President Trump continues to amaze me. He promised to move the American Israeli embassy to Yerushalayim, and then followed through with action to see that process to completion. He visited the Kosel, backed Prime Minister Netanyahu, filled important administration positions with Orthodox Jews (Friedman, Greenblatt and Kushner), found a new set of Jewish Askonim to invite to the White House Chanukah party, and has stood up to the world at the UN with his star Nikki Haley. Not only did he veto the recent anti-Israel resolution, but promises now to stop funding countries that support anti-Israel bias.
And just when the liberals were reeling from his anti UN stand, he commuted the sentence of Rabbi Shalom Rubashkin! A long overdue presidential move that was ignored by his predecessor (Kudos to Rabbi Pinchos Lipschutz of the Yated for fighting this fight). Not only that, but recently unearthed documents show Obama's flawed deal with Iran. At the rate things are going, I would expect Trump to undo that deal.
The entire Trump presidency and the fast pace in which world events are exploding portends the arrival of Moshiach, במהרה בימנו אמן
Rav Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman ZT"L (1913-2017) was widely viewed as the leader of the Lithuanian branch of Orthodox Jewry.
His humbleness and sage advice was appreciated by hundreds of thousands of people. His Levaya was attended by over 1/2 million souls.
Rav Shteinman was known as a "moderate", yet fiercely defended the beauty of our religion.
Following the recent announcement by President Trump regarding Jerusalem, the Wakf has kept the Al-Aqsa Mosque darkened, which is a pleasure for picture takers who want a pure view of the Kosel. Additionally, I heard that during the Levaya of Rav Shteinman, there was difficulty in putting together a Minyan by the Kosel. It seems that the entire country turned out to mourn the simple man, who wanted no eulogies, no fanfare, and a simple burial aside his wife.
We do live in amazing times. I applaud President Trump for fulfilling the campaign promise of recognizing and relocating the American Embassy to Yerushalayim. This is bound to upset many people, yet the president is apparently a man of his word.
While the world organizations, particularly the UN tries to strip Yerushalayim from Jewish hands, it is amazing that a Christian has stood up to them and approved this volatile move.
OU:
Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America Applauds President Trump’s Historic Change of U.S. Policy toward the Status of Jerusalem
POSTED ON DECEMBER 6, 2017 IN PRESS RELEASES
Today, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America – the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization – applauded President Donald Trump for his historic change of U.S. government policy toward the status of Jerusalem – the ancient and current capital of Israel and the Jewish People.
Over 3000 years ago, King David constructed the holy city of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. For millennia, Jews around the world directed their prayers toward Jerusalem and prayed to return to Jerusalem. Indeed, the prayer to return to Jerusalem is invoked at the conclusions of the sacred Yom Kippur service and the Passover Seder. In 1948, when the modern State of Israel was miraculously founded, its leaders – of course – chose Jerusalem as the capital even though Arab armies occupied Judaism’s holiest sites. With G-d’s help, the city was reunited in 1967 and it has flourished ever since. Under Israeli rule, Jerusalem is an open city where people of all faiths may freely visit and worship at their holy sites.
Sadly, and from our perspective wrongly, the international community has ignored the history of Jerusalem and its centrality in the lives and faith of the Jewish people. Moreover, the responsible stewardship for the holy city provided by the State of Israel is largely ignored. In 1995, the United States Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act – legislation advocated for by the Orthodox Union. The 1995 Act established as a matter of U.S. policy the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and required the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. While Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama each pledged to implement this commitment, none of them did. Today, President Trump began to fulfill this promise.
As a youngster, I loved to hear stories about the Rogachover Gaon (1858-1936). In 1976, the JO published a short essay on him and my father offered to have his friend, Rabbi P Teitz from Elizabeth NJ, host me for a shabbos to relate to me some first-hand stories. Sadly, I never went.
In any event, the seforim blog recently published some more interesting facts about this Gaon/Genius in a Generation of Giants.
Wow. After another long hiatus in publishing, Dialogue 7 has suddenly appeared, in what appears to be a watershed event in Frum publications, akin to the famous OTD issue of the Jewish Observer.
Over half of the issue is dedicated to the complex issue of Child Sex Abuse (CSA).
We have definitely come a long way since a generation ago when no one discussed these matters, or thought that the children should just get over it. Many of the psychologists view CSA as "Murder of the Soul", and explain that children that have drinking problems, suicidal thougths or OTD leanings, are almost as a rule have all been abused. Kudos to Dialogue for dedicating over 100 pages to remedy this situation.
Other articles focus on the Emunah debate. Should one have Emunah Peshuta or should one be able to question and be given satisfactory answers?
Dr. Jonathan Ostroff explains why he dislikes Reuven Shmeltzer's book on Emunah (Peshuta).
Rabbi Eytan Feiner is back with one of his delicious discourses regarding the splitting up of the Makkos into two Parshiyos.
Rabbi David Rosenthal discusses his book on Open Orthodoxy, and shows definitively why it is not Orthodox.
Donations for the Jewish Community can be sent to Agudath Israel’s offices at 42 Broadway, 14 th Floor, New York, NY 10004 (checks should be made out to Agudath Israel but marked “Disaster Relief Fund”). Electronic donations can be made at agudathisrael.org – with “Disaster Relief Fund” typed into in the “comments”
A dad of the year has come up with the perfect solution to get his forgetful son to text him back – an app that forces kids to respond.
“ReplyASAP,” the new app invented by Nick Herbert, obstructs the recipient’s phone and sets off an alarm until a text or call is returned – even if the cell is on silent mode.
It also notifies users when the recipient has seen the incoming message – giving some relief to worried parents whose children simply won’t contact them back.
“My son has an iPhone, but I still can’t get hold of him very easily as it’s always on silent because he is planning games or has been at school and forgotten to turn the sound back on,” Herbert told GoodHousekeeping.com of his school-aged son Ben in an interview published this week.
“There didn’t seem to be a solution out there that allowed me to send a message to him, that would override the silent function, appear over whatever he was doing and tell me when he had seen it,” Herbert said.
Herbert decided to create the app out “frustrations with current messaging apps,” he wrote on the website for ReplyASAP.
“There are messaging apps that tell you when a message is delivered and seen, but the point is the message can be ignored or not seen because he didn’t hear it,” wrote Herbert.
His son has even taken to the app.
“It gives him the freedom to keep his phone on silent, but with the knowledge that I can get a message to him if necessary,” Herbert told Goodhousekeeping.com.
“ReplyASAP” is currently available for Andriod and will soon be available on iOS.
The June 29 issue of the Flatbush Jewish Journal had me scratching my head. Page 25 featured a picture of Councilman Deutsch amongst other Askanim presenting an award to an emoji-faced female. What was bothering me was the discrepancy in the picture, in that it was titled Flatbush Boy, but the certificate itself said Flatbush Girl.
The answer came today in one of NYC's tabloids...it seems that the FJJ rejected the original ad because it pictured a female, which goes against their policy.
I can understand their policy, but it seems ironic that the same issue of FJJ, which featured many pages exalting the life of R Meir Zlotowitz, does not follow his lead and allow for normalcy in frum publications.
Updated 6/14 with video. See Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro (English speaker) from 1:10 to 1:27 and Rav Aharon Schechter (Yiddish) from 2:03 to 2:22.
We've all seen the videos of the Peleg demonstrations and we cringe. And we wonder why they are literally laying their life on the line as if this was a reincarnation of Giyus Bonos.
Well at last there is some information explaining the vehement opposition to the draft "exemptions".
It’s obvious to all that Eretz Yisroel is in a perpetually
precarious state of existence: Living in the
shadow of an Iranian nuclear bomb in the making,
encircled by heavily armed, sworn enemies, singled
out for scorn by the so-called community of nations.
All of this makes the situation of acheinu b’nei
Yisroel in artzeinu hakedosha unique, and uniquely
dangerous. This mortal threat to our survival is
something of which we’re all painfully aware.
Yet, there’s another crisis unfolding there that
few if any of us are aware of. It presents an immense
existential threat to our nation in general
and to the yishuv in Eretz Yisroel in particular, and
it raises the danger posed by the enemies seeking
our destruction to unthinkable levels.
Simply stated, the danger we speak of is that
the flourishing community of yeshivos and b’nei
yeshiva, that has grown by leaps and bounds
across the length and breadth of Eretz Yisroel will
be decimated – not by 2040, nor even in as long
as a decade from now. Instead, within a handful
of years, the world’s largest and most vibrant
community of lomdei Torah will undergo a drastic
downsizing. The Olam haYeshivos as we know it –
and with it, the frum community of which it is the
beating heart – will cease to look as it does today.
That’s not hyperbole. It is incontrovertible fact.
And it is chilling beyond all words.
The following paragraphs will set forth the
state of affairs in Eretz Yisroel today regarding
the drafting of b’nei yeshiva into the Israeli army,
based on first-hand knowledge, in-depth research
and copious documentation. Little if any of this information
has been known or publicly discussed in
the American Torah community – until now.
Anyone who contests these plainly demonstrable
facts is welcome to step forward and provide
counter-evidence in refutation of what is written
here. We are confident that our rendition of the
terrifying reality will withstand scrutiny.
As the Israeli draft law stands today, the government
is required to set a goal of drafting several
thousand chareidi young men for military service
each year and to engage in various activities
designed to achieve that objective. This includes
the use of well-trained, undercover government
agents from within the chareidi community whose
mission is to persuade the b’nei yeshiva they target
to enter the army.
Currently, all b’nei yeshiva are exempt from
serving, provided they follow the prescribed procedures
and otherwise qualify for exemption. It
should be stated that under the current law, a majority
of b’nei yeshiva have a fairly easy time in securing
their exemptions: They’re able to appear in
groups at conscription offces, spend minimal time
undergoing physical examinations and promptly
receive the necessary exemption papers.
But here’s the untold story: Thousands of b’nei
yeshiva – in particular, those who are vulnerable either
because they learn in smaller or lesser-known
yeshivos, or due to having certain backgrounds,
such as Sefardic b’nei yeshiva from weaker chareidi
backgrounds and ba’alei teshuvah – are being
targeted by the army and other governmental departments
for intensive recruitment efforts. Many
of these b’nei yeshiva have been imprisoned for
failure to comply with every last detail of the bureaucratic
exemption process, despite good faith
efforts to do so. Many others remain free but live
in constant fear of being apprehended and jailed.
Large numbers of these b’nei Torah, however,
are neither in military prison nor on the run.
Unbelievable as it may seem, they are now serving
in the Israeli army. Despite being full-fledged
b’nei yeshiva, they have been wrenched from the
bais medrash and forcibly inducted into the IDF
for failing to meet the legal requirements for exemption.
Their conscription enables the army to
fill the yearly quotas of thousands of chareidim
demanded by Israeli draft law.
The basis for the drafting of many of these bnei
yeshiva is that they fail to meet the technical requirements
of a “ben yeshiva” as defined by law.
For example:
A bochur cannot qualify for exemption as a ben
yeshiva unless he learns in a yeshiva gedolah that
has at least twenty-five talmidim who qualify as
b’nei yeshiva, i.e., who are at least eighteen years
old.
A bochur who has earned any taxable money
from employment, even if only during bein
haz’manim or bein hasedarim, cannot qualify for
exemption as a ben yeshiva. Thus, for example, a
bochur who earned a meager salary during Yom
Tov break to help with his impoverished family’s
expenses will be forced into army service.
Only talmidim of offcially recognized yeshivos
qualify for exemption; no new recognitions,
however, have been issued in over a year, and the
talmidim of such institutions are thus not exempt.
Under new rules about to be instituted, 1) a bochur
in his last year in a yeshiva k’tanah (the equivalent
of an American mesivta) who will be one of
the first in his class to reach the conscription age
of eighteen, will not be eligible for exemption because
his yeshiva k’tanah doesn’t have the minimum
number of b’nei yeshiva, as described in a)
above; and 2) bochurim learning in yeshivos that
do not accept Israeli government funding will not
qualify for exemption from the draft.
The army is in the process of setting up a sophisticated
inspection system under which, in an
unprecedented breach of the religious autonomy
of the yeshivos, it will begin to directly intervene in
those institutions to enforce the draft law.
Appeals to individuals and organizations to
use their political clout to help the large numbers
of bnei Torah who are in desperate straits, in the
army, in prison or cowering in hiding from the authorities,
have been in many cases unsuccessful.
Everything that has been described until this
point reflects the deeply disturbing current state
of affairs. The Israeli military refers to it as a “tekufat
histaglut,” a very temporary “adjustment
period,” in order to enable the frum community
to adapt to the coming, far more ominous reality.
In 2020, the next stage of the draft law will come
into effect, under which what were previously
non-mandatory yearly recruitment goals will become
mandatory yearly quotas of chareidi young
men required to enter the army, and the quota
levels will rise as well.
Then, in 2023, the law providing exemptions to
b’nei yeshiva comes to a complete end. The only
b’nei yeshiva who will continue to be free of army
service will be those over the age of twenty-four,
who are entitled to a permanent exemption.
However, the large numbers of b’nei yeshiva who
reach conscription age each year, numbering approximately
seven thousand annually, will be forcibly
drafted. It boggles the mind to envision the
mass conscription of b’nei Torah in Eretz Yisroel,
but that is the looming reality.
Let us speak plainly: The world is looking on
mutely as the evil Iranians, hell-bent on destroying
the Jews, proceed with building the Bomb;
by all accounts, they are perhaps a decade away
from achieving that diabolical goal. But long
before that point – indeed, in a short six years
from now, if the current situation continues – the
peerlessly glorious world of yeshivos overflowing
with young and old, with talmidei chachomim
delving continuously into the depths and breadth
of Torah, will simply no longer exist in the form
it does today. And with it, the single greatest
source of protection from that Bomb and all
the other threats we face – the intense, nonstop
limud haTorah of thousands -- will be severely
undermined.
In the foregoing paragraphs, you’ve been introduced
to events and facts of which you were
probably unaware; of which, strangely, no one
speaks; and about which, our numerous media
outlets are inexplicably silent. You, too, have a
choice: You can turn the page, and turn your attention
to other matters.
Or not.
Today, one gets on an airplane and in a matter of hours is standing in awe at the Holy Wall.
Few give thought to the amazing times we live in, and what sacrifice it took to make that visit a reality.
A scant 50 years ago, air travel was in infancy and the Wall was in Jordanian hands.
The open miracle of the six day war, the devastation of the surrounding enemies coupled with the reunification of Jerusalem should make us thankful for the great blessing we enjoy in our times.
We Wait daily for Moshiach, always hoping for world events to bring the Messianic Era.
Recent events, political surprises and the emerging global village all herald this coming soon.
Placing an unknown in the Whitehouse, with many Orthodox Jewish family and advisers, is perhaps one more step in this emerging process.
The Donald has chosen Israel as one of the 3 stops of his WhirlWind first external excursion since ascending the presidency. It is no surprise that he has chosen to visit the capitals of the 3 primary world religions.
Commenter Mostly Music's comment on the previous post reminded me of one of my favorite albums, Yerushalayim Pirchei with Yigal Calek.
So many of those tunes still resonate with me all these years later.
Kan Tzipor, Kol Berama, Ravrevin and Yismach Moshe to name a few.
But my favorite was Mimkomcha, with Yirael Rand singing his endless Mataaaaaay...Timloch Betzion...
Thanks to Tyrni Sanddorn who has made this entire album available on Youtube.
