Nachum Shifren: Racist Rabbi Still Trying to Run For Senate Seat

Categorized | Loon Politics, Loon Rabbis

Tags | Anti-Muslim, Bigotry, California, Christianity, Hate, Islam, Islamophobia, Jew, Judaism, Muslims, Rabbi Nachum Shifren

Nachum Shifren: Racist Rabbi Still Trying to Run For Senate Seat

Posted on 14 May 2012 by Emperor

Nachum Shifren is still trying to run for senate. He thinks “White Americans” like “him” are under assault by everyone else. In the past we exposed Shifren for being the racist and hate-monger he is in our article, Rabbi Nachum Shifren: Rides the Wave of Islamophobia and Rabbi Nachum Shifren: EDL is the Salvation of the West from the “Muslim Dogs”.

I am not even sure if Shifren is still a Jew, how can he say this and remain a Jew, perhaps he is a “self-hating” Jew?:

… I AM an Islamophobe, and everything we need to know about Islam, we learned on 9-11! I believe in peace and justice for everybody – but that’s not why they’re here…. We’re getting sucker-punched because we as white – yes I said it! – as white, Christian Americans are being taught that somehow WE are to blame for all the problems.

Clearly he didn’t mean to say that he is a “Christian,” maybe he forgot to add the “Judeo” part?

Also see Richard Silverstein’s take: California Tea Party “White Christian” Settler Rabbi for US Senate

California: EDL-supporting Senate candidate claims to defend ‘white Americans’ against threat of Islam

San Mateo, CA — In the US Senate primary in California on June 5th, where 23 candidates vie to challenge Senator Dianne Feinstein in November, conservative candidates were recorded on videoverbally attacking teachers, Muslims, and minority groups to excite their base at GOP and Tea Party venues.

The video was recorded at a “Get to Know Your Candidates” event hosted by the San Mateo GOP at the American Legion Hall here. Dr. David Levitt, the candidate who recorded the event, reports unmasked homophobia, Islamophobia, and racism in the Republicans’ speeches.

In the video Republican candidate Rabbi Shifren cries, “… I AM an Islamophobe, and everything we need to know about Islam, we learned on 9-11! I believe in peace and justice for everybody – but that’s not why they’re here…. We’re getting sucker-punched because we as white – yes I said it! – as white, Christian Americans are being taught that somehow WE are to blame for all the problems.”

PRWeb, 14 May 2012

In October 2010 Nachum Shifren visited the UK to express his solidarity with the English Defence League, joining them for ademonstration in support of Israel and against “Islamic fascism” at which he was the main speaker. Fired up by Shifren’s Islamophobic rhetoric – he described Muslims as “dogs” who were trying to “take over our countries” – three EDL members attacked an Islamic literature stall and were later convicted of public order offences, with one of them receiving a seven-day prison sentence and a five-year CRASBO.

Political science pro

Interestingly enough, the Ibn Saud clan has used the Wahabi interpretation of the Quran to do exactly that. Even in the days of the Prophet, it was never re-named “Mohamed’s Arabia.”
HGG

“Also, I wouldn’t necessarily describe Loonwatch as leftist. We share a mission, but we don’t all come from the same vantage point.”

The Left Wing/Right Wing dichotomy is often useless in the grand scheme of things because of its relativity. Obama, for example, is known to some in the US as a Marxist-Socialist- Communist. to the left of Chairman Mao, while in many other parts of the world, he would be Center-Right politician at most.

But, from an American perspective, yeah, I would say Loonwatch, according to their frame of reference, it’s a pretty Leftist site.
HGG

“a fictitious book (bible) that was written by racist, sexist, genocidal men thousands of years ago.”

This certainly raises the level of discourse about the subject.
Ilisha

@IlanReiber

Is Saudi Arabia using the Quran to claim rights to colonize and occupy someone else’s land? If so, I’m definitely opposed to this proposal.
JT

Tom, you’re talking nonsense. According to the Qur’an, the mass killing of men, women and children was never even ordered by God. From a Qur’anic point of view, the violent details of the war as described in the OT never happened. Take a look at the verses Illisha has provided.

BTW, the command to not kill peaceful people, or women and children is not something I have cooked up. It’s true. All references to war in the Qur’an refer only to when you have been attacked first and even then if the other side offers a peace treaty you have to accept it. In the Hadith of the Prophet, we find him numerous times telling the Muslims to not harm non-combatants, women, children, monks, livestock, trees etc. when fighting a war.

“Now you are using the Koran to bash non Muslims.”

What?! Explain, please.
http://www.loonwatch.com Garibaldi

IlanReiber quit with the BS trolling. No where in the Quran does it say Muslims and non-Muslims are not allowed into Mecca and Medina, that opinion is taken from the hadith which you are unfamiliar with. The Quran only states that the polytheists should not be allowed near the holy sanctuary in Mecca.

Hopefully God is not a real estate agent who deeds people land through slaughter. Obviously, you believe, though I think many Jews would disagree with you that God is a real estate agent, and that it is OK to exterminate, disposes and expel Palestinians of their land. Then you justify it and say well Saudis do it too.

Interesting diversionary attempt to derail this thread, but not going to fly.
IlanReiber

Ilisha, Ilisha, I did not mention Saudi Arabia. I said Mecca. Medina. Yes, apologies, I misquoted you. I meant ‘real estate guide’. You use your ‘real estate’ guide to keep Mecca and Medina only for yourselves. Please do not dance around the issue. Israel is Holy land. Non Moslems were expelled or murdered from Mecca and Medina. Unless you are calling for a democracy in Mecca and Medina where Christians and Jews and Hindus and Buddhists can build their houses of prayer, you have no right to inist G-d is not a real estate agent. You cannot practice religious apartheid in your holy land (Allah is a real estate agent then?)and then insist Israel does not in her Holy land.

It’s hypocricy. It states, my God is a real estate agent but yours is not.
Ilisha

@IlanReiber

“…if you reject using any Book as a religous guide, does it mean you call for a democracy in Mecca? Medina?”

I didn’t say I rejected using a holy book as a “religious” guide, but rather as a “real estate” guide. I have no idea what that has to do with calling for democracy in Saudi Arabia.

“The orders to exterminate the idolators in Canaan, came from G-d. Does the Koran condemn the Israelis for this genocide?”

As I said, I reject that notion. The Quran clarifies the story, and anyway, Allah never ordered anyone to exterminate the innocent inhabitants of any land. The killing of innocent civilians is expressly and repeatedly forbidden in the Quran, so how can that be twisted into an endorsement of genocide?

“Israel is real estate for Jews from G-d.”

We’ll have to agree to disagree on this point.
IlanReiber

Ilisha, reading the above dialogue between you and Tom, if you reject using any Book as a religous guide, does it mean you call for a democracy in Mecca? Medina? The orders to exterminate the idolators in Canaan, came from G-d. Does the Koran condemn the Israelis for this genocide?

Israel is real estate for Jews from G-d. It doesn’t matter if others do not believe that, because when the exile ends the nations will recognise Israel as a reborn nation. That has already happened. G-d is indeed a real estate agent.

Does Torah Promote Genocide?

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/850235/jewish/Does-Torah-Promote-Genocide.htm

For example, this issue we have of destroying the Canaanites: In that era of city-states continually locked at war with one another, a pacifist stance–even a non-aggressive one–would be tribal suicide. Land belonged to those that conquered it and stood closely at guard to protect their conquest. The world had not yet evolved to a state where nations could appreciate peace as a value; indeed it did not for another three millennium with the advent of the League of Nations–and even then we know how sincere that turned out to be. So Torah had to teach a people how to value life and human dignity while living in a savage world.

And then, at a later date, those laws no longer applied. Even before Hellenism inundated and homogenized all the cultures and tribes of the Mediterranean, Sancherib the Assyrian conqueror had forcefully broken those tribes apart, moving peoples from their places into foreign lands where they were quickly assimilated and disappeared. When they returned from the Babylonian exile, the Children of Israel were no longer commanded to destroy the populous of the land–since those people no longer existed. Persia had moved the world from a collection of city-states bullying one another to a competition of true empires, and so that application was no longer relevant. But what then became of the instruction of an eternal Torah that gave that command?

Ingeniously: it became internalized. The seven nations of Canaan became seven elements of human character, such as lust, anger and haughtiness that must be eradicated from within each one of us if our bodies are to become a holy land in which a temple may be built and G-d may dwell. The nation of Amalek became the cold, intransigent sense of “I am” that lies at the core of all evil. Instead of war upon nations around us, we are enjoined to make war at the evil within–by the same Torah, with the same words.

Now you will understand why Jewish people never study the text of the Torah without the glosses and commentaries our people have accumulated through the ages.
Sarah Brown

Thanks Nur Alia – I think it is possible to think that nothing justifies those murders and yet still agree that it’s fair to point out that not knowing the full story could be an issue, just as it would be the other way around.
Ilisha

@Tom

“If you note the Koranic Allah doesn’t condemn Jews for the genocide of the native Canaanatie…”

The story is told in the Quran itself as clarification: http://quran.com/5/20-26:

5:20 Remember Moses said to his people: “O my people! Call in remembrance the favour of Allah unto you, when He produced prophets among you, made you kings, and gave you what He had not given to any other among the peoples.

5:21 “O my people! Enter the holy land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin.”

5:22 They said: “O Moses! In this land are a people of exceeding strength: Never shall we enter it until they leave it: if (once) they leave, then shall we enter.”

5:23 (But) among (their) Allah-fearing men were two on whom Allah had bestowed His grace: They said: “Assault them at the (proper) Gate: when once ye are in, victory will be yours; But on Allah put your trust if ye have faith.”

5:24 They said: “O Moses! while they remain there, never shall we be able to enter, to the end of time. Go thou, and thy Lord, and fight ye two, while we sit here (and watch).”

5:25 He said: “O my Lord! I have power only over myself and my brother: so separate us from this rebellious people!”

5:26 Allah said: “Therefore will the land be out of their reach for forty years: In distraction will they wander through the land: But sorrow thou not over these rebellious people.

*****

Allah didn’t command the Children of Israel to commit genocide, and in fact rejected their request to clear the Holy Land of its inhabitants.

The Children of Israel were to seek refuge in the land to fight for righteousness, not to slaughter everyone down to the last, which is an interpretation imposed onto the text, not one that’s gleaned from it.

This is the problem with cherry picking verses and casting your own colors onto the meaning.

I should add that, in any case, I reject the notion of using any holy book as a real estate guide.

As for Saudi Arabia, this has nothing whatsoever to do with Palestinian rights, outside of the tribal construct that says since Palestinians are mostly Muslims, the behavior of other Muslims reflects on them and provides a valid excuse to deprive them of their rights.

The Saudis should be (and are) criticized for their misdeeds, but that in no way lets anyone else off the hook, and it certainly doesn’t justify mistreating people in other countries.
Tom

JT

Now you are using the Koran to bash non Muslims. What does what you say have to do with what I said? Allah was talking to Mohammed according to the Koran, not to Jews.

The Koran condems the Jews for worshipping the calf (idol worship) which it also tells Muslims not to do. From this one can deduce neither Allah nor Yahwah wanted idol worship.

The killing of non combatants in the land is something you cooked up. If Allah said that to the Muslims he did not condemn the Jews for the genocide in the Old Testament, which existed at the time the Koran was said to be revealed to Mohammed. Why didn’t Allah condemn that if you think it is wrong? You assume they were non combatants? Why does the Koran say Allah punished the Jews for being too cowardly to fight? They were punished from entering for a number of years, 30 or 40 I believe. You cannot pretend that they were non combatants just because you choose to, when your Book doesn’t support it.

As I said, liberals cannot see they’re useful idiots.
JT

“Silence is complicity.”

Except that Islam explicitly forbids the killing of non-combatants. Using the Old Testament to bash Muslims is a bit stupid. A lot of people are content with mining just the Qur’an and Hadith to find material to use against Muslims, but you’ve clearly thought outside the box.
Tom

ASPIE AND ATHEIST

You are committing a fallacy by comparing Saudi Arabia and Israel etc.

I’m afraid you’re mistaken. Long before Saudi Arabia came into being there was religious apartheid in ‘Saudi Arabia’. I did not mention Saudi Arabia, I mentioned Muslim Mecca and Muslim Medina.Israel was a theocracy when Jews controlled it. God did not mean for it to be a ‘democracy’ as we understand democracy.

I wasn’t comparing, perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. The UN comprises how many Muslim countries who decry Israel for apartheid? That is couble standard here is that they won’t call for their own religious land to be a ‘democracy’. From that viewpoint, Israel is justified in being Jewish if she ever decides to do away with a ‘democracy’ and Muslim states cannot do anything about it, moreover they should laud Israe for not doing what they did, namely, expelling their non Jewish citizens.

As for your calling Moses sexist, genocidal, well that is true but it was God who ordered it, and since in the Koranic allah doesn’t condemn the genocide in the Old Testament. Silence is complicity. If you note the Koranic Allah doesn’t condemn Jews for the genocide of the native Canaanatie but it does condemn them for other things like worshipping a calf. This means Muslims cannot complain of a Jewish Israel if the Israelis decide to have one, since the Koran itself claims they were punished for not being Jewish enough. Do you note how such countries are not above using liberals and democratic countries to serve their own agendas, but do not hold their own to liberal values. The liberal left are useful idiots here. They cannot see they are merely being used.

A country decides it’s own future.
Glenn

It is interesting how distorted this has become MyLiberty provided a forum for all candidates to speak along with the Rabi were other unpalatable candidates such as the woman from the Peace and Freedom party esposing socialisim and then of course there was Mr Levitt who was espousing Marxisim Hardly Tea Party supported candidates. This video goes a long way in the misrepresentation of what transpired that evening.
Arab Atheist – ملحد عربي

@Aspie and Atheist
You said: (bible)…was written by racist, sexist, genocidal men thousands of years ago.

Certainly there are disturbing parts in the bible (OT & NT), just like there are some in the Quran too. But you suggest that those who wrote those texts are evil. While some of their teachings should be completely unacceptable modern day, I doubt that those reformers were exceptionally or essentially racist or violent. However, your over-confident tone seems to indicate that the bible was exceptionally violent. My understanding is that when the bible was revealed, bigotry (racial, tribal, and religious) was the norm (terrible as it may be).

Religion, no matter how much I disagree with it, is much more complicated than the way you described it (religion = evil). However, like you said, it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to justify modern day injustices anyway, as we see done by Israel.
Aspie and Atheist

@Nur Alia

I completely agree with you. Israel is not a victim, rather it is the aggressor. It is a state founded on a mandate found in a fictitious book (bible) that was written by racist, sexist, genocidal men thousands of years ago.
Aspie and Atheist

@Tom

Israel shouldn’t be a Jewish state. It has to treat all it’s citizens equally, not just the Jewish ones.
Aspie and Atheist

@Tom

You are committing a fallacy by comparing Saudi Arabia and Israel etc.

The discussion was on Israel, so don’t try to change the topic by comparing to Saudi Arabia, as it still does not justify the pathetic ‘Israel is/needs to be a Jewish state’ argument.

Since Israel as a Jewish state obviously cannot guarantee it’s non-Jewish citizens equality, then obviously Israel cannot be a Jewish state and therefore should adopt democracy and the doctrine of being separate from religion.
Aspie and Atheist

Maybe this racist asshole should take his good ‘ol fashioned white folk ideology and shove it up his ass, [snipped]
Nur Alia

@sarah

You posted this as a response to my comment…

“…Nur Alia – do you mean you get the sense, from the Western media, that the Israelis are the victims? The UK media’s a bit different maybe …. ‘Both sides are not being helpful in resolving it’ sounds about right…”

We get some western media here in Malaysia. When you compare it to the Chinese media (the one I read for news most often) you get a sence that the west ‘favors’ Israel over the Palistinians by not reporting what escalated a certian incident.

For example…I read one day that an Israeli soldier was found not guilty for what was decribed by witnesses as him emptying his weapon into a girl who had…while playing with friends…wondered into some forbidden zone by accident. The next day, in the same spot 5 illegal settlers, including a pregnant woman was murdered in a car. The western media never reported the first crime…and after the second crime happened, Obama condemned it, and it was first page news in the western media as if it was some ‘random attack’.

Now, for the record, I always condemn the murder of ANY innocent people. I never take any side in this. Murder is not political, or religious, it is plain evil…so I am not justifying anything here…and dont imply, or accuse me of doing it.

This is an example of what I mean. In the west, the Israelis are the victims’, and in reality one murder is never rectified by another as we see in this incident.
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Tom

Arab Atheist

Be that as it may, it makes no sense for Muslim anti semites of all people to whinge about a ‘Jewish Israel’ (i’ll take that from an atheist or a liberal since they don’t like religion) when they have Muslim Mecca and Muslim Medina. If they deglitimise Israel by saying it shouldn’t be Jewish, well then why isn’t the left wing, decrying religious apartheid in Mecca and Midina? You’ve seen the hugh signs banning infidels (including Christians and Jews who are supposedly ‘book people’)
Arab Atheist – ملحد عربي

@Just Stopping By
You said: “But, sometimes anti-Zionism is just anti-Zionism. And sometimes it’s not clear whether an anti-Zionist statement is based in anti-Semitism.”

I totally agree with you. And for myself, I always try to make a very clear distinction between the two and where I stand. I am not even against all Zionist principles.
Arab Atheist – ملحد عربي

@Tom

You don’t have to be antisemitic to delegitimize Israel’s systematic ethnic cleansing. Such as you don’t have to be an Islamophobe to condemn Saudi Arabia’s dictatorial and ultraorthodox regime. Norman Finekelstein knows very well the difference between antisemitism and legitimate criticism of Israel. And so does Noam Chomskey and other notable Jews. It’s true that Finkelstein realizes that there are some people who agree with him only because they hate Jews. He pointed that out many times and trashed such people.

Sadly, antisemitism is epidemic in the Arab world, I agree. But so is Islamophobia and Antiarabism in Israel and the West. The point is, antisemtism should not be an excuse to legitimize what Israel is doing, just like Islamophobia cant be an excuse for more bigotry by Muslim fanatics. Now what matters is the facts on the ground. Israel is a foreign west-backed occupying power. Muslims, Jews, and Christians have religious narrative related to the ownership of that land. Well, all are bogus simply because 1) they are religion-based and 2) historic and archaeological evidence, real or fabricated, does not morally give you any right to somebody else’s land. When Jews first came to Palestine, they came as occupiers, just like Muslims and other occupying powers. Zionists think they have the right to do some sort of a time machine trick to selectively return to a certain episodes in history but not others.

Regardless of what the bible or the Quran says, the truth is that Israel annexed land and expelled natives and established a state based on a racist ideology, aka Zionism. Arabs don’t care what the bible says just as you don’t care what the Quran says! Zionist say well Jews lived there a few thousand years ago. But so did many other people in many other places including Palestine. People were extremely tribal and were constantly moving. Just because Jews or whoever lived on that land for a while does not give their decedents the right to expel people. Historically, Jews, just like Muslims and Christians, occupied foreign nations. There’s no such thing as biblical, Quranic, or prehistoric ownership of land. So history aside, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is taking place in the PRESENT. There are still Palestinian refugees and the systemic demolitions and confiscation of land. Do not try to present Israel as democratic because, sorry, it is not.

The Israeli government does not want peace. And just recently, Mahmoud Abbas sent a letter to the Israeli prime minister to kick off the peace negotiations but his proposal fell on deaf ears.

If Israel accepts a neighboring Palestinian state and compensates Palestinians for their suffering, peace will become a reality in no time. There’s hope still, I hope sooner than later.

@Nur Alia
I just recently met an Arab Jew in the USA! I was really surprised because I never met one before (I only heard they exist). He identified himself as a Palestinian Jew and said he is very proud of his heritage. We talked and talked and he was totally Pro-Palestinian rights and against Israeli policies (but not against Israel or Jews of course). It was one of the most interesting conversations for me