by Rabbi Dovid Landesman

First of all, my thankful appreciation to all of you for what turned out to be a stimulating, open and civil exchange of ideas in response to my posting The Day That Satmar Became Mainstream. It is a relief to discover that there are still quite a number of sane people in the Jewish world – chareidi, chardal, centrist, MO et al. Rav Adlerstein kindly suggested that I add my comments and perhaps summarize my reactions to the multiple comments that have been posted.

As usual, the opening caveat: It is difficult if not impossible to add anything to an Adlerstein piece. He is articulate, thorough and erudite and trying to discover a place to add one’s own chiddushim is an exercise in futility. That said, perhaps a few stories/ideas that might either further elucidate Reb Yitzchak’s points or perhaps provide some food for further consideration.

A story: Rav Nachman Bulman zt”l once told me of a meeting that he attended with the Moetzet Gedolai ha-Torah and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. He was invited, by the way, to serve as spokesman for the gedolim; they did not feel comfortable speaking to Mrs. Meir in Hebrew and … Read More >>

One Esther has taken part in a lively discussion occassioned by Rabbi Landesman’s recent guest column. Recently, she issued a challenge:

Now I’m going to put a question to you, Rabbi Adlerstein and commenters:

These posts ask why we don’t celebrate Yom Yerushalayim, Yom Zikaron, Yom Haatzmaut. I ask you: Why don’t you commemorate the terrible crimes commited by Zionism?
You ask the non-Satmar non-Zionists: You don’t agree with Satmar on the question of statehood, so why aren’t you grateful to those who gave their lives for the State?
I ask the non-Zionists and religious Zionists: You agree with Satmar on the question of the crimes of Zionism, so why aren’t you angry? Why aren’t you lamenting the terrible losses klal yisrael suffered at their hands? The generations of every boy who had his peyos cut off by force, every girl who had her modesty compromised, cry out to us. Why is nobody talking about it? How can any torah-true Jew praise Zionism? Could you bring youselves to praise German culture or music? You do believe in גדול המחטיאו יותר מהרגו, don’t you?

Two different answers come to mind, Esther.

The first is that we do mourn and commemorate those losses, all the time. … Read More >>

Reports have it that she did it again, turning in another magnificent performance on Britain’s Got Talent. Boyle is the kind of frumpy looking 47 year old with unkempt hair who elicited snickers from the audience when she first appeared on the talent show a few weeks ago, and then left the viewing world stunned. She became an icon overnight – a symbol of the overlooked and ignored, of those who have the talent to make it to the top, even while defying pop-culture’s expectations of youth and physical beauty.

A frequently repeated motif of the coverage she received is that she was deprived of years of her life because she devoted them to the care of her aged mother. She was underemployed, and sang only at the church she regularly attended. It was only after her mother’s death that she thought of publicly competing, something she had tried decades earlier without much success. Devoting her life to her mother made her pitiable; people were delighted that at times, the loser can turn things around.

In our circles, of course, we’ve heard the story before. Had Dama ben Nesina (Kiddushin 31A) lived today, he would probably also be seen as … Read More >>

Tuesday, at about 11 PM, I walked into a gathering of the hopeful, awaiting the results of a special statewide election. I’m not terribly involved with the political process – my day job leaves no room for publicly taking sides or electioneering. I came for a few minutes, simply to give chizuk to a candidate with whom I’ve had a long friendship, including some regular time over a gemara. As far as I could see, I was the only observant Jew in the crowd at the time.

A small flotilla of news trucks were lined up outside, all with their antennae raised aloft like so many masts facing the wind. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a close confidant of the candidate, walked up to the mic to make a statement to the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd. His words were unexpectedly interrupted by the sound of shattering glass. Someone had inadvertently knocked a bottle off a table, and the bottle made its dying gasp well heard by the crowd.

Instantly, as if by instinct, without any pause to think or reflect at all, about twenty people all called out, “Mazal tov!” One of them was the Mayor.

Galus has affected most … Read More >>

One of the first times that I heard Rabbi Norman Lamm speak, he held forth on two different ways that Megilas Esther could be read: as a happy set of coincidences that unseated one court favorite and replaced him with another, and as a remarkable tale of Divine Providence. In keeping with the political realities of living under the thumb of foreign rulers, the former reading had to be made part of the text, even while serving as a double entendre for faithful Jews, who could and would read it according to the latter understanding. Rabbi Lamm opined that the authors of the Megilah made this abundantly clear in their description of the royal advisory sent to the Jews of the realm (Esther 9:30): divrei shalom v’emes / words of peace and truth. The former reading was intended to keep the peace with the Persian authorities; the latter reading was the unvarnished truth.

Much of Rabbi Lamm’s career has taken the form of speaking both shalom and emes at the same time – often frustrating those who wished to see more of one than the other. In a recent interview about the future of American Jewry in the Jerusalem Post … Read More >>

A critical caveat: Nothing in this submission should be taken as criticism of the Satmar position vis-a-vis Zionism and/or the State of Israel. I have no pretensions of being worthy of critiquing what is clearly a valid halachic perspective. At the same time, however, it is clear to me that the majority of chareidi gedolim never supported the Satmar Rav’s positions. Thus, I do think that I have the right to point out what I see as a shift in attitude in my own community and to try to understand what caused that change.

I was a first year beis midrash student in Mesivta Torah Vodaath when the Six Day War broke out. We had just moved from Williamsburg into the new building on East 9th. Talmidim from that era will surely recall the remarks of the mashgiach, Rav Wolfson shlit”a, at the time. He said: “the yeshiva has only three issues – illumination [the overhead recessed lighting made learning difficult and the administration had to install fluorescents much to the dismay of the architect], ventilation [the beis midrash had no windows that opened and the yeshiva could not afford to run the central air] and emigration [quite a few … Read More >>

Harsh title, I know. But if Sefiras HaOmer has been designated a time to learn from what happened to the 12,000 pairs of students of Rabbi Akiva, I think we would be remiss in blithely assuming that we’re free of the blemish they were struck down for.

Insolence!

Read on.

The Talmud in Yevamos 62b, pinpointing the sin of the students of Rabbi Akiva, states that “they did not conduct themselves with respect toward one another”, while the Medrash Koheles (11) states that they were punished due to their begrudging the Torah accomplishments of their colleagues.

Rabbi Yechezkel Levenstein, Mashgiach of the Mirrer and Ponevezh Yeshivos (Ohr Yechezkel, Emunah pg. 122) resolved the apparent contradiction by saying that these disciples were simply unable to respect their colleagues – they were too distressed by their acumen. Their punishment was so severe, says Reb Chatzkel, because such an attitude causes one to fall into the category of a “Sonei Hashem“, a hater of G-d – as defined by Rabbeinu Yonah (Shaarei Teshuvah 3:160). One who feels upset at the religious fervor and achievement of another is essentially unhappy that there are loyal servants of G-d. It is no coincidence, then, that the time … Read More >>

[thanks to Rabbi Dr. David Fox, LA, for the lead]

The story has been told for well over a century. The Israeli Health Ministry just added a new twist to it.

Daniel Abramovich Chwolson (1819-1911) left many Jews confused. The distinguished Orientalist and professor at the University of St. Petersburg achieved a remarkable position of prominence in Czarist Russia. The price of entry into those circles was conversion, and the ex-yeshiva bochur from Vilna paid it. Unlike many other meshumadim, however, Chwolson remained fiercely committed to Jewish causes. He led battles against both blood libels and the denunciation of the Talmud. His assistance was solicited and gained for a variety of causes by stellar figures in the Torah world.

In the version I heard, someone asked the Netziv how to relate to such a person, who did so much good for the Jewish people, and yet was guilty of the ultimate treason. Do we see anything positive in him?

The Netziv replied with a story about a frum Yid who took sick, and was instructed by his physician to eat pork. He refused, and his condition worsened. “I never ate treif my entire life. I will die rather than do so!” … Read More >>

Pirkei Avos tells us that the wise person learns from everyone. One might think that certain places and people might be well beyond having anything to contribute. The Mishnah itself admits to no exceptions, however. Keep your ears and mind open, and you can learn something in all situations, even in Tinseltown.

The dinner from which I just returned bears no resemblance to the ones all of us attend to help support the shuls, schools, and chesed organizations that are important to us. My day job is with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the largest Jewish membership organization in America, and the only one that chose the West Coast as its base of operations. As you may have guessed, part of its fund-raising capability involves heavy involvement with what everyone here calls The Industry. The honorees at the annual dinner, or at least some of them, come from their ranks. The studios all take tables; if you wanted to hawk a script, this is the place to be. The Hollywood people are not people I ordinarily interact with; I have little idea who most of them are.

One honoree was a young non-Jewish social worker in Holland when the … Read More >>

Many of us realized that the passing of Jack Kemp was cause for sadness. We did not necessarily know about the degree of his friendship with the Jewish community. Much will likely surface in the next days in conventional and alternative media. His passing, however, deserves some quicker tribute, so I offer below one perspective on a man who endeared himself to many of us. It is an excerpt from a larger article.

[Thanks to Brad Wixen, Los Angeles, for finding the article]

I saw Jack Kemp in person a number of times down through the years. My most memorable encounter, however, was when I stood with 250,000 other Americans on the National Mall in Washington on Sunday, December 6, 1987 as a participant in the March on Washington for Soviet Jewry and listened to Jack Kemp advocating our cause. No other member of the House of Representatives more effectively and ardently championed the cause of Soviet Jewry than Jack Kemp. In fact, the issue of Soviet Jewry was a cause not only of Jack Kemp but of his family as well – his wife, Joanne, for years served as a Co-Chair of Congressional … Read More >>

by Jeff Jacoby

Arlen Specter would never have made it into Profiles in Courage. Unlike the senators described in John F. Kennedy’s book — men who remained true to their principles, even when it meant paying a steep political price — Specter has never been celebrated for his backbone.

Forty-odd years ago, Specter abandoned the Democratic Party in order to win election to Congress as a Republican; five days ago, he abandoned the Republican Party in order to win re-election as a Democrat. As he announced his defection, Specter all but admitted that he was acting out of naked political expediency. “I have . . . surveyed the sentiments of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania and public opinion polls,” he told reporters, “and have found that the prospects for winning a Republican primary are bleak.” According to a poll that had been released a few days earlier, only 30 percent of Pennsylvania Republicans were supporting Specter’s re-nomination, while 51 percent favored his conservative rival.

When Vermont Senator James Jeffords defected from the GOP in 2001, Specter blasted his perfidy, and wanted senators to be barred from changing parties in midsession. As … Read More >>