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CTLAWYER: Jewish philosophy is similar. Most “welfare” to able body men is given through kollels (they have to show up and learn to get paid) or through make-work jobs. The problem with make-work jobs is that they are very inefficient in a macroeconomic sort of way. One reason the Soviet Union had trouble keeping up with the US was a policy of full employment, so for example, their libraries stuck with card catalogs (providing employment to card typists and filers) while the US switched to online. The US developed machinery, and they provided full employment. Indeed, the “find work for all abled body adults” is a luddite argument, and is similar to those who want to ban self-driving cars . As a lawyer, conside what has happened to the large numbers of clerks, scriveners, cite chckers, loose-leaf filers who are now unemployed due to modern technology – perhaps we can find employment for them in law firms by banning word processing and computerized legal research tools. — But as I said, Jews traditionally pay people to do something useful, and the Americans have the demeaning custom of giving handouts and making the recipient feel like a failure.
They are not a serious threat. They should be seen as similar to the “flat earth” society. The American right has long been well intgegratged with non-white and Jews. In the southern states, one finds African Americans being elected with support from the “old stock” (meaning descendants of the Civil War losers) whites. The conservative Christian groups are ethnically and racially integrated.
The left wing media need something to justify that far left’s violent activities so they are focusing on a miniscule group of nut cases. The left wing radicals, who are also very anti-semitic, are much more of a threat since they have broad support from the mainstream media.
If anyone is going to chase us out of America, it won’t be the “white nationalists”.
The establishment media, including the secular Jewish establishment, view the “alt left” favorably and see them as at most being over-enthsiastic in opposing the Trump administration. Their violence, opposition to free speech and freedom of religion, anti-semitism, etc., is willfully overlooked. They are increasingly taking over the Democratic party. The “right” include those who were anti-semitic in the past, but except for some extreme nutcases, the “right” views religious Jews favorably.
“More Israelis speak English than non Israelis speak Hebrew” – that ceases to be true if you limit the population to Bnei Torah (and I’m including Religious Zionist yeshivos as Bnei Torah). And one has to remember that the quality of Torah scholarship in Hebrew is vastly higher and more comprehensive. And in the long run, Jewish survival has always been a function of what happens to the Bnei Torah, so out future is in Hebrew, not English.
mw13: The American aid to Israel provides jobs for thousands of American workers making equipment that would otherwise be made by Israeli workers. In addition, Israeli improvements and technologies flow to the US readily thanks to the aid. Remember that the most significant weapon now in use by the American military is the drone, which was an Israeli invention. While it would no longer matter now the US is energy independent and exporting oil, for many years the Israelis would have seriously weakened their enemies by taking out the Arab oil industry, which would have crippled them economically, and seriously hurt the Americans. Note that in 1947-48, when American military aid would have helped Israel, the US prohibited such aid – and subsequent aid was always based on American self-interest.
Re: “English is the common language of Jews today not Yiddish.” Actually, among frum Jews the common language is Ivrit. And that doesn’t change with definitions of “frum”, i.e. whether one define frum as arguably Shomer Kashrut and Shomer Shabbat , or strictly “hareidi”. While Israelis with university degrees are fluent in Israel, among orthodox Jewish Israelis such degrees are less common, meaning fluency in English is less common.
Yiddish is the native language of a significant part of the hareidi community, but has lost most of its significance otherwise. It should be noted that from an orthodox perspective, Yiddish was never a language of scholarship or serious writing.
In all fairness, much American foreign aid, including most of what the Americans give Israel, is in the form of credits to buy American goods. Thus the Israeli military pays to keep American workers employed making weapons that are in fact more expensive, and perhaps inferior, to what would be made by Israeli workers but for the subsidies in the form of foreign aid. It’s hardly charity. If this is done outside of a foreign aid program it would be considered selling goods below cost, and would violate the international law prohibition of “dumping.”
1. I believe many schools gave up teaching in Yiddish since they ended up teaching Yiddish rather than teaching Torah. Where you have Yiddish speaking communities (i.e. where the parents speak Yiddish to the children, and the children speak Yiddish when speaking with the friends), the parents will probably object to non-Yiddish speaking students in their schools. We probably need frum materials for teaching Yiddish as a second language, since most existing ones are teaching the “secular” Yiddish that existed 80 years ago, rather than the modern Yiddish spoken largely by Hasidim in the 21st century.
2. The common language of Jews has always been Hebrew. Jewish secularists were desperate to find an alternative to Lashon Kadesh, but even in the pre-WWII period, Hebrew remained the common language and the language of Jewish scholarship and learning.
3. All living languages have dialects. Yiddish was considered a German of dialect before World War II. Arguably the zionist “Ivrit” is no more than dialect of Lashon Kodesh, and in Eretz Yisrael several dialects clearly exist (with differences in vocabulary, grammer, word order, and how certain letters are pronounced).
I suspect the parents of children for whom Yiddish is the language at home, and what they play in, will not want children who are Anglo-phones at home to be in the same school.
Not to seem rude, but when I look at the hareidi communities in America, not just Satmar, I see wide spread entrepreneurship. Yes there are large numbers employed by the community, but perhaps since I grew up as a secular Jew, in a community where most people stay off the payrolls due to academic study for prolonged periods, and many more make their living off of government salaries, I don’t see that as problem. One also has to remember that in any population with many children, and that values education, a high percentage of the population will be engaged as professional teachers. Of course one could argue that a frei Jew spending ten years getting his PhD in English and spending his career teaching English literature is “productive”, but someone spending the same time specializing in Limudei Kodesh is a “parasite” – but that would reveal the person making the charge as a prejudiced bigot (at best, and an anti-Semite at worse).
If Medinat Yisrael falls (not impossible,especially if the Muslims ever unite, and if the western world including the United States becomes more influenced by growing Muslim populations and openly supports the Muslims against Israel), Satmar will be seen as the ones who were right all along.
If the Medinah manages to make peace with the Muslims, which will allow normal relations and most importantly, abolition of conscription, Satmar will be irrelevant politically, and will become just another hasidic group.
However as long as Eretz Yisrael is ruled by zionists committed to war with the Muslims, and to coercing Jews to distance themselves from Torah, Satmar will remain politically important.
Not likely. The worst that might happen is Korean War 2.0, which will probably be over within a few hours (Trump, being a non-politician, doesn’t play by the rules). The Muslims are too busy killing each other to do anything too annoying. Putin probably has decided that antagonizing Trump is too risky.
So if you have some work due in two weeks, get to work.
Some countries call them “Naval Infantry”. Originally ships fought each other with the goal being to board the enemy ship and capture it (BTW, the crew got bonuses based on what they captured, similar to pirates even though this was government work). Countries whose armed forces were created once boarding become unlikely, such as Israel, are unlikely to have a separate marine (navel infantry) unit.
RebYidd23 – It has yet to be shown that cannabis will result in reduced stress on pension and social security benefits (its hard to do a longitudinal study on something that is banned). However few things can match tobacco when it comes to killing people just at the point when they are about to switch from net savers (paying into pension plans, saving for retirement) to net spends (consuming assets while retired).
From an economic perspective, smoking gives parnassah to tobacco farmers and those who manufacture that which is smoked. It also reduces the burden on social security and other retirement systems by reducing the number of elderly people who need to be supported (indeed, in an ideal way, as smokers get killed only at the end of their productive years).
I prefer those descended from Adam Ha-Rishon and Chava. Consider it a bias for family members.
I suspect it had to do with the age of consent (the age at which a woman is allowed to marry, and to consent to intimate relations). Among Jews, that age is 12 (for girls) and we often make a fuss about it – even that under Dina Malchusa Dina we do hold that way, de facto. The fact that in most states the age in now 18 (younger girls have to get permission, often from a judge) is irrelevant.
As for why there is no similar party for boys among the goyim, YWN “censorship” (good taste) rules preclude a discussion . Among Jews, where entering manhood involves reaching new levels of Torah and Mitsvos, we make a party when boys turn 13.
it isn’t clear how much control the president has over stocks. If one uses the Dow Jones to grade presidents, then it appears that Obama was probably the greatest president ever. Factors to consider are the value of the dollar ( a weak dollar makes companies with large non-US deals look bigger), and low interest rates (controlled by the Fed, and indicative of a weak economy).
Not to mention undermining social security and hurting people with term life insurance.
RebYidd: Be happy Hebrew has only two. Most Germanic languages, including Yiddish, have three. Some languages have more. English is actually one of few languages with very little gender (we still have it for third person pronouns, but not for common nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.. Being “spoiled” by English’s simplicity means that grammatical gender is a problem for Anglophones.
Most languages have genders. It isn’t a strict correlation with “male” and “female”, but its an easy way to remember them. English lost most of its genders during the middle ages. Many Germanic languages have three genders. Some have more (i.e. more than three classes for words, and related grammatical forms).
While some secular (and I suspect, monolingual) feminists get crazy over this, its just a set of rules. Like computer programming. It isn’t worth philosophizing over.
In the 19th century, boys were recruited in their early teens, and sometimes younger. That is still the case in many countries (even if the United Nations set a minimum age for combat as 18).
Even in the US, the minimum driving age varies considerably. In rural areas, it is often much younger than 18, especially for driving farm vehicles. Insurance companies, based on driving records, charge tremendous amounts extra for younger drivers suggesting some evidence based reasons for a higher driving age.
Many countries have no drinking age. One should remember that the US is one of the few non-Muslim countries to ever make serious effort to ban alcoholic beverages. Given the stereotype of intoxicated college (and yeshiva) students, there appears to be justification for society’s concerns.
Of course, Bnei Torah generally have better things to do than play soldiers, never drink in excess except maybe on Purim (and not all that much then), and only need to drive to get to yeshiva or shopping — so this thread should be irrelevant to YWN readers.
The only solution would, to a modern Orthodox such as Kushner, be an example of the cure being worse than the disease. Once the Jewish community of Eretz Yisrael is dominated by hareidim (ignoring that this would collapse the economy, which is based on the seculars), peace would be obtainable. Hareidim (think Satmar, or Yolish Krauss, not those who are hareidi only in terms of lifestyle but are part and parcel of the zionist movement especially in terms of schnorring from them) are content to be left alone and feel no need to rule over the goyim. If hareidim come to control Eretz Yisrael, they can agree to being an autonomous minority in an Arab Islamic state. The war began when the Arabs realized that the zionists were taking over the Yishuv from the haredim, and wanted political control – which will always be unacceptable to Arab Muslims. Give up the desire to rule over other peoples, and the war is very endable. A totally hareidi community is non-threatening to the Arabs and can live in peace with the goyim, albeit as second class citizens – though to the modern Orthodox having to become hareidi and give up the perqs of a modern lifestyle is a worse case scenario.
Armies, especially if they couldn’t conscript people, often relied on strong drink to get enllistments (the recruiter paid for some drinks at the pub, and you woke up in the morning to find out you had enlisted). So far, the US relies on patriotism and perhaps economic self-interest to recruit soldiers.
If the US ends up with a Democratic president with a solid Democratic majority in the Congress, we can expect similar problems here. The best hope is that Trump gets to replace several liberals on the Supreme Court, and that is an “iffy” proposition.
1. Move to an area where you see people leaving stuff on their porch or lawn, and where as you go to shul in the morning you can see women walking or jogging. The preceeding are true of all the frum neighborhoods in Baltimore.
2. Avoid anyone doing illegal drugs. They tend to attract criminals.
3. Check the crime statistics (usually available online) and compare your neighborhood with others. Ignore dire warnings from anyone who might benefit from promoting fear of crime.
4. Avoid countries having or recovering from civil disorders as they usually have messed up law enforcement.
YIVO was never “official”. It was a “wannabee” that few Yiddish speakers took seriously (perhaps due the fact they tried to create a standard dialect of Yiddish based on vowels from one dialect, consonants from another, and grammer from a third). YIVO’s version of Yiddish is useful in some universities, solely for the purpose of teaching people who have no desire to communicate with native speakers. Indeed, YIVO Yiddish is similar to Esperanto. How useful a language academy is can be debated (note the difficulty of the Hebrew and French academies in getting people to refrain from adopting English terms).
Living languages constantly evolve. Note how English has lost its 2nd person singular (thou), its subjunctive (“I be”, “if I were”) not to mention its neuter gender. Living languages absorb words from other languages. Due to extreme traumas (e.g. the holocaust, and the mass migrations of the last 150 years), Yiddish has changed radically. Also note that many native speakers of English have trouble with literature produced a few centuries ago (to most Americans, Jane Austen and the Declaration of Independence seem quaint, and Shakespeare is almost incomprehensible). There is no such think as a “pure” language, and the only unchanging languages are dead ones.
I believe that almost all non-Ashkenazim living under Islamic rule would have been able to have multiple wives. During the colonial era, the British and French generally allowed local marriage laws to stay in force. So for most non-Ashkenazim the first restrictions on polygamy would have been when they moved to Eretz Yisrael.
Joseph: As I said the issue is subject to debate. Through the mid-20th century, most Ashkenazim lived in countries whose laws prohibitted polygamy, and with criminal penalties for extramarital relationships (e.g. between a husband and a second wife). If western countries legalize polygamy (in part due to Muslim complains that anti-polygamy laws are discriminatory, in part since their religious basis is meaningless to a secular society, and in part since “living together while unmarried” is now lawful there is no logic to penalize “living together while married”), I suspect it will reopen the debate. Note that very few men could support multiple wives, put in an industrial society it might work out especially some some wives held jobs while other provided free child care for the ones with the jobs. Another factor would be if there was shidduch crisis caused by male mortality rising rapidly (a military fiasco in Israel could have that effect) or if it developed that males were likely to be OTD than females – but absent such I doubt polygamy would ever be popular.
What the halacha is, is subject to debate. Some people argue that the halachic ban on polygamy should not apply and so far that is not a widely held position. If the United States were to formally recognize polygamous marriages, the halachic debate would become much more “interesting”. At present, America does not consider a second wife (with the first wife still married to the husband) as anything more than the husband’s “girl friend”, with no legal status at all.
Under American law, the first marriage is valid and the second marriage is consider void (i.e. only the first wife can be covered on a joint tax return, and she inherits the spousal share, and only the first wife can own a house as a tenant by the entireties.). However since American law no longer criminalizes consensual intimate relationships, it isn’t clear that criminal bigamy laws would be upheld, complicated by the issue as to whether this is a religious freedom issue.
zahavasdad: Several languages changed alphabets in the 20th century, largely as a way to prevent the population from being able to read traditional literature and limit them to reading the new script used in the books the government wanted them to read. The support for changing from the Hebrew script to Roman script was considered by secular Jews as a way of encouraging Jews to get away from Torah. Russia switched several languages in their territories from Arabic script in order to distance the populations from Islam (Turkey did likewise). For Yiddish and Hebrew, opposition from frum Jews was a major factor, To make such a change work, the government has to be able to use extreme methods to prevent people from using the form script (e.g. gulags, executions, etc.).
“Yiddish for dummies” is also based on Yiddish as it was a century ago, when most Americans who spoke Yiddish were secular (or at least “otd” as we now say). A major change is the American English and Israeli (zionist) Hebrew have replaced German and the Slavic languages as major influences on vocabulary and grammer. Also, modern 21st century Yiddish is a lot “cleaner” (reflecting the usage among hareidim).
Re: cholent
Yiddish has no words of its own, many words come from Hebrew with a spice of Aramaic, many come from German, some come from French, some come from slavic languages, many come from English.
English also has no words of its own. Many come from German (old Anglo-Saxon), and many come from French (Norman French in paricular). Others come from a variety of languages, including Hebrew and Yiddish.
If “cholent” isn’t a Yiddish word, what is?
You do realize that the zionists who rule Eretz Yisrael reconsidered the matter and decided that the boy was right, and took down the metal detectors.
If one wishes to learn Yiddish as is spoken today, there are some text books that are less than useful since they reflect Yiddish as it was spoken and written before World War II (among post-war changes are the disappearance of secular users, and the increased influences of Hebrew and English along with the reduced influence of German on Yiddish vocabulary and grammar). I suggest combining a textbook, along with children’s books aimed at the frum community (meaning one’s that actual Yiddish speakers buy for their kids).
re: WWII dates. Germany and Poland starting fighting on Sept. 1. Britain and France didn’t declare war for several days. The British dominions took a few more days (except for Ireland which declared neutrality). The United States didn’t declare war until the end of 1941. The Soviet Union entered the war on the side of the Germans in September 1939, and switched sides two years later when Germany attacked them. The Japanese and Chinese had been shooting it out for some time, and Ethiopia had been at war with Italy since 1936. Arguably World War II ended around 1991 when the Allied occupation of Germany finally came to an end.
World War I began in a more organized way, reflecting the stable and structured world of the “proud tower” (as one historian called it) that the war undermined.
To Zahavasdad: In 1914, Tisha B’Av was Aug. 2 (since Aug. 1 was Shabbos). The war began on July 28 with Austria declaring war on Serbia, and by Aug 4 the last of the major powers was involved with Britain declaring war on Germany. It is quite reasonable to say that the war began on Tisha B’Av. It took only a few days for all the countries to declare war, and they then proceeded to have a bloodbath in August, at the end of which they were out of ammunition and the war settled into the war of attrition for which it is infamous.
There are many minhagim within the Torah world, including some frum communities with “brideprice” rather than “dowry.” One factor is probably whether the newlywed couple is going to be supported by one or the other side, how much money is spent for the wedding and by whom, what assets or skills each side brings to the marriage, etc. The lack of economic arrangements do not affect the validity of a marriage.
There are small communities in West Virginia and also in Hagerstown (MD).
No one gets married with the idea of getting divorced. Similarly, no one starts a school program (in university, yeshiva, trade school) with the idea of flunking out. No one starts a business with the idea of going bankrupt. No one starts life off with the intention of failure and misery. Maybe Olam ha-Zeh will work out for you, and maybe it won’t. But its not for us to just give up and not try.
‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’
1. The “Onion” is satire. It is comedy. It is NOT trying to be news. It is trying to be humor. Calling it fake news would be like calling “Star Trek” fake history.
2. There is no indication of any news sources deliberately lying, but more of failing to critically examine rumors and hearsay that while being of dubious reliability tend to support one’s political positions. This reflects of serious decline in journalistic standards over the last century, as journalistgs who once dilligently took a skeptical approach to anything and everything, now see their role as seeking out “facts” that support an ideological position. While the news sections of a few sources (the “Wall Street Journal”, excluding its editorial sections) is one, most include the AP (a favorite of YWN), and most leading newspaper and networks, have become less concerned with accuracy and fact checking than in presenting arguments supporting an ideological position.
Joseph: Do you would prefer to pick a judge who was chosen by a political process that may be highly prejudiced against you. For frum Jews living in a place where the political leadership is ultra-secular (such as New York or Israel), a random jury is vastly preferable.
We get what we pay for. It’s a נס that we get so many qualified and competent teachers in spite of the salaries we give them. We should look at the cup being well over half full, and stop complaining that it is partially empty.
But non-Orthodox tend to hold that the establishment of the medinah cancelled observance of mourning for the destruction of the Beis ha-Mikdash, so why would you expect them to show up on a special day they don’t hold by.
to Gadolhador ah, re: “why is it impossible”
Probably for the same region humanities graduates for universities tend not to go into areas involving mathematics, computers, etc. – it doesn’t interest them. If you don’t like manual work (machinists, construction work, farming) and don’t like math (rules out engineeering and most sciences) and can’t stand the sight of blood (forget about become a shochet, or a doctor). If someone was inclined to be tool and die maker, or an engineer, or a professional “geek” (computer expert), or something medical, they probably would have planned on doing so from the start.
The goyim have the same problem with millions of unemployable humanities majors who skill set, and inclincations, leading them to unemployability. Perhaps the solution is to expose children in elemntary school, to various fields of STEM, mechanical skills, etc, in hopes the kids will develop an interest. We should stop worrying that there is something wrong with “our” schools, since the problem is shared with everyone else’s.
If the secular press (both blue and red versions) is to be believed, all young adults have great problems of insecurity. Indeed, that seems to be an aspect of being a young adult. If someone goes to kollel and then decides they want to change career tracts (i.e. not become a Torah educator or other communal functionary), they need to expect to retrain – but that’s true of almost every young adult who wants to change career, and changing careers is something young adults do frequently. If fact, former kollel students are in some ways better off since someone who goes to a private university in the hope of a career in humanities will be deeply in debt from student loans, and just as employable in the “real world” as a kollel person, and without the option of working for the Jewish community (e.g. compare the prospects of a PhD in Classics to a kollel student leaving kollel).
1. Any accredited bachelor’s degree opens doors, though one usually has to have job skills to walk through.
2. Often (e.g. for federal civil service) a list of classes and acquired job skills is just as good.
3. If one desires to enter a graduate program, universities tend to insist on a bachelors, so the “BTL” is useful as long as you took the right classes for the program (distance education is an option to have the necessary classes, for medical school many schools offer “make up” programs for someone with a non-premed background and a bachelors who wants to go to medical school).
4. There are plenty of blue collar jobs that don’t require a bachelors that few frum Jews have shown interest in (e.g. a tool and dye maker).
“negative money” = debt
If one has a high risk tolerance, debt is probably acceptable in terms of getting parnassah. If you have low risk tolerance, the current “bird in the hand” (parnassah as is), is preferable to two “in the bush” (the higher parnassah one can get through exploitation of the debt.