Professor Marc Shapiro and the Chassidic world of Williamsburg/Boro Park

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Chayei Sara/ Bo 75 Modern Leadership by Allan Katz

Guest post by Allan Katz

The reason why the Israelites had to eat the Korban Pesach – the Pesach sacrifice ' in haste = be'chipazon ' and in a state of readiness to leave ואכלתם אתו- קרבן פסח – בחיפזון - שמות 12:11   is because the departure from Egypt would be in such speed, haste and without any delay .In fact their dough did not have enough time to rise, nor did the Israelites have time to make any other provisions.

The ' chipazon ha'shechina' and ' me'hirut ha'shechinah', God's speed and haste in bringing about the redemption can be compared to a train suddenly appearing and all those who want freedom have to make sure that they get onto the train and don't get left behind. God was in exile with the Israelites in Egypt and when He left, the people had to make sure that they were ready to leave with God and not be left behind. God in a sense moves on and runs ahead and we have to make sure that we are with God. Rabbeinu Yeruchum says that this idea – the chipazon ha'shechinah = the speed and haste of the Divine Presence is mentioned by Eliezer, the servant of Abraham. Eliezer cannot accept Rivkah's =Rebecca's staying on for some time with her family and then going to marry Isaac. Eliezer says to Rivkah's family – Gen 24:56 'do not delay me now that God has made my journey successful'.ויאמר אליהם אל תאחרו אתי וה' הצליח דרכי

What has the fact that God has made Eliezer's journey and mission a success got to do with not delaying and moving on. God has made Eliezer's journey successful by going ahead of Eliezer, leading and guiding him to success. If he delays any longer, God will have moved ahead and Eliezer would then miss the train.

In the light of our understanding of God's ' chipazon' – speed and haste, Rabeinu Yeruchum interprets the Mishnah from Pirkei Avot 2:21 in a novel way. - Rabbi Tarfon says- the day is short, the task is abundant, the workers are lazy, the pay /wage are great and the Boss is insistent and urgent.

אבות 2:21 רַבִּי טַרְפוֹן אוֹמֵר, הַיּוֹם קָצֵר וְהַמְּלָאכָה מְרֻבָּה, וְהַפּוֹעֲלִים עֲצֵלִים, וְהַשָּׂכָר הַרְבֵּה, וּבַעַל הַבַּיִת דּוֹחֵק:

Rabeinu Yeruchum says that the Boss is not standing over his workers and demanding productivity. Like a modern manager, the Boss is setting an example and running ahead = דוחק The workers have to catch up with their Boss.

The verse from the Song of Songs 1:4 says -draw me; we will run after youשיר השירים - משכני, אחריך נרוצה. If God is drawing his people close to Him, why do they have to run after Him? If we want to be with God, feel his Divine Presence we have to appreciate the ' chipazon Hashem – God's haste and speed and make sure we are there moving ahead with him. We need to act with zeri'zut, zeal, drive, passion and with momentum in order to connect with the divine presence.

The ideal parents and teachers are said to be those that are demanding of kids so they achieve the highest standards and achievements in their academics, social and sports activities. Maybe parents and teachers should try to be less demanding and more authoritative, so that kids seek relationship and guidance. Kids will say ' Draw me and we will run after you '. It is because of the parents and teacher's personalities, drive, joy and passion for what they do that kids want to join in with them. Parents and teachers set an example and get kids involved with them. They allow kids to participate in the decision making process. They understand that responsibility comes from making decisions and not by following instructions. The kids then feel self-directed and autonomous, displaying zeri'zut, drive and passion for what they do.

We can learn from God's Leadership – ' chipazon Hashem', that leaders don't demand from others or push from behind, but they are running ahead, leading from the front. When kids experience such leadership they cannot but want to join in and follow the leader.

American ultra-Orthodox Are Starting to Talk About Sexual Abuse

Haaretz  [full article available on Manny Waks' Facebook page Manny Waks Facebook   ]

As more alleged victims step forward, the Orthodox community grapples with the phenomenon while maintaining its insular traditions. Leading rabbis met in New York this week to broach this delicate issue.

The Orthodox Jewish community is slow to change, even – perhaps especially – on difficult issues like child sexual abuse. But speakers at a gathering of leading Orthodox rabbis and others made clear that significant changes are underway at both institutional and cultural levels. For example, a joint project of the Orthodox Union and Rabbinical Council of America to create training programs for synagogue staff, in an effort to help prevent sexual abuse, is getting started.

The very fact that Rabbi David Zwiebel, executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, spoke at the meeting also reflected a shift. While the topic has been addressed at recent Agudah conventions, this was the first time that Zwiebel addressed it outside of his own community, he told Haaretz.

It is a challenging subject for a community that prizes modesty, deference to rabbinic authority and believes that turning in a Jew to secular authorities is a violation of Jewish law, especially if there is suspicion but not certainty of sexual abuse. Yet “if you compare the landscape to just a few years ago there have been enormous changes” in the Haredi community, Zwiebel told the opening session, in a conference room rented from UJA-Federation of New York in midtown Manhattan.

The “Global Summit on Child Sexual Abuse in the Jewish Community” was put together by Manny Waks and his organization Kol v’Oz. Waks, who was sexually molested as a child in Melbourne, Australia’s Chabad community, started Kol v’Oz last year in Israel to deal with the issue.

The aim of the two-day gathering is to allow experts in childhood sexual abuse to network and share best practices, Waks told Haaretz. Ultimately, “the goal is a collaborative global coalition” to work on the issue. Two similar gatherings were convened in Israel in recent years, but this is believed to be the first time that such a meeting has brought together different segments of the Jewish community in the U.S.

The meeting included a hand-picked group of leaders of social service organizations that aid victims of sexual abuse, researchers and prominent rabbis from as near as Brooklyn and as far as Israel and Mexico. Also attending was the national director of the yeshiva day school movement Torah u’Mesorah, Rabbi Dovid Nojowitz.

“There has been marked change” in how the Orthodox community deals with sex abuse, said David Cheifetz, a victim of childhood molestation himself. Cheifetz, now a victims’ advocate, moderated a discussion between Zwiebel and Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America. “This issue has come to the forefront because more people are speaking out [after having been abused],” Cheifetz told Haaretz.

Enough victims are coming forward now that they have reached a critical mass and can no longer be dismissed by Orthodox leaders as troubled, marginal people, he said. And a recent wave of suicides and drug overdoses among Haredi young adults, along with a significant exodus of people out of religious observance are also shocking ultra-Orthodox leaders into taking seriously the relationship between those things and childhood sexual molestation. [...]

Several developments have coalesced to push Orthodox organizations forward, say experts. Social media has had much to do with spreading information about abusers and connecting victims. The Catholic Church sexual abuse crisis burst onto the American scene in the early 2000s, as did several high-profile cases in the Orthodox community, beginning with that of Baruch Lanner, who then worked as director of regions for the modern Orthodox youth movement NCSY.[...]

A bill introduced in various forms in the New York State Assembly for more than a decade would eliminate the civil Statute of Limitations, meaning a victim could sue his abuser for monetary damages in a civil court at any time. That bill would also open a year-long window during which older victims could retroactively sue those responsible.

That is what the Agudah opposes, Zwiebel said, though it supports extending the criminal Statute of Limitations indefinitely and raising the victim’s age for the civil lawsuit limit. Jewish law has no Statute of Limitations in criminal cases, pointed out YU’s Blau.

Zwiebel said, of the Agudah’s resistance to a change in the law, “schools are the crown jewels of our community. For them to have retrospective liability for things done decades ago under a different administration would cause damage to those jewels,” by potentially bankrupting them.

Waks responded, in a voice full with emotion, “it often comes across in the Haredi world that they care much more about the institutions than the victims. Are they really much more precious than children’s lives?” [...]

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein - Of Marriage: Relationship & Relations

Tradition Magazine Archives Originally posted 2012 While this is primarily regarding the issue of marriage - it brings in issues relevant to our discussion on gender.
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[...] On the other hand, others may find parts of the discussion disturbing, if not objectionable. To some, it may appear to stand in violation of the Mishna’s admonition, as elucidated by the Gemara (Hagiga 11b), against public discussion of the arcane aspects of proscribed sexual liaisons. While the issues herewith treated have received fuller expositions in numerous Torah-oriented books and articles, every accretion may be challenged as an erosion of the proper level of tseni’ut. Of greater concern is the prospect that others, particularly the relatively less initiate, may find the essay unsettling. Perhaps, hitherto fully comfortable with the roseate tinge of some contemporary presentations of Jewish attitudes to sexuality, they may find their personal equipoise adversely affected by exposure to less positive sources. The result may be either some erosion in the quality and enthusiasm of married life, or, conversely, some slippage in respect for pillars of the halakhic world, such as Rambam and Ramban. And this might, in turn, undermine commitment to halakha in its totality

On a broader, and possibly deeper, front, the differences noted between attitudes expressed by Hazal and later formulations raise issues concerning periodization and continuity within the halakhic system; and, for readers not wholly satisfied with suggestions I have tentatively advanced, by way of resolution, the impact may be, again, possibly unsettling.

Despite the ambivalence, I have, obviously, decided to proceed. I have done so not only in the interest of spiritual and intellectual candor but, additionally, on the sanguine assumption that, on balance, the effect will be constructive, inasmuch as most of the readers are already aware of the primary problems and will be spiritually enriched by its systematic analysis, their faith and commitment energized and fortified by the Torah discourse of massa u-matan be-divrei Torah, rather than enervated or diluted. Nevertheless, where spiritual influence is at stake, a measure of trepidation persists. It is my hope and prayer that the Giver of Torah spare and save us from any fault or blemish in its dissemination. [...]

Assuming these facts to be correct—as regards my own spiritual environs, I can attest directly—we ask ourselves: How and why do we depart from positions articulated by some of our greatest—“from whose mouths we live and from whose waters we drink”—and, is this departure legitimate? Are we victims of the Zeitgeist, swept along by general socio-historical currents? Do we tailor our attitude on this issue to conform to appetitive convenience and erotic desire? Have we, in this case, adopted a self-satisfying posture of facile world-acceptance clothed in culturally correct garb? [...]

Rav Lichtenstein of Marriage Relationship and Relations 

THE RISE OF THE ALT-RIGHT AND THE POLITICS OF POLARIZATION IN AMERICA

Skeptic   by Dr. George Michael received his Ph.D. from George Mason University’s School of Public Policy. He is an associate professor of criminal justice at Westfield State University in Massachusetts.

Until recently, the alt-right was relegated to the cultural and political fringe consisting primarily of an obscure, largely on-line subculture. But after Donald Trump’s stunning electoral victory, its detractors feared that it could soon become a player at the very center of American politics. After all, alt-right activists were among Trump’s most enthusiastic supporters, and in return, some believed that they deserved a seat at the table. Back in August of 2016, the alt-right was catapulted into national limelight when Hillary Clinton excoriated the movement, seeking to link it to her challenger in a much-heralded speech delivered in Reno, Nevada.1 That same month, Breitbart.com executive Steve Bannon had declared the website “the platform for the alt-right.”2 In the wake of Trump’s victory, Bannon joined Trump in the White House as a senior advisor. How did the movement gain traction in recent years? And now that Trump is president, could the alt-right change the American political landscape?

The Roots of the Alternative Right

To its critics, the alt-right is just a code term for white nationalism, a much-maligned movement associated with neo-Nazis and Klansmen.3 The movement, however, is more nuanced, as it encompasses a much broader spectrum of rightist activists and intellectuals besides white nationalists including those who believe in libertarianism, men’s rights, cultural conservatism, isolationism, and populism. Nonetheless, its origins can be traced to various American white nationalist movements that have endured for decades.

More than any other figure, the late Willis Carto was responsible for creating the semblance of a movement that came to be known as the far right in post-World War II America. Through the myriad of organizations he founded—Liberty Lobby, the Institute for Historical Review, and the Populist Party among others—he reached out to a wide array of rightists including white nationalists, Holocaust revisionists, conspiracy buffs, anti-globalists, and survivalists. But his big tent approach had only limited success and by the late 1990s was foundering. Furthermore, he was forced into bankruptcy in 2000, after losing a civil suit to a former subsidiary. A newspaper he launched—American Free Press—is still published, but its readership is limited. Carto passed away in 2015 at the age of 89.4 Although the various organs he established reached many rightists, some in the movement found his approach woefully unfit to gain credibility as a respected mass movement insofar as it seemed to be resigned to remain as an oppositional subculture. A number of well-educated rightist intellectuals sought to establish a new ideology capable of resonating with conservatives, especially young people.

Addressing the H.L. Mencken Club in 2008, Paul Gottfried described the “alternative right” as a dissident far right ideology that rejected mainstream conservatism. Gottfried—a conservative Jewish academic—previously coined the term “paleoconservative” in a rhetorical effort to distance himself and like-minded intellectuals from neo-conservatives who were becoming the dominant force in the Republican Party and broader conservative movement.5 The late Sam Francis, a former columnist for the Washington Times who was fired for his open advocacy of white nationalism, was regarded as the intellectual godfather of the paleoconservative movement. For years, he sharply criticized the Republican Party for its timidity, strategic myopia, and ideological bareness. Only a radical reorientation—a “middle American revolution”—could save the conservative movement and insure the European character of the nation.6 But the lackluster results of his friend Pat Buchannan in the 2000 presidential election, demonstrated the weakness of this approach at that time.

To be sure, some of the most radical elements of the far right have long advocated a revolutionary program. Groups such as the Aryan Nations, White Aryan Resistance, the National Alliance, and the World Church of the Creator have preached RAHOWA (racial holy war) against ZOG, or the “Zionist Occupation Government.” Many were inspired by the late William L. Pierce’s Turner Diaries, a novel about a race war that consumes America that was one of the inspirations for Timothy McVeigh’s 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

But these exhortations to revolution did not resonate with most people. What is more, after 9/11, many of the revolutionary right’s leading representatives were prosecuted under new anti-terrorism statutes and sent to prison. By the mid-2000s, the far right appeared to have reached its nadir.

The Perils of Immigration

The primary issue for white nationalists is immigration. They claim that high fertility rates for third world immigrants and low fertility rates for native women—if left unchecked—threaten the very existence of whites as a distinct race.9 But even on the issue of demographic displacement, there is disagreement in the white nationalist movement on how this predicament came about. The more genteel representatives of the alt-right, such as Jared Taylor, argue that these trends developed over time because whites have lost the temerity necessary to defend their racial group interests. By contrast, the more conspiratorial segment of the movement implicates a deliberate Jewish-led plot to reduce whites to minority status.10 By doing so, Jews would render their historically most formidable “enemy” weak and miniscule—just another minority among many.

Emblematic of the latter view is Kevin MacDonald, a former professor of psychology at the California State University at Long Beach. In a trilogy of books released in the mid-to-late 1990s, he advanced an evolutionary theory to explain both Jewish and anti-Semitic collective behavior. According to MacDonald, anti-Semitism emerged not so much out of perceived fantasies of Jewish malfeasance, but because of genuine conflicts of interests between Jews and their Gentile hosts. Inasmuch as anti-Semitic movements have often been collectivistic in orientation, MacDonald argued that Jewish intellectuals, activists, and leaders have sought to fragment Gentile societies along the lines of race, ethnicity, and gender. Over the past decade and a half, his research has been circulated and celebrated in white nationalist online forums.11

Conspiracism

Although conspiracy theories can be found across the political spectrum, they feature most prominently in the far right. Based in Austin, Texas, Alex Jones has emerged as the most noted proponent of contemporary right-wing Conspiracism. His popular platform—Infowars—has enabled him to reach a broad audience whom he regales with exposés implicating the U.S. government, secret societies, and globalists in sinister plots to undermine the fabric of nations.12 It is worth mentioning that Jones is not without his critics on the far right. For example, some white nationalists deride Jones as a charlatan because he implicates phantom actors—including the Illuminati13—in a nebulous conspiracy to subvert America. They accuse him of leading people down a blind alley—“chasing demons”—instead of identifying what they see as the “real enemy,” that is a Jewish-led conspiracy to destroy the white race.14

The Internet facilitated the spread of conspiracy theories that before had limited currency. Although critics—including U.S. News & World Report, Los Angeles Times, and Mother Jones—have characterized Infowars as a “fake news” website, the mainstream media in America have lost much credibility over the past several years.15 The failure of the mainstream press to report accurately on the depth of support for candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential election will only compound this problem. Though it is difficult to determine with great specificity how important Jones was in persuading voters to support Trump, he steadfastly supported the GOP renegade in his primary and general election campaigns.

Although conspiracy theories have long resonated with the far right, the more respectable mainstream conservative movement eschewed this vocation—the Libertarian right, for example, focused instead on small government, individual liberty, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. But after its standard bearer Ron Paul failed to gain traction in his 2012 presidential bid, as did his son Rand Paul when he dropped out of the 2016 race early, the libertarian community became disillusioned. What is more, social and cultural issues became more pronounced in American politics. As a consequence, the libertarian preoccupation with free market economics began to look stale.16 A new form of rightist ideology began to take form. The growing popularity of the new media was instrumental in this development.

A Growing Media and Internet Presence

Cyberspace became one area where white nationalists could exercise some limited influence on the broader culture. The subversive, underground edges of the Internet, including 4chan and 8chan, allowed young white nationalists to share and post comments anonymously. The alt-right has become an integral part of the meme and trolling culture in cyberspace. Through the use of memes, the alt-right has established a notable presence in the virtual world. Appropriating “Pepe the Frog,” the alt-right used humor and invective to reach out to young people who might find the political correctness of the dominant culture stultifying.17 Moreover, the growing number of blogs, wikis, and discussion forums enabled them to participate in the national discourse. Even on mainstream news sites such as USA Today, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, ordinary readers—including white nationalists—could troll the comments sections below articles.18[...]

White Separatism

Sometimes referred to as the “1488rs,” the revolutionary white nationalists believe that America will eventually collapse under the weight of racial strife.31 Some internal critics in the alt-right characterize them as the equivalent of Black Lives Matter supporters insofar as they both call for the total destruction of the current order and seek to replace it with a revolutionary new order.32

But how should white nationalists achieve their goals in an America that is projected by the U.S. Census Bureau to be majority non-white by the year 2042?33 Some activists insist that only a separatist course will ensure white racial survival. To date, the most formulated strategy has been advanced by Harold Covington, who founded the Northwest Front in the early 2000s as a vehicle for the creation of an all-white homeland in the Pacific Northwest. Given current demographic trends he argues that it is foolish to pursue a strategy that seeks to return America to a white majority population. Instead, by concentrating the assets of the white nationalist movement into a smaller area, Covington reasons that their goals have a greater likelihood of success. Beginning in 2003, he published a series of five novels based on a white separatist insurgency in the Pacific Northwest. Set in the not-too-distant future, the novels extol the exploits of the Northwest Volunteer Army, which mounts a war of attrition that eventually persuades the U.S. government to relinquish limited territory. In 2010, Covington began broadcasting an Internet radio program called Radio Free Northwest in which he exhorts Whites to relocate to the Pacific Northwest to form a community of like-minded activists.34

Often characterized as “the new face of hate,” Mathew Heimbach has emerged as the most articulate voice of White separatism in the United States over the past few years. Although he is only in his mid-twenties, he is an accomplished orator and an indefatigable organizer, frequently giving speeches at rallies and appearing on television news programs. He first gained notoriety in 2012 when he organized a White Student Union at Towson State University in Maryland. Since then, he founded the Traditionalist Youth Network which calls for the division of the United States into separate ethnically and culturally homogeneous autonomous states. Although most of his followers are white nationalists, he has reached out to separatists from other ethnic and racial groups. At the present time, he sees the Appalachian area as the most fertile ground for his white separatist aspirations.35 Seeking to establish ties with like-minded activists overseas, Heimbach identifies himself as the leader the Eurasian movement in the United States. The recognized leader of the Eurasian movement in the world is Alexander Dugin, a political theorist in Russia.[...]

Donald Trump and Entryism

Although the campaign of Donald Trump mobilized the movement that has come be known as the alt-right, it was not he who created it. After all, the issues that animate the movement—concern over immigration, national economic decline, and political correctness—existed long before Trump announced his candidacy. As Francis Fukuyama opined, the real question is not why populism emerged in 2016, but why it took so long to manifest.41 Not unlike the Brexit referendum over the summer of 2016, Trump’s startling victory confirms that there is a rising tide of nationalism in the West. The increasing popularity of Marine Le Pen could soon lead to a nationalist government in France, which like England, might opt out of the European Union.

Although the white nationalist movement in America has endured for decades, it remained highly marginalized with virtually no influence on the mainstream culture and certainly not over public policy. The candidacy of Donald Trump, however, was the catalyst that enabled a disparate collection of groups, which included white nationalists, to coalesce in what has come to be known as the alt-right. Still, because of the movement’s ideological diversity, it would be a serious mischaracterization to label the alt-right as exclusively white nationalist.

In some quarters in the political left, Trump’s surprising electoral victory was viewed with great disdain, almost as a contemporary version of Kristallnacht, occasioning the most strident condemnation and revulsion in recent memory.42 To some observers, Bannon’s appointment as Trump’s chief strategist confirmed their fears that the far-right fringe has penetrated the White House.43 And some alt-right activists did not disabuse them of their trepidation. At his organization’s conference in Washington, D.C., soon after the election, Richard Spencer raised his glass in a toast and exclaimed to his audience: “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail Victory!” At this point, several of the attendees gave a celebratory Roman salute reminiscent of Hitler’s Third Reich.44 What came to be known as “hailgate,” earned him more notoriety and split the alt-right between moderates and hardliners.45

To date, however, Trump has eschewed explicit race-mongering, though he did say some unflattering things about some Mexican immigrants and voiced concern over radical Islam. Instead, Trump has promoted a form of civic nationalism that emphasizes “America first.” Although his rhetoric was often construed as impolitic on the campaign stump, he nevertheless reached out to all Americans irrespective of race, gender, sexual orientation, or creed. In fact, he was the first major Republican presidential candidate in many years to have actually made a serious effort to attract African-American voters, pointing out that his proposed program of economic revitalization would create millions of new jobs for the chronically unemployed in America’s inner cities. It would be facile to characterize Trump’s victory as a “whitelash against a changing country” as described by CNN’s Van Jones.46 After all, roughly the same proportion of the white vote had gone to Mitt Romney four years earlier.47

Nevertheless, the election was racially-charged mainly in the mainstream media, which portrayed Trump and his supporters as bigoted. Ultimately, such depictions could become self-fulfilling prophecies as the scholar Walter Russell Mead observed:

The growing resistance among white voters to what they call “political correctness” and a growing willingness to articulate their own sense of group identity can sometimes reflect racism, but they need not always do so. People constantly told that they are racist for thinking in positive terms about what they see as their identity, however, may decide that racist is what they are, and that they might as well make the best of it. The rise of the so-called alt-right is at least partly rooted in this dynamic.48

The success of the Trump campaign demonstrated the potential influence of the alt-right in the coming years. At first blush, Trump’s victory in the Electoral College seems substantial, but his margin of victory in several key states was quite small.49 For that reason, support from every quarter he received—including the alt-right—was vitally important. Unlike other segments of the conservative movement, the alt-right never wavered in its support of Trump. And anecdotal evidence suggests that they were among his most avid foot soldiers in getting out the vote in both the primaries and general election.50 Moreover, the Trump campaign provided the opportunity for members of this movement to meet in a real world setting beyond their computer monitors and keyboards. His victory is sure to have instilled a great sense confidence in a movement that for so long has been maligned and marginalized. Shortly after the election Richard Spencer said that Trump’s victory was “the first step, the first stage towards identity politics for white people.”51 But if Trump does not deliver on his most emphatic campaign promises, such as building the wall and deporting undocumented aliens, the alt-right is likely to become disillusioned with him, not unlike some progressives who chastised Barack Obama for continuing to prosecute wars in the Middle East. In fact, before he even entered office, Spencer scaled back his enthusiasm for Trump because he was not focused enough on immigration and several of his appointments had connections to Goldman Sachs.52

Unlike old-school white nationalist movements, the alt-right has endeavored to create a self-sustaining counterculture, which includes a distinct vernacular, memes, symbols and a number of blogs and alternative media outlets. Taking a page from Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, young alt-right activists have applied his tactics to conservative causes.53 The events of the year 2016 suggest that the movement has succeeded. Now that the movement has been mobilized and demonstrated its relevance, the alt-right is likely to grow, gaining a firmer foothold in both American politics and culture.

Conclusion: The Politics of Polarization

American political culture has historically been centrist. Consequently, the nativist elements of Trump’s campaign platform are likely to be watered-down if they are ever implemented. At times, President Trump will most surely find himself constrained by Congress, the Supreme Court, and state governments, not to mention the media and a whole host of private interests, such as major corporations whose operations he must encourage to remain in America to further his economic recovery plan.

As president, Trump now has the enormous task of restoring national unity. Soon after the election, numerous protests emerged in cities all across America. On inauguration day, more demonstrations followed mainly in Washington, but also a number of cities both in the United States and overseas under the rubric of the Women’s March.54 This development is unprecedented in American political culture with its longstanding record of the peaceful transition to power from one party to another. An ominous polarization threatens the very fabric of the nation.

Over a decade ago, the noted author Robert Kaplan prognosticated in his influential article, “The Coming Anarchy,” that it was not entirely clear that the United States would be able to survive exactly in its present form in the 21st century. As the quintessential multi-ethnic society, in contemporary America the concept of the nation state is becoming more fragile than it is in homogeneous nations.55 This same theme was taken up in 2004 when the political scientist, Samuel Huntington, released his book, Who Are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity, in which he argued that the rise of multiculturalism and the demise of the assimilationist ethic could diminish the larger American national identity, which he believed was essential for the long-run survival of the country as a unified political entity.56 Whether Trump can live up to the high expectations that many Americans have pinned on him will depend on in large measure if he can forge some semblance of a national consensus.

And herein lies the great paradox of the alt-right. While white nationalists enthusiastically supported Trump—a candidate that repudiated identity politics and sought instead to restore national unity—they ultimately believe that their goals can only be achieved by the dissolution of the United States. Only in a Soviet-style break-up scenario could white nationalists establish the independent mono-racial states that they so desire. For this reason alone, the civic nationalism of Trump is likely to be at loggerheads with the ethno-nationalism of the alt-right at some point in the future.

UK judge denies access to kids for ex-Haredi man now living as woman

Times of Israel

A father of five who left Manchester’s ultra-Orthodox community in 2015 to start life as a woman was denied access to her children by a court on Monday.

The woman, whose name is being kept under court seal, asked Manchester Family Court that she be “sensitively re-introduced” to her family. Her former spouse, the children’s mother, countered that the children would be ostracized by their friends and community if they had contact with their parent.

The judge ruled that there was a very real chance that allowing her access to her children — a boy aged 12, 8-year-old twins, a boy and girl, a boy aged 5 and a 2-year-old girl — could lead to “the children and their mother being marginalized or excluded by the ultra‐Orthodox community.”

Justice Peter Jackson wrote that his ruling was “not a failure to uphold transgender rights, still less a ‘win’ for the community, but the upholding of the rights of the children to have the least harmful outcome in a situation not of their making.” [...]

The petitioner asked that her children “be helped to understand her new way of life and allowed to enjoy regular and significant contact with her outside the community.”

The mother countered that “direct contact of any kind during their childhoods… will lead to the children and herself being ostracized by the community to the extent that they may have to leave it.”[...]

The Anna Freud Centre told the judge after psychological assessment of the children and with “evident reluctance that the benefits to the children of resuming contact with their father would be outweighed by the harmful community reaction that would be visited upon the family.” [...]

n his decision, Jackson wrote that “weighing up the profound consequences for the children’s welfare of ordering or not ordering direct contact with their father I have reached the unwelcome conclusion that the likelihood of the children and their mother being marginalized or excluded by the ultra‐orthodox community is so real, and the consequences so great, that this one factor, despite its many disadvantages, must prevail over the many advantages of contact.

“I therefore conclude with real regret, knowing the pain that it must cause, that the father’s application for direct contact must be refused,” he wrote.

However, Jackson said that the children could have indirect contact with their father, through letters and cards.

“I see no reason why this should not take place four times a year for each child, perhaps coinciding with their birthdays, and with Pesach, Sukkot and Hanukkah,” he ruled in his judgment.

The judge took a shot at the community, writing that “children are goodhearted and adaptable and, given sensitive support, I am sure that these children could adapt considerably to the changes in their father. The truth is that for the children to see their father would be too much for the adults.

Maharal - because women are on a lower spiritual level they don't observe all the mitzvos like men

Maharal (Makkos 23b): And He gave him 365 Negative Commandments corresponding to his body and his matter so that he should not do that which was not proper. Because doing something improper applies only to the physical body of man. Therefore the Negative Commandments are 365 corresponding to the days of the year. That is because man from the aspect of his body has the level of the sun which has 365 days. It states in Bava Basra (58a), “I looked at Adam’s two heels and they are like the ball of the sun.” The explanation of this is that it comes to say that Adam was created in the image of G-d (tzelem). He in particular had this divine level completely. And the gemora is saying that Adam’s heels which are the end of the level of image (tzelem) are joined with the body which is like the image of the ball of the sun.

There is no doubt that the image (tzelem) of the face has a level which is more distinguished. That is because the face has the name of image (tzelem) more and therefore it was impossible to look at it. However it was possible to stare at Adam’s heels which are the end of the level of image (tzelem). That is because the end of the level of image (tzelem) has a connection to matter which is the body and it doesn't have such a distinguished level. Nevertheless the heels which are the end of image (tzelem) are like the ball of the sun because the end of image (tzelem) of man is joined with the body. Therefore its level is like the sun whose light is material. Consequently the Negative Commandments which are from the aspect of material which man received and which is below the image (tzelem) – have the same number as the days of the year because it is also below the level of image (tzelem) of man. I already explained this in Avos regarding “beloved is man who was created in the image (tzelem)” . It is important ot understand these great things.

And now we can understand that woman who is material is obligated to observe the Negative Commandments but is not obligated in all the Positive Commandments. That is because the spiritual level of women does not reach to the highest level - which is the level of the Positive Commandments that a woman would function fully - because she is material. She only has the level of image (tzelem) which is relevant to the Negative Commandments. You should also understand why Positive Commandments displace Negative Commandments – because they are on a higher level then Negative Commandments.

Trump lies again when he tries blaming Obama for his latest immigration fiasco

L.A. Times

With major airports in chaos over the weekend, President Trump sought to deflect blame the same way Republicans have been doing for eight years: By blaming President Obama.

At some point, that’s going to stop working even for the GOP. But then, Obama spent years blaming President George W. Bush for the country’s ills, so….

Anyway, as the protests grew and the heat on the administration intensified Sunday, Trump issued a statement claiming that he was effectively repeating steps taken by his predecessor.

“My policy is similar to what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months,” Trump asserted. “The seven countries named in the executive order are the same countries previously identified by the Obama administration as sources of terror.”

But Trump, for whom policy details seem as welcome as an extra helping of haggis, glossed over key differences between what Obama did and what he unleashed Friday.

First, the Obama administration’s actions in 2011 came in response to a specific weakness in the vetting of a specific group of immigrants. The background checks on Iraqi refugees didn’t cross-reference a database of fingerprints gathered from fragments of explosive devices that had targeted U.S. soldiers in Iraq. When the FBI did those checks, it found matches to two Iraqis who’d been allowed to resettle in the United States in 2009. That prompted Obama to act. Trump’s action came in response to a campaign promise.

Second, rather than canceling existing visas and harming people who’d already sold their homes and started moving to the United States, as Trump did, the Obama administration stopped processing new applications from Iraq for refugee status or Special Immigrant Visas (e.g., for Iraqis who worked as translators for the U.S. military) while also conducting new background checks on current ones. No one was detained at an airport, pulled off of a plane or ordered back to the country he or she had just fled. And refugees from Iraq continued to be admitted throughout that period, according to Foreign Policy magazine, just in far smaller numbers.

Third, the Obama administration made no public announcements about the change in policy. Instead, it came to light two years later, when ABC News apparently broke the story. That’s a sharp contrast to the Trump approach of alienating people around the world by publicly shutting the door on seven countries’ immigrants, visitors and refugees.

And fourth, Obama didn’t make exceptions based on the applicant’s religion. Trump’s order gives non-Muslim refugees priority over Muslims after the ban on entry is lifted.

It’s odd to blame Obama for picking those seven countries. According to the Wall Street Journal, Congress rolled back the special access to the United States that citizens of four of those countries had been granted, ensuring that anyone from there or who had traveled there recently obtained a visa before coming here. The Obama administration later added the other three to the visa requirement.

Nor, as the Journal piece points out, have those countries been the major sources of people who commit terrorist acts in the United States: “Of 180 people charged with jihadist terrorism-related crimes or who died before being charged, 11 were identified as being from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Yemen, Sudan or Somalia, the countries specified in Mr. Trump’s order, according to an analysis of data on the attacks by the Wall Street Journal. None of the 11 were identified as coming from either Syria, Libya or Sudan, and none of the 11 were involved in any major U.S. plot resulting in the deaths of Americans, including the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.” Instead, the largest source by far is the United States itself, followed by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the Journal reported.

But hey, what do details matter to a man of action?

Former intel official: Trump immigration ban makes Americans less safe

CBS News

A former intelligence official said President Trump’s executive order temporarily banning refugees and also blocking travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries will actually make Americans less safe at home and abroad by serving as a recruitment boon for ISIS, and he warned that the Trump administration needs to “start making policy like adults.”

Michael Morell, a former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, told “CBS This Morning” that, contrary to making America safer, the Trump executive order “is going to make the threat worse. It is going to make us less safe.”

Morell said the policy misses its mark. “First of all, the biggest problem we face is homegrown terrorism. Of the roughly 100 people who have been indicted by the FBI for ISIS-related crimes over the last three years, 85 percent were American citizens. This doesn’t get at that at all,” he said.

Morell also noted that none of the attacks in the U.S. since and including 9/11 would have been affected by this travel ban. None of the 9/11 terrorists came from countries on this list, and the gunmen in more recent attacks in San Bernardino, Orlando and Fort Hood were all born in the United States.

What is more, he said, the Trump immigration order will make Americans less safe both at home and abroad by serving as a recruitment tool and an enhancement to ISIS propaganda, Morell said.

“It’s playing right into the ISIS narrative. ISIS has not said anything about this yet, but people around ISIS who amplify its message are talking about it, and they are saying, ‘See? We told you, this is a war against Islam.’ So this is going to be a recruitment boon for ISIS.”

On “Face the Nation” yesterday, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus defended the travel ban, saying that the seven Muslim-majority countries on the list — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — had been identified by the Obama administration as “sources of terror.”

“The Trump administration keeps on pointing to the seven countries saying these countries are on Obama’s list, right?” Morell said. “This was actually part of a program to enhance the security of the visa waiver program for people traveling from European countries. So they enhanced it. They already enhanced it. There was no evidence that there’s any weakness to it.”

Morell was also asked about a new development within the president’s National Security Council. On Saturday, Steve Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief political strategist and the former head of Breitbart News, was named to the group, while both the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence were removed from the council’s Principals Committee. In memo issued over the weekend, Mr. Trump said they would only be invited when “issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.”

Morell described the move as “unprecedented, both putting a political adviser on, and unprecedented taking off the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the DNI. I have never been to a principals’ meeting where the views of the DNI and the views of the Chairman are not relevant.

“Every principals’ meeting starts with an intelligence briefing by the DNI. And having somebody like Bannon in the room brings politics into a room where there should be no politics.” [...]

Rav Yitzchok Zilberstein: Women should not drive cars

BHOL  [Update סערת-נהיגת-הנשים-הרב-בלוי-הוא-מבין-כמו-תרנגול-לפני-כפרות.html]

רבה של רמת אלחנן בבני ברק וחבר מועצת גדולי התורה של דגל התורה טוען כי אחת הסיבות לתאונות הדרכים היא העובדה שנשים נוהגות - למרות "שאין זה דרכן"

בחוברת ליקוט שיעורים וחידושים של הגאון רבי יצחק זילברשטיין רבה של רמת אלחנן בבני ברק וחבר מועצת גדולי התורה, מתפרסמת שאלה ותשובה המעוררת שיח רב בימים אלו.אברך פנה בשאלה אל הרב, האם אשתו יכולה לנהוג ברכב, והסתמך על מה שנראה לו הגיוני מבחינת צניעות. הוא אף פירט את תחושותיו שהובילו אותו למחשבה זו, ביניהן העובדה שנסיעה באוטובוס או במונית, מהוות בעיה מבחינת צניעות, ייחוד ועוד. 

Trump's cruel, illegal refugee executive order

LA Times

The new refugee policy announced by President Trump on Friday is unconstitutional and inhumane. It is also completely unnecessary.

Trump’s executive order suspends the entry of refugees into the United States for 120 days. The order also indefinitely stops the admission of Syrian refugees and for 90 days bars individuals from seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Possibly due to poor drafting, the Department of Homeland Security said the order applies to green card holders reentering the United States. It has already resulted in chaos as travelers have been kept off flights to the United States or stranded at airports.

On Saturday night, a federal judge in New York issued a temporary stay, allowing green card or visa holders detained at airports to enter the country. The judge declared that the challengers have a “strong likelihood” of prevailing in showing that the Trump order violates due process and equal protection.

Trump’s action, determining one’s ability to enter the country based on nationality and place of residence, is illegal. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 explicitly says that no person can be “discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth or place of residence.” This act was adopted to eliminate the prior practice of immigration quotas from specific countries. Indeed, in signing the legislation, President Lyndon Johnson said that “the harsh injustice” of the national-origins quota system had been “abolished.”

Absent a specific authorization by Congress, the government cannot discriminate based on nationality or place of residence, which is exactly what Trump ordered.

Moreover, the Trump policy is unconstitutional discrimination based on religion. The Supreme Court repeatedly has said that above all, the 1st Amendment’s religion clauses forbid the government from favoring one religion over others. Although Trump’s executive order does not expressly exclude Muslims, that is obviously its purpose and its effect as it bans refugees from predominantly Muslim countries. It also instructs Homeland Security, after the 120-day period, to prioritize refugee claims “made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality.” (Emphasis mine.)

What does that mean? Trump told Christian Broadcast News that he intended to give priority to Christians. The Constitution does not allow such religious discrimination or permit the government to assume that a person is more likely to be dangerous because of his or her religion, national origin or race.

Barring individuals fleeing persecution from entering the United States is simply inhumane. Adding irony to injury, Trump’s executive order was issued on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which should have been an occasion to atone for turning away refugees during the 1930s — some of whom later died in concentration camps. For example, in 1939, the United States turned away the St. Louis, a boat filled with refugees, many of them German Jews. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 254 passengers from the St. Louis died in the Holocaust.

Like many American Jews, I had relatives die in the Holocaust because they could not get out of Nazi-occupied Europe and no other country would take them.

One of the most astounding aspects of Trump’s executive order is that he seems to have singled out countries where he has no business interests, while giving a reprieve to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, among others, where the Trump Organization is active.

The order is also nonsensical in that foreigners from the seven listed nations killed exactly zero Americans in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil between 1975 and the end of 2015, according to the Cato Institute. None of the terrorists from the 9/11 attacks or the Boston Marathon bombing or the San Bernardino shooting or the Orlando, Fla., massacre came from the seven countries listed. The home countries of those responsible were not included.[...]

Trump's Holocaust message deliberately ignores that Jews were targeted - "to be more inclusive"

Washington Post

Facing growing criticism for failing to mention Jews in a statement marking the Holocaust, the Trump administration on Sunday doubled down on the controversial decision.

In a statement on Friday, President Trump broke with the bipartisan practice of past presidents by failing to include any mention of the anti-Semitic views that fueled the Holocaust and left 6 million Jews and millions of others dead.

“I don’t regret the words,” said White House chief of staff Reince Priebus when asked to defend the statement on NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

“Everyone’s suffering [in] the Holocaust including obviously all of the Jewish people affected and miserable genocide that occurs — it’s something that we consider to be extraordinarily sad,” Priebus added.

Trump’s 117-word statement was issued on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Trump remembered “the victims, survivors, heroes of the Holocaust” without specifically mentioning Jewish people. [...]

On Sunday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) sharply criticized the White House for deploying a well-known tactic of Holocaust deniers.

“This is what Holocaust denial is,” Kaine said on NBC. “It’s either to deny that it happened or many Holocaust deniers acknowledge, ‘Oh yeah people were killed, but it was a lot of innocent people; Jews weren’t targets.’ ”

Conservative commentator John Podhoretz slammed the White House’s defense of its actions in a column on Saturday, noting that Nazi ideology rested on the aim of exterminating Jewish people from the face of earth.

“The Nazis killed an astonishing number of people in monstrous ways and targeted certain groups — Gypsies, the mentally challenged, and open homosexuals, among others,” Podhoretz wrote. “But the Final Solution was aimed solely at the Jews. The Holocaust was about the Jews.

“There is no ‘proud’ way to offer a remembrance of the Holocaust that does not reflect that simple, awful, world-historical fact,” he added. “To universalize it to ‘all those who suffered’ is to scrub the Holocaust of its meaning.” [...]

n a speech on Friday in Washington, the Israeli ambassador to the United States warned against separating the history of the Holocaust from the Jewish people.

“For many, the Holocaust is primarily a universal story about man’s inhumanity to man, about the evils of racism and xenophobia, about how even the most enlightened societies can descend into darkness and barbarism,” said Ambassador Ron Dermer. “But if this noble universal vision is not firmly rooted in an appreciation that the Holocaust is first and foremost a Jewish story, it can become not only dangerous but even immoral.”

The tactic of minimizing the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish people is also closely associated with nationalist movements in Europe, including the far-right National Front Party in France now led by Marine Le Pen, whose father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, was fined for Holocaust denial.[...]

Mishpacha Magazine -Trump's victory by the unconnected class also has a message for our community

The following is an excerpt from an article written by Yisrael Besser in this week's Mishpacha Magazine. It is not that it is a great chiddush or such a profound insight. The amazing thing is that it was published at all.

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The Trump victory wasn't just a crushing defeat to Democrats and a stinging denunciation of pollsters and the media. It was a resounding message to one particular class.

Newsweek quoted a Pennsylvania construction worker who explained Trump’s appeal. It was, he said, a revolt against the “connected class. The Washington types. Republican or Democrat, who don’t seem to care about people like me. It’s like we had no voice before Donald ran. No one heard us.”

If people feel disenfranchised for long enough, they will eventually find a way to speak up.

If people can’t get their kids into school because there are no spots, and space suddenly opens for the child of a wealthy person, then there’s a connected class.

If we have organizations or mosdos where a few make decisions for the many, then we have a connected class.

If access to gedolei Yisrael is controlled, with some people allowed to receive their brachah and others kept out in the cold, then we've created a connected class.

And then, because you can’t have one without the other, we've created an unconnected class too. And they are angry – perhaps with reason.

And after enough time, if enough hurt piles up, then they too can find a voice. You don’t need money or protektziya to find a voice on social media. The internet is to rage what a credit card is to debt. Visa or Amex don’t create debt, but they do allow it to spiral out of control.

Trump’s victory was a response and we’d do well to contemplate what that means. For someone to win, someone else has to lose – and that’s something we can’t afford in our camp.

The one’s who run schools or mosdos are, for the most part, remarkably selfless people, fueled by responsibility and compassion. Rabbi Mordechai Miller once received and irate letter form a gentleman whose granddaughter had been rejected by the Gateshead Teacher’s Seminary. Being a person of humility, Rabbi Miller considered apologizing, but was advised that the issues was his, but the accuser’s. He had done the correct thing.

Nevertheless Rabbi Miller kept the letter in his desk drawer, because he wanted the reminder of how much pain rejection can cause. This way, he felt, he’d be more sensitive in the future.

The unconnected class is out there and they’re angry. They've just written quite the letter. But instead of reading it, the media wonders how they managed to mail it correctly.

It’s one worth reading.

Embryos that are human-pig hybrids offer hope for patients who need organ transplants

LA Times

 In a bid to make organs for patients in need of transplants, scientists have created embryos that were hybrids of humans and pigs and grown them until they were on the verge of developing the body parts that might one day save lives.

Researchers reported Thursday in the journal Cell that they injected pig embryos with human stem cells that were capable of developing into a wide range of tissues. Those composite embryos were then transferred into the wombs of mother pigs.

By the time the scientists harvested the embryos after four weeks, the human stem cells had established beachheads throughout the developing pigs. As a blob of fetal pig tissue reached the cusp of developing into a cluster of distinct organs, human cells appeared throughout the tiny organism, ready to contribute to the generation of organs.

Each of these embryos held the promise of becoming a true chimera: a creature half-human, half-beast that has inspired myths and science fiction fantasies through the ages.

In a future that is now a bit closer, such chimeric creatures could become incubators for replacement organs that are in seriously short supply. Each day in the United States, 22 people who need a new heart, lung, kidney or liver die while waiting for a suitable organ to become available. [...]

The domestic pig has long been seen as animal that could incubate replacement organs for humans. They are fellow mammals whose organs grow to about the same size as those of an adult human in the span of about two years.

But if the human immune system is to be tricked into accepting a pig’s organ, scientists know that human cells — in fact, cells specific to the transplant recipient — would need to be well represented in that organ.

Making that happen seemed like a science-fiction dream only four years ago, when the Cell study began, said developmental biologist Jun Wu, the paper’s lead author.

But human stem cell technology has advanced to the point that scientists can turn back the clock on mature skin cells and render them capable of becoming any one of a wide range of specialized tissues. And scientists have a better understanding of the processes by which such stem cells begin to differentiate and become distinct tissues.[...]

In future research, Wu said, Salk scientists will explore how to increase the concentration of human cells in certain organs (such as the heart). They also want to glean assurances that human cells are not going to organs, such as the brain and gonads, that raise deep concerns among ethicists.

The concerns are two-fold, said Arizona State University bioethicist Jason Robert. 

If human cells enter the gonadal tissue of pigs, they could introduce profound genetic changes that would be passed on to future generations. And if human cells enter the pig’s brain tissue, there is the remote but very frightening prospect of “endowing the resulting creature with some kind of humanesque brain or cognitive capacity,” he said.

With both concerns in mind, the National Institutes of Health have placed strict limits on the creation of chimeric organisms involving human cells. (In recent months, NIH officials have proposed loosening some of those limits.)

The findings in Cell are somewhat reassuring on that front. Wu and Belmonte report that, at least at the early stage of fetal development they studied, human cells had not made their way into the pigs’ gonadal or brain tissue, although they were found in peripheral nervous system tissue

Robert suggested that future research might introduce human cells into the embryonic tissue of even higher-order animals, including primates. If so, the bioethical debates could be fierce.

But for now, he said, scientists and ethicists have time to wrestle with the issues raised by chimeric organisms. Though the accomplishment reported is dramatic, he said, it offers “a very technically competent illustration that we’ve got a long way to go” before truly chimeric creatures are a reality.[...]