Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Interesting Posts and Articles #283

  1. At Hirhurim, another post about Uman on Rosh Hashanah, this time by Rabbi Gil Student. As he writes:

    Controversy over the pilgrimage is actually almost as old as the practice. Not only have the pilgrims’ trips been denounced, they have personally been taunted and beaten by other Jews.
    Slightly related, I wondered whether Rabbi Eliezer Berland's students were planning to go to Uman this year, given that he claimed that last Rosh Hashanah would be the last time.
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  2. Blog In Dm weighs in Rav Amnon Yitzchok and his music ban. I last weighed in on it in this post, about how the video reveals how Rabbi Amnon Yitzchok was manipulating a gadol.
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  3. A post at Cross-Currents about bans on burqas, from the Eidah Chareidis and in Europe.
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  4. An Op-Ed by Yossi Sarid. I think he misunderstands Shmaya's directive of שנא את הרבנות. Seriously.
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  5. Orthonomics discusses the second 11th hour yeshiva closing.
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  6. Are silly banz dangerous for your kids? Snopes confirms. But it seems only if they wear it to sleep, and wear a lot of them. See the image and description.
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  7. Haveil Havalim hosted as Izgad this week.
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  8. Luke Ford and Dov Bear report on Rabbi David Orlofsky repudiating his apology, saying that it was a draft and not official, and now he cannot put out an official statement.
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  9. Yeranen Yaakov has a good defense of Rav Ovadia Yosef's recent statements about "Abu Mazen and these Palestinians". An excerpt:



    Now, let me ask you a question:
    Who in the world would be considered "our enemies and haters and all those who seek us harm"?
    I could think of many nations, but one close one in particular who has been at the forefront of seeking us harm in the past century is the Palestinians and their leadership.
  10. On the Main Line has a released transcript (and analysis of said transcript) of Henry Kissinger and Rabbi Moshe Sherer. From a first-hand report of the state of Russian matzos at that time, I would add that it was not a matter of mere chumra, but that the matzas they had were mamash chametz.
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  11. Here on parshablog, did Baba Sali lie to his son in a dream? Rather, everyone was acting mightily silly.

4 comments:

S. said...

>I would add that it was not a matter of mere chumra, but that the matzas they had were mamash chametz.

Is that so? I assume you say this from knowledge of the situation. Were the matzos baked in Riga chametz?

joshwaxman said...

he didn't go to Riga, and so perhaps it isn't fair to extrapolate elsewhere. this was in Odessa in 1973, rather than 1976, and the official head of the community (with connections to the KGB) was giving a tour; and he saw the vat where they were mixing the dough, and it was encrusted.

kt,
josh

S. said...

If you don't mind, I'd like to update my post quoting you.

joshwaxman said...

sure; no problem.

kt,
josh

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