Comments on: BBC: Jewish School Accused Of Breaching Race Laws May Hit Other Schools

By: Milhouse

Milhouse — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:06:12 +0000

Akuperma, you have no idea what you’re talking about. This has got nothing at all to do with accepting government money. The Race Relations Act applies to every school, whether it receives money or not. An intermarried couple applied to send their sheigetzl to the school, and when the school rejected him they went to court. The school’s funding sources are completely irrelevant, and bringing up the issue of funding is a dishonest attempt to throw dust in people’s eyes.

If the court had simply ordered the school to accept goyim, that would only be half a tzorah; there’s no halacha against doing so. But that’s not what happened. The law explicitly allows religious schools to discriminate on the basis of religion. Instead, the court decided to pasken a halacha for itself, and change the definition of who is a Jew. The court ruled that the sheigetz IS A JEW, and that the halacha laid down by Hashem Himself, which says otherwise, is racist and therefore invalid! With this decision, the court declared war on Hashem. This is an unbearable chutzpah, and that is why it must be fought.

As for your suggestion that schools admit only frum kids, it is utterly beneath contempt. It is the most disgusting thing I’ve heard in a long time. JFS isn’t for frum kids; it exists to bring Hashem’s lost sheep back, and the very idea that it should stop doing so, let alone the idea that those who are not frum are not Jews, is apikorsus. Jews are a NATION, not a religion. We are first and foremost AM Yisroel, not “emunas Yisroel”. Hashem’s bris is with us as a nation, not just with those among us who try to keep its terms. And like every nation on earth, Am Yisroel transmits its citizenship primarily through descent. To deny this is apikorsus.

By: validcomment

validcomment — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:14:50 +0000

akuperma: “While being descended from a Jewish woman is a prerequisite to being Jewish, only someone who holds by Torah and Mitsvos is really Jewish, at least from our perspective. Indeed, being “Dan le-Kaf Zechus” we should assume that a non-observant Jewish is really not Jewish after all.”
You need to think carefully before you write things like this. Nowhere in the Torah does it state that only those who observe mitzvos are Jewish, and writing that only pushing people away from their heritage.

By: shkoiach

shkoiach — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:10:14 +0000

akuperma – I am not necessarily opposed to the point you just made nor the first point in your first posting.

What I am completely opposed to, though, is your heretical and ignorant comment that “non frum Jews” are not Jews.

I will give you dan le kaf zechus and assume that I misinterperted your comment…

Would you care to clarify your implied opposition to R’ Elyashiv, as well as many other Gedolei Yisroel (including the Chofetz Chaim)?

By: akuperma

akuperma — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:56:07 +0000

If you an ethnic, community school, and solicit money from outside the Orthodox Jewish community, you end up in a situation in which you have ethnic Jews getting involved and object to the school’s religious discrimination against those Jewish students whose family minhagim (such as driving on Shabbos, eating treff, regarding underwear as outerwear, etc.) differ from those of traditional Jews.

It was the Yiddish socialists who tried to redefine Jews as a “folk” rather than religiously.
While that might make sense in a world in which racial anti-semitism (such as Germany in the pre-WWII era) is prevalent, racial anti-semitism is virtually non-existent in the United States (i.e. assimilated Jews are accepted and able to assimilate in peace).

By: shkoiach

shkoiach — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:27:47 +0000

“Many Jews hold distorted views, and many of them are misleading others. Our uninformed Jewish brothers (tinokos she’nishbu) are deteriorating further and further. At such a time, it would clearly be completely unthinkable for us to remain idle and watch holiness be profaned. We are obligated to save them, for all of the Jewish people are responsible for one another.”
HaRav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, Shlit”a
Motzei Shabbos Kodesh, Parshas Vayishlach; Kislev 18, 5753

akuperma – you must have pretty big shoulders to oppose the gadol hador in saying that “non frum” Jews are not Jews and that we should abandon them.

So, who exactly is deliberately disassociating himself with Torah and Mitzvos?

By: akuperma

akuperma — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:33:50 +0000

Lessons for America:

1. It is a bad thing to accept government (or other non-Jewish, or even non-frum) financial support for Torah institutions. “He who pays the fiddler, call the tune”.

2. Frum schools should require all students to be frum. While being descended from a Jewish woman is a prerequisite to being Jewish, only someone who holds by Torah and Mitsvos is really Jewish, at least from our perspective. Indeed, being “Dan le-Kaf Zechus” we should assume that a non-observant Jewish is really not Jewish after all.