FailedMessiah.com

The Revenge of the Chickens

Okay, so this has been around for a few years – it's still funny*. Give it a try.

*For those of you who see this as a bigoted poke at haredim, remember this – if kapparot were done with compassion, if the chickens were treated with kindness, you might be right. But the chickens are often treated deplorably, and the custom itself appears to have pagan roots.

Haredi Rabbis Ban Sukkot Water-Drawing Festivities Because of "Lewdness"; Chabad To Hold Ceremony Anyway

Briefly, the non-hasidic haredim led by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv have banned concerts and other outdoor public gatherings meant to be enjoyable (as opposed to long "Torah" gatherings meant to bore participants forced to endure long speeches by often elderly rabbis).

The haredim expended the ban this year to the yearly outdoor Sukkot water-drawing festivities held across Israel. Why? Because of "lewdness" – if the events are held outdoors, men and women may find ways to mix and, well, you know where that could lead. The ban is so strong that the city of Bnei Brak canceled its water-drawing celebration.

But there is a crack in the ban, Chabad has water-drawing celebrations scheduled for its neighborhoods and has refused to comply with the ban. Ha'aretz reports:

A spokesman for Tzeirei Chabad, the Chabad youth organization, told Haaretz "We are not opposing the rabbis and are not holding any shows. We have brought to the attention of the Torah sages that for us this is not just a street event, but one that has gone on for years and has value. There is value in holding the events in public. It is not just for the ultra-Orthodox public, but for the wider public, and men and women will remain separate."

Ha'aretz also reports that Neturei Karta, of all people, are planning to hold a demonstration of protest against Chabad's decision at the Jerusalem water-drawing celebration.

Chabad's celebration will probably get out of hand. Every haredi looking for a good time and willing to violate the ban will be there. So will secular Israelis, Western university students studying in Israel and yeshiva/seminary students on one year Israel programs.

What would have been a normal if somewhat loose event may turn into a giant clash between Chabad leaders trying desperately to keep a lid on things and revelers looking for a good time. And, this being Chabad, the Vodka will be flowing.

I suspect in the end haredi leaders will have much to criticize and much about which to say I told you so. That haredi over reaction contributed strongly to this situation is a fact haredi leaders will never admit or understand.

GUEST POST: Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin's Grandson On How His Family Shaped His Writing

Joshua Henkin is the grandson of Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, the leading American haredi halakhic decisor (i.e., the gadol hador) before Rabbi Moshe Feinstein. Beside his yichus, Joshua Henkin is also a writer and teacher of creative writing. His new novel, Matrimony, is about to be released by Pantheon:

“Radiates the kind of offbeat shoulder-shrugging charm that made Michael Chabon's The Mysteries of Pittsburgh so memorable. . . .  [Matrimony] gets to you and stays with you.” –Kirkus Reviews

Joshua Henkin wrote the following Guest Post for FailedMessiah.com readers:

    Although the book tour for my new novel, Matrimony, doesn’t begin until the middle of October, I had my first event the other night—a panel held at the Museum of the City of New York called “Writing in Jewish.” Moderated by Alana Newhouse, the arts editor of the Forward, the panel of four Jewish writers addressed the question of what it means to be a Jewish writer, whether we even consider ourselves Jewish writers, and how being Jewish affects and inflects our writing.

    For me, this is a hard question to answer.  I was raised in a modern Orthodox Jewish home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.  I went to the Ramaz School and to camp Ramah, the Conservative movement’s camp.  My mother was raised in a Reform Jewish home, whereas my father was the son of a famous  Orthodox rabbi—a gadol ha’dor, in fact.  To this day, the discovery that I am the grandson of Rav Yosef Eliyahu Henkin has gotten me more invitations to Shabbat meals than I can count. 

    I grew up with a mixture of influences—my mother, who, though she kept a kosher home once she married my father, nonetheless remained non-observant when she was on her own; my father, who stayed frum, but who went to Harvard Law School and became a law professor at Columbia and who lives squarely in the secular world.  This is a man who received a medal of bravery in World War II for convincing a band of Germans to lay down their arms while he himself was unarmed.  And how did my father do this?  By speaking to the German soldiers in his own first language—Yiddish!  This was 1944, mind you.  And years later, when I was at a secular nursery school on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and Santa Claus was visiting school, there was a moment of silence, and then a voice peeped out:  “Who’s Santa Claus?”  That was me.  Yet the friends I played ball with in Riverside Park, most of them weren’t Jewish.

    So I was shaped by a wide array of influences.  Today, I’m married to a professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and in my own idiosyncratic way I remain observant.  But how does this translate into my writing, particularly since I write fiction?  I don't think of myself as Jewish or as anything in particular when I sit down to write a novel.  I think about my characters—some of them frum, some of them not frum, some of them not Jewish at all.  Being Jewish on some level probably affects everything I do, but it’s not something I’m conscious of as I do those things, particularly when what I’m doing is writing fiction.

    One of the things I said during the panel is that, as a novelist, I am very interested in time, and perhaps that grows out of my relationship to time when I was a child. I associated time with the start and end of Shabbat, how everything is timed down to the minute.  Apparently, when I was six or seven and it was the night we switched to Daylight Saving Time, I said to my parents, "Do non-Jews switch their clocks, too?" But is a concern with time a singularly Jewish phenomenon? Is every writer who is interested in time therefore a Jewish writer?

There was a lot of talk on the panel about whether Jews are outsiders or insiders, how Jewish literature has changed over time, and, as would be expected, we didn't come to a consensus. I myself am suspicious of measuring Jewish writing and Jewish writers by the Jewish content of their novels. My first novel, Swimming Across the Hudson, was very directly a novel about Jewish identity.  Matrimony, though it has some material about Jewish identity, is less directly about that subject. But is it a less Jewish novel? I don’t think it is.  It’s just a different kind of Jewish novel.  And could it have been written by a non-Jewish writer?  It could have, I suppose, but that non-Jew would have had to know some Hebrew, not to mention have some knowledge of halacha, since these things come into play in the book.  Every character, every novel is different, and the fiction writer must take what comes to him and run with it; above all, he must be true to his characters. That, to my mind, is the fiction writer's principal task.

Religious Zionist Rabbis Move To Break Chief Rabbis' Monopoly Over Kashrut

In response to haredi attempts to crush heter mechira – the pro forma land sale that allows Israeli farmers to farm (and therefore to survive) the Sabbatical year – Israeli Religious Zionist rabbis are moving to break the haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate's monopoly over kosher food certification.  The Jerusalem Post reports:

In a move that threatens to split the Chief Rabbinate, a group of religious Zionist rabbis rebelled against the state's supreme rabbinic authority and announced Tuesday that they would set up an alternative kosher supervision apparatus during the shmita (sabbatical) year.

"If local rabbis refuse to recognize fruits and vegetables grown [using heter mechira] by Jewish farmers during the shmita year as kosher, then we will," said Rabbi Rafi Freuerstein, chairman of the Tzohar organization.

"We believe it is important to strengthen Jewish farmers and Jewish agriculture and provide reasonably-priced produce to the Jewish nation," he said.

"The Chief Rabbinate is not fulfilling its function as a rabbinic authority for the entire Jewish nation," said Rabbi David Stav, a member of Tzohar, during a press conference Tuesday. "Rather, it has been taken over by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and Lithuanian haredi interests. We are trying to save the Chief Rabbinate from itself."

Members of the Chief Rabbinate's governing council attacked Tzohar for undermining state-recognized rabbinic authority and risking a break between religion and state. [We should only be so lucky – Shmarya.]

"If the rabbinate is dismantled as a result of internal fighting, we risk losing national recognition for rabbinic authority," said Rabbi Ratzon Arussi, chief rabbi of Kiryat Ono and a member of the Chief Rabbinate's governing council.

Rabbi Moshe Rauchverger, another council member, said that Tzohar threatened to break the rabbinate's monopoly over religious services and open it up to Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism.

"If Tzohar starts providing kosher supervision, what is to stop Reform and Conservative from doing the same?" said Rauchverger.

Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger, who is the supreme authority on issues of kosher supervision, declined to comment.…

But can this work? Maybe not:

However, Tzohar might run into legal difficulties. According to the law, the Chief Rabbinate is the only body authorized to provide kosher supervision in Israel. Private kosher supervision firms can provide their services only after the rabbinate has already provided supervision.

In an attempt to get around this legal obstacle, Tzohar intends to refrain from calling its service kosher supervision. The group said that several business have already requested a Tzohar kosher certificate, including a large wholesaler.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has tried to get the Chief Rabbinate to act responsibly and legally, but to no avail. In a response to a petition from Israeli farmers, the court asked the Chief Rabbis to certify businesses that sell heter mechira produce. The Chief Rabbinate refused.

Attorney-General Menachem Mazuz, who believes the Chief Rabbinate is violating the law, also recently pointed out that the Chief Rabbinate itself has recognized heter mechira as a legitimate solution to shmita restrictions by appointing Rabbi Ze'ev Weitman to supervise heter mechira under the rabbinate's auspices. The Jerusalem Post notes the Supreme Court is expected to reach a decision regarding this in the next few weeks.

Kapparot Update

The pictures posted here were taken about 6 am Thursday, September 20th, 2007, in the parking lot of the Chabad synagogue, Congregation Lubavitch, at 3981 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach, CA.

Rabbi Kahane-Shapira Hospitalized

Ha'aretz reports:

Former chief rabbi Abraham Shapira, 96, was hospitalized Tuesday after his health condition took a turn for the worse in the past few days. Students at yeshivas and religious schools, both Haredi and Zionist, are praying for the well-being of Shapira, who is also the Chairman of the "Merkaz Harav" (Rabbinacal Center) Yeshiva.
 
Rabbi Shapira was seen at Rosh Hashanah services at the "Merkaz Harav" yeshiva, sitting in a wheel chair and connected to an oxygen tank. At the end of the service he went home and has not been seen since as his health began to deteriorate.…

Tehillim. MP3.

Should Orthodoxy Be Open To Skeptical Challenge

Writing in the London Jewish Chronicle, Miriam Shaviv points out the Catholic Church is continuing the process for Mother Theresa's sainthood, even though it is now clear that Mother Theresa had profound doubts about the existence of God. Shaviv notes:

As Spanish Cardinal Julian Herranz said of Mother Teresa this week: “These moments of crisis felt by great saints are normal… [her moments of] weakness [are in fact] the proof of the greatness of faith of Blessed Mother Teresa and take nothing away from her holiness.”

We [Orthodox Jews] could learn a thing or two.

But Shaviv misses a key point – Judaism is based on a mesorah, a supposedly unbroken tradition handed down from parent to child from Sinai to today. Further, part of that mesorah is a code of law that, at least in part, makes doubters outsiders, heretics even, and denies them a place in the World to Come. For Judaism to allow doubt means Judaism must allow heresy.

But a careful examination of the so-called mesorah shows not an unbroken chain but many divergent threads. In other words, the mesorah is largely a product of wishful thinking, and the greatest enemy for that wishful thinking is informed skepticism – doubt.

Skeptics are not 'heretics' because Orthodoxy can easily answer the skeptical challenge – skeptics are 'heretics' because Orthodoxy cannot answer informed skeptical challenge. Unlike the skeptics of old who relied on reason alone to prove their points, today's skeptics have hard scientific data to bolster their points of view – Orthodox Judaism does not. In the end, Judaism's best defense is the plea to disregard scientific knowledge and fact. God is omnipotent and can do anything is really the only answer Judaism has left.

(One can easily see this by tracking the deleted comments and banned commenters on Rabbi Gil Student's Hirhurim blog. Gil deletes and bans skeptics largely because his answers to their challenges do not hold up to scrutiny.)

Many Jews choose to follow halakha and live their lives as Orthodox Jews, even though they realize the basis for Orthodox Judaism has been ripped to shreds by modern science. Some do this with the hope that in the End of Days God will answer the unanswerable questions and resolve the unresolvable conflicts between fact and religious myth. Others do it because they like the lifestyle. They practice but do not believe and have no expectation of ever believing. Still others are afraid a public display of skepticism will destroy their families.

Imagine standing before two doors. One is marked "Truth;" the other, "Judaism." The first door may open to a yeshiva with scholars learning Talmud and Codes. Or it may open to a lab where scientists are exploring the Human Genome. Or, even though unlikely, perhaps there will be both. But whatever it is, door number one will be absolute Truth.

The second door will only open to a yeshiva – but it may or may not be or contain the Truth.

Orthodoxy in all its forms has chosen to open door number two. The familiar, the perceived truth is their comfortable, seemingly necessary choice.

Skeptics have chosen door number one. They see the lab and realize there is little if any room for the yeshiva. While this troubles them, they press on, pursuing Truth.

Shaviv seems to think that if we could all just talk it out, everything would be fine and skeptics would eventually come around to Orthodoxy's point of view.

That may have been possible 100 years ago, but I do not believe it is possible today. There are simply too many facts, too many scientific truths on the side of skepticism, and it is too late to pretend otherwise.

[Chabad] Kapparot Chickens, Long Beach, CA

Pictures of [Chabad-sponsored] kapparot chickens taken in Long Beach, California this year and sent anonymously to PETA.

UPDATE 9-25-2007: The pictures posted above were taken about 6 am Thursday, September 20th, 2007, in the parking lot of the Chabad synagogue, Congregation Lubavitch, at 3981 Atlantic Avenue in Long Beach, CA.

Agudath Israel's Jewish Observer On Child Sexual Abuse and Molestation

The Jewish Observer, the PR organ of Agudath Israel of America, has piece this month from David Mandel of Ohel on child molestation and sexual abuse in the haredi community. Emblematic of Mandel's approach to this is issue is his understanding of what should be done when a rabbi sexually abuses a child:

In September 2003, Torah U’ Mesorah, the National Council of Hebrew Day Schools, under the signature of leading Roshei Hayeshivas issued standards and guidelines on prevention and response to child molestation. On the issue of mesirah, reporting, it states “such action may include, under appropriate circumstances, reporting to the civil authorities when the principal determines that there is reason to believe that inappropriate activity has in fact occurred, insofar as halacha and secular law require such reporting”. Professor Aaron Twerksi, Dean of Hofstra Law School, and OHEL were instrumental in working with the Roshei Hayeshivas of Torah U’Mesorah in preparing these guidelines.

In other words:

1. The principal, the rabbi in charge of the school determines if abuse allegations are credible, not police or other trained individuals.
2. The principal in all likelihood is a friend of the accused abuser and his social peer. The child is unlikely to be either a friend or a social peer of the principal. In most cases, this is true of the child's family, as well.
3. Ohel and Torah U'Mesorah therefore leave the decision on whether to go to the police in the hands of a man who has no training or background to allow him to diagnose or investigate abuse and who may very well be a friend of the accused abuser.
4. It is also important to realize that the principal may often have financial motivation for covering up sexual abuse and molestation. A school with the reputation of having an abuser on its faculty may suffer enrollment declines and drops in donations. Even more so, it may become stigmatized.
5. The Torah U'Mesorah guidelines state that the "civil authorities" may be contacted. Note the careful use of language – "civil authorities" does not automatically equal police. Indeed, it may never equal police.
6. The guidelines also say reporting to "civil authorities" should happen if the principal determines there is reason to report and "halacha and secular law require such reporting.” What does this mean? I think this:
   • Halakha rarely requires reporting sexual abusers to police. Why?
   • There are haredi rabbis who hold no Jewish criminal of any type may be reported to police. Others have a more nuanced view. A few hold that any Jewish criminal should be reported. But there is no consensus on this and the halakha is not clear.
   • Therefore, unless it is a rare case where the school in question relies on a particular haredi rabbi who allows reporting to police, the molester will not be reported.
   • New York State, the place most haredim in America live, does not require rabbis and teachers at private religious schools to report child sexual abuse and molestation to police. Rabbis and private religious school teachers are not mandatory reporters. Why?
   • In large part because Agudath Israel of America has worked hand-in-hand with the Catholic Church to stop all legislative attempts to make rabbis, priests and private religious school teachers mandatory reporters.

Then we have this troubling statement from Mandel, in his own voice, quoting no sources other than Ohel's own Dr. Pelcovitz:

The overwhelming majority of children who are molested can and will, Baruch Hashem, grow up healthy and lead normal lives. Children, as Dr. Pelcovitz notes, are resilient and will be able to cope and deal with this as they progress and mature. They may never forget “the event” or the perpetrator, but they can move on. In the aftermath of the tragic events at Virginia Tech College, the murder of thirty two students, the resilience of the students and community was often cited as an important coping mechanism in the healing process.

A small percentage of children and adolescents are so traumatized they will need psychological treatment.…

Why would Mandel write something that is so clearly false? Perhaps for this reason – in NY State, I believe psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health therapists are mandatory reporters. Children brought to them for counseling will trigger a police investigation, which would expose the rabbi-abuser and his school administration to possible criminal prosecution and legal scrutiny.

But, as I noted above, thanks to the hard work of Agudath Israel of America and the Catholic Church, rabbis and yeshiva teachers are not mandatory reporters.

Also note the careful parsing of words in many the various rabbinic statements quoted by Mandel and the self-congratulatory tenor of the piece. with regard to 'how far' the community has already come.

And Mandel is correct – there are no good statistics on how many haredi molesters and victims exist. But what he does not tell the reader is that many professionals who work with the haredi community have anecdotal evidence of increased rates of molestation among haredim, and professionals who deal with child molestation and abuse find the haredi community's structure an ideal breeding ground for molestation and abuse. Mandel surely knows this.

Before reading Mandel's entire piece, posted after the jump, please keep the following in mind – David Mandel's academic background is in business. He is not a trained mental health professional. And according to The Awareness Center he has allegedly participated in covering up specific instances of rabbi-on-child sexual abuse and molestation.

UPDATE: A commenter here notes that the Mandel's article praises Rabbi Dovid Cohen, who acts as the Jewish law adviser to Ohel. The commenter notes that Rabbi Cohen has ruled that Jewish child molesters who molest non-Jewish children should not be turned over to police. He also allegedly ruled that Jewish law permits stealing from non-Jews.

Can anyone bring us documentation for this? If so, please post it below. Thank you.

The entire Mandel article follows after the jump…

Baltimore Jewish Times Editor Phil Jacobs Honored For Series On Rabbi Child Molestation

            "It goes on and on and on unless we stop it. I say to you without any apology, you don't have to be nice to stop this. You don't have to be politically-correct. Call the cops; do something."

                     -- Baltimore Jewish Times Editor Phil Jacobs

BJT Associate Editor Neil Rubin reports:

BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES Executive Editor Phil Jacobs received special tribute during this past week's Shalom USA dinner for his recent articles exposing sexual molestation in the Baltimore Jewish community.

His articles have focused on both bringing to light alleged perpetrators as well as the pain of their survivors, sometimes decades later. The articles, roughly one a month for the past seven months, have brought to light allegations against once revered rabbis, both living and dead, in the Baltimore community.

The response has been both laudatory and accusatory, resulting in letters and telephone calls from around the world.

Mr. Jacobs was given Shalom USA's Covenant Of Peace Award for "his courageous investigative journalism."

Rabbi Elan Adler of Moses Montefiore Anshe Emunah Hebrew Congregation told the audience that Mr. Jacobs was "an unwitting hero of our community who took his professional life and his family life and put it on the line."

He added, "Phil Jacobs has stirred a hornet's next."

Shalom USA producer Larry Cohen noted that Mr. Jacobs had been the target of much animosity, including personal threats.

To Mr. Jacob's critics, he said, "We respond that for the defense of all of our families, Phil has committed an act that will save lives and the spirits of our children … With his articles, Phil has warned our leadership that if you will not lead, if you do not do the right thing, we will."

In response, Mr. Jacobs said he was representing survivors of molestation, and wanted those present to know how painful the investigation has been.

"I want you to know that all of this hurts. It hurts right here in my heart," he said. "It hurts in my mind and it hurts in my soul. My faith in the system has been shredded. This isn't ever why I want to be honored."

Noting the High Holiday season, he said, "I ask God every day to direct, to help me make decisions. I stand before God just like you do these Days of Awe … and I know that I don't walk alone."

In concluding, Mr. Jacobs added, "It goes on and on and on unless we stop it. I say to you without any apology, you don't have to be nice to stop this. You don't have to be politically-correct. Call the cops; do something."

The Forward On The Arrest Of Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin

The Forward's Marissa Brostoff reports on the indictment and arrest of Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin and his son Sholom:

…The Rubashkin family is best known for owning AgriProcessors, the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse. But the current indictments shed light on the family’s much broader business holdings and what is now a growing list of legal problems that has dogged the family in each of its endeavors.

The family got its start in America when the patriarch, Aaron Rubashkin, came over from Russia in 1945. Once in Brooklyn, Rubashkin, set up a local butcher shop in Brooklyn. In the ’80s, the family began expanding its business interests aggressively. Two of Rubashkin’s sons set up the AgriProcessors slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa. The plant, which produces meat under the Aaron’s Best label, has been under scrutiny due to complaints about the way it has treated the animals that are slaughtered there and the people who work there. The company has also had run-ins with the Environmental Protection Agency, which brought forward the charges in the new textile mill case.

In addition to the kosher meat company, the family has long had holdings in the textile industry, including the one in Allentown and another in Cherry Hill, N.J., where family members have faced reprimands from the National Labor Relations Board.

Moshe Rubashkin, 50, has overseen the textile mills but kept his base of operations in Brooklyn, where he is currently chairman of the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council. The council receives public funding to promote social welfare in the neighborhood.

Rubashkin won his seat on the Crown Heights council shortly after being released from prison for previous charges relating to Montex, the now defunct textile company based in the Allentown mill. He had served 15 months for writing bad checks from Montex, which specialized in bleaching and dyeing textiles. A year before that, he had been fined for failing to secure workers’ compensation for Montex employees.

The current charges stem from events in 2001, when Rubashkin allegedly left drums of hazardous waste in the abandoned Allentown mill after closing down production at the site. According to the indictment, fires that broke out in the factory in 2005 were exacerbated by the chemicals stored inside. The EPA asked Rubashkin to clean up the site, but he allegedly did not comply, leading the agency to do the work.

In the indictment, the EPA claims that when it attempted to charge the party responsible for costs incurred in cleaning out the mill, it discovered that the property had been held by a confusing tangle of real estate companies with no clear owner. Sholom Rubashkin, 28, ran the real estate branch of the family business under his alias and informed the EPA that he had no connection to the mill site at the time of the fires. The indictment alleges that Sholom “knowingly and willfully made materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements.”

Both men could face a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

It is not clear what effect the charges will have on Moshe Rubashkin’s leadership position in the Crown Heights community. A person who picked up the phone at the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council hung up when asked to comment.

Nathan Lewin, who is again representing Rubashkins in legal trouble, did not return the Forward's call.

The Forward notes that word of the charges first appeared on this blog. That is somewhat inaccurate. I had the details and documents of the indictment late on Erev Rosh Hashana minutes before the start of the holiday. But I had no time to post. Saturday evening just after Shabbat ended, I posted word of the indictments, background on the case, and the official document outlining the indictment. Before I posted, the Allentown Morning Call had brief and incomplete story on the indictment, followed the next day, the second day of Rosh Hashana, by a longer piece still lacking some background details. So, while not the first, I was perhaps the most complete and the most 'national'. Why?

The Forward seems to be the first national or New York City news organization to pick up on the story.  I think that may be because the indictments were issued in Pennsylvania and for some reason the US Attorney seems not to have sent his PR package to New York media – strange when Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin is a convicted federal felon on probation who resides in Brooklyn, New York. It is even stranger when one realizes that Rabbi Rubashkin also heads a government funded community council there.

[Thanks to the crew at the Forward for the shout out.]

Woman Sues Israeli Government After State Rabbis Deny Divorce For 18 Years – Woman Allegedly Raped By Abusive Husband But Rabbis Still Block Divorce

A woman is suing Israel's Ministry of Justice, the parent body of Israel's Rabbinic Court system. What did the rabbis of those state-sponsored and endorsed rabbinic courts do? This:

A woman who has been refused a divorce for 18 years filed a negligence suit against the Justice Ministry and her estranged husband, Wednesday.

The Justice Ministry was named in the suit, since the Rabbinical Courts are under its governance.…

The woman first filed for a divorce in 1976, citing domestic violence, but the rabbinical court ordered her and her husband to try and reach matrimonial reconciliation.

The violence, as she stated later, continued escalating, with her husband growing more and more abusive, raping her and threatening to kill her. She eventually left the couple's home, along with their six children.

Both courts, said the suit, dragged on the hearings, overruled each other's decisions, failed to fine the

husband for missing court dates and worst of all – overstepped their authority by annulling the divorce, when it was finally obtained.

A case can be made that the Torah was enlightened at a time when wax candles were state-of-the-art cutting-edge technology. But that case cannot be made today, unless one separates the Torah from the rabbis who lord over it.

Clearly, for some people outside Israel this is a valid option. But Israelis are all agunot, are all abandoned and abused wives, and the rabbis are their recalcitrant abusive husbands who hold them in chains.

Divorce is in order but the rabbis control the divorce courts.

The solution is to evict the rabbis from their positions of state-granted power, erecting an unbreachable wall of separation between synagogue and state in the process.

This is unlikely to happen because Israel's fractured political system is also held in chains to the very same abusive rabbis.

One day, perhaps soon, something will give. That something may turn out to be Israeli democracy – or it may turn out to be the state itself.

Either way, for bad or for worse, rabbis will be the cause.

Chabad Billionaire Lev Leviev and the New York Times, Part 2

MediaBistro's Fishbowl blog weighs in on the NY Times coverage of Chabad billionaire Lev Leviev:

In this week's glowing Times Magazine profile of diamond/real estate mogul and Chabad Lubavitch benefactor Lev Leviev, there pretty much weren't any negative words to be seen. But it's turning out that there is plenty missing.

Like Leviev's failed partnership with Hasidic real estate developer Shaya Boymelgreen, LevievBoymelgreen. Leviev is currently suing Boymelgreen for more than $100 million. Meanwhile, Boymelgreen (a prolific contributor to local politicians) is under fire for constructing uninhabitable apartments and has attracted more than his share of controversy. Strangely, none of this was mentioned in the Times piece.

Then there's the fact that, as WWD notes, Leviev had an investment in Vivid Collection, a diamond brand that's been accused of giving bribes to diamond graders.

Lastly, the article does not note that Leviev's involvement with Chabad Lubavitch in Russia (where he assisted the sect in gaining official, Valdimir Putin-approved control of the mainly secular Russian Jewish community) is largely due to Russian oligarch/Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich's drafting him in a grudge match with Putin against Russian media baron Vladimir Gusinsky.

Pretty much what I said, except Fishbowl says it better.

[Thanks to the team at Fishbowl for linking to us.]

Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin Indicted On New Federal Charge – Based On Information First Reported Here In 2005

The current head of the Crown Heights Community Council, a Brooklyn, NY government body controlled by Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin is a convicted felon elected to his position only months after getting out of Federal prison. Now Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin and his 28-year-old-son Sholom Rubashkin have both been indicted on Federal charges stemming from the family's abandoned textile mill in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin was indicted for illegally storing hazardous chemicals at the abandoned mill. Sholom Rubashkin was indicted for making false statements to the Environmental Protection Agency regarding the mill's ownership. Shalom Rubashkin signed some of those statements using the name Sam Sternberg.

The Rubashkins owe almost $500,000 is back property taxes, school assessments and fines on the Allentown property.

Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin is the brother of Agriprocessors' president Rabbi Sholom Rubashkin and is the son of Agriprocessors' founder, Rabbi Aaron Rubashkin. All are Chabad hasidim. (Moshe Rubashkin's son Sholom, also indicted, is the nephew of Agriprocessors' president Sholom Rubashkin.)

The mill burned several times in suspicious fires, at least one of which, in July of 2005, was ruled arson. The chemicals Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin illegally stored there caused the fires to be much worse than they would otherwise have been. Indeed, firefighters tried to douse one fire with water, only to see it flare up and become dramatically worse. Water is not the agent of choice to stop this type of chemical fire. But the city had no idea the chemicals were stored in the abandoned mill.

The Rubashkin family removed thousands of dollars of working industrial equipment just before the fires, but left the hazardous chemicals behind.

The Rubashkin family has a closely held real estate arm, Skyline Industries. Apparently the Rubashkin's tried to shield their ownership of this company and flipped the mortgage of the Allentown mill between it and Rabi Moshe Rubashkin. As I noted in November of 2005:

A source close to the case told FailedMessiah.com that Skyline Industries – the property's "mortgage holder" – is controlled by members of the Rubashkin family. Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin "defaulted" on his "loans" just as Allentown was about to sieze and sell the then-intact but rundown property for back taxes and fees. Skyline Industries then gained "control" of the property, thwarting the city's efforts. Soon after, the property burned in the first of what would become several arsons. Now, just as the city is about to sieze the property from Skyline Industries – which is reported to be controlled by the Rubashkin family – Skyline transfers all but the most heavily damaged parcel to Southside Redevelopment, a company Allentown believes is also connected to the Rubashkin family.

Rabbi Aaron Rubashkin, the family's patriarch, was not indicted, even though he was at one point, I believe, an owner of the Allentown mill and may have played a role in Skyline, as well.

Why it took the EPA to get this on the Feds agenda is an open question. It might be worth noting that the US Attorney for that region is a former aide to Republican Senator Arlen Specter, himself close to Lubavitch. This also may explain the relatively minor charges – after all, the Rubashkins flipped the mortgage to avoid paying taxes and fines, and they left extremely hazardous material unsupervised while at the same time removing valuable machinery from a building that would soon burn. One would think charges beyond illegal storage of hazardous waste and making a false statement would be possible, especially when state lines were crossed and postal services used in these crimes. And I believe other family members were involved, as well.

Both Rubashkins face a maximum of five years in Federal prison.

Of course it is possible that more charges will be added as days go by, and that more Rubashkin family members will be indicted.

Here is the Federal indictment:

Download rubashkinind.pdf

And here is the press release from the US Attorney's office:

Download rubashkinrelease.pdf

Stories about the various Rubashkin mill fires and other stories about Rabbi Moshe Rubashkin are linked in the sidebar of this page.

Rabbi Yehuda Kolko Arrested Again

Rabbi Yehuda Kolko has been arrested again. UOJ reported three weeks ago that Kolko had been indicted. He was. Kolko chose to surrender himself on Erev Rosh HaShana, while wearing a tallit and a black hat. His attorney complained about the increased bail:

A rabbi in a tallith, black hat and handcuffs was hauled before a Brooklyn judge hours before the Jewish New Year yesterday for allegedly molesting another boy at a Midwood yeshiva.

Rabbi Yehuda Kolko - already out on $10,000 bail on charges of sexually assaulting two other male students - rocked back and forth on his feet as his lawyer argued with the judge about bail on new charges that he molested a first-grader at the school in 2005.

"This is the holiest time of the year and to [increase] bail at this time is punitive," lawyer Jeffrey Schneider said, arguing that the charges stemmed from a malcontent who had it in for the 61-year-old Kolko. "[The higher bail is] just bizarre."

"Counselor, you chose this time to surrender him," Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Cassandra Mullen shot back.

She raised the bail to $50,000 bond, $25,000 cash.

Kolko's wife, Edith, brought the cash within the hour and he was released in time to pray at evening Rosh Hashanah services.

The New York Post makes has this about the "malcontent":

Lawyer Jeffrey Schwartz scoffed at the new accusations, saying they were fabricated by a disgruntled former student now dragging the rabbi's name through the mud on an Internet blog, The Unorthodox Jew, and trying to recruit new victims to bring cases.

For a detailed history of Rabbi Kolko's perversions and the rabbis who failed to stop him, read this.

Chabad Followers Cause Friction And Police Action By Illegal Parking – On Shabbat

Police broke up a Rosh HaShana service at Chabad near the University of Central Florida. Why? Because of the many illegally parked cars blocking fire hydrants and driveways in the residential area. The rabbi. Chaim Lipskar, cried foul and begged for five more minutes to finsih the service. The cops wouldn't go for it and in the ensuing fracas, a Chabad student was arrested:

…The situation started about 7:30 p.m. as an investigation into parking complaints in the subdivision, which is just north of the UCF campus. Several 911 calls were made reporting that numerous cars were parked illegally along the narrow streets that run through the middle-class neighborhood.

Since March, deputies have responded to a dozen similar complaints at the house, which Lipskar has used to hold Saturday Sabbath services.

Karen Wong, who lives a half-block from Lipskar, said the complaints from neighbors have nothing to do with Jewish services and everything to do with parking.

"They are blocking the sidewalks, blocking the fire hydrant, blocking driveways," she said.

Blue asked Wong, who called in one of the complaints Wednesday, to act as his witness while he spoke to Lipskar. Wong said she was petrified when people began pouring out of the house and challenging the deputy.

"I was called a Nazi, an anti-Semite and a racist," she said. "All I was doing was standing there with my hands behind my back."

According to Blue's account, the crowd grew disorderly after one woman in the crowd stated, "I hate the police; this is ridiculous." He approached her and told her she was being arrested for inciting a riot. When a young man tried to intervene, Blue arrested him instead.

Joshua Sebag, 22, of Palm City was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace and resisting an officer without violence.…

Note the cars are moved after services each Friday night and holiday. In other words, the cars are driven by Jews on Shabbat and Yom Tov. And this happens every week the university is in session, even though driving is forbidden on Shabbat by Orthodox law.

The American Civil Liberties Union is coming in on Chabad's side, wrongly seeing this as an infringement on Chabad's right to worship. But this has nothing to do with Chabad's right to pray and everything to do with Chabad's lack of respect for it's neighbors and for the laws of the place where it is.

For His part, God is said to be siding with with police and neighborhood residents because of the principal of dina d'malchuta dina (the law of the land is the land), derech eretz (polite behavior), and Shabbat and holiday law – which Chabad allows to be violated with impunity.

I have a Chabad friend who used to regularly make his Shabbat morning minyan with men who drove to pray there. He would call around before Shabbat to ensure their attendance. Every week, these same men drove miles, parked in Chabad's parking lot and "made" that minyan. Without them, there would have been no communal prayer.

How this is different from a Jew driving to a Conservative synagogue on Shabbat? Before you answer, think hard. Is it okay to violate halakha (Jewish law) as long as there is a potential for the Jew to "do teshuva"? In other words, is driving to Chabad okay because a Jews who does so may eventually learn not to drive? And Is it therefore not okay to drive to a Conservative synagogue because the Jew will never learn it is wrong to drive there?

Before the Rebbe died, the standard was to avoid situations where Jews would drive on Shabbat. Since the Rebbe's death, that standard seems to have been drastically lowered. Why?

NY TImes Magazine Profiles Chabad Oiligarch Lev Leviev

Zev Chafets profiles Chabad oligarch Lev Leviev in today's NY Times Magazine. He does so without mentioning Leviev's failed partnership with New York developer Shaya Boymelgreen. He also does it without mentioning the the data Yossi Melman uncovered and printed in Ha'aretz a couple of years back.

Leviev's connection to Chabad – and what Chabad does for Leviev – is far more complex that Chafets reports. So, too, is the relationship between Leviev, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, and Chabad.

Still, the piece is well worth reading. Leviev almost singlehandedly pays for Chabad activities in the Former Soviet Union. Chafets notes Leviev is said to give away $50 million per year. Leviev has a personal net worth of $4 to $8 billion dollars. He started with nothing. Chaifetz explains how Leviev built his fortune, itself and inspiring and amazing story.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef "Saves" Israel

By now you know that haredi rabbis have tried to stop the sale of Jewish-farmed produce raised during the shmita (sabbatical) year using the pro forma land sale known as heter mechira, and that they have done so using thuggish tactics.

Now comes word that, for the first time since the founding of the State, the ceremonial sale of land was not conducted by Israel's chief rabbis or by the Rabbinate, and the ceremonial sale was for the first time not hosted in the Rabbinate's offices.

Ha'aretz reports:

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the highly influential Sephardi rabbi, publicly backed a controversial land sale of 2 million dunams Tuesday to meet the religious law of shmita, obliging farmers to let land lie fallow for a year…

Yosef, former Sephardi chief rabbi and spiritual leader of the Shas party, hosted in his Jerusalem home the symbolic sale of 2 million dunams (approximately 500,000 acres) of Jewish-owned land to an Arab man from Abu Gosh near the capital.

The chief Ashkenazi rabbis - headed by the leader of Israel's Lithuanian non-Hasidic ultra-Orthodox community, Rabbi Yosef Sholom Eliashiv - are opposed to the practice of symbolic land sale. The detractors regard the symbolic sale as a way of dodging religious obligations. The Ashkenazi rabbinical establishment is therefore attempting to deny farmers who participate in such a sale kashrut certificates for their produce.

Eliashiv's followers are also lobbying Israel's chief rabbis to oppose the symbolic land sale. If they succeed, Israel might experience a severe shortage in locally produced kosher produce, costing farmers untold sums of money.

Ovadia Yosef's son, Rabbi Avraham Yosef, who attended the bill of sale's signing, told Haaretz that his father had "saved the country" by sanctioning the sale. However, Ovadia Yosef did not attend the actual signing.

The discontent over the symbolic sale resulted in its being conducted for the first time since the founding of the state outside the Chief Rabbinate Council's offices. Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger and Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar were not present at the signing.…

The affair has also reached the High Court of Justice. Last week, the court demanded the Chief Rabbinate Council find a solution that will allow farmers to keep on cultivating land without losing their kashrut certification.

Of course, Rabbi Metzger is a puppet of Rabbi Elyashiv. Rabbi Amar, the Sefardic Chief Rabbi, is Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's successor-designate to lead the Shas political party Rabbi Yosef founded.

Why didn't Rabbi Yosef attend the sale? I'm sure there could be many reasons (and many may be given) but I think the most likely is that Rabbi Yosef wanted to both "save" heter mechira and, at the same time, keep Rabbi Elyashiv's forces calm and at bay.

Rabbi Yosef's absence can be viewed as a lukewarm endorsement of heter mechira while, at the same time, his chosen successor's refusal to host the ceremony in his office at the Chief Rabbinate can been seen as saying that, next time shmita comes around, Shas will oppose, not support, heter mechira.

The long-term answer to problems created by a State religion and it's apparatus is to erect a complete wall of separation between synagogue and state. Let citizens freely choose what level, if any, of shmita or kashrut or Judaism in general they keep. Let them make those choices free from coercion in an open marketplace. Take religion out of politics. That would truly save Israel.

Previous posts: 1, 2 & 3.

L'shana Tova U'metuka

A happy, healthy and sweet new year to all of you.

For those of you who still believe, may this new year be the year of the coming of moshiach (the messiah).

For those of you who do not believe, may we make advances of science, medicine, interpersonal and intergroup relations that dramatically benefit humankind.

Who knows – maybe we'll get lucky and have all of this, moshiach included.

Ketiva v'hatima tova.

GUEST POST: The Reincarnationist

Author M.J. Rose has new well-reviewed book out, a novel of suspense called The Reincarnationist. M.J. agreed to do a little guest post for us. I haven't read the book yet, but I hope to soon, perhaps over Sukkot. In this guest post, M.J. tells us the eerie story of how she became interested in reincarnation and why, after years of trying, she finally wrote this book:

What’s a nice Jewish girl from New York City doing writing a novel about reincarnation? To answer that question I have to go back… not that far… but to when I was three years old and at a Seder.

The family was gathered around and my great great grandfather who was a Kabbalistic scholar was saying a prayer over the wine when I chirped up and told him something about a Seder he’d had in home in Russia when he was a child.

I was three. I didn’t even know what Russia was.

But, my mother later told me, because I don’t remember it, he never finished the prayer.

I apparently had told him something that he’d never told anyone about, an embarrassing moment in the life of a 9 year-old boy, buried deep inside this 88 year-old man.

He became convinced I was a reincarnation of someone in his past which considering his study of the Kabbala was not that strange. The mystical teachings explain that we are born over and over, returning to learn in this life, the lesson we didn’t learn in the last.

There are many Jewish fables about greedy wealthy landowners reincarnated as beggars to learn about generosity and shrewish wives reborn and kind husbands to learn about love.

That night at the Seder, my mother was disturbed. A very sane and logical woman who was very much a secular Jew was pretty much horrified at the turn in the events of the evening. She argued with her grandfather that I’d overheard the story or it was a coincidence and he argued right back that she was wrong and I was here again, in his life again for a reason. He was also a Talmudic scholar and an expert arguer. He won.

After more incidents, my mother started to study reincarnation and spoke to several other Kabbalists and came to believe what my great great grandfather believed: that in a past life, I’d been in Russia and had been part of his family and was here for a reason.

Reincarnation was an idea I grew up with that my mom and I talked about often and researched together as her interest in it continued.

For years, I wanted to write a novel about someone like my mother – who was sane and logical – who started out skeptical but came to believe in reincarnation. But I was afraid if I did people would think I was a “woo woo weirdo”.

I tried to start the book ten years ago after my mother died but I was too close to the subject and missed her too much to be able to explore it objectively. Every once in while the idea would start to pester me again but I still stayed away from it.

Then a few years ago on the exact anniversary of my mom’s death my niece, who was a toddler at the time, said some very curious things to me about my mother and I – things she really couldn’t have known -- and the pestering became an obsession.

Josh Ryder, the main character has my mom’s initials, her spirit and her curiosity and like her, he’s a photographer. But there the similarities end.

When Josh starts having flashbacks that simply can’t be explained any other way except as possible reincarnation memories he goes to New York to study with Dr. Malachai Samuels -- a scientist and Reincarnationist who works with children helping them deal with past life memories.

In the process Josh gets caught up in the search for ancient memory tools that may or may not physically enable people to reach back and discover who they were and who they are.

The book has garnered stars from both Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, People Magazine and is a BookSense pick for September. I think of all my books, this is the one my mom would be the most proud of which is fitting since it’s really the one she inspired.

M.J. sent us a brief excerpt from the book. You can read it after the jump …

The Rav on Shechita

In Community, Covenant And Commitment: Selected Letters And Communications, edited by Rabbi Nathanial Helfgot (Ktav, 2005), there are at least two statements by Rabbi J.B. Soleveitchik on humane slaughter:

1.5. Statement of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik to the National Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Agriculture, July 21, 1961 (p. 69)

1.6. Statement of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik to the National Advisory Committee to the Secretary of Agriculture, October 6, 1964 (p. 71)

I'd like to see these statements and perhaps post them. (Because these are government documents, there is no copyright on them.)

If you have or have access to this book and a scanner, a scanned pdf of the two statements would be very helpful.

Any other documents on shechita or humane slaughter in the book would be helpful, as well.

Thank you!

Do You Have This Book?

An elderly friend is trying to locate a copy of Penei Moshe by Rabbi Yitzchak Aryeh Rubovitz of Jerusalem. The sefer was written in the early 1900s and is on the (Jerusalem) Brisker Rabbi's hidushim.

Do you have this sefer or do you have access to it?

If so, please contact me.

My friend is not a collector – he wants the book because he wants to learn it.

Sedition in the Holy Land

The rabbis behind the World Committee for the Jewish People and the Land of Israel, headed by Chabad rabbi Sholom DovBer Wolpo, held an awards ceremony in Jerusalem to honor Israeli soldiers who disobeyed orders to evacuate Jewish settlers from an unauthorized settlement in a Hebron marketplace. The head of the Yesha rabbinical council Rabbi Dov Lior spoke lauding the renegade soldiers. And then, this:

The families were given a monetary reward and a certificate of recognition for having refused to collaborate in the evacuation of the market.

That's right. Soldiers disobeyed legal orders on idealogical grounds, urged to do so by rabbis including those mentioned here. The soldiers committed an act that borders on treason. And rabbis – including Chabad rabbis – are paying these soldiers (through the fiction of paying the "family" rather than the soldier directly) for that near-treason.

In a normal Western democracy, the soldier and the rabbis would be sitting in jail. No country can tolerate soldiers who refuse orders on idealogical grounds. There is a very real moral and legal distinction between refusing to follow an order that constitutes a war crime and refusing to follow an order because the soldier disagrees with the logic or the political ramification of the order. The latter – politically motivated refusal – is exactly what these soldiers did. And it is exactly what these rabbis paid them to do.

The soldiers should be in jail. So should the rabbis.

But Israel's government does not have the courage to do what is right and good; instead, it merely does the expedient, leaving for another day the confrontation that must eventually take place. It dumps the nasty work of what may amount to civil war on the heads of its children, happy to get through the moment without having to enforce the law against seditious rabbis and the young men held in their sway.

The government will tell you it does not want to create rabbinic martyrs in the way the Shah of Iran created Ayatollah Homeini. It hopes conditions will change, that the religious youth will choose to follow a moderate path, that all will perhaps be well. It hopes other rabbis will see the actions of Rabbis Wolpo and Lior and recoil from them.

No doubt some rabbis will realize that Rabbis Wolpo and Lior are bringing Israel to the brink of civil war. And no doubt some rabbis realizing that will react by moderating their own views.

But youth is often blind to nuance. It reacts with certainty and passion where other voices, tempered by age and experience, would tread with caution. And what is true of youth in general is exponentially so in religious fundamentalist youth whose very upbringing forces them to push away all doubts and dissenting voices.

It may be that time will be on the government's side, but I fear this is not so.

The government needs to enforce the law. It needs to do so now. And it needs to do so even against those who call themselves rabbi and who use the Torah to advance their anti-democratic political aims.

What's the Point of a JCC?

The local Jewish Community Center closes for every holiday imaginable. From Labor day to the last (diaspora only) day of Passover, the place is locked tight. Yet it is open every Shabbat afternoon. It closes religiously at 5 pm every Friday, winter or summer, which means it is closed hours before Shabbat some summer Fridays and open well into Shabbat in the dead of winter. What's up with this?

After much thought, and after asking older members, it seems to work out like this. Rabbis do not like competition. An open JCC is competition. Therefore, the JCC closes any day the Conservative Movement deems holy. Why the Conservative Movement? Because when this decision was originally made, the Conservative Movement controlled the Twin Cities Jewish community. This is no longer true, but the habit – lots of days off for executive staff, days off that do not count as vacation days, stuck.

But the original move to open JCCs on Shabbat was backed by an unlikely source – Rabbi Eliezer Silver, head of Agudath HaRabboninm, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada during WW2 until his death in 1968. He led the famous Rabbis March on Washington in 1943 that led the US Government to create the War Refugee Board. The Board saved almost 200,00 Jews from the Nazis. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, who was there that day, would become the head of Agudath HaRabbonim after Rabbi Silver's death.

Rabbi Silver argued that most Jews were not Orthodox. Indeed, many had no denominational affiliation at all. Yet, in his day, those non-affiliated Jews often belonged to JCCs.

Rabbi Silver noted that if JCCs closed on Shabbat, these Jews would have nowhere else to go. Instead of joining other Jews in sports or recreational activities, they would go to shopping malls and pursue other forms of entertainment. Worse yet, they would do so in mixed company. This, Rabbi Silver argued, would increase intermarriage. To stop this, he ruled that JCCs could open on Shabbat (with some restrictions).

But understand Rabbi Silver's ruling well. He argued that it is better for secular Jews to be together pursuing secular activities than it is for them to be on the streets, so to speak.

So why this bizarre schedule from a modern JCC?  It certainly makes no sense to be closed on the second and last days of Passover and Sukkot and the last day of Shavuot.

It only makes sense if you view it from the perspective of Conservative rabbis. These days are not competition to the Reform Movement – it does not observe them. And Orthodox Jews will not come to the JCC on Shabbat or on any Jewish holy day to play sports or even to shmooze. It is only the Conservative Movement that is threatened by an open JCC.

But there is even a more fundamental point. Many in the Jewish community are secular by choice. By this I mean that they have rejected the religion of Judaism. Yet they still consider themselves Jewish and affiliate as such. They are Jews by peoplehood but not by religion.

These secular Jews deserve to have a Jewish cultural center that caters to their needs, and JCCs are supposed to do this. Yet here we have a bizarre enforcement of others' religious beliefs (in this case, Conservative rabbis and Orthodox Jews) on both a secular and a differing religious population. (Most local Orthodox rabbis I know reject Rabbi Silver's ruling and they want the JCC to be closed even more than it already is. Yet, even counting the Orthodox population and the Conservative population together, Reform Jews together with secular Jews outnumber them by far.)

Reform Jews pay the same dues everyone else at the JCC does. So do secular Jews. Yet they cannot use the JCC on days that are not holy to them. Rabbi Silver's ruling has been turned on its ear and the majority of Jews suffer as a result.

Many of those Jews choose to join private, for profit fitness centers that are anyway far better run, maintained, equipped and staffed than the local JCC is. They don't need a Jewish calendar to schedule a workout. And they don't have to put up with sub-par, poorly (and I would say even dangerously) maintained facilities, either. No one gains from this except for the owners of those private facilities.

The JCC's offices should remain closed on Shabbat and Jewish holidays. But – except for perhaps Yom Kippur, the first day of Rosh HaShana and (due to the late hour of the seder) the first night and day of Passover – its facilities should remain open. (And those facilities should be made safe and state-of-the art, as well.) Provide cultural and social activities and open the fitness center, as well.

A Jewish Community Center is not a synagogue – it is a cultural center with fitness and sports facilities. It is designed to serve the entire Jewish population and it should begin doing so immediately, even if rabbis disagree.

Photo: Rabbi Eliezer Silver.

Haredi Rabbis in Lala Land

The haredi move to force non-haredim to use Arab-produced or imported vegetables for the shmita year – the year of release where the land is to lie fallow and unworked that begins Wednesday evening – rather than use Israeli produce grown using the pro forma sale of land to non-Jews, heter mechira, has reached a new level of silliness.

Israel's Supreme Court is about to rule on the haredi-controlled Chief Rabbinate's move to allow local city rabbis, who are on the government payroll no less, to ban heter mechira produce from their cities and to refuse to grant kosher supervision to vendors selling heter mechira produce – even if they also sell so-called "mehadrin" produce imported from abroad or purchased from Arabs. This will force all vendors to use only "mehadrin" produce and will wreak havoc in Israel's economy.

As this is about to take place, amid complaints of haredi coercion from across the political spectrum, a haredi rabbi explains what is wrong with the rest of us:

"It's not religious coercion," said Shabatai Markovitz, a manager of Kashrut Le'mehadrin - a kosher supervision outfit under the rabbinic guidance of Rabbi Yosef Yekutiel Efrati, who is himself a disciple of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the most respected rabbinic authority for Lithuanian haredi Jewry.

"We just want the land of Israel to rest in the shmita year, because that is what God wants," Markovitz said Sunday. "If some hotshot economist were to come along and tell secular Israelis that abiding by the rules of shmita would make the economy flourish, they would listen. So why is it that when God says so, they don't?"

Rabbi Markovitz knows very well that we possess hametz every year and do so by a pro forma sale of the leaven to non-Jews. He also knows that we collect debts during and after the sabbatical year even though the debts are biblically waived and are biblically forbidden to collect. Yet we do so using a pruzbul, a pro forma transference of one's debts to the local beit din (religious court) which, as an entity rather than a person, is allowed to hold and collect debt during and after the sabbatical year. Who instituted this? Hillel the Elder, no less.

Yet haredim – who contribute little to Israel's economy and who are a tremendous drain on its welfare and other resources, and who do not serve in the army – want to force Israel to comply with the strictest interpretation of shmita law.

Israeli farmers estimate their loss will be NIS 700 million if this haredi madness is not stopped. That works out to about $170 million US dollars. If adjusted for population size, this would be the equivalent of the US economy losing $8.5 trillion dollars.

Haredim ask us to rely on a miracle. I think it's time we asked haredim to rely on themselves.

Is This How They Teach You To Behave In Kollel?

Jennifer Bleyer (yes, that Jennifer Bleyer) reports in the NY Times:

Cheryl Daniels started noticing the dust and noxious fumes lingering in her Upper West Side apartment house after construction began in the building last fall. Then cracks appeared in the walls. One day, her front door stopped closing properly.

The breaking point came several weeks ago during a rainstorm. Ms. Daniels was awakened by a loud noise at 6 in the morning and discovered that water was pouring through the light fixture in her hallway. Throwing on a raincoat, she hurriedly began rescuing pictures from the walls as water pooled around her ankles.

“I’m living in fear that the building is going to collapse,” said Ms. Daniels, a kindergarten teacher who has lived in her apartment for 13 years.…

Other residents tell their own horror stories. One reports the whole building shaking. The city's Department of Buildings and its Department of Housing Preservation and Development have received "dozens" of complaints, the latter issuing "many" notices of violation.

The construction is being done to renovate and expand the building's basement. The construction itself was controversial because the building is located in an historic district and is itself protected by law from most remodeling. The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission last year gave the owners, who also occupy the basement of the building, permission to "make alterations, one of which involved building a brick-clad structure in its side and rear yards."

Yet rain now pours into the building through a "gaping hole" in the ceiling.

The NY Times tried to contact the building's owners for comment:

At least three phone calls each were placed to the synagogue; to Mordechai Prager, a rabbi from the synagogue; to Itzhak Cohen, the building’s manager; and to Morris Mitrani, who was named as the building’s lawyer in a letter sent to residents. None were returned.

The building's owner? The West Side Kollel.

Is this another example of haredim behaving badly? It sure looks like it.

Genocide and History – Is Israel Repeating the Errors Made By Britain, America and the West in 1938?

Gershom Gorenberg writes:

…[Some 1,700 Sudanese have entered Israel from Egypt in recent years, according to Eytan Schwartz of the Committee for Advancement of Refugees from Darfur, a coalition of Israeli groups. Of those, Schwartz says, 500 are from Darfur, most of the rest from southern Sudan [and therefore are predominantly Christian]. The refugees fear mistreatment -- or worse, repatriation to Sudan -- if they are returned to Egypt. Meanwhile, the trickle is growing. As Schwartz points out, Israel is the only Western democracy that can be reached overland from Sudan..…

As a country of 7 million, it's true, Israel can't solve the Darfur refugee crisis. Then again, the Israeli population is now about one-twentieth that of America just before the Holocaust. If it is enough for Israel to let in 500 people fleeing genocide, then the U.S. could have met its responsibility by taking 10,000 Jews. In fact, 50,000 Jews came to America between 1933 and 1941, according a Yad Vashem scholar. That was insufficient refuge.

The underlying issue is that, pragmatically, Israel can claim it must protect its interests…. It can argue that refugees pose a security threat. It can reject refugees in order to maintain its ethnic balance. But if it does those things, it has no grounds to speak about Western countries who turned away Jews in 1938. [Because those were the very same claims made by Western democracies in 1938.]

The claims of history demand a different policy. For a start, Israel might announce how many Darfur refugees it will take in the future. Since even more refugees are likely to arrive, it could invite Western countries to a conference at which they will make their own pledges to take those fleeing Darfur. Room for that parley could be found at the wide campus of Yad Vashem.

What I find most interesting about the debate swirling around Israel's response to the Sudanese refugees is the number of Orthodox and right wing Jews who oppose granting asylum or refuge. Yet these same people decry America and the West for its indifference to Jews during the Holocaust.

The lesson here, I think, is that the choices made by governments in (or about to be in) a state of war with home countries of refugees are rarely easy. Israel should do as Gorenberg suggests, taking in as many refugees as possible and, at the same time, facilitating placement of many others in Western countries.

It may be that Israel itself only takes in a few thousand of these unfortunate people – but Israel can play a much larger and beneficial role by shaming western countries to step up and do their share. Using the moral bully pulpit granted to us by the horrendous suffering of the Holocaust, we can do a tremendous amount of good for these poor people fleeing genocide and murder.

"Never Again!" needs to be more than a fund-raising slogan, both for those who need refuge and for those, ourselves included, who find it expedient to close our eyes to their needs.

[Hat Tip: Warren.]

Ethical Shmita or Haredi Monopoly?

As I noted earlier, haredim are using dubious methods to try to force non-Orthodox and Modern Orthodox Jews to follow shmita, the sabbatical year restrictions, in a strict haredi way, forcing them to reject the pro forma sale of land to non-Jews in order to continue farming it (heter mechira).

Writing in Ha'aretz, Yair Sheleg notes as I did here that haredim have no trouble relying on other pro forma transactions to get out of halakhic (Jewsih law) quandries. But he makes a much more important point, one I missed entirely until he raised it – haredim are tightening the strictures on the letter of shmita law while ignoring the law's actual intent and its spiritual effect:

…This policy marks a new peak in the chutzpah of the ultra-Orthodox: A population sector that does not participate in military service and whose men have only in recent years begun to join the work force is allowing itself to harm both the Israeli consumer (via expensive imports from abroad) and the Israel farmer (whose produce it rejects). And this whole policy is carried out in the name of "increased strictness," as it were, in a mitzvah (commandment) whose very implementation in modern times is quite problematic. In fact, according to most poskim (adjudicators of Jewish law), in a situation like that of today, when the majority of the Jewish people does not live in its land, there is no biblical imperative to observe shmita.…

The shmita affair demonstrates the old axiom of a Jew who was very removed from ultra-Orthodoxy: Karl Marx, who coined the phrase "social existence determines consciousness." The ultra-Orthodox know how to rely on the permit for selling hametz [leavened food] on Passover and the "transaction permit" that enables the charging of interest, whose logic is no less dubious than that of the sale permit for shmita. This is because their followers would suffer considerable loss if they were unable to rely on these permits. On the other hand, since the ultra-Orthodox are not involved in farming, they don't mind being "strict" at the expense of others.…

But the saddest aspect of the shmita story is the fact that the focus on the demands made by the ultra-Orthodox has diverted attention away from the essence of the mitzvah, which actually bears a tremendous message for our times. At one and the same time, shmita provides a response to three curses of the capitalistic era: the ecological crisis, social disparities and the crisis in spirituality. It expresses the need to slow down the economic race to give the earth some rest, to narrow socio-economic disparities and to provide workers with some leisure time which they can in turn devote to spiritual matters.

A serious religious leadership would take advantage of the shmita year to promote a modern translation of the mitzvah instead of strictly adhering to its ancient version. Thus, for example, it would have been possible to promote Rabbi Yoel Ben-Nun's idea to implement a sabbatical year for all workers in the economy (not only teachers and academics), or alternative ideas such as a covenant on reducing the exploitation of natural resources by one seventh, or creating a giant fund in which one seventh of the profits of business tycoons would be contributed toward reducing economic disparities. In this way, shmita could be transformed from a despised word to one that bears tidings for all of humanity.

I wonder if shmita was ever really followed in the haredi way? Might it even be that shmita was a creation of the first exile, added into the text of the Torah by Ezra to teach something, to make some point now lost to us?

Or perhaps it was just a miracle story, a fictional tale of a nation surviving for more than a year every seven years without farming its land in an era before frozen food, canned goods, chemical preservatives, refrigeration, or easy shipping from foreign lands?

We may never know. But Yair Sheleg is correct. Haredim take but do not give. And haredim lose the message while obsessing over details. But there is no news in this.

What Sheleg is calling for is an ethical shmita. But, as we have seen far too often, ethics and haredim do not go hand-in-hand. And there is no news in this sad fact, either.

Please Say Tehillim …

… or say a prayer or do something good to help someone in the merit of Ruhama Aliza Sara Chana bat Esther Liba, a little four-year-old Miami girl who fell into her family's pool, drowned and was resuscitated by paramedics. She's been in a vegetative state since then, on life support. Doctors say she is brain dead and want to disconnect her. The family is opposed to that. The family is looking for a facility to put her in but there appear to problems in arranging this.

You can read about the family's plight and see a local CBS News report here.

The family's attorney is Menachem Mayberg. (I think I was at part of his bar mitzva in Jerusalem in 1994. If so, and if you see this, please send my regards to  your family for me.)

For those of you who find prayer and related efforts worthless, you could send a note of support to the Schwab family or post one in the comments below.

In any case, if a fund is set up to help the Schwab family care for Aliza, I'll post the information here.

I have friends who went through a similar crisis with a child.The family was convinced he was making progress and showing signs of regaining consciousness. Sadly, he did not recover. He remained in his vegetative state and died of sepsis about one year after his accident. While this is the normal outcome of situations like this, there are exceptions, and medical science is not yet skilled enough to predict those exceptions with any degree of accuracy. Let us hope and, for those of us who still do, pray that Ruhama Aliza Sara Chana is one of those exceptions, and that she makes a complete, full and speedy recovery.

BREAKING: PETA Finds Another Glatt Kosher Slaughter Abuse – Abuses Took Place As Rabbi Yisroel Belsky Watched

Have you ever eaten venison at a glatt kosher NYC restaurant? If you have, chances are it came from Musicon Farms.

PETA went undercover to view the slaughter there. What it found does not rise to the level of abuse found at Rubashkin's Agriprocessor and Local Pride plants. Still, what it found is disturbing.

The hasidic slaughters close a metal door on the heads of animals immediately after shechita, slaughter. And they pull conscious, bleeding animals out of the pen by their heads, tearing at the shechita wound while the animal is still living. And the handling of the animals is rough before and during slaughter.

The main problems here seem to be as follows:

1. Because the pen does not adequately restrain the deer, humans need to partially restrain the animals during shechita.
2. This creates some danger for the slaughterers, and causes them to rush through the slaughter.
3. Because the animal is not well restrained, and because the shochet, slaughterer, is trying to stay out of the blood stream, the actual shechita cut is rushed and, in at least one case, too shallow. This means the animals do not lose consciousness quickly and their suffering is prolonged. Indeed, one such animal is pulled alive from the pen and dragged across the floor.
4. Dr. Temple Grandin told PETA that the pen's design does not leave enough room for the shochet to slaughter correctly.

According to PETA, the slaughter seen on this new PETA video was done in the presence of the OU's posek, rabbinic decisor, and rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Torah Vodaas, Rabbi Yisroel Belsky. In other words, Rabbi Belsky saw it with his own eyes.

In a letter sent today to Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the OU's Kashrus Division and to Rabbi Belsky, and cc'd to the OU's executive director Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Weinreb, Bruce Friedrich, PETA's vice president, wrote:

What our investigators recorded was appalling. As you may know, deer are high-strung, nervous animals. The deer killed by Musicon panicked when they entered the building. They were then wrestled into position in the restraining pen. In the “drop floor crush” restraint box, an assistant climbed on the back of the deer and knelt on the struggling animals’ shoulders to try to immobilize them. Another assistant then grabbed the deer by the ears or antlers and pulled their bodies forward to expose their necks.

Deer panic easily. Any handling—especially this type of cruel handling—causes them extreme fear and pain.

In a September 1, 2007, letter to PETA (attached), Dr. Temple Grandin confirmed that deer should not be knelt on or pulled by their ears during handling. Dr. Grandin also noted that at Musicon, there is not enough room to make a proper cut.

Immediately after shechita, the assistant would slam the pen door shut to keep the deer from thrashing; some dying animals had their heads squeezed between the frame and the door. The deer were conscious for up to a minute and a half after shechita and one was dragged away while still conscious, as confirmed by Dr. Grandin.…

Many of the problems in this plant could be solved, I think, with a better engineered pen and training for the shochtim and handlers.

PETA's Bruce Friedrich asked the OU to stop certifying any venison as kosher due to the currently unavoidable tzaar baalei hayyim, animal cruelty, involved in their slaughter.

Hasidic kashrut organizations like Satmar's Central Rabbinical Congress are perhaps the most backward when it comes to food safety, cleanliness and issues of animal slaughter and even the safety of its own employees. I suspect that Musicon is under Satmar supervision with a pro forma OU added to increase marketability.

Slaughter is not pretty. But there is no reason to make it more ugly and painful than necessary. US Humane Slaughter Law was intended to stop abuses like those at Musicaon and Rubashkin. It does not because rabbis testified before Congress, claiming shechita provided a near-instantaneous death that was pain-free. They claimed shechita was one swift cut with a surgically shape blade that severed the blood vessels to and from the brain in one swift, painless cut.

Congress exempted shechita from Humane Slaughter Law based on this testimony.

But, as we have seen time and time again, that testimony was false. Whether it was testimony from Rabbi JB Soleveitchik or testimony from haredi rabbis, what was told to Congress is only a partial truth at best.

Shechita can be done as Rabbi JB Solevietchik and others described. But in industrial shechita, that rarely happens. The rabbis who testified surely knew this.

At the same time, the US government tries to stay out of religious issues. Yet, at the same time, it has a mandate enforce the law. Eventually, it will have to do so.

Jews can either clean up their own houses or wait for the government to do it for us. The choice, my friends, is ours.

You can (and should) view the PETA video here.

QUESTION: Musicon Deer Farm's owner told PETA that, of the last 25 deer who were slaughtered before PETA's investigation, 18 were found to be carrying fawns when cut open and, therefore, could not be sold as kosher. I'm at a loss here. Why would a pregnant deer not be kosher? Am I forgetting something here?

UPDATE: Wild animals are not covered by Humane Slaughter Law. Bruce Friedrich of PETA tells me that most deer consumed in the US – even from deer farms – are simply shot in the field. Musicon may be the only place that actually tries to slaughter deer rather than hunt them.

I think this helps to explain the difficulties the shochtim at Musicon have and the problems with the pen. A little engineering help and perhaps some creative advice from Temple Grandin would probably fix the problems at Musicon.

But, as we now stand, there is no government body to step in and improve things.

UPDATE 2: I just saw a letter Dr. Temple Grandin sent to PETA after she viewed the video. She basically saw what I saw. She makes some concrete suggestions for improvement as follows:

I watched the video about kosher deer slaughter. The people behaved in a professional manner, but there are some definite problems with the restrainer and procedures. The collapse time was really slow due to a poor cut. The poor cutting is due to the plywood structure being too close to the rabbi’s knife. There is not enough space for a good cut. An additional hinged section would solve this problem. The restrainer needs a device to hold the back of the animal’s neck. The third deer was definitely not fully insensible when it was pulled out of the restrainer by its ears.  These problems can be fixed:

Better clearance for the rabbi’s knife.
A neck and back holder so a person does not have to kneel on the back of the animals.
Do not hold the head in position by holding the ears.
Never use the ears to move a sensible animal.
Design change may be needed to reduce struggling in the box. I could not see how the restrainer and leading chute was constructed in the rear.
The deer must be fully insensible before it is dragged out of the box.
Making these changes will improve the rapid collapse time.

The question remains why the OU did not act on its own to correct these problems, problems that took place in front of its senior posek, Rabbi Yisroel Belsky (he holds that position along with Yeshiva University's Rabbi Hershel Schachter).

Tefillin – Unchanged Since Moses?

Top, arm tefillin from the Cairo Genizah. The box is conical.

Middle, a drawing of tefillin made in 1725 in Amsterdam. The arm box is conical here, as well.

Bottom, modern tefillin. Note the arm tefillin is rectangular, not conical.

Please click the images to enlarge.

I post these pictures to show that our understanding of tefillin has changed over the centuries.

Modern arm tefillin are square or slightly rectangular. The Shulkhan Arukh, written near the end of the 1500s,  codifies this as law. Yet the tefillin pictured above, worn 150 years after the Shulkhan Arukh was published, seem to disregard this as does the find from the Cairo Genizah.

Why? Any thoughts on this?

A possible ancient Egyptian origin of tefillin is discussed here. 

A Quiz To Rock Your Faith

1. Kings of ancient Egypt wore them. So did the Chofetz Chaim and the late Lubavitcher Rebbe. Rabbi Gil Student wears them. So, perhaps, do you. What are they?
2. Only one man could enter there, in a space so holy that a god was said to literally dwell there. The man who could enter did not have the now-famous cohen gene, yet he may have known Moses. What space is this and who is the only man could enter it?
3. Loaves of bread are placed on a table in facing pairs. They serve a ceremonial purpose. What is that purpose?

Answers and supporting documentation after the jump…

Boro Park Child Molester

Chaptzem reports:

According to sources that spend substantial time in the Shomer Shabbos minyan factory Shul in Boro-Park, Yechiel Brauner is still touching kids in places where nobody should. According to the sources, which are keeping a close eye on convicted child molester Yechiel Brauner, who frequents the Shul, the molesetr's routine works like this; he enters the Shul when it is very busy. He then walks around until he has found himself a comfortable spot at a crowded doorway or thoroughway. He then proceeds to stand there with his arm extended downward, all the while feeling-up unsuspecting children as they pass by.

Why he is still allowed into Shomer Shabbos, or any Shul for that matter, being that he is a known convicted sex offender is beyond comprehension. The excuse that he has been rehabilitated is obviously defunct by now, because he is still molesting children every single day.

According to an expert lawyer that we consulted with in the matter, Congregation Shomer Shabbos is placing themself in the position of possibly facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the event that a molestee, or multiple molestees, should file suit. All parties involved in the Shul have been informed numerous times as to the situation with Brauner and have not done anything to protect their congregants or to bar him from entering the Shul, thus making the Shul and its leaders equally responsible for his actions.…

Chaptzem notes here that Brauner has a new car, a light blue late 90's model Mercury Grand Marquis with the license plate number BHZ 5385, and that car is not listed with the state's sex offender registry.

[Hat Tip: Michelle.]

A Cyber Trick From Chabad.org?

FrumWithQuestions notes that AishIsrael.com (and, I see, .org) leads to the Chabad.org homepage. DixieYid, in a comment on FWQ's post, notes that this is most likely illegal and believes Aish HaTorah would prevail in court. Both aishisrael.com and .org are registered by Domains By Proxy, which is a company that, in effect, creates private domain registrations that protect the names of the actual domain holder(s).

Haredi Rabbis Call For Bug-Free S'chach

Yisrael Medad points out a new haredi humra, stringency, of note. Badatz Yerushalyim is now certifying bug-free s'chach (the greenery used for the roof) for your succa. The idea is that perhaps your s'chach will become infested with bugs and those bugs might, perhaps, fall down and land in your food, and the unsuspecting Jew might accidentally eat food that contains those very same s'chach bugs.

Thank God we have rabbis to worry about these important matters of ritual observance. And, through this, you can see the greatness of our generation.

When the Jews fled Egypt, we wandered in the desert for 40 years, living in huts and tents, roasting and eating our quail or frying up our manna under the open Sinai skies. Imagine the bugs our ancestors must have consumed! No wonder God made us wander like street urchins for so long! And no wonder God punished Moses so severely! He's off communing with the Infinite while his flock are eating treife food! We might as well have eaten pork ribs!

But, thank God, God has blessed us with leaders whose holy eyes are open! They see the problems of Jews and leap in to save us from ourselves. They are zealous for us and zealous for our Lord!

Some of us have claimed that our rabbis are corrupt, that they turn a blind eye to the rape and abuse of young boys by other rabbis, that they ignore the pain caused by their overly strict rulings, that they are out of touch with the world and out of touch with Jews.

But we were wrong, each and every one of us. Our rabbis are not corrupt, my friends – our rabbis are insane.

I'd sooner have a clam fry in my succa than use their bug-free s'chach. What about you?

JewishWorldReview.com Launches "Godcast"

JewishWorldReview.com has launched a daily Torah podcast its editor, Binyamin Jolkovsky, only half-jokingly refers to as a "Godcast." Jolkovsky is running this feature in memory of his parents. His father passed away recently during a botched surgery.

Chabad Missionizing of Israel's Broadcast Journalists Gets State Aide

A newly religious Israeli journalist, now a Chabad follower, is evangelizing his government controlled workplace. As might be expected, some of his colleagues object:

"It's a scandal. It's forbidden to bring worshipers into a broadcasting facility, especially near the news department. It will start with prayers on the High Holy days, continue on regular Saturdays and then there will be a suit filed to stop broadcasting on Saturdays because it disrupts the service. So long as people sought a prayer corner in the workplace it was okay. Now they're starting to say they will pray in the Nakdi studio. Because the whole residential area around the authority is religious, who knows how it will end."

This Chabad follower uses his office as a synagogue. Under the sponsorship of the director general of Israel's Broadcast Authority, he recently obtained a Torah scroll for it and held a celebration to mark its dedication. He invited religious politicians but not secular politicians. One religious politician, former Moledet MK Rabbi Yosef Ba-Gad, had this to say:

"Bringing a Torah scroll to the heretical Broadcasting Authority is a great victory," Ba-Gad said. "Just like how the Satmar Hasidim did to the Zionists last week when they laid the cornerstone for their institutions on the ruins of the Edison Theater."

Charming.

The newly religious journalist, when asked why he invited sitting and former religious MKs and political figures but not representatives of secular parties like Likud, or Meretz, for example, invoked the M word:

"It is possible that we should have invited all the representatives. The next time there is an even more important event, the arrival of the Messiah, we will learn the lesson and invite the leaders of all the factions. This really was a mistake on my part, because every Jew is connected to the Torah."

So let's recap. The Chabad follower-journalist uses state backing to hold a Torah dedication ceremony for the state Broadcasting Authority synagogue, which is housed in his office. He invites to this state ceremony only Orthodox religious politicians. Those politicians – who control funding for the Israel Broadcasting Authority – make speeches that can easily be seen as divisive and anti-secular. (former MK Ba-Gad's remark was only one out of many similar remarks made by these Orthodox politicians.) When a reporter asks the Chabad follower-journalist why he failed to invite non-religious politicians like the heads of Likud and Meretz, the Chabad follower-politician answers in a condescending manner.

Should the IBA even have a state-sponsored Orthodox synagogue? I don't think so, in part because I oppose any state-sponsored religious activity and in part because this synagogue is particularly Orthodox. Israel has Jews who are religious but not Orthodox. Should the IBA therefore have an egalitarian synagogue, as well? A Karaite beit knesset?  A prayer room for Sabbateans?

These questions are valid for all the various state ministries and arms that have state-sponsored synagogues, but they are especially valid when dealing with the IBA which, after all, is expected to accurately report the news for all Israelis, whether or not their representatives were invited to the IBA's state-sponsored Torah dedication ceremony.

Israel To Grant Citizenship To Darfur Refugees

Bowing to pressure from Jewish groups outside Israel and from activists inside the country, Israel has decided to grant Israeli citizenship to a few hundred refugees from Darfur. The exact number – Israel calls this its "quota" – will be determined in negotiations between Israel and the United Nations. Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit explained the government's decision, reached after months of refusing to aide the refugees:

"Israel, with its history, must offer assistance," he said. "It can't stand by and shut its eyes. But a quota must be set."

The Associated Press noted that it was not clear what would happen to those refugees who do not receive citizenship. Israel has previously tried to expel African refugees to Egypt – even those refugees fleeing genocide. Egypt is said to mistreat the refugees.

"We Won't Let The Mossad Mess With Our Heritage"

In 1977 newly-elected Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the Mossad to bring Ethiopia's Jews to Israel.

In order to do what PM Begin ordered, the Mossad needed Ethiopian Jews from Israel's then-tiny Ethiopian Jewish community and from the Ethiopian Jewish community in Ethiopia and Sudan to serve as operatives on the ground in Ethiopia and Sudan. It recruited a group of Ethiopian Jewish operatives and set them to work.

Over the next eight years, these men would risk their lives. Some would be arrested and tortured. Some killed. Most gave up years of their lives for the cause. At least one defied orders from his white Mossad superiors and rescued Ethiopian Jews when the Mossad, without Begin's knowledge, had decided to forgo rescue. (This would lead to the ostracism of this operative and a lifetime of suffering, yet his work opened the escape routes that later were used by Ethiopia's Jews and led directly to Operation Moses. To be clearer, he found and developed the escape routes later used in what became Operation Moses.)

None of these men were paid.

In 2000, a government committee found all these men – some who had already been named Prisoners of Zion – deserved compensation. But only a few got paid and most of those who did seemed to have received their compensation because of who they know – not what they did.

So the group is now demanding that the government's decision be implemented and that all Ethiopian operatives be equally compensated. They also want the state to recognize their work.

I know several of these men (although not the ones pictured above). They deserve compensation and they deserve recognition and honor.

I know what Menachem Begin would have done, and it would not have taken a lawsuit to get him to do it. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for Ehud Olmert.

[Hat Tip: KK.]

Ynet Exposes Israeli Racism

Ynet did something very innovative for Israel – it sent people of differing ethnicities to look for jobs, apartments and other services, and then compared the treatment each received.

A haredi, a Russian, an Ashkenazi, a Sefardi, an Israeli-Arab and an Ethiopian Jew went out to seek work, find housing and other services. The Ashkenazi   was not discriminated against in any way. The Arab and the Ethiopian Jew almost always were treated unfairly. The (non-Orthodox) Sefardi, the haredi and the Russian made up the middle of the pack:

…The Ashkenazi caller, Itai Unger, received the most positive answers and encountered no expressions of racism. The Sepharadi Yehuda Peretz arrived second while the strictly Orthodox and Russian immigrant arrived in third and fourth place respectively.

Yet, more than half of the calls made by the Ethiopian representative, Senbato Tamanu, resulted in a refusal and dozens contained derogatory remarks. Following closely, with more than 70 percent negative answers and numerous phone-slamming, was the Arab caller Said Hanin.…

Here is one glaring example of racism:

…At the café [in Bat Yam] Senbato [the Ethiopian] applied for a job, they asked for an "espresso-machine's operator" certificate and explained "the machine we use is very complicated." Itai [the Ashkenazi], on the other hand, was asked to attend a job interview even though he said he had no experience.…

The six went across the country to test regional attitudes. In only one city were there no incidents of discrimination – Holon:

…After many repeated calls, Holon turned out to be racism-free. All six representatives received positive answers. When Said asked the landlord "don't you mind that I'm an Arab?" the answer was: "Not in the least."

Toddler Rejected By Haredi School Because He Is 1/4 Sefardic

As you read this article from Ynet, keep the following in mind:

1. The school rejecting the toddler because he has Sefardic blood is haredi.
2. There is a long history of haredi schools in general, not just this one haredi school in particular, banning students of Sefardic or partially-Sefardic descent. (This is not true of Chabad schools.)
3. The child's mother, who is 1/2 Sefardic, pleaded with the school to let her 4 1/2 year old child in. She did so by assuring the school that the child is Ashkenazi in every way except for 1/4 of his blood, and that the child is Yiddish-speaking.
4. The rejection of the child is purely based on ethnicity.
5. Even though some in the haredi leadership (like Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv) are said to be opposed to this type of bigotry, the bigotry is itself still common in haredi society, even in the second tier of haredi leadership, largely because haredi leaders have not attached any penalties for being and anti-Sefardic bigot or for supporting anti-Sefardic bigotry. You can wear a white sheet and hood and still be in the good graces of haredi leadership.
6. Israel does not enforce its anti-discrimination laws.
7. Nothing will change until either haredi leadership penalizes haredi anti-Sefardic bigots or Israel Israel makes a concerted effort to enforce the law.
8. Because neither is likely to happen soon, haredi anti-Sefardic bigotry will continue unabated.

Ynet reports:

Anyone who thinks that racist rules are a thing of the past is wrong, according to the mother of a four-and-a-half year old child who was rejected from a Talmud Torah school because of his grandfather’s ethnicity.

“They are alive and kicking in all their ugliness in Ashkenazi haredi educational institutions,” the mother said.

The child was denied admission to a Talmlud Torah school in Beit Shemesh because of what its principal called a “stain” in his genealogy.

“Tell the child’s dear father that although he himself is completely Ashkenazi, his wife’s father is Sephardic, and we therefore cannot accept his son into our institution. We have to maintain a certain standard,” the principal said.…

“I begged the principal. I explained that my child is truly Ashkenazi and looks exactly like his father. Our son also speaks Yiddish, but nothing helped,” the mother said. “They explained to a friend of ours that they didn’t want to ruin their Talmud Torah with ‘damaged goods’.”

The Talmud Torah school had previously given the same explanation to several other frustrated parents who petitioned MK Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism) for help.

The Knesset member tried several times to convince the principal to allow the rejected children admission to the school, but the principal insisted there was “no room” in the institution.

“This is a complicated problem. I don’t deal with condemning these things, just like I don’t condemn kibbutzim, which sometimes select who to accept as a member. There are communities that wish to be strict about their religion or social character. It’s not simple,” Porush said.

The school’s principal, who had previously said he only wanted “100% Ashkenazim” at his institution, told Yedioth Ahronoth he had no idea how many, if any, Sephardic children were enrolled in the school.…

[Hat Tip: The Beadle.]