News Roundup – Tue. 2/2
Or forever hold your peace? No way, not at this wedding in KJ, which brought out the mischiefmakers and badasses, causing general mayhem in KJ over the latter part of last week. Obnoxious loudspeakers, overturned vehicles, an ineffective Village Safety Patrol, and an overburdened State Troopers department. Yup, KJ boys do it best.
What happens when you mix faith with a veneer of scientific respectability? Willful displacement of people from their homes, mutual denials of evidence for other people’s histories, and ill-conceived policies brought about by the influence of religious extremists. That’s what seems to be happening in the pseudo-archaeological projects in the Silwan Valley in Jerusalem. Right-wing elements are attempting to turn large parts of area into an archaeological park that would prove the existence of King David’s palace. Lack of sound archaeological methods? We’re talking scripture here, man. That’s all you need to know.
Charedim prefer segregated buses. Fine, says Yisrael Katz, Israel’s Transportation Minister. Put the women in the back, no problem. Just no violence, please. As long as the consumers of public transportation want that, it should be ok. Oh, ask the women what they think? Small oversight there. The article doesn’t say, but I’ll venture a guess: there were no women on the “Rabbis Transportation Committee,” which is behind the push for segregation. We’re sure they’re fine with it, though. They always are.
The allegations against Rabbi Leib Tropper are totally untrue. I repeat, untrue. How do I know? Well, a prominent Monsey Rabbi, Rabbi Dovid Ribiat, says he heard it from Tropper himself. The tapes? Well, you know, with modern technology and all, anything can be fabricated, including incriminating tapes. No reason to believe them. A beis din must take these things seriously, of course. But the facts, you know, the facts are problematic.
And the most important news tidbit of the past few days is, of course, the Hamodia newspaper’s plans to go full color. Revolutionary. But it’s causing some controversy, as reflected in these thoughtful comments on VIN:
BPer: this is gevaldig… Harmodia knows its customers, discerning piples with heimishe taste. give the piples what they want and it will pay back 100 fold. givaldick
Anonymous 1: what r piples?
Anonymous 2: I hold its not oisgehalten at all – a color newspaper?! For hundreds of years Klal Yisroel had a minhag to publish black & white newspapers! Why change a long standing mesoreh? Same is true for “color photographs”. One hundred years ago – people wouldn’t dream of it. Black and white was good enough for them! I think Hamodia has really overstepped it’s bounds here…
Yaakovsladder: Are you kidding me? One hundred years ago the technology did not exist to print the papers, much less the photographs, in color. This is not an issue of “overstepping” one’s bounds.
Some people (or is it piple?) really do have a sense of humor. And some just don’t.
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Out of interest, has anyone considered that the papers like Hamodia and Jewish Tribune are happily colluding with the rabbis to boycott the internet, because it would take away from their sales.
The Haredi papers are probably the only ones that are not in decline in the western world because of the internet.
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NM — I’m sure the Hamodia is capitalizing on the ban, but not sure how actively engaged they are in promoting or perpetuating it. My gut tells me it’s just something they’re quietly happy about. They can’t really do much to reinforce it, or stem the tide of increasing dismissal of such bans by the populace.
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Notice how little information the article about the KJ wedding has. The reporters know that something interesting is happening, but they don’t know anything about the politics behind this conflict.
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