I am a fan of Cross-Currents. I am usually in agreement with them - but oft times I am not. However, even in disagreement, I usually respect their point of view. But rarely has my disagreement been as strong as it is about their current post.
In what has to be one of the biggest blunders of their online history, Cross-Currents founder and contributing writer, Rabbi Yaakov Menken, decided to finally speak out about the disgusting violence going on in Jerusalem as a result of a protest called by the Edah HaCharedis.
What did he have to say about it? His sole criticism was at the ‘creative mistranslation’ by Jerusalem Post of comments made by some of the protesters.
That’s right. You read that correctly. Not a word about the terrible Chilul HaShem. Just indignation at the Jerusalem Post. They are more concerned with smearing the ‘good name’ of these protesters than they are with the innocent victims of the violence caused by the protest!
That post is an outrage and an insult to everything holy!
Look at the damage done to innocent people? Did he not see that letter in YWN from a woman living in Meah Shearim who suffered at their hands? Where is his outrage at that? Where is even one word about it written?
Rabbi Menken would be well advised to follow Rabbi Yakov Horowtiz’s lead on this instead of some sort of PC Charedi line!
Misdirected criticism while being silent about this thuggish violence serves only to encourage these lowlife pieces of human garbage to continue their violent rampages - causing physical harm to innocent people, damage to property, and irreparable harm to Klal Yisroel. If what these animals are doing isn’t a massive Chilul HaShem – I don’t know what is!
Even if Rabbi Mencken’s point is correct - criticizing the Jerusalem Post is hardly the right reaction to this event! I think Rav Yisrael Meir Lau is right to be opposed to these kinds of protests entirely! He has the right reaction.
The intentions of the organizers of this protest may have been good and intended to be peaceful. But they have to be deaf, dumb, and blind to what these kinds of protests have wrought in the past not to have predicted how their own fringe elements will respond! If anyone deserves criticism it is those who organized the protest in the first place.
The Mishna in Avos tells us ‘Eizehu Chacham? Ha Roeh Es HaNolad!’ Who is a wise man? He who sees what will result. The members of the Edah who organized this protest are either not so wise - or just don’t care.
