Abe Foxman gets paid to worry about anti-Semitism. He worries about cemetery vandalism, about Jewish cadets feeling uncomfortable as tiny minorities at their academies, about the Pope saying or not saying the things Abe feels he shouldn’t or should. Most recently, Abe was heard demanding an apology from James Dobson for his over-the-top comparison of stem-cell research to Nazi death-camp experiments. (An aside: Given his touchiness about anything Nazi-related, will Abe also be demanding an apology from the IDF for expulsion exercises — televised in prime-time — in which soldiers wearing talis and tefillin, to resemble Gaza residents, were violently assaulted by Border Police?)

The list goes on, but the point here is not to debate the merits of whether these are things Abe is right to get exercised over. The point is, instead, that the things Jews themselves are saying and doing — and beyond specific words and deeds, that which Jews as a whole have likely come to personify in the minds of many Americans — ought to be a far greater source of concern in regard to our community’s future in this country.

Here’s a small sampling, culled from recent news reportage, of things that … Read More >>

The Jews for Jesus have come to Baltimore, as part of a multi-year campaign to blanket every major Jewish population center (outside Israel). Predictably and understandably, our local Jewish community is up in arms. In the past three weeks, the Baltimore Jewish Times has had a cover story on the campaign, an eight-page pull out section from Jews for Judaism, and, this past Friday, both the lead news story (on a meeting in Howard County) and an op-ed from Scott Hillman, director of Jews for Judaism, all addressing the missionary effort.

Jews for Judaism is a great organization — but on one thing even its directors agree: it would be far better if their work was unnecessary. Missionaries have tried to convert Jews for millenia, and in previous eras far more coercive measures were required than having a minister dress up like a Rabbi and talk about “Yeshua” rather than Jesus.

Why do we need Jews for Judaism now, when we never did before? The reason is rather simple, and was the subject of my own letter to the Jewish Times. If there is one thing we should learn from the campaign, one thing we should do in response, it … Read More >>

London Jewish Tribune
August 26, 2005

In the long span of Jewish history, the uprooting of 8,500 Jews from Gaza will not rank as one of the worst tragedies, though it was unique in that those doing the uprooting were themselves Jews. This was not 1492 and the expulsion from Spain or the Holocaust. And the attempts by some in the settler community to appropriate symbols of those earlier tragedies — yellow Jewish stars, concentration camp uniforms — and by implication, and sometimes explicitly, to cast the soldiers executing the evacuation orders in the role of Hitler’s S.S. troops, only infuriated secular Israelis.

Yet if the expulsion from Gaza was not one of the worst tragedies in Jewish history, the trauma inflicted on the Gaza residents and indeed on the entire national religious community, is nevertheless overwhelming. Rarely has a democratically elected government treated a part of its own population so harshly.

The loss for those uprooted from their homes took place on many levels — personal, communal, theological, and sociological. The faith in the imminent redemptive process that has animated the national religious community since Israel’s miraculous expansion into the Jewish people’s historic heartland in 1967 has now suffered an immense blow.

At the … Read More >>

The Jewish Press
August 24, 2005

Even as most Israelis, including those who strongly supported the withdrawal from Gaza, shed tears and felt and shared the pain of those who were being forced out of their homes and whose communities were being destroyed, there were those who continued to attack these Jews of faith and strength who surely are among the best that Israel has.

The ultra-secular Israeli world that is represented by the journalistic cesspool known as Haaretz did its sadistic best to add to the pain, to add to its long and ignoble record of hatred for Judaism.

I write these words on a plane back from Israel, after a stay of more than a month. Each day I read the English Haaretz, a difficult exercise because without let-up the newspaper denigrated and demonized the Jewish Gazans and, more generally, religious Jewry. In my experience, I cannot think of a single issue of Haaretz that has not carried at least one rabidly anti-religious article or editorial.

Two weeks before the withdrawal began, Haaretz editorialized that the Jews in Gaza were “criminals.” In a follow-up editorial the newspaper suggested that the government show an “iron fist” toward these Jews. Isn’t it interesting how those … Read More >>

Just over one hour ago, fully mindful of the negative reactions that my article has provoked, I approached an elderly neighbor of mine here in Jerusalem. This man is a survivor of Auschwitz who lost his entire family there. I asked him if he was aware of the Gush Katif children who had appeared with the “jude” ïnscribed on a yellow star. “Of course,” he replied. I then asked him the following: “As a survivor yourself of such horrors, what do you think of this action by the youngsters? Were you offended? Do you think it was a cheap stunt?” These were his exact words, translated from the Hebrew:

“Offended? Cheap stunt? Definitely not. I’m glad they did what they did. Of course, I am not saying that this is a Holocaust, not at all – obviously not – but the world needs to know that there are real parallels here to the real Holocaust. What these kids did was very very good..” (Name and address supplied upon request.)

This sentiment has been echoed by other Holocaust survivors whom I know. Not only did they not feel that this was a trivialization of … Read More >>

As you may have heard, a 21-year-old British student of the Mirrer Yeshiva Jerusalem was murdered Wednesday evening by an Arab terrorist in the Old City of Jerusalem. He was to be married in just a few months.

Moshe Simons, who has commented several times on Cross-Currents, is a volunteer with Hatzolah and was the first paramedic to the scene. He is quoted in the Ynet news article linked above — and he wrote the following in the aftermath of the attack.

I sit facing my computer, and words fail me. I have just witnessed one of the most tragic and traumatic events of my life.

A Jewish young man died in my arms tonight.

Yes, you read correctly. A Jewish man died in my arms tonight. His sin? Being Jewish in Jerusalem.

At about 8:25 this evening, we got a call from the MDA dispatcher about a stabbing on Rechov David – the shuk leading from Shaar Yaffo (Jaffa Gate) to the Kotel. I immediately left my apartment and sped over to the chaotic scene not far from there on a Hatzolah ambucycle. Upon arrival, a horrible sight greeted me. A young Jewish man, lying in a pool of his own blood, … Read More >>

Mishpacha Magazine
August 25, 2005

Reading the lead essay in the June issue of The Jewish Observer, “Struggling with Success,” by Rabbi Mattis Roberts, I was reminded of the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “In every work of genius, we recognize our own rejected thoughts, they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.” In a series of essays in The Jewish Observer in recent years, Rabbi Roberts, the Mashgiach Ruchani of Yeshiva Shaar HaTorah in Queens, has established himself as a thinker of exceptional depth and insight.

Rabbi Roberts guiding insight is that the task of yeshivos has changed greatly from that of the yeshivos in Europe. The European yeshivos were “designed to serve an elite, to mold a select few into the Torah leaders of the next generation.” Those selected into the major yeshivos had already demonstrated “outstanding scholastic ability.” The European yeshiva can be likened to the Mishkan – a gathering place for loftiest of human endeavors, the learning of Torah lishma.

By contrast, the modern American yeshiva has had to take on a completely new function. It is not only a Mishkan, but also Noach’s Ark, a place of refuge from the pernicious influences of the surrounding society. Far … Read More >>

Recently, my wife and I took our kids to a theme park for younger children. I made two observations — besides how expensive it is to take a family with several children to even a “lower-priced” park, and how convenient it can be, at times, to have two cell phones.

There were two differences between this park and most others, both of which made it better for our family — over and above the match between the ages of our children and the available rides. Number one, it had a dress code which was a few steps up from the parks with water rides. And number two, the median age of a ride attendant was more than three times what I had learned to expect.

At most parks, at least as I remember (and now I have to admit to myself how long it has been since I stepped into anything with “Six Flags” in its name), the average attendant is just out of high school. At this park, the average attendant was just out of the work force and into retirement. They were grandfathers!

I mentioned this to one of them, who was taking his lunch break when we stopped for … Read More >>

Along with other members of my family, I was at the massive Tefila and Tehillim gathering at the Kotel prior to the painful commencement of the withdrawal from Gaza. The event was extraordinary because it brought together perhaps 250,000 or even more religious Jews from all sectors. This was not a political event. Thus, I was surprised to read in the latest Yated Ne’eman (the U.S. edition) that the gathering was “futile” and “fruitless.” Such language which echoes the slant taken by Haaretz and other secularists is shocking when it comes from a newspaper that is rooted in the yeshiva world.

When we daven or say tehillim, even when the focus is on a particular individual or set of circumstances, what we are doing is strengthening our emunah, thereby bringing us closer to G-D and to an acceptance of what He has decreed. The person on whose behalf we are praying or the circumstance that we have in mind serves no more than as the instrumentality for the strengthening of our belief, in much the same way that when we give tzedakah to a poor person, the recipient is no more than the instrumentality … Read More >>

We were privileged to have Dr Judea and Ruth Pearl at our Shabbos table a week ago. They left us a copy of their book, I Am Jewish, which collected reactions of several scores of Jews to some of their son Daniel’s last words to his killers: “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.” (What I did not know, until I looked at the book, was that they were not his very last words uttered freely. Those in fact were “Back in the town of Bnei Brak, there is a street named after my great-grandfather, Chayim Pearl, who was one of the founders of the town.” Daniel, on his father’s side, came from stock aligned with Kotzk and Ger.)

In the course of Shabbos, I found myself sampling the contents, looking for familiar names to see how they distilled the essence of their Judaism. Predictably, I loved the contribution of former Chief Rabbi Lau. Less predictably, I was taken by the response of Arno Penzias, a Nobel laureate whose eavesdropping on the “background noise” of the universe provided the confirmation of Big Bang – and of a beginning to our universe … Read More >>

Today, Erev Shabbos Nachamu, my brother wrote the following, which I am taking the liberty of posting here:

Newspaper-reading Jews all over America have doubtless found it quite vexing that in the reporting of the evacuations carried out in Gaza over the past week, very little has been noted concerning the remarkable restraint shown not only by the “psychologically prepared” soldiers, but by the “fanatically religious, half-crazed, zealot settlers,” as described by the press.

Actually, the word “remarkable” hardly does this restraint justice. The word “incomparable” is much better suited.

To all those in the American media who have failed to perceive just how incomparable this restraint has been, I have just four words — The Branch Davidian Complex.

This is the closest American analogy to the events in Gaza in recent memory. For those with an interest in “Ancient History” there is “The Jonestown Massacre”, where followers of Reverand Jim Jones either voluntarily or involuntarily swallowed cyanide-laced Kool Aid, when faced with the break up of their little cult.

What you have in those two instances and I am sure in many more, is the Christian version of “fanatically religious, half-crazed, zealots.” As to the … Read More >>

Mishpacha Magazine
August 18, 2005

The first casualty of the Gaza withdrawal has been the sundering of the relationship between secular Israel and the national religious camp. The national religious have become the new chareidim as far as the secular media goes.

The anti-disengagement campaign has been an unsurpassed failure in terms of winning over wavering secular voters. The use of Holocaust imagery — prison camp uniforms, Jewish stars — strikes most Israelis as an egregiously offensive example of the trivialization of the Holocaust as universal metaphor. The charge that the Gaza withdrawal is anti-Semitic in its essence enrages those who support the withdrawal as the only way to preserve Israel as a Jewish state. And comparisons troops carrying out the uprooting to Hitler’s S.S. infuriates parents of all those who serve in the army.

Repeated efforts to close major highways — including in a few cases by pouring spikes and oil onto highways — has succeeded only in trying the patience of the average Israeli. Even the manner in which young teenage demonstrators have been imprisoned for up to a month has failed to stir the secular public. They see their incarceration as further evidence of the fanaticism of their parents, who refused … Read More >>

I mentioned that I’d read two articles in the NY Times. If you haven’t already, please read my other post first. Here’s the second one:

August 15, 2005
Gazans Harbor Modest Dreams Amid Concerns
By JAMES BENNET

“Modest Dreams” — almost touching, isn’t it? That’s just the headline, care to guess how the rest of the article reads?

I received the following communication, which was written anonymously on an individual level, yet on behalf of all of us on a communal level. In essence, it says that the Government of Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in no way compromises our eternal title to all the lands promised to the Jewish People, any more than did the forced exiles under Babylonian and Roman rulers.

Initially, I didn’t really see the point of saying this — especially for those of us in more charedi circles, who never claimed that the modern, secular state was the herald of the Messianic Age. On further reflection, though, with “Disengagement” upon us, I understood what the author perceived all along — that for our own reinforcement, and the understanding of others, we do need to declare that this land, even that piece of it which the state is now leaving, is our People’s.

That is, in essence, what is said, but the full text is printed within.

John Buchanan, pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, is one of the good guys. His denomination was the first among those in the Protestant mainline to vote for divestment from Israel last August. Buchanan announced at the time that his own congregation would choose to invest in Israel, rather than divest from it – supporting projects in Israel that help the peace process. He was one of many, many Presbyterians who expressed displeasure with the misguided moves of their church’s leadership.

Nonetheless, Buchanan threw some cold water on the situation in a letter in last Wednesday’s New York Times. Those who criticized his church got it all wrong. Citing some Jewish claims in the press, he wrote, “What it is not is ‘a brilliantly organized political campaign to hurt Israel’ nor is it ‘functionally anti-Semitic.’”

I beg to differ.

A few weeks ago, I found myself with a colleague in Portland, Oregon, involved in a struggle against yet another mainline Protestant denomination, poised to pass a resolution inimical to Israel’s security. We came face to face with some of the engineers of that “organized political campaign,” and I am more convinced than … Read More >>