By Gary C. Stein

YEARS AGO, I wrote in a book review that its author wrote “without fear and without research.” Such is also the case with Dennis Herr’s recent letter (“Indictment and Hope From Rabbi Cohen,” Oct. 10).

What is obvious is that Herr has little knowledge of Judaism, even less of Orthodox Judaism, and hardly any at all about the specific rabbi he mentions, Ahron Cohen. As an Orthodox Jew, Cohen certainly does not speak for all, or even most, Jews. If Mr. Herr had done some research, he would realize that Rabbi Cohen doesn’t even speak for most Orthodox Jews.

Rabbi Cohen is a leader and major spokesman for a fringe, ultra-Orthodox movement that calls itself Neturei Karta, literally “Guardians of the City,” but which the group loosely translates as “Guardians of the Faith” (see their Web site at www.nkusa.org/aboutus/index.cfm). The members of this group “refuse to recognize the right of anyone to establish a ‘Jewish’ state during the present period of exile,” until the coming of the true Messiah (and they are certainly not talking about Jesus).

That is their primary belief — it used to be a more widely accepted Orthodox belief — and whatever they have to say in condemning Israel’s “policy of colonialism, ethnic cleansing and terrorism” is merely a smokescreen.

When members of this group met with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in March 2006, the Jerusalem Post noted that the group insisted that the Iranian dictator only sought “a world free of Zionism, since this is nothing more than wishing for a better world dominated by peace and calm.” One would have to be naïve, indeed, to think that Rabbi Cohen actually believes, as stated in the quotation cited by Mr. Herr, that “firm but peaceful pressure” from the likes of Ahmadinejad would bring about the demise of the State of Israel.

As for Cohen himself, he is a rabbi from Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom. He spoke at the Holocaust Denial conference in Iran in 2006 that was sponsored by the Iranian foreign ministry. Although in the past he had denied that the Holocaust actually happened, Cohen changed his mind because, as he said, there were too many eyewitnesses to what happened to explain it away.

Instead, he decided that the Jews who died in the Holocaust deserved it, because God wouldn’t have allowed such suffering to happen unless the people who were killed deserved to die. He has said that “the one who perpetrates the suffering is obviously guilty, but he will never succeed if the victim did not deserve it in one way or another.” That statement alone indicates how far out of the mainstream of humanity the rabbi has positioned himself.

In 2006, after Cohen returned from the Holocaust conference in Iran, The Times of London quoted Rabbi Yehuda Brodie, registrar of the Jewish Ecclesiastical Court for Greater Manchester, on Rabbi Cohen because of his involvement with Ahmadinejad: “Rabbi Cohen has for a long time been ostracised by the vast majority of Jews for associating with and thus giving support and legitimacy to the enemies of Israel and the Jewish nation. He represents an insignificant minority. His involvement is a stab in the heart of the Jewish community and of all decent law-abiding people.” I think that this is too mild a rebuke in response to the rabbi’s truly evil pronouncements.

Not all Jews support all of the policies of the Israeli government. However, almost all of us support the right of Israel to exist as an independent state, which the enemies of Israel deny. Rabbi Cohen’s extremism does nothing to advance the relations between Israelis and Palestinians or the current conditions under which each of them lives. Instead, it only confuses the real issues by inserting a purely one-sided religious point of view into what should be a reasonable solution to an exasperating political situation.

Although I am a firm believer in free speech and open debate, the fact that the DN-R would print a quotation from such a contemptible individual is not surprising, but it is outrageous.

Mr. Stein is president of Harrisonburg’s Beth El Congregation.