When My Community Defends Murderers

In the past two days I have had four Lubavitchers tell me that Baruch Goldstein is a hero. In addition to that I was in a local Crown Heights Chabad WhatsApp group where six Lubavitchers defended him and called him innocent. And they were calling for the release of Amiram Ben-Uliel saying he is innocent too. They posted this article about Amiram Ben-Uliel and asked fellow Jews to join the campaign to help free him.

In response to me calling those men murderers and pointing out that they both murdered multiple people including children I got told by multiple Jews that I am not Jewish and that I love Islam more than Judaism. (I am an ex Muslim Jewish convert.)

I don’t care if the victims are Muslim, Jewish, Christian, black, white or Chinese. I care that these men committed premeditated awful acts of murder. I asked these people if there were a Jewish Ted Bundy would you defend him too? Do you also defend Jeffrey Epstein?

The bottom line is that people from a group of people have to accept that some people from their group do bad things. Just like Muslims can admit that Bin Laden was awful, Jews should be able to admit that Goldstein and Ben-Uliel are awful. There should be no nuance, no excuses and no trying to justify these folks’ terrible actions.

And I will say here what I said to those people: defending these murderers is a mental illness and bottom of the barrel opinions and morals. And if this is where you stand I don’t want to be around you. Just like I wouldn’t be friends with a Holocaust denier, I won’t be friends with folks who try to justify the killings of non-Jews.

I think it’s important that opinions like this even though they are the minority opinion (a poll in Israel found that only 10% of Israelis think that Baruch Goldstein is a hero. I was dealing with American Jews. But I would argue that it’s also a minority opinion amongst American Jews including Lubavitchers) be made public. Because even though it’s a minority it is not ok and should be denounced.

When I talk about people’s disgusting opinions being made public I mean this. When a Muslim says something disturbing in a Mosque MEMRI Reports has a recording and they post it. In the Orthodox Jewish community especially on Shabbat at Shabbat tables and in synagogues they feel they are only speaking to their fellow Jews. There are no cameras. There is no recording. So if some Jews demonize Muslims, Arabs, black non-Jews, non-Jews etc. they feel like they are talking in the privacy of their own community. I also feel like even though the WhatsApp group I was in had 900 members that these Jews there felt they had a level of privacy because they believe only Jews are part of that WhatsApp group. But the internet is never private. And when I think of what would happen if non Jews ended up joining and reading and listening to some of the things the Jews there say about them I can only imagine how upset the non-Jews would be. And how bad that would make members of my community look. Again these are minority opinions. But still it’s important that it be pointed out in the strongest terms that it isn’t ok.

These Jews would probably never say these things to the non-Jews face. And they don’t think the non-Jewish world will find out. So when I post that a Jewish person screamed in a synagogue “Baruch Goldstein is a hero” maybe some people feel I shouldn’t be sharing that. But if a Jew says something with a full chest proud of their opinions to members of their community shouldn’t they not be worried about the non Jewish world finding out about it. If they wouldn’t say it to a non-Jew or at work or at school maybe they shouldn’t say it at all. I believe that people should stand by what they say. And if you are going to say something behind someone’s back you should say it to their face. I would never tell anyone about a private conversation I had with someone. But with these conversations even though these Jews assume they have a level of privacy, I don’t see it that way. If you understand that what you are saying is offensive to others then you shouldn’t say it. And a good policy to have is if it’s something you wouldn’t say in a mixed group of people don’t say it at all.