As tensions increase between the chareidi and secular politicians surrounding the recommendations of MK Yochanan Plesner and the defunct Plesner Committee, the chareidi media is working overtime to cover the events in-depth and digging deep to find the dirt.
The Merkaz Inyanim newspaper did some checking into the background of Plesner, the man behind the committee, the champion of the “share the burden camp” and reports that the MKs father was not a Jew, but a Catholic from Denmark, a descendent of priests and bishops. The paper reports the MKs parents were married in a church.
“Only a person in whose veins flows mixed blood could be behind the effort to destroy limud torah, that which watches over and protects the Jewish People throughout the ages” the newspaper writes.
Hamodia joined in today, Tuesday 20 Tammuz 5772 in a piece carrying the headline “The Son of a Christian Comes Out of the Bag”.
“Only the son of a goy, those following the Christians and ‘that person’ that embittered the lives of Jews is capable of compiling the Plesner Committee recommendations. Only the one whose veins carry the mixed blood, including the blood of one whose heart is true to the cross that served the enemies and murderers of Jews over the ages is capable to accept such a mission, to attack toras yisrael”.
“As it turns out, in Plesner’s blood is that awful historical animosity that led the followers of Christianity to the brutal horrific crusades against the Jewish People…”
Hamodia continues with a call to “the Jewish People, all those who fathers are Jewish” to demand the dismissal of Plesner from any and all dealings concerning bnei torah and their commitment to learning. “He has absolutely no right to judge them. He is the last who has a right to undertake this issue”.
It should be pointed out that not all are in agreement, and journalist Nati Tucker on his Facebook page laments the opinion pieces against Plesner for he feels the chareidim have reached a new low, yellow journalism, and they should address the issue at hand rather than seek to level a personal attack him.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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27 Responses
That is one of the most disgusting pieces of garbage that I’ve seen in quite a while. As Frum Jews, we believe in matrilinial descent determining one’s status as a Jew, and according to that, MK Plessner is as Jewish as, lehavdil, Rav Chaim Kanievski, Shlita. You can agree or disagree with him as you wish, and you can attack his position as you please, but this is an irrelevant personal attack based on something that is not even in his control! If anything, he should be given credit for identifying as a Jew and throwing his lot in with the Jewish people, not blasted for his mother’s marrying a Goy.
an Israeli Yid
Mofaz and Lieberman seem to be pushing for far more and worse than plesner… does that make them blood-goyim as well. Very bad argument… more sensational than rational.
It is legitimate to reveal the background of a politician in order to understand his motivations and expose them to the public. A hidden ideological or religious agenda is just as much a form of violation of public trust as a hidden financial agenda. However, nonsensical phrases like “mixed blood” only make the writer look stupid. There is no such concept in HALACHAH. We do not have “half Jews” only half wits in AM YISROEL. So let us deal with the real issues and not side issues.
Plesner and those like him are either fools or traitors. Some one and some the other. They are fools if they do not understand the real power of the Hareidi community. There is no way for them to enforce such an action without igniting the the country into a civil war. These are not your MEMLACHTI believers in the State. This is about a million or so people who fundamentally do not accept the legitimacy of the State but put up with it in the hope that eventually things will get better.
Over the year this community has danced many a strange dance in order to avoid direct conflict with the Torah haters. This was done so as to avoid bloodshed and preserve Jewish development in Israel. Nevertheless at the very beginnings of this struggle the red lines were defined. In the 50s, when there was an effort to force religious girls into the Army MK Menachem Porash, OBM, stood up in the Knesset and clearly told everyone that if they come to take their daughters they will be meet with guns. That was not an empty threat then and today it is even more so.
Any effort made to close down the Yeshivot in Israel will be met with serious resistance. All efforts will be made to keep the resistance none violent but the Hareidi community is quite capable of using deadly force to defend itself. Those who do not understand this are fools and those who do and are pushing for it are traitors.
A Catholic from Denmark would be quite rare indeed, since Denmark banned the Catholic Church in the 16th century. Also it is rare that someone would boast of descent from “bishops and priests” if they are referring to the Catholic Church which prohibits clergy from marrying.
God help us, to what levels of rishus are you stooping?
The man is as Jewish as anyone who reads YWN (or Hamodia, for that matter). Born to a Jewish mother, raised in Israel as a Jew, he has served Am Yisrael with distinction and mesirut nefesh in sayeret matkal and elsewhere. To describe him as having blood “true to the cross, that served the enemies and murderers of Jews over the ages ” is beyond vile.
(His father, btw, whose blood you are spilling in public, is a tremendous Ohev Yisrael who served as Jerusalem’s municipal architect and built some of the most beautiful projects and buildings in Israel).
More to the point, for better or for worse, the vast majority of Israelis agree with Plesner’s guidelines. Are you now going to claim that rov minyano u’binyano shel Am Yisrael also have blood that is “true to the cross, that served the enemies and murderers of Jews over the ages”?
Don’t we have the belief & halachic system of a JEW is a JEW when the Mom is Jewish? (or has politics changed the name of the game)
Rule no. 1 in politics–“Personnel is policy.”
His Halachic status as a Jew is not the main point. His attitudes and biases, learned at hame in his youth, is what really matters.
Obviously, he is insensitive to the central importance of Torah study for the survival of the Jewish people, and it’s no big deal for him to throw the Yeshivos overboard.
I gues Hogwards would expell him for being a “Mudblood”.
A Jew is a Jew. And if he wasn’t Jewish, then he probobly would not even care about Charedim.
#5 wrote: “More to the point, for better or for worse, the vast majority of Israelis agree with Plesner’s guidelines. Are you now going to claim that rov minyano u’binyano shel Am Yisrael also have blood that is “true to the cross, that served the enemies and murderers of Jews over the ages”?”
Do the vast majority agree with the Torah’s guidelines?
They may not be true to the cross, but they certainly aint true to the Torah.
Between Hashem and Plesner with the vast majority of “Israelis” (who’d not necessarily call themselves Jews), with whom do side?
This post should be taken down. It does tremendous damage to the cause. We’re playing right into anti-Chareidi hands, and that’s besides for the fact that it’s simply moronic.
What does this tell us of Rabbi Akiva’s blood? Should we now stop reading Unkelus Hager because all his blood was goyish? Truly a case of sinah mekalkeles es hashura; you should have known better.
More baseless hatred, more slander, libel, and division. More ignorance. Try some love and unity, people…Tisha B’Av is coming.
Al pi halacha, he’s meah achuz a Yid. However, his actions are another story.
Zalyasko, what are you going to do if they cut the funding?!?
#4. Your facts are wrong. Yes, after the reformation, catholicism was banned in Denmark — for 150 years or so, having been re-recognized in 1682! Further, Denmark’s 1849 constitution guaranteed full religious freedom. While not exactly commonplace, it was not unheard of for catholic priests, etc to have children (out of wedlock of course): one such child even went on to become pope! Also, it is possible, even today, for a person to have been married and have children and then later enter the priesthood.
#1 & #6 etc. so by your definition, is an apostate still a Jew? Just asking, because…
Let us also keep in mind that his parents were married in a catholic church (and I have no reason to believe that Hamodia would claim a falsehood). In order for that to have happened, his MOTHER would have had to CONVERT to catholicism and promise to raise any offspring IN the catholic faith (They don’t have “reform” catholic cherches who perform “inter-faith” marriages).
So, what we have then is the son of a goy and an apostate, who may have himself been raised in avodah zarah, deciding the fate of Torah study.
That IS relevant, regardless of statements made above to “unite” with the enemies of Torah.
not wanting to sound like a idiot but for all those screaming a jew is a jew as long as the mother is Jewish FYI this is simply not true to start with the din of mekerev achicah pasuls someone whose father is a jew from a leadership position. also there is a big machlokas in the early achronim if someone whose father is a goy needs gayrus (this is the psak of the marshal in hilchos gerius based on a tosphos in kiddushin 67b) but even those who argue that gerius is not necessary he is definitely a yisrael pagum.
and then you wonder why he wants to abolish yeshivaos i wouldn’t want any one to know this either if i had his lineage.
#15
Hamodia will claim whatever it takes to make their point. Truth is as irrelevant as reality.
Oy vey, so much amhoratzus in these comments. Yes, if his mother is a Jew then he is one too; nobody’s disputing that. But how did all these people get the false impression that it doesn’t matter who his father is?! How did we get to the state that people have forgotten all about the importance of yichus, and the fact that someone with a goyisher father is a pogum, a person of low yichus who should be expected to be of low character? Look at the example the Torah gives, of the son of Shlomis bas Divri, and what sort of person he was.
A mamzer is also a Jew, and so is a ben-hanidoh, but they are not “meah achuz”, they are not equal to a full yid, and the default expectation is that they are bad Jews. See Masechte Sofrim, where Rabbi Akiva deduced from a boy’s chutzpadike behavior that he was both a mamzer and a ben-hanidoh.
#16, All supporters of the Chareidi draft are pegumim?
MKs father was not a Jew, but a Catholic
so that makes him a goy? what ever happened to halacha?
Questioning someone based on linesge is only illegitimate if the person is acting decently. Plessner is acting as the front man for an overtunring of 60 years of statud quo, we have a right to question who he is and where he comes from.
And some of these “outraged” comments to the contrary are obviously politically motivated. I would not be at all shocked if it were found to be planted.
For example, look at this delightful piece of dreck from “yagel libi”:
“(His father, btw, whose blood you are spilling in public, is a tremendous Ohev Yisrael who served as Jerusalem’s municipal architect and built some of the most beautiful projects and buildings in Israel).”
He got paid for it, you mindless drooling idiot. That doesnt make him good or bad, any more than I would call an expert garbage collector or a top notch computer programmer an “ohev yisrael”
#15, she would not have had to convert only promise to raise her kids as Catholics (assuming Plessner’s father is a Catholic and not a Lutheran, which isa the official church of Denmark). In any case, this does not make her children non-Jewish c”v as we do not pasken like the opinion #16 cites.
So far as pagum is concerned, so are many people for various reasons. This particular pagum (presuming that his father did not convert according to Halacha)only refers to sarrarot, which are davka hereditary positions.
He does not want to abolish yeshivot. He wants young men who are not seriously learning to serve in the Army. Thius will, in fact, be to the benefit of yeshivot as it will get rid of the dead wood and tro the general Chareidi public as it will get guys off the streets and aawy from the coiffee machines and make mentschen out of them.
Regarding HaModia’s blood libel, the follwing letter of hte Lubavitcher Rebbe is instructive:
No Human Being Can Claim Superior Ancestral Origin
By Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, The Lubavitcher Rebbe
By the Grace of G‑d
15th of Cheshvan, 5752 [October 23, 1991]
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Mr. Arkadiusz Rybicki
President of the Council for Polish-Jewish Relations
Office of the President of the Republic of Poland
Warsaw
Dear Mr. Rybicki,
This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter in which you express deep sorrow about the terrible anti-semitic incident that took place last month in front of the synagogue in Warsaw: that the perpetrators were captured and will be prosecuted, and that the behavior was condemned by President Walesa, etc. You also express the hope that in the future intolerance and prejudice will disappear from the Polish people, and that you are working towards this end.
We appreciate the sentiment expressed in your letter, and we pray that your hope and efforts will materialize very soon indeed.
Apropos of the above I would like to add that last month, in the beginning of Tishrei, we ushered in the current Jewish New Year, 5752, with the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the anniversary of the Creation of the first man, Adam. Our Sages of the Talmud explain why the creation of man differed from the creation of other living species and why, among other things, man was created as a single individual, unlike other living creatures created in pairs. One of the reasons – our Sages declare – is that it was G‑d’s design that the human race, all humans everywhere and at all times, should know that each and all descend from the one and the same single progenitor, a fully developed human being created in the image of G‑d, so that no human being could claim superior ancestral origin; hence would also find it easier to cultivate a real feeling of kinship in all inter-human relationships.
Indeed, although Rosh Hashanah is a Jewish festival, our prayers for a Happy New Year include also all the nations and dwellers on earth. And true happiness includes everyone’s peace and prosperity both materially and spiritually.
With prayerful wishes,
M. Schneerson
Here’s another messed up comment from Aryeh Zelasko (near the top)
“However, nonsensical phrases like “mixed blood” only make the writer look stupid. There is no such concept in HALACHAH. We do not have “half Jews” only half wits in AM YISROEL”
Look how open minded he sets himself up as. Clearly, in his mind we need to be civil, and not attack someone on the basis of being a traitor to his people by virtue of his father being a Catholic, while living in the Jewish state, born of a mother who despises her religion so much, she actually managed to marry a damn goy in a country full of Jews.
Now contrast what he says at the end
“Any effort made to close down the Yeshivot in Israel will be met with serious resistance. All efforts will be made to keep the resistance none violent but the Hareidi community is quite capable of using deadly force to defend itself”
Oh really Aryeh? You intend to use guns maybe? And youre saying this on an open forum? Did you seek daas torah for either of those statements?
How much did the government pay you to write this you bastard?
#16, moreover, bekerev achicha means that his mother must be a born Jew (Rambam Hilchot Melachim 1:4).
#22, Do you really imagine that that letter represents the Rebbe’s true opinion?! Go learn some chassidus and you will quickly see what the Rebbe’s true opinion was.
#24, That is only if the father is a ger. If the father is a goy then he is not achecha even if the mother is the daughter of the Kohen Gadol.
Milhouse, stop the drivel. There is a mefurashe Gemora which says the opposite.