UNTIL this morning I had no idea that some Jews believe in reincarnation, and that – according to some scholars:
Aaah, so that would explain the action of a rabbinical court in Jerusalem which recently sentenced a dog to death by stoning after deciding that the animal was the reincarnation of a famous secular lawyer who had insulted the court’s judges 20 years ago.
In the absence of a pictured of the accursed animal, here is a photo of a dog that LOOKS like a lawyer
The dog – a big critter by all accounts – came strolling into the Monetary Affairs Court near the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim. The dog scared the crap out of the court’s visitors and, to “their surprise”, refused to leave even after they attempted to drive him away.
According to this report, one of the judges suddenly recalled that, about 20 years ago, the lawyer who insulted the court was cursed by the panel of judges. They wished that his spirit would move on to the body of a dog (considered an impure animal by Halacha), and later the lawyer fell off his perch.
Still smarting from the lawyer’s insult – details of which are not known – one of the judges sentenced the animal to death by stoning, and recruited children in the neighborhood’s to carry out the sentence. Luckily, the dog managed to escape.
The head of the court, Rabbi Avraham Dov Levin, has since denied that the judges had called for the dog’s stoning. But one of the court’s managers confirmed the report.
It was ordered by the rabbis because of the grief he had caused the court. They didn’t issue an official ruling, but ordered the children outside to throw stones at him in order to drive him away. They didn’t think of it as cruelty to animals, but as an appropriate way to get back at the spirit which entered the poor dog.
Jerusalem City Council Member and social activist Rachel Azaria sent an urgent letter to the attorney general, calling on him to “deal with the criminals”. The Let the Animals Live organization filed a complaint with the police against Rabbi Levin.
Hat tip: BarrieJohn
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
June 18th, 2011 at 9:36 am
What? Erm. Uh? I don’t… Erm.
Anyway, here’s a lawyer who looks a bit like a dog, just to complete the set.
June 18th, 2011 at 9:45 am
Daz: Here’s one that’s positively rabid!
http://images.freethinker.co.u.....iello1.jpg
June 18th, 2011 at 9:54 am
*shudder*
Have some Peggy Lee
June 18th, 2011 at 10:19 am
Daz / barriejohn. Rump-hole of the waily.
June 18th, 2011 at 10:38 am
I’m in two minds about this story, an ethical dilemma. I agree that lawyers should be stoned to death, but I really love dogs.
June 18th, 2011 at 11:51 am
If these judges believe crap like this what other nonsense is in their minds? Doesn’t bode well for justice in jerusalem. And talk about carrying a grudge – these buttheads are still mad after twenty years?
But I can’t believe that lawyers would come back as dogs – cockroaches maybe! Since these judges believe this it would be appropriate for them to come back as inanimate objects, maybe a good stable rock somewhere underground.
June 18th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Why on earth are poor old dogs considered ‘impure’? What about horses? Or hedgehogs? And can you imagine having your case heard by someone who thought he could recognise ‘the spirit’ of a long-dead person in some stray mutt that happened to have wandered through the door. I’d definitely be asking for a psychiatric assessment of the judge.
June 18th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Odd that, I always thought lawyers always came back as estate agents.
June 18th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
I thought the law was an ass, not a dog.
June 18th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Oh my Dog!
June 18th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
So dogs are considered impure? Does that include guide dogs, dogs that help disabled people in their homes, guard dogs, herding dogs, sniffer dogs for drugs or companion dogs? Dogs do good in the world unlike these religious dements. And the death is by stoning! I suppose for the penalty to be imposed with due rigour the dog would have to be tied up and stoned, amidst its pathetic and terrified yelps, at their leisure.
These “experts in their religion, are barbaric nutters. And my dog agrees with me.
June 18th, 2011 at 2:45 pm
This is another example of the stupidity of all religions. Stone the idiot judges instead of the dog., I love dogs and all little animals, most have more sense than people
June 18th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
By and large, I’ve always preferred dogs to clergymen as they tend to have a lot more sense.
June 18th, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Does anyone KNOW if this story is true ?
Other than repeating from another site ?
Here is the LET ANIMALS LIVE website…does anyone read Hebrew in order to corroborate?
http://www.letlive.org.il/
June 18th, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Lawyers come back as snails not puppy dog tails
June 18th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
@ Terry Ward
There is an English version of the Let The Animals Live site if you click the button that says ‘English Site’ to the right of the page you have linked to. Although it doesn’t seem to have been updated much in the past year or three.
June 18th, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Stoning an appropriate way to get back at a spirit which entered a dog? If I understand this rabbi correctly, the dog itself is not responsible for being possesed, it’s just a host, but it can still be killed; what about the power of prayer?
June 18th, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Nothing to worry about! Just stun the poor little creature … stun it a bit more … and a bit more … until it’s SO stunned that it’s dead. And that’s OK.
Of course, if you wanted to eat the thing, you should just slit it’s throat. It would be dreadful to stun it, if that’s what you intended.
So, really – there’s no moral difference between stunning & throat-slitting. It all depends on whether you like the taste of DOG.
Effing two-faced hypocrites!
June 18th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Sorry! “its” – not “it’s” – in the 2nd para!
June 18th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Mea Shearim is one of the most wretched places I’ve ever seen. I was staying in a B&B just around the corner so I thought I’d check it out. Filthy and smelly, rubbish everywhere and populated by the most miserable of people. It’s the one part of Israel that has a mutawa (religious police) like the Saudis (though it’s not official…)
They’re anti-Zionist so don’t pay rates or taxes and don’t want anything to do with the state (apart from handouts of course…)
Their mindset is best illustrated by the events of a couple of years ago. Jerusalem council opened a car park on Saturdays for tourists, Arabs and secular Jews. To protest this ‘desecration of the sabbath’ they went rioting on the sabbath, hurling molotov cocktails at the police and torching health centres and ambulances. Now if I were a Jew I think I’d know what’s more of a desecration of the sabbath…
Tossers!
June 18th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
BTW:
“They wished that his spirit would move on to the body of a dog (considered an impure animal by Halacha), and later the lawyer fell off his perch.”
Dogs aren’t halachically impure, quite the opposite in fact. According to the silly old Talmud (http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/eng.....hter_1.htm) only “evil dogs” are prohibited.
One school of Talmudic thought decrees that you cannot break the rules of the sabbath by calling an ambulance for a dying goy, but can call a vet for a dying dog because dogs helped the Israelites escape from Egypt back in the day! (Even though they were never there…)
Godless, gay, cosmopolitan Tel Aviv is like crufts. I have never seen so many fancy pooches! Though I felt very sorry for the Spitzes that the Russians tend to favour. My little Shiba (in my avatar) can’t handle British summertime, I dread to think how he’d cope with 35 degrees plus…
June 18th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
This story now appears on umpteen websites, but I don’t know whether anyone has actually researched it, or whether they are just repeating what others have posted. Failed Messiah is sceptical!
http://failedmessiah.typepad.c.....k-234.html
June 18th, 2011 at 7:39 pm
More on Mea Shearim, which does seem an absolutely delightful neighbourhood:
http://www.subchat.com/read.asp?Id=973502
June 18th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
@ barriejohn
This story was carried by Jerusalem Post which is pretty right wing and Zionist so I think there’s some veracity! (In it’s favour it was extremely right wing a few years ago when Conrad effing Black owned it, it’s become a tad more respectable since…)
June 18th, 2011 at 7:53 pm
http://failedmessiah.typepad.c.....m-456.html
June 18th, 2011 at 7:56 pm
MrMonist: Conrad Black will be back in the House of Lords soon helping us with our legislation. Nice eh? Thought that would cheer you up.
There are almost 800 Lords there now at £300 a day. Great if you are a friend of the right politicians and can get it. No work. Just sign in and clear off. Also 25 bishops, unelected, to help block anything that offends their religious sensibilities. Great to live in a democracy, isn’t it?
June 18th, 2011 at 7:59 pm
@ Broga
You have saddened me with your news!!! I thought the c*** was still in lockup… MUST read newspapers more often…
June 18th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Are you sure you didn’t just take a picture of Melanie Phillips and do a little photoshopping?
June 18th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
You’ve been pwned
http://www.thejerusalemlife.co.....d-in-court
June 18th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
I still have my suspicions, even though he may be denying it now:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....oning.html
I, too, was amazed to learn that some Jews believe in reincarnation, though it’s only a small step from “spirit possession” I suppose.
June 19th, 2011 at 12:24 am
What stupidity and cruelty. I hope the dog comes back and gives the git rabies or something similar. Bloody idiot. I hate religions.
June 19th, 2011 at 12:44 am
I call shenanigans – everyone knows that cockroaches are reincarnated as lawyers
June 19th, 2011 at 11:15 am
@MrMonist: I’m fairly sure they have let Black out or intend to do so very soon. I read a biography of him a few years ago – can’t check this as someone borrowed it and it never came back- and he seems a real shyster. His ideal newspaper, as I recall, was one editor and everything bought in from the newsagencies and lots of advertising. Scores of decent journalists in the USA were sacked, couldn’t fund their mortgages and damaged their families as a result. He lobbied long and hard to get into the House of Lords.
Talking of which I heard a discussion this morning on the Sunday programme of a couple of religious types saying how important the bishops (26) were in the Lords. However, they went on to decide on a better carve up of the unelected and undemocratic religious presence. They want Muslims, Jewish, RC religious reps as well as the current C.of E. One of them, already there, commented on the different quality of debate provided by the Lords Spiritual (Gawd, don’t they give themselves airs) and how important this is. The quality I assume comes from their being immersed in Stone Age superstition and trapped in medieval thinking.
Not a word about lack of democracy, the draining away of congregations in the churches, but just a bland and smug assumption that they can continue to carve up this nice little earner: £300 a day. As for medieval thinking based on a book of primitive superstitutions – get some Muslims in there, plus some RCs, and “you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
June 19th, 2011 at 11:15 am
It’s a dog’s life in a god’s world
June 19th, 2011 at 11:47 am
I believe that Comrade Black is still on bail, and living in the US with his delightful wife (Barbara Amiel), but not for long!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....urt_review
He is a great favourite of Private Eye, as you can imagine!!
June 19th, 2011 at 11:53 am
http://www.fewings.ca/web/2003.....dBlack.jpg
Cap’n Bob would have been so proud of him.
June 19th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
@barriejohn: Thanks bj. I read through the link and Conrad is a real charmer. Sounds like perfect material for the House of Lords. He won’t, of course, be the only Noble Lord, as they call themselves, who has been in the slammer. Close to 800 of these characters there now and nothing much likely to change.
Great to live in a democracy.
June 19th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Broga: One of his sponsors was…Margaret Thatcher. And one of the honoured guests at his ennoblement was none other than Nobel Peace Prize winner, Henry Kissinger. It’s a funny old world!
June 19th, 2011 at 6:19 pm
I meant to add this link to the above comment!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new.....-seat.html
June 19th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
barriejohn: Well now, there’s a surprise. That wouldn’t be the same Margaret Thatcher who was a fan of that loveable magician Pinochet, I suppose? His magical skill was in making people disappear and leaving their families in an agony of fear and uncertainty for decades. I think the UK provided medical treatment for him.
Thatcher famously wept when her incompetent son got himself lost. Shame she didn’t extend her compassion to Pinochet’s victims.
June 19th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
@ Broga
You’re right. I remember reading how Black destroyed the local newspaper scene in the states in a similar way that Clear Channel destroyed local radio using the methods you mentioned.
When he ran JPost it was a hardcore settler rag, not just ‘established settlements’ but Hilltop Youth style scumbags. I met some of them in Jerusalem and they were the most unpleasant people I’ve ever met…
June 19th, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Do you remember when newspapers had “foreign correspondents”, and when even the red tops (Mirror, Sketch and Herald, for instance) carried serious news, albeit presented in a form which almost any working man could understand? How much news of overseas affairs do you see when you open many newspapers today?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01713.html
June 20th, 2011 at 7:35 am
@barriejohn, I work for a paper that’s gone from reasonably august to screeching sub-moronic idiocy in a matter of years. As Black and his ilk have figured out, mouth-breathing halfwits are always the preferred readership because they’re easier for advertisers to part from their money. So don’t expect anything to get better soon.
June 20th, 2011 at 9:35 am
How upsetting.
Poor, poor dog, to even have that cruel, terrible, inhumane THOUGHT and thus possibility considered! That sounds like the human had a sick mind and was wishing pain on innocent creatures.
June 20th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Oy Vey! No, this story isn’t true. Can you imagine a court which relies upon “neighborhood kids” to carry out legal sentences?
Death by stoning has not existed in Jewish law since Biblical times.
Yes, there are some Jewish groups which believe in reincarnation.
Schools of Talmudic thought are just that: thoughts. It’s okay to have ideas and discuss them; but that doesn’t mean anyone acts on it.
The BBC states that Jews consider dogs to be “impure”. Thats misinterpreted. An “impure animal” means as food. Jews don’t EAT dogs.
June 20th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Terry Ward, 18th June, the site in Hebrew is an animal welfare organization. Israel has national laws and private agencies regulating the humane treatment of animals. Israel has even joined an international organization against commercial whaling although Israel has never had a whaling industry!
A clue that this story is untrue can be seen in the large photograph of a dog the Daily Mail inserted into their report of the “dog sentenced to death” story. They captioned it, “…a dog like this one, pictured in the Gaza strip…” That means they had to go as far away as Gaza to find a sad photograph of a dog.
June 20th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Yeah, looks like this one is now definitively debunked:
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/0.....didnt-die/
Dan
June 21st, 2011 at 4:04 am
Apparently, the story is untrue:
http://honestreporting.com/sle.....ress-does/
And for the person who asked if anyone reads Hebrew, here is the English version of Let the Animals Live Israel web site:
http://www.letlive.org.il/english/home.php
June 21st, 2011 at 9:39 am
So this story probably isn’t true, however it is believable. These nutjobs are so divorced from reality that none of their weird shit should surprise us any more.
I studied comparative law at uni with an emphesis on legal systems derived from religious scripture. Rabbinical courts, in my opinion, are the craziest of a crazy bunch.
June 21st, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Maariv, which published the report, issued a retraction.
http://honestreporting.com/sle.....ress-does/