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Touche!
The Karaite Allies Threat to Brit-Am and the Brit-Am Answer
Brit-Am
The Lost Ten Tribes of Israel Movement
Contents:
1. Introduction.
2. Joseph F. Dumond (New Moon Sightings) Issues a Warning and Threat!
3. Brit-Am Replies to New Moon Sightings Threatening.
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The Karaite Allies Threat to Brit-Am and the Brit-Am Answer
Introduction.
Joseph F. Dumond ("Sighted Moon. Com") is a leading Christian Karaite. He feels our recent article on "Karaites. In Defence of the Oral Tradition" is somehow a threat to his own enterprise. He has therefore sent a missive with barely veiled menace to our humble poor benighted selves. He has also had the effrontery to slander the Rabbinicial Sages and the Talmud all in the same breath. He has not balked at making sexually immoral innuendos concerning people whose shadow he is not fit to pass by. In the article below we quote his e-mail message in full and then respond to his belligerence.
Joseph F. Dumond (New Moon Sightings) Issues a Warning and Threat!
From: "Sightedmoon" <admin@sightedmoon.com>
re: Karaites: In Defence of the Oral Tradition.
http://www.britam.org/Karaites.html
Shalom Yair,
I have now read two of your attacks against Nehemiah Gordon and the Karaites. I have also read Kol Hators attacks on the same. Am I seeing a pattern in this?
For years I have recommended my readers and all I talk to about the Ten Lost Tribes to go to your site and read your information. I have a news letter that reaches thousands each week. I have also recommended you to certain radio stations which you then became a regular on.
So it is with great sadness that I must warn you that your propaganda article is full of holes and does your valued research great harm. You are renown for the great research you have done in tracing the lost ten tribes through history. Your input has been priceless in helping Ephraim come to know his identity. So it concerns me that you would risk the future sales of your books in order to take part in a smear campaign of dubious character assassinations. It is with your own lack scholarly research that all who read this can see that you have quoted rumors and half truths which lowers your credibility in our eyes.
If you prophess to adhere to the Oral Torah then you also must submit to the Oral Torah that condones sex with minors and how to have sex with children under 5 without breaking the commandment of adultery. I have read this in the Oral Torah and it is approved by the sages that you say we must obey. If you like, I could list many other things the Oral Torah commands us to do which is in direct conflict with the commandments of God.
Many of us love to be taught by the Rabbis who respect us. But when they try to force us to break the written word in the Torah in favor of the oral torah, it gets our dander up. Having been lied to all our lives by pagan christian teachings we no longer will sit still and allow any other to lie us about the Torah, christian or rabbi. There are valuable teachings in the Oral Torah which do help in some areas. But to say that is has replaced the Torah and that even God must answer to the Rabbis now, is not a good thing to teach those of us who diligently seek the truth.
So Yair please stop with the political bashing that some are pressuring you to do and return the Teaching of the Ten Tribes before you lose all credibility. You may not like the popularity of Nehemiah Gordon, but he like you is bringing many from the pagan christian teachings to the true Torah teachings. Get over it and get back to doing what you do best, researching the Ten Tribes. I too have a newsletter and I do not want to waste my time bashing others as you now seem to have begun to do.
Shalom
Joseph F Dumond
www.sightedmoon.com
www.sightedmoonnl.com
Brit-Am Replies to New Moon Sightings Threatening.
Dear Joseph,
We had written against the Karaites from the very beginning. The first issue of the Tribesman, 1995 (in the article on Khazars)
http://www.britam.org/magazine/Tribesman1.html
discusses them at moderate length.
In our book "Ephraim" (1995) we dedicated a few pages to the Samaritans and related issues.
See :
THE SAMARITANS.
Do traditions of British and French Kinship Reflect Ancestral Connections?
We also explain the Oral Tradition quoting a linguistic analysis of Biblical passages justifying the Prohibition of eating milk and meat together. This I believe was before you or Gordon were on the public scene? Anyway, I had never heard of either of you. It does show that the matters under consideration were considered a concern of ours from the very beginning.
Not only that, but the basic core of our article about the Karaites that you are now so concerned about was a subsection of our article,
"King David and the Oral Law".
http://www.britam.org/DavidandOralLaw.html
It was also advertised under the heading,
"Loyalty to David is Required:
Ruth and the Oral Tradition".
This article had been on our site for years.
We recently realized that the article dealt with two separate subjects both of which deserved more attention.
We therefore divided it into two adding on to both halves.
One part remained under the title:
"King David and the Oral Law".
http://www.britam.org/DavidandOralLaw.html
The other section (after considerable expansion) was given the title:
Karaites: In Defence of the Oral Tradition.
http://www.britam.org/Karaites.html
You implied that you suspected we had coordinated our criticism with the Kol HaTor web site.
Kol HaTor is run by Obadiah Abrahami in association with Rabbi Abraham Feld. I have no contact with Abrahami. I see Rabbi Feld once in a blue moon and then most of our conversation concerns other matters. You however according to your own newsletter have utilised the services of this pair.
You are the one who has been doing the organization and coordination as you are well aware.
We ourselves do not work with them.
If a pattern of activity between ourselves exists it is not a thought-out one but rather a mutual recognition of what needs to be dealt with.
If there was co-ordination we would admit it since it is not a bad thing in itself.
You run the Sighted Moon Ministries that combines Christianity with Karaite teachings. Your activity involves looking for the New Moon at night time and in the early spring wandering around open fields in search of newly ripened wild barley.
Fun and Games in Wonderland, hey Joseph?
We are aware that you have made use of our material (while acknowledging us as the source) and recommended certain of our articles. For this we are grateful. We often have to fight tooth and nail to achieve just a little recognition of our findings. As for the radio stations we have spoken regularly on only one and we were not aware that this was due to your recommendations. We were told differently.
You are suggesting that future sales of our books are in jeopardy and our already very precarious means of subsistence endangered?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Our research has importance.
We do what we have to do and others must decide how to relate to it.
In our article we quoted no "rumors and half truths". Be specific. There is nothing there we have said that we cannot vouch for or bring adequate sources to substantiate.
In fact most of what we said may be independently verified by a brief search on the web.
You may be confusing us with others?
We did not say anything against Gorden that, if everything else was in order, could be taken personally.
If he wishes to introduce his own new notions of religion let him admit it. Others do it all the time.
You pretend to quote from the Talmud and say that it allows sex with minors.
You also say you "could list many other things the Oral Torah commands us to do which is in direct conflict with the commandments of God."
I imagine you could do a lot thing if you were so inclined, Joseph:
But proving your outrageous claims is not one of them.
You have evidently been reading anti-Jewish propaganda.
I do not know what exactly you are referring to.
A lot of lies and misquotations and selected excerpts out of context are used by Jew-haters.
It is not the task of Brit-Am to defend Judaism and/or the Talmud against every nutcase who slanders them.
See:
Talmud: The Real Truth About The Talmud
http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/
Refuting various claims about the Talmud
Written by Gil Student
http://www.angelfire.com/mt/talmud/short.html
Excerpt:
The Talmud continues that a sexual act between a male adult and a female under the age of three is also not considered a loss of virginity (although it is child abuse). Since the girl is too young for her hyman to be broken, she is still considered a virgin.
Nowhere is the Talmud permitting such behavior. Sex outside of a marriage is strictly forbidden (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Ishut 1:4, Hilchot Na'arah Betulah 2:17; Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 26:1, 177:5) as is this obvious case of child abuse. The Talmud is only discussing ex post facto what would happen if such a case arose.
The same usage occurs in the passage in Talmud Avodah Zarah 37a. The Talmud states that at the age of three a girl is capable of participating in a sexual act. However, that act is not permissible. See also Jerusalem Talmud Ketuvot 1:2 (4b).
You say the Rabbis are forcing you to "break the written word in the Torah in favour of the oral torah".
You also say the Oral Law is taught as having "replaced the Torah and that even God must answer to the Rabbis now".
No-one is forcing you to do anything, Joseph.
You can do what you like, and evidently that is what you do do.
The Rabbis simply say that the Almighty does not tell lies and will not backtrack on HIS Promises.
What is wrong with that?
The Oral Law is also not for non-Jews.
The Rabbis would rather you leave it alone altogether.
Brit-Am in effect presses the edges of the permissible in quoting the Talmud from time to time. We do this whenever the source concerned sheds light on a matter of concern for the Ten Tribes of Israel.
Also we feel that the times are achanging and that Judah and Joseph need to draw closer together.
This does not mean joining or becoming identical. It does however imply some learning about and a more positive re-appraisal of each other.
You spoke of not wishing to waste time on personal issues. This is a laudible ("love using fancy words") approach on your part.
You are partially correct. The whole issue concerns marginal matters from the Brit-Am perspective.
Even so,
The matter does involve what we have been teaching from the beginning.
It touches on historical aspects of Ten Tribes studies.
The Karaites in the Crimea did claim to be descended from the Ten Tribes and fabricated grave-stones to prove it.
[Not all the evidence however was necessarily forged so this further confuses the issue.]
In Classical British Israel Literature the falisified evidence of Firkovitch (see our article on the Karaites) is sometimes mistakenly quoted as fact.
The Karaites also at one stage claimed and were stated by others to be descended from the Khazars.
This is not so but it is a recurring misconception. We are concerned with the Khazars. We consider them to have been part of the Ten Tribes and related to peoples in Northern and Western Europe.
We have written a major work on this matter.
"The Khazars. Tribe 13"
http://www.britam.org/Khazarbook.html
The Samaritans (who are cognate to the Karaites) also have a tenuous connection to the Ten Tribes.
In "Ephraim" we explain how certain Samaritan traditions (along with those of other groups) may be used as confirmatory evidence as to the present-day whereabouts of the Ten Tribes.
People do often ask us questions about the Karaites.
Karaite teachings in our opinion are false and misleading.
Ephraimites are mislead by them.
Karaite Interpretations do in some way interfere with the Brit-Am goals of Recognition and Reconciliation.
There seems to be an anti-Jewish orientation behind Karaite teachings or at least behind the adoption of them by certain elements.
The Karaite newsletter at one stage was (and probably still is) an advocate of anti-Jewish Conspiracy Theories.
You yourself may be considered a kind of Christian Karaite.
You have demonstrated by your letter that you may have an anti-Jewish bias being all too ready to believe in slurs and blasphemies against Jewish Religion.
This is the religion that defines what a Jew is and which most Jews are conscious of belonging to.
One aspect of Brit-Am endeavors involves uprooting misconceptions about the Jews held by Joseph.
Misconceptions are what the Karaites are spreading.
Regarding the vulnerability of Brit-Am you referred to,
Please remember that your own glass houses are not impervious.
The Almighty makes the decisions.
No-one pressures Brit-Am to do or not do anything.
Brit-Am does what it does because we believe in it and we understand that to be our duty.
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