Posts from — March 2008

Want to know? Well, you have to click to my post on Jewcy!

Update: Also see Ilana Mercer’s piece on Jewcy.

Mercer notes,

I hereby accuse the man who may become president of reducing the greatest revolution in history—politically and philosophically—to the eternal Mark of Cain all whites must seemingly bear: slavery.

We’ll see if Mercer’s objections are incorporated into Jewcy’s new line of hipster t-shirts.

“Your blog has opened up questions as to who I am and what I chose to believe. Fuck you.”

Annie offered a few reasons why the haredim don’t eat right, and why they are so fat. One was particularly interesting,

Health and welfare classes don’t seem to be taught in Beis Yaakov schools or comparable Yeshivot. Kids don’t learn about the food pyramid or other health related information, as parents are worried that sex ed info will get snuck in there.

And even the Zionists recognize that the old Yiddish places rule. “World’s Finest Knish,” indeed.

I meet a lot of traditional Jews who would like to eat healthier. I have a way to help you do that. Avoid the stronger hechshers.

I was about to pick up a pack of hamentaschen this evening at the local grocery store, since it sure is a lot easier to celebrate Purim that way instead of going to hear the megillah, and since getting to the point of “lo yadah” isn’t exactly a once a year occurrence in my circles. Anyway, just as I was about to put the hamentaschen in the basket, I saw the (warning?) label: “pas yisroel.” The hamentaschen had been cooked by a “fire” in some way lit by a Jew, in order to avoid some concern or another. You know, some Bais Shammai bullshit.

But the point is, I wouldn’t really care, but this signals something else besides religious interpretation. It means that this product is targeting, at least in part, the haredim. And sure enough, the name of the bakery was…let me say this euphemistically…Hungarian.

Why do I care? Because the haredim do not care about the quality or freshness of the food like secular Jews do. They care more about which rebbe said what. And this market segment is simply not health conscious. Not at all. They eat crap. That’s why they are so fat. I mean, they are disproportionately fat. Because they eat shit, albeit mehadrin l’mehadrin shit.

For those of us with a background, well, we know that kosher is not a health guide. The problem is, all too often when you move into ultra-Orthodox supervised products, it is the inverse.

There is almost no space in a newly haredi baal teshuvah’s life left untouched.

Rabbi Mendel Weinbach, the head of Ohr Somayach asks,

“Question: As the dinner guest of a friend I was shocked to discover that the soup served me was extremely distasteful. What is the right thing to do in such a situation?”

The answer should be, “Don’t eat it.” That’s what people do with “extremely distasteful” food. They leave in the bowl or plate. This is sound policy. Right?

Instead, Rabbi Weinbach prefers we should all pretend we are the Chafetz Chaim himself seeking to protect “the maid.”

Answer: This is what happened to the Chafetz Chaim when he dined at the home of a certain rabbi. The maid had salted the soup as she always did, unaware that the hostess had already done so in her effort to personally cook for her honored guest.

The Chafetz Chaim drank the entire bowl of soup without batting an eyelash. His host, however, grimaced after the first spoonful. The guest grasped his host’s hand and begged him to drink his soup without saying a word. If the hostess discovered the maid’s error, he explained, she is likely to scold her and this could lead to a nasty quarrel. The Chafetz Chaim suggested instead that they keep the whole thing quiet and compliment the hostess on a very tasty soup.

Remember, when you meet a baal teshuvah who doesn’t act normally, who is all twisted up and neurotic, as so many of them are, it is because of the consistent lunacy that Dark Light or some other haredi nuthouse assiduously advocates. Why do they do this? Because the further a person can be driven away from relying on common sense and his own intuition, the more he will seek and accept their directives on ever more aspects of their lives, at least for a critical period of assimilation of sorts into the haredi community.

This is about power. Power of Big Kiruv leaders and their middle men over their students’ lives. Not the maid, not the feelings of the hostess.

Power.

These haredi-BT stories all end the same. None end with dissatisfaction, resentment, and fallout. Absolutely not. Whatever issues are acknowledged, the arc doesn’t change.

5 Towns Jewish Times writes,

Sondra’s Search, by Ester Katz Silvers, is a beautifully written story detailing the complex and wonderful path back home towards Jerusalem for a young unaffiliated Jewish woman born and raised in Kansas. The author explores how this young non-Orthodox girl manages to successfully find hope, happiness, and a husband in her personal search for meaning.

Notice the “back home” to Jerusalem. Notice also that she is born in Kansas. What do we know from this absurd language? We know that the 5 Towns Jewish Times is an annoying frummie paper.

So, you got it? Do you need to review it once more?

No problem. Since it was too subtle the first time in the first paragraph, 5 Towns Jewish Times will explain once more how it is to be for every BT.

“In public high school, Sondra started out in a completely non-Jewish environment. She started in Kansas, in a non-Orthodox traditional family, and eventually established a frum home in the Land of Israel.”

There is a lesbian sex abuse scandal at Adass Israel Girls’ School in Melbourne, Australia. Besides that it involves all females, is it unique from what we have seen lately elsewhere? Absolutely not. It’s being taken care of by the book. That is, the book of cover-up, which the haredim are so consistently faithful to. It’s their tradition, after all.

You whisk the abuser (here, the school principal) away to Israel. And you tell everyone not to talk about it, because it is “loshan hora.�

They all act the same way in these situations. Failed Messiah has the story.

See Heeb’s “Frum Brooklyn With Love.”

What a shot, huh?

The Half-Shekel Mentality

That’s right, Aish rabbi Yaakov Salomon believes that the national Jewish population studies must have counted just the men. In fact, there are (at most, and with very inclusive accounting practices) not even seven million Jews in the U.S.

See seconds 40-44 of “The Vanishing Jew.”

Why does this man think they only count the men? Because in the Torah we only count the men. In Orthodox minyans we only count the men. So surely in national population studies, sociologists must only count the men!

You know why he must have thought that the sociologists didn’t need to count the women? Because the women are on “a higher level,” and they didn’t need to be counted.

Pictured Above: Not Rabbi Salomon. That’s for damn sure.

Update: Failed Messiah weighs in with some interesting links to other Salomon Says rubies. Like how Ben Franklin wrote the Declaration of Independence. Why didn’t they catch that one before posting it? Because it’s Big Aish! Like they give a fuck. Just say something gooey and spiritual. Oh, and check out his ideas on “science” that Failed Messiah challenges. Salomon guy should be on Jewlarious. He is–by far–the funniest writer on Big Aish’s staff. Even funnier than this guy.