FailedMessiah.com

Falash Mura

The Los Angeles Times has good overview of the Falash Mura situation:

We can't estimate how many are waiting for nothing," said Ori Konforti, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel in Addis Ababa, which has been appointed by the Israeli government to sort out who is a Jew and which Jews qualify for immigration. A final list of those eligible for resettlement is expected in June.

"It's a tragedy," he said. "We're going to give many people — maybe hundreds, maybe thousands — a negative answer."

Without disputing the need to be careful to airlift only those truly eligible to immigrate under the law of return, I still cannot shake the feeling that, if these people were doctors, scientists and engineers there would not be this hyper concern for quadruple-checking each lineage and the very evident foot-dragging that surrounds it.

The Sudan Times has a complimentary report on the American Jewish delegation to the Falash Mura of Addis Ababa.

Former Chief Rabbi Endorses Violence

Former Ashkenazi chief rabbi Avraham Kahane Shapira and his followers in the Rabbinic Alliance For the Nation of Israel and the Land of Israel have issued a statement about Amona. It praises the violent youth, and condems security forces who faced a barrage of cement blocks, rocks, metal pipes and bars, and other weapons and projectiles, and reacted to settler violence with force:

"We express deep shock at the pogrom perpetrated by those wearing uniforms upon men, woman and children."

It also contains this cryptic remark, apparently aimed at Ehud Olmert, the acting prime minister:

"A guiding hand permitted the shedding of the blood of the public in Amona, the beatings to the point of breaking skulls."

Rabbi Shapira and his followers are both endorsing and inciting violence, and are attempting to direct that violence at PM Olmert. This is reprehensible behavior, and should be condemned by every Jew. That it will not be is only another indication of how this latest generation of rabbis has destroyed Judaism.

The Rebbe, King David And The Maharal Of Prague

One of the important foundations of Chabad's messianic belief is the Rebbe's supposed descent from King David through the Maharal of Prague, who himself traces a direct male line to King David – but is it so? I think not. And here is why:

1. The Maharal's lineage was traced through his purported "great-great-grandfather," Rabbi Yehuda Leib (Liwa) HaZakein.* Problem number one: The Maharal did not claim this descent and did not name this Yehuda Leib as an ancestor. Problem number two: Unlike what is written in Meir Pereles' 1727 "genealogy" of the Maharal, Yehuda Lieb HaZakein did not die in 1440. His tombstone shows his date of death 100 years later, in 1540. Why is this a problem? Because the Maharal was born about 1522, and Ashkenazim did not name children after living relatives, especially after a living patriarch of a very advanced age. So Yehuda Leib HaZakein is not the Maharal's ancestor, and lineage through him to the male line of King David through Shlomo HaMelekh is not possible.**
2. There is another, less well known, possibility for the Maharal's Davidic descent, this through Yehuda HaNassi. But this "line" is really not a line. It lists the Maharal's father Betzalel and grandfather Chaim (both of Worms) but stops there. This would indicate that this genealogy was written after the Maharal's passing and without his input. Further, because of the lack of details – and because of a 1300-year-gap between the Maharal's grandfather and Yehuda HaNassi – this line of descent cannot be taken seriously.
3. The Maharal was a great and popular Jewish leader. It became the custom in the Dark Ages (if not earlier) to ascribe Davidic descent to popular rabbis. This often led their descendants, several generations removed from the ascription, to believe this ascription was the literal truth, even though it was most always simply wishful thinking on the part of the populace. I believe this is what happened with the Maharal and his descendants, including the Rebbes of Chabad.

* This is the Yehuda Leib who was originally attributed with making a golem. The legend later was transposed, and Yehuda Leib HaZakein replaced with the Maharal.
** Details of this mistake by Pereles and its long-term repercussions can be found in Neil Rosenstein's article reviewing Shlomo Englard's critical research in Avotaynu XII, #1 1996.

WJC – Updated

There has been much reporting on the World Jewish Congress scandal and its result – a report from New York's Attorney General that clears the WJC and Israel Singer of all criminal wrongdoing. I have avoided writing about this case because others were doing it, and because, for a time, I worked in (but not for) the WJC New York office. I did not want to write about this because it was painful to me.

First, some background. Unlike the ADL or the American Jewish Congress, the WJC is truly an organization with real international presence and a very high profile. Many foreign governments view the WJC as something akin to a Jewish government and expect to see the trappings of that. Yet, the AG's report faults Singer and the WJC for traveling first class, as if a meeting with a deputy prime minister can be held just as easily in a five star hotel or a Days Inn. When you add to that the security necessary for WJC officials to travel, and the very real fact that top line hotels deal with that much better than midline ones do, you can easily see the necessity for it. As for airlines, have you ever flown for 8 or 10 hours in cramped economy class, walked off the plane and held a press conference or met with a world leader? Pretty tough to do.

Singer's nemisis, Isi Liebler knew all this, and he also knew the WJC was not careful with its finances and had not been for many years. Why? Because the WJC's mega patron, Edgar Bronfman, did not care about perfectly balanced ledgers and, for most of the years involved, Bronfman's donation made up the vast majority of the WJC's yearly budget. He cared then and still does now about the real bottom line – getting the job done, which is what the WJC has done. And it has done so with a far smaller staff, and far smaller expenditures than one would reasonably expect. What Liebler did was to exploit this financial casualness to get his political enemies, Singer and Bronfman, when it appears Liebler may have known about this state of financial affairs for many years but remained silent until it suited him.* (Liebler, who wasn’t meeting with world leaders or doing important work, also knew damn well the necessity for the first class travel.)

On the other hand, the report does not exonerate the WJC; it exonerates the WJC from criminal wrongdoing, an important difference.

There is a need to keep good books and conform with the law. Many Jewish organizations fail to do so. Perhaps now this will change.

For detailed reporting on the charges against the WJC and their context, please see this report by Steven I. Weiss.

* It has been said in Liebler's credit that, as long as Bronfman's money made up almost the entirety of the WJC budget, Liebler kept his criticism low-key. But, as "outside" donations rose to 80% of the yearly budget, Liebler became more strident in his (correct) demands for proper fiscal controls. When Liebler learned about the $1.2 million dollar funds transfer at the heart of this case, Liebler decided to ratchet up his fight. Here is where the picture becomes cloudy. Who leaked the information about the transfer to the press, who handed Gary Rosenblatt the information, and who encouraged Rosenblatt to bait NY's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, into conducting an investigation is all open to dispute. Clearly, most people assume – and perhaps rightly so – that Liebler and his allies did all this. Others, believe Singer leaked the information to blunt Liebler's internal attack and to discredit him, and the leak spun out of control, causing the very public mess we've all just seen. This strikes me as a conspiracy theory worthy of the Arab world, where millions – perhaps billions – of people still believe the Mossad planned and executed the 9-11 attacks. But, because a significant minority of Jews believe Singer did this, I'll give the theory a nod of (very) remote possibility. (At the heart of this theory are Singer's "computer experts" who allegedly remotely accessed Liebler's computer and sent damaging emails from it to media sources, emails Liebler adamantly claims he did not himself send, and they did so without leaving a trace. Perhaps the Mossad did this as well.)

New New York Times Article On Metzitza B'Peh

Jeffery Rosen's New York Times Magazine article on the metzitza b'peh circumcision controversy is now online. He minimizes the risk of MBP, in part because he's writing about the constitutional issues involved, and in part because a true portrayal of the risk damages his case. He has, in effect, made the case Agudath Israel and Satmar have been trying and failing to make. The bottom line: To write this piece and not mention that two more cases of neonatal herpes linked to MBP were discovered late in 2005, making it 5 cases in less than 2 years, is criminal. That becomes even more true when one realizes that there is no mandatory reporting for neonatal herpes, and the haredim have been trying to cover up cases since the scandal broke early last year. In order to prove his point, Rosen needed this to be a case of very mimimal, static risk, which it simply is not. Just as Satmar and Agudah play politics with babies lives, so does Rosen. And that is truly sad.

Age

Rabbi Mordechai Sharabi, one of the greatest Jewish mystics of the previous generation, purportedly said that [Rav Yitshak] Kaduri was the only person capable of writing amulets that have the power to bring success, heal, improve fertility or change reality for the better in some other way.

In Kabbalistic thought it is believed that amulets tap the powers of demons and spirits and use them to perform miracles. In order to harness these supernatural powers, it is normally necessary to force these demons or spirits to take an oath. This is considered incredibly dangerous since the demons and spirits, once released from the oath, seek retribution.

Asked once if he forces an oath on demons when he writes his amulets, Kaduri replied, "God forbid! It is forbidden to force them to take an oath. I only ask nicely. If they want to listen to me, they listen. Most of the time they respect me because I am so old."

The End Of Religious Zionism

Ha'aretz's Meron Rapoport has a written a very important article on Amona and the future of Religious Zionism:

In the end, what everyone knew would happen did: Violence, and a lot of it. There was no need for predictions: It was enough to visit Amona 24 hours before the evacuation. Hundreds of young people gathered around the nine stone houses, built barricades from interlocking bricks, used crowbars to dig out rocks from the hilly ground and arranged them in piles. One youth walked by us with a tire around his neck, on his way to one of the buildings. His friends helped him lift it onto the roof. Three more young people came by, carrying heavy coils of barbed wire, on their way to setting them up on one of the rooftops. From one roof, protesters lowered ropes that were then tied to cinder blocks; they brought the cinder blocks up and stacked them on the roof's edge, near the tires. It was clear that the blocks would ultimately be thrown at the heads of police officers who would come to evacuate them. And that indeed happened.

It's easy to say that what happened on Wednesday was a show, and such a statement has some truth to it. Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - as the youth and adults in Amona repeatedly said with a certain degree of accuracy - needed a confrontation to showcase his power over the most hated population in Israel today, the settlers. This may explain the fact that although on Tuesday the news reports said that the police were preventing buses of anti-evacuation supporters from reaching Amona, we saw quite a few buses on Route 60, on the way to the nearby settlement of Ofra, that were going to "reinforce" the outpost. There was organized transport to the outpost from the center of Ofra. No one tried to prevent this, just as no one prevented the young people from lifting cinderblocks onto the rooftops.

The settlement leaders were also in need of violence. "I can't deny that we took advantage of the youth," a senior figure in the Yesha Council of settlements told me. The Yesha Council secretary general, Bentzi Lieberman, said a few weeks ago that if Amona goes down without a fight, the headlines will be "The settlers gave up."

"A struggle shows a spark of life," said Lieberman. Sure enough, Lieberman got the struggle he asked for. But something happened that was more than a game. If the evacuation of Gush Katif represents the disengagement - to a degree - of the State of Israel from the settlers, then Amona represents the disengagement of the settlers from the State of Israel.

The article is largely an interview with Rabbi Avi Gisser, the rabbi of Ofrah, and a major player in the settlement movement:

Like many of the settlement leaders, Gisser said the settlers' mistake was that they did not present a political plan of their own. "We did not submit to the people of Israel a sufficiently realistic political plan, because we found it emotionally difficult to mark borders in the heart of the land of our forefathers, in the heart of the religious, idealistic and Zionist destination," he said. "This is a weakness, because sometimes you have to carry out a painful operation to save the life of a seriously wounded person."

Then, Rabbi Gisser – who up until the day of Amona was a supporter of the Hilltop Settlement Youth – describes the future of their Religious Zionism:

"It's not religious Zionism. It's not a Zionist society. It's a type of ultra-Orthodox society, in which the motif of the holiness of the land is at the center of its religious existence, just as with the ultra-Orthodox the motif of keeping the Sabbath is at the center. A new ultra-Orthodox society with large woolen kippot. But it's not religious Zionism.

The article confirms other earlier reports that settler leaders exploited these anarchist youth, fully knowing their propensity and desire for violence.

The settlement movement is over, finished. Its leaders are disgraced, it's theology bankrupt, its youth corrupt and seditious. The only remaining question is how the 'burial' will take place. Let us hope and pray that 'burial' is only ceremonial, and that no upturned shovels deposit fresh earth in open graves.

The Civil War Has Begun

Ha'aretz on Amona:

The pictures from Amona were difficult. The violence carried out by the rioters, deliberately and intentionally, even crossed the blurred and dangerous borders the settlers have established in previous clashes with the police and the army. The police officers who came to implement the evacuation order were received with insults, and were hit and attacked by a barrage of rocks and pieces of metal. Many were wounded. All endangered their lives in carrying out the assignment.

The settlers' arguments that the police treated the "protesting" youths violently is scandalous. The settler leaders were the ones who promised that "blood will be spilled," encouraged the youths to entrench themselves on the rooftops and prepare for a violent confrontation, and committed themselves to avenging the "disgrace of Gush Katif."

Those who send their children to use unrestrained wildness in a struggle against the representatives of the rule of law, and choose to transform a legal evacuation into a symbolic bloody battle are the ones responsible for the blows, the wounds and even the spilling of blood if, heaven forbid, there were to be any.

The evacuation itself was accompanied by problems, some of which could have been prevented. The police appeared, at least in the first few hours, to have deployed too few officers (a ratio of 1.5:1 compared to 4:1 in Gush Katif). Such preparation generates surprise, especially in light of the claims (although they are political, they are difficult to ignore) that Ehud Olmert is interested in a landmark confrontation that would define his intentions on the eve of the elections. After the security forces allowed thousands of rioters to reach the site of the dispute and "reinforce" the people holed up, they should have made sure they had total numerical supremacy as soon as the clashes and evacuation began.

Nonetheless, the evacuation of Amona is an important point of reference. After the state - due to enthusiastic cooperation, in most governments - spent two generations bowing its head helplessly and blindly before the people of the wild west, who forced the entire Israeli society to obey their violent rules of the game, the settlers have finally woken up to a new reality. This is the first time that the State of Israel - via the government, the judicial system, the army and the police - is implementing the law in the occupied territories in the West Bank. This is indeed an encouraging precedent, which constitutes a highly significant junction between the past and the future.

A look at the recent past shows that the evacuation permanently marks the importance of the disengagement from the Gaza Strip as a historic event that generates change, that began Israel's separation from the occupied territories. A look at the future shows the evacuation from Amona arousing hope and even creating an obligation that Israel will indeed continue the process of taking leave of all of these territories.

Regardless of the question of whether there is or isn't, will be or won't be, a Palestinian dialogue partner - and regardless of the justified yearning for peace in the Middle East, or at least for a final-status agreement - Israel must define its borders for itself, crystallize its sovereignty and strengthen its democracy. No future agreement with law-breakers can be consistent with this trend.

It is the rule of law and democracy on one side, against anarchy and a twisted idea of theocracy on the other. This will not be pretty. But it will be swift and decisive. The end of the settlement movement has arrived.

Rav Kaduri, ZTz"L – A Shabbat Of Peace, A Long Life Of Peace

The Forward has a beautiful article on Rav Kaduri, ztz"l. It closes this way:

Just as I was about to leave, an elderly Kabbalist was brought near to the grave to pay his respects to his colleague. Women asked for his blessing on behalf of sick or barren relatives, and he obliged — even, once, over a cell phone. Then he told us that we should begin the Sabbath an hour early this week and that by Kadouri's merit, we would enjoy peace and long life. I'm thinking about doing it — after all, you never know.

Agudah Admits Haredim Lied About Metzitza B'Peh

The Jewish Week has another stunning article on the metzitza b'peh controversy. In it, Rabbi David Zwiebel, the head of Agudath Israel of America, admits haredi leaders may have lied to their constituencies about both the  dangers of MBP and the city's intent. All this is fine, according to Rabbi Zwiebel, because the haredi leaders were only doing this to whip up the masses in protest.

Let me clear. Rabbis have knowing lied to their followers about a very real medical danger.

But there is more.

“The lack of understanding among leaders of this community is truly outrageous,” said Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, chief of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins Medical Center.

As an example, he cited a suggestion by Agudah in a letter last week to the Department of Health that mohels believed to have transmitted herpes to infants not be banned from doing metzitzah b’peh, but instead that the anti-viral drug acyclovir be topically applied to the circumcision wound or that it be taken by the mohel orally.

“The Agudah’s proposals demonstrate that they don’t understand this disease process,” Zenilman said. “Local application of acyclovir doesn’t work. It is not used by clinical experts for treatment, let alone prevention of transmission.”

And, he said, herpes-infected adults taking acyclovir orally is proven to be 90 percent effective in preventing symptomatic transmission among adult partners, but effective only half the time in the actual transmission of the virus.

Furthermore, Zenilman said, these are adult sexual partners with mature immune systems who were studied, not newborns.

“One of the things that gets consistently overlooked is that the infant is considered an immuno-suppressed host in terms of susceptibility to infection,” he said. “That’s why in this population this infection is a devastating disease.”

Then we have the haredi tactics aimed at damaging the lives and careers of those trying to protect vulnerable infants. Accusing NYC Health Comissioner Thomas Frieden of anti-Jewish and anti-Orthodox bias:

Meanwhile, some representatives of the fervently Orthodox community are ramping up a campaign to get Frieden taken off the metzitzah b’peh issue.

In a meeting last month, representatives of the Central Rabbinical Congress of the U.S.A. and Canada, a rabbinical court, asked Frieden to recuse himself and turn the matter over to the state’s health commissioner.

A Satmar source who asked not to be named said upon hearing the suggestion, Frieden told the representatives that would be like the rabbis turning their authority over to priests, and walked out of the room.

In a cynical misuse of the Holocaust, Satmar has also threated to send hundreds of demonstrators dressed in concentration camp uniforms to hound the mayor and the health commissioner.

As the city moves toward madatory reporting of all cases of neonatal herpes (until now, reporting has been voluntary – which has undoubtably contributed to the under-reporting of MBP-related cases), Agudah has, at least for now, endorsed the move. Rabbi Zwiebel says mandatory reporting will show MBP-related infections to be very rare. Most likely, this will not be the case. I believe Rabbi Zwiebel knows this, and is using the mandatory reporting to buy time – at least one or two more years – before haredim will be forced to deal with MBP once and for all.

During that time, God forbid, more babies will become sick, will be maimed and may even die. What should happen then? In an ideal world, haredim would revolt against their leaders. But that will not happen. Satmar and other groups will continue to lie, and continue to demonize and harass city officials. And haredim will by and large believe those lies, because the alternative is too difficult, and the cognative dissonance too high. And babies will continue to suffer, and perhaps die, as a result.

NY Times Mag To Have Major Article On Metzitza B'Peh

Slate is reporting that the New York Times Magazine this Sunday will run a major article on the latest circumcision controversy:

… In the current brouhaha in New York between city officials and the Hasidic community over the circumcision practice in which mohels clean blood from boys' foreskins orally—a practice that resulted in three infants infected with herpes—Jeffery Rosen cautions that protecting religious freedom can result in a slippery slope toward a theocracy.

What Amona Means

What does Amona really mean? Amotz Asa-El of the Jerusalem Post writes:

The National Union said Wednesday that the cops' beatings of its MKs marks the beginning of our democracy's end. Did they suggest this rationale when Arab MKs were attacked by border policemen while obstructing the construction of the anti-terror fence? They didn't, and rightly they didn't, because demonstrating against the elected government's policies is one thing, and physically undoing them is another. Mounting the bulldozers at Amona, as Elon did, was just that kind of affront, and as such embodied not the heroism Elon would like us to see in it, but the anarchism that his archenemies who occasionally attack the fence espouse.

Yes, police should take stock of the blood they drew, but the Right should assume responsibility for the broader picture; its leaders at best failed to prevent, at worst inspired the mass deployment of minors, stockpiling of stones and brazen attacks on troops that resulted in near fatalities. To admirably promote their cause, they must make do with demonstrating and avoid obstructing. If they still opt for obstruction, they should know they are tinkering with civil war, and civil wars come at a price, a price the Right cannot pay and the Jewish state cannot pocket, but which Jewish history can be counted on to exact.

The Problem With Today's Gedolim, As Explained By The Gaon Of Vilna

"When I was in the illustrious city of Vilna in the presence of the Rav, the light, the great Gaon, my master and teacher, the light of the eyes of the exile, the renowned pious one [may HaShem protect and save him] Rav Eliyahu, in the month of Teves 5538 [January 1778], I heard from his holy mouth that according to what a person is lacking in knowledge of the 'other wisdoms', correspondingly he will be lacking one hundred portions in the wisdom of the Torah, because the Torah and the "other wisdoms" are inextricably linked together..."

From the Introduction to the Hebrew translation of Euclid's book on geometry, Sefer Uklidos  (The Hague, 1780) by R. Barukh Schick of Shklov.

John Lennon And The Flaming Red Rabbi

John Lennon and the Flaming Red Rabbi.

Settlers Riot, Hurl Cement Blocks, Stab Police – 200 Injured

Thousands of right wing settlers attacked police attempting to evacuate the illegal West Bank Bank outpost of Amona. Rioters hurled cement blocks and rocks at police, and used knives and other weapons. One policeman was stabbed in the stomach; another was critically injured by a cement block thrown on his head. Many more were injured. One settler had a serious skull fracture. In all, a total of 200 police and settlers were injured.

What is the answer to this anti-democratic anarchy? Immediately stop all state funding to hesder yeshivot. Arrest those on the Yesha Council who refused to stop the violence. Fire all rabbis on the government payroll who in any way support disobeying orders, violent protest or refusal to serve. And arrest any rabbi who has committed treason or encoraged violence.

There is no other way.

Reports: JPost, Ha'aretz, Ynet.

UPDATE: Defense Minister and former Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz, noted that the overwhelming number of protesters were highschool-aged youth:

[Mofaz] blasted the protesters and the people he deemed were responsible for them, asking, "where are their parents, where are their rabbis?

"Is this the kind of society we want to live in?"

Their parents and rabbis were off to the side cheering. Many of them should be in jail.

Kashrut Alert! Fake Rubashkin Meats Being Sold!

From Kashrut.com:

Unauthorized Turkey/Meat Products Bearing KAJ Logo* - January 18, 2006 Turkey or Meat products bearing this symbol - “Khal Adath Jeshurun - KAJ-Canada” are not authorized by “KAJ”-Breuer’s as they do not shecht in Canada and they do not currently use such a symbol. Turkey products bearing this symbol have been recently sold in Tucson, AZ. They are not “KAJ”-certified and may well be not kosher. Anyone spotting such a product is urged to call “KAJ” at 1-845-425-9089.

ed note from the KAJ: These products were sold under the Aaron's label.

That's right folks. Fake Rubashkin meats may be flooding the kosher market. But, for a company that habitually ripped the throats out of live animals, and for the very rabbis who koshered that, it may be hard to find a product short of pork that has a lower standard of kashrut than those produced by Aaron Rubashkin and family.

Haredim Riot Across Israel

Haredim, angered by an autopsy performed on a haredi murder victim, rioted in in protest:

Using loudspeakers ultra-Orthodox in Jerusalem called on the haredi public to protest with “total devotion” against the autopsy.

Zaka, an organization responsible for the recovery and identification of body parts, attempted to convince police not to perform the autopsy, but as foul play was suspected detectives in charge of the case filed a request for a court warrant authorizing the autopsy.

The curt complied, and the autopsy was performed by the Institute of Forensic Medicine. According to Zaka officials, the autopsy was carried out in haste, thus preventing the organization an opportunity to appeal to the High Court on the matter.

Stones thrown at cars

Jerusalem’s Sabbath Square was closed to traffic after hundreds of haredim gathered at there and began setting fire to garbage cans. The protesters blocked the road and threw stones at passing cars.

Ultra-Orthodox men attacked a vehicle north of Jerusalem and threw tear gas on it, as riots in the area go on. The driver was rescued by the police.

The deceased haredi woman’s son-in-law is a well known figure in northern Israel due to his philanthropic activities, prompting scores of people to protest on his behalf.

Some 100 ultra-Orthodox protested outsides the Institute for Forensic Medicine in south Tel Aviv; they tried to break in through the institute gates and snatch the body, but police forces dispatched to the scene prevented their entrance; nine protesters were arrested in the incident.

The ultra-Orthodox community has traditionally opposed autopsies. According to several haredi sources, right-wing activists are attempting to increase tensions to steer the police’s focus away from Amona (illegal West Bank outpost).

As the article later notes, halakha permits autopsies in cases of murder, epidemic and in other specialized cases. This is just another example of haredim inappropriately using halakha as a cover for their thuggery.

Bnei Brak Rabbi Moves To Ban Scotch Whiskey

Ynet reports on a renewed controversy in the kosher world – scotch whiskey. It seems Rabbi Moshe Landau, the chief rabbi of Bnei Brak, a Chabad follower, has decided that scotch whiskey is not kosher because some brands are aged in oak barrels originally used to age non-kosher wine. This issue was decided long ago by people far greater than Rabbi Landau. The barrels do not impart the taste of wine, in part because the barrels are fired with an open flame well before any whiskey is stored in them. Even so, most kashrut agencies discourage use of those brands that claim to be double aged or sherry cask aged, to avoid any hint of doubt. But, Rabbi Landau disagrees, not, it seems, from any special knowledge or new evidence. So, if Ynet got this story right, all scotch whiskies will be non-kosher. Brands impacted by this include Chivas Regal,  Johnny Walker and Grant's. While other kosher supervisions disagree, you can bet Rabbi Landau's action will quickly cause many to ban scotch. This won't work in America or Britain, but it will in Israel, Montreal and perhaps Antwerp. The sad thing is, the actual reason for banning non-Jewish wine no longer exists. We do this, in effect, because we are stuck with it.