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Dear Reb Eliezer,
The majority of people are not Jews. Rov says that they all are Goyim. An outsider who shows up in a community does not have a chezkas kashrus. One who does not keep Shabbos is a mechalel Shabbos. There is no reason to doubt his Jewishness.a tinok shenishba is a Jew.
Whatever you just posted, makes no sense to me. Please explain.
When dressed in Jewish, chassiddish garb why questiion his jewishness. If someone says that he is kohen, do ww say prove it to provide him the aliyah first? Rov goyim don’t come to shul.
@Common Saychel,
It amazes me why in so many Jewish areas, they choose to go to SCI chapels, rather than utilize Jewish owned and operated chapels.
When it comes to funerals, the rabbonim don’t care that the halacha is to patronize Jewish businesses. The SCI chapels are 30-40% MORE expensive than Jewish-owned funeral homes.
In 5 towns, the Vaad goes to Riverside in Hewlett, in Teaneck, to Gutterman Musicant, in Livingston, to Bernheim Apter Kreitzman (where the goy missionary is “Shomer”). All of these places are expensive, with a graveside funeral and plain pine box costing 9000 or so, without the grave opening fees. The removals (hotzaas hameis) is done al ydei akum, not al pi halacha. The goyim handle the meisim to check for ID Tags all throughout the process, and after the tahara, they set the features (sewing the mouth closed with string, or with a wire injector). Meanwhile, the staff is almost all goyim, and the profits go to SCI, a publicly traded company which owns over 2000 funeral homes and crematories.
Frum-owned places like Kehila Chapels, Shomrei haDas, Shomrei Hachomos are much, much cheaper, everything is done al ydei Yehudi, and al pi halacha. Plaza Jewish Community Chapel (owned by the UJA federation) in Manhattan has an Orthodox rav on the staff, and they charge 4000 dollars less than Riverside down the block.Dov: So why do any of the frum families choose the goyish owned homes rather than the frum ones?
Dear Reb Eliezer,
Ladies are Jewish. Give them alliyos. Huh? Seriously, let’s say there is someone in our shul whom we know is a safek yisrael. Is there an issur to give him an aliya? I’m aware that we should avoid it.
Jewish dress proves nothing. In halachah there isn’t any concept of Jewish dress. We have been through this one a number of times, and you still have not brought anything real. See the classic interpretations on the verse in Nechemia. The foreigners clothes refer to specific clothes worn for idol worshippers. Rashi etc. did not even consider that there could be a problem with dressing like a non-Jew.
Rov goyim not coming to shul, is not a rov. And if it was, it should prove that this fellow is a goy. He came from those outside the shul.
I don’t know. Ignorance of halacha and metzius, I’m guessing.
Maybe availability?
There’s no shortage in our area of Jewish-owned chapels which do things al pi halacha.
There’s Yereim, Shomrei Hadas, Shomrei Hachomos, the Sons of Israel chapel in Lakewood, Bais Yisroel in New Square, Kehila Chapels, Jewish Memorial Chapel (Clifton), Plaza in Manhattan.
In every case, these chapels are much cheaper than an SCI chapel.
SCI chapels charge 350 dollars for tachrichim, 700 dollars to “use” tahara room (ie. sheets and water, and a 3 dollar packet of afar from Har haZeisim), and a total of 8000-9000 dollars for a basic levaya, minus grave opening charges.In Plaza, for instance, they charge 5000 dollars for everything minus the grave opening.
Shomrei Hadas and Shomrei Hachomos are also very cheap.Your right!
There is no good reason why these chapels turn away niftarim.
n0messorah, I am over seventy and gone to many shuls and was never asked, are you Jewish? All your argument is ridiculous. If someone comes to a shul, we assume he/she is Jewish.
Dear Reb Eliezer,
We assume he is Jewish enough to let him stay. We should not assume he is Jewish to let him marry another Jew.
RebE > as never asked, are you Jewish
n0 > We should not assume he is Jewish to let him marry another Jew.and this is how it supposed to be, as far as I know. RebE may look more Jewish than I do, as once ina while I run into gabbaim who mumble while walking – Kohen? (me – nodding no), Levi (no), Isroel?
As this last question (whether asked on purpose or without thinking) just is halakhically inappropriate, I would nod a little so that he might think I am again saying “no” and suddenly stops in his track and ponders implications. I then ask back – and why did you ask?
RebE, if you are a Kohen or a Levi, or wear a shtreimel, you may get a different treatment.
An example of the opposite, when I stayed with a Bobover friend for shabbos. When the Rebbe Z’L walked in and saw someone dressed differently, he ran to shake my hand before his followers.
This week we have vayisyaldu al mishpochasom – heviu sefer yechusehem, proving their lineage.
AAQ – i am sorry you felt put down by that experience. I think it is obvious that one can welcome someone warmly on the chance they are a jew, while one passing out sliyahs does not have that luxury. Perhaps if the gabbai saw you at a kiddush he would have responded differently
Common, really? so he was not even good at that? reminds me of a sevorah of a 100 years ago I heard of: some American Jews were suspicious of quality of the Torahs coming from Europe. Of course, Europeans would send worse sifrei to America – where else would they be able to sell those!?
so, it is a consumer fault, not only a producer …re: Bobover. I did not come to disagree! I just did not own a shtreimel – and could not afford it at a time! According to his nephew R Twersky, Bobover had a party line that cut his conversation off should his neighbors start theirs. It happened frequently, despite reminders. He would suddenly interrupt an intense conversation in the middle of the sentence, sigh, and say quietly, let’s go and remind them again.
Syag,
thanks for your empathy. I was not put down, I always enjoy coming up with a good tirutz and a teachable moment. Hope that the gabbai learned the lesson and saved someone else from feeling down. Can you imagine if he would ask this of a ger?!the halakhic point is that you are not supposed to research yichus for an aliya. If someone is not a kohen/levi in shul, he is presumed to be isroel. Please correct me if I am off here. May be different from a kohen, as people might use this as a sign that the person is a kohen.
While we are on stories, once, when a grad student and had a conference on a Friday, I called a local Rav and asked for a place to stay for Shabbos. He asked me nicely whether I am X, Y, or Z group of Jews. I replied “Jewish”. He stopped the questioning and invited me immediately.
In terms of birur yahadus, there are many difficulties.
If a guy comes into a shul wearing a yarmulke, let’s say, there’s no reason to not count them in a minyan or give them an aliyah. If they want to get married, we have to investigate. The problem is, in an era of Reform and Conservative changing the halacha of Jewish status, geirus, intermarriage, mamzerus, etc., how do we really know? How many people can furnish a picture of their maternal grandmother’s matzeivah or kesuba? How many people have a conversion certificate, especially from years ago, when any 3 rabbis did conversions and those rabbis died and their shuls closed down? It takes big shoulders to deal with these issues.
In the case of Elk, the ball was dropped. How did he manage to learn Hebrew well enough to learn safrus and milah, get semicha, and somehow learn in a mekubalishe yeshiva?
Dear Dov Rosenbaum,
The problem here is relying off documents without a real person. In our day it is too easy to fabricate boy picture or document.
Dear Common,
So what do you make of that, people just do not care or think? It would follow that it is not a communal failing.
I think I read he relied on a get, which is erroneous, since a beis din woud give a get l’chumrah without doing any verification of the kesubah.
Dov: beis din woud give a get l’chumrah without doing any verification of the kesubah.
I heard similar, don’t know whether it is true. If true, this is an even bigger breakdown in one beis din not understanding what the other one is doing, and not asking them. As they say, AAQ!
Maybe, beis din applies irs-like discretion: they would be calling up grandmothers and check their Yiddish for suspicious Russians, but no reason to suspect an Americai who “looks like us”. This is probably decided by who is assigned to the case
Israel should use Al Capone approach – tax him on all the refrigerators that he brought in for his “aliya”.
Everyone he defrauded should sue him for damages and emotional damages. That would destroy him real fast.
This is a great problem which needs prevention:
See https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/1977496/another-chareidi-missionary-imposter-messianic-center-in-downtown-jerusalem.htmlMore than one individual. They are being trained in a ‘missionary shul center’.
Dear Common,
Who is to say that being less welcoming would keep missionaries out? It would definitely keep out real Jews too. And that would make it even easier for the missionaries…..
great answer
The easiest pray for missionaries are Jews that do not know much and have a weak connection with other Jews.
I think these missionaries put an extra value on a Jew v. a heathen. It seems like a transformation of the medieval view that Jews in ghettos is the proof that they are right. Now, they feel that they need our approval. This would explain why they are specifically interested in observant Jews.
They become a mohel but upset afterwards for not getting severance pay.
Wow the same old guard morons that wanted to force us into the ghettos are now trying to infiltrate them.
It’s a shame they are so insecure with their beliefs, the amount of effort they attempt others to join in that nonsense is astonishing.
common, you seem to presume that Italian Jews volunteered to live a sheltered life behind the walls. You are projecting.
After one case we should start being very suspicious and start pushing people away?!? Is this the way of Avrohom Avinu? A good way to fulfill the ma’amar Chazal “hevey oheiv es ha’brioyos u’mekarvam le’Torah”? And one wonders why there is no Beis Ha’Mikdash. Also, just a warning — if you treat other Yidden this way, expect being treated similarly by the Beis Din shel Ma’alah.
> Is this the way of Avrohom Avinu?
2020 pew research shows only 2% of conservatives becoming O-. as well as 1% of Reform and unaffiliated. So, we are definitely not welcoming enough despite well publicized efforts…
@common, unpack your question please unless you are being rhetorical and if so why?
@common, no need to be enigmatic, where are you going with this?
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