Tuesday, March 12, 2019

Anti-Semitism and Orthodoxy in the Age of Trump



In response to the Pittsburgh massacre, in which Robert Gregory Bowers gunned down 11 Jews praying in the Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2018, all major Orthodox organizations condemned the attack in the clearest possible terms, but none was prepared to denounce the stated cause for the violence: white nationalism and the demonization of Jews as avatars for progressive and left-wing politics.

Why would the very group that was most noticeably targeted by white nationalism in the 20th century be the most reluctant to condemn it today? Some point to President Donald Trump and his allies’ support for Israel’s right-wing government, which itself has made common cause with some European anti-Semitic nationalist movements. Others such as the historian David Henkin claim that many of Trump’s Orthodox supporters “are the descendants (literally, in many cases) of Jews to whom the white nationalism of the post-1965 Republican Party was already resonating 30 or 40 years ago in debates about affirmative action, segregation, colonialism, and law enforcement.” Both theories, however, overlook Orthodoxy’s own position on anti-Semitism and the crucible in which it was formed.

9 comments :

  1. “Anti-Semitism and Orthodoxy in the Age of Trump”
    No. See http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23575
    “Whether it is the recent challenge relating to female clergy in Teaneck, or new efforts to permit remarriage without a Get, the essence of the issues facing Jewry is the same.”
    I quote Rabbi Soloveitchik, זצ"ל:
    “And I also was told that it was recommended that the method of אפקעינהו רבנן לקידושין מיניה [Yevamos 90b, 110a; Kesubos 3a; Gittin 33a, 73a; Bava Basra 48b] be reintroduced. If this recommendation will be accepted, I hope it will not be accepted, however if this recommendation will be accepted, then there will be no need for a get. No need for a get. "האשה נקנית...בכסף בשטר ובביאה...וקונה את עצמה בגט ובמיתת הבעל"[12] we will be able to cross out this mishna, this halacha; every rabbi will suspend the kiddushin. If such a privilege exists, why should this privilege be monopolized by the Rabbanus HaRoshis of Eretz Yisrael? Why couldn't the Rabbinical Assembly do just as well as the Rabbanus HaRoshis, if the problem is אפקעינהו רבנן לקידושין מיניה?! Ribbono d'alma kula, what are you out, to destroy everything?! I will tell you frankly, I will be relieved of two masechtos. I will not have to say shiurim on Gittin and Kiddushin, and then Yevamos as well. And I want to be frank and open. Do you expect to survive as Orthodox rabbis? Or, do you expect to carry on the masora under such circumstances? Curse will replace the Torah. I hope that those who are present here will join me in simply objecting to such symposia and to such discussions and debate at the rabbinical convention. When I was told about it, I thought, "Would it be possible?" I cannot imagine that at the Republican National Convention or Democratic National Convention, should we introduce a symposium on whether communism and democracy, perhaps communism should replace democracy in the United States. Could you imagine such a possibility? I cannot. Because there is a certain system of postulates to which people are committed, and such a discussion, at the National Convention of the Republican Party, would be outside the system of postulates to which the American people are committed to. And to speak about changing the halachos of Chazal is, of course, is at least as nonsensical as discussing communism at the Republican National Convention. It is discussing self-destruction, a method of self-destruction and suicide.”
    BTW, the NYS Court of Appeals gave me motion number 266 3/25/2019. I argue before SCOTUS: “My questions to the Court is: Can Supreme Court of the State of New York County of Kings Judge Eric I. Prus block me from seeing a critical document? Can Susan's lawyer, Myla Serlin, block me from seeing a critical document? The critical document is the 1995 Rigler Order of Separation used to justify the 2013 NYS civil divorce Gerald v. Susan despite the Israel divorce 1993. The trial and jail sentence of the late Judge Gerald Garson was just the tip of the iceberg of fraud etc in NYS civil courts. The Court granting me my petition will help root out fraud etc in NYS civil courts.”
    Alan Dershowitz says that the “Federal Prosecutors Charge Dozens in College Admissions Cheating Scheme” is just the tip of an iceberg...

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  2. We already got rid of masechet ketubot. The American ketubah is worthless, little, if any of it, is kept, in practice.
    No one knows what 200 (or 100) zuz is. ''Ana eflach" is not the practice in many parts of the community. Property division in case the marriage is ended (by divorce or death) is left to secular courts
    Why keep the ketubah custom?

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  3. Thanks MiMedinat_HaYam. Looks to me the Reform Movement is the wicked party that should be thrown to the dogs.
    See http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23596
    “Auerbach shows how the Ochs-Sulzberger New York Times and the Reform Movement — led by anti-Zionist zealots like Judah Magnes and groups like the American Council for Judaism — formed a kind of interlocking directorate that turned a cold shoulder to Jews coming under Nazi rule. He demonstrates how the Times’ emphasis on “universalism” extended to concealment of Hitler’s destruction of European Jewry, by now the subject of Deborah Lipstadt’s Beyond Belief(1986) and Laurel Leff’s Buried By the Times (2005). Nor were the Nazis the sole beneficiaries of the Times‘ universalism. The paper’s Moscow bureau chief Walter Duranty depicted Soviet Odessa as a place “far more conducive to Russian Jewry than … Palestine itself.” (Duranty’s rank dishonesty is now better known for his apologetics on behalf of Stalin and the dictator’s decimation of the Ukrainians.)”
    Pesachim 118a:
    R. Shesheth also said on the authority of R. Eleazar b. Azariah: Whoever relates slander, and whoever accepts slander, and whoever gives false testimony against his neighbor, deserve to be cast to dogs, for it is said, You shall be holy people to Me: you must not eat flesh torn by beasts in the field; you shall cast it to the dogs.” (Exodus 22:30) which is followed by “You must not carry תשא false rumors; you shall not join hands with the guilty רשע to act as a malicious witness” (Exodus 23:1)”
    See https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Nearly-half-of-Israeli-Jews-would-consider-wedding-non-Jew-if-in-Diaspora-583715
    Is Jeremy Sharon right on the 10% estimate ???
    “In addition, Israeli Jews greatly overestimated the percentage of Orthodox Jews in the US, with 63% saying that Orthodox Jews comprise between 11 to 50% of the US Jewish community, when true figure is just 10%.”
    I say No to
    “Shira Ruderman, director of the Ruderman Family Foundation, which works to strengthen Israel's ties with the Jewish community in the United States, noted that most Israelis do not know any Diaspora Jews. "The greatest challenge of our generation is connecting Israeli Jews with Diaspora Jewry in general and to the Jewish community in the United States in particular,” Ruderman said”

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  4. MiMedinat_HaYam says “We already got rid of masechet ketubot.”
    I quote: Kethuboth 110b Soncino translation:
    “Mishnah. [a man] may compel all [his household] to go up [lit., cause to go up] [with him] to the land of Israel., but none may be compelled to leave it. All [one's household] may be compelled to go up [lit., cause to go up] to Jerusalem [from any other Palestinian place], but none may be compelled to leave it. [this applies to] both men and women [A wife also may compel her husband to live with her in Jerusalem or the Land of Israel and, if he refuses, she is entitled to demand a divorce and the payment of her kethubah.]. If a man married a woman in the land of Israel and divorced her in the land of Israel, he must pay her [her kethubah] in the currency of the land of Israel. If he married a woman in the land of Israel and divorced her in Cappadocia he must pay her [her kethubah] in the currency of the land of Israel [The Cappadocian coins were dearer than the corresponding ones of the Land of Israel.]. If he married a woman in Cappadocia and divorced her in the land of Israel, he must a gain pay [her kethubah] in the currency of the land of Israel. R. Simeon b. Gamaliel, however, ruled that he must pay her in the Cappadocian currency. If a man married a woman in Cappadocia and divorced her in Cappadocia, he must pay her [her kethubah] in the currency of Cappadocia.”
    Beautiful !
    A Purim Torah thought:
    Megilah 12b:
    “ “On the seventh day, when the king was merry with wine, he ordered Mehuman, Bizzetha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven eunuchs in attendance on King Ahasuerus,”(Ester 1:10) Was then his heart not merry with wine until then? Rab said: The seventh day was Sabbath, when Israel eat and drink. They begin with discourse on the Torah and with words of thanksgiving [to God]. But the nations of the world, the idolaters, when they eat and drink only begin with words of frivolity. And so at the feast of that wicked one. Some said, The Median women are the most beautiful, and others said, The Persian women are the most beautiful. Said Ahasuerus to them, The vessel that I use is neither Median nor Persian, but Chaldean. Would you like to see her? They said, Yes, but it must be naked (For man receives measure for measure [lit., for with the measure with which a man measures they measure to him]. This [remark] teaches you that the wicked Vashti used to take the daughters of Israel and strip them naked and make them work on Sabbath. So it is written, “Some time afterward, when the anger of King Ahasuerus subsided, he thought of Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her.” (Ester 2:1). As she had done so it was decreed against her.”
    The Gamara says that we begin with words of Torah then words of thanksgiving to God. The Gamara is against words of frivolity (and trolls)...

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  5. Wow ב"ה SCOTUS put me up om their website: https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/18-7160.html
    See “Feb 26 2019 Petition for Rehearing filed”
    Click on “Main Document” and click on “Proof of Service”
    More on Purim Torah
    Megilah 15b
    “ “Yet all this means nothing to me every time I see that Jew Mordecai sitting in the palace gate” (Ester 5:13). R. Eleazar further said in the name of R. Hanina: God will in the time to come be a crown on the head of every righteous man, as it is said, “In that day, the Lord of Hosts shall become a crown of beauty לעטרת צבי and a diadem of glory ולצפירת תפארת for the remnant of His peopleלשאר עמו”(Isaiah 28:5). What is meant by a לעטרת צבי and ולצפירת תפארת? For them that do His will [צביונו] and who await [mezapin] His glory ולמצפין תפארתו. Shall He be so to all? [Not so]. since it says, for the remnant of His peopleלשאר עמו: that is, to whoever makes of himself a mere residue כשארית [shirayim].”
    The relief I ask for in both NYS Ct of Appeals motion 266 return date 3/25/2019 and SCOTUS 18-7160:
    The relief I seek here is first, for a decision to cancel and nullify---the election results for Judge Eric I. Prus November 2018. Second, to cancel and nullify Judge Prus' awarding my house to Susan. Third, for a decision that NYS courts have no more control over the QDRO that tells TIAA to pay Susan 55% of my pension with no end in sight.

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  6. when was this said by Rav Soloveitchik? which affair was it relating to?

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  7. https://www.torahweb.org/torah/special/2019/ryds_rietsalumni.html
    is my source. Thanks for your many upticks of my comments. I need to get to the next level at the NYS Court of Appeals, motion number 266 return date 3/25/2019 and SCOTUS docket 18-7160. The next level is granted--- my motion and my docket, follow?

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  8. Kalonymus AnonymusMarch 19, 2019 at 4:37 PM

    Chareidim who oppose secular studies, professional training are causing poverty and destroying people and families. These so called rabbis are rodefim are rashaim.

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  9. Agreed, value much less than can pay to litigate,.

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