Hamodia vs RCA regarding Satmar Rally against Draft

Hamodia - The Hypocrisy of the RCA -    The most disturbing part of the RCA statement is that it says that the rally, which was called for and planned under the direction of the Gedolim, including both Satmar Rebbes, was “an insult to the memory of the Satmar Rav … For all his well-known opposition to a secular state, he always put the protection of Jewish lives first. It is unthinkable that … he would have countenanced aiding and abetting our enemies.” (It is important to point out that the opposition of other Gedolim to the rally was not for the reasons the RCA condemned it. It was a question of how we, as frum Jews, are supposed to work to get rid of this gezeirah, and whether public protest is an effective method.) It would seem that the RCA president is guilty of the very thing the Chasam Sofer was worried about, and is ascribing his own opinion to the Satmar Rav, zt”l.  

Hamodia - The RCA responds   Review the pictures of the rally, especially the signs speaking of a war on religion, and the lack of freedom of religion in Israel. Can you understand what a victory this is to millions and millions of deep-seated haters of Jews who wish to counter the support for Israel that she asks for as the Middle East’s only democracy? Satmar knows that its sons will never be drafted, and they don’t take money from the “illegal Zionist entity.” What were they protesting, other than the existence of the State itself? We cannot understand — and will not accept — acting in concert with them. We believe that the Gedolei Torah who said to stay away from the rally did not just differ with the organizers about which methods will be effective in countering the proposed measures. It is our understanding that some or all of them understood the terrible effect this could have, consciously or otherwise, on non-Jewish Americans whose favorable image of Israel is under constant attack. Satmar wanted to co-opt the anger and frustration of the Torah community over the Lapid proposals for its own cynical agenda. They wanted to maximize the impact of anti-Israel feeling; our job was to minimize it. Hence, we asserted that those who attended the rally are a small but vocal minority that should not take away from the image Americans have for strong support of Israel. If Americans sense that Jews are not supportive of their own state, they ask themselves why they should be supportive. If any members of Congress were negatively impressed by the rally, organizers will have Jewish blood, G-d forbid, on their hands.

We had one purpose, and only one purpose in our statement: to counter the image of Israel that the rally placed before the American public. We did not comment on the Lapid measures. One reason is that our members are split on how to react to them. We have some members who have been working hard to counter these measures, some of them taking their concerns straight to the Israeli government. We also, however, have members who refuse to label demands for chareidi participation in all parts of the life of the nation and insistence upon the teaching of basic educational skills in schools as a “gezeiras shmad.” Because different points of view are represented among our membership, we sometimes have to stay away from certain issues — just as Agudah does to maintain its fragile alliance between Litvishe and chassidishe elements.

Hamodia - Lets-state-the-true-facts   In reality, the rally that the RCA condemned was endorsed and attended by leading kehillos whose viewpoints strongly differ from the Satmar approach, including Sanz-Klausenberg, Belz and Boyan. The Rebbes of Skulen, Vizhnitz, and Rachmastrivka urged their followers to attend. Among those who participated were Roshei Yeshivah and Rabbanim such as, shlita, Harav Aaron Schechter, Harav Elya Ber Wachtfogel, Harav Noach Aizik Oelbaum, Harav Yaakov Horowitz, Harav Osher Kalmanowitz, Harav Simcha Bunim Paler, Harav Moshe Meiselman and others. Anyone who recognizes these names will be able to see that the protest was reflective of the broader Torah world. Indeed, both Satmar Rebbes were involved in the planning, and attended — but this wasn’t a rally against the legitimacy of the State of Israel. It was a rally in defense of Torah Judaism.
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Forward  update  “Today’s rally is a declaration of war against the enemies of God and the enemies of religion,” said the Monsey, N.Y.-based Rabbi Yaakov Weiss, who was the protest’s opening and closing speaker. “We hope the evil Zionists will not be successful in destroying our holy Torah studies.”

Speakers used the Yiddish word reshoim, or evil people, to describe Israeli politicians specifically and Zionists generally. And Rabbi Nachman Stauber, who leads a Satmar yeshiva in Queens, made a comparison in his address between Zionists and Amalek, the biblical Jews’ greatest enemy.[...]

The JCRC, which has particularly close ties to the leadership of Satmar in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, defended the group’s right to protest, but objected to their language. “Sunday’s Foley Square protest against an announced Israeli policy was an expression of free speech,” said Michael Miller, executive vice president and CEO of the JCRC, in a statement issued in response to a Forward inquiry. “However, some of the speakers attempted to outrageously demonize the IDF and the government of Israel. We consider such rhetoric offensive and we categorically condemn it.”[...]

Posters advertising the event, however, suggested a broader anti-Israel message. “The evil rulers in the Holy Land want to incite and seduce young men and teenagers to acquiesce to idol worship and to participate in the impure army,” read Yiddish and Hebrew posters, copies of which were obtained and translated by the Forward.

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Gershon Barkany pleads guilty to $62 million fraud

F.B.I.   Earlier today, Gershon Barkany pleaded guilty at the federal courthouse in Central Islip, New York, to wire fraud. The proceeding took place before United States Magistrate Judge Arlene R. Lindsay. When sentenced, Barkany faces up to 20 years in prison. As part of his plea agreement with the government, Barkany agreed to a $62 million money judgment payable to the United States.

The guilty plea was announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and George Venizelos, Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office.

According to court filings and facts presented during the plea proceeding, between December 2009 and March 2013, Barkany induced seven investors to give him approximately $62 million by promising to use their money in “risk-free” deals to purchase and then immediately re-sell at a profit commercial real estate properties located in New York City and New Jersey. However, no such deals existed and the investors lost their entire investments.

In one instance, Barkany approached an investor he knew from the community and who placed his trust in the defendant. Barkany preyed on that trust to convince the investor to invest $46.5 million that was supposed to be used as a down payment to purchase an office building in Manhattan, a hotel in Atlantic City, and properties in the Bronx and Queens. Barkany explained that he would find a buyer for those properties who would pay a higher price before the actual closing, resulting in a profit for Barkany and the investor. Barkany assured the investor that the real estate deals were risk free because if Barkany was unable to find a buyer before the closing, the owner of the properties would refund their money. In fact, those real estate deals did not exist and the investment was not refunded. [...]

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Rabbi Yisrael Eichler Speaks up for Torah Jewry

Guest Post: Translation by RaP

  Scribd

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Yaakov Weingarten alleged to have stolen large sums of money from charity donations

Courthouse News Service   [See also NY Times ]   A Brooklyn man and his cronies swiped "hundreds of thousands - if not millions" of dollars in donations intended for Israeli charities, New York's attorney general claims in court.

     Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued Yaakov Weingarten, his wife Rivka Weingarten, and two of Weingarten's principal employees, David Yifat and Simon Weiss, in Kings County Supreme Court. Their last known addresses were in Brooklyn, except for Weiss, who lived in Queens, according to the lengthy complaint.

     Also sued are at least 19 entities Weingarten has run for at least the past five years - some of them nonprofits, some corporations organized under the Religious Corporations Law - to prey on a "vulnerable public's charitable instincts, and in particular the charitable impulses that many persons of the Jewish faith have for Israel," New York says in the complaint.

     Weingarten and his employees "use deceptive and highly aggressive tactics to raise millions of dollars from donors," the lawsuit states, "ostensibly for Israeli charitable causes such as Emergency Medical Services programs and programs for terror attack survivors, cancer victims, the sick and the poor. [...]

Also named as defendants are the alleged charities Hatzalah Rescue of Israel Inc.; Shearim Inc., aka Shearin; Bnei Torah Inc.; Chesed L'Yisrael V'Chasdei Yosef Inc.; Yad L'Shabbat Inc.; Hazalah Shomron Inc.; Pulse Foundation Inc. aka Pulse; The Israel Leukemia and Cancer Society; Agudath Chesed Bikur Cholim Israel Inc.; Kupat Reb Meir Baal Haness Bnei Torah Eretz Yisrael Inc.; Congregation Yad L'Shabbat Inc.; Shearim Hayad L'Torah Center for Hatzalah L'Shabbat and Chesed L'Yisrael Inc.; Israel Emergency Center; Magen Israel; Hayad victim Assistance Fund; Lmaan Hatorah; Our Children; Zaka Israel, aka Zaka; Yaldei Simcha Yisrael; and Yad Yisrael

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Epigenetics - a bump in the road for Darwinian Evolution

Click this link of Dr. Eva Jablonka

Now this kind of thing is resisted because it is felt that this is going against the prevailing view of evolution, where natural selection is the only factor that is shaping adaptation.  If you introduce epigenetic inheritance, and the inducible aspects of epigenetic inheritance into evolutionary theory, it looks like Lamarckian inheritance – it looks like you have the inheritance of a quiet epigenetic variation, which are or can be sometimes a specific response to the environment.

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Supreme Court strikes down Defense of Marriage Act

New York Times    Supporters of same-sex marriage celebrated the Supreme Court rulings on Wednesday as landmark decisions that brought the nation closer to full equality. Opponents said the court had badly overreached in striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, and they vowed to press on against same-sex marriage in the courts and through a constitutional ban. 

“This doesn’t end it,” said Representative Tim Huelskamp, Republican of Kansas. “If anything, it’s been ignited and continues to be discussed.” He said the court action was an attempt to “short-circuit the process and to undo a decision, a strong bipartisan decision, signed by President Bill Clinton and supported by then-Senator Joe Biden; for this court to overrule it, I think folks are tired of judges dictating.” 

Backers of same-sex marriage in Washington and around the nation embraced the rulings and welcomed what they said was the demise of a biased federal law that turned gay Americans into second-class citizens.[....]

But he insisted that same-sex marriage opponents had scored a victory in the case involving California’s ban, Proposition 8. Rather than embrace a broad constitutional right to same-sex marriage, as the lead lawyers Theodore B. Olson and David Boies had urged, the justices issued a ruling that ensured a return to same-sex marriage only in California.

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Rav Kook at Hebrew University - The importance of a University if subordinated to Torah

Rav Kook  (Hebrew University): some excerpts from Tradition Magazine. 29:1 1994 page 87-92.

 It is interesting to note how similar his vision is to   Rav S. R. Hirsch and how different from Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

It is also important to understand that this speech has been severely misunderstood and misrepresented in the Chareidi world - in particular by the Yated. 

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The prophet of consolation prophesied (Isaiah 60:4-5 ):

Your sons shall be brought from afar, your daughters like babes on shoulders.As you behold, you will glow. Your heart will fear and rejoice for the wealth of the sea shall pass on to you; the riches of the nations shall come to you. [...]

But why "fear"? Why did the prophet preface the phrase "Your heart will rejoice" with the notion of fear? When, however, we look back in retrospect at past generations, and at the spiritual and intellectual movements that have influenced us, we readily understand that the notion of fear) in conjunction with rejoicing, is appropriate.

Two tendencies characterize Jewish spirituality, One tendency is internal and entirely sacred; it serves to deepen the spirit and to strengthen the light of Torah within. Such has been the purpose of all Torah institutions from earliest times, especially the fortresses of Israel's soul - the ycshivot. This includes all the yeshivot that ever existed, presently exist, and will exist in order to glorify Torah in its fullest sense. This spiritual tendency is fully confident and assured. "Those who love Your Torah enjoy well-being; they encounter no adversity" (Psalm 119:165). Despite such confidence, Rabbi Nehunyah ben Haqanah, upon entering the house of study, used to pray that nothing go awry with his presentation and that it not lead to error.

The second tendency characterizing Jewish spirituality served not only to deepen the sacredness of Torah within, but also as a means for the propagation and absorption of ideas. It served to prop· agate Jewish ideas and values from the private domain of Judaism into the public arena of the universe at large. For this purpose we have been established as a light unto the nations. It also served to absorb the general knowledge derived by the collective effort of all of humanity, by adapting the good and useful aspects of general knowledge to our storehouse of a purified way of living. Ultimately, this absorption too serves as a means of a moderated propagation to the world at large. Toward the attainment of this end, the Hebrew University can serve as a great and worthy instrument.

Here, dear friends, there is room for fear. From earliest times, we have experienced the transfer of the most sublime and holy concepts from the Jewish domain to the general arena. An example of propagation was the translation of the Torah into Greek. Two very different Jewish responses to this event emerged. In the land of Israel, Jews were frightened their world darkened. In contrast, Greek Jewry rejoiced. There were also instances of absorption. Various cultural influences, such as Greek culture and other foreign cultures that Jews confronted throughout their history, penetrated into our inner being. Here too, many Jewish circles responded to absorption with fear, while other Jews rejoiced.

When we look back on the previous generations, and reckon with hindsight, we realize that neither the fear nor the rejoicing was in vain. We gained in some areas and lost in others in our confrontation with foreign cultures. This much is dear: Regarding those cirdes that welcomed absorption and propagation joyously, with unmitigated optimism and with no trepidation, very few of their descendants remain with us today, participating in our difficult and holy task of rebuiling our land and resuscitating our people. For the vast majority of them have assimilated among the nations; they found themselves caught up in the waves of the ''wealth of the sea" and the "riches of the nations" that have come to us ..

Only from those who resided securely in our innermost fortresses, in the tents of Torah, enmeshed in the sanctity of the law, did emerge the truly creative Jews-that great portion of our nation who are loyal to its flag who work tirelessly to build our great edifice. Among these were many who propagated and absorbed. They exported and imported ideas and values on the spiritual highway that mediates between Israel and the nations. Their attitude, however, toward this undertaking was never one of rejoicing only. Fear accompanied their joy as they confronted the vision of the "wealth of the sea" belonging to the "riches of the nations."

Quite rightly did the prophet say: "As you behold, you will glow. Your heart will fear and rejoice for the wealth of the sea shall pass on to you; the riches of the nations shall come to you."

But how does one overcome the fear? How do we assure the safety of the nation against the mighty stream engulfing it?

As a representative of the Jewish community, standing on this honored platform, I submit to you the reflections of many distinguished segments of the community of traditional Judaism. It must be understood that the Hebrew University by itself cannot fulfill all the educational requirements necessary for the success of Our national life. We must realize that, first and foremost, it is the great Torah yeshivot, those that now exist and those to be constructed that are worthy of the name including the Central Yeshivah which we are establishing in Jerusalem, which shall be a light onto Israel in all areas of Torah, whether halakhah, aggadah, Jewish action, or Jewish thought that uphold the spirit of the nation and provide for its security. Moreover, the Hebrew University must maintain standards so that the name of Heaven, Israel, and the land of Israel are sanctified, and never desecrated, by it. This applies to administration, academic staff, and students alike. In particular, it is essential that academicians teaching Jewish studies, ranging from biblical study the light of our life to talmudic study, to Jewish history and thought, aside from their academic excellence, be personally loyal emotionally and intellectually to traditional Judaism. Only then will the fear we experience, together with the magnificent vision we behold this day, lead us to glow and rejoice in blessing.

These are our aspirations regarding the institution crowned today with the glory of Israel by the "wealth of the sea" and the "riches of the nations" that have come to us. May the prayer of Rabbi Nehunyah ben Haqanah be fulfilled in us: May my presentation not lead to error. [...]

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