The Redefiners of Judaism Take Insult as Usual

 

Education Minister Rabbi Rafi Peretz stated in a cabinet meeting that the rate of assimilation among the Jewish community in the United States is “like a second Holocaust.” His reference was in respect of the facts known that over fifty-percent of Jews in the United States, Canada and Europe are intermarrying with Christians and secular humanists leaving their Judaism behind ignored and in tatters. Immediately after his comments were leaked, a problem in Israel just as it is in the United States and other Western governments, many Conservative and Reform Jews in the United States. Their insistence is that Rabbi Peretz is ignorant and insensitive to Jews in the Diaspora. This is far from the first time that an Israeli has been accused with lacking the proper attitudes and totally misunderstanding the true reality of what it means to be a Jew in the modern age. This is always how the condemnation of the insistence by Israeli Jews, largely the Orthodox community, for their insensitivity and lack of knowledge of what modern Judaism has evolved into. Their claims are simple, they should define what is a Jew and what Judaism actually believes and means as they call it, in this modern age.

 

We thought that perhaps as av graduate of this United States Diaspora Jews inculcations by which Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist and other non-Orthodox branches of Judaism have redefined the Halacha to fit their social constructs making them estranged from Torah. The main terminology one would hear from these New Age Jews is Tikkun Olam which they define as repair the world. They take this idea and instead of it meaning that they need to perfect and improve themselves in order to make the world right, they think that they need to make everyone else come around and believe as they do in order to repair the world. They have redefined the Commandments of Torah bending them in order to align them with the platform of the Democrat Party and the beliefs of Secular Humanists. Their reactions to anybody who does not fall in line with their beliefs and definitions are immediately considered to be any of any number of stock names, racist, homophobic, sexist or any other of the plethora of labels thrown around to slam their opponents making them easily discarded as ignorant and uninformed boors. So, how is it that things changed to the point that I not only support Rabbi Rafi Peretz and most of what he has stated, all of which has perturbed the Diaspora Jews and their Tikkun Olam warping of the Commandments of Torah and Judaism.

 

The first thing which probably made my transition to Traditional Orthodoxy since making Aliyah returning home to Eretz Yisroel was our coming home with absolutely no preconceived notions of what to expect of Israel, the societal means or almost anything at all. We came with a wait and see what it is we had come into and exactly what the effects were going to be. It took about six months before finding out that it is far easier to be a practicing Jew in Israel than it was in most places in the United States, especially since I often resided in places like north-central Wyoming where the closest Synagogue was over four-hundred-miles distant and Kosher foods were next to impossible outside of Hebrew National salamis. Then began regular attendance to services, joining classes about Talmud, Torah, Haftorah and other things which covered Judaism and the Commandments giving it straight and without bending, twisting, spindling and otherwise mutilating these writings. This led to noting that most of Judaism was very different from what had been instructed and far more self-centered with the intent for self-improvement. Judaism also had no desire to change other people from outside of Judaism but to improve ourselves to such a degree that others will desire to strive for self-improvement. Judaism, as it has been explained, provides Commandments by which Jews can improve their interaction with others and make of themselves people living an enviable life while not proselytizing others and never even attempting to make converts of others. Judaism is to be practiced by the Jewish People and also converts, despite Judaism making conversion fairly difficult. Often, true conversion takes at a minimum two years of intense studying, and then passing queries posed by a panel of Rabbis.

 

The Ten Commandments

 

Conversion brings us to another point which we will utilize to show the difficulty facing the Jews of the Diaspora and the Jews within Israel. The Chief Rabbinate set the rules for which one is considered Jewish, including how to convert to Judaism. Needless to point out, conversion to Judaism has strict rules before it is accepted by the Chief Rabbinate. This has brought great amounts of condemnation from largely leftist Jewish groups and the leadership of the Conservative, Reform and other non-Orthodox folds of Judaism. Their complaint is that many conversions they have performed are unacceptable within Israel and one who converts to Judaism under many of their systems are not acceptable as being a Jew unless they again convert in Israel under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate. The Chief Rabbinate is often labeled as being overly strict, restrictive and narrow-minded in their recognition of conversions and they need to become more liberal allowing for these New-Age Judaism and their open-mindedness allowing for an open definition as to who is Jewish as after all, there should be little difference between conversion to Judaism and conversion to any other religion. They are totally aware that their critics are based on falsehoods as the Israeli Chief Rabbinate accepts conversions conducted by the RCA (Rabbinical Council of America), the Orthodox Union (OU) and here is a list of approved conversion performed outside Israel. The list is relatively extensive and approved conversions can be readily found by any desiring to convert and ready for a minimum of two years of intense learning.

 

But those Jewish groups and other non-Orthodox branches of Judaism refuse to accept that the Israeli Chief Rabbinate uses identical rules and requirements to those used by every of those listed as approved which in the United States include the RCA and OU conversions. Again, those in the Diaspora insist that Israel bend their rules and accept their definition of Judaism simply because they are more enlightened, open-minded free-thinking and tolerant. That is partly the problem as Judaism must remain strictly defined and steeped in traditions as well as kept honoring, respecting and following the exact rules of Torah given by Moses during the Exodus. Judaism is not to conform to the ideas of the Justice Democrats, the New Israel Fund, IfNotNow and numerous other Jewish leftist groups who all demand Israel accept their unarguable perfect and correct definitions of Judaism and what it means to be a good person. Their vision is an Israel as a subordinate to the Democrat Party platform and the leftist agenda based on their concepts of justice, LGBTQ rights, human rights, and demanding that Israel sacrifice whatever it takes to reach peace with the Palestinian Authority. Basically, these Diaspora Jews refuse to accept Torah Judaism as it has been defined for over three-thousand-years and instead supplant Torah with their LGBTQ, international justice, human tights and numerous other leftist central beliefs replacing Torah. Having lived in both communities, it can honestly be stated that Torah Judaism is centered and planted firmly in Jewish history and practice while the leftist justice warriors who insist that they can make and define a batter Judaism would not be planted and continue into the future with anywhere near the practicality of Torah which has steadies and defined Judaism for three-thousand-years plus. Judaism must remain centered on Torah which has been its anchor and the rock upon which it was founded. This does not mean that Judaism should ignore modernity, Judaism just need remain set in Torah while moderating these other new liberal and leftist concepts and ideas which Diaspora Jews are so enamored. We in Israel need not fear these Jews redefining Israel as the odds for their ever-making Aliyah, if what has been experienced when we decided to make Aliyah, the number of Conservative Jews from our congregation dumbfounded asking why would we ever desire to go to such a forbidding place. After moving here, we can inform these Jews, though they will not believe us, but they are the ones residing in what is rapidly becoming a forbidding place and Israel is the little wonder of the world.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Mandelblit Demands to Decide Israeli Elections

 

Israeli Attorney General Mandelblit, with the cooperation and support from State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan, has entered into the elections, now that the lists have been submitted and formalized, and has insisted that he decide which candidates are permitted to be in the Knesset and who must be denied entry into that body. Should he get away with this breach of legal etiquette and have the Central Elections Committee simply rubber-stamp his pronouncements, Attorney General Mandelblit will become the Lord High Elector casting his pale shadow over every candidate list deciding who can stay and who must go before the people are permitted any say with their votes. In the past week, Mandelblit has announced that he opposes the disqualification of the Arab Lists of Balad, Hadash and Ta’al parties from running in the elections. On the other end of the political spectrum, the story is quite different, as Mandelblit has submitted a request to disqualify Otzma Yehudit candidates attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir does not present sufficient evidentiary basis that would allow it to be accepted. These are the two candidates Otzma Yehudit has on the list with Jewish Home and National Union Parties.

 

Mandelblit based his claims against the two Otzma Yehudit on the “grounds of incitement to racism.” This poses the question as to why Otzma Yehudit should be tagged as unacceptable as they call for annexation of Judea and Samaria and expediting the voluntary emigration of Arab Palestinians while the Arab Lists are not being racist when they back armed revolt against Israel and dispossessing the Jews and have given open support to terrorist groups which murder Israeli citizens. The answer is clearly obvious once one includes the abrupt bringing of charges against the sitting Prime Minister and leader of the Likud Party right before the elections such that he can keep pounding the charges against Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu right up to the election and potentially have him barred from running by the Supreme Court. This is a political coup by other means than a military take-over, a putsch by prosecution. Mandelblit has proven that he is not fit to be Attorney General of the State of Israel as he appears to be unable to put aside his politically rose-colored glasses which makes every conservative, nationalist, Zionist and religious Jew into an raging racist and the leftists, socialists, and Israel detractors who call for the end of the Jewish State as an oppressed minority towards whom all should genuflect.

 

Mandelblit claims that statements made by Ahmed Tibi, Ayman Odeh, and Balad members supporting the “resistance to the occupation,” according to which, causing harm to a soldier is not terrorism, that this does not provide the evidentiary basis for disqualifying the parties. The Otzma Yehudit Party criticized the Attorney General’s decision stating, “The time has come to change the equation and inform the supporters of terrorism that they are not wanted in the Israeli Knesset. Democracy must defend itself, and the free hand that the Attorney General gives to the Balad members, to Ahmed Tibi and to Ayman Odeh, causes there to be in the Knesset an evil axis that supports terror, incites against the state, and receives a salary at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer on top of it.” Meanwhile, the candidates from Otzma Yehudit must be disqualified as they belong to the party which was founded in the spirit of Zionism and the thoughts of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach Party was disqualified for being too powerful and potentially might have placed Rabbi Kahane as Prime Minister, thus the Kach Party became racist and against the spirit of the State of Israel. But still the petition from the Reform Movement and Knesset members Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) and Stav Shafir (Labor) claiming racism against Ben-Ari and Ben-Gvir, the entirety of the Otzma Yehudit candidates on the list, for they incited against Arabs after terror attacks, used influence on the soccer fields to incite and more items which just cannot be made-up. Wait one second, there was one unforgivable sin committed by Otzma Yehudit Party and their candidates, they made repeated attempts to ‘revive’ the image and teachings of Rabbi Kahane. Well, there go my dreams of ever becoming Prime Minister as eventually they might dig deep enough to find out I was a supporter of the good Rabbi, may his memory be a blessing.

 

Apparently, the left just cannot let go of their hatred for the man who was proven to be correct about everything he predicted would be coming at Israel and today we are facing the exact existential threats which Rabbi Kahane wanted to prevent by cutting them off before they could grow to proportions beyond the ability for Israel to control. A solid argument can be made that had the PLO and Hamas been quashed instead of catered and treated like delicate flowers, not terrorists, then there probably would not be any Hezballah as that organization was not even an idea until after Yasser Arafat started a revolution to overthrow the Christian heritage and government in Lebanon. Furthermore, the left knows they will be unable to oust Prime Minister Netanyahu from being the person chosen to form a ruling coalition but they might be able to make his efforts fruitless or simply having to allow at least the more numerous leftist parties a seat at the table. If the left can petition the religious Zionist candidates from their respective tickets, this will cause many who would have supported the list they had joined to become disenfranchised and very possibly staying home and not voting. They are also going directly at the Prime Minister with charges which the rest of the world, including a number of Harvard and Yale lawyers, have found irresistibly hilarious. Mandelblit, those people laughing and claiming that no self-respecting prosecutor would ever take such charges to trial or even seek an indictment are not laughing because they believe you got Bibi in your crosshairs, they are laughing at you for thinking you have Bibi in your crosshairs. They are laughing because they cannot believe you are going to try and remove the Prime Minister over cigars and champagne, speaking with media owners seeking fairer coverage, refusing a bribe to press certain regulatory bills favoring one newspaper over another and being so bribed that Bibi voted against the measure, and these are your cases. These accusations are weaker and far less convincing than the threatened charges from the Attorney General’s office in the run-up to the last elections. We can only hazard a guess at what charges will be brought if Bibi should run once more, for example breaking fashion standards by wearing white shoes after November first or holding a formal dinner and serving tuna salad sandwiches with Kool-Aid, and just one flavor of Kool-Aid, grape. Things really are getting this ludicrous.

 

When it comes to anything right of center, even center as defined by the left, which places the actual center to the right or even the far or distant right, thus any truly conservative party is automatically the radical right, centrists who are neutral are relabeled as the right, and anyone with strong rightist views become an intolerable fascist beast who must be destroyed for the good of the cause and claimed to be done to save the nation. When the agreement was announced that Otzma Yehudit would gain two slots in the Jewish Home list of which only one has a great chance and the second a slight chance, quite slight, Y-net News reported, “A dynasty of racism and provocation is on its way to the Israeli parliament.” Another article, this time in Arutz Sheva stated, “Otzma Yehudit, led by former Kach movement activists Michael Ben-Ari, Baruch Marzel, and attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir, has been linked with the ideology of Jewish Defense League founder and former Knesset Member Rabbi Meir Kahane. Rabbi Kahane advocated the expulsion of Arab residents of Israel, and was barred from the Knesset in 1988, after serving one term.” Rabbi Kahane favored encouraged emigration for the Arab population, a far cry from expulsion. Expulsion is what much of the Arab world across the Middle East and Northern Africa did to their Jewish citizens, and these Jews were long-standing citizens whose families had resided at their location for hundreds upon hundreds of years before being thrown from their homes and businesses being dispossessed of every ounce of wealth and sent packing often allowing merely one suitcase, if that, and even that was searched for anything of value on the way out. Israel absorbed and integrated into the society over eight-hundred-thousand of these Jews but the entire Arab world has been unable to integrate or absorb a single Arab who probably left their home obeying the orders from their own Mufti of Jerusalem. As Rabbi Kahane stated, Israel is for the Jews and Arabia should be for the Arabs. But Rabbi Kahane desired a peaceful and voluntary emigration and never claimed that an expulsion was required, that is pure leftist spin. Of course, listening to Mandelblit and many from the left and you would believe that Bibi Netanyahu has horns, which we made a picture to assist in seeing such and included it below. Needless to say, but Bibi supporters claim he is an angel and to assist in this there is a picture with this below. We have had many disagreements with Bibi politically where our complaint has been that he is too tentative and refuses to act decisively and pursue a finality, especially when it comes to Hamas and Gaza. We can only guess at what the majority of media might say to those attacking the Prime Minister from the right, and it would not likely be pretty.

 

Bibi Netanyahu, You Devil or You Angel, We Decide

 

The above will be decided by straightforward means the first two weeks of April as Israelis go to the polls and decide the face we will put forth to the world and what policies we will follow. Mandelblit will probably vote in opposition to Bibi and in opposition to all of Bibi’s announced intentions. We will also be voting against Bibi and for Bibi, but not exactly Bibi. Our hope is for a different right of center, religious, Zionist, most definitely Zionist person who knows both the biblical definition of our lands and the Mandate and international law defines as our lands. Should Iran make a move, Israel may very well decide that a natural border to the north is required and make the northern border match the biblical northern border, the Litani River. We could turn the rest of Lebanon into a Christian nation under Israeli protection for as long as it remains Christian. These coming Israeli elections are going to be vitally important as they will set the immediate future should the people actually turn out and vote. Israelis are looking at another situation sort of similar to the 1992 elections where the right wing was still stinging from a media firestorm and the right splintered which handed the left the government despite their taking well under half of the vote. The right is not as splintered, though it does have some outliers which could result in a fair amount of wasted votes. The left basically falls into three parties, the Blue-White Party of Gantz and Lapid, Labor which might still refer to itself as the Zionist Union and the Arab List which largely has people who represent the Palestinian Arabs more fiercely than they do Israeli Arabs. Israel is the only nation where people who desire tearing down the nation and placing under a tyrannical dictator who would murder half of the country’s population is actually represented in their national government.

 

In the case of Israel, both Attorney General Mandelblit and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan support allowing those who would destroy the nation and probably murder most of the Jews, no matter their politics, taking power, transforming the nation from the Jewish homelands to the Jews final resting ground. Should the right require a reminder, it was the disintegration from the right wing which brought forward the Oslo Accords which were designed in secret by leftists who were not in power working with the Netherlands and United States State Department (State Department is all one need know to realize that freedom loving people will suffer from the results) without informing anybody in the government and telling their other partners that they can do this if only they could win an election. Since then, there has often been Democrat operatives working in Israel to support leftist parties despite such being against Israeli election rules, accepting assistance from outside the country. This time the right will once again be facing a unified left who has promised to find the way to provide a state for the Arab Palestinians, the same Arab Palestinians whose leadership claims that the only solution is the replacement of Israel with an Arab Islamic dictatorship completely free of any Jews. That is what they claim and state regularly and we have no reason not to believe what they say would indeed occur should they ever get half a chance of completing their nefarious plans. This Israeli election and every future Israeli election, the right will need to hold the line and not allow any further slippage leftward. Granted, Israel has made great strides despite its socialist beginnings. Israel now has slowly and inexorably been sliding leftward which can be seen by looking at the centrist parties such as the Blue-White Party which would attempt to establish an Arab state carved out of tiny little Israel as an attempt to satisfy the Arab thirst for Israel’s demise. That would simply be blood in the water and the sharks would gather seeking the bleeding source, and that source would be Israel. The left which argued for Oslo was in favor of Israel retaining three-quarters of the regions which had been liberated from Jordanian occupation, and now the centrists, not even the left but the center want to give away virtually all the lands which Jordan had illegally occupied. That is the evidence of a slippery slope which comes from making unilateral concessions at the insistence of the originator of this mess, the United States State Department. These are the functionaries who make many laws by referring to them as regulations and levy taxes calling them fees and can run or destroy the country. In the United States, it is called the “Deep State” and in Israel we can just call it a hive of leftists which we can only be neutralized by electing right wing, religious, Zionist parties; anything less will end the Jewish State of Israel. Our two pictures of Bibi above are also the view which the left wing establishment, which runs much of the media and entertainment programming as well as having a stranglehold on the education and its environment, making them hostile against the very youth Israel needs to make their own ethical decisions. We need look no further than Europe, the United States and Canada to see what could be the result here in Israel if we continue to move leftward with one caveat; we are far smaller and this makes us potentially more vulnerable thus we need to be aware and teach our children exactly what is expected and needed to avoid an inevitable takeover by Islam or any other group which comes along. This is Israel, and we have over four-thousand years of history and have out-survived every great empire which came and went along the way. Mark Twain probably stated it best when he wrote the essay titled, “Concerning the Jew.”

 

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star-dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Israel Must Act Suicidal to Receive Acceptance

 

On the same day that Palestinian Arabs in the Shomron threw pipe-bombs at the Tomb of Rachel while Arabs in Gaza continued to launch incendiary devices into Israel all while Mahmoud Abbas not only continues to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to terrorists and their families each month declaring that this is the most important expenditure of the Palestinian Authority, we find people claiming that Israel should not be permitted to prevent people from entering the country whose designs for entering Israel is disruption and attacks on the government and people. Needless to add, the Europeans expressed shock and intense despair at Israel, not for actually turning away several American Jews who advocate boycotting Israel, but that they were questioned for twenty to thirty minutes as they entered Israel recently. That we are quite used to as many in Europe, politicians included, act in such a manner as to seemingly work towards the destruction of the Jewish State. What was disparaging was when Ron Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, wrote in the New York Times that he was critical of the recently passed Nationality Law, calling out the country’s “Orthodox monopoly” and accusing the Netanyahu administration of damaging “the sense of equality and belonging of Israel’s Druze, Christian, and Muslim citizens.” Mr. Lauder continued with a litany of complaints which largely circled the idea that Israel just does not get it and really needs to stop acting in its own self-interest and instead begin to comply with all the demands of the American Jewish community and their leftist ideologies. Mr. Lauder had in the past and also in the New York Times insisted that Israel be reasonable and pull back behind the pre-Six Day War Green Line and surrender the remainder to the Palestinians enacting the two state solution even without any peace agreement. Apparently Mr. Lauder suffers from a pathology with which we are quite familiar, and love of Israel is not as paramount in his list of priorities as he has indicated, complying and pursuit of his leftist ideologies and forcing them on any and all who have the audacity of disagreeing with that ideology is his foremost driving force.

 

President of the World Jewish Congress, Ron Lauder

 

Now we will delve into this pathology which had taken hold of the majority, if not the vast majority, of the non-Orthodox Jews in the United States. Their unwavering support of the Democrat Party is just one of the signs of this pathology. Their driving force has been given a name from the very Bible they never read, Tikkun Olam. They translate this as “Repair the World” and claim that their leftist, socialist single party desires are the path to such an enlightened state. They insist that spreading this belief far and wide is the true path for completing the task of Tikkun Olam. One of the first concepts I came to grips with after moving to Israel and rediscovering a remarkable religion, Judaism, something I had almost lost when living in the United States, was Tikkun Olam as practiced by Traditional Orthodox Jews. Oddly, it has absolutely nothing to do with leftist ideology, socialism or spreading anything to the less enlightened. Tikkun Olam in the sense it is interpreted in Israel is to work on yourself, your habits, your interactions with others, your dedication to prayer and largely your love of Hashem and everything which he gave us here on Earth such that we could thrive and live with such splendor. Of course I understand that the leftist Jews who are out to change the world to fit their new world order of socialism with free everything for everybody have already perfected themselves. I know this as I had gathered such in countless conversations with numerous of these Jews and a selected few who were totally honest admitted their near perfection. Also, it almost goes without saying, almost to the last one, they believed that I was a monstrous person who was ignorant, rude, ill mannered, uneducated, virtually illiterate and completely clueless about the virtues of their political views and the complete absence of merit in my political views. Thankfully, they did act kindly when we were all in Synagogue and some would even deign to socialize while most simply nodded and continued to avoid us. So, I am not foreign to these crusading true believers who have the inside track on perfection in all areas of life, theirs, yours and mine, if only we would awaken and realize the errors of our ways and then do the proper penance which would include voting for whichever candidate the Democrats run against the demon in the White House, President Trump.

 

The problem is these Jews and all their coreligionists are actually practicing Secular Humanist Socialism and not so much Judaism. Their Synagogues have been converted into centers for group-think and often are used to promote Democrat Party candidates and even have run campaign assistance as a committee within the Synagogue. Their prayerbooks are often devoid of any Zionism declaring for the longing to reestablish the Jews ancient home in Eretz Yisroel. Many of the traditional prayers have either been reworded or done away with completely. Had we attempted to use the prayerbook from some of the Synagogues we belonged to in the United States, we would not have been able to follow a service in a Traditional Orthodox service here in Israel. Their prayerbooks have been sanitized with a new theme centered on all that could be if only the world were remade in a more socialized manner. Sermons often carried messages straight from the leftist list of most important political battles to still be fought and won. In many such Synagogues, they will allow for mixed marriages where one of the couple is Jewish and the other is not. Some will go further and allow same sex marriages in the Synagogue. This is their choice and if that is their idea of Judaism, they are free to pursue exactly what they choose. On Yom Kippur once we were treated to a sermon about how gloriously wonderful the two recent people of a couple married by the Rabbi, but in a hall and not the Synagogue as this was a more religious Synagogue and community, and how they were so gentle and tender and the beautiful point where they were to kiss and how it was almost tearing in many of the attendees eyes as these two men kissed. We were told about the great wonder their love was and all the details. After the service, we heard many members of the congregation congratulating the Rabbi for the great sermon and his willingness to officiate such a wedding and some inquired why the marriage was not held in the Synagogue. Apparently, the Rabbi and the couple mutually decided to hold the ceremony outside the Synagogue was the answer. This was the sermon on the Day of Atonement and nothing deeply spiritual about self-improvement, forgiveness which Hashem bestows upon all of us and an entire history of sermons rich in Torah but instead we sat through a sermon which we found difficult. We were still in the United States when having this experience and there were an extensive list of similar such sermons from back in the 1960’s where my family had joined a Reform Temple, they did not have a Synagogue, but that was not a problem as here everyone was indoctrinated regularly at services in the liberal leftist ideology as if that was what was dictated in Torah. Back then, the name of Hashem was in some of the prayers just as today as it is impossible to say the Shema without naming Hashem.

 

We fully understand where Mr. Lauder was coming from in his articles, though we would have preferred his publishing them in one of the many Jewish publications so as to be less conspicuous as to have the President of World Jewish Congress being so publically critical of Israel is less than helpful. Maybe Mr. Lauder does not realize that Israel is being attacked on all fronts by virtually everyone with an obvious exception, President Donald Trump, the man who actually did move the United States embassy to Jerusalem. But we are pretty sure Mr. Lauder is fully aware that Israel is being attacked. He probably also believes he understands exactly why Israel is being attacked and is the man with the answer, become like the American leftist Jews and stand for the ideals and beliefs they hold dear. Should we complain that doing such would violate Torah, we believe he would refer to the Torah as an old scroll still being written on parchment and as such is obviously outdated and we need to get with the program. Mr. Lauder is far from alone and had a backup choir of very full-throated fellow leftist Jews demanding that Israel throw out the playbook which has kept Judaism alive for over three millennia, and instead pick up the Democrat playbook and adopt the views of the supporters of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as she is their new cheerleader and spokesperson campaigning everywhere as she is just so wonderful. We hope you did not miss the sarcasm. There is also Rabbi Jacobs who also desires that Israel fashion itself after the Democrat Party and Reform Judaism. Both of these men and their ilk are also very upset with Israel for actually having the unmitigated gall to have again elected right wing governments and allowing Bibi Netanyahu to once more be Prime Minister. They would prefer Yair Lapid, Avi Gabbay or Tzipi Livni to be the Prime Minister as their political thoughts and remarkable brilliance in their agreement that the Two State solution is best for Israel. That these political parties would support such a thing as the Two State solution is one of the main reasons they must continue to be in the opposition and not in power. We would love to have these very same Jews come home and we would welcome them, as they are family. As family, we would really prefer to keep our squabbles within the family and not on the editorial page of the New York Times.

 

Beyond the Cusp