Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site cvl.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxb!mhuxn!mhuxm!mhuxj!houxm!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!cvl!arig
From: arig@cvl.UUCP (Ari Gross)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: A short essay on tolerance
Message-ID: <1651@cvl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Jan-85 18:10:01 EST
Article-I.D.: cvl.1651
Posted: Mon Jan 28 18:10:01 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 30-Jan-85 19:21:02 EST
References: <2720@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: Computer Vision Lab, U. of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 54

> _Orthodox Jews Protest Pland to Rebuild Church in Israel_
> 
> [Exerpted from Wash. Post, Jan. 26, 1985]
> 
>   JERUSALEM--Orthodox Jews carrying signs reading "Get Out, Get Out,"
> protested plans to rebuild Israel's largest Baptist church as members
> of the church staged a silent counterdemonstration near the building,
> which was destroyed by fire in October 1982.
> 
>  [Two Paragraphs omitted]
> 
>   "There is no room in this neighborhood for a proselytizing church,"
> read a large placard carried by one Hassidic demonstrator.
> 
>  [Two paragraphs omitted]
> 
>   The Narkis Street Church was the biggest Baptist church in Israel and
> its 350 members formed the largest Christian congregation in the Jewish
> state.
> 
>   Along with charging that the church was trying to convert Jews, the
> protesters said its services were too loud, attracting too many 
> worshipers and destroying the quiet of the neighborhood.
> 
>   Even before the church was destroyed, the building was a target of
> attacks.
> 
>   "We had a firebomb thrown at us in 1973, a mail bomb in 1977, had it
> painted up with so many words, and then 2 1/2 years ago, the church was
> burned," said John Anthony, a Bible teacher from Hope, Ark.
> 
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 
> 
> Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe

It seems that ORTHODOX JEWS in Jerusalem are really very intolerant
of having people of other religions in their midst. As opposed to 
the Arab population in the Middle East which has tried to destroy 
Israel 3 times in the last 35 years.Iran and Iraq are extremely
tolerant of each other , having killed over 100,000 of their people
in a fight to the death over nothing. Consider the tolerance of
Syria's Assad, who destroyed all 50,000 inhabitants in the city
of Hammad because they were from a sect of Islam that differed
from his own.Or, consider the Church's tolerance over the ages,
when those of other religions were not only deprived of the right
to practice their religion freely -- let alone proselythe to others --
but were burned at the stake for the religious beliefs that they 
cherished.

It would seem that some of us are intolerant of others' intolerance
on a very select basis. That to me smacks of bigotry and prejudice.

                                 -- ari gross
                                    arig@cvl.arpa