Israeli flag flown at Ponavez? Why?

requirement to get government funding

Rav Wein quotes Rav Kahaneman, “Rabbi

Yosef Kahaneman, the Ponevezher Rav, told me that he flew

the Israeli flag from the roof of his yeshivah building in Bnei

locals complained about this, he

answered them with the following: ‘I

flew the Lithuanian flag on the roof of

my yeshivah in Ponevezh on Lithuanian

Independence Day. My friends, it is no

worse here.'” http://www.ou.org/pdf/ja/5767/summer67/30_32_33.pdf

Why SHOULDN’T they?

Urban legends usually are well known.

im so confused one minute they hang up the flag the next they burn it could someone plz explain

Is anyone here implying that the Rosh Yeshiva himself told his own students to go out and protest the fact that he himself instructed that the flag be flown?????

Rav Shach most likely never instructed the flag to be flown. While he was the biggest personality there for a while, he was never the boss in an administrative sense. The decision to fly the flag must surely have come from someone at the business administrative department, meaning someone named Kahaneman, depending on which generation you’re talking about.

From Last year’s Israelnationalnews:

“The hareidi-religious community in Israel largely abstains from Independence Day celebrations. However, this year as every year, the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, a large and respected institution, marked the day by raising the Israeli flag.

Several years ago some students at the yeshiva tried to take down the flag, but it was quickly put back up by staff. The yeshiva is often targeted on Independence Day by a handful of anti-Zionist protesters, some of whom burn Israeli flags in an attempt to provoke a riot.”

And this from the Jerusalem post in 2006

“In the heart of Bnei Brak, on the roof of Ponevezh Yeshiva, the bastion of haredi intellectualism, flew this Independence Day, as it has flown every Independence Day for as long as anyone can remember, the ultimate symbol of Zionism: the flag of Israel. An anathema to large segments of haredi Judaism, the nation’s blue and white banner represents all that is misguided in Zionism: The hubris of trying to end exile without waiting for God, the impudence of returning to God’s Holy Land without bothering to adhere to His commandments, and the aping of the nations of the world and all their goyish grandeur. Nevertheless, Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, former rabbi of the Lithuanian town of Ponevezh who lost his wife and son in the Holocaust, stubbornly insisted on flying the flag after he established the Yeshiva over 50 years ago. “Nobody ever suspected Rabbi Kahaneman of being a Zionist,” said an anonymous longtime student of Ponevezh, which is considered the Harvard or Cambridge of the yeshiva world. “As a Holocaust survivor he had certain sentiments towards the state and its institutions – never its leadership. It was his way of showing gratitude that there was a place for the Jews of the world, a place that supported yeshivot and Torah learning.” However, not everyone in Bnei Brak agrees with Kahaneman’s sentiments toward the state. That’s why two maintenance men, immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, take a break from their regular work at the yeshiva and are paid extra to stand on the roof guarding the flag. “In the past some of the more zealous students at Ponevezh have tried to climb onto the roof and tear the flag down,” said the Ponevezh Yeshiva veteran. Neturei Karta, an ultra Orthodox, rabidly anti-Zionist sect loosely connected with Satmar Hassidism regularly demonstrated against the flag flying. But Ponevezh students said they have not staged protests for close to a decade. “Today most people are indifferent to the flag and what it symbolizes,” said a Ponevezh student. “Guys respect Kahaneman’s decision. “Every year about this time there are few guys that arouse the issue, but the discussion dies out pretty quickly.”

He never said any such thing.

I don’t believe he said it. And posting on the net a claim he did, makes it no more believable.

being a chareid ledvar hashem shouldn’t absolve one from hakaras hatov. Ponevezh is alive and well today because of the incredible resurgence of frum life in Israel after the tragedy of the holocaust. Kollel students get stipends, and are allowed to learn Torah in relative peace. There are no pogroms and kosher food is easy to acquire.

Despite all the complaining, chareidi life in Israel is pretty good compared to life in Europe. Yes, the gedolim in the alte heim are far above today’s rabbis, but we have it pretty good! Be grateful.

I always understood it as a symbol of hakaras hatov. The medinah, despite its many problems, has been HKB”H’s tool to bring Jews and Torah back to Eretz Yisroel, the likes of which have not been seen since the fall of Beitar. Just like we show hakaras hatov to other countries despite their problems (like USA on July 4 and [as the Ponavitzher Rav supposedly said] Lithuania on their independence day), we should show hakras hatov to the medinah. I’m not denying the medinah has been the source of some bad, but since when are bad things that people do an excuse to not recognize and show hakaras hatov for the good things they do?

It was purely political, not ch”v an endorsement of Zionism.

Silly people. It’s connected to a generator – wind operated. That’s all.

In 2013 indeed, life isn’t too rough in the USA.

good-point: Shlomo Lorencz is the last one to writer the truth. He was a self-serving politicna- like all others.

According to Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro:

Maran Rav Schach, the saintly gadol hador, explained to his Talmidim who would constantly ask about the accursed Zionist flag. It was a concession of the Ponivicher Rav in order to solicit money from the government. Read Rav Schach’s Michtavim UMaamarim about Zionism, religious or otherwise – he berates it. He was the Rosh Yeshiva of Ponovich while that flag was hanging there and he was clearly extremely anti-zionist. Clearly, you cannot judge the Hashkofos of the Rabbonom in that building by the flag that was on the roof – they said so many times themselves. That flag was a political expedience, not a political statement.