By Yaakov Menken, on November 30th, 2008 Maybe it seemed a foregone conclusion, from the moment the two-year-old child of the directors of the Chabad House in Mumbai, Rabbi Gavriel & Rivka Holzberg hy”d, was reported to have been removed from the house with “blood-soaked pants.” But we hoped (and prayed) against hope, and the moment on Erev Shabbos when the news reports confirmed that they had been killed was very painful. At such moments, internal differences of opinion are completely irrelevant. These were Jews dedicated to G-d and Torah, who died al Kiddush HaShem, in sanctification of G-d’s name — selected for slaughter for being Jews… and, as one news agency described it, the “crime” of offering help to Israeli travelers and others in need.
No one of intelligence doubted for a moment that they were targeted. Do we need further evidence that the “grey lady” has severe Alzheimer’s? Who could justify the NY Times reporting with a straight face that “it is not known if the Jewish center was strategically chosen, or if it was an accidental hostage scene?” It was obvious within minutes that this was a well-planned attack on a variety of pre-selected targets, and for a group of terrorists to coincidentally … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on November 28th, 2008 Should Jews actively promote Jewish values to the rest of the world? For two millennia, there was not much of a question. No one would listen. Today in the West we have the ability to speak our minds, and often a large audience of those who believe that Jews have access to a treasure-trove of Divinely communicated wisdom. They are open to, and invite, our sharing it with them.
This is where the debate begins, not ends. Some believe that anything we say will in time be used against us, as it always was. Our stance towards others should be respectful and cooperative – but not educative.
Others believe the very opposite. It is more dangerous, they believe, to allow a world to plunge headlong into moral darkness. Besides, we have a Torah imperative to create universal respect for G-d (see Rambam in Sefer HaMitzvos, Positive Mitzvos #3). How better to do it than by showcasing the power of His teaching?
Probably by temperament more than anything else, I lean to the latter position. Many frum Jews have a hard time conceiving of what it is exactly that we could share with the rest of the world if we were … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on November 27th, 2008 Recently I visited MESHI, a Jerusalem gan and school for children with serious disabilities. Most suffer from cerebral palsy caused by oxygen deprivation during birth or some subsequent trauma. Others were born with spinal bifida. Few of the children can walk completely unaided, and many are confined to wheelchairs. (A number of children from MESHI, with minimal or no cognitive impairment, are mainstreamed into regular educational frameworks each year.)
I would recommend such a visit for everyone: It has a way of putting things in perspective. After such a visit, one’s Modeh Ani cannot but be a different Modeh Ani.
Depressed by the stock market? Take a look at a little boy left permanently impaired when a play accident severed a major artery, and left his brain deprived of oxygen. Did you bank manager express his dismay at your spending habits? Remember the smiling little girl suffering from an irreversible degenerative condition.
Irritated by your child’s failure to jump to clear the dishes from the table? Try imagining what its like for a parent to have to physically assist a child of thirty or more kilos with every basic activity, or to make sure that child is never unaccompanied … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on November 27th, 2008 Recently I visited the Center for Science and Judaism in Hadera, a school with 540 students, almost all of whom have at least one non-shomer Shabbos observant parent. Yet the administration and most of the staff of the school are charedi.
SHUVU, a chareidi-staffed school system, employing 1,500 teachers in 25 cities, was originally created for immigrant children from Russian-speaking homes. Today approximately 1,700 students from veteran Israeli families also learn in SHUVU schools. Thousands more children from secular homes have been registered in recent years in various charedi frameworks by Lev L’Achim.
Why would a secular parent put his child in a school with intensified Jewish studies taught by charedi teachers? Why run the risk that their children will end up religious? What is the risk of keeping children in the state school system that is so great that parents are willing to put their children in chareidi frameworks?
Admittedly Israel’s state education system is a shambles. Year after year, Israeli students rank near the very bottom of industrialized nations on international math and reading comprehension exams. Both student and teacher satisfaction are commensurate with those achievement levels – i.e., at the bottom of the pack. Over … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on November 24th, 2008 “Loose lips sink ships,” went the World War II slogan urging Americans to be more discreet about sensitive security matters. Today’s advice to the frum community might be “loose lips kill neshamos.” It is more than clear that the price of using ethnic humor and racial slurs is souls lost to the community of practicing Jews.
She was witty, charming, frum, and a Harvard Law School graduate. She was also black, and living as a single woman in an Orthodox neighborhood. One Purim, she was treated in a local shul to the sight of a young mother with a few children in tow. As her Purim get-up, the mother had chosen to adorn herself and her kids with blackface and thick lips. The connection to Purim was not clear. The black Jewess, recounting to me why she eventually left that community and relocated to another state, outside of a frum area, had this comment. “What was that woman trying to tell me? What was she trying to say?”
In all likelihood, she was saying nothing at all. She probably gave no conscious thought to the message that she broadcast. She did not mean to deliberately offend anyone; … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on November 21st, 2008 From the agitation and anger of the crowds, the din of the car horns and the shouts of “Civil rights now!” and “Bigots!” one would have been forgiven for thinking that the protesters were denouncing some horrific assault on human freedom.
But no, the demonstrations – and church vandalisms and business boycotts – were in protest of California voters’ passage of the November ballot measure known as Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Any two Californians can, as before, register as “domestic partners” and have the very same rights and responsibilities as married couples under state law. All Proposition 8 sought to do was preserve in law what the word “marriage” has meant for millennia.
Those, though, who were unhappy with the electorate’s decision wasted no time in taking to the streets of dozens of American cities and towns to rail against the audacity – the bigotry, as they proclaimed it – of considering gender germane to marriage.
In some cities, tens of thousands turned out for raucous rallies; in many instances, epithets were hurled at counterdemonstrators and even uninvolved bystanders. Although … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on November 20th, 2008 Speaking of prescience, I must admit that when I wrote my recent post on media bias, I had no idea that the father accused of abusing and killing his infant son was sentenced on the 18th. So, understandably, Moshe, Rabbi Natan Slifkin and others want to know how a sentence of 6 years plus 2 years suspended fits with what I’ve said.
Indeed, where is the media bias if we see the father was found guilty, and is going to jail for six years? Doesn’t this mean that everything the media reported was correct all along, and now the father is getting the punishment befitting a parent who abused and murdered his child?
Well, no. Not at all. The more I look into it, the less I understand how the sentence could possibly be adequate for what the media told us was the crime.
Let’s not forget — according to the most charitable version of the father’s actions, he dropped his child and this resulted in the child’s death. The father never claimed he tripped — he says he fell asleep. Well, if a person falls asleep driving and kills someone, that’s manslaughter. When … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on November 20th, 2008 Rav Shalom Yosef Elyashiv recently told Rabbi Noach Weinberg of Aish HaTorah that world Jewry faces a threat as great as that it confronted in the midst of the Holocaust. (That widespread report was confirmed to me by senior officials at Aish HaTorah.) Rav Elyashiv was referring preeminently to the threat of a nuclear Iran, though no doubt the simultaneous threat to the citadels of Torah learning in Eretz Yisrael and abroad as a consequence of the world financial crisis only magnifies the concerns about Iran.
I doubt Rav Elyashiv read an AP story this week about a study being prepared for President-elect Barack Obama by a group of former State Department diplomats and academic “experts” on Iran. Had he done so, however, his fears for the future would likely have been ratcheted up a notch or two. Among the conclusions of the report: (1) any military attack on Iran would almost certainly fail in its goal of significantly setting back Iran’s nuclear weapons program; (2) economic sanctions have very little chance of success; (3) American threats to date are “not cowing Iran and the current regime is not in imminent peril.” Taken together those three points basically amount to a … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on November 20th, 2008 Few aspects of parenting are more intractable than teaching our children to deal with disparities in lifestyle. Yet we must deal with this challenge, for such gaps, like the poor, will always be with us.
A society without wide disparities in income and lifestyle would be in many ways a more pleasant place to live. But that does not necessarily make it the ideal. Those societies with the widest income gaps also tend to be the greatest wealth producing societies for all. They unleash the power of human ambition, and not just towards wealth.
A rav in a good-sized community, without very many rich Jews, once expressed to me his doubts as to whether his community would ever produce any great talmidei chachamim. Members of the community lacked ambition, he said.
Ideally, differences in lifestyles between members of a community should be no problem. If we were successful in exemplifying the qualities of being sameach b’chelko (content with one’s portion) and conveying this precious middah to our children, income differences would be a matter of little concern.
But we are not. In an interview in these pages, Rabbi Yehudah Silman, one of the leading dayanim in Eretz Yisrael, … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on November 19th, 2008 If the reputation of the “Mainstream” Media as an impartial provider of information has taken a severe beating in recent years, its behavior during this election put that idea to death and nailed closed the coffin. On “HowObamaGotElected.com“, you can learn the impact of the media in making sure the average Obama voter knew the issues, the candidates, and the change for which they were voting.
Even the most jaded among us will be stunned by the results. Reporters decide what to report, and we fail to realize the incredible impact of their choices. We often rail about the biased coverage of Orthodox Jews in the press, but don’t recognize the potency of the poison being fed to our uninformed brethren. John McCain certainly had far greater resources to combat the media image than we do… so just take a look at what Obama viewers knew, and what they didn’t.
For example, nine out of ten Obama voters knew that Sarah Palin was the candidate for whom her party spent $150,000 on her wardrobe, and nearly 94% correctly identified her as the one with the pregnant teenage daughter. Over 80% knew it was John McCain who didn’t know how many … Read More >>
By Guest Contributor, on November 17th, 2008 By Rabbi Reuven Tradburks
[R. Tradburks is the rav of Kehillat Shaarei Torah in Toronto, the President of the Toronto Vaad Harabonim and former Director of its Beis Din, and a former Board member of AJOP]
Gary Rosenblatt addressed an issue in his column in the Jewish Week, which we don’t like to admit. In both the lead up to the election and the aftermath of the election of Barack Obama, orthodox Jews expressed opposition to Obama that had little to do with his policies or his political ability. He is a muslim, he will be terrible for Israel, he doesn’t like Jews, I am suspicious, who knows what he will do.
There is a tendency, I believe, in our world to paint the world in the paradigms of Yaakov and Esav – good versus evil. But we often paint the wrong people with the Esav label.
There are Esavs in the world. There are people who display principles and attitudes that are dark and evil. Arafat, Hamas, Hizbulla, Aryan Nation, Ahmenidijad.
But Obama is not one of them. He is an intelligent, liberal thinking man of integrity and great rhetorical ability. … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on November 15th, 2008 I believe that getting America to the point of electing a black President was one of America’s finest hours. — Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein, November 12.
He beat me to it, as I was going to make a similar comment. As a strong McCain supporter, I did not expect to have such positive feelings about the statement made by Americans about America today, through this election. Less than 50 years after whites had to be forced to share classrooms and bathrooms with black Americans, they elected one to be President of the United States. If I read the electoral college numbers correctly, then although it is true that over 90% of African-Americans voted for him, Obama would have won without the black vote.
Despite his selection of the very partisan Rahm Emanuel to be his chief of staff, Obama has begun with a number of overtures across the aisle. If he governs the way he campaigned — namely, in the center — then the next four years may be a pleasant surprise, and we should give him the chance to prove himself.
This does not change the fact that thoughtful Americans, especially Jewish voters and those concerned for Israel, had … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on November 14th, 2008 It was the very beginning of 1942 and the group of ten young men and their yeshiva dean, exiles in frigid Siberia, couldn’t believe their eyes. Betzalel Orlanski had somehow gained release from the Siberian labor-camp where he had been sent, somehow found out where they – and his wife – were located, somehow secured a sled and driver, and somehow crossed the large frozen lake – the only way to reach Nizhna Machavaya, the exiles’ home, in the winter.
The exiles – my dear father among them – had been part of the Novardhok Yeshiva in Vilna, Lithuania. When the Soviets occupied the country, they offered the yeshiva boys and faculty – most of whom were Polish nationals who had fled to Lithuania – a stark choice: accept Soviet citizenship (and be conscripted into the Red army) or be banished to the wasteland of Siberia as foreign nationals deemed a threat to the Soviet Union. They opted for Siberia, a choice that would test them sorely but likely saved their lives.
When the cattle cars had been loaded with their human cargo in Lithuania for the long trip east, sent along with the Novardhok group were several … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on November 13th, 2008 Jewish marriage has always been a familial and communal affair, not just an individual decision. When Avraham decided it was time for Yitzchak to marry, he summoned his trusted servant Eliezer and gave him detailed instructions about where and from what family to seek a bride.
Standing at the well, Eliezer devised a test to ensure that the maiden chosen would possess the character necessary for the foremother of the Jewish people. She must be a ba’alat chesed — Rivka runs to Eliezer to offer him water from her jug; she must also be clever — Rivka does not drink from the same jug as the complete stranger, but immediately pours the remaining contents of the jug into a trough; and she must be sensitive to the feelings of others — Rivka explains to Eliezer that she is pouring the water into the trough in order to water his camels.
The match is not without romance. When Rivka sees Yitzchak for the first time, she lowers herself and covers her face. But only after Yitzchak takes Rivka to the tent of his deceased mother Sarah as his wife, is he described as loving her. Love is the outgrowth of their commitment to … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on November 13th, 2008 The World-to-Come is an upside down world (Bava Basra 10b): Those who were on top in this world on account of their wealth (Rashi ad loc.) are on the bottom, and those who were on the bottom in this world are elevated there.
Sometimes we can catch a glimpse of that upside down world in the here and now. Those of us who have made aliyah have witnessed something of the sort. Many who were in high prestige professions, like law, in America cannot work at anything near their previous level because of language barriers. On the other hand, many who were not in the sort of professions that were the traditional dream of every Jewish mother – e.g., plumbers, electricians, those who have worked in construction – find themselves with of plenty of well-paying work. I know at least one PhD. nuclear physicist who found he could do much better in Israel repairing washing machines and dryers.
And we are witnessing something of the same thing today. Many people who were pulling down large salaries in the financial industry now find themselves without a job, and possessing very specialized skills for which there is no current market. In the … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on November 11th, 2008 One week is hardly enough time to digest the significance of the election. We cannot know which prognostications will turn out to be accurate. We can, however, discard some of the early commentary. Some of it was markedly wrong.
I spent very little time listening to results on election night, mostly while in the car at various points in the evening. Even before commentators would call the election a done deal – largely because polls were still open in many states – they thinly veiled their excitement by speaking, as Obama himself had, about change. This was, more than one claimed, the most momentous change in the mindset of the American electorate in decades. It was not just the return to a firm Democratic hold on the presidency and both houses of Congress, but a fundamental makeover of the American political mind. Americans had been for quite a while center-right; a new America had emerged which was center-left. Old ways had been discarded, swept out by new values.
Elections excite passions, and this election excited them in extra measure. People spoke with certainty about the outcome and its meaning. As those passions cool, we might … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on November 7th, 2008 In its purest form, the human spirit of inquiry is a holy thing. According to the renowned 12th century Jewish thinker Maimonides, nothing less than the Biblical commandment to love G-d is fulfilled when a person investigates nature and, struck by its intricacy and beauty, is filled with awe and gratitude to the Divine.
And so it is exciting to ponder the new aspects of physical reality that might be revealed by the Large Hadron Collider – the 17-mile-circumference particle accelerator that, over 15 years and at a cost of some $8 billion, was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) underneath the French-Swiss border.
Subatomic physics is already a wonderland of strange beauty (not to be confused with “strange” and “beauty” – fanciful names physicists have, at one time or another, given to types of quarks), having revealed that the seemingly mechanistic, clockwork universe we experience in daily life hides astonishing oddities, uncertainties and incomprehensibilities.
Those microcosmic bafflements complement the more readily accessible wonder of the world we experience when we simply look up at the stars, or down into the grass, or at a sunrise, or a newborn baby. The Standard Model … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on November 6th, 2008 The global meltdown of financial markets guarantees that money – and our attitudes to it – will dominate public and private discussions for some time to come. Some of the consequences of the loss of trillions of dollars in the value of shares around the world are already being felt by the Torah community in Israel, and those are almost sure to intensify.
Private philanthropy from abroad provides a measure of a social safety net for thousands of poor religious families in Israel, and the same philanthropy supports the kollelim, in which tens of thousands of avreichim learn. Shell-shocked donors have already begun to cut back dramatically in the face of total uncertainty about where the global economy is headed.
Already the poverty rates in Israel are more than double the average of thirty developed nations in the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). The average poverty rate in the OECD countries is 10.6% of the population; in Israel it is 24.5%. And the situation is even worse when it comes to children. According to the National Insurance Institute, 34% of Israel’s children live beneath the poverty level. The comparable figure in the OECD countries is 12%.
Poverty … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on November 6th, 2008 I confess to occasionally experiencing the temptation to add a few additional berachos beginning “she lo asani . . . ” to the list of those given by our Sages. Chief among those would be “she lo asani manhig b’Yisrael – that You did not make me a leader of the Jewish people.”
Our gedolim are constantly confronted with issues involving the unwritten fifth section of Shulchan Aruch. The issues found there by definition have no perfect solution; they involve a delicate weighing of many factors and speculative predictions about the future. Many of those issues require balancing a particular Torah ideal against the state of Torah society b’asher hu sham (in light of current realities).
A shmuess given in Lakewood Yeshiva, for instance, about the proper uses of bein hazemanim will find a receptive audience. The same shmuess given outside the walls of a yeshiva, and particularly if enunciated in the form of ban, might be widely ignored. Rather than influencing behavior in the proper direction, the most immediate impact would be to lower the stature of gedolei Yisrael and their edicts in the eyes of all those who ignored the ban. Knowing when and in what form to … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on November 6th, 2008 There are some exports that a country would rather do without. As far as Israel goes, the Israel Mafia would be one. The concept of a media fully mobilized on behalf of one side of the political spectrum would be another.
Senator Barack Obama owes the mainstream media (MSM) credit for a big assist in his election victory. And the U.S. media will, in turn, owe a round of applause to the Israeli media for its pioneering efforts to determine the outcome of national political debate and elections.
In the 1996 election pitting Binyamim Netanyahu against Shimon Peres, Ha’aretz’s political reporter Orit Galili described the press as “completely mobilized for Peres.” On the eve of the elections, Peres responded to Israeli Arab criticism to Israeli bombing in southern Lebanon, “Those stupid Arabs.” Given that Peres’ chances of being elected depended on a large Arab vote in his favor, the spontaneous outburst was tantamount to political suicide. Realizing that, the large cohort of journalists present decided among themselves to kill the story and it went largely unreported. Suppressing damaging utterances of its favorites was by then already reflexive on the part of the Israeli media. When then Court President Aharon Barak told … Read More >>
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