HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jlove@ivrit.ra.itd.umich.edu (Jack Love)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: ACLU/AJC Menorah Police?
Date: 23 Dec 1992 14:50:04 GMT
Organization: /usr/local/trn/lib/organization
NNTP-Posting-Host: ivrit.ra.itd.umich.edu

For the better part of a decade (perhaps longer), Chabad has been
cooperating with non-Jewish groups that are attempting to destroy some
of the barriers that were erected with such difficulty between state
and religion.

I was a Jewish student in the New York City public schools in the 50's
and 60's and I can still remember with perfect clarity how the New
Testament was read to us at every assembly, often by Jewish teachers!
The "Old Testament" was also read, but reading both is also a feature
of the Catholic Mass.

Only the near-miraculous event of a Supreme Court that was actually
willing to *listen* to arguments about how such activities could
actually harm minority religion and be felt as state supported religion
allowed these practices to be forbidden. Since those days, Christian
fundamentalists have done everything in their power to erode those
vital decisions. And I for one am very disapppointed that Chabad
would assist in this effort.

I have mixed feelings about the events in Cincinnati. Obviously I am
not happy about the legal victory of the KKK. But perhaps the majority
will begin to understand that it is better to forbid these displays on
public property rather than be compelled to give equal access to the
KKK, Satanists, Santerians, Snake worshippers, etc. (In a probably vain
attempt to ward off a flame war, let me hasten to say that I don't deny
that adherants to some of these faiths may have their legitimate right
to expression--I just don't see the need to place the advertising for
them on public property.)

Hag urim sameah.
-- 
________________________________________
Jack F. Love	| 	Opinions expressed are mine alone.
		|	(Unless you happen to agree.)
Xref: sparky soc.culture.jewish:23970 soc.culture.arabic:5926
From: clamen+@CS.CMU.EDU (Stewart Clamen)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,soc.culture.arabic
Subject: Re: Israel must return the deportees!
Date: 26 Dec 92 22:53:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.Bzw28z.244.1
Reply-To: clamen+@CS.CMU.EDU
Followup-To: talk.politics.mideast
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Originator: clamen@BYRON.SP.CS.CMU.EDU


I believe the readers of s.c.j and s.c.a would prefer to have this
thread continue on talk.politics.mideast .

--
Stewart M. Clamen			Internet:    clamen@cs.cmu.edu
School of Computer Science		UUCP: 	     uunet!"clamen@cs.cmu.edu"
Carnegie Mellon University		Phone: 	     +1 412 268 2145
5000 Forbes Avenue			Fax:	     +1 412 681 5739
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3891, USA
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,misc.headlines,talk.politics.misc,misc.legal
From: jake@bony1.bony.com (Jake Livni)
Subject: Re: The NYPD situation (was: Say it ain't so)
Organization: The Department of Redundancy Department
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 92 23:16:36 GMT

In article <1992Dec19.014026.1517@Princeton.EDU> niepornt@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (David Marc Nieporent) writes:

>It is quite possible for someone to go to prison for something
>they didn't do, just as it is quite possible for someone to stay out of
>prison despite having committed a crime.  

[...]

>But anyway, your point is wrong.  People are sent to jail or not
>because of the things testified to at a trial, whether or not those
>things match the truth.  It's always to be hoped that they do, but it
>doesn't always work that way.

I think you're onto something here.  Keep at it....

>>Sure, police in the US work under very restrictive regulations and
>>have to have their testimony and evidence reach extremely high
>>standards.
>
>Is this bad?  Isn't this supposed to be one of the best things about
>American democracy?  As compared to, say, the former Soviet Union?

It is good, but has been made EXTREMELY expensive.  Proving guilt now
requires so much in the way of public and private resources (much of
it ending up in "legal fees") that it has become more and more likely
that guilty people will be acquitted because the evidence is STILL
insufficient to convict.  To add insult to injury acquitted people are
treated as innocent, even when they are in fact guilty, EVEN WHEN THEY
LATER ADMIT GUILT.

Decent people in the US continue to pay for the bad behavior of
Indecent people.  The Legal System has proven itself unwilling or
unable to distinguish between Decent and Indecent, only to distinguish
between Convicted and Acquitted.  There is a growing proportion of
Americans that finds this inadequacy of the legal system unacceptable.

>No, the acquittal of Nelson demonstrates that the jury didn't believe
>that the prosecution testimony in this case proved beyond a reasonable
>doubt that Nelson killed Rosenbaum.

How they did so has outraged many people, not just friends of
Yankel Rosenbaum and not just Jews.

-- 
Jake Livni  jake@bony1.bony.com              10 years from now, George Bush will
American-Occupied New York                   have replaced Jimmy Carter as the
My opinions only - employer has no opinions. standard of a failed President.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight)
Subject: Re: ACLU/AJC Menorah Police?
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 00:13:20 GMT

In article <1992Dec21.215319.29462@starbase.trincoll.edu> nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu (norman miller) writes:

>
>If they're in a public park then the state is obviously involved.
>There's the problem.

I disagree. A public park is one of the few state-provided places that's
a haven for free speech. It is not a place where the state expresses
state political policy, but rather is a State-maintained public place.

David



Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: MASH@WEIZMANN.WEIZMANN.AC.IL (Michael Shimshoni)
Subject: Law of Return (was Conversion Question)
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1992 12:07:07 GMT

In: <9212232205.AA25066@cyclone.sbi.com>
gertler@cyclone.sbi.com (Don Gertler) states towards the end:

>cohen@quartz.ciw.edu (Ronald Cohen) writes:

*****   dropping most of the article   *******

>I may be mistaken, but I thought that originally the Law of Return
>always deferred to the (Orthodox) rabbinate.  It's relativley recent
>that the fight to accept any flavor of "convert" has arisen, thereby
>changing the status quo.  (I'm sure I'll be corrected on this if I'm
>wrong.  Of course, this is scj.  I'll probably be corrected even if
>I'm right.)

Don can be happy, I plan to  correct him because he is *wrong* on this
point.  The Law of Return never accepted the O Rabbinate definition of
Jewishness.  All recent attempts were to change the status quo so that
only O conversions would be  acceptable, and "Barukh Hashem" they were
defeated.

>-Don Gertler

  Michael Shimshoni
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: dfs@doe.carleton.ca (David F. Skoll)
Subject: POLITICS: Re: Israel must return the deportees!
Followup-To: talk.politics.mideast
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 20:30:08 GMT

Please note and respect the followup-to line.

In <531@owl.ukc.ac.uk> dat@ukc.ac.uk (D.A.Turner) writes:

>The deportations will simply fuel further violence.  I can tell  you  my
>reaction  to the deportations - I wanted to go out and punch the nearest
>Israeli.

Even if that Israeli happened to oppose the deportations?  Even if that
Israeli happened to have been living in England for years?  Sounds
like "collective punishment" to me.  Clearly illegal and unnaceptable. :-)

Seriously, if you can be provoked to this extreme by an action which really
has little effect on your day-to-day life, can't you see the extreme
provocation which Israel has had to endure from Hamas?  Kidnappings,
murder, a philosophy of war against all Jews - those seem unbearable
to me.  How would Britain handle the IRA in such circumstances.

>David Turner
>(A British Jew who does NOT support Israel)

Yeah, yeah, we know already.

--
                     |         | "Step up and shake the hand
David F. Skoll       | ||||||| |  Of someone you can't stand,
|_ _ _  __   __ _ __ |  \\V//  |  You can tolerate him if you try..."
 / |  | |_|   | |  | |  __|__  |  -- Tom Lehrer, "National Brotherhood Week"
_____|________________________________________________________________________

Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,misc.headlines,talk.politics.misc,misc.legal
From: cm406@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (J. Y. Yosh Mantinband)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Feld Fraud?
Date: 29 Dec 1992 00:24:37 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In article <1992Dec24.172950.14625@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David
Sternlight) writes:
 
> I am starting to become suspicious of this affair. I know something
> about current U.S. Jails, and the claim that the Felds have spent the
> past month shackled hand and foot, in a Jail in Santa Clara,
> California to the extent that they cannot lay tefillin simply doesn't
> compute.
 
     etc.
 
I forwarded the exchange on this subject to David Rath in San Jose.
He sent me a message from which the following is a direct quote (with 
permission).
 
The other person who had written me previously is on vacation till
next week.  I expect a "non-anonymous" response to be forthcoming at
that time.
 
Matthew Weiner suggested
 
> So call Rabbi Levin of Palo Alto Chabad and confirm or refute these
> "anonymous notes" that mention him by name.  That would be a much
 
Mr. Sternlight - have you called yet?
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: 28 Dec 92 10:26:00 +1000
From: RATH_DAVID@tandem.com
Subject: Feld Fraud?
 
I live in San Jose and I, along with a friend, visited the Feld brothers
in prison on the second night of Chanuka to light Chanuka candles for
them.  The first thing I noticed was that the Feld brothers arms and legs
were in shackles (chains).  My understanding is that because of the
seriousness of the charges against them, this is standard procedure.  They
are considered dangerious by the prison.
 
The Feld Brothers told me that they were having difficulty obtaining
Kosher food.
 
I have heard that the local Chabad Rabbi visits the Feld brothers daily
to put on Tifillin with them.
 
I will be happy keep you posted with updates as soon as I have new
information...   David Rath.
From: frank2@odie.ee.wits.ac.za
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Mezuzah question
Date: 24 Dec 92 09:35:56 GMT
Organization: Wits Electrical Engineering (Novell Users).

Did you hear the one about the guy who was installing all the fittings for a 
new block of flats across the road from the Shul? 

He went to the local mezuzah shop and discovered that they were sold out. 
Next he tried the general Judaica store, only to find that they too had no 
mezuzot in stock. After walking all over town, the man happened upon a small 
shop in the middle of Chinatown, with hundreds of mezuzot in the window. He 
walked in and asked in his thick Yiddish accent for 120.
"I'm sorry sir," said the shopowner, "but we don't serve Jews."

--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
David Frank                       {} "Time is unforgiving. That's why
<frank2@underdog.ee.wits.ac.za>   {} in Greenwich they call it mean."
University of the Witwatersrand   {} - Unknown	
Johannesburg                      {} 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
ps:	If you send me a picture postcard to the following address, I'll 
	send one right back to you.

			David Frank
			91 Mowbray Road
			Johannesburg
			2193
			South Africa
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,misc.headlines,talk.politics.misc,misc.legal
From: dfs@doe.carleton.ca (David F. Skoll)
Subject: Is this antisemitism?
Organization: Dept. of Electronics, Carleton University
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 19:48:30 GMT

I had the misfortune to read the Ottawa Citizen yesterday, and saw an
article on the Israeli expulsion of the Palestinians, as well as
an editorial and a cartoon.  The article was slightly innacurate - it
said that "Israelis fired at" the Palestinians, whereas I understood
that SLA fighters did the firing.

The editorial was standard shrill tpm fare - about average for the
Citizen.  I could have written it by pasting together old
talk.politics.mideast articles. :-)

What bothered me was the cartoon - it showed the three wise men at an
Israeli checkpoint.  An Israeli soldier brandishing a gun said
something like "You're obviously fanatics - you're being deported to
Lebanon."

This is the second time that the Citizen has used Christian symbolism
to attack Israel.  About 8 months ago, it showed Israeli soldiers
crucifying a Palestinian.

I believe that, whatever one may think of Israel's policies, it
is an abuse to use Xian symbols in this way.  This just hearkens
back to the bad old days when Xian holidays were used as an excuse
for antisemitic acts.  When we see Christianity portrayed in opposition
to Israel, it's too easy to jump to the more obvious parallel of
Christianity versus Judaism.

If anyone can get a copy of the Ottawa Citizen for 22 December 1992
and read it, I'd appreciate it.  Also, if you could send your comments
to the editor, that would be helpful too.

--
                     |         | "Step up and shake the hand
David F. Skoll       | ||||||| |  Of someone you can't stand,
|_ _ _  __   __ _ __ |  \\V//  |  You can tolerate him if you try..."
 / |  | |_|   | |  | |  __|__  |  -- Tom Lehrer, "National Brotherhood Week"
_____|________________________________________________________________________

Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: merlyn@digibd.digibd.com (Merlyn LeRoy)
Subject: Re: ACLU/AJC Menorah Police?
Organization: DigiBoard, Incorporated, Eden Prairie,MN
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 23:00:33 GMT

[I'm adding misc.legal, since it seems apropos]

strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
>Marc Colton provides more details on the Cincinnati cross.  Apparently,
>according to the newspaper account he quoted, the court decision
>permitting it was based on a "religious freedom" argument, so there
>was no attempt to argue the cross was secular. I believe such a decision
>would be overturned on appeal.

>Recall that the menorah was permitted as a secular symbol, like
>a tree, according the Supreme Court. If the Cross works its way
>up to the Court, entirely different arguments would have to be made,
>and my own view is that they won't prevail. I am not an attorney.

My understanding of the case is that the area in question (where the
menorah and the cross are being displayed by private groups) is considered
a public place, so content is irrelevant -- it would be illegal for
the city to consider content in issuing permits.  The KKK could put up
swastikas if they wanted.

---
Merlyn LeRoy
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: warren@nysernet.org (Warren Burstein)
Subject: Re: STOP Spreading Jewish Stereotypes!!
Reply-To: warren@nysernet.org
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 08:12:31 GMT

Since it's hard to remember who has insulted someone, who is accused
of having violated NetHalacha, who isn't willing to receive mail from
someone, and who has submitted complaints with someoneone else's
sysadmin, I think we need someone to maintain a list of such, entitled
"The Shul That I Don't Go To".

Or maybe we need Stupid People's Beit Din.
-- 
/|/-\/-\          "If there really was a Jewish conspiracy to run the
 |__/__/_/        world, my rabbi would have let me in on it by now.
 |warren@         I contribute enough to the shule."
/ nysernet.org 			    Saul Goodman
From: waldo@cybernet.cse.fau.edu (Todd J. Dicker)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: Urgent Appeal-Jerusalem Rabbi Mistakenly Arrested!
Date: 26 Dec 92 22:20:18 GMT
Organization: Cybernet BBS, Boca Raton, Florida

jlove@ivrit.ra.itd.umich.edu (Jack Love) writes:

> Is it possible to get an article posted regarding this subject 
> with a beginning and a middle? (I know there's no end yet.) Am
> I the only one completely confused here?
> -- 

Which raises the quesion:  Why and how can you appeal for money and 
support if the facts aren't out yet?  Why would you risk the Jewish 
community's reputation for citizenship by demanding the release of 
people accused of a serious crime based solely upon the fact that they 
are Rabbis?  I am finding it impossible to believe the claims made about 
these people when they are so filled with inaccuracies and mistakes.

1.  If they are pre-trial, then they are being held in jail, not prison.  
    Jails are considerably more congenial than prisons.
2.  Denying kosher food to a prisoner is illegal in San Jose, and it 
    would be short work to work the system a bit, even if I believed
    They were being denied in the first place (more likely, this is
    an exaggeration).
3.  Nobody but nobody spends two or three weeks in handcuffs.  I have
    no question that this is a lie, and I'm sure they're welcome to
    lay all the tefillin they want.

You've got to put up a little more than this if you want your story to 
stand up.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Subject: The differences, again
Organization: Purdue University Statistics Department
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 15:31:13 GMT

In article <9212232230.AA25294@cyclone.sbi.com> <gertler@cyclone.sbi.com (Don Gertler)> writes:
>hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:
>> starr-daniel@yale.edu (Daniel Starr) writes:

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

>> The Reform position is not that of laxity, but of study and interpretation.
>> It does differ in that the Oral Law is not considered to have been given to
>> Moshe, and I do not see why such a body of law would not have been written
>> down if it were from God, and my own reading of the Sefer Torah is that 
>> there are parts in which God must at least have been misquoted.  But Reform
>> does not say that the sages are not to be considered, just that they are
>> not to be followed as if their words came from God Himself.

>But is the Torah itself to be followed as if the "words came from G-d
>Himself"?  Simply put, does Judaism contain a legal system?  Reading
>what you want, when you want to, and then doing what you choose does
>not constitute much of a legal structure, IMHO.

Read what I said, and which you quoted.  If I conclude that there are 
parts which cannot be the literal word of God, it follows that I must
use all relevant information I can find to try to ascertain what God
wants us to do.

But why should a religion be so much a legal structure?  At the time of
Moses, nobody would think otherwise; it has been stated, and I believe
quite correctly, that the sacrificial rules in the Torah were there more
to reduce sacrifices, not to command them; the culture of the time expected
gods to want lots of sacrifices.  Also, blood was given far more mystical
importance then than now, and especially menstrual blood was popularly
believe to have strong magical powers.  How much even of the Torah was
the result of honest people believing that they wrote what God wanted 
them to write to prevent these magical acts?  From Saul's calling up
the spirit of Samuel, we know that they believed in magic even later.

We even have some of this in some of the writings of the prophets.
In the Temple days, sacrifices were emphasized over righteous behavior.
Are the imposed rituals righteous behavior, or subconsciously perceived
as legal substitutes for the vanished Temple service?  I suspect the latter.
-- 
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: colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten)
Subject: Re: ACLU/AJC Menorah Police?
Summary: Menorah vs. Cross in Cincinnati
Organization: AT&T
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 18:57:38 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.174706.12492@netcom.com>, strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:
> 
> Marc Colton provides more details on the Cincinnati cross.  Apparently,
> according to the newspaper account he quoted, the court decision
> permitting it was based on a "religious freedom" argument, so there
> was no attempt to argue the cross was secular. I believe such a decision
> would be overturned on appeal.
> 

First, my last name is "Colten"  "en" at the end.  Usually this is
a nitpick but on usenet I often use a shell script to search for
any articles respond to my messages and I'd miss any to "Colton".

Anyway, you see how confusing this issue is.  Did the Menorah go
up under a "religious freedom" rule - or as a secular symbol to
avoid the separation of church and state?  

> Recall that the menorah was permitted as a secular symbol, like
> a tree, according the Supreme Court. If the Cross works its way
> up to the Court, entirely different arguments would have to be made,
> and my own view is that they won't prevail. I am not an attorney.
> 

I am not an attorney either - but you're picking nits.  We'd
have to chart it somehow.  Is the menorah more like a tree than a
cross?  To who.  Allow the menorah and ban the cross and you offend
Xians.  Allow the tree but ban the Menorah and you offend Jews.  Allow
both (or all three rather) and we'll just forget about the Muslims,
Hindus, Sikhs, Pagans and Atheists who live here.

> As for Colton's comment that "to Christian thinking the Crucifixion
> is more of a historical fact than Chanukah" he misreads my argument.
> My argument is based on historians who are not using religious
> thinking to cloud their scholarship, or as I further explained,
> people relying on archaeological evidence. There is none for
> the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth as far as I know, and there
> is a lot of physical evidence for the Maccabee struggle against the
> Greeks. I mean no disrespect for Christianity and its beliefs, but
> I'm speaking of hard evidence not colored by belief.
> 

Was the guy who tore down the cross a history professor in Ohio?
When this all blows up and everyone is blaming the other guy, it
will not be historians doing the arguing - although they will 
certainly fuel the fire with conflicting "evidence" that the rest
of us couldn't look up if we tried.  This is not a history lesson,
this is emotion pure and simple.


marc colten


Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish