Rabbis to curse parade organizers

Edah Haredit rabbis hope the "Pulsa D'nura" will also work on Mazuz.

By MATTHEW WAGNER
pulsa denura 298.88 (photo credit: channel 2 [file])
pulsa denura 298.88
(photo credit: channel 2 [file])
A Jewish invocation will be used by ultra Orthodox rabbis in Jerusalem to curse the organizers of the Gay Pride March and the police who protect them, said a spokesman for the Edah Haredit Monday. In a ceremony known as "Pulsa D'nura" (blows of fire), rabbis of the anti-Zionist Edah Haredit rabbinic court will convene sometime before the march, which is scheduled for Friday, to conduct the kabbalistic ceremony which is believed to unleash unearthly powers against specified sinners. According to Shmuel Poppenheim, a spokesman for the Edah Haredit, Rabbi Moshe Sternbach, head of the Edah Haredit's rabbinic court proposed conducting the ceremony during a meeting of rabbinic judges Monday morning. "All the rabbis were together at the rabbinic court to proceed over a chalitza (part of a levirate ceremony)," said Poppenheim. "After the chalitza, Rabbi Sternbach recommended doing the Pulsa D'nura." Pulsa D'nura is mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud (Baba Metzia 47a) and in the Zohar. "If done by a competent, God-fearing rabbinic court like the Edah Haredit, the people who are cursed do not live out the year," said a Jerusalem-based rabbi who preferred to remain anonymous. The rabbi estimated that the curse was also directed at Attorney General Menachem Mazuz. "The haredi community is infuriated with Mazuz," said the rabbi. Mazuz ruled this week that there were no legal obstacles against going ahead with the march. According to Poppenheim, it has been about 50 years since the Edah Haredit last used the Pulsa D'nura curse. "It was against people who established Jerusalem's first mixed-sex swimming pool." Poppenheim said that Gershon Agron, Jerusalem's mayor at the time, was also cursed. "He did not live out the year." Agron, who established The Palestine Post, the forerunner of The Jerusalem Post, died in November, 1959. Rabbi Yosef Dayan, a rightwing settler from Psagot conducted Pulsa D'nura ceremonies against former Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon, said that the person who is cursed must deserve it otherwise the curse boomerangs. He said the Pulsa D'nura must be conducted by at least ten Jewish men with beards who are married and 40 years old or older. In a related development the Chief Rabbinate's governing council called on Jews to "hold prayer rallies against this abominable parade" but warned against violence. In a strongly worded notice filled with pathos the chief rabbinate's leading rabbis wrote: 'We trembled in horror at the news of this menacing plot devised by a minority of our lost brothers who perform the lowest, most despicable of acts - acts which are diametrically opposed to the modesty with which the nation of Israel has been blessed. "They have dared to parade in the holy city, openly rebelling against the laws of the holy Torah and against human morality, embraced by the majority of the world's nations.' "If our prayer will not be heard (and the parade is allowed) we call for protests to be held on Friday, to express the pain and objection over harming the sanctity and purity of the nation of Israel and the defilement of the holy city," said the announcement. The Council of Rabbis in Judea and Samaria, a settler movement rabbinic body, also called on its followers to demonstrate against the Gay Pride March. A prayer rally on the Temple Mount is scheduled for Thursday at 9:30 AM.