Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA)

The 108 winners of the 2006 Industrial Design Excellence Award (IDEA) listed in categories.

A dot for every second in the day

A clock: A dot for every second in the day.

Three amigos on the 3rd of Tammuz

Tzfasman, Branover, Raskin. It�s a bit of a shock to see German�s grandson with full beard, never mind the Yechi yarmulke.
UPDATE: Branover's blog: tzfatie -Samy B.

Antitrust served to kosher meat producers

AgriProcessors, Alle, Globex and Empire Poultry "have been served with federal subpoenas in connection with a criminal antitrust investigation". Price fixing is presumed. The Jewish Week: Big Kosher Suppliers Hit With Antitrust Subpoenas. (via Shmarya)

An Israeli blogger Meirav Kanner kills self

The suicide of Meirav Kanner, known online as Rapunzel. Haaretz: Blog of a death foretold. I believe she blogged in Hebrew. I do not know the address of her site. She is not to be confused with the Chabad chick on my blogroll Rapunzel.

Term limits for Shluchim?

Neo-Tzig proposal, theantitzemach: It works for President, why not Shluchim? Does it mean that we can now elect the Shluchim? Yehh, let them ran on their own merits for the office.
P.S. I also propose a term limit for Hirshel Tzig as the Neo-Tzig got the two term goods. (Is Neo-Tzig like in Neo-Nazi?) I also think the high pressure rage heard on menalblog.com have been put into �slick commercial packaging� on theantitzemach and sold back to us where it came from� Jews be Blacks�

Where they import the culture is right into their minds and hearts

Tony Montana commenting to mentalblog.com: Deep Cover in Gansta Crown Heights:

There is a phenomenon called the hip-hop-ization of America. Much like the Viet Namization of America which took place in the 60s and 70s introducing street drugs, broken families and the ubiquitous word M-Fer into albeit begrudging but popular acceptance, there seems to be a built-in release valve in our society which allows mounting pressures from within the suppressed underculture to alleviate tension by spreading forth into the mainstream. It's not a conscious thing. It's a law of nature, just like weather; high pressure systems move into low pressure systems. Indeed, from all the racial and cultural cross-fertilization from VietNamization, it was the low pressure system that picked up ghetto values, lexicon and mores, not the other way around. Today, you can go to any mall in America and see white suburban kids behaving and talking like black ghetto kids. These white kids never met these black kids, so it isn't the black kids that they could possibly be emulating. It's that the cultural icons, the default models of ghetto-life have been mainstreamed and are now teaching all children, white, black, Asian Pacific Islander, and Other.

Ironically, of course, the release valve never really takes the pressure off the underclass, because the seepage that reaches the mainstream is invariably then given slick commercial packaging and bounced right back to where it came from - except that those with whom the garbage originated must now pay a corporation to buy back shrink-wrapped versions of that which had spurted from their very own homes.)

Anyway, this is all derech agav... The point is that religious Jews are no less susceptible, and to the contrary, even more subject to these influences. Perhaps because we live in inner cities, perhaps because Jews (even ultra-orthodox ones) are psychologically, even if not politically, liberal. Who knows? What I do know is that when a white suburban kid starts emulating Notorious B.I.G., it's pretty obvious. He has the clothes, the CDs, all the external accoutrements. Kids in Crown Heights wear white and black, they don't buy the CDs (at least not b'reish gli). Where they import the culture is right into their minds and hearts. Did you ever see a Crown Heights born Lubavitcher play the dozens? They'll tear you up. Go substitute for a day at Ohelei Torah and tell me you don't leave feeling like Sydney Poitier in To Sir, With Love.

How does Sydney Poitier feel in To Sir, With Love? Do you not know the movie? He's a genteel Carribean black man who teaches a rag-tag bunch of white slum kids from the London Docks. But he makes mentchen out of them in the end.

Tzemach Atlas: On the subject of low and high pressure. I doubt that this dynamic is confined to the vulgar "seepage"; surely high culture could pressurize as well, witness Jews. I am interested in looking at things in a millennial context. So one might say that there was Judaisation of the world. This pressure is released and then it is "bounced right back to where it came from" in the form of "slick commercial packaging" AKA Christianity. It is released to the Jewish ghettos in exile. Conversely Jews absorb the intensity laden spheres on the host cultures and become more Russian than Russian, more French than French, more Arab than Arab. Witness Jewish fundamentalist Taliban from Uman to Tzfat to Crown Heights. The dynamic is expansive and as always the reflected light sparkles.

A distant ships smoke on the horizon

Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb

Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?

Come on, now.
I hear youre feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again.

Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.

When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I cant explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.

Ok.
Just a little pinprick. [ping]
Therell be no more --aaaaaahhhhh!
But you may feel a little sick.

Can you stand up?
I do believe its working. good.
Thatll keep you going for the show.
Come on its time to go.

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ships smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I cant hear what youre sayin.
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

Reuters Yannis Behrakis, tonight in Gaza.

O Captain! My Captain!

Tony Montana commenting to mentalblog.com: Deep Cover in Gansta Crown Heights: BTW - speaking of classroom movies, someone told me that The Algemeiner ADMUR "Jakey Yo!" Jacobson's favorite movie is Dead Poets' Society. In the movie, Robin Williams teaches the kids the Walt Witman poem, O Captian My Captain. Hence, the name for his tape series on the Rebbe.

"O Captain! My Captain!"
by: Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

The Hannibal Directive

Ma. Rabbi: "Please ask everyone to say Tehillim for the missing Israeli soldier, Gilad ben Aviva, for his safe return". Mystical Paths: Attack, Kidnap, Pray For...

Jerusalem Post: Analysis: Israel's hostage complex.

It's talked about in hushed voices during the dead hours before dawn of a particularly lonely guard shift: "Nohal Hannibal" - the Hannibal Directive - the rumored standard procedure in the eventuality of an IDF soldier being captured.
In such a case, soldiers are told (although never officially) that their comrades will be given the order to rain fire on the abduction team, without consideration for the poor soldier's life. The underlying rationale is that the nation can bear the deaths of soldiers, but not the uncertain fate of a captured serviceman.

treppenwitz: What Gilad's father is thinking

mentalblog.com the worst copycat idea of the century

On the subject of mentalblog.com: mentalblog.com the best idea of the century there is this thingy in Amsterdam: Million dollar fa�ade.

Textured halves

Nobody knows how to reunite top and bottom better than Dov Ber. Today I watched him put together the halves of the sculpture he has been working on for six months.

Deep Cover in Gansta Crown Heights

Tony Montana: commenting to mentalblog.com: Oliver Stone's visceral, angry tragedy: I think it's also especially significant how Tony Montana (not Don Corleone or Henry Hill et al) became a cultural icon of the 80s hip-hop counter-culture. It seems like whenever Jews generate cryptically self-symbolic art about the Jewish psyche for the mass media, it has an uncanny tendency to resonate with blacks. The Jewish story and (l'havdil) the African-American experience sometimes seem to be two sides of the same coin of hubris as the ultimate survival mechanism.

Tzemach Atlas: Are there other examples of Jewish "cryptically self-symbolic art" that merged with the black culture, I mean ahem, besides Jesus.

Tony Montana: I qualified the statement as pertaining only to art generated for the mass media. Obviously, the stuff that was too parochial never got outside of the Jewish community. But just one example that pops into my mind - probably because Scarface is making me think about hip-hop: Surely the most complex and challenging "gangsta" flick of the 90s blaxpoitation renaissance which included films by many black amateurs, was Deep Cover, written by a Jew, Michael Tolkin. The movie sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the other films of its genre. Whereas the other 90s 'hood movies told emotionally compelling stories of desperation, this movie was a head trip about the existential hell of moral ambiguity. Jeff Goldblum, in the performance of his career, portrays a creepy, amoral Jewish lawyer. Larry Fishburn, intense as always, is the tormented protagonist. Deep Cover wears the clothes of a hood movie, but its oozing with Jewish guilt over the elusiveness of moral firm ground.

Tony Montana: Crown Heights is the nexus between Jewish cultural values and black ghetto life so don't be surprised about the gangsterized version of chasidic culture that emerges from there. Now if only some of the lyricism of hip-hop would also influence Crown Heights culture and not just the bravado.

P.S. Tzemach Atlas: Tony, I watched the movie. A drama with blurred lines between the bad and good guys. The undercover cop Fishburn is only able to bring light into this world by becoming a drug lord, criminal and a murderer. His supervisor in the USA government who calls himself "G-d" and who sends him on this mission turns out to be a real bad guy. The movie came out in 1992. I was thinking of Dena Hamburger, trying to remember when did I come back to Boston. It was in the summer of 1992. The intensity of those years resonates with me. I wish I would have seen that movie then. Ironically references to Bush sound contemporary while obviously they are about Bush the father.

On the subject of Gansta Crown Heights. I don't see how a culture can sustain itself if it doesn't attempt to examine the confusion, juxtaposition and the eternal intimate dance between good and evil. One can not live on a diet of black and white children stories about the Rebbe, considering that the duality was the main contribution of the Alter Rebbe to the Jewish thought, the legacy of this thinking remains under Deep Cover.

Diego Garcia base in Indian ocean on Google Earth

Diego Garcia base in Indian ocean is the staging ground for B-52 bombing raids. The overall view of the magnificent island strip. Here is a close up of the B-52 airport parking.

London Jewess married a dolphin in Eilat

Not the Romanian dude from Boro Park :-) Forward: A Fishy Union's Untimely End. Speaking about animals, Rubashkins, etc. Forwards has an a set of articles - Focus on Postville Iowa.

Living a blessed moment of authenticity

On the subject of Why Jew is synonymous with counterculture Ben Chorin, the most memorable writer in the Jewish blogsphere, penned a must read masterpiece: I used to think of growing up as flunking out of childhood.

Smoke screen to pervert the truth

Un-Orthodox Jew: Ultimately this sinful cover-up occurred because of the erosion of any sort of meaningful bais din process:

Ultimately, this cover-up may have occurred for no other reason than because it could. With the erosion of any sort of meaningful beis din process, until someone realized that catch phrases like �mesirah� and �rechilus� were just a smoke screen to pervert the truth and disguise the reality, there really is no hierarchy of accountability existing in Orthodoxy today. In fact, it�s become a joke. You don�t like a psak, buy another. For every rav that will tell you �no,� two more will not only tell you �yes� but tell you why the first rav is a lunatic. Sad, but the truth many times is.

Revolution in Lubavitch

paul commenting to Out of control in Crown Heights:

Lubavitch - all of it, is out of control because of two reasons:
1. Intimidation.
2. Not enough people with balls to stand up to this intimidation.
Unless of course everyone, has lost their moral compass. Where is the fire in the Chassidim? Where is our drive not to let down all of our Nesiem? Isn't the love for our Rebbe great enough to stand up to these "buffoons"? Everywhere? What we need is a revolution. Takeh bedarkei noam but a revolution.

As a practical matter the only way to make this revolution is to separate the powers from its financial resources. To expose in the press and the alternative internet press the reality of certain emissaries who are antidemocratic, totalitarian dictators, morons and idiots to boot. Corse people removed from moral values of our folk.

Business people of stature should go to lunch with George Rohr for example and explain to him what a tremendous damage he does by strengthening the central control of Lubavitch in Russia and in USA. Businessmen should get together to create a fund to help the alternative Rabbis. Here in Boston this would have gone a long way. Hurt done to Jews in Boston and especially to the Russian Jews is immeasurable. Lack of financial resources for an alterative sources of Jewish understanding is killing everything that remains alive.

Out of control in Crown Heights

This blog or the realtiy in Crown Heights is completely crazy: daashakohol.com:

"When Best attempted to reach for the list, Rubashkin violently assaulted him and repeatedly punched him in the head until he was restrained by several people. Best suffered head trauma, a broken tooth, a broken or dislocated jaw, broken glasses, a big gash on his forehead, and several severe bruises. He is currently in the hospital for evaluation and treatment. (Please say a kapitel Tehillim for his refua shleima.) Needless to say, this felony assault can result in a lengthy jail sentence for Mr. Rubashkin. Therefore, Best hesitated to press charges and have Rubashkin arrested".

P.S. Poltorak wants out of The "SHCHUNAH." The reason I bring this up is because he is a Meshichist, but he also has a cardinal flaw besides being a pisher, he thinks on occasion, a fundamental no no to survive over there� ( and over here�)
P.S.S. I would also point out that the Hareidy world is undergoing a major revolution. It is debatable if the intensity of craziness has precedents in the Jewish history but it is beyond debate that the way it is being flashed out is unprecedented.

Intimidated into the underground in California

On the subject of The State of Lubavitch in CA commenting to the Lamppost on the 5th Avenue:

Baruch: My daughter was hired to act as a head counselor at a Lubavitch-run camp in California. In preparation she composed a camp song that ended with some innocuous and traditional reference to Moshiach. When she presented it to the camp director my daughter was informed "the song is fine except for the last line. You'll have to change it. We are not doing the Moshiach thing at this camp." Some people are just oblivious to the "idiot wind" howling out of their mouths. I shudder at the arrogance. Regardless of one's position in the Lubavitch generated Moshiach controversy it is still a wonder about the lack of integrity, fidelity and courage of some who call themselves Lubavitchers.

Sidney: Shluchim?! California?! The Shluchim stood by as a fellow Shaliach was being destroyed. They stand by while the head Shaliach gives control of their own children's chinuch to people, with no other qualification other than, that they are the progeny or married to the progeny of the "head shliach" (these progeny do hire titular heads (or "headaches" depends who you speak to)).

They stand by after hearing that a speaker at the Shluchos convention extols the sensitivity of the Hebrew Academy in Huntington Beach towards its NON JEWISH STUDENT'S PARENTS! They have stood by for years as the Telethon has embarrassed them and caused great Chilul Hashem!

It's funny; I used to wonder what the Rebbe meant to teach me when I heard him say that some Israeli Ministers and members of the Kenesset cared for their "benkel" more then their principals. "Integrity, fidelity and courage"? It doesn�t exist (ok! ok! maybe it does but is intimidated into the underground) not about Moshiach nor about things less controversial.

berl, crown heights: While they 'stand by', they do their work. What other choice do they have at the moment? Hopefully an opportunity for a 'regime change' will present itself, the sooner - the better. In the mean time they can't hope to get neither a fair beis din nor a fair civil court judge to rule in their favor should they take the nutcase & his thuggish kids on...

Sidney: 'regime change' Shtikah k'hodaya! It has already happened. While all were intimidated into silence. Day to day decisions rest with one of the "head shliach's" children and the head shliach is basically in retirement at his mountain retreat (literally and or figuratively). Mailah that he is in control of tens of millions of dollars worth of assets but the lives on hundreds of shluchim are in his hands (of course if they have no assets they are, for all intents and purposes, safe). They don't even have the option of leaving unless it is empty handed. I know that it hasn't gotten this bad all over, yet, but how long will it be before we see this in other States?

We actually are! And the silence continues! The Shluchim were bombarded by their Baaleh Baatim about the Dershowitz fiasco, yet nothing. How about Aguch bragging about their close connection with Rabbi Hertzberg A"H (a ligen tor men nisht ober nisht yeder emes darf men shrayen foon di decher). The list can go on!

Integrity, fidelity and courage are the hallmarks of emeser mentchen in difficult situations! I heard that one of the Gerrer Rebbes wore his tiphilin a "little" off center. When asked about it he said "this is how my father put them on my head at my bar mitzvah I see no need to change"

Matchmaking, the first 24 hours

1. Two people wrote asking for my description. I replied with emails.
2. One person wrote to offer the following: �" beautiful Russian (geirus) who has two children, ex-husband was a goy�"
3. One person wrote without a hint of any serious intention: "what happens if (G-d forbid) the marriage ends in a divorce ... would we have to return the money?"
4. Finally another genius suggested that "$5,000 is not enough, you should start a participatory campaign to raise more money via PayPal, get the people into it..."

Israel and the "sleepy hollow" down under

jyk,down under commenting to mentalblog.com: Israel has surpassed America as a centre for Jewish scholarship

There is no argument that modern secular Zionism was a revolt against traditional Judaism. Yes, there was a deliberate attempt to disengage from the traditional religious expression of Jewish identity & develop an alternative Jewish identity, based on either Jewish culture or language or nationalism etc..

This was already taking place in Europe with the spread of Jewish emancipation & the rise of the Haskala movement. I don't need to give you a history lesson, its all pretty basic & obvious. The question that we as religious Jews have to ask, is how to respond to the social & intellectual challenges created by this "disengagement".

This was the same question confronting the leaders of traditional Judaism in Europe in each country, thought obviously the circumstances are different when determining how to respond to a new movement compared to after "the horse has bolted" so to speak.

It is this question, in the Israeli experience, & the responses in Israel already were taking shape in Europe in the 19th century, that needs to be carefully considered. Various responses emerged, but I have always subscribed to the view that the religious community needed to engage the secular Jew in a positive manner, certainly the current generation that ought to be considered "tinokos shnishba" & not confront them in a hostile manner.

This was certainly the view of the Rebbe, particularly if you compare the tone of his language & attitude towards Israel to the fierce anti-Zionist rhetoric of the Friediker Rebbe & the Rebbe Rashab. It was also the view of Rav Kook as I pointed out in my earlier comment.

Someone suggested to me once that the solution to all of Israel's internal problems was putting a little bit of valium in their water system. I once met a few Israeli backpackers living in what we call the far North Queensland. Beautiful beaches, warm weather. They spent a large part of their time surfing the beaches on the Sunshine Coast. These were not ex-army travelers but Israeli's, who having traveled to Australia after the army, come back regularly to do a bit of surfing.

I actually invited them to our holiday house for Shabbos & they came. The classic comment they made was that Australia is such a great country that no one knows the name of our Prime-Minister. Somewhat of an exaggeration, but nonetheless the comment captured the main difference between their Israeli experience, where everybody is absorbed & passionate about politics & here, where there is a degree of apathy regarding politics & people would rather focus their lives on surfing & enjoying the "good life". I think we are the only country where there is a law that you must vote. If not, only a small percentage of the population would be bothered to vote.

menatlblog.com Australian geo stats in the last six days:

L'Chaim Yidden!

theantitzemach: The Neo-Tzig�s ramble: We love you!

The Rebbe (and HaShem) talks to Nava in her sleep

Dreaming of Moshiach: Journey to HaShem:

It was during that time that I had my first spiritual dream. The Lubavitch Rebbe zs'l appeared in my dream and told me to come to the Ohel where he is buried and bring him an Etrog that is Kosher and Mehudar. I ignored the dream being that it was December at the time and there are no Etrogim to be found. He returned again the second time and repeated his request . I turned to the other side to continue sleeping. He came a third time and now he had my attention. He repeated his request the third time and seeing that he keeps coming back, I asked him where am I going to get an Etrog in December? He told me to go to a market and there, a person will approach me and ask me if I would like to purchase an Etrog Kosher and mehudar and this is the Etrog I should purchase and bring it to the Ohel, where he is buried. I woke up and looked at the clock - it was 6 am Sunday morning. I didn't go to the market but the following day went to the Ohel of the Lubavitch Rebbe zs'l and davened. I have been going there weekly, once a week, ever since - 4 years ago. I've yet to bring the Rebbe an Etrog Kosher and Mehudar...

mentalblog.com eBay listings

mentalblog.com web 2.0 real estate

Your Edge in Real Estate: Zillow.com

Google: Ten Golden Rules

MSNBC.com: Getting the most out of knowledge workers will be the key to business success for the next quarter century. Here's how we do it at Google.

What Is Web 2.0

O'Reilly: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software.

mentalblog.com Google mischief university

Merged.ca: The Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Billions of Pages Indexed by Google. Also in Guardian: How can I get Google to index the billions of pages I've created?
And how about The Devil's Guide to Google
Related, zulugrid: False Identity Generator.

dating industry

WorkHappy.net: Interview with Markus Frind - AdSense Millionaire.
Online personals and dating industry commentary. (Via Corante: Online Dating Insider.)

WSJ.com on Craigslist

WSJ.com: Zen and the Art of Classified Advertising.

mentalblog.com offer

If you find me a great match I will pay you $5,000 upon engagement and another and $5,000 after Shevah Brochos. I will also run a feature story on you or your Chabad House on mentalblog.com.

Kassam, Shmassam

The "Chief Rabbis" of Kazakhstan with Shimon.

On the subject of Who was never a Jew in Lubavitch Chabad? Jake writes commenting to Israel has surpassed America as a centre for Jewish scholarship:

jyk,down under thinks that the frum community, especially in Israel, should try to get closer to the secularists while I point out that Israeli secularists are militants who don't simply disagree with the traditionalists but actually hate them and blame traditional Judaism itself for all of Israel's ills.

As for the pervasiveness of politics in Israel, yes, EVERYTHING here is politics. Of course, this sullies everything it touches: the police, Rabbinate, environment, medicine, military, education, everything! It also explains why the Jewish state looks more like Chelm than a state of ostensibly highly intelligent people. Banana republic? It takes a Yiddishe kopp to produce a truly corrupt system which only pretends to be a democracy - but that is a separate discussion.

I'll give you an example of how filthy politics have produced hate instead of logic. Shimon Peres has a resume full of stupid decisions. Because of his "Peace" Plan has been an obvious failure, he needed to blame someone - and he chose the Jewish villagers who are often called "settlers". Thus the public view is that peace eludes us because the "settlers" are the cause of war and anti-Semitism.

Just yesterday, responding to the HUNDREDS of Kassam rockets fired from Gaza that have crashed into the town of Shderot in the Negev in recent weeks, Peres mocked the cries of the suffering townsfolk (not "settlers", now!) by saying "Kassam, Shmassam". Opposition politicians note that Peres has "disengaged" from Shderot. Peres, for the sake of personal politics, has demonized religious Jews, Rabbis and traditional Jews while cuddling with terrorists and other Jew-haters - and has been doing this for years.

For political purposes, Peres, Beilin, Kabel, Piness, Lapid, Sarid, Aloni, Chazan and dozens of other deeply corrupt "politicians" demonize innocent Jews. As a result, secularist Israelis who encounter hostility from outside Israel blame it on "settlers", instead of blaming it on the anti-Semitism that they believe no longer exists. Israeli secularists don't simply have a different view from you - they hate you. Trying to become closer with them is about as productive as trying to get closer with Hamas. Ignoring the facts, as Peres does, isn't a good way to achieve a brighter future.

mentalblog.com matchmaking

So a friend called me up with the following: "Why do you post this crazy stuff on your blog, it will never help you with finding a Shidduch, it makes you sound like Shmarya." He continued: "You have to make your blog a marketing tool to find a match. This is a great platform for it."

I replied: "Honestly the idea did occur to me. But this is what I don't understand: People read this blog all over the world and I can't believe there is not some crazy Jewish girl in Montevideo that a Shliach wouldn�t like to get rid off. This blog have been around for over two years and not once anyone approached me with a soul. Why?" I am sort of puzzled by this. What do you think?

Lamppost on the 5th Avenue

On the subject of the Report card of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and boston = death:

The fact of the matter is that the Lubavitcher Rebbe or his movement failed to make a simple dent in the rate of assimilation. It is astounding that the Rebbe never made this a Mivtzah. This just add credence to the opinion that he ultimately did not care or should I say played out his hand in regards to the state of Jews after his passing. If he just wanted to grow his own ranks he could have done it the Satmar way of exclusion with infinitely more impressive results. His failure to stem assimilation is the monumental and fundamental flaw at the root of mihuyehudi, shleimus hoaretz and the rest of them. It is a flaw �kloli�. As far as I am concerned they can hang themselves with the tefillin straps off the every lamppost on the 5th Avenue, but the decline of the Jewish people continues unabated. When confronted with this the Shluchim here in Boston and thousands of their clones all over the world claim that �we don�t do such things�. Really, what do YOU do? If they are helpless and clueless in the face of this plague, why bother? Why wouldn�t this be on the agenda? They can stick all the shabbes candles to where they belong and they can leave the scene, stop sucking dry the blood resource of the people if you have resigned from it�s most important corrective thrust. Guilty of massacre as charged.

boston = death

boston synagogues = murder
Boston Chabad = accessory in crime, the capo supervisors of the holocaust
Lubavitcher Rebbe = the emissary behind the crime scene of extermination. No "folklore" will hide this.

Fishing in Medzhibozh

Early morning last week in Medzhibozh.



Looking out form Baal Shem Tov's Ohel into a field in Medzhibozh.


P.S. For all the people who idealize these photos. I deliberately avoided publishing the actual view of the Ohel. It represents an exceedingly ugly, semi-modern structure. The are dozens of those built all over the historic graves in the former CCCP. The ugliness has been imported by Chassidim from the west whose lack of esthetic sensibility is unmatched. Baal Shem Tov is suffering in silence�

Israel has surpassed America as a centre for Jewish scholarship

jyk,down under commenting to Time to join NK?

I can't believe the nonsense being posted here. Was the second temple period one in which the political leadership of the time & the Kohanim who controlled the Temple, people of great religious character? Most Kohanim were corrupt & Hellenists, the Kings were Hellenists. Chanukah may have been a great victory of the Chashmonaim over the Seleucids but overtime the descendents of the Chashmonaim themselves embraced Hellenism & the Kings of Israel were no different than many of the secular anti-religious politician we have in modern day Israel.

The point I am making, is that Israel is still the only country where Jews have a majority & have influence in determining the character of the country. Has it been a great success in establishing a national government that has a strong Jewish character in the religious or even cultural sense as Achad Haam envisaged - a Merkaz Ruchni, I suspect the score card would not be very good.

However, it is still the only place that a Jew, even a religious Jew, can express & participate in public as well as private life as a total Jew. Every national issue becomes a religious issue & as a consequence Israel has, I believe, surpassed America as a centre for Jewish scholarship both religious & cultural.

When talking about the gradual drift of the majority of the population & politicians from traditional Judaism, I think we Religious Jews need to look first at ourselves and evaluate our relationship with the state.

I was told something very insightful recently when I was in Israel early this year taking my daughter to study in a Seminary (it was not a Chabad one). The Menahel is a classic Religious Zionist settler, living in Alon Shvut though of American origin.

Discussing the disengagement & destruction of the homes in Armona he said that possibly the disengagement was possible because the religous zionist community, broadly speaking, had already over the last 10-20 years disengaged spiritually from the rest of Israel. Instead of what Mizrachi was in the past, a bridge between the secular & religious worlds, it became preoccupied & obsessed with settlements & the sanctity of land instead of teaching about Yiddishkeit & engaging the secular population so as they would understand & share their attachment to Eretz Yisroel.

The Chareidim from the very beginning disengaged from the secular Zionist world so they shouldn't open their mouths. Chabad for many years did engage the secular population & were respected by all. However, starting with Mi Hu Yehudi (& the Rebbes campaign at the time was understandable & viewed by the Rebbe as worth risking any possible fallout) & then Shleimus Haaretz, also gradually disengaged themselves from the secular left leaning Israeli population.

All this could probably have been contained, but with the rise of the Moshichistim & their fanatical identification with the most extreme elements of the settler movement (including the Kahanist) has effectively disengaged Chabad from a significant element of the Israeli secular population.

I am not surprised therefore when the secular majority in Israel support disengagement & show very little sympathy with the settlers & their suffering. Israel has become a society deeply divided between the secular & even religious zionist (& chabad) elements that in the past were bridges between the two worlds.

What I found very interesting is that Rav Yoel Ben-Nun, one of the leading activist within Gush Emunim & veteran of the early battles of opening settlements in the 70's, came out in support for Kadima in the last elections. He was always a consensus builder & placed enormous importance on education & engaging the secular Israeli community to hopefully influence them to share the original goals and vision of the Gush Emunim. Many of his collegues were more militant & ultranationalistic, but he argued that the settlement movement can not succeed unless it brings the nation along with it. He placed more emphasis on eductation & for want of a better word "outreach" in conjunction with settlements.

If Israel has turned into a country that Jewish values are less evident in national politics & the private lives of many Israeli citizens, then the Religius world has a share in this failure.

Will China become the center of the Jewish nation?

Jews of K'ai Fung Foo in China

berl, crown heights: learn Chinese... My guess � (if Moshich does not come soon) that�s were reiv minyon uvinyon of the Jews will be within 50 years.

jyk,down under: Berl, when you have mastered Chinese, give me a call, I will hire you straight away. I have long argued that the Beis Rivkah (& Yeshiva College) here should stop teaching the "farkakte" French & teach Chinese. Its the future & I agree that we shouldn't be surprised if we see a gradual growth of the Jewish Community there. In the meantime I have to speak to all my Chinese factories using my Chinese staff as translators. I wouldn't know if they are telling them what I really want or they are telling jokes about me. So, I would have loved to have learnt Chinese. For me its probably too late but if Berl is game, then I may have a job for him. I need someone who I can trust who can communicate with my operations in China.

faruq: their numbers will definitely not be down by half in one generation, far from it. the population still grows, albeit at a slow rate. The very real problem in Chinese demographics is the sex ratio. There are not enough females. In 20 or so years there will be several hundred million young men looking for women. This will only speed up the Chinese invasion.

Hat and clothes market in the Jewish quarter, Warsaw, Poland, c1919 Dec. 13, Keystone View Co.

mentalblog.com links

Frummer?????: Mealy Mouthed. (IMHO perhaps the best Jewish writer in the blogsphere)
My Obiter Dicta: The Tragic Price of Romantic Autonomy.
Marvin Schick: Can Camp Fire Up Young Jews?
On the Main Line: No nun--in ashrei.
Menachem Mendel: The Shabbes Goy II.

Caught in the Thicket by David Assaf

This post is dedicated to the memory of Dena Hamburger.

A new book by Professor David Assaf : "Caught in the Thicket: Chapters of Crisis and Discontent in the History of Hasidism," (published by the Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History):


Table of contents in English (pdf).

Yair Sheleg wrote an expanded review in Haaretz: Shame and scandal in the family.

Chapter One: Apostate or Saint? In the Footsteps of Moshe, the Son of Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Lyady

Yair Sheleg reports: "The biggest scoop in the book has to do with the conversion to Christianity of Moshe, the youngest son of the founder of Chabad, Shneor Zalman of Ladi. The affair was known and dealt with in a heated debate among the Maskilim (followers of the Enlightenment) and after them the academic researchers, who tried to blur and even deny the story.

Assaf's discovery should put an end to the debate. According to him, in recent years Professor Shaul Stampfer of the Hebrew University found two files of documents relating to the affair in the National Archive of Belarus. Among other things, the files contained a letter from Moshe to the priest in his town, Oula, requesting conversion, the baptism certificate that was prepared for him and letters from his two brothers to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in which they state that their brother is mentally ill and ask, in the light of this, to revoke the conversion to Christianity as a step that was taken when he was of unsound mind and that exploited his illness (a description with which Assaf agrees)."

(A year ago there was a preview of this book in Haaretz, see our post and discussion Oy! for Reb Maishe, the Alter Rebbe�s son I am very disappointed by the policy of Haaretz to archive the old article as the links to it die. In any case people here remember the exchange. I wonder what will Yosef Kaminetzky come up with now?).

Photo by Yossi Melamed, Kobi Gideon/BauBau

Chapter Two: The Mitnagdim Laughed that He Was Drunk: The Fall of the Seer of Lublin

Yair Sheleg reports: "In another chapter Assaf tells the story of the Visionary of Lublin, one of the leading figures of the Hasidic movement in its second generation, who mysteriously fell from the window of his home on Simhat Torah and died after nine months of prolonged agony. The Maskilim, who had a continuing struggle with the Hasidim, claimed that the Visonary fell after he got drunk on the holiday. The Hasidim described the fall as resulting from a spiritual collapse after the failure of his efforts to bring about the redemption.

Assaf proposes that the fall was a suicide attempt. He bases this hypothesis on reports in Hasidic sources of a prior suicide attempt by the Visionary and his generally depressive personality."

Chapter Three: Happy Are the Persecuted: The Struggle Against Bratslav Hasidism

Yair Sheleg reports: "Another chapter of the book, which also touches upon the present, deals with persecution of the Breslav Hasidim by other Hasiduts in the 19th century. This included beatings and threats of murder and of informing to the authorities, which historian Raphael Mahler describes as more severe than the persecutions of the Hasidism by the Mitnagdim (literally, "opponents," to the Hasidic way), disciples of the Vilna Gaon. It is astonishing to see that the persecutors and the boycotters saw no need at all to justify the persecution. Such a justification has appeared only recently, Assaf says, in a booklet by a rabbi from Safed named Yermiyahu Cohen, who is trying in this way to renew the fight with the Breslavs, "and for the first time he justifies the struggle by saying that the Breslavs are not prepared to submit to the authority of any of the great sages of the generation."

Why, then, are the Breslavs not being persecuted as in the past, even though their presence is greater than ever? "This is part of the process of the privatization that is also happening in the ultra-Orthodox world," says Assaf. "This world is splitting into an infinite number of groups, none of which can control the other. Even if someone were to issue a boycott ruling, what ability would he have to enforce it?"

Chapter Four: Heretic, Who Believes Not in the Great Leaders of the Time: The Struggle Over the Honor of the Book Or Ha-Hayyim

Chapter Five: Excitement of the Soul: The World of Rabbi Akiva Shalom Chajes of Tulchin

Chapter Six: How Much Times Have Changed: The World of Rabbi Menachem Nahum Friedman of Itcani

Chapter Seven: Confession of My Tortured Soul: The World of Rabbi Yitzhak Nahum Twersky of Shpikov

Yair Sheleg reports: Especially exciting is the chapter on Rebbe Yitzhak Nahum Twersky, the son of the Admor of Shpikov, who was sent to marry the daughter of the Rebbe of Belz, whom he had never met before the wedding. The forced marriage greatly depressed him, especially as he had been exposed, primarily through his sisters, to the free world of the Enlightenment. A short time before he was led to the wedding canopy, Twersky wrote a long letter, a kind of confession, to the Enlightened writer Yaakov Dinzon, who was friendly with his sister, in which he detailed his hatred for the closed and ignorant world in which he lived: "I express free opinions, and I am forced to observe every jot and title of my ancestors' strictures. I am a person of good taste, and I love beauty, and I am forced to wear the clothing of savages." He writes that it is "unimaginable" for someone like him to live in such a suffocating atmosphere.

Future Book by David Assaf:

Yair Sheleg reports: Assaf has left one of the most scandalous stories of apostasy outside the book. This is the story of Beriniu, the son of the founder of the Rizhn Hasidut, who after his father's death became the admor in the small town of Layova. He hated his post and decided to resign from it, but the Hasidim did not let him. He was abducted and taken to the Hasidut's court in Sadigora, to be "persuaded," but was released from his imprisonment by loc