PAM GELLER BOUNCED OUT OF LONG ISLAND SYNAGOGUE (YAY!) ONLY TO BE INVITED TO EDISON, NJ SYNAGOGUE TOMORROW (WTF?)

Free speech and First Amendment rights does not mean you are obligated to provide a forum to those who do not give a damn about yours, as Pamela Geller has shown us over and over again. It means you leave them to themselves. While we praise the Long Island folks for showing her the door, we have to raise a hearty middle finger to the folks from near where we started in New Jersey – where by the way we have to deal with a lot of people who seem to have this asterix next to the mantra “Never Again.”

NJ.com

Pamela Geller, whose controversial views on the religion have made her a magnet for criticism andearned her denunciationsfrom the Anti-Defamation League,will speak at Congregation Beth-El in Edison at 7 p.m. Sunday.

The synagogue extended the invitation to Geller this week, Beth-El Rabbi Bernhard Rosenberg said, after her a previously planned talk Sunday in Long Island was cancelled following pressure from local officials and interfaith groups.

That cancellation prompted Rosenberg to offer up his synagogue as a replacement site.

“Whether we all agree with her or not is not the issue. She has a right to speak,” Rosenberg said. “We’ve had controversial speakers from all segments and churches, etc., and there are not riots.”

Geller would certainly qualify as controversial. Last year, she helped launched a series of subway ads critical of Islam, including one that compared radical Muslims to savages. The signs read: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.”

She is perhaps best known for her protests against the proposed construction of an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site.

Geller’s attacks in radical Islam, both in books and on her blog, led the Southern Poverty Law Center to refer to her as “the anti-Muslim movement’s most visible and flamboyant figurehead.” The center has also labeled Geller’s organization, Stop the Islamization of America, a hate group.

Geller was scheduled to speak Sunday at The Great Neck Synagogue in Nassau County. But the synagogue opted this week to cancel the speech, called “Imposition of Sharia in America,” after increased media exposure prompted security concerns, Patch reported.

“It is a very sad day for freedom-loving peoples when fascist tactics trump free speech,” Geller told Patch.

That’s where Beth-El jumped in. While Rosenberg said he doesn’t necessarily agree with all of Geller’s opinions, he was disappointed in the backlash that led to the cancellation of Geller’s speech in Long Island.

A son of Holocaust survivors and author of 15 books on the topic, Rosenberg also cited what he sees as an alarming rise in hostile actions and rhetoric toward Jewish people in the Middle East and Europe.

He added he feels Geller has been unfairly portrayed in the media.

“I don’t have to agree with everything she says or everything she stands for,” Rosenberg said. “When Jews are being attacked throughout the world, someone’s got to speak up.

“One shouldn’t confuse whether I’m supporting her or not, as much I want to put out the message that we have to wake up.”