Jonafun Hoffman: ‘ISM/PSC desecrate Christmas!’

Yup. Jonathan Hoffman the Zionist anti-Zionist’s hero is at it again in quite characteristic clownesque mode:

Today the Israel traducers [ISM/PSC activists] sang carols with the words doctored in order to demonise Israel. Many passers-by expressed their disgust at this desecration of Christmas.

Desecrating Christmas, no less, for having the temerity of demonstrating…

From that (old) linked Jewdas piece:

On the JC blog site, Jonathan likes to abuse fellow posters, preferably calling them ‘trolls’. We can put this aside, perhaps this is standard conversational style in Woodside Park Synagogue. A particular poster, ‘Ben Abuyah’ however, got Johnathan’s back up. ‘Ben Abuyah’ was a critic of Israel, was pretty knowledgable, and, horror of horrors, worked for a Jewish communal organisation. How dare a community organisation employ someone whose views are not specifically endorsed by the Zionist Federation! Jonathan has been pretty clear – Jews who criticise Israel are a best not proper Jews and at worst not Jewish at all. But how does one tell? In good rabbinic style, Jonathan devised a simple and straightforward test for ascertaing someone’s Jewishness, posting the following:

To the Jewish Israel bashers:

Please confirm the following:

1. Examples of active participation in synagogue services over the last six months
2. The number of mezuzot in your home
3. Fluency in reading/speaking Hebrew
4. Participation in rabbinical shiurim in the past six months
5. Positions held within the Jewish community
6. Extent of kashrut observance
7. Examples of active support for Israel in past six months
8. Frequency of synagogue attendance

Has ever such a list been produced in all of Jewish history? Maimonides had his 13 principles but this is a whole other level – no longer is Jewishness to be based on descent or conversion, according to JH it needs to be frequently tested to check whether or not it has lapsed. Some questions remain – do all 8 areas score equally? Or does no. 7 trump all the others? An do Jews who are not ‘Israel Bashers’ have to submit to the quiz or are they exempt? And what happens if you score less than half points? Will the men in black hats come round to put you in cherem?

What was it, one might wonder that led Jonathan to produce such a list? What had got his back up? A notable omission from JH’s list is shabbat observance, a very traditional marker of Jewish religiosity. It turned out that this was very relevant. Ben Abuyah pointed out that JH had been posting on the JC blog on shabbat.

Hilariously, both the shabbat posts and Ben Abuyah’s flagging of them have now disappeared from the JC site. JH was obviously highly gefruntzled by this having his shabbat desecration pointed out; it seemingly led him to do some research and then gleefully ‘out’ Ben Abuyah. At that point the trail goes quiet – though it seems likely that Hoffman will now try to make things difficult for ‘Ben Abuya’ in his communal organisation. (update: Hoffman’s questionaire seems to have also disappeared from the site – the moderators are zealous in their efforts to protect ZF spokespeople)