The O.T.D. Drift – Avi Ciment Responds:
Kudos to Michael Feldstein for his comments regarding my op-ed, “The Modern Orthodox Conundrum Goes International.” In his letter, “A Broader Picture of the Off-The-Derech Phenomenon” (Aug. 22), he mentioned that when I asked a modern day-school girl how many of her classmates were frum, she responded that 5% of her class was frum. I actually said five fellow classmates, not 5% percent. Additionally, she can’t know every single person in her class as I’m sure there were others who were in fact observant whom she didn’t know. My point was that the mere fact that she had trouble finding five observant Jews in her grade was bad enough! And I certainly agree with Mr. Feldstein that while the attrition rate is high, it is not at 95%.
Later he mentioned that I said that the lack of observance that occurs within the Modern Orthodox community does not exist in the more yeshivish, black-hat world. I actually wrote that “the frum world has their own issues, but at the end of the day, their message is a resoundingly clear: ‘Moshe Emes V’soraso Emes.” This statement is correct. There is no question that every sect within Orthodoxy has their share of people off the derech. No one is immune to that, as evidenced by the various outreach organizations focusing on the frum world that Mr. Feldstein correctly listed. My point was only to suggest that the numbers that are defecting within the Modern Orthodox community are much higher than their more frum counterparts, as the latest Pew polls have certainly confirmed.
The other point I was trying to make is that within frum communities, certain mitzvot are a no-brainer, like wearing tzitzit, davening daily with a minyan, saying berachos, and learning li’shma, whereas in several Modern Orthodox communities, many of these laws are ignored. In fact, a few years back, Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld, rav of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, New York since 1991, wrote “I put the question out on a Young Israel Rabbi chat group: ‘Do you observe that young marrieds aren’t coming to shul? Most agreed, explaining, they are not coming because there is no point in davening if there is no kiddush and no socializing.” The same dilemma is generally not found in more yeshivish communities where minyanim are popping up all the time, and bursting at the seams, no less.
Nonetheless, Mr. Feldstein’s observations were still on point and appreciated.
Avi Ciment
Einstein Could Have Been a Baal Teshuva
Kudos to Saul Singer for his informative article on Einstein (“How Einstein’s Fame and Zionism Almost Lead To His Election as President of Israel,” August 1).
It is not well known that Einstein, in his youth, was not as secular and distant from Judaism as portrayed in most biographical accounts. According to Barry Parker’s 2003 biography, Einstein: The Passions of a Scientist, young Albert was, at one point, on the verge of becoming a baal teshuva.
Although the family was apathetic to Jewish tradition, Albert received some education in Jewish studies (only because German law mandated religious education). At age eleven, his family’s utter rejection of Jewish tradition began to disturb him greatly, so much so that he rebuked them for not observing Shabbos, eating pork, and not praying. For one or two years he refrained from pork, and composed songs about G-d while walking to and from school. He even planned to become bar mitzvah, until a university student, ironically named Max Talmud, became a regular, weekly dinner guest of the Einsteins, introducing Albert to math and science. One can only imagine what might have become of the young genius had there been a Chabad to embrace the budding baal teshuva. Perhaps the name Albert Einstein would have been associated with a celebrated talmud chacham and tzaddik.
An important lesson on the power of capturing Jewish youth and introducing them to their heritage.
Todah Rabah.
Hindishe Lee
Passaic, N.J.
American Politics Strongly Affects Israel And Jews
Your August 29 editorial, “There’s More to the Trump Appellate Victory Than Meets the Eye,” describes N.Y.S. Attorney General Letitia James’s trying to use lawfare to bring down Donald Trump. However, I think it actually is a much greater problem than just one AG’s vendetta against one legally elected American president.
There is a constant refrain from conservatives that the Democrats have no agenda and no new policies. That is a dangerous misinterpretation of their aim. They have a definite goal that they have been pursuing for 17 years since Obama stated the aim of “the fundamental transformation of America” from a free enterprise democracy into a totalitarian socialist state. This was their main agenda even before Trump came on the scene and inconveniently interrupted their quest. His presence, however, gave them a very convenient distraction in the form of misdirection away from their actual goal, and also gave them more ammunition in their arsenal to distract the public.
The “fundamental transformation” of America is a long-term process, consisting of two steps. The first step is the tearing down of American democracy, culture, and history as we have known them, and turning the greatest country in the history of the world into a chaotic society approaching anarchy. The second step is then rebuilding the remnants into a socialist state.
The Democrats, with the eager participation of the media as cheerleaders, have been working as a unified party on the first step for 17 years and have done an excellent job, without it being recognized as such by most conservatives. They have turned America into a badly divided country, giving it an image of being a racist country born in slavery, an oppressor of the poor, and have advocated and implemented, wherever they are in control, massive illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, revolving-door justice, crime-ridden and violent streets, weaponization of all branches of government, monopolistic control of all forms of information, resistance to law enforcement, riots on college campuses, demonization and/or delegitimization of various minorities and political supporters, attempts to affect elections (e.g., Russiagate), destroyed American landmarks and statues, etc., etc. The list can go on indefinitely. They have also infected the entire education system of many cities and have indoctrinated a whole generation of new students with their leftist propaganda.
All this has had a direct effect on American attitudes toward Israel and Jews. The severe drift of the Democratic party from a liberal but patriotic American party to a far-left radical party consumed with woke intersectionality has posed a serious problem for American Jews and Israel. In America, there has been an explosion of antisemitism which has been very unsettling, and for Israel, America’s formerly unequivocal support in the U.N. and in the Middle East has been replaced by abandonment and wavering support.
The overall concern is that the far left has succeeded very well in producing a very divisive atmosphere in our country, leading to considerable chaos, which they so resolutely strive for. If it wasn’t for Donald Trump’s two elections breaking their momentum, the left would have been even more ensconced in its socialist ideology, and if allowed to continue, would lead to the state of anarchy they ultimately seek, preparing to turning America into their desired socialist state.
Most conservatives and Jews don’t seem to have grasped the big picture and ultimate goals of the far-left-dominated Democratic party, and may have become too complacent in thinking that Trump’s election may have finally eliminated the threat. They must be cognizant of the fact that Trump’s elections may only represent a pause in the longer term, ultimate threat to our democracy and its influence globally, especially towards Israel and the Jews – and start taking appropriate action now.
In the words attributed to Edmund Burke, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Max Wisotsky
Highland Park, N.J.
Charlie Kirk And The Shidduch Crisis
I very much enjoy your columns on the Singles page. The other day, as I was scrolling through Facebook (an idle habit of mine), I was reminded of our community’s shidduch crisis.
Out popped a video on my screen of Charlie Kirk, the leader of Turning Point USA. For those of you who don’t know, Charlie Kirk is a brilliant young Christian man with a vision for a better America. He saw years ago what was happening on college campuses and he decided to do something about it. He started an organization called Turning Point USA to promote pro Judeo-Christian values on college campuses. He is pro-Israel and in favor of bringing back morality to our schools, and he is a refreshing alternative to the woke culture found on so many college campuses today.
He often goes and visits these campuses where students, both liberal and conservative, will line up to ask him questions which he brilliantly answers in a very articulate manner. The Charlie Kirk video that popped up on my phone screen this week was that of a female college student asking him his opinion about women hesitating to go into male-dominated fields because they don’t get a lot of maternity leave. Charlie responded by asking the woman what matters more to her – a great family or great career? When she said family, he responded by saying that she should want to meet a future husband that should be able to make enough money so that she could stay at home and raise her children because deep down, women in America weep to themselves when they have to drop their three-month-old babies in day care. He said that he wants to live in a country where if a woman does not want to go to work, she shouldn’t have to, and that she should be able to stay at home and raise those kids.
He went on to say that we should all seek to build that kind of country because ultimately it is good for men, women, children, and community. Unfortunately, things have gotten so expensive and out of reach, especially in Democrat-controlled cities, that it can be hard, but nevertheless, he stressed that this should be the goal. Better to have mommy raising the little ones than strangers.
This got me thinking about our current shidduch crisis and what we can do about it. Why does the chareidi orthodox establishment promote our young girls to date learning boys who don’t work? We are emasculating our young men and taking away their male energy that was meant to support and keep their wives and children safe and secure. It is not the parents’ and grandparents’ role to do that. We are teaching our young women to adopt the ways of feminism by encouraging them to get full-time jobs to support their husbands and then leave their little ones in crowded playgroups. This leads to exhausted mothers who have no strength to cook healthy nourishing meals for their children. It also leads to the drugging of children to keep them compliant to make life easier at home and in the yeshivas.
What is more important – healthy family systems or maximizing the number of adult male students to fill up the beis midrash? Years ago, women were home raising their young children and the men worked. That did not mean that men didn’t also find the time to learn. My father and brothers gave their wives the opportunity to be able to stay at home and raise their children and yet always made time to learn every day.
The current system is very unhealthy and kids have become entitled, expecting their parents to “get with the program.” Many parents are intimidated and will go into debt for fear of disappointing the status quo. The system is broken and shidduchim are getting harder and harder to find for those who do not live up to these difficult standards. Something’s got to give. It is not sustainable and not good for our communities.
Rebecca Chesner
Via E-mail
