Never Forget!
Never Forgive!
Interviewer: "Does the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11 constitute Jihad?"According to Christianity Jesus came to save the souls of believers. He is not a prophet, but the Messiah. But Islam has taken the Messiah Jesus, turned him into a prophet with no powers but to prepare the way for Muhammad (MHBIH).
Hisham Al-'Ashri: "Well, it depends who did it. Jihad is only for Muslims. They even say 'Jihad' in English because they have no equivalent. [...]
"I call on everybody to type in Google '911,' and then click. You will get an incredible amount of videos, documents, and documentaries made by Americans – not Muslims, Arabs, or people of Arab origin – proving that the Islamists had nothing to do with 9/11, unless they were targeted.
"The two planes that hit the World Trade Center were military planes, not civilian ones."
Interviewer: "So, those who led this...
"They were controlled by..."
Hisham Al-'Ashri: "By the U.S. airforce. [...]
"Under Mubarak, Egypt did not have a war for 30 years. Israel, on the other hand, did not last for 30 days without a war. The U.S. did not last for three months without a war."
Interviewer: "That's true."
Hisham Al-'Ashri: "England and France did not last for three years without a war."
Interviewer: "But these were not direct wars..."
Hisham Al-'Ashri: "Yes, they were. America is fighting a direct war..."
Interviewer: "I was referring to England and France."
Hisham Al-'Ashri: "They joined America in the Iraq war..."
Interviewer: "They fought wars outside their borders."
Hisham Al-'Ashri: "They sent fighters to fight. Our concept of war is that it is great to live in peace, as long as you do not enter a war in which you will be defeated. Got it? When I do not engage in a war for 30 years, but I allow my enemy to have a war every 30 days – this is negligence."
Interviewer: "Does that mean you are calling us to wage a war against Israel?"
Hisham Al-'Ashri: "It is the dream of my life to wage war against Israel, under the command of the state, the president, the regime, and the army. I will not decide all by myself to start a war. [...]
"There is no such thing as a Christian religion. Did Jesus come to prophesy the Christian religion?"
Interviewer: "He came to prophesy his religion..."
Hisham Al-'Ashri: "The Christian religion?"
Interviewer: "Or did he come to call people to monotheism?" [...]
Hisham Al-'Ashri: "In Islam, we believe that our religion is the true religion, and that the Muslims will enter Paradise. Out of love for the Christians, I call upon them to enter Paradise with me." [...]
Qur'an (3:54) - "And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers."The Arabic word used here for scheme (or plot) is makara, which literally means deceit.
On the anniversary of the September 11 Al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S. that killed some 3,000 people in 2001, Egyptian rioters attempted to invade the U.S. Embassy in Cairo Tuesday, tearing down the American flag and burning it. At least 2,000 people stood at the foot of the walls surrounding the embassy as about 20 of the rioters scaled the walls. Rioters also drew anti-American graffiti on the wall and demanded that the United States end its presence in Egypt. U.S. soldiers prevented the rioters from entering the Embassy compound. Witnesses said that Egyptian police at the scene did little to stop the rioters' advance to the Embassy walls, which are usually cordoned off.I could say "Shades of Jimmy Carter", but that would be twisting the knife in the wound a few times. But we have pledged billions of dollars in aid to Egypt and this is the reward for our generosity. Perhaps a few well placed bombs (Aswan Dam?) to remind Egypt and the Muslim world what it means to anger the United States. But that would take a President who does not bow or cater to the Islamists.
The object of the rioters' wrath was the rumor that a U.S. group was planning a movie that would depict the history of early Islam, and the plundering and war committed by Mohammed, the creator of Islam. A Reuters reporter on the scene was unable to ascertain which movie the rioters were targeting, but several web Arabic web sites referred to a U.S. site that claimed that a group in Florida was planning an “International Judge Mohammad Day,” with Mohammed being put on trial for his crimes, live over the Internet.
The U.S. condemned the rioting. In a statement, the Embassy said that “respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy,” and that it condemned the “misguided actions” of individuals who disrespected Islam. Last year, during the height of protests against former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, rioters invaded the Israeli embassy in Cairo, with several Embassy in mortal danger as rioters trashed the offices and threw furniture and equipment out windows. Seventy three Egyptians were convicted of rioting in that incident, but all received a suspended sentence.
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I thought long and I thought hard on whether to deliver the sermon I am about to share. We all wish to bounce happily out of shul on the High Holidays, filled with warm fuzzies, ready to gobble up our brisket, our honey cakes and our kugel. We want to be shaken and stirred – but not too much. We want to be guilt-schlepped – but not too much. We want to be provoked but not too much. We want to be transformed but not too much.
I get it, but as a rabbi I have a compelling obligation, a responsibility to articulate what is in my heart and what I passionately believe must be said and must be heard. And so, I am guided not by what is easy to say but by what is painful to express. I am guided not by the frivolous but by the serious. I am guided not by delicacy but by urgency.
We are at war. We are at war with an enemy as savage, as voracious, as heartless as the Nazis but one wouldn’t know it from our behavior. During WWII we didn’t refer to storm troopers as freedom fighters. We didn’t call the Gestapo, militants. We didn’t see the attacks on our Merchant Marine as acts by rogue sailors. We did not justify the Nazis rise to power as our fault. We did not grovel before the Nazis, thumping our hearts and confessing to abusing and mistreating and humiliating the German people.
We did not apologize for Dresden , nor for The Battle of the Bulge, nor for El Alamein, nor for D-Day.
Evil – ultimate, irreconcilable, evil threatened us and Roosevelt and Churchill had moral clarity and an exquisite understanding of what was at stake. It was not just the Sudetenland, not just Tubruk, not just Vienna, not just Casablanca . It was the entire planet. Read history and be shocked at how frighteningly close Hitler came to creating a Pax Germana on every continent.
Not all Germans were Nazis – most were decent, most were revolted by the Third Reich, most were good citizens hoisting a beer, earning a living and tucking in their children at night. But, too many looked away, too many cried out in lame defense – I didn’t know.” Too many were silent. Guilt absolutely falls upon those who committed the atrocities, but responsibility and guilt falls upon those who did nothing as well. Fault was not just with the goose steppers but with those who pulled the curtains shut, said and did nothing.
In WWII we won because we got it. We understood who the enemy was and we knew that the end had to be unconditional and absolute. We did not stumble around worrying about offending the Nazis. We did not measure every word so as not to upset our foe. We built planes and tanks and battleships and went to war to win….. to rid the world of malevolence.
We are at war… yet too many stubbornly and foolishly don’t put the pieces together and refuse to identify the evil doers. We are circumspect and disgracefully politically correct.
Let me mince no words in saying that from Fort Hood to Bali, from Times Square to London , from Madrid to Mumbai, from 9/11 to Gaza, the murderers, the barbarians are radical Islamists.
To camouflage their identity is sedition. To excuse their deeds is contemptible. To mask their intentions is unconscionable.
A few years ago I visited Lithuania on a Jewish genealogical tour. It was a stunning journey and a very personal, spiritual pilgrimage. When we visited Kovno we davened Maariv at the only remaining shul in the city. Before the war there were thirty-seven shuls for 38,000 Jews. Now only one, a shrinking, gray congregation. We made minyon for the handful of aged worshippers in the Choral Synagogue, a once majestic, jewel in Kovno.
After my return home I visited Cherry Hill for Shabbos. At the oneg an elderly family friend, Joe Magun, came over to me.
“Shalom,” he said. “Your abba told me you just came back from Lithuania.”
“Yes,” I replied. “It was quite a powerful experience.” “Did you visit the Choral Synagogue in Kovno? The one with the big arch in the courtyard?”
“Yes, I did. In fact, we helped them make minyon.” His eyes opened wide in joy at our shared memory. For a moment he gazed into the distance and then, he returned. “Shalom, I grew up only a few feet away from the arch. The Choral Synagogue was where I davened as a child.”
He paused for a moment and once again was lost in the past. His smile faded. Pain filled his wrinkled face. “I remember one Shabbos in 1938 when Vladimir Jabotinsky came to the shul” (Jabotinsky was Menachim Begin’s mentor – he was a fiery orator, an unflinching Zionist radical, whose politics were to the far right.) Joe continued “When Jabotinsky came, he delivered the drash on Shabbos morning and I can still hear his words burning in my ears. He climbed up to the shtender, stared at us from the bima, glared at us with eyes full of fire and cried out. ‘EHR KUMT. YIDN FARLAWST AYER SHTETL – He’s coming. Jews abandon your city.’ ”
We thought we were safe in Lithuania from the Nazis, from Hitler. We had lived there, thrived for a thousand years but Jabotinsky was right — his warning prophetic. We got out but most did not.”

You enter your favorite pizza parlor with your family on an early Saturday night. The place is packed with families, with teens, with people. Wall to wall with a wait to be seated. Suddenly a person enters the building, goes to the middle of the place and detonates a bomb. The shrapnel rips through your body. The last thing you see is your children shredded to bits. This is not fiction. It happened here.Imagine this:
You leave your home to go to work, get on the bus and this happens:Imagine this:
It happened here.
You are attending a religious function with your family. A person walks in, detonates a bomb. You and your family are killed.This is reality in Israel. Not the big attacks as we experienced on 9/11, but the small single person attacks on a single, smaller target. You never know when it will happen, where it will happen, if you or your loved ones will be involved, injured, killed. When it is discovered that the Muslim community is behind these actions, the world insists that you do nothing to stop these attacks, in fact you have to import more terrorists into your country. You have to surrender to everything the terrorists demand. If you don't expect more attacks, in any city, at any time.
It happened here.