And despite pleas, no mention of Tropper’s former target, Rabbi Slifkin the Old Earth (Gedoylim forbid!) rabbi

Buried in the comments section (because the penguins think we are lazy), Rabbi Shafran has some fighting words in defense of The Great Ones’ (Gedolim) decision to back the threesome rabbi, Leib Tropper, who seeks to enforce the True Torah belief that the world is less than 6,000 years old, and that gentile women need greater scrutiny in joining the tribe (unless the offer favors to Tropper).
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Rabbi Blau (Modern Orthodox) writes on Cross Currents (ultra-Orthodox) in response to Rabbi Shafran’s now infamous essay, “The Earth Trembles,”

The Chafetz Chaim’s response of Jewish self criticism to a world tragedy has been converted into a critique of enemies of Orthodoxy. Lumping together an anti Orthodox cartoon and an editorial complaining about the lack of rabbinical reaction to a major scandal is a clever way of not dealing with the substance of the editorial.

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, on the think-tank, Cross-Currents, proves rather definitively that there are some important similarities between Woody Allen and the head of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Comparing Woody Allen to the Muslim Brotherhood is a completely normal and acceptable thing to publish. But to compare — in any way shape or form the behavior and goals of the right-wing ultra-Orthodox to Muslim fundamentalists is absolutely gratuitous Ortho-bashing, hateful, and unacceptable.

Know why?

Because they have far too much in common. And the partial truth hurts.

Please see Dov Bear’s new post about Yaakov Menken’s dishonest defense of the baby murderer “manslaughterer” which is easier to follow.

Better out than haredi. It’s simple to remember!

In a shocking break from even a modicum of menschkeit, Cross-Currents, a site run by Yaakov Menken, an unofficial Agudath Israel operative, and the site where the spokesman of Agudath Israel publishes his essays, has compared the popular Democratic nominee for president of the United States to the wicked Haman who plotted genocide against the Jewish people in the Megillat Esther.

In a “guest column” published by Toby Katz on Cross-Currents, Chava Willig Levy writes,

Even Obama acknowledges his “spooky good fortune.”

It certainly looks as if God is guiding Mr. Obama straight to the White House. But if God is guiding his history, and ours, aren’t we mere spectators forced to watch passively — some might say helplessly — as it unfolds? Several of my coreligionists think so, fatalistically pointing to the fact that the secular date of Obama’s breakthrough keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention — July 27 — coincided with Tisha B’Av, a fast day commemorating the many seismic tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people.[...]

It looks as if the smooth-talking Haman, whose ambitions have been fulfilled at every turn, who has been blessed with “spooky good fortune,” is destined to succeed. It looks as if God is guiding his history so that he will have his way. But Mordechai knows that, at this juncture, fatalism would be fatal. He beseeches Esther to intervene, to help halt history in its tracks. And when she demurs, Mordechai upbraids her (Esther 4:14): “Who knows whether it was for just such an opportunity as this that you attained your royal position?”

In the absence of full disclosure, Esther has to resist her temptation to follow protocol, to be politically correct. But she accedes to Mordechai’s demand only after he agrees to accede to hers (Esther 4:16): “Go and gather all the Jews in Shushan, and fast on my behalf for the three days…My maidens and I will also fast.”

We have no Esther today. But over 2,400 years after she left the world’s stage, her example remains. We must emulate her two-pronged strategy: politics and prayer.

The BTs have not listened to Toby Katz, and that is unfortunate. Toby Katz is mammash like Moshe Rabbeinu, and the BTs are complaining like the eruv rav they are.

Mrs. Katz is rightly justified in her wrath, and writes,

OK, for you dyslexics out there, let’s read this slowly and carefully. Did you get that phrase “one major factor”? Let’s look at it again. *ONE* major factor.

And did you get that bit about “In all the articles and comments…..”? Huh? Huh? See, that means “There have been a LOT OF ARTICLES AND COMMENTS and they raised a lot of points and I don’t have to rehash EVERY SINGLE POINT EVERYONE EVER MADE before I can add one more comment of my own!”

I just wanted to add ONE factor, one factor that nobody else mentioned. I did not want to, and did not need to, repeat what everybody else has already hashed and rehashed ad infinitum, about everything that is wrong with Orthodox Jews. It’s coming out of my ears already. Got that? OK everybody now go away, all this negativity is totally getting on my nerves.

–
To my BT bretheren: You don’t have to take this abuse! You can leave the prison of B’nai Niddah/Baal Teshuvah that Toby’s father and others of his ilk have built for you. The doors may look locked, but they are not. You can just walk out the door. Just push it open…you can walk right out. It looks scary, and it is…but you can leave this community as much as you want to. Go Modern, go secular, but for crying out loud, who needs this? The promise of “nachas” moments aren’t worth this kind of treatment and contempt…make your escape…it’s not too late.

The Extreme Godol Hador slams Rabbi Shafran’s disgraceful article on Albert Einstein. XGH notes,

Sounds like Shafran has been taking courses at the Reb Elchonon school of circular logic and general kiruv clownery.

See Daas Kefirah’s full response to Shafran’s “Baby Einstein.”

And in other news, Dr. Mahamud M. Yahye slams Hirsi Ali as, “a supercilious person with a childish attitude.”

Maybe there is a basis for Muslim-Jewish dialog after all! Great minds think alike.