This story is just treif on so many levels…
Jews in Chestnut Hill who were faithful to their spouses, good to their kids, honest in all business dealings, and who paid every cent of the taxes they owed may have been wondering what there was to repent as they entered the Jewish High Holidays. So the leaders at the Conservative Congregation Mishkan Tefila in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts decided to defile the sabbath and usher in the High Holy Days by promoting hate speech against Muslims and a neo-conservative message.
[Don’t Boston area synagogues get tired of having talks on the same 3 topics: (1) the Holocaust, (2) Why We Must support Israel, and (3) Evil Islam? What ever happened to Judaism? But I digress…]
On September 12, 2009 David Dalin spoke on the topic of “Icon of Evil: Hitler’s Mufti and the rise of Radical Islam.” The synagogue’s events calendar described the talk:
DR DALIN will speak at 9:00pm. This spiritually enriching prelude to the High Holy Days will conclude with a dessert reception at 10:00pm.
Rabbi Dalin is no stranger to controversy over his scholarship, he is a neo-conservative like his friend and co-author Irving Kristol, and his book, “Icon of Evil: Hajj Amin al-Husseini: Hitler’s Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam” has also drawn criticism for its questionable scholarship. One reviewer described it:
… unfortunately, this book is a ridiculous polemic that tries to paint al-Husseini as a major figure in the Holocaust and claims that secular Arab dictators like Saddam Hussein were radical Islamists who are part of a vast terrorist conspiracy…maybe Dick Cheney was a ghost writer for this piece of fiction. Oh and speaking of fiction, one whole chapter is a crazy “what if” scenario that has the Germans defeating the British in WWII and al-Husseini leading the Holocaust in “Londonistan” where prominent U.S. Jewish figures, like Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter, are unable to escape the onrushing German army and die in concentration camps. This is just way over the top.
Dalin is currently a professor of history and political science at Ave Maria University, a right-wing Catholic university in Southwest Florida founded in 2003 by former Domino’s Pizza founder and owner Tom Monaghan.
Congregation Mishkan Tefila,
300 Hammond Pond Pkwy.,
Chestnut Hill, MA, 02467
http://www.mishkantefila.org
+1 (617) 332-7770
ExecutiveDirector@mishkantefila.org
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