A Rabbanite Wolf in Karaite Sheep's Clothing

The following is a classical representation of my greatest fear for the future of Karaism. That we will fail to be diligent and allow ourselves to be destroyed from within. The house we live in is quite fragile. No longer is Karaism surrounded by stone walls and turrets. The remnant of us can best be descibed as nothing more than a wooden shack with shuttered windows that can barely keep out the cold. In that regard if we do not remain vigilant, we will see this poorest of structures collapse in a strong wind. In order to once again build stone walls that can weather the storms, it is necessary that we first find those boards that suffer from dry rot and remove them before it spreads.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, there are those within the Karaite communities that would appear to enjoy the fact that we are fractionated and cannot unite ourselves into anything representing a common front. The individual below that I'm corresponding to in this open letter is well known amongst the Karaite bodies for his beligerance, and demeaning ways. He claims to be a moderator for one such group of Karaites yet he seems to spend more time making disparaging remarks against other communities than tending to his own brotherhood.

These individuals, that exist within our communities extolling their Karaite beliefs yet sowing the seeds of dissent, derision and conflict will be the cancer that spreads throughout our body should we not act to remove the disease before it becomes malignant.

As you read the letter below, you will understand how insidious they are in spreading the blackness that is their true agenda, always cloaking themselves in innocence and pointing the fingers at everyone else. Like the child that screams, "he hit me first", but overlooking their entire set of actions that precipiated the event and would ultimately expose their own crimes.

Immediately below my response to his letter you will be able to read my antagonist's own words and will then understand the reason for my response. To those Karaite Hachams that should chance upon this blog, I can only hope that you will recongise this individual for who and what he truly is and protect your communities against the creeping darkness that he spreads. We need to ensure that the rights of all individuals within Karaism are preserved. That they are free to interpret the Tanach in a manner that is relevant and proper to themselves and that they are protected from having their beliefs attacked by unscrupulous individuals masquerading as part of the Karaite community.

At this point I will let you read my letter in response to this modern day Saadiah. This man that has made a concerted effort to attack not only myself but others in the community for no other reason than he believes himself to be entitled to do so. Just like Saadiah.

Well Zvi,
I'm afraid it isn't as simple as you would like. You certainly have an incredible talent for overlooking all that you have done and said over the past five weeks. As I recall, it was you that started making demands and vitrolic attacks on my person, appearing on my hubs, in the chat rooms and wherever you felt you could exert some misguided concept that you have some degree of authority. And now for you to suddenly proclaim it's ended because you feel threatened, that is what happens when you open the proverbial can of worms. Now you must face the fallout from your own malicious actions. One of the most infamous individuals that had this same misguided notion of self importance was Saadiah. That is why I constantly refer to you and he being one and the same. But it is the fact that others in the Karaite community have brought it to my attention that they too have also suffered your vicious attacks and they have felt helpless to deal with you. I am not like them. I have always fought for what is right and the protection of others. I am very transparent and if you had looked you would have seen in my professional career I am responsible for saving lives but in order to do so I accept that sacrifices have to be made. God understands sacrifices that must be made in order to protect and save people but unfortunately there are a small minority that refuse to understand it and they have over the years tried their best to intimidate me. From threats against my life to harassment of my family but they have not swayed me, they have not made me cower in fear, and they certainly haven't stopped me from my committment to save lives. Had you bothered at first to do your homework you would have seen that you could never have intimidated me as you initially tried. So when I see that there are some of my own people that are unable to defend themselves, I will pick up their gauntlet because in case you haven't realized it by now, that is my purpose in life; that is what the Kahana have always done.

To those that you have attacked in the past, let this be their vindication for their suffering at your hands. Why don't we start with your lying ways. Your first lie is your claim that you have not spread your venemous tongue to my contacts or family. Well then you'll have to explain this taken from a letter from a distant cousin of mine. You just accidentally appeared on her family website I guess.


Allen:
> Can you please respond to this since you have more of the research
> than I do.
> Thank you.
> Julie
>
> From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
> Subject: [Goldenthal Family Blog] Comment: "Family History"
> To: julierana@prodigy.net
> Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 8:04 AM
>
> New comment on your post #111 "Family History"
> Author : Zvi (IP: 85.64.56.90 , 85.64.56.90.dynamic.barak-online.net)
> E-mail : zvi.torahkeeper@gmail.com
>
> URL :
> Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=85.64.56.90
> Comment:
> Shalom and greetings.
>
> If I ever notice or get alerted that Dr. Allen Goldenthal has
> posted a hub proving he could trace the family's geneaology back
> lineally to `Anan ben Dawid and even conclusively show that he
> traces back to the Phiabis and High Priest Elyaqim (Alkimus) and
> that the earliest post-Tanakh generations of your family connect
> *directly* to biblical era kohanim from the 5-4 centuries BCE
> mentioned in the Tanakh _the same exact way_ he did with the
> ancestors tracing back to the 1590's, I'll issue a public apology
> in the comments space below that hub AND on Melekh ben Yaaqov's
> KaraiteInsights chatroom.

Does it look familiar Zvi-Saadiah? It should. It's your intentional comments on a website hosted by members of my family that you deny you ever did. That's your first lie and it is as obvious as the nose on your face.

Now we look at your lie number two. You ask what will I do to you that measures 100 fold. As everyone will see from our correspondence below, I specifically said that what you do to others will come back upon you 100 fold. I was doing nothing to you but only warning you that the ill will, and harm you try to do to others would come back to haunt you. As the self nominated Torah Keeper you should have recognized that reference. It was Moses telling Pharoah to be careful of what he intended to do to the Hebrews as God would exact a punishment far greater based on the words from his own lips. So once again, you have failed to understand what was intended and have made up some fantastical story of me intending to go after your family websites. Though groundless and based on some paranoid delusion of yours, it still counts as another lie.

Now, there are enough genealogical tables on the internet concerning my family that even someone like yourself that appears to have difficulty linking concepts together should have been able to appreciate it. It's actually been quite easy for my family since we have always linked back to certain individuals. In the 19th century we link back to Jakob Kahana Goldenthal. Everyone in my family is aware of his role. Those directly descended like myself knew him as Dr. Jakob. Other lines in the family simply referred to him as the Professor. You had the opportunity to google him long ago. Just three words would have done it. 'Jakob Goldenthal and Karaite' and you would have had a wealth of information and resources. Not everything he wrote was proKaraite, because he felt there were some issues in the community as well back then. But I still find it amusing that the Rabbanites claim him as their own now, even though they had issued an arrest warrant for him back in the 1830s. You see, they still tell lies too. But as I said, if you had done your homework you would have seen that Jakob linked himself back to his ancestor Yakov Kahana in the 16th century. And Yakov could link himself back to the Yom Tov Kahana another three hundred years earlier. And so on, and so on. All of it is there if you had even bothered to look. Even with all the miscellaneous reports I provided regarding rabbinical tracings that had been done for many of their families going back over two thousand years, you still chose to ignore the existence of these. Because in your mind it can't possibly occur. It takes a very simple concept. It's called trust. I trust the stories passed down by my relatives. I trust the documents from my ancestors. And I trust that the only reason they would keep the genealogical stories alive was because it was accurate. Trust is a very special concept within Karaism. We trust in our ancestors legacy otherwise we would have been swept away by the tide of rabbinical teachings long ago. It's obviously something that you are incapable of and a trait lacking from your character. So you're accusastion that I haven't provided any data to support my genealogy is a crock. I've supplied plenty and your statement is nothing more than lie number three that you have told.

Now you wish to say that I have trafficed in the slander of one of my own people. No, I haven't because I don't consider you one of my own people. Besides your not being a very nice person, and therefore I would normally have nothing to do with you this is another factor. And that reason that I don't consider you one of us is from words that you have written with your own hand. They were as follows, perhaps you will recognize them:

Zvi says:
5 weeks ago

Shalom sir.

I was born Jewish and consider myself very close to Qaraite Judaism in belief and practice.

You see, if your were truly Karaite you would never express yourself as having beliefs close to being Qaraite. Close to being Karaite is Rabbanite. It's close but it certainly isn't the same thing. A true Karaite would say, "I was born a Karaite Jew and that is what and who I am." Close to, approximating, similar, these are all excuses for someone that doesn't fully follow and believe in Karaism. Sort of like those that say I'm Jewish but I believe Jesus is my messiah. Sorry, but they are not the same thing. So your claims that I have exuded hatred for you are false. I don't hate you, I don't even recognize you. You are to me a Rabbanite that has masked himself in a Karaite cloak for the purpose of perpetrating your malicious doctrines against anyone in the community that you choose to direct your attention upon. And there have been quite a few that have told me about what you have tried to do and said about them. So that is now your fourth lie that you have committed in an attempt to claim that I have directed a campaign of hate against you when it has clearly been the opposite not only in my case but many others that you have perpetrated.

Now you openly admit to being on the Karaite insight chat room once again. In fact, you've just written on the chat for Yom Teruah. Perhaps your memory is failing but I do recall a couple of weeks ago, Melech asked you to stay away from the chat, and not to bother us with your presence their any longer. At that point you wrote back that you would do so and begged Melech not to reveal on any of the other chats some insidious and contemptable deeds you had perpetrated. Do you recall that? I do and so does everyone else that read it on the chat. Perhaps you should come clean and tell everyone what it is you did? What sins have you committed Zvi-Saadiah that you are afraid the rest of us will hear about? And here you are, breaking your promise and back on the Karaite Insight site by your own admission. You failed to keep your promise and that is now your fifth outright lie.

Five glaring lies in the course of one email. Amazing! I would think that you're going for some sort of record. And on top of it you wrap yourself in the name of Torah Keeper. How can someone who lies so efficiently and constantly even conceive of themselves as being the Torah Keeper in any manner possible.

As I told you before, take a good look at your reflection in the mirror. Either drop the charade or seek help. This is not only the view I have of you but is how you are seen by others that I have talked with as well. Take this not as slander but as good advice.

Avrom Aryeh Zuk

To those interested in knowing what the correspondence has been actually about, the following is some of the direct correspondence from this asidious fellow named Zvi. I present it here for everyone to see and judge. When we permit people of this ilk to speak disparingly of any of the members of our communites we invite disaster. Why he does so has been a topic amongst several of us. There is talk that like Saadiah in the 10th century, he is a Rabbanite that initially pretended to befriend the community but always with the intent of destroying it. Saadiah made a pont of going after each Karaite intellectual and leader in a most argumentative and vicious manner. Perhaps a thousand years later nothing has changed and they still use the same tactics:

Allen...
For the last time: I did not contact specifically any of your family members, eaither through your contact list or by other means. You're insisting on this lie because you have little integrity and probably feel you cannot prove your grandiose claims of being descended from Elyaqim, the Phiabis and Tanakh-mentioned, earlier Second Temple era kohanim.

What will happen to me a hundred fold? You seem to be stupid as well, because no one in my my family that I'm aware has any kind of website, let alone one similar to yours (I concede this and am not ashamed of it...).

Since you''ve publicly claimed to be descended from those abovementioned kohanim through some of your hubs, you owe the public an explanation how you actually back up such bombastic statements by writing at least another hub dedicated to this topic.

You accuse me repeatedly of being a false Torah keeper, yet you've lied multiple times about me (including via the email I'm responding to) and have trafficked in slander twice on the KI chatroom about me, including a day or 2 ago, and exude outright hatred for a fellow member of your people, not to mention nurturing your grudge and planing a revenge on me, -- all this in contravention of explicit Torah commandments forbidding such behavior.

Should I receive another hate email from you, it'll be the last I intend to read. So please take a hint and proceed now to indulge in far more positive pursuits such as the one I've suggested to you.


Happy Yom Teru`ah,
Zvi

On 9/18/09, Allen Goldenthal wrote:

Zvi,
You don't have to be afraid of me. You only have to be afraid of how you'll be judged. When you wrote on the Goldenthal wordpress site, you chose to go directly after members of my family. You can't even see your own lies. As you have done, so it will happen to you a hundred fold. I feel sorry for you. Those that know my family's origins, have seen the documents, have heard the stories, know exactly whom we're descended from. Those people count. You don't. Prove something to you? You're not worthy of the effort.
The only lie is you thinking of yourself as a Torah Keeper. You don't even understand the meaning of it. As I've said, you and Saadiah are cut from the same cloth. Take a look in the mirror, the reflection may surprise you.