Yerushalmi: Why Shariah Should Not Be Part of US Law

David Yerushalmi, Esq.

A hat tip to mrcTV.

The Sunday New York Times  profiled anti-Shariah law advocate David Yerushalmi, Esq. We posted the article, here.  In April 2010, we wrote about Times journalist Ms. Andrea Elliott, the author of the  of the Yerushalmi profile, in a blog post,, "Air-Brushing Islam in America."

Ms. Andrea Elliott is the Pulitzer-prize award winning Times reporter who has covered the Muslim beat in America for years. Her series, Muslims in America have been given lavish treatment by the editors of the Times. The focus is on the human interest angle of how Islam and Muslim s are adjusting to life in America, without serious questioning of what their agenda I may be all about: da’wa and insinuation of Sharia in our culture. Her series have included: a Hallmarkian discussion in three parts of a Muslim arranged marriage by a Brooklyn Sheik, problems of Muslims adjusting to life in the US Military, discrimination against a New York school system Muslim academy principal, Muslim voters allegedly being snubbed by Obama during his Presidential campaign, Major Nidal Hasan, Fort Hood mass shooter, and home grown Somali and American Muslim terrorists fighting for Al Qaeda affiliates.

Today’s New York Times has a front page article by Ms. Elliott with a large interior spread entitled,” Reaching Out Quietly to Muslims in America.” Her 2006 award-winning series on an Egyptian Imam in Brooklyn arranging marriages downplayed that the subject of her series, Imam, Sheik Reda Shata, had connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and supported suicide bombings against Israeli soldiers. Such reportage with obvious editorial support from the Times managing editor and publisher perpetuates the view that Muslims in America are assimilating.

We interviewed Yerushalmi for an article that appeared in the December, 2010  NER, "Fighting Sharia Through the Law."' We noted his pioneering ground-breaking work in developing what became the model anti-Shariah statute of choice, American Law for American Courts, as well as his important litigation against the US government for using TARP funds in the AIG bailout promoting world-wide shariah compliant insurance products.  Ms. Elliott chose, for reasons only known to her to concenrate on criticizing  this substantive legislative development  effort  that Yerushalmi  performed as general counsel for the Washington, DC-based Center for Security Policy  and its affiliate the American Public Policy Alliance. Moreover, she did not deign to look at the findings of an acclaimed peer-reviewed article in the summer  edition of the Middle East Quarterly,Shari'a and Violence in American Mosques co-authored by Prof. Mordechai Kedar of Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv,  based in part, on the results of the Mapping Sharia Study, developed and led by Yerushalmi.  Doubtless, Ms. Eliott and her editors at the Times wouldn't  agree  about  the basic finding that 81 percent of American Mosques in the representative sample surveyed were highly  Shariah complaint and espused support for violent Jihad. Instead she lamely chose to emphasize allegations about Yerushalmi's extremist views on race, unfounded, and his residence during the decade of the 90's  in Ma'aleh Adumim. That is a reference to a major Israeli town south of the Jerusalem municipality.  that Ms. Elliott, and others at the Times wiould argue is in Palestinian territory. She might tell that to my cousins who are long term residents there, who consider it Judea and part of Israel. I'm sure that Yerushalmi would agree with that, as well.

There was one good thing that the Times did as part of the background material for Ms. Elliott's article; they shot a video giving his views on why shariah should not be part of US law.  We prevailed on our colleagues at mrcTV to record and upload the Times video. 

Watch the mrcTV Times Yerushalmi interview. And note the example he uses about the plight of a Muslim mother in a divorce proceeding trying to obtain custody of her son, only to have the Maryland courts defer to shariah giving custody to the child's Pakistani father.