Thoughts on Judaism

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Oy not again

AP reports that the "blurry glasses" story has gone international.  That's right!  The brainchild of the loony tunes in Meah Shearim, glasses that are intentionally blurry, have made the wire.

Let's walk down memory lane.  So far, the press has picked up true stories, unembellished:

1) Rabbis warding off swine flu by flying around Jerusalem in an plane, screaming into a phone, and blowing shofars.  That and a public vaccination program, seem to have done the trick.  Stephen Colbert lampooned it mercilessly.  There was a further controversy on even using the term "swine" flu.
2) There was a controversy when Haredim photo-chopped Hillary Clinton out of a press photo, declaring to the world that it is forbidden according to Jewish law to look at a woman in a photo.  (I must have dozed off during that siman of Shulchan Aruch.)
3) The disaster, mess, and animal rights concerns caused by myriads of people waving chickens over their heads every year provides fodder for our enemies to attack shechita internationally.
4) Neturei Karta going to Iran to participate in a Holocaust denier conference.
5) A little girl getting spat upon by grown men and called vile names for the crime of walking home from school dressed as an Orthodox Jewish girl should dress.
6) Open violence to enforce gender separation on public buses in Israel, "modesty patrols" a la Iranian Mullah, and Haredi shakedowns of businesses in Jerusalem completely undermine our ability to display to the world that Israel should rule the city alone.

In short, except in the case of the NKs, the complete pusillanimous reaction of Jewish "leadership", whether Israeli political leadership, Agudah and OU, YU, religious batei din of all stripes has become intolerable.  Hey guys!  Some of us need a modicum of credibility to survive this, and your silence on these things is blasting like a boom box.    Once and for all, you have made yourselves irrelevant and are completely unfit to claim to lead the Orthodox world. Stop throwing rock concert style parties at Giant Stadium and face the task at hand.  Lead or step down!  Declare in no uncertain terms that this type of behavior is NOT JEWISH, NOT PART OF OUR PHILOSOPHY, and that the "Rabbis" that propagate it are HERETICAL!  Stop buckling under to celebrity nonagenarians and excommunicate them!

This, of course, assumes that Agudah, chasidic groups and the like actually do not agree with the Haredim.  Maybe it is time to cut it once and for all.  Maybe, Haredism needs to fully separate from Orthodox Judaism and become its own religion.  They have already declared that the Orthodox are not Jewish in their eyes, not trusting their marriage / divorce, conversions, kashrut and smicha.  They do not believe in paying for or defending the Jewish state because it is not Jewish in their eyes.  In short, they have already declared themselves a separate nation and religion.  WHY HAVEN'T WE?

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