Volume 57 Number 17 
      Produced: Fri, 04 Sep 2009 08:03:09 EDT


Subjects Discussed In This Issue:

2 hour amida 
    [S.Wise]
Appeasement 
    [Martin Stern]
Historic Minhag Ashkenaz in Eretz Yisrael 
    [Mordechai]
Hotels and Shabbat 
    [Shmuel Himelstein]
Litter in Israel (2)
    [Dr. Josh Backon  Stephen Phillips]
looking for a fitting Tehillim 
    [Chips]
Normal 
    [Yisrael Medad]
nusachim (2)
    [Rabbi Meir Wise  Rabbi Meir Wise]
Tashlich when there are no rivers or streams (2)
    [Mordechai  Orrin Tilevitz]
Trivia Quiz, Educational Resources and Cool Videos for the Jewish New  
    [Jacob Richman]
vidui on Yom Kippur - public recitation by chazan not recited by all 
    [Mordechai]



----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: S.Wise <Smwise3@...>
Date: Wed, Sep 2,2009 at 10:01 PM
Subject: 2 hour amida

From:  Tzvi Stein <Tzvi.Stein@...>
> 2 hour amida?  How is that  possible!!??   I think I remember Yom Kippur
> silent amida being  no more than 10 or 15 minutes... Are you talking about
> the chazan's  repitition?
> 

I am surprised that anyone can daven the amida on Yom Kippur in so short a  
time. If you concentrate on what you are saying and why you are saying, I 
would  bet you would spend more time with your beseechments.
 
S.Wise

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Martin Stern <md.stern@...>
Date: Fri, Sep 4,2009 at 02:01 AM
Subject: Appeasement

On the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of WW2, perhaps it is worth
remembering what Sir Nevile Henderson, British Ambassador to Germany from
May 1937 until the outbreak of war, wrote in his memoirs "Failure of a
Mission":

"Nobody strove harder for an honourable and just peace than I did. But that
all my efforts were condemned to failure was due to the fanatical
megalomania and blind self-confidence of a single individual."

This lesson to those who would deal with single-minded autocrats is as
relevant today as then, as the Spanish-born philosopher George Santayana so
famously put it "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat
it."

How true!

Martin Stern

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Mordechai <Phyllostac@...>
Date: Thu, Sep 3,2009 at 12:01 AM
Subject: Historic Minhag Ashkenaz in Eretz Yisrael

From: David Ziants <dziants@...>
> With respect to Nusach Ashkenaz [style of prayer service --MOD]
> in Israel, as you no doubt know, all 
> Nusach Ashkenaz communities use (or should use) according to the 
> minhagei haGr"a [customs of the Vilna Gaon --MOD]
> 
> I mention this because it has been told to me that there is a group of 
> people who are trying to introduce the chu"l [outside of Israel] version 
> of Nusach Ashkenaz in certain new communities in Israel and this is now 
> being endorsed by some chareidi Rabbanim. Do you know anything about this?

There are various minyonim in Eretz Yisroel, which follow classical Minhag 
Ashkenaz as it was practiced along the Rhine river in centuries past, in 
ancient kehillos such as Worms, Mainz, Speyer, Frankfurt, etc., which predates 
by centuries the mixture of customs today wrongly called 'Minhag Eretz 
Yisroel' by some, which are actually at times hybrid Ashkenazic-Sepharadic 
customs, rather than pure Ashkenazic minhog. Some are connected to Machon Moreshes 
Ashkenaz, which endeavors to keep alive the venerated minhag Ashkenaz of 
ancient times, going back many centuries, more like one thousand years or more 
actually. There is an Ashkenazic renaissance under way, boruch Hashem, in 
recent years.

More info about this movement can be gleaned from some great and acclaimed 
works published in recent years, such as the volumes of Shorshei Minhag 
Ashkenaz by Rav Binyomin Shlomo Hamburger shlit"a, and the annual Yerushoseinu, 
published by Machon Moreshes Ashkenaz of Bnei Brak. Online, one can visit 
http://moreshetashkenaz.com/ and http://www.kayj.org/ for information for 
starters.


Mordechai


P.S. What I have written above is in addition to the position of certain 
scholars who maintain that historic Minhag Ashkenaz actually reflects ancient 
Minhag Eretz Yisroel (as opposed to the modern version David is talking 
about), while Minhag Sepharad represents Minhag Bavel, but that is a whole other 
discussion....

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Shmuel Himelstein <himels@...>
Date: Thu, Sep 3,2009 at 01:01 PM
Subject: Hotels and Shabbat

There was a time - and not too long ago - when if you stayed in an Israeli hotel
which was kosher (i.e., most hotels), if you had been there for Shabbat you
could stay until an hour or two after Shabbat. In the past few years a very
few Israeli hotels - which still have Kashrut certificates - have changed
their policies, and insist that anyone not staying until Sunday must check
out by 5:30 p.m. on Shabbat, even if Shabbat ends at 8 p.m., or pay for
another day's stay. To me this change is deplorable, and I find it hard to
understand how the local rabbinates accept it without withdrawing their
Kashrut certification.


Shmuel Himelstein

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Dr. Josh Backon <backon@...>
Date: Wed, Sep 2,2009 at 10:01 PM
Subject: Litter in Israel

Jeanette Friedman wrote:

>Four or  five years ago, I was walking down Shmuel Hanavi, when a boy threw a
>soda  cup out of a car window into the street in front  of a
>bus stop. I picked  up  the cup and threw it back in the car.  He, all of
>about 10 years of age,  cursed me to die, called me a  name, and threw it back
>out the window. I threw the  cup back into the  car and asked him if his
>mother taught him to do that. The   people  at the bus stop applauded, but I
>guarantee you that the little  boy is alive and well, older and not wiser and
>still throwing his garbage in the   gutter....

I still remember the 1950's in charedi Williamsburg (Brooklyn) after 
[how should I put it
politely ?] the "Hungarian invasion" of 1956 where denizens of 
Division Avenue used
to dump their trash by throwing garbage bags out of 3rd story windows.

"Ichsa" indeed.

Josh Backon

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Stephen Phillips <admin@...>
Date: Thu, Sep 3,2009 at 06:01 AM
Subject: Litter in Israel

From: <FriedmanJ@...>
> Four or  five years ago, I was walking down Shmuel Hanavi, when a boy threw a
> soda  cup out of a car window into the street in front  of a 
> bus stop.

I think my wife and I must have met the same guy, or perhaps his older brother,
in Me'ah She'arim. He threw a cup into the road. When I told him off for
despoiling the Holy City he merely laughed at me.

Ribono Shel Olom!
 
Stephen Phillips

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Chips <chips@...>
Date: Wed, Sep 2,2009 at 08:01 PM
Subject: looking for a fitting Tehillim

Someone asked me what would be the Tehillim to say to 
have the courage to accept the flow of G0d's "plan" for him.
-cp

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Yisrael Medad <ybmedad@...>
Date: Wed, Sep 2,2009 at 06:01 PM
Subject: Normal

Martin wrote:
> It is precisely this sort of uncouth behaviour that puts many of us 
> off from living in Israel. I am disappointed that Yisrael seems to 
> accept it as "normal".
 
I presume the "Yisrael" is me.
 
"Accepting" is a difficult term to define.  If I accept the fact that
you are on this list, does it mean that you are "normal" or that I am
abnormal?
I do recall a letter in the Jewish Chronicle in 1976 in which the
writer, a female, had announced that one day, having been waiting on
queue for a bus in Jerusalem right at the front but found that somehow
she managed to be the last to board decided, as per Martin's bemoaning,
that she couldn't live in Israel, and left.
 
Having lived in England as well as in the States, it is my opinion that
all too often, the rather cowering behaviour (UK spelling) of Jews vis a
vis anti-Semitism is in the main quite abnormal but I assume that having
never lived in Israel, they just aren't used to being a bit pushy.
Sometimes, Israel does train you for the hard knocks in life.
 
Since this subject now has nothing at all to do with Halacha, unless, of
course, we were discussing milchemet mitzva which is the one mitzva
(except maybe brit millah) where one is commanded to place one's self in
immediate mortal danger without regard to any leniency possible under
the category of pikuach Nefesh, let me add something from another posy
Martin supplied us with.
 
He wrote, regarding Tachanun: 
> the Shulchan Aruch does not mention Pesach Sheni as a day on which
tachanun is omitted 
>and the minhag of those who hail from Ashkenaz (Germany and surrounding
lands) is to say it on that day.
 
I would consider that very not normal, or perhaps it is that the Jews
who hail from Ashkenaz (although there were many Jews of Sef''rad
descent and custom who lived in Germany so I think Martin has a problem
there, among others) who are abnormal.  But in any case, there are too
many minhagim involved with Tachanun (for example, there are some who
recite the verse "vayomer David el Gad." upright and only afterwards
will bend over as it indicates a possibility of suicide or that North
Africans simply sit down).  And since the Mechaber doesn't mention the
12 non-Tachanun days of Sivan, what is the Ashkenaz/Ashkenaz custom?
 
Yisrael Medad

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Rabbi Meir Wise <Meirhwise@...>
Date: Wed, Sep 2,2009 at 09:01 AM
Subject: nusachim

There is no word nusachot !

The plural of nuscha (formula) is nuschaot
The plural of nusach (prayer rite) is nusachim 

the gra was a renewer ie returning the nusach to it's correct origin  
not creating  a new version!

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Rabbi Meir Wise <Meirhwise@...>
Date: Wed, Sep 2,2009 at 06:01 PM
Subject: nusachim

Martin Stern is totally mistaken. I have consulted with my father-in- 
law who is a prominent Yemenite Mori (=rabbi) and he confirms that  
shami means there ie eretz israel.
In fact if one looks at the covers of the suddurim one will see either  
baladi or shami!

kol tuv

Rabbi Wise

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Mordechai <Phyllostac@...>
Date: Thu, Sep 3,2009 at 12:01 AM
Subject: Tashlich when there are no rivers or streams

Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...> wrote:

<<I am told that most of Borough Park goes to a small pool, supposedly fed 
by a
natural spring, outside of some yeshiva>>

I believe you are speaking of a garden fountain type thing on Ocean 
Parkway, I believe at the United Lubavitcher Yeshivoth institution there.

I don't think most of Borough Park goes there, just some people. Actually, 
last year I was in Borough Park on Rosh Hashonoh and observed with my own 
eyes the following scene outside the Belzer shtiebel on 15th avenue (I believe 
it was in early evening, between mincha connected to the first day, and 
maariv of the second night). A fire hydrant was open and gushing water, the 
avenue was closed off, and Chassidim were saying tashlich there, followed by 
dancing in the street. I believe a similar scene takes place at other Belzer 
shtiebels there as well. Granted that most Borough Park residents are not 
Belzers, but it still is interesting in that it shows how some people act when 
they lack a local suitable body of water. I believe some Chassidim just open 
a faucet and recite it there as well.


Mordechai

----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Orrin Tilevitz <tilevitzo@...>
Date: Thu, Sep 3,2009 at 07:01 AM
Subject: Tashlich when there are no rivers or streams

From: <Phyllostac@...> <Phyllostac@aol.com>
> I believe you are speaking of a garden fountain type thing on Ocean Parkway, I
> believe at the United Lubavitcher Yeshivoth institution there.

I'd be interested to know why, or whether, they regard the Prospect Park lake as
unsuitable.

I met one fellow, though, who takes his family to tashlich at the nearest beach,
about a 6 mile walk one way.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jacob Richman <jrichman@...>
Date: Wed, Sep 2,2009 at 05:01 PM
Subject: Trivia Quiz, Educational Resources and Cool Videos for the Jewish New 

Hi Everyone!

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year 5770, begins 
Friday night, September 18, 2009.

The Jewish Trivia Quiz
http://www.jewish-trivia.com 
has 55 multiple choice questions about Rosh Hashana.

Which special prayer is said in the days before Rosh Hashana ? 
Which group of foods is customary to eat on Rosh Hashana ? 
What are the other three names of Rosh Hashana ? 
How many times is the shofar sounded during Rosh Hashana ? 
Which food is customary NOT to eat on Rosh Hashana ?

The above questions are examples from the multiple choice 
Flash quiz. There are two levels of questions and two timer 
settings. Adults and children will find The Jewish Trivia Quiz
entertaining and educational.

Rosh Hashana Clipart
http://www.j.co.il
Whether you need a picture for your child's class project, 
a graphic for your synagogue, Hillel or JCC New Year
announcement, the Jewish Clipart Database has the pictures
for you. You can copy, save and print the graphics in
three different sizes. 

Rosh Hashana Cool Videos
http://www.jr.co.il/videos/rosh-hashana-videos.htm

I created a list of 84 cool Rosh HaShana videos.
There is something for everyone.

The list includes:
Shana tova! Ma chadash, Tapuach Im Dvash Animation 
Shana Tova (Hebrew remix of muppets song) 
The Four Traditional Shofar Blasts 
Rosh Hashanah Girl 
Shana Tova from Tijuana 
Rosh Hashana: Sticky 'n Sweet New Year 
Happy New Year for Jewish Mothers 
Head of the Year (Rosh HaShana Mix) 
Rosh Hashana Rap 
Prepare for Rosh Hashanah-Elul JewU
WebYeshiva: Blowing the Shofar in Elul 
Rosh HaShana Foods - Sephardi style 
Shana Tova Song - Parpar Nechmad (with Ofra Haza) 
Bashana Haba'ah - Steve Lawrence & Eydie Gorme 
Bashana Haba'a in Yiddish 
The Alexandria Kleztet - Bashana Haba'a (from Chile) 
Kol Ish - BaShana HaBa'ah 
  and many more.....

To learn more about Rosh Hashana , I posted on my website 
84 links ranging from laws and customs to games and recipes.
Site languages include English,  Hebrew, French, German, Italian, 
Portugese, Russian and Spanish.
All 84 links have been reviewed / checked this week.
http://www.jr.co.il/hotsites/j-hdayrh.htm

Last but not least, the revised 3 Year Jewish Holiday Calendar 
is located at:
http://www.jr.co.il/calendar.htm

For best printed results use the Acrobat PDF file.
When printing the PDF file use the print option "fit to print margins".

Please share this message with your friends and relatives.
Thanks!

Enjoy!
Shana Tova - Have a Good Year!
Jacob

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Mordechai <Phyllostac@...>
Date: Thu, Sep 3,2009 at 12:01 AM
Subject: vidui on Yom Kippur - public recitation by chazan not recited by all

From: Akiva Miller <kennethgmiller@...>
> Depending on how you count it, we say the confession (vidui) 
> between 8 and 11 times on Yom Kippur:

Not everyone says all the vidui (large and small versions, namely ashamnu 
and al chet) twice each tefilloh on Yom Kippur. The gemara just says that we 
say vidui in every tefilloh of Yom Kippur - implication being that it is 
said once each tefilloh. It does not state that it is said twice each time. The 
second vidui is really just part of chazoras hashatz, for the chazan to 
say. Those that follow minhag HaGR"A just say it once each tefilloh, with the 
chazoras hashatz recitation said just by the chazan. Perhaps others do so as 
well.

Mordechai

----------------------------------------------------------------------


End of Volume 57 Issue 17