Thursday, March 13, 2008
IS THIS BISHOP DEVINE'S CONSPIRACY ?
If he is accurate, Rabbi Marvin S. Antelman's book TO ELIMINATE THE OPIATE, Vol. 2 should be at the top of the New York Times' Bestseller list 6 months running.
If he is not accurate, we should be hearing that he is on trial for libel.
We hear neither.
In fact the book is so obscure that one of the only places where I could buy it was Amazon, and you can see at the website how few copies are available. The other top booksellers apparently have not heard of it. I don't normally buy from Amazon, but this time I had no choice. My local library that can normally get anything I want to read through interlibrary loan was unable to find it, or so they said, though they didn't take very long to say it, so I guess they didn't try all that hard.
Antelman names names and cites dates. There is a jaw-drop at nearly every other page. He has material that simply blew my mind.
Antelman is a Chief Justice of the Supreme Rabbinical Court of America according to Rabbi Nachum Shifren's website. He has detractors as well. He gets no respect from Jerusalem Post columnist Jonathan Rosenblum who says of him:
When he is not busy designing bullets containing pork for use against Moslems, Antelman styles himself the Chief Justice of the Supreme Rabbinical Court of America. That august body is, according to Antelman, the first Sanhedrin in over 2,000 years with the authority to mete out death sentences. The group has promulgated death sentences against homosexuals and invited the public to watch it excommunicate Henry Kissinger.
Perhaps, though, Rosenblum is a Reform or Conservative Jew. Antelmen makes it abundantly clear that he believes Orthodox Judaism and Reform/Conservative Judaism are two separate religions. He believes the latter are Sabbatian-Frankists in their latest incarnation. Antelman is Orthodox.
I did some fact checking, choosing seven random facts from Antelman's book. One proved to be controversial. The other six appear to be true.
The book is a follow-up on Volume one published in 1974. He wrote volume two because more information is now available.
Quotes are coming, but not this afternoon since I do really have a life that demands I pay some attention to it. Stay tuned.
