Animal (Fress Like A Beast)

Conservatism Is A Mental Disorder, Pt I


“Bees do it, birds do it is not the same as f**k like a beast”, thundered former 2nd lady, St. Ripper Gore from the podium.
No, this is not a joke. Tipper Gore actually founded the PMRC - parents concerned about violent and sexual content in music, no kidding. After thirty years of rock’n’roll, sex, and drugs, Tipper the stripper has the nerve to get on the podium in front of congress and scold rock bands for using graphic language and stage antics! I could never understand why the Tsarina of a party funded by Larry Flint, George Soros and Viacom would make such a statement.
I later came to realize that there was indeed something very deep in Tipper & Co’s attack on idiotic pop stars.
“Bees do it, birds do it” in fact legitimizes and internalizes permissiveness, which is of course addictive. Overly sexual and brutal songs, however, rather ridicule, or at least lift the seal of sanctity from sexual freedom, and push it in the category of teenage rebellion. And that bothers Tipper & Co. They don’t want depravity to be a passing teenage fad. They don’t want hedonism to be the anti-establishment – they want it to be the establishment. But they can’t do so openly. So they have to honey-coat it in “love” and Rousseau-esque “bees do it, birds do it”…

The right-wing morons, of course, joined in the chorus, thinking that the leftists have any regard to decency, “and have their limits too”. They watched from the sidelines how Marxists and pornographers were taking over the educational system, the media and the entire establishment.
The right surrendered to the lefto-Nazis in the very same way the West now surrenders to Islam. Honoring a set of freedom-based rules and principles is a clear disadvantage when facing those who do not abide by them. The enemy, of course, is usurping and exploiting those freedoms at will.
Thus quasi-porno mags are sold at supermarket check outs, but the capitalist moron feels it would be “oppressive” to take them off the shelf. The promise of an extra dollar, of course, is also a tenet in the Capitalist Bible, and since we abide by the separation of church and business, you won’t find a decent mag that may actually teach our youth something other than aspiring to become a slut on Sunset Boulevard.

Take for example Ruth Brownshirt-Gincburg, who, on one hand opines that the constitution is “not carved in stone” (therefore we should ape European law), yet believes that enemy combatants must be fully protected by the constitution.

And while the schutzstaffel were slowly but surely infiltrating every institution in the USA, the conservative moron was playing golf, running a business, and sending his children to drink Big Brother’s venom.

The American left came up with the world’s most brilliant strategy of dictatorship: let the people enslave themselves. One of the lies propagated in the USSR was that “the USA pays high salaries to its people in order to blind them to their misery”. They probably never imagined they weren’t all that far off the mark. In contrast to Communists, Nazis, and previous dictatorships who appealed to nationalism, force and pride, liberalism courted that which is equal in all flesh. By talking to the little “liberal” in us all, by legitimizing it, by absolving mankind from “אדם לעמל יולד”, the animal in us all rules supreme.
Now go fight it – but on what basis?



© Joseph Izrael 2008

Johnny The Fox vs. Fool's Gold

“Johnny the fox
he called to Jimmy the weed
said "hey man, I know your name...”
- “Johnny The Fox”, Thin Lizzy (Johnny The Fox, 1976)

I was very pleasantly surprised to read Jonathan Rosenblum’s critique of Chaim Eliav’s (Better known as “Moshe Grylak”, Mishpacha editor in chief) article about the Chassidishe drug dealers who got arrested in Japan.

In short – a few weeks ago some Chassidishe bochurim were lured in a drug scheme, and ended in a Japanese jail.
A little later, Eliav/Grylak writes an article saying that for the very least, these bochurim should have been far more cautious, and were probably thrilled by the adventure. But –now get ready for this- we should not worry about a thing: our system is absolutely perfect; we educate our children simply perfectly, and in our book, there isn’t even a scintilla of danger that anyone of “us” would ever get caught in such dire a situation. So how did it still happen? Drum roll, thunder, lightning; Merlin waves his magic wand, out of the hat jumps a bunny to tremendous applause: they weren’t real haredim! Wow! The Brisker Rav himself couldn’t have come up with a better chiluk!
Jonathan Rosenbloom wrote a surprisingly sobering article saying that we can’t go anymore pretending that it’s all blue skies forever darling, and that every problem will forever be swept under the rug with one idiotic teiretz after the other.

In sharp contrast, Avi Shakran produces yet another masterpiece of con, this time defending Argiprocessors. Although a member of the club that holds Lubavitch to be bigger cofrim than Christians, Alchemists, Wiccans and Voodoo combined together, when it turns into a haredim vs. the Delusional Solidarity of Lunatic Leninist Jews (led by Uri Ltzedek, PETA, YCT and other institutions of mentally crippled and emotionally unstable clowns – the same ones who claim that New-Caledonian Macaques can be converted to Judaism by teaching them “abracadabra”, “open sesame” and “shalom alechem”) issue, Agri are instantaneously bleached from all their crimes.

For Shafran, the fact that some 400 illegal immigrants were apprehended at Agri is probably no proof of any wrongdoing. In fact, dina demalchusa dina is not really applicable here, since Agri is located more than ten tfochim above US soil, which absolves them from US law, of course. And we know for a fact that those 400 jobs did not come at legitimate US citizens’ expense, since US citizens refuse to do dirty jobs. Besides, they’re anti-Semites. And it would be absolutely impossible to get 400 frum workers, besides it wouldn’t make any difference at all. Besides, everyone else does it. (This is in fact my favorite teiretz – I guess Rabbi Shafran, justifies everything else that “everyone does”…) And on and on he goes, harping endlessly on the assumption of innocence.

Shafran could have simply stated that Agri may very well be guilty of many things, however we should be careful not to rush to judgment on the word of a few demented hypocrite communist buffoons who openly advocate illegal immigration. Maybe he could have pointed out that the employment of illegal aliens is a widespread phenomenon plaguing all of the USA, and now that his bosses became aware of the problem, they will fight it tooth and nail. He could have, perhaps, pointed out that illegal immigration is detrimental to the orthodox community even more than to the entire nation. He might have suggested that Orthodox employers hire frum kids rather than rapists from El Salvador.

But he didn’t.

Maybe Shafran and his bosses have missed the news that nearly ten Orthodox Jews in Ramapo were indicted on charges of welfare fraud. When the power freaks turn on their own voters, it indicates one of two things; either that voter base is no longer important for the political prostitutes, or the situation got so bad that even the pigs from Animal Farm can’t close their eyes to it. Or a combination of both. And since the illegal worker hiring spot is happily operating under the watchful eyes of the non-corrupt Ramapo and Spring Valley police, who are busy pulling over 83 years-old grandmas for “speeding” (32 in the 30 zone) while the South-American gangsters sell dope and forged lottery under their noses. But every dog has its own day. If the Federal government and the State is no longer able to sustain the Hassidic community (read: families of 14 kids, all in private schools and outfitted in European designer clothes, big houses, everything fancy and the most expensive, with no work and no income) it won’t be able to feed the illegals for too long, either.

Bottom line is: the party is over. It won’t dawn on you in one day, but sooner or later it will. And pray it won’t be too late then, for Balack O’Bilama won’t save your sorry tusik. Instead, warn your people of the impending disaster, and instruct them that instead of $3000 shtreimlach, $600 bugaboos and $300 Gucci tichels, they'd better switch to a far more sober life - and stock up on arms and ammo.

But what do you expect from “rabbis” and “leaders” who don’t utter a peep against homosexual marriage, for fear of offending the darling politicians who hand out the benefits and peanut butter for their yeshivas?

“In the year of the famine
When starvation and black death raged across the land
There were many driven by their hunger
To set sail for the Americas

In search of a new life and a new hope
Oh but there were some who couldn't cope
And they spent their life
In search of fool's gold

...

The vulture sits on top
Of the big top circus arena
He's seen this show before
Knows someone is going to fall

Just near the part
Where the beautiful dancing tightrope ballerine
Forgets that the safety net
Isn't there at all

Down he swoops with claws drawn to take her
Razor sharp so savagely is she mauled
Oh my god, is there no one who can save her?
In steps the fox to thunderous applause

Fool's gold”

(“Fool's Gold” from same album)

© Joseph Izrael 2008

Dear Mr. Drekk

I am responding to you, who took the trouble to write a letter to Yated Ne'eman's editor, which you signed C.R. & M.F. from Fakewood.

You are two little pieces of drekk.
Not robbers, major criminals or bloodthirsty murderers. Just ungrateful little parasites.

How dare you even think the questions you ask, never mind asking them on the pages of a newspaper?
You are avrechei kollel who lack nothing. You readily acknowledge that your schvers and schvigers take care of all your needs, yet you are not ashamed to be annoyed by the fact that they dare expect you to say over some divrei Torah at the Shabbos table! How dare you! Let me please tell you something, Messrs C.R. & M.F.: when I hear you speak this way, I have a desire to convert to Christianity (or to kick the living daylights out of you). What you say is a chilul hashem of the first degree. First, you are obligated to respect your in-laws' wishes, as part of …כבד את אביך, whether they support you or not. קל וחומר בן בנו של קל וחומר since your entire Torah learning 'belongs' to them. But I guess “honesty”, “decency” and “integrity” are such schmutziga freia words heliga avreichim like you never even heard.

But your abysmal ingratitude stems from a far deeper problem. The entire generation of current full-time Torah learners, with few exceptions, is corrupt to the core. You learn on condition that you have all comfort and luxuries imaginable made available to you. You walk with your heads held high, you take your Torah for granted, and you imagine that the entire world ‘owes’ you. The majority of avreichim even engage in repugnant dependency on a plethora of governmental assistance programs, often acquired by outright fraud, deceit and lies - but in any case at taxpayers' expense. You parade yourselves and your families in new and expensive clothing, you live in big houses, drive new cars, and demand that the whole world respect and admire you – because you do G-d the great favor of churning the same twenty blatt of noshim & nezikin over and over.

Now listen to me, you generals of Sdom and people of Amorah, you who feed from the filthiest pig troughs on earth, the hands of politicians who push everything that G-d abhors - pornography, homosexuality, abortion on demand, special rights for criminals, terrorists and whoremongers -; you have breached your fiduciary duties with the Ribono shel Olam and Klal Yisroel. (Yes, learning the Torah and observing it is a fiduciary duty, in case you weren't aware of it). You claim to hold yourself to the highest standards of Torah and halocha, yet you sink lower than drug dealers. Those at least don't walk around pretending that they're the cream of the crop – and I'm sure they don't spit in their fathers-in-law’s faces. In case you weren't aware of it, the Torah has a בין אדם לחבירו part to it too. But for some reason, not one of all the new chumras instituted in the last forty years is בין אדם לחבירו (except when it comes to tell loshon hora about haimishe child molesters and embezzlers).

Let’s forget for a moment that you completely ignore, and often go head on against nearly all forty-eight requirements of kinyan Torah (פת במלח תאכל ועל הארץ תישן, בענוה, בקבלת היסורין, אוהב את התוכחות, ולא מגיס לבו בתלמודו, - just to name a few) – by spitting in your fathers-in-law’s faces, you not only violate one of the עשרת הדברות, but you’re also being ungrateful to the ribono shel olam.

You have, however, good mentors and accomplices in your abysmal arrogance, complacence and hypocrisy; your fathers-in-laws probably went in deeper debt they already were, and committed a few more dishonesties and indecencies to get enough dough for buying two ungrateful, disrespectful and worthless little ‘takhshitim’ like you. And they in turn mistoma learned from the heiliga roshei Yeshivos who do shidduchim exclusively with rich, white-collar elites who swim in 100% honestly earned dead presidents. (Maybe the "choshuva askonim" of BMG are already pushing for a $500 Bill with Clinton's face on it...)

In fact, your horrifyingly self-serving haughtiness is reflective of the secular society you claim to be so secluded of. Your letter is reminiscent of rebellious teenage rock anthems, whose basic “philosophy” is “leave us alone ‘cos we do whatever we wanna do, yeah yeah yeah!”

According to what I read in parshas bechukosai, it is behavior like yours that triggers all the klolos in the Torah. However, as far as I am concerned, if you do not mend your ways, it would be enough that you get two worms like yourselves for sons-in-laws, as a reward for your tzidkus.

PS –
Before you accuse me of ‘kollel bashing’ and ‘avrech hating’ take a moment to ponder that a) I’ve been in kollel too, but never took any government assistance or other forms of schnorring and b) as Torah scholars, you are to be held to the highest standards possible, (הקב"ה מדקדק עם צדיקים כחות השערה and כל הגדול מחבירו יצרו גדול הימנו) not just sneer and look down at everyone else.


ADDENDUUM PENDULUUM 7/8/'08:
I'm informed by a certain occasional Yated reader that the week following this letter, the schvers apologized(!!!) to their sons of b-oops, I mean laws. The week after, the SOL's admitted the letter was a hoax. Go figure. One thing is sure: I was right on the money about the stupid schvers, and even if the letter is actually a hoax, the attitudes are definitely prevalent in the impeccable, uncriticisable, perfect and flawless Yeshivisha Velt.

Oy Vey - Rabbi Anonimous informs that indeed there are some terrible problems in the Yeshiva velt: some avreichim show up as late as 4 minutes into brochos for shacharis, some families didn't get approved for sec8/HUD, and some misinterpreted a certain Rashbo on Yevomos. Oy Vey.

© 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

Raining Blood

On this day, the 27th of Nissan, the state of Israel celebrates the deaths of six million Jews with different ceremonies, the most important of them a minute of silence to remember the murdered.

The greatest celebration, however, is reserved for a group of misfits, - long-time splinters in the enlightened throat of the enlightened secular Israelis – who refuse, even in public, to stand still for one minute, trampling the martyrs’ memory.

The “alternative media”, i.e. extreme-leftist bloggers, can’t have enough harping about how the Belzer rebbe gave a speech promising that all will be well, while he fled Hungary in Januray ’44. With this story, which the mainstream media has dropped a while ago, they cunningly imply that the Belzer is in fact responsible for Hungarian Jewry’s massacre. (Because they know for a fact that all Hungarian Jews – including the anti-religious and anti-Zionists- would and could have escaped otherwise.[1])

Judging the Belzer rebbe is not my objective right now; for the moment, I’ll focus on what happened between the time the Belzer fled and the end of the war.

In March ’44, Hungary was invaded by their German allies. Eichmann immediately sets his death machine (which, in his trial, he dubbed “a medical experiment”) in motion.[2] The Hungarian population voluntarily packed the Jews from all over Hungary and Transylvania on cattle-cars and shipped them off to Auschwitz-Birkenau, to be gassed and burned.

But Eichmann is not the kind of guy to take chances – he needs the oven-fodder itself to take part in his medical experiment. So he summons Rudolf Kasztner, a Jewish Agency Rescue Committee factotum, befriends him, and trusts him with placating the Jews and keeping them docile. For the sake of fairness, and as hard as it may be, it shall be stated that this was an unnecessary precaution; the Jews loved pleasing their Hungarian masters. In mass graves discovered after the war, searchers found photos of Horthy in dead Jews’ pockets – the heiliga Horthy who oversaw two Jew-killings between the wars, and who authorized the transports (under Allied threat he had the power to stop them). This is the Horthy who is now hustled by Yad Vashem as a חסיד אומות העולם. But Israeli academia and its chihuahuas on the internet need to blame all the Jews’ (including the anti religious ones) docility on the Belzer. Now that’s what I call stellar honesty!

But let’s look at a few more facts:

Fact: Kasztner was possibly the only one who knew exactly what was going on and how. He knew of the gas chambers, the crematoria and where and how the transports were going. He was the only Jew in Hungary to have a private telephone line and an automobile. Yet not only he warns no one – he tells them that they are being relocated to Kenyérmező – literally meaning “Breadfield”, a non-existing 'transition camp'. The Klausenburger Ghetto (also known as Cluj or Kolozsvár), was guarded but by twenty arrow-cross guards, and is three miles from the Rumanian border. In short, Kasztner was a Holocaust denier[3], and still historians and medias are whitewashing him and his handlers.

Fact: The day before deportations begin, Eichmann sends Joel Brand to Palestine to negotiate a deal with the British to free Hungary’s Jews against trucks, coffee, tea and sugar. Is Eichmann serious? Would the British –now hell bent on ending the war- give it even a consideration? Probably not. But one thing is sure: Horthy caved in to allied pressure and stopped the deportations on June 8th. The heads of the Jewish Agency (Ben Gurion, Sharet, Kollek[4], et al) knowingly and purposely delivered Brand to the British’s hands. Brand was arrested and prevented from returning to Hungary. Had they concentrated all their efforts on rescue, the Allied could have possibly pressured Hungary to stop the deportations. They didn’t.

Fact: Scores of people testified in the Gruenwald case, accusing Kasztner of different degrees of collaboration with the Nazis and neglected his efforts to help Jews. Anna Szenes’s mother charged he gave her the cold shoulder when she begged him to intervene on behalf of her daughter. He refused to do as much as let her get a package to her daughter.

Fact: Even the Supreme kangaroo court, which was split on whether Gruenwald was guilty of libel, unanimously agreed Kasztner knowingly exonerated Kurt Becher and Hermann Krumey, saving them from the noose. (Note: the two Supreme Court Judges who reversed all of the district court’s other findings have sons now serving as supreme court justices. Mere coincidence, no question. Note: Becher later owned a grain company and traded with Israel. He died a rich man. Many Israelis accused Kasznter of splitting a suitcase full of gold -from teeth pulled out in death camps- with Becher.)

Fact: Joel Brand was ostracized, vilified and denied employment during the rest of his life.

Fact: Moshe Sharett refused to testify about the Brand affair during his entire life. Instead, he staged an idiotic memorial ceremony that ended in tragedy.

Fact: The Yishuv, the Jewish Agency and their media knew well what was going on in Europe (In fact, Chaim Weitzmann explicitly declared that the Jews of Europe must be abandoned to their fate[5]) yet refused to participate in any and all ways of rescue and raising awareness. In fact, in several instances they actively prevented rescue efforts[6].

Fact: At the onset of the war, Ben-Gurion declared that there was nothing they could do for European Jewry, hence there was no point wasting efforts and resources on them. Whatever subsequently happens to the Jews should be treated as “natural disasters”. The war should end by giving [the Jews] their own state. That should be the “political compass” to guide the Zionist movement during the war. [7]

All of these facts are unknown to the average Israeli, for they are not taught in schools and colleges, and the books dealing with the affair from an undesirable angle are all blacklisted from academia and bookstores. This, however, shouldn’t surprise anyone, as Israelis are largely ignorant of their own heritage (Tana”ch, Gmora) and history, for similar reasons. And these people and their political descendents have the gall to blame others for not resisting or not encouraging Aliyah prior to the war!

When you hear the siren wail, know that you hear the sound of murder, coverup, coercion and vilification. When you hear the wail, know that it is meant to suppress the wail of the gassed martyrs who have been used by the Labour for their own game.

So next time you hear the siren wail, don’t just stand there like an Isra-zombie. Walk, head held high, and defy the lie, defy the coverup, defy the betrayal.

_______________________
Endnote: ‘Raining Blood’ is a stage classic of American thrash metal band ‘Slayer’. The band has been accused of Nazism, due to their image, logo and lyrical themes. They half-heartedly denied the accusation, stating that they are merely “interested” in the subject of Nazism and the holocaust ודי למבין.

© Joseph Izrael 2008

Operation: Mindcrime

Our times are often touted as “the age of information”. But it is also the age of misinformation. Because information inconvenient to the powers-that-be is not only suppressed and purged from all forms of academia, but countered in big, glossy official misinformation campaigns.

Says Ruth Linn of the Technion: “Ever since I saw the Lanzmann documentary, this question stayed in my mind: Am I the only crazy Israeli who fell asleep in class when we studied this in the Holocaust? Or maybe we never studied it ... In terms of literature, [Escape from Auschwitz: I cannot forgive] is in the class of Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel, first-class novelists of the Holocaust. But then I turned the book back and forth and I see on the cover, “First published 1963”, and the year is 1994. I said to myself, “Where has this book been for 31 years? I never read about it in Israel.” [*]

We need not suspect Linn of being a charedi stooge. I honestly doubt the Gerrer Rebbe is investing money and time to alter the course of academic consensus. But she is clearly in a very small minority of historians who ever address the subject. In her book escaping Auschwitz: a culture of forgetting, she further alleges that a “family of Israeli historians” have spinned Rudi Vrba’s story to fit their agenda. Who is this “family of historians”? They are the stooges of the Labour party, the ruling bureaucrats of the State of Israel, whether they are actively in power or not. Their ‘leader’, so to speak, is Yehuda Bauer, a dye-in-the wool apparatchik of Mapam and Mapai.

But what am I talking about at all? I’m talking about the willful, premeditated and purposeful obfuscation, purge and confusion of the Kasztner affair and its extended implications (namely, that the leftist-Zionist ruling elites knowingly sabotaged any and all rescue efforts during the Holocaust in order to retain power, further their ideology and defeat their political opponents).
In mainstream Israeli curricula there is absolutely zero mention of the entire affair. In higher education, the affair is being misinterpreted and presented from the sole point of view of the mainstream left. But the mainstream left has two little thorns in its ribs: the hardcore left’s historians, now marketed as “new historians”, and the eternal splinter in Israel’s eyes; the evil, filthy, degenerate charedim, those vermin who plague Israeli society, rob it of its freedom, its identity and its wonderful welfare services.

The new historians are in sync with the mainstream left about Kasztner – but little else. According to them, the Revisionists, and especially their armed divisions, the Lechi, Etzel and “the Stern gang” are simply terrorists, no different than Hamas, Fatach and Hizb’Allah. So far, this is fairly in line with the Mapai (now Labour) party line, albeit a bit too explicit to the Peresoid Wizards of Oz(rael). But to their misfortune, the new historians hold Mapai, Ben-Gurion’s party, as almost equals of the Revisionists. To them, Mapai were hatemongers who instigated a “30 years war” (now 60) with the Arabs. And to this end they are willing to shed light on many crimes that were taboo for a very long time in Israel’s academia and history curriculum.

To the Labour’s even greater horror, the works of certain historians and authors “have been harnessed” to the “charedi conspiracy theory” that Kasztner and his clique, indeed, collaborated with Nazis to a great extent.

This trend is, however, very far from reaching anywhere near ‘mainstream’ status, in either academia or even popular distribution. The Labour, though, is now in high gear to counter this tiny and sadly insignificant trend. It’s well known that Ben Hecht’s Perfidy was censored for a long time in Israel. (Later it was available only with a “refute”, published by Mapai. The “refute” was so childish and idiotic that the Israeli censor soon realized it harmed their position more than Perfidy itself, so it was pulled off the shelves.) But it is in print again, and is widely available. New studies and information reaffirming all that was said therein emerge all the time, but the internet makes it hard to censure completely.

Thus, any book or opinion which runs contrary to “academic consensus” (read: what Labour wants you to think) is being suppressed and purged from any and all educational institutions. New books, reports and exhibitions in different Holocaust research and commemoration establishments (mostly Yad Vashem) are being aggressively promoted. According to Yehuda Bauer, people should learn about the Holocaust only from Yad Vashem.

But why the panic? Haven’t Israel’s traitors learned that the best censorship is freedom of speech? Isn’t “let ‘em say whatever they want, we’ll just ignore them” the modus operandi of contemporary Western pseudo-democracies? What are they afraid of, why the sudden rush?

Because we stand at the end of an era. The last eyewitnesses of the Holocaust are joining the eyewitnesses who didn’t live to tell their tale. And with them will die the memories of betrayal, the memories of Weitzmann and Ben-Gurion’s steamroller that flattened all hope of salvation for two million Hungarian Jews, paving the way for the Mapai State. So Jewish children don’t learn about Joel Brand, how he was arrested, they do not learn about Stephen Wise and Sally Myer, teachers don’t tell them about Henry Morton and the Evian convention, just as they ignore Hillel Kook (a.k.a. Peter Bergson), Michael Bear Weissmandl, Rudi Vrba, Alfred Wetzler and others, who have a tale different than Mapai’s.

Now is a crucial time for the ruling elite to clear their name forever, and determine how History will portray them.
And that is why they are on a rampage now. Every trick and tactic will be used to rewrite history and mislead the public. Historians, librarians, websites, books, magazines, spin doctors and every imaginable vehicle of information are now being revved up to put a thick layer of gloss on the Mapai leaders’ crimes. It is imperative not to let History be misshapen, not let the Left’s crimes be forgotten, and not let them become the Jewish Nation’s saviors.

And there is an even greater, more sinister, and more pressing reason to examine the past from an independent point of view. For “מה שהיה הוא שיהיה ומה שנעשה הוא שיעשה ואין כל חדש תחת השמש- For that which has been is what shell be…” Just as then the Labour were betraying their brothers to the Nazis for political gain, today they sleep with the Arabs while abandoning us again. And just as back then different factions were busier warring one another than concentrating on rescue and salvation efforts, so too we’re busier today with concerts and bans and politics and vindication and finger-pointing.

And, with our now-characteristic docility, we merrily march to the slaughter again.


© Joseph Izrael 2008

Drinking With The Devil

Dear Rabbi Horowitz,
I was delighted to read your recent articles about child abuse awareness and prevention, as well as denouncing violence and bullying within the “Charedi community”. But I was also a little saddened, as by doing so without the proper disclaimers, you have further aligned yourself with some of the worst elements within the Jewish people.

I am talking about the so-called “bloggers” (Especially “Dov Bear”, Shmarya and Mayrles), self-appointed heralds of absolute truth and honesty. But in reality these windmill fighters and weekend warriors aren’t as honest as they claim. Even if you think my assertion that they are outright enemies of the Torah and Klal Yisroel are exaggerated, you should consider a few facts: besides for constantly denigrating, defiling, slandering and vilifying all haredim, including the most respected rabbis, explicitly or implicitly, these people have been fuming about every report -verified or not- of anything that might even be remotely construed as ‘violence’ by “haredim”. Every such incident becomes an irrefutable truth, seen from one side only, and they run the story over and over, encouraging the most disgusting and inflammatory remarks in their comments sections. Yet, when the opposite happens, they stay quiet as a grave. For example, all of these “bloggers”, as if by secret agreement, have systematically ignored any and all reports of the Neo-Nazi gangs in Israel (and even refused to mention them when asked to do so), despite the fact that many of the Nazis’ victims were these bloggers’ darlings: prostitutes, homosexuals, foreign workers, homeless people etc. The website pogrom.org has been active for seven years now, and comes up in search engines. The site claims over 500 incidents of Neo-Nazi violence, which the Israeli media refused to cover until the recent events that could not be ignored, as foreign media picked them up. Had these bloggers joined forces with pogrom.org.il, perhaps the worst attacks could have been prevented. But these bloggers -who focus on many current issues- still ignore this, among other important cases. This is but one of many clear indications that they are motivated not by a sense of justice and righteousness, but by sheer hatred of the Torah and the Jewish people.

There is, however, another reason why you have become the darling of these people who call you “my friend” or “a courageous warrior”. From the admittedly little of your works I have read, I seem to understand (I’m aware that this is an oversimplification) that it is your belief that incorporation of more recreational activities in charedi curricula and everyday life may prevent youth from sliding ‘off the derech’. While this approach has many merits, unfortunately it only targets the symptoms, not the malady. The real problem is that we live an extremely materialistic and selfish world, and in this day more than ever before, our prosperity and addiction to leisure has marginalized true faith and Yiddishkeit to the smallest proportions. We practice “disposable Judaism”, not akin to the true burning devotion of our forefathers. We work for a big house and big car, and do G-d a favor by learning Daf Yomi and daven mincha/maariv. We pat ourselves on the shoulder for keeping kosher and attending kosher concerts and sending our children to religious schools. But how many of us truly live the Torah? How many of us really feel and live in this world as guests in an antechamber and not permanent residents? How many of us are fully conscious that we work, eat and sleep to serve Hashem? I believe that it is this emptiness our youth truly runs from. And few have the guts to admit it. I understand this approach may not be too popular with the rich (and seemingly rich) people whose children you educate, but it is no reason to deny it.

The Jew-hating bloggers love your approach not because its efficiency, but because it fits their agenda of diluting and synthesizing Torah with Western Culture and values of putting the material, the leisure and fun before and above anything else. These are the same bloggers who have bullied none other than you by forcing you to take the Aguda logo off your site. (You can take my honest word that I am no big Aguda fan, - as far as I’m concerned, it could have been the Blue Öyster Cult’s logo. But the point is, they bullied you and you bent to them, all the while they accuse others of bullying.)

When talking about “… ‘Walled’ communities are the dream setting for a child molester.” I believe it should be made absolutely clear that we’re talking about the structural walls in establishments and families where one feels bad reporting a friend/employee/relative, and not the “walls” separating us from the surrounding culture. The main cause of our troubles is too much capitulating to the ‘outside’ world and wrapping it in a kosher black coat. Despite what these “bloggers” would like everyone to believe, fraud, dishonesty and child abuse are not generated by ‘frumkeit’. They’re generated by putting up a show of mock-frumkeit, all the while living like barons.

I hope that you don’t have your allegiances in the wrong place, Rabbi Horowitz, and hope you will make it very clear.


© Joseph Izrael 2008

A Monetary Lapse Of Reason

Yonason Rosenblum has a good article about helping Jewish schools cope with their financial burden. In short, he proposes a voluntary community “tax”, or fund, if you will, that would be evenly distributed between the local schools. Unfortunately, he leaves all too many variables out of the equation. This system worked well in the Windy City, where the community is by far not as large as in Brooklyn, Lakewood and Monsey. He also forgets that unlike Chicago, -home to more wealthy people and less schools-, in the aforementioned towns the ratio is vice-versa.

Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz tells us that we should deal with the challenge of Internet as small business owners facing a Wal-Mart arriving in Town. The hands-on details are to follow, he reassures us, and I am eagerly awaiting them.
Maybe lost on many of his readers, his comparison is a tongue-in-cheek joke on an actual Wal-Mart arriving straight to the heart of Monsey’s frum –mostly Hassidic- business district. The controversy has been dealt with upon the pages of Pinchy Salzberger’s rag, as well as a blog originating from Chic-ago. They both missed the point –or willfully distorted it- by saying that Hassidim oppose Wal-Mart because it would have a negative influence on their children, meaning the semi-pornographic celeb magazines at the check-out desks or the un-tsniusdik dolls in the store.

But they couldn’t have been more wrong. Many Hassidim shop in the Airmont Wal-Mart (two miles down the road from the controversial Wal-Mart in question). As they shop for “Bratz” dolls galore and other highlights of Western Civilisation, they don’t seem to be bothered by the mags, nor the fact that their young children stare at them. So what takeh motivates the Hassidim to join their dreaded enemies, Preserve Ramapo, in opposing the Monsey Wal-Mart? The simple fact is that it threatens many hassid-owned businesses, from groceries to toy stores.

Internet access for children is a totally different story. I’m not sure how it compares to a big business coming to town threatening small businesses. And perhaps the Internet raises a question of a much more global proportions: how to relate with Western civilization? So far, in my humble opinion, most approaches have, even if not outright failed, proved rather ineffective. The Hassidic emptiness has left real Judaism out of the picture, and absorbed the lowest of Western culture in an external frame of traditional garb and superficialities. Modern Orthodoxy has successfully integrated itself in left-wing intelligentsia while its adherents either leave the “Orthodox” or the “Modern”. The Yeshivish world is still somehow clinging on to Torah, albeit steeped in a little more oilom hazeh from Uncle Sam than they’d like to admit.

Now that the seven-headed dragon comes into our homes via his world wide web, we are forced to face reality – something we haven’t adequately done. Pasteur observed peasant women scratch off their cows’ pox and rub it on their children to immunize them. It is still a more a gut feeling of mine, rather than an opinion, that we could adopt a similar approach. The devil lies in the details, and the actual carrying out of the plan is not done as easily as said.

Ditto for the Rosenblum initiative that worked so well in Chicago. In all honesty, I doubt it would work in any Judeopolis at all. Who would contribute to a common school fund? The food-stamp father marrying off his ninth child, supporting another eight in collel, the MO actuary making $100K and having a budget of $300K, or the ‘gvir’ who donates millions to all the big mosdos anyway? And does anyone honestly believe that groups antagonistic to one another will gladly throw their money in the hat? Something tells me otherwise.

Hassidic groups are very protective, their money stays within the community, and teachers are basically paid by government subsidies and school freebies (free school and camp for a few kids – that’s not so little). Other schools are also secretive as to owners’ salaries and who gets tuition breaks and how much. I heard of a case when a parent offered to pay full tuition for his children (three, if memory serves) plus one extra as donation – on condition that the school opens the books. They refused.

I’m not sure there’s a magic solution to ease the burden on schools and tuition. A public school kid costs 11 to 18K, and the level of education is practically zero. Private schools achieve much more with much less, that’s unquestionable. But the voucher program wouldn’t be fair either. Orthodox Jewish families with numerous children would drain the state treasury faster than you could say “property tax”. But a little more openness and less exclusiveness from the schools would probably be of some help.

Perhaps if the spectator sport of schnorring and overall tolerating detrimental behaviors that breed poverty is successfully toned down, than schools could reach out to wealthy people outside their immediate constituency for support.


© Joseph Izrael 2007

להודות ולהלל לשמך הגדול

Drrrrrrriinnggg! I looked at the phone with contempt. “Which moron could it be now? Can’t they leave me alone at least on Sundays?”
- Hello
- Hi, Joe?
- Yes?
- Hi, this is such and such, how are you?
- Oh, Mr. Such And Such, how are you feeling? Is everything OK with you? “Good, I actually liked him. But what does he want from me? Now?”
- I’ll be in a little later; I’d like to talk to you a little, is it OK?
- Yes sure. Are you coming back? Did anything happen?
- No, no, we’re having a Hanukah party in the auditorium. You sure know about it. “Of course I know.” I think to myself, “But why do you need to remind me about it now? I have nothing to do with it.”
- Sure, sure, so I’ll see you later.
What on earth does he want from me? Probably some Hanukkah presents for the kids, I thought.

After the usual how are yous, how are you feelings and some small talk, he hands me over an envelope. I tried to protest, but he was adamant. “You really shouldn’t,” I told him, “I just did my job”. No, no, he protests, I feel you went out of your way for me. There was barely any truth to this, as we just made sure he got his meals in his room on time, and when his wife would come to visit he’d get an extra portion. Big deal.

The point is, he probably never made what I make now. And it would have been a lot easier for me to give him that sum than vice versa. But people who don’t have it easy are more appreciative.

When my kids calmed down a bit, after coming home from zaidie’s Chanukah party, with tons of presents galore and more tons of nosh in their stomachs, I sat them down and told them Mr. Such A. Such’s story. He had only one son, with severe mental retardation. Ditto for his second wife. They would never have any grandchildren to give presents to. They never knew the joy of a kid coming home with a scorecard. To take their children to the park. To tell them a story. To come home or leave a home filled with children’s laughter. And he did very much appreciate what was done for him. He remembered me after several months. He thanked me just for doing my job. I wasn’t doing my job for him, he knows this, yet he felt obligated.

Many things are said about Chanukah. Resisting Hellenism, the oil miracle, Torah Shebeal-Peh… but what we insert in davening is להודות ולהלל – to thank and to praise. And that includes perhaps not only the Chanukah miracle, but any and all daily miracles that we take for granted. Maybe a time to reflect on what we really say in ברכות השחר.

I don’t want to take these $50. If you have or know an organization that looks out for lonely people or that visits people in hospitals, let me know. I’d also like to thank the YU guys who came on Purim to make a party for the patients.

“Most people are so ungrateful to be alive. But not you. Not anymore.” Game not over!

© Joseph Izrael 2007

Demolition (Israel Syndrome - intermezzo)

Includes vague references to Part I
Part II
Part III

מי האיש החכם ויבן את זאת ואשר דבר פי ה' אליו ויגדה ל מה אבדה הארץ ונצתה כמדבר מבלי עבר
Who is the wise man who shall understand this, which the mouth of G-d spake to him, and tell why the land was lost and desolated as a desert with no passers through

The gmora in Bove Metsie (85a/b) interprets this posuk as a question “why was the land lost?” i.e. the Temple’s destruction and the exile. The sages, the prophets and the angels could not answer it, so The Holy One Bessed Be He answered himself “עַל-עָזְבָם אֶת-תּוֹרָתִי, אֲשֶׁר נָתַתִּי לִפְנֵיהֶם; וְלֹא-שָׁמְעוּ בְקוֹלִי, וְלֹא-הָלְכוּ בָהּ. – for they have forsaken my Torah that I gave before them and haven’t heeded my word and haven’t gone in it[s teachings]”. The gmora explains that this doesn’t mean that there was no Torah learning – but that the people wouldn’t “שלא ברכו בתורה תחלה…. They [the people] didn’t bless the Torah first”. According to the commentators, this means that the Torah wasn’t important in their eyes and was disrespected. Which is an oxymoron – how is it possible to toil day and night over the Torah and not holding dearly important?
But this explanation does not match any of the reasons given in various gmoras. According to the simple understanding, this refers to the first Temple’s destruction, as this is a verse in Yirmiyohu. But in Yirmiyohu’s times the Torah was literally abandoned – the sages and prophets needn’t have to be consulted on the matter. We also know that idol worship, adultery and bloodshed were ubiquitous, and this reason for the destruction is spelled out in scriptures. Furthermore, the land was not ‘lost’, in the sense that the Jews returned from exile seventy years later.

Joseph’s dreams have come true in a way he never dreamt himself; the tribes were not separated anymore – for they were lost… And still, there was no unity between them.
In the era of the second Temple’s destruction, there was intense Torah learning, and it was destroyed because of sinas chinom, baseless, vain or “free” hatred. So how was the land lost due to a lack of proper Blessings for Torah? And why was that so terrible as to cause the destruction and the exile?

Our sages explain that the word ברכה is rooted in בריכה – pool, in the sense of container, a storing of sorts, or source, from which the ‘blessing’ emanates. In other words, when we “make a brocha”, we acknowledge that G-d is the source and giver of that which we have. Meaning that it’s not us who ‘bless’ the Creator, but rather acknowledge him as the source of our blessing. This word ברכה is always used with the preposition על - on (for). We make a brocha on an apple etc. But here the gmora states “ שלא ברכו בתורה תחלה…. They didn’t bless in the Torah first”. This makes absolutely no sense. Blessing in something has no meaning. So why does the gmora expresses itself this way?

The utmost disrespect for something, or someone, is to know it well, deal with it on a daily basis, and blatantly ignore it, flying in its face. Achdus Yisroel, the unity of the Jewish people is the absolute crucial and central concept of the Torah. The revelation of the Torah would not have been possible without perfect and sincere unity. Toiling in torah has for its purpose the perfection of the soul, the polishing of the self, to achieve closeness to the Infinite. And perhaps the clearest indicator to such closeness and perfection is the love, the true brotherhood to the fellow Jew. And it’s also the hardest. Since the Torah has so many facets and aspects, and our History and backgrounds are so turbulent and different, it is a real challenge to respect one another without compromising our beliefs and the way Torah is. But it must be achieved – and it can; to cite “e pluribus unum”, for the sake of a cheesy cliché.

Maybe this is the true meaning of “שלא ברכו בתורה תחלה…. They didn’t bless in the Torah first”, they wouldn’t acknowledge that the blessing was in the Torah, the obligation of unity and solidarity. That the fulfillment of this commandment is also a condition, - a condition for G-d’s bestowing his blessing and protection on us. If there was sinas chinom, if the crucial concept in Torah, the very condition for its deliverance in the hands of our Nation, is abandoned, that is the utmost disrespect. And if the cornerstone is missing, the entire building collapses. Than all other rituals are meaningless motions – the Temple lost its unifying power, and as a result was destroyed.

May we open our eyes and begin to unite – in sincere brotherhood, despite our differences.

May we merit to be united, in life, and see our Temple’s building soon.