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| Britain |
| Jewish centre fire ’suspicious’ |
| 2004-06-21 |
| A fire at a Jewish community centre in north London has caused up to £250,000 worth of damage. Firefighters were called to reports of a blaze at the Aish centre in Hendon at about 2300 BST on Friday. Two Torah scrolls, hand-written parchments of the Bible and holy Jewish scriptures were also found "torn and desecrated", a centre spokesman said. A police spokesman said the fire is being treated as suspicious and forensic tests have been carried out. "There were several thousands of pounds worth of damage. We are keeping an open mind as to whether the incident was or was not racially aggravated," he said. "We are treating this as a single one-off incident and at this stage we are pursuing a specific line of inquiry." Rabbi Schiff, executive director of Aish UK - a Jewish educational charity, said: "Seeing Scrolls of the Law torn and strewn on the floor of my own synagogue in London was devastating." The synagogue which is inside the building was not affected by the fire, the spokesman for the centre said. Go on Schiff, call for someone’s head over this! I anticipate you on BBC radio 4 tomorrow decrying this shamefal act of Anti Semitism and demanding protection for all UK Jewish religious sites and making veiled therats about the security of the entire population if these acts continue. Further I expect you to link this to international affairs in which Jews are being persecuted as a sign of how downtrodden and victimised your faith and its followers are... Ooops, must have meant someone else. |
| Posted by:Howard UK |
| #5 Mojo - many antisemitic crimes are perpetrated by neonazis and others who hate anyone of jewish birth, regardless of their religion, or even culture. And traditionally other hate crimes in UK are racially motivated, IIUC, - IE hooligans who attack Hindu Indians, Muslim pakistanis, and Christian West Indians indiscriminately. I guess the police are having difficulty adjustingtheir terminology to the new realities. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-06-21 12:47:37 PM |
| #4 What's race got to do with it? Religously motivated, obviously, but race? What race? Hebrew? Sorry, that's a linguistic and religous grouping, not a race. Arab? Same deal, linguistic/religous group, with about a thousand different ethnicities included in it. Why can't they just say "it was an anti-jewish crime"? |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-06-21 12:36:21 PM |
| #3 Londonstan and shades of Crystal Night! |
| Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-06-21 10:37:05 AM |
| #2 No - I don't know this guy. However there exists a marked difference between the Muslim and Jewish communities in their responses to hate crimes in the UK. I'll let you guess which is the most vociferous... |
| Posted by: Howard UK 2004-06-21 10:25:42 AM |
| #1 Two Torah scrolls, hand-written parchments of the Bible and holy Jewish scriptures were also found "torn and desecrated", a centre spokesman said ... We are keeping an open mind as to whether the incident was or was not racially aggravated," he said. Minds which are kept that "open" probably had their brains fall out some time ago. The synagogue's heart and soul are their scrolls. A hate crime is pretty much the only possible explanation for their desecration. Howard UK, from your comments, I take it that Schiff has come out in vigourous defense of Muslims like Abu Hamza. Should he neglect to place equal emphasis on the investigation of this obvious hate crime it will be a damning indictment of preferentialism on his part. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-06-21 10:05:31 AM |