You Don’t Have To Be Old To Be Wise

Sometimes one can see a silver lining to a very dark cloud.
It is heartwarming to see how organizations that are at odds with one another – and quite often at each other’s throats (preferably about petty quibbles and power plays) unite in times of dire to help the clal.
So you can imagine how warm my blackened heart felt when I saw the posters of the Parnassa intitative in shul, outlining their different ways to help in difficult times.

Isn’t it great that our leaders take the time and effort to help with employment and business initiatives? And even able to put aside their ideological wars for a while to mend our scars?

Unfortunately, it only happens after the fact. How long have I been screaming about leaders ignoring the impending fiscal dangers? Why was everyone silent about abusing the system, hiring illegal aliens and living an irresponsible lifestyle of drunken sailors?
Not one poster, not one word, not one warning, and of course, chas vesholem, no union of JWF (Jewish Warring Factions) to asser –or at least warn- about the housing scam. No. The venerable rabbis sat idle as they got fat on donations from real-estate scammers. No one cared that the house of cards was bound to collapse. Not one suggested that Jewish businesses employ Jewish people to do the menial jobs – no Parnossah fund was established to fill the gap between what American workers ask and what employers pay to illegal immigrants.

But thankfully the satellite circus just rolled into town. The Council Of The Sages Of Chelm have united to help you: free gmachs to start a business – the way to help us out of the hailed “economic crisis”! That’s right raboisai, now that the water’s overhead, the free loan fund will bail out the freeloaders, and the business loan initiative will give 5 grand to those who have enough dishonest friends to co-sign the loan.
I just keep wondering, how these clairvoyants invariably fail to see what’s coming, and refuse to act before it’s too late? Are our wise rabbis in lockstep with the lowliest of politicians, or is it vice versa? So here you have it, the frum version of Obama’s Stalinist payback-ransack bill. And the same old usurpation of Jews’ love of hessed to benefit ganefs who will be the only ones to benefit from the Parnossah initiative.

If the “עיני העדה” are themselves blind, why do they have to be followed?
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Since I don’t want to be only negative, I have a few real suggestions to ease the burden & the hurt of the economic crisis:

Entice real estate owners to let people live in their houses for very cheap. There are hundreds upon hundreds of houses standing empty for over two years, yet the prices are not going down. Why? Because the owners know that their politicians will prevent the properties from being confiscated. The real estate gangs stick together to keep prices inflated. The rabbis know, but they need to make a living, too. Tell them to sell the houses at low prices instead of taxpayers having to bail them out.

Second: publish a kol korei signed by the biggest rabbis unequivocally prohibiting the hiring of illegal immigrants. Let frum people pack orders at Kosher supermarkets, and establish a fund to make up the difference between what the employer pays and what they (reasonably) expect.

Third: make all school/yeshiva operators open their books. Parents are choking, teachers are not being paid, and rosh Yeshivas are parading in brand new SUVs and go on vacations in Florida. I want to know where the money comes from. They have an obligation to pay employees before taking profits. The amount of blood, sweat and tears they invested in the yeshiva is no excuse. If you’re a ganef, you can’t be a rosh yeshiva. (ooops, all Yeshivas would have to close…)

Fourth: unconditionally and unequivocally asser to give tzedakah to unknown individuals, or without solid proof that they are entitled to collect tzedakah. I had enough of snot-nosed hassidsh kids shaking their hands in my face asking for “hacnossas kallah” – meaning their own chassunah, coming up in four years. Yes, they do it and it is totally accepted in hassidish circles. Stupid jews fund the hassidim’s shtreimels and Escalades, thinking they do a mitzvah.

Fifth: relax your insane contraceptive rules. David Twerski, the führer of new square, prohibits any and all contraception in any and all case – yes, even if it is known the couple is genetically incompatible.

Sixth: prevent multiple small businesses to compete over one small clientele instead of uniting and opening a larger one. This is mostly due to typical Jewish factioneering.

Lastly, stop the insane price gouging in frum stores. Stop the punitive rent from frum real estate moguls, and tell shopkeepers you’ll discourage your parishioners from patronize them if they don’t sell for a fair price. I’m willing to pay pay 2%-6% more for clothing in a frum store instead of the mall. But not 10%-40%, that’s insane.

Finally – can someone tell me why all the sponsors on the bottom of the posters were from the food industry? 5 brownie points for the right answer.


© Joseph Izrael 2008

Disneyland-Birkenau

The radical left wing, i.e. the agitators flaunting themselves as “out of the box” and “anti-establishment” champions of social justice under false monikers such as “liberal” and “progressive” are at it again.
This time they deplore the haredim’s lack of education on the holocaust - a favorite "topic" (read: invention) of the Israeli secular media. Oy vey. Little haredi kids won’t know that Hitler wanted to annihilate Zaide – because, as we all know well, no haredi was murdered in the holocaust, and it would be loshon hora to say these things over to the kids.

The holocaust is the sweetest and most comfortable excuse for a Jew to be a total goy and yet parade himself as a “proud Jew” and sleep well at night.

The Israeli Ministry Of Truth organizes regular visits from all schools to the Israeli version of Disneyland, better known as Yad Vashem. (We will not go now into the details as how absolutely incompetent directors who have zero experience in the field are appointed there, and how they rob the taxpayer blind – that’s another story for another day.) Trips of horny teenagers clad in minmal “clothing” to Auschwitz are organized every summer – often in “mutual appreciation groups” i.e goups comprising Israeli “Jews”, Palestinians™ and Polish Gentiles. There they can witness first hand how pure madness and fanaticism caused the brutal murder of six million humans, based solely on their DNA.

Thus, the young Israelis’ bissli and porn laden shriveled minds are programmed to know that
a) The biggest crime against Jews was committed on a racial basis, which means that “Jew” is defined by race.
b) Fanaticism is very dangerous, and leads to genocide. Fanaticism – as in: haredi, right-wing, settler, etc.
c) All previous pogroms in history are dwarfed by the holocaust and practically non-existent (by receiving practically zero attention in the curriculum). The Catholic Church’s 1000-year anti-Jewish propaganda and pope “Pious” XII tacit (and in two occasions implicit) approval of the Nazis are quasi non-existent.

Then of course there is the conspiracy of silence about communism. Over a hundred million people brutally murdered, torutured and starved to death recive virtually zero mention in academia and PS curricula. This is not surprising, as Israel’s founding falters and its ruling elite emerged from the NKVD and the Yevsektzia’s torture chambers. I don’t think anyone mentions that secular Jews gleefully joined the Soviet torture squads and committed the most horrible acts of torture and mutilations in order to convince their frum “brothers” that they’re mistaken in their old-fashioned beliefs.
In fact, all of the notoriously cruel and sadistic capos, those who volunteered to become capos, and most Nazi collaborators were all enlightened freia Juden. I wonder how many times that is mentioned in the “official” history books – those who have the exclusive copyrights on Truth and Accuracy™.

Truth is, what these crypto-commies really crave is to dig their tentacles in guise of the government’s educational branch, into the haredi consciousness. Unfortunately for them, the “haredim” will never deep-throat their raspberry-cherry flavored version of the holocaust.

Despite the un-academic and often shoddy way of historical education, the European Destruction will live on in the haredi consciousness in the same way the Kishinev pogroms, גזרות ת"ח ות"ט and other calamities live on in our minds.

PS – notice how the latest piece of vomit comes from a website that staunchly refuses to report on Israel’s growing problem of Nazi gangs from the FSU. I guess they have a ready solution: Convert ‘Em All. (No, it’s not an album by Metallica – it’s a socio-political program by Haim Druckman).

© Joseph Izrael 2008

Weak Brain And A Narrow Mind

Should I commit suicide? Boy, would Dov Bear and Shmarya throw a party!

I can’t help but feel despair, depression, rage and tears welling up when I see my fellow Jews fall below the level of animals.

I do not decry the outright evildoers, the Lenininst-Hitlerites like the two aforementioned monsters. I’m far more worried about the hollow men, the poor useful idiots who make up 97% of humanity and are willing to follow prevalent trends and attitudes to the deepest darkest bottoms of hell.

Some knucklehead authoring “Parshablog” writes that the Sodomite shame parade should be democratically defended – even by religious people! The poor brainwashed shallow man goes further on to decry the haredim’s barbaric and tyrannical coercion of modest dresses on some dancers at the inauguration of a bridge to nowhere in Jerusalem.

Let’s forget for a moment the blatant oxymoron here: the very democracy that, in his mangled opinion, allows sodomites to desecrate the Holy city, allows minorities to hold politicians by the throat. Apparently, what’s good for the gay geese is not good for the haredi ganders.

What the poor bloke seems unable to grasp is that Jerusalem is not bound by the momentary fads and whims of the publishers of Western celeb gossip magazines. Jerusalem was, is and forever will be G-d’s holy city, regardless whether it’s ruled by Turks, Ziono-Communists, British or Mameluks.

The Jew’s only right to Jerusalem comes from the very same Torah that declares homosexuality an abomination carrying the death penalty. Don’t like it? Move to LA and have a gay parade every day.

Democracy does not supersede the Torah, nor Jews’ (true Jews, Torah Jews) right to Israel and Jerusalem. This is just another indication that those who would you believe that Zionism and the Love of the Land are one and the same are but delusional fools.

Mr. Parshablog is probably incapable to understand that “tznius” goes a bit beyond bare skin. In an official ceremony of the “Jewish State”’s Capital, you don’t organize a euro-disco style dance, even if the dancers are all covered up. So the haredi politicians settled on way too big a compromise. Besides, if the “ugly”, “repulsive” hats and “backcloths” were not part of the show, how did they get there so fast? Did Chaim Miller keep them in his Tfilin bag just in case an immodest play pops up somewhere?
Oh, and where were the sensitive lefties protesting the papers comparing haredim to terrorists (a common theme on Neo-Nazi websites like DB and Alfred Rosenberg)? When a haredi does that they all go bananas and can’t stop spewing new articles about the incident for months on end.
I guess we’ll just have to ask the retired retard from the Windy City. He loves churning out a meaningless heap of nonsense every day. Some are so bad they even get into the Jewish Fress.

If you want free gay parades and porno magazines in Lashon Hakodesh go establish a “Jewish” state in Uganda, but leave Yerushalayim alone. You are the blind and the lame whom Dovid Hamelech hates.

Unfortunately, the idiot haredim are too stupid to organize true resistance, with roadside bombs and ambushes, relying instead on backdoor political tactics and burning trashcans in their own neighborhoods.

Mr. Parshablog, you’ve been watching too much TV. You have a weak brain and a narrow mind.



© Joseph Izrael 2008

Killing Me Softly

“killing me softly with his song, killing me softly… with his song.”

The homosexual junta rolled into town at full throttle, and they ain’t takin’ no prisoners. “The Torah commands us to be compassionate and love one another!”, they scream. 99 point 99 point 99 of all homosexuals are born that way, are exclusively homosexuals, and are unstraightable. These are scientific facts, measured with yardsticks and confirmed by world-renowned scientists. Where is the evidence? “You are a homophobe!” they bellow out in rage. If you refuse to please a homosexual, you are an immediate accomplice in Matthew Shepard’s murder, and also a close associate of the Nazis, whom, as we all know, treated homosexuals just as they treated Jews. Exactly.

What the homosexual einsatzgruppen forget to tell you is that the SA, better known as brown shirts, were homosexuals. And so was Der Führer (allegedly had a Jewish loverboy – that would be like the Obamaniacs of today). But all of this matters not. In the name of rachmunis and love of our persecuted homosexual brothers, they want to force feed your six years old daughter with hardcore gay porn, so she chas vesholem doesn’t become a homophobe (second greatest crime of the century, after racism and just before xenophobia.) Scientists and award wining sexologists assure us that 99 point 99 point 99 of homosexuals are in fact so well-meaning that they’d just love being straight, but they can’t – G-d made them like that. That’s right, blame G-d for everything – G-d made the holocaust, G-d burnt Pompeii, G-d bombed Hiroshima, and now G-d gave us homosexuals. Kinda reminds me of Ozzy Osbourne who claimed that he never really urinated on the Alamo – the drugs made him do it! I guess Orthodoxy hasn’t got enough problems just yet. That’s all we needed.

Contemporary “Common Wisdom” dictates that any physical harm done to another is wrong, discrimination against groups is wrong, but beyond that anything is legal, if not outright acceptable. So, whomever doesn’t like hardcore pornography and all its derivatives, vulgar and brutal displays of sadomasochism in the town square, should just keep to his ----ing self, and shut his ----ing eyes and mouth. We don’t hurt anyone, so you don’t hurt us (by existing), right?
Wrong. Ideas have consequences, and consequences can be quite devastating. The left knows this all too well, and are very shrewd at wrapping themselves in warm, cozy words dripping honey and kindness, which the well-meaning multitudes drink by the bucket. It feels good to be kind and generous and pick up some issue that will save the world.But well-meaning ideas often yield bitter fruit. The noble words of the protector of the poor, Karl Marx, were lapped up by the intellectual rabble like absinthe. Over a hundred million corpses later, the left is still unrepentant.

The war today is no different. The deluge, Sdom and Amora, they all repeat themselves. It’s a war against G-d, like at the Tower Of Babel – building ‘towers’ high ideologies meant only to counter everything G-d has commanded. Sexual crimes are by far not only between man and G-d; it is clear as daylight that the current onslaught of depravity is meant to prove, to train mankind that there is no purpose in life and in the Creation. Why do you think Evolution is so important for them (and even at that – only their own narrow version thereof)? The biggest atrocity imaginable, worst than the worst crimes, is to legitimize to justify those crimes, and to commit them openly. This is mind rape, it is analogous to child molestation – only it affects multitudes, is legal, and can be sold as harmless. But it isn’t. It turns people into purposeless sub-animals, monsters.

G-d has an affinity for causing the fire to choke itself, to make the scorpion sting its own back. The ferocious enemy whom the left now courts will not return homosexual love. And the homosexuals will not return fire.
The Stalinists never protests Iran hanging homosexuals, for example. These Leninists now find AIPAC to be too right wing (weren’t they just graced by a visit from His Majesty Grand Vizier O’Bama Hussein Burka?)! They, the ones who can cajole the Arab mind into stopping murdering little children! They want Orthodoxy to accept homosexuality! Hell no!

I have news for all of you who sold your soul to the gay mafia for a stew of lentils, yet you did not stand up for Rav Cahana’s murderers, didn’t have any compassion for the Gush Katif exiles. I have news for all of you well meaning Bolsheviks (“Bolshevik” is Russian for ‘the majority’, although they began as a small but ruthless band of murderers). We will not allow this. We will not put up with this. This is a war to the death, and we will fight you to death.


© Joseph Izrael 2008

Wake Up (Set Your Sights)

The well-known Meshech Chochmah (Rav Meir Simcha of Dvinsk) on the posuk “ואף גם זאת בהיותם בארץ איביהם לא מאסתים ולא געלתים לכלותם להפר בריתי אתם” in our Parsha, Bechukosai, explains the inevitable advent of destruction when Jews abandon the Torah and become assimilated and depraved. Many see this as a prediction of the Holocaust, which occurred less than two decades after his passing.

I, however, disagree with this approach. A prediction should be much more precise and focused. Rav Meir Simcha in fact points out the difference between the cyclical history of Gentiles versus that of the Jews; whereas Gentile empires, after “ripening” in might, size and glory, become degenerate, narcissistic, interested only in their enjoyment and material well-being lose their determination for survival, they are struck down by an inferior, yet determined and ferocious nation. This chain of events is observable in all major civilization-empires known to us: Assyria, Media, Persia, Greece, Rome, et al.

In contrast, whenever the Jewish nation follows a similar path, they incur immense retribution and suffering (I assume this is what is taken as prediction of the holocaust, in light of his extremely descriptive language), but aren’t annihilated; they survive as a nation despite the terrible calamity.

The really puzzling item, to me, is how the author throws together all Jews – Orthodox, secular, reform, etc. - in his criticism. Of course all denominations are deserving of ample criticism, but there are huge differences between these groups. How can one criticize great talmidei chachomim, reformers, common folks, secularists in one sentence – and for the same thing? Is it possible to say “יחשוב כי ירושלים היא ברלין – he shall imagine that Berlin is Jerusalem”, as a combined repudiation for both the lamden and the atheist? How could this be?

I think the answer is simpler than expected – perhaps when our link to the creator becomes so external, so routine, so “מצות אנשים מלומדה”, there is no more difference between frum and not frum. When we, as a whole, exercise our Yiddishkeit so outwardly and routinely that it becomes just a matter of culture or communal adherence – we’re no different than secularists, atheists and reformers. When real yearning for bais hamikdosh is no longer burning in us, when we feel so at ease in golus, when we feel too comfortable in front of the gmora, that’s when Yiddishkeit is truly in danger. When even the sincere ones aren’t so sincere – it’s not for G-d but for the clan or the self, then there is no other way but to fulfill the contract through extermination and calamity, which ultimately results in a phoenix-like revival.

It may seem contradictory to the Torah/Yiddishkeit's uniqueness – consisting in being every Jew’s lot, as imperfect as he may be- but there is a great difference between the average people being imperfect and the entire nation being soaked in gashmius and “self-ism”. We don't live the Torah anymore. The frum seem to ignore bain odom lachvero’s existence, while the self-righteous falsifiers sanctimoniously use this as an excuse for their trampling of the Torah. This is our great problem today.
The writing is on the wall. Neo-Communism (officially named ‘progressivism’) from the West, massacre (officially named “the religion of peace”) from the East, and economical havoc from everywhere, disaster looms while we await the impending doom.

There is no other way but to wake up, repent and unite.
So wake up, wake up and set your sights.



© Joseph Izrael 2008

Script For A Jester's Tears

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

If the joke wouldn’t be on us, I’d be laughing.

Barack “I have no middle name” O’Bama has again reinstated his staunch support for Israel. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, even after the affirmative action candidate has abundantly thanked Hamas for their endorsement.
Politicians excreting from both sides of their mouths is nothing new. Every candidate sees it a sacred duty to pander to every single minority, ignoring core issues pertaining to the whole nation.

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The king of Judea goes to visit his mechutan, the king of Israel. “Will you come with me to war against Aram?” asks the Israelite monarch. “Absolutely! We be of one blood, ye and I. Thine war is mine war, mine troops are thine troops and mine horses are thine horses.”, agrees the Judean. What a sight! The two Jewish kings sitting side by side in perfect harmony, donning their royal garments, and all the prophets prophesizing before them! What a sight! Ahead steps the prophet Tsidkiyohu ben Cnaanah, with two iron horns in his hands: “with these shall you belt Aram until their demise!” he thunders. Who wouldn’t be inspired by this sight! What wouldn’t you give to see it as it happened! But along comes Michiyohu ben Yimlo, telling Achav he would die in the war.
Achav goes to war despite the true prophet’s warning, and is killed in battle. The dogs lick his blood and the prostitutes bathe in it, as G-d’s predicted by Eilyohu.
Michiyohu wasn’t loyal; he disobeyed the king and bade him evil. Tsidkiyohu was loyal to the king, the kingdom and the mission at hand. The righteous king Yehoshafat, for the sake of unity and the nation’s integrity, went along with Achav. Maybe he saw beyond the present moment, and wished to end the schism and reunite the Jewish nation under one kingdom. Seemingly, this was the wrong decision – there are, perhaps, certain principles that cannot be forfeited even for very lofty ideals.
Achav’s kingdom eventually vanished, its people exiled never to return. The Davidian dynasty lasted a few more centuries; but after returning from an exile earned by bloodshed, giluy arayos and idolatry, they were finally exiled for vain hatred.

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Ideologies were the plague of the twentieth century. Ideologies rose and fell, and in their names millions were starved, tortured and exterminated. Brother was pitted against brother, family against family, entire clans and nations were lost amid terrible suffering and bloodshed. “In my own time, governments have taken the place of people. They have also taken the place of God. Governments speak for people, dream for them, and determine, absurdly, their lives and deaths”, says Ben Hecht. Ideologies have replaced G-d and truth, and the loyalty to them has replaced one’s loyalty to truth, honesty and decency.
A short while before a pack of Russian brutes overthrew a tyrannical regime, every single enlightened Jewish intellectual would have sworn on his head that he’d never harm those black-cloaked bigots who believe in some medieval mumbo-jumbo. A few years later, these learned intellectuals were torturing their Jewish “brothers” in horrible dungeons, sending their families to gulags and reeducation camps.

Every German would have given his honest word that he’d never harm a Jew, under any circumstance. Along comes a vulgar subhuman ignoramus, and sweeps an entire nation after him - needless to mention the aftermath.

The benevolent ideology of two German “Jews” living in London caused over a hundred million horrible, brutal deaths. That ideology’s party is legal in Israel – Kach isn’t. In the name of an ideology, everything is permissible and acceptable – as long as it’s for the good of that ideology, - meaning, for the corrupt ideologues who live off of it.

And this is how rabbis, dayonim, judges – leaders of the people, people who are supposed, nay obligated, to be the most righteous, honest and veracious men, living examples of truth and justice – are corrupt beyond belief, put down one another, rule according to their ideology, putting truth and the good of the nation aside, and their affairs become public domain. That is how they abandon their flock and see only their agenda and themselves. Blind faithfulness to idealisms and a mad rush to put it above all else was the downfall of many a righteous leader – and their nations.

The prevalent ideology of loving depravity and “social justice” is but a mask for power grab and tyranny, as well as a magnet for Islam – the ideology of achieving the same end in the name of piety, purity and slaughter. The danger is real, and the danger is here. And while unprincipled, empty presidential candidates chase unprincipled empty voters, your holy leaders giggle in the shadows to see which liar will win and give them a bigger jar of peanut butter, or release one of their buddies from jail.


© Joseph Izrael 2008

Contortion

Dr. Marc Shapiro’s article about the controversion of the Supereme Rabbinical Court’s annulling all the giyurs done by Rav Druckman’s bais din best reflects how Modern Orthodoxy sees the issue. There are two separate yet intricately intertwined subjects at hand; the purely halachic aspects of the ruling, and the ideological conflict, with many social-judicial issues deriving from them. The latter is obviously the main issue, as far as the spectators are concerned.

Shapiro makes many a salient point, and raises the painful and complicated question of the haredim’s legitimacy in dealing with a State they reject. He concludes that Religious Zionists and Modern Orthodoxy should totally divest from haredim. Not a bad idea in itself, but not too practical either. Though I sympathize with a systematic purge of all haredi rabbis from the rabbinate, this runs contrary to the democratic ideology of ראשית צמיחת גאולתינו.
But more realistically, the Agudists would probably join ranks with the Aida Charedis and all collaboration with the rabbinate would cease. This would cause a major rift within Religious Zionism itself. When all is said and done, most would condone that the State – even if its existence and functioning are a tremendous mitzvah – does not supersede the Torah. This would leave the left-wing RZ/MO drifting to Conservatism and Reform, finally creating two completely segregated nations – probably ending in civil war. (Which is not very civil, come to think about it.)

He also makes a few largely true, but somewhat wily statements. “The haredi community survives due to Israeli government subsidies,” he states, forgetting that the heiliga Medinah survives due to American subsidies. In fact, Patrick Buchanan claims Israel intervenes too much in American affairs - I’m not sure Shapiro agrees with him. Haredim don’t serve in the army, he charges – an army that recently dragged Religious Zionist Jews out of their homes and systematically refuses to protect its citizens. On the other hand, he is not in the least bothered by the fact that Rav Goren served in the Hagana – the military arm of the Leninist Mapai (Labour) that carried out the establishment of the state with an assassination or two. (De-Haan, 17 people of the Altalena, not to mention the passengers of the Patria…)

The claim that the dayonim were disqualified only because they are Religious Zionists is not entirely false. Shapiro in fact openly acknowledges that the source of the conflict is a collision of ideologies, and that the RZ courts admittedly base their rulings on ideology. And this is the very core of the problem: people blindly following ideologies and placing them above everything else. That is how distinguished rabbis call other dayanim “apikorsim”. Haredim are a tad bit disingenuous in claiming that their way is no ideology, but it is safe to claim that at least in theory, "haredism" consists in living the Torah in the most undiluted way possible. Once other avowed ideals are woven into the Torah fabric – be it evolution, the State of Israel or baseball – there is nothing stopping these external ideals from overriding and finally replacing it. When בכל לבבך ובכל נפשך and כי הם חיינו are starting to be taken allegorically, all the rest goes through the window.
The very same Torah that states ואהבת לרעך כמוך also says לא תחוס עינך עליו. The Torah cannot be made into some wishy-washy, touchy-feely ding dong school just to conform to someone’s ideology – be it lofty as it is.

An oft-recurring argument is that haredim use and abuse “orthodox unity” to force their view on everyone else, and he is right about that. There is no such thing as “orthodox unity”, there is only Jewish unity. The haredi rabbinate doesn’t give a hoot about any kind of unity. But venal and sold-out as they are, there still is a flicker of a yiddishe neshome in them, a vestige of the most primal loyalty to the Torah, to G-d (as opposed to some ideology) their peers lack. So far, even completely unobservant Jews can somehow belong to the Jewish nation, despite being sinners. This is possible by anchoring the laws that pertain to the coherence and continuity of the nation –marriage and conversion- in the hands of halachic authorities. Once that is gone, secular Jews are gone with the wind, like the ten tribes, and with it the excuse for the state's existence. Yet specifically those whose ideology is that non-Torah Judaism is valid and legitimate, and halocha should be bent to accommodate such “Judaism”, now demand control of these key elements.

Had the same exact annulling occurred between two courts of the same ideology, we’d all witness haredim and Religious Zionists unite against the Stalinist left. But since someone’s ideology did get hurt, they now prefer to run with the tramplers of the Torah, murderers, adulterers and idolaters, whose ideal is to become עם ככל העמים.

The power of ideology.

© Joseph Izrael 2008

Hotel California

An article strongly criticizing the trend of going to a hotel for Pessach upset Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz. His main objections were calling the trend ‘the greatest threat to Yiddishkeit’ and rebuking too harshly. He pointed out that there are scores of other grave problems afflicting our communities, and it would be far more beneficial to concentrate on those problems.

It seems to me that Rabbi Horowitz forgets a fundamental principle. I'm sure there are millionss of legitimate reasons to go to a hotel for Passover. Maybe it is true that declaring going to hotels as the ‘greatest threat to Yiddishkeit’ is exaggerated. But maybe we should not take this statement so literally after all. Maybe that fire and brimstone thundering rabbi meant to say, in a broader perspective, that letting modern western culture – a euphemism for unbridled materialism and hedonism – to become part of Yiddishkeit, is indeed an existential threat.

When a kid goes on drugs or off the derech, when a child is abused, it is a tragedy. Not only a personal tragedy of that individual and his family, but a tragedy of all Clal Yisroel. Nevertheless, it doesn’t endanger Judaism.

The Torah warns us, numerous times and in no uncertain terms, that when we start sinking in gashmius, we forget G-g, we rebel, and all hell breaks loose. When every kind of lust and desire is available in a glossy, fancy, Glatt Kosher Veyosher package, rubber-stamped by several corrupt narcissist “rabbis” who buy new Cadillacs yearly, do shidduchim exclusively with rich businessmen, and no one says a word, than Yiddishkeit itself is sick, from head to toe and down to the marrow.

Rabbi Horowitz accuses the author of being too harsh, instead of using soft, fatherly rebuke. Rabbi Horowitz is absolutely right – fatherly, gentle rebuke is indeed necessary. But since it has been missing in the past thirty years, it’s high time someone finally slams his fist on the table and calls a spade a spade, a fat slob a fat slob and a fresser a fresser. How can we go on whining about at-risk kids while we are the ones putting them at risk? We learn about mesirus nefesh, self sacrifice, yet all our kids see is lip-service Daf Yomi and Micha/Maariv –if at all-, in sharp contrast to the true burning love for fancy-shmancy houses, cars, designer clothing and gourmet restaurants.

Too many children are practically raised by Mexican cleaning ladies, barely see their parents, their fathers and mothers never sit down with them to learn some gmora, to do homework, to talk a bit, to read a book, even to play a board game. Then they go to a lavish Hotel for Pessach, – not Tu Bishvat, Chanucah or summer break, but on our Chag HaCheirus!- that’s a tragedy and a serious threat to Yiddishkeit. When our glossy kosher frum magazines boast nauseating adverts for these fressathon hotels side by side with divrei mussar, our kids sense the circus and mockery full and well. The tatte drowns in the schmorg, the in-house lecturer is all smiles amid the miniskirted chassidishe mames, and a week later the kid starts learning Pirkei Oves פת במלח תאכל, מים במשורה תשתה ועל הארץ תישן. Yeah right! Do we really expect little Moishi to take this charade seriously? We oughtta be real surprised when he tries pot, or when he switches mommy’s Cosmopolitan for Playboy, I guess.

Had those in-house lecturers more self esteem than a $2 prostitute, they’d turn down all invitations to such hotels. They could explain, on a gentle, fatherly tone, that if someone is absolutely constrained to spend Pessach in a hotel, it is his responsibility to prepare for the seder and holiday to the best of his ability, but such vacations are anathematic to Yiddishkeit, especially on Pessach.
Housing, clothing and food can all be explained away and justified with klotz teirutzim – but vacation in a spa is pleasure and sloth for the sole purpose of pleasure and sloth. That’s מבזה את המועדות deluxe. Something tells me that when Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon were reminded that the time for קריאת שמע has come, they weren’t at the Moulin Rouge in Las Vegas. And something tells me also that no one in a hotel would ever be caught telling Yetzias Mitzrayim at daybreak…

© Joseph Izrael 2008

Slave To The Grind

Steg sings his second Passover Hymn, ”No More AuctionBlock For Me” at the Seder. Although feeling other peoples’ suffering is noble and praiseworthy, I believe that celebrating other peoples’ freedoms on Pessach is inappropriate. There are 358 days in the year to do that, but during Passover we celebrate our own independence and our own formation as a nation – nobody else’s.

There is, however, a far, far deeper aspect to the differences between our freedom and the blacks’ emancipation.

Redemption from physical slavery is a central theme on Pessach, but it isn’t the only one - certainly not the main one.

G-d tells Moishe Rabeinu: “Sanctify to me each firstborn in Israel”. Moishe Rabeinu goes and starts tormenting Israel with halachic minutia: for seven days now, no bread, no bagels, no pizza. Then, when you will be in the land of Israel, on this day, you will have to slay a lamb in this and this manner, and keep this holiday, and teach it to your children, and even strap these laws on your arms and your foreheads with leather strings. The parshes must be written in such and such manner, on such and such kind of parchment etc. etc. etc. Poor Jewboyz! They’ve just heard the good news that they’re finally leaving Egyptian servitude, and here comes Moshe showering them with halochos, without letting them breathe even for a second! Heck, not even a muffin before setting out to the desert? Nope. Stale hand matzos. Bada”tz shmura, with Brisker chumrahs. But how does this sanctify the Jewish firstborn (who were originally meant to serve in the Mishkan with the Leviim)?

Until then, in order to become a true ‘עבד ה one had to truly, completely and absolutely devote his entire being, inside and out, mind body and soul to G-d’s servitude to a degree of perfection, – in other words, become an Avrohom, Yitzhcok, Yaakov or Moshe. At יציאת מצרים the people united to obey one G-d, one Law – a Law that shall encompass their entire life and being, from cradle to crypt, with G-d’s hot breath in their necks forever: when they sin, they’ll incur supernatural retribution – plague, defeat and exile. When they’ll do His will, they’ll be tempted by their neighbors, and will have to withstand the arrogance and decadence that comes with power and prosperity. Every moment and passing breath will have to be dedicated to Him – what they eat, how they eat, how to sleep, to tie shoes, how to wage war and how to make peace, how and when to bring קרבנות… That’s how we became a people. That really meant that from now on, one belonging to this nation would be able to live G-d and His Law despite his sins and shortcomings.

That’s how our בכורות became קדוש we all became קדוש, and they became more קדוש. They were singled out on the day that sanctified us all, and their קדושה depends on our acceptance and observance of קדושה.

The problems begin when we lose focus, and start following Pharaoh's command: תכבד העבודה על האנשים ואל ישעו בדברי שקר. When we start enslaving ourselves to materialism, that's when our Torah becomes a שקר, and we become slaves again... Yet even so, even when mincha/maariv is but a pain and chol hamoed becomes an excuse to go to lavish hotels and amusement parks, we're still bound together -"ועוד ידו נטויה"- and need no artificial glue - durags, rap, and buggy pants ”50% off” to identify ourselves and create kinship.

A nation whose plumbers, engineers, cabbies, lawyers, chefs and schoolteachers gather after a long day’s night to learn their Law – intricate hair-splitting on oxen goring sheep, wheat adding 1/200th of growth in proximity of grapes and hilchos tumah vtaharah is a Free Nation – even if it has swindlers, concert-banning thugs and “rabbis” who cover up for child molesters.



© Joseph Izrael 2008

Two Minutes To Midnight

My 17th cousin, fellow pyromaniac and ideological twin (in the sense that our ideas always run parallel to each other; they never meet), Hagaon Hakadosh Reb Steg (not to be confused with Steg, Steg, Steg, Steg or Stag) posted two “Passover hymns” on his website: the first, ‘Creeping Death’ by Metallica, deeply disturbs him. The second, ‘No More Auction Block For Me’ performed by several artists, including Maran Reb Zimmermann, deeply inspires him.

Brother Steg; please be not disturbed by a drunken, LSD saturated rock’n’roller who spends his life between Sunset Boulevard and different rehabs, and his money between CAIR, NAMBLA and the DNC. The idea that our G-d is cruel and vengeful is not new. In fact, I am fond of worshiping Him rather than some wussy surfer telling me to turn the other cheek or a pedophile obsessed with conquering the world by sword and fire.

But why indeed, did G-d pass over the houses with lambs’ blood on the lintels? According to one widely known peirush we were commanded to take a lamb ten days prior to the Exodus. The Egyptians would see how their deity is destined to be slain, yet be unable to prevent it.

What is idol worship? According to R. Avrohom Grodzniski (of the early baalei mussar), anything to which one attributes power, and worships it one way or another.
The Egyptians, even after witnessing G-d’s great power, clung not only to their idols, but their wretched slaves. (I mean, let’s be serious – how much could those kikes with big noses, Yerushalmi hats and flying pajes already worth as slaves? They probably swindled out half of Pharaoh’s hay, then smuggled it to Nubia and sold it as premium Egyptian gold dust.)

The lamb is not a major Egyptian deity – far behind Ra, Osiris, Isis, the scarab and some aquatic fowl. True, it is perhaps the only one fit for a korbon – but it was also the Jews’ parnossah (at least formerely - aparently, they still posessed flock even at that time). So now the G-d of Legions tells them that they will soon be out of Egypt – but first they’ll have to slay their own idol – to take Egypt out of themselves. The lamb will be no more a mere object of livelihood and nutrition. They’re not going to freedom just to build another empire like Egypt. And they're not going for a picnic either. They were going in an arid desert to receive a Law – a Law to cherish and live by, as a nation and as individuals. And to proclaim this, they had to stain the openings to their abodes with the lamb's -their own Gelt’s- blood. And while they sat inside, pondering on their future as the Torah’s Nation, The Giver Of Life smote the readers of the Book Of The Dead, who, even after witnessing G-d’s greatness in so many ways, after so many warnings, instead of rebelling against Pharaoh’s egomaniacal tantrums, followed him blindly, as slaves... to the power of death…

© Joseph Izrael 2008

2+2=7

The Red Square, Moscow, mid-‘60es. Gigantic gathering, tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. The speaker ascends the podium to tremendous applause. “Comrades!” He declares, “Two plus two equals six!” and the crowd breaks out in thunderous cheers. Only in the very last row one person whispers something in his neighbor’s ear. Immediately, a dozen policemen in uniforms appear, brutally beating the man while he is being led away, never to be seen again.
Same place, same scenario, some fifteen years later. The speaker ascends the podium to tremendous cheers and declares: “Comrades! Two plus two equals five!” The crowd breaks in thunderous applause. Only in the last row, one man whispers something in his neighbor’s ear. Two policemen, this time in civilian, approach him and call him to the side. “Sir” they ask him, “Would you like it to be six again?”
(Widespread joke in the formerly communist bloc)

We are again and again reminded of the gmore (Rosh HaShana 25) stating that each generation’s leaders (gdolim) must be respected as if they were the great leaders of previous generations, and therefore we must not question our leaders’ decisions or actions. The statement in itself makes much sense; we cannot expect – neither do we deserve- leaders such as Moshe Rabeinu, Shmuel Hanavi or Dovid Hamelech. The problem in the analysis, however, arises when there are no leaders to begin with. That gmore specifically discusses the lack of piety and wisdom of Gideon, Yiftach and Shimshon, calling them “kalei oilom” (“lightweights of the world” i.e. shallow, empty people) yet makes the case for their respect because they valiantly led and defended the nation, despite their shortcomings. (As a side note to my dear religious-zionist friends: please avoid any and all analogy between these “three kalei oilom” and the founders of Zionism and the pseudo-Jewish state: they may not have been too frum, but anti-Judaism and anti Jewish they were definitely not.)

We shall also note that there most definitely were great talmidei-chachomin and tsaddikim in those generations. But despite the tremendous and vital achievement of transmitting of our lifeblood, the Torah, most are not individually mentioned in the scriptures. It should also be mentioned that what the gmore calls “kalei oilom” can absolutely not be taken literally as we would use that term today (see Maharsh”o there). A person who dedicates and sacrifices himself for the sake of the nation, per definition cannot be “shallow” and “empty”. However, because the immense responsibility resting on such leaders’ shoulders, as well as the fact that they are role models, their shortcomings in piety and heeding the divine word are magnified and pointed out – so those aspects of their behavior not be followed.

In our days, however, the situation is very different. Our leadership –inasmuch as we have one- despite its vast Torah knowledge, is not leading or protecting its flock in any way shape or form similar to that of the aforementioned trio. Not in fighting our enemies from within and without, not in unifying the people, not in listening and being aware of the layman’s plight, and not in being informed and involved with the common folk. Yes, they are accessible, and yes, they are trying to help individuals who ask for help, but as far as changing large-scale problems, correcting injustices, corruption and other related burdens, there’s either complete inaction or lip service - “Ethics in business” seminars and such. Duh. Why not stop the out-of-control Hassidic ghetto-building at my expense and stop the politicians who are being voted for in return? Oh, yes and please let me see the books of the Mosdos. I’d like to know how much the Roshei-Yeshivos make, who gets a tuition break and why. When you send me a letter about a poor person sunken in debt, (through no fault of his own) please include a picture of his home, car, and children’s weddings and Bar-Mitzvas. Tell me what pressure you’ve put on politicians not for a few more bucks for a moisad or down-zoning the village but to protect us from terrorists, from the Ahmadinejads, from illegal aliens, from tax hikes, to fix our roads and to lower gas prices. Tell us why a bris costs $600, why thieves, racketeers and owners of prostitution houses sit at the mizrach while honest people are looked down at as “balebatim”, why young kollel avreichim own luxury homes, luxury cars, and fancy “European style” clothing for all children four times a year and you don’t say anything about it. Tell us about the “affordable housing” scams – why an apartment in a complex isn’t cheaper than a farmhouse on two acres? Why is it that the bus-line between New-Square and Sing-Sing is alone enough to keep Exxon-Mobil in business, yet the only mussar that I hear is that my wife’s shaitel must be curtailed, I can’t use the internet, I can’t smoke and I must drive a Japanese car that saves the planet – but not me. I’m sick and tired of hearing how important the “Medine” and the Holy Holiday of “Yom HaAtzmaut” is and that I’m ungrateful for not serving in the IDF, especially from phony rabbis who never fired as much as a cap-gun, let alone serve themselves in that caricature army. How about all those certified private tutors and special-ed therapists filing fraudulent documents to continue cashing in on the government? Why don’t you urge your constituents to join their State Militias? Because that would make too much sense? Since secular education is so dear to some of you, why don’t you urge your business-owning constituents to hire college kids from the community instead of rapists from Guatemala? If you are against ransacking the government, maybe you want to let us know how much a university professor makes? The director of a Homosexual club? (You know, the de-facto non-existing club without which Uncle Sam and David Ford won’t bestow their goodies on you.)

To add insult to injury, it just came to my attention that the Agudah is pressuring politicians in regard with the threat of terrorism on schools; following the government’s decision to beef up security in public schools, religious schools also asked for assistance. Did they ask for security personnel? Security systems? Preparedness and education on preventing attacks and how to respond to an actual attack H”V? The answer, sadly, is no on all counts. They asked for funding.

Dear rabbis and leaders, please stop slinging mud at each other and address the issues. And try to fix them.
Dear rabbis and leaders, please stop pulling the wool over our eyes.
Dear rabbis and leaders, please stop the tremendous Chilul Hashem the problems you ignore cause – the Jew-hating street rabble use them as weapons against all of us.
Dear rabbis and leaders, please face reality and unite.
Dear rabbis and leaders, please call a spade a spade, a ganif a ganif and a fraud a fraud.
Dear rabbis and leaders, please realize that we all know…

…that two plus two is four.

?yadoT elimS nevE t'naC I fI worromoT hguaL I lliW woH

Instead of a Purim-Toirah, I hereby present some anecdotes that either happened to me or I had the pleasure to witness, during my long and turbulent life. (Occasional embellishment added when necessary) Life is just better than the best comic skits. A freilichen purim to all!

Bitul-Torah
Why was the siddur in my hand rather than in a bag I can’t recall anymore, but when I realized that mistake it was already too late. Before I even had a chance to ask the fare to Jerusalem, the cab driver had ripped the siddur Vilna out of my hand, and was ecstatically yelling “Walla*! The ADMO”R of Vilna! That’s incredible! Do you realize?! Do you realize who the ADMO”R of Vilna was? He had 17 minutes of bitul-Torah in his whole life!!! Se-ve-n-teeeeeeeeeeeeeen minutes!!! – That’s incredible!” He stressed every letter of ‚seventeen’. Before I could open my mouth, he had already ran over to his colleague, who was nonchalantly smoking a cigarette on a bench. “Moshe! Walla, Moshe! Did you ever hear of the ADMO”R of Vilna? He had seventeen minutes of bitul-torah in his life! Can you believe it, se-ve-n-teeeeeeeen!” Moshe didn’t look too impressed: „So what? I have much more than that.”

*Walla – (Arabic) the most common exclamation in Israel. May be used to express joy, sadness, pain, pleasure, anger, happiness and anything in between. (Certain rabbis forbid the use of this word, as literally, it means [I swear] by G-d).


Is it raining?
I had to stay in Amsterdam for some time, and got an apartment about three times bigger than I actually needed. The kind Yidden of Amsterdam selflessly relinquished their zchus of hachnosas orchim in my favor on a regular basis. One evening at Mayriv I noticed this guy talking to two Yerushalmim and pointing at me. I knew that he was telling them that I was the kindest person on earth and such things (there is a heter to lie for the sake of peace), and I also knew who would be my guests for the night. After a dinner over Jerusalmite memories and anecdotes, we went to sleep – the guests downstairs, my fresh family and myself upstairs.
I woke up to a peculiar and loud noise. While I was trying to figure out whether a BMW drove up to the top floor or the city was being bombarded, I noticed that it was raining. Not only outside, but inside the house as well. No, not just an ordinary leak dripping from the ceiling – bona fide rain, heavy rain, inside the house. (We later found out that the roof was being renovated –read: missing-, and on top of that a water pipe broke. The leak went through all the floors and caused major damages, down ‘till the ground floor.) My first reaction was to dash to my baby’s crib to check if she was allright. Once that was covered, I went to see downstairs. Same rain all over. And then I saw something I shall never forget: the two Yerushalmis were sitting at the kitchen table with their hats and hat-covers on, calmly drinking coffee, smoking and schmoozing as if nothing had happened. They would throw curious glances at ceiling at regular intervals, and just kept enjoying the Amsterdam weather in the greatest possible tranquility. When they saw me, they asked in chorus –in the world’s most casual tone “?עס רעגענט אייביק אזוי – Does it always rain like that?”


Definition of Judaism
“Of course I Jewish! I have menoooooorah, I have mezzzzzuuuuzah, I have ‘dotter’ learn in ulpan in Tel-Aviv! Of course I Jewish!” (This was the lady from the ground floor whose newly installed six inch deep carpet got ruined in the rain from the previous story, when I asked her if she was Jewish, upon noticing the mezuzah.)


Definition of Orthodox
“You mucho oftodox. I know. You mucho, mucho oftodox. I know dat. Cos you have dis” (shaking the corner of my jacket) “I see you do dis fo’ yo’ G-d” (mimicking shockeling) “You mucho oftodox.” (A Chinese chef on how he discovered my doxy.)


Definition of Orthodox II
“I am Orthodox. Tefilin I don’t have…” A distant relative, about his piety.


Bang!
Milk and chocolate milk in Israel are packaged in plastic bags. The Israeli kids have an ancient tradition of blowing up their emptied shoko bags and stomping on then, making a loud “bang”. So naturally, when Avi spotted an empty shoko, all blown up, lying in the school corridior, he did not miss the opportunity – running from the end of the corridor, he gave it his mightiest stomp ever. But he got more than he expected: the walls, floors and his clothes were all covered in spoiled chocolate milk, while a bunch of kids were laughing their innards off at their prank.

Kashrus alert
The family was gathered around the table, and as the mother put the steaming chicken soup down, a large kitchen utensil fell into the pot. After the walls and participants were all splashed with soup and jumping around, and the commotion began clibing down its climax, the youngest kid, a somewhat absent minded, dreamer type boy of about 5 looked up and asked in vivid surprise “What?! What happened?! It was milchig?”


Archaic
An American girl boarded an Egged bus in Jerusalem, asking the driver “כמה ממון? Kama mamon?”. Without missing a beat, the driver snapped “תרי זוזי - Trei zuzei!”*.
*the term ‘mamon’ (currency, finance) is totally out of place and archaic-sounding in this context. The ‘zuz’ was a coin in ancient Israel and Babel.)

Convincing Argument
A Jamaican guy was trying to convince an American guy that reggae music is far superior to rock’n’roll. He had a rock solid argument: “Rock just goes tananana, tananana, tananana, but reggae,” -ah, that’s so much more subtle- “goes Boom-boom bamm-bamm, boom-boom bamm-bamm”.

The Ascention
A known Chabad-hater who’d never miss an opportunity to take a stab at Lubavitchers, surprised us when he stated during a conversation that turned to Chabad: “It’s really a pity the the Rebbe didn’t have children”. A silence fell as we all gave him inquiring looks, because that by far wasn’t a nasty enough comment. So, with the typical thumb-motion and niggun of a good yeshivisha teiretz, he explained: “Since the Rebbe was God, his son would have been the Son Of God. Then the Chabadskers would have left us alone and gone to screw the Catholics’ minds!”


Pretty woman
A Haredi guy was sitting on the bus, and the only vacant seat left was next to his. A frei couple boarded the bus, but couldn’t sit next to each other as they wished. Then they started whispering among themselves, and the girl sat down next to the frum guy. Disappointed at the failure of his stratagem, the boyfriend asked his sweetheart’s neighbor “Doesn’t the Torah forbid a man sitting next to a woman?” “Yes” came the answer from the astute Yeshiva bocher “but that only applies to a pretty woman!”


Critical thinking
This soliloquy was delivered to me in the "shababnik" (“bum”, dropout, good-for-nothing) section of a Hassidishe shul, of which I was a founding member.
-These Hassidim, they are bums, mamesh bums. They are boors and amei-ha’arets. They know nothing. Nothing but picking their noses, fressing kugel and wiping their greasy hands in their bekitshes. And those Rebbes are opportunistic fat slobs. Have you ever seen a thin Rebbe? Never. Corrupt ganefs, every last one of them. OK, you’ve got a few exceptions, like Phillip and Stein, but the vast majority are ignoramuses. Ignoramuses, mamesh ignoramuses. No Yiddishkeit, no goyishkeit. Just like the Mizrachnikes – they made up their own version of Yiddishkeit, and made a circus of it, these clowns. Can’t read a blatt gemore, distort all poskim, they only read those bubbeh-maises in hassidishe sforim. They sleep late, daven late…. (After eight more minutes of this I asked him why hadn’t he gone davening in the Litvisha shul across the street – the shul in which we both ‘officially’ belong)
- I woke up late. Also, I can’t stand those Yeshivish people. They’re snobs, snobs, every last one of them. They’re the most evil people on earth. Lucky they don’t have any money. If the Litvaks had any money, they’d destroy the whole world… (After a few more minutes of this it was time for mussaf, so I was saved. This was the same guy from the bus in the previous story.)


Growth hormone
-Itzik!
-Yes commander!
-Why didn’t you shave?
-Nothing grew, commander!
-So why is your face all covered with “spikes”?
-That grew yesterday, commander!


Not a racist
My wife was telling me that she called at work, but it took that stupid schwartze half an hour to tell her that I was gone already. (As I wasn’t there they called a guy whose last name is Joseph). I told her that he isn’t a schwartze but Indian. “Oh, he’s such a nice guy!”

Polygamy
-Yossi! A whole day you’re sitting on the computer! It became your second wife!
-Chas v’sholem! It’s my first wife!


Original
“Of course all languages come from Hebrew! That’s evident!” yammered the cab driver to the linguist, who realized all too late that you simply don’t argue with an Israeli cabbie. “There are plenty proofs. Do you know how they say “egzoz” (the "official" Hebrew for exhaust pipe) in English? – Egzozt!”


Porky
“So what does this drunkard Noach do, first thing coming out of the arch? He plants a grapevine and gets stoned. Then his son Ham sodomizes him. So Ham got a curse to become a schwartze and a slave forever, and now all of humanity has to suffer. And ever since, the Jews don’t eat pork, because of this Ham” (A gentile chef with special affinity for medrashei chazal and racial equality)


Profession
The desperate teacher again admonishing the worst kid in class “What will be of you, Kobi? You never listen, you flunk all tests, your parents have to be called to Yeshiva every other day, you didn’t learn one word the whole year! What will become of you? What do you want to be? A chaver Knesset?”


Dead prank
A husband decided to pull the ultimate prank on his wife: he’d make believe that he committed suicide! So he staged a state of the art mock-hanging in his living room, tying a rope around his waist, concealed under his clothing, and the mock-rope around his neck. However, he was the one surprised when the maid came in, and, unimpressed by her employer’s tragic fate, started stealing the valuables around the house. Unable to climb down fast enough, all the poor guy could do was give a light kick in her rear-bumper when she walked by. She got a heart attack and dropped dead.

Live prank
This guy stayed home one day, and decided to fix a few things around the house. The fridge needed some more professional attention, so he called a technician. As the cooling expert was kneeling with his head in the refrigerator, Mrs. Came home. Not knowing that there was a stranger in the house, she slapped her “husband” on the buttocks. The startled techie gave a sudden jerk, which resulted in a powerful head-knock on the fridge’s top. When the medics heard the story, they laughed so hard the poor lad fell off the stretcher and broke an arm.


Water to wine
-Hello, the water company here
-Yes?
-We’re working in the area, can you please do me a favor? Just open the tap and let me know what happens? Thank you so much.
-There’s water running
-Did you expect Coke, you moron?
(a young kid’s favorite prank call)


Wet dream
I was sautéing some vegetables in a skillet, and as I gave a little too strong shake, some oil splashed out. A drop landed on my thigh, and that really hurt. Startled, I jumped backwards, realizing that I was lying on my folding bed in the tent. I had fallen asleep with a cigarette in my hand, and it burned a hole in my pants and touched my leg. A guy who witnessed the incident (and didn’t wake me up, just to watch the fun!) remarked, “Now that's what I call a real wet dream!” (“Wet” as in “Wet training” refers to training exercises with live ammo.)


WomanA lady was davening in a corner of the workplace corridor. A frum employee pointed out to the security guard that she was turned in the wrong direction. He just made a dismissive hand motion saying “אשה– woman”

© Joseph Izrael 2007

Appetite For Destruction

The Jewish bankers control world economy and suck the Christians’ hard earned riches and money. The Jews are responsible for the 1929 stock market crash, world communism, freemasonry, and control all medias worldwide. Jews drink Christian blood, have big noses and plot to overthrow governments. Rabbis hide CB’s in their beards and their tooth fillings, and are all child molesters.

So claim some of our best ‘friends’. Even more painful is when some of our own wayward kin make more subtle, albeit similar claims. The Karaites, Helenisers, Zionists, Jewish Communists, Reformers and others have used similar rhetoric, in either concealed or not so concealed terms. The authentic Jew has been vilified, persecuted and incited against even by his own creed. But the most gut-wrenching experience is to hear this contempt-filled incitement and enraged hatred from our very own ‘orthodox’ or pseudo-orthodox brothers.

The oral diarrhea spurting forth of some websites calling themselves ‘progressive Judaism’ or similar media-borrowed monikers spew their hatred with greater zeal and bigger success than all “white supremacist” organizations combined together. Packaged in endless caring and hope for downtrodden miserables or for the well-being of the community itself, these Jewish anti-Semites fancy that they can hide behind such frail veils. But they are very mistaken. Even their target audience often sees through their evil intentions. Every day a new topic emerges, and somehow the Orthodox community, and especially its leadership, is again besmirched, smeared and accused for all of the world’s ills. They detest true Judaism with all their hearts, all their souls, and all their being.

Criticism is necessary for the preservation of any society – and Jewish history is par excellence loaded with its greatest leaders being criticized and chastised at every turn. The stretch, however, from that to willful vilifying, slandering and inciting is very long. Even when the nucleus for their ‘criticism’ is a valid topic, they use it as an excuse to bark and roar like bloodthirsty hounds. The end result is invariably a haughty smirk or an outright spit in the face of authentic Judaism. Their reason for doing it is one and only: hate. Whether this uncontrollable flow of hatred pours forth because they can’t stand to see entire communities renouncing the material temptations that are at a hand’s reach and dedicate themselves to the ways of Torah, or for other reasons, I can’t tell. But it is obvious that just as they or their fathers have left that kind of life behind, they want to force us to do the same.

Even more distressing is that some of our own have tacitly and cunningly endorsed certain of these hatemongers and their rhetoric. But make no mistake – our enemies have proven to make us stronger while destroying only themselves. Like all the false ideologies that arose in the last three thousand years, they will be blown away by wind like the autumn leaves. And even the beneficial effect to their hate-ridden hisses – namely, weeding out the true evil from our midst and correcting our own wrongdoings – will not be credited to them.

© 2007 Joseph Izrael

Stairway To Heaven

I tried to avoid the EL-AL ban controversy for various reasons, first and foremost because it does not pertain to the purpose of this site, as well as time and energy constraints. I’m a full-time chef, entertainer and psychologist even when on vacation. I sometimes wonder whether heilige Darwin created evolved all those amazing species only to give my dear children another excuse to spend my time and money, or to create more jobs within another arm of the entertainment and bioscience industries. He was a hell of a capitalist, you’ve gotta give it to him.

Some time ago a Moshe Feiglin article caught my attention as being the most witty and interesting among all that has been said and written on the subject. Here’s a short summary of his ideas (but reading the whole article is very strongly recommended):

…"[Y]ou are the one with the greater interest that the State should supply the atmosphere of Jewish identity. Both of us want our children to retain their Jewish identity. But your children will need a generally Jewish environment in order to retain their identity much more than my children."
"O.k., I understand," he said, "but what does that have to do with El Al?"
"The Shabbat is one of the foundations of Judaism," I answered. There is no Judaism without Shabbat. Shabbat is very important to me and that is why I prefer to have the people with the greatest interest in its preservation decide. I don't want to decide if El Al should fly on Shabbat. I want you to decide.
"Me?"
"That's right. You! I don't want religious parties or religious legislation. The more religious parties and religious legislation that we have in this country, the less Jewish identity we have. The majority of the public wants to preserve our Jewish identity. Why turn it into coercion and push the large traditional sector into the waiting arms of the small anti-religious minority? I want to break out of that cycle. I want you to take responsibility for your Jewish identity. We are both on the same side. I don't want the job of coercing you into anything. I completely rely on you. You can decide if El Al should fly on Shabbat." …

Despite the strong arguments and interesting angle of presenting the subject, I respectfully digress. Besides for Israel having been created as the Jewish state, and as such having an evident obligation to preserve at least a bare minimum of symbolic adherence to Jewish tradition, the argument itself is fallacious. Applying self-discipline to the legal system is a script for anarchy and abolition of the rule of law. So why not abolish all fiscal laws and penalties in order for people to be able to self-define their moral discipline and integrity? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if theft and robbery were thwarted solely by the people’s honesty instead of the fear of sentencing? Unfortunately, reality teaches us otherwise. And so too, even though within democracy’s parameters we’d be hard pressed to prevent Israelis from desecrating Shabbos, we must however prevent this from happening via something that represents the state which, in the eyes of many –justifiably or otherwise-, symbolizes Judaism.

The true approach came through the lens a Mishpacha magazine reader in the letters to the editor:

“I respectfully but vehemently disagree with your explanation of the El Al issue. You refer to their decision, when they flew on Shabbos, to “slap this community in the face”. You mention their lack of “any sensitivity to our feelings”, and so on. While there’s a lot of truth in your words, I think they slightly, but significantly, miss the point:
The early days of the Battle for Shabbos in fledging Israel, waged in Kikkar Shabbos and at the Edison’s Theater, saw some of “Jerusalem’s finest” fighting with their heart and soul and sacrificing their bodies for kedushas haShabbos. But their screams were more than outrage; they were cries of pain accompanied by tears for Yiddishe neshamons straying away from hachayim v’hatov. They cried for Hashem’s Shabbos and for Hashem’s children, not for their own sensitivities.
Today, one struggles to hear, under the war cries of “Shabbos!” on Bar Ilan Street, any echoes of those earlier convictions. As in many areas, we mimic the actions we saw our elders doing, but we’re lacking the pnim. That same “Shaaaabbbooossss!” that once arose out of our ahavas Hashem – and, yes, even out of ahavas Yisrael – today seems to come from a source of pure contentiousness, if not animosity. It’s as if the “struggle for Shabos” has degenerated into a soccer match: Shomrei Shabbos vs Mechalelei Shabbos; let’s see who’s stronger.
Perhaps this is just another manifestation of the unfortunate fragmentation within Israeli society in which everything is seen in terms of “us” and “them”. Perhaps the secular media is to blame for that. Perhaps it’s the inevitable outcome of a system of coalition politics, where everything comes down to miflagtiyut, party lines. But shouldn’t we be above that? Is it really our Shabbos or Hashem’s?
The attitude of “they can’t trample a community like ours” has a ring of black power ballyhoo. Similarly, the increasingly prevalent attitude of chareidim demanding their rights as a powerful consumer bloc is more is more benefiting a consumer union dedicated to financial benefit than those who claim more rarified ideals.
Did El Al insult us when they flew on Shabbos? Did they disrespect our feelings? Did they “deal a ringing slap in the face of their most loyal customers”? Yes, yes, yes.
But more importantly they desecrated Hashem’s Shabbos. To focus elsewhere is to miss the point entirely.”

Shloimi Kolko
Jerusalem

© Joseph Izrael 2007