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I suggested that ten days ago.
I expect to be making an online siyum on Yerushalmi Berachot from my home.
Our local kosher restaurants — in fact, ALL our local restaurants — are much smaller than any of our shuls (or the much smaller number of churches) in the neighborhood therefore they don’t offer as much risk.
However, restaurants and bars are indeed closing after tomorrow.
That US citizens and residents can return from Europe defeats the purpose of a travel ban. Viruses do not care about your nationality.
Our two largest Jewish day schools have already been closed for weeks. There are dozens of COVID-19 positive cases among faculty, staff, and students, and everyone affiliated is in quarantine.
We have never spent thousands on Pesach at home. And we eat well.
I am actually a candidate on a different slate, but I am incredibly excited that more charedim are declaring themselves to be Zionist and voting in the WZC elections! Today is the last day!
People die from it. That makes it bad.
OTOH a silver lining is that it might drive Trump, Xi, and the Iranian mullahs from power because of their respective placing of their own political good over the health of their citizenry.
New York City’s population has been growing and it still has more than twice the population of the second largest city in the US. (Los Angeles)
I worked with a Jew whose family was saved by the famous Japanese diplomat Sugihara. She has traveled to Japan and met Sugihara’s family. To say that Sugihara was immoral is the height of ingratitude. I am glad that you remain anonymous.
LOL. Big cities in Texas had bag laws years ago. And both Texas and Florida have higher violent crime rates and higher property taxes than New York City.
I personally think all males beyond bar mitzvah age should have beards. I last shaved in 1986.
“Yiddish is our historical common tongue.”
Actually Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Ladino are much more the historical Jewish languages. Yiddish is a latecomer and unlike the other four there are almost no sefarim written in it.
January. Northern New Jersey. Outdoors. Three days too early.
One of Harding’s mistresses was a German spy during World War I. The Republican National Committee paid her hush money to keep quiet. Trump is the second President to pay hush money to a mistress.
Wilson did a lot of good and a lot of bad.
He dropped tariff rates to their lowest levels in over six decades. That was good. He vetoed immigration restrictions. That was good. He won WW1. That was food. He lost the peace through his naivety and stubbornness. That was bad. And he was the most racist President prior to Trump. Very bad.
Israel caused the Six Day War by existing. Lincoln did not support abolishing slavery at that time and it was the Aouth that started the war.
Had the St. Louis passengers disembarked they would have been illegal immigrants and FDR had no power to rectify that, thanks to Coolidge.
Buchanan and Pierce were responsible for the Civil War. Andrew Johnson lost the peace. Harding is the worst since then a blithering idiot who was totally incompetent and presided over unprecedented corruption. Trump is a lot like Harding.
Anyone who lists Obama is just a partisan hack an ignoramus, or both.
The difficult ones are people like Wilson who did a lot of good and a lot of bad.
The worst ones for Jews were Harding and Coolidge who signed the immigration laws that doomed the Jews of Europe.
“There should be a sign shaming the tigers for their many sins! ”
Tigers cannot sin; they are animals without free will. Yes they are killers, as are all cats — they would go extinct if they did not hunt and eat other animals as they cannot survive without eating meat. HaShem created them that way.
Back to bagels…most bagels in the Bronx are kosher from the same OU certified facility in the South Bronx — Just Bagels. If like me you keep crazy hours you see their trucks, which feature the OU, making deliveries late at night and early in the morning.
Ben Levi,
The US is far from the most dangerous country in the world. Here are some homicide rates from 2016, per 100,000 people.
US 5.4
Mexico 19.3
Guatemala 27.3
El Salvador 83.1
Belize 37.6
Honduras 56.5
Nicaragua 7.4
Costa Rica 11.9
Panama 10.0
Columbia 25. 5
Venezuela 56.3
Jamaica 47.0
Bahamas 28.4
Brazil 29.7
South Africa 34
Central African Republic 19.8
Philippines 11.0
Afghanistan 6.6
Mongolia 5.7
Russia 11.0OTOH most of the rest of the free world has much lower homicide rates:
Canada 1.7
United Kingdom 1.2
Ireland 0.8
France 1.4
Germany 1.2
Spain 0.6
Italy 0.7
India 3.2
Pakistan 4.0
China 0.6
Korea 0.7
Japan 0.3Most homicides are not from mass shootings.
And in many of these countries, including the US, suicides are far more common than homicides.
Had Barack Obama welcomed so many apostates into the White House we would be up in arms. Instead he had a budget director, chief of staff, and treasury secretary who was an actual frum Jew.
“The laws created by the gentiles is inapplicable in how we Jews govern ourselves in our interpersonal relations, including financial compensation and/or courts which render such judgements.”
Not true. We are prohibited from doing things that would be mutar halachically if secular law prohibits them. We must pay our taxes even if they are not what the Torah prescribes. We must obey court orders including paying financial compensation when a court orders it to be paid. We must follow secular law regarding ownership of property even when it is inconsistent with halachah. If a beit din makes a ruling that is contrary to public policy as expressed in secular law, the beit din ruling gets overturned and we are bound to accept that. I could go on and on but I will add that there is no statute of limitations for damages in halachah and the new law about which people are complaining makes secular law more like halachah, not less.
Not following secular law is why we have kollels in prisons. đ
The trade war is entirely Trump’s. Unfortunately some Democrats including Elizabeth Warren support trade wars. Bernie Sanders does, too, but he is not a Democrat.
The best kiruv is your own actions. If you meet a non-observant Jew, invite him/her for Shabbat some time. Let them see the pleasure of a Torah life firsthand. Do not outsource to Aish or Lubavich or anyone else — everyone should be interested in all Jews.
“Vote for the party that upholds moral values.”
That means voting for the party that opposes Trump. There has never been a more immoral leader in the US.
I voted for plate 5. I loved the old plates with Niagara Falls and the NYC skyline and refused to ever get the boring plates with the orange background. I just switched to the 9/11 commemorative plates last month.
“I guess you havenât heard of Avi Weiss”
This is motzi shem ra.
Years ago I happened to go to the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale at a morning minyan where he was present. There were nine guys, plus one woman whose mother had recently died who wanted to say kaddish. It turned out that the Daf Yomi group had just found a Tosafot that suggested that it might be possible to count a woman as the tenth for a minyan if there were nine guys present.
Rabbi Weiss refused to hear of it and would not allow the woman (or anyone else) to say kaddish until a tenth man arrived. Women have never been counted as part of the ten needed for a minyan at that shul.
“YU decreed that any Rabbi receiving ordination in its Yeshiva who takes a job at a Conservative shul (where all the jobs were) is automatically stripped of his ordination. ”
To the contrary, YU (and Ner Israel in Baltimore) encouraged its grads to take jobs at conservative shuls (or “orthodox” shuls that lacked mechitzahs) with the hope of making them orthodox. Two famous successes in that were Rabbi Feldman at Beth Jacob in Atlanta and Rabbi Riskin at Lincoln Square — they managed to get them to put in a mechitza and the rest is history.
“it makes sense for Orthodox minyanim to use Conservative shul property (basement, social hall, etcâŠ) for Orthodox minyanim”
In my neighborhood there is an orthodox minyan in the basement of a Reform Temple.
Elsewhere in the Bronx there is an orthodox minyan in a mosque.
Arnold Schoenberg should be the first person elected.
Trump isn’t like Hitler. Trump is much more like Mussolini.
Abortion is not treated as murder in Judaism. That is a Catholic Christian position.
Only two of the four members of the Squad are anti-Semites and Trump has been even more explicit in spouting the anti-Semitic memes of Jewish money and dual loyalty that Omar has spouted.
Hawaii is part of the US. It was a state when Obama was born there. There is a birth certificate that is unquestionably valid; it was attested to by Hawaii’s Jewish Republican governor and then by her successor who was a Democrat who personally knew Obama’s parents before Obama was born.
Only ignorant racists like Trump promoted these conspiracy theories. Even had Obama been born outside the US he STILL would be a natural born US citizen because his mother was a US citizen (and in fact his mother was a 12th generation American).
It is not a crime to simply being in the US illegally. And ICE is the only law enforcement agency that doesn’t bother with the constitutional requirement of search and arrest warrants signed by judges. That is why when they show up at your door you do not have to open it. And that is why the sanctuary city movement is actually a good idea — local law enforcement agencies can be held liable if they hold someone for ICE when ICE doesn’t have a valid warrant.
Hebrew has been the language of the Jewish people since Moshe Rabbeinu. There are more Seforim in English than in Yiddish. Harvard distributes translations of the Latin commencement address.
I am an Ashkenaz who is jealous of Sfardim because their food tastes better!
Avi K,
That it is a requirement to have a King is NOT unanimous. Ibn Ezra says it is optional and Abarbanel explains in great detail why it is a bad idea. Anyone who has learned Sefer Melachim and Sefer Divrei Hayamim would see how badly monarchy worked out for us.
manitou,
The events surrounding Chanukah led to a pre-Mashiach Jewish state that lasted for 80 years. It, too, is mentioned in Chazal (not always favorably).
I am not particularly a De Blasio fan — I didn’t vote for him in his first run for mayor — but he has not been an awful mayor. In particular, crime rates are at 75 year lows in part because he appointed good people to run NYPD and got out of the way. His silly run for President is embarrassing, though. But it should be noted that none of the other candidates in either party are stronger supporters of Israel than De Blasio. He should get at least some credit for this.
“Are masorti shomer Shabbos, kashrus and taharas hamishpacha?”
I know some who are. Not sure how common that is.
OTOH I know people who drive to services at Orthodox synagogues.
“How many of us actually marry our âbashertâ?”
I did.
“That Gadol can tell you about taaroovos or economics or medicine. ”
Unless the Gadol has a medical degree he can’t tell you about medicine. For over a thousand years, since Rav Sherira Gaon, we have been forbidden to use talmudic medicine.
If you burn the works of Rabbi Saadia Gaon, Rambam, or Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, you will have to answer in Olam HaBa. Even though they were (mostly) written in Arabic.
If I take off my yarmulke I completely pass for a WASP.
FWIW, Judaism has no concept of race. I personally know Jews of all races. Our distinction is between Jews and non-Jews.
Joe Biden. The best candidate. He is the most experienced and he can bring the country back together again.
In chronological order:
Andrew Jackson perpetrated genocide. That should put him at the bottom of any list, particularly one created by Jews. Note that he is Trump’s favorite President.
Pierce’s stupid policies led directly to massive nativist bigotry, a huge financial panic and to the Civil War.
Buchanan continued Pierce’s bad policies and by the end of his term a bunch of states were no longer in the US.
Andrew Johnson was totally ineffective.
Grant was even worse, presiding over levels of corruption unprecedented in American history. He also allowed a massive financial panic that led to the longest depression of the 19th century.
Harding had levels of corruption that may have surpassed Grant’s, was the only President prior to Trump to have had to pay hush money to a mistress, had an illegitimate child with a different mistress, promoted catastrophic tariff increases that led to a depression all over rural America, and promoted nativist bigotry.
No President since has been as bad as any of these, although Trump’s polices are really similar to Harding’s and may turn out similarly.
“They may have had religious people as decorations ”
Rabbis Reines, Kook, Uziel, Herzog, and Soloveitchik should not be denigrated as “decorations”. And some of the RZ *political* leaders like Rabbi Dr. Yosef Burg were talmidei chachamim.