By Yaakov Menken, on June 30th, 2006 Rabbi David Eliezrie has an opinion piece in this week’s Forward — Bring Orthodox to Communal Table. As he points out, it’s a two-way street. The “mainstream” Jewish organizations are slow to reach out to the Orthodox, and the Orthodox are reluctant to participate in what he calls the “alphabet soup” of Jewish organizations. But, as he says, that needs to change.
As the number of Orthodox continues to grow, [Steven] Bayme had the intellectual courage to ask, will the establishment organizations make room for representatives of the community’s fastest-growing population? For all the liberal Jewish groups’ talk of pluralism, the answer is far from clear.
Establishment organizations have long been wary of engaging their more Orthodox brethren. When they do, they usually limit that involvement to the most liberal segments of the Orthodox world…
The very forum in which Bayme participated was indicative of this discomfort. The scholars at the AJCommittee seminar, all of a liberal bent, made repeated reference to “fundamentalism and extremism” in the Jewish world. It seems that if you observe Shabbat, keep kosher and follow the Shulchan Aruch you are automatically labeled a member of a fringe group.
Just imagine if Orthodox scholars had a major seminar … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on June 29th, 2006 Not exactly, but close.
Readers whose every reaction to the question of striking back at the enemy is “nuke ‘em” need not read the rest. Those who seriously consider Torah guidelines on the justification for war and the appropriateness of different kinds of response might find what follows useful.
Without suggesting for a moment that any single source can adequately address a complex halachic issue, I nonetheless offer this passage from the Maharal’s Gur Aryeh (Genesis 34:13). Maharal questions the propriety of Yaakov’s (Jacob’s) sons wiping out the entire city of Shechem, site of today’s Nablus. How is it that an entire city should be punished for the misdeeds of a single malfeasor? After rejecting Rambam’s approach, Maharal continues (free translation):
It seems to me that there is really no question. [A conflict between individuals or groups is] not comparable to strife between two national groups, like the Israelites and the Canaanites. For this reason, it was permitted for Yaakov’s sons to wage war, comparable to that of any nation waging war on another. Although our Torah commands us (Deuteronomy 20:10) “When you approach a city to wage war against it, you shall call … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on June 28th, 2006 Unbelievable. We already know that the officer saw things that no medical examiner was able to see — e.g. not merely bite marks, but “pinch marks.” But the whole allegation that Valis confessed to long-term abuse of the child, and to not wanting him because of a birth defect? She has no clue where she got it from.
I’m going to offer a theory — Valis said his baby had a Mum, a blemish, on his neck. My theory is that the baby had a birthmark, which the officer misconstrued as a bite mark. Because as you will see herein, Valis “unequivocally denied” hitting the child, and never confessed to her to biting, to pinching, and certainly never confessed to not wanting his baby, and never confessed to having abused his baby from birth. And as we know, both medical reports say that no signs of abuse or deliberate harm were found on the baby.
What the officer told the press was one fabrication piled upon another. Excerpts from the court transcript have been posted in the original Hebrew; what follows is a translation of the last excerpted sections.
By Yaakov Menken, on June 27th, 2006 This comment, from my friend Moshe, is far too important to remain in the comment thread. Those fluent in Hebrew can follow the link and read the transcript excerpts for themselves…
OK:
I don’t have the full protocol in front of me, but from todays court hearing it seems that the Police lied to the press.
Basically, according to the police, the father admitted his guilt to one person – a police officer by the name of Brikman – the fellow mentioned in article above. He did not admit guilt to anyone else. Only to Brikman. When interrogated by the policewoman, he denied everything, and that is all written up in the police report.
After he admitted his guilt to Brikman, the policewoman was interviewed by the press (TV, radio, newspaper), and she told them that the Father told her that the child was born with a disability, and ‘he didn’t want him’.
It seems that the Father said no such thing, and she made up the statement in order to smear the father. Additionally, she claimed that the ‘she couldn’t handle hearing the Fathers description [of beating his child]’.
Unfortunately for her, not only could she not handle it – she … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on June 27th, 2006 [CORRECTION: Please see the comment from Yisrael below. President Katzav only refuses to refer to non-Orthodox clergy as Rav in Hebrew. As per my statements below, calling them Rav would be entirely inappropriate. I still think he should have said Rabbi or something, rather than Eric, but this is another example of the newspapers not telling the story quite like it was...]
Israeli President Moshe Katzav has managed to get Reform and Conservative Jewry quite upset, simply by refusing to refer to Reform Rabbi Eric Yoffie as “Rabbi.”
By Yaakov Menken, on June 26th, 2006 Saturday’s Washington Post has (via the Religion News Service) an article from the NJ Star-Ledger, Edict turns many Jews in Lakewood into library regulars. A possible subtitle of the article is “blogs don’t represent community consensus” — especially when it comes to a community like Lakewood.
“Most Orthodox Jews, interviewed recently almost nine months after the edict was issued, said they support the policy.” The result is that Internet use in the library is up, and there is ongoing discussion of creating a public Internet center. People without Internet at the office can still do what they need to do — such as online banking or shopping — or even read their favorite sites, without exposing their children to the Internet’s harms.
The article is very balanced and fair. While it uses language like “edict” and “ban,” it also points out that those who need access can get an exemption. If a person has a legitimate need, they get permission and it’s fine. You also hear that a few residents don’t like the policy, and that blogs have ridiculed it, but you also get lines like the following:
The rabbis realize they will never get 100 percent compliance … Read More >>
By Guest Contributor, on June 26th, 2006 by Sarah Shapiro
On April 10th, Erev Pesach, an appalling news item appeared in The Jerusalem Post:
The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office on Sunday filed an indictment against a 19-year-old father on the day a medical team at Hadassah-University Hospital, Ein Kerem, declared the baby, whom he had severely beaten, clinically dead.
Without my realizing it, the wording, “whom he had severely beaten” established instantly in my mind that there was no question so far as the facts were concerned: a father had beaten his baby and the baby had died. The article went on to inform us that the man was “charged with abuse and violence of a minor or helpless person, causing severe injury, and faced a maximum sentence of nine years in jail.” Of course he should go to jail, I thought with disgust. “There were “signs of violence on the baby’s body,” the report continued, “including teeth marks.” With horror and indignation, I wondered what in the world was going on with the baby’s mother, to have entrusted their newborn to her psychopathic spouse.
During questioning by police, the father at first denied that he had deliberately hurt the infant. He said he had tried to calm him down … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on June 25th, 2006 As if the barrage of Kassam rockets were not enough, Hamas operatives — in conjunction with other factions — conspired to dig a tunnel in order to attack soldiers at the PA-Israel border at the Kissufim crossing. Two soldiers were killed, one has been kidnapped, in an attack conducted today with the full participation of Hamas. See the IRIS report for full details.
And now Hamas, terrorists-in-chief at the PA, would like to exchange him for Palestinian murderers held in Israeli jails.
As I wrote back in January, with Hamas in charge, any Hamas terrorism should rightly be deemed an act of war. Like it or not, Rabin’s “peace” plan was a failure, and the Gaza withdrawal was a failure. The only thing Hamas should get in exchange is the right to fly the white flag of surrender.
Israel is at war. The only question is whether the government will recognize the obvious.
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on June 25th, 2006 The influence of Darwinism has long since penetrated into the popular consciousness, and spawned new pseudo-sciences, such as sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, which attempt to explain every aspect of human nature as an outgrowth of a hypothesized ruthless struggle for existence. Popular Darwinism, and its pseudo-scientific offshoots, properly belong more in the realm of the history of ideas than the history of science.
The late Australian philosopher David Stove in a collection of essays entitled Darwinian Fairytales: Selfish Genes, Errors of Heredity, and Other Fables of Evolution, links popular Darwinism to other modern deterministic theories, such as Marxian economic determinism and Freudianism. There is apparently something appealing, he notes, about doctrines that absolve us of responsibility for our lives. These doctrines, Stove points out, tend to arise in periods of Enlightenment, and to serve the cause of liberation, in particular sexual liberation, and to undermine all traditional notions of morality.
Accordingly, evolutionary psychologists have of late turned their sights on religion itself. Yale psychology professor Paul Bloom, writing in Atlantic Monthly, provides a good example of the genre. Bloom cites experiments showing that even infants attribute agency and intention to animate objects. That ability is crucial to the development of … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on June 23rd, 2006 By now, most of our readers have certainly heard of the momentous victory for fairness at the Presbyterian General Assembly in Birmingham. Because I spent considerable professional time working on this issue for two years through my work with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, accompanied a group of pro-Israel Presbyterian activists to Israel, spent a few days in Birmingham and testified before the Peacemaking Committee, I have much to unburden myself of. I began with a post a few days ago; I hope that readers will excuse me and simply ignore my rants if I belabor the point. They can always switch to Solitaire.
As far as I can tell, there are three reasons to cheer this development. I will save the most obvious for last, and first talk about the ones you will not be reading about elsewhere.
The Presbyterians don’t hate us. Their leaders (more accurately, some of their leaders) do, but not the folks in the pews. Consider the inappropriateness of my very attendance. Picture a few thousand of the church faithful, gathered for important church business, prayer and study, and in walk a few of our kind, sporting beards and large yarmulkes. … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on June 22nd, 2006 My post of Sunday evening on the limited tolerance expressed by a Reform Rabbi has drawn many comments. Surprisingly, the bulk of these have gone towards debating the meaning of the word “pluralism.”
I call it surprising because I used the term “pluralism” the same way it is consistently used when discussing Jewish religious denominations. Reform claims to be “pluralistic” — and claims that the Orthodox are not — because Reform accepts the validity of Orthodoxy as a form of Jewish religious expression, while Orthodoxy doesn’t accept Reform.
It was a great surprise to find two things: (a) that some people are unaware of how often the term “pluralism” is used to express why Reform has the moral high ground over the Orthodox, and (b) that people were more than willing to utilize some alternate definition of pluralism in order to render Rabbi Marx’s harsh attack on Torah Judaism consistent with a belief in something, anything that could be called “pluralism,” no matter how dubious its relevance to the discussion at hand.
Terms don’t exist in a vacuum.
By Shira Schmidt, on June 21st, 2006 25 bSivan
Why did a prominent writer of over 50 juvenile books in the Orthodox world, whose essays have also been published, write against the upcoming parade this summer in Jerusalem promoting homosexual activity? Yaffa Ganz has taken up the gauntlet and as a concerned mother, grandmother, and Jew has written an acerbic essay against the parade, “Love, Borders, and Civilization” . The parade, scheduled for Aug. 6-12 (12-18 MenahemAv) is sponsored by an international coalition of homosexual and lesbian groups called “worldpride” whose slogan is “love without borders.” Hence the title of Yaffa Ganz’s article in favor of borders and against the parade.
It was published in the Jerusalem Post 24 bSivan (June 20) side-by-side with an op ed essay by Levi Weiman-Kelman, a Reform rabbi who presents arguments in favor of the parade in an op ed titled Why a rabbi will march in Worldpride.
With respect to the essay by Yaffa Ganz, whom I know and highly respect, I felt her arguments might not convince people who favor the parade to change their mind. But she does a good job of reinforcing those who are … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on June 21st, 2006 Before leaving for Birmingham, Alabama a week ago I mourned my fate, and told friends that I was about to descend into Presbyterian hell. I never did quite find it, though.
Much of what transpired at the biennial General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church – USA (PCUSA) cannot be told yet, at least until after the floor vote concerning undoing its resolution of two years ago calling for selective divestment of its pension funds from Israel. I was there with a colleague from the Simon Wiesenthal Center to lend a hand to a group of good friends within that church who had been courageously battling their own church leadership for two years. They saw the move as fundamentally unfair to Israel, politically counterproductive, contrary to the sentiment of most of the folks in the pews, and possibly anti-Semitic.
I anticipated a few days in Hell, knowing the track record of the World Council of Churches, the umbrella group of all the liberal Protestant denominations. This group had never uttered a syllable of protest in the face of all of the attempts in the last sixty years to extinguish Israel’s existence. In a recent year, of 26 resolutions … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on June 20th, 2006 If blogging is defined as a person or group of people sharing their thoughts and musings, whatever they feel like sharing, regardless of whether it is important to the purpose or mission of the blog… then Cross-Currents isn’t really a blog. Though published in blog format, nearly everything we post is somehow “relevant” to discussing “the intersection between two currents: the timeless flow of authentic Torah thought, and the ebb and tide of current affairs.” What we publish isn’t “whatever we feel like sharing” but much more limited.
My question is: do you feel it is important to you that every article here contain relevant content, or do we, in so doing, avoid showing a personal side now and then?
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on June 19th, 2006 The Torah contains many prohibitions against speaking derogatorily of others. When it comes to the laws of lashon hara – bad mouthing – even truth is not a defense, except in certainly narrowly defined circumstances.
Underlying the proscriptions against derogatory speech is the idea that we create our world through our speech. If we continually view others with a jaundiced eye, and fail to judge them favorably, our world becomes a nasty, brutish place. The Sin of the Spies – about which we read in this week’s Torah reading – was to create a false reality about the Land that God had promised the Jewish people.
Last week someone with whom I maintain an e-mail correspondence published what I considered an over-the-top attack on the entire haredi community. And I told him so. He replied that if I wanted to have a dialogue with him, I’d have to eschew descriptions like “screed,” “bad journalism,” and “ignorant.” Though each of these descriptions could have been defended, I agreed.
The dialogue was more important to me than scoring points. One of the problems with today’s Israeli society is that there is too little dialogue. Too often conversation is precluded at the outset by one … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on June 19th, 2006 In a fascinating article in Ha’aretz, Uzi Benziman explains why “the state authorities… have acquired for themselves a shady reputation when it comes to their credibility.”
Meanwhile, in the Jerusalem Post, the Mayor of Sderot retracted his earlier call for a city-wide strike “out of respect for President Moshe Katsav, who planned to visit the city on Monday.” During the strike, residents were going to “block junctions in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem” and “burn tires.” I guess it’s only when charedim do exactly the same thing that it’s called a “riot.”
By Yaakov Menken, on June 18th, 2006 Yediot Acharonot’s YNet carries an opinion piece on the subject of an Orthodox synagogue at Kibbutz Degania, written by Reform Rabbi Dr. Dalia Sara Marx, a teacher at the Hebrew Union College. Considering that the Reform movement claims to be dedicated to pluralism and tolerance, it is — to say the least — an interesting read.
The pluralistic and tolerant Rabbi Marx lectures the Deganyanim on the topic of why the installation of an Orthodox synagogue is a lousy choice. Her chosen expressions include [with commentary in brackets]:
You have chosen an Orthodox, discriminatory synagogue.
Men and women who make rational decisions with respect to all other aspects of your communal lives… [should know that creating an Orthodox synagogue is not a rational decision.]
Why are you prepared to forego your control with regard to your Jewish spiritual life? [Orthodoxy isn't a choice at all, it's lack of control.]
People who understand that cooperation and equality are more than mere slogans [should know that Orthodoxy represents neither.]
How could you treat Judaism as some sort of singular, simplistic, one-faced beast? [That one needs no elaboration...]
Why would you agree to bring that empty truck of Orthodoxy into your community? [This one’s good for laughs. Orthodoxy … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on June 15th, 2006 The Washington Post reports that Southern Baptists decided not to pull their children from the public school system.
Leaders of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination Wednesday refused to support a resolution that would have urged the denomination to form an “exit strategy” for pulling Southern Baptist children from public schools in favor of home schools or private Christian schools.
Nonetheless, the discussion and vote reflected a growing discontent with a school system they regard as not neutral, but unfriendly, to religious parents and religious values. Roger Moran, who sits on the SBC’s executive committee, said that “the public schools are no longer allowed … to even acknowledge the G-d of the Bible.”
The article reflects a similar level of hostility, consistently referring to the theory of Intelligent Design in quotes, and giving the last word to a critic who said the SBC leaders supported an “anti-public school perspective.” It’s not anti-public school at all — just pro-religion. While I realize it may seem strange to imagine, in our day, a religious leadership favorable towards religious instruction, it still exists.
Of course, from our perspective it probably would have been better if the SBC had encouraged a pullout. The more voices in favor … Read More >>
By Gedalia Litke, on June 15th, 2006 I recently received the following painful question and gave the following response. It is posted here with the questioner’s permission, of course. Readers’ comments, as always, are welcome. I have added some translations from Hebrew in brackets throughout this post.
QUESTION:
Dear Gedalia:
I’ve been meaning to ask you a question for some time now, and finally have a chance since law school finals are over and I’ve started my not-too demanding summer job.
While this year was definitely a challenge in terms of balancing family, learning, and law school, that challenge was not what I found most difficult. For me, the greatest difficulty was no longer being “in learning” and feeling outcast and looked down upon, to a degree, by those still “in learning.”
At the outset I have to admit that much of my feelings may be a result of my own insecurities as a baal teshuva [newly observant Jew] and the like, but I did receive comments from some people that, in my mind, were patronizing at best and insulting at worst (i.e. “don’t worry, I know some people who went to law school who still became a rabbi – talmid chacham – mechanech, [Torah scholar or teacher] … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on June 14th, 2006 Last Thursday’s Jerusalem Post carried a particularly nasty attack on the chareidi community by columnist Larry Derfner. Derfner can be abrasive, but would hardly be classified as an inveterate chareidi-baiter.
In a recent response to novelist A.B. Yehoshua’s dismissal of the inauthenticity of Diaspora Jewry, Derfner wrote of his “ultra-Orthodox” brother-in-law and sister-in-law in Toronto, “Judaism isn’t the outer shell of their lives, it’s the core.” If asked to choose between a 100% secular state of Israel, with no practicing, believing Jews, and a Jewish Diaspora with Jews like his in-laws, the self-described atheist would opt for the latter. Two weeks later, he wrote a laudatory piece about a chareidi baal teshuva, with whom he had once done reserve duty.
The earlier articles only added to the pain of last week’s, which focused on the recent deaths of two chareidi infants. In the first, a nineteen-year-old chareidi father has been accused of manslaughter in connection with the death of his three-month-old infant. The arrest of the father led to rioting in Meah Shearim before Pesach, and charges of a “blood libel” by the police.
The second case, involving the death of an infant in Ashdod, after her parents allegedly relied … Read More >>
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