FAKER EXPOSED: “Chareidi” in Yerushalayim Revealed as Christian Missionary, Wrote Tefillin, Officiated at Chasunos

April 25, 202111:21 am all credit goes to Matzav.com

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There is shock in the chareidi community in the French Hill neighborhood in Yerushalayim, asa local kohein and Sofer Stam in the area has turned out to be a gentile, a Christian missionary. His children have been studying in local educational institutions and Bais Yaakov.

The father identified himself as a kohein, wrote tefillin and mezuzos, conducted pidyon habens, and even served as mesader kiddushin at weddings. Now it turns out, this man is a gentile.

After investigations by the Bechadrei Chareidim news outlet, it became clear that the family immigrated to Israel from the United States using forged documents.

The family settled in the Yerushalayim neighborhood. Not long ago, the mother of the family fell ill, and the whole community mobilized to help. After her passing, the community even opened a dedicated charity fund, with everyone donating to the immigrant family, who didn’t have any relatives.

Following the activities of various activists, it became clear that the family is Christian. The father’s goal was to integrate into the chareidimcommunity and spread his religion among the ultra-Orthodox.

Yoni Cayman, a resident of the neighborhood, related: “Until now, the askanim kept it a secret, because they did not want the father of the family to flee to another neighborhood and they wanted to act behind the scenes to prevent him from gaining citizenship.

“Finally, we felt that we had to reveal it to the residents and prevent him from fleeing to another neighborhood.”

This morning, the father blurred his family photo on his Facebook profile, deleting posts from there, while at the same time running another Facebook profile.

Yoni related: “When asked by investigators, he admitted that he was indeed a missionary. Now we have involved various activists in order to act against the family.”

Meir Eisenstadt, another resident, reacted: “We froze the money that the charity fund has collected in order to support the family. We are in shock.”

Activists who specialize in these scams revealed that they’ve known about this fraud for six years. It turns out that the gentile studied in the past in the kollel of the mekubal Rav Benayahu Shmueli, but following a request from activists fighting his fraud, he was thrown out of the kollel. It also appears that six years ago he was questioned by experts in the field, but then claimed that he had left his missionary activity behind.

A local organization, which has been involved in this matter, said today that this is a case that they have been familiar with for many years, and according to them, “The publication of this sordid affair is now detrimental to our effort behind the scenes to deal with this case and deal with impersonation of other missionaries.”

{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau}

Jewish Intolerance and Sephardim By Jeremy Rosen

 

Jewish Intolerance and Sephardim

by Jeremy Rosen

ALL CREDIT GOES TO THE ALGEMENER JOURNEL and the Author.

To confuse matters, when Hasidism, a European Ashkenazi movement, emerged in the 18th century, it adopted the mystical style of prayer attributed to Rebbi Yitzchak Luria — who lived in Safed — and called it Nusah Sefard, the Oriental style. Although there was nothing Oriental about those who used it.

In 1948, there was a massive expulsion of Jews from Arab and other Muslim lands. Most ended up in Israel where they were described as Mizrahim — Easterners — which carried the reek of discrimination and condescension. They were treated as second-class citizens. Israel was poor at the time, struggling to survive. It had to absorb nearly a million refugees. Many were penniless and lacked the skills and language to adapt. Their conditions were rudimentary and their opportunities meager. The Jews who dominated government and society for the first 30 years of the state regarded the poorer more traditional Mizrahim as inferior. To be fair, they also treated the Germans, the Yekkes, with disdain and every other immigrant community that came after them.

The popular attitudes towards Jews from the Orient belied important distinctions. Some Sephardi communities were more influenced by modernity than others. Some were richer, more multilingual, and assimilated. Many identified with Muslim national aspirations, particularly in North Africa. Some Mizrahim belonged to marxist and socialist movements. And nowadays they can be found supporting the Opposition in Israel. Most ironic of all, many Mizrahim actually came from the Maghreb, which is North Africa and much further West than the vast majority of Ashkenazim, who came from Middle and Eastern Europe.

Yet I have met Persians who resent being called Mizrahim, while at the same time claiming Spanish descent. Everyone seems to have a different perspective.

Things began to change under Menahem Begin’s leadership. Although Ashkenazi, he had inordinate respect for the very traditionalist Sephardim. In Israel before Begin, it was rare to see anyone in government employ wearing a kipa or other outward sign of religiosity. Under Begin, the pendulum began to swing the other way. Which is one explanation as to why nowadays the Mizrahi vote is overwhelmingly right instead of left. And now the marriage rate between the two communities runs at nearly 40%.

The overwhelming mood of Israeli life has nowadays shifted firmly eastwards in terms of music, dance, and culture — even religion. There was no Reform movement in the Sephardi world, which explains the dissonance in Israel between Israeli Judaism and American. Mizrahim tend to be more tolerant of religious laxity while being very loyal to tradition. In Israel to this day it is the Ashkenazi Haredim who are most prejudiced, towards non-religious Jews and particularly towards Sephardi Jews — often limiting the number of students they accept into their schools, or simply segregating them.

The late, great Sephardi authority, Rav Ovadia Yosef, did his best for Sephardi pride. He used to campaign against Sephardi students imitating the styles and dress of the Ashkenazi Haredi world. He even established a Sephardi Haredi alternative party.

It is because of the negativity of some Ashkenazim and others that I prefer not to use the term Mizrahi (which in my youth stood and still does in some circles, for the Religious Zionists), and say Sephardim instead. After all, many Sephardim like to append to their names the letters ST — Sephardi Tahor. Pure Sephardi. The aristocrats — as indeed they were for most of the past 2,000 years. While medieval Europe was barbaric, much (but not all) of the Sephardi world was in fact superior in every way to the Ashkenazi.

It is often said that most Sephardi Jews did not experience or lose family members in the Holocaust. And most did not. Nevertheless, there were a significant number of Jews from Greece, the Balkans, and other areas invaded by the Nazis who did indeed perish in Auschwitz. No community had exclusivity of suffering.

Israel is a variegated, complex, and multifaceted society. It is often said that Sephardim are extremely anti-Muslim because of the way they were humiliated and then expelled. Others say that the Sephardim lived far better under Islam than Christianity. They can point, perhaps controversially, to brief windows of “Convivencia.”  Some say that Sephardi rabbis get on better with imams and Ashkenazi rabbis with priests. And I have also heard the opposite. There are just as many openminded tolerant Jews of all backgrounds and identities, as there are intolerant ones.

I just wish we Jews were more tolerant of our own differences and got on better with each other. As the late Chief Rabbi Lord Jakobovits used to say, “Jews are the same as everyone else, except more so.”

A picture taken by Rabbi Isser Zalman Weisberg of the 1st 13 students of Lakewood. All credit goes to Him and the Circus Blogspot.

 

Rav Feldman’s Selective Approach to Gedolim

Rav Feldman’s Selective Approach to Gedolim

ALL Credit goes to Rabbi Harry Maryles who is the Author of this post.

Rav Aharon Feldman (Baltimore Jewish Life)

I was a fan of the current Ner Israel Rosh HaYeshiva. It was Rav Aharon Feldman who showed true compassion for - and understanding of gay individuals in a letterhe sent to a gay Baal Teshuva. Unlike the typical attitude expressed by so many Orthodox Jews that do not understand the Torah’s admonition in this regard, Rav Feldman said the following:

 ‘Judaism looks negatively at homosexual activity, but not at the homosexual nature.’

It takes a man of great courage to express a view that at the outset might seem to go against the grain of the Charedi world he is a part of. A view that does not differentiate between the gay individual and the gay behavior.  Rav Feldman is right of course. I have expressed the same view many times when discussing the subject.

I said ‘I was a fan’. I no longer am. It appears that his moderate approach to gay people does not extend to other areas. There have been numerous instances where Rav Feldman has shown his ‘extremist’ side. One which mimics that of Satmar. Or the late Rav Shmuel Auerbach. 

As I noted last week Rav Feldman supports public protest (even violent protest if necessary) against the Israeli government’s requirement for Charedim to register for the draft. Which they require before issuing a deferment - as long as they continue to study Torah full time. 

He has expressed this view in spite of the fact that the two recognized leading Charedi Gedolim -one of whom is Rav Chaim Kanievsky - saying otherwise. Choosing the path of peace by registering and avoiding conflict. 

And as noted last week he has come out with strident opposition to voting in the ZOA elections. Even though voting in them has been endorsed by 2 of the current Charedi Gedolim - one of whom is the same Rav Chaim Kanievsky.

What makes this particularly egregious is Rav Feldman’s selective approach to listening to Gedolim that are recognized by the very community he inhabits.  When Rabbi Natan Slifkin’s books attempting reconcile Torah and science were banned by Rav Elyashiv, ZTL, Rav Feldman was taken aback since he had endorsed those books. 

He traveled to Israel to meet with Rav Elyashiv in order to ascertain that he had actually issued that ban. Which Rav Elyashiv assured him that he did. He came back duly chastened and proceeded to drop his approbation and explain why he changed his mind and now considered those books to be heretical.

But this time he has defied them. He instead issued his own Psak explaining his own mind on the subject. Which he failed to do with Rabbi Slifkin. 

Here is the latest development.

According to VIN, Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky who has advocated voting in the WZO election had written a detailed letter to Rav Kanievsky describing the WZO’s historic anti religious outlook, what is currently at stake, and whether it was OK to vote in their election.  Rav Kanievsky said that there was absolutely no Halachic or Hashkafic problem with voting in the WZO election despite their historic anti religious identity.

As noted Feldman rejected that Psak and issued his own forbidding a Jew to vote in an organization that is so openly anti religious. He says it would imply support for that organization.

I understand why he feels that way. It is pretty much the same rationale used for not standing on the same stage with a Reform rabbi because it lends legitimacy to their illegitimate version of Judaism. But I’m sure that Rav Kanievsky is well aware of that argument and has still supported voting in the election.

The difference between the two cases should be obvious to Rav Feldman. In the ZOA case, voting not only helps divert some of their funds towards religious organizations - it reduces the amount of money the Reform movement will be able to use to undermine Orthodoxy in Israel. A cause they have openly promoted and promised to achieve. Rav Feldman is therefore in essence helping them do that.

Rav Feldman is not stupid. He has to know that his ‘Psak’ will have a negative impact on the very thing he wishes to oppose. And yet he seems to believe in symbolism over substance - against the advice of someone greater than himself. 

This is only the latest disappointment I’ve had in him.  He has disappointed me in two other instances that I recall in which he showed his extremist side (besides the above mentioned support of even violent resistence to the Israeli draft). 

One was at a Torah U’Mesorah meeting where he said that the brightest students in the American Yeshiva world should avoid any secular studies at all because it hinders their ability to achieve greatness in Torah at an ealy age. For which he used his own Israeli grandson as an example - saying ‘By age 16 he knew every Tosepehos in Kesubos by heart!’ ‘How many Yeshiva students in Americca do that?!’ 

Fortunately he was put in his place by another great rabbinic leader,Telshe Rosh HaYeshiva, Rav Avrohom Chaim Levine, ZTL telling him that he would match the Torah Knowledge of his own Talmidim in Telshe (which b’shita offers a secular studies curriculum in high school) against any students in Israel he would put forward.

The other disappointment was his vehement criticism of Zionism in any form - including religious Zionism. About which he said the following (in a Jewish Action article quoting from his book): 

 “enjoying the unstinting support of the vast majority of religious Jewry” (p. 3) seems enigmatic. This anomaly is both befuddling and threatening, as it raises the specter of mass apostasy and the prospect of resultant retribution, variously described in Tanach. Hence, we are told that in order to ward off potential calamity, it was essential to reject the Zionist ethos in toto. “It is out of love for the Jewish People that I found it necessary to expose the vacuity of Zionist ideology” 

One does not need to be a religious Zionist to be outraged by this attitude. Thankfully he was taken to task in that article by his childhood friend, Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, ZTL.

This latest incarnation of extremism seems to be a pattern of going from bad to worse. In forbidding action that will help heterodoxy achieve their anti orthodox  goals, he becomes a partner in that crime. I therefore believe it is essential for the entire Orthodox community to do what Rav Lichtenstein did, reject Rav Feldman's advice and vote in the ZOA elections. And pray that he does Teshuva and returns to the previous respect he had for religious leaders that are greater than him. And to common sense as well.

Megilat Hayesod- Of The Agudat Kedushat Tzion Movement

 All credit goes to Rabbi Yisrael Shapira and the Kikar Hashabbat Website.