Rabbi Ovadia Yosef as quoted in Jpost:

“Is it a wonder that soldiers who don’t observe the Torah, don’t pray every day and don’t put on tefilin every day are killed in war? It is no wonder…Soldiers who are believers and who pray, God helps in wars. They are not killed…”

Embarassingly enough, this dark ages bullshit kind of thing is actually ‘news’ in Israel. In any case, no worries Rabbi; according to Arutz Sheva, half of new combat officers are religious. So surely we can look forward to wars of much lower casualties. Right?

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  • It’s only news because Ovadia is the religious leader of a large Haredi party.
    This was also quoted in Ma’ariv, as were many other idiotic remarks of this senile old rabbi…
    Why? I suppose because it’s so upraging. It is not endorsment in any way (save arutz 7).

  • Israel’s security, assured: exempt secular kids from military service and send the haredi.

  • This explains, of course, why nothing bad has ever happened to the jewish people during their long history and why bullets bounce off of Supermans chest.
    Ghost Dancing anyone?

  • Not my kind of rabbi. Nevertheless, I would like to see an entire transcript of exactly what he said. I’ve read too many misunderstood claims in the JPost over the last 2 years.

    On the subject in general, may I suggest reading Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People for a general Jewish point of view on the subject.

  • “This explains, of course, why nothing bad has ever happened to the jewish people during their long history and why bullets bounce off of Supermans chest.
    Ghost Dancing anyone?”

    The bad stuff start happening when Jews forget their Covenant with G-d and start doing things that displeases H-m.

    But when they are observing the Covenant nothing can stand in their way. With G-d’s help they kick butt. They defeat the strongest of foes.

  • Funny, that´s what they say Aceh Indonesia, Lynchburg Virginia, among many other places. But of course THEY have the wrong G-d.

  • jc, are you saying that Hashem doesn’t have a special relationship with Jews? That we mean the same thing to Him as xians and muslims?
    Anyway, it’s unsurprising that jpost take R’ Ovadia shlita out of context. He was quoting a gemara to the effect that all Jews are responsible for one another’s well being. An individual soldier doesn’t die because he doesn’t daven, but he might die because every Jew doesn’t daven enough for his safety. There is nothing shocking or appalling about R’ Ovadia’s comments, only the frankly offensive response. To call this gaon of Torah senile and idiotic is downright sickening.

  • jc. Says:
    August 29th, 2007 at 1:03 am
    Funny, that´s what they say Aceh Indonesia, Lynchburg Virginia, among many other places. But of course THEY have the wrong G-d.

    It does not take much to discover that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are incompatible with one another, though there are some various points of common agreement.

    So what else is new?!

    If you don’t believe that the Torah was given by G-d to the people of Israel and/or if you think its contents are false, then we’re all wasting are time in Israel and talking about Judaism. If there’s nothing here for you, then why are you here?

    For those of us that carry on the recollection of the Exodus and the Sinaitic Revelation, with their obligations to obey Hashem and teach our children to follow in our ancestor’s footpaths, we have no such doubts.

  • During the Weimar Republic lots of Jews were acting in sexually perverse ways. They were polluting German culture.

    And look at what happened.

  • Alex, dein faschistoides Gesülle behältst du besser für dich. In Deutschland ist sowas nämlich strafbar.

  • Alex, dein faschistoides Gesülle behältst du besser für dich. In Deutschland ist sowas nämlich strafbar.

  • Sarah, nothing can excuse what the Germans did to the Jews. But I can understand why Jews might have been targeted if Jews were prominent in polluting German society during the Weimar Republic.

    By the way, there is still no good website that translates from German to English.

    I think you said it is illegal to say what I had said in Germany. Thank God I am an American then.

  • Jews were targeted during the Weimar Republic, because the economy was in the pits and people / politicians were looking for scapegoats. The common citizens, raised in the strongly hierarchically society of the Second Reich, were not accustomed to getting poltically involved; the poltical landscape was instable as the electoral system did not favour a two-party system and there was no minimum percentage of votes needed to be gained to enter Parliament, which made for complicated and often deconstructive and ineffective political coalitions. In addition to the overall Great Depression, the new democarcy struggled with paying repairs for damages done during WW1. If anything, Jews at that time enriched the cultural and academic scene of the Weimar Republic. There’s no reason whatsoever to believe that an indivdual’s sexual preferences “polluted German society”. What polluted German society back then was the common mindless acceptance of authoroties.

  • “If anything, Jews at that time enriched the cultural and academic scene of the Weimar Republic.”

    The Culture of the Weimar Republic was a sewer. And those who were famous for promoting such a culture were more often than not Jews. I don’t know why that was, but that is the way it was.

    Again, not a justification for what happened next and most of the Jews who were promoting this culture were able to escape to other parts of Europe and to America, leaving innocent Jews to pay for their sins.

  • Even the much celebrated book Diary of Anne Frank has some sexual perverse thoughts in it. I hope that not all of Jews in Germany were sexual perverts and they certainly didn’t deserve to die like that, but when a certain group pollutes a society there will be a backlash.

    But the way the backlash occurred was unjustifiable. And lots of innocent people died for the sins of hopefully a few. And most of those who were responsible for polluting the Wiemar Republic culture escaped anyway.

  • Alex, what do you base those claims on since you’re not even capable of reading German sources? Percentagewise, the Eastern European Jewish communities suffered bigger losses during the Third Reich than the German Jewish community. To claim that the cultural scene of the Weimar Republic bespeaks your ignorance of the history of art and music, otherwise you would not make such a claim. I don’t know why you’re so ignorant of actual historic events, but that is the way it is.

  • I’ve read the Diary of Anne Frank; alongside the description of the events that occurred in connection with the Holocaust and hence turned her family into refugees, she related the thoughts, dreams and fears of a girl growing up, including contemplations about the changes affecting her body during puberty. To read any perversions into that bespeaks a twisted mind.

  • It would have been a much better book had the part about her “contemplations about the changes affecting her body during puberty” been left out and it just focused on the horrific injustice being done to her.

  • Alex, what more can I say other than that you gross me out?

    Where’s ck for a voice of reason?

  • Sarah,

    I think Alex is referring to Anne Frank’s passages on the beauty of the female body and same-sex desire. It’s in there. No need to pretend it isn’t.

  • And now we are seeing the same poisonous culture that infected the Weimar Republic overrun the culture of Israel. Sure it has also overrun the entire West but the Jews are the chosen people. They depend on G-d not only spiritually but in a real practical way for National Security. They need G-d not only to be on their side but to be an active participant in Israel’s defense or they will be destroyed.

  • By the way I am doing the whole hyphen thing in respect of Judaism as in my religion we feel no need to hyphen G-d. So why isn’t grandmuffti using hyphens when mentioning G-d?

  • Anne’s Diary exists in more than one version, some with, and some without, the very personal stuff. She didn’t know she was writing for publication! It was her personal diary, the most private thing in the world. I am not a real scholar on this, but from what I have read, there is NOTHING perverted, or freaky in any way, in the Diary. Even the personal stuff is standard-issue, garden-variety normal. What all of us women all go through in puberty. She doesn’t even dwell on it much.

    I cannot improve on Post 17.

    Sarah has lived in Germany, and even worked there, and is fluent in their language. She taught – they trusted her with their young people. You’re going to argue with her??

  • I’m not pretending it isn’t in there, but any anthropologist, any psychologist and any neurologist worth his title will tell you that homoerotic fantasies are not uncommon among youths during puberty even if they never act up on them and eventually grow up being straight. Adorno’s research suggested that those most adamantly objecting the concept of homosexuality (as the Nazis did) are usually just afraid of admitting to their own homosexual inclinations (it’s no news that the Waffen-SS predominantly was gay). But to blame the end of the Weimar Republic on random homsexual Jews that may or may not have lived in those parts during that era is not only just way beyond ignorant of history but also bespeaks a mindset that mankind should have foregone sixty years ago the latest.

  • Anne Frank’s passages same-sex desire is perverted. What kind of society was she living in to make her consider such desires? And what kind of person would print such a private passage of hers after her death.

    I am not saying that all perverted people are Jews and all Jews are perverted. But it does seem that a lot of prominent people in the Wiemar Republic as well as today who are leaders in promoting perversity happen to be Jews. I don’t know why that is is.

  • If Anne had grown up and lived out her days, in a peaceful time, she would have had a bourgeois life, with a marriage, and a writing career. That is the most reasonable prediction, given her background, and abilities. Her family were essentially pretty ordinary people, doing ordinary things.

    She was pretty interested in Peter.

  • I don’t know why that is. But look back at the Wiemar Republic and you will see that of those who were very active in that society in polluting that society with their perversity, I would say that at least 75 percent of them were Jews.

    Again, don’t know the reason that was the case.

  • Alex, I can thing of so many things that were wrong with so many Jews throughout various European countries prior to WWII. Why be so selective?

  • Alex, work on your reading comprehension skills.

    “Gegen die Dummheit kämpfen selbst die Götter vergebens.” (Friedrich Schiller)

  • Alex, thanks for your contributions to scholarship. Until I read your comments, I was unaware that Anne Frank wasn’t Dutch at all, but a citizen of the Weimar Republic whose diary made Hitler possible. Again, dude, thanks.

    btw, I believe the percentage was 59.472 and not 75, but your point’s well-taken, my friend!

  • Anne’s family came from Frankfurt Am Main in Germany. They went to Holland because the increasing hostility they encountered in Germany.

    I still say Post 17 is the real story.

    Alex, we have no anti-sex, or prudish, heritage. Not at the foundation layer of our thinking, anyway, separate wedding seating notwithstanding. Our clergy are not celibate. In fact the Kohen Gadol (High Priest in the ancient Temple) HAD TO BE MARRIED or he could not go into the Holy of Holies.

    To this day, nobody with any sense would take serious life-direction from an unmarried rabbi. Chat and discussion, sure, but not orders. What does he know of life?

    That is not a recipe for fishnet stockings, not at all. We prize modesty and restraint too. But have you really read the “Old Testment” carefully? That’s our foundation.

    We like a happy medium. Warmth, within marriage.

  • Alex, Post 17 explains how economic reasons underlay it all. The other stuff was just PR, the cover story. The Germans could have held onto their morals if they had wanted to. You can always hold onto your morals.

  • Adorno?

    He was one of the problems with the Wiemar Republic.

    I have read the “Old Testament” carefully and it forbids homosexuality.

  • Perhaps Post 17 is part of it. But if you look into the Wiemar Republic you will find that those were indeed times when the Culture was being perverted by Jews.

    As for “holding on to your values” it is pretty hard to hold on to them when everywhere around you there are elements working against them.

    Especially when you have people like Adorno working within academia trying to steer your children away from good values.

    He might have failed in Germany, but he was quite successful indeed later on wasn’t he!

  • If using one’s mind made people problems to the Weimar Republic, democratic-minded people all over the world should cherish those troublemakers of old.

    The OT forbids a man to lie with another man as he lies with his wife. The jury’s still out on that one.

  • “Tom Morrissey Said:

    We can all blame Hitler on Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli.”

    Absolutely.

    Well of course not them but the characters they played in the movie.

    The Cabaret was the center of perversion in the Wiemar Republic.

  • (Yes, it does forbid male homosexuality. Our culture certainly does not endorse female homosexuality, not at all, but female homosexuality is not mentioned at all in the “Old Testament”.

    You are right that our culture is very pro-marriage. There is nothing in it about “do whatever you feel like”.

    We are responsible for each other. If someone is alone, we are supposed to find that person a match among our numerous office, gym and club acquaintance.

  • Alex, Adorno is still cherished in Germany for his role in the Frankfurt School. Please note, Frankfurt am Main is a city in Germany.

  • Adorno won the Cold War. Cultural Marxism won the Cold War. The Frankfurt School has won the Cold War and has become the foundation for the Modern West.

    And, Jewish Mother, it is becoming the new foundation of your country as well. And if that isn’t stopped, Israel will be destroyed.

  • What about all those Jewish dentists, store-keepers, classical violinists and accountants? They didn’t pervert anything.

    Post 17 is the story.

    This had been building since the time of Heinrich Heine, who predicted it, way back in the early 19th century.

    You are, however, speaking to a “light unto the Nations” idea that is indeed part of us.

    So we can’t absolutely strangle Alex with a fishnet stocking. But he should still re-read Post 17.

  • Na gut, Alex, da du ja offenkundig glaubst, ein ausgewiesener Experte im Bezug auf die Soziologie der Weimarer Republik zu sein, muss ich davon ausgehen können, dass deine Deutschkenntnisse zumindest dazu ausreichen, dich mit den Quellen des Frauenhofer Institutes auseinanderzusetzen. Falls dem nicht der Fall sein sollte, würde ich dir eindringlich raten, von weiteren Beiträgen abzusehen; dein Widerkäuen bildungsfreier Gemeinplätze lässt deine Gedankenwelt ohnehin schon zu einer Farce verkomen.

  • To understand modern America it is more important to understand Adorno and the fellow members of the Frankfurt school than to understand Jefferson, Madison, or any of the others who are considered our founders.

    For even though most Americans don’t know their names like they do our founders, the ideology of the Frankfurt school has more to do with how modern America operates than does the ideology of our founders.

    And the Frankfurt School comes from the time of the Weimar Republic. The poisonous influence of the Weimar Republic’s perversions that caused such a evil backlash was never extinguished. It just moved to America and other places in Europe.

    Adorno escaped the wraith of the German people for what he did and innocent Jews suffered instead because of him.

  • “What about all those Jewish dentists, store-keepers, classical violinists and accountants? They didn’t pervert anything.”

    I said that innocent Jews suffered for the sins of a few.

    And actually most of those causing the problems did escape the Concentration Camps.

  • “What about all those Jewish dentists, store-keepers, classical violinists and accountants? They didn’t pervert anything.”

    I said that innocent Jews suffered for the sins of a few.

    And actually most of those causing the problems did escape the Concentration Camps.

  • I don’t know who Adorno is, but I favor a reasonable degree of modesty, faithful marriage, love of fellow Jew, and a whole lot of happiness of the acceptable kind, with lots of food and talk, but with people acting right. This is harder than it sounds.

    Alex has a point. We have to find a way to repair the damage.

    The destruction of the family is far too convenient for Capital. It leads to the disappearance of the unionized worker. What remains is a worker who will go anywhere he is needed, and find temporary amusement in the evening, like a good chap, like a permanent soldier. No roots. No “I have to get home”. No “but my kids are in the middle of the school year and my spouse’s family are all here, so I can’t move”.

    I am for capitalism, but Sabbath Capitalism. Capitalism only six days a week. Not seven.

  • Why is it that the only person here to dismiss the hater is Tom, our resident Catholic?

    This is what Alex said:

    “During the Weimar Republic lots of Jews were acting in sexually perverse ways. They were polluting German culture.

    And look at what happened.”

    And

    The Culture of the Weimar Republic was a sewer. And those who were famous for promoting such a culture were more often than not Jews.

    and then, to make sure we get the point that he is talking about present day US and Israeli Jews

    “…and most of the Jews who were promoting this culture were able to escape to other parts of Europe and to America, leaving innocent Jews to pay for their sins.”

    Then Alex gave us his Anne Frank “pollution” opinion and told us that at least 75 percent of the “polluters” were Jews.

    He went from attacks on Israeli homosexuality to explicit antisemitism and you’re engaging him in conversation about a philosopher because he wants to say that Jews are polluting America and that Israel is itself polluted. Why talk to him at all?

  • Jewish Mother you better find out who Adorno is because he threatens to destroy Israel (as well as America and that matter the entire West).

    Yes, I know he is dead but his ideology and that of his fellow Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt School lives, and indeed is the dominant ideology of the West even though most people don’t even know the names of these people.

    It filtered down from academia and gained strength during the 1960s (after helping to create the backlash in Germany that lead to Hitler). And now it effects us on a daily basis in ways most of us have failed to recognize.

  • The damage of the family was purposeful.

    It is part of the ideology of Cultural Marxism.

  • Is Tom really a Catholic? His “musings” don’t go in line with official Catholic teachings; I’d considered him to be a member of a Protestant denomination of some sort.

    Alex, those causing the problems were the Nazis.
    The Frankfurt School sprang into life in 1930 CE when the Weimar Republic was already lying on its deathbed. It was continued after WW2; notewoorthily, Adorno’s most influential contributions stem from the post-war era.

  • Are you talking about Gramcsi? Or is it spelled Gromshy? That stuff makes me sick, and I don’t know much about it, not in any kind of precise way. I prefer to focus on what we SHOULD do, not what we shouldn’t. I am late-life orthodox and I read good stuff, like Noson Weisz.

    I have no stomach for Foucault and Gide and all those nihilist idiots. They have a stench of phoniness and infertility. I can’t imagine them refusing payment for a lecture, or having children.

    I mean, is that what you are talking about?

    Are you suggesting that a musl.im worker can never unionize, and that that is what is so great about him, and so that is why the Establishment is so nice to him, and sees him as the future?

    I am not clever enough for this discussion. I feel so inferior. I can’t read hard material. I fall asleep.

  • Is Tom really a Catholic? His “musings” don’t go in line with official Catholic teachings; I’d considered him to be a member of a Protestant denomination of some sort.

    Alex, those causing the problems were the Nazis.
    The Frankfurt School sprang into life in 1930 CE when the Weimar Republic was already lying on its deathbed. It was continued after WW2; noteworthily, Adorno’s most influential contributions stem from the post-war era.

    BTW, is anybody else experiencing browser problems when posting a comment?

  • I’ve got a brief summary of the history of blood miracles, ritual murder accusations etc. up on my blog. Seems rather apropos in this context.

    JM, fancy some coffee or tea and homemade cookies?