The Golem Turns on his Creator

The Golem Turns on his Creator

?Uri Avnery
? ?04.05.04

? In Jewish legend, the Golem was a man-made creature endowed with enormous strength. Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague, also know as the Maharal, created him of clay and gave him life by putting a piece of paper with the secret name of God under his tongue.
The Golem helped the Jews defend themselves against anti-Semitic rioters, but one day he turned against his creator. He sowed ruin and destruction, until, at the last moment, the rabbi succeeded in extracting the piece of paper from his mouth. The Golem turned back into a heap of clay.

Ariel Sharon is not a rabbi and the Kabbalah is a closed book to him. But he has created a Golem: the settlement movement in the occupied territories.

He was sure that the Golem would serve him. After all, the settlers owe him everything. It was he who nursed them for decades, diverted funding to them on a massive scale, put at their service all the political positions he occupied one after the other: the ministries of agriculture, defense, foreign affairs, housing, industry and trade, infrastructure, and, finally, the Prime Minister's office.

(I remember about 25 years ago, visiting Sharon at home in the preparation of a biographical essay I was writing about him. My wife and I were sitting in the kitchen with Lilly Sharon, who served us her delicacies, when I noticed that the chiefs of the settlers were sitting in the adjoining room. Sharon himself went back and forth between us, sharing his time with us equally. Even at that early stage the settlers clearly treated him as their patron.).....

http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article302.html

And is interested in the "Golem" would be well advised to read the investigative piece by Shalom Yerushalmi on them - called the 'Alternative Likud' (Ma'ariv, 28 Nov 2003 - heb).

Interesting tidbits like how they wear T-shirts saying "I Buy From Jews Only", justify transfer, hate Sharon etc.

so if you could translate it would be nice.

But will do it and PM you with it.

is likewise a hate campaign. What about Buy local? Is that acceptable?

Please explain the relevance.

The shirts are worn by "extreme nationalist/rightists" and Kach only. Some (maybe all) include a transparent reference to Leviticus (see sig):



If you want to say that those guys using the same phrase as the Nazis is comparable to an economic boycott of a country for specific policies (I don't support a boycott, but lets put that aside), fair enough - how's the weather on your planet?

BTW, though that shirt is from a demo in Tel-Aviv, Jan 11 2004, the practice was noted earlier, in Ma'ariv, 28 Nov 2003:

http://images.maariv.co.il/cache/ART596550.html

The article (accurately) says that the phrase is a "racist inscription". That's a centrist Likud analyst (Shalom Yerushalmi) you're disagreeing with.

In addition to pointing all this out, I will state for the record that I think your effort to downplay this racism with a ridiculous analogy is absolutely disgraceful. I suggest you withdraw it.

http://www.jewsite.org/avodaivrit/

These maniacs proudly give the shirts away if you donate a couple of dozen NIS to their "site".

Exploiting fear of terrorist attacks to raise cash at the Temple Mount:

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:jos0xg213LIJ:www.ynet.co.il/articles/1,7340,L-2102153,00.html

Sounds lovely.

If you want to claim the Leviticus reference is not in a racist manner (i.e. referring only to Jews, not gentiles), here's an admission by a couple of these "literal" fans of the Talmud:

http://www.hofesh.org.il/articles/education/edual.html (Sep 03)

At least they're honest. :shrug: