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Most of our furniture is second hand. Saves a lot of money and most of it is in an excellent condition. Things that are in a less perfect condition but still decent and therefore cheap, can be used in a study room or guest room.
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That is pretty strong language. Be careful.
I don’t get the point. Why is everyone so obsessed with Joseph here? I suppose he was banned – I missed that part of the story. But I just don’t see the point. Some people here are more obsessed with finding (and seeing) Joseph in every corner of the CR, than some Yerushalmi Rebbes are in burning iPhones. And that is quite a high level of zealousness.
I used Internet Explorer until 2006, then switched to Firefox, and then switched to Chrome in 2009. Using both IE and FF rarely now and Chrome 99% of the time.
Chrome is the best.
apushatayid: don’t ask me. But be informed that in Europe, in most places, none or very few products that are kosher have any sort of stamp on them. In a country with a population of (tens of) millions, it doesn’t make sense to put kashrus symbols on products where only a few thousand people keep kashrus. This is the case in The Netherlands, in Germany, in Switzerland, the UK (with a few exceptions), and most other countries. Instead, we have kashrus lists (like the one linked above) in paper and/or PDF formats provided by the certifying authority, and we have to check each product on the list.
I saw it a couple of weeks ago in Yerushalayim, a very young child (maybe 5 years old) pointing a laser on my eyes from his balcony.
I immediately went up to that house and told his mother in pretty strong words that she will end up in jail for a very long time if her little son points that thing at car drivers’ eyes and a car will go on the sidewalk and kill a pedestrian because of that, for example. And on that road, at least 60 buses pass every hour as well. I told her I could not understand how she could be so negligent to have her child play with such a dangerous ‘toy’ of which the dangers are quite well known.
The mother was quite shocked and obviously had not thought of something like that….. I’m pretty sure she took it away from the child.
Cholov Stam is allowed in The Netherlands, but only as a second option where Cholov Yisroel is unavailable (ie, outside of Amsterdam).
I’m fairly sure the regulations for this are nowadays set on the EU level, so if it’s ok in The Netherlands, I believe it’s ok in the rest of the EU as well (and I’m pretty sure in Switzerland as well).
And yes, a quick check reveals I’m right about Switzerland: http://www.igb.ch/fileadmin/pdf/Kaschrutlisten/Aktuell/IGB%20Kaschrut-Liste_Stand_Juni%202011.pdf see page 131 (Milch).
Mods: I am posting a link to a kashrus list on the website of a kehilla (the IGB, Jewish Community of Basel). I’d assume that is ok?
As a matter of fact, I wondered about the same many times.
The halochos of modern day tznius clearly outline that women must not wear anything with letters on it. So why is it ok to have a school logo exactly in that area?
I fully agree with haifagirl. It seems completely inappropriate and indeed a shoulder patch would seem much more appropriate.
I must agree with Sacrilege. You may want to compare the top 1% of us with the Navy SEALs, but don’t forget the other 99% of the Navy are others who do equally important but less demanding and less dangerous work. (Actually they’re way less than 1%.)
And I don’t want to insinuate others in the Navy by definition have less demanding or less dangerous work. Try being a corpsman with Marines in the field, try being underwater for weeks in a submarine, being away for 6 months on deployment, boarding vessels that may have numerous armed terrorists on them in the middle of the night with your small boarding party of 10, or landing a big heavy cargo plane on a carrier at night on a rough sea. Or try being a rescue swimmer who jumps from a helo into the Atlantic Ocean in a hurricane to rescue people from the water.
I think I’m bored.
If so, the skirts aren’t long enough in the first place. If the skirts were of the appropriate length (ie, halfway between ankle and knee) this would not happen at all. It’s not related to cars, it’s part of the overall problem in America.
B”H here in Gateshead it’s not like that.
A parve cheese cake.
OK, this world has certifiably gone crazy.
I guess you could say the same about meatless meat (soy)… but somehow, a parve cheese cake just sounds a lot stranger.
I’m lactose intolerant, as are (both) my parents and my sisters.
Nobody needs milk. Milk is meant for young cows, not for humans. I haven’t drunk milk in the 25 years that I’m alive and I’m perfectlt healthy. So are my parents and sisters.
I use a Dutch product called Kerutabs, which works great. I have my parents send me it by mail now and then, when I run out. Take half a tablet and I can eat all milk products except for real milk for 2 to 3 hours.
Combined with being a vegetarian (again, my whole family) these lactase enzymes are truly lifesaving… imagine not eating meat/fish and not eating dairy! I’d go crazy.
I can only try: that’s why there are some companies in Israel that rent these things out for $5 a day or so. Pac-Man is asking whether such things exist in the US as well.
Pac-Man: if you have a 3G/4G phone, you can use your phone as a modem. If it’s not included in your contract, maybe you can add that for 1 month and just pay $20 for once or so.
I have that and am quite happy with it.
It is absolutely not forbidden.
As for who said it – one of the 6 dayonim of the Badatz of the Edah HaChareidis.
observanteen – I never said I was a BT (draw your own conclusions).
I believe that he who forgets that he was megayer and not a BT, is the one who succeeded.
Actually, the story is that I am of Jewish background (biologically) but wasn’t 100% any more, so I started returning, made aliyah (I was under the Law of Return) and corrected things. I don’t see myself as having done anything special, I just corrected something that went wrong at some point in history. It’s no big deal for me and personally, I suppose this is the first time most people here see my background – oh well, it’s not a secret anyway – but the truth is that I never tell anyone the whole story. Being a BT is enough. Besides, we’re all BTs in a way, and aside from that, I did actually return to Am Yisroel after my family left, so it is a sort of teshuvoh – only not just teshuvoh to Daas Moshe VeYisroel but to Am Yisroel as well.
To come back to what I just said – there are those who forever stand out as being ‘geirim’. Everyone knows they are, and somehow, they always have this kind of ‘smell’ (sorry, I really don’t know how to say it). Many of them, especially the ones who come from a Christian background, are still – forever – stuck with certain dogmas from their old life and never change.
As for me, I have never in my life been to any sort of religious function of any sort other than Orthodox Jewish. Not a wedding, not a funeral, not any sort of service – not in any sort of church, and not even a Reform shul. So I guess my head is purer than that of most BTs. 🙂 Don’t want to insult anyone, I hope everyone understands what I mean. I mean to say that I never had any poison enter my mind at all – I have never known anything but being Jewish. That, also, is why I barely consider myself a BT even. It’s just completely irrelevant to me. A yid is a yid and that’s it. Enough with the labels…
(I really should go to sleep now, this isn’t making any sense.)
I know I should be ashamed of myself, but the only way I can stay up all night is when I’m sitting at my computer. I can’t learn Torah all night and not sleep. It just doesn’t go. I can’t focus on really difficult things at that hour.
So generally on Shavuos I just go to sleep a little later than on a normal shabbos or yom tov, like around midnight instead of around 11.
And yes, I know it sounds weak, but that’s just who I am.
Well, I did it. And I’d do it again. I may not like everything and may not agree with everything and may not be perfect, but I know the emes and am happy and (internally!) proud to be part of it.
I don’t regard myself as anything special and very few people know of my background. Personally, I prefer not to stand out in any way and just be normal. I don’t feel I need to be proud, or that I should get any special privileges, because of my background.
As many have suggested: learn & learn. Ie, both of them together.
Obviously, the one who studied at Harvard can, if he wants to, work in a job where he only has to work 25 hours a week or so and still earn a decent salary, and spend the rest of his time learning Torah (while not having to live from gifts). I think that would be the ideal solution, even if it means having to live on a lower level of wealth than the ‘average’ fulltime Harvard grad.
I don’t have dogs, but I do have three cats. All adopted from the streets of Jerusalem.
If you think a black hatter with a dog looks funny, try a black hatter walking with a cat on a leash. No way I’d let my cats go outside alone in Jerusalem – only with a leash; way too dangerous there. But that’s not the end of it. One of them, the oldest, likes to sit/lie in my shoulders, around the back of my neck. Legs on my left shoulder, shoulders on my right shoulder. I take walks with him around the neighborhood like that.
The looks when I pass a BY are just amazing….. “IEEEGGGGHSS!!!!” 🙂
My own, then.
Me to my (native Israeli) wife: “??? ?????? ???, ???? ??? ?? ????? ????”
= “At my parents’ house, I always had a diaper.”
I meant cat (????), not diaper (?????). I almost had to carry my wife home after that…. she couldn’t stop laughing for an hour or so.
I always thought that from tzeis on Thursday, it’s Erev Shabbos. For example, for doing shopping lekovod shabbos, if you do shopping on Thursday after tzeis it’s the same as doing shopping on Friday morning. (There’s an inyan to buy certain things on erev shabbos davka – I think challos specifically.)
Then again, I AM NOT A POSEK….
@The Goq – it’s obviously a copy-paste from a Ivrit-speaking chareidi news site (Kikar HaShabbat or the like).
I act the same here and in daily life, because I use my real name online. If I write insulting, damaging and hateful things, I may suffer the consequences if a family member, colleague or acquaintance reads it and speaks to me about it.
I believe anonimity is the internet’s biggest danger, and therefore I avoid anonimity and use my own whenever I can.
Just to clarify: as someone said, it’s not that I don’t like Purim.
What I do not like, indeed, is the way many people (especially bochurim) behave on Purim.
The yearly ritual of seeing and hearing people yelling and vomiting and driving in cars honking their horns non-stop wearing crazy hats, does NOT make me look forward to that day.
On *leil* Purim (ie, at the beginning of Purim), right after krias haMegillah, I was walking home and already saw drunk bochurim – a couple were so drunk their friends (who were a little less drunk) had to physically support them so they would be able to walk. This was at 7 PM, and these (chareidi, Litvishe) kids were about 13 years old! And, I repeat, this was 5 minutes after we finished reading the megillah AT NIGHT!
I’m also with oomis on this.
Just one of the reasons why I absolutely do not like Purim. On Purim, I don’t drink wine (I never do in any case), I don’t hold any big seudah (just a small seudah with my wife and close family with no or almost no alcohol), go to work, and at home I lock myself up behind a double lock to avoid the drunks.
Kind of silly thread, really. You cannot say such a thing – even if you say it now, who says it won’t be different if such a situation would occur?
Personally, I’d prefer in that case for both to die so at least neither will feel bad and we’ll go together.
In my case, it would be my wife obviously, in the future my children (which I don’t have yet), and my cats. Yes, I know some will argue I’m crazy – but so is this thread.
First of all, it’s Neturei Karta.
Second:
There are two groups that call themselves “Neturei Karta” (actually, more). They can be divided in two groups, roughly.
About 80-90% belong to the ‘moderate’ wing which holds pretty strong demonstrations, burn Israeli flags, and the like. But they DO NOT cooperate with the Arabs in ANY WAY. They strongly oppose using the internet for anything as well.
Only 10-20% belong to the ‘extremist’ wing which go to Ramallah, Gaza and Teheran and love Ahmedinejad, the guys who went to Arafat’s funeral.
Read the Wikipedia article for more and for a pashkevil from the moderate group against the extremists (I wrote that section).
yochi – Chabad is not chassidish, they’re a different world altogether (personally, I think they’re the religion closest to Judaism, as Rav Shach said).
As for the topic, I actually went down this path for some time. Now I’m more generally Orthodox, I don’t wear any labels – I’m not chassidish, not chareidi, not MO either.
I happen to only wear a black kippah and generally white shirts, daven with an ashkenazi (hungarian-chassidishe) pronunciation, speak Yiddish also but at home Ivrit, and am pretty strongly not-Zionist (Vayoel Moshe and Divrei Yoel have pretty good spots in my bookshelf).
On the other hand, when the wind is strong, I may wear a baseball cap to prevent my kippah from flying away (let’s not even mention hats!); I have fast internet at home, have a fulltime job in IT, a smartphone with full internet, I’m a vegetarian, don’t drink alcohol and listen to non-Jewish music.
So it was pretty much my own choice to not call myself chassidish any more; I just can’t stand the too strict dress code and I just feel I can’t match what is expected from a chassidishe person. I’m just not anywhere near that level, and I don’t expect to reach that level anytime soon.
However, SHOULD I really want it, I could of course abandon the non-frum dress (baseball cap, sometimes), I *could* wear only chassidishe dress, I could throw out the chassidishe music, I could do away with the smartphone and get a dumphone (ie, kosher), I could (with difficulty) survive without internet.
Oh, right, I forgot – I have three cats at home (saved from death as weakened sick street cats) and would never give them up. Having cats is pretty much a no-no for anyone pretending to want to be chassidish, *especially* in E”Y. Not even chassidish but chareidi altogether…
I have 3 cats, all adopted from the street. They were all underfed (starved), dehydrated, sick, and very weak. One of them was so close to death we had to force her to stay alive.
For me, it’s not so much a question of whether not pets are ‘allowed’. Some people in the neighborhood told us animals bring ‘klalos’ and the like. I wonder what klaloh comes upon one who sees a tiny dying animal next to his door and ignores that animal.
Chareidim, especially in Israel, can be incredibly cruel regarding animals, and I find this disgusting and it’s one of my main reasons (if not THE main reason) for being more of a dati leumi-kind of person nowadays.
My cats have brought us much happiness, it’s a wonderful blessing both for me and my wife and for these cats. It’s incredible to see how much a cat can love a human; to illustrate, my oldest cat likes to takes walks with me while sitting in my neck, he sleeps next to me and often hugs me in bed (seriously). The youngest of the three is so happy to be with us, she won’t leave the house more than 2 or 3 meters and runs back home with amazing speed when she hears anyone approaching.
Of one of our cats, I know that before we rescued him, bochurim from a yeshiva in the neighborhood caught him, put him in an oven and were just about to turn it on when someone stopped them. I don’t let my cats go outside alone at all – not out of fear of what they may do themselves, but out of fear what people – especially chassidishe kids – may do to them. Especially the most frummest kids seem to think throwing rocks at cats (when they’re small) or setting their tails on fire (when they’re bigger) are very funny acts.
Difficult to say. Related to this, I must say I am extremely upset at the slowness of Israeli supermarket workers. In no country in the world does it take nearly as long as in Israel for 1 person to pay. In The Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany, as well as other countries I’ve spent a lot of time in (much of Europe), it goes much faster. Each time I’m on vacation there I’m amazed at how fast it goes – and each time I return to Israel, I’m more upset at how slow it goes here!
5 MB is literally nothing. Opening Haaretz.com *once* is more than 1 MB. I’d go through 5 MB in an hour, I estimate, on my phone – without ever watching videos or making VoIP calls! I think you must be mistaken, it has to be 5 GB. I cannot believe 5 MB data plans exist!
Also, I recommend the default browser instead of Opera; personally I only find Opera difficult and annoying.
And most of all – congratulations for choosing Nokia as opposed to what most other people get! I’m a big Nokia fan and have a Nokia E72, with unlimited data.
In America they’re not so big, but maybe consider Nokia?
My Nokia E72 beats every other phone in battery life, reception, and usefulness. Show me another phone that can be used as a modem via Bluetooth, can do real multitasking quickly and efficiently, has a real keyboard, has an excellent camera, can be used as a WiFi hotspot, has (free) GPS navigation, and is strong enough to withstand some falls.
In the US T-Mobile calls it the “Nokia E73 Mode”.
If Hellman’s is the best you Americans know, then I can only feel sorry for you! Come to Europe, try European mayonaises. Thomy from Switzerland most of all, and quite a few other European brands (all of which are kosher) from Holland and Germany, are WAY better. 🙂
Thomy, the Swiss, is absolutely the best.
In Israel, Heinz is great (made in Spain, I think). Second choice is Shufersal’s home brand (made in Germany), also excellent – actually they share the 1st place.
After that, at a VERY, VERY large distance, is Hellmans followed by the Israeli mayonaises (Talma-Shefa and the like) which are plain disgusting, the smell reminds of of anesthesia gas when I was a child and had surgery and got anesthesia by mask.
@Phyllis – I didn’t see many of them yet. Actually I haven’t watched a movie in a while.
After you get home from 10+ hours at work with almost no break time you need something to relax. And no a gemara won’t work. Last week I worked something like 60 hours….
No TV.
* No place (little 2-room Israeli apartment).
* Israeli TV is not so great (censored myself here), as far as I know.
* Saves money (no need to pay yearly TV tax).
* Internet, no filter. I do not have a TV. I do have a NAS (network storage device) with 800 GB of movies and series on it, which me and my wife save there. I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but it may well exceed 1000. We have about 10 complete series downloaded (up to hundreds of episodes each), and hundreds of movies – comedy, action, horror, family, disaster, war – you name it.
But no, I don’t have a TV.
I guess I’m very frum now, since I don’t have a TV. I haven’t watched TV at all, not even a minute, in 7 years at least!
I know for sure smartcookie is female. Well, not for sure, but like 99%.
As for me: male, 24 years old, married (3 years), no children yet, but 3 cats. Hashkafah: I’m somewhere between chareidi and MO (took a step ‘down’ in the last 2 years).
Let’s see anyone else confess the way I did.
I’d rather send my children to public school than to a place where the teacher is allowed to smack a child – even very lightly.
I did it on my own. I was 19, had almost no money (WAY less than $5000).
For the first months I was in a yeshiva, then I found a part time job in Jerusalem, eventually moved on to full time, and an apartment there. In the early months, I managed with the absorption grant from Misrad HaKlita (Absorption Ministry) together with some money from my family.
And yes, I married an Israeli, we’ve been married for exactly 3 years now.
Speaking the language is a big advantage. As haifagirl said, as long as you’re open-minded about work, you’ll make it. You don’t even have to clean toilets – especially if you already speak proper Ivrit, you could find a job selling falafel or something like that. I think the main part is being willing to work evenings / nights, motzash, and days such as Purim, Tisha b’Av and Chol HaMoed. Most chareidim shiver at the thought of working on those days, but for working people like me, with 10 vacation days per year, that’s just reality. If anything bothers me about working in Israel, it’s that you only get 10 vacation days per year by law (and almost no employer gives you more) – in Europe, 20 is the law and many give 25 or so.
If you want to you’ll make it for sure! When I came, I had one other very big problem which I had to deal with – and did so, succesfully – I cannot even explain what kind of issue it was here in public. If I managed to do it on my own at age 19, with no family in Israel at all, way less money and a very big problem added, then you, at age 22 with family here and quite some money and no problems, will CERTAINLY make it!
From Europe, if you’re in or around Germany, Air Berlin is awesome. My family lives in Holland, and whenever we visit them, we use Air Berlin. Excellent service (regular service) for very cheap prices! They have new, big planes with excellent service and high frequencies to all corners of Germany.
Niemand Sterft – Acda en de Munnik
I’m probably the only one here who is thinking of this song.
Is it actual real milk allergy (very rare) or lactose intolerance (very common)? I have the latter. Many people refer to lactose intolerance as ‘milk allergy’ even though these are completely different things.
Now as for soy: soy is completely fine. I’m 78 kg, 181 cm, and completely healthy. So are my mother and sisters and nephew, all of whom have lactose intolerance.
Humans were not designed to drink cow milk. Cow milk is for young cows. Normal people (vast majority of the world) lose their ability to drink milk when they are a few years old.
Yeshivaguy1 – what your uncle did is not right. There are those whose minhag it is to do this, however this is a minority group amongst Klal Yisroel, and I do not think it is fitting for a member of the majority group to adopt minhagim of a minority (to which he, I assume, does not belong).
Personally I don’t need Egged’s WiFi – I have a 3G phone that can be used either as a WiFi router or as a modem via USB or Bluetooth (Nokia E72).
But I do think it’s a great idea, it may drag some people to the bus instead of using their cars.
I don’t see the safety issue here, like most. I really just fail to see any relation between WiFi and safety. It’s not like the driver is going to be using the WiFi while driving, right?
Now I have plenty of complaints about Egged as well as the other bus companies here. But this is in fact a positive thing. I just wish they would do it on inner city buses also.
An interesting question: will this be available on ‘mehadrin’ buses like the 402 and 418 as well? Or will the driver get a switch to disable the WiFi when the bus is doing a ‘mehadrin’ line? Or are they going to designate specific buses for ‘mehadrin’ lines only?
I just wish to add my personal experience.
Me and my wife met via a shadchanit, and from the second date on took everything in our own hands (being BTs both, that’s obvious). We met 12 times before we got engaged, and we met at least 20 times after that as well. We never touched each other even for one second during all those times. But we really got to know each other, and when the big day came and passed, we really didn’t have much to fear and didn’t have any uncertainties.
I feel that we did it exactly the right way. Perhaps others should also davka continue to meet after getting engaged. The traditional way is that once the decision has been made, after the vort, the couple do NOT meet any more, at all, until the chassunah. If they were to meet, and behave in a responsible way, they would get to know each other much closer, and would still be able to decide to cancel it all if they discover they made a mistake and really shouldn’t get married. Now of course breaking off an engagement isn’t much fun to say the least – but isn’t it preferable to divorce in the first year?!