoebat’s words, making them appear suspect.
A list of examples would require my noting nearly every sentence in this screed. But let’s start with the title. “The Changeling?” It appears Mr. Nathan-Kazis does not know the definition of the word. A changeling is an infant exchanged by stealth for another child. Perhaps he meant to say that Mr. Shoebat is “someone who has changed.” In that case, he would be correct. Mr. Shoebat experienced a metamorphosis that shook his life to the core.
Even the most innocuous words are set into quotations marks. The writer starts out by putting the words “reformed terrorist” in quotes, and calls it a “moniker”, a clearly pejorative word in this case, with the “pull of a ‘sword eater’ on a kid at a circus.”
In short, he portrays Mr. Shoebat as a huckster, a Middle Eastern version of a snake oil salesman.
So, let’s get four things straight:
1) Shoebat calls himself a reformed terrorist because that is exactly what he is. He is completely honest and forthright. And it isn’t easy. His past is a dagger in his heart. He mourns his lost childhood and his family that he can never see. Each time he speaks to a group, he puts his life on the line, knowing there is a fatwa on his head. He lives under an assumed name without disclosing his address to protect himself and his family. For years, he toiled 18-hour days in order to squeeze in his talks with his regular job and family life, talks for which he was paid nothing. We only now have set up his Foundation because he is in such demand that he had to leave his job to fulfill his mission and must, of course, support his family somehow.
The writer denigrates me as well, taking words and again, re-creating both tone and meaning. As Walid’s friend and manager, I too, have had to make this a full-time occupation. We have lost a great deal of money this past year, but my family supports my effort, knowing how critical it is.
Then, the writer decides to speak for ghosts. He states, “Many are skeptical of Shoebat’s tale, believing it fits too neatly with his current agenda…” Who are these people? How many? Did he conduct a survey? And although he completes the sentence with…
“but there is no reason to believe that it is not the truth…” this is feint praise, since he spends his entire screed arguing that Shoebat is a fraud.
2) Shoebat’s faith. Perhaps the most despicable accusation made by the writer is that Mr. Shoebat is either hiding his deeply-felt evangelical Christian faith from audiences or using it to proselytize through a Jewish megaphone. I doubt one can both hide one’s faith and try to forward it. Which does the writer selectively believe?
The truth is that Mr. Shoebat’s faith is one force that drives his mission, but not the only one. He is compelled to speak out because of the years of poisonous indoctrination and propaganda by his own people, telling him Jews are sub-human and all of them, as well as Christians, must be destroyed. How would any man react when he discovers that his childhood was stolen from him and his early manhood nothing but a series of lies? How close he came to being a murderer, a destroyer, for nothing more than Jew-hate and venom. Some might turn to more violence. Walid turned to love.
Whether Shoebat believes that Jesus is the Messiah has no bearing on his advocacy for Israel’s right to exist. He saw, first-hand, the poisoning of the minds of Arab children with hate-infested textbooks calling Jews dogs and accusing them of wanting to drink the blood of Arab children. No map of the State of Israel exists in any Arab school textbook
Walid proudly talks about his faith wherever and whenever he is asked. It features prominently on his website and he has written several online books for Christian audiences. He has for many years told the world how his devout Christianity, and his intense study of Jewish and Christian biblical and political history, brought him to this place in his life.
The accusation that Shoebat refrains from offering solutions to the problem because he’d be in conflict with Christian Zionists is absurd. He is a Christian Zionist, and believes the land does indeed belong to the Jews. But he also knows that the battered and suffering Jews, straight from the Holocaust, cobbled up a new nation, not from invading a Palestinian state, since none existed, but from land purchased legally by Jews from Arabs who were all too willing to sell. Shoebat has seen the hundreds of land deeds to prove it. Shoebat’s grandfather was one of those Arabs who made a handsome profit selling land to Jews.
2) Walid’s view of the mid-east conflict. The writer, in phrase after phrase, charges that Shoebat is one-sided, that he simply “dumps” the blame for the entire Middle Eastern problem on the Arabs and absolves the “Jews from blame in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” He conveniently does not reiterate the reasons Mr. Shoebat gives for his belief in Israel’s position.
He fails to mention that the Barak agreement gave the Palestinians everything they demanded: land, statehood, autonomy, yet Arafat signed it with a false pen and never lived up to the agreement. Indeed, he simply started killing Israelis all over again. Or that every agreement ever signed was followed by murderous attacks by Arabs against Jewish civilians.
Finally, Shoebat’s presentation is not “calculated to stroke the egos of Jewish Zionists,” while “uniting them in fear and hatred of Palestinians.”
The Palestinians do a fine job all by themselves of evoking fear and hatred. And Jewish Zionists need no one, including Shoebat, to make them feel their cause is just. Shoebat, and everyone knowledgeable about the Mideast, knows there is no monolithic view of the conflict. Israelis and American Jews have very diverse views, as one would expect in a democracy.
There is one unfortunate constant. The Jews are always on the defensive. When they retaliate for murderous attacks on their people, often civilians and children, the world condemns. They would surely not condemn the United Sates, or any other country, for defending itself against attack. No one would expect the United States to sit back after 9-11. And the very tiny state of Israel can never close her eyes in restful sleep, surrounded by 24 Arab nations shored up with the world’s oil supply, billions of dollars, an abundance of land and undue political clout in the United Nations and the World Court.
Why does Shoebat feel Israel is right? He correctly says that Jews have never run a Crusade, committed genocide, took over a nation. They have no Arab-hate songs in their culture. Their children’s textbooks don’t advocate killing Arab children. They’ve spent millions helping poor Palestinians, the very same people who, when Gaza was under Egyptian rule, got nothing. Same for those
on the West Bank who Jordan wants no part of.
Thanks to the world’s hate, there are fewer than 14 million Jews. Not in Israel. Not in the United States. But in the whole world. After years of persecution, inquisitions, pograms, Holocaust, exodus and Diaspora, they found refuge in a tiny spot of land. Their national budget is eaten up by constant military defense and the rest by their generous immigration policy which gives food, shelter and clothing to all in need. Israel takes in Ethiopians, Argentineans, Russians, French, even gay Arabs who cannot “come out” in their homelands for fear of being murdered. In Israel live many Israeli Arabs, all of whom have the same rights as any Jew.
College students usually take up the cause of the underdog. In this case, Israel is the underdog. But people like Nathan-Kazis have been taken in by the Arab’s widespread, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel propaganda machine. In short, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
That’s not so bad when you’re reviewing a rock concert. It’s grossly irresponsible when making false charges involving life and death.
Keith Davies
Agent of Mr. Shoebat and Executive Director
Walid Shoebat Foundation
Re: Orthodox Disunion
Dear Editor –
Your October 2004 article on Yeshiva University (“Orthodox Disunion: Why is Yeshiva University Divorcing its Secular Side?” October 2004) is a troubling portrayal of an institution in disarray. Unfortunately it’s written so sensationally, that the crimes of yellow journalism overwhelm any inquisitive reader’s search for meaning. Aside from the plethora of inaccuracies throughout the article (Rabbi Abba Bronspiegel is not on faculty at Yeshiva University, women are actually allowed into the dormitories just not into the living areas, the Associate Dean who “censored” the Arts Festival acted alone and was not even Jewish, etc.), there are two points your readership should be aware of, which they unfortunately will not get from your publication.
First, the choice of the author’s pseudo-anonymity is most puzzling. The author’s biography at the conclusion mockingly states “M.W. is a senior at Yeshiva College (until they read this article).” The sad truth is that we all know who wrote this article. And M.W. is still walking around campus; he has not been threatened with expulsion or censored, as he would so very much enjoy. Quite the contrary; everyone has ignored the luridness of M.W.’s predictable journalese. M.W. is well-known on campus for his incessant bitter critics. Admittedly, it is unfortunate for me to participate in an intellectual dialogue on an issue as such, the polarization within Modern Orthodoxy, by addressing the author rather than his content.
But M.W.’s notoriety on campus as a sensationalist devalues his claims. Does M.W. even attend the Talmud lectures he so readily denigrates? Why does M.W.’s descriptions of students attending a Talmud lecture brim with hate and displeasure? His essay is overburdened with an emotionally vitriolic hatred of rabbis. Does the “poorly ventilated room packed with sweaty yeshiva bochurs” or “the black hats and pastel peach ties” have anything to do with M.W.’s arguments? Perhaps most disturbing is his depiction of the attendees at the Talmud lectures which reek of fascist/Nazi metaphors, or what he called the “overpriced, heavily polished loafers snap in lockstep at the entrance to the building.” The inappropriateness of such writing, I hope, is clear to all. I seriously doubt M.W.’s ability and integrity to comment as a Modern Orthodox “insider” or as a Yeshiva University student.
Which brings us to another fundamental problem: Yeshiva University is a Jewish university under Orthodox auspices, and its undergraduate colleges in particular are intentionally set up to contain both secular studies and Torah learning. What type of accusation is it to declare that some students at Yeshiva University prefer their Torah classes to their secular ones? Do some students at Columbia University prefer Biology to Philosophy? Where is the indictment of those student’s inadequate dedication to the world of Ideas and Western thought? To this day, no Yeshiva University administrator has openly rejected the Torah u’Madda way of life or deemed it irrelevant. Echoing statements made by all the university’s presidents, including its current Mr. Richard M. Joel, the Yeshiva deliberately comes before the University in our title. Torah is our way of life, and we will not pretend that it is not a priority here. Of course, and simultaneously, we couple Torah learning with a dedication to excellence in secular studies. But to point fingers at students attending Torah lectures at Yeshiva University is the most ridiculous argument of all.
Similarly, as an institution of higher learning, Yeshiva University has a diverse faculty, rabbis and academics alike. We respect the wide range of opinions at our university, including among the rabbinic faculty. Does M.W. suggest we censor those rabbis who he deems to jive with his understanding of Torah u’Madda or the university’s commitment to its “secular side,” as M.W. calls it? On top of it all, M.W. speaks about the “YU rabbinate” as a monolithic entity, infusing fear and exerting excessive control over the lives of their students. There are plenty rabbinic faculty members who proudly teach at Yeshiva University and live a Torah u’Madda ethos. M.W. has chosen to selectively listen in to a portion of the Yeshiva pulse, and sensationally capitalize on specifics rather than embrace the larger picture.
This does not mean to say that M.W. makes no valid points. On the contrary, many of his concerns are shared by students and faculty alike. But those of us who actually care about the future of Modern Orthodoxy and Yeshiva University are more interested in finding ways we can better the movement, rather than publicly rant about a culture we apparently do not understand or appreciate.
Zev Nagel
Yeshiva College ‘05
The Commentator
Editor-in-Chief
Re: Orthodox Disunion
I appreciated your comments below, but I am struck by its change of spirit within a single paragraph! You start by stating: “YU never was meant to have a “secular side”. It was meant to be a synthesis of Torah and scholarship and secular knowledge”, and end by stating: “Non-Judaic studies may enhance but never will displace Torah study as the ultimate academic ideal.” So much for “synthesis”.
Until YU (or some other school) starts to define “torah” as the totality of human knowledge and understanding, in keeping with the spirit of the Rambam, the synthesis ideal will never be achieved, to the continuing poverty of Jewish academic development.
B. Raab
Re: Orthodox Disunion
YU never was meant to have a “secular side”. It was meant to be a synthesis of Torah and scholarship and secular knowledge. If you want to appreciate the Rav’s “true” philosophy look at his children and grandchildren eg Rav Lichtenstein, Rabbis Meir and Moshe Twersky as well as Rabbi Dr Hayym. All of them have uncompromising fidelity to halachah while embracing modern scholarship. One can be machmir or makil as long as there is grounding in halahick precedent. Non-Judaic studies may enhance but never will displace Torah study as the ultimate academic ideal. Other studies are useful and should be pursued as a means of enhancing one’s Torah knowledge or as a means toward making a “living” so that one may study Torah in relative comfort but NOT as an alternative to traditional Torah study.
To share your views on this or any other
topic, please email editor@newvoices.org.
