Yitzchak Richard Yellin http://www.jta.org/user/profile/48698 Rabbi - Army Chaplain -1969-71 Asst Rabbi Adas Israel D.C. 1971-5 Rabbi, Mishkan Tefila, Newton Mass 1976-1992 Director General, Development Foundation, Beer-Sheva, Israel - 1992-5 Director General, Development Foundation, Netanya, Israel - 1995-8 Rabbi, Temple Emeth, Florida 1998-2008 Hillel Organiztations of Israel, Senior Advisor to Director, present en-us zsilberman@washingtonjewishweek.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Generalization: Rabbis Priests and Ministers Are Like Anyone Else When I was a teenager growing up in Philadelphia, my rabbi made Aliya and I was angry because I loved him and “he left me.” Several years later when I started visiting Israel and also visiting my rabbi, he told me that he stopped wearing a kipah because it had become a political symbol, with color, weave, and size, all being political rather than religious. Today I understand why he did not want to identify with formal religion. Today the beard, the payot, the garb, the black hat, and the title Rabbi, and the breaking of the law by the organized Jewish community in Israel and the Diaspora, have all begun to demoralize the normal Jewish world. It is unbelievable the havoc that a few can unleash on the many. Those who abuse the midot, the mitzvot, and the morasha of our people are in fact religious terrorists! They make innocent Jews the targets for all those who have always hated us, while bringing new recruits mounting the turrets of attacks against the Jewish People and the State of Israel, the keystone of Jewish life today. The Jew-criminal-few will always spoil and infect the body of a whole decent people. Look what the jihadists have done to Islam! Look what the pedophiles have done to Catholicism! The same is happening to us! I now am often ashamed of being a Jew! I now no longer wear a kipah in public. I now no longer refer to myself as “rabbi” in Israel. I am becoming like my former rabbi-teacher-mentor after making Aliya. I am still personally proud of my identity but I no longer wear it on my sleeve. Unfortunately the Jewish people are now being recognized by a few physical and appearance styles that are precipitating fallout on the rest of us. I don’t want to be a Jew by my looks, but by my books. I don’t want to be judged by my political factions but by my human actions and my private devotions. I don’t want to be judged by my religious infractions before God but only by my ethical abuses before my fellow-man. The “extremitization” of Judaism has given us black hatted Rabbis, black clothed women, tzitzis flying rock throwers on Shabbat, money laundering black bearded stereotypes, and synagogue leaders and rabbis making headlines with their misdeeds, not to mention a president, a prime minister, and cabinet member accused of similar vagaries of behavior . We better clean up our act before the ancient prophets catch up with us and give us a modern Tisha B’Av, not because we worshipped idols, and not because we hated each other, but because we cared more for religious behaviorism than for righteous relationships with Jew and Gentile, with government and community, with synagogue and street. Rabbis and all Jews and Gentiles, Moslems and Christians and Others, ought to begin acting like honorable menschen before we dare to hide behind our titles, ministries, offices and costumes! 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 In thinking about Iran, I cannot help but focus on Jewish identity - both the worst part of it and the best. The worst is Haman and the beginning of anti-Semitism. "Haman said to king Ahasuerus, There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom; and their laws are different from those of every other people; and they do not keep the king’s laws; therefore it is not for the king’s profit to tolerate them." Haman is there for all time in Iran (Persia). And the good side is my ordination certificate that symbolizes my rabbinic degree: Cyrus of Persia is the other side of the coin; he is quoted in the concluding verse of the TANACH - Jewish Bible in II Chronicles. "Thus said Cyrus king of Persia, 'All the kingdoms of the earth has the Lord God of heaven given me; and he has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, the Lord his God be with him, and let him go up!'" Aliya is the last Hebrew word of our Bible - VaYa-al -immigration to Israel. Haman and Cyrus -ARYANS - the best and the worst in our Jewish baggage. I identify with what is happening in Iran, as all Jews must do because of our identity. When most Jews leave their native countries- woe to that land. Egypt, Babylonia (Iraq), Persia (Iran) etc etc etc. Thank God for Israel, created in part by the legacy of Cyrus the Great - Aryan-Iranian. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 OBAMA- THE ISRAELI BOMBThe double entendre of BOMB was dropped in Cairo. Never in my young life of 60+ years have I been made fearful for Israel and our future. I am proud that I did not vote for Obama because of his naivete and his lack of experience and his speech proved it today. Evenhandedness in his speech destroyed any moral or ethical considerations of Israel's "no-choice but defense" of the Jewish People. His Evenhandedness destroyed the notion that Israel was made up of refugees but the Palestinians are victimized to this day by Israel (only because Palestinians and Hamas use violence). His Evenhandedness of the tragedy of the Holocaust with Palestinian suffering made Jewish culture in Germany irrelevant without citing the intent of the Arabs to destroy Israel. If Palestinians were in Nazi Germany they would have been exterminated; imagine the Nazis pulling out of the territories in which Palestinians lived. Evenhandedness got Obama to declare today that Iran has legitimacy in pursuing nuclear development to power its oil rich country despite the fact that it has been proven that they are pursuing nuclear weapons.. His Evenhandedness in which nuclear weapons disappear means that there are no more evils in this world to confront, and evil empires will simply disappear. We are in the middle of simulated missile attacks in Israel right now, and the president is telling us that Iran is not a major threat to the world. What is going on with the court Jews around Obama! They are promoting his lack of understanding of history. He mentioned Jews several times but over and over he praised the Moslems for Nobel Prizes and major contributions to culture. He never mentioned that slave trade exists today with some Moslem nations. He never mentioned that Jews and Christians are dhimmis - second-class citizens in Moslem countries. Israel at this moment has been bombed by Obama because the real ticking bomb of Iran has not been addressed. Here was Obama's chance to put IRAN on the agenda of the world, and he BOMBED. Thank God Israel has the BOMB and God forbid we will have to use it to defend our Jewish existence in the Jewish state if necessary. --YITZCHAK RICHARD YELLIN 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 THE ISRAELI BOMB The double entendre of BOMB was dropped in Cairo. Never in my young life of 60+ years have I been made fearful for Israel and our future. I am proud that I did not vote for Obama because of his naivete and his lack of experience and his speech proved it today. Evenhandedness in his speech destroyed any moral or ethical considerations of Israel's "no-choice but defense" of the Jewish People. His Evenhandedness destroyed the notion that Israel was made up of refugees but the Palestinians are victimized to this day by Israel (only because Palestinians and Hamas use violence). His Evenhandedness of the tragedy of the Holocaust with Palestinian suffering made Jewish culture in Germany irrelevant without citing the intent of the Arabs to destroy Israel. If Palestinians were in Nazi Germany they would have been exterminated; imagine the Nazis pulling out of the territories in which Palestinians lived. Evenhandedness got Obama to declare today that Iran has legitimacy in pursuing nuclear development to power its oil rich country despite the fact that it has been proven that they are pursuing nuclear weapons.. His Evenhandedness in which nuclear weapons disappear means that there are no more evils in this world to confront, and evil empires will simply disappear. We are in the middle of simulated missile attacks in Israel right now, and the president is telling us that Iran is not a major threat to the world. What is going on with the court Jews around Obama! They are promoting his lack of understanding of history. He mentioned Jews several times but over and over he praised the Moslems for Nobel Prizes and major contributions to culture. He never mentioned that slave trade exists today with some Moslem nations. He never mentioned that Jews and Christians are dhimmis - second-class citizens in Moslem countries. Israel at this moment has been bombed by Obama because the real ticking bomb of Iran has not been addressed. Here was Obama's chance to put IRAN on the agenda of the world, and he BOMBED. Thank God Israel has the BOMB and God forbid we will have to use it to defend our Jewish existence in the Jewish state if necessary. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 My comment is not about the shameful and punishable looting - it is about the misleading headline. Dear JTA - be careful that the headline does not distort the report. The soldier did not "return" the money - the Headline shoud have said: "Israeli Soldier Looted Palestinian Home and Faces Court-Martial." CAMERA - the media monitor will pick up on this, although CAMERA tries to rectify headlines that negatively distort the truth about Jews. Your headline a first glance seems to says something positive about an Israeli soldier. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 As a proud American and Chaplain and Israeli, i beg ti disagree. The greatness of America is the principle of to bigotry no sanction and there shall be no test of religion to lead the USA. To be Jewish and fighting or serving in Afghanistan is precisely what the USA stands for. To hide as Jews is to do exactly what Esther did not do in IRAN-Persia. Dear Will and Shirull. Do not be afraid of what the nations will say.Stand up and be counted - to do otherwise is to perish in the past. 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00 Mipnei Hatayeynu Galeenu mayartzaynu- Because of OUR sins were we exiled. Who destroyed the first Temple!? - obviously the Babylonians- but anyone could come up with blaming the criminal. The Rabbis say it was Avodah Zarah - idolatry on our part that destroyed the Temple. What is is about the Jewish community and many others as well that knew and know: you cannot get rich quick and that something was truly wrong about the huge profits that were being made on other people's money. What is it about us that makes us greedy, short sighted and willing to cut corners in order to make a buck? Madoff made off with the lucre of greed. Let us stop hating Madoff more than we hate ahmadinejad (J.T.A report) )and start looking at ourselves and the god of MAMON that has taken hold of the "stars" of Jewish life. The ethos of our Jewish community needs to take stock of itself. Everytime I pass by Mifal Hayis (ottery) in my Israeli neighborhood of Netanya - I want to cry as I watch poor people - Jews - trying to get rich quick taking a gamble and then only to bet more the following week. Another poor example of Jewish values. On this coming "poorim" we should stop casting lots, and on this week's Hanukkah - let us protest by not spinning anymore dreidles. Let us stop making a betting game into a sacred way of life. It is hard for all of us to believe that so many of us were involved in a grand larceny scheme that is having such a devastating effect on all the good projects of Jewry in the Diaspora and Israel. Anyone in a leadership position in the Jewish community who gave funds to Madoff ought to do a mea culpa and ask for forgiveness for being blinded not just by the criminality involved, but moreso for the greed that allowed the Ponzi system to devour us all....... Yitzchak Richard Yellin, formerly of Palm Beach County, Florida and Newton, Massachussetts 2012-02-09T;22:54:00-05:00