From Mondoweiss in 2012, more from former yeshiva student Yossi Gurvitz on why he became radicalized:

Meantime, in Israel we are seeing the Jehovahiztion of the Israeli public. Ignorant, radical Jews are turning more to symbols of Jewish superiority than actual Jewish values. It’s getting harder to be a liberal except in Tel Aviv. Everyone is thinking about a second passport.

This is a spiral that will leave Israel more fanatic, more religious, less able to communicate with the western world– and ironically more part of the extremism of the Middle East. I’ve been writing about the Jewish Brotherhood. Unlike the Muslim Brotherhood, our extremists have never had to face reality and soften. Because even when they wield power they claim that the real power is the hands of the liberal elites.

Unlike the US, we have no constitution. No Basic Law grants equality. The Israeli religious right has blocked that. The only reason we have freedom of the press is because of the Supreme Court decisions. The right is already using this as a way of attacking the Supreme Court, which is becoming more fearful, less willing to use its power.

Unless something drastic changes, and it could happen– I’m betting on the J14 movement– liberal Israel is dying, and it won’t be in existence in 5, or 10 years. Some elements will be kept as a figleaf, for the Zionist Jehovahist regime. The liberals will leave, those who can.

When that happens, the liberal part of the US will no longer be so willing to defend Israel and its policies. Then without the US, Israel will be hanging by its threat to use nuclear weapons. It will become a second North Korea.

There’s a history here. In 2004 a Maariv columnist demanded that the government nuke France. Because France is an enemy of Israel, and about to collapse into a Muslim Republic, a supporter of Iran– so we should nuke them first. The editor was fired for publishing it after the French ambassador made an official protest. The Foreign Minister [Avigdor Lieberman] suggested when he was in the opposition, that Israel nuke the Aswan dam. So there’s a reason the Egyptians won’t meet him.

Four days ago a church was desecrated in Jerusalem. As part of a pricetag attack. This happens all the time. When the pricetag people run out of Muslim targets, they will concentrate more on Christian targets. When that happens, the American Christian right will realize that the Israeli right is hostile to Christianity.

Why is all this inevitable?

Zionism as a force is dead. The people who are actually speaking in the name of Zionism are speaking in religious and metaphysical and mystical truths. They are not speaking in the secular Zionist tradition. A poll two weeks ago—about 70 percent consider themselves to be the chosen people. American Jews think we as Jews are chosen to carry out tikkun olam [social justice]. Israeli Jews think something different—we are the chosen people of God, we are chosen to do anything we damn well please. To take people’s land. Take peoples lives. There is actually no mainstream force standing against the Jewish brotherhood.

This is not just the religious people, it’s a large part of the secular people buying into it. Israel’s Jews refuse to accept the legitimacy of the marriage of Jews and non-Jews. You American Jews really don’t understand us. They think we’re gutsier… American Jews… think of Zionist liberals. They’re older, they’re still thinking about the late 70s, early 80s, the golden age of Israel’s liberalism.

You have to understand what the religious right means when they say of leftists, the multitude, they are the erav rav. This means the ones who left Egypt, the mixed multitude. It is a concept in Kabbalah– the Amalekite Jew. A Jew who isn’t really a Jew. He looks like a Jew, thinks he’s a Jew, but he’s an enemy of God. It’s been used in the Knesset, the word erav rav.

If you think this Judaism is the wisdom of Israel, it’s not. This is the Judaism forced underground by the Christian regimes, censored time and again. It’s coming to the surface. Just about everyone knows this code here. What may change the picture is the J14 movement. It’s alive. It will be coming back after Passover. J14 has its faults, but it is the only movement that has put Israeli Arabs speakers out front. Many Palestinian Israelis are not quite happy with the result, but…. once Israelis realize that inequality harms everyone in Israel aside from the 1 percent, then they will begin to see the Palestinian as a partner in struggle. We’ve seen it in the north, if the movement isn’t crushed.

Liberals are dead, socialists are coming up. Most socialists are poised toward equality.

I was born in January 1970 in Petah Tikva. My parents are National Orthodox. My father is an electrical contractor who is in real estate. My mother is a housewife. I studied in the Yeshiva till I had a personal crisis and left the Yeshiva for the army in 1989. It looked like a liberation, strangely enough.

I started to do my bit for leftist ideology and got transferred to the Gaza Strip so I could stop the atrocities. That didn’t work very well. They hid them from me. I did manage to get my commander tried for slapping a Palestinian child. And one day they tried to abandon me in a refugee camp. [An officer] drove me to a refugee camp and told me to step out of the car, “your brother’s over there, go join him.” I cocked the gun, putting a bullet in the chamber. I didn’t point it at him, but he got the message, and he told me to drive back.

Everything I did was supportive of the occupation in every waking moment. I’m still doing penance. That’s the liberal trap. They say to you, You want to change the world, go there, be there. But it’s always compromising. It’s much bigger than you. You will go to prison if you don’t order the bulldozers to demolish the house.

I’m in the Meretz party. Meretz used to embody this liberal thinking. If you want to prevent atrocities, join the fighting units, serve in the territories where you can see atrocities, prevent them. That simply doesn’t happen.

I went to the university and got a degree in history. I had a personal crisis about not getting a master’s degree. I spent several years working in a chemical factory [in a clerical position]. I started blogging in 2002. I was writing on various forums in the 90s. Even before. In 2006 I stared my own blog. Friends of George. It is mainly a Hebrew blog. It quickly gathered steam. During the Second Lebanon war I started writing critically in ways that were not common. That attracted a lot of readers, also including a few death threats.

Recently I had my run in with the law. I was investigated for incitement two months ago.

Tell us about the radicalization of the left.

We see a radicalization on both sides. The leftists are becoming more radical and the right wingers, too. When I radicalized—and I did—I attracted more radicals. I’m going to the demonstrations; that’s the definition of a radical around here. Bil’in is basically a reenactment of the first intifada. Everyone is playing a part. No Palestinian is trying to throw a grenade, and generally in Bilin the soldiers don’t use lethal force….

I have really high hopes for what will happen in the next few months. I’m doing what I’m doing because I think it’s the right thing to do, but the Israeli government is using us to legitimize itself. ‘You see, we’re a democracy.’ The protests have very little influence on the general public. But they’re important because solidarity is important and it gets international coverage, which is always important.

Transcript of a revealing interview with Israeli writer, Yossi Gurvitz, translated by Dena Shunra. He describes how Talmudic Jews view the non- Jewish world and what Christians should expect in a world where “Israel is mighty.”

[Bolding, paragraphs, and headers are mine. Note that I use the more appropriate word Judaist, rather than Jew.]

Now, we all know what the rabbis say is the origin of Judaism: Moshe passed the torah down to the elders, the elders passed the torah down to the prophets, etc…all the way down to the Talmud, and there were no changes. The central motif of the Jewish understanding of history is that there were no changes (in the religion). In other words, what the rabbis are saying now are merely minor refinements of what the rabbis had said during the time of the ‘Elders’ – the time of the Mishnah and the Talmud.

Now, first of all, the problem with this version of history is that it is completely baseless.

And second of all, that it has a few historical problems and these historical problems continue to this day, due to the fact that Judaism, as a religion, has been frozen in time for the last 1800 years.

Generally speaking, Rabbinical Judaism, as it appears in the Talmud – unlike what is generally taught in secular schools – the source of Judaism is not the Bible.

The source of Judaism is the Talmud.

The people who wrote the Talmud are the ones who decided what books would be included in the Biblical canon. What they decided wouldn’t go in – didn’t go in.

So, for example, while the Catholic Church included the Books of the Maccabees in its version of the canon, Judaism did not preserve them, and in fact only the Greek version of them was preserved.

Whether there were Hebrew or Aramaic versions of them is an interesting question, but only Christianity preserved them. The Book of Judith. The Book of Tobias. Many other books, mostly dealing with the Jews of the Diaspora didn’t make it into the Jewish Biblical canon, and were only preserved by Christianity.

Now, the Judaism that preceded Rabbinical Judaism was pretty much erased from history. In other words, there’s not enough information to know what happened then. We know there were Sadducees, there were Pharisees – the Pharisees are the rabbinical Jews – there were Essenes – we don’t know anything about them for certain, and the reason we don’t know anything about them for certain is, that when their enemies were victorious, the Pharisees established more than 10 religious holidays to celebrate their victories over the Sadducees, they simply erased them from history. So you have to eke out a fragment [of information] out of a fragment [of information], so you can say, “Maybe it was like this” or “Maybe it was like that” – its impossible to know what really happened.

What we do know is this: from very early on, Rabbinical Judaism is a Judaism that hates humans. It defines only Jews as humans – only Jews who believe in the religion as humans. Okay, lets get this exactly right: it defines only Jews who believe in the religion and are men – as full humans. And everyone else is some level of ‘other’, that must be pushed aside, or, in extreme cases, destroyed. Rabbinical Jewish law does not prohibit – okay, that’s not accurate. Rabbinical Jewish law prohibits the killing of a non-Jew, but it does not punish a person for doing so. In other words, if you kill a Jew, even a Jewish woman, even the slave of a Jew – and here it’s important to note that Orthodox Judaism has never abolished slavery – then there’s a penalty you have to pay. It could come to execution or it could be a fine. They didn’t have jails. But if you kill a non-Jew then you’re guilty, but there is no penalty. God will punish you. And that is – how shall I put it? – a bit problematic. When you say something is a crime, but there’s no punishment for committing it, then it’s not really a crime. That’s the Talmud.

When you come to the writers of later exegesis, especially the Shulhan Aruch, by that point, he is already saying that there are situations where you can kill a non-Jew with impunity. Of course, it’s written in the 16th century, after the expulsion [of all Jews] from Spain [in 1492 C.E.] so he has to write what he wants to say in coded language. So he calls them “idolaters”. But just so you know, there weren’t any [pagans] left in that part of the world [by that point] – not in Europe, and not in the Muslim world. So he calls them “idolaters” or other such terms, but everyone knows who he’s talking about [non-Jews].

The worst case, in my opinion, is the case of Maimonides, who decrees – first of all, he decrees that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a 3-year-old girl. That age of consent is – problematic [?!].

And second of all, he decrees that if a Jew rapes a three-year-old non-Jewish girl, then she must be executed. Her, not him – because she tempted him to sin. [See this.] And for this reason, you have to treat her like an animal that puts obstacles in a person’s way, and he quotes some verse about a bull or something like that.

And the Rabbis know that the parts of the religion that are misanthropic, that are discriminatory to non-Jews – pose a problem for them. Because if they try to implement them – there are some rules that are very unpleasant, like that 3 year-old girl we were talking about. If they try to implement them, there will be a pogrom. So to avoid that situation, the Talmud defines two different states of reality. There is one called “Darkei Shalom” (Peaceful Ways). In other words, “This is the actual religious law, this is how you are supposed to act.” “However, because it would cause a huge mess, and people will die, so due to ‘Peaceful Ways’, you don’t act that way. ”

Now, until what point does the “Peaceful Ways” rule still apply? Just as long as the other situation does not exist, which is “When Israel is Mighty.” That’s when there is a Jewish regime. It is independent, and it is merciless, it can do what it likes. Under those circumstances – its all over, you go back to the letter of the law. No more “Peaceful Ways”, no more nothing. Now, when you think of Jewish history, lots of people talked about the Hasmonean Wars, which is pretty much the only time that Jews wielded weapons, and they think about what the Hasmoneans did to the Hellenized Jews (who assimilated Greek culture) – which was to make them extinct, to destroy them. A small genocide. And I remind people of this frequently, every time Hanukah rolls around. But they didn’t stop there. They embarked on campaign of looting and conquest, and at the beginning, during their first 20 years, wherever they arrived, they would destroy the local temples. It was prohibited for a place that was under Jewish rule to have a Pagan temple. That’s what we’re talking about. They also forced the Edomites to convert to Judaism on pain of death. It was a forced conversion. Something we learn the [Spanish] Inquisition did later on. They took people and told them: ” Either you’re dead, or you’re converting to Judaism”. And things only got worse from there.

Now, when religious Zionists look at reality, they say: “We’ve got a state. We’ve got weapons. We’ve got a Jewish army. This hasn’t happened for 2000 years”. “What this means is that God wants us to bring about the Messiah, that God wants us to build the temple”. They skip over all the conditions that are imposed by the Talmud on what a Messiah must be, and they go back to Maimonides. And they go back to Maimonides. And Maimonides says, “There is no difference between our time and the time of the Messiah, other than the subordination to kingdoms.” In other words, the only difference between the time of Maimonides – he died in 1204 – and the time of the Messiah, is who is subordinate to whom. Are the Jews subordinate to “kingdoms”, to other nations? Or can they subordinate other nations? And that is how Maimonides begins his Book of Kings. He explains what the rules are for a king, what a king can do. It emerges from the belief that, yes, there can be a king. You don’t have to first have a temple. You don’t need God to come down from the sky and point at someone and say, “That’s the Messiah”. You can have a king, and if he is victorious, then he’ll also be the Messiah. And then you look at what religious Zionists are doing about this. They want a Messiah. They want him now. There must be cleansings. Religious law prohibits contact with non-Jews. Of course, the Kosher laws prohibit you from eating with them. Other laws prohibit you from treating them fairly. You are forbidden to return a lost item to a non-Jew – except in order to “keep the peace.” There is no prohibition from stealing from a non-Jew – except in order to “keep the peace.” You can’t say “hello” to them – unless there is no alternative. And so on and so forth.

There are all kinds of prohibitions that are entirely psychotic, that are based on a religion of vengeance. Religious Zionists have a serious problem with the fact that there are non-Jews here. The Land of Israel is supposed to be only for Jews. So, ironically, they would manage to get along with the Muslims, more or less, if we weren’t involved in a military conflict with them. Because according to Judaism, Muslims are not idolaters. Muslims believe in one God. They don’t have idols, they don’t have statues, they don’t have anything like that. So ironically, during the Medieval Era, Jews got along better with Muslims than with Christians. But what can you do? We conquered a territory populated mainly by Muslims, and the Muslims are fighting us – so those defenses fall away. And look, now they are starting to talk about genocide. You have the (book) Torat Hamelech (King’s Torah), which tells you that you can kill children if there is a reason to believe that one day they could cause harm. Now, if you killed someone’s entire family and left only him alive, he will indeed have a reason to cause harm. If you stole his lands, turned him into a refugee, tossed him to Jordan or Lebanon – he will indeed have a reason to cause harm. Many people have said that the book’s arguments are not sound according to religious law, and so on and so forth – but no one really tackled it head-on. And it’s no wonder that it became a best-seller. Because in general, what religious Zionists want is for the Land of Israel to be for Jews only.

Now the situation for the Christians, on the other hand, will be really bad, (according to Judaism) they are idolaters, and you will have to kill them, even if they do not resist Jewish rule. In Jerusalem, religious seminary students have a despicable habit: they urinate and defecate on Churches. If you go and talk to the Church staff, you will hear it from every Church. Spitting on clergymen in the street is something that happens every day. If the Priest has the gall to hit the person back, to slap him or something similar, then he is deported, quietly. They cancel his residence permit in the country. If you want to justify a pogrom, all you have to do is say the words “Missionary Threat”. And from that perspective, Christianity, which is the historical arch-enemy of Judaism, is going to get a serious beating once the religious Zionists are in power. The Christian Fundamentalists who send them money apparently don’t understand what they are dealing with. But you know, it’s really a case of “a pox on both your houses”.