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If Israel gets all the hostages back, alive and well, it might be worth it for Israel to avoid having to level Gaza and schecht its population (no other way to do it). They can insist on a rigid ban on Palestinians entering Israel, engage in targeted killings of Palestinian leaders, and annexation of all West Bank settlements – but resign themselves to having to go back to the old system of reserves doing over a month per year, until age 55. Israel was, and probably still is, unprepared for a full scale war, which for Israel would be an “all or nothing” proposition (the “nothing” is a Judenrein Eretz Yisrael. They have assumed they would be dealing with terrorists and occasional rockets – not a full scale war on the model of World War II in which one side wins by permanently eliminating the other.
Israel also has to consider its own internal divisions, that in the United States there are strong blocks of isolationists and anti-Semites (separate blocks who hate each other), and when taken in a global context (including Eastern Europe, Iran, and East Asia) the Middle East would be single theater of world war that the “Free world” is hardly prepared for.
Lack of donkeys. Donkeys are considered noble beasts, hard working. A symbol often identified with Bnei Torah.
American universities are full of thorough bred horses, who are serious “full of themselves” and seriously pampered, but incapable of thought or action. Good for showing off, but not much more.
After the next election, it is unlikely Bibi will still be the leader. The question is will Likud still be considered a right wing party, as opposed to a left wing party in a world in which the “center” are those in favor of “transfer”.
After the war. Just as Golda Meir did. Note that the reason Chamberlain resigned was not the mess he had made, but because he was near death from natural causes. Sometimes they last long enough to turn defeat into victory, and are remembered not as the idiot who got into the mess, but as the great leader who won the war (e.g. Roosevelt and Stalin).
If the reason for Hamas success was something Netanyahu had no control (e.g. they figured out not to use smartphones to communicate, and set up the invasion using only paper and oral commands, without using the cell networks or the internet), then the blame will fall on the military more than the politicians.
Animals do not kill without a reason. When the Romans wanted to throw someone to the beasts (a punishment for religious crimes, and a particularly bad way to die), they had to starve the animals first. If you ever get thrown into a lion’s den (has happened to the best of us), you will probably survive if the manage to get out before the lion gets hungry. Mosquitos don’t bite unless they are hungry. Bees don’t sting unless threatened.
So the people who refer to Hamas (or the Nazis, or whomever is being annoying at the moment – we do encounter more than our share of such people), should stop insulting the “animals”.
The mainstream media are the Wall Street Journal and Fox (especially the former). If you watch politically correct media, that have given up on old fashioned objective reporting, it is your choice.
1. The Israelis have no incentive to target a hospital (since in the end, they’ll have to treat the patients when they retake Gaza) unless it was being used as a military base (e.g. guiding drones from the roof, which the Israelis didn’t claim).
2. The Americans said the Israelis didn’t do it, and Biden stuck his neck out to say so.
3. The Palestinians have a history of inferior weaponry, which is why even though they have been harassing the Israelis for years by sending rockets at civilian targets, they were seen as more of a nuisance than an existential threat (until they switch to ground assaults and started trying to retake territory that was on the Israeli side of the 1949 armistice (green) line. So the “friendly fire” explanation is credible.
Any frum married woman who has anything to do with the world outside the frum community is displaying tremendous mesiras nefesh, since for the last 60 years American women normally go bareheaded, and anyone who wears a hat, with very narrow exceptions, such as softball players, is regarding as weird and subject to varying forms of harassment and discrimination.
The halachos on this are well known, and the style discussion is irrelevant to any halachic discussion (albeit important to anthropologists and historians of costume and fashion).
Perhaps the caption should have been “End game for Zionism”. What happens to the Zionists will be at most an inconvenience. While have legal and political rights, whether in America or Eretz Yisrael is nice, Jewish survival has always been related to Torah and Mitsvos.
The Zionist future in the long run is bleak. Zionism was found on the dual principles of socialism and secularism. The former has largely been sent to the “dustbin of history”, and the latter is incompatible with the other peoples of the Middle East. The Zionists always believed that anti-Semitism was a reaction to what Jews did (dress differently, worship differently, value different classics, etc.), and they never have been able to realize that racism is not based on logic but on hatred.
The Hareidim have always been the heart of of the Jewish world, and will continue to be so in the future, since there is where Torah and Mitsvos rule, and all the secular false idols are rejected – and this makes no difference where we are living, or under what regime.
But like it or not, the Israeli war is with the Muslims, not the Palestinians. To be effective, “transfer” means expelling all the Muslims, and in effect return the world (okay, northern Africa, the Middle East, East and South Asia) to the status quo ante that existed prior to the rise of Islam. The means turning North Africa and the West Asia to be Christian, Iran to be Zoroastrian, Pakistan and Indonesia to be Hindu, etc. Practically it won’t happen. As many gedolim said 100+ years ago, the only viable alternative is to be willing to live in peace with the Muslims, which might be acceptable to some Hareidim but would never be tolerable to the hilonim.
After all, if you don’t go to non-kosher stores that actively support murdering Jews, who will???
The end game could be that a Russian-Iranian force marches into Tel Aviv, while American pursues an “America First” agenda. While the DINOs and RINOs support Israel, the WOKE and MAGA are opposed to foreign wars.
Biden is one of the least popular presidents in American history, and a big chunk of his party cheered the idea of Jewish babies getting slaughtered. The isolationist wing of the Republicans appears to be ascendant. There appears very little support in the US for a massive military buildup, which is probably the only thing that will deter the Sino-Russia-Iranian-North Korean alliance. When the rest of the “free world” sees American chicken out, they’ll realize they have to make their peace with the “new world order”.
Given modern technology, no country can launch a surprise attack involving a large army. Satellites in orbit will see everything. That is why the world press reported the Russian invasion at least a day or two before it happened. Similarly, something such as Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor over 80 years would be impossible in 2023.
One thing a country can do is limit the attack in size, to basically a glorified commando raid, and to have bases close enough to the border that the other side won’t see the troop movements. This is what Hamas did in Gaza.
While on a kabalistic level it is of course true that whatever happens in the fake world is due to what the Yidden do, and if all the Yidden got their act together this world would vanish and we could finally be in the real world – it is not realistic to expect all the Jews, most of whom are so assimilated they don’t realize they are Jews, will do Tsuvah, so we are stuck in the world of lies whether we like it or not, and whether we think we deserve it or not.
Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Golda Meir was politically much closer to her generals in 1973, so it was harder for her to escape the blame. If the Israeli voters perceive the leadership of the military, and especially the intelligence service as allied with Bibi, he is out after the war ends (and remember that most of the current opposition consists of Likudniks who can’t stand Bibi, whereas most of Golda’s oppositions were anti-socialists who rejected her entire agenda rather than just her). If the public perceives the military elite as allied with the economic elites whose demonstrations crippled the government and may have encouraged Hamas to think Israel was “easy pickings”, the reverse is true, and Bibi’s replacement will probably be an ultra-nationalist who can say “I told you so” when pointing to past left wing policies (such as Oslo, withdrawal from Gaza, etc.).
Many if not most people tend to dress better if they start to have more money. And the more affluent you are, the more your accent tends to reflect the “better” class of people you associate with. That is human nature and applies to all cultures.
If the people are Jewish (by halacha, not “culturally” or “genetically”), and they are living together as man and wife, and its their child, the only possible objection to the marriage is that the woman didn’t go to mikva. It might be an issue if they they weren’t living together, or if the child wasn’t there child, or the man was married to another woman -but what the question describes is a proper Jewish marriage by a couple that is already de facto married, and wants to “make it official” for a legitimate reason. Consider if the reason was so that they could easily file taxes as a married couple or to own a house by the entireties (since it is very hard to get a marriage recognized without the expected paperwork, even though it is a valid marriage).
They most probably would need a “get” to marry anyone else, as well as a government divorce, since New York, like most states, recognizes the validity of religious marriage ceremonies even if you don’t have the marriage license (the couple and the clergy might owe a fine, but that’s a revenue measure, not a domestic relations matter).
If you don’t borrow at ribis, you won’t have this problem. There is no law against living frugally and saving up money for things before buying them.
The government’s idea is that by raising interest rates, consumers will cut back on consumption (drive older cars, live in smaller houses, wear older clothes, skip out of town vacations, etc.), which will lower demand, and result in lower prices. In other words, if you are suffering, it means the government is succeeding in what it is trying to do. Congratulate Brandon and the Congress in doing what they set out to do.
Or they will both drop out. Both of them are deeply unpopular which much of the country, and neither wants to be remembered as a one term president whose vanity resulted in an evil opposition movement coming to power and destroying the country. Also, if they lose and the opposition gets control of Congress, Trump or Biden could end up in jail (and in the case of Trump, die a pauper), so they both have an incentive to drop out and support the member of their party with the best chance of uniting their party, and winning independents and discontented members of the other party. And if one drops out an endorses a successor, the other probably will.
Also, based on polling, there is a real possibility of a third party to win the election (for the first time since 1860). Much of the country detests both MAGA and WOKE, and there is still strong support for a foreign policy that favors America leading the “free world” in opposition to Sino-Russian imperialism.
I believe Nikki Haley said that the Senate (without relevance to either caucus) was”most privileged nursing home in the country”, and that largely holds true to the House. On the other hand, does want to force senior citizens, who happen to politicians by trade, to retire merely because they are too old to do their jobs. Look how unhappy Trump and Biden over the prospect of having to be retired, and in all fairness, the Congress largely outlawed compulsory retirement (after seeing who is running the country, maybe a little bit of anti-seniors age discrimination wouldn’t be so bad).
OF course time is not linear. We always have said that Ha-Shem exists outside of “time”. That is why no one has any problem saying how Matan Torah could have impacted Bereisheis (and many other examples in our literature discussing non-linear time).
If you have trouble with visualizing this, I suggest reading the SciFi classic “Flatland” (not about Brooklyn), explaining how a multi-dimensionsal multiverse can exist, even though it is not easily understood by beings (e.g humans) with limited ability to perceive all its dimensions.
IF you look at the frum community from the outside, what you would notice is a community in which learning Torah and doing mitsvos is the overwhelming activity (to the detriment of such activities as hobbies, the arts, recreations the goyim love that we don’t talk about here, sports, secular studies and making a parnassah beyond what is needed to maintain an ever-changing “respectable” standard of living). The fact that a person in modern day America or Eretz Yisrael can learn close to full time and still have a standard of living that 200 years ago would have been considered to be very bourgeois at the least (in terms of housing, medical care, food, transportation, etc.) helps explain why “kollel” people are perceived today to be willing to spend more time learning than in the past. What Yidden like best has always been learning, and there never has been such a good time for it as in the early 21st century.
Frum Yidden, at least the Chareidim, tend to be influenced by their rabbanim (and their families, especially as pertains to clothing).
One should note that most graduates of frum schools that minimize secular studies end up with sufficient skills, including English language, to find employment and in some cases to end up becoming quite successful. Of course, it could be explained by the low standards of instruction in government run schools (at least for the non-elite students) in the cities where most Orthodox Jews live. Historically, westerners who pursued a “classical” course of study studying their classics in Greek and Latin (we prefer our classics in Hebrew and Aramaic) were able to achieve in many areas, suggesting it is the rigor of the curriculum that matters more than the substance. English is useful since it is the language of business and government in much of the world, but especially in America, there has always been great tolerance in its misuse, especially since America has always welcomed (or at least, tolerated) immigrants, and since American culture has always been welcoming to the “Horatio Algers” working their way up the economic and social ladder.
Under the Muslims (in this case, the Ottoman Empire, since we are talking about Eretz Yisrael n the pre-zionist period)we had a status somewhat better than, for example, Blacks in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, 1865-1954 period, (and much better than Jews in most Christian countries who had fewer rights and were subject to frequent violence, excluding America which has not been a “Christian” country since 1789). There was no forced conversion (unlike the zionists who try to force Yidden to become secular), we controlled our own welfare and educational institutions (the government didn’t try to restrict Torah learning), we had our own courts whose decisions were respected by the state, and we were exempt from (and in fact, banned from) military service. Those Jews who preferred a financially oriented lifestyle were allowed to do so without having to adopt a non-Jewish lifestyle, and those whose primary concerns were Torah and Mitsvos were unmolested. And there usually was peace in Eretz Yisrael (except for the time Napoleon invaded).
Benjamin: The gemara(s) are in Jewish dialects of Aramaic, which has almost identical grammar to Hebrew (as is true of most Semitic languages), and is as close to Hebrew, as for example, French is to Spanish, or Russian to Polish (if not Ukrainian). English is an Aryan language with radically different grammar than a Semitic language; look at the verb tenses, in a Semitic language there is no present tense which is why we use a noun pretending to be a verb to indicate the present, so if you say Ha-Shem created the world in English it means it is a “done deal” and the Ha-Shem created the world sometime in the past, but in Hebrew you are saying it was an action started in the past but continues to the present, or if we say that the Bayis Sheini will be built in the future, in English that means sometime in the unknown “yet to come” but in Hebrew it means it will be built starting in the present and continuing into the future. It is interesting to note that while serious frum books were written in Aramaic and Arabic, none were ever written in Greek, Latin, Ladino or even Yiddish. While many people lack the academic training to access the “real stuff” of Yiddishkeit and have to settle for reading about Yiddishkeit in a foreign language, they need to remember the goyish proverb “translators are traitors”. One needs to consider why over the last few millenia, Jewish communities whose scholarship was in a foreign language (such as Greek or German or English), tend to assimilate.
Humash, Talmud, Zohar, ShaLo”H (Shnei Luchot ha-Bris), Kedushas Levi, etc. — Books, including translations, in goyish languages, such as the one we are using now, tend to be watered and highly influenced by whatever theories are in vogue among the goyim, the theory being that those who can’t learn from the original materials probably shouldn’t be given access to the real stuff
IF you have a lavish lifestyle in a community dominated by Bnei Torah (and almost by definition, if you are in kollel or employed as a teacher is a Torah environment, you are unable to live a lavish lifestyle), you are for all purposed volunteering to pick up a large share of the costs of running the community. While we pretend it is not a “tax”, from an economic perspective the frum community is financed by very progressive taxation (even if they are “voluntary” contributions, but since we don’t have an IRS to make sure you pay more than your fair share, we rely on lifestyle to know who gets the bills for communal expenses. This has always been a major check on the frum community’s “1%”.
I think frum children greatly relate to the idea of being part of a discrete minority whose activities are largely hidden from the general public and totally misunderstood by the general public, and who are also subject to sometimes severe discrimination and persecution. Much of the lives of frum Yidden in golus are very much parallel to the “wizarding” subculture in the Harry Potter novels (i.e. we are the wizards, the goyim are the muggles).
There are some Christian themes that the author included, but it should be noted that none of these involve Avodah Zarah, and are based on aspects of Christian culture that were derived for Judaism. If a Yid had written the books, they could have used the same concepts and we would attribute them to Yiddishkeit origins and history. The “witchcraft” in Harry Potter doesn’t involve looking to or believing in an Avodah Zarah, and should be considered alternative science (consider the famous line to the effect that any technology too advanced for the observer to understands appears to be witchcraft). Advanced beings with superpowers are only a problem if the superpowers are derived from an Avodah Zarah (that there is nothing “treff” about either Star Trek’s “teleportation”, or Harry Potter’s “apparation”).
Most surveys conducted by the secular community confuse “Jews” with persons of Jewish descent. One should definitely exclude those persons of Jewish descent who don’t have a clear claim of being Jewish based on matrilineal descent. One should probably exclude those who have been so assimilated that they are not distinguishable from the general population (I suggest such matters as observance of Shabbos and Kashrus are key factors in deciding whether one has assimilated).
If you found some DNA from Sinai (when the Jewish people began), you would probably discover that almost everyone is of Jewish descent (which would be true of anyone from 3500 years ago – at this point all humans are related to all others-remember Noach is about 4500 years ago, and we hold everyone is descended from him).
Many people make a career studying children’s stories as well as folklore. When you investigate their origins, there is often much that we would find objectionable. There are Jewish stories for children which pose few shailos.
If you want to use “cleaned up” folk tales to teach Jewish children, you need to explain what the characters are doing from a halachic perspective (Goldilocks is a thief, but as she is a minor she probably isn’t liable, and if the bears and her are all Yidden, then perhaps it is a situation to discuss hachnasas orchim, and note the stories of rabbanim running after thieves to give them tsadakkah).
Neville Chaim Berlin: Christie is constantly criticizing Trump. Scott (and some others), are following the “old rule” attributed to Reagan, “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.” A Republican who wishes to win in November 2024 must have Trump’s support, and you don’t get that through ad hominem attacks on Trump. Indeed, there are signs of a backlash building against the nastiness of both the MAGA and WOKE camps, suggesting that the way to win the national election is to stick to respectful disagreement with one’s opponent instead of insulting and mocking those one disagrees with.
Secular Jews in the United States are major contributors to the Democrats, and turn out in good numbers to vote Democratic, and they are outraged at Eretz Yisrael being taken over the a coalition of nationalistic and religious Jews. It would be surprising if Biden didn’t work to keep his team in control of Eretz Yisrael. It is important to note that in left-wing circles, “democracy” refers not to rule by the people, but to secularism.
Christie has no chance of winning. His whole campaign has focused on alienating Trump’s base (the populist base, often called the “deplorables”, who would abstain rather than vote for Christie).
To win, a Republican needs to unite the Republican party and appeal to independents and non-WOKE Democrats. While DeSantis has already alienated the populist wing, both Scott and Haley, both with good Reaganite/Tea Party backgrounds, are avoiding burning bridges to the MAGA wing of the party (though their best chance of winning the nomination is for Trump to drop out and endorse/anoint one of them).
The system’s primary goal is to provide parnasah for lawyers, including the “Trial Bar” (plaintiff’s lawyers), and the Defense/Insurance Bar ( since many defendants have liability insurance), and the system works very well. They probably could make it a bit easier for victims to get compensation (if a company immediately admits a mistake and agrees to pay damages, give them immunity from punitive damages and class actions), and they could increase the incentive not to bring silly lawsuits (though the threat of not getting paid discourages lawyers from bringing truely silly ones). There are many Yidden working as lawyers, so we shouldn’t complain. While there are some negative macroeconomic aspects, freedom to litigate is a much better way to solve problems than what other countries do resolve problems (e.g. blood feuds).
The alternative to negotiations, including concessions, is a policy of telling the Palestinians, and through them the rest of the Arabic and Islamic world, that Israel will make no compromise and there is therefore no reason to even try to negotiate with Israel, and that they are better off concentrating on how they can best destroy Israel, so it is an “all or none, no compromise issue”. Should Israel tell the majority of the Arabs (who have made peace with Israel) that they deceived?
Of course, we can rely on the zechus of the zionists and hope Ha-Shem makes a miracle, but that might prove to be an unwise policy decision.
The expulsion of Jews (and Muslims) from Spain was based on a desire to purge non-Catholics, for political and economic reasons. They would not have cared if the Yidden there were non-observant or Hasidim. Note that unlike the Germans, they were not racially motivated and would allow anyone to stay if they converted and did a good job of seeming to be Catholic. It should be noted that most Spaniards today regard the expulsion as one of the dumbest things they ever did. — One can argue that the mass persecution of Jews in the western countries in the 19th century was related to secular Jews integrating themselves into Christian societies and playing an increasing role in cultural, social and economic areas (the backlash was mild in the English speaking countries, severe in the German speaking ones), but there was no equivalent in Spain (at least prior to the expulsion, there was some “racial” persecution of those Jews who chose to go OTD rather than leave Spain in 1492).
Israeli policy is to try to gain the support for those Arabs who choose to support Israel in its war against the Palestinians (and their allies, at this point that means the Syrians and the Iranians, with most other Arabs states being neutral). In practice, it means those Arabs who don’t want an “Islamic” state, are good candidates for recruiting. That is why you have found Arabs holding significant positions in Israel government (e.g commander of the Golani, jude of the Supreme Court, etc.–jobs that are closed to hareidim), and that most Arab countries are no longer supporting the Palestinians.
Given that the zionists reject a policy of turning the medinah into a Jewish (i.e. Torah-based, run according to halacha) political entity, which would solve all their problems – it makes sense for them to have “affirmative action” to enlist as many Arab allies as possible.
When people do stupid things, it often comes back to haunt them.
He has alienated the MAGA crowd and has no hope of getting Trump’s supporters to support him against Biden meaning that even with the nomination, he has no chance of winning. He might have a chance as a third party “Fusion” ticket with a prominent Democratic running mate.
1. Those who engage in unethical and illegal business practices have a feeling of shame and do everything they can to conceal such activities.
2. The LGBTQ community not only lacks of sense of shame, and is open about their activities, but actively tries to convert others to their lifestyle, and resorts to coercion to gain recruits and punish those who oppose them.
If the Democrats would go back to being the party of the working class, rather than scorning the proletariat as a “basket of deplorables”, you wouldn’t need to ask the question. The elites should be very nervous when asking when the peasants will finally realize that obeying their betters is in their interests (consider what happened in France in the late 18th century, or Russia is the early 20th). A ruling class that believes that it is wise to oppresses the workers will usually come to a bad end. The Democrats should abandon cancel culture and pronouns and trying to impose LGBTQ values on the American working class.
You need to define “MO”. If “Modern Orthodox” means that while supporting zionism and thinking that YU is a bunch of fanatics, one keeps kosher all the time and wears a yarmulke at all times, and observes Shabbos and Yuntuf – there isn’t all the much of a gap. Keeping Shabbos and Kashrus, and wearing a kippah, largely precludes full participation in American society and ghettoizes you. It precludes most employment and educational and business opportunities and subjects you to substantial
discrimination. The gap between a “kippah srugah” and someone who doesn’t wear a kippah is greater than the gap between the “kippah srugah” and a “streimel”.They are both multinational publicly traded corporations that originated in Germany. If you have to describe their “nationality” (a problem with multinational corporations), you could say they are European (referring to the EU, not the continent).
If you want to boycott companies based on World War II, you probably should make all your own products from scratch, and avoid all retailers (remember, we now know that the Allies knew about the holocaust from the “get go” and avoided trying to interfere).
Given that very few Texans can read Hebrew (it hasn’t been a required subject in American schools since the 17th century), I suspect they are posting a work inspired by the עשרת הדיברות, written by some English civil servants in the 17th century. There is nothing Yidden should object (we can be tacky to point out translation errors, but that would be rude and in the 21st century, the Christians tend to our friends, so we should politely smirk, and remind them that we use the original version, not the civil service version). It might be a problem to persons from non-western religions (e.g. Hindus, who would find some of them to be quite offensive, such as the ban on idols and polytheism). And of course, the Democrats would be offended by a great many of them (since they tend to support
sex and crime, and don’t much like the idea of parents, and survive by pushing lying and envy).What matters most is what the Bnei Torah do, not the “wealthy and famous” who are rarely if ever Bnei Torah. The Baal ha-Battim in many cases are still recovering from the Holocaust (and from the last few millenia), and want to show off that they “made it” in spite of everything the goyim threw at us. While a Ben Torah has better things to do, and sees our current and probably temporary prosperity has coming from Ha-Shem rather than our own efforts, the perspectives of the Am ha-Haretz are understandable.
I don’t think I have ever deleted a post of yours, or even considered it, but I was very surprised to see that those harsh stereotypes were written by you.
Artificial intelligence is a computer program written by a clever human. Whether it is amazing people by winning a game of “tic tak toe” (one of the first applications of AI), or winning a game of chess (much trickier), or answer one’s complains on a chat box — they are only as smart as what the programmer provided.
Humans were created by someone (HaShem), and can do many amazing things. We are only as smart as our programmer provided, though unlike an AI, we had a much cleverer programmer who programmed us with free will.
Since the goyim (including frei Jews) believe they were created by random chemicals bumping into each other, they are shocked that anyone can invent intelligence. We are not shocked, since after all, HaShem did create us.
huju: The “right stuff” refers to the American space program. If Israel decides to launch a non-military program of space exploration, it will probably include Shomer Shabbos crew. The American “right stuff”, which in the 1950s was limited to military pilots which then (and now, for all purposes) did not attempt to reasonably accommodate religious practices, de facto excluded any frum Jews. Almost all military occupations in the United States are not open to frum Yidden. Today, there are opportunities to become astronauts that do not require having been a military pilot, though it is unlikely they could accommodate a frum candidate (or that a frum person could ever qualify as a scientist given the open prejudices against Orthodox Jews in American academia).
I doubt that “we” went to the moon. First of all, very few frum Yidden would ever have “the right stuff” (heck, it is almost impossible for a frum Yid to serve in the American armed forces in any capacity), and there is no way one could be an astronaut even with the more absurd “modern” Orthodox heterim (remember there would no heter for training activites on Shabbos).
Furthermore, if the moon is in fact made of cheese, it would pose serious kashrus issues.