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This well known and well learned rabbi on his popular facebook page promotes intermingling and cross mixing of Jewish and Islamic ideas and believes that Islam is a welcome reformation of rabbinical Judaism. He has also has many articles there showing commonality between both Judaism and Islam. Hence is it allowed for rabbis and general population to practice both Islam and Judaism simultaneously like how this rabbi seems to be doing. Also even his Jewish followers consider him well learned rabbi, So the question is does Judaism permit practicing all Islamic activities? and can Islam be welcomed as a reformation in Judaism?

He writes on linkedin page:

Before the religious courts, I propose that Muslims are derived from the God-fearers mentioned in the Torah. To do this, I argue historically, that the people referred to as Muslims (before the Qur'an came) are identical with the God-fearers mentioned in the Torah and related works.

further info: alsadiqin.org/en/index.php?title=Main_Page

Note: There might be other rabbis supporting Judeo-Christian intermingling like Jews for Jesus, but here the case is different as Islam is not avodah zarah and conversion to it does not demand death .

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    Do you have a source for claiming that the cited rabbi is "well known" and "well learned"? I'd never heard of him before he was mentioned here a few days ago. Also, "these activities" is to vague to be answerable.
    – Isaac Moses
    Nov 10, 2014 at 16:08
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    1) Anyone can write long treatises. 2) Your link does not contain any treatises. Nov 10, 2014 at 16:11
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    @narnia, I have written 266 "scholarly treatises" to date, but anyone who considers me "well known" or "well learned" is mistaken. Please edit your post to back up your claims substantively, not just with links and allusions.
    – Isaac Moses
    Nov 10, 2014 at 16:11
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    If you are asking if a Jew can observe parts of Islam, then we'd have to know more about what "observing parts of Islam" means to you in specific details. Nov 10, 2014 at 16:15
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    @narnia all those links show is that he's a guy with a facebook page who likes Jewish music and has a long beard. I see no evidence of notoriety, credentials, scholarliness, or that he runs a rabbinical court. Nov 10, 2014 at 16:16

2 Answers 2

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There has certainly been some cross-pollination of ideas over the years, e.g. certain moral lessons that you'd see in the classical Jewish philosophical work Hovot HaLevavot also appear in the Hadith. And as Islam is clearly a monotheistic faith, it avoids the problems posed by laws about "idols" or "pagans." (E.g. halacha has a lot of problems with a Jew entering a pagan temple, but not a mosque.) Maimonides wrote (just before the year 1200) that Islam spread the language of prophetic monotheism to many peoples that Judaism didn't reach. He also wished that Jews would show the same decorum in their synagogues that Muslims do in their mosques.

However, good fences make good neighbors, too. Islam and Judaism are two different faiths, and we honor neither of them by confusing that line. Judaism did not and can not accept that its tradition of laws were -- abrogated, deprecated, reinterpreted, whatever you want to call it -- by Mohammad. Jews are allowed to drink alcohol. (Now you'll find Jewish cultures that drink more, and some that drink less, and many Jews may even find the Islamic practice of abstinence to be laudable, but Judaism never did and never will ban alcohol entirely.) Muslims are monotheists but not Jews, and thus Jews are not allowed to marry them. And if a Jewish man married a Muslim woman, neither faith would consider the child to be legally one of their own. (Halacha defines Jewish status as matrilineal; sharia defines Islamic status as patrilineal.)

I've never heard of the rabbi you're quoting, and I really don't care. It's the same now as it was when Maimonides wrote extensively about this 800 years ago. They are two different faiths.

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  • reform Judaism too does not uphold the traditional rabbinical law as written in the tag here itself
    – narnia
    Nov 10, 2014 at 16:56
  • @narnia it starts with traditional rabbinic law as a "vote", then works from there based on understandings of personal autonomy and morality.
    – Shalom
    Nov 10, 2014 at 17:08
  • I don't see what Reform Judaism has to do with this. Narnia, you also tagged the question with that and I removed it. Nov 11, 2014 at 3:06
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Judaism is not for reformation

it is for jews to do the will of G-D almighty

we have enough to do without any changes

Judaism supports Islam's trying to keep the Seven Laws of Noah (keep it up)

  1. The singularity of God. (That is, to believe in God.)
  2. No idolatry.
  3. No blasphemy.
  4. To pray.
  5. No false oaths.
  6. No suicide.
  7. No murder.
  8. No adultery.
  9. Formal marriages via bride price and marriage gifts.
  10. No incest with a sister.
  11. No homosexuality.
  12. No bestiality.
  13. No castration.
  14. Not to eat an animal that died naturally.
  15. Not to eat a limb of a living creature.
  16. Not to eat or drink blood.
  17. Not to crossbreed animals.
  18. [justice.]
  19. To offer ritual sacrifices.
  20. No theft.
  21. To respect father and mother.
  22. No Molech worship (Deuteronomy 18:10).
  23. No witchcraft.
  24. No soothsayers.
  25. No conjurers.
  26. No sorcerers.
  27. No ghost meeting.
  28. No consulting devil-spirits.
  29. No wizardry.
  30. No consulting the dead.

from What are the 30 Mitzvot for Bnei Noach?

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