Judaism discovered

Talmudists Trade Votes in Exchange for Clemency for Thieves

The bloc vote for Hillary, a proponent of abortion-on-demand, reveals the expediency with which these supposed "family values" Orthodox Judaics view their alleged "conservative principles." The vote was in part a quid pro quo for reducing sentences for four criminal members of New Square. The sentence reductions were issued by her husband. On his last day in office, President Bill Clinton "commuted the sentence of four swindlers from a Hasidic enclave in New York State that voted overwhelmingly for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton,..The four men, convicted of bilking the state and federal government of tens of millions of dollars, were prominent members of New Square, a reclusive Rockland County village. The village leaders' aggressive courting of the president and Mrs. Clinton before and after the 2000 Senate election raised questions of whether the men's sentences were reduced in exchange for votes...The four New Square men were convicted in 1999 of bilking government aid programs and funneling the money back to the yeshiva in their community of 7,000 people, about 30 miles northwest of Manhattan. Mr. Clinton reduced by several months the federal prison terms of the men, Benjamin Berger, David Goldstein, Kalmen Stern and Jacob Elbaum. They were released from prison this year (2002)....The mastermind of the scheme, Chaim Berger, 76, a founder of the village, was returned to the United States from Israel last summer...Mrs. Clinton met with leaders of the community in August 2000 and again, with Mr. Clinton, in December 2000 after the election. New Square voters gave her 1,400 votes to 12 for the Republican candidate, former Representative Rick A. Lazio...

Billionaire Crook Uses Zionist Connections to Gain Pardon "170 other pardons and clemencies (by) Mr. Clinton (were) granted on his last day of office, including the one that has drawn the most ire: a pardon for the financier Marc Rich, a commodities trader who fled the country in 1983... In January (2001) Mr. Clinton signed the pardons for Mr. Rich and his partner, Pincus Green...prosecutors are examining whether any laws were broken in the pardons Mr. Clinton granted Mr. Rich, Mr. Green and others in the last hours of his presidency. One avenue they are likely to explore is whether Mr. Rich used... (his) former wife, Denise Rich...a generous

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contributor to the Democratic Party and the Clinton presidential library⁸⁴⁷... as a conduit for contributions he hoped would influence the outcome of his case." ^84S

"Late last year, a former Mossad agent who works for Marc Rich came to New York on a delicate mission. The retired spy, Avner Azulay, was hoping to enlist Mr. Rich's...former wife, Denise Rich...a friend of President Bill Clinton and a lavish fund-raiser for the Democratic Party...in a campaign to win a presidential pardon for Mr. Rich, the billionaire businessman...son of Jewish refugees from Belgium...(and) one of the United States' most-wanted fugitives...Extensive contacts in the Arab world guaranteed him access to relatively cheap oil during the energy crisis of the late 1970's. But prosecutors said Mr. Rich also took advantage of federal price controls intended to encourage American production by allowing higher prices for oil that might not have otherwise come to market — newly discovered oil, for example. Through a 'daisy chain' of transactions he passed off shipments of ordinary oil as 'new.' The $100 million in unreported profits that this produced was hidden in offshore accounts to evade taxes...Investigators also charged that Mr. Rich had trafficked in Iranian oil, violating an embargo imposed after Iranian revolutionaries took Americans hostage...

"Mr. Rich's exile coincided with an extraordinary moment in commodities trading. The collapse of Communism opened up countries that were cash-poor but rich in resources. Elaborate deals and barter exchanges undercut world market prices and lined the pockets of former party functionaries. Kroll Associates, which conducts global investigations, was hired by the Russian Federation in 1992 to examine why the country's natural resources and capital were disappearing. Within three months, Mr. Kroll said he had evidence that some of the drain could be traced to Mr. Rich...In Bulgaria, Mr. Rich's operations were implicated in a scheme involving fictitious oil trades. The episode...cost Bulgaria $50 million of seed capital from the International Monetary Fund...

"Mr. Azulay...brandished a sheaf of letters from prominent Israelis praising Mr. Rich. 'Look at this massive support Marc is getting in Israel from V.I.P.'s,' Mr. Azulay said...Dozens of dignitaries wrote letters, including

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Israel's former justice minister Yaakov Neeman...current and former Israeli mayors, and Shabtai Shavit, who ran the Mossad from 1989 to 1996...Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Shimon Peres, a former prime minister, offered assurances that they would call Mr. Clinton.

"Mr. Azulay met Abraham H. Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADD in New York, at a crowded Parisian restaurant on Feb. 14, 2000. Mr. Azulay, who was head of the Rich Foundation in Israel, had already introduced himself to Mr. Foxman by telephone in November 1999, conveying his desire to renew the financial support that Mr. Rich had once provided the A.D.L. and promising to make up for lost years. In fact, a $100,000 pledge had just arrived. Mr. Foxman was an acquaintance of Mr. Azulay's boss, Mr. Rich, who had helped the A.D.L. in 1990 when it needed government contacts in Romania to stem an outbreak of anti-Semitism. Over dinner, Mr. Azulay discussed Mr. Rich's problem. The conversation turned to Denise Rich, whom Mr. Foxman had met in 1995 on Air Force II, en route to Yitzhak Rabin's funeral in Israel...Mr. Foxman⁸⁴⁹ said he told Mr. Azulay, 'Why don't you reach out to Denise Rich...to have her approach the president about a pardon?'

"Weeks later, she had adopted the mission as her own, pulling the president aside at a White House dinner on Dec. 20 for a personal plea. It would mean a lot to me,' she told the president, Mr. Rich's lawyer, Jack Quinn, said. One month later, Mr. Clinton granted the pardon...Ms. Rich's support was part of a global strategy. Mr. Rich's representatives said they worked hard to find a way around the implacable opposition of federal prosecutors in New York and career officials at the Justice Department in Washington. Israeli officials disclosed in interviews that they rallied around the campaign out of gratitude for Mr. Rich's philanthropy in Israel and because of Mr. Rich's clandestine role as a ^lsa-ayon,' a Hebrew word for an unpaid supporter of intelligence operations. Mr. Rich, they said, financed sensitive missions and allowed agents to use his offices around the world as

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cover, when Israel was isolated diplomatically. ("Plotting a Pardon: Rich Cashed in a World of Chits to Win Pardon," NY Times, April 11, 2001).⁸⁵⁰

Ultra-Orthodox (Rabbinic) modesty squad burns clothing "Ultra-Orthodox extremists continued to wage their immodest clothing war as they set ablaze women's apparel they deemed impure. The 'clothes of impurity' were burned in an open square in Jerusalem as rabbis admonished the crowd. 'We will get rid of the tight clothes and the Holy One, Blessed be He, will place his mercy on us,' it was written on one of the signs held by the protesters. 'Modesty is the only thing that needs to be corrected in our generation,' the rabbis clarified, saying this would solve the troubles of today. 'We must overcome this hurdle,' they proclaimed. The campaign for modesty offered women coupons to 'authorized shops' to buy new apparel if they handed over their immodest clothing. Clothing that is forbidden by the ultra-Orthodox rabbis include: Tricot shirts, Lycra shirts and skirts, open-collared shirts, short and tight skirts, skirts with a slit, skirts with a straight cut, long or bulky earrings, clothes and bags in loud, flashy colors, wigs that are too exclusive, transparent or colorful stockings and clunky shoes. The crusade descended into violence as extremists attacked women who didn't fit their criteria and caused damage to various clothing shops, ruining thousands of dollars worth of merchandise." ⁸⁵¹

The First Lady of the George W. Bush administration, Laura Bush, and others, while patronizing the Pathan women of Afghanistan, announcing how they were going to gain for them a right to an education and give them "liberation," did not raise a finger to liberate any Talmudic women in their own midst. "Rabbinical panel bars ultra-Orthodox women from continuing education programs' by Yair Ettinger and Tamar Rotem. Haaretz, Jan. 2, 2007: 'A committee of rabbis formulating the education policy in the ultra-Orthodox community has prohibited women's continuing education programs and severely restricted other study courses, thus blocking the advancement and development of haredi (Hasidic) women's careers. This is a devastating

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economic and professional blow to thousands of women teachers, who are the primary breadwinners in the ultra-Orthodox community. It is also a drastic regression in haredi women's ongoing process of moving ahead in their studies and career and in improving their economic situation. The repercussions on the teachers and the ultra-Orthodox education system are tantamount to an earthquake, as the haredi newspaper ...called it. The issues at the heart of the ultra-Orthodox society are at stake — the limits of education, the norm requiring women to be the breadwinners while their husbands study (the Talmud) and, above all, the authority of the rabbis and functionaries to foist restrictions on the increasingly frustrated public.

'The collective and humiliating announcement about closing down the courses and shrinking them struck me like a thunderbolt,' a 46-year-old teacher wrote to the rabbi committee anonymously. Tou don't allow the yeshiva students to work for a living, every new initiative is immediately cut down ... everyone says the women must be the breadwinners, fine ... but let me make a decent living for my family,' she wrote in a letter evoking responses on a haredi Web site. Since the beginning of the year, all the teaching instructors and women in continuing education programs stayed home, waiting for the decision of the rabbi education panel, which only came in December. The decision banned women's studies for academic degrees and imposed severe restrictions on other women's studies. For years, haredi women high-school graduates have continued their studies in teachers' seminaries. In two years, they receive a certificate enabling them to teach in the haredi schools. Then they continue to study for a third year for a degree equivalent to B.A. and take continuing education programs specializing in certain subjects. This enables them to obtain higher teaching positions and, in turn, receive higher wages. The new directives completely cancel the programs equivalent to B.A. studies, as well as the programs for education consultants and didactic diagnosticians, who trace learning impairments...In recent years, the reforms in the continuing education programs have not pleased the rabbis, who object to women's 'academic' studies. The conservatives warned of women's 'career ambitions,' fearing they would now be able to break out of the 'teaching ghetto' and find other jobs than teaching. Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv was quoted...objecting to teachers' enrolling in 'all kinds of other education programs without any supervision of rabbis on

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every detail.' He warned that without close supervision and determining the content, 'all manner of heresy can creep into those programs.'

"The rabbis were mostly infuriated by the psychological subjects in the teaching programs. Freud and Western psychology had always been a red rag to them. The absence of ultra-Orthodox lecturers with academic degrees in diagnostics and consulting required bringing in lecturers from 'outside' the community...(The rabbinic) women's supplement, Bayit Neeman, blasted the trend of bringing in lecturers from the 'Sephardi faction' and even 'completely secular' ones, warning of the women students' defilement. Haredi spokesmen say that what has outraged the rabbis were the new demands by the Education Ministry, which included expanding the studies and requiring lecturers with a second degree for some of the programs. The new decrees issued by the rabbis are most injurious to women teachers and seminar students, who have spent years studying and have invested thousands of shekels to obtain the equivalent of a B.A. Those who have graduated already have not only wasted their efforts, they may even be harmed by their education. Elyashiv has ordered not to give them priority in high school positions, where there is already a surplus of teachers. The decrees have also put several lecturers in the training centers out of a job" (end quote).

The Mishnah in Horiyos (13a) states: "A man comes before a woman in matters of life (le-hachayos)." Contrast this with the example of Jesus Christ. Alvin J. Schmidt writes, "Jesus Gave Dignity and Freedom to Women. One could cite many...examples of how women in the ancient world were denied freedom and dignity. This was the world that Jesus entered. And how did he respond?...He honored women when he taught them theology. He told Martha, T am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me shall never die' (John 11:25-26). He taught Mary, in the Mary-Martha account (Luke 10), and he also taught theology to the Samaritan woman (John 4:9-29). As a result of this incident, his disciples 'marveled that he talked with a woman.' They knew Jesus had clearly violated the rabbinic oral law, which said, 'Let the words of the Law be burned rather than committed to a woman . . .' (BT Sotah), and Hebrew men in Jesus' day were also taught, 'One is not as much as to greet a woman' (BT Berakhoth). All three Synoptic Gospels mention that women followed Jesus. Such behavior ran counter to the ancient practices concerning women, but Jesus did not chide them for their behavior. And just after Jesus' rose from the dead he told the women who had come to

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the open tomb to go and tell his disciples he had risen from the dead (Matthew 28:10). John's Gospel tells us that Peter and John also came to the open tomb. So why did Jesus not tell them to go and tell the other disciples? Why did he choose the women to tell his male disciples? The answer is not hard to see, especially when one remembers that he so often came to the defense of the deprived and oppressed. In choosing the women to tell the disciples, he in effect brought to mind his own words, spoken on another occasion, But many who are first will be last, and the last first' (Matthew 19:30)."

The following is from the Mekor Baruch by Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein. He wrote a four-volume memoir, one of which dealt with his years at Volozhin. This is described in the banned book, My Uncle, the Netziv (Artscroll). The Netziv's wife was Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein's aunt. Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein presents the Netziv's wife as a feminist. She (the Netziv's wife) said in a bitter way, from a deep feeling of suffering, "Woe to the women and our lot! Not only do they degrade us, but they treat us worse than animals.' She said to him, "You're surprised about this? You don't believe what I'm saying?"

During Passover it is a universal custom in Orthodox Judaism to point at one's wife at the mention of marror (the bitter herb) as the verse says "have found the woman worse (more bitter) than death." (Kohelet 7:26, Haggadah, Venice 1560).

"Rabbi Hershel Schachter, arguably the most influential instructor at Yeshiva University's affiliated rabbinical seminary...in a recent commentary on the weekly Torah portion...which appears at www.torahweb.org/torah/ 2004/parsha/rsch_dvorim,html, was about various ways in which certain Modern Orthodox women are trying to increase their participation in religious ritual without violating Jewish law, or rabbinic law. In particular, Schachter focused on the growing custom of granting a woman the honor of publicly reading the marriage contract at a wedding ceremony. Though Schachter acknowledged that this was technically permitted — even a parrot could perform this rite, he said — the rabbi argued that 'nonetheless it is a violation of kuod hatzibur (respect for the congregation) to have a woman surrender her privacy to read the kesuba (wedding contract) in public' Schachter added that he understands the motivation behind the efforts to
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advance women's participation in religious life, but that the forces behind them...are simply misguided.

"What a silly misunderstanding!' he writes. 'Our G-d never intended to cheat women of their rights and privileges! Quite the contrary! He wanted to give women the ability to fulfill vehalchta bidrachav (following in God's path) in a more complete way — without ever having to compromise their tznius (modesty).' Much of the initial hubbub generated by Schachter's commentary has focused on his repeated insistence that even a parrot or monkey would be permitted to read a marriage contract, with critics suggesting that he was in some way comparing women to animals...What Schachter seems to be arguing for, essentially, is the complete disengagement of women from all forms of public life...On the ideological level, Schachter is one of a growing number of Modern Orthodox religious leaders seeking to contract the atmosphere...the Modern Orthodox community's approach to women — indeed its resistant attitude toward free thought in general — is an investment in stagnation: communal, intellectual and, yes, religious." ⁸⁵²

"A persecutor of rabbis"

Fighting sexual harassment...and promoting women's prayer quorums has put Chana Kehat, founder of the... Kolech group, on a collision course with the rabbis... the heavy pressures with which Kehat has coped during the past two years following the exposure by Kolech of two cases of sexual harassment — the affair of Rabbi Shlomo Aviner and the affair of Rabbi Yitzhak Cohen, the head of Midreshet Bar-Ilan... 'Kolech has created a voice that is disturbing to the religious-Zionist establishment,' says Prof. Chana Safrai of the Hartman Institute, who is observing the organization's activities from the outside. 'They don't like Chana Kehat. They are not used to an assertive religious voice.' Kehat, who has closely accompanied the women and has made their cry heard in their public struggle, has been heaped with abasement, threat and harassment. She has been called a 'persecutor of rabbis.' According to her, there have even been pressures applied from above on the Orot Israel College for girls in Elkana, where she is a senior lecturer, to fire her...In 1997, together with several women who were work colleagues of hers, she established Kolech. After its first convention, attended by

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approximately 100 people, the organization began to publish its weekly Torah portion bulletins...The reaction of religious society included...attempts by rabbis to confiscate the organization's bulletin at synagogues.

"The rabbis are simply afraid. Women's power is a real threat to them,' Kehat says. 'It was traumatic, she notes, to discover that 130 rabbis had signed a defamatory letter against the women who had complained about Rabbi (Shlomo) Aviner. 'We knew that we had been exposed to other stories; we knew that they had not complained without reason.' For a long period testimonies flowed into the organization from women who complained. 'The rabbis' letter was an act of silencing and paralyzing that we though would have an effect on generations to come. Raising girls in a society like this is a disaster,' comments Kehat.

"...Kehat: 1 founded Kolech thinking about my four daughters. I want them to have self-respect and for them not to experience the insult of the ezrat nashim (the part of a synagogue reserved for women). Successful women do not need to feel second class in their very own communities, the place that is most dear to them." ⁸⁵³

Women and Prayer in Orthodox Judaism

A woman is prohibited from reading the Talmud because of the Chazal-decreed factor of kevod ha-tzibbur. ⁸⁵⁴ Maimonides writes in Hilkhot TefLllah 12:23, following the language in Gittin 60a: "(We) do not read from chumashim (texts taken from the Pentateuch) in the synagogue, because of kevod tzibbur." By contrast, regarding women's reading the Talmud he writes, in 12:17: "A woman may not read in public (be-tzibbur) because of kevod tsibbur"

On Jan. 8, 2008,⁸⁵⁵ under the heading "Minyan" in the first paragraph displayed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minyan, Wikipedia claimed that a minyan can consist of women as well as men: "...ten or more adult Jews (over the age of 12 for girls...).'' This lie about girls being part of a minyan is cosmetic whitewash for the benefit of fostering illusions among liberal and feminist readers who would otherwise be offended if they knew the truth about what actually constitutes a minyan in Orthodox Judaism. In Judaism

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the word tzibbur can denote both public worship and a leader of such worship. Tefillah denotes prayer. According to the halacha, except for rare exceptions (for which there is little majority consensus among the poskim), women cannot take part in public prayer: "Women are not considered as part of a tzibbur in any way, even if they pray at the same time that the tzibbur does, their tefillah is not considered tefillah b'tzibbur." ⁸⁵⁶

Prof. Judith Hauptman writes that "Since women in fact did not participate in the set daily prayers, it eventually became accepted halakhah that the obligation to pray did not apply to them in the same manner as it does to men. Thus the argument against permitting woman to read the Torah in public {aliyah la-Torah) contended that women may not discharge of obligation of Torah reading on men's behalf. The main traditional reason against women being called to the Torah reading (aliyot) is that it is a disgrace for the congregation: 'Our rabbis taught: all are qualified to be among the seven (who read the Torah) even a minor and a woman, but the Sages said that a woman should not read because of the esteem of the congregation {kevod ha-zibbur)' (Megillah 23a). Some authorities have understood this passage as literally suggesting that women's participation in aliyot casts shame on the males in the congregation who might be presumed insufficiently literate to read the Torah (that is, recite the blessings). For otherwise, why would men let women who are at least implicitly seen as 'second best' read for them? Others have interpreted the term 'kevod ha-zibbur' as an allusion to the sexual distraction posed by women reading the Torah. This interpretation links the issue of reading the Torah to the separation of men and women in the synagogue by way of a mehizah (partition) and to the dictum '(hearing) a woman's voice is an ervah* (a sexual transgression; Berakhot 24a)." ⁸⁵⁷ According to Dov Linzer, head of academics at New York's Chovevei Torah rabbinical seminary, the Talmud clearly states that women are not allowed to write a Torah scroll for ritual use. Linzer pointed to an oft-cited passage (BT Gittin 45b) that specifically includes women among those who cannot produce a legitimate Torah scroll. Others on the list include children, slaves and heretics.

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