48 Comments
User's avatar
Natan Slifkin's avatar

Right now the chareidi apologists are deciding whether to claim that it's unrepresentative or that it's no big deal.

Expand full comment
David Ohsie's avatar

You can’t believe all the advertising signs put up outside of shops. Unless you get it directly from the owner, you have to assume it is a rumor. Do you think that the owner has time to protest every offensive advertising sign outside their shop?

Expand full comment
Robin Alexander's avatar

Yeah, I would think it would rather important for the shop's PR and a prime concern of the owner.

Expand full comment
David Ohsie's avatar

Sorry, my comment was parody.

Expand full comment
Uriah’s Wife's avatar

@D. Ohsie

Unless it’s over the top, sarcasm doesn’t come across well in response to idiocy on blog posts.

Expand full comment
David Ohsie's avatar

I was responding to a subthread to R Slifkin who likely understood what I was writing. Not all jokes work and certainly not for all people; if one can’t live with one doesn’t write them or consume them.

Expand full comment
Jerry Steinfeld's avatar

No one is apologizing for this stupid sign and the fact that this represents an attitude is awful, but be honest, this is more "hock" than anything else of importance.

Expand full comment
Natan Slifkin's avatar

I forgot to add - Robby commented to someone near the sign about how tasteless it is. The person smiled and replied, "In our community, it isn't."

Expand full comment
EKB's avatar

These people really make me angry. How is this Torah Judaism to make fun of war of any kind never mind when it affects your own people? They like to say that it is because of those of us who do not follow their branch of Judaism is why the moshiach has not come. It doesnt even dawn on these selfrighteous a*holes that the Moshiach is not coming because of their attitudes toward their fellow Jews. It is time for the State of Israel to remove all benefits for these leeches

Expand full comment
Robin Alexander's avatar

Great point!

Expand full comment
Shy Guy's avatar

Heels with no souls.

Expand full comment
A. Nuran's avatar

The Charedim have revealed themselves for what they are, the Second of the Four Sons. Let them be slaves in Egypt until they consider themselves part of Israel

Expand full comment
Shlomo Levin's avatar

I usually don't comment on this issue, but that sign really is terrible.

Expand full comment
Neely's avatar

Disgusting. What would be done if this were an Arab-owned shop?

Expand full comment
Rachel A Listener's avatar

Doesn’t Torah say “Do not stand idly by, while your brother bleeds!”

Expand full comment
Mark's avatar

Not their Torah

Expand full comment
Charles Hall's avatar

This is bleeping immoral.

Expand full comment
Yosef Hirsh's avatar

Awful

Expand full comment
Charles Hall's avatar

September 1940. France had fallen to the Nazis less than three months earlier and the anti-Semitic Vichy regime was in power there. The Nazis were bombing Britain mercilessly.

The America First Committee was formed then, with prominent anti-Semites and Nazi sympathizers among its leaders. By one account it had an incredible 800,000 members, drawn from both political parties. The America First crowd was frustrated that both political parties had nominated candidates for President who were fully aware of the danger of the Nazis and opposed the America First isolationism. America First members thought that what was going on in Europe was totally irrelevant to the United States. "It isn't our war" was a common sentiment.

There were even some prominent Jews who signed on. :(

The America First Committee was dissolved December 11, 1941, the day Hitler and Mussolini declared war on the United States.

Expand full comment
Nachum's avatar

I honestly have no idea why you brought this up: Charedim aren't Israel-firsters or isolationists; they are, at best, Israel-nothings. (And at worst Israel-nevers.)

But you can't talk about American isolationism and try to make it seem evil without acknowledging that for most of American history- practically all of it until 1941*- the US was a proudly isolationist country, following the advice of one G. Washington. They may have been wrong, but the America Firsters (those who weren't actual Nazis, of course) of 1940 were more following American tradition than others (and, honestly, *no one* was pushing for the US to get into the war) might have been.

*The US always took an interest in Latin America, as they saw it as their southern flank. Hence the Monroe Doctrine and the Mexican War, although even the latter was strongly opposed by many- then-Congressman Abraham Lincoln spoke and voted against it. Even the US' first big international push, the Spanish-American War, might be seen as part of that.

The only other major example was World War I, which the US entered late and which was madness all around. The suicide of the West, some call it. Having done that, you can understand why Americans would want no part of it.

Of course, the US is a huge country oceans on two sides and more-or-less friendly neighbors on the other two. Israel doesn't have that luxury.

Expand full comment
Charlie Hall's avatar

"the US was a proudly isolationist country"

Just as the America Firsters thought that the wars in Europe and Asia weren't their wars...

"the US was a proudly isolationist country"

That is a spectacular falsehood:

Quasi war with France.

First Barbary War

War of 1812

Second Barbary War

Invasion of Spanish Florida

Mexican-American War

Gunboat diplomacy in Japan

US expedition to Korea

Overthrow of Hawaii government

Spanish-American War

Philippine-American War

Intervention in China during Boxer Rebellion

Detaching Panama from Columbia

Occupation of Cuba

Occupation of Haiti

Occupation of Dominican Republic

Occupation of Nicaragua

Occupation of Veracruz

Pancho Villa Expedition

World War I

Intervention in Russian Civil War

All before 1920.

"Hence the Monroe Doctrine and the Mexican War"

The Monrow Doctrine was about keeping Europe from recolonizing the Western Hemisphere. The Mexican-American War was an unapologetic war of conquest.

The America First Movement had as its supporters some of the worst anti-Semites in America, including Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh. Both were open sympathizers with the Nazi movement. I am surprised you don't understand that.

"more-or-less friendly neighbors"

Want to be friendly. The US has invaded Canada once and Mexico three times. That doesn't make for friendships.

Expand full comment
Nachum's avatar

The vast majority of those you listed were in the Western Hemisphere, which the US saw as its backyard. Most of the rest were to directly protect American commericial interests.

I did say that the America Firsters of 1940 may have been wrong. (Obviously they were, as was proven when Japan attacked and Germany and Italy then declared war. I also said at least some of them were Nazis. I also said "more or less." I basically used words that conceded every one of your points. I'm not sure why you chose not to see them.

I still don't see what any of this has to do with charedim in Israel.

Expand full comment
David Ohsie's avatar

Mostly agree with Nachum here, but 2 things. One is that the US almost certainly could have stayed out WWII. Roosevelt maneuvered us into war (a good idea from the Jewish perspective) by not remaining neutral (e.g. lend-lease and the economic sanctions on Japan.). And many very prominent firsters like Lindbergh and Ford were anti-semitic and racists. There were those who just wanted to stay of the war, but there was also a lot of antisemitism and racism in the movement.

Expand full comment
Nachum's avatar

I agree on both.

It should be mentioned that when the war broke out, Lindbergh volunteered to fight. He was rejected from actual service because of his public stances, so became an aviation advisor (with Ford) so that he was able to eventually actually serve in combat in the Pacific, and even shot down a Japanese plane. Lindbergh was definitely an anti-Semite but condemned the actual Nazi treatment of Jews, and the Nazis in general. (A number of prominent of anti-Semites of that time were similar- when the actual persecutions started they had a bit, or more than a bit, of a wake-up.)

Ford I'm not going to apologize for, except of course he directed his company to get fully into war production well before the US got into it directly.

Expand full comment
Chana Siegel's avatar

Hey, otherwise, all those years spent studying history are wasted, lying fallow...

Expand full comment
Nachum's avatar

It would help their argument if those lecturing us about how charedim have to learn full-time weren't such obvious hypocrites. (Of course, then they wouldn't be here to lecture us.)

Expand full comment
Rachel A Listener's avatar

Scribal Error today has something to say regarding Torah interpretation vs. and Bavli study. Could this be a basis for their blocked bias?

Expand full comment
Robin Alexander's avatar

Kind of disgusting.

Expand full comment
Hanoch's avatar

I will confess my ignorance. I neither understand the comment on the sign, nor what it has to do with shoes.

Expand full comment
Nachum's avatar

I think it's basically "the North and South are on fire because of the war, but here in Meah Shearim our only war is on the prices" or something.

My Arab dentist, who comes from up north, recently sighed to me that in the north and south they get war, and while in Jerusalem we don't, we get terror attacks.

Expand full comment
Rebekah Lee's avatar

Nothing of course! Just pure, crass, American, materialistic capitalism.

They'll take a buck (shekel) anyway they can.

Expand full comment
Aron T's avatar

It kinda reminds me of the Memorial Day sales in the US. People are totally oblivious to how crude that sounds

Expand full comment
Nachum's avatar

The war Memorial Day marks ended over a hundred and fifty years ago.

Expand full comment
Zundel Eysheshoker's avatar

Just explain to me as though I am stupid, what does this have to do with Charedim? Does it even belong to a Charedi? Why does anyone but the advertising firm and the shoe store have to apologize?

Expand full comment
David Ilan's avatar

Well yes. It does take a special kind of stupid (yours) to deny that a shoe store in meah shearim would have anything to do with other than hareidim

Expand full comment
Nachum's avatar

Well, in fairness, we do sometimes go to Charediland to get shoes. But yeah, it's mostly not our kind.

Expand full comment
David Ilan's avatar

You mean nisht unzerer

Expand full comment