http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/985362.html
Orthodox Jewish youths burn New Testaments in Or Yehuda
By The Associated Press
Tags: Jews For Jesus, Israel
Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds
of copies of the New Testament in
the latest act of violence against
Christian missionaries in the Holy Land.
Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon
said missionaries recently entered a
neighborhood in the predominantly
religious town of 34,000 in central Israel,
distributing hundreds of New Testaments
and missionary material.
After receiving complaints,
Aharon said, he got into a
loudspeaker car last Thursday
and drove through the neighborhood,
urging people to turn over the material
to Jewish religious students who went
door to door to collect it.
"The books were dumped into a
pile and set afire in a lot near
a synagogue," he said.
The newspaper Maariv re****ted Tuesday
that hundreds of ye****va students took
part in the book-burning.
But Aharon told The Associated Press
that only a few students were present,
and that he was not there when the
books were torched.
"Not all of the New Testaments
that were collected were burned,
but hundreds were," he said.
He said he regretted the burning of the books,
but called it a commandment to burn materials
that urge Jews to convert.
"I certainly don't denounce the
burning of the booklets, he said.
I denounce those who distributed the booklets."
Jews wor****p from the Old Testament,
including the Five Books of Moses and
the writings of the ancient prophets.
Christians revere the Old Testament
as well as the New Testament,
which contains the ministry of Jesus.
Calev Myers, an attorney who
represents Messianic Jews,
or Jews who accept Jesus
as their savior,
demanded in an interview
with Army Radio that all
those involved be put on trial.
He estimated there were 10,000 Messianic Jews,
who are also known as Jews for Jesus, in Israel.
Police had no immediate comment.
Israeli authorities and Orthodox
Jews frown on missionary activity
aimed at Jews, though in most cases
it is not illegal.
Still, the concept of a Jew burning
books is abhorrent to many in Israel
because of the association with Nazis
torching piles of Jewish books during
the Holocaust of World War II.
Earlier this year,
the teenage son of a prominent
Christian missionary was seriously
wounded when a package bomb delivered
to the family's West Bank home went
off in his hands.
Last year, arsonists burst into a
Jerusalem church used by Messianic
Jews and set the building on fire,
raising suspicions that Jewish
extremists were behind the attack.
No one claimed responsibility,
but the same church was burned
down 25 years ago by
ultra-Orthodox Jewish
extremists.
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