You couldn’t get a better list of sites that you should visit. If the left wing nazis at Facebook hate them, then they must be worth checking out.
ללא מחבר No Author
Here is The List Of Pages Deleted by Facebook
Facebook Purge: Here is The List Of Pages Deleted by Facebook
As reported by The Western Journal, in what many are calling the “Facebook purge,” Facebook announced on Thursday that it removed over 800 political pages and accounts in a clamp down on what the social media company calls “inauthentic behavior” in the lead-up to the midterm elections next month.
Facebook did not release the full list of pages impacted by this action. Upon being asked, Facebook refused to disclose the full list.
The following is a list of 186 pages that are currently unpublished on Facebook. Some of these have been confirmed by the owners as having been unpublished by Facebook as part of Thursday’s mass purge of pages, while others are currently unconfirmed as being part of the purge. However, all of these pages were still indexed by Google on October 12, 2018, which suggests they were recently active and thus removed recently.
This list of 186 pages purged by Facebook contains over 57 million followers in total. Fan totals were recorded from the cache stored by Google.
From The Burning Platform, here.
Nasty Brisker Politics
Dishonoring the Rav
Nasty rabbinic politics are usually best quickly forgotten. However, sometimes it pays to remember just to keep in mind that the “good old days” weren’t always so good. The following attack was so over-the-top, so gratuitous and insulting, that it deserves remembering as a cautionary tale of how far beyond acceptable boundaries Torah students can veer in a misguided sense of righteous indignation.
In 1984, the Student Organization of Yeshiva University published a book of Torah essays in honor of Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik turning 80 and having taught Torah at YU for 40 years, Sefer Kevod Ha-Rav edited by R. Moshe Sherman and R. Jeffrey Woolf. In addition to scholars within Yeshiva’s orbit, a few leading Torah authorities also contributed essays–most notably, Rav Moshe Feinstein, Rav Ya’akov Ruderman and Rav Mordechai Gifter.
Rav Feinstein’s article was the first in the book and began with this brief personal note (my translation):
I come with this to send my blessing to the editors of this festschrift that the students of the great genius, our master Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik shlit”a arranged in his honor, as he reaches the age of strength [eighty]. And also to offer my prayer that God lengthen the days and years of my dear, great friend, in old age, full of sap and richness [Ps. 92:15], and that he continue to spread Torah in public and to engage in public matters, in honor of God and His Torah, and as an honor to our families. With friendship and appreciation, Moshe Feinstein
Those who did not already know that Rav Soloveitchik’s mother was a Feinstein may still have caught the hint about the honor of their families that these two great scholars were cousins. However, that did not stop people who identified themselves as students of the Brisk Yeshiva in Jerusalem from attacking not just Rav Soloveitchik but Rav Moshe Feinstein and the other authors in this volume.
In words that are so vile I dare not translate them, these Torah students denigrated the leading halakhic authority in America at that time and other venerated sages. They proceed to denounce R. Chaim Karlinsky for his classic biography of the Beis Ha-Levi, R. Yosef Dov Soloveitchik (great-grandfather of the intellectual leader of YU), as well as his publisher, Mekhon Yerushalayim. This makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Below is the first paragraph and a link to a PDF of the full letter, courtesy of The Pini Dunner Collection. The letter is discussed in detail in the recent JQR article, “A Haredi Attack on Rabbi Joseph Ber Soloveitchik: A Battle over the Brisker Legacy from 1984” by R. Pini Dunner and Prof. David N. Myers (link).
As a postscript, the book sold out and, nearly a decade later, the Student Organization of Yeshiva republished it, which was when I bought my copy.
הננו בזה לצאת במחאה גלויה נגד אלו המתכנין בשם ״גדולים״ ו״ראשי ישיבות״ בארה״ב, בנותנם יד חנפה להעוכר ישראל הידועה העריץ מבאסטאן, יליד השכלת ברלין הארורה והמרעיל לבות בני ישראל בדעות ארסיות וכעורות, כידוע, בזה שהנ״ל פרסמו מכתבי העמל שלהם, לרגל ימות שמונים שנה להצדוקי הבוסטנאי, מעל דפי הקורנס הנושא שם ״כבוד הרב״, ועוד גברה עליהם אגרופה של חנופה זולה לכנות את המזולזל הזה כממשיך שלשלת בריסק.
Here is the full letter:
From Torah Musings, here.
Privatize Police – Slash the Murder Rate!
Government Police Fail to Make Arrests In Nearly Half of Murder Cases
Police departments in a number of U.S. cities — Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans — are receiving increased attention for their failure to clear even half of the homicides that occur in their jurisdiction. And note that to “clear” a case doesn’t even necessarily require that someone be convicted of the crime, but only that either an arrest was made or that the case was “cleared by exceptional means,” meaning that the police identified a suspect, had sufficient evidence to arrest, and knew their location, but encountered a circumstance that prevented them from making the arrest.
Of all the crimes classified as Index I crimes by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, murder, and nonnegligent manslaughter typically have the highest clearance rate by far.
[…]What should be realized is just how much lower current homicide clearance rates are compared to the 1960s and 1970s, even though the number of killings in recent years is roughly on par with the early 70s. As can be seen in the following graph, the number of homicides has gone down since its peak in the 90s, but so has the clearance rate.
[…]An explanation offered for why this is the case is that a growing proportion of these unsolved homicides are gangland killings where witnesses refuse to talk to the police due to anti-snitching norms, low trust in the police, or fear of reprisal. Indeed, the city of Indianapolis has created a witness protection fund in an effort to get more witnesses to cooperate with police.
Police Aren’t Your Friend — Even If You Want to Report a Crime
The hesitancy to cooperate with the police should not be surprising. For one thing, unless you have a personal relationship with police officers, you will always be a potential criminal suspect. At worst, calling the police for help can result in the arrest or death of you or a loved one. With the high potential costs of interacting with the police, individuals on the margin will seek substitutes for ensuring their safety.
[RELATED: “Too Many Laws: Why Police Encounters Escalate” by Ryan McMaken]
Furthermore, consider the incentives facing witnesses of crimes. It’s not like they can just leave an anonymous tip to the police and be done with it; rather, they will have to endure multiple interviews with police officers and prosecutors and will be expected to testify in court if the necessity arises. This will be a long, drawn-out process during which (and possibly after) one could be a target for reprisal. Government police have no duty to protect individuals (see Warren v. District of Columbia (1981)). The assassination of a witness may even be beneficial from the perspective of increasing clearance rates, as the police would already have a likely suspect.
Government Police Lack Accountability and Incentives
Yet for some reason, this state of affairs is tolerated. We have become conditioned to expect such service from government bureaucracies and see it as routine. But imagine if murders happened so frequently on the premises of any private business. We would fully expect that that business would make it their top priority to prevent any further slayings and ensure the public that their place of business is a safe place to be. We wouldn’t even consider the possibility that they would be able to remain in business while being unable to identify the killer in less than half of the cases.
Thus, at issue is not only the ineffectiveness of government policing but the intertwined issue of “public” property. Unlike the common areas provided by the proprietors of private business (such as hotel lobbies, parking lots, and the common areas within shopping malls), there is no residual claimant to the value of common areas in the public domain. They cannot be sold and therefore have no market prices. A private owner seeks to maintain or increase the market value of their property, an aspect of which is the safety of its common areas because they are the residual claimant of that value. However, this is not the case for areas that are in the public domain. Just like the other aspects of quality, such as the presence of graffiti, trash, atmosphere, and maintenance, tend to deteriorate in areas in the public domain, so does safety.
Entrepreneurs who might have better ideas than the Chicago police on how to increase the safety of public areas are unable to acquire the property, test their ideas, and determine whether those ideas work based on whether they result in profits or losses. Public officials have little incentive to invest in improving the safety of the common areas under their control, as they suffer no losses from letting them deteriorate and reap no profits from improving them. Since the homicides in question are of individuals who have little political influence, they are of little relevance to the immediate concerns of public officials.
In light of this, we should more deeply appreciate what is at stake in slogans like “Privatize Everything.” It is not simply about the nominal transfer of physical objects or land from government control to favored individuals, but transferring them from the realm of non-calculation and fiat to the realm of economic calculation and consumer sovereignty. As a practical matter, it could save many lives.
The Charedi Leadership Admit They Have No Vision
Can a modern state be run based on Halacha?
According to the Bostoner Rebbe, the answer is no. At a news conference (http://www.nrg.co.il/online/11/ART2/680/325.html?hp=11&cat=1102&loc=8), the Bostoner Rebbe said that “he is afraid of a halachic state”.
Here is the full context of his statement:
אני מפחד מהיום שיהיו 61 חברי כנסת, כי אני לא יודע איך ניתן לנהל מדינה עם האחריות של שמירת התורה. לדוגמה, לסגור את שדה התעופה בשבת, בעולם המודרני אני לא יודע איך אפשר לעשות את זה”. ובכנות הוסיף ש”ברוך השם שלא באים לשאול אותי שאלות כאלה”.
I am afraid of the day when we have 61 MKs because I don’t know how you can run a state with the responsibilities of keeping the Torah. For example, shutting down the airport on Shabbos, in the modern world I don’t see how you can do that. And in a moment of candour he added, “Thank God that no one comes to ask me these types questions”
Unfortunately, this is emblematic of the modern Charedi leadership, don’t deal with the modern world, rather withdraw from it. Don’t engage with the world, rather have everyone sit and learn.
The problem is that it puts the Torah in a very bad light. The Torah is supposed to be a blueprint for society, and yet the Charedi leadership says that we can’t run a modern society based on Torah because we don’t have answers. What does that say about the נצחיות of Torah?
This was not always the case, R’ Waldenberg (שו”ת ציץ אליעזר) wrote a whole sefer about these issues as well as many teshuvas and R’ Sholmo Zalman Auerbach was already available to address these issues.
It’s very interesting that the Bostoner Rebbe pointed to closing the airport on Shabbos as a big problem. IMHO, that is the least of our problems. Power generation, police and army activity on Shabbos are much bigger problems. How do you deal with industries (for example Intel’s chip factories) which can’t be shut down once a week? How would you create a workable justice system given the Torah’s rules of evidence? The list goes on and on.
Additionally, there are very serious economic issues to be dealt with. Modern economies are based on credit and interest, for example, every modern state sells government bonds which pay interest. What about the prohibition of ריבית? How do you square advertising with the prohibitions of אונאת דברים?
To their credit, the RZ Rabbis are trying to deal with these issues. To their credit they are publishing seforim which focus on halacha in the modern world, dealing with issues like the army, police, economic issues, etc.
From The Jewish Worker, here.