Tuesday, July 23, 2013

3 Thoughts

Prisoners

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his ally, Abu Mazen demand, and Netanyahu concedes, that Palestinian murderers be released from Israeli prisons so they can participate in new attacks on Israelis, infants to ancients.

Netanyahu and his staff, like his predecessors, request the release of spy Jonathon Pollard. The U.S. once again denies this request.

Pollard was convicted of spying for Israel, an ally.

Spies for enemy states such as Russia (today) and the former Soviet Union, are released after comparatively brief incarcerations. Even Al-Quida militants are allowed to return home (to plan future attacks on the U.S.).

Moslem terrorists give a new emphasis to the word “recidivism” and the U.S. political machine, more than the EU’s left, encourages this by its actions.

 

Religious extremists

I didn’t read or hear it first hand, but according to Yair Lapid – by the way, “Lapid” means “torch, flame” according to my Megiddo – I have a Webster’s Unabridged for English) as reported by Israel HaYom "Your [haredi] media compares all secular women to prostitutes and all secular youths to drug addicts and hedonists. And that's before we discuss the recent editorial in [the ultra-Orthodox paper] Yated Ne'eman that compared me to Hitler." ( http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10891)

The haredi “leadership,” if Lapid is correct and its recent invective and actions seems to support the politician, is about equal to the imams and their calls to punish anyone who dares think in a non-imam-approved manner.

At one time the Catholic church behaved similarly. The results:

1. The Reformation

2. Those who remain with Rome largely ignore its dictates and lists of things banned

Judaism already is fragmented, but then it always has been a divided house. Internecine warfare is nothing new to us, although until recently it was low-key verbal.

Unfortunately, the rhetoric has become heated and has encouraged physical attacks, not only on non-haredim but against haredim who dare to be different (i.e., join IDF, get a job).

The imams and the haredi rabbis are interchangeable. The religion may be different, but the attitudes are the same.

Judaism already has had its reformations, but the rabbis’ invectives against anyone not like them, anyone who fails to completely agree with them, will only drive the Jewish “man or woman in the street” farther from the religion.

 

Finally

The question of the hour: Will the newest heir to England’s throne be circumcised and, if so, will tradition hold and will the Royal Mohel – a skilled specialist – be brought in – assuming there still IS a Royal Mohel.”?

Let’s face it; if you need heart surgery, you go to a heart surgeon. If you need brain surgery you go to a brain surgeon. If you need open AAA repair, you go to an old vascular surgeon who mentors a younger one (to pass along the technique). A brit melah is surgery. While it may seem minor to those gathered to celebrate the event, it is major to the infant and to the surgeon and deserves the attention of the best qualified, most skilled practitioner. Who better qualified than a professional mohel? For the English royals, it is not a question of religion; it is a matter of expertise.

I suppose a second question, one that relates to the rabbis above, is: “Will the mohel insist on metzitzah b'peh or will he use an intervening device to draw blood from the wound.

From Time magazine’s online Health & Family presence, ”The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Thursday that 11 baby boys in New York City were infected with herpes between Nov. 2000 and Dec. 2011 following an ultra-Orthodox Jewish circumcision ritual called metzitzah b’peh — or oral suction — in which the mohel puts his mouth directly on the newborn’s circumcised penis and sucks away the blood”
http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/07/how-11-new-york-city-babies-contracted-herpes-through-circumcision/#ixzz2Zs74ONSs