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Philosopher: The DNA of Ashkenazim shows that while there were a fair number of converts a long time ago, and then a steady trickle (which matches all historical records), but remember that we are 100 generations since the Churban Bayis Sheini, and that is a very long time for a trickle to become noticeable. In addition, light skin and blond hair had a survival advantage for Ashkenazim since they would have an easier time hiding during pogroms . Also remember that Ashkenazim were for the most part living in areas where the goyim tend to have much lighter skin and blonder hair than was the norm in the middle east. When someone, such as the original poster, complains that Ethiopian Jews are “too dark”, he/she/it should realize that from the point of view of Jews who stayed closest to Eretz Yisrael, most Ashkenazim are “too light”.
1. All Jewish communities had many converts, which usually required forgery of yichus records to conceal they were converts since conversion to Judaism was usually a capital offense (considered to be heresy which was related to treason). How do you think Ashkenazim got to be so light skinned with many blonds among us?
2. There has always been substantial migration between Yemen and the Horn of Africa. And Yemen has had a well documents Jewish community. It should also be noted that the Ethiopian goyim have many customs that appear to be of Jewish origin, and that Jews in adjacent regions (Egypt and Yemen) were aware there were Jews in Ethiopia. The Ethiopean Christians knew there were Jews in their county and persecuted them.
3. If a Jewish community doesn’t emphasize learning Torah, their observances are likely to become corrupted over time. A Jewish community of Baal ha-Batim that doesn’t support a community of “batlanim” will mess up a lot. That would explain the halachic errors of Ethiopean Jews (and many others isolated Jewish communities – you really can’t be properly frum without a strong commitment to learning Torah).
No national has ever had a registry of Jews, though some local communities might have had a list (probably to show who had full rights in the community, and who didn’t).
While some countries have national registers that indicate ethnicity or religion, none of these were based on halacha. In effect, the zionists use a similar system: anyone whose arguably believable claim to have Jewish ancestry and does not claim to be a member of any religion other than some from of Judaism, is considered Jewish for immigration purposes; to the Israelis, it is not relevant that the the individual is an atheist from a long line of atheists and the mother and maternal grandmother were not Jewish.
Cost of living is not uniform in any country. Being unable to afford a nice apartment in a “good” neighborhood in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv doesn’t mean you are closed out of the entire country. Unlike golus, where rural areas and smaller cities are not realistic options from frum Jews (no Jewish schools, no shul, no mikva, limited availability of kosher food), in Eretz Yisrael there are many more housing options that don’t require living in the most expensive metropolitian areas. When you take into account the premium paid in golus for Jewish education, kosher food and housing in expensive urban areas, Eretz Yisrael starts looking much more affordable for a frum Yid.
The idea of zionism is to create a homeland for non-Chareidi Jews, and either to “convert” or drive out the Chareidim. Based on your complaint, would you have been shocked if the Gestapo was being rude to Jews????
You can reasonably be certain that if it is run by the dominant organizations of the Jewish community in either Eretz Yisrael or Golus, it will NOT be operated according to Torah. Most Jews in both Israel and Golus are not frum, and the richest and politically best connected are not frum. As a small, frequently discriminated against (at best, persecuted has historically been the norm), we can hardly create an “official” anything,
The best solution is to assume that anyone who is not Shomer Shabbos is a putative non-Jew (at least for marriage purposes, not for whether he/she can be a Shabbos Goy or buy our hametz over Pesach), and unless the person can reliably trace maternal ancestry to someone who was frum, they should expect to need to convert if they want to part of the frum community. The high rate of intermarriage began over two centuries ago, and given the custom in western countries to identify children by their father’s surname, one should assume, unless proven otherwise, that anyone whose family is not frum and has Jewish surname is not Jewish. It should be noted that in situations where a Baal Tseuvah (i.e. someone not frum who has decided to become frum) discovers he/she is not Jewish, since the person is already shomer mitsvos, conversion is very uncomplicated.
If you are married, the crisis is over.
If you are single, the crisis is not over.No hiddush. It always has been that way. It always will be that way.
We hold this is the world of Sheker. People shouldn’t get so up tight about the goyim. We have much bigger fish to fry.
I thought that Jewish men were supposed to be learning and teaching Torah, leaving all the other stuff for women. If it is okay for a man to be bitul Torah in order to do things like play soldier, work in sports and entertainment, construct things, sell things, practice medicine, why shouldn’t women. Indeed, many jobs the goyim consider to be “male” can just as easily be done by women, and often better. Why should halacha look at what the local goyim (in our cases, Euro-American Christians) consider to be a gender role (note that many goyim consider it to be “unmanly” for a male to spend all his time reading books, learning, etc. – to them, those are female traits).
The world has never been normal. Why do you think we call it the false world (world of Sheker)? Remember this in only some place we are spending time in in, it’s not real.
If you want to live like an upper middle class American, and limit yourself to the most exclusive (i.e. expensive) neighborhoods, you will definitely need a six figure income.
If you are content with a working class lifestyle and/or living outside of the high priced metropolitan areas, you can probably manage for a lot less.
I suspect any Republican other than Trump has a good chance of winning provided that 1) Trump is enthusiastically supporting the ticket; 2) the candidate is an experience politician who knows how not alienate people and does know how to build coalitions; 3) the Democrats don’t dump Biden for a “moderate” who can put the “woke” in their place (on the sidelines) without alienating them
Without Trump’s base (primarily working class, disproportionately of European descent) the Republicans have a problem. Even if you add up the “Tea Party” and the “Neocons” and the “Country Club Republicans” and the “Wall Street Republicans”, they don’t have a majority. Bush only got in since the earlier version of today’s “Progressive Democrats” stabbed Gore in the back and voted for Nader. Reagan only got in since Jimmy Carter was a clear failure and the Democrats in the 1970s were pushing a radical agenda very similar to today’s “progressives”.
Unless they can convince the Democrats to run a socialist or a fool, the Republican best chance to win is to find a way to unite their factions in a way that includes Trump’s base. If winning was more important than ego, Trump would settle down to be a “Senior Statesman”, and become a good party man (instead of someone who was recently a Democrat, and always focused on himself rather than party). Getting Trump to settle down to retirement as a “wise elder” is a challenge.
1. First, Facebook has gotten a bad reputation (e.g., the only thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on, is that Facebook is evil). A change of name is called for.
2. The “metaverse” programs have been around for a long time (e.g. “Second Life” which is about 20 years old). What Facebook wants to do is to upgrade the programming to make it more useful so that is passes for “virtual reality”.
I am amazed that housing costs the same in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, as it does in less urban places. That happens no where in the world. In general, if one has trouble making ends meet, it is advantageous to move to a less urban area (in the USA, one can leave New York for places such as Baltimore, but in the USA moving to any metropolitan area with no large cities, or to a rural area, is not practical for frum Jews).
For a non-hareidi frum person, finding a job is much easier in Israel, whereas in America many if not most jobs are closed to anyone who is at all frum (defined as Shomer Shabbos, Shomer Kashrus) either because the job requires work on Saturday, or the job requires living in an area where there are no frum shuls or schools). Also note, that if you are a zionist, Israel for all purposes has free public education, whereas in golus one has to pay rather expensive tuition and needs to live in a community with a Jewish school.
Israel is now officially considered to be a developed country, and for frum Jews, depending on profession, there is probably no economic hardship in moving to Israel, especially. For Hareidim, the issue is trickier, since if you oppose the medinah and refuse to serve in their army, the equation on which country is better becomes harder to evaluate.
Why should the teachers (or rather the teacher’s union) decide what school’s teach. That should rest with the board of directors, which for a public school, are the parents (or the voters at large). The WOKE movement is attempting to define its own class of self-proclaimed exerts as an aristocracy, that will rule without regard to what the people want. Its very similar to England in the early Middle Ages (e.g. 13th century) when the Lords were the only decision makers, and the idea of a commons had yet to be born.
The idea of zionism, from its origins in the 19th century, was to establish a place where Jews would be free from the yoke of Torah, and to accomplish this they wanted a sovereign state (note that “sovereign” means higher than any king, whether on earth or in shamayim). Zionism is by definition opposed to frumkeit. This is no secret. It is even part of their anthem (“to be a free [from the yoke of Torah] nation”)
Fixed or negotiable prices are matters of commercial custom, and that has always been the case. If you answer the question with a “yes” or “no” answer, you are in error.
It depends on context. In a situation where bargaining over price is the norm, failing to do so is foolish and the person selling the item will be pleased to rip you off. In a situation where prices are fixed, if you attempt to bargain you will be perceived very negatively and in some cases, you may be violating criminal laws (e.g. trying to bargain with a transit driver over fares, or trying to cut a deal with a policeman giving you a ticket).
The American (and before that “German” reparations, even if they were paid by the USA) makes things easier for Israel. On its own, the Israelis would probably have to respond more forcefully which could lead a bigger war with devastating consequence (especially if the Israelis were forced to use non-conventional weapons). The pre-Biden policies seem to have been working as more Arab countries are recognizing Israel, and the level of violence has been contained. The WOKE Democrats are likely to sabotage the movements towards peace since they want to see Israel destroyed, even if the consequence could be a mass destruction (e.g. instead of launching retaliatory raids when Gaza takes pot shots at Israeli cities, the Israelis could do to Gaze what the US did in World War II, level the cities and cause massive civilian deaths which, but result in the loss of American aid – that aid is a bribe for the Israelis not to go for a military solution).
Compared to many other things that Yidden can turn to in order to find a way to be bitual Torah, organized sports are relatively harmless. And actual participation in sports can even be positive.
P.S. I was going to discuss the other things to to to waste time and divert energy from Torah and Mitsvos, but other than posting on YWN, they are all things that the “mods” would object to.
It will probably lead to Democratic support for repealing the law that grants social media immunity from being sued for what user’s post (much to the tech world’s consternation).
If you eliminate the “moderating” process from social media, you will end up content many users find objectionable, and you end up as an accessory to crimes committed by criminals using the social media (e.g sale of stolen or banned goods). Facebook has this as a major problem.
Hiddush?????
It is quite rude to make fun of our nation’s leaders (especially the last few). There is no proof that any recent presidents are/were fully sentient, and in any event, the one to blame are those that elected them
Other than having to work out how we measure time (there already have been some tseuvahs on the subject), and the problem getting water for a mikva (if you had an artificial site big enough to have rain form, would that count?), what are the halachic issues that would prevent Yiden from moving off-world?
Socialize medicine, and that’s what you have. Health care rationing doesn’t work if individuals can go out of system. If the government decides some sort of care is not covered, in a socialist system, you are in effect ordered to be put to death. If the Republicans mess up in the next election, we’ll probably have the same system in the United States. We are one “blue wave” away from having “Death Panels” in America.
If the goyim get annoying enough, that may be the way to go. There will be some interesting shailohs on calculating zmanim once you emigrate from this planet, and arranging “Mayim Hayim” (for mikvos) will be challenging, but I’m sure we’ll come up with a way. If moving to Israel is Plan B for Yidden in America, perhaps “the next frontier” might figure as Plan C.
It was “stolen” by Donald Trump. The results for offices other than president appear to indicate that 2020 should have been a good year from the Republicans, but the man at the head of the ticket managed to “steal” defeat from the jaws of victory by his own incompetence as a politician.
If the Democrats were stuffing the ballot boxes, there would have been a massive blue wave, since election cheats never split their ticket.
The Chinese have never been a problem for Jews. They are quite likely to purge those who they conquer and are trying to assimilate. This is bad news for minorities with China, bad news for pro-democracy groups and other anti-communists in China, bad news from Taiwan which is sort of part of China (it was conquered by Chinese settlers only a few centuries ago and hadn’t been ruled by China since the 10th century). It may be bad news for many of China’s neighbors. It may be bad news for Americans who invest in China. But it isn’t likely to problem for frum Jews. They don’t hate us, and they are less obnoxious than many governments we have lived with in the past.
Simple answer: Avraham Aveinu
Addressing what the original question really is asking: Modern kiruv (i.e. modern Baalei Tseuvah) only started when you started having “modern” OTD (i.e. Jews leaving the Orthodox community without converting to Islam or Christianity). That was very rare until the 19th century (note that in the past, it wasn’t so much that being a Yid was illegal, but that not being part of the official government religion was considered illegal). The big “boom” in the Kiruv movement began after World War II, and was accelerated as the Jewish “boomers” came to an age where they could ignore their almost universally secular parents and start reasserting their Jewishness.
“42” raises a shailoh of hukas goyim
We hold that life = 18 (in base 10, that would 22 in hex) and excessive in binary.That is not a significant piece of data unless you determine, using similar definitions, how many women had miscarriages without taking the covid vaccine, and making sure that the two samples of data are identical in terms of whether and when the women in question had Covid (from medical histories and antibody testing). Otherwise you are comparing “apples and oranges” and any conclusions are not to be taken seriously.
1 and 6.
As it is 90% of people who are “infected” don’t get seriously ill, and the best vaccine’s claim to lower that to about 99% (90% more effective than the placebo). So instead of playing Russian Roulette, you get to play Russian roulette with the provision that you have to have a live bullet in the chamber twice in row to be dead.
#3 makes no sense since the only other “less drastic” treatment is to wear an N95 mask, a hazmat suit, and avoid contact with humans. Doing nothing is “less drastic” but leaves a 10% chance of getting seriously ill. The standard for testing the vaccine was NOT the usual standard used to estimate cases (i.e. testing positive for Coivd-19) but rather the meaningful test of whether one develops symptoms worse than cold or flu (though that still means everyone can spread Covid-19).
How long a vaccine will work will require a longitudinal study which be definition takes time. Computer models are subject to the GIGO rule, and are in this case unreliable.
If one read the “fine print” from the CDC and the manufacturers when they announce the vaccine, you would have known that they never claimed it would make you immune from Covid19, not would it prevent vaccinated people from spreading. They claimed only that it would the chance of a vaccinated individual becoming seriously ill (which combined with the fact the very few people who get Covid19 actually become seriously ill to begin with, would make a vaccinated individual would be very unlikely to become severely ill).
The politicians, mass media (including social media), and people who “talking points” rather than long articles to read, ERRONEOUSLY assumed the vaccinated for Covid19 was like more familiar vaccine (total immunity including being unable to spread the disease).
1. Especially in democracies (and especially the US, which is a federation in which the “reserved powers” belong to the states) there will be debate over whether specific law is valid. American law is much more complex than most, since it it debateable if public health measures are the responsibility of the states or the federal government, and how the protections of the First Amendment of the Federal Constitution (and the state equivalents) apply.
2. If the Rabbanim of the city mandate a lockdown, even if it would be held unconstitutional if done by the government, a strong argument can be made that our law (rather the Dina Malchusa Dina) applies, even if the Rabbanim have been poorly advised.
3. Whether the policies banning religious services but allowing similar events (with many people gathering together, such as left wing political ralles) is constitutional is very much debateable. In the past we often had to decide how to deal with anti-Jewish laws (e.g. close the synagogues) but have rarely needed to worry about general laws directed against all religion (e.g. close down all houses of worship). A similar situation did arise when militantly atheistic socialists took over Russia about 100 years ago, and passed laws against all religions (not just Jews), and I believe most rabbanim held that Dina Malchusa Dina did not apply, and we honor those who refused to obey these laws.
I’ve seen men Hasidic men wearing shorts (formerly called knickerbockers when they were fashionable among the goyim, and still worn by many baseball and American football players), along with over the calf socks. Prior to long pants becoming fashionable in Europe and America (200 years ago), most men wore such pants, often along with long coats and high boots (guess what people dumped into the streets back then).
So it is clear that shorts are mutar (allowed by halacha), but are incredibly unfashionable unless worn with high socks, and a long coat, and outside of a few limited circumstances you might be confused with a reinactor wearing clothings from centuries past.
This is not to be confused with the types of shorts popular among many American goyim, who appear to be challenged to distinguish underwear from outerwear.
Stop making fun of COMEDIANS. They had nothing to do with the mess the world is in, and the incompetence of those the American people have freely elected is not funny.
This posting in rude and highly insulting, especially to comedians (and BTW, there is nothing funny about Biden who is acting pretty much could have been predicted based on his very long record).
and what do you call a Jewish social media news aggregator they subscribes to AP?
This is a hidush? Perhaps you have been in a cave since the mid-20th century?????
Trump is the one who declared an emergency, seized all sorts of powers (probably in violation of the Constitution, since if the Constitution doesn’t assign a job to the president, it goes to the Congress or states). Trump was like any other politician grabbing power (and unlike the Conservative wing of the Republican party, saw nothing wrong with increasing executive power at everyone else’s expense).
Based on death rate changes, age distribution of deaths and people seriously ill, Covid19 was not significantly worse than the “seasonal flu” in a bad year, and bore no resemblance to past pandemics that were the basis for the extreme measures the government introduced (closing schools and politically unfavored businesses, mandatory masks, disrupting transit, confiscation of private property without compensation) – compare Covid19 to Ebola, Polio, Spanish flu, Smallpox, Plague, to get some context. The analogy would be someone who went to a Yiddle League game and thought that was baseball played at its highest level.
Covid19 probably could have gone unnoticed as a “bad case of flu”, which, unlike flu, primarily causes fatalities among the old and the sick, but not children. The mass media (in particular “social media”) decided it was a a horrible disaster and the politicians jumped at the chance to increase their power. The change in death rate was observable but not significant (in the US from .8% to .9%, lower than what it was in the 1990s, and lower that most developed countries’ death rate prior to Covid19). The trauma was caused by our elected leaders closing down schools and businesses, basically in order to show they had the power. The media lied about many things, and most people bought it. Among the media lies: 1) ignoring that 90% of the cases of Covid19 do not result in serious illness; 2) claiming children were especially at risk; 3) claiming the vaccine had no side-effect when it does have more side-effects that flu vaccines which is what people compare it to; 4) claiming the vaccine would prevent you from becoming infected and prevent you from spreading the disease. Telling the truth would have prevented panic, and avoided the problems resulting from lies being exposed.e.g. 1) saying the 10% of the cases caused serious illness and admitting that Covid19 is more like “Russian roulette” rather than a death sentence; 2)admitting the children rarely become seriously ill though that would undermine school closings; 3) claiming, as the vaccine makers said all along, that the vaccine largely prevent serious cases but doesn’t prevent the non-serious cases or becoming a carrier. The media also claimed masks prevented one from catching Covid19 even though the the medical establishment claim was that only the more expensive N95 type masks would reduce one’s chance of getting sick, though the typical cloth/paper masks did reduce the chance of someone spreading Covid19 (thereby undermeing credibility since many people wore masks and still got sick).
Trump had good reason to question the election results since based on exit polls he probably won; the correct response is that the exit polls didn’t take into account that Democrats were more likely to use absentee ballots (usually absentee and normal voting yield similar results). Trump also ignore the Republicans did well in most races, and “ballot box stuffers” never split tickets. But to say that Trump has no basis to suspect fraud is totally wrong.
In foreign affairs, Trump’s populists and Biden’s progressives all tend to be isolationist. Trump initiated the policy that Biden implemented. For obvious reasons, Biden doesn’t want to take credit for Trump’s foreign affairs policy (even though Biden has no problem claiming credit for Trump’s Covid-19 vaccines. By the standards of 1980, Trump is a RINO (and back then, he was Democrat). Expect a conservative running on platform of fiscal responsibility and a strong foreign policy to try to re-take the Republican party, and return to the policies of Ronald Reagan’s administration.
What does blood on the hands have to do with egg on the face.
While most Afghanis favor democracy (unlike Vietnam where it was the west that opposed free elections, expecting the communists to win), they are very un-woke. That the Democrats would stab them in the back was to be expected, and the fact that the Trump supported this only shows how far the Americans have fell from the days of Reagan and Kennedy who made support for freedom everywhere, regardless or race or religion, into the cornerstone of American foreign policy.
In the United States, Covid-19 appears to have increased the death rate back to the levels of the 1990s. If you remember the 1990s as a cruel period where life was short, nasty and brutish, you can appreciate the wisdom of the governments policies. Unlike most serious epidemics in the past, but like almost all serious diseases, Covid-19 strikes hardest as those whose lives were already coming to an end meaning that but for the government, the economic impact would have been negligible. The damages on people’s careers and children’s education came from the politicians, not a virus. If there ever is a real epidemic (something similar to Ebola or a new version of smallpox or plague), the measures taken for Covid-19 will prove to be useful, but most people will ignore them (the “boy who cried wolf” phenomena).
I am responding to the posts complaining about the “paltry” education of some hareidim.
1. Most are fluent or literate in four languages (two Germanic one, English and Yiddish, and to Semitic ones, Hebrew and Aramaic). They have at least sufficient math to function in the real world (probably not multidimensional calculus or quadratic equations or hexadecimal math, but do you really need those to run a store in Boro Park). While they lack basics of American business law or accounting, those are subjects not normally taught in high school, so the are no worse off than an American high school with a “Regents diploma” or the equivalent. Whereas the goyim used to concentrate on a “humanities” curriculum (strong on Greek and Latin, weak of practical skills such as math and science), they gave it up and it isn’t all clear if they are better off for it; hareidim still prefer the traditional Judaic humanities (modern Orthodox try to do both, at a high cost in money and in driving the kids crazy with overwork).
2. If you have a beard and pe’ot, do not dress “modern”, never eat in a treff restaurant (even if it serves a kosher item), and avoid secular work on all days during which secular work is prohibited – you can probably forget about 90% of the jobs for which a secular education prepares you. If you look at the CEO’s for the Fortune 500, or the Wall Street “brown shoe” law firms- you will find no one there who looks like you do. For all purposes arguing that Hareidim should prepare themselves for the well paying jobs in the secular economy is like telling Blacks under Jim Crow to prepare for careers in areas that never hired Blacks. For a career largely limited to work within Hareidi communities, the Hareidi humanities (non-scientific, non-vocational curriculum works fine); if you have doubts, note the housing costs in Boro Park or Williamsburg – if the theory that Hareidi education leave the child unable to function in a modern economy, those neighborhoods should have the cheapest housing in the region and that is simply not the case (the cheap areas are those inhabited by public school alumni whose educations left them unable to compete in the modern economy)
While the British still keep their copies of the Enigma intercepts a secret, a US Freedom of Information suit forced the US to declassify the American copies. It is very clear that both the American and British government were fully informed of the holocaust as it was happening, at least on the highest level. This is in addition to other intelligence the Allies received.
So if we want someone to boycott because of the holocaust, start with the United States and the self-governing (during the early 1940s, meaning Canada and Australia as well as Great Britain) portion of the British Empire.
Is Olam Ha-Zeh sustainable?
Probably not – but that has never bothered us too much. Our tradition is to define a happy person as one who is content with what they have. Historically as soon as Yidden made enough to survive, they cut back on work in order to focus on more important things (Torah and mitsvos).
If you compare the standard of living of frum Jews in America in the 21st century, to what almost all frum Jews experienced a few centuries ago, you will realize that even beggars live better than the typical Baal ha-Bayis in the past .
Common Saychel: Do you favor boycotting countries that denied asylum to Jews during World War II. While the American and British governments were fully informed of the holocaust at all times (since they were able to read all of Germany’s “secret” radio transmission due to their breaking the enigma code), ALL other countries knew that very bad things were happening to Jews and that by denying requests for asylum they were likely sending people to their deaths. And if you hold a corporation liable for what was done by the corporation 80+ years ago (even virtually none of the shareholders and employees from that period are still alive), then you pretty much have to boycott any company that existed in the 1930s since they add did business with Nazi Germany prior to the war.
Therefore you are left with a radical zionist response, live in Israel, and refuse to use any imported goods (since even Boro Park based frum companies are still based in a country that sent Jews back to Germany knowing they would be murdered).
It might make more sense to focus on supporting companies that do something right, since at this point the shareholders and employees of all companies are different than what they were a century ago. Should be boycott British (including Canadian and Australian and the United States) goods over the expulsion from England in 1290, or boycott Spain and its former colonies of 1492.
Should we boycott southern states over the Leo Frank lynching (which, BTW, is a major reason why secular Jews with American roots predating the World Wars tend to perceive the American south as inherently hostile to Jews)? Should we boycott Ford since the company’s owner pre-World War II was openly anti-Jewish, or forget about that since post-World War II Ford was a leading company in refusing to boycott Israel? What about General Motors (which technically is only about 10 year old since the original GM went under and the new company owns the name but is not the same corporation)? Should we prefer Leica’s very excellent but overpriced cameras since the owners of the company during the 1930s “outplaced” their Jewish employees into jobs in the industry in places outside of Germany? Should we boycott all the countries that refused asylum to Jewish refugees during the holocaust (which included the United States and the British Empire)?
While it is good to know the past, it is counter0productive to live in the past.