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Which is why the medine is one big chilul Hashem – doing that in Eretz haKodesh is even worse.
Another example – receiving food stamps because your assets are hidden, driving to Pomegranate in your Lexus, and flashing a diamond ring when you pull out your illegal EBT card to pay for expensive groceries. (I assume Pomegranate takes shtempelach – by law I think they may have to).
🙂 MDG, you got it!
Let’s see who can find the error in one of my posts above! Whoever does gets a kilo of dried 600 kilo bear scat, the best kasher le-mehadrin organic fertilizer known to man and approved by the Velt-Barimter Vaad haKanoim for use in growing kasher lemehadrin tomatoes, peppers and even house plants!
Yes, Haleivi. The problem had to do with some innovations in his shul and some of his methods of research. He tried valiantly to keep his shul from going deformed, but sadly he failed.
I wonder if his shul exists today and if it is a kiruv shul, a deformed tembel, or no longer Jewish.
The Germans are no worse than anyone else by nature. Germany was vanquished and a meshuggener came on board and found a scapegoat. The US had an economic crisis in 2008 and someone whose values are inimical to what the founding fathers stood for, and who has ties to all kinds of radicals, was elected on his vapid message of change.
Change – yes – $1 US = 98 cents Canadian, as in three Canadian quarters, two Canadian dimes, one Canadian nickel, and three Canadian pennies for one US dollar – as I read this morning.
Everyone can fall for the quackery of a misleader in hard times – and the results are never good.
How much more troubled can the Jewish world be than the loss of three generations of Yidden to assimilation and having to rebuild after the Shoah in an America that wanted assimilation or an EY that forced secularization?
The Germany of WW1 was a civilized power. The reasons for the war were extremely complex. America at that time was a backwater and a social experiment that could have gone either way. Of course, it is all moot because Hashem determines what happens, but had I been a Jew in Europe I would have davened for a German victory.
I think that had the Germans won in WWI, the world would have been a better place. There would have been no Shoah, no communist Russia and Eastern bloc, a more orderly world, a better educational system, world culture on a level a little higher than Beyonce and Oprah. It is sad that the Allies gave Germany such a raw deal after WWI that the Nazis ended up crawling out from under rocks to take over.
We just may have been better off had we been speaking German after WWI. Six million plus their descendants better off.
Maybe, but that sounds as revolting as saying that if we’d all died in an earthquake they couldn’t have killed us either -95
I think that for the times, Marcus Jastrow was not Reform – he was MO lite by our standards which was haimish for those days!
These holidays have become so commercialized in the US (for better or for worse) that having classes is the right thing to do. It keeps kids safe begu”r, away from dangerous activities and away from pritzus.
Considering that the US is all about free market prosperity, a special sale and shopping day is the right way to celebrate the 4th of July. It isn’t the right way to celebrate Memorial Day, but that is what happened to it and to Veterans Day, so it is best we don’t celebrate and just keep shteiging or working as we would on a weekday.
I treated Labor Day in the US as I treat Communist Labor Day May 1 here – a day to davka desecrate by shopping and working (same as I did on krachtzmas – I hit 13th Ave on both Labor Day and the 25th when I lived in NY.) If I had access to a red flag, and if it meant anything anymore which it doesn’t, I would do a Neturei Karta job on one in public here on May 1.
On the other hand, 9 May, Armistice Day, is a real holiday in this part of the world and I observe it accordingly in memory of those who died to stop the Nazis YMS – who of course were just one step worse than the Communists YMS of May 1 fame.
He may have protested against the desecration of graves and/or Shabbos in EY. He also refused to bail out a couple of his hotheads who got wild and ended up in jail while demonstrating.
The Satmar Rov, Reb Amram etc were yechidei segula. Engaging in this type of kanois without a leader on that level is dangerous.
When were the ads placed? The Satmarer Rov (Reb Yoilish ZYA) was physically unwell from 5726 until 26 Av 5739 when he left our world. There was much going on in Satmar that he was not able to control after he had a stroke, and his successors never had the kind of control that he once did.
It was an ad by Natruna. Natruna is not the Ku Klutz Karta. They do not consort with sonei Yisroel. Theirs is a valid Jewish position and some of what they say needs to be heard.
Problem is, it does not need to be heard outside the Jewish community. When a Jew does not support the medine, it is out of ahavas Yisroel and love for E”Y. When the likes of the ACORN-fed occupant of the White House do not support the medine, it is out of plain old anti-Semitism. Even the Satmarer Rov, who Natruna follows, made that clear.
1) This is old news and only a few holdouts are left. Their leader Bruria Keren is in jail for child abuse of a nature that is so disgusting I cannot write about it here or anywhere else.
2) Just as some of the Helbrans cult victims are from frum homes, so too the Bruria Keren cult victims. Keren herself grew up in a right-wing religious tzioini home.
To give Rav Kook’s shita a plug, he defined the Medina as a Keli, which could be filled with either tumah or tahara. From his writings and his works, you know he was not content to leave it in the hands of the seculars. He wrote that love of the land without love of Torah would ultimately turn to hatted for the land and its lovers.
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While I don’t accept Rav Kook’s shita, I wonder if what I don’t accept is the soundbite version of it and whether, in reality, he was far closer to Shas or UTJ than to what is left of RZ. Shas actually has the right idea, but unfortunately it is so mired in political corruption scandals and has very bad PR.
It is very easy to find treyf even a stone’s throw (no pun intended) from Mea Shearim. There always was a Mizra store off of King George – but now thanks to Tuv Taam, which showed amazing sales during Pesach, and the Russian “delis” you don’t have to go far to find treyf in EY. I had to go very far to find kosher the last time I was on now-sleazy Dizengoff st in Tel Aviv thanks to all the Russian delis.
Shaking a lulav is nothing – we at Chabad are so good at mivtzoim now (and our numbers of young people with time to do this on chol hamoed have grown so) that we probably inadvertently have Russian non-Jews shaking lulavim on the streets along with their Jewish friends (one more reason to condemn the medine – you no longer even know who is a Jew)! I’d like to know how many buy a lulav and esrog, which shows commitment.
And remember – lies, ***n lies and statistics. Having given my age as 92 on a survey when I was barely 20, and given that yes, some Jews are embarrassed to admit that they do eat on YK because they know it’s wrong, I suspect that the survey is not accurate.
Yawn. No one but Chassidim wear that dress today. It has become Jewish precisely because everyone else discarded it. I don’t even know when the pritzim stopped wearing it but it was well before the time of the Communist revolution – and you had Jews who were moiser nefesh to dress that way after the Communists took over and it was a good way to end up in a Gulag uniform.
Yiddish was never standardized. You don’t need one word of Yiddish to understand the Lubavitcher Rebbe if you understand loshon hakoidesh because he turns roots in laha”k into Yiddish words (not uncommon among my friends who are from EY and speak Yiddish) – and an average yeshivish speaker probably can understand (lehavdil) Lipa’s songs except for a few words he has to ask his friend to ask his baabe. The real non-Jewish Yiddish was the shund from the Bund who purposely replaced laha”k with Slavic words.
When you go to NY and look for hummous and falafel, even as far back as 1984, 50% chance you are going to find it in an Arab grocery or restaurant (or in a health food place).
Maoz Tzur was uplifted (not that I sing it myself – to me that tune is a part of the misbegotten secular Jewish culture of my youth – I don’t sing very well so I don’t care to sing anything in public but if I listen to Chanuka songs I have albums from R Damen/Belz and R’ Banet/ Seret-Vizhnitz with parts of Maoz Tzur).
The food was not uplifted, except for the 10% of it or so that is sold to people who make brochos on it. And the problem is that this non-Jewish food is a symbol of the non-Jewishness and the new “Israeli” identity of the medine. Chinese food is (mock) Chinese in Y-m as it is in Flatbush and in Paris and when our restaurant here in Ukraine decides to feature it. We know it isn’t ours – but we eat it and make a brocho on it so it is. It’s not a symbol of anything – only challah is out of anything we eat during the year. Falafel, which comes from the pere odom’s descendants, is now “Israeli”. Why couldn’t the oisvorf Zionists hollow out a piece of challah and fill it with salad? Actually tastes good and just as convenient as an Arab pita (which actually may have come from ancient Judea but I think that’s a false theory).
I judge a Jewish neighborhood by the covered heads (male and female), the sforim shops and store names like “Refuah Pharmacy” (actually it’s Rafieh spelled just like that because it’s on Lee Ave in Williamsburgh!) and “Rechev Car Service”. I don’t remember if there is a Chinese restaurant in Syrian Flatbush (where they’d be the first ones to tell you they’re eating what their Arab neighbors ate) – there is a pizza shop.
In the old days, it was like the European type kehilla where I now live – one kehilla, the rov leading with non-frum support, a few of the more frum types feeling more comfortable among themselves in a corner of the shul but still very much a part of the community and looked up to rather than down upon, a few free-thinkers leaving altogether but still coming back to visit – one set of rules based on Torah – but out of shul you do what you want.
In EY it is the baryonim and sicarii running the show, a few frum politicians ranging from ehrlich to farkoift there for window-dressing, and if you’re frum it’s Dros Kol Dos for you.
Therefore, the kanoim are strengthened because they need to fight back – they don’t do it right and end up causing more machloikes. Those who want to bring up the standards end up trying to keep afloat in the mud and instead sink themselves (the failure of religious Zionism, the nauseating sight of seeing a Lubavitcher lighting the torch against the Rebbe’s clearly stated past wishes and saying something assinine on top of that, the Shas corruption scandals etc).
Olam hafuch ani roeh. I’d prefer Moshiach to make things right, but if there is an interim step in which the UN forces the medine into a corner, I am prepared to volunteer to help the refugees.
I don’t have any more time today but here are just a very few examples of how Jewish the medine is:
The national anthem of the medine was written by an assimilated Czech Jewish composer – and its words were written by a poet who died in New York City of alcohol abuse. Yerushalayim shel Zahav – music shamelessly lifted from Basque folk song – not admitted to until composer was on her deathbed.
The national food of the medine is falafel – Arab origin.
(Runners-up; hummous – Arab origin – I support the Lebanese attempt to delegitimize EY hummous because it has no Jewish roots and therefore should remain Arab and packaged EY hummous is garbage anyway; shawarma – Arab origin possibly from Mongols).
The national pastime of the medine is watching soccer on Shabbos. Enough said.
The music of the medine? What a joke! Third rate old international pop, poor imitations of Greek, Arabic and other Mediterranean pop from the 50’s to the 70’s. Even the “frum” music coming out of there (not chas vesholom the niggunim of ehrliche baalei menagen like Reb Yirmiye Damen and Reb Chaim Banet but the frum pop) is just pop with somewhat better words – this I understand because it helps to reach people who listen to cheap secular pop.
The only remotely Jewish part of the culture of the medine is Ivrit. However, it is a desecration of lashon hakodesh, full of borrowed words, purposely recast words and of course nivul peh. Now, thanks to the Internet I don’t need it to speak to a Jew from say, Brazil, because he speaks English.
Umm..the Beis haMikdosh was DESTROYED both times BECAUSE of our AVEIROIS! We cry every year on 9 Av about that, last time I checked. We only glorify the presence of the Beis haMikdosh itself, not the times of old. Same as our admiration for the Jewish life of pre-Haskalah times – WITHOUT ever wanting to see oppression again.
And yes, if any foreign power were to take over EY and allow for freedom of worship and enforce safety for worshippers at all mekoimos hakedoishim, I would support them. The invaders did not allow us to worship freely – that is why they were reshoim. We never behaved according to Torah and therefore the land kept vomiting us out. Even now with the boom in EY, emigration exceeds immigration.
Rav Kook was a misguided man who even himself said about Aguda versus the frei: “With (Aguda) I have a disagreement about one mitzvah – with (the frei) I have a disagreement about 612.” He was far from a great leader (and not respected as a leader at all by those who kept Torah uMitzvos – he was a rav mi-taam appointed by the British) his ideology did not hold water the moment the first scissor snipped off the first “simonim” from the first boy who came from Teiman to EY. His influence on the medina is now nil – after Gaza and the Yigal Amir affair religious Zionism went downhill. Most “religous Zionists” live in the settlements of Teaneck, Woodmere, the Upper West Side and Kew Gardens Hills.
i appreciate the fact that we have a secure place in which Jews can identify with and feel at home.
I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. A secure place? Tell that to the Fogel orphans. Tell that to the Gush Katif refugees. Jews can identify with? Tell that to anyone, including myself, who has been teased with phrases like “dros kol dos” when we would never hear a peep from anyone for dressing as we do in the US. (Only in the miserable medine would a little pipsqueak of a girl open her mouth to me, a man 3 times her size and three times her age – that is because she was brought up in a medine that stresses midos Sdom).
Did anyone see the video of an accident in EY where everyone just passed by the victim? I was in “the wrong part” of Crown Heights once and I saw a 100% staged insurance accident. No one just passed by – the none-too-civilized natives of the area called 911 etc etc. (When I saw EMS wasn’t coming I was going to call Hatzoloh until I realized it was staged and the ganovim behind the accident would have sued the Hatzoloh responder too). That’s right – the Sdoimim are less caring than even offspring of 4th generation fatherless homes in Brooklyn.
Zionism is not Judaism. Like Reform, it is a secular movement that tries to separate Jews from Jewish values – on Purim I sing Avremel’s “bayshanim, rachmanim, gomlei chasodim” with the words “ganavim, meratzchim vesochrei samim – elu, elu, elu hasimanim, shel ha medina hamasricha” – that is because living in Eastern Europe, I see how the ganavim, meratzchim and sochrei samim from EY have infiltrated the drug and pritzus trade in Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic etc and how this causes people to despise local Jews as well.
Who are those thieves, murderers and drug dealers? Some may be descendants of the Chida, the Ohr haChaim, the Rambam – but thanks to the forced secularization of EY, their parents ended up as despised “frenkim” and “Marokai Sakin” in the slums of Tel Aviv and the development towns of the Negev. Their children were alienated from society and turned their ambition to crime inside and now, more and more outside, the medine.
In fact “Felix the Butcher” (of not very blessed memory) the founder of the Aboutboul crime family of Netanya and Prague EMIGRATED from France to EY because in France (where the name Aboutboul shows up in the medical listings and not the crime blotters) they did not fit in with the largely educated and successful Jewish community. In EY, someone managed to get him buried near the kever of the Sanz-Klausenberger Rebbe ZYA after he was dispatched by one of his competitors! (no fault of Sanz – I suspect a bribe and a threat was involved and Sanz doesn’t control the beis hachaim).
Burning a flag in public is dumb and just a way for some marginals to get attention. However, the state is practically a rodef as it is now – it jeopardizes the physical and spiritual lives of Jews inside and outside its borders. The question is whether it can be salvaged by anyone except Moshiach. I think not. And if dismantlement is forced upon it by the powers to which it kowtows, I won’t cry because I’ll be too busy helping refugees re-establish themselves elsewhere.
Only true vocal, only if I need it to concentrate. I don’t care to listen to news or talk radio and sometimes I need a bit of noise when I’m working or something to listen to in my mp3 player if I take a long walk.
The tracks I have (the Lechaim chassidishe sfira album package at MM) are slow and deep – if anything they reinforce the spirit of sfira.
There has always been such a backup with violations that NY only bothers with the big ones – dangerous or causing inconvenience to others – or when neighbors really complain (as in, unfortunately, shuls in homes).
I know someone who called a violation abatement contractor to get rid of his shvigger when she overstayed her welcome and he reported her as a violation!
Contact a professional architect or building engineer. Don’t play with this kind of stuff yourself in NY; you can lose everything.
In fact, when I had yechidus with the Admou”r meCreedmoor, he told me that if you set your house alight, you will not be able to collect insurance on the illegally extended part.
Seriously, violations of any type are serious business. Don’t touch a home or building with uncorrectable major violations. Sometimes an architect can correct them but fines probably have to be paid along with steep planning fees.
If I owned a pair of blue jeans, I would wear them with a torn white shirt (as in kriah) to express my feelings toward what the supposed day of independence stands for. That is because if I owned a pair of blue jeans, I would wear them only for times when I don’t want to get my dry-clean only clothing dirty. I don’t paint the house or handle repairs myself these days (in Ukraine good tools cost a sach gelt and repairmen work for peanuts) so I don’t need jeans.
If EY were truly independent and truly Jewish, instead of dependent on the US, EU and UN and copying every bit of cheap pop culture from the US, I might feel differently but I still would not celebrate this artificial holiday.
I do, however, listen to music for a few minutes on hey iyar. My copy of Hashem Hu Malkenu is by Ariel Zilber and is set to full instrumental music. The only a capella version available is by the clowns who visit Iran and demonstrate with Muslims.
Actually Osama is alive and well and living somewhere around the outskirts of Boro Park with all of the rest of the Talibani. They work in the shawarma shops on 13th by day and they’re under FBI and Shomrim surveillance by night.
Remember – al shloisha dvarim hagoilem oimed – velfare, food-shtempelach and section-acht. VehaMedicaid, harei ze meshibach.
I usually react pretty mildly, which is why I never got anything more than a class C felony assault with a deadly weapon charge (that resulted in six months at the Rikers Island Motor Inn) when I get angry in public.
Brita. You really want to filter the Net and get rid of all the schmutz, you should throw your computer into a bucket of filtered water and leave it there for a day or so!
The really pesticide-resistant louse (vantz) in Pakistan needed to be removed with a whole team of seals.
Walmart in Roswell? Or the one on the way to the mountains?
I don’t even know vee is the cover far the grape juice in the Walmart on the way to the mountains.
While we are on the topic of sociopaths:
A large group medical practice decided to make the best of Obamacare and the whole insurance mess.
They hired a naturopath and a homeopath so they could offer cheaper alternative medical treatments.
And they hired a sociopath and a psychopath to handle insurance matters, billing and collections.
I saw him with Elvis this morning in Roswell. He is alive.
Taken. I already brokered it to the Neturei Karta. They want to open up something like a Chabad House for their Muslim brothers – it will be called Beis Chaval of Abbottabad.
In my office in Moscow reading the online news a few minutes after my employees left for the day (8 hrs ahead of NY). I just got to see the headlines before the news sites went down because of overuse. A few moments later I got a call from a local friend who informed me in a disgusted tone of voice that “in “Palestine” (this person is not 100% fluent in English and did not know the right English word to use to refer to Gaza) they are celebrating and dancing”.
The Amsterdam Creedmoorer yeshiva has a coffee shop…
BS”D
Chabad chassidim do not take haircuts on Lag beOimer but we do listen to music – in fact we have big parades and public programs as per the Rebbe ZYA’s instructions. Eve of Lag beOimer – I think we do listen but I am really not sure. I tend to be too busy to care :). We most certainly listen to music on Chol HaMoied Pesach. We do take haircuts and listen to music during the shloisha ymei hagbolo before Shavuos and we have weddings on those days as well (just as we do on Lag beOimer). I think all Chassidim who “keep all 49 days” have similar minhagim.
Creedmoor is the exception. In Creedmoor, they count “bein hametzorim” – from Yom haAtzamois on 5 Iyar to Tisha be’Av. Instead of the 10 sefiros they use the Arba Misois Beis Din and other punishments to name the days. So, Yom haAtzamois is skila shebeskila and 9 Av is malkois shebemalkois or knas shebeknas (I forget which). [EDIT – it is actually Kooreys shebeKooreys and it is celebrated by schechting and grilling rubber duckies as a seudas hamafsekes.)
His name is not Joseph, it is Yoss-a-leh, Yoss-a-leh, Yoss-a-leh, Yoss-a-leh…I want you to know, what is it again I want you to know, you know it’s mamash a gevald, this stuff I smoke sometimes, it makes me forget what it is I want you to know, that his name is not only Joseph, and not only Yoss-a-leh, but also it is many others, so many others, so many heiliger Yiddishe neshomes he has, he is so sweet, so holy, so beautiful, the highest of the high….Yoss-a-leh, Yoss-a-leh…
I ran the school darkroom when I was in high school (yes, back in the day when we took pictures using film for the school yearbook). I tried several times to evacuate the school by claiming I had inadvertently mixed several hazardous chemicals. Never did succeed though, especially because the darkroom was a large closet in one of the science classrooms. The teacher there knew full well I did not have access to any of the deadly chemicals I claimed I had mixed :).
I did, however, excuse myself a couple of times from boring classes by claiming I left something or other on in the darkroom and that a fire would result if I did not run to turn it off. Somehow it took me a full 20 minutes or however much of class was left to turn off a simple switch on the enlarger :).
Then there was the teacher who threatened to seal my mouth with strapping tape for talking out of turn. I quickly produced a roll and dared him to do it (which would be at least a misdemeanor). He chickened out.
Scottissue is always the thinnest shmura. Always shleimois too, but they are square.
BS”D
Hmmm..white radish is awfully common here. At the price charged, it cannot possibly be imported. I do know about daikon, but I suspect it may have been grown in the Asian parts of the Russian Empire even during the time of the Tzemach Tzedek.
We also do not eat gebrakts until the last day of Pesach. These both might be chassidish minhagim but I could be wrong about that.
BS”D
Chabad holds as above. Soda – interesting. I think most Chassidim drink only certified soda water during Pesach. One year I bought expensive Irish mineral water and the rav said it was OK, but Rav Blumenkrantz AH mentioned there are problems with carbon dioxide on Pesach.
BS”D
I know of people who davka burn all the food for the Seder so that there is no chance of any chometz.
However, it is considered meshubach to burn your house down at least 3 days before Pesach so the insurance company can set you up in a hotel in time for the sedorim.
BS”D
I have some in Yiddish that I umm..cannot share here.
BSD I probably don’t notice radish missing because I don’t eat it during the year. I only noticed red radishes in one supermarket here and only this year; considering this is the heartland of Chabad, I wonder if the reference is to the white radish which a lot of us do eat during the year.
Same as the coffee :).
EDITED
BS”D
A teaspoon of arak in a half gallon or so of water; peppermint schnapps or mint extract would work as well.
BS”D
Nothing that can’t be peeled, whether you actually peel it or not. (Baal Shemske eyniklach AFAIK)..also Chabad, and probably most all Chassidim.
Coffee (chabad) Not sure, probably because I can’t drink it anyway. Some of us don’t use tea bags.
BS”D
Supposedly, Belz has a tradition not to eat something (forgot what) because back in Belz of old a barrel of it became contaminated right before Pesach.
Many of us in Chabad don’t eat dairy. I was told 100 times that we can (and that it is a minhag from specific shtetlach), but I don’t (other than in the morning before the first seder) even when I do have access to reliable dairy for Pesach. I’m not sure about radishes. I do use oil; others don’t. Also, unlike some Chassidim who drink slivovitz on Pesach, we don’t drink mashke. (And yes, the real old Russian Lubavitchers do pronounce Arba Koisos as Arba Cases – that is our regional pronunciation!)
Creedmoor adds bleach to their wine for the Arba Koisos. Red to them represents the innocent blood of Palestinians shed by the tzioinim, so they bleach it in order to make sure they are not drinking anything red. Of course, they could buy white wine, but if they did, they would not be Creedmoor.
BS”D
Well, the only time I can ever pick up the phone is after shkia, so I must therefore find an erev rav.
By the way, all chasidish hashgachos are someich on the OU and their Rabbis for their own hashgachos.
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And the OK (which is chasidish standard except that the Lubavitcher Rebbe told Rabbi Levy to give hechsher on non-CY products). However, for reasons I’d rather not go into here, the CRC-Satmar probably does not work with OK, though Nirbator and Volover do.
BS”D
OK. You need to yell “Na Nach Nachma Nachman meNachmanides” four times followed by “Shygetz Aross!” They don’t want to come into contact with any tzioinim, Zalim, Aroinim or anyone else except NaNachs so you will have to make it clear you are getting rid of the shkoooooootzim for them.
And this marks my last post, for Purim is over.
BS”D
A contest is being held to rename the Neturei Karta of Monsey as part of an image-rebuilding contest.
The three winners so far:
Nutter Kartel
Ku Klux Karta
Snow Weiss and the Seven Dwarves
BS”D
This has been done to death.
BS”D
I would like to see the concert canceled, in favor of a performance of shiras ha-Leviim on the Shabbos before the concert, with Moshiach, so we do not need HASC anymore.
If he should be delayed anymore chas vesholom, then yes, from my limited experience with HASC concerts, Fried/Helfgott would be perfect, with some sort of appearance from Lipa.