akuperma

1. The impact on frum institutions of raising taxes on the “donor-class” could be serious. Many Torah institutions depend on contributions from donors who are also home owners and have high incomes and live in Blue states. The issue isn’t so simple.

2. Consider other aspects of the red-blue issue. Many frum people benefit from entitlements, such as WIC, CHIP, Medicare and Social Security (not so much as the goyim since most of “our greatest generation” didn’t live to retirement, but we now have frum boomers reaching retirement ago so it affects us to), Medicaid and even SNAP. Any fiscally responsible policy needs to cut entitlements. So what is the frum position on the matter.

This issues are all complex, and Agudah needs to address a much more complicated situation than you seem to realize, meaning they need to work with all sides of the political system. You can’t very easily endorse one candidate, and expect to work with his opponent if you picked the wrong horse.

Some will win. Some will lose. There will be much screaming and shouting. They’ll do it all over again in two years. Just like they have for the two centuries. America is a very established and stable democracy.

1. Basased on the time it takes them to approve something, I have concluded that the moderators are humans who regularly eat, sleep and daven (or they are robots programmed to slow down at such times as frum Jews are likely to be eating, sleeping or davening).

2. What they ban is that which is prohibited by halacha or minhag, e.g. the frum minhag of not discussing “intimate” matters even that halachic books do discuss these matters. They also don’t seem to like kaballah meaning they assume that many users of YWN are other than Bnei Torah, or that the moderators have yeshivish rather than hasidic biases or at least don’t want to offend yeshivsh users,

😉

One should note that measles is one of the reasons that the languages we hear in Brooklyn belong to the Indo-European family, rather than the Algonquin family. While theoretically many Ashkenazim inherited some resistance to measles through natural selection, one might be skeptical on betting one’s life on Darwin.

Measles is actually quite serious. When a population with little immunity gets hit with measles, it can cause massive fatalities,

The First amendment does NOT impact on gun control. First amendment deals with the freedoms of religions and expression and the prohibition of having an official “state” church. The only connection is that originally gun control under the British was designed to disarm those whose political, social and religious views were politically unacceptable, and both amendments were designed to make it impossible for the state to surpress those who it disagrees with. It is interesting the the Second amendment comes rights after the first, as if the highlight the connection.

Let’s ban the First amendment. Why should people with politically incorrect views be allowed a public forum. Why should the government tolerate those with backwards and obsolete views, such as capitalism or belief in a non-government supreme being?

If the get rid of the First amendment, it will be legal for hostile governments to ban Torah and Mitsvos. It places like New York, where quasi-socialists control the government, anything to the right of Karl Marx will earn you a trip to Rikers Island and Sing Sing. If you want to know what life without the First Amendment would be like, read about Berlin in the late 1930s or Moscow during most of the 20th century.

1. The British wanted us to fight, and we all fell for it. They pulled the same trick in Ireland and India (starting wars between rival religious groups in the hopes they would beg the Brits to stay and keep the peace); all they accomplished was getting a lot of people killed, and they lost their Empire anyways.

2. It’s a real estate dispute. The Palestinians are among the least pious Arabs, and most Israelis want anything but a religious state.

3. If you compare it to recent examples of ethnic cleansing and other war crimes (many involving the sorts of things we don’t mention on YWN), it appears the Israelis and Palestinians are actually quite civil. They seem more inclined to annoy each other than to be seriously interested in wiping each other out. Note that there has always been much joint Jewish-Arab economic activity (including joint criminal activites, unlike most wars where the crimianls are loyal patriots who would never help the enemy), and that the Israeli and Palestinian standard of living has been rising steadily for the last 70 years.

“uncomfortable truth ” — as if converts were a shameful scandal????

There were many conversions in ancient times (i.e. before the rise of Christianity and Islam, which made conversion to Judaism a capital offense). And for obvious reasons, there were always more female than male converts (for men, conversion meant a radical loss of status, whereas most women did not have much in terms of rights to begin with, not to mention the complications of Bris Milah for an adult male). Remember also that for most the last 2000 years a Geir needed to come u p with a fake yichus (to avoid being executed), and it is easier to pass off woman than a man (since Jewish males had more contact with the goyim than the women did). One should note that most “Sefardim” were living in areas where the non-Jews were closely related to the Jews (Middle East) so from a genetic perspective, converts would be indistinguishable from Jews.

I suspect that the lighter skin color and frequent blond hair among Ashkenazim is more the result of “natural selection” (Jews who could pass for goyim were more likely to survive pogroms). Remember also that many people for northern Europe ended up in the Middle East (e.g Viking mercenaries hired by the (Byzantine) Romans, Legionaries recruited in Northern Europe and assigned to the Middle East, not to mention slaves who in Roman times were likely to be Celts, Germans or Slavs), with their genes mixing with everyone else’s.

One needs to remember that in 1791 when the 2nd amendment was adopted, the situation was that the militia has during the past 150 years mobilized itself and overthrown (and in one case, murdered) three kings (Charles I, James II and George III). In England the response was to get rid of the “right to bear arms”. In America, the response was to include it in the Bill of Rights. The militia, under the common law, consisted of all free adult males (but being modern, it is no longer restricted to men, and the concept of unfree people was abolished in by the 13th and 14th amendments). One should note, that unlike the people running the government today, the founding fathers of the USA were actually a bunch of radicals with a strong libertarian streak.

If you want peace, peace has to be made with the Palestinians. It doesn’t matter if you make a deal with the dictators in Jordan or Iran or Syria, to end the war the Palestinians Arabs have to approve it. Their minimum will be full citizenship in a country where they feel they belong, and compensation for lost property. You can argue there were no such things as Palestinians 100 years ago when both the early zionists (though Weizmann) and the Haredim (through Jacob Israel De Haan) negotiated with the Arabs, but by partitioning the Middle East, the British and French created Palestinians and they are there now.

The market prefers smartphones, and in a capitalist system what the consumers want usually determines what is produced, unlike some places (e.g. North Korea) where the government decides what you want, and you aren’t allowed to complain. One can still find an old fashioned “dumb” phone. One can also purchase a phone plan with no internet access other than the ability to do voice conversation and texting.

There are some genes that apparently are only found among certain groups, so if one has American (i.e. Indian, indigenous) ancestry it would be obvious. The trick is to be from a very isolated group (the Americans were almost totally cut off from the rest of humanity before the 16th century, the Australians before the 19th, and most Africans until the late 19th century). However in the bulk of Eurasia people moved around a great deal whether as conquerors or merchants, so genes are more mixed up, e.g. the “Middle Eastern” gene found in England could have come from a Jew, or perhaps a Cartheginian slave owned by a Roman, or from a Roman soldier recruited in the Middle East who stayed in England when discharged.

Traditionally men were expected not to fight with women, and to simply cooperate. Policewomen weren’t supposed to need to use force on men. Needless to say, few men today qualify as “gentlemen” any more.

“Ashkenazi Egyptian Jew a Sephardi German Jew.” – is very common. People always moved back and forth, and routinely intermarried (as they continue to do so). While Jews only intermarried with other types of Jews (or with converts, whose genealogies we had to fake since converting to Judaism was a capital offense), goyim routinely travelled and mixed up genes. A test that says what percentage of ancestry is Ashkenazi is really saying that unlike other Europeans you are Middle Eastern, and that is probably an indicator of Jewish-ness (though remember the Romans recruited Middle Eastern troops for service in northern Europe and left them there when they were discharged.

When some asks me about ancestry, I prefer to reply that I’m descended from Adam ha-Rishon, and ask what they are descended from?

1. All Rishonim and Achronim are dead, by definition, so you need a time machine to argue with them.

2. We discuss Rishonim and Achronim only in the context of matters that were debated at the time. No one cares what the achronim thought about matters that were already settled by the rishonim, since by the time of the achronim it wasn’t debated.

I would respect the Constitution which assigns the exclusive authority to change and make laws to the CONGRESS. Many of our nation’s problems are due to presidents (over the last century) usurping the power of the Congress and trying to rule by decree (very European, and very un-American). I would also follow the Constitution and respect the anything not specifically assigned to the Federal government is “reserved” to the states; many of our problems are due to the Federal government trying to impose national solutions in matters that are best dealt with by state and local governments.

The negative income tax concept has been proposed in the USA (in the mid-20th century) as a replacement for public assistance. It would replace a variety of welfare programs such as general assistance, SSI, WIC, Section 8 housing, Food stamps (SNAP), and perhaps medicaid. The flaw is that any level of aid that is enough to survive on will mean that many people will choose to live off the “entitlement” and not seek employment. This is easily observed among frum Jews, many of whom lose interest in increased parnassah once they have enough to survive and spend their time on Torah and Mitsvos (unfortunately, many non-Jews when reaching that same level of income are more likely to devote their time to less constructive activities).

If the goal is to make employment more lucrative for the poor, it would be better to eliminate the payroll tax (however the payroll tax is largely dedicated to paying social security, so that’s a problem) and to increase the zero bracket amount of the income tax (something Trump did).

For individuals for whom being unemployed is not an option (e.g. disabled), a negative income tax is a much more humane way of supporting them. For many individuals who could work, a negative income wold create a strong disincentive to seeking paying jobs. While some individuals would chose to do something constructive knowing they could do so without starvation (the proverbial “starving” artist, the kollel person, etc.), many people would choose to goof off and engage in activities such as consuming abusable substances or watching videos, etc.

One should also note that the United States today has a serious labor shortage (especially if the USA tries to restrict Hispanic and other migration and expel illegal aliens), and a negative income tax discourage people from joining the work force.

The problem is both cost, and a the “backwards bending supply curve” issue. The later is is based on observations that increased wages bring out more workers, but at a certain point many people start preferring the same income and more leisure time. Observe that among certain groups (our’s in particular), once an individual has a minimal level of income, they decide to work less and do something else (in our case learning in Torah, in the case of the goyim, things such as sports or watching videos). If the standard was that of what was the poverty line a few centuries ago (enough low quality food to avoid starvation, minimal medical care, a warm dry place to sleep but with no privacy, enough clothes to be non-naked, etc., it might work, but what would that accomplish. Thus we have “welfare” (and tsadakkah) focused on individual needs rather than a blanket grant.

If the goyim started going around with shirts, those who ask “when did frummies start wearing yarmulkes” would then ask “when did frummies start wearing shirts”.

Until relatively recently, many people wore skullcaps. It was declasse to go around bare headed. As long as that was the situation, no one noticed that Jews were wearing them as well. So really the “yarmulke” as we call it was invented (okay, “noticed” as something Jewish) around the end of the 18th century when most goyim stopped wearing them.

If you question is really when did Jewish start covering their heads, the real question is when secular Jews starting uncovering there heads as a sign of lack of piety, and the answer is late 18th century (before that, going bare headed might so their rejection of social conventions, but not their rejection of Jewishness).

One can trace the specifics of various nusachs from older siddurim and machzorim. While they are continually changing as people move around a new shul ends up blending the nusach of various members, it appears that if you time travelled back a millenium you would not find it horribly different, and that probably holds true even if you went back to the period immediately after the destruction of the Second Beit ha-Mikdash. Things get added (e.g. Lecha Dodi) and things get rearranged (e.g. the Hasidic nusach which borrowed some things from the Sefardim via the Ari’zel), but you would get used to it. If you don’t get flustered switiching between yeshivish/Litvish, Hasidic and German (or even various non-Ashkenazi nusachs), you wouldn’t get flustered by the nusachs you would have encountered during the early middle ages.

Melodies probably evolve faster, since they are not written down, but that also means there is no way to trace their development.

It is not so much the “Israel is in galus” as that Eretz Yisrael is occupied by some sometimes-nasty, and often annoying occupiers. While in some ways the zionists are better than the Brits or the Turks (and in some ways, not), it is still occupied.

The Germanic tribes (more a linguistic group, than a “blood type”, includes such diverse groups as the Danes, Icelandics, English and Franks – and probably a good many others that assimilated into other populations.

BTW, do we have a tradition of “good” Amalekites working to undermine the bad “Amalekites”? If not, the hpothesis that the Amelekites are the Germanic tribes, fails.