Meet Rabbi Rami Shapiro "scholar in residence" at the Micah congregation in Nashville, TN.

Last night I attended the first of a three part lecture series he is giving entitled "Islam: What Every Jew Needs To Know."

One might have expected to hear how Muhammad presented himself to the Jews of Medina as the Messiah and was rejected. About how he treated the Jews thereafter as people who had earned Allah's special wrath. About the fate of the Banu Quraizah, the farmers of the Khaybar Oasis, or the rest of the Jews of Medina. About how on his deathbed, Muhammad ordered the expulsion of all Jews from Arabia. One might have expected to hear something that explains the deep-seated Islamic antisemitism of today, why crowds of Muslim chant "Death to the Jews" all over the world, but that was not to be.

It was clear from the beginning this man knows practically nothing about Islam, but he declared his intention so save us "from looking stupid," by explaining that people who contend that Allah is a different God from the Judeo-Christian deity are simply mistaking "a different word for another reality," that is the equivalent of saying the French worship a different God because the word God in French is Dieu. He declared this a laughably silly and obvious mistake. How could people be so ignorant!

Then he proceeded to trot out every worn out and discredited Muslim selling point for Islam he could think of and present it as though it were the truth. We heard everything from "Muhammad lived in the full light of history," to how he was a "wonderful family man and role model" (at which point he went on at length about what a terrible father Abraham was), to the "Golden Age of Islam" in the Middle Ages, to the wonderfulness of the five pillars. He talked about Abraham and Hagar travelling to Mecca as if it was an established historic fact. He said that Islam accepts all the prophets from Adam to Muhammad and that Muhammad is the seal of the prophets (no qualifier). He said that Muhammad is the latest articulation of the one true way and that Islam, unlike Christianity, is not supercessionary. (!!)

UPDATE: In an email exchange, Rabbi Shapiro says he misspoke when he said Islam is not supersessionist.

Shapiro also explained that though his is a rabbi, he does not believe in God. Another rabbi, Laurie Rice, added that she, too, did not believe in "truth with a capital T" and she also thought that for most Jews, God was a peripheral consideration. Through all of this, Rabbi Shapiro, laughed and joked and acted as though all religious thought was childish and that even though he was above it all, he was showing how tolerant and understanding he could be. There were several irrelevant side stories about his Muslim friends.

Shapiro's main thesis concerning the difference between Islam and Judaism is that Jews argue with God whereas Muslims don't.  He used the Muslim story of Muhammad's night journey in which Muhammad meets Moses in heaven and Moses talks him into arguing with God about the number of times people should pray as an illustration. He also spoke of a movie called "God on Trial" in which holocaust victims put God on trial for crimes against humanity and convict him of evil doing and then afterward, pray. How ironic. His actually said Jews could learn about submission from Muslims. And how.

At a time like this, when Jews are in peril all over the world and the main source of that peril is Islam, this man chose to joke and laugh and pretend nothing is happening, but more than that, he chose to try to make people think their concern is misplaced. That makes him a dangerous man.