Prior to the US elections, the frum leadership took an active role in, while not officially endorsing John McCain, making it clear that Barak Obama would be dangerous to Israel and to frum Jews.

I understand that liberal policy is one that is often at odds with frum ideology. That is why in the past 15 years or so the frum community has moved to voting mostly republican rather than the historical trend of Jews to vote Democrat previously (and still overwhelmingly, but no longer in the frum community). I have no problem with that.

This is not going to be saying Obama yes or Obama no, he is good or he is bad or whatever. It is nothing specific about Obama. I also understand that now that he won, the reality is different - perhaps even call it b'dieved in the sense that those who opposed him now have to figure out how to accept him or work with him or whatever.

Yet still, from the frum community and leadership, all we heard about Obama, from the frum perspective, was how bad he would be and how much of anti-semite he is.

Suddenly, post-election, we have an interview in the Hamodia with Rav Kalish, the director of Agudas Yisrael of the Midwest based on Chicago.

This week's Hamodia had this really great interview in which Rabbi Kalish praised Obama and said he expects to have a good working relationship with him. He said over many good things about Obama, describing how friendly he was and had great working relationships with the Orthodox community. He described him as a friend, a hard worker, intelligent, and more.

How come we did not hear these descriptions of him prior to the elections? Then he was an anti-semite and suddenly now he has spent his years in office helping the general Jewish and the specifically Orthodox community with no problems, despite sometimes disagreeing...

A verified story from Rav Chaim Kanievsky seems to say we might very well be....

Instead of sending our young men to die in Gaza, from which we disengaged so we would no longer have to send our young men there to die, our politicos have realized that they can score more points by sending our young men to fight against the settlers in Hebron.

The courts have now given them three days to be out of the "Peace House", that pretty much everybody agrees about was purchased fair and square. After that, the court has said, they will be evacuated by force.

While Sderot and Ashqelon burn and the government waffles on blowing Gaza to Timbuktu, they are quick to fight with Jews...whose only crime is having purchased a home...

WestBankMama is hosting the Mama Rochel Edition of Haveil Havalim... #191 for those counting..

I know some people want the "rayd" on all the exciting stuff that happened on election day. All the double voting in RBS B, the kannoim who voted for Abutbol even though they normally do not vote, fraud, whatever.

The truth is that I heard about some of that stuff going on. But it makes no difference. The numbers Abutbol received make it all moot. So let's say there were a hundred people who double voted. Let's say there was cheating of another type for another 100 votes, or even 500 votes. Does it change anything? Abutbol won with such a great par over his competition that none of that matters. Nobody has even appealed the results based on fraud or anything else (though there were some rumors that Vaknin applied some form of appeal early on election night, I think he pulled it). Discussing it only makes us sore losers. And I am not a sore loser. Both because I see no point, and because I think Abutbol will do a fine job and am willing to give him that chance.

About the parties, the big surprise is TOV. Both good and bad. They surprised everyone and won a seat. Despite the tremendous onslaught against them from Degel. Many people were scared away and were afraid to vote for them. Yet they still pulled it out of the hat, with a large majority of their votes coming from RBS A families.

On the other hand, I really expected, and plenty of other people did as well, two seats for TOV. Because it seemed with Chabad and Rav Alon on their side they already had one seat locked up. I don't know how the chabadniks voted generally, but it seems Rav Alon is no longer worth the 400-500 votes he claimed to bring with him. I would bet 80% of his people probably voted Shas instead of TOV.

When people are discussing the great success of UTJ garnering 5 seats, they often mention that it is really six seats when you add TOV to that, as TOV is mortly former UTJ voters. I find this claim to be a tremendous chutzpa. After they completely rejected TOV during the elections, to then claim TOV as being "shayach" to them is chutzpa.

I hope TOV stays on UTJs case, and keeps them clean in government. I hope TOV does not get seduced by offers to merge or "work together" and eventually swallowed up by UTJ. The voters of TOV are people who would not vote UTJ. If they did not bolt from TOV and vote UTJ after the violent campaign against TOV, that shows that they really felt displaced and not connected to UTJ. They probably would not have voted UTJ anyway. But these people need a party to support, and a party that represents their needs. TOV filled that void. Intentionally. That was the whole point of TOV. If TOV merges with UTJ or disappears as part of a "working agreement" with UTJ, that would be a shame..

One more thing on TOV, looking at the polling booth breakdown in the Friday papers, I noticed that TOV had a great accomplishment. They garnered votes in every single ballot box around the city. Even UTJ that had 5 times as many votes did not get votes from every ballot box. That is a tremendous accomplishment, in my eyes. They were able to connect to people all over the city.

Unfortunately CHEN did not make it in. They were close. Very close. But too many people were nervous because they "might not make it in" and did not vote for them. Had you voted your conscience, they would have been in. And all those who said there is no chance because Rav Alon left and he was a big percentage of their voters - were wrong. They were very close. Despite Rav Alon leaving. Rav Alon is not worth the 400-500 votes he claims. And Chen not being in government will be a shame, because they really did great things, and I do not see any of the othe parties filling the void created by CHEN not being there. So next time around, vote your conscience and don't make so many cheshbonos.

This image was cropped out of the Haaretz website... these news items ran one after the other....

So, is he Jewish or is he Bedouin Arab?

And I find it amazing that everyone is very excited to claim him as one of theirs... if we give him some time in office, I hope people will still want to claim him as one of theirs... rather than wishing he was one of someone else's....

Going to a funeral in Jerusalem is always an experience. Especially when it is on Har Hazeisim. Granted, there are places most people would rather be than a funeral, but once you have to go to one, it is an experience.

Minhag Yerushalayim. The chevra kadishas of Jerusalem follow minhagim that people don't do in most other places.

I just went the other day to a funeral on Har HaZeisim. The chevra kadisha was the chevra kadisha of k'hal hachassidim. So they use minhag Yerushalayim, but they also do some other stuff.

They did some stuff there that I had never seen before. Allow me to describe it,to the best of my abilities...

We brought the body of the niftar to the grave. They placed the body on the floor, next to the grave, and asked the women to stay back and not come past a certain point until they would finish what they have to do. After saying some psukim, the members of the chevra kadisha surrounded the body (still laying on the ground), connected in a circle holding hands completely surrounding the body. Then they started encircling the body while saying some psukim. Each time they completed a circle, they would all stop, and the head guy would say some psukim, take a small piece of metal (I don't know what it was) out of his pocket, put it on the body for a moment and then throw it far away.

They would then encircle the body again, and go through the same thing. They did this 4 or 5 times....

Another minhag I had never seen was when we finished the burial. After the grave was filled in, they surrounded the grave completely with a border of stones. They were makpid that each stone had to be touching the one beside it.

I thought these minhagim were very strange and I have never before seen them.

Has anybody seen that before? Do you know what it means and the explanation for what they were doing?

At the annual Rabinfest, a soldier was tired. The soldier yawned, perhaps even making some nois ein the process. Seemingly he did not cover his mouth during the yawn.

The commander noticed and stopped the ceremony immediately. he had the soldier carted off and locked up in jail for 21 days. All for a yawn. He considered it as if the soldier was scornign the memory of Rabin.

The family is appealing saying they are followers of Rabin and his tradition, and the yawn, while perhaps impolite, did not indicate any disdain for the memory of Rabin.

21 days in jail for a yawn? This Rabinfest has really gotten out of hand...

(source: NRG)

The newspaper this morning had an article about the ongoing divorce of Madonna and Guy Ritchie.
It seems there is a battle going on about how often, if at all, and when he will get to see the kids. Madonna submitted to him a list of conditions for him to adhere to for him to be able to see the kids...

I thought the third item in the list was absolutely hilarious. It took me a few moments to stop laughing when I saw it...
For those of you who might have trouble with the Hebrew, the condition is that the kids can only drink holy kabbala water that had been sanctified by the mekubal rabbis.

MOI requested that I translate the rest...instead, I found it on an English website... here it is...

Supposedly these are the official final numbers. Someone sent this to me, and I do not know what the source of it is, but this seems to be what the makeup of our City Council will be....

UPDATE: the numbers in the graphs below seem to be inaccurate, not that it makes much of a difference... the real numbers, which I now received from the campaign office of Shalom Lerner are as follows:
For Mayor:
Abutbol - 46.7
Lerner - 28.4
Vaknin - 24.9

For City Council:
UTJ - 5
B'Yachad - 3
Shas - 3
Dor Acher (Balayish) - 2
Likud - 2
Mishpacha Acat (Russians) - 2
Labor - 1
Tov - 1
Chen - 0

We in Bet Shemesh think we are living in an important city. It is a large city on the outskirts of Jerusalem. It has grown tremendously over the past 10 years. the real estate has been hot. According to the former mayor Danny Vaknin he had been the head of various forums of mayors, and director of various organizations involved in goverance.

I always thought that while we were living in a quiet rural town, it had acheived some level of importance.

Last night I learned that we are all fooling ourselves. I was listenign to the news, checking various websites, and while all the talk was elections, bet Shemesh never even got mentioned. Theyw ere talking about incumbent mayors fighting for re-election, they were talking about incumbents being replaced. they were going through the various regions of Israel talking about the avrious cities and updating what was happening. And no mention of Bet Shemesh.

With a mayor so well connected, with 15 years of incumbency, with a city so "important", I would have thought there would be an election update from bet Shemesh...

I guess Bet Shemesh is really pretty insignificant overall. It is important to us because it is our home, but nationally, we are still small potatoes, and our (former) mayor must not be as influential and important as he claimed to be...

Whew. That was a hairy election season. Thank God it is finally over. Now it is time to get ready for the upcoming fights for the national elections!

Clearly he had the upper hand because he was the only candidate with a real jingle...

I have not yet heard any official numbers, but I did hear that Moshe Abutbol won the mayoral race.
As far as parties go, I also did not hear official numbers, but TOV people are saying they got 1 seat. I also heard Gimmel got 5 seats which makes them the largest party in Bet Shemesh by far, if the number is correct. For the rest of the parties successes and failures, we will have to wait a bit longer..

I wish Moshe Abutbol hatzlacha in running the city. I am confident he will be a good mayor. The consolation prize for those who did not vote Abutbol is that next week construction is starting on the new hospital, the womens convalescence center, and the new train tracks to Ramat Bet Shemesh, and we all stand to gain from that... (just joking, not being cynical you can all read that again, this time with a smile on your face)..

The Degel people brought Rav Steinman yesterday, under great fanfare to speak out against TOV.
If you read the text below, he speaks out against people who are not completely shomer torah and mitzvos, and don't listen to the rabbonim. If you read the text below, the transcript of what he said yesterday, you will see nowhere any mention of TOV itself.

If he was so upset about TOV that he felt he had to come to Bet Shemesh to dispel any rumors that he is ok with them, and dissuade people from supporting them, why did he leave everything only implied? Why did he not mention them explicitly?



Another thing that disturbs me is the way he implies that there is only one way to do things. Whatever happened to minhag? Whatever happened to machlokes poskim and people following their ravs psak? An example is that he discusses the use of Mayim Achronim. Rav Steinman says that shulchan aruch paskens you have to do mayim achronim, so anybody who does not is making a chillul hashem, even though perhaps it is not such a serious thing.

I don't do mayim achronim because of my minhag. So does that mean I am making a chillul hashem and straying from the path every time I bentch?

Anyway, if you read the text you will see Rav Steinman says that you have to vote for someone who does the mitzvos without leniency, and for sure not for a secular Jew. Only vote for those who do things according to the Torah.

One can even look at this as an endorsement of TOV!

Add to this the following audio recording of a meeting the heads of TOV had with Rav Steinman last week. They went to Rav Steinman because they knew he was against them because he had been told they do not listen to rabbonnim. They went and told him they do listen to rabbonim, and he said then that it is ok.

So it is really a matter of who tells him what. if the Degel people tell him that they do not listen, so he says if they dont listen you cannot vote for them. If TOV people tell him they do listen, then he says it is ok...

I have not yet voted, even though the polls opened at 7am. I will vote when I get home from work, IYH.
I have decided to sell my vote. I really have just a couple of issues that are important to me, and I heard the candidates talk about many of issues, but none of them spoke about these two issues.

So whoever will write back to me and promise me to resolve the following two issues, gets my vote:

1. Why does my daughter get a day off of school? They have taken over the schools to be used as polling booths. That means the kids in the schools being used get a day off. What are we supposed to do with our kids? I do not get a day off of work to take care of them. I see no reason that they cannot find other locations to be used for voting. Let the kids be in school today. there is no reason for them to have a day off.
   
2. My second issue is parking and traffic in the area of the train station and BIG. That is a tremendous mess that wastes a lot of time for me regularly.
   

Whoever promises to resolve those messes, gets my vote.

In the comments of a recent post, I was asked the following question:

Now I can understand the people out there who take absolutely no heed of the Rabbanim or Gedolim on any issues, why should they start now by the elections? But I know both of you guys to be G-d fearing jews. Doesn't HaRav Steinman even move you by 1%??? So many Rabbanim and Gedolim have instructed to vote for Abutbul. And you yourself aren't that against it either. You just prefer Lerner. Why wouldn't you want to make a Kiddush Hashem and be mekayem a mitzva of listening to the Gedolim to boot?
(Don't answer that RCM supports them all cos we all know his approach is closer to abstaining than to endorsing everyone!)
I am not writing to try to recruit votes for Abutbul. I am just genuinely baffled.

The following is my answer:

I am not a talmid of Rav Steinman, and to me he is just as much a gadol as the Gerrer Rebbe who says to vote Lerner.
I am following Rav Malinowitz's opinion, that if I was a talmid of Rav Steinman I would be obligated to listen to him. Since I am not, as a matter of fact he has never said two words to me nor I to him, I am not obligated to listen. Rav Malinowitz's "psak" was for his kehilla that we are intelligent enough to make our own decision.

Being that I can make my own decision, you ask why I do not conduct myself like Rav Steinman says to? I say why choose him? Why not choose the Gerrer Rebbe?

I did not make my decision based on the Gerrer Rebbe's opinion, but I see no reason to choose Rav Steinman's opinion over his.

So I ask you, and I do not know who you are and maybe you are a talmid of Rav Steinman, but assuming you are not, why do you choose to follow him?

Another point I would make is that UTJ MK Moshe Gafni has said numerous times that his goal is to protect and fight for the yeshivas. Once a person leaves yeshiva, there are others he can turn to (he said it at least once in response to a question why he did not support a bill that would have helped haredi baalei batim with lower taxes - though I do not remember the details of the bill, and I heard him say it in regards to other things as well - another example had to do with post-yeshiva Haredim in the army) for that help. Degel's job is to help the yeshivas, that's it. Once you leave yeshiva, you are lower priority for Degel.

That is perfectly legitimate in my opinion. They want to prioritize their work for one specific sector.

No problem. But don't expect me to automatically vote for you. I am not in yeshiva anymore. Unfortunately perhaps, but that is the reality. I find supporting yeshivas to be a very great endeavor. But I am not in yeshiva. I work for a living and have a [large] family, and I have personal concerns, and communal concerns that for me take priority over yeshivas.

So if Gafni says he does not need to work for me, then I have no need to follow him, and vote according to his wishes..

Oh yeah, one more thing - did you know that Greenberg is Gafni's parliamentary assistant? Did you know that Montag is his nephew? Do you really think the gedolim choose (as if they were actually involved in the process) the best reps for the haredi public or perhaps they just choose those that are the best connected?
Not that they are bad reps. Perhaps they have become great reps.

another thing, look at Beitar as an example.
the degel branch there recently had internal voting to decide who would be higher up on the list and get the Deputy Mayor position. The two candidates were a guy named Yossi Shitreet, and a guy named Yitzchak Ravitz. Yes, Ravitz is the son of the Degel MK.

Turns out Ravitz surprisingly lost to Shitreet, and MK Ravitz is fighting to get Shitreet thrown otu because Degel is an Ashkenazy party and a sfardi shold not be there. He should be in Shas.

So as long as he was just a voter, and a shlepper, it was ok for him to be in Degel. As soon as he beat out the "son of" for the paying job in city hall, then all of the sudden there is no room for him.

I dont know if Ravitz won, or will win, his fight or not, but even if he loses it, he will just move his son to another city where he can put him at the head of Degel there.

Degel HaTorah is a family business. I am not family, so I do not feel beholden to them.

I have no problem with Degel being a family business. I just feel no obligation to vote for them. If I do vote for them, it is because they earned it. And because it is a family business, I do not consider it a mitzva of any sort to vote for them or for their recommendation for mayor.

If I feel like voting for them because I like certain things they do, I will vote for them. If not, not. If I wish to follow their recommendation for mayor, I will. If not, not. I am open to them just as I am open to every other party, as per my needs and concerns.

If I need to buy something, and there are two stores that sell it. For whatever reason I ask my rav which store I should go to. He tells me one of them. I find out that his wife or son-in-law own that store. So is it a mitzva to shop there now. I think because the store is owned by his relative, it is no longer a mitzva, and the psak is tainted with conflict of interest. I might still choose to buy the item there, because perhaps they give better service, or maybe they sell it with a bigger smile, or they'll give me a discount or whatever other reason there might be. But it will not be a mitzva. This is how I look at the relationship between Degel and the rabbonim.

Another thing - Do you know how many stories I have heard of Haredi baalei Batim who can't get their kids into schools? Do Gimmel people help? no. often, and I am aware of cases, where it is the gimmel askanim who were the cause for them being rejected, claiming they are not frum enough.

Now those same askanim have the chutzpah to call these people and demand that they vote gimmel.

So again - if I want to vote Gimmel because I admire their work and think they do important stuff, more so than other parties, I will vote for them. If not, not. I will not vote for them just because of social obligations, or because I am bullied into it. if I vote for them it is because I want to.
And the same goes for mayor. i will choose for whom I want to vote. I feel beholden to nobody, and I have no need to listen to anybody else's opinion on who I should vote for. Nobody has a right to demand my vote. Tell me your guy's qualities and platform, and maybe I will be convinced. But nobody has a right to demand my vote.