A controversial Florida pastor held another Koran-burning ceremony outside his church to protest the imprisonment of a Christian clergyman in Iran, The Gainesville Sun reported.
Jones, who made headlines worldwide by videotaping a similar Koran-burning ceremony in March 2011, burned several copies of the Islamic holy book alongside an image depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad on Saturday evening.
About 20 people gathered for the ceremony outside the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., during which Jones demanded the release of Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian pastor, currently in jail for apostasy after converting from Islam to Christianity.
Moments after the burning, the Gainesville Fire Rescue issued a citation against the church, claiming it did not have the required authorization to burn books.
The church will be fined $271, including court costs, fire chief Gene Prince told the newspaper.
The pastor, who is the head of the church, went ahead with the controversial ceremony despite reports that the Pentagon urged him not to, as it could put US soldiers in Afghanistan and elsewhere at risk.
The 2011 Koran-burning ceremony unleashed days of bloody protests in Afghanistan, during which an attack on a United Nations compound left seven staff members dead.
(Source: Newscore)
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10 Responses
Way to go pastor, kein yirbu
Why are we not making a stink about this? We only care for ourselves? Imagine this was sifrey torah or seforim? We cry every tish be’av about when Christians did this to us. We can’t be two faced and let them do it to other religions!
This is not for us to get involved. Stay out of this…
If the Islamic world would react with the same repulsion and anger when Muslims are indiscriminately killed by fellow Muslims every other day as when a non Muslim burned a few Islamic books, the world would be a better and safer place for all…
They, in fact, burned the Talmud in Paris. The king who ordered is the same Lois for whom a city in Missouri is named.
#2, What are you talking about? How dare you compare a Koran (or a New Testament) to a Sefer Torah? We can’t be “two-faced”?! The Torah tells us explicitly that we must destroy avoda zara, and not to do the same to Hashem. לא תעשון כן לה׳ אלקיכם. That is an explicit mitzvah to be “two-faced”, as you call it. By demanding equal treatment for sifrei kodesh and sifrei tum’ah, you are over on this lo sa’asei de’oraisa.
Milhouse
Islam is not avoda zara. They believe in Hashem.
Millhouse, don’t be foolish. As Jews we have a responsibility to condemn such intolerance towards a religion. This pastor is a fool behaving like an idiot. Burning a Koran does nothing to fix any problems anywhere and is designed to offend people for holding a religious belief. I don’t believe hashem will look the other way in the face of such rishus and this pastor will pay for his behavior one day.
WIY, what difference does it make whether it’s avoda zara or not? The point is that the Torah commands us to distinguish between the true religion and false ones, in other words to be “two-faced” as “bugnot” called it. And the halacha is that when we have the power to do so we must prevent the nations from inventing any new religion, even if it is not avoda zara. That means Islam too.
Besalel, I have just proved from the Torah itself that we are commanded to be intolerant of at least some other religions. So how can you call it rishus? How can you imagine that Hashem doesn’t want Korans (and New Testaments) to be burned, when He explicitly said the opposite?
Milhouse, No-where in the torah does it say we have to destroy other religions. It only mentions avodah zarah. We are in a foreign land. If we can make a big deal of them persecuting us, we have to make a big deal about persecuting others as well. It starts with the Koran, next comes the talmud. We have to stop it when it first starts.