February 8, 2006

From BluWiki

February 8, 2006

Host: Daryl Bradford Smith

Guest: Mohammed Rafiq

Here are today's lies, misstatements, disinformation, and stupidity:

(1) Mohammed Rafiq claims that the Polish Jews claimed they were Sephardi and not Ashkenazi. This is patently false. The Polish Jews always claimed to be Ashkenazi.

(2) Mohammed Rafiq, when discussing the Hittite Empire, makes two mistakes: (1) He does not mention that the Hittite Empire extended down into Palestine; and (2) He identifies the Hittite language as Turkic, but it was not – it was Indo-European. [1]

(3) Daryl Bradford Smith tries to advance the idea that Kabbalistic belief is more prevalent in Ashkenazi circles, but in fact it was a Sephardi, Isaac Luria, who wrote the Zohar.

(4) Mohammed Rafiq notes that Maimonides disagreed with Abraham ben David on the issue of the Khazars being truly Jewish. However, he does not note that Maimonides is the single most important voice of Jewish law in Jewish history.

(5) Mohammed Rafiq says that Ashkenazic Jews at one point rejected the Torah. He cites no source for this, and in fact there are no Jews anywhere that can still be called practicing Jews who reject the Torah. The argument is on its face ridiculous.