Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
It has to do with European Christian customs, and part reflect their traditional perception of women as being mentally and physically deficient. Traditionally among our people a man would not show favor in public to a woman since that would be flirtatious.
“Political correctness” is what a given group of people assume to be true. Among Democrats, it is politically correct to assume that people who are deeply religious are untrustworthy fanatics. Among Republicans, it is politically correct to regard such persons fine upstanding citizens. Most of the discussion of political correctness pertains to the views of the the “liberal” establishment which tends to dominate most mass media, most popular culture and the education establishment.
What you are asking for is actually asking a shailoh. It’s not a ruling as much as an opinion of what the law is. Remember the same sorts of people who answer shailohs are the same as those who sit on Beitei Din.
Both Trump and Clinton, and their supporters, focus on demonizing those who disagree with them and often very rudely with crude language that would be considered deplorable bullying if done in other contexts. Neither will lead a unified country, which will have a crippling effect on domestic and foreign policy.
1. Ben Carson had an excellent chance, but he wasn’t very well informed on the details of public affairs. Unlike Trump, he would have been acceptable to the bulk of the “rank and file” Republicans, including the Tea Party and the Neo-cons, and would have been tolerable to the Country Club. He would have had trouble with the “deplorables” (working class whites), but he probably would be leading Hilary at this point.
2. As we know (consider the Rubashkin case), there is a problem of the criminal justice system being “out of control.” The Democrats find this to be a problem only when their own supporters get shot and want a limited response focusing on “Blacks lives matter” while ignoring the rest of the problem. The alternative is to focus on the overall problem of police and prosecutors acting as if they are ruling over the population, rather than being charged to “protect and serve”. In all fair neither party really wants to disrupt the entire system, though the Libertarians come the closest.
The assumption that hareidim don’t value secular education is wrong. The difference is that while seculars (and Jewish wannabees in particular) view secular education as a source of enlightenment and as a badge to prove their worth as a person. Hareidim value secular education only for what it can do to benefit them. For enlightment and self-worth, Torah is what matters. The goyim learn secular subjects “lishma”, frum Yidden do it for ulterior motives. That’s the difference.
If a hareidi (hareidis) wants to cook good meals, he/she will learn cooking. Not since that makes him/her a superior person, but because they have a use for that skill. BTW, have you noticed that there are many hareidi households with excellent food – and they didn’t learn that in a frum school. One find hareidim with all sorts of job skills (you really think all those hareidi businesses pickup the need skills in heder?).
It would only be apikorses if you believe it is a mitzvah to establish a secular Jewish state in Eretz Yisrael. If one supports zionism because you believe it offers secular political, social and economic advantages, but do not hold it is a halachic requirement to establish the state, I don’t think even Satmar would consider you an apikores (a fool, perhaps, but not a heretic).
Define comfortably. Some people would not be comfortable with a spacious home with a room for each child, central air conditioning, multiple cars, vacations, ability to pay full tuition for yeshiva and college, going out to restaurants, buying new clothes, etc.
Some people are quite comofortable with beds for each child, adequate access to transportation to get to school and work, ability to finance education even if it involves creative use of scholarships, enough food to eat, ability to afford respectable clothes even if some of them were bought second hand and have been patched.
Seventy-five years ago, most frum Jews would be comfortable with a roof over their head, enough food so they weren’t starving, and not having someone actively trying to kill them.
Of course religious fanatics hold by: “????? ???? ???? ?????”
When governments give you something, it is usually because they want something in return. The zionists give the hareidim money because they want them to “behave”. The Americans give the Israelis money to make sure the Americans will do their bidding and not get in America’s way (with the added benefit that American aid is designed to reserve American jobs by requiring the Israeli to cripple their own military industries).
If Israeli hareidim want to free of zionist control, they need to reject zionist funding. If the Israelis want to be independent of the American government, they need to turn down foreign aid. Neither is likely to happen.
Clean people are considered middle class regardless of how much money they have. Marxists prefer the term “burgeois” because they don’t like getting hung up on economics in choosing whom to love and whom to vilify.
If the local kashrus agency is happy with certifying a sports bar (most wouldn’t), it is there problem. Very few frum Jews would go into a sports bar (“bar” is the problem, these are places for socializing rather than eating).
The government gives some Hareidim money in order to influence them and to try to pull them off the derekh of the “pure” hareidim (such as Satmar) who oppose the medinah. As the hareidi community is largely funded by money from overseas, stimulating it actually helps the Israeli economy since it attracts investments, business and transfer payments from overseas.
The Americans give Israel money for several reasons. A big one is to support jobs in America (by subsidizing Israel purchases of American made goods which could more easily be produced in Israel, albeit at a higher cost). It also addicts the Israelis to American money and gets them to do America’s bidding in the middle east.
Term insurance is only cheap if the insurance company is sure you won’t die during the term. When the odds of your demise go up, so do the rates. They don’t do it as charity.
Other types have an investment aspect which may or may not still be a good idea given the extremely low interest rates now prevalent.
In the US, remember that Social Security survivor’s benefits function as de facto life insurance if you are employed and are leaving dependents.
The fact that the Clintons emerged from a career of pubic services as solid members of the 1% pretty much proves deep corruption, i.e., bribery as a way of life. Better a shady businessman who makes profits than a shady public servant who steals from the people.
He is probably the best known “modern” artist of the 20th century at least among the politically correct elite (among normal Americans Normal Rockwell is probably better known, but his style was too traditional and his politics and lifestyle too conventional).
Are you talking about earliest times or latest times? Are you talking about someone who wants to sleep late, or someone who needs to get to work as soon as possible?
But being practical, since all the people you meet (and those you haven’t met) were all created in the image of Ha-Shem, if you are dan le-kaf zechus, you usually will be right.
1. Not showing up to vote can be a positive act, but it most likely is perceived as apathy. Note that in Eretz Yisrael the non-zionist hareidim do not vote, which has zero impact on the political process (an alternative used by Irish nationalists 100 years ago was to participate in elections, win seats, and then refuse to take the require oath of loyalty).
2. In America, one votes for many offices at the same time, so a “blank” ballot for president is counted as a blank (since they know how many voted altogether, and how many blanks in any given race).
3. If you are a committed neo-con, you no longer have a horse in the race. However on economic issues, Johnson is a real alternative. On “social” issues all candidates are probably too “liberal” (“permissive”) for our tastes, but a libertarian ideology is more likely to leave us alone.
Not a problem if the teacher is a Christian. Problem if the teacher is a secular Jew (helps to be familiar with the civil rights laws on the matter). And if you are explaining Hol ha-Moed to a frum Jew who ignores it, best to have the Shulhan Arukh with you.
It is the American custom, and reflects their cultural and social values. It is not prohibited to do so by halacha, though in our tradition a man would often not defer to a women (unless she was elderly, handicapped, or clearly more hashuv than he is, e.g. the Rebbe’s daughter) since that might be considered flirtatious (something the goyim have never found especially problematic, but that gets beyond what we disucss on YWN). So it probably would be best to let a woman get on the bus before you, unless you are in an all frum environment.
If the offered the conscripts the option of a kollel-style life (sleeping in doors, eating most meals at home, with a wife, not getting shot at, not needing to “jump” at a moment’s notice, etc.), I suspect most would choose it. Indeed, the fact that Israel is one of the few country’s to use conscription suggests that. That being the case, if a kollel person is a zionist they are being a hypocrite, and the fact that someone feels the need to justify a kollel life relative to the army suggests the person is a zionist (i.e. one who favors having “forever” war with the Arabs in order to give persons of Jewish descent political power). For someone who regards zionism as apikurses, and is willing to accept an autonomous non-sovereign Jewish community with a non-Jewish state as an alternative to the zionism, there would never be a need to justify refusing to serve in the army.
The road to serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek. It does much to explain modern society.
P.S. One can use Inter-Library Loan for any book from anywhere. Ask the Reference librarian at you local library.
In states (such as New York) in which the license is not defined as the marriage or a requirement (merely a revenue measure and a burucratic device) a valid halachic marriage ceremony constitute a 100% valid state civil marriage. Afterwards it is fraud if the be unmarried. if they file “single” tax returns they could go to prison.
Joseph: The real world situation that frequently occurs is someone has the idea of having a religious ceremony and not telling the government in the (usually mistaken) belief that the government doesn’t recognize a religious marriage absent the license. In many if not most states that is not the case. The people are married. They need a civil divorce (not just a “get”) to be divorced in the eye’s of the state. They are liable for joint debts (unlike unmarried people living together). They inherit from each other. They are required to pay taxes as a married couple. The purely religious marriage is not merely “legal” in that it is not criminal, it is usually a fully valid marriage.
Joseph: The question isn’t whether the state can regulate religious marriages (i.e. require that the meseder kedushin by a rabbi ordained at an accredited institution, or require that the witnesses be of a certain gender or religion) but whether the government will recognize a religious marriage as valid – meaning that if some frum Jews have a kosher frum wedding but without a license whether or not the government will choose to recognize the marriage (meaning they are required to file a joint tax return, whether they automatically inherit from each other when one dies, whether they need a government approved divorce before marrying someone else, etc.). In states with common law marriage, clearly a religious ceremony is a valid civil marriage. In state that banned common law marriages (such as New York), the question is whether the law recognizes a ceremonial marriage even with a license (regarding the license as a tax, not a prerequisite for validity).
Diamonds can be manufactured, unlike gold or silver. Whether they will preserve long term value is dubious. They are also hard to appraise and therefore not as easily sold as precious metal.
The president can pardon anyone for anything except Treason. New leaders traditionally, but not in the US, start off be giving mass pardons or amnesties in order to win over those who were upset with the previous regime. Given that the US has a high percentage of people in prison than almost any other country, that might be something he’ll consider.
Note that accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt, meaning it is political suicide to accept a pardon.
Probably. Or Trump might decide to pardon her, and perhaps initiate a mass pardon of everyone who has been prosecuted for political reasons. Since Trump has no record in public office, what he does would be unpredictable.
Note that the author is a columnist for the Washington Post who is well known for his radically left-wing views (he’s probably to the left of Bernie Sanders). One expect he would revile Trump, or any Republican, for that matter. Asking him what he thinks about Trump would be like asking Hitler what he thinks about Jews, and while the answer wouldn’t tell you much about Jews, it would tell you a great deal about Hitler.
As someone with no experience in public office, it isn’t surprising that Trump isn’t much for positions, and that he is more focused on style and rhetoric. In many ways he is reprising his role from his TV show. Clinton has settled positions, and liberally changes them depending on her most recent polls and focus group. If you want a consistent ideological position based on principles, consider supporting Johnson (Libertarian) or Stein (Greens).
In response to: “Some (but not all) States will consider you legally married if you marry under religious law, and reside together with your spouse, even if you never get a State marriage license. It depends on whether the license is considered a mere revenue measure as opposed to being part of what renders you married.
In New York, while there is no common law marriage, if you engage in a ceremonial marriage without a license the marriage is valid, but you might have trouble proving it. However if someone marries someone else they will be subject to a bigamy prosecution and the second marriage will be void – even if they have a “get” from the first since they still need a civil divorce.
1, Each state is different.
2. In some cases, the government won’t recognize a marriage without the license. In some cases, the marriage is recognized but the clergyman is subject to a fine.
3. In some cases, the marriage is recognized with or without the license (meaning that a frum religious wedding is considered a valid civil marriage regardless of whether there is a wedding, even if the parties desire that their marriage not be recognized by the government, e.g. if they want a kosher marriage but wish to keep filing as single for tax purposes).
4. Some states have “common law marriage”, meaning any sort of public statement that you are getting married is probably recognized as creating a valid marriage.
5, It is very hard to get a marriage recognized if you don’t bother with the license, even if technically the marriage is valid. This can be a problem in one spouse wants to include the other (and the children) in health care, it affects taxes and social security, it affect custody in the event of a divorce or death. In lieu of getting a license, you might at some point need to hire a lawyer and get a court order to prove the marriage, and you might be prosecuted for tax fraud filing a joint return or lose custody of one’s children to the state. Better to get the license.
If you buy the competitor’s product, that is encouragement enough. When a salesman loses a sale and the consumer says it was because the product wasn’t kosher, word gets to the decision makers who decide if a hecksher (or a better heksher) is worth the price, i.e., if the added cost is justified by the increased sales. Food manufacturers are in it for the money – that’s how capitalism works.
To stop speaking Lashon ho’ra about the other candidates and to discuss public policy instead.
By definition they were never “Jordanians” which is sort for “Transjordanian” (on the other side the Jordan). While many Jordanians are Palestinians, the reverse isn’t true. Almost noone in the West Bank or Gaza had roots in TransJordan.
100 years ago they were referred to as “Leventine” and the group included those whom we now call Lebanese and Syrians – all of which were one group. However the British and French conquered the area, and created boundaries and for the last century they have all had different histories, which is why a Lebanese Arab and a Syrian Arab and a (Trans)Jordanian Arab and a Palestinian Arab are now different groups – even if they all sound the same.
One asks why people in New York are called New Yorkers when in fact most of them are something else (Europeans, Asians, Puerto Ricans). Believe it or not, even period of less than century creates new groups and identities.
Vocationally, that a problem. That would sure rule out a career in politics or journalism (these days at least), and probably law and probably finance. I guess you could always learn Torah all day.
Canon law prohibits cousin marriages (though the Church frequently granted dispensations), which is why there are some restrictions under American law (which inherited its marriage law from the canon law of the Church of England which inherited it from the Roman Catholics). Any prohibition would probably not survive a constitutional challenge.
If you are an Ashkenazi and marry another Asheknazi, especially from the same region, you are marrying a cousin. That is one reason why some genetic traits are easily studied among us (Tay Sachs, a certain breast cancer gene, etc.). If you are really into genetics, marry someone with as little common ancestry as possible (preferably someone descended from a convert from a region that had no known Jewish population). Of course that won’t solve the problem that according to our tradition, we have a common ancestor only 4000 years ago (5000 and change if you include goyim) so any human you meet is closely related to you (as opposed to our secular cousins who fervently believe their ancestral ape live hundreds of thousands or millions of years ago).
yehudayona: Can Johnson-Weld get a plurality in any state. Yes, especially this year. Most hard-core Trump supporters hate Hilary, and most hard-core Clinton supporters hate Trump. In addition, a large part of both parties, perhaps a majority, did not merely support someone other than the party nominee, but really don’t like their parties nominee.
A Johnson-Weld win can occur if: 1) many Sanders supporters decide they want the disruption (and social libertarianism) of Johnson rather than Clinton, which is increasingly likely if Trump appears not to be a threat to carry their state; 2) many conservative Republicans decide that Clinton is no worse than Trump and vote for Johnson to make a point. If at any point it becomes a race between Clinton and Johnson, or less likely, Johnson and Trump, it will greatly benefit Johnson since he is clearly the “2nd” choice of both parties.
If Johnson gets some electoral votes, and the election isn’t a landslide for either candidate (most likely Clinton), it goes to the House of Representatives which votes by state (meaning an evenly split state has to abstain), and as the 2nd choice, Johnson is probably the only one likely to end up with 26 states.
Whether Johnson is good for the Jews, or good for Israel, is worth discussing, but I believe it is definitely a possible three-way race. Remember that in previous three or four way races (1992 with Perot, 1968 with Wallace, 1948 with Wallace and Thurmond, and 1912 with Roosevelt), the third party was not drawing heavily from both parties, and if Johnson is able to draw from both parties it will be an unprecedented situation (compatible only to the four way race in 1860 which resulted in a total political realignment, not to mention a civil war).
YWN’s sources tend to have a slight bias towards Clinton and against Trump, but are relatively balanced compared to the mass media which is somewhat pro-Clinton and totally anti-Trump. Both YWN and much of the media (at least in the east coast) are ignore the Libertarians.
Given the deep unpopularity of both Clinton and Trump, the presence of two third-party candidates getting significant numbers (and the Libertarians may be in striking distance of getting some electoral votes), and the increasing lack of reliability of polling (perhaps due to social shifts that undermine their statistical models, perhaps due to perceived bias in the media), the election is up for grabs.
The normal tools to kill them didn’t work well against the new model. They’ve been killing mosquitoes for ages with great success (note how malaria was eliminated as a serious disease in most of the United States).
1. Raw milk can include germs or viruses that make you sick.
2. Raw milk spoils quickly. Pasteurization is what delays rapid spoilage. Before pasteurization most milk that people consumer was produced very close to home and consumed immediately (e.g. you milked the cow in the morning, and drank the milk for breakfast). The ability to process and transport foods is what allowed cities to get large (imagine if every apartment in New York had to have its own livestock in the backyard).
3. Unless you milk the cow on your own farm, the raw milk you acquire is not fresh. The person asking the question needs to differentiate between drinking fresh milk from a healthy cow, or milk that has been processed, bottled and transported to market, possibly from a cow whose health might not have been closely monitored.
When the United States had conscription (during the civil war, two world wars and the first half of the cold war), anyone who was especially frum would have had an exemption as a “divinity student.” At all points in America, someone who was strictly frum (and unwilling to rely on heterim given for Jews serving in armies in which “being too frum” resulted in a firing squad) would end up being kicked out of the military as being “unsuitable” (not dishonorable, but one didn’t get to serve). Those who wanted to serve in the military (and remember that during the most of the 20th century, America’s enemies tended to be vicious anti-semites) would rely on various heterim that most Bnei Torah would not accept.
Two factors are important to remember. America has a long tradition of “citizen soldiers” and in fact professional full time soldiers were a minimal part of the military prior to the cold war. And going back to the 18th century, Americans have regarded religious tolerance as a core value encouraging the military to either discharge or accommodate those seen as “too religious” (dating back to Washington’s problems getting New England’s Calvinists and the mid-Atlantic and Southern states “Anglicans” to work together, leading to religious tolerance becoming an American way of doing things). If someone was drafted and refused to eat anything cooked or to do any military work on Shabbos, America would discharge them rather than hang them.
Prior to pasteurization people often came down with various diseases from drinkng milk. The improvement in food processing are the reason that the life expectancy has increased from under 40 to over 70 (other factors have been the improvement in drugs, surgery and hygiene in general – pasteurization being part of the improvement in hygiene).
I stay home. I can get to shul without having to rush. Vacations mean time to learn and daven and post things on YWN, among other things.
The lines in America are less clear, and the further you move from New York, the fuzzier they get it. The smaller the Jewish community, the better different groups get along. America’s education system is more flexible, so someone can never study secular subjects in school and then sit down, study for and pass a test, and go to college – and college can be done online. America’s anti-discrimination laws and tradition of religious tolerance protect Hareidim, whereas the public policy of secular Israelis is to be “free” from religion. America banned conscription generations ago, so there is no need to decide on army service, unlike in Eretz Yisrael where that decision fixes ones place in society.
If you paying for tutors (or together with other families, hiring a teacher), you are running an alternative school, not home schooling. You will also discover why schools are cost-effective, especially if both parents can work full time (bluntly tuition is much less than what one can earn working with the time that one is not home schooling).
If you are truely “out of town” and there is no acceptable school locally, you have to home school. The question is then whether the parents have the background to cover all subjects, including Torah subjects. While there are “canned” curriculum for secular subjects, they need to be adapted for use with frum kids, and there is no “canned” curriculum for Limudei kodesh.
Home schooling is legal in the United States. A factor in its favor is that to win in court, a state would have to show that the standard used to prevent home schooling was the same as the one under which they close down a public school for underachievement, so in effect, the American “social pass” makes it impossible to meaningfully regulate home school. Local bodies often resent home schoolers since it deprives them of revenue (lost since otherwise the student would go to public school, and bring in lots of money in aid), but a clearly hareidim parent won’t generate a problem.
The costs can be prohibitive. If the parents are college educated (degreed or not), with a strong yeshiva and seminary problem, then fine – but otherise they might end up hiring tutors. If the mother of the house wants to home school, and would otherwise be a housewife, the cost isn’t great, but if she is giving up $100K to stay home with the kids, its likely that schools are cheaper.
As Jews have an ancient tradition of parents learning with their children, home schooling should be easier for us (among goyim, the idea of parents teaching their children is considered weird).
1. Gary Johnson is polling well over 20% in some states.
2. Most Republicans reject Trump, and most Democrats reject Clinton. Given Johnson “Tea party” economics combined with the Libertarian policy of toleration on social issues, Johnson has a realistic chance of carrying some states.
3. Given the choices of Trump or Clinton, Johnson/Weld is the unanimous “second choice”. In a state in which Clinton or Trump has no chance, it will encourage their supporters to vote for Johnson in hope of stopping the one they hate.
4. If Johnson does get some electoral votes, and the election goes to the House of Representatives, they vote by state (i.e. New York gets one vote), and states in which the the Representatives are evenly divided will abstain, thus the result could be that Johnson would end up winning even if he came in third (since the hatred of Clinton and Trump precludes a compromise).
Finland was the only country allied (more of a co-belligerent rather than an ally) with Germany in which Jews served in the military in World War II. While several German allies refused to turn over Jews to the Germans, only Finland refused to persecute Jews (seriously annoying the Germans). This is especially interesting since Finnish Jewry had its origins in Jews exiled there during the Czarist period, so they weren’t even people with deep roots.
From press accounts, the “all” Ashkenazi school do include some Sefardim. It appears that the issue is that some Sefardim wo are on the frum side of religious zionism value the higher quality education in the hareidi schools, even though their lifestyle is closer to the religious zionists. Needless to say, non-hareidi Ashkenazim are also included from such schools. The analogy to American racial biases is clearly without basis since intermarriage between Ashkenazi and Sefardi families is common. The men’s school tend to be more open to those with lower religious standards (perhaps feeling they can raise their standards) whereas it appears that girls’ school are more defensive (focused on avoiding less religious influences). It does appear that those critical of the schools in question tend to be opponents of the hareidi style education, and this ulterior motive i why their criticism should be taken “with a grain of salt.”
Jews have held high office in the past. At least one served as what today would be a “prime minister” in the Arab’s empire (back we got along very well with the Arabs whereas the Christians were a serious pain), a Jew was “regent” of Poland (he was chief tax collector and they needed an acting-king while electing a new one), etc. While a Shomer Shabbos would be unusual in such a high position, it is hardly impossible, albeit quite unlikely. Assuming one holds by Dina Malchusa Dina, a Jewish head of state or head of government would still be nothing more than the “first servant” since under modern political theory the “people” are ultimate authority in the state and the leaders are their employees.