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Those with gigantic bank accounts are the major source of funding for the political system, so why shouldn’t the politicians help them. That’s what corruption and bribery are all about.
The bank failed since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to discourage inflation, which was caused by the decision of the Congresses to spend money without raising taxes (or to be more precise, a view of all Congressmen not to cut funding for programs they favor, and not raises taxes on their supporters, which ends up as a bipartisan consensus to do nothing other than make rude noises when they should be cutting spending and/or raising taxes).
It is highly unlikely that inflation will rise to the level that Israel had in the late 20th century, or Germany during the Weimar Republic period. A crash requires unemployment, and the shortage of workers as current exists (due to low fertility since the mid-20th century among secular Americans) limits the growth of unemployment.
The goyim do have an inclination to assume that the “sky is falling” and we should not let their delusions influence us.
jackk: Are you talking about forcing kids to quit elementary or middle schools (ages 13 and below) to start work, since that is what “child labor” refers to, or are you talking about encouraging teenagers to get jobs and training where they develop skills leading to meaningful employment. Giving kids a “liberal” education that will only qualify them them to be unemployed hardly benefits them, and in fact dooms them to a lifetime of poverty. Industrial skills are good even for Americans. I suspect you perceive the working class as “deplorables”, and do not understand there is as much honor, and income, as a machinist or an operator as there is as a poet or an artist or even as a paper-pusher. Your attitude may be part of why people are fleeing states such as New York and California for “red” states where honest work is encouraged and rewarded.
so leave Arkansas and move to Chicago or New York, and the people in Arkansas do what they think is best !
He admits to being a liar and a thief, on a gigantic scale – so he’s already facing a prison sentence exceeding his likely lifespan. Then he drops his alibi (admits he has been lying all along) and admits he was present at the murder scene close to the time of the murders.
If he was a Yid being tried by a Sanhedrin, he could convince them he is not guilty. If he had an serious alibi, he would have presented it. He can’t complain about the jury (he was a well known and locally respected celebrity), and the jury didn’t believe him. It should be noted he was NOT sentenced to death.
Note that Humash didn’t come with a CD indicating how to pronounce things. The technology to produce a record player did not involve plastic or electronics, so in theory one could have made one 3000 years ago, and the fact that instructions weren’t included at Sinai suggests that “perfect” pronunciation is not a mitsva (and patach is a sound that varies considerably among kosher Yidden).
Also note that Purim is associated with consumption of alcohol, which is know to impair correct pronunciation.
1. If you want to be fancy, you will end up overpaying. If you are not so fancy, shop around.
2. Wheat prices have risen everywhere, something to do with the two of world’s leading grain exporters having a war with each other which reduces the supply.
Attacking Arabs who did not participate in the attacks just makes more enemies. Whereas the goal of the Arabs (and Muslims, in general) is to get rid of Israel, the goal of Israel (whether according to the zionists or the hareidim) is to live at peace with the local goyim, and in all fairness, defeating the Muslims and turning the “nation of Islam” back to the Christians, Zoroastrians and Hindus (as it was before the Muslims conquered the region) isn’t realistic or even desirable (remember we generally hailed the Arab Muslims as liberators 14 centuries ago).
Most Palestinians want to live at peace with Israel, and so the goal of the Israelis should be to isolate those who favor war and genocide from those open to peaceful co-existence, and attacking random Palestinians is therefore counterproductive.
since when do we vote? it isn’t an elected position
As the term appears to be a perjorative and one used primarily to insult, should not Bnei Torah (and of course, all Yidden, especially on YWN, are Bnei Torah) refrain from using it?
Frum take:
1. ALIENS. If you are not an American citizen, you are an alien from an American perspective. The word means “non-citizen” (and is fairly unique to English legalese, most languages, such as Hebrew, use the word meaning “foreigner” instead).
2. UFO’s (unidentified flying objects). So the government has trouble finding a flying object bigger than commercial airliner? And it wasn’t even trying to be stealthy. If you are in the military aviation business, keeping your flying objects unidentified probably earns you a bonus.
3. Extraterrestrial Beings. None are likely to be encountered given the probability of the impossibility of faster than light transportation (and we’ve been able to observe nearby planets, finding no signed of life). If Ha-Shem wanted to tell us they don’t exist at all, it would be in Torah (at least in the oral Torah). Since there are plenty of hints in our traditions that sentient beings other than humans exist, they probably do, but who cares since it is at most a theoretical concept with no real world impact.
And you actually believed that what you’ve been seeing all your life was אמת????
Hiddush?
The zionists have always regard frum Jews as “unser Unglück”. How do you expect them to react?
Perhaps the religious zionists/modern Orthodox are shocked that the secular zionist establishment includes them in the group whose existence is seen as a national misfortune (cf: assimilated German Jews were genuinely surprised that the Nazis didn’t like them even though they looked, acted, and thought like normal Germans).
The Palestinian terrorists are a nuisance. The continued existence of Torah-oriented Jews is an existential threat to the zionist project.
The cost of getting married is minimal. You have to buy a kesubah (but you probably can find one online you can print yourself). The Kiddushin should cost much since it is a halachic inyan not to get something that a reasonable kalah would be able to evaluate (and apparently a head of lettuce will do, if you are desperate). A government license is helpful for paperwork purposes but probably not required at least states that have either “common law marriage” or who regard the “license” as a revenue measure but not something that affects validity. There are no community regulations on minimum size for a dowry.
Of course, most young people like to make the wedding fancy. And the standard of living in America is so high, they are able to do so. Our ancestors would be amazed, and probably somewhat envious. However there is no halachic requirement to spend a massive amount of money getting married.
IF Trump runs in 2024 it makes no difference who he picks for Vice-President, since Biden will be elected and it will matter who he has as VEEP.
1. There is no halachic issue. If you accept their theory about carbon emissions causing devastating global warming that will put everyone’s life in danger, we would have no halachic objections to their demands. If as they believe with a religious fervor, that the world is ending, halacha would support measures to prevent it. It is their underlying theory that is questionable.
2. We have a longer perspective on history; our “memories” go back millenia, whereas most Americans go back decades, at most. Based on accounts of what crops grew where, it is clear that it was warmer in the past than it is today, particularly during the period of Bayis Sheini (the “classical period”) and the period of the Rishonim (the “high Middle Ages”). The goyim seem to be confusing routine climate and weather variations with a disastrous change in climate. When the environmentalists claim that their “science” asserts that there has been horrific warming since the late 18th century, they are choosing one of the coldest periods in human history as their “base”. They also ignore that the historic cold periods led to mass famines and migration of climate refugees is large numbers, often leading to acts of genocide, whereas the warm periods in the past were actually quite pleasant leading to higher food production and a flowering of civilizations. Note that even today, those with money go to Florida for the winter, rather than Alberta or Montana for the summer.
3. There is a halachic dimension to be considered, in that the secular environmentalists seem prone to perceive whatever data they encounter as “proving” a pending “apocalypse” (note their similar response to Covid19), and this penchant for seeing a disaster behind every every data set is probably based on the Christian “bible”, leading to the idea that perhaps it is Avodah Zarah for Yidden to take such “apocalyptic” thinking seriously. We have been around a very long term, and by now we should trust Ha-Shem not to shmush us.
mentsch1: Removing the bullets eliminates the heter to have the weapon on Shabbos as they would make it something you are displaying to “show off” and no more, and therefore banned (as per the mishna). Concealing seems much more relevant both as a security move and to avoid “showing off”.
There is strong reason to believe that if Deri were a secular Ashkenazi kibbutznik with a good socialist pedigree, he would be seen by the secular world as a paragon of virtue.
Understand that the relationship of the zionists (meaning those running the zionist movements, excluding the religious zionists, whom the rest of the zionists perceive as freaks), to frum Jews (be they Ashkenazi or even worse, non-Ashkenazi) is at best similar to how the Southern Whites in the US during Jim Crow perceived Blacks, andat worst, how the Nazis perceived Yidden. A ruling by the zionist courts, especially for a political offense, should be taken as seriously as one would perceive a conviction from a Nazi, Communist or Czarist court.
1. If in a situation where you might need the gun for defense, why is it even a shailoh?
2. Based on the mishna discussing someone who wanted to wear their dress uniform (parade armour and parade weapons – not the ones that are designed to be used in combat), it seems very clear that you can only carry weapons based on military necessity, not to show off. That suggests perhaps a humrah to conceal the weapon rather than to show off you have a gun. A terrorist in fact would first target anyone with a gun so there is no advantage to the armed person in displaying a firearm, and it is a shailoh if displaying a gun is in fact a way of impressing your neighbors, in which case the mishna’s objections to displaying weapons would come into play.
Unless they start sanctioning the Democrats who also file politically motivated, and frivolous (which is legalese for for without even an arguable basis in law and facts), it will just make everyone mad at each other. The fact that the judge is a Democrat will encourage the feeling of madness.
It isn’t clear that for people to conspire to defeat their political enemies is illegal or actionable (something you can sue over), and it is allowed to bring a novel theory without being fined for being frivolous. Accusing people who appear to being working for a common goal is not clearly a non-conspiracy. The essence of Trump’s claim were for defamation, and he apparently never argued that the people he was suing knew for a fact that their allegations were false (which is an element you need to prove in a defamation claim).
I would predict the judge will lose on appeal, since the courts are overly disinclined to make it easy to claim that law suits involving politicians are frivolous.
Baruch ha-Shem we live at a time when people can waste oodles of money for expensive foods. Eighty years ago, most Jews could only dream of such luxuries. We shouldn’t complain so much. Note that people have the option of being frugal (whereas 80 years ago, most Yidden didn’t have the option of eating too much).
P.S. For those who flunked math, 80 years ago was 1943. For those who flunked history, that was in the middle of World War II and the Holocaust.
Weather and Climate are distinct (and one should ignore the climate alarmists who claim that every storm, drought, flood, etc. is “proof” of climate change and the coming end of civilization – they are fools and saying a warm summer day proves something makes you into a fool).
If you want to consider “climate change” look at information as to what plants grew where (e.g. Romans always paid close attention to whether a place could support wine grapes). That data, suggests that the times of Bayis Sheini (the “classical period”) and the time of the Rishonim (the “high middle ages”) were worm, and the “dark ages” and the “early modern period” were cold periods. Oh, and warm periods were generally better for everyone (cold kills crops, warm lengthen the growing season) .
Pre-zionism, most Jews living in Muslim countries were subjects of the Ottoman Empire (note they were subjects, unlike most Jews in the Russian Empire who were tolerated aliens but not subjects).
As was true of almost all Christian and Muslim countries, Jews had legal rights similar to African Americans under “Jim Crow”-meaning you had some rights, some of the time. Compared to 19th century Europe, Ottoman Jews weren’t subject to conscription (until the very end, which is after the start of zionism — and in fact in Muslim and Christian countries, Jews did not have the right to bear arms which at least precluded conscription). A major difference between Muslim and Christian countries was the rarity of pogroms and mass expulsions in Muslim countries, as opposed to the Christian countries. Also the Muslims were not as anxious as the Christians to convert Jews (this had to do with the tax system, the government lost money if a Jew converted to Islam). Pre-zionism in the Arab countries (and pre-“enlightenment” in Europe), we had communal autonomy which made up for the lack of civil and economic rights.In all fairness, compared to the United States in the late 20th century (it may be going downhill as we enter the “woke” era), the rest of golus was horrible, but we survived.
sounds like halacha – it was introduced a few thousand years ago
if someone thinks its a hiddush, it suggests serious deficiencies in their Torah education
In most countries, the police only arrest you if you are suspected of committing a crime, and therefore you are called a “suspect”. Usually, someone other than the police (some sort of person trained in law, of a higher rank than the police) reviews the police’s suspicions before the person is executed or imprisoned.
There are some countries, where the police arrest you without regard to whether they believe you guilty of doing something wrong, and usually in such countries the person can be rapidly convicted and disposed of regardless of guilt, and in those countries you would not be called a “suspect”. Jews have often lived in such countries – it wasn’t pleasant.
Marxist: The Brits couldn’t care too bits about the welfare of “Palestine”. The need it to secure control of the seaway to the Raj, which was the “jewel in the crown”. The Brits knew who assassinated De Haan, and never objected. They knew about the 1929 pogroms before they happened, and made a point of encouraging it. Their greatest fear in the 1920s, when the “dice was cast” was that the agreement, acceptable to the Arab’s leaders, the zionists and the hareidim, and previously agreed to by the British, would go into effect, and there would be large powerful and independent Arab state east of Suez. The British Colonial Office played the zionists and the Arab for fools, and were successful at it. What we saw as a pogrom or riots, and the Arabs saw as an uprising, the British saw as an opportunity to maintain their Empire by making sure that the potential trouble-makers were too busy fighting each other rather than fighting the British.
The “divide and rule” policy was successfully implemented throughout the Empire, including Ireland and India. It was successful in starting conflicts which continue to this very day, but was a total failure at saving the Empire, which dissolved in a matter of months in 1947.
The British spent a lot of effort to make sure the above happened. Indeed the whole of British colonial policy was directed at starting the Arab-Israeli conflict. They found plenty of fools, who “fell for it”. They tried the same trick in both Ireland and the Raj (India, which included Pakistan and Bangladesh). It worked perfectly at starting a war, but failed miserably as the locals didn’t come begging Britain to stay.
If the zionists and the Arab nationalists weren’t fools, the result would have been a single Arab state of all Arabs east of Suez (now made up of Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and the various countries of the Arabian peninsular), probably as a constitutional monarchy under the family that now leads Jordan, with a Jewish population about twice that of Israel (probably fewer European socialist immigrants, but they would have picked up almost all non-secular refugees from what would have been the German-led expulsion of European Jews).
One had to be tahor to enter the Beis ha-Mikdash. No one has been tahor for almost 2000 years. That is why the gedolim have consistently banned Yidden from entering the Beis ha-Mikdash, and why many areas of halacha impacted by the laws of tahorah/tumah are generally not observed and studied only as a highly specialized topic.
And even if taharos weren’t enough, trying to start a war with the Muslims is not in the interests of the Yidden in Eretz Yisrael.
Note that even if a dog is insane (i.e. mentally ill, even by dog standards), it remains unwise to kick him.
What’s wrong with politicians? So how stupid do they need to be in order to qualify?
Unless he has managed to become “Tahor”, and is going to the Har ha-Bayis to offer a korban, he has no business being there. All he does is it rub it in the noses of the Yishmaelim that they were conquered by the Zionists, which just encourages them to make mischief.
When the Bayis is rebuilt, combined with the demographic impact of techiyas meissim, the Arabs will be sufficiently impressed to stand down (and all those who pride themselves on their well paying jobs in the Kenesset will be unemployed since Eretz Yisrael will finally be a Jewish medinah, and have no need for the Zionist politicians, including the self-proclaimed Chareidi members of the Kenesset).
As the Speaker position is vacant, if both the Presdent and Vice-President die, the President pro temp of the Senate becomes President, though it is unclear whether she would get a regular term (it never happened before).
ujm: A generation (or two) ago, it was possible for the Chareidim to ally with the left-wing parties but that’s no long possible since:
1. The Israeli left is now dominated by parties for whom opposition to frumkeit is a defining feature (whereas the Labor party of Ben Gurion et al. was willing to tolerate Chareidim, albeit in the belief they would disappear over time). Indeed, most of the left now sees the Chareidim as the greatest threat to the Medinah.
2. While the Chareidi community is anything but democratic (small “d”), and is basically on oligarchy dominated the rabbanim (who tend to be left wing on economic issues, e.g., supporting welfare for the poor), the masses of the Chareidi community have been steadily become less inclined to follow what the rabbanim tell them in matters of politics, and the Chareidi “street” is increasingly anti-Arab. In an oversimplified way, the Chareidi rabbinim are “doves” but many if not most of Chareidi baal ha-battim are “hawks”.Most of the opposition consists of drop-outs from Likud, and if the religious parties get to demanding, Likud has alternatives. The reverse isn’t true. If Likud says no to the “religious parties” they have no one to turn to since the opposition parties are all anti-religious. While the secular nationalists (other than Lieberman) have minimal problems with giving money to religious groups, or special gifts that don’t hurt their secular constituents, asking for the political leadership to persecute some of their secular constituency is probably to much. Remember that at this time the major opposition parties are not so much opposed to Likud, but are in oppositions out of personal dislike of Netanyahu, and Bibi is old and probably not likely to be around much longer, and the next Likud prime minister will be able and willing to re-assimilate the center-right opposition, and won’t need overdemanding religious junior partners.
Not unless they radically change how judges and prosecutors are hired. For example, “Jim Crow” was always illegal but nothing happened until post-World War II when the justice system finally started enforcing existing laws. The social reality (and this impacts on changes to the Law of Return to sharply cut the rights of secular “Jews”), is that the ultra-secular, anti-Torah elite run things.
If we banned liars from holding office, they would have trouble finding enough candidates, Congress would lack a quorum, and the work of government would grind to a halt.
It doesn’t appear that any of his lies render him ineligible to hold office (e.g. lying about citizenship or residence, such as if he really is an illegal alien living in New Jersey). If he does a good job in Congress, the people who voted for him may be very forgiving; America has a long tradition of looking at one’s accomplishments rather than getting hung up over the past.
1. There really is nothing outrageous about a person having a “preferred pronoun” that reflects their actual gender.
2. They probably are very naive (credit that to frum schooling) and don’t realize that believing one needs to (or can) prefer a pronoun is in fact a pledge of allegiance to a very anti-Torah political movement.
At the very minimum, the Palestinians will regard any state that doesn’t include all of the West Bank including Jerusalem (based on the 1949-1967 borders) as being simply a transitional state en route to a Palestinian state based on the 1914 borders (i.e. an Islamic state including everything between the Jordan and the sea).
A single state solution might work if it includes at least all Arabs in the region (and perhaps including Turkey and Iran), such that Israel is recognizing that it is part of what is securely an Islamic state, with Israel preserving autonomy for itself including its own military. Such a confederation would enable the Palestinians to stop being state-less. However most Israelis would not accept the strictures of living in an Islamic state (e.g. no gay rights).
“red” and “blue” were dreamed up by television news people in 2000, and they were apparently ignorant of the fact that in most countries the left is “red”, and the right is “blue”.
er: Hitler was a socialist who installed an economic system very similar to China in the 21st century. The conservatives opposed him (remember that German conservatives at the time wanted to restore the monarchy, but Hitler was a staunch republican (small “r).
Leaders of the Democratic party include Al Sharpton, who they treat as a senior statesman, who has the distinction of having organized the only pogrom against Jews in American history (there were pogroms against Italians, Chinese and Blacks, among others – mostly organized by Democrats).
I suggest the standard “test” for anti-semitism is whether a potential employer will accommodate Sabbath observance, and it is typically labor unions (all of which are Democrat) or the good liberal institutions that dominate the Blue cities, that are the ones causing us problems.
The most serious laws the Democrats are pushing including punishing large families, banning tax exemption to institutions that oppose homosexual behavior, and requiring students to go to schools that teach a woke agenda. And the supporters of such laws appear to be in the ascendancy.
We are better off with a conservative regime that opposes such innovations and supports the formerly well established tradition of freedom of religion as a core American value, which the exceptionalism that has made America the biggest success since we were kicked out of Eretz Yisrael.
The results suggest that in the 21st century, Georgia is so “red” that only Donald Trump could make it “blue”. Arguably, if Trump/MAGA take over the Republican Party on a permanent basis, and no new party emerges reflecting the traditional Republican platform (pro-business, internationalists, pro-Defense, slightly libertarian, not willing to play games with the Constitution), then the whole country will probably become “Blue”.
I know that all employment discrimination I encountered have been at the hands of liberal Democrats (usually non-Orthodox Jews). The only times I have been physically threatened have been by people who based on ethnicity and location are probably liberal Democrats. I have never felt unsafe, or discrimination against, by conservatives/Christians.
While I know that in the past things were different, we need to remember that what has made America exceptional is the willingness to ignore history. Even at the very founding of the republic, people’s who ancestors fought on opposite in Britain’s civil war, found themselves serving together in the Continental Army. It is a very dumb idea to be mad at the “Religious Right” because of events that happened centuries ago in Europe. To take a more recent example, many Polish Jews tried to be on the German side when Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned Poland in 1939 since the remember the good German behavior in occupied area during World War I.
Based on the world as it is today, liberal (WOKE) Democrats are the biggest threats to us.
The core of the Republicans from the Reagan though Bushes era is still intact. They have some ideological disagreements with Trump’s MAGA group (particularly on foreign affairs and immigration), but that’s about it. Given Russian and Chinese imperialism, the foreign policy differences may shrink, and given that the labor shortage is seriously causing inflation that objections to immigrants may become moot. The core Republican belief in capitalism and social moderation are shared by the MAGA faction as well as the traditional Republican mainstream.
The political question is to what extent the Republican party can keep the MAGA group with Trump, and more importantly, can the Democrats reabsorb those who they called the “deplorables” (the Biden/moderates probably can get them back, whereas the WOKE/progressives probably won’t be able to).
So what’s the surprise? Yidden always had a gigantic “civil society” based on voluntarism. Even in the past when Yidden had a “chief” rabbi, the position never involved micromanaging community services. Every agency (every heder, every yeshiva, every shul, every mikva, every charitable organization) was an independent voluntary organization.
However to most Israelis, this is a serious problem, since the goal of zionism is to rid Eretz Yisrael of Yiddishkeit, and it is hard to do so when you are up against a community whose activities are based on voluntary activities rather than a centralized structure that could be disabled by chopping off the top.
Are you addressing a condition under which Eretz Yisrael is being conquered and is to become Judenrein, and Israelis without dual citizenship would have a problem fleeing?
If there were problem is the diaspora, most Yidden would move to Eretz Yisrael, in which case no passport is needed (the countries expelling Jews wouldn’t require a passport to exit, and the Israelis wouldn’t require them for Jewish refugees to enter).
Neither event is likely. Those Arabs opposed to Israel’s existence are not especially strong militarily and given Israel’s probable nuclear weapon would face mutually assured destruction if they ever attempted to destroy Israel. In the disaspora, while crime is a problem, it isn’t directed against Jews. While the far right favor policies seen as threatening by most Jews, those policies (e.g. support for religious schools, restriction of gay rights, restricting abortion) are seen as favorable by frum Jews. While the far left (“progressives”) favor policies most frum Jews oppose, their policies are against all religions, not just Jews.
Given that the textbook “How to lie with statistics” seems to be the basis of most statistical discussions, the best way to evaluate a statistical hypothesis is to test it against real world data. If there is a serious “shiduch problem” (frum people unable to find spouses), it should be resulting in frum elementary schools having a problem of a shrinking pool of students, and having difficulty filling classrooms,since it our community, the minhag is that women start having children only after a successful shidduch. Furthermore, that can’t be faked, and is easy to confirm. If there is a “shidduch” crisis, frum schools should be closing, teachers should be being laid off and schools will be charging lower tuition since they are desperate to attract a shrinking pool of students; if this is not happening, it is highly unlikely there is a “shidduch crisis”. Note that everyone has a “shidduch” problem until they get married, and except for Adam ha-Rishon, whose problem was indeed unique, these tend to be resolved in a very mundane way.
lakewhut: The Federal government isn’t supposed to be involved in domestic relations, yet 25 years ago they passed a federal statute on same-sex marriage, and now the political winds are changed so they passing a (constitutionally) similar statute with the opposite impact.
That has minimal impact on our community since most of us live in states where the local legislature supports same-sex marriage, so the federal law is irrelevant. It also doesn’t impact the most important aspects of marriage law which pertain to the rights of parents, since in general, “gay” couples don’t have children.
IF Israel were frum by our standards, it would lose about half of its population, including most of the personnel in the most important military units, and most of the “StartUP Nation” type industries. You would lose the massive secular tourism industry, and would lose most support from Jews outside of Israel (most of whom are very secular, very rich and well connected politically).
If you are Chareidi-enough to accept a much lower standard of living, and willing to make the necessary concessions to live under Muslim rule-getting rid of the hilonim is a great idea. IF you prefer that Israel be a westernized modern country with a strong military, you probably don’t want to go gung-ho in desecularizing Eretz Yisrael.
1. The “Respect for Marriage Act” doesn’t affect us since almost all frum Yidden live in “Blue” states, where that is already the law. You do realize that the goyim has always been a bit “improper” in such matters, especially over the last few centuries???
2. A “deputy assistant secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition” is rather unimportant. IF you had such a job, and people asked what you did for a living, you would just answer “a government job”.
One should note that in Eretz Yisrael, notices against speaking Ivrit are posted in Hebrew.
Frum Yidden always spoke and read Hebrew. Aramaic was “mama loshen” only for a relatively small area. Jews in Egypt and eastern Europe spoke Greek, Jews in western Europe spoke a Latin (from whence we get such Yiddish words as “bentsch”). When Jews went from one region to another, they always spoke Hebrew even in modern times (e.g., you don’t find accounts of Ladino classes in Warsaw, or Yiddish classes in Salonika – when Warsaw and Salonika Jews got together they would communicate in Hebrew).
“How did people buy food from someone else before hashgohos”?
1. You relied on knowing the owner, including whom he/she followed in terms of halacha. Very few Jews lived in communities so large that everyone didn’t know everyone else (note: until the early 20th century, even the United States was still largely a nation of farmers).
2. Restaurants rarely existed before the end of the 19th century. Also there were very few processed foods, and almost all food was grown locally and processed by the buyer and their friends. While there are advantages of buying and processing only local grown foodstuffs, any local disruption would result in famine.
3. Products that had to shipped, such as wine, a hasghacha was needed, and wine often had several (e.g. the Rav in France where it was produces, the Rav in Prague who knew and trusted the Rav in France, and your local Rav who knew and trusted the Rav in Prague, etc.).