Anti Islam Activist Makes List

Forward

David Yerushalmi
Activism

Over the last 18 months, about two dozen state legislatures have taken up bills that would restrict judges from consulting Shariah, or traditional Islamic law, in their rulings. Three states have passed such laws.

It is a wave that began five years ago in the Crown Heights office of lawyer David Yerushalmi, a 56-year-old Lubavitch-affiliated Jew with a history of controversial statements about race, Islam and other Jews. It was Yerushalmi’s model legislation for these bills that a network of conservative groups sponsored and then pushed to get state legislatures to adopt. Critics question the legislation’s constitutionality as well as the view of Shariah as a creeping threat to America’s legal system.

Yerushalmi’s new initiative, called “The Mapping Shari’a Project in America,” unveiled its initial offering this past summer: a study of 100 American mosques that purports to show a direct link between Shariah law and support for “violent jihad.” Mainstream scholars have disparaged Yerushalmi’s research. But Yerushalmi has demonstrated an ability to edge his ideas into the mainstream, despite denunciations from hate-group watchdogs such as the Anti-Defamation League.

Yerushalmi is also targeting a broader enemy than Islam: liberal democracy. In his writings, he emphasizes America’s roots as a white, male-dominated, Christian country and criticizes political correctness for discouraging the discussion of why “the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote.” Yerushalmi singles out “the radical liberal Jew” as an especially destructive agent in spreading liberal doctrines that, in his view, place international law above nationhood — including in Israel.

A DUBIOUS CELEBRITY
Excerpted from the Yated, by Debbie Maimon

David Yerushalmi, the New York-based attorney who authored some of the earliest anti-sharia legislation, has recently come under intense media scrutiny. A New York Times article featured him on the front page of a recent Sunday edition with the title, “The Man Behind The Anti-Shariah Movement.”

The Times story took pains to play down rising grass-roots support for anti-sharia legislation as “an orchestrated drive by a 56-year-old Hasidic Jew…a man who wears antique wire-rimmed glasses and a thick, white-streaked beard, and has come to exercise a striking influence on public discourse about Islam.”

The article suggests that the little-known Yerushalmi spawned the anti-shariah movement by stoking anti-Muslim hysteria in various parts of the country. That is supposedly how he almost singlehandedly succeeded in getting anti-shariah laws passed in three legislatures – Louisiana, Tennessee and Arizona – and pending in twenty others.

In an extensive interview with the Yated, Yerushalmi said he finds this spin about himself and his mythical-sounding accomplishments almost comical.

Except for the New York Times feature, his picture has never graced a newspaper, nor has he ever traveled the talk show circuits or given media appearances. His public appearances are limited to lectures that draw smallish audiences.

The vast majority of New Yorkers – let alone populations in Arizona, Tennessee and Louisiana where anti-shariah legislation has been passed – have never heard of him. To say he orchestrated a political movement is extraordinary.

Far from basking in his newfound celebrity status, Yerushalmi views the New York Times hype about him as a ploy to downplay the considerable grassroots support for anti-shariah legislation in almost two dozen states.

“Reducing this escalating movement to the shrewd machinations of a single personality is absurd,” he says.

“What is happening is that more and more Americans are worried about inroads Islamists are making in their way of life,” he said. “In our politically correct society, it’s not acceptable to express these fears. So people in many states are voting ‘with their feet,’ sending their elected officials a message to address their concerns by passing laws that protect their freedoms.

DO ANTI-SHARIAH LAWS THREATEN HALACHA ?

Yerushalmi explains that the thrust of the proposed legislation is to give courts clear direction on how to proceed in cases where shariah law conflicts with fundamental American liberties.

Without mentioning the word shariah in the text, the law is formulated in airtight language that makes it indisputably clear that any foreign law that violates constitutional liberties will have no standing in an American court.

“Halacha, too, can be called a ‘foreign legal system,'” he pointed out. “And halacha differs in many cases from U.S laws. But the operational phrase here is foreign laws that deny constitutional liberties, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the press, the right to privacy and so forth.

“While Islamic law negates these freedoms, I can think of no law in the Torah that would violate fundamental constitutional liberties,” he noted. “Halacha, as well as a p’sak from bais din in a binding arbitration between two parties, would therefore in no way be threatened by the proposed laws.”