Violating the Vineyard" Update:

Wed., 4 Ellul, '79

By Binyomin Feinberg,

Contributor to The Jewish Press*

* Views and perspectives herein do not necessarily reflect those of the ownership or management of The Jewish Press.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For Giyus Banos updates throughout the week, visit:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dPo1_Y-0u6ry7tLcfF2RbQuEFrIG-BccszjeG9FAdSw/edit?usp=sharing 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*****************************

As of now, Avigail L. H. risks arrest by Israeli military police for her courageous refusal to comply with anti-Torah Israeli draft orders - while her mother battles both cancer and the IDF simultaneously.

*****************************

A 17 y/o Chabad girl in Israel, Avigail L. H., is under immediate threat of arrest, despite being under 18, because of her refusal to comply with Israeli military draft orders. Her mother, Mrs. Ruth E. H., a baalas teshuva, and a former Israeli Air Force captain, who has been battling cancer for seven years, is simultaneously battling the government's bizarre insistence on harassing her only daughter.

Avigail submitted her religious certification properly and on time. But, in February, just after she turned 17, her mother had a shocking conversation with a Jerusalem Draft Office official, Keren L. (now a Colonel). In that 

conversation, according to Mrs. H., Officer L. refused to accept that Avigail is Chareidi, and therefore legally entitled to a religious exemption." I will decide" that question she said, adding that "I will profane (or "violate") The Vineyard ("Achalail et HaKerem"), and I will start with your daughter."*

(*See https://daattorah.blogspot.com/2019/08/alh-report-2-28-augviolating-vineyard.html )

Since then, the family has been enduring incessant harassment by the IDF draft office. Now Avigail has been threatened with arrest.

It is Keren's antireligious agenda of "profaning the Vineyard" that is what appears to be behind the bizarre vendetta against this indisputably Chareidi teenage girl.

As the legal process proceeds, this needless battle takes a serious toll on the health of the severely ill mother. It's literally a situation of pickuach nefesh. B"H, an especially suitable attorney has been retained for this case.

Donations for attorney fees are needed. Donations may be made to "Shomrei Torah," 646-585-3044. Specifically designate funds for the case of Avigail Leah H..

Online:

https://www.matara.pro/nedarimplus/online/?mosad=7000774 

####

Elul! Holiness and Yet Strife in Israel Rav Dovid Eidensohn

I am a deeply religious Jew as is my family, most of whom live in Israel. But I am told and have noticed myself, that although the Orthodox Torah community has many children and are eventually to become the majority of Israeli Jews, at this time the very strong religious suffer from some secular Israelis. Why?

It all began in the beginning of the twentieth century in 1917. Then, the British who were not winning the First World War, had a Jewish scientist Chaim Weizman who invented a new kind of bomb. The British used it and won the First World War.

Eventually the British army conquered and even entered Israel. I saw the pictures of that time. The General of the British army and Chaim Weizman stood at the side welcoming the marching British troops into Jerusalem. Next to them, slightly lower than these two, were the rabbi of Jerusalem Rabbi Yosef Shalom Sonnenfeld and another rabbi.

These years of the First World War saw entire countries in mortal combat. People suffered and the Jews surely suffered. As time went on, although originally the British backed Jews because of Chaim Weizman and his bomb, eventually, many Arabs openly hated Jews in Israel and plotted to kill them. The new British government now turned against the Jews. It began to forbid Jewish men to enter Israel. Finally, in 1948, after six million Jews had been murdered by the Germans, the nations of the world allowed Jews to have a tiny part of Israel for their new country.

The Israeli government has various small groups who vote for them. The election in Israel of a new government takes in consideration that the chamber of the government accepts 120 seats. But the large group of voters does not even have forty seats. So groups merge.

1

The group that can assemble 61 seats is appointed by the President of Israel to form a government. In the past five elections the Premier of Israel off and on has been Benyamin Netanyohu. Although not personally religious, his Likud Party is basically religious, and his style of assuming the Premiership has been to join his Likud to other parties usually of Orthodox Jews.

The previous effort of Netanyohu to remain Premier of Israel foundered when an opponent refused to join his party unless religious Jews served in the military. This caused the government to fail to find a single party that could produce the next Premier. So a new election was scheduled for a few weeks in September 17.

Another issue dividing the religious and secular is the extreme ruling of the great rabbis of the world that Jewish women may not serve not only in the Israeli army, but in any capacity at all decreed by the government. A Jewish woman is only allowed to be guided by her father and her husband, not the government, even if it requires them to pray every day.

These and similar issues have caused problems for years, although the Orthodox are rapidly becoming the major force in the Jewish community, and although the Arabs who are also represented in the Israeli government hate Jews and regularly some Arabs murder Jews.

Arabs who murder Jews are allowed to vote for Israeli governments. But some secular people maintain that Arabs may vote but religious people who oppose Arabs murdering Jews may not.

There are three things dividing the religious and irreligious. The religious believe in the Torah of HaShem. The secular do not in general accept the Torah. But some hate religious people. and some do not. We know that Moshiach is on the way, we hope soon!

חב"ד | שאלות לרב | בגד - ימין על שמאל

http://www.chabad.org.il/Questions/Item.asp?ArticleID=2297&CategoryID=68

בגד - ימין על שמאל

נושא: מנהגים

הרב המשיב: הרב יוסף ש. גינזבורג

תאריך: י' בסיון התשס"ה (17/06/05)

השאלה:

עד כמה חשוב להקפיד שצידו הימני של הבגד יהיה רכוס על צד שמאל ולא להפך?

תשובת הרב:

מנהג ישראל להקפיד על כך בבגדים העליונים (חליפה וכדומה), ומשמעות הדבר - שה'שמאל' (המייצג את ה'דין') בטל ל'ימין' (המייצגת את ה'חסד'). בתצלומים מלפני כמה דורות, ובפרט של גדולי ישראל מחוגים מגוונים, גם שאינם-חסידים, רואים שכך היה מקובל בעבר בקהילות ישראל.

Chareidim Don’t Work and Won’t Go into the Army

https://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/muqata/chareidim-dont-work-and-wont-go-into-the-army/2019/08/07/

Avigdor Liberman is putting in overtime to convince Israeli voters that this election is about Religion, State and Chareidim (the Ultra-Orthodox)- when it is only about dethroning Netanyahu, distancing Liberman’s former close partners – the Chareidim, from the government, and if his latest faux pas is any indication, to maneuver his way into the premiership.

We’ve all heard claims how Chareidim don’t work, that Chareidim don’t go to the army, that Chareidim don’t carry their share of the national burden. Liberman’s supporters are saying Liberman is raising this anti-Chareidi / anti-religious flag for their own good and ours.

The tone, the rhetoric, the Sinat Chinam is horrifying – and far too many people accept these statements/assumptions as fact.

The case for making Donald Trump America's first king

Joseph Orlowyesterdayedited

t

The men who rebelled against the crown were also living in the wrong society. So they fixed it. The time has come to rebalance and move back towards monarchy.

https://www.vox.com/2016/7/20/12235572/donald-trump-king-america

Evidently, Trump is interested in the prestige and public attention that comes with the presidency. But he doesn’t want to spend a lot of time worrying about niggling policy issues like Brexit or corporate tax reform.

While the idea of a president with no power sounds crazy to American ears, it’s actually how a lot of advanced democracies work around the world. Many countries have a ceremonial figurehead — either an elected president or a hereditary monarch — who represents the nation at state dinners and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. And they also have a head of government, usually the prime minister, who makes all the important policy decisions.

In the United States, we’ve combined these roles into a single person, and it hasn’t been working very well. It’s made the presidency an impossibly demanding job, while giving our head of government a degree of prestige that makes it harder to hold him accountable for his policy mistakes.

So here’s a modest proposal: Let’s make Donald Trump king of the United States. This seems to be the job he actually wants. And replacing America’s powerful elected president with a powerless hereditary monarchy would improve the American political system.

Trump campaign manager calls polling "the biggest joke in politics

CONGRATULATE COM. FOR EJECTING SEXUAL ABUSE RABBIS - SAFED CHIEF RABBBI

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Congratulate-community-for-ejecting-sexual-abuse-rabbis-Safed-chief-rabbi-600442

Chief Rabbi of Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu said on Monday that the religious-Zionist community should be congratulated for ejecting rabbis from its midst who have committed sexual abuse or harassment.

Eliyahu was speaking in reference to at least three incidents in recent years in which prominent religious-Zionistrabbis have either been criminally convicted of sexual assault or accused of sexual impropriety.

Does anyone understand the 2020 race? This scholar nailed the blue wave — here's her forecast

https://www.salon.com/2019/08/17/this-political-scientist-completely-nailed-the-2018-blue-wave-heres-her-2020-forecast/

My model for 2020 starts off with Democrats at 278 Electoral College votes, and that's a problem for Trump, because of course you need 270 to win. It does that because of my model's prediction, based on turnout and predicted vote share, that Pennsylvania and Michigan will slip back to the Democrats. I'm uncertain about Ohio, but even if Trump wins Ohio, he can't win the other three Midwestern states. Then as you point out I have four tossup states: Arizona, North Carolina, Florida and Iowa. Even if he wins all four of them, the Democrats have already won the election — and the idea that he would win all four is pretty unlikely. 

President Donald Trump Loses In Trump Country trump's future is bleak

The Three Oaths dilemma dividing Jewish Zionists from anti-Zionists

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/22302

The Talmud cites three oaths which G-d administered: “One oath was that Israel would not make Aliyah 'as a wall'; and one oath was that G-d adjured Israel not to rebel against the nations; and one oath was that G-d adjured the nations not to persecute Israel too much” (Ketuvot 111a).

Of these three oaths, therefore, two apply to Israel and one to the other nations.

These Three Oaths are the basis for the ostensibly religious Jewish opposition to Zionism: the very essence of Zionism was that Jews from the world over return to Israel, ascending to the Land of Israel “as a wall”, together, united, using military force when necessary.

This compels the question: Does Zionism indeed violate G-d’s will? Do these Three Oaths constitute halakhah (Jewish religious law) in practice?

By Republican Standards, Almost Nothing Is Racist

When Democrats are accused of anti-Semitism, Republicans understand that coded language can be hurtful. But Trump’s racist comments get a pass.

Most of the time, conservatives and Republicans want the bar for what constitutes bigotry to be set extremely high. When President Donald Trump tweeted last weekend that four nonwhite Democrats in Congress should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” he offered a textbook example of racism. Trump’s own Equal Employment Opportunity Commission uses the phrase Go back to where you came from as one of its examples of discrimination based on national origin. Yet Trump insisted that “those Tweets were NOT Racist”—even as he doubled down on them by launching an attack on Representative Ilhan Omar that prompted rally-goers in North Carolina on Wednesday night to chant “Send her back!”

At the same time that Trump was denying charges of bigotry, however, he was also leveling them. At the North Carolina rally, he accused Omar of “vicious anti-Semitic” remarks—a reference to her tweet that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s influence in Washington is “all about the Benjamins” and her allegation that pro-Israel groups “push for allegiance to a foreign country.” Those comments—which evoked hoary stereotypes of Jews as money-driven and disloyal—elicited criticism even from Democrats, and Omar apologized for the first. But however damning one considers her statements, it’s utterly illogical to claim that they constitute bigotry while Trump’s far more direct attack does not. Yet this is exactly what Trump and other prominent Republicans are doing.

MORE BY PETER BEINART

Children holding Greenland's national flag

Greenland’s Wishes Don’t Matter to Trump

PETER BEINART

Donald Trump gives a speech in front of the Washington Monument.

Disloyal to What?

PETER BEINART

Joe Biden in Des Moines, Iowa

Only Biden Can Challenge Trump on Trade

PETER BEINART

A view across the border into Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

White Nationalists Discover the Environment

PETER BEINART

When Democrats are accused of prejudice against Jews, Republicans can find it easy to discern ugly coded language. But when Trump and others in his party are accused of hostility to black people, Muslims, and Latinos, prominent conservatives set the standard for what constitutes bigotry so high that it’s almost impossible to meet.

The Republican Party has its own Israel problem

https://www.jta.org/2019/03/20/opinion/the-republican-party-has-an-israel-problem

But Republicans, who often point to declining support for Israel among Democrats, should also be paying attention to similar trends in their own party.

The largest recorded drop this year is the percentage of Republicans – not Democrats – who sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians. Republican sympathies for Israel fell 11 percentage points this year, to 76 percent from 87 percent, a slightly lower level of sympathy than Gallup has recorded in the last decade.

Support for Israel among Republicans certainly remains robust, with 43 percent of Republicans reporting a “very favorable” view of the country. But there are signs that this support should not be taken for granted. A significant minority of Republicans, for a variety of reasons, are eschewing America’s traditional alliance with Israel and are skeptical of President Donald Trump’s ability to handle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

What Donald Trump Will Never Understand About Jews

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/290038/what-donald-trump-will-never-understand-about-jews

President Trump is well aware that the vast majority of American Jews voted against him and are loyal to the Democratic Party. He is well aware that the vast majority of the Jewish members of Congress are Democrats. The idea that the Democratic Party stands against Israel is certifiably false. Regardless of how you feel about Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar—I find them contemptible, not least for lying to Jewish voters during election season about their views on a two-state solution and BDS—they are two junior members of the Democratic Party.  They do not represent the majority, or even a sizable faction within the party.  

Indeed, last week over 40 of their peers, freshman Democrats, visited Israel. Yossi Klein Halevi described them as a diverse group of policymakers who were empathetic to Israeli security concerns and excited to be there. When we talk about party leadership the lie becomes even more obvious. Nita Lowey, chairwoman of the extremely powerful House Appropriations Committee; Hakeem Jeffries, likely the next speaker of the House and the highest ranking African American in the House; Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, all have impeccably pro-Israel records.  The notion that the Democratic Party supports cutting foreign aid to Israel is laughable—especially considering that the last person in Congress to actually block aid to Israel was a Republican. 

In fact, if you’re looking for something that a big number of Jewish Democrats agree on, it’s the investigation of Trump’s alleged crimes: Nearly half the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee are Jewish—including Chairman Jerry Nadler. 

No. What’s really happening here is not just irresponsible; it’s purposeful. The president thrives on fear. He hopes that by dividing America and frightening America he will win. And so he engineered this political moment. He pressured Prime Minister Netanyahu to make the wrong call so he could reap the political rewards. He created this political moment so he could call the majority of American Jews disloyal. He can’t make the case for us to vote for him on merit, so he resorts to bullying us. 

Now we must grapple with how to respond to this terrifying moment.  

Let’s start by being honest with ourselves. As hard as this is to accept, it’s simply a reality that whole swaths of the American political establishment are treating us like morons. Like we couldn’t possibly believe that Omar’s rhetoric is anti-Semitic and Trump’s rhetoric is also anti-Semitic. As though we couldn’t possibly be nuanced enough to be furious at both these few members of the House as well as the president. As though we couldn’t recognize both the left and the right have anti-Semitism problems. Be furious at BOTH. Demand better from BOTH. Look at your side of the aisle and raise hell—that is what you owe your people, your tribe; not lockstep agreement or partisanship, but the courage and conviction to demand the very best from those you vote for, volunteer, donate to, identify with. I want to see you at every town hall, meet-and-greet, and advocacy day demanding that those who are asking for your vote fight rising anti-Semitism always, not just when politically useful. 

To that end, I want to say that I am profoundly disappointed not a single Democrat condemned Omar and Tlaib sharing a deeply anti-Semitic cartoon drawn by the second place winner of Iran’s International Holocaust Cartoon Competition, Carlos Latuff. I encourage all of you to reach out to Democratic leaders in your community and express your anger, dismay, and disappointment at their silence—and tell them you demand better if they want your vote.  

The Truth the Trump gospel according to Yated

https://yated.com/the-truth/

But when the president of the United States, who is a greater supporter of Israel than anyone who preceded him in that position, points out the obvious and says that a Jew who doesn’t vote Republican is either an idiot or disloyal to the party that supports Israel and fights anti-Semitism, the Jews and the media go crazy and say that Trump is out of his mind. How dare he point out that the Democrats can no longer be counted on to support Israel? Who is he to remind everyone that the Democrat Party tolerates anti-Semitism and has within its ranks some of the most prominent enemies of the Jewish state? Not only does the party support and condone them, but it places them on vital congressional committees, where they certainly don’t belong.

Trump, the media warns, is an anti-Semite. “Jews,” they say, “be careful. Stay away from him. He doesn’t like you.”

It is helpless to remind them that his son-in-law is Jewish, that he permitted his daughter to undergo an Orthodox conversion to marry a Jew, that his grandchildren are Jewish, that his closest people in the administration are Jews, that he stuck his neck out for Israel several times, and that he freed Rubashkin because he is a compassionate person who cares about justice.

The New York Times and the media echo chamber that follows it accused Trump of bringing up the old canard that Jews are not patriotic citizens of the lands in which they reside, because he used that dirty word “loyal” when he said that Jews who vote for Democrats “are being very disloyal to the Jewish people and very disloyal to Israel.”