Saturday, August 18, 2007
It bothers HIM
It bothers him that haredim go to singing performances. It bothers him that there are large ads for these performances. It bothers him that there is a mixture of men and women, even if they sit separately. It bothers him that they might meet outside. It bothers him that it's a soccer stadium, a place for the secular and for Sabbat desecration. Edict bans religious men and women from attending theaters together even if seated separately It bothers him that people sit together and sing as if they were national-religious Jews, and it bothers him that there are singers that fill the concert hall instead of studying Torah in yeshiva. It bothers him that there is modern hassidic music and that there are haredi singers. If they're haredi, how can they be singers, and if they're singers, then they are not really haredi. It even bothers him that prayers are sung in the synagogue, as if it's a Bnei Akiva chapter or a Reform temple. It bothers him that that there is a secular culture, a culture of sinners, and it bothers him even more that there is a national-religious and haredi "culture" that is reminiscent of that culture. It bothers him that there are haredi radio staions or quasi-haredi radio stations. It bothers him that that women speak on the radio. It bothers him that women drive cars. It bothers him that women write for newspapers. In the end they'll start to smoke, and where will it all lead to? Women in general bother him. Against anything that smells of modernity It bothers him that haredim eat pizza, and on the sidewalk next to the pizzeria no less. Don't they have a home? The haredi weeklies bother him, especially those that are too colorful. A Jew doesn't need to read a newspaper in color. Sleeves that are too short and skirts that are too long bother him, as does red nailpolish. Wigs bother him, and hats and excessively modern dress, and Sephardim in the building bother him, and sandals bother him. Computers bother him and especially the internet, and it bothers him that there are cellphones. He recalls how once upon a time, everything was different. A haredi behaved exactly as a haredi ought to behave, and the important rabbis always knew themselves what to permit and what to prohibit. A great many things bother him, this haredi activist. Anything that's a bit new, anything that smells of modernity, anything that's a bit different from what he is used to. And the main thing that bothers him is to see happy haredim who go out and enjoy themselves as if they were secular. After all, if they want to be happy, there are bar mitzvahs and weddings and shalom zachor ceremonies and circumcisions. And for social gatherings there are funerals and shiva calls; you don't need to go to the stadium. The rabbi's loyalist It bothers him, and because he is so close to an important rabbi, really a loyalist, and because he is so familiar with the rabbi's taste, he speaks to the rabbi about this politely, with respect, with reverence. The rabbi perhaps does not know exactly what is happening, but certainly every breach in the vineyard of the House of Israel hurts him greatly, and therefore he explains to him what bothers him. The rabbi nods and signs and returns to his studies; he doesn't have time for the details. Perhaps this is why what is happening outside doesn't bother him so much: the walls are being breached, people in the haredi world are going to work, and those on the fringes have even begun to go into the army. If the rabbi doesn't announce that this bothers him as well, what will faithful Jews do?
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Tzedakah Organizations Under The Microscope
Iv'e always asked why there are a million orginizations that do the same charity work Why is it that they don't work together and create one big orginization? wouldn't it be more effective? After reading this article it all makes sense!
Brooklyn, NY - A handful of Brooklyn-based charities are concerned more about their own bottom line than they are about those who may have hit rock bottom, according to an independent charity evaluating organization. The group, Charity Navigator, recently released ratings for some 5,000 large charities nationwide. Thirty-eight Brooklyn charities made the list, which assigns efficiency ratings from four stars, awarded to the most efficient, to zero stars, to those performing far below industry standards. Four Brooklyn charities received zero stars, including: Heritage for the Blind; National Children’s Leukemia Foundation; Yad L’Achim Peyle Israel; and Zichron Shlome Refuah Fund. “There’s no need to invest money in a group that isn’t as efficient as possible,” said Sandra Miniutti, vice president of marketing at Charity Navigator, a New Jersey-based group established in 2002. “It is a very competitive marketplace and there are hundreds of charities with the same mission,” she added. “Donors should be upset to learn that if they give $100, only $33 of that, for example, is going to a charity’s mission,” she said. The stated goal of Zichron Shlome Refuah Fund, located at 1319 51st Street, is to help children and adults stricken with cancer. According to Charity Navigator, which uses publicly available information to make its determinations, Zichron Shlome had a total revenue of $976,600 in fiscal year ending December 2005. Meanwhile, it spent $338,667 on program services, and nearly equal that on its own administrative expenses, $311,979. The group’s fundraising expenses totaled $359,003.
Brooklyn, NY - A handful of Brooklyn-based charities are concerned more about their own bottom line than they are about those who may have hit rock bottom, according to an independent charity evaluating organization. The group, Charity Navigator, recently released ratings for some 5,000 large charities nationwide. Thirty-eight Brooklyn charities made the list, which assigns efficiency ratings from four stars, awarded to the most efficient, to zero stars, to those performing far below industry standards. Four Brooklyn charities received zero stars, including: Heritage for the Blind; National Children’s Leukemia Foundation; Yad L’Achim Peyle Israel; and Zichron Shlome Refuah Fund. “There’s no need to invest money in a group that isn’t as efficient as possible,” said Sandra Miniutti, vice president of marketing at Charity Navigator, a New Jersey-based group established in 2002. “It is a very competitive marketplace and there are hundreds of charities with the same mission,” she added. “Donors should be upset to learn that if they give $100, only $33 of that, for example, is going to a charity’s mission,” she said. The stated goal of Zichron Shlome Refuah Fund, located at 1319 51st Street, is to help children and adults stricken with cancer. According to Charity Navigator, which uses publicly available information to make its determinations, Zichron Shlome had a total revenue of $976,600 in fiscal year ending December 2005. Meanwhile, it spent $338,667 on program services, and nearly equal that on its own administrative expenses, $311,979. The group’s fundraising expenses totaled $359,003.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
7th Day Pesach
Before I start with what happened on yomtov, let me blog about what happened outside the flower shop today. Waiting for a parking spot for over 15 minutes, finally the guy right behind me pulls out, I have my blinker on and this yeshivish guy just pulls straight into the parking spot. Let me understand this is G-D sending him straight to heaven just for wearing his tzitzis out or that he didn't miss zman krias shma? what happened to a little respect? Going into the flower shop I pick some flowers, get on line an lo and behold this yeshivish guy is right in front of me, two kids in tow acting like bunch of animals. I'm on the phone with my mom throughout this whole ordeal and out of nowhere I'm like "Would you be surprised with such kids? the father has no manors neither do his kids." (It was a bit more nasty than that) he turns around to me gets red in the face leaves the flowers there and walks out of the store. Am I wrong?
So anyway walking in late to shul tonight I grab a siddur, quickly daven mncha. Mincha is over, I go out for a smoke, come back in there is some dude speaking. I sit down wanting to hear what he is selling, I am still trying to figure out what difference it makes in my life weather the posuk "Az Yashir Moshe" is actually part of the Shira or just an introduction. Now The first thing that crosses my mind is what is his game? don't we all have one? Does he believe what he sells? What does he really do behind closed doors? He finishes and everybody is like thank you,,, thank you,,, and I''m like for what? I tried to think about what he spoke about, nothing really pertaineing to me or to anybody for that matter. Why not talk about things that actually make a difference? So marriv starts and I'm sitting right across the father of the guy that spoke, and he is the frummie Rebbele in shul, comes to shalosh seudos with a nice colorful bekishe. So here in the middle of Krias Shma he turns to me and asks me "so what's up _______?" , I give him this blank look and turn away thinking how frum is he really? Leaving shul with a cigarette in my hand this guy I do business with, also very frum no talking in middle of davening the whole ehrlich shpiel runs after me. Catching up with me out side he starts discussing some incident that happened with a certain project...... and then bums a cigarette off me. Now this is what I don't get Discussing business on yom tov, who cares? Smoking on yom tov when you don't smoke all year, who cares? Smoking on pesach with all the shailos about chometz and u don't smoke all year who cares? If you talk during davening ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, You go straight to hell
Toke n Pass
So anyway walking in late to shul tonight I grab a siddur, quickly daven mncha. Mincha is over, I go out for a smoke, come back in there is some dude speaking. I sit down wanting to hear what he is selling, I am still trying to figure out what difference it makes in my life weather the posuk "Az Yashir Moshe" is actually part of the Shira or just an introduction. Now The first thing that crosses my mind is what is his game? don't we all have one? Does he believe what he sells? What does he really do behind closed doors? He finishes and everybody is like thank you,,, thank you,,, and I''m like for what? I tried to think about what he spoke about, nothing really pertaineing to me or to anybody for that matter. Why not talk about things that actually make a difference? So marriv starts and I'm sitting right across the father of the guy that spoke, and he is the frummie Rebbele in shul, comes to shalosh seudos with a nice colorful bekishe. So here in the middle of Krias Shma he turns to me and asks me "so what's up _______?" , I give him this blank look and turn away thinking how frum is he really? Leaving shul with a cigarette in my hand this guy I do business with, also very frum no talking in middle of davening the whole ehrlich shpiel runs after me. Catching up with me out side he starts discussing some incident that happened with a certain project...... and then bums a cigarette off me. Now this is what I don't get Discussing business on yom tov, who cares? Smoking on yom tov when you don't smoke all year, who cares? Smoking on pesach with all the shailos about chometz and u don't smoke all year who cares? If you talk during davening ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, You go straight to hell
Toke n Pass
Cloistered Jewish World Faces Change
This is a very well written article, and the punchline takes the cake.
Cloistered Jewish World Faces Change
The newly opened Kosher Gym in Jerusalem offers prayer books instead of magazines at its juice bar, and bearded men listen to Talmudic interpretations on earphones as they exercise.
In an Internet chat room, messages about Outlook and Microsoft pop up in Yiddish. At upscale kosher restaurants, men in black hats and sidecurls, accompanied by wives in wigs and long dresses, sip fine wines.
If that's one face of the haredim — "the God-fearing," as Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jews refer to themselves — another is the young hotheads who torch clothing stores in their neighborhood for selling "immodest" attire, and hurl bleach at women who wear it.
From cell phones to Stairmasters, from women's rights to Hebrew slang, the outside world is seeping into the cloistered haredi community and plunging it into a tug-of-war between a tentative embrace of modernity and fierce resistance.
Similar communities are replicated across the world, with the Bible and Jewish law central to their lives. The difference is that in New York, London or Sydney they have little impact on society around them. In Israel, the relationship is very different, and often bumpy.
Haredi political parties have often held the political power to make or break a government. The men spend their lives in prayer and study, subsidized by taxpayers who can't see why they don't just get a job. Every secular Israeli, male and female, must do military service, the great leveler in a country of immigrants from east and west. But haredim are exempt.
They belong to a religious power structure which at various times during Israel's existence has managed to ban public transport on the Sabbath, grounded El Al, the national airline, on holy days, and has absolute control of all Jewish marriage and divorce. This power was reinforced last month when 12 of 15 new rabbinical court judges were recruited from the ultra-Orthodox — a move that caused a furor among secular Israelis who had hoped more moderate judges would join the court.
Haredim tend not to take firm stances on the big issue confronting Israeli society — war and peace with the Arabs. But their birthrate of seven children to a family is a force in Israel's demographic race against the Palestinians.
As Israeli society grows more pluralist, advancing the rights of women and gays, the haredim cling to the old ways, and sometimes the clash is extreme; in 2005, when Jerusalem held a gay pride parade, a protesting ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed and wounded three marchers.
Yet reality is forcing change in many areas.
The haredim, many of whom once opposed Zionism as a blasphemous pre-empting of the Messiah, have largely made their peace with the Jewish state.
At the same time, election results have enabled coalition governments to be formed without the haredim. The sidelining of haredi parties in recent years has led to cutbacks in their subsidies, and haredim are beginning to trickle into the job market.
"There are many changes coming in the haredi world, because you can't offer only one lifestyle, you can't offer only one life opportunity for a whole range of abilities and spiritual levels. You'll lose too many that way," said Jonathan Rosenblum, a haredi columnist.
The word haredi is an umbrella term for a variety of groups, each following its own ancient sages and living rabbis.
It broadly means anyone who takes the maximalist approach to Jewish law, and follows a lifestyle whose most visible characteristics are unlikely to change soon.
Haredi neighborhoods in Jerusalem or the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak feel like 18th century European ghettos: men in long black coats and large fur hats called streimels; women in shapeless dresses covering their wrists and ankles, wrapped in scarves or wigs because they shave their heads when they marry.
In Mea Shearim, Jerusalem's largest haredi neighborhood, cars are banned on the Sabbath and toddlers ride tricycles down the middle of the street. In synagogues, men press their lips to the words of an open Torah scroll.
Last week, on street corners and empty lots in Mea Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox burned bread and other leavened foods in large communal bonfires in preparation for Passover, commemorating the flight of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.
Haredi households shun TV, and haredi rabbis have ruled that only cell phones without Internet access are permissible.
Israel's haredim number an estimated 600,000 — nearly 9 percent of the population and growing fast. Jerusalem, the city at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict, is now one-third haredi and has its first ultra-Orthodox mayor.
The haredim view themselves as Judaism's lifeline, dedicated to preserving the religion in its purest form. The past, not the future, captivates the haredi heart, dating back to the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.
"Our purpose in this world is just to come closer to God, as close as we can," said Abraham Kalman Riter, a seminary student in Jerusalem. "We're going to keep our fur hats and our streimels and our long frocks, because we have one goal and nothing's going to deter us from that goal."
But modernity is creeping in.
A recent study showed that more than a third of the homes in Bnei Brak — the Tel Aviv area's main ultra-Orthodox enclave — have computers. Haredi newspapers which once confined themselves to religious issues now write on topics such as child psychology. New schools are training haredim to work.
Israel's haredim used to be mostly European and Yiddish-speaking, but today one-third are from Middle Eastern countries, and the lingua franca increasingly is Hebrew, peppered with Israeli secular slang.
A haredi comedian known as David the Impersonator slays young ultra-Orthodox audiences with such one-liners as, why does a miser pray quickly? Because heaven is a long-distance call.
In the Hebrew Web forum B'Hadrei Haredim, or In Haredi Rooms, a surfer announces his family-arranged engagement to a woman he has known for 15 hours. Is 15 hours enough? he is asked. "I think yes, absolutely," he writes.
In another chat room, women trade tips on where to find a good wig, or a job in computer programming.
Still, all these innovations have their limits. The Kosher Gym has separate hours for men and women, and at David the Impersonator's shows, the men in the audience stand in front and the women in the back.
Women's rights weigh heavy on the debate about modernity. The most startling recent example is what some have called an Israeli Rosa Parks story — a group of Orthodox women who refused to sit at the back of a bus on gender-segregated routes catering to the religious community.
Miriam Shear, a 50-year-old Canadian woman visiting Israel for religious study, said she was kicked, slapped, pushed onto the floor and spat upon by a group of haredi men for refusing to give up her seat. Her case is cited in a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court submitted by a group of women, including Israeli-American author Naomi Ragen, who said she, too, was verbally abused on one of the segregated lines.
"The Jewish people have never had this kind of thing. We're around for thousands of years. What did they do in Europe, put women on the back of the wagons?" Ragen said in an interview.
A rabbinical ruling can apply to areas as mundane as wigs.
In 2004 rabbis decreed that wigs imported from India were unacceptable because, they said, some of the hair may have been used in Hindu ceremonies involving idol worship.
Indian wigs supply 70 percent of Israel's harediyot — ultra-Orthodox women — and they had to make do with hats and scarves until the rabbis devised new criteria for "kosher wigs."
Economics are a much more pressing issue. Because of the cutbacks in subsidies and a tight job market, about half the community is thought to be living in poverty. Few rabbinical rulings have caused as much dismay of late as a ban on post-secondary degrees for women — the main breadwinners in haredi society because so many of the men study Torah full time. The move is liable to push the haredim even deeper into poverty.
The ruling may have been driven by hard-liners who blame an apparent rise in the haredi divorce rate on women entering the workplace.
Austerity is now in vogue. A radio reality show features 13 religious families competing at cutting their expenditure on food, utilities and clothes. Whoever pinches the most pennies wins a household appliance worth $4,500.
The better-off, however, can be seen enjoying the fruits of modernity as they sip cappuccino at outdoor cafes or shop for sweaters (black only) at trendy secular stores.
Media and the Internet have rubbed some of the edges off the hostility secular Israelis feel toward haredim. Through movies such as the acclaimed "Ushpizin," about a haredi couple's desperate battle with poverty, the public which so resented those subsidies to haredim now sees the effects of withdrawing them.
Still, the average Israeli tends to be skeptical of the haredi argument that a life of Bible study is as great a service to the state as joining the army, or that the growth and vitality of the haredi community is the most powerful riposte to Hitler's genocidal schemes.
William Glaberson, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who heads the physics department at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, says he's perplexed by the belittling of Bible study.
"Do you know how many colleagues I have who learn Ugaritic syntax and they spend their time writing esoteric papers on dead languages, and all kinds of things like that, and they're not considered parasites?" he said.
"It's kind of a joke. What do they contribute to society?"
Cloistered Jewish World Faces Change
The newly opened Kosher Gym in Jerusalem offers prayer books instead of magazines at its juice bar, and bearded men listen to Talmudic interpretations on earphones as they exercise.
In an Internet chat room, messages about Outlook and Microsoft pop up in Yiddish. At upscale kosher restaurants, men in black hats and sidecurls, accompanied by wives in wigs and long dresses, sip fine wines.
If that's one face of the haredim — "the God-fearing," as Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jews refer to themselves — another is the young hotheads who torch clothing stores in their neighborhood for selling "immodest" attire, and hurl bleach at women who wear it.
From cell phones to Stairmasters, from women's rights to Hebrew slang, the outside world is seeping into the cloistered haredi community and plunging it into a tug-of-war between a tentative embrace of modernity and fierce resistance.
Similar communities are replicated across the world, with the Bible and Jewish law central to their lives. The difference is that in New York, London or Sydney they have little impact on society around them. In Israel, the relationship is very different, and often bumpy.
Haredi political parties have often held the political power to make or break a government. The men spend their lives in prayer and study, subsidized by taxpayers who can't see why they don't just get a job. Every secular Israeli, male and female, must do military service, the great leveler in a country of immigrants from east and west. But haredim are exempt.
They belong to a religious power structure which at various times during Israel's existence has managed to ban public transport on the Sabbath, grounded El Al, the national airline, on holy days, and has absolute control of all Jewish marriage and divorce. This power was reinforced last month when 12 of 15 new rabbinical court judges were recruited from the ultra-Orthodox — a move that caused a furor among secular Israelis who had hoped more moderate judges would join the court.
Haredim tend not to take firm stances on the big issue confronting Israeli society — war and peace with the Arabs. But their birthrate of seven children to a family is a force in Israel's demographic race against the Palestinians.
As Israeli society grows more pluralist, advancing the rights of women and gays, the haredim cling to the old ways, and sometimes the clash is extreme; in 2005, when Jerusalem held a gay pride parade, a protesting ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed and wounded three marchers.
Yet reality is forcing change in many areas.
The haredim, many of whom once opposed Zionism as a blasphemous pre-empting of the Messiah, have largely made their peace with the Jewish state.
At the same time, election results have enabled coalition governments to be formed without the haredim. The sidelining of haredi parties in recent years has led to cutbacks in their subsidies, and haredim are beginning to trickle into the job market.
"There are many changes coming in the haredi world, because you can't offer only one lifestyle, you can't offer only one life opportunity for a whole range of abilities and spiritual levels. You'll lose too many that way," said Jonathan Rosenblum, a haredi columnist.
The word haredi is an umbrella term for a variety of groups, each following its own ancient sages and living rabbis.
It broadly means anyone who takes the maximalist approach to Jewish law, and follows a lifestyle whose most visible characteristics are unlikely to change soon.
Haredi neighborhoods in Jerusalem or the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak feel like 18th century European ghettos: men in long black coats and large fur hats called streimels; women in shapeless dresses covering their wrists and ankles, wrapped in scarves or wigs because they shave their heads when they marry.
In Mea Shearim, Jerusalem's largest haredi neighborhood, cars are banned on the Sabbath and toddlers ride tricycles down the middle of the street. In synagogues, men press their lips to the words of an open Torah scroll.
Last week, on street corners and empty lots in Mea Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox burned bread and other leavened foods in large communal bonfires in preparation for Passover, commemorating the flight of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.
Haredi households shun TV, and haredi rabbis have ruled that only cell phones without Internet access are permissible.
Israel's haredim number an estimated 600,000 — nearly 9 percent of the population and growing fast. Jerusalem, the city at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict, is now one-third haredi and has its first ultra-Orthodox mayor.
The haredim view themselves as Judaism's lifeline, dedicated to preserving the religion in its purest form. The past, not the future, captivates the haredi heart, dating back to the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.
"Our purpose in this world is just to come closer to God, as close as we can," said Abraham Kalman Riter, a seminary student in Jerusalem. "We're going to keep our fur hats and our streimels and our long frocks, because we have one goal and nothing's going to deter us from that goal."
But modernity is creeping in.
A recent study showed that more than a third of the homes in Bnei Brak — the Tel Aviv area's main ultra-Orthodox enclave — have computers. Haredi newspapers which once confined themselves to religious issues now write on topics such as child psychology. New schools are training haredim to work.
Israel's haredim used to be mostly European and Yiddish-speaking, but today one-third are from Middle Eastern countries, and the lingua franca increasingly is Hebrew, peppered with Israeli secular slang.
A haredi comedian known as David the Impersonator slays young ultra-Orthodox audiences with such one-liners as, why does a miser pray quickly? Because heaven is a long-distance call.
In the Hebrew Web forum B'Hadrei Haredim, or In Haredi Rooms, a surfer announces his family-arranged engagement to a woman he has known for 15 hours. Is 15 hours enough? he is asked. "I think yes, absolutely," he writes.
In another chat room, women trade tips on where to find a good wig, or a job in computer programming.
Still, all these innovations have their limits. The Kosher Gym has separate hours for men and women, and at David the Impersonator's shows, the men in the audience stand in front and the women in the back.
Women's rights weigh heavy on the debate about modernity. The most startling recent example is what some have called an Israeli Rosa Parks story — a group of Orthodox women who refused to sit at the back of a bus on gender-segregated routes catering to the religious community.
Miriam Shear, a 50-year-old Canadian woman visiting Israel for religious study, said she was kicked, slapped, pushed onto the floor and spat upon by a group of haredi men for refusing to give up her seat. Her case is cited in a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court submitted by a group of women, including Israeli-American author Naomi Ragen, who said she, too, was verbally abused on one of the segregated lines.
"The Jewish people have never had this kind of thing. We're around for thousands of years. What did they do in Europe, put women on the back of the wagons?" Ragen said in an interview.
A rabbinical ruling can apply to areas as mundane as wigs.
In 2004 rabbis decreed that wigs imported from India were unacceptable because, they said, some of the hair may have been used in Hindu ceremonies involving idol worship.
Indian wigs supply 70 percent of Israel's harediyot — ultra-Orthodox women — and they had to make do with hats and scarves until the rabbis devised new criteria for "kosher wigs."
Economics are a much more pressing issue. Because of the cutbacks in subsidies and a tight job market, about half the community is thought to be living in poverty. Few rabbinical rulings have caused as much dismay of late as a ban on post-secondary degrees for women — the main breadwinners in haredi society because so many of the men study Torah full time. The move is liable to push the haredim even deeper into poverty.
The ruling may have been driven by hard-liners who blame an apparent rise in the haredi divorce rate on women entering the workplace.
Austerity is now in vogue. A radio reality show features 13 religious families competing at cutting their expenditure on food, utilities and clothes. Whoever pinches the most pennies wins a household appliance worth $4,500.
The better-off, however, can be seen enjoying the fruits of modernity as they sip cappuccino at outdoor cafes or shop for sweaters (black only) at trendy secular stores.
Media and the Internet have rubbed some of the edges off the hostility secular Israelis feel toward haredim. Through movies such as the acclaimed "Ushpizin," about a haredi couple's desperate battle with poverty, the public which so resented those subsidies to haredim now sees the effects of withdrawing them.
Still, the average Israeli tends to be skeptical of the haredi argument that a life of Bible study is as great a service to the state as joining the army, or that the growth and vitality of the haredi community is the most powerful riposte to Hitler's genocidal schemes.
William Glaberson, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who heads the physics department at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, says he's perplexed by the belittling of Bible study.
"Do you know how many colleagues I have who learn Ugaritic syntax and they spend their time writing esoteric papers on dead languages, and all kinds of things like that, and they're not considered parasites?" he said.
"It's kind of a joke. What do they contribute to society?"
Friday, April 6, 2007
How far have we gone?
Read this story and see how messed up in the head we are. The outside world must think we lost our minds. $9.00 a gallon gasoline, what are we trying to teach the children of our generation we have become fanatics to no limit.
Kosher For Passover Gasoline
By Danielle Wolfbergand and Henry LormanBergen County Jewish TimesTeaneck, New JerseyMarch 1, 2007
Yaniv Ben-Zaken, a local gas station owner, will be selling Kosher for Passover gasoline during the holiday this year. The move, Ben-Zaken says, has become necessary due to the increased ethanol content in gasoline required by the government. The ethanol is typically derived from corn, which is a forbidden food for Jews on Passover. And, according to Ben-Zaken, underJewish law, it is also forbidden to derive any benefit from corn.
"We will be providing a number of services to anyone interested in making their motor vehicle Kosher for Passover," Ben-Zaken says. Services will include sip honing off the non-Kosher gasoline and replacing it with the Kosher gasoline. The entire process will be supervi sed by Rabbi Yitzchok Mendelbaum. A special exemption to the EPA rule regarding the plant ethanol content of gasoline had to be obtained from the government to allow for the use of this gasoline.
The move has created some controversy among local community leaders. Rabbi Shalom Silver, of Congregation Ohel Emeth in Teaneck, has recommended to his congregants that they not buy the gasoline. "Although Jews of Ashkenazi descent are not permitted to eat corn on Pesach, they are permitted to derive benefit from corn byproducts, such as gasoline with ethanol additives," he said.
However, Rabbi Mordechai Silver (no relation to Shalom Silver), of Yeshivas Torah Ohr in nearby Englewood, disagrees, and maintains that while it might technically be acceptable to use mass-produced gasoli ne, those who can afford to purchase the new alternative should. "In Jewish law, we have a principle of lifnim mshura s hadin–going above and beyond the basic requirements of the law," he explained in an email. "Thank G-d, many people in the area can afford to do so in this case."
Some local Jewish leaders have also complained about the high price of the ethanol-free gas, which Ben-Zaken estimates will be $9.69 per gallon, but Ben-Zaken insists that it is necessary. "The Kosher gas is made in small quantities and not mass produced, so the costs are high." In fact, Ben-Zaken, an immigrant from Israel who is not himself religious, claims that he will not be making any profit on the sale of the Kosher gas. "I'm doing this more as a community service. My hope is that people will be more likely to patronize my station the rest of the year."
Julio Sanchez, one of Ben-Zakens employees, also expressed some concern over the high price, explaining that it might drive away customers and reduce his income from tips. Co-worker Naveen Samhari disagreed, because, as he says, "Orthodox Jews are among the best tippers in the area."
Ben-Zaken also says he will be contracting with a local car rental agency to provide customers with a Kosher for Passover car if they would prefer not to use their own. This will also save the time of having to clean chametz from the car before Pesach–time that many local two-income families do not have. "Jews use different dishes for Passover. They ought to be able to use a different car, as well." Ben-Zaken says.
Kosher For Passover Gasoline
By Danielle Wolfbergand and Henry LormanBergen County Jewish TimesTeaneck, New JerseyMarch 1, 2007
Yaniv Ben-Zaken, a local gas station owner, will be selling Kosher for Passover gasoline during the holiday this year. The move, Ben-Zaken says, has become necessary due to the increased ethanol content in gasoline required by the government. The ethanol is typically derived from corn, which is a forbidden food for Jews on Passover. And, according to Ben-Zaken, underJewish law, it is also forbidden to derive any benefit from corn.
"We will be providing a number of services to anyone interested in making their motor vehicle Kosher for Passover," Ben-Zaken says. Services will include sip honing off the non-Kosher gasoline and replacing it with the Kosher gasoline. The entire process will be supervi sed by Rabbi Yitzchok Mendelbaum. A special exemption to the EPA rule regarding the plant ethanol content of gasoline had to be obtained from the government to allow for the use of this gasoline.
The move has created some controversy among local community leaders. Rabbi Shalom Silver, of Congregation Ohel Emeth in Teaneck, has recommended to his congregants that they not buy the gasoline. "Although Jews of Ashkenazi descent are not permitted to eat corn on Pesach, they are permitted to derive benefit from corn byproducts, such as gasoline with ethanol additives," he said.
However, Rabbi Mordechai Silver (no relation to Shalom Silver), of Yeshivas Torah Ohr in nearby Englewood, disagrees, and maintains that while it might technically be acceptable to use mass-produced gasoli ne, those who can afford to purchase the new alternative should. "In Jewish law, we have a principle of lifnim mshura s hadin–going above and beyond the basic requirements of the law," he explained in an email. "Thank G-d, many people in the area can afford to do so in this case."
Some local Jewish leaders have also complained about the high price of the ethanol-free gas, which Ben-Zaken estimates will be $9.69 per gallon, but Ben-Zaken insists that it is necessary. "The Kosher gas is made in small quantities and not mass produced, so the costs are high." In fact, Ben-Zaken, an immigrant from Israel who is not himself religious, claims that he will not be making any profit on the sale of the Kosher gas. "I'm doing this more as a community service. My hope is that people will be more likely to patronize my station the rest of the year."
Julio Sanchez, one of Ben-Zakens employees, also expressed some concern over the high price, explaining that it might drive away customers and reduce his income from tips. Co-worker Naveen Samhari disagreed, because, as he says, "Orthodox Jews are among the best tippers in the area."
Ben-Zaken also says he will be contracting with a local car rental agency to provide customers with a Kosher for Passover car if they would prefer not to use their own. This will also save the time of having to clean chametz from the car before Pesach–time that many local two-income families do not have. "Jews use different dishes for Passover. They ought to be able to use a different car, as well." Ben-Zaken says.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Rebbes Crooked
Having today such an array of different rebbe picture magazines all with a scandals galore. Thinking what goes through the minds of these rebbes who wants to dominate. Here is as I see it A rebbe is like any other profession he starts off with a little shop trying to get customers here and there. He slowly implements incentives for people to show up (warm mikvah, 4 different flavored coffees, 15 minute daf hayomi shiur etc...). As he builds the business he sets up a building fund because the shul is too small and for 10 years there is a building fund which seems to have a huge hole on the bottom. And they just keep on climbing the rebbe ladder till they get to the untouchable point where you have a massive following. The rebbes then send out their advisers (sons, nephews, uncles etc...) to represent them in the different parts of the world. They travel here and there is a dinner here a housewarming party there trying to add to the riches of the empire. Every Rebbe has an agenda one way or another they are all involved in a fight or two and not just any fight but nasty ones. How do these people consider themselves leaders? What do They think sets them apart from us. With one scandal after another, with these mosdos ripping off the government from my hard earned money that is beyond crookedness. How can Rebbes preach one thing and do another? The Chassidim that give the most money are those who dominate at that point it doesn't matter what you do, how dress etc.. Me always wanting to belong to chasidus which I considered and still do a beautiful thing. always felt there was no place for someone like me there. I didn't dress the dress or talk the talk but yet wanted to feel welcomed which I never was, you always feel that you will never belong unless you adapt to everything that the rebbe/chasidus requires growing payos, wearing a shtraimel etc... Instead of the beauty all I see is the commercialization of chasidus, It became a part of Corporate America, How unfortunate. I can imagine that in the time of the Ba'al Shem Tov These rebbes would have been laughed at. The Rebbes of those days had dignity they didn't travel the world over for Money. They did not condone stealing.They wouldn't pull out their teeth in front of their Chassidim. I would love to know what posses a Yeshiva which is under the Supervision of the Rebbe from that chasidus to lie when it comes to all government programs, What do we expect when we hear so and so was arrested last night in beis medrash for this or that fraud, Isn't that what the Yeshiva did ? Why is it wrong now? There are very very few Rebbes that are in a league of their own they really do mean it and I really do respect and admire those leaders of our generation.
Peace out till next blog
Don't forget to Pass
Peace out till next blog
Don't forget to Pass
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