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To those who writing about: “people getting Jewishly married and NOT GETTING legally married”
Be advised that in most American states, having a marriage ceremony is sufficient to be married under the laws of the state. While some states require a license for the marriage to be recognized, most states do not (the license is a revenue measure, and the clergy performing the marriage may have to pay a fine – but the marriage is valid under state law).
If someone has a kesubah and kiddushing and huppah (and arguably merely bi’ah, at least in states that allow common law marriage) – they are married meaning they are required to file joint tax returns, are liable for each other’s debts, and the father has no way out of supporting the family, etc. – and they can be prosecuted for bigamy if they have a “get” without a civil divorce, which means a subsequent marriage will be void under state law.
Canadian Mountie: If a brother/sister or father/daughter maintain a common household (very common, especially as they get older), should they be able to own property jointly, sign joint contracts, pool their income for tax and other purposes, etc.? My grandmother and great-aunt were both widowed at a relatively young age and spent most of their adult lives running a joint household – should they have a legal status distinct from two clearly temporary roommates sharing a flat while looking for shidduchim?
Once the government legalized all forms of immoral and perverse initimacy (and the few remaining restrictions on what consenting adults can do probably would be held unconstitutional if anyone ever decides to prosecute a case, which isn’t all that likely), all that is left of marriage are economic and legal aspects. Is there really a halachic issue are stake here?
RE: cherrybin who wrote “The legal benefits of legitimately married individuals are protected by extending to these perverts the benefits of married couples as well.”
Not so clear. The leading benefits of marriage all pertain to traditional families (husband, wife, and kids – often with one spouse supporting the family and the other, usually the wife, specializing in child care). Benefits include automatic recognition of the wife’s husband as the father of the children, inheritance laws designed to protect the family unit and especially the dependent wife. If most “married” people (sexual orientation is irrelevant) are part of families that will never have children produced by the joint efforts of the parents, the logic behind most of the protections we value will be meaningless.
While I disagree with them, one can argue that since marriage under American (and other modern legal systems) is NOT concerned with “intimate” behavior (due to the decriminalization of various crimes such as “adultery”, “sodomy” and “fornication” – all of which were involved in criminal prosecutions of unmarried people until the mid-20th century), what the goyim call marriage is solely a contractual economic relationship, and there is nothing in halacha that prohibits two persons of the same gender from entering into an contract to combine their assets and live together as a single household (and such is often done in our community, such as when unmarried adult children move in with their widowed parent, not to mention two singles becoming housemates). Since “marriage” in their system is solely about economics, and since the prohibited behaviors are now lawful under their law regardless of marital status, there isn’t an halachic problem.
There is a practical problem that by redefining marriage to include many childless couples, there is a liklihood of losing many of the protections that existed when marriage was primarily designed to protect dependent mothers and children, since same gender couples (who rarely have children) and the many married childless couples, do not need such protection.
If a product is made by a Jewish company, almost solely for the frum market, they have no economies of scale. Specialty items always cost more than items that are mass produced.
He’s a goy trying to pass himself off as a super-assimilated Jew.
But it isn’t hard in most cities to find a place that sells coffee and either has a hecksher, or at least down’t all do treff – so who needs a restaurant that sells treff food as well as coffee. Not to mention it isn’t all that hard to make zero-shailoh coffee yourself, at a much lower cost.
AviK – Marat (as they pronounce it) is little better than a play on words of the traditional term used for all respectable women. It’s like claiming that the “M.R.S.” is an degree to be obtained by women in college (as was the tradition until recently). The conservadox have a problem since Hebrew, like most languages, has genders, and the words for female “Rabbi” always implies the wife of rabbi (since a scholar would only marry someone fit to be the wife of a scholar, and a women with learning would only marry a scholar).
The “legal advisors” you mentioned are an Israeli government creation, so no one cares. Traditionally, any person, male or female, could give all the legal advice they wanted to whomever they wanted. In the Jewish tradition, there is nothing equivalent to an Advocate (Barrister, Lawyer, etc.). Everyone was expected to study law (including women who needed commercial law to engage in business). All litigants were required to present their argument pro se, and the judges had a duty to make sure the law and facts were correctly presented (unlike the narrower row of especially common law judges).
Americans have no royal family. That’s why Obama can get away with same insulting and obnoxious things, and people (many on this site) can say insulting and obnoxious things back at him.
The British monarchy, at least as it exists today (and sort of exists in the commonwealth “realms”) is apolitical. It would be nice if there were someone in Washington who was apolitical (who could be the “adult in the room” when the politicians gather). Even if you ignore the biological connections to the British (almost everyone in Britian other than a recent immigrant is related to the royal family if you go back to its origins a millenia ago), it’s nice to have a family that are public-spirited celebrities that serve the country and the people, but aren’t tools of partisan bickering.
Not to mention babies are inherently good, which is why Ha-Shem makes so many of them.
“Schlanger’s” is the common names for the yeshiva of Rav Schlanger (it has an official name that no one uses). Similarly, “Chaim Berlin” is the “street” name for the yeshiva of Rav Chaim Berlin. “Schlanger’s” (the yeshiva) was founded by Rav Schlanger (the person). Even if at sometime in the distant future there is connection between the yeshiva and the family of its founder, the name will stick.
It’s amusing. They don’t seem to understand that in traditional Hebrew, ??? is the courtesy title for an adult (married) women, equivalent to “Mrs.” in English, “Madame” in French, or “Frau” in German.
As long as they stick to keeping Shabbos, Kashruth, Taharas ha-Mishpacha and semblance of modesty – they can be amusing frum Jews with nutty ideas rather than be seen as mortal enemies out to destroy Torah (as is the case with Conservatives, Reform, secular Zionists, and perhaps the more extreme movements in the Dati Leumi camp such as those who want to close down Israeli yeshivos under the pretext of conscription).
Ner is huge. Schlangers is smaller. In some ways, one can regard Schlangers as being a friendly spin-off from Ner. There isn’t a radical difference in ideology, though Schlangers is a bit more focused on trying to be “yeshivish”, but both are basically yeshivish . Remember that Ner has a gigantic campus and a much larger and more diverse population, whereas Schlangers is in a nice residential area and is primarily high school age. Other yeshivos in the Baltimore-Washington area are less yeshivish (more modern).
A big chunk of Canadians don’t want to join a country that is intolerant of non-English speakers.
A big chunk of Canadians prefer the monarchy (which is why they founded the country to begin with – English Canada started with the refugees from the USA in the 18th century).
Candians prefer socialized medicine. They don’t favor a muscular foreign policy.
Why would the US want a country where the “conservatives” are similar to Democrats, and the Liberals are way to the left of Obama.
rationalfrummie: I like lower prices. Barcoding prevents cashier errors and prevents fraud. Remember the usual cashier is not necessarily someone with a background in bookkeeping. Many stores now allow you to scan the items yourself and just pay at the end. The fact the food has become progressively cheaper relative to other items is a great boon to our community, and the switch to automated price systgems is a big factor in the falling price.
If you prefer to pay a premium in order to have the price tag on each item, rather than on the shelf, I’m sure you can find some stores that will be glad to let you overpay. Those of us who have to worry about family budgets, prefer lower prices.
Most grocery stores no longer use price tags. They are required to post prices on the shelf. Since all items are barcoded, the systems for checking out assume bar code scans rather than manually inputting of price data at the cash register. Its more reliable to rely on bar codes than a semi-literate clerk.
There was once a time where the store clerks were supposed to remember the prices of all items. It used to be you could ask to see the cow that produced the milk. It used to be you bought chickens live, and took them to be slaughter, and then cleaned them yourself. The world changes.
Also note that the rabbanim who defended American slavery did not own slaves and often had minimal contact with those who do, and were thus unaware of how American slavery was significantly unlike Jewish, or even Roman, slavery.
HaLeiVi and Lebidik: Note that in America, all slaves were free persons who kidnapped. None were criminals, persons sold for debt, persons who sold themselves as slaves, or persons sold by their families. All were seized. A major aspect of the crisis that precipitated the civil war was that courts were starting to argue that American slaves had not been lawfully enslaved and therefore could not be held as slaves.
The American English word “slave” refers to a person whom the owner can legally kill, rape, torture or mutilate, was kidnapped into slavery (no other way) and if freed, never has meaningful rights, and whose status as such is a totally a function of skin color. The is no word in Hebrew for slavery. Those who believe there is are showing their ignorance of the Hebrew language. Unfortunately, many frei Jews (and almost all Christians) have no knowledge of Taanach other than from dubious translations.
SLAVERY as defined in English is totally prohibited in Tanach and under Jewish law would be considered a crime.
A better translation of the Hebrew word ??? is servant.
Arguably its a mistranslation since most “slavery” in Taanach refered to long term labor contracts, lacking many critical aspects of what in English is referred to as slavery (owners weren’t allowed to kill slaves, prohibition of sex with slaves, etc.).
American style “slavery” has no word in Hebrew since the concept is unknown. In truth, the barbarity of American slavery has few equivalents to anything in our experience (the holocaust came close, but that’s it), which probably explains why there is no word for it in Hebrew.
Roman slavery was a little bit closer to American slavery, but still was radically different (freed slaves had rights, and their children were full fledged citizens, and by the end of the Imperial period, Roman slaves could go to court if they were mistreated). In truth, American slavery was probably among the most savage in human history, and not surprisingly, it was abolished after a short time (it began in the 17th century, and lasted only until the middle of the 19th, and was always abolished by most of the USA by the early 19th).
pixelate: You seem to be unaware of climate change and continental drift, all of which can be proven to be constantly occuring (even if some liberals somehow believe that such changes are something that only started in the 20th century). It doesn’t require a miracle to get critters from one continent to another. I am not denying there are many miracles, but a miracle by definition is something “unnatural”, whereas varying ocean levels and locations of land masses are part of the natural order.
Penguins live in places besides Antartica, such as South America and Africa. Marsupials also live in the Americas. So the premise of your question is misplaced.
Animals migrate and also evolve constantly. Darwin’s theory was largely based on observing how common animals, horses and cattle, had evolved during the previous 1000 years (this becomes an issue in kashruth, since some people are nervous about eating beef since the presumptions for slaughtering cattle developed when domestic cattle were only slightly larger than sheep, but they evolved into something bigger during the last 2000 years – in this case with clever farmers rather than Ha-Shem directing the evolution).
Note that I’m not discussing the concept of what is “time” which involves issue of kaballah we can’t discuss publicly. Also I want to point out that the idea of “random” mutation driving evolution is the only thing that is really apikorisdik in the theory of evolution. Animals evolving, migrating, and the rules of “survival of the fitest” are in ways questionable from a halachic perspecttive. The shailoh isn’t whether, or how fast, a Raptorsaurus evolve into a chicken – but only if that occured “randomly” or under Ha-Shem’s direction.
The jury thought otherwise, though he can still be sued for wrongful death (lower standard of proof and Zimmerman would have to prove he acted in self-defense, rather than the prosecution having to prove he didn’t – and Zimmerman would have to testify).
In all fairness, most frum Jews can’t afford foie gras, regardless of its halachic status. Bnei Torah eat a lot more bread and cheese than tortured goose.
It appears to have started to become popular during the “early modern” period (period of the early Achronim), probably due to a boom in the population. That way “Yaakov Yisrael” can be distinguished from all the other babies named “Yaakov ….”.
One should note that the doubling of the Hebrew name with a name in the local language goes back to ancient times, such as “Yaakov Yisrael” being known also as “James Israel” when he goes out among the goyim.
We are confusing several distinct issues.
One involves conscription of those who hold that the war is not allowed by halacha (neither milchemes rashus nor milchemes mitzvah) meaning that Israeli soldiers are required to refuse to kill goyim or destroy their property (i.e. we are the rodef, they are the nirdaf). If you hold that way, which is what anti-zionist hareidim hold, it is irrelevant whether you are in yeshiva, you must refuse to serve in the army. In the past, this group, perhaps a tenth of hareidim, but perhaps more, were exempted under the theory they were learning. Given Israel’s non-recognition of conscientious objection, they now have a serious problem (probably solved by allowing Jews with halachic objections to military service to be exempt, similar to how Arabs Muslims are treated). Non-zionist hareidim will probably prefer prison, if drafted will be very bad soldiers, and will complain to international human rights groups if drafted.
There is another issue of funding yeshivos (hareidim don’t want government funding, zionists think it is proof that Israel is a Jewish state), compounded with the fact most hareidi males are banned from working (“on the books”) since they haven’t served in the army. Almost no one in Israel supports a continuation of this policy, and from an economic perspective, it is hightly dumb.
Then there is the position of many pro-zionist “hareidim” who support having other people bash Arabs heads, but want to learn gemara themselves. These are probably hypocrites. In America we call them “chicken hawks” – pro-war, but not wanting to serve.
Lastly there is the problem of the IDF encouraging, tolerating and sometimes activitly persecuting hareidim who do serve. Regulations and policies to prevent this are ignored. At best there in segregated units (similar to the American Buffalo soldiers, or the British native regiments). The only solution for this is to tell officers that if they can’t keep all their soldiers happy and working together amicably, meaning hareidi soldiers shouldn’t feel they have to give up on mitsvos to serve – they’ll be replaced by officers who can (note that when someone scheduled female singers for a ceremony, the officer was praised widely rather than told to find a different line of work).
These are all separate issues.
The rabbanim are telling people to be calm and engage in only non-violent protests. Given that the other side is threatening mass arrest (tens of thousands thrown in prison – think of the last time someone threw tens of thousands in Jews in prison, and you understand its a sensitive matter), most people are showing restraint. Since the crisis may be resolved amicably, the rabbanim don’t want hotheads to provoke matters.
Of course, in three years, after the first “aktion” against a yeshiva (if it comes to that), I suspect that hareidim who have chosen to serve in the IDF will have to decide between being zionist patriots or being part of the hareidi community.
And they weren’t just wearing “wrong” clothes. They were wearing the uniform of the oppressor. This is somewhat worse than wearing a Yankees cap in Brooklyn in the 1950s – closer to wearing a button saying you’re a member of the Japan Friendship Society in January 1942 – except “war” hasn’t been declared yet, emphasis on “yet”.
There are lots of secular textbooks and courses, but the dialect they teach didn’t make it past the mid-20th century, and contemporary Yiddish is as different from “YIVO” Yiddish, and modern English is from Shakespeare. Pre-war “literary” Yiddish was much more influence by German, and also a lot less “clean” than the dialect spoken by Bnei Torah.
Assuming you already know Hebrew and English, but not German, I’ld suggest hanging outsomewhere where children speak Yiddish on the street. You can build some vocabulary from secular books, or from translating a newspaper or children’s books.
Go to the park, with wi-fi, log on to the news. It’s suitably depressing. Save the Israeli news for Tisha b’Av.
Welcome to 21st century journalism.
One could try to set up a “newspaper of record” for the frum community with well education salaried reporters – but it would never make a profit.
so doesn’t that mean we are supposed to spend more time reading the news on YWN? Between Lapid, Spitzer and the goyim – it makes it too easy to have less simcha
musser zoger: Actually there were Jews in what is now Pakistan before the war between the Zionists and the Arabs began. In fact many Muslims countries had thriving Jewish communities. Based on the percentage of those who fled to America, it seems they were a lot happier than were European Jews. Whereas the collapse of European Jewish communities had nothing to do with the zionists, the collapse of Jewish communities in Muslim countries (which involve minimial loss of life compared to the massive casulties during the collapse of European Jewry in the 20th century) was clearly triggered by the decision of the zionists to go to war with the Muslims.
Note that the anti-zionist hareidim have no desire to interfere with your war effort. They aren’t planting bombs in zionist yeshivos, or blowing up buses with mixed seating, or attacking your pizza places. All they want is to be left alone. They wish to learn in peace, work at jobs (on the books will be nice, but most manage to support themselves with “unofficial” jobs since they aren’t allowed to work for the zionist economy), and follow a traditional Jewish lifestyle. IT IS YOU ZIONISTS WHO OBJECT. The Hareidim don’t demand anything except to be left alone.
Why we are yelling at each other – there are two distinct groups.
One are pro-zionist yeshiva students who hate Arabs, think the IDF is protecting them from the Arabs, enjoy getting benefits from the medinah, would like to drive the Arabs out of Eretz Yisrael, and are in effect saying “You go fight the Arabs – Kal ha-Kavod … May my learning in yeshiva help you.” These people if they aren’t joining the army already, will probably end up doing so.
The other group are anti-zionists who feel the zionists unnecessarily started a war that was totally avoidable, that trading statehood for autonomy is the only path to peace, see nothing wrong with becoming friends with Muslims, do not see the Arabs as a threat, and question whether it is allowed to kill Arabs or destroy their property since the zionists are the “Rodefim” and a Rodef, unlike a Nirdaf, is required to withdraw from the fight. Under international law, this group are clearly conscientious objectors, and attempts to conscript them will cause serious problems for the Israelis.
So if you trust Obama and Cuomo to tell you what is kosher, rely on the list of ingredients. I prefer to trust our rabbanim. Remember that if something is parve, it has greater value for the manufacturer, and they will complain about the “D” – and if our rabbanim are insisting on the “D”, we should probably rely on them. And if you do rely on the goyim rather than the rabbanim, you can probably assume that the pig extracts and ground up insects are bitul under someone’s shitah.
Why are those outraged as the prospect of a halachic analysis that suggests the war is unnecessary, a view held by many gedolim, and recognized by some secular scholars as well (since had the Jews of Eretz Yisrael settled for autonomy rather than demanding the expulsion or subjucation of the Arabs, there would have been no war) so insistent on emptying the yeshivos and forcing students whose ideology they can’t stand to be in their army. If they feel that the Israel was against the Muslims is a righteous war of self-defense , and that it is a mitzvah, they should be quite content to limit the army to those who wish to do the mitzvah.
Do we conscript people for other mitzvos? Do we drag people off the street and make them learen gemara? Do we raid the nightclubs and other place of disrepute to make women light candles on Shabbos? Do we have an “aktion” against treff restaurants and force-feed kosher food to the customers? If you believe it is a mitzvah to schecht Arabs, why do you need to conscript anyone for your mitzvah?
Or perhaps it is that many secular Israelis have growing doubts at the wisdom of provoking the Muslims into a war by attempting to rule over them against their will, and then seizing their land and “doing to them” as they had been “doing to us”. That certainlyu explains the massive draft dodging (evasion, not refusal) of secular Israelis
The government allows many ingredients (insect parts, derivates from pigs and horses, and who knows what) to be included in a product without having to list it on the ingredients. When you see something with a milkig hecksher, on a “non-dairy” product, you see why no one serious about keeping kosher relies on lists of ingredients and instead, checks for the hecksher.
We can learn from Humash, that the conscription of the Jews, as well as the killing of the Arabs (and lets be honest, with modern warfare, all war involves killing old people, women and children – this has been routine since they invented gunpowder in the time of the early achronim or late rishonim), REQUIRES A NAVI such as Moshe Rabeinu, or consultation with a Kohen Gadol and Urim v’Tumin, and direct communication from Ha-Shem. Without authorization from Ha-Shem, killing people in order to take their land would be murder, and a Jewish soldier would have to give up his life rather than transgress.
Someone, Bennett, Lapid, Netanyahu and Yachimovich really aren’t in the same league of Moshe Rabeinu. Indeed, anyone who mistakes the Kenesset for a bunch of Naviim, or confuses the “Kol Yisrael” (Israel Broadcast Authority) for a “Bas Kol” is either deranged or an apikores.
For good or for ill, which is something reasonable people will disagree over, it is probably the most important factor in determining what will happen to our people in the immediate future. Most Shomer Shabbos Jews live in Eretz Yisrael, and most of our leading yeshivos are there. In future centuries, anyone trying to understand this period in our history, will need to understand what is happening in Eretz Yisrael, and the impact of its government.
Conscription was adopted in 1948-1949. Military service in Israel has never been voluntary since the medinah became independent. The various legal mechanisms have varied.
If they abolished conscription (similar to most western democracies) or allowed for conscientious objection based on religious grounds (as they do for women), a large number of hareidim would work “on the books” (rather than for jobs within the frum community, as they do now). Given the horrendous conditions of military service (from a Ben Torah perspective, a dati leumi baal ha-bayit who follows less humras might find it more tolerable), being registered as learning full time is the only way of avoiding military service.
Mammele,
Patience is good. The fireworks haven’t started yet. If they carry through with their threat of mass arrests, the first “aktion” will trigger massive demonstrations that all will notice, and perhaps set in motion a process that will undermine the continued existence of the state. — or — perhaps the zionists will decide that all they really want is not to subsidize yeshivos and will drop the matter without arresting people and be content to stop funding non-zionist yeshivos
1. It wasn’t that big. The ones in New York and Jerusalem have been much bigger. It seemed like a “me too” demonstration.
2. It’s just “spring training” – the real season begins in a few weeks when (and if) they attempt to conscript yeshiva students (perhaps a better analogy would be to “July 1914” when everything was positioning for war, but war hadn’t broken out yet). I suspect most people expect a compromise (e.g. conscientious objection or psychological unfitness profiles for those who refuse to serve, economic incentives for those who choose to enlist).
3. If they attempt to conscript anti-zionists (i.e. those who hold that a Jewish state at this time is contrary to halacha, and who with a staight face can say they would prefer to live in Islamic Palestine rather than Zionist Israel), they will be able to generate serious publicity that will be exploited by Israel’s enemies (though also, the publicity for a frum peace movement creates many opportunities for kiruv, since many secular Jews identify Torah with militarism and will be impressed to see a very frum peace movement).
One can argue that you should be respectful to secular kings, especially ones who aren’t especially antagonistic me – and that American presidents should be considered in that class (though the job is more like a British prime minister, since under American law either the Congress, or perhaps the “people” and “states” fill the legal position that the “Crown” fills in the British system).
However the mayor is merely the employee of the people, and especially for one who is clearly antagonistic to frum Jews, calling him nothing worse than “Bloomy” is showing moderation.
rebdoniel: Mandela managed to end a civil war that was threatening to destroy his country. South Africa now has free elections and a free economy. Virtually no one thought that was possible 40 years ago. Remember the ruling class were Nazis (the “real” thing – the major leaders of the Nationalist party were arrested during World War II for working for the Germans and came close to getting executed for treason) – real honest to goodness Nazis and Mandela managed to get them to peacefully surrender. South Africa has had 20 years of democratic elections, a loud opposition, and has made it to the border of being considered a developed country. Virtually any other scenario would have led to massive casulties, and the probability that majority rule would have led to a mass expulsion of all non-Africans. That his party went from pro-communist, socialist, and undemoratic to capitalist, western and pro-demoratic — is something he personally did.
Imagine if Abraham Lincoln in 1861 managed to talk the southerns out of having a civil war and agreeing to abolish slavery. Imagine if Chamberlain had talked Hitler out of the holocause and world conquest (well, he thought that was what he was doing). Imgaine if one of the zionist leaders had talked the Arabs out of declaring war on the Jews (as one of the Hareidim tried, before he was shot).
If a spendthrift needs charity (and this is hardly a problem limited to our community) you can give the tsadakkah in ways that thwart their high spending ways. Just don’t give cash. Note how the government limits what foods you can buy with WIC or “food stamps” (should we have tsadakkah vouchers for the same thing). All it takes is a little bit of creativity on the donor’s part.
There is clear historical evidence that in the past, Jews joined in celebrations of the king’s (or queen’s) birthday, showing that in the past pariticipation in a secular holiday of this nature was acceptable (as opposed to one’s with a religious basis such as Thanksgiving, Halloween or Valentine’s Day – which have a religious basis and in the case of the later two involve celebrations that involve multiple shailohs).
Washington – he did more for Jewish civil rights than all the other presidents combined. Starting when he was Commander of the Continental Army, and through the Constitutional Convention and his presidency, he was responsible for establishing the policy that all religions have rights in America (until then it was even radical to suggest that all Protestants should have full rights – including non-Christians was considered as being beyond belief). Jews could hold federal office as soon as the constituiton was adopted, though it was another 50 years before all states adopted similar policies (in Britain it was almost a century before a Jew could be a member of parliament).
If you can someone to certify (as in “give a hecksher”) that the oil, kernels, and additives are kosher, and the utensils have been kashered since the last time they were used for treff — then of course it is kosher. You’ll see a nice big hecksher sign.
Otherwise, assume they’ve used oil and additives dervied for non-kosher sources, e.g. pig fat.
Looking at leading hiloni websites makes it very hard not to see the similarities to Der Sturmer. The truth is that the hilonim see the hareidim the same way the Germans saw the Jews. Ha-Shem had to level their cities and kill all their leaders in order to get them to act in a civil way (while we should thank the Americans and Brits for their contribution, it was Ha-Shem pulling the strings) – we should hope the hilonim will do tseuvah before they get their inevitable “reward” for oppressing the Bnei Torah.
Allowing hareidim (masculine intended, hareidi women are already allowed to work) to work without serving in the army and/or recognizing conscientious objection based on halacha (which is certainly relevant for anti-zionist such as Satmar and Toldos Aharon, and indeed, all groups insisted with the two Eidah Hareidi groups) would be an admission by the zionists that there haskafa may not be 100% in accordance with Jewish tradition – and they aren’t willing to do that. Exempting hareidim on the theory they were too busy learning was a way to avoid confronting the issue, but that is seriously uneconomical and greatly annoys the hilonim.
And to a certain extent, the hilonim are saying that they’ve been told to worship the idol of zionist nationalism, and substitute belief in conquest of Eretz Yisrael for any sort of belief in Ha-Shem, Torah, or even basic morality — and exempting hareidim from worshiping this idol suggests that perhaps the zionist avodah is really an avodah zarah.
The dialect of Yiddish made famous by authors such as “Sholem Aleichem” and the Yiddish theater of the early 20th century is dead and buried, both by the assimilation of American Jews and the holocaust. Modern Yiddish is a vibrant dialect, largely reflecting what had been the southeastern dialect of pre-holocaust Yiddish, and is only recently been beginning to produce significant literature (often in 21st century media that were unknown a century ago). Modern Yiddish is greatly enriched by American and Israeli vocabularly, and is probably as significant a change as occured in Yiddish from the early medieval period through the 20th century. Modern Yiddish is much more reflective of Jewish values than the dead dialect of the early 20th century (and a lot cleaner).
But with anything that is manufactured, you need a hecksher since manufacturers toss all sorts of stuff as additives.
And if it isn’t really cheese, can you trust a company that is passing off something as cheese which isn’t.