Posts from — January 2007

An anonymous contributor on Beyondt BT has written another essay, “Financial Realities II,” decrying the cost of living a frum life. “Sam Smithâ€? writes,

We managed to pay partial tuition in years past by going into outrageous credit card debt, which is now an unacceptable and untenable alternative.

In any event, the brutal truth is that, especially now that I have older kids, I am simply overwhelmed by all the expenses, unable to carry all my accumulated debt, and even the partial tuitions I am paying have pushed me to and over the edge of financial ruin. There is no retirement plan in my life, no hidden stocks, no wealthy parents, in-laws or uncles ready to leave me their fortune and rescue me.

After many years and many tuitions I simply didn’t make it financially, at least in contemporary, North American Orthodox-community terms. I didn’t become a doctor or lawyer or businessman. I didn’t marry into wealth.

In my darkest moments, it’s all a great communal hypocrisy. Some people simply can’t pay… even a portion of the partial tuition. Yet some yeshivos, while teaching kids wonderful, beautiful ideals like living austerely for Torah as did the Chofetz Chaim (including large pictures throughout the halls), make their parents feel like shmattas for not earning more than $100-150,000!

This is the brutal irony of the haredi BT world. They discourage all forms of ambition except Talmud study. They despise a quality secular education. But at the end of the day, the cost of living as an Orthodox Jew is exceptionally high, and there is no way out of the bills. Just day school tuition alone…

Haredism has no qualms burning the Havdalah candle at both ends. And you – the BT — are that candle.

I found this in a search for blog posts on NCSY. Because the writer is underage, I am declining to give a link. She wrote,

“So I went on the trip, to Yarchei Kallah and it was amazing…as I expected it to be[...]By the way…new college to think about…Touro…also a Jewish school, but it’s a smaller school then Stern…That might be more my style.”

Why is NCSY/Touro so hungry for kids from public school backgrounds? Well, they just opened a new college for women. And this college needs students.

But I can think of another reason. Secular Jews usually have much better English skills than the haredim, don’t they?

But how do you convince educated people to come to a third tier school when they can do so much better?

Frumkeit, Rabosai. Frumkeit.

Secular Jewish parents, Touro may not be good enough for the Modern Orthodox, but its good enough for your kids. They don’t know any better. And anyway, AT LEAST THEY’LL BE FRUM!

On a related note, as Josh Frankel noted in his comment in an earlier post,

David Luchins is chair of the poli-sci department (and has been for almost 30 years) has been director of admission in the past for Touro, and is now the dean of the new Lander College for Women. He also is a VP of the OU, and has been at times a powerful voice within NCSY.

There are those that try to differentiate between the Orthodox Union and NCSY, suggesting that the latter is more haredi than the parent organization. Maybe it is, but not when it comes to secular Jewish teens. They are one and the same, and have a “don’t tell the parents” policy. They just brag about it to their own people. And clearly, the Orthodox Union felt completely comfortable bragging to their constituency about how they convinced secular Jews to turn down Harvard and other top schools in favor of no college at all. They knew they had nothing to fear from their membership by bragging about this. Heck, they probably feel better about their own kid not getting in to Harvard or the other “Poison Ivies.”

So secular and liberal Jewry, please help Touro in its expansion. Send your teenagers to NCSY!

NCSY: Building a bigger and better (it’s not that hard) Touro, one baal teshuvah at a time.

#1 Rabbi Heschel – Most important civil rights leader ever! He marched at Selma!

#2 Martin Luther King – Blacks and Jews have a lot in common, because Jews were slaves in Egypt! And Martin Luther King also marched in Selma alongside Rabbi Heschel!

#3 Gandhi – Important civil rights leader in India, even though he did not march at Selma.

#4 Abraham Lincoln – He freed the slaves, but remember, the Civil War was not really about freeing the slaves, it was about slavery, so let’s not overstate his role. Also, not everyone accepts him, because he was a Republican.

#5 Rosie the Riveter – No one quite captures the lifestyle and mores of upper-middle class former gender studies majors quite like Rosie the Riveter. Rosie screams JOFA and Ritualwell like no one else. Remember ladies, ‘We can [pay someone else to] do it!’

The Underappreciated — Ambedkar – Should be on their list, but isn’t. He was an important Indian leader, the champion of the Untouchables. But that’s not why he should be on the list. He should be on the list because he became a Buddhist. And Jews and Buddhists have a lot in common.

Anyway, to all my readers, Happy Rabbi Heschel Day!

Failed Messiah notes that denim skirts appear to have been outlawed by B’nai Torah leaders. I, for one, say good riddance. I find denim skirts to be one the most dowdy, mousey, unattractive, tuchus-augmenting (according to what I have heard from others!) garments out there. They look appropriate for communists working in the field. Not for a Daughter of Israel.

If you want to wear denim, gezundte hey! Wear jeans. And a pair of silver boots, perhaps some hoop earrings, and a black laced…anyway, the point is, not denim skirts. They are ghetto, and not shtetl at all.

However, it also appears that B’nai Brak now also has a “Bleach Underground,� and that women wearing jean skirts are getting them sprayed with bleach. This is clearly problematic, as again, that whole retro-eighties bleach on denim really only works on jeans. It just doesn’t work on denim skirts. You just can’t substitute. You are fooling no one.

And even if you think it does work, I don’t want any Lower East Side fashion police vigilantes getting any ideas because of me. So let me be absolutely clear to my fellow Jewish Manhattanites–no bleach throwing!

And remember: You may hate jean skirt wearing, but do not hate the skirt herself.

Willie Nelson is an important artist to many Americans who live a strikingly different life than most of us in the J-blogosphere. I’m not a fan of his music, but I certainly am a fan of his compassion for his constituency, whom he sings to and about.

And Willie Nelson is also an activist. And he is trying to do something wonderful – for his farmers, his nation, and his world.

Willie Nelson is trying to get this country to reduce its oil imports, and through his company and friends, Willie Nelson is encouraging people to purchase vehicles that run rely on bio-diesel: vegetable oil based fuel.

Nelson admits that when his wife first explained her decision to purchase such a vehicle, he thought she had “gotten into his stash.� But it turns out that this stuff really works, they do this all over Brazil. And though bio-diesel needs to be mixed with the petroleum stuff, it still cuts drastically down a lot on the amount of petroleum needed for a vehicle to operate efficiently.

Willie Nelson and his people are more concerned with the plight of farmers and the reliance on imports than they are with my own concerns of global destruction and empowerment of fundamentalist regimes. Never the less, as Willie notes, with Bio Willie, “No war is required.�

I am humbled by this man’s vision and greatness. We should all do everything we can to help his cause and his business. He is a prophet of the common man, and the common man has chosen well.

A Call to Arms

Nothing corrosively affected by oil will be solved unless we get off oil. Not global warming, not Iran, not Saudi Arabia, not terrorism, not “anti-Zionism.� We must break the addiction. Nothing will help unless we get off this national heroin. Nothing. Not screaming at Mel Gibson, not holocaust curriculum in public schools, not dialog, not teshuvah, and not even the ordination of Conservative gay rabbis. It will just continue to get worse.

The root and urgent problem today that we can change is oil. Not “the environment” generally. Too broad. Nothing substantial gets done, and you sound like a hippy. And no one listens to hippies. Oil. Oil. Oil. This should be the first and primary focus of all major Jewish political groups.

As we all prepare for the annual month of celebration of Rabbi Heschel’s march in Selma, please remember that as exciting as this is to dwell on every year, we are destroying our world and endangering this country and the Jewish state by not standing up to oil addiction.

We are doing nothing. How can such a smart people be so stupid? This is the one thing we should all agree on. Left and Right, Orthodox and secular.

Is that why we aren’t interested in prioritizing it? Because there isn’t enough factionalism and controversy?

Is that why important political J-blogs like Jspot, Jewcy, Jewlicious, Jewschool, Kesher Talk, Dov Bear, Failed Messiah, Jewbiquitous, Luke Ford, Blogs of Zion, and My Jewish Learning don’t cover this issue sufficiently, or all too often, at all?

Perhaps. Better to only discuss the specific policies and reactions from this debilitating addiction, and never address the underlying cause itself. The underlying cause just isn’t Jewish enough.

Let me ask you this: If we all agree that oil addiction is hurting us – hurting us badly…perhaps really badly — and if we all agree that because Israel is right in the middle of this (and as we know, so is Jew York City), and this is therefore a Jewish issue – don’t you think if we made a big and sustained stink, it would rise up to the mainstream Jewish media and Jewish organizations?

Are we not tackling this subject because we all agree? Can’t we face that there is a time and place for a united front even if it doesn’t involve Jews for Jesus?

I have long argued that the Neocons and Israeli leaders should not be conflated, perhaps with the sole exception of Netanyahu to some degree. And I always felt the Israeli protest against the Iraq War early on signaled Israeli concern.

Now we have evidence that Sharon gave a “friendly warning� to Bush, who of course, did what he usually does in such situations, and ignored his friend and adviser.

Yossi Alpher reports in the Forward that,

Yet according to one knowledgeable source, Sharon nevertheless advised Bush not to occupy Iraq. According to another source — Danny Ayalon, who was Israel’s ambassador to the United States at the time of the Iraq invasion, and who sat in on the Bush-Sharon meetings — Sharon told Bush that Israel would not “push one way or another� regarding the Iraq scheme.

According to both sources, Sharon warned Bush that if he insisted on occupying Iraq, he should at least abandon his plan to implant democracy in this part of the world. “In terms of culture and tradition, the Arab world is not built for democratization,� Ayalon recalls Sharon advising.

Be sure, Sharon added, not to go into Iraq without a viable exit strategy. And ready a counter-insurgency strategy if you expect to rule Iraq, which will eventually have to be partitioned into its component parts. Finally, Sharon told Bush, please remember that you will conquer, occupy and leave, but we have to remain in this part of the world. Israel, he reminded the American president, does not wish to see its vital interests hurt by regional radicalization and the spillover of violence beyond Iraq’s borders.

Friends have long noted that I have a Diaspora Jew’s understanding of Sharon, and that my adoration of him has little to do with the reality. Well, maybe that’s true, and maybe it isn’t, but let me ask you this: Who during his reign in the international scene was a greater leader than Sharon?

Lander Application: Be sure to list specific NCSY involvement in the above section.

If you are applying to Lander College [Touro!], they are very interested if NCSY is one of your extracurricular activities in high school. Go check it out. Question 18.

It’s weird. Or rather, suspicious. Why are they so concerned if you were involved in NCSY? Who gets what if you were?

Rabbi Jack? Care to explain?

Guest Post by Radloh!

I worked for a major yeshiva in Jerusalem first as a recruiter then as a teacher. I was privy to the internal goings-on of these two institutions who claim to speak in the name of God and the Torah. Growing up Chabad, I did have a natural inclination to negate Misnagdim as an entity of truth. Teaching in Jerusalem, I got to know hundreds of former secular Jews who were now Orthodox because of Aish and Ohr Somayach. In contrast to that, I also saw the value of other Misnagdic Ba’al Teshuvoh yeshivas, which catered to the true needs of these people in an honest good manner. I came to realize that there are good and bad in all worlds, Misnagdic and Chassidic.

[two paragraphs deleted by editor]

On the internet, Aish has worked hard to usurp the names of other Yeshivas so that students looking for a DIFFERENT yeshiva, will go instead to Aish. Other yeshivas have complained that Aish should not intentionally use others keywords and initiate programs to legitimize those keywords. Aish did not respond and continued this dishonest practice.

Their ugly recruiting efforts paints a vision for the student, that he will one day be holy and correct about everything if he only come to Jerusalem for a few weeks in the summer.

Then begins the indoctrination.

And this is the reason I am writing this article.

I have seen countless, good, normal, sympathetic, heartfelt, family-oriented, young American Jews turn into, for want of a better word, monsters. They become unfeeling zombies, deeply depressed, overly guilty about their past, often cutting off ties with family, and becoming neurotic ugly people.

You cannot speak to them anymore and they do not look you directly in the eye. Many of them blink a lot. I did manage to influence many students to leave Aish and Ohr Somayach to other Yeshivas, and they have all thanked me later, profusely.

I will finish with a story. A student of mine who was a star student at Aish had a brother. Now the brother was not a former film director with a moneyed future. Aish accepted both of them, since the one was even hooked up with David Lynch. After the Film student left Aish they called the unsuccessful brother and told him they have no place for his type of student. The direct words from the Aish Rabbi were, “You do not fit into our profile. We are looking for diamonds”.

The Aish philosophy of the Rational Jewish Man as being superior to all creations turns them into people deeply resentful towards their parents and hateful towards all secular Jews, in a very pernicious manner. They become overly halachic without any joy or emotional satisfaction, performing like robots what they are told to do. it is a system which slowly lobotomizes these people, in a sickening way. Something must be done about this for every day more people are getting pulled into this cult. A few former students have begun thinking of establishing a recovery program from these institutions. Details will soon be available on the net.

Radloh is a former recruiter and teacher at Mayanot, a modern-Chabad institute, and the editor of Seven Fat Cow.

Wow. I knew these guys had a good time at Iran, but damn! These Neturei Karta guys really know how to party!

Haaretz reports,

Friedman does not try to hide his admiration for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who in the past termed the Holocaust a “myth” and has called for the destruction of Israel. “I had more than one meeting with his excellency, President Ahmadinejad,” Friedman said. “The president first recognized me at the conference in Tehran and he was especially friendly. There may be only one picture in which we are photographed kissing, but in fact we kissed 20 or 30 times.” Friedman also claims that on his earlier trip to Iran, he visited the residential compound of the Iranian president and reached “the bedroom of Khomeini.”

Honestly, I know I should be outraged at these guys, and I am, but I really just can’t stop watching. And I really hope no one hurts them. I am not comfortable with some of the measures being taken to pressure them into submission. It gives them power, and such nastiness will backfire terribly if taken too far.

If you care about the Zionist Entity, you would be nuts to martyr these guys.

Everyone calm down.

The Meshuganas

Alex is the General Manager of The Knishery. He has seen a lot, and has tremendous wisdom. And he’s very funny, frequently delivering his insights close to deadpan.

As the knishes are pretty cheap, and the atmosphere heimish and soothing, the clientele includes a fringe. Some less sensitive souls might call a portion of those “crazy.�

I sure as shit would.

But anyway, the meshuganas are awful customers. They have unremitting demands, many of them unreasonable (that is to say, “the answer is still noâ€?) and they almost never tip.

Alex explains this. “All the meshuganas are crazy for themselves.�