Radosh.net

Lately, New York has been abuzz over the suspension of a city-employed Muslim chaplain who made a speech last year saying that Muslims must not allow "Zionists of the media to dictate what Islam is to us."

Assuming that "Zionists" here is code for "Jews," the New York Post and similar rabble rousers called for Umar Abdul-Jalil's head. But Canonist's Steve Weiss points out that since the city's Jewish chaplains have rallied around their colleague, it is more likely that Jalil meant Zionist in the political sense of people who support the state of Israel.

A distinction without a difference? Weiss goes on to note that one of the six rabbis in the Department of Correction is a Satmar Hasid — "a sect that is vehemently anti-Zionist." (He quotes a former teacher at a Satmar day school who says that "the two worst insults the children knew were "Lubavitcher" and "Zionist" in that order, and when they went to visit their families in Israel, they flew TWA rather than El Al so that the "Zionim" wouldn't get their money.")

So if being pro-Zionist is the new litmus test for city chaplains, it's not just the Muslims who will have to go. At the very least, Jalil's critics will have to get over their simplistic "anti-Zionism=antisemitism" formula and determine exactly what Jalil was saying. Weiss has been unable to find the context of Jalil's quote, but if he's right in his guess that the discussion was about Zionism as a political ideology, it's clear that Jalil is off the hook — or Satmar Rabbi Leib Glanz is on it.

Posted by Daniel Radosh

11:51 AM