You have to love the AP. Even as Ariel Sharon lies on his deathbed, they manage a hideously anti-Sharon, anti-Israel, anti-religious Jew article, with only a few shout-outs to another point of view.
JERUSALEM (AP) – The question first appeared on a religious Web site: Is it right to join nationwide prayers for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon even if you despise him for forcing Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip?
Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu replied it is not. It’s wrong, he said, to offer prayers of hope if you believe otherwise in your heart.
The exchange – posted shortly after Sharon suffered a massive stroke Wednesday – highlighted the passions binding an unusual nexus of ultra-nationalist settlers, doomsday zealots and Christian evangelicals such as Pat Robertson. In the span of a few years, their views of Sharon have swung from ally to betrayer of biblical prophecy and his people.
The appeal for prayers also served as a commentary on the ideological rifts among Jewish religious leaders: liberals who see promise in Sharon’s legacy and hard-liners who curse it.
Literally millions of Jews in Israel and around the world are praying for Sharon’s recovery–including this one, who intends to go to synagogue tonight for the first time in a month–and the AP can’t seem to find any until the very end of this article, where they present the other side of the story.
Here’s the other side of the story, in words:
Many religious communities, religious schools and yeshivas throughout the country said prayers yesterday for the recovery of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. And in Jerusalem, the rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinowitz, received hundreds of calls from people inquiring about what prayers to say for the prime minister.
For his part, Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger called on the public to pray for Sharon and read psalms for his recovery, with Shas spiritual mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef issuing a similar call.
The chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces, Yisrael Weiss held prayers for Sharon at the ancient synagogue in Jericho.
And pictures:
I cannot describe to you how much, and how often, I hate the AP.
Er… that was not the worst one. At least he has done it using other sources of crapola.
Lots of maggots around, unfortunately.
Note too that the article manages to echo the Arab slander that the Western Wall wasn’t REALLY part of the Second Temple — those silly nationalist Jews just THINK it was. (By the way, AP, we do not believe it was part of the Temple itself; we think it was part of the retaining wall that supported the Temple.)