akuperma

Forum Replies Created

Viewing 50 posts - 3,101 through 3,150 (of 3,431 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • in reply to: we need government paid tuition- let our voice be heard #908364
    akuperma
    Participant

    He who pays the fiddler calls the tune. What if the government says that those who accept our money have to teach the subjects our way? What if they insist that 17 year olds be vacinated against sexual diseases (note: pregnancy is a sexual disease from the government’s perspective, and they have long term vacines)? What if they insist that the school teach that “gay” is normal.

    Our ancestors always had the option to accept government money in return for raising our children the way the government wants. We always said no (at least, our immediate ancestor said no – our cousins who said yes eventually assimilated into the general population).

    in reply to: Will the state of morality in the USA ever recover? Who can be trusted? #908511
    akuperma
    Participant

    You think it was different in the past? While there have been exceptions, the only difference in the past it was hard to get caught “with your pants down”. Indeed, now with DNA testing we can uncover all sorts of things in history (none of which we would be allowed, for good reason, to discuss here).

    And yes, frum Yidden are different. We were, and will always will be. It even shows up in scientfic research (e.g., a major factor in determining that one form of cancer was sexually transmitted was the discovery that the disease was very rare in our community). But again, that’s not a hidush either.

    in reply to: Shame on Israel for bowing to pressure #908596
    akuperma
    Participant

    The Israeli goal is to stop the random rocket attacks. Occupying Gaza would work, but would claim many Jewish lives. Continuing to trade rockets doesn’t work for several reasons (cost – Israeli rockets are more expensive as well as more accurate; public opinion issues- since Israel has superior rockets they call far more Palestinians than the number of Israelis the Palestinians can kill with their inferior rockets). Getting to Egyptians to in effect reoccupy Gaza makes the Egyptians liable for any future rocket attacks, and only the Gazans, Egypt has a lot to lose in the event of war.

    in reply to: Energy drinks #908203
    akuperma
    Participant

    It is interesting that the big ingredient involved is cafeine. At least one religious group (Mormons) ban it. Of course, cafeine in large amounts can be dangerous (which is probably true of virtually anything, even bread and water). But is adopting a quasi-religious objection to cafeine (a major ingredient in coffee, chocolate, tea and many soft drinks) raising a shailoh of avodah zara?

    Environmental and health nuts are fine when they stick to science. But their enthusiasm tends to blend in into a mystical faith in their positions, and that raises shailohs.

    in reply to: Free Government Programs #910225
    akuperma
    Participant

    “Jews pay more taxes…”

    Frum Jews certainly don’t. We have large numbers of children (few of whom have trust funds are anything else to pay taxes), a large number of people with low incomes (kollels and yeshivos pay lousy salaries), we have many people who give up much income in order to have jobs that won’t cause hassles with religious observances, we have many women who choose to be unemployed or underemployed in order to take care of children. Any Jews who tries to maximize parnassah quickly learns that most paths to maximize parnassah create a conflict with being frum.

    Frei Jews are probably among the richest group in America, and they don’t seem to mind paying high taxes (note that they overwhelmingly vote for the party of “tax and spend”). Frum Jews are more likely to be in the 47%, than the 1%.

    in reply to: What is Nationality if born in Haifa, 1937? #907367
    akuperma
    Participant

    At the time a Palestinian with some British rights. If you left prior to May 14, 1948, I suspect that you wouldn’t have qualified for Israeli citizenship. Unless you immigrated to the United Kingdom by a certain date, you would have lost a claim for British nationality but quite qualify for a British passport saying you are a British national without right of residence in the UK.If you moved to the US pre-1948, but neglected to pick up American citizenship, and it turned out weren’t eligible (say, if you are a felon), it would be an interesting question whether the Israelis would let you in when the US deported you as an illegal undesirable alien.

    in reply to: Free Government Programs #910217
    akuperma
    Participant

    Free government program used by many frum Yidden with good results, no shailoh of taking tasadakah from the goyim:

    http://www.USAjobs.gov

    in reply to: Secession petitions now filed for all 50 states #908020
    akuperma
    Participant

    uneeq:

    1. Secession requires at most a 2/3 vote in the Senate to ratify a treaty, and probably only a majority vote in both houses of Congress. At worse, it requires a constitutional amendment.

    2. Certainly states such as New York (and most of the states with large Jewish populations) would be bankrupt almost immediately, and would enter a full fledged depression, similar to Greece, often combined with hyperinflation.

    3. The withdrawal of the United States from world affairs, as no state would have the capacity of raising sufficient military force to project power abroad, would probably be no worse than it was before the US started interfering in other country’s affairs (we remember the 1930’s, they were a good time, weren’t they?).

    in reply to: Free Government Programs #910200
    akuperma
    Participant

    Nothing is free. It’s paid for from taxes.

    I assume you are talking about programs such as welfare, food stamps, WIC, SCHIPS, etc. These are very popular even though one could argue they are accepting charity from the non-Jews.

    One program that costs nothing to participate it is called JOBS. The government is a leading employer. Generally particpants in this program do quite well.

    in reply to: Why do we call them Toysfiss #1046025
    akuperma
    Participant

    rebdoniel:

    1. Many frum Jews are speaking Yiddish, not Hebrew. Various vowel and consonant shifts occured, as they have in German.

    2. What defines proper Hebrew? Certainly it requires careful differentiation between ? and ?, and respect for the dagesh in all letters where it occurs (including daled and gimmel). The accent of Jews from Yemen might be the closest. The multiple “S” and “T” letters are all mistakes (natural ones, as many language evolve along similar lines) — note how all American mispronounce the gutteral “gh” as in how we would have written Ghanukah had there been any English-speaking Jews in the middle age.

    3. Had the Jewish people been wiped out, Hebrew would have been frozen and there would be a “right” pronounciation. But we surived and have been writing, and speaking, Hebrew for millenia, and like all languages, it evolves.

    4. Obviously the correct pronounciation is the way Ha-Shem spoke to us at Sinai. If the correct pronounciation was of any halachic significance, I’m sure that Torah would have been given on CDs so the matter would be clear.

    in reply to: Secession petitions now filed for all 50 states #908012
    akuperma
    Participant

    1. It’s a joke. A stunt. A protest.

    2. A very small 3% change, and Romney would be doing a transition and looking forward to both houses being Republican. It’s only when your region is getting whooped that you consider leaving. THen the “blue” would be screaming the country is going downhill.

    3. Given that any state to leave would take its share of the national debt, but not the ability to print dollars, they would be an instant “Greece”

    in reply to: Noachide law #907006
    akuperma
    Participant

    Since they are goyim, we apply their law. This is an area where everyone would hold the Dina Malchusa Dina applies to goyim.

    When the creditor sues the debtor, the debtor has a way of saying that the evil third party is really at fault and should pay the claim. It turns out that most legal system find a way to deal with the situation, since it is quite common. What is usual is that the evil third party may be insolvent (happens to evil tortfeasors a lot), though the debtor probably has a way to declare bankruptcy (which would leave the creditor going after the debtor’s debtors such as the evil third party).

    If the case involves goyim, let us hope they have Jewish lawyers, who on taking over all sides’ property (that is what lawyers do) will support our tasadakos.

    in reply to: Why do we call them Toysfiss #1046016
    akuperma
    Participant

    Because in a living language, people pronounce things fast and naturally. It’s a sign you are alive. In a dead language, such as Latin or Sumerian, everything is pronounced correctly all the time since the forces that affect living languages no longer are at work.

    If the Germans won the war, their scholars studying Judaica (who were building up a massive library by pilgering sefarim all over Europe) would have pronounced everything exactly and correctly, unaffected by any living people who really cared about the materials.

    in reply to: OTD Phenomenom #907231
    akuperma
    Participant

    Are there any statistics on percent of “off the derech”, and how do you define “off the derech”?

    If I wear a fedora or a homburg, and my son wears a knit yarmulke, is he off the derech? If someone isn’t going to work on Shabbos, eating pork, and marrying a non-Jew, are they really off the derech? A frum juvenile delinquent is still frum. In the past, most orthodox synagogues in America had trouble finding a minyan of Shomer Shabbos, and parents routinely were asking how to act when eating in their children’s home (as in “is it okay to drink water in a glass cup?”) – and you don’t see that any more.

    in reply to: correct pronunciation for the word r-a-t-i-o-n #906338
    akuperma
    Participant

    The issue is how to pronounce the “A”, and it varies based on dialect.

    in reply to: Water and Electricity #903788
    akuperma
    Participant

    Unless you: 1) are an electrician or a plumber; 2) anxious to find out how much your share in ???? ??? is — AVOID downed electrical wires

    in reply to: Two Things to Remember Before You Order Your Palestinian Passport #906819
    akuperma
    Participant

    One should also remember in discussing the British (and to a lesser extent, the Americans), that contrary to a myth put forth immediately after World War II, the British had full and complete knowledge of the holocaust from the onset (since we now know they broke the German codes by 1940, and had detailed reports of what was going on), so that British (and to a lesser extent, American, since the Brits shared intelligence) activities that made it hard for Jews to flee Europe were made with full knowledge that any Jew trapped in or sent back to German controlled areas would be murdered.

    in reply to: Becoming Chareidi #903706
    akuperma
    Participant

    Chareidi is broader. Yeshivish is a type of Chareidi. So is Hasidisch or Sefardi.

    The terms are ill defined. Most human beings tend to fit into their surroundings. If you hang out in a hareidi environoment, you wake up one morning and discover and go to work and notice the people in the “normal” world all seem to be a bit strange, and when you get home you feel relieved to be back when everyone is normal.

    in reply to: BDE because of obama #906255
    akuperma
    Participant

    Obama may be annoying from a lot of perspectives, but we’ve seen a lot worse. Indeed, most Jews voted for him, and his party (the party of Greenfield, Hikind, etc.) is still the dominant party in the frum community. His economic policies are very good for large families and persons with limited incomes (such as kollel families). His impact on Eretz Yisrael is probably minimal (Ha-Shem and the Jews living there will decide their destiny – not the Americans). His views on moral issues are reflective of those of the non-frum Jews and of most New Yorkers (and note that most frum Jews choose to live in New York in spite of it being the leading city when it comes to immorality).

    Obama’s win may be bad, but it is hardly the end of the world.

    in reply to: Good Things about Obama #903750
    akuperma
    Participant

    1. He is very good for investors. To make money investing one needs to buy low and sell high, and Obama will be creating new and improved opportunities to buy low.

    2. It will encourage the Israelis to rely on themselves and Ha-Shem, instead of praying to the Americans to bail them out of their messes.

    3. His support of abortion, contraception and homosexuality will encourage the “left” to engage in behavior that keeps them from having children, so perhaps they’ll go extinct eventually.

    4. His personal life is exemplary and sets a good model, unlike the previous Democratic president.

    in reply to: "Theories" about why NY has no gas #903478
    akuperma
    Participant

    You ban new refineries for years.

    You ban pipelines to bring gas from other parts of the country.

    You ban ships from carrying gas from other parts of the country.

    You restrict drilling for oil anywheres near New York.

    And you have a storm that disrupts your local infrastructure – and of course all the “green” decision come back to bite you.

    in reply to: Two Things to Remember Before You Order Your Palestinian Passport #906808
    akuperma
    Participant

    1. We agree on the British non-claim to Palestine. Actually, so did the British government. Only the original poster thought otherwise.

    2. The Ottomans usually claimed and had some control of eastern Arabia (where Mecca is). They nominally claimed the west (from which the Saudi came) but until the oil discoveries, that part was basically “hefker” from the point of view of national governments.

    3. Balfour never promised an independent state. At most, contemporaries thought it might involve a self-governing entity similar to what Canada or Australia were at the time (no control over military or foreign affairs, financial matters controlled from London, judiciary controlled from London, all decisions subject to review by London’s governor). Given that at the time, Palestine wasn’t British territory, the concept of a “homeland” wasn’t tied to sovereign status in any form – only a place where Jews could move with no guarantee of political control. They also promised the Arabs a state in the region, which led to the famous Faisal-Weizman agreement, and also to De Haan negotiation with Faisal (the idea being the autonomous Jewish homeland with a large Arab state – sort of a Dhimmi/ghetto on steroids – but enough so Jews fleeing Europe could have fled, and the Brits and Americans would have been less resistant to helping Jews flee Hitler).

    There were no “Palestinians” before 1948, only a group of “Levantine” Arabs including all of modern Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Israel. It would have been a lot easier for a country that was 90% Arab to tolerate a Jewish minority that wanted authonomy and economic freedom, than for a small Palestinian entity to accept being part of a country with a probable Jewish majority – Muslims don’t take kindly to being a minority – something that the rabbanim realized which is one reason they opposed zionism (if we try to boss the Arabs around, it guarantees war).

    in reply to: Two Things to Remember Before You Order Your Palestinian Passport #906799
    akuperma
    Participant

    #1- The British claim on Palestine was very weak. It was never even officially annexed to the British Empire (it was a League of Nations mandate, on whose behalf the British administered it). The British had promised Palestine (along with what is now Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabic and Jordan) to the Arabs as a large Arab state under the family of the current ruler of Jordan (whose ancestor was quite willing to have Jewish immigration into this large country), but the Brits double-crossed the Arabs. Had the Brits not broken their deal with the Arabs, The Arabic world east of Suez would be one large country, led by the moderate dynasty now ruling Jordan, with a very large autonomous Jewish population (perhaps extremely large since Hitler would be remembered for the “expulsion” of European Jews).

    in reply to: Obama won the election because… #903210
    akuperma
    Participant

    Obama was elected because: he got more votes than Romney

    Among Romney’s problems is that he (and the country) were distracted by fringe Republicans who are obsessed with sex and openly anti-Hispanic prejudices. Romney should have stuck to economics and his “making America great” themes, which would have one. He needed to repudiate those Republicans who focused on non-economic sexual issues (which most Americans feel should be private matters not subject to government regulation) and the nativists (who seriously insult all Hispanics, and much of the non-WASP population). There is a strong pro-immigrant wing of the Republicans (Wall Street/Country Club Republicans are pro-immigrant, as are the religious right since they see the Hispanic immigrants as people like themselves), and there is a strong libertarian wing who favor small government staying out of people’s personal lives. These issues suggests that Rand Paul may be the way of the future, as well as the several second-generation ethnics (Marco Rubio, Bobby Jindahl, Nikki Haley).

    in reply to: Stoning of an adulterers #903535
    akuperma
    Participant

    Have you seen anyone doing adultery with witnesses (being respectable people, whose presences are known). The only ways any halachic capital punishment came into play was if the person was making an effor to publicly flaunt their behavior – which in the real world doesn’t happen.

    in reply to: Good Things about Obama #903729
    akuperma
    Participant

    Great buying opportunities for investors who follow a “buy low, sell high” strategy.

    in reply to: Obama is Here to Stay – Now What? #903173
    akuperma
    Participant

    Enjoy WIC and SCHIPS, but don’t plan to open a business (well, great for a kollel family, so why complain).

    Obama’s more liberal on immigration, so they’ll let in the frummies from Eretz Yisrael if the zionists start kicking them out (and without a strong exceptional America, this may be a good time to start shorting Israeli long term bonds). Expect better relations with the Christians as they start adjusting to being a fellow persecuted minority, rather than an persecuting majority.

    in reply to: class action lawsuit against lipa (electric) #902578
    akuperma
    Participant

    It’s a government agency. The former private sector Long Island Lighting Company (LILCO) was nationalized 25 years ago. Not only does the government need to consent to be sued, but the damages come out of the taxpayer’s pocket. So score one for quasi-socialist Democrats. It was “big government” running the power that messed up.

    in reply to: Zone A occupants #902313
    akuperma
    Participant

    The problem is all along the coasts. People like to live near the water. The sea is pretty. The climate is more moderate (cooler in summer, warmer in winter). The only problem is that every so often you get a big storm. In theory the area should have been zoned for parkland – but that never worked out. The result is that even as storms are less frequent and milder than in the past (and they have records going back to the 1600s), the damage is worse.

    akuperma
    Participant

    Meaning the Democrats (hear that Mr. Hikind, Mr. Greenfield, etc.) will be targetting groups that don’t approve of “transsexuals”. We are not in their bull’s eye.

    in reply to: The lesson of Hurricane Sandy #901777
    akuperma
    Participant

    The Litvishe Kiryas Yoelite: Compared to Miami, New York City doesn’t have a problem with hurricanes. However anywhere along the Atlantic Coast you have a problem, especially for those who live near the ocean (Brooklyn and Manhattan in particular, places like Seagate and Coney Island are extremely prone to flooding). If you live by the Atlantic Ocean you will likely have a problem with hurricanes at least once every decade or so, and severe problems once a lifetime. Such areas probably should be treated as flood plains, and not zoned for housing. People should move to higher elevations (the evacuation maps give you good indicators), or even better, places like Monsey which are unlikely to have a serious natural disaster.

    in reply to: The lesson of Hurricane Sandy #901771
    akuperma
    Participant

    haifagirl: If it were true that a storm affecting New York City indicated the need to move to Israel (rather than Monsey or Chicago or even Baltimore), would that mean that the next big earthquake in Israel would indicate that one should leave Eretz Yisrael?

    in reply to: NY is #1 #900726
    akuperma
    Participant

    crisisoftheweek:

    I tend to believe that in many places outside New York, the Democrats are afraid that if they alienate the “holy people” they might not be able to permanently buy their support. In fact, that may be true in New York as well (considering two recent wins for Republicans in super-blue Brooklyn – you do know that Dodgers/Met “blue” is the official borough color).

    in reply to: South Korean Obsession with Judaism #901025
    akuperma
    Participant

    From an East Asian perspective, we are quite different than the western Euro-Americans whom we live among. Similar to the East Asians, we value scholars over warriors (i.e. father look at their newborn sons and dream of learning with them, goyim is the same situation dream of teaching the kid to toss a ball or shoot a rifle). We also use “indirect” speech (this goes back to ancient times – and it drives most Americans crazy). We have a very long time frame of looking at history, unlike most westerners who “forget” after a few decades.

    in reply to: Shocking Study of Modern Orthodox OTD Rate #941471
    akuperma
    Participant

    You do realize the initial poster significantly misquoted Rabbi Pruzansky’s statement (at his website), and that almost all the Loshan Ha’Ra in this discussion is based on the misquote, not on what he wrote. All he was saying is that parents should make a point of being frum in front of their kids in ways such as how they dress and spend their Shabbos.

    in reply to: Whats wrong with Eating Ice Cream or a Hot Dog in #900765
    akuperma
    Participant

    It’s messy and undignified, and there’s a halacha we’re supposed to be menchlicht.

    in reply to: NY is #1 #900723
    akuperma
    Participant

    1. If they have a commercial “wedding venue” that isn’t tied to a single religion, I could imagine how that would violate the discrimnation law.

    2. Maryland is both super-blue, but much less hostile towards religion. I suspect it is because the the Maryland Democratic party is heavily dependent on the state’s socially conservative African American community, whereas New York’s Democrats are dominated by “frei” Jews and a much more ethnically diverse crowd, none of which are especially known for their religious piety.

    in reply to: Shocking Study of Modern Orthodox OTD Rate #941431
    akuperma
    Participant
    in reply to: Shocking Study of Modern Orthodox OTD Rate #941409
    akuperma
    Participant

    Who did the study? Where is it published? Define “Modern Orthodox”? In many cases, a “modern orthodox” high school is one in which the majority of the families are not strictly Shomer Shabbos and Shomer Kashruth to begin with. If 50% are Shomer Shabbos after high school in spite of 40% of the parents having been Shomer Shabbos, the school is doing quite well.

    Was he talking about a school of “penguins” who are considered “modern” by virtue of the fact they celebrate Israeli Independence Day and don’t learn Yiddish? Or was he talking about a school that is serving a wider community and in which only a minority of the familes are frum.

    in reply to: Ball tshuva girl who's father is not jewish #900595
    akuperma
    Participant

    1. The debate over whether a child of a Jewish mother is Jewish, as opposed to requiring both parents to be Jewish, has long been settled.

    2. I’m curious for a source for the statement that a a kohen can only marry someone whose mother was married to a Jewish father. As long as the mother is Jewish and not a mamzeris, why should the mother’s status matter?

    in reply to: Ball tshuva girl who's father is not jewish #900584
    akuperma
    Participant

    There aren’t any halachic issues, but there might be some tricky social problems especially if her parents are dismayed at her becoming frum and would be scandalized by a frum wedding.

    in reply to: Discrimination against Jews #901990
    akuperma
    Participant

    1. Why isn’t a hillul ha-Shem for an obviously frum Jew to go into a treff restaurant and sit down in the place where people eat? To any casual observer the obvious conclusion is that this a place where frum kids go to eat treff when their parents are looking.

    2. Since the restaurant require those sitting down to purchase a certain minimum, and as long as the minimum is applied to everyone, why shouldn’t the restaurant remind customers of the minimum if they notice that a certain type of customer may be unware of it (i.e. a kosher customer, who is agreeing to pay the $25 minimum by merely requiresting a soda or a glass of water).

    3. It would only be discrimination if they only had a minimum charge for Jews and not others, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems the issue got in the news when a frum couple didn’t realize they had to pay $25 for a glass of water due to the minimum charge (probably written clearly in a menu, which, since it was all treff, they ignored).

    in reply to: Hasagas Gvul #900122
    akuperma
    Participant

    That is a shailoh for the local posek. The word “local” is important since it would all depend on local conditions. If a community can easily support competition, competition is good. Where it is a problem for the community to support even one kosher grocery store, it might be a problem.

    In Boro Park, opening up a frum supermarket is probably never an issue, whereas in a small city it is more likely to be an issue. Similarly, opening up a unique business (consider a supermarket selling only organic foods with good hecksherim) next to its competitor, that is to say another supermarket selling only organic foods with good hecksherim, may be an issue.

    Since there are all local factors, you can’t rely on predcedents from other situations and places.

    in reply to: Imagine a World Without Coffee! #1220562
    akuperma
    Participant

    Coffee is a new invention. They’ve only had it for the last few centuries. The world got along fine without it before that. While most American goyim can only imagine time in years or at most decades, our perspectives are in centuries or millenia (note how we call the Amidah the “18” even though it has been “19” for for over 1500 years).

    in reply to: Dinosaurs #1090066
    akuperma
    Participant

    The current theories are that the “dinosaurs” were actually big birds, are in no way extinct, and most of us eat them on Shabbos. Animals frequently change size and shape, and this has been observed even in recent years (for examplemedieval cattle were only the size of large sheep, and the variety of dog breeds are quite recent).

    There are all sorts of traditions of multiple worlds, so almost anything is possible. The whole concept of “time” is discussed in kaballa (and physics), and is very unclear.

    in reply to: Artscroll Gedolim biographies #981795
    akuperma
    Participant

    The genre of “lives of gedolim” is supposed to inspire. They aren’t attempts at critical biographies. It’s quite rare that someone write a critical biography of gedolim, and they don’t sell many copies.

    in reply to: Are sons more desirable than daughters? #984214
    akuperma
    Participant

    We should also learn from zoology that HaShem can and did create creatures that can reproduce unisexually (i.e. one gender), and that we can assume HsShem has a good reason in requiring human to reproduce sexually (two genders, totally dependent on each other, and incapable of long term surival if they don’t cooperate).

    in reply to: Frum English #900211
    akuperma
    Participant

    English is a very hard language to spell. In part since whereas most languages are spelled the way they are pronounced, English sort of reflects pronounciation in the 15th century, when Normal French and Anglo-Saxon were still merging into modern English. Also English’s power comes from its ability to absorb many words from other languages, together with their own spelling quirks.

    In all fairness, yeshiva graduates are just as good at spelling as most other people. It would be nice if we all had “posh” language skills, but that’s not realistic. Actually, given that the typical hareidi kid in the USA is trilingual (English, Hebrew and Yiddish), he’s in a good situation to develop serious linguistic competencies if he needs to.

    in reply to: Should there be any heters for iPhones #899977
    akuperma
    Participant

    So what is the objection to an iPhone as compared to any other brand?

    Cost? Internet access (then the objection is to internet access, not to any specific hardware – a netbook or tablet is just as problematic)?

    I can see reasons to object to portable phones, or to computers, but why a specific brand? If a hot dog is treff because its made of pork, it’s still treff if instead it’s an expensive pork roast.

    in reply to: Should there be any heters for iPhones #899973
    akuperma
    Participant

    What can you do with an iphone that you can’t do with a PC and a regular landline telephone?

    Stick it in your pocket

    BUT THAT’S TRUE OF ALL MOBILE PHONES INCLUDING “KOSHER” PHONES

Viewing 50 posts - 3,101 through 3,150 (of 3,431 total)