Dear Rafi,
Thank you for allowing me space on your blog so that I can hopefully get some direction from your readers and you as well because you have very good insights.

Just a bit of background about myself: we made aliyah just over 7 years ago to Yerushalyim. We are going through an identity crisis now as we can not figure out if we are Charedi or Dati Leumi, or perhaps I should say our dilemma is which direction to pick for our children.

I would think we are Dati Leumi because if there would be no State of Israel we would not be living here. We realize that the government does not exactly always run to our liking, but then we are grateful that we have a government and hopefully one day the government will be run to our liking.
My children all learn in the local Mamad Torani school. One son we send to Rapaport and another kid is still young and goes to a private gan in a house. My daughter now must look for a high school and I am told now is when one has to make a decision of "what you are".

My daughter visited a school today that is considered a charedi leumi school though neither my wife nor my daughter were happy with it. We can look at real Charedi schols or there are the schools for girls that are very strong into the beliefs of Rav Kook and I think they have serious students. I guess we are leading towards that direction now.

What I am very curious to know is why it is that so many people people choose the Charedi route after they make aliyah. I came from a similar background to many of the people who decide to choose the charedi route yet they look at me like I am crazy that I send my children to the Mamad.

There seems to be problems with both types of schools, but my feelings are that there are less problems with the Mamad Torani system. It seems to me to be the most similar system that we had back in the US. I would be very appreciative if someone can explain to me why so many people don't choose the mamad torani schools.

I once mentioned my dilemma to a leading Rabbi who is a zionist but learned in Ponivitche Yeshiva, and when my girls were in grade school I expressed my concern where they should go to school. He said that it is not a concern - they can always go to Ofakim after they finish HS and be acceptable to all communities. I think that is what he meant.

My reservations of the Mamad system is they look to please everyone and sometimes you really don't please anyone that way. The maamad torani system ends after 8th grade, so I must choose something else now.

Some of my concerns in the non charedi system are the level of tzinut and wide usage of internet, though I feel some of these things can be dealt with at the home level.

I have a few questions to address those who have decided to choose the charedi route. The people who come collecting for money are all dressed in charedi clothes, the fliers that this one or that one died all look charedi, can it be that the charedi system can cause people to get physically sick, especially if one has numerous daughters and one is expected to buy them each an apartment?
I think, god forbid, I might get sick as well in that situation. The idea of having to buy an apartment is very frightening to me. I know some very well respected talmdei chachmim who now have to marry off their daughters, and their daughters deserve the cream of the crop, but in order to get the cream of the crop one has to put up a lot of money. At the present time I would not be able to afford this method, though who knows what the future will bring - perhaps I do not have enough bitachon.

I have one niece married and and a nephew married. By both couples the husband is learning full time and neither one has an apartment. I don't recall that there were any demands made on any of the parents. I guess they are considered dati leumi, although I hate labels. I have great respect for these - people perhaps this is what I should encourage for my children.

If anyone has some solid advice I would greatly appreciate it. Any advice on a high school for my daughter - we are only interested in non-dormitory high schools.

Sincerely,

Yeshoua Shapiro

Haven't you always wanted a Tootsie Roll?

Now you can have them! They have gone through the process of getting kashrut certification with the OU, and are now kosher.

Too bad they don't sell them in Israel...

Is there anything left in America that is not yet kosher? I mean, besides pork and lobster, of course.

I am not a lawyer nor any expert in law, but this does seem strange to me.

There was, allegedly, a shocking attempted rape the other day. The shock is especially great because the alleged perp is an officer in the army.

Guilty? Innocent? I have no idea. Let the trial run its course. Not my issue.

What did irk me is something the judge said in the pre-hearing after some initial claims were made and the basic evidence was laid out. After the alleged perp initially gave his version of the events with his denial, he has since remained silent.

the judge who reviewed the situation discussed some of the evidence and then he also said that the defendants silence makes him look guilty. Somebody innocent makes sure to proclaim it as often as he can in whatever way he can.

The judge might be right about that, and to us casual observers, remaining silent often does look guilty. However, the judge is not a casual observer. the judge is the legal expert deciding the case. To him, a defendant using his right of silence is not supposed to look more guilty because of it. The judge is supposed to use the evidence and decide the case (there is no jury in the Israel legal system) - to use the defendants silence, when he has the right to choose silence, no matter how guilty it might make him look, the judge should not be using that as part of his consderations.

Am I wrong? I saw the statement by the judge and this bothered me.

Here is the security camera video of the Palestinian woman stabbing the security guard at a checkpoint...

1. Moving on Up describes his experience of making a living in Israel...

2. The Temple Mount Antiquities Salvage Operation is looking for help to continue its sifting project

3. Going Home notes the differences from back in Chicago about now to what December is like in Israel.. ahh the furniture saving the parking spots.. memories...

4. Frum n Flippin compares the different opinions on whether attraction is important

5. Joe Settler wonders who will sit longer in jail...

6. Bob Martin posts a couple videos about when the Arabs discovered Palestine.

If it was up to me, I would return the Kotel to the Turks. Only they knew how to preserve its holiness....
The protests don't bother me. they provide some "action", and there is no need to take them seriously.... I was at a protest and saw someone call a policeman a Nazi. I simply went over to him and slapped him across the face...

----- Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, director of Zak"a (at a religious-secular event sponsored by Hidabrut)

(hattip to @rabbigreen)

Mayor Moshe Abutbol did the Rabbi Circuit to prepare for the upcoming hearing in court about issuing the tenders for construction in RBS C/G/3.

Needless to say, they all gave him their blessings and told him he would be completely victorious in court.

What I find especially interesting, and this happened before the elections as well, is that almost all the rabbis the mayor went to for blessings were Litvishe Ashkenazim. He went to Rav Ovadya of course, but in the list quoted, aside form Rav Ovadya, the rest were all Litvishe Ashkenaz.

Does Abutbol have a complex? Does he not realize he is sfardi? Why does he pander to the ashkenaz rabbis when he has plenty of sfardi rabbis to get brachas from? I can understand mixing it up a bit and going to the main ones for brachos and for appearances.. but when he goes almost completely to the ashkenazim for the brachas, something seems strange about it.

Once again, as I have said often, Abutbol, I think, is a good guy with decent intentions. I think he just cannot lead, especially with a strong UTJ faction. He is being led around by Degel HaTorah, and that will eventually be his undoing.

1. The guy who believes he is the only one who can define what "authentic judaism" is is now starting and leading a crusade against Mishpacha Magazine. I am not sure why, but he says they are trying to present their form of Judaism as authentic when it is not. I guess he will give real examples in later posts. It is funny - when I first read the post I understood that he was complaining the Mishpacha mag is too frummie of a mag. Then I saw the comments and understood that his complaint is that they are not frummie enough.. People like this should ignore everyone else and only read Yated.

2. Tikun Olam comments on the Dubai financial crisis...

3. Parshablog discusses the comments of various gedolim on the latest Kupat Ha'Ir segulah - you know, the 9 minute thingy that made no sense to anybody.

4. Modern Uberdox on judging books by their covers...and hair spray as well.

5. How to be Israeli has great water saving tips. They cut her water consumption literally in half!

6. Point of Pinchas talks about living in Israel during a time of recession.

7. In light of what seems to be a new trend to tattoo holocaust numbers on arms, this teshuva of Rav Oshry quoted by Daas Torah is very interesting. He discusses whether one should go through surgery to remove the Nazi tattoo. His answer is that he should not, but should keep the tattoo as a reminder, and should wear it proudly as a sign against our enemies. He does not discuss new tattoos as a sign of remembrance, and I am sure he would not approve, but it interesting nonetheless.

8. Rabbi Enkin discusses Semicha on Hirhurim..

9. Rabbi Fink discusses some tv show called Amazing Race. The latest episode was set in Prague and dealt with the Golem and the shul of the Maharal...

10. A Mother in Israel heard a talk by someone who escaped from the hijacked Entebbe plane. fascinating story.

Jerusalem was the capital of Israel many years before Sweden was even established, and before all the other insolent people opposing this reality..

---- MK Ophir Akunis (Likud)

Deputy Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman has announced that they are going to convert two mental institutions to work in a mehadrin format, one being converted to men only and one to female only.

This of course caused an uproar, as many, including in the medical field, are calling it religious coercion, and they point out that nowhere in the world is this done.

Litzman's response is that he receives a lot of complaints about what goes in in the hospitals. He says many people refuse to provide the necessary treatments because of it. He is simply taking two hospitals that are not at full capacity right now and running his trial system on them. I would note that he does not specify what the problems are in the mental hospitals, just that they exist and because of them people do not provide treatment to members of their families who require it.

Now even if you are crazy you have nothing to worry about. No need to look at women... I imagine that if Litzman had been made Deputy Minister of Transportation (it was suggested at the time of the building of the coalition to give the Transportation Ministry to the UTJ, but was rejected because it was not prestigious enough), we would all be riding in mehadrin buses and trains right now...

In the video you can see Litzman respond on the issue. I have no idea what the main topic of discussion was, as he is sitting with the various haredi mayors, and I see no reason why this would be their topic of a meeting, so they were probably talking about something else when this issue came up...

Jameel wrote up a great piece of satire regarding the construction freeze, as if Israel had announced a freeze on immigration..

Truth is, that in today's climate, an immigration freeze is not so far fetched. Where are people going to live? If there is no construction in Judea and Samaria, and there is almost no construction in Israel proper (what sector is not going through a housing crisis simply because the State hardly releases land for construction), it is not too far fetched to suggest that they might freeze immigration saying we have nowhere to put anyone right now so temporarily, until the situation with the Palestinians is resolved, we are freezing immigration.

Anyway, the satire can also be taken further - no construction anywhere in Israel. After all, the dispute is not just over the "Occupied Territories", but over all of Israel. The Arabs want the West Bank and half of Jerusalem, but they also want the right of return to everywhere else in israel, such as Jaffa, Lod, Acre, Haifa, Tel Aviv and every other major area. I can see the next step being a construction freeze in all of Israel in an effort to promote peace and not upset them by building on areas they have a claim to...

It is just a matter of time...

The Israeli government representatives have spoken a number of times about fighting Israel's battles in cyberspace. They actually wanted to recruit bloggers to do so (for free of course) and provide them with training and talking points.

While that has not really panned out, the IDF has taken the initiative.

After starting the newest battalion of shadchanim, the latest is a battalion of tweeters, youtubers and facebookers... It brings the army into a whole new era of the digital age. "Push the Button" no longer just means to send a smart bomb to a remote location while sitting in a Lay-Z-Boy smoking a pipe and sipping bourbon, and it no longer refers to a song by Tipex..but it refers to pushing the button to publish your tweet and your youtube video.

Ya gotta love our hi-tech army!

I get all the emails about depositing money in my bank account for some Nigerian prince, so I want to know how come I did not receive the mass email announcing Chelsea Clinton's engagement to Jewish guy Marc Mezvinksky?

What's the connection? Mezvinksky's father sat in jail for his involvement in the Nigerian fraud scheme... so they must have my email address on record....

Anyways, mazel tov to the couple. It seems that Chelsea has no plans to convert to Judaism unlike a different celeb named Ivanka who recently converted and married a Jew. At least there are no reports of her planning a conversion.

I guess there are two sides to an intermarriage - while it is a shame, it is horrible, that he wants to marry a shiksa, the other side of it is that a shiksa celebrity wants to marry a Jew! You've come a long way, baby!