"Confrontation" Revisited: Rav Soloveitchik's Classic Treatise

In these trying times when ignorant, unlearned, and unprincipled Jewish "leaders" align with evangelical missionaries for their purported support of Israel, it behooves decent Jews to revisit Rav Soloveitchik's classic works on interfaith dialogue. What we are saying today reflects the vacuum of Jewish leadership of our times. Not only are those engaged in these dangerous relationships violating the most basic aspects of the Rav's position, but most of them are frighteningly ignorant (and largely disinterested) of the issues involved. Dark times indeed.

• Confrontation
• Addendum

LAVI Exposed

Why is LAVI, a Jewish "indigenous rights" movement, a dangerous organization?

1. Among other things, LAVI is involved in defending Israel based upon our supposed Jewish indigenous rights (premised on bad history and science, and irrelevant to the thinking person) and see this as a viable means of defending our Jewish connection to Israel. As such, LAVI de-emphasizes the Divine claim, which represents our only true claim to the land. For further information on the foolishness of Jewish indigenous rights activists, check out the following articles where I elaborate on this issue: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/fuchs-focus/263683/2016/03/03/ http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/fuchs-focus/we-are-still-not-indigenous-a-counter-response/2016/03/28/
2. Unlike other pro-Israel groups which seek to deny indigenous status to Arabs in Israel based upon their selective interpretation of the term, LAVI grants this identity to Arabs and based upon this, see them as "partners" for peace. It matters little for the G-d-fearing individual, since the Torah gives Am Yisrael the entire land, and when the halachic criteria of Jewish control of the land is met, neither Arabs nor any gentiles have the right to reside in the land, if they don't meet the halachic criteria for "resident strangers". In any event, LAVI is in actuality a peace movement and they endanger the Jewish people with foolish ventures. For more on this aspect of LAVI and similiar organizations, check out the following article: http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/columns/fuchs-focus/the-new-indigenous-right-hardline-or-soft-boiled/2016/05/22/
3. LAVI embraces the vile and violent black supremacist movement "Black Lives Matter", whose members include those with blood on their hands, and many more who support and celebrate such actions. BLM terrorists are responsible for murdering innocent cops in America (black and white) and ordinary citizens. They desire a race war and in this regard they are merely a mirror image of the KKK but with more credibility among the left. See: http://thejudeanhammer.blogspot.co.il/2016/08/ignorance-begets-wickedness.html
4. LAVI foments discord  between Jews by presenting a false skewed image of romanticized non-white "indigenous Jewry" and a colonized westernized Ashkenazic Jewry which needs to "de-colonize" and "reclaim" it's identity. Judaism is comprised of many peoples and neither color, language, or region define us. The Torah alone is our standard. If Ashkenazic Jewry is no more authentic than Sephardic Jewry, neither is it less so.

This is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. More to come.

Monsters Exist: Judaism’s Cognizance of Evil

“To most of us nothing is so invisible as an unpleasant truth. Though it is held before our eyes, pushed under our noses, rammed down our throats-we know it not.”-Eric Hoffer, “The Passionate State of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)

“The soul that has conceived one wickedness, can nurse no good thereafter.”-Sophocles

The Moral Lies We Tell

Torah is truth personified. Yet some truths cannot be said. We recognize that lying is odious. Yet some lies are permitted, such as the lies we tell to shield people from embarrassment or to protect the innocent. When we occasionally lie to our children to insulate them from things that no child should know about, we do so with a clear conscience. Lies of omission, lies of calculation. All for the good of the child.

To assuage their fears when they are very young, we assure them that there are no such things as childhood monsters with horns, fur, and teeth. In time, we teach them that while there are indeed wild creatures in this world with teeth and hearty appetites, civilized societies don’t have predatory animals roaming about. But what about the true monsters in this world, the human monsters who exist? How do we broach these topics?

We don’t. We avoid the question of those products of nature and nurture who commit acts as terrifying as any imaginary construct. The developing child approaches us with their ever expanding brains and the consequential concerns. We counter their inquiries. They bring it to us. No normal rational parent introduces these concepts.

Children first have a notion of robbers, and this often becomes the first anxiety relating to the real world. The killers, the rapists, the human predators, these are extensions of the first fear. The man who enters the home. The man who creeps about in the night while we sleep. When this first fear is articulated, we evade difficult questions with comforting solutions, to assure them of their safety, and help them mature into functional people, without the handicap of excessive anxiety. We pray to G-d that they will never meet such people, neither in childhood nor their adult lives. We tell them lies. We protect them as best we can. But life can be ugly.

Monsters in Our Midst

“You gave me a present and now I am returning it to you.”-Hallel’s mother Rena Ariel; at her murdered daughter’s funeral

A teenage girl’s bedroom should be the safest place in the world for her, a haven of privacy and seclusion. And in the normal world, it usually is. But not in Kiryat Arba, where the Jewish populace is surrounded by Arab barbarians. Home may be a man’s castle in his mind, but unguarded castles are easily stormed. Even within the illusion of gated communities, and electronic fences, and security patrols, these measures are only as good as the people maintaining them.

And when the mythology of security is shattered it is devastating. An insane image, impossible to fathom: a child’s bedroom drenched in her own blood. Portrait of Hallel Yaffa Ariel’s bedroom on June 30, 2016, courtesy of a 17-year-old Arab monster named Muhammad Tarayrah, who climbed through her bedroom window and stabbed her to death as she slept.

May G-d avenge Hallel’s blood. And may Hashem teach the Arabs of Kiryat Arba, the environs, and of Greater Israel the justice of the ancient city of Shchem.

Outside the realm of hasbara fantasy, most Israelis are unarmed and vulnerable, and although many people oppose the draconian laws which permit only the elite to obtain a legal weapon to protect themselves, many are not even bothered. In such a society, the terminally enlightened concern themselves with “restraint,” the rights of murderers, and perpetuating the system of apprehending terrorists. Such a society breeds weakness, because it denies the common man the most basic right of all, the right to live. The kind of society where the worst of humankind terrorize the innocent.

Whether maimed or murdered, or damned to witness the former, when people encounter human monsters their lives are ruined. In the same way that no one who survived the Holocaust can truly ever be “normal,” how can one who saw his parents gunned down or stabbed to death or hacked to bits, ever know normalcy? Can a society forced to endure endless Arab atrocities even appreciate the concept of normalcy?

There is no dearth of monsters in Israel. Man-beasts who resemble man but act less human than carnivores. Men who cast away their humanity and choose the evil. Arabs nursed on ideations of suicide/homicide martyrdom and are given every opportunity to actualize their madness. Arabs who stab babies in cribs and detonate themselves in the marketplace to attain said “martyrdom” and the depraved fantasies of Islam’s sexual pathology. Those Arab “passion-plays”, obscene Arabs theater featuring school children who reenact the slaughter of Jews. And Arabs who stab teenage girls in their bedrooms.

And still the left and clueless governments continue to perpetuate the myth of good Arabs. Of reasonable Arabs. Of Arabs who want to live in peace with Jews. These same politicians have the nerve to attend Jewish funerals and pay shiva calls. They speak of protecting Jews and yet Jews are sitting ducks in Israel. On many roads, Jews are targets for Arab snipers or cinder blocks. Or firebombs to burn his wife and children to death or destroy a little girl’s face. Even crossing the street in Jerusalem or buying milk can become an ordeal, should the Arab knife frenzy return, or the Arabs rediscover their predilection for crushing Jews with automobiles.

The government never calls for vengeance. Social media outlets for military and government speak of the murdered “of blessed memory”, the tamest of words suggesting that a murdered Jew slipped away in the night from old age. “May G-d avenge her blood” is considered the refrain of extremists. Netanyahu blasts Abbas and the “PA” for incitement. If as the sages of old taught us, the wise man is one who foresees the future, then the fool pokes out his own eyes and sees nothing. What on G-d’s earth did Bibi think he would accomplish? Compel Abbas to repent?

Thank G-d the latest Arab terror attack in Jerusalem was thwarted. But in Israel, the positive is laced with negative. Averted bloodshed doesn’t preclude the possibility of future bloodshed. On the contrary. Israel’s ethic of “do-the-least harm was on display. The terrorist was apprehended rather than having his head blown off. He will sit for a time, and as sure as the day is long, he will be part of a future prisoner release, as one with ‘no blood on his hands’. And when he is released, he will attempt to rectify his failure.

In Israel, the uncompromising warrior is often treated like a fiend, or a lawless vigilante. A soldier such as Elor Azaria who kills an Arab terrorist is a hero, and any "Jewish" government that punishes such a warrior is reprehensible. I don't care if the creature was trussed up like a Thanksgiving Turkey. Or whether or not the ghoul had an explosive. A bullet to the head is the Jewish response. You can bet your last shekel that King David would have agreed. The witch-hunt against Azaria shrieks of Jewish degradation. Such actions are the antidote to Jewish funerals.

The double standard is jarring. The Left gets away with incitement to murder. Academics, journalists, activists, etc. They can say anything on twitter, Facebook or in a prominent paper. Military men can compare Israeli society to the society that birthed the disease of Nazism. Without any consequence. All during a “right-wing” government. Several months ago, the morally defective leftist editor of Walla News Roy Baharir Perl called for Arab terrorists to attack a “right-wing” Jewish concert. While this incitement was spread all over social media, our government tortured and imprisoned innocent Jews, on a witch-hunt to seek out supposed "Jewish terrorists". If Perl was a right-winger, he would have been hanging upside down within the hour while Shabak agents pummeled him.

A government who refuses to protect the Nation and imprisons those who do, sends a message that 1) Jewish lives aren’t valued. 2) Jewish deaths are acceptable if the threshold of “acceptable losses” doesn’t remarkably change the status quo. 3) that Rabin’s perverse notion of “karbanot” for an impossible peace is pragmatic. A government and a society which spurns the gift of Jewish strength and holds its fire has blood on its hands. Jewish history will recall these sins born of weakness and self-loathing, whose consequences destroy lives and those of the survivors. Orphans and widows and parents who bury their young. Of sons and daughters who shriek “Abba”, as their beloved father is interred into the earth. Of a mother who one day drove her girl to dance class, and the next day spills tears stands over her murdered corpse.

Given Israel’s torturous form of government where a hodgepodge of groups usually forms a coalition, the question remains: How precisely to coordinate and implement the proper framework for genuine change? There are no easy answers, since yesterday’s best tactics are not necessarily feasible and today's are useless. We need to use the best resources of our age. However, short of an undeserved miracle, nothing short of mass civil disobedience will make a dent in the government's armor. When society wakes up and takes to the streets in unprecedented numbers, we will see the possibility for change. Articles and videos will not bring about change, no matter how provocative, powerful, or reasoned. They may cause people to think. They may inspire people, but nothing short of authentic societal grassroots effort on the ground, can rehabilitate our collective Jewish soul.

The pernicious effect of havlaga can only be cleansed with Jewish strength and unrelenting power. There is no place on earth for mercy with the Arabs. Truly, they are the Am Lak-a nation that laps Jewish blood. The company of man-eating lions is preferable. When Arabs kill Jews it is perverse to celebrate our humanity with assurances that “we love while they hate”. Of course we are not like them. And that is precisely why the Torah demands that we destroy the wicked. The failure to do so, results in OUR slaughter. It is time to scream and demand that our government deals with the Arabs once and for all, before the next round of Jewish funerals.

Those terrible funerals. Those horrifying images of parents clinging and shrieking over the small inanimate bodies of their children all dressed in shrouds, awaiting the final journey. I prefer the funerals of my enemies. And every Arab funeral where the blood-crazed jinn celebrate their shahid is a G-d given opportunity to bomb them to smithereens. Whole villages of Arab terror can be obliterated this way.

When Moshiach arrives, he will be pressed to identify Amalek. I am convinced that this most noble of men (may we see the redemption in our times) will open his eyes wide with puzzlement: “Are you serious”, he will say? “They are all around you!”

“Pour out YOUR wrath against the nations, who know YOU not.” During the joy of the Passover seder, we call for vengeance against the evil nations. Some distorted modern commentaries try to minimize the significance of this powerful refrain in the Haggadah. It is significant and provocative. Unabashed and unapologetic. The wicked deserve punishment, and unlike petty revenge against a fellow Jew which is forbidden, this is something we long to see. Jewish outrage as a counter to apathy and indifference. Strength and dignity to repair the degradation, and self-respect for Torah and Halacha, rather than a systematic attempt to explain away halachic obligations. With such a mindset, we can finally deal with the Arabs.

We need more of the teachings of torat Moshe Rabbeinu, and less of the arrogance of Moshe Dayan. More of the glory of King David and less of David Ben Gurion’s Ghandi-esque havlaga. And truth be told, we need more of Shimon and Levi whose righteous zeal for their sister brought the city of Shchem to its knees. And lastly, we need more of Shimshon Hagibor, who terrified and terrorized the Philistine enemy. 

The Jewish People: Zero Commonality With Indians

Contrary to the ill-informed claims of self-appointed "hasbara" indigenous rights activists, "native-Americans" have little (if any) commonality with Jews. The analogy is ridiculous, and only one devoid of knowledge of Jewish history and Torah would ever make the comparison.

There is a  reason "Indian rights" activists align with Arabs and their war with Israel. As angry malcontents with no future and no reasonable demands, they have an interest in disseminating myth as history and living the fantasy of a revolution that will never happen. And they have embraced antisemitism for self-interest:

1. As Jews we have a legacy and a mandate of bringing the knowledge of the One true G-d to the world. Indians were animistic pagans.
2. Jewish law is predicated on the sanctity of human life. Biblical wars (and halachic wars were necessarily brutal) offered the enemy an opportunity to repent. They had a limited window to do so and to extricate themselves from the fate of their people. Native Americans were masters of collective mass slaughter, torture, rape, all sorts of depredations, physical, sexual assault, etc. A code of barbarism and savagery.
3. Indians fled their origins in Siberia to find a new place to live- out of necessity. G-d GAVE us our land. And Jews have always yearned for the one place sacred to us, Eretz Yisrael.
4. Jewish tribes were mandated to maintain unity and brotherhood, despite the unfortunate reality of factionalism that existed throughout the history of the monarchies. Indians were defined by their brutal violence towards each other long before any European came to the land.
5. Judaism appreciates nature as the creation of G-d. Indians venerated and worshiped nature. And contrary to the mythos of the ecological native, many tribes were destructive to nature. Judaism has a balance where man must conserve the world but still retain dominion over it.
6. Indian society was cruel by any standard, and the violence they often meted out towards the ill and infirm was shocking. Judaism repudiates the cruel personality.
7. Judaism is intellectual. Our halachic system is based on logic. Indians were creatures of impulse, even if it was contrary to their best interests. 
8. Judaism has never shied from documenting our less than stellar moments in history. The Torah and Talmud often record events that portray as us sinful, ungrateful, and generally belligerent to Hashem. Truth is never sanitized. Indian history is defined by pseudo-history and her advocates all have one narrative. White raping exploitative Europeans. Good noble Indians.
9. While the Indians certainly contributed to our knowledge of fauna, flora, agriculture, building, hunting, their contributions pale to the contributions of the Jewish people, both in the realm of the sacred knowledge of Torah and individual contributions of Jews in general to medicine, education, arts.
10. The Indian world is gone. The Jewish people will live forever.

There is one important commonality. Neither Jews, nor Indians, nor any people's, are indigenous to anywhere in the world, since people are not frogs or plants. People are not indigenous. People conquer or they are conquered. People migrate. Like "native American" who came from Siberia. As Jews we differ because our conquests were Divine mandated and that is our claim to Israel. 

Some people get upset because religious arguments offend them. The lowest of these shills have made a career selling these exotic stories of "indigenous Jewry".  They never engage in discussion because theirs is not a rational claim. So they pout and scream and hurl obscenities. Too damn bad. Those self-serving arrogant hasbarites who don't like it, can go beat on a tom-tom to mollify their frustration or take some peyote and go on a lonesome vision quest.

Indigenous rights activists have nothing to say to Jews about identity. They know nothing of Torah and thus they are irrelevant to any Jew who believes in Divine claims. The essence of Judaism is the rejection of the primitive and the pagan. Native American culture embraced and cultivated these things. The Am Kadosh has no commonality whatsoever with those who worshiped nature. And it is perverse to make this foolish comparison.

We have Torah, they have totems.

The War For Halachic Judaism

Disclaimer: I don’t like labels as it pertains to Torah identity. I don’t love the term “orthodox Jew”, modern-orthodox, etc. Personally, I would prefer the term halachic Jew, but some of the most aggressive religious innovators insist that they are acting in an halachic manner. On the other hand, I have zero patience for those who nit-pick with ridiculous semantics. In this article I use the term orthodox Jew, because sometimes terms become deep-rooted in a communal identity, and the desire to shake the root free is both wasteful, unnecessary, and sometimes counter-productive. I use the term when referring to religious rabbis who believe in the absolute Divine nature of Torah, and the mass revelation at Sinai.

Once upon a time, there were giants of Torah. Men with wisdom to combat the modern idols of secularization. Men who defended the integrity of the Jewish synagogue and the Jewish family from goyish modernization. Men who spoke with deep wisdom in defense of the deepest truths. Men who understood that modern definitions of feminism, woman’s rights, and similar minded ideologies spoke more of the faulty psychology of their respective advocates, than of any new-age modern revelation designed to liberate women from being women. Once upon a time, great men of Torah fought for yahadut.

Today, there are few if any prominent vocal voices. And so, whenever the new radical voices in the Torah community (who speak in the name of Torah) speak violence to the system, there is deafening silence. On issues that should transcend all labels and factions, and appeal to everyone concerned with protecting Halachah, one hears the void.

Ironically, some of the most blatant outrages occur in Israel, where unbridled Jewish messianic fervor renders many Jews vulnerable to aberrant belief systems. Consider the spectacle of orthodox rabbis giving a kosher seal to evangelicals and missionaries in Israel because of a distorted notion of achalta de'geula. Consider how one prominent Rabbi in the heartland of liberated Samaria opened up his community to evangelicals in order to benefit from their free labor. Today, these evangelicals have transitioned from living in tents to dwelling in cottages.

Consider that Tommy Waller, the leader of these evangelicals from the volunteer group "Hayovel", once infamously admitted in a promotional video that such opportunities will give him a chance to missionize (video):

"As we're working with these people, we'll be able to share with them this...this Jesus that we know." 

Further on in the video, a family member elaborated:

"Our family has begun a ministry called Hayovel. The vision of Hayovel is to develop a network of individual, families, and congregations who are ready to labor side by side with the people of Israel. To bless them, to stand with them, to share with them a passion for the soon coming jubilee in yeshua messiah. We extend the invitation to you, to join us."

Interfaith-Dialogue

And what of the growing number of religious rabbis who swim in the dangerous waters of interfaith dialogue? Perhaps most outrageous of all is that easily the most prominent individual involved in this lunacy repeatedly treads upon his deceased Rabbi’s famous stringent halachic ruling which prohibited such actions. (See Rav Soloveitchik's famous essay "Confrontation" and follow-up Addendum.)

On a more general level, how is orthodoxy supposed to cope with the following?

• Rabbis with kipot and beards who reflect on a morality independent of Halacha? Rabbis whose readings of Torah verse and Talmud require a torturous misreading of the written and articulated meanings? 
• Rabbis whose usage and defense (if only for application regarding what they believe to be “antiquated” injunctions, and not every day Halacha) of this tactic remind me of the perverse attempts of “Jewish Renewal”. 
• Religious Rabbis whose interpretations of of Divine injunctions mirror the tactics of maskilim new and old. Rabbis who see metaphor in the biblical injunction to destroy Amalek and the 7 Nations of Canaan.
• Rabbis who believe in a “new Halacha”. Rabbis who opine that Rambam and others spoke for their age alone.
• Religious Rabbis who advocate for homosexual marriage. 
• Rabbis for Hillary Clinton and her leftist anti-Torah positions. 
• Rabbis who engage in biblical criticism. 
• Rabbis who wish to free Spinoza from his well-earned excommunication.
• Rabbis for "open-orthodoxy" and the ordination of women.
• Rabbis whose well-intended but misguided notions will surely lead the next generations on the path to a new reform movement.

I worry about the future of Judaism. Not for its ultimate survival, since our tradition is stronger than any threat we face. But the war will come at a cost. The cost of souls lost to heresies new and old. Once upon a time, giants of Torah fought for truth against the reformation of Torah. Today the Torah community is as weak as ever. Not in terms of over-all Torah study. In that context, there is more Torah study today than ever before. But with the rise of social media, and the new movements pandering to all sorts of foolishness, Torah Jewry is intellectually susceptible. We lack sophisticated courageous Torah leadership to stand up for unpopular truth.  Even the RCA has shown an inability to reign in radical thought. How long did it take for them to take a stand against the growing clamor of the new “orthodox” to ordain woman?

The great men are gone. The classic men of past generations who fought critical battles for the preservation of Torah. Today’s religious rabbis shirk their duty to protect their flocks. Worse yet, many lead their flocks astray.

Factionalism render’s certain camps relatively insulated from some of these heretical voices. For the time, at least. One attraction of these new voices which will appeal to the disaffected of every community, is that some of these new prophets raise valid points about institutionalized rabbinical abuses which represent a chillul Hashem. These real issues act a springboard to hoist radical ideas. The fact that a stopped clock tells accurate time twice a day does nothing to change its general status as a broken instrument. 

Yet the willingness to admit abuse speaks of a candor which people find impressive. The answers are usually less impressive, and are usually more grounded in feelings than Jewish law. But one cannot ignore the real issues, and the attraction of those who address them. One must find better solutions reflecting Torah positions. “Orthodoxy” doesn’t need to change, despite the popular insistence that it must. Corruption is by definition contrary to Torah. If it is corrupt, then it cannot be orthodox despite the identification as such by the corrupt. We need to aggressively return to the truths of Torah.

Where are the giants who fought for halachic integrity? These great men are gone. Today we have silent men. Fearful men. People afraid to confront those who seek to ordain female rabbis in the name of orthodoxy, and those who would rather create a new Halacha to free chained women, rather than call for Jewish men to break open the heads of recalcitrant men. Today, we have Rabbis who in the name of compassion, will create leniency where none can be found, and in turn, will create mamzerim. The greatest and most sensitive poskim of the past, were sometimes hamstrung by halachic reality. They understood that non-halachic compassion will destroy the Jewish people.

In the name of political correctness, some may opine that the Rambam’s words were for his age alone, and that the Nesher could never have imagined a Jewish state in a modern age. My understanding of the Rambam is that he foresaw much more than his modern day detractors ever could. Unlike others, he wrote about biblical wars precisely because he understood that the process of redemption will occur, and war will be necessary. 

In the name of religious tolerance, many distort the Meiri in a way that he could never have imagined, as a source for all sorts of prohibited activities. The Meiri never could have fathomed a prominent religious America rabbi in America entering a national church for Obama’s initial swearing in ceremony. No one puts a gun or a sword to a Rabbi's head in America, and yet he entered  a forbidden place of his own volition.

Political correctness has infiltrated orthodoxy, and many of her supposed proponents are becoming increasingly susceptible to liberal sensibilities. Now is a time for intellectual zealousness for Hashem. Men of Torah need to face the new heresies and radical innovations, and intellectually combat the religious proponents of these foreign notions. 

An orthodox Judaism which fails to heed today’s call, will suffer in the coming years. The impact will affect even the most insulated communities. 

One day, the orthodox will awaken from their slumber and cry out for action. What will they do? They will create conferences to deal with the new “crises”. But by then, the bleeding will be copious.

The New Peace Movements

My reflections on a pernicious movement coming from the camps of Jewish indigenous rights activists.
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We Are Jewish, Not Jebusite.

A reminder for those who may have forgotten. Or for those who never knew. A few general ruminations to identify the self-serving hasbara snake-oil salesmen.

Blogging about "Jewish indigenous rights" is the domain of today's career social media jackass, both jewish and gentile. An expression of Irrelevant, irritating braying, which detracts from logical discussions Jews should be having, and creates false proofs for our Jewish reason for being. One who has zero knowledge of Torah or Jewish history should stick with issues he understands. One who does not, should shut his mouth and mind his own damn business. Seriously. HIS business, is not OUR business.

One example of this perversity is the chutzpadik tendency of outsiders to tell good dedicated Jews how they need to "find their true identity". These ugly people denigrate the long rich history of Ashkenazic Jewry which perpetuated some of the most vital, creative expressions of Judaism throughout our continuing exile, and enriched Judaism with a universe of Torah. To the Jewish frauds who run with this diseased way of thinking, I encourage them to study Torah and keep their naked ignorance to themselves. To the outsiders I say: find your own tortured identity (such as it is), and clean up your own dysfunctional house. Start with the withered tree out front, and ask it the critical questions.

There are real issues out there affecting Jews, both in Israel and the diaspora. In Israel, we have many physical and spiritual threats, and we don’t need those who align with missionaries and are anti-Torah to lecture us. Our own repressive government is more concerned with looking decent and appeasing anti-Semites than protecting Jews. While Arabs prey on Jews with knives, guns, stones, and explosives, our "Jewish government" continues the systematic abuse and incarceration of innocent Jews. Even an heroic soldier is punished for doing his job and destroying an Arab terrorist. These are the things that should inspire outrage. Not folk biology and pseudo-history.

In truth, the attempt to make Jews appear more exotic or native by presenting foolish arguments makes no sense to anyone with his head screwed on straight. It is a distracting ploy for hasbara shills to exploit foolish Jews. And it does nothing to help Israel. On the contrary, it merely lowers the collective Jewish I.Q. And we need every brain-cell at our disposal.

G-d gave the land of Israel to B'nai Yisrael. If you like this, or agree with this concept, good for you. Stick with it. If you don't, that's too damn bad. Go start your own indigenous country comprised of the descendants of savages who ate one another, but were displeased (hypocrites!) when the gun crushed their native forms of violence. Or go to a comic book convention and indulge in other fantasies. Or get a decent job and settle down. Find a good woman to love and live with. But mind your own damn business.

#wearenotaztecsnorincasnorcommanches

Saving Israel

“Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited.” – (Eric Hoffer, “The True Believer”)

“The sky is falling.” –Chicken Little

In today’s era of social media activism, “likes” and “shares” are standards of truth. Judging from Facebook and the plethora of “hasbara warriors” on social media, it would be easy to identify the BDS movement as Israel’s greatest threat. Personally, I never kvetch about the BDS movement, the U.N.’s Jew-hatred, or the anti-Israel bias of the BBC. They are all transparent anti-Semites, and I expect their reactions the way I expect the rising sun. Don’t misunderstand me. I hate them with every fiber of my being. Yet I expect nothing less from them.

I do expect that a prime minister of Israel protect his people from the genocidal Arabs in our midst. I expect this from any prime minister, even one whose positions on most issues are contrary to mine. Protecting one’s people should transcend politics and religious ideology.  I believe that Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies of self-restraint and appeasement pose a far greater security threat to Israel than the most aggressive anti-Israel boycott movement. A leader’s failure to protect his citizens is the ultimate failure in leadership.

Israel’s political institutions present a greater threat to national safety than do the Arabs, since they negate the possibility of dealing with our enemies. Given strong leadership, Israel could easily defeat the Arabs. The problem stems from the system of government and its institutions, and the kinds of individuals who pursue political power. Being neither Jewish nor authentically democratic, Israel mirrors a totalitarianism system hiding behind a democratic façade. A genuine democracy provides people with a bill of rights. In Israel, the most law-abiding citizen has no such rights. The “right to bear arms” is surely a Jewish one, since it is a mitzvah to live-yet this proves difficult in the “Jewish State.” The most liberal state in America has stronger laws protecting the use of deadly force in self-defense than the ones we contend with in Israel. In Israel, one has to prove that a jagged rock hurled at one’s head presented a lethal threat.

I made Aliyah several years ago, DESPITE the reality of governance of Israel, not because of it. I came to Israel for reasons relating to my understanding of Halacha and hashkafa as it applies to residing in Israel and my perspective on Jewish governance in our age. I knew that living in a country so devoid of Torah influence, so detached from common sense would drive me to frustration. I knew it academically and I knew that living in Israel would only exacerbate and confirm it.

As I see it, the religious obligation is to try to change the system. The precise formula for doing so remains unclear to me and many other like-minded Jews, since the opportunity is historically unprecedented. Yet the obligation remains, theoretically at least, despite the seemingly impossible odds. What we see today masquerading as Torah Judaism, both in the charedi world and the various sections of the “religious Zionist” world, are false representations of Halachic Judaism, largely self-serving and perpetuating monolithic close-minded systems. Despite the growing demographic of religious Jews, disunity negates the possibility that religious Jews will drastically affect the country’s direction in the near future. Nor would an honest religious Jew desire to see a theocratic state run by many of these groups. Such a state would be “frum” in form only.

We live in a country where apparently, Jewish lives do not matter. The government tolerates the worst atrocities of Arabs against Jews. Every week we have an updated list of Jews murdered by all types of Arabs: Arab drivers, Arab “citizens,” Arab teenagers, and Arab “police officers.” The government response is as consistent and predictable as the growing Jewish body count. With every tragedy, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responds with eloquent speeches promising a strong response to the inevitable violence. Yet, the status quo persists. The die-hard Likudniks celebrate their leader, and rejoice at another an opportunity to mock the Likud’s hypocrisy on matters of national defense.

With every week, the truth becomes more glaring. The government will not protect us. It does not matter which party is in control. Not in war, and not in “peace.” It will not protect its soldiers, and our leaders will actually endanger them to satisfy the demands of the world who hate any manifestation of Jewish strength.

The only way to change the insanity is to expose it, by eschewing the role of “hasbara warrior,” and exposing the inept government of Israel and their cadre of career politicians. Self-respecting Jews should consider the following: rather than engaging in politically correct, respectable, hasbara by extolling all things great (real and imagined) in Israel, expose the ineptitude of Israel’s leaders and Israeli society in general, which sustains a dysfunctional status quo and prevents us from doing the most normal thing of all: LIVING!

Benjamin Netanyahu purports to carry on a legacy of strong nationalism. In truth, his policies today are far closer to Mapai’s tactical and ideological self-restraint, than anything exhibited by Avraham Stern, Trumpledor, Jabotinsky, David Raziel, and a thousand other Jewish heroes. The greatness of these men, none of them carbon copies of the other, relates to the fact that all were concerned with protecting Jews from Arab and British barbarism. There were no calculations of tolerable levels of murdered Jews. They bled when Jews bled. This is the greatest stain on Netanyahu’s leadership. Arab violence is a veritable virus, and by all accounts, it is getting worse. When a Jew makes a wrong turn in Jerusalem, he makes a deadly mistake.

Perhaps the most apparent example of our dysfunctional society relates to the culture of lawlessness that pervades Israel. Israel is country without a proper police force, or for that matter, even a cultural sense of what normal police officers should look like. The police are culled from societal defectives. Worse still, most Israelis do not even comprehend the problem, so we are nowhere near an age where we will see any change. How many examples do we require of police abuse and general ineptitude, which resulted in murdered Jews, either by Arab terrorists, or by homegrown Jewish sociopaths who thrive in a bully culture, which lacks a basic bill of rights?

A government, which refuses to protect us from local terror, from rioting Arab mobs with slings and knives, will never protect us from Iran. A normal country must be (if nothing else) self-respecting. A country, which believes it, has the right to exist and does not need to point out its technological achievements to assert itself. The Soviets had brilliant men and woman who accomplished much in the arts, medicine, technology, etc., yet despite their contributions, they were evil. Our reason for being, our moral Divine right is not contingent on talented Israelis.

Enough with the BDS hysterics! Netanyahu’s policies present a greater danger to Israel than the BDS movement. The endgame for both major parties and their aspiring counterparts in the small populist parties are the same. The only difference is that the Likud lulls the populace to sleep, while the prototypical left would hand the keys to Abbas overnight. The former deadens the will to fight back, since the illusion of a better option stifles any opportunity to rebel. The status quo is a temptress.

I ask all thoughtful Jews to assess Israel’s current inability to protect itself from the rampant Arab terror. Does anyone with common sense believe that Israel is technically unable to protect itself? It is very capable. It is unwilling. Moreover, because it lacks the will to fight the Arabs, our governments are complicit in the murder of Jews.

The system is sick. The supposed ability to change the system by working within the system is a lie. If they dislike your message, they will ban you. They will detain and torture you for fictitious crimes. The Knesset is a haven of the corrupt and the sick. Israel needs a new popular movement to expose everything that is wrong with Israel. The abuse of the innocent. The right solutions will arise when people ask the right questions.

The solution can only arise from a grassroots movement of the people. There are many problems in Israel. Foremost is the Arab problem, and it derives solely from Jewish weakness. The arrogant claim of Israeli strength is a lie. Our Prime Minister’s dominant trait is weakness. The same can be said for every politician who regurgitates tired populist talking points to retain their congregants.

It is not just about security. There are many economic and judicial abuses in Israel. All of it terrible, all of it so terribly unjewish. It stifles creativity and productivity and frequently punishes the innocent, and the vulnerable. Yet we cannot even begin to address these problems in the current climate, which denies Jews the most basic right of all. The ability to breathe and live without having your throat torn open by Arabs.

Tragically, we are nowhere near the point where the growth of such a movement is likely. Death has not personally affected enough people for them to see the truth. The time is not ripe. This does not justify inaction or apathy, or excuse us from fighting in some capacity. It simply reflects the blood pressure of the nation. Too many people are happy with “Israel” and proud of their country. Their Facebook statuses and posts reflect this. I see things differently. We need to be ashamed that a modern nation with the military capacity for protecting Jewish lives refuses to do so. We should be outraged that Jewish deaths are accepted, tolerated, and ignored, by governments who have a high tolerance for murdered Jews. We need to weep for the incarceration of innocent Jews whose “democratic” government treats them the way Jews were treated in Siberia not that long ago.

Proud of the government of Israel? Not I. I am ashamed that our leaders refuse to protect Jews from our Arab enemies. The most basic responsibility of even a flawed state of Israel would be in protecting Jewish lives. Since the government denies us the basic right to live, we need to use every effort to expose and discredit the internal players who ensure future Jewish tragedies. It starts with the charlatans of Likud who control the country today, who have long ago cast away any semblance of self-respect and Jewish identity, and who repeatedly choose an ill-qualified man to lead the nation. It starts with the masses who protect and support this inept party, who get away with the very same things that it accuses Labor of doing.

As long as the charade of a “Jewish State” as currently constituted exists, we will never have a truly Jewish one. Authentic Zionism must be based upon Torah. The alternative is a society of corruption, weakness, and eroded morals. The alternative is the Divine promise for failing to do so. A person who genuinely loves Eretz Yisroel and Am Yisrael must commit himself to exposing the deadly status-quo.

We need to attack the prevailing popular myths extolling Israel’s “morality” with facts that highlight real pressing problems which need to be rectified. Despite what many hasbara types would have you believe, self-restraint when dealing with enemies is not proof of one’s morality. It is evidence to the contrary. We need not worry about “airing our dirty laundry” for the world to see. The world sees a dirty Israel for all the wrong reasons. Let them condemn us for the right ones.

Return of the Hunt: Part II

“Justice, justice, shall you pursue, that you thrive and occupy the land that the L-rd your G-d is giving you. (Deuteronomy 16:20) JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh

Duma. Once upon a time, my only association with this unusual word was from a work of horror fiction from American novelist, Stephen King, Duma Key. That association is gone forever. Non-fiction replaces fiction. Other horrors, true nightmares in every sense of the word, now come to mind. The Arab town of Duma. Some words transcend a specific time, place, or geological location. Deir Yassin was one such place. Duma will become another. It will conjure up a terrible period in Jewish history. (Bear with me, sane reader. I have not lost my mind.)

Duma was a tragedy, but not for the reasons the Jewish liberal press would have you believe. There was no crime against Arabs, neither arson nor murder. The tragedy of Duma was in the form of a blood libel against true Jewish Maccabees, in the same manner that leftists once demonized good Jews for the murder of Arlosorov, and perpetuated the Arab myth of Jewish savagery in the murderous Arab town of Deir Yassin. 

Duma will conjure the worst examples of Jews committing grave injustices against other Jews. It will come to symbolize the true face of Jewish extremism. A face comprised of weak, evil, incompetent politicians who readily set their faceless, nameless, Shabbak thugs (who waste energy and resources that can be used to crush Arab terror!) to beat innocent Jewish children in dark rooms where only the walls hear the screams of forced confessions. Long ago, the clever Arabs discovered that leftist Jews would blame Jews when Arabs kill each other. Israel’s consistent knee-jerk reaction to such incidents have scandalized Israel’s leadership since the state’s inception. 

The second part of this terrible story involves the inevitable barbarism, which follows these blood libels. Some incidents in our modern history personify the willingness of Israeli leftists to brutalize other Jews. The Altalena was the deliberate slaughter of innocent Jewish warriors, orchestrated by Ben Gurion, and carried out in large measure by Rabin. In recent years, Yassamnikim thugs perpetrated a pogrom against helpless, defenseless Jews in Amona. Duma is the latest chapter. The common denominator is that the government always gets away with it.

Once again, the left took the lies of the Arab narrative of Duma (much like Deir Yassin long ago), and perpetrated a blood libel. In bold-faced type, they wrote the story: “Extremist Jews” set fire and murder Arabs in the Arab village of Duma. No evidence? The Shabak does not care.

The true synopsis of Duma: Arabs murder other Arabs during an ongoing war between rival families, and blame it on Jewish “settlers.” A weak criminal government uses the incident to perpetuate the story of Jewish extremism, to harass those deemed “Jewish extremists.” They utilize the brutal administrative detention to imprison and torture their targets. No one hears from them for weeks and months. They endure unimaginable horror and are made to confess.

Administrative detention: a euphemism for the abuse of Jews by Israel’s leaders where they detain Jews without cause for indefinite periods. The British once used this barbaric measure to punish Jewish heroes. Years ago, Israel’s leaders used it to incarcerate the gibor of our age, Rabbi Meir Kahane (may G-d avenge his blood.)Today, the Likud sinks even lower in their own filth by abusing this primitive, goyish, immoral act to target their Jewish detractors. It is the perfect vehicle for abuse, and contrary to the most rudimentary aspects of halachic justice. They do not require evidence of a crime. They merely have to crush your bones until you confess to one.

Several months ago, I wrote an article in The Jewish Press about this insidious crime (Return of the Hunt). More than four months have passed and the abomination continues. Thanks to the efforts of people like Attorney Itamar Ben Gvir who represents several of the incarcerated Duma “suspects,” we are now privy to details of horrific Shabak tortures against Jews ranging from physical beatings on vulnerable, sensitive spots on the body, sensory and sleep deprivation, and even sexual assault, possibly including sodomy. (ISA ‘sexually harassed’ Duma suspect.) If this doesn’t make you want to storm the barricades, nothing will.

(I would be remiss if I failed to mention the legal group HONENU who defend Jewish heroes from Israel’s repressive judicial process. They are also involved in this case, advocating for immediate justice.)

Several days ago, I expressed my concern and certainty that the Shabak was sexually assaulting these young men, since the Shabak needed to do something so terrible to them that would make them reticent to speak about it. Ben Gvir’s statements confirmed what I suspected to be true. I fear that we may never know the full extent of such actions.

Many leftists celebrate the imprisonment of kipah wearing, unruly “hilltop youth” with peyot. Yet the most abominable silence comes from Likudniks who will defend Bibi to their grave. Then we have the quislings of the respectable Habayit Hayehudi. Several months back, Habayit’s Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked jumped onto the bandwagon with their own perspective, which displayed that the loyalist “religious parties” take a back seat to no one when it comes to repugnant positions. The words “capital punishment” were thrown about. For those who hoped that he might have done teshuva, Bennett recently came out with a statement in support of the Shabak’s monstrous acts. It shows him to be a cruel and foolish man, more interested in Arab rights than Jewish lives. Those who worship these leaders should understand that Mapai once used these same KGB tactics against Bibi’s supposed ideological forebears.

A man cannot incriminate himself: a basic halachic concept. The Torah understood the dangers of forced confessions. Most liberal Jews misunderstand the Torah’s strict criteria for Halachic guilt. They view it through the distortion of an intellectual cataract, which they see as being the Torah’s reticence to administer harsh punishments for real crimes. How mistaken they are. The Torah intended to prevent a travesty to the Torah’s ideal of justice. To kill an innocent man is as obscene as the notion of a guilty man going free. It matters little even with the strict judicial criteria for say capital punishment, Jewish society had other measures to ensure that probable offenders were punished adequately while still retaining the halachic criteria. 

The Torah standards follow the reality of human nature and psychology. There is a breaking point for everyone, including the strongest of men. Evil men have always used strong-arm tactics to break people. The Shabak will do anything to a kipah wearing, peyot swinging “hilltop youth” to pin a crime on them. They will ignore Arab incitement and actual violence, but wage warfare to uncover the origins of supposed “price tag” attacks. Democracy for Arabs. Gestapo tactics for obstinate idealistic Jews. If anyone of these detainees “confessed”, it is because the Shabak broke their spirits, not to mention their bodies. 

Hasbara: The Backdrop of the Problem

One of the main impediments to exposing and eradicating the abuses of Israeli government towards other Jews is the modern day notion of public relations for Israel. Some advocates for Israel are terrified of highlighting examples of rampant institutional corruption in Israel, which harms the public in all spheres of life from economics to security. Others support such brutal measures either out of a sense of ideological commitment to their leaders and parties, or by actual approval of such measures against Jews.

Contemporary hasbara (PR) efforts are pandering, patronizing, and self- aggrandizing. They are often untrue or exaggerated. Frequently they celebrate things Torah observant Jews should not celebrate. There is a place for a proper, respectable form of hasbara. Current expressions do not meet the criteria for dignified hasbara.

One of the more popular ones is the oft mentioned, “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East…..” Surely the most popular hasbara slogan among liberal Jews. From a Torah perspective, western democracy cannot be celebrated since all systems of government, including the best of them, cannot reach the theoretical perfection that only a truly Torah oriented society can provide. Yet in the absence of such a system, a flawed democracy is preferable to a government based upon the principles of Sodom. If it were so, such egregious abuses of personal liberty would never occur.

The fact that Tel Aviv is a gay mecca in the Middle East does not mean Israel is democratic. It means that Tel Aviv is a gay mecca. It means that while Sodom is gone, the legacy of Sodom and Gomorrah permeates the country. Neither high tech technology, nor Tel Aviv’s reputation for being a gay Middle Eastern mecca is our reason for being. The latter is a reason for not being. Israel’s democracy is a veneer. A tyranny with voting booths remains a haven of corruption. Even in the worst societies, there were often veneers of equality. Yet no one likes to vote at the other end of a shotgun.

Do you live in a democracy? If the answer to even one question is yes, then you do not live in a democracy.

• Does your government ban a popular Jewish party because they speak truths relating to the Arabs of Israel?
• Do the leaders of your country detain Jews for months without any charges and denying them legal representation? 
• Do government agents beat the living pulp out of such detainees? 
• Does the judicial arm of said country approve of and permit such abusive tactics while the same country demands that her doctors heal and feed Arab murderers? 
• Has your country recently eliminated an Arab who brutally murdered Jews in his youth, was captured by Israel and then released him to kill again? If the answer is YES, then you live in an asylum? 
• Do the military/police beat and bludgeon Jews but skirt any legal consequences?

As I have noted before, if the Shabak had any evidence against any of the detainees they would have charged them long ago. There is no way on earth that a group of young untrained men could fool Israel’s world-class forensics. They would need the equivalent knowledge of the experts to fool them. The idea is absurd. You can be certain that Israel used every modern tool to uncover evidence of wrongdoing. The only logical explanation is that they are trying to pin a crime on innocent Jews.

Netanyahu has the nerve to speak of Jewish extremism. He is the very model of a Jewish extremist, a man who believes himself King, and has no cognizance of a Creator. If he did, he could never permit such abuses against other Jews. 

One day, good men will recount the true story of our internal Jewish enemies. The tale of perfidy will make Ben Hecht’s famous entry, a mere chapter in a larger encyclopedia of injustice. The Likud will sit alongside Labor in the annals of Jewish criminality. In addition to the sin of spilled Jewish blood, the Likud will have to answer for the brutal terrorizing of Jews, which we now know included sexual assault. Fellow Jews, speak loudly and fearlessly on behalf of our modern day Maccabees. Our battered brothers cannot scream out for themselves. 

A final message to our leaders who are responsible for detaining and abusing our heroic Jewish brothers. And it starts with Netanyahu at the top: Release these heroic prisoners of Zion immediately. G-d will not forgive this enduring crime against the Jewish people. There will be justice.