News Roundup – Thur. 3/11
The "rabbah," Sara Hurwitz
First she was the Mahara”t, a “manhigah hilkhatit, rukhanit, toranit.” Then she was upgraded to a “rabbah.” But now Sara Hurwitz’s title might be in question. Hailed as the first woman to be ordained as anything close to an Orthodox rabbi, the act spawned a furious outpouring of protest and condemnation. “Mahara”t” they could live with; a “rabbah” makes them queasy. According to a statement issued by Agudath Israel, Rabbi Avi Weiss, the mastermind of this “radical and dangerous departure from Jewish tradition” falls outside the purview of Orthodoxy. According to Avi Shafran, Agudath Israel’s spokesperson, “women are demeaned” when placed in positions of public authority. He also thinks it’s akin to “keeping a cat in the aron kodesh.” Technically permitted, but not so ay ay ay.
A girl’s birthday party in Great Neck, NY, thrown by her Persian Jewish parents, went awry when an uninvited guest turned up, screamed “Shema Yisrael,” and unleashed a shrieking slew of Hebrew oaths condemning the celebration, which included mixed dancing and traditional Iranian fare. The intruder, Rabbi Shlomo Aderet, an Ashkenazi kabbalist from Monsey, showed up with an entourage of four people and cursed partygoers with “illness, bankruptcy and tragedy for eternity.” The birthday girl herself made no comment to the media, perhaps having to do with the fact that she’s only one year old. Guests and their children were allegedly so frightened by the intrusion that many left, while others stood shaking and crying. The day after the party, according to one of the rabbi’s supporters, the hosts visited the rabbi and demanded that he remove the curses from their home. It is unclear whether he granted their request.
Lipa Schmeltzer is branching out into the literary world. Although when asked by an interviewer if he now considers himself an author, he claimed to not know what an “author” was. His latest project is a full-color Hagadah, with images of himself in various stages of acting out parts of the Hagadic tales. When asked if he’s received any negative reactions, Lipa compared his Hagadah to spicy sushi: some people like it, some people don’t. We were a bit baffled by the wise son with a geshtizteh berdl, but even more so with the choice of wicked son, some dude with a backward baseball cap; we were hoping for that coveted spot ourselves. Stay tuned for Unpious’s insightful book review with annotated footnotes and a comprehensive bibliography.
Isaac Srugo has fifteen children. The latest to be married, with ten more to go, came with an unexpected wedding gift: a gallon of white paint poured down the windshield of his SUV. Srugo married off one of his children last week at a dissident wedding hall near Kiryas Joel, with Rabbi Zalmen Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe from Williamsburg, officiating, raising the ire of the mainstream faction who support Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum, the Satmar Rebbe in KJ. This comes after weeks of vandalism and harassment following two earlier weddings at the same wedding hall. But we think those Satmar bucherim are being decidedly conventional. Paint on a windshield, sugar in a gas tank, overturning vehicles are not very imaginative. Which leads us to think – is it possible? – that the bucherim with the real gemureh kep, who might come up with something truly creative, are still in yeshiva hovering over their Shev Shmaatses, and these vandals are mere lowlifes with no idealism or principles? Say it ain’t so, Joel.
Rabbi Yaakov Weiss, A Chabad rabbi in Loudonville, NY, near Albany, gets 60 days in the slammer for “inappropriate physical contact” with two naked 13-year-old boys in the mikveh. In a statement by the mother of one of the boys, she said: “I toss and turn all night. I have a nagging pain in my head constantly. Sixty days in the scheme of things is not very long. But the 60 days might just let me have a full night’s sleep and relax my jaw.” We wonder though when parents will start having the good sense not to allow their young children in the mikveh unsupervised. It shouldn’t take a “nagging” headache to learn that such behavior is irresponsible.
News Roundups appear every Thursday. Send news tips to unpious.editor@gmail.com.
Disclaimer: Unpious.com is neither fair nor balanced. We are totally partial to snarkiness, cynicism, sarcasm, and leftover Purim holoptches.
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“Stay tuned for Unpious’s insightful book review”
Wow! Finding a mistake on Unpious is even more enjoyable than catching the Baal Koreh with one!
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Re Rabbah whatever; I wonder what her sponsors’ intentions are. Will there be more and will they have authority in their communities or is she there so that Modern Orthodoxy can say “look, we have a female rabbi (but only one and she’s for show)”.
Re KJ violence. What does it say about a geater community when people can’t give each other a break at major life events?
Shabbat shalom.
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Kaf — You referring to the apostrophe of the singular possessive?
It’s not clear what the rule is on that. See here: Wiki: Apostrophe Singular nouns ending with an “s” or “z” sound.
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Berl, that would be like the Baal Koreh pulling out a Minchas Shai, with a kneitch that only the REAL medakdikim know, not like the “mitzrayim or mitzroyim is not me’akev” shpiel.
This from Wikipedia:
Many respected sources have required that practically all singular nouns, including those ending with a sibilant sound, have possessive forms with an extra s after the apostrophe. Examples include the Modern Language Association and The Economist.
Do we have any Wikipedians in da hause that can change that now to read “respected sources… Modern Language Association, The Economist, and Unpious”?
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“We were a bit baffled by the wise son with a geshtizteh berdl, but even more so with the choice of wicked son, some dude with a backward baseball cap; we were hoping for that coveted spot ourselves.”
I am the wicked son/dude in the backward baseball cap. I have been a long time reader of this site so I guess after all the “hoping for that coveted spot” helped
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Hey, Somedude! An honor!
Indeed, an Unpious reader is as good as we hoped for, so our coveting hearts are at rest. Now, can you get us a discount?
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1) Consider that the role of “rabbi” has evolved radically over the past few thousand years. And every generation swears that it’s exactly the same as it was in Moses’ time. The only thing of which we can be sure is that as women are accepted in that role the job will pay less and its status will go down. That’s one absolute invariant of labor history.
2) That “kabbalist” needed to get the bum’s rush followed by a solid boot to the tochis and a slammed door, maybe followed by a criminal trespassing charge. If the best way to defend Torah is to crash babies’ birthday parties we might as well pack it in. The fence we’ve built around it is so big that nobody can get within a mile of the sucker.
3) No comment
4) Where I come from disrupting weddings and funerals is a line you just don’t cross. Ever. Maybe they had some profound reason out of an esoteric commentary on an obscure passage in the Gemara. But somehow I doubt it.
5) One of the most terrible indictments of Orthodoxy. This is a good reason never to let one’s son near a Charedi school, let alone get naked with a bunch of strange men in a group bath. The “communities” are rightly infamous for attacking the victims, protecting the baby-rapers and making sure light is never shined on the cockroaches in our midst. Somehow a girl talking to boys or wearing stockings without sufficiently visible seams destroys morals. But raping children is perfectly fine.
The proper response is a quick trip to the police station followed by a fair trial and a long stay behind bars in General Population as a known child molester.
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