In 1956, Rav Moshe was one of eleven rabbis who banned Orthodox participation in the interdenominational Synagogue Council. [7] In his responsa, Rav Moshe consistently referred to non-Orthodox clergy with a mocking transliteration (רבאייס) rather than acknowledge their rabbinical statuses.
As for his rulings, Rav Moshe never budged. To him, Reform and Conservative exponents were heretics. In 1950, he refused to recognize their conversions altogether and subsequently disregarded the non-Orthodox’s powers to officiate weddings. [8] A decade later, Rav Moshe denied the sanctity of a blessing pronounced by a Reform or Conservative rabbi and forbade Orthodox Jews from answering “amen” to those benedictions. [9] He refused to offer non-Orthodox rabbis aliyot in 1965. [10] In 1972, he strongly discouraged Orthodox Jews in need of a place to pray from renting space in Conservative synagogues. [11] Five years afterward, Rav Moshe prohibited Conservative rabbis from using Orthodox mikva’ot for conversion ceremonies. [12]
Rav Moshe’s attitude frustrated non-Orthodox rabbis, to say the least. Reform Judaism’s leading authority on Halakhah penned a learned response in opposition to “Orthodox aspersions against Reform marriages” in 1963. [13] In addition, the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards acknowledged that Rav Moshe’s stance on conversion made matters difficult for its Conservative community but ultimately refused to augment its policies. [14] Conservative leaders revealed heightened irritation in the 1970s. After a review of Rav Moshe’s rulings, a Conservative writer asked: “what do his responsa do for the sanctity of marriage and unity of the Jewish people?” [15] Another leading Conservative halakhist applauded that sentiment and hoped that others would respond to Rav Moshe’s harsh decisions. [16]
A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s request to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid approved by Congress frozen.
However, the court did not immediately say when the money must be released, allowing the White House to continue to dispute the issue in lower courts.
The ruling was 5-4.
“The unsigned order does not actually require the Trump administration to immediately make up to $2 billion in foreign aid payments; it merely clears the way for the district court to compel those payments, presumably if it is more specific about the contracts that have to be honored,” Vladeck said. “The fact that four justices nevertheless dissented – vigorously – from such a decision is a sign that the Court is going to be divided, perhaps along these exact lines, in many of the more impactful Trump-related cases that are already on their way.”
The former Treasury secretary says: ‘I have never seen as irrational a consequential policy put in place by an American administration.’
U.S. stocks tumbled Tuesday, wiping out all of the markets’ gains since Trump’s return to power. The tariffs come at a moment of growing economic unease. U.S. consumer confidence dropped more quickly last month than at any point in the last four years. And while it’s true that Trump’s protectionist instincts are well-known—tariff, he said last year, is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”—these new measures are more extreme than any he has imposed before.
Rav Elyashiv's opinion was that there is a doubt whether they are a tinok shenishba or not and we're strict for both possibilities.[7]
Rav Moshe Feinstein held that we can't apply tinok shenishba status to someone who lived near an Orthodox community and was aware of religious Jews. However, Jews who didn't know of religious Jews can be considered tinokot shenishbau.[8]
Rav Ovadia Yosef held similarly that it depends on whether they were familiar with a Torah community. In practice that could mean non-religious Israelis and "in town" Americans are not considered tinokot shenishbau.[9]
Bamidbar (22:24) Balaam said to the messenger of G-d, “I sinned because I did not know that you were standing in my way. If you still disapprove, I will turn back.”
Netziv (Bamidbar (22:24) I sinned because I didn’t know – Bilam’s main sin was his ignorance. He should have thought more carefully to understand what was happening to him
Constituents have berated GOP lawmakers over cuts made by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a newly formed agency focused on slashing federal spending.
On Monday, Trump dismissed the town hall uproar as the work of "paid 'troublemakers.'" Many Republican leaders echoed this, claiming the protests were orchestrated by Democrats rather than genuine voter outrage over the cuts.
Furious constituents across the country have expressed concerns at Republican town halls, highlighting a growing pattern of public frustration over DOGE policies, particularly over Musk's apparently vast influence.
The ongoing measles outbreak in Texas, and smaller outbreaks in other states, has put Department of Health and Human Services (DHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. under the spotlight due to his long history of anti-vaccine activism.
Measles was declared eliminated in the U.S. but has since made a comeback that experts have linked to rising anti-vaccine sentiment, with sporadic outbreaks that overwhelmingly impact the unvaccinated occurring somewhat frequently around the country.
The U.S. is experiencing measles outbreaks across multiple states, including California, Georgia, Kentucky, and New York.
The most significant outbreak is in Texas, where 159 cases have been identified since late January. The outbreak in the Lone Star State has primarily affected unvaccinated individuals, particularly within the Mennonite community in West Texas.
Igros Moshe (OC II #108) Question Can the Megila be read over a pa system? Answer It is difficult to give a clear answer to this question. The problem is determining the precise nature of the sound that is heard through a pa system. Because of this problem it is best not to use a pa system for the Megila reading. In fact no one has asked me this question before and I don’t recall your claim that I told a young rabbi not to protest against its use. However I disagree with your view that hearing it on a pa system does not fulfill the mitzva because it is like hearing from the reading of one who has no obligation to read. According to the experts I talked with, the sound that is produced by a pa system is not the actual sound of the person speaking into the microphone but it is like an echo that is the direct result of the original sound. Therefore it cannot be simply described as if it were made by someone who is not obligated in the mitzva. However I am uncertain even after hearing the experts whether the sound produced should not be considered as if it were the sound of the person speaking into the microphone. and it is to be viewed as a new sound which is derived from the original. That is because when listening directly to a person reading, you don’t hear what comes from his mouth but rather it produces a sound which is replicated a number of times as it goes through the intervening air. So is the pa system viewed simply as an electronic transmission which is comparable to the natural sound transmission or is it to be viewed as something totally new?. Thus its nature is unclear. Because of this doubt it might be possible to say not to protest the use of a pa system and you can’t state definitely that this against the halacha or that it should be prohibited since it might lead to additional problems if utilized for shofar and Torah reading on Shabbos and Yom Tov. However this is not true because it is already prohibited to use a pa system on Shabbos and Yom Tov. Nevertheless even though you can’t protest because of those reasons but since the justification for using it is unclear and this is a major new innovation which might encourage other innovations something which is a strong problem in America it is best avoided as you have suggested.
Igros Moshe (OC IV #126)Question On Purim the shul is very crowded and it is difficult for the congregation to hear the service properly without the use of a pa system. Perhaps in this unusual situation it is possible to utilize the leniency discussed in Igros Moshe (OC II #108) to permit the Megila reading with a pa system?Answer Even though this is a relatively difficult situation, in my opinion it is best not to utilize a pa system. It would be better that after dark to pray Maariv in a different shul. After dark he should not read the Megillah even in shul until everyone is gathered in one place in the dinning room and then it should be read in two places – in the shul and the dining hall. There should be a minyan of men in both places. This approach is preferred to doing something new of using a pa system.
Several decades ago, when I was learning in yeshivah in Yerushalayim, I merited a close connection with the posek hador, Maran Hagaon Rav Elyashiv ztz”l.
One Thursday night, I asked the Rav what his opinion was about Shabbos clocks. He asked me why would I think there was any issue with using them, and I explained that I had seen that Rav Moshe Feinstein ztz”l raises several halachic concerns with regard to their usage.
To my surprise, Rav Elyashiv stared at me and answered emphatically, “There is no such Rav Moshe.”
Since his second presidential inauguration on January 20, Trump has suggested he wants to expand American territory in a number of directions. He has urged Canada to join the American Union as its 51st state, demanded the right to purchase Greenland from Denmark and called for U.S. sovereignty to be restored over the Panama Canal.
"We need Greenland for national security and even international security, and we're working with everybody involved to try and get it.
"But we need it really for international, for world security, and I think we're going to get it. One way or the other, we're going to get it."
A poll conducted by Verian, on behalf of Danish newspaper Berlingske and Greenlandic publication Sermitsiaq, found only six percent of Greenlanders are in favor of the territory coming under U.S. sovereignty.
By contrast, 85 percent were opposed to the idea, whilst nine percent said they were unsure. The survey took place between January 22 and 27 and included 497 Greenlandic citizens over the age of 18.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister, wrote: "Trump repeats the threat of [USA flag emoji] occupying, annexing or absorbing [Greenland and Denmark flag emojis]. That's the Putin way of treating countries."
President Donald Trump made numerous false and misleading claims in his Tuesday speech to a joint session of Congress. The falsehoods spanned a variety of topics, including the economy, climate, immigration and more.
In his speech, just under one hour and 40 minutes, Trump also made a number of false claims about his predecessor, Joe Biden. Here is a fact check of some of Trump’s statements:
The Shin Bet also revealed that SIM cards and sensors along the border were activated ahead of time but were ignored.
While the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) took a significant amount of responsibility for the disasters on October 7 in its report published unexpectedly on Tuesday, it also implicated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by implying that his policies regarding the Temple Mount, the treatment of Palestinian prisoners, and the judicial reform led to Hamas’s decision to initiate its long-planned invasion.
In the first chaotic weeks of his presidency, Donald Trump has demonstrated his contempt for the institutions and alliances that cemented the postwar democratic world. He has shown his disdain for the federal bureaucracy. And he has belittled Congress, repeatedly trying to usurp its powers.
Then on Tuesday, the president revealed his indifference to the voters who put him in office: By imposing substantial tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, countries that account for about 40 percent of U.S. exports and 42 percent of imports, he endangered the livelihoods of millions of the blue-collar Americans who make up his voting base.
But 25 percent across-the-board tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico (with an exception for Canadian oil, which was hit with a 10 percent levy), plus 10 percentage points added to the 10 percent tariffs imposed last month on Chinese goods, will raise prices and cut jobs in America.
Whatever happened to GOP concern for the working class?
President Trump won the Presidency a second time by promising working-class voters he’d lift their real incomes. Which makes it all the more puzzling that he’s so intent on imposing tariffs that will punish those same Americans.
Tariffs are taxes, and Mr. Trump’s latest tariffs are estimated to be about an annual $150 billion tax increase. Taxes are antigrowth. That’s the message investors are sending this week since Mr. Trump let his 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico take effect. The President also raised his 10% tariff on China by another 10%. Canada and China retaliated, while Mexico is holding off until Sunday.
The news is potentially deeply worrying for Israel, which has sought Trump’s support for a credible military threat against Iran aimed at pressuring it to abandon its nuclear ambitions, but may now be stymied by the US leader’s increasingly cozy relationship with Putin.
Moscow also hosted officials from the Hamas terror group following the October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel and has expressed support for Iran’s Hezbollah proxy, forcefully condemning Israel for killing terror leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon in September. Russian President Vladimir Putin last year offered to mediate an end to the war in the Gaza between Israel and Hamas triggered by the Palestinian terror group’s attack.
Russia has further deepened its ties with the Islamic Republic since the start of the Ukraine war, and signed a strategic cooperation treaty with Iran in January. Though the previous Biden administration backed Ukraine, supplying it with weapons, Trump on Monday suspended military aid days after a stunning public clash between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump in the White House where the US president berated the visitor, accusing him of being a warmonger.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to end the war in Ukraine within "24 hours." While the self-imposed deadline came and went, the president has continued to call for a fast end to the war.
Trump, during a White House press conference on Monday: "The deal could be made very fast. It should not be that hard a deal to make. It could be made very fast. Now, maybe somebody doesn't want to make a deal. And if somebody doesn't want to make a deal, I think that person won't be around very long.
That person will not be listened to very long. Because I believe that Russia wants to make a deal. I believe certainly the people of Ukraine want to make a deal, they've suffered more any anyone else."
Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, in an opinion article published by U.S. News & World Report on Monday: "The only way to get a real peace deal would be to convince Putin that he cannot conquer any more territory. That would entail the U.S. and our European partners giving Ukraine more weapons to create a stalemate on the battlefield. Trump, however, has signaled the opposite...
Trump and his team have not proposed in public a single concession that Putin should make to end this war. Not one. Yet we are already seeing signs of Putin's future demands: limits on the number of soldiers Ukraine can have in its army, a ban on Ukraine importing weapons and other constraints on Ukraine's sovereignty."
British MP Nigel Farage, an ally of President Donald Trump, has issued a surprise condemnation of Vice President JD Vance over comments which appeared to insult Britain's military service.
Farage, leader of the party Reform UK, responded to Vance's remarks on Fox News dismissing an offer for British and French troops to uphold a peace in Ukraine.
Vance disparaged any cessation of hostilities being overseen from "random countries that haven't fought a war in 30 or 40 years."
Farage said on Tuesday: "JD Vance is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong," adding that for 20 years, British troops had fought alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan in which the U.K. "stood by America.
Does he want deals with Russia and China to carve up the planet? He should tell Americans.
With his first weeks back in office, and especially after Friday’s Oval Office brawling with Ukraine’s president, it’s clear President Trump has designs for a new world order. Perhaps he could share this vision with the country when he addresses Congress on Tuesday.
The conventional view of Mr. Trump is that he’s above all transactional. He wants deals, at home and abroad, that he can sell as great successes. But the way his second term is unfolding, this may undersell his ambition. Mr. Trump’s strategy seems to be moving toward that of Tucker Carlson and JD Vance, who view America as in decline and no longer able to lead or defend the West.
Canada is not taking Donald Trump’s tariffs on the country lightly.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hit back with his own sweeping series of counter-tariffs on U.S.-made products after the Trump administration’s levies on Canadian imports went into effect just after midnight on Tuesday.
“Today, after a 30-day pause, the United States administration has decided to proceed with imposing 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian exports and 10 per cent tariffs on Canadian energy. Let me be unequivocally clear—there is no justification for these actions,” Trudeau said in a statement before the tariffs came into force.
President Trump’s 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada took effect first thing Tuesday. Canada responded with plans to impose 25% tariffs on nearly $100 billion of U.S. imports, and Mexico's president said it would also retaliate, with a range of moves to be announced Sunday.
The U.S. also introduced an extra 10% tariff on Chinese imports overnight, adding to a levy imposed a month ago, and other existing duties. China swiftly announced retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods, and other measures against American companies. Beijing also filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization.
Investors were rattled: the Dow industrials and other indexes fell in morning trading Tuesday, while gold surged, Wall Street's "fear gauge" picked up, and global equities largely retreated. Stocks had slid Monday, after Trump confirmed tariffs would go ahead.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll found 53 percent of Americans believe the economy is on the wrong track, up from 43 percent from its January 24 to 26 poll. Additionally, a memo from Trump's top pollster Tony Fabrizio and his partner, Bob Ward, this month said their polling found 59 percent of voters in 18 swing districts are concerned about their personal financial situation, including 61 percent of swing voters and 53 percent of President Donald Trump's voters.
A recent Gallup poll, which surveyed 1,004 Americans between February 3 and 16, showed Trump's approval rating on the economy at 42 percent, with 54 percent disapproving, amounting to a net approval rating of minus 12 points.
Gallup noted that Trump's rating is lower than any president's first term February reading in recent history, including those for Joe Biden (54 percent), Barack Obama (59 percent), George W. Bush (53 percent) and Bill Clinton (45 percent).
This may be a worrying sign for Trump, who vowed during his campaign that inflation would "vanish completely" when he returned to the White House.
Disregard the social-science jargon and notice that Deutsch’s model nicely describes the Trump administration. The putatively omniscient and omnipotent president occupies the apex. Just below him are a score of fulsome yes-ministers too terrified to provide him with correct information or disagree with his views. Existing governmental institutions are being eviscerated by Elon Musk, leaving their remaining employees in exceedingly vulnerable, atomized positions that encourage buck-passing, kicking the can down the road and many other dysfunctional behaviors that merely compound the structural inability of the system to make decisions efficiently and effectively.
Just as Putin has been a disaster for Russia, so too Trump will be a disaster for America. Fortunately, although hyper-centralization may sound like a good idea for a man who believes he is ushering in a golden age, it doesn’t work. Unbeknownst to them, both Trump and Putin are fated to find permanent residence on the ash heap of history.
The other bit of good news is that, since both men are at the cores of the hyper-centralized systems they have constructed, those systems are unlikely to survive in their absence. There is hope for a restoration of democracy in America, and perhaps even in Russia.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board went after President Trump on foreign policy on Sunday, saying it is “less brave new world than a reversion to a dangerous old one.”
The board highlighted recent actions such as Trump trying to “wash his hands” of Ukraine and threatening allies in Europe and North America with even higher tariffs than adversaries like China.
“All of this would amount to an epochal return to the world of great power competition and balance of power that prevailed before World War II. It’s less a brave new world than a reversion to a dangerous old one,” the board wrote.
“He says he wants ‘peace,’ but is it peace with honor, or the peace of the grave for Ukraine and accommodation to Chinese domination in the Pacific? And why isn’t he increasing defense spending?” it added.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Monday he is prepared to cut off electricity exports to the U.S. if President Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods go through.
“If they want to try to annihilate Ontario, I will do everything — including cut off their energy with a smile on my face,” Ford told reporters at a mining convention in downtown Toronto, the Toronto Sun reported.
Ford doubled down on his pledge to retaliate by matching tariffs, noting the U.S. is a major customer of Canada’s electricity.
“They rely on our energy. They need to feel the pain. They want to come at us hard, we’re going to come back twice as hard,” he said.
McMahon was given the job for her outspoken plan to shutter the Education Department, which would fulfill a longtime promise by Trump. “I told Linda, ‘I hope you do a great job and put yourself out of a job,’” Trump said last month. “I want her to put herself out of a job.”
Several senior Russian missile specialists have visited Iran over the past year as the Islamic Republic has deepened its defense cooperation with Moscow, a Reuters review of travel records and employment data indicates.
The seven weapons experts were booked to travel from Moscow to Tehran aboard two flights on April 24 and September 17 last year, according to documents detailing the two group bookings as well as the passenger manifest for the second flight. The flights came 10 days after Iran’s first-ever direct attack on Israel, and two weeks before the second and most recent attack, respectively.
Igros Moshe ( OC IV #40.11) Question Is the mitzva of comforting mourners (nichum aveilim) fulfilled by a telephone call? Answer There are two factors in comforting mourners. 1) The benefit to the mourners since they are very upset and they need comforting which normally requires going to their home 2) The benefit to the deceased as is stated in the gemora (Shabbos 152). The Rambam rules that comforting mourners takes precedence over visiting the sick since it is showing kindness with the living and the dead The Rambam is obviously referring to a situation where there are others who will be taking care of the sick otherwise there might be a problem of pikuach nefesh. It seems to me that the benefit to the mourner can be fulfilled by a telephone call. In contrast the benefit to the deceased can only be fulfilled by going to the place of mourning or where the body is located. Even for the mourners it is clearly preferable that he receive a physical visit. Consequently in actuality whenever it is possible he should go personally and thus fulfill the mitzva in the best manner. Nonetheless a telephone call is at least a partial fulfillment of the mitzva. If it is impossible to go in person because of illness or he is involved in doing another mitzva then he can at least fulfill the mitzva with a telephone call. It is clearly permitted for the mourner to to speak on the the phone and receive words of comfort. However just to make a telephone call to ask how some is doing – even a child – it is forbidden for the mourner
The real question is: What kind of concessions might Americans be willing to stomach to achieve that peace?
And more specifically: How much do they worry about those concessions emboldening and enabling a powerful adversary in Russia?
It’s clear that President Donald Trump is pressuring Ukraine to make concessions. But Americans aren’t sold on giving up territory, and many are concerned about Russia’s threat.
It turns out Americans seem pretty concerned about major concessions to Russia — even as they are willing to entertain them.
Trump seems to have, at the very least, calculated that the war in Ukraine is approaching a lost cause and that major concessions are necessary. But Americans are not so clearly on the same page. They have trended in Trump’s direction, but selling a deal that emboldens and rewards an invading adversary that most Americans regard as a significant threat would seem to be a pretty difficult political task.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, our relations with Russia have cooled significantly, but they have not led to a rupture as was the case after the 1967 war. Moscow continues its unwavering support for the Palestinian cause and remains a strategic ally of China, Iran and North Korea. This new strategic axis greatly worries the Americans. They therefore prefer to neutralize it and strengthen their naval forces in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific rather than in the Mediterranean.
In the current geopolitical context, faced with the weakness of European security, and in the face of Putin's hegemonic intentions, we cannot blindly follow Donald Trump's logic on the solution of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. Moreover, let's be modest, we do not have the means to influence the political course of the superpowers. We should therefore maintain normal bilateral relations with Russia without offering it mediation to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.
A Texas Republican was interrupted with “boos” and chants calling for him to be voted out of office at a heated town hall about Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cuts.
Rep. Keith Self was greeted by two dozen protesters carrying signs that said “Dump Musk!” and “Do Your Job!” when he arrived for the event at the Collin College Conference Center in Wylie on Saturday, Newsweek reported.
Legendary Polish anti-Communist Lech Wałęsa has slammed Donald Trump’s Oval Office attack on Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, comparing it to Soviet secret police tactics.
Wałęsa, 81, signed a letter along with 38 other Poles who had been held captive by the Communist regime, telling Trump that the Friday spectacle filled them “with horror and distaste.”
The former Polish president previously revealed that he met Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2010, and attached a photo of the two of them to the letter, which he posted on Facebook on Monday.
A town hall meeting hosted by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) in rural northwest Kansas Saturday morning included questions and answers, shouting, applause, boos and Marshall leaving the event early.
BRUSSELS—The argument between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart at the White House sent relations between the two countries into a tailspin. It also caused serious damage to an alliance at the heart of the post-World War II order: NATO.
Trump staked out a position that many European allies saw as siding with Russia’s autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin, by dismissing the security concerns of a friendly country in need of Western help. He said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was losing the war and had “no cards.”
President Trump likes to cite the stock market when it’s rising as a sign of his policy success, so what does he think about Monday’s plunge? The Dow Jones Industrial Average took a 650-point header after he announced that he’ll hit Mexico and Canada on Tuesday with 25% tariffs.
Mr. Trump said at the White House there was “no room left” to negotiate with the two American trade treaty partners. Some of his smarter advisers have been hoping he’d start renegotiating the USMCA and delay the tariffs. But Mr. Trump wants tariffs for their own sake, which he says will usher in a new golden age.
U.S. stocks plummeted Monday afternoon after President Donald Trump confirmed that blanket tariffs on Canada and Mexico would begin Tuesday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 650 points, or about 1.5 percent, after being down as much as 800 points after the president's remarks. The S&P 500 lost 1.75 percent for its biggest loss since December. The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 500 points, or more than 2.5 percent.
President Donald Trump has ordered a pause on all military aid to Ukraine following a disastrous and remarkable meeting last week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, Bloomberg and the Associated Press reported.
A senior Defense Department official, who spoke anonymously about internal discussions, told Bloomberg that the aid freeze will remain in place until Trump determines that Ukrainian leaders are making a genuine effort toward peace.
A White House official confirmed the pause in aid, telling PBS in a statement: "President Trump has been clear that he is focused on peace. We need our partners to be committed to that goal as well. We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution."
IDF soldiers left so many markers on social media that Hamas invaders on October 7 had a complete breakdown of nearly every unit, sub-unit, and building within the Nahal Oz IDF base when they overwhelmed it, killed 53 soldiers, and took 10 hostage on October 7, 2023.
“There’s this whole generation of people who did use it in a more neutral way in the beginning, especially when we were younger,” Wright said. Now, “it’s like, ‘Oh, this other person who I identify with is using it.’ It gives people permission.” Cut to inauguration weekend, when the tech right and Maga youth descended on DC, throwing around the slur as they celebrated their win over the left. Just this week, Musk responded to a critical post on X: “I’m tempted to call this guy a retard, but I won’t because I’ve used that word too many times.” (Ironically enough, X’s own AI chatbot outlined the slur’s offensive history in the replies.)
In trying to make the case that Ukraine and Russia are historically “one people,” Putin (or his scribes) did not go back to the Soviet version of history; instead, they reached for the most reactionary tsarist one. That’s because the Soviets did recognize Ukrainians as a separate ethnic nation with their own language and the (theoretical) right to self-determination, which in practice meant they were granted a Ukrainian republic within the Soviet Union. Unlike the Soviets, the Russian tsars saw Ukrainians as part of the Russian nation, representing no more than its “Little Russian tribe,” and their language a mere regional dialect. They also believed that over the centuries the West had attempted time and again to undermine Russo-Ukrainian unity. Putin borrowed this point, adding NATO and the EU to the list of Western offenders.
Putin declared that Russians and Ukrainians “are one people. Kiev is the mother of Russian cities. Ancient Rus’ is our common source and we cannot live without each other.” Since then, Putin has repeated similar claims on many occasions. As recently as February 2020, he once again stated in an interview that Ukrainians and Russians “are one and the same people”, and he insinuated that Ukrainian national identity had emerged as a product of foreign interference. Similarly, Russia’s then-Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a perplexed apparatchik in April 2016 that there has been “no state” in Ukraine, neither before nor after the 2014 crisis.
Such slogans and insinuations might be little more than a rhetorical smokescreen concealing a pursuit of sober, hard-nosed realpolitik. But there is much to suggest that these beliefs are in fact informing policymaking at the highest levels of power. What’s more, they appear to have rubbed off on other world leaders as well. In an autumn 2017 briefing, US President Donald Trump reportedly exclaimed that Ukraine “wasn’t a ‘real country,’ that it had always been a part of Russia”.
I have posted a number of articles by R' Avraham Broide in the last two weeks. For those who are interested in more, he now has his own website http://www.amazingjewishfacts.com/ based on his long running column in Yated Neeman (USA), "The Strange Side of History." In conjunction with the site, a weekly e.mail will contain an abbreviated strange event from Jewish history. Additional features are being added to the webstie at present.
Jewish History No One Knows (But Should Know) From articles written for the Yated Neeman (USA)
by Avraham Broide (Jerusalem based translator and journalist. phone: 02-5856133; email: broide2@netvision.net.il)
What happens when you cannot flee your jailors? Take them along with you!
Dr. Nunez was in a crisis. Would he ever escape the eagle eye of his guards?
Dr. Samuel Nunez of Lisbon, Portugal, was born to a Marrano family that was still passing along the torch of Judaism two centuries after Spain expelled all its practicing Jews in 1492. Nunez lived a double life. Publicly, he was a distinguished doctor serving high dignitaries of the Catholic Church; privately, he and his family were committing religious crimes that could earn them death at the stake.
All went well until the spring of 5486/1726 when Inquisition spies caught him, his wife Rebecca, and his three children red-handed in the middle of a Passover Seder. For most Marranos, the crime of "seeking the L-rd according to their prohibited faith" would have signified torture and death. Fortunately, Dr. Nunez was the private physician and close friend of the Grand Inquisitor who was suffering from an enlarged prostrate gland and reluctant to lose the good doctor's services.
An agreement was struck. The doctor was spared on condition that two Inquisition officials reside at his home day and night, keeping a sharp eye on his activities. Now, severed from his spiritual roots, the doctor felt that life in Portugal was unbearable and plotted a brilliant escape.
Years later, a descendant of one of the Marranos who fled with the doctor recorded how he fooled his jailors:
"The doctor had a large and elegant mansion on the banks of the Tagus and being a man of large fortune he was in the habit of entertaining the principal families of Lisbon. On a pleasant summer day, he invited a party to dinner, and among the guests was a captain of an English brigantine anchored at some distance in the river. While the company were amusing themselves on the lawn, the captain invited the family and part of the company to accompany him on board the brigantine and partake of a lunch prepared for the occasion.
"All the family, together with the spies of the Inquisition and a portion of the guests repaired on board the vessel, and while they were below in the cabin enjoying the hospitality of the captain, the anchor was weighed, the sails unfurled, and the weather being fair, the brigantine shot out of the Tagus, was soon at sea, and carried the whole party to England.
"It had been previously arranged between the doctor and the captain, who had agreed for a thousand moidores in gold to convey the family to England, and who were in the painful necessity of adopting this plan of escape to avoid detection. The ladies had secreted all their diamonds and jewels, which were quilted in their dresses, and the doctor having previously changed all his securities into gold, it was distributed among the gentlemen of the family and carried around them in leathern belts. His house, plate, furniture, servants, equipage, and even the dinner cooked for the occasion were all left, and were subsequently seized by the Inquisition and confiscated to the state."
Soon after his arrival in England, the doctor heard that a group of about forty Jews was sailing overseas to the newly founded English colony of Georgia and sailed off with them to become the second Jewish doctor in North America.
Mr. Benjamin Sheftall, one of the Jewish passengers, described the group’s arrival in his journal:
"The names of the Jews who arrived in Savannah, Georgia on the 11th day of July, 1733. Doctor Nunis, Mrs. Nunis his mother, Daniel Nunis, Moses Nunez, Sipra Nunez, Shem Noah their servant ….These Jews were the first of our nation who came to this country [Georgia]. They brought with them a Safer Torah with two cloaks, and a circumcision box, which were given to them by Mr. Lindo, a merchant in London, for the use of the congregation they intended to establish."
Yet, even in the relative freedom of America, it took the doctor's family years to shake off the last vestiges of their Catholicism.
"For years after their arrival in this country," a contemporary record reports, "the female members of the family were unable to repeat their [Jewish] prayers without the assistance of the Catholic rosary, by reason of the habit acquired in Portugal for the purpose of lending the appearance of Catholic form should they be surprised at their devotions."
Dr. Nunez left many descendants, the best known his great-grandson Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, the first Jew ever appointed Commodore in the US Navy. True to his great-grandfather’s Jewish principles, Levy was instrumental in abolishing the navy’s vicious punishment of flogging men before the mast.
For quite a few years, rabbis and kashrus organizations are involved in gargantuan efforts to ensure that Orthodox Jews too can participate in the battle of the bulge. An early instance of this trend was back in 5695/1935 and involved the most ubiquitous drink of all time, except water, Coca Cola.
Coca Cola, invented in May 5646/1886 by the Atlanta ex-Confederate soldier and druggist, Dr. John Styth Pemberton, was named after two of its exotic ingredients, coca leaves and kola nuts. For a few months, Coke struggled without any bubbles until a drugstore attendant thought of adding soda water to the concoction. Then people started realizing that "Things Go Better With Coke" and Coke's liquidity became a tsunami.
60 years passed before Rav Tuvia Geffen of Shearis Yisrael Shul in Atlanta began having qualms about Coke's kashrus. Prior to then, the prevailing attitude was - "Nu! What can be treif in a soft drink?"
Since Coca Cola's headquarters were right in Atlanta, Rav Tuvia had been receiving anxious queries about its kashrus for years. It was time to investigate. Although Coca Cola's recipe was among the best guarded industrial secrets of the USA, company directors realized that soothing the religious public's conscience meant increased revenues. So they agreed to provide Rav Tuvia with a list of ingredients under a strict oath to never reveal anything to a living soul. Thus, the teshuva (responsa) Rav Tuvia wrote, refers to the problematical ingredients by code.
After thorough inquiry and investigation at the factory, it became apparent that Coca Cola contained a liquid product made from meat and fat tallow of non-kosher animals.
Although the chief chemist of Georgia assured Rabbi Geffen that the glycerin constituted only a 1000thof the beverage, and non-kosher ingredients are usually nullified in a volume only sixty times greater, Rav Geffen proved from the Rashba and other authorities that ingredients deliberately mixed into a product to enhance it are not nullified even in a thousand.A similar problem applied to the grain alcohol, even though their proportion was only a thousandth, since even the tiniest amount of leaven in a mixture is forbidden on Passover.
"Because Coca Cola has already been accepted by the general public in this country and in Canada," Rabbi Geffen wrote, "and because it has become an insurmountable problem to induce the great majority of Jews to refrain from partaking of this drink. I have tried earnestly to find a method of permitting its usage. With the help of God, I have been able to uncover a pragmatic solution according to which there would be no question nor any doubt concerning the ingredients of Coca Cola."
Hitler and his Nazi henchmen were great believers in astrology. Such as when U.S.A. President, Franklin Roosevelt, passed away towards the end of WW2, on April 5705/1945. Upon hearing the news, Nazi Propaganda Minister, Josef Goebbels, yelled out, “Bring out the best champagne! ...It is written in the stars that the second half of April will be the turning point for us. This is Friday, April the 13th. It is the turning point!” Needless to say, he was wrong.
Early in the Nazi career, the Nazi craze for fortune-telling brought about one of the strangest symbiotic relationships in human history. During the 20's, Herschman-Chaim Steinschneider, had built up a career as a skilled magician and clairvoyant, covering his Jewish tracks by naming himself Hanussen. Suddenly, he reached the climax of his career by becoming one of Hitler's closest confidants.
This happened during March 5692/1932, when Hitler’s political future seemed doomed. The Nazis had lost seats in the Reichstag and their coffers were drained. Then Hanussen predicted that Nazi victory was just around the corner. Hitler would become Reichschancellor within the year. When Hanussen printed his startling “prophecy” in his weekly newspaper, the “Berliner Woshenschau,” Hitler became so excited that he invited the famous clairvoyant to meet privately with him at his headquarters in the Kaiserhof Hotel.
Hanussen met Hitler about a dozen times that year and became his favorite “hellseher” (clairvoyant). Hanussen used the Nazi power to raise his prestige and fame, while Nazi leaders used him as an endless source of private loans. He informed a fellow clairvoyant that his aim was to eventually convince Hitler that not all Jews were that bad.
On February 26, 5693/1933, Hanussen was displaying his fortune telling skills in front of a crowd including Nazi officials and VIPs, when he suddenly leapt to his feet and began screaming that he “saw a great house burning.” Not long afterwards, the Reichstag (German parliament) went up on in smoke. It is highly suspected that the Nazis had started the fire in order to declare a state of emergency and seize extraordinary powers.
Perhaps the Nazis resented Hanussen’s leaking of their secret plans. For one reason or another he was doomed, penning a note in invisible ink to a colleague, “"I always thought that business about the Jews was just an election trick of theirs. It wasn't." On the morning of March 25, 5693/1933, a car stopped next to him and he was ordered to get in. That was the last time anyone saw Hanussen alive. The Nazis seized his assets, IOUs recording debts of over 150,000 marks mysteriously disappeared, and Hanussen is remembered as one of Nazi Germany's first Jewish victims.
by Avraham Broide (Jerusalem based translator and journalist. phone: 02-5856133; email: broide2@netvision.net.il)
When is a corpse not a corpse? When it's still alive of course!
Determining the moment of death is a subject that has many doctors and rabbis at loggerheads. Doctors are anxious to push forward the moment of death in order to save lives with transplants, while rabbis argue that there is no point killing Peter in order to save Paul.
There was once a time when the rabbis fought a very different battle. During the 18th Century, many people thought it barbaric to bury a person too soon, as who knows, perhaps he was still alive. They preferred to wait for only certain determinant of death, physical decomposition, which generally begins after three days.
Rabbis, on the other hand, wanted to bury people before nightfall, due to the Torah's command regarding a criminal whose body was hanged up as a warning (Devarim 21:23), "Do not leave his body overnight on the gallows, for you shall certainly bury him on that day." As the Shulchan Aruch" (Yoreh Dei'ah 357:1) rules, "It is forbidden to leave the dead [unburied] overnight unless it was for his honor, to bring him a coffin and shrouds."
During 5532/1772 things came to a head when the Mecklenburg Province of Germany outlawed prompt burial and legislated that three days must pass beforehand. When German rabbis raised a protest, Moses Mendelssohn was called on to intercede and he promptly found sources that seemed to support the government measure.
For example, a mishnah in Masseches Semachos relates how someone recovered from a death like coma and lived for another 25 years. Because of this, the mishnah says, people buried their dead in catacombs, instead of burying them underground, so that they could visit them for several days afterwards and ascertain their death status. If the corpse yelled or tapped on the walls of his stone coffin, there was still a chance to yank him out. Practically speaking, Mendelssohn had a point, as it is not unheard of for people to suddenly wake up and find themselves in a morgue.
One example of such pseudo-death may be Alexander's passing in 3439/323 BCE, when his body reportedly remained fresh several days afterwards. Some medical men theorize that he may have been suffering from a paralyzing disease.
The Yaavetz rejected Mendelssohn's proofs. Regarding the fear that Jews who determine death as the moment a person ceases breathing might determine someone as dead when he is really alive, the Yaavetz insisted that Moshe Rabeinu received this criteria of death at Sinai or that it is revealed in the verse, Kol asher ruach chayim be'apo (Whatever has the breath of life in its nose), from where the rabbis derive that before digging someone out of a ruin on Shabbos, we check whether he is breathing or not.
As for Mendelssohn's proof from masseches Semachos, the Yaavetz writes that such things happen so rarely that we need not be concerned about them on a practical basis. It is as rare, he says, as the case of Choni Ha'eme'agel who slept for seventy years!
This controversy led to one of the first formal move of Jews away from Jewish custom and law.
When the Berlin Chevra Kaddisha refused to succumb to the Maskilim's demands, some Maskilim, including Mendolssohn's son, Josef, opened up their own burial organization called the "Gesellschaft der Freunde" ("Society of Friends") in Berlin, with branches in Breslau and Konigsberg, which delayed burying the dead and eventually adopted many other non-Jewish funeral customs as well.
Jewish History No One Knows (But Should Know) From articles written for the Yated Neeman (USA)
by Avraham Broide (Jerusalem based translator and journalist.
phone: 02-5856133; email: broide2@netvision.net.il)
The Chelm people laugh at was a parallel universe of a real Chelm where Jews lived, learned, prayed, kvetched and died much the same as Jews everywhere else.
You want to know the truth? Chelm was really a perfectly normal town, practically indistinguishable from hundreds of similar shtetls peppered over Poland and Russia. So how did that vibrant little community become buried beneath a mountain of jokes? The Chelm Memorial Book published after World War II devotes some pages analyzing this weighty question.
According one opinion, the Chelm humor tradition, like so much Jewish humor, was rooted in tragedy.
The story began with an Easter Church procession in 1580 that degenerated into an anti-Semitic riot. Ruffians attacked the Jewsin the middle of their Passover prayers and a number of them barricaded themselves with shutters on the shul's roof. Afterwards, people joked that the Chelm Jews had installed shutters on their roofs instead of in their windows and, for better or worse, the town's reputation was sealed.
According to another theory, people picked on Chelm because in Slavic cholem means a fool.
Most likely, however, people picked on Chelm for the same reason other nations picked on particular towns as the butt of their jokes. The ancient Greeks picked on Abdera, the Syrians picked on Sidon, the English picked on the village of Gotham, the Dutch picked on Compen, the Arabs picked on Chevron, and Germany picked on number of towns including Shilburg. In fact, the 1597 publication of a Yiddish book titled, “Shilberg, a Short History,” provided much of the raw material later utilized for Chelm jokes.
For a while, Chelm jokes were an oral tradition. They first appeared in print after a small booklet printed in Vilna in 1867 included a chapter titled “the Wisdom and Witticism of a Certain Town Ch.,” and from then on Chelm jokes were fruitful and multiplied.
In the fullness of time, the real Chelm morphed into a full-fledged parallel universe.
Chelm was once a regular town, it was said, until one day when the angel that dishes out men's souls winged over the place hauling a sack of foolish souls on his back. Now, as everyone knows, Chelm lies adjacent to a sharp peaked mountain. This ripped open the sack, the souls plunged downwards, and ever since the town was never quite the same.
Despite their intellectual shortcomings, the Chelm Jews were of a different stamp than run-of-the-mill fools. Their idiocy stemmed not from lack of intelligence but from their insistence on being over clever, a trait known in Yiddish as being an uber chacham.
For example, the town's charity box was hung high beneath the shul's ceiling as a precaution against theft. When people complained that they could not reach there to drop in their donations, the town's wise men hit on the solution of propping up a ladder beneath to enable people to climb there. Chelmites always knew how to leap between the horns of dilemma.
When the town sexton complained that he was getting too old to make his early morning rounds rapping on people's shutters to wake them for prayers, the city elders collected the populace's shutters and piled them up in his house. Now he could rap them without having to stir outdoors. In his earlier years, when he complained that his shoes got filthy trudging through the town's muddy alleyways in execution of his duties, the town had appointed four strapping youngsters to carry him around the streets on a door.
The real Chelm was a different place altogether where perfectly regular Jews lived, learned, prayed, kvetched and died much the same as Jews in other towns.
Jews first arrived in this small Polish town that lies 40 miles south-east of Lublin in about 1300, in order to wheel and deal with traders passing through on international trading routes between the Black and Baltic seas. Come to think of it, Chelm wasn't such a miserable place after all. By the middle of the 16th Century it boasted a population of 371 at a time when even the capital of Cracow only had 1,800 Jews. It also had its own yeshiva and a cadre of prominent rabbis and sages.
By the outbreak of World War II, Chelm had a population of about 15,000 Jews, including refugees. Most of them perished. Although the Chelm district lies right on the Eastern border of Poland next to Russia, and was the first Polish district liberated from the Nazis in 5704/1944, by then it was too late; most of Chelm's Jews had perished in the nearby Sobidor Extermination Camp and those who struggled back were greeted with hatred.
But the legacy of Chelm humor lives on, helping to soften the hard bumps of life's road.
