BS"D
Online Updates in the Culture Wars
Parshas VaYaira, 5780 °° Nov.14, '19
By Binyomin Feinberg, Contributor to The Jewish Press*
feinbergbinyomin@gmail.com
* The perspectives and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the ownership or management of The Jewish Press.
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To check for updates throughout the week please visit ("Updates for Cheshvan" at: )
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11EUa2a_8OwXs7T1vMfek3MehHfC2Rd9mWt6NetNxLm0/edit?usp=sharing
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Update on Ziva bas Mazal:
This week, the Army called Ziva yet again to harass her over her steadfast fidelity to Jewish Law and personal modesty in her unwavering refusal to enlist in the Israeli military. She responded with characteristic firmness, stating that she is religious and therefore cannot and will not enlist, and there is really nothing to talk about.*
{* Ironically, it is this demonstrably resolute young woman whom someone recently described as "weak," in regards to her ability to resist the religious persecution of IDF. That individual was seeking a pretext to propose that Ziva avoid fighting for her religious exemption (and instead, to obtain a different type of exemption, but in a quiet manner, which would allow the Army to continue to continue to deny religious exemptions with impunity).}
For background on her case, see:
Giyus Banos: The Outrage Continues
https://daattorah.blogspot.com/2019/10/outrage-upon-outrage.html
https://daattorah.blogspot.com/2019/10/making-racism-great-again.html
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IDF ANNOUNCES MASSIVE CRUSADE AGAINST GIRLS IN THE NATIONAL RELIGIOUS CAMP:
The IDF is targeting a whopping 40 percent of the graduates of National Religious girls' high schools for the military draft by the year 2022, according to the military reporter for Maariv (Nov.5).
According to the IDF, the number of religious girls now being drafted is approximately 2,500 per year (which includes 27 percent of girls from National Religious schools).
The IDF recruits these girls with effective marketing techniques and appealing enticements often aimed at weaker girls. It should be emphasized that this agenda is aimed at Torah-observant girls who are legally exempt from serving.
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In related news, Olga S., an 18-year-old baalas teshuva, reports that she was denied her religious exemption despite properly following procedures, at an August 14 hearing at the Tel HaShomer Draft Office.
The officer reportedly told her that the army decided not to provide her an exemption, without providing any legal rationale or pretext. Consequently, she was given a draft-date of October 27.
She refused to enlist, and thus lives daily under the threat of imminent arrest.
Her strength of character is inspirational to the activists helping her. There are multiple girls like her, about whom we don't hear - until an arrest, if then.
Is she being discriminated against because she's a baalas teshuvah without a support system?
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Israel may be heading for a Unity Government, comanaged by the Likud and Blue & White mainstream blocks. That means that the religious parties will be asked to, or seek to compromise to join. On what will they compromise? Will they agree to sacrifice on the drafting of girls, for which they failed to properly advocate when they had the power in the government to meaningfully protest? The saintly Brisker Rov ZT"L (see "The Brisker Rav," pp. 49–51, 56–57), to whom many of them pay lip service as a Gadol, held that it was better to close all the Yeshivos if need be rather than to draft even one girl. But the political parties, in contrast, allow the drafting of girls to pass quietly, apparently under the pretext of helping their own institutions.
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UK Clergy Push Back Against LGBT School Requirements
Recently, the British Confraternity of Catholic Clergy issued a statement in response to rules in Great Britain requiring UK schools to teach respect for conduct that the Torah regards as immoral.
It declares, in part: "Parents are the principal educators of their children and their right to teach their own children about matters of human intimacy and relationships must be maintained. The right to withdraw children from lessons parents judge to be age inappropriate, insufficiently tailored to their childs unique needs or against their own legitimate religious beliefs must be held as an unassailable principle." ( http://www.confraternityccb.org.uk/ )
We wish the Catholics in England success in their campaign to resist state overreach. On this issue, we are in the same boat. We, too, must be prepared to tell New York state that we will not go along with any educational requirements requiring us to teach our children values that stand in contrast to those of the Torah, particularly the LGBTQ agenda, which is the flagship crusade of the NYS Democratic Party Establishment -- which been pushing for the Educational Equivalency Regulations, and which has been advancing LGBTQ indoctrination in Public Schools since well before it enacted it in 2010 (in the Dignity for All Students Act).
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According to the Akeidas Yitzchak on this week's parsha (VaYairoh, 20). Even Sodom didn't sink to the depth of depravity of celebration of sodomy. They employed Sodomy as a evil method of detering visitors, but did not revel in it as a normal mode of activity.
Even Sodom did not host Pride Parades. Even Sodomites didn't clamour for "rights" for flagrant practitioners of sodomy. But in what passes for modern Civilization, this abomination (VaYikra 18:22) is celebrated. Do we expect a favorable Divine Judgement?
