Out of Step Jew

Bloghead has the Ha'aretz story on deal that Labor MK Haim Ramon has cut with R. Ovadia Yosef and R. Elyashiv to appoint only haredim to the six vacancies on the Rabbinic Court. For the most part, appointments to state religious functions are not that important, but in this case the Rabbinic Court deals with marriage and divorce, issues at the heart of women's rights in Israel.

Although Ramon's office has stated that his anger at the opposition to the hitnatkut of much of the religious-Zionist community is his main motivating factor (and an absurd one at that) one has to wonder what deals he has cut with the good rabbis in his sellout of Israeli women. What is Ramon getting for his selling out of the women? Is the Labor Party doing some forward planning for an attempt to form the next government? Have there been promises about who gets what vote and for how much?

One also has to wonder what Chief Rabbi Amar, whose wife and son have been indicted for beating up a 17 year old boy, is still doing on the committee to appoint new dayanim.

The religious-Zionists are very close to being completely de-legitimized by the very monster they created – the chief rabbinate. Maybe its time to disengage, not from the state, but from the very institution that was at one point, the pride of religious-Zionism. The time has come to create our own privatized religious court system dealing with conversions, marriage and divorce. Its time that our rabbis shed their inferiority complexes and made a stand in favor of their own constituents. Its time they took the high road for once and ended their association with the corruption that is at the heart of state sponsored religion. Maybe its time they made their final break with the dishonesty and cynicism that is at the heart of Israeli-haredi Judaism.

Our shuls, Yeshivot and other institutions will certainly loose a few million shekel, but we will be stronger for it.

Just ask the next agunah you meet.

Yesterday evening I was at my son's high school listening to a presentation about their recent trip to Poland to see and learn about the Shoah. Some of participants spoke and there was a short film about the trip.

What was odd to me was that the one common theme running through most of the speeches as well as the music that accompanied the film was a praising of God. Sometimes, specifically the student that spoke, the theme changed a bit to thanking God that we are not in that situation.

But it seemed from the speeches of most adults in general and of the rabbis in particular that strengthening ones faith in God was one of the key goals of the trip. I am not denying that some survivors came through the Shoah with a stronger belief in God and none at all in people. I am not denying that it is possible to go through the trip to Poland and to come home believing that we can be saved only through God.

But, to take the Shoah and to make it a showcase for belief in God seems to me an attempt to deny the reality of the situation. Learning about the Shoah ought not to bring someone to despair (although it certainly can), but neither should it axiomatically bring someone to blind faith.

It seems dishonest to manipulate the students into seeing blind faith in God as the specific (only?) religious response to the Shoah. You would think that a trip of such import would bring the rabbis to discuss faith more in depth. You would think that on such a trip the students would rise to challenge faith and to force the rabbis and the others into facing all possibilities. You would think that the "ani ma'amin" would be put aside for just one evening.

"The Protestant campaign of divestment, meant to punish Israel for its "occupation," is weakening.

The announcement by Massachusetts Episcopal Bishop M. Thomas Shaw – a staunch pro-Palestinian advocate – that he would oppose divestment efforts from within his church was the latest in a string of similar declarations by small member communities of America's large liberal-leaning churches.

Across the country, Protestants are reevaluating the wisdom, and even the justice, of the high-profile divestment campaign their leaders began a few years ago."

The wisdom and even the justice !!!!

Just anti-semitism, or just anti-semitism?

The Israel Defense Forces is calling for new olim who are doctors to enlist for 18 months at an officer's salary in the IDF Medical Corp – call 03-737-9527 … The Israeli Ministry of Health is allowing hospitals to setup ethical committees to decide if parents can choose the gender of their child … The IDF is opening up its National Defense College to officers of foreign armies …Chabad bus advertisements encourage you to "write to the King Mashiach and see miracles happen" … Machon Rashbi in Bnei Brak, named after the tanna R. Shimon Bar Yochai, is offering for sale a drink that will help you find a partner, earn a good living, stay healthy and have powerfully performing sperm … The wife and son of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi were indicted for beating up a young haredi boy who was dating their daughter/sister …A thirteen year old Gazan, Anjad Abu Seedo gives sermons every Friday at 10am at the main Gaza city mosque. For directions, contact Hamas … Ma'ariv, one of Israel's most successful muckraking newspapers distributed bumper stickers in last Friday's issue stating "Where is the Shame?" … A lioness and her young daughter were recently transferred from the safari in Ramat Gan to the Haifa Zoo due to their failure to connect socially with the other lions. A second child will stay in the safari …Yellow shirts were banned in my daughter's all girls, religious, junior high-school … Bar-Ilan University is having a symposium "From Early Marriage to Extended Bachelorhood", tomorrow at the University.

First, I would like to note the wonderful job the editors of the YU student newspaper "Commentator" did in their history of YU series. Many if not most of the articles were interesting and informative and not just nostalgic. It gave a great picture of YU throughout its 75 or so years. Kol HaKavod!

A short while ago we spoke about R. Yitz Greenberg's article in the series discussing YU in the '60's. Apparently, the article provoked much controversy and animosity. Hirhurim has links in this post to the original article, a response by R. Lichtenstein, and R. Greenberg's rejoinder. In addition, there is response by Hillel Goldberg who conducted the original Greenberg interview in the 1960's and R. Greenberg's response to that.

Maybe it is my naiveté, but the animosity in these letters is quite astounding. I don't know R. Greenberg personally - although I was a Bnei Akiva madrich to one of his daughters – and I understand that his views are on the fringe of modern Orthodoxy, but I didn't realize the personal nature of the disagreement. These letters are interesting but disappointing, too. Hirhurim suggests just reading Goldberg's letter to get a few facts of history, and to avoid the unpleasantness of the tones of the letters. He is right to a certain extent, but I think that would give a skewed view of things.

You need to read all of the letters in order to see that there not so much disagreement as to what happened. Much of the differences have to do with the perspective of ht authors and I would guess, the 40 years that have elapsed. What there is, is a longstanding personal and theological conflict that unfortunately has spilled over onto the pages of a student newspaper.

As we have stated in the past, these arguments over Judaism in general and modern-Orthodoxy in particular are part of the dynamic of modern Orthodoxy and Religious-Zionsim. Let's hope they never end. Let's also hope that we, at least, as Hirhurim as alluded, can keep the personalities out of it.

There have been a lot of interesting comments (for exampleת the WSJ and Instapundit) being written on the Newsweek scandal where they falsely reported that the US Military flushed a Koran down the toilet at Guantanamo as a pressure tactic against captured terrorists.

Mostly though, the scandal shows how the western press in general still has no clue what religion is, let alone what it means to people. They have almost no understanding of fundamentalists and they have absolutely no understanding of believers who are not fundamentalists. Like too many people these days, everything is looked upon through the eyes of politics and ideology without recognizing that billions of people in the world have beliefs that transcend both politics and ideology.

Various key intersections were blocked yesterday by a group of wayward youth working on the instructions of cowardly manipulators…. A classmate of my second son was sentenced to two weeks in prison for burning tires on a road a few weeks or months ago…. I regretfully participated in an email exchange where an American Jew from California referred to the IDF as the "Islamic Defense Forces" and then went on to ask about my son in the army, if he will "defend Jews of Gush Katif or just follow the orders to deport them by force?"…. The foreign minister's wife was instrumental in the (probable) firing of Israel's ambassador to the US because his aid neglected to arrange a photo-op with Madonna … The ambassador's wife was accused of verbally abusing the domestic staff … A YU ordained rabbi wrote that he thought it funny that people consider Yom Ha'atzmaut a religious holiday and was stunned when an acquaintance wished him a "chag sameach" … Although the literature bagrut (matriculation) for the state-religious school system has Agnon, it doesn't include Bialik … A good friend who just got back from a visit to the US said that American Jews have it too good …In order to prevent the entry of terrorists to the US local embassies can't print passports for US citizens… Kfar Saba has what is supposed to be a wonderful brass and wind festival every year, but it's always during sefirat ha'omer… Haifa University is having a symposium on the demographics of Israel … Over 90% of the abortion requests reviewed by Israeli hospital ethics committees are approved…

After assigning a few pages of Hegel to read, a history professor of mine told the class not to feel stupid if we didn't understand a word of what he wrote, since German philosophers can't write. If you have tried, as I have on numerous occasions, to read the "Star of Redemption" by Franz Rosenzweig, only to be left without a clue as to why he was considered a genius, there is a new translation of The Star by Barbara Galli.

It is reviewed in the Forward and hopefully, it will be as readable as the reviewer claims. Then we can see with our own eyes what all the fuss is about.

The period after Pesach is a strange one in Israel. Children of all age's wheel around semi-broken shopping carts in search of the perfect wood for Lag B'Omer bonfires, we all start to get ready for Yom Hashoah and right after that is Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut (Memorial Day and Independence Day). Similar to all things Jewish we go from up to down and back again – with the children in the middle. The Shabbat between Yom Hashoah and Yom HaZikaron/Yom Ha'atzmaut is always a bit strange.

Today, as I scan the news today I see a weekend where, instead of reflection and preparation for celebration, nearly all that is wrong with Israel occurred over the course of a few days. Eight more people were killed on the roads over Friday/Shabbat. After driving for all of ten minutes you have to thank God that the number was not double or triple that.

Corruption and violence ruled as the wife, daughter and son of the Sephardi Chief Rabbi were arrested for allegedly hiring two Arab youths to abuse and beat up the boyfriend of the daughter. The couple met over an internet chat – both are haredi so the reaction seems to be to … ban not only the internet, which is ruining the children, but computers, too. Whatever was left of the integrity of the Chief Rabbinate – and of the rabbis who put the current Chief Rabbis in their offices – has blown away with the dust of the last sharav.

Eight boys aged 13-17 were accused of gang raping a 14 year old girl over the course of a few months. These types of cases are not new, especially in the upper middle class communities (although I am not sure the community of Nesher is upper middle class) There is no wonder that it happens again and again since in past cases the parent's of the boys (the ones that are convicted) have a history of threatening the girl and of supporting the actions of their sons. The judges too, have all too often giving light sentences so as not to "ruin the future of the boys" for just one offence. And the rape victim?

The government sent – or was about to send- dismissal notices to 4,500 teachers but was willing to rescind some of the dismissals if the union accepts the Dovrat Commission educational reforms. No debate, no reasoning. I am sure there is justification for all of this, but there is no debate, no discussion – just threats. And of course the threats are two sided as the teachers union threatened to strike (understandably in this case, I guess). But then the candidate for the chairmanship of the Labor Party (and hence for Prime Minister) and current chairman of the Histadrut Amir Peretz, has gleefully offered to "shut down the country" by striking anything and everything. He is most proud of the fact that one phone call from his cell phone can cost the country 100 million shekel a day.

And to top it all off, there is supposed to be a meeting in Israel of what has to be the most anachronistic group in the world – the Socialist International. However, those who work for the Labor Party are threatening to shut down the prospective meeting if they don't get a raise. This may be the only good news of the day.

This is the true story of a woman very close to me who escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto as a child and survived the war to come to Israel. It is not her whole story. She told it to me over a few days in December of 2004. Her father was a hero of the Ghetto who, along with Mordecai Aneleiwicz planned the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. She came to Israel as a young teen after the war, married and moved to the United States in 1960 where she raised four children. She currently lives in California and has fifteen grandchildren, eleven in the US and four in Israel.

H, came from a well to do Warsaw family. Her mother's father, SZ was a businessman who foresaw tragedy and invested in property in Florida and in Israel, but did not have the foresight to urge his entire family to flee Poland until it was too late. By 1939 it was obvious that things were to get worse before they got better. SZ then sent one son, F, and his wife E to Israel to see if it were possible to set up life their anew. The couple had one young daughter who they left in Europe while they searched the underdeveloped Land of Israel.

Suddenly, as September opened, the world was at war and communication from Poland was cut. The Nazi blitzkrieg started before F could get the message back to Poland that yes, Israel would be a fine place to move. Left behind was most of their family. E's uncle was a physician who was killed in the bombing at the start of the war. E's family had a large private lending library that was also destroyed in the early part of the war. Their daughter M was still in Poland. Somehow, they got her adopted by a family that managed to attain papers in order to leave Poland via Italy and she was reunited with her family. She married and has two children and lives in Tel-Aviv.

H's original home was on 5 Mila Street but once the war broke out they had to move to 5 Karmelitzka Street. H was smuggled out of the Ghetto in 1943, one month before the uprising that her father helped plan. Her father was killed in Pavyak, Getapo headquarters in the Ghetto and was buried in the Warsaw Jewish cemetery. In 1978, his granddaughter, H's daughter, on a trip to communist Eastern Europe to see the places of the Shoah, found his grave. There is now a Yar Zeit for H's father.

In 1943, H's father bribed a Wehrmacht officer to smuggle his daughter out of the ghetto. Their son, H's brother was just a baby and could not be saved. He was to be killed shortly thereafter with his mother. Dressed as German children on their way to school H was smuggled out and taken to a family friend who had a luggage store whose main customers were the wives of German officers. H quietly sat by a table and a Polish woman wearing a nun's habit came out and took her, ostensibly to a monastery.

She got into a taxi and told the driver to go to Mozovietska Street, to a beautiful apartment. A woman named Vascha Wojsk served H chicken soup and asked her to write a note that would be sent to her mother in the Ghetto. Before H was smuggled out her mother told her that she would have to write this note. She was instructed to "send regards to Zooka" if there was trouble and if all was fine, not to send regards. All seemed fine, so eleven year old H dutifully wrote the note without sending regards. This of course was the proof that was needed to complete the payment for saving the child.

After writing the note they got into a taxi and the woman told the driver to go to Alje Shovkha. H, all of seven recognized the address and asked the woman where they were going. She knew that this was Gestapo headquarters. H threatened the woman that if she was brought to the Gestapo she would tell them that the big nosed woman was also a Jew.

The woman was scared of young H and tried to get her to quiet down. Finally, she told the driver to go to Leshno 22 where a woman named Irena lived. This was not far from H's original home. Irena recognized H and agreed to take her in. She gave her delicacies – rolls, butter and sweet tea. Irena was a lapsed nun and showed compassion to H. However, she feared her neighbors who were close to Gestapo officers. H had to hide in a closet during the daytime only to come out for a short while at night.

H's family didn't know about the scam. So they paid the same Wehrmacht officer and woman more money so as to smuggle out H's young cousin. He was left on the steps of Gestapo headquarters but a Polish policeman noticed him and took him home. His wife didn't want to keep him, fearing for their lives. They gave him to a neighbor, known in the neighborhood as the "cat-woman" for she kept many cats. Once the cat-woman visited Irena and told her the story of H's cousin. H was listening in the closet and later told Irena that she thought that the boy was her cousin. The cousins were reunited and H took care of him until the end of the war.

H was also visited by a former business partner of her father who gave Irena a monthly stipend to help take care of H and her cousin.

After the Polish uprising of 1944-5 the Germans destroyed large swaths of Warsaw. Irena took H and her cousin to a small town of Wilcze Pietki. Sometime in 1945 the Russians liberated Poland and they returned to Warsaw. Jews were returning looking for friends and relatives. Irena searched for H's family even though all knew that her mother, father and young brother were killed. Irena found H's aunt E in a building that the family owned on Jebovska Street in the Praga section of Warsaw. E put H and her cousin in a children's home in Otwcek, near Warsaw for a short while. Sometime before Rosh Hashanah of 1945 E took her nephew and niece to an apartment in Waldenburg – in Silesia. They lived in an apartment there with some other people.

Fourteen year old H was not treated very well and decided to run away by the train which ran down May 1^st Street in Waldenburg. Since she didn't have any money she was thrown off of the train. This was sometime in 1946 and a Russian-Jewish occupation soldier saw young H and took her to a "café" to get her a hot drink. He then took her to a friend who ran the Shomer Hatzair youth house in the town. It was a Friday. The person who ran the house was from Warsaw and his name was Benyik. He had known H's father. H, came from a religious home and wanted very much to fast on Yom Kippur. This show of religion was not allowed at the Shomer Hatzair and H and a friend were punished for fasting. She was eventually taken to another home in Ludwigsdorf. A woman named Nesha from Vilna, ran this children's home.

There was a decision that the children should go to Israel. Transportation was sparse and travel was not always legal. Few countries wanted additional Jewish refugees – especially children. From Ludwigdorf in Silesia, Nesha took the children and they started on foot to Czechoslavakia. H, one of the older ones was responsible for a group of younger children. Sometime in 1946 they arrived in Prague. They did not make the entire trip on foot but were able to manage rides on trucks and trains. These young children who had just survived the Shoah in homes, in forests, in convents now needed to travel, slowly, through Germany.

She found another relative who had survived the war by running away to and around Russia. He received a certificate to go to Israel and was able to take H with him. They left from Italy.

H made it to Israel in 1947 and met the family that managed to make it there before the war, F and his wife and daughter and other relatives. She lived in apartments on Dizengoff Street and on Benvenisti Street in the Florentine neighborhood – all in Tel-Aviv. The feelings towards H by the family were one of resentment. Many abused her and many cheated her. Almost none understood what she went through and what she was going through.

In order to give Yom Hashoah v'Hagvurah some religious significance in our family, about 15 years ago we decided to create and recite a liturgy as we lit the ner zikaron (remembrance candle). We chose texts that were a bit difficult to understand and over the years we have added a bit, here and there. We wanted to create a Yom Hashoah liturgy for our family – one that would create interest and questions, sadness and hope.

Each Yom Hashoah night we light a candle and recite:The poems Death Fugue by Paul Celan and "A Load of Shoes", by Avraham Sutzkever. We read from the Tanach: Joel 2:15-17 and 4:9-21 and Psalm 13.

To this day, Jews, especially religious Jews find it difficult to assign theological import to the Jewish return to Zion. Under most circumstances and with most peoples, the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 would have ended the practical opposition to Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel and would have forced all to reassess their theological opposition.

But of course that did not happen. With a narrow look at the sources and a "masoret" of ignoring history many of the even modern-Orthodox rabbis (let alone haredi ones) still find it difficult to say "reshit tzmichat geulateinu" (the beginning of the flowering of the redemption) without swallowing their words.

In a well written and well thought out argument in First Things, Gary Anderson of Notre Dame makes the case for a Christian (Catholic?) case not only for the practical acceptance of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, but for its theological significance to Christians:

"The return of the Jews to Israel has also posed a challenge to Christians. For ever since the days of Augustine, Israel’s landlessness was commonly thought to be a punishment for the death of Christ. Events of the previous century showed us where this type of thinking can lead. Happily, many thoughtful Christians have moved beyond this position. Certainly the visit of Pope John Paul II to the Holy Land—his walking the streets of the Jewish state and praying at the Western Wall—is a powerful expression of this. The question now is whether we can move from an attitude of toleration and acceptance to bold theological affirmation. Is the return to Zion part of God’s providential design and eternal promise to His people Israel? I believe that it is. Is Israel’s most recent return to this land final and permanent? No one can know for sure. That will depend, as Uriel Simon wisely argues, on the providential plan of our benevolent Creator and on the actions of Israel."