Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
zahavasdad: Your question isn’t theoretical. If a significant number of rabbanim decide on civil disobedience (i.e. peaceful refusal to obey Israel laws), you have a very serious crisis. Mass civil disobedience is serious business (consider the role it played in collapsing the British Empire in India, and in ending “Jim Crow” in the United States). One possibility is that the Israeli government will back down and simply say “okay, you can fully autonomous – no conscription – no welfare or subsidies or access to government benefits”. However one has to remember that any policy would end up applying to Arabs as well, could raise serious legal questions under Israeli law, and raise serious issues of discrimination under international human rights standards. The stakes are really quite high, and most of the rabbanim are trying to as unconfrontational as possible in order to leave open a door for working out a solution.
However mass refusal to obey Israeli law would be even more devasting than any intifada since it involves Jews (who want to be left alone in peace, rather than Arabs who want to run the country) and doesn’t involve violence. And in the internet era, “the whole world will be watching.”
RE: “Apparently, the Moetzes Gedolei Hatorah rule that Benei Torah should go to the induction center but not to sign up for the army.” It refers to orders to come down and do pre-induction paperwork.
In the United States, this might be called “punting” (an American football term). It puts off the problem, and (excuse the mixed metaphor), put the ball in the other’s guy court.
The rabbanim referred to in the original posting are telling their talmidim to politely go to the army, tell them who you are, and politely refuse to do anything else. This for the time being is non-confrontational. It doesn’t settle anything, but postpones the confrontation. The big issue will be this summer when the army will be sending them orders to report for military service. At that point, refusal to comply will be considered criminal and they will be subject to arrest and imprisonment. However some arrangement might be worked out before hand (e.g the zionists will settle for cutting off funding for hareidim, but will respect their autonomy and exempt them from conscription).
Other, less moderate rabbanim, are urging total resistance. Of course the zionist rabbanim (who regard service in the army as a mitzva rather than bitual Torah, that is to say those who see the army as defending the Jews of Eretz Yisrael as opposed to those who see Limud ha-Torah as the key to Jewish survival) have been urging their talmidim to join the army for some time.
become a Hasid – they aren’t so fanatic about having to daven on an empty stomach
In virtually all cultures, girls are ready to marry (i.e. to start producing children) at a much earlier age than the boys are ready to support the family. It’s a function of biology as much as anything else, and since we can’t criticize the one who did the design, this isn’t an issue to debate (as we could propose causing female not to reach puberty until their mid-20s).
The norm is virtually all human cultures is that brides are younger than their husbands, often by many years. That some people have trouble with this idea is the problem.
Unless the police in your area are really underworked, they might not be thrilled at being called out to pursue a sixth grade girl (most crimes are committed by boys, not girls) who is taking a short cut to school. Police tend to think they should be out chasing murderers and muggers and rapists and terrorists – not pre-teens on their way to and from school. Absent some indications of damage being done or more serious crimes being committee, you might reconsider calling out thousands of dollars in police assets. If it was your daughter who was taking a short cut to her Beis Yaakov, would you get annoyed if someone called for a SWAT team to stop her?
What damages were done? Are you accusing her of theft? Is their a dangerous condition that might injure her? The minhag of children is to take short cuts.
To put “tresspass” into context, until about 250 years ago, you had alledge (even if they ignored it most of the time) that the tresspasser had come into your property with force and arms and against the king’s peace – schoolgirls taking shortcuts didn’t count.
To those who argued: “swiet –
For the marriage to be valid, you need *only one* of three things: kesef (ring), shtar (kesuba) or biah (yichud). Any one of those being valid and the marriage is valid. So you would need to invalidate all three before even questioning whether the marriage is valid.
Not true. Eidim are neccessary. Stop spouting ameratzus in the name of halacha. “
You only need witnesses to one of them, so if your goal is to uphold the marriage,living together as “man and wife” works. And even if not, she’s a pilegesh (concubine) which isn’t such a bad deal (compared to traditional English law where many bad things happened if you were “living in sin” – including the children couldn’t inherit from either parent).
However if you need to find an excuse to pasul the wedding, one can argue that marriage also needs kavanah (intent) to be married.
R.T.: But if the witnesses are treff, what else was treff. Would someone desiring to be married “K-das Moshe ve’Yisrael” choose treff witnesses? If you can argue that the parties never intended to be married according to halacha, and that the “mumbo jumbo” they said was intended as a sham, one can make a good argument the wedding wasn’t valid, and she doesn’t need a “get”, and her children from her next marriage are koshrt.
1. Note that we do the marriage ceremony at least three ways, any of which in theory would be enough. It would help if there wasn’t any hupah, kedushin, or biah as well, and no one knew they were living together as man and wife.
2. Arguing that the eidim are treff is an idea, depending on how desperate you are? It would certainly help if the married couple were clearly not frum (never went to mikvah, never kept kosher, never were Shomer Shabbos – thought the ceremony was something to amuse the grandparents and all that mattered was a civil ceremony).
3. Remember the only big change of a marriage being annuled under halacha is that the woman doesn’t need a “get”. Unlike the traditional goyish law in western countries, children of an unmarried Jewish couple are kosher (not “bastards”) and inherit from the father.
4. How desperate is it to treff up the marriage? Presumably the likely problem is that the woman ended up having children by a different man, and we don’t want those children to be mamzerim. In these situation, our rabbanim are quite creative in finding a basis to decide the marriage was treff. On the other hand, if the dispute is whether the woman gets a kesubah when the husband runs off with a trophy wife (after her being a good housewife for 20 years), the husband’s arugment that the witnesses were treff (and he doesn’t owe his long suffering virtuous wife any money) might not be as well received. If you look at actual cases (tseuvahs) rabbanim are really good lawyers and always have been (even if they will insist they are nothing like lawyers, which is really false modesty).
EXPLANATION OF THIS DISCUSSION:
Obama, being in what is probably his final term of the last elected office he will every hold (only John Quincy Adams went back into politics after being president – Obama will probably end up as a professor) – he has finally learned to think before speaking. This is an improvement. It is very bizarre for “inside the beltway” (but then again, he’s a lame duck). He wisely kept his mouth shut until he had some facts rather than making a quick foolish statement that would be disproven by soon to be discovered facts. If he now can learn something about economics, the country might be in good shape.
Nu? Did anybody check to see if they flew the Israeli/Zionist flag this year (2013)???????
If the concern was avoiding pictures, we could use PINE mail. It’s all text. Indeed, a frum company could set up a server using PINE (its a UNIX program). It runs very fast, and runs even on the weakest machines. It even runs well on a dial-up connection using DOS.
The poster is complaining about pronounciation, nor grammar. As written, there is no issue.
Living langauges continuously evolve. It is the nature of humans. It’s how Ha-Shem made us.
What would happen if you tried to speak correct English similar to Shakespeare, Chaucer or the author of Beowulf?
If you want a language with a standard pronounciation, stick to languages such as Latin, Sumerian or Ancient Egyptian. Dead cultures pose no such problems.
Manhattan is more likely be covered by the non-Jewish media.
They should have planned something for Israeli Independence Day.
This is turning into a decisive issue that will permanently split the Jewish community, with the Bnei Torah being pitted against the Am ha-Artsim.
If there were, then the publishers that publish them, the bookstores that sell them, and the author that write them WOULD GO OUT OF BUSINESS. This isn’t happening, and in fact the relatively high prices suggest that demand is quite great since an oversupply, relative to demand, results in falling prices. The fact that few few publishers have switched to giving away stuff electronically suggests demand is still quite strong for sefarim, and the supply does not meet the demand.
It is probably a problem. Physical fitness classes often involve contact, and usually involve immodest clothes. It would probably be best to find a single-gender class (which is typically easier for women then men, since more non-Jewish women are also concerned with modesty than, relatively, non-Jewish men).
Perhaps there should be more of an effort for frum-sponsored single-gender health clubs.
So will they be flying the Israeli flag in 2013? A lot has happened. Based on the Rosh Yeshiva’s public comments, it seems they moved from being zionist “fellow travellers” to becoming “mamash” hareidim.
Given the changes in policy towards yeshiva students, I suspect many people who were happy to say Hallel in the past will be more inclined towards slichos (since it happens next Monday is a fast day).
Baruch ha-Shem when we live at a time when people have too many children and not enough distinctive names, and have run out of deceased relatives to name people after. I bet that 65 years ago it was easy to come up with distinctive names.
Did he acknowledge the counter argument, which is that the surgical methods used to clean the wound are also dangerous, and that unless the mollel is ill, the “folk remedy” may be equally good or superior to what is done in the hospitals. While much traditional medicine is “bunk”, cleaning a would by licking it is actually rational in many cases, no matter how unhygenic it sounds. I seriously doubt anyone has done a scientific study comparing techniques.
From the tone in the media, I suspect he’s more of a bigot than anything else. Indeed, being bigotted, in general, is the “stock in trade” on talk radio. That is why intelligent people tend to avoid it.
You don’t need a “novel” or “kulah” -if something is mutar, it is mutar even if you have a beard and pe’os, and if it is asur, it is asur even if you keep your kippah srugah in your pocket. About the only haskafa differences are that some Dati Leumi who hold that anything that helps the Israeli army (e.g. driving an officer to the beach so he can relax with his family and Shabbos, and thereby be more rested on Sunday) is mutar, but that’s a minority. Anything life threatening takes priority over Shabbos, and always has. No hiddushim involved.
Whether someone wants a job that forces them to work on Shabbos, is a different matter. The frummer you are, the more likely you’ll skip the higher parnassah that a job that requires working on Shabbos commands (e.g. be a math teacher rather than a cryptographer for the NSA).
National security work can easily lead to situation where it becomes necessary to work on Shabbos since it becomes life saving (consider the lessons learned from the cryptographers who were piously waiting until Monday to decode the messages indicating that the Japanese Navy was bombing Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning).
Federal employment is ideal for frum Jews. Very few jobs have issues with Shabbos. If travelling, you might have to arrive early or stay late in a city (for example a Friday meeting will require spending Shabbos in that city), but you can usually find frum Yidden to stay with. You can even impress your boss by being super-frugal by preparing food in your hotel room instead of running up restaurant tabs. Since most government, for the last 80 years or so, has been on a strict five day week, Shabbos issues aren’t too common. Unlike the private sector, Federal always makes a good faith effort at religious accomodation.
Some areas are problematic. The law enforcement and the uniform services expect you to be on call 24/7, so non-medical positions in the armed forces are probably out (though civilian work is not a problem for these agencies, even in the defense department). In jobs dealing with Israel, they (probably rightly) are suspicious that anyone may be more inclined to be pro-Israel even if this conflicts with American policy (which isnt’ to say that there aren’t frum Jews working in serious positions for the NSA and the FBI).
Of course most of the good Federal jobs require living in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitcan area (which is good for yiddishkeit, and cheaper than New York), and Federal health and retirement benefits are excellent.
I believe frum people tend to favor minvans, full vans and station wagons. It’s very hard to fit a spouse, eight kids and the carpool into a fancy car.
1. It is not for the Israeli government to attempt to create religious holidays, especially one celebrated by political speeches. If they wanted to observe a holocaust memorial day, they should do so by fasting and learning Torah.
2. Jews have a traditional “memorial day”, which is Tisha B’Av, which we observe in a traditional manner. We have never added memorial days for tragedies that affected only a portion of Klal Yisrael (not for the destruction of most European Jews in the 20th century, not the destruction of the Southeast European Jews in the 17th, not the destruction of Spanish Jews in the 16th, not the destructtion of west European Jews in the 12th).
3. Frum Jewish kids are extremely aware oh the holocaust and have it driven into them in excess. Most are unaware of such aspects as opposition of secular Jews to rescue efforts, or how many goyim actively opposed the Nazis. While secular Jews use the holocuast as an “identity raising” exercise, frum Jews probably have an excess of identity to begin with.
Chess has a long and venerable tradition among frum Jews. Even a Rishon wrote about it. Of course, you can’t play with an electronic clock or record moves, but that only affects official tournaments.
1. It should be noted that the leaders of American Jews (such as Stephen Wise) objected strongly to any special efforts to save European Jews. Just as the British feared the Jewish survivors would destabilize their Empire by moving to Palestine, American Jews feared that most East European Jews were either Orthodox or Socialist, and would undermine the pro-assimilation policies they were favoring. Note that whereas 50 years ago it was argued that the main evidence for American knowledge of the holocaust was that the tiny frum minority was asking for the US and UK to help European Jews, we now now that the allies broke the German codes early in the war, and that Allied leaders were fully informed of the holocaust throughout the wall.
2. Roosevelt appointed Jews to higher positions than any previous president, and took a strong stand against discrimination. It can also be argued that his support of going to war against Germany was a politically courageous decision that saved the lives of the many European Jews who did survive (public opinion in the USA preferred concentrating on Japan and trying to avoid war with Germany, in part reflecting the unpopularity of both the Soviet Union and the British Empire in America).
Most Israelis believe that their country was founded as a place where they could be safe from Torah and Mitsvos. The handful of frummies who see kedusha in the medinah are a very small and hated minority.
Give credit where credit is due. President Obama at his inaguration speech said he would do something to combat global warming. While he is still working on his ideas to destroy the economy (reduce carbon emissions, make people more dependent on government – a win-win situation form his perspective), ever since the speech the prolonged “Indian summer” ended and we have colder weather.
Anyone dreaming of a white Tisha B’Av?????
Georgetown in DC is the “fancy” neighborhood but while it has a shul, it has no schools or restaurants. The two restaurants in DC are near Du Pont Circle, which is in the downtown area. For all purposes, the Jewish community in Washington is in Montgomery COunty (part of Maryland, on the DC Metro) which has a wide variety of shuls, restaurants, schools ,etc. There is also the popular option to commute from Baltimore (about 45 minutes away by car, 55 by train) which has radically cheaper housing, and radically more frumkeit (especially if you are frummer than modern orthodox).
People with allergies to wheat can go their entire lives without hametz. Indeed, if they make bread (pizza, bagels, hallah) from quinoa, they can even manage without kitniyous (by the shitah that quinoa 100% non-kitniyos).
takahmamash: Except that in Israel the government wants to take yeshiva students (and girls, if you see the fine print) and put them into a military that sees one of its goals as being the secularizion of all Israels so there will be uniform culture (meaning that if you are conservadox or a left-wing religious zionist Israel is perfect, but not if you are frum).
MorahRach: In Baltimore, there are single family detached houses with respectable yards and driveways in the $100K-$125K range, generally built post-World War II, within a ten minute walk of the major shuls (including the German, Yeshivish, Hasidic and modern orthodox ones). For more money, you can a newer house. If you want to live in Baltimore country (a few blocks away) you pay at least twice as much for the house, but the tax rate is under half of the city (other differences is that Baltimore County has better public schools, which is why housing there is a premium – that can be important if one’s child is so special (i.e. handicapped) that they need to go to a non-Jewish school.
Also note that DC and Baltimore are in a relationship similar to Brooklyn and Manhattan (except that they only have separate teams in baseball and football, but do have separate newspapers). If general, Baltimore is frumer than DC, but there are plenty of modern orthodox and non-frum in Baltimore, and plenty of “penguins” in DC (or rather Montgomery County which includes Silver Spring, Rockville and Potomac). The heavily subsidized commuter trains connect Baltimore to DC (but as yet no one has managed to set up a minyan on them, many people drive to Silver Spring to make early minyans before continuing on to jobs in DC).
The Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area is radically cheaper, but only have about a half dozen restaurants with waiters and tablecloths, and also lacks a lot of the gashmius that gives New York its character. It also lacks enough Yiddish speakers for kids to grow up speaking Yiddish, and Hasidim are a largely ignored minority group. But if you are primiarily interested in Yiddishkeit (meaning Torah and Mitsvos – not trying to be keep up with the heart of Boro Park or the Five Towns), the Baltimore-Washington Area is excellent.
In Baltimore, a detached house with a dozen shuls in walking distance is around $100K, and even the fanciest houses rarely go to more than $250K – and the fancy ones are farther from shuls. Its easy find a Beis Medrash, but you’ll have to go to New York for a $100/person restaurant, or to buy a beckeshe.
to: ‘The Haredim can leave whenever they want. Nobody is holding them hostage. Just make sure the door doesn’t hit them on the way out. “
1. The Hareidim were there first. Before the zionists. Before the Arabs. Before the Greeks and Romans.Being a bunch of religious fanatics with weird ideas on halacha, we were chased out of what is now Iraq about 4000 years ago.
2.What is the basis of the zionist claim to Eretz Yisrael?. Zionists have lived in Israel for barely over a century. Compare that to the Americans who have been in their land for 400 years, or the English who arrived 1500 years ago, or the Palestinians who arrived 1400 years if you ignore the DNA evidence that they aren’t really Arabs and are a mixture of Jewish hilonim (a.k.a. mityavanim), Greek and Romans. Based on DNA, most Jews are only partly over middle eastern ancestry, and that’s concentrated on the male line – there were apparently many more female converts in ancient times but they were convereted based on good old fashioned hareidi halachas. As of the 19th century, very few Jews spoke Hebrew except for hareidi fanatics who learned in Hebrew, rather than Latin or Arabic as did normal westerners. Except for a few hareidim, few Jews wanted to live in Israel (and it wasn’t the Arabs who kept us away, if fact they welcomed Jews back when the defeated the Romans – probably figured anyone who hates Romans can’t be all bad).
Don’t be disrespectful.
President Obama said he would do something to reduce global warming – and its been cold and snowy ever since. Better watch out for the guy!
rebdoniel: “I’d be even happier if we had an influx of Haredim into the US, as long as they voted Republican. “
Hareidim, in America, tend to be solid Democrats. Have you noticed which party people like Dov Hikind caucus with? While we are social conservatives, we tend to believe the government should help the poor, and not worry too much about balancing the budget. Arguably they got the idea from us. The traditional conservative approach in America was that giving tsadakah would corrupt the poor, deprive them of self-respect, and discourage them for bettering themselves (thus welfare was only if you were down to the clothes on your back, and involving moving to the “poor house” or “debtors prison”).
While the 21st century warrants a reconsideration of these positions (and I am much closer to Von Hayek than Lord Keynes), Hareidim tend to be natural leftists on economic matters (something that may prove very “interesting” in Eretz Yisrael in the immediate future, since that will facilitate allying with Labor and the Arabs against conscription).
Josh31: Significant digits is irrelevant until you invent decimals (and invent zero) – which was after the time of the gemara. If it would make a difference, I doubt anyone today would allow using 3.0 rather than a better estimate of PI now that we can be more accurate.
Avi K. If you have not served in the army and are officially listed as learning full time (in order to evade military service), you are legally prohibited from working “on the books”. Thus if you hold, as most hareidim do, that military service is contrary to halacha due to the hostility of ther army to a Torah-based lifestyle (which is the case except in some specialized units), you do not have the option of working outside the frum community (which is technically “off the books”). Obviously the army could stop persecuting orthodox Jews, but as the recent incident involving religious zionists who were expelled from officer training for refusing to listen to female singers (which is considered erotic and lewd in Jewish culture, some similar to if am American officer coruse required going to a burlesque show as a condition of commissioning), it is unlikely that the IDF will make the necessary adaptation to allow hareidim to serve (other than in the “Jim Crow” type units such as the “Nahal Hareidi” – i.e., the Israeli equivalent of the American colored infantry regiments or the British native regiments).
However once hareidim resistance forces the zionists to end conscription, frum Jews will free to work, and the IDF if it needs manpower will be forced to see toleration of a Torah lifestyle in a positive light. Thus I am optimistic about the law term future.
Decimals were invented relatively recently ( I believe by the Indians, and introduced to the western countries by the Arabs). Mathematics in the time of the gemarra, regardless of whether you were Jewish, Greek, Roman or Mesopotamian, had to “fudge” a bit as a result. They also didn’t have a “zero” until fairly recently.
“the humbling that the Haredi parties “
It was more of being disabused of the notion that they can be Hareidi and Zionists. They learned that the Eidah Hareidis had been right all along. The two ideologies, Torah on the one hand, and belief in a nation-state with sovereignity over a piece of land on the other, and inherently incompatible. The two (really three, Degel ha-Torah and Agudah are separate but in alliance) parties (not to mention many YWN readers) had come to believe that Medinat Yisrael was good for the Jews and was a country that supported Torah and Mitsvos, even though the evidence is that the medinah has always had a policy of coercing Jews to go “off the derekh” and support for yeshivos was only a bargaining ploy to buy off those hareidim who were able to be bought off.
The irony is, that real political considerations in Israel may force the zionists to abandon conscription. It is already unpopular with many hilonim and virtually all Arabs (who are about half of the goyim living in Israel, the rest are zionists with some Jewish ancestry but not halachic Jews), and the open resistance of the anti-zionist hareidim will be such that the zionists will end up abolishing conscription and switching to a professional army. Once that happens, hareidi baal ha-battim who are on the books as learning full time, will be able to be on the books working and the hareidim community will prosper. In addition, the army (and eventually Israeli at large, which copies the army) will finally make a good faith effort to accomodate hareidim in the military not as a result of political bargains but out of a need to recruit soldiers, and not just for a handful of “Jim Crow” units. So the future is actually quite bright for the hareidim community, once the tumult over the (to be soon realized as being futile) attempts to mass conscript yeshiva students are abandonned.
If you are young enough to have children, then you are too young to be able to predict what you (not to mention the economy, or the world situation) will be like in 20 years — and the real spending “pinch” is when they are wanting to get go to yeshiva, seminary, college – and get married. Also remember that 20 years from now, if you realize you can afford children, you can’t go back and decide to have them.
Among our species, the optimal child bearing years are about 30 years before the peak earning years. If we waited until we could afford families, we would become extinct (as, by the way, appears to be happening in many secular cultures).
Having no money is a nuisance, but one can manage. Medicaid covers most medical bills. Assuming you don’t plan on home schooling, you can usually find some school if one is still poor when the kids reach school age. The more frum the school, the easier to work a deal if you are poor. It’s been a VERY long time since the typical poor person in our community had a one room room apartment (back then, the parent’s bed typically had curtains – and no one else had a bed). Especially in “blue” states, there are plenty of welfare programs in addition to programs such as “Food stamps” and “WIC.”
Remember that this is the first time in history where a major public health issue among the poor is obesity. Poverty today more often means having fewer luxuries than the neighbors. Note how people lived 100 years ago (tiny housing, no private cars, no air conditioning, often no central heating, no antibiotics, severe discrimination against orthodox Jews, and if you lived in Europe, frequent pogroms with the worst about to happen), and don’t whine.
It should also be noted that the marginal cost of each children is quite low. Schools (both ours, as well as universities) pay attention to family size, Adding one more place at the table costs little. And by the time kids reach middle school, they probably are doing a fair amount of work (especially in poor families).
To the person who said “The Charedim will be forced to go to work and when they realize they cant get very high paying jobs to support the large families because of limited education they will be forced to change their secular education bans”
Also Hareidim dress funny. Also it is hard to do office politics (especially for the women since office politics, especially for a woman, involves showing off something other than how properly dressed she is). Also halacha seriously restricts many lines of work, and actually penalizes honest behavior (law and finance come to mind). Not being able to go to goyish restaurants (not just a matter of kashrus – Hooters, as an example, is treff even if it has a hecksher) is a problem since much business is done over meals. And then there is a problem that most hareidim place an emphasis of learning, mitsvos and family – none of which are really compatible with making it in the secular world. If a Hareidi needs to learn a goyish subject, they can and do. School is a social institution, but it isn’t where you go to learn things. Learning is what you do yourself.
The principle economic problem for hareidim in Israel is that there is law prohibiting Jews from working unless they complete army service, and the army remains a hostile environment from someone who puts Torah ahead of anything else (remember, the more “modern” put defense of the land as a highest priority – a not too subtle difference). Eventually the Israelis will be forced to decriminalize “on the books” employment for hareidim, and the hareidi community will boom.
1. Actually some counts estimate over 30 Shomer Shabbos MKs, and a noticable part of all the anti-religious parties are Shomer Shabbos. This is a good sign. The fact that the leading enemy of the yeshiva wears a yarmulke is a clear improvement.
2. The conscription crisis will disappear over time. The anti-zionists will refuse regardless, and the Israelis will back off from being seen as persecuting peaceful religious fanatics. Public opinion is more concerned with getting hareidim in the “workplace” and that can best be accomplished by ending conscription (in which case all those who want to be Baal ha-battim but refuse to serve in the army will leave the yeshiva and get “on the books” jobs).
3. The hilonim are dying out since they enjoy material things, and that discourages them from having kids. We are doomed to take over.
Also, Hareidim can deal with the Arabs more realistically since we can make concessions that are meaningful to the Arabs whereas the hilonim can only offer land which is irrelevant. We can compromise on sovereignity and make Israel more of a middle eastern country, and the hilonim can’t. Part of the increased fanaticism of the hilonim is since they have “read the writing on the wall” and realize they have no future basic on demographic factors that are not irreversible.
Zoos are a definite shailoh if you own the zoo. Of course, most carnivores do not eat hametz, though they do eat animals that had eaten hametz. And while Lions and Tigers never eat hametz or kitniot, Bears are know to eat anything and anyone they can.
zahavasdad who wrote “A stipend for learning (Or any other reason) from the government would be called Welfare or a handout here in the US “
Actually it isn’t. Pell Grants and other forms of scholarships to attend academic institutions are not considered to be a form of welfare. Once the student gets beyond a certain point (typically by graduate school), stipends given to students if they do more than cover the cost of tuition (tuition waiver) and basic room and board, are considered income and are taxable in many cases (and if not taxable, only because specific rules were issued to protect them from taxation). The Israelis don’t considerd teachers in yeshivos to be the equivalent of university teachers or fellows since they would have to draft them. If in fact, if anyone receiving money (often from private donations raised abroad) beyond the cost of tuition and room and board in return for being a “Ben Yeshiva” were considered employed, unemployment in the frum community would be minimal. That is why the people in Bnei Brak and Jerusalem don’t act as if they were in a city with a high unemployment rate – if fact they have a low unemployment rate.
While in the United States “welfare” is what is given to the desperately poor, in most western countries “welfare” is when the government covers basic needs such as housing, living costs and medical care from the public treasury for all persons regardless of need. In the US, programs that are need-based such as Medicare or Social Security or subsidized tuition at public schools are NOT considered to be welfare, though in Europe the equivalent programs are considered part of the “welfare state.”
The real issue in Israel is that the ruling class wants Israel to be what to them is the “zionists” – meaning free of the yoke of Torah that they came to Israel to escape — and the hareidim are very publicly destroying their zionist dream. It’s not about employment or welfare or even serving in the army and schechting Arabs.
“middle of the knight “
I thought we could have a discussion about chess (well, politics is getting boring)
If Ben Gurion offered a 60 year draft exemption (i.e. yeshivas allowed for 60 years, then no longer) – the Hareidim would probably have supported the plan to make Palestine into an American Trust Territory. Any significant Jewish opposition to independence would have tilted the balance. American policy is to leave self-contained peaceful religious minorities alone.
Note that the zionists aren’t discussing defunding yeshivos, but of seizing the students and their money, and seizing money raised in America so it can’t be used to support students learning Torah. Even the British and Muslims never did that. So this means Lapid and Bennett are more in a class with the Crusaders and Romans as enemies of Torah.
Current Israeli policy is that if you are Jewish, you are NOT ALLOWED TO WORK until you serve in the army. If you attempt to engage in gainful employment you will be arrested and/or conscripted. As a consequence most hareidi males once they are full fledged adults either work “off the books” or in jobs that allow them to remain “Bnei Yeshiva” (such as being teachers). If the zionists were concerned about hareidim being employed in the official economy, they would LEGALIZE WORK for non-veterans (the way they do for frum women and Arabs, who are allowed to work without being in the army.
If the zionists wanted hareidim to help defend their country, they would offer to opportunties to serve in the army without harassment or discrimination. As it is many hareidim do serve, because they are so highly motivated they serve in spite of discrimination (similar to many African Americans who served in the American military in the Civil War thru WWII era, in spite of horrific discrimination).
The reality is the efforts to draft hareidim are motivated by a hope that after three years in the army they will “see the light” and give up a lifestyle based on Torah and Mitsvos, based on the their past success in turning most religious recruits into non-Shomer Shabbos. They are probably wrong, but that’s another story.
All the Nationalists such as Likud, Bayit Yehudi, Yesh Atid and even Livni who is an ex-Liukd princess) will accomplish is to end up forcing an end to conscription (which will be good for the Israeli economy, and excellent for Hareidim who want to work outside the frum “ghetto”). They won’t be willing to throw people in jail, and fines won’t work since the people they want to fine don’t have any assets. They seriously underestimate the extent the yeshiva world gets money from overseas (both as donations and tuitions), in part since for ideological reasons they won’t admit that this is “income”, and also haven’t realized that the “welfare state” is a more important source of income than subsidies paid to yeshivos, and limiting welfare state benefits based on political views is very problematic. They will manage to encourage many Hareidim who are inclined to volunteer to decline to do so, since even Hareidim who want to play soldier, don’t want to be seen as opposing yeshivos. Most importantly, unless they back down quickly, they may find that the current kenesset “opposition” group of Socialists, Hareidim and Arabs will evolve into a coherent political block united by support for liberal welfare policies, and opposition to conscription (which they are now just discovering) which will make Israeli politics more interesting.
gavra_at_work=
The English word “money” as currently defined has nothing to do with Kesef, Zahav, etc. In fact, there is no word in the Hebrew language for “money”. The people of the time of the gemara (Jews and goyim) had no conception of what we in the 21st century refer to as “money”, and probably would think we must be totally insane to confuse what we call “money” with what they used for money (many conservative economists would probably agree with them).
The word modern Israeli word “kesef” actually refers to “silver”. Modern Ivrit has adapted it to refer to “money.” In modern English, money consists of entries in bank accounts, which exist in online databases (for the most part) and are typically exchanged via the internet. Some people still make limited use of paper certificates or coins made of worthless metal, but their use is being phased out. Kesef and Zahav are rarely used for commercial purposes on a daily basis (can you imagine offering a one-ounce coin to pay for pizza).
However since the modern economy totally runs on what in English is called “money”, which is a virtual unit of relative value with no intrinsic worth and certainly no fixed or stable worth – it is impossible to apply any psak halacha about what was used for “money” more than a few centuries ago to the modern economy.
Thus talking about Rambam and “Free market economy” makes no more sense than talking about Rambam and the telephone, or Rambam and the computer.