Time to send Turkey Packing

Imagine this headline - "Estonian Lawmakers Debate Recognizing German
Holocaust Against Jews." The outrage from the Israel, the Jewish world and peace loving nations around the world would be deafening. But see the headline on the site of Radio Free Europe http://www.rferl.org/content/israeli_lawmakers_debate_armenia_killings_genocide_issue/24434744.html

Israeli lawmakers are debating a historical fact, one that Hitler used as proof that the world will not care when he does the same to the Jews. The New York Times had this to say http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/world/middleeast/israel-risks-turkish-ire-with-recognition-of-armenian-genocide.html

There are two issues here; was Israel's relationship with Turkey worth the total destruction of her moral character and the non recognition of historical fact, considering the history of her people? And now that Turkey has proven to be an outright enemy of Israel, does there need to be a debate about the Armenian Genocide? American Jews for years have marched in lock-step with the Israeli policy of glossing over Turkish crimes against Armenians so as not to rock the apple cart. Shame on us and shame on Israel. We protected Turkey for some warped geo-political motive, but the first chance Turkey had to turn on the Jews, the West and Israel it did.

Will we remain silent as Turkey and Syria systemically seek to eradicate the great Kurdish nation? Will we let the Iranians off for persecution of Baha'i and other faiths? We play these geo-political games with the lives of innocents but scream bloody murder when it happens to us.

We have an obligation to speak out. Turkey is not a friend, despite some help to NATO they offer nothing to the developing and Western world but self interest and avoidance of reparations to Armenians. The time is now to speak out and let them loose. Their murderous history gets no immunity because of strategic considerations - especially when they care not one bit about their so called allies.

Let's reassess our relationship with the radical Islamists in Turkey, let's throw them out of NATO and let's show them that there is a price to be paid for being on the wrong side of history

Al Chet

Yesterday I posted a true story about what happened to me some 30 years ago at Yeshivat Hakotel, then run by Rav Aharon Bina. I went further and told of more recent incidents that happened to other students under the tutelage of Rav Bina. My purpose was to try and save other students from going through what I went through and to hope for action by our area Yeshivot. However, the age of the internet is a dangerous one in that as soon as you hit the send button, there really is no way of taking it back.

I had a long conversation with a rabbi who is very dear to me and my family after I sent out my statement. I should have had the conversation with him first. As the rabbi explained to me, Lashon Hara - evil tongue, is not about falsehoods, it's about the truth. There are good reasons we have laws regarding Lashon Hara, most importantly we as individuals cannot comprehend the consequences of our words.

For the sin of Lashon Hara - specifically against Rav Aharon Bina I ask him and Hakadosh Baruch Hoo for forgiveness. Unfortunately, my words are out there and since they are in fact 100% true I cannot retract them. While I stand by my words, I have rethought my actions. In my attempt to help others I have hurt a person who has dedicated his life to Jewish education. While therapeutic to me it is harmful to him and those of his students who love him and care about him. For this I am sincerely sorry. I hope that one day Rav Bina will take the time to realize that some of the things he's done and said have been hurtful and are in need of mechila as well.

A Most Painful Indictment

I am the youngest of four kids and at age 14 I lost my mother to cancer. She was 46 years old, beautiful in body and spirit and the rock of our family. My father, a Holocaust survivor who saw his own father shot dead in front of his eyes has always said that the death of my mother was the greatest tragedy of his life. Needless to say the pain lives with me to this day and I miss my mom beyond any words I can say.

My father did what most widowed people do after the death of a loved one - he found someone to fill the void in his life and remarried. I was 16 years old, the only child living at home and frankly I felt like the odd man out. With the help of good friends and teachers I applied for and was accepted early admission to Yeshiva University. I deferred and at age 16 found myself as a student at Yeshivat Hakotel in Jerusalem. At the time Yeshivat Hakotel was a member Yeshiva of Yeshivot Bnei Akiva and the overseas student program was run by Rav Aharon Bina.

I openly admit now as I did back then in 1980, that my reasons for being in Israel at the time had more to do with getting away from home than from learning Torah. Having said that, I was anything but a trouble maker, perhaps not the most studious kid but not a discipline problem either. Well, one day in our Gemara Shiur, we were learning a segment called Chezkat Habatim, apropos of nothing Rav Bina blurts out in his accented English "az your wife die and you remarry - you never love your first wife." Immediately, my hand goes up. Rav Bina shoos me away and says that he knows my story but the bottom line is, if a person remarries after his wife died he never loved his first wife. I walked out of class distraught, hurt and angry.

A few hours later Rav Bina pulls me aside in the Beit Medrash and tells me in these exact words, "Moskowitz, az you took personal what I said az you bigger idiot than I thought you were." My response to him led to my being asked to leave Yeshivat Hakotel. I did tell of the incident to the principals of quite a few prominent Yeshivot at the time, who fed Rav Bina students - apparently, 1980 was not a good year to highlight psychological abuse by rabbis I guess it was not in vogue yet as unacceptable behavior. They did nothing.

Some years later, Yeshivot Bnei Akivah seperated ways from Rav Bina and he was forced to open another Yeshiva called Netiv Aryeh. The circumstances of the split will probably never be known, and I assume Yeshivot Bnei Akivah will never tell the truth because of liability issues they may face. One thing for sure, they didn't split from Rav Bina because of his immense success rate and popularity.

For years I only told my Rav Bina story to some friends and relatives who asked my opinion about him or his Yeshiva. I told the truth but said that perhaps it was me not him who caused this chasm. Then just about 2 or 3 years ago, someone sent me a link to a site called http://www.binaabuse.blogspot.com/ - since taken down I might add. There were tens of stories like mine about verbal and psychological abuse by this man against his students. The problem was that most of these stories were posted anonymously. I chose to post my story and I signed my name to it. For me the shock that some 30 years later this was still going on impelled me to put myself forward as a source and witness to this so called Rav's cruelty.

I was contacted by a number of people who posted on that site. One young man met with me, he looked ragged and older than his 24 years. He had been unable to hold a job or sit through any classes because of the public humiliation he suffered under Aharon Bina. To many, barbs thrown by Rav Bina at students like "you are gay and will be divorced ten times" seem funny. To others it is just another form of humiliation.

Aharon Bina has a great track record of indoctrinating young men from modern Yeshivot and turning them into nice frum Yeshiva bochers. The untold secret to this success is that it comes at the cost of humiliating the weakest links in his classrooms. A friend who went a few years after me, turned prematurely grey, he was also a bit heavy. After seeing a purplish hue in the hair dye he used, Rav Bina called him Barney the Dinosaur in front of the whole class. Funny? Perhaps. Inappropriate for a rabbi and teacher? Definitely.

We tried to get the story out and in fact I was interviewed by Michelle Chabin of the Jewish Week, the story became about gap year students in Israel. Rav Bina was no where to be found in the story. Speak to any educator in the Yeshiva world today and one after one they will tell you that Rav Bina's methods are eccentric and perhaps unconventional. But not one has the guts to say that whatever success he has comes at the evil humiliation he heaps on others.

While his abuse is not sexual in nature, the handling of it by the Yeshivot today is nothing short of the hiding the crimes of Rabbi Balkany at Torah Temimah and Baruch Lanner at NCSY. Every Yeshiva that hosts this man to recruit students is hosting an abusive person who has caused harm to many students. Those who host this man for fundraising in their homes do the same. No one would tolerate similar behavior in a school here it should not be tolerated in Yeshivot in Israel.

I once again am going public. I am a 48 year old man, proud father of three great kids, married 25 years. I belong to an Orthodox Shul and have sent my kids to Yeshiva. I am active in Jewish and religious causes and I am an ardent Zionist. I have no reason to lie or to make this up. But by going public I now have put all you Yeshivot on notice and all you parents who consider his school. Despite his success with some students this man humiliates and embarrass students regularly. He should not be allowed to teach young impressionable boys. Once again the warning bell has been sound - now who has the guts besides me to speak up.

It Won't End Until We Demand It Does

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/12/israeli-beit-shemesh-religious-battle.html - Click on the link and be prepared to be disgusted beyond your wildest dreams. The story from yesterday’s Los Angeles Times with a video from Israeli TV speaks for itself. It shows that in the name of Torah, in the name of God, in the name of religious modesty all sorts of perverted, grotesque behavior are performed. The venom is not reserved just for adults but little children. All in the name of a God not recognizable to most Jews.

We demand that radical Islam be denounced by imams. We insist that pastors and priests condemn radicalism and violence within their communities. Now is the time that we Jews DEMAND, that the government of Israel and ALL OF OUR RABBINIC LEADERS denounce in no uncertain terms, the violence and venom being perpetrated by terrorists who cloak themselves in the dress and manner of Haredim.

Forgive my parochialism, but I don’t seek the condemnation of this behavior from our Young Israel or big Shul rabbis who rail against these animals pretty regularly. No I want to hear from the rabbis who condemn the internet and modernity. I want to hear condemnation from those rabbis who find intolerance emanating from any Jew without a beard, hat or velvet yarmulke or God forbid a Conservative or Reform Jew. I want to see the Jewish Press and The Five Towns Jewish Times running headline stories about these low life animals who terrorize fellow Jews. I anxiously await the halachic rulings of the self proclaimed “Greats of Torah” to unequivocally condemn this vile behavior.

Trust me my friends and readers, you won’t see it unless we all speak out loudly and often so that they will hear from the rooftops, from the pews of our Shuls, in the classrooms of our schools, in the Knesset, in the street and in our homes. If we don’t demand an end to terror by our own people we will never see it end and we will lose all moral authority to demand it from others.

Daas Torah – Postscript - From Friday's Rant on thefivetowns.com

I was heartened by the responses that I received from my last two posting regarding Daas Torah. Quite a few people sent me links and stories of rabbis both here and in Israel who don’t subscribe to a narrow or hard line view of Halacha. The message I took from all those responses was that the lunatics are not necessarily running the asylum, that there are rabbis who share a more modernized world view and that Judaism is not aping hard line Islam. Wow, that’s a relief.

Let me be clear, I am a lover of my people – all of them, religious and non, no matter what level of observance and identity. I respect people’s beliefs and value systems. I admire the spirituality of different movements and sects. Frankly, that’s my point. It’s not that one value system trumps another; it’s just a question of respect and facing reality.

While I pointed out in a previous posting the narrow mindedness of Agudath Israel in relation to say, the internet, I did not nor would I ever put down their choice to follow that line. However, words and rulings have consequences. To say that something is a sin that one should die for rather than commit, serves as an impetus for the followers to act aggressively against those whom commit the sin. It gives license to impose one’s will on another.

When did the taking on of a chumra (stricter adherence) become a license to deface public property, or to defy a Supreme Court ruling? Why must everything become complicated? I strive to live in a world, especially a Jewish world, which is based on love of humanity and betterment of mankind. Is that so difficult for us? Rather than attack a local rabbi who hosted a priest in his Shul (after services and the priest was dressed in a kippah and street clothes) who finds unmarked Jewish graves from the Holocaust, perhaps a respect for his opinion. Ditto learned rabbis who accommodate female scholars and tolerate (not condone, just tolerate) homosexuals.

I remember a quote attributed to an old Arab leader who said “leave the Jews alone, in enough time they’ll kill themselves.” This Chanukah, let’s all pledge to keep that prediction in the realm of the impossible, by embracing one another in peace and love.

Vote for the Best Liar - From my Friday Column Standard LI

Posted on December 23, 2011

By Joel Moskowitz
Like most, I haven’t made up my mind yet who I’m voting for in the upcoming presidential election. While of course we wait to see who the Republicans will nominate, most of us have a general idea who the likely two or three left standing at the end of that process will be. Personally, I think Republicans will ultimately choose Mitt Romney just because they feel he’s got the best shot at beating President Obama.
No matter whom the Republicans nominate, I’m going to end up voting for the candidate I believe in least in the general election. Based on the system as it is today, to get the party nomination a candidate has to pander to the base, as they are the most active and likely to vote in primaries. To get the attention of the base, the candidate needs money, lots of it. In order to accumulate cash, the candidate must say things that make the big contributors, usually more affluent voters, happy as well.
All you have to do now is follow the promises the candidates are making and realize that almost everything they swear to do will never happen. For once I’m actually ok with that because none are promising anything more than poll commissioned, focus group tested hogwash. We have a broken political system and in order to win, the candidates must play by the rules of the system which benefits campaign consultants and advertisers only. What we have to hope for is that after winning, all the promises are thrown out and the job of real governance begins.
Obama has already started this narrative by positing himself as the guy who will take on and punish the big banks and be the champion of the little guy. His first term and the people he surrounds himself with, prove he is otherwise inclined, remember “hope and change?” We had plenty of hope we got little change. He has already started to run with a populist appeal and much as I’d like him to stick to some of those things, he won’t. The moneyed interests are too powerful and he has proven time and again that he has no stomach to take them on. As an example, his Justice Department wastes billions of taxpayer dollars prosecuting medical marijuana dispensaries in states where they are legal, yet they prosecute no one for the crimes that caused the financial crisis. Just this week, the FDIC fined executives of the bankrupt Washington Mutual Bank about $64 million, most of which will be paid from insurance policies and where they don’t exist, by the taxpayers. Cost to the taxpayer of the Washington Mutual bankruptcy sale to JP Morgan? $600 billion! No criminal charges have been filed. Actual homeowners who saved their home with the aid of the Obama administration? Negligible!
Republicans swear on the graves of all their dear departed relatives that they won’t raise taxes and still balance the budget and pay off our debt without hurting social security. Bunk! Ronald Reagan raised taxes in a less volatile economy and so will they but they will stick to the script because that’s what they feel will get them elected.
What I’m looking for in a candidate is someone who is going to lie to me and tell me everything I want to hear because if any candidate tells the truth about what needs to be done they’ll never get elected. I’m looking for someone that when Congress ties his agenda in knots follows what Rick Perry did in Texas when the state legislature didn’t take him seriously; veto everything. Congress, with an approval rating slightly under that of Adolph Hitler and the Iranian Ayatollahs, loves to resort to filibusters, attaching bills with unacceptable amendments and super majority requirements to get things their way. It’s time for someone to put the onus on them. Let Congress once again be punished for letting the government shut down. No one likes them anyway. Here’s a suggestion, all bills must stand alone with no unrelated amendments. Want to extend payroll tax cuts? Great, but no oil pipeline amendment tacked on to the bill, it has nothing to do with the payroll tax and attaching it hurts the working stiff.
We need a president not beholden to focus groups or a deadlocked do nothing Congress. We need a president to push an agenda forward and to not have his eyes on re-election or historical legacy. Step number one will be for whoever is elected president to separate the money culture from the political system and institute real electoral reform.
I hope that when the Republican candidates promise to appoint Supreme Court judges in the style of Thomas, Alito, Scalia and Roberts that they are lying. Those guys allowed by ruling for foreign corporations to have free rein to throw money at any candidate they choose and pervert American democracy.
I used to be cynic, now I just have no faith. All I can hope for now is that one of these people who have put themselves out there and offered their service to this great nation will actually run away from their empty promises and do something that will fix our country. The solutions will entail widespread sacrifice and will result in no one being happy, but if gets us out of this mess no one will remember or care. So lie to me all of you candidates, sell me a bill of goods, because I’m voting for the person I believe won’t dare keep his promises

Merry Christmas

Growing up in the home of a Holocaust survivor in the late 1960's and early 1970's, Christmas was  anything but merry or a festive occasion. In fact, Christmas symbolized to kids of my generation thousands of years of persecution and the constant reminder by our Christian/Catholic neighbors that we (translation, I) killed their Lord. The pain was so deep, that Torah study on Christmas was avoided in our home. As a youngster, I looked to that as a gift from the Anti-Semites, you hate us - we don't learn, yay! The commercialization of Christmas brought some respite to that venom especially when Hanukkah got lumped together with Christmas as a Jewish equivalent, and some of us began to get a bit mote comfortable with the transformation of our neighborhoods into winter wonderlands. We introduced electronic menorahs and Hanukkah decorations as a way of saying "hey, we have fun too."

Like most changes, they take time. The transformation of Christmas to something less malignant than Jews killing Jesus and therefore an excuse to harm Jews as revenge, was a process, not an overnight phenomenon. The Vatican II specifically Nostra Aetate which came out in 1963 exonerated Jews in the killing of Jesus and laid blame just as much on Christians and Romans as Jews. Twenty odd years later an older colleague at work told me that she has every right to hate Jews for killing her Lord but doesn't because in America that is politically incorrect. So much for the infallibility of the Pope.

But now it's 2011, and we live in a very different world. Christians and Jews share a common enemy, radical Islam. Christians who for thousands of years had vibrant communities throughout the Middle East are being driven out in droves. Lebanon, used to have a power sharing agreement between Christians and Muslims - now with Hezbollah terrorizing everyone Christians are leaving as fast as they can. Coptic Christians in Egypt are being murdered daily, the Iraqi Christian community is practically non-existent. Ditto Syria and all the Muslim African countries. Of course the freest country in the region for Christian and Muslims is Israel, and yes that comes with its own set of issues, but perhaps in a later post. Turn on any news channel on Christmas and you see holiday celebrations in Rome and Bethlehem, not any other ancient Middle Eastern cities because it's not allowed. Also, Fundamental Christianity has found an ally in the Jewish people and a Jewish Israel. While this makes many Jews uncomfortable, after all they fully expect that after the rapture we will accept Jesus as our savior or be damned to an eternity in hell, it bothers me not one bit. My attitude is simple, I'll take my hidden God over your hidden God any time, and if I'm ultimately proven wrong, I'll deal with it then.

Political correctness here in the USA has forced us to say "happy holidays" rather than "merry Christmas." What a shame. The founding fathers of this country decided to make Christmas a national holiday. Not because they wanted the USA to have a formal religion, but as recognition that the original settlers here came to practice their religion freely without authority of a Pope or The Church of England. Those original settlers were Christians and in their honor Christmas became a national holiday.

While I don't celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday, I am happy to have the day off from work. I am thrilled for my friends and neighbors who wait all year for this time of family, love and the sharing of gifts and good cheer. In the recesses of my mind I remember the historical pain felt by forefathers during Christmas but now I'm thankful that I live in a different world. The world I am proud to live in acknowledges my holidays and in turn I happily acknowledge others. So today I say proudly to my friends and neighbors, with profound gratitude and love - MERRY CHRISTMAS to you and yours. May all of your wishes come true and may we really achieve peace on earth.

Kosher Electric

In one of those bizzaro moves that can only come from the wacko Haredi fringe - an attempt was made to make the electric company kosher. I'm not talking about the kitchens in the electric company's cafeteria, I'm talking about the actual electric company. This is akin to making bus service kosher by forcing women to sit in the back of the bus.

The problem for the Haredi community seems to be this. Since the Israeli electric company is run by Jews, use of electricity even with a timer, will cause another Jew, one working at the electric company,  to violate the sabbath, thus forcing these so very righteous Haredim to use generators at home. Of course, wide use of gas generators causes all sorts of safety hazards, especially in dense urban areas where Haredim generally live.

Bowing to the pressure of the lunatic fringe who generally don't pay taxes, serve in the armed forces, live on the dole but do vote, the Likud lead coalition proposed a law in the Knesset to make the electric company kosher. In other words, there would be rabbinic supervision over the a government run utility. Thankfully, enough protests forced the government to back down. Now the Haredim will have to continue living exactly the same way they have been for the past 64 years in Israel, without a kosher certified electric company.

I hope it lasts. Apparently, Haredim do not take well when decisions go against them. Just ask the Supreme Court who found segregated buses to be illegal. In defiance of that ruling segregated buses can be found all over Jerusalem. Egged, the bus company will tell you that those lines have voluntary segregation and that if a woman insists on sitting up front they cannot be forced to move. Give it a try ladies, let me know how that works out for you. For that matter, all you tough guys out there try sitting in the back with the ladies, I'm sure you will have a pleasant ride.

Keep up the pressure - it does work

North Korea and the Israel Connection

Like many of you I woke up to the news that Kim Jong Il, the lunatic dictator of North Korea has died. Scenes of the crying faithful were looped and re looped throughout the broadcasts and analysis of what happens next is speculative and frightful. While I shudder with fright that the world still endures repressive, military dictatorships; especially nuclear armed ones, I take comfort in the fact that we have less madmen to contend with in the new world order. Perhaps I am naive, but I'd like to believe that ultimately things will end well in the Korean Peninsula if somehow we don't screw this up too badly.

The unknown factor can be seen in the countries of the Arab Spring, where freedom and democracy are still very much in their infancy. We have yet to see if these brave rebellions will bring real reform to their countries or just another form of tribal inequity or repressive, radical Islamic states, that shaped the region for years. Then of course we still have to contend with Iran and to a smaller extent, its client and ally Syria who survive only at the will and support of China and Russia. While I am no Geo-political scholar, it's a safe bet that China and Russia won't give Iran away without a fight, after all, in their eyes, the United States has been paying a steep price to maintain its influence in the region. Maintaining Iran allows China/Russia to bleed treasure and manpower from the U.S. thus strengthening those two rivals.

Now it becomes more important than ever for the U.S. to strengthen ties with Israel who is THE ONLY stopgap in the Middle East from complete instability. America and the West have an opportunity now to defuse a ticking bomb in the Korean Peninsula, success there will augur well for other regions like the Middle East. But in the likely event that that the status quo is maintained in Korea or worse, greater tensions, then the Middle East's stability will become an even greater concern to the West, already spread thin and the rest of the world. It is such world dynamics that place Israel front and center in that crucial neighborhood. After all, relying on another ally, a Kingdom that beheads 60 year old women for practicing witchcraft, cannot under any one's definition be considered a bulwark of stability.

I'm pretty sure that today, President Obama is not upset that it's Bibi he has to deal with every day. I hope he and his advisers realize that and use today's shock and uncertainty to change the tone with the one reliable friend in that other tinder box of instability. Perhaps we will be lucky and the new leader in North Korea will figure out a way to sideline his hard line military and come to some reconciliation with the Western World. Since we all know that even if he is so inclined, it will take time, then it's best to strengthen our relationship with our friends and stand firm in the face of the few crazies we have left.

Too Small to Save

When I was growing up we were taught to believe that there was nothing we couldn’t accomplish here in the good ole U. S. of A. That belief was not just some form of hyperbole, it was the truth. Opportunity was available to all, no mater what class you came from. There are generations of people who grew up in lower and middle class families that went to City College, usually working their way through it, who ended up going to law school, medical school, business school and various other professional schools. From these strivers came out judges, professors, top flight doctors, engineers, journalists, businessmen, political leaders and even a Joint Chiefs Chairman. The merchant class made up most of the rest and employed most of the workforce. Jobs were available and the feeling that the next generation will succeed just as well if not more was palpable.

America had a social compact with its citizens imbedded in the founding of this union that guaranteed the freedom to improve quality of life through hard work and resilience. Through blood and protests these freedoms over time extended to those who for many years were not given that equality. Our country was in constant motion evolving to form a more perfect union. Our democracy was a meritocracy and stories of rags to riches were abundant. There was no height that could not be reached. Our leaders seemed to have a handle on how to deal with the problems we faced and more importantly found a way to implement what needed to be done with compromise. Descent, though sometimes acrid, seemed genteel compared to now, to the victors went the spoils or so it seemed.

I remember a time not long ago, when a job also got you health insurance and a pension plan. Loyalty to the firm was usually met with reciprocal loyalty. Patient investment bought you a nice nest egg. Assets were actually backed by something and esoteric financial creations made by overleveraging value did not exist. When companies failed, they failed. When individuals met misfortune, society had a consensus to help prop them up. Cliché alert; life was simpler back then.

Things are certainly different now. Depression in college students is at an all time high. Graduates from all levels of colleges, Ivy League included, have difficulty finding work. When work is found, the wages are too low. Many jobs come with no company participation in health insurance, those that do contribute very little. There is no such thing as a pension anymore unless you work for government and your union negotiated a good one for you. Even those are being done away with. Forget loyalty, if you’re lucky to get a job, you are as expendable as the 21 year old behind you who will gladly take your place for half your salary. Two in five working families have less than $25,000 in savings, including retirement accounts, to fall back on in the event of a job loss. With unemployment lasting on average longer than 6 months, that’s not nearly enough for a typical family with rent, a mortgage, car payments, utilities and food.

Our political leaders care more about filibustering and vetoing each others solutions then actually fixing anything. When they put something forward, say extending the payroll tax cut, an oil pipeline opposed by many is tacked on to the bill guaranteeing a continuation of gridlock. Staying in power trades at a higher premium than mooring us back on course. In order to stay in power, obedience is given to money, not votes. Through money comes access and control of the narrative.

Control of the narrative is the key to advancing any agenda and money is the key to controlling the narrative. I recently read that point zero two percent of all U.S. citizens make political contributions. That means several thousand have more influence over the narrative than hundreds of millions. We are having a hard time extricating ourselves from this system. Congress is so addicted to money, they even voted down a bill that would restrict them from trading on inside information. As the stories begin to come out about how many TRILLIONS we gave the banking system to survive, is there anyone that doubts the influence their money had on those decisions?

Unfortunately, the upcoming elections won’t change very much. As former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wrote in a recent column in The Huffington Post, we face a “passionless presidential race.” Those who voted for change under Obama in 08’ remember the TRILLIONS he too injected into the banking system and the little he did for struggling homeowners. To those advocating for a more traditionally progressive approach to the financial crisis, Obama might as well be George W. Bush. On the Republican side, of the two likely nominees, one made hundreds of millions buying companies, over leveraging them and then laying off thousands to pay off the debt. The other guy, a career Washington insider, never met a special interest whose pocket he couldn’t pick and who thinks poor school children should clean toilets to learn a work ethic. Oh yeah, he was thrown out of his last political position for dropping the ball on everything, including shutting down the government for political gain. God help us if any of the second tier Republicans jump to the fore. We can only pray that whoever wins morphs into a reformer, don’t bet on it.  

With that in mind, we have at least 4 more years of gridlock and the continuous stranglehold of moneyed interests over our leaders. We need to take the narrative away from them and build a movement that combines right and left, democrat and republican that demands an overhaul of our system. Otherwise, when the time comes and for most of us it will come, we will be too small to save.  

Where is the Outrage

Two stories came out last week that should have caused a huge outrage, but the relative silence was deafening. The first story was the one that told how the big banks were bailed out to the tune of over $7 trillion not the $900 billion of TARP as originally thought. The bailout came in the form of Federal Reserve Bank asset purchases and loans with such low interest that banks were able to profit from the spread of investing those funds in U.S. government bonds. In essence, the Fed gave banks money below 1% and they turned around and lent it back to the Fed at over 3%. This enabled banks that were for all intents and purposes insolvent to be able to post profits. This of course was kept secret because had the news gotten out that these banks were getting a further bailout from the Fed, there would have been a run on the stock causing market turmoil. But that’s not the part that should have caused the outrage.

The part that all of us should be really ticked off about is not the bailout itself. I truly believe the Fed was acting in what it thought was the best interests of the economy and the country. The benefits of this action will be debated for years to come but I’m willing to concede the point to the professionals on this one. What should anger everyone is that the bailout came with no strings attached, no modification of bank behavior and zero help to struggling homeowners. More on that later.

The other story that should cause outrage is the front page story in last Sunday’s New York Times profiling billionaire Ronald Lauder and the legal tax breaks he takes advantage of. Again, the outrage is not for the reasons you may think. I for one think Lauder and any other American should try and pay the least amount of taxes legally allowed, this country was built on a tax revolt, it’s inherit in our culture and basically logical. No, the part that should have everyone up in arms is the attempt by many in the media and certain political circles to turn the financial crisis into class warfare. It’s not about class warfare; it’s about a lot of things but class warfare it certainly is not. It’s crucial we separate corporate greed and a system that places the shareholder over a corporation’s social compact from wealthy people holding on to their money. Also, say what you want about Ronald Lauder, but he got no government bailout and no excessive bonus for doing nothing. Sure, Lauder made money the old fashioned way; he inherited it, but so what? I don’t begrudge him any of it and I’m pretty confident most Americans don’t either. What the New York Times was doing was simply trying to inflame passions away from the core issue; the relationship between money and politics and focusing it on scapegoating. I don’t care if the scapegoats are the rich, scapegoating is the precursor to persecution and we should be outraged by it.

What we need to focus on is not more taxes per se, but figuring out a way to save homeowners and the housing market, creating jobs and modifying the behavior that got us to this point. I for one am not against regulation; I’m in favor of smart regulation. How many of us would board an airplane that the FAA will not vouch for its safety? How many of us would take a pill not approved by the FDA? Why can’t we apply smart regulation to the financial markets?

I’m not against taxation; I’m just in favor of smart taxation. Why should someone who earns all of his living on interest income pay a lower rate than a working stiff? Why should an heir pay prohibitive taxes on money left to them by a parent who worked their whole life to earn it and paid taxes on it already?

I’m not against bailouts; I’m just in favor of setting conditions to the bailout. Why should banks be able to write off bad loans, get bailed out and then sell the distressed asset and make money again, while the struggling homeowner is put out on the street? If we can reward banks for “bad” behavior, we can certainly help individual citizens for no worse behavior. Let’s not forget that most of the foreclosures are no longer from sub-prime loans to undeserving borrowers, most come because of the financial crisis and unemployment by people who did everything “right” but just got screwed by circumstance.

I don’t profess to have the answers but I do know how to identify unfairness and imbalance. I don’t want to punish anyone in particular; I just want a balanced playing field. I don’t care if you’re a Teabagger or OWSer; I just want competent leadership and overall fairness. Is

The Yarlmuke Conundrum

A few years ago on the

Long Island Rail Road

, I sat next to a friend from Shul. At the time our Shul was going through a transition and I asked my friend, who was involved with the goings on there why he had not put himself forward as a candidate for president. He pointed to the buttered roll and coffee in his hand and said to me “I got these at John’s Coffee Shop and I don’t think it appropriate for the president of an Orthodox Shul. “ I answered him with what I thought was a simple yet pertinent point, “so you won’t go to John’s for a couple of years.

That friend never did become the president but that incident reminds me of some tough issues we face as observant Jews and modern people. In the eyes of many, being an observant Jew in America today offers little or no dilemmas, especially here in the New York City area. In today’s world, people go to all kinds of jobs wearing turbans, burkhas, yarmulkes or any variety of ethnic and religious garbs. Kosher food is available almost everywhere and there are enough high end kosher restaurants that entertaining clients or business associates does not have to be done at the cost of quality. Sabbath observance is protected by civil rights laws and that is rarely a problem.

Then there are people like me. I’m obviously quite familiar with the availability of kosher food and the tolerance shown to people of all religions and ethnicities in the working world. Yet I choose not to wear a kippah to work (may that be the worst of my sins). I remember some years back, my father came to visit me at the office, and he noticed a gentleman wearing a kippah. “Does he work here too?” asked my father. “Yes” I answered. “So why does he wear his kippah and you don’t?” While my response offers no scholarly reasoning, I think it makes sense, well to me anyway. My answer was simple, that particular gentleman who was wearing his yarmulke at work, well he is a much better representative of the yarmulke than I am. Whether, my language is sometimes colorful or for other reasons, I just feel by covering my head I bring attention to my people rather than to myself in a setting where the attention should be focused solely on me. Of course if I just wore the kippah, I might be compelled to act appropriately as one representing what it means. But that’s another column.

For now, I’m just going to go with this being a toss up in my eyes. I can write ad infinitum about how much more damaging it is for an outwardly observant Jew to act inappropriately than one less obviously ethnic. Desecration of The Name (chilul Hashem) is a sin not reserved for any one particular group. And I mean that about everything, from not giving up a seat on the train to someone who needs it, to double parking on

Central Avenue

on a Friday afternoon, to someone committing serious crimes with their glaringly obvious Jewish names making the papers. Reminds me of a rabbi who was one of my teachers in high school, who once told us that if we feel compelled to make out with our girlfriends in a movie theatre to do so without our yarmulke on.

Recently, a friend saw me walking on

Central Avenue

it was a Sunday and for a reason that eludes me now my head was completely uncovered. He, being a good friend, pointed out to me that in our neighborhood there is no good reason for me not to wear my kippah scolded, I agreed with him and corrected the error. I go to an Orthodox Shul in the area, sent my kids to Yeshiva and I wasn’t at work then. In short, the only thing I was doing was making a statement that frankly no one cared to hear from me and wasn’t much of a statement.

I have become all too aware that I belong to something much me bigger than me, and while the slogan might be “membership has its privileges” it should say “membership has its obligations.”  Many will argue that I am drawing lines (tell me who doesn’t) and considering where I stand on certain issues, that makes me hypocritical (tell me who isn’t); well, guilty as charged. Call me crazy, but I think if you take a lay leadership position in a local Shul, you should wear your yarmulke in town. If your business gets kosher certification you shouldn’t be seen at the Sherwood Diner, even if it’s only ice cream you are eating. And here’s my craziest thought, when you wear your religion outwardly, refrain from illegal U turns, double parking, aggressive driving and countless other minor offenses that make us as a community look bad. We are and should be proud of what we’ve achieved and how far we’ve come. However, our accomplishments and integration into American life does not give us license to disgrace the yarmulke. Ultimately, it’s not the yarmulke we disgrace but who and what it represents. Unfortunately, I am sometimes embarrassed by the actions of people wearing their kippah and often I am just as embarrassed by the timing of one’s choice not to wear it. Am I wrong to think that some things are simply obvious?    

Stop Schnorring

I think it’s time for Israel to voluntarily give up all U.S. aid. By all, I mean economic AND military aid. I think it’s time for the Start Up Nation, the country with more companies listed on NASDAQ than Europe and China combined, the State the size of New Jersey with the 24^th largest economy in the world, a per capita income of $32,000 and research centers from every major high tech company in the world centered there, yeah, those guys to say “hallas, enough, gamarnu, no more hand outs.”

Let’s face it, there comes a time when your son who graduated medical school gets past the time he needs the few thousand dollars you helped him out with all these years. At some point you have to break the cord. Israel started getting aid from the U.S. when she was a struggling under-graduate, but now she’s a PHD with quite a high tech portfolio. There is no NEED for aid anymore, but it does serve a purpose, when analyzed further and proves to be counter to U.S. interests or policy.

Every dollar in aid the U.S. sends to Israel is a dollar diverted to supplement welfare, child allowances and stipends to Yeshiva students. In turn, this strengthens the coalition of Likud and the Haredi parties crucial to its governance. The fallout for everyone is a generation of over 6% of Israel’s population having no incentive to get off the dole, work or pay taxes.

Israel was glued to stories this past summer of the tent cities that went up all over Tel Aviv. The protesters want to know why they go to work everyday and pay taxes, but have to pay market rates for housing, while those who don’t work get supplemental housing. Every economy in the world is cutting back on social programs, not Israel, who needs the social programs to keep a governing coalition in power.

Taking aid undermines Israel’s independence and makes it beholden to U.S. policy, Bibi’s dressing down of Obama not withstanding. It inserts Israel into domestic U.S. policy often putting its interests at odds with Jewish Americans. For example Israel’s close ties to Evangelical Christians, who make a majority of American Jews uncomfortable for their views on abortion, homosexual rights, separation of church and state not to mention their belief that all Jews will eventually accept Christ as our savior or we’re doomed to eternal damnation.

Taking aid furthers the hegemony of Ultra Orthodoxy over religion in Israel, alienating itself from a majority of America’s Jews. And darn it, let’s shut the critics up, lets let them know Israel does not need to be America’s little girlfriend.

Let Israel make a deal with American companies they currently buy arms from, they’ll continue to buy from them if they continue to show competitive pricing. Other than that it’s a win – win.     

Judaism and Homosexuality

Some time ago I read a wonderful opinion by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach in the Jewish Week. In it, he described how he balances his tolerance of homosexuals with his strict adherence to Halacha, Jewish Law. Basically, he said, he treats everyone equally. Just as he has friends that don’t observe the Sabbath or don’t eat strictly kosher, he has gay friends. While he may not subscribe to their lifestyle or choices, they are nonetheless his friends, whom he embraces and loves as any others.

The following week, in the letters section, a prominent Orthodox Rabbi, son in law to one of the most revered Halachic authorities of the twentieth century, quoted the verse in Leviticus, which describes a specific sexual act as “an abomination.” He used this verse to say that there can be no tolerance of homosexuality in Judaism, period. While I cannot argue against his academic or rabbinic credentials, I couldn’t help but laugh, actually, guffaw. This Rabbi has two sons, let me repeat, two sons, who were thrown out of their positions as communal Rabbis, for taking sexual advantage of vulnerable women in their respective communities. This Torah giant, stalwart defender of G-d’s laws found the time to criticize a Rabbi whose only sin appears to be tolerance and love for people no matter what. This was so important to him, that he shed any sense of humility, to humiliate others in the name of his perceived sense of right.

Recently, a brave group of Orthodox Rabbis signed a letter calling for tolerance towards homosexuals; one of those audacious souls was rewarded with the resignation from his congregation of a professor of Talmud, a scion of a prominent rabbinic family. The Yeshiva of Flatbush holds a 20^th reunion and disinvites one of the attendees who plans on bringing his partner. And the list goes on.

What is it about this particularly vague biblical verse that gets so many people’s passions tied up in knots? Why not focus on something much more prevalent, say like stealing, which figures prominently in the Ten Commandments. Yeah, we’ve got plenty of thieves amongst us, but their sins don’t seem to receive the same scorn, in fact some of them get a rally to protest the harshness of their prison sentence.

We live in a time when the color of your Friday night table cloth is more important for a shidduch (marital match) than whether or not one of the prospective in laws went to jail for embezzlement. An out of closet homosexual in a family can render the siblings unmarriageable but a father serving time for welfare fraud makes the children not only perfectly acceptable, but sometimes more desirable. Reporting child abuse by a rabbi to the police, that is mesira, the sin of giving a Jew up to secular authorities, right up there with the transgression of loving your gay neighbor.

Our priorities have gotten so skewed that we don’t see intolerance to gays for what it is; outright discrimination, intolerance and ignorance. We focus our scorn at the most vulnerable to project strength, but what we are doing is showing our weakness and blindness to our own vulnerabilities. I am not a scholar but I’m pretty sure G-d destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of rape, not because the population of those towns wore Ferregamo or were Bette Midler fans. 

We have volumes of scholarship on how to fuse modern technology to the minutia of Jewish Law but have little sympathy to science that proves that homosexuality is genetic and not learned. It’s high time we realized that intolerance towards gays is just a precursor to intolerance towards the rest of us. We are not G-d’s policemen, he can do just fine by Himself. We need to focus on ourselves, look inward and stop worrying about what happens in other people’s bedrooms. As the un venerable Kinky Friedman once said, “of course we should allow gays to marry, they have just as much right to be miserable as the rest of us.”  

Daas Torah - Part II

Much as I try, I can’t seem to reconcile the Orthodox Judaism I grew up with and the one practiced today. Whether in Israel or here in United States, Orthodoxy has trended rightward in outward observance and backwards in tolerance. Let’s look at Israel first. There is no longer what you used to be known as the “Religious Zionist Camp.” The Mizrahi Party (MAFDAL) which participated in every Israeli cabinet until the mid eighties died a slow death and is now part of a “National Religious Camp,” whose only purpose seems to be to hang onto Judea and Samaria at all costs. I don’t lament the growth of the settlement movement per se, just the death of a tolerant, centrist religious party.

Buses and sometimes streets in Jerusalem and other cities segregate the sexes for reasons of modesty. This is to say that previous generations all practiced their Judaism wrong because they tolerated mixed buses and streets. Advertisers are being censored by religious vigilantes who deface immodest posters. Kosher food is no longer kosher enough in the Israel Defense Forces for many religious soldiers. Last week an Israeli newspaper reported about a rabbi in the national religious camp who runs a pre military academy who extolled the dedication and courage of Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir. For those that don’t remember; one is a mass murderer the other an assassin. The IDF Education Corps forbade attending the Yitzchak Rabin memorial service in uniform, so as not to hurt the sensibilities of a new corps of rabbis and religious soldiers who do not want the army to be “politicized.” As if a memorial service for an assassinated prime minister is political. Yet another rabbi has ruled that soldiers are required to refuse evacuating any settlements, even outposts that the government finds to be illegal.

Here in the USA, women cannot volunteer for Hatzoloh the volunteer ambulance service, even though the reason they want to volunteer is to preserve the modesty of women being treated. To report someone for child abuse say our revered sages, permission must be granted by a rabbi. The iconic National Council of Young Israel, who recently celebrated its 100^th year, has quashed the attempts of nearly a third of its members to change the way they do business. In fact, like the Palestinian Authority, the NCYI has conveniently skipped its constitutional obligation to hold elections prompting the resignations of some officers.

These attitudes and directives are not the result of a groundswell of popular support. These are simply marching orders given by some rabbinic leaders who seek to consolidate power by the language of dictat. This emboldens followers to go to extremes to force others to see things the same way and causes fear in those who don’t. This past summer Rabbi Yehuda Levin tied the tragic death of Leiby Kletzky to the passing of the gay marriage bill in New York http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQCBM01_voY he also blamed a recent earthquake on homosexuality too. His reasoning is based on a corrupt understanding of Torah, but somewhere there are people listening to him. People listen to the Yehuda Levin’s of the world because they have been fed a boatload of junk that says daas Torah reins supreme. The problem is that daas Torah according to these bullies, has only one direction. If a rabbi goes the opposite way finding tolerance or being lenient in halachic rulings, it’s not daas Torah it’s idolatry. The more of a yoke these leaders put on their followers the more control they have over them. Nowhere in any of the cases above do I see protecting G-d, what I see is isolating followers and alienating everyone else. Is this Judaism? Is Judaism not the betterment of mankind? Is it not to strive to love and embrace our brothers and sisters? Is it not to become better human beings? Since when did yiddishkeit become about what is forbidden instead about what is good?

We need a reawakening to steer our religion and peoplehood in the same direction. Rather than two ships passing in the night observant and non religious should be like two fish swimming upstream. Perhaps the destination is different, but the journey is shared.  

Daas Torah - Part I

Recently, my Shul hosted as scholar in residence, Dr. Marc Shapiro, chair of the Judaic Studies department at the University of Scranton. On Friday night Dr. Shapiro gave a brilliant lecture about Rabbi Yaacov Yehiel Weinberg who came to prominence in Europe before World War II and his attitude towards both Torah and secular study. Dr. Shapiro has covered this broader topic in a book he wrote called “Between the Yeshiva and Modern Orthodoxy.” What I found so captivating about the discourse was that 100 years ago and even before that, Orthodox Judaism was having the same type of intellectual debate as we have today. Not only that, but sometimes the debate was so heated that letters and articles revealed through research of that time show not much has changed. We are a diverse and passionate people.

It was with this fascination in mind, that I read an ongoing dialogue between Rabbi Avraham Sebrow and Rabbi Moshe Meiselman, in the Five Towns Jewish Times. The essence of the debate seems to be whether all things in the Torah (like creation and the flood) are to be taken literally or allegorically. Both sides bring their scholarly research to make their points. Fascinating stuff. The proof to their arguments seems to be in how one interprets the writings of different Rishonim, Achronim, commentaries and some more recent scholarly work. The biggest debates regarding what some Rabbi once said and what he meant by it always come after their death. This makes for great intellectual theatre and so long as we can continue to debate peacefully, strengthens us as practicing Jews.

I’m confident that 100 plus years from now, scholars studying Orthodox Judaism in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries will read such dialogues to form their own opinions about what and how we debated the many issues facing us. Unfortunately, they will also be exposed to other things that get published these days. Turn past the debate between Rabbis Meiselman and Sebrow and read about the annual Agudath Israel Convention and you will find that intellectual debate is often the farthest thing from some minds. Intellectual suppression is a better description.

A prevailing theme of the convention was that technology; specifically the internet and devices like the iPhone and BlackBerry are destroying the Torah world. One Rabbi won’t so far as to quote Rav Kanievsky who said that one should accept death rather than go on the internet. Rabbi Shimshon Sherer, whose father once lead Agudath Israel is quoted as saying about anonymous blogs and callers to radio shows who criticize leading rabbanim, “Our gedolim are not like political candidates who are subject to being bashed by pundits, total subservience to daas Torah is divinely ordained.”

Rabbi Yosef Viener, Rav of Congregation Shaar Shamayim in Monsey, insisted that peer pressure be placed on ones neighbor regarding unfiltered internet. He is quoted as saying “someone with unfiltered internet and phones shouldn’t be able to do a shidduch. Wow. Sounds to me like the emperor has no clothes, except this time it’s not one little kid screaming out the obvious it’s lots and lots of kids.

Here we have the self proclaimed giants of Torah using the force of their rabbinic authority, not to find solutions to the epidemic of child abuse in our Yeshivot, not to find a solution to spousal abuse in our community, not to condemn theft and embezzlement by members of our community, not to blast the shidduch crisis. No, they use the bully pulpit to consolidate their power by denying us the right take advantage of technological advancement and cloaking it in that blanket fable of their own creation, “daas Torah.” Let me be clear, it is not daas Torah that I am against, it’s the abuse of the term and it’s random application to close off and insulate us from the world. And I really am sorry, but rabbis, even ones from Agudath Israel, are human beings who make mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes deserve to be highlighted and the rabbis called out on.

Some rabbis of Agudath Israel have no problem publicizing their disagreement with the daas Torah of other rabbis. That is permitted. But for someone to criticize one of them, no matter how ridiculous they are, is forbidden because only their daas Torah is the True daas Torah. My friends, we live in interesting times. How we practice our religion and our core beliefs will always be the subject of debate. Allowing the suppression of ideas and the advancement of technology serves only to further empower a select group of people while hindering the rest of us to grow.