{"id":6941,"date":"2008-11-02T08:21:31","date_gmt":"2008-11-02T16:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=6941"},"modified":"2008-11-02T10:16:42","modified_gmt":"2008-11-02T18:16:42","slug":"aish-hatorahs-obsession","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=6941","title":{"rendered":"Aish HaTorah&#8217;s &#8216;Obsession&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The following project is by the same people who produced and promoted &quot;Obsession&quot;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The following are updates from the United American Committee regarding our ongoing efforts against Islamic jihad.<\/p>\n<div>\n<li>A 30 minute preview of the fantastic film &quot;The Third Jihad&quot; has been posted on the UAC&#8217;s YouTube channel linked on our site at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.unitedamericancommittee.org\/\">UnitedAmericanCommittee.org<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Our first billboard is paid for and is about to go up. It&#8217;s 48 feet long and says simply &quot;Sharia law threatens America&quot;. More updates to be posted when it&#8217;s up.<\/li>\n<li>New radio show archives are posted of our hit syndicated AM radio show UAC Radio Jihad. Listen to them at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.uacradiojihad.com\/\">UACRadioJihad.com<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thejewishweek.com\/viewArticle\/c37_a13850\/News\/National.html\">Sarah Posner writes for The Jewish Week<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Officials of Aish HaTorah, one of Orthodox Judaism&rsquo;s most successful outreach programs, have launched a controversial media campaign depicting masses of Muslims worldwide &mdash; including mainstream American Muslims &mdash; as an extremist threat, while Aish itself denies involvement in the effort.<\/p>\n<p>In moves suggesting a new, more partisan direction for Aish activists, spin-offs of the popular educational group have produced or promoted films depicting anti-Western Islamic extremists as heading a mass movement enjoying the avid support of tens of millions of Muslims worldwide who are keen to bring down Western civilization.<\/p>\n<p>Charges of presidential politics have also entered the picture: Last month, an Aish offshoot, the Clarion Fund, distributed millions of DVDs of one of the films, &ldquo;Obsession,&rdquo; to swing states in the presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p>And until it was removed recently, Clarion&rsquo;s Web site touted the counter-terrorism policies of Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential candidate, as superior to those of Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.<\/p>\n<p>DVD copies of &ldquo;Obsession&rdquo; were also inserted into a book that went out last March to about 20,000 members of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a partisan political organization. The coalition distributed the book, via a Virginian mailing house, at the request of Christians United for Israel, an Evangelical group opposed to a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both CUFI and the RJC deny they were responsible for the insertion.<\/p>\n<p>Critics charge that Clarion, a tax-exempt charity, has inserted itself into a partisan political race in violation of its charitable status. But officials at Clarion Fund reject this. And Aish HaTorah, with a yeshiva and branches in 35 cities around the world, adamantly denies any involvement in the film.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We have people involved in different things all around the world,&rdquo; said Aish spokesman Ronn Torossian. &ldquo;Two employees were involved in the film. We [also] have Aish employees in Brazil involved in green campaigns and rabbis in New York who run the marathon.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In fact, at least six top Aish HaTorah officials are tied to &ldquo;Obsession&rdquo; via Aish spin-offs, including Clarion&#8217;s president and two vice presidents. Clarion&rsquo;s address is also the same as that of Aish HaTorah International, a fundraising arm of Aish HaTorah.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The following project is by the same people who produced and promoted &quot;Obsession&quot;: The following are updates from the United American Committee regarding our ongoing efforts against Islamic jihad. A 30 minute preview of the fantastic film &quot;The Third Jihad&quot; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=6941\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[29892,1699,14010,1132,14011,679],"class_list":["post-6941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aish-hatorah","tag-aish-hatorah","tag-christians-united-for-israel","tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","tag-orthodox-judaism","tag-sarah-posner","tag-sen-john-mccain"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6941"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6943,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6941\/revisions\/6943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}