Regrettably, Rosenblatt's diatribe is marred by various unfounding assumptions, or to put it another way, he made it all up.
He thinks it inappropriate to require converts to accept the mitzvos. The problem is, that is what conversion is all about--just as native-born Jews are required to follow the commandments (many unfortunately do not, but that doesn't change the requirement), so are converts. Just as at Sinai we accepted to follow all the commandments, so must converts throughout the generations.
He thinks he knows the motivations behind the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's conversion standards, and that they are "to prevent sincere seekers from joining our people." I assume that the Chief Rabbinate would disagree with Rosenblatt's attempted mind-reading, and argue that requiring people to accept the requirements of a religion as part of their conversion to that religion is rather quite sensible.
* And I bet that Balaam would love this article too. (And my guess is that when Moses got mad after news of Balaam's death, it was not for the stated reason, but because he had not wanted Balaam to die. Wishful thinking? Perhaps, but it's what I like to think.)
But it is not clear from the Book of Ruth where, when, and how she was converted. Her classic statement of intention to Naomi is very moving, but that does not constitute her conversion.
It is far more likely that she was converted in Beit-Lehem, before she was married to Boaz.
It's a little annoying the way "domestic violence" is sort of stuck in there in the list of issues he's supposedly dedicated to. While I'm glad that he claims to care about domestic violence, it's a little disingenuous for him to act like he and uri l'zedek are somehow spearheading a campaign for awareness of domestic violence in modern orthodoxy. In fact, women's groups have been doing that for decades, and it would be nice if, rather than trying to take credit as leaders in an issue that they barely touch without acknowledging the hard work of the real leaders, in instead he acknowledged that his organization is piggy-backing on the blood sweat and tears of women's groups.
the aggadic interpretation that the conversation between Ruth and Naomi signified Ruth's conversion is inconsistent with the rest of the story. If Ruth's status changed at that point from non-Jew to Jew, then her prior marriage which ended with her husband's death would not have been a marriage under Jewish law. As such, there would have been no relationship between Ruth and the kinsmen in Bethlehem and there would have been no obligation or even inclination on their part to be protective of her or to include her in their families.
The real problem is that Ruth had a legitimate conversion prior to her first marriage; however, the Israeli Rabbinate wouldn't have accepted the conversion because the head Rabbi of Moab who performed the conversion once sat on an community compendium with a woman Conservative rabbi
The Beacon is trash. You can try and portray it as a crusader for literary freedom, etc. but the fact remains that there is no editorial process and they are willing to publish ANYTHING (a story was published about a man having sex with an animal, I believe). The Beacon is pure garbage. Don't try and show it as anything else.
It's a shame that this talented op-ed writer deems it necessary to distort the over-arching message from Sunday evening's mass charedi gathering. In a different article appearing on this website, Ari Goldman, who can hardly be categorized as a charedi, provides an accurate itemization of the event organizer's goals. There was no mention of undermining or silencing young charedi victims of sexual violence. While certain internet blogs definitely contributed to bringing the matter of charedi mishandling of sexual violence against the young to the fore, it is now time to offer these victims both enhanced law enforcement reporting opportunities and advanced therapeutic options. Discussions on internet chat boards and limited blog posts are no longer suffice.
1. there are enough lectures on shas available on the internet to keep one busy 24 hours a day for the rest of his life, in as much as more than 50 hours of torah lectures are added every day.
2. the internet is like water; it is what you do with it. You can drink it or you can drown in it. But it's still water
3. The Ultra-ultra-Orthodox thought they could keep European Jews from emigrating to America - because they'd lose control over them. Instead, Jews came to the US without their rabbis who stayed home, and a generation of Am-Ha'arartzim was created.
4. They then opposed Jewish emigration to pre-WWII Palestine - opposing Zionism; and the result was that kibbutzim and moshavim were built without a rabbi - something unheard of in pre-war Europe.
5. They didn't want to take a lead in the '70s and '80s in the fight for Soviet Jewry; they couldn't abide by the thought that non-observant Jews were actually doing something worthwhile.
6. They have avoided confronting the issues of the changing status of women in society; it would undermine the rhetoric they sell to their yeshivah buchrim that Torah is for men alone.
7. And now, they refuse to accept the fact that the internet and all other forms of digital communication are part of everyday life; and they can't be turned back.
Anyone delusional enough to believe that Pius XII was not in league with Hitler and his backup singers Henry Ford; Prescott Bush etc. etc. Should remember it was Catholic southern Germany and Austria that created the little turd in the first place. Pius XII was an accessory before, during and after the fact of the Shoah. Paul VI signed passports for the fleeing Nazis. Without the support of the leaders of the Church there would have been no slaughter.
Zev, Unfortunately many of the "gedolim" who supported or spoke at the rally are the protectors of these horrible and known abusers. And yea its twisted because the real chillul hashem is not made by the people who are forced to shout from the rooftops and make a scene in order to call attention to these crimes and the criminals who committed them but rather the people who protect them and silence the victims. Chillul Hashem is not only defined by our behaviors while in the presence of the secular or the "goyish" world. It is rather about failing to sanctify G-d's name, perverting it or desecrating it in any situation, even when among "frum" Jews. The biggest chillul hashem are the cover-ups by alleged community leaders and "gedolim" acting ostensibly le'shem shamaim, but more likely out of greed and honer.
Back to the asifa, the only nice thing I have to say is that its amazing to see a gathering so many frum yidden in one place even if its for the wrong reason.
John Cornwell has long since retracted his labeling of Pius XII as "Hitler's Pope." Moreover, Hitler drew up assassination plans to kill the pope. Also, it needs to be explained why so few non-Catholic scholars have sought access to the Vatican archives that are available. More to the point, the evidence is mounting that those Jews who praised the pope at the end of the war, and after, were right to do so. And this includes most Jewish leaders at the time.
Mr Zuckerberg's fortune has ben earned in a pluralistic society and he owes his success not to any one group but to the nation. It is surprizing to see the suggestion that he should tithe himself to pay for Yeshiva educations, when educational deficiency in our schools wrecks the life chances of so many who may not be Jewish but are our fellow citizens. Buffet and Gates and Rockefeller and the younger Fords and the Mellons and lots others did not conspicuously favour Protestant America in their giving----it is difficult to see why Mr Zuckerberg should be asked to behave ethnocentrically, as if it were a virtue...
you were in YU already but I was still at TA in the 11th grade. What you omitted from your article was the fact that while we TA boys couldn't get tickets to the Series, we were swept up in World Series fever like everyone else. The next best thing was the brainchild of the crackerjack fundraising dept at our alma mater--they sent us to 33rd Street with pushkas to collect money for the school. We stood outside with our transistor radios and listened to roar of the crowd as the great plays were made.
Gary, keep writing this stuff, some of us old Orioles fans really love your columns on sports. they are priceless.
Yesterday in Denver I was able to be part of the internet assifa because of a hookup our synagogue had prearranged for here in Colorado.I can personally attest to the fact that it was a tremendous kiddish hashem.It was a serious attempt to deal with a serous problem that our gedolim say is threatening the holiness of our jewish homes.I empathize with all of my jewish brothers and sisters who have suffered abuse.However two wrongs do not make a right.It is never a mitzvah to make a chillul hashem.Ms Braun I urge you to apologize for both your blanket condemnatoin of charedi rabbis and your refusal to acknowledge that many thousands of jews are doing a mitzvah when they take seriously the threat the internet is posing to the jewish home.I think I did a mitzvah when I had a filter installaled on this computer so pornographic sites could not be accessed.Do you disagree?
My book Hitler's Pope is careful not accuse Pius of being in sympathy with Hitler or the Nazis, or as complicit in the Holocaust. The meaning of title is that he proved an ideal churchman for Hitler's purposes. The damage he did was mainly in the early 1930s when he negotiated a treaty that traded the surrender of social and political action in exchange for educational benefits for Catholics. This occurred at the very time when educational benefits were being withdrawn from Jews in Germany. This made him and Pius XI classic fellow travelers: Mitlaufer those who accepted benefits from the tyrant while remaining aloof from his ideology. This demoralised resistance, scandalised the young and gave Hitler credit in the eyes of the world. I make it clear that links between Pius XII and the safe havens for Nazis remain unproven, despite unrelenting investigation. I would say, however, that if he is to be given credit for all the Jewish lives saved mainly by brave individuals in humble positions in the Catholic Church, he is open to blame for the Nazi rat run. Evidence for both is thin.
The Conservative rabbinate in the US has never maintained a close enough tie with its day-school movement; and it has never fostered the idea - day in, day out, week in, week out - from the pulpit that the schools should be supported and that members should be encouraged to send their kids there.
Once it is acceptable for a boy or girl to get that 4 hrs a week for 3 years as a Jewish education, and once the congregation's Hebrew School is deemed the norm, the day school is seen as just for the weirdos and the "special kids".
Conservative rabbis have cheated two generations of children out of their rightful inheritance of a Torah education; for that they are to blame.
Wow, This is a pathetic article. Very well written... but seriously twisted. Yes, the problem you raise is a serious problem. No one is denying that. However, do bear in mind that an unfiltered internet is also a serious problem. All they were really telling you to do is to put a filter on your computer. No one is really expecting you to toss the internet in the garbage. Is that really the end of the world?
The suffering that parents of children with severe cases is unimaginable.
I think the government should, at the parents' option, train and pay the parent to provide ABA therapy to their children. And pay them sufficiently if they qualify to provide their children the treatment.
(But in my opinion, it would not be outrageous to require that the parents getting paid for providing such home treatment to video their sessions , or have an Internet "baby cam" monitor system allowing the government to monitor that they are, in fact, performing the services that they are being paid to perform.)
Regrettably, Rosenblatt's diatribe is marred by various unfounding assumptions, or to put it another way, he made it all up.
He thinks it inappropriate to require converts to accept the mitzvos. The problem is, that is what conversion is all about--just as native-born Jews are required to follow the commandments (many unfortunately do not, but that doesn't change the requirement), so are converts. Just as at Sinai we accepted to follow all the commandments, so must converts throughout the generations.
He thinks he knows the motivations behind the Israeli Chief Rabbinate's conversion standards, and that they are "to prevent sincere seekers from joining our people." I assume that the Chief Rabbinate would disagree with Rosenblatt's attempted mind-reading, and argue that requiring people to accept the requirements of a religion as part of their conversion to that religion is rather quite sensible.
I loved this.*
* And I bet that Balaam would love this article too. (And my guess is that when Moses got mad after news of Balaam's death, it was not for the stated reason, but because he had not wanted Balaam to die. Wishful thinking? Perhaps, but it's what I like to think.)
But it is not clear from the Book of Ruth where, when, and how she was converted. Her classic statement of intention to Naomi is very moving, but that does not constitute her conversion.
It is far more likely that she was converted in Beit-Lehem, before she was married to Boaz.
It's a little annoying the way "domestic violence" is sort of stuck in there in the list of issues he's supposedly dedicated to. While I'm glad that he claims to care about domestic violence, it's a little disingenuous for him to act like he and uri l'zedek are somehow spearheading a campaign for awareness of domestic violence in modern orthodoxy. In fact, women's groups have been doing that for decades, and it would be nice if, rather than trying to take credit as leaders in an issue that they barely touch without acknowledging the hard work of the real leaders, in instead he acknowledged that his organization is piggy-backing on the blood sweat and tears of women's groups.
Lea Michele is a Catholic.
Another wonderful and inspiring list of young, Jewish innovators. Welcome to the 36er club!
the aggadic interpretation that the conversation between Ruth and Naomi signified Ruth's conversion is inconsistent with the rest of the story. If Ruth's status changed at that point from non-Jew to Jew, then her prior marriage which ended with her husband's death would not have been a marriage under Jewish law. As such, there would have been no relationship between Ruth and the kinsmen in Bethlehem and there would have been no obligation or even inclination on their part to be protective of her or to include her in their families.
The real problem is that Ruth had a legitimate conversion prior to her first marriage; however, the Israeli Rabbinate wouldn't have accepted the conversion because the head Rabbi of Moab who performed the conversion once sat on an community compendium with a woman Conservative rabbi
The Beacon is trash. You can try and portray it as a crusader for literary freedom, etc. but the fact remains that there is no editorial process and they are willing to publish ANYTHING (a story was published about a man having sex with an animal, I believe). The Beacon is pure garbage. Don't try and show it as anything else.
Mazal tov Miriam! So well deserved! From a fellow ATARA member....
You can contribute even more to the medical community by speaking out against other trial lawyers who exploit the medical profession.
It's a shame that this talented op-ed writer deems it necessary to distort the over-arching message from Sunday evening's mass charedi gathering. In a different article appearing on this website, Ari Goldman, who can hardly be categorized as a charedi, provides an accurate itemization of the event organizer's goals. There was no mention of undermining or silencing young charedi victims of sexual violence. While certain internet blogs definitely contributed to bringing the matter of charedi mishandling of sexual violence against the young to the fore, it is now time to offer these victims both enhanced law enforcement reporting opportunities and advanced therapeutic options. Discussions on internet chat boards and limited blog posts are no longer suffice.
Way to go, Elie. Very nice coverage.
1. there are enough lectures on shas available on the internet to keep one busy 24 hours a day for the rest of his life, in as much as more than 50 hours of torah lectures are added every day.
2. the internet is like water; it is what you do with it. You can drink it or you can drown in it. But it's still water
3. The Ultra-ultra-Orthodox thought they could keep European Jews from emigrating to America - because they'd lose control over them. Instead, Jews came to the US without their rabbis who stayed home, and a generation of Am-Ha'arartzim was created.
4. They then opposed Jewish emigration to pre-WWII Palestine - opposing Zionism; and the result was that kibbutzim and moshavim were built without a rabbi - something unheard of in pre-war Europe.
5. They didn't want to take a lead in the '70s and '80s in the fight for Soviet Jewry; they couldn't abide by the thought that non-observant Jews were actually doing something worthwhile.
6. They have avoided confronting the issues of the changing status of women in society; it would undermine the rhetoric they sell to their yeshivah buchrim that Torah is for men alone.
7. And now, they refuse to accept the fact that the internet and all other forms of digital communication are part of everyday life; and they can't be turned back.
7
Anyone delusional enough to believe that Pius XII was not in league with Hitler and his backup singers Henry Ford; Prescott Bush etc. etc. Should remember it was Catholic southern Germany and Austria that created the little turd in the first place. Pius XII was an accessory before, during and after the fact of the Shoah. Paul VI signed passports for the fleeing Nazis. Without the support of the leaders of the Church there would have been no slaughter.
Zev, Unfortunately many of the "gedolim" who supported or spoke at the rally are the protectors of these horrible and known abusers. And yea its twisted because the real chillul hashem is not made by the people who are forced to shout from the rooftops and make a scene in order to call attention to these crimes and the criminals who committed them but rather the people who protect them and silence the victims. Chillul Hashem is not only defined by our behaviors while in the presence of the secular or the "goyish" world. It is rather about failing to sanctify G-d's name, perverting it or desecrating it in any situation, even when among "frum" Jews. The biggest chillul hashem are the cover-ups by alleged community leaders and "gedolim" acting ostensibly le'shem shamaim, but more likely out of greed and honer.
Back to the asifa, the only nice thing I have to say is that its amazing to see a gathering so many frum yidden in one place even if its for the wrong reason.
John Cornwell has long since retracted his labeling of Pius XII as "Hitler's Pope." Moreover, Hitler drew up assassination plans to kill the pope. Also, it needs to be explained why so few non-Catholic scholars have sought access to the Vatican archives that are available. More to the point, the evidence is mounting that those Jews who praised the pope at the end of the war, and after, were right to do so. And this includes most Jewish leaders at the time.
good for you if you went out and protested. I really feel for the children in this community who are suffering at the hands of these con-men.
The comment about yeshiva tuition was not meant to be taken seriously.
Mr Zuckerberg's fortune has ben earned in a pluralistic society and he owes his success not to any one group but to the nation. It is surprizing to see the suggestion that he should tithe himself to pay for Yeshiva educations, when educational deficiency in our schools wrecks the life chances of so many who may not be Jewish but are our fellow citizens. Buffet and Gates and Rockefeller and the younger Fords and the Mellons and lots others did not conspicuously favour Protestant America in their giving----it is difficult to see why Mr Zuckerberg should be asked to behave ethnocentrically, as if it were a virtue...
Ah those days in June 1966!
you were in YU already but I was still at TA in the 11th grade. What you omitted from your article was the fact that while we TA boys couldn't get tickets to the Series, we were swept up in World Series fever like everyone else. The next best thing was the brainchild of the crackerjack fundraising dept at our alma mater--they sent us to 33rd Street with pushkas to collect money for the school. We stood outside with our transistor radios and listened to roar of the crowd as the great plays were made.
Gary, keep writing this stuff, some of us old Orioles fans really love your columns on sports. they are priceless.
Yesterday in Denver I was able to be part of the internet assifa because of a hookup our synagogue had prearranged for here in Colorado.I can personally attest to the fact that it was a tremendous kiddish hashem.It was a serious attempt to deal with a serous problem that our gedolim say is threatening the holiness of our jewish homes.I empathize with all of my jewish brothers and sisters who have suffered abuse.However two wrongs do not make a right.It is never a mitzvah to make a chillul hashem.Ms Braun I urge you to apologize for both your blanket condemnatoin of charedi rabbis and your refusal to acknowledge that many thousands of jews are doing a mitzvah when they take seriously the threat the internet is posing to the jewish home.I think I did a mitzvah when I had a filter installaled on this computer so pornographic sites could not be accessed.Do you disagree?
From John Cornwell:
My book Hitler's Pope is careful not accuse Pius of being in sympathy with Hitler or the Nazis, or as complicit in the Holocaust. The meaning of title is that he proved an ideal churchman for Hitler's purposes. The damage he did was mainly in the early 1930s when he negotiated a treaty that traded the surrender of social and political action in exchange for educational benefits for Catholics. This occurred at the very time when educational benefits were being withdrawn from Jews in Germany. This made him and Pius XI classic fellow travelers: Mitlaufer those who accepted benefits from the tyrant while remaining aloof from his ideology. This demoralised resistance, scandalised the young and gave Hitler credit in the eyes of the world. I make it clear that links between Pius XII and the safe havens for Nazis remain unproven, despite unrelenting investigation. I would say, however, that if he is to be given credit for all the Jewish lives saved mainly by brave individuals in humble positions in the Catholic Church, he is open to blame for the Nazi rat run. Evidence for both is thin.
The Conservative rabbinate in the US has never maintained a close enough tie with its day-school movement; and it has never fostered the idea - day in, day out, week in, week out - from the pulpit that the schools should be supported and that members should be encouraged to send their kids there.
Once it is acceptable for a boy or girl to get that 4 hrs a week for 3 years as a Jewish education, and once the congregation's Hebrew School is deemed the norm, the day school is seen as just for the weirdos and the "special kids".
Conservative rabbis have cheated two generations of children out of their rightful inheritance of a Torah education; for that they are to blame.
Wow, This is a pathetic article. Very well written... but seriously twisted. Yes, the problem you raise is a serious problem. No one is denying that. However, do bear in mind that an unfiltered internet is also a serious problem. All they were really telling you to do is to put a filter on your computer. No one is really expecting you to toss the internet in the garbage. Is that really the end of the world?
The suffering that parents of children with severe cases is unimaginable.
I think the government should, at the parents' option, train and pay the parent to provide ABA therapy to their children. And pay them sufficiently if they qualify to provide their children the treatment.
(But in my opinion, it would not be outrageous to require that the parents getting paid for providing such home treatment to video their sessions , or have an Internet "baby cam" monitor system allowing the government to monitor that they are, in fact, performing the services that they are being paid to perform.)