Category — Charedim

It’s crappy, awful frum music with some lame-ass hip-hop influences and…oh…oh wait…could it be…the “hip-hop” influences the Great Ones object to? Is that the issue?

Hat tip: SJ

Probably not Reform, right? Not LWMO either. Rather, either far-right religious Zionist, or better yet, Haredi.

I am an American Jew. So when the esteemed rabbi of my country — of the founding congregation of America (an Orthodox congregation, mind you) speaks…I listen seriously to what he has to say. To those of you prefer the ancient paradigms of “the old country,â€? remember that his congregation, Shearith Israel, was established before your movement(s) existed. In 1654, The Baal Shem Tov would not be born for over fifty years.

Anyway, Rabbi Marc Angel, shlita, writes in the Forward,

Sadly, the RCA leadership capitulated to the demands of Rabbi Amar. The RCA agreed to establish regional rabbinic courts to handle conversions in line with the dictates of the chief rabbi. This means that individual RCA rabbis may no longer perform conversions and expect them to be sanctioned by the RCA — or by the chief rabbinate. Power is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, and only into the hands of those who agree to adopt stringent and restrictive positions. The result is that many non-Jews who considered halachic conversion will turn to non-halachic means of conversion, or will give up on conversion altogether.

This is a tragedy — and an unnecessary one at that, since there is no halachic reason why the chief rabbinate’s view should carry the day.

Rabbi Angel asks,

Rabbinic tradition teaches that one who oppresses a convert is violating 36 Torah laws. How many laws will be broken by the Orthodox rabbinic establishment in causing torment to halachically valid converts and their children? How many tears will be shed by victims of religious narrowness? How many would-be converts will be turned away from any possibility of a life of Torah and mitzvot due to the intransigence of certain rabbis?

Plenty. A river full. Loads.

I am receiving some disturbing complaints about a group JAM (Jewish Awareness Movement), operating on campuses in Los Angeles, and seeking national and even international collegiate domination.

Apparently this group is so bad, than some of their staff defected to Aish because (get this) they couldn’t stand the high pressure tactics, and — dishonesty. It’s kinda like leaving Pol Pot’s Killing Fields for the relative liberalism of Chairman Mao’s Cultural Revolution, huh?

High pressure tactics are employed in part because they will lose funding if they don’t meet their Israel trip quotas.

The first two groups on their links section are Aish HaTorah and Ohr Somayach. The first two out of a whopping total of five. These are some real fundies.

They appear to be funded by the Los Angeles Federation, who apparently will sell their soul to Rabbi Elyashev in order to get college kids to Israel. Have you people heard of Birthright? Can’t you work with them? I guess there is no need — anyone who says “trip to Israel” will do just fine.

Anyway, I said they have high pressure tactics, but to be fair, that’s not true for everyone. Like if, say, a person is disabled. They don’t even get a return call. And JAM has a rather expansive definition of disabled. Stuttering apparently counts as disabled, so if you are harassed on campus by a JAM person, start stammering, and they will leave you alone forever.

Also, if you don’t make “progress,� that is, become Orthodox quick enough, they drop you. You are wasting their time. That is to say, you are taking them at their word, a mission to “connect them to Jewish knowledge, community and Israel.� They also encourage couples to break up, since they aren’t ready to get married.

If anyone has any additional information about these guys, please email me. I don’t like what I am hearing, and this group needs to be exposed. Domestically, I have never heard of the kind of shtick being pulled on college campuses like I am hearing about this kiruv group.

Hillary Leila Krieger reports in the Jerusalem Post,

Rather than bolstering the likelihood of students marrying within their race, attending once-a-week Sunday school programs actually slightly increases the chance of intermarriage, according to a newly published study[…]The study also found that attending congregational school two or more times a week hardly decreases students’ chances of intermarrying.

Cohen, who conducted the research for this study, offers some reasons that are speculative, but Failed Messiah offers a more interesting idea.
Failed Messiah writes,

I think a far more plausible explanation is that Judaism really has very little to offer normal people in this day and age. Certainly, whatever Judaism brings to the table is not enough to stop the average Jew from out-marrying.

I think because they have only a very vague idea of what Judaism the religion is. If they are happy in their homes and family lives, they associate Judaism with that. Their affiliation is cultural, not religious. As such, they choose to marry people who share their cultural and social outlook.

In other words, an argument can – and should – be made that secularism is a better force for Jewish continuity than religion.

This is only evident for Liberal Judaism. Liberal Judaism is a bad joke that keeps striving to outdo itself. For instance, the Reform Movement now “offers several prayers for sanctifying the sex-change process,“ including “two blessings authored by Rabbi Elliot Kukla for transitioning genders.�

This shit is off the wall, and no one needs Liberal (so-called) Judaism pretending to ritualize that which should not be ritualized in the name of Judaism at all by a movement suspiciously prone to adding new “blessings” for those who can’t be bothered to say the old ones.

But that’s Liberal Judaism. Of course most kids don’t take it seriously.

But I suspect that if secular Jews were taught Modern Orthodoxy, even while remaining secular, they would take Judaism much more seriously than if taught Reform Judaism. If the Jewish community were at all serious about promoting endogamy, they would offer a Modern Orthodox education to their youth. Right now, there is no such option for most non-Orthodox families. The closest thing they have is NCSY. And as we know, NCSY isn’t really Modern Orthodox. It’s co-ed Haredism, and while Haredism successfully promotes endogamy as well, the cost to the BTs (baal teshuvahs) and their families is high.

The haredi kiruvniks must not be given a blank check of concerns over intermarriage. There are many worse things than intermarriage. Like say, BT haredism. If the Orthodox world offers Modern Orthodox education and alternatives to our youth, and does so without deception, they should be supported, or at least, tolerated. But if the Orthodox world continues to prefer offering haredi outreach instead of Modern Orthodox education, we must do our best to strengthen the secular Jewish community’s resolve to disappear. The “spiritual Holocaust� is no Holocaust at all. It might be the best option usually on the table. And that’s the reason NCSY, Aish, and all the other mostly haredi organization hide inside ecumenical clothing. They know the liberal/secular Jewish community prefers intermarriage over ultra-Orthodoxy.

The only thing that will turn around the intermarriage rate is Orthodox outreach and education. But if that education is haredi, we are better sticking with a continuously rising intermarriage rate. Because if the only thing that can save Judaism is Haredism, then Judaism is not worth saving. Let the liberal and secular Jews escape with their lives, vocations, educations, and their families intact.

No Judaism at all is still better than too much Judaism.

Remember how we learned that rabbinic injunction of the extra seven days of niddah have caused women with a short fertility cycle to become infertile? Well, more good reason to thank rabbinic add-ons to Jewish Law. This one is just heart wrenchingly awful.

The New Jersey Jewish News reports,

Just why Orthodox communities show higher than usual incidences of spina bifida has not been established. Krul said the causes may include a lack of leafy greens in their diet due in part to problems of washing such food according to the rules of kosher preparation, which is concerned about bug infestation.

Failed Messiah notes,

The Torah forbids eating bugs. The normal amount of bug forbidden to eat would be a kezayit, the size of a very large olive and, in practice today, about one ounce. But rabbis long ago cut that amount in half. And they did something else, something that has made keeping kosher all the more difficult – they created a category called baria. A baria is, in effect, a whole bug. A baria can never be negated (battel)[…]

It used to be a thorough washing of the greens followed by a quick inspection done with the naked eye was enough to render greens edible. But Rabbi Blumenkrantz, may God rest his soul, and other rabbis entered into a competition of sorts to see who could be more restrictive. Soon it became necessary to have special training to check for bugs, special equipment was now “necessary,” three bugs found in 100 pounds of lettuce became an “infestation.” And leafy greens became rare in the haredi diet.

I realize that many of you may be tempted to say that people should just pay the extra money for the bug checking, and eat their greens. But realistically, that won’t happen consistently enough, as many haredim are poor. Others will say that we should ignore the advice of these recent rabbis, and return to simply washing the greens before eating. But that won’t happen either, as haredim aren’t ones to back off a new stringency, even if it’s five minutes old.

Instead, they must use supplements (which many won’t bother doing either, because it’s expensive and a pain in the ass), and not rely on the simple foods God gave us, like we did for thousands of years. Some will surely cast doubts as to the idea that we really need to eat leafy vegetables in the first place, a response quite typical whenever science conflicts with haredism. There will probably even be comments to that effect even on this post, despite this sentence and the previous one.

Haredism has produced ignorance, poverty, and languishing. Now it appears, we can add physical deformity to the long list of blessings.

To read about the very big kashrut dangers of lettuce and leaf vegatables (and why an implicit corresponding increased risk of spina bifida is better for your newborn’s neshama and probably the way to go) please go here. Remember, it’s just spina bifida, it’s not pakuach nefesh. And the scientists are probably just saying this because they hate Judaism.

Checking a field alone is insufficient, as we are required to look at the general conditions of the vegetable as it grows in that area, not just a specific field. Washing alone is insufficient, since no cleaning system has proven Halachically reliable for this purpose. Post-packaging inspection alone is not reliable, because the Halacha requires that each vegetable be checked if it has the status of a Miyut ha’Matzuy [...]
“Salads, as nutritious as they may be, must be approached with the same attention to Kashrus that we apply to all other foods. We may be tempted to take the easy way out [editor's note: oh, no, no. no. We wouldn't want to do that!!!!], but Shlomo ha’Melech has already, and poignantly, admonished us (Mishlei 6:6), לך ×?ל נמלה עצל, ור×?×” דרכיה וחכ×? – “Go to the ant, lazy one – see its ways and learn!â€?

Update: There is a school of thought that claims evidence that there is a Jewish genetic predisposition to this disease. Please do not assume that a child has spina bifida because his/her mother did not eat her vegetables. But please eat your vegetables!

There was a time when the B’nai Torah were quiescent Jews strongly tied to the Mussar Movement.

Apparently, that stuff was for the Diaspora.

YNET reports,

In recent years, the renowned Lithuanian Ponevezh yeshiva in Beni Brak has been engulfed in a violent struggle between two rival factions over who will control the institution. The conflict began after the yeshiva’s legendary head, Rabbi Elazar Shach, became ill in the late 1990s and had to be replaced.

Two camps immediately emerged as contenders for the throne: The first led by Rabbi Beryl Poversky and Rabbi Gershon Edelshtein (the heir-to-be of 95-year-old Rabbi Elyashiv), and the second headed by Rabbi Shmuel Markovich.

In the most recent incident related to the power struggle, the yeshiva’s administrative director, Aharon Gertner, was arrested Wednesday after police claimed he attempted to assualt menbers of Rabbi Markovich’s faction with an ax.…

To my haredi supporting friends…let me aks you a question. Do you really believe that these are isolated incidents? Do you not see a problem here? The violence is occurring at the top of the (supposedly) most prestigious Lithuanian-style yeshiva in Israel.

If this is the behavior by the elite of the B’nai Torah, isn’t it time you concede that the right-wing ultra-Orthodox community is a basket case?

Hat tip: Failed Messiah

Who can blame them?

When given the choice between haredism and Catholic education, many French Jews are choosing Catholic schools for their children.

The Jerusalem Post writes,

The Fonds Social Juif Unifie (FSJU) survey found that while 37 percent of French Jews send their children to public schools, and 27% have their kids attend private Jewish schools, 33% send their children to private non-Jewish schools, which, in France, would be Catholic schools[...]The image of French Jewish schools as haredi - which many of them are - the negative views of public schools, and simple geographical reasons explain why so many French Jews are sending their children to Catholic schools, the FSJU President Pierre Besnainou said in a telephone interview from Paris.

He added that the need to establish “traditional” Jewish schools in France was one of the primary conclusions that French Jewish leaders reached from the survey.

This is how far secular Jews are going to protect their children from fundamentalism.

Agudath Israel, an umbrella group servicing the charedi world in its entirety, appears to be eying its own ban on the Internet, thereby ratifying and extending the ban into the Left-Wing Ultra-Orthodox world, which does not take orders from Lakewood. If so, it will be interesting if the details of the ban are the same, or if the ban is in any way less strict.

But it should be no shock to anyone that the main concern is openly not porn, not even heresy, but rather, the challenge to authority of “daas Torah� by bloggers.

As Rabbi Zwiebel told the Yated,

“Due to a variety of factors, the authority of daas Torah has been significantly undermined, even within our own chareidi circles. Most troubling has been the proliferation of Internet ‘blogs’ where misguided individuals feel free to spread every bit of rechilus and loshon hora about rabbonim and roshei yeshiva, all with the intended effect of undermining any semblance of Torah authority in our community.â€?

Hat Tip: Failed Messiah

I would like to clarify that my issue is not with people who are pious or striving for that. I have, as my brother recently reminded me, Charedi cousins whom I adore. Chassidic, no less.

They are not BTs, but came over after the war, on my one side of the family who came last to the U.S, but decades even after my grandmother. Most of my ancestry, while religious, was devoid of Charedi or proto-Charedi influence. This was contrary to the massive lie told to me and all Jews who attend Ohr Somayach by rabbis that it (Charedism) is our legacy, but eventually, when I checked and deciphered a few remaining but important signs and signals from generations before, most had none — but 1/8th apparently did. My grandmother’s elder sister and two of her children were killed in Europe because her husband made a promise to his father on his deathbed not to go to “the treifa medina.”

Anyway — my cousins are really special, but their outlook is hardly unheard of. They don’t seek to make others live like they do. They certainly never sought for me to live like they do. They just wanted me to be Orthodox, and to be happy being so.

This is no small point, and their perspectives are shockingly different than those who condemn the non-Charedi world and non-Charedi Orthodox Judaisms, and who preach a profound contempt for Modern Orthodoxy.

Anyway, I relayed a story to my Chassidic cousin of how a Bostoner Chassidic couple trashed my brother to his face for going to college (and all those who go to college) instead of yeshiva. I was stunned when he proceeded to denounce Boston in its entirety as a “cult.”

My point is that there are many Charedim who not only don’t demand Charedism of others, but if they feel people they love are being attacked for not being more like them, which is to say, Charedi, some of them become genuinely angry, and even hurt, in empathy and solidarity, at those who drive others meshugeh and excoriate them over their needs and choices, such as a college education, even though they personally would never promote such a thing to their own children.

It is not my intention to deny that there are wonderful people in the Charedi world, or claim that they are all intolerant. Nor is it my claim that I haven’t personally benefited from knowing them in my own life. I most certainly have; tremendously, in fact, and hope to continue doing so. If any of you are reading my posts, please note that I am not attacking your way of life, nor am I attacking you. And for the record, I completely acknowledge that I have never witnessed the same level of kindness, warmth, and genuine search for spirituality and being a good Jew in Modern Orthodox circles.

I do hope you understand that I recognize that the issues and institutions I am criticizing have nothing to do with how you see family, how you see other Jews, and how you treat people generally. I realize that you would prefer that I leave what is in the past in the past, but I don’t feel I can do so. For although I make no claims that my motivations are solely l’shaim shemayim, I also have a legitimate concern that those types of institutions who wreak havoc on peoples lives continue to grow stronger, larger, and bolder, enabled by both the secular Jewish community and the Modern Orthodox community. I ask that you understand my issue is not the spread of Torah Judaism, but the spread of misery and poverty, which many in certain kiruv institutions seem to feel is an ideal byproduct.

I am not asking that you approve of my mission. I only ask that you understand I am not talking about you, or anyone like you.

This has nothing to do with Charedim like you.