Sunday, March 16, 2008

How many crises' can one man do ?

Recall that in 1998, meltdown of a single hedge fund - LTCM - had repercussions that spreaded way further then one would think, affecting US and global economy and changing climate in sovereign borrowing and general credit markets for years to come. Back then, one man and one firm refused to participate in the bailout - without which, some say, US economy and probably world economy as well would've been in such deep a crisis that we'd still be crawling out of it. The man was James Cayne and the firm was Bear, Stern & Co.

Arrogant as ever, Bear Stern was at the edge of reputable Wall Street entities, constantly getting into something fishy yet managing to get out of it. Mr. Cayne chose the easy way to run the shop, simply loading up on the highest yielding asset available, and spending rest of his time playing golf. Alas, the mighty have fallen and now it's him and his firm seeking bailout.

Last week he was worth $900m. Supposedly, tomorrow he'll be worth only a fifth of that. They will plead poverty, and they will tell you how much losses he personally took and how much stock of Bear Stern he owned.

Don't believe a word of this. I have little doubt that Mr. Cayne's positions were so well tuned and so well hedged that come tomorrow, Mr. Cayne and his friends booked profits many, many times larger then the market re-cap of the dwarf bear ...

Mai ahani lon Rabonon ? Part II

The "Anti" voices a "question" posed by the very object of his "antiness" - "What have the Twerskys done for the Jewish People during the 100 year reign ?". A good question, certainly worth answering - if anyone was interest in the answer, of course.

First of all bear in mind that the "asker" comes with a crypto-atheist cynical attitude that places no positive value on a concept of Tzadik, a righteous person in and of himself, who doesn't "produce". Unless there is a tangible benefit that you can take to then bank, a person is worthless. "Jewish People" in such context is some sort of consumerist union, an organization that has to benefit in an accountable fashion; if that can't be shown, there is no legacy.

Written legacy of first two tzaddikim of Czernobyl is in the "top 10" list of representative, core Sifrei Chassidus that are learned and revered wherever word "Chassidus" has a meaning. Meor Einaym and Likutei Torah are deep, concise works that are revolutionary in many ways and introduce concepts that aren't seen elsewhere. These seforim and their authors were without doubt a "chidush" in this world, so we can write off original "askers'" not mentioning of Likutei Torah as another manifestation of ignorance.

With R' Mottele's z"l children, matters aren't so simple. "Mogen Avrohom" is an important work but not as much as the first two. "Mogen Dovid" is even less so. So what were these Twerskys busy with for so many generations and in so many places ?

The simple answer is that they dedicated their lives to mundane, day to day and non rewarding dealing with ordinary people and their ordinary lives. Acting as shrinks, judges and councils of everyone seeking their advice, Czernobyler Rebbes spent day after day and year after year listening, giving advice, helping with hard decisions, collecting and disbursing money, making peace, dealing with constant mesiros, with Haskala and with all the hostile forces that Ukraine of 1800's had to show. They nurtured spirits of those who came from great distances and often took heat whenever things went not in the best way. And they often showed knowledge, insight and openmindedness that was simply never seen elsewhere.

R"Y of Skver was the very epithome of a Tzaddik. The few words that he managed to utter still ring in ears of those to whom it trickled down. He's worthless in the eyes of the "asker", as he didn't leave behind eighty six volumes of essays, but those who saw him and who grew up touched by his genius were kept warm forever. The "m'shveigt" vort is often parroted but rarely understood.

His brothers Trisker Maggid, Tolner Maggid, R"YY Cherkasser, R' Yochanan from Rachmystrivka and R' Aron (whose daughter, by the way, married a grandson of R' Nachman from Breslav) were up to their eyebrows in handling affairs of ordinary people, without much time left to themselves. So if anyone gave all they had to the very concrete people connected to them, it was the "Twerskys" ahead of everyone else ...

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Chacham Tzvi, R' Moshe Hagiz and their generation's struggle

In Shaalos uTeshuvos of Chacham Tzevi, the very first responsa as well as quite a few others answer shaalos asked by one R' Shlomo Ayllon, towards whom it seems that Chacham Tzvi has a lot of respect.

Yet, his contemporary R' Moshe Hagiz in his work against Sabbatens, this R' Shlomo Ayllon is one of the top three embodiments of evil, along with a notorious Sabbatean prophet Nechemia Hayun yim"sh and his partner Miguel Cardoso. R' Moshe in no uncertain words takes apart works of these people and declares them to be unequivocal heresy of the worst kind, the very anti-thesis of teachings of Ar"i ha"K and in general.

Chachaz Tzevi condemned Hayun by explicit request of R' Moshe Hagiz to examine his works, and despite one responsa in which Chacham Tzevi defends a scholar from London who delivered a discourse in which he subscribed to "Deistic" views for which he was scorned by some members of the congregation, Chacham Tzevi very actively opposed Sabbateans for the most part of his life, and certainly for the entire time when his mature works were written.

Available biographic sources bring an account of a protracted dispute between Ayllon and Chacham Tzevi, as a result of which the latter had to escape Amsterdam. Ayllon and Hayun were in this together and both partook in vindicating the holy R' Tzevi Ashkenazi, apparantly drawing quite a lot of support from the local congregation.

Later in life there seems to be a retraction on the part of Ayllon, so much so that he refused any contact with Hayun when he visited Amsterdam, and he admitted that he wronged Chacham Tzevi for bad reasons. But for all intents and purposed Shlomo Ayllon went down in the annals as a person who gave material and spiritual support to the worst Sabbateans of his days, and was a keyy figure in the tormenting of sages who actively opposed the Sabbatean heresy.

Why then is his name all over Chacham Tzevi's responsa ? And is there a pattern of questionable, shortsighted deeds by the congregation of Amsterdam that had a deep and long lasting effect on the history of European Jewry ?

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Venahapoch hu


In an unbelievable turn of events, while R' Aron Teitelbaum der Monroe Rebbe declares the terrorist act in Merkaz HaR' Kuk as a "tragedy for the Klal" and doesn't mention at all what would be expected from a representative of Satmar, yet R' Don Segal Levi from OK, to an extent a Lubavitcher Chosid, states that the acts were a result of "Violation of the Three Oaths". He's not too verse in the Shita, and he proceeds to mix up horrifyingly naive Zionist memres along with digested Kannaism of Williamsburg bottling, or what some commentators refer to as "ער מישט דרעק מיט לעבער".

The mix is typical, and it's worse then each of the ingredients taken separately. As always.


Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Degenerates' descent

Country that professes itself as the cradle of (formerly known as white) civilzation, United Kingdom, teaches the world yet another lesson in unmitigated hypocrisy and general drift towards populist fascism that's taking place, slowly but surely, in UK and elsewhere.

Don't forget, this is the same United Kingdom that provided safe haven to Nazi war criminals after the war on condition of them helping undermine the Soviet Union and the GDR; same United Kingdom that initiated several bloody wars over monopoly of opium market in Eastern Asia; same United Kingdom responsible for colonization of two thirds of non-European world and all the evils that stemmed from such.

So now, of all people, UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith denied entry to Moshe Feiglin, a right wing Israeli politician. Mind you, I'm the last person to sympathize with right wing Zionist politicians. But I don't think one can think of a more hypocritical statement then when United Kingdom, a country actively engaged in material support and providing shelter to the most outspoken supporters of Muslim terror - be they Chechen, Arab, Pakistani or Sudanese; United Kingdom that closes its eyes to the bloody wars and executions perpetrated by the Muslims on daily basis - in exchange for pounds and schillings the better of them leave shopping on Bond Street - they have the guts and twisted atrophy of any moralism to ban an Israeli politician from entry because he's "seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts" ?

There is very little excuse United Kingdom can muster to justify its existance. Country that gave the world white trash and little else, it's rotten to the core. Let your people go, and long live the Democratic Republic of England, Scotland, Wales and the Shetlands !

Who did Spitzer ? Part II

Back in his Attorney General days, Mr. Spitzer's gave some advice for people who have to break the law. He said "Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an email because it's death. You're giving prosecutors all the evidence we need"

Given all this, one can not see the Mayflower Affair as anything other then deliberate act of political suicide, committed by a knowledgeable professional. And the damage was multiplied by the long and torturous silence, when Governor neither denied nor addressed the allegations.

A few scenarios seem plausible. Most likely, he was made an offer he couldn't refuse. Something of much greater significance was lurking by the surface, and perhaps the Governor was told to either go this way, or the high way. And after all the dust settles, losing governor's seat out of basically a one time fling without a juicy story of a perversion of some sort or an allegation of corruption isn't the worst proposition for Mr. Spitzer.

There is no way one can discount Hillary vs Obama campaign and the bottomless bag of dirty PR to which both sides will resort without an eyebat. Clinton and Spitzer go hand in hand, but that doesn't necessarily translate into Obama points from this scandal. McCain and rest of GOP aren't chopped liver either. Nor is George Fox, of Titan Advisors, probably the only friend Mr. Spitzer has south of Fulton Street. Without turning this into Pelican Brief Redux, here are some people at whom a researcher may want to take a look :

George Fox - President and FounderGeorge Fox leads Titan Advisors as its President, actively engaging in the firm's portfolio management process as a member of the Investment Committee and leading Titan's business development and marketing efforts. He entered the New York financial markets in 1984 as a floor trader at the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange and the Commodity Exchange Inc., where he traded for his own account for seven years. In 1992, Mr. Fox created G. Fox & Co., a hedge fund advisory firm. He graduated with a B.A. degree from Tulane University in 1981 and earned a law degree from the University of Richmond (VA) in 1984.

Tom Holliday - Chief Investment Officer and FounderTom Holliday is a member of the Investment Committee and is chiefly responsible for Titan Advisors' portfolio construction and manager research. Before joining Titan Advisors in April 2001, he was responsible for identifying and recommending investment managers for Soros Fund Management as it changed from a global macro fund to a multi-strategy, multi-manager fund. At Soros, Mr. Holliday also established due diligence guidelines and created manager analysis reports. Previously, he was a senior marketing consultant for Strategic Financial Solutions and helped build its PerTrac product into the hedge fund industry's leading analytical tool. Mr. Holliday, who attended the University of Tennessee, also has experience trading in the futures markets and selecting Commodity Trading Advisors.

Doug Herman - Chief Financial Officer and FounderDoug Herman is the chief financial officer of Titan Advisors. A certified public accountant, Mr. Herman previously was co-founder of general practice CPA firm Gittleson & Herman, where he worked with high net worth individuals, businesses and hedge funds. He also spent three years in private practice and 11 years with Executive Monetary Management (EMM), where as executive vice president and treasurer he ran the day-to-day operations of the firm. Prior to EMM, Mr. Herman was employed by medium-sized public accounting firms. He earned a B.S. from the University of Maryland, an M.B.A. in accounting from St. John's University (NY) and is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in N.Y.

Kieran Cavanna - Principal and Research AnalystKieran Cavanna, who joined Titan Advisors in 2002, primarily identifies and performs due diligence on hedge fund managers in the long/short- equity and event driven strategies. Mr. Cavanna is also active in the firm's portfolio construction process as a member of the Investment Committee. Previously, he was a senior consultant in KPMG's business consulting group, and before that worked in program planning at the National Broadcasting Co., where he helped launch MSNBC. Mr. Cavanna earned an M.B.A. from Vanderbilt University in 2001 and graduated with a B.A. from the University of Richmond in 1994.

Darren Ross - Chief Operating Officer, General Counsel and Chief Compliance Officer Darren Ross is the Chief Operating Officer of Titan Advisors and is also responsible for legal and compliance matters. Prior to joining Titan Advisors in May 2006, Mr. Ross worked for six years as part of the management team of the Wolfson Group, a large family office that actively invests in hedge funds, private equity funds and other alternative investments. Mr. Ross worked previously as an attorney at Dorsey and Whitney, LLC and as a certified public accountant at Finkle, Ross & Rost, LLC. Mr. Ross graduated with a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1993 and earned a J.D. from Fordham University in 1997.
N. Claude Colabella -Director of Investor Relations Claude Colabella is responsible for investor relations and business development. Before joining Titan Advisors in 2001, he operated Alpha Beta Alternative Investments, which was a hedge fund advisory and fund of funds firm. From 1990 to 1998, Mr. Colabella was involved in energy industry equity research, first as a senior vice president at John S. Herold Inc. and later as president and co-founder of Petroleum Research Group. Previously, he was affiliated with Westfair Financial Analysis, Zimbalist Smith Ltd. and Securities Industry Management Corp. Mr. Colabella graduated magna cum laude from Manhattan College in 1983 and earned his M.B.A. from Duke University in 1985.

Karl Chalupa - Head of Multi-Strategy and Global MacroKarl Chalupa joined Titan Advisors in August 2007 and performs due diligence primarily on multi-strategy quantitative, fixed income, and global macro hedge fund managers. Additionally, he is a member of the investment committee. Prior to joining Titan he was president of Gamma Capital LLC, a quantitative global macro hedge fund. Previously he managed the currency and alternative investment groups at State Street Global Advisors. Prior to that he spent 13 years at ABN Amro Bank where he traded interest rate and currency derivatives and managed the North American proprietary trading and economic research desks. He also worked as an economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He earned an M.A. in economics from Brown University in 1982 and a B.A. from Northern Illinois University in 1979.

Richard Leifels - Vice President of Operational ResearchRick Leifels joined Titan Advisors in 2005 as a vice president in charge of operational due diligence. His responsibilities include examining fund managers' operational, back office and financial/accounting procedures. He brought 20 years of insurance industry experience, most recently as MetLife's director of product development for the high net worth market. From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Leifels was controller of Security Equity Life Insurance Co., where he was instrumental in developing private placement insurance products that can invest in hedge funds. Earlier, he was an assistant controller for a life reinsurance unit of The Hartford and before that was with General Reinsurance. Mr. Leifels received his B.B.A. in accounting from St. Bonaventure University in 1984.

I could produce a relatively precise outcome scenario of what will happen to the parties involved with probabilities of each outcome, but there is no real upside to that. Yet.

Spitzergate : cui bono cui bono ?

To those uninformed - Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer allegedly patronized a very expensive Escort service while staying in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington in February 2008 (just a month ago). He was nabbed in a federal wiretap of his private cell phone as federal agencies were investigation this prostitution ring. Rumor has it that a resignation is imminent. An ardent Clinton supporter, this could've not been more embarassing. Or could it ?

Few people genuinly like Mr. Spitzer. Unfortunately, the high moral ground he used in such macchiavellian manner time after time didn't do much to veil the inner being - an opportunist with gargantuan ambitions, often a bully and a narcissist. That said, his successful career as a prosecutor - if high profile convictions and constant dealing from the bottom of the deck is a success - had most people assume that he does get the job done; he's as sharp as lawyers get and it's better to have him as a Governor than in the prosecutorial chair. Many scandals of various calibers have came and past, yet Spitzer was holding the Albany fort and was largely considered Hillary's man. Much hated on Wall Street for non sensical, biased and unfair handling of many high profile cases, he still manages to maintain Robin-Hoodesque aura of simple man's man etc etc.

But this, of course, isn't about Mr. Spitzer. This scandal reeks from such blatant conspirantism that the first thought is that "they" would never do something so brazen and in so much public eyesight.

Still, let's rehash. Born to a family of basically non-religious Austrian Jews, Eliot scored 1590 on his SAT and attented Princeton undergraduate college. After getting a perfect LSAT - not an easy feat, I hear - young Elion went on to Harvard Law, where he picked up his JD and his wife of 21 years by now. After a brief stint with a private law firm, Spitzer worked for Morgenthau's office (Manhattan District Attorney) for about two years. He made a name in a few very high profile Mafia cases, went back to work for the most important law firm in the US whose name I'm afraid to mention, and ultimately in 1998 became New York State Attorney General.

The list of matters handled by him as an AG is too long to bring up here. In 2006, he was elected as a Governor of the NYS with 69% of the vote. And it seems now that his career is over because of an expensive phone hooker.

Sum it up. The Man : We have a gentleman here who was some of the sharpest minds in Harvard Law and elsewhere. A man who spent most of his career working with wiretaps, wiretapped subjects, surveillance evidence, warrants, data mining and prosecuting prostitution and other organized crime feats, as well as high profile Wall Street "crooks" with questionable lifestyles. A man who has more rich, mighty enemies then probably even Giuliani. A man with a weakness - publicly known high moral standards, often used as a prop for whatever agenda needs to be pushed.

Time - about the most heated segment of US Primaries in the most uncertain election year EVER, with Democract candidates locked in dead heat and hurling feces at each other so that baboons want to take classes. "Republicans in the office" status quo assures us that getting anything tossed out on a simple phone call is just unviable.

Place - the Mayflower Hotel. Some of the most notoriously upscale, VIP-diplomat-lobbyist kind of stomping ground, which is probably under a constant uninterrupted surveillance of every conceivable government, state and local agency with means; where I have no doubt that every room has at least a capability of filming from six hidden camera angles. Hotel where you have to peel surveillance bugs off if you want to install your own.

And the Deed. Allegedly, Mr. Spitzer disguised as "George Fox" and "Client 9", on Valentine's Day called (!) on his cell phone(!!) a wiretapped "Emperor's Club"; he further conducted detailed "business" over SMS (!!!, knowing how much easier it is to store, retain and retrieve all text messages) . Federal affidavit alleges that he spent at least $4,300 (he basically "kept all the receipts" by SMS-ing every little detail). He was to pay for everything - train tickets, cab fares, miin bars, travel time - you name it. Apparently, on the February 12th he didn't have "enough credit" with this institution (a mere $500 left), so they refused his business until some more dough was coughed up.

With all the tips squeezed out of him, The Governor left behing $4,300 in US Currency, and a few dozen SMS messages that are so obvious that a conviction would only entail establishing that Client-9 is indeed his ugly mug.

This goes beyong "how stupid can he be". This goes deeply into the area of "why was it done this way?". I am almost certain of one thing - unless he's in some very deep psychiatric abyss, this story has more to it then you would like to know.

Monday, March 10, 2008

The real Klausenburger


Via dorrevii.org, this is the wedding picture of Shaendl Glasner, daughter of R' Moshe Shmuel Glasner of Cluj Napoca to Avraham Finkelstein.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Dem rebbems a moifes

חיה מיט הערנער איז מחדש א חידוש - אז די אללע דערהארגעטע אין מרכז הרב קוק איז בלױז דערהרגעט װײל מען האט נישט געפאלגט זײַן רבי'ן און גערעדט פון שלום מיט אראבער. אז עהר האָט מיט רוח קודש און א װײטן בליק אללעס געזעען און העטט מען נאר געפאלגט עהם , װאָלט אַללעס געװען זיס און װויל אין עזה און שומרון.


איך װײז קײַן סך נישט פֿון ציוניסטישע פאליטיק. אָבער אײַן זאַך קען איך זאָגן - נישט נאָר אַז זײַן רבי װאָלט עהם מחרים געװען פאר אזא בילליגע ברעכערײ, אױכעט אױף די בילדער פֿון די לויה און פון נאך'נ אסון זעט מען נישט קײן סך פון זײנע חברים. מען זעט קײן אײנס אױכעט נישט, בלױז א פאר "פעילישערס" פון הצלה און חברא קדישא

גרעפצען פון ניו העמפסטעד קאסט נישט קײן סך

Philosophy of Benedict Spinoza

I'm leaning towards concluding that Benedict Spinoza, while a very bright young soul, was only made popular by the Herem against him. Of those who proclaim to carry his banner, few actually bother to go through his works; his detractors - even less so.

Just ten years before "hisgalus" of S' Z' ym'sh, Herem against Spinoza was pronounced in sharpest of terms; his unspecified pantheistic views were condemned as utter heresy. The nusach, in translation of Abraham Wolf went :

The members of the council do you to wit that they have long known of the evil opinions and doings of Baruch de Espinoza, and have tried by divers methods and promises to make him turn from his evil ways. As they have not succeeded in effecting his improvement, but, on the contrary, have received every day more information about the horrible heresies which he practised and taught, and other enormities which he has committed, and as they had many trustworthy witnesses of this, who have deposed and testified in the presence of the said Spinoza, and have convicted him; and as all this has been investigated in the presence of the Rabbis, it has been resolved with their consent that the said Espinoza should be anathematised and cut off from the people of Israel, and now he is anathematised with the following anathema:

"With the judgment of the angels and with that of the saints, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and of all this holy congregation, before these sacred Scrolls of the Law, and the six hundred and thirteen precepts which are proscribed therein, we anathematise, cut off, execrate, and curse Baruch de Espinoza with the anathema wherewith Joshua anathematised Jericho, with the curse wherewith Elishah cursed the youths, and with all the curses which are written in the Law: cursed be he by day, and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lieth down, and cursed be he when he riseth up; cursed be he when he goeth out, and cursed be he when he cometh in; the Lord will not pardon him; the wrath and fury of the Lord will be kindled against this man, and bring down upon him all the curses which are written in the Book of the Law; and the Lord will destroy his name from under the heavens; and, to his undoing, the Lord will cut him off from all the tribes of Israel, with all the curses of the firmament which are written in the Book of the Law; but ye that cleave unto the Lord your God live all of you this day!"

We ordain that no one may communicate with him verbally or in writing, nor show him any favour, nor stay under the same roof with him, nor be within four cubits of him, nor read anything composed or written by him.


For a twenty four year old operating in the times of fervent activities of Kabbalists and other radical and new worldviews, he received a disproportionate amount of attention from relatively liberal and enlightened Rabbinical Court of Amsterdam. I am not, G-d forbid, doubting their decision. I am sure they saw something that deserved such treatment. But there are no historical records that tell us what exactly was the cause of all this noise.

At least one source cites that the Court of Amsterdam was very prolific with their excommunications and issued over two hundred and eighty instances in the first hundred years, sometimes for very trivial reasons. If that was the case, it's easy to say that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the pivotal decision to throw him out would've played out differently if it happened in Poland a hundred years later. Was the martyrdom unearned ?

In any case, casual attempt to sketch Spinozism from his own late works does not put forth anything revolutionary or particularly interesting. It is not very consistent even in Cantor's terms, nor very rigorous; but the religious ideas espoused can be encountered in many other sources, many of which are on the "A-list", and even those that aren't are far from being an ultimate revelation of rationalist self-sustenance.

It may be worth spending some effort on figuring out what was it in early Spinoza's head that he probably tossed out right there and then when he and the Rabbinical Court of Amsterdam parted ways.

Of all the uncountable of books on the matter the most interesting and usable one was written by Spinoza's luminous contemporary, some of the brightest minds ever, Gottfried Leibnitz. It is also a source I'm inclined to trust since as long its authorship is unchallenged, it does get as close to the very object of our interest as possible - Leibnitz was born only ten years before Spinoza's excommunication, and that makes him 14 years younger.

Remainders of Spinozist "pantheism" addressed by Leibnitz seem innocent and benign. "Everything is in G-d, that is, G-d comprises the being and the idea of everything" can be explained as normative doctrine - given enough ink and benefit of the doubt - in either Lithuanian, Chassidic or Chabad schools of thought, or in the explicit Kabbalist system of values to which Spinoza and other contemporaries often allude, as it gave them the means and the ways to express hitherto unexpressable.

So Leibnitz, the supergoy and and a thinker of unmatched caliber, wrote "Refutation of Spinoza" to refute a commonly shared belief that he (Leibnitz) was a Spinozist. In it he begins with a claim that while Spinoza has outwardly proclaimed the "divinity of Cr-st", he really kind of does not and really Spinoza is just repackaging "Kabbalistic doctrine". Then, Dr. Leibnitz goes into remarkable depth, although off-beat and naive, into the Kabbalist doctrine, how it's very close to Spinozist views and how he as a Christian does not really subscribe to these views and would like to distantiate himself from such (of course it's deeper and more nuanced, and quite unlike the treatment of genetics and Ac. Vavilov in the Soviet Academy of Sciences by Ac. Lysenko). It's surprising to see an erudite rationalist German to spend so much time arguing about intricacies of interpretations of various Kabbalistic doctrines (especially after it was condemned by the Yemenite and German self-professed rationalists alike). Messianic thought, too, is treated by Herr Leibnitz on more then one page in this very thin and scarcely available work.

Thus by all accounts it appears that Spinoza started off with a conceived relatively thorough system of thought that was deeply intertwined with contemporary religious "mysticism", with some of Descartes' innovate thinking and with approach and reconciliation with classic Judaism. In that, he was somewhat of a predecessor to, lehavdil, the school of R' Bunim, R' Yeshaya Muskat and his saintly father in law, OB"M. We can only speculate the magnitude of good that could have came out of taking the sprouts of this budding "theory of everything" and developing and retaining it further completely within the framework of Yiddishkeit. Instead of being a phony martyr to two-bit apostates who haven't read him, and instead of ending up writing outright heresy, blasphemy and idolatrous beliefs - looks like he did it to make a living and out of desperation - Spinoza could have been the focal point of development of centrist wholesome Jewish thought. And while philosophical contributions aren't particularly valuable because they lack rigor and weren't written with formal model theory in mind, everything could've been so different ...

Part Two :

There was something in the air in the mid-1600's.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Subtle Slander by Selective Reporting

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/03/02/2008-03-02_bunch_of_wealthy_deadbeats_owe_new_york_.html

Daily News, a notoriously Anti-Semitic mouthpiece of Al Sharpton and Co published a list of "deadbeats" - mostly old, sometimes dead people who the New York City thinks owe them a lot of money. No surprise that Daily News picked mostly those with obviously Jewish last names. I'm sure it wasn't hard to do either, given the role that Ashkenazi Jews played in New York in the 20th Century. Most of these people were convicted of white collar crime and had to give up most of their money, and who knows why they still owe these nice chunks of change to the City.

All these numbers pale in comparison with how much Washington and Albany owe to New York. And the general concept to owe so much in taxes to the city, state, and the feds after paying up millions in restitution and fines is I'm sure not that trivial.

Daily News, a yellow paper if there ever was one, considered it important to concentrate its readers' focus on the rich, white slimy Jews. Whose bidding is it doing not so subtly ?

On vulgar customs

(Thanks to WM) Hamra bar H. Yitshak Yousup chose wrong words to perpetuate the cause of Sephardic identity. Looks like some "conformists" amongst Sephardic young men picked up some ancient Ashkenazic wedding customs. So this gentleman decides to score some Moroccan votes to declare these customs as "vulgar". He got ticked off by the custom of Yichud Shtibl, of holding hands after the Chuppah and some other behaviors that may or may not qualify as "customs".

Holding hands after the Chuppah is universal amongst almost all Ashkenazic communities and goes back as long as the wedding ceremony itself. A select few communities don't practice it, but I suspect its because of being uninformed and out of misplaced shame; otherwise the custom is universal even amongst the frummest chassidim who will shave the poor bride to oblivion and will maintain mechitza even by mitzva tantz. It was modest enough for Pney Yehoshua, for Ktsos, probably for Rabeinu Tam - and likely too for Baal Shem Tov, for the heilige Ruzhiner and for Tzanzer Ruv, all of whose memory shall be blessed. And here comes a pere odom who didn't learn and didn't listen and declares this custom as vulgar ?

If all the concert ban signers had any anatomy at all, they would instead put him in Herem until he personally apologizes to every human dead or alive whose wedding went according to a thousand year old rite. But I guess מכה בסתר is easier and poor Lipa is a juicier target then some wannabe frenk ...

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

A new low for (some in) New Hempstead

The mamshich darko of the now defunct TA, the nebech'l couldn't live with all the lows he's hit till now and decided to start drilling. It's not a chiddush that being Hungarian and all, there is a fair the amount of insecurity and lack of self esteem that drives the irrational, ingrained hatred to the word "Satmar". In lack of any real material, he decided to go dumpster diving and lo and behold, the low tide of heimishe cesspool, Hydepark, provided our Don Quixote de Hempstead Nueva with a diamond of a dung.

There are few things about which I care less then the Aroinim-Zaloinim conflict. I'm sure they all have their reasons, I'm sure they're both tired of it and enjoy it immensely and I'm also sure that time and money will heal that rift. In any case, given the magnitude of conflict (some fifty thousand people on each side), both sides have a fair share of leidigeiers and worse, people of all colors of the rainbow. And it seems that one of them dug up some book in Hebreaeich in which a Holocaust survivor reminisces that Rav Shpitz z"l from Bistrica, Razal's deceased father in law, may he rest in peace, was not in labor or any other concentration camps, but was hiding in a house of a hungarian go, and at that time also something unsavory was done towards this respectable Rov that puts him in less then favorable light in eyes of pretty much anyone frum reading this shtikl.

A staunch Zaloini, our Defender of Things Jewish insists on widely publicizing this to the English reading crowd. He doesn't actually translate the piece, written in primitive Ivrit. Instead, he puts up a scanned page of the book. As if that will relieve him from the fact that he took this out of obscurity of a yiddish-only forum for those who deeply care about the A-Z conflict, and into the limelight of English-speaking oilom that frequents his site to fill up on some fresh libel and perhaps some very nice old photos thrown in for credibility. It will not take long until his teacher Shmarya will quote him on the matter. It's pretty clear that he doesn't actually give a hoot about Rav Shpitz z"l and his kuvod; I'm sure that if it was found on some Machnovka vs. Belz forum, it would go deeply unnoticed.

And he writes up a filthy ruse, as if the matter was brought up by lowlife "Satmars" in their infights, and now they're officially pouring dirt on the now-deceased respectable Bistricer Rov. So this creature in his pathological hatred for Satmar engages in wholesale slander, propagates dirty rumors about a respectable Rov who is no longer with us and is otherwise being oiver on a dozen or so deoraysos, all this in public limelight.

One thing is clear - whoever posted the original document on Hydepark didn't represent anything and anyone, and did not speak for anything or anyone and did not label himself as a "defender of all things Chassidish, doing what's right". I am sure that the Holy Rabbi Ariel Sokolovsky Shlit"A has way more credentials to speak from the name of all the Raboisov Nesioisov then whoever it was on Hydepark has to speak in the name of anyone in Satmar. Whether or not the story is true - who knows, and who cares. But this particular blogger made his career on shoveling disgusting dirt of just this kind for past year or two, and he pretends to do so in the name of Sholosh Rishoinos.

Then, he provides some kind advice to the A's and the Z's how to settle their issues and what to do with their real estate.

Many things could be said about where he could place that advice, and about people with stones in houses. But there is no need; he'll spell them all out for you .

Hypocrisy


אמנע מרשעים אורם

There is a lot of good stuff to write about but it's the less-then-good stuff that sometimes needs to be tended to as well, so ...

שני נבאים מתנבאין בסגנון אחד

The old friends received their vibes and hashpoes from the same source down south. The nebech'l pours out his distaste for all those who are in love with themselves (it's a charge reserved for those to whom, I guess, no other charge sticks). The slab of non-conformism that he purchased and swallowed without chewing awakes the hippie within him, and with subtle wrath he hammers away on the tiny shaved hats of his plump snag neighbors whose sin is having two cars and an orderly lawn, yet davening on time.

"Davening on time" is a subject onto himself. Personally, I'm probably the most egregious violator of these rules; but I never learned to actually take pride in this. If someone can manage to do as supposed to, and on top of this to mean the words one says - nu, good for them; give respect where it's due. Still, in the best traditions of סוף מסכתא סוטא , a blind man as myself will proceed to practice ophtalmology as the generations require ...

What is really interesting is that while nebech'l may very proudly daven up a Shacharis at 2 pm, as is customary by some, just go and try to set up a Mincha minyan 3 minutes after his zman is gone. By "rov hooilom" it's still another hour to daven; most people whose pictures Mr. Right so liberally slaps around had no issue, certainly not bedieved, with davening after his shkiya.

Forget about davening; the Shiny New Shul with a Sparkling New Mikva on Rt. 306 is notorious for a truly fascist mikvah policy when on Friday evening the doors get shut precisely the second Mr. Right's people decided the "cutoff" time is, and G-d help some poor soul who would like to go toivel before Shabos and didn't have a chance to do so before Kapos in Kapotas decided it's time to close shop. In President's words, don't make mistake - he's not "liberal about zmanim"; some people are outspokenly lax when it suits them, but are ever as judgemental when it does not.

There are so many more instances of the Nyiredhazer hippie's & Co blind love to himself, but we aren't here to see in demise of this entertainer. After all, he thinks that he means well.

Not so with his cousin, the obnoxious farfallene masriach. In a new round of fictional reality, one deranged resident lunatic of that blog (I believe he is נקוב בשם Yochanan Lavie) made out of thin air a story about a poor old "MO" Jew who isn't counted by the evil Williamsburg charedichassidim in the minyan, so that he's forced to walk the bridge to daven in an Modern Orthodox shul in Lower East Side. As a permanent feature, this Lavie imbecile specializes in the most repulsive fake mayses about everyone he doesn't like (the circle of those he likes is rather narrow; so far they wouldn't even count enough for a mezuman).

The owner of the blog uses this implausible piece of fiction to continue his call for "stopping all donations" and "cutting the funds to haredim", as if someone would think he and that crowd ever gave a penny to anyone except perhaps Barbara Streisand's campaign to save the Antarctic Polar Bear. The deranged commentators further embellish the story, "hassidim" become evil Satmars as is customary on his blog (and on the nebechl's, too) and by the end, poor old Modern Orthodox has to crawl over the bridge under the cover of night while Satmars are shooting at him from their Hungarian rifles.

That this story is BS is no doubt - not just that it's well known that the both Satmarer rebbes z"l had shaved old people on their front row on Y"K and R"H; that the Divrei Yoel chastized one of his bochurim who made fun of a beardless person who came in as a tenth to be mashlim a minyan. Williamsburg has shuls on every block, some are decent and some are nuthouses but that's the territory; and somehow I don't but that the one shul where they actually count people for a minyan on Shabbos would have a problem with an old shaved jew, MO or not.

A curious comment that draws parallel to this case speaks of a female convert who went on to marry a cohen right after the conversion and was "mistreated" by some school in the UK. The school bears the full wrath of these degenerates, complete with allegations of racism and other parallels that no sane person would hint at. I wonder, is the uncounted old shaved man also a victim of such "mistreatment" ? Perhaps the story does have legs, and they caught him "in act" and thus he became persona non grata ? Who knows. And who cares ...