Marcus Hardie, picture at Haaretz
Why is Haaretz eating the New York Times's breakfast on the most important international story? Because Haaretz runs headlines like the one above about the guy at left, who used to call himself American Thug!
And you heard the right of return of Palestinian refugees was Israel's nightmare? No, no, no. The law of (Jewish) return is Israel's nightmare. The right of return might actually heal the place!
Well, here’s one of P. Diddy’s former acts – once known as “Shyne” – now known as Moshe Levi
“Doing his time for firing that pistol in the nightclub with Puff Daddy and J. Lo a dozen years ago, the rapper known as Shyne experienced a jailhouse religious awakening. The faith he says changed his life involved embracing his heritage as a black man, forswearing destructive behaviors, covering his head and taking a new name. Yet it had nothing to do with the Nation of Islam. The former Jamal Michael Barrow, a.k.a. Shyne, a.k.a. Shyne Poloeniut, now answers to Moshe Levi. He spends his days studying Torah and striding through the Old City of Jerusalem in the long tailored coats favored by Hasidic Jews, sidelocks a-bob and a rabbi’s lecture booming on his iPad.
Read more: link to globalspin.blogs.time.com
Yes, you are absolutely right Dan. The first thing that came to my mind when i saw the headline was Shyne. I gotta admit, when i first heard of this story about Shyne’s conversion over a year ago, i suspected it was some clever trick by Shyne to beat his deportation from the US. I mean, deporting a caribbean born rapper from the US is one thing, barring one Moshe Levi from entering the US is quite another!
“I mean, deporting a caribbean born rapper from the US is one thing, barring one Moshe Levi from entering the US is quite another!”
hahahahaa!! Yes, indeed it is….
from your article:“I definitely try not to get into the whole gang affiliation thing,” Levi says. If on some days he wears a striped suit (orthodox dress), other times flat black, it’s because he admires the traditions. He also jets up to Paris for Fashion Week.”
He sounds like a lost soul, more interested in his fashion and music. I don’t think Judaism is for him, and he’ll realize this in the years to come. But one day he could be remarketed to the US as an Israeli rapper. Have you ever watched any tv programs on the Israel Maccabees Basketball team? Same idea in principle, to counter the notion that the lot of them aren’t Ashkenazi racists. We celebrate our black folk, indeed.
Lord Help us!!!!!!!!!!!!
He does, and that includes adding you to the commenters here; welcome!
Oh,he wants to be part of the chosen people huh?Oy.
Chosen for what;Endless misery?
Can someone explain me what is wrong here? The guy has converted to Judaism, made Aliyah to Israel and served in IDF. Maybe because he is black it does not “sit” well with you Phil? Or maybe because he used to be a “bad” person? Otherwise I would think there is a smell of racist bigotry here. People change.
Maybe because it demonstrates the fraudulent basis of Zionism and exposes the mythical mumbo jumbo that it clothes itself in. Of course this guy should have more rights and privileges than the people who were actually born there and whose families go back centuries.
What is exactly the fraudulent here? Does it contradict the Law of Return or any other statements by the Israeli government. Have your heard of the Book of Ruth-”Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.” (Ruth 1:16–17 NKJV)
link to en.wikipedia.org
Oh please. Myths, I said. Self-serving at that.
Dimadok: Want to debate a duplicitous “law of return” that allows people whose ancestors never lived in the Middle East to “return” and excludes Palestinians whose ancestors always lived there, never to return to THEIR homeland?
Care to call Koran or New Testament a myth?
i will if it will make you feel any better.
Have your heard of the Book of Ruth-”
Yes it documents an intermarriage with a Moabite, not a Jewess, e.g. And also, Ruth the Moabitess, Mahlon’s wife, have I acquired for myself for a wife, to preserve the name of the deceased on his heritage, so that the name of the deceased not be obliterated from his brethren and from the gate of his place, you are witnesses today.”Ruth 4:10
There really is no evidence to support the practice of “conversion” in the Tanakh.
Fire away, please.
Perhaps but it is also a foundation of the people’s beliefs and culture. By dismissing that you are not coming very convincing here.
I feel great without that, thank you very much. However it is surprising to get such a remark from you, being all supportive of the multicultural societies and religions.
Forget about myths, dimadok, respond to the factual and living reality of the contradiction in the question Blake asked.
However it is surprising to get such a remark from you, being all supportive of the multicultural societies and religions.
are you directing that to me dimadok? yes i try to be supportive of multicultural societies and religions but it doesn’t mean i believe them. i don’t even have certainty christ existed as a real person (as opposed to a movement represented in the book as one man). i think the major figures in most religious books were possibly/probably symbolic. so yes, i think all of the three major religions (many minor ones too) are a hodgepodge of myths and fables. it doesn’t mean i don’t respect people who believe them and i think many of the stories are good parables and models to live by.
but i think they were created as a way to shift power and organize society, both then and now. most of the lessons have common sense stuff woven throughout.
I ‘m with annie,
I don’t mind what people choose to believe or what religion they choose….the only problem is a lot of people use religion like scoundrels use patriotism….as a last refugee for their own weirdness.
Dimadok, you are asking the wrong question Care to call Koran or New Testament a myth?
Maybe you know it is the wrong question and intended to divert…..but.
The Koran, Old testament, New Testament are a series of SYMBOLIC stories of instructive principles. To illustrate greater truths. They are metaphors! Not ever written to be taken as literal. That is how principles, truths, whatever we want to call them were related.
Only since the age of reason where ideas of scientific principles were we educated to take a written word as literal truth. This followed the Reformation and it is then that the whole Bible as “the literal word” took off. Maybe that rubbed off on modern fundamentalist Jews and Muslims. (Interesting how absolutely similar fundamentalist are no matter the cloak of religion they wear.)
When the Koran or New Testament, Torah were written, they were never intended or even conceived as literal. That’s not how “we” ticked back in the day.
So yes, all those stories are symbolic and ideological constructs. Myths!
Is that too difficult to understand.
I think on the time these texts were formulated people actually believed in them and still do. Should we keep the “modern” interpretation of them we will be discarding our cultural heritage. As for Jews-our history is forged by these texts and rituals. So far history has proven us right- we are still here.
Dim, from my POV, it just seems silly that someone can convert and then go claim land and citizenship.
It’s that logistical basis and not the religion in question.
I feel the same way about a guy/girl who does something bad, finds Jesus, then becomes a puritan. It’s a cliche but I agree that it is also superficial and dismissive to characterize a person’s transformation.
And at the same time, when I think of the conflict as a whole, this guy’s choice to move to Israel seems more on the spiritual side to me rather than a change of conscience.
If it is, it’s skewed to the religious side. I see him as no different from newly converted evangelicals of the ‘Left Behind movie series’ brand.
“Dim, from my POV, it just seems silly that someone can convert and then go claim land and citizenship. ”
It got a lot of Russians a free ticket to Israel and from there to greener pastures elsewhere.
@Walid: there is some truth in it. However what is the problem than- you should embrace people leaving Israel, making less Zionistic sort of saying.
“Can someone explain me what is wrong here?”
Aliens are given rights which the Israeli Jews refuse to the natives of the land. That is what is wrong.
“made Aliyah”
In English, the phrase is “immigrated to” — this “made Aliyah” crap is the real bigotry in action. As if one “ascends” when he or she takes part in massive land theft.
The term Aliyah is coming from the ascendancy to the Temple in Jerusaselm. Since then every Jew going to the land of Israel is making an Aliyah. It is the tradition long before the modern state of Israel.
So… if it’s been a tradition that long, uninterrupted by the presence of Christians and Muslims to this point… why ethnically cleanse Muslims and Christians now?
the land of Israel
That is such a sickening expression.
It is popping up more and more among Hasbarists and religious fundametalists with an agenda. As if that is something real….”the land of Israel.”
Exactly what IS this land of Israel?
All nations are modern legal constructs. Not real. This land of Israel lives in the mind of the indoctrinated. A Magical place….over the rainbow. And you are willing to kill for it.
The nation of Israel was built by invaders spilling the blood of the natives of the land of Palestine.
“The term Aliyah is coming from the ascendancy to the Temple in Jerusaselm.”
And you are not using it in that context. If you were only using it to refer to going to the Wailing Wall at al-Haram ash-Sharif, in the city of al-Quds, that would be one thing. But you refer to it to generally refer to immigration into any part of Occupied Palestine. That’s what is crap, the use of an ancient religious term to cover a modern political act which amounts to little more than joining a criminal conspiracy.
I think maybe what’s wrong is he turned traitor on the US and took a dump on his fellow African Americans still suffering over here? Just saying. I suppose that’s something Jews of your stripe can really appreciate, considering the alarming number of Holocaust survivors who have lived (and are dying) in poverty in Israel.
“I’m both American and Israeli. But I’d say I feel more Israeli.”
an israel firster
He suffers from Obama syndrome — he desperately doesn’t want to be identified as African American.
“Former thug who found Judaism”
He discovered that if you are a Jew living in Israel, you can shoot guns at innocents without getting arrested!
Everything that is wrong with Zionism, Israel, and mythology is demonstrated here. I became an atheist for far far less than that!
Someone asks “what is wrong with this picture”.
Perhaps one should not elect former thugs to the Knesset when there are so many current thugs (thus much better suited for the post). He could start advocating non-violent solutions and other so-called humanist nonsense.
Is he related to Sammy Davis Jr? Will we’ll next spot him in Hollywood with the current version of the Rat Pack? Hope this comment didn’t break any rules?
“Hardie is looking for Hollywood producers interested in turning his 320-page autobiography “Black and Bulletproof: An African-American Warrior in the Israeli Army,” published last year by New Horizon Press, into a movie. As actors for the lead role he suggests Will Smith, Jamie Foxx or Denzel Washington. “I think it would be great if we could get Steven Spielberg to direct it,” he said. ”
That guy is on a roll…..promoting himself and his “story.” He could have wound up with any cult-like group or gang. He just happened to wind up with that gang with guns.