HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: norm@helix.nih.gov
Subject: Re:  Halacha of sex change
Originator: scj@israel.nysernet.org
Reply-To: <norm@helix.nih.gov>
Organization: Nysernet
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 20:32:38 GMT

>boaz@concerto.lcs.mit.edu (Boaz Ben-Zvi) writes:
>>I heard of (a real case) a Jewish gal that converted into a lad (you know:
>>hormones, some cut-and-paste job ...) and is engaged (as a man) to another
>>woman.
>>  I wondered about the Halachaic side of this; for example, what would a
>>Rabbi say if the above two would now ask to become married ?
>
>There are several key issues that would have to be resolved.
>
>1)  If the female woman is a Gentile, would the children be Jewish?
>
>2)  Can the male woman (or is it female man) wear a tux, or would that
>    be beged 'ish, thereby invalidating the ceremony?
>
>3)  Who breaks the glass?
>
>4)  Will they have mixed dancing at the reception?  If not, how not?
>
>5)  Can we get out of saying tachanun if she-he comes to the minyan?
>
>6)  Are we yotzei hearing haftarah at the aufruf?
>
>-Don Gertler
>
>Boy am I gonna be fried for this one.
Don't worry about being fried.  Keep up the humor.  It is really a funny
subject anyway.  I think the entire question could be solved by that person
wearing a "gartel".  Regards..easy fast and Chag S'miach Succos.
Norm
+--------------------------------------------------------+
   

   *    ***    ***   *   **
   *   *   *     *   **  *
   *   *   *     *   * * *   nison reuven b'R Shami
   *   *   *         *  **
   *    ***         **   *
   *  
   *   *  *   ***   ***   **  **
   *   ** *  *   *  * **  * ** *
   *   * **  *   *  ***   *    *
   *   *  *   ***   *  *  *    *

+---------------------------------------------------------+
From: israel@unixg.ubc.ca (Robert B. Israel)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Tzom Gedalia
Date: 1 Oct 92 07:49:37 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada



In article <ALLEN.92Sep30111137@golem.ssc.gov> allen@ssc.gov writes:
>
>Any info (with references) on Gedalia ben Achikom and the politics of
>what lead up to his assisination?  I haven't been able to find more
>than a couple of sentences here and there.

I doubt that you'll find much more than what's in Jeremiah 39 to
41.  Perhaps there are also midrashim, but those usually aren't very
strong on politics.
-- 
Robert Israel                            israel@math.ubc.ca
Department of Mathematics             or israel@unixg.ubc.ca
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Y4
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: goldberg@techunix.technion.ac.il (Jacques Goldberg)
Subject: Re: ZIONIST/JEWS, WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE??????
Organization: Technion, Israel Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 13:36:39 GMT

raan@techunix.technion.ac.il (Ran Ever-Hadani) writes:

>Many Jews I know, including myself, are atheists.  So obviously
>Judaism cannot be "only" a religion, otherwise an "atheist Jew"
>would be a contradiction in terms, which it obviously is not.
 
Excellent. Atheism is a religion, and in fact the first step into becoming
a Jew. That was exactly Abraham's first step. Reject idolatry first. Even
stopping there is better than believing in idols.
That's why "more religious" Jews of the kind I try to be recite three times
a day , BARUCH ATA HASHEM, MAGEN AVRAHAM, the protector of the little flame
that keeps burning in each descendant of Avraham Avinu. This contains an
allusion to the shape of the letter HEY which was added to Avraham's original
name. And this whole point is what the late Rabbi Menachem Mendle Casher
answered a journalist asking him how a 83 years old man could recite the same
thing three times a day.

Ran, if you want to know more about atheism while being a Jew, read Emmanuel
Levinas's ``Difficult Freedom'' or, if you don't like reading, come to room
332 in the Physics building, you will be surprised to discover how close you
and I are in what we don't believe and do. You will discover that what your
atheism rightly rejects has nothing in common with Judaism, and is instead an
accumulation of foreign concepts. Free coffee.

Shana Tova - Jacques Goldberg.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff)
Subject: Re: PLEASE!  I need your help!  Help me keep this love alive!
Organization: Univ. of MD, Baltimore County
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 15:26:11 GMT

In article <22533@venera.isi.edu> arens@ISI.EDU (Yigal Arens) writes:
>In article <1992Oct1.130720.4695@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> saal@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (samuel.saal) writes:
>>
>> In article <1992Sep28.152040.14175@wam.umd.edu> aap@wam.umd.edu
>> (Alberto Adolfo Pinkas) writes:

AAP wrote:
>> >I am sure that the basis for all the Jewish tradition is no more than the
>> >search for happiness. So, be it.

Sam Saal replied:
>> Mr. Webb
>>
>> If you're reading this newsgroup for followups to your article,  please
>> understand that Alberto's post is _entirely_ in keeping wiht his usual
>> rationalizations of his own break with Jewish tradition (and law) and in
>> keeping with his sentiments about his own intermarriage.

And Yigal commented:
>I'm curious as to your reasons for believing that Mr. Pinkas's views on
>love between Jews and non-Jews are any more a "rationalization" than are
>your views on the same subject.

Perhaps Sam's comments were occasioned by the fact that no Jewish
sources (to the best of my knowledge) see the basis for tradition
as the search for happiness.  Sam may be guessing that AAP's asssertion
was post hoc justification for his intermarriage.

Yigal again:
>Or do you claim that your views on Jewish/non-Jewish relations can
>somehow logically be proven correct, independent of the fact that you
>have been indoctrinated from infancy into what you now (unsurprisingly,
>considering) believe to be Jewish tradition?

I can imagine two good reasons for opposition to intermarriage.  First,
there are halakhic objections; these, of course, will not be convincing
to those who do not accept halakha.

The second reason may be more compelling, and is rooted in biology
(e.g., Richard Dawkins "Selfish Gene") and anthropology (e.g., the
cultural materialism of Marvin Harris).  Basically, if "valuing"
Judaism means anything, it means ensuring the Judaism continues.
Historically, intermarriage has, in the overwhelming majority of 
cases, meant that the children or grandchildren will no longer identify
themselves as Jews.  Those who value Judaism will thus oppose
intermarriage.  Those who do not value Judaism (or who hold other
values to be over-riding) will find no objection to intermarriage.

Everything I know about Sam (and about almost all other scj posters)
suggests that he (and they) value Judaism, and want to ensure its
continuity.




-- 
Eliot Shimoff                  |    n   n   n
   shimoff@umbc3.umbc.edu      |   X + Y = Z .  Easy to prove no solutions
Ashamnu, bagadnu, gazalnu ...  |   for n greater than 2.  Darn.  Can't fit
Better luck next year!         |   it into this little .sig file.  Oh well.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: loon@underdog.ee.wits.ac.za (LOON M J)
Subject: Well over the fast
Organization: Wits Electrical Engineering (Undergrads).
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 14:26:10 GMT

If I don't get hear before, well over the fast to you all.

Love
South African Jewish community
--
Marc Loon <loon@underdog.ee.wits.ac.za>
Student No: 8807871/X
Elec Eng. University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg

Conversation: a voice competition between two people
in which the one taking a breath is called the listener.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: goldberg@techunix.technion.ac.il (Jacques Goldberg)
Subject: Re: pogroms in 1348/9
Organization: Technion, Israel Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 07:07:43 GMT

Thanks Joel.
Indeed meanwhile I had seen the same info, with very much less details,
in Dubnov's abridged story of the Jewish people.
It thus becomes even more plausible that the quote of the QOF-TET events in
MAHARAM of Rothenburg's responsa 1022 is not a typo, and therefore the
responsa would not have been written by him.
Thank you again very much.
L'SHANA TOVA TIKATEVU.
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Tzom Gedalia
Date: 2 Oct 92 14:48:05 GMT
Distribution: soc.culture.jewish
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

Sorry, folks.  I missed the row of smilies and had never heard this
joke before.  I thought the statement was serious.
-- 
David Charlap         |"there aren't 50,000 things for which it's worth writing
dic5340@hertz.njit.edu| software; and the computer industry doesn't have enough
----------------------+ programmers to create that much good software.
Therefore, most of it must be worthless" -- Boris Beizer "The Frozen Keyboard"
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: pasward@maytag.uwaterloo.ca (Paul A.S. Ward)
Subject: Re: * jesus ? *
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 14:46:31 GMT

In article <91813@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>
>Jews
>can't see any difference between J***s and just about anyone else when
>it comes to who is the Messiah.  *So what* if he had any followers who
>made, and continue to make, lots of noise?

Question:  Then why the astrices?
From: arens@ISI.EDU (Yigal Arens)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: PLEASE!  I need your help!  Help me keep this love alive!
Date: 6 Oct 92 04:01:19 GMT
	<1992Oct2.201829.2812@blaze.cs.jhu.edu>
	<1992Oct5.092457.16485@umbc3.umbc.edu>
Organization: USC/Information Sciences Institute
In-reply-to: shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu's message of 5 Oct 92 09:24:57 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.092457.16485@umbc3.umbc.edu> shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff) writes:
>
> I wasn't suggesting morality at all.  The essence of the biological
> analogy follows Dawkins, and runs as follows:
>
>    If there is one single property that must be important for a 
>    gene to be successful, it is that the gene must do whatever
>    is necessary to ensure its own reproduction.  Genes (at least
>    successful ones) are reproduction machines.
>
>    By analogy, if there is one important feature of a successful
>    (that is, surviving) religion (or any other social movement),
>    it is its ability to ensure its own reproduction.
>
> There is no claim for morality, either explicit or implicit.  But it
> does answer the  question of why Judaism opposes intermarriage; if
> Judaism didn't, there would be no Judaism.

Not quite -- because you have yet to demonstrate that intermarriage
decreases "the reproduction" of Judaism (even accepting your definition
of it) compared to the population that does not intermarry.  Where do
you think those people who are the first in their line to intermarry are
coming from?  Are they all Orthodox Jews who simply go mad one day?

Have you already forgotten that the Jewish woman in Mr. Webb's life is
in love with him as well?  The fact that her parents have not
intermarried doesn't seem to have had much of an impact, has it?  Now
the parents are resorting to emotional blackmail and threats -- they
must believe that that is stronger than the fact that they are both
Jews...

And just to follow your "analogy" a little further -- I wonder: Suppose
it could be shown that absence of intermarriage is actually
*detrimental* to reproduction by, say, contributing to the isolation of
Jews in society and increasing the probability of pogroms, a holocaust,
etc.  Well, suppose one could show that.  According to your reasoning,
Mr. Shimoff, Judaism should then *embrace* intermarriage.  Would you?
If this "theory" is true, it may very well be the case that if
intermarriage were encouraged through the ages there would be *more*
Jews around today!

You are living in a dream world, Mr. Shimoff.  Your brand of Judaism is
far more restrictive in its acceptance of conversions and intermarriage
than most anyone else -- but you've ended up a tiny minority within a
tiny minority religion in the world.

This "genetic" argument isn't worth the bits it's conveyed through.  If
we took it seriously, history would make it appear more likely that the
customs you support are *threatening* so-called Jewish reproduction than
that they are supporting it.

--
Yigal Arens
USC/ISI
arens@isi.edu
From: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,soc.culture.polish
Subject: Re: Fair play or bug
Date: 2 Oct 92 20:22:05 GMT
Organization: Johns Hopkins University CS Dept.

In article <1992Oct2.104023.29626@walter.cray.com> aleks@cray.com (Aleksander Mazur) writes:
>
>I noticed a problem which could occur as a result of not exactly fair
>play or simply exists as a bug. Whenever people are trying to cross post
>something from s.c.p. to s.c.j. like this time - it appears only
>in s.c.p. If s.c.j. readers do not wish to read our posts it is
>quite enough to say that - tricks and gimmicks are not necessary, 
>I think. Until that problem is resolved one way or the other
>I would like to ask s.c.j. readers not to cross post on s.c.p.
>I think netiquette requires something like that.
>A. Mazur

Conspiracy theories abound.

If you post an article in two groups, most newsreaders will mark off the
article in both groups when you have read it in one, so you don't get the
article twice.

Go ahead and crosspost.
--
"the bogosity in a field equals the bogosity imported from related areas, plus
the bogosity generated internally, minus the bogosity expelled or otherwise
disposed of."  -- K. Eric Drexler

Ken Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!arromdee; BITNET: arromdee@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
Organization: Bar-Ilan University Computing Center, Israel
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 10:50:04 IST
From: Hank Nussbacher <HANK@BARILVM.BITNET>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Hebrew origin of some English words

How about:

English    Hebrew
school     haschala
source     shoresh

Hank Nussbacher
From: rlk@underprize.think.com (Robert Krawitz)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: PLEASE!  I need your help!  Help me keep this love alive!
Date: 6 Oct 92 12:49:24
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge Mass., USA
	<1992Oct5.092457.16485@umbc3.umbc.edu> <22564@venera.isi.edu>
	<1992Oct6.124947.14182@umbc3.umbc.edu>
	<1992Oct06.143454.37494@watson.ibm.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: underprize.think.com
In-reply-to: strom@Watson.Ibm.Com's message of Tue, 06 Oct 92 14:34:54 GMT

In article <1992Oct06.143454.37494@watson.ibm.com> strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:

   My mother (an agnostic Jew) married my father (an agnostic Gentile).

   My son David became Bar Mitzvah last year and celebrated
   that event in a Jewish service.

   My daughter Tamara becomes Bat Mitzvah this year and
   will celebrate the event in a Jewish service.

   I don't necessarily say that the position on intermarriage
   is wrong, but I think one should look at the numbers carefully.
   A significant percentage of intermarried couples are
   bringing their children up Jewish.  In our local temple,
   this is being supported even in those cases where the
   children are not halachically Jewish but the parents
   have chosen to raise the children as Jews.

And all of you may well have a better informed idea of why you're Jewish
than someone who was simply brought up that way.

If organized Judaism is going to take a hard line toward people who
intermarry, and parents of someone who intermarries are going to go
through the whole mourning routine, it's not going to make Judaism look
very attractive.
--
ames >>>>>>>>>  |	Robert Krawitz <rlk@think.com>	245 First St.
bloom-beacon >  |think!rlk				Cambridge, MA  02142
harvard >>>>>>  .	Thinking Machines Corp.		(617)234-2116

Member of the League for Programming Freedom -- write league@prep.ai.mit.edu
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: * Jesus Christ? *
Date: 5 Oct 92 19:19:16 GMT
Article-I.D.: njitgw.1992Oct5.191916.25863
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Oct2.205407.6301@cbnewsl.cb.att.com> stank@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (Stan Krieger) writes:
>
>	Jews don't believe that Yeshua ben Yosef was the Messiah because
>	if we did,  we'd be observing Christianity and not Judaism.

just to pick some nits here...  Jesus's name in Hebrew is "Yehoshua",
not "Yeshua".  The Christians like to call him "Yeshua", which
translates to "savior".

Personally, I find it interesting, that if you remove the letter "hay"
(often a symbol of God's name) from "Yehoshua", you wind up with
"Yeshua". 
-- 
David Charlap         |"there aren't 50,000 things for which it's worth writing
dic5340@hertz.njit.edu| software; and the computer industry doesn't have enough
----------------------+ programmers to create that much good software.
Therefore, most of it must be worthless" -- Boris Beizer "The Frozen Keyboard"
From: MASH@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL (Michael Shimshoni)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Tzom Gedalia
Date: 1 Oct 92 15:13:43 GMT
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs

On: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 17:11:37 GMT
allen@golem.ssc.gov (Michael Allen) asked


>Any info (with references) on Gedalia ben Achikom and the politics of
>what lead up to his assisination?  I haven't been able to find more
>than a couple of sentences here and there.

There  is not  much  in  the Tanakh.   Essentially  it  is in  Mlakhim
(Kings)II 25,22-26.  In  it we read that after the  destruction of the
first  Temple  by  the   Babylonians  and  the  exile,  Nevukhadnetzar
appointed  Gedalyahu to  be  in  charge of  those  Jews who  remained.
Historically one  could take a dim  view of someone who  rules for the
enemy (names like  Quisling or Vichy of WWII come  to mind).  Yishmael
ben Netanya of  royal blood together with ten  helpers slew  Gedalyahu
and  all the  Jews and  Babylonians  who were  with Gedalyahu.   These
eleven could be defined as some form of freedom fighters revenging the
crime of collaborating with the enemy.  They were too weak and escaped
to Egypt, the arch enemy of Babylon.

The killing  of Gedalyahu meant the  end of the last,  however unreal,
form of some Jewish authority in  Eretz Yisrael, till the return under
Koresh (Cyrus).  This may be the reason why a fast day was established
for  the  death of  Gedalyahu.   The  historical background  may  also
explain why  relatively few people  fast on  that day relative  to the
amount of fasting on other fast days.

I have a  vague recollection that when the plotters  escaped to Egypt,
they took Yirmiyahu (Jeremias) with them, but not having a concordance
in my office I did not find where  it was mentioned (if at all) in the
Tanakh.

Michael Shimshoni
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: raan@techunix.technion.ac.il (Ran Ever-Hadani)
Subject: Re: ZIONIST/JEWS, WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE??????
Organization: Technion, Israel Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 08:46:00 GMT

In <66411@cup.portal.com> hassan@cup.portal.com (hassan monu alam) writes:

>Is there an agreed upon definition what the land of Israel is? Are there
>fixed boundaries? Or does it simply refer to a homeland?

There are many definitions.  The Jewish Halachic definition (i.e.
the religious definition), coincides roughly with the teritorry
controled today by Israel, including the West Bank, but not including
neither the Gaza Strip nor the Golan Heights.

The maximal political claim of the right wing of the Zionist movement,
made by the political ancestors of the current Likud party, constituted
mandatory Palestine in its borders before the east bank of the Jordan was
handed by the British to the Hashmite family, to become what is today
Jordan.  It therefore includes today's Israel, including the West Bank 
and Gaza strip, and today's Jordan.  It does not include the Golan heights.

There are other definitions around, based on different criteria,
but I think these two are the important ones in today's context.

-- Ran
-- 
Withdrawal from the territories is in Israel's vital interest.  I will not 
feel any less at home in Shiloh or Bethlehem if I need a visa to go there.

                                   Moshe Dayan  (quoted from memory)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
From: senel@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Hakan)
Subject: Re: Armenian Channel on IRC
Originator: senel@irlsp
Organization: Insulting, Ridiculing, Forwarding Inc.
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 22:27:01 GMT

> From: asbed@sol.usc.edu (Asbed Bedrossian)
> Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
> Subject: Re: Armenian Channel On IRC

>In article <Bv8xov.Isy@vuse.vanderbilt.edu> senel@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Hakan) writes:
>> > From: hminassi@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (GOTCHA!)
>>
>>Oh Helgge, I am so happy. Is it true that there is a separate Armenian
>>channel on IRC? Oh my goodness, that's great. Then go there and wait for
>>us, we will join soon.
>>C U there, don't forget to wait for us. he he he he 
>>Your secret lover Hakan
>
>Here's a good example of how much human and woman rights you have in
>Turkey; your right not to suffer harassment, your right to be.
>
>Only in Turkey, they're not so distant; they're right in your face to
>shove your differences from them down your throat or up your ^ with a
>blowtorch.

>>_______________________________________________________
>>God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made Hakan
>>                -- Mark Twain
>>_______________________________________________________
>
>:ll

Asbest, Asbest, Asbest why are you so angry? Anger is not suitable for
you, good fella. This is a good example of how much honesty
you have as an Armenian. Asbed tries to make a fraud ie. changes
some parts of my article. Oh boy, Do your parents teach 
how to make small changes in texts? just like adding some more
digits.

Let's see.

>God makes the Idiot for practice, and then He made Hakan
                                                    ^^^^^
oops! "Hakan" popped up there. I don't remember where it came from.
Oh Asbest, was that you? No no no, Asbest doesn't do this sort of things,
because he is an Armenian. Armenians don't like to change
written realities, and don't add some more digits to numbers, 
he he he he 

Well, literally this is called fraud. Right? he he he he he
This small change doesn't prove that I am an idiot but this
is certainly a small demonstration of how you are a charlatan.
he he he he

Hakan
-- 
___
God made the Idiot for practice, and then He saw that Asbest Bedrossian 
was born. He said "well, this seems pretty coooool."  -Hakan Senel 1992 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
From: minhaszt@ucunix.san.uc.edu (Zafar T Minhas)
Subject: looking for a friend
Organization: University of Cincinnati
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 1992 17:55:06 GMT

hello everyone, salam alaikum,

i am looking for a friend, yasmin yardimci. yasmin, where are you???!

sincerely

zafar minhas

Xref: sparky soc.culture.turkish:10244 talk.politics.mideast:20587 talk.politics.soviet:8217 soc.culture.greek:9297 soc.culture.europe:8639 soc.rights.human:3701
From: armagan@sassafras (Armagan Ozdinc)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Avrupa Kupasi Maclari
Date: 30 Sep 92 21:19:37 GMT
Article-I.D.: gvl.1992Sep30.211937.29853
Reply-To: armagan@prc.unisys.com
Organization: Paramax Systems

Sampiyon Kulupler:

Besiktas: 2     IFK Goteborg: 1

Oyunun 3. dakikasinda yedigi golle yenik duruma dusen Besiktas daha
sonra Feyyaz ve B. Metin'in attigi gollerle galibiyeti yakalamasina
ve oldukca guzel oynamasina ragmen turu gececek farki saglayamadi.

Kupa Galipleri:

Turun Helsinki: 2  Trabzonspor: 2 


Bu sonuclardan sonra Trabzonspor, Galatasaray ve Fenerbahce tur
atladilar.

----------------------------------------------------------------
 ARMAGAN A. OZDINC
 Paramax Systems, Valley Forge Labs, Research and Development
________________________________________________________________
Xref: sparky soc.culture.turkish:10275 talk.politics.mideast:20609 soc.culture.greek:9332 soc.culture.europe:8662 soc.rights.human:3717