Love your "neighbour"

More chaos here. Ultra-orthodox attack the police yesterday in Jerusalem http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251783300722&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull and now the Druze community also attack the police (for different reasons of course) http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804466957&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Meantime the Rabbis explain the verse "love your neighbour as yourself": "neighbour" means "Jewish neighbour". So any Jew who sells to an arab is breaking this commandment and should be punished. Worse, Ethiopic Jewish children are rejected from attending Jewish schools because presumably they're not jewish enough. The outcry against this racism within Israeli society has be the topic of hot discussion this week. Obviously Ethiopic Jews are not "neighbours" either. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1111343.html And municipal workers are not "neighbours" either because of the haressing tactics used to cow them into lower wages and working longer hours - in fact the workers have gone on strike today. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1111491.html Shocked? Well you shouldn't. When Jesus preached the Parable fo the Good Samaritan, he went against the common jewish understanding by showing that "neighbour" is the enemy, the Samaritan, the one who showed mercy. But obviously they didn't learn, so now 2000 years later it's still the same thing. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1251804468650&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

But the Haaretz article balances this view by reminding Israelis that as they moan about rising violence in Israeli society, they're closing their eyes to the violence they do against Palestinians everyday. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1111832.html But of course Haaretz has forgotten that Palestinians are not "neighbours". Makes me more wary when I go out now because I'm not "neighbour" either ...... will they sell me a bagel I wonder?