600 Kilo Bear

It is preventing a michshol. All halachos of loshon horo are superseded by physical or spiritual pikuach nefesh, outside of leftyland where they hold by the Chofetz Chaim when it pays them to, but they consider him a benighted black hatter (chas vesholom) when his psak or eitza does not suit them.

This is my last post here, ever. I came here, despite the many attacks on my Chassidus and my Rebbe, because there were standards here. After this censorship of my post, I realize that there are not– and goodbye once and for all. I am about to add the coffee room to my filter.

edited

All they agreed to was that the DRIVER could not enforce seating…..but it isn’t even clear in the case of this moiseres that the driver did that (we don’t take her word for much). I have been on many non-frum sherut taxis in EY where most riders were frum and we ourselves arranged our seating. The driver is not going to enforce mixed seating either.

And you don’t know what the company’s next move is. My guess is that if rabbonim ossur the bus because it becomes mixed seating, or if the clientele becomes uncomfortable, something will happen.

“Licensed private van”

So I guesss that is what they or their competitor will become if customers want the separate seating and they can no longer provide it. Leave it to a Yiddishe kop to figure out. I’m not in the US or in the transportation business but any US code is full of loopholes.

BP has far more political clout than the non-English speaking and often non-citizen population of Southeast Queens.

Like the small but vocal left-wing’s fighting Torah-true Jews over what the left doesn’t consider valid by claiming they are keeping chumras in dina demalchusa dina and ben adam lechavero to justify themselves because they put Modern before Orthodox? That has to be stopped, but it will stop in a generation anyway when the loudmouths’ children make whatever choice they make between modern and Orthodox.

No one from the community complained. This was all the work of an outside provocateur looking for a journalistic scoop which she did get.

Side-to-side might have been better, but no one minded until this cholere, who probably could care less for anything but her 15 minutes of fame, came along. She would have gotten her scoop with side-by-side as well.

On the other hand, bnei yishmoel pere odom that follow the religion of a certain warlord who would today be arrested for pedophilia are suing a Catholic college so they can have a room without crosses! They will probably win, unless the college capitulates first as so many do because of fear of Islam.

Health, I know of what I speak. You are in dreamland. It will all be forgotten, things will go on as they always did, and unless some passenger acts the way the sikrikim do, no one will interfere. The driver knows who pays him, and it is the Jewish franchisee. The Jewish franchisee, if he has a Yiddishe kop, can go private even if he doesn’t use the exact same route. Another Yid can bring in private service on a similar route – I never took that bus but it looks like a relic and I’m sure someone can do better.

Votes are involved too, and the Chassidim of BP make and break candidates. They happen to be huge Federal, State and City taxpayers, despite what self-haters and semi-frum holier-than-thous think goes on in BP. Those banks on 13th Avenue can’t accept dirty money, and laundering is not easy since 9-11. There are so many banks there because there is so much clean money, mostly Yiddishe gelt, to be handled in BP.

The bus company pays money for that route so it can serve its local customers who are members of the same community as the bus company owner. Regardless of the law, it is not a fair one as it blocks the rights of the customers to have the service they want and need. Ignoring it is the same as ignoring the old laws of the USSR against shechita, matzo baking, and opening shuls. I would half-understand if Sikriki types started to enforce the rules 6 months ago, but this kind of seating was the rule for 20 plus years, and the wannabe sikriki in BP drive cars with flashing lights LOL – they don’t ride the bus!

Try stopping any Islamic or African-American practice, including such beautiful demonstrations of civilization as the Crown Heights Labor Day Massacre, I mean parade, where bystanders of all creeds risk getting hit by stray bullets. On the other hand, one moiseres, or one call by a self-hating Jewish neighbor, can put an end to anything from a private sukkah to a simchas beis hashoeva to bus rules that were in operation for 20 years.

The Admou”r meCreedmoor has 300 quintillion selves that argue with each other. If you want, I can get you an appointment with him, but he accepts only Iranian toman, EBT cards and food shtempelach for kvittel gelt.

The Chilul Hashem was made by the non-Jewish provocateur who went on the bus just to expose something that the passengers wanted and agreed to based on the perfectly valid views of their rabbonim. This bus has been that way for 20 years and no one complained. That provocateur is no better than the Dutch moiseres who told the Nazis where the Frank family was hiding. She would have done the same in those circumstances.

99% of the passengers who use that bus are frum Yidden. The other 1% are probably cleaning ladies who depend on frum Yidden for their daily bread.

Had someone done the same to expose an African-American practice, everyone would be crying “racism.”

In the end, passengers will continue to sit as they did. Glares and stares from passengers will make those who want to make trouble feel uncomfortable. The drivers just won’t be able to enforce anything.

Alternately, the company will ditch the franchise and the new operator or the MTA won’t make a penny on it because the old operator will get all the Jewish business. The new one will make do with the occasional Polish cleaning lady who lives in the Polish neighborhood on the outskirts of BP and cleans homes in both BP and Willy.

Is it Kiddush Hashem or Chilul Hashem if there is an abuser in the community and we dont turn them over to the authorities?

Depends. If we take care of him by ourselves, and he never molests again, and has a chance to rehabilitate himself somehow, then it is a tremendous Kiddush Hashem. I don’t know if this is possible with molestors. Beating a molestor to a pulp and shipping him out of town minus certain organs is actually a Kiddush Hashem as well if a molestor really has din rodef, because it scares anyone else with the tayva into getting help or at least into getting out of the community.

If he is just allowed to go on molesting then we know what that is.

As for the parking spot: Far too many disabled placards are handed out to able-bodied people whose doctors agree to get them recognized as disabled on ridiculous technicalities related to minor chronic conditions. Because of the extra placards and plates, they started to set aside far too many spots for “disabled.”

Kiddush Hashem – leaving a note on your car saying “Day and Time: I had to run into X for an emergency. I’ll be back in 15 mins. If you need this space call Y and I’ll come right over.” Anything else – grey area.

When smoking was allowed on planes, I actually smoked Marlboro menthols (available in Europe) without inhaling the tobacco into my lungs, because cigars and pipes were never allowed.

My favorite brand of cigarettes is actually Hawaiian High, aka Marley’s Marlboros.

Boro Park has become far too Chassidish for something like this to succeed there. I was away from the US for 13 years and when I came back 5 years ago I found that the old BP I remembered had become more and more like Williamsburgh. I heard far more Yiddish, especially in the stores, and saw far more Yiddish ads of the type I associated with Willy.

Maybe Kensington is more of a place for this – close enough to both BP and Flatbush for some people to walk over but with more of a mixture of residents.

BP needs an Airmont shul – culturally Ingarisch-Chassidish but open and not tied to a particular Rebbe or chassidus.

Metro – Ponim Chalashos was back as of 2005, in the form of a small and very unprofessional Xeroxed edition for a ridiculous $3.50 which made it the same price as Mishpacha back then!

I was out of the US when the original publication folded – someone brought us a copy in 1993 because a sad situation in our city made it into the rag. I cannot believe the little pisher started up with Shomrim – at least he finally got what he deserved.

He was indeed an extortionist, and he was very successful. He changed sides to whoever paid him the most, and he turned on former friends in an instant. He will certainly merit to publish and edit the Gehennom Gazzette.

Any good gematrias for Chaim Shoulson? 🙂 I don’t remember whether he spells Shoulson in Ivrit with a vov or in Yiddish with an aleph and a hay between the samach and the mem…I mean the samach and the nun! (Actually I don’t even remember if he was Shoulson or Shoulzon – samach or zayin.)

Restricting myself to humor and occasional follow-ups on old, less controversial posts. I can’t keep up and I don’t want to get involved in the controversial threads.

LOL. Joseph is a normal Yid who for whatever reason did not fit in here, so he started to act crazy to get attention or to get some sort of revenge against the mods.

In this case it wasn’t warranted, as this board is basically well-run and fairly moderated. However, I did the same myself when a group of misfits took over an information board that I once frequented and turned it into a social gathering for their clique of losers and wannabes.

My privacy was breached by one of the misfits, a socially inept fellow who did not even know that what he was doing was wrong, and after that I did what Joseph did – signed up all kinds of screen names and engaged in dialogue between them just to make things hard for the misfits. Later, the board became a haven for Eurotrash anti-Semites as well (although the owner was Jewish, she had more screws loose than an old Model T in Havana and all she wanted were hits to prove to her sucker advertisers that people read her site, so she did nothing to stop them), and at that point I really started to have fun until I got banned altogether.

The board has nothing to do with any of my interests now (I was OTD at the time and it was a board for expatriates in a city where I no longer live), but ironically the misfits were forced out in the end and made their own board for their little social cabal.

The one on top for mois yumos is a perfect slogan to write on a placard when marching in front of the home of a child abuser of the Mondrowitz variety.

The second is not a phrase which is used and the fourth is not standard spelling.

And Shygetz Aross(300+10+3+70+90 + 1+200+6+10+60) = 473+277=750 – there has to be something for that one!

Heichal Menachem comes to mind. They are actually not interested in pushing Chabad but rather in having a shul where people feel comfortable. The only problem is that those who feel comfortable in the HM shul at present are seekers of another kind – very haimish, Chassidish people who no longer feel they want to daven wherever they grew up because of machloikes in their original communities.

I think Airmont (yes, as in Reb Lipa’s Shtibl) is more of a model for what BP needs than either Aish Kodesh or Heichal Menachem. Both AishK and HM are more intellectual in approach; the BP marginal crowd is looking more to feel wanted and to enjoy davening than to have a rov who can really explain things. I’ve only been to HM once and what I saw was a (very mixed as far as origins and affiliation) crowd that was really into heavy-duty learning and therefore just as unattractive to the segment of the BP community that really needs and is crying for guidance than a regular shul would be. Aish Kodesh really isn’t geared to the BP crowd either.

Lipa would choke (literally and figuratively) in the air of BP but there must be someone who can run a shul like that in BP, even if, like Lipa, he lets others handle the rabbonus. The closest shul I know of to what BP probably needs is Rabbi Fund’s minyan in Flatbush.

All Chassidim of all types know about the cherem. Next misinformation?

MO as people define it here means very simply – putting Modern before Orthodox and misdefining modern to mean bending and sinking in observance to match the times. That was true 50 years ago. It isn’t true now among the leadership, except in YCT which is fringe. Probably the real YU definition is that Torah and secular knowledge are on equal footing, which in turn is a spin of Rav SR Hirsch ZT”L’s hashkofoh.

You can be fully integrated into the modern world (usually for parnosso reasons) and wear a Samet hat, payess and a reckel down to your ankles, and you can be an ignoramus about current affairs and technology and not know how to use the Internet and wear a kippa sruga that you take off when you walk into a treyf restaurant to have (whatever your rov 30 years ago told you you could have).

By the way, this is my last serious post here until Chol Hamoed Pesach. Of course I will be back in Adar for humor posts, as well as at any other time if current or community events warrant a few satirical or joke posts.

I have too many responsibilities in the modern world and in the (most charedi segment of my) community to be really involved here.

Because of screwy insurance reimbursements, you will probably do better as a nurse practitioner or PA than as a doctor, especially at your stage in life.

What about hitting a rock with a stick? That segula does have a mekor but it had disastrous results for someone who used it when he should not have……….

I was in Otisville today to visit the hymishe prisoners for Sukkos, and let me tell you, a dank tzi der Basheffer far Otisville (Thank G-d for Otisville).

This time I met Feivish der Fireplace Fabrikant. He tells me: “You know, I have 2 businesses. I make fireplaces and install them to people’s livink rooms, and I’m a real estate investor.”

So I told him: “What are you doing here? Two honest businesses and you should be out working and making money.”

And he tells me: “Well, times are hard so I decided to make my two businesses into one. I take a buildink and make it into a fireplace by openink up der ges-valve and lighting eppes a match oder myne lighter. Den I tells de insurance I need a few new livink rooms because dey blow up and dere’s no more room to put a fireplace.”

And I say to him: “Now I understand. And all I have to say to that is – a dank tzi der Basheffer far Otisville!”

(Another version of my Otisville joke, based on “Thank G-d we’s got penitentiaries” by a certain deceased comedian whose name is best not remembered here.)

Left wing MO and an over-emphasis on kollel were both horaas shaah. Left wing MO is falling apart on its own – but so is universal koilel. The former was necessary to prevent losses when it was socially very hard to be frum, and the latter was a must to produce an American-born frum leadership (leaving aside the deals made in EY for army exemptions).

Learning vs working? No charedim work? Hmm..who owns B and H, Eastern Union, Hirsch Wolf and Co, Madison Title, all these car leasing offices, Americare etc…and who works there? Even in EY, the people who have the shops in Geula and Rechov Rabbi Akiva look 100% charedi to me (never mind Leviev and other top charedi entrepreneurs).

??? If anything, Torah im Derech Eretz davka (as opposed to living a Torah life and working, which probably was the norm until the haskila came around and led people astray) is the 200 year old movement.

The old system was closer to Williamsburgh or KJ Satmar – the town rav ran a single kehilla, and you could take it or leave it. Even the village oisvorf was part of the kehilla, albeit perhaps its laughingstock.

If you took it, you were taken care of as much as possible when hard times hit and expected to contribute in good times. If you left it to go to a big city or emigrate, you were on your own but often found people from the same place and established a shul and small kehilla in your new place of residence (later more like a meeting house with no frumkeit especially on the Lower East Side, but look at all the shuls called Anshei-some unpronounceable name or any of the pre-American Chabad period Tzemach Tzedek shuls in the US and you’ll see what I mean). If you were an oisvorf, you hung around anyway and you were perhaps known as Shmerel der Oisvorf, but you were still part of the kehilla, just as the town gonif remained within the kehilla but was known as a gonif.

And as usual Zahavasdad blows it again. Many charedi BTs have contact with their families and plenty of MO do not. Nevertheless, only the Satmarer Rov Reb Aron holds that American-born Jews who are frei are not tinokos shenishbeu (I agree with him until it comes to people who are 30 or under, and who really are confused by all of the crazy New Age ideas out there regarding Jewish identity).

Gebrokts? That’s Chassidish. Charedi BTs who go through Aish or Ohr Sameach don’t give up gebrokts. Got news for you – not all Breslovers avoid gebrokts either – they hardly have any unified minhagim. Mode of dress? Maybe – but how far is a dark suit from regular business or professional attire? Again, Chassidish is not the only choice for charedi BTs and it is not even the usual choice. Chabad and Breslov are not as “charedi” as some Litvish communities are. Bostoner chassidus is certainly not hard-core charedi and neither is Reb Michel Twerski’s community in Milwaukee.