Word: karta
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...good," says the Talmud. Amram Blau might also add: "But be careful of the wife you pick." A 65-year-old widowed Reb, or teacher, and 50 times a grandfather, Blau has been forced to surrender leadership of Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox sect known as the Neturei Karta (Guardians of the City) for the scandal and sin of marrying shy, devout Ruth Ben-David, 45, who is not only a divorced woman but a convert from Catholicism as well...
...that Ruth met Reb Blau. Apparently, it was love at first sight. Ruth shyly told the shadchan: "I'd be greatly honored if he would accept me as his wife." Blau himself was all for it, but when news of their betrothal got out, members of the Neturei Karta were horrified that he should even think of marrying a shikse (Gentile), even if she was a convert who shaved her head and kept it covered in anticipation of the marriage...
Blau has said that he will never return to Jerusalem. It is just as well, since a majority of the Neturei Karta bitterly condemns him as a social outcast. But while other elders of the sect are squabbling to see who will replace the lost leader, a loyal handful of Blau's followers pray silently for his return. "In the Talmud," says one, "it is written that a city can breathe only through its righteous man. Now that Amram has left Jerusalem, I cannot sleep at night, for the city is no longer safe...
Blau's followers in the Neturei Karta number about 350 families, but they can muster some 3,000 other Orthodox Jews from Mea She'arim for their periodic protests against Israeli secularism. Last year they picketed a public swimming pool that permitted mixed bathing, after Blau warned that "Jerusalem will be turned into a huge brothel...
Under Blau's leadership, the Neturei Karta sided with the British and the Arabs against Israel's struggle for independence, and it now holds that Jerusalem is an extraterritorial city under U.N. jurisdiction. "I do not recognize Israel de jure or de facto," says Blau. "The worst part of the Jewish state is that what all the nations of the world did not succeed in doing during the years of exile, Israel is now doing. The gentiles wanted to sever Jews from the Torah but did not succeed. Zionists are now succeeding. It is heresy...