Drilling a hole in OUR boat Select your seat When buying ticket

 

A FEW HAREDI MEN on a Delta flight from JFK to TLV drilled another hole in our Jewish "boat" by their obstinacy.

And it all could have, should have, been avoided.

I've been flying in commercial aircraft for many years. I think my first flight was in a tail dragger in 1952 between MIA and IND.

(A "tail dragger" for the innocent youth, is an aircraft that had a wheel under the tail, rather than under the nose. The Delta DC-3, below, is a tail dragger.)

DC-3 in Delta livery

When I book a flight, if I want to sit next to a friend, my friend and I select adjacent seats. Before the airlines got so greedy, seat selection was included in the price of the ticket - as were meals and entertainment and accommodation of not one but TWO pieces of luggage AND carry-on. (Those were the days when seats were wider and legroom ample, the days of Lockheed Constellations. Great airplanes.)

This is not the first time the super-Os have high jacked a flight.

According to the Times of Israel under the headline Flight delayed as haredi men refuse to sit next to woman, Super Jews previously high jacked an El Al flight.

This time the disgraceful behavior caused a delay of only 30 minutes. The El Al flight - the Times did not provide origin and destination information - was held up for ELEVEN hours.

The Times article did not specify if the passengers were kept on the aircraft or if they were allowed to go back into the terminal.

Solve the problem - kick troublemakers off the plane

Passengers who are disruptive regularly are removed from flights, at least in the U.S. In some case, passengers who are not particularly disruptive are removed from flights (and later compensated by the airline for air crew stupidity).*

December 25, 2014: Man Kicked Off Flight After Going into Anti-Christmas Rage reports a man was taken off an American Airlines flight for belligerence. The same article reported that a man was removed from a Delta flight during an unscheduled stop.

Passengers on the Delta flight to Israel showed their displeasure with the Super Jews by refusing to accommodate their demand. Finally, according to the Times of Israel, an "American" - a non-Jew perhaps? - agreed to relocate and the flight departed.

FORTUNATELY most of the media coverage was by "Jewish" media and blogs.

Airlines are not obliged to provide preferential seating to passengers who did not make a seat selection when they booked the flight.

Most airlines will try to accommodate passenger requests for seating and special meals (on flights that still offer meals). In the latter case, when the airline is informed the passenger refused airline food, it should be a red flag that this passenger needs to be seated next to like-minded passengers. Computers easily can make the connection. (Many Super Jews don't accept the kashrut on airline food.)

The airlines, which now charge passengers for everything but the recirculated air they breath while they are trapped in the tube, are missing a revenue chance: sell "men only" and "women only" seat groups or even rows.

If Super Jews insist on segregated seating, let them pay for the privilege.

IN THE MEAN TIME, remove any Super Jew - or any one else for that matter - who is disruptive.

 

 *    Contrary to U.S. law, US Airways - not the nation's national carrier a la El Al and Israel or Korea Air and South Korea, but an American flagged carrier, twice in a period of three months in 2013, forced passengers with service dogs off flights. In the second case, passengers forced cancellation of the flight. In the first instance, a 100% disabled Vietnam vet was ejected.

Zichron Gavriel Israeli racism Or Smartphone At haredi school?

 

A headline in Thursday's (December 4, 2014) Israel HaYom email edition reads: Religious school shut for refusing to admit Sephardi students. (Click on the link to read it yourself.)

Why not admit the two brothers, one 5 and the other 6?

One reason suggested by Zichron Yaakov Regional Council Head Eli Abutbul

"It is obvious that they are trying to get them to leave," he said. "The haredi community is saying that it is because one of the parents uses a smart phone [forbidden in certain ultra-Orthodox circles], but that is just a terrible excuse."

Responding for the school, Attorney Ori Keidar, , said, "We have mixed (Ashkenazi and Sephardi] students, but these children do not come from a conservative haredi background."

That begs the question: Just what IS a "conservative haredi background."

According to the Israel HaYom article, Two students, brothers aged 5 and 6, were not accepted to study at the school, despite having been with the same group of students in kindergarten. Their parents went to the Education Ministry's appeals committee six months ago to complain that the refusal was based on their ethnic background.

The article continues:
The Education Ministry, which funds about 60 percent of the religious school's activities, ordered the school to accept the students, but when the two young boys arrived for their first day, they were met by the parents of the other children, who were protesting their acceptance to the Ashkenazi school.

Racism bottom line

Meanwhile, reports Israel HaYom, the conflict between the brothers' parents and the ultra-Orthodox community in the area has worsened. The boys' parents say that members of the community protest outside their home and have thrown stones causing property damage. They were even offered large sums of money to move to another city and to enroll their children in a school there.

This and similar acts by Ashkenazi haredim - and probably Sefardi haredim from Shas and similar "we're Jews and you're not" groups as well - blemishes Israel's pretty good efforts to integrate Jews from all countries and all traditions. It gives non-traditional groups, e.g., Conservative/UK Reform and Reform/UK Liberal, more reason to point the finger at traditional Jews, even the non-haredi Jews, and say "We're not like THEM."

Fortunately not all Jews are Litvaks and Syrians (outside of Israel) who live in closed societies.

The two boys would, in my opinion, be better off in a regular government school where they will get a complete education without sacrificing Jewish knowledge. (I briefly taught in an Israeli pubic school in Zefat; I lack the talent - and patience - to be a teacher.)

You cannot legislate kindness nor intelligence; that's proven everyday in the U.S., the U.S. Jewish community is a bad example of quiet racism, despite what the Torah demands of us.

As one parent told the Israel HaYom reporter, he is not concerned about the school's closure, which he thinks will not last. "Despite all the threats -- everything will go back to what it was."

That' sad.

Opuscula Israeli haredi Yom HaShoah acts Are beyond my ken

 

I don't understand Israel's "ultra-religious" mentality. According to several reports, 100 yeshiva boys celebrated Holocaust Remembrance Day with picnics in the park.

What causes me to wander is that the Shoah - the Holocaust - wiped out most of Europe's Jews (and nearly extinguished the Roma) while murdering the disabled and political dissidents.

Most of Israel's haredi are relatives of the people the Germans - with help from their Czech, French, Hungarian, and Polish friends - slaughtered. To be fair, the Germans, et al, didn't care if a Jew spoke Yiddish, wore payot and dressed as a Polish pan or spoke high German and dressed in the latest style - all were destined for the "Final Solution."

I understand why the haredim refuse to celebrate Israel Independence Day; like the Moslem states that surround Israel (save for Egypt and Jordan), the haredim don't acknowledge the Jewish state's existence. Only the messiah can restore political Israel and then only as a theocratic state, according to the denizens of Bene Brak, Mea Sharim and similar haredi neighborhoods.

But it's one thing to ignore an Israeli national holiday; it's something else altogether to make an effort to insult others as the yeshiva boys did in Jerusalem and - foolishly - in Bet Shean. Bet Shean is about 90 percent North African - Jews from Morocco, Algiers, Libya. These people take the memorial day seriously.

I admit that in the U.S., many - perhaps most - Americans tend to take advantage of Memorial Day and Veterans Day for picnics and frivolous activities. But while Americans died for the flag - and too many times for someone else's flag - we didn't lose millions to people whose sole raison d'etre was wiping out an entire population.

Roughly 12 million civilians died at the hands of the Germans and their friends; of that total, at least six million were Jews. Jews and Roma (Gypsies) were murdered simply because they were Jews or Roma.

So I am bewildered by the Ashkenazi haredim who take the occasion to thumb their noses at their fellow Jews who also lost people in the Shoah. I would be equally stunned to hear that Shas' haredim joined them at the picnics, for Mizrahi Jews also died at the German's hands or at the hands of the German's Muslim allies.

Bet Shean is an interesting place - most of my relatives are there - in that even though Israel treated new immigrants from North Africa poorly, the general population is proud to be Israeli.

According to the Times of Israel article, “Remembrance Day is your event, not ours,” one ultra-Orthodox man said. “If you keep the Sabbath then we will mark your events.” Another explained that nonreligious people often have barbecues on Saturdays which, for observant Jews, is a forbidden activity.

Rabbinical Silence

 

What does your rabbi say?

According to a member of Shas’ Council of Torah Sages and the head of the influential Porat Yosef Yeshiva, Shalom Cohen, a Jew who wears a knitted kippa - - is NOT a Jew (see http://yohanon.blogspot.com/2013/07/youre-not-jew.html).

I rail against Muslims who remain silent following an Islamist attack on innocents. If they are so committed to their adopted countries, why don’t they speak out against the Islamists’ atrocities?

Cohen gave his speech Saturday night.

Naftali Bennet of the (Israeli) Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party took issue with Cohen’s remarks. Bennet’s remarks, along with a video of Cohen’s talk – in Hebrew to a receptive audience – is covered on the haredi web site, Kikar HaShabat (see http://tinyurl.com/q4nbc9r). The Times of Israel carried an article based on the Kikar HaShabat posting on Sunday at http://tinyurl.com/q9p5k2p.

It's now Monday.

Arutz 7 ( http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169910 ) carried an article claiming that Cohen " did not mean to disparage all religious Zionists, but only the leadership of the Bayit Yehudi party" according to unidentified "sources."

"The words that were spoken last night in a lesson at the study hall of Maran [Rabbi Ovadia Yosef] were spoken in great pain and were only intended toward the leaders of the Bayit Yehudi and their supporters, who have declared war upon the world of Torah and yeshivot”

According to Arutz 7, Cohen has refused to take back his cruel invective against the religious Zionists. When contacted by Arutz Sheva after the initial publication of the sermon, he simply said, “leave me alone and don't bother me.”

I have yet to see any rabbis of note - or any rabbis at all - speak out about Cohen's remarks - pro or con, for or against, or even aghast.

Perhaps they are not aware of their fellow rabbi's remarks. The only places I saw the comment were on the Times of Israel, Arutz Sheva, and Kikar HaShabat. I don't frequent Kikar HaShabat, but maybe the rabbis do. (The advertisements on Arutz 7 often are not appropriate for rabbinical eyes.)

Cohen's remarks are hardly as news worthy as 9-11-2001, but still, within Jewish circles, the remarks should get some attention.

Are our rabbis to be like the Muslims' imams and remain silent? Are Jews of all types to likewise remain silent in face of this person's comments? Apparently Ovadia Yosef will remain silent.

This is NOT a "tempest in a teapot." It is an affront to all Jews whose approach to Judaism is different that Cohen's and Shas'.

I would not have the chutzpah to tell Shas to get a new spiritual leader; keeping the Yosef clan in power is a choice only Shas should make. By the same token, I will not suggest that Shas clean up its political house of ill repute.

But I can, and I will, look elsewhere for both religious and religio-political leadership

After all, according to Cohen and Shas, I am not a Jew; I wear a knitted kippa - proudly. On Shabat, I have the chutzpah to not only wear a knitted kippa but a colorful knitted kippa! (My knitted kippa has nothing to do with either a political or religious perspective; I simply think it allows my hair to "breathe" and might help forestall a bald spot; so far, so good.)

I was "Jew enough" for the old Mifdal (National Religious Party) and I am "Jew enough" for Bayit Yehudi. But I guess I am not "Jew enough" for Shas.

If it's all the same to Cohen & Company, I'll keep my knitted kippot, my weekday black ones, my Shabat red one, and the others I wear on haggim. Since my choice of kippot makes me "not Jewish" I'll stay clear of Shas congregations - in Israel, there always is another congregation down the street where I AM a Jew.

 

If the TinyURL for Kikar haShabat fails, the full URL is:

http://www.kikarhashabat.co.il/%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%98-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%9B%D7%94%D7%9F-%D7%AA%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%95-%D7%9C%D7%9B.html

If the Tiny URL for the Times of Israel fails, the full URL is:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/shas-leader-says-modern-orthodox-not-jewish/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=27675e3a5e-2013_07_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-27675e3a5e-54477781>http://www.timesofisrael.com/shas-leader-says-modern-orthodox-not-jewish/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=27675e3a5e-2013_07_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-27675e3a5e-54477781

?כפה סרוגה You’re not a Jew!

Shas leader: National religious Jews ‘aren’t Jewish’

 

The following is excerpted from a Times of Israel at http://tinyurl.com/q9p5k2p

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday morning railed against what he called “incitement” by one of the most senior religious figures of Shas. In a video (http://tinyurl.com/q4nbc9r) posted Sunday morning on the haredi website Kikar HaShabbat, Rabbi Shalom Cohen, a member of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and the head of the influential Porat Yosef Yeshiva, is seen calling national religious Israelis “Amalek” and suggesting that they aren’t Jews.

Referring to the national religious Israelis by the colloquial Hebrew term - "כפה סרוגה" “knit kipa” - the preferred headgear for such Jews — R. Cohen declared in a sermon delivered Saturday night that “as long as there are knit kippot, the [divine] throne is not whole. That’s Amalek. When will the throne be whole? When there is no knit kipa.”

Bennet replied “For those who don’t know, Amalek is an expression referring to someone who must be wiped off the face of the earth. No less. At this very moment, thousands of knit-kipa wearers are standing guard from the Syrian border to the Egyptian, from brigade commanders down to the lowliest soldiers, and are spitting blood to defend even the honorable rabbi.”

Bennett added: “In these very days, memorial services are being held for my comrades-in-arms who sacrificed their lives in the [2006] Second Lebanon War, some of them secular and others wearers of knit kippot. Some of them fell in ways that earned them medals for valor. The rabbi is calling them ‘Amalek’.”

Bennett bemoaned the fact that R. Cohen’s words were delivered as he stood next to a seated Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Shas’s spiritual leader, who is viewed by many Sephardi Israelis as the most influential living rabbi.

NOW you know why we still must suffer Tisha b’Ab.

This divisiveness gives me reason to believe we will once again be expelled from Israel; Jew hating Jew.

It is ABSOLUTE HUTZPAH to denigrate fellow Jews the way the misnamed R. “Shalom” Cohen – “Shalom”?? – does; the unmitigated gall of R. Ovadia Yosef to allow this person to utter such stupid statements without objecting.

I would never say that the haredim deserve all the disrespect they get from the heloni and the "כפה סרוגה" - the latter group in which I include myself, but as long as haredi “leadership” insists on making such non-Jewish statements, the haredi leadership and those who follow them blindly, will suffer the disrespect of others.

We – Jews – cannot afford, cannot allow, this divisiveness. It cost us our nation twice already. G-d forbid it should cost us modern Israel as well.

 

Yohanon dot Glenn at gmail dot com

Cowards, stay home

Lapid is WRONG!

 

Let the haredim stay in their yeshivot and quivering behind their wives and children.

ויספו השפטרים לדבר אל-העם ואמרו מי-האיש הירא ורך הלבב ילך וישב לביתו ולא ימס את-לבב אחיו כלבבו
דברים כ ח

And the officers shall speak to the people and say “What man is fearful and faint hearted, let him go to his home and not melt his brother’s heart.” Deuteronomy 20, 8

The Torah ( דברים כ א-ח - Deuteronomy 20, 1-8) lists several reason why a person must be exempt from going out to make war (vs. a defensive war in which all men are obligated).

1.   דברים כ ה Deuteronomy 20, 5: New house not yet dedicated

2.   דברים כ ו Deuteronomy 20, 6: New vineyard from which the potential soldier has yet to enjoy its fruits

3.   דברים כ ז Deuteronomy 20, 7: An engaged but not yet married man

4.   דברים כ ח Deuteronomy 20, 8: ibid.

The first three are included because there was a chance the conscript would have his mind on the new house/fruit/wife-to-be.

The fourth is abundantly clear: cowardice can be contagious.

We know there are many haredim who simply are cowards.

They form groups to assault little children.

The train their children to assault soldiers, haredi soldiers.

There ARE haredim who are brave.

There ARE haredim who serve in the army or do national service. Ride a bus in Israel and you’ll quickly see this is true.

The cowardly haredim of Jerusalem, Bene Brak, Bet Shemesh, et al, are not, unlike American cowards, able to escape across a friendly border (into Canada). Even the anti-Israel haredim cannot – or at least won’t – “escape” to Jordan or the PA-controlled areas of Israel.

For the record, I enlisted in (volunteered for) the US military in 1960 and was prepared for induction into the IDF in 1978. By Israeli army standards at the time, I was too old, too blind, and too new a father to wear an IDF uniform.

Lapid – the “Flame” – is wrong in trying to draft every yeshiva “boy.”

To my mind they should be inducted into national service and made to serve as the army’s reservists serve. At least a month-a-year. If they are qualified, let them

Work in schools; not qualified to teach? Grab a bucket and mop.

Work in hospitals; there are lots of jobs for unskilled labor.

Work in nursing homes; if nothing else, there is bekur holim.

Work in private homes if only visiting the elderly for a few hours a day. My Mother-In-Law would LOVE company; bring the kollel to her since she no longer can go to the kollel. ‘Course being Moroccan and living in Bet Shean where it is hot in the summer and cold in the winter, it’s not likely any of the yeshiva “boys” would volunteer to visit חמותי.

Let them work on army bases as civilians. My sister-in-law can find plenty of work for them, but again, it’s Bet Shean – Sefardim and less-than-comfortable weather.

Let them visit kibbutzim and moshavim to teach Torah. I remember Chabad sending a boy to my ulpan in Beer Yakov to try and broaden our Jewish knowledge.

All the suggestions above are מצות מעשה - “action” mitzvoth that require the person to DO something. Learning also is a mitzvah, but many of the luminaries of the talmuds would insist that learning sans doing something with what was learned is not a mitzvah; it might even be considered by some as חילול השם.

Actually, since the yeshiva “boys” claim their studies “protect” Israel, perhaps the yeshivot should do two things:

1.  Open yeshivot in Sdrot and Ashkelon, in Nahariya and Kfar Giladi, and other places Israel’s neighbors target. This assuredly will prove that the yeshivot are “magan Israel.” What missile could fall where the “boys” were studying in the bet midash.

2.  Send “caravans” (towable trailers) with the army so the “boys” will have a portable, mobile bet midrash. Surely if the yeshiva “boys” are studying in the caravans nothing can touch the soldiers surrounding the beti midrash. Having yeshiva ‘boys” with the troops would increase the level of kashrut to satisfy even the most extreme rabbi (but would it be Ashkenazi kosher or Bet Yosef (halak) kosher?)

Lapid, for all his ideas to bring pseudo-equality to Israel’s citizens, got it wrong this time. Don’t draft the haredim into the army, but find other work for them or send them to the target areas.

The Jewish politicians need to find a way to convince the roshi yeshivot that it is a bigger mitzvah to put the learning to use than to learn and do nothing with what was learned.

Who’s evil? Look inward

Is Ovadia Yosef senile?

According to numerous reports, Iraqi R. Ovadia Yosef is calling Ashkenazi R. David Stav “a wicked man,” someone “dangerous to Judaism” who had “no fear of God at all.”

Electing R. Stav as Israel’s Chief Ashkenazi rabbi would be “bringing idolatry into the temple,” according to R. Yosef.

His inflammatory and derogatory statements are blamed for an attack on R. Stav by haredi youth as he was leaving a wedding in Jerusalem. (http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10059)

Does R. Yosef know this man personally? One Web site stated that they had never met. So one assumes the Iraqi has been following R. Stav’s activities at Tzohar. One source suggested that R. Ovadia knows nothing about R. Stav but the Iraqi has become a tool of his “advisors.”

The Mizrachi rabbi may have reason for concern. R. Stav says he wants to make not only rabbinate offices more welcoming, but also remodel the Israeli face of the Jewish religion in general. “I am from the world of Torah and Zionism. I am not subordinate to the ultra-Orthodox functionaries or to the politics of the Haredi Torah world,” Stav says.

In a statement, Tzohar called R. Yosef’s remarks a testimony to “the urgent need for change across the rabbinate” and said he should “repent and ask forgiveness.”

“We protest the incitement voiced yesterday by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,” Tzohar said. “Israel needs a rabbinate that will connect it to Judaism, and not antagonize.”

Yosef sustained criticism from several rabbis, most of them religious Zionists. Yosef has "crossed every boundary," said Rabbi Haim Drukman.

"Does he think that speaking that way about someone you've never met is ethical? Halachic? Jewish?" said Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron. “Why? Why does Rabbi Ovadia have to curse [Rabbi Stav],” he wrote on Facebook. “Does he think that that this will bring people closer to Torah and to Judaism? Does he think that to speak this about a person he has never met is moral? Halacha? Jewish?”

Meanwhile, religious Zionist Rabbi Benjamin Lau on Monday called for all political leaders "from the president on down" to cease all meetings with Yosef. "It's a humiliation," he said.

The religious Zionist movement, the organization noted, did not need the permission of Torah sages to field candidates and “knows how to manage the religious Zionist tradition for all of Israel.”

Assuming that R. Yosef is responding to information fed him by his advisors, it remains fairly certain that R. Yosef is suffering from senility. His recent pronouncements, both within a religious context and within the political context, leave no question as to his deteriorating mental capacity.

Israel needs another Israel Meir Lau or Yosef Messas, rabbis who guard halacha while keeping it alive and in the current era.

The competition of the Ashkenazi (!) chief rabbinate – in which the Iraqi should have no voice – has turned into לשון ברע … just in time for Rosh Hodesh Av.

R. Yosef and Shas should be ashamed.

Direct line to HaShem?

 

Messiah won't come unless haredim get our way: UTJ MK

 

Objecting to a proposal by the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee that would allow Israeli couples to register for marriage anywhere in the country and proposed amendment that would mandate the inclusion of a woman in the committee that selects rabbinical judges, MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) harshly criticized committee chairman, MK David Rotem (Yisrael Beytenu), saying "the messiah will see what this committee is doing and he won't come!"

"This committee has become the garbage can of Judaism. All the anti-Jewish laws find you," Gafni told Rotem, himself an observant Jew. "You have always been anti-religious! You are a big hero, you talk the talk, and that is why you cannot be a representative on the Judicial Selection Committee -- that committee needs strong people."

Apparently only haredi men qualify as "strong people." All others, it appears, equate to Oscar the Grouch of Sesame Street (ר''ח שומשום) fame.

Last month, Gafni said because Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid started pushing to draft haredi males into the IDF or for national service (שרות לאומי ), Israel's security situation has drastically worsened and Syria is aiming missiles at Tel Aviv. Gafni also blamed Israel's credit rating downgrade on Lapid's "infringing on the Torah" according to Israel HaYom (http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=9893)

I'm confidant that Gafni is correct that the meshiach will delay his arrival, but not because of any decisions to which haredim might object but because of the vitriolic senat henam (לשון הרע ושינאת חינם) spewing from the likes of Gafni and his fellows in the UTJ and Shas parties. I would encourage the haredim to go back and read the works of R. Yisrael Meir (Kagan) Poupko, the Chafetz Chayim (חפץ חיים), on lashon harah and baseless hatred (לשון הרע ושינאת חינם). If the meshiach thinks twice about coming to Jerusalem - and G-d knows we need mashiach now, with the world in its precarious condition - it's because of those Jews who think only they have a direct line from HaShem. Seems to me they are modeled after Korach and Company.

A democracy, even an "Israeli-style" democracy demands respect for - and by - all citizens. It demands participation by all citizens in all aspects of the government.

After Moses died, two people led the nation: Yohasua ben Nun and Pinchas ben Afunah. Yohasua was the political leader and Pinchas was the religious leader and, unlike the politicians of today, these two apparently (there is no indication in Torah (תורה שבעל-פי) of anything otherwise) worked together. The cohanim took the field with their brothers to conquer the land. The only exceptions were for cowards. newly weds, owners of new houses and people too young or too old. Perhaps today's haredim who dodge both the IDF and national service are one of the three exempt groups.

Likewise, according to the Torah, everyone except leviim and cohanim had to support both the state and the Temple; in truth, I'm not sure the leviim and cohanim were exempt from taxation to support the state's needs (army, judges and courts, etc.).

The "bottom line" is that when we came into Israel from Egypt, everyone - without exception - participated in the conquest; everyone did their part.

If the haredim complain that the IDF is "not kosher enough" then their presence would enhance the military's kashrut. (One hopes it would reach the level of Bet Yosef/Halak vs. "just glat.") Apparently the IDF IS kosher - when last in Israel and riding cross-country buses, I noticed a number of "modern Orthodox" - male and female - in uniform and, by their gear, some in well-respected combat units.

While I don't have a lot of respect for politicians - Israeli or U.S. - I think Gafni's remark that a Knesset committee is the "garbage can of Judaism" goes to far; that suggests, at least to me, that this representative of the haredim considers all non-haredim as "garbage." He's telling us that "if you are not like me, you're garbage." Today the "garbage" is any non-haredi, tomorrow the "garbage" will be anyone not aligned with his party (UTJ), and the day after, the "garbage" will be anyone who follows any rabbi but Gafni's.

It is because of MKs such as Gafni that the political-religious parties are today in the opposition and continually losing support from the non-haredi sectors. There are political parties that are populated by observant Jews, by Jews who believe in inclusion rather than haredi's exclusion mentality.

"Garbage" MK Gafni? That's pure hutzpah and a disgrace to Judaism.

After thought Another article from Israel HaYom is headlined "Thousands of haredim protest against IDF draft in NYC" and reports on New York's Satmar haredim hitting the streets to protest a draft in a place they don't live, a place where a Satmar admor once said was not a place for (his) Jews.
( http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=9867)

I can recall a rally for Israel in Washington D.C. a few years back. As I was making my way back to the Metrorail station I saw a cluster of Satmar "hasidim" waving not an Israeli flag but a "Palestinian" flag. These are the people who have the nerve to try an tell a government they don't recognize how to deal with its population! They may be the only group of people with more absolute hutzpah than the haredi politicians in Israel.

Look into a mirror

Suggestion to boards and haredim

 

At one time I was a member of a congregation that was losing members.

At an open-to-members board meeting one of the non-board members asked the board if it knew why people were abandoning the congregation and going elsewhere.

The “bogadim” were not abandoning Judaism, they simply were leaving the congregation.

A couple of the board’s members responded by telling the questioner that the board did not know.

“Wouldn’t it be wise to find out why people are leaving so maybe they could be encouraged to return?” the visitor asked.

One board member replied that “No, we don’t care why they left. They left and we don’t want them back.” Several other board members agreed and the rest remained silent, either agreeing with the speaker or fearing to disagree.

If you look around my extended neighborhood, you will find members of my former congregation in a newly formed “Sefardi” minyan at the Main Ashkenazi synagogue, a several Ben Ish Hai congregations that, according to the shrinking congregation’s rabbi are off-shoots of his Sefardi synagogue (true – but why?), and the ubiquitous Chabad and Chabad-want-to-be congregations.

Membership still is slipping and the board still won’t admit that maybe - just maybe – there is something amiss with their organization.

I was reminded of this as I read an article with the misleading headline “Hareidi Paper Compares Lapid’s Speech to Hitler’s” from the on-line Arutz 7/Israel National News Web site.

The article quotes Chaim Walder, a columnist for the hareidi-religious newspaper Yated Neeman who complains that “they (non-haredim) have wicked plans regarding quality of life, the ability to live a normal life. To strip us of basic rights like payments, tax discounts, welfare, food for our children… there are even those who speak of taking the freedom to vote, or of leaving Israel, which is true dictatorship.”

This allegedly was in response to comments made two years ago in a column penned by Finance Minister Yair Lapid that told the haredim ““Forget ideology, forget that I don’t understand how it doesn’t bother you that you live at my expense. I can’t pay for it anymore. It’s over, there’s nothing left. I don’t just have nothing to give your children, I have nothing for my own. Do you understand how that makes me feel?”

Lapid, according to Arutz 7, ended that column with a warning, “We have to find a way, friend, or this will end badly.“

Walder, who we must assume is writing for the haredi rabbis – the leaders of the communities – in my mind is likened to the synagogue’s board.

He complains that the government wants to “strip us of basic rights like payments, tax discounts, welfare, food for our children.”

Excuse me. WHAT “basic rights?” My son-in law works two jobs to support his family AND the haredim who get payments, tax discounts, welfare, and food for their children. Where are my son-in-law’s “basic rights?” He does get a stipend for my grand-daughter, but no tax discounts, no welfare payments, and no free food or food purchasing assistance. He pays for kupat holim. He pays for my daughter’s education (promised but not provided by the government as a new olah studying to be a high school teacher).

Now, what Mr. Walder is failing to mention is that UNLIKE my son-in-law, the haredim refuse service in the IDF, and refuse national service. My son-in-law did his active duty time and does his reserve time. Inconvenient? Yes. Price of citizenship? Yes. (Israeli Arabs can/should do national service, even if only in Arab-dominated areas.)

The haredim refuse to give back anything to the state in return for all the state provides them.

Like the synagogue board, they haredim don’t want to “look into a mirror” and see themselves as they really are – people who not only take without giving anything back, but people who are – like many on America’s welfare roles – accustomed to living on handouts.

TO BE FAIR, not all “haredim” are takers. There are haredi Jews who fully participate in Israeli life – who serve in the IDF or national service, who have educations beyond the talmuds, who have gainful employment and still find time to study.

Likewise, not all welfare clients in America have the haredi’s “you owe me” mentality.

If the haredim want the non-haredim – observant Jews and helonim – to have any respect for them, they need to consider the complaints of “the rest of Israel” and at least seem to make an effort to integrate with the general population.

As long as the haredim consider themselves – and act – as part of a different society, a society that takes and gives nothing back but self-congratulating words (“We keep Israel safe by our talmud study”), the rest of the population, the population that provides Walder and his ilk with their “basic rights like payments, tax discounts, welfare, food for our children” – often at the expense of their own “basic rights,” - will continue to hold the haredim in contempt.

Mourning in Nissan

Making a mountain out of a mole hill

One of the Israeli haredi political party Shas’ sub-leaders (all of whom report to R. Ovadia Yosef), claim that "Holocaust Remembrance Day does not apply to haredi [ultra-Orthodox] Jews.”

According to an article in the Israel HaYom ( http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=8537), Shas party Co-chairman Aryeh Deri said in an interview with haredi radio station Kol Barama set to air Thursday night said that “"Personally, I don't see any sanctity or distinctiveness in this day. Israel's Chief Rabbinate has designated the 10th of Tevet [the Hebrew month corresponding to December-January] as a general mourners' day, and that is they day when, religiously speaking, we remember the victims of the Holocaust.”

The month of Nissan, in which Passover falls, traditionally allows only limited mourning (death in immediate family excepted).

While Deri’s remarks, if accurately translated by Israel HaYom, are harsh, he does have a basis for his position.

Holocaust Remembrance Day 5773 (2013) was aligned with the beginning of the Warsaw (Poland) ghetto’s uprising. Deri challenged the date choice, noting there were other uprisings in other ghettos at different times.

According to the Israel HaYom article, Deri allegedly said "No one can come and tell us about the Holocaust. The Holocaust Remembrance Day that 'they' declared because of the Warsaw ghetto doesn't apply to us as haredi Jews," he said.

From my personal perspective, and while I might agree with Deri and the haredim regarding mourning during the month of Nissan, I contend that the holocaust indeed applies to Sefardim – a group Shas purports to represent - both directly and indirectly.

The nazis destroyed Sefardi communities throughout the Mediterranean region – Rhodes and Soloniki to name but two. According to a table at http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/holocaustappendices.html, 80 percent of all Greek Jews were murdered by the nazis; in Italy, “only” 20 percent of the Jewish population was murdered.

Map by worldatlas, copyright GraphicMaps.com

Indirectly, the nazis – with the enthusiastic help of the Muslims – managed to slaughter Jews in Iran, in Israel, and elsewhere in the Muslim world. While not round-ups a la Europe, the Muslims simply murdered Jews where they found them, similar to pogroms in Russia, the Ukraine, and elsewhere in that region.

My personal “bottom line”: While I would prefer the Holocaust Remembrance Day be linked to the Hebrew calendar, as is Israel Independence Day, and that the link be to a date in a month other than Nissan, Deri and his boss need to open their eyes to the fact that the holocaust was not “just” an Ashkenazi thing; indeed, it was not “just” a Jewish thing. See the table at http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.TAB1.1.GIF for a breakdown of the nazis’ victims and how they were “eliminated.”

It’s a shame that Deri and his fellow haredim can’t pick their fights a little more sanely. If the haredim are trying to recruit people to their side, to see their point of view, Deri’s remarks are counter-productive. The remarks can only serve to drive observant Jews farther from the haredi camp and to set fast the helonim in their opinion of the haredim.

This mountain, all things and timing considered, should have been left as a mole hill.