The Jackass Lake is getting crowded

Quick, Rabbi Amar, hop in! The water's fine.

And take Metzger with you, while you're at it.

So let's review- in the past two years, Rabbi Amar has said that no rabbis outside of Israel are legitimate except those personally vetted by him. This in turn disqualifies their converts, even Orthodox ones, unless their rabbis were/are on Amar's master list, which, conveniently, is long out of date and contains a great many dead people. Just splendid.

Now Amar's gone after converts again, proving he really doesn't care about Klal Israel as much as he does circling the wagons and tightening the fence around the West Bank Torah, I mean, citizenship, and hoping that all those "pesky goyim", you know, the millions of Jews in America (North and South), Europe and the former Soviet Union he turns his nose up at who are committed to Judaism, Jewish life, the existence and survival of Israel, and, oh yeah, supporting (politically and monetarily) Jewish institutions, including ones that don't even recognize them as real Jews, will just fade into the ether. Hey Amar, exactly who do you think it is helping to run all those social programs for poor Jews around the world? It's not just haredim- it's donations from secular, and gasp, even non-halakhic Jews. Does this mean my patrilineally-descended cousins get a refund for their Tzedaka?

Exactly who does Amar think he's saving here? This is more than an attack on converts, this is an attack on Jewish pluralism, this time even drawing blood from his own camp! Amar wants power and hegemony, and he doesn't care who he has to step on to get it. This man is exploiting his office and authority, and has the audacity to claim he's doing it to protect Israel and the Jewish people. Yeah right. This is about controling who gets to be a Jew, period. Amar can't excommunicate halakhic Jews who aren't Orthodox (he could if he would), so he's making their converts second-class citizens as best he can.

You're an embarassment to your office, Rabbi. And not just because of that hat.