GRAND RABBI OR GRAND LARCENY? THE CLAIRVOYANT HASIDIC REBBE OF THE BRONX

 On January 4th 1959, a 50-car procession made its way from the Bronx to midtown Manhattan, for a wedding of Hasidic royalty at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. Over 2,000 guests sat down for the first-ever glatt kosher wedding dinner at the iconic New York City hotel. The father of the bride, Rabbi Shlomo Friedlander, the "Lisker Rebbe", originated in Hungary, and had been renowned for some years as the "miracle rabbi of the Bronx". And yet, today he is all but forgotten, barely recalled even in the hasidic community that so celebrates miracle rabbis. Using a kaleidoscope of sources and illustrations, Rabbi Dunner charts the tragic trajectory of Rabbi Friedlander and his family, revealing a story so bizarre that it is truly stranger than fiction.

The Slippery Slope That The Orthodox Should Be Concerned with - Not Educated Kids - "the latest data point finding modern support for Christian nationalist sentiment that could threaten Jewish life in a pluralistic nation."

"One in six Jewish respondents supported the idea of the United States being a “Christian nation.”

 

(JTA) – Forty-five percent of American adults believe the United States should be a “Christian nation,” according to the results of a new survey published Thursday by the Pew Research Center — the latest data point finding modern support for Christian nationalist sentiment that could threaten Jewish life in a pluralistic nation.

But Pew respondents had varying opinions on what exactly the term “Christian nation” means. 

Those who supported the idea “see a Christian nation as one where people are more broadly guided by Christian values or a belief in God, even if its laws are not explicitly Christian and its leaders can have a variety of faiths or no faith at all,” Pew researchers Gregory Smith, Michael Rotolo and Patricia Tevington wrote in a summary of their findings.

Pew found that most people who support the idea of a “Christian nation” also reject specific ideas behind Christian nationalism, such as that of the federal government declaring Christianity the country’s official religion or advocating Christian religious values. A majority of all respondents also wanted to keep churches out of politics and believed Supreme Court Justices should not allow their religious beliefs to influence their decision-making. 

A Pew spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the survey didn’t include any questions about Jews and therefore couldn’t offer insight into what its implications toward Jews would be. Pew crafted the survey in an effort to understand the recent growth of Christian nationalist sentiments among some politicians and members of the public.

Still, the concept of a “Christian nation” is a dangerous one for Jews. Christian nationalism, which holds that the United States should base its laws and identity around Christianity and discourage or reject other religious beliefs outright, has a strong historic overlap with antisemitism, and its most vocal modern-day adherents also spout antisemitic beliefs. 

One of the 20th century’s strongest American proponents of Christian nationalism, minister Gerald L.K. Smith, was a virulent antisemite and Nazi sympathizer who partnered with Father Charles Coughlin, distributed antisemitic literature nationwide and supported the deportation of all “Zionists”; his final act was to build a massive statue of Jesus Christ in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

In recent years, right-wing politicians like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and former White House national security advisor Michael Flynn have openly embraced Christian nationalism alongside antisemitic beliefs, while even some U.S. civil servants have been outed as promoting antisemitic Christian nationalist views. Christian nationalists remain some of former President Donald Trump’s fiercest supporters.

The country’s most prominent antisemites and white supremacists are also Christian nationalists. Nick Fuentes, the founder of a white nationalist political group who has connections to Greene and fellow Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, has declared that “we need a government of Christians” and said “Jewish people can be here, but they can’t make laws.” Andrew Torba, the openly antisemitic founder of the social network Gab who has ties to current Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, has said he pushes Jews to “repent and accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior.”

A number of mass shooters in recent years, including the perpetrators of the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh and the Buffalo supermarket shooting earlier this year, also authored manifestos voicing support for the so-called “replacement theory,” which has its roots in Christian nationalism and holds that Jews and other minority groups are plotting to overthrow America’s white Christian majority. Fox News host Tucker Carlson has also endorsed the theory on his show.

Meanwhile, the label “Judeo-Christian,” commonly employed by Republicans to describe the idea of Jewish and Christian unity over general Christian principles, has been embraced by right-wing Jewish politicians in recent years.

Most respondents who supported the idea of the United States being a “Christian nation” themselves identified as Christian and Republican, according to Pew. One in six Jewish respondents supported the idea of the United States being a “Christian nation.”

https://www.jta.org/2022/10/27/united-states/nearly-half-of-us-adults-believe-america-should-be-a-christian-nation?utm_source=JTA_Maropost&utm_campaign=JTA_DB&utm_medium=email&mpweb=1161-50002-25499

Renamed - "The Lipa Margulies - Agudath Israel "Tawdry Tale" Settlement Oversight Bill" ---- The settlement requires the diocese to have a formal program to monitor credibly accused priests and submit to an annual compliance audit by a former FBI official.

 

With The Horse's Tail In Mind...."We Didn't Know"....

 The Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo has agreed to strengthen its oversight of clergy accused of sexual misconduct to settle a lawsuit brought by New York's attorney general alleging the church mishandled abuse claims and protected predatory priests, authorities said Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. Malone resigned in December 2019 amid mounting calls for his ouster from his staff, priests and the public over his handling of misconduct allegations.

 

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo has agreed to strengthen its oversight of clergy accused of sexual misconduct to settle a lawsuit brought by New York’s attorney general alleging the church mishandled abuse claims and protected predatory priests, authorities said Tuesday.

The settlement requires the diocese to have a formal program to monitor credibly accused priests and submit to an annual compliance audit by a former FBI official with expertise in clergy sexual abuse, Attorney General Letitia James said.

“For far too long, the Buffalo diocese and its leaders failed their most basic duty to guide and protect our children,” James said in a news release. “In choosing to defend the perpetrators of sexual abuse instead of defending the most vulnerable, the Buffalo diocese and its leaders breached parishioners’ trust and caused many a crisis of faith.”

Buffalo Bishop Michael Fisher said the agreement confirms safety and reporting protocols the diocese has adopted in recent years. A priest supervision program begun last year assigns a monitor with law enforcement experience to any accused member of the clergy to enforce restrictions on their conduct. Supervised clergy risk having their pension withheld if they live near children or a school or perform priestly duties.

The diocese also has named a child protection policy coordinator.

“Today’s agreement memorializes the diocese’s utmost commitment to ensuring that all young people and other vulnerable persons are safe and never at risk of abuse of any kind by a member of the clergy, diocesan employee, volunteer, or member of a religious order serving in the Diocese of Buffalo,” Fisher said in a letter to the public.

Under the agreement, former FBI official Kathleen McChesney will review the diocese’s management of sexual abuse complaints and allegations for at least three years as an independent compliance auditor. McChesney has led the FBI offices in Chicago and Portland, Oregon, and was the first director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of Child Protection.

A civil lawsuit brought against the diocese and two former leaders in November 2020 accused the diocese of sheltering accused priests by letting them step away from ministry rather than follow mandated procedures that would subject them to possible removal from the priesthood by the Vatican.

The settlement was met with disappointment from victim advocacy group SNAP, in part because an employee of the diocese was given the job of child protection policy coordinator. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said in a statement that its members “would have greatly preferred to see a truly independent, non-church-related individual take over this office”

The attorney general’s complaint took the novel approach of applying New York’s charities statutes to address clergy sexual misconduct. It accused church officials of misusing charitable assets by supporting priests who were allowed to retire or go on leave.

Under the agreement, Bishop Emeritus Richard Malone and former Auxiliary Bishop Edward Grosz are banned for life from holding any secular fiduciary role with a charity registered in New York, James said.

Malone resigned in December 2019 amid mounting calls for his ouster from his staff, priests and the public over his handling of misconduct allegations. Grosz resigned in 2020 upon reaching the retirement age of 75.

“They’re both relieved that this ordeal is over,” their attorney Dennis Vacco said by phone, adding that Malone and Grosz “have steadfastly maintained that they did not engage in any wrongdoing.”

“From their perspective, the focus now returns to what’s in the best interest of the Catholic faithful throughout the diocese,” Vacco said.

New York’s investigation of the Buffalo diocese began in September 2018, according to James, who said probes are ongoing into the conduct of the state’s seven other dioceses: the Archdiocese of New York and the dioceses of Albany, Brooklyn, Ogdensburg, Rochester, Rockville Centre and Syracuse.

The Diocese of Buffalo filed for bankruptcy protection in February 2020 amid a flood of lawsuits after New York’s Child Victims Act suspended the statute of limitations to give victims of childhood abuse time to pursue even decades-old allegations. The diocese has been the subject of more than 900 claims, James’ office said.

 

https://religionnews.com/2022/10/26/stricter-clergy-oversight-part-of-buffalo-diocese-settlement/

Honest would be coming to terms with the extent to which anti-Zionism has become the antisemitism of our day, echoing the same sordid conspiratorial tropes about Jews as swindlers and impostors. Honest would also be admitting that you speak for more people than many Americans would have cared to admit. For that, but only that, you deserve thanks.

 

Thank Ye Very Much

 

To Kanye West, or “Ye”:

We’ve never met and I hope we never will.

Still, I’d like to express a sort of gratitude. With a few outbursts in a few days — you threatened in a tweet this month to go “death con 3” on “JEWISH PEOPLE” and it’s been downhill from there — you’ve probably done more to raise public awareness about the persistence, prevalence and nature of antisemitism than any other recent event.

It’s remarkable how long it took us to get here. For 2020, the F.B.I. reports that Jews, who constitute about 2.4 percent of the total adult population in the United States, were on the receiving end of 54.9 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes. On many nights in New York City, Hasidic or Orthodox Jews are being shoved, harangued and beaten.

So far, this has been one of the most underreported stories in the country — itself a telling indicator in an era that is otherwise hyper-attuned to prejudice and hate.

At times, the reporting has all but accused Jews of bringing the violence on themselves, with lengthy stories about allegedly pushy Jewish neighbors or rapacious Jewish landlords. At other times — such as after the attack in January on a Texas synagogue by a British Muslim man who had traveled 4,800 miles to get there — reporters seem to have gone out of their way to find non-antisemitic motives for nakedly antisemitic attacks.

More often, attacks on Jews are treated as regrettable yet somehow understandable expressions of anger at Israel. In May 2021, Jewish diners at a sushi restaurant in Los Angeles were physically assaulted by a member of a group that, according to a witness, was chanting “Death to Jews” and “Free Palestine.” A KABC report of the event was headlined, in part: “Mideast tensions lead to L.A. fight.”

To suggest that “Mideast tensions” led to a “fight” is to obscure both the nature and motive of the assault. Imagine the absurdity of a headline that read: “High Levels of Crime in Minority Neighborhood Lead Police Officer to Kneel on Man’s Neck for Eight Minutes.”

Actually, Ye, you probably can imagine it, since you’ve also blamed George Floyd for his own death. But it’s worth pondering the extent to which, in American culture today, Jews are excluded from inclusion and included in the excluded. That is, the Jewish people’s status as an oft-persecuted minority goes increasingly unrecognized, while the Jewish people’s position as a legitimate target for contempt and ostracism is becoming increasingly accepted.

Take Hollywood, where the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened its doors last year with a panel dedicated to “Creating a More Inclusive Museum.” Yet, as The Times’s Adam Nagourney reported in March, “Through dozens of exhibits and rooms, there is barely a mention of Harry and Jack Warner, Adolph Zukor, Samuel Goldwyn or Louis B. Mayer” — the Jews who essentially founded the modern movie industry. (After an outcry, the museum now plans a permanent exhibition for them.)

Or take the law school of the University of California, Berkeley, where nine student groups announced in August that they would not host any speakers who support Zionism, a move that is tantamount to the exclusion of most Jews. In an astonishing defense, law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky noted that the bylaw, which he acknowledged was “discriminatory,” had been adopted by only “a handful of student groups” and had not yet been acted upon — as if Berkeley or any other public law school would tolerate for one instant a single student group that announced its intention to exclude, say, a speaker who believes in trans rights.

Or take Israel itself. Is the Jewish state so uniquely evil that, alone among 193 U.N. member states, it has no moral right to exist? Or is it the unique evil of antisemitism that directs this kind of obsessive hatred at one state only — while generally ignoring or downplaying the endless depredations of regimes in, say, Caracas, Ankara, Havana and Tehran?

These are surely not the things you had in mind when you decided to go “death con 3” on my people. Nor were they necessarily top-of-mind for many of the celebrities who denounced you in tweets and Instagram posts. But your bigotry is as good a place as any to begin to have an honest conversation about antisemitism — one that will hopefully last longer than your own career’s self-destruction.

Honest would be to acknowledge that antisemitism is as much a left-wing phenomenon as it is a right-wing one. Honest would be coming to grips with the fact — as Henry Louis Gates Jr. did in these pages in 1992 — that antisemitism infects corners of Black politics as much as it infects the politics of white supremacy. Honest would be holding to account people who were complicit in your antisemitism — such as Tucker Carlson, who praised your “bold” beliefs while editing out your antisemitic remarks from his interview with you. Honest would be coming to terms with the extent to which anti-Zionism has become the antisemitism of our day, echoing the same sordid conspiratorial tropes about Jews as swindlers and impostors.

Honest would also be admitting that you speak for more people than many Americans would have cared to admit. For that, but only that, you deserve thanks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/26/opinion/kanye-west-antisemitism.html

 

How Bad Is It Really?

Kanye's Social-Media Follower Count Increases Despite (because of) Antisemitic Posts!

Kanye West's social-media follower count has increased, despite his antisemitic posts.

In a since-deleted tweet from Saturday, the 45-year-old rapper—who legally changed his name to Ye—wrote that he was "going death con 3 on Jewish people," adding, "You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda."

According to Social Blade, a website that tracks social-media statistics, Ye's Twitter and Instagram followers have gone up since posting the messages.

On Saturday, the "Stronger" artist saw an increase of 180,925 Twitter followers, compared to Friday's of 18,772, Thursday's of 13,836 and Wednesday's of just 3,476.

MORE:

https://www.newsweek.com/kanye-west-twitter-instagram-following-increases-antisemitic-posts-1750722

This Makes Me Feel ILL!

 Maimonides On Superstition:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1450979.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A98a864c4394ec574fc0629695d98f70d&ab_segments=&origin=&acceptTC=1

 

Examples:

1. I (along with many others) periodically receive a brochure from an organization that provides charity to needy individuals and families. The brochure includes abundant pictures of saintly-looking men with long white beards, engaged in Torah study and prayer, and signing their names on behalf of this charity. The brochure promises us that "the Gedolei Hador are the official members of the organization." One of the Gedolei Hador is quoted to say: "All who contribute to [this charity] merit to see open miracles." We are asked to contribute to this cause so that the Gedolei Hador will pray on our behalf. We even are given choices of what merit we would like to receive from these prayers: to have nahat from our children; to have children; to find a worthy mate; to earn an easy livelihood. "Urgent requests are immediately forwarded to the home of the Gedolei Hador." If we are willing to contribute so much per name, we are guaranteed that a minyan of outstanding talmidei hakhamim will pray for us at the Kotel. If we contribute a lesser amount, we only will have the prayer recited by one outstanding talmid hakham. We are also told that we can write our request as a kvitel and it will be placed in the Kotel for forty days; we can even transmit our prayer requests by telephone hotline, after we have made a contribution via credit card.

This charity purports not only to be Torah-true, but to have the involvement and backing of the Gedolei Hador. Anyone looking at the brochure would see this as an Orthodox Jewish charity operated by highly religious individuals.

Let us grant that this is indeed a worthy charity that provides assistance to needy Jews. Let us grant that the people who operate this charity see themselves as pious Jews of the highest caliber, literally linked to the Gedolei Hador. Yet, the brochure is not an example of true religion at all, but of something far more akin to superstition.

Is it appropriate for a Gadol Hador to assure contributors that they will be worthy of open miracles? Can anyone rightfully speak on behalf of the Almighty's decisions relating to doing open miracles? Doesn't this statement reflect a belief that prayers uttered by so-called sages (similar to incantations uttered by shamans?!) can control God's actions, even to the extent of making Him do miracles?

Moreover, why should people be made to feel that they are not qualified to pray to God directly? Why should "religious leaders" promote the notion that if people will pay money, some pious individual will recite a prayer at the Kotel-and that the prayer uttered by such an individual at the Kotel is more efficacious than one's own prayers? How tasteless and contrary to religious values is the notion that a minyan of outstanding talmidei hakhamim will pray if you pay enough; but only one will pray for you if you choose to contribute less than the recommended sum?

In this brochure, dressed as it is in the garb of Torah-true religion, we have a blatant example of superstition-tainted Judaism. The leaders of this organization assume: 1) Gedolei Hador (we are not told who decides who is a Gadol Hador, nor why any Gadol Hador would want to run to the Kotel to pray every time a donor called in an "urgent request") have greater powers to pray than anyone else. 2) A Gadol Hador can promise us open miracles if we send in a donation. 3) A prayer uttered at the holy site of the Kotel has more value than a prayer uttered elsewhere i.e. the Kotel is treated as a sacred, magical entity. 4) A kvitel placed in a crevice in the Kotel has religious value and efficacy. This brochure relies on the public's gullible belief in the supernatural powers of Gedolei Hador and the Kotel.

Lest one think this charity is the only Orthodox Jewish group that promotes a superstitious (rather than truly religious) viewpoint, one may do a google search and find others who do pretty much the same thing. The Wailing Wall Kvitel Service advertises that it will deliver your personal prayers or requests to the Lord "even if you cannot travel to the holy land to visit Jerusalem in person." We are assured that once this Service receives our kvitel and donation, the kvitel will be placed between the stones of the Kotel and "you will receive a postcard from the wailing wall."

Nor is this behavior restricted to the "hareidi" sector of Orthodoxy. One website informs us that Jews and non-Jews have long had the practice of writing their private thoughts and prayers and having them inserted into the cracks of the Kotel "in the firm belief that at this holiest of locales God is always present and listening." (Doesn't Judaism believe that God is always present and listening everywhere?) The sponsors of this website which promises to insert the kvitels "on a same day basis", have also arranged with a kollel in Jerusalem to have Tehillim recited for the ill or to have Torah studied in someone's memory. This program is staffed by volunteers of the Orthodox Union, a mainstream Orthodox organization!

The Jewish Press of March 19, 2008 reported on the trip to Israel by Senator John McCain who traveled with Senator Joe Lieberman. The article included a photograph of Senator McCain placing a kvitel in the Kotel! He obviously was told that this was the "religiously correct" thing to do, bringing this practice to another level of public acceptance. Senator Barack Obama, on his recent trip to Israel, also placed a kvitel in the Kotel, also having been advised that this was the proper thing to do.

The Jerusalem Post (April 15, 2008) ran a news item reporting that the Rabbi of the Kotel and his assistants clean out the kvitels from the Kotel twice a year, before Pessah and Rosh HaShanah. They do so in order to make room for the millions of kvitels that come in from all over the world, from Jews and non-Jews. The kvitels are put into plastic-lined bins and then brought to the Mount of Olives cemetery for burial. The custom of the kvitels is raised to a level of holiness.

Certainly, those who write kvitels do so with a sense of piety, with a sincere desire to get their prayers to God. Yet, shouldn't religious leaders be telling people that they ought to bring their prayers to God-by praying directly to Him. There is no need whatever to write out prayers for deposit in the Kotel. On the contrary, this practice smacks of superstition, relying on magical powers that are attributed to the Kotel rather than on direct prayer to God.

Defenders of the kvitel practice will argue: this is an age-old custom, approved or tolerated by great sages; this is a harmless custom that doesn't hurt anyone; this is a way for people to feel that their words will have a better chance of reaching God. In response, we can say that there are various beliefs and practices that were approved or tolerated by great sages in the past-but that are more akin to superstition than religion e.g. belief in demons (sheidim and mazikim), writing and wearing magical amulets, conducting ceremonies to ward off evil spirits etc. The fact that great people believed or did these things does not make these things correct. The Rambam condemned those who used Torah scrolls, tefillin or mezuzot as magic charms-and I would assume that there were rabbis before (and after) his time who approved or tolerated these practices. The Rambam attempted to make people see the difference between religion and superstition; unfortunately, not everyone wanted to accept this distinction, but preferred to remain attached to superstitious beliefs and practices.

Superstitious practices do cause harm. According to Rambam, severe punishments (including loss of one's portion in the world to come!) are meted out to those who engage in superstitious rites. Moreover, a superstitious approach to Judaism undermines its intellectual and rational foundations, treating it more as a cult than a religion. This is a vast disservice to Judaism, and turns intelligent and reasonable people away from Torah.

People may feel that superstitious behavior is a way to gain supernatural results-but this feeling is repudiated by the Torah. Rabbis and teachers need to remind the community that one need not-and should not-seek superstitious means of controlling or appeasing God. Rather, people should be reminded of their right and responsibility to pray directly to God on their own, without needing to resort to the supposed powers of holy men, holy objects, holy places.

Another indication of superstitious trends in Jewish life is the tendency to rely on "good luck" charms e.g. red string tied around the wrist; food or drink blessed by certain kabbalistic sages. I have known cases of otherwise rational people who have turned to "wonder workers" for help in saving a mortally ill loved one. Medical doctors have been unable to save the patient; out of desperation, relatives have asked for "spiritual" cures. In one case, a "saintly" rabbi was flown in from Israel to pray at the bedside of a dying child. (The child unfortunately died.) In another case, a "saintly" rabbi received a contribution after which he sent to a sick patient a bottle of Arak that he had blessed. (That patient also died.) It happens sometimes that people recover from their illnesses. When they do, they are ready to swear that the cure was the result of intervention by the saintly person who prayed for them or sent them holy things to eat or drink. This gives further fuel for desperately ill people to turn to magic workers for help; after all, it might do some good!

Although we can understand-and even sympathize-with this attitude, we must also state clearly that it represents a turn away from true religion and a turn toward superstition. As such, we should be teaching people to avoid falling into this way of thought and behavior. We should be urging people not to rely on red strings, or amulets, or foods/drinks blessed by "saintly" people: rather, they should turn their hearts and minds and souls entirely to God.

Rambam: Judaism and Reason

Rambam stressed the need for human beings to use their power of reason. Superstition is the antithesis of reason, and therefore a false path to truth. While philosophers surely understand this, what are we supposed to do with the masses who are more prone to fall into the ways of superstition? The answer is: we must teach the masses a philosophically sound and rational approach to religion. We must encourage people to use their powers of reason.

Rambam disdained those who were content to espouse truth on the basis of blind faith, without attempting to establish the intellectual foundations of truth. People who do not use their reason are deficient even in their faith; they are prone to superstition and are gullible to the pronouncements of charismatic (even if misguided) authority figures.

Rambam pointed out that there are things accepted as truth-which are not in fact true. Human reason is necessary as a constant and reliable agent to challenge, verify or reject long-held "truths". Just because a great authority taught something does not ensure that it is true. Indeed, truth stands on its own merit, not on the basis of the opinions of human beings.

For when something has been demonstrated, the correctness of the matter is not increased and certainty regarding it is not strengthened by the consensus of all men of knowledge with regard to it. Nor could its correctness be diminished and certainty regarding it be weakened even if all the people on earth disagreed with it.(Guide, II:13)

In his Mishneh Torah (Laws of Sanctification of the New Moon, 17:24), Rambam states that many books on astronomy and mathematics were composed by Greek sages. Similar works by ancient Jewish sages of the tribe of Issachar have not come down to us.

Since all these rules have been established by sound and clear proofs, free from any flaw and irrefutable, we need not be concerned about the identity of their authors, whether they be Hebrew Prophets or Gentile sages. For when we have to do with rules and propositions which have been demonstrated by good reasons and have been verified to be true by sound and flawless proofs, we rely upon the author who has discovered them or transmitted them only because of his demonstrated proofs and verified reasoning.

Intelligent people need to distinguish between what is true and what is spurious. Surely, we may rely on the wisdom of the prophets and rabbinic sages, just as we rely on the advice of skilled physicians or experts in other fields. Yet, even when receiving advice from these authorities, we should not suspend personal judgment altogether. In his Epistle to Yemen, Rambam warns:

Do not consider a statement true because you find it in a book, for the prevaricator is as little restrained with his pen as with his tongue. For the untutored and uninstructed are convinced of the veracity of a statement by the mere fact that it is written; nevertheless its accuracy must be demonstrated in another manner.[1]

Just because "authorities" and "scholars" have claimed something to be true does not make it true. Rambam, in his Letter on Astrology, remarks that "fools have composed thousands of books of nothingness and emptiness".[2] Men "great in years but not in wisdom" wasted much time studying these worthless books and came to think of themselves as experts. They taught nonsense to the public, imagining that they were conveying truth. Unsuspecting people believed these "experts" because they seemed to be erudite and convincing.

Rambam explains that we should only accept something as reliably true if it belongs to one of three categories. 1) It is proven clearly by human reasoning such as arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. 2) It is perceived with certainty through one of the five senses. 3) It is received from the prophets or the righteous. In considering whether or not something is true, we must determine through which category we have derived its truthfulness. If we cannot verify something through one of these three categories, we cannot accept it as being true.

A dilemma arises. Rambam categorically rejects the validity of astrology, considering it a foolish superstition rather than a bona fide science. Yet, the Talmud and Midrashim record the opinions of righteous sages who themselves seemed to ascribe veracity to astrology! Thus, by Rambam's own standards of determining truth, shouldn't we believe in astrology since we have received this belief from the righteous? Rambam resolves this seeming problem:

It is not proper to abandon matters of reason that have already been verified by proofs, shake loose of them, and depend on the words of a single one of the sages from whom possibly the matter was hidden. Or there may be an allusion in those words; or they may have been said with a view to the times and the business before him. You surely know how many of the verses of the holy Torah are not to be taken literally. Since it is known through proofs of reason that it is impossible for the thing to be literally so, the Targum [Aramaic translator of the Torah] rendered it in a form that reason will abide. A man should never cast his reason behind him, for the eyes are set in front, not in back.[3]

Once we have verified the truth of something on the basis of reason, we should not accept the literal meaning of texts that contradict this verified truth. If a sage has made a statement that violates a proven truth, then either 1) he was mistaken; 2) he was speaking in allegorical or poetic language, not to be taken literally; 3) he was speaking within the context of his time and place. If the Torah itself-which is Truth-records something that contradicts verified truth, then the Torah must be interpreted to conform to this established truth. For Rambam, it is axiomatic that the Torah of Truth cannot teach something that violates rational truth.

Rambam argued that reason was the best antidote to falling into a superstitious mindset. With all the risks of allowing people to use their reason, he thought it was essential to put religion on a philosophically sound basis. It was religiously and intellectually wrong to foster a fundamentalist, obscurantist, literalist view of religion that ascribed irrational teachings to the Bible and our Sages. If it is dangerous to rely on reason, it is even more dangerous to violate reason.

Conclusion:

There are strong tendencies in our day (evident in other religions, as well as Judaism) that foster authoritarianism, obscurantism, and fundamentalism. These tendencies promote uncritical thinking, surrender of autonomy, and reliance on holy "authorities". These are ingredients that make for a superstitious worldview rather than a truly religious worldview.

Rambam's insistence on our use of reason is of vital importance to all who would like to reclaim a philosophically-sound Judaism. Rambam teaches us to separate between true religion and superstition; between direct confrontation with God and spurious use of magical charms and incantations; between proper teachers of Torah and counterfeit "sages" who play on human weakness and ignorance.

It is a central challenge of modern Orthodoxy to foster an intellectually meaningful Judaism; to combat tendencies toward superstitious belief and action; to encourage individual responsibility and direct relationship with God. It is time to reclaim the lofty vision of Rambam of a Torah Judaism rooted in reason, that leads to a life of "lovingkindness, righteousness and judgment" (Guide 3:54).

[1] A Maimonides Reader, ed. Isidore Twersky (Springfield: Behrman House, 1972), p.454. For a fine discussion of Rambam's views on superstition, see Marc B. Shapiro, "Maimonidean Halakhah and Superstition", in his book Studies in Maimonides and his Interpreters, University of Scranton Press, Scranton and London, 2008, pp.95-150.

 

But Mendel Loves His Sneakers!

 

MENDEL

“Sneaker companies, like all corporations, are amoral,” Hunt told JTA. “They will do what is unseemly until it becomes unprofitable, whether that means exploiting forced labor in Xinjiang or collaborating with Nazis.”

But Jews love sneakers, too. One of the most prominent Jewish sneakerheads is Rabbi Yoël Mendel, a Paris-based member of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement who goes by “Rabbi Sneakers” online. 

On his Instagram page, Mendel uses sneakers as a tool for teaching Torah and shows off a variety of shoes and sports apparel-themed kippahs, including plenty of Adidas gear. (He praised one pair of leather-free Adidas shoes because he could wear them on Yom Kippur.)

“What can I say,” Mendel told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “They make great, comfortable shoes.” 

 

The Nazi history of Adidas, the sportswear giant that hasn’t dropped Kanye West over antisemitism

 

(JTA) — As rap star Kanye West continually refuses to back down from his antisemitic rants, some of the many institutions he has ties with have begun to jump ship. The fashion tastemakers Balenciaga and Vogue have announced they will no longer be working with him. Hollywood talent giant CAA has dropped him, and a planned documentary about him has been scrapped.

But one formidable company remains, for now, in West’s corner: Adidas.

Despite the German sportswear conglomerate’s announcement earlier this month that it would be placing its partnership with West “under review,” Adidas had not formally ended their business relationship as of Monday, five days after West boasted on a podcast that “I can literally say antisemitic s— and they cannot drop me.” 

The brand’s radio silence has continued even as neo-Nazi groups began using West’s words to go after Jews, unveiling an antisemitic billboard in Los Angeles that was condemned by the White House Monday. 

The Anti-Defamation League has mounted a growing public pressure campaign to get the company to cut ties with West, and celebrities including Kat Dennings, David Schwimmer and Busy Phillips have boosted it. Other celebrities, including Reese Witherspoon and West’s ex-wife Kim Kardashian, have used their social platforms to condemn antisemitism without specifically referencing Adidas or West; Jessica Seinfeld, the Jewish cookbook author and wife to comedian Jerry Seinfeld, spurred a viral Instagram movement by encouraging her followers to share a post reading “I support my Jewish friends and the Jewish people.”

Observers are watching Adidas because of its enormously lucrative partnership with West – their shoes and clothes generated an estimated $2 billion last year and brought the brand cultural cache among young consumers, But the company also has a Nazi history that it has rarely addressed publicly. (The company’s CEO, Kasper Rorsted, announced in August that he would be stepping down in 2023.) 

Here is an abbreviated version of Adidas’ history with Nazis, Jews and the superstar rapper who now goes by Ye.

Does Adidas really have Nazi origins?

Yes, but its founding pre-dates the Nazis’ rise. The company was founded in 1924 in Weimar-era Germany as the Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory), or Geda for short, by cobbler brothers Adolf (“Adi”) and Rudolf Dassler. 

Based in the Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach, the Dassler brothers quickly made a name for themselves by pioneering some of the earliest spiked shoes – drilled through with nails to help runners on uneven terrain.

On May 1, 1933, with the company’s fortunes on the rise and Hitler having just assumed power in Germany, the Dassler brothers formally joined the Nazi party, according to journalist Barbara Smit’s book “Sneaker Wars,” a history of Adidas. 

The Nazis embraced sports as a tool both to boost Germany’s public profile and to train its future armies of young men, so the pioneering shoe company fit nicely into their schema. Under Nazi rule, the Dasslers’ sneaker sales promptly exploded, and they grew the size of their company several times over.

During the infamous 1936 Berlin Olympic games, orchestrated by Hitler in an attempt to demonstrate Aryan athletic supremacy on the world stage, many of the German athletes sported Dassler shoes.

But so did Black American track and field star Jesse Owens, whose very presence at the games was a thumb in the eye of Hitler’s race theories. Even so, Owens was popular with both Germans and Americans, and Adi Dassler was able to convince him to don the company’s spiked shoes during his medal ceremony. The subsequent exposure helped the shoes make inroads among Allied markets after the war, even in spite of their German associations.

How devoted to the Nazis were the Dassler brothers?

Rudolf was a more ardent devotee of Nazi ideology than Adi, according to Smit, but both brothers carried their party membership cards and signed off their letters with “Heil Hitler.” 

During the war, the brothers’ shoe factories were converted into munitions factories for the Nazi military. (Other German shoemakers would test their products on forced laborers in concentration camps.) Rudolf was called to join the war effort, but went AWOL as part of his bid to maintain control of the company from his brother, whom he became convinced was scheming against him. 

According to Der Spiegel, some American troops were poised to destroy the Herzogenaurach factory, which employed some forced laborers, in April 1945 — before Adi’s wife Käthe approached them and convinced them that the building was only being used to make sneakers. It worked.

The factory was saved, and when the U.S. Air Force took over the Nazis’ Herzogenaurauch air base, American troops who were fans of Jesse Owens bought Dassler shoes and helped spread the word about the company back home.

What happened to Adidas after the war?

Ironically, the end of World War II was only the beginning of the fight between the Dassler brothers, each of whom (along with their wives) tried to wrest the shoe empire away from the other. 

When Germany entered its postwar denazification period, Allies forced the town of Herzogenaurach — including, presumably, the Dasslers and their factory employees — to watch documentary footage of the horrors visited upon Jews at Nazi concentration camps. Rudolf was also arrested, suspected of feeding information to the Gestapo, and briefly sent to a German prisoner-of-war camp for his role on the frontlines, but was freed one year later owing to the backlog of cases against POWs.

Meanwhile, Adi was accused of having actively aided and supported the Nazis during the war, but was able to put together a dossier of people — including the town’s mayor — to support his claim that he was far from a party loyalist. 

Among Adi’s claims, according to Smit: he had continued to work with Jewish leather traders later than many other Germans would do business with Jews. He also found a mayor from a neighboring town who claimed to be half-Jewish to say that Dassler had sheltered him on his property in the waning days of the war.

The siblings’ relationship suffered a permanent rift in 1949, leading Adi to form his own company as Adidas, while Rudolf went off to start rival sportswear company Puma. Both companies remain headquartered in Herzogenaurach, and the town’s residents remain bitterly divided over brand loyalty to this day (though Adidas, currently the No. 2 global sportswear company behind Nike, seems to have come out ahead).

What kind of relationship does Adidas have with Jews today?

The company calls Adolf Dassler its “founding father,” but it remains tight-lipped about its founders’ Nazi associations. On its website, Adidas’ own official history defines its pre-1949 years simply as “only the start of our story,” without any references to Nazis or Owens.

Jewish athletes have worked with the company in the decades since the war. In 1972, at Adidas’ suggestion, American Jewish Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz carried a pair of their shoes to the podium during his medal ceremony. And last year, Adidas Israel built a campaign around a haredi Orthodox marathon runner. 

Adidas has also occasionally waded into geopolitical waters with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2012 the company was boycotted by Arab states for sponsoring the Jerusalem Marathon, which ran through disputed territory. And in 2018, the company ended its sponsorship of the Israel Football Association, a development celebrated as a victory by the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement because the association had included teams representing Israeli settlements. (Puma took over the sponsorship.)

Adidas did not respond to a JTA request for comment for this story.

So what’s next?

Adidas’ partnership with West is nearly a decade old, and extremely lucrative. His Yeezy line of sneakers and other products brought the company an estimated $2 billion in revenue last year, accounting for around 10% of its total revenue, according to The Washington Post. (West previously had an arrangement with Nike but was unhappy with it.)

Despite the “corporate social responsibility” movement that many companies have embraced in the aftermath of 2020’s racial justice protests, the idea of corporations like Adidas having a sense of social responsibility remains elusive, according to Josh Hunt, author of “University of Nike: How Corporate Cash Bought American Higher Education.”

“Sneaker companies, like all corporations, are amoral,” Hunt told JTA. “They will do what is unseemly until it becomes unprofitable, whether that means exploiting forced labor in Xinjiang or collaborating with Nazis.”

But Jews love sneakers, too. One of the most prominent Jewish sneakerheads is Rabbi Yoël Mendel, a Paris-based member of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement who goes by “Rabbi Sneakers” online. 

On his Instagram page, Mendel uses sneakers as a tool for teaching Torah and shows off a variety of shoes and sports apparel-themed kippahs, including plenty of Adidas gear. (He praised one pair of leather-free Adidas shoes because he could wear them on Yom Kippur.)

“What can I say,” Mendel told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “They make great, comfortable shoes.” 

The fraud included the fabrication of records and dozens of sworn misrepresentations to government agencies, the authorities noted.

Hasidic School to Pay $8 Million After Admitting to Widespread Fraud

 

U.S. Attorneys » Eastern District of New York

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Department of Justice

U.S. Attorney’s Office

Eastern District of New York

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, October 24, 2022

ברוקלין ישיבה איז זיך מודה צו שטארק פארשפרייטע פראגראם און בענעפיט שווינדל קאנספיראציע

שולע איז מסכים צו באצאלן 5 מיליאן דאלאר שטראפגעלט אין אפגעלייגטע משפט הסכם

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr-5

The Central United Talmudical Academy, which operates the largest all-boys yeshiva in New York State, acknowledged illegally diverting money from federal food aid and other programs.

 

The operators of the Central United Talmudical Academy in Brooklyn admitted in federal court to diverting government money in a wide-ranging fraud

For years, the largest private Hasidic Jewish school in New York State illegally diverted millions of dollars from a variety of government programs, paid teachers off the books and requested reimbursements for meals for students that it never actually provided, the yeshiva’s operators admitted in federal court on Monday.

As part of the widespread fraud, school officials took money intended to feed children and used it to subsidize parties for adults, federal prosecutors said.

In order to avoid facing criminal charges, the school, the Central United Talmudical Academy in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, agreed to pay fines and restitution totaling more than $8 million, according to a deferred prosecution agreement filed Monday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.

“Today’s admission makes clear there was a pervasive culture of fraud and greed in place at C.U.T.A.,” said Michael J. Driscoll, assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s New York office, referring to the school by its initials in a statement. “We expect schools to be places where students are taught how to do things properly. The leaders of C.U.T.A. went out of their way to do the opposite.”

In court on Monday, a lawyer representing the yeshiva, Marc Mukasey, said school leaders would work collaboratively with the government to fulfill its obligations under the agreement, which has been in the works since 2019. After the hearing, Mr. Mukasey declined to comment further. School leaders did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment.

The filing came six weeks after a New York Times investigation revealed that about 100 all-boys Hasidic schools across the state had received more than $1 billion in taxpayer funding in recent years while most were denying their students a basic secular education. The Central United Talmudical Academy figured prominently in that article.

Since then, Hasidic schools have come under intensifying government pressure on multiple fronts, with officials scrutinizing what the schools teach and how they manage their finances.

Timeline: New York’s Oversight of Hasidic Schools

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State law requires all private schools to provide an education comparable to what is in public schools. In 2015, New York City’s education department said it would investigate complaints about the quality of secular education in schools in the Hasidic Jewish community. Here’s a timeline of the investigation:

July 2015: Graduates of Hasidic religious schools, known as yeshivas, wrote a complaint about the poor secular education they received. Then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration opened an investigation into the schools, but it soon stalled, plagued by delays and a lack of cooperation from the yeshivas.

November 2018: The state released updated rules outlining what nonpublic schools like yeshivas must teach and for how long – with consequences for schools that did not comply. Hasidic leaders sued, and the rules were thrown out in court in 2019.

December 2019: The city Department of Investigation found the de Blasio administration delayed a report on the schools. A few days later, the city finally released findings: only two of 28 yeshivas that officials visited were offering a basic secular education. The investigation has not concluded, and the city has done little to follow up.

Sept. 11, 2022: A New York Times investigation found scores of schools are systematically denying children a basic education, a violation of state law that has trapped generations of students in a cycle of joblessness and destitution. Even so, The Times found, these institutions have collected more than $1 billion from city, state and federal sources in the past four years alone.

Sept. 13, 2022: The State Board of Regents voted unanimously to approve rules that would force Hasidic yeshivas and other private schools to prove they are offering basic secular instruction. The vote came after four years of tumultuous debate about how the government should regulate the schools.

Oct. 6, 2022: The New York education commissioner ruled that a large boys' yeshiva in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, is violating state law by failing to provide a basic secular education. This is the first time the state has taken action against a Hasidic boys' school. New York City had earlier recommended the school be found in compliance with the law.

Oct. 24, 2022: The operators of the largest private Hasidic school in New York State admitted to diverting millions of dollars from government programs in a widespread fraud scheme, paying teachers off the books and receiving reimbursement for student meals that they never actually provided.

In September, the State Board of Regents approved a set of rules requiring all private schools, including yeshivas, to prove they are teaching nonreligious subjects like English and math or face a loss of funding.

The state education commissioner ruled this month that one Brooklyn boy’s yeshiva that had been the subject of a lawsuit was not complying with the state law requiring all private schools to provide a basic secular education. That school will have to work with the New York City Education Department to improve.

As part of the agreement filed in court on Monday, the Central United Talmudical Academy will be subject to an independent monitor for the next three years, after which prosecutors will dismiss the charges. The school will be able to submit a list of potential monitors for the government to approve.

The school has more than 2,000 male students enrolled at one location and 2,500 female students at separate buildings nearby. It is the flagship organization of a powerful faction of the Satmar group of Hasidic Judaism run by Grand Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum. The faction operates several other schools in Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley.

The Williamsburg school received about $10 million in government funding in the year before the pandemic, according to a Times analysis of city, state and federal funding records.

During a hearing on Monday, U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis said he was “deeply concerned” about the behavior the yeshiva admitted to engaging in. “It is my hope that this is a new beginning,” he added.

Judge Garaufis implored two school representatives, Cheskel Berkowitz and Yoel Weisz, to follow through on the promises the school had made to eliminate any financial impropriety, “for the good of the community.”

The federal investigation into the school, led by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York, stemmed from a criminal case against two of its former leaders, Elozer Porges and Joel Lowy. Both men pleaded guilty in March 2018 for their roles in a conspiracy to defraud the government through school nutrition programs.

During that case, the investigators found evidence of other fraud and broadened the scope of their inquiry, the federal authorities said.

The documents filed on Monday revealed that the school was at the center of a varied and wide-ranging fraud scheme.

For years, the documents showed, the school paid many of its teachers and other employees in part with cash, coupons and life insurance policies, making it seem as if the employees were earning less than they really were and allowing them to pay lower taxes and qualify for welfare.

From 2010 to 2015, the school paid employees with at least $12 million in coupons — 17 percent of its total employee compensation — which the workers could use as cash in Hasidic grocery stores and other shops, the investigators found.

The school also set up no-show jobs for friends of employees and other community members, the documents said.

The yeshiva also benefited from its fraudulent payment practices because many employees and other community members used their welfare status to receive New York City vouchers for child care — and then used them to pay the school, according to the documents. The Times reported last month that a city voucher program sent nearly a third of its total funding to Hasidic neighborhoods last year.

The federal investigation found that the school defrauded government programs meant to provide meals to low-income children, receiving more than $3.2 million from 2014 to 2016 in reimbursement for what the authorities said was an “almost entirely fictitious” meal program.

The fraud included the fabrication of records and dozens of sworn misrepresentations to government agencies, the authorities noted.

In some cases, the court documents said, yeshiva officials claimed that they provided meals to children on days when the school was not in session.

In recent years, as the school has negotiated with the prosecutors, it has replaced its executive management team and developed a new set of controls, among other changes, the authorities said.

“Today’s resolution accounts for C.U.T.A.’s involvement in those crimes and provides a path forward to repay and repair the damage done to the community, while also allowing C.U.T.A. to continue to provide education for children in the community,” said Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in a statement.

The Times investigation found that the Central United Talmudical Academy, like other Hasidic schools, focused almost exclusively on providing religious education, with little instruction in English, reading and math and almost no classes in history, science or civics.

The Times also reported that Hasidic boys’ schools tend to score much lower on state standardized exams than other schools in New York.

In 2019, the Central United Talmudical Academy agreed to give state standardized tests in reading and math to more than 1,000 students, The Times found. Every one of them failed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/nyregion/hasidic-yeshiva-fraud-central-united-talmudical-academy.html

Anyone $ee Midget Marvin - Members of the Goyim Defense League, including its founder Jon Minadeo, stood on an overpass while the banners hung, according to pictures taken by drivers and shared widely on social media this weekend. Several of them appeared to be giving Nazi salutes.

 

‘Kanye was right about the Jews,’ antisemitic group says on Los Angeles highway banner

Pictures of the Goyim Defense League banners supporting Kanye West's comments about Jews went viral after they were captured in Los Angeles, Oct. 22, 2022.

 

(JTA) — Drivers heading south on the freeway in Los Angeles Saturday could view a Kanye West-related provocation by a vocal group of antisemites.

“Kanye was right about the Jews,” read a banner hung by members of the Goyim Defense League, a white supremacist group, over the 405 freeway. It was a comment on the rapper and conservative figure’s string of antisemitic comments on social media and in interviews in recent weeks, beginning with a vow to “go death con 3 on Jewish people.”

The banner appeared alongside another crediting Goyim TV, one of several calling cards of the Goyim Defense League, alongside distributing antisemitic literature in local communities. The group has hung prominent antisemitic banners before, including in Los Angeles (“Jews want a race war,” 2020) and Austin, Texas (“Vax the Jews,” 2021). Shortly after the Austin demonstration, a teenager was arrested after allegedly setting fire to a synagogue there.

Members of the Goyim Defense League, including its founder Jon Minadeo, stood on an overpass while the banners hung, according to pictures taken by drivers and shared widely on social media this weekend. Several of them appeared to be giving Nazi salutes.

The group is reportedly pleased by outrage over its stunts because it calls attention to them. And indeed, the latest display appears to have drawn more widespread attention than some of the group’s other stunts in large part because the frenzy over West’s recent comments has caused more than antisemitism watchdogs to decry it.

“Really great to see slurs about Jews shared across social media because a few parasites went on a bridge over the 405 and spread propaganda,” tweeted Elad Nehorai, a Jewish activist who lives in Los Angeles, on Sunday. “Congrats to those who’ve shared it: you’ve done their work for them and spread it to millions.”

Many of the people sharing the photos — including the gun control activist Shannon Watts, actress Busy Phillips and artist Zoe Buckman — included criticism of Adidas, the athletic company that maintains a lucrative partnership with West.

Adidas, whose founders were Nazis, has said it has placed its contract with West “under review” but has not severed its ties, despite calls to do so by the Anti-Defamation League and others. The West collaboration reportedly brings in $2 billion a year, 10% of the company’s revenue.

“I can literally say antisemitic s— and they cannot drop me,” West bragged last week.

Oren Segal, the head of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, noted on Twitter that the Goyim Defense League frequently livestreams its activity and solicits donations during those broadcasts, as it did on Saturday. He said the group’s ability to springboard off of West’s comments represented a potent danger.

“While Ye (formerly Kanye West) has been no stranger to controversy in recent years, his most recent rhetoric has helped advance the spread of longstanding hateful and false narratives shared by extremist groups,” Segal tweeted.