CEO: Orthodox Jews Are “Cancer” To Be “Excised” December 12, 2007

Here’s one to warm your spirits — because I know stories like this always fill me with joy.

Just lovely. Yeah, this one from Globes Online is a real winner:

Zohar Zisapel: Yeshiva students arrangement is a cancer: “The current situation is the result of the political activism of the haredim.”

Diana Bahur-Nir 10 Dec 07 13:10

“When Ben Gurion made his arrangement with the haredim (ultra-orthodox), he saw only a few dozen yeshiva students. Today, this has developed into a cancerous growth that must be excised so that it does not become even more malignant,” said RAD Data Communications Ltd. founder and chairman Zohar Zisapel at the “Israel’s wasted human capital” panel at the “Globes” Israel Business Conference 2007 yesterday.

Zisapel added, “We must revert to the original arrangement, and set a quota of a few dozen outstanding yeshiva students, for whom the Torah is their vocation, which is what the religious world really needs as a reservoir of future rabbis. The current situation is the result of the political activism of the haredim.

Zisapel said, “When studying Aramaic and Gemara instead of mathematics and English, few 20-year olds will be able to join the academic world, not only in computers, but also in other professions.”

Wasted human capital? Has a magic wand been waved, making absolutely all aspects of the Israeli labor force hospitable for non-modern Orthodox Jews? While one can not disagree with the fact that the kollel system has become way too much of a legislated part of the haredi lifecycle — “cancerous growth”?

Unmitigated anti-haredi prejudice not even given the courtesy of a thin veil of rhetoric to use as a cover, the “Aramaic and Gemara” line was only a codeword for “get secularized”. Drop the whole Torah thing. Learn “mathematics and English” (as if one can not learn from English-speaking Torah giants, or find trigonometry in Tosafos). Get “enlightened” and Westernized.

How 1705.

And yet again, Israeli Neo-Nazis. September 10, 2007

I’m sick of it. Israel has a serious problem with neo-Nazi activity inside its borders. This is not new — Israel has had a neo-Nazi underground element operating there for years, and now it rears its ugly head again. This can not be tolerated anywhere with a star of David on its flag.

MSNBC brings us the latest story, the recent break-up of a neo-Nazi gang by Israeli police:

…Police said Sunday they have cracked a cell of young Israeli neo-Nazis accused in a string of attacks on foreign workers, religious Jews, drug addicts and gays. Eight immigrants from the former Soviet Union have been arrested in recent days in connection with at least 15 attacks, and a ninth fled the country, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, in the first such known cell to be discovered in Israel. (ok, whatever… — Ed.)

All the suspects are in their late teens or early 20s and have Israeli citizenship, Rosenfeld said…Police computer experts have determined they maintained contacts with neo-Nazi groups abroad, and materials seized include a German-language video about neo-Nazis in the U.S.

The gang’s alleged leader is Arik Benyatov, 20. Benyatov’s mother called the arrests a “witch hunt” against the Russian community.

These people were shouting “sieg heil” in the streets. One member had this to say to police:

Police named the leader of the neo-Nazi gang as Eli Boanitov, 19, from Petah Tikvah, a city next to Tel Aviv.

Boanitov, who was known as “Eli the Nazi”, told police: “I won’t ever give up. I was a Nazi and I will stay a Nazi, until we kill them all I will not rest.” In one conversation recorded by the police, Boanitov tells one of his fellow gang members: “My grandfather was a half-Jewboy. I will not have children so that this trash will not be born with even a tiny per cent of Jewboy blood.”

During the investigation, police seized video recordings of the suspects attacking foreign workers. One of the videos shows the gang members attacking a Russian drug addict, striking him until he bled and forcing him to ask forgiveness of the Russian people for being a Jewish drug addict….

Police also found recordings of conversations between gang members, in one they planned how to celebrate the Führer’s birthday, and in another they planned a Nazi ceremony at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.

In Israel! The place these people were only allowed citizenship to BECAUSE of “Jewboy blood”! You can see video here.

Arab MKs have called for these people to be “dealt with harshly”. Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit said that they may be deported.

They should have never been let in.

In my opinion, this shows that the Law of Return which guarantees Israeli citizenship to every Jew can not be a carte blanche pass for anyone with a Jewish grandparent. There simply must be some other criterion. A neo-Nazi can not be said to have any “tie” to the Jewish people so great as to necessitate his getting a “get into Israel free” card.

UPDATE: Pro-Nazi slogans and crosses were found on the Pahad Yitzchak synagogue in Eilat, Israel today. Local police were notified.

One Good Post Deserves A Repost - Anti-Charedi Israeli Legislation January 10, 2007

Postwar rehabilitative funds were nearly withheld from many Torah-observant children in Israel following the Israel-Lebanon War in 2006.

Not administrative funds like paying for computers to upgrade curricula (which charedi parents would have had issue with, depending on the level on Internet connectivity), or even hiring teachers or implementing long school-days.

Just rehabilitative funds. Repairing holes, fixing walls and other things damaged by Katyusha rockets.

This story crossed my mind and I thought it deserved a repost.

See it on Jewschool.com.

More Israeli Jews Celebrating Christmas January 5, 2007

I can’t help but want to say, “I told you so.”

The idea of Jews en masse celebrating Christmas is disturbing to me, as a Jew in the diaspora. Absention from Christmas, to many Jews, represented assimilation into the larger non-Jewish culture, and not celebrating Christmas, still to many Jews, is the one way in which they know that they are different from their Gentile counterparts.

Today, Ha’aretz reported:

Be a Jew at home
By Yitzhak Laor

On Christmas eve, many Hebrew-speaking Jewish couples could be seen coming out of church in Jaffa after midnight mass. It is highly unlikely that you would find their counterparts in the West, i.e., non-Jews of the same social standing and educational level, going to any church on Christmas. Midnight mass in the churches of the West, at least in those countries that pride themselves on being secular, is only meant for the religious, specifically religious Christians. For everyone else, Christmas is a family event characterized by a mixture of semi-bourgeois and age-old semi-religious customs.

This has nothing to do with loving the music of Bach or rushing into the arms of Jesus, the son of Mary, as born-again Christians.

The Israeli eagerness to embrace Christian culture, as part of Western life, is not something sudden. It has been creeping slowly into Israeli culture, with a kind of historical cunning. It is enough to think about funeral rites in Europe, presided over by priests, while secular Jews in Israel stubbornly refuse to be buried in a Jewish service that includes the mourner’s kaddish and traditional graveside prayers.

While some of my co-religionists undoubtedly will sign a “thank G-d” over the fact that Israelis are not rushing into becoming evangelicals, this depresses me. This “Israeli eagerness”. Especially in the context of Modern Israel.

Shinui’s election ads forecasted doomsday for the country if the “charedim (religious Jews) return to the government.” Meretz’s ads implied that Israelis were praying for G-d to redeem them from religious Jews (chas v’shalom). Rabbis are roundly mocked in the media, and calls are made in Yediot Acharonot to impose martial law on the streets of Jerusalem (albeit after quite disturbing protests). Anyone who would even have the audacity to suggest that a country with a star of David on its flag should have some connection to the Torah of Judaism is lambasted like so many anti-Semites. And now we have this.
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Cremation? In Israel? January 3, 2007

Cremation is a post-life alternative chosen by an increasing number of Americans. Over 30% of Americans chose to be cremated in 2004, and according to the Cremation Association of North America, a majority of people will choose cremation over burial by the year 2040.

Cremation, however, is strongly denounced by both Judaism and Islam, which view the body as “on loan from G-d”, the property of a Divine Creator, not under an individual’s will to be disposed of as one pleases. The Talmud says flatly, “any one who orders another before his death that his remains be disposed of other than by burial should have his wishes disregarded” (Sanhedrin 46b). Islam is likewise unequivocal in its prohibition of cremation, with a hadith saying “Breaking a dead’s bones is like breaking it as if he is alive”, equating anything done to a dead body with that action done to the living person.

In fact, it’s not just Muslims and Torah-observant Jews, but Eastern Orthodox Christians, Zoroastrians, and Southern Baptists all forbid cremation. (As do Neo-Confucianists.)

How ironic it is, then, that in the one nation called the “Holy Land”, cremation is cheaper than it is in America.
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Opinion: Banning Praying Muslims Or Jews From Flights “Unthinkable” January 1, 2007

So says one commentator, Wayne Madsen from the Kansas City Star Online:

Muslims are required by their faith to pray to Mecca five times a day. There is nothing sinister or criminal about people peacefully carrying out the obligations of their faith. Airlines that single out praying Muslims and deny them flight privileges permanently are no different than the five-and-dime stores that once prevented black people from eating at luncheonette counters.

It is as unthinkable to ban praying Muslims from a flight, as it would be to deny boarding to a group of praying Hasidic Jews. Both sects engage in public group prayers. Both are exercising their constitutional rights as U.S. citizens. Persecution of religious minorities by the majority is nothing new in the United States. Nor is an attempt by the majority to link religious minorities to some grandiose and evil global plot against America.

Precisely. Keep saying it from the rooftops — until all people all treated equally.

El Al Flying on Shabbat AGAIN? December 21, 2006

See the damn photo. El Al said it was a “cargo plane” on a “test flight”.

El Al wants to keep losing up to 1 million shekels a day?

El Al CEO Romano said El Al considers its Haredi customers important clients, and vowed to “do everything so that they would continue to fly” with the carrier.

Uh-huh.

Blatant Anti-Charedi Prejudice: “Outreach to the Orthodox” December 18, 2006

I couldn’t help but take note of this.

I found this particular blog I found to be one of the most singularly offensive pieces of writing in the Jewish blogosphere, when examined in its true context. The blogger “Conservative Apikoris” in his piece entitled “Live Frei Or Die — Kiruv to the Orthodox” (Live Secular or Die — Outreach to the Orthodox), gives us a glimpse into some of the anti-charedi (Torahphobic?) mindset:

If you didn’t know, I have a shining vision of a new form of non-tribal secular-humanist Judaism that will transcend the narrow limits of the current “Abrahamitic” faiths (i.e Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and ensure the universal spread of Torah without the narrow-minded bigotry and violence that has been an all too often side-effect so far.

But I’m not here to discuss that grand high-level vision. I’m posting about smaller practical steps to set it in motion.

I would love to be able to dismiss this as one beautifully designed ball of sarcasm, and enjoy a nice grin and move on. But let’s go further:

What started this was a recent post by DovBear, who was channeling a post by Rabi Yaakov Horowitz concerning “at-risk teens” in the black-hatter Orthodox community. It seems that there is a growing amount of dissatisfaction with the black-hatter lifestyle, a lifestyle that is circumscribed by their ideology and thus capable of change only with the greatest of difficulty.

Chevrei, this could be the start of the greatest defections from Orthodox Judaism that k’lal Yisrael has seen since the days of my grandparents, when millions of Jews were finally emancipated from Czarist oppression, and realized that a good deal of that consisted of oppression by the Orthodox establishment in the Old Country. These defections can be an opportunity to build a new Jewish community based on the principles of “Torah v’sekoolar hoomaneezm,” but we may lose that chance if the defectors leave the Jewish fold so fast that they become totally secular, or even, (God Forbid) become Christian. Or Mormon. Or Buddhist. We must ensure that defectors from Orthodox remain religiously Jewish, as participants on one of the non-Orthodox Jewish movements.

Misrepresentations of European history aside, I’m going to restrain my desire to use expletives to explain one thing: this is almost sadistic, because these things are not taking place in a vacuum.
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The Frum Dollar: Haredi Buying Power Not to be Underestimated December 12, 2006

In the wake of El Al airlines finally, baruch Hashem, declaring that they “have no intentions” of flying on the Sabbath, the Jerusalem Post today printed an article analyzing the new status of Orthodox buying power in Israel and the effect this can have on the corporate landscape.

Unlike other distinct populations in Israel’s fractured society, such as Arabs and Russians, the ultra-Orthodox have aggressively demanded - and often gotten - what they wanted.

El Al is not the only firm to reckon with haredi buying power. Pelephone, Partner, Cellcom and MIRS, the four cellular phone companies, all acquiesced to the rabbis’ calls to clean up their act: No access to Internet or erotic, X-rated phone calls. Bezek plans to do the same under Shas Communications Minister Ariel Atias.

In the past six months alone, Egged, Israel’s largest bus company with 70% of the market, has added 11 new intercity bus lines for a total of 25 that segregate men and women.

The Sano company bent over backwards to prove to haredi rabbis that none of its paper manufacturing plants work on Shabbat, and Israel Electric Company recently announced that it would soon produce “kosher” electricity - electricity that is produce without the desecration of Shabbat.

Ken yirbu!

The El Al declaration was not a total victory, however: El Al refused to sign a legally binding document which would preclude any future Sabbath desecration from taking place. (I think that the religious public should not only request, but demand this. Previous Sabbath desecration by El Al was to save lives, and no rabbi would have a problem with that. Leisure trips? On the one airline with a Star of David on its wing? Ha’yitochen?/Is it possible?)

The secular Israeli has many alternatives from which to choose. Numerous airlines fly in and out of the airport on Shabbat, and indeed, the religious could also patronize those airlines. But for something to be “Jewish”, it should be accessible and usable by all Jews. While there is nothing which proscribes the secular Jew from eating pork, a pork-laden meal is not usable by his religious counterpart. By establishing guidelines which bring Israeli culture more in line with Judaism, it makes Israel more into what it calls itself: the homeland for Jews.

Even if they wear black hats.

Religious Jews Poised to Boycott El Al December 11, 2006

You know, it never ceases to underscore itself: just because something is Israeli doesn’t necessarily make it Jewish. For all the talk of being the “Jewish state”, the “homeland for all Jews”, Jewish law just can’t seem to get a fair shake in Israel.

Charedi Orthodox Jews, following the desecration of the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, by El Al airlines due to a general workers’ strike, seem increasingly poised to boycott El Al. The Jerusalem Post reports:

Threats of an irrevocable haredi boycott of El Al flights loomed again after negotiations between El Al and haredi leaders stalled Sunday night.

The two sides are at loggerheads over El Al’s flight policy on Shabbat.

El Al management insists on the prerogative to decide which emergency incidents justify flying on Shabbat, while haredim want El Al to appoint a rabbi who would have the right to veto any future Shabbat flight.

Who decides if the Sabbath can be desecrated? The business. I can’t imagine that these people have such fear of Heaven that they will throw profit margins to the wind and uphold the Holy Torah no matter the financial risk. Obviously, this was ludicrous to the religious public:

“If you have a question in halacha [Jewish law] who do you go to - El Al or a rabbi?” asked Haim Cohen rhetorically; Cohen is an aide to Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the most respected living halachic authority for haredi Jews. “El Al will not decide when it is permissible to fly and when it isn’t.”

Cohen said that unless there is a last minute breakthrough in talks with El Al, the haredi rabbinic leadership would issue an official joint statement to slap a boycott (cherem) on El Al.

PERIOD!
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About the Recent Rabbinical Child Sex Abuse Scandal December 10, 2006

I couldn’t have said it better than Mishmar:

So for those who…sincerely wish to rid our community of a serious problem, I wish you hatzlacha and siyatta di shmaya.

On the other hand, those who see this as an excuse to tear down rabbinic authority or even the laws of the Torah itself, I say: save your breath. Greater people than you have tried and failed. Our Torah has lasted for more than 3000 years and will outlast this latest scandal.

Some journalists and bloggers are using this latest scandal as fodder for their premise that “rabbinic Judaism” (i.e. Jewish Law-abiding Judaism) is somehow either no longer necessary or in such need of revamping that its current form is not valid.

Some of them even, apparently, want to challenge Torah law itself.

The parsha of Noah ends with the story of the Tower of Bavel, where the people were united in their placing of a sword-bearing idol on the top of a tower, a symbol of their wanting to “fight with Hashem” (ch”v). Hashem spared their lives (because they were united, from here we see the power of unity — Chofetz Chaim), but still dispersed them throughout the world.

You can’t fight Hashem. You can’t fight the Torah. You won’t win.

A change in the system — a new claim in a beis din here, a precedent there, an overruling here, a redefinition there? No problem. But this Torah and its associated halachos/laws will always be here, as they always have been. Ken y’hi ratzon.

Orthodox Boycott of El Al Israeli Airlines Making Progress December 6, 2006

Charedi Orthodox Jews have been increasingly incensed with El Al airlines. But let’s put the story in a bit of modern day context (ignoring 1982 complaints by El Al that they could not be Sabbath observant and projected a $40M yearly loss due to its observance).

In 2003, Netanyahu, when the Israeli Finance Ministry first offered its stake in El Al on the private market, said that he would “not stop the new owners from flying on the Sabbath.” In December 2004, Knafaim-Arkia Holdings purchased a 40 percent stake in El Al in a deal which was heralded by one publication as the completion of Israeli government divestment from the airline. Knafaim-Arkia head Izzy Borovich said, in addition to other profitable measures such as linking El Al to international networks, that he would “also look at restarting flights on the Jewish Sabbath holy day — a 25 hour period beginning on Friday at sundown”, repealing the 1982 ban.

They said that such a move would “anger the religious public”. Well it would, and did. But baruch Hashem, Orthodox people put their money where their Torah values were, and showed that the secular Israeli MO of pushing around Torah Jews does have its limits.

After El Al, in response to a scheduling crunch created by an airline strike, decided to allow desecration of the Jewish Sabbath — according to some authorities, the holiest occurrence in the Jewish calendar — Israeli religious authorities demanded, in writing, that El Al vow to never operate on the Sabbath again. Former deputy CEO David Maimon made a similar promise in February 2005. El Al said that scheduling remained their top priority this time, not giving the religious community what they wanted — a commitment to Jewish holiday observance by the sole carrier with a Star of David on its wing.

El Al stated, in effect, that “it was justified in desecrating the holy day to rescue stranded Israelis.” (”stranded”?)

And the religious community did not take that lying down.
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