Rabbi Shlomo Aviner Won't Be Reformed

In the weekly Torah Portion Sheet of Machon Meir, B'Ahava Uv'Emuna, #920, 22 Sivan 5773, Shelach Lecha, Rav Shlomo Aviner has a column called Cellular Responsa, short Halachi replies to queries.

As you can see below, he is asked about woman laying phylacteries (I've starred it):

He notes that the Rama (no, not the seventh avatar of the god Vishnu in Hinduism but the 16th century Rabbi Moshe Isserlis) ordered that if women do put on tefillin, they should be reprobated.  Pressed that Michal, daughter of King Saul, wore them (here, p. 19), he dismisses that claim and adds one:

"And in our days, this practice [of wearing tefillin by women] is much more serious because women of the Reform movement practice the custom".

^

Is There Though A Prayer Against A Government?

Found here:

The prayer for the welfare of the king or ruler is ancient.  Many point to the statements of Ezra as well as the passage in Avot as early sources for the prayer...Rabbenu Yonah interprets the need for these prayers as indicative of a Universalist worldview, which requires all humans to display empathy for one another...R. Azariah di Rossi, claims that the prayer carries a pacifist message as he emphasizes the lack of allegiance to a specific ruler or country and thereby transforms the prayer into one arguing for peace among all nations. 

The earliest extant prayers are from the Geniza, and can be dated to between 1127 and 1131.  The prayer is for the “Fatimid caliph al-Amir bi-ahkam Allah who ruled Egypt and its regions during the years 1101-1131...In this instance, the prayer includes not only a prayer for the secular ruler, but also a prayer for the local Rosh HaYeshiva...Goiten posits that these prayers may have been written in response to specific historical events and may not be indicative of the general practice in 12th century Egypt.  

...early on there was a lack of conformity regarding this prayer.  Kol Bo records the custom but indicates that each community had its own practices.  But, none used the HaNoten Teshua formulation.  The first extant example of HaNoten Teshua is found in a Spanish manuscript dated between 1479-92. Ironically, this example was prepared for King Ferdinand V, who, in 1492, issued the expulsion order...

Okay, we prayed

He who blessed Abraham, Isaac and Jacob…May He bless, guard, protect and help our Lord King Don Ferando…May the King of Kings put in his heart and in the heart of all his advisors mercy, to do good to us and to the entire House of Israel…and let us say Amen.

And in America, we started early in 1848/9, with a different text:

Master of the Universe. Lord of all Works. Who extends peace like a river, and like a rapid stream the glory of nations.  Look down from Your holy dwelling and bless this land, the United states of America, whereon we dwell. Let not violence be heard in their land, wasting and destruction within their boundaries, but You shall call its walls "Salvation" and its gates "Praise." Grant them rains in due season, so that the earth shall yield her products and the tree of the field shall yield its fruit,  and grant peace, goodness and a blessing on all the inhabitants of the land, that they may lie down with none to make them afraid8 . And among the nations shall their seed be known, and their offspring in the midst of the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, for You hath blessed them.  Amen.

Pour down the bounty of Your goodness upon the President, and the Vice President of the United States, that their prosperity be like a river, their triumph like the waves of the sea. In their days may kindness and truth meet together, righteousness and peace kiss one another...

What are we praying today?

^

Closing a Historical Episode

My father served in the US Army Air Force during World War II.  One of the momentos of that period I still possess is a small, no, tiny chess set.  Another is a small book, Israel in the Ranks, that was distributed to all servicemen of the Jewish faith.  Based on the 1881 book by Israel Meir Kagan of Radun, the Chafetz Chaim, entitled Machaneh Yisrael (The Camp of Israel), which was originally composed to assist Jewish soldiers in the army of the Czar and other countries in Eastern Europe, the editor, Moshe Yosher, who already published a biography of the Chafetz Chaim in 1937, produced a short guide which was undoubtedly helpful:

The fact is that my father, a proud Jew, but not Orthodox, kept the book throughout his service of over three years in the South Pacific as welll as training.  An English translation of the original is also now available.

Recently, a new edition of the original book in Hebrew was published.

It rejoins a long list of books produced here in Israel on the needs of the Jewish soldier, from Rav Goren's Meishiv Milchama, to that of Rav Nahum Rabinowitz and others.

^

Heard The Story About The Rabbi Who...

About the Rabbi who was not ready emotionally to continue to be a Rabbi and sought therapy in writing a book about theological extremism while moving to Long Island where his wife is a ... cantor?

Well here it is, the story of Josh Burrows:-

“I’m a 32-year-old man forced to contemplate things I’m not emotionally ready to deal with...To this day, I’m not sure what I want to do,” he said, speaking of his future in the rabbinate.

The message of faith in the story of the Hebrew slaves guided Burrows as he left Washington, and the rabbinate, for a new life in Roslyn, N.Y., a small Long Island community where his wife, Gabi Arad Burrows, now serves as cantor of Temple Sinai.

Today, Burrows, 35, is contemplating a return to the rabbinate. He is also sharing stories of faith in a new way, by writing a novel about religious extremism and personal theologies. The fictional tale is based on an actual group of religious extremists — Burrows declined to say which one — that uses biblical theology to justify its actions.

Burrows got the idea for the book in Washington, as he struggled to help his congregants develop “their own personal theologies” to answer questions of faith, but he didn’t have time to start writing it.

You happy now?

^

Rabbi vs. Rabbi - Lichtenstein on Feldman

Back in April, after reading an article by Rav Aharon Lichtenstein in Jewish Action, critical of the thinking of Rav Aharon Feldman, I sent them this letter:

The review essay of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein ("Hands Across the Ocean", Spring 2010) is, I fear, less a critique of the ideological outlook of Rav Aharon Feldman than an exhibition of the unwillingness or perhaps even uneasiness of Rav Lichtenstein to debate with an intent to win on the issues that posit him not in agreement with Rav Feldman. Feldman writes with "gusto"; Lichtenstein with "interest". Feldman displays "anger"; Lichtenstein "warmness". While Rav Lichtenstein firmly disagrees with the tone of the book, he provides an inadequate substance of his own in arguing with Rav Feldman's outlook.

This is all the more apparent in his lukewarm defense of Zionism and the political and religious reality of the state of Israel. If Lichtenstein is "befuddled", he has not assisted his own camp to be clear, convinced and certain of our own shared path within Torah Judaism in Eretz Yisrael. He first shares the vision of the "vacuity of Zionist theology", then the "priorities" of Rav Feldman. The rest of his lukewarm defense is phrased almost entirely in question marks. This line of a disappointing path of argumentation is not what many would expect from a Rosh Yeshiva in Gush Etzion or the son-in-law of the author of Kol Dodi Dofek [see here]. No references to the Gra and his talmidim from Lithuania, Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk and his followers from the Ukraine nor to the Tzuf Dvash and his community from North Africa. No mention of Rabbis such as Tzvi Kalischer or Yehudah Alkalai not to mention Mizrachi Rabbis. It would seem that those childhood memories of shared sled rides have instilled too much of a coldness in Rav Lichtenstein.

It wasn't selected for publication but you can those that were here.


- - -

The Scarlet Thread

and one more, sort of:

Killing a Non-...Muslim

Remember the brouhaha over the book that supposedly permitted the killing of a non-Jew?

Well, let's look around.

Oh, here's a post (Kippah tip: AtlasShrugs) by Andrew Bostom on Muslims killing non-Muslims:

Let’s take a look at the opening statement of verse 2:177: “It is not righteousness That ye turn your faces Towards East or West; But it is righteousness — To believe in Allah.” Great classical commentators of the Koran — including Qurtubi (d. 1273), Ibn Kathir (d. 1373), and Suyuti (d. 1505) — concur that this passage addresses, and refutes, the Jews and Christians, while affirming the exclusive “righteousness” and supremacy of Islam. Qurtubi notes, “The Jews faced west towards Jerusalem and the Christians east toward where the sun rose. . . . They were told that was not where true goodness lay.” Ibn Kathir repeats this observation, adding, “[T]hose who acquire the qualities mentioned in the Ayah [verse] will indeed have embraced all aspects of Islam, and implemented all types of righteousness — believing in Allah, that He is the only God worthy of worship, and believing in the angels, the emissaries between Allah and His Messengers.” Suyuti confirms these exegeses, stating plainly, “Goodness does not lie in turning your faces in [the] prayer to the East or to the West. This was revealed to refute the Jews and Christians in their claim.” He adds, “Rather those with true goodness are those who believe in Allah . . . and fighting in the way of Allah [i.e., jihad] in particular.”

Contemporary exegeses reiterate these interpretations of Koran 2:177. For example, the best known Koranic commentary in Urdu is Ma’ariful Qur’an, written by Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafi (1898–1976)...Mufti Shafi’s gloss on 2:177 from Ma’ariful Qur’an notes that when “the House of Allah at Makkah [Mecca] was made the Qiblah [object/direction of worship] of the Muslims . . . the Jews and Christians . . . who were much too eager to find fault with Islam and Muslims, were stirred and they started coming up with all sorts of objections against Islam and the Holy Prophet [Muhammad].” He concludes that 2:177 addresses “Jews, Christians, and Muslims at the same time, the sense being that real righteousness and merit lies in obedience to Allah Almighty” — a modern affirmation of Islamic supremacism consistent with the classical exegesis on this verse.

More ominous are the classical exegeses on Koran 2:178, which meld the Islamic supremacist conception of 2:177 to the discriminatory punishment of non-Muslims (relative to Muslims) for the crime of murder. Qurtubi’s gloss maintains that “a Muslim is not killed in retaliation for an unbeliever since the Prophet said, ‘A Muslim is not killed in retaliation for an unbeliever.’” (This hadith, or saying of the Prophet, is found in the al-Bukhari collection [Volume 9, Book 83, Number 50], which is one of the two most important canonical hadith collections.) Ibn Kathir reiterates this notion in his commentary, citing the same hadith and adding, “No opinion that opposes this ruling could stand correct, nor is there an authentic Hadith to contradict it.”

These consensus principles, as elucidated by renowned mainstream Koranic exegetes, have also been codified into the Sharia. They thus resonate, alarmingly, in our era. Under the Sharia, the amount of compensation varies depending on the identity of the victim. For example, the Sharia manual “Reliance of the Traveler” (“Umdat al-Salik”) states that the payment for killing a woman is half that for killing a man, and the payment for killing a Jew or Christian is one-third that for killing a male Muslim (o4.9). The “Reliance of the Traveler” manual is currently certified by Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar University (the fount of Sunni Islam since 793) as conforming to the “practice and faith of the orthodox Sunni community.”

The modern Shiite perspective is concordant. Sultanhussein Tabandeh, the Iranian Shiite leader of a prominent Sufi Order, wrote an “Islamic perspective” on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In essence, he simply reaffirms the sacralized inequality of non-Muslims relative to Muslims under the Sharia, stating (for example),

Since Islam regards non-Muslims as on a lower level of belief and conviction, if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim . . . then his punishment must not be the retaliatory death, since the faith and conviction he possesses is loftier than that of the man slain. . . . Again, the penalties of a non-Muslim guilty of fornication with a Muslim woman are augmented because, in addition to the crime against morality, social duty and religion, he has committed sacrilege, in that he has disgraced a Muslim and thereby cast scorn upon the Muslims in general, and so must be executed.

Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them. Since the marriage of a Muslim woman to an infidel husband (in accordance with the verse quoted: ‘Men are guardians form women’) means her subordination to an infidel, that fact makes the marriage void.

It is critical to understand that Tabandeh’s key views on non-Muslims, were implemented “almost verbatim in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” according to Professor Eliz Sanasarian’s important study of religious minorities in the Islamic Republic. As she observes, Tabandeh’s tract became “the core ideological work upon which the Iranian government . . . based its non-Muslim policy.”...

You just never can know - unless you wish to be informed.

And Now, Some Serious Theology

Some excerpts from a review of God’s First Love: The Theology of Michael Wyschogrod by Meir Y. Soloveichik who is Associate Rabbi at Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.

As Kendall Soulen, who teaches at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. wrote in 2004:-

A major theme for Wyschogrod is that God’s election of Israel is based solely on God’s unalterable love and hence cannot be abrogated from the human side. "Now it is the proclamation of biblical faith that God chose this people and loves it as no other, unto the end of time."

God did not choose Israel because it was superior in any way to other peoples; indeed, in some respects it may even possess slightly more negative characteristics than other groups. Nor is God’s election conditional upon Israel’s obedience to the commands that God imposes on Israel as the expression of God’s will for Israel’s conduct. God’s election brings with it God’s command and the threat of severe punishment should Israel fail to live up to its election.

Yet in spite of the fact that the Jewish people have struggled endlessly against their election, with the most disastrous consequences for themselves and for the rest of humankind, the divine election remains unaffected because it is an unconditional one, based solely on God’s love. Ultimately, God’s anger is a passing phase that can only temporarily obscure God’s overwhelming love for Israel. Israel can be confident of its election and of God’s special love for it amid all the families of the earth.

I think my Christian readers will find his approach enticing.

For Jews, his thought seems to be promising, unique and probing.

So, what are some of Meir Soloveichik's observations?

....Michael Wyschogrod, perhaps the most original Jewish theologian of the past half century. An unapologetic defender of Israel’s particularity and God’s special love for the Jewish people, he has often found a warmer reception among Christian thinkers than among traditional Jewish ones...

...To Jewish critics, Wyschogrod’s emphasis on divine love and on the indwelling of the divine sounds more Christian than Jewish. Wyschogrod, however, insists on demanding that Jews refresh their religion from its original sources, arguing that a general and unspecific love is no love at all—and thus that God’s particular love for Israel is what makes possible his love for all humanity.

...One day in 1966, Wyschogrod visited Karl Barth in Basel and informed the great Christian thinker that he had begun to refer to himself as a “Jewish Barthian.” Barth was much amused by the appellation, and a discussion ensued about the Jewish people versus the Church in the eyes of God:

At one point he said, “You Jews have the promise but not the fulfillment; we Christians have both promise and fulfillment.” Influenced by the banking atmosphere of Basel, I replied: “With human promise, one can have the promise but not the fulfillment. But a promise of God is like money in the bank. If we have his promise, we have his fulfillment, and if we do not have the fulfillment we do not have the promise.” There was a period of silence and then he said, “You know, I never thought of it that way.”

...In Wyschogrod’s work...Jewish thought begins not with analysis of who the man of faith is but with who God is—not with how a member of the Jewish people approaches God but how God approaches the Jewish people. The Bible’s answer, he believes, is obvious: “It is the proclamation of biblical faith that God chose this people and loves it as no other, unto the end of time.” The clarity with which he focuses on the central biblical premise of election, God’s love for Israel, is what makes his work both so Orthodox as well as so original...Jewish theology must begin with the exclusive election of Israel, Wyschogrod argues, for it is the central principle of the Hebrew Bible...

...Many modern Jews are uncomfortable with this concept, assuming that a truly good God would treat all human beings equally and love all of them in the same way. In fact, many modern Jewish theologians and philosophers end up embracing, in the name of pluralism, an odd sort of religious relativism...

...[there is] the Bible’s depiction of God’s passionate, preferential love for Abraham, and it is here that Wyschogrod defends divine love for Israel. Indeed, he does more than defend the doctrine: He insists, strikingly, that everyone—Jew and Gentile—has a stake in God’s preferentially loving some more than others. If God loves human beings and seeks to relate to them because he is drawn to something unique about them, then his love must be exclusive and cannot be universal. He loves individuals because he has found something unique about them worth loving, which he may not find in another individual...For Wyschogrod, Hebrew Scripture speaks of preferential love and conveys thereby the extraordinary notion that God loves men because of who we are, not despite who we are.

Of course, Wyschogrod is not insensitive to the fact that this sounds hurtful to non-Israelites. If God is a father, motivated by genuine desire to be with us, then the fact that his love is a love founded in our uniqueness means that it is therefore dispensed unequally. Ultimately, however, according to Wyschogrod, it is precisely God’s preferential love for Israel that guarantees the possibility that each one of us can have a genuine relationship with God. Chosenness expresses to everyone, Jew and Gentile, “that God also stands in relationship with them in the recognition and affirmation of their uniqueness”...

When we grasp that the election of Israel flows from the fatherhood that extends to all created in God’s image, we find ourselves tied to all men in brotherhood, as Joseph, favored by his human father, ultimately found himself tied to his brothers...

...A faith founded on God’s eternal love of Israel emphasizes instead our experience of God’s salvation and redemption, which we once experienced and, Judaism declares, we will experience again. Israel’s faith, Wyschogrod writes, “has always centered around the saving acts of God: the election, the exodus, the Temple, and the Messiah.” Acts of destruction were remembered in minor fast days “while those of redemption became the joyous proclamations of the Passover and Tabernacles. . . . The God of Israel is a redeeming God; this is the only message we are authorized to proclaim, however much it may not seem so to the eyes of nonbelief.”...

I strongly suggest you read the entire, long article.

------------------------

P.S.

While you are there, check out there this Reading the Qur’an Through the Bible


(Kippah tip: Hirhurim)

Fly With Your Lulav & Ethrog - Secure

Spotted this over at MailJewish:-

From: Andy Goldfinger

Date: Mon, Oct 5,2009 at 03:01 PM

Subject: TSA and Kiddish HaShem

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has issued a directive to its staff explaining that many travelers will be carrying the Arba Minim during the Succos travel season, that they should be permitted to go through security, and that these people should be treated with respect.

http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/sukkot_2009.shtm

I think it would be a Kiddush HaShem for America Jews, whether traveling or not, to send their thanks to the TSA for this consideration. An email can be sent to:

TSA-ContactCenter@dhs.gov<mailto:TSA-ContactCenter@dhs.gov>

Or (preferably!) a snail mail message (i.e. a "letter" - remember those?) to:

Transportation Security Administration

601 South 12th Street

Arlington, VA 20598

Last Night of Selichot at Kotel

2 AM early Sunday morning, erev Yom Kippur at the Kotel


(Kippah tip: RH)

From Behind The Mechitza, Sort Of

A clip of the celebration of the Blessing of the New Moon of the month of Ellul at 770 Eastern parkway, aka Chabad Headquarters, filmed from the women's balcony, with an emphasis on the more meshichistic Chabadniks (listen to the words of the song the cameralady is singing):

Mixed Marriage in the NYTimes But Not In the Wedding Section

Mixed Marriage Woes

My soon-to-be mother-in-law, who is Jewish, never had a problem with me as a non-Jew — until now. She’s worried that I’m “indoctrinated” in Christianity and will force my views on our future children. But I wasn’t raised a Christian, nor do I consider myself one. My fiancé and I have tried explaining this to her several times, and I’ve agreed that our children will be raised Jewish. But it never seems to sink in.

Anonymous


Sounds like a perfect vehicle for Joan Rivers and Blake Lively. We’ll call it “Guess Who’s Coming to Seder?”

Interfaith issues can be tricky. But since we’re dealing with only one faith here (and one non-faith) [stupid. it's one faith that's isn't Jewish], this one isn’t exactly a brain-teaser. Plus, it sounds as if you’ve already handled the issue — and nicely, too.

Your imminent mother-in-law may be anxious about sonny-boy growing up and moving on — or she may have wanted a Jewish bride for him. But those are her issues to deal with, not yours, and she probably will, over time. [but it is also the husband-to-be's issues, no matter what his opinion be of which, somehow, we do not know anything]

Try to be as patient as possible. But make sure you feel supported by your fiancé and let him know when you don’t. And if I were you, I might not invite Big Momma to any Easter egg hunts in the near future.

Hello dear. Your children can't be Jewish if you are not Jewish. That's why you mother-in-law-to-be is upset.

Of course, if religion means nothing to you, why not go through a conversion process just for the heck of it. Then everyone will be happy, especially in another 20 years when your child decides that he/she would like to marry a Jew who is a bit more demanding and comitted to his/her religious values.

Heard of the "Big Three"?

I don't and didn't know about Blossom but I found this interesting bit about its star:

I remember reading a few years ago - you know, the way rumors spread between Jews - that you were active at UCLA Hillel, and that you'd started getting more observant. Um, are you?

My mother was raised Orthodox, and my grandparents are immigrants from Eastern Europe. I was raised in a Reform household, but with a lot of remnants of Orthodoxy. We lit candles. We had two sets of dishes, but my mom never told me why. I thought it was breakfast dishes and dinner dishes. There was no emphasis on halacha and learning. Totally not to disparage my parents; it just wasn't their thing.

When I went to college, I didn't have a lot of friends. Blossom had ended two years before. I'd always gone away to Jewish camps for the summer, and so I kind of ended up at Hillel and I started learning with the rabbi, and it kind of took off from there.

I'm hesitant to label myself or call myself Orthodox because people will be like, "Celebrity Mayim Bialik says she does X, but I saw her doing Y" - I guess, to be safe, I would say I'm Conservative, but in reality, I'd say Conservadox. But my husband and I have definitely increased our observance over the years, and we're always trying to grow.

We kinda do the Big Three [Shabbos, keeping kosher, and family purity], but it's hard. I mean, it's hard for everyone to classify themselves, but it's a whole new level of hard when people are watching you. Like, I pretty much eat a vegan diet, but I eat eggs if they're in things. What I say is, I eat a mostly vegan diet, and that's kind of how it is with Judaism. We keep Shabbos, we keep kosher, and I don't know if people want to hear about the Mikveh, but, um, yeah.

You can see her in 1989 at a Chabad Telethon here (at 2:20)- "Mayim says L'chayim".

Israel Isn't The Jewish State For Nothing

Israeli Health Minister Yakov Litzman has been updating a nervous public on the swine flu epidemic - and he started by renaming it for religious reasons.

"We will call it Mexican flu. We won't call it swine flu," said Mr Litzman, who belongs to the ultra-religious United Torah Judaism party.

Pigs are considered unclean under Jewish dietary laws and pork is also banned for Israel's Muslim minority.

28 Years; 24 Floors

In Judaism, there is a 28 year cycle for the sun to return to its original position at time of Creation. And so, every 28 years a special blessing is recited, Birchat Hachammah (ברכת החמה, "Blessing of the Sun")

The rational is that every solar year is 365.25 days long and the "Blessing of the Sun", being said at the beginning of this cycle, is therefore recited every 10,227 (28 times 365.25) days. The next time that it will be recited will be this year, on April 8, 2009 (14 Nisan 5769). More info here.

Many will be attempting to maneuver themselves into the best position possible for the greatest uninhibited view of the rising sun.

So, please, be careful out there:

Police: Teen Fell To Death Trying To Get Better View Of Sunrise

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Police said a 16-year-old who plunged 24 floors to his death from a Daytona Beach hotel balcony was likely trying to get a better view of the sunrise when he accidentally fell.

Ugland, who was visiting Central Florida with his family, woke up early Sunday and stacked some chairs on the balcony to get a better view of the sunrise, police said. He then fell over the balcony.

Ugland's family was asleep at the time of the accident.

Edgar Bronfman Sr.: Ethical Slanderer

Deborah Solomon asked questions of Edgar M. Bronfman Sr. and he answered.

Here are some of them and a few comments by me:

Do you think you favor inclusiveness because you yourself have seven children — and their spouses of various faiths — from how many marriages?

Two.

I thought it was more.

Well, I’ve had three wives. I’ve had five weddings.

In your book, you seek to define Judaism as something besides religious belief.

I don’t believe in the God of the Old Testament, but I am happy with my Judaism, without that.

If you take the spiritual element out of Judaism, what is left? Some would say the rest is just archaeology, bones in the desert.

That’s their problem; that’s not my problem. What we have left is our ethics, our morals. It was our people who developed the Ten Commandments, and civilizations all over the world are based on the Ten Commandments. Whoever wrote that - and we assume it was Moses - had a great deal of wisdom.

Why is it important to you that Judaism continues?

There are things we have to do. For instance, Darfur, Cambodia, Rwanda. There have been holocausts since our Holocaust. We should be the first people to stand up and say this is unacceptable, but we don’t. We say, “Never again,” just for us. We have to say, No, it’s for everyone, this “Never again.”

Why do you give your money to Jewish causes instead of broader social causes?

There are not that many of us in the Jewish world who understand that we are in crisis. We are not in crisis because of anti-Semitism; we are in crisis because we are disappearing through assimilation.

And now me:

1. Did you notice that he's worried about assimilation? That's why he married he married The Lady Carolyn Townshend? But there were no children, so maybe, like God, it just doesn't count by Edgar?

2. Don't you appreciate an "ethical", er, whatever? If you have no God, why do you need religion?

3. Edgar forgets the mighty Jewish backing for the civil rights movement in America and neglects that for the past 2 centuries, at least, every single notable social movement has had tremendous Jewish support, usually, though, to our detriment, like Communism. He's a slanderer. (And here is an update:
Mathilde Blind, née Cohen, a young German-Jewish writer, committed feminist and agnostic...arrived in England, aged eleven, in 1852 as an asylum seeker, along with her mother, Friederike Cohen, and her (Protestant) stepfather, Karl Blind, a leader of German revolution in 1848. The Blinds’ home near Swiss Cottage became a focus for Continental exiles. Marx had been an early associate, Mazzini a frequent visitor and Mathilde’s special hero. In 1866, Mathilde’s brother, Ferdinand, shot but failed to assassinate Bismarck, killing himself in despair at the police station. Mathilde came from an unconventional European background of rational freethinking and practical action. She had radical credentials.)



4. In sum, I think he still has a problem with his Judaism, with his ethics, with his assimilation. But since he has a lot of money, what does he care about that or about me?

5. Did he really write the book?

The "Sword" Flyer

This flyer, which I found tossed about in the street,



complains about the transferring of the administrative supervision of the Shimon Bar Yochai Meron site, out of the hands of the Sefardim and into those of the State authority, described as "impure and destroyers of the world".

The language is tough and the last line there at the bottom of the page reads:

Each man with his sword on his hip

which is incitement coming from Exodus 32:27 -

And he said unto them: 'Thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel: Put ye every man his sword upon his thigh, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.'