Shas could have been a crucial element of any possible coalition, had it retained 13 seats in the new Knesset. With the final tally dropping Shas to 12 and bringing Meretz up to 5, it is possible that Olmert can form a coalition without them. Certainly Olmert has no overwhelming need to bring United Torah Judaism into the government as well.

For its part, UTJ may be just as happy to have Shas carry the ball on negotiations over child allowances (though not over support for religious institutions), and to avoid the ideological conflicts sure to arise if Olmert pushes forward with his plans for civil marriage, expedited geirus for Russian immigrants, and a core educational curriculum.

One of the perennial rituals in the chareidi community is wondering why United Torah Judaism’s Knesset representation remains stagnant, despite the rapid growth of the chareidi community. This year will be no exception, despite the fact that UTJ increased its representation from five to six. The lowest ever turnout yesterday -– 63% — created a situation tailor-made for UTJ to pick up a seventh seat. In the past, chareidi neighborhoods have produced turnouts of 90% or above.

That was not the case yesterday. The chareidi … Read More >>

Haaretz has a fascinating piece on a Nazi officer’s notebook, which was covered by a fragment sliced from a Torah scroll. It was given by the Nazi officer’s son to Moti Dotan, the head of the Lower Galilee Regional Council, for him to give to “a holy man in the Lower Galilee.”

What passage might you imagine being most appropriate to the Nazis?

Rabbi Grossman turns over the piece of parchment and reads from the text. The parchment is from the book of Deuteronomy, from the weekly portion “Ki Tavo.” The rabbi reads: “…and distress wherewith thy enemy shall distress thee in thy gates … then the Lord will make thy plagues remarkable, and the plagues of thy offspring, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and severe sicknesses, and of long continuance … also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this Torah, them will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou art destroyed. And you shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of the heaven for multitude” (Deuteronomy 28, 57-62).

Read. Shudder. Repeat.

The month of Nisan is upon us, and our preparation for the Festival of Freedom is entering its final, frenetic state. The war in Iraq, foundering on the shoals of the primitiveness of Arab society, should offer us new ways of appreciating what Hakadosh Baruch Hu did for us.

Remember the pride we felt when we learned that one of the strongest influences on President Bush’s thinking about resisting Islamofascism was Natan Sharansky? How the diminutive hero of the refuseniks so impressed the President that he had members of his cabinet read Sharansky’s book? How enthralled America was with the notion that the ultimate weapon against tyranny and repression was democracy itself? If the Iraqis could just stick with it long enough to taste the power of the ballot box, there would be no turning back. They would surely stay the course after that.

The election came and went, and the course instead wended its way into a smoldering civil war. What went wrong?

Remember the disgust so many Americans felt when Iraqis spat at the notion of democracy? Who would not want to be free? What kind of people would laugh at the mention … Read More >>

Hodesh tov.

I put in an intense 48 hours during the Israel election,(1) first handling media issues then (2) as part of a team driving cross-city and cross-country to get stranded voters to their polling booths.
(1)Media issues: I became alerted to a last minute glitch from a letter in the Jerusalem Post by a floating voter who thought my arguments for voting for Shas were persuasive (I emphasized their accomplishments in education.)
But the letter writer changed his mind Mar.27 when he saw a headline that Rav Ovadia Yosef allegedly said those who did not vote for Shas would be cursed.

After obtaining a copy of the short notice that the Rav had sent to Sefardi yeshiva students who were going to sit out the election, I wrote the Post and they were very fair, printing my explanation the morning of the election.

Sir, – The latest election pronouncement of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual mentor of the Shas Party, was as American as motherhood and apple pie. He even mentioned, approvingly, the famous Yiddishe Mama.
He quoted the prophetess Deborah, whom the Bible terms “mother in Israel.” Deborah said that those who do … Read More >>

The G-Man had a guest on his show today discussing the election results, which I happened to hear for five minutes during the drive back from an appointment. In those five minutes I heard enough biased and erroneous coverage to fill five hours of writing, but I’ll be brief.

The person whom he was interviewing was obviously a right-wing settler, very opposed to the idea that Olmert’s government will likely conduct further withdrawals, and that the “ultra-Orthodox” Shas party would be party to removing religious Jews from “the heartland” of the Jewish people, Judea and Samaria. I don’t disagree that Hevron is part of the heartland, but so is Jerusalem.

Asks Liddy: Are these the same ultra-Orthodox who are opposed to the existence of the Zionist state?

Answer: No, that’s another group of ultra-Orthodox, who recently went to Iran etc. etc. etc. The interviewee equated the Niturei Karta nutcases, who number 50, with Shas, who polled over 340,000 votes yesterday. No attempt was made to point out that Shas has nothing to do with Niturei Karta, or that they, like any sane individuals, regard them as encouraging murder of Jews.

Asks Liddy: Are these the same ultra-Orthodox who basically, under Israeli law, … Read More >>

Along with the political rejection of the hard right, the electorate also repudiated Thatcherite, or free market economics, along with the man most closely identified with it, Binyamin Netanyahu. Even within Netanyahu’s own Likud Party, there was much grumbling from party loyalists about the pinch of Netanyahu’s economic policies, despite the fact that they brought about rapid economic growth and job creation.

Labor Chairman Amir Peretz will almost certainly demand the Finance Ministry portfolio. If he receives it, as also seems likely, expect the Israeli economy to enter the doldrums. Peretz understands nothing of economics, and what he thinks he understands is all wrong. His nostrum for the socio-economic divide – an increase in the minimum wage – would do little for the poor other than cost many of them their jobs. As leader of the Histadrut, Peretz wreaked havoc on the economy through many strikes, almost all of which were called to protect the perquisites of higher-paid government workers.

Those parties most likely to join the government coalition – Labor, Shas, and the Pensioners — will all present Prime Minister Olmert with an expensive wish list. All three campaigned primarily on socio-economic issues. Where the money will come from to meet … Read More >>

This morning, we know that Ehud Olmert will be the next prime minister, and that Binyamin Netanyahu’s chances of ever again being prime minister are close to nil. Throughout the campaign Olmert and Netanyahu traded sharp and personal jabs, accusing the other of blind ambition and a lack of fixed principles. Both had a point.

With respect to the issues, the Israeli electorate marginalized the so-called hard Right. Yisrael Beiteinu (12), NRP/NU (9), and Likud (11), together garnered only 32 seats, or a little over one-quarter of the Knesset. And neither Likud nor Yisrael Beiteinu ruled out the possibility of further territorial withdrawals. The lessons of the Gaza withdrawal have been reinforced: the religious Right and settler communities no longer enjoy the sympathy and support of the Israeli population.

But even though Olmert campaigned on an platform of further withdrawals, it is unclear that the elections provided him with the mandate he sought. Polls show that most Israelis oppose further unilateral territorial withdrawals. Even some of Olmert’s closest security advisors within Kadima, such as former Shin Beit head Avi Dichter, oppose further moves along the model of the Gaza withdrawal. In Dichter’s view, Israeli troops would have to remain behind even after … Read More >>

In today’s Jerusalem Post:

The haredi Nahal unit of the IDF captured an 18-year-old Palestinian suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt at the Beka’ot roadblock in the Jordan Valley on Wednesday afternoon.

The belt held approximately 10kg of explosives, Jordan Valley Battalion Commander Col. Moti Elmoz told Israel Radio.

Sappers successfully defused the bomb.

Jerusalem Post says turnout reached 63%, while Channel 2 says 62%.

With 99.67% of the votes now counted, JPost and Israel National News report:
28 Kadima, 20 Labor, 13 Shas, 12 Israel Beiteinu, 11 Likud, 9 NU/NRP (Mafdal), 7 Pensioners, 6 UTJ, 4 Meretz, and 10 to the Arab parties.

Uri Bank of Mafdal (NU-NRP) speaking to the Jewish Agency webcast, expressed serious disappointment: the right wing is not large enough to prevent the formation of a Kadima-Labor government, which means the West Bank withdrawal proposed by Ehud Olmert is likely to go through.

Israel Channel Two now estimates final voter turnout will be 60%, which is the lowest in history for the Israeli Knesset. The previous low, according to Israel National News, was 69%. The only other time they had a turnout this low was in 2001 — but then there was only a direct vote for the Prime Minister, where people understandably believed their vote was less necessary.

This is good news for the smaller parties, because their voters are, in general, somewhat more motivated than those for the larger ones. However, Jonathan Rosenblum tells me that charedi turnout was disappointing. Indeed both Belz and Slonim came to the polls much less than usually, and apparently the Karlin-Stoliner Rebbe also didn’t recommend either way, leaving it up to the individual whether to go vote. Given the upcoming Pesach holiday, you can imagine that low priorities drop off the page quickly.

Nontheless, UTJ is likely to eke out six seats, and Shas, which polls gave 9 or 10 seats, may benefit from the low turnout.

The blame for any perceived shortcomings with Artscroll does not belong with Artscroll. The real culprit is far more sinister.

My recent post on pictures of Gedolim of previous generations unpredictably invited a large number of comments, many heading in all sorts of directions. A sub-thread took aim at the editorial and hashkafic policies of Artscroll.

I believe that the critics have forgotten an important factor, perhaps the single most important factor in determining Artscroll’s policies. Artscroll is not an academic institution. It is a for-profit business. It can hardly be blamed for doing what businesses do – keeping an eye on the bottom line.

Full disclosure. I’ve been published by Artscroll, and have no complaints about my treatment. I continue to work on an ongoing project. I know many of the writers, and people in the upper administration. Those whom I know are bright, principled, and possessed of definite hashkafic views. At the same time, virtually everyone I’ve met in the Artscroll orbit displays far more intellectual openness than you generally encounter in our community. The people I know enjoy a good thought from Rav Kook, … Read More >>

The Jerusalem Post has an interesting article about Charedi voting in tomorrow’s elections. But as far as I can figure, it combines much ado about nothing with wrong information.

Ya’acov Litzman, who is the Chairman of UTJ [United Torah Judaism, the combination of the charedi parties Agudat Yisrael and Degel HaTorah], says he fears “extremists” coming to Beit Shemesh to disrupt the elections. The Niturei Karta, at last count, numbered no more than 50 people (and probably much less). They can’t disrupt more than one polling station if the descend en masse. And while I recall seeing “action” in elections, the Edah Haredit wasn’t responsible for disruptions.

I think the Degel HaTorah spokesperson has it right: “Litzman’s comment was a tactic to awaken a haredi populace that has shown indifference to voting,” and nothing more. This is because “any attempts by the anti-election Edah Haredit… to intimidate traditional supporters would have a boomerang effect.”

The Edah isn’t really an extremist group. Their Kosher certification is responsible for a considerable portion of the strictly-kosher food available. True, they disagree with voting, but I doubt they’re going to go stand in the way. Maybe someone in Jerusalem can correct me in the comments, … Read More >>

On Friday, Shira Schmidt took Eytan Kobre to task for his earlier post “deriding the Conservative movement’s current quandry.” Her view is that help, understanding and a “life-preserver” are preferable to derision or a patronizing attitude.

While it is always difficult to argue against a more gentle approach, I nonetheless see a place for sarcasm in an article like Eytan’s. The Conservative movement is having an ever-so-serious discussion that obviously boils down to when, not if, it will place modern Western values ahead of the eternal Torah, all the while attempting to wrap the discussion in “Halachic” terms. When presented with something plainly ridiculous, sometimes it is right to rise to the challenge. “Ridiculous” is “deserving or inspiring ridicule;” what’s wrong with being inspired?

An unseemly form of ridicule would be to simply call them ignorant fools, and leave it at that. To offer a real-world parallel, there are those who dismissed Rabbi Adlerstein’s sensitive discussion of homosexuals and homosexuality by calling him a homophobe. Anyone who bothered to read his articles knows otherwise, but believe me, there are those out there who stopped reading at the headline and imagined they knew … Read More >>

24 bAdar

What do you do when you enjoy a colleague’s witty, acerbic satire of other Jews, but you feel that perhaps one should not mock people, even if you believe their derekh is mistaken? That is how I felt when I read Eytan Kobre’s article Playing (for Time) (March 19) deriding the Conservative movement’s current quandry below in Cross-currents.

In the Purim issue of the Jewish Observer R. Yisrael Rutman analyzed the statement from the Talmud Megilla 25b “All ridicule is forbidden,except the ridicule of idol worship.” R. Rutman cites the Talmudic examples of when mockery is legitimate.

Rather than proferring derision, I suggest we offer a life-preserver to those who are on the Conservative movement’s ship which is about to break apart due to the eventual legitimization they will give (sooner or later) to ordaining rabbis who engage in mishkav zakhar (sodomy) and related activities. There are a number of rabbis and lay people who could fit into the milieu of the modern Orthodox and modern haredi lifestyle.

For example, several decades ago I lived in a city in Israel in which there were many modern Orthodox along with … Read More >>

These photos of gedolim (world-class Torah luminaries) in their younger days should not be missed. They range from the late 19th century to the middle of the 20th, and contain several dimensions of surprise. Some of the subjects are smart, rakish dressers. Some are members of a Zionist organization operating within a great Lithuanian yeshiva. Some display an informality rarely seen later in life. Many are clean-shaven.

The set will serve as a Rorschach test of attitudes towards change within the yeshiva world. Depending on their own leanings, some people will bemoan the increased uniformity and regimentation of later times. Some will see the intrusion into the Lithuanian orbit of Chassidic modes of thought, with its greater emphasis on demonstrable separateness. Others will see the opposite: a healthy decision to oppose the openness of more Westernized societies with a conscious decision to circle the wagons and protect what is inside.

Whatever your orientation, these pictures are a delight, and may very well change your view of life in the “holier” days of old. They will certainly inspire much discussion. [Thanks to Harvey Tannenbaum, Efrat for mailing the link.]

The NY Jewish Week covers the “largest PEJE conference ever.” PEJE is the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education, and the fact that this conference is large and growing can only mean good things.

Non-Orthodox day schools are now popping up all over the country — and whatever we might have to say about the movements themselves, Day Schools are a positive force. They are much better than Hebrew schools, and usually not as doctrinal as the movements (one reason: many of the teachers are, as you might have figured, Orthodox).

A generation ago, many Modern Orthodox Jews sent their children to public school, but today a day school or yeshiva education is all but a given for this cohort.

What changed?

“It was a monomaniacal commitment to Jewish education,” Rabbi Gottlieb said. “It was a recognition that it was one of those things that was absolutely necessary to [transmit] cultural values.”

Rabbi Joshua Elkin, executive director of PEJE, said non-Orthodox Jews could learn a lot about accepting the day school idea from their more traditional counterparts.

“In the Orthodox community, families for the most part believe in this kind of education, and they arrange their lives to make that possible,” said … Read More >>

Researchers at Emory University in Atlanta recently devised an interesting experiment to test the reasoning, or the lack thereof, of political partisans.

Prior to the 2004 American presidential election, a group of Kerry supporters and a group of Bush supporters were each given six statements by their candidate. Next they were given pieces of information that documented a blatant contradiction between their candidate’s first statement and his subsequent words or deeds. At that point, the subjects were asked to consider the apparent discrepancy between their candidate’s initial statement and the second statement or behavior and to rate the degree of contradiction involved. Finally, they were given a third statement that might reconcile the first and second piece of information, and asked to reconsider the degree of contradiction involved.

While being presented with these tasks, the subjects’ brains were being monitored by magnetic resonance to determine what areas of the brain were most active. The investigators found that the presentation of the information raising questions about the honesty or consistency of the subject’s favored candidate triggered no increased activity in the brain in areas normally associated with reasoning. Instead a network of emotional circuits lit up.

When the third statement offering a possible reconciliation … Read More >>

I am gratified that someone pointed out this column from the Jerusalem Post, called “What Conservative Judaism conserved.” It is relevant to other recent posts, of course, but also stands on its own.

The author is a former chairman of the Council of Regional Presidents of the United Synagogue of America — a high-ranking lay position in the Conservative movement. So he speaks as a knowledgeable insider, as one who help conduct a survey of Conservative families in the late 1970s. Yet I have not previously heard of their conclusions:

The results of the survey were devastating to those of us who conducted it as well as to the movement’s leadership. We were able to show, with a high degree of statistical accuracy, that the movement in the US had no long-term capacity to replicate itself.

We found that while many adult members of the movement came from more observant backgrounds, they, in the absence of any long-term commitment to religious observance, had not been able to convey the same level of religious feeling to their children.

I don’t think any of us who grew up in the Conservative movement could disagree with this statement. The next generation either became … Read More >>

My last post re Conservative clergy mulling homosexual ordination generated comment from several people who communicated their distaste for what I wrote. They raised issues that I feel I should address, and, indeed, I’ve directly contacted two of them to discuss their concerns. I feel I should discuss this on Cross Currents as well and will, bl”n, do so in a coming post.

But for now, I thought I’d reprint here an article of mine entitled “Judaism, Nature and Homosexuality” that appeared in the Forward in February 2001, both because of its general relevance to the current Conservative situation and its specific relevance to the following Ha’aretz news item cited in Shira Schmidt’s recent comment:

“Rabbi Alan Cohen of Overland Park, Kansas, said his synagogue, in a show of sensitivity to gays, years ago replaced a traditional Bible reading on the afternoon of the Yom Kippur Day of Atonement, the holiest day of the Jewish year.His congregation dropped the reading that included Leviticus 18:22, which says: ‘Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abomination.’”

Here, pace clergyman Cohen, is my piece:

The JTA headline on the recent World Zionist Organization elections says “WZO Elections Send Pluralist Message – But Who’s Listening?” Perhaps the reason why no one is listening is because that isn’t really the message, at all.

The Reform movement is celebrating their win of 55 of the 145 total seats. The JTA points out that the non-Orthodox voices remain the majority: “Of the 145 delegates up for grabs in balloting for the U.S. slate to the WZO’s 35th Congress of the Jewish People, 89 went to parties representing progressive religious movements — Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist.”

This is, however, a shallow victory. Of far greater import are the trendlines to be followed by comparing this election with previous ones. In the last election, the Reform movement won 61 seats, over 40%, and in 1997 they took 70 seats, nearly half the total. This time around, the Religious Zionist slate won 35 seats, taking second place from the Conservative movement’s Mercaz for the first time — and more than doubling their 1997 tally.

Overall, one of the most interesting results is the fact that fewer and fewer people seem to care. While nearly 108,000 people participated in 1997, this year fewer … Read More >>