The Gathering

There is a lot of virtual ink being spilled about the upcoming internet Assifa on May 20th at Citifield, a sports stadium in Queens.  The purpose of that meeting is to raise awareness about the dangers of the internet (and related technology) and how to shield ourselves and our children from the pitfalls of it.

The Assifa which is Hebrew for ‘gathering’ is being billed as a tremendous moment of Achdus.

I have been wrestling with this thing ever since I heard about it. There was something very troubling to me about it. But although I was dancing around it, I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly why. How could this be a bad thing? After all the purpose is a good one. The internet has its dangers. Everyone agrees with that. There are things that can be done to counteract those dangers. And the fact that the right wing has finally come around to accepting the reality that they will never be able to ban it is a step in the right direction.  And isn’t Achdus a good thing?

What could possibly be wrong with that? Almost sounds like a win for our team – those of us who have been saying for the longest time that the internet cannot and should not be banned.

And yet I had this troubling sense about it which – as I said - I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Until now.

It is the idea that a group is spending in excess of a million dollars to hold this event – the purpose of which is to tell us what we already know. And then suggest that this is a uniting moment.

There is also no doubt the rhetoric will still be to condemn the internet as an evil medium. It will only grudgingly be seen as a necessarily tool that should nonetheless be severely limited for use except where absolutely necessary. Like for paying bills online. They are thus conceding this as a reality which cannot be banned. But that in no way should be embraced.

The attitude will still be as negative as it ever was. There will probably be little if any concessions to the positive side of the internet which is vast and just as much of a reality as the negative side. This is pretty much the message I got from reading their promotional literature about this event.

This is the kind of Achdus they are no doubt are talking about.  

Speaking of Achdus, I have mentioned this before. They are billing this as unifying moment in the Torah world. But it is only a unity of the right wing. That too is obvious from the promotional literature. They do not include all of Orthodoxy. They mean only their own right wing. People they often call “Torah True Jews” or Bnei Torah”. Those who worship the term Daas Torah.

What about those of us who are in the modern Orthodox camp? Chas Ve’Shalom. We are apparently Chutz L’Machaneh – outside the Torah world camp.  Not they they will keep us out if any of us choose to attend. They will take our money and welcome us with open arms – seeing it as a victory of persuasion over us to come and join them. But it is definitely not intended toward us as a group.  Not even for those of us on the right wing of modern Orthodoxy.

I think that’s because of our very different attitude about the internet – that it is not an inherently evil thing. That with all the dangers there is also a positive side. The vast majority of people in all camps are not interested at all the porn that is out there. If somehow one accidentally stumbles onto a pornographic website – it is just deleted.

Now it is true that some people might stumble onto it and stay there. Especially adolescents.  There is no question that protection is vital in these instances. But for the vast majority of adults, It is a valuable for research, information, and communication. For most people therefore, the positive far outweighs the negative. Not because the negative isn’t there. But because we don’t pay any attention to it.

For those who do, they have pre-existing  problems. The internet exacerbates them.  There may be a lot of people like that. But that is no reason to ignore the invaluable tool that internet is and bash it as though it were the devil incarnate.

In my view there is either a level of naiveté in among many of these Roshei Yeshiva. In others there may even be outright dishonesty in refusing to present the positive side for fear that people would not take the negatives seriously enough.

The bottom line is this. For those of us who have been using the internet positively for many years - decades probably – without becoming addicted to porn, the whole this Assifa  seems like a ridiculous waste of time and money. Those of us who have been using it for a long time, know very well what the internet is all about. What is good, what is bad, and how to deal with it.

For this they need an Assifa?! For this they have to spend millions? Of course one could be cynical and say that this event will probably raise a lot of money. Attendance will not be free. If the fill the stadium they should turn a nice profit.

The unfortunate fact is that prominent Roshei Yeshiva that are involved with is belittling them in the eyes of many of their own people. Most moderate Charedim who have tremendous respect for these leaders, as I do,  have been using the internet themselves right along with the rest of the world – and with noted exceptions have by and large not been negatively affected by it.

This Assifa has the unfortunate potential to make a mockery of their leadership in the eyes of their own people. I have spoken to some Charedim who shall remain nameless that have actually expressed those thoughts.

With all that’s going on in the world, this is the hill that they are making a stand on?! This is where they are spending their efforts and money?! And they wonder why they are losing respect?! Perhaps that’s why speakers at the last Agudah convention were so focused on the virtual infallibility of their own Daas Torah – shouting   it from the rooftops like never before. The lady doeth protest too much.

So... How Do You Like It?

Now that I have completed the new design for my blog, I'd like to know what the verdict is. I know it's not perfect. So I may still tweak it from time to time. Aside from a few minor annoyances, I kind of like it.

There are features on this new version of blogger that were not available with my old blogger template. There are also several new links. One of the features now available to me is the ability to design polls which I may do from time to time. I have designed a poll question to get some feedback about this new design. What say you? I would appreciate some feedback. Is it an improvement or not?

A Role Model of Jewish Commitment

Torah U’Mada. That is the motto of a man who I consider to be as close to a Lamed Vavnik as there is on this earth.  A Lamed Vavnik is the nickname used to refer to one fo the thirty six hidden Tzadikim that no one knows about because of their great humility.  (Lamed and Vav are two letters of the Hebrew alphabet whose combined value is 36.)

The man I am talking about is Dr. Joseph Walder. He was featured last week in a cover story in Inyan, the weekly magazine of Hamodia.

I don’t really know him that well. My only real contact with him was during the taping of an interview that was going to be played at an out of town banquet honoring him that he could not attend. During that interview he used that phrase quite liberally.

Dr. Walder is an MD and PhD who has built a scientific and financial empire. Among other things his company, IDT (Intergrated DNA Technologies) synthesizes DNA and provides it all over the world for medical research  and  other things (Dor Yeshorim is one of his customers using it for genetic testing.) IDT is fully Shomer Shabbos - the business is closed in all its facilities and branches.

Dr. Walder passion is science. But he has another passion. And that is doing things for the Jewish community.  Now many of us work for the community in various ways. But Dr. Walder more than anyone else has a special talent for finding voids and filling them with innovative ideas. He is a doer, not talker.

Among them are the following.

He has created something called the Kehilla Fund. This is a fund where people are encouraged to donate a monthly fixed amount to a fund that is distributed to the 10 religious day schools here in Chicago. One can donate as little as $5 a month up to any amount one wishes. There are many people that participate in this fund some of whom donate $1000 per month! This amount is automatically deducted from your checking account.  Last year it raised 650,000 dollars. The money is divided per capita among all the schools. His goal is to fund one third of all tuitions costs, the rest to be provided by tuitions and traditional fundraising.

There is another fund he created to help those parents whose schools subject them to a minimum payment no matter how little they make. There ar some who cannot afford even that. This fund helps them cover their shortfall.

As an aside I am opposed to these extortionary tactics. If parents don’t have the money they should not be forced to pay it. That can lead to all kinds of bad things.

The problem of course is that many of the parents who are that poor, are poor by choice. If one chooses to live on a Kollel stipend – which is the case with many of the parents in certain schools, those schools would never be able to pay their teachers and would end up closing. So it’s hard to blame them for having this policy. They are desparate!

Ideally there should be no minimum in any school This fund should help all parents in every school who are unable to pay what a school feels they might need as a minimum amount per family. But I digress.

Another great thing he has done is to create a resource center for teachers. Teachers from any school can come there and utilize many innovative ideas with materials provided by the center. There are workshops where teachers can learn about the latest and most innovative new curricula, teaching techniques, use the latest technology, and attend seminars on the latest teaching techniques and bring them all to the classroom. Rabbi Yaakov Perlow (The Novominsker Rebbe) who was invited to see it was so impressed that he has urged Torah U’Mesorah to adopt a similar program in all of their affiliated schools. According to the artilce - they have begun to do this.

He has also opened a Holocaust educational program. With the dwindling population of survivors, he feels that everything should be done to assure that it never be forgotten.  As far as I know this is one of the few (if not the only) religiously based projects in the country. He has hired the best professionals to see this task through.

Perhaps one of his greatest undertakings is the creation of a science laboratory and learning center for Chicago’s religious students. Students from any school can come and learn the value of science and more importantly see that there is no contradiction at all between science and Torah. He provides the resources and has hired an administrator dedicated solely for that purpose.  This project sponsors science competitions and gives students the facilities and materials to be able to compete at a very high level.

As part of his belief in promoting the philosophy of Torah U’Mada he has had world renowned scientists and educators that are observant give public lectures there. Among Dr. Gerlad Schroeder and Rabbi Natan Slifkin.  (You read that correctly.)

Not satisfied with what is  -he  always thinking about what could be. An idea that really sounds both interesting and plausible is hiring top teachers to teach certain subjects like science. Realizing that religious schools do not have enough money to hire that level of teacher on their own, he has suggested hiring teachers for top dollar and sharing them with all the schools. In this way it would not break the budget of any single school.

He is also known for his kindnesses to individuals. I know of at least three people who lost their jobs or businesses. The incomes of these people had ranged from very large to very modest. He found a place for them in his organization. I would not be surprised if there are plenty more like this in his organization.

These are just a few of the things he has done, which he tries to do as quietly as possible. Doing things quietly is hard to do for a man of his many talents. But it isn’t for lack of trying. Dr. Walder is a quiet man who shuns the limelight. If you saw him you would think that this man with a trim beard and black hat is just a simple Charedi Baal Habos. But there is nothing simple about this great man.  We in Chicago are very lucky to have him.

Note to Readers

I am about to change the of my blog and am experimenting with various templates. Please bear with me as the look goes through it's metamorphosis.

Update:  Echo will be discontinuing service in October. I am switching my commenting system from Echo to disqus - and am currently in the process of exporting all the comments from there to here. If I do it right - it should take a few hours to complete the download. In the meantime please continue commenting as before on the new system... and thank you for your patience.

New Update: I am having trouble importing old comments from Echo. I'm still working on it. If anyone has any information how to go about it correctly, I'd greatly appreciate it.  And once again thank you for your patience.

Conversions - The Supreme Court Decides?

One of the sadder chapters to be written about the State ofIsrael will be what is happening with regard to conversions.

To review the situation that led to this, the mass influx ofJews from Russia into Israel over the last few decades contained many people who were not Halachicly Jewish,even though they had been completely raised to think so. The reason for that isthat they were products of an intermarriage where the mother was not Jewish, orproducts of a mother who was not converted according to Halacha.

There were so many of them coming into Israel and integrating with the country in every way including army service, that it was threatening to create a huge imbalance between Jews and non Jews. This presented a demographic challenge to maintaining Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.

The solution by the government was to set up special conversioncourts to expedite conversions of Jews with this kind of problem. Rabbi Chaim Druckman was put in charge ofthis court and used various leniencies in converting thousands of these people.

The problem arose when the Charedi dominated Chief Rabbinateheaded by Rabbi Avraham Sherman determined that all of Rabbi Druckman’s conversionswere invalid because of insufficient observance of Halacha.

The debate still lives and involves one of the keycomponents of conversion. And sides are being taken. The Charedi point of viewis that the conversions were invalid because the requirement that a potentialconvert must accept Halacha as binding and promise to keep it.

They further hold that since most of the converts did notkeep some of the basics showed that there was never any serious intent by theseconverts to follow Halacha. Hence the conversions were all invalid. And thereforethe Dayan responsible for all of that, Rabbi Druckman loses his validity as aDayan and thus invalidating all the conversion he was ever responsible for.Even if the convert the followed Halacha diligently!

The Religious Zionist perspective was that Halacha wasfollowed in every single conversion albeit with leniencies not normally usedbecause of the urgent nature of this issue that would affect the very nature ofIsrael as a Jewish state. What the leniencieswere is irrelevant. The point is that both sides believed that they were L’Shma- doing the right thing in the eyes of God.

The problem of course is that if one side considers theseconverts Jewish and the other side does not, the converts remain in limbo. Withthe numbers being so great and multiplying via their offspring means that fromthe Charedi point of view it will require a Yichus registry.

It will therefore be almost impossible to get married a fewgenerations from now without a thorough background check of Yichus. This isalready happening. People making Aliyah that are not Orthodox are finding outthat their Judaism is not being taken for granted. They now have to prove thatthey have Jewish lineage going back several generations! Something that isoften impossible to do.

The new immigrants are now going to suffer even while manyof their sons who ebleive they are fiully Jewish if not 100% observant arewilling to die for their country putting themselves in harm’s way by joiningthe army. After several generations of suffering persecution for being Jews atthe hands of the former Soviet Union, they now are suffering new indignities bytheir very own people.

The Israeli Supreme court has stepped in and ruled in favorof the Rabbi Druckman’s converts. The consider all of them fully Jewish andwill be registered as such. There will be no discrimination between any ofthose converts and any other Jewish Israeli. Marriages will be performed inIsrael for them will be fully recognized.

Rabbi Seth Farber who is Orthodox but not Charedi and who petitioned the courts on behalf ofthese converts was very gratified:

“We are pleased to see that the Supreme Court has upheld thepetition we submitted and we hope this judgment will be a boost to all thosewho are in the midst of a conversion process, and those debating whether toenter it.” “It is hoped that the verdictwill uproot the phenomenon of non-recognition of conversions, and end theongoing injustice converts are faced with”

I’m pretty sure that was not the reaction of the Charediside. They are L’Shma. They believe they are absolutely right and will continueto believe that The State of Israel justdeclared a bunch of non Jews – Jewish, despite the fact that they are not.

Even though its heart is in the right place - the Supreme Courtis not a Halachic body and in my view has no business deciding issues ofHalacha. So I’m not sure what was accomplished other than to further divideCharedim from Religious Zionists. Their actual status of these converts as Jewsthus remains unchanged in the sense that the right still believes they are notJews while the left believes they are.

Furthermore it gives these people a false sense of securityin thinking that a secular court in Israel can declare them Jewish – end ofstory. They will find that they will not be accepted into the Charedi world asJews at all.

One might retort, “So what?!” “Who cares what a bunch of religiousfanatics think?!” “We know the truth and that is all that matters.”

Not so simple. Charedim are growing in numbers and ininfluence. And - right or wrong - the simple fact is that a huge portion ofKlal Yisroel will reject these converts as Jews, and reject their sponsors as havingno Halachic validity on this issue.

While they gain recognition by the secular state with allthe rights and privileges that entails, they will not gain the peace of mindthat would come with recognition by all. They will still therefore remain with anunsettling feeling.

In my view the answer lies in some sort of compromise. Theidea of a wholesale invalidation is disgusting in my view - that should havenever happened. Nor should Rabbi Druckman have been so dishonored! I would muchrather see a unified response to this where no one gets anything shoved downtheir throats by either side – or even by the Supreme Court.

On Being Anti Zionist on Yom Ha’atzmaut

There is much celebration in Israel today as its citizens celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut – Israel’s Independence Day. But today is not really that day. Yom Ha’atzmaut is the 5^th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar - which is tomorrow. It is being celebrated today, a day early because the Chief Rabbinate wants to avoid any possible Chilul Shabbos that might happen if celebrations were held on Friday that might last past nightfall – when Shabbos begins.

For those saying Hallel and/or not saying Tachnun on Yom Ha’atzmaut, that should be done tomorrow, not today. This is the Psak of Rav Ahron Soloveichik. It is the actual day that generates this obligation and not necessarily the day where celebrations take place.

Rav Ahron said Hallel on Yom Ha’atzmaut. Although he never obligated anyone else to say it, the two Yeshivos he headed here in Chicago, HTC and Brisk did say it. He felt that the fact that the land of Israel had returned to the Jewish people for the first time in 2000 years and the miraculous way it happened against all odds - warranted it.

There are those who do not say Hallel. I am one of those. I do not feel that this event warrants saying Hallel. Although there were many miracles involved, I believe they occurred through natural means which makes them hard to peg as actual miracles. There was nothing like the parting of the Red Sea - or any other overt miracle of that type that I am aware of. Nor do I believe that creation of the State of Israel is the first flowering of our final redemption – which is what many of those who say Hallel believe. At the same time I agree that the retrun of Israel to Jewish hands is of major significance and warrants  an exemption from Tachnun.

This was in fact the position of Rav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, the Rosh Hayeshiva of Ponevitch who had re-established that Yeshiva as one of the major Yeshivos in the Jewish world.

There is a humorous anecdote about this. When Rav Kahaneman was once asked by a secular or religious Zioinst Jew if he said Hallel on Yom Ha’atzmaut, he supposedly answered that he does what Ben Gurion does, he doesn’t say Hallel and he doesn’t say Tachnun.

Rav Kahaneman recognized the  importance of re-establishing Jewish sovereignty over our country. He had Hakaras HaTov for it and tangibly expressed it by his entire Yeshiva not saying Tachnun on Yom Ha’atzmaut  and displaying the Israeli flag on that day as well.

To the best of my knowledge none of this would ever happen today in any Charedi Yeshiva, including Ponevitch. When Rav Shach took over, he restored saying Tachnun on that day. Something which he had always done even as a Rosh Yeshiva in Ponevitch under Rav Kahaneman.

Today’s Charedi is mostly rejectionist and sees any connection to Zionism as anti-Torah. One does not have to look very hard to see constant evidence of this antipathy. The attitude is that one cannot be religious and be a Zionist. End of story. They see the founding fathers as Reshaim – evil people out to destroy Torah Judaism by eradicating any vestige of religious observance.

While this may be true in some cases, I do not believe that there was any official Zionist policy to destroy observance. Although there were probably some who felt that way and tried to do things along those lines, I don’t think that was the intent of Israel’s founding fathers. True they were secular and had secular values. But I don’t think they declared war on the Torah.

Many people accuse the founding father of political Zionism, Theodore Herzl, of being a Rasha because of those values. They claim he had no interest in Judaism… that he even considered converting to Christianity as a means to end anti-Semtism or that he would have been happy with a Jewish State in Uganda. His stated purpose after all was not to build up a Torah society, but to end anti-Semitism.

It’s probably true that he flirted with the idea of conversion. As a completely assimilated Jew with no connection to Judaism it should not be a surprise that he thought conversion would eliminate anti-Semitism. But he quickly abandoned that idea.  In the end he did value Judaism. And actually became more culturally Jewish.  He even expressed regret that he was not raised in the Jewish tradition and that he didn’t know more about it.  

It is was Herzl that generated the desire in many Jews to do return to Zion. And Herzl’s philosophical heirs made that return a reality. While it is true that he wanted a secular Jewish state, he valued Judaism enough to call his idea “the Jewish State” and not a “State for the Jews”.  He valued Judaism enough to seek the approval of Zionism from the Gedolei HaDor of his time – a remarkable thing considering his ignorance of the Torah and its values.

He was rebuffed by those Gedolim because among other things they did not approve of  an irreligious Jew in a position of leadership of all of Klal Yisroel. That belonged to Gedolei Torah, not assimilated Jews ignorant of it. I suppose he was turned off a little bit about Torah Judaism after that . But I don’t think he ever abandoned his new found respect for Judaism’s tradition and culture nor do I think it was ever his goal to create a state free form any vestige of it.  

The bottom line is that we owe Herzl and his philosophical heirs a great debt of gratitude. If not for them we would have no State. And it is highly unlikely that the Yeshiva world would be anything like it is today.

That is where our current obligation to express our Hakaras Hatov comes in. And there is no better day than the 5^th day of Iyar to express it. Something Rav Kahaneman realized but has long since been forgotten by the vast majority of Charedi leadership and their constituents. Both here and even in Israel.

For the most part the opposite is true. Mention the word Medina, or Yom Ha’atzmaut or the Israeli flag or Hatikvah and you might get smirks - or worse – condemnations!  Even religious Zionism is disparaged. One cannot be religious and be a Zionist they will say because it is a contradiction in terms.

This attitude does not only exist among extremists like the flag burners of Meah Shearim and Bet Shemesh. It exists even among some of the more moderate mainstream Charedim! I can’t tell you how many times I would say something positive about the State to some of my Charedi friends and out comes all the venomous anti Israel rhetoric.

Thankfully not all Charedim feel that way. Some actually realize that the State has done many positive things for all of us – including the Charedi world. Some have even joined the army. And yet there is little public recognition of that in any official way.

No one is asking any Charedim to say Hallel on Yom Ha’atzmaut. Or even to avoid saying Tachnun. But the constant bashing of the state and the failure to ever publicly recognize what The State of Israel has accomplished for the Torah world and all of Jewry, not the least of which is providing a place for survivors of the Holocaust to live - is an outrage to me, and I am sure of no small significance to God.

Earplugs

I am so tired of this Kol Isha in the IDF business.

Please do not misunderstand. I am not saying that one should in any way violate Halacha. It is Halachicly forbidden for a man to hear a woman sing. Kol B’Isha Erva- the (singing) voice of a woman is considered ‘nakedness’.

I never quite understood that Halacha, because the laws pertaining to Erva – nakedness – are designed to prevent men from having lascivious thoughts about women. To my mind, unless there is sexual content in the song, or provocative moves on the part of the singer - I don’t see this being a problem for normal people.

Be that as it may, it is nonetheless Halacha that a man may not listen to a woman sing. But there are variations on this theme. The Halacha is not universally interpreted in the same way by all Poskim. It varies from very strict to very lenient.

The strictest interpretation forbids hearing a woman sing in any incarnation – even in a recording or on the radio. On the lenient side of this issue there are Poskim that permit hearing it even in a live performance if one cannot see the woman directly and one hears it only through the amplification system. So that a theater performance might be acceptable. I recall back in the sixties that one of the religious schools here in Chicago had a fundraiser by selling tickets to a live performance of Fiddler on the Roof using that Heter.

The most common Heter, however, is that a man may hear a recording of a woman singing if he does not know what she looks like. 

Some permit men to listen to women singing Zemiros at the Shabbos table since that will never generate lascivious thoughts.

There are some Poskim who allow a man to hear women singing as part of a group with men  as in a choir.  Some permit men listening as a group even if they are all female as long as the men don’t look at them.

I recall being told by a former student in Beis Yaakov of Detroit that Rabbi Sholom Goldstein (the renowned Talmid of Reb Sharga Feivel Mendlowitz who helped pioneer Jewish education in America) used to train the Beis Yaakov all girl’s choir in Detroit so that they could perform for various Jewish women’s groups. He instructed them and then left the room during the actual singing during rehearsals and listened outside the room. Then he would go back in and continue instructing them. 

But I digress.

The issue has once again made the media. It is being reported in the Jerusalem Post that last week a group of approximately 10 Hesder soldiers in basic training and serving in a field intelligence unit requested using earplugs or MP3 players during ceremonies to solve the problem of listening to women singers in performances during Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israel’s Memorial Day, and Israel’s Independence Day.  They were denied.

Earplugs are a bad idea. Can you imagine how a singer might feel when they begin singing and some members of the audience take out their earplugs and start listening to their MP3s?

I know the standard response to this is that the singers will know that it is for religious reasons and not be insulted. Maybe that’s true in most cases. Maybe. But I can easily see a scenario where a singer not so knowledgeable about Kol Isha will see it and be insulted.

While it is true as stated above that Kol Isha is a Halachic issue - this has never been a problem in the past, despite the fact that there have been seriously religious soldiers in Hesder units since the earliest days of the State - many of whom I'm sure had challenges like this along the way. 

Why is this now suddenly such a hot button issue? Based on the history of natural antipathy the religious right has against all things 'Medina' I believe that this attitude is what fuels this whole thing.  Any opportunity to bash the evil Zionists is quickly pounced upon in these circles.

Those who will retort that the protesters in this case are actually not from the religious right but from the Hesder program – I nevertheless stand by what I said. These soldiers are certainly not the first Hesder boys to be faced with Kol Isha. Hesder has been a part of the IDF since the earliest days of the State. Has the IDFonly now begun having female singers at these ceremonies?

 Hesder boys have comprised some of the most dedicated soldiers in Israel -both in religious and military terms. I do not recall this ever being an issue until very recently. Why now?  

My guess is that the new religious fervor in Hesder boys is the result of religious Zionist leaders not wanting to be out-Frummed by Charedim. Now that Charedim are coming into the army via their own programs like NachalCharedi and  taking issue with things like this, Religious Zionist Rabbis will not be outdone!

So now comes the Religious Zionist Rav of Kiryat Arba and Chevron, Rabbi Dov Lior:  

(He) ruled on Sunday that men should not attend theater performances in which women perform, even if the women do not sing and are dressed modestly.

See how Frum we are? Take that, you Charedim!

The question remains - what to do about Kol Isha problems? I don’t know but earplugs are not it. Why not just look and see how it was handled over the past 64 years?

An Unlikely Ally?

Although I do have some reservation about it in this particular instance because I think they still fall short, I nevertheless must give credit when it is due.

Through their spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran, Agudah has added its own voice in protesting the blanket protection given to the identities of Orthodox sex abusers by the Brooklyn DA’s office.

While Agudah’s view is not exactly the same as mine and does not go quite far enough, I am happy to see this step in the right direction. From the Forward:

Rabbi David Zwiebel, Agudath’s executive vice president and a legal expert, defended the D.A.’s right to evaluate whether to release the names of offenders on a case-by-case basis, according to Agudath spokesman Rabbi Avi Shafran.

Such an evaluation could take into account whether naming the suspect might allow the victim to be identified. But a blanket policy of withholding names of perpetrators should not be “across the board” in any community, he said.

I do not agree (as implied by this statement) that the risk of exposing the identity of the victim outweighs the benefit of knowing the identity of the accused sex offender, when the evidence of abuse is great enough for him to have been arrested and indicted.

I believe that the risk of victim exposure (which is very unfortunate if it is against their wishes) is worth the protection it gives to everyone else. But at least they agree that such protection should not be automatic.

On the plus side for the victim who did not want to be exposed - but was – is the greater probability that they will seek professional help… and get the therapy they often so desperately need.

Interestingly the Forward ends with a question about who exactly does agree with the DA?

My guess is that is is mostly the Chasidic community. Their general distrust of secular values; their antipathy for secular society; the feeling that there decisions are guided by the Torah; with the accompanying attitude that they therefore know better than the secular experts how to handle their own, and their general isolationist tendencies - easily explains why they would advocate such a blanket policy.

And it would not surprise me that it is the Chasidic leaders that are the ones mostly behind the decision of the DA.

Exposing Sex Abusers

If there was an accused sex offender in your neighborhood, would you want him to be identified?

Last December Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes (pictured) proudly announced that there had been “85 Orthodox Jews arrested on sex charges during the past three years”. But he was roundly criticized for not releasing any of their names to the public. In an article in the Forward he explained why he refused to do that:

Orthodox Jews deserve a blanket exemption from the usual public disclosure rules. Prosecutors claimed that Orthodox Jews are “unique” in that releasing the names of suspects would allow others in the community to identify their victims.

The circumstances here are very unique,Assistant District Attorney Morgan Dennehy wrote in an April 16 letter to the Forward. “Because all of the requested defendant names relate to Hasidic men who are alleged to have committed sex crimes against Hasidic victims within a very tight-knit and insular Brooklyn community, there is a significant danger that the disclosure of the defendants’ names would lead members of that community to discern the identities of the victims.”

This attitude outrages those in the forefront of fighting abuse. They say that hiding their identities enables sex offenders to continue to operate in secret preying on potential innocent new victims. I think that’s right. While it may be true that by exposing the predator there is a danger of exposing the victim, who may want to remain anonymous, the danger of keeping the identities of sex offenders secret far outweighs the discomfort of previous victims.

But what about those past victims? Should we not take their fears into consideration? After all aren’t victim advocates supposed to be doing exactly that? Advocating for the victims? How does exposing them against their will do that?

The Forward  article does not say how the DA’s office reached their conclusions. My guess is that rabbinic leaders from those communities or the parents of those victims have pressured the DA into taking this position.

But is this position in any way justifiable?

Let us examine the fallout of identifying the perpetrators and thereby exposing the victims. On the one hand knowing the identities of the perpetrators will most certainly aid the communities in protecting their children.

On the other hand the social dynamics of Orthodox Jewry, especially in the more right wing segments of the Chasidic world - victims of abuse are considered ‘damaged goods’ as far as their Shiddach chances are concerned. Their siblings are not much better off in this regard either. A family can be ruined in this way very easily.

This is unfortunately a fact of life even though it is a grossly unfair fact based on real world considerations. It has been well established by mental health experts in the field that a sexually abused child can and often does suffer a lifetime of depression, or worse will try and self-medicate with illicit drugs. Sometimes the depression is so severe that suicide is attempted. All too often successfully! At the very least they can and often do go OTD.

While psychotherapy can help there is no guarantee they will get any. The plain fact is that many right wing Jews – especially Chasidic Jews - are very suspicious of psychotherapy and less likely to seek help. They will instead bury their secret and pretend it never happened. All so that the rest of their children will get Shidduchim. Hopefully even for their abused child when they come of age - if they can bury their secret deep enough.

So goes much of their thinking. The sad fact is that you can’t bury that kind of thing. I doubt that there is an untreated victim alive that isn’t in some way affected by a childhood abuse. Sometimes pretty severely.

And yet that is the social system in those circles. Abuse gets buried for social reasons. Despite the fact that abuse will take its toll on the victims and their families - the world of right wing Orthodoxy refuses to do anything about it for fear of losing out in the Shiddach department.

This is not an unrealistic fear. Based on the above -how many people will knowingly date an individual who was sexually abused? And how many will even date a sibling of that victim?

It is an unsolvable conundrum in my view. There is no good option that will both protect past victims form the devastation brought out by exposing their abusers and thereby being outed as victims… and at the same time allow parents in general to know who the abusers in their community are and take measures to protect their children accordingly. In the end, this about choosing the lesser of two evils.

The question remains which option is the lesser of two evils? And are there any other considerations to be taken into account when identifying abusers?

I will answer the second question first. There are other legitimate reasons to be cautious about identifying abusers. In cases where they are accused and exposed immediately, only to be found innocent soon after, their lives can be ruined. They too are forever tainted. That is a grossly unfair result for an innocent person.

The counter to that is that mental health professionals have determined that the vast majority of those who are accused – especially by very young children are virtually always guilty of the crime. That leaves very few innocent victims of false accusations. This does not mean we shouldn’t be concerned. We should. One ruined life of an innocent man is one too many.

Due diligence should therefore always be taken before exposing the identity of an accused abuser. If he is a known abuser, there is certainly no problem. But in my view even when in doubt, it is far better to err on the side of the victim for two reasons.

One is the greater likelihood that an accusation will be true. The second is that a falsely accused adult can ultimately handle his situation far better than a child who will suffer from the abuse caused by hiding the identity of an accused sex abuser. It is therefore a lesser evil to expose the accused where there is enough evidence about the crime to be arrested and charged.

What about the victims who do not want to be identified? Should they be considered at all? Of course they should. But again, it is much better to prevent children from becoming future victims than it is to protect past victims and their families from the taint of exposure.

The real answer to this problem is community wide education and a wholesale change of attitude about abuse victims. No family should have their reputations tarnished because a family member was abused. Victims should be encouraged to come forward.

And their ought to be a major drive in Orthodoxy to get treatment for the victims as soon as possible. The idea of burying abuse will not only hurt the victim, it will hurt the family too. They will not escape the devastation that will likely be brought about by their abused child being hushed up and being denied treatment.

Once the paradigm of “Hush” is changed, the legitimate fears about exposing victims will hopefully become moot and the entire Orthodox community will be safer, healthier psychologically and better off.

A Nightmare

Guest Post by Yossi Ginzberg

Update sent by R’ Yossi:

Due to my error, I sent the wrong copy of this post to Reb Harry. The correct one had this short paragraph as an introduction:

The thoughts of Orthodox Jews, at this time of year, turn to the issues illustrated by the story of Rabbi Akiva’s students. Whether you take the story literally, that they were deficient in mutual respect, or whether you take the story as a metaphor involving the Bar-Kochva rebellion, the point remains that our history is replete with failures at mutual cooperation between factions. The fact that Yom Haatzmaut (with its attendant politics) is also in the air is a similar issue.


We recently read in the Hagadda, “Shelo Echad Bilvad Amad Aleinu”, usually interpreted as that we have enemies in every generation. I once saw, I think from the Kotzker Rebbe Zt”L, that he read it differently, as that BECAUSE we were not united as one, we were destined or doomed to relive this disunity in every generation.


I mean the following not as a prediction, Chalila, nor as a real fear: I do not think this will happen, and certainly pray it will not. Rather, I mean this simply as food for thought. No matter what your politics are, the issues in Israel are worrisome, and all sides bear blame.

(The following submission is posted without comment and does not necessarily reflect my views. But it is definitely food for thought - HM.)

The Chassidim in Meah Shearim were burning trash bins again, rioting over some imagined insult, and the police were ineffectively dealing with it, indiscriminately breaking heads and ensuring future generations of rioters.

Meanwhile, there was a large sit-in preventing the construction of a resort hotel in Ashkelon, a project that would purportedly change the economy of the city drastically.  The protesters claimed that a 2000-year-old Jewish grave lay beneath the site, while archeologists insisted the grave was that of a Phoenician idol-worshipper as they had found idols among the bones.

The media warned that the stoppage would bankrupt the construction company, cause a recession in the city, and enforce the Charedi stranglehold on the economy. They pointed out that 40% of the Israeli population were paying 90% of the taxes, and that the booming Charedi and Arab birthrates would mean that within another decade 75% of schoolchildren would presumably be non-Zionists, and another decade later the bulk of the population would be (at least to some extent) living on the public dole.

At the same time, the Knesset was being held hostage by the representative of the right-wing Orthodox party, as he filibustered demanding parallel bus lines segregated by gender for the whole country.

Competing for space on the front pages of the Israeli papers were the twin trials of the Rabbanut rabbis entrusted with conversion (who were accused of soliciting bribes) and the rabbis entrusted with Kashrut, who were accused of forcing hotels and restaurants to hire unnecessary staff for their personal gain. 

Meanwhile, several other political parties were making news demanding the repatriation of several American fraudsters and sexual offenders who were living as free men in Israel under the law of return. They claimed that since Lansky had been deported, these people should also be deported even though they were unlikely to be allowed to wear Shtreimels in American prisons.

Coincidentally, terrorism too started again making news, with some Homicide-bomb attacks and several incidents on the new Jerusalem light rail, which makes for easy access to the city center from Arab neighborhoods.  Likewise, peace activists confronted Israeli military at the checkpoints, while more flotillas assembled themselves offshore.

Ahmadinajad warned that his bomb was nearing completion, and that his intent was still as firm as ever, to destroy Israel at any cost.  Other Arab countries applauded him, while the UN did nothing.  The American presidential campaign obfuscated the US reply: The Republicans claimed Obama would sit by and let it happen, while the Democrats insisted that Obama was effectively acting behind the scenes.

The Israeli elections barely made the news anymore, with so many other important domestic issues taking all the space.

Exactly what the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was, we’ll never know, but the most popular and eloquent  politician today, Yair Lapid, held a news conference that would change the headlines dramatically: He announced that he was abandoning his quest for office, and was in fact simply fed yup.  He was leaving the country with his family on a one-way trip to the United States. He had enough with corruption, with fear, with being coerced, and simply wasn’t going to take it anymore, he said. He recalled the old movie line, “I’m mad as heck and I’m not gonna take it anymore”.

His announcement was totally unexpected, and as such commanded much attention. Certainly, he had no idea what he was starting, but within hours hundreds of secular Israelis also announced the same intentions.

By the next day, the hundreds had become thousands, and by a week later almost every secular Jew in Israel was making plans to leave the country as quickly as possible.

In less than two months, Israel turned into a religious state, where virtually every resident was either  Orthodox Jewish, Islamic, or Christian. Obviously, Ben-Gurion airport was total chaos.  Haifa too experienced a huge inflow of people leaving by ship to get on planes in Nicosia or Rome.  

So many drove to Amman and Istanbul (mostly those who also carried foreign passports, of course) that used-car prices dropped by over 50% in those cities as departing Israeli’s attempted to sell their vehicles there.  Charter companies quickly stepped in, assisting the massive flow of people and baggage.

Given the greatly increased number of flights and the fact that many of them were chartered from third-world countries combined with the stress at the airport facilities, and of course the fact that many aviation engineers had already departed the country, there was widespread fear that a disaster could occur.

American Jewry reacted with mild distaste, seeing Israel crumbling yet unready to either condemn the emigrants or to leave their comforts to replace them. The pontificators among the American Charedi  organization, as usual, hedged their bets by pointing out how the left-wing controlling forces in the Knesset had brought this upon themselves, yet washing their hands of their role. Likewise, they failed to offer a hand to the many Israelis now attempting to resettle in the United States.

The charedim rejoiced as real-estate prices plummeted in Tel Aviv.  They were even happier when the Trief restaurants, nightclubs, and theatres closed for good. 

It didn’t take long for their feelings to start changing, though.

The first problems started within two days, when the electricity stopped being reliable.   This wasn’t as big an issue as you’d think, because there were many homes with generators as much of the Charedi sector prefers not to use commercial electricity on Shabbat anyway.

The families with medically-necessary electricity were the most affected, but luckily there weren’t so many of them.  Not many Charedim lived on high floors either, so losing elevators wasn’t much of an issue. (It eventually turned out that the nuclear-reactor staff had shut down the reactors after learning that almost all of them were leaving the country.)

Busses, always erratic in their schedules in Israel, became far more erratic, and were now almost always full. Drivers stopped accepting passes or transfers, and insisted on cash payments.  Taxis no longer even pretended to use meters at all, and demanded exorbitant prices.

Day by day, hour by hour, services and products seemed to disappear from daily life.  The department stores were already mostly closed; the large supermarkets had little to sell.  Newspapers and magazines quickly became extinct, and the radio stations all slowly disappeared.  Gas stations started to close too, leaving signs explaining that they had no more gas.  It seemed that only the banks, the accountants, and the law offices were still fully functional.

Tel Aviv looked like a ghost town. Some took advantage, posting signs making the famous beaches gender-segregated, but few were able to take advantage of them given the transportation problems.  Also, once one got there, there were no services available: you couldn’t buy a cold drink, find a hotel room, buy suntan lotion.  The museums too were all closed, as were the art galleries, indeed virtually everything worth seeing or doing in the city.

As the flow of people to Lod and Haifa continued, services continued to fail across the country. Trains stopped running within a week, large factories were mostly closed within two. By week three, there were no longer any sanitation pick-ups, and the police seemed to have disappeared, although there were surprisingly few crimes.  The exception was breaking and entering, which was epidemic at supermarkets across the country, where people were stealing foodstuffs at an alarming rate, as if they feared their availability would stop.

Slowly, over the following days, services vanished.  Vehicle traffic diminished despite the huge drop in auto prices as gas ceased being available, and as busses had already almost stopped, pedestrian traffic greatly increased, often with people using old baby strollers to carry their purchases.  People appeared on the major streets offering jewelry, art, and antiques in barter for food.  People begging for food started to appear, and Jerusalem quickly took on the appearance it had in the 1950’s with rows of pitiful beggars with hands outstretched along Rehov Strauss and in Kikar Zion.

Telephone service was lost soon after, and since the media were already not functioning, panic was in the air.  Those few who had generators, gas to power them, and internet were rarities, but they were the only sources of actual knowledge. They acknowledged their position and were generous with their time, not only relaying news and assisting family emergencies, they also became sources of medical knowledge as the internet became almost the only way to get health assistance since hospitals were mostly closed and the few still open were overcrowded and understaffed to war-like proportions.

The news they relayed was of a rapidly deteriorating ability of Israel to defend itself.  The surrounding countries were overjoyed in their imminent takeover, to the point that they had become so mired in internal arguments that they were diverted from actually attacking. Hamas claimed that Israel would be their new state, while Jordan insisted that it would become their eastern part, reserved for Palestinians who would be deported from Jordan proper, but who would still pay taxes to them and report to Amman.  

Syria demanded the Golan as it had once belonged to them, and insisted they’d never give it up to anyone.  Iran demanded a representational part, insisting that they had precipitated the situation.  Egypt demanded control of Gaza and the parallel Eastern side of the Negev.

It was quite clear that it would take a little while for them to agree on how to partition the state, but equally clear that attack would come soon.  Rockets coming in from Gaza were no longer being deflected by Israel, making it obvious that Israel’s borders were not being defended as they had been, if at all.

It was at this point that I mercifully awoke.

A Living Chilul HaShem

What a “great idea” Ben Herbst had! Befriend an elderly, frail and sickly Italian immigrant  next door neighbor by the name of Enrico Mancini. 

Mr. Mancini was somewhat estranged from his family and living alone. Apparently not being someone who would pass up a golden opportunity Ben Herbst was as nice to him as possible - eventually convincing Mr. Mancini to sell his house to him before he died. He not only did that but eventually forgave the entire amount owed for the house out of gratitude. It’s a win/win. The elderly neighbor gets his chicken soup every Friday night and you get his house for free after he dies. Which he did at age 98.

This is how it’s done by Jewish “geniuses” like Boro Park resident, Ben Herbst.  At least this is his version of the story. But there is another version of events. His claim to the property was contested by Mancini’s daughter in law, Serafina Mancini who at age 71 thought she had inherited the house and was about to move in.

Of course when she arrived, there was no house. Mr. Herbst had demolished it and started construction on an expansion of his own house. A quick check of the records showed that indeed the house was now in the name of Mr. Herbst’s son and daughter in law who lived with him.

Ms. Mancini’s lawyer, William Cahill, claimed that the documents were forged and  was going to prove it. But as explained in an article in the New York Observer, Mr. Herbst put a lien on the property claiming that he borrowed $500,000 against it. That made it difficult to wrest control from Mr. Herbst even if they could prove that documents had been forged.  

Which version is true? I don’t know but that does not take away from the Chilul HaShem that is caused by this fellow. He either stole the property or conned an innocent old man out of it. Why? Because of his own selfish interest. He wanted to expand his property. And except for the actual building costs - he found a way to do it for free.

Does the evidence point to fraud? The article points out how easy it is to forge documents like this and get away with it. It also noted that Mr. Herbst had spent some time in jail and shows some shady characters he has dealt with in the past - and the shady deals they both made. I would not put fraud past him.  Despite his vulgar accusation that it was “the other guy” who was the crook and not him.

How do I know he is observant? This article also reports that Mr. Herbst’s background is in “rabbinical courts”.  So at least he pretends to be.

Innocent or guilty in this case - it is people like Ben Herbst that give Judaism a bad name. Big time! Here is a Jew who walks around pretending to be religious Jew and yet becomes a con artist when it suits his purposes.

Had he been nice to that elderly neighbor and not capitalized on it for financial gain, he could have made an enormous Kiddush HaShem. Instead he chose to cleverly line his pockets - his image as a religious Jew be damned.

I don’t know Mr. Herbst.  May be this story is completely false and he is an innocent person here – both kind and caring. The article reports that he does have a company that helps people of all denomination and race restructure their loans. Maybe this is just a hatchet job by the media gone wild – twisting a story and maligning an innocent man for purposes of sensationalist journalism and increased circulation.  But I doubt it. Mr. Herbst apparently has a history of doing this kind of thing.

Ms. Mancini eventually won her case. She was awarded the property and a “$569,000 judgment against Mr. Herbst and his family earlier this year, almost seven years after the whole mess began. The Mancini home, or what’s left of it, was recently sold by Mrs. Mancini for $730,000.” So justice was served.

But even if Mr. Herbst’s version of events (as reported in the story) were completely true his behavior here his does not even come close to meeting the standards of decent behavior for a religious Jew or any Jew. It doesn’t even meet the standards of behavior for a decent human being. I am embarrassed and disgusted by it.  

Is There Light at the End of the Tunnel?

There seems to be a quiet revolution taking place among Israel's Charedim. Has the pendulum begun to swing back to normalcy? Only time will tell if this new phenomenon will change the current paradigm

Those who read this blog regularly know my view on this subject.

The very idea that one should opt for a job instead of learning full time has been anathema in the Charedi world. The thrust of Charedi education in Israel (and increasingly in some of the more right wing segments of American Charedi society) is that Learning Torah full time is an imperative. To that end their educational system indoctrinates each student to place value only on Torah subjects. Anything else has been considered a waste of time at best and forbidden at worst.

So aside from some basic math Charedim learn in elementary school there are no other secular subjects taught. High school consists literally of Torah only, mostly in the form of Gemarah and Meforshim. Post high school that trend continues and intensifies. There is no preparation at all for the workplace anywhere along the line in any way. Nothing. Zero. Nada.

Exacerbated by refusal to serve in the armed forces – from which they are exempted by law - the result is that this relatively intelligent and capable group of people has the highest poverty rate in Israel. A staggering 59% of Charedim live below the poverty line.

What makes this statistic even more amazing is the obvious fact that they are poor by choice. Although I question whether they really do have a choice since they are indoctrinated to see working people as second class citizens. The psychological pressure to remain in the Beis HaMedrash full time for as long as possible from the Charedi rabbinic leadership, and the peer pressure that accompanies it makes opting for the workplace very difficult for them even after spending many years in a Kollel.

I have always advocated a paradigm change. I have applauded efforts by the Israeli government to introduce minimal secular studies into the Charedi educational system – futile though hey may have been.  Rabbinic leaders had always stridently rejected those efforts seeing them as insidious “anti Torah” efforts to undermine Judaism itself.

To be fair, some Rabbanim in Charedi establishment in Israel have quietly been encouraging  “full timers”  indicating an interest in joining the workforce- to get the training needed to get those jobs.  Although it seeem like it has only been done a case by case basis, the paradigm of learning full time at all costs seems to be shifting a bit. 

To that end Charedi rabbinic leaders (like R’ Aharon Leib Steinman) have supported new Charedi oriented programs like the (now defunct) Tal Law and Nachal Charedi. Programs have been developed specifically for army service and to train Charedim for the current job market. While this change is still in its infancy it seems to be taking root. An article in The Times of Israel has made an observation that is illustrative of that fact:

Employment among haredi men rose from 33% in 2002 to 42% in 2010, and is expected to continue rising. Among women, too, employment rose from 48% to 55% in the same period.

This rise in employment was accompanied by a steep rise in unemployment (measured by) those who are looking for work… The demand for jobs among haredi men grew even faster than the increasing number who found jobs in an expanding job market. More haredim now work, and more want to work, than at any time in the recent past. (And) more haredim are turning to higher education than ever before. 

In recent years, three publicly-funded and several private institutions of higher education have opened in Israel that are run by haredim for haredim, including the Haredi College of Jerusalem, the Bnei Brak Haredi College and others. 

Where just a few hundred haredi students attended Israel’s colleges and universities a decade ago, today some 6,000 are enrolled in recognized institutions of higher learning. More than 1,100 are studying to become engineers. Studies (have) found that almost 74% of haredim are interested in non-religious higher education.

If these figures are accurate, this is a very encouraging sign. That said I believe that we still have a long way to go. As I keep saying - it would help tremendously if the Charedi establishment would adopt the American Charedi model of injecting some basic secular studies into their high schools. Although that paradigm is in fact eroding in America as new Yeshivos seem to be popping up that have eliminated secular studies, the majority of mainstream Charedi high schools in America still offer a secular studies program – including Telshe, and Lakewood affiliated ‘Philly’.

Unfortunately I don’t see that kind of paradigm shift happening in Israel. Nonetheless this new trend is an encouraging sign.

A fringe benefit of this new phenomenon pointed out in this article is that the isolationist populations like Meah Shearim and Ramat Bet Shemesh B are becoming marginalized. And as suggested: “haredi extremists are becoming violent precisely because they are losing their battle against modernity”.

They are fighting back via their extremists - trying to maintain their isolationist way of life. While these populations are not of the “learning full time or bust’ mentality and actually do encourage working, they do not encourage getting educated for it, thus leaving their members unable to compete for better, higher paying jobs. Except for the entrepreneurs among them, my guess is their poverty level will continue at about the same rate – or increase as their numbers increase.

Is their stridency the ‘storm before the calm’? I hope so. If there is to be any real chance of that it would be helpful if the mainstream Charedim stopped defending their values as they reject their extremists. It is bad enough that their own members defend their extremists even if they do not themselves participate in it. That mainstream Charedim defend the motives of these extremists as well is not helpful.

I believe that these isolationist communities are intransigent. They will never waver from their isolationist approach to Judaism. The will never as a group opt for higher education of any kind that will help them improve their incomes – even as mainstream Charedi population begins to thaw out of that mentality and out of poverty.

What does the future hold? What will the overall Charedi world in Israel look like a few years from now? I don’t know.  The Edah HaCharedis / Meah Shearim crowd will continue to increase in size by virtue of their high birth rate. But at least for the current mainstream Charedi population – there does seem to be light at the end of the tunnel.

Rethinking Cosmetic Surgery as an Aid to Beauty

Yesterday’s guest post “Tyranny of Beauty’ sums up much of the anger and frustration expressed at Mrs. Halberstam’s article  about ‘Shiduchim and the Importance of Beauty’ - and at my sympathetic view of it. After reading the post and the many responses to my own post - I have reconsidered my views.

To say the least, the author of that post was very upset. And I completely understand why.  She saw Mrs. Halberstam’s article to be anathema to the values of the Torah.  She also saw it as an insult to every Jewish woman – outraged by the implication that the Jewish woman of today is simply not beautiful enough to find a mate.

It is hard enough dealing with a culture that glorifies the superficiality of external beauty.  Mrs. Halberstam’s attitude only exacerbates this problem.

I still believe (as I’m sure the author of yesterday’s article does) that in the real world looking one’s best matters – especially when dating.  That includes all of the things that go into looking good that I listed in my original post. And it should be added to attributes like personal character, intelligence, education, and personal kindness. Although these are far more important than physical beauty, beauty is still very much a part of our own Jewish culture. In fact, I was reminded by an article in Ynet of a Rashi  that makes reference to this:

Moses felt that the mirrors were an inappropriate donation because they were used by Israelite women to beautify themselves in order to arouse and entice their exhausted slave-driven husbands in Egypt.

The great medieval commentator, Rashi, explains that God instructed Moses to accept them saying that these mirrors are, “More precious to me than anything else because through them the women established many generations in Egypt.”

While it is true that this Rashi refers to women beautifying themselves for their husbands, it should not be lost on us that they were in fact… beautifying themselves. I would suggest that the very same reason God had for placing such a high value on those mirrors applies today in beautifying oneself for purposes of finding a mate.

I don’t think the author of yesterday’s post would disagree with that either.

What I think is being overlooked however is something that was left unsaid by Mrs. Halberstam and yet could very well lie at the heart of the problem she sees.

It was not however overlooked by one of my frequent commenters, Wit:

Can you blame most girls for downplaying their looks when many of them spend years in a school system that drill into them the message of being tznius almost to the point of a young 18 year old girl looking matronly. 

When a girl has so much emphasis put on the concept of "tzanuah" in her adolescent and most formidable years it can actually have a serious negative psychological affect on her as a woman.  She has in essence been told for years that it is NOT okay to attract attention with your looks and body.  Now she is just supposed to undo that? 

Could it indeed really be that the indoctrination about Tznius young women get as adolescents is where the problem Mrs. Halberstam tries to address really lies?

There is not a scintilla of doubt in my mind that how a man and a woman look when they first meet each other is an important factor in whether a relationship will develop.

That said there is a malaise in western culture that places far too much emphasis on looks. And it can cause in women - and increasingly even in men as well –unrealistic expectations about how they should look as well as distorted body images of themselves if they don’t see themselves measuring up. This can lead to all manner of self esteem problems which can in turn easily lead to clinical depression, or severe eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia.

The over-emphasis on beauty that is promoted in western culture is pervasive. Even in the most religious among us who rarely if ever see pictures like that- trying to avoid looking at them - those images have nonetheless permeated our collective psyche.

The frustrations of young women looking to date and having a hard time doing so because of the much smaller pool of available men must be tremendous. Add to that the feelings of inferiority in the looks department that many young women are made to feel by the prevailing culture of airbrushed beauty - and you have a problem of tremendous magnitude. One that is easily exacerbated by an article like the one written by Mrs. Halberstam. Although I am sure that was not her intention.

The truth of the matter is that even though looks do matter, only the shallowest of people will see that as the entire basis for a relationship. Good people will look at all those other important qualities I spoke of.  But even non shallow idealistic people are attracted to the physical as well.

So I stand by my view that one must do whatever one can to look as good as possible when dating or meeting Shadchanim or anyone else that might want to ‘set them up’.  And let that be added it to their resume along with their other fine qualities.

Mrs. Halberstam intentions are good. She does not deserve to be vilified. Her heart is in the right place. But in her zeal to do something about it she crosses a line:

There is no reason in today’s day and age with the panoply of cosmetic and surgical procedures available, why any girl can’t be transformed into a swan. Borrow the money if you have to; it’s an investment in your daughter’s future, her life.

Here I now part company with her. What she ends up doing with a statement like this is perpetuating the misconception that every single woman can look like ‘a swan’. Or put another way - look like a model or movie star. Telling young people (or their mothers) that as a general policy they should even borrow money to have cosmetic surgery done in the cause of seeking physical perfection sends exactly the wrong message and contributes mightily to the poor self image far too many young women have of themselves today. A false image - that can lead to very serious negative emotional consequences.

For not thinking it through enough and supporting cosmetic surgery for young people as an aid to finding a mate, I sincerely apologize.

That said, I would will end with a bit of wisdom from Evanston Jew (ej). When the conversation shifts to individual and informed choice here is what he had to say:

If a woman, a grown up woman, 22 and older, single and in search of a shiduch, decides her chances would be significantly improved if she would fix her nose, & and her assessment is reasonable, she has the right to have such a surgery. Second, if such a woman asked a parent what to do, the parent has the right, not necessarily the obligation, to advise her/his daughter to proceed with such an operation if they believed it is a good idea. 

Tyranny of Beauty

Guest Post

The following was sent by a young woman in her twenties in response to my post on "Shiduchim and the Importance of Beauty". She is a graduate of Stern. She has asked to remain anonymous and I have agreed. I believe she speaks for a lot of people and along with many of the comments on that post has caused me to re-think my own views. Her words follow.

To preface, let me begin with the fact that I am one hundred percent head-over-heels in love with that quirky industry known as cosmetics. I own a significant amount of makeup, most of which gives me genuine and honest pleasure to select, test, apply and wear. (Taking it off... well, that's another story, but alas, nothing good comes without its own trials.)

Makeup is not the object of my anger, and neither would a theoretical encouragement that girls find ways to make themselves feel especially beautiful elicit this reaction. (The "suggestion" of surgery does not deserve our attention; unfortunately I also know and know of girls who were "fixed" before the crucial senior yearbook pictures were taken.) I believe that makeup can and should be used in a healthy and honest way to improve self confidence and enable women to get in touch with their own beauty.

But I do not believe that the article we are discussing called for any of the self-confidence, self-worth or happiness that makeup can impart-- or in fact that it values those things at all. Mrs. Halberstam was calling for physical change, or at least the temporary illusion of such, in the girls who might marry her son. She even apologized (forgive me if I loosen the definition of that word just a touch) for including under her umbrella of disapproval girls who were made up, but not to the point that she could tell. 

What does that tell us? It tells us (or anyway, it tells me) that this woman does not expect or desire makeup to be utilized in a healthy, positive way. It tells me that she views a girl who leaves her house clean, dressed neatly, hair brushed-- in other words, a girl who more than meets society's expectations for basic presentability-- as someone who is choosing to expose her inherent and fundamental flaws to the world.

That one should present oneself well in public is perfectly self-evident, and it is unfathomable to me that any more than one or two girls at the meeting Mrs. Halberstam attended were, for whatever reason, genuinely sloppy or truly negligent of their appearance. Why then, devote an article to which the vast majority of people-- especially women, and all the more so young women in shidduchim-- are already constantly, harrowingly concerned?

I strongly feel that there is necessarily a different message, a more meaningful backdrop when something so self-evident is proclaimed as revelatory-- particularly when it is announced in a public forum. In this case, by proclaiming to myself and my peers that we should "look beautiful", Mrs. Halberstam is telling us that we are not already beautiful as we are-- or at least that we are not "beautiful enough".

No matter how loudly one clucks about reality and The Differences Between Men and Women, "beautiful enough" is not a quality that can be standardized or defined-- but that is exactly what Mrs. Halberstam seeks to accomplish, whether or not she knew it when she wrote her treatise.

I know the oft-tread response to this message. "Well, some people really need nose-jobs-lap-bands-keratin-treatments-contact-lenses, etc., etc." Perhaps some do, though I consider that a cruel and dangerous game to play. But not only is this argument a rabbit hole of colossal depth, it is actively blind to the point of Mrs. Halberstam’s article.

To the first: There is literally no end to even the most attractive person’s cosmetic flaws. It is a potentially limitless litany of imperfections and just-not-good-enoughs; if a girl isn't too chubby, she will be too tall. If she is the "right" height, she will have a less-than-perfect complexion. If she is able to conceal her blemishes sufficiently (not an easy thing at all, as perhaps the male half is not aware) then her nose will be too big, and if her parents pay to have her "fixed", then her hair will be too curly and "chad gadya, chad gadya!"

To the second: Rabbi Maryles, you of all people should know that messages change when they are addressed to the many as opposed to the one. Loving advice given to an individual is drained of any nuance or caring when transmuted into a communal critique. There can be no discussion of positive attributes, no subtlety in the assessment of improvements, and no assurance that the advice will be synthesized in a psychologically healthy way.

And psychological health is something Mrs. Halberstam shows little regard for in her article, even though, as you surely know, it is a profound and pressing problem in our community. Words like anorexia and bulimia are seen as buzzwords for extreme and unlikely scenarios, and so I am reluctant to use them, but what about simple self-esteem? What about looking in the mirror and reading one's appearance accurately? 


What about being happy, even if there are a few crooks in a nose or extra pounds around the waist? I cannot tell you how many of my set dance around the edges of mental illness and never receive treatment, or how many avoid looking in mirrors, refuse to stand for pictures, or hang behind the lights and grimace at other peoples' simchot. 

And an even greater number are just not as happy as they truly deserve to be.

There is a message being sent to us, Rabbi Maryles, a message that screamed to me from every unnecessary inch of this article-- that myself and all of my female friends are innately and fundamentally unsatisfactory. We are just not good enough the way we are.

Mrs. Halberstam implores our mothers to focus more on our pursuit of beauty, but believe me, we’ve been trying. If it isn't working, it is not because our bodies or our souls are ugly, but because we have already internalized Mrs. Halberstam's horrible hypothesis. No amount of makeup or lack of food will disguise or dispel these fundamental negative self-perceptions.

It is profoundly disheartening to me, not only as someone who believes that beauty and values come from within, not only as someone who wishes for my friends to be happy in themselves, but as someone who looks for strength in her community. The ephemeral physical standard to which we are held is gleaned largely from the “outside world”... but are we not meant to shield ourselves from unhealthy influence with our Judaism?

The messages of the media would not be nearly so powerful if they were not acted out daily in our lives-- most especially in the shidduch system, where values so many of us were instructed to reject or at least modify are now the basis by which our worth is weighed without moderation.

So, no. I have no problem with makeup. And yes, I do believe that every person should strive to look and feel their best when they engage with the world. What I object to is the decision to so flagrantly bind the body to the soul and then grind the lot in a crucible of criticism until an acceptable-- albeit artificial-- alchemy is achieved.

I know that many do not read this message in Mrs. Halberstam's article, and I imagine that others will dismiss my point of view as overreaction-- I wish it were. But I cannot help but see the blood sketched on the wall of reality in our community. The effects of its toxicity are already all too evident, and any widespread legitimization of this thesis will only manufacture misery too extensive for me to imagine.

If my response is considered excessive to the offense, I cannot think that I am doing anything unlike herding a family out of their home at the first sound of a smoke detector. The potential consequences are too extremely terrible to avoid a definitive and unequivocal action.