Beitar Illit: Acid Spilled on 14-Year Old? June 5, 2008

A new disturbing word has apparently entered at least a few Yiddish speakers’ vernacular: טאליבאניסט’ן (talibanisten — accent on the next-to-last syllable), “the Taliban”, to describe the new radical, violent charedizealots who have no problems terrorizing and injuring and maiming women in the most audacious of places.

Please, someone, someone tell me when it has finally gone too far.

YNet brings the lamentable story of that which should have never taken place:

A 14-year-old girl from Beitar Illite was taken to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem after an unknown person spilled acid on her face, legs and stomach, causing light burn wounds.

The act has been attributed to a representative of the so-called ‘modesty guard’ in this town where religious and secular residents are increasingly at bitter odds.

Right there. The leader line — and I rarely praise Neta Sela, whose charedi “exposé” articles can often border on anti-haredi prejudice — says it all. A 14-year-old girl was rushed off to a hospital in the closest major city because someone spilled acid on her face. The graphic on the Ynet article — of the girl with chemically burned, wrinkled eyelids — even if it is a stock photo, is most disturbing. One can only imagine the trauma this girl is enduring, and the most skilled plastic surgeon’s most precise laser can not make the slightest impact on the deep psychological scars this girl must have.

MDA received the call just before midnight on Wednesday and paramedic Dror Eini who arrived on the scene to treat the girl also managed to calm her down enough so she could explain what had happened. Eini told Ynet that “the modesty guards have been threatening her for quite some time.” According to the paramedic the focus of the threats has largely been the victim’s 18-year-old sister and some suspect the attacker mistook the younger girl’s identity for that of her older sister’s.

Eini said the teenager was in a difficult emotional state: “She cried the whole way to the hospital, partly because she was in pain but mostly because she was terrified.” According to Eini at the time of her attack the girl had been wearing loose-fitting long pants and a short-sleeved shirt.

“If she would have been wearing the same thing in Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv, she would not have stuck out in any way,” he added.

An ultra-Orthodox teen from Beitar Illite who is in contact with the girl’s family spoke with her sister who described the incident. According to the boy, the attacker stopped the girl and first asked her for directions. Then, after confirming her surname, he spilled a bottle of acid on her.

I don’t know what else I can say. This actually makes the Meah Shearim spate of bleach-throwing incidents almost pale in comparison — whereas, in Meah Shearim, women were only physically injured as an unintended upshot of the attempts to ruin what were perceived as immodest clothes, here, a 14-year-old girl had acid spilled in her face. Naomi Regan, who was beaten on a mehadrin bus in Jerusalem in a chillul Hashem of cosmic proportions, was an adult — who could at least attempt to fight back — at the time of her brutal attack. This was a 14-year-old girl who had acid spilled in her face solely because of her last name.

Of course, and rightfully so, people in the charedi world, both in America and Israel, are calling for this man to be found and punished.

Punished? Were there the means to do so, I think he should be deported. The mindset — the values — that would propel one, in the name of modesty, to throw acid in a teenage girl’s face are as distinctly un-Jewish as that of any missionary or white supremacist. And if not this attacker, then whoever it was that put it in his mind to do such a thing. If this is how the Beitar Illit modesty patrol is operating, it is time for a Rabbinical Court — and if not a beit din, then the police — to completely revamp it.

This can not be allowed to continue for even another moment — because, remember, this attacker wasn’t targeting her.

He was looking for her sister.

And now one can only wonder what will happen to her if this organization seeks reprisal for this first attacker’s (G-d willing) imminent arrest, or if nothing happens, and the attacker goes out with another bottle of acid to “ask for directions” again.

Jewish-Muslim Unity… in Kuwait’s Al-Watan! March 11, 2008

It’s about damn time. Baruch Hashem and AlhamduliLl-h for Abdallah Al-Hadlaq.

Writing for the Kuwaiti Al-Watan newspaper, Mr. Al-Hadlaq wrote a scathing opinion piece (Arabic) condemning the “terrorism” of Hamas and Hezbollah in last week’s massacre at Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav in Jerusalem. Mr. Al-Hadlaq, among other things, calls the attack “a barbaric murder of eight children who were engaged in religious study” and says that the “odious and inhuman terror attack exemplifies the extremist and inhuman path of the terror organizations Hamas and Hizbullah.”

Indeed, as the Jerusalem Post notes:

The writer goes on to assert that “the terror attack must prompt the free world to comprehend the magnitude of terrorism and its threats and to realize that a clear and unequivocal stance must be assumed against it. There can be no negotiations with terrorism that indiscriminately aims itself at students, women and babies without any consideration for the means and the targets.”

Contrasting the terror attack with the IDF’s operations in the Gaza Strip, the writer explains that “there is no link between a murderous terrorist act and the inadvertent killing of civilians in response to the firing of rockets by Hamas.”

The piece presented a stark contrast to the main current in the Arab press, which presented almost sweeping praise for the “heroic operation.”

The Google-translated version (which I’m sure does not do the original Arabic piece justice) shows Mr. Al-Hadlaq referring numerous times to Hamas as a terrorist organization, and speaking of the incident as ” الهجوم الارهابي /al’hajoum al’irhabi” — the terrorist attack carried out by the “evil Alliance” of Hamas and Hezbollah.

(On the other hand, here’s a contrasting opinion on Hamas from a local chapter of an American organization.)

Scathing criticism of Hamas — هجمات الارهابي (hajmaat al’irhabi), the terrorist organization — and calling terrorism for what it is — in defense of murdered innocent Jews engaged in the service of G-d. At least one person is standing up for human life — indiscriminately — in the face of a pro-Hamas media deluge.

A brilliant display of unity. Well done, Mr. Al-Hadlaq, and well done, Al-Watan. Kudos. May the anti-terrorist voices only multiply exponentially throughout the Arabic-speaking world, and the world as a whole.

“The Battle for the Future of Orthodox Judaism” March 5, 2008

Life of Rubin, the Orthodox blog whose fan I have been for quite some time now, has been vocal in his opposition to the recent ban on concerts which has been legislated in the Orthodox community, in reaction to the “Big Event” which was scheduled for March 9th. LOR says, basically, that this is not about Lipa, or Shlomie, or Sheya — this is far bigger, and with far more gravity:

This is no longer about Lipa Schmeltzer or Jewish Music. This is about the future of Frum Yidden everywhere. This is not just a topic of the week it’s a battle for the next generation.

It has now been revealed that at least some of the rabbis who signed the ban were lied to — indeed, Rav Shmuel Kamenetzky shlit”a, BloginDm explains, had already previously said he was not opposed to “all concerts”. Some $700,000 originally earmarked for orphans in Israel will now not reach the intended recipients as a result of the concert’s cancellation.

In the Jewish Week, one Flatbush resident, identified only as “Mendy”, voiced his disgust with the controversial ban, saying that he could not believe that Jewish concerts were worthy of so much rabbinical scrutiny. “With all the problems our community is grappling with — teens leaving in unprecedented numbers, prominent yeshivas accused of knowingly employing pedophile teachers, chasidim rioting in the streets of Borough Park…I am astonished that this is the issue these 33 illustrious rabbis have chosen to tackle…Our children need an outlet, and what could be better than a frum concert? Riots are OK, concerts are ossur [forbidden]?”

While one blogger said the ban was evidence of rabbinical authority being raised to an uncomfortably Divine level in the Orthodox world, my sentiments are more like those of Sheya Mendlowitz, who called the fatwa ban just two people going and obtaining signatures “in a very slimy and shady way, two very dangerous people” in the Jerusalem Post:

Mendlowitz says he is owed roughly $700,000. Initially [A. Friedman] offered to pay part of that sum, but under the condition that Mendlowitz sign off concerts forever. “Who’s he to tell me not to do concerts, this is absolutely ridiculous,” said Mendlowitz. “They want to shut down the Jewish concert business, because they don’t feel it’s the proper place for their followers.”

…Mendlowitz is confident concerts will continue as they have up till now. “There are many rabbis, and I respect all of them, but I have enough to rely on for what I’m doing.”

“We have now banned sporting events, concerts, amusement parks, the circus & malls among other things. Of course, I don’t argue…But what in heavens name do we want people to do realistically for recreation?”
–commenter on Yeshiva World.com
It was to this end that Jewish music heavyweight Mordechai Ben David sounded in with his still, small voice of protest on the charedi newswire VIN. He was reminded of how he, too, once wanted to take the “high road” Lipa Shmeltzer is now taking, to stop doing concerts, and was told something drastically different by his rabbis:

R’ Mordechai served as the Holy Ribnitzer Rebbe’s Zt”l gabbai for appox. 5years. But during those years—when concerts still had mixed seating audiences — he asked his Rebbe many times: “Es pas nisht…”, feeling strange serving as a Rebbe’s gabbai on the one hand and singing at such concerts at the other. Nevertheless, R’ Mordechai reports, the Rebbe never told him to stop but rather always encouraged him to continue with his success.

About 20 years ago, after a draining 10-concert/10-city world tour, MBD felt he didn’t have the energy to continue doing concerts, and thus decided to stop performing. But he kept receiving calls. Upon a visit to Israel he mentioned it to the the Lelover Rebbe, Rabbi Moshe Mordche Biderman Zt’L with whom he had a close relationship, of his decision. to which the Rebbe responded, “Who gave you permission to stop? Did you ask anyone? When you get a matana from Hashem, you can’t just stop. Continue singing and have great Hatzlocho.”

Ten years ago, before a major concert in Israel for the Zichron Menachem organization, two askanim tried to stop it, even meeting with the Amshinover Rebbe trying to get him to convince MBD not to appear. Nevertheless, the Rebbe told MBD not to stop, and even gave him chizuk to do the concert.

Indeed, as one commenter on the post notes, when asked if owning a radio was forbidden decades ago, the Satmar Rav, a revered head of a sect, said that he could not forbid it because to decree something that the population could not/would not uphold would decrease the esteem of rabbinical authorities in the eyes of the people. Seeing the big picture — that of rabbinical Judaism as a whole — and not the small picture with Lipa’s face in it.

BloginDm also asks his thought-provoking “20 Questions” about the ban, which also got me thinking — if we are talking about a fight for the holiness of the Jewish Nation, then why does said fight have to involve lying to Torah giants, physical violence (or threats thereof), and the depriving of $700,000 from poor orphans? Does G-d not say in the Torah, “You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you” (Exodus 22:21-23)? Is a poor bride not supposed to cry when she can’t afford to pay for what is supposed to be the happiest day of her life?

What are we supposed to do for entertainment? Life of Rubin alluded to kids-at-risk being pushed further and further away from a kosher way of life by having their alternatives oppressively restricted — how many more drug addicts will be spawned for lack of a Hasidic outlet in which to socialize? How many more Hasidic girls will, unable to hang out with Rivky and Shaindy at the MBD show, will now meet Ruchie and Bracha at the club?

Poor orphans perhaps unable to marry. Kids going further off the path away from Judaism. Perhaps a blow to one of the cornerstones of the faith of Orthodox Judaism. I hope this askan is proud of himself for his lies and pseudo-zeal, he really does now have quite the resume attached to his soul.

Moshiach, again, if you’re reading this — please, save us now.

Will McCain Reject? Will Jews Accept?

The American Prospect clued me into a little piece of GOP double-talk and double standards that I didn’t know about during this primary campaign.

Howard Dean, DNC Chair, went after John McCain on CNN Late Edition this past Sunday for not having come out as saying he “rejected and denounced” the vehemently anti-Catholic pastor John Hagee after Hagee endorsed him — the way Obama was asked to do (and complied in flying colors) with the anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas was called in to defend her fellow party member, and the transcript shows just how hypocritical this really is:

BLITZER: But here’s the point that the critics are making right now, and those Catholics who are urging John McCain to reject Pastor Hagee. Louis Farrakhan has called Judaism “a gutter religion.”

Hagee has suggested, at least according to the Catholic League president — we’ve done some checking of our own – he said that Catholicism is “a great whore and a false cult system.” That sounds very, very damning, Senator.

HUTCHISON: Well, John McCain has said he doesn’t agree with that.

BLITZER: But is he ready to embrace someone who calls the Catholic religion “a great whore?”

HUTCHISON: Well, I think John McCain’s statement that he put out from the campaign, after the question was raised, speaks for itself. And I think that, many times, people who endorse someone are not in total agreement with them on every issue. That’s the case with most people. I think this is turning into a political attack, rather than anything that’s substantive.

What did this chick just say? “That’s the case with most people”?

And let’s not for a second confuse this endorsement with the wholly unsolicited and unwanted Farrakhan endorsement Obama had the unfortunate displeasure of having to deal with. As recently as this past weekend, McCain was making decisively pro-Hagee statements, saying:

I am very proud of the Pastor John Hagee’s spiritual leadership to thousands of people and I am proud of his commitment to the independence and the freedom of the state of Israel. That does not mean that I support or endorse or agree with some of the things that Pastor John Hagee might have said or positions that he may have taken on other issues.

Here’s how John Hagee introduced John McCain on his “No Surrender” tour, featured on the John McCain.com site:

Yeah, McCain totally doesn’t want Hagee’s support.  Hagee has since amended his anti-Catholic statements, which included his calling the church the “anti-Christ” (video), but the Catholic League is not buying it, saying “no amount of spin” can change “reality”. (Hagee also said that he believes that the anti-Christ will be the head of the European Union.) McCain initially said that he was “very honored”‘ by Hagee’s endorsement.Former GOP candidate Mike Huckabee also appeared, however, at Hagee’s church, so apparently McCain is not the only GOPer to seek an endorsement from the man who said:

“Adolf Hitler attended a Catholic school as a child and heard all the fiery anti-Semitic rantings from Chrysostom to Martin Luther.”

“Pope Pius XII, called by historians ‘Hitler’s Pope,’ joined Hitler in the infamous Concordat of Collaboration, which turned the youth of Germany over to Nazism, and the churches became the stage background…To those Christians who believe that Jewish hearts will be warmed by the sight of the cross, please be informed—to them it’s an electric chair…”

And let’s not forget about Hagee’s racist slurs. The Emerging Minds blog (among others) points out a San Antonio Express-News article from 1996 which mentions Hagee meeting with black ministers about running a “slave sale” fundraiser. Its advertising promised “[s]lavery in America is returning to Cornerstone”. And let’s not forget the sexism:

“Do you know the difference between a woman with PMS and a snarling Doberman pinscher? The answer is lipstick. Do you know the difference between a terrorist and a woman with PMS? You can negotiate with a terrorist.”

Racist, sexist, anti-Catholic, wholly insensitive, Islamophobic and anti-Arab.

A man John McCain is “honored” to be endorsed by.  Will McCain step up and “reject and denounce” his prejudiced endorsers the way Obama did?  Or will GOP supporters just have to wonder precisely how much of Pastor Hagee’s “gospel” McCain agrees with?

“Just Send Your Children to Die” February 13, 2008

This video of Mahmoud al-Mutawak just defies comment. It’s an excerpt of his pre-suicide bombing video, a video he did with his mother.

Her instructions to mothers throughout the Palestinian Authority? If you want honor, just send your children to die. Teach them “to love martyrdom”.

And this is what All-h wants?

Video: Dimona Suicide Bombers February 12, 2008

In the usual terrorist MO, the “martyrdom” video from the Dimona terror operation, was released on YouTube — apparently either by Hamas or under Hamas auspices — over the weekend. The suicide bombing claimed the life of one 73-year old woman, theoretical physicist Lyubov Razdolskaya, as well as injuring as many as 38 others.

Muhammad Hirbawi and Shadi Z’ghayar entered into the busy Dimona shopping center on that fateful Monday morning, had a coffee at Revital’s World Class Pizza (obviously patronizing Israeli businesses, a clear violation of the Israel boycott, but whatever), and detonated themselves using “improvised” explosives, an “explanation for the small number of casualties”, according to Ha’aretz.

So below is the “martyrdom” video. How is killing a 73-year old scientist heroic? How is it an undying show of solidarity with Palestinians, when his last action before detonating was to give money to an Israeli business?

These people are not involved in anything holy.

Jewish Women of the Hijab and Burqa February 7, 2008

Jewish women across Israel are joining what more and more Orthodox Jews are seeing as an alarming social trend. “Dozens of” charedi Orthodox women, under the tutelage of one Rebbetzin Bruria Keren in Ramat Beit Shemesh are eschewing their traditional covered wigs in favor of burqas, hijabs, and abayas/jilbab.

I first wrote about this on Jewlicious, when I first read the Muqata translation of the Ha’aretz piece which introduced me to this sect of ultra-modest women, one of whom “show[s her] children” to prove “[she’s] not…Arab” at security checkpoints, because she doesn’t want “men seeing [her] ID.” The story was run in the British Independent and Jewish Chronicle, and blogged about throughout the blogosphere. I echoed the same sentiments as MomInIsrael, that this was alarming and shocking — and I prayed that it never catch on.

And then I saw this. Perhaps my blog-prayer was in vain, after all.
(more…)

Iraq: 46 billion, Kids: Zero October 23, 2007

In what’s being called a new Iraq showdown with Congress by US News & World Report, Bush, in a move of gargantuan audacity, requested an additional $46 billion in Iraq war and overseas military funding. This request comes on the heels of Bush’s hotly contested veto of $33 billion in health care funding for the S-CHIP program, which would have been expanded to cover children not covered by Medicaid but who could not afford private insurance. The request for additional funding, in light of the recent veto, caused Democrats to react with dismay:

Representative David R. Obey, Democratic of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, criticized Mr. Bush for pushing the extra financing even as the president attacked Democrats as spendthrifts.

“It’s amazing to me that the president expects to be taken seriously when he says we cannot afford $20 billion in investments in education, health, law enforcement and science, which will make this country stronger over the long term,” Mr. Obey said in a statement.

“But he doesn’t blink an eye at asking to borrow $200 billion for a policy in Iraq that leaves us six months from now exactly where we were six months ago.”

…The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said that the cost of less than 40 days in Iraq would pay for health-care coverage for 10 million children for a year.

Currently the war in Iraq costs American taxpayers, on average, $330 million a day.

The funding is not all slated to go to Iraq, as the New York Times tells us:

While the bulk of the money requested would go to the Defense Department, the proposal also includes nearly $800 million to support a United Nations peacekeeping mission and elections in Sudan; $106 million for fuel oil under a deal with North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program; and more than $400 million in assistance to the Palestinians as part of the administration’s efforts to nurture a peace treaty with Israel.

Were this funding request to pass, it would bring the grand total spent on Iraq and Afghanistan military operations to $806 billion, almost ten times as much as Gulf War I and almost $300 billion more than Vietnam, in today’s dollars.

I am inclined to react like Rep. Obey, how could the President even expect to be taken seriously , when he turns down healthcare for children and advocates increased military spending? Are we suffering under a leader with such callous disregard for his citizens that he would doom them to waste away to their deaths in hospital beds on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean?

(As an aside, the fact that Darfur funding AND North Korea’s nuclear disarmament fuel-oil trade program are bundled in with this is yet another slap in the face. No funding for war, no funding for Darfur? And this is the president whose “good moral character” was touted by Republicans?)

Perhaps The Seattle Timescan give us a bit of insight:

The Defense Department’s new Iraq war funding request proposes upgrading the B-2 stealth bomber to carry the military’s largest satellite-guided bomb capable of penetrating deeply buried bunkers. The Pentagon’s proposal is one sentence in the measure seeking $45.9 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that President Bush gave to Congress Monday. The extra money would be on top of $150.5 billion in previously requested war spending.

The new 30,000-pound bomb is six times bigger than the Air Force’s current 5,000-pound bunker-buster. Chicago-based Boeing is developing the bomb for the Pentagon agency that researches technology to counter weapons of mass destruction. The bomb was first successfully detonated in March.

Ah yes, where there’s Bush foibling, you’re bound to find some smidgeon of corporate cronyism.

Boeing gets 53% of its sales from its defense unit, a unit which had forecasted sales of $31 billion this year, down from $32 billion in 2006. They are looking to “generate foreign sales of F-15s and other fighters as the U.S. curbs spending on large aircraft programs.” (Wow! A huge aircraft sale just in the nick of time for Boeing! Good thing they don’t have to post that $1 billion loss from their forecasted figure!)

The death toll in Iraq currently stands at over 3,830 American soldiers.

So more important than S-CHIP is this bill. Granted, the White House did state that the only reason that S-CHIP was vetoed was because it was “poorly written legislation,” even though they had called it “expensive” at the time. If by bringing the troops home, such legislation could finally find its place on our lawbooks, then for every military servicemember who comes home alive, another child can make it through childhood alive and healthy. Saving 2 lives for the price of one.

Surely that’s got to be “common-sense” enough for the President.

No, Really, Let Ann Coulter Clarify October 18, 2007

So apparently, after being blasted by so many of her critics, Ann Coulter decided that she wanted to set the record straight. She felt she had been misquoted, and, in this piece on the very right-wing NewsMax, wanted to strike back at those who had lambasted her as of late.

Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, was quick to condemn her comments, calling them “hate speech” and saying:

“How does someone who says that Judaism should be thrown out, that Jews should be ‘perfected’ and that America would be better off were everyone Christian continue to receive a megaphone and platform from the news networks? When will the media say ‘enough is enough’?”

Coulter – author of the new book “If Democrats Had Any Brain, They’d Be Republicans” – responded by telling Newsmax:

“Let’s rewrite the NJDC statement to refer to what I actually said: ‘How does someone who says it would be better if everyone were a Christian or practicing Jew continue to receive a megaphone and platform from the news networks? When will the media say ‘enough is enough’?

“Who’s engaging in hate speech now?” she asked.

Ahh, so we “practicing Jews” can sleep easier. I wonder what her definition of “practicing Jew” is. Everyone sins — the verse in Ecclesiastes says it flatly that there is no “righteous man [on the earth] who only does good and never sins”. Then again, a “practicing Jew” is also probably practicing repentance as well.

Coulter, in the NewsMax piece, though, when all is said and done, goes right back to what she was saying in her original interview though. Quoting the Catholic Encyclopedia as her source, and flatly dismissing her critic, the head of Catholics United, she brings that “the imperfect state of yesterday must give way before the perfection of today although the one has normally prepared the other” vis-a-vis the transition from “Old Testament to New”.

I don’t doubt she’s not making it up — there is no end to the amount of anti-Jewish literature the Christian scholar could theoretically draw from in dissing his Semitic counterpart. There being an extant source doesn’t dilute the fact that one would have to be an unmitigated ass for saying something like this on TV.

But, again, this is her MO — and she is proving herself to be the disgrace to the Republican Party with zero tact we’ve all come to expect to see soiling our screens.

Everything is Wrong With This Picture. August 29, 2007

With a hat tip to Gruntig, an old clip which illustrates everything that we as religious individuals have to not act like:

OK. Let’s say the woman was dressed immodestly.Let’s say any number of things. This should never — ever — happen.

It is my sincere hope that the crowd of religious individuals which began to form contained at least one person who tried to either scream, schmooze, or smack some sense into this man.