Horious (12a) R. Ammi said: He who wishes to ascertain whether he will live through the year or not shall, during the ten days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement, kindle a lamp in a house wherein there is no draught. If the light continues to burn he may know that he will live through the year. He who desires to engage in business and wishes to ascertain whether he will succeed or not, let him rear up a cock; if it grows plump and fine he will succeed. He who desires to set out on a journey and wishes to ascertain whether he will return home again or not. let him station himself in a dark house; if he sees the reflection of his shadow he may know that he will return home again. This, however, is not a proper thing to do, lest his courage fail him and he meet with misfortune in consequence. Said Abaye: Now that it has been said that omens are of significance, a man should make a regular habit of eating, at the beginning of the year, pumpkin, fenugreek, leek, beet and dates.
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
New York Passes Regulations Giving State Control Over Secular Studies Curriculum in Private Schools
The State Board of Regents voted Monday to approve new regulations on secular-studies in private schools, requiring each school to prove to state officials that their curriculum is “at least substantially equivalent” to that offered in public schools. Passage of the regulations transforms the relationship between government and private schools in the Empire State, and caps a years-long battle over what secular education each child deserves and whether it should be determined by parents or governmental authorities.
Do religious Jews have a right to reject basic secular education?
As much as it can be a mistake to generalize about conditions in these schools and as much as the Times' motives and reporting are suspect, the willingness of many Jews to reflexively circle the wagons around them and to defend the resistance of the ultra-Orthodox leadership to even minimal scrutiny or accountability for their failures in secular subjects is not merely a mistake. It's consigning a large and important part of the Jewish community to a future of poverty that would be indefensible if we were describing any other group.
For Jews, paths to and away from secularism led to the same place
In any case, secular studies were normally incompatible with traditional Judaism. Training in medicine was impossible without breaking Jewish law, especially the dietary laws, the Sabbath and festivals.
The Yeshiva as a Political Institution
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265771667_The_Yeshiva_as_a_Political_Institution
This insular approach mirrored the greater Haredi world and its strict binary opposition of tradition and modernity. The newer model of the yeshiva, however, not only challenged secular hegemony but also sought to reshape Orthodoxy into a community responding proactively to the secular critique of religion. Yeshivas following this model became political institutions — political because they sought to transform the Jewish world by direct action and presented a religious alternative to the hegemony of secular political forces. The founding of Tomchei Tmimim in 1897,3 the first political yeshiva in imperial Russia, was an attempt to create a shift in the constantly retreating battle of Orthodoxy with secularization and assimilation. In the late 19th century, the relationship of Jewish communities with the Imperial regime had drastically deteriorated, giving particular urgency to an emerging discourse about Jewish secularism and nationalism.4 Initial attempts at forming a constructive Orthodox response in the political arena were a major failure.5 Reforms in Jewish religious education reached into primary schools, vocational training, and post-secondary education.
New documentary tackles debate over secular education in New York City yeshivas
“Most graduates of ultra-Orthodox schools… are happy with the education they receive and they have no desire to leave,” he said. “But those that do want to leave their communities, they feel imprisoned by the education they never received.”
Orthodox Judaism: Yeshiva
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/yeshiva
The new trends in the spiritual life of the Jews of Russia found an echo among the youth in the yeshivot. In many places the masters endeavored to keep the students from any contact with secular literature, and in Slobodka in particular there was strict supervision. The movement toward acquiring general culture did not touch the ?asidic yeshivot at all, perhaps since most of them were in small towns far from the cities. Money for their maintenance was collected by emissaries who were at the same time wandering preachers. Apart from the large yeshivot there existed in several localities small yeshivot for the local youth supported by the community and the neighborhood. Since married students were not accepted in the yeshivot and the codes were not studied in them, those married students of the Talmud who wanted to become ordained for the rabbinate would unite inkolelim . Such kolelim existed in Volozhin (in a branch of the yeshiva), in Eishishok, Minsk, Vilna, and other places. An exceptionally high standard was attained by the Perushim kolel in Kovno headed by Isaac Elhanan Spektor (d. 1897), which in the 1890s had more than 200 students. Both the members of these kolelim, whose studies lasted from three to four years, and their families, were adequately supported.
What message is DeSantis sending with religious ‘full armor of God’ rhetoric?
“We have the responsibility to make sure that the students that come out of our school system understand what it means to be an American,” DeSantis said, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. “They need to understand that our rights come from God, not from the government.”
Rubio added that ultimately it is a decision about “what is good” and said America has been on the right path for more than two centuries for one reason:
“And that is the belief that every single human being has rights that come not from government, not from leaders, not from the Constitution, not from the laws,” Rubio said. “They have rights, natural rights, that come to them from their Creator, from God.”
Outrage at New York proposal to force yeshivas to teach public curriculum
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/359708
Orthodox leaders in the state of New York are protesting a new measure that would force yeshivas to teach a curriculum equivalent to that of public schools.
A vote on the regulation by the New York State Board of Regents, which overseas education in the state, is taking place on Tuesday.
The proposal is widely opposed by the Orthodox community. On Monday morning, some stood outside the State Department of Education in Albany to voice their concern, News Channel 13 reported.
Monday, September 12, 2022
Air pollution cancer breakthrough will rewrite the rules
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-62797777
Researchers say they have cracked how air pollution leads to cancer, in a discovery that completely transforms our understanding of how tumours arise.
The team at the Francis Crick Institute in London showed that rather than causing damage, air pollution was waking up old damaged cells.
One of the world's leading experts, Prof Charles Swanton, said the breakthrough marked a "new era".
And it may now be possible to develop drugs that stop cancers forming.
Trump fights back against DOJ in dispute over classified records
“In what at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control, the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in a 21-page filing.
Beats Me - guest post Joe Orlow
The New York Times recently had an article about some Jewish schools in New York.
This blog posted an article from HAMODIA in reference to the New York Times article. The HAMODIA article included this:
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“Antisemitism is on the rise in New York and the number of hate crimes targeted at the Hasidic community have increased in recent years,” Connolly writes. “[Tzedek] believes that your article will contribute to the negative perception of the Hasidic community and in turn fan the flames of antisemitism.”
Similarly, Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel of Agudath Israel recently wrote to Shapiro and Rosenthal, “The timing of this article is terrible. Hate crime statistics, specifically crimes targeting Jews, are spiking dramatically — and most of these crimes are being directed against Hasidic Jews...."
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The New York Times article included this:
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Still, virtually all of the dozens of parents of current students interviewed by The Times said their sons had been hit at least once. Several said they had sought to protect their children by “tipping” their teachers, usually about $100 a year.
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don't know if this is true. But let's assume it is, and explore the implications.
Parents generally are charged tuition to send their children to private schools. In one or more of these schools under discussion, one or more teachers hit some of the kids some of the time.
The purpose for hitting the kids is presumably to advance the education of the kids. So here we have a case where parents are paying tuition to have their kids educated and on top of that they are paying extra money to not have their kids educated? That is, a teacher might argue that the hitting has educational value. But the parents are paying the teacher not to to hit their kids -- not to advance their kids' education?
This situation reminds me of how gangsters operate.
"Be a shame if anything happened to your kids while they're in my classroom, wouldn't it? You tip, we make sure your kids are safe while they are with us."
Now let's examine the statements that mention "antisemitism" and "hate crimes."
Well, I think a teacher hitting kids to the point where parents feel compelled to bribe the teacher to not hit their kids is not in line with the Torah and is violence against Jews.
And that violence may be on a larger scale than anything some bad stuff non-Jews may be doing to Jews in America at the moment. Jewish kids aren't being beaten on the streets in America on a daily basis -- but they do seem to be getting whopped regularly in one or more classrooms.
All I've written, of course, is on the assumption that the New York Times article got it right in the quote from the article above.
What can be done to help these children getting hit who don't have parents paying protection money?
We can tell the children to swarm an attacking teacher. That is, a four year old alone defending himself from a beating may not discourage an adult teacher to cease beating his students. But thirty kids defending one of their own might give a beating teacher pause.
We can also create a "Beat the Beatings" fund. The purpose of the fund would be to end the classroom beatings. Children being beaten could apply for grants from the fund that would be paid directly to the beating teachers.
Again, I have no idea what goes on within the schools under discussion. But it beats me how some Jews that are up in arms when a non-Jew hits a Jew can suddenly clam up when the violent attacker is a Jewish teacher hitting a student to the point where parents are led to pay off the attacker.