Religion & Beliefs

Dark Light and Rabbi Tropper Expand Haredi Invasion of College Campuses

In a move to expand right-wing ultra-Orthodox (haredi, specifically the B’nai Torah) outreach on college campuses, two fundamentalist institutions have joined forces to support Ohr Somayach’s two-year program, Ohr Lagolah, accredited by the State of Israel. The program is based … Read More

By / January 6, 2009

In a move to expand right-wing ultra-Orthodox (haredi, specifically the B’nai Torah) outreach on college campuses, two fundamentalist institutions have joined forces to support Ohr Somayach’s two-year program, Ohr Lagolah, accredited by the State of Israel.

The program is based on JET, a haredi program that disguises its fundamentalism under platitudes such as Holocaust remembrance.

JET brings students to Ohr Somayach, Jerusalem on subsidized trips, and attempts to indoctrinate them and ideally, seeks to convince them to drop out of college.

These are not people Hillel should be cooperating with. But according to Ohr Somayach and Rabbi Kahn, Hillel is "actually" doing just that.

Rabbi Tropper, who is notorious for "uncoverting" Jewish married female converts who appeared in pants or without a hair covering, and for lobbying for a haredi-only bar for traditional Jewish conversion, has joined with Rabbi Mendel Weinbach and Rabbi Nota Schiller to support Ohr Lagolah.

What are the problems with Ohr Somayach? Plenty, at least to those of us who do not share the perspective of the haredi followers.

While much of the fundamentalist nonsense of Ohr Somayach is not printed online, enough has been published to get the gist of their ideology, both in terms of its rabid anti-western fundamentalism, and how their followers are encouraged to embrace fantasy as history.

Ohr Somayach’s Rabbi Weinbach has claimed that a prayer to a dead tzaddik in Tzfat turned black chickens into white ones. He claimed a famous Israeli rabbi’s ancestor experienced a "miraculous crossing of the sea from Jaffa to Constantinople on a mat." He credited a rabbi’s blessing for ending the Russo-Georgian war, a full five weeks after the story was proven a forgery. To be fair, Weinbach does offer important halachic discussions, such as if a golem may be counted for a minyan, or if you may free a slave to fulfill the quorum. Faced with increasing revelations about the level of abuse tolerated and enabled in the ultra-Orthodox communities, Rabbi Weinbach did speak out – against the abuse in Israel’s secular schools. Weinbach has called for an end to Israel’s democracy, in favor or a theocracy ruled by "The Gedolim," Israel’s haredi rabbinical leaders. Weinbach has also excoriated Jews who "are tempted to imitate the non-Jewish world in matters of dress, entertainment and general culture." Weinbach has warned that fingernail clippings induce miscarriages. Weinbach has lashed out at Israel for not providing even more funds to its ever-increasing welfare/Kollel rolls.  As violence was used against female (often American Modern Orthodox women) resisting the women-in-the-back policy on select lines of Israel’s nationalized bus company, Weinbach lashed out at the "unrestrained interaction of the sexes."

Ohr Somayach’s other much less prolific Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Schiller, claimed there was no written record of Chanukah, despite the existence of Maccabees I and II.

Other Ohr Somayach rabbis have also said strange things. Rabbi Gottlieb explains the usual haredi drivel about how God is tricking us with false evidence when the world is literally 6,000 years old.  If you wonder why he would do that, it might help to understand that Rabbi Gottlieb has compared God to a mafia boss.

 

  • drmati

    David,

     While I agree with the above article and comments here regarding the problematic nature of Haredi beliefs and social norms, especially their political views, ridiculing the discussion about the Golem misses the point. The Talmud often discusses extreme, and very weird cases for the purpose of proving some conceptual or halachic idea – and not for the purpose of establishing the objective existence of the subject matter. This is sort of like discussing how many angels can stand on the head of a pin – the point of that Medieval discussion was not to literally investigate facts about angels and pins, but rather to investigate some difficult logical concepts related to the interaction of materiality and spiritual "objects" or "actors" (such as angels), and other philosophical issues that were really not as silly as the discussion sounds. The Gemara does this again and again and it would be unfair to try to show from this that this line of reasoning is "silly" or "unscientific". Actually, if you consider some science fiction world in the future, where Artificial Intelligence reaches the point where we can create robots (golems) that act and think like people, the question might even have some kind of practical relevance.

  • hannahre

    Having studied years ago at the female seminary affiliated with Ohr Sameach, I know very well what the extremist views are.  Yes, I remember the shiur about the beginning of the world and the remark [was it Rabbi Gottlieb who gave the lecture?]:  If God wanted to create dinosaur bones then who are we to question His intentions.  Is this the point you are alluding to?

    Although I found it difficult to adhere to the extremist teachings of the Ultra-Orthodox, I did send my daughter to the Yeshivah which feeds into the one associated with Ohr Sameach.  As extreme as they are, I still admire the revered Orthodox teachings. 

    These seminaries are wrong in many respects.  Their teachings are strange, and their use of ‘ridiculous’ tales is even stranger.  But, the experience of a good lecture taught by some of these gifted rabbis and rebbitzens is beyond any learning experience I have had in any other learning institution.  It is history mixed with logic and metaphysics. Brilliant.

  • LauraP

    If the Haredi want to segregate the sexes in shul, believe in golems, screw through a hole in a sheet, they are free to do so. The issue for me is one of control…in Israel they have been using their political clout to force non-Haredi Jews to conform to their viewpoints. They assault people (especially women) who offend their sense of modesty, force gender segregation at the Kotel and have made women praying with tallit or tefillin at the Kotel (or reading Torah there) punishable with a 7 year prison term. For violating their personal views. In a democracy.

    I respect their right to make their choices and live their way. But that respect is in no way reciprocated. My issue is that they seem unable or unwilling to tolerate other sorts of Jews living their faith in a different way. They lobby vigorously to keep an exclusively Orthodox definition of conversion which excludes Jews from progressive branches of Judaism. They have a stranglehold on marriage, divorce & burial in Israel. My issue is not with them personally, but with an agenda that seeks to control others and impose a very rigid and limiting framework on the larger society.

    Shalom!

  • David Kelsey

    JumpinJew wrote,

    While I agree 100% that their worldly outlook is skewed at best, they aren’t bad people.They are trying to do what is best in their hearts, and at least right
    now, they aren’t Taliban-like (although maybe in a generation).

    Ohr Somayach is not like Taliban because they do not advocate employing violence to achieve haredi policy in the public space, even though they will express anger at those refusing to bend their will to that of the haredi leaders the assailants are targeting, and simply not address the violence.

    Additionally, we need to define terms in order to define "what is best." For Ohr Somayach, "what is best" is living according to the interpretation and will of the haredi leaders.

     

  • LauraP

    These folks are every bit as scary as the Taliban. As a woman, I am appalled that there is not more public outcry against the Haredi theocratic agaenda and their (often violent) misogyny. The big ideological battle of this millenia will not be between Islam & the Judeo-Christian West, but between fundamentalist wingnuts of any/all persuasions who want everyone to bend to their Deity’s will as detailed in their magic book (with zero room for freedom or compromise) versus mainstream, rational people who are capable of tolerating a multiplicity of views who like the concept of personal liberty and freedom of conscience.

    Shalom!