Selling Land to Arabs: A Pre-Post

About two weeks ago, a group of rabbis from across Israel, prompted by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, publicized a ban on anyone selling or renting land to Arabs.
The reaction was swift and severe. Commentators from the Prime Minister of Israel on down to a group of rabbis in the United States rushed to condemn the statement.
Loyal readers of this blog must surely have been wondering: "Where's your post?" After all, isn't this a topic that speaks directly to the essence of this blog: Torah, Israel, Zionism, etc? In truth, yes, it is.
And yet I hesitated, not because I don't have what to write. I do. Problem is, I have too much to write. It's not a blog post - it's a mini-essay.
The issue raises a number of critical questions including:
1. Is there halachic basis for Rav Eliyahu's call?
1b. If his claim is halachically valid, does that mean that halachah is in some sense racist?
2. Even if Rav Eliyahu was right, should he have publicized his opinion as he did?
3. What is the nature of a Jewish State that claims to give full rights to its Arab citizens?
4. If the Jewish State does give such rights to its minority citizens, how does it ensure that it in fact remains a Jewish State?
5. What do we do about the little-discussed fact that many Jewish towns and neighborhoods are slowly becoming Arab enclaves? (While we fight over the settlements, we may very well be losing our cities.)

All of these are, to my mind, good and important questions. And yet, I haven't written because (a) I haven't had the time to write an article of that length and (b) I'm not sure blog readers really want to slog through a long, serious article.
In any case, even thinking about these questions is to my mind, important - even without my personal spin on the issue.
I recently gave a shiur at Orot (where I teach a weekly class on Hilchot Shabbat) on this very topic, and prepared a source book that deals with many of the questions I raise here.
For interested parties, you can access the source book here. (Note to all - the sources are entirely in Hebrew. If I had time to translate them, I'd be halfway towards writing the real post.)
In the meantime, if these types of sources are your cup of tea, have at them!

Watch This Video. (And Then Ask, How Can I help?)

Sharon, who works with me here in Orot sent me this video, which I hadn't seen before. It's a very moving and powerful testament to the need for volunteerism, to defend Israel, and the fact that one person really can make a difference. After watching the video, I called offering to help by giving shiurim to the volunteers on the subject of Zionism and Judaism. (I think I know something about the topic.) No, I don't have time, but if things work out, you've got to make time.
After watching the video, ask yourself: what can you do for them?
Their website is here.

Amazon Kindle in Israel: Nice, but Not Ready for Prime Time

As I wrote here, a while back we ordered the Amazon Kindle in order to easily access English reading material for our children. The Kindle itself is a wonderful device: I'm happy that it's only a book reader, without a color touchscreen or a web browser. (Actually, it does have a browser that almost immediately crashed the device. I wonder why they even included it.) The kids immediately took to the Kindle, reading books at their level. My daughter likes to enlarge the font until there's about three words on a page, but it works for her. She's reading Henry Huggins wonderfully. Sounds great, right? Not really.
1. The device started crashing. A lot. While Amazon promised a month of use, we were regularly getting far less than a week. On more than one occasion, we brought the device for reading in the car on a long drive, and it simply wouldn't start. Plugging it into the computer solved the problem, but it was annoying nonetheless. Rena finally realized that Amazon only promised a month of battery life with the wifi off (and in our bedroom, where we normally keep the Kindle, the wifi signal is quite weak). So we shut off the wifi, upgraded the software, and are now hoping for the best. So far so good.
2. Another minor pet peeve. The device is registered to my email account. Yet, over Chanukah Rena received a gift book to her email address. I got one to a different email address - my hotmail address that I almost never check. Simply put, different people have multiple email addresses, but there was no way for us to (a) know that we'd gotten the gift to another email address and then (b) for Rena to link the eBook to my account, as she herself had a separate Amazon account. Sounds confusing? You're right. She had to return the book, then send my account the book as a gift, and only then buy the book again on the "right" account. That's a lot of work, and needlessly confusing.
More concerning though, is the fact that many of the more popular books are not yet available in Israel. On the face of things, that's just annoying. But from my perspective, it's also dishonest. I'll explain.
Simcha and Bezalel have been pining for a very popular book called "The Lost Hero" by Rick Riordan, so we put it on their wish list. Their aunt, a very generous and loving woman, bought them the eBook, to their great excitement. But when I clicked on the button:

 I found myself looking at this message:

Here's my problem: Amazon knows that we live in Israel. Our Kindle was shipped here, and is registered here. Yet, when our relative bought the book for my kids, instead of getting a message from Amazon that the book is not available where we live, they happily sold it to her. Now we have to exchange the book for a gift card. Another problem: most of the books my kids want are also not available in Israel. What are we supposed to do with gift cards if my kids can't get any of the books that they want. It seems to me that if I can't get a book on my Kindle, Amazon should not allow me to add it to my wish list, or at the very least tell us before someone buys it that they won't sell it to me.
To me, it would be like my buying a physical gift on Amazon for someone to be shipped to, say, Mineappolis, not knowing that due to the severe weather there, Amazon no longer shipped packages there. But instead of telling me this, they went ahead and sent my recipient a gift card. Is it stealing? No. But it's also, to my mind, really, really slimy.

Bottom line: We really like the Kindle. If Amazon worked out the kinks and made every book available here in Israel, it would be amazing. If Amazon was at least more honest and up-front to gift-givers about which books they should or should not buy, I'd at least be a little less upset.

Eim Habanim Semeichah Shiur 3 - The Tangible Power of the Land

Audio Shiur:
Eim Habanim Semeichah Shiur 3: The Tangible Power of the Land
(This shiur studies the classic work of Rav Yissachar Teichtal on the importance of settling the Land of Israel, following the Hebrew text with English translation.)

As Rav Teichtal concludes his first introduction to the book, we get a sense of the tangible, very real power that he attributed to the Land to save him in his darkest hour. While we know the Land speaks to each of us, we can only yearn for the palpable, very real connection he himself felt. At the end of the shiur we discuss a "Kol Korei" issued by rabbis in Israel prohibiting the sale or rental of land in Israel to Arabs.

Click here to download the shiur, or here to navigate to the shiur on YUTorah.org.



New! Now you can subscribe to this shiur as a podcast, directly from iTunes! To subscribe, click here.

Audio Shiur: Parshat Vayechi - Buy Jewish Real Estate

Audio Shiur:
Parshat Vayechi - Buy Jewish Real Estate

Before his death, Ya’akov insists that his sons bury him not in Egypt, but in the Holy Land. In addition to examining the difference reasons for this insistence, we analyze the difference in language between how he speaks to Yosef and all the sons together. We also study an incredible comment of the Ramban, describing a war that history seems to have forgotten.

Click here to download the shiur, or here to navigate to the shiur on YUTorah.org.

I Was Right. And Wrong.

In this post about the American Jewish World Service, I wondered what was in fact Jewish about the AJWS if anything, and whether the organization's good works give people an ability to express their Judaism without any danger of meeting any Jewish content. It seems that I was on to something. A recent NY Times article about the AJWS video on YouTube (which has garnered enough hits to generate a news story), quoted several of the celebrities who participated in the video.

“I am a secular type,” Ms. Silverman said in an e-mail this week. The “J” in American Jewish World Service may stand for Jewish, she wrote, but “it’s just because it’s run by Jews (like the media and the banks).
“But it’s for everyone and anyone in need, and they do truly just work.”
Mr. Apatow, one of the all-powerful media figures Ms. Silverman had in mind, e-mailed a similar comment about his Judaism.
“I am the kind of Jewish person who feels very Jewish but does not practice at all,” he said. “I did not take part in this project because Jewish people run this charity. I got involved because they do very important work that is changing many people’s lives in a positive way."

In essence, that's what passes as Judaism for probably most of America's Jewry - and these are the Jews who both "feel" Jewish and actually consider themselves Jewish as well. Either you like the "chesed" or you just like that Jews are doing good work. Nothing wrong with either, but not very Jewish itself.
At the same time, I was wrong about the AJWS itself.

Ms. Messinger says that Mr. Apatow’s humor has proven a valuable way to reach many who, like Mr. Apatow, have no interest in religious Judaism. But she says that the American Jewish World Service is committed to religious learning, and that the students it takes around the world on service trips are taught the Jewish roots of their work. For example, the trip leader might ask students to consider the biblical context of a jubilee year, when slaves were to be freed and debts forgiven.
“The Torah commentary is, if you don’t forgive debts every 50 years, you will end up with permanent classes of people, those who have, and those who don’t,” Ms. Messinger says. “Guess what? That’s what we have.”

I guess the AJWS has found a great combination: woo the donors and contributors with "easy" Judaism. Give to our good works, feel Jewish, enjoy some self-deprecating humor, and we'll see you in shul next Kol Nidrei. But at least it understands the need to convey some authentic Jewish learning in some of its programming, which gives me hope that the next generation of donors might want more than a Judd Apatow video at the gala fund raising dinner.

A Nation of Schnorrers

Each year on Chanukah, Orot (where I work) takes the entire administrative staff on a tiyyul. (It's a rather nice perk - a great day, and a fascinating tiyyul. We always hire a rather popular tour guide named Elyada bar Shaul, who sadly, speaks almost no English, and speaks Hebrew so fast that an American wouldn't follow. But he's truly a terrific tour guide. But I digress. You can see a tour of his following the footsteps of Rav Aryeh Levine here.) The tour, which followed some of the military activities of the Eshel and Lechi during the British Mandate immediately preceding the creation of the Jewish State, began at Kikar Safra and wound its way through some of the neighboring areas.
Towards the end of the tour, we wound our way through the back edge of Me'ah She'arim. I was lagging behind at that point, and was speaking with someone when I caught up to the group. As we passed through the street, I noticed an elderly Chareidi man, with a long, dirty black coat, white beard and his hand out, collecting money.
When the group passed him without making a donation, he turned to us and yelled angrily (in Hebrew), "Not one of you! Not one of you gave anything!" What was he collecting for? He didn't really say. Yet, it seemed clear that because we took the liberty of walking in his streets (ours too), he felt that we owed him a donation. His indignation at our unwillingness to give him money indicated his clear expectation - not so much that we would give - but that we should.
This, I imagine, is not an unusual story. Anyone who has tried to pray at the Kotel has had, I'm sure, a very similar experience. I daresay that this same event takes place in many shuls around the world. I walked away from the man without any sense of guilt. He might feel that I owe him money, but I certainly do not. But this tiny episode illustrated to me a much larger issue that our country needs to face following the recent fires in the North.
Following the devastating fires in the Carmel region last week, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a rather controversial blog post (also here) that garnered a great deal of attention. Goldberg essentially argued that while giving money to victims of the fire is an important act (and he did), giving money to the JNF to pay for fire engines only enables Israel to continue to make bad choices.
Let us be clear: there's never enough money to have everything that you want. Budgeting, whether in our homes, our communities, or an entire country, is about making a series of difficult choices about what we want vs. what we need. (Truth be told, the United States is notoriously bad about these kinds of choices. Why else would it be borrowing money from China to give tax cuts to rich people?) The State of Israel can afford fire engines. The reason it never bought more fire engines, or newer ones, or cooler one, is because we've never had a terrible fire like this one before. It has always rained much earlier in the year. The ground was wet (or at least damp) for much of the summer. And most of the buildings in this country are made of stone or concrete. Sure, houses burn, but not entire buildings. You almost never hear of major fires like the ones that occur in the United States.
Moreover, after the fire the Israeli government allocated 2,500 shekel to every person in the North displaced by the fire, at a total cost of 60 million shekel. Imagine that the government had spend that 60 million shekel on firefighting equipment this year. It's impossible to know whether we would have had the fire under control earlier and saved all that money later on. But the money is somehow there (some other need won't be met this year). We just didn't want to spend it on fire trucks.
So, whether correctly or incorrectly, no one making budget choices felt that the possibility of a major fire should take precedence over another choice. So we bought parks, and schools, and roads and numerous other things that a country wants and needs, instead of buying fire trucks. As an aside, we also bought gas masks for the entire population of Israel. I picked up ours last week. One can only imagine how much the Israeli government spends buying and distributing them. In essence the government made a choice: what is the likelihood of a gas or chemical attack on the civilian population, versus the likelihood of a major forest fire? I'm not sure that we chose wrong.
After the fire, it's clear that we need fire trucks. The only question is, who should pay for them? And is there a problem with asking Jews from the Diaspora to fund infrastructure that the government should itself provide?
On some level, the answer is clearly "no." We have no problem with the fact that private individuals fund the construction of hospitals, parks, schools, and numerous other buildings that dot the country. People should give. They should donate to build the State of Israel. But, at the same time, we need to understand that Israel didn't neglect to buy fire trucks because it couldn't. Rather, the lack of necessary equipment resulted from a choice that we made - a bad choice, but a choice nonetheless. And asking Jews of the world to pay for our bad choices only encourages us to make the same choices down the road.
I think that was Goldberg's point. We're no longer the Israel of the 1950's, where we really can't afford to supply even basic needs. This is a thriving, growing, vibrant society, with wireless 3g internet service (albeit spotty), great kosher restaurants and a solid economy, which in truth is probably in better shape than that of the United States. (There is a shortage of butter now, but no one's sure why.)
Of course we need the help of Diaspora Jewry. And of course Jews from around the world should feel the desire and need to help the State of Israel grow and prosper. But I keep coming back to that Jew in Me'ah She'arim. He chose a certain lifestyle - where exclusive Torah study precludes the possibility of gainful employment. And yet now, he expects me to pay for it.
Sorry. I didn't make that choice for myself, nor for him, and his expectations notwithstanding, I will give tzedakah, but not to support what I consider to be inappropriate choices with which I do not agree.
We need not be a Nation of Schnorrers, with our hands out at every turn, looking for money to solve every problem. When Jews around the world stop seeing Israel as the poor, downtrodden Jew, but instead as the bustling Jewish wonder which is the greatest incubator for Judaism since Biblical times, they will give. But not because they feel guilty, and not because someone yelled at them. They'll give because they understand that giving to Israel is the best investment that they can make in the future of the Jewish people.

Eim Habanim Semeichah Shiur 2 - The Oath

Audio Shiur:
Eim Habanim Semeichah Shiur 2: The Oath
(This shiur studies the classic work of Rav Yissachar Teichtal on the importance of settling the Land of Israel, following the Hebrew text with English translation.)

Rav Teichtal, using Ya'akov Avinu's oath on Har Habayit as a model, makes a promise himself in the hopes of emerging from the Holocaust alive.

Click here to download the shiur, or here to navigate to the shiur on YUTorah.org.



New! Now you can subscribe to this shiur as a podcast, directly from iTunes! To subscribe, click here.

Not So Funny. More Like Sad.

Goldberg titled his post, Why I Love America, part 86. I'm pretty sure that he really means it. But to someone who actually cares about the meaning of Chanukah, the picture isn't funny. It's sad.

What Not to Do

If you're going to terrorize customers as a method of garnering negative reviews in order to build your business, it might not be a good idea not to brag about it to the New York Times. That might pique the interest of Federal Authorities, who might arrest you and send you to jail.
Threatening people might very well build a business. But bragging about it to an international newspaper? That's just stupid.