Editorial, September 17, 2010
A burning issue
THE media blather this week about an American pastor’s threats to burn the Koran soon triggered a copycat stunt in Australia, with a Queensland lawyer posting on YouTube what he claims is a video of himself smoking cigarettes made from pages of the Old Testament and the Koran.
For Pastor Terry Jones of Florida, the planned Koran burning, which he has since called off, was a perverted act of religious faith – his so-called Christian values against the teachings of the Koran. For Queenslander Alex Stewart, an avowed atheist, his piece of cyber-theatre was an act of idiocy masquerading as conviction. In thinking they are striking a blow for their beliefs, both the pastor and the lawyer are wrong.
Burning texts containing others’ beliefs is the last resort of a closed mind. It is the ultimate expression of contempt and vilification.
Apart from being morally wrong, it is incendiary, in the figurative sense. It pushes buttons from Sydney to Kabul.
The first recorded book burning occurred in Paris in 1242 when Jewish texts were incinerated after a public condemnation of the Talmud. Six centuries later, physically obliterating the printed ideas of their adversaries appealed to patriotic German student movements and paved the way for book burnings under the Nazis in the 1930s.
Heinrich Heine’s works were amongst those torched by the Nazis on May 10, 1933. In an 1821 play, the philosopher had prophesied that where books are burned, one can expect humans to be cast into the flames. The fires of the Shoah later engulfed untold numbers of Sefer Torahs, along with those who cherished the precepts therein.
The threat by Pastor Jones to set a Koran to the torch came amidst tensions over plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero, site of the 2001 destruction of New York’s World Trade Centre.
While Muslims – or any faith community – have the right to build houses of worship on a legally approved site, as stated by US President Barack Obama, clearly there are sensitivities associated with such a decision that cannot simply be brushed aside. We are not talking here of the blinkered opinions of bigots, but of those genuinely affected by the heinous crime committed in the name of the faith just a short distance away.
But while we acknowledge the divisiveness of the Cordoba mosque issue, and the skewed interpretations of sacred texts that fuel hatred and violence, no Jewish person should simply stand by and watch in silence when the holy works of any faith are physically trashed – be it in church or in cyberspace.
Write and wrong
THIS weekend, Jews across the globe over will flock to shul to atone for their sins. Beating our chests, we will recite the Al Chet and Vidui, litanies of misdeeds for which we seek forgiveness. And while we may not personally have committed the crimes laid down, as members of am echad – one people, we repent also for those that may have been carried out by our fellow Jews the world over.
In some instances, as you read the misdemeanors detailed in the lengthy list of confessions and reflect on who the guilty party may be, it’s possible that your mind will be drawn to <I>The AJN<P>. True, there are no al chets for the sin we have committed by putting a comma in the wrong place, for the sin we have committed by using ‘who’ instead of ‘whom’, or for the sin we have committed by misspelling a name.
But on occasion, you may feel rightly or wrongly that we have spoken falsely, that we have been disrespectful, that we have been judgmental or that we have been frivolous.
Furthermore, you may believe that your story wasn’t given enough prominence or simply that we could have published a more flattering photo of you.
And how do we respond? In the words of the Yom Kippur service, we are not so impudent and obdurate as to say we are righteous and have not sinned ‚Ķ”
However, we do enter a plea of mitigation and that is that we do endeavour to be the best newspaper that we can be. But in a community as diverse as ours – politically, geographically, religiously, culturally and spanning all age groups — as the old saying goes, “you can’t please all of the people all of the time”; or, if you’ll excuse a reference to food in a discussion about Yom Kippur, “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”
Nonetheless, in the spirit of the High Holy Days, if we have offended over the past year, we ask your forgiveness as we strive to do better in the year ahead.
Wishing all our readers g’mar chatimah tovah and well over the fast.
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