>> The whole thing was probably worth it just for that.

Nah. For all we know she's another McDonald's patron. Hopefully nothing of the sort.

The whole thing was worth it for the American who refused to participate because it was the nine days. That was gadlus.

refused to participate? I am not familiar with this story. link or more details?

also, what is wrong with playing sports during the 9 days?

Shira, Even if she was just another McDonald's patron, maybe her aliyah will encourage her to get more in touch with her Jewish identity,and want to investigate her religion, here in the kedusha of Eretz Yisrael.

Wow! GREAT summary of postings!

;-)

D.A.

I don't know too many details. My father told me about someone who is either in YU or a YU grad (maybe basketball?) who refused to participate during the nine days because it could have been scheduled a different time.

What's wrong? It is totally against the spirit of the nine days to have competitive sports with celebrations over every victory. M'maatin B'simchah!

Anonymous,

To be honest, if she is a Sabbath desecrating chesseburger partaker, she should explore her real Jewish/ Torah heritage, if interested, within the beautiful Australian Jewish communities before deciding to come to our Holy Land and increase the revenues of the Golden Arches.

The Maccabiah perpetuates the notion of Jewish identity being defined by something other than Torah - like commitment to the State of Israel and/or sports prowess. Which is a crying shame.

Shira - you are right, but for many Jews this is their connection. They would never have come to Israel without. They might never bump into nice Jewish girls had they not come here for this, etc. This let them see Israel and meet jews. Even if it is not ideal Judaism, it was an opportunity. If one of them would have married a goy and now will marry a jew because he was exposed to nice jewish girls or because he saw Israel and got some jewish feeling, I think it was worth it.

http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2009/06/02/quality-counts-more-than-size/

Preventing intermarriage is certainly a great value, but I don't know that it is worthwhile to retain people within the fold based on false ideas. How far do you go with this? Let's say you could do away with Hilchot Taharat HaMishpachah and retain a million Jews, and do away with Kashrut and retain another five million. Is that a proper calculus? While we aren't speaking of Halachic compromise in this case, we are speaking of the very core of our national purpose - which may be just as severe, perhaps a more severe, falsification of Judaism.


It reminds me of the story of Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky who did not want a storekeeper to close his shop on Shabbat based on his idea that Mashiach is imminent, and told him Mashiach may not come so soon. He preferred violation of Shabbat based on authenticity to observance based on falsehood.

yes, but we are not using false pretenses to get them to do things. They would be playing sports wherever they are. We are giving them the opportunity to do so in israel with other Jews, with no promises of anything. Hopefully some will be affected and be more "Jewish" from it than what they are currently exposed to.

Shira, what planet are you living on? The majority of the Jewish people have done away with THM, and most other mitzvot, so your question is moot.

"While we aren't speaking of Halachic compromise in this case, we are speaking of the very core of our national purpose - which may be just as severe, perhaps a more severe, falsification of Judaism."

Actually, Rafi was talking about a Jew who decided to make aliya after participating in the Maccabiah- a Jew who decided to do something more Jewish (live in a Jewish state) rather than less Jewish (live in whatever country she came from). That's something to celebrate even if she never keeps a single other mitzvah in her life, simply because she's set herself up to potentially keep more mitzvot.

As for not playing sports in the nine days, again, the Maccabiah is organized by secular Jews who have little to no concept of what the nine days are about. This is certainly sad, I would hardly categorize this ignorance as the "very core of our national purpose". Charedim committing flagrant chillul shabbat and wanton destruction, violating tons of mitzvot bein adam l'chaveiro and bein adam l'makom would come much closer to desecrating this "core of national purpose" of which you speak (you know that obscure midrash about Hillel explained the Torah as "V'ahavta l'reacha kamocha" and the rest is commentary?)

Btw, there are plenty of kosher McDonald's restaurants in Israel for this woman to patronize. But of course, I doubt they're "kosher enough" for you.