The Obsession With Separating Judaism From Zionism - What Many “Jewish Academics” Have in Common With Yasser Arafat

 

What Many “Jewish Academics” Have in Common With Yasser Arafat

The Obsession With Separating Judaism From Zionism

There is a peculiar spectacle unfolding in Western intellectual life: a cadre of self-described Jewish academics straining, contorting, and moralizing to separate Judaism from Zionism with an intensity that would make Yasser Arafat nod in recognition. They insist—often loudly, always sanctimoniously—that Zionism is a political corruption of a “pure” Judaism, that Jewish national self-defense is a betrayal of Jewish ethics, and that Jewish sovereignty is a historical accident best apologized for, dismantled, or indefinitely placed on moral probation.

They present themselves as courageous dissenters. In reality, they are recycling an old political strategy—one perfected by Arafat and the PLO—now repackaged in the language of seminars, journals, and keynote lectures.

The strategy is simple: deny the Jewish peoplehood claim without denying Jewish existence. Accept Jews as a religion. Reject Jews as a nation. Grant Jews prayers—but not borders. Memory—but not sovereignty. Mourning—but not self-defense.

That is the shared ground.

Arafat understood something that today’s academic anti-Zionists pretend not to: you don’t need to attack Judaism head-on to delegitimize Israel. You merely need to sever Judaism from Jewish peoplehood. Once Jews are reduced to a private faith community—no different than Quakers or Unitarians—the entire Zionist project collapses under its own weight. No nation. No homeland. No army. No claim to self-determination.

Arafat said it openly. Jews are a religion, not a people. Palestine, therefore, belongs to Arabs alone.

Today’s Jewish academics say it politely. Jews are a religion, not a people. Zionism, therefore, is a colonial intrusion.

Same logic. Different accent.

Where Arafat used revolutionary rhetoric, the modern academic uses moral vocabulary. “Universalism.” “Ethics.” “Human rights.” “Decolonization.” These words are wielded not to protect Jews, but to discipline them.

The Jewish state is judged by standards no other nation is required to meet. Jewish self-defense is treated as aggression. Jewish history is reduced to metaphor. Jewish trauma is acknowledged—briefly—before being dismissed as insufficient justification for sovereignty.

And crucially, Jewish power is treated as obscene.

This is the tell.

The discomfort is not with nationalism per se—these same academics routinely excuse or romanticize Palestinian nationalism, Kurdish nationalism, or any nationalism deemed sufficiently “subaltern.” The discomfort is with Jewish nationalism succeeding.

To sustain this position, these academics invent a Judaism that never existed: diasporic, powerless, ethically pristine, and politically inert. A Judaism that prays but never governs. Argues but never fights. Suffers but never wins.

This fantasy Judaism bears no resemblance to Tanach, to Chazal, to medieval Jewish governance, or to modern Jewish history. It is a Judaism tailored for Western approval—safe, aesthetic, and permanently dependent.

In this fantasy, Jews are allowed to exist only as symbols.

Zionism shatters that illusion by insisting Jews are a living people with a land, a language, an army, and the moral burden of power. That burden terrifies academics far more than antisemitism ever has, because it destroys their self-image as enlightened custodians of Jewish conscience.

There is also a darker incentive at work: disavowal as self-protection.

For generations, Jews learned that visibility invites danger. Some academics have internalized this lesson not by hiding their Jewishness, but by weaponizing it against Jewish sovereignty. They present themselves as “the good Jews”—the Jews who apologize, who distance themselves, who reassure the powerful that Jewish power will never threaten moral comfort.

Arafat understood this dynamic perfectly. He cultivated Jewish allies who could speak against Israel with Jewish credibility. Today’s academics continue that tradition, whether they admit it or not.

When Hamas butchers civilians, they rush to contextualize. When Israel responds, they rush to condemn. When Jews are murdered, they mourn cautiously. When Israel defends itself, they moralize aggressively.

This asymmetry is not accidental. It is ideological.

To separate Judaism from Zionism, one must amputate Jewish history. One must pretend exile was voluntary, that return is unnatural, and that Jewish longing for Zion is a poetic metaphor rather than a political reality stretching back three thousand years.

One must ignore that Jews prayed toward Jerusalem, legislated for sovereignty, and never once imagined exile as ideal. One must rewrite Jewish survival as evidence against Jewish self-determination.

This is not scholarship. It is theology in academic drag.

And like all bad theology, it requires heresy trials. Jews who refuse the separation—who insist Zionism is not a betrayal of Judaism but its historical consequence—are labeled extremists, ethnonationalists, or worse.

Arafat called them occupiers. The academy calls them immoral.

This debate is not abstract. On October 7, the fantasy collapsed. Jews were slaughtered not for Israeli policy debates, but for existing as Jews in their ancestral land. The response from many Jewish academics was not outrage, but equivocation.

That should have ended the argument.

If Zionism were merely a political choice, antisemitism would distinguish between Zionist and non-Zionist Jews. It does not. It never has.

Those who still insist on separation after October 7 are not naive. They are committed.

The final irony is this: the very academics who claim to be protecting Judaism are actively hollowing it out. A Judaism stripped of peoplehood, land, memory, and responsibility is not a moral triumph. It is a museum artifact.

Arafat wanted Jews dissolved into history. These academics want Jews dissolved into ethics.

Both deny the same truth: Judaism without Zionism is not Judaism as it lived, survived, or understood itself. It is Judaism as others find it most convenient.

And Jews have already lived through the consequences of being convenient.

Enough.

Zionism is not a deviation from Judaism. It is Judaism refusing to die quietly.

 

REPUBLISHED

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-some-jewish-academics-have-in-common-with-yasser-arafat/

Prime Minister Netanyahu's remarks at a JNS event in Miami - Who Needs an Army When You Have Bench Kvetchers?

Habayta - Yitzchak Meir Helfgot & Ofir Sobol / הביתה - יצחק מאיר הלפגוט ...

Be Back Soon....

The American Night Is Growing Increasingly Dangerous

 

 "Defend and protect your children from all harm, physical, emotional and spiritual."  

I grew up in the shadow of a man I never had the privilege to meet, but whose name and fire were spoken about in my home with a reverence normally reserved for prophets. I carry his name with the fear that I have not done enough to carry his legacy forward. My grandfather, Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, was not merely a builder of institutions—though he built the most consequential Torah structures in American history. He was not merely a teacher—though he taught a generation of future leaders who would shape the spiritual destiny of American Jewry. He was not merely a visionary—though his vision reached decades beyond his lifetime. What he truly was—and what many people still fail to grasp—is that he was a survivor of one world who came to save another.

His eyes were European eyes, forged in a Hungary that sleepwalked into antisemitic catastrophe. His mind was a Mussar mind, trained to see danger not at the moment it erupts, but at the moment it germinates. His heart was a Chassidic heart, filled with fierce love for every Jew, especially those drifting dangerously far from their own heritage. And his mission—his entire earthly task—was to prevent America from repeating Europe’s mistakes.

Today, as the political and ideological currents in America turn ominous, as antisemitism rises with a speed that should terrify anyone with historical memory, and as figures like Zohran Mamdani ascend to public office by running explicitly on anti-Jewish narratives, I find my grandfather’s teachings not quaint, not old-world, not outdated—but frighteningly current. I can feel his warnings pulsing beneath today’s headlines. I can hear the echo of his storm-sensing instincts vibrating beneath today’s political rhetoric. And I know, with absolute certainty, what he would say to us now.

What follows is not a fantasy reconstruction. It is not a fictional monologue. It is not an attempt to put words into his mouth. It is a synthesis—based strictly on documented statements preserved by my illustrious family, Torah Vodaath archives, oral traditions recorded by his talmidim, testimonies from Gedolim who knew him, and the worldview he articulated in the Mussar discourses and strategic decisions that shaped Jewish life in America.

This is the essay my grandfather would demand be written.

If my grandfather were alive today, his voice would not be soft. It would not be gentle. It would not be approving. It would be a thunderstorm breaking over a generation too complacent to recognize the smell of rain.

He would begin, as he often did, by reminding us that the Jew who forgets history is the Jew who repeats it.

“I have seen this before,” he would say. “And I fear I am seeing it again. I was born into a world that believed itself immune to catastrophe. A world that believed progress was irreversible, that stability was woven into the fabric of modern life. A world where Jews walked proudly, confidently, even arrogantly, believing themselves secure. And that world collapsed with a speed that left entire communities gasping for breath. You think America is different. Every Jew in Europe once said the same.”

He would speak not as a pessimist but as a realist—one who understood that history does not announce itself politely. When he declared, many times, “Golus America iz oich golus—America is also exile,” he was not speaking poetically; he was issuing a strategic warning. When he insisted that without a vast network of Torah schools, America’s Jews would spiritually dissolve, he was not theorizing; he was diagnosing. And when he said that if Torah does not grow here, the Jew will not survive here, he was not speaking about metaphysics; he was speaking about sociology, politics, history, and the raw instincts of a man who had seen the ground shift beneath Jewish feet before.

His Mussar was not theoretical. It was geopolitical. His warnings were not abstract. They were precise. His urgency was not emotional. It was prophetic.

And if he were standing here today, witnessing the ideological radicalization of American universities, the normalization of anti-Jewish rhetoric in politics, the demonization of Israel, the re-emergence of blood-libel-style narratives in progressive discourse, and the rise of openly anti-Jewish politicians like Zohran Mamdani, he would not hesitate.

He would say: “The signs are all the same. The danger is already here. The storm has already begun.”

To understand the severity of the moment, we must first abandon the comforting myth that America is immune to the diseases of Europe. My grandfather understood that the American experiment—while miraculous—was not metaphysically guaranteed. He appreciated its blessings while remaining alert to its potential dangers. He believed in America, but he never worshiped it. He loved its freedoms, but he did not trust its permanence. He built Torah institutions knowing full well that nations, like individuals, often lose their moral balance long before they fall.

What we see today in America is not a new phenomenon. It is old hatred wearing new clothing. The intellectual frameworks that now justify antisemitism—anti-Zionism, anti-colonial discourse, intersectional ideology—are simply modernized versions of the same narratives that fueled hatred in Europe.

In the 1920s and 1930s, European antisemitism did not begin with violence. It began with rhetoric, with professors, with journalists, with cultural elites who believed themselves morally enlightened as they demonized Jews. It began with radicals who accused Jews of controlling institutions, exploiting the economy, and corrupting society. It began with politicians who discovered that blaming Jews brought easy applause.

Today’s America is repeating those patterns with startling fidelity.

When university students chant for the destruction of the Jewish state, they are reenacting the student mobs of pre-war Europe. When activists rewrite Jewish history to transform Jews into colonial oppressors, they are re-performing the political theater that preceded catastrophe in Poland and Germany. When newspapers give sympathetic platforms to Hamas justifications for murder, they are playing the same role their European counterparts played in the 1930s—providing ideological legitimacy to violence.

And when a man like Zohran Mamdani is elected to public office despite (and sometimes because of) his explicit anti-Jewish rhetoric, America has crossed into historically recognizable territory.

Let us speak plainly. My grandfather would have.

Zohran Mamdani is not unique. He is not new. He is not surprising. He is a familiar figure in Jewish history—the ideological purist who views Jews not as individuals but as symbols of everything he opposes. His worldview is not organic; it is inherited from earlier revolutionary movements that saw the Jew as an obstacle to utopia. In the 1920s, his counterparts raged in Hungary. In the 1930s, in Poland. In the 1940s, in Egypt and Iraq. In each case, they used moralistic language to justify political extremism. In each case, Jews became the convenient target.

This is not conjecture. It is historical pattern.

My grandfather would identify Mamdani instantly: a man intoxicated by ideology, incapable of nuance, uninterested in truth, and drawn to the dangerous thrill of simplistic political narratives. He would say that such men do not need to be majority figures to be dangerous; they simply need to be tolerated. They are accelerants—political kerosene waiting for a spark.

And he would say, without hesitation: “History does not begin with men like him, but it often ends with them.”

TORAH VODAATH — THE MODEL AMERICA FAILED TO FOLLOW

My grandfather did not build Torah Vodaath to be merely another yeshiva. He built it to be the spine of American Torah life. He believed that a weak Torah community produces a confused Jewish community, and a confused Jewish community becomes politically vulnerable.

Torah Vodaath taught its talmidim to think historically, morally, and strategically. It produced leaders like Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky, Rav Shlomo Heiman, Rav Avraham Pam, Rav Yitzchak Sheiner, and others who carried within them a clarity that America desperately needed. Secular education was an important tool to understand and navigate the troubled world. Science, mathematics, history...all were desperately vital to see the entirety of the world Hashem created.

But America, even as it benefited from their leadership, did not absorb the lesson fully: Torah is not simply a religious practice; it is a shield against societal collapse. When the nation around you loses its moral compass, Torah becomes the only compass left.

Today, America has descended into ideological hysteria. It has lost the sense of objective truth, stable social norms, and moral seriousness. This is not a political problem—it is a civilizational one. And Jews who depend on the stability of their host society should be terrified by this.

My grandfather understood this better than anyone of his generation.

The founding of Torah Umesorah is one of his boldest acts of Jewish statesmanship in modern history. It was not merely an educational project. It was a response to catastrophe. My grandfather saw Europe collapse not because Jews lacked synagogues or yeshivas but because millions of Jewish children were educated by systems hostile to their identity. The naysayers ridiculed him, the idea of every Jewish child a Jewish education was folly they said. Orthodox Judaism exists in America because hundreds of thousands of Jewish children received a full undiluted Jewish education.

He vowed that America would not repeat that mistake.

He believed, with an intensity that shaped his entire life, that a Jewish child raised without Torah is a Jewish child raised without defenses. He said repeatedly that every Torah school is a fortress, every rebbe is a guardian, every classroom is a bulwark against spiritual assimilation and societal madness.

Today, as American public schools become conduits for anti-Jewish ideology—through curricula shaped by activists, teachers who demonize Israel, students encouraged to view Jews as oppressors—the correctness of his vision is no longer theoretical. It is observable.

He built Torah Umesorah for this exact moment.

 And many Jews still refuse to see it.The Rambam understood political and spiritual collapse with acuity few thinkers have ever matched.His writings constitute not only halachic texts but guides for national survival.

In Hilchos Teshuvah, Perek 7, the Rambam warns that the Jew in times of turmoil must be awake, courageous, and immune to the seductions of the majority. Confusion, he teaches, is the tool of evil. The one who succumbs to it becomes a participant in his own downfall.

In Iggeres Teiman, the Rambam describes the psychological condition of a society overtaken by false ideologies, where self-righteous movements weaponize moral language to justify hatred. He warns that Jews must resist not only physical persecution but intellectual seduction. The parallels to our moment are painful in their precision.

In Hilchos Melachim, the Rambam outlines the conditions before redemption: nations rising and falling quickly, ideological extremism, moral confusion, the collapse of institutions, and global instability. We are not obligated to assign prophetic meaning to current events—but we are obligated to recognize when history is behaving in familiar patterns.

My grandfather lived in the Rambam’s world. He interpreted America through the Rambam’s lens.

My grandfather saw the rise of radicals who used moral rhetoric to justify hatred. He watched educated elites support antisemitic policies because they believed Jews represented the wrong side of progress. He saw university students become foot soldiers of extremist movements. And he watched Jews reassure themselves that assimilation, patriotism, or economic success would protect them.

Today’s America replicates Hungary’s ideological climate with chilling precision. The anti-Jewish campus activism, the intellectualization of hatred, the political rewards for scapegoating Jews—these are the exact early steps that preceded catastrophe.

Poland’s antisemitism did not begin with violence; it began with narratives. It began with the accusation that Jews were privileged, powerful, foreign, exploitative. It began with the claim that Jews controlled institutions and corrupted national identity.

The modern American progressive movement has adopted these same narratives verbatim, merely replacing old terminology with “privilege,” “colonialism,” “whiteness,” and “systems of oppression.”

Germany teaches the most important lesson of all: the speed at which a society can collapse. Civilized people, cultured people, intellectual people can transform into barbarians with shocking speed once ideology outpaces morality.

America is not exempt from this pattern. No nation in history has been.

If my grandfather were alive today, he would not mince words. He would say:

“You are living in a society losing its moral stability. You must not assume safety. You must not depend on political parties. You must not place your trust in the goodwill of ideologues. You must strengthen your Torah schools. You must fortify your communities with clarity, courage, and unity. You must read the times correctly. You must not be naïve.”

He would warn that American Jews are repeating the mistakes of European Jews: internal division, overconfidence in political alliances, dependence on unstable institutions, and failure to recognize ideological danger early.

He would say that without Torah, American Jews will drift into confusion; and once a community becomes confused, it becomes easy to scapegoat, easy to marginalize, easy to target.

My grandfather would not address Mamdani as a politician but as a moral actor. He would say:

“You are dangerous not because you are strong, but because you are reckless. Not because you hate Jews, but because you have sanctified hatred. Not because you lead, but because you blind. If you lived in my Europe, you would have been the warm-up act for catastrophe.” And he would add: “History will judge you. And so will Heaven.”

His final message would be the same one he carried from Europe to America:

“Do not say it cannot happen here. Every nation is different—until the moment it is the same. Build schools. Strengthen Torah. Unite your people. Defend and protect your children from all harm, physical, emotional and spiritual.  Recognize danger while it is still early. And remember that the only true protection of the Jewish people is their own strength, their own Torah, and their own unity."

I write this not as a historian, not as a political commentator, and not as an alarmist. I write as a grandson speaking from inherited memory. I grew up surrounded by the echoes of my grandfather’s warnings, his vision, his urgency. And I look at America today and see, with painful clarity, that we have entered the exact type of moment he feared most.

This essay is not just a tribute. It is a call. A call to alertness. A call to moral clarity.

The night is growing dangerous. The shadows are long. But my grandfather believed—always—that Torah values and wisdom can bring the dawn.

May we be worthy of that dawn.

REPUBLISHED

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-american-night-is-growing-increasingly-dangerous/

SHOCKING: This "Gadol Hador" Is Obviously Not Crazy Enough For Boro Park!

 

"Poison distributed in a commercial way."

SHOCKING: Boro Park Wakes Up to Streets Filled With “Pashkevilen” Against Gadol Hador

• Dec 2 2025
• 6 Comments

By BoroPark24 Staff

Boro Park residents heading out this morning to shul, school, and work were stunned to find streets littered with papers. But the real shock came when people stopped to read what they said.

“Pashkevilen” are never acceptable, but seeing them aimed at a Gadol Hador, a gaon olam and one of the most respected Torah leaders in our generation, left many residents shaken and unable to digest what they were seeing.

“I blushed when I saw it,” one resident told BoroPark24. “I couldn’t believe my eyes that in our calm Boro Park I would ever see something like this, written in such a horrific way and spread across our streets.”

Another resident described the flyers as “poison distributed in a commercial way.”

As the rain falls this morning and soaks the papers, many in the neighborhood are hoping this will be the last time such a scene is witnessed. Boro Park’s streets should not be used for hateful garbage, and that even one occurrence is already far more than the community can tolerate.

https://www.boropark24.com/news/shocking-boro-park-wakes-up-to-streets-filled-with-pashkevilen-against-gadol-hador

Rabbi Confronts Mamdani — And Reveals Shocking Details of Their Phone Call...Where Are The Bearded Ones? "From Talmud to Tanach"

Rabbi Meir Kahane speaks at bottom line....Imagine a Jewish State With Kahane as Prime Minister...Watch/Listen to the End!

Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz ZTVK"L On The State Of Israel

CAMP MESIFTA TORAH VODAATH - SUMMER 1948

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 “Who is good and Who does good”. . .  

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 . .   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.  

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 ‘Who is good and Who does good’ . . . (With The Shem Havaya) "Baruch atah, Ad... Elokeinu Melech ha'olam, hatov v'hameitiv"  מֶלֶךְ הַעוֹלָם, הַטוֹב וְהַמֵטִיב׃ ‎בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה 'ה..

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.”  . . .  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. . . .

 Once full-scale war broke out after the State of Israel declared its existence on May 14, 1948, Reb Shraga Feivel’s thoughts were never far from Eretz Yisrael. A group of students saw him outside the Mesivta building one day talking excitedly with Rabbi Gedaliah Schorr and gesticulating rapidly with the newspaper held in his hand. “If I were your age,” he told the students, “I would take a gun and go to Eretz Yisrael.” . . . Just two weeks after the Declaration of Independence, the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, fell to the Arabs. Every Jew living there was either killed, taken prisoner, or exiled from the ancient walls of Jerusalem. After the Shabbos-eve meal, as he reached the words “Have mercy, Hashem, on Israel, Your nation, and on Yerushalayim, Your city,” in Bircas HaMazon, Reb Shraga Feivel burst out in violent sobbing, which brought on a massive heart attack. The doctors were immediately summoned and had him carried to his bed with orders that he must remain absolutely still.   

 . . . Even when he was under the oxygen tent, those attending him saw his fists beating on the side of the bed and heard him repeat over and over again, “Vos vet zein mit Eretz Yisrael? —What will be with Eretz Yisrael?”   

 

...He knew Zionism was imperfect, he chose to improve it rather than walk away from secular Jews. YEHI ZICHRO BARUCH!

 (and other rabbis' views - click link) 

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

https://jewishaction.com/cover-story/the-birth-of-the-jewish-state-rabbinic-views-and-perspectives/

A MEANINGFUL CONVENTION

 

CLICK FOR PHOTOS OF TORAH UMESORAH 2025

https://torahumesorah.pic-time.com/-torahumesorahconvention2025/gallery

https://www.torahumesorah.org/

TORAH UMESORAH (National Society for Hebrew Day Schools). The largest national body serving 760 Orthodox day schools in North America, Torah Umesorah was founded in 1944 by Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz.  

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

Be Happy There Is NO Agudah Convention This Year --- Do Not Overeat, Listen To (Mostly) Nonsense & Spend Money You Do Not Have!

Child Sexual Abuse Isn't a 'Type' by Chloe Nazra Lee, MD, MPH

Child predators specifically target minors because they're vulnerable. The physical appearance of the child is not a turn-on; the ability to dominate is.

What will we as a country do about it? Will something change? Will we hold perpetrators truly accountable?

   The letter to free this monster was signed by 13 prominent  IMMORAL/CORRUPT rabbis representing an array of Hasidic groups in New York City and a representative of Yeshiva University. The university did not reply to a request for comment. HERE THEY ARE:https://static-cdn.toi-media.com/www/uploads/2025/11/Binder1.pdf

****

"Can I tell you something, Dr. Lee?" my adolescent patient asked. I nodded.

She whispered into my ear: "He raped me." Her large eyes pleaded with me to believe her, and she suddenly pushed her baby face into my shoulder and let the tears come.

I don't allow physical contact with patients. But instinctively, I let her stay there. There are no words to describe the bitterness of the moment; it was a pain transcending language. She -- younger-looking than her years, disappearing into an oversized sweatshirt -- clinging to me. I -- a young doctor on call, exhausted -- numb after the revelation.

He was her teacher. As she cried silently, my mind raced with physician responsibilities: psychiatric stabilization, documentation, and notifying Mom, child protective services, my superiors at the hospital. Even after doing all those things, I knew the abuse had irreparably altered her life's trajectory. Healing was possible, as many child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors know. But it could never un-happen to her.

I've treated CSA survivors as young as 6 and as old as 70. The willfully inflicted damage to these patients cannot, and must not, be minimized.

Pedophile Math

In a moment enraging many abuse survivors, podcaster Megyn Kelly appeared to downplay late sex offender (and convicted pedophile

) Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, making space for the perspective

that Epstein was not, in fact, a pedophile. She paraphrased a source describing Epstein's "type" as the "barely legal" look, and then went on to say:

"We have yet to see anybody come forward and say I was under 10, I was under 14...You can say that's a distinction without a difference. I think there is a difference. There's a difference between a 15-year-old and a 5-year-old, you know?"

Kelly's comments seem profoundly perfidious, especially in the context of #MeToo, her own experience of sexual harassment

, and her carefully curated image of a woman protecting women's interests. She appears to paint abuse as a mere preference, transforming predators into horny men and ostensibly laying the groundwork for their actions to become forgivable. It's a gross disservice to survivors.

If truly a matter of sexual preference, Epstein could have consensually dated young-looking women of legal age. Yet, he sexually abused minors.

Child predators specifically target minors because they're vulnerable. The physical appearance of the child is not a turn-on; the ability to dominate is.

Clinically Assessing Abusers

Abuse is not about sexual preferences, but power dynamics. Perpetrators do not enjoy the mutuality of a healthy sexual relationship, and Epstein's crimes

at the intersection of sex trafficking, soliciting prostitution from a minor, and child sexual abuse highlight this point.

I first started thinking about this after leaving an abusive partner with a penchant for prostitutes -- I couldn't understand why he preferred them sexually to a healthy relationship. But a domestic violence counselor gave me the evidence-based answer to that question: "Abusive men seek transactional sex because they feel they control the scene when they pay for it. They create a scene where they're allowed to overpower a woman."

A 2015 study

found that men who go to prostitutes share many characteristics with sexually violent men and generally have less empathy for prostituted women.

"Both groups tend to have a preference for impersonal sex, a fear of rejection by women, a history of having committed sexually aggressive acts, and a hostile masculine

self-identification [meaning dominance, acceptance of violence against women, and hostility towards women]," said study author

Neil Malamuth, PhD.

Malamuth developed the Confluence Model

that can help clinicians understand men at risk of perpetrating sexual violence and identify points of intervention. The model highlights two risk pathways: hostile masculinity and impersonal sex -- like prostitution. At the intersection of these pathways is a high likelihood of sexual violence against women.

Alarmingly, the men in the study were fully cognizant of the harms they inflicted. One told researchers, "[The women] feel degraded. I mean the ones I know have no self-confidence." Another could tell that some of the women dissociated during sex -- a common trauma response. They were additionally aware of the fact that many women who find themselves in prostitution are tricked or trafficked into it.

They bought the women anyway.

Women and girls are disposable to these men. One study participant likened prostitution to purchasing a cup of coffee: "When you're done, you throw it out."

The research shows that these men -- abusive, predatory, seeking transactional sex -- know what they're doing is wrong. Abuse is not a psychiatric disorder, but a choice.

The girls are not a "type." They're objects to be dominated.

What Is a Child?

In its definition of CSA

, the CDC defines "child" as "person less than 18." Developmentally, a child does not understand and cannot consent to sex with an adult.

I do not dispute that there is a difference between a 5-year-old and a 15-year-old. I dispute that the difference matters when it comes to sexual abuse.

The costs of CSA are dire. Survivors are at disproportionate risk of multiple health consequences

: sexually transmitted infections, chronic pain, gastrointestinal and cardiopulmonary disorders, gynecologic disorders, and high utilization of healthcare, among others. The annual economic burden

of CSA in the U.S. exceeds $9 billion.

And the mental health costs are even higher-stakes: post-traumatic stress disorder, mood disorders, and suicidal behavior or completed suicide. From my work with CSA survivors, I'll say this: a child abused at the age of 15 is no less affected than a child abused at the age of 6. The distinction is meaningless.

Even the most fastidious of moral particularists

in clinical bioethics cannot justify child sexual abuse. There are ethical exceptions to many unacceptable things, like killing (self-defense). But no one with a shred of morality can possibly find a context in which the rape of a child is acceptable, and playing semantics over what constitutes a pedophile serves no meaningful purpose but to center the perpetrator, redraw the boundaries of acceptable, and hurt survivors.

The patient I described earlier did poorly, even after disclosing her abuse to me. I wish I could have ended this piece on a hopeful note, but this is the stark reality of sexual abuse.

Now that we know what a child is, what sexual abuse is, and what the risk factors for perpetration of sexual violence are, I leave you with some important questions whose answers will speak volumes: What will we as a country do about it? Will something change? Will we hold perpetrators truly accountable?

Chloe Nazra Lee, MD, MPH,

is a resident physician in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. The views expressed above reflect only those of the author and are not necessarily shared by any institution with which she is affiliated.

If you or someone you know has been trafficked or abused, call 1-888-373-7888 for the National Human Trafficking Hotline or 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) for the

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/118622?

The "Leaders" You Deserve!

 

NY Jewish leaders asked governor to release Hasidic abuser, records show

 

Rabbis from Haredi communities appealed to commute sentence of Nechemya Weberman, imprisoned for abusing an adolescent in 2013, arguing that his sentence was disproportionate

Nechemya Weberman was convicted and sentenced to 103 years for child sexual abuse, October 16, 2012. 

NEW YORK — Jewish leaders in New York appealed to the governor for the release of a Hasidic community counselor imprisoned for sexual abuse, arguing that his sentence was disproportionate, according to court documents that surfaced this month.

Nechemya Weberman, 67, an unlicensed religious counselor in the Satmar Hasidic movement, was sentenced to 103 years in prison in 2013, in a major case for the New York Jewish community.

He was convicted of 59 counts, including sustained sexual abuse of a child, endangering the welfare of a child and sexual abuse!

Weberman’s sentence was reduced to 50 years later in 2013. He is incarcerated in the Shawangunk Correctional Facility in upstate New York.

The case resurfaced this month when Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez backed a move to issue a new sentence for Weberman. Weberman is scheduled to appear in court next month.

As the case reemerged, court filings obtained by The Times of Israel showed that last December, an array of Jewish leaders signed a letter to New York Governor Kathy Hochul seeking a commutation for Weberman’s immediate release. The previously unreported letter was submitted to the court as a reference for resentencing in June, along with other letters of support from Weberman’s family and supporters.

The letter called Weberman’s sentence “absorbently excessive,” saying he had not incurred any infractions during his 12 years in prison and that his sentence was “much greater by comparison to others held guilty of a similar crime.”

“While we strongly condemn the nature of this crime, we do believe Mr. Weberman’s excessive sentence was placed upon him to set an example to the Orthodox Jewish community,” the letter said. “Using him because he is an Orthodox Jew as a scapegoat is unjust.”

Nechemya Weberman, left, a community counselor in New York City’s Hasidic Jewish community, confers with his lawyer George Farkas in Brooklyn Supreme Court, January 22, 2013, in New York

The letter was signed by 13 prominent  IMMORAL/CORRUPT rabbis representing an array of Hasidic groups in New York City and a representative of Yeshiva University. The university did not reply to a request for comment. HERE THEY ARE:https://static-cdn.toi-media.com/www/uploads/2025/11/Binder1.pdf

The letter said that, due to Weberman’s health problems, his imprisonment amounts to a life sentence. A doctor also submitted a letter attesting to Weberman’s “deteriorating health.”

The New York State constitution grants the governor the ability to commute prison sentences.

Gonzalez also asked then-governor Andrew Cuomo to consider a commutation of Weberman’s sentence in 2021, saying Weberman had been “singled out for an unusually harsh punishment,” according to court filings.

Cuomo and Hochul did not publicly respond to the requests.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office said on Tuesday, “This was a horrific case, but fairness compels us to look critically at sentences like this one that fall wildly outside the range for other defendants convicted of the same crimes.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ny-jewish-leaders-asked-governor-to-release-hasidic-abuser-records-show/?

No Mercy for Monsters: When Rabbis Plead for the Unforgivable 

It is an obscenity that in our time, when Jewish children are still healing from wounds inflicted in the dark corners of their own communities, we see rabbis—men who claim to bear the Torah’s moral authority—signing letters begging for leniency for sexual abusers and consumers of child pornography. What Torah are they reading? What G-d are they serving? Certainly not the G-d of justice, nor the Torah of truth.... 

READ THE ENTIRE ESSAY: 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/no-mercy-for-monsters-when-rabbis-plead-for-the-unforgivable/

 

Until the rabbinate purges this moral rot from its ranks—until letters of “support” for abusers are replaced by public cries for the protection of children—the rabbis who sign them will bear the shame of standing on the wrong side of Heaven. Because Heaven weeps not for the predator, but for the child. This sickness in parts of our rabbinic leadership—the reflex to “protect” the abuser because he once wore a yarmulke and learned in a yeshiva—is nothing less than moral collapse.

READ: 

https://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2025/10/no-mercy-for-monsters-when-rabbis-plead.html

From Einstein to Epstein — How Did We Get Here?

 

There was a time when the word Jewish genius summoned images of chalk-dust, violin cases, telescopes pointed toward the heavens, and a tiny man from Ulm bending reality with a pencil. Einstein was not perfect—far from it—but he symbolized something that has defined the Jewish people for centuries: an obsession with ideas, ethics, responsibility, questioning, and the search for truth.

And today? The headline “Jewish” is splattered next to Epstein, a grotesque symbol of corruption, exploitation, and moral decay. How did we get from the quivering moral antennae of an Einstein to the bottomless moral vacuum of an Epstein?

This is not simply about two men. It’s about the cultural, communal, and moral arc of the modern Jewish world, a century-long slide where intellectual ambition mutated into narcissistic ambition, where ethical responsibility was traded for elite access, where brilliance without moral grounding devolved into depravity.

This is the question we must confront—fiery, unapologetic, and without euphemism: What happened to us?

Einstein represented more than relativity and a wild head of hair. He was a moral philosopher masquerading as a physicist. He warned of tyranny, pleaded for refugees, defended civil rights, begged the Jewish people to resist their own extremisms, and feared the atom bomb he helped unleash.

He embodied a distinctly Jewish idea: Intelligence is worthless without conscience.

After the Holocaust, a traumatized Jewish people made a silent pact with the American Dream:

“Never again be powerless. Never again be poor. Never again be shut out.”

It was understandable. It was even necessary. But with success came a new idolatry.

The children and grandchildren of immigrants moved from scholarship to social climbing, from intellectual prestige to financial prestige. The old moral vocabulary was replaced by a new American one: networking, influence, endowments, real estate, exclusive clubs.

There were still giants —  Rabbis Mendlowitz, Soloveitchik, Kook, Kotler, Feinstein, Kamenetsky, ideological heirs, the visionaries of  Jewish values. But after them rose a new class of Jewish elites: brokers, donors, fixers, operators, and gatekeepers.

A class more fluent in access than ethics. More dazzled by power than conscience. More eager to be close to presidents and princes than philosophers. It was only a matter of time before someone like Jeffrey Epstein stepped onto that stage.

The moral catastrophe of Epstein should not be dismissed as a scandal. It is a wake-up call. If Einstein represents the Jewish capacity to elevate humanity, Epstein represents the Jewish capacity to betray it. Between these two poles lies the future of the Jewish people.

We must choose. Do we continue down the path of worshiping access, influence, and brilliance for its own sake? Or do we reclaim the older, humbler, fiercer Jewish tradition in which intellect serves conscience, not ego?

Because if we do not confront how we got here—honestly, painfully, fearlessly—then we guarantee something worse will follow. The question “How did we get from Einstein to Epstein?” is really “How did we drift from moral ambition to moral anesthesia?”

But the Jewish tradition has never been afraid of self-rebuke. Prophets did nothing else. The remedy begins where it always has:

Teach that intelligence is a gift only when it serves humanity. Teach that Jewish success is meaningless without Jewish responsibility. Teach that the moral universe is real—and it always cashes its checks.

From Einstein to Epstein is a fall. But it is not irreversible. If anything, it shows us how desperately we must climb back.

 

REPUBLISHED

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/from-einstein-to-epstein-how-did-we-get-here/

"Between Healing Bodies and Shaping Minds"

 

“I’m Famished”: The Excuse Maimonides Gave His Translator

 

From the moment he became chief physician at the royal court of Egypt, Maimonides found that he had almost no time left for anything else, not even to meet with the translator of his most famous work. 

 

Cairo GenizahDeciphering Jewish ManuscriptsJewish CultureMaimonidesMedieval Jewish Cultureסודות כתבי היד העבריים

The manuscript shown here is an early draft of "The Guide for the Perplexed" in Maimonides’ own handwriting. It is preserved at the University of Cambridge (T-S 10Ka4.1) and is available online on the National Library of Israel website.

This story begins after the tragic death of the brother of Maimonides, Aaron, who drowned at sea during a trading voyage. In addition to the terrible personal loss, his death brought about a financial crisis for the family, whose wealth was tied-up in Aaron’s business ventures. Rabbi Moses ben Maimon – Maimonides – one of Judaism’s greatest legal authorities and its foremost philosopher, who would also serve as head of the Jewish community in Egypt and the surrounding regions, was forced to scramble to find a way to earn a living. Around the year 1178, he turned to medicine.

Thanks to his sharp intellect and growing reputation, it was only a few years before Maimonides was appointed personal physician to the royal court in Cairo. From that moment, the tone of his letters changed: urgency and exhaustion seeped into every written line. To his students and friends, he wrote of the immense demands on his time and energy, the constant stream of people who sought his help, and the strain of his new position.

Despite the ever-increasing pressures, Maimonides somehow managed to find time for extraordinary philosophical creativity and halakhic ingenuity. He wrote during the late-night hours, time meant for rest and renewal, and thus was able to complete The Guide for the Perplexed.

When he finished this great philosophical work, written in Arabic – the intellectual language of his surroundings – Jewish readers in Europe also longed to study it. The task of translation was taken up by Samuel ibn Tibbon, a member of a distinguished family of translators specializing in rendering Arabic works into Hebrew.

Working in France, the industrious translator sent Maimonides an unusual request. After reading The Guide in the original, he immediately recognized its immense importance, and the layers of concealment and complexity woven throughout. Even in his time, ibn Tibbon understood why readers sometimes called it “The Perplexing Guide.”

To clarify certain fundamental questions about Maimonides’ ideas and writing, ibn Tibbon offered to make the long journey from France to Egypt at his own expense, hoping to spend time in the philosopher’s company, however long Maimonides might allow.

Maimonides’ reply, however, was a firm refusal:

I live in Fustat, and the sultan resides in Cairo; these two places are two Sabbath limits distant from each other. My duties to the sultan are very heavy. I am obliged to visit him every day, early in the morning, and when he or any of his children or concubines are indisposed, I cannot leave Cairo but must stay during most of the day in the palace. It also frequently happens that one or two of the officers fall sick, and I must attend to their healing. Hence, as a rule, every day, early in the morning I go to Cairo and, even if nothing unusual happens there, I do not return to Fustat until the afternoon. Then I am famished but I find the antechambers filled with people, both Jews and Gentiles, nobles and common people, judges and policemen, friends and enemies — a mixed multitude who await the time of my return.

Maimonides then described how little time he had even to eat:

I dismount from my animal, wash my hands, go forth to my patients, and entreat them to bear with me while I partake of some light refreshment, the only meal I eat in 24 hours.

[Translation: Eliyahu Junik, via Sefaria]

Through this heartfelt description, Maimonides sought to dissuade his translator, and the many others who wished to visit him, from interrupting the few moments of rest he had left.

Before modern times, few rabbinic figures had left us such a clear window into their inner lives or such personal correspondence, especially remarkable given that Maimonides lived nearly a thousand years ago. The letters preserved in the Cairo Genizah offer a rare glimpse not only into the elevated thoughts of one of Judaism’s most brilliant philosophers and spiritual leaders – ideas often conceived in the quiet of the night and expressed (or concealed) in The Guide for the Perplexed – but also into the crushing weight of his daily responsibilities, and the relentless rhythm of a life divided between healing bodies and shaping minds.

https://blog.nli.org.il/en/maimonides_famished/?

Rabbi Karp was a textile businessman by trade—but Torah was his life.

 

Memory Lane: Rabbi Elias Karp

 

For decades, there was an iyun shiur given in Agudas Yisroel on 14th Avenue by Rabbi Elias Karp, a close talmid of Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, zt”l, who had a storied career as a rov in America’s rust belt, and spent decades in learning and askonus in Boro Park of yore. 

New York of Yore

Rabbi Karp was born on the Lower East Side of New York in the winter of the year 1912. His parents were Reb Yisroel and Yetta Karp, who had arrived in the United States from Galicia. 

Tragically, his father passed away shortly after his bar mitzvah—right around the time that Elias entered Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, a place that would remain his identity for life. 

He would remain enrolled in the yeshiva for around ten years—and its influences, and that of his illustrious rebbeim there, would remain with him for life. His primary rebbeim were Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz—whose minhagim he kept for all his life—and Rav Shloime Heiman. His chaverim were Rav Gedaliah Schorr, Rav Avrohom Pam—future Roshei Yeshiva in Torah Vodaath—Rav Nesanel Quinn, and Reb Shia Wilhelm who was also his longtime chavrusa. 

In 1934, he accepted the rabbonus of Degel Israel of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, at which time he warned the Jews of Lancaster about ‘indifference’ that was plaguing American Jewry, including the Jews of the area, a speech that was reported in the local paper.   

Boro Park 

Following his discharge from the army, with few chinuch options for the young children, the Karp’s moved to Boro Park. But the fledgling community in Boro Park of the 1940’s likewise did not offer many chinuch options, for many families preferred something different from the existing institutions in Boro Park. 

So, Rabbi Karp, along with a number of other askonim, helped found Bais Yaakov of Boro Park—with his children being among the first enrollees. For decades thereafter, Rabbi Karp remained integrally involved in the mossad that he helped found, serving as the longtime treasurer of Bais Yaakov. 

With his arrival in Boro Park, the Agudas Yisroel on Fourteenth Avenue became a new family for the Karp’s, and he would daven exclusively among his chaverim at the Agudah. He sat the same table with Reb Moshe Sherer, Rav Simcha Elberg, the president, Reb Dovid Turkel, and others.

Part of his joining the Agudah was his involvement in Hatzolah and war-rescue efforts, in which he worked with Mike Tress. “One didn’t have to wealthy to be an askan,” relates a daughter about Rabbi Karp’s decades of askonus in various mosdos and causes. Everyone pooled their resources and talents to make a difference. 

Rabbi Karp was a textile businessman by trade—but Torah was his life. 

His children recall how he would come home after a long day’s work, and spend hours immersed in learning. For more than forty years, he delivered a weekly Shabbos shiur at the Agudah. 

Once he retired, until his last years, he sat and learned with great hasmodoh—along with his lifelong friends and chavrusos, Reb Shia Wilhelm and Rav Nesanel Quinn—in Boro Park’s Lakewood Minyan. In later years, when he could no longer walk to the Agudah, and he was residing at 4701 15th Avenue (in the apartment once occupied by Rav Aharon Kotler) he would daven at the nearby Bobover Shul, and he would have chavrusos coming to learn with him three times a day. 

Rabbi Karp was an excellent orator, and people loved when he got up to speak, because he was concise, and always to the point. “He always had the right words,” recalls a daughter. This also made him a welcome visitor at people’s sickbeds; he would never overstay his welcome, but remain for a short while, and truly lift the spirit of those whom he would visit.

Rabbi Karp was niftar in the winter of 2009 leaving behind a beautiful Torah family. 

 

https://www.boropark24.com/news/memory-lane-rabbi-elias-karp

Lando To Every Guy With Five Dollars In His Pocket --- Go Broke If You Have To! He concluded: “I hope you will awaken, and each person will give according to his ability - and beyond his ability!

 

Rabbi Lando to donors: Woe to us if the yeshivas close

 

Rabbi Dov Lando thanks US, European donors who gave large sums to yeshivas, but warns it is not enough.

Israel National News

  Nov 17, 2025, 11:21 AM (GMT+2)

---

FundingHaredimyeshivasRabbi Dov Lando

• 1 minutes

Rabbi Dov Lando at the event 

BACKED BY JEWS FOR GOING BROKE FOR NOTHING INC. & WIVES WORKING THREE JOBS FOR THEIR HUSBANDS REFUSING TO GET A JOB - NON-PROFIT

Rabbi Dov Lando, a leading rabbi in the Lithuanian-haredi community, on Sunday night delivered the keynote address at an emergency dinner held in support of the “World of Torah Fund.”

During his speech, Rabbi Lando stressed the vital importance of sustaining the yeshivas in Israel.

“In the Land of Israel, those who fear the word of God,” Rabbi Lando began, “you know very well the difficult situation of how the authorities and the courts relate to the Torah learners and the yeshivas. They have frozen the budgets, and the situation was such that the yeshivas were about to close, G-d forbid. Woe to us if such a thing would happen - it would be a great disaster.”

Rabbi Lando also expressed gratitude to the businessmen in the United States and Europe who donated “large sums - very large sums - for the sake of supporting the Torah world,” but emphasized that “this continues, and we cannot rely solely on what is given abroad.”

He then turned to the attendees: “The obligation is upon you in no less of a fashion; perhaps even more. You are generous people, to give and to support. Fortunate are you - you will be happy. It is good for you, for your children, for all your families. You will merit double and many times over, with peace of mind and good health.”

Issuing a rare warning about the possibility of institutions closing, Rabbi Lando said: “If you give, support, participate to the fullest extent possible in sustaining the yeshivas and Torah institutions in the Land of Israel, so that they will not close, G-d forbid, G-d help us if they close, woe is us for what will be. Who knows what will happen. I do not wish to speak such words, but they must be said.”

He concluded: “I hope you will awaken, and each person will give according to his ability - and beyond his ability - for the sake of the World of Torah Fund, so that it may uphold him and be good for him, his family, his children, his health. He will merit double and double many times over, great abundance - and may G-d help us, such that all evil decrees be annulled swiftly.”

 

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/417903

Full-Time Torah Study for All: The Greatest Orthodox Jewish Fraud Since the End of World War Two...

 

"Kollel should be a meritocracy — a place for the few who are truly destined for scholarship, not a refuge for the unwilling. Torah learning should inspire men to serve, to build, to defend, to uplift."... Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz/ Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky - Zechuso Yagen Aleinu.

In the long history of Jewish survival, few ideas have caused more internal rot than the postwar fantasy that every Jewish man is meant to study Torah full-time. It is not a mitzvah — it is a distortion. It has become the greatest Jewish fraud since the end of World War II.

The Torah commands us to be a “kingdom of priests” — not a nation of dependents. Our ancestors were shepherds, merchants, craftsmen, judges, warriors, and prophets — men who lived and worked in the real world, sanctifying it through their deeds. Yet somewhere after the Holocaust, a tragic inversion took hold. The noble dream of rebuilding the Torah world turned into an ideology of isolation, dependency, and cowardice — all sanctified in the name of “learning.”

After the Holocaust, Torah scholarship in Europe lay in ruins. The yeshivos of Lita and Galicia, the centers of Jewish intellectual and spiritual greatness, were reduced to ash. It was natural — even holy — that survivors sought to resurrect the world that was destroyed. But rebuilding Torah did not mean abandoning reality.

Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the visionary founder of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath in New York, and Torah Umesorah, presently, a network of 760 Orthodox schools throughout the United States, whose mission is to ensure that every Jewish child in Yeshivos, day schools, and Bais Yaakovs receives the highest standards of Torah education, along with the skills to lead a successful life and become a productive member of society.  

Rabbi Mendlowitz understood this clearly. He was no small-time educator; he was a prophet of postwar Jewish survival. His dream was not to create an army of cloistered scholars, but a generation of American Jews who would combine Torah fidelity with productive citizenship. He sent his students into Jewish education, business, and communal leadership. He taught that Torah must illuminate the world, not retreat from it.

Had his philosophy prevailed, American and Israeli Orthodoxy might have looked very different today. But in the chaos of postwar Europe and the birth of the State of Israel, another current — quieter, more insidious — gained ground.

When David Ben-Gurion was negotiating the contours of the new Jewish state, he met with the Chazon Ish, Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, the spiritual titan of the Lithuanian yeshiva world. The Chazon Ish insisted that Torah study must remain free from state interference and that a small number of young men — around 400 — should be exempted from military service to rebuild the ranks of Torah scholars decimated by the Nazis.

Ben-Gurion, ever the pragmatist, agreed. It was a small concession — a symbolic gesture — to the old world that had perished. He never imagined that this modest arrangement would metastasize into a political juggernaut, protecting hundreds of thousands of men from national service and labor.

That meeting in 1947 was the original sin of the “status quo.” It institutionalized the separation of Torah from life. It legitimized the idea that Torah scholars could live on the public dime while other Jews bore the burden of defending and sustaining the state.

What began as a few hundred exceptions turned into an ideology: full-time study for all men, indefinitely. The kollelim that once trained the elite became welfare networks for the masses. The word “Torah world” ceased to mean a culture of ethical refinement and began to mean a bureaucracy of stipends, exemptions, and ignorance of reality.

The Agudath Israel movement, originally formed in Europe to preserve traditional Judaism against secular Zionism, found a new purpose in this arrangement. In prewar Poland, Agudah had been wary of aligning Torah with political power; in postwar Israel, it became addicted to it.

Agudah’s rabbis realized they could leverage the collective bloc of their yeshiva students and their growing families to extract power from the state. Knesset seats translated into subsidies for yeshivos. Subsidies sustained the illusion of holiness without responsibility. The system fed itself: poverty bred more dependence, which bred more loyalty.

And so, a movement that once feared secular politics became one of its most skilled manipulators. Its moral language masked a cynical machine. “Daas Torah” — the supposed divine authority of rabbis over all matters — was weaponized to silence dissent and perpetuate control.

Meanwhile, the Rambam’s ancient words — “Anyone who decides to study Torah and not work, and supports himself from charity, desecrates God’s name” — were quietly erased from the curriculum.

In America, Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz’s Torah Vodaath sent out a different message. He encouraged his students to engage the world, to teach, to lead, to work. He famously said: “The Torah must live in America — not hide in America.”

But his philosophy lost the postwar struggle. By the late 1960s, the myth of the “full-time learner” became the new gold standard of Jewish virtue. A young man who entered business or education was considered lesser. The kollelnik became the symbol of piety — even as his wife struggled to feed the children and his community depended on the charity of others.

The fraud was spiritualized: “You work for money,” the kollelnik was told, “but I work for Heaven.” It was a seductive lie — because it cloaked laziness in holiness, irresponsibility in sacrifice.

The true Torah ideal, as Rabbi Mendlowitz and the Rambam understood, was to live in the world and sanctify it. The Torah was not meant to be the privilege of the idle but the compass of the active.

Today, in 2025, Israel pays the price of this seventy-year-old deception. Nearly half of Israel’s Haredi men do not participate in the workforce. Entire neighborhoods thrive on government stipends and foreign donations. Military service exemptions are defended as divine law.

And yet, when war comes — as it did on October 7 — it is not the yeshiva world that runs toward the fire. It is the sons of secular kibbutzim, Modern Orthodox families, and immigrants from Ethiopia and Ukraine who fill the ranks. The Torah world hides behind the soldiers it despises.

This is not faith. This is fraud.

A Torah that forbids its followers from defending their people is a Torah that has been hijacked. A Torah that turns charity into lifetime welfare is not Torah lishmah — it is Torah le-hafsidah, a Torah that corrodes from within.

And the spiritual cost is even greater. Generations of young men grow up believing that work is shameful, that reality is impure, and that holiness lies in detachment. The Torah becomes not a light to the nations but a dark room to hide in.

It does not have to be this way. The Torah world can still be redeemed — but only by returning to its authentic roots. The path forward is not rebellion but restoration.

Restore the balance between Torah and derech eretz — learning and labor — as Hillel, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, and the Rambam all lived. Restore the honor of the Jewish worker, soldier, and builder — as Yehoshua, David, and Nechemiah all embodied. Restore the vision of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, who believed that Torah should sanctify the world, not escape it.

"Kollel should be a meritocracy — a place for the few who are truly destined for scholarship, not a refuge for the unwilling. Torah learning should inspire men to serve, to build, to defend, to uplift." Rabbi Mendlowitz declared. Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetzky agreed.  

The Torah that once built nations has been reduced to a subsidy. The Torah that gave us courage has been turned into a comfort blanket. It’s time to tear off the blanket and reclaim the sword.

The idea that every Jewish man must sit in yeshiva indefinitely is not holiness — it is heresy against the Torah’s purpose. It betrays the essence of what it means to be Jewish: to act, to serve, to create, to take responsibility.

Seventy years of moral decline began with a simple deal — a “status quo” that turned exception into entitlement. Ben-Gurion gave the Chazon Ish 400 exemptions. We now live with 400,000. That is not continuity — that is collapse.

The time has come to end the fraud — not by abandoning Torah, but by rescuing it. Torah must once again be the soul of a living nation, not the slogan of a parasitic sect.

 

 REPUBLISHED

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/full-time-torah-study-for-all-the-greatest-orthodox-jewish-fraud-running-steady/