Norman Pressman http://www.jta.org/user/profile/20159 en-us zsilberman@washingtonjewishweek.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Great News-now lets make sure all mainstream Jews are informed of these hotels so we know where jot to stay on our trips to Israel. I certainly would not want to be stoend if I drove my car onto the parking lot of one of the hotels on Shabbat. More seriously I see the deminse of Israel not coming by virtue of the Arabs but as a collapse of the state as the haredim increasingly make demands, freeload and overburden the mainstream Jews who carry the brunt of work-MainstreamJews shold cease fuunding, directly or indirectly any haredi school or charity. We aren'; members of the same tribe.-The alternative is the Kiryas Joelization of Israel and where would that town be but for the US government subsidies? 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Ed and Pierre: I think its a mistake to have mutliple funds which will surely proliferate-I'm not sure what AJC was planning to do but some organizatiosn may colelct funds and keep them co mingled with their donor advised funds-I'm not sure why AJCommittee should have one (I'm not suggestign bad motives AJC is a good organization). I suggest the the Alan Solow, President of the Conference of Major Jewish Orgnizations set up a single fund and have the plethora of groups direct their members to contribute. The donations could be segregated and kept in a seperate trust and there would be one administrator/trustee who would protect the family against hangers on. On the other hand If there are multiple funds how will the money be disbursed?. Who will the family need to call if they need something and there are twenty funds? 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Mr. Baker: Thanks for your comment. I. I concede you are correct to a great extent on the question of fundamentalism versus the commentaries. But then why all of resistance to, for instance eliminating the problem of the Agunah, through similar legal fictions as you describe for the defective virgin problem? Why not similar resolutions to allow women to have equal roles in 20th century Judaism if the Rabbinical interpretaitons of the Torah can change the law?? And I don't celebrate Hannukah--its current form in the US is obviously retaliaition by gentile merchants for the commercialization of Christmas and elsewhere is the celebration of actions the of 2nd century BCE "haredim" who were cleansing the Temple of "reform," helenized Jews. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 I was sorry to see the tone of Rabbi Lamm's quotes-Here is a piece I recently posted on my blog in response to a question as to how I could be a Jew if I did not believe the Torah was the word of God. Can you be a Jew if you don't believe in Myth? We have a common heritage which probably can be traced to the 8th or 9th century BC (or maybe earlier if you believe that Kings David and Solomon were real as opposed to mythical.) After the Diaspora our ancestors kept certain customs and invented others such as mitizah b'peh and all of the Hasidic customs. Over time, our ancestors,especially those in France and Germany, as opposed to Lithuania and eastern Europe .started to realize the Torah was a set of myths as opposed to the word of a non-existent deity who watches over humanity. The key is this set of myths bound our more recent enlightened ancestors together even though most of them realized they were myths. Even you (the orthodox) don't believe in the complete truth of the Torah and don't completely obey its rules . I enjoy reading parts of the Torah. "The Rape of Dinah" for instance is an excellent allegory of how our people evened the odds and beat a superior foe. The story of Ruth is an example of how we are open to accept converts. The book of Esther is a primary on intermarriage. When the first scribe reduced Genesis to writing, do you think he had the benefit of the Hubble telescope-did he know the special and general theories of relativity let alone Newtonian mechanics? Did he understand Darwin?. And while I am open to the possibility that somewhere in he universe something happen which somehow created the first DNA strand and it was brought to earth or that there is some unknowable pre-big bang force which created the big bang-I see no evidence that there is a God like force in the form of a big man in the sky who wrote the Torah and watches over us. Further, I don't think you really do either and I'll deal with that question later today or tomorrow. I'll re-state your question as follows: "Can the only people of antiquity to have survived antiquity continue to survive as a group once the myth that previously bound it together is exposed as a myth?" and "Is it necessary to pretend that we believe that the myth is real for us to survive?" You and your orthodox friends either believe in the myths, or in the case of modern orthodox, don't necessarily believe in them but think the rules of the Torah must be obeyed to preserve our tribe. I and most of my mainstream Jewish friends don't believe in the myths. If you were correct that it was necessary to perpetuate the Torah's myths to preserve us as a group I don't think I could, for example, pretend that it was necessary to stone a woman who had tricked her husband into believing she was a virgin on the wedding date. The whole idea of the reform, and possibly the conservative movement, is to try and keep us together in a world which has seen the Torah's myths unraveled If these movements fail, our tribe may well go out of existence-that's why (Rabbi Lamm) should praise the reform and conservative movements instead of trying to subvert them. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Yet one more reason for mainstream authentic Jewes to demand that no Federation money go to any haredi school kollel or other cult sponsored organization which perpetuates these false Jewsih beliefs 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Rabbi Shafran's comments further shows why mainstream Jews who don't believe the Torah is the word of a diety who interferes with the Universe need to take action to stop the subsidization of haredi organizations through various channels inlcuding our Federations. Not only is Shafran wrong but he ignores the obvious further potential for anti-semitic feeling from Madoff and similar scams which have been perpetrated disproportionately by members of our tribe. (no I don't believe in collective guilt.) Why do we let people like him tell us who is a Jew, what is Kosher and what days our instittuions should be open? I need to send him a book on Spinoza. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Rabbi: This is a good idea. The defense groups like ADL, and the AJC's do a good job when Jews are the victims of anti-semitism. But occaisionally Jews are the cause of anti-semistism. For the lack of a beter term I call it "Jews Behaving Badly." While we are at it let's excommunicate the Rubashkins whose conduct has reinforced stereotypes that we are a greedy people who care for nothing but ourselves. Of course our leaders wont' touch the Rubashkiins because they hold a franchise from the religious extremists of our tribe who think being a Jew means is equivalent to the h ritual killing of animals while supervised by religious leaders who extract a temple tax for their services. Excomunicate them both. I'm proud of beig a Jew. Proud of the Sabra's, the doctors, the lawyers and the nobel prize winners who we have in disproportionate numbers but I'm likewise embarrased by the swindlers and religious nuts in our midst. And before someone flames me for claiming that just because one Jew behaves badly doesn't mean all of us are bad. The problem is perception. For example, when OJ murdered his ex-wife I didn't think all African Americans were bad or murderers. But when a large number of them thought he was innocent and playeded the racism card (the way Abe Foxman (a brilliant and good person) is playing it in the Rubashkin case, I have negative feelings towards that group. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Gentlemen: Rubashkin, Agriprocessors and the Postville Jewish community are not the victims of anti-semistism they are the cause of it. Many national leaders simply fail to understand the gravity of the situation. Jews just like Italians, Irish and other groups complain when their group is stigmatized by the actions of a minority. But the point our national secular leaders fail to understand is that the Agriprocessors group has essentially been given a franchise by the OU which in turn is given a franchise by the general Jewish community. Thus the actions of Rubashkin reflect on all of our community in a much different way than let's say the cosa nostra's actions reflect on Italians or the way OJ's actions reflct on African Americans. And speaking of OJ the protestations of the orthodox community that "Nothing has been proved" while true, remind me of OJ's claim of innocense-who believes that either is not guilty? The bottom line is tht the OU's policy was to produce cheap kosher meat and turn a blind eye to the conditions at AGP. The recent editorial in the Forward said it all. The presidents of the Major Jewish Organizations shouldorganize a drive to suppor tthe town of Postville instead of leaving the clean up of our mess to a local Catholic Priest I'm looking forward to the day when the Trustee sells to an honest group of businessmen who will run the business in a way that we would all be proud. Remember Jews were at the forefront of the labor movement. And Jews were for the most part the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire which started the movement. . 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00