News Roundup – Tue. 1/26
The Bedford Avenue bike lane debate at Pete’s Candy Store last night brought a standing room only crowd – unfortunately, consisting mostly of bike lane supporters. There seems to have been no truce, and from the short clip presented, it’s hard to know whether Isaac Abraham, reperenting Williamsburg Chasidim, made any cogent arguments. An article on Gothamist.com quotes him as saying, “Never going to sell,” although he does seem to have indicated some willingness to work with the bikers on alternate proposals. For her part, Caroline Samponaro, director of bicycle advocacy for Transportation Alternatives, seems to have been the most thoughtful and showed a desire to actually propose solutions rather than just pooh-pooh suggestions.
But Baruch, our friend from the Traif Bike Gesheft isn’t seen saying much. And for those who know Baruch, a debate in which Baruch participates but doesn’t say much loses about 75% of its sheer entertainment value. So hopefully there was more of Baruch than this short clip suggests.
Some rabbis certainly don’t like their egos tickled, and wouldn’t rise for a secular judge in a courtroom to which they’ve been summoned. Instead they entered and remained standing until the judge sat down. The case involves a precedent-setting lawsuit in which the rabbis of the Bnei Brak Rabbinical Court of Justice (Badatz) are accused of threats and harassment.
In a phenomenon that is now polarizing the ultra-Orthodox world, the plaintiffs, Zvi Bialostosky and Eliezer Friedman, both ultra-Orthodox, are challenging the autonomy of religious courts and holding them accountable for what they claim was “persecution” and for “acting like a mafia.” The rabbinical judges had issued a protest letter in which they called the plaintiffs “wicked,” which was followed by more letters of condemnation from other leading rabbis. Following the letters came pashkvilim, wall posters, against them as well as harassment and threats on the two and members of their families.
As they used to say in Der Yid: “commentaren zenen iberig.”
The question of integration of Sefardi and Ashkenazi schoolchildren in ultra-Orthodox schools in Israel has long been a matter of contention. Now some parents have now taken action on their own and decided not to send their daughters to school in the wake of a High Court order to remove all signs of segregation in the Beit Yaakov school in Immanuel. The principal is refusing to sanction those parents. Of course, they all phrase it in terms of “differences in religious observance.” Differences in religious observance, my ass. We all know that Sefardim have been discriminated against by Ashkenazim since Israel’s inception, both by the Orthodox and the secular. But hey, we can all agree, the sefardim make a mean shwarma sandwich. Ashkenazim can only make a nasty ghoulash.
Yeshiva World News and Vosizneias.com, watch your backs! Charedi rabbis in Israel are calling for a boycott of their own websites, fearful that the existence of such sites gives the Internet as a whole legitimacy. In a letter published recently in ultra-Orthodox newspapers, 21 top rabbis called for an Internet boycott, specifically of the haredi sites, which they said were “defaming the haredi community” and spreading slander and filth. “We must vilify these sites and purge them from our midst,” said the letter.
We love bans and boycotts of this sort. The ban on Michoel Schnitzler’s latest CD, which specifically named “track 5” as insidiously offensive, resulted in a mad dash of Orthodox listeners rushing to buy the CD so they can listen to “track 5.” Can someone please get these rabbis to ban Unpious.com?
You gotta love the sanctimonious Rabbi Moshe Tendler’s support for medical marijuana laws. This so-called “medical ethics” expert issues rulings left and right from his high horse, purporting to tell Orthodox Jews everywhere whether they’re following the laws according to his ethical standards. It was probably a true “accident of birth;” he should’ve been born to Chasidic parents. But his support for medical use of marijuana is indeed commendable. Although I’d love for him to go even further and join me and my super-cool bong for a real mind-altering hit.
Disclaimer: Unpious.com is neither fair nor balanced. We are totally partial to snarkiness, cynicism, sarcasm, and Green’s kokosh cake.
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You can take my Green’s kokosh cake from my dead cold hands.
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