FailedMessiah.com

Rabbi Gil Student and the Atheist

Rabbi Gil Student notes that he refused to run an ad for Sam Harris's new atheist book, and that refusal made yesterday's Wall Street Journal as part of an article on the book's promotion. Harris is a strong spokesman for atheism, and his arguments directed against Christianity also work very well against another religion – Orthodox Judaism – so it's no surprise Student – who regularly bans comments and commenters who challenge Orthodoxy – would ban Harris, as well.

This week, I also turned down an ad, not for Harris's book, but for Oorah, the haredi missionary* organization. I did so because of Oorah's questionable fundraising tactics. (Please scroll down to the bottom of the linked page and read upward. This post will be at the top, above the other Oorah posts.) Perhaps that will get media attention one day, although I doubt it.

[Hat Tip: Sheyna Rofeh-Filosof.]

* I label Oorah missionary because it targets children below the legal age of consent.

Matisyahu Farbrengen Online Video

Looks like this was shot in Hadar HaTorah. Features a nice Matisyahu performance and a guest shot by Charlie Buttons. (No Yechi action, either.) Nice.

The Best Chabad Niggun…

Sung (and written) by the late Rebbe.

Satmar Mafia In Action

This is how the mafia works, folks. It's how they did the circumcision deal with NY State that endangers infants' lives. It's how they do welfare. It's sick. Worse yet, it's your future. [Hat Tip: Sheyna Rofeh-Filosof.]

Kapparot Chickens Treife?

There is mention of an interesting halakhic ruling in an otherwise pedestrian Ynet article about abuses surrounding the practice of kapparot – the pagan ritual of waving a chicken over ones head to symbolically cast ones sins into the chicken, followed immediately by watching as the chicken is slaughtered, is meant to promote teshuva, repentence. While it may very well do that, especially for those who have never witnessed animal slaughter, if done incorrectly it causes great suffering to the animals, but not becuase of defective slaughter. Chickens are normally transported and housed crammed in small cages. They don't have room to spread their wings or to move. They are often not fed and do not get hydration. Many, according to this article, about 50%, die in transport or while waiting to be used for kapparot.

According to Ynet, Rabbi Aviner, the leading posek of Israeli National Religious Orthodoxy has ruled that

[I]t is preferable to use money for Kapparot and that the slaughter is not kosher due to the treatment of the chickens.

If this is an accurate report of Rabbi Aviner's ruling, this is quite significant. Copies of or links to the actual ruling would be much appreciated.

[Hat tip: SN.]

The Orthodox Disneyland Destroys Jerusalem

Wealthy diaspora Jews, particularly Orthodox Jews, are buying up much of central Jerusalem, driving property values skyward and driving young poor, middle and upper-middle class Israelis out of Jerusalem in an unprecedented exodus. Worse yet, whole neighborhoods of the city are now ghost towns, with apartments vacant most of the year while their owners live abroad. Jerusalemites are complaining. It's hurting Jerusalem, it's hurting Israel and its hurting Jews – and there is no end in sight. The Forward tells the story …

Woodstock In Uman

The Forward's Nathaniel Popper reports:

… The mayor estimates that a third of the real estate near the grave is now owned by Israelis. This year, many of the pilgrims stayed in an enormous tent city that was erected by an Israeli philanthropist who also paid for the plane tickets of some 4,000 people.

One of the beneficiaries was Aaron Einhorn, a 17 year old from Brooklyn. He said that the writings of Nachman had turned him back on to Judaism after a bad experience in Jewish schools.

“I’ve been reading some of the pamphlets some dudes handed out,” said Einhorn, who was standing with a guitar under his arm near the entrance to the gravesite. “The rebbe had a lot of good theories. He’s all about love. It’s pretty much dance, be happy. I’m a pretty mellow guy.”

Einhorn said he came with nothing but his clothes, his guitar and a reserved spot in the tent. As far as getting food, he said he was “somehow scraping it together.” Einhorn said that after the late nights he spent playing guitar with other pilgrims, any other logistical problems dissolved in the songs.

“There’s no direction — it’s wonderful,” Einhorn said. “A Woodstock for the Jews — that’s what it is.”

The Forward also has a great slideshow of the Uman experience, including this pic of a Chabadnik.

Talit, Kippa Sales Skyrocket

Out with the old, in with the new? Ynet reports:

According to Textile and Fashion Industries Association data, sales of locally manufactured kippas ahead of Yom Kippur have risen by as much as 25 percent compared to the yearly average and by 5 percent in comparison with last year’s holiday season figures.

The overall sales during Rosh Hashana and the period prior to Yom Kippur totaled NIS 2.5 million (USD 580,000) and are expected to reach NIS 19 million (USD 4.4 million) for the year.

Kippa prices range from NIS 10 (USD 2.30) to 40 (USD 9).

Sales of tallits (prayer shawls) have also increased, with retailers reporting a 15 percent rise in sales compared to the yearly average and a 6 percent increase from Yom Kippur 2005.

According to the data, tallit sales ahead of the Days of Awe totaled some NIS 4 million (USD 900,000), while sales for the entire year are expected to reach NIS 40 million (USD 9.3 million).

Tallit prices range from NIS 60 (USD 14) for a silk shawl to NIS 350 (USD 82) for a decorated wool shawl.

The two major Tallit manufacturers, Mishkan-Hatchelet and Talitania, control 90 percent of the market.

Perhaps this a slogan issue:

At left, hot kippa seller from 2005. At right, the new champ?

Rav Shach: Democracy = Cancer

…In effect, democracy does not interest the ultra-Orthodox as an issue that is important as a matter of principle, because in their world only Torah values exist. Therefore, Rabbi [Eliezer] Shach* also only refers to democracy in passing in several statements (such as the one in which he compares democracy to cancer, because "only the sacred Torah is the true democracy").…

* Rav Shach was the leader of non-hasidic haredim until his passing in 2001. His role has been largely taken over by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, who is presumed to hold like Rav Shach in these matters.

Rabbi Alan J. Yuter Bitch Slaps Rabbi Avi Shafran

Rabbi Alan J. Yuter writes in the NY Jewish Week:

Orthodox Rabbi Avi Shafran does not like the bashing of haredi rabbis. He then bashes the late Conservative Rabbi Louis Finkelstein who, while one may disagree with the gentleman, was a very pious and learned Jew. (Letters, Sept. 1) Recent research has shown that he viewed himself independent from and not responsible for the actions of the Conservative Movement.

Rabbi Shafran correctly finds women’s leadership roles to be innovative. But are they really forbidden by Jewish law? There are medieval precedents for such leadership, and the world-class modern Orthodox scholar, Rabbi Daniel Sperber of Bar Ilan University, relies on these precedents.

Rabbi Shafran chides The Jewish Week for not buying into Agudath Israel’s definition of Orthodoxy. There are many claimants to Orthodoxy. Rabbi Moses Eisenemen wrote that Orthodox women should not do mayim aharonim, the after-meal hand washing, although the Talmud calls the rite an obligation, and Tosafot claims that the rite no longer applies because the reason for the rule [Sodom salt is not found in France] no longer applies. For some, Tosafot’s reasoning sounds Conservative. And an Orthodox Judaism that tells women they may not do what the Talmud obliges them to do should not criticize other observant Jews for their affiliations and then complain about haredi bashing

Rabbi Alan J. Yuter
Baltimore, Md.

Yuter 1, Shafran, 0. Shafran down for the count.

[Hat Tip: CP's Friend.]

BREAKING: RUBASHKIN SUPPLIER FAILS ANIMAL WELFARE AUDIT, Shackle & Hoist Used, RABBIS APPROVED

Here's the lowdown: AgriProcessors (Rubashkin) purchases veal and lamb from other slaughterhouses. I'm told the reason for this is, at least in the case of veal, primarily economic; Holstein cattle are notorious for having defects that render them non-kosher, and veal is almost always Holstein. One of Rubashkin's suppliers is (or was) Atlantic Beef & Veal. Atlantic is based in Brooklyn, and is the largest veal producer in America, and has plants in the Midwest. (Atlantic was involved in shipping to Japan beef that failed to meet US-Japan trade agreements for Mad Cow disease.)

Atlantic went into the kosher business primarily for Rubashkin. Its kosher output was all killed using the shackle and hoist method of slaughter, perhaps the most cruel method of slaughter regularly practiced in America. The animal is raised toward the ceiling by a chain attached to a hind leg, and is then slaughtered hanging upside down, in great pain and terror. Sysco, a major food distributor, has as a condition of purchase the requirement that all slaughter passes the Food Marketing Institute's Animal Welfare Audit (AWAP). Sysco's auditor failed Atlantic because of shackle and hoist. Sysco cancelled its $7 million contract with Atlantic.

Atlantic sued Sysco, claiming it had no idea its kosher slaughter would affect its AWAP score. Last week, a judge allowed that suit to stand.

In effect, Atlantic is claiming that it did not realize that its non-kosher shackle and hoist production, the byproduct of its kosher slaughter, would count on the AWAP score even though that shackle and hoist byproduct was sold to Sysco.

How does this affect us?

1. Rubashkin's rabbis supervise(d) Atlantic's slaughter and approved shackle and hoist.

2. This means the OU, which claimed to certify Rubashkin's own upside down Weinberg pen slaughter only because the Israeli rabbinute demanded it, readily gave supervision to other plants using even more cruel methods of slaughter.

3. Worse yet, those plants then sold to Rubashkin, with the full knowledge and approval of the OU, etc., and then sold that meat to you as if it had been slaughtered by Rubashkin is a less cruel fashion. The OU, et al, did this even as they touted Rubashkin's "improvements."

4. The rabbis are calling Sysco's actions an "attack" on freedom of religion.

5. Much of Rubashkin's own output comes from plants he owns or associates with in Latin America. They overwhelmingly use casting, another cruel method of slaughter, or shackle and hoist. I have been told that no Rubashkin-affiliated Latin American plant uses an ASCPA pen, and that all cast of shackle and hoist. This is also alleged to be true for Alle and all Satmar Latin American output, as well.

6. This means that, because most kosher food processors buy by supervision, any packaged meat product from hot dogs to TV dinners to airline meals, along with a fresh and fresh packed meats, may very well be made from the product of shackle and hoist or casting slaughter.

What should be done about this?

Until kosher meat carries an independent, non-rabbinically controlled guarantee of humane slaughter, all kosher meat must be presumed to be inhumanely slaughtered.

The rabbis have proven time and time again that they cannot be trusted. To drive that point home, at least for the short term, eat fish or go veg.

They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore

Kinky Friedman at left with cigar. Former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura at right with what appears to be an Iron Cross and a samurai goatee.

The AP reports:

With political soul mate [former professional wrestler and Minnesota governor] Jesse Ventura in tow, Texas gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman is telling college audiences that he has no reason to apologize for his race-related remarks.

"Anyone who knows me knows I'm not a racist," Friedman said Monday at the University of Texas at San Antonio. "Far from it."

Last week, the Texas NAACP president and a black legislator criticized Friedman for a joke he told in a 1980 comedy club appearance in which he used the n-word about blacks. He also has come under fire for a race-related remark he made in a television interview last year and for other comments about Hurricane Katrina evacuees and ethnic groups.

"Humor is the weapon I use, humor to attack bigotry," said Friedman, who with Ventura is making a campaign swing this week through several Texas colleges and universities.

Ventura, whose surprising 1998 victory as a third-party candidate in the Minnesota governor's race is serving as a model for Friedman's effort, was welcomed to Texas on Monday by an attack from incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry's campaign. In a statement, Perry's campaign cited remarks in a 1999 Playboy Magazine interview in which Ventura was said to have called organized religion "a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers."

Kinky (whose answering machine message used to say, "Hi! This is Richard Kinky "Big Dick" Friedman. I'm off the ranch right now. Leave me a message and I'll get back to you," and he did–in my case, calling me in Jerusalem and refusing to allow me to pay for the call) is a very good guy. Can he serve as governor? Sure. He'll certainly do a much better job than Jesse did in Minnesota. And he's a much nicer person than Jesse, as well, even if Jesse's remark on religion is pretty close to spot on, at least for many people. As pointed out to me by my friend Sheyna Mechaberet, few adherents of major religions are actively searching for truth or actively evaluating their beliefs. It's much more about community than ideas or truth.

What was, for a time, the JDL's unofficial theme song, Kinky Friedman's Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore:

Well, a redneck nerd in a bowling shirt was a-guzzlin lone star beer
Talking religion and-uh politics for all the world to hear.
they oughta send you back to russia, boy, or new york city one
You just want to doodle a christian girl and you killed gods only son.

I said, has it occurred to you, you nerd, that thats not very nice,
We jews believe it was santa claus that killed jesus christ.
you know, you dont look jewish, he said, near as I could figger
I had you lamped for a slightly anemic, well-dressed country nigger.

No, they aint makin jews like jesus anymore,
They dont turn the other cheek the way they done before.
He started in to shoutin and a-spittin on the floor,
lord, they aint makin jews like jesus anymore.

He says, i aint a racist but aristitle onassis is one greek we dont need
And them niggers, jews and sigma nus, all they ever do is breed.
And wops n micks n slopes n spics n spooks are on my list
And theres one little hebe from the heart of texas is there anyone I missed ?

Well, I hits him with everything I had right square between the eyes.
I says, Im gonna gitcha, you son of a bitch ya, for spoutin that pack of lies.
If theres one thing I cant abide, its an ethnocentric racist;
Now you take back that thing you said bout aristitle onassis.

No, they aint makin jews like jesus anymore,
We dont turn the other cheek the way we done before.
You could hear that honky holler as he hit that hardwood floor
lord, they sho aint makin jews like jesus anymore!
All right!

No, they aint makin jews like jesus anymore,
We dont turn the other cheek the way they done before.
You hear that honky holler as he hit that hardwood floor
Lord, they aint makin jews like jesus anymore.

Everybody!
They aint makin jews like jesus anymore,
They aint makin carpenters who know what nails are for.
Well, the whole damn place was singin as I strolled right out the door
lord, they aint makin jews like jesus anymore!

No, we aint makin jews like jesus anymore,
We dont turn the other cheek the way they done before.
Well, the whole damn place was singin as I strolled right out the door
lord, they aint makin jews like jesus anymore!

Matisyahu Messianist

Tzemach Atlas has two posts on his trip to Crown Heights for Rosh Hashana. He closes one post by noting the first person he ran into in Crown Heights was Matisyahu, coming out of the Lefferts mikva wearing a "Yechi" yarmulke. He also has pictures of Chabadniks lining up to get wine "from the Rebbe" and related avoda zara.

Use It Or Lose It

Responding to news of a new study showing moderate consumption of Cabernet Sovingion wine appears to lower the risk of getting Alzheimers Disease, Hadassah University Medical Center metabolism expert Prof. Elliot Berry:

…who has long advocated moderate consumption of red wine, said he recommended it for preventing various ills. "Even though not everything that works in mice works in humans, it's wonderful, but I don't want people to become alcoholic. People should not drink on their own and not before they drive; it also should not be consumed with a small number of medications. To reduce the risk of Alzheimer's, one should also do mental exercise regularly - whether it is playing bridge, doing crossword puzzles, solving sudoku puzzles or studying Talmud."

Use it or lose it.

No Surprise: Orthodox Rabbis Fear Media, Against Free Press

Ynet reports on a comprehensive study done on Israeli rabbis from all affiliations:

…The research showed that 95 percent of Orthodox rabbis believe that the press significantly hurts religious values, while only 31 of the non-Orthodox rabbis supported this claim.…

The research also examined the rabbis' exposure to the daily newspapers, and revealed that half of the haredi rabbis do not read a daily paper.

The rabbis were also asked whether they believe that the media should report on crimes committed by rabbis. While all Reform and Conservative rabbis replied positively to the question, only 23 percent of haredi rabbis and 59 percent of national-religious rabbis gave a positive reply.

Most of the rabbis said they support the public's right to know: 97 percent of Reform and Conservative rabbis, 77 percent of the national-religious rabbis, 45 percent of haredi-national rabbis and 41 percent of haredi rabbis, agreed "to a large extent" or to a "very large extent" with the public's right to know.…

Non-Orthodox rabbinic views seem to parallel views of society at large, endorsing freedom of the press and related concepts. Orthodox rabbis from all camps oppose press freedoms, especially reporting on rabbinic crimes. Might that be because they have more crimes to hide?

Also quite troubling are the responses of hardal (haredi-dati-leumui) rabbis on the public's right to know. Look carefully here:

77 percent of the national-religious rabbis, 45 percent of haredi-national rabbis and 41 percent of haredi rabbis, agreed "to a large extent" or to a "very large extent" with the public's right to know.

Hardal rabbis respond almost exactly like haredi rabbis, further proof of the erosion of moderate voices in Israeli Orthodoxy.

New Online Video Documentary Of Rav AY Kook

Arutz Sheva has posted an online 36 minute documentary on the life of the first chief rabbi of Palestine, Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook.

Jazz Great Ornette Coleman On Yossele Rosenblatt

From the New York Times:

…MR. COLEMAN’S first request was something by Josef Rosenblatt, the Ukrainian-born cantor who moved to New York in 1911 and became one of the city’s most popular entertainers — as well as a symbol for not selling out your convictions. (He turned down a position with a Chicago opera company, but was persuaded to take a small role in Al Jolson’s film “The Jazz Singer.”) I brought some recordings from 1916 and we listened to “Tikanto Shabbos,” a song from Sabbath services. Rosenblatt’s voice came booming out, strong and clear at the bottom, with miraculous coloratura runs at the top.

“I was once in Chicago, about 20-some years ago,” Mr. Coleman said. “A young man said, ‘I’d like you to come by so I can play something for you.’ I went down to his basement and he put on Josef Rosenblatt, and I started crying like a baby. The record he had was crying, singing and praying, all in the same breath. I said, wait a minute. You can’t find those notes. Those are not ‘notes.’ They don’t exist.”

He listened some more. Rosenblatt was working with text, singing brilliant figures with it, then coming down on a resolving note, which was confirmed and stabilized by a pianist’s chord. “I want to ask something,” he said. “Is the language he’s singing making the resolution? Not the melody. I mean, he’s resolving. He’s not singing a ‘melody.’ ”

It could be that he’s at least singing each little section in relation to a mode, I said.

“I think he’s singing pure spiritual,” he said. “He’s making the sound of what he’s experiencing as a human being, turning it into the quality of his voice, and what he’s singing to is what he’s singing about. We hear it as ‘how he’s singing.’ But he’s singing about something. I don’t know what it is, but it’s bad.”

I wonder how much of it is really improvised, I said. Which up-and-down melodic shapes, and in which orders, were well practiced, and which weren’t.

“Mm-hmm,” he said. “I understand what you’re saying. But it doesn’t sound like it’s going up and down; it sounds like it’s going out. Which means it’s coming from his soul.”…

L'Shana Tova U'Metuka, Kitiva V'Hatima Tova

In keeping with the Breslov-themed post immediately below, here is a drawing of a Breslover hasid I made many years ago. I just ran across this in what passes for my files. It's not exactly a personalized Rosh HaShana card, but I hope it will do. May all of my readers, even those of you who heap piles of venom on me, be inscribed and sealed for a good, sweet and healthy year.

Bonus trivia: Today is the day in 1964 that Fiddler on the Roof opened on Broadway. The highly sanitized version of the original Sholem Aleichem stories would spark interest in pre-Holocaust Eastern European Jewish life, particularly hasidism, and play a major, if unintended, role in the fledgling ba'al teshuva movement.

Na Nach Nachman m'Uman

Rabbi Nachman's grave in Uman, Ukraine.

Ha'aretz's Yair Ettinger reports from Uman:

…We get off the bus and join a great frothing human wave. Some break out in spontaneous dancing to familiar hymns, others start looking for a place to sleep. Still others head straight for the "main course" - a visit to Rabbi Nachman's tomb.

Even at 4 A.M., the tomb is an island in a sea of penitents. One of the highlights will occur this afternoon, when the whole crowd will gather together at the tomb to recite a prayer by Rabbi Nachman.

"Let no one be absent," Rabbi Nachman wrote when inviting his disciples to join him. Some 200 years later, everybody is here: Hasids from almost every sect, and also anti-Hasidic ("Lithuanian") ultra-Orthodox Jews; Ashkenazim and Mizrahim (Jews of European and Middle Eastern origin, respectively); Zionists and anti-Zionists; knitted skullcaps of every size and style, like that of Rabbi Moti Elon, head of Yeshivat Hakotel, or the white kippah adorning hip-hop artist Fishi the Great. Traditional and Orthodox Jews from Monsey, Manchester, Marseilles and elsewhere are also on hand.

The pilgrimage to Uman also reveals the extent of the return to Orthodoxy movement in Israel. Who if not Rabbi Nachman understood the souls of sinners and those seeking redemption? "If man does not have an evil inclination, his worship is not at all complete," the rabbi wrote in his major work, Likutei Moharan. There are also those who describe themselves as utterly secular, who pick up their kippahs - inscribed with the mantra Na Nach Nachman me'Uman - on the way, and who paid their $1,000 "just for the experience."

"You're from Haaretz newspaper?" asks Shimon Abizmil from Netanya. "Haaretz in gematria (numerology) is twice Nachman. You see? Rabbi Nachman is everywhere, even with you."

A conversation with Abizmil requires tuning in to two channels simultaneously, because he sees himself as both a Lubavitch Hasid and a Bratslav Hasid. He has come to Uman with some of his students, who are becoming Orthodox. When he asks who attracts young secular people more, former Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson or Rabbi Nachman, he answers immediately: "Rabbeinu. First of all, his book speaks to those who are in a low place spiritually and aren't necessarily studying Torah. But what turns on the young people about Rabbeinu is his joy, and I'm talking about the guys of army age and older. Becoming Orthodox is hard, it's a burden, and Rabbeinu says that what true tzadiks should do is be happy, enjoy worshiping God." …

And this is what experts who follow the ba'al teshuva movement in Israel note as well. Breslov may not have Chabad's slick PR and fundraising infrastructure, and it does not have Chabad's array of outposts, but it has the hearts of the majority of Israeli penitents, eclipsing even Chabad's messianic faction in growth. Many of these penitents consider themselves to be an amalgam of Breslov and Chabad. In practice this often means a pro forma affiliation with a Chabad center and some study of Chabad text combined with a passion for and identification with Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. How this will play out in the coming years bears watching.

Chabad Continues To Harass Rabbis Who Supported Disengagement

The Chabad-dominated-and-controlled SOS-Israel organization has printed an inflammatory leaflet to be distributed in synagogues across Israel tonight, tomorrow and Sunday for Rosh HaShana. It targets the outgoing chief rabbi of the IDF, Brigadier General Yisrael Weiss, who has been the subject of a prolonged campaign of harassment and threats. Ynet reports on the leaflet's contents:

"[D]uring this period of terrible days, Rabbi Weiss is resigning from his post. The rabbi will be remembered in the history of the Israeli people as 'chief military expulsion rabbi,' he cooperated with… the disengagement and helped uproot and desecrate dozens of holy graves in Gush Katif. He further sinned when he carried out the uprooting itself through desecration of the holy. The Israeli people will not forget the shocking pictures in which members of the military rabbinate and the chief rabbi are seen desecrating the honor of the head, in a way arousing contempt and revulsion."

The letter added that Rabbi Weiss took part in the disengagement plan despite the advice of rabbis: "With these acts Rabbi Weiss rebelled against the teachings of his teacher and rabbi, the revered elder Rabbi Avraham Shapira, who instructed him not to take part in the expulsion and the desecration of the dead. The acts of the chief military rabbi form a crime against Israel, and a blow to the holy values of Judaism. He and his friends were the operational arm of the wicked government that caused disaster, and the second Lebanon war."

Weiss has been attacked while praying at the Western Wall, and requires extra security, as does his family. Before anyone tries to say that Chabad doesn't sanction harassment and violence, remember the harassment and threats of violence against Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch upon publication of his biography of the Rebbe, the harassment of reporters and those in the media who have reported on Chabad's foibles, and the harassment and very real violence directed against Rabbi Rivkin when he refused to capitulate to the Rebbe's demand for excommunication against an Israeli politician who Rivkin felt had done no halakhic wrong. The latter was directly incited and inspired by Menachem Mendel Schneerson himself, and it lead to the tragic death of the elderly Rivkin after a long period of unspeakable harassment and violence. And then we have the 1995 declaration a few months before the Rabin Assassination by Rabbi Abraham Hecht, the prominent Chabad rabbi and head of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, that it was permitted to murder Israeli elected leaders who cede land for peace.

When it comes to violence, Chabad may not generally adopt Satmar's street thug tactics, but it knows how to use its muscle to get what it wants, even if what it wants is wrong, and even if that muscle involves violations of Jewish, Israeli and American law.

BARUCH DYAN HAEMET: Rabbi Aryeh Carmel, ztz"l

Rabbi Aryeh Carmel, an exponent of rational Orthodox Judaism and a pioneer in Torah-science discussion, passed away yesterday. Rabbi Carmel was a strong backer of Rabbi Natan Slifkin and a pioneer of outreach to non-Orthodox Jews.

Yeshiva and Day School Parents Band Together; Rabbis, Administrators Have Failed In Their Duties

The New York Jewish Week reports:

A tangle of hot-button issues — from rabbis allegedly molesting children to the staggering cost of day-school tuition to lax school security — is suddenly confronting yeshivas today.

And some parents, having complained about a lack of accountability by those who run and manage Orthodox yeshivas and day schools, are banding together to demand answers.

Last Sunday night, a group of about 15 parents gathered at the Young Israel of Long Beach for an inaugural meeting of the New York State Yeshiva Parents Association, which represents perhaps the first effort by yeshiva and day school parents to organize. Hosted by Elliot Pasik, a lawyer from Long Beach with five kids in the yeshiva system, the meeting attracted parents who have grown frustrated with various aspects of how private Jewish schools are operated.

“We Jews are wonderful thinkers and teachers, but we’re sometimes less good at the actual mechanics of operating a school and we shouldn’t be shy about asking the government to help us,” said Pasik.

Pasik said that over the past couple of years he has grown increasingly concerned about the discrepancy between the standards for public and private schools as well as the private schools’ seeming unwillingness to address some security concerns.

“Defibrillators are required in the public schools, but not in non-public schools. That makes no sense to me,” he said, citing an example. “It makes no sense that if you have a complaint against a public school employee you can complain to the state education department, but that that is not so for the private schools. The lack of statewide discipline encourages a climate of doing whatever they want — slapping a child or worse.”

Pasik has succeeded in partially closing at least one such gap. He recently fought for and won a New York State law that enables private schools to conduct background fingerprinting checks to determine whether a prospective employee has a criminal history. Previously, private schools were allowed only to do more limited checks. Public schools have been obliged to conduct background fingerprint checks for the past few years.

However, other efforts have not been as successful. Earlier this year, for example, Pasik said he represented a couple of former students from Yeshiva & Mesivta Torah Temimah of Flatbush who claimed they had been molested by Rabbi Yehuda Kolko. However, when Pasik asked for a rabbinical court to adjudicate, he was denied.

Meanwhile, since Rabbi Kolko, like many private school teachers, was not state certified, the alleged victims could not file their complaints with the state. The former students, now both adults, have sued the school and the rabbi, who has been put on administrative leave. The lawsuits are pending.

Such experiences convinced Pasik that “there has to be a neutral, unbiased forum that a child or parent with a grievance can go to. The government has to legally require that. A non-public school child should not feel less secure.”…

In a related issue in the same report, two of the parents involved in the Orthodox takeover of the Lawrence, NY school board make it clear critics were correct in their attacks on the move:

…Two of the people in attendance recently spearheaded a controversial effort to get an Orthodox majority on the Lawrence school board. That move, which succeeded, was designed to enable the board to attempt to get more financial support for private schools, namely by using public school teachers to teach secular studies in the private schools.

Jonathan Isler, one of the two men involved in that effort, said that now that four out of seven board members are Orthodox and that more than half of all Lawrence students attend private schools, there is a good chance that this effort will succeed. If it does, he said, the issue will likely wind up in the courts.

If public school teachers are eventually used to teach secular studies in the private schools, Isler, who sends his children to The Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) estimated that the cost of a yeshiva or day school education — which can exceed $20,000 a year for high school — could be cut by 30 to 40 percent while the quality of secular studies could improve since public school teachers are state certified. …

In other words, take millions of dollars out of the public school system and put the money into private education, just what critics feared.

[Hat tip: JWB.]

Nigerian Jews?

This video and the one posted immediately below were taken (it appears) by a Chabadnik traveling through Nigeria. My first thought is they can't be Jews – no one is talking, everyone is actually praying. And the children are too well behaved. [Hat tip: Yoyo.]

Nigerian Jews?

[Hat tip: Yoyo.]

Evangelicals Run Islamic Style Jihad Camps In Midwest

ABC News reports:

An in-your-face documentary out this weekend is raising eyebrows, raising hackles and raising questions about evangelizing to young people.

Speaking in tongues, weeping for salvation, praying for an end to abortion and worshipping a picture of President Bush — these are some of the activities at Pastor Becky Fischer's Bible camp in North Dakota, "Kids on Fire," subject of the provocative new documentary, "Jesus Camp."

"I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as they are in Palestine, Pakistan and all those different places," Fisher said. "Because, excuse me, we have the truth."

"A lot of people die for God," one camper said, "and they're not afraid."

[Hat tip: Sheyna Filosof Rofeh.]

Rabbis Fear Media, Study Finds

The Jerusalem Post reports:

Only a quarter of haredi rabbis favor publicizing scandals involving their peers, but three-quarters admit muckraking is an effective deterrent, according to a survey funded by the Lipshitz Religious Education College.

Rabbis said they were concerned that investigative reports on the misdoings of rabbis would desecrate God's name, said Dr. Yoel Cohen, of the Holon Institute of Technology, who conducted the study.

"Generally speaking, religious people misunderstand the media. They think media has an ideological agenda when in reality it is driven by commercial concerns." Over the past several months Cohen surveyed 300 haredi, national religious and non-Orthodox rabbis. Those surveyed were asked to express their opinions on freedom of the press, the public's right to know, and the impact of the media on people of faith.

In his survey, Cohen differentiated between "mainstream" national religious rabbis and "hardalim", a hybrid term that combines haredi and "leumi," or nationalist. The term refers to the more conservative, mostly younger, settlement rabbis who combine a very strict interpretation of Jewish law with religious Zionism.

"I found huge differences between mainstream rabbis and hardalim. Hardal rabbis are very similar to haredim in their outlook," said Cohen.

"They tend to be more suspicious of a free press and less liberal." Cohen found that rabbis born in Arabic countries were the most conservative on issues such as freedom of the press, the impact of the media on religious values, and the conflict between media and religion.

For instance, only 17 percent of rabbis born in Arabic countries said they agreed with the Western principle protecting the public's right to know.

In contrast, 61% of Israelis and 83% of Anglo-Saxons from all streams of Judaism said they favored the principle.

No surprise here. It seems the fear of the media grows exponentially as a sector's crimes multiply. In other words, it isn't just cultural–the closer a rabbi is to crime, the more he fears the press.

Does that mean haredim commit more crime? Sure. Tax fraud, money laundering, draft dodging, welfare fraud and any number of frauds and scams, not to mention general thuggery aimed at opponents. And most of these crimes are institutional, not carried out by and for individuals but by institutions for their communities.

The settlers are next in line–remember the behavior surrounding Disengagement? The MO after that. I suspect they commit fewer crimes than the other sectors in large part because they're too busy working to get involved with cheap scams or riots.

Worse Than Shidduchim

And I thought we had it bad. The NY Times reports:

Many American Muslims — or at least those bent on maintaining certain conservative traditions — equate anything labeled “dating” with hellfire, no matter how short a time is involved. Hence the wildly popular speed dating sessions at the largest annual Muslim conference in North America were given an entirely more respectable label. They were called the “matrimonial banquet.”

“If we called it speed dating, it will end up with real dating,” said Shamshad Hussain, one of the organizers, grimacing.

Both the banquet earlier this month and various related seminars underscored the difficulty that some American Muslim families face in grappling with an issue on which many prefer not to assimilate. One seminar, called “Dating,” promised attendees helpful hints for “Muslim families struggling to save their children from it.”

The couple of hundred people attending the dating seminar burst out laughing when Imam Muhamed Magid of the Adams Center, a collective of seven mosques in Virginia, summed up the basic instructions that Muslim American parents give their adolescent children, particularly males: “Don’t talk to the Muslim girls, ever, but you are going to marry them. As for the non-Muslim girls, talk to them, but don’t ever bring one home.”…

Haredim Convinced: Reincarnated Dog Begs Forgiveness

Where's the Amazing Randi when you need him? Ynet reports:

Meah Shearim residents believe dog arrived at neighborhood to ask for absolution following death of resident early Saturday

Hundreds gather to watch dog removal.

The dog.

The dog "willingly leaving" during kaddish.

The dog that stirred up Meah Shearim neighborhood: A 95-year-old Meah Shearim resident, Nahman David Dovinski, is said to have been “a righteous man, a worker of God, waiting every day, every minute, for redemption. He was really not of this world.”


Upon returning from the funeral, which took place on Saturday night, Dovinski’s family found an unfamiliar dog sitting on their doorstep. All attempts to remove him failed.


Dovinski’s family took the dog out of the neighborhood, but it insisted and returned again to the same house. From the early hours of the morning, endless attempts were made to expel the dog, but the dog refused to leave the house.


During the attempts at convincing the dog to leave, a neighborhood rabbi arrived at the house and instructed that the dog be served a Shabbat meal, in hopes that this would convince the dog to leave.


Only after the dog was told, “you are forgiven, you are forgiven, you are forgiven,” did it agree to taste the food it was served.


Residents and neighbors began wondering what the meaning of this strange event was, and turned to Rabbi Meir Brandsdorfer, who is considered one of the senior rabbis in the haredi congregation, for answers.

Rabbi Brandsdorfer recommended reciting Psalms and Mishnas. The rabbi himself left the home of the deceased at around 5 a.m. Sunday and headed towards the Mount of Olives in order to say Kaddish on Dovinski’s grave.


Neighborhood residents and family members report that the dog willingly left the house during the Kaddish.


A crew from Jerusalem municipality’s veterinary services arrived at the scene and picked up the dog, as hundreds of residents from Meah Shearim and other neighborhoods watched and escorted the vehicle that evacuated the dog.

Watch The Amazing Randi expose Uri Geller and others. You'll love this.

Modern Orthodox Acting Badly?

A town, founded as a resort, has a small Orthodox community. Years pass. Orthodox, mostly modern, from Brooklyn and Far Rockaway move to this former resort town. Soon they become the majority. They use their majority status to take over the town's school board and to impose spending cuts and other measures on a school system they do not use. They do so because the cost of private day school tuition is very high, and the taxes on their properties used for the public schools is significant. Driving down the cost of public school education they do not use means more money in Orthodox pockets to pay for the private education they do.

Where is this happening? As the NY Times reports, versions of this story are happening throughout the wider NYC area. This particular story is set in Lawrence, Long Island:

“Other communities are watching Lawrence very closely, for fear they may be next,” said Prof. William B. Helmreich, the director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Queens College. Orthodox adherents “are cohesive, they marshal forces and vote as a bloc,” he said. “It could happen anywhere.”…

“It’s ominous,” said Steven Sanders, a former New York City assemblyman who was chairman of the State Assembly’s Education Committee. “This is not going to be an isolated situation. This is a worrisome trend. The common thread is not religion. The common thread is people who don’t feel invested in educating other people’s children. What do you do when a community is significantly comprised of individuals who don’t have a stake in public schools when they’re already spending for private schools? It’s a fracturing of the social compact.”

Orthodox leaders like this member of the school board complain about the quality of the public schools:

“We’re paying elite salaries and getting a mediocre district,” Mr. [Uri] Kaufman said.

Yet, while test score are falling (in part, it seems, because better students have shifted to private schools and in part because of the increased number of poor and minority students in the district), the Lawrence Public Schools are far from mediocre:

Half the students are black or Hispanic, and 36 percent are eligible for a free or discounted lunch, a poverty indicator. “Yet we had seven Intel scholars this year, tied with Bronx High School of Science and fifth in the nation,” Dr. Fitzsimons said. “We’re no slouches.”

Should tax dollars be used to support private religious education? If the answer is yes, can those dollars support a madrassa or a Hare Krishna day school or a Jews for Jesus day school, for that matter?

Of course, if the answer is yes to the first question it must by definition be yes to the second as well.

So what is the solution to the day school tuition problem? Try this:

1. Combine schools so each community has a community day school. This saves money by eliminating redundancy. It also increases accountability.
2. Use the public school tax model to support day schools. That's right, level a tax on all Jewish community members. This can be done by "assessing" each Federation for the amount of money it costs to educate each student in the Federation's "district."
3. Have tuition be paid to the Federation, not the school. This removes the "fundraiser's incentive" to open competing schools. It also means that a student cannot attend the day school unless his family has a relationship with the Federation. This should be a win win proposition for both the Federations and the schools. It also means the day schools can spend their time educating rather than fundraising.
4. Is this extreme? Sure. But what we now have is not working and extreme measures are clearly necessary.
5. Who will oppose these steps? Mostly haredim, who will refuse to educate their children with non-haredim and with children from competing haredi sects.

The Times also mentions Orthomom, a great JBlog well positioned to cover this issue, although she claims all the Orthodox want is their fair share of busing money and other funds allowed constitutionally, and not funding of day schools per se. I think she's clearly wrong here. What the Lawrence Orthodox clearly want is their fair share of those monies along with a reduction in public school spending aimed at lowering their tax burden. In other words, they want to take more from the public school system while putting in less. They will get more buses; public school students will get fewer teachers and other resources.

Or, to put it another way, the issue for the Orthodox is financial – how much more can we take out and how much less can we put in. For almost everybody else, the issue is how can we best educate our children in public schools. That Orthodox Jews don't notice this difference speaks to the heart of a much larger problem – the way Orthodoxy teaches about and deals with the Other.

[Hat tip: Sy.]

Bob Dylan's Alleged "Plagiarism" …

… is no big deal.

The Ethiopian Rollercoaster

The Rabbinute ruled Falash Mura are of Jewish ancestry and should be brought to Israel as any other Jews, with the caveat that a conversion must be done. The Falash Mura keep their part of the bargain. They study lean and pray as Orthodox Jews, and undergo full conversions without complaint. Israel, however, refuses to keep its end of the bargain, leaving more than 10,000 Falash Mura in squalid conditions in shanty towns on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. Ha'aretz's Shmuel Rosner explains the forces at play. Note that Rosner does not mention the Rabbinute's role. Also note that Rosner appears to be Orthodox.

Only 44% Of Adult Haredi Men Work

The Central Bureau of Statistics has released its study of the Israeli workforce. 95% of secular men are employed, while only 44% of haredi men are. The vast majority of the unemployed haredim are kollel 'students' who rely on state welfare payments and other charity to survive. By contrast, 91% of Orthodox but non-haredi men (National Religious/Modern Orthodox) are employed. A similar breakdown is found among Israeli women.

More on haredi difficulties with employment.

[Hat tip: MB.]

When Haredim Leave

The Jerusalem Post reports:

In a ceremony held in Ramat Aviv on Wednesday night 54 former haredi men and women received academic scholarships from the Hillel organization that will help them catch up academically with their fellow Israelis.

Hillel, founded in 1994, is an entirely voluntary organization, that gives guidance and assistance to young men and women from ultra-Orthodox families who choose to leave their communities.

The young ex-haredim discover that their education has not prepared them for the secular workplace, according to Irit Panepe, the organization's volunteer spokeswoman. "Usually we are talking about extremely intelligent people who came to a real conclusion, that "the ultra-Orthodox world" is not their place," she told The Jerusalem Post before the start of Wednesday's ceremony.

"Even those who come from the best yeshivas, such as Ponevezh, stopped their [secular] education at somewhere around the fourth grade level, she said." They learn nothing about history, civics, literature, and geography - not even Bible as we now it. The organization emphatically affirms that its agenda is apolitical.

"We have no political identity," Panepe insisted. "We are a social organization; we help people who need help."

And that help is impressive in scope. Hillel operates apartments in both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in which 'yotz'im beshe'ela', those who left the haredi world behind for secular Israel, can live for a few weeks or even months.

During this time the organization's 300 volunteers help them with writing resumes and finding work.

The young former haredim also receive academic tutoring and psychological help in addition to what volunteers call "basic help," such as assistance in choosing and purchasing colorful clothes.

In addition, Hillel takes groups on weekend trips all over Israel.

Many of the young people taking part on the trip have never seen Israel's outdoors.…

And the haredi reaction to all this? Nothing surprising here:

Hillel's work has encountered much resistance in the haredi world which views leaving the ultra-Orthodox community for a secular lifestyle as a danger to the community's cohesion and ideals. The organization's offices have experienced several break-ins during which identifying information about the organization's participants was stolen. In addition, Hillel representatives claim that haredi leaders have set up a similarly named organization meant to receive phone calls from confused haredi youth seeking Hillel.

The biggest threat to haredim may very well be this:

While Hillel doesn't have any political affiliations, it does openly call for establishing and enforcing a standardized educational curriculum throughout Israel.

"If the state doesn't mandate a minimal curriculum," said one representative of the organization, "then we believe the Education Ministry should take responsibility for these people who know nothing, and help them to catch up." Until such a policy is in place, vowed the representative, "we're doing it."

This is what the recent fight over funding of haredi education has been based on. Haredim produce students ill-equipped to function in society. They cannot hold jobs other than the most unskilled. And they cannot feed their families without welfare. Haredim are a tremendous financial drain on the state, but continue to deny the problems generated by their sub-par school systems on the one hand and refuse to do anything to further prepare the masses of haredim for work on the other.

In America, a former Lubavitcher, Malkie Schwartz started a smaller version of Hillel. Footsteps does what Hillel does, but on a much smaller scale due not to a smaller need, but because of limited financial resources. (You can help by donating here.) This is probably because in America, welfare is paid by a truly secular state, and is divorced from specific Jewish community politics. If it were closer to home, rampant haredi welfare fraud and abuse would be a huge issue for the American Jewish community, just as that same abuse and fraud is a major issue in Israel.

Haredim Illegally Use State Money To Proselytize Children

Ha'aretz's Shahar Ilan reports:

How much does it cost to transport hundreds of children from throughout the heart of the Sharon region to a religious outreach school belonging to the [haredi] independent education system in the community of Kadima? … Yated Ne'eman is providing the data: NIS 5,000 a day for 16 vehicles, some of which make a 25-kilometer trip, for a total of NIS 1 million [about USD $200,000] a year. The path to religious outreach may be paved with good intentions, but it has become apparent that it is long and winding, and costs the taxpayer no small amount.

The ultra-Orthodox population has doubled in the past 15 years, while ultra-Orthodox education has at least tripled. One of the reasons for this is that secular and traditional students have transferred to schools in the religious outreach education networks, like Shuvu and Netivot Moshe. It is tough to come up with a worse investment for the state than a student who transfers from a state school, geared toward the army and work, to an ultra-Orthodox school, geared toward studying in yeshiva.

…The question is how important items such as hot lunches and free transportation are to the existence of the religious outreach network. When Shuvu was founded in 1998, Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky, head of the Talmudic Yeshiva of Philadelphia, said that in Israel, it was possible to obtain students for religious schools "for small change, for lunch." Small change? Not exactly, to judge by the cost of transportation to Kadima.

Is it possible to obtain students in Israel without transportation? "If the service is not provided - and the very heart of the system is transportation - the children will 'graze in foreign fields,'" Rabbi Zvi Baumel, one of the leaders of the independent education system, told Yated Ne'eman.

In my series of articles for Haaretz, "Ultra-Orthodox '98," I discovered that the state had directly provided at least NIS 100 million [about USD $40 million] to religious outreach institutions. But that was when the religious outreach education networks were in their infancy. It is reasonable to assume that the funding is far greater today.

It is now becoming clear that the state has provided transportation to the tune of NIS 35 million [USD $7 million] a year for the independent education system, and that a large portion of that money was used - in violation of the law and of good governance - for religious outreach schools that were not eligible for state-funded transportation. And why are they not eligible? Because of the principle of "the nearest institution." According to this principle, students are not bused to distant schools if schools in the same educational stream are located near their homes. The independent education system has many schools, but those in the process of becoming religious are bused to special schools so that they do not "ruin" the ultra-Orthodox children.

Since the money was not enough to bus the students who are becoming religious to school, and since without transportation, they will not come, the independent education system's administration came up with an original solution: It gave the religious outreach schools money earmarked for busing ultra-Orthodox children. After all, the ultra-Orthodox will register for ultra-Orthodox schools even without transportation.

The Justice Ministry has now ordered a stop to the illegal transportation budget party. The independent education system will receive only some NIS 20 million for transportation, for which it is legally eligible. If it wants to fund additional transportation, it will have to raise NIS 10 million to NIS 15 million a year.

However, some are concerned that the money taken away from transportation via the front door will return to the religious outreach system through the back door - that is, through other budgetary line items. It is a well-known political principle that there is no better time for making irregular budgetary requests than when a coalition crisis is brewing and the government is unstable.…

Joel Backer Stanton Give $100 Million To YU

Ronald Stanton

Ronald Stanton, a prominent member of YU's board and a strong supporter of YU's president Richard Joel, has donated $100 million to YU. The New York Times reports:

When he was 14, Ronald P. Stanton turned down the offer of a private scholarship for study at Yeshiva University to become a rabbi. But Mr. Stanton, a businessman, has had a close relationship with Yeshiva for the last 30 years, as a trustee, as chairman, and as head of a fund-raising campaign that raised $400 million. Now 78, he has become the university’s largest donor.

Yeshiva, a comprehensive university under Jewish auspices, announced yesterday that Mr. Stanton was giving it $100 million, which it says is the largest single gift ever to support Jewish education in the United States. “This breaks the glass ceiling both for Yeshiva and for Jewish life,” said Richard M. Joel, the president of Yeshiva, which has about 3,000 undergraduates as well as schools of law, medicine, business and other disciplines, and a rabbinical seminary.

Mr. Stanton said that he had planned to make a big gift to Yeshiva for some time, and that he would give the university the money in installments over the next 5 to 10 years.

His gift will establish the Ronald P. Stanton Legacy, and will go to recruit faculty members, erect new buildings, pay for research and give the president the ability to move quickly on initiatives without having to wait for other donors. Assets drawn from the fund will be replenished as other gifts are received.

Mr. Joel said he expected the Stanton donation to lead to others of the same size. “I certainly expect there to be a second,” Mr. Joel said.…

Stanton is the founder and head of Transammonia, Inc., a privately held energy corporation Forbes lists as the 35th largest company in the United States.

[Hat tip: Professor Gershon Mendel.]

9-11

Read about the victims here.

Great Quote

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."

—Jack Kerouac in "On The Road"

Woman In PVS Aware Of Surroundings, Scientists Find

The New York Times reports:

A severely brain-damaged woman in an unresponsive, vegetative state showed clear signs on brain imaging tests that she was aware of herself and her surroundings, researchers are reporting today, in a finding that could have far-reaching consequences for how unconscious patients are cared for and how their conditions are diagnosed.

In response to commands, the patient’s brain flared with activity, lighting the same language and movement-planning regions that are active when healthy people hear the commands. Previous studies had found similar activity in partly conscious patients, who occasionally respond to commands, but never before in someone who was totally unresponsive.

Neurologists cautioned that the new report characterized only a single, perhaps unique case and that it did not mean that unresponsive brain-damaged people were more likely to recover or that treatment was possible. The woman in the study could not communicate with the researchers, and there was no way to know whether her subjective experience was anything like what healthy people call consciousness. The woman was injured in a traffic accident in England last year.

Yet the study so drastically contradicted the woman’s diagnosed condition that it exposed the limitations of standard methods of bedside diagnosis.…

Israel's Bait-and-Switch

Ha'aretz reports:

The United Jewish Communities of North America yesterday issued an unusual statement accusing the Israeli government of reneging on its promises, in view of the Finance Ministry's intention to reduce the monthly quota of Ethiopian immigrants from 300 to 150.…

About 18 months ago, the government decided to increase the monthly quota of Falashmura immigrants from 300 to 600, and asked American Jewry for urgent assistance. The prime minister at the time, Ariel Sharon, even made a personal appeal to Jewish community leaders in the U.S. when he visited New York last year. The response was a special campaign entitled "Operation Promise," which set the goal of raising $100 million to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel and help settle them.

"We suspended the rest of our activity and focused on this campaign," says a senior UJC official in Israel. "Now they're making a laughing stock out of us." …

The UJC statement said that not only had $70 million been raised so far for the Falashmura, but in the past month U.S. Jews had contributed an additional $270 million in an emergency campaign to aid Israelis, including Ethiopians, who were hurt by the war.

A delegation of American Jewish community leaders visited Israel about two months ago and raised tough questions about the government's failure to increase the monthly immigration quota to 600 after asking them for money to that end. "Already then they couldn't understand this. What will we tell them now?" the senior UJC official in Israel said. "We're dealing with a deep problem of trust here. This will exact a price. The next time we come to ask them for money, they might think twice."

Why in the world should anyone trust the word of this Israeli government?

One Frum Double Entendre Deserves Others

From DailyHalacha.com:

The Gemara in Masechet Keritut establishes that "Simana Milta," meaning, the things we do as a promising "Siman" ("sign" or "omen") on Rosh Hashanah are significant and have an impact upon the coming year.

Therefore, one should not treat lightly the custom to partake of certain foods on the night of Rosh Hashanah as a good Siman, such as gourd, apples, pomegranates, and so on. If a person does not enjoy one of these foods, it suffices for him to simply point to the food and recite the "Yehi Ratzon" prayer. It should also be noted that one may come up with his own ideas for foods as Simanim. For example, it is told that somebody would eat on Rosh Hashanah a combination of lettuce, raisins and celery, and declare, "Let us have a raise-in-salary."…

In the spirit of the moment, and with a large dose of early Purimkeit added, here are simanim suggestions for certain Orthodox rabbinic types. You'll have to figure out what they mean on your own:

• Heaps of lettuce surrounded by pictures of Benjamin Franklin and President Grant.

• Several of these cards taken from Monopoly games and placed on a silver platter with attorney Nathan Lewin's home telephone number.

• A Barney doll with a large hunting knife inserted through it's chest, surrounded by pictures of gedolim and ID bracelets.

• Heaps of Baby Kosher Dill Pickles. Remember, as long as the pickles are sucked, licked or otherwise fondled, the siman will work. But whatever you do, remember – do not swallow!

A Good Man Gone

The Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle reports the death of the city's mayor, Bob O'Connor:

…While thousands of city residents regarded O'Connor as a personal friend, to the Jewish community, he was more like family.
"He was truly one of us," said former city magistrate [and uncle of blogger and historian Menachem Butler] Daniel Butler of Squirrel Hill. "He wanted to be part of us. He wanted to help us."

Having a Jewish wife, Judy, provided O'Connor with a real family connection to the Jewish community, especially to the Lubavitch community and Yeshiva Schools, of which O'Connor's sister- and brother-in-law, Dee-Dee and Jacob Pelled, are active members. But his ties to the whole community were vast and deep.

"He was at virtually every major event of the Jewish community," said Barbara Burstin, chair of the United Jewish Federation. "By his presence we always felt that he cared. That spirit will sorely be missed."

O'Connor attended Jewish community events so regularly that his presence came to be expected.…

On Saturday mornings, O'Connor often stopped by the Lubavitch Center at the conclusion of services to socialize with congregants and spend time with the children, whom he loved. After winning the mayoral election, O'Connor sponsored a kiddush at the Center.…

When Butler's son Mikey died in 2004, O'Connor attended the funeral at Congregation Poale Zedeck on a snowy January day. After the funeral, the bad weather and traffic from a school dismissal created a treacherous traffic jam on Shady Avenue, complicating the procession to the cemetery. O'Connor stepped out into the middle of the street and began directing traffic.

"He was for real," said Butler. "He loved people, he cared about people. He made Pittsburgh a better place by dint of his personality and decency. We all had high hopes for what he would do for the city."

The story also quotes Bill Rudolph, a pillar of the Pittsburgh Jewish community and, if memory serves, a pretty decent harmonica player.

New Movie Sure To Be Controversial … And Funny

The New York Times reports:

…“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” stars the chameleonlike comedian Sacha Baron Cohen as he impersonates a Kazakh reporter touring the United States, bringing his version of Kazakh culture to real-life Americans.

In one scene Borat insists on driving to California rather than flying, “in case the Jews repeat their attack of 9/11.” As he tours the South, he becomes terrified when he learns that an elderly couple who run an inn are Jewish. When cockroaches crawl under the door of his room, he becomes convinced the innkeepers have transformed themselves into bugs, and throws money at them.

In another scene Borat returns to his home village and participates in an annual ritual, “The Running of the Jews,” complete with giant Jew puppets that the villagers beat with clubs.

This anti-anti-Semitic humor is mixed in with other outrageous behavior, including slurs against Gypsies and gays, and a nude wrestling match. But in a world in which resurgent anti-Semitism has become — sometimes literally — an explosive topic, the movie may well hit a particular nerve, especially in Europe.

The British-born Mr. Baron Cohen, who calls himself an observant Jew, has performed this same high-wire comedy act for his HBO series, “Da Ali G Show,” in which he plays three characters, including Borat, each hilariously offensive in its own right.…

Monsey Kosher Meat Scandal and G & G Pot Bust Updates – Forward Reports

Nathaniel Popper of the Forward reports:

The incident in Monsey also has brought to light the fact that for all the careful kosher supervision in the meat industry, many distributors — the middlemen in the food chain — are not required to secure the kosher supervision that must be maintained by stores and slaughterhouses. Rabbi Moshe Elefant, a kosher administrator at the Orthodox Union, said that while his organization had nothing to do with the situation in Monsey, the current incident could provoke all supervising agencies to begin requiring supervision of distributors.…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

… Federal agents finally raided the plant after seeing three men unloading the cargo container during business hours and placing the pottery-encased marijuana outside the fence surrounding G & G. The owner of G & G, Meir Grunbaum, said that he knew nothing of the problems until the raid.

“The truck came in the middle of the night, with nobody knowing about it,” Grunbaum said. He added that the two men who actually had been responsible for bringing the container onto the property had fled the country and were never arrested. According to Grunbaum, the two employees who were taken in were wrongly arrested, having done nothing more than obey orders to remove the contents of the cargo container from the G & G property.

“The federal agents were embarrassed to go away from here with no arrest, so they just made a false arrest, and that’s not right,” Grunbaum said.…

The G & G plant receives its kosher supervision from both the Orthodox Union and the Central Rabbinical Congress, a Brooklyn-based agency affiliated with the ultra-Orthodox Satmar sect. Neither supervisory agency had any comment on the busts.…

Lots more here.

More On Monsey Kosher Meat Scandal

The Associated Press reports:

…"To sell non-kosher as kosher is one of the biggest acts of betrayal that a Jewish person can do to another," said Rabbi Menachem Meir Weissmandel of Chemed Shul, a local synagogue. "This is the darkest day in the history of our community since we settled in this area many years ago."

The butcher, Moshe Finkel, owns Shevach Meats, which buys kosher meats in bulk and slices and packages it for grocery stores, religious schools and Hasidic camps in the Catskill Mountains.

The state's Department of Agriculture and Markets are trying to determine the origin of the chicken, whether it was ever certified as kosher and advertised as such at the store, a spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department said. Violators are subject to fines of up to USD 1,000.

Weissmandel said Finkel was banned from the grocery store. He said store owners confronted the butcher after they noticed the shelves lined with kosher meats, even though Finkel's suppliers had not made a delivery. An early morning call to Finkel's home Thursday was not returned.…

And, yes, pots, pans, dishes, flatware, other utensils and knives, cutting boards and countertops must be kashered. Consult your local rabbi for details.

Previous posts here and here.

Haredim Rule Organic Products Not Kosher

A kibbutz adopts the philosophy of Anthroposophy, a cult (or cult-like group) that follows the teachings of Rudolph Steiner, and early 20th century social philosopher and occultist. The kibbutz goes into the organic produce business and is successful. Tnuva then buys out the kibbutz and employs the kibbutzniks. The produce and foodstuffs get kosher certification from the Rabbinute. Time passes. Yad L'Achim, the haredi anti-cult organization, goes to the haredi rabbinic court Edah Charedis in Jerusalem. Edah Charedis issues a statement banning the produce from the kibbutz and labeling it non-kosher.

Questions:

1. If the food is inherently kosher, how can it become "treife" due to the beliefs of the growers?

2. Outside of wine, which would be kosher without supervision if not for a specific rabbinic enactment made at the time of the Mishna to forbid non-Jewish wine, are there any other foods that have been banned because of who produces them?

[Cheese needs supervision because of the coagulating agents used, but others assert the reason for this rabbinic enactment from Mishnaic times was to separate Jews from non-Jews. Milk also has a kashrut reason, although some also hold this ancient rabbinic enactment was made to prevent intermarriage. Meat needs supervision because kosher meat and treife meat are indistinguishable and the incentive for cheating is high because of the price disparity between the two.]

3. Halakha does not ban the produce of idol worshippers, even Jewish idol worshippers, and does not question its kashrut status. Indeed, even prepared foods of idol worshippers are kosher, as long as the ingredients are kosher. What basis is there in Jewish law for Edah Charedis to declare Harduf foods non-kosher?

Readers?

Suspicion: Haredim Torch Elad Council Head's Car In Synagogue Spat

[Council head] Tzvi Cohen's car is totally burnt. Police estimate background to incident is his decision to dismantle illegal trailer intended to be used as synagogue for one of town's factions. Cohen in response: 'We aren't scared. Incident only shows we are right.'

Kosher Meat Scandal Update, Monsey – Spring Valley

As reported below, non-kosher meat and chicken was sold as (glatt) kosher in Monsey. This announcement comes from the kosher supervisors of the establishment(s) in question:

The following revised kashrus alert is from Congregation Bes Tefilla on September 5, 2006.

Revised directive concerning meat and poultry bought at "Shevach Quality Meats':

All meat and poulty and meat and poulty products (except those in the original packing of the kosher processing plant) which were purchased at the "Shevach Quaility Meats" during the past years may not be eaten.
All utensils that were definitely used hot (there is no safek) for the above food itmes must be kashered.
If chicken bottoms were purchased on Tuesday, August 29 or Wednesday, August 30, then utensils must be kashered even if there is a safek.

Ed. note: Information of kashering can be found at www.kashrut.com/Passover/.

The following kashrus alert is from Congregation Bes Tefilla on September 3, 2006.

Congregation Bes Tefilla has removed its kashrus certification from Shevach Quality Meats, Spring Valley, NY due to kashrus violations. There is an on-going investigation. Chicken legs from August 29 and August 30, 2006 that were labeled Kiryas Yovel or Vineland should not be used and any keilim used with them should be kashered.

Omri Sharon's Bar Mitzva

Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his family celebrate his son Omri's bar mitzva – in Kfar Chabad.

More pictures here.

A Dying Religion A Lot Like Ours

Viraf Darukhanawalla wore a sacred cord, [i.e., a gartel] or kushti, at the ceremony.

The New York Times has a feature article and an interesting slideshow on a dying religion. Note the similarities to Judaism:

…“We were once at least 40, 50 million — can you imagine?” said Mr. Antia, senior priest at the fire temple here in suburban Chicago. “At one point we had reached the pinnacle of glory of the Persian Empire and had a beautiful religious philosophy that governed the Persian kings.

“Where are we now? Completely wiped out,” he said. “It pains me to say, in 100 years we won’t have many Zoroastrians.”

There is a palpable panic among Zoroastrians today — not only in the United States, but also around the world — that they are fighting the extinction of their faith, a monotheistic religion that most scholars say is at least 3,000 years old.

Zoroastrianism predates Christianity and Islam, and many historians say it influenced those faiths and cross-fertilized Judaism as well, with its doctrines of one God, a dualistic universe of good and evil and a final day of judgment.

While Zoroastrians once dominated an area stretching from what is now Rome and Greece to India and Russia, their global population has dwindled to 190,000 at most, and perhaps as few as 124,000, according to a survey in 2004 by Fezana Journal, published quarterly by the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America. The number is imprecise because of wildly diverging counts in Iran, once known as Persia — the incubator of the faith.

“Survival has become a community obsession,” said Dina McIntyre, an Indian-American lawyer in Chesapeake, Va., who has written and lectured widely on her religion.

The Zoroastrians’ mobility and adaptability has contributed to their demographic crisis. They assimilate and intermarry, virtually disappearing into their adopted cultures. And since the faith encourages opportunities for women, many Zoroastrian women are working professionals who, like many other professional women, have few children or none.

Despite their shrinking numbers, Zoroastrians — who follow the Prophet Zarathustra (Zoroaster in Greek) — are divided over whether to accept intermarried families and converts and what defines a Zoroastrian. An effort to create a global organizing body fell apart two years ago after some priests accused the organizers of embracing “fake converts” and diluting traditions.

“They feel that the religion is not universal and is ethnic in nature, and that it should be kept within the tribe,” said Jehan Bagli, a retired chemist in Toronto who is a priest, or mobed, and president of the North American Mobed Council, which includes about 100 priests. “This is a tendency that to me sometimes appears suicidal. And they are prepared to make that sacrifice.”…

Despite, or because of, the high intermarriage rate, some Zoroastrian priests refuse to accept converts or to perform initiation ceremonies for adopted children or the children of intermarried couples, especially when the father is not Zoroastrian. The ban on these practices is far stronger in India and Iran than in North America.…

Justice for Jews from Arab Countries

For Immediate Release:

Over fifty years since near one million Jews were displaced from Arab countries, they now can register online in a process aimed at restoring their rights and helping them seek redress for their suffering and losses.…