While British Jews were celebrating Israel’s 60th birthday last weekend, others were attempting to disrupt the official party held at Wembley. Among them were rumoured to be the anti-Zionist group Neturei Karta. So how Jewish is it?
For
You would need to be hyper-critical to argue with the religious credentials of Neturei Karta. Members of the group are all Jewish, they daven three times a day, they eat glatt kosher, they wear black hats (and streimels on Shabbat), have peyot, wear tzitzit and beards. To sum up, these guys are frum with a capital F.
Against
All of Neturei Karta is anti-Zionist. But one strand of the group is so extreme that it has made friends with some pretty dodgy people on the basis that your enemy’s enemy must be your friend. A significant Neturei Karta contingent attended Yasser Arafat’s funeral. They have also held talks with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who has in the past described Judaism as “a dirty religion”, and have shared a platform with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Is this the stuff that nice Jewish boys get up to?
Verdict
Tricky one this. These people are both more Jewish than most Jews, but are they the enemy within? We take eight points away for being unnecessarily controversial.
So we say he is 92% Jewish
