AN APPRECIATION OF RABBI ARYEH KAPLAN + VIDEO

 https://60.ncsy.org/appreciation-rabbi-aryeh-kaplan/

In a sense, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan was a meteor, a dazzling light that illuminated the darkened skies of post-Holocaust Torah learning, but burned out far too soon. With his scientific background, Rabbi Kaplan might have pointed out the inaccuracy of this comparison; more likely, his modesty and unassuming demeanor would have led him to deflect this much-deserved praise. And that, in a nutshell, is the life-story of Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan.

Few, if any, have had greater impact on the Jewish spiritual awakening often called “the teshuva movement.” Although other religious leaders sent out emissaries and still others opened yeshivot, Rabbi Kaplan directly and personally impacted an almost unfathomable number of Jews, primarily through NCSY, but also through his prolific writing. Rabbi Kaplan saw the teshuva phenomenon not so much as a movement, but as a perfectly natural, even inevitable return of Jews to their heritage.

Conversations In The Spirit: Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

 http://www.nyspirit.com/spirit-readings/in-the-spirit/conversations-spirit-part-8-rabbi-aryeh-kaplan/

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan: Let me just elaborate on that. As anybody who’s familiar with the Jewish community knows, the Orthodox Jew prays three times a day, and the central part of that prayer is a prayer known as the Amidah [or Standing Prayer]. If one says that prayer correctly, with intense concentration, one gently pushes away all outside thoughts and is drawn close to the Divine.

We never thought of this as meditation. When people come to me and say, “I’m a religious Jew, I pray every day. How should I meditate?” Now, I say, “Make your daily prayer into a meditation.” There are other meditations a person could do, but the major meditation that a Jew does can be part of the service. And this whole methodology was part of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings in Hasidism. Although many other schools of Jewish meditation had existed, what the Baal Shem Tov did was to make the normal prayer service the integral part of Jewish meditation.

I might add that in Kabbalah, one of the important teachings is that every act that a person does throughout the day can and does become a meditation; that every act that a person does throughout the day can create a unification.

An Open Letter to Buddhist Jews

Meditation and the Bible by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan – Book Review

 https://www.lovingkindness.co/2018/10/28/meditation-and-the-bible-by-rabbi-aryeh-kaplan-book-review/

At the time of Rabbi Kaplan’s writing his works on Jewish meditation, the Lubavticher Rebbe had been coming out with the importance of authentic kosher mediation being taught to the Jewish people. I strongly believe that Rabbi Kaplan was at the forefront of such teachings and that those studying his works will find themselves on a path of purity that can only lead to further holiness, a love of Torah, a love of the Jewish people and a love of God.

What I Didn’t Find in a Tibetan Monastery, I Found at Chabad

 https://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/5103225/jewish/What-I-Didnt-Find-in-a-Tibetan-Monastery-I-Found-at-Chabad.htm

Rabbi Kushner told Paul that when he got back to the United States, he should buy Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan’s books on authentic Jewish meditation.

Paul did exactly that. He studied Rabbi Kaplan’s books like textbooks. Although Rabbi Kaplan’s books did not work for Paul since he had his heart set on peace in this world and not in higher Kabbalistic realms, they did have an intense impact on him. They had awakened his Jewish pride. For the first time in his life, he realized that “a Jew is a Jew,” and he can’t deny it or run away from that. Judaism and Kabbalah were a far cry from the monastery. The Dalai Lama’s opinion that spiritual seekers should first aim to preserve the religion of their ancestors started to make sense to him. He knew he would have to explore Judaism in earnest.

Whoopi Goldberg Suspended Despite Apology After Firestorm Over Holocaust Remarks

https://www.newsweek.com/adl-leader-discusses-whoopi-goldberg-controversy-view-1675176 

The View host Whoopi Goldberg has been suspended from the show for two weeks following her controversial comments on the Holocaust.

The suspension was handed down Tuesday night despite Goldberg apologizing for her remarks both on Tuesday on The View and during a Monday night appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

"While Whoopi has apologized, I've asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments," ABC News President Kim Godwin said in a statement. "The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, families, and communities."

French police arrest 16 teachers at ultra-Orthodox school for alleged student abuse

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/french-police-arrest-16-teachers-at-ultra-orthodox-school-for-alleged-student-abuse/

The raid at Beth Yossef occurred amid a crackdown against unlicensed schools in France that began in 2020. The move, announced by French President Emmanuel Macron, was widely understood to be aimed at curbing the activities of informal Muslim schools as part of a broader push against radical Islam. Many French Jews have supported the crackdown.

Asked whether the raid at Beth Yossef could be collateral damage in the crackdown on Muslim counterparts amid fears of radicalization, Habib said: “It’s a good question. It’s a question we will be asking in the coming days.”

As officials denounce Nazi rallies in Orlando, DeSantis accuses political opponents of ‘smear’

 https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-ne-orlando-nazis-demonstration-reaction-20220131-sog5iicbuvdfpim2apkt6q74ea-story.html

Neo-Nazi demonstrations in Orlando over the weekend drew bipartisan condemnations from state and local officials, but Gov. Ron DeSantis remained silent until Monday afternoon when he responded to a question about the rallies with a tirade against his political enemies.

“So what I’m going to say is these people, these Democrats who are trying to use this as some type of political issue to try to smear me as if I had something to with do that, we’re not playing their game,” the governor said during a press conference in Palm Beach.

He referred to the demonstrators, a group of about 20 shouting antisemitic slurs while waving Nazi flags near a UCF-area shopping plaza on Saturday and on an Interstate 4 overpass on Sunday, as “some jackasses doing this on the street” and said they’d be held accountable by law enforcement.

But he also accused Democrats who called for him to denounce the neo-Nazis — as fellow Republican office-holders including U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and state House Speaker Chris Sprowls had already done — of exploiting the demonstrations for political gain, while also touting his record of support for the Jewish community and Israel.

Despite all his manufactured anger, truth is, DeSantis failed to condemn Nazi demonstrators

 https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article257906108.html

Denounce the Nazi demonstrators in Orlando, Gov. Ron DeSantis. It’s that simple. Say they are abhorrent. Say they are despicable. Say they have no part in this society or this state. But no. Instead, our governor attacked Democrats during a press conference in Palm Beach County on Monday. Dragged in issues like immigration and inflation and crime. Accused unnamed people — Democrats, of course — of trying to “smear” him. Said he wouldn’t “play their game.”

DeSantis says people calling for him to condemn Nazis are trying to 'smear' him

 https://edition.cnn.com/2022/01/31/politics/ron-desantis-anti-semitic-protests/index.html

Condemnations poured in from across the political spectrum on social media. US Rep. Val Demings, a Democrat who represents Orlando, wrote that "America beat their disturbing ideology before and we'll do it again." Sen. Rick Scott, a Republican and former governor, wrote that the recent rise of antisemitism in America was "heartbreaking & disgusting."

"We must always condemn it & continue to stand strongly with our Jewish communities," Scott wrote.

DeSantis, though, had not made a public statement about the incidents until asked about them Monday afternoon at a news conference to address Everglades funding. DeSantis referred to the demonstrators as "some jackass doing this on the street."

Amnesty: Israel practices apartheid against Palestinians in West Bank, Gaza, Israel

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/amnesty-accuses-israel-of-apartheid-both-inside-country-and-in-west-bank-gaza/

Amnesty International said Tuesday that Israel has maintained “a system of oppression and domination” over the Palestinians going all the way back to its establishment in 1948, one that meets the international definition of apartheid.

The accusation was leveled against Israel both within its borders and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In a report unveiled in Jerusalem, the group did not directly compare Israel to apartheid South Africa, but said it was evaluating Israel’s policies based on international conventions.

Ahead of the report’s release, Israel called it “false, biased, and antisemitic” and accused the organization of endangering the safety of Jews around the world. The rights group released the document despite calls from Israel to not to do so.

Amnesty called on those actors to “use all political and diplomatic tools to ensure Israeli authorities implement the recommendations outlined in this report and review any cooperation and activities with Israel to ensure that these do not contribute to maintaining the system of apartheid.”

Amb. Herzog: Amnesty denies Israel's right to exist

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/321555

"Claiming that Israel has built and operated an apartheid system since its inception in 1948 essentially means that it was established on an immoral foundation and therefore has no right to exist. The report itself is blatantly ideologically motivated, biased and full of lies and inaccuracies. It totally distorts the true meaning of the phrase apartheid to suit its political purposes, and it also totally distorts the true nature of Israel.

Amnesty: We reject Israel's bare faced lie that we are antisemitic

 https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-695203

Israel and critics of the report have accused Amnesty of criminalizing the Jewish right to self-determination as an act of apartheid, while upholding the rights of Palestinians to an ethnic nationalist state.

Dinesh D'Souza, America's greatest conservative troll, explained

 https://www.vox.com/2014/10/8/6936717/dinesh-dsouza-explained

On May 31, President Donald Trump, one of America’s premiere conservative trolls, decided to pardon Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative writer and documentarian whose penchant for trolling and needling liberals, and embracing conspiracy theories in the process, rivals that of Trump himself.