Check out the tentative articles for the Ḥaḅurah ha`Īṣunīyīm, posted on their blog: issuniyim.blogspot.com

On Shavu`ot the following communique was released:

The Ḥaḅurah ha`Īṣunīyīm is a Jewish Universalist Movement that began between the rise of the Umayyad and Abbāsid Caliphates, finally rising to a clash between the Abbāsid regime and Rabbeinū `Obadyah who went by a number of aliases, including "Abū `Īsā". By all accounts, the group continued for three hundred years, and some contend, for a thousand and beyond; though it is falsely said to have originated around the period of the aforementioned revolution and by Rabbeinū `Obadyah himself. The group is a form of Diaspora Judaism, resulting from the merging of the Beyt Hillel Phariseeism and the exiled Essene population which lived in Qumran and, according to Philo and Josephus, "in every city." It was this sect which Muḥammad was exposed to in his travels, and it would seem through his uncle-in-law Waraqah who was an `Īṣunī Hebrew or Ḥanīf in Syrio-Aramaic.

After the revolt against the Abbāsids, and their false claim of having killed Rabbeinū `Oḅadyah, the group remained strong in spite of fracture. It was consistently regarded as Jewish and rabbinic by the rabbinic authorities - as we do not relax, but rather intensify our Yahadūt - much to the dismay of Karaite authors in their arguments against Rabbinic Judaism.

Often, the group awaited the return of the archetype of Rabbeinū `Oḅadyah as a minor, perhaps messianic, figure but not Mashīaḥ himself, in the Messianic Era. Rabbeinū `Oḅadyah himself claimed not to be Mashīaḥ, but was the first to employ the title Mahdī (a "correctly, spiritually guided leader"), long before Islāmic sources went on record with this term. In many generations the group was never more than a dozen or so Ḥashsha`īm; sometimes under the tutelage of a designated rabbi and other times as a ḥaburah of sorts.

...today we have resurfaced to fix; to unite and repair: Hashlamah; to reconcile the splintered Jewish communities; to reconcile and recalibrate offshoots of Yahadūt who have devoted themselves to a prophet or sage foremost to ha'Shem. This is relevant whether regarding one man as an incarnation of God, or holding another man in such high esteem that people will murder those who criticize him or name a teddy bear after him in a school classroom. In either case such communities deviate by making an idol out of a man.

Thus, our intention is multifaceted: to revive awareness of Jewish pietism in the Second Temple Era and the path it took to Medieval "Ḥassidūt" long before the dear Besht and the lines that emanated from him and his talmidīm; to do so in such a way that the Aḅrahamic religions are reminded of their tangible Jewish roots; for the purpose of peace-making, bridge-building and tiqqun `olam.

If you are interested in our community, this is one way to introduce yourself. It is not a fast-track, but it is a pathway...

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Al-Farhud

The 1941 Pogrom in Iraq

The present volume is being published on the sixty-ninth anniversary of the Farhūd, the pogrom committed by religious and nationalist Arabs against the Jews of Iraq on the Jewish holiday of Pentecost (Shavu‘ot), 1–2 June 1941. 

The Hebrew edition of this book was published in 1992 by the Research Institute of Babylonian Jewry in Or Yehuda, Israel. This volume is a revised version of the Hebrew edition. 

The title consists of papers on the pogrom and on the events leading up to it which were originally published in English, others which were written in Hebrew and now appear in English for the first time, and documents which have not been previously published, including an updated list of the names of victims of the Farhūd and a map indicating the places in Baghdad where rioters attacked Jews.

This book thus provides the English reader with comprehensive and updated information on the Farhūd aand constitutes a memorial to the innocent victims killed during these pogroms and whose only crime was that they were Jews.

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"Protocols of Zion" is an invigorating movie on a complex topic. Levin grants every side of the controversy equal screen time and still manages to come through loud and clear with his guardedly hopeful message: never stop believing that it is possible for people to overcome their differences and come together.

In the months after September 11, Levin kept coming across the following question: "Have you heard," people would ask him, "that no Jews died in the World Trade Center?" Levin, who is Jewish himself, decided to investigate. The trail of the conspiracy that supposedly warned all Jewish workers to stay at home on 9/11 led to "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," a 19th century book that details plans for a secret Jewish cabal to rule the world. Even though the "Protocols" have been discredited as a fake circulated by anti-Semites for decades, they still sell, and they still have the power to convince.

Mark Levin argues with a neo-nazi shoe salesman in "Protocols of Zion"

In the best tradition of the Enlightenment, Levin's film takes the form of interviews and debates with anybody who has something to say about the topic: ranting street protesters who speak of Mayor "Jew-liani," inmates in a Federal prison, Kaballah scholars, polite neo-nazis, Jewish intellectual Douglas Rushkoff, Levin's own father, and the owner of the popular anti-Semitic web site "Jew Watch." In West Virginia, a skinhead sells black boots with swastikas and the SS insignia in the sole but doesn't wear them himself ("I'm more of an oxblood kind of guy.") During the Israel Day parade, blatantly racist Jews talk about Palestinians as "these people" and attack "deluded peace lovers" with as much venom as the skinheads have for them. Hasidic reggae rapper Matisyahu grooves at a Seder, and "Brooklyn born and bred" Palestinians react to the assassination of Sheik Yassin. Other passages concern Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," the murder of Daniel Pearl, and Arabic TV mini-series that show Jews as scheming child-killers.

The result of the free-for-all approach is an impressionistic tour-de-force that's surprisingly entertaining. Levin knows that bigotry and hate cannot be opposed by more polemics; he doesn't hesitate to step in front of the camera and spar verbally with his interview subjects. By appearing as just another person with an opinion, Levin gives up some of his special powers as filmmaker, but the film is stronger for it. "Protocols of Zion" radiates the absolute faith that the rational humanist position is strong enough to withstand all lies and distortions. Levin gives the wing-nut bigots, tinfoil conspiracy freaks, and outright haters more than enough rope to hang themselves with.

The movie comes full circle with a coroner whose job it is to identify body parts from Ground Zero. Names, bone fragments, and the heartbreaking testimony of a 9/11 widow who had converted to Judaism for her husband provide the most horrible possible proof that Jews did in fact die in on September 11, 2001. What began as an investigation into the roots of a conspiracy theory ends as portrait of not just anti-Semitism, but humanity's endless capacity for hatred, fear, and misunderstanding.

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