Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz's Legacy of Genius and Vision Had No Precedent - Nor Will It Ever Be Replicated!

Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz  ZTVK"L

From Artscroll's Reb Shraga Feivel: The Life and Times of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the Architect of Torah in America, pp. 331-332, 335-336,

On Friday, November 29, 1947, the United Nations debated the issue of partitioning the British Mandate for Palestine into two countries, one Arab and one Jewish. Reb Shraga Feivel prayed fervently for partition. He had no radio in his house, but that Friday he borrowed one and set it to the news, leaving it on for Shabbos. He waited with such tense anticipation to hear the outcome of the U.N. vote that he did not come to shalosh seudos. When he heard the U.N.'s decision to establish a Jewish state, he stood up and recited the blessing - BARUCH HATOV V'HAMATEV - Who is good and Who does good...[3]

Four days after the United Nations vote, on 19 Kislev, Reb Shraga Feivel spoke in Bais Medrash Elyon, to present his talmidim with a Torah perspective on the event. He began by emphasizing that in the absence of prophecy no one could interpret the U.N. declaration with any certitude.[7] Nevertheless the whole tenor of his remarks reflected his hope that the moment was a positive one for the Jewish people.[8] He described three aspects of the final redemption: the redemption of the Land, the ingathering of the exiles, and the return of the Divine Presence to her proper place. The redemption of the Land is the first of the three...

In a similar vein, he also explained why the secular Zionists might have been chosen to play such a fateful role in the history of the Jewish people... Divine Providence might have arranged that the secular Zionists play a major role in the redemption of Eretz Yisrael precisely in order to maintain their connection to Klal Yisrael.

In a conversation with the Satmar Rav, shortly after his talk on the U.N. declaration, Reb Shraga Feivel was subjected to the sharpest criticism for his "Zionist leanings." Later he told his family, "I could have answered him Chazal for Chazal, Midrash for Midrash, but I did not want to incur his wrath, for he is a great man and a tzaddik." He added with a twinkle, "And besides, he has a fiery temper"..
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[3] In 1948, after the Arabs attacked the newly declared Jewish state and soldiers were falling on the battlefield, several roshei yeshiva taunted Reb Shraga Feivel for having recited the blessing. Reb Shraga Feivel turned to Rabbi Aharon Kotler, who agreed with him that the favorable U.N. resolution was indeed worthy of the blessing. Rabbi Nesanel Quinn.

Reading further in the biography, we see some of Reb Shraga Feivel's reasons for being a Zionist:

Without losing sight of the antireligious nature of the leaders of the yishuv in Eretz Yisrael, he nevertheless saw the creation of a Jewish state as an act of Providence and as a cause for rejoicing. At the very least, there would now be one country in the world whose gates would be open to the thousands of Holocaust survivors still languishing in Displaced Persons Camps in Germany and Austria.

Reb Shraga Feivel gave voice to the ambivalence with which religious Jews around the world greeted the creation of an independent Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael nearly two millennia after the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash by Titus army. On the one hand, there was the recognition that the new state led by those raised in ideologies hostile to Torah was not the return of the Davidic kingdom for which they had prayed so long. Yet coming a scant three years after the greatest tragedy in modern Jewish history, it was hard not to hope that the new state was a harbinger of a new life for the survivors.

In a famous parable, Reb Shraga Feivel compared the new state to a breech birth. When a baby is born normally, head first, Reb Shraga Feivel said, the delivery is easiest and safest for the mother, and augurs best for the future development of the infant. In the context of the establishment of Jewish political sovereignty in Eretz Yisrael, a head-first birth would have been one in which the great Torah leaders the true heads of the nation led the way. But even in a breech birth, despite the danger to the infant, one can still hope that it will live and be healthy. Perhaps Chazal were referring to the legs-first manner in which the new state was born, Reb Shraga Feivel concluded, when they said (Yalkut Shimoni to Amos, 549), In a generation that rejects Hashem, expect the footsteps of Mashiach,

Four days after the United Nations vote, on 19 Kislev, Reb Shraga Feivel spoke in Bais Medrash Elyon, to present his talmidim with a Torah perspective on the event. He began by emphasizing that in the absence of prophecy no one could interpret the U.N. declaration with any certitude. Nevertheless the whole tenor of his remarks reflected his hope that the moment was a positive one for the Jewish people. He described three aspects of the final redemption: the redemption of the Land, the ingathering of the exiles, and the return of the Divine Presence to her proper place. The redemption of the Land is the first of the three. The Sages (Megillah 17b) explain why the blessing over fruitfulness of the Land (Birkas Hashanim) comes before the blessing for the ingathering of the exiles. The prophet Yechezkel says, And you, mountains of Israel, shall shoot forth your branches and lift up your fruits to My people Israel, for they are soon to come (Yechezkel 36:8). In other words, the physical rebirth of the Land and its release from foreign domination is the prelude to the return of the exiles. (See p.x )

Reb Shraga Feivel suggested that the present moment paralleled the return of the exiles from Babylonia under Ezra and Nechemiah, which had come about only through the permission of a gentile ruler, King Cyrus. Just as Cyrus in his time had his own reasons for allowing the Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem, so the nations of the U.N. no doubt had interests of their own that they sought to advance by allowing a Jewish state. But, in the final analysis, the heart of a king is in Hashems hands; He directs it where He wants (Mishlei 21:1).

Reb Shraga Feivel followed his comparison of the U.N. and Cyrus to its logical conclusion. While agreeing that the Torah leaders of the past two generations had been absolutely correct in directing their followers to have nothing to do with the Zionist movement, the question of the hour was: What should the Torah world do now after having witnessed Heavenly intervention? To that question, there could be only one answer: It was incumbent upon all bnei Torah to do everything in their power to ensure that the voice of Torah increase and be heard in the new state:

It is our duty to participate in the building of the State, physically and spiritually!The choice is in our hands. Will we make ourselves a high wall and go up, as they failed to do in the days of Ezra? If causeless hatred prevails among us, the arousal of Divine favor from above could all be lost. We must be the pioneers of Torah. We must form a nation worthy of the Land, a nation of Torah.

The thrust of his remarks was that the future of Eretz Yisrael would be determined by the response of religious Jews to the new opportunity. If they rose to the challenge, he suggested, it would be possible to create a land filled with Torah. 

Reb Shraga Feivel noted that those who failed to take advantage of Cyrus permission to return to the Land are severely criticized in both the Gemara and the Midrash (Shir Hashirim Rabah 8:9). The Sages give the following interpretation to the verse in Shir Hashirim: If her faith and belief are strong as a wall we shall become her fortress and beauty, building her city and Holy Temple, but if she wavers like a door, with fragile cedar panels shall we then enclose her. The Talmud (Yuma 9b) comments that if Israel's faith had been strong like a wall and the people had unanimously followed Ezra back to Eretz Yisrael, they would have been privileged to have the full glory of the Shechinah in the Second Beis Hamikdash, just as it had been in the First. But since only a small minority followed Ezra, the Shechinah was lacking in the Second Temple. Instead of being like silver, which never rusts, the people were likened to cedar, which warps and rots. Those who remained in Babylonia, writes Rashi (to Yuma 9b), prevented the Shechinah from returning to dwell in the Second Beis Hamikdash. Reb Shraga Feivel strongly implied that the Jewish people should not miss such an opportunity a second time by remaining aloof from the fate of the Land or being reticent about going there.

In response to those who claimed that Providence would not have made the United Nations the instrument to make such a gift to the Jewish people, Reb Shraga Feivel compared the current phenomenon to the events of Purim. In that miracle, the Sages saw Hashem working His will through Achashveirosh, clearly an unworthy person. Do Chazal not tell us, he asked, that the first steps of the final redemption will go very slowly, to be followed by a sudden burst of light, just as the sun suddenly appears in the morning? (Midrash Shir Hashirim 6:10, Yerushalmi Berachos 1:1, Yerushalmi Yoma 3:2.)

He did not deny that there was merit in opposing views, nor did he think that his reading of events was beyond question. To those close to him he admitted that others might be right from a logical point of view, but nevertheless maintained my heart tells me that our approach is the right approach.

Of course, he did not let his feelings alone guide him. In Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's Daas Tevunos, he found support for his view. There the Ramchal specifically describes the period of Ikvesa d'Meshicha (the time before the coming of Mashiach) as one in which Hashem does not guide the world according to the normal calculations of reward and punishment. At that time, events will take place regardless of the merit of the generation.

And in the writings of his beloved Reb Tzadok Hakohein of Lublin he found a hint that there would be a time in which the aggressive stance of the Zionists would succeed. After the sin of the spies, Moshe Rabbeinu warned those who regretted their original lack of faith that they should not attempt to go into Eretz Yisrael by force: vehi lo sitzlach, it will not be successful. Reb Tzadok Hakohen adds, however, Now it will not succeed, but there will be another time when it will succeed. That will be in the time of the footsteps of Mashiach.

According to this account, Reb Shraga Feivel was clearly in either the Messianic or non-Messianic Zionist camp. Although most of his statements (the comparison to a breech birth, the comparison to Cyrus, the quotation from the Midrash and Yerushalmi that the final redemption will develop slowly, his noting that the blessing over the land comes before the blessing of the ingathering of exiles) imply that the State had to do with the geulah, some of his statements (that now there would be a place for refugees) imply that it did not. Probably he was not sure about this; he speculated about the geulah aspect, but at least he felt sure that the state was a good thing, an opportunity granted by Hashem to the Jewish people. As far as addressing the central question of Zionism the Three Oaths he does almost nothing. The only thing he said that might be called an attempt to address that question is the quote from Reb Tzadok.

What Reb Tzadok actually writes (in Tzidkas Hatzadik 46, written 1848, first published in 1913) is that the "mapilim" knew that their act was against the will of Hashem, but justified it based on the statement of Chazal, "All that the host tells you to do, you must do, except for leaving (Pesachim 86b). They understood this to mean that for the sake of coming close to Hashem, one may sometimes violate the command of Hashem; we need not listen when He tells us to leave Him. Despite these good intentions, they were punished severely for their sin. But Moshe said to them, "And it will not succeed" - this time it will not succeed - hinting that there would come a time, in the era known as "the Footsteps of Moshiach," when such a sin would have success.

 In the Footsteps of the Moshiach, chutzpah will increase (Sotah 49b). That is the time when such a brazen idea to conquer the land in violation of Hashem's command will meet with some success.

In other words, he does not say that the sin will be permitted in the footsteps of moshiach; he only says that it will be successful then.

*

"On his deathbed, on practically his last breath, he instructed that his son-in-law Rabbi Alexander Linchner to go to Eretz Yisroel and "tut epes far de Sfardishe kinder" (do something for the Sephardi children). He knew the children were shipped off to secular kibbutzim, and their tefillin confiscated. Boys Town Jerusalem was born from the birth pangs of the Jewish state!
It is the largest yeshiva/vocational school in the world

BOYS TOWN JERUSALEM 18 ACRE CAMPUS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boys_Town_Jerusalem

In other words, he knew about the anti-religious forces in Israel but still considered the state to be a major step towards the redemption, if not already a part of it. And he voiced these views in public and directly to the Satmar Rav." 

Once again, history has proven him right!

PM

The question for the airline became, which core group of customers do we upset: Ultra-Orthodox Jews or everybody else? That question has hovered in the air for a while, but the pre$$ure was finally enough that they had to make a decision...

El Al Will Boot Ultra-Orthodox Jews from Planes if They Refuse to Sit by Women

June 27, 2018 by Hemant Mehta

89 Comments

In a move that should have happened a long time ago, Israeli national airline El Al announced that they would no longer accommodate ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who refuse to sit next to women.

In the past, the airline would encourage women to change their seats, decisions that have led to massive outcries and plenty of viral stories each time it happens. Why should women have to change their seats because some men have a hang-up about sitting next to them? It’s not sexual. It’s just faith-based sexism.

That policy is now changing.

El Al says it will no longer facilitate discrimination and that “Any passengers refusing to sit next to other passengers will immediately be removed from the aircraft.”

The airline, whose bottom line depends on both ultra-Orthodox and business customers… apologized after the incident, stating that “discrimination by passengers is absolutely forbidden. El Al flight attendants do everything that they can to provide service to a wide range of passengers and various requests and try to assist.”
[Chairman Gonen] Usishkin’s announcement comes at a time of growing pushback from Israeli feminists and human rights advocates, who have been demanding that the airline comply with laws banning religious coercion on planes, buses and other venues.

Don’t assume this came out of nowhere. It’s not that they finally saw the light. It arguably took a powerful tech company to push them to this conclusion. That company, Nice, said yesterday that its employees would no longer be flying El Al due to the discriminatory policy:

… Nice CEO Barak Eilam wrote on his LinkedIn page on Monday: “At NICE we don’t do business with companies that discriminate against race, gender or religion. NICE will not fly @EL AL Israel Airlines until they change their practice and actions discriminating women.”

That turned out to be very effective. The question for the airline became, which core group of customers do we upset: Ultra-Orthodox Jews or everybody else? That question has hovered in the air for a while, but the pressure was finally enough that they had to make a decision.

They didn’t even try and half-ass it. They always had the option of saying passengers who had their own rules about who they could or couldn’t sit next to would just have to buy two seats. They didn’t do that. They went straight to kicking those people off the flight. Good move. 

Let’s be honest, though. It shouldn’t have taken this long. Passengers have complained about this problem for years and El Al did nothing. A lawsuit didn’t change anything either. It took public pressure.

There have always been religious accommodationists arguing that women should just change their seats when an ultra-Orthodox man asks them to. It’s the polite thing to do, after all. That was always a despicable position, suggesting that faith-based sexism deserved to be respected.

It’s good to see that, now, even religion isn’t an excuse for bigotry on El Al.

A UOJ Experiment on Jewish Discourse in the Trump Era ---- The Wildest & Craziest Post Wins A UOJ Cap Just in Time For The Catskills Summer...(No obscene comments or nasty language) Email: a_unorthodoxjew@yahoo.com

Addictive videos exploit and terrify young minds -- and they tell us something about where our increasingly data-driven world is headed. - The Message is really Important! Watch It for the Content!

Writer and artist James Bridle uncovers a dark, strange corner of the internet, where unknown people or groups on YouTube hack the brains of young children in return for advertising revenue. From "surprise egg" reveals and the "Finger Family Song" to algorithmically created mashups of familiar cartoon characters in violent situations, these videos exploit and terrify young minds -- and they tell us something about where our increasingly data-driven world is headed. "We need to stop thinking about technology as a solution to all of our problems, but think of it as a guide to what those problems actually are, so we can start thinking about them properly and start to address them," Bridle says.

Here we go again: El Al complies with the desire of Orthodox Jews to not sit next to women..

The Haredim comprise a number of sects of ultra-Orthodox Jews who adhere strictly to a religious code of conduct. The Haredi code happens to prohibit tactile contact of any sort between men and women. And so it happens that Haredim often refuse to sit next to women on planes. They might accidentally touch them! And get cooties!

As a secular Jew, I am especially embarrassed and revulsed, when Jews engage in this type of ridiculous behavior. But of course few religions are exempt from irrationality. I've posted before on men of the Haredim refusing to sit next to women on planes, and how the airlines (including El Al, the Israeli national carrier) try to accommodate them.

What those airlines should be doing is to either heave the buggers off the plane (calling security if they have to), or require the Haredim to purchase an empty seat next to them beforehand, or sit together. El Al's refusal to do so has led to successful lawsuits against them, like the suit by Renee Rabinowitz against El Al last year. As I reported, Rabinowitz, who was unwillingly moved at the request of a Haredi man, won a suit that got her not only money, but a promise from El Al. As I noted at the time (my emphasis):

Rabinowitz asked for 50,000 shekels (about $14,000 US) in damages, and was represented by the Israeli Religious Action Center, a legal and reform organization run by progressive Jews. El Al defended itself by saying it wasn’t discriminating against women because it would also ask a man to move if seated next to an Orthodox woman who objected to male cooties. But that’s still gender discrimination, and the judge awarded Rabinowitz 6500 shekels ($1800). More important, because El Al was found to violate Israel anti-discrimination laws, the airline agreed to never again ask a passenger to move seats based on a request that involved gender.

Well, here we go again: Reader Alex called my attention to this article on Ynet (click on screenshot).

A passenger, Khen Rotem, wrote about it on his Facebook page (in Hebrew); the partial translation is below:

"The planned takeoff time: Six in the evening. Everyone boards, sits down, waits. Then the commotion starts. Four Haredim who boarded the flight refuse to sit next to women."

Rotem said one of the Haredi men, "particularly zealot and ascetic, boarded the plane with his eyes shut tight, led by the hand by his friend, and remained that way throughout the entire flight."

"The flight crew tries to resolve the matter, but it isn't working. The flight attendants male [sic] way to the authoritative men on board—the customer service manager and someone who appeared to be the head of the crew—who try to resolve the crisis. The Haredim were unwilling to speak with—or look at—the female flight attendants. All of the men on the flight crew, apart from the captain, were now focused solely on this, instead of preparing for takeoff and serving the passengers. The Haredim won't blink first. One crew member threatens: 'If you don't sit down, you can get off the plane now.'"

Eventually, Rotem wrote, "after many minutes of negotiations, the crew gave in. And then a prolonged diplomatic process began of moving female passengers from their seats to clear a row of seats for the four Haredim.

"After a lot of twists and turns, shouting and maneuvering, two women (one American around 70 years old and the other a young Israeli woman) agreed—because of time constraints among other things—to switch seats, and the crisis was resolved."

This infuriates me. It's bad enough that the men won't sit next to women, but it's compounded when they won't even talk to or look at female flight attendants. What Jewish law dictates that women shouldn't be recognized as human beings?

The article notes that other Jews on the plane, including religious ones, were rightfully disgusted by the behavior of the Haredim, that the flight was delayed for an hour and a quarter by their behavior, and that the women who were displaced weren't even offered upgrades.

And El Al's response to Rotem is hardly satisfactory:

"Hello Khen. We apologize if any inconvenience was caused. Any discrimination of passengers is strictly forbidden. El Al's flight attendants do all they can to provide service to a wide variety of passengers and fulfill a variety of different requests, trying to assist as much as they can. All of this is done in order to take off on time and bring the passengers to their destination according to schedule."

This masterpiece of equivocation violates El Al's settlement with Renee Rabinowitz, and I've told El Al so in two ways, via Tweet . .

.@ELALUSA How dare your airline force women to be reseated at the request of misogynistic Haredi men who won't sit next to women? When you settled the last case like this, you agreed to never again ask passengers to move seats based on such a request.https://t.co/YGOk8qQBL4

— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) June 24, 2018

(feel free to tweet to El Al USA if you have a Twitter account).

. . . and by an email to El Al customer relations in New York (customer@elal.co.il):

Dear El Al airlines:

I have read in Ynet an article describing how, on an El Al flight from New York to Tel Aviv, a group of Haredi men refused to be seated next to women, and, ultimately, your staff accommodated these men by making women move. And you didn't even offer to upgrade them!

This is an unconscionable action on the part of your airline, which is complicit in sex discrimination. Not only that, but it violates what your airline promised when you were sued by Renee Rabinowitz, who was likewise forced to move. Besides having to pay 6500 shekels, your airline, because it was found to violate Israeli anti-discrimination laws " agreed to never again ask a passenger to move seats based on a request that involved gender."

Well, you did move seats based on a request that violates gender. The proper move on your part would have told the Haredim to either sit in their assigned seats or be kicked off the plane. Instead, you did your best to accommodate that sexist request, result in a flight delay of 1.25 hours.  Do you not know how to call security to have people removed from a plane?

I am appalled by the behavior of your airline and by the staff that allowed the Haredim to discriminate against women. I would like to know if you intend to do this again? Your response to Khen Rotem was a masterpiece of dissimulation, explaining that you try to "fulfill a variety of requests" and to "bring passengers to their destination according to schedule." No you don't; you broke the law and your own agreement, and enabled bias and discrimination against women. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I would appreciate a response to this email.

Yours sincerely,
Jerry Coyne
Professor Emeritus
The University of Chicago.

By all means write to the address above if you feel so inclined. I have a feeling that if many people write to El Al, they'll start taking this seriously. You are free to use my own email as a template.

Here we go again: El Al complies with the desire of Orthodox Jews to not sit next to women by whyevolutionistrue

I would argue precisely the opposite. Zionism is the antithesis of messianism. Zionism argued against waiting in the Diaspora with prayer and fervency for some deus ex machina to come and to rescue the Jews. Zionism rejected the idea of waiting for an outside agent, for a Shabbetai Zvi and a Bar Kochba. Zionism is supremely an ideology of self-reliance, of self-realization. It refuses to depend on others, it postulates no sudden change in the psychology of enemies, it postulates no change in human nature, it postulates no discontinuity in history.

Charles Krauthammer was buried Sunday, June 24, 2018 with a complete Jewish service and laid to rest in a Jewish cemetery in Maryland

JTA) — On June 10, 2002, Charles Krauthammer delivered the Distinguished Rennert Lecture upon receiving the Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University’s Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies. Below is an excerpt from the lecture titled “He Tarries: Jewish Messianism and the Oslo Peace.” 
 
In the 1990s, America slept and Israel dreamed.

The United States awoke on Sept. 11, 2001. Israel awoke in September 2000.

Like the left and like the reverie that we had in the United States, secular messianism was intoxicated with the idea that history had changed from a history based on military and political conflict to one in which the ground rules were set by markets and technology. This was the infatuation with globalization as the great leveler and the abolisher of things like politics, war and international conflict. This kind of geo-economics was widely accepted in the early post-Cold War era.

It was Sept. 11th that abolished that illusion. It taught us in America there are enemies, they are ideological, they care nothing for economics and they will use whatever military power they have as a means to achieve their ideological ends. This is the old history, perhaps the oldest history of all, the war of one God against another. No new history, no break in history, no redemption from history.

The other source of this secular messianism in the Israeli context was the success of the European Union, which was seen as a model for peace in the Middle East. There was talk of Israel, Palestinian and Jordan becoming a new Benelux, with common markets, open borders, friendship and harmony.
 
Indeed, if you look at the Oslo Accords, of course there is page upon page of all of these ideas of cooperation on economics, on technology, on environment, all which in retrospect appear absurd. 

And indeed, this entire idea of the Benelux on the Jordan looks insane in retrospect, but I believe that it was insane from the very beginning, when it was first proposed 10 years ago.

There are such obvious differences between the European situation and the Middle Eastern one. First is that the period of harmony, integration and commodity among the Europeans happened only after the utter and total defeat of one party. It did not come from long negotiations between France and Germany at Camp David, compromising their differences over the 20th century. It came from the utter destruction of Germany and the rebuilding of a new Europe after that surrender and accommodation.

These conditions do not apply in the Middle East.

 The only way that that kind of peace will come definitely is the peace not of the brave but of the grave, and that means a peace that would be established with the defeat of Israel and its eradication.

 There is no way that Israel can utterly defeat the Arabs the way the Allies defeated Germany and Japan in the Second World War. So that the idea of some kind of harmonious Middle Eastern Union drawing on the European mantle is drawn from a totally false historical analogy, one that is based on surrender and accommodation that could not happen in this Middle Eastern context unless we are looking at the world through the eyes of Hamas and Hezbollah.

Secondly, the Middle East is still a collagen of religious fanaticism, economic backwards and political tyranny. It is nothing more than a mirage to transpose the situation in Europe with the harmony that came after half a millennium of conflict and in conditions of modernity to transpose those conditions to the Middle East, with a conflict as much younger and the political culture infinitely less mature. In this context, to look at the savage religious and secular conflicts going on throughout the Middle East and to believe that the most virulent of these, the conflict with Israel, can find the kind of harmonious coexistence that exists in Europe, can only be called messianic.

Now this is not to say that the only impulse underlying Oslo was messianic. There was a messianic left and there was a realistic left, if you like. The realists saw Oslo as a pragmatic way out of Israel dilemma. I believe in retrospect, as I believed at the time, that they were utterly mistaken, but at least they were not dreaming.

I think Rabin had a fairly coherent logic behind Oslo. He saw three basic changes in the world having occurred in the ’90s, and he thought they would give Israel an opportunity to quickly settle the Palestinian dispute and to concentrate on the larger disputes coming in the longer run from the periphery, from the missiles and the weapons of mass destruction that would soon be in the hands of Iran, Iraq, Libya and others.

And the three events he saw were: First, the collapse of the Soviet Union, which deprived the rejectionist Arabs of the great superpower sponsor and source of economic, military and diplomatic assistance. Second was the victory of the United States in the Gulf War and the establishment of American hegemony in the region. Third was the terminal condition of the PLO. Arafat had again, as always, chosen the wrong side in war, was cut off by Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, ostracized by the United States, lost all of his financial and diplomatic support. The PLO was on its last legs.

Rabin thought he was cleverly exploiting the weakness of the PLO by reviving it, he imagined, just enough so it could make peace with him. With the Soviets gone, with Iraq defeated, with the U.S. ascended, with the PLO weakened, he thought he could make a deal on this basis. He turned out to be hopelessly mistaken, both on the intentions and on the recuperative powers of the PLO once Israel had helped it out of its abyss.

It was one of the great miscalculations in diplomatic history.

Indeed, I believe Oslo will stand as perhaps the most catastrophic, self-inflicted wound by any state in modern history.

But at least in Rabin’s mind, as I understood it, it was a calculation. For Peres and his counterpart on the Israeli left, it was a leap of faith. And I mean the word literally, faith.

Chesterton once said that when a man stops believing in God he doesn’t believe in nothing, he believes in anything. In the ideologically fevered 20th century, this belief in anything often turned out to be a belief in history, history with a capital H. For the messianic left, Oslo was more than a deal. It was a realization, a ratification of a new era in history.

Rabin’s Oslo was pessimistic, peace with fences, separation, divorce wearing its tenuousness. Peres’ Oslo was eschatological: Benelux, geo-economics, the abolition of power politics.

Israel, labored under its illusion, did not awake to its reality for seven long years, until reality declared itself in the summer of 2000 at Camp David, when Barak’s astonishingly conciliatory peace offer elicited a Palestinian counteroffer of terrorism and suicide bombing.

This is not to say that peace is impossible; it is only to say that peace will always be contingent. And even that contingent peace will require the demonstration by the Arab side of its willingness, its genuine willingness, to live in acceptance of a Jewish state.

Again, that is not impossible. That is what Sadat offered, and he meant it. It is not clear that post-Sadat Egypt means it, although it has lived within the Sadatian parameters at least for reasons of prudence ever since.

But there has never been a Sadat among the Palestinians. And the idea that one can strike a real peace deal with Arafat, in the absence of a Sadat-like acceptance of the Jewish state, is indeed delusional. Until there is a genuine Arab, a genuine Palestinian acceptance of a Jewish state within whatever borders, there will be no end to history, there will only be more and more history.

Bismarck once said of the Balkans that they produce more history than they can consume, and that will be the fate of the Middle East for the foreseeable future.

Let me conclude by dealing with one objection to my characterization of the secular messianism of the Israeli, and I might say American, left. One might ask, “Was not the original Zionist dream itself messianic?” After all, a hundred years ago Zionism itself appeared to be a crazy dream. The idea of the ingathering of the exiles, the reestablishment of the Hebrew language, of Hebrew culture, the settling of the land, the achievement of political independence, appeared all to be, well, messianic.

I would argue precisely the opposite. Zionism is the antithesis of messianism. Zionism argued against waiting in the Diaspora with prayer and fervency for some deus ex machina to come and to rescue the Jews. Zionism rejected the idea of waiting for an outside agent, for a Shabbetai Zvi and a Bar Kochba. Zionism is supremely an ideology of self-reliance, of self-realization. It refuses to depend on others, it postulates no sudden change in the psychology of enemies, it postulates no change in human nature, it postulates no discontinuity in history.

Zionism accepted the world precisely as it was and decided that precisely because the world was as it was, the Jews had no future in the Diaspora and would have to build their future in Zion. Most of all, they understood that the building of Zion would depend on Jewish action, Jewish initiative, Jewish courage. They had to go out and to build a state themselves, and they did.

Oslo, on the other hand, a supreme expression of post-Zionist messianism, was entirely contrary to that spirit. Why? Because of its passivity, its reliance on an almost quasi-religious change of heart among Israel’s enemies. It is an acceptance of Israel by people who daily in their propaganda, in their sermons, in their pedagogies, anatomize the very idea of the Jewish state. It expected a renunciation of terrorism by people who practice, support, and fund and glorify it, and who had been doing that for 20 years, 30 years. It believed in entrusting the security, the safety, perhaps even the very existence of the Jewish state into the hands of sworn enemies.

We have now learned, to our sadness and horror, that one cannot contract out the safety of the Zionist experiment to others, most especially to Arafat and the PLO. That was the premise of Oslo and it has proven to be catastrophic.

I repeat, in the 1990s America slept, and Israel dreamt.

The only good news is that Israel has awoken from that reverie, the most disastrous messianic seduction since Shabbetai Zvi. Shabbetianism survived nonetheless for centuries; Osloism still has its cultic adherence. But the body of the Jewish people has awoken, let us hope not too late, and once and for all determined never again to succumb to the messianic temptation.

Remembering the legendary Charles Krauthammer, one of the few great Jewish intellectuals of our generation --- "and in the end, reality wins"

"You betray your whole life if you don't say what you think, and if you don't say it honestly and bluntly."

“Krauthammer’s Law: Everyone is Jewish until proven otherwise. I’ve had a fairly good run with this one.” 

― Charles Krauthammer, Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes, and Politics 

How Do You Spell I-D-I-O-T?

Shas rabbi scorns 'gentile' government Draft Law budgets

 

'We have problem with enlisting yeshiva students; they threaten they won't give budgets; do we live according to these gentile's budgets?'

Rabbi Shalom Cohen (L)

Shas party spiritual leader Rabbi Shalom Cohen attacked the Draft Law advanced by the Defense Ministry that includes economic sanctions against haredi yeshivas if the institution does not meet the statutorily imposed recruitment targets.

"We have a serious problem with enlisting yeshiva students; they threaten not to give us budgets. What, do we live according to these gentiles' budgets?" Rabbi Cohen said during a condolence call with Lithuanian leader Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, who is observing the seven-day shiva period after his son's passing.

Rabbi Edelstein replied to Rabbi Cohen that "everything depends on rights and there's no need to worry."

Despite the harsh statements made by the Council of Sages President, it appears that Shas' s Council of Torah Sages will be in line with Degel HaTorah rabbis who are expected to advance the Draft Law proposed by the Defense Ministry.

Yesterday, Degel HaTorah Chairman MK Moshe Gafni visited the residence of the Belzer and Vizhnitzer Rebbes to discuss details of the proposed law and try to establish a uniform haredi position on the law vis-à-vis the Prime Minister.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/247738?utm_source=activetrail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl

Where Were The Agudath Israel, the OU, The RCA.....?

Here Are Horrifying Photos Of Obama’s Illegal Alien Facilities The Media Refuses To Show You

The media and political class become more and more outraged over the Trump administration’s decision to detain and prosecute immigrants illegally crossing the border.

Lost in the debate is any acknowledgement that President Obama’s administration also used detention facilities.

Current U.S. immigration laws, when enforced, have the consequence of temporarily separating families that arrive with children into separate detention facilities in order to prosecute the adults. The policy of prosecuting immigrants for crossing the border illegally has been in place for multiple administrations. The Obama administration prosecuted half a million illegal immigrants and similarly separated families in the process. So did the Bush administration. Personal accounts from immigration lawyers tell a tale of Obama being equally concerned about unaccompanied minors traveling to the border and wanting to create a deterrent.

Photos of border detention facilities from the Obama-era, taken during 2014, look nearly identical to the ones taken during the Trump era.

You never see them, however. Here they are, taken in 2014 during a media tour of an Obama-era detention facilities in Brownsville, Texas, and Nogales, Arizona.


SEE ALL THE PHOTOS OF OBAMA'S PRISONS:
http://dailycaller.com/2018/06/19/photos-obama-immigration-detention-facilities/

THE NEW "YUTZ"!

I miss the "olden times"...where the YUTZ stood out so apparently! He'd do anything to get attention!

He would be the guy that would wait all year to daven Mussaf on Simchat Torah. (Looking forward to getting drenched...the recipient of flying objects to his head...carried out to the street...etc..)

He would be the guy bullying the kid doing Galilla (tying the Torah strap)...not high enough or tight enough. The loudest SHUSHER at krias haTorah...chastising the congregants to have respect for the Torah...and after shul, he'd go home to physically abuse his wife. The guy who would hold up his pinky finger the longest...at hagbaos haTorah.

The guy that stood closest to the baal koreh - to catch any mispronounced word at the speed of sound. Made sure everyone saw him putting the siddurim on the shelves...chastising the guys who wouldn't. Left his talis on the longest after Mussaf.... Ah...those were the days my friend.

NEW YUTZ

OLD YUTZ

Today, the NEW YUTZ is more subtle.

He cloaks  himself as some sort of self-descriptive ombudsman to nobody groups. He could be an adviser to a Jewish death museum to the stars (who isn't an anti-Semite?),...a spokesperson for a group United Jewish Mental Midgets of America,...another person who agrees with everyone that has a beard, even if these beards have conflicting opinions that are rooted in ignorance, he agrees with both sides of the issue as far apart as they may be. And these "new yutzes" ...get forums to present their rubbish, because anyone titled "rabbi" must know what they're talking about. 

These  NEW YUTZES even get credit for speaking to people who have differing opinions than theirs. Oh my! Historic!

I yearn for the good ol' days...a yutz's behavior was local and limited. His buffoonery was only an embarrassment to those that could physically see him.   

Over the weekend I read Think Like a Freak --- "Now, with Think Like a Freak, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have written their most revolutionary book yet. With their trademark blend of captivating storytelling and unconventional analysis, they take us inside their thought process and teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—to think, that is, like a Freak"

I enjoyed their story --- how they gave wine mavens the opportunity to identify the most expensive wines from the cheapest -  they got it wrong an astounding amount of time.

The NEW YUTZ  is the above wine maven. They could not tell right from wrong, truth from fiction, history from fable, if their entire self-created job description depended on it. 

Give me the old YUTZ!

Trust Ignorant & Dangerous Rabbis At Your Peril!

Does This Photograph Show Two Boys — One Vaccinated, One Not — Who Were Exposed to Smallpox?

 

In the early 1900s, Allan Warner documented several cases of smallpox and the effects of vaccinations.

CLAIM

A photograph shows the dramatic differences in two boys who were exposed to the same smallpox source.

RATING

True

ORIGIN

The importance of the smallpox vaccination tends to go unnoticed in modern society, as the disease was officially eradicated by the 1980s. But Internet users were reminded of this terrible disease, the medicine that helped eliminated it, and the utility of vaccinations in general in June 2018, when a shocking photograph purportedly showing two children who had been exposed to the same smallpox source was posted to Reddit:

These two boys had been exposed to the same smallpox source. One had been vaccinated, the other hadn’t.

This is a genuine photograph that was taken in the early 1900s by Dr. Allan Warner of the Isolation Hospital at Leicester in the UK. Warner photographed a number of smallpox patients in order to study the disease. In 1906, the Scottish Medical and Surgical Journal noted the importance of Warner’s work:

Smallpox of all the eruptive fevers best lends itself to illustration by photograph, and the photographs in this fasciculus of the eruption of smallpox which it has been our good fortune to see. They are the work of Dr. Allan Warner of the Isolation Hospital at Leicester, and they show very distinctly the different stages and varieties of the small pox eruption. Their value is enhanced by the fact that the progress of the eruption is illustrated by a series of plates of one and the same patient, both in the discrete and in the confluent variety of the fever.

Other plates are given showing cases of mild smallpox as it occurs in the vaccinated, and we are particularly impressed by the concluding series of photographs in which the advantages of vaccinations are well brought out by the method of showing side by side individuals infected from the same source, of whom one has been vaccinated and the other not. These pictures would be of the greatest use to those who give popular lectures on vaccination, and are also very useful as illustrations of modified smallpox.

The medical journal here is referring to a series of photographs by Warner that were published in the Atlas of Clinical Medicine, Surgery, and Pathology a few years previously, in 1901. This particular photograph was originally accompanied by a caption which stated that both children were 13 years old, that they had both been infected by the same smallpox source on the same day, but that only one had received a vaccination in infancy:

Shows two boys, both aged 13 years. The one on the right was vaccinated in infancy, the other was not vaccinated. They were both infected from the same source on the same day. Note that while the one on the left is in the fully pustular stage, the one on the right has had only two spots, which have aborted and have already scabbed.

More photographs of this nature can also be found in this volume. For instance, the following photograph shows two sisters aged 21 and 15 who were exposed to the same source of smallpox on the same day. Again, only one of the sisters had received a vaccination:

Two sisters infected with smallpox on the same day from the same source. Upper figure. Girl aged 21 years, vaccinated in infancy. Lower figure. Girl aged 15 years, unvaccinated.

A vaccination for smallpox was developed by an English doctor named Edward Jenner in the late 1700s. It would eventually lead to the eradication of smallpox, but in the 1700s as in the first decades of the 21st century, physicians faced opposition from anti-vaccination groups. Professor Gareth Williams, chair of the Jenner Trust, used Warner’s photographs during a presentation at Gresham University about the history of the anti-vaccination movement. According to Williams, the parents of the boy on the left in the viral image were swept up by anti-vaccination fervor when they decided not to inoculate their child:

The Members of Parliament were anti-vaccination. Gloucester, which of course was Jenner’s own county town, was one such centre. So to were Leeds, Leicester, Glasgow and Liverpool amongst others.

Here is one magnificent demonstration of the fact that vaccination works, but only if you have it. If you do not have it, it is not going to work. The lad on the left and the lad on the right were members of the same class at school, and they met the same index case who was brewing up smallpox on the same day. The lad on the right, obviously, had been vaccinated. The lad on the left, his parents, who had been whipped up by the local MP, had refused to have their son vaccinated, with obvious consequences.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/one-vaccinated-one-not-smallpox/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Thursday%2014%20June%202018%20-%20Daily%20Debunker&utm_content=Thursday%2014%20June%202018%20-%20Daily%20Debunker+CID_d2db9cac4d5e699d1a574f368c7c09a0&utm_source=CampaignMonitor&utm_term=Read%20More

Shmuel Kaminetzky, Malkiel Kotler, Mattisyahu Salomon

“Agudath Israel has long promoted the abuse-related behavioral standards developed by Torah Umesorah for implementation in yeshivos and day schools, and the guidelines we developed for implementation in our camps and youth programs,” said Rabbi Zwiebel.

via GIPHY

 Chaim Dovid Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel America, said that he was pleased to hear that protocols approved by Torah leaders were being put in place to protect children from predators throughout the year.

“Agudath Israel has long promoted the abuse-related behavioral standards developed by Torah Umesorah for implementation in yeshivos and day schools, and the guidelines we developed for implementation in our camps and youth programs,” said  Zwiebel. “We look forward to working with Torah Umesorah to study the details of the protocols developed for use in Bais Sarah with an eye toward possible application on a broader scale in the yeshiva community.”

Hershel Schachter's Convert Celebrating the Shabbat! ---- Zach Hanover @zhanover I am eating at the bar at Cafe Milano and the Champion Caps and Javanka are here top that ---- Saturday 5:15 PM - Jun 9, 2018

Hershel Schachter's Convert Celebrating the Shabbat!

Oh I forgot - YU guys claim they have a קרוב למלכות היתר

  CLICK: Buy Rabbi Online at Low Prices

Zach Hanover @zhanover

I am eating at the bar at Cafe Milano and the Champion Caps and Javanka are here top that

5:15 PM - Jun 9, 2018

Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner pose with Capitals after Stanley Cup win

http://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/391574-ivanka-trump-jared-kushner-pose-with-capitals-after-stanley-cup-win

He drops the papers on the dining room table, grabs my hand, and begins to pull me towards the bedroom. I’m so disoriented and confused, it takes me a minute to process what’s happening, and by then he’s throwing me onto my bed and trying to kiss me....

Malky Wigder Alleges Sexual Harassment by Rabbi Ephraim Bryks

by Yerachmiel Lopin

Rabbi Ephraim Bryks (born around 1954) was accused of sexually abusing boys and girls in Canada in cases that got a lot of publicity on CBC and American media. He dodged conviction but also lost libel cases against the networks that broadcast the story. Eventually, his former synagogue in Winnipeg stripped him of his emeritus title. and removed a plaque commending his service to them.
After returning to the US he ran a yeshiva for children from the former Soviet Union.

Eventually he was cut off from pulpit positions because of  his reputation. He was also induced to resign from the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) in 2003 and the Rabbinical Board of Queens (Vaad Harabonim) rather than face charges according to a report in the Jewish Week (NY) in 2010.
Nevertheless he presents himself as a rabbi, a marriage counselor and a convener of his own rabbinical court (though no other rabbis are listed by name). Stories of his attempts to use these roles to sexually exploit women are widespread on the grapevine.

Approximately ten years ago, Rabbi Yosef Blau, the senior spiritual advisor at the Yeshiva University seminary, publicly declared:

Ephrayim Bryks has become a rabbinic marriage counselor. The term marriage counselor or life coach can be used by anyone. He is not the only “rabbi” suspected of sexual abuse using one of these titles to access vulnerable individuals or couples both here and in Israel. Consulting actual professionals is expensive and unless the community publicly warns against going to these charlatans (often worse) many innocents will continue to be hurt.

Rabbi Blau confirmed to me that he still stands by that position in emails and discussions over the last 3 months.

Malky Wigder posted (6/10/18) on Facebook this description of his sex harassment and behavior after he offered her free help in dealing with a rabbinical court in connection with her divorce. With her consent I am posting her full account.

MUCH MORE:

https://frumfollies.wordpress.com/2018/06/10/malky-wigder-alleges-sexual-harassment-by-rabbi-ephraim-bryks/

by Malky Wigder

EPHRAIM BRYKS:

About a year after my divorce, my ex-husband summoned me to bais din (a pattern of court-bais din- rinse-repeat that lasted for about a decade). I couldn’t afford a toen, which is why I had been stuck with an atrociously unfair and unenforceable separation agreement in the first place. At that time I somehow got in touch with an attorney who was doing pro bono work for women in need of a get. She referred me to a toen whom she recommended highly, and indicated he sometimes reduced his fees for single moms. I reached out to him, and he said that in my case, he would waive the fee altogether. We agreed that he would pick me up from my home to appear in front of Bais Din.

His name was Ephraim Bryks.

On the day of the hearing, as I was getting into his car, out of habit I went to sit in the backseat, as I always would with an unrelated male driver. He told me he wasn’t a Chossid and I should go sit in the front. That must be normal for more modern people, I surmised, and complied (compliance was a lifelong habit I had yet to kick).

As we drove to the bais din, he said something strange. “Let’s make a deal,” he proposed. “I won’t believe anything they say about you, and you won’t believe anything they say about me.” RED FLAG RED FLAG! Well... not to naive, innocent, twenty-eight year old me. I didn’t even wonder what they might be saying about him. I knew my ex was going around saying I went to “bad places,” and when pressed he admitted it was the Lakewood Public Library. So I wasn’t too concerned.
Somewhere in a container filled with legal papers, I have a notebook where Bryks jotted down little quips and jokes to crack me up during the proceedings. I felt reassured that I was in good hands. The hearing went well for me, and there was going to be a follow-up.

Some days later, he called to say he had some papers to drop off, or pick up, or review - some pretext that didn’t quite make sense in the age of fax machines and him living in Queens while I lived in Boro Park. But once again I agreed, unsuspecting.

He drops the papers on the dining room table, grabs my hand, and begins to pull me towards the bedroom. I’m so disoriented and confused, it takes me a minute to process what’s happening, and by then he’s throwing me onto my bed and trying to kiss me.

That snapped me out of my inertia, and I jumped up, telling him to get out of my house. The next few minutes are a blur, as I was in utter shock, but he did leave and I sat behind the locked door, shaking, still bewildered.

For days and nights he called and called and called, left messages, banged on my door, left a case of wine at my door, walked all around the perimeter of the house, knocking on windows, yelling into my bedroom window to let him in. I never responded, but I also didn’t report this to a soul. I was ashamed and horrified and overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness. I have words for these behaviors now - assault, harassment, stalking. I didn’t then. Or it just didn’t compute. This incident had followed years of harassment, stalking and terror by my ex and his stooges, and I just accepted that all I could do was hide and shudder.

I hired a new toen. Everyone wanted to know what happened to that really good one who was working for free. Why am I asking for loans to pay for the new guy? (Fun fact: I had sold my engagement ring, the only piece of jewelry I had been given as a kallah, for $500 to pay a well-known toen, who took my money and then spent the hour telling me that my ex had already approached him and I was screwed).

Here’s the thing I didn’t know at the time, and only found out as my ex-husband and his family began to tell this to everyone who would listen, as proof of my irresponsible parenting. He told it to my daughter’s therapist, the judge, the bais din - he just didn’t think to tell me. It seems I had unwittingly hired a known and prolific sexual predator. My daughter’s therapist accosted me one day, handed me a video tape and ordered me to go and watch it in the rec room. It was a horrific documentary about this man’s past, which I was ordered to sit and watch while my little kids were in the room with me. The therapist demanded to know why I was exposing my children to a pedophile. I assured her my children never met him. I never told her what had happened to me.

(On that note, keep your kids away from Bilah Bendet at the JBFCS).

I’ve reached out to a contact at the CBC to see if he can get his hands on a copy of the video I saw that day, but meanwhile this link contains a transcript.

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/…
https://nypost.com/…/queens-yeshiva-boss-is-a-molester-boy…/
I later found out he had been going from one yeshiva to another, one congregation to another, one rabbinical council after another. Was eventually ejected for his misconduct and he always seemed to land somewhere else.

Recently I heard that he’s been getting involved in conversions, and has a mikveh in his home.
http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/accused-pedophile-to-r…/

From the above article, from 2010: “Rabbi Bryks has held leadership positions at two Queens yeshivas, but left for unspecified reasons. He now makes his living as a mortgage broker, has a blog seeking to field questions on halachic issues and is said to involve himself in marriage counseling, advocacy for women seeking religious divorces and in a rabbinical court, the Queens Beth Din, which he convenes with other rabbis.”
- - -
Back in January, I was asked if I would report my experience with Bryks to someone from JCW, and I did tell her this story. I don’t know what, if anything, was done with it. After my three posts last Thursday, I was again contacted by the same abuse blogger, who advised me to “space my further revelations...hold on.” I informed him my next post will be about Bryks, but I did intend to wait a few days. He proceeded to write a post about Bryks on Friday. Asked what that was about, he explained that he wanted to “take the heat off me” because people were already saying that someone with so many complaints of abuse, maybe there is something wrong with me.

Or maybe there is something else wrong with this picture. Hard to know.

 ****

DEADLY SILENCE: THE MOVIE

While the film’s story is told in an oblique, artistic style, it is very much based in the real case of Rabbi Ephraim Bryks, who, as principal of the Torah Academy in Winnipeg, was investigated on charges of child molestation in 1988. Never charged, Bryks had moved to New York in 1993 when a former student in Winnipeg, Daniel Leven, accused the rabbi of having fondled him at the school when he was eight years old. 

Leven committed suicide at the age of 17.

 READ MUCH MORE:
https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/entertainment/movies/deadly-silence-379091091.html