The Topeka-based hate group, the Westboro Baptist Church, once again targeted Brooklyn Jews with a barrage of hate-filled demonstrations today. The anti-Semitic organization planned to picket two Brooklyn Yeshivas today – the Mirrer Yeshiva in Midwood & Yeshiva Bais Hatalmud in Bensonhurst. Their plan was to assemble on sidewalks and sing anti-Jewish songs and display signs with slogans such as “God Hates Jews” and “America is Doomed.” Instead, they only made one stop at Yeshiva Bais Hatalmud on 82nd Street in Bensonhurst and promptly left town.
So what was different about today’s visit? Today’s demonstration was different because no one knew about them. Last time, Westboro protested in front of Yeshiva Torah Temimah and Yeshiva Chaim Berlin. In those protests, YWN had been the first to publicize the schedule in advance, and was even the first to inform the local politicians – including NYC Councilman David Greenfield, and NYS Assemblyman Dov Hikind who differed on what action should be taken. Greenfield suggesting ignoring the crazies out of concern that publicity was exactly what they were seeking. Hikind took the opposite view and led a counter-protest.
Naturally, following the publicity of these events, and the counter-protest led by Assemblyman Hikind who went as far as jumping a police barricade and ripping a hate-filled sign from a church-member’s hands a large crowd ensured. Along with the crowd came lots of foul language directed at the church by members of the frum community. TV cameras were rolling, and yarmulka-wearing Jews made a Chillul Hashem by lowering themselves to the level of the protesters. This time, upon reviewing the situation with our posek, we agreed to follow Councilman Greenfield’s suggestion and simply ignore the protest and not publicize the Church’s events.
It turns out Greenfield was right. This is what happened:
The BoroParkScoop.com reports that with NYPD all around, the group arrived at Yeshiva Bais Hatalmud, and stood next to the Yeshiva building. Not one person exited or entered the building during the entire 30 minute protest. The group left without even one person acknowledging that they were even there. No media showed up, and the group that was then scheduled to go to the Mirrer Yeshiva canceled their visit.
We don’t know for sure that they skipped the Mirrer Yeshiva because we chose not to interview them so that they would not have any satisfaction. We suspect, however, that they took their hate filled message to someone who would give them publicity – something that we were not going to do.
(Chaim Shapiro – YWN)
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20 Responses
Yemach Shemam v’Zichram.
As I am happy to see that YWN contacted their Rav to make sure they do everything “Al Pi Halacha”, Please explain to all of us why its not Loshon Hora to speak negatively of Mr Hikind in this article.
Thank You.
It’s not lashon hara at all – we are all sure that Mr. Hikind has a rov whom he consults with all the time, and he should be very proud of his actions, since he for sure asked a rov before he ripped that sign, and used that beautiful language in front of all those Yeshiva studnts.
A true role model!
B”h. How so very simple it is.
I wish us Jews would stop calling everything and everyone ANTI-SEMITIC.
This is not an anti-semitic organization as jew hatred is not part of their agenda–they hate everyone.
I always hear Jews talking about things:
“he gave me a ticket–the cops here are so anti-Semitic”
“the lady at the counter was so ruse–she was so anti-semitic”
as a BT who grew up around a lot of lower-middle class goyim I can tell you that most of this stuff is not anti-semitism–it’s just venting”
“Not one person exited or entered the building during the entire 30 minute protest.”
This speaks volumes about the Yeshiva, those who run it and those who learn in its Beis Medrash. The yetzer hara tried a novel but ultimately unsuccessful approach to get people to leave the Beis Medrash, he utterly failed.
I am very happy that ignoring them does seem to have been the way to go THIS time.
However, ignoring is definitely NOT the way to go ALL the time.
In the ’30s the rise of the nazi party was largely ignored.
As I recall, that did NOT work out so well.
so why are you giving the publicity now? also – pretty low and unnecessary cheap shot at dov after all hes done for jewish causes. I read somewhere that dov got 1000s of letters from military families across the country thanking dov for what he said at the rally in support of US soldiers. Thats a huge kiddush hashem of course
of course they went to bies hatalmud and saw the emes derech no need for mir
“This is not an anti-semitic organization as jew hatred is not part of their agenda–they hate everyone.”
Hitler y”s hated a lot of other groups besides Jews, too. Was he not an anti-Semite?
יישר כחכם to the אנשים חשובים at בית התלמוד for showing the proper way to act when משוגעים are in the area.
ומהם יראו וכן יעשו
It has always been the way of Yidden throughout the centuries to NOT fight our enemies. To ignore them as much as possible, and even bribe them to go away when doable. Such has always been the wise guidance of our Gedolim, and it generally works beautifully.
This really reminds me of Mel Gibson’s movie “The Last Temptation….”, that probably would have gone totally unnoticed, not just by us but by the Hollywood establishment as well, if Abe Foxman hadn’t started jumping up and down about it. That film ended up with more publicity then it could have ever hoped to have garnerd. This group is a tiny group from a small church who hate everyone. Why should we give them any creedence? Don’t we have bigger problems both here in and EY?
Ignoring them is absolutely the right thing to do when they show up in Brooklyn. Reacting with outrage when they “picket” the funeral of 7 children killed in a house fire is also the right thing to do.
#12, don’t fight your enemies, let them kill , murder and wreac havoc and just sit idly by? I thought the Torah teaches us that when somone stands up to kill you, rise up and kill him first. i prefer to fight then to be led to the gas chambers. Thats my personal feeling. But if you prefer to be led to the slaughter house without a fight then thats your problem
May I humbly suggest that we strike them with the fear of g-d by simply being mikayem the pasuk “v’rau amay h’oretz ki shem h-shem nikra ulecha v’yaru mimeka”. Let the bochurim, yungerleit & rabbeim come out with their t’fillin on & scare these losers back to Topeka. If they’re frightened they’ll never return.
AinOhdMilvado-
Your comparison to the Nazis is inaccurate. The Nazi party had many people who started joining after their rallies and such. WBC has been around for years. Their members are 90% their own family and recently, even some family members left the cult. They have not garnered any support. The entire country views them as pathetic losers. Just ignore them.
#15 Mishige: Who’s talking about “kill”ing? These mesuganas are just rabble rousers. Our Gedolim have always, throughout the centuries, advised us to ignore them as much as possible, and even bribe them if that works. A Jew doesn’t run for a weapon. That’s Eisev’s thing.
In this case it seems (at least from the article) that is was good to ignore them. In other cases that might not be true. Everything has to be judged on a case by case basis.
On a different but related point, I am not a fear monger but people should remember that even though WBC has almost no members, there are tons of neo-nazis in this country. Also, the high unemployment numbers are a breeding ground for extremism. If you read comments on news sites especially economic ones where there is little moderation like marketwatch you see masses of people seething with anger. A little known fact that most people probably do not know; Hitler was gaining popularity throughout the late 1920s, then the German economic enviroment started improving and Hitler was losing a lot of suppport. The situation got worse in Germany after an economic crisis in the early 1930s, and that is when Hitler regained his support. The unemployed masses flocked to him.
Back to today, for example stormfront which is one of the largest neo-nazis sites (they literally make the KKK look moderate) has an alexa ranking of around 10k, doing some work with websites I can tell you that means that get about 100k visitors a day, 3m a month. So some of these movemenets are unfortunately much much larger than WBC.
the arabs are Semitic also. It means those who descended from Shem (son of Noach). So why are only Jews considered semitic?