"…Since the 'wedding of hate' was broadcast, pundits have been labelling the dancers 'JudeoDaesh' [Judeo-ISIS] and apologists have been explaining how they’re basically poor deluded dropouts who found a home on the hilltops and have been radicalized by seeing their friends murdered in Palestinian terror attacks. Both approaches are disingenuous. This is not a freak mutation of Judaism or a symptom of a sociological problem. And while they are a minority on the fringes of both the political and religious spectra, they are still a part of mainstream Israeli society, a natural outcropping of our failure to recognize how the occupation of another nation has ultimately eaten away at out moral values. It’s much too easy to be shocked at these vile creatures from another world. [But] they’re not that far away.…"
Above: The "Wedding of Hate"
Anshel Pfeffer writes in Ha'aretz about the horrific video from the "wedding of hate" showing right-wing Zionist Orthodox hilltop youth waving machine guns and knives in the air as they danced in celebration of the arson-murders of an 18-month-old Palestinian baby and his parents. The terrorist revenge song these Jewish terror thugs were dancing to is Zachreni Na, which was composed by Dov Shurin:
…Three people told me separately Thursday that they had to give clear instructions to the bands at their weddings not to play “Zachreni Na.” Over 13 years ago Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, a founder of the religious Zionist organization Tzohar, instructed his not inconsiderable number of followers not to dance to revenge songs lest “revenge spoil us and we fall in love with it and the evil it spreads in the world.” But the fact that the song is still played at some weddings (even though many don’t understand its deeper darker meaning); that those who dance to it have not been ostracized; and that all the guns waved at the wedding [of hate] either belong to serving soldiers or are held under license — all this illustrates one thing: No one from the religious leadership or law-enforcement authorities has done anything more serious to tackle the problem than tut-tutting. This is what a climate of tolerance and acceptance of violence, racism and hatred looks like.
Since the “wedding of hate” was broadcast, pundits have been labelling the dancers “JudeoDaesh” [Judeo-ISIS] and apologists have been explaining how they’re basically poor deluded dropouts who found a home on the hilltops and have been radicalized by seeing their friends murdered in Palestinian terror attacks. Both approaches are disingenuous. This is not a freak mutation of Judaism or a symptom of a sociological problem. And while they are a minority on the fringes of both the political and religious spectra, they are still a part of mainstream Israeli society, a natural outcropping of our failure to recognize how the occupation of another nation has ultimately eaten away at out moral values. It’s much too easy to be shocked at these vile creatures from another world. They’re not that far away.…
Zachreni Na has been a problem for years. So has its composer, Dov Shurin.
Multiple sources who should know have told me over the years that Shurin is stoned much of the time, even when he's on Zev Brenner's weekly Saturday night radio show reading news headlines and weather updates from Israel, and he sometimes (unintentionally) sounds like the late George Carlin's Hippy Dippy Weatherman.
Underneath that stoner lies a right-wing extremist whose sympathies lie much closer to the thugs who burned that Palestinian family alive than they do to someone like Efrat's Rabbi Shlomo Riskin.
Shurin pays Brenner for that weekly timeslot – something Brenner does not make clear to listeners, even though FCC rules mandate it. Brenner relies on the general disclaimer given at the top of each hour by his host station noting the hour to come has been purchased by an advertiser – Brenner's Talkline Communications – and expects you to understand that some of his guests have paid him for their slots, and so has his Israel news and weather reporter.
The FCC told me several years ago that reliance by people who purchase blocks of airtime on radio and TV stations – like Brenner, for example – on general station disclaimers is not enough to be in compliance with FCC rules. The appearance of any "guest" on a show like Brenner's who has paid (either with money or with in-kind services or other means of barter) a host like Brenner or the host's company for that appearance must carry a disclaimer for that transaction at the beginning of the appearance, at its end, and at the return from every commercial or other break. The same would hold true if Brenner paid any guests for their appearances.
So here we have Brenner, in regular violation of FCC rules to begin with (not just with Shurin's appearances but with the appearances of many of his other "guests," as well) giving Zachreni Na's composer a weekly platform.
For years, Shurin has been paid to do a weekly highlight from the week's Torah reading drawn from Chabad's Gutnick Chumash which contains commentary from the late Chabad-Lubavitch Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Shurin's Gutnick Chumash minute is part of his weekly Brenner timeslot. Again, in violation of FCC rules neither Shurin or Brenner make it clear this is a paid advertisement.
More troubling to me is the fact that Chabad has never sought to publicly distance itself from Shurin, even though Zachreni Na has been a problem for many years. Perhaps now that Zachreni Na's association with racist terrorist violence has become well-known, Chabad will issue a statement distancing itself from Shurin's Gutnick Chumash minute.
Zionist Orthodox rabbis in Israel and their non-Orthodox allies in the right-wing spent years minimizing the true danger of the Hilltop Youth, Chabad's Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, Lehava's Bentzion "Bentzi" Gopstein, and so many others. Chabad has in its own way done the same.
Chabad will likely respond that this is not its ideology, that "the Rebbe" was a man of peace, and that Ginsburgh may be a Chabad hasid but he does not work directly for any official Chabad organization. However, it is at best debatable that Schneerson was a man of peace. And it is indisputable that the vast majority of Chabad hasidim are supportive of Ginsburgh's Kahane-style ideology just as they were supportive of Kahane (something I have all too much personal experience with).
What really matters is that much of Orthodoxy both in Israel and in America has been far too tolerant of the Hilltop Youth and the settlements that spawned them, as has much of Israel's secular right-wing and its American counterpart.
Zachreni Na and the ideology it represents should disgust you. If it does not, I ask you to spend some time carefully thinking through your beliefs.
Radical movements often fail – especially when they are violent. Ghandi and Martin Luther King were successful because they were non-violent and worked well with others who did not share their particular religious beliefs. Arguably nothing has hurt the Palestinian cause more than Palestinian terrorism and arguably nothing will help it in the long term more than Jewish terrorism. And nothing feeds Jewish terrorism more than your denial.
If for no other reason than this, wake up now before it is too late.
Related Posts:
The Horrific Jewish Wedding Song That Celebrates Murder.
All Douma (Duma) Arson Murder Posts.
All Bentzion "Bentzi" Gopstein Posts.
All Rabbi Meir Kahane And His Followers Posts.