A disgrace to Israel
Israel has introduced a new 50 Shekel note this week, and a call has been issued to boycott it.
Here's why.
A new 50 shekel banknote bearing the likeness of Russian-born Hebrew poet Shaul
Tchernichovsky (1875-1943) entered circulation on Tuesday, but Dr.
Hagai Ben-Artzi of Bar Ilan University refuses to use the new note and
calls on others to follow suit.
Ben-Artzi, who is the brother-in-law of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and lectures on the Torah and Jewish Thought, told Arutz Sheva that the new banknote is a disgrace to the state of Israel.
The noted lecturer reminded that Tchernichovsky was married to a Christian woman his
entire life, and refused the insistent pleading of former Chief
Ashkenazic Rabbi Shlomo Goren to have her convert to Judaism as
befitting the wife of a key Hebrew poet in modern Israel.
"Shaul Tchernichovsky became a symbol of assimilation - the ideology
of assimilation. It cannot be that a man like this, even with all his
importance as a poet, should become a symbol of the state of Israel,"
said Ben-Artzi.
The new note sends exactly the wrong message at a time when "in Europe there's an 80% rate of assimilation and
in the United States 60% assimilation," argued Ben-Artzi. "The Jewish
people are becoming annihilated due to assimilation; how can the state
of Israel be capable of turning precisely Tchernichovsky into a symbol?"
With all due respect to Rav Goren, zt"l, the conversion would have likely been meaningless, but other than that Ben Artzi is spot-on. I just don't know if it is possible to boycott a bank note, but I intend - bli neder (without taking a vow) to try.
To those of you in Israel, Shabbat Shalom. Shabbat starts at 6:05 pm in Jerusalem. I am in Boston so posts will continue today to the extent I am able to continue them.
Labels: assimilation, Israeli currency, secular revolution
Should God be in the IDF?
I've been sitting on an email Mrs. Carl sent to Israel Radio on Wednesday morning, waiting to see if someone would be able to download the broadcast she heard so I could post the email with the broadcast. There's now an article in Haaretz that expresses similar sentiments to those expressed on Israel Radio (what a surprise), so I'm going to post that article, and then I will post Mrs. Carl's comment to Israel Radio. After that, I will forward all emails that urge her to write this blog in my place, or at least to co-author with me :-)
There's been a controversy in the IDF - at least since Operation Cast Lead - over God's role in the army. I should preface this by saying that I firmly believe - as do many Israelis - that without God's help, the IDF would be defeated regardless of how good our technology is and how strong and clever our soldier's are. I believe that it is God who Wins the wars for us, and everyone else is just an actor carrying out God's wishes.
The opposite conception is known as כחי ועוצם ידי - my power and the strength of my hand wins. There are even people who have gone so far as to say that had we not gotten caught in the latter conception after the Six Day War, the Messiah would have come (just heard that again this week). I don't purport to be God's accountant, and I have no idea how He would have reacted had we attributed His victory in 1967 to him, but the possibility must at least be acknowledged.
As you might recall, as the troops were going into Gaza for Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, then-IDF chief rabbi Avichai Ronsky
handed them brochures which summarized
what the Torah has to say about going to war with non-Jews.
"[There is] a biblical ban on surrendering a single millimeter of it
[the Land of Israel] to gentiles, though all sorts of impure distortions
and foolishness of autonomy, enclaves and other national weaknesses. We
will not abandon it to the hands of another nation, not a finger, not a
nail of it." This is an excerpt from a publication entitled "Daily
Torah studies for the soldier and the commander in Operation Cast Lead,"
issued by the IDF rabbinate. The text is from "Books of Rabbi Shlomo
Aviner," who heads the Ateret Cohanim yeshiva in the Muslim quarter of
the Old City in Jerusalem. [Deuteronomy 7:2 and the Rabbis' gloss on it says "you shall not give them a place in the land. CiJ]
The
following questions are posed in one publication: "Is it possible to
compare today's Palestinians to the Philistines of the past? And if so,
is it possible to apply lessons today from the military tactics of
Samson and David?" Rabbi Aviner is again quoted as saying: "A comparison
is possible because the Philistines of the past were not natives and
had invaded from a foreign land ... They invaded the Land of Israel, a
land that did not belong to them and claimed political ownership over
our country ... Today the problem is the same. The Palestinians claim
they deserve a state here, when in reality there was never a Palestinian
or Arab state within the borders of our country. Moreover, most of them
are new and came here close to the time of the War of Independence." [That's a statement of historical fact. CiJ]
The
IDF rabbinate, also quoting Rabbi Aviner, describes the appropriate
code of conduct in the field: "When you show mercy to a cruel enemy, you
are being cruel to pure and honest soldiers. This is terribly immoral.
These are not games at the amusement park where sportsmanship teaches
one to make concessions. This is a war on murderers. 'A la guerre comme a
la guerre.'" [Deuteronomy 20:13. CiJ]
When Rabbi Ronsky's appointment came up for renewal later that year, then-Defense Minister Ehud '
secular revolution' Barak
declined to renew it.
While the current chief rabbi of the IDF is far less likely to be as politically incorrect as Rabbi Ronsky was, there are other people in the IDF who still believe that God Runs the show. Here's what Mrs. Carl described hearing on Israel Radio on her way to work Wednesday morning (when she couldn't just pop in a music CD because it was before Noon on the day after Tisha b'Av).
I listened to the program this morning on my drive to work.
(I usually listen if I can – the discussions are usually interesting and thoughtful.)
I heard the topic about unauthorized speakers coming to Army bases to speak to soldiers about spiritual topics. I heard one recording of someone offering Tzitzit, and another of someone speaking.
She didn't remember the names of the people involved, but one of the people she heard about might have been Colonel Ofer Winter, the commander of the Givati Brigade. This is from
Haaretz, which is not only generally anti-Israel, but generally anti-Judaism as well:
Col. Ofer Winter, the commander of the Givati Brigade, is a thorough officer. Before going into Gaza he
asked Kabbalists and yeshiva heads to pray for the operation’s success.
“They promised to do it and asked me to take something upon myself –
more mitzvoth, more enhancement of the mitzvoth,” the commander told
military correspondents of the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Bamishpacha. [For those of you overseas, BaMishpacha is the Hebrew language Israeli version of Mishpacha. CiJ]
And
so it was. “I decided to take it upon myself to pray the morning prayer
with great purpose,” Winter added. “We’re in a combat situation, of
nights without sleep, so sometimes the morning prayer comes after a
sleepless night. It’s very hard, but I know it’s for the soldiers and I
try to keep it up, lengthen my prayer and pray more intently.”
“At this time of war of all times, when the desire to join the troops is
strong, we must reiterate that what the Jewish people needs most is for
the Torah students to sit and study Torah more strongly,” Winter
explained. “The study of Torah protects the Jewish people more than
anything. Those who can sit and study – that is their obligation.”
Winter added that before going into combat he reads his soldiers the
words “Hear, O Israel, ye draw nigh this day unto battle,” from
Deuteronomy 20:3. According to the colonel, “When a person’s life is in
danger, he gets connected to his deepest inner truth, and when that
happens, even the greatest unbeliever meets God.”
Columnist Uri Misgav wasn't happy with Winter.
This needs to be discussed as part of the investigation into the war.
There are concerns that the army of the people, in a process amazingly
similar to the one in civilian society, is breaking up into tribes —
almost militias — whose character derives from the values of the
commanders and their initiatives.
...
Is this a new policy for the Israel Defense Forces?
...
That is missionary terminology of Gog and Magog
heralding the end of days. The written message Winter sent his soldiers
— he declared a religious war on the Gaza enemy who blasphemes against
the Lord of Hosts — was just for starters. Remember his calls to the
government; for example, “Just have them release the handbrakes for us.”
According to his troops, at the end of the clash in which five Hamas
fighters were killed, their brigade commander raised his hands to the
heavens and said "thank you God.”
This ultra-Orthodox-Zionist
ethic was fully expressed in the interview in Bamishpacha. Winter
apparently felt at home. “A miracle like at the Battle of Khuza'a I’ve
never seen in all my military career, “ he said, referring to a village
east of Khan Yunis.
“We decided to attack the place before dawn so
no one would notice us. But for some reason the soldiers were late. We
didn’t know what to do; dawn was breaking …. Then suddenly clouds
protected us, ananai kavod,” he said, using a rabbinic phrase combining the word for cloud with the word for divine presence.
“It
suddenly covered us, all the soldiers, a heavy fog that accompanied us
throughout the assault. No one saw us. Only when the houses were blown
up that were to be blown up and there was no danger to our lives did the
fog suddenly lift. Really, ‘for the Lord your God is He that goeth ...
to save you,’” Winter said, borrowing from Deuteronomy 20:4. Has Givati
turned into the Jewish Jihad Brigade?
Misgav goes on to call for Winter - a decorated officer - to be relieved of his command, lest he turn all his soldiers into 'religious fanatics.'
Enter Mrs. Carl and her email to Israel Radio. On the whole, Israel Radio is as
Leftist and anti-religious as Haaretz:
My feeling is:
1. Yes, I agree, it should have always been made much clearer that this was an optional motivational speaker, and attendance was NOT required or even necessary if the soldier was not interested.
2. In all armies, no matter what the religious position, encouragement, including spiritual words of “chizuk” or strengthening before battle, are accepted practice and seen as something good before going in to face the terrible challenges of battle. This was not something unreasonable. Yes, Christian, Druze, even Muslim speakers should also be provided, depending on the soldiers’ preferences, but I would assume the assumption here was that the majority of listeners were Jewish, and there presumably weren’t any requests for other types of speakers.
3. What I heard in the second clip was someone encouraging the soldiers to keep up and maintain the feelings of unity and solidarity and love and “achdut” that have been seen so clearly in the past 6 weeks. To take these feelings back with you when you go home, and try to keep up the feeling of unity and solidarity. This seems a Universally Wonderful message – especially in our argumentative, divisive society. (After all – look at how you are trying to create a controversy and argument over calls for unity!!)
4. I believe the speaker was trying to speak poetically when he spoke of writing a new “perek” in “Tanach” – this is the Hebrew literary equivalent of “writing a new chapter in our nation’s history” – a common phrase in English. In fact, it could NOT have been a “religious” harangue because in the orthodox/religious world it is forbidden to add anything to the Tanach. So it must have been a poetic device.
Putting this topic as the LEAD HEADLINE in the 10:00 news clip seems a little bit of an over-reaction to natural attempts to give encouragement to our soldiers. I see this as equivalent to the outpouring of supplies - dry goods and food – that were flowing down to the military camps. Yes, I agree, it should have been more controlled, it should have all been organized through the official military and affiliated soldier-support organizations, yes it was too much – but the source of it was deep love and a need to help our soldiers – our brothers and sons (and sisters and daughters) – in blood and in spirit.
Are you going to criticize the nation for expressing too much love and solidarity and unity?
Does the media have an agenda to increase the divisiveness in our nation, when we are so desperate for unity?
And do you see how ridiculous (I hope) that last question was – how ridiculous it is to take a natural thought, question, or action, and start to wrap it in layers of agenda and evil intent?
Again – I agree – the optional nature of these things must be made absolutely, unequivocally clear to every single soldier. And it has to be made available to everyone, of every religion, if requested. (Did you know that President Lincoln added Jewish chaplains to the US army only after it was requested by Jewish soldiers during the Civil War?)
But would you deny a little bit of encouragement to a soldier about to go into battle and feeling sick and maybe he would be strengthened by a feeling that he is loved and shielded by the prayers of his fellow Jews? Even if he is not officially “religious”?
This reminds me of 21 years ago when the Left tried to throw Chabad (Lubavitch) out of the army and the airport because they opposed Oslo. Freedom of speech in this country isn't always all it should be. And there is a lot more secular coercion than there is religious coercion - all protestations to the contrary notwithstanding.
Labels: Gaza, Givati Brigade, God, Haaretz, IDF, Judaism, Operation Protective Edge, secular revolution, Torah
The Council of Secular Sages
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
At the end of the day, the Italian Christian (Giulio Meotti)
understands this country much better than do most of its Jews.
Who are these secular messianists crying about “religious fascism” while they close their eyes to Israeli soldiers who have the honor of being pelted weekly with stones near Naalin, a Palestinian town near Ramallah?
Who are these Hellenistic Jews who claim that “hareidim don’t serve in the IDF” while they grant the same immunity to Israeli Arabs and liberal draft-dodgers - and are now making it impossible for the hareidim who do enlist to serve without abrogating religious customs?
Who are these Tel-Avivian pacifists saying that a cadet who cannot want to hear female singing for religious reasons will not be an officer in the IDF and a neighborhood that features separate sidewalks for women shall lose its municipal services?
This kind of apocalyptic frenzy began after the victories of the political and religious right-wing parties in the 1977.
Shulamit Aloni, the feminist goddess of the Citizen’s Rights Movement, then said that democracy that produced such election was deficient and predicted a reign of “Jewish fascism”.
Novelist Amos Oz called on fellow “sane” Zionists to thwart the nefarious “tribalist” regime.
Others talked about athe “black national-religious Khomeinism”.
They began to refer to the Jews living in Judea and Samaria by the term pinned by their enemies, “settlers” (mitnahalim), instead by the term “residents” (toshavim or mityashvim in Hebrew).
Hareidim got even better labels, such as "parasites", "leeches" and "penguins" to send to "work camps" or "gulags" for reeducation and rehabilitation, while others wouldn't mind seeing mass arrests.
In 1978 the novelist A.B. Yehoshua asked to not withdraw the settlers inside pre-1967 lines: “We should encourage them to settle as much as possible beyond the Green Line, so when the longed-for peace comes and we are liberated from the territories, we will also be freed of the settlers. Let them go and live in Sebastia, in Upper and Lower Horon (in Samaria), and if possible let them also go to Bashan and Gilead (in Jordan) ...”. (Ha’aretz, January 23, 1976).
Are these the pragmatists who knew better how to reshape the Middle East? Are these the humanistic preachers of the “normality” of being a “nation like all the other nations”?
Are these the self-elected keepers of the cosmic conscience who would never use violence to promote their good causes?
Are these the Aristotelian rationalists who embodied the war on political extremism, religious rigidity and cultural intolerance?
Is this the Council of Secular Sages?
Indeed.
Labels: Haredim, secular revolution
'A vote for Netanyahu is a vote for Barak'
Is Defense Minister Ehud Barak behind the current harassment of religious soldiers by the IDF? Please recall
this story from an earlier post. I received the following comment about it from
Aryeh Z, who sends me regular emails.
We can now clearly see that, like their Arab "Peace Partners," the word and signed agreements of the Government of Israel (GOI) and that of the IDF are worthless. It is unfortunate that the only alternative given Torah Jews now in the IDF is to either betray G-D or go to jail. While betrayal seems to be SOP for the GOI and the IDF, it is not for Torah Jews.
Furthermore all of this has the stench of the Coward of Lebanon to it. Barak has become psychopathologically obsessed with the destruction of the Torah community in all its variations and styles. Whether this is just the real Barak coming out or he has finally gone completely over the edge is irrelevant. He is as much an existential danger to the State of Israel as any Arab army or terrorist organization. We must also realize and acknowledge that all of this is being done under the protection of his guardian angle, the Betrayer of Hevron, Mr. Prime Minster Netanyahu.
Those of you who are Likud member and will be participating in the up coming election for Likud leader must understand that a vote for Netanyahu is a vote for Barak. They have become a package deal. Netanyahu will do everything he can to place Barak in a high position on the Likud list. The only thing that can prevent this is either for Netanyahu to loose or just barely win the leadership.
For those who can't or won't get it, when Aryeh refers to the 'Torah community in all its variations and styles,' he is referring to both the Haredim and to a major portion of the National Religious community. Many National Religious men today opt to perform their IDF service in Nahal Haredi for the same reason that Haredi men do so.
But let's come back to Ehud Barak for a minute, because people don't usually think of him as being in the same anti-religious category as an MK from Meretz (for example). They forget that it was Barak who, in the aftermath of the Camp David disaster in the summer of 2000, attempted to foment a '
secular revolution.'
The battle lines between Orthodox and secular Israelis were drawn sharper than ever this week.
The nation's two chief rabbis reversed themselves and joined Orthodox politicians in the fight against Prime Minister Ehud Barak's recently announced "civic agenda."
Dubbed by the press a "secular revolution," the program was announced by Barak earlier this month in an effort to usher in an era of secular reforms.
The first step, ordered this week by acting Interior Minister Haim Ramon, calls for the removal of the nationality clause from the identity card that every Israeli must carry.
Removing the clause could help solve a long-running dispute over conversions performed in the Jewish state, since the state would no longer be responsible for defining who is a Jew.
But those and other components of the secular revolution have been attacked by some in the Orthodox community as an attempt by the premier to wreak revenge on the religious parties that dropped out of his coalition on the eve of July's Camp David summit.
Only Rabbi Michael Melchior, a member of the Barak government from the small, Orthodox Meimad Party, is still trying to hold the middle ground.
On Sunday, Melchior announced his own reform plan, which he said sought to balance the conflicting demands of both sides of the religious-secular debate.
Barak said he would seriously consider the plan proposed by Melchior, who has tackled religious-secular issues on behalf of the Barak government.
However, Israel's chief rabbis were less inclined toward compromise when it came to Barak's planned reforms -- especially his proposal to abolish the Religious Affairs Ministry.
At a stormy meeting Monday with the "Orthodox lobby" of legislators from the religious parties, the two chief rabbis confirmed that they had supported the idea in the past, contending that the ministry and the religious councils it governs are hotbeds of mismanagement.
The rabbis said they originally thought Barak's plan was designed to improve the provision of religious services to local communities.
But in light of Barak's other secular reforms, they have now decided that the plan to abolish the ministry was politically motivated.
"We call" on Barak, Justice Minster Yossi Beilin and "on all the national leadership to preserve the Jewish character of the state, and to cease and desist from any process that contravenes the integral relationship between religion, state and peoplehood," the rabbis announced, throwing down the gauntlet to Barak.
But the secular revolution was not to be. Within a week of that article being written, the country was overcome with the violent outbreak of the second intifada. And within four months after that, Barak had been chased from office. Some observers saw a connection. It was God telling us that
enough was enough. This was written by Jonathan Rosenblum just before the election in which Barak was defeated:
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch's words, written at the beginning of Jewish resettlement of Eretz Yisrael, haunt me. Hirsch warned that there is no Divine promise that we will not be exiled once again: "From time to time in the course of the centuries, God allowed His people to touch the Land again. He put them to the test to see whether the miracle of their existence through centuries of exile had at last taught them to utterly despise the gods of the earth, and had eradicated their stiff-necked refusal to acknowledge the Divine word."
The evidence on that score is not encouraging. A month before the renewal of the intifada, our prime minister announced a secular revolution. Buses would run on Shabbat, the malls would be open, nationality would no longer be listed on our identity cards. A month later, after Arafat emptied the jails of every Hamas terrorist, some malls were empty for fear of terrorist attacks. Parents were asking themselves before they sent their children on any bus: Is the trip necessary? The soon-to-be-erased line for nationality became the basis on which the security forces screened potential terrorists.
The violence first flared in full force on the eve of the Day of Judgment on Judaism's holiest site. Just days before, Israel had been floating the idea of transferring control of the Temple Mount to the UN Security Council. (Remember when that seemed a radical idea?)
A week later, Israel stood condemned for war crimes by the same Security Council. God seemed to be pointing directly at our loss of national identity - the destruction of which was the unspoken goal of the secular revolution - as the source of our trials.
The message fell on deaf ears.
Assessing the failures of his tenure in office recently, the prime minister could think of only one: not pursuing the secular revolution more aggressively. He promised to do so if re-elected.
Barak's vulgar materialism - his watchmaker's sensibility - leaves no room for God's influence in the affairs of men and nations. In the materialist universe, only that which can be measured exists. And who has seen God or, for that matter, the human soul?
That same materialism prevents Barak from comprehending the role of will and spirit in the life of nations. He cannot understand that a nation without a past is a nation without a future. Arafat demands as a condition of peace that the Jewish people abase itself and admit that the Temple Mount is more important to the Arab world than it is to the Jews. That is the whole point of the exercise over sovereignty: to prove that nothing could induce the Arab nation to renounce its claim to the Temple, while the Jews will do so for will-o'-the-wisp pieces of paper.
So yes, Ehud Barak is hostile to religious Jews (so is
Tzipi Livni). And yes, Binyamin Netanyahu has given every indication that he wants Barak in the Likud (and Barak doesn't have a shot in hell of being elected to the Knesset again unless he finds another party). Yet another reason that those who are able to do so should vote for Feiglin later this month.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, secular revolution
