“If our mosdos insist on creating rules that do not acknowledge the reality of today’s challenges, they cannot expect the average parent to be truthful”
When I lived in Eretz Yisrael more than 60 years ago, one of the secular newspapers published an article saying that the best soldiers in the Israeli army were those who went to mamlachti dati [state religious] schools. Those boys, the article acknowledged, felt they were fighting a milchemes mitzvah and so they fought with heart and soul.
Contrast that to today, when the roshei yeshivah of the “chareidi-leumi” and hesder yeshivos are forbidding their talmidim from donating to national blood drives because the forms that must be filled out prior to donation switched the words “Father” and “Mother” to “Parent One” and “Parent Two”; are warning that if the army introduces milchigs to their meal program, all IDF kitchens and dining rooms will be considered treif; and prohibiting service in mixed gender units. So the Israeli army is now being run by officers who have no idea what a milchemes mitzvah is and some don’t even know what a mitzvah is at all. Now, at this time of year, we have another reason to be crying.
Leah Lando
This is to “Annoyed Out-of-Towner” in last week’s Inbox who was offended that “out-of-town” communities like Chicago were displayed as being on some distant planet. As someone who has grown up out-of-town, lived in-town for a number of years and now is living out-of-town, I felt the Kichels’ “Frum Former New Yorker’s View of the World” (Issue 919) was right on target.
I can’t speak for the Kichels, but it certainly wasn’t meant as an insult to place out-of-town communities in faraway places. It’s a common view seen by New Yorkers that never learned world, or even US, geography. I grew up in Philly. How many times did I have people ask me if I know someone from Pittsburg or Scranton? In my mind, I laughed. At least the person got credit for knowing they’re all in Pennsylvania. Or the time I mentioned I was going to Boston, and the person asked if that is near Baltimore. Again, they got credit that both cities are equidistant from New York. Nu, so one is north and the other is south.
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