Eric Yoffie and the Reform Movement: Delusional or Evil?

ג׳ לחודש השמיני תשע״ה

JPost.com: US Jews not threatened by anti-Semitism, former Reform chief says
"Anti-Semitism is not a threat to the security and well-being of the Jews of America," Rabbi Eric Yoffie wrote in Time.

JPost.com Staff, Maya Shwayder, and Sam Sokol, May 31, 2014

American Jews can feel reassured that they are safe from any physical threats motivated by anti-Semitism, said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the former head of the US Reform movement.

World Jewry is trying to come to grips with last week’s shooting attack at the Brussels Jewish Museum, the resurgence of the European far Right and anti-Jewish rhetoric in the Muslim world.

Writing an opinion piece for Time magazine, Yoffie declared that “anti-Semitism is not a threat to the security and well-being of the Jews of America.”

He said that while there are worrying trends of escalating anti-Semitism in Europe and the Muslim world, American Jews can take solace in the fact that the United States remains safe and discrimination-free.

The rabbi was writing in response to the results of a recent survey released by the Anti-Defamation League, which found that negative attitudes toward Jews are “persistent and pervasive around the world.”

After surveying over 50,000 people in 102 countries in what it termed the “most comprehensive assessment ever of anti-Semitic attitudes globally,” the ADL came to a number of surprising conclusions.

The First International Resources poll determined that 26 percent of respondents were “deeply infected” with anti-Semitic attitudes, while only a little more than half of those polled have heard of the Holocaust. Twothirds of those asked stated that they have either not heard of the Nazi genocide or do not believe that accepted historical accounts are correct.

Those who responded positively to six or more questions out of a set of 11 questions based on common Jewish stereotypes were deemed anti-Semitic by the New York-based Jewish advocacy group. The ADL’s National Director Abraham Foxman said that they purposely set the bar high.

“We didn’t want to hype. We wanted to understate, rather than overstate, and to be careful that we’re only labeling those people who are really bad,” he said.

Yoffie countered that while he doesn’t doubt that millions of Americans do harbor anti-Semitic sentiments, it is far from being translated into anti-Jewish behavior.

“And by behavioral standards, it is difficult to see anti-Semitism as a factor of any consequence in American life,” Yoffie wrote. “Jews in America are able to live in neighborhoods where they want to live, work in businesses where they want to work, and gain acceptance to any universities that they are qualified to attend.

“This was not always the case in this country; even in the post-World War II period, discrimination against Jews in all these realms was commonplace.

But no more. For half a century, practical prejudice of this sort has essentially disappeared,” he added.

Yoffie wrote that while the Jewish community has witnessed acts of terrorism and vandalism motivated by anti-Semitism, they do not amount to any credible threat since “government officials and political leaders can be counted on to raise their voices in protest and activate the machinery of government to combat the forces of hate.

“There can be no excuse for seeing our situation as different from what it really is,” Yoffie wrote. “And our reality, as American Jews, is that we are not a community under siege. Let us say it plainly: the anti-Semitism that is festering elsewhere poses no danger to us.”

Esser Agaroth (2¢):

Eric Yoffie
clown of our generation

So, what does Eric Yoffie want us to do? Wait around until the "anti-Semitic sentiments" harbored by "millions of Americans" do become "translated into anti-Jewish behavior?"

Because only a handful of Jews have been killed or injured, in shootings or "knock-down" attacks? Or perhaps because those Jews killed or injured do not matter? That they did not do enough to assimilate amongst the goyim, that they had it coming to them?

I am simply asking if this is what Eric Yoffie is really trying to say.

Are these "Jewish leaders'" fancy jobs, cars, and "acceptance" by non-Jews really worth risking the life of even one more Jew?

Are they pulling the wool over American Jews' eyes purposefully, thus preventing them from reading the writing on the wall, to keep them in Galuth (exile)?

This is the second time in a week, I am posting the following video here on site. The Jewish Voices on Campus video is well-worth viewing a second or third time. Perhaps it will give Eric Joffe some insight as to the Jew-hatred, university students, for example, have been facing on campuses across the U. S.


(Tip: Emergency Aliya Now Facebook Group)

Here, I will cite one of the Reform [Bowel] Movement's favorite lines in Jewish texts to pick-out of context and distort. They have applied it to non-Jews, left and right. But, when it comes to our own...?

תלמוד בבלי סנהדרין לז,א

...לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי ללמדך שכל המאבד נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו איבד עולם מלא וכל המקיים נפש אחת מישראל מעלה עליו הכתוב כאילו קיים עולם מלא....

BT Sanhedrin 37a
...Therefore, man was created singly, to teach you that whoever causes a single soul from Israel to perish, Scripture considers him as if he had caused an entire world to perish, and whoever preserves a single soul from Israel, Scripture considers him as if he had preserved an entire world....

Such un-Jews love to completely ignoring the halakhah (Torah Law), which they find to be "no longer binding." But, what they really mean to say is that assimilation amongst the international, global community of humanity, is OK, if not preferred.

In all fairness, there are plenty of "Modern Orthodox," who have been guilty of picking and choosing, taking thing out of context, and distorting them.

But, I digress...

Judaism is a religion based exclusively on Torah, both the Written and Oral. Thus, Reformism is not Judaism.

מערבב
"mixer"

Rather than pursue what The Almighty's Will is for us, His People, rather than fitting our lives into the rubric of Torah, Reformists seek to fit bits and pieces of Torah into their lives when it is convenient, and "feels right." Often, these bits and pieces, often barely, if at all, recognizable as Torah.

Whereas the Torah instructs us regarding our separate and distinct nature, and commands us to maintain separation among various aspects of Jewish life; Reformists are hellbent on mixing such things together: Shabbath and the work week, Jews and goyim, including intermarriage, kosher and treif, pure and contaminated.

Of course. Think about what God wants? Why would any rational person do anything like that?

And so, I ask you again are Eric Yoffie and the Reform Movement delusional or evil? Well, I do not know about Eric Yoffie. He could simply be prideful, greedy, naive, or blind. But, the roots of the Reform Movement were put into motion by those notorious for mixing things, the Erev Rav (from the "mixed" multitude).