HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: green@island.COM (Robert Greenstein)
Subject: Re: Nazi camps
Organization: Strawman Incorporated
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 19:36:10 GMT

In article <matthew.714883798@mugga> matthew@stats.mu.oz.au (Maciek Blasikiewicz) writes:
>kkniaz@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Krzysztof W. Kniaz) writes:
>
>>You're wrong: 6 million POLISH CITIZENS have been killed during the WWII,
>>most of them were polish Jews.
>
>"Most" implies more than half.  All the estimates I have seen say that
>between 2 and 3 million Poles of jewish extraction died in WWII. This
>is not even half of the 6 million Poles who died (a figure you have
>agreed to).
>
>I consider Poles of jewish extraction to be Poles, period. You, on the
>other hand, refer to them as Jews, albeit polish, and make a big fuss
>about the race difference. So, are you a racist, or just prejudiced?

Why is it so difficult for you to accept the fact that Polish Jews were
killed *because* they were Jews? When you refer to Poles of Jewish extraction
as just being Poles, that is tantamount to denying that Jews were 
singled out. Thus the whole question of Polish complicity never has
to get asked. How convenient.
-- 
******************************************************************************
Robert Greenstein           What the fool cannot learn he laughs at, thinking
green@island.com            that by his laughter he shows superiority instead
                            of latent idiocy - M. Corelli
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: MASH@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL (Michael Shimshoni)
Subject: Re: Weddings on Saturday??
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 16:48:18 +0300

In: <BtnKFw.Dwt@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
aryk@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (A.J.S. Nusbacher) asks:

>Anybody know why Israeli rabbis won't perform a marriage during the daytime?

Although in  many cases some persons  who post on scj  add the ominous
letter  AYLOR, and  me being  neither  O nor  R I  should hesitate  to
reply,. but I shall anyhow...

Let me  reply with  a story.   A Rabbi started  his sermon  on portion
Nitzavim (Dvarim  29,9) by saying:  Our portion starts with  the words
'Atem  nitzavim ...   Malkekhen,  Rashekhem...', which  means you  are
standing here..  your kings, your  heads...".  And he  continued: "Why
does the Torah mention kings when at  that time there were no kings in
Israel? On  this I will say...",  at this point he  got interrupted by
one of the congregation "But Rabbi, the word Malkekhem (your kings) is
not  mentioned there  at  all".  Said  the Rabbi:  "Well  that is  one
possible explanation, but mine is much better!".

I was reminded  of that story by  the odd fact that  last Friday, just
two days  ago, the brother of  an acquaintance of ours  was married at
about 1.30  pm.  Although  Friday weddings are  not very  common here,
this is  not a unique  case, and they  are always well  before Shabbat
starts in bright daytime.

On other days of the week, weddings in summer are frequently performed
during daylight, in  the late afternoon, but  clearly before twilight,
so that  there should be no  doubt about the date  (which changes with
the end  of the  day, sundown),  and this  might invalidate  the Ktuba
contract.  In winter the Huppa is usually after dark, and sometimes it
is so also  in summer.  Few of these weddings  will start before 7.00,
7.30 pm.

I assume  that the  reason few weddings  are performed  during daytime
(except on Fridays) is that as we  do not have here a "Sunday", i.e. a
day people do not  work like abroad, so most guests  would not be able
to attend during  daytime, with catastrophic results on  the amount of
presents. :-)

>Aryk Nusbacher

 Michael Shimshoni
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: shimoff@umbc4.umbc.edu (Eliot Shimoff)
Subject: Purim in Av? (was Re: more of ...can of worms....)
Organization: Univ. of MD, Baltimore County
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 15:03:53 GMT

In article <1992Aug27.135913.25999@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> jgoldber@todah.chem.utoronto.ca (Joel Goldberg) writes:
>In article <ALLEN.92Aug27081545@golem.ssc.gov> allen@ssc.gov writes:
>>Ah yes, the infinite depth of learning contained in our Torah.  And
>>where do we learn that HaShem takes `X' when He plays tic-tac-toe with
>>the Jewish people?  As it says: "HaShem O's leamoh ytein".
>  Not to mention tehillim 13:6 (psukei d'zimrah) "I will sing
>  to Hashem because there is a camel on top of me."

There are, of course, historical sources in T'filla also.  For example,
little is known about the life of Shimon haTzadik, except that he
died on Wednesday.  As it says in Shmoneh Eshrei:
    v'Shimon mittvoch la'tzaddikim

(Is it Purim already???)



-- 
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.
From: hrubin@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Rubin Herman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Torah In A Torah Context (was Re: more of ...can of worms....)
Date: 2 Sep 92 01:43:16 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department

In article <1992Sep1.165550.19636@njitgw.njit.edu> dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap) writes:
>In article <1992Aug31.182317.678185@locus.com> hayim@locus.com (Hayim Hendeles) writes:

			................................

>Just as likely as anything else.  Noah's Ark could have journeyed
>anywhere in the 40 days that it was being tossed about in the storms
>of the Great Flood.  Just because it landed on Mt. Arrarat, doesn't
>mean that it was built in that area.
 
>And I still think that it's very unlikely (if not impossible) that the
>four rivers through Eden would exist after the Flood.  With a flood
>that covered the Earth, all rivers would have changed.  After all, the
>gound (at the time, being the ocean floor) would have shifted
>significantly, creating new channels for the water to go, and filling
>in the old ones.

Nevertheless, the last two of the rivers described seem to have had
no problem of identification.  The whole set presumably made sense
to those reading the Torah, or there would have been no point whatever
in including it; the names and descriptions of the rivers serve no
moral purpose whatever.  It is also true that the Tigris and 
Euphrates have their headwaters close together, and the Euphrates
was THE river of the area, and needed no description.  Even the
Tigris was only very briefly described, being well enough known.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@snap.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!snap.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
From: dkantor@uspi2.Prime.COM (Dave Kantor)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: more of ...can of worms....
Date: 27 Aug 92 17:49:37 GMT
Organization: Prime Computer, Inc.

In article <8wcnlka.strnlght@netcom.com>, strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
> 
> Herman Rubin's latest message is so non-responsive to my questions
> about the basis for his attribution of "error" as a way of picking
> and choosing among Mitzvahs that I am forced to conclude that he
> is making it up as he goes along, 

I think you'll find that there are many people in this world who choose
to make their own decisions about how to practice a religion.  These
choices are based on what is meaningful to them, and what they feel enriches their lives.  If someone wants to 'make it up as they go along', then so be it.
We are all entitled to our own methods of interpretation.

> ...making up his own authority for picking and choosing among the
> Mitzvahs.

As if it is unnatural to exercise some personal judgement over how one leads their
life???  We all have 'our own authority'.  

> Now Herman Rubin has the right to believe anything he wants on a 
> personal basis. But please don't call it Judaism...

Why not ?  Just because it fails YOUR litmus test  ?

> ...and let's not
> pretend it's a legitimate element of a discussion of the religion,
> any more than the physics journals would legitimize articles
> from the flat earthers.
> 

I don't think any of us have the authority to determine 'legitimacy'
in terms of religious beliefs.  On what authority do you label other's
beliefs as illegitimate ?

> Given all of the above, it seems that a logical mind must take the
> position that Torah must be accepted as given, and wait for revelation,
> rather than listing the revelations to date and accepting only that
> portion of Torah.
> 

So anyone who doesn't accept the Torah as 'given' is illogical ?
There are many reasonable, intelligent people who may not accept 
it as 'given'.  I would say that someone with 'a logical mind' accepts
differences and does not tell others they what 'must' do.

> Herman Rubin has, of course, every right to his free speech and to
> continue to say what he likes, but here is one fellow-Ph.D. who
> sees no need to pay any further attention to what he says on this issue.
> 

Well, here is one Master of Science who WILL pay further attention to all
viewpoints on this issue.  
-- 
===========================================================================

Dave 'The Rave' Kantor     "I'm gonna call myself on the phone someday and
dkantor@s55.prime.com       tell myself to shutup." - Miles Davis

===========================================================================
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: saal@cbnewsl.cb.att.com (samuel.saal)
Subject: Re: Nazi camps
Organization: liver ---> spleen
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 16:32:36 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.135739.11218@sarah.albany.edu>
pawel@tethys.ph.albany.edu writes:

>  My limited knowledge of English tells me that "Polish camp" means
>a camp "owned, ran, supervised" by Poles and is not equivalent to
>the statement "the camps were on Polish soil".

Your knowledge of English is, as you state, severely limited.  Although
the newspaper's term may be ambiguous to you, it is not incorrect. For
example.  I've gone to Jewish summer camps in the US.  Does that mean that
they weren't owned by Americans?  That they weren't owned by Jews? That
they weren't on American soil? Any or all of them can be true and these
summer camps could be called Jewish.  For that matter, they could probably
be called American, or City (when I went to a camp based in NY City) and
so on.  The reason I don't have a problem with retaining mention of Poland
in the references is that I consider it revisionistic to minimize Polish
complicity and complacency.

I've deleted the remainder of your diatribe as it is based on your own
misunderstanding.
-- 
Sam Saal      kingfish!saal OR saal@kingfish.att.com
	Vayiftach HaShem et Peah Ha`Aton
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: alu@cbnewsk.cb.att.com (Alan Lustiger)
Subject: Re: Hebrew fonts for Banner Mania available
Organization: AT&T Engineering Research Center
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 13:52:08 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.223817.20385@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu> friedenb@egr.msu.edu ( Gedaliah Friedenberg ) writes:
>I got 5 Hebrew fonts for Banner Mania, a very popular banner making
>program for PCs.  They are all very nice.  I was given these fonts
>(and the program for that matter) for free (a copy).  
>
>If it is legal (copyrights again!), I can send these fonts to whoever
>wants them.
>
>If anyone knows whether it is legal to distribute the program or its
>fonts, please let me know!

Bannermania is definitely a commercial package from Broderbund
Software, and it is quite illegal for it to be copied and given away.

The Hebrew fonts are almost certainly made by Davka Corporation
in Chicago, because those are the only Hebrew fonts for Bannermania
that I am aware of and it is not a simple process to create these
fonts without Broderbund helping out. So it is not something a 
hacker is likely to do to give away. Assuming that these are indeed
the Davka fonts, they are a commercial package and it is again 
illegal (both US and halachically) for the fonts to be given away.

Bannermania costs around $35, and the Davka fonts probably cost
about the same.

-- 
               		Alan Lustiger
    |_ | |             	AT&T Bell Laboratories ERC, Princeton, NJ
     /   |( 		attmail!alustiger or att!pruxk!alu or lustiger@att.com
Organization: The American University - University Computing Center
Date: Wednesday, 2 Sep 1992 08:50:54 EDT
From: <CARIAN@auvm.american.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Hebrew School

Most years I *hated* Hebrew school because we didn't learn anything.
I don't actually recall what we *did* do, but teaching about Judaism
didn't seem to be the goal.

When I got to the high school department we could choose our own
teachers and I chose the two or three who seemed interested in
actually teaching us something; I remain in contact with two of them
to this day.

One of them, Mr. Irving Cohen, was supposed to teach us comparative
religions but reasoned that we couldn't properly compare Judaism
to other religions until we knew something about Judaism. So he
began at the beginning and taught us.

My advice is don't worry about techniques. Impart content and impart
your love of Jewish tradition.

In this way you will be successful.

Unless, of course, I'm wrong. :-)

Rabbi Charles Arian
CARIAN@american.edu
From: dennis+@cs.cmu.edu (Dennis Grinberg)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Waterloo/Kitchener info
Date: 31 Aug 92 21:55:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.BtvBJv.BDw.1
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon

I'll probably be spending the last days of Sukkot at a conference
sponsered by the University of Waterloo.  I'm not at all familiar
with the area so any information on the following would be greatly
appreciated.  Since I rarely read scj nowadays, I'd appreciate responses
by e-mail.

- What is available in terms of Kosher food in the area?

- Are there any Synagogues nearby?  Possibly a Hillel or Chabbad near
the campus?

- The hotel is the "Relax Hotel" at 2960 King Street East in Kitchener.
I *think* that the conference is at the university. (Do the places
Charcoal Steakhouse, Library Room, Davis Centre, or Transylvania
Club ring any bells for anyone?)  How far is the hotel from the conference?

- Any other information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance, 

Dennis Grinberg (dennis@cs.cmu.edu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: mer@zurlvm1.bitnet
Subject: Re: Why was Tanya printed around the world
Date: Fri, 28 Aug 92 08:11:20 GMT
Organization: IBM T. J. Watson Research

In  <1992Aug27.192229.1@ntc01.tele.nokia.fi>  htoyryla@ntc01.tele.nokia.fi writes:
>
> The bi-lingual edition of Tanya from 1981 includes a list
> of Dfusei Tanya, or the printings of Tanya. On the list there
> are editions printed in most major cities of the whole world,
> during the Jewish years 5738 and 5739. I would be interested
> in hearing more about why the book was printed in almost
> every country in the world.
>
> Hannu


First of all, the list in the 1981 edition is considerably outdated.
Since then, the Tanya has been printed in several thousand additional
communities around the world.

When the book was first published, many great Rabbis of that time (ca. 1800)
said that the book would help bring Moshiach. Indeed, the book is
recognized by all Chassidic and many Chassidic Rabbis as one of the most
profound guides for the average Jew to achieving holiness in this world.

By tying together the seemingly disparate parts of the Torah (biblical,
Talmudical, Kabbala, midrash and Halacha) and showing that in fact
they are really all the same; and by showing how all the souls are really
the same; and by showing that everything in the world is an emanation
from G-d and thus the same; the book takes us along the path to the day
when the whole world will realize that there is only G-d, as we say in
our daily prayers.

By printing the book in as many communities as possible, an effort was
made to tie a common bond of Torah between as many physical locations
as possible in a spiritual sense, in order to hasten the coming of the Moshiach.

The program was initiated in 1978 by the Lubavitcher Rebbe on a small scale,
and then expanded in 1982 to the much larger scale that it has taken
since then.

Moshe Rappoport
From: strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: more of ...can of worms....
Date: 27 Aug 92 17:23:23 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)


Herman Rubin's latest message is so non-responsive to my questions
about the basis for his attribution of "error" as a way of picking
and choosing among Mitzvahs that I am forced to conclude that he
is making it up as he goes along, and that we are dealing with Rubin
making up his own authority for picking and choosing among the
Mitzvahs.

This is the worst case of hubris I've seen since Oedepus. Rubin appears,
from his statements, to be setting himself up against Moses, the Rabbis,
and the entire tradition.

Now Herman Rubin has the right to believe anything he wants on a 
personal basis. But please don't call it Judaism, and let's not
pretend it's a legitimate element of a discussion of the religion,
any more than the physics journals would legitimize articles
from the flat earthers.

As for his argument about violation of the laws of nature, there is
a body of evidence "explaining" some of these violations already in
terms of contemporary science. We will doubtless discover more as
time passes. Perhaps the most famous is the parting of the waters--
there is an explanation based on the prevailing winds, and Napoleon
is alleged to have walked on dry land there. Thus it would seem that
science is catching up with Torah, and not vice-versa.

Finally, archaeologists are constantly uncovering evidence that many
of the things described in Torah happened exactly where Torah says--
again it is "modern" man catching up with Torah, and not vice-versa.

Given all of the above, it seems that a logical mind must take the
position that Torah must be accepted as given, and wait for revelation,
rather than listing the revelations to date and accepting only that
portion of Torah.

Putting it another way, since scientific and archaeological history
keeps refuting various premises of the deductivists with respect
to Torah, we are left with the use of weak induction as a method
of seeking truth here. That is, by the way, the guilty secret
of the mathematicians; great mathematicians usually use weak
induction to arrive at insight, and then go back after the fact
to "prove" their theorems with a rigid deductive structure. In the
words of the old joke:

"How did you know how to prove that theorem?"

"I wrote down the conclusion, and worked backwards towards what was
already known. Whenever I needed an assumption to get from one step
to the previous one, I wrote it down. Finally, when I got to known
principles, I collected all the assumptions, wrote them down
at the beginning, and presented the results in reverse."

Herman Rubin has, of course, every right to his free speech and to
continue to say what he likes, but here is one fellow-Ph.D. who
sees no need to pay any further attention to what he says on this issue.
From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: more of ...can of worms....
Date: 26 Aug 92 17:40:35 GMT
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department

In article <17eihqINN1sb@agate.berkeley.edu> schultz@garnet.berkeley.edu (Richard Schultz) writes:
>In article <BtJpDE.F01@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:

>>There is no place in the Torah, other than at most the statement of the
>>Decalogue on Sinai, where it states it was literally given to the people. 
>>There is no place in the Torah where it states that God Himself wrote the
>>words, or even that He dictated them to scribes, again except for the two
>>tablets of the Ten Commandments.  By Torah I mean written Torah.

>How do you explain the numerous places where it says "vaydabber adonai el
>moshe leimor"?  Or, for that matter, "v'zot hatorah asher sam moshe lifnei
>b'nai yisrael *al pi adonai* b'yad moshe"?

The first were at most statements from God to Moses, and there is no 
indication whatever that they were immediately written down at the time.
In most cases, the text certainly casts doubt that they were so written.

As for the latter, I do not believe that this appears in the Torah itself.
This is a matter of conjecture, but as the Jewish religion had few holy
objects, and even few prescribed rituals, the Sefer Torah was elevated to
the level of a holy object to be read in a prescribed ritual manner.
-- 
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)  
{purdue,pur-ee}!pop.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: goldberg@techunix.technion.ac.il (Jacques Goldberg)
Subject: Re: Violent antisemitism?
Organization: Technion, Israel Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 09:44:27 GMT

There is no other way to try and settle the argument between Hayim Hendeles and
Irek Defee than asking again to carefully select words.

Most of what Irek wrote relates to Poland (a State) having or not an antisemiticpolicy. At many times, there was no State at all. For many years, the land now
known (or known as such in the 20's-40's) as Poland was owned by several powers
and AS USUAL very many Jews settled there , as they did elsewhere for example
the presently east of France, or the Rhein valley, JUST because there were no
clear rulers that would take care of expelling them. Jews did not leave Spain,
Portugal or France on their own will to escape antisemitism, they left because
they were expelled; this is typical in France where they were periodically
expelled then allowed then etc... for several centuries before a "final"
expulsion (but many stayed in the East or South West because the King's power
there was loose). Where the Sate, and quite more often the LACK of any formal
State, let them, there they would settle.

Most of what Hayim writes has to do with the Poles,or, better, non Jewish
inhabitants of the land now known as Poland. Just as in every Catholic region,
antisemitism was very strong there. Some Catholic Poles gave or risked their
lives to save Jews, less in proportion I believe than the very few French
Catholics who did the same (including the family which saved my life). In the
20th century, populace antisemitism was much more violent in Poland than in
France (my mother was stoned at least weekly on her way to school in Poland,
I never in France, just insulted). The Kielce pogrom in 1946 occurred in Poland
since Kielce is in Poland, it was not orgaised by Poland but by Catholic Poles,
and it is worth quoting that these were quickly punished by Russian and  Polish
partisans (many of whom were Jews, and one of them a friend of mine, just in
case some nice soul around wants direct evidence). On the other hand th
Vel d'Hiv mass arrest of Jews was conducted in Paris in 1942 by French police 
obeying the French Government., acting on its own with no German request.

To summarize I do not see much contradiction between Hayim who writes about tha
suffering imposed on Jews in Poland 
by non Jewish inhabitants of that land, and Irek who claims that the Governement
of Poland was not always very antisemitic.

Agreed , or deliberately interested in maintaining confusion?
Yaaqov Goldberg

Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,soc.culture.polish