B is for Book Burners
The New York Daily News reports that Leaders of a prominent West Side synagogue are threatening to cancel a book fair next month unless a nearby store ditches a pro-Palestine children’s book.
“P is for Palestine” teaches children the alphabet using Palestinian references. But Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch (photo above) of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue said it also glorifies violence.
“The book states that ‘I is for Intifada,’ Arabic for rising up for what is right, if you are a kid or grownup!” Rabbi Hirsch said in an open letter posted on the temple’s website. “The intifada was not ‘a rising up for what is right.’ It was a mass descent into immorality.”
It would be helpful if the Rabbi explains to us how a popular uprise against a brutal racist occupier is 'immoral.' I would also like to learn from the rabbi whether book burning is a reform Jewish value, it has clearly become a popular exercise.
The book "P is for Palestine" is on sale at the Book Culture bookstore on Columbus Ave. on the Upper West Side.
Or buy online here