FailedMessiah.com

UPDATED: MURDER IN CROWN HEIGHTS

Voz Iz Neias is reporting a murder on Carroll Street between Schenectady and Utica in Crown Heights. A Lubavitch man was apparently shot in the head and his car set on fire.

Anyone have details?

UPDATE: Voz Iz Neis is now reporting the victim's name, Ephraim Klein, a 47-year-old divorced father of three. Klein lived on Union Street in Crown Heights and was planning a trip to Israel this week for his son's wedding. He was shot through the arm and chest, apparently in the heart.

$10,000 reward was announced for information leading to the arrest of the assailant(s).

UPDATE 2: Orthomom notes Y-net's coverage.

UPDATE 3: Shmais has links to all local TV coverage of the murder.

What Should Jews Do? Darfur Genocide Spills Into Chad

The conflict and resultant genocide in Darfur has now worsened and spread into neighboring Chad. The New York Times reports:

ADRÉ, Chad — The chaos in Darfur, the war-ravaged region in Sudan where more than 200,000 civilians have been killed, has spread across the border into Chad, deepening one of the world's worst refugee crises.

Arab gunmen from Darfur have pushed across the desert and entered Chad, stealing cattle, burning crops and killing anyone who resists. The lawlessness has driven at least 20,000 Chadians from their homes, making them refugees in their own country.

Hundreds of thousands more people in this area, along with 200,000 Sudanese who fled here for safety, find themselves caught up in a growing conflict between Chad and Sudan, which have a long history of violence and meddling in each other's affairs.

"You may have thought the terrible situation in Darfur couldn't get worse, but it has," Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, said in a recent statement. "Sudan's policy of arming militias and letting them loose is spilling over the border, and civilians have no protection from their attacks, in Darfur or in Chad."

Indeed, the accounts of civilians in eastern Chad are agonizingly familiar to those in western Sudan. One woman, Zahara Isaac Mahamat, described how Arab men on camels and horses had raided her village in Chad, stealing everything they could find and slaughtering all who resisted.

The dead included her husband, Ismail Ibrahim, who tried to prevent the raiders from burning his sorghum and millet fields. Like so many others in this desolate expanse of dust-choked earth, she fled west with her three children, much as people in Darfur have been forced to do in recent years.

"I have lost everything but my children," she said, her face looking much older than her 20 years. She is now a refugee, with thousands of other displaced Chadians, in Kolloye, a village south of here.

"We have three bowls of grain left," she said. "When that is gone, only God can help us."

American Jewish World Service has done good work during this crisis. Donations can be made securely online. Edah, the Modern Orthodox breakaway from the ever-calcifying Yeshiva University-inspired 'Centrist' Orthodoxy, has made this a front burner issue as well.*

On the other hand, haredim of all stripes and YU's 'Centrist' Orthodoxy have been silent. It is exactly these people who are the first to claim antisemitism and condemn non-Jews for failing to help Jews.

But I wonder – if the Nazis had only killed Gypsies, had set up Auschwitz only to gas and burn them and not us, would Jews have done anything to save them? Should we have? If not, why not?

* [More ideas to help bring security to Darfur can be found on the SaveDarfur.org website.]

“They Brought The Russians To Clean The Streets And The Ethiopians To Guard The Malls.”

The JTA has a new article on the tensions between the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel and the Falash Mura, descendants of Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity 100 years ago and who are now returning to Judaism and immigrating to Israel with the backing of the Rabbinut:

Rabbi Yosef Hadane, the [Shas-affiliated] chief rabbi for the Ethiopian Jews in Israel [and the first Ethiopian Jewish rabbi], said the controversy had mainly to do with confirming which of the new immigrants truly had Jewish roots.

“They want Jews to come, not non-Jews,” Hadane said.

He also said there were stark divisions between the communities when it came to religious practice. The veterans, for example, prefer to pray in the traditional Ethiopian language of prayer called Ge’ez while the Falash Mura pray in Hebrew. The Falash Mura will also often only eat food deemed kosher by the Chief Rabbinate while the veteran Ethiopians follow kashrut standards set by their elders.

The two communities, Hadane said, live fairly separate lives in Israel.

As the JTA notes, rumors about the nature of the Falash Mura continue to proliferate in the Ethiopian Jewish community:

Adding to the sense of alienation are rumors circulating in the veteran Ethiopian community that some Falash Mura return to Christianity once they are in Israel, even attending church services. Suspicions have been heightened by rumors that Christian missionaries who falsely converted to Judaism are among those immigrating.

I have been told by a well-placed source that at least some of these rumors can be documented, and I am waiting to see that documentation. But, it appears to me the root of some of this is the fear that Falash Mura will use up meager resources, and that Ethiopian Jews will be left even further behind.

And how far behind is the average Ethiopian Jew?

At an Ethiopian restaurant and bar a few blocks away [from Jerusalem's Machane Yehuda market], veteran Ethiopians gather at the end of the day. Among them is a 23-year-old who calls himself Jimmy. He is bitter about his life, and says he does not understand why the country is contemplating bringing more Ethiopians here.

“We don’t feel like we are part of this society,” he said. “If the first and second immigration waves did not work, why should the third and fourth ones work?”

He works as a security guard, he says, “like every other Ethiopian you have ever met.” He then repeats a bit of immigrant humor, “They brought the Russians to clean the streets and the Ethiopians to guard the malls.”

Jimmy said he hopes to fly to Ethiopia in the next few months on a “trial visit” with a few other Ethiopian Israeli friends to see if, perhaps, their futures are there, instead of in the Jewish state.

And that says more about the quality of Israel's immigrant absorption than I could ever write.

More On The Halimi Murder

Caroline Glick has new column on the Ilan Halimi murder. In it, she complains about the lack of coverage given by the Israeli media to this story. She also complains about the silence of the interim government, blaming that silence on their political philosophy and supposed cowardice:

No Israeli government minister, official or spokesman has condemned his murder. No Israeli official has demanded that the French authorities investigate why the police refused to take anti-Semitism into account during Ilan's captivity. No Israeli official flew to Paris to participate in Ilan's funeral or any other memorial or demonstration in his memory. The Foreign Ministry's Web site makes no mention of his murder. The Israeli Embassy in Paris -- which has been without an ambassador for the past several months -- only publicly expressed its condolences to the Halimi family on February 23 - ten days after Ilan was found. This, when the French Jewish community considers Halimi's murder to have been the greatest calamity to have befallen it in recent years; when aliyah rates from France rose 25 percent last year; and when Ilan's mother has told reporters that her son had planned to make aliyah soon and was just staying in France to save money to finance his move to Israel. For its part, as Michelle Mazel pointed out in the Jerusalem Post Thursday, the French press has noted smugly that the Israeli media has not given the story prominent coverage. Halimi's murder has not appeared on the front pages of the papers or at the top of the television or radio broadcasts in Israel.

Although appalling, the absence of an official Israeli outcry against Halimi's murder is not the least surprising. Today, the unelected Kadima interim government, like the Israeli media, is doing everything in its power to lull the Israeli people into complacency towards the storm of war raging around us. Against the daily barrages of Kassam rockets on southern Israel; nervous reports of Al Qaida setting up shop in Judea, Samaria and Gaza; the ascension of Hamas to power in the Palestinian Authority; and Iran's threats of nuclear annihilation, Israel's citizenry, under the spell of Kadima and the media, appears intent on ignoring the dangers and pretending that what happens to Jews in France has nothing to do with us.

Israel's societal meekness accords well with Kadima's ideology. Its creed was best expressed by Foreign Minister, Justice Minister and Immigration Minister Tzipi Livni last month at the Herzliya Conference and is most aptly characterized as "conditional Zionism." In her speech, Livni explained that Israel's international legitimacy is conditional. Unless a Palestinian state is established in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, she warned, Israel will lose its legitimacy as a Jewish state.

Glick damages an otherwise good column with her smears. (See for yourself.) Israel's reacion to the Halimi murder is indeed puzzling. But, as any Diaspora Jewish community will tell you, Israel often ignores issues of local import, and steps on community toes in others. This is not a new phenomenum, and it is not limited to Paris or the Halimi murder.

This does not excuse Israeli behavior. But it adds perspective which Glick intentionally removes. Why? Because Glick formerly worked for Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud candidate for Prime Minister. She is a Likud partisan – and a right-wing one at that. This explains why Glick digs low and dirty, and turns the Halimi murder into an anti-Kadima story. (Glick did not disclose her relationship to Netanyahu in this column, a clear breech of ethics.)

Further, those Israeli officials apparently asleep at the switch in Paris and Jerusalem were, for the most part, put in their positions by a Likud government. Others are career civil servants with no public political ties. Yet Glick ignores this fact in order to smear Kadima.

Even more so, the men she trumpets for high office, Netanyahu and former IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon acted no better than PM Olmert and Co. Neither men sent their condolances or made any public remarks of the type Glick craves.

This sad story can do without cheap political posturing. Unfortunately, Glick (and her former employer) personify exactly that.

More coverage on the Halimi murder: 1, 2, and 3.

Guest Post: Blame The Victim

[This guest post is a follow-up to Dr. Soller's earlier guest post on the Ilan Halimi murder.]

Blame The Victim:
A Similar Story about the Handling of a Murder of a French Jew
Jerome Soller, Ph.D.

One of the biggest issues for Ilan Halimi's murder is whether the initial response by the French police was impacted by the victim's religion and ethnicity and whether there is a resistance to identifying the crimes against Halimi as antisemitic.  Today, I spoke to Howard Copelan, who is the owner and publisher of the High Desert Advocate Newspaper and the owner of Coyote television, as well as a member of our synagogue (www.shaareitefila.com) .  He had a brother-in-law, Frederique Chekroun, who was murdered in France 15 years ago.    While the crime against Fredo was motivated by robbery, there are parallels to the French police response to these crimes against Sephardic Jews.

Mr. Copelan stated the following [4]:

"Distrust of Jews is widespread in the non-Muslim French world (in the right and the left).   When a crime is committed in France against a Jew, there is a suspicion that the Jews caused the problem.  The police might ask, ‘Are you sure he is kidnapped?’  There is a pervasive belief all Jews have money, are dishonest, and not trustworthy.

My own personal experience was when Fredo was robbed and murdered in 1991.  Fredo was a successful jeweler in the South of France.  The family notified the police.  The police assumed that he had run away from town with some of his stock and money.  They wrote it off as a runaway husband, and they told everyone that he had run away.  He became the suspect in his own disappearance.  They went through all of his financial records ad stocks.  They interrogated his wife.  He was a rich jeweler, and it did not even cross their minds that he was robbed and murdered.  They did not look for any other evidence that would support the possibility of murder.  So, they destroyed his reputation.  His wife had to live with that.  His children had to live with that.  When we were in France, a teller at a bank wanted to talk about Fredo's "running away".  Do you know how disgusting that was?

For ten years, they did not treat it as a possible murder.  He was the most successful case of disappearance in French history (because he was dead).  About 8 years ago, there was a huge storm and his body was uncovered from a sandbar two miles from his home.  At that point, the French police had no leads or suspects.  They did not even apologize.  I believe if he had been a gentile Frenchman, it would have been a totally different story.  Like Halimi (a North African name that means "My Hope"), Checkroun also has North African origin.  They were both Sephardic Jews, so you get both the latent antisemitism and the dislike of all Algerians in France."

It important to see how the experience of the Chekroun family fifteen years ago was similar to the experience of the Halimi family.  It is consistent with the following issues raised in an article from the European Jewish press [1] (which could have been more accurately titled: "Blame the Victim"):

"The French government was wary about drawing too heavy a link between the criminal gang responsible for Halimi’s murder and anti-Jewish sentiment, however.  Past incidents in which apparently anti-Semitic crimes turned out to be staged or committed for other motives seemed to lie behind its cautious stance.  A government spokesman, Jean-Francois Cope, told French radio that while there were 'strong suspicions' of anti-Semitic motives in 'this horrible affair', investigators were still getting to the bottom of the case. 'Absolutely everything must be done to know all the details' before conclusions about racism or anti-Semitism were drawn, he said. [3]"

Meanwhile, Marie Helene Amiable, communist mayor of Bagneux, the suburb where Ilan was murdered, organized a silent march on Thursday evening and refused banners against anti-Semitism.  It is ironic that some in France will censor signs that protest about antisemitism, but not recognize the existence of antisemitism or criticize the causes of antisemitism.  Thankfully, on Sunday approximately 100,000 people protested [1].

Likewise, I hope that Jews in other parts of the world will start to rally behind the French Jewish community, as this is an issues that impacts all Jews everywhere.  Israeli media, such as the Jerusalem Post and Ha'Aretz, have also heavily covered the events in France.  For example, an Israeli newspaper wrote

"As was the case in World War II, today the Jewish people in Israel and throughout the world is being targeted for annihilation by an enemy bent on world domination. Ilan Halimi’s monstrous murder is just the latest sign of this disturbing reality. [2]"

References:

1. European Jewish Press, Tens of thousands denounce racism and anti-Semitism in France, February, 2006,

2. Carolyn Glick, JPOST, Israel’s non-reaction to the antisemitic murder of Ilan Halimi, February, 2006,

3. Shirli Sitbon, European Jewish Press, Jewish community pushes inquiry on Ilan Halimi murder, February, 2006,

4. Jerome Soller, Interview with Howard Copelan on the Murder of Frederique Chekroun, February, 2006.

Is The Bogeyman Pastor Out To get You?

Again proving that Israelis do not really understand America, Shlomo Shamir of Ha'aretz has this one-sided foolish article about the 'threat' Evangelicals pose to America and Jews. Shamir's piece is based on the new book by Rabbi James Rudin, formerly of the American Jewish Committe. I knew Rabbi Rudin years ago from our work on the NYC Jewish Community Relations Council's Taskforce on Missionaries and Cults. My experience with Rabbi Rudin is positive. I found him to be a kind, caring compassionate man of high ethical standards. Although an ordained Reform Rabbi, he had affection for Orthodoxy, including Chabad. I think his fears in this case are overblown, perhaps because of his years combatting Christian missionaries, but I do not doubt his sincerity.

Rabbi Aron Tendler – 'Martyr'?

Rabbi Aron Tendler and a small group of his congregants in Israel for a bar mitzva were a barred from entering the Temple Mount because they did not have ID. Rabbi Tender is claiming discrimination. But the need for ID is very well known. Why didn't Rabbi Tendler's group have any ID?

Tendler, grandson of the famous halachic authority Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, said that he and his congregants did not bring ID or other valuables with them because they had been at the mikveh [ritual bath] and were afraid that while they were immersing themselves their valuables would be left unguarded.

According to Jewish law, it is necessary to purify oneself in a mikveh before entering the Temple Mount.

Also, Tendler felt that it was preferable from a halachic point of view to leave all mundane items outside the Temple Mount out of respect for the holiness of the place.

Of course, the simplest way to solve that problem would be to have one of the group watch the valuables while the others use the mikva, and for the others to watch his belongings while he uses it immediately after. As for the "mundane items," ID – required in Israel and necessary for security reasons – would not fall under the category of "mundane items" Rabbi Tendler claims to be worried about.

So why leave the ID behind? Maybe this. Rabbi Tendler is under a cloud of suspicion. He has been accused by multiple women of sexual abuse and harassment. He resigned from his rabbinical post (effective later this year), in part, it is alleged, because of these allegations. Becoming a hero of sorts to his congregation's base by being 'persecuted' by Israeli security services weeks after Amona may help him regain his post.

For those of you uncertain about the actions of the security service, what they did is called Profiling. It is in large part why Israel is as safe as it is.

Haredim Force Close Of Town's Only Movie Theater

Ha'aretz has a story about Kiryat Gat's only movie theater, which was closed after 18 months of operation, in part due to a Chabad-led haredi boycott of the shopping mall where the theater is located. The issue? The mall and the theater were open on Shabbat.

The secular population is up in arms. The haredim are celebrating their victory. But what will be the result?

More and more secular people will move to Beer Sheva or other cities, Kiryat Gat will become a haredi enclave, and the population of Israel will be further divided.

One of the main complaints raised by the secular population is youth boredom and violence caused in part by the lack of movies and the like on Shabbat. The city, which has a religious mayor and deputy mayor, has apparently not addressed this concern. While I support non-violent protest – including the mall boycott – I do not support the abandonment of the secular population and its needs. That haredim – Chabad included – have not addressed those needs speaks volumes about their true intentions.

Programs that conform to Shabbat laws but that are not religious in nature can be set up by the municipality. Many sports and games can be played as well – although all this may require ignoring the haredi views on these specific halakhot and relying on Modern Orthodox views instead. This is most likely the reason why these programs do not exist.

This should never have been a religious v. secular issue. There are secular people who support Shabbat laws and who encourage businesses to close on Shabbat. And there are religious people who argue that the state should not be involved in any aspects of religion, including enforcement of Shabbat laws. But the haredim rushed to make this exactly that, in order to strengthen their political base at the expense of national unity.

In the long run, losing the nuances of this debate hurts everybody, haredim included. But haredi leaders do not understand that.

100,000 Protest Halimi Murder In Paris

100,000 people, including leading politicians, demonstrated in Paris Sunday to protest the murder of Ilan Halimi, the French Jew recently murdered by a Muslim gang.

In the first significant American coverage of this story, the Wall Street Journal ran a detailed piece (not online) Thursday.

Our coverage by Dr. Jerome Soller can be read here.

The yellow hand signs at the demonstration (seen in the above photo) most likely read "Keep Your Hands Off My Buddy." The yellow hand with that slogan is the symbol of SOS Racisme, a group of Parisans of all faiths and backgrounds founded by my friend, French novelist Marek Halter in the early 1980's.

Kopul Rosen #4: Chabad & The Gospel Of Mark

Rabbi Jeremy Rosen writes in this week's Something Jewish:

I find it fascinating that the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament contains a similar story of a man being warned not to reveal a miraculous healing, but publicizing it anyway. It seems that it’s not just the Second Coming that some people in Chabad are borrowing from Christianity! If people can invent nonsense like this to bolster their belief systems, then every story they tell becomes suspect. Myths and lies certainly won’t help bring ‘Moshiach Now’!

It was my mother’s Yahrzeit this week. Out of respect for her memory, let alone my father’s, zl, I hope someone in Chabad has the integrity and authority to put an end to this for the sake of its own good name.

Kopul Rosen 1, 2 & 3.

Kopul Rosen #3: More Lies From Rabbi Tuvia Bolton

The publication of Rabbi Jeremy Rosen's exposé of Chabad's twisting and exaggeration of his father's story has drawn a lot of attention inside Chabad. And the author of Chabad's most deceitful version, Rabbi Tuvia Bolton of Kfar Chabad, Israel, has taken to promising at least some readers that he would correct and update his version. One such reader emailed me with a link to Rabbi Bolton's "correction," which turns out to be an edited version of the story that replaces Rabbi Kopul Rosen's name with the anonymous "Rabbi J.," and that keeps many of the lies of the original version intact. And, Rabbi Bolton nowhere mentions his errors or publicly apologizes for lying about Rabbi Rosen's relationship with the Rebbe, and his passing.

How can anyone trust anything Chabad publishes or says when its rabbis lie like this?

[Hat tip: Shoshana.]

[Here's a PDF of Rabbi Bolton's "corrected" version: Download tuvia_bolton.pdf ]

UPDATE: Rabbi Ariel Sokolovsky has kindly forwarded Rabbi Bolton's weekly parsha hashavua email, in which Rabbi Bolton 'apologizes' and promises to post a "revised" version on his website's archives:

APPOLOGY [sic] I have been informed that some of the details of last week's (Parshat Yisro) story are incorrect.  Mainly that, unlike what I wrote, Rabbi Kopol [sic] Rosen's relation to Chabad in fact had always been positive. My appologies.  A revised edition will be published in our archives.

That "revised edition" contains the lies noted immediately above.

Guest Post: Muslim Gang Tortures and Murders French Jew, US Media Silent

"They lynched him alive, they burnt him, they cut him simply because he was Jewish,” Ilan Halimi's mother told French Television. (Photo:EJP)

The following article by Dr. Jerome Soller, Ph.D., is the third in a series of guest posts. If you want to guest post, please send me an email.

Muslim Gang Tortures and Murders French Jew, US Media Silent
By Jerome Soller, Ph.D.

I appreciate the opportunity to post this guest article in failedmessiah.com, which is providing a great resource for differing viewpoints in the Jewish community.  Last week, I heard about this tragedy, which was getting no exposure in the US Jewish or mainstream press.  This event impacts Jews everywhere, whether they are Chassidim, Haredi, orthodox, conservative, reform, reconstructionist, or secular. Throughout this article, I include references to reports from other sources (as I do not live in France).  The primary reason I am writing this article is the lack of US media coverage.  In the future, this article may be supplemented by a first-hand account of a friend, whose Jewish relative was murdered in France ten years ago.

In January, a pretty woman (whose friends were gang members) came into the shop of Ilan Halimi (a 23-year old French Jewish mobile telephone salesman).  They spoke several times on the phone, and then arranged a date.  On January 20, 2006, Ilan went to meet her and was kidnapped by a Muslim  gang in Paris (called the "Barbarians").  Four of six of the gang's previous kidnapping targets were Jewish.  After the kidnapping, Ilan's family received over 650 phone calls, Internet messages, and other forms of contact during a  three week period from the gang, while the family was cooperating with the French police [4].   ”When we said we didn’t have 500,000 euros to give them they answered we should go to the synagogue and get it,” Rafi (Ilian's uncle) stressed. “They also recited verses from the Koran. We didn’t know what they were saying but the police told us. [6]" During his captivity, Ilan had his head covered, was starved,  stripped naked, cut, burned, and tortured in other ways. According to a poster on another web site, "they had castrated him, cut off his fingers, and gouged out his eyes. [10]" People in the neighboring apartments were aware of the hostage, but did nothing.  When the family could not reach the gang's financial demands, the gang left Ilan to die.  He was rescued and died in the ambulance on his way to the hospital.  The French police arrested fifteen suspects.

At that point, the French police and media downplayed the incident as an isolated incident involving "disadvantaged" immigrant youths and did not mention the victim was Jewish.  The mainstream media and French police refused to give this much publicity or even consider that it might be a hate crime, as the perpetrators were Muslim and the victim a Jewish man.  After all, such publicity might offend the Muslim community, which was already offended by cartoons.  The family of the victim brought attention to the situation.  On February 16, the Paris public prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, said that “no element of the current investigation could link this murder to anti-Semitic declaration or action.[6]” If a black man was lynched by thirteen white men wearing sheets and screaming racist slogans while they burned a cross in his lawn, a reasonable person would at least consider the possibility of a racially motivated hate crime.  "They lynched him alive, they burnt him, they cut him simply because he was Jewish,” Ruth Halimi said on French television.  1,200 Jews from all sections of the French Jewish community (e.g., Chabad, secular, etc.) marched in Paris to ask for truth and action from French government officials.

Due to pressure, the French (who I believe are basically good people) are now considering the possibility of it being an anti-semitically motivated murder.  As the investigation has progressed, pro-Palestinian and Islamist documents were found in the homes of many of the perpetrators.   French Justice Minister Pascal Clement said one of the suspects had made it clear he attacked Ilan Halimi "because he was Jewish, and Jews are rich" [9]. French interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy told the French parliament, "The truth is that these hoodlums first of all acted for villainous and sordid reasons - money - but they had the belief, and I quote, ’that Jews have money’ and that even if those they kidnapped did not, the community would rally round”, citing a statement by one of the kidnappers [8].  "We fear that the fact that Ilan was Jewish aggravated his case and caused his kidnappers to behave as Islamists. Why did the kidnappers, once they discovered that Ilan’s family was not wealthy, as they had thought, not let him go and instead tortured him to death?," asked Sammy Ghozlan, head of the French Anti-Semitism Vigilance Bureau [6]. "According to the prosecutor, Halimi was tortured in scenes reminiscent of the abuse of prisoners at Baghdad’s notorious Abu Ghraib jail. [5]"

Are the anti-semitic stereotypes and attitudes that drove this hate crime any suprise?  Much of the Islamist documents in the suspects' homes likely portrayed Jews as rich and evil.  Some French Muslim comedians portray the Jews as evil and the cause of the slave trade. Articles in the British Guardian [2] and French Liberation magazine suggest that the suspects were inspired by events in Iraq (blamed on the Jews) and films about such events.  For example,  the recent Turkish movie "Valley of the Wolves Iraq" [1][3] is giving the Jewish blood libel mainstream credibility, while it breaks Turkish box office records and will open in the United States, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Denmark, Russia, Egypt, Syria, Australia, and other places in the world where Jews serve as convenient scapegoats.  Its plot involves a Jewish-American doctor (played by an American actor - Gary Busey) removing the organs of wedding party attendees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq for delivery to rich people in the West.   I thought that the only people that typically killed Arab wedding party attendees were "Palestinian" terrorists!?  A friend of mine (Dan Black) suggested the Turks make another movie (called "Palestine: The New Protocols") about the rescue of a "Palestinian" infant from Jews, led by the chief Israeli rabbi played by Gary Busey, before Passover.  I shouldn't write this in sarcasm, as it might happen (all in the name of multiculturalism and political correctness).  The increase in antisemitism also results from the fact that the French and other communities refuse to acknowledge the existence of anti-semitism and hate crimes committed by Muslims against Jews (or have any sensitivity to their causes), except under extreme circumstances.

When I heard about this tragedy, I was shocked that there was little coverage in the US.  While US news sources had countless articles about cartoons (without showing such mild cartoons for fear of retaliation) and "peaceful" "Palestinian" protests initiated by Hamas, no links to the murder of a Jew existed on any of their main US web pages.  After all, Hamas should be associated with "peace", as they only want to destroy Israel and Jews worldwide.  I guess it is major news that Palestinians had a protest, without anyone being hurt.

I hope that this article creates an awareness of these events, when mainstream US media coverage is lacking. I would also hope that there would be a sense of Jewish outrage over the events in France (and the initial hesitancy to seek the truth), the Turkish blood libel film and similar antisemitic literature (which provides a pretense for future violence against Jews), and the tendency of the media to selectively cover and/or sugarcoat events.  I am afraid that the current lack of a Jewish response emboldens enemies of the Jewish people.  Where are the ADL and other Jewish groups? If not now, when?

References:

1. Associated Press, CNN, Turkish movie depicts Americans as savages, February, 2006,

2. Jason Burke, Guardian Unlimited, Torturer's Iraq Links, February, 2006,

3. European Jewish Press, German political and Jewish leaders condemn Turkish Iraq movie, February, 2006,

4. Yossi Lempkowicz and David Dahan, European Jewish Press, Halimi’s mother blames police, February, 2006,

5. Yossi Lempkowicz and Shirli Sitbon, European Jewish Press, Anti-Semitism blamed for Paris murder, February, 2006,

6. Yossi Lempkowicz and Shirli Sitbon, Dispute around motivation for murder in Paris, European Jewish Press, February, 2006,

7. Reuters, CNN, France: Anti-Semitic link in death, February, 2006,

8. Reuters, ABS-CBN, France sees racist motive in brutal torture death, February, 2006,

9. Shirli Sitbon, French authorities : anti-Semitism may have played a role in Halimi’s murder, European Jewish Press,

10. Hannah Semesh, Free Republic, Paris: Gang suspected of killing Jew nabbed (Muslim gang not motivated by anti-Semitism say police)

CIRCUMCISION: Are Many Children In Special Ed Classes Becuase Of Metzitza B'Peh?

Writing for the JTA, Debra Nussbaum Cohen recaps the circumcision controversy generated by metzitza b'peh, the oral-to-genital sucking of  the open circumcision wound done by many haredim. The article is good, clear summary of events, and it has some extras that make it really stand out. The first is a quote from Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler of Yeshiva University:

"I'm convinced that many children have been infected and not diagnosed, and years later they are in special education in the schools and no one knows why," Tendler said.

On the other side, Rabbi David Niederman of the Satmar-controlled Central Rabbinical Congress tells a whopper and gets away unchallenged:

"There have been seven cases, allegedly over a span of 15 years," he said. "In Williamsburg alone we have close to 57,000 people. The overwhelming majority is very young, so you're talking about 120,000 brises of metzitzah b'peh."

Agudath Israel estimates 2000 MBP circumcisions were done in the city last year. Less than 1/2 were done in Williamsburg. If 1000 MBP's were done in Williamsburg every year for the past 15 years, then 15,000 MBPs were performed. Surely the number is much less than this, in part due to the smaller population in earlier years.

Another way to look at is as follows. 57,000 people. 1/3 are too old or are infertile. 1/3 are too young or single. 1/3 married and of the correct age. So, we have 19,000 potential people. 1/2 are men. That leaves us with 9,500. Women give birth on average about every three years (some more, some less). So 9,500 divided by 3 = 3167 births per year. 1/2 are  baby girls. That leaves 1584 boys to have  MBP. But some of these births take place in the Catskills, London, etc. , so you end up with about 1400 MBPs done in Williamsburg – and that is if Rabbi Niederman's population figure is not inflated. Again, not factoring in smaller populations each year we go back, we end up with 21,000 MBPs over 15 years, 1/6 of the figure Rabbi Niederman claims.

Why is this exaggeration important? Because of what Rabbi Niederman said immediately after. The quote, now in context:

"There have been seven cases, allegedly over a span of 15 years," he said. "In Williamsburg alone we have close to 57,000 people. The overwhelming majority is very young, so you're talking about 120,000 brises of metzitzah b'peh. You tell me, is it safer to give a flu shot or to do metzitzah b'peh?"

Actually, the risk of serious injury or death from a flu shot is far less than from MBP, which by the most charitable statistic for Rabbi Niederman carries a 1 in 3000 chance of serious illness, maiming or death.

But none of this matters to the haredim:

"We are convinced that it's not dangerous," [Rabbi Niederman] said.

Not surprising from a community led by a man who cannot do simple math. 

The FBI v. Rabbi Meir Kahane

Rabbi Meir Kahane, the JDL, Kach and the FBI's J. Edgar Hoover. The Forward reports.

Consultation Of Virtual Rabbis On The Rise; Internet Ban Not Working

The UPI reports:

More and more ultra-Orthodox Israeli Jews are consulting "virtual rabbis" via the Internet, a study sponsored by an Internet and Judaism conference found.

The survey found that 25 percent of respondents regularly consulted a "virtual rabbi," 7 percent checked Internet forums for answers to religious questions, and these numbers are on the rise. Traditional methods were still more widely used, however, with 33 percent consulting the community rabbi and 35 percent researching for answers in books, the Hebrew news site Ynet reported.

Another statistic on the rise was the number of rabbis who surfed the Internet at home. According to the survey, conducted by the First Conference on the Subject of Judaism, Society and the Internet, 74 percent of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) rabbis had home computers, while a whopping 84 percent of national religious rabbis did, the site said.

The conference dealt with the question faced by traditionally religious people all over the world: Does the Internet undercut the basic values of the faith, or does it help religious communities move one step ahead? The results of conference surveys were also posted on the conference Web site, "Skullcap."

Another survey of 1,000 religious Web surfers presented at the conference found that 88 percent do not use content filters to shield themselves from undesirable material, the news site said. Of those who do, 9.5 percent filter every family member's surfing, and only 2.5 percent use the filters just for their children.

It seems the gedolim's Internet ban is not working.

Rubashkin, Postville & Environmental Group Reach Compromise

AgriProcessors, makers of the Aaron's Best and Rubashkin brands, the City of Postville, Iowa and environmentalists have reached a compromise regarding the plant's pollution of hecker Creek and the Yellow River.

Hesder Rabbis Object To Proposed Changes

Hesder roshei yeshiva met to complain about a new IDF proposal to lengthen hesder army service to 2 years from its current 18 months. This would be in conjunction with shortening regular army service from 3 years to 2, removing hesder's advantage. The army also plans to integrate units, which was accepted by a few of the rabbis. But, as the Jerusalem Post reports, there is more to this story than meets the eye:

Several heads of hesder yeshivot told The Jerusalem Post that a growing number of soldiers are choosing to postpone indefinitely army service like haredi yeshiva students.

Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, head of the Elon Moreh hesder yeshiva and symbol of the more right-wing rabbis faithful to former Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Avraham Shapira who advocated insubordination during disengagement, have gained popularity.

Levanon said that he already noticed a sharp rise in interest in his yeshiva, six months before enrollment, which takes place in the Jewish month of Elul.

Attempts by the IDF to single out Levanon for censure for calling to refuse military orders have only boosted his popularity.

The solution is to stop all hesder programs. Now is not too soon.

Number 6 On Meretz List? A Haredi Woman Ph.D.

Number 6 on the Meretz list in the upcoming elections is a 59-year-old haredi mother of five with a Ph.D. in politcal philosophy, Tzvia Greenfield. She's for civil marriage, gay rights, and she has a perceptive view on rabbinical culture:

Greenfield is an unusual ultra-Orthodox politician not only because she is a woman, but also in her attitude toward rabbis. In her book, "They Are Scared," she accuses the great rabbinic leaders of this generation of "enflaming zealousness and hostility and widening the deep rift in the Jewish people."

"I don't hide my opinion that rabbis do not do the Jewish people much good," she told Haaretz. "They are not efficient leaders. In order to preserve their positions of power, they prevent change."

As expected, the haredi world is outraged that Dr. Greenfield identifies as a haredi.

I'm hoping Meretz gets the six seats necessary to put Dr. Greenfield in Knesset. It will be fun to watch her work.

New Jewish Craigs List?

A new Jewish site loosely based on the wildly successful CraigsList has just launched. Check out Yossi's List.

Halal – Equivalent To Kosher?

I recently noticed a new symbol on a line of (non-dairy, non-meat) Arab deli items produced in Minnesota, including hummous, tabouli and the like:

"Halal – Equivalent to Kosher"*

Have any of you seen this symbol or something like it? Has any legal action been taken? Opinions?

Please discuss.

[As a side note, I called the rabbi who 'removed' me from the community to give him a heads up on this symbol, which appears to violate Minnesota law. This was the first contact with him that I have had in two years.]

* From Wikipedia:

The Qur'anic verse 5:5 declares that the food of the People of the Book is halaal. Many interpret this reference to imply that the dietary laws are similar enough to (though less restrictive than) those regulating kashrut that Muslims can consume kosher meat and other food products when there are no halaal alternatives. Of course, kosher products that include alcohol among their ingredients are still haraam.

In certain instances, some Islamic authorities have permitted Muslims to rely upon kosher certification (particularly in regard to slaughtering) when halaal food is otherwise unavailable. This view is subject to debate, however, and is rejected by many, for a variety of reasons. Jewish authorities do not allow reliance upon halaal certification as a substitute for kashrut and many Islamic authorities argue the same for kashrut certification. Islamic groups advise using Kashrut certification only as a last resort.

Are The Falash Mura Really Jews? (And Does It Matter If They Are Not?)

A new Falash Mura immigrant with a cross tattoo on her forehead arrives in Israel this month with 150 other Ethiopians. (JTA) [Note the caption would lead one to think all Falash Mura are non-Jews.]

Uriel Heilman of the JTA has another disingenuous report about Ethiopian Jews. While his concerns about the Jewishness of the Falash Mura waiting to go to Israel are mirrored by significant sectors of the Ethiopian Jewish community there, his method of demonstrating this problem again proves his motivation is not to honestly report on this issue:

Though many advocates of Falash Mura aliyah maintain that the conversions resulted from economic and social pressures, scholars of Ethiopian Jewish history find little evidence of this.

On the contrary, according to Steven Kaplan's The Beta Israel (Falasha) in Ethiopia: From Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century, those who converted were far more likely to face social and economic exclusion than those who remained Jews. The converts faced ostracism both from the Jews whose tradition they rejected, and from the Christians who refused to accept them as full-fledged members of their communities because they were members of the lowly Beta Israel caste.

What Heilman does here is invert the process. Jews converted for various reasons – among them persecution and the desire to move up the economic ladder. All historians, even Kaplan, admit that there was this combination of persecution and enticement. What Kaplan is commenting on are the results of that process, not the motivations of the individuals who converted.

But Heilman does not stop here:

Even among the Falash Mura who have some biological link to Ethiopian Jewry, few seemed to have been aware they were Jews until they were told as much by American Jewish advocacy groups who identified them as such by their membership in the Beta Israel caste.

In interviews last year in the Ethiopian province of Gojam with Beta Israel peasants who had not yet migrated to the cities, villagers demonstrated no knowledge of Judaism whatsoever. Indeed, until their contact with American Jewish groups working in the cities, they'd never heard of the Torah, never observed any Jewish holidays or rituals, and professed a belief in Jesus. Many have crosses tattooed on their foreheads or wear crosses around their necks.

So, according to Heilman, people who converted generations ago are expected to have a knowledge of Judaism in a country that has no remaining Jewish community to speak of and has no mass media, Internet or other ways of communication that could provide them with this information.

There is real concern among some Ethiopian Jewish leaders that NACOEJ is 'recruiting' these Falash Mura and sending them to Addis Ababa, and that the American Jewish community has been duped by this process.

That being said, there is a halakhic imperative, as ruled by the Chief Rabbis, to help those who are truly of Jewish descent. Separating out those who are not is rarely feasible, but this problem is to an extent rectified by the conversions they must undergo before reaching Israel.

If NACOEJ or other groups are "recruiting" Falash Mura indiscriminately, this must be stopped. But the burden of proof is on the accusers. In areas of pekuakh nefesh, we must err on the side of life, even if there is a question about the Jewish status of the lives in question.*

The Forward's latest coverage can be viewed here.

[Uriel Heilman's report is achieved after the jump. I do this because of the tendency for news sites to change urls down the road, making the original article difficult or impossible to access. Please view the entire article through the above link to the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, rather than below, unless the above link no longer works. Thank you.]

* A separate question involves alleged Christian missionary activity conducted by a minority of these Falash Mura once they reach Israel. This will be dealt with in detail as soon as promised documentary evidence arrives. even is this alleged missionary activity turns out to be true, it would not free us from helping the remaining Falash Mura in Ethiopia. A possible solution to this problem would be to outlaw such missionary activity from Falash Mura rescued by Israel, with the provision that, if discovered, missionary activity could lead to deportation. Children born in Israel would be exempt from this rule. The same could be done for Russian immigrants, who also have this problem, and who have a higher percentage of non-Jews as immigrants than do the Falash Mura. The problem with this solution is obvious. Even if it could pass the Knesset and any court challenges, which is unlikely, the opposition to this from the rest of the world will be overwhelming.

Faced with (correct) rabbinical rulings that mandate rescue, there is no other choice. Rescue must be done with all due speed.

Another solution to this problem would be to develop industries and farming schools in Ethiopia that train the local populace – whatever their religious affiliation. Building Ethiopia's economy and stabilizing its agricultural, raising the standard of living and health care for all Ethiopians, will greatly reduce the number of people who want to emigrate. And that should reduce the problem of non-Jewish immigration to Israel.

And it has a larger, more important benefit – we will save lives now and in the long run, and we will be doing the good that we should be doing.

A Jewish led "Peace Corps" to Ethiopia may be the best solution to this problem.

Future IDF Chief Rabbi: "The life of a non-Jew certainly has value ... but the value of Shabbat is more important"

The leading candidate to become the IDF's (Orthodox) chief rabbi, Colonel Rabbi Avi Ronsky (Res.) has this to say about violating Shabbat laws to save non-Jewish lives:

"The life of a non-Jew certainly has value ... but the value of Shabbat is more important," said Ronsky. "When there is a clash between a directive in the spirit of the [IDF ethical] code and an order of Jewish law, it is clear that one must listen to the opinion of Jewish law."

While the context of this statement is the saving of a non-Jewish terrorist's life, Rabbi Ronsky clearly does not differentiate in his reasoning between that case and the case of a friendly non-Jew. And Rabbi Ronsky, a settler, is widely considered a moderate.

Should a non-Jew's life be saved on Shabbat when that saving entails violation of Shabbat law? And if the answer to that question is no, why should non-Jews ever bother to save Jewish lives? Keep in mind this question applies to all areas of medicine and emergency response. Readers?

Is Jerusalem Israel?

Noted halakhic researcher Ari Zivotofsky has won what may be only a temporary victory in his battle to have his Jerusalem-born son's US passport show Israel as his birthplace:

Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky of Jerusalem, just 3 years old, emerged victorious last week in his battle with the U.S. administration - a small and perhaps temporary victory, but sweet nevertheless. The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld his arguments and decided to send his case back to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, so that "both sides may develop a more complete record relating to these and other subjects of dispute." The two parties are the child (and his parents, Ari and Naomi) and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

All said, the ruling is a technical one: Zivotofsky has an argument worthy of deliberation, the judges decided. Via his parents, Zivotofsky is making a simple request: He wants his U.S. passport to record him as born in "Israel," and not, as the U.S. Consulate decided, in "Jerusalem."

The U.S. administration, as a matter of policy, is not willing to confirm that U.S. citizens who were born in Jerusalem were indeed born in Israel because, as was argued by the state's representative in court, the issue is "the subject of profound dispute" and Israel's claim to sovereignty over the city has never been decided.

New J-Blog

Frequent commenter Dovid Lerner has launched a new J-blog, Sideways Anger. So far, the content seems to be primarily politically based.

Rabbi Kopul Rosen, #2

Rabbi Kopul Rosen on a visit to Kfar Chabad.

I have updated the guest post from Rabbi Jeremy Rosen, on his late father Rabbi Kopul Rosen's relationship with the Rebbe and Chabad, with scans of the original story as published by Chabad of Great Britain in "Challenge: An Encounter With Lubavitch Chabad." Suffice it to say the original story backs Rabbi Rosen's charges. Another Chabad myth destroyed.

[For the sake of clarity and to keep the comment thread together, I have blocked comments for this post only. If you want to comment, please do so on the original post below. Thank you.]

More On Rav Kaduri, Z"L

The Australian has a Times piece on Rav Kaduri, z"l, with some information missing from earlier reports:

In l995 [Rav Kaduri] also publicly cursed Yitzhak Rabin, the former general and then prime minister, for his readiness to swap land for peace. A month later Rabin fell to a right-wing religious fanatic's bullet in Tel Aviv.…

The records of Kaduri's birth were lost. It is known that it was in Iraq, in either Basra or Baghdad, and the assumption that it was during the autumn of l897 was unchallenged in later years. His father was a spice merchant, and the family wealth enabled Yitzhak to travel repeatedly to Jerusalem, then part of the Ottoman empire. He settled there in l922.

He earned his living as a translator for the British Army, then sustaining the League of Nations mandate for Palestine. In his early 30s Kaduri set up as a kabbalist, dispensing blessings, advice and amulets to the sick, troubled and childless, while earning his main living as a bookbinder. It was not until his 60s that his son and grandson set up an academy for him in the Bukharian quarter of Jerusalem. By then he was a venerable as well as charismatic figure in that part of the city.

His constituency lay with the constantly growing number of North African and Oriental Jews, both poor and poorly educated by Western standards, whose religion was said by critics to be based as much on superstition as on faith. It was to them that Kaduri's amulets were particularly attractive.

In his last years Kaduri additionally espoused the messianism of the European Chassidic sect Lubavitch. Kaduri repeatedly proclaimed the Messiah to be already living, albeit anonymously, in Israel.

CIRCUMCISION – BREAKING: Rabbi Elyashiv & Rabbi Wozner Tell Infected Mohel To Keep On Sucking

A commenter (apparently David Shabatai of NYU) on Hirhurim is reporting that Rabbi Fischer, the Monsey-mohel linked to one death and one case of brain damage due to transmission of the herpes virus during mitzitza b'peh, the controversial oral-to-genital-suction of the open circumcision wound still practiced by many haredim, spoke at the conference of the Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists – the once proud organization that has been largely marginalized since the days of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan. It is now heavily influenced by haredim, as one can see from Rabbi Fischer's presence and the presence of Agudath Israel's Rabbi Dovid Zwiebel at the convention as speakers.

The conference had a session on mitzitza b'peh (MBP), and Rabbi Fischer spoke:

R. Fisher from Monsey spoke somewhat unexpectedly at the end (I don't know if they caught this part on tape).

He said he met personally with both R. YS Elyashiv shlita and R. Wozner shlita [Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, head of the haredi non-hasidic world, and Rabbi Shmuel HaLevi Wozner, a leading haredi rabbinic decisor] together with R. Dr. Mordechai Halperin [the head of the haredi Schlessinger Institute for Jewish Medical Ethics] (or one of his representatives). Anybody who knows anything about R. Halperin knows that he is so yashar [straight] and such a mentch that there is no question that the data was presented accurately and fairly.

He said that both posekim held that the statistics were too insignificant to come into halakhic play and they encouraged him to continue to practice MBP and gave him a bracha for hatzlacha.

There you have it, folks. The leaders of the haredi world have ruled that, not only should MBP continue to be practiced, but the very mohel who transmitted the infection that killed one baby and caused brain damage in another should continue to practice both circumcision and MBP.

Another speaker, Dr. Jacob Fleischman, fretted that we do not have the "gold standard," a genetic stamp, for linking Rabbi Fischer to the transmission, but didn't note why that is. It is because Rabbi Fischer has consistently refused to be tested or to provide a sample for DNA.

After the session, Rabbi Gil Student of Hirhurim overheard a famous pediatrician complaining (rightfully) about Dr. Fleischman's presentation:

This doctor thought Dr. Fleischman should have been more emphatic about the clinical evidence. You need three things to transmit herpes: a wet surface (mouth or genitalia), direct contact, and an incubation period (of which the vast majority is around 8 days). In the reported cases, the mohel was the only one who fulfilled all of those criteria.

There is no reason to beat around the bush. The haredi world is a danger – to our future, to our Torah, to our way of life. They are regressing back into the 18th century. And worst of all, they are a very real and present danger to their own children. To encourage a mohel, who has apparently killed one child and maimed another, to continue to suck on the open penile wounds of eight-day-old infants is nothing short of child abuse and reckless endangerment. Let New York City do what is necessary to ban this practice and prosecute those, including rabbis and parents, who violate the ban.

The haredi world is clearly not responsible enough to police its own. So let the government do it. And let them do it immediately.

Guest Post: Kopul Rosen & The Rebbe – Myth Refuted

Rabbi Jeremy Rosen has sent in the following article about his late father, Kopul Rosen's, z'l, relationship with the Rebbe. The comments in square brackets [ ] are Rabbi Rosen's corrections to Rabbi Tuvia Bolton's article as published by Chabad in Israel. They have been indented for clarity and readability.

My comments? Another Chabad myth destroyed:

Chabad Fantasy
By Rabbi Jeremy Rosen

The Lubavitcher Rebbe was undeniably a great man and arguably the greatest Jew of his generation. Many of his followers have done outstanding work around the globe. But sadly as with every large organisation they have their crooks, their swindlers and their liars. Amongst their failings is an exaggerated tendency to maximise miracles the Rebbe performed (while ignoring his limitations) and frankly lying to suit their own propaganda.

For many years there has been a story circulating that my father who died in 1962 was promised he would be cured by the Rebbe provided he did not tell anyone. But he did and that’s why he died. These stories caused my late mother as great deal of distress and at one stage she actually planned to take legal action. I have just had it brought to my attention that this dishonest story is still being disseminated. You can find a copy of this Chillul HaShem here  HYPERLINK "http://www.ohrtmimim.org/Torah" http://www.ohrtmimim.org/Torah .

The facts of the situation are that in the autumn of 1961 my late father (spelled Kopul) was diagnosed with a particularly virulent form of Lukaemia and he was being kept alive by regular blood transfusions. The Doctors described his condition as terminal. Initially he kept on repeating that he was in the hands of God, not fallible human doctors, but as he deteriorated his initial optimism began to wane.  An old friend Rabbi Laizer Spector wnt with him to visit the Lubavitcher Rebbe in New York. (My uncle – who had been going regularly to see the Rebbe before these events – had gone before my father.) My father was tremendously impressed by the Rebbe who encouraged him to devote his remaining time to preparing himself to meet his Maker. He suggested my father grow his beard full, wear a gartel when he prayed and study the Tanya daily. The visit certainly gave my father a lot of spiritual comfort. When he returned he wrote many letters to friends and pupils telling them that he was nearing his end but facing it with confidence. Things deteriorated of course and in the winter he went to New York again for a final visit to the Rebbe. He kept very detailed notes of both visits so we have written evidence apart from his own memory.

The Rebbe reassured him that he would live to dance at his daughter's wedding (she was two at the time). One can argue whether this was honest or not. Let us assume he was just trying to give him courage or speaking mystically. But medically there was no chance of recovery. He died less than two months later.

Although I have never joined Chabad, when I was a rabbi in Glasgow I arranged for Chaim Jacobs to come as the Chabad emissary and indeed he was employed by my Synagogue, Giffnock, until he could get on to his own two feet. The Rebbe blessed my first marriage and was instrumental in my returning to Carmel as Headmaster. I made several trips to New York to see the Rebbe and to get Chabad teachers to come to Carmel . But no, I am a fellow traveller rather than a believer.

All this is by way of introduction. Here is the body of this regurgitated myth:

‘The scene is London 1963.

[My father died in 1962.]

Three religious bearded Jews are sitting around a table and one, a noted Rabbi and community leader by the name of Rabbi Koppel (sic) Rosen was weeping. Usually he was known almost as well for his disdain toward the Chabad Chassidim

[Strange. When I was in Beer Yaakov yeshiva in 1957 he came to visit and together we went to Kfar Chabad to meet some friends of his. He was responsible for getting Lord Wolfson to fund the building of Lubavitch House in Stamford Hill in the 1950’s and he was a very old friend of Reb Laizer Spector, ZL one of the main early supporters of Chabad in London who actually went with him to the Rebbe the first time. My father was in contact with the Rebbe long before, as letters exchanged between them in the fifties on various issues attest. Incidentally although my late father was sent to Mir Yeshivah and became a great admirer of Rav Yerucham Levovitz ZL after whom I am named and the Mussar movement, he was actually born into a family of Radomsker Chassidim and the Chasidic atmosphere was a far more formative aspect of home life than the Lithuanian.]

as he was for his erudition.

[Whose erudition? His own? He lived for Torah.]

Whenever there was an opportunity to belittle or even vilify Chabad he took it.

[Really? I’d like to hear one person say he ever heard my father belittle Chabad.]

But now it seems that things had changed.

Several weeks later Rabbi Rosen was standing before the Rebbe. It had all come about so suddenly, he had always shuddered in rupulsion (sic) at the name Chabad

[Oh no not that lie again!]

and now it was so obvious that the Rebbe was unequaled in holiness and knowledge that he was actually shaking with excitement.  But the Rebbe wasn't enthusiastic about his idea of becoming a Chassid. "Chassid?" he answered, "I am willing to accept you as a partner.  But not a Chassid."

[My father kept very detailed notes of his meeting and only the first part of this about being a partner can be found amongst them.]

Rabbi Rosen stayed for over a week in Brooklyn

[He has got the two visits confused and time scales wrong]

and every day he felt better and better, in some ways better than ever before in his life.  For the first time the hatred

[Hatred? What hatred? Of whom? My father never bore grudges nor hated anyone. Chabad? Them why had he been helping them for so long?]

he had always carried in his heart was gone. That Shabbat he attended the 'Farbrengen' (gathering) of the Rebbe. Rabbi Rosen was elated.  After the Farbringen he told everyone  he met of the amazing miracle that was happening to him;. how just reading the Tanya and seeing the Rebbe completely cured him of the worst disease and made him young again.

[There was no cure, no remission. But I agree he did feel tremendous spiritual elation from being with the Rebbe.]

When the Shabbat was over he called home and told his wife to advertise the miracle until everyone knew.

[Rubbish, confirmed by my mother.]

Rabbi Rosen never felt better in his life.

[He was on constant blood transfusions!]

He exclaimed that he was healthy and he felt it would last for ever. "I'll begin by telling everyone about my miraculous recovery!" He exclaimed enthusiastically.

[His letters, notes and conversations say nothing about this at all.]

But the  Rebbe emphatically stopped him. "No! You must tell no one!

[Complete piffle.]

But it was too late.  Rabbi Rosin (sic) had already advertised

[Strange that none of his family knew about this myth.]

After a few months he contracted a cold which developed complications

[He had leukaemia!]

and, as the Rebbe forsaw (sic), he passed away.

Today, said the Rebbe, we should advertise to ALL the world that the time for Moshiach is here!  Soon all the sick will be permanently healed, war and hatred will cease to exist and eventually even the dead will rise!  It depends on us to do all we can to bring....Moshiach now!!!’

Boobah Maisehs and lies will not bring the Moshiach NOW!!

Frankly if he/they can invent this, then every story they tell becomes suspect. I just hope someone of honesty and truth in Chabad sees this and puts an end to it for the sake of their good name.

UPDATE #1, 2-21-06: Rabbi Ariel Sokolovsky sent in scans of the Rabbi Kopul Rosen story as originally published by Lubavitch in England. The story is told by Rabbi Rosen's wife, Bella. As is easily seen, the story has little in common with the myth later created and circulated by Chabad.

Please click on each image below for an enlargement. All are taken from "Challenge: An Encounter with Lubavitch Chabad," published by the Lubavitch Foundation of Great Britain, 1970.

UPDATE #2, 2-24-06: Rabbi Bolton has "corrected" his version of the story – by lying even more. As I noted in a new post above:

The publication of Rabbi Jeremy Rosen's expose´of Chabad's twisting and exaggeration of his father's story has drawn a lot of attention inside Chabad. And the author of Chabad's most deceitful version, Rabbi Tuvia Bolton of Kfar Chabad, Israel, has taken to promising at least some readers that he would correct and update his version. One such reader emailed me with a link to Rabbi Bolton's "correction," which turns out to be an edited version of the story that replaces Rabbi Kopul Rosen's name with the anonymous "Rabbi J.," and that keeps many of the lies of the original version intact. And, Rabbi Bolton nowhere mentions his errors or publicly apologizes for lying about Rabbi Rosen's relationship with the Rebbe, and his passing.

How can anyone trust anything Chabad publishes or says when its rabbis lie like this?

[Here's a PDF of Rabbi Bolton's "corrected" version: Download tuvia_bolton.pdf]

UPDATE #3, 2-24-06: Rabbi Jeremy Rosen writes in this week's Something Jewish:

I find it fascinating that the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament contains a similar story of a man being warned not to reveal a miraculous healing, but publicizing it anyway. It seems that it’s not just the Second Coming that some people in Chabad are borrowing from Christianity! If people can invent nonsense like this to bolster their belief systems, then every story they tell becomes suspect. Myths and lies certainly won’t help bring ‘Moshiach Now’!  

It was my mother’s Yahrzeit this week. Out of respect for her memory, let alone my father’s, zl, I hope someone in Chabad has the integrity and authority to put an end to this for the sake of its own good name.

Kopul Rosen 2, 3 & 4.

Did Cromwell Readmit Jews To England? Seems Not

Eliane Glaser writes in the Financial Times:

Over the next few months, a lunch, a dinner, a garden party and two thanksgiving services will be held in honour of Queen Elizabeth turning 80 this year. Next month, the citizens of York will mark the moment 1,700 years ago when Constantine the Great was proclaimed emperor of Rome in their city, and heroic celebrations continue in Europe for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart.

Imagine how odd it would be to discover that these anniversaries were based on nothing more than an enduring, but utterly inaccurate, myth. Yet that is precisely what is happening in Britain this year where events are about to get under way to mark the 350th anniversary of the “readmission” of Jews under Oliver Cromwell. Britain’s oldest synagogue will hold a commemorative service in June; [London mayor] Ken Livingstone’s office hopes to erect a huge menorah in Trafalgar Square; the Arts Council has funded a new play; and there are plans for events at Tate Modern and the Royal Society.

The only trouble is, Cromwell didn’t allow the Jews to return in 1656.

In fact, as I discovered when researching a doctorate in 17th-century religious history, the supposedly historic event of readmission and resettlement was nothing of the kind.

What is true is this: in the Middle Ages, a deeply anti-Semitic England became the first country in the world to expel Jews. In 1655, a Jewish leader from Amsterdam, Menasseh ben Israel, came to England to try to persuade Cromwell to let the Jews return. In December that year, Cromwell held a conference of merchants, lawyers and theologians in Whitehall to discuss the proposal. Some were in favour - many Jews were well connected merchants, after all. Furthermore, according to an eccentric millenarian prophecy then circulating, conversion of the Jews might hasten Christ’s second coming.

In the end, though, the Whitehall conference failed to reach a verdict. There was no great desire to welcome the Jewish people back from Europe.

A few hundred Jews did arrive in the second half of the 17th century, but their numbers paled in comparison with the more than 50,000 Huguenot immigrants who moved here in the same period, and the order of expulsion was never revoked.…

If you had been listening to Radio 4’s “Thought for the Day” last December however, you would have heard Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks give a different version of events: “In the Middle Ages, Britain led the world in its hostility to Jews, and in 1290 became the first country to expel them,” he said. “But in one of the great reversals of all time, in the 17th century it led the world in tolerance. Jews came back to Britain in 1656, and in a few weeks time will begin celebrating the 350th anniversary of that event.”

When I first attempted to interview the Chief Rabbi for this article, the executive director of his office, Syma Weinberg, told me that I should first read some books on the subject. I told her that I had actually read them all, and had written one myself.

Finally, after several days and many phone calls, I received a call from the Chief Rabbi. I put it to him that the readmission story was not what it was cracked up to be.

“You’re right - there were people for, people against; the whole thing is wrapped in obscurity,” he said. “Technically there was no moment at which you could say Jews were readmitted.”…

But what of Sacks’s earlier claim that the readmission was “one of the great reversals of all time”? Either something happened, or it didn’t.…

Unlike Sacks, I regard the informal nature of British tolerance as a sign of reluctance rather than affable accommodation. The Jews were not readmitted to England in 1656; a bill to give them equal rights was repealed in 1754, and they were only permitted to sit in parliament without taking an Anglican oath in 1858, after 11 years of debate.

Challenging the traditional faith in British tolerance is a better way of acknowledging true religious diversity than celebrating an event that didn’t happen.

Rabbi Elyashiv Hospitalized

Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv, the ninety-plus-year-old leader of non-hasidic haredim, has been hospitalized with chest pains. The rabbi's condition is described as good, and there have been no reports of a heart attack or other serious illness. The rabbi will remain in Jerusalem's Sha'arei Tzedek hospital over the weekend for observation and diagnostic testing. Leaders of the haredi community have asked for prayers to be said for his speedy recovery.

Circumcision: Another Expert Speaks Out Against Metzitza B'Peh

Dr. Sherwin Nuland, a clinical professor of surgery at Yale University, is the author of the recent well-received biography on the Rambam.  He is also a National Book Award-winning author of "How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter" (Knopf, 1994) and the author of a memoir, "Lost in America" (Knopf, 2003), among many others. He has written a blistering attack on metzitza b'peh, the oral-to-genital suction of the open circumcision wound done by many haredim as part of the circumcision ceremony:

Under normal conditions, the human mouth is home to streptococcus, staphylococcus and about five other forms of bacteria, several of which are capable of causing serious — and even lethal — infections. Every emergency room physician knows that these germs make a human bite more dangerous than a similar wound inflicted by a dog or cat, so much so that standard medical protocol demands that all such injuries be surgically explored and the damaged tissue cut out. The only exception is a bite on the face, where cosmetic considerations allow some leeway, but only with careful discrimination and close follow-up.

These precautions are in place because of the highly dangerous bacteria, but the herpes simplex virus adds problems of its own. To quote a standard textbook used by medical students and residents in training, "[U]ntreated neonatal herpes simplex has a case fatality rate exceeding 60%, with half of survivors severely damaged," frequently as the result of encephalitis. Other texts provide similar figures.

Fortunately, the disease is rare in the general population — but the general population does not suck on the newly cut penises of its neonates. Who knows the real number of fatalities and illnesses among ultra-Orthodox infants from either viral or bacterial infection, a figure on which the recently reported cases shed no light?

… The Shulhan Arukh, the code of Jewish law, could not be clearer on the matter of circumcision: "The fulfillment of all ordinances [of the brit milah] are suspended if there is danger to human life."

The danger of metzitzah b'peh has been more than amply demonstrated. Were the Rambam alive today, he would certainly agree.

New Hip Fashion Designer Former Chabad Follower

The new Isaac Mizrahi appears to be 20-year-old, Chabad-born-and-raised, former Crown Heights resident Levi Okunov. The Forward reports.

Guest Post: Olmert's War Against The Settlers

I've decided to publish occasional guest posts from readers, including readers who disagree with me. Hopefully this will become a regular feature. If you want to guest post, send me an e-mail. (The link is on the left side of the page near the top.)

The following post is from Fern Sidman, a Kahane supporter. As regular readers of this blog surely know, I strongly disagree with the views expressed below.

GUEST POST: OLMERT'S WAR AGAINST THE SETTLERS
BY: FERN SIDMAN

It was recently reported that Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert directed Israeli forces to use extreme violence against Jewish protestors during last week's televised evacuation and demolition of Jewish homes in Amona.  According to WorldNetDaily.com a top official in Olmert's Kadima party divulged this information.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, routinely serves as an Olmert advisor on international issues, has charged that Olmert ordered the violence as a tactic to win votes from leftist Israelis by demonstrating that he is capable of withdrawing Jews from Judea and Samaria.

"The extreme television images last week of settlers being brutalized was what Olmert needed. He knows he lost the right-wing voters to Likud and the nationalist parties. He has the center voters. Now he is trying to attract votes from Israelis on the left who strongly oppose the settlements," the unnamed official said.

MK Benny Elon said, "Olmert is not a military man. He doesn't have a strong defense background like Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who everyone knows can get tough. So Olmert's public relations people told him he needs to act macho against the settlers ahead of the elections to prove to them he can push through what the extreme leftists want, a West Bank evacuation."

It was also recently reported that the Yassamniks and Israeli police sexually abused young Jewish settler girls. According to direct testimony, the girls said the police called them prostitutes, threatened to rape them and touched their private parts. Older women as well have said that police groped their bodies. "Police officers rubbed up against us and touched our chest and intimate body parts. They used dirty words while doing it. One policeman said: 'Come, I'll screw you'... We felt like we were being raped." (The testimony of a girl in Amona)

It is clear that Mr. Olmert was responsible for the approval of this heinous brutality and humilation of the settlers. It is clear that in order to ensure a political victory for himself, he is willing to destroy the entire settler movement. He has referred to the settlers as the "Jewish Hamas". He is willing to use the blood of Jewish children in order to capture votes. The actions of the Olmert government are an egregious usurption of  the basic civil rights of the settlers. It is not surprising that Olmert has refused to open up an investigation into the police brutality in Amona. If all the facts were to surface it would clearly indict him of government sponsored violence of a segment of the population.

Israel's Chabad Postage Stamp

New Book On Crown Heights Riots

Available here.

Messiah Van Parade In NYC

[Originally seen on Mentalblog.]

Chabad Airs Messianist Ad In Israel

Tzemach Atlas has a link to a Yud Shvat messianist Chabad radio commercial aired in Israel.

Chabad Power Struggle Goes To Israeli Secular Court

Chabad's warring factions have ended up in a secular court in Israel. Globes reports:

Chassidei Chabad Lubavitch Yeshiva Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Wilshansky, Beit Chana Schools head Rabbi Shlomo Raskin, and members of Chabad Israel, which manages the movement’s activities in the country, have petitioned the courts to prevent Tzeirei Agudat Chabad (Chabad Youth Organization in Israel) chairman Rabbi Yosef Y. Aharonov and five members of Tzeirei Chabad from taking it over.

Wilshansky and Raskin asked the court to forbid the respondents from making material changes Tzeirei Chabad’s foundation documents, signatory rights, directors, and membership, or making any other fundamental changes. The petitioners claim that this is an attempt to illegally take over Tzeirei Chabad, and through it, Chabad Israel in general.

The petitioners claim that there are grounds for concern that the respondents, headed by Aharonov, will create a fait accompli, and even withdraw money from Tzeirei Chabad or sell its assets. The petitioners are therefore seeking temporary relief.

The court was not persuaded that there is a reason for issuing the requested ex parte injunctions, and asked the respondents to file statements of defense.
Chabad’s international activities are estimated at over $1 billion a year. There are no estimates about the extent of Chabad’s activities in Israel, but they presumably amount to tens of millions of dollars a year. These activities include running several yeshivas (houses of Jewish learning), kindergartens and schools, publishing weekly newsletters about events within the Hassidic movement and outside of it, the operation of so-called “mitzvah tanks”, and hosting holiday events.

The Chabad movement has been wracked by a power struggle between moderate and messianic factions since the death of Lubavitcher Rabbi Menachem Mendel Scheerson over a decade ago. The latter factions claim that Scheerson was the Messiah. Chabad’s main institutions are run by the moderate factions, although the messianic factions run a number of institutions in Israel.

There is no dispute between the factions over Chabad’s right-wing political character. Chabad was among the top opponents of the disengagement plan and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s government. Chabad has not yet declared which candidate it will support in the upcoming elections, but it should be remembered that it backed Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister in 1996, under the slogan “Netanyahu is good for the Jews”.

Aharonov is the anti-public-messianism company man. Wilshansky, if memory serves me, is the opposite. Does anyone have any information to flesh this report out a bit?

Baruch Dayan HaEmet – Rabbi Yehuda Chitrik, 106

Photo credit: Michael Nagle for The New York Times, 2004.

Rabbi Yehuda Chitrik, the oldest living Chabad follower, has passed away at the age 106. He left behind more than 300 children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren.

New York Newsday coverage. New York Times coverage.

UPDATED: Why Marvin Schick Is Wrong – The Menorah Lighting That Wasn't

Tzemach Atlas has a post about a menorah "lighting" held by the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church and the Chabad Chief Rabbi of Georgia. An Orthodox Christian website describes the encounter this way:

TBILISI, Georgia - During the eight-day long holiday of Chanukah, an extraordinary event occurred at the headquarters of the Head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, where Ilia II welcomed Rabbi Abraham Mikhaelashvili, the Chief Rabbi of Georgia and Chabad Lubavitch representative.

The Christian Orthodox leader extended congratulations to the Jewish people on Chanukah and lit the candles of a Menorah, presented to him as a gift by Rabbi Mikhaelashvili. The two religious leaders then joined one another in singing the first psalm - the Patriarch singing in Georgian and the Chief Rabbi singing in Hebrew.

At this festive meeting, the parties discussed issues concerning the freedom of worship in Georgia. Ilia II and Rabbi Mikhaelashvili emphasized that the traditional religions of Georgia were notable for their mutual respect and goodwill, which, in turn, has assisted in maintaining mutual understanding and peace in the region.

The Georgian religious leader added that brotherly relations between the two peoples have resulted in a positive influence on relations between the two countries - Israel and Georgia. The Patriarch noted that Georgian Jews preserve the Georgian language and Georgian traditions when they return to their historical homeland. He also supported the initiative recently expressed by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to provide Georgian Jews, who have immigrated to Israel, with dual citizenship.

This is the menorah "lighting" Marvin Schick has been so worked up about. Here is what Schick wrote:

In the name of tolerance, too much that is alien is being tolerated. An example is the extraordinary recent Chanukah Menorah ceremony in Tiblisi, Georgia. Chabad's Chief Rabbi and the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church performed the ceremony, with the Christian leader lighting the Menorah and the two clergymen singing the blessings, one in Hebrew and the other in his native language. I am looking at a photo of the event as I write.

But, as I noted on Mentalblog:

There was no bracha recited here. It was during the day. And the menorah was presented as a gift to the Patriarch, who lit it himself. It was not a Jewish menorah-lighting ceremony for Jews.

As you know, I'm not shy about criticizing Chabad, but what wrong took place here?

Unless Marvin Schick, et al, hold that any friendly contact with non-Jewish religious leaders is somehow forbidden. But fair warning: You are writing many Rishonim and Achronim out of Judaism by doing so.

And this is my problem with Marvin Schick. Conflating a presentation made to a religious leader with a public menorah-lighting ceremony is a large mistake to make. It is even worse when one realizes Schick accused Alan Dershowitz of promoting intermarriage, when all Dershowitz did was endorse the Reform movement's position on patralineal descent and encourage the Jewish community to be more welcoming of those who had already* intermarried. Dershowitz's position is not Orthodox by any stretch of the imagination, but it is not the same as advocating wholesale intermarriage for the sake of intermarriage.

I've made the point before that Chabad has honored men who should not be honored by an Orthodox Jewish institution. Dershowitz is not one of those, because he has done much for Shabbat and kashrut observance at Harvard, and stood up for Israel at a time when that was extremely unpopular on college campuses. He is not himself intermarried, and is a deeply concerned and committed Jew.

Marvin Schick cannot see this. He cannot see the difference between Chabad's Children's Museum honoring actor Jeff Goldblum, the non-committed, inter-dating, once and perhaps soon again intermarried Jew who has done, in his own words, nothing Jewish his entire adult life except make an occasional trip to the local deli.

There is much to criticize about today's Chabad, much that makes me fearful for its future and the future of the Jewish people. Honoring Alan Dershowitz or presenting a local non-Jewish religious figure with a menorah are not part of them.

Schick sees real problems with Chabad. For the most part, I agree with his assessment. But I cannot for the life of me understand why an educated man so consistently chooses examples that cannot make his case.

* UPDATE: I received the following from Marvin Schick's son Joe:

[Dershowitz] wrote "If a non-Jew wants to marry a Jew and is prepared to have a rabbi participate in the ceremony, a rabbi should be willing to lend his or her Jewish participation to so important an event."

So, perhaps it would have been more correct for me to have written, "have already intermarried or made the irrevocable decision to do so."  Again, I disagree with Dershowitz, and I would not have asked him to speak at the Chabad convention. But Dershowitz's positives are at least as prevalent as his negatives, and a (weak, to be sure) case can be made for having him speak. This is not so with other Chabad speakers and honorees, including the very publicly intermarried mayor of a major city honored with lighting the public menorah, the actor Jeff Goldblum as noted above, and others.

Of course, all this begs the important question. The above Dershowitz quote is from an obscure article** published in the Harvard Crimson. Few people have seen it. Yet, Marvin Schick makes a charge – Dershowitz promotes intermarriage – and does not bother to quote or cite this article, which is in effect his lone source for making his allegation. If Schick had actually done his homework (he clearly did not do so), he would have cited this quote in his original article. But he did not. If he had, much of Chabad's hostile reaction would have been muted, and Schick's point would have been made. So why didn't Schick do this? The only conclusion I can reach is that he did not have this quote at hand when he wrote his article, and based his opinions about Dershowitz on other information that, if he had cited it, would not have made his case.

**UPDATE #2:  Joe Schick also notes that the above quote appears in Dershowitz's book, The Vanishing American Jew, and so it does, on page 322. But the context of the quote makes it clear that my understanding of Dershowitz's position is correct – that, if nothing else can be done, welcoming the non-Jewish spouse is the only path to take. Dershowitz makes it quite clear that he fully endorses discouraging intermarriage, and he fully understands the Orthodox and Conservative movements will not count non-Jewish spouses as Jews or welcome them religiously. He only contends they should be welcomed within the larger Jewish community, and he does this for a clearly stated reason, a reason that seems true: Discouraging intermarriage by sitting shiva for the child, withdrawing from the child, etc. has not worked on any level. While I disagree with Dershowitz's proposed solution, to imply that he is advocating intermariage as a first option is absolutely incorrect.

New Gov't Ad Campaign To Focus On Ethiopian Jews

Israel's Ministry of immigrant Absorption and the Jewish Agency are launching a 1.3 million shekel advertising campaign to bolster the image of Ethiopian Jews. The creative work for the campaign was donated by the BBDO agency, and media outlets are donating time and space.

The campaign appears to be similar to a project I have had in development. Thankfully, I'm in the early stages and have not invested much in it.

This type of campaign is long overdue. Perhaps it will help rectify some of the major problems with Ethiopian absorption as noted by the Jerusalem Post:

Idzik Dessie, who heads the Tebeka Center for Legal Aid and Advocacy for Ethiopian Jews, welcomed the campaign. He said members of the Ethiopian community needed to see positive role models.

"The image of success is the most important thing," he said. "Until now the picture [of the Ethiopian community] that has been shown has been negative."

He added, however, that the campaign "is not enough."

He said that Ethiopians need to be in positions of influence in business, academia, and other sectors of the society. According to Dessie, 60 percent of Ethiopians with academic degrees are unable to find posts in their professions, and must work as security guards and in other blue collar jobs.

New Chabad Blog

I just received an email announcing the debut of a new Chabad blog, Likkutei Maysim (www.giraffesteak.blogspot.com). I don't know anything about the anonymous author, but he promises to post about his life in a Lubavitch yeshiva. Should be worth looking at.

Satmar Leadership Fight Settled – For Now

The Satmar leadership fight has been decided by a NY state judge. And the winner is … Aron, the older brother. Expect resumed fistacuffs and perhaps another rumble or two, shortly.

Putin Invites Hamas To Moscow – Hamas "Not A Terrorist Group," Putin Says

Russia's president Vladimir Putin intends to invite leaders of the terrorist group Hamas to Moscow. Ha'aretz reports:

"Having maintained our contacts with the organization Hamas, we intend to invite their leaders to Moscow in the near future to search for solutions," Putin told a press conference in Madrid.

Putin's announcement directly contradicts a statement issued two weeks ago by the Quartet. That statement said: "There is a fundamental contradiction between armed group and militia activities and the building of a democratic state. A two-state solution to the conflict requires all participants in the democratic process to renounce violence and terror, accept Israel's right to exist, and disarm."

"We have never considered Hamas a terrorist organization," Putin said in Madrid. "Hamas came to power ... as a result of democratic, legitimate elections, and we must respect the choice of the Palestinian people."

I wonder how Putin's poodle, Chabad "chief rabbi of Russia" Berel Lazar, will spin this one.

New Tomb From Time Of Exodus Found In Valley Of The Kings

Archaeologists from the University of Memphis have uncovered a new intact tomb in the Valley of the Kings just outside the ancient city of Luxor, Egypt:

The 18th Dynasty tomb included five mummies in intact sarcophagi with colored funerary masks along with more than 20 large storage jars, sealed with pharaonic seals, Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement.

The statement, issued Wednesday, did not specify whether the tomb was believed to be that of a pharoah. The 18th Dynasty ruled from around 1560 BC to 1085 BC, and Tutankhamun was among its kings.

A Memphis University team of archaeologists led by Otto Schaden found the tomb four meters below the ground, buried under rubble and stones five meters away from Tut's tomb.

Inside the rectangular tomb, the five wooden sarcophagi were surrounded by the jars, which appeared placed haphazardly, suggesting the burial was completed quickly, the statement by Hawass said.

The tomb dating spans the period of Jewish enslavement in Egypt, the Exodus, and the period of the Judges. (This will be narrowed down on further insection.) A formal announcement is expected tomorrow.

Fringe Chabad And Kahane Groups Merge In Attempt To Physically Resist Pullout

Fringe Chabad elements and members of the banned Kahane movement have joined together to physically resist pullout from the West Bank. Arutz 7 reports:

Youths calling themselves “Orange Youth Brigade” are busy training in self-defense, explaining they will not permit a reoccurrence of the Gaza or Amona expulsions, especially the brutality directed against youths in Amona.

The directors of the program, including a former IDF self-defense and hand-to-hand combat instructor, explained their training is strictly self-defense. Training includes defending oneself against a threat riding horseback, preparing for mounted police as well.

When asked how they would react to a police effort to remove them from areas of Israel, one director responded that no one will ever forcibly remove them from their homes again and if provoked or attacked, they will defend themselves.

An Israel Television news report stated the involved persons are affiliated with the outlawed followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane and a fringe extreme element of the Chabad hassidic sect.

So the teachings of Menachem Mendel Schneerson as expounded by Chabad rabbis Sholom Dovber Wolpe and Yitzhak Ginzburg have merged with idealogy of Meir Kahane, hy"d. The worst is yet to come.

[Hat tip: Rabbi Ariel Sokolvsky.]

The Association Of Orthodox Jewish Scientists Goes Over The Edge

The association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists, once the proud home of giants like Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, ztz"l, has apparently morphed into a bizarre collection of haredi apologists and wannabees. As GodolHador notes (hat tip: me, yours truly, the anti-Mendel), calling this rank propaganda may be giving AOJS too much credit:

Evolution is not "only a theory"; it is a hypothesis, and not more. And according to the rules of logic, the opposite of any hypothesis is as valid as its original statement. The dictionary states that "a hypothesis implies insufficiency of presently obtainable evidence and, therefore, a tentative explanation; theory implies a much greater range of evidence and greater likelihood of truth," (Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1949).
Rabbi Meyer Lublin, Intercom, Vol XXV, Issue 3, Fall 2005 AOJS.

The rules of logic eh? I’m impressed. Of course we cannot ignore the rules of logic, that would be very bad indeed. And since it’s only a hypothesis, any opposite theory is just as valid? Amazing! So my theory that Zoboomafoo created all humanity from a cup of Tradition Noodle Soup (Beef & Vegetable flavor no less) is just as valid too! I think the AOJS needs to be informed of this development.
GodolHador, about a half hour ago.

Think rational Orthodoxy is standing up to the Rabbi Slifkin Ban? Think again.

[It should be noted that it is hard for mere scientists to stand up for the truth when so many rabbis have remained so conspicuously silent. I think it's time for the RCA to issue a statement on Torah and Science. It's long overdue, as is a parallel statement from the leaders of the YU beit midrash.]

Olmert, Netanyahu and Peretz All Back Constitution For Israel

The heads of Israel's three largest political parties, Kadima, Likud and Labor, all support efforts to adopt a constitution – something haredim have traditionally opposed because it "usurps" the Torah. Ha'aretz reports:

Kadima Chairman Ehud Olmert, Labor Party head Amir Peretz and Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu will declare they support the legislation of the document in a special session of the Knesset plenum scheduled for February 13 to mark the founding of parliament.

Chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee MK Michael Eitan (Likud) is expected to present at the session a comprehensive constitutional document, which will be used as the foundation for Israel's future constitution.

Since its establishment, the State of Israel has operated on a nucleus of Basic Laws on several key issues. The debate over the need for a constitution as a formative legislative document has spanned many years.

The Israel Democracy Institute, headed by former Chief Justice Meir Shamgar has been leading the efforts of formulating and legislatively ratifying this document.
MK Eitan said he hopes the legislative procedures for passing the constitution will begin after the March elections, in spite of objections from the ultra-Orthodox and Arab parties to certain parts in the document.

He said, however, he believes the constitution would be passed "by a vast majority, i.e. at least 70 MKs would support it."

It's about time.

Israel To Issue Chabad Postage Stamp

Israel is issuing a Chabad postage stamp. The Jerusalem Post reports:

A new Israeli stamp depicting the red-brick Brooklyn house of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, will be released soon by the Israel Postal Authority's Philatelic Service. The New York house - known widely by its address, 770 Eastern Parkway - is accompanied on the face of the stamp by two Jewish symbols - Shabbat candles and tefillin.

Many Orthodox and haredi groups have opposed dedicating postage stamps to the memory of great rabbis and sages because the glue on the back is licked to affix them to envelopes - an act of disrespect. But showing "770" avoids the problem that would exist if the Rebbe's face were shown on the stamp. In addition, the "messianic" faction of Lubavitch hassidism refuses to admit that Schneerson, the seventh Chabad Rebbe, died nearly 12 years ago.

Sam Malamud, president of Inter-Governmental Postal Consultants (IGPC) group (the Official Postal Agency in the US for the Postal Authority) said: "We anticipate an immediate sellout of this issue worldwide. Considering the fact that the Rebbe has and continues to touch the hearts and minds of more people then any other Jewish figure in modern history, everyone whose lives have been affected by the Rebbe will want to collect this historic postage stamp. The global admiration and respect associated with the Rebbe and Chabad may possibly make this the most sought-after Israeli stamp ever issued," he said.

What the Post fails to mention is that Sam Malamud is a prominent Chabad follower and, as head of IGPC, has the power to make his prediction come true, no matter the actual demand. That being said, I'm sure the stamp will be a huge seller, even without Malamud's help.

Shas Poised To Have First Ethiopian Knesset Member

Shas is poised to have its first Ethiopian Knesset member, a rabbi from Beer Sheva. The Jerusalem Post's Matthew Wagner reports:

Shas's spiritual mentor, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, enthusiastically embraced Ethiopians when they first began immigrating to Israel four decades ago. While all haredi rabbis and streams, including Chabad, rejected Ethiopians' claim to Judaism, Ovadia ruled that they could marry without having to undergo a conversion.

Despite Ovadia's halachic ruling, most religious councils refuse to marry Ethiopians without a conversion in accordance with official Chief Rabbinate policy. Only in cities and towns with rabbis that accept Ovadia's ruling or the ruling of Rabbi Shlomo Goren are Ethiopians married without immersion in a ritual bath (mikva) or, for men, the taking of a drop of blood instead of circumcision.

"Rabbi Ovadia takes a personal interest in the Ethiopian community," said [Shas official Ya'akov] Margi. "He is proud when he sees Ethiopians who are learned in Torah."

Perhaps because he assumes readers understand this, Matthew Wagner does not mention that both Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Rabbi Shlomo Goren issued their respective rulings while serving as chief rabbi. Further, subsequent Sefardic chief rabbis have upheld Rabbi Yosef's ruling. The same is not true for the Ashkenazic chief rabbinate, in large part because it was taken over by Ashkenazic haredim. (Rabbi Avraham Kahana Shapira, Rabbi Goren's immediate successor, and the last non-haredi-controlled Ashkenazic chief rabbi, had political bones to pick with both Rabbi Goren and Rabbi Yosef, especially because of Rabbi Yosef's then-dovish political outlook.)

Although most Ethiopian rabbis are associated with the National Religious, the Shas candidate, Rabbi Mazor Bayana, is Sefardi haredi:

"Rabbi Ovadia is my rabbi. Shas is my party. I was at Kfar Hassidim, a religious Zionist school, and I decided that I wanted haredi education. I don't know why. I was only 12 or 13."

Bayana said that his respect for Ovadia grew after reading about how the rabbi had recognized the Ethiopians as Jews and helped advance them.

Bayana manages an organization called Shavu Banim, which provides educational and social assistance to Beersheba's Ethiopians.