‘Sanhedrin’ against Beijing Olympics
Re-established Jewish Sanhedrin rules against participation in Chinese-hosted Olympic Games
Only three weeks are left before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games open, and the remonstration against holding the games is joined by the Sanhedrin (Talmudical tractate) rabbis.
In their ruling, the judges clarify that they are not intervening in or opposing the country’s authority to convict criminals violating The Seven Laws of Noah (also referred to as the Noahide Laws), but cannot be so cruel as to turn them into a “organ bank.”
The Sanhedrin’s judges, convening as an International Court of Law presided by Rabbi Adin Even-Yisrael (Shteinzaltz), discussed the claims of Israeli athletes training in Falun Dafa (also called Falun Gong), a high-level Buddhist cultivation practice believed to bring great improvements in health and fitness. According to the athletes, their Chinese counterparts, who advocate truthfulness, benevolence, and forbearance, are persecuted by the Chinese government, who believes the athletes are acting against it.
Beijing Olympics (Photo: AFP)
According to testimonies, the Chinese regime imprisons them in masses in detention camps and exercises an array of torturous punishment methods including murdering and amputating living people. The Israeli athletes further claimed that the Chinese government puts the victims’ organs on sale throughout the world.
As part of examining the case, the Sanhedrin sent emissaries to collect testimonials in Israel and abroad. The judges were also presented with documents by renowned international organizations supporting this harsh reality.
Plot brewed by libeling sources
The court also approached the Chinese embassy in Israel, asking them to present their government’s stance in the matter. The judges said they were approached by diplomatic sources in Israel in China to not discuss the case, fearing it would harm the countries’ relations, but “being sovereign, the Sanhedrin did not think it should agree to such requests.”
The embassy’s representatives ultimately met with the judges, claiming the case is a plot brewed by sources trying to libel the government, and that the Falun Gong athletes are a medical nuisance by trying to incite civilians against conventional medical treatments.
The rabbis wrote in their verdict that “the court has reached its conclusion based on the accumulated multiple circumstantial evidence that there is indeed a severe phenomenon of murdering innocent Falun Gong men, also motivated by financial calculations of commercially exploiting their organs.”
The court called upon the Chinese government to adopt and enforce the Noahide Laws prohibiting murder and theft, and added that “the Jewish nation has experienced the Holocaust under the heavy hand of the Germans during the Nazi regime, which massacred millions of Jews, and therefore must be especially sensitive to the outcry of the persecuted.”
On taking part in the Chinese-hosted Olympics, the Sanhedrim said: “The Chinese government is about to host the Olympics – an event which brings people of different nations closer together…disregarding the bloodshed of the innocent may seem as an encouragement similar to Hitler’s during his rule in Berlin.”
