Duplicitous Frummie Defends NCSY P.S. Infestation and Haredi Recruitment
A blogger named Samurai Mohel has taken issue with my most recent post(s) about NCSY on Jewschool. Despite his preference for name-calling, he does not appear to be haredi, something that is immediately clear because he actually links to the post he is attacking, as opposed to haredi defenders who attack the article or blogger in question but do almost never link to it, lest they lead you to sin or forbidden information. Also, it makes it easier to look like you won the argument, at least to those who don’t believe there is any debate in the first place.
Anyway. Let’s look at Mohel’s actual rebuttals, which though explained only a little, in between Mohel’s very great and justified outrage at me daring to question NCSY’s role in public school high school education and their wonderful role in helping to get our kids (but only a minority! And fuck the minority!) to attend haredi institutions. And of course, Mohel is upset at my unbelievable “idiocy” and “stupidity,” which is only lightly *proven*, I suppose, because his readers all know that anyone who has issues with any kiruv organization or any aspect of kiruv clearly is a third class retard and probably had problems before they began to question kiruv organizations.
Most NCSY kids will not go to haredi institutions. So what? I am worried about the ones who do. I would also like the numbers for those who do, but NCSY has refused to reveal that annual number. Which makes me concerned it is not a low number at all.
Additionally, I do not believe that the public schools are the right place for recruiting even a minority of students into fundamentalism. It doesn’t take a majority for me to determine that this is a problem. That is simply not what public schools are for, and not something most liberal and secular Jewish parents understand is happening. There is nothing on the JSU or NCSY’s site that suggests this is considered an acceptable option that they will facilitate and even push, depending on the counselor.
Mohel mocks my concern about NCSY’s expansion into the public schools, noting,
In fact, this rebuttal makes no sense. I didn’t make any reference to a “next? anything, except to voice concern over what is fact. The fact is that NCSY is in our public schools. All the name-calling and strange assertions of some insane conspiracy theory does not change this fact.
NCSY is in 170 of our public schools. But since this is no threat, just offering choices and education, I know Mr. Mohel and all the frummies will reciprocate. Since they value open-mindedness so very much.
Just as you are in our schools, you must allow us into your private Orthodox High Schools for our own “clubs.” And when I say us, I mean atheists, Reform Jews, Conservative Jews, and especially, Apikorsim.
Don’t worry, only a minority of your kids will become hardline atheists. Most will just have a healthy exposure to agnosticism, to the conflicts between literalism and scientific method, and a better understanding of Documentary Hypothesis. Stuff like that. It will help craft Jewish identity.
Fair is fair. And there is nothing to fear. Right, Mr. Mohel? No reason for paranoia or hysteria. Let us come speak to the frum kids at your schools and at after school programs, just as you come to our schools and speak to our kids.
Let’s start with the school kids in your synagogue attend. No? Then get out of our public schools, or at least, shut up.
11 comments
If you are concerned about a small minority of kids that may become orthodox, are you concerned about the majority of people who read your blog and lose IQ points?
Please, david, think of them.
Your rebuttal was well written, David. Ah, don’t you just love when the orthodox hypocrites hang out for the whole world to see? They expect us to tolerate intrusions from them that they will NEVER ever tolerate in their own schools. So until they’re giving equal time to Karaites, secularists, and Jews for Jesus, they should stick to their own turn.
Ahavah,
You had me until the last sentence. While I see what you are saying and mostly agree, you know as well as I do that Karaites, secularists, and Jews for Jesus in our city schools talking to our younguns is very different than NCSY coming in. Let’s not be too eccentric here. The final goal of NCSY is to bring jews back to Judaism - a worthy cause, when it’s not imbued with crazy fundamentalism. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don’t. The other groups you listed have an overall inherant agressive, sometimes mean quality to them, and their goals are the antithesis of Judaism’s. I am not saying the individuals who make up those groups are bad -they truly beleive what they purport. But as a whole, they can be dangerous to our children and religion. Your comparison was understood, yet slightly misplaced.
Jenny,
I assume you really just meant the Jews for Jesus people. The Kaarites are not known as particularly mean or aggressive. In fact, their lack of aggression might have something to do with their paucity of numbers. And they have very few congregations in the U.S. In fact, tehy have exactly one congregation in the U.S. http://www.forward.com/articles/11315/
They have a real historical connection to the Jewish people, and that connection continues. They are not seeking to harm us in any way.
The US Karaites just had their first ever conversion ceremony, and if I recall correctly, this was the first of any of their shuls in about 300 years. I think there are about 30,000+ Karaites currently, mostly outside the US, and I don’t think they outreach at all. Historically, it is a fact that throughout the middle ages, especially during the Islamic empire, Karaites were the majority of Jews. This whole “cheredi” thing is a mostly modern invention. In fact, as recently as the time of Maimonides most communities completely rejected the idea of an oral Torah, because they’d never heard of such a thing. Another historical fact - take it or leave it.
I have to wonder, as a result, if letting the cheredi have influence on our kids isn’t just as bad as missionaries from other religions or secularists. What they are pushing is not the historical Judaism of our people, and appears to do far more harm that good to our children’s future. Most Reform, Conservative, etc., and even some MO kids cannot be confirmed to be halachic Jews by cheredi standards - they’d be better off as righteous gentiles than caught in the cheredi black hole.
“historical fact???” HA! everyone knew of the oral torah everyone knew it was straight from g-d. it was only until the karites that people started rejecting it saying it came from the rabbis. your statement that most jews hadn’t heard of it is FAR from a fact.
Sorry, Danny - your historical knowledge is apparently straight from Aish and not from any objective source. Try reading a real history book.
sorry ahava but your knowledge is straight for your ass…maybe you should open a textbook with REAL reliablity like ANY book about the time written at the time. I can quote my sources what r yours…written yesterday?
Danny, everyone, settle down and bring sources.
Yes, yes, it’s perfectly sensible:
And God spent a long-ass time dictating all of these crazy scrolls to Moses with weird-ass laws that don’t quite make any sense, but then on the way down the mountain he told Moses to wait, because not only did he have to act as stenographer, but now he had to memorize a whole lot of shit, and then get a bunch of other people to memorize it too. And oddly, enough, this book and this oral stuff happened to mysteriously reflect all of the cultural communication patterns of the entire near east!
everyone knows that!
>”Just as you are in our schools, you must allow us into your private Orthodox High Schools for our own “clubs.” And when I say us, I mean atheists, Reform Jews, Conservative Jews, and especially, Apikorsim.
Don’t worry, only a minority of your kids will become hardline atheists. Most will just have a healthy exposure to agnosticism, to the conflicts between literalism and scientific method, and a better understanding of Documentary Hypothesis. Stuff like that. It will help craft Jewish identity.
Fair is fair. And there is nothing to fear. Right, Mr. Mohel? No reason for paranoia or hysteria. Let us come speak to the frum kids at your schools and at after school programs, just as you come to our schools and speak to our kids.”
Your argument makes no sense. Private schools can do whatever they want. They’re paid for with private $$$.
Public schools are paid with public tax dollars and as a public institution the guidlines they must follow are according to the law. And if the law states equal access, then so be it.
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