Audio: Michael Savage Lavishes Praise On Religious Girls He Met

http://matzav.com/michael-savage-lavishes-praise-on-frum-girls-he-met

The Real Meaning of Chanukah

Michael Medved on Chanukah:

The brutal truth about the holiday of Hanukah, which begins this year on December 5th, is that it is intensely and incurably politically incorrect. The heroes of the Hanukah story—the Maccabees—were uncompromising zealots and fundamentalists, vigorous representatives of the Judean "religious right" of the Second Century B.C.

There was nothing tolerant or relativistic about them: they risked their lives to take back the Holy Temple in Jerusalem from the Hellenistic multi-culturalists who had installed a variety of idols and pagan gods to provide worship alternatives. The very name Hanukah comes from the Hebrew for "dedication" or "consecration": it's about purification and re-commitment on a national and personal level, and standing up to misguided alien cultures, no matter how popular, seductive and powerful.

This year, when the Jewish holiday arrives nearly three weeks before Christmas, there’s a good chance to keep its bracing and challenging themes appropriately distinct from the generalized seasonal cheer.

How many people actually know this?!

The Great American Jewish Placebo

George D. Hanus, the chairman of the Superfund for Jewish Education and Continuity, admits that Reform and Conservative Judaism have only contributed to the assimilation and intermarriage of a huge swath of America's Jews.

The word "placebo" is derived from the Latin for "I shall please" and denotes a medical treatment whose only benefit is in the mind of the patient.

Throughout medical history and even as late as the late 1940's, sugar pills were prescribed by physicians in the hope that taking a pill would mobilize patients' internal powers to combat illness. It is the nature of a placebo that it works better for minor maladies than terminal diseases. A competent doctor would never administer an inert placebo when a genuine treatment was available.

The United States, as we all know, is a country of immigrants. For centuries, wave after wave arrived on these shores, fleeing persecution, hoping to better their economic condition and merge into the mainstream of American society

Jews are no exception to this pattern. Immigrant Jews rapidly learned English, adopted American dress styles and sent their children to colleges and graduate schools as they became respectable members of society. It is no accident that American Jews quickly moved out of poor urban neighborhoods into the suburbs and have become the most successful ethnic group in the United States.

Even while we were moving up the ladder, most Jews did not forget the Torah injunctions to remember our heritage. So we Jews set up neighborhood synagogues, spent our free time involved with Federations and Jewish fraternal organizations and built museums to remember destroyed Jewish communities. We collected money, attended meetings and ate chicken at fundraising dinners. And to religiously educate our children, we invented the Great American Jewish Placebo: Hebrew and Sunday school.

Imagine our surprise and shock, several generations later, when the placebo turned out to be a sugar pill. Our grown children did not follow in our Jewish footsteps. Today, a majority are intermarrying and assimilating. They are walking away from 4,000 years of Jewish history and we are shocked. After all, didn’t we do everything that our rabbinic and philanthropic leadership told us to do?

We provided good homes, sent them to top colleges, gave our annual charity pledges and even ensured their Jewish education in Hebrew and Sunday schools until bar mitzvah. When our children bitterly complained that they hated Hebrew school, while their friends were having fun in other after-school activities, we told them to hush because it was a rite of passage to suffer through Hebrew school just as we parents did. When they didn’t want to continue Hebrew school after the age of 13, we didn’t insist.

But we never imagined we would end up having grandchildren who have abandoned their heritage, know very little about Judaism and don’t believe in God. We never expected to visit their homes in December only to see a giant Christmas tree in the living room.

We are fortunate to live in a country that has allowed us to excel in every field of American endeavor without fear of persecution. But why have we not been equally successful at preserving our Jewish identity?

Part of the problem is the failed model of Hebrew and Sunday school. We delude ourselves that it will ensure the next generation of committed Jews. The great tragedy is that, by now, everybody knows it doesn’t work, yet we continue to go about business as usual. It is the Great American Jewish Placebo.

As documented by WJD's Mindy Schiller in last month’s cover story, "What’s Wrong With Hebrew School?" according to a new study by noted Jewish American sociologist Steven M. Cohen, the likelihood of intermarriage actually increases among students who attend once-a-week Sunday schools, and attending congregational school—two or more times a week, for less than seven years— hardly decreases that percentage. [Emphasis mine.]

"A little learning is a dangerous thing," wrote the poet Alexander Pope in the 18th century, and this seems to apply to Hebrew and Sunday schools today. In fact, at a recent conference of Jewish educators, Joel Hoffman, a language expert and congregational teacher, told The Jerusalem Post, "Our Hebrew schools aren't teaching Hebrew, the kids are miserable and are making the teachers miserable in the process."

So why do Hebrew schools still exist? Because they are funding mechanisms for synagogues, which depend on the dues of families paying for their children's bar/bat mitzvah and confirmation ceremonies to survive. If it weren't for Hebrew and Sunday schools, synagogues would have a lot of families show up from time to time without becoming members. The discontinuation of the Hebrew school model would disrupt the financial structure of congregational Jewish life in this country.

So if the dismal performance of Hebrew schools is one of the biggest open secrets in the Jewish world, why do they remain in place? Like all placebos, Jewish leaders and parents believe they have a benefit. Also, they are relatively inexpensive to administer. We have treated Jewish education as a communal joke by allocating laughable, paltry financial resources to our children's spiritual development.

It is time to declare Hebrew and Sunday school a placebo that is failing our community. After many decades of experience, few academics or rabbis would assert that our current Hebrew school structure is generating spiritually engaged, Torah knowledgeable and truly happy children, who are proud of being Jewish.

It is very troubling that American rabbis and Federation leadership seem oblivious to the obvious. In the United States, there are approximately 1.2 million Jewish children between the ages of 4 and 19. If the current trajectory continues, approximately 55 percent of these children will intermarry over the next 17 years and create 660,000 intermarried units. The 540,000 remaining Jewish children will marry other Jews and create 270,000 Jewish homes. The enormity of this trend is devastating.

Just as no doctor would prescribe a placebo when a truly effective remedy was available, so too our Jewish leadership is aware that there is a potent way of keeping kids Jewish. If day school were free and available to all Jewish children regardless of their stream of affiliation or family finances, the problems of intermarriage and assimilation in America would be significantly diminished. If our children felt connected spiritually with God and our heritage, they would become enthusiastic links for the next 4,000 years.

Can anyone imagine the outrage that would occur if a doctor administered a placebo to a patient, while an effective but more expensive treatment was available?

All parents must decide for their families how they want to Jewishly educate their children. It is a very personal decision. However, there are tens of thousands of young Jewish families who want to attend Jewish day schools, but the tuition costs are economic barriers to entry. This is outrageous. Torah education was never meant to be only for the rich.

It is time that the Jewish community demand an adoption of policies that constitute an effective resolution of the crisis. We must clearly articulate that it is each Jewish community's absolute responsibility to fund universal Jewish day school education for all of our children, irrespective of a child's stream of religious affiliation or family's financial resources. If the existing Federations are unable or unwilling to adopt and implement this policy, then it is incumbent on each Jewish community to start independent fundraising initiatives that focus entirely on Jewish day school education.

We are the guardians of our children's Jewish identity and the custodians of the Jewish future. We are failing miserably in both areas. Massive funding of Jewish education is the remedy required to strengthen and heal our American Jewish community. Everything else is a placebo.

George D. Hanus is chairman of the Superfund for Jewish Education and Continuity, the Jewish Broadcasting Network and the World Jewish Digest.

Right On: Evil and the passage of time

Michael Freund, THE JERUSALEM POST.

In the heart of Brussels, capital of the new and enlightened Europe, stands a large and imposing monument that shamelessly commemorates a mass murderer of Jews.

Sitting atop his horse, his sword raised triumphantly in the air, the figure of the medieval knight Godfrey of Bouillon dominates the city's Place Royale.

The jubilant statue, adjacent to a grand structure still in use by Belgium's royal family, depicts the Belgian-born nobleman as he embarked on his way to the Holy Land at the start of the infamous First Crusade.

Godfrey has long been revered by Europeans as the liberator of Jerusalem, the man who helped free the city from the hands of the Muslim "infidels" more than nine centuries ago. He has been the subject of epic poems and operas, as well as a topic of literary tribute, and was once even selected to appear on a list of the "greatest Belgians."

But Jews remember Godfrey quite differently. Far from being a gallant personality, he was ruthlessly cruel and unforgiving, and spurred the men under his command to commit one ghastly anti-Semitic atrocity after another.

The statue in his memory has been in place for more than a century, and it remains a blight on the city and the nation that serve as its host. And with the tides of Jew-hatred on the rise across Europe, now more than ever is the time for Israel and the Jewish people to demand that this moral eyesore be summarily torn down.

GODFREY entered the pages of infamy in 1096, after Pope Urban II's call to arms the previous year to reverse the Muslim occupation of the Land of Israel. After putting together a rag-tag army of thousands, Godfrey is reported to have said to his recruits: "In this, our Holy War, we shall slay all the children of Israel wherever we shall find them. I shall not rest content until I have exterminated the Jews."

Fearful of what the marauding band would do to them, the Jews of Cologne and Mainz each raised the enormous sum of 500 silver marks, which they paid as tribute to Godfrey in a medieval version of "protection money." The noble knight was only too happy to pocket the funds, and then renege on his promise.

As they made their war across France and Germany 911 years ago this month, the Crusaders left a path of death and destruction in their wake, terrorizing the Jews and massacring tens of thousands of innocents.

Entire communities were wiped out in a frenzy of hate and bloodletting, as the Jews of Speyer, Worms and Mainz were destroyed. A quarter to a third of European Jewry, and possibly more, was annihilated as armies of rabble led by men such as Godfrey, Peter the Hermit, Count Emicho and others swept across the continent on their way to Jerusalem.

So great was the disaster that befell the Jews during the First Crusade that a special prayer known as Av Harachamim ("O Merciful Father") was composed lamenting "the pious, the upright and the blameless, the holy communities who laid down their lives for the sanctification of His name." It is still recited each week in synagogues around the world as part of the regular Sabbath service.

Three years later, in July 1099, Godfrey and his men broke through the walls of the Holy City and proceeded to slaughter Muslims and Jews alike.

It is said that many Jews were driven into a synagogue by the Crusaders, who then set the building alight as Godfrey marched around the structure and engaged in song.

IS THIS really the kind of person who should be celebrated in the center of Europe? Sure, you might be wondering, that may very well be correct. But who really cares? After all, it was a long time ago, so why bother dredging up the distant past?

But the fact is that it does matter. As various historians have noted, the Crusades were, in effect, "the first Holocaust," the opening foray of Europe's millennial-old attempt in the modern era to eradicate the Jewish people. It paved the way for later expulsions, persecutions and forced conversions, all of which culminated in the German Holocaust six decades ago.

The passage of time does not dilute or diminish the evil done by Godfrey and his ilk. If, several centuries from now, someone wished to erect a monument in memory of one of Hitler's henchmen, we would surely not remain silent in the face of such offense.

And, deep down, we know it to be true that the people whom a nation chooses to honor and commemorate say a great deal about the values they embrace and wish to uphold.

Hence, it sends a stark and terrible message when men such as Godfrey receive acclaim, and it is therefore incumbent upon Israel and the Jewish people to protest this affront to the Belgian government.

Who knows? Perhaps, on their way to work, European Union officials in Brussels might just feel a slight pang of guilt and realize the weight of their historical and moral responsibility to act against those who seek to destroy Israel, such as our foes in Gaza and Teheran.

So let's raise our voices loud and clear, and send a firm but clear message to the mayor of Brussels and the Belgian leadership: Tear down that obscene statue of Godfrey of Bouillon.

Knowledge from the East

Abraham sent his other sons to the East. Pebble to Michael Gros from Jewish Press.

For [Rabbi] Shlomo Aharon[Fenster] it was a time of great soul searching as he was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life.

While sitting together with his host father Mitsuo Kiyosu in the kitchen sipping green tea, Shlomo Aharon unburdened the challenges he was facing. The conversation turned from his job search to his larger search for direction in his life.

"My host father realized that I was searching not only for a job, but for spirituality," Shlomo Aharon said. "He told me that when he dies 'there will be such and such spirit in the next world who will save me. I live this life with confidence because I know I will be saved when I die. On the other hand, a Christian person has Jesus. A Christian person has Jesus, who is a bridge to the Jewish G-d. That’s how he will be saved when he dies.'"

"'But you, you are a Jew. You have a direct connection to the Jewish G-d. What more are you searching for?'"

That comment opened Shlomo Aharon’s eyes. He grew up hearing about G-d as the Judeo-Christian G-d, but he had only ever heard Christians speak about G-d. His host father said No! It is not Christianity that has a direct connection to G-d, and not even Buddhism. It is the Jewish people who have a direct conduit to G-d.

"He woke me up to the fact that I have a unique place in this world as a Jew and an intrinsic relationship to G-d," Shlomo Aharon said. "G-d had been just a philosophical concept to me and the last thing I was searching for."

...(published in The Jewish Press July 6, 2007)

Tribute to R. Dovid Zeller

Recently, Rav Dovid Zeller, a disciple of Shlomo Carlebach, died. This is a great story from Shlomo Katz. Pebble to Heichal HaNegina via JewishBlogging.com.

One of my absolutely favorite stories about R. Dovid is one I heard several years ago from Rebbe Mordechai DovBer Twerski Shlita, the Hornosteipel Rebbe. It goes something like this:

A well-known Shinto priest from the Far East was visiting America, and [before he became a religious Jew] Dovid went [somewhere in the southwestern US] to see him, and to learn from him. After hearing an inspiring lecture, the priest remained with whomever wished to talk to him privately or ask questions. When the priest [P] saw Dovid [D], he asked him what was his religion of origin. Then the following [approximate] dialog took place:

D: Oh, I’m Jewish.

P: Jewish people – very important for whole world.

D: Huh? What’s that? Why are they so important???

P: Yeah, Jewish People – they responsible for whole world.

D: Wow, really? Well, if there so important, why don’t you become Jewish then?

P: ’Cause I don’t wanna be responsible for whole world.

Carpet Bombing Gaza

JPost reports on Rav Eliyahu, former Sephardi chief rabbi in Israel, describing what is legally (from a Jewish point-of-view) allowed and should be done to stop rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.

The letter, published in Olam Katan [Small World], a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide this Friday, cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides' commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision.

According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.

The former chief rabbi also said it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews in Sderot or the lives of IDF soldiers for fear of injuring or killing Palestinian noncombatants living in Gaza.

Eliyahu could not be reached for an interview. However, Eliyahu's son, Shmuel Eliyahu, who is chief rabbi of Safed, said his father opposed a ground troop incursion into Gaza that would endanger IDF soldiers. Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the general area from which the Kassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life.

"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."

In the letter, Eliyahu quoted from Psalms. "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them."

Eliyahu wrote that "This is a message to all leaders of the Jewish people not to be compassionate with those who shoot [rockets] at civilians in their houses."

Kollel by the Numbers

Joe Settler provides some numeric analysis of the "cost" of kollel and the benefit. Good work as it presents the issue from a perspective I had not thought of.

Today is Yom HaShoah in Israel – the day we remember the massacre and attempted genocide of our nation a mere 60 years ago by Germany and her allies. Not so different than today when Iran wants to wipe us out while Germany supplies them with the tools and means to build nuclear weapons.

On the jblogsphere we often see a lot of riling against full time Yeshiva/Kollel students who sit and learn all day instead of working.

I won’t deny that I too see a problem with it, particularly when after having a discussion with some of these full-time learners, I sometimes walk away unimpressed or uninspired by the limited scope of their learning or knowledge.

On the other hand there are others who impress me highly with their learning and acumen.

Over Shabbat someone (whose sons all decided to "turn black" and become full time learners) put it into perspective for me (not her first choice for their lifetime profession, but she is proud that they are serious and real learners).

6 million Jews were wiped out.

We have perhaps 14 million Jews left in the world.

In the US, of the ~6 million Jews around 7% are Orthodox (400,000). In Israel of the ~6 million Jews, around 20% are Orthodox (1,200,000). Let’s throw in another 100,000 for the rest of the world. That gives us 1,700,000 Orthodox Jews in the world to carry on our heritage and message. (If someone thinks they have better numbers I’d love to hear them).

Of that 1.7 million let’s say nearly 10% learn (at whatever level) full time at any given time (150,000) (and that doesn’t mean that their wives don’t work).

(We know that 50,000 in Israel receive draft exemptions for full-time Torah learning, so I tripled that number to account for those that aren’t affected by the draft exemption and for those living in Chul – perhaps far too large a number, but let’s go with it for the sake of the discussion.)

So out of 14 million Jews in the world, just 150,000 Jews learn Torah full time – that’s a mere 1% of our nation ensuring that Torah is studied full time.

And (I’m just guessing), perhaps from those 150,000 perhaps 1% (1500) produces truly unique geniuses and outstanding Torah scholars that advance us (while the rest provide a solid base of continuity).

So let’s think about it, is the production of 1500 exceptional scholars really such a large number and huge drain for our nation of 14 million Jews. Is 1% of our nation learning full time such a drag on our national resources?

Is Kollel then really such a bad thing in the larger perspective?

I might ask at first, "Is that not worth the price?", but the real question is, "Is this not the minimum we should be doing as a Holy Nation of Priests, and not to mention, to reverse the destruction the Shoah and the Assimilation has and is doing to our nation?"

Newsweek's America's Top 50 Rabbis

America's Top 50 Rabbis

Compilers:
Sony Pictures CEO and Chairman Michael Lynton
Gary Ginsberg, Newscorp
Jay Sanderson, JTN Productions

Scoring:
Are the rabbis known nationally/internationally? (20 points.)
Do they have a media presence? (10 points.)
Are they leaders within their communities? (10 points.)
Are they considered leaders in Judaism or their movements? (10 points.)
Size of their constituency? (10 points.) Do they have political/social influence? (20 points.)
Have they made an impact on Judaism in their career? (10 points.) Have they made a "greater" impact? (10 points.)

Of Special Note
36. Nachum Braverman (Orthordox)
Braverman is Aish Hatorah’s leading American leader.

Orthodox: 15
Chassidic: 1
Lubavitch: 1
Total: 17

Others:
Conservative: 10
Reconstructionist: 3
Reform: 18
Renewal: 2

Reality Hits Jewish Liberal Upside the Head

Thane Rosenbaum

This is a soul-searching moment for the Jewish left. Actually, for many Jewish liberals, navigating the gloomy politics of the Middle East is like walking with two left feet.

I would know. For six years I was the literary editor of Tikkun magazine, a leading voice for progressive Jewish politics that never avoided subjecting Israel to moral scrutiny. I also teach human rights at a Jesuit university, imparting the lessons of reciprocal grievances and the moral necessity to regard all people with dignity and mutual respect. And I am deeply sensitive to Palestinian pain, and mortified when innocent civilians are used as human shields and then cynically martyred as casualties of war.

Yet, since 9/11 and the second intifada, where suicide bombings and beheadings have become the calling cards of Arab diplomacy, and with Hamas and Hezbollah emerging as elected entities that, paradoxically, reject the first principles of liberal democracy, I feel a great deal of moral anguish. Perhaps I have been naive all along.

And I am not alone. Many Jews are in my position -- the children and grandchildren of labor leaders, socialists, pacifists, humanitarians, antiwar protestors -- instinctively leaning left, rejecting war, unwilling to demonize, and insisting that violence only breeds more violence. Most of all we share the profound belief that killing, humiliation and the infliction of unnecessary pain are not Jewish attributes.

However, the world as we know it today -- post-Holocaust, post-9/11, post-sanity -- is not cooperating. Given the realities of the new Middle East, perhaps it is time for a reality check. For this reason, many Jewish liberals are surrendering to the mindset that there are no solutions other than to allow Israel to defend itself -- with whatever means necessary. Unfortunately, the inevitability of Israel coincides with the inevitability of anti-Semitism.

This is what more politically conservative Jews and hardcore Zionists maintained from the outset. And it was this nightmare that the Jewish left always refused to imagine. So we lay awake at night, afraid to sleep. Surely the Arabs were tired, too. Surely they would want to improve their societies and educate their children rather than strap bombs on to them.

If the Palestinians didn't want that for themselves, if building a nation was not their priority, then peace in exchange for territories was nothing but a pipe dream. It was all wish-fulfillment, morally and practically necessary, yet ultimately motivated by a weary Israeli society -- the harsh reality of Arab animus, the spiritual toll that the occupation had taken on a Jewish state battered by negative world opinion.

Despite the deep cynicism, however, Israel knew that it must try. It would have to set aside nearly 60 years of hard-won experience, starting from the very first days of its independence, and believe that the Arab world had softened, would become more welcoming neighbors, and would stop chanting: "Not in our backyard -- the Middle East is for Arabs only."

It is true that Israel has entered into peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan that have brought some measure of historic stability to the region. But with Israel having withdrawn from Lebanon and Gaza, and with Israeli public opinion virtually united in favor of near-total withdrawal from the West Bank, why are rockets being launched at Israel now, why are their soldiers being kidnapped if the aspirations of the Palestinian people, and the intentions of Hamas and Hezbollah, stand for something other than the total destruction of Israel? And if Palestinians and the Lebanese are electing terrorists and giving them the portfolio of statesmen, then what message is being sent to moderate voices, what incentives are there to negotiate, and how can any of this sobering news be recast in a more favorable light?

The Jewish left is now in shambles. Peace Now advocates have lost their momentum, and, in some sense, their moral clarity. Opinion polls in Israel are showing near unanimous support for stronger incursions into Lebanon. And until kidnapped soldiers are returned and acts of terror curtailed, any further conversations about the future of the West Bank have been set aside.

Not unlike the deep divisions between the values of red- and blue-state America, world Jewry is being forced to reconsider all of its underlying assumptions about peace in the Middle East. The recent disastrous events in Lebanon and Gaza have inadvertently created a newly united Jewish consciousness -- bringing right and left together into one deeply cynical red state.

Mr. Rosenbaum, a novelist and professor at Fordham Law School, is author, most recently, of "The Myth of Moral Justice" (HarperCollins, 2004).

Wear that kippa

Wear that kippa

"The first time I interviewed Hamas chief Mahmoud al-Zahar," says [WND's Aaron] Klein, "I did not bring my yarmulke. I wanted to get out alive. But during the course of our conversation I ended up talking about my Orthodox Judaism. Al-Zahar asked why I didn't wear a yarmulke to meet him. I told him I'd been afraid to. He said he was insulted. He claimed he was a religious Muslim who only had a problem with the state of Israel and not with Judaism. He lectured me about not forsaking my religion or denying my Jewish identity. He said the next time we meet I had better be wearing my yarmulke. Since then I have interviewed him a number of times. Whenever we speak by phone or when he joins me on the radio, he first jokingly inquires as to whether I am wearing my yarmulke."

QOTD: Jacob Neusner

QOTD:Jacob Neusner

Conservative Judaism had been made up of "Orthodox rabbis serving Conservative congregations comprised of Reform Jews."

Chanukah in America Today

Gaby Wenig describes in The Jewish Journal Of Greater Los Angeles Chanukah in America today.

At Temple Beth Hillel, Mark Singer teaches his third-grade Hebrew school class about Chanukah using all the usual props: he lights a menorah, spins a dreidel and throws a doughnut and latke party.

However, considering that anywhere from 25 to 100 percent of his students come from mixed marriages, one thing he does not emphasize too strongly is that the real message of the Maccabean victory is a staunchly anti-assimilationist one. Instead, Singer adamantly informs his class that Chanukah celebrations should not be blended with celebrations of that other holiday of the same season.

...Welcome to Chanukah and the December Dilemma. In Hebrew schools all over Los Angeles — and in temple discussion groups for intermarrieds on how to survive the holiday season — Chanukah is taught as a ritually dense Jewish substitute for Christmas that needs to elbow its way into some December shelf space, rather than a holiday that commemorates a group of Jews fighting against the forces of Hellenistic secularism to remain an insular, Torah-committed community.

World Bank: Israeli Gov´t Corruption Among Highest in the West

Arutz Sheva carries this unfortunate but accurate news

Israel is second only to Italy with regard to government corruption in the western world, according to a study released Wednesday by the World Bank.

Business Data Israel's (BDI) government corruption index showed the Israeli government to be inefficient, with high levels of corruption and a low rate of law enforcement. The study was based on indices examined and confirmed by the Bank of Israel.

The rating received by the Israeli government is particularly poor in comparison with most developed countries. Its rating in terms of political stability is the lowest of any other Western country.

Chinese Jewish Surnames

Michael Freund on Chinese Jewish surnames in Kaifeng, China

All of the Jewish descendants belong to one of seven clans, each identifiable by its surname. Legend has it that during the Song dynasty over a thousand years ago, a Chinese emperor, unable to pronounce the Jews' Hebrew-sounding names, bestowed his surname and the surnames of six of his ministers on the Chinese Jews. These seven names -- Zhao, Li, Ai, Zhang, Gao, Jin and Shi -- were used by Kaifeng's Jews throughout the centuries, and it is to the Shi clan that Shi Lei traces his own roots.

Liberal indoctrination

BOTW

The Washington Post reports that a federal judge has issued an injunction against a public-school sex education program on the ground that it improperly brings religion into the classroom. What makes this interesting is that the school district in question is in ultraliberal Montgomery County, Md., and the religious views it seeks to inculcate are liberal ones.

Eugene Volokh points to Judge Alexander Williams's opinion in Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum v. Montgomery County Public Schools (PDF), which quotes from a handout that is part of the curriculum:

Myth: Homosexuality is a sin.

Facts: The Bible contains six passages which condemn homosexual behavior. The Bible also contains numerous passages condemning heterosexual behavior. Theologians and Biblical scholars continue to differ on many Biblical interpretations. They agree on one thing, however. Jesus said absolutely nothing at all about homosexuality. Among the many things deemed an abomination are adultery, incest, wearing clothing made from more than one kind of fiber, and earing [sic] shellfish, like shrimp and lobster.

Religion has often been misused to justify hatred and oppression. Less than a half a century ago, Baptist churches (among others) in this country defended racial segregation on the basis that it was condoned by the Bible. Early Christians were not hostile to homosexuals. Intolerance became the dominant attitude only after the Twelfth Century. Today, many people no longer tolerate generalizations about homosexuality as pathology or sin. Few would condemn heterosexuality as immoral--despite the high incidence of rape, incest, child abuse, adultery, family violence, promiscuity, and venereal disease among heterosexuals. Fortunately, many within organized religions are beginning to address the homophobia of the church. The Nation Council of Churches of Christ, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Society of Friends (Quakers), and the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches support full civil rights for gay men and lesbians, as they do for everyone else.

As Volokh notes, "this material, which the school would apparently be conveying as its own views":

1. Describes one interpretation of the Bible as "myth."


2. Suggests that the most important question in interpreting the Bible is what Jesus said, and that the Bible's use of "abomination" in different contexts should lead us to think that the items thus labeled are morally equivalent--not implausible claims about Scriptural interpretation, but nonetheless claims about Scriptural interpretation.


3. Implicitly--but I think quite strongly--suggests a particular reading of the Bible is theologically correct.


4. Condemns particular religious groups by name, not just as part of a discussion of history, but in an attempt to discredit the present religious teachings of at least some religious groups (quite possibly the same ones).


5. Specifically praises by name certain denominations--again, not just in a context which seems to be describing the facts, but one which suggests that their theology is more sound.

Volokh notes that the Supreme Court "has repeatedly held that the Establishment Clause bars public schools from endorsing and disapproving of theological beliefs. . . . Schools are not free to express views on how the Bible should be interpreted, what is or is not sin from the Biblical perspective, and which religious groups have good interpretations of the Bible and which have bad ones."

That is as it should be. Kudos to Judge Williams, who has struck a blow for religious pluralism.

Really, really, really Reform

Jewish Pagans Break New Ground

Millennia ago, so the story goes, Abraham smashed his father's idols and founded the Jewish religion. Accordingly, his descendents' first goal was to build a fence around abstract monotheism, separating it from the Paganism in which it had taken root, and which, to them, represented all that Judaism was not. This explains Jews' second commandment, our moratorium on graven images, and our status as the first of the three major monotheistic faiths. Are Jewish Pagans, then, the ultimate contradiction in terms?

Apparently not to the author. I would guess that these people (all women in this story -- I wonder the significance of that) had almost zero understanding of Judaism and what it is all about, regardless of the Bat Mitzvahs and Seders they had.

Do Animals have rights? Not in the Bible nor in Judaism, they don't!

Do Animals have rights? Not in the Bible nor in Judaism, they don't! by Steven Plaut

Recent years have seen the growth at the margins of the Jewish community of the United States a number of "Judaism and Animal Rights" groups. They are groups allied to the more general "animal rights" movement, but these are claiming that Judaism and the Bible are themselves authoritative ethical sources for the claim that animals have "rights". A number of books have been published promoting the claim that animal rights have firm foundations in traditional Judaism.

Animal rights have been an ongoing "cause" and banner for the so-called "Eco-Judaism" fringe cult groups and their Tikkun Magazine gurus, including "Rabbi" Michael Lerner (who has no rabbinical ordination from any rabbinic seminary).These are people far more concerned about protecting squirrels than protecting Jews from Islamofascist terror and anti-Semitism, far more worried about the annihilation of whales than about the annihilation of Israel.

Several groups of radical Jewish environmentalists and militant Jewish vegetarians have been promoting the doctrine of "the Jewish foundations" for animal "rights". There have even emerged several "animal rights" groups in Israel, and, in between their vandalizing university laboratories in which animal testing takes place, they have also taken to claiming that animal rights have traditional Biblical and Jewish roots and. Animal rights have shown up in the list of causes promoted by the Reform synagogue movement in the US, and here and there among individual Conservative and other synagogue "social action" committee causes as well.

At the same time, the "animal rights" militant groups have long targeted Jews with special vengeance and ferocity. Kosher slaughtering has long been the target of the animal rights lobbies, which claim that Jewish traditional slaughtering practices are inhumane. Curiously, these same groups generally have NOT targeted Moslem religious slaughter practices, especially in Europe, where they fear antagonizing the large Moslem minorities there. As a result of their lobbying against the "inhumanity" of kosher slaughtering, a growing number of European countries have banned kosher slaughter altogether, creating enormous hardships for Jews in those countries seeking to live a traditional lifestyle.

Meanwhile, PETA, the main animal rights lobby in the US (PETA stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but I have argued for years that it really should call itself People for the Equitable Treatment of Animals ) has not only denounced kosher slaughter practices but has outraged Jewish groups repeatedly by comparing the eating of meat to the Holocaust of Jews, most notably with its recent scurrilous "Holocaust on your Plate" campaign. (Interestingly, a number of neonazi and Holocaust Denial web sites have picked up on the PETA campaign against kosher practices to denounce Jews and Judaism in general.

A few years back, one of PETA's sister groups in Los Angeles called itself "JIHAD", for Justice through Insurrection by Humans for Animal Defense. These "Jihadniks" were upset at the Carl's Jr. fast food chain because it was running ads for its greasy burgers as part of its "Eat Meat" campaign, which mocked vegetarians. "The vegetarians will get over it," taunted one ad. "Don't let them make you feel guilty, ok?"Deliciously, some Los Angeles area Islamic groups, including the Orange County Islamic Society, led by Haitham Bundaki, were upset with the use of the term "jihad" by the animal rights nuts."Jihad," they insisted, is a term that should be reserved only for the random murder of Jewish children, not for animal rights wackiness.

Ingrid Newkirk, co-founder and vice-president of PETA has stated: "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy," and so, it thus follows, "Medical research is immoral even if it's essential. Even if animal testing produced a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it." And best of all: "Six million people died in concentration camps," she told the Washington Post, "but six billion broiler chickens will die this year in slaughterhouses." A new counter-PETA group, by the way, is now available on the internet, also calling itself PETA, but this counter-PETA stands for People for Eating Tasty Animals.

While PETA and its sister animalist lobbies are generally dismissed by all non-institutionalized people as little more than crackpots and fruitcakes, what are we to make of those Jewish "animal rights" groups claiming that Biblical and traditional Jewish sources confer "rights" on animals? Is there any basis to these claims?

The simple answer to the question is that animals have no "rights" at all in Judaism and the Bible, and those claiming to confer such "rights" on the basis of Biblical or Talmudic sources are charlatans at best, and pagan-polytheists trying to invent "souls" for animals at worst.

The total absence of any "rights" for animals in Jewish sources should not be confused with any approval of wanton sadism or unnecessary cruelty towards animals.The rule regarding animals is as simple as could be. It is spelled out in the Talmud in the Avoda Zara Tractate (Yud-Alef). "The mistreatment or cruelty towards animals is prohibited ONLY when there is no profit or utility therefrom."

Nothing could be simpler. Cruelty towards animals that does not serve any human purpose, cruelty for its own sake, is prohibited. Cruelty required to serve any human need or desire or benefit is justified, although not mandatory.

Let us be even more clear about this. According to Jewish tradition, we are not talking about restricting cruelty towards animals when it is necessary to save a human life, even in a probabilistic sense, such as in medical experimentation (which the animal rights kooks insist cannot possibly produce any cures for human ailments, dozens of counter-proofs not withstanding).We are talking about any use of animals to serve ANY human desires other than senseless sadism. Period.

In the Bible, animals are part of the bounty of the earth put here by God for humans to enjoy, like trees and rocks. Humans may enjoy these, should they choose, in nature preserves and parks, or they may enjoy them by eating them, turning them into shoes and belts or fur coats, doing medical experiments upon them, keeping them in zoos, or in any other use.

There is absolutely no religious compulsion in Judaism to forgo eating meat or living as vegetarians. In fact, at least once a year vegetarianism is outright prohibited. Refusing to eat the meat in the Passover sacrifice out of concern for the "rights" of animals would have been grounds for expulsion from the Jewish people when the Temple was functioning. While vegetarianism is not explicitly prohibited the rest of the year, it is looked down upon, just like those who foreswear wine are considered to be senseless recluses, upon whose behavior the Bible frowns. Sabbath pleasure and holiday festivals are thought to require the eating of meat, except where it cannot be afforded in terms of budget constraints (see the Shulkhan Arukh).

None of this precludes giving up meat eating for health reasons, for those who believe it is unhealthy. But such Jewish vegetarianism has nothing to do with any imagined "rights" for the animal. Where health requires it, the same Jew would be expected to give up salads, eggs, or spices, things obviously not having any "rights". In other words, the fact that animals and fish might or might not feel pain has absolutely no bearing in the general Jewish traditional affirmation for eating meat and poultry and fish.

Meat eating is nearly everywhere celebrated by Biblical stories and heroes. Among the only cases of Biblical vegetarianism is Daniel, and he gives up meat because he has no access to kosher-slaughtering facilities. Moses, David, Jacob and many others worked as herders of animals, and the animals they raised were for the purpose of being eaten. Animals were eaten in the Temple as party of its daily ritual. Animals were also killed for purposes other than ritual, such as for signing treaties or for establishing a covenant with God. Jewish tradition has long held that the world will dine on whale meat when the Messiah comes.

Animals are killed in the Bible not only for purposes of food and eating. The Children of Israel are explicitly ordered to wrap the holy utensils of the Tabernacle in animal furs when moving from camp to camp; these were furs of animals that were unclean for purposes of eating, which is essentially equivalent to saying they were hunted for their pelts, not killed for food with the fur simply put aside. Animals could be used cruelly for frivolous purposes as well, such as Samson tying torches to the fox tails and setting them loose in the fields of the Philistines. And they could be mass exterminated just to make a point, such as when Moses asks God to exterminate the frogs of Egypt, heaping them in rotting piles, as part of the ongoing negotiations with Pharaoh over the freeing of the Israelite slaves. God chooses to drown all of Egypt's horses and kill the livestock of the Egyptians as part of His plan to liberate the Israelites. Nothing was stopping Him from selecting an alternative plan that did not involve violating the "rights" of these animals.

There is some debate in Judaism over hunting. It is clear that the legitimate killing of animals is NOT restricted in the Bible or in other Jewish sources to purposes of eating, as noted above regarding the use of fur pelts to wrap the Tabernacle utensils.An animal killed by a hunter may not be eaten because its killing was not according to the slaughtering rules needed for the food to be kosher. But its carcass can be used for other purposes, such as making clothing or killing to protect other farm animals or fields, and there is no prohibition on wearing fur. Some Jewish sources frown upon hunting if its only purpose is the sheer enjoyment of the hunt, that is, if the animal is not being hunted for some other use. But decorating a wall with a moose or deer's head, or simply human enjoyment from the hunt itself, could arguably be claimed to be legitimate human purposes, and so one could make a plausible argument in their favor, even though most Rabbinic sources discussing hunting do not go that far.

Any Biblical prohibitions on mistreating animals refer to situations where the mistreatment serves no utilitarian purpose. Maimonides traces the Jewish compassion for animals to the story of Bil?am and his donkey (Numbers 22, 32) and any Jews coming across a talking donkey would be well-advised to treat the beast with respect. The Book of Proverbs says that evil people mistreat animals wantonly (chapter 12, verse 10).Animals rest on the sabbath, but so do machines, so this cannot be considered to be any acknowledgement of an animal's "rights", merely a part of the sabbath shutting down all creative activity for all property owned by a Jew. Fields, unlike animals, get one year "off" out of seven for a sabbatical. There is no prohibition on keeping pets or zoos, although deliberate neutering of animals is often regarded as a violation of one of the commands from God for animals to be fruitful and multiply. None of this contradicts the clear Biblical case for human domination and exploitation of animals and nature.

But when serving a human need, such as medical research, there is no basis whatsoever for hesitation in using animals, even mistreating them if this is what is necessary for the research. An authoritative rabbinic ruling on this was Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg in his book "Seridei Esh". There he states explicitly: the only proper role for compassion is to avoid needless suffering of the animal when the suffering serves no human purpose or benefit.

Traditional kosher slaughtering is explicitly designed for the purpose of minimizing unnecessary animal suffering. Traditional Jewish butchers must kill the animal with a razor sharp knife so that the animal feels no pain. Animals killed with a knife with a dent or chink may not be eaten; having suffered unnecessarily, a Jew may not eat the meat, although it may be sold to any non-Jews less concerned with the suffering of the animal who wish to buy it. The intense concern with avoiding pain in kosher-slaughtered animals makes a mockery out of the campaigns by PETA and its sister activist groups against "inhumane" kosher butcher practices. Indeed it reveals these for what they really are - anti-Jewish propaganda campaigns, not very different from those campaigns by neonazis and other anti-Semites who noisily claim that gentiles are being "exploited" by being "coerced" into paying for kosher inspections of food products with kosher certification symbols upon them. (As a side note, some Israeli anti-religious leftists have expressed similar "outrage" to being "coerced" into paying for kosher inspections.) In reality, the presence of so many kosher products on the shelves everywhere is simply a marketing response to the fact that it is profitable for many manufacturers and marketers to sell kosher products sought out by many Jews and non-Jews, and has nothing to do with any "coercion".

There is absolutely no basis in Judaism for arguing that vegetarianism makes people more humane, and there is plenty of counter-evidence, such as the famous concern for animal "rights" by the Nazi German leadership. Ecological concern is alright in Judaism, as long as protecting the environment and endangered species is being done as part of servicing human needs, pleasures, and desires. If it is done for the sake of the animals' "rights", it is nothing better than paganism and is an abomination.

The environmentalist extremists and animalist kooks within the Jewish community tend to emerge close to the Jewish "New Year of the Trees" named Tu B'shvat. They have attempted to hijack the day and turn it into one in which environmentalist extremism is misrepresented as Biblical ethics. There is nothing in the day and nothing in the Bible that can be seen as conferring "rights" on animals. Enjoy your burgers, fish to your heart's content, wear a fur coat and leather shoes with pride! It is what the Bible wants you to do!

Ten things Christian Zionists ask about Jews and Israel

Gavriel Sanders tells us ten things Christian Zionists ask him about Jews and Israel.

As I've traveled the country this last year, I've had numerous conversations with pro-Israel evangelicals, commonly known as Christian Zionists. They have many questions about how the Jewish community works, how Israel functions as a society, and how Jews around the world see themselves in relation to God, the Torah, Jewish values, and Jewish influence. Here is a distilled list of commonly heard questions.

1. How is it that the people that gave the world the Bible live more like the world than the Bible?

2. I thought Israel was to be a light unto the nations. Why are they trying so hard to be like and liked by the nations?

3. If, after 2000 years of dispersion and prayer for restoration, Jews finally have a homeland: Why don't more Jews go home? Why are they giving away the land?

4. It the title deed for the Temple Mount, Joseph's Tomb, and the Cave of the Patriarchs is contained in the Jewish Bible, how can the Israeli government give away these treasures of heritage to an enemy?

5. If pidyon shuvyim (ransom of a captive Jew) is a priority amongst Jewish values, why isn't there a greater outcry to free Jonathan Pollard? After his unfair sentencing and 20-year imprisonment, isn't he as much a prisoner of Zion as was Natan Sharansky?

6. In a 'land for peace' exchange, the Jews give up tangible turf that can't be returned for an intangible pledge that can't be guaranteed. Why?

7. If Jews are so committed to saving Jewish lives, why have more than two million Jewish babies been aborted in Israel since 1948? How does that square with replacing the 1.5 million children lost in the Holocaust?

8. Why do liberal Jews insist on making peace with an enemy that has not renounced its commitment to the destruction of the Jewish state? America would never do this. Is the "New Israel Fund" really a "No Israel Fund"?

9. Why do so many Jews insist on bending the Torah to fit their cultural preferences rather than adjust their lives to live by the Torah? Isn't God's will more important than a Saturday golf game? Isn't preserving faith and family more important than eating seafood?

10. Why does it seem that so many Jews hate their own religion or have so little knowledge of their own Bible? Most evangelicals know the Jewish scriptures better than most Jews.

Judeo-Christian Values

Dennis Prager has begun writing a series explaining Judeo-Christian values.

Now, it is time to make the case for Judeo-Christian, specifically biblical, values. I believe they are the finest set of values to guide the lives of both individuals and societies. Unfortunately, they are rarely rationally explained--even among Jewish and Christian believers, let alone to nonbelievers and members of other faiths.

It should be interesting to read the series as it develops.