There is actually significant archaeological evidence in Israel and elsewhere. The question is, how do you define a wall? If, for example, you are talking about a hillfort type city or fortification, with rampart and ditch walls at the outset, the earliest of those would have been during the early bronze age, which puts it at roughly 3300-3400 years ago, around the time of Yehoshua. There are a few examples in England and elsewhere in Europe, though most of these date from later.

If you are talking about a city, and a stone or brick built wall, there are a number that likely fit the bill. Tel Hatzor, Tel Meggido, Yerushalayim, Sidon, Tzor, Chevron, Yafo, Dameshek (Damascus).

There are places in modern Iraq or Syria that had walls at one time, like Ur, Carchemish, and Nineveh, but there are no cities above them today.

In Greece, Athens and Argos are the oldest, dating earlier than Yehoshua, in Southeast Asia, Delhi and Luoyang also older.

There are other places, like Mohenjo Daro in the Indus Valley, That are significantly older than these. And other places like Tiahuanaco in Peru that there is a lot of controversy about how old it is.

There is physical evidence to substantiate these locations (and others I haven’t mentioned)

Another thing to consider is the fact that there were likely many towns that built with wood rather than stone, and being organic, the evidence may have long since disappeared. Even up to the middle ages, fortifications were still being built with wood. In places where there is high humidity, the rate of decomposition would be very high, so places like Thailand, or Mexico might have had some fortified, walled cities that have simply disappeared into the jungle.

No problem. It’s really an impressive place, and a model, I think, for how the Dati Leumi and chareidi communities can get along well and cooperate.

Popa, they do have a one year post high school program (1/2 time learning, 1/2 sciences) for americans/canadians that is in English, but the undergrad programs are taught almost completely in Ivrit.

If I’m remembering correctly, the Rabonim at the time – from among the Tanoim – who were at Kamtza’s party, did and said nothing to prevent Bar Kamtza’s embarrassment. This infuriated Bar Kamtza perhaps even more than Kamtza’s treatment of him.

Raboisai, Rabonim are people. Gedolim are people. People are imperfect, and it is possible that they will transgress. If not, where then did we get the well known and ancient wisdom that the transgression of a great person often gets a greater onesh than that of one who is not on the madrega?

The quasi-deification of anyone is an affront to our tradition. I find it hard to understand how the same people who castigate the Meshichists and the Elokists among Chabad will react with horror at the possibility that someone points out a mistake, omission, or contradiction from/by a gadol. TO me, the fact that such an occurence is rare enough to bear notice testifys to their gadlus, and does not take away from it.

Canada

Yeah, Doswin, that’ll work. And as I said before, she’ll transmit her love for Torah and Yiddishkeit really well to her children once you’ve beaten her into submission. Come to think of it, I’m sure that having seen their mother being beaten into submission, the children will spontaneously develop a deep and abiding love for Torah, the Jewish community, and the authorities who facilitated the beating.

Is this what we’ve come to? YIDDEN!!! Recourse to beating people to do mitzvos? We have no better strategies? Ribono shel olam, is this all we have to offer to Jews who have left the fold?

Rambam in Moreh Nevuchim indicates that animal korbanos were an inferior way of serving hashem and served their purpose in differentiating Judaism from idolatry, but it may be that in the future they will not be necesary, as their tafkid is also served in other ways, primarily through mitzvos and tfilos.

Perhaps this is the way we should look at the “authority” to beat people into submission (and yes, I’ve looked at all of the sources in the gemoro). It may be permitted, but is it useful? Is it advisable? Are their better ways to achieve the objective of returning someone to observance?

I don’t know this woman, or the ubiquitous Deborah Feldman, or anyone else in the news for going off the derech. I have said that I find Feldman’s leverage of her upbringing and bad experiences to be wrong on a number of levels, and this individual may simply be leveraging the media to get something that she couldn’t get in court or beis din. I don’t know. But I do know this. There is an elephant in the room, and few people are willing to talk about it. That is the following: None of us is perfect. I am not, you are not, our communities are not, and, even though they are on a (much) higher madrega, neither are our leaders. There are problems and challenges in our communities we need to fix, and it shouldn’t take publicity to maneuver us into fixing them. Not every mechanech does a good job. Not every shul or shteeble is welcoming or warm. Not every frum businessperson makes a kiddush hashem. Instead of wasting our time giving a geshrai over what I agree can be at the very least misleading and incomplete pictures of chareidi life, if not outright falsehoods, let’s do the necessary introspection on how our community can improve its capacity to inspire Jews rather than provoke them into turning away, beyond lengthening our skirts and sleeves, or looking down when we see a woman, which, while they may be admirable endeavors for some, do nothing to address the problems that bleed away our young people.

Feif, I usually agree with you on most things, but I think you are likely off base here. Think about it this way. Even if everything the woman wrote about the death was true (which I don’t believe, as Gary Rosenblatt at the Jewish Week is no friend of Chareidi Jews, and he is convinced it is false), she had no evidence other than hearsay, and yet she felt it was appropriate to include it in her book. That is irresponsible, and it tarnishes an already deeply flawed book even further.

I did, see above.

Toi, c’mon. I am very, very familiar with Birthright, the good and the bad. No one is ever forced to go to a bar. That being said, the rules they operate under, the insurance coverage they have, and the security guidelines they must follow make it impossible for people to take side trips during the 10 days of the experience. People visiting their non chareidi relatives would be prohibited as well. Also – the conditions or circumstances whereby a participant might be billed for the entire cost are laid out explicitly in the paperwork and application process before the trip, so there should be no surprises for anyone who bothered to read them.

Clearly, the majority of the participants on the regular trips are not only not frum, but are mostly far from any Jewish experience at all, especially those from the US, or places like CUba or Brazil. Such a group is not the environment for a frum young adult. The good news, such as it is, is that the statistics demonstrate that Birthright alumni are more likely to participate in Jewish experiences, date Jewish, and marry Jewish after their experience. That in and of itself is a pretty good justification of the investment when intermarriage is over 50%.

There are a few offerings for frum kids. I know, from having worked with the logistics provider for Birthright while leading my own, non-birthright seminar in Israel for student leaders, that they only do mehadrin kashrus on a “best efforts” basis, and all else is rabanut hechsher. It was somewhat of a headache for us, but we worked it out and found solutions. That wouldn’t be the case on a birthright trip, and it wouldn’t satisfy the needs of many. I don’t know what arrangements they may have made for the frum trips. But, again, they are upfront with it, and will tell anyone who asks what the kashrus standard is ahead of the trip, I think it might even be on the FAQ on their website.

And it’s kind of unfortunate that when a kanoi doesn’t like Hillel Hazoken he starts yelling liberal.

Hey, greatest, I see you neatly avoided the question. “If your child (just for example) decided he refused to wear tzitzis every day, would you then compel him by beating him black and blue until he listened?” That is what I asked. That is what you are advocating.

You write – the law takes precedence over feelings. Sure, in the same way a refrigerator takes precedence over a rubber band – It’s more expensive, you are more likely to see it, and it performs an indispensable function, but you wouldn’t – and couldn’t – bundle a newspaper with it.

You discuss compulsion without even considering the alternatives, as if there was no room for kiruv, for patience, for education, for being dan lkaf zchus, for ahavas yisroel, for recognizing that which is done kdas vodin while encouraging more observance.

There’s a kind of governance that fits your description. Used to run a country. In fact, it’s still out there trying to bring back its philosophy of compulsion. Fortunately there are soldiers from my country and yours working hard to stop them. They’re called the Taliban. The word means “students”, and their intense legalistic fanaticism leaves no room for transgression.

vhamayvin yovin

greatest, let me ask you a question. If your child (just for example) decided he refused to wear tzitzis every day, would you then compel him by beating him black and blue until he listened? How do you think his love for and respect for you would be impacted? How do you think his appreciation of Torah would be affected? Would it grow or diminish?

What is the value of such a mitzvah performed only because he is afraid of being further injured and hurt? What is the relationship between the individual beaten and his family? By extension, what would then be the relationship between the transgressor and the community that compels him, let alone between him and HKBH?

And I notice none of the apologists for those who arrogated the “right” to “import” Jews from Teiman to keep them from the tziyonim has touched the issue of the tragic story of the Jaradi family. Figures.

Health, you obviously DO think you can rewrite history to support your agenda.

R’ Rosenblum is an ehrlicher yid, but did he demonstrate that he was discussing policy, legislation, or law? You have made the simple, understandable error of conflating a columnist, whose job it is to convey opinions, with a reporter, whose job it is to convey facts. I have no problem with R’ Rosenblum’s opinions, he is entitled to them, but he is not a reporter. So you are using an opinion, an unsubstantiated, non-footnoted tertiary source, as evidence.

I’m not trying to convince you of anything on this point. It’s the other way around. I said I would concede the point if you could show me that it was articulated, legislated policy for the government and its institutions to do what you claim, and that such law or regulation or legislation specifically targeted Teimanim, as you claimed. I am prepared to be corrected by facts, not by your overblown and frankly tiresome rhetoric. I may be longwinded, but at least I don’t say the same thing over and over and over again.

Health, and your fellow travelers, it’s time you learned that saying “everyone knows” or assuming that “everyone” thinks along the same lines and has the same blinkered and narrow perspective and sources that you do may be comforting, or self assuring, but it is simply a poor substitute for reporting facts or actually looking at sources. And it is further something that you should be aware of that everybody, whether pro or anti zionist, religious or secular, has an agenda.

I know that the Teimanim came from a pre modern subsistence existence in a hostile environment to a challenging economic and social situation in post 1948 Israel where everyone’s priority was having enough to eat and defending themselves from bloodthirsty neighbors bent on revenge for their defeat. It was a shock to the system for them and they did not have the communal infrastructure in place that European refugees had when they came from the DP camps.

Undoubtedly some of them turned away from observance. And, possibly, some of those in the secular majority were pleased to see it. But you are deluding yourself if you think that the tziyonim had more interest in or resources to devote to purposely erasing the religiosity of the Teimanim than they had in feeding and clothing them, putting a roof over their head, defending them, (and everyone else) and slowly building the country, a process that took more than 20 years. It is a false narrative built on smug self importance (if it is the way WE perceive it, then it must be true, and the way everyone else perceives it). SO please, demonstrate to me in legislative or regulatory policy from the period of 1949 through 1967, in FACTS, that you are right. IF you don’t have the evidence, don’t waste everyone’s time. If you do, and can show that it was aimed specifically at the Teimanim with the specific and singular intent to destroy their observance, I will concede the point.

The truth is that the chareidi population in Israel in the first twenty to thirty years of its existence was almost a complete political and social irrelevancy, an afterthought, and generally left to its own devices, for better or worse. It was only during the ascendancy of Begin and the Likud in the seventies that politics and policy started to pay attention.

By the way, you should find out about the the sad story of Yahia Jaradi and his family from Yemen, and what happened to them, if you want to talk about shmad.

Hakatan makes quite the statement about the world before zionism. For the record, wishing does not make it so.

“Before Zionism, Teimanim had their mesorah and yahadus since bayis rishon and tens of thousands of sefardim were also still observant Jews, as would have been their descendants today and beyond.”

Even at the outset of Islamic rule in Yemen, Jews had to pay the Jizya tax, could not build any beis knesses above a certain height, had the social status of dhimmi, and sometimes had to wear distinctive clothing. But when the Shia muslim Zaidi clan came to power about 1100 years ago, they began to persecute teimani Jews in horrible ways, much as the Zaydi descended Houthi clan of the northwest of Yemen is doing now, calling for the murder of all Jews, and recently murdering one of the few Rabonim left there. They were not allowed to raise a hand to defend themselves if beaten; they were forced to walk barefoot in non Jewish parts of towns; they were not allowed to touch food or other items belonging to muslims; they were regarded as impure in muslim law. And contrary to your perception of their ditinctive purity, there were at least three false moshiach movements among teimanim, making them no less susceptible than Europeans and mizrachim to such movements. And as for the vicious lies spread by some about the “disappearance” of Teimani children, when an actual investigation was done, 96% of them were found to be exactly where expected, with about 50 who couldn’t be tracked down, including those who r’l had died young.

“Before Zionism, the Arabs did not virulently hate the Jews, and were generally cordial and even friendly.”

Not all arabs hated Jews all the time. Not all of them followed the laws of persecution all the time. But many, if not most, were guided by their Hadith (a muslim oral tradition of great importance to them) to treat Jews negatively. There is the famous hadith describing the “garkhad tree” calling out to the faithful muslim to come catch the Jew hiding behind it and kill him. One of the most famous hadith, and you can find many instances of it being repeated in mosques today. It was written 1200 years ago and more by Rasul Sultan. Do not talk about that with which you are wholly ignorant.

“Even post-Zionism, some Arabs still recognize the fraud that is Zionism and correctly do not equate Zionism with, lihavdil, Judaism.”

Yes, such statements are often made by some arabs. The same arabs who then accuse the Jews of controlling the media, or of controlling the banks, or of conspiracies like 9-11 being an inside Zionist job.

“Before Zionism, Jews and Arabs lived peacefully in Eretz Yisrael (Just to head off the uninformed question, the Chevron Massacre was a direct result of *religious* Zionism – please excuse the paradox – according to Rabbi Baruch Kaplan who was there.)”

How dare you. My great uncle was also there. By lucky chance he was at home in Yerushalayim that shabbes…His classmates were all murdered. He wasn’t from a Zionist family, and neither were the other victims. and the man responsible for fomenting the riots was Haj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. A man who took Jew hatred to a new level, who spent the war in Berlin with Hitler, and raised a muslim SS division in Bosnia. Do some research, his smiling face shaking hand with the Fuhrer is easy to find.

“Before Zionism, Jews were not seduced into becoming “post-Jewish” and culturally manipulated by (Zionist) Jews into giving up their faith in favor of Zionism.”

Before Zionism there was something called the Haskala, perhaps you heard of it? Secular Zionists had their deep foundations in the Haskala movement. And, on another tack entirely, you may not care about those pesky numbers called statistics, but if you were to look at those on secular Jews coming back from zionist birthright trips, you would find that those “manipulated” souls were much more likely to go to a shul, participate in a Jewish program, date Jewish, and MARRY Jewish after their Zionist Birthright experience. But of course, those are just statistics.

“Before Zionism, there was no need to send every young man and woman of 18 years old into the anti-Torah army that is the IDF nor was there the need for them to risk their life and limb by doing so.”

Yes, you are right on this one, there was no need, because before Zionism the only armed men most Jews would see was the Cossack coming to disembowel him and steal his children, or the Priest inciting a demented mob to burn his house down on his and his family’s head. No need to risk life and limb. none at all.

May Hashem redeem us all, completing the true Geulah, BB”A.

It strikes me that we have a situation that is unique. Today, Everyone from Gedolim to the most casual learner has access to the entire corpus of Torah shebichsav and Torah Shebealpeh, and almost every sefer written since the gemara was concluded is either extant or referenced in another sefer. At times, there were communities where even a shas was an impossibility to have or see (for example in France in the late 13th century, after almost every shas was burned) and the conduit for halachic knowledge narrowed to one or two Rabbonim in each city. And now, more than ever in history, there are growing numbers of talmidei chachomim or at least competent learners who can access all of those texts. In my opinion this poses both a danger and an opportunity, as seen from a halachic viewpoint. The opportunity is to have a more halachicly literate am yisroel, who have the capacity to find relevant halachos and teshuvos as well as the capacity to ask a Rov for guidance. The danger is that not only are those sources available to bnei Torah, they are available to everyone, and those without a vested interest in a halachic life may view and use that corpus of halacha in ways foreign to frum communities. There is also the danger (perceived or real, I don’t know), that frum Jews will make more recourse to the corpus of halachic material they have access to, and will perhaps do so when they might or should be seeking further guidance from a Rov.

How does this relate to the initial post? Well, again, in my opinion, the natural, and I think the intuitive response to these dangers from what we could call “halachic leadership” is to raise more gedarim, create stricter community standards, and generally engage in what the OP described as a slide to the right. It would serve the purpose of “protecting” the community from transgression and it would also remind the community that Jewish communities have a structure and that structure relies on the guidance of the Rabbinic leadership.

Now, there may be questions raised as to if the intuitive response is the best or the only response to the challenge I presented above, but I think that is beyond the scope of this thread.

Notice how this post observes, but is not judging.

Health says “if they aren’t frum, who cares?”…

sums up the weakness of too large a proportion of the chareidi velt. The gemoro tells us kol yisroel areivim ze bazeh.It didn’t specify only the frum. I won’t give you personal stories of meeting gedolim like Rav Noach Weinberg ztl or the Lubavitcher Rebbe ztl or the alter Bobover Rebbe ztl, and talking about their committment to every single Jew. I will tell you that where i live, there is a large, strong chareidi community. Every element of that community, from the Gerer, Bobover, Lubavitcher and other chassidishe shteeblach, to the multiplicity of kollels and litvishe yeshivos, to the MO kehilos, as well as the Agudas Yisroel and others and hundreds if not thousands of balabatim and their wives and their families are involved in the strong arms of the kiruv movement for children, teens, singles and families. There is no element of the frum-chareidi part of the kehilo that takes your attitude of “who cares”. Boruch Hashem.

And now I understand your posts and your perspective on a whole range of issues much better.

Toi is right. I just got an email a few days ago from porter “book online before midnight on February 3, 2012. Travel by May 31, 2012. Use promo code JAN50”

Also, Porter flies from the Island airport in downtown Toronto – less busy than Pearson, very nice preflight lounge for all passengers.

oomis, I’m a fan of your posts and I don’t want to come across as negative or critical so please take my disagreement as a matter of academic interest, and nothing else. I’ve studied history extensively and etymology a little, with broad non-academic interest in both. I’m familiar with primary source material from the US military during the second word war, from American historians like Stephen Ambrose and Carlo D’este and ex-soldiers like E.B. Sledge, where many US soldiers are quoted, and I’ve seen the word used several times. It must be understood that there were virtually no speakers of colloquial, conversational Hebrew outside of Israel before the 1950’s, and the word copacetic definitely showed up before that. Also, from an etymological point of view, there isn’t much difference in usage between “he’s cool” and “it’s OK”. Finally, had you considered that a US soldier hearing an Israeli saying Hakol Beseder, as you suggest, simply misheard a hebrew phrase for an already extant colloquially used word in American english, and that is the extent of it, a similarity?

Regarding copacetic – It first appeared in a dictionary in 1919, and it is almost certain to have originated in the USA. The two theories that have been put forward regarding hebrew origins are that Jewish shopkeepers in the south may have used the phrase hakol b’seder or hakol b’tzedek, and this may have been heard by gentiles as copacetic. The problem is that no-one used everyday hebrew conversationally at the time, certainly not in the US. A Jewish shopkeeper would have been much more likely to say “alles is in ordnung” in Yiddish/German than to use Hebrew. Hakol b’seder is an Israeli expression that came into use at the earliest after WW2, so it obviously cannot have influenced usage in 1919. There is no consensus on what the origin of the word is, but almost all etymologists discount a Hebrew origin.

789 jkl I would suggest that for these girls you should speak with your local NCSY director, they send girls to seminary every year, some already beyond the point you describe, some not there yet. One school I have heard of spoken very highly for this is Machon Maayan. There is also a kiruv oriented one year program associated with Bar Ilan University. ALso ask @ NCSY about it.

Actually, Toi, the Vilna Gaon’s entire discussion of the idea, of Moshiach (both ben Yosef and ben David – which were you talking about?) is found in the sefer Kol HaTor, which he wrote with his Great-Nephew Rav Hillel Shklover. In it, he introduces his formula for the “yomim” that will pass from the time he determined began the atchalta degeula (5500 or 1740 CE) until the zman. The nearest that it comes to the dates you cite in your post (I don’t know if you are talking about November 1947 at the UN, or May 1948) is two to three years earlier in 1945. He was pretty clear about the dates in his sefer. Check it out, its in the first perek.

BTW, there is a huge amount of evidence and information in his sefer that provides support for the establishment of a state, for example, his interpretation that it can be taken by force if necessary.

“Honestly folks, if you know where the bus originates and it is in a frum area and you got on in that area and no Arabs or funny looking people were on with you, then you can pretty well rely on the probability that it belongs to a frum person and is not a chafetz chashud.”

Nechama, one simple question. Why? I know that like me, you have seen the images of what can happen CH’V. You probably know people, as I do, who have survived such piguot or possibly you knew people who did not survive. Why take the chance?

I had the opportunity to get to know a man by the name of Steve Averbach. He was one of the principal trainers of the Magav elite Yamam anti-terror unit, and was known as perhaps the best small-arms shot and instructor in Israel. He was riding the bus to French hill on the afternoon of May 18, 2003, and it was half full. He saw a man get on the bus, dressed as a chareidi Jew. No one else noticed anything suspicious, but he saw something amiss as the man got on the bus. He knew there was a Bais Yaakov that had just let out and the next stop would fill up the bus. He drew his weapon and screamed to get down. The bomber blew himself up, killing seven people, but it would have been many more if Steve hadn’t acted. Steve was wounded and left a quadriplegic. I met him less than a year after the bombing, and again the next year. He had decided that as challenging as his life as a quadriplegic was, he wanted to give over his love of eretz yisrael and am yisrael to young Jews from chu’l, and so he met with birthright groups, Aish groups, and others, as much as he could. Steve succumbed to his injuries a couple of years ago in 2010. TN’B.

Why do I tell you this? Simply because not taking chances and assuming everything is OK, and instead taking action, saves lives.