Author Archives: Rabbi

The Beacon

Posted on December 17, 2011 | 12 comments

The YU Beacon, a relatively obscure literary journal, earned itself some free publicity by publishing an article last week about a nocturnal tryst between a Stern College student and her boyfriend in a hotel room, after which she feels a deep sense of shame when she realizes that he doesn’t love her and just used her. It’s unclear whether it was fictional or non-fictional, an actual event or wishful thinking. But the scandal made national news, especially when the student council stripped the Beacon of its funding, if you call $500 a semester funding or money to offset the cost of Diet Cokes and Twizzlers consumed while assembling the journal.

But now they’ve gone too far. This week, they published an account of a Jewish leader, righteous and decent but grieving over some family tragedies, who catches the eye of a courtesan at the crossroads and hires her services. When he unable to pay cash up front, the wench takes some of his property as a pledge and then disappears. But at the end of the story, the nobleman saves her from certain death by owning up to his moment of weakness. Another sordid tale ostensibly with a moral message…

Wait, that wasn’t the Beacon – that was the Torah in Parshat Vayeishev and the episode of Yehuda and Tamar! And the light of the Messiah entered the world.

So what do we make of these stories? The media focused on its obsession – freedom of the press and censorship – and whether Modern Orthodoxy is too modern – when, to me, the real story was elsewhere. How do we discuss sensitive, delicate, even prurient matters? In fourth grade, we just skipped over the story of Yehuda and Tamar; that’s one approach. It doesn’t work well. How can you transmit values when the subject matter, or the application of those values, are taboo, and unmentionable? Granted, despite the anonymous author’s best efforts, the average commercial on television is more risqué and suggestive than this short story; and granted, I can see why the “Yeshiva” side of the YU ledger was offended.

But there is, unfortunately, a seamy corner of the Jewish world that we would do well not pretending that it does not exist. It exists – it exists because the culture is that decadent, and because young people looking for love, attention and respect often seek it in the wrong places and in the wrong activities – and they wind up without love or respect, although they do capture the attention, temporarily at least, of the exploiters and predators.

It exists in our colleges – whether YU or Stern and certainly in secular colleges – and it exists in the holy Yeshivos where only men learn, and where we presume, falsely, that they are shielded from the world’s tawdriness. They are, for the most part, but not entirely, human beings being human beings. It exists in our high schools – with young men and women pretending they are adults having real relationships, and even teachers, administrators, and Rebbeim acting inappropriately and sometimes criminally. It exists in the self-styled holiest neighborhoods of Lakewood and Borough Park, and it exists in the self-styled modern, sophisticated neighborhoods like Teaneck and the Five Towns. We usually are forced to deal with it when we hear of arrests for abuse and molestation – dozens in certain communities in recent years – and when we learn that some of our teens and young adults have lost all sense of boundaries and propriety. We ignore it at our peril.

We ignore it because we are uncomfortable talking about it. We would rather skip this story of Yehuda and Tamar. We would rather believe that our children going off to high school and college are as pure and naïve and darling as they were at their Bar/Bat Mitzvot. We would rather that the Messiah descends from Heaven in a chariot than have him born as a result of this dissolute rendezvous.

The Torah conceals little about human life from us – and we are forced to reckon with Lot and his daughters, Yehuda and Tamar, Zimri and Cozbi, and later with King David and Bat Sheva and a host of other stories. I too was scandalized, until I actually saw the story – an effective if contrived way to raise a pressing social issue with a challenge at the beginning and a lesson at the end. “How Do I Begin To Explain This?,” the title, introduces the anticipation and the excitement – but the story ends with the ill-disguised indifference felt by the man towards his trophy-person and the self-loathing of the women – now forced to do the “walk of shame” for selling herself so cheaply, ‘a “stupid mistake.” As Rav Kahana said in the Gemara in a not-unrelated context: “this too is Torah and I have to learn it” (Berachot 62a).

Ultimately, the problem rests not in censorship or permissiveness, but in failures of education and parenting – a failure to transmit our values and to convey our way of grappling with desire and gratification. We have to overcome the fear of discussing those very issues that can be the most troublesome but in the long term the most spiritually rewarding. It is only the areas in which we struggle that true spiritual greatness emerges.

If it causes one woman to retain her dignity and say “no,” the article was worth it. If the discussions of the seamier side of Jewish life cause even one young victim of abuse to turn to his/her parents and then immediately to the police, then the discussions were worth it. And if we debate amongst ourselves the propriety of the Torah’s inclusion of the story of Yehuda and Tamar, then we will not only fail to understand how the moral greatness of Yehuda and the persistence of Tamar were indispensable for the destiny of Israel – we will also not perceive how amid all the tumult and sadness and recriminations surrounding the event, “G-d was busy as well creating the light of the King Messiah” (Breisheet Rabba 85:1), that will soon illuminate all of mankind.

12 Comments

Posted in Chumash, Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Is Newt Right ?

Posted on December 15, 2011 | 2 comments

Newt Gingrich stunned the political and diplomatic establishments, the professional peaceniks and the entire Arab world by last week terming the Palestinians “an invented” people, presumably with a history fabricated solely to counter and then eradicate the Jewish national idea. Was Newt right ?

Of course Newt was right. Interestingly, few, if any of his most rabid critics in the Arab world and in the anti-Israel media even challenged his thesis. They focused on the prudence and propriety of the statement, on the ever-shifting balance between the Old Newt and the New Newt, and the prospects of “peace” in the Middle East given this startling and audacious admission.

But of course Newt was right, if impolitic. It wasn’t that long ago when Israel’s Prime Minister, the late Golda Meir, made such an assertion herself. In a statement to The Sunday Times (June 15, 1969), she said: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” All Newt did was state a bald-faced truth that has been obscured for too long.

That is not to say that there have not been Arabs living in what they called Palestine for generations. There have been Arabs living in the land of Israel for quite a while, just like there have been Jews living in Israel – in an unbroken chain of residence – since antiquity. But the Arabs of Israel never had a national identity, and never sought statehood or independence until the Jews returned en masse in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. (Previous Jewish residents were forced to live without any national rights and subservient to the Muslim, Christian, Turkish – the latter for 400 years until 1917 – and finally British rulers.) It is Palestinian “nationalism” and “peoplehood” that were contrived by Jew-haters and anti-Zionists.

Thus, it is well known that the early 20^th century Arabs of the land of Israel called themselves “Southern Syrians” and derided the early Jewish settlers as “Palestinians.” (How’s that for marketing?) Those same Arabs rejected the UN state proffered to them in 1947, and then “neglected” to seek statehood from 1948-1967 when Judea, Samaria and Gaza were controlled by fellow Arabs. In other words, the “Palestinian people” that Newt neutered, and “Palestinian nationalism” itself, were both inconsequential formulations that only exist to undermine and disqualify the Jewish State of Israel. To underscore the point, had there been no “Israel” created in 1948, the territory of “Palestine” would have been distributed to a variety of Arab entities to the north and east, themselves creations of the international community. But an “Arab Palestine,” as an independent state, would have been on no one’s radar, as it was not until, as Newt pointed out, the 1970s.

Jews have lived in Israel since time immemorial (the title of Joan Peter’s famous work), and even after the destruction of the Second Temple and the great exile, Jews remained. Jews remained in the 2^nd -4^th centuries to write the Jerusalem Talmud, draft the permanent calendar and even entertain, for a time in the 4^th century, the building of another Temple with permission from Julian the Apostate; in the 5^th-6^th centuries to cling to the land amid the Byzantine and Christian persecutions; in the 6^th-11^th centuries to survive the Muslim invasion – returning to Yerushalayim with permission from the Emperor Omar and observing the founding of the only town founded by Arabs in the land of Israel during their entire sojourn – Ramle; suffering the torments of the Crusaders in the 12^th century; enduring the Muslim re-conquest in the 12-15^th centuries in which the land saw a constant stream of Jewish visitors and/or residents, including Rambam, Ramban, R. Yechiel of Paris, and many others; the 16^th century that witnessed the flourishing of Jewish life – the composition – in Israel! – of the Shulchan Aruch and the rise of the giants of Kabbala; the 17-18^th centuries during which both Sefardic and Ashkenazic Jews bolstered existing communities throughout the land of Israel and founded new ones, and the 19^th century, when the Zionist movement in a variety of forms took root.

Is there a similar “Palestinian” history ? Of course not. Throughout the ages, Jews both persevered in the land, and prayed for the restoration of Jewish sovereignty. It is absurd to even suggest there is a competing Palestinian narrative that bears any substance or validity. As I have noted before in this space, choose any century in the past 2000 years, and try to name a “Palestinian” of any sort. That is why the Arab apologists have been forced to assert that “Jesus was a Palestinian” (Arafat, apparently unaware that Jesus was a Jew) or, in the last week, that the “Palestinians” are descendants of the ancient Yevusi. (Really? I thought they descended from the Girgashi.) That is why the official Palestinian line of the last decade, emanating first from Arafat, is that there is “no Jewish Temple, no Jewish nationalism and no Jewish connection to the land.” The hat burns on the thief’s head. They have no indigenous connection to the land of Israel, and only arrived in large numbers after Jewish settlement began and to take advantage of the opportunities presented by Jewish settlement. Certainly, Chanuka itself reinforces the deep bond that the Jewish people have for, and in, the land of Israel.

Usually, the Arabs have sought at this point to shift this uncomfortable conversation by saying that “there will never be peace if we argue over history.” But that is a tactic designed to move the debate from the realm of facts and reason to the charade of myth and fantasy, and to obscure the basic function of “Palestinian nationalism” – an Islamic/Arab marketing device to undercut and destabilize Israel’s existence by embracing Western nomenclature of human rights, self-determination, victim refugees, etc.

Others effectively concede that there really is no historical “Palestinian people” (John Bolton also said as much the other day), but the political reality today is that they “exist” in the media, in the diplomatic chambers, in the UN, and in the land of Israel – so they exist today even if they never existed before, and therefore must be dealt with as if they are a real people.

This would be a compelling argument, but only if the starting point is that “peace” is somehow possible to attain with an invented nation that denies one’s own existence. That bubble has been burst for many thinking people (excluding, among others, NY Times “experts” on foreign policy) and now resembles more a pagan fantasy than serious statecraft. But nothing valuable or meaningful can be built on a foundation of lies, and the State of Israel, nonetheless, remains guilty of propagating the Palestinian national fantasies while pandering to their blatant lies.

Take, for example, the recent and ongoing ruckus over the renovations of the Mughrabi Gate walkway to the Temple Mount that is in the process of crumbling, not to mention a terrible eyesore. This construction has been challenged by the Muslims as an attempt by the Jews to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.” (Of course, when the bridge collapses, those same Muslims will allege that the Jews destroyed it in order to kill Muslims and to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”) For some mysterious reason (fecklessness is the working theory), the Netanyahu government has abdicated its responsibilities to the Jordanian authorities, a shameful renunciation of sovereignty and a tacit acceptance of the lie that the Jews are attempting to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”

The Israelis should rebuild that collapsing bridge for many reasons – it needs it, it is dangerous, it is now hideous-looking with all the scaffolding surrounding it, and it is acting as the sovereign entity in its capital city within shouting distance of the holiest place in Judaism – but primarily to expose the lie that the re-construction is designed to – you guessed it – “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”

Lies have legs. Mark Twain famously said that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” With a complicit media and the Internet, lies these days can travel around the world several times before truth is even aware of the lie’s existence. For too long, Israel and its supporters have been guilty of accepting the Palestinian lies – history, narrative, policies, accusations (remember Suha Arafat, Hillary Clinton and the poison gas charge? The Egyptian media and the Israel-spreading-AIDS charge? Et al) and reportage without serious and sustained challenge. That time, thanks to Newt, should be long past.

Newt Gingrich may or may not become president, but he has served a valuable function in this regard – defying convention, stupefying his adversaries, and shocking the American-Jewish establishment – by telling an unvarnished truth. Call it “political Newt-ity,” for he has laid bare the hollowness of the enemies’ claims against Israel and exposed their lies, and our inexplicable acquiescence in them.

2 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History

On Courage

Posted on December 9, 2011 | 3 comments

John Kennedy’s Pulitzer-Prize winning book (1956) “Profiles in Courage” is worth two readings, for it is as inspirational and timely today as when it was published. Elegantly written by then-Senator Kennedy while he was convalescing from serious back surgery (I know, I know, everyone says Ted Sorensen actually wrote it; no matter), the book tells the story of nine Senators who exhibited political courage that, in their day and now, was exceedingly rare. Each Senator defied his party, and sometimes long-held convictions, to do what he thought was right at the time, even if widely unpopular. Some Senators won universal acclaim and re-election, others were disdained by the electorate and tossed from office at the first opportunity.

Bear in mind that until 1913, Senators were not elected by popular vote but were appointed by each state legislature. Thus the Senate was perceived more as a House of Lords than directly reflective of the people’s will, and many have argued – rightly so – that the caliber of Senator was much higher before he had to seek election like lesser politicians. (Kennedy himself almost concedes as much.) Most of the “courageous” Senators were then offending not their political bases – the citizens – but the small cadre of voters in the respective legislatures. And yet each acted in accordance with their consciences in defiance of the perceived wisdom and judgment of the time, and even when Kennedy admits that they might have been wrong (each decision was either appropriately liberal or too liberal) the courage they displayed was itself admirable.

Several Senators were caught in the maelstrom of the slavery debate – Daniel Webster, eloquent abolitionist acceding to the continuation of the Fugitive Slave Laws; Thomas Hart Benton, a staunch Southerner, agreeing to the non-extension of slavery to new states and territories – both in order to ensure the passing of the Compromise of 1850 to avert secession and civil war, and both vilified for it. Neither was a shrinking violent. Webster was one of the great orators of all time (without speechwriter or teleprompter), mesmerizing the audience with a speech on this occasion that schoolchildren were taught for decades and knowing he would be denounced by his strongest supporters. Benton – well, Benton can speak for himself. To another Senator: “I never quarrel, sir. But sometimes I fight, sir; and whenever I fight, sir, a funeral follows, sir.”

Edmund Ross of Kansas – a bitter foe of President Andrew Johnson – nevertheless cast the decisive vote (against the will of his state and his own expressed determination to rid the country of that “traitor” to the South) that acquitted Johnson in his impeachment trial, simply because Ross felt the evidence to convict was insufficient. He was threatened (telegram from 1000 Kansans: “Kansas has heard the evidence and demands the conviction of the President;” Ross’ reply: “I do not recognize your right to demand that I vote either for or against conviction. I have taken an oath to do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws, and trust that I shall have the courage to vote according to the dictates of my judgment and for the highest good of the country.”) He was offered a bribe of $20,000. (“There is a bushel of money! How much does the damned scoundrel want ?”) He voted “not guilty.” Friends offered him their pistols so he could shoot himself. He saved the Presidency, and perhaps the nation still torn by the aftermath of the Civil War, but was rejected for re-election and sentenced to a life of near-poverty.

Similarly, Mississippi’s Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar voted to accept the Commission Report that awarded the disputed presidential election of 1876 to Rutherford Hayes – anathema to the South. He too was subsequently reviled, as was George Norris, Republican of Nebraska, who voted against America’s entry into World War I, and Robert Taft (who died just a few years before the book was published), Mr. Republican of Ohio, who sabotaged his own presidential ambitions by opposing the Nuremberg Trials as ex post facto justice and a perversion of American ideals.

The common denominators were that they followed their consciences, an inner sense of right and wrong that transcended both party and crass political considerations, and displayed the sort of audacity that is both uncommon and unexpected today.

Kennedy wrote (again, it was 1955!): “Our political life is becoming so expensive, so mechanized and so dominated by professional politicians and public relations men that the idealist who dreams of independent statesmanship is rudely awakened by the necessities of election and accomplishment.” It is a point well taken, exacerbated today because every politician’s every statement, musing, thought, decision or promise is recorded for all eternity, to be played over and over again by the mass media if he deviates one iota. He advocates what has become exceedingly rare today – the elected official who does not reflect public opinion in every vote but sees himself as elected by the people to vote his conscience and exercise his judgment, not theirs. But even Kennedy admits that might easily be a formula for electoral defeat – in which case what has the person really accomplished ? He might have been able to make a greater difference, even better serve the people, if he compromised on some issues in order to attain his cherished objectives.

Therein lies the irony of his theme as it relates to today’s politics. The lament of the Obama White House and the Democrat establishment is that the Republicans “refuse to compromise.” I.e., the Republicans – in large part, although not completely and not all of them sincerely – refuse to continue being the “tax collectors for the welfare state” (as Newt Gingrich – a name back in the news – once famously derided the Bob Dole Republicans). There has always been an expectation in Washington that when all the shouting and screaming stopped and all the name-calling subsided, both parties would come to their “senses” and raise taxes and distribute the burgeoning government pie to their favored constituencies.

But that “courage to compromise” is really cowardice, as well as a classic example of failed politicians who do not act in the public interest but simply see the levers of government as their ticket to re-election, power and wealth. The Tea Party has tried to end that, to the consternation of official Washington; whether they will succeed or fail (i.e., be corrupted) remains to be seen. It is easy for Republicans to get sucked in to the mindset that the system is broken, so they might as well exploit it for their own purposes – more spending, earmarks, special deals, insider trades, etc. Courage for the Republican is to hold firm, steadfastly refuse to increase taxes or spending, and shrink government. (Americans seem to love “big government,” especially when someone else – the rich! – are paying for it.) But true courage would be a Democrat flouting his party, and voting to decrease spending, limit government’s power, and allow people to exercise personal responsibility over their own lives. That would be courageous, but electorally foolhardy as the Democrat base essentially feeds off the government trough.
For sure, courage comes in many forms and can be found (or missed) in many professions. There are many rabbis who keep silent in the face of adversity, challenges, or assaults on Torah, Israel or the Jewish people simply because it is convenient to remain silent – who will never act until they see who else is acting. They are not leaders in any sense. Kennedy often quoted Dante: “the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in a time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality,” or, I suppose, just vote “present” rather than commit themselves.

Conversely, Andrew Jackson was fond of saying, “One man with courage makes a majority.” It is no shame to be a minority in a worthy cause; no human being was ever in a smaller minority that our father Avraham.

But the courageous man is himself a majority, and such can and should be found in every person, every profession and every walk of life, and among good people everywhere.

3 Comments

Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Machshava/Jewish Thought

New Statement

Posted on December 6, 2011 | Comments Off

Orthodox Rabbis Stand On Principle

Posted by Orthodox Rabbis ⋅ December 5, 2011 ⋅

Recently, an American Jewish clergyman officiated at a matrimonial ceremony that is incorrectly being reported by some in the media as “the first time that an ordained Orthodox Rabbi has officiated at a same-sex marriage in the United States.”

We, as rabbis from a broad spectrum of the Orthodox community around the world, wish to correct the false impression that an Orthodox-approved same-gender wedding took place. By definition, a union that is not sanctioned by Torah law is not an Orthodox wedding, and by definition a person who conducts such a ceremony is not an Orthodox rabbi.

Jewish tradition unequivocally teaches that marriage can only exist as a union between a man and a woman, to the exclusion of a homosexual relationship. It is a distortion of Torah to confound that sacred principle. We strongly object to this desecration of Torah values and to the subsequent misleading reportage.

We appreciate the sensitive nature of intimacy. We, as rabbis, lovingly play a crucial role in helping Jews who may be facing great personal challenges to feel comfortable and welcome in our communities. Rabbis are always available to discuss congregants’ personal issues, including intimacy. We understand from our experiences in offering pastoral care that some individuals experience deep inner conflict as they seek a holy path to serve G-d and to fulfill their spiritual needs. As rabbis, we devote our lives towards helping all those in our broader community achieve their loftiest spiritual potential, while fully upholding the timeless values expressed in our Holy Torah.

The public should not be misled into thinking that Orthodox Jewish views on this issue can change, are changing, or might someday change. The Rabbinical Council of America recently declared that “the Torah, which forbids homosexual activity, sanctions only the union of a man and a woman in matrimony.” This is the only statement on this matter that can reflect Orthodox Judaism. Any claims or statements to the contrary are inaccurate and false.

SIGNED:

Rabbi Elie Abadie – New York, NY Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein – Los Angeles, CA Rabbi Eitan Allen – Fairfield, CT Rabbi Sol Appleman – Woodsburgh, NY Rabbi Moshe Averick – Chicago, IL Rabbi Ian Bailey – Silver Spring, MD Rabbi Yisroel Bendelstein – Brooklyn, NY Rabbi Etan Berman – New York, NY Rabbi Azriel Blumberg – Brighton, MA Rabbi Heshy Blumstein – Hewlett, NY Rabbi Avram Bogopulsky – San Diego, CA Rabbi Kenneth Brodkin – Portland, OR Rabbi Zev Cinamon – West Hempstead, NY Rabbi J. Simcha Cohen – West Palm Beach, FL Rabbi Judah Z. Cohen – Hewlett, NY Rabbi Yitzchok Cohen – New York, NY Rabbi Mordechai Cohen – Milwaukee, WI Rabbi Yosef Cohen – West Hartford, CT Rabbi Nissim Davidi – Los Angeles, CA Rabbi Eliezer Eidlitz – Valley Village, CA Rabbi Ari Enkin – Ramat Bet Shemesh, Israel Rabbi Ephraim Epstein – Cherry Hill, NJ Rabbi Aaron Feigenbaum – Memphis, TN Rabbi Dovid Feinberg – Ramat Bet Shemesh, Israel Rabbi Emanuel Feldman – Jerusalem, Israel Rabbi Ilan Feldman – Atlanta, GA Rabbi Eliyahu Ferrell – Passaic, NJ Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer – Brooklyn, NY Rabbi Shmuel Fink – Lawrence, NY Rabbi Dov Fischer – Orange County, CA Rabbi Arie Folger – Munich, Germany Rabbi Barry Freundel – Washington, DC Rabbi Zvi Friedlander – New York, NY Rabbi Cary Friedman – Passaic, NJ Rabbi Zev Friedman – Lawrence, NY Rabbi Mallen Galinsky – Jerusalem, Israel Rabbi Benjamin Geiger – Forest Hills, NY Rabbi Avraham Ginzburg – Forest Hills, NY Rabbi Saul Gold – Brooklyn, NY Rabbi Efrem Goldberg – Boca Raton, FL Rabbi Jay H. Goldberg – Far Rockaway, NY Rabbi Chaim Goldberger – Minneapolis, MN Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer – New York, NY Rabbi Shlomo Grafstein – New York, NY Rabbi Michoel Green – Ramat Bet Shemesh, Israel Rabbi Alan Greenspan – Jerusalem, Israel Rabbi Yonah Gross – Wynnewood, PA Rabbi Yosef Grossman – Monsey, NY Rabbi Ben Hecht – Toronto, Canada Rabbi Ari Jacobson – Monsey, NY Rabbi Ari Kahn – Givat Ze’ev, Israel Rabbi Howard Katzenstein – Brooklyn, NY Rabbi Joseph Kolakowski – Richmond, VA Rabbi Ira Kronenberg – Passaic, NJ Rabbi Pinchas L. Landis – Cincinnati, OH Rabbi Eliezer Langer – Austin, TX Rabbi Levi Langer – Pittsburgh, PA Rabbi Avi Lebowitz – Palo Alto, CA Rabbi Yonah Levant – Queens, NY Rabbi Menachem Levine – San Jose, CA Rabbi Philip Lefkowitz – Chicago, IL Rabbi Yaakov Luban – Highland Park, NJ Rabbi Avraham Maimon – Sunnyvale, CA Rabbi Reuven Mann – Phoenix, AZ Rabbi Harry Maryles – Chicago, IL Rabbi Baruch Pesach Mendelson – Brooklyn, NY Rabbi Jacob B. Mendelson – Bridgeport, CT Rabbi Yossi Mendelson – Queens, NY Rabbi Lester Miller – Brooklyn, NY Rabbi Yerachmiel Morrison – Lakewood, NJ Rabbi Jonathan Muskat – Oceanside, NY Rabbi Yehuda L. Oppenheimer – Forest Hills, NY Rabbi Gavriel Price – Passaic, NJ Rabbi Steven Pruzansky – Teaneck, NJ Rabbi Aharon Rakeffet – Jerusalem, Israel Rabbi Michael Rapps – Far Rockaway, NY Rabbi Hershel Reichman – New York, NY Rabbi Rachmiel Rothberger – New York, NY Rabbi Gidon Rothstein – Riverdale, NY Rabbi Lawrence Rothwachs – Teaneck, NJ Rabbi Yackov Saacks – Dix Hills, NY Rabbi Nosson Sachs – Pittsburgh, PA Rabbi Nachum Sauer – Los Angeles, CA Rabbi Hershel Schachter – New York, NY Rabbi Moshe Schapiro – Bergenfield, NJ Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld – Queens, NY Rabbi Zev Schostak – Queens, NY Rabbi Tsvi G. Schur – Baltimore, MD Rabbi David Shabtai – New York, NY Rabbi Dov Shapiro – Spring Valley, NY Rabbi Jay C. Shoulson – Long Island City, NY Rabbi Zecharia Sionit – Dallas, TX Rabbi Ze’ev Smason – St. Louis, MO Rabbi Aryeh Sokoloff – Queens, NY Rabbi Aryeh Spero – Great Neck, NY Rabbi Reuven Spolter -Yad Binyamin, Israel Rabbi Leonard Steinberg – Brooklyn, NY Rabbi Gil Student – Brooklyn, NY Rabbi Michael Taubes – Teaneck, NJ Rabbi Moses David Tendler – Monsey, NY Rabbi Benzion Twerski – Milwaukee, WI Rabbi Michel Twerski – Milwaukee, WI Rabbi Avrohom Union – Los Angeles, CA Rabbi Noach Vogel – San Jose, CA Rabbi Gedalia Walls – Potomac, MD Rabbi Yaakov Wasser – East Brunswick, NJ Rabbi Philip Weinberger – Teaneck, NJ Rabbi Matan Wexler – New York, NY Rabbi Isaac Yagod – Easton, PA Rabbi Ari Zahtz – Teaneck, NJ Rabbi Asher Zeilingold – St. Paul, MN Rabbi Aharon Ziegler – Jerusalem, Israel

Comments Off on New Statement