Felt the same thing many times. My kids had more friends killed in one day than I had in my entire life. Yet Israel is still ultimately a safer place for Jews.
You don't have to keep your head down and not wear a kippah in Stamford Hill or Gateshead or Prestwich. This is just nonsense. There are places in the UK that you do *but that is only a result of the decision to build a country in a place where it would mean endless warfare*. It's not clear what can be done about this vicious cycle where Zionism makes it increasingly untenable to live outside Israel except in a Charedi bubble, while existence in Israel becomes increasingly dangerous, leading to even more war which makes it even harder to live in the diaspora etc.. Probably nothing. But it's not something for Zionists to gloat about. More something to apologise for.
Good news for the Jews! Good news for the Slifkins and Scott Kahns of the world! The Irrationalist Modoxer has another post from the dear pro-Torah soldier! Hot off the press from yesterday! Read about it here!
"Yes, I grew up in a very, very safe environment. But taking Jewish history as a whole, it was a bubble. For nearly four hundred of the past thousand years, Jews were banned from England. And only two generations ago, things had been very different for the Jews in the rest of Europe."
Therefore what? Jews were being slaughtered in Europe in the 1940s, so it's better to die now in Israel that stay safely somewhere else? Is that actually your argument?
"Today, there is no serious threat to life for Jews in England. But you have to keep your head down, and it’s best to wear a hat to hide your kippah. The next district over from Manchester is Rochdale, whose parliamentary representative is an open supporter of Hezbollah and Hamas. And universities in England and the USA can be equally hostile to Jews.
Contrast that with how my children are growing up in Israel. They are so proud and outgoing with their Jewishness. They are involved with the country, with the nation, in every way. They are leading a life that involves youth movements and army or national service. They have met thousands more Jews their age than I ever met."
I don't know if you've ever heard of this place called 'Lakewood,' but there are a tremendous amount of extremely proud frum Jews living there. Also, there's an Israeli member of Knesset who literally served as an advisor to Yasser Arafat, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Tibi and another one who isn't quite sure whether he thinks Palestinian militant groups should disarm. https://www.timesofisrael.com/raams-abbas-urges-armed-palestinian-factions-to-disarm-before-softening-statement/ (The latter was a member of a coalition which you celebrated because- what else?- it excluded those icky charedim. But I digress.)
"She knows that she is named after a woman who at her age was in a concentration camp and how significant it is that her great-granddaughter is in the IDF."
I don't doubt the poignancy of her feelings or the sincerity of her belief in taking her destiny into her own hands, but it's not a particularly compelling argument to anyone who doesn't already buy into your worldview.
Sorry to rain on everybody's parade. This is beautiful (in its own way) but sad. The way you grew up is much better. Whatever this thing that you replaced Judaism with is, it's not Judaism.
It is not proper according to halacha for your daughter to have a boy friend. In your words he "was a friend of hers."
Are you sincerely orthodox? Or with your changes, did adherence to halacha decline? It seems pretty obvious to me. And it makes it hard to accept many things you say as honest rather than an excuse to be less religious.
Today there was a multi-school choral assembly in Jerusalem. Our son (ten years old) was one of the singers; one of their songs was dedicated to the graduates of their school (about four, I think) who have fallen in this war. They join the roughly *forty* others, listed on a plaque at the school entrance, who have fallen in various wars since the school was founded about eighty years ago.
I once put up a picture of the plaque and American friends were shocked that there would be such a thing in a school. Of course, *every* school in Israel has such a memorial.
But as you said, that's because we've been living in a bubble for a few decades. Just to take an example from Orthodox Jews: During World War II, Yeshiva University's yearbooks, each year, began with a very long list of students, alumni, and faculty who were serving- with memorials to those who had fallen at the top. That's more of what the world is really like.
Israel resembles the Jewish diaspora enclave, but on a larger scale. A devout Jew could face hostility in an Arab neighborhood or even at a leftist protest. A uniformed soldier might be barred entry to an Arab-run café or a lecture by a leftist professor at a university. Israeli generals, lacking in resolve, adhere to idealistic "ethical guidelines" and shy away from pursuing victory. And the cycle continues.
Don't worry, Avi and Banana have permission to be on the internet commenting on blogs. In their "yeshiva", they also have a pool table, snack bar, and frequent field trips.
When you read here the repeated personal humiliations of ultra-Orthodox people about the fact that the national religious is not life according to their worldview, and that their "religious" life is much different from that of the national religious, the conclusion is that they are unable to see things from a different perspective than their own. They wave "laws" that do not exist and are convinced that this is how the people of Israel ruled from time immemorial. Therefore, there is also no point in reacting to their personal evil towards the other. They are simply unable to think differently than they were brought up. And their attitude towards anyone who does not fit into their "bed of Sodom" is that the man sins.
Really beautiful, thanks
Felt the same thing many times. My kids had more friends killed in one day than I had in my entire life. Yet Israel is still ultimately a safer place for Jews.
In England one exists. In Israel one lives
Dov and I are right there with you.
Love this piece. Every word.
You don't have to keep your head down and not wear a kippah in Stamford Hill or Gateshead or Prestwich. This is just nonsense. There are places in the UK that you do *but that is only a result of the decision to build a country in a place where it would mean endless warfare*. It's not clear what can be done about this vicious cycle where Zionism makes it increasingly untenable to live outside Israel except in a Charedi bubble, while existence in Israel becomes increasingly dangerous, leading to even more war which makes it even harder to live in the diaspora etc.. Probably nothing. But it's not something for Zionists to gloat about. More something to apologise for.
Good news for the Jews! Good news for the Slifkins and Scott Kahns of the world! The Irrationalist Modoxer has another post from the dear pro-Torah soldier! Hot off the press from yesterday! Read about it here!
https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/voice-from-the-front-about-machlokes
"Yes, I grew up in a very, very safe environment. But taking Jewish history as a whole, it was a bubble. For nearly four hundred of the past thousand years, Jews were banned from England. And only two generations ago, things had been very different for the Jews in the rest of Europe."
Therefore what? Jews were being slaughtered in Europe in the 1940s, so it's better to die now in Israel that stay safely somewhere else? Is that actually your argument?
"Today, there is no serious threat to life for Jews in England. But you have to keep your head down, and it’s best to wear a hat to hide your kippah. The next district over from Manchester is Rochdale, whose parliamentary representative is an open supporter of Hezbollah and Hamas. And universities in England and the USA can be equally hostile to Jews.
Contrast that with how my children are growing up in Israel. They are so proud and outgoing with their Jewishness. They are involved with the country, with the nation, in every way. They are leading a life that involves youth movements and army or national service. They have met thousands more Jews their age than I ever met."
I don't know if you've ever heard of this place called 'Lakewood,' but there are a tremendous amount of extremely proud frum Jews living there. Also, there's an Israeli member of Knesset who literally served as an advisor to Yasser Arafat, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Tibi and another one who isn't quite sure whether he thinks Palestinian militant groups should disarm. https://www.timesofisrael.com/raams-abbas-urges-armed-palestinian-factions-to-disarm-before-softening-statement/ (The latter was a member of a coalition which you celebrated because- what else?- it excluded those icky charedim. But I digress.)
"She knows that she is named after a woman who at her age was in a concentration camp and how significant it is that her great-granddaughter is in the IDF."
I don't doubt the poignancy of her feelings or the sincerity of her belief in taking her destiny into her own hands, but it's not a particularly compelling argument to anyone who doesn't already buy into your worldview.
Sorry to rain on everybody's parade. This is beautiful (in its own way) but sad. The way you grew up is much better. Whatever this thing that you replaced Judaism with is, it's not Judaism.
It is not proper according to halacha for your daughter to have a boy friend. In your words he "was a friend of hers."
Are you sincerely orthodox? Or with your changes, did adherence to halacha decline? It seems pretty obvious to me. And it makes it hard to accept many things you say as honest rather than an excuse to be less religious.
Slifkin writes an innocent post about his own community and the pack unleashes a personal attack on him. This is a mad world.
"the risk of spiritual harm is irrelevant."
Statement made by the man himself in these very comments!
All his arguments are worthless sewage. Complete stop. Do not rely on anything he says.
Case closed.
This is a wonderful post. Agree with your sentiments completely.
Today there was a multi-school choral assembly in Jerusalem. Our son (ten years old) was one of the singers; one of their songs was dedicated to the graduates of their school (about four, I think) who have fallen in this war. They join the roughly *forty* others, listed on a plaque at the school entrance, who have fallen in various wars since the school was founded about eighty years ago.
I once put up a picture of the plaque and American friends were shocked that there would be such a thing in a school. Of course, *every* school in Israel has such a memorial.
But as you said, that's because we've been living in a bubble for a few decades. Just to take an example from Orthodox Jews: During World War II, Yeshiva University's yearbooks, each year, began with a very long list of students, alumni, and faculty who were serving- with memorials to those who had fallen at the top. That's more of what the world is really like.
Israel resembles the Jewish diaspora enclave, but on a larger scale. A devout Jew could face hostility in an Arab neighborhood or even at a leftist protest. A uniformed soldier might be barred entry to an Arab-run café or a lecture by a leftist professor at a university. Israeli generals, lacking in resolve, adhere to idealistic "ethical guidelines" and shy away from pursuing victory. And the cycle continues.
Don't worry, Avi and Banana have permission to be on the internet commenting on blogs. In their "yeshiva", they also have a pool table, snack bar, and frequent field trips.
When you read here the repeated personal humiliations of ultra-Orthodox people about the fact that the national religious is not life according to their worldview, and that their "religious" life is much different from that of the national religious, the conclusion is that they are unable to see things from a different perspective than their own. They wave "laws" that do not exist and are convinced that this is how the people of Israel ruled from time immemorial. Therefore, there is also no point in reacting to their personal evil towards the other. They are simply unable to think differently than they were brought up. And their attitude towards anyone who does not fit into their "bed of Sodom" is that the man sins.