Wednesday, April 30, 2025

IDF Radio: Charedim Not Needed in the Army

"You ask: 'Do we need more Chareidim in the army?' The answer is: No. About three thousand chareidim enlist every year – most of them into combat units; any more would just cause more [administrative] headaches. Every chareidei framework costs tons of money and inhibits our new project of increasing the number of women in combat units… In two years, the number of soldiers in the army is [expected] to grow to a surplus of 17,000. 17,000 soldiers that the army does not know what to do with. A committee has been established to find a solution for all those extra soldiers – how to let them go. In two years, we are looking at a surplus of soldiers… Everyone knows that the army has no need for chareidi soldiers… They cost too much: every chareidei soldier costs double that of a regular one. This whole debate was unnecessary." (Yossi Joshua, Military Correspondent for “Latest News,” on IDF Radio)


So if the country doesn't need the Charedim in the military, if in fact, having Charedim in the military is a waste of tax dollars, then why was formation of the government held up by Lieberman's insistence of having more Charedim entlist? (Already 30% enlist.) Is it because the purpose of Zionism is to destroy the Torah as R' Chaim Brisker said?

Do you want to say Charedim have to share the burden? How about the Chilonim share the burden? Charedim are the ones keeping the mitzvos, and not just for 2.5 years, but for life. Overall, the Charedim make a much bigger contribution to society than Chilonim do.

Oh, so you say that the Chilonim don't believe in the Torah. Well, I for one, don't believe in the military, not the way Israelis do. Why does the 100th biggest country in the world need the 5th most powerful military? 

Surrounded by enemies? Israel has had peace with Jordan and Egypt for 40 years. There's no enmity with the Mediterranean sea. Syria has its own problems. What's left, the border with Lebanon? There has been peace there as well for decades, since Israel ended its occupation of Southern Lebanon. Israel has not been invaded by another country in nearly 50 years and even that war was avoidable by diplomacy. The last invasion was 70 years ago and even that one was caused arguably by Ben-Gurion's declaration of a state following heavy political pressure and terrorism to force UN Resolution 181. Israel has started nearly all of its wars. It's an Israeli thing: aggression, militarism. Why should the Charedim have to shoulder that obsession?

The notion that Israel’s wars were wars of self-defense and that its limited military actions were primarily “retaliatory” in nature rests on shaky foundations. Many Israeli politicians and institutional historians have tried to sell the world and the Israeli public for decades the conception that Israel’s military actions were primarily actions of self-defense. 

….most of Israel’s wars were the result of deliberate aggressive designs or flawed conflict management strategies. At least one war (the Yom Kippur War) could have been avoided by judicious diplomacy. Israel’s war experience is a story of folly, recklessness, and self-made traps. None of the wars – with the possible exception of the 1948 War of Independence – was what Israelis call Milhemet Ein Brerah (“war of necessity”). They were all wars of choice or wars of folly. (Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, p. 552.)

Maoz, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Correlates of War Project at the University of California, Davis and Distinguished Fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, Israel, is the former head of the prestigious Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and the former academic director of the IDF M.A. (graduate studies) program. He is not somebody “who doesn’t get it,” who has no right to speak because he does not know the State of Israel and its unique situation, a charge that auto-defenders of Israeli government policy like to say about all critics. He is a man who the Israeli military itself made the academic director of its graduate program. 

What's really going on here is a religious war. Zionism vs. Torah. Militarism vs. Torah. It's the final battle of world history. The eruv rav against faithful Jews. Which side will you be on?


Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Israelis acting like animals in Thailand

 



Israel’s ambassador to Thailand, Orna Sagiv, visited the northern town of Pai last Wednesday, accompanied by Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, to defuse tensions caused by a series of incidents involving Israeli tourists in the country and Pai in particular.  



"Daniel, Aviv and Or Emanoel and Dan Nisko admit to charges of causing public nuisance, intimidation, harassment and disgraceful conduct; group being held at Pai Police Station and set to be deported."


and Egypt:



An Egyptian court sentenced two Israeli citizens to five years in jail on Saturday for assaulting hotel workers in the Red Sea town of Taba near the border with Israel last year, an Egyptian security source said.

In August, three Arab Israeli tourists and two Egyptian hotel workers were injured when a fight broke out at the Taba Hilton hotel.

According to media reports citing sources familiar with the incident, the Israelis had refused to pay for alcohol and services they received.



and Amsterdam:





and Israel:




"A former Hamas hostage who recently came forward as the complainant in a rape case against a well-known Tel Aviv trainer said Saturday that the suspect convinced her to host a meeting in her home where the assault took place by claiming a Hollywood producer would be in attendance."|

She feared getting raped while in captivity in Gaza, but was not. However, when she returned to Israel she was raped (allegedly) by an Israel. 

How is this relevant to Torah Im Derech Eretz you ask?

"The term Derekh Eretz includes all the situations arising from and dependent upon the circumstance that the earth is the place where the individual must live, fulfil his destiny and dwell together with others and that he must utilize resources and conditions provided on earth in order to live and to accomplish his purpose. Accordingly, the term Derekh Eretz is used primarily to refer to ways of earning a living, to the social order that prevails on earth, as well as to the mores and considerations of courtesy and propriety arising from social living and also to things pertinent to good breeding and general education."

Pirkei Avos, Chapter Two, Mishnah Two, R' Samson Raphael Hirsch

You cannot be a Zionist and a follower of Rav Hirsch. 

Monday, April 28, 2025

Israel carried out an unprovoked attack

 “On October 29, 1956, Israel carried out an unprovoked attack on Egypt. This attack was coordinated with Great Britain and France, according to a predesigned plan that had been signed at a conference held in the city of Sèvres near Paris six days earlier.” Continues Maoz, “If there ever was an aggressive design for a coordinated attack on a sovereign state this was it.”


Zeev Maoz, Defending the Holy Land, p. 47.

Sunday, April 27, 2025

Rav Kook: Don't Generalize

“However, I am certain that the Arab nation as a whole, including the majority of Arabs living in Eretz Yisrael, is greatly pained and humiliated over the evil deed committed by the minority, on account of the instigators among them (who engaged in the riots of 1929). We hope that all inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael will join together to build the beloved but neglected land.” 


Rabbi Avraham Yitzchok Kook, “Rejoinder to the Mufti’s Manifesto.” R. Ya’akov HaLevi Filber, The Dawn of Redemption (Beit Shemesh: ToraTzion Publications, 2021), p. 290.


 

Thursday, April 24, 2025

27 Nissan Yarzheit of Rav Avigdor Miller

27 Nissan Yarzheit of Rav Avigdor Miller

Thursday night to Friday


We take this time to express our gratitude to HaKadosh Baruch Hu for guiding the life's work of our Rebbe HaGaon HaRav Avigdor Miller zt'l and our love and admiration to the Rav for his holiness, truthfulness, righteousness, and courage. 

Wednesday, April 23, 2025

Compassion and Gaza

A real Hirschian will feel compassion for the people of Gaza for what they are enduring underneath American and British made bombs dropped by the Israeli air force and the Israeli blockade of food supplies. 


“Compassion is the feeling of sympathy which the pain of one being awakens in another; and the higher and more human the beings are, the more keenly attuned they are to re-echo the note of suffering, which, like a voice from heaven, penetrates the heart, bringing all creatures a proof of their kinship in the universal God. And as for man, whose function it is to show respect and love for God's universe and all its creatures, his heart has been created so tender that it feels with the whole organic world bestowing sympathy even on beings devoid of feeling, mourning even for fading flowers; so that, if nothing else, the very nature of his heart must teach him that he is required above everything to feel himself the brother of all beings, and to recognize the claim of all beings to his love and his beneficence.” 


R' Samson R. Hirsch, Horeb,125







By October 2024, Israel said it bombed 40,000 locations[4] in the Gaza Strip (which is 360 km2). By one estimate, as of April 2024 the bomb tonnage dropped on Gaza was more than 70,000 tonnes,[5] surpassing the combined bomb tonnage dropped on Dresden, Hamburg, and London in World War II.[6] Satellite imagery showed at least 69% of all buildings were damaged or destroyed,[7][8] which surpasses the scale of destruction in Cologne and Dresden and approaches that of Hamburg during World War II.[2][9]  (Wikipedia)

  1. "Israel tallies a year of Gaza war: 40,000 targets bombed, 4,700 tunnels hit".
  2. 5^ "200 days of military attack on Gaza: A horrific death toll amid intl. failure to stop Israel's genocide of Palestinians"Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. 24 April 2024. Archived from the original on 17 May 2024. Retrieved 15 June 2024.
  3. 6^ Pape, Robert A. (21 June 2024). "Hamas Is Winning"Foreign AffairsISSN 0015-7120Archived from the original on 21 June 2024. Retrieved 21 June 2024.
  4. 7^ Jump up to:a b c de Hoog, Niels; Voce, Antonio; Morresi, Elena; Ganguly, Manisha; Kirk, Ashley (30 January 2024). "How war destroyed Gaza's neighbourhoods – visual investigation"The GuardianArchived from the original on 17 February 2024. Retrieved 19 February 2024.
  5. 8^ Jump up to:a b "Photos: Gaza turned into rubble-strewn wasteland after Israeli bombardment"Al Jazeera. Retrieved 10 February 2025.
  6. 9 Rathbone, John Paul. "Military briefing: the Israeli bombs raining on Gaza"Financial TimesArchived from the original on 7 December 2023. Retrieved 6 December 2023.

There are Jews in Israel who express sympathy.


Are any of them Dati Leumi or Likudniks?



Sunday, April 20, 2025

The truth about Israel, as I see it

 I am reluctant to toss around the word truth, as if I possess it. That's Donald Trump's thing with his Truth Central.

However, having lived in Israel for a decade I believe I can offer a perspective. If you don't live here, then I know much more about this place than you do 

Israel is surrounded by mythology. I doubt that there has ever been a place in history about which people are less careful to speak accurately. I'm not talking about the so-called anti-Semites and so-called self-hating Jews (the former being an overused term, the latter being simply ridiculous) who "dare" criticize anything about the government or military, no matter how obvious or factual. Zionists  automatically accuse those people of lying about Israel. No, Zionists are the ones who lie about Israel.

Let's talk reality now and undress some of the Zionist myths.

Israel is not an affluent country. If you move here from America, your standard of living will drop by 75%. Read that figure carefully. That's not 75% of what it is now, but 25% of what it is now. Even if you come with money, the society around you, the dwelling places, the architecture, the roads, the medical system (more on that in a bit), the arts and culture are significantly, drastically lower than you are used to. Many of the cities, even famous ones, are dumps. For example, Be'er Sheva is a dump. Rishon l'Tzion a dump. Most of Tel Aviv is a dump. If you came from the Ukraine in 1986 (because Zionists closed off immigration to the USA) it might have been a step up, but the Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe. 

Housing is many times the cost of America. An old apartment with four small rooms is $800,000. Cars are double the cost. Electronics are more expensive and not as good. 

Israel is not a high-tech country. It's fine and dandy that it has some high tech companies on the NASDAQ exchange. That does not translate to technology in your life. The products here are second rate, bus card readers fail to work, even security is crude. Israel may show some know-how in high tech spying software and drones, but that doesn't help you in your everyday life. 

The medical care is far beneath that of the USA in quality and availability. Have fun waiting four months for an MRI. And the care is not free as the liars at Nefesh b'Nefesh tell you. An emergency room visit will cost you 1,000 NIS ($350) with some deductions from the kupah, and since there are limited medical services outside of the hospitals, people are often sent to the emergency room to get things checked out. Hospitals are not found in many of the larger cities. You have to travel to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem for emergency services or anything more than getting a splinter removed. 

Hebrew is a difficult language to learn if you are not a speaker of Arabic. I know all about the sorashim, the roots to verbs. Wonderful. It is a Mideastern language, not Germanic like English, not Romantic like Italian. An English speaker studying French will hear a word like homage or panache and recognize them from English. That doesn't happen with Hebrew. Also the definite article and possessives are attached to nouns (before and after respectively.) There's no verb to be. Hebrew is hard to learn and Israelis speak quickly with garbled words. Ulpan is not a magic language acquisition program, even though it has its own name. It's just a language class where the teacher and books don't translate into your native tongue. This doesn't aid language acquisition. It just makes it more stressful, which matches everything else in Israel. Moreover, most Israelis do not speak English. Government and business correspondence is in Hebrew, and not even the Hebrew you might manage to learn in Ulpan. 

You are not coming home. That's what they tell, "come home". Well, it's not home. I moved into an apartment building full of Israelis, mostly Dati Leumi, and none of them ever had us over, even days after our very obvious lift arrived. They were unfriendly and unhelpful. The entire society is at war with itself. If you are Haredi, you will not feel at home in 95% of the land because the Chilonim and the Dati Leumi will be hostile to you. They are hostile to each other as well. I walk through a non-religious neighborhood every day and get stares even as I say "boker tov." No response, just glares. 

Israel does not have a thriving democracy. The same people are in charge decade after decade. You don't even vote for them. You vote for a party who chooses who will assume office. Parties need a minimum vote count of several percent to take a Knesset seat so new parties struggle to get started. Existing parties that change their names because their leaders battle one another are not new parties. They are recycled parties. Israel does not have checks and balances. It is a parliamentary system where the Parliament (Knesset) chooses the PM and cabinet. There's no real Constitution. The court appoints itself and acts without restraint as it makes decisions based on what its liberal members deem reasonable.

The press is almost entirely anti-religious and never anything but hostile to Haredim. All of the major institutions are run by anti-religious, non-religious or barely religious people. This means the banks, the colleges, the press, the health systems, and the military. All secular. Contrary to the whining that you hear from the Chilonim, Haredim have nearly no power in Israel. They have only a portion of the voting block, but it doesn't amount to much. Despite claims that the Haredi community lives on government aid, the government provides little to Haredim, just minimal health care. Secular schools are far better funded. Students sit in real buildings. Haredim sit largely in trailers. 

Schools are not as good. Teachers are not well trained and resort to shouting to control the class. Facilities are subpar to terrible. Libraries are few and small. 

The military is not a safe place for religious Jews. Just check out the IDFBabes channel on X and you'll see what I mean. And the battle to keep Haredim from the military has reached a point of enormous difficulty since the court nullified all draft exemptions. Whatever yeshivish people you know who made 'aliyah' did it in a different political era. You can't just copy those people. 

The military is also not the most moral on earth, and is not particularly effective as we saw on October 7. They failed to watch a fence.

Are you getting the message? Is there anything good about Israel? Well, it is Eretz Yisroel. There seems to be more hashgacha pratis here. There is some kiddushah in the air, maybe only in religious communities. There are strong religious communities, but not really any better than Lakewood, Monsey, Williamsburg, etc. No, people aren't frummer in Israel. That's another myth. They are less materialistic, but many suffer a materialism in their religious observance because the state becomes a false god to many. Many struggle to maintain good middos. 

Yes, there are less goyim, but Jewish goyim can be a bigger problem. The culture here has more chutzpah and less derech eretz. There is some feeling of brotherhood in some of the people, by no means all. Some of them are horrible. I believe the worst are those who were most recently in the military as their rough treatment of the Arabs  (and it is rough to say the least) rubs off on them. They come out of the military hardened and with PTSD from how the military treats them.

Can you handle all this, or have you been brainwashed to believe that criticizing an anti-religious society founded by atheists is lashon hara against the land? How ridiculous. How convenient a misuse of a Torah idea to provide cover for sinners and sin.

My view is that Israel is for Israelis and refugees (even if they be refugees created by Zionism). Refugees can include ardent Zionists because their obsession with Israel has made living anywhere else unpalatable to them. Shield yourself when they try to infect you with their disease. Most people and by that I mean 95% should stay where they are. Live where you can be the best Jew. A mitzvah in Texas is just as good as a mitzvah in Israel. 

As for Israelis, this is all they know. They are made of the same material as a scouring pad, so they can deal with all of this. They are used to it. They have family here. They know the language. It's their home. It's not yours. Not yet. Wait for Moshiach. He'll lead the converting of Israeli society into home for all Jews. You will not be able to do this yourself.


Here's a 4 bedroom apartment outside of Jerusalem for $756,000. Here's your living room/dining room/den, i.e. one room. 


Here's one of your tiny bedrooms:
  

Here's your luxurious kitchen:

2,790,000 Israeli New Shekel equals 
756,837.99 United States Dollars

Am I getting through to you?


"It was not the land that Moses had been commanded to proclaim to his people at the outset of his mission as מורשה, as the inheritance they were to preserve (Ex. 6,8). The Law, to be translated into full reality upon that soil, was to be the true מורשה, the one true, everlasting inheritance, the one true center around which the nation and its leaders were to gather as one united community. Herein lay the goal and the destiny, the character and the significance of the people."

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch "The Kehillah," Collected Writings, Vol. VI, p. 62

Tuesday, April 15, 2025

Minhag ashkenas/yekke kenes (gathering) tonight also via Zoom


B'nai Brak, Tuesday, 6:50 pm mincha

Where: B'nai Brak, 25 Ben Yaakov St., very near the Coke factory, first stop on bus

Mincha followed by a drasha, then Maariv, than chazanus

People from yekke communities from all over Eretz Yisroel will be in attendance. Special sefarim will be on sale. There is a section for ladies.


also online






david cohn is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: Kenes Chol Hamoed _pesach 5785
Time: Apr 15, 2025 06:45 PM Jerusalem
Join Zoom Meeting
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Meeting ID: 841 4532 0147
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Monday, April 7, 2025

The Rebbe was against Zionism

  The Rebbe was against Zionism

 אמנם צריכים להיות נגד הציונות, אך את האנשים המחזיקים בה באופן אישי יש לקרב, כלומר: מקרבים כל יהודי מאחר שהוא יהודי, אך לא מקרבים יחד איתו את הציונות שבו ח"ו

שיחות קודש תשכ"ז ח"ב ע' 407

It is true that we must be against Zionism, but one should still engage in outreach with the people who cling to it. That is to say, one should do kiruv with every Jew because he is a Jew. However, the Zionism should not be brought in along with him.

Lubavitcher Rebbe

Sichos Kodesh, 5727, p. 407


New York c.1899: Restored To Life in Amazing Footage