The winter is heating up in Englewood, New Jersey. Remember that house that Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi built there and wanted to stay in for the UN General Assembly? Now, Libya wants to move its UN ambassador there. And the (apparently) Jewish dhimmi who represents the district in Congress is all in favor, because it's not in his backyard. But it is in Rabbi Shmuley Boteach's.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, best known as the author of Kosher Sex, lashed out on Tuesday at a US congressman who was quoted as saying residents of Englewood, New Jersey, should be "good neighbors" to a Libyan diplomat planning to move to the New York City suburb.Read the whole thing.Boteach accused Rep. Steve Rothman of brokering a closed-door deal for Libya to buy a mansion in Englewood in 1982.
Coming a day after the Democratic congressman issued his own press release criticizing Boteach, the rabbi fought back, asking: "Will he really defend the right of an envoy of a terror-sponsoring government to live in our midst, spending millions of dollars on his home while refusing for more than a quarter of a century to pay even one dollar in taxes?"
The flap - between two men who fought to prevent Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi from staying at the Englewood mansion last year - came amid news that Libya's UN representative, Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham, would be moving to the town.
In an interview with the New Jersey Jewish Standard, Rothman said: "The George W. Bush administration reestablished diplomatic relations with the Libyan government and removed Libya from the list of state sponsors of terrorism... Up until this moment the Englewood police chief has advised me that he sees no problem in allowing the ambassador and his wife and children to occupy the residence. And so, I hope everyone will be appropriately good neighbors."
Good luck, Rabbi. I wouldn't want him in my backyard either.
Boteach is one of the more liberal rabbis out there. a guy who gets along on CNN and with Michael Jackson's entourage for years.
the whole story is hilarious to me... in a sad kind of way
