Emes Ve-Emunah

Shalom Rubashkin - Free at last!

Thank you, Mr. President. You have righted a wrong. And corrected an injustice. Sholom Rubashkin who was convicted a financial crime had received a sentence far in excess of the typical sentence for a white collar criminal. Even greater than the 25 years the zealous prosecutors had asked for by 2 years! You are a humane individual that recognized an injustice and corrected it. For that, you deserve our everlasting thanks.

I never thought I would utter words like that about this President. But I just did. There is not a scintilla of doubt in my mind that Sholom Rubashkin was mistreated by the criminal justice system. Treatment like that for a first time offender of a white collar crime is in and of itself a ‘crime’. A crime against the very essence of what this country is all about: Compassion!

Shalom Rubashkin was not treated that way. An over zealous judge acted with callousness that was breathtaking - despite her ‘explanation’ in the sentencing memorandum.

I am not going to re-hash the conversation about what Mr. Rabushkin was - and was not guilty of. At this point it no longer matters. 8 long years behind bars has long ago taken care of any just punishment he might have deserved. He is now a free man. Free to join his loving family. I am very happy for them.

Yesterday, President Trump commuted to time served - Shalom Rubashkin’s 27 year sentence handed down by Judge Linda Reade . He was not pardoned. Nor was he forgiven the financial portion of his sentence. There may be some additional restrictions as well. But one thing is certain, he will no longer be behind bars.

I’m sure I’m not the only one satisfied with this outcome. In fact I’m pretty sure that most of the people that know any of the details of this case feel the same way. When his sentence was announced it surprised even Rubashkin’s biggest detractors. Attorneys on his behalf immediately started work on his appeal. That eventually went nowhere.

Many prominent past and present government officials on both side of the political aisle were contacted. They were asked to render an opinion on the verdict. In every case that I know about (and there were many) they agreed that the sentence was unjust and the sentence should be lightened. Some of them had even published those opinions by writing op-eds in major media organs. None of this helped Mr. Rubashkin.

As a last resort Rubashkin’s attorneys and many other fine media outlets (like the Wall Street Journal) joined the cause and asked the previous President to pardon him or at least commute his sentence. This was done near the end of the previous President’s term. Many pardons are often issued by a President just before leaving office. Indeed there were many such pardons issued. But Sholom Rubashkin’s pardon was not among them. For some reason the previous President did not agree that the verdict was too harsh.

Once the new President took office, this was once again tried. This President agreed and set the man free. He did not wait until his last days in office. He did it yesterday, on the last day of Chanukah.

I am not at all surprised by this. President Trump has an unprecedented connection to observant Jews. His daughter converted to Judaism via an Orthodox Beis Din. His son in law is observant. His pick of US ambassador to Israel is observant. His point man (along with his son in law) on Israeli Palestinian issue is observant.

The President invited mostly observant Jews to the recent White House Chanukah party.

And with respect to Israel, his approach mirrors that of most observant Jews. He has declared Jerusalem the eternal capital of Israel without limiting it to West Jerusalem. Leaving the status of East Jerusalem purposely vague for Israel and the Palestinians to work out for themselves.

And he recently declared that the Kotel belongs to Israel under all circumstances.

He has chosen a woman as the US ambassador to the UN who has been championing of Israel’s cause and consistently condemning the anti Israel bias that goes on there on a daily basis in virtually all of its offices.

He has even stood up to the rest of the world's cowardly condemnation of his declaration about Jerusalem by telling them there will be consequences to those who vote against the United States.Good for him!

This is truly a sight to behold. Never thought I’d see anything like it. He has assured himself most of the Orthodox vote (small and insignificant though it may be.)

This does not mean I have changed my opinion of the manner in which he has conducted himself in office. I still believe that he has done much damage to our image by his infantile need to tweet every stupid thought that enters his brain. Nor have I let him off the hook for his disgusting comments about the sexual misconduct that he - as a celebrity - could get away with. Or his many foolish remarks that were taken by racists, bigots, and antisemites - and used to justify themselves their abhorrent views. Or the times he has insulted world leaders. He has embarrassed this country more times than I can count.

A tax cut for all! - A unified Republican Party praises the President

But at the same time he has done a few good things too – outside of his relationship with the observant Jewish community. Like his involvement with the recently passed tax cuts, that will benefit everyone. The big corporate tax cut will boost the economy. It will help keep major corporations from seeking tax relief by relocating their headquarters and manufacturing facilities to other countries with lower tax rates. That will help towards achieving a full employment economy thus creating more spendable income and thereby increase demand. Which in turn will help increase the number of jobs even even further. And it will incentivize them to invest in updating their ‘plants and equipment’.

The only people that could possibly oppose this are those who attribute nefarious motives to the captains of industry – believing these tax cuts will only enrich them even more with nothing passing down to the common man. I have more faith in humanity than that. Even ‘rich’ humanity. Being wealthy does not equal being evil. (Although that is the way the liberal mind seems to think.)

As I said right after the election. We will have to wait and see what happens with this President. And that we should give him a chance. I was disappointed at first because I saw things going south rather quickly. But now, it seems we are headed in a better direction.

The President seems to have done the impossible. He has united the Republican Party including its liberal wing (e.g. Senator Susan Collins). Republican leaders are now singing his praises unlike anything I could have ever imagined. Just a few short months ago he could not find anything good to say about them and in some cases truly insulted and disparaged them. But now? ...all I can say is, ‘Wow’!

Jerusalem of Gold - Israel’s holy capital

I am so tired of all the hand-wringing over the rest of the world’s condemnation of US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The media focus on that makes it seem like the world must be right since they are practically uniform in that condemnation. Adding fuel to that perspective is the fact that our President often comes off like a clueless buffoon whose only interests are self aggrandizement at the expense of others. Makes it kind of easy for the media to paint a negative picture of his views when they don’t agree with him.

The problem with this ‘logic’ is that when a ‘buffoon’ happens be right, it doesn’t matter. It only matters if it fits in with one’s political perspective. With a respectable President, it is difficult to paint truth negatively. With a buffoonish President – it’s easy. You don’t like his political perspective? Just play on his buffoonish image and the public will lap it up.

The one thing I have learned over the past year is to never trust the mainstream media. At least not the way I used to. I take everything they say with a huge bolder of salt!

What about that world opinion? Is there any justification to their views? I can understand why Muslim countries would object to America recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. In the minds of many Muslims, it contradicts their religious beliefs. But for Europe, the hypocrisy of their official identities as christian or catholic countries is astounding. To deny that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is to deny their own bible.

Now it’s true that they do not look at this in religious terms. They say that this move hurts the peace process (...as though there was one). They also say that this will cause all kinds of havoc in Israel. I think they really believe they are doing it for the right reasons despite the fact that they know that refusing to recognize Jerusalem contradicts their bible.

But I also think they are fooling themselves. I believe that deep down somewhere in their subconscious minds Europe is antisemitic to the core. It is in their mother’s milk (...to paraphrase Menachem Begin). That includes even places like England. You don’t have go too far away from the seat of power in that country to see it overtly. Opposition leader (of the Liberal Party), Jeremy Kobryn is a Yasser Arafat clone in terms of his views about Israel.

France is not much better. The Vichy government of their predecessors during WWII was steeped in antisemitism. They gladly collaborated with the Nazis in their goal of Jewish extermination!

Need I say where Germany lies in all this?

While today Jews may be treated fine in these respective countries, that is probably mostly because of guilt over the Holocaust. We know what the European past with respect to the Jewish people looks like! European history is stained with Jewish blood. I believe that deep down it is their guilt that makes them give any legitimacy at all to the Jewish State. But just barely. Make no mistake about it. The antisemitism is there and being expressed at the UN on a daily basis by all - but the US.

Lest anyone argue that they mean well and voted that way in the best interests of Israel, one does not have to look too far back in the past when every country (with the exception of the US who under a different President only abstained) voted for a resolution condemning Israeli settlements as the biggest obstacle to peace – without reference to the real problem: Arabs being raised from birth to see Jews a cabal of brutal Nazis with a mission to take over the world! True they made a passing reference condemning violence on both sides. But that was hardly the point of that resolution. It was mostly about condemning Israel.

I am glad to see the Trump administration standing up to these nations. I never thought I’d see the day. Finally, the US has a President with the courage to do so. And has appointed a most eloquent spokesman to deliver that message.

Doesn’t this make the US an outcast at the UN? Absolutely not. The US is by far the most powerful nation on earth. Both in its military and economic strength. The truth is that the UN contributes nothing to the welfare of the US. or even humanity if you think about it.

As far as I am concerned. The UN is a complete waste of taxpayer money. All of the so called social agencies under the UN umbrella will do just fine without them. They can operate as independent organizations – just as many of them did before the UN was created. They would not go away if the UN ceased to exist.

What about preserving world peace that the UN was created for? I don’t see them making any difference. I do not see France attacking Germany or vice versa. Or any other European country attacking any other European country in the age of nuclear weapons.

What about North Korea? Don’t we need the world’s help with that? Foolish question. Europe is at least as vulnerable to attack as the US. Japan and South Korea even more so. It is in their own interests to treat North Korea as the pariah it is and sanction them accordingly. Refusing to do so is at their own peril.

The UN had no control over all the wars and uprisings taking place in the Middle East. The agenda of the UN now is bashing Israel.

I am grateful that we now have an administration that sees things that way. They see the present and historical reality of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and are no longer afraid to the antisemsites in the UN. I actually hope we keep our word about the consequences to an unappreciative world that voted against us. God bless the United States of America - the great exception to the truism of the sages: ‘Halacha He - Esav Sonei L’Yaakov’. In Europe it’s still true

This is what is meant by Israel's capital (Cross Currents)

I find myself in the odd situation of agreeing with two articles while wishing they hadn’t been published. The two articles are unrelated other than they are both occurred relatively close to each other and they both involved the President on the United States.

Rabbi Avi Shafran correctly analyzes the reality of Jerusalem as it exists today. He said much the same thing I have said many times. The essence of Jerusalem’s importance to us is that it is the home of Har HaBayis – the Temple Mount where the Beis Hamikdash once stood. And where the Al Aqsa Mosque now stands. It is the place chosen by God for his ‘presence on earth’ to reside. And it is the place Muslims believe Mohamed ascended to Heaven. Making it the 2^nd holiest site in Islam.

Rabbi Shafran explains that the significance of announcing Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital ignores the fact that its holiest site is not now and never was in our possession despite the fact that it was captured by Israel in the 1967 six day war. And despite the fact that Israel controls access to it - the reality is that Jews do not control that area at all. It is controlled by Muslims who are funded by Jordan. We Jews cannot even access the holiest portions of that place even if Muslims were OK with it due to Halachic issues.

All the declarations in the world would not change these facts.

I too thought that declaring Jerusalem as our capital was not worth the possible violence that such a declaration might spike and said so publicly before the fact. And as Rabbi Shafran also notes, we all know what peace would look like in the event that it would actually happen. Palestinians would most likely retain East Jerusalem (where Har HaBayis is located) as their capital.

This was already agreed to by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Once Israel allowed that as an option for a future state, there is no taking it back. And yet East Jerusalem (the old city) is what religious Jews mean when we talk about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. Realistically we are not going to truly posses it until the advent of Moshaich. The Arabs are not about to cede Har HaBayis to us in any kind of peace deal.

And yet I still don’t think this was the time to talk about these facts. I believe that once the deed was done and America has declared Jerusalem the eternal capital of Israel,we should celebrate it. That the most powerful nation recognizes the importance of the Jewish connection to Jerusalam and not specifying that it applies only to West Jerusalem is an unprecedented and courageous endorsement. That it was dome in the face of world opposition - adds to its significance as a moral victory for the Jewish people. Now is the time to celebrate it. It is not the time to talk about why it wasn't that significant to us as religious Jews.

There is not going back. I don’t see any future President reversing that decision even if they hadn't done so had they been in office. That would be a lot worse than simply not recognizing it - which was the case before now. It would be viewed as a denial of our claims no matter how any reversal might be couched. The US now sees it as Israel’s capital and it is going to stay that way.

Bethany Mandel’s Forward op-ed on Rubashkin is the other article that I both agree with and wish she hadn’t written. At least not yet.

Inappropriate celebration at 770 - Chabad headquarters

Rubashkin should not be celebrated as a hero. I had been in the forefront of expressing this view when the news about the various crimes he was accused of broke. No one was more upset than I was at the Chilul HaShem that was unfolding at the time. But this is not the moment to rehash all of those things the way Mrs. Mandel did. Because the 'crime' against Rubashkin far outweighed what he did in my view. His prison sentence was so harsh that it begged for a resolution like this long before it finally happened last Wednesday.

This was instead the time to thank President Trump for his compassion, not to the time point out how evil Rubashkin may have been. It was the time to point out the near universal agreement about the injustice of his sentence. Which was finally righted.

It is understandable that an Orthodox Jew is the one that felt the need to remind the world of the crimes he was accused of - and the crime he was convicted of. But at the same time the timing was way off. Why dampen a moment of great joy his family now feels? What is gained by talking about it now?

Let the Rubashkins have their moment! Let them enjoy it without having to put up with all of the negative reminders published in a widely circulated Jewish medium. That would have been the more compassionate thing to do. The lessons that need to be learned from the wrongdoing of an Orthodox Jew could have been delayed a few weeks… or even a few months. No one would have suffered if this had been done. I am so sorry that someone felt the need to do it now.

So yes, I have mixed emotions about both Rabbi Shafran’s article and Mrs. Mandel’s article. I agree with them. But I would not have said so publicly. At least not yet.

Emanuel Feldman, rabbi emeritus of Beth Jacob Atlanta

The big story of the year is the #MeToo phenomenon. In that sense it’s been quite a cathartic year. Prominent men in all walks of life that would otherwise never be suspected of sexual misconduct have been exposed to have been guilty of just that. Some of it very serious. And they have all paid a price. Their reputations and legacies have either been severely tainted of completely ruined. No matter what their contributions to society otherwise may have been. While not all sexual misconduct is the same - perhaps deserving different responses to different situations - one thing is certain. It is completely unacceptable at any level.

I had expressed a view not long ago that if the laws of modesty between the sexes would be observed (e.g. Yichud - the seclusion of a man and a woman together alone in a closed room) many of these things would not have happened.

Many people had pointed out that sexual misconduct is predatory behavior where those laws would not be relevant. In many ways that’s true. Sexual predators will prey on victims where as the laws governing the separation of the sexes are designed to protect people from themselves. Meaning they are designed to reduce instances of temptation between the sexes that might be mutual.

And yet, I believe that these laws go much further along the lines of protecting women from being prey for sexual predators. I have also discussed the impact our cultural mores on have on all of this. The way the sexes interact with each other in society; the acceptability of increasing levels of female nudity in the entertainment industry; and the acceptability of increasing levels of female skin being exposed in women’s designer clothing have surely contributed to the culture of treating women like sex objects. When female celebrities attending huge galas like the Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood are seen with so much of their skin exposed by their glamorous sexy gowns - it’s hard to not see them as sex objects.

This very idea was expressed by Rabbi Emanuel Feldman in last week’s Mishpacha Magazine. In an article entitled ‘Men who Prey– but Don’t Daven’ he makes this very point. Much better than I ever could. (Which is one reason I admire him so much.)

He describes 2 ironies. One is the irony that in our day of sexual liberation, men have themselves become ‘liberated’ from restrictions that might have prohibited their behavior in the past. The other irony is that even though women have achieved theoretical equality with men and work in the same space with men, they are nevertheless humiliated and aggrieved precisely because they are woman and not men.

And yet the clarion call of some of the more radical proponents of equality between the sexes cry is ‘bring Halacha up to date!’ It’s time to abandon ancient and antiquated medieval restrictions between the sexes!

Rabbi Feldman points out, that historically –going all the way back to biblical times - Judaism is not unfamiliar with the concept of sexual harassment. There are ample examples of males looking at females as objects sex throughout the bible. Judaism recognizes that this is a problem and has devised a set of laws designed to minimize interaction between the sexes. Here is how he puts it:

The view of Judaism is expressed at the beginning of the Torah, in Bereishis 8:21: “Yetzer lev ha’adam ra mine’urav — the inclination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” (See also Bereishis 6:5.) That view is that man, in the words of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), “left to his own instincts and in his natural state, is a potential brute ready to devour anyone or anything that stands in the way of his passions and desires, for whom there is no justice or injustice, no right or wrong, no mine and yours [because everything is mine]”

It is only the Torah and its disciplines that elevate man into a civilized being. “Barasi yetzer hara, barasi Torah tavlin,” say the Sages in Kiddushin 30b: “I have created the Evil Inclination; I have created the Torah as antidote.” Sensitivity training and therapy centers are useful, but without the safeguards of halachah, man remains unchanged.

Is this a negative view of man? No. Is it an unvarnished view of man? Yes — and the daily scandals underscore this. Man’s essential nature has not changed. (See Kli Yakar on Bereishis 6:5.) An unbiased look at Jewish tradition will demonstrate how its gender guidelines protect man from himself and ultimately respect and protect women.

That’s what I’m talking about! But Rabbi Feldman said it far more eloquently than I ever could.

This does not means that religious men won’t become sexual predators. Of course they can. And far too many do… as the parade of Orthodox sexual abusers made public over the last few years so amply demonstrates.

But that is because for a variety of reasons (or excuses) they do not follow those rules. True - male on male (or the much rarer female on female) sexual abuse would not be helped by these laws. But for those women that have been sexually abused by men, had the laws regarding interaction between the sexes been followed, there would be a lot less opportunity.

Not only for situations where temptation can be acted upon by 2 consenting adults. But even in situations where a culturally ‘liberated’ man will feel free to act on his impulses. Because the vast majority of the more serious instances of sexual misconduct by a man towards a woman is done when no one else is looking – avoiding seclusion means avoiding most sexual misconduct. At least the more serious versions of it. I don’t think this is arguable.

Image from the Jerusalem Post

Shocking! That is the only word that can describe statistics reported by Vered Vindman, director-general of the National Council for the Child (as reported in the Jerusalem Post).

It appears that the percentage of children in Israel that live under the poverty line is 33%. And as if that weren’t shocking enough, the percentage of Charedi children in that category is nearly 66%! That is even greater than Arab children living below the poverty line there at 62%. None of those statistics are good. But the Charedi statistic is beyond terrible.

(It should be noted that the large percentages of Charedi and Arab children living under the poverty line contributes to the 33% of the whole. It would be interesting to see what the percentage would be if those 2 demographics were factored out. Why Arab children have such a high poverty rate is beyond the scope of this post. But it does raise the overall percentage to 33%. Factoring out both the Charedi and Arab demographics would lower the overall percentage.)

The reasons for the high Charedi statistic are complicated. But one of them is clearly the fact that most men in that community do not work. They are supported by a variety of sources: working wives, Kollel stipends, government welfare programs, charitable organizations (both in Israel and abroad), free loan societies, help from their parents and maxing out credit cards. With all of these sources one would think that they should be able to live at least minimally above the poverty line. And yet almost 66% of their children do not.

I have been saying for years that poverty in Israel of the Charedi world makes their lifestyles unsustainable. It is true that the idealism that many Kollel families in Israel have motivates them choose rely on incomes that place them below the poverty line. However, that is not an option given to their children who are forced by circumstance to be in that category. Which surely contributes to the OTD phenomenon.I don’t know how much longer Charedi world in Israel can maintain that level of poverty and survive.

One may ask, what about the increase in the Charedi workforce there? It’s true there are more Charedim entering the workforce in Israel now than ever before. There has even been an increase in the number of ways that Charedim can catch up with their secular counterparts. Schools and programs designed specifically for Charedim that have been in Kollel have arisen that help arm them with educations post Kollel - giving them the skills to compete for higher quality jobs.

But apparently this has not been enough for 2 out of every 3 of their children. Perhaps in part because not every Charedi that has been in Kollel is able to handle these programs when they need to - not having been given the tools to do so earlier in their education.

Which brings me back to something I have been saying for as far back as I can remember. Not everyone belongs in a Kollel. And yet virtually every Charedi male in Israel is guided to do exactly that - without the slightest consideration that Kollel may not be for them. Which of course means that they get no preparation for doing anything other than Torah study.

Obviously this isn't the only reason there is such a high level of poverty. But is is a least part of the reason. I can’t say that I have all the answers. But I can say with relative confidence that I do have one answer that will help.

A while back I had noted what a Charedi Mechanech at the Agudah convention had said. I believe that if the Charedi leadership in Israel would pay attention to him, it would help them immensely. What he said is that not everyone belongs in a Yeshiva. This means that post high school many of these young people ought to be doing something else. Like finding work - or perhaps more importantly preparing for better jobs. Thereby better providing for their families.

To the extent that this is the goal it should be imperative that some of the basic tools needed to qualify for advanced educations (that preparation entails) be provided to them. This means offering that kind of education at basic levels in both elementary school and high school. It needs to be offered to all students at that stage since it is not easy to determine who should be in Yeshiva post high school and who should not.

I don’t know how much this will impact the 66% poverty rate. But it surely won’t make things any worse. Unfortunately the Charedi leadership will never agree to this. Am I wasting my time? No. Speaking the truth is never a waste of time. As long as there are people willing to hear it.

Unrelated photo of a 'perp walk' for illustrative purposes only

Desperate times call for desperate measures. That may have been their thinking, wrong though they were in this case.

I don’t know much about the 12 Charedim arrested for ‘mega-fraud’ in Bet Shemesh yesterday. But I do know about the impoverished conditions of the world in which they live. This was recently demonstrated by the incredible statistic that 66% of Charedi children in Israel live below the poverty line. From Yeshiva World News (YWN):

The ringleader of the scheme is suspected of opening a fictitious Yeshiva and registering 150 students who “studied” there, in order to receive stipends and scholarship funds from the Ministry of Education for those students.

The total sum of the money suspected of being defrauded is more than 1,000,000 NIS. During a routine checkup conducted by the Ministry on the “Yeshiva” they found only rubble at the address where the Yeshiva was supposed to be standing.

The Ministry officials immediately filed a complaint with the police and undercover detectives were sent to discover what the reality of the situation was. The investigators discovered that not only did the Yeshiva not exist, but that all 150 of the supposed students whose names were on the list submitted to the Ministry, were not studying in any known institute of higher education. Some of them were dropouts, while others were serving in the IDF.

The accusations being leveled at the accused include: Obtaining defrauded money under aggravated circumstances, conspiracy to thievery, and money laundering.

First, I want to recognize YWN for bringing this to the attention of their readers. In the past the Charedi media used to hide things like this because it made the Charedi world look bad. They used to think that publicizing misdeeds by Charedi individuals was a Chilul HaShem. What they didn’t realize is that covering it up was the real Chilul HaShem. I guess they realize it now.

I want to make clear that there is no reason to believe that such fraud is widespread. I believe that most Charedim are scrupulously honest. And would never commit a fraud like this. Perhaps there are some that rationalize the need to hide or under report income. But I believe even this low level of fraud is rare. And a massive large scale fraud like this is even rarer. But rare does not mean nonexistent. As this once again shows it. It exists. And when it happens it makes big news.

There have been many stories like this unfortunately over the years. Some of which involved prominent rabbis involved in all kinds of tax fraud and money laundering schemes. The ones that come to mind happened right here in America involving international schemes with participants in Israel. I am not going to rehash any of these sad stories. Those who have been reading this blog over the years will remember at least some of them.

My guess is that the individuals who devised and tried to carry out this scheme did not necessarily do so to enrich themselves. (Although that’s certainly possible.) I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were just trying to get more money from their government in order to help alleviate some of the more severe cases of poverty in their world.

That is of course no excuse. They tried to steal over a million NIS from the government. If they are found to be guilty at trial they should pay the price the Israeli justice system demands of them. If I am right, and this was the reason, it underscores the desperate financial straits of the Charedi world in Israel. It also underscores the need to do something about it. Something other than defrauding the government out of millions! Something along the lines of teaching Charedim early in their education the value of working for a living. And that there is no shame in choosing work over Kollel.

Again - just to be clear, I am not suggesting giving up learning Torah even for the non elite. Even full time for a short while. What I am suggesting (as I have umpteen times) is that they be given the tools to eventually enable them to get training for careers that are best suited for them as individuals. So that after a year or two in Kollel and a short stint serving their country they will be able to quickly get the training they need to get good paying jobs.

(What about the army? True that is an obstacle in the minds of many Charedi leaders. But it shouldn’t be. Especially since that obligation can be fulfilled in a variety of ways that do not contradict their beliefs and practices. Such as Nachal Charedi; or is some sort of alternative government service that would be in keeping with their Hashkafos. Until such time Israel eliminates the draft (if it ever does), they will have to do what every other Israeli does. But they can do it without violating their principles.)

As I have also said, the reality is that this will likely never happen. But I cannot understand why the current paradigm which is conducive to generating fraudulent schemes in order to alleviate poverty is a better idea.

And then there is this:

Charedi protesters attempted to interfere with a police arrest of one of the twelve suspects that were arrested in Beit Shemesh yesterday under the suspicion of defrauding government monies. The suspicion is that a Charedi non-profit organization was used by the individuals to defraud the money.

Residents of the city were seen in a post that was published by the Walla News site shoving police officers and throwing eggs at them as they attempted to arrest one of the suspects outside his home. The police responded by spraying the protesters with pepper spray.

This is yet another problem that Charedi leaders seem to ignore. The idea that arresting someone for suspected fraud should causes a violent response in protest of it. What will it take for Charedi leaders to lay down the law and forbid such protests, and assign serious consequences to those participating in it? Like expulsion from the community! Because violently protesting the arrest of someone suspected of fraud is a Chilul HaShem, too. Almost as much of a Chilul HaShem as a Charedi non-profit participating in that fraud.

I have no clue whether these protesters are from the mainstream of from the more radical extreme elements of Charedim in Bet Shemesh. I assume the latter. But whichever the case, they ought to be treated accordingly. So that the next time any of them do this, they might think twice before attempting it.

Shulem Deen - Ex Chasid that went OTD

Orthodox Jewry has many segments. (Even as they represent less than 10% of the Jewish population in the US. Where Jews as a whole are less than 2% of the US population.) There are 2 primary groups that comprise Orthodox Jews.

1. Charedim (sometimes called ultra Orthodox Jews) which consists of variety of Chasidim and non Chasidic Lithuanian Yeshiva type Orthodox Jews

2. Modern Orthodox Jews (which has many segments of their own as noted below).

In light of the increase in the number of Jews that stop being observant (hereafter referred to as going OTD - Off the Derech) , it would interesting to compare those 2 segments.

Orthodox researcher, Mark Trencher has done exactly that. His most recent survey was on Modern Orthodox that go OTD. Modern Orthodoxy is not a monolithic denomination. There are many sub denominations. Trencher’s breakdown of the MO community along with the percentages of each that are likely to go OTD is as follows:

18% – Open Orthodox
17% – Liberal Modern Orthodox
5% – Modern Orthodox
3% – Centrist Orthodox
2% – Right-Wing Centrist Orthodox

The reasons for going OTD among MO Jews are quite varied as well. Here are the results from respondents that were asked why they went OTD. Interestingly it made a difference if the respondents were men or women. Here is the breakdown for that:

Men: Conflicting learnings, intellectual thought (27%)
General doubts, loss of faith (13%)
Questions not answered/welcomed, lack of openness (11%)
Religious Practice, chumros, minutiae, no spirituality (10%)

Women: Role and status of women (37%)
Conflicting learnings, intellectual thought (18%)
Community hypocrisy, double standards (13%)
My sexual orientation (11%)
Community judgmental, gossip, not accepted (11%)
Exposure to non-Orthodox, non-Jews, outside world (11%)
Sexual abuse, physical abuse, domestic violence (10%)

In terms of magnitude - it was hard to for an individual to answer a question about whether they will at some point in the future go OTD. So instead a question related to that was asked:

On a scale from 0 to 10 –– where 0 = do not agree and 10 = fully agree –– to what extent to you agree with the statement: Being an Orthodox / Observant Jew is an important part of my life?” Here is that breakdown:

73% assigned a rating of 9 or 10 (Orthodoxy is an extremely important part of their life).
18% assigned a rating of 7 or 8 (Orthodoxy is a somewhat important part of their life).
9% assigned a rating of 6 or less (Orthodoxy is not an important part of their life).

This means that only 73% consider Orthodoxy an important part of their lives. Leaving 27% at risk of going OTD.

I don’t know how these percentages compare to the percentages of Charedim going OTD. But as noted by Trencher there is a difference in what happens to those that do from each community.

One of the things Trencher notes is that that it is a lot easier for an MO Jew to go OTD than it is for a Charedi Jew for variety of reasons. Chasdidm have the most difficult time doing that since they are the most sheltered and therefore least familiar with the world they are entering. In the Chasidic world the outside world is painted as evil and for the most part anti Torah. Modern Orthodoxy is seen as almost as bad.

A Chasid who drops out of that cocoon will find themselves in a world they do nor recognize or understand. A world that is not friendly to their needs. A world they are wholly unprepared for in terms of education, socialization, and the ability to make a living. They in essence become lost souls with no where to go. They have to learn how to survive in a world so different from which they came it is almost like living on another planet. Switching to a MO segment is as strange to them as switching to a secular one. And since it was hardly given any worth by their former communities, they do not see it as an option. Nor has that world been all that friendly to those that have tried.

Yeshiva type OTDs have a better chance since they are not as sheltered and are better educated to the new challenges that confront them by residing in the secular world. But in most cases they too do not see MO being much better than being secular.

MO Jews can go OTD with relative ease. Which indicates that there is a much higher number than we might be able to determine. That’s because - as Trencher puts it:

“(L)eaving Orthodoxy” does not necessarily mean that one becomes obviously non-observant. We found that 26% of former Modern Orthodox who had gone OTD indicated that they were leading a “double life.” Outwardly they were still members of their community in terms of appearances and visible actions, but internally they no longer viewed themselves that way. We need to recognize that, in the Modern Orthodox community, going OTD often takes the shape (sometimes in the interim and sometimes permanently), of becoming a “double lifer” – appearing to be a member of the community, but not so much in beliefs and private behaviors.

It is a lot easier to be MO and go OTD because one does not have to change their lifestyle too much to do that. Their manner of dress is the same and their participation in the general culture has always been there. As MO Jews, their secular education is equivalent to the of the secular world. It is not that much of a lifestyle change for them to go OTD. And as trencher points out – it is much easier hide going OTD. One can present observant in public since one does not have to change how they live all that much. For example they might not keep kosher in private, or be Mechalel (violate) Shabbos in private – but in public refrain for doing that.

Contrasting reasons MO and Charedim go OTD is quite fascinating. Although I’m sure there is much overlap, based on what I’ve read about Charedim that go OTD (versus what Trencher presents here) Charedim are more likely to do it for reasons having to do with the difficulty of living that lifestyle. Especially when they discover life on the outside more appealing. While having little spiritual grounding other than learning rote ritual behavior in many cases.

The largest segment of MO seems to do it more for intellectual reasons. It is also interesting to note that MO women that go OTD seem to do it most often for gender inequality reasons.

These are just some of my quick thoughts about the phenomenon based on Trenchers research. There is a lot of room to revise my views given more information.

Rabbi Aaron D. Twerski

I am a fan. I am full of admiration - not only of Rabbi Aaron D. Twerski, but of his entire extended family. (At least the ones I know about.) I don’t think it would be lying to say that my own education in both religious and secular studies pales in comparison to his.

Rabbi Twerski is a devout Chasid that descends from a long line of Chasidic Rebbes. He is also a professor of law at Brooklyn Law School and former Dean of Hofstra University Law School. Unfortunately he is not typical of the community from which he stems. The more extreme of which (e.g. Satmar) eschews the kind of secular education Rabbi Twerski both received and teaches.

I mention this in light of an article he published in Crain’s New York Business. Therein he defends the current paradigm of Yeshivos now being attacked for lack of providing any secular education to their students.

This subject is not new to me. It is one that is dear to my heart. It is a subject that cause tremendous grief. Not because the system is being attacked. But because of what the attack is all about. Which is the above-mentioned lack of a secular education for their children. Who - except for the truly gifted among them that can catch up - grow up lacking the tools needed to get the very education Rabbi Twerski himself received. Added to this is the generally very negative attitude among Chasidim about attending college altogether – in most cases.

Rabbi Twerski describes the financial successes of a variety of Chasidim in various fields. Chasidic entrepreneurs like the owner of B&H Electronics. He is a Satmar Chasid that accomplished all of this without any secular education. His success and that of other Chasdic businessmen like him is attributed to the critical thinking skills one learns through the rigors of Torah study at intense and high levels. Rabbi Twerski asserts that this shows very clearly that their education is sufficient as is. And that success in the business world need not include any of the skills one develops in studying secular subjects.

I fully agree that many skills are learned that way. But there are skills that are left out that only the type of study one finds only on the secular side of one’s education.

Rabbi Twerski cites some examples of Chasidim that are accountants which clearly requires the kind of secular knowledge attained at a university. Passing a CPA exam is not easy even for one who has done that. My point being that those among Chasidim that pass a CPA exam are either exceptionally brilliant; have attended those college courses surreptitiously; or are not members of the more extreme anti college Chasidic sects like Satmar – one of the largest groups of Chasidim in the world.

It is true that many Chasidim without a secular education have jobs with decent salaries. It is for example a tribute to the owners of B& H that hire many Chasidim (and other Jews, religious or not; as well as non Jews of all stripes and colors) at decent salaries. Rabbi Twerski may also be right about hiring prejudices against Chasidim by certain employers. This, he says, is part of the reason there is so much poverty among them. As is their typically large families where a combined income (husband and wife) can often reach six figures still not be enough to make ends meet.

Rabbi Twerski therefore rejects what he says is the charge that the root cause of their poverty is too much emphasis on religious studies in their schools.

It isn’t that there is too much emphasis on religious studies. It is that there is hardly any emphasis at all on secular studies. This is what the charge is all about - and I agree.

It is true that there are a lot of things about the religious side of a Yeshiva education that are valuable not only to the spiritual welfare of a Jew but even to their material welfare – as Rabbi Twerski points out. But I could not disagree more with his assertion that the current structure of Yeshivas in the more extreme segments of the Chasidic world is as sufficient preparation for the work force than it would be if they restructured their curriculum to include a good secular studies program. Which at the very least should be more or less what the city (or state) of New York requires.

This is what YAFFED (Young Advoctaes for Fair Education) seeks. They have gone to great lengths to see that New York’s core curriculum mandate is adhered to. As of yet, I don’t think this has happened.

I am not a mind reader and can’t speak to the actual motives of this group. They have been accused of having an ulterior motive to destroy Yeshivos rather than their stated goal of giving Chasidim a better secular education. The fact that YAFFED’s founder is a lapsed Chasid (and possibly no longer observant) has led many rabbis and other observant Jewish leaders to make that charge.

True or not - that does not detract from their stated goal which I support. It is a goal worthy of the support of all of us regardless of our religious orientation. These Chasidim are our brothers. They deserve to be given every chance to succeed in life, Both spiritually and materially. So that even if Rabbi Twerski’s praise to this community for their material success is accurate, why not enhance the opportunity for more of them so that they too can do better materially?

For me that means adding a secular studies program to their curriculum. Much the same way most non Chasidic yeshivas do by offering both a religious studies program along side a secular studies program. It may not solve all their problems. But is surely will not hurt.

Ad in a Charedi magazine (Times of Israel)

I think we all want the same thing. By ‘we’ I mean sane rational people that do not subscribe to extremism in any form. We want to reestablish normality in observant Judaism. Mrs. Shoshana Keats-Jaskoll and Rabbi Natan Slifkin recently expressed views that reflect this basic value.

While each article had a slightly different focus, if one reads between the lines I think what they are both seeking is what I and many observant Jews across the broad middle of the Orthodox spectrum seek. Including moderate Charedim: Normal behavior.

One area of overlap between the two writers is in the area of ‘the disappearing woman’. By which they mean that it is becoming more commonplace to eliminate pictures of women from popular publications. In what has to be one of the more disturbing examples of that, a company advertising clothing for children had a picture of two mannequins modeling clothing. One was a boy modeling boys clothing and the other was a headless mannequin modeling girls clothing. This is just one example of the extremes now so prevalent in these publications.

Publishing pictures of women is is not in any way a violation of Halacha. This is evidenced by Agudah, the organization whose rabbinic leaders are seen by many as the Gedolei Hador. Not long ago they published pictures on their own website of women speaking at their recent convention.

2016 Mishpacha Magazine cover of a grotesque image of Hillary Clinton

And yet the phenomenon of erasing women has taken on a life of its own so severe that Hamodia, a widely distributed mainstream Charedi newspaper, took Mishpacha Magazine to task for publishing a grotesquely distorted pictures of Hillary Clinton as a violation of Charedi modesty standards.

Mrs. Keats-Jaskoll rightly protests this development and has been speaking out about it for quite awhile. In her current article she takes to task both the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) anf the Orthodox Union (OU) for not doing more. In the case of the OU, she objects that the current issue of their fine magazine, Jewish Actionfeatured articles on Charedi publications that not only did not protest their practice of eliminating pictures of women but actually praised them. Here is how she puts it:

Given their recognition of the importance of women in the community at large and their stated respect for women, I found it shocking when, earlier this month, the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Action magazine praised and highlighted the very publications that censor images of Jewish women and girls.

If I had to guess as to why Jewish Action did this, I would say that that article was not intended as anything more than a discussion about the success of a variety of Jewish publishers – without comment about their editorial or censorship policy. I am therefore not so quick to criticize Jewish Action or the OU. But I do understand very clearly where she is coming from. There definitely needs to be more done to turn the tide back to normalcy – and not allow extremist views about modesty to become the norm.

Rabbi Slifkin makes similar points in his post. But includes other issues he has with these publications. All of which are legitimate as well. He does offer an idea that would be at least in part a solution. I have made this suggestion myself many times. He believes that there ought to be a weekly magazine to counter the 2 most popular Charedi ones that are now dominating the Jewish marketplace.

I actually discussed this idea a few years ago with the editor of the Jewish Press.

Now the Jewish Press is not everyone’s cup of tea. Indeed their views on Israel are to the right of Attila the Hun. Or more correctly they broadly if not precisely reflect the views of Rabbi Meir Kahane. This is an impediment to a wider Orthodox Jewish readership. Nevertheless they are the one of the oldest Orthodox Jewish publications around and to their credit feature a broad spectrum of Orthodox Jewish writers and columnists from right to left. And perhaps more importantly they do not hesitate to publish pictures of women.

I suggested to their editor that they change their format from a tabloid to a glossy magazine with high end graphics to compete on a level playing field with the two Charedi Magazines. His response was that their editorial staff actually considered that possibility – but in the end they did not feel it would be financially viable.

Perhaps they were right. A Jewish Press Magazinewould carry with it some of the baggage of their past as a tabloid. The print version has lost readership due to competition form on-line Jewish publications and those 2 ‘glossies’. Converting thieir tabloid to a glossy magazine will probably not change that too much - if at all. What might work however is a brand new magazine with a new name unrelated to the Jewish Press that would nevertheless feature some of their best writers and columnists along with some new ones.

As noted above, Rabbi Slifkin made a similar suggestion about the OU’s Jewish Action. It is currently a quarterly publication. He suggested that it become weekly magazine. I agree that this might help. But they too would have to improve the current level of graphic arts so as to compete with the already successful Charedi ‘glossies.

That said, I’m not entirely convinced that they would be successful. Because the readers that makes the Charedi ‘glossies’ so successful are not likely to switch to a magazine that does not as closely reflect their values.

Sadly for Centrists like me - we are a relatively small segment of Orthodox Jewry compared to the Charedi world. And their community is growing a lot faster than ours. What counts in the publishing industry is circulation numbers. That determines the fees they will charge their advertisers. As noted by the Jewish Press about their own chances for success along these lines, I don’t know if such an enterprise would be financially feasible for Jewish Action either.

Of course, one never knows and it’s worth a try. What is at stake is more than just revenue for the publication’s owners and investors. It is a way of life that is at stake. What are the values of mainstream Orthodoxy going to be? Will they be those of the extremes that are becoming more commonplace? Or will it be the more sane and rational values that we have had in the past. Values that are clearly within the framework of Halacha even according to the Agudah Moetzes?

There has to be a wealthy Orthodox venture capitalist that is willing to invest in this kind of new enterprise. He or she will certainly get their money’s worth. At least in terms of countering the trend towards extremism and influencing Orthodox Jewish public opinion towards a saner world. Who knows? If it’s done right and given time, it may become a financial success too.

Student protests in Iran

I remember when Israel had an embassy in Iran. That was back in the good old days of the early 70s when that Shah was in charge. Iran was a Muslim country that had a secular style government and was friendly to the Jewish state. Iran had a thriving Jewish population at the time.

At the time Iran was modernizing with a ‘bullet’. I recall images of a culture quickly becoming westernized. The Shah tried to bring a once primitive country into the 20^th century. By his own admission a bit too quickly – which he blamed for the Islamic revolution.

I don’t think that was entirely to blame. But he was probably right to a certain extent. There were a lot of Islamic fundamentalists living in Iran at the time that didn’t like the modernization – considering it incompatible with Islam. It was however the heavy handed way he dealt with his dissidents that got the Shah into trouble. He was accused of torturing them.

It was criticism like that that caused then President Jimmy Carter to urge the Shah to loosen the reins and allow dissent to take place. That eventually led to The Shah’s demise; his government overthrown; and replaced by a democratic one.

That lasted about a minute. It too was quickly overthrown in cathartic revolution by fervent Shia Muslims whose leader was an exiled (by the Shah) cleric named Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Recordings of his religious lectures had been smuggled into Iran - much of which was bought into by Iran’s devout youth. Who somehow did not adapt well to the modernity the Shah so hurried brought into his country.

Religious fervor is a great motivator. Perhaps the greatest motivator of all. It makes martyrs out of people when they believe God is on their side. We know that all to well by the huge number of terrorist attacks over the last few decades. They were being done by fundamentalist religious Muslims believing that blowing themselves up in service to their religion would give them an immediate ticket to Heaven.

That kind of religious fervor is almost impossible to fight. So that nearly 40 years ago religious fundamentalist Shia Muslims replaced the secularist Shah. There was no stopping them. They rolled over the momentary democratic rule with a steamroller. Paving the way for their revered icon, Ayatollah Khomeini to make his triumphant return from exile and take charge. Iran quickly became a country governed by Islamic (Sharia) law.

What about that part of the population that liked living in freedom and not governed by the strict letter of Sharia Law. They were marginalized. Any protest they might have registered was quickly dealt with by the ruling government that did not make a move without the religious guidance of their revered Ayatollah. It is because of their religious fervor, that Israel was now seen as the devil to be destroyed. Jewish dominion over Israel was seen by them as complete contradiction to Islamic theology. Needless to say there is no Israeli embassy there any more.

Fast forward to today and Iranian citizens seem to be at peace with how they live. A life filled with the religious values of Islam. In the 40 years since the revolution, Iranians 40 years of age and under know no other way. They believe that Iran was always like that. Or they believe that the previous government under the Shah was corruption of Islamic values and a blot on their history.

And yet there is still a segment that can remember the freedom from religious coercion they once had. They yearn for it. it is also very likely that a younger element exists now that may is not in love with the way Islam is practiced in their country. And they would love to see the reins of strict fundamentalist Islamic law loosened.

Social media has a way of permeating the hearts and minds of young people in 2018 much the same way religious fervor of the 70s permeated young hearts and minds back then. Which was a time social media hadn’t been invented yet. Without resources like that turning to religion to find meaning in their lives was natural.

Which brings me to somewhat encouraging news of late - out of Iran. But not encouraging enough. At least not yet if it ever will be. There seems to be a new revolution taking place there. Media reports are saying it is about the rising costs of living and a stagnant economy. Perhaps those were precipitating factors. But I think it is something else. There appears that a lot of Iranians are so fed up with life as it exists there now - that they are staging massive protests against it. CNN reports there have been 12 deaths attributed to those protests thus far.

I don’t know what percentage of the country feels this way. But a lot of people are willing to risk the consequences of protesting an iron-fisted religious regime whose leaders believe they are being guided by God. Those leaders will not tolerate dissent no matter what the rest of the world thinks about it. They don’t care. They are fighting for God.

I wish it were different. I would love to see an Israeli embassy in Iran again. But I’m not going to hold my breath. I wish this uprising could overthrow the current Islamic regime and replace it with a modern democracy. Much the same way the reverse happened 40 years ago. But it is not going to happen.

The religious government in Iran will do whatever it takes to crush a rebellion they believe is a rebellion against God. A similar revolution happened back in 2009. Many people hoped that it would happen then, too. It didn’t. It was crushed then and even though this seems like a bigger one it will very likely be crushed now, too. I wish it weren’t so. But I don’t see how it can succeed against those who consider themselves warriors for God - willing to martyr themselves if necessary.

Image from TORA

The plight of being transgender is a subject that is very difficult for me to discuss. But it has become a hotly debated issue and a recent statement by TORA(Traditional Orthodox Rabbis of America – of which I am a member) has motivated me to try and rise to the challenge.

TORA just released a statement strongly endorsing a declaration made recently by ‘a group of Christian and Muslim faith leaders’. I think it is worth reading because of the sensitive way it handles the issue and the clear Halacha opposing sex reassignment surgery.

The pain of any individual believing he was born the wrong sex and wishing to change is unfathomable to most people, and yet it exists at painful levels among some. So painful that suicide is sometimes considered. That kind of pain is very understandable. Societal rejection of a transsexual human being is still pretty strong. And not very well understood.

I believe that most people that even bother thinking about it believe that it is a psychological disorder that can be corrected with therapy. I’m not sure that’s the case. If that were true, why wouldn’t every transsexual human being opt to be part of the overwhelming mainstream of humanity that is comfortable with the gender they were born with? They well understand the stigma of being born different. It cannot be easy on them to have these feelings.

Like most people I do not understand it either. We are born either male or female and we grow up in that reality without thinking about it too much. And we are raised culturally to behave in the manner of the sex we are born with.

And yet, transgender people are so unhappy with the gender they were botrn with that they are willing to undergo the pain of sex reassignment surgery. It can’t be psychologically easy to make that kind of change either - in a world that won’t understand it. A world that knew an individual as a male and now sees them as a female (and vice versa).

While there are organizations that help them try to adjust, I don’t think there is anywhere near enough acceptance in society to give them a sense of being a normal person among other normal people. And yet they still do it!

As mentioned, Halacha forbids that kind of change in no uncertain terms. It falls into the category of mutilating the body. Which is clearly forbidden unless it is for Pikuach Nefesh reasons (preservation of life) or serious health issues.

All of this is why the following excerpt published in the TORA is important:

A person’s discomfort with his or her sex, or the desire to be identified as the other sex, is a complicated reality that needs to be addressed with sensitivity and truth. Each person deserves to be heard and treated with respect; it is our responsibility to respond to their concerns with compassion, mercy and honesty. As religious leaders, we express our commitment to urge the members of our communities to also respond to those wrestling with this challenge with patience and love.

Children especially are harmed when they are told that they can “change” their sex or, further, given hormones that will affect their development and possibly render them infertile as adults. Parents deserve better guidance on these important decisions, and we urge our medical institutions to honor the basic medical principle of “first, do no harm.” Gender ideology harms individuals and societies by sowing confusion and self-doubt. The state itself has a compelling interest, therefore, in maintaining policies that uphold the scientific fact of human biology and supporting the social institutions and norms that surround it.

The movement today to enforce the false idea — that a man can be or become a woman or vice versa — is deeply troubling. It compels people to either go against reason — that is, to agree with something that is not true — or face ridicule, marginalization, and other forms of retaliation.

We desire the health and happiness of all men, women, and children. Therefore, we call for policies that uphold the truth of a person’s sexual identity as male or female, and the privacy and safety of all. We hope for renewed appreciation of the beauty of sexual difference in our culture and for authentic support of those who experience conflict with their God-given sexual identity.

People that have these issues should indeed be treated with compassion. But at the same time they must be advised about the Halachic prohibition of changing one’s sex. How a human being can function remaining in the gender they were born with while feeling emotionally that they are the other is a problem that I have no solution for. But that does not make it any less forbidden to surgically change one’s sex.

What about changing one’s gender without surgery? One could do that by using hormone therapy and changing their appearance (e.g. clothing, hair style, and cosmetics) and mannerisms. But that too is forbidden by Halacha as clearly stated by the Torah. And without reassignment surgery they remain biologically the sex into which they were born.

(It is interesting to note, however a responsum by Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg in his magnum Opus, Tzitz Eliezer (Volume 10 – 26:25) states that the sex of a human being is determined by their existing genitalia. Not what they were born with.

Rabbi Waldenberg is the only Posek that says anything remotely like this. More importantly, however, even according to him it is also clearly forbidden to perform such surgery.)

As an observant Jews, they must follow Halacha, painful though it may be for them in this instance. I have nothing but sympathy for such individuals. And I have no clue about a solution for these human beings that would be Halachic. And still, as a human being, my heart goes out to them. I cannot imagine the pain they must go though struggling with this.

by Beth Orens, Guest Contributor

I received the following from an individual who is trans-sexual. It was originally a lengthy comment to yesterday's post on the subject. I thought it would be valuable to hear what it is like from someone who actually is trans-sexual. I offer it here without comment as an independent post.

Hi everyone. I expect to take a lot of abuse for this, but I figure someone ought to contribute to the discussion who has some first-hand knowledge.

I don't know where to start. With the growing body of evidence that the percentage of white matter in the brain is different for men and women, and that transsexuals have the approximate amount of the opposite sex? With heart-rending descriptions of what it's like growing up that way (heart-rending only to those who have hearts, of course)? With the recognition that the vast majority of the "trans" movement today has nothing to do with transsexuals, and is just kids bucking societal gender norms? With the obvious fact, as Rabbi Maryles pointed out, that no one would choose this?

I've read accounts of people who say they actually thought they were the opposite sex when they were little. I don't understand that. I had a brain. I had eyes. I knew that my body fit the definition of "boy". And it felt wrong. And I'm telling you the truth when I say that I knew this from at least the age of 3.

As I grew up, I just figured I was crazy. It wasn't a stretch. I had frustration rages and went to therapists because of it, so I just assumed this was part of the crazy. The therapists said it was because I was resisting any aggressive reactions to anything, and that periodically, "the dam burst" and my emotions went blooey.

(I found out decades later that a lot of other people in my situation had the same experience.)

I was a cub scout. I remember standing at a convocation of some kind, with other cub scouts, and brownies on the other side of the room, and feeling my heart breaking, because I should have been over there.

In elementary school, during recess, the boys went and played soccer, and the girls mostly jumped rope and played hopscotch and jacks. I used to hang out near the girls, but never -- *ever* -- tried to participate, because I knew full well that boys weren't supposed to do girl things. Eventually, a teacher came over and forced me to go play soccer.

The closest I can think of to describe the feeling would be for you to spend a week wearing your shoes on the wrong feet and writing exclusively with your non-dominant hand. I read that forcing a left handed person to use their right hands instead can cause all sorts of psychological damage. Stammering. Depression. But no one thinks you choose to be left handed. It's simply a question of how your brain develops. You can force someone to use their right hand, but you can't make it natural.

Have any of you suffered from chronic pain? Thank God, I haven't. But this was a chronic ache. An inchoate longing. And there was no reason for it. My father was a professional and my mother was a homemaker. My family couldn't have been more vanilla.

And I was lucky. My family wasn't religious. We were one of the many suburban families that belonged to a Conservative synagogue, but other than life cycle events, it was pretty irrelevant to our lives.

And by the time I was a teenager, I knew what transsexuals were. They were these gross sexual freaks. In a billion years I would never be one of those. I once saw two obviously trans people on a train in Boston, and my stomach turned. And I was terrified.

I wasn't suicidal all the time. I was more of an emotional open wound. And kind of dead inside. I never once told any of the therapists I saw about my feelings. I think that was for three reasons. One, actually verbalizing it would make it real. Two, I knew that if challenged, there was no way I could possibly explain it. "Why do you feel that way?" How do I know? "Do you want to play with dolls?" No, I want to sit and read books. And three, I knew that doctor-patient confidentiality didn't apply to parents. To this day, I don't know if that's the case, but even at 6, or 8, or 10, I knew the concept, and would never have taken the chance of telling something to a therapist that I wouldn't want getting back to my parents.

And I just realized that I'm boring you all to death (those of you who even read this far).

Suffice it to say that I was lucky enough to be able to pass. I'm not pretty, but people don't stare. No one notices me. Every one of you probably knows some transsexuals, either male-to-female or female-to-male. Because most of us fly under the radar. Most people who are physically unlikely to pass don't transition. They live in misery or choose not to live. The few you see on TV are exceptions. No one would know Laverne Cox was trans if she weren't out about it. Ditto Janet Mock and many, many others. I know transsexual men who learn in yeshiva, and no one bats an eye.

You can't fathom what it's like to actually be able to live after decades of play-acting.

I understand full well that transitioning was against halacha. But people will act to save themselves. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm mentally ill. But I'm far happier and far more functional and productive than I was before I transitioned. So that kind of mental illness seems to be pretty benign.

I've seen some arguments in these comments that catering to mental illness is wrong. But I don't see why, if the net result is positive. And I don't accept that it's a mental illness in the first place. The white-matter thing I talked about at the beginning of this ludicrously long post is real. Google it.

If it weren’t so sad, it would be funny. In a Times of Israel article Rabbi Todd Berman warns us that the time to say Kaddish on non Orthodox Judaism is premature. Perhaps it is. But it is inevitable despite the evidence he brings to support his argument. Which is actually that it isn’t only premature, it is not even inevitable.

The triumphant glee that some of my Orthodox coreligionists have about this is indeed wrong. I do not share that feeling. I cannot celebrate the massive loss of Jews to assimilating out of Judaism currently taking place. One that would surely be accelerated if there were no heterodox movements.

That this is happening now in such great numbers is not for their lack of trying to keep them in. It is because they have catered to an assimilationist zeitgeist in the belief that by doing so they can hold on to them.

But by tolerating and ignoring the lack of observance by the vast majority of their members, they have done the opposite. The resultant assimilation has paved the way for a quick exit from Judaism for their members - with each generation feeling less Jewish.While predictions about the future are not always linear, I am hard pressed to see how the current accelerating pace of non observant Jews opting out of any organized version of Judaism - which in many cases means opting out of Judaism altogether – will somehow be reversed.

This is a sad reality for which there should be no celebration. Feeling triumphant is but a momentary self centered indulgence. This overwhelming loss should make us all feel anything but triumphant. On this Rabbi Berman and I agree. But that does not change the reality.

To the extent that heterodoxy ever had an impact on slowing down that attrition, it had some value. Because if a non observant Jew has at least a Jewish identity and feels positive about it, there is hope that he will someday become observant and raise observant children. As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein asks (in a quote excerpted by Rabbi Berman):

Can anyone responsibly state that it is better for a marginal Jew in Dallas or Dubuque to lose his religious identity altogether than drive to his temple?

This does not mean that we in Orthodoxy should help facilitate their survival. That would imply legitimizing their theology which would be a contradiction to Rabbi Soloveitchik’s admonition

that ‘Orthodoxy cannot and should not unite with such groups which deny the fundamentals of our weltanschauung’.

(It is somewhat perplexing that Rav Lichtenstein is quoted by Rabbi Berman in what seems to be a direct contradiction to this. But as difficult as it to understand the seeming contradiction between Rav Lichtenstein and his Rebbe (and father in law) the Rav - it is beyond the scope of this post to dwell upon it. The scope of this post is to show why non Orthodox movements are dying regardless of their attempts at resuscitation.)

Rabbi Berman argues that there is a kind of revivalist movement in heterodoxy that seems to be working to change that tide. Here s how he puts it:

(We) should not rule out American Judaism, including its non-Orthodox varieties, quite yet. There is something stirring and we ignore their feelings at our peril. I sense that these movements are touching on something beautiful and important and speaking to people “be’asher heim sham” (where they are) in a way that few Orthodox rabbis are.

He then lists various examples of initiatives that show a vibrant counter-revolution of sorts. One where non Orthodox Jews that are increasingly becoming involved both on college campuses and in non Orthodox communities at large.

I have to wonder though whether initiatives that are universalist in nature such as those dealing with social justice actually add to ones identity as a Jew. But even if they somehow do, it is simply not enough to change the tide. As Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer notes in his own Times of Israel critique of Rabbi Berman’s assertions - these initiatives are a drop in the proverbial bucket:

For every heterodox American Jew who attends events at (Hetrodox initiatives like) Machon Hadar or Ikar there are a thousand-fold heterodox American Jews who are detached from anything Jewish and who are disappearing from Jewish existence with unstoppable rapidity.

I wonder if their percentages of the whole come anywhere near the over 10% of the whole that Orthodox Jewry consists of. An Orthodoxy whose numbers are growing exponentially while heterodoxy’s numbers are shrinking exponentially – regardless of the above mentioned exceptions.

The tiny segment that is swimming against the tide, hardly bodes well for heterodxy’s future, Rabbi Berman’s comparison to Chabad notwithstanding. Not to mention the fact that Chabad has an exponentially greater presence in the world than these initiatives do. And even Chabad’s success in outreach is relatively small in comparison to the whole of non observant Jewry.

What I do agree with is Rabbi Berman about is the following:

Orthodox Jews are very good at particularism… (but we) seems to get lost in our more parochial attempt to “receive the yoke of Heaven.” The prophetic call to heal the sick and clothe the naked often takes a secondary role to working to pay for day school education.

I don’t think we, in the mainstream Orthodox community, are always successful at communicating the “why” of Judaism as much as we are the “how.” Yes, we can teach people already committed how to re-heat food for Shabbat or even to learn “Daf Yomi,” but are we speaking to the next generation about why they should want to do so?

Yes. We need to do a better job of inspiring our youth. Orthodoxy has its own attrition problems. We call it going OTD. And by all accounts the problem is huge and growing.

I do not want to minimize the importance of ‘receiving the yoke of Heaven’. That is what the ritual observances referred to as Bein Adam L’Makom (between man and God) are all about. But as I have often said the Bein Adam L’Chavero aspect of religious observance is not emphasized enough by our by our educators. It should be. As noted by Rabbi Berman:

We recite three times a day, in the Aleinu prayer, that part of our task is “to perfect the world under God’s dominion.”

We in Orthodoxy ought to take a page from the heterodox playbook and do a little bit of our own building up the world. Because that too is the will of God.

'Womanless' Illustration of Eishes Chayil (Shoshanna Keats-Jaskoll via TOI)

The issue is not going away. The increasing phenomenon of deleting or distorting images of women in right wing publications is being discussed ad infinitum it seems. A phenomenon started by the more extreme right wing of the Chasidic world that found home in mainstream Charedi publications.

Many women from a a variety of Orthodox camps have objected to this practice. Rightfully so. I fully agree with them and have discussed this issue several times. Most recently a few days ago.

I’m happy that attention to this issue has not faded away. It is unfair, not only to women, but to all of us that women are treated as though they were invisible. Mainstream Orthodox publications are increasingly catering to this extreme. Images of families without wives, mothers, and sisters are becoming the norm even in children's books. What message does it send when a child sees only men and boys at a Shabbos table where the father is making Kiddush?!

I have suggested that there be an alternative publication created that would compete with the current ‘glossies’. But the naysayers don’t have any confidence it such an enterprise. They believe it cannot succeed because its appeal would be to a demographic too small to make it financially viable. How many Centrists are there after all?

Well, I disagree. I think that given a chance - it could succeed. There would have be the right people backing it and running it. It would have to include top notch reporting and a variety of columnists from the moderate religious right to the moderate religious left; political commentators from both the right and left; state of the art graphics; a good marketing team and… would feature pictures of women as prominently as pictures of men. In other words it would be geared to all segments of mainstream Orthodoxy including Charedim most of whom are basically moderate and have no issue at all with publishing pictures of women.

Rabbi Natan Slifkin had made a similar suggestion and has recently posted that he was contacted by someone with the publishing know-how and by someone with the money to financially back him. Rabbi Slifkin ‘made the Shidduch’ (to use his words). We’ll see what happens.

There is also a new effort to change the trend of erasing women in existing publications. As noted in the New York Jewish Week:

There are… Facebook groups exclusively dedicated to this issue. An administrator of one of these groups, who describes herself as a “yeshivish rebbetzin,” started her group to organize yeshivish community members to fight the exclusion of women. She says the change will come when the readers of these magazines, not the Modern Orthodox community, speak out against this practice.

“This needs to be a movement from within,” she said. “Nobody wants to be changed by somebody from the outside.”

Her group, which has over 500 members who have to identify as “past, current, or potential subscribers” to magazines like Mishpacha and Binah to join the group, encourages members to write letters to the magazine editors explaining why they have unsubscribed.

“They are afraid of their readership and their advertisers,” said the group administrator. “These are decisions that are being made as business decisions that are somehow being seen as philosophical decisions, and they’re not.”

(S)he hopes that the push from the right-wing community will have an impact.

“This time the movement is from within the readership, within the target audience of the publications that exclude pictures of women,” she said. “And I think that’s why we have potential to make change happen.”

I am happy to see this development. But I question whether this strategy will have any impact on the magazines’ publishers. As noted the article… it’s all about the money. Follow it and you’ll know why.

As long as the extreme right demographic of their readership insists on eliminating women form the pages of the magazines they buy, that will continue to happen. They are large enough to hurt these magazines financially - if they cancelled their subscriptions and thereby reduced the circulation numbers.

Unfortunately even if the number of modern Orthodox readers were a large enough demographic to replace the them, there is no real incentive for most modern Orthodox Jews to buy or subscribe to a Charedi magazine – even if it did feature pictures of women.

I still believe that these groups should keep up the pressure. But as mentioned - the best answer to this problem is to create a magazine the modern Orthodox Jews would be as interested in as would be moderate Charedim. Even though success far from assured, a new publication is a realistic option that is worth a try. Let it can get off the ground and see what happens. If enough people from the mainstream like it, you never know.

Young Satmar Chasidim in Kiryas Joel

The lack of any realistic secular studies (Limudei Chol) program in most Chasidic schools is one of the more serious issues facing Orthodox Jewry. Serious because it affects not only the huge number of Chasidim themselves. but because it effects all of us one way or another. There has been a lot of ink spilled on this subject - some of it by me.

Some defend the right of Chasidim to educate their young in any way they see fit as a matter of religious freedom. If as a religious principle they do not value a secular curriculum, they should not be forced to offer one. There are those like myself who believe that they are seriously shortchanging their youth by refusing to educate their children in basic secular subjects and in no way contradicts the Torah. Nowhere in the Torah or its commentaries does it say that Limudei Chol is forbidden.

While I have no conclusive proof that they are hurting their youth with this attitude, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that they are. This policy has been in effect for well over a generation. That has produced a welfare class of unprecedented proportion. A class that is encouraged to take advantage of the welfare system to the max as means of financial support. Which all too often invites crossing the line into fraud.

Aside from that - there is the massive number of Meshulachim that visit shuls on an almost daily basis – sometimes as many as 6 or 7 at a time - asking for charity. They are not all from the same location. Nor do they even know each other. Some are from cities in the US (mostly on the east coast) and some are from Israel. But most of them do have one thing in common. They tend to be Chasidim.

I do not doubt for a minute that they need the money. These are not rich people deceiving everyone. Most are as needy as they say they are. Many of them have large families to support and weddings to make. But it seems that asking for charity has become a profession for them. It their job - their Paranasa.

It is true that Chasidim do work and do not buy into the ideology that all men must stay in Kollel for as long as possible The problem is that because of their lack of a basic education, good jobs are not all that available to them. Unless one is somehow a talented businessman with an innate ability to understand how to succeed in business - even without a good secular education (and there are more than a few Chasidim like that - like the always mentioned owners of B&H) most Chasidim have to settle for low paying jobs. When collecting charity becomes more profitable that working for a living, who can blame them for choosing the path of Meshulachim - even if it is an undignified way to make a living?

Let me hasten to add that some Meshulachim are legitimately in need for specific reasons (e.g. the serious illness of a child) and are not doing it for a living. But I do believe far too many of them are doing it as a parnassa.

While the focus of late has been in Chasidic enclaves in the United States, the JC reports that the same kind of thing is happening in the Chasidic enclaves of England.

Why is there so much resistance by these Chasidic groups to a basic secular curriculum? Most non Chasidic Yeshivas offer it.Some better than others - but the vast majority offer something. Why are Chasidim so stubborn about it?

I can only speculate about the reason. But I think it has something to do with not trusting the government. Which stems from a long history in Europe where governments treated Jews badly. It is no secret that European countries like Russia and Poland have long histories of antisemitism (which still exists as far as I am concerned - albeit more subtle). Jews were consistently persecuted.

While religious Jews of all stripes were persecuted in Europe, it seems that Chasidm internalized it more. An internalization they brought with them when they immigrated en masse to the US after the Holocaust. I believe that this attitude still exists – albeit somewhat less than it did in Europe. I think they still see the government as the enemy of Judaism. As such anything the government tries to do they see as undermining it. In their mind they are still fighting the battles of European antisemitism.

Chasidic leaders and their followers understand that America is different… and that they have political clout here that did not exist in Europe. To that extent they will exersize their clount in the form of block voting. Especially in local elections where their numbers count more. They will generally deal respectfully with politicians that visit them. But in their heart of hearts they still see the government as an anti Torah force to be fought with all their might. No matter how beneficial to them government intentions really are, they simply don't believe them. They see 'shmad' - government attempts to disabuse them of their religious beliefs and practices.

It is my considered opinion that this attitude and the political clout they carry is why they still do not offer a secular studies program…and why their resistance has met with success thus far.

I therefore do not see much change happening. The aforementioned dynamics will simply not allow for it. Which in my mind translates to an increasing welfare dependency which statistically means an increased level of fraud. It will also likely mean an increased number of Meshulachim seeking charity as a means of making a living.

This is how I see things now. How long will this system be sustainable? Is it a matter of time? Will the system collapse of it’s own weight when even an honest use of the welfare system is no longer enough?And there are even more Meshulachim visiting Shuls on a daily basis? Who knows…

State Senator Dan Biss visits Arie Crown Hebrew day School (Agudah wesbite)

Being an Orthodox Jew in America is privilege. But if you have children it is also very expensive.

While being observant requires all kinds of additional expenses, nothing matches the expense of educating a child. A good education requires good teachers. If one cares about both religious and secular studies, then that requirement is doubly true. Good teachers don’t come cheap. If you want the best for your children, you are going to have to pay good teachers what they are worth. Or at least enough to incentivize them not to leave the field of education for lack of making enough money to support their families. Then there are administrative costs, building costs, supplies and maintenance.

Which all adds up to what we ‘lovingly’ call the tuition crisis. It is a crises because once you add up all the above costs and divide it by the number of children in the school… and add in financial assistance to parents that need it, you are in the realm of stratospheric expenses of educating your children. Even if you have only one child let alone the average for religious families which is about 4 or 5 children per family if I am not mistaken.

If for example tuition per child in a religious school is $10,000 (a low ball estimate in 2018- I’m sure) then you will be paying $50,000 in tuition per year. How many people can afford to pay even that low ball estimate amount in post tax dollars for their children’s education?

This is nothing new and has been discussed here many times. If you are a parent of children attending a parochial school you already know this. You don’t need me to tell it to you.

The truth is that unless they are very wealthy, most parents don’t pay full tuition. They are given financial assistance based on their financial situation. The shortfall is made up by a variety of fundraising activities. That, however, does not make up for the shortfall in most cases. Which means that parents are squeezed to the max for every tuition dollar they can spare.

Which also means that the discretionary spending that public school parents can afford are not as available to most parents of parochial school children.The new car, remodeling the home, the nice vacation, Pesach in Croatia… all of this and more are often just a pipe dream to them.

Reducing expenditures in the school is not a realistic option for relief. It is a myth that parochial schools waste a lot of money. At least not to the extent that it would have much of an impact on the financial burden to parents.

As noted a lot of this has been discussed here many times in many different ways. Various ideas have been suggested as to how to alleviate this massive burden on religious families while at the same time not compromising the excellence those schools strive for.

One of the more popular solutions is a government voucher program of some kind that would at least defray the cost of the secular side of a parochial school’s curriculum. The principle behind this is school choice. Instead of sending a child to a local public school funded by the government - parents would receive vouchers that can only be used to pay for a a child’s education. A parent can then send their child to the school of their choice and ‘pay’ the school those vouchers. Which I assume the schools would redeem for cash. The choice of schools would not be limited to only public schools. It would include private secular schools and parochial schools. As long as the money is not used for religious education there would be a violation of the 1^st amendment’s separation clause.

Teachers unions are vehemently opposed to it. They claim that it does violate the separation clause. Additionally they say it would divert needed public school funds to private school parents who don’t need them. Leaving less money for parents in low income neighborhoods that really do.

I am not here to argue the constitutionality of vouchers. Other that the fact that in my opinion, vouchers used for a secular studies curriculum does not violate it. I am here to tell you that vouchers work. That even ( perhaps especially) parents in low income neighborhoods that care about their chidlren’s education are in favor of vouchers. Why wouldn’t a low income parent want to be able to choose the school their children attend, instead of being forced to send them to a substandard school in their neighborhood?!

Vouchers are the only realistic solution to the tuition crisis. How do I know? Because vouchers exist in Indiana. Parochial school parents in that state can breathe. Their secular studies programs are somewhat subsidized – provided they meet state educational standards. Which is relatively easy for Orthodox Jewish parochial schools to meet. What about the cost to the state of vouchers? To the best of my knowledge Indiana is one of the few states that is not in the red. They have a balanced budget.

I bring all of this up in light of yesterday’s launch of Illinois’ version of vouchers. Its called the Invest in Kids Act. Although it is a bit complicated and not the same as Indiana’s system, it will surely help ease the burden on tuition paying parents in Illinois – as well as help the reduce the budget shortfall’s of their schools. An article in Matzav explains how it will work. The short version (if I understand it correctly) is that the State of Illinois has set up program that will allow state taxpayers to donate to scholarship granting organizations at a 75% tax write off of state income taxes.

In the first day, $36 million of the $100 million cap on this fund was collected by the state from taxpayer/donors. This money will be used for scholarships to low and middle income parents that apply and qualify for them.

The Illinois legislature is not known for getting things done. It is a highly partisan institution that has a conservative Republican governor (Bruce Rauner) and a Democratic legislature run by a hard core liberal Democrat (Speaker, Mike Madigan). They never agree on anything. Illinois didn’t even have a budget for the first 3 years of the governor’s tenure because of the intransigence of both sides on issues of contention. The state’s deficit is one the largest in the country.

It is therefore a near miracle that this legislation was passed. Both sides of a very contentious political aisle supported it.

This is one of those areas that Agudath Israel shines. Their representative here, Rabbi Shlomo Soroka worked with state officials in both parties to get it done. Both Rabbi Soroka and the Agudah deserve the gratitude of all us in Illinois that have children or grandchildren in parochial schools.

Unfortunately the largest segment of parochial school parents resides on the East Coast. Mostly in New York. The tuitions there are probably a lot higher than they are in Chicago. I do not believe there is anything like vouchers on the horizon there.

My advice to parents there is to keep urging their government officials to follow the lead of Indiana - and now Illinois. After all New York is a state that has many observant Jews that send their children to parochial schools. They vote. And New York have many advocacy groups like the Agudah and the OU that have some political clout.That should mean something. Shouldn’t it?

Street scene in Ramat Bet Shemesh - Bet (Jerusalem Post)

To absolutely no one’s surprise - least of all mine - an Israeli soldier was attacked by an extremist living in Ramat Bet Shemesh (Bet). One may recall that ‘Bet’ is populated in large measure by the more extreme type of Charedim that one finds in Meah Shearim. Many of its residents are originally from there.

In this case an IDF soldier was driving his car through their main thoroughfare. One of their residents pelted it with rocks, one of which went through the windshield causing him to lose control and crash into a pillar. He was taken to the hospital and thankfully sustained only minor injuries.

I am beyond condemning this act – which of course still I do. I am even beyond blaming the ideological education of the person that committed it. Which of course I also still do. This has not changed.

Obviously the ultimate blame is on the rock thrower himself - personal responsibility always taking top billing. But there is no getting away from the fact that the extremists that attack Israeli soldiers do so because of the hatred instilled in them against the State and its institutions. Of which the army is one of the most prominent. An attitude of hate can easily translate into seeing every soldier as the enemy. And just because most of Bet’s extremists wouldn’t throw rocks at anyone, doesn’t mean that a there aren’t some that would – based on the same hatred they all have.

As I have said many times, people that commit crimes like this need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. I’m glad to see that Bet Shemesh Mayor Abutbul (who is Charedi and presides over all of Bet Shemesh and its suburbs) has condemned this act. From the Jerusalem Post, here are his words:

For those extremists to get out and leave the city,” adding that they were not conducive for unity in the city.

“I condemn this [incident] in the name of the law and in the name of Jewish law,” said Abutbul, and called on the police to find and punish the perpetrators.

But the repeated condemnations are not enough. It keeps happening. We can say all day long that the people that commit these kinds of crimes are hoodlums no different than the hoodlums that exists in the slums of New York and Chicago. Having long Peyos and wearing the traditional garb specific to the Chasidic world makes them no less hoodlums than an inner city gang member. It is only a matter of degree. That is how they should be seen. But it doesn’t make any difference.

One cannot overlook the targets of their aggression and why they choose those targets. This is what is missing in all of the condemnations. Urging that community to rid themselves of this element is like talking to the wall. As is urging them to support law enforcement and hand the perpetrator over to the police. They will not do it!

Why won’t they? I suspect that they are of a mind to say something like… ‘OK. What he did was wrong.’ ‘But his heart is in the right place.’ ‘We need to protect him from the authorities and teach him not to express his justifiable animosity towards the government in violent ways.’ ‘Handing over to the authorities who are like Nazis - is clearly wrong.’ ‘It is Mesirah of the highest order!’

I’m glad Mayor Abutbul doesn’t think that way. His views are more mainstream. But all of his condemnations aren’t worth a dime. Not that they aren’t sincere. I believe they are. But he is wasting his breath. There are a lot more of those where he came from.

There have also been protests by non Charedi activists about this kind of thing in the past. As there was once again here. That clearly hasn’t worked either.

What needs to be understood is that it isn’t the behavior of a few delinquent Jews that is the source of the problem. It is the ideology. That is the real problem. Until that is properly dealt with, this kind of thing will surely happen again. And again!

Normally I would not think it justified to fight an ideology. People are entitled to believe what they wish. But when that ideology produces violent anti social behavior, it must be fought – if that is the only way to curb it. In this case, I think it is.

How do you fight an ideology? I don’t think you can with any degree of success. The ideology of the extremists in Bet is one that is so entrenched that it would be impossible to change it. It is an ideology that predates the state itself. Telling them they are wrong and using every tool in the book to show them why - will be like talking to the wall. But something has to be done. And it needs to be done by the Charedim now in charge of city government in Bet Shemesh.

Speaking out is not enough. They have to ‘hit’ them in their ideological anti state ‘belly’.

For example, Israeli flags should be placed throughout all public areas in Bet with security cameras facing them. So that anyone desecrating a flag will be caught, quickly indentified, prosecuted to the maximum extant of the law.

The city of Bet Shemesh should hold public events and rallies in support of the army and the State – right in the heart of Bet. They should schedule a rally there with Israeli flags, representatives from the military and the government with public speakers (preferably Kipa wearing ones) extolling the army and expressing gratitude to the army and the state for providing them protection and the services that make living in Israel a civilized and pleasant experience.

There should be a massive police presence there (a show of force, if you will) to disabuse anyone of the notion that they can disrupt it. The national anthem should be sung by a kipa wearing Israeli – preferably a Charedi singer.

These events should be held often and the participants should be mostly Charedi. The crowds attending should be overwhelming and as Charedi as possible. … all cheering and showing support for the army and the state.

This will not change their minds. But it will show them just how tiny the number of people with their ideology is. And who knows…. it might make enough of an impression on them to do more to prevent these kinds of attack in the future.

IDF roadblock in the Nablus (Shechem) area (Jerusalem Post)

I am not a fan of Israeli settlements. At least not those that are deep into the West Bank. Which are primarily settled for purposes of asserting Jewish rights to all of Eretz Yisroel. I am in fact opposed to them. Not because I don’t believe we have that right. We do. As an Orthodox Jew I believe we have that as a God given right. I am opposed because of the danger to our people living there.

Palestinians believe that what we call Eretz Yisroel is all theirs. And that the European Jews came there to snatch that land from them for their own colonialist purposes. They deny our religious claims to the land and counter them with religious claims of their own.

Our secondary claim that Israel serves as a home for Holocaust survivors is countered by them - saying that Holocaust was not their fault. It was not of their doing. It was Europe’s fault. Why should they suffer the consequences of housing so many Jewish survivors?

One of the most pro settler Gedolim of the 20^th century, Rav Ahron Soloveichik put it this way: ‘If not for the Torah the Arabs would be right’. Those were his exact words.

Who is right? It depends who you ask. I believe it was Zionist pioneer and Israel’s first President, Chaim Weizmann who said something like, ‘The Arab-Israeli conflict is between right versus right’.

What is the solution to this conflict? If I knew the answer to that I would deserve not only the Nobel Peace Prize, I would probably be the most deserving recipient of it ever!

The question is what do we do with what we have? How can we achieve a peaceful co-existence with an implacable Palestinian leadership? It is now over 70 years after the State of Israel’s creation and over 100 years since the Balfour Declaration.

There are 6 million Jews living in Israel. It is the the most powerful nation in the region. It has nuclear weapons. It has one of the most stable economies in the world. It has contributed a great many Nobel Prize winners to the world in a variety of fields. It has contributed greatly to the advancement of science and medicine. It is the only democracy in the Middle East. Time tested! And it preserves and protects the rights of all its religious minorities. Israeli Arabs can even run for the Kenesset - and do. There are 18 Arabs serving in that capacity right now!

Palestinians on the West Bank do not have much of any of that. They blame it all on Israel’s occupation. But the truth is that could have the freedom to achieve as much as Israel does if they would just be willing to make peace. No one would stop them from achieving it. In fact I am 100% convinced that Israel would even help them. Common sense dictates that when you have two peoples claiming rights to the land, the only solution is to compromise and agree to live together.

Israel was more than willing to compromise. They were ready to give Palestinians almost every single thing they asked for in July of 2000 during the tenure of Ehud Barak. Including East Jerusalem. They turned Israel down and instead increased their violence toward them.

In August of 2005 under the tenure of the late Ariel Sharon, Palestinians were given Gaza unilaterally as a gesture and possible first step towards an ultimate peace treaty. They have answered that with a continuous flow of indiscriminate rocket attacks funded at the expense of their own people.

Terrorist attacks were a common occurrence in Israel - often perpetrated by Palestinians. They would blow themselves up in a crowd of innocent Jews. On public buses or in crowded restaurants. That forced Israel to build a wall on the West Bank border so that terrorists could no longer sneak through so easily. Although sometimes they did and perpetrated mass murders - the frequency of that has decreased considerably.

Even if one might agree that Palestinians have a legitimate claim to the land, I believe it is obvious that it is they who are mostly responsible for the lack of any serious negotiation between the two sides.

And yet the entire world sees only the Palestinian side of the issue. Which is reflected in the one sided condemnations of Israel in the UN. Thankfully the most powerful nation in the world now has an administration that sees things as they are. Not as the Palestinians narrative would have you believe. I don’t thank anyone denies that Palestinians have legitimate claims. Nor that their people suffer. The question is why do they suffer? And why can there be no peace?

I think US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman said it best:

An Israeli father of six was killed last night in cold blood by Palestinian terrorists. Hamas praises the killers and PA laws will provide them financial rewards. Look no further to why there is no peace.

This was in response to the latest terrorist attack on the West Bank. In a drive by shooting 20 bullets were pumped into Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a father of six while he was driving near the settlement outpost of Havat Gilad.

Yes, it is dangerous it is to be driving in the West Bank. Which as I said - is why I am opposed to having settlements there. But there is absolutely no justification at all for this kind of terror. It was a brutal act of murder by an individual that is indoctrinated to hate us. An individual that sees every Jew as though he were a Nazi.

This is the real problem. It is clear as the sun that Palestinians consider this murderer to be a hero. As they do all others like him. There is no condemnation. Only praise as ‘martyrs’!

Well… not only. They also reward their families with financial stipends of support after one of them ‘martyrs’ him or herself. They may occasionally pay public lip-service condemnation to such brutal attacks. But actions speak louder than words.

There are those who will try and counterclaim that there are instances of Israeli terrorism against Palestinians too. Showing that Israelis are no better than Palestinians when it comes to terrorism.

Aside from the vastly greater number of terrorist attacks by Palestinians against Israelis, versus terrorist attacks by Israelis against Palestinians - there is the fact that Israel does not reward Israeli terrorists or their families. They condemn the terrorists. And they prosecute them when they are caught. In fact some of them have committed acts of terror against their own government.

And Palestinians have the gall to say that the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has killed the peace process?! And the gall to ignore rewarding terror as though it has nothing to do with it?! This isn’t Hamas doing it. It is the so called moderate Palestinian Authority!

I am so sick of their perspective being so embraced by the nations of the world. So much so that they condemned recognizing Jerusalem as harmful to the peace process while completely ignoring the terrorist elephant (and his admirers) in the room. Thank God we now have an administration that sees the truth and has appointed people to make sure the truth is spoken loudly and clearly to the world. It’s just too bad that the world is too deaf to it.

Dr. Saundra Epstein, director of the Welcoming Shuls Project. (NJJN)

Rabbi Daniel Geretz is one of a handful of young YCT (Yeshivat ChoveveiTorah) ordainees whose compassion for every human being has translated into questionable religious tactics. I have had a few e-mail exchanges with him and am 100% convinced of his sincere intentions and the belief that such tactics are in line with the will of God. This seems to be a common characteristic of YCT graduates. They place human dignity on a very high level. Which is indeed the will of God.

But there are instances where specific attempts at human dignity are clearly not in that spirit. How, one may ask, is that possible that treating a fellow human being with dignity is not in the spirit of what we know of God’s will? The answer is when God clearly expresses that the common behavior of an individual violates His word.

Honoring a loving relationship where that love is often expressed by behavior that is clearly forbidden by God as recorded in the bible is an obvious case like that. Rabbi Geretz’s misplaced compassion appears to override that. An article in the New Jersey Jewish News quotes him saying the following:

“I can’t wrap my head around a refusal to wish a mazal tov to a gay or lesbian couple following a same-sex commitment ceremony.” He feels saddened when Jews who self-identify as Orthodox can’t find an Orthodox synagogue where they feel comfortable.

Compassion does not mean celebrating a forbidden relationship. But that is precisely what the LGBT community is asking for. And Rabbi Geretz in a sincere attempt to show human dignity to a homosexual couple by celebrating their union is clearly wrong.

This of course does not mean we ostracize gay or transgender people. But neither does it mean we celebrate a situation that invites opportunities to commit serious violation of Halacha. If you are a Jew, believe in God, and that His will is recorded in the Torah - you cannot have it both ways. There has to be a limit to what can and cannot be celebrated in a Torah oriented community. If a union between 2 people is forbidden it is the height of absurdity to publicly congratulate people who are involved in it.

Rabbi Geretz is not the first or only one to do this. It was done not long ago in the Shul of YCT founder Rabbi Avi Weiss. In a published announcement they celebrated the engagement of a homosexual couple right along with the engagement of heterosexual couples. (They have since removed that announcement and promised not to do it again after being admonished by the OU).

Rabbi Gertetz remains undeterred. As does all the of the other synagogues that are participating in a new LGBT initiative for its Orthodox members. It’s called The Welcoming Shuls Project (WSP). This is a program that seeks gay friendly Shuls that are welcoming to gay people and their families.

According to the article there are 103 Orthodox Shuls across the country that have signed on to the program. However, it appears that most of them do so surreptitiously - fearing repercussion from mainstream Orthodox institutions such as the OU.

I believe they are right to fear repercussions. Because it is obvious from this article that WSP is more than about welcoming gay people into their shuls. It is about celebrating them.

I have said many times in the past that we are obligated to treat every human being with dignity, regardless of who they are attracted to. If an individual has a same sex attraction, it is their business. As long as people don’t make their sexuality a public issue, they ought to be welcomed unto a Shul. But if they do make it public - that ought not be celebrated.

Because celebrating it is in essence celebrating a sinful relationship. I think that is the goal of programs like WSP mirrors the goal of the LGBT community. They do not seek only compassion and understanding. They do not only acceptance. They seek to normalize forbidden homosexual sex making it equivalent to permitted heterosexual sex. In a world that does not place much value on biblical teachings, that makes sense. Why, after all, would anyone see a problem in any kind of consensual sex between 2 consenting adults?

If, however, one does value biblical teachings as God’s will - then one has to consider that to be the primary consideration, regardless of the compassion and understanding one might feel about it otherwise.

This is where Rabbi Geretz and other well intended left wing rabbis fail. Their compassion is so overwhelming that they are nearly blinded to biblical injunction. When confronted with it they try to interpret that injunction out of existence with extreme rationalizations about what the Torah actually means – turning that injunction on its head and - in practical terms - permitting the forbidden. All in the name of a misplaced expression of human dignity.

I therefore continue to protest this new push to celebrate gay unions. Even as I understand the good intentions behind it.

The President of the United States

I can’t. I just can’t! He has gone too far. What he said yesterday sickens me. I cannot support our President no matter how pro Israel he has been; no matter how accommodating to the Orthodox Jewish community he has been.

The things he has done for us no President before him has done. Just to name a few of the more obvious ones: his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; the commutation of Rubashkin’s sentence to time served; his choice of a very pro Israel US ambassador to Israel - who is an Orthodox Jew; and the appointment of a superb UN representative whose eloquence on behalf of Israel has never been articulated as forcefully as it is now.

Then there is the fact that his daughter and son in law are observant Jews (if not fully Orthodox); his grandchildren are Jewish, and one of his top advisers on Israel is a pro Israel Orthodox Jew.

And then there are other things he has done not specifically targeted toward us. Which have nonetheless benefited us. Among those other things - his tax cuts will put more money in our pockets (at least for those of us living outside of high tax states like New York and California); his pro business approach to the economy has spiked an unprecedented bull market on the various stock exchanges. Which has substantially increased the value of retirement accounts (like 401Ks or IRAs) invested in them.

Yes, these are all good things. For which we should all be grateful. Nevertheless, this man should resign. He should not be the President of the United States.

This was obvious to me before the election. It should have been obvious to anyone with any sense of dignity. And even more obvious now. What he said about immigration from countries that are populated mostly by poor black people can only be said by a man who is racist at his core. I am not going to repeat his racist condescending vulgarities. Anyone even slightly following the news already knows what he said. For those who don’t - a quick Google search will get you there in a hurry. (Not that any refined individual would want to go there.)

There is no explaining it away. Trying to do so will only reinforce the obvious. Saying that he meant that he prefers educated immigrants from more developed countries over uneducated ones from underdeveloped countries is just a more polite way of saying the same thing. But he didn’t bother being polite. His diarrhea of the brain prevents him from thinking before he speaks. The man who calls himself a genius is anything but!

It’s a good thing that this great country is so strong. Because that means that we can survive this man. The country will continue to flourish. And most of the rest of the world who is so disgusted with him will just wait it out. Although that wait might just last another 7 years.

One might ask, how on earth can a man who is so obviously unqualified – even after being given a chance to rise to the occasion once in office – and failing - be re-elected? That question was almost as legitimate before he was elected. No one expected he would win the Republican nomination, let alone the Presidency, least of all the President himself. He showed us who he was well before November of 2016. Believing he might change once in office was just wishful thinking. He won despite his obvious flaws, lack of any experience in public service, or any real qualification for office. With 80% of Orthodox Jewry having voted for him!

Why? How could such a man win? The short answer is that it was the will of God. For reasons known only to Him, he wanted this egotistic, narcissistic, immoral, infantile, vulgar man to become the leader of the free world. The President won the election against all odds. Now that the odds against his re-election are greater, it won’t matter. I have a feeling he will be re-elected despite his historically low public approval ratings.

I hope I’m wrong. I don’t want to see another 7 years of this embarrassment of a human being leading this country. But at the same time, I also hope that the very pro Israel administration that is also friendly to so many Orthodox Jewish values continues. I fear that his Democratic opponent in the next election will not be as friendly; reverse some of his pro Israel decisions; and replace his pro Israel foreign policy staff with a more ‘even handed’ one.

Which is why I am hoping for an impeachment – and removal from office. Or a possible resignation from office. Because his replacement, the Vice President, will be just as pro Israel and friendly to many Orthodox Jewish values as the current President is, if not more so. And he will restore the honor and dignity to the Oval Office that the current occupant has sledge-hammered out of existence.

I am hoping for it. But I don’ see it happening. Because I believe the President has not done anything impeachable. And all of these investigations will end with a giant thud. Besides - as I said, if it’s God’s will that he remain in office, he will.

But one can hope. And pray.

A Commutation, Observant Jews, and a Tax Cut

The United Nations - Esav Sonei L’Yaakov

Substance, Yes. Timing, No.

Men who Prey

Two out of Three!

Alleviating Poverty by Defrauding the Government?

Some Thoughts about Jews that Go OTD

A War Against Yeshivos?

Is Extremism Becoming the Norm?

Is a New Iranian Revolution Possible?

On Being Transgender

What it's Like

Pre-mature? Perhaps. Inevitable? Probably.

Erasure of Women - Fighting the Tide of Extremism

Secular Studies and Chasidim

Vouchers

An Ideology of Extremism and its Consequences

Rewarding Murderers Cannot Buy Peace

Tolerance Yes – Celebration No

Af Al Pi Kein... (Nevertheless...)