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The Historical View of Chareidim by Kippah-Serguah Jews
Many of our readers will surely remember the Hashkofoh articles written over many years in the Musaf Shabbos Kodesh edition of Yated by the late Rav Yisroel Shpiegl. As one who accompanied the rise of chareidi Jewry in the Holy Land, he clarified the position of Mafdal, the National Religious Party of yore, in its beginning steps.
The shrinking of Mafdal and its estrangement in these recent years (relevant to when the article was written) as being the central voice piece on religious matters have created a certain illusion that perhaps its leaders have learned something from all of the errors and failures of the past, hoping that they realized that in kowtowing to the secularists and uprooters of Torah, they did not gain a thing. But reality proves that what was in the past, also perseveres in the present and will also continue in the future. The Mafdal as the Mafdal. It has remained the same, and at the proper time, it is publicly exposed in its deceptive form, as in the past and in the present.
In later years, HaRav R' Chaim Shaul Karelitz wrote in Digleinu, the publication of Zeirei Agudas Yisroel, an article reacting to an declaration by one of the National Religious leading rosh yeshivos, why it was important for yeshiva students to enlist to the army. He wrote as follows:
They say that it was Vice President Vance who exerted pressure to put an end to the war with Iran. Apparently, Vance is no history expert. In an interview he gave to one of the media, explaining the significance of the settlement with Iran, the vice president noted that wars always end with diplomatic agreements, as is proven by WWII, which ended with such a treaty.
We don't know how many years of education Vance completed in his youth. Perhaps, precisely when his history class studied WWII, he had a cold and didn't attend the lessons, but a man who dreams of becoming president is expected to know some basic facts, one of which is that the war against Germany ended only after the U.S. demanded an unconditional surrender from Germany. Until they waved the white flag and submitted wholly, the war did not end.
Part 2
This series was first published 33 years ago, in 1993.
During the past generation we are accustomed to secular domination of Jerusalem, with several religious enclaves. However, it was not always thus. Jerusalem considered itself a holy city, and it was a deliberate effort on the part of anti-religious elements to break the kedusha. It was a war that began around the first World War, and continues to this very day. However, many crucial battles were fought during the first years of the State. One of these was the opening of the first mixed swimming pool in Jerusalem in 1958.
Every new insult to the sanctity of Jerusalem was fought. Each caused its pain and left its scars. Important to understanding the struggles that continue to this very day are the accounts of these earlier struggles. As Jews returned to their ancient homeland, they brought the golus back with them in the form of the life of hefkeirus as lived by the goyim. The Holy Land itself, left empty for almost two thousand years, and then beginning to be filled with the kedusha of the yishuv begun in the nineteenth century by the talmidim of the Besht and the Gra, was brought into exile by the insistence of those elements that wanted an anti-religious lifestyle. We are confident of long-term victory, but there is a long road back.
The Making Of A Tycoon
Chaim Shiff did indeed build the first kosher hotel in Yerushalayim. At the time, he was an energetic young man from Haifa, who wanted to make money. Short and moustached, the streaks of grey in his black hair lent him the appearance of a seasoned businessman.
Shiff started out as a packer in a depot. After a short time, he leased a store, where he sold groceries. In those days, Israel suffered from shortages of even basic food staples. Utilizing questionable means, Shiff succeeded in acquiring merchandise that was hard to come by. In court, his wife testified that he also sold illegal merchandise and goods that were either stolen or contraband.
Chaim Shiff quickly realized that Israel was fast becoming "a land of unlimited opportunities." He was also aware that in order to make money, it's important to make the right connections. Within a short time, he discovered the Chief Rabbi, Rav Herzog.
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Outstanding Articles From Our Archives
IN-DEPTH FEATURES
DNA and the Chain Of Tradition: The Pure Ancestry of the Jewish People
by R. Yaakov Kleiman
Introduction
The field of genetics is experiencing a knowledge explosion. The Human Genome Project of the United States Government is analyzing and mapping the entire DNA of mankind. With this new information comes consequences. Improvement in health, longer life, gene-engineered food, genetic screening, and much more, are all areas of new power and concern requiring wisdom and guidance from our sages.
On Monday, June 26 -- 23 Sivan, the U.S. and British governments, as well as a private corporation, announced that it had basically mapped the human genetic information. What this means technically we will explain in more detail below, because it is necessary in order to understand what we have to report. But the achievement of reading the human genetic code holds promise and power for important new achievements.
We wish to stress that this research does not appear to have any halachic consequences whatsoever, but the results are a tremendous kiddush Hashem (see editorial "Judaism is a Family-Based Way of Life" in this issue).
Background
Genetics is the study of biological inheritance. Molecular genetics studies the DNA -- which is the molecule which carries the genetic information.
DNA is in virtually every cell of every living organism -- the code is universal. It has been called the "fundamental molecule of life."
DNA has the capacity to split and replicate itself, which is the mechanism for passing information, which is heredity. When it splits and replicates then two new DNA molecules are formed where before there was only one.
The DNA molecule is a double-helix chain of nucleotides -- organized like the rungs of a spiral staircase. The nucleotides are distinguished by their bases -- adenine (A), guanine (G), thymine (T) and cytosine (C).
It is the particular sequence of the nucleotides that determines what the DNA will code for. One order of nucleotides will produce a particular protein, and ultimately a particular organ, and a different order will produce something else.
Altogether, the human genome has about 3 billion of these base pairs, which are the "letters" in which the genetic code for making the human body is written. The Human Genome Project is trying to find out the entire sequence of base pairs in the human genome.
However, as far as science knows today, not all of the long human DNA strings (a total of about two meters) carry information that is used to make the human body. Large parts of the DNA, in fact the vast majority of it, seem to have no genetic function and to carry no genetic information. These parts of the DNA are called "non-coding" and they appear to make up about 90 percent of the total. The non- coding DNA is still arranged in a specific order and that order is nonetheless passed on reliably from parent to children.
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Opinion & Comment
Judaism is a Family-Based Way of Life
by Mordecai Plaut
TOur feature article "DNA and the Chain Of Tradition" this week reports on recent genetic research that shows that the Jewish people are genetically coherent and pure. The discoveries of molecular genetics and reading the code of the human genome have shown that the Jewish people are closely related to each other no matter where they lived for thousands of years. This is a kiddush Hashem of the highest order.
Many people have questioned, based on what could "reasonably" be expected from a group living for thousands of years as a downtrodden minority, how pure the Jewish people really remained. This was a canard that was raised even in our first exile in Egypt: If the Egyptians ruled so thoroughly over the bodily efforts of the Jewish people, surely they must have dominated their wives as well. The Jewish people, laughed the surrounding nations, must be full of Egyptian blood.
The charge of those days was utterly false and the Jews themselves certainly knew this well. Yet this was insufficient for Hashem. He, so to speak, did not want to let this cheap charge pass unchallenged. So, in parshas Pinchos, He stamped each of the family names listed of the Jewish people with His own name (putting the letters yud and hei around their names, see Rashi on Bamidbar 26,5), to certify that all of them are truly the sons of the fathers. It was not sufficient that the charge be false, and not even enough that each Jewish woman know the suggestion to be a lie. It was important enough to declare openly, in the permanent and very public record of the Written Torah, that the people of Hashem maintained a pure lineage.
The genetic research reported in our pages provides a new, strong certification of this same ancient truth. ...
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