A guest post by JS:
My wife and I don't have children yet (we've quickly learned that in the Jewish community, it's essential to say "yet" whenever referring to not having children). However, a frequent topic of conversation is yeshivas and whether or not they are worth it. The conversation has taken on more immediacy as we start to consider what community we'd like to make our home and therefore what options we would have in terms of where to send our future children.
Cost is obviously a major driver in any discussion about yeshiva. The MO yeshivas in our area currently cost around $12k-$15k for K-8 and around $22k-$25k for 9-12. And of course even if the stork delivered a kid tomorrow, by the time they were in Kindergarten the cost would likely be $15k-$18k and 9th grade would likely be $35k-$40k. That alone is staggering and should give one pause. But, I'd like to focus more on what exactly does one get out of yeshiva education.
I went to an MO yeshiva K-12 and never went to yeshiva in Israel. As I understand it, the year in Israel is critical as that's where you REALLY learn (What exactly were K-12 for then? practice?). Now, more than 10 years out of high school I couldn't tell you a single rashi, midrash, vort, inyan, sugya, etc. that I learned in all my years of yeshiva education. Anything I now know is from my own personal learning that I did after yeshiva. I also don't really believe my "love of learning" (and granted, it's not all that big) came from yeshiva either. I enjoyed Judaic studies and was in the advanced tracks, but that's more because I'm a curious person, I enjoy learning almost any subject, and Judaic studies was in the home. It also helps that I enjoy debating and logical and critical thinking. But in actual yeshiva? Except for a few teachers, I was pretty bored. I didn't find many of my rabbeim that interesting, that intelligent, or that inspiring. Many were recent YU grads who merely went over shiurs they learned 1-2 years prior. I found that most of my questions couldn't be answered and were met with a "good kashya!"
Another thing is that I never learned how to learn in yeshiva. I was never given the proper tools. This is certainly true in the Hebrew/Aramaic department. It's only because of hearing Hebrew at home that I can even pick up a siddur or chumash and understand what I'm reading. And despite this I am reliant on English translations to get through difficult sections. My wife went K-12 at a MO yeshiva and she can't even do that. Her Hebrew is so poor she is totally reliant on Artscroll. Most grads of MO yeshivas fall into this category. The kids who get up to do Anim Zemirot or Ein K'Elokeinu who are the proud recipients of a yeshiva education can hardly pronounce a single word correctly, have no idea what they're saying, and zip through ketoret, etc faster than I can say more than 5-6 lines.
Then you have DB's post below about the shallowness of a yeshiva education. I think through about 5th grade and maybe a bit longer, my Jewish education consisted nearly entirely of arts and crafts projects, cute midrash stories like how Rivka was 3, and a rashi here and there. And of course, we never returned to re-learn Breishit or any of the other "story" parts of Torah. We never even learned all of Chumash - VaYikra was nearly entirely passed over as was most of D'varim. And we maybe made it through half of Neviim and hardly any of Ketuvim. As for gemara, we made it through 20-25 daf each year in a random masechet. We never learned any practical halacha either. And we only had a short half-year, once a week class in Jewish philosophy, which was a complete joke and treated all major philosophical issues in Judaism as "obvious" and that these aren't major concerns, but if they are simplistic answers should suffice. I hate to return to the cost issue and I know it's not all about quantity, but seriously, shouldn't you get a bit more for your money here?
Finally, there is so much hashkafically that I was taught in yeshiva that I simply don't agree with. This ranges from secular hashkafa relating to politics and how to interact with the outside world to Jewish hashkafa. When I was a teen and completely obnoxious and thought I was right about everything, the yeshiva took advantage of this to force hashkafic arguments at home. Every Shabbos without fail the meal would denigrate into a heated debate about how my parents were wrong about everything and weren't properly adhering to Jewish values, halachas, and ideals. The yeshivas pitted me against my parents as what they taught wasn't what we did at home. Another major problem is the outright racism and xenophobia explicitly taught in yeshivas both subtly and not so subtly. We were taught we're superior to everyone else, other religions are lies and their practitioners are just stupid and will see the light when mashiach comes, other races do drugs and commit crimes. We were taught to fear the outside world and to stay as close to other Jews as possible - to go to Jewish colleges or at least to stay on Jewish floors. We were told not to trust ourselves since the outside world is full of temptations and we would surely succumb without a constant Torah environment. Yet of course, at the same time, the yeshivas ignored the fact that drugs and alcohol were serious problems. And they of course ignored how the students had little to no derech eretz, would run around the shul/school like vilda chayas causing property damage, and cause chillul Hashems on class trips. I recently asked a girl who attends a MO yeshiva which has a new building how the new facilities are and she responded, "It was nice when we first moved in, but they already need to fix it up since everyone wrote on all the desks and some kids kicked holes in the walls, etc."
So, this is the background with which we consider the yeshiva question. I'd like to know what people think of the above - do you agree or disagree? Do you buy into the argument that if a child didn't go to yeshiva there's simply no way they will ever remain frum? Do you think there's absolutely no way to provide a Jewish education outside of a yeshiva? Does the family count for nothing? If a family provides a frum, Jewish home which demonstrates a love for Yiddishkeit and if the parents learn with their children or hire a rabbi to learn with them this is still not nearly as good as a yeshiva? Most importantly (for me): Is there any hope for a LW MO couple like my wife and me?
Search for more information about the pros/cons of yeshiva at 4torah.com.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
The trouble with Jewish education
First appearence
An analogy from science: In elementary school, we teach children that electrons travel around an atom's nucleus in nice circular orbits at discreet energy levels. Later on, we say that the electrons don't exactly travel in circles and that they hang out in dumbbell shaped probability spaces. Next, the high end physics guys talk about quarks and leptons. At each stage of education, more detail is provided.
The problem with Jewish education is that, when it comes to certain subjects, the extra details are never provided. There are legions of Jewish men running around, for example, who can't discuss Chumash with any intelligence. In their mind, midrashim are literal, and Rashi's purpose is to tell us exactly what happened. The problem is so endemic that the views of other Rishonim and Achronim as well as those Midrashim that aren't cited by Rashi are cavalierly and sometimes angrilly dismissed. (For an example, see this comment thread where "lakewood yid," clueless as ever, can't seem to wrap his head around the possibility that a gloss his first grade Rebbe gave him was incomplete. To save himself the chore of re-examining and adding nuance to an old idea, he's accused me of fabricating a Maharal, a Maharal that is cited in the Schottenstein Talmud on Sotah 11A. )
The irony is that many of these ignoramuses are well-informed when the subject is Jewish law; somehow they've managed to accept that multiple levels of understanding exist when the issue is a legal one. The same people who can effortlessly recount the opinion of 15 achronim when the question is kashrus, refuse to leave Rashi's bes medrash when we're discussing chumash. It's really quite bizarre.
Search for more information about Jewish education at 4torah.com.
An analogy from science: In elementary school, we teach children that electrons travel around an atom's nucleus in nice circular orbits at discreet energy levels. Later on, we say that the electrons don't exactly travel in circles and that they hang out in dumbbell shaped probability spaces. Next, the high end physics guys talk about quarks and leptons. At each stage of education, more detail is provided.
The problem with Jewish education is that, when it comes to certain subjects, the extra details are never provided. There are legions of Jewish men running around, for example, who can't discuss Chumash with any intelligence. In their mind, midrashim are literal, and Rashi's purpose is to tell us exactly what happened. The problem is so endemic that the views of other Rishonim and Achronim as well as those Midrashim that aren't cited by Rashi are cavalierly and sometimes angrilly dismissed. (For an example, see this comment thread where "lakewood yid," clueless as ever, can't seem to wrap his head around the possibility that a gloss his first grade Rebbe gave him was incomplete. To save himself the chore of re-examining and adding nuance to an old idea, he's accused me of fabricating a Maharal, a Maharal that is cited in the Schottenstein Talmud on Sotah 11A. )
The irony is that many of these ignoramuses are well-informed when the subject is Jewish law; somehow they've managed to accept that multiple levels of understanding exist when the issue is a legal one. The same people who can effortlessly recount the opinion of 15 achronim when the question is kashrus, refuse to leave Rashi's bes medrash when we're discussing chumash. It's really quite bizarre.
Search for more information about Jewish education at 4torah.com.
Faux Judaism
A guest post by rejewvenator
Recently on Hirhurim, Gil had a post on a Jew taking an oath in a secular court. Jewish law has developed a strong resistance to taking oaths, and so Orthodox Jews customarily opt to 'affirm' rather than swear when in court. Gil's post got into the details of how and why this is halachically effective.
Reading his post, I just felt a sense of loss and futility, because it just feels so fake. The courts require an oath, but Judaism isn't into oaths. Rather than just take our lumps, we invent this notion that you an make some kind of promise that is somehow sufficient for the State to believe you, but isn't actually a Shevuah in a halachic sense. Practically speaking, you're swearing to tell the truth in a formal, legal, and social-contract-binding way, but that oath doesn't have halachic value. It's just an end-run around our own traditons and values.
It got me thinking that so much of Jewish practice today happens not in the real world, but in some strange, disconnected, halachic bubble. For example, Judaism has long benefited from a tradition of fastidiousness, and we've got lots of washing rituals that served to keep us healthier than the people around us. Today, however, we moderns have better means for keeping clean, like anti-bacterial soap. When it's time for dinner, I wash my hands with soap, and then I perform a 'faux' hand-washing, a netilat yadayim, so I can say a bracha. Its value is purely symbolic, and has no meaning, outside of metaphysical or kabbalistic reasons. The notion that cleaning up before I touch food is a Godly one gets completely swallowed up. But no Orthodox Jew would suggest that I could make a bracha on washing my hands with soap!
Faux Judaism is the divorcing of Jewish practice from reality. It's living in an imaginary sphere of halacha that is only tangentially connected to the real world. It's liviing in a world where so many of your actions or deviod of Jewish significance. Collecting your spare change every day and giving it to tzedaka is just tzedaka. It's not Peah. Maybe you got the idea from Peah, but it's not Peah. We're not allowed to make that leap. Once upon a time our leaders were able to say that Tefillah is Korbanot, for example, but we don't have that right, or maybe we jsut don't have the courage to make those kinds of changes.
Our Judaism has turned from a very practical religion whose rituals carried both pragmatic and symbolic meanings into a religion where nearly everything is only symbolic, and thus kind of fake. In the meantime, values like democracy, equal rights, or environmentalism find no real home in our Jewish life, or at best, get strung onto a handful of pesukim, with no real halachic expression or force of mitzvah behind them, even thought they resonate strongly within us as true, and good, and important. Our davening has turned dry and distant from our hearts, our Torah has turned into halachic acrobatics and midrash-style apologetics, and the world does not look to us as an example for how to treat your fellow man.
Maybe it's time we dusted off both our traditions and oursleves, and started living once again in the world of the real.
Recently on Hirhurim, Gil had a post on a Jew taking an oath in a secular court. Jewish law has developed a strong resistance to taking oaths, and so Orthodox Jews customarily opt to 'affirm' rather than swear when in court. Gil's post got into the details of how and why this is halachically effective.
Reading his post, I just felt a sense of loss and futility, because it just feels so fake. The courts require an oath, but Judaism isn't into oaths. Rather than just take our lumps, we invent this notion that you an make some kind of promise that is somehow sufficient for the State to believe you, but isn't actually a Shevuah in a halachic sense. Practically speaking, you're swearing to tell the truth in a formal, legal, and social-contract-binding way, but that oath doesn't have halachic value. It's just an end-run around our own traditons and values.
It got me thinking that so much of Jewish practice today happens not in the real world, but in some strange, disconnected, halachic bubble. For example, Judaism has long benefited from a tradition of fastidiousness, and we've got lots of washing rituals that served to keep us healthier than the people around us. Today, however, we moderns have better means for keeping clean, like anti-bacterial soap. When it's time for dinner, I wash my hands with soap, and then I perform a 'faux' hand-washing, a netilat yadayim, so I can say a bracha. Its value is purely symbolic, and has no meaning, outside of metaphysical or kabbalistic reasons. The notion that cleaning up before I touch food is a Godly one gets completely swallowed up. But no Orthodox Jew would suggest that I could make a bracha on washing my hands with soap!
Faux Judaism is the divorcing of Jewish practice from reality. It's living in an imaginary sphere of halacha that is only tangentially connected to the real world. It's liviing in a world where so many of your actions or deviod of Jewish significance. Collecting your spare change every day and giving it to tzedaka is just tzedaka. It's not Peah. Maybe you got the idea from Peah, but it's not Peah. We're not allowed to make that leap. Once upon a time our leaders were able to say that Tefillah is Korbanot, for example, but we don't have that right, or maybe we jsut don't have the courage to make those kinds of changes.
Our Judaism has turned from a very practical religion whose rituals carried both pragmatic and symbolic meanings into a religion where nearly everything is only symbolic, and thus kind of fake. In the meantime, values like democracy, equal rights, or environmentalism find no real home in our Jewish life, or at best, get strung onto a handful of pesukim, with no real halachic expression or force of mitzvah behind them, even thought they resonate strongly within us as true, and good, and important. Our davening has turned dry and distant from our hearts, our Torah has turned into halachic acrobatics and midrash-style apologetics, and the world does not look to us as an example for how to treat your fellow man.
Maybe it's time we dusted off both our traditions and oursleves, and started living once again in the world of the real.
Friday, June 19, 2009
A great Jewish moment in movies
From the side matter: [This clip] is from the 1936 Yiddish film YIDL MITN FIDL [one of the most successful Yiddish film of all time, starring the very great Molly (Malkele) Picon.]
This was filmed... in Kazimierz, Poland, using local inhabitants as extras. It took over thirty consecutive hours to film, and the food had to be kosher of course as the locals used were all Orthodox Jews. As the filming went on, they ate, and for the successive shots of the table the food had to be replenished. The poverty stricken guests just couldn't understand what was happening, as they thought they had been invited to a real wedding. When one woman asked why so much food they explained that it wasn't a real wedding - only a film. It is possible she had never seen a film, for she said: "Why didn't you tell me that before? With so much food, I could have brought my daughter to get married for real. She has a chassen (bridegroom) but we have no money for a dowry to make a proper wedding." Molly suspected her husband (Jacob Kalich) may have given the woman the money, as later she smiled at Picon and said "Are you lucky to have such a rich husband."
It's a sobering thought to think what... happened to these people only a few short years later.
Was Rachav a harlot or an innkeeper?
The great R. Josh discusses the popular idea (suggested by some Rishonim) that Rachav was an ordinary innkeeper and investigates the contention of Radak that all of this is based on a mistranslation of Targum.
His conclusion? Radak was right.
Search for more information about Rachav at 4torah.com.
His conclusion? Radak was right.
Search for more information about Rachav at 4torah.com.
What's a Democrat doing speaking up for Israel\?
I'm so confused. Acording to the reliable information repeated in shul, from the pulpit and around the Shaloshudis table, Democrats are all Arab loving Jew haters.
Search for more information about the Shoah at 4torah.com.
I Have a Nightmare Today....
By the Bray of Fundie
We live in a colorblind Democracy. Equal treatment under the law. Men are judged by the content of their character yada yada...
Yet there seems to be a double standard at work in NYC municipal politics. You see, two chaplains in the Correction Department signed off on the Tuvia Stern Jailhouse Bar-Mitzvah debacle. One was Jewish the other Muslim.
Initially Mayor Bloomberg said "clearly, this should not have happened". More recently, commenting on the resignations of chaplain Rabbi Leib Glanz and security Chief Peter Curcio, Bloomberg said "A three-star chief and the rabbi have chosen to resign, which was the right thing for them to do".
Yet the same mayor extended a ringing vote of confidence to Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil, saying "This is a guy who is somebody that does a good job and we need to have him and I'm very happy to have him," Click for all the details.
Seems that we still live in a land where men are judged by the color and length of their coats and peyos and NOT by the content of their character.
[DB: I couldn't disagree more.]
Search for more information about chaplains at 4torah.com.
We live in a colorblind Democracy. Equal treatment under the law. Men are judged by the content of their character yada yada...
Yet there seems to be a double standard at work in NYC municipal politics. You see, two chaplains in the Correction Department signed off on the Tuvia Stern Jailhouse Bar-Mitzvah debacle. One was Jewish the other Muslim.
Initially Mayor Bloomberg said "clearly, this should not have happened". More recently, commenting on the resignations of chaplain Rabbi Leib Glanz and security Chief Peter Curcio, Bloomberg said "A three-star chief and the rabbi have chosen to resign, which was the right thing for them to do".
Yet the same mayor extended a ringing vote of confidence to Imam Umar Abdul-Jalil, saying "This is a guy who is somebody that does a good job and we need to have him and I'm very happy to have him," Click for all the details.
Seems that we still live in a land where men are judged by the color and length of their coats and peyos and NOT by the content of their character.
[DB: I couldn't disagree more.]
Search for more information about chaplains at 4torah.com.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Clinton: If I forget thee O Jerusalem
A Guest Post by Rafi G
US Foreign Minister Hillary Clinton fell and broke her right arm yesterday. The same day she was telling Israel, yet again, how they will accept nothing less than a complete cessation of construction in the settlements.
If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither... אם אשכחך ירושלים תשכח ימיני
Search for more information about [Hillary Clinton pressuring Israel to stop construction in Jerusalem because it is a settlement] at 4torah.com.
Fly Swatter in Chief
A guest post by JS:
In what can only be a sign of incredible boredom by our national news agencies, the BIG STORY is that Barack Obama swatted a fly during an interview with CNBC. See the video here. Obviously, what's going on in Iran, for example, is not as interesting or important.
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has called Barack Obama out for his inhumane treatment of the fly. See the article here. The PETA spokesperson said "We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals."
So what do you think? Should PETA be commended for their consistency - after all, wouldn't they be hypocrites if they said swatting a fly was OK? Is one animal life more valuable than another? Should PETA have kept their mouths shut as one is likely to dismiss them as ridiculous and thereby not listen to their broader agenda about cruelty to other animals?
Also, how would tza'ar ba'alei chayim (not inflicting pain/suffering on animals) fit in here? One of the cited purposes for the mitzvah is that being cruel to an animal makes us cruel to other human beings. Does mercilessly killing a fly instead of trapping it and releasing it influence how we treat others? Wouldn't a merciful person treat all of God's creations with mercy?
Search for more information about animal cruelty at 4torah.com.
In what can only be a sign of incredible boredom by our national news agencies, the BIG STORY is that Barack Obama swatted a fly during an interview with CNBC. See the video here. Obviously, what's going on in Iran, for example, is not as interesting or important.
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has called Barack Obama out for his inhumane treatment of the fly. See the article here. The PETA spokesperson said "We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals."
So what do you think? Should PETA be commended for their consistency - after all, wouldn't they be hypocrites if they said swatting a fly was OK? Is one animal life more valuable than another? Should PETA have kept their mouths shut as one is likely to dismiss them as ridiculous and thereby not listen to their broader agenda about cruelty to other animals?
Also, how would tza'ar ba'alei chayim (not inflicting pain/suffering on animals) fit in here? One of the cited purposes for the mitzvah is that being cruel to an animal makes us cruel to other human beings. Does mercilessly killing a fly instead of trapping it and releasing it influence how we treat others? Wouldn't a merciful person treat all of God's creations with mercy?
Search for more information about animal cruelty at 4torah.com.
Stewart Slays
Jon Stewart, a great American, demolishes Republicans, and their anti-Health Care Reform talking points:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Heal or No Heal | ||||
The sin of the Nazir
The Torah requires a Nazir to bring a sin offering, and the bold name Bible commentators argue about the reason. Ramban says the sacrifice is an atonement for the sin of returning to the world after the conclusion of the Nazerite term. His position is disputed by Rambam who, following Rabbi Eleazar Hakappar, says the Nazir sinned by becoming a Nazerite in the first place.
The basis of the disagreement, apparently, is this: Ramban admires the Nazarite for trying to improve himself spiritually by withdrawing from wine and other vanities, while Rambam sees this desire to separate from the world as a sign of weakness and the rejection of what the Torah permits as evidence of a spiritual shortcoming.
We don't have Nazerites in 2009, but we do have our religious ascetics. They don't grow their hair long, and abstain from wine; instead they crown their heads with hats and refuse to partake from any number of permitted foods and activities.
The culture compliments these modern Nazarites. They and their chumrahs are held up as examples for the rest of us to emulate, while those of us who prefer not to copy their clothing and abstentions are dismissed as "modern" "not really committed" or "lazy."
Certainly the 21st centruy Nazaerites have the support of the Ramban, and the many mashgichim who cite him. The point of this post is not to condemn their approach, but to defend the alternative. Because, isn't it possible to be a full Jew in good halachic standing without taking on the various food and clothing stingencies? And, following the Rambam, isn't this "ordinary orthodoxy" a legitimate l'chatchila approach, and not second best?
Sources:
This man sins against his soul when he completes his nezirut – for now he is leaving his holiness and Divine service; it would have been more fitting to remain a nazir forever, all his day as a nazir and Holy to his God. Behold he requires atonement when he returns to be besmirched with worldly passions - Ramban Bamidbar 6:14
If man should argue, since envy, passion and pride are evil, .. then I shall divorce and separate myself utterly from them till I eat no meat nor drink wine, nor marry .. after the manner of the gentile priests .. this is also an evil path and it is forbidden to walk on it. One who walks in the path is called a sinner and needs atonement -Rambam: Deiot 3:1
The basis of the disagreement, apparently, is this: Ramban admires the Nazarite for trying to improve himself spiritually by withdrawing from wine and other vanities, while Rambam sees this desire to separate from the world as a sign of weakness and the rejection of what the Torah permits as evidence of a spiritual shortcoming.
We don't have Nazerites in 2009, but we do have our religious ascetics. They don't grow their hair long, and abstain from wine; instead they crown their heads with hats and refuse to partake from any number of permitted foods and activities.
The culture compliments these modern Nazarites. They and their chumrahs are held up as examples for the rest of us to emulate, while those of us who prefer not to copy their clothing and abstentions are dismissed as "modern" "not really committed" or "lazy."
Certainly the 21st centruy Nazaerites have the support of the Ramban, and the many mashgichim who cite him. The point of this post is not to condemn their approach, but to defend the alternative. Because, isn't it possible to be a full Jew in good halachic standing without taking on the various food and clothing stingencies? And, following the Rambam, isn't this "ordinary orthodoxy" a legitimate l'chatchila approach, and not second best?
Sources:
This man sins against his soul when he completes his nezirut – for now he is leaving his holiness and Divine service; it would have been more fitting to remain a nazir forever, all his day as a nazir and Holy to his God. Behold he requires atonement when he returns to be besmirched with worldly passions - Ramban Bamidbar 6:14
If man should argue, since envy, passion and pride are evil, .. then I shall divorce and separate myself utterly from them till I eat no meat nor drink wine, nor marry .. after the manner of the gentile priests .. this is also an evil path and it is forbidden to walk on it. One who walks in the path is called a sinner and needs atonement -Rambam: Deiot 3:1
Anti Semites
Its my unhappy duty to report that every last one of my searches on Slacker for shiny shoe music, chazanut, or klezmer came up empty.
Slacker, of course, is the Internet music applicaton that creates a radio station for you, based on the selection of just a single song or artist. It was covered today, in the New York Times, which is where the concluding 16 words of the preceding sentence first appeared.
Slacker, of course, is the Internet music applicaton that creates a radio station for you, based on the selection of just a single song or artist. It was covered today, in the New York Times, which is where the concluding 16 words of the preceding sentence first appeared.
A Dreidal Song...
... with a good beat and a nice musar message, too, as Don McLean week on DovBear continues.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Psalm 137
Rivers of Babylon
This clip is from an early MadMen episode that featured a campaign for Israeli tourism as a subplot. The song is sung by a Jewish(?) beatnik, at a Village club, but the Babylon the song references can only be understood as the world of the Mad Men themselves.
Historicity: Wiki tells me this song was on Don Don McLean's American Pie album; the MadMen clip, however, is set in 1960.
This clip is from an early MadMen episode that featured a campaign for Israeli tourism as a subplot. The song is sung by a Jewish(?) beatnik, at a Village club, but the Babylon the song references can only be understood as the world of the Mad Men themselves.
Historicity: Wiki tells me this song was on Don Don McLean's American Pie album; the MadMen clip, however, is set in 1960.
Blame
The media's arguments over who is to blame for the James von Brunn shooting devolve into their lowest forms:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Blame | ||||
| ||||
And, um, I called it.
What important issue is now the focus of the Israeli Sephardic Orthodox community?
By email:
What important issue is now the focus of the Israeli Sephardic Orthodox community?
Can you guess?
Is it Iran? The Palestinians? The religious-secular divide? Poverty?
Think again
What important issue is now the focus of the Israeli Sephardic Orthodox community?
Can you guess?
Is it Iran? The Palestinians? The religious-secular divide? Poverty?
Think again
Agudah: Shwecky is a "religious requirement"
From the as yet unsent Agudah letter, as reported by the Forward:
(with an assist from the superb Rafi G.)
Hedyot adds: "Another thing this story shows is what a bunch of BS it is when Agudah (and others) defends itself on the molestation issue using the argument of, "Well, of course we didn't say anything about Kolko (or the others) all those years! We're not responsible for everything that goes on in the chareidi world!"As is so clearly demonstrated in their action here, when they care about something, they speak up, regardless of if it has any direct involvement of their organization.
Well yes, Hedyot, we've noticed that, too.
As I wrote in 2006: In the past, you, as an individual have published fiery condemnantions of Conservative Judaism, feminism, and religious pluralism. You've had 23 letters published in the New York Times, many of them filled with indignation. And your work on Cross Currents, the worst blog in the world, ranges from attacks on homosexuals to liberals to the media. But now, when a child molester who has enjoyed the protection of Agudah Rabbis is caught in your own back yard, the cat finally catches your famously flapping tounge? Now, the blood pressure medicine begins to work? More
“The reports in the media pillory Rabbi Glanz, in the most cynical and derogatory fashion imaginable, for his role in accommodating Jewish prisoners’ religious requirements and helping them participate, personally or vicariously, in milestone family celebrations,”Yesterday, we pointed out that Agudah is (surprise!) not telling the precise, literal truth about how the media covered the chaplain scandal. Today, we wish to add that Agudah not telling the precise, literal truth about the chaplain's behavior. Though Agudah pretends the poor rabbi was merely helping Jewish prisoners fulfil their "religious requirements" the truth is that the chaplain ran into trouble, not for studying and praying with Jewish prisoners, but for arranging a lavish Bar Mitzvah party, featuring catered food, and high-priced celebrity entertainment, in the form of Schwecky, the second tier crooner. To suggest this extravagancy is a "religious requirement" is obscene, and sadly surprising from an organization that claims to always take detailed and specific direction from the Gedolim.
(with an assist from the superb Rafi G.)
Hedyot adds: "Another thing this story shows is what a bunch of BS it is when Agudah (and others) defends itself on the molestation issue using the argument of, "Well, of course we didn't say anything about Kolko (or the others) all those years! We're not responsible for everything that goes on in the chareidi world!"As is so clearly demonstrated in their action here, when they care about something, they speak up, regardless of if it has any direct involvement of their organization.
Well yes, Hedyot, we've noticed that, too.
As I wrote in 2006: In the past, you, as an individual have published fiery condemnantions of Conservative Judaism, feminism, and religious pluralism. You've had 23 letters published in the New York Times, many of them filled with indignation. And your work on Cross Currents, the worst blog in the world, ranges from attacks on homosexuals to liberals to the media. But now, when a child molester who has enjoyed the protection of Agudah Rabbis is caught in your own back yard, the cat finally catches your famously flapping tounge? Now, the blood pressure medicine begins to work? More
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