Jerry Nadler brought Zabar’s bag with ‘a babka and the constitution’ to the impeachment hearing
Jerry Nadler speaks to the media in New York, Sept. 7, 2020.
(JTA) — As chair of the House
Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler has been busy this week creating
impeachment history. But he he hasn’t gone hungry, apparently.
C-SPAN caught Nadler carrying a bag from Zabar’s, the famed New York
grocery and appetizing store located in his Upper West Side
congressional district, as he took his seat on Wednesday. The bold
orange logo would be unmistakeable to anyone familiar with the store.
Multiple news organizations — including New York Magazine and West Side Rag, a hyperlocal blog — reached out to Nadler’s office to find out what was inside the bag.
The response, from Nadler’s deputy press secretary Julian Gerson: “A babka and the constitution, what else?”
Nadler is one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s nine chosen managers for the impeachment process, along with fellow Jewish Reps. David Cicilline, Jamie Raskin and Adam Schiff.
Here's how the community sabotaged its own political interests and
reached a point when mask-burning and death-threats were somehow
acceptable.
The great writer Aaron Sorkin wrote: “decisions are made by those
who show up.” Sadly, if there’s anything the American Orthodox community
has done over this past year, it has been to show up in all the wrong
places. The terrifying scenes of bonafide Nazis, KKK members, and
anarchists running over Capitol Hill, staging an insurgency against the
United States of America, and the assault on the heart of America, have
terrified Americans and people all around the globe.
The scenes of
Orthodox Jews among those thugs is the logical conclusion of what has
happened in our community over the past four years. If this does not
bother you on a moral level, let it be clear: American Orthodoxy has now
successfully and deservingly earned itself political irrelevance. This
irrelevance was hard-earned and will leave its impact for years to come.
On January 20th President-Elect Joe Biden will be sworn into
office with a majority Democratic Congress and Senate. New York State
Assembly is now held by a supermajority of Democrats, predominantly
progressive, and, yes, the vast majority of Orthodox Jews live in blue
states. The hard work of so many individuals and organizations have
earned us the right to perhaps beg for their mercy if we need something,
not much more. Destroying years’ worth of political capital and
inflicting great damage on American support for the Jewish community and
for Israel, individuals and organizations will have a lot of time to
think about this demolition.
While it is hard to know where to begin with this political autopsy, I will attempt to do so here:
City and state level. More than 1.1 million Jews
live in New York City alone. Many more live in New York State. The
decision of so many Orthodox Jews and organizations to confront the
governor, the mayor, public health officials, and the NYPD yielded
little fruit and huge damage. With more than 100,000 Jewish yeshiva
students in NYC alone and a governor who allocated more funding for
Jewish institutions than any governor before him, one would think that
the bull in the china shop would be slightly less aggressive. The
Agudath Israel of America decided to sue the Governor, something I
cannot imagine he appreciated.
Then came the infamous mask burnings in Boro Park, the beating and lynching of those who dissented, the Trump flags, and the exotic appearance of
the Heschy Tishlers of the world with their color and gravitas, using
graphic profanities against the mayor’s wife. Not only did these images
deal a devastating blow to the standing of Jews in New York City and
State; they were also projected around the world. TV stations from
France, Russia, and many other countries gave prime time coverage to the
mask burning, vulgarity slinging individuals in Boro Park, with
unlikely feelings of sympathy for the damage it would inflict on the
image of Jews around the world. Tweets of sympathy from recognized
figures like Mark Levine, Rush Limbaugh, or Ted Cruz can feel great to a
small community; they won’t fund our day schools, synagogue security,
or help us solve the myriad issues that need to be solved locally.
In Congress- Let us start with the simple fact that
80% of congressional seats are decided during the primaries and that
most Orthodox Jews live in heavily Democratic areas. Jews often have a
huge opportunity to make their vote count in who the candidate is, while
their vote in the actual outcome of the race has far fewer
implications. Overall, Orthodox Jews who have historically registered as
Democrats have a strong voice in primaries. This year, Jews in many
blue areas opted out of the Democratic Party, disempowering themselves
and making their votes significantly less effective.
This was most evident in Riverdale, where longtime congressman Elliot
Engel, a Democrat who was also chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee and a true friend of Israel, lost his primary 55% to 40% to
progressive Jamaal Bowman. This surprised many, especially as thousands
of Orthodox Jews live in the area and should have been able to come
through and vote for Engel. When Engel lost, I asked a friend who lives
in the district if he voted, and he said no. He had registered as a
Republican. His vote in the Republican primary in his area is as
effective as his vote for the Narnia presidency, and the lack of his
vote has dealt a huge blow to Israel.
Then came the Federal level. Whether you support it
or not, the religious fervor for former president Trump in the Orthodox
community is unprecedented and unparalleled. Never in the history of
Orthodox Jews in the United States has the community bet all of its
chips and shown all of its support in such a one-sided way. Gone was the
traditional wisdom and recognition that in elections, there are winners
and losers or the notion that putting all eggs in one basket might not
be smart.
Much has been said about the unprecedented religious fervor for
candidate Trump. All I can add to that in retrospect is that we now know
it was a losing bet. From the dozens of Brooklyn lay leaders who chose
to pay $12,000 a plate to have dinner with someone who would be out of
office in less than a year, to the leading rabbis’ “unprecedented”
letter of support”—it was all a losing bet. Mazal tov.
Next time the Agudath Israel of America wants to meet with members of
government claiming they are a non-partisan religious group, they may
have to explain why they chose to write a letter to Mitch McConnell
supporting the nomination of Amy Coney Barret to the Supreme Court. It
is unlikely that Mitch McConnel ever saw the letter they sent. More
likely is that other city and state officials whose help our community
really needs did see it. This was yet another example of us better our
political fortunes for no apparent gain.
The destruction of our ability to respond to anti-Semitism-
While the rabbis and Jews in every generation understood that the way
we behave as a community can have an impact on the way we are treated
and thus made leniencies in halacha with the logic of mipnei darkei shalom or mishum eivah (for
the ways of peace or for the concern of being targeted), anti-lockdown
Brooklyn was going to have none of it. They wanted full equality. They
wanted to be able to burn masks in the streets, sue Governor Cuomo,
violate city and health regulations, and to be treated with all
fairness. “Why can they loot and riot and we can’t do this?!”,
came the question our parents and grandparents would never dream of
asking. Previous generations all knew if you are Jewish, you must behave
with extra courtesy wherever we are. Here we had a generation of young
Jews who sought the ideal equilibrium between how to maximize bad
behavior while expecting zero negative impact on our community. For the
most part, they did this with little protest from rabbis and community
leaders. This was the tone that dominated Orthodox publications and
public figures.
This approach was all the more curious considering that less than a
year prior when at the Agudah Convention, leading Agudah rabbis were
asked about the rise in anti-Semitism; they knew exactly who the
culprits for anti-Semitism in America were: Jerry Nadler, Adam Schiff,
and Chuck Schumer of course. The good rabbi went on to point out these
were all Jewish politicians who had the Chutzpah to engage in the
impeachment of the President of the United States. Do they not know we
are in Golus?!
This did not seem to explain why a week later, a member of the Black
Hebrews Church went into a synagogue in Monsey and stabbed Hassidic
Jews; they knew liberal Jews brought it on ourselves. A few months later
this sense of personal responsibility seemed to have disappeared. This
anecdote highlights how deeply partisanship blindness has seeped into
our community, destroying our ability to see Antisemitism for what it is
and spelling disaster for our ability to confront it.
Then came the medical community—a physician in the
field of critical care lamented to me not long ago: “how can people who
ask me to do a surgery on their 90-year-old, braindead relative with
stage three cancer not be willing to wear a mask to save lives?” I do
not have an answer for him. The voice of religion is one that is often
invoked in the field of medicine, and rightfully so. Religion sanctifies
life, which is why it has such a respected voice in the field of
medical ethics, beginning, and end of life, and other related matters.
The conduct of the Orthodox community during this pandemic, including
its role and championing of SCOTUS decision, is likely to make its voice
far less respected in the medical community. As of now, more than 3,500
people are dying from COVID every day.
To be the culprits in tying the
hands of public health officials during this time and then advocate
against the medical community’s standards of end-of-life care evokes a
mixture of irony and tears. If we end up finding out our community
members are dying at equal rates to those who go to hair salons at least
we will know we earned that equality ourselves.
Turning on one another. With all of its
imperfections, the most beautiful thing about the American Jewish
community has been our ability to stand together and support one
another. All that changed in the past year. Suddenly political
affiliations superseded our longstanding bond with each other. We saw on
the streets of Boro Park those who dissented get beaten and receive
death threats. The minority of the Orthodox community that did not share
the political views of the vast majority found themselves on the outs
in the best case or actively being threatened in other cases.
My friend Rabbi Barry Kornblau, a longstanding member and leader in
the Rabbinical Council of America and rabbi in Queens, wrote an opinion
piece arguing in favor of candidate Joe Biden. The response he got?
Death threats, denigration, and violent rhetoric. My dear friend Jake
Adler, a yeshiva graduate who worked for years successfully advocating
for millions of dollars for Jewish day schools got a job as Governor
Cuomo’s liaison to the Orthodox community. His reward? Relentless
attacks on social media, and Orthodox Jews trying to hurt him
professionally. This vile behavior is unprecedented in the history of
American Jewry. My friend Rabbi Ben Kelsen, a black-hatted Orthodox
rabbi in Teaneck, has worked on former President Obama’s team and now on
president Biden’s team and lives in Teaneck Bergenfield. His reward for
trying to advocate for the community? Being called a Kapo when leaving
the house with his kids. While these examples are individual, they are
not the only ones.
Should there be another rise in anti-Semitism on the streets of
Orthodox neighborhoods as we saw a year ago and the Orthodox community
would like to build a broad coalition against it, other Jews might want
to know why the Orthodox community was largely absent from the No Hate,
No Fear solidarity march on the Brooklyn bridge. This rally was
organized largely to support the Orthodox community, which was facing
daily violent attacks, yet most of those same Jews ignored this rally.
At this rally I met Jews from Ohio and Florida who came in to support
their Orthodox brethren, yet those could not make the ten-minute car
ride to the rally.
Progressive Jews may also wonder why it is that when 400 (mostly
non-Orthodox) rabbis signed a letter expressing grave concern for
matters of life and death during the pandemic of a generation,
supporting public health officials, they were attacked in response.
Agudah spokesperson Avi Shafran thought that pointing out his righteous
abstinence from using Zoom on Shabbat as addressing the broader
community’s concern for matters of life and death. Perhaps he thought it
was amusing; others saw it as a mockery of concern for life and death
and an inability for shared dialogue on existential issues.
Members of the Orthodox community who didn’t align their belief with
the Trump trend were made to feel again and again that they do not
belong. A community that prided itself so much on its faith now placed
another precondition for joining: political alliance to now-former
president Trump. This kind of blind loyalty to political idols over
human decency and in violation to Jews’ historic commitment to one
another is a low American Jewry has never seen. The community has now
succumbed to the ultimate destroyer of Jewish communities throughout
history: it became deeply fractured from within. The consequences of a
divided community are both moral and pragmatic. Fractured communities
are less capable of thriving, growing, and representing themselves to
the outside world.
Courts– while there is no question that religious
communities are likely to gain more sympathy in the now conservative
SCOTUS and other courts, that sympathy did not have to come at the cost
of our voice in the political system and elsewhere. Furthermore, the
Supreme Court does not pass budgets, build communities, and support day
schools. Sure, the courts do have great powers, but judging by the
number of Orthodox Jews moving to Kentucky, Alabama, and Mississippi,
our communities depend on more than just a vacuum and neutral space for
religion. The Agudah may see their future spent in the court halls and
offices of big law firms, something which may surely yield some results,
but it will not relocate where most Orthodox Jews live.
Finally, I do not believe it is over – or close to over – for a proud and impactful Orthodox community. However, in order to move forward from its current state, all Orthodox Jews need to think hard about the following questions:
Is there room for those with different political opinions in our
community? When we engage in Kiruv and outreach, will we be telling
people that not only do they need to keep Shabbat and Kosher but that
they also need to be Republicans? What kind of space will there be in
our communities for those who openly express different political
options?
Rabbis, leaders, and laypeople will need to ask themselves what they
are doing to make sure their communities are synagogues and yeshivas and
not just a Jewish version of Liberty University. Communities will need
to think really hard if they are driving away those with different
politics and if that exclusion is forgivable from a religious
perspective.
Those who purport to vote Republican because it is the “pro-Israel”
party will need to ask: is this support because of Israel or is it
similar to the fact that in Hassidic New Square, 2,973 people cast their
votes for Trump and 6 to Biden or that in Satmar’s Kiryas Joel 6,159
voted from Trump and just 72 voted Biden. I do not judge anyone for
voting one way or the other, but when you say you are the “pro-Israel
voter,” or when you shame those who vote for pro-Israel candidates in
the Democratic Party when in fact, they are the ones working hard to
assure support for Israel, that is an entirely different issue.
Just a year ago, Yisroel Besser wrote very wisely in Mishpacha
Magazine an article about hosting non-Orthodox college students for a
Shabbos meal and how they were turned off when they realized what his
political positions are. He went on to advocate for a more politic-free
Orthodoxy:
“These students searching for truth heard only about Trump. They
missed the power of Kiddush, missed noticing the way a frum couple
speaks to each other, didn’t perceive the unique dynamic of children who
sit around a table and connect as a family, week after week.
I had blown it by bringing Trump to the Shabbos table.
I feel like many of us have fallen into the same Trump trap as
the rest of America, forced to take one side or another. But we’re not
politicians, so why go there at all? We all believe the same things,
more or less. We all believe HaKadosh Baruch Hu put the man in power. So
why shrink ourselves and all we have into the same little world where
we check off boxes — are we Fox people or CNN people?
We’re neither.”
While the message seems to have eluded its author, the publication,
and its audience in the months to come, it remains true. An Orthodoxy
that is toxically political is likely to turn off many – inside and
outside its ranks. The beauty of Judaism, our ability to communicate it
to others, and our ability to represent ourselves to the outside world
as standing for a higher value, will be severely damaged if we continue
down this path.
That does not mean we should not be politically active. It does not
mean it should be impossible for the vast majority of us to vote one way
or the other. It does mean that our public sphere needs to be what it
used to be – a Mikdash Me’at, conducted with wisdom and
prudence even during challenging times. The work towards this goal needs
to come from each and every one of us, from rabanim, leaders of
organizations, and publishers of frum weeklies who have taken an
increasingly political role steering a community towards consequences
editors and writers may not have to bear, but others will. Let us begin
the process of healing our community.
I would say it’s surreal, but 2020 gave a new definition to surreal. We’re still in the middle of a pandemic which has us mainly locked in our homes.
It’s more exhausting than anything else at this point, to be honest.
It’s another moment that feels like we’re living in some shitty B-movie,
not living life.
Yet this latest insanity also isn’t all that surprising if you’ve been paying attention. I’d say “I hate to say I told you so” but I don’t hate saying it, I just hate that you didn’t listen. I used to write down my thoughts about Donald Trump
more often, but it got too depressing because it was clear the path we
were going down. Which is: the path of learning the hard way.
The only thing I got wrong was not recognizing that “the hard way”
would be established and redefined a half dozen times in one term. And I
want to say that today is the cherry on top — but we still have 13 days
to go.
To
call Donald Trump a con artist is an insult to artists. He’s a con man,
who has spent his entire life conning many men and women into believing
he’s a winner when he’s the ultimate loser.
He’s a hyena preying on the weak and downtrodden while others in
stronger positions think they’re preying on him, but the joke is on
them. Because who wants to eat a hyena?
He’s the ultimate narcissist with absolutely no shame, no taste, and no tact. And today ensures that he will go down
as the worst President in American history. And that several people who
aligned with him for political reasons will go down in flames, in the
long run.
At
the same time, he’s really just a personification of a problem. The
problem is less about Trump, who is but one man, but rather the 70+ million people who voted for him. I spoke of a lesson we were going to have to learn. We had four years to learn it, and did not — in fact, many learned the opposite
lesson. And while I want to believe that today will be different, the
reality is that it will also likely push the two sides farther apart.
We
have a lot of Republicans in positions of power finally saying the
right things about Trump tonight, but that doesn’t really matter. They
were all the camp that was attempting to use him for their means, from
Mitch McConnell on down. And now that McConnell got what he wanted —
three Supreme Court justices (!), not to mention countless other judges
and appointments — he’s happy to break back to reality, of course. As
are most others who tried to get something from Trump and either did or
got played by the con man. They all sold their souls. History will
collect the debt, but they’ll all be dead when it does.
And
again, they don’t even really matter. It’s those 70+ million people who
are not in on the con. They’ll say they are because they think they are, but they’re not. And the sad — honestly sad
— thing is that they won’t realize the reality until it’s far too late.
Until their lives never improve. As they’re lying on their deathbeds
wondering why things never got better.
This
is harsh. But it is reality. Reality is harsh. And the other reality is
that I’m not sure how much Trump, the person, matters to many of these
people. Again, he’s the personification of something. A symbol at best.
An excuse at worst. Lonely? Sick? Tired? Bored? Join the movement.
And
some of them will think, “yeah, but it’s not like it would have gotten
better with the other guys” and they won’t be wrong. But society as a
whole would have been better without Trump. Fewer people would have died
in our pandemic with actual leadership. Etc. Etc. Etc. But that is a
very hard argument to make, I recognize. It’s a plea for the greater
good when the burden of failure in our era is on an individual level.
And
so those of us in a relative position of luxury learn the hard lessons
from Trump. While others learn the wrong lessons. The lesson that
nothing is true if you just refuse to acknowledge it. That lies are true
if repeated enough. That you too can con your way to the top. But you
can’t. And that’s a good thing. Because it means you’re not as immoral
and narcissistic as Donald Trump. The ultimate con man. Who became
President.
A President who incited insurrection today. Who should be
thrown out of the White House. But won’t be because it’s far easier to
run out the clock. Yet another insanely dangerous precedent set in a
Presidency of dangerous precedents. And because everyone must quote Abraham Lincoln:
“I
am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be
depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring
them the real facts.”
One of Ukraine’s chief rabbis endorses siege of US Capitol by Trump supporters
Moshe Azman — whose claim to title of head
rabbi is disputed — compares violent run on heart of US democracy to
recent ‘Maidan’ uprising against pro-Russia government in Ukraine
"Hello, I'm Mister Ed" A horse is a horse of course of course And no one can talk to a horse of course. That is of course unless the horse Is the famous Mister Ed!
Go right to the source and ask the horse. He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse He's always on a steady course. Talk to Mister Ed!
People yakkity-yak a streak And waste your time of day, but Mister Ed will never speak Unless he has something to say!
A horse is a horse of course of course And this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse. You've never heard of a talking horse? Well, listen to this...
Rabbi
Moshe Azman, founder of the Anatevka community
JTA — Rabbi Moshe Azman, a prominent Ukrainian cleric with ties
to several of US President Donald Trump’s associates at the heart of
last year’s Ukrainegate scandal, endorsed Wednesday’s violent attempt to
prevent the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election win,
comparing the clashes to his own country’s recent pro-democracy
revolution.
Following the storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters,
Azman, a Hasidic rabbi who is one of several figures claiming to be the
chief rabbi of Ukraine, posted
on Facebook that the “Maidan has begun in the USA,” referring to the
widespread protests that led to the ouster of pro-Russia President
Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. “The people protesting against mass election
fraud broke into the capital. God bless America.”
Yaakov Dov Bleich, who also is a chief rabbi of Ukraine and the only
one recognized as such by the World Jewish Congress and the European
Jewish Congress, distanced himself from Azman’s words.
“Rabbi Azman is voicing his own opinion,” Bleich said. “I don’t think
Ukrainian Jewry has or should have a stand on US politics.”
In May 2019, Azman was photographed in Paris smoking cigars with
Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, fueling speculation among some
in Kyiv that the president’s representative and his colleagues were
using the rabbi to provide cover for illicit Ukrainian lobbying
activities.
Kiev Chabad rabbi Moshe Azman with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani in Paris on May 21, 2019.
The Giuliani-Azman meeting seemed to have been arranged by Lev Parnas
and Igor Fruman, two Jewish Giuliani associates who have been linked to
those lobbying efforts.
Trump was impeached in December 2019 after it emerged that he had
pressed his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelensky, to
investigate Biden and his son Hunter during a phone call five months
earlier between the two leaders. During the call, Trump asked Zelensky,
who is Jewish, to look into allegations that Hunter Biden had engaged in
illegal behavior while serving on the board of a Ukrainian firm that
was being probed for corruption. The Senate acquitted Trump in February.
According to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting
Project, an international journalism network that tries to uncover
political corruption, Giuliani was slated to deliver a paid speech at a fundraiser for Azman’s Anatevka project
in May 2019. Anatevka — named for the shtetl in “Fiddler on the Roof”—
is a gated compound outside of Kyiv housing Jews who were displaced by
the war in eastern Ukraine.
Parnas and Fruman, who sit on the board of the American Friends
of Anatevka, would have met with Zelensky “on the sidelines” of the
Anatevka Project event, the report said. But Giuliani canceled his trip
due to intense public scrutiny and the meeting never happened.
Instead he flew to Paris, where he attended a number of meetings —
brokered by Parnas and Fruman — with senior Ukrainian figures. He also
sat with Azman for two hours.
Illustrative: Jewish refugees at Anatevka
celebrate the opening of the community’s new synagogue, February 29,
2016. (Courtesy of the Office of Rabbi Moshe Azman)
Azman, a staunch Trump supporter, presented Giuliani with a giant
novelty key declaring him “honorary mayor of Anatevka.” Azman had
previously told the Ukrainian news outlet Hromadske that he prays for
Trump “every Saturday” because of the president’s support for Israel.
Four people died, one of whom was shot, during Wednesday’s violence,
which saw lawmakers evacuated from the Capitol building. Several people
have been reported hospitalized, including at least one member of law
enforcement. Dozens of lawmakers, from the House and Senate, were
contesting the results of November’s election that Trump has
fraudulently claimed was stolen on behalf of Biden.
Bleich rejected any comparisons between what happened in Ukraine in 2013-14 and Wednesday’s events.
Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, a chief rabbi of Ukraine.
“The United States of America is a strong democracy with many checks
and balances, there is no basis for comparing it to Maidan,” Bleich
said. “Many people are upset about the elections, including myself,” he
added, saying that in his view “it looks like Trump won the elections
and the Democrats stole it.”
This opinion is “causing frustration and is making a lot of people,
including Rabbi Azman, emotional, but there is no place for violence,”
Bleich said.
Azman’s claim to the title of chief rabbi is disputed,
including by the World Jewish Congress, which in 2005 said in a
statement that Azman’s title was not endorsed “by any rabbinical
authorities.”
Hundreds attend hassidic wedding in city with highest rate of infections
As infections surge, mass ultra-Orthodox weddings held despite lockdown rules
Hundreds attend events in Beitar Illit, where
positive test rate is highest in Israel at 26%, and Bnei Brak.
Police dispersed hundreds of guests at an ultra-Orthodox wedding celebration in the city of Beitar Illit late Tuesday night.
A police officer is seen surrounded by
mostly-maskless hassidic men at a massive wedding in Beitar Illit that
violated coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
Video footage has emerged of a massive ultra-Orthodox
wedding was staged Tuesday night in Beitar Illit, the city with the
highest rate of positive COVID-19 tests in the country, and the fourth
highest rate of new infections per 10,000 inhabitants.The
wedding celebration was staged by the grand rabbi of the radical Toldot
Avraham Yitzhak hassidic community for his grandson, a part of the
anti-Zionist Eda Haredit communal association.
Footage of the wedding celebration obtained by the
Kikar Hashabbat news site showed hundreds of hassidim, almost entirely
without masks, in an event hall singing and swaying shoulder to
shoulder. Other
video footage showed police personnel waiting outside the building
where the wedding was staged, although the police did eventually enter
and break up the event. The police said that when they arrived the doors of the building were locked and those inside refused to open them.
Only
after dialogue with organizers were the doors opened. Upon entering,
the police said they saw hundreds of wedding guests who were not wearing masks.
While
the police were dispersing the wedding participants, dozens of them
gathered outside the building and fought with the police, threw stones
at them and damaged police vehicles, the police said.Additional
police forces were summoned to the site to fully disperse all wedding
participants and others who had gathered at the site.
The organizers of the wedding as well as the building owners were summoned for a police investigation.In
addition, Acting Police Chief Kobi Shabtai removed the officers who
allowed the wedding to take place from their posts until the
investigation was completed.
As
of today (Wednesday), Beitar Illit had the highest rate of positive
tests at 26%, and the fourth highest rate of new COVID-19 infections in
the country with 145.5 per 10,000 residents.
2020 Revealed The Truth Of Our Societies — And It Was Ugly
The Year We Weren’t All in It Together
Hooray!! The worst year in modern history is finally over. We survived. Or did we?
Let
me explain why I ask that strange question. When I think of 2020, I
think of two moments. The first was near the beginning of the pandemic.
People cheered for doctors and sang from balconies. A spirit of sudden
fierce determination prevailed. “We’re in this together!” people said. The second moment I think of was seven months later. 300,000 Americans were dead. Britain had bred a deadly new strain
of the virus. The West was in tatters. And just a handful of countries
had actually pulled together to fight the virus, all in the East. And so
I’ll always think of 2020 as the year we weren’t all in it together.
2020
was a depressing, miserable, grim year. But not just because of the
pandemic. Rather, because the pandemic was a kind of eraser. It rubbed
away all the artifice and gloss and politesse we play games with. And revealed the truth of us. Of our societies. It was a profoundly ugly truth.
And
now here we are. We know something about us that we didn’t quite know
before. If we suspected it, as many of us did, now there is stark and
vivid proof. Nobody can deny the pandemic’s grim revelation.
Our
societies are made of terrible, terrible people. They are not good people. The average person in our society doesn’t care about anything. Anything
good or beautiful or true. Nothing matters to them. Only stupid and
shallow and false things. The average person appears to have no sense of
guilt, shame, no conscience, no morals, no ethics, no values, no
decency, no civilization. We live in societies made of profound, pervasive, relentless ugliness, which nothing, it seems, can move an inch.
Not even mass death. Our societies looked at mass death, shrugged, and, after they clapped for the doctors for all of five minutes, didn’t change one bit. The irresponsibility and negligence and amorality of the average remorseless fool went on to cause an even greater wave of mass death. And what did they feel? Remorse? Grief? Sorrow? Not a thing. They didn’t feel anything.
The
pandemic scrubbed away the polite fictions that we have accepted for
far too long; our societies are “flawed,” every society is “imperfect,”
we are “doing the best we can,” and so on. It showed us, without a
shadow of a doubt, that our societies are made of sociopaths.
Take America, as an example. The world has long suspected that American are, well, idiots. Backwards,
brutal, violent, greedy, selfish. More inclined to shoot a gun than
read a book. Only interested in money, sex, fame, and power. Now, the
world would say that, and once in a while, someone like me would object,
and say, “No, Americans are just misunderstood. They’ve been abused by their society, you see.” Maybe that’s true, but…does it matter? Just because you’ve been abused doesn’t give absolve you from being an abuser yourself.
Americans didn’t care. As a society, as a country.
About mass death. About turning a potential pandemic into a lethal,
historic tidal wave of death. They flatly refused to change their
behaviour one iota. Sure, maybe you did, but America as a society was
completely incapable of change — right down to even wearing a mask or
staying home for a month.
The pandemic revealed that Americans are exactly who the world thought they were. Violent,
selfish, ignorant, deceitful, stupid — and then some. It’s one terrible
thing to bomb half the world. But to kill hundreds of thousands of
people in your own country…because you don’t believe a pandemic exists,
or it isn’t that serious? And yet that is what Americans, as a society
did. They killed each other.
They proceeded to create a nightmarish Lord of the Flies in real life, a
social Darwinian engine of death. The most vulnerable in society — the
elderly, the poor, the frail, the sick — were picked off one by one. And nobody much cared. Sure,
some brave doctors and nursed did. But they are the exception who
proves the rule. Most of America, society, culture, economy, people, shrugged.
The
pandemic revealed that our societies are largely made of sociopaths.
Idiots seems to me to be, on reflection, far too kind a word. Sociopaths,
I think, fits better. They are people who feel nothing for suffering,
or worse, revel in it. People who have a kind of supremacy complex.
People who are only ever calculating how to win some
kind of game, defeat someone else, acquire and possess more. People to
whom others are means to ends, not ends in themselves. People who value
things over lives. People who, because they are incapable of having
genuine emotions, are incapable of having any kinds of genuine
relationships, either.
What
happens when you put enough people like that in a society? What happens
when a society crosses the threshold into being made of a majority of
sociopaths? 2020 does. The pandemic never needed to be remotely so bad. If America had acted like South Korea, just 4000 people would have died. If the UK had acted like South Korea, just 850 people would have died.
But those simple statistics still aren’t part of the general awareness. Why not? What does that say? The sociopaths have warped the rest of us too. They
have made it seem normal — if not outright desirable — to have their
values: indifference, selfishness, materialism, domination, cruelty,
violence, emotionlessness, except to fly into rage when all that is
questioned. We are considered the strange ones for being repelled and disgusted by what is a now openly sociopathic attitude and stance towards life, society, politics, economics.
If
you needed evidence that the sociopaths have won, by the way — what,
350,000 people needlessly dead wasn’t enough? — it’s there in abundance.
Sociopaths can’t have real relationships: our societies are just like
that, places of distrust, hostility, suspicions, if not outright enmity.
Sociopaths don’t consider anyone else a real person, treat them with
dignity, respect, care, concern, which is exactly how we treat one
another, investing next to nothing. Sociopaths are like childish
narcissists taken to the outermost extreme — what else would you call
societies to whom “the economy” matters more than mass death? What good is “an economy” anyways if one its main byproducts is to kill people?
There’s no shortage of evidence — in fact, the idea that you “need
evidence” for any old obvious observation is itself kind of sociopathic.
It says that you can’t simply feel what’s so achingly and painfully
simple and true, that you don’t trust anyone else, and so forth.
How did our societies become sociopathic?
All those wise old classical European sociology professors who taught
me would have smiled darkly, and said: “capitalism.” They would have
pointed out that people are just expressing capitalist values.
Capitalism, meaning, by the way, Walmart, Google, Amazon — not your little local shop.
Capitalism tells us that money, sex, power, and fame are all that
matter in life, that acquiring and possessing more of them is the point
of life, and the way to get there is to dominate and exploit others.
Capitalism
turns us into idiots, slavering for another dollar, hookup, fan, like,
follower, even as we dance to the lunatic tune of our own
self-destruction. Capitalism is what makes us so selfish,
stupid, brutal, violent, that we won’t stay home for a month so that
hundreds of thousands can live — because we’ve been conditioned our
whole lives long to be good, obedient, stupid little “consumers” and
“producers,” but not human beings and citizens and decent, thoughtful,
sane, kind people.
You
can judge for yourself if Professors Hall and Le Page were right. What I
do see, at work in the real world, is this. There is indeed a
relationship between how capitalist a society is, and how badly it did
in 2020. America is the world’s most capitalist society of all — and it
is a total wreck. Britain is the second — and it’s closely behind
America, making all its mistakes and then some. Europe is probably third
on that list — and it seems to have erred just the same ways America
and Britain did.
Still, I think there’s more to the story than just capitalism.
It seems to me that the process of civilisation in our societies is failing. By process of civilization, I mean “what it takes to produce a civilised person.” Civilising
a person is very, very hard. It takes multiple institutions from
childhood well past adolescence to do it. Schools, universities, clubs,
athletics, arts, sciences, media, books, and so forth. The point of
these institutions is to inculcate the basic virtues of civilization:
from empathy to reason, from kindness to grace, from selflessness to
courage.
Our process of civilisation does not seem to be working anymore. Those institutions and systems are not working anymore. Our societies are not producing civilised people anymore. They are producing sociopaths.
Again, that’s not “my opinion.” It’s what 2020 revealed. The average
person doesn’t care about anything anymore. They are not good people,
which is what the whole point of the process of civilisation is: to
produce people who are at least good enough that they don’t make a
society melt down by way of indifference, stupidity, violence,
brutality, and ignorance. And yet all that is just what 2020 revealed
ours are all too capable of, and in fact did.
The
average person in our societies appears now to be someone who is a)
perfectly happy with mass death, b) emotionally indifferent to it, c)
angry that they don’t get their own infantile way, d) resentful that any
imposition on them was made at all, and therefore, e) unwilling to
change their behaviour in any way whatsoever, of their own volition. All that is the antithesis of what it means to be civilized. It is the diametrical opposite of things like “having a conscience,” “being able to reason for the common good,” “being able to self-govern for the public good,” “being able to be a decent and thoughtful human being.”
The average person in our society seems to have experienced a kind of profound moral, emotional, and intellectual corrosion.
Social: they don’t care about anyone but themselves. Moral: they don’t
seem to be able to even see themselves as anything but what they’ve been
conditioned to be, a good little “producer” and “consumer,” not a
member of a collective, a family, a social group, a larger organic body
with a higher set of meanings. Emotional: they don’t seem able to care
about anything real anymore at all, to the point that even mass death
doesn’t move them. And intellectual: they lack the ability to think
critically about what all those deficits might say about them, add up to
as a society, why the whole of human civilisation has been a story of
trying to grow beyond such a weakened, corroded, empty self.
Where did that corrosion come from? Was it capitalism, like my Professors would have said? Or is there something deeper at work? Is it empire’s revenge? Is it the karma of slavery and subjugation? Are we just stupid people who don’t read enough, and spend too much on things we don’t need, and always have been?
You will have to tell me. I imagine we will both be spending a great deal of thinking about it this year.
Because the year 2020 was so depressing, grim, and relentless wasn’t just the natural calamity. It was that calamity revealed the truth about us.
And that truth was ugly. We are stupid, violent, brutal, indifferent,
careless. Enough of us, anyways, to make our societies that way, period.
We added catastrophe to calamity. After we clapped, we soon enough
stopped caring at all. “Hey! I need to go to the bar! My kid has to go
to school! I need to go shopping!!” Good little consumers and producers,
to the bitter, shocking end. But where did the human beings in us go,
then?
And if you are a sane, thoughtful, decent person — well, how do you live in such a place? A
dehumanized, violent, brutal, idiotic one? How do you live in a society
of sociopaths? Isn’t it an oxymoron to begin with? Where do you go from
there? How do you coexist with the kind of remorseless idiots who don’t
care about causing death on the scale of a World War? How do you not
shudder in contempt and disgrace every time you see them — which is all
the time? But where does that leave you?
Does concept of 'saving life' apply to preventive medicine?
MK warns of spiritual side effects as vaccination drive continues on Shabbat
All 4 HMOs vaccinate over-60s on sabbath (Oy Vey);
rabbis say clinics’ computers violate rules, and they’re unlikely to
give approval if there isn’t 24-hour effort on weekdays
Deputy
Transportation Minister Uri Maklev holds a face mask during a press
conference at the Transportation Ministry in Jerusalem on July 8, 2020.
Ignoring rabbis’ objections, and prompting fury from religious politicians, Israel vaccinated thousands of citizens on Shabbat.
The Health Ministry views all-week-long vaccination as key to
achieving quick coronavirus protection — part of a plan, which also
involves 24-hour clinics, to vaccinate more than 150,000 a day.
This past Saturday, the first of the vaccination drive, all four
healthcare providers carried on giving shots to the 60-plus public,
albeit at significantly reduced capacity, they told The Times of Israel.
MK Uri Maklev of United Torah Judaism slammed the Health Ministry for
encouraging it. “How will there be a blessing for the work of their
hands, when they harm Shabbat and the [religious] public in such a
serious manner?” he asked rhetorically in a Haredi newspaper on Sunday.
The politician claimed that Health Minister Yuli Edelstein had
promised him that there would not be Shabbat vaccinations, and attacked
the justification given to administer them.
Edelstein said it was done so that the country can quickly
deliver COVID-19 protection, and invoked the Jewish legal principle of
saving a life, or “pikuah nefesh,” which trumps nearly all
other religious requirements, including Shabbat. “The coronavirus
endangers all of us, the vaccines will save all of us,” he said.
Hospital workers in protective gear are
seen in the coronavirus ward at Ziv Medical Center in the northern city
of Safed on October 7, 2020
But many Orthodox Jews say that “pikuah nefesh” does not normally extend to preventative medicine. “They put everything in the category of pikuah nefesh,” Maklev said of Health Ministry leaders. “We have seen in the past that many of their instructions did not stand up to scrutiny.”
There is no prohibition on administering or receiving a vaccine
on Shabbat, according to most rabbis, but they say clinics should stay
shut because their operation involves other actions considered to
desecrate the holy day of rest, like logging patient information on
computers and operating other electrical items that are needed. They
also express concern that people are made to break the religious rule
against driving on Shabbat to make their appointments.
The chief rabbis have refused to back operation of vaccine
centers on Shabbat for now. Currently, “there is no permission to
violate Shabbat” for the sake of vaccination, Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi
David Lau said on Thursday, according to Orthodox media. (Lau and his father were able to get the vaccine almost IMMEDIATELY upon arrival in Israel)
Israel’s Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau
He stressed that he supports vaccination, but argued that so long as
clinics are not operating during every hour of every other day, working
on Shabbat is not justified. For now, they should ramp up capacity
without working Saturdays, he argued.
If and when clinics are vaccinating 24/6, “it will be possible to consider also vaccinations on Shabbat,” Lau said.
Even if the chief rabbinate eventually gives its blessing to Shabbat
shots, there are indications that some influential ultra-Orthodox rabbis
will remain steadfast in their objection to them.
The massively influential ultra-Orthodox halachic authority Rabbi
Asher Weiss wrote that the situation is not urgent enough to consider
vaccination an act of pikuah nefesh.
Rabbi Asher Weiss.
He was responding to questions from the UK and the US, so it is
possible that he will issue another ruling regarding Israel. If he does
not, Shabbat vaccination, even if part of a 24/7 campaign, is likely to
remain taboo for a large part of the Israeli Haredi community, including
politicians from Maklev’s party, who revere the rabbi.
The one proviso in Weiss’s position was for people in high-risk
categories, or who risk infecting people who are high-risk. If they have
Shabbat appointments that cannot be moved without incurring delays, in
some circumstances, he would allow them to be treated — and even driven
to the vaccination station in certain cases, though by a non-Jewish
person, and not by a Jewish person who, in his estimation, is supposed
to be observing Shabbat.
Religious objections are not stopping healthcare providers. A
spokeswoman for Maccabi Healthcare Services told The Times of Israel
that her nurses vaccinated 7,000 people on Shabbat, some of whom had
appointments for next month and were offered to vaccinate earlier if
they took Saturday appointments. Opposition from rabbis would not stop
them during future weekends, she said.
Meuhedet gave 1,500 injections, mostly in Netanya and Tel Aviv.
Leumit gave 2,000, mostly in central Israel. Clalit only operated in the
Arab Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Weiss and Lau both hail from the ultra-Orthodox community. But while
religious Zionist rabbis are often thought to take more lenient
approaches than their Haredi counterparts, when it comes to this issue,
they have not done so.
Rabbi Shlomo Aviner
“If they aren’t working at night, it’s serious but not urgent,”
leading religious Zionist Rabbi Shlomo Aviner told The Times of Israel
on Sunday, saying no to Shabbat vaccinations. Like Lau, he said that if
Israel were providing vaccinations 24/6, the answer might be different.
Aviner, one of the stricter rabbis of religious Zionism, said: “The
vaccine itself does not involve Shabbat desecration, but the actions
around it are,” giving examples of logging patient data on computers.
His observation that the injection itself does not transgress Shabbat reflects the laws as they are found in the book, Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchatah, widely viewed as the authoritative Orthodox layman’s guide for Sabbath observance.
The Hebrew text from the religious guide,
Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchatah, which says that there is no Torah
prohibition on taking a regular vaccine on Shabbat.
Rabbi David Stav, chairman of the moderate Orthodox rabbinic alliance
Tzohar, also said he cannot justify Shabbat vaccinations for now, apart
from “very high risk” populations, but added that he hopes this will
change.
“I urge the government to decide how important it is to keep centers
open, and if they are open 24/6, I’m almost positive that rabbis would
allow vaccination on the seventh day as well.”
Does concept of 'saving life' apply to preventive medicine?
Their pandemic response defied Jewish values…and common sense
They acted as if there was no disease, or if there was, it was not
all that serious. Put simply, ultra-Orthodox Haredi leaders failed
Ultra
orthodox jewish man attend the funeral of late Rabbi Aharon David
Hadash, spiritual leader of the Mir Yeshiva, on December 3, 2020, in
Jerusalem
The Coronavirus pandemic has
caused us to see many things, but more than anything, it has highlighted
a grand failure of simple common sense. And nowhere has the crippling
of common sense been more disappointing than in Jewish “ultra-Orthodox”
(Haredi) communities.
Yes, we know that the denial,
distortion and ignoring of the coronavirus pandemic has been widespread.
A peek on the streets of almost any city in the world will show people
disregarding masking, ignoring social distancing and no doubt engaging
in cognitive distortions that range from “it won’t happen to me or my
family” magical thinking to the dark corners of deep state conspiracies
that include Bill Gates and the FBI. We know other communities are just
as guilty. So why pick on Haredim?
Because their leaders,
their rabbis, are not the vain and valueless icons of a secular world
where self-indulgence and immediate gratification abounds. These are
people who should understand what being a light unto nations is all
about, and they of all people should know better and set an example.
They should be the epitome of “kiddush haShem.”
Instead, they stand out like a sore thumb as examples of the opposite.
Defending them by comparing their behavior to other groups who also
violate guidelines effectively lowers them to be no worse but also no
better than the others.
In a world where what leaders do
determine what the flock does, Haredim have much to be proud of. An
extraordinary sense of community responsibility has created a plethora
of organizations that feed the poor, care for the sick and tend to
almost any individual need that a community requires. The sense of civic
duty, the caring for one another and the spiritual uplifting that we
see in places like Bnei Brak and Boro Park are models that others could
and should emulate.
But many Haredi leaders have failed
this time, just like they failed in their attitude towards Zionism and
the State of Israel, failed in their attitude towards women’s education,
failed in not supporting the movement to free Soviet Jews and sadly,
failed very often in their leadership during the Holocaust.
So many acted as if there was no
disease, or if there was, it was not all that serious. In Israel,
suspicion of government motives morphed into accusations that guidelines
were meant to specifically target only Haredim. In the diaspora,
attempts to enforce guidelines that were also meant for everyone were
met with accusations of “anti-Semitism.” Masks, the most “common sense”
action we can all do, were seen as intrusive, bothersome and really not
effective. Social distancing was but a ploy to suppress religious study
and destroy Jewish practice. Rather than embrace the judgment of medical
and scientific professionals, many Haredi leaders ignored warnings and
did not do enough to enforce guidelines, amazingly despite the danger
and death, it brought to their own communities.
Yes, we know that it was difficult,
we know of the crowded living conditions, the lack of accessibility to
internet-based activity and perhaps the lack of reliable information.
And we know that many individual Haredim did act appropriately and
responsibly. But how can one explain the masses that gather for funerals
of Haredi leaders who succumbed to a virus that is spread by the very
gatherings their people now attend? How can we explain large weddings
attended by maskless rabbinical leaders, some of whom got sick because
of their attendance? The community Hanukkah gatherings, indoors, not
distanced and without masks? Where was the example and where were the
pronouncements to a community whose members would not dare attend had
rabbinical leaders prohibited attendance? Where was common sense?
How can a Haredi publication publish
this: “Of particular concern is (sic) children who are constantly mixing
with others at school, and who then go to visit their vulnerable
grandparents who of course desire to spend time or a meal with those
whom they love,” and then, in very same publication on the very same
day, proudly publish a feature story with photos of a “a big crowd of
families and friends” in a non-socially distanced indoor maskless
school-sponsored gathering with dozens of school-aged children,
teachers, rabbis and parents? How can another Haredi publication bemoan
the serious condition of a Yeshiva head that contracted (and eventually
succumbed to) the virus, stating in the very same article, apparently
oblivious to what they were writing, that he was so healthy that he
attended a wedding only two weeks earlier?
Despite dubious and somewhat arrogant
claims that “we all had it,” the virus continues to spread in Haredi
communities, as it does everywhere else. But unlike many communities, we
still see mass denial, which a cursory glance at any Haredi publication
on almost any day will show. So what if they possibly “all had it”?
Does that allow the flaunting of this so-called freedom in front of
others who have not? Does it allow one to act in a way that others may
mistakenly believe to be proper? Does it allow separation from the
greater community and allowing for one group that is not allowed for
others? And what if, as we certainly now know, not “all had it” and
wantonly ignoring guidelines endangers others, as it certainly has?
So why be upset at Haredim? Because in a community where Torah values are so important, values such as “la’ag l’rash,” “mar’it ayin” and even “m’pnei darchei shalom” — are being ignored and set aside. But more important, the value of an individual human life, of “pikuach nefesh” is now secondary to other concerns.
The rush by Haredi leaders to almost
unanimously endorse COVID-19 vaccines, relying on the same professional
medical opinion that was ignored when it comes to COVID-19 behavioral
guidelines, begs the question, why? Why
is the science correct enough when it comes to individual vaccination,
but not correct enough to discourage group gatherings? And since when
did engagement parties, weddings and funerals take precedence over
government required temporary restrictions meant to save lives?
The answer unfortunately may be a sad
commentary where social and political factors seem to take precedence
over Jewish law and, of course, common sense. This is why we see many
Haredi leaders in public and with their followers, not heeding nor
encouraging distancing nor wearing masks. We see far too few examples of
Haredi leaders who state publicly what is obvious to most responsible
people. The science that allows vaccines that protect people is
apparently not the same as the science that requires people to be
separate and without the spiritual comfort and perhaps spiritual control
that the group provides and that the group leader exerts. In normal
times, the community values of the Haredi world and the spiritual
sustenance provided by its leaders are to be admired. In times of
crisis, in the past and now in the present, there are far too many
examples of failure to lead, failure to serve as models and failure to
save people who could have been saved.
The crippling of common sense in many
Haredi communities followed misinformation, rumor, social pressure and
statements by leaders whose knowledge of the infectious disease was no
better than their knowledge of how to change a flat tire.
Yet while they
certainly would follow the advice of the local mechanic on how to
change a tire and protect a car, they brazenly ignored the advice of
medical experts when it came to behaving in ways that would protect
lives. Eventually, the pandemic will be controlled and perhaps a
reckoning of sorts will take place, a “cheshbon nefesh”
where accountability will be demanded of leaders who traditionally have
cared for the people more than they cared for themselves. Judging from
recent history, that is not likely to happen, but, as we say in our
prayers, we can hope for “chadesh yameinu k’kedem.” Renew our days as of old.
