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So-Called Leadership Won’t Fight According to Torah, so…

Short Neck Syndrome

By Shmuel Sackett –

Many years ago, a wonderful fighter for the Jewish people, Shifra Hoffman z”l, coined a term which I never forgot. She said that our leader, Moshe Rabbeinu, referred to the Jewish nation as “a stiff-necked people” (Shemot 34:9). Now, however, we have become “a short-necked people”. She explained this to mean that when things get difficult for our nation and we reach out to our leaders for help, they put their hands and shoulders up, making their necks very short and say; “Sorry, but what can we do?”

I saw this “short neck” from Major General Yehuda Fuchs, head of IDF’s Central Command. He is responsible for security in the most dangerous areas of Israel. I realize that this is not a simple job and I appreciate the work being done by thousands of soldiers in these areas, but the Major General must give better answers during these challenging days. Instead of assuring Israelis that the difficult situation will be under control, his interviews – after the most recent wave of terror attacks – have been one big: “What can we do?”

Comments such as “We have never seen such violence” or “Thousands of people are working day and night to provide security to the residents of Israel” serve no purpose whatsoever. We know our soldiers are working hard – and we pray for their success – but that does not help the 200+ cars that are getting stoned daily on the roads in Judea and Samaria. Those quotes do not comfort the families who are sitting – and have sat – shiva for loved ones murdered on the roads. We want to see results, not hear sound-bites.

“Short-neck syndrome” means refusing to do the non-politically correct work that needs to be done. When leaders fear the morning newspaper more than the enemy, the task will remain unfulfilled. Every IDF soldier knows what they must do but their hands are tied and weapons locked for fear of being condemned by the ungrateful nations of the world. Israeli leaders – both political and military – are afraid to straighten up their necks, hold their heads high and fight the battles according to Torah values.

Over and over again the Torah tells us how to fight the enemy, but these guidelines don’t fit well in the “play-nice” world of 2023. Why is it that 95% of UN countries treat their enemies as the Torah instructs but when it comes to Israel – the nation that brought the Torah to the world – we have to shoot rubber bullets and ask permission to defend ourselves?

Rabbi Meir Kahane used to say that the IDF should fire rubber bullets – when the Arabs throw rubber rocks… but that will never happen. The violence is getting worse, and our leadership needs to step up their game. No more “short necks”! No more “what can we do?” The time has come for the Jewish fist… and for the Jewish army to use everything at their disposal to end the violence and bring security to Eretz Yisrael.

Am Yisrael Chai!

From Jewish Press, here.

You Think You’re Worshipping in Solitude. In Reality, They’re Spying on You and Writing About It…

BRESLOV IN MY BACKYARD

By Shoshana Friedman | AUGUST 31, 2021

Finding the essence of prayer in a Jerusalem wadi

I was born in Brooklyn, where davening happens in shuls that are heated in the winter and air-conditioned in the summer. If people get emotional during davening, maybe their whispers are a little loud. But most keep their emotions to themselves.

The wadi in my current backyard — a ravine hugging the edge of Jerusalem — is a long way from Brooklyn.

Those first few nights after we moved in, I was alarmed to hear repeated desperate yells outside my window. But when morning came, I realized that no one was being attacked out there. The screams were coming from a motley group of Breslover chassidim who’d chosen this wadi as their destination for daily hisbodedus — some in the early morning hours, some shrouded in the lonely darkness of the Jerusalem night.

With time, my take on those yells changed from annoying to curious to passionate to inspiring. And my view of the men who visit the raw valley changed, too: from foreign, off-putting wanderers to authentic spiritual seekers.

In Jerusalem of 2021, there are clogged highways and self-checkout in the supermarkets. There are LED signs advertising the next minyan outside the local shtibel and electric scooters zipping up and down the streets. If you’re seeking a place that’s quiet, a place untouched by asphalt or technology, a place to feel small and needy against the vast expanse of creation, then you too might make your way to the wadi behind my building. There you can feel your smallness and His greatness, voice your most intimate needs, and find your deepest self.

Continue reading…

From Mishpacha, here.

COVID: 43 Problems with the USG Response

43 of the Many Reasons People Don’t Believe the Authorities About Covid

By 

August 18, 2023

 

  1. The vaccine is an experimental one—it has not gone through the several years of testing normally required.
  2. The drug manufacturers are not liable for any injuries caused by the vaccine.
  3. People are needed in the control group to determine the vaccine’s effectiveness, but no such studies have been underway.
  4. The CDC and others had to trash Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine because the rules state that an experimental drug cannot be authorized if there is an existing effective treatment.
  5. An Indian state of 241 million people stopped the ravages of Covid with Ivermectin.
  6. Ivermectin is a safe, Nobel Prize earning drug used worldwide billions of times for 40 years as an anti-parasite with only rare and minor side effects and is on the WHO’s List of Essential Medicines. The FDA was forced to retreat on its all-out attack on Ivermectin, stating that doctors do have the authority to prescribe it for Covid treatment.
  7. The deaths due to Covid have been overstated.
  8. The CDC has recommended that children as young as 6 months old get this experimental vaccine even though children are the least likely to have complications from the disease.

Continue reading…

From LRC, here.

‘That Public Men Publish Falsehoods Is Nothing New’

Be Angry At The Sun

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante’s feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.

[Anonymous submission.]
From here.

Noose Tightens on NY Jews’ Necks…

Morris: Emails Show New York Times Collaborating with State Government to Target Orthodox Jews

by EMMA-JO MORRIS8 Aug 2023

The New York Times collaborated with the New York State government to produce its now-infamous series of stories targeting Orthodox Jewish schools, according to over 800 pages of emails obtained by Breitbart News.

The Times’ Eliza Shapiro — self-described “serious reporter who doesn’t pull punches” — is seen in the massive volume of communications, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, discussing with the New York State Education Department how “we” can craft comment for the first story launching the Times’ series of articles targeting yeshivas, and giving the government almost a full business-week longer than the schools to comment. Emails also show she worked with the government to direct blame for the Times’ allegations, and coordinated timing on publishing with a vote to regulate the religious schools.

The Times’ first story that launched the anti-religious crusade, published in September, alleges Hasidic students “[know] nothing” and grow up “barely [able] to support their own families.” The story was revealed by Breitbart to have been carefully curated by omitting relevant information, shunning sources directly involved with the schools, and declining to publish pertinent on-the-record statements — producing a weapon used by secular political interest groups to attack the Orthodox Jewish community’s most sacred institutions.

As Breitbart previously reported, the “investigation” dropped in what appeared to be unbelievable timing, the day before the Board of Regents held a unanimous vote, without debate, to allow state functionaries heavier say in the education of Orthodox children. Those children happen to be of parents vehemently opposed to the social justice curriculum that has been injected into most other New York schools.

Now, newly obtained emails show the Times working with the New York State Education Department in close collaboration to produce the story with maximum political impact.

In one correspondence, Shapiro is seen working with the government to produce the state’s comment on the reporting, with almost a week longer to respond than the private religious schools being maligned.

Continue reading…

From Breitbart, here.