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I am interested in the proper hashkafa about mandela and his passing. Does anyone know what gedoilim have said on the matter
Ein Ish Som Al Lev
I think Newt Gingrich said it best.
I told a south African ??? ????? that mandela was like Ben gurion, or le’havdil, winston churchill.
He insisted that he was a lot greater.
I think he was a rasha gamur, and I’m really glad he’s dead.
He may have been an anti semite, or at least anti Israel, but he did have a lot of ma’alos
Mods: Not that I generally believe in censoring people’s opinions (where they are allowed to be said), but can we tone down Popa’s? It won’t look good to people reading.
Sam, I don’t think anybody should be surprised to see someone on a Jewish website calling someone who encouraged terrorism against Jews a rasha.
Frankly, I’m surprised to see accolades here for someone whose picture has been taken embracing Arafat.
Why? Do you disagree?
This is my first ever post here, but this is important.
I am not South African, but Mandela was a great man, to whom many owe their liberty and human dignity. He was not anti-Israel – if that would be important to anybody – but someone who dedicated his life to make this world a better place.
He deserves the greatest of honour, not petty racism.
Sir Moses: You think I’m racist because I object to someone who supported the cause of killing my people?
Funny definition of racism you got there, sonny.
He was a huge supporter of Arafat, unless you think yasser also wasn’t anti Israel
He was a supporter of the PLo. although he never actually expressed encouragement towards terror.
Nonetheless, he did have his good points, and i don’t think we needs to mach them avek.
The idea that Mandela is anti-Israel is actually a hoax by anti-Israel activist Arjan El Fassed, who among other things writes for the electronic intifada web site, which is full of horribly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda. El Fassed wrote a fictitious letter by Mandela to Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in which Mandela calls Israel an Apartheid State. The real Mandela neither said nor wrote any such thing. Unfortunately a lot of Jews bought into the lie. Mandela does support a two state solution, but so have the last four Israeli Prime Ministers. And the Apartheid regime he fought for most of his life was created by people who openly supported the Nazis during WW2. We should be eulogizing him, not trashing him, if only for that!
I also think it is important to point out that arafat was amazing at the media, so he both amanged to give Mandela the wrong impression, and to take mandela out of context.
On February 27, 1990, shortly after being released from prison, when Arafat came and joined him at the Pan-African summit, Mandela described him as: “our friend and comrade . . . like us, fighting against a unique form of colonialism.”
It appears he never called Israel apartheid though.
The idea that Mandela is anti-Israel is actually a hoax
Are the pictures of Mandela and Arafat, kissing and embracing, photo-shopped?
I think Newt Gingrich said it best. I have no respect for this individual who closed down the USA Government during November 1995 for no good cause; Unlike the recent close down when the Republicans were acting out for an excellent cause.
Did Nelson Mandela ever travel to Erezt Yisroel?
@Popa: The operative words here are “shortly after being released from prison”. This was before he was able to fully enter the world of international politics. More important was his attitude towards Jews and Israel as an internationally respected leader, and by all accounts he was quite positive at that time.
More important was his attitude towards Jews and Israel as an internationally respected leader, and by all accounts he was quite positive at that time.
By what accounts?
My understanding is that he authorized, agreed to, although not physically involved in the death of near 150 people, (when involved in terrorist activities) what he became or achieved in later life can never atone for such crimes…
I think you are thinking of his ex-wife Winnie Mandela who was the real terrorist and “necklaced” her political enemies (Necklacing is the placement of a tire on someone and then setting them afire)
Mandela was forced to divorce Winnie which was actually very difficult as she had waited for him while him was in jail for 27 years
147: So having done something wrong means he can’t be right on anything ever for the rest of his life?
FTR: I agree with Gingrich’s comments. But that isn’t my criticism. My criticism is that mandela then decided that terrorism was the solution to every conflict and that the party doing the terrorism was always in the right.
PBA: Interesting. I probably believe (depending on where someone’s opinion came from) that one can be pro-Palestinian without being an anti-Semite. By all accounts (that I’ve heard) Mandela treated the Jews in his country entirely fairly. So he wasn’t a Sonei Yisrael. He just had an unfortunate opinion on Israel. That doesn’t make him someone we can’t respect. We just need a caveat with that respect.
@Popa: Accounts of Jews who knew him/worked with him; Israeli political leaders.
@Privileged: True, and although I personally don’t support violence even in a just cause, there are many who do ( EDITED .
In any case, it was only after the apartheid government started massacring unarmed protesters that Mandela felt the ANC had no choice but to use force.
Privileged to be a:
Churchill also killed numerous people (think Dresden, which he carpet bombed) and stood by while millions of yidden were killed, yet he remains much respected.
How does Mandela compare to another famous leader of a terrorist organization who was responsible for acts of terror and deaths. Then went on to become a great statesman, leader of his country and bring about a great deal of reconciliation and peace with bold vision. I believe his name was Menachem Begin.
Who said ant-semite? I said rasha. I don’t care if it was caused by anti-semitism or stam rishuus.
And I’m not exactly sure what the great things I’m supposed to be respecting are that balance it. Standing up for yourself doesn’t make you great; standing up for other people is where you can be great. And that’s where he failed, and just imputed his own biases to everyone else.
What Mandela did re Israel may have been despicable,
But as a south african, i know how much he did for my
country. If he had acted differently once he was freed,
there would have been civil war. People were primed and ready
For it! They had been stocking up on food and other
Necessary things or months. The fact remains, he could have
Allowed the black population to take revenge and he didnt, which save the
Lives of every white in south africa, many of whom would have died otherwise.
Thats including +~70 000 jews. He could have let us be massacred, but he led
The country in a different way. Anyways, stam goy hates israel, so why should he be better?
At least he has other merits
He was a Sonei Yisroel and pro-Palestinian, so as far as I am concerned, there is nothing further needed to say about him, even if there were other things that he might have done that were “noble” in some way. As far as we Jews might be concerned, he was not someone who deserves our admiration. His wife Winnie was even worse than he.
Mandela was never anti-Israel, even though he is one of the few world leaders who would be absolutely justified to be.
Instead of bashing Mandela we should have asked mechila from him, as the Israeli government had made an alliance with the rashaim who had supported the Nazis during WW2 and created the Apartheid system in the image of Nazi Germany. To go further and to call him a Sonei Yisrael is a chilul HaShem. The real Sonei Yisrael were the people he spent his life fighting!
Mr. Mandela’s signature accomplishment was to bring democracy to South Africa without a bloodbath. The white regime that ruled South Africa under Apartheid was shamelessly oppressive. Mandela brought about a bloodless revolution that established majority rule in South Africa without a bloody purge of the white oppressors of the majority of South Africans. He established the truth of the oppression of the white regime by permitting individual whites to confess to their acts of oppression without punishing them, and with forgiveness. That is what makes him one of the greatest men in history.
If and when the State of Israel can solve its riddle of recognition of the rights of the Arabs displaced by the State of Israel, and important support of the solution will be Mr. Mandela’s method of implementing Hashem’s mitzvah of forgiveness and kindness.
Popa, that’s an ineresting point.
As an operational country, South Africa is not better off now, or safer. But he successfuly terminated a wrong treatment.
I think he, or any African, would be the last to call anything Apartheid. He wouldn’t want to dilute the concept, much as many Jews can’t stand when holocaust and and h$%ler are invoked freely into politics and animal rights.
Sadly, There are alot of gullible fools
Let this be for a lesson.
EVERYTHING that the world is making a big deal about is all to have that effect on masses(alot of you).It’s most or all of your MakeUp.
To the leaders sitting at the funeral,this is ‘poshut’ as day
All South Africans who regularly complain & whine about their crime rate and general downward spiral of their region,ought to give pause as to the catalyst.
That the USSR,The Big Capitalists, and local marxists (guess ,of course,which background),were his strongest support imply something positive about Apartheid
(Who made the myth that Capitalists and Communists are enemies?)
Up until he became president he was a communist supported terrorist committed to the one cause of breaking apartheid.
Without the bigger forces,he would have been worth Zero.
Maybe a footnote in some text.
After he became president his job was reconciliation and governing South Africa in order for it not to become the next failed african nation like Zimbabwe or Congo.
And he was mediocre at it.
imagine a man who took a country from food self sufficiency and brought starvation to the masses. imagine a man who took safe streets and turned them into crime ridden jungles. and you will have a portrait of mandela AFTER his big reformation .
Chutznik:
Comparing Churchill to Mandela
is like to comparing the Chofetz Chaim to Teddy Kollek
With a few notable exceptions, these comments display an alarming amount of ignorance, sheer stupidity and racism. They are an embarrassment to the “Yeshiva World.” Glad I left. Sorry I came back.
Anyone who disagrees with heretohelp is racist.
What a racist world we live in.
Am I a racist for pointing this out?
If a person of color supports the murderer of my loved ones, am I a racist for thinking he is evil?
If a white person called Arafat an outstanding freedom fighter, would it then be ok to call that person a rasha?
Come on guys.
Churchill was responsible for saving much of the world. If not for him Englnad would have surrendered and who knows what would have happened.
I still remember one of the chochuve morei hoira’ah in London saying a few words when the british marked fifty years since WWII.
Whether he was an antisemite has long been debated – although everyone agrees that his foreign minister [anthony Eden] and his succesor [Clement Atlee] were. However even if he was wwe still owe him a huge debt of hakoras hatoiv.
Mandela undoubtedly acheived something – but on a much smaller scale. People outside S/a have little to do with his acheivements. we do not deny what he did, and at least i personally respect him for it, but we also remember that he gave legitimicy to Arafat, and was one of the first world leaders to do so.
Here is something that should sober up every Jew who criticizes Mandela:
Mandela was arrested, tried, and convicted of offenses related to an attempt to overthrow the government of South Africa by force. That effort only began after the Apartheid police opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, killing 69 of them.
The Prime Minister of South Africa at the time was Dr. Hendrik Verwoerd, and he was still PM at the time of Mandela’s conviction and sentencing. Before and during World War II, Verwoerd had been the editor of a South African newspaper that used Christianity to justify racism, published diatribes against Jews, and openly cheered on Nazi victories while expressing delight at Allied losses. Verwoerd would then be the primary theoretician for Apartheid, never renouncing or regretting his support for the Nazi cause.
After Apartheid ended, Mandela went out of his way to reconcile with his enemies, even visiting Verwoerd’s widow.
Hello charlieh.
I’m very sober.
Did you bother reading my post at all?
Seems not.
I read yours.
So Dr H Verwoerd was also a hater of my people.
There’s nothing unusual or surprising about that. He can join the illustrious, or, if you prefer, infamous, list of Jew haters among the goyim throughout history.
There’s nothing there that negates one word I wrote about Mandela.
I don’t get what you’re saying, Charlie.
Because his persecutor was a Nazi sympathizer and he later reconciled with his widow, we should forgive him for embracing (figuratively and literally) Arafat?
Mandela’s opponents were Nazis (real ones,not neo-nazis, they spent World War II in prison for conspiring to turn South Africa over to the Axis) – which alone explains why South African Jews were prominent in the anti-apartheid movement. Mandela managed to not only take over the country (not all that hard, it was near collapse given the fall of communism and the near universal opposition to racism in the west), but to do so peacefully, convince his enemies to support him, and leave over a stable and democratic government (note he was never a “president for life” and always had opposition which wins elections on the provincial and local level). Someone such as Ben Gurious was a failure in that today’s Israel is hardly the secular socialist homeland he dreamed of. Churchill wanted to preserve an Empire which fell immediately. Mandela is probably closer to George Washington who established a democracy that would survive without him (assuming it does, but it looks optimistic).
But akumpera, you’ve neglected to talk about arafat, the only important issue ever.
Abraham Lincoln- never denounced Arafat!
Akuperma, churchill clearly expressed goal was freedom. He continuously reminded the brittish that it was worth giving your life for this ideal.
“And men will say “this was our finest hour””
“Never has so much been owed by so many to so few”
Please note it was during his tenure in the 1950’s thta England gave back much f it’s colonies. [it started with Atlee in 1947]
Abraham Lincoln- never denounced Arafat!
I’m fairly certain that he didn’t support his murdering Jews either.
England had to give release the colonies, Colonies are actually a drain on resources and only good for prestige. England had been bankrupted by 2 world worlds and could no longer afford them.
Why do you think the Russians are doing so well today. The got rid of the leech places that drained the russian economy to fend for themselves and now cna keep the resources for themselves
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