Turkey, a Turkey, and Turkeys
Another Crazy and Wild Week
When Trump was elected, some people thought he would act as the best president for Israel ever, some thought that he would act as the worst. I’m not sure how many people thought he would do both, within the span of just a few weeks. After kowtowing to Iran and Qatar, he’s now kowtowing to Erdogan! The whiplash is jarring. Trump is empowering Turkey and being a turkey.
This week also saw the charedi community ramp up their war with the rest of Israel, shutting down much of the country in protest against even minimal enforcement of the draft. The Gedolim™ are touring North America, raising hundreds of millions of dollars to perpetuate the growth of the charedi freeloading lifestyle. Mishpacha magazine is printing sob stories and editorials about the terrible persecution of charedim. UTJ leader Goldknopf claimed that the charedi community is fighting against becoming the “slaves” of the country. Meanwhile, about a hundred thousand overwhelmingly non-charedi men are still away from their jobs and families in reserve duty, joining the 150,000 overwhelmingly non-charedi men in regular service, out of a non-charedi population that overwhelmingly funds the charedi lifestyle. If there’s one group enslaved to another, it’s not the charedim to the rest of the Israel.
Ah well. Yesterday was my 51st birthday. I’m from a Mancunian family in which birthdays are meaningless, so I celebrated by staying at work and having a tuna sandwich for dinner, following which I enjoyed giving a two-hour shiur in our Hall of Kosher Classification about turkeys and other creatures relevant to next week’s Daf Yomi. (The video will be available next week at www.BiblicalNaturalHistory.org/daf, where you can already purchase or download my new book on the topic.)
My wife, on the other hand, is from a California family which rates birthdays as being only very slightly less significant than the Revelation at Sinai. If you are similarly inclined to believe that birthdays are important, and you’d like to do something in honor of mine, then allow me to suggest two meaningful causes for which I would appreciate donations!
First is of course my own life-project, the Biblical Museum of Natural History, where we inspire and educate over 50,000 people annually from the full spectrum of society about Torah, nature and Israel. This includes showing secular Israelis that Jewish heritage is not just Yom Kippur but also lions and chameleons, and showing the most extreme charedim that learning about the natural sciences can enhance their understanding of Torah. We also host many challenged groups for a very therapeutic experience - this week it included a group of injured IDF veterans and a group of special-needs children. You can donate at this link.
If helping the poor is more your thing, then I recommend Lemaan Achai, an organization which instead of perpetuating dependency like Keren Olam HaTorah, helps people become financially independent. They just launched a CauseMatch campaign which you can donate to at this link.
Thank you, and Shabbat Shalom!