1.
Go to MK Yaakov Margi's office and ask him for the list of Sephardic girls who are staying at home, also this week - two weeks since the start of the school year.
I'm sure you'll be shocked.
A year and a half of Shas in the coalition, but a solution to discrimination has not yet been found. There is improvement, but it is mainly related to the strength of the ultra-Orthodox district, which threatens to deny budgets. However, the seminar administrators do not always respond to threats of this kind.
A few days ago, Margi declared his intention to promote the regional registration law. It is not certain that he will succeed, as United Torah Judaism is expected to oppose it. Either way, if I was expecting red, screaming headlines about the discrimination that still exists in our Haredi community, I found no trace of it.
In its place I found a story about discrimination against Sephardim in...the new public corporation. As if all those Sephardim girls sitting in their homes, wetting handkerchiefs with tears, are no more miserable than a public corporation, into which no jobs for insiders have been planted, in the name of the "principle of equality.".
""The school year in the educational system has begun, and with it the news of the strengthening of the golden age of glorious Sephardic Jewry," writes Haim Tricky, citing the 'Bnei Yosef' network, the flourishing of Sephardic yeshivahs, and the growth of Sephardic seminaries.
He is right, it is a welcome revolution that deserves all praise. But he adds another sentence: "and the erasure of ethnic discrimination.".
I wish it was deleted.
So it is true that "most of the Shas representatives in the government, the Knesset, and the authorities, especially the Haredi ones, spent their vacation in their offices and sat every day until the wee hours of the night to place each and every student in a seminar according to her request," but they "spent their time," "sat down," and made an effort - and in the end, dozens of students are still sitting at home, crying and tearful.
Ethnic discrimination is still here with us. Even in Elul 5776. Unfortunately.
2.
How beautiful to see the efforts of Yated Ne'eman and the informant to launch a "strong protest" against the desecration of the Sabbath. They even allocated the prominent 'left ear' of the news pamphlet for the protest, while coloring the headline in red. Both of them as one, and as if they coordinated with each other. Breathe.
Where is the problem?
The problem lies in the fact that the two dailies know, as do we all, that until a gun is placed on the prime minister's desk and he threatens to resign (as Litzman did about two weeks ago, when he managed to stop the work for one Saturday), the ears of the newspaper don't really move anything.
Not even when they are painted red.
So they went out to protest. In fact, the work on the train is getting underway - and business as usual. I can just imagine the CEO of the railway looking at the newspaper and giggling. Even the police commissioner is grinning and smiling under his mustache.
3.
After several days of silence, during which, perhaps, the newspaper's editorial staff struggled over the most effective way to cover the peace, as expressed in the Beit Gur celebration, the editorial arrived in the bulletin and brought spiritual order to the entire event.
""There is an inner essence to every soul's longing for peace and unity, and there is also such an inner essence to that miraculous state that thousands of Israel saw and tens of thousands of those who feared the word of God and the ultra-Orthodox were exposed to in all their places of residence, which explains why their eyes narrowed and their hearts beat with emotion and longing when they saw together what was entrusted to them by the great Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman, Shlita, who came especially from Bnei Brak to Jerusalem and the Rebbe of Gur, Shlita - at the Simchat Beit Tzaddikim that took place this week.".
Simply touching.
Hopefully, all those who work day and night to prevent a reciprocal visit will read the editorial and be convinced of the "soul's longing for peace and unity.".
4.
I loved section number 2 of Avraham Dov Greenbaum's column in Bekhila so much that I was able to forgive section number 6, in which I failed to understand a word or two of the writer's intent.
In section 2, Greenbaum tells how in the month of Elul 5711, a ship docked in the Upper Bay of New York Harbor. "A group of Jews stood and looked at the Statue of Liberty in disbelief. Really? Did they really get to a place of safety? They set out to freedom.".
His grandfather was among the people. He took his cane and his backpack and his two children, who were born in the DP camps in Germany, and traveled with them on the subway to New York. "These were the birth pangs of the Jews in New York.".
His grandfather hardly ever visited Manhattan. "He was fine in his place, in Williamsburg," where he felt "a kind of mental peace after five years of suffering in the terrible Holocaust.".
Until that day, "September 11, 2001," the day that struck my grandfather with a searing blow, "burned by fire." Exactly a year after he reached his resting place and inheritance, "he felt threatened for the first time.".
This week he lamented in pain to his grandson: "I had no rest...I couldn't concentrate on my studies." He recalled how "the black skies of Manhattan darkened Brooklyn," and how the Statue of Liberty was filled with dust, soot, and smoke.".
The world turned black.
5.
Then came the part that I had trouble understanding. Those who correctly solve the meaning of the riddle are asked to provide interpretations. The difficulties are in parentheses.
Subject: Unity status at Beit Gur wedding, this week.
""There are political moves of this kind and that that are driven by young and talented people, and these young people still have a long and tedious path to learn what the old people have not yet begun to forget." [What are the names of the talented young people, assuming that the old people are Health Minister Yaakov Litzman].
""Anyone who believes that a far-reaching arrangement of such magnitude can be put together within the central faction without the Minister of Health being involved in it - apparently knows neither the central faction nor Litzman [but everyone knows that Litzman only knew about the events at a very late stage]... There is trust between a leader and a follower, and there is an unqualified trust that has lasted forty years minus one.".
""Since 1977, Litzman has stood by the 'Hof' as its loyal political figure, with his likability already known deep down many years before. Whether by pulling the strings in the first two decades or by standing at the front in the second two decades.".
""Yes, and there was a big secret this week. The second circle in the house of the Maran Rosh Ha-Yeshiva was not involved in it either." [Who is in the first circle in the house at 5 Hazon Ish Street? Who is in the second circle? And why is the second circle supposed to know about a secret happening of this kind?]
""Litzman, like Gesheid, had to play poker so that the entire Lithuanian public wouldn't fill the Beit Midrash. And also so that it would come to fruition. They did it successfully" [That is, the author's claim is that Litzman, like Gesheid, both knew about the event from time immemorial and were part of its preparation? Well, on stage...].
""And they did it successfully.".
Either yes or no. What is certain is that the writer of the lines certainly "did it successfully," when he managed to fulfill everyone's duty...
6.
""You did it successfully," said Yossi Elitov, from a family that proved that grandmother cooked porridge and distributed it to everyone. This one has it, that one has it too.
Here you see how everyone knew, everyone did their job, thanks to everyone.
""Both in the Rebbe's house and in the surroundings of the Rosh Yeshiva, no process would have been carried out if Rabbi David Shapira, the grandson and the man in charge of the house, was dominating him on one side, and Rabbi Yaakov Litzman, Minister of Health and the strong and dominant man in the Rebbe of Gur, was commanding him on the other side. In the middle stood the strategic advisor Menachem Gesheid, who in recent years has enjoyed a special closeness from the Rebbe, while working alongside him was the Hasidic scholar Yaakov Bibla and Rabbi Eliezer Kaplan, one of the heads of 'Ezra Lamarfa', which benefits from its closeness to the Rosh Yeshiva."
In the spirit of the month of Elul, and in the spirit of unity that prevailed at the wedding, how beautiful it is to conduct a political column in which compliments are distributed to everyone. To those who did the work, and to those who only found out about it after the fact.
One must know the individuals involved and the nature of their relationships to understand that cooking porridge together could not have taken place between them, not even during the month of mercy and forgiveness.
But how wonderful that there are journalists who know how to surpass themselves in the spirit of these days. By the way, if you didn't know, in the case of discrimination against Sephardic girls and the seminaries, Aryeh Deri, Eli Yishai, Nissim Ze'ev and Yaakov Margi are working hand in hand.
Why not show everyone respect? It's the month of Elul, right?
7.
A week after receiving complaints from yeshiva students who saw themselves as disadvantaged (as well as criticism in this section of 'Between the Lines'), Yated Ne'eman photographers set out for another week of filming in yeshiva halls.
This week, while six pages of eye-catching photos were featured, more and more yeshivahs were covered. The discrimination against yeshivahs headed by Rabbi Shalom Ber Sorotzkin was corrected, and 'Ateret Shlomo' received a prominent half-page photo. So did Yeshivah Tifrah.
''Erchot Torah', a rather shaky picture of which appeared last week, will probably have to wait for the continuation of the project next week. But to the other yeshivot, peace.
""Truly, how wonderful.".
8.
I found the best field report this week in Hamodia, where Moshe Michael Zoran took the trouble to sail to Moshav Talamim in the south.
In Telamim, "one of the moshavim that proudly carries the flag of Djerba Jewry with all its customs," he found a unique atmosphere of selihot. In Telamim, he says, selihot begin to be recited at "midnight," and even on Holy Saturday, the recitation of selihot is combined with prayer.
The almost complete disconnection from the outside world, when "progress and enlightenment hardly reached this moshav," "caused the younger generation to also begin to return to the ancestral tradition. The young people pray in the synagogue called 'Al-Jariba,' named after the ancient and well-known synagogue in Djerba, and they are more careful to get up at midnight for the prayers.".
This is an outdated moshav, "perhaps even aging," with a prestigious neighborhood, but with an old part "that has not been renovated or upgraded since its establishment.".
""Our camera lens captured, for example, a bench intended for sitting and resting, while in the entire huge radius around there is nothing but lemon and citrus groves and fields of onions and potatoes. Nostalgia at its best," he describes.
Definitely fascinating.
9.
In Yated, I actually liked the editing.
Pay attention to the interesting headlines:
""Agreement and a Thorn in It" (the American Support Agreement for Israel).
""The Heart of Kings and Candidates" (Behind the Political Drama in the US).
""And God forbid it would rain" (the sharp increase in mortar fire towards Israel).
""Mortgage in Aspamiya" (raising mortgage prices and tightening conditions)
And the highlight: "Trump vs. Clinton: Healthy and Safe.".
This is what happens when you import a leading editor...
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