“The families of hostages may inadvertently strengthen Hamas - The families of the kidnapped are doing this. They are shooting themselves in the foot. They’re shooting us in the foot. “I want the kidnapped returned, but not at the cost of losing the war.”

 

Nobel Prize laureate: Israel must reoccupy Gaza Strip

 

At the Table: Prof. Yisrael (Robert) Aumann, who won the Nobel Prize for work on conflict, cooperation through game-theory, said Israel should establish military presence in Gaza.

Prof. Yisrael Aumann in his Baka home in Jerusalem.

Israel must reoccupy the Gaza Strip and consider rebuilding Jewish communities in the coastal terror enclave if the country wants to prevent another Oct. 7, Prof. Yisrael (Robert) Aumann says matter-of-factly.

Conversing over cups of slow-brewed, fresh filtered coffee, the 93-year-old Nobel Prize winner is confident that not only must Israel “actually remove Hamas from Gaza” but also learn from its mistake of withdrawing in the first place.

“The event that led to the current situation was the Disengagement,” Aumann says of Israel’s 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza that uprooted 9,000 Jews from their homes – many of whom were once again uprooted after the Hamas massacre. “Let’s draw conclusions from that. It would be wrong to make a repeated mistake. Certainly, we should not do that in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria – whatever term you prefer – and we should not do it again in Gaza.”

Aumann, who won the Nobel Prize alongside Thomas Schelling for their work on conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis, suggests that Israel establish a military presence in Gaza and explore the possibility of resettling citizens there, similar to what it has done in the West Bank.

“There are people who call what we are doing in the West Bank ‘occupation,’ and it is,” he says. Aumann’s voice is sweet and calm; and the creases near his eyes appear smiling, no matter the subject.

 

Prof. Yisrael Aumann is seen receiving the Nobel Prize in Economics from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden at the Concert Hall in Stockholm, Dec. 10, 2005.

 

 

“We’ve been [in the West Bank] for 57 years and still have not annexed it,” he says, stroking his long white beard. “It’s not good. We should at least declare our legitimacy. But at least we are there physically. It is more difficult for us to pull out because of those people [living there].

“That’s game theory,” he continues. “We’re giving ourselves an incentive to stay [in the West Bank]. One of the most important principles of game theory is the principle of incentives.”

AUMANN HAS graciously welcomed us into his spacious, well-appointed Baka home. As we enter, we are met with the charm of three delicate white cups adorned with tiny blue flowers, a bowl of buttery sugar cookies, and a small plate of precious dried apricots brought from California by a family member (“the only thing you can’t import from Amazon”). Despite his remarkable intellect and extensive life experience, Aumann’s demeanor remains humble and kind during our two-hour visit.

We sip strong brew and discuss topics ranging from politics and warfare to the Torah. Synchronicity seems to be in our favor: Asking how one who subscribes to game theory would process a chok (Torah commandment without a given/logical reason), we mention the prohibition of shatnez (cloth containing both wool and linen). Aumann then opens a translation of Shaarei Orah and quotes an esoteric passage on the subject he had studied with his grandson that very day.

Aumann: The families of hostages may inadvertently strengthen Hamas

Aumann believes that the intense campaign for the kidnapped is essential, but he worries it may inadvertently strengthen Hamas by showing them the extent of public concern. This could lead to Hamas making unacceptable demands, ultimately harming our war efforts.

The families “are making it clear to Hamas that this is very, very, very important for us, and they are making it clear that it is even more important than it is, and as a result of that, Hamas demands an end to the war. They’re still in power in Gaza, which is something which we cannot possibly agree to,” Aumann says.

“If you want to buy a home at a reasonable price, and you visit the apartment and the real estate agent is there, and the owner is there, you do not go to the porch and say, ‘What a beautiful, grand view.’ That is also game theory; you are giving an incentive to the other side to charge more,” he says. “The families of the kidnapped are doing this. They are shooting themselves in the foot. They’re shooting us in the foot.

“I want the kidnapped returned, but not at the cost of losing the war.”

Aumann admits that “The world is against us.” But he believes that “a bigger problem is that we are against ourselves. We say, ‘Beyachad nenazeach’ [Together we will win]. But we are not beyachad.”

He puts game theory in terms we can understand: A game can involve any number of players, even up to a million, but it has to have at least two, Aumann says. Each player influences others to varying degrees while pursuing different, sometimes opposing, goals. The theory can be applied in various scenarios, from sports like soccer (where teams represent players) to geopolitical conflicts, like the “game” between Israel and Hamas.

The essence lies in strategizing to maximize personal gains while recognizing that others are doing the same.

“You want to do the best for yourself, taking into account that the other players are also trying to do the same – doing what is best for themselves and not for you,” Aumann says. “There are formulas and strategies,” he adds, and as a general rule, you always want to get the most information on your opponent possible.

But the real-world application of game theory can be tricky. “People are not necessarily doing what’s optimal,” he says with a smile.

AUMANN IS the father of five adult children, two stepdaughters, 21 grandchildren, and 38 great-grandchildren. Sadly, his son Shlomo was killed in the 1982 Peace for Galilee operation in Lebanon.

He says only one of his kids is into math; the rest are pursuing other careers. But he’s not disappointed.

“I think people should do what they like to do because what they like to do is what they do well, and what they do well is what they like to do,” Aumann tells us, recounting his childhood in Brooklyn, New York. He says his parents sent his brother to learn accountancy when he wanted to be a journalist. Soon after his brother got his degree, he left accountancy and became a journalist and editor.

“I told my children that we [as parents] had set the buffet: ‘Now you can choose whatever you want from it.’”

Aumann, born in Frankfurt, Germany, says he was not raised in a Zionist household. On the contrary, his parents, who were both religious and educated, were part of Agudat Yisrael and “opposed to Zionism.” But after the War of Independence and the struggle for the state against the British and the Arabs, Israel “caught our imagination, and we made a 180-degree turn.”

His older brother moved to Israel in 1951, and Aumann came five years later. Soon after, his mother made aliyah as well.

“I came at the height of the Sinai campaign, and we drove in a taxi from the Lod Airport to Jerusalem in the middle of the night – a moonless night – without lights,” he recalls. “We were concerned about being bombed by the Egyptian Air Force.”

Then he laughs. Small in stature, his chuckle is soft.

 “You know,” he tells us, “it’s still the same road, more or less. Maybe it’s been improved or widened a bit. And in Jerusalem at the time, there was one traffic light on the corner of Jaffa and King George. And it didn’t work. Nothing has changed.”

Aumann takes us on a tour of his massive, seemingly museum-quality Renaissance-era Italian paintings, each depicting a different biblical scene. He points to the one depicting wise King Solomon “practicing game theory,” illustrating the famous story of two women who both claimed a baby as her own.

An inherited Torah scroll sits in a small ark in the corner of his sitting room; an engraved rendering of the Ten Commandments puts the spotlight on the five dealing with bein adam l’chavero (interpersonal conduct). A small desk houses his computer. Aumann learned to use Zoom during the pandemic and has now perfected his lighting system to ensure he looks his best in interviews, he tells us.

Despite the Gaza war, Aumann says he still believes that peace is possible.

“I am tired of the fighting,” he says. “We’ve been fighting for more than 100 years, and the world has been fighting for thousands of years.

“War has been the one cost of human history. It is terrible,” he continues. “There is enough room for them and us in this country.”

He says that one of the provisions of the Oslo agreement was education: that Israel educate its children to get along with the Arabs and vice versa. But Israel never insisted on this, and “it was a big mistake on our part.”

“In this conflict, both sides promote their goals to the best of their ability, but what are the goals? Our goal is certainly not to destroy the Arabs. Their goal is, but ‘they’ are not necessarily one entity.

“Their children are taught to hate us, they are taught to want to drive us out,” he concludes. “That is what we should change.”

We end the visit on a happy

Note: In response to our question about whether he will be dressing up for Purim, Aumann rummages around in a closet and comes back wearing a colorful jester’s hat atop his head.■ 

 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-794770

Bench Kvetchers Gunfight The Israeli Government --- Put Your Money On The Bench Kvetchers! "Zayht nisht mishegenuh" [don't be crazy], ( let them go) "Loz im geyn"

Will Israel's government collapse due to the IDF haredi draft crisis?

 

With Netanyahu famous for pushing off decisions, expect Israel to try to reach an agreement with the bare minimum of haredi commitment.

זאלסט נישט זיין משוגע - לאָזן זיי גיין!

אל תהיה משוגע - תן להם ללכת!

The political ramifications of the High Court of Justice's ruling on Thursday - that beginning on April 1, today, the state can no longer refrain from drafting haredi men into the IDF, and that state funding to yeshivot will cease beginning on April 1 as well - could go in a number of directions depending on developments in the coming weeks.

The previous situation was that yeshivot provided quarterly reports on the number of students, and each student aged 18 and over received a yearly deferral until age 26, after which they received a permanent exemption.

While different sources include different numbers, the total number of yeshiva students is somewhere in the range of 150,000, and the number of students between the ages of 18 and 26 is in the range of 60,000.

How are ultra-Orthodox yeshivot funded in Israel?

The haredi yeshivot have different sources of funding. In general, the smaller a yeshiva is, the more it depends on state funding, a source from one of the haredi parties explained. The funding is provided on a monthly basis. While its cessation for the month of April is unlikely to cause yeshivot to shut down, a few months of blocked funding could cause many to collapse. However, the larger yeshivot that have name recognition and donors will survive financially, the source explained.

State funding for yeshivot is based on a per-student basis, and in many cases yeshivot have students registered who do not actually study there, the source said. He estimated that some 1,500 students in every age group (approximately 12%) already did not qualify for yearly deferrals, and could be drafted into the IDF relatively easily. Some of the yeshivot are entirely fictitious and do not exist in reality, he added. Many haredi businessmen make their livings off of these false reports, and state oversight has not done enough to oppose the phenomenon.

According to the source, one scenario is that the cut in state funding could slice off this layer of "cream," simultaneously saving the state money and freeing up thousands of haredi men for IDF service.

But a different haredi source said simply that "no yeshiva shuts down due to a lack of money," and a third source said that while cutting funds from yeshivot will be difficult for some, most will adapt. This indicates that the political reality is not so simple.

The coalition may attempt to bypass the funding cuts in a number of ways. The cut in funding is only for yeshiva students aged 18-26 who were not given deferrals or whose deferrals have run out, and the coalition can, for example, change the criteria for state funding and balance out the loss by receiving more for students above the age of 26. Alternatively, the state can attempt to funnel the funds to yeshivot via other avenues, such as study grants or "Jewish identity" initiatives.

The Attorney-General's Office addressed these options on Sunday, and according to reports clarified that the state cannot compensate the haredim by finding other funding avenues, and that doing so would qualify as a violation of the High Court's directive to cease funding. A "source close to Netanyahu" said in response on Sunday that it was "unclear what was so urgent for the attorney general to create a schism in Israeli society on the draft issue, after the High Court accepted the prime minister's request to complete a new plan within 30 days with an expanded bench of nine judges. The attorney general's office is not authorized to empty the content of the High Court's decisions."

The comment by this "source close to Netanyahu" referred to the fact that the High Court's directive to cease funding was given as a temporary measure, and that in May an expanded bench of nine justices will decide whether or not to make the measure permanent. This means that while yeshivot are likely to lose funding for the month of April, they can begin to receive funding once again as soon as May if the government can come up with a new proposal for the haredi draft that will earn the support of the attorney general.

Knesset recess may bring about a plan

In the meanwhile, the Knesset will be on spring recess between April 8 – May 19, and the government thus has at least until then before the haredi parties can threaten to disperse the Knesset and go to an election. The legal and political timetable thus gives the government a few more weeks to work on a new, detailed plan for the haredi draft, or, alternatively, figure out new ways to avoid it.

There is room to believe that the government could come up with a plan by May that will lead to more haredim joining national service, and passing it into law in June or July. Netanyahu said in a press conference on Sunday night that the haredi politicians had gone further in negotiations than what he expected, and further than ever before, in what they are willing to concede on the issue. A spokesperson for the Likud said in a phone conversation earlier on Sunday that the government would come up with a detailed plan with an array of options for haredi national service, including IDF service but not exclusively, as well as to offset the inequality of the remaining exemptions based on the formula that "whoever gives more receives more."

On the other hand, the devil is in the details. The result of intense negotiations over the past few weeks was a plan that the finance ministry's legal advisor said did not essentially differ from past plans that failed in drafting haredim, and the attorney general's office said that the plan lacked "basic professional foundations." If this is what the government came up with after weeks of negotiation, there is no guarantee that it will come up with a better plan in the coming weeks.

Another political complication is legislative procedure. If the government cannot come up with a plan that is accepted by the attorney general, it could attempt to bypass the necessity of the attorney general's approval by proposing the new plan as a private bill by one of the Likud's members of Knesset. This is unlikely, however, as private bills face a longer legislative procedure, which gives the opposition more time and opportunities to slow or block it.

In any event, no matter if the bill is sponsored by a private MK or by the government, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud) demanded last week that the bill be prepared in his committee, and not in an ad-hoc committee formed for the specific purpose of a haredi service bill, like the Knesset has done in the past. Edelstein is independent-minded and came out in the past against government policies. He also wields some political clout and could try to lead an attempt within the coalition to vote against the bill if it does not go through his committee. Should the bill reach his committee, he may attempt to alter it in a way that would no longer be acceptable to the haredi parties, and the crisis could begin anew.

Even if the government manages to bypass Edelstein, there are still a number of Likud Knesset members who could oppose a bill that they believe is unsatisfactory. According to a report by KAN News on Monday, Netanyahu and Shas chairman MK Aryeh Deri discussed an option of having MKs from both Israeli-Arab parties not be present at a vote on the bill, so as to ensure that the coalition has a majority. One p[arty, Hadash-Ta'al, responded on Monday that it would not agree to do so and would join the efforts to bring down the government. The second Arab party, Ra'am, did not immediately respond.

The bottom line is that the current crisis is unlikely to bring down the government at least until late May or June, and in the meantime the outcome depends on the government's political will to have haredim commit to national service. With the haredim in power and Netanyahu famous for his knack for pushing off decisions, expect the government to try to reach an agreement with the bare minimum of haredi commitment, while attempting to delay court proceedings as much as possible.

Unlike in the past, however, there is no longer a legal basis for the haredi exemption, and coupled with the cessation of funding for yeshivot, the security establishment in the meantime is required by law to begin proceedings to call up haredi men for service. Without a legislative solution, this could lead to a clash between military recruiters and the haredi public, as well as to mass haredi protests and disruptions. 

 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-794704

IDF army service is a Halachic obligation ****** No, there should not and cannot be a blanket exemption for any group among us. That simply increases divisiveness and discrimination and engenders resentment and hatred. That is not the way of the Torah or of Klal Yisroel.

 

IDF army service is a Halachic obligation 

 

The Zvhil-Mezbuz Rebbe of Boston: By Jewish law, every able-bodied Jewish male from the age of 20 is required to serve – period 

 

Ultra-Orthodox soldiers stand on the stage at a Memorial Day service for fallen Haredi soldiers in Jerusalem

 

I will undoubtedly be attacked, discredited and vilified in some circles for expressing this, but I simply cannot remain silent, and indeed I feel it is my obligation to speak out.

I am absolutely disgusted and repulsed by the position of some elected officials, politicians and political parties that there should be a blanket IDF service exemption for haredi men. There is absolutely no justification for such an outrageous and unjustified blanket exemption, either logically or halachically.

From a logical perspective, how can we expect “others” to protect us, defend us, fight for us if we don’t do our part and contribute to and be an active part of that existential requirement? Indeed, if these proponents of an unlimited blanket exemption were to be fully successful in achieving their expressed goal and vision that every Jewish man should devote his life fully and exclusively to study and observance of the Torah, and therefore in their opinion be exempt from IDF service, then ultimately there would then be no “others” at all and who would be left to serve in the IDF and defend Israel then? It makes no sense.

Fifty years ago, as a newly-minted rabbi and lawyer then writing on the Jewish Law of War towards a Ph.D in International Law, I wrote that from an Halachic perspective the Torah, from the Chumash to the Talmud to the Rambam, is crystal clear. Every able-bodied Jewish male from the age of 20 who is not from the tribe of Levi (which includes Cohanim) is required to serve. Period.

There were no blanket exemptions, just various limited exemptions based upon individual special circumstances (such as a husband in his first year of marriage, etc.). And indeed even those limited individual exemptions are only operative in the case of a Milchemes Reshus, a “permissible” or optional war (such as for elective territorial expansion). But critically, when it came to Milchemes Mitzvah, an obligatory war for self-defense, for Israel’s very survival, such as wars we are fighting today surrounded by enemies seeking to destroy us, there were absolutely no exemptions whatsoever, least of all any blanket exemption of an entire segment of the Jewish community. That would be unheard of. Except, evidently, today in some circles.

In addressing the issue of exemptions who are we in the name of the Torah, the Talmud, the Rambam to ignore those very authorities while at the same time encouraging the study of and devotion to those same holy texts?

I was so very heartened and thrilled to see so many haredi young men enlisting in the IDF in the aftermath of the horrible tragedy of October 7th, in the holy Torah-true tradition of Joshua, Yehoshua bin Nun, the first General leading an Israeli army, applying Torah practices to real life. Their actions were an important statement and example of the true values of a Jewish nation and homeland, an example to be encouraged and supported that also has the admirable side-effect of bringing all our people together, healing rifts in our society, and promoting cooperation and unity.

Certainly, accommodations can be made in the IDF, as they already have been, for the needs of Haredi Jews. I understand the concern that Haredi Jews may be exposed to less than authentic practices and views of Judaism, a concern mitigated by the existence of IDF units such as Nachal Chareidi, but even in “mixed” units it is equally possible that the opposite will occur and fighting side by side they will by example and with love attract the non-observant who will discover or rediscover the beauty of the Torah. I was privileged to have a son serving in the IDF, and subsequently fighting in Gaza, who did exactly that.

And if we have so little faith in the commitment and steadfastness of our observant youth and their ability to resist such influences, then the solution is not to isolate or exempt them from IDF service, but rather to support them, prepare them, and strengthen them.

In the Tachanun supplications recited as part of Shachris service each weekday morning, there are three verses addressing Shomer Yisroel, the Guardian of Israel. The first prays that our Guardian protect “she’aris Yisroel,” the remnant of Israel, the second prays to protect “am echod,” one people, and the third prays to protect “goy kadosh,” the holy nation. There is a deep reason for that particular intentional sequence – from remnants to unity to holiness.

If, as the Haredi community and indeed all of us preach, we aspire to be a holy nation, then we must first turn the remnant of Israel that we are into “Am Echod,” a singular, unique, united, one nation, united under the one G-d. One unity under The Unity – that is how we will survive, defeat the enemies that surround us, and thrive. Only as one united nation, with no divisions, no special treatment, nobody exempt.

No, there should not and cannot be a blanket exemption for any group among us. That simply increases divisiveness and discrimination and engenders resentment and hatred. That is not the way of the Torah or of Klal Yisroel. 

Grand Rabbi Y. A. Korff, the Zvhil-Mezbuz Rebbe (Admor) of Boston, is the Chaplain of the City of Boston, spiritual leader of Bnai Jacob Synagogue in Boston, and also serves The Jerusalem Great Synagogue in Israel. 

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/idf-army-service-is-a-halachic-obligation/

An estimated 66,000 Haredi Israeli men between 18 and 26 years old are currently exempted from the draft and receiving government subsidies to attend yeshivas — whether or not they’re actually doing so for at least 45 hours a week, as the law requires.

Ashlag Rebbe In Telzstone: State Should Fund 2000 Yeshiva Students, The Rest Must Serve Community:

"He wrote that “In a time of war, even a groom must leave his chuppah and go to help. Although other rabbis insist that we must not stop Torah study, this is not the issue. Nobody wants to stop Torah study, but it is “a time to do for Hashem and to ‘transgress’ the Torah.”

Rabbi Gottlieb suggests that yeshivos be established on the borders in the north south and where required and study half day while spending the other half on patrols and guard duty , in order to “take away from the terrible burden on the general community in Israel.” He warns that “The Israeli public will not forget if the yeshiva students won’t join the war effort.”

He also admits that the yeshiva students are not all sitting and studying day and night. “Not everyone has the strength for this, only a small amount. Near my house there are all kinds of bakeries with food, restaurants and eateries. I see the whole day long that there are quite a few yeshiva students eating with great relish baked foods and other items.” Rabbi Gottlieb concludes: “Do they have no shame?”

In another post Rabbi Gottlieb decries the funding of yeshiva students, stating that it is a “custom whose time has passed”. From the age of 18, he claims that “everyone must contribute their part for the people of Israel and study in their “free time”. He adds that this was the view of the Baal Hasulam, that people should work, should enlist and take part of the burden on themselves. He was even against kollelim, believing that Toraso U’Manuso is meant for a person’s free time, and should not be for remuneration.

Rabbi Gottlieb concedes that the state should fund “some 2000 people every year” as it is in the interest of the Jewish nation to have Dayanim, Poskim, rabbis and Talmidei Chachamim. He believes this number is enough to produce the requisite number of Torah leaders"

 

In ‘historic’ step, High Court orders halt to yeshiva funds for students eligible for draft

 

Attorney General tells court army will be obligated to begin drafting Haredi men on April 1; judges shoot down PM’s request for 30 more days to settle matter

 

Israeli High Court brings Haredi draft exemption to a legal end — with unclear consequences

 

Kol Isha Not Applicable!

The practical implications of the decision remain up in the air

 

Haredi Jewish boys and men clashed with police earlier in March while protesting against the expiration of a law preventing them from being drafted into the IDF

JERUSALEM — A decision by Israel’s High Court of Justice will bring the country’s 76-year-old policy of excusing nearly all Haredi men from its compulsory draft close to an end — at least on paper, and at least temporarily.

The Thursday night court order came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to broker a consensus within his government about continuing to exempt young Haredi men from military service, prompting the court to rule the government no longer has a legal basis to keep funding their yeshiva study.

Legally, it means some yeshiva students could have to put down their scripture and take up arms as soon as this Monday, April 1. 

But practically, political and legal experts say, questions remain about how Netanyahu’s coalition government will respond to the ruling as its deadline for a new legislative proposal approaches this Sunday. Questions also remain about how the Israel Defense Forces might ultimately implement the legal — and still-potential legislative — change in policy.

The draft exemption dates back to Israel’s founding in 1948, when founding leader David Ben-Gurion agreed to exempt yeshiva boys from military service as part of a deal to secure political support from Haredi leaders. The Haredi community believes full-time Torah study protects the country more than its military ever could.

An estimated 66,000 Haredi Israeli men between 18 and 26 years old are currently exempted from the draft and receiving government subsidies to attend yeshivas — whether or not they’re actually doing so for at least 45 hours a week, as the law requires.

The United Torah Judaism Party on Thursday accused the court of waging “an all-out struggle” against Torah study.

A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute shows 70% of Israeli Jews support ending the longstanding blanket exemption from military service for Haredim, up from 60% in 2018.

The High Court had previously ruled in 1998 and 2017 that the draft loophole violates the right of the Israeli majority to equal treatment under the law. Several governments since have tried but failed to come up with a fair and lasting solution. The court gave Netanyahu’s government until June of last year to come up with a new policy, but his coalition then gave itself until the end of this month to do so. The issue played a part in last year’s judicial overhaul crisis, when Haredi politicians sought to override the High Court’s decision to strike down the exemption.

Netanyahu, in trying to broker a consensus within his government, has not managed to break an impasse between Haredi parties that want to extend the draft loophole, and ultranationalists opposed to their special treatment. His governing coalition relies on the support of both groups; the impasse threatens to unravel it at a time when the war in Gaza and conflicts at the Lebanon border and in the West Bank have left the IDF short on troops.

Critics of the exemption include Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a key architect of the Gaza operation, and National Unity Party Leader Benny Gantz — both among the five members of Netanyahu’s war cabinet. Gantz lauded the ruling via social media late Thursday.

Three times in the last 24 hours, Netanyahu sought a court extension to delay the deadline to come up with a plan. The latest of those requests came Thursday afternoon, when, in a rare letter directly to the court seeking a 30-day postponement, he wrote that distractions created by overseeing the war have kept his coalition government from reaching a consensus on a new policy.

The letter marked an end-run around Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who represents the government but refused to ask for a delay as Sunday’s deadline nears. Baharav-Miara’s office, in the meantime, wrote the court Thursday saying the state will be legally obligated to start drafting Haredim on Monday, because there no longer will be a legal basis for paying their monthly stipends for the yeshiva study that exempts them from the draft.

The court agreed with Baharav-Miara in a ruling a few hours later.

Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition notoriously antagonized Israel’s judicial branch by trying to curtail its power last year. Those efforts triggered the biggest anti-government protests in the nation’s history. Protests died down after Hamas’ attack and massacre on Oct. 7, but have been picking up as Sunday’s draft exemption deadline nears.

https://forward.com/fast-forward/597622/haredi-draft-exemption-israel-high-court/

 

MAIMONIDES ON WARS AND THEIR JUSTIFICATION

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15027570.2012.738504

https://www.sefaria.org/Mishneh_Torah%2C_Kings_and_Wars.1.1?lang=bi

Who Needs An Army When You Have 66,000 Bench Kvetchers? According to the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, some 66,000 young men from the Haredi community received an exemption from military service over the past year, said to be an all-time record.

 

Meeting between Netanyahu, Haredi parties on conscription law ends without agreement

 

Justice Minister Levin also at sit-down where reps of ultra-Orthodox parties reportedly assailed attorney general; United Torah Judaism reportedly threatens to leave coalition

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, right, arriving for a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem

 

An hours-long meeting on Tuesday night between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and representatives of United Torah Judaism and Shas, the coalition’s two Haredi parties, over a contentious ultra-Orthodox military draft bill came to an end without any major progress, reports said.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, the sit-down ended unproductively and no additional meetings were scheduled.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin also attended the Tuesday night meeting where, according to Kan, the ultra-Orthodox parties attacked Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who has told the government that she would be unable to defend its initial proposal in court.

A law allowing young Haredi men to repeatedly push off their military service for yeshiva until they reached the age of exemption expired last year. The Supreme Court ruled that the current system is discriminatory and has given the government until April 1 to present a bill and until June 30 to pass it.

As the deadline drew nearer, the government was set to meet on Netanyahu’s draft of the bill on Tuesday, but the meeting was pushed off amid an outcry over the proposal.

After members of his government, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, expressed strong objections to the original plan, Netanyahu postponed the planned cabinet discussion on the issue and entered into marathon talks within his coalition on the controversial reform.

Shas chair Aryeh Deri

The original outline did not set a quota of ultra-Orthodox men enlisting per year. Instead, it raised the age of final exemption from service to 35, apparently based on the claim — widely criticized — that requiring young Haredi men to stay in yeshiva for decades instead of entering the workforce in their 20s could deter them from signing up for a lifetime of study, and instead encourage their enlistment.

It also ensured that Haredi men who don’t enlist would not personally face financial sanctions. And it included a plan to set up special ultra-Orthodox battalions in the IDF and add Haredi positions in the country’s emergency services and government offices.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, which has petitioned the High Court of Justice to compel the enlistment of the ultra-Orthodox, accused the government of engaging in “the same shticks and tricks” by floating and then reversing a change to the age of exemption.

“Sharing the burden [of military service] equally is an existential necessity for the State of Israel and Israeli society, and there is no way to achieve it other than the enactment of a uniform and equal enlistment law that will apply to all,” the watchdog group said in a statement on Monday.

Channel 12 and Ynet reported on Tuesday that the attorney general had requested that recruitment target figures be included in the legislation, while ultra-Orthodox parties have rejected that proposal.

Ultra-Orthodox men protest outside the army recruitment office in Jerusalem

 

UTJ reportedly threatened to leave the Netanyahu-led coalition should the proposal include annual recruitment targets for yeshiva students and financial penalties for Haredi educational institutions that don’t meet those quotas.

According to Channel 12, UTJ’s ultimatum was the reason for the last-minute postponement of a cabinet meeting on the draft exemption law earlier in the day.

A loss of the ultra-Orthodox parties could bring down Netanyahu’s hardline coalition and plunge the country into new elections with he and his Likud party trailing badly in opinion polls. UTJ has seven seats and Shas 11, so their departure would leave the coalition, which currently numbers 72 seats in the 120-member Knesset, without a majority.

Baharav-Miara and Gallant were not alone in objecting to the original plan, with war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, whose National Unity party holds eight seats, threatening to leave the emergency government if the legislation passed.

Gantz, Netanyahu’s top political rival, said the premier’s outline for a Haredi draft law was a “red line” and a threat to national cohesion. Gallant said he’d support a new law only with the support of all coalition parties, including Gantz and more centrist members of the country’s emergency wartime government.

Ultra-orthodox men after clashes during a protest outside the army recruitment office in Jerusalem, as a group of male and female soldiers stand behind them

 

This week, dozens of commanders in the IDF reserves sent a letter to Netanyahu, Gallant and other senior officials warning that the current proposal for the draft bill will deepen inequality and harm national security.

The IDF’s plan to increase the time conscripts and reservists serve in the military, combined with the Haredi enlistment law, which would allow most ultra-Orthodox men to be exempt from military service, would create an “extremely unequal” situation, the commanders charged in their letter.

The commanders also warned that beyond the feeling of inequality, there were concerns that under the new proposal, “the reserve system will not be able to meet its requirements, to the point of difficulty in manning operations.”

“We demand from you, the people responsible by law and by virtue of your authority for our routine and emergency operation, to stand firm and prevent any discriminatory and offensive recruitment plan of this kind,” the commanders added.

 

Soldiers study religious texts in the IDF’s ultra-Orthodox ‘Netzah Yehuda’ unit at the Peles Military Base in the northern Jordan Valley

 

Senior Finance Ministry officials also expressed opposition to the lack of personal financial sanctions in the government’s proposed draft, arguing that they would be ineffective in persuading yeshiva students to join the IDF.

According to Kan, ministry officials objected to financial penalties being placed on yeshivas that fail to meet whatever enlistment quota is ultimately approved instead of on individuals, and said that only personal sanctions would have the desired effect.

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, the government has called up a total of 287,000 reservists, announced earlier-than-planned draft dates for some 1,300 members of pre-army programs, and pushed to significantly increase both conscripts’ and reservists’ periods of service.

That latter plan, presented by the defense establishment last month, generated fierce backlash among lawmakers from across the political spectrum and encouraged multiple legislative pushes to end the de facto exemptions for the Haredim.

According to the IDF’s Personnel Directorate, some 66,000 young men from the Haredi community received an exemption from military service over the past year, said to be an all-time record.

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/meeting-between-netanyahu-haredi-parties-on-conscription-law-ends-without-agreement/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2024-03-27&utm_medium=email

2 Jews - 2 Educated & Informed Medical Facts! — Combating vaccine falsehoods and other inaccurate claims protects public health!

 

Medical Misinfo Runs Rampant Online. The Gov't Must Retain the Right to Intervene.

 

— Combating vaccine falsehoods and other inaccurate claims protects public health

 

by Benjamin D. Hoffman, MD, and Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD

Hoffman is president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Ehrenfeld is president of the American Medical Association. 

 

Online misinformation about vaccines harm patients, undermines trust in science, and places additional burdens on our healthcare system through reduced vaccine uptake. All in all, it is a barrier to protecting public health.

As physicians, we see the damages caused by vaccine misinformation firsthand, and we welcome conversations with our patients about vaccine safety and efficacy. However, the widespread proliferation of misinformation and disinformation has triggered higher levels of vaccine hesitancy and refusal, allowing a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measlesopens in a new tab or window that we had nearly eradicated.

Preventing the spread of vaccine misinformation without infringing on free speech protections in the First Amendment is a thorny legal issue that is at the heart of a landmark case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, Murthy et al. v. Missouri et al.opens in a new tab or window The nation's leading healthcare organizations, including ours (the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association) and others -- and the hundreds of thousands of physicians across the country who we represent -- believe that vaccine misinformation poses a grave threat to public health. As outlined in an amicus briefopens in a new tab or window we filed in this case, we seek to partner with the federal government to advance factual information.

In Murthy v. Missouri, plaintiffs including the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana argue that several federal agencies and the Biden administration engaged in censorship during the pandemic by urging private social media companies to stop the spread of discredited medical falsehoods from their platforms to save lives. Oral arguments took place last week, and a ruling is expected this summer.

At stake in this case is what tools the government and public health agencies have at their disposal to combat medical misinformation. Without getting into the legal arguments on both sides, one thing is clear: to strip away government power to raise the alarm about patently false information on life-saving vaccines -- when illness and lives hang in the balance -- would be a devastating outcome.

Vaccines have long been one of the safest and most powerful tools in protecting public health. Vaccines save lives by not only protecting vaccinated individuals against infection and reducing the burden of unnecessary hospitalization on our healthcare system, but also by helping prevent the spread of disease.

Medical misinformation that promotes non-scientifically validated remedies can and often does result in harm. Both the FDAopens in a new tab or window and CDCopens in a new tab or window warned of serious adverse effects from people taking ivermectin, an anti-parasitic, to prevent or treat COVID-19, even after numerous studies showed it was entirely ineffective against the virus.

Similarly, one recent studyopens in a new tab or window estimated that nearly 17,000 deaths occurred across six nations during the first COVID wave after people took hydroxychloroquine, an antimalaria agent that was wrongly promoted to treat and prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection. Although that was a time of crisis, drug repurposing with low-level evidence can be extremely hazardous and even deadly.

Stopping the spread of medical misinformation is an enormous task, and we cannot expect any single entity to accomplish this challenge. Those of us who have taken an oath to protect the health and well-being of patients share the responsibility to separate fact from fiction.

Anything less than a comprehensive effort to prevent the dissemination of medical misinformation -- using the powers of the federal government, public health agencies, healthcare organizations, social media companies and media outlets, and even individual physicians -- abdicates our responsibility and needlessly puts the health of our communities, and our nation, at risk.

Benjamin D. Hoffman, MD,opens in a new tab or window is president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH,opens in a new tab or window is president of the American Medical Association.

 

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/109343?xid=nl_secondopinion_2024-03-26&eun=g2011045d0r

Generally, polls showed that a massive majority of Jewish Israelis favor haredim serving in the IDF, as other sectors of the public do...

 

A country at a crossroads: The issue of Haredi IDF service post-October 7 

 

מי יימר דדמא דידך סומק טפי דילמא דמא דהוא גברא סומק טפי  

סנהדרין עד ע"א

 

The closest way to a compromise would be some variation on the Benny Gantz proposal of all Haredim having to do national service, with a more symbolic number serving in the IDF.

ULTRA-ORTHODOX men protest against the haredi draft, in Jerusalem last week.

The country is at a crossroads – and the largest one may not even be the war in Gaza.

As big as the current battles and diplomatic duals over Gaza are, there are going to be a host of parties, factors, and additional critical points where Israel and the region’s future relations will continue to be shaped.

In contrast, the country may have reached the end of the line on the issue of haredim serving either in the IDF, national service, or some mix of the two.

Generally, polls showed that a massive majority of Jewish Israelis favor haredim serving in the IDF, as other sectors of the public do.

Until October 7, however, the Haredim did not want to serve, and the almost impossibility of forming a government without them (they have only been completely out of power for less than five years in the last 30-plus years) meant they got their way on the issue.

 

באַנק קוועטטשערס

 

Part of this was also because the issue of their service was seen as separate from the “real” debates over foreign affairs, which dictated how most people in Israel voted.

October 7 permanently fused together the issues of national security and haredim serving.

To continue the war and be ready for the next war, the IDF needs a permanently larger army.

To do that, either the haredim need to start serving (and dying sometimes, like everyone else in battle), or everyone else needs to serve more (and die more in battle).

There is no longer a way to sweet-talk through this mostly zero-sum game.

Fusing the two issues together

The closest way to a compromise would be some variation on the Benny Gantz proposal of all haredim having to do national service, with a more symbolic number serving in the IDF.

This would not truly address all of the IDF service inequalities that have existed now for 75 years, but it would at least show the majority of the population that the Haredim are ready to contribute to the national destiny in a physical and quantifiable way. (Haredim claims they care for the spiritual sustenance of the nation.)

Also, if more Israelis from other sectors were being pulled out of necessary jobs, the Haredim stepping in with national service would cover some of that gap.

But even that entire gap it would not fill, according to a new study.

The government’s legislation extending military reserve service, as revealed in a study by Israel Hofsheet and the well-known BDO accounting firm, is expected to cost the Israeli economy NIS 5.8 billion annually.

The study’s conclusions are solely based on budgetary cost, ignoring the additional financial burden to the Israeli economy. Beyond the direct impact of increasing the state budget, the study says additional days of reserve duty damage business operations, employment, and the income of reservists’ spouses. According to the study, they also damage academic education and leisure hours for reservists.

Furthermore, the study says its estimate is grounded in the assumption of a partial realization of only 35% of the additional days of reserve duty outlined in the government’s bill, mirroring the existing realization rate.

The study says the economic burden is projected to increase to NIS 8.1 b in the event of an intensified security climate, necessitating an additional 10% realization of reserve duty days.

So, the Israeli economy actually would still suffer in new larger ways that were not contemplated before Israel learned it needed a much larger permanent army. However, the Gantz compromise would temper some of the economic impact and start a social transformation within the haredi community of connecting and contributing more to the nation.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid’s plan would not achieve equality either, but it would substantially increase the Haredim being tied to the nation’s fate because far more would serve in the IDF and also share in the new and increased risks of longer and bloodier wars in the region.

The Movement for the Quality of Government in Israel’s proposal of full and equal haredi integration into the IDF would achieve true equality in theory. But in practice, the IDF does not have the ability to integrate all of the draft-eligible haredim, and it probably would take years to do so, if it is doable at all.

There are too many social and educational issues to work through to induct haredim in anything other than gradual numbers, and above a certain volume, it is not even clear that the IDF wants to spend the number of resources necessary to integrate so many Haredim at once.

The lack of an agreement about how to solve the crisis has continued to give the completely consistent rejectionist haredi position a leg to stand on for the last several months.

But too many have died this time, and too many are expected to have to abandon their families for too long in the near future for the Haredim to be able to completely “dodge the bullet” this time.

As they join the post-October 7 world, they will need to come to terms with some kind of radical change. 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-793681

“The existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood, and tears. It is Israel, not us. We are the victims of the occupation. Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, October 10, October 1,000,000 – everything we do is justified.”

 

We Are the Victims and Everything We Do is Justified

At the heart of everything from the debate over the Gaza War to DEI to toxic interpersonal relationships is a disastrous loop known as the “self-reinforcing victim/villain” cycle.

The self-reinforcing victim/villain cycle is a deceptively simple and incredibly destructive paradigm for any kind of relationship, national, communal or personal, in which one party constantly attacks the other while claiming that it is the victim fighting against oppression.

The paradigm is guided by the idea that there is a permanently fixed victim and villain, that the victim is constantly suffering attacks from the villain and that anything the victim does is justified because he or she has no agency except to resist the assaults of the villain.

While some Hamas supporters have lied or tried to cover up the atrocities of Oct 7, Ghazi Hammad, a Hamas official, initially denied them, but then burst out with, “the existence of Israel is what causes all that pain, blood, and tears. It is Israel, not us. We are the victims of the occupation. Period. Therefore, nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, October 10, October 1,000,000 – everything we do is justified.”

“We are the victims”, “nobody should blame us” and “everything we do is justified” perfectly capture the cruel workings of the cycle. So many westerners have sided with Hamas because they accept, incorporate and make use of the same cycle in their own politics and lives.

The very same arguments adapted from Marxism and therapy culture play out routinely in “whiteness” and “colonialist” discourse in America, Europe and other free world nations.

The “self-reinforcing victim/villain” cycle dispenses with arguments, evidence or any reasoned assessments of rights. These may occasionally be thrown in when convenient, but make no real difference because the central premise of the cycle is the lack of any objective standard that both sides have to meet. International law, racial tolerance, peace treaties or negotiations are invoked in a purely one-sided fashion. It is understood that the officially designated victim never has to abide by international law, to stop hating or to sincerely agree to stop the violence.

Any of the invoked appeals to any larger principle are usually rigged in such a way as to render mutuality meaningless. For example, racism has been redefined to mean racial hatred practiced by those with power, making them the officially designated villains, while racial hatred from victims has been designated “reverse racism”: a justified response to the racism of the majority.

Once again, “we are the victims”, “nobody should blame us” and “everything we do is justified”.

Similarly, international law is held to apply only to Israel as the “occupier” while no one can expect anything of the Muslim terrorists who are “occupied” and therefore have the right to “resist” by invading Israel and burning Jewish families alive in their own homes.

The perpetrators are omnipotent by virtue of being helpless, since they can do nothing, they can do everything, as victims of oppression they have no agency and also no restraint under any norms, either those of decency, humanity, the laws of war or any concept of right and wrong.

They cannot be asked not to rage, that’s “tone policing”, not to hate, that’s “reverse racism” or even not to kill because that’s “dictating to oppressed people the forms of their resistance”.

Whatever they do is not a reflection on their own morality, but on the oppression they suffer.

If they hate, it’s because they have been hated and if they kill, it’s because they have been killed. The worse the crimes they commit, the more we are told that the horrors they perpetrate are a reflection of the horrors they have suffered. When suicide bombers emerged on the scene, we were told that they were a sign of how desperate the killers must be after such suffering.

No crime, not even those committed on Oct 7, was allowed to be seen as a deliberate choice.

The moral numbness of the self-reinforcing victim/villain cycle has long haunted liberal minds. As Nazi Germany invaded Poland and began the process that would lead to the mass murder of millions of Jews, the poet W.H. Auden penned a hasty condemnation of Nazism, but threw in four lines that became the best known from the poem. “I and the public know/What all schoolchildren learn/Those to whom evil is done/Do evil in return.”

Those same four lines appear in disguised or undisguised form in every account of the Oct 7 attacks and in every account of the violence committed by leftists and their allies.

How often during the BLM riots were we treated to the MLK quote that, “a riot is the voice of the unheard” which was never intended to be a blank check for urban violence, but is used to shift the agency from the young men beating an old man in the street to the body at their feet.

The insistence that evil is a cycle not a choice, that the Nazis were victims rather than perpetrators, that every terrorist and rioter in the world could not do otherwise is an unlimited license for evil. And evil is not a cycle: it is a choice that each and every one of us makes.

Oct 7 is far from the first time that “we are the victims”, “nobody should blame us” and “everything we do is justified” licensed genocide. And it will certainly not be the last.

Why did so many radicals jump into supporting Hamas after Oct 7 rather than disavow it?

The atrocities did not alienate, they incited. The crimes offered the same heady promise that the Left had since the French Revolution of committing the worst possible crimes while being morally righteous because each horror was a response to the horrors visited upon them.

When there are no objective standards, all that remains are the propaganda narratives that justify violence. The self-reinforcing victim/villain cycle sheds standards. It asserts pain and suffering. It spends all of its time demonizing those it wishes to kill. And then it kills them.

The crybullies, the victims who kill, spend all of their time asserting their trauma, they project hate as pain, murderousness as trauma and assaults as resistance. Even as cities and countries burn, they always talk about themselves while raging when anyone mentions the damage.

Attempting to find common ground with them is futile. Proposals for reforms or compromises are treated as admissions of guilt. Negotiations are blown up because the professional victims don’t want a deal, they want to continue the hate and violence, and they only use negotiations to assert their endless suffering which can only be remedied with the destruction of their targets.

Some attempt to meet them blow for blow, by asserting their own victimhood, and yet this strategy is bound to fail because the underlying premise of the self-reinforcing victim/villain cycle is the “punching up” and “punching down” one of wokeness that only some people’s pain and some people’s lives matter, that those who have “power” are always perpetrators, and those who claim to be “powerless” are always their victims no matter who is actually doing what.

No matter how much those charged with having “power”,deny it, back away from it, leave, turn over control, and cut deals, the underlying dynamic can never be allowed to change anywhere.

Pro-Israel activists, especially liberal ones, still don’t understand this dynamic and are pained and shocked at how their former allies can justify mass murder and rape at a music festival. But the answer is that it’s the same way that supporters of BLM justified torching cities. The self-reinforcing victim/villain cycle rejects any morality except assertions of powerlessness.

Whoever has the most power is accused of setting the cycle into motion and can never assert innocence again even as the Nazis are goose stepping their way into Poland.

What is the answer to the self-reinforcing victim/villain cycle’s endless “you made me do it”?

Giving up power isn’t the answer. Some adopt a Stockholm Syndrome strategy of admitting guilt and promising to “do better”, they clamor to be “allies” and loudly denounce their own people. But when the violence begins, the Stockholmers don’t do any better than anyone else. Whether it’s the Hamas attacks or BLM riots, the appeasers and the apologists were caught up in them.

Some died.

An argument cannot be won by arguing using the self-reinforcing victim/villain cycle’s rules. It is important to think back to a time before the cultural poison reduced every exchange to Marxist logic and social media narcissism when we actually knew what right and wrong looked like.

And the only way to do that is by demolishing the cult of victimhood.

Right and wrong are not determined by expressions of pain. While some people may have more power than others, no one is truly powerless or lacks agency. Whatever happens, everyone has a choice in how they respond to it. That choice defines who they are for as long as they keep making it. People are not the products of impersonal forces, but of those choices.

Anyone can be a victim, but no one has to choose to continue being one unless it’s a role they want to play. And anyone from narcissists to aspiring tyrants finds that to be a useful role.

Most of those who assert victimhood were never victims at all. The most malignant victimhood behavior comes from the powerful and the privileged who use it to claim moral immunity. Lenin came from a noble family and Castro was the son of a plantation owner. Osama bin Laden came from a billionaire family. Hamas had its origins in high officials who were displaced by the fall of the Ottoman Empire and whose families have become millionaires through terrorism.

Every evil movement, including the Nazis, claimed to be the victims, but they’re only the victims of their own thwarted ambitions. Today’s totalitarians who claim to be victims are like them the victims of their futile dreams of conquest and of grinding everyone else under their boots.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

PURIM FEVER RAGES ON: Another Naked Man Dies In Jump From Borough Park Office Building

 “Rava said: It is one's duty levasumei, to make oneself fragrant [with wine] on Purim until one cannot tell the difference between 'arur Haman' (cursed be Haman) and 'barukh Mordekhai' (blessed be Mordecai)” (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 7b).

 

Another Naked Man Dies In Jump From Borough Park Office Building

From The UOJ Classics - More relevant today than in 2005

A naked man darted from a car into a Borough Park office building at lunchtime yesterday and then jumped to his death from the top floor, officials said.

The man double-parked in the 4800 block of 13th Av. about noon, bolted from his still-running gray 1980 Chevrolet, dashed past a crowd on the street and ran into the lobby of an office building, witnesses said.

Police were still trying to identify the man yesterday and to determine why he jumped. Witnesses also were trying to sort out what happened. The man had no apparent connection to the building, according to people who work there.

"He didn't even have shoes on," said Zalman Teitelbaum , who was working as a temporary security guard at the building until the Satmar mess gets straightened out. Sitting behind the security desk, Teitelbaum first saw the man from the waist up and thought maybe he was a rather strange jogger. But then I stood up and saw the rest of him, and realized he was very Jewish. "I was even able to recognize the mohel, (rabbi that performs the circumcision) by his unique cut", said Teitelbaum. "This man was definitely bent out of shape."

The man told Teitelbaum that he was "desperate and broke," asked him for 50 cents to make a phone call and then spoke incoherently, mumbling something about not being able to support his son in-law in kollel, Teitelbaum said.

Then the man ran to an elevator. Minutes later, he emerged from a stairwell on the top floor. The fire alarm had been set off, presumably by the man, and the office doors on that floor were open as people began to file out, witnesses said.

The man pushed his way into one of the offices, where he said "kollel, kollel, kollel," several times while charging toward a window, witnesses said. He smashed the glass and jumped through the window, falling onto a parapet between two buildings. Some local workers and shoppers saw him fall.

Borough Park firefighters and emergency medical service personnel arrived at the scene, and police quickly cordoned off the block. Women with baby carriages were visibly upset that they could not continue shopping.

Three women with hats on top of their wigs cried out loud, "he could have waited until the stores closed."

Workers in the top floor office said they had not seen the man before and did not believe that he had ties to the offices there. They didn't hear anything he said other than "excuse me, I need money to support my son in-law in the Lakewood kollel" a witness said.

Before it became apparent what was taking place, the city's parking enforcers reacted to the abandoned car, which had badly torn seats, New Jersey plates and no sign of clothing inside other than a beat up Borsalino and a jacket with a shatnes label. They slapped a flyer on the windshield inviting people to attend a parlor meeting for the Lakewood Yeshiva.

The police met with all the various Bobover Rebbes and was told that the man had seven married daughters and was acting strange as of late. Recently the man was seen in shul naked except for a towel on his shoulder, screaming why they moved the mikve.

These acts of desperation have become rather common in the Orthodox Jewish community, since fathers with daughters are expected to support their sons in-law whether they have the ability or not.

Many social workers in the community have noticed a dangerous increase in mental disorders particularly by men over fifty.

We interviewed eight young men who were in the local pizza parlor, all of them noticably obese. We asked them about their reaction to the increase in mental and emotional disorders in men over fifty, particularly by the men with daughters.

 

We had similar reactions by all eight young men. One fellow said it was "not my fault that the poor putz doesn't know how to make enough money to support thirty people. Summer camps, expensive houses, cars, jewelry, Pesach in Cancun, and tuitions are a father in-law's obligation, even if he has to work three jobs, or steal from his employer." They're just a bunch of whining lazy bums."

Another young fellow said "I am sick and tired of hearing these BS stories from fathers in-law. If they produce the kids, they MUST support them, period, no excuses." This fellow who was not more than twenty years old, was wearing a gold Rolex. I complimented him on his watch; he turned angry and said "he told the shadchan that I would get two Rolexes, one for daily use and one for Yom-Tov, and the SOB finked out on me; what a piece of garbage father in-law I wound up with. If I would have known that, I never would have married his meeskite (extremely ugly) daughter." He said he had to leave, and drove off in a brand new Cadillac Escalade.

The reaction by the others were similar, ranging from anger to dismay about the lack of appreciation and gratefulness to God exhibited by their fathers in-law. They all felt that they could have married anyone in the world, and if their father in-law ever decided to stop giving them "serious" money they would return their daughters to them in a heartbeat, blackmail the family in order for him to give a Get, and get a father in-law who really understands what a catch they are.

Particularly interesting was how they all agreed that they never intended to ever get a job, regardless of how many fathers in-law jumped off buildings. They saw it as a dirty trick and didn't believe the guy was really dead." I find it very interesting that these shameless fathers in-law would go to any lengths to avoid their obligations to us", said the fellow who was the most obese, weighing about three hundred pounds and was not more than five foot three inches tall.

Calls to the rabbis of the Lakewood Kollel were answered by a taped recorded message.

"If you are attempting to join our prestigous institution, the only requirement is that you must be proficient in filling out lengthy government aid forms. These forms are available in all languages and can be filled out at any Lexus dealer in Borough Park or Flatbush; or available on the Internet by the shgatzim uremasim (low-lifes) who have Internet access."

 

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http://theunorthodoxjew.blogspot.com/2007/01/naked-man-dies-in-jump-from-boro-park.html