Shtetlich Yidden

I read the following news item and all I could think of was the phrase "shtelich yidden" - Jews of the small towns, i.e., Jews of the narrow, small and constricted world-view of don't-bother-me-with-anything-outside my own needs, usually religious needs. Jews who are afraid of the "big picture", Jews who wouldn't listen to Jabotinsky when he spoke of the oncoming catastrophe, the Jews who wouldn't listen to Uri Tzvi Greenberg in the 30s when he spoke all around Poland like Jabotinsky, warning of the horrible tragedy that would eventually overcome European Jewry.

It also reminded me of the demonstrations we had outisde Rav Ovadiah Yosef's apartment of, yes, Jabotinsky Street in Jerusalem in 1993-94, trying to persuade him to remove Shas support for Rabin and Peres to no avail (Rabbi Menachem Felix was beaten up because the Rebbitzen had trouble with the noise).

Ravitz: I’ll Support Olmert if he Funds Schools

MK Avraham Ravitz (UTJ) met Thursday with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is trying to enlist his support and that of MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) for the current Kadima-led coalition. If Ravitz and Gafni were to join the coalition, it would retain a Knesset majority even if the Labor party were to leave.

Ravitz said he and Gafni would consider supporting Olmert if Olmert began to fulfill earlier promises, primarily by supporting government funding of hareidi-religious schools. Ravitz also asked that Olmert fund school repairs and school buses. When asked about the Winograd Commission’s recent report, which blamed Olmert for many failures in the Second Lebanon War, Ravitz explained that “the Winograd report is not the only or the primary issue that we take into consideration.”

This is a petty and insane approach because with Olmert's policies, the Yeshivot of Ofakim, Netivot and Ashkelon and Ashdod will come under Kassam attack and, G-d forbid, Yeshiva students, their wives and their children wuill be in mortal danger - all because Ravitz and Gafni want money, "the primary issue".

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Protexia just sent me this Hebrew language link.