Dodgers to Return to Brooklyn

Shushan News Service – 14 Adar II 5774

 

    It’s been 57 years since the Brooklyn Dodgers broke our hearts by moving to California.  They will remain there for the time being, but Brooklyn is getting a new bunch of Dodgers from Israel.  A groundswell of disgust at the thousands of young Israeli men who evade army service apparently came to a head yesterday when large groups of secular youth raided synagogues and yeshivot in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak and elsewhere.  Wearing masks and colorful costumes and gregging up a cacophonous din, they rounded up all the draft dodgers they could find, most of whom were in a state of intoxication from the Purim festivities.  When this reporter asked several yeshiva rabbis how they could allow such drunkenness in the name of a Jewish celebration, they replied that the young men are forbidden all year to have fun: no movies, no hip-hop, no meeting girls without the permission of a matchmaker, no secular books, no short pants and short-sleeve shirts in the hot summer. . .they need some outlet for all that pent-up energy.  Before the Dodgers could get their wits about them, they were loaded onto waiting lorries and brought to the port of Ashdod, which was undergoing a rocket barrage from terrorists in Gaza.  When the more sober yeshiva students wept and wailed that they were all going to die, their captors replied, “We have everything well in hand, no thanks to you and your draft dodging ilk.  We have Giants here.  Our soldiers are shooting the rockets out of the sky with the Iron Dome, and our flyboys are over Gaza bringing justice to Haman, oops, Hamas.  We have the best flyboys on earth, you know.  They don’t even have to look at girls when they’re on a mission, since there are no lady pilots.” 

“So where are you taking us?”

“To Brooklyn, in America.  It’s the best place for Dodgers.  There’s no draft in America, and the streets are paved with. . ., well, the streets aren’t paved with gold but you’ll be able to learn in yeshiva and nobody will force you to learn a little English, math and science so you’ll be able to get a job and earn some dough.” 

“Science?  Feh!  Apikorsus!  And dough?  Goyishe dough?  We can only smoke Pot Yisrael, and what do we know about growing the stuff?” 

“Feh you say?  You schmoes have no problem using refrigerators, cars, medicines and all the other goodies science gave us to make our lives easier, do you?”

“Oy, oy, what are we going to do?  Soon we’ll all be strangers in a strange new place.”

“Don’t worry.  You won’t have trouble finding a Jewish face.  They look like dumb Polacks from the 17^th century.  Come to think of it, they look a lot like you.  Oh, I almost forgot to tell you.  Brooklyn is crawling with black dragons three times your size and built like Greek gods chiseled out of granite.”

“Voos iss Greek gods?  Every chayder boy knows there’s only one God.”

“You’ll find out soon enough.  They knock nebbishes like you out with one punch and eat them for breakfast.  Over there you won’t have the protection of the state you don’t recognize and the army you refuse to serve in.  Well, here’s the ship.  We have a passable navy too, you know.  Our sailors will get you to Brooklyn and serve you great glatt kosher food on the way.”

 

   While the Dodgers were boarding the ship this reporter sought out Lazer Gantzashvantz, self-styled chairman of the Bring the Dodgers Back to Brooklyn Committee.  “So Mr. Gantzashvantz, shalom Aleichem.  How are things going on your end?”

“Oy vey is mir.  We found an empty lot and we’re building the Ebbets Yeshiva with all the modern conveniences, even a baseball diamond for your Sandy Koufaxes to use in their ten-minute recess, but where are all these boys going to live?  Housing isn’t the easiest thing to come by in Brooklyn, and what with our women popping out a baby every year starting at age 18 our neighborhoods are already packed like sardines.  And the cost?  These people are poor.  They have nothing.  Absolutely nothing.”

“They’re our very best Torah scholars.  They have more under their big toe than American yeshiva bochurim will ever get in a lifetime of learning.”

“Very good, but that won’t pay the rent and it won’t put food on the table.”

“So there’s no room Lazer?  That’s your headache.  And as for poverty I say to you, Lazer, that’s your headache too.  It won’t be as hard as settling tens of thousands of refugees from backward Arab stink holes coming to us with nothing but the clothes on their backs.”

“Well, we’ll have to manage.  We always have.  And at least when our bochurim secretly watch baseball, they won’t have to watch the Goyishe Dodgers in California.  They’ll have real Jewish Brooklyn Dodgers.”

Gay Basketball League Final

Shushan News Service - 14 Adar 5773 -

   The Finals of the Young Israel Gay Basketball League will be held today:

Young Israel of Westboro
69 Toeivah Street
Topeka, KS

Gay Kacken vs Gay Shtarben will play for the Yudi Kolko trophy.  Wine will flow freely, courtesy of Yehuda Levin Winery.  Come all.  Be merry and gay.

Where's Kakihito?

Shushan News Service 14 Adar Bet 5771





"Where's Kakihito?" That's the question throughout Japan in the wake of the devastating earthquake, tsunami and reactor blowup that left Japan looking like the atom bomb hit it. Thousands of Japs protested at the Imperial Palace, incensed that their Divine Emperor sits in his comfy palace while his countrymen suffer as they never suffered since the war his daddy started. "It's been a week and still no Kaki. Haven't they got milk of magnesia in the joint?", asked one protester. After several hours the court spokesman came out with a bullhorn, explaining that there were no functioning toilets in the flattened parts of the country, and it would not become His Imperial Majesty's exalted station to crouch in the bushes to do his business. Besides, the spokesman said, bushes have been out of fashion since 2009. A protester bellowed back, "Obama bin Laden must be behind all this. His name is Barak, right? And all this shit hit us like lightning." The spokesman assured the crowd that the country's best engineers were working on the problem and the Divine Kakihito would soon come out.



Unknown to the crowd, Emperor Kakihito had been whisked from the palace through secret tunnels and flown by helicopter to Fukushima, site of a crippled atomic reactor. Persian engineers rigged up a royal deluxe portapotty, with every amenity imaginable, and pronounced it fit for a Shah. No sooner did the Emperor set foot on the tarmac than a commotion arose from the disheveled crowd. "Shah! Shtill! What's all the hullaballoo about?", exclaimed the chief engineer. An official pointed him to where a group of female volunteers was gathered. Signs identified them as "JAPS OF BORO PARK," and everybody was shouting with amazement at their clothing, haridos and jewelry. "Look at that dress she has on," gushed one women, herself dressed in whatever shmattas she could grab as the tsunami hit. "I have a yen for a dress like that." "Fuggedabboudit," said the lady next to her. "Something like that has got to cost more yen than you'll see in a lifetime." After the soldiers calmed the crowd, the Emperor began to address the throng. "We've been through worse before," Kakihito proclaimed. "We Japs are tough, and we'll get through this stronger than ever. But for a while we will have to endure the unendurable -" and he clutched his stomach and made a beeline for the Persian portapotty. Noises from inside caused worry among the crowd, with some speculating that the radiation caused a tsunami in the elderly Emperor's kishkes. A little boy picked up a handful of shitkake mushrooms and threw it at the portapotty, excitedly shouting, "aki-kake, aki-kake." One of the soldiers whipped out a samurai sword and, with bloodcurdling shouts of "Kamikaze! Banzai!" ran up, skewered the boy and, swinging him over his head like a chicken, called out "Thus shall be done to the one who delights to dishonor the Divine Emperor." The volunteers from Boro Park were heard saying to one another, "Yom k'Purim, Yom k'Purim." Soon everybody joined them in what they thought was a prayer for the Emperor's recovery.





V'nahafokh hu. . .

Late-breaking news from Shushan News Service - This sign went up all over New York City's showpiece Central Park. Evidently some putz on a computer did not know that Hebrew and Yiddish are read from right to left, and got the words for rabies, a fatal disease spread by mad dogs, backwards.

Taking Yes for an Answer

You must not call conspiracy all that that people call conspiracy. . . .(Isaiah 8:12)

We are now witnessing a phenomenon the like of which has not been seen since the Soviet satellites of Eastern Europe collapsed like a row of dominos in 1989 (one journalist called it "the domino theory in reverse"). It started with one person in Tunisia setting himself on fire to protest that country's corrupt and tyrannical government, and spread like wildfire throughout the Middle East. Millions took to the streets in Egypt and toppled Hosni Mubarak, who had been in power for some 30 years. Mass unrest in Yemen, Jordan and Bahrain forced their despots to institute some sort of democratic reform. Right now the focal point is Libya, where the Egyptian model is playing itself out. Crowds of people fearlessy fill the streets in Libya's cities demanding the ouster of their brutal dictator Muammar Qaddafi, who ruled with an iron fist since 1969. This is the same Qaddafi who was behind the massacre of eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the mid-air bombing of a jet over Scotland, killing 270 people. I remember participating in demonstrations in the days following the Munich catastrophe (I was in college then) and chanting "Who do we want? Qaddafi! How do we want him? Dead!". Well, if the brave young people of Libya have their way, we just might have him dead before too long. Maybe he will be hanged on Purim. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

But in Israel and throughout the Jewish world, consternation bordering on hysteria reigns. The "Arab street" is a force to be reckoned with. Newly free Arabs will abrogate treaties with Israel that the deposed despots abided by - never mind that only two Arab countries, Egypt and Jordan, have such treaties and they have hardly led to the kind of relations that exist between the United States and Canada. Some of the demonstrators in Cairo and Benghazi were seen holding up signs denouncing Israel - after decades of brainwashing by tyrants who totally controlled the flow of information, what can we expect?

Like a good scientist, I am skeptical. I do not believe in "democracy for me but not for thee." All men desire freedom. Democracy can be messy, cumbersome, fractious and slow; a task as simple as refurbishing a public monument can take years to accomplish, while a dictator will get it done immediately. Democracy is, as Winston Churchill said, the worst system on earth except for all the others. So I am pleased to see the Arabs seizing control of their own destiny. It was the slew of dictatorial, corrupt and rotten regimes that deflected the resentment and frustrations of their own peoples onto the eternal scapegoat, Israel. If all goes well, Arabs will prefer to make their own lives better instead of making those of Israelis worse. History shows us that dictatorships start wars with other dictatorships and with democracies, but democracies rarely if ever start wars with other democracies. We might be on the cusp of a new era of peace between Abraham's children. With the Arabs' oil and the Israelis' brains, miracles can be accomplished.

And what if all does not go well? What if the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and similar Islamist outfits in other Arab countries, the best organized of the underground political groups now coming out of hiding, take over? The result will be a tyranny as bad or worse than the one the masses are shucking off, which itself argues for those outfits not being allowed to rule, at least not without building coalitions with more responsible parties. A triumphant Islamist revolution will stir up hatred against Israel, but we can live with it, as we did for 62 years. They are unlikely to commit to a war that they must know they cannot win. They are mostly Sunni Muslims who, unlike the Shiites who rule Iran, do not have a martyr complex. Like the Communists, they want to live and it might be possible to do business with them. As always, while hoping and praying for the best, Israel must prepare for the worst. We have fought wars against all of our neighbors simultaneously before; another chant from the '70s went, "48, 56, 67, you lose." We will have to beef up our border defenses. With more resources going to defense, there will be less for corruption and political favoritism; we can live with that. With more manpower needed for the army, we will no longer be able to support the armies of able-bodied parasites sitting on their butts in yeshiva, not serving in the real army, not working (at least not honestly) and not paying taxes. We will return to the ethic that prevailed in the early years of the state: Every able-bodied male serves, no ands ifs or buts. Nothing but good can come of that.

Israel has been around for 62 years now, going on 63. The founders have gone to their eternal reward and their dream, praise God, is our reality. But too many of us, including those who run Israel's government, still think like miserable ghetto Jews. In keeping with Lev. 26:35, they hear the sound of a windblown leaf and flee as if from an enemy, but nobody is chasing. Then they close the book, before they get to v.42, assuring us that God has not forsaken us, that he remembers his everlasting covenant with Abraham, that he will restore us to our natural state, masters in our own house. Take a look around, people. Tanakh's prophecies of redemption are being fulfilled. The barren land is fertile. Jews from all over the world, from India to Ethiopia and beyond, are gathered home. The economy is thriving. The ge'ula is already in progress, unfolding before our eyes. We just have to learn to take yes for an answer from the only One whose pronouncements really matter.

Purim Katan

It's Little Purim, so let's have a little fun.



All we are saying is. . . .

GIVE PISS A CHANCE

A Pregnant Year

This coming year, 5771, will be a Jewish leap year. The Hebrew term is "Shana Me'uberet," which literally means a "pregnant" year. We add a thirteenth month every few years to keep the lunar and solar years in synch. You might have noticed that Pesah and Rosh Hashanah came out unusually early this civil year. The lunar year is eleven days short, and if the regression were allowed to continue Pesah would be celebrated in winter, not in spring as the Torah dictates. Next year, starting with Purim, the holidays come unusually late.
Jewish mysticism has a "pregnant" year carrying "excess baggage," blessings or, God forbid, curses. 5708, the year Israel became a state, was a leap year; the state was declared May 14, which is as late as Yom Ha-atzma'ut ever comes. Similarly, Jerusalem was liberated in 5727, also a "pregnant" year, and Yom Yerushalayim rarely comes later than June 7, the civil date of the miracle of 1967.
May the coming year be "pregnant" with even greater miracles and "give birth" to the ge'ulah shelemah, the final redemption.
I wish my readers and klal Yisrael a ktiva va-hatima tova.

Bottom Rail on Top

I was watching Ken Burns's PBS documentary on the Civil War the other day. A runaway slave fighting for the Union recognized his former master in a column of Confederate prisoners, and told him, "Hello, massa. Bottom rail on top this time." It reminded me of an incident that occurred in the New York City Marathon back in my younger days when I was running it nearly every year and clocking respectable times for a recreational runner. As was my custom, I was wearing a sleeveless top with the Israeli flag on the chest and back. I caught up with a badly faltering German runner in the last mile. I remembered the death marches, where Jewish concentration camp inmates were marched by the German S.S. westward toward Germany, ahead of the advancing Red Army. The S.S. would point their guns at the starving, half-dead inmates and shout, "Schnell, Schnell" - fast, fast. Many who could not keep up were shot on the spot. Now, I knew I had nothing against a fellow athlete about my age who was not even born until after the Holocaust, but in the last mile of a marathon your brain plays tricks on you. As I passed the German, I turned toward him, made the universal gun sign (index finger pointed at the target and parallel to the ground, thumb perpendicular to index finger, other fingers turned inward as if in a fist) and called out, "Schnell, Schnell." I don't know what if anything he said or what kind of facial expression he had when he got a good look at the Israeli flag on the back of my shirt.

Finishing my last N.Y.C. Marathon
in 2003

V'Nahafokh Hu

And it was reversed. . . .(Esther 9:1)

No, this is not a leftover Purim shpiel. We are about to celebrate Pesah, zman heruteinu, the season of our freedom. Those of us who daven Nusakh Sefarad will recite Hallel tonight and tomorrow night. I never heard a good explanation of why we say Hallel at night specifically on Pesah, and certainly why Nusakh Sefarad says it and Nusakh Ashkenaz not. So let me venture an explanation at least of the first question. The miracle of Pesah occurred at night. "And it came to pass at midnight, that Hashem struck every firstborn in Egypt. . . ." Rashi comments that Moshe told Pharaoh that the plague would strike about midnight, so that if the Egyptian astronomers erred in the calculation of midnight they would not be able to claim that the plague did not happen as Moshe said it would and therefore it was not Hashem's doing. But the plague actually occurred at the stroke of midnight, as the Jews were eating the sheep, which the Egyptians worshiped as a deity. We are also told that even the firstborn of males were struck down, and in a place as licentious as ancient Egypt only God could know their identity. Thus there could be no room for doubt that the plague was God's doing, and that His people were safe and secure as destruction was abroad in the land in the middle of the night.

Bayamim ha-hem bazman ha-zeh. As it was then, so it is now. We now have, praise God, another holiday when we will recite Hallel at night, a holiday that is also zman heruteinu, Yom Ha'atzmaut. And here too, the miracle occurred at night, for at the stroke of midnight of May 14-15, 1948, 6 Iyar 5708, the Union Jack came down for the last time and the Jewish people assumed among the peoples of the earth the sovereignty to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle it, but which it had not exercised since Hasmonean times in the first century B.C.E. That's right, the Sixth of Iyar. That fateful midnight occurred on Shabbat that year, and to prevent desecration of Shabbat the secular, socialist provisional government that had nothing but contempt for everything holy decided to jump the gun and declare the state on Friday afternoon, against the advice of the Americans and all the experts who were telling us that it was not the right time, and that the state, if declared, could not possibly survive. Hence, Yom Ha'atzmaut is celebrated on the Fifth of Iyar, except when the celebration or that of Yom Hazikaron the previous day might engender Sabbath desecration. Such will be the case this year, when to forestall preparations on Shabbat for Yom Hazikaron on Sunday, Yom Hazikaron will be commemmorated on Monday, with Yom Ha'atzmaut on Tuesday, the Sixth of Iyar, when the state actually came into being. I learned this from a booklet sent several years ago my Yeshivat Merkaz Harav.

On the second night of Pesah we begin counting Sefirat ha-Omer, the seven-week period beginning with Pesah and building up to Shavu'ot. Most of us will observe the sefirah, or part of it, as a period of semi-mourning for the disaster that befell us in 135 C.E. when the Roman legions brutally crushed our last hope for independence. Rabbi Akiva and his students figured prominently in that hope, since Rabbi Akiva supported Bar Kokhba's revolt against Rome, and sent his students to fight in Bar Kokhba's army. It is no accident that the Religious Zionist youth movement is named for Rabbi Akiva. And now, here we are with our flag flying proudly over our country, an army that kicks butt, the best flyboys on earth, an economy that is the envy of the Middle East, a flourishing democracy unique in that region, and where are the ancient Romans? Sefirat Ha'omer, before it became a time of mourning, was an occasion for intense joy. It was harvest season, bracketed by the bringing of the omer of barley on 16 Nissan and the two loaves of wheat bread seven weeks later. And now the fertility of our soil, lost during nineteen centuries of foreign occupation, given up on by one commission after another of foreign rulers, was restored as soon as Eretz Yisrael was watered again with Jewish sweat. For this we are to mourn? What is happening here is the reverse of what happens to an avel on Shabbat. Shiva is suspended, the avel dresses for Shabbat and goes to synagogue, publicly he is not showing any signs of mourning, but inwardly he grieves for his departed relative as a mourner. Today's sefirah occasions outward signs of mourning while inside we experience the joy of freedom, of our soil's fertility, of renewed physical strength as we labor on the land and bring forth its fruits.
May we soon see this process of ge'ulah come to its glorious conclusion with the bringing of the Omer and the two loaves of bread amid joyous celebration.

Hag Kasher V'sameah.

CRC to certify Trojan Lifestyles

Shushan News Service 14 Adar 5770:

The Central Rabbinical Congress (CRC), Satmar's kosher certifying agency, announced a deal with Trojan, the world's leading manufacturer of condoms, to certify its renowned "Lifestyles" product line. Grand Rabbi Joel Tattlebum announced the deal in front of his United Talmudical Academy in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, flanked by Rabbi Avremel Reichman. When asked how the fervently Orthodox Satmar sect can certify condoms to be used in illicit trysts, Reichman replied that Satmar's unique Torah lifestyle would be enhanced by Lifestyles condoms. "CRC is also roshei tyevos for Chemical Rubber Company, so our kosher symbol on Trojan's rubbers is a shiddukh made in heaven. Now when our teachers need to screw a shaina maidl, they won't have to worry about giving her diarrhea." "We don't have shaina maidls in our schools, only shyna mydls," Rabbi Tattlebum corrected. "And she has to be a 36; a man's neshama can only have an aliya screwing a lamed-vovnik."

When Rabbi Yoodle the Poodle Kolko, formerly of Yeshiva Torah Temeiah, was asked for his reaction to the new development, he remarked, "Our large families are long on shvantz and short on gelt. Dental bills are breaking us. Now when we want a lollipop we can wrap it in a CRC-endorsed Trojan condom, suck all day and not worry about cavities."

People gathered at the scene began clamoring for the new kosher cerified condoms, and had to be turned away. In a romantic touch, the new Trojans are to debut in Paris. "But we hope to have ample supplies in Brooklyn's boys' yeshivas and mikvas in time for the Rosh Hashanah blow jobs. Just look for the logo on the package. We wouldn't want our pure and holy boys corrupted by condoms that are not certified kosher l'mehadrin by CRC."

A Happy Purim to all and to all a good night.

Mah Nishtanah? Is Israel another Iran?

The chief scientist of Israel's Ministry of Education, Dr. Gavriel Avital, questioned the validity of the theory of evolution, and the reality of climate change, and seemingly opened the door for Israeli high school students to be taught pseudoscientific nonsense instead of or alongside mainstream science. The story appeared in Ha'aretz and Ynet, and was picked up by the National Center for Science Education, a watchdog group defending the teaching of evolution of which I am a member. The Education Minister, Gideon Saar, said on taking office that he wants to reverse the decline in Israeli students' performance in science and math. But the "chief scientist" that he appointed is not even a scientist but an engineer from the Technion with no background in science education, and it shows. Engineers apply the findings of science to improve our lives; as a rule they are not involved in the creation or dissemination of new knowledge. Practicing physicians, as opposed to physicians engaged in research, are thus engineers more than scientists, and indeed many Orthodox physicians deny evolution, mostly out of ignorance. Dr. Avital would perpetuate that ignorance in Israeli schoolchildren as well.
Here in the United States there was a celebrated "Monkey Trial" in 1925 where a teacher was tried for teaching evolution in defiance of a Tennessee law prohibiting it. It seems that we retry that case every decade or so, the latest iteration occurring in Dover, Pennsylvania in 2005. Israel does not need to import this dark side of American history. It does not need to throw itself back into the Dark Ages and to make itself a laughingstock throughout the world. It has enough bad press as it is, most of it undeserved, and the intellectual opinion leaders on American campuses are already biased against it. This imbecility will only make a bad situation worse. Why should America support Israel's struggle with the nuclear ambitions of Iran when both states are benighted theocratic cesspools, they will ask. What is the difference?
Thankfully, there is a difference. Israel is a democracy, and as seen in an editorial in Ha'aretz, there already is a grounswell of opposition in the scientific community and the Israeli secular public to Avital's policy. The editorial, in fact, calls for Saar to let him go. I hope he does. Free speech and a free press are the bulwarks of an enlightened society against just this sort of obscurantism.
I wish this whole affair was a premature Purim shpiel, but unfortunately it is not. We don't know how the story will play out, but we can keep following it and make our opinions known. Israel will NOT turn into a theocratic cesspool as long as I have anything to do with it.

When in the course of Jewish events. . . .

When in the Course of Jewish events it becomes necessary for one group of Jews to dissolve the Torah bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the Jews of earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of us Torah-observant Jews; and such is now the necessity which constrains us to alter our former Systems of Government. The history of the present haredi establishment is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over us Jews. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid Torah world.



They have sought to annul our rights as Western men and women and citizens of democratic countries to read and study what we wish, and to enjoy music and the creative arts, rights inestimable to us and formidable to tyrants only, by banning books and concerts and harassing authors, artists and performers.

They have usurped our parental authority with respect to children in yeshivot by punishing them for dress, conduct and association, including with the opposite sex, off school premises and outside school hours. Our sons, and especially daughters, live in unremitting fear of being followed around and reported on by yeshiva spies.

They have created and nurtured a culture of parasitism, encouraging able-bodied young men to sit in yeshiva indefinitely and live off the labor of others, including elderly parents and in-laws, and forcing on such young men the shame and indignity of accepting assistance that Western enlightened governments provide for those unable to provide for themselves. They have denigrated and devalued secular studies that might give young men the means to earn a livelihood and provide for their families in manly fashion. They have told our daughters in front of their classmates that they are second rate because we, their fathers, work and provide for our families. They have discouraged in their yeshivot all forms of physical exercise that might endow our young men with manly health and vigor, opting instead for sedentary living, unhealthful diet and the resulting chronic weakness and sickness. They have forbidden our young men to fulfill their duty to defend our country against the merciless Arab savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In sum, they have endeavored to turn the order of nature upside down, extolling the weak, effeminate and parasitical over the strong, upright and manly. To us, Purim comes but once a year.

They have systematically deprived our young of any opportunity to meet in a wholesome environment, resulting in an unprecedented shiddukh crisis.

They have allowed teachers and administrators in their yeshivot to abuse our children sexually in the most heinous and abominable fashion, discouraging victims from reporting these crimes to the lawful constituted authorities and allowing the criminals to continue in employment.

They have led the charge to deprive gay citizens of their basic human rights, rights denied us Jews in the stinkholes of Eastern Europe where they remain culturally rooted. They have embarrassed us all with their gratuitous hatred and bigotry.

They have subordinated the kashrut certification process to their insatiable lust for money and power, having ordered shopkeepers to remove from their shelves products certified by none other than R. Moshe Soloveichik. The Soloveichik name speaks for itself, but those who ordered the removal, causing grievous personal anguish and financial loss to innocent shopkeepers struggling to make a living, wanted their cronies cut in on the action. They have also withheld certification from establishments whose food is kosher, in order to enforce an ambience that meets with their approval but that would make it impossible for such establishments to operate profitably. These and other sordid episodes have fed the public's cynicism with regard to kosher supervision.

They have allowed women seeking gittin to be held up for ransom and blackmail by their husbands, and have accorded those husbands all the honors and privileges due members in good standing of our communities, despite seruvim issued against them by recognized batei din.

They have endeavored, through violence and threats of violence, to reduce our women to slaves and chattel, as they are reduced in benighted Muslim lands but as we, citizens of enlightened Western societies, deem insufferable. Self-appointed "tznius police" set fire to clothing stores whose wares do not meet with their approval. They throw bleach at and otherwise physically attack women walking on public thoroughfares when their dress is not up to the goons' standards. They force women to sit in the back of public buses; those who dare refuse are beaten up and publicly humiliated. Shopkeepers are told to maintain separate hours for male and female patrons, and told that they might end up dead if they don't comply. They have defaced pictures of a female candidate for Prime Minister on lawfully placed campaign posters. These criminals and hoodlums cynically manipulate a corrupt political system to ensure that they are not called to account for their crimes.

They, a bunch of unelected petty tyrants, have sponsored an atmosphere of disrespect and comtempt for duly elected and lawfully constituted secular authorities. By their silence, and sometimes worse, they have made it permissible and even praiseworthy to lie, cheat and steal from the government, as long as they are not caught. They relate to our enlightened governments as if they were the Tsarist tyrants who singled us out for persecution. But they are not bashful about accepting aid from those same governments so they can maintain their parasitic lifestyle.


In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Jewish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their gedolim to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement in democratic societies. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, to be stood with when they are right and vigorously opposed when they are wrong .

We, therefore, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of our Torah communities, solemnly publish and declare, That these communities are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent agents, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to Agudat Yisrael and its Moatzot Gedolei Torah, in the United States, Israel and throughout the world, and that all religious connection between our communities and said Moatzot and their ideological confreres, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent agents, they have full Power to choose their own authority figures, establish schools for the training of our young as committed Jews and proud citizens of free societies and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent agents may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Man proposes. . . .

From reading the papers and hearing the news accounts, one gets the impression that we are living in a time of great anxiety regarding the future of Israel. In fact, anxiety has surrounded the State since its inception, with the possible exception of the time immediately following the Six Day War in 1967. When the British were about to leave in 1948, and the surrounding Arab armies were gearing up for war, all the experts advised against declaring independence. There was no way, they said, that the tiny state-to-be could hold out against such overwhelming force. At the insistence of David Ben-Gurion, who would become the State’s first prime minster, independence was declared. As predicted, seven Arab states declared war the following day and invaded the new State of Israel. Again, the experts advised withdrawing to a tight defense line along the coast between Tel-Aviv and Haifa. There was no hope, they said, of the joke of a state granted by the United Nations partition plan prevailing. They were right about the partition borders being a bad joke. They were right about the plans of our enemies, but God and Ben-Gurion had other plans. Every town, every settlement was to be defended. Not only did the State prevail; it expanded. The Etzion Bloc and the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem were lost for nineteen years, but Israel fought its enemies to an armistice on all fronts, an armistice that held for nineteen years while Israel grew economically and absorbed the Jews expelled from Arab countries with little but the clothes on their backs – no sixty-year refugee problem there.

Now the experts are at it again. From the United Nations, Europe, Russia, and President Obama's administration, the voices are unanimous. Israel must negotiate with terrorists irrevocably committed to its destruction. A "two-state solution" is inevitable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton assures the Arab world that the United States will energetically promote a two-state solution. This is the same Clinton who kissed Mrs. Yassir Arafat after the latter had accused Israel of deliberately infecting Arab children with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Not a word of protest from Mrs. Clinton. The same administration proposes nearly a billion dollars in aid to rebuild Gaza, never mind that the money will go, like all money given to Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, into the pockets of corrupt officials or to bankroll terror attacks.

It should not surprise us that the nations of the world are ready to install a terror state on Israel's border. They foolishly think that by throwing Israel to the wolves they will save themselves. Sacrifice the Little Satan and the terrorists will turn away from the Great Satan. But even among Israelis there is an air of resignation and inevitability. Foreign Minister-designate Avigdor Lieberman of the nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party supports a "Palestinian" State and, incredibly, is prepared to trade Arab-populated land in pre-1967 Israel to such a state in "exchange" for Israeli settlements beyond the "Green Line."

There is one ray of light illuminating the darkness. Purim (14 Adar) is the yahrzeit of Ha-rav Zvi Yehuda Hakohen Kook זצ''ל, son of the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, Avraham Yitzhak Hakohen Kook. Shortly after I came back from Israel in 1974, I saw a wall poster in Boro Park (!) written by him. It was headed, in big bold Hebrew letters, "Lo taguru," – Do not be afraid. Having graduated Yeshivah of Flatbush, where all Jewish subjects are taught in Hebrew, I drank its contents in thirstily and had no trouble understanding it. The Rav's son proclaimed that none of the "territories" may be given away. Not a grain of sand. Not because it would be strategically foolish, though it would be. Not because our enemies would interpret any "concession" as a sign of weakness and act accordingly, though they would. Eretz Yisrael is God's land and it is assur – forbidden by the Torah – to give any of it to Gentiles once it comes into our possession. We were to proclaim that message to other Jews and to the world – urbi et orbi – unapologetically and without fear. I later learned that the Lubavitcher Rebbe זצ''ל said much the same thing to anyone who would listen. Later still, after studying the philosophy of Rav Kook on my own, I learned of the drasha given by R. Zvi Yehuda on Yom Ha-atzmaut of 5727 (1967), where he lamented the Israeli people's resignation to the loss of so much of Eretz Yisrael. Only three weeks later that drasha would be looked back on in wonder, for on the day after the hag the run-up to the Six Day War began. The Arabs had their plans – drive the Jews into the sea. The world had its plans – sit back and leave Israel to its fate. The entire Jewish world was fearful; Israel would be outmanned and outgunned, as always. But God had His plans. On that day, when the enemies of the Jews had hoped to defeat them, it was turned around, and the Jews defeated their enemies – whenever I read the Megilla and come to that pasuk, I think of 26 Iyar 5727, the first of those fateful days. Wars are supposed to take years; the one in which the United States is currently engaged has been dragging on for eight. This war took all of six days. Mi shama ka-zot – who ever heard of anything like it? When it was over, Israel had quadrupled in size and Hevron, Shekhem, Yeriho, all the places whose absence from the State R. Zvi Yehuda lamented, were in Jewish hands for the first time in 2000 years. The world stood dumbfounded. The Jews had light, joy, gladness and honor – until one faithless government after another squandered what should have been the run-up to the final ge'ula.

So, lo taguru. Do not be afraid. President Obama, Secretary Clinton, the United States, the autocrats in the Kremkin, the Arab oil barons, - what they say does not matter. They only think they're in charge. We are to heed the One who really is in charge. Shine the light of R. Zvi Yehuda Kook first on our own people, then on the world. Let it chase away the darkness. There is no occupation. Eretz Yisrael – all of it – is ours. Irrevocably ours. Not by the generosity of the nations but from the Hand of God. You do not occupy your own territory. You do not annex your own territory. You settle it, build it and make it flourish. The world's two-state solution is really a three-state solution. There already is a "Palestinian" state. It's called Jordan and it sits on 80% of mandatory Palestine. Golda Meir was right; there is room for only one state between the river and the sea, and that state is the Jewish State of Israel. If the Arabs there wish to be citizens of Jordan, that can be worked out. If they want to rename Jordan Palestine, we won't stand in their way. If America wants to pour a billion dollars down a rat hole, let it pour the money on AIG and Citigroup. But Eretz Yisrael is not up for sale, barter or exchange. It is ours and ours forever. We have the Word of God on it, and we can take that to the bank. The banks have been lending money lately on a whole lot less.

Who are these guys? Jews!

I found this picture floating around on the Web. We could use shoulders like those to take back Kever Yosef (Get it - Where is Kever Yosef?). Or maybe turn 'em loose in Gaza. Just call them Samson's Foxes. We won the lottery with these dudes. Pour it on, fellas.

Zakhor - Remember

No, this isn't Purim Torah. This Shabbat we read Parshat Ki Tetze, whose maftir is the injunction, read again on the Shabbat before Purim, to remember Amalek. And tomorrow is the anniversary (on the civil calendar) of the attacks on America by today's evil Amalekites. We still have a score to settle with them. Pray for our brave men and women in uniform. If you live in New York, the weather is expected to be clear so view the Tribute in Light between sundown tomorrow and sunrise on Friday. And anyone who still thinks that the barbarians who did this are people we can talk to, do business with or bargain with, anything but devil-worshipers who cut themselves off from humanity - take a look at this video.



WARNING: NOT FOR THE FAINTHEARTED





This video was produced - I must say rather amateurishly - not by us but by the barbarians who perpetrated the brutal murder it depicts. They are proud of what they did. They celebrate it and they celebrate the people who do such things the way we would celebrate someone who found a cure for cancer.

Shortly after the attacks, my daughter came home from school with tapes from idiots posing as Orthodox rabbis urging teshuva and suggesting that America somehow deserved it. Since the Jewish date is 23 Elul, exactly one week before Rosh Hashana, perhaps it was inevitable that rabbis would relate the attacks to the teshuva theme. But any suggestion that our good, decent and free country deserved to have 3000 innocent lives snuffed out makes my blood boil, whether it comes from leftist crazies or right-wing Orthodox crazies with or without rabbinical titles. . בסדם אל תבא נפשי בקהלם אל תחד כבדי The barbarians who committed this butchery deserve to be erased from the face of the earth, and this country is called by God to do it.

Thank God for our families, our communities, our country and for each day He gives us. Celebrate life the way the barbarians celebrate death.

GOD BLESS AMERICA.

This just in from Shushan News Service: Hang Him High

The bodybuilder on the left is Andy Haman. If you hang him you better hang him high, 'cause there ain't no rope that will hold him. When the rope snaps, the 50-cubit drop will get him.

Zakhor - Remember

Yesterday, the Shabbat before Purim, we read Parshat Zakhor, the exhortation to remember the sneak attack that Amalek carried out in the desert and, when we finish conquering Eretz Yisrael, to erase Amalek from under heaven. The haftara from Sefer Shmuel tells how the prophet Shmuel conveyed God's message to King Saul that the time for that punic war had arrived. In language that grates on our modern ears, he is commanded to utterly destroy Amalek, "from man to woman, from infant to suckling, from ox to lamb, from camel to donkey." The words offend our sense of right and wrong, and they did the same to King Saul. He thought he knew better than God what was right and what was wrong, so he spared Agag, the king of Amalek, and his wife. They conceived a child that night, and the Amalekite evil that should have been stamped out once and for all survived. Centuries later Agag's descendant Haman hatched the plot whose frustration we will celebrate this Friday. The biological descendants of Amalek may be gone, but the evil they represented is still very much with us, as we saw last week. An Arab terrorist, a citizen of Israel living in Yerushalayim, carried out a sneak attack against students at Yeshivat Merkaz Harav and murdered eight talmidim in the beit midrash. Like their forebears, this Amalekite did not dare fight us like men, but instead murdered unarmed Yeshiva students. Holy sefarim were stained with their blood. Like so many times before, young parents cried at the funerals of their children.

Remember - This is an enemy that glorifies the murder of innocent people, that celebrated this outrage just as it celebrated the murders of 9/11. Remember - This is an enemy that teaches its children to idolize and emulate suicide bombers. Remember - This is an enemy (same enemy, same fight) that flies planes full of innocent people into buildings full of innocent people. An enemy that chops off people's heads in front of rolling TV cameras to make political points. There is no barbaric outrage, no atrocity, no inhumanity that is beneath those cowards. Remember what the rest of the world, even much of America, prefers to forget. The following is a column from the New York Post a bit less than a year after the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001:

WHERE'S THE ANGER?
by Eric Fettmann

August 29, 2002 --
THE first anniversary of Sept. 11 fast approaches, and the ceremonies have been set: intense, commercial-free TV coverage of what promises to be simple, dignified, yet extremely emotional proceedings at Ground Zero.
But there's something missing.
We'll see the pain and the grief. We'll see the loss of widows and widowers, of children who lost parents. We'll see the uniformed services commemorating their comrades' heroism and sacrifice. But what has happened to our anger? The acute rage, the white-hot fury that nearly all Americans felt in the immediate aftermath of the horrifying murders of 3,000 people seems to have dissipated. And, with it, the resolve that saw Americans united on the need to utterly demolish international terrorism. Which is one reason why, increasingly, the skeptics are seizing control of the debate over how America should respond: They're ridiculing President Bush's rhetoric about the "axis of evil" and raising fears that confronting international evil is not worth U.S. casualties. It's almost as if we want to put the shocking memories out of our minds - even as we obsess over our loss with the kind of forlorn grief that we normally reserve for dead celebrities. To that end, the networks have promised not to air the sickening footage of the planes hitting the Twin Towers. I understand the pain that such video may cause those who lost loved ones in the carnage, but America - and the world - need to be reminded, as forcefully as possible, just what happened that morning. We need to see the footage again and again. We need to recall, vividly and acutely, the horror and the heartsinking fear we all felt that day.
Even from the outset, some details seemed too bloodcurdling to discuss. The New York Times, for example, was widely - and wrongly - criticized for publishing a large photo showing several victims jumping from the blazing towers. Consider how appalling the situation must have been up there that scores of people willingly jumped hundreds of feet to certain death in order to escape the flames. It enrages me just to think about it - and it should enrage everyone.
And yet the late-night talk-show hosts long ago began working Osama bin Laden jokes into their monologues. The murderer of 9/11, with the blood of thousands of innocent people on his hands, has become grist for the nightly joke mill. Even David Letterman, whose stunned and tentative demeanor on his first post-9/11 show captured the national mood like nothing else, sees no reason not to make jokes like this one the other night: "Osama bin Laden is back running al Qaeda. I guess this means their leader got back from vacation before our leader."
We've grown so obsessed with the monthly ceremonies and the size of the permanent memorial, as psychobabblers run around seeking "closure" for the survivors and the families, that we've forgotten just what bin Laden unleashed on this country.
Has our national attention span really become so short? I'm sorry, but I don't want to see mournful processions and bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" over and over. I want to see a rekindling of the unrestrained anger we once felt. I've seen conservatives rage for years about Bill and Hillary Clinton. I've seen liberals who still can't discuss the 2000 elections without uncontrolled fury. Why don't we still feel the same way about bin Laden?
I also want to see the same determination to vanquish the enemy that Americans displayed 60 years ago when 2,300 of our countrymen were murdered at Pearl Harbor. On Dec. 7, 1942 - the first anniversary of what was still angrily being called Japan's "sneak attack" - The Post's headline was: "Wrathful City Marks Pearl Harbor Day With Grim Resolve." The editorial page said, "The test of character of a man or a nation" is "how he pulls himself off the floor and slugs his way toward victory."
Can we honestly say that 9/11 has done the same thing for us? Yes, taking drastic action on the basis of unrestrained emotion can be dangerous. More often than not, it's necessary to step back a bit and gain some perspective.
But it's just as dangerous when the pendulum of emotion swings to the opposite extreme - and we forget what and why we are fighting.
Ad kan leshono.

Remember - and keep reminding our friends, neighbors, co-workers and countrymen who would rather forget. Remember - and support the political candidates who remember, and oppose those who would rather forget. Remember - and do what has to be done.

Erase those evil bastards from the face of the earth. Never mind collateral damage. Never mind the cost - diplomatic, economic and military. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. Erase them. It's either them or us.

NEVER FORGET

The Stinka From Spinka

Yesterday afternoon the television news was abuzz with the arrest of the Rebbe of Spinka on a variety of white-collar charges, including income tax evasion and money laundering. According to the government (he has yet to be tried by a jury and is presumed innocent) he solicited large donations from wealthy people in our community, then kicked back as much as 95%, giving the donor a tax deduction 20 times what he was entitled to. I am no longer surprised by news of this sort, just thoroughly disgusted. It seems that ingratitude is the new Jewish virtue. We enjoy in this country the tranquility and freedom that eluded us throughout our long galut, and this is what we give in return. Earth to Harediland: Wake up. We’re not in Poland or Hungary any more. The American government does not persecute Jews. Whatever the gemara might say about the permissibility of defrauding Gentiles or a Gentile government (which ours is not, Jews having achieved high office up to and including running for Vice President) does not apply in our enlightened society. And the intrinsic evil of the rebbe’s alleged crimes is compounded by their inevitable consequence: massive hillul Hashem. It seems to have escaped the notice of the haredi world that such actions confirm all the tired old stereotypes that Gentiles have of us. Jews are dishonest connivers. Jews are greedy. Jews are grasping. Jews are money grubbers. Jews don’t uphold the law of the countries in which they live (hey man, remember that one?), ad infinitum. For those who think that skulduggery of this sort can be kept to ourselves, be assured that news of the rebbe's arrest was splashed all over the Internet (see link above) within hours of its occurrence.

The presumption of innocence may keep the Rebbe out of jail for the time being, but it does not entitle him or his hangers-on to our respect or trust. For that, those who presume to be our authority figures must be above suspicion. One who has such a cloud hanging over him (so much the more if the charges are substantiated) cannot be trusted in matters of kashrut or as a witness on a document of halakhic significance such as a ketuba or get. They should not be invited to our functions, nor should they be honored in our synagogues. In short, they should be ostracized from the society of honest men, a powerful sanction as long as man is a social animal (and a sanction which needs to be applied to men who unreasonably withhold gittin from their wives). And any parent with a child in Spinka’s yeshiva needs to ask himself or herself if (s)he wants his or her child taught by men of such dubious character.

Eli A. Shiv repents

Bulletin from Shushan News Service 15 Adar 5767:

A shake-up of epic proportions is unfolding tonight at the headquarters of Rabbi Eli A. Shiv. A spirited Purim party was going full tilt when the 93-year-old rabbi, often referred to as a "kalte Litvak," began shiv-ering. Like many buildings in Jerusalem, Rabbi Shiv's yeshiva lacked central heating. Frantically, his gabbaim searched under all the pillows in the yeshiva's dorms for forbidden science books. Triumphantly, they ran into the party room with a few handfuls of contraband, which they tossed into the fireplace to gleeful shouts of "burn baby burn." No sooner did Shiv thank his gabbaim than Magilla Gorilla came rushing in, knocking over some bottles of Absolut Shtuss and waving geneological records just unearthed from the archaeological dig at the ruins of King Ahashverosh's palace in Iran. "So you are my long-lost cousin after all," exclaimed Shiv as he embraced Gorilla, "but how did you get this out of Iran?" "Simple. I just told them that the scrolls prove that the building King Solomon built in Jerusalem was really a temple for Allah Yidden." A little tipsy, Galilee-O from Tzfat began prancing up and down, "It moves, it moves!" "What moves, you drunken fool?" "Earth moves. Earth moves." "Nonsense. We heard that already from Kopher-nik. Anything Kopher-nik says is poppycock." "Viagra pop your cock then you see Alice. It moves just the same." "It moves just the same," roared Australia Pithecus as he bounded to where Rabbi Shiv was sitting by the fireplace, warmed by the crackling books. "You think Galilee-O is horny? Wait till you hear this." He whipped out a shofar and blew the loudest tekiah ever heard in the yeshiva. Rabbi Shiv's jaw dropped from fright. The gabbaim exclaimed in unison, "Wrong Yom Tov." "No," said Pithecus. "Right Yom Tov. Yom k'Purim. Yom k'Purim. Rabbi Shiv, I'm fed up with you sticking a knife in good people's reputations. You have a lot of teshuvah to do, and you don't have much time left, so you better hurry before you join me in the Land Down Under." The books stopped burning and Shiv began shiv-ering again, from fear as much as cold. "Voos iss doos? Voos iss doos? We're all going to die. Gabbaim! Saddle up your fastest horses and fan out over the land. Me'ah She'arim. B'nei Brak. All 127 districts where Eli A. Shiv rules. Gather up all the pashkevils and all the book bans. Bring them all here in one month's time and let us burn them with the hametz.

Don't Get Carried Away

Have a Happy Purim, but remember it is Hatzalah's busiest day. Don't give them any more business; they work hard enough and deserve to spend Purim with their families too. Not to mention the hillul Hashem created when large numbers of observant Jews end up in emergency rooms with alcohol-related injuries and illnesses.
While there are halakhic sources for drinking more than usual on Purim, that does not mean getting drunk. Also, the shulkhan arukh was written before the invention of the automobile. Do not get behind the wheel if you had too much to drink, and do not serve alcohol to children.
Let's all enjoy ourselves, but don't get "carried away."