חכם עדיף מנביא: סאטמארער רבי'ס באפעל זיך נישט צו רייצן מיט די אראבער

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A delegation of six  Jews from the Neturei Karta, an international Anti-Zionism organization of Orthodox Jews dedicated to the propagation and clarification of Torah, travelled to Tehran earlier this month to attend the international conference on the Holocaust, called "The <>Holocaust - Global Vision", sparking anger and criticism among world Jews, specially Israeli Jewish Rabbis.

Jews claim that the scene of the Neturei Karta delegates, with beards and black hats embracing the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a conference questioning whether the Naziᦙs crime against the Jews, the Holocaust, is truth or myth hurt the faith.

"While we do not agree with the secular state of Israel, these people have desecrated the name of God," said Haim Freid, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who lives in Mea Sharim. "They do not represent us."

Neturei Karta, whose delegate attended Decemberᦙs conference, throws the blame on Zionists themselves for the lost lives of Jewish victims of  the Holocaust not the Nazi.

<>They accuse the Zionists of being responsible for the many lives lost during Holocaust, by rejecting a German offer in 1941 and 1942 to deport European Jews to Spain.

Their views are seen as more humanistic than the majority of the population of Israel, specially in fields like anti-racism and anti-war attitudes.

They reject any involvement in the Zionist movement. They also have never recognized Israel as a proper Jewish state, on the contrary, they believe that a Jewish state can only be established by Messiah.

Furthermore, they consider Zionism movement to be an atheist ideology.

Unlike the majority of Israeli Jews and Rabbis, Neturei Karta followers insist that they seek no confrontation with the Arab people, blaming the Zionist leader for the wars fought in the Middle East since the creation of Israel, where thousands of innocent lives were lost.

Their belief that itᦙs illegal to retake the Holy Land by force of arms, stands as a direct contradiction to the barbaric policies pursued by the Israeli governments. <>

The Neturei Karta urges that "all Palestine should be returned to the Palestinians".

Even before Neturei Kartaᦙs delegate attends the Holocaust conference in Iran, the movement was a source of concern for many Jews, specially in Israel, this is due to the group's support to the former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and its ties with Islamist group Hamas, which refuses to acknowledge Israelᦙs right to exist.

A spokeswoman for Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust remembrance body, said the group was "an unfortunate caricature that has been used as a propaganda tool by the Iranian regime".

And in Israel, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger urged rabbis worldwide to ban the Jewish participants from synagogues.

Agudath Israel of America, which represents tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews in the U.S., condemned the six Jews who attended the conference as a "disgrace" and "dangerous" to Jews.

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Neturei Karta's leader in Israel, self-styled Rabbi Yisrael Hirsch, defended the groupᦙs participation in the conference saying that while it "hurt when people deny the Holocaust happened" the Jews' participation in Tehran conference was important.

"The purpose was to reveal to the whole world that the Iranians do not have any hatred to Jews, they only oppose Zionism like we do," he said.

"We wanted to show that Zionism does not represent the Jewish people."

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