What The Yeshivas, Agudath Israel, BMG - Lakewood Yeshiva...Can Learn From The Donald Sterling Saga...

Personally, I do not care what Sterling said to his girlfriend in private; the man is a lowlife in the worst order! His actions  ----  being a miserable philanderer his entire life and having the prostitutes on his arm at the Clippers games for all to see, to me, are worse than what came out of his filthy mouth in the confines of his home.

Yet, Yeshiva Gedolah had no problem putting his name on their building and taking his filthy money!

Even the NAACP - yes, that pathetic reverse racist organization, will stop honoring him for now!

BMG, the Agudath Israel and numerous other organizations --- know --- that the entire NBA --- you know the guys that get paid million$ to throw a ball in a hole - were on the verge of NOT playing ball until Sterling was removed from their organization!

Jews are just not that smart!

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/04/28/clippers-owner-donald-sterling-has-long-history-of-trouble/

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Donald Sterling has been known to heckle his own team from the center-court seat where he has sat for decades, whether with his now-estranged wife or women young enough to be his granddaughters.

Sterling has faced extensive federal charges of civil rights violations and racial discrimination in business, making shocking race-related statements in sworn testimony before reaching multimillion-dollar settlements. He has also been sued for sexual harassment by former employees, and the court proceedings detailed an outlandish list of Sterling’s personal proclivities.

Cui Bono? - "Who Benefits From This?"

Attorneys use the above Latin phrase often - not as often though as evolutionary biologists. I trained myself to think in these terms - when I do, I am always able to shine a light on the essential causes of why people do what they do.

Men (humans) are extremely selfish animals. One just needs to view their surroundings, and we will see people keeping busy with their own needs, primarily. The failure to realize what's good for us is also good for our neighbor (and the converse), is exactly what is destroying our civilization.

So when we clean our yard - and we dump the trash over the fence - our yard is clean - but the trash is still there and toxic. When we send our children off to school in the morning; if there's dangerous bacteria in the school dining room, or there's a teacher, a principal, or any school employee that is emotionally ill with a mental health infirmity, it is only a matter of time when your child could be debilitated by an illness or damaged emotionally by a person who is so sick that they are unable to control their deviant proclivities.

Stephen Jay Gould, the famed paleontologist, in his work - "Rock Of Ages", went through great lengths to reconcile science and religion, with his theory of "Non-Overlapping Magisteria". He claimed that science explained the natural world, while religion spoke for morality. His students actually pointed out that religion was redefined as a moral philosophy.

An overwhelming number of scientists and philosophers called this intellectual rubbish, and were shocked that a man of such brilliance could actually delude himself by claiming that morality was something that only religion could articulate.

Nothing could be a bigger falsehood! When we put religion under the microscope - all religions - we discover that humankind is being destroyed in the name of religious morality. Cui Bono? Who benefits from religion today? Not the masses of people or the plain-folk! It is the leadership and the leadership only.

There is no greater corrupt body of people in the history of mankind than the "religious" leaders!

Who benefits?

1 - When your children are kept ignorant and discouraged from getting an education that would permit them to develop their intellect and have the ability to discern right and wrong, truth from lie - other than what their religious leaders are telling them?

2 - When the leadership themselves are ignorant, evil and deceitful charlatans?

3 - When the so-called leadership, line their coffers with your money - while they amass fortunes in real estate for themselves and their families - while you can barely survive paying your monthly expenses?

4 - When the Agudath Israel allies themselves with the Catholics to keep law enforcement out of the religious schools while our children are endangered by sexual predators, whilst the teachers, principals and the schools' finances are not held accountable to anyone!

5 - When poverty is encouraged for the masses - by encouraging your children to rely on God and miracles for a living!

Every rabbi sitting on the Moetzes Gedolei Torah is directly responsible for protecting and enabling child rapists and child abusers!

And there are scores of people that choose to remain anonymous, that accuse them and tens of other rabbis for knowing about other rabbi-rapists, and have done nothing!

Is this the moral philosophy that religion is suppose to have given us? When the Agudath Israel's allies, the Catholics, knowingly let millions of Africans die rather than educate them on sexual disease prevention - is this the morality of religion?

The children, the helpless, the poor, the ill, the weak --- are not these the people that religious morality dictates that we do everything possible to prevent them from a tortured existence? And yet, these religious leaders are the most responsible for the hell on earth that they visit on their flock, with total impunity! No police --- No IRS audits - No taxes ---- NOTHING!

What morality does religion exactly provide us with?

Yisroel Belsky will not perform a bris unless he performs metziza b'peh; yet he had no problem letting any child's bris kodesh be fondled and violated by Kolko, and only God knows how many others over his fifty plus year history in supervising children - In Camp Agudah, Pirchei Agudath Israel, Camp Torah Vodaath and Yeshiva Torah Vodaath. We're going to be extra cautious on the halacha - are we now? Did anybody notice that he was not on the list with the twenty five other whiskered cows visiting Postville the other week. He's even too corrupt for the OU to roll him out in public anymore!

This it what it's come down to - We've let every single outside decadent influence into our homes and souls - we don't have any idea what morality looks like any more.

Why The Yarmulke?

יאַרמולקע, from the Aramaic meaning "fear of the King" (i.e. God)) --- According to some authorities, however, it has since taken on the force of law because it is an act of Kiddush Hashem (lit. "sanctification of the Name", referring to actions which bring honor to God).  Kitzur Shulchan Aruch cites a story from the Talmud (Shabbat 156b) about Rav Nachman bar Yitzchok who might have become a thief had his mother not saved him from this fate by insisting that he cover his head, which instilled in him the fear of God.

 

                     

READ ARTICLE:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/nyregion/rapfogel-pleads-guilty-in-scheme-to-loot-new-york-charity.html?hpw&rref=nyregion

Standing On The Shoulders Of A Giant!

Among Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz's ztvk"l last wishes, was that his son in-law, Rabbi Alexander Linchner, go to Israel and "rateve der Sefardishe kinder" - save the Sephardic children! This, from a humble Jew from Europe, whose sheer breadth of human compassion was beyond imagination, and concern for the well being of children was a paramount concern to him. Even as he lay on his deathbed.

He was the human Hubble telescope - he saw universes and galaxies beyond what anyone else was able to see or fathom.

Yes, the children were his primary concern -- because it is they that would carry the Jewish people forward until the coming of Moshiach. A well-educated, emotionally healthy child, imbued with the appropriate set of values, Torah values, would keep Yiddishkeit's light burning throughout the planet! The torch or "shraga" would light Torah fires in every nook and cranny on the planet Earth.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein said about RSFM -- "every single student in a yeshiva in America, now and forever, is a talmid of RSFM"! He loved Jews and Judaism with a passion unmatched in recent history. He fought off his detractors - the naysayers that scoffed at him and his concept of the new American Jew. He could care less what the masses thought about his concept of Torah (Im Derech Eretz) education in America. He battled the kannoim - the crazies. He declared war against self-inflicted poverty of the mind. Many of his dearest talmidim were encouraged to seek a parnassa outside the walls of the yeshiva. He battled Rabbi Aron Kotler on "high school" education in yeshivas. It is not for naught dear Zeide. The American Yid will survive, although this generation has lost its way.

"Your children" were trampled on, your values were spat upon, your way of dress has been soiled by gangsters, your pure Yiddish language has been twisted into vulgarities, your yeshiva kinderlach were sexually and emotionally raped by animals posing as rabbis, your battle for the sanctity of kashrus has been turned into a -- big illicit profit crooked gesheft, your Bais Yaakov girls were violated by beasts posing as rabbis, teachers and principals.

There is still a fire in a few Jews that will never give up, never! We will battle your battle until our last breath, as you did! We will turn the world upside down -- until your values return to the nation of Israel.

Your values will return to the Jewish people, I promise! Beseech God on behalf of your kinderlach dear Zeide - we need your intervention with the Ribbono Shel Olam -- we must prevail, we must not fail!

RABBIS.....

The UOJ Archives

by Rabbi Immanuel Jakobowits

(Sent in by a reader-Tradition. Deserving of its own post.)

By the encouraging response from many readers to our observations under this heading in our last issue, we venture now to expand on this theme and to offer some constructive solutions to the problems posed. The principal criticisms leveled at the existing tendencies in the preceding review may be summarized by the following five points:

1. The denigration and usurpation of the role of practicing rabbis by yeshivah deans had virtually eliminated the traditional place and functions of the rabbinate in the spiritual government of the religious community, resulting in the disappearance of the public Torah image in the community at large.

2. The transfer of rabbinic jurisdiction from communal rabbis to academic scholars confined to yeshivot had severely limited the scope of contemporary Halakhah and caused substantial deviations from the traditional pattern in the methods used to determine Jewish law.

3. These unprecedented developments had led to the displacement by yeshivot of kehillot as the institutional center of gravity in Jewish religious life.

4. The yeshivot's discouragement of rabbinical careers was directly responsible for the spread of mediocrity in the rabbinate and the growing scarcity of candidates forleading rabbinical positions.

5. Yeshivot, by tending to stifle rather than to promote a sense of commitment to the wider community, had been equally unsuccessful in raising a community-minded laity, so that public Jewish life became increasingly drained of rabbinical and lay leaders alike.

To reverse these baneful trends will require much courage and vision. But the foremost requisite is a willingness by all concerned to engage in a dispassionate debate, to tolerate genuine criticism and dissent, and to sweep away the cobwebs of conformity and stereotyped thinking to make room for honest search and bold correctives.

The following observations and suggestions on the above five points are offered in this spirit:

1. The answer to the first challenge is obviously the restoration of rabbinic authority. "Jephtah in his generation is [vested with as much authority] as Samuel in his generation, to teach you that even the most unworthy person, once he is appointed w a leader over a community, is like the mightiest of the mighty" (Rosh Hashanah 25b). Rabbinical authority, our Sages averred, derives from communal appointment, not from mere wisdom or learning. As expressed so forcefully in the incident on fixing the date of Yom Kippur (Rosh Hashanah, 2:9), a Rabbi Joshua, however superior his scholarship, must submit to the rulings and decrees of a Rabbi Gamaliel as the practicing office-holder. There can be no substitute for, or challenge to, an official and legitimate incumbent of a rabbinical post.

A part of the problem may lie in the current use and abuse of the rabbinical title.

Semikhah (rabbinical ordination) is traditionally the conferment of power and responsibility to exercise rabbinical jurisdiction, as emphasized in its wording yoreh yoreh-"he shall surely give rulings." It is the passport to an office, not some honorific title or degree. It is a charge to practice rabbinics, a "crown" of sovereignty that confers obligations as well as rights, as the wording of the document implies.

It is definitely not just a certificate of academic proficiency.

"Any scholar who has attained hora'ah (or semikhah) and does not exercise it withholds Torah and causes the public to stumble; regarding him it is written: 'A mighty host are all her slain' (Prov. 7:26)" (Yoreh De'ah, 242:14), just as a qualified physician who does not practice medicine is deemed guilty of bloodshed (ib., 336:1).Semikhah ought to be awarded only to candidates for the active rabbinate and not as a kind of higher yeshivah graduation diploma, and the use of the rabbinical title should be limited to practicing rabbis. It was never meant as an incentive to Talmudical studies. "A man should not say, I will study so that people will call me 'Rabbi' " (Nedarim 62a). If any such incentives or rewards are really needed, let us reintroduce the time-honored titles of "Morenu" and "He-chaser" as a mark of distinction for scholarship and piety. Let outstanding masters be known by the affectionate "Reb" or the more eminent "Hagaon."

Even many Talmudical savants were content to forego any rabbinical appellation, men like Hillel and Shamai, or Abaye, Rava and Samuel, amongst numerous others!

Businessmen, accountants, or insurance agents using the title of rabbi without exercising it can hardly contribute to the public respect for the rabbinate, especially in our confused society.

Historically and halakhically, a rabbi is an administrator of Jewish law, a spiritual guide and a communal leader. Yeshivot, as the custodians of Torah education, should be the first to acknowledge the function of rabbis in this capacity, and not merely as expedient fund-raising agents, if the Torah image and authority are to be restored in Jewish life.

2. The effectiveness of rabbinical authority today largely depends on public endorsement. For the first time in our history Judaism must be vindicated in a democratic age. Gone are the days when any ex cathedra pronouncement or dogmatic ruling by a rabbi would automatically command popular respect by virtue of his learning or standing.

In the administration of Jewish law, justice must not only be done, but be manifestly seen to be done; as far as is possible, the logic of halakhic decisions must be demonstrated before the bar of public opinion to win acceptance.

To translate this essential ideal into practice, three elements are required: (a) relevance, (b) sweet reasonableness, and (c) a measure of tolerance.

(a) Halakhah must be, and appear to be, a guide to human progress, not a brake on it. All too often rabbinic judgments deal with religious problems in the light of modern conditions, not with modern problems in the light of religious conditions. Vast segments of our people are alienated from Torah life because they believe that Halakhah creates problems instead of solving them.

This is bound to result from the emphasis in rabbinic rulings on subjects of little relevance to the average modern Jew rather than on the great moral, social, and intellectual challenges troubling our age. To make Judaism meaningful and true to its primary purpose, halakhic guides must address themselves increasingly to defining the contribution of Jewish thought and teachings to such areas of current concern as birth-control, juvenile delinquency, the use of leisure, the economics of automation, Jewish-Christian relations, and the place of religion in public life. Halakhah cannot become a popular guide to life unless it embraces all life.

(b) In making halakhic decisions, the reasons given are as important as the conclusions. Even Moses was charged "to trouble himself in making everyone comprehend the reasons" for his teachings (Rashi, Ex. 21:1), and the Shulchan Arukh forbids rabbis to issue permissive rulings "which astound the public" because they are unintelligible (Yoreh De'ah, 242:10). Today more than ever before, rabbis must interpret or explain as well as adjudicate the law if they are to enjoy the fealty of the public.

They must serve both as priests "to teach God's judgments to Jacob and His Torah to Israel" (Deut. 33:10) and as heirs to the Prophets (B. Batra 12a) in presenting the moral and universal aspirations of Jewish existence.(c) The third requisite, tolerance, is equally indispensable for the restoration of rabbinical authority. Differences of opinion are the dynamics of Jewish learning and practice. They have always fertilized the very soil of the Torah "tree of life." The cause of Torah Judaism is hindered rather than helped by the present tendency towards ever more rigid uniformity, turning stringency into a fetish and branding all dissent as heresy. The violent agitation against Rabbi Mosheh Feinstein's ruling on artificial insemination and against the Manhattan Eruv, though both based on unimpeachable authorities, are cases in point drawn from recent experience in New York.The absence of all these three desiderata is inherent in the exercise of rabbinical jurisdiction by yeshivah deans who are remote from the concerns of contemporary society, shielded from the pressures of public opinion, and conditioned by the unquestioning loyalty of their yeshivah students. Practicing rabbis, on the other hand, are necessarily exposed to the broader challenges of real life, required to win consent as well as obedience, and compelled to explore legitimate concessions or to tolerate dissent.

3. Rabbinical offices cannot be filled with incumbents, adequate in quality and in quantity, without training them.

A lamdan (Talmudical scholar), however learned, is not necessarily a rabbi and may be a far cry from it. 

To meet the exacting and manifold tasks of rabbinic leadership, especially in our trying times, numerous skills are required in addition to scholarship. The spiritual leadership of a congregation calls for a high degree of proficiency in the presentation of Jewish thought, in the exploitation of public and personal relations for religious ends, in the impressive conduct of religious services and functions, in communal vision and diplomacy, in educational expertise, in some literary finesse, and above all in competently grappling with the intellectual challenges of our age. The exercise of purely rabbinical jurisdiction as a moreh hora'ah (an administrator of Halakhah), too, requires far more than mere competence in a few Talmudic tractates and some one hundred chapters of Yoreh De'ah dealing with ritual slaughter and kashrut, as presently constituting the semikhah program. To pass halakhic judgments a rabbi must be at home in all parts of the Shulchan Arukh, especially the Orach Chayyim and Even Ha-Ezer, familiar with the responsa literature and its methods, and proficient in the shikkul ha-da'at (weighing of opinions) indispensable for all rabbinic rulings. These skills can be acquired only by years of training and experience (shimmush), and through the constant consultation of writings and masters reflecting this experience.

The requirements for rabbinic ordination, therefore, should be amended to include this training, both in theory and in practice. To authorize rabbis to practice rabbinics and to guide congregations by virtue of their Talmudic learning only is as irresponsible as to qualify physicians to treat patients and to administer hospitals merely on the basis of some academic studies in the principles of medical science and without any clinical or hospital experience. Yeshivot devoted to theoretical studies in Talmud and parts of Yoreh De'ah can no more turn out competent rabbis without the help of rabbinical seminaries than medical schools and textbooks can produce qualified doctors without hospitals.The rabbinate today demands highly specialized professional skills to be an effective agency of spiritual leadership and halakhic jurisdiction. To ensure an adequate supply of high calibre rabbis professional schools are no less essential than for the training of any other professionals. The yeshivot can continue to ignore this need only at the cost of letting countless more spiritual "patients" die for lack of competent healers.

The appalling toll of defections from Judaism, of religious casualties, will hardly abate unless rabbinical functions are restored to rabbis equipped to respond to the questions and questionings of our times-men able not only "to learn and to teach" but also "to guard and to act."

4. Yeshivot are meant to make Jews, kehillot (congregations) to preserve them; the former prepare for Jewish life, the latter act it out. When Moses communicated the main principles of Jewish living to the Children of Israel, he assembled them in "congregations," not in yeshivot (Ex. 35:1; Lev. 19:2, and Rashi). For countless centuries congregations led by rabbis have always been the backbone of organized Jewish life. Under their umbrella all other facets of communal activity grew up and operated: education, rabbinical courts (batei din), mikvaot and welfare services. Today, with the disappearance of kehillot as the principal bulwark of Jewish life and their replacement by yeshivot, many of these communal amenities are largely either non-existent (such as communal batei din), or in unreliable private hands (such as kashrut and shechitah), or under non-religious control (such as the social services of the federations, etc.), and the religious community is fragmented and impotent in guiding the destinies of our people.This situation will not be ameliorated until the yeshivot orientate their students towards a sense of communal responsibility, as expressed, in the first instance, by active membership in established congregations.

So long as our most valuable human resources are absorbed and nullified by communally ineffective shtibels, which neither demand nor offer any contributions to the wider community, the most vital potential for building up the organism of Jewish religious life is frittered away, and the congregations that do exist are religiously emaciated for want of members who are intensely committed and exemplary in their learning and conduct.

The allegedly low standards of observance and religious fervor in larger synagogues are no excuse for defying Hillel's maxim, "Do not separate yourself from the congregation" and for surrendering our public institutions to the rule of ignorance and apathy. On the contrary, "where there are no men, you endeavor to be the man!"

The decline of our congregations calls for mobilizing the support of our yeshivot, not for their withdrawal and indifference. The dearth of Torah-committed members in our major Orthodox synagogues does not excuse the yeshivot - it indicts them.

5. The Torah tradition, as "a tree of life to them that strengthen it," has always given equal recognition to the scholar and to the supporter of scholarship, to Issachar and to Zevulun who shared the rewards and the responsibilities for Jewish learning in identical parts. Hence, it was considered no less important to raise Zevuluns, dedicated to the support of Torah learning and living, than to produce Issachars, devoted to the mastery of Torah studies.Today this essential balance in Jewish life is being dangerously upset. The yeshivot, by their monolithic program aiming at the accomplished lamdan as their sole ideal, seek to fulfill one requirement whilst ignoring the other. As the main custodians of public Jewish education, yeshivot will have to be more diversified in their curriculum and objectives to meet all our needs. The graduation of a potential Zevulun-a successful and devout businessman or professional -should be as urgent and precious a task as raising a profoundly learned Issachar.

To this end, yeshivot (at least the larger ones) should have a dual program of Jewish studies: one, stressing intensive learning designed to train competent scholars, rabbis and teachers, and the other, with an academically more limited scope, aimed at producing dedicated and knowledgeable ba'alei battim, distinguished by their piety and public-spiritedness rather than their scholarship.

These latter products will eventually swell the ranks of an enlightened and loyal laity from which our lay leaders and Torah supporters are recruited. Not every yeshivah student is fit or willing to be fashioned into a lamdan. By focusing the entire educational system on the few who are intellectually and otherwise endowed for Talmudic excellence, the yeshivot neglect all others and they are often lost to traditional Judaism later in life. With proper modifications in yeshivah policies, aims and methods, this large group could be turned into an element no less vital for the preservation of the Torah community than the most erudite scholars.

It is to this group of deeply committed "plebeians," at present completely ignored in the yeshivah "world," that we must look for providing our scholars with followers and financial support and for replenishing the thinning ranks of our lay leaders and communal workers.

Without Zevuluns, Issachars will eventually disappear, too, and it is up to the institutions of Jewish education to raise the former as well as the latter if creative Jewish living is to be perpetuated, and if the Jewish people is to recover its national purpose.

Yisroel Belsky Pesach Special - Buy One Hazmana For Loshon Hara - Get One Free!

Excerpted from The Jewish Fress Pesach Edition:


JF: Rabbi Belsky, what do you make of the D.A. now going after pigs/pedophiles in yeshivas?

Belsky: Boruch Hashem you asked.

Mendel Epstein and I have been scratching our seder plate beitzim about this - the only solution is purchasing a loshon hara hazmana from us. Mendel came up with the concept of "buy one get one free" - cash only no checks - if not, he gonna breaka you face and you gonna swim with der fishes. 

Boruch Hashem you asked!

Click on sample hazmana to enlarge:

"When We Resolved To Take Communal Affairs Into Our Hands, We Discovered A Serious Evil In The Midst Of Our Community!"

A Rabbinical Decree (g'zeirah) to the Jewish community in Cairo in the year 1167, believed to have been written by Maimonides, anonymously, as his first act as a Jewish leader.

"In times gone by, when storms and tempests threatened us, we used to wander about from place to place; but by the mercy of the Almighty we have now been enabled to find here a resting place. On our arrival, we noticed to our great dismay that the learned were disunited; that none of them turned his attention to the needs of the congregation.

We therefore felt it our duty to undertake the the task of guiding the holy flock, of inquiring into the condition of the community, of "reconciling the hearts of the fathers to their children," and of correcting their corrupt ways.

The injuries are great, but we may succeed in effecting a cure, and - in accordance with the words of the prophet - "I will seek the lost one, and that which has been cast out I will bring back, and the broken one I will cure" (Michah iv, 6).

When we therefore resolved to take management of the communal affairs into our hands, we discovered the existence of serious evil in the midst of the community, etc...."

Chag Sameach - חג שמח

Talk Yiddish To Me

"What better way to counter Israel's most recent attempts to eradicate Torah study than to celebrate its miraculous continuity with a gadol b'Yisrael?"

This Is What Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Pornography Looks Like!

It's Monday, the day after the Atzeres Hatefillah in Yerushalayim, and I am on my way back from Tzefas when my cell phone rings. Reb Shmuel Karelitz, Rav Nissim Karelitz's son, is on the phone. "Now is a good time to come to Bnei Brak," he says. "Rav Chaim will see you to talk about the kollel." I was elated.

Kollel Chazon Ish is one of the most esteemed Torah institutions in the world, and Rav Chaim Kanievsky is one of the world's greatest Torah authorities. So my elation doesn't require any explanation. What better way to counter Israel's most recent attempts to eradicate Torah study than to celebrate its miraculous continuity with a gadol b'Yisrael?

Bnei Brak is a rather difficult place to navigate by car. Small boys and girls tend to dash across the street without bothering to check if any cars are in close proximity, and the other drivers are equally oblivious to your presence. When we arrive safely at Rechov Rashbam, I am more than a little relieved. 

The kollel is housed in an imposing dun-colored building several stories high. Maariv is starting in the large beis midrash on the upper floor and I join the mispallelim. After davening Reb Shmuel Karelitz introduces me to Rav Binyamin Shikovitzky, one of the kollel's roshei chaburah. Rav Binyamin joined the kollel after he got married; he is now in his seventies but as fresh and motivated as if he had just arrived. We find a place in the office where we can all sit down comfortably...

You Want Crazy - Here's Crazy! - Hitchens Got This One Right!

Slate Magazine
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, Aug. 29, 2005

I can never read the name "Michael Bloomberg" without an automatic free-association that flashes up in my mind. "Little putz," is what my internal prompter always cues to me. Obviously this and other intuitions must be prompted by whatever grand intelligence originally designed me, because here's what I read on page B5 of the New York Times on Friday, Aug. 26:

"Circumcision ritual practiced by some Orthodox Jews has alarmed city health officials, who say it may have led to three cases of herpes—one of them fatal—in infants. … The practice is known as oral suction, or in Hebrew, metzitzah b'peh: after removing the foreskin of the penis, the practitioner, or mohel, sucks the blood from the wound to clean it".

Last week, Emily Bazelon launched Slate's circumcision research project, a "study of men who have experienced sex as both circumcised and uncircumcised." The continuing scandal of this practice, which most Jews abandoned many years ago, is newly illustrated by the death of one little boy from type-1 herpes, and the infection of two others, in Staten Island and Brooklyn, after they had been subjected to this ritual by the same mohel. Let's be clear what's involved here. The Times refers to an article published last year in the journal Pediatrics that argued that metzitzah b'peh carries a serious health risk and is, for that reason alone, a violation of Jewish law. ("We suspect … that this entity is underreported for cultural reasons and that the studies described here are only the "tip of the iceberg" of the true incidence of the disease," the authors note). None of this should be hard to comprehend: If it risks the life or health of an infant, then no religious allegiance is or should be required for its condemnation. Q.E.D., as you might say.

What's Bloomberg got to do with this, you may be impatient to know by now. Well, the mayor of the great city where these children were deliberately exposed to infection and death has had a meeting with the Orthodox authorities who like to see this happening to small putzes, and he has expressed himself thus, on his own radio show, again as per the Times:

We're going to do a study, and make sure that everyone is safe and at the same time, it is not the government's business to tell people how to practice their religion.

Study? What study? Can't the fool get through an article by a Jewish authority in Pediatrics? For the Times reporter to add that Mayor Bloomberg's comment appeared to be designed not to "upset a group that can be a formidable voting bloc" was, in the circumstances, worse than superfluous.

Where to start with this? I could wish that Bloomberg were always so careful about keeping out of other peoples' business: He has made it legally impossible to have a cigarette and a cocktail at the same time, anywhere in the city. But I'll trade him his stupid prohibitionist ban if he states clearly that it is the government's business to protect children from religious fanatics. Female genital mutilation, for example, is quite rightly banned under federal law, and no religious exemption is, or ever should be, permitted. The Mormons were obliged to give up polygamy and forcible marriage before they, or the state of Utah, could be part of the United States. A Christian Scientist who denies urgent medical treatment to his or her children may well be hauled up for reckless endangerment, as may those whose churches teach redemption through violent corporal punishment. The First Amendment does indeed forbid any infringement of religious freedom, but it is not, as was once said, part of a suicide pact, let alone a child-abuse one.

Let's by all means hear from Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organization in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who emerged from his meeting with Bloomberg to inform us that: "The Orthodox Jewish community will continue the practice that has been practiced for over 5,000 years. We do not change. And we will not change." You can preach it, rabbi, but you have no more right to practice it than a Muslim imam who preaches the duty of holy war has the right to put his teachings into effect. And Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, the 57-year-old man who ministered to the three boys in question, is currently under a court order that forbids him from doing it again—pending an investigation by the health department. What "investigation?" If another man of that age were found to be slicing the foreskins of little boys and then sucking their penises and their blood, he would be in jail—one hopes—so fast that his feet wouldn't touch the ground. If he then told the court that God ordered him to do it, he would be offering precisely the defense that thousands of psychos have already made so familiar. Preach it rabbi. Preach it to the judge.

A few years ago I traveled to Calcutta with the brilliant photographer Sebastião Salgado, who has made the eradication of polio his signature cause. In 2001, there was a real chance that this childhood-wrecking and frequently lethal malady could go the way of smallpox. Only a few outposts, usually in very bad war zones like Afghanistan, had not been reported as "clear." (The two sides in the civil war in El Salvador observed a truce so that the vaccine could be safely distributed.) But some mullahs in Bengal spread the rumor that the vaccine led to impotence and diarrhea (a bad combo) and urged mothers to keep their children away from the nurses and physicians. Most Bengalis are too smart to listen to ravings like these, which exactly resemble the view of Dr. Timothy Dwight, one of America's founding divines, that vaccination against smallpox was an interference with the divine design. However, in northern Nigeria, where imams now hold state power in many provinces, the polio vaccine has been denounced as a plot "by the US and the UN [!]" to "sterilize Muslims." In consequence of this fatwa, the disease has returned to Nigeria this year and also spread back to several African countries that thought they had bidden farewell to it. Decades of patient and skillful work have been ruined, along with the lives of uncounted children.

Jewish babies exposed to herpes in New York, thousands of American children injured for life after the rape and torture they suffered at the hands of a compliant Catholic priesthood, prelates and mullahs outbidding each other in denial of AIDS … it's not just your mental health that is challenged by faith. Anyone who says that this evil deserves legal protection is exactly as guilty as the filthy old men who delight in inflicting it. What a pity that there is no hell.

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ!

The following is a copy of an article written by Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar Rodriguez and published in a Spanish newspaper on Jan. 15, 2008. It doesn't take much imagination to extrapolate the message to the rest of Europe - and possibly to the rest of the world. REMEMBER AS YOU READ -- IT WAS IN A SPANISH PAPER.


ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ
By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz. We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.

The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.

And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.

They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime.

Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.

And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition.

We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe ...

*

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000; that is ONE BILLION TWO HUNDRED MILLION or 20% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1990 - Elias James Corey
1994 - Yaser Arafat:
1999 - Ahmed Zewai

Economics:
(zero)

Physics: (zero)

Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

TOTAL: 7 SEVEN

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000; that is FOURTEEN MILLION or about 0.02% of the world's population. They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloch
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charles Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jacob
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis
1996- Lu RoseIacovino

TOTAL: 129! (The updated list boasts 181 Jews.)

% Jewish

100% CA Senators 1996 17% Nobel Physiology and Medicine
85% College age Jews in college 16% Time Most Important 25
76% Most influential intellectuals
(Alan Dershowitz) 15% MacArthur "Genius" Awards 1981-97
60% Yale Grad students 15% Time 20 20th Century Inventors
60% Top Hollywood positions
(60 min) 15% USA Today College Academic Team
40% Lawyers at best NY and DC law firms 14% Clinton Cabinet 1997
20-30% Westinghouse Science Prize 11% Nobel Physics Prize
30% Faculty at elite colleges 10% Pulitzer 1997
30% Supreme Court Law Clerks 10% US Senate
27% Ivy League Survey 10% US college faculty
26% US Law Professors
(Volokh UCLA) 7.7% Corporate Boards
25% ACM Turing Award 7% Forbes HiTech 100 1997
23% Wealthiest Americans 3.0% US Voters 1996
23% Top 100 wealthy Canadians 2.0% US Population
17% Boston Symphony Strings 0.25% World Population

The Jews are NOT promoting brainwashing children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims. The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics, or blow themselves up in German restaurants. There is NOT one single Jew who has destroyed a church.

The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Muslims must ask 'what can they do for humankind' before they demand that humankind respects them.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel's part, the following two sentences really say it all:

'If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel ." Benjamin Netanyahu

General Eisenhower warned us. It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect:

'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened'

Recently, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. In memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated' while the German people looked the other way.

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center 'NEVER HAPPENED' because it offends some Muslim in the United States?

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!

UOJ

Turning the Myth Called "Da'as Torah" on its Head Once and For All!

"...In fact not a single Agudah attendee could forsee that their families and communities would be reduced in the near future to freakish exhibits of mountains of hair, gold teeth, eyeglasses, and shoes..."

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE:

A MUST READ IN ITS ENTIRETY - CLICK ON LINK BELOW

http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%209%20Bobker.pdf

The Line & Lie That Gave Belsky Away --- "and by my friends who love me very much."

Yisroel Belsky On Central Avenue Reading His Letter To Local Shoppers

B”H [Baruch Hashem]

Rabbi Y Belsky
506 East 7th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11218
941-0112

To my friend the Honorable Rav [name was omitted in the letter]

My heart pounded when I read your letter, as the Chazal already said a long time ago in connection to a similar situation, “Why are you placing my head between two huge mountains etc., I fear that you want my head.”

Particularly after I heard this awful news about rumors circulating amongst Jewish areas and neighborhoods, rumors spread no less by my beloved friends and by my friends who love me very much.

But what should I do? Rav Dovid Weinberger is also counted among my friends and advisors!

I saw they had already decided and concluded his guilt without giving him the opportunity to defend himself. What are we to do with the laws of the Torah that state that it is forbidden to listen to an accuser without the defendant being present? They threw him to the wild beasts like a rotting carcass without hearing his side. They placed his case in front of men and women disguised as expert doctors, without listening to his defenders, some of whom are experts in this field.

They made him into a sinner and isolated him from the tribes of Israel; they made him into a pariah, all without harking to his shouts as if all gates of mercy were shut.

Even when one is a blasphemer, the Torah states that one must investigate. How much more so, Reb Dovid, someone who has served his community selflessly for over 30 years and many benefited from him.

17th of Adar II, 5774 [March 18-19, 2014], Brooklyn, NY

Chaim Yisroel Halevi Belsky

What kind of a Nazi was the German philosopher Martin Heidegger?

“World Jewry,” he wrote in 1941, “is ungraspable everywhere and doesn’t need to get involved in military action while continuing to unfurl its influence, whereas we are left to sacrifice the best blood of the best of our people.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/books/heideggers-notebooks-renew-focus-on-anti-semitism.html?hpw&rref=arts

FIVE TOWNS RESIDENTS UNDERSTAND THE DANGER THAT IS YISROEL BELSKY!

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE

FIVE TOWNS RESIDENTS - DO NOT GIVE FINANCIAL SUPPORT TO A YESHIVA WHO WILLINGY KEEPS A DANGEROUS SOCIOPATH ON ITS STAFF! IGNORE THEIR FUNDRAISERS!

B”H [Baruch Hashem]

Rabbi Y Belsky
506 East 7th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11218
941-0112

To my friend the Honorable Rav [name was omitted in the letter]

My heart pounded when I read your letter, as the Chazal already said a long time ago in connection to a similar situation, “Why are you placing my head between two huge mountains etc., I fear that you want my head.”

Particularly after I heard this awful news about rumors circulating amongst Jewish areas and neighborhoods, rumors spread no less by my beloved friends and by my friends who love me very much.

But what should I do? Rav Dovid Weinberger is also counted among my friends and advisors!

I saw they had already decided and concluded his guilt without giving him the opportunity to defend himself. What are we to do with the laws of the Torah that state that it is forbidden to listen to an accuser without the defendant being present? They threw him to the wild beasts like a rotting carcass without hearing his side. They placed his case in front of men and women disguised as expert doctors, without listening to his defenders, some of whom are experts in this field.

They made him into a sinner and isolated him from the tribes of Israel; they made him into a pariah, all without harking to his shouts as if all gates of mercy were shut.

Even when one is a blasphemer, the Torah states that one must investigate. How much more so, Reb Dovid, someone who has served his community selflessly for over 30 years and many benefited from him.

17th of Adar II, 5774 [March 18-19, 2014], Brooklyn, NY

Chaim Yisroel Halevi Belsky

READ MORE:http://frumfollies.wordpress.com/2014/03/25/five-towns-angry-at-belsky-over-his-defense-of-disgraced-rabbi-weinberger/

Bereft of any shame or decency!

Jonathan Rosenblum in his own words:

..."He might be compared to Yasir Arafat, who told President Clinton at Camp David that signing a peace agreement would effectively seal his death warrant. That plea attested to Arafat's failure to educate his Palestinian supporters to the necessity of major concessions if they hoped to gain a state, including renunciation of the so-called "right of return." Instead he spent his time post-Oslo whipping the Palestinian population into a frenzy of hate -- much as Lapid has whipped up hatred of the chareidi population -- and was thus in no position to respond to Ehud Barak's dangerously generous offer of Palestinian statehood...."

What is wrong with all Jews participating in national defense?

Chareidim make a mistake in thinking that only the Lapid-led diehard seculars have a growing contempt for them. The dati-leumi community is also increasingly hostile, because they sense – to me, accurately – that the Chareidi community is causing hatred for Torah. It is impossible to explain to – take, for one example – my nephew, who learned in Hesder and completed his army service, why his Talmud Torah is somehow inferior to that of Chareidim. It is not. Perhaps his Talmud Torah is the same, but the Charedi world’s “Nosei b’ol im chaveiro” is completely absent. That deficiency in Ahavat Yisrael is glaring, noticed and the reason why the society at large no longer tolerates it.

It is unconscionable that there exists in the Chareidi world this idea that work and army service are beneath them, and that the rest of society which they hold in contempt must work and pay higher taxes in order to support them in order that they should sit and learn. I too would love to sit and learn, and have someone support me, but that is not the system that Hashem set up. Odd, indeed, that the Rambam’s clear statement (Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:10-11) is ignored, if it is even taught. But when he speaks of “kavah me’or hadat,” that is exactly what has happened, and solely because the Chareidi world has not fully embraced the Torah. That construct of the Chareidi world as practiced today is unprecedented in Jewish history.

 The Chareidi lifestyle as currently constituted is unsustainable. Everyone knows it, even their gedolim know it – but many are afraid to speak the truth for fear of physical attacks or peer reproach. They are literally trapped in a different era, using the language of Czarist Russia, Antiochus and Purim to describe a government that is the biggest financial supporter of Torah in the world. That is not leadership. I fully endorse the notion of a Yissachar-Zevulun relationship for as long as the parties agree, but no Yissachar has the right to force someone else – the whole society? – to be a Zevulun. That is simply not part of the Torah system.

What is wrong with all Jews participating in national defense? Or, if for whatever reason Chareidim feel they cannot, what is wrong with even Chareidim doing national service – helping out in nursing homes, teaching Torah in deprived communities, even doing chesed work for a year or two? That is known as giving back to society. One can’t only take; one must give as well. Certainly, as Rav Dessler emphasized repeatedly, giving – not taking – is the essence of the righteous person. When I learned in Israel, I thought it quite natural to participate in the national defense. I didn’t necessarily enjoy – at the time – the loss of sleep because of overnight patrols, but I am happy I did it, and only benefited from it, even in terms of Talmud Torah. How can Zaka take time off from learning to pick up the pieces, r”l, after a terrorist attack? Why can’t the same people work to thwart the terrorist attack in the first place?

 Indeed, the army doesn’t really need Chareidi service as much as the Chareidim – for halachic and moral reasons – need it for themselves. But army service is mainly a portal into the work force, and that is key. The rate of employment in the Israeli Chareidi community is simply too low. The work force participation rate of adult males in Bnei Brak, Betar Illit, Kiryat Sefer, etc., is scandalous.

Perhaps that is the true “war on Torah,” because the impression given that one cannot be a Torah Jew and a Talmid Chacham – and work and support one’s family – is an outrageous canard. All the Tannaim and Amoraim worked for a living. The greatest of our people – Avraham, Moshe, Yehoshua, David, etc. – all went to war when necessary. The Torah exempts four classes of people from battle: the scholar is not one of the exemptions, for Jewish wars especially require the participation of Talmidei Chachamim.

I am inclined to agree with Rav Rakeffet of Yerushalayim: “someone who thinks that he will not be a Gaon if he serves for a short time in the military will not be a Gaon in any event.” But it is unconscionable to expect the rest of society to support a lifestyle that is alien to them, and frankly, alien to Torah. Why would a “secular” Jew be attracted to a “Torah” lifestyle that purports to demand estrangement from the general society, a cloistered abode, a rejection of general knowledge, an inability to function in the presence of women, a disdain for gainful employment and self-support, etc.? It doesn’t seem very attractive, except for one who wants to escape from the world.

I don’t believe that Chareidim should be imprisoned for refusal to serve, nor that it will ever happen.  But, I note half in jest, what if it did? One can learn Torah full-time anywhere, even in prison. In fact, prison is ideal. Rav Meir Kahane hy”d wrote a 500-page sefer while he was in prison.  Every Israeli prison has a fully-stocked Bet Midrash, there are regular minyanim, Magidei Shiurim come every day, the food is mehadrin, there are no women present, no distractions at all. There are regular furloughs for Yamim Tovim. The government can support them anywhere. It’s just a change in venue. I don’t underestimate the hardships of prison life, but the Israeli jail is not the Gulag to which Jews were sent for learning Torah.

That they don’t proudly embrace the consequences of defiance means there is another factor at work: as you write, there are people who perceive the actions of the government as “social engineering” designed to “prevent Chareidim from living Torah-true lives.” I don’t believe that, and the extent to which the Charedi world has alienated natural supporters and lovers of Torah should be worrisome to them. But anyone who does believe that should not insist that the government subsidize that lifestyle. I personally oppose incarceration or criminal penalties, but I also would grant no government benefits at all to people who refuse to perform any type of national service.

The Chareidi educational system is also in disarray; I do not see why the government should support any school system that does not educate its students in a way that will enable them to function in society. Is that really a “Torah-true” life? I think not.

One last point, which goes to the heart of this: I have never heard of a Chareidi shul where the tefila for Tzahal is recited. Forget the tefila for the medina – but why wouldn’t they say the tefila for Tzahal? I have asked this question many times to Chareidi acquaintances, and mostly been met with stunned silence and occasionally with a muffled “the Rebbe…the Rosh Yeshiva… has never told us to say it.” It is simply inexplicable, a lack of derech eretz, hakarat hatov, and common sense.

What a Kiddush Hashem it would be if the Charedi leadership announced today that, it still rejects conscription, but henceforth it will daven for Tzahal every week! That would go a long way to easing tensions, perhaps not with Yair Lapid and his cohorts but with the Dati-Leumi Torah community that you are rapidly losing.

I love all Torah Jews and I hate all distortions of Torah. The Chareidi Torah world has so much to offer, and I refuse to accept this prevailing notion that they need to treated like handicapped children with special needs, that they are unable to live and interact with normal people. I reject that. I will treat them like precious Jews but like adults: those who are poreish min hatzibur should not be shocked or disheartened when the tzibur is in turn poreish from them.  The Chareidi world, on some level, perceives itself as a self-contained community that can insulate itself from the greater society which it holds (at least in some aspects, understandably) in contempt. But then don’t be surprised when that same society – which feels the contempt – then decides it no longer wishes to subsidize or indulge that community.

READ ENTIRE EXCHANGE:
http://rabbipruzansky.com/2014/03/14/an-exchange/

This, they claim, is the Torah law and the will of God...

Dodging the Draft Because of God?!

Never in history have religious Jews hidden behind Torah study to evade defending Jewish lives.

 

By Rabbi Jeremy Gimpel

I am a platoon sergeant in the IDF. I am a religious Jew. I am a platoon sergeant in the IDF because I am a religious Jew.

Days ago, hundreds of thousands of religious Charedi Jews gathered in Jerusalem to protest the idea that they should be drafted into the army like every other Jewish citizen of Israel. A similar demonstration was held this week in New York. They didn’t call to renounce their Israeli citizenship or demand mass emigration. On the contrary, the same Charedi leadership who organized the protest continues to demand that the country they refuse to serve, service them and fund their institutions.

This, they claim, is the Torah law and the will of God.

To a secular mind, this position is ludicrous and unacceptable. To my religious mind, it’s immoral and profane.

It is nearly impossible to find a precedent in all of the Tanach, the Talmud or Jewish history that Jews did not go out to defend their country together. There is not one time where Jews were exempt from fighting alongside their brothers because they were learning Torah.

Joshua, the spiritual leader and commander of the first Jewish army in the land of Israel is commanded by God in the first chapter of his book that “the Torah shall not depart from your mouth day and night”. In the Chareidi paradigm, after hearing a direct command from God to learn Torah all day and all night, we should expect read about the houses of study he established and learn the spiritual wisdom the Torah scholars of that time revealed. Instead, we see that for the seven years (and 23 chapters), Joshua goes out to battle with all of his people.

Ironically, those passages in the first chapter in the book of Joshua are the primary textual source for the commandment to learn Torah. It is also interesting to note that the book of Joshua is written in the backdrop of another story. Segments of the nation of Israel considered settling down before the full conquest of the land. Moses sets a precedent – when some of Israel have to serve in the army, all of Israel have to serve in the army.

King David, the author of so many of our treasured prayers, also went out to battle. With a Torah scroll by his side at all times, he led his men in war and toward peace. The Maccabees were priests in the Holy Temple. Matityahu was the high priest and his son Judah a priest as well. But before they could serve their role in the Temple, both of them led the military revolt against the Greek empire in the days of Hanukah. Rabbi Akiva, the Torah giant of the Talmud, led his students to war under the leadership of Bar Kokhba against the Roman occupation in Israel.

Never in history have religious Jews hidden behind Torah study to evade defending Jewish lives.

For those who can’t find value in the Jewish State and therefor refuse to defend it (or even thank God for its existence on Yom Ha’atzmaut), a religious re-education is in order. There has never been more Torah study in the land of Israel in all of our history. More synagogues, mikvas (ritual baths), Yeshivas and seminaries have been built by the modern State of Israel than ever before.

In quantifiable numbers, the amount of people learning Jewish studies today in our modern State dwarfs anything that King David, King Solomon, Ezra, Nehemiah, the Hasmoneans and Rabbi Akiva ever produced.

Outside of Israel, the greatest Yeshivas like Volozhin and Lublin had no more than 300 students. Even the legendary institutions of Sura and Pompedita are only estimated to have had approximately 1,000 students. Just the fact that hundreds of thousands of Torah students exist to protest is reason enough to celebrate the country. While Judaism rejects Plato’s notion that the discipline of army life is a necessary ingredient of an ideal education, only the modern State of Israel with a trained military could have transformed our shattered and devastated people after the Holocaust into a new spiritual empire.

While it is forbidden to rely on miracles, we live as a free people again today because of the brave dedicated soldiers in IDF uniform. Only a few decades ago Jews wore a different kind of uniform. It had stripes and a yellow star.

In this sense, the popular demand “to share the burden,” creates the wrong discourse and misses the heart of what it means to be a Jew in our country. Serving in first unified Jewish army in the Land of Israel since the times of King David is not a burden; it’s a privilege, an honor and a miracle. It is unconscionable for a religious Jew, living in the Promised Land, connected to his heritage and his history not to want to serve in the army.

Although the ultimate Jewish vision aspires to no army, no soldiers and no weapons of war, the story of the modern Jewish army is the next chapter in the ongoing saga of Jewish history.

The secular messianic Zionist philosopher, Israel Eldad articulates this point best in his book ‘The Jewish Revolution’.

“Some time in 1953 a remarkable series of ancient letters was discovered in the Judean desert. These were the letter of the last commander of Judea, Simon Bar Kokhba, the leader of the last great revolt against the Romans and the Nasi (“prince” or president) and perhaps also the king of Israel in the years 132-136 CE. The letters addressed to commanders in various theaters of operation, were personally signed by him. Now they are on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

 This by itself is an outstanding archeological discovery. But it is not the most miraculous part of the story. The true miracle lies in the fact that the person who discovered the letters of the last Jewish commander was the well-known archeologist, General Yigael Yadin, effectively the first commander of the new Jewish army.

For 1,820 years Bar Kokhba’s letters lay hidden in the Judean desert, in clay pots where they were preserved for some unknown date in the future. No one had gotten there in the meantime… They were waiting until they reached their final destination. The letters of Bar Kokhba, the last commander of the Jewish army, thus reached the first commander of the new Jewish army after 1,820 years as if by personal delivery…”

I recommend that my friends, both in Israel and abroad, go to see those letters. Whether or not one understands the meaning of the words, their message is clear. The story of the Jewish People continues and we are the next chapter.

What Eldad does not discuss is what Bar Kokhba wrote and how relevant his message is today. He orders his men to deliver Lulavs and Etrogs (Palm branches and citron fruits) to his men in the battle field. It was the holiday of Sukkot and his pious, religious, Torah observant soldiers wanted to serve God while they served in His army. A final call from the days of Rabbi Akiva to our day never to forget that serving in the Jewish army is not a secular burden, but a religious duty.

Rabbi Jeremy Gimpel is the host of “Israel Inspired Radio” on iTunes, the creator and host of the TV show “Tuesday Night Live in Jerusalem”. He currently serves as the Deputy Director of the World Mizrachi Religious Zionist Movement. The opinions expressed herein are his own.

http://mizrachi.org/dodging-draft-god/


The JP Gets It Right - For Once!

 WATCH VIDEO:

http://nyti.ms/1dOLmU7

Perlow - The Seculars Want To "Criminalize Limud HaTorah" - He lies TWICE - While The Agudah Uses The "BANNED" Internet!

LISTEN TO AUDIO: PERLOW @ 5:36 & 7:00 Minutes Into The Audio
http://atzerestefillah.com/