Jews Against Secular Jewish Nationalism

The topic is complex. Charedi culture is so different than that of the IDF. I was in a Charedi community this Shabbos and felt like I was on Mars. It's another world. I could deal with the IDF - except for all the shouting and bullying and abuse that leads to 22 suicides a year. But that's another matter that needs fixing. But I could deal with the fatigues and the push ups and the mixing of men and women and all that stuff. For these people, Chassidic youth you' confuse them so much. You'd destroy them. And they are not needed. We haven't had a war in 40 years! You don't need to conscript the entire country to fight a few terrorists. We have a few dozen incidents a year. This isn't just a matter of hypocrisy or laziness or whatever other insults you can concoct. It's a complex situation. If all you can come up with is rage and superciliousness then you aren't using your brain.

Now on the eve of the Memorial Day for Yitzhak Rabin, it’s time to name the guilty parties once and for all. The account sheet shows that the “Oslo crime” was the massacre in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and the “Oslo criminals” are the right-wingers who exploited the blood spilled in revenge for the massacre, to spearhead a wave of incitement that led to Rabin’s assassination. The Rabin government, which came to power in July 1992, brought about a dramatic drop in terror attacks. In 1991, under the Shamir government, 105 people were killed in terror attacks. In 1992 the number was down to 31 (eight after Rabin’s government took office), and in 1993, before the Oslo Accordss were signed, 26 were killed. The diplomacy led to a reduction in violence. The same was true in the days after the signing of the accords – up until the 1994 massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. On the eve of the Oslo Accordss, letters were exchanged between Rabin and Yasser Arafat, in which Arafat recognized Isr...

In my opinion the schools here are atrocious for boys. For girls it's another matter. It's this horrible grind, 9 hours a day in a tiny classroom, the rebbe just reading from the Mishnah. My son has done 10 chapters of Mesechta Shabbos in one month! There's no concept of preparation, instructional design, variety. There are no assemblies, no projects, no trips. No background on the Oral Torah. No comparison to other Mishnayos. Just grinding through the book. It's like daf yomi for 5th graders. The rebbes do no preparation, no lesson plan. They go six days a week and Shabbos is full of restrictions. There's no free day. And they go 11 months like this. The schools have no cafeteria, no libraries, no assembly hall.  I can only think that the goal is to destroy the boys. The key concern about schools is getting in. I have a friend who just begged a school for 3 months to accept his 3 yr old. It's like the school administrators are some kind of evil characters out o...