The Jooos Did It First

Tarek Fatah's latest justification for misrepresentating Wafa Sultan's words: the Jews believed in "child marriage," too:

...If Wafa Sultan was against child marriage in medieval Islam, then perhaps she should have also dealt with the institution of child marriage in Jewish laws of the same period, since her speech was made in a synagogue and her audience was primarily Jewish.

Wafa Sultan should also have considered the Talmudic Jewish traditions on child marriage that too permitted child brides. Not being an expert on Jewish law on child marriage, I had to rely on the Jewish Encyclopedia. I also requested two rabbi friends of mine to help me with this area One expressed his regrets, saying he was not an expert in the area, but my other friend acknowledged that although it is possible for marriages to be arranged in childhood, but no physical contact can happen before the age 13.

As we Jews are wont to say in times of stress, "Oy to the vey!" Wafa Sultan wasn't invited to debate the merits of Talmudic Judaism and its position on child marriage. She, an ex-Muslim, was there to disagree with Daniel Pipes's assertion that there was such a thing as "moderate" Islam, or could be, or would be. She was there to tell the truth about what exactly was in Islamic doctrine. And part of Islamic teaching--Islam's story as captured in the Koran and hadith--deals with Mohammed's child bride Aisha, who really was a child: aged six when he fell for her; aged nine when sealed the deal with nooky. He, on the other hand, was on the far side of late middle age. And because of this Medieval, er, "love story," modern by-the-book Muslims feel they, too, can take a child bride in emulation of Islam's founder, the most "perfect" human being who has ever lived. I could be wrong, but I don't see many modern day Jews marrying teenagers as young as 13 (which is not, it must be noted, as young as 9) in emulation of the Talmud. (And, actually, I'm not even sure Fatah's citations are correct; I'll have to research it.)