In a recently published collection of essays, Shlomo Riskin—a leading American-born Israeli rabbi—tackles many of the thorniest issues confronting Modern Orthodoxy. David Berger, who has much praise for the book and its author in his review, nevertheless takes issue with Riskin’s attempt to define away the talmudic category of the apikoros, or heretic:

Riskin poses the question “who’s an apikoros?” and essentially responds, “no one.” The argument is that it is wrong to identify anyone as a heretic because it is difficult to define what one is: Maimonides himself was accused of heresy; the Talmud defines heresy by such actions as scorning a scholar, but not by the criterion of unacceptable beliefs; [the early-20th-century sage Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz] said that no one today should be subject to the treatment inflicted on a heretic; and contemporary theological deviationists are generally the product of their education and environment. It is also pragmatically self-defeating to condemn rather than build.

Much of this is, no doubt, correct, but some of it is misleading. The position that heresy should be defined by actions and not beliefs sidesteps the [talmudic passage] (quoted in full by Riskin) which lists a number of beliefs that exclude the one who holds them from the World to Come. While there is much to be said for a tolerant attitude toward contemporary adherents of heretical beliefs, there is great danger in blurring or erasing the category of heresy itself. This essay does not quite do this, but it comes perilously close. The issue is of acute importance nowadays, when we are witness to an assault on the position that beliefs matter at all, and when adherents of positions that are heretical by any historical measure are welcomed—especially in the religious-Zionist community in Israel—as respected Orthodox figures. A religion, certainly an Orthodox version of a religion, requires boundaries.

Established in 2012 and maintaining branches in Europe, North America, and Iran, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network claims its goal is merely to show “solidarity” for imprisoned Palestinians. The organization’s leader, however, has admitted to being a representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a notorious terrorist group whose most recent accomplishments include murdering a seventeen-year-old girl. As Arsen Ostrovsky and Patricia Teitelbaum point out, Samidoun is just one example of how the European Union allows Iran-backed terrorists to operate in its midst:

The PFLP is a proxy of the Iranian regime, which provides the terror group with money, training, and weapons. Samidoun . . . has a branch in Tehran. It has even held events there, under the pretext of “cultural activity,” to elicit support for operations in Europe. Its leader, Khaled Barakat, is a regular on Iran’s state [channel] PressTV, calling for violence and lauding Iran’s involvement in the region. It is utterly incomprehensible, therefore, that the EU has not yet designated Samidoun a terror group.

According to the Council of the European Union, groups and/or individuals can be added to the EU terror list on the basis of “proposals submitted by member states based on a decision by a competent authority of a member state or a third country.” In this regard, there is already a standing designation by Israel of Samidoun as a terror group and a decision of a German court finding Barakat to be a senior PFLP operative.

Given the irrefutable axis-of-terror between Samidoun, PFLP, and the Iranian regime, the EU has a duty to put Samidoun and senior Samidoun leaders on the EU terror list. It should do this not as some favor to Israel, but because otherwise it continues to turn a blind eye to a group that presents a clear and present security threat to the European Union and EU citizens.