Via FailedMessiah.com (for some background on that site, here’s a New York Times piece from last year), here’s another tale of someone else who sees the tragedy in Japan as an example of divine retribution. On this occasion it’s a Hasidic rabbi who sees Japan’s detention of some students accused of drug smuggling as the cause of God’s wrath. Here’s what is described as a loose translation:
God is landing blow after blow on the Japanese. But they’re like Egypt and Pharaoh. Japan does not understand that it is holding the detainees [Satmar yeshiva students arrested for drug smuggling] for no reason. They think the yeshiva students know what this drug is, but from where would Hasidic yeshiva students know what this is? Only goyyim [non-Jews] know what drugs are. Rather than [Japan] admitting its mistake, it continues to hold them, and for that [Japan] is punished.
Ridiculous.
Religious fundamentalism *and* Jewish supremacy all rolled into one.