Hammerman writes that, should Tebow win the Super Bowl, the faithful (i.e. Christians) will “do insane things.“ The rabbi goes on to explain that a win would ”buoy [Tebow’s] faithful” and lead to mosque burnings, gay bashing and the banishment of immigrants.
[Note: This article was originally posted on December 15th, 2011. The IFNM website was attacked by hackers and many articles are now gone from the archives. As a public service, IFNM is now reposting said articles.]
The Tim Tebow debate took a bizarre turn this week when a Connecticut Rabbi wrote a scathing, Onion-like article for Jewish Week, a newspaper serving the Jewish community in New York City.
The piece, which was written by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman and seems more like a parody than a literal proclamation from a religious leader, claims that a Tebow Super Bowl win would lead to total and utter Christian-led chaos. And we’re not just talking angry football fans engaging in verbal outbursts — we’re talking mosque-burning hatred (among other purported antics).
Hammerman, the head spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Connecticut, leads the article by writing, “I’ve got a Tim Tebow problem.” After setting the 24-year-old football player up as “a poster boy of the Christian right,” Hammerman says, “Now tiny Tim has grown and is on track to possibly appear in this season’s Super Bowl – on the field – and that is what scares me.”
As the rabbi continues, he claims that the game of football is more popular than even God here in America (a point that many Americans would likely debate). His semi-lighthearted words quickly devolve. “When you combine the religion that is football with the religion that is religion, the mix can be dangerously flammable,” he writes.
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