Communism – A Personal Account

A friend keeps saying the finest popular book in Jewish observant circles to grant a basic understanding of non-socialist economics is “Go My Son”. I agree.

The author masterfully illustrates the contrast between various economic regimes, shows how the division of labor works and breaks down, notes the illogical nature of communism and its tragic effects, and more, all this only in passing, and in stoic prose.

The true story of a yeshiva student’s adventure-filled odyssey through both war-torn Europe and Asiatic Russia. The author describes his many dramatic, and sometimes humorous encounters, as he flees from the Nazis, in a vivid and engrossing personal memoir.

Here it is on Amazon.

Don’t Forget the Gush Katif Expulsion!

Here are some excerpts from an article here:

8,500 people lived and worked in Gush Katif, mainly in agriculture, with hundreds of acres of hothouses that provided a large portion of the country’s crops and flowers. Every single resident were forced out, with their homes and communities destroyed during the withdrawal.

Many former residents are still in dire need of help, both material and emotional, but with the passage of time, their plight has faded from public awareness. Yet a large number of them remain even today, 10 years later, without permanent homes or steady income.

 

Yehudah Gross, who lived in Gush Katif for 23 years before the expulsion, explained that it was “the center of our lives.” He and his wife raised their five children there. “Everything was there – our schools, our businesses, shops, banks, employment.”

Their belongings packed up and shipped away, often to locked containers where they remained inaccessible for months or even years, displaced families were put onto buses and sent out to hotels, tent cities and other temporary housing all over the country.

They were “uprooted and tossed to the wind,” said Segal. “Most people had no idea where they were going. They were dispersed all over the place.”

Many of the residents were relocated to flimsily-built caravans.”They were thrown up, ignoring building codes,” said Segal. “People lived in these boxes for years and years, and people still live there.” Today, 10 years later, approximately 20 percent of evacuees remain in these caravans as they wait for permanent housing.

“Someone aged 50 or 60 who had farmed a certain crop on a certain piece of land for 30 years cannot start a new farm at their age,” said Segal. “And who will hire them?”

Yulis said that the poverty experienced by many evacuees due to the loss of their livelihoods prevented them from rebuilding their lives. “There were people who took out mortgages and loans because they couldn’t feed their children,” he said. With more pressing needs, they were never able to put money aside to build a permanent home.

There also remain a number of evacuees who were not able to cope with the emotional trauma of the disengagement. Several of the residents spoke about friends and neighbors whose spirits simply never recovered. Sinking into depression, some succumbed to illness and early death.

“These were hard working people who had their own businesses,” Karmey Chesed founder and director Aryeh Weingarten told Breaking Israel News. “Many were farmers who proudly worked and produced in their own fields. They would help others in need and now things have turned around and they now, still, need help. Many of them do not have homes. Most people from Gush Katif built their own homes, which were destroyed when they were kicked out by the government.”

The rest, from Israeli nonprofit ‘Karmey Chesed‘ is here.

Is Judaism Pluralistic?

“es Eisav saneisi?”

Over Pesach I read R’ Jonathan Sacks’ latest book, Not In G-d’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence, and I’ve been meaning to jot down some thoughts about it but just never seem to have the time. I still don’t have time, so this will be b’kitzur one point. What I admire about R’ Sacks writing is his clarity and erudition. What I sometimes find hard to digest is his attempts to portray Judaism   as always consistent with modern Western liberal, democratic, humanist values (if you’ve ever taken a university Western Civ course [do such things still exist?] you know what values I mean).

Let me give you an example from the book. In the second half of the book R’ Sacks takes a few episodes in Braishis, e.g. Avraham’s banishment of Yismael, Ya’akov’s conflict with Eisav, Yosef’s conflict with his brothers, and he argues that these stories have been misunderstood. Rather than a rejection of the unwanted son/brother, the intent of the Bible is to flip the traditional storyline on its head and actually validate the “other” brother/son/outsider. In G-d’s eyes, everyone has value and no one is rejected. He goes so far as to read the opening of Vayishlach, where Ya’akov sends gifts to Eisav, as a sort of attempt to return the bounty of the brachos, an acknowledgement that maybe the stolen brachos should rightfully have been given to Eisav after all. Read in this way, as validating the “other,” religion becomes a force that unites people, rather than a divisive force that can lead to violence.

I thought I was maybe missing something, so I told this derasha to my son and asked him if there is anything that strikes him as odd.  He immediately quoted the pasuk in Malachi, “…v’es Eisav saneisi?” (1:3)  How can you think that Eisav is validated?  I would have thought that what seems to be a mefurash pasuk against your thesis deserves a mention in the text, but R’ Sacks addresses it only in a footnote to the chapter at the back of the book.  His answer is that the navi was speaking about a particular time where there were particular difficulties, but this is not to be taken as a general rule or a normative statement. Putting aside the fact that were an reaction to a particular situation and not a nevu’ah she’hutzrecha l’doros it would never have been written, I think the more basic issue is how do you know what is the rule and what is the exception? How do you know that your derasha on Braishis represents the TRUTH, the categorical rule, and the pasuk in Malachi is the exception? Maybe it’s the other way around? It seems to me at least that Eisav has been historically seen as a bad guy who should be avoided at all costs. Halacha hi she’Eisav sonei Ya’akov. K’she’zeh kam zeh nofeil. The Derashos haRan uses this very pasuk in Malachi as a springboard to argue that the conflict between Eisav and Ya’akov is inherent in their (our) nature, not just a product of circumstance. The two sides can never share common ground.  R’ Sacks is not bound to adopt the view of the Ran, but I would have liked to see how he it. A nice derasha is no more than that – a nice derasha. Whether it reflects the majority view of ba’alei mesorah and Jewish philosophers is unproven.

One other quick point: I think the whole argument of the book is academic.  Until someone in the camp of Yishmael of similar renown to R’ Sacks starts making these same arguments, there is nothing to talk about.  To preach peace and tolerance while your enemies plot your destruction is does not make any sense to me.

There is much more to say about the book… maybe one day I get back to it.

From Divrei Chaim, here.

Jewish Surnames – Created to Tax, Draft and Indoctrinate

[CORRECTED] Jewish Surnames Explained

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Richard Andree’s 1881 map of the Jews of Central Europe.

Correction, Jan. 29, 2014: Some of the sources used in the reporting of this piece were unreliable and resulted in a number of untruths and inaccuracies. The original post remains below, but a follow-up post outlining the errors, as well as further explanation, can be found here.

Ashkenazic Jews were among the last Europeans to take family names. Some German-speaking Jews took last names as early as the 17th century, but the overwhelming majority of Jews lived in Eastern Europe and did not take last names until compelled to do so. The process began in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1787 and ended in Czarist Russia in 1844.

In attempting to build modern nation-states, the authorities insisted that Jews take last names so that they could be taxed, drafted, and educated (in that order of importance). For centuries, Jewish communal leaders were responsible for collecting taxes from the Jewish population on behalf of the government, and in some cases were responsible for filling draft quotas. Education was traditionally an internal Jewish affair.

Until this period, Jewish names generally changed with every generation. For example, if Moses son of Mendel (Moyshe ben Mendel) married Sarah daughter of Rebecca (Sora bas Rifke), and they had a boy and named it Samuel (Shmuel), the child would be called Shmuel ben Moyshe. If they had a girl and named her Feygele, she would be called Feygele bas Sora.

Jews distrusted the authorities and resisted the new requirement. Although they were forced to take last names, at first they were used only for official purposes. Among themselves, they kept their traditional names. Over time, Jews accepted the new last names, which were essential as Jews sought to advance within the broader society and as the shtetles were transformed or Jews left them for big cities.

Continue reading…

From Slate, here.