Steve Brizel’s Letter from the Dark Light
Our frum friends at Beyondbt have posted a letter from Steve Brizel which included his assessment of Ohr Somayach from a Chanukah party he attended, where they surely celebrated our continued war against the Hellenists, which was never ever written down in a document known as Maccabees I-IV.
I’m thrilled Steve is having such a wonderful time, and look forward hearing some great Gedoylim and mammish mesiras nefesh stories he certainly was fed while at Ohr Somayach’s Chanukah party. However, I feel his generally glowing recommendation of Dark Light doesn’t answer the “factless” allegations I have raised both here, on Beyondbt, and elsewhere.
After dismissing my “factless” allegations against Dark Light as “misinformed,” Steve claims,
“Ohr Samaeach has successfully tapped the market of Jewish post [college] graduates from all sorts of backgrounds and created a program that helps realize their potential as Bnei Torah who then progress to yeshivas across the Torah spectrum.�
The issue is not the college graduates, but rather, the high school graduates who go there. While they certainly help these young men subsequently attend other yeshivas, they do not encourage them to go to college, which is the problem. Who sends them to Ohr Somayach when they aren’t college graduates? Well, the largest recruiter outside of Ohr Somayach itself appears to be NCSY. And as Steve appears to be conceding, they are guided to further yeshiva study at Ohr Somayach instead of college. The fact that O.S. also has many of the same seforim as in any other yeshiva (and not just Artscrolls) is irrelevant to this problem, and to the fact that their parents aren’t informed of what type of indoctrination their kids are facing, even if they aren’t encouraged to don black hats their first year (of more than one year) there.
If Steve agrees with me that this is the situation, then he should also agree that NCSY should not continue to keep recruiting for Ohr Somayach, but should instead only recruit public high school graduates for yeshivas that do not encourage their students to restrict themselves to yeshiva studies, but also promote their students attending college to aid them in success or what we in the treifa medina call “parnassah� (livelihood).
The idea that Ohr Somayach is only servicing a post-college population (which Steve suggestively references numerous times in this post) is not the main issue or the reality, or NCSY would not be recruiting for them, would they?
Glad we agree.
NCSY, stop recruiting public high school kids for Dark Light, or secular parents will stop sending their kids to your programs. You think they aren’t going to find out? They are going to find out. Education about what and whom you are recruiting for is your worst enemy, and it is happening. In order to maintain your numbers, you will need secular (half) Jews so far removed from the affiliated Jewish community you won’t know where to start. Instead of dealing with questions of trick or treating on Halloween, prepare for more frequent questions about having Chanukah Bushes. How are you going to mix them with your FFB kids?
Keep up the bullshit. Keep promoting fundamentalist places that promote poverty and discourage college like Dark Light does. But you are going to pay the price. You don’t get to keep kneeing kids in the groin forever without it coming back to haunt you. From a socio-economic standpoint, of course. Not that you would literally ever allow such a thing under your watch. You’re the good guys, right? Right?
NCSY: National Collaborator of Sinister Yeshivas
7 comments
cute
Brizel seems to be one of those who enjoy cruising around the Jewish blogosphere, telling the frei yidden and the progressive MO how absolutely wrong we are about everything.
Honestly, David, I am so SICK of the condescension shown to us by those who consider themselves to be our betters. This is the reason that I told off Reuven Klein over at Jewschool a couple of weeks ago. I felt badly afterward, as he’s only a kid and I should have been more patient, but their holier-than-thou attitude just pushes my buttons (plus, he reminds me a bit of my frummed-out nephew).
Over thirty years ago (which gives you an idea as to how long this has been bothering me), I came across a quote from Rav Kook. I committed it to memory, and IÂ’ve never forgotten it. I donÂ’t get to pull it out very often, but I think this is pretty much verbatim:
“It is obvious to me that the reason for our people’s lowered estate is the continuing disrespect shown by those who uphold the Torah toward those who abandon it. It is the person who mocks the one who leaves the Torah, and not the latter, who withdraws himself from the community of Israel and divine grace.”
If they were teaching this in yeshivot, instead of telling the kids how ignorant, corrupt and misguided we are, worldwide Jewry might actually be a community, instead of a loosely affiliated set of factions primarily interested in invalidating one another.
Cipher,
Brizel’s post was not about Hashkafa or condescension. This was a sloppy inside job, and I will connect the dots shortly. First, I am going to give Beyondbt a chance to “clarify” this situation. They are making a mistake in thinking this is about pacifying their own loyalists. It is disappointing if they think this is going to work. Shocking, actually. Though we are certainly on opposite sides of the BT debate in most ways, I have met them, and they are all smart, sophisticated guys, and should know better. If they can’t handle this honestly, it is yet another very poor indicator of the ability of this world and of NCSY to monitor itself in any meaningful way.
Brizel’s post was not about Hashkafa or condescension
Not primarily, I know, but it’s a pattern with him, and others like him. And there was the line about “misinformed opinions” and “factless allegations”. They see what they want to see, and satisfy themselves that we don’t know what we’re talking about. They’re the ones who are being objective; we’re the biased ones, and if we’d only open our eyes - we’d all become baalei t’shuvah. We’re all being willfully obtuse.
Brizel misrepresents almost anything he touches. He is condescending and sanctimonious. And is an all around bad guy - not any good for Judaism.
He paints his own JSS teachers such as Benjamin Blech who was more LWMO and in search of kulot than YCT as no so. He does not acknowledge that Stevie Riskin came up with the womens prayer groups and wrote his PHd to justify the Rackman Beth Din. Briesel in his ignorance makes Rav soloveitchik sound like an NCSY advisor. And make a piller of Brisk and Rav soloveitchik the need for kiruv. If he can misread Soloveitchik, then he certainly can misread Dark Light for his own needs.
And DK you leave out that [deleted]
Edited By Siteowner
not Steve Brizel,
I don’t want personal information given on my site about my opponents, okay? Let’s stick to ideological disagreements.
not steve Brizel,
and get a more creative name.
Steve is a great guy. Stick to ideological disagreements, as DK says.
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