Israeli settler-rabbi: "Goyish sperm leads to criminality, barbarism"

Tikun Olam | By Richard Silverstein | 12.01.2011

I swear these rabbis are such sitting ducks sometimes I feel sorry for ‘em that I have write posts like this. But given the nuttiness they espouse, what choice does one have?

Rabbi Dov Lior, exemplar of settler-rabbinic wisdom

One of Israeli Orthodoxy's leading rabbinic lights, Rabbi Dov Lior, chief rabbi of that idyllic Jewish town of Hebron, told a conference at an Israeli fertility conference that Jewish couples must not use the sperm of non-Jewish men for artificial insemination because the traits of the goy will pass on to the child:

According to Lior, a baby born through such an insemination will have the "negative genetic traits that characterize non-Jews."

"Sefer HaChinuch (The Book of Education) states that the character traits of the father pass on to the son," he said in the lecture. "If the father in not Jewish, what character traits could he have? Traits of cruelty, of barbarism! These are not traits that characterize the people of Israel."Lior added identified Jews as merciful, shy and charitable – qualities that he claimed could be inherited. "A person born to Jewish parents, even if they weren't raised on the Torah – there are things that are passed on (to him) in the blood, it's genetic," he explained. "If the father is a gentile, then the child is deprived of these things.

"I even read in books that sometimes the crime, the difficult traits, the bitterness – a child that comes from these traits, it's no surprise that he won't have the qualities that characterize the people of Israel," he added.

A few years ago when I wrote about the Terry Schiavo mess one of the major points I tried to make was that religion and science and politics and science can be a toxic mixture. It seems that Rabbi Lior has taken my advice to heart. He's devoted himself totally to religion and divorced himself totally from science. Which would be OK had he not decided that he somehow became a scientific expert by dint of his alleged mastery of Jewish law. You see, that's where people get in trouble. Like when Tom DeLay decided he would legislate Terry Schiavo's medical care regimen.

Here the good rabbi retreats to 16th century genetic theory by positing that traits of temperament that are allegedly Jewish can be inherited. I think this notion was discredited somewhere around the time of Lamarque. But don't tell Lior and his followers. It might disturb their ignorance.

Lior, not to be outdone by Dr. Mengele, once said that it was permissible to conduct medical experiments on captured Arab terrorists. You see what happens when morons arrogate to themselves a medical degree? He's one of those who calls Baruch Goldstein a saint and martyr. He also joined the pulsa dinura which gave rabbinic blessing to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Finally, Foreign Policy Magazine in 2008 named Lior one of the "world's worst religious leaders." Right up there no doubt with Osama bin Laden (if you consider him a religious leader), Savanorola and Rasputin.

Returning to the subject of fertility, if these idiots would have an ounce of humility and allow scientists to be scientists and not interpose themselves between science and their religious adherents, the world would be a lot better off.

I also enjoyed the notion that goyim are brutes while Jews are kind. I guess he hasn't visited Gaza lately to see what the ‘merciful, shy and charitable' IDF (Jewish boys almost all) is doing there. Oh, I forgot, Jews don't have to be merciful toward Palestinians, only toward their fellow Jews (or more likely toward their fellow Orthodox Jews as the rest of us Jews are mere apostates in their eyes).

Unfortunately, we're not done with Lior's ‘wisdom':

Lior condemned artificial insemination and sperm donation in general, saying that they lead to waste of sperm, unclear genealogy and other Jewish law offenses. He warned against undergoing intrauterine insemination at hospitals, where the workers may mix sperm samples for one reason or another – a major halachic violation.

On the subject of women who freeze their eggs to use at a later date, the rabbi asserted that instead they should concentrate their efforts on getting married younger. "Our public has been influenced by a part of the Western culture in which every woman, instead of becoming a mother, needs to get a Masters Degree," he lamented. "The role of women – child rearing – is not less important than an academic degree." Lior noted that there is nothing wrong with attaining a profession, but it should not be a priority.

Moreover, the rabbi spoke against single women getting pregnant. "We can understand the desire of every woman to have a child, but according to our Torah it is impossible to address the demand of a certain woman when it can cause someone else [the child] suffering," he said.

"If a child is born without a father, he cannot be 100% normal." He stated that rabbinical literature defines these kids as "criminals and subjects of other negative phenomena."

There was a time earlier in my life when I believed that rabbis represented, or at least should represent the most enlightened aspects of Judaism. They should be lights unto Jews and non-Jews alike. They should exemplify a life well led according to high ethical norms. But after Rabbi Meir Kahane, it's now clear that rabbis harbor some of the worst tendencies reflected in all human beings. Many don't even bother to temper these noxious tendencies. In fact, they may be proud of ‘em.

I should add that Lior's declarations fly in the face of normative Orthodox halacha which says that sperm of non-Jews is preferable to that of an unknown Jewish donor because the latter, if Ashkenazi, might cause genetic defects like Tay Sachs and other possible abnormalities.