The Charedi response to Egged's ad about stealing bus rides

Some Charedim have come up with some very cute takeoffs of the Egged ad

Unfortunately these responses seem to justify stealing because Egged's service is so bad. However the fact is that however, bad Egged's service is, you still aren't allowed to steal from them. 

Why is the Charedi leadership silent about attacks on Charedi soldiers?

There was another attack on a Charedi soldier yesterday (Dozens attack haredi soldier in Jerusalem) and yet we hear nothing from the leadership. Nothing from the politicians and nothing from the Gedolim. In fact, the Charedi website Kika Hashabbat had the gall to public an article today, נתניהו אשם באלימות, blaming Netanyahu and the secular politicians for the violence. Why the silence? When it comes to the draft, to secular education we hear them loud and clear. However, when it comes to violence against other religious Jews suddenly silence.

This is exactly what happened with קמצא and בר קמצא. The Gemara (גיטין נ"ו) says that בר קמצא thought the following after he was thrown out of the party :
 אמר הואיל והוי יתבי רבנן ולא מחו ביה ש"מ ניחא להו
The Chachamim were sitting at the party and saw what happened and kept quiet it must be that they agree with what was done thus setting in motion the chain of events.

The same certainly applies today.

There is something terribly wrong with charedi chinuch if this is the result.  In addition, there is something very wrong with Charedi society if the reaction to anything bad that happens is to blame someone else. What happened to introspection, looking for faults in yourself? What happened to taking responsibility for your actions? I am sorry, but the only one responsible for the violence in Charedi society is Charedi society.

What does this ad from Egged say about the Charedi population in Israel?

This ad appeared in the Charedi newspapers last week. The ad states that riding the bus is like taking a Challah in the grocery store, just like you wouldn't steal the challah you shouldn't steal rides from Egged.

IMHO this ad is embarrassing and a chillul hashem. This is not a bombastic anti-Charedi politician saying this, this is a for profit company that is spending a lot of money on full page ads in Charedi newspapers. Egged is only spending the money because there is a problem of Charedim not paying for bus rides.

Comparison of Haredi education in Israel and the US

The Charedi leadership has rejected the idea that the government have any control over what is learned in Haredi schools. Any government intervention/control is a gezeras shmad. Let us compare the Haredi schools in NY and those in Israel to see whether government mandates are really shmad.

The following table describes the current situation:

	NY Haredi Schools	Israel Charedi Schools
Budget from the Government	No	Yes 55% of public schools
Elementary School standardized tests	Yes	No
High School Standardized tests	Yes (Regents)	No (Bagrut)
State Curriculum	Yes Instruction given to a minor elsewhere than a public school must be substantially equivalent to the instruction given at the local public school	No
Option to opt out	No	Yes

As we can see in NY State the government provides no funding and yet, mandates a standardized curriculum and standardized acheivement tests. In Israel, on the other hand, the government provides partial funding but mandates no requirements.

The following table describes what the government is proposing in order for a school to get government funding:

	NY Haredi Schools	Israel Charedi Schools
Budget from the Government	No	Yes 55% of public schools if the school teaches the state curriculum (full math,english and hebrew, 55% of the rest), otherwise 30% funding
Elementary School standardized tests	Yes	Yes
High School Standardized tests	Yes (Regents)	No (Bagrut)
State Curriculum	Yes Instruction given to a minor elsewhere than a public school must be substantially equivalent to the instruction given at the local public school	Partial
Option to opt out	No	Yes, any Haredi school that doesn't take government funding doesn't need to fulfill any government requirements.

What is fascinating is that there is much more government control/intervention in the US then what is being proposed in Israel let alone what exists now. Yet no one is calling teh US government evil and shmad.
Source for NY State Data: http://www2.ed.gov/admins/comm/choice/regprivschl/regprivschl.pdf

R' Chaim Kanievsky: Men are not allowed to wear watches

because of the prohibition of לא ילבש.

Source: Kikar Shabbat

I believe that this opinion of R' Chaim has not bee accepted by any of the poskim and in fact there are pictures of many great Rabbanim including R' Elyashiv his father wearing a watch.

Does Stanley Fisher hate Charedim?

Stanley Fisher (the outgoing Head of the Bank of Israel) commented today that the State of Israel is facing a demographic problem, given the current projections the Chiloni population in Israel will be a minority in 50 years due to the growth of the Charedi and Arab populations. Given the low participation level of both of those populations in the workforce, this will cause economic issues and affect the quality of life in Israel.

The Charedi politicians immediately attacked Fisher as a racist and hater of Charedim and that he wants to destroy the Charedi population.

IMHO, they are completely wrong. Fisher remarks were not predicated on hate or racism, but based on cold hard facts. At some point as the Charedi population grows larger and larger, the shrinking tax base will be unable to provide the social benefits. The money will simply not be there. This has nothing to do with hate, it is pure economics.

Can you believe anything said in the name of the Gedolim?

I would have to say that the answer today is probably not.

As many of you know, there was an anti-draft rally in Manhattan yesterday sponsored by Satmar. Satmar tried very hard to get other groups to join, and because of that over the past week, there was much discussion about what R' Chaim Kanievsky's opinion was. Was he for or against the rally?

R' Elya Ber Wachtfogel, Rosh Yeshiva of South Fallsburg wrote in a letter on Thursday that R' Chaim Kanievsky was for the rally.

However, on Friday, R' Chaim's sons publicized a letter saying that he did not support the rally.

Even more interesting is that on Sunday at 3PM some people produced another letter supposedly from R' Chaim Kanievsky supporting the rally.

This letter turned out to be forged.

The bottom line is that it is impossible for the average person to know what is true and what is not. 

There needs to be a better way for the Gedolim to get their message out to the people because the current system is just not working.

Great billboard on the Prospect expressway in Brooklyn

Daylight savings in time in Israel will now be until the last Sunday in October

I think this is a reasonable setup, however, it will cause some problems with early morning minyanim in October. At the end of October actual sunrise in Israel is about 6:50, however, many are machmir for נץ הנראה which is 10-15 minutes later. What this means is that those who are machmir will not be able to daven before approximately 6:45.

The woman is erased but her feet remain

Yated Neeman has a policy not to show any pictures of women so when they get a picture with a woman that they want to print, they simply photoshop her out. However, sometimes they do a bad job and leave over small parts of the woman's body like in the case below where the woman's feet and shoes are clearly visible under the man's body.

Source: Kikar Shabbat

I feel like it's 1984 ...

when I read the Charedi newspapers these days. The Charedi press is simply inventing a story and writing about it. The Charedi press is full of headlines "The destruction of the Torah world" and "Israel is the only country in the world which restricts Torah learning" etc. when it is nothing of the sort. As I wrote here this is simply ridiculous. The current proposal allows those who want to sit and learn to do so until 21. At the age of 21 they need to serve. After their 2.5 years of service time they are free to do whatever they want. They can go back to the Yeshiva and sit and learn 18 hours a day for the next 50 years. No one is going to stop them, period. The only thing they need to is figure out on what whey are going to live on (like everyone else). This is exactly what R' Elyashiv did, he sat and learned all day until his kids were literally starving (see here and here), and then he got a job as a Dayan for the Rabbanut.

In reality, the Charedi world has 2 problems with the proposals:
1. Freedom of choice - Believe it or not, the Charedi leadership loved the fact that you could not work without going to the army. This forced everyone to stay in yeshiva/kollel to avoid the army. The current proposals free people up at a much earlier age which means that many more people will leave the yeshiva/kollel by choice. It also give people much more educational choice, they will be able to actually get a higher secular education.
2. It's all about money. The Charedi world as currently constituted cannot survive without government money (see this post for the details). If the government takes away the money the Charedi world will have no choice but to change and have more people go to work.

Women's names on Coke bottles cause a big storm in the Charedi world

Coke has R' Landau's Hechsher and is the drink of choice for many Rebbe's at their tishes. However, they are running an ad campaign which features peoples names on the bottle labels as you can see below.

Some bottles have women's names on them (Tali, Savta) and some have men's names on them (Shay). The Charedi world is up in arms, how can they serve the Rebbe from a bottle with a women's name on it? R' Landau is putting pressure on Coca Cola to not distribute these bottles in Charedi areas. In the meantime here is 1 solution.

I wouldn't hire Charedi women either

The Mishpacha newspaper had a long article this past Tuesday on the problems that Charedi women have in finding good paying jobs. IMHO, they downplayed the major reasons Charedi women have problems:

I. Pregnancy

Charedi women are almost always pregnant. If you hire a 23 year old Charedi women she probably has 1 child already and is pregnant with another. Over the next 15 years she will probably have a baby every 18 months to 2 years. This raises a number of serious issues for any employer:

1. Maternity leave - Every 18 months to 2 years the woman will take off at least 3 months, the employer has to figure out how to replace her for those 3 months, it is not simple. If you have a number of Charedi women, the odds are that at any given time at least one will be out on maternity leave.
2. In Israel it is practically impossible to fire a pregnant women. I saw this happen more then once where I work (a major American company with tens of thousands of employees around the world). Management decided to discontinue a product that was not selling and therefore laid off the entire team, directors, manager, programmers etc. Everyone except for the one woman who was 5 months pregnant. The company paid her not to come to work for the duration of her pregnancy she then took her 3 months maternity leave and then they paid her another 3 months until they could fire her. While no one hires employees with the intention of firing them, the ability to fire workers is important. Charedi women are very hard to fire because they are generally either pregnant or just had a baby much of the time. 
3. Pregnancy itself - Being pregnant is not easy (each stage has it's challenges) and there is no question that for at least some women it will affect their productivity

II. Large Families

Charedi women generally have large families and large families make it harder to work for a number of reasons:

1. If you have 5, 6,7 or more kids, someone is always sick and someone needs to stay home and take care of them.
2. Someone needs to watch the kids during school vacations 
3. School ends late afternoon, someone needs to watch the kids until teh mother gets home for work, or she needs to leave work early.
4. Taking care of a large family is exhausting and a full time job. 
5. Travel is very difficult if not impossible. 

III. It's a job not a career

Charedi women are brought up that work is a necessary evil to support their husband while learning and that they should not be career women. This means that they are generally not looking to get ahead etc. and will do their jobs but nothing more. It makes for good low level workers but does not provide much path for advancement.

IV.Cultural Issues

Charedi women want to work in an all female Charedi environment. What that means is that they have nowhere to advance and are severely limited in what and where they can work. If a Charedi women shows great promise it is very hard to promote here because she will then have to work with men, chilonim, and non-Jews. These days the workplace is all about teamwork. If you have nothing in common and can't relate to your co-workers it is a problem.

V. Education

Charedi woman may be well educated in the Beis Yaakov's but they generally don't have real academic degrees and in the secular world that is what counts. In all of the hi tech companies that I have worked for in Israel, they can't even get in the door because the minimum requirement is a degree from a University. Without a University degree they are limited to lower paying jobs.

In short, IMHO Charedi women have a hard time finding good paying jobs not because of discrimination but because of legitimate business and financial reasons. If I was running a business/managing a group, I would have a very hard time justifying hiring a Charedi woman because of all the issues mentioned above. 

Lakewood has no religious test for admission???

Anyone who knows anything about Lakewood knows that that statement is ridiculous. Yet this is exactly what Moshe Gleiberman, vice president of administration at Beth Medrash Govoha, said in an interview defending the states decision to grant Lakewood a $10.6 million grant to build a library:

there is no "religious test" for admission, but it does have rigid education standards.

However, people are starting to ask questions, see this article:

Now the state’s top Assembly Democrat says she is concerned about public dollars going to a college with admission standards she says resemble a "religious test." Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) said students who want to go to the college must speak Hebrew, know the sacred texts and agree not to date within the first six months of schooling.

"I will tell you that I am extremely surprised by this," Oliver said. "This is not a secondary institution that is open to the general public."

Oliver sees a distinction between Beth Medrash Govoha — known in Hebrew as a yeshiva — and private Catholic schools like Seton Hall University and St. Peter’s University that she says should qualify for public money.

"Seton Hall is open to anyone — Jewish, Christian and Muslim. They have an open admission process, and any student in New Jersey can attend." Oliver said. "Not every student can attend the yeshiva."

If a qualified non-jew or a woman takes them at their word and applies for admission to make a point what is Lakewood going to do? The Charedi world attacked YU very harshly when it came to various compromises in order to get government money, yet it looks like Lakewood is basically doing the same thing for the same reason, to get government money.

With money tight and the economy bad, I guess anything goes when it comes to money.

Ner Israel repudiates Dov Lipman

Dov Lipman has said many times that he is a product of Ner Israel and that his hashkafos are based on what he learned from the previous Rosh Yeshiva, R' Weinberg.

However, the current Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Israel, R' Aharon Feldman, wrote a strongly worded letter against Dov Lipman saying:

The positions and pronouncements of Dov Lipman do not in any way represent the positions of the Yieshivas Ner Israel or the former Rosh Yeshiva, R' Weinberg

Saudi Arabia: Woman agrees to marry man only if he agrees to marry her friends as well

We tend to think of polygamy as favoring the man not the women. Yet, the Saudi press is reporting a story where a woman only agreed to accept a marriage proposal if her future husband promised to marry her best friends as well. The man eventually agreed and married all 3 women at the same time. The Saudi press reports that the women are having a great time.

Source: YNet

Interesting ads - a window into the Charedi world

The following ads are really interesting and show what is going on in the Charedi world.

The first ad is a cheap knockoff of all the Tzedaka Kupas who promise to daven for you at various holy sites. It is not clear to me whether this is serious or a joke, but just the fact that I am considering that this might be serious says it all.

The second ad illustrates the desperate poverty in the Charedi world where people can't afford a decent place to live.

Source: http://bshch.blogspot.com

Tensions rising between the Edah Charedis and the Litvish Yeshiva world

On Yom Haatzmaut, a member of the Edah Charedis Beis Din, R' Yehoshua Rosenberger from Bet Shemesh, called R' Shteinman a  מסית ומדיח. For those who know Yiddish the pashkevil is below:

The Lithuanian Gedolim have have not taken this lying down and R' Chaim Kanievsky and R' Nissim Karelitz demanded that the Edah denounce the statement. As of now, the Edah has not yet responded. If the Edah doesn't deliver an appropiate denunciation they are threatening to declare a Cherem on the Edah Charedis hashgacha and hit the Edah were it hurts most, the pocketbook.

Walking with your wife in the street is the cause of all problems

Here is a key quote: based on the power of the Torah we know that all of the problems are caused by husbands walking with their wives in the street.

Are they claiming Nevua? Ruach Hakodesh? Are there no other more pressing problems in the world today?

Hat Tip: בעולמם של חרדים

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