I was just commenting on the Rubashkin case on another blog. Apparently they held a big fat rally to support him last night in Lakewood. Here is one of my comments from the other blog.
When I see the state of the Jewish people I wonder what Hashem thinks but, I quickly realize what He must think. Seriously, how is HASHEM supposed to get through the BULLLLLL-headed PHONEY-BALONEY Jews? Who is here to teach Jews the real ways of Torah? At every turn you see these guys in the "Jewish Uniform" slamming against the Torah with their, "non-Jews aren't real people" and their "blame the goyim for everything" attitudes. Anyone who speaks sense is dismissed by these folks. I could try to speak up but, it wouldn't matter. I don't count because I'm a woman. Furthermore, I don't count because I'm a convert. Be that as it may be, I have good faith that HASHEM does not agree with this garbage.
The Curmudgeonly Israeli Giyoret says:
ReplyDeleteIt is my great good fortune that my own relatives are heartland, red-state people, who have no idea who Rubashkin is. Many of them also run small businesses, and honesty and straightforwardness are as much a point of pride as hard work. They would NEVER understand the Rubashkin case or the community response thereto.
To a man (and woman), they became livid when they learned that most Haredi men do not serve in the IDF. I was trying to explain the situation in the most sympathetic way possible, and my Navy vet dad summed up emphatically, "Israelis must really hate them".
That was before he'd heard of massive perennial kollel. For my relatives, an able-bodied man who does not work to support his family (and is not completing a professional degree) is assumed to be a pimp. It would be vulgar to say it out loud, but that's their definition of a man who makes his woman support him.
FWIW I'm male, born Jewish and can put on a fine yeshivish show when the moment so demands. But they won't listen to me either.
ReplyDeleteYou hit the key fact: "Anyone who speaks sense is dismissed by these folks." Yes -- and people who speaks sense in yeshivish dress and a yiddish accent are just dismissed more slowly and politely than the rest. The notion of "sense" itself is dismissible as "goyishe" anyway....
IMO the situation is, on a strategic level, hopeless.
:-[
Yeah, we've got some big problems.
(On the positive side, however, I think a recognition of the hopelessness is the necessary and sole potential avenue forward towards possible solutions.)
I just started reading your blog Michal and am quite interested in your opinion.
ReplyDeleteI converted in 1999 after a LONG journey - I had decided I should be a Jew when I was 9 but my mother told me I could not. Took me a LONG time to grow a, um, backbone and "just do it" short of my 40th birthday. Finally home and happily so.
As for the folks (and my late husband occasionally let the "gentiles aren't really people" rip) that follow that thought train, ask them this:
If Isaiah says that Am Israel is to be a nation of "kings and priests", who will be taught and led?
And if all us Jews are to be Kings and Priests, ummm, just how many kings and priests will be needed in Eretz Israel?
Bonus questions: And how will all the vassels, students AND Jewish Kings/Priests co-exist in little tiny Eretz Israel? Does this mean that many people will just "not make it" to techihat hametim or to Eretz Israel? We all will die and stay dead?