Hundreds of New Testaments torched in Israel
Pastor Dale Morgan
Hundreds of New Testaments torched in Israel*
* Story Highlights
* Israeli police to probe recent burning of New Testaments in Or-Yehuda
* Deputy mayor admits collecting "Messianic propaganda," but did not
support burning
* Anti-Defamation League, other groups criticize burning
(CNN) -- Police in Israel are investigating the burning of hundreds of
New Testaments in a city near Tel Aviv, an incident that has alarmed
advocates of religious freedom.
Investigators plan to review photographs and footage showing "a fairly
large" number of New Testaments being torched this month in the city of
Or-Yehuda, a police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said Wednesday.
News accounts in Israel have quoted Uzi Aharon, the deputy mayor of
Or-Yehuda, as saying he organized students who burned several hundred
copies of the New Testament. The deputy mayor gave interviews to Israeli
radio and television stations after word of the incident surfaced about
two weeks ago.
Soon he was talking with Russian, Italian and French television
stations, "explaining to their highly offended audiences back home how
he had not meant for the Bibles to be burned, and trying to undo the
damage caused by the news (and photographs) of Jews burning New
Testaments," The Jerusalem Post reported.
Aharon told CNN on Wednesday that he collected New Testaments and other
"Messianic propaganda" that had been handed out in the city but that he
did not plan or organize a burning. Instead, he said, three teenagers
set fire to a pile of New Testaments while he was not present. Once he
learned what was going on, he said, he stopped the burning.
The episode has worried defenders of Israel's minority population of
Messianic Jews, who consider themselves Jewish but believe in the
divinity of Jesus, as do Christians. It also has concerned evangelical
Christians in North America, Europe and Asia, who visit Israel by the
hundreds of thousands.
Calev Myers, an attorney for Messianic Jews in Israel, told CNN he plans
to file a formal complaint Thursday with the national police at the
request of the United Christian Council in Israel, an umbrella
organization for a few dozen Christian organizations outside Israel.
"I hope the people who are responsible for breaking the law will be
indicted and prosecuted," he said.
About 200 New Testaments were burned, Aharon said, but he saved another 200.
His goal was to stop attempts to distribute Christian literature in the
city, he said.
Myers, however, said he doubts that Messianic Jewish missionaries
distributed the New Testaments. He said it's not clear how the volumes
found their way into homes in Or-Yehuda.
The deputy mayor told CNN he respects the New Testament and would not do
what has been done to the Jews in the past -- a reference to Nazi
burning of Jewish and other books in the 1930s, and other occasions when
Jewish texts, including sacred ones, were burned.
Myers said his complaint will ask the authorities to investigate
possible violations of two Israeli laws. One forbids the destruction or
desecration of any religious icon or item that a group holds sacred.
Another bans people from speaking publicly in a way that offends or
humiliates a certain religion.
Both laws are meant to prevent people from inciting religious violence,
he said.
The burning controversy has unfolded against the backdrop of other
instances that Myers cited as examples of discrimination against
Messianic Jews in Israel.
About two months ago, the teenage son of a Messianic pastor was severely
injured when a package delivered to his home exploded, Myers said. In
addition, several rabbis urged students to boycott further participation
in a Bible competition after they learned that one winner -- a
high-school student in Israel -- was a Messianic Jew, he said.
Groups such as the Anti-Defamation League have sharply criticized the
burning of New Testaments.
"We condemn this heinous act as a violation of the basic Jewish
principles and values," said Rabbi Eric J. Greenburg, director of
interfaith policy for the Anti-Defamation League. "It is essential that
we respect the sacred texts of other faiths. The Jewish people can never
forget the tragic burning of sacred Jewish volumes at many points in
history."
"While there may be legitimate concerns of proselytizing, these matters
must be addressed through the proper legal channels," Greenburg said in
a statement. "It is unacceptable and not legitimate to burn someone
else's sacred texts."