History again echoes, as the predicate for Hamas’ attack had less to do with anything that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have done—now is not the moment to blame the victim. Rather, the trigger to the attack was likely that the prospect of a wider Mideast peace was almost at hand through an impending deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Hamas’ sabotage parallels the disruption of the prospective Israeli-Palestinian peace plan in 2000 on the heels of a Camp David Summit when the devastation of the Second Intifada ruined any dreams of normalization and resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians.
Sunday, October 8, 2023
Ilhan Omar Reacts to Hamas Assault on Israel
https://www.newsweek.com/ilhan-omar-reacts-hamas-assault-israel-1832893
"I condemn the horrific acts we are seeing unfold today in Israel against children, women, the elderly, and the unarmed people who are being slaughtered and taken hostage by Hamas. Such senseless violence will only repeat the back and forth cycle we've seen, which we cannot allow to continue. We need to call for deescalation and ceasefire," Omar wrote. "I will keep advocating for peace and justice throughout the Middle East."
Reprehensible: Congresswoman calls on US to stop funding Israel amid Hamas attack
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/378069
The congresswoman concluded: "As part of achieving a just and lasting peace, we must do our part to stop this violence and trauma by ending US government support for Israeli military occupation and apartheid. I am continuing to closely monitor the situation, and my Office is ready to support residents of the First District with family members and loved ones in the region."
‘Bring Them Home’: Israeli Families Plead for the Lives of Hamas’ Civilian Hostages
Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri was quoted telling Al Jazeera on Saturday that all the Israeli hostages taken to the Gaza Strip would likely be freed in exchange for Palestinians serving out sentences in Israeli prisons.
“Our detainees in [Israeli] prisons, their freedom is looming large. What we have in our hands will release all our prisoners. The longer fighting continues, the higher the number of prisoners will become,” he said.
Saturday, October 7, 2023
Pentagon says it will support Israel after Netanyahu declares war
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. stands squarely by Israel and will ensure it “has what it needs to defend itself” after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war against Palestinian militants that launched a surprise attack on his country.
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
300 Patients Sue Columbia University Over Doctor's Sexual Abuse
https://www.newsweek.com/300-patients-sue-columbia-doctors-sexual-abuse-1832067
More than 300 women are suing Columbia University, accusing the institution of "enabling" the serial sex abuser Robert Hadden, who was a gynecologist in its affiliated hospital system.
Monday, October 2, 2023
Marrying again while being married // The International Beit Din has taken upon itself the mission of freeing agunos, but rabbanim from across the spectrum have warned that their methods violate halachah and endanger klal Yisrael
https://www.amimagazine.org/2021/07/14/marrying-again-while-being-married/
However, the scholarship its members use to justify their decisions has been determined to be sorely deficient. The IBD has published 13 of its “psakim,” which are available for anyone to read on its website. These “teshuvos” were panned by a host of leading poskim, including Rav Hershel Schachter and Rav Mendel Zilber, who said that these supposed psakim are actually error-laden misreadings and misunderstandings of Rishonim and Acharonim. (See our interview with Rav Hershel Schachter for a more detailed explanation.)
Rabbis finally break silence on sex abuse
MAY 26, 2011
The rabbinical advice was both candid and clear. In response to the observation that allegations of abuse had been suppressed out of fear of communal disgrace (hilul hashem), Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn, author of Child and Domestic Abuse, responded: "Covering up is a much worse hilul hashem." Where a child is in danger, he noted that the halachic concept of pikuach nefesh (danger to an individual) mandates the - legally required - reporting of the situation to secular authorities.
Trump's defense in $250M NY fraud case: 'That is not fraud — that is real estate'
https://nypost.com/2023/10/02/trump-fraud-trial-in-nyc-live-updates-reactions-photos-more/
Donald Trump pumped up his net worth as a vanity project – to climb up Forbes’ list of billionaires – and also so he could save millions on loan and insurance terms, the New York Attorney General’s Office claimed at the start of the former president’s $250 million civil fraud trial Monday.
Sunday, October 1, 2023
Israel is fighting a holy war on Judaism, ultra-Orthodox leader claims
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-761164
Gafni launched a scathing attack on economists whom he claimed to have met with over the past few months, stating that "their war is not socio-economic or security-related, it's a war on religion.
Friday, September 29, 2023
Coping with Modernity: An interview with Rabbi Emanuel Rackman
https://thejewishreview.org/articles/?id=184
Jewish Review: One of the arguments against the ?modern Orthodox? or ?Torah im derekh eretz? point of view is that it seems to inevitably produce individuals who are less committed to halakha and who are less involved in Jewish learning.? Could you comment on this charge?
Rabbi Rackman: It is true, and there is no doubt that the rabbis of the Talmud recognized this too.? They spoke of four men who went into an orchard (the orchard, presumably, is Greek philosophy); one of them looked and went berserk, another one looked and converted to another faith, and one looked and died.? Only one of the four, Rabbi Akiva, entered in peace and came out in peace.? This indicates that we have always been aware of the danger, and that, therefore, not everybody should feel that all secular learning should be approached through an open door.? This is why many Orthodox parents who send their children to universities encourage them to study accounting, to become businessmen, chemists even, but not to engage in the study of philosophy and psychology.? The threats and challenges to Judaism come from the humanities and the social sciences, not so much from the natural sciences.? Natural science, we know, has no pretense to absolute truth; at best it gives you a good guess, a relative truth, and thus most observant Jews can safely enter its realm.? By the same token it is very important for some people to study the humanities, philosophy and social sciences, because, first, we know that the majority of Jews are going to be exposed to modern culture, and hence our permitting the dual exposure to Torah and philosophy, for example, helps to allow those who want to remain loyal Jews to do so without undue conflict.? In addition, we ultimately discover, for example, that the writings of the Rambam and his successors (including those who frowned upon him and prohibited his works) showed an influence of ?secular? ideas.? There were some ideas which emerged from the encounter of torah and secular thought which are of everlasting religious value.? For example, the writings of Samson Rafael Hirsch are so influenced by Immanuel Kant that we cannot fully appreciate Hirsch without an understanding of Kant, and there are indeed some insights of Hirsch, albeit stemming from a Kantian or Hegelian influence, which are valid despite these influences and have and will outlive (what might be perceived to be) the failure of Kant or Hegel.
Context of the Rav Soloveitchik Transcription
https://jewishlink.news/letters/30336-context-of-the-rav-soloveitchik-transcription
This talk was delivered by the Rav as a response to proposals by Rabbi Emanuel Rackman to resolve the problems faced by women whose husbands refused to grant them a Jewish divorce. Rabbi Rackman was also in line at that time as a top candidate to become president of Yeshiva University.
Rav Soloveitchik’s strident remarks in the piece that you published characterized (without spelling this out) that the innovations that Rabbi Rackman wanted to make in divorce law were (1) heretical and (2) liable to “destroy yahadus (Judaism)” and (3) “methods of self-destruction and suicide.” Harsh words indeed.
And to justify his positions against the Rackman modifications, the Rav made several declarations about the nature of women that he called “permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality,” in particular that “the chazaka of ‘better to dwell with two bodies than to dwell as a widow’” (i.e., the presumption of the Talmud that a woman is better off married than single) is a “metaphysical curse, rooted in the feminine personality.”
The Rav’s speech succeeded to suppress Rabbi Rackman’s proposals at the time and to marginalize him at YU, thus ending his chances to ascend to the presidency of Yeshiva University. Rackman went on to become president and chancellor at Bar Ilan University in Israel and to initiate independent innovations in the area of Jewish divorce without the approval of Rav Soloveitchik or other rabbis at Yeshiva University.
Rackman's aguna solution was rejected by Modern Orthodox also - Rabbi Norman Lamm
https://traditiononline.org/rabbi-emanuel-rackman-zl-a-critical-appreciation/
It was this question that applied to the Rackman efforts in relieving the plight of the agunot. It was his genuine compassion for the agunot that led him to misapply and misinterpret key elements of halakha. Thus, Rabbi Soloveitchik (“The Rav”) publicly berated him in 1975 at the annual convention of the RCA and was to an extent responsible for his failure to achieve any further promotion in communal office that might have been in store for him. Yet Rabbi Rackman acted respectfully to the Rav, who was seven years his senior, “but not by sacrificing the autonomy of my soul. I dare to differ with him—and still do to this day.”
But it was this powerful opposition by the Rav, combined with certain other considerations, that shattered Rackman’s dream to succeed the late Dr. Belkin as the next President of Yeshiva University, and which led Rabbi Rackman to turn to Israel as the President, and later Chancellor, of Bar Ilan University. These factors should not be overlooked in writing the history of those stormy days when the destiny of Y.U. was being determined.
While I personally admired the motivation of his efforts on behalf of the agunot, I was dismayed by his latest move—essentially a continuation of his position years earlier—namely, the establishment of the grandiloquently named “Rabbi Emanuel Rackman-Agunah International Beit Din L’inyanei Agunot.” As a student of the Rav, I learned from him never to allow one’s reason and logic to be overwhelmed by someone’s great reputation (a legacy of his eminent ancestor, R. Hayyim of Volozhin.) I therefore studied the situation and would not have automatically supported my Rebbe’s broadsides if I disagreed with him. But much as I held Mendy in genuine esteem, I found too many weaknesses in his argument, some startling, especially in his public actions. The people he entrusted with this new Beit Din patently were not of the level that such innovation in halakha required. The approach he innovated was to annul the marriage of the couple, thus no divorce was needed. But this was agonizingly irresponsible for a man of Rackman’s stature, for many reasons. One was that in making it so easy to break up a marriage, trivialities can knowingly or unknowingly be disguised as serious agunah situations. With the relatively easy availability of an annulment, all genuine outside help—whether by rabbis or professional counselors—may be rejected in unspoken reliance on an annulment. In a word, it makes marriage itself casual and unserious. If one were to accept fully the Rackman “solution,” it would mean that the number that had so far been “released” from unhappy marriages, would increase many times over so that there would be no reason for the whole institution of divorce, because one could easily obtain his or her freedom by applying to the Bet Din for an annulment, often when casus belli can prove to be frivolous. Much as that would be helpful to the few
agunot, it would be tragically destructive to Jewish home life for many decades to come. By making divorce superfluous, you paradoxically make marriage itself unstable and even unnecessary, as it is always accompanied by the silent prospect of an annulment at the first sign of marital discord. The marital bonds are not strong enough in our times to bear the pressure of this additional burden. No wonder that the overwhelming number of Modern Orthodox Rabbis—let alone Haredi Rabbis—will not recognize such annulments, leading to horrific consequences.
Reviving the Rackman Agunah Beit Din
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/reviving-the-rackman-agunah-beit-din/
Like Rabbi Rackman, I often found myself silenced at or excluded from Orthodox Jewish feminist meetings and forums. But the Dayyanim of the RBD and we of AGUNAH Int’l felt strongly that our cause was just and firmly rooted in Halachah. Furthermore, despite the scorn heaped on the RBD, agunot were voting with their feet. Though aware of the limited acceptance of RBD annulments, they kept coming for release from their dead marriages. The RBD continued to function until Rabbi Rackman’s age prevented him from continuing to lead the Beit Din.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)