www.failedmessiah.typepad.com

Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Bar Lev #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

[Links in original - Bolding mine]

Authorities are seeking to extradite Malka Leifer from Israel. But she has made it clear to family and friends that she will do everything she can to avoid ever facing her accusers. And she has the support of leaders of an ultra-orthodox community harbouring her in Israel and who say she has done nothing wrong.

The mother of eight has been accused of molesting a string of girls, including three sisters, while principal at Adass Israel School in Elsternwick.

Two of them, suing Ms Leifer and the school, told the Supreme Court in May she explained the abuse as preparation for marriage.

One said she had been too fearful to complain because of Ms Leifer’s power in the ultraorthodox community.

It is understood Ms Leifer could face dozens of charges of indecent assault and rape if she ever returns to Melbourne. She fled in March 2008, with the help of school officials, hours after the school committee learned of the accusations.

Ms Leifer was arrested in September, pending extradition hearings. She was under house arrest: reportedly, at first in Migdal HaEmek (about an hour north of Emmanuel, where she had lived), and then in Bnei Brak, an ultra-orthodox city near Tel Aviv.

Emmanuel [chief] rabbi Yitzhak Meir Bar Lev said the senior rabbi had instructed locals to accept the family.

Molesting a child was no less than murder and should be reported, but his “sources” told him the charges fell short of serious misconduct, he said.

“If the allegations are true, it was only because she was trying to bring these girls in, trying to prevent them from destroying their lives (by leaving ultra-orthodoxy),” he said.

“The girls’ behaviour had passed the point where they could have been ‘saved’ with mere words,” he said.

“Perhaps that wasn’t the right method to choose; there is a very thin line between ‘kosher’ and ‘non-kosher’ educational methods.

"But I can tell you her actions were only motivated by a positive educational precept.

“She was right to try to bring them in — they’d crossed a lot of borders in the other direction. She had only the best intentions,” the rabbi said.

wirbelwind #racist failedmessiah.typepad.com

(In response to former Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger being indicted on multiple, varied counts)

A Gentile likes money.

But a Jew literally loves it.

A real Jew's hands start to tremble and he actually goes weak at the knees and starts to pour with sweat at the site of envelopes thick with cash.

A cash bribe is a powerful Yetzer Hora which most Jews, even believers, cannot resist: Die greisser die bord die greysser der ganav - "The bigger the beard, the bigger the thief!" (old Yiddish expression)

If anyone knew the severity of even the secular laws of bribes, it was former Jerusalem legal-eagle lawyer Ehud Olmert, who himself is starting this month a 6 year stretch in the slammer for not being able to resist the sight of a thick envelope of cash: "The Moshiach will not come until the Jew's excessive love of money has been knocked out of him!" (Chofetz Chaim during the 1929 Great Crash)

Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi #sexist #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

You 'wanton' women who walk around in short skirts and painted faces bring rape on yourselves, and every time you entice men by your dress or your actions you will be tortured in hell for it, Sefardi haredi kiruv (outreach) Rabbi Yosef Mizrachi (also spelled: "Mizrahi") says.

[The video is available in the link of the quote]

Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman and other rabbis participating to the Councils of Torah Sages conference #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

[Links in original - Bolding mine]

Supreme Ashkenazi haredi rabbinic leader Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman wrote a letter for participants at last night’s emergency conference on secular studies for women. The conference was held at the invitation of the Councils of Torah Sages of the two factions – one hasidic, one not – that make up the so-called mainstream Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party (UTJ) that is a part of Israel’s ruling coalition.

According to a report in Kikar HaShabbat, Steinman came out strongly against secular academic studies for women and insisted that the only education haredi girls and women are allowed to have must come from UTJ’s Beth Jacob girls school system. There can be no exceptions, and higher academic studies in places like Bar Illan University or haredi programs at other colleges are absolutely forbidden.

Rabbi Hezekiyahu Mishkovsky of the Orchot Torah yeshiva told the conference a story about a haredi scholar who told Steinman his daughter wanted to get an academic degree.

“Why?” Steinman asked.

“Because she wants to earn more money to support her family,” the man said. (Many haredi husbands don’t work and are instead full time yeshiva students well into middle age, and wives are often haredi families’ main breadwinner.)

"I have a better idea how to make a fortune,” Steinman replied. “Steal.”

“The rosh yeshiva [Steinman] equates academic training with theft?" the man asked.

"It's worse [than theft]! What you steal can be returned, you can repent and return the money, but these things [that you hear, see and read in non-haredi academic institutions] are worse [than theft] because once you are exposed to them, you can’t ever get them out of your soul.”

The rabbis at the emergency conference went on to insist that academic degrees for women “cause incest and idolatry.”

“The gedolim [top rabbis] of previous generations barely allowed women to leave their home to earn a living, but if there is a concern that leaving the home will easily damage the spirituality of the home, it is not permitted to allow [women to do so, and that is the case with academic studies,]” the #2 non-hasidic Ashkenazi haredi rabbinic leader Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky reportedly told the conference. He implored attendees to ensure their students establish homes full of Torah.

The hasidic Vizhnitzer Rebbe also addressed the conference, which was attended by the heads of haredi girls schools from across the country.

Following their rabbis' guidance, the conference participants agreed to ban all academic studies by, in part, refusing to recognize degrees granted by outside institutions like Bar Illan University and various colleges with haredi programs. Women with degrees from those institutions will not be able to use them to qualify for a job or to gain a promotion.

Rabbi David Lau #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

[Links in original]

Speaking at a conference of the Israel Bar Association in Eilat today, the haredi Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel David Lau called for a law to be passed by the Knesset that would mandate the government consult with the Chief Rabbinate on all proposed legislation before it is brought to a vote in Knesset, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Lau driected that remark to the new Minister of Justice, Ayelet Shaked, during a panel discussion he sat on with Shaked, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, and Police Commissioner Yohanan Danino.

[...]

“Israel is both a Jewish and democratic state, and these expressions do not contradict each other but combine together,” Lau reportedly said when asking Shaked to pass a law mandating that the Chief Rabbinate – which is haredi controlled – give the government an official position statement before a bill is brought to Knesset, just as government ministries do when the legislation impacts their area of mission. The Chief Rabbinate would then “present the stance of Judaism and the tradition regarding proposed legislation,” Lau concluded.

Rebbitzin Tzviya Eliyahu #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

Rebbitzin Tzviya Eliyahu is the the widow of the late Sefardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Mordechai Eliyahu and the mother of the Chief Rabbi of Sefat Shmuel Eliyahu.

Her son Shmuel is a noted racist.

Her late husband Mordechai was a terrorist who was convicted and jailed as a young man for trying to overthrow the elected Government of Israel by force and replace it with a theocracy. He was eventually pardoned, released years early from prison, and later rose to become Chief Rabbi of Israel –all despite being completely unrepentant.

Recently, Tzviya Eliyahu said publicly that she believes any store or restaurant that has Arab employees should not be given hashgacha (a kosher supervision seal), Yeshiva World reported. She reportedly said that in part because of this issue, she only eats home cooked food, and will not eat at events or on planes.

“We took fruit and crackers along when we traveled” she said of her travels with her late husband.

They did that because her late husband was extremely stringent and did not eat anywhere [but their home]. He would only eat pita bread baked by the Nehama Bakery because the it did not employ Arabs, who he considered dirty.

“[My husband saw how Arab workers] would wipe their noses and this too was in the [pita] dough. He ran home immediately and never returned [to an unnamed bakery] and told me ‘Rabbanit, you are never to buy from this bakery again, simple as that,’” she said.

On another occasion, a woman who worked in a famous bakery came to her and said she saw Arabs make dough and then drag it along the floor of the kitchen.

“I was the only one there who saw this. I told you not to eat a thing from this bakery for this is what the Arabs do. Look at the evil, look at the hate. They do this out of hate,” the woman allegedly said.

Tzviya Eliyahu insisted Jews should only buy food from God-fearing Jews. There is no trusting a goy [an often derogatory term for a non-Jew], “even in his grave,” she said, because all goyyim all hate Jews and a goy “cannot maintain kosher standards for me. Don’t ask me why the [state] Rabbinate gives hashgacha [kosher supervision] to these stores [that employ Arabs]. On the days the rabbis come around to check [the bakeries and restaurants] they [the Arab workers] do not do such things [and instead act] as if they care [about their jobs and keeping the food kosher and safe to eat].”

Of course, when buying fish or meat, Jews must be even more stringent, Mrs. Eliyahu said.

“Certainly one must only buy from a trustworthy Jew. The rav [her late husband] only ate poultry that was kosher slaughtered here at home in my kitchen. The rav checked the chicken [himself] to make sure it was okay as well as checking the knife before shechita. We did the salting and soaking here too. The children and grandchildren saw the chickens running around before shechita. One explained he no longer wanted to eat poultry. It was a real nuthouse in the kitchen once, when we [did not have] chicken for three months. Our shochet [kosher slaughterer; the only kosher slaughterer Mordechai Eliyahu trusted] traveled abroad every few months and we had just run out of chicken [when he left]. So we did without. Either a person lives by his principles or not. Either one has fear of God or not—”

Even so, when Eliyahu was Chief Rabbi of Israel, the Chief Rabbinate put its seal on hundreds of kosher products, including chicken, that the chief rabbi himself would not eat or allow his family to eat.

Unnamed Hasidic boys' journal #racist failedmessiah.typepad.com

[Formatting and links in original]

A hasidic journal for teenage boys that is sold in all hasidic book stores [in Borough Park, etc.] has published a rabid[ly] racist article this month. The article [which was first posted on the hasidic message board KaveShteibel spans several pages, and goes on to explain how terrible democracy is. One reason why democracy is so terrible is that in the name of democracy we freed the Black people from being slaves. Here's a translation from one paragraph of the article:

"—So some stupid Democratic ideologues come, and claim that it is not 'humane' to keep the sons of Ham [a euphemism for Black people] enslaved. [They claim that] we have to free them and provide 'human rights'!... - Master of the Universe! We're talking about lowly people! What 'human', when 'human'?! How can you compare these lowly people to civilized people?—"

Some more quotes:

"—After Ham sinned with his father Noah, with the lowest sin possible, God punished him with a terrible defeat. He removed from him the title 'man', and lowered him to a --- slave! 'He will be a servant of servants to his brothers'!—"

"—He was lowered to the extremely low level that we can call: 'a human animal'... And rightfully so!—"

"—His slavery is not a punishment for his terrible deeds, it characterizes who he is – it is a position that he chose for himself!..."

"...It is indeed not right how [brutal] some behaved against the black [slaves], but this does not mean that they should receive civil rights. Soon the civil rights movements will also free the animals from their stalls! [They’ll claim:] how is it humane to keep animals isolated from humanity?!—"

"...Most of them are nothing more than animals on two legs who walk outside of their stall.—"

"...All goyim are also low and shameless... [but] white goyim have a slightly more human lifestyle than the Sons of Ham.—"

Two unnamed Beit Shemesh Haredi newspapers and their Mashgiach #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

[Original ad featured in the source page]

Last week, two local haredi newspapers in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh refused to publish an ad for a stocking shop that showed the shod feet and clothed ankles and shins of a two-year-old girl.

"I've decided not to give in and not to publish any ads in the two newspapers which insisted that we remove the picture," the LiLi Sock Shop's owner, Henny Spiegler, told Ynet. "There is no halakhic [Orthodox Jewish law] problem with the ad, and I have no intention of being their puppet," she added.

Spiegler, herself haredi, said she did not know that the two newspapers now have a new extremist haredi ad mashgiach (supervisor) and are now following the rules of a very extreme haredi group which bans all pictures of females – even pictures of fully clothed very young girls, even picture of their fully socked feet in shoes.young girls.

She refused to change the ad and reportedly published it in other local newspapers. But those papers are not distributed in all of the haredi neighborhoods in the city.

The most extremist haredi groups in Beit Shemesh have been rapidly growing stronger as more and more young members of their group’s move to the town from the overcrowded neighborhoods of Jerusalem like Mea Shearim.

Unnamed Israeli Haredi girls' school #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

A rough translation of the quiz, kindly sent in by the person who also showed [Shmarya Rosenberg] the image of the quiz. ([Shmarya Rosenberg] edited the translation slightly to make the grammar consistent):

1. Why does a Heavenly voice announce that this girl will belong to that man?

Correct answer: Because God decides who is the correct person for each person to marry.

2. Then why don't we know who our right marriage partner is? [I.e., why don’t we hear that Heavenly voice ourselves or have some other way to know for sure who are correct God-chosen spouse is?]

Correct answer: Because God does great miracles that we don't know the details of.

3. Why was each person created in this world?

Correct answer: To recite blessings, to pray to God, to study Torah, and to serve.

4. Explain what the [proper] role of a woman in this world is based on the verse "it is not good for man to be alone, I [God] will create him a helpmate.”

Correct answer: To ensure that her husband doesn't lack anything.

5. Why does man need a “helpmate”?

Correct answer: Because his job is to study Torah and therefore he can't [spend time] doing women’s work.

Give examples of how a woman encourages her husband and makes him happy:

1. She smiles at him
2. She is nice to him
3. She takes care of all his needs

6. Is a man who lives without a wife a complete human being? What is lacking in him? Quote what we cited above.

Correct answer: [The student did not answer this question.]

7. Explain why a woman who prepares food and clothing for her husband is “giving light to his eyes" and "puts him back on his feet.”

Correct answer: Because this is her job.

8. Explain the words of Rabbanit Kanievsky [who said], "with her husband, [a woman should speak and interact] only with sweetness.”

Correct answer: [The student did not answer this question.]

9. What is the example of a bad woman the Babylonian Talmud gives?

Correct answer: A woman who sets the table and decorates it, who prepares food, and then her husband enters the room, and she closes the door. [I’m not familiar with this reference or have forgotten it, but it appears to refer to a woman encouraging or asking for sex. – [Shmarya Rosenberg]]

[The image of the test is available in the link to the source of the quote - First-person pronouns have been replaced by the blogmaster's name]

Agudath Israel of America #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

[Original flyer in the source link]

Agudath Israel of America is sponsoring an event for women commemorating the life of Sarah Schenirer, the woman who founded the Bais Yaakov haredi school system for girls in 1917 – the first of its kind in the world. But in a fit of tzniut (haredi modesty) that would have been unthinkable in Schenirer's day, Agudah blurred out the women and girls in the historical photographs used in the event's flyer, and there is no portrait photograph of Schenirer in the flyer, even though several exist.

Meir Porush #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

[Formatting in original]

Israel’s haredi Deputy Education Minister Meir Porush told the Knesset plenum today that Women of the Wall should be “thrown to the dogs,” the Times of Israel reported.

Porush also used his allotted Knesset time to attack the Reform Movement, claiming the movement and its members are “responsible for the terrible intermarriage that we’ve been witnessing in the United States.”

Porush also emphasized what the Reform and Conservative Movements and Women of the Wall have now denied – that the location of the new egalitarian prayer area located south of the Kotel (Western Wall) proper near the Dung Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City is an “out-of-the-way corner. That’s where you belong. [All of them] should be thrown to the dogs,” Porush fumed.

In reaction to the tirade by Porush, the Conservative Movement’s Israel branch called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fire Porush. But that is unlikely to happen because Netanyahu’s coalition depends on the support of Porush’s Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism Party to stay in power.

The Reform Movement has not yet issued a response to Porush.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky #racist failedmessiah.typepad.com

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky – the senior rabbi of Teaneck, New Jersey’s largest Modern Orthodox synagogue, Congregation Bnai Yeshurun, and senior member of the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) – has called for Israel to use collective punishment against Israeli Arabs and West Bank Palestinians until these non-Jews realize “they have no future in the land of Israel.”

In a blog post titled “Dealing with Savages,” Pruzansky call for the destruction of Palestinian villages and towns and the destruction of the Dome of the Rock Muslim shrine on the Temple Mount.

Pruzansky couched the conflict between Jews and Arabs as a religious war being fought for the Land of Israel. Arabs living within the borders of the Land of Israel are all therefore Israel’s enemies, Pruzansky insisted.

“There is a war for the land of Israel that is being waged, and the Arabs who dwell in the land of Israel are the enemy in that war and must be vanquished,” Pruzansky wrote,later adding “that enemy rides our buses, shops in our malls, drives on our roads and lives just two miles from us.”

“The Arab-Muslim animals that span the globe chopping, hacking and merrily decapitating—At a certain point, the unrestrained behavior of unruly animals becomes the fault of the zookeeper [i.e., Israel], not the animals,” Pruzansky added.

Pruzansky went on to argue that Israel should destroy entire Arab villages if more than one terrorist lives there, and every resident of those villages should be expelled.

He argued that Arab – but not Jewish – rioters should be shot with live ammunition.

To avoid international condemnation, Pruzansky insisted that reporters should be barred from covering these riots or the destruction of Arab villages and the expulsion of their residents. Those reporters who are on scene anyway should have their cameras confiscated.

Pruzansky also argues that all Arabs should be barred from the Temple Mount for a minimum of six months.

Nissan Slomiansky and Bezalel Smotrich #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

[Link in original]

Israel’s Ministerial Committee for Legislation will decide tomorrow if it will back legislation that would sometimes require Israel’s secular courts to issue rulings on the basis of halakha (Orthodox Jewish law), Ha’aretz reported. Courts would be required to rely on halakha when existing case law does not provide a clear decision in the matter at hand.

The bill is sponsored by two members of Knesset from the right-wing Zionist Orthodox HaBayit HaYehudi Party, Nissan Slomiansky and Bezalel Smotrich.

[...]

A law passed in 1980, after Israel’s right-wing led by Menachem Begin formed a bloc with haredim and took Knesset, orders secular courts to use Jewish heritage when ruling on a matter that cannot be otherwise resolved through existing law or judicial precedent. Secular court judges, the 1980 law says, should base their rulings on “the principles of freedom, justice, integrity and peace of Jewish heritage.”

But, Slomiansky and Smotrich claim, judges rarely do this because the law is vaguely worded and because the secular courts are allowed to rule by inferring judgements from alternative secular legal sources.

The new law proposed by Slomiansky and Smotrich says that in cases in which a legal matter has no judicial precent, case law or actual Knesset-passed law to resolve it, secular court judges would have to turn to halakha to find a source for their ruling before using alternative secular legal sources (like, for example, case law from other Western democracies).

The new law would also spell out where in the vast compendium of halakha secular judges should look to for their rulings. The proposed law’s language explicitly says “judges may rule on the basis of the Code of Jewish Law.”

[...]

The Israel Democracy Institute points out that the 1980 law mandates that if a secular court doesn’t resolution to an issue of law in existing case law by allowed inference, it must rule “in the light of the principles of freedom, justice, integrity and peace of Jewish heritage” – wording which makes clear secular law and existing legal precedents take precedence over halakha.

But the new bill proposed by Slomiansky and Smotrich changes this order of hierarchy and inserts halakha into the judicial process before legal inference. The proposed bill also removes the phrase “the principles of freedom, justice, integrity and peace of Jewish heritage” and replaces it with the term “halakha.” That gives short shrift to Jewish theology (for instance, the theology of the great medieval Jewish scholars known as the Rishonim) and commands secular judges to rely on a compendium of halakha that is by no means the final word on Jewish law.

Jesode Hatora - Beth Jacob School and Isi Morsel #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

[Hyperlink in original - Pic of the letter in the source page]

A mother of a student at the Jesode Hatora — Beth Jacob School in Antwerp received a modesty form letter from the school’s management threatening her with “unpleasant steps” if she did not fully conform to the school’s modesty requirements, the Forward reported based on a report in the Belgian Jewish weekly newspaper Joods Actueel.

The letter, first publicized by a group called Jesode Hatora - Beth Jacob Watch, contained the dress code and other modesty requirements the woman was expected to follow and noted that “unfortunately, there has been a weakness on your behalf in adhering to some of the above rules.—[Mothers of pupils are expected to follow all of these rules] at all times and especially at all school activities, i.e. bringing/fetching school parties and parent-teacher meetings.—Further non-compliance with the school will result in unpleasant steps being taken which we want to avoid if at all possible.”

On Monday the principal of Jesode Hatora - Beth Jacob Isi Morsel wrote a letter to all parents defending the “Dear mother” modesty letter. He claimed school management sent the “Dear mother” letter in response to a petition signed by 180 parents. Those parents complained that the school wasn’t enforcing its strict modesty rules that were being broken by a small number of parents. He also claimed the modesty rules only are meant to apply when mothers are on school premises involved in school activities.

In response to the “Dear mother” letter, the education minister for Flanders, the region of Belgium that includes Antwerp, called for a review of school dress codes while Fons Duchateau, Antwerp’s alderman in charge of diversity, lashed out at the school, which is state-funded, and demanded its management provide an explanation for the letter. She reportedly said that while she supports freedom of religion, “tying school choices to wardrobe choices is beyond going too far.”

Chaim Babad #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

(In response to an article about Women Of the Wall, a Jewish women's prayer group, not being able to use a Torah as part of their service, held at the Western Wall)

wow stands for wackow woman.these woman are all lesbian, i join my islamic brothers who detest these people,who's only goal is to destroy the moral fabric of society. i would rather live in a palestian state then under a country who are plauristic that filled with hate and contempt to all except there "MODERN PEOPLE" AGAIN STICK TO A BLOG ABOUT WHITE COLLAR CRIMINAL CHAREDIM

Aryeh Deri and Eli Yishai #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

[Bolding and hyperlinks original]

Ha’aretz sent a questionnaire to the heads of every Israeli political party about a month ago.

[...]

Leaders of most of the right-wing parties, including the Yisrael Beiteinu Party led by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, refused to answer any of the questions.

But the other parties’ leaders did answer, among them the Sefardi haredi Shas Party headed by Aryeh Deri; its breakaway, the harder right-wing Yachad Party headed by former Shas head Eli Yishai; and the United Arab List’s Ayman Odeh.

All three politicians said they believe in God. But they differed dramatically with regard to evolution, which has been settled science for decades.

Aryeh Deri, Chairman of the Shas Party: “As an ultra-Orthodox party that believes that our forefathers were Adam and Eve, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and that our holy matriarchs were Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, we refuse to teach our children that they originated from apes.”

Eli Yishai, Chariman of the Yachad Party: “It should not be taught.”

Rabbi Yosef Mizrahi #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

[In this video] Rabbi Yosef Mizrahi says non-Orthodox Jews are supposed to suffer, Orthodox women who were murdered in the Holocaust honored God while non-Orthodox women murdered in the Holocaust did not, and claims that the Holocaust was "five years of punishment to many wicked people that Hashem [God] give [sic]." He also extols Yemen because its inhabitants, including the Jews, are "primitive" and claims no Yemenite Jew ever broke Shabbat until Yemenite Jews fled Yemen for modern Israel.

Followers of Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach #fundie failedmessiah.typepad.com

In more haredi war news, the Maayanei Hayeshua Medical Center in the haredi city of Bnei Brak has been sharply criticized by Auerbach’s faction, as well, after some haredi yeshiva students began volunteering to help the medical staff. Auerbach's faction complained that this volunteering would cause the haredi yeshiva students to neglect their yeshiva studies, and therefore it should be stopped immediately.

Hospital officials reportedly responded that before asking the students to volunteer, they had asked rabbis who ruled that it was permissible because it is taking part in as saving lives, and is therefore a mitzvah.

Auerbach’s faction, however, disagrees.

Almost no haredim serve in the IDF and the minuscule number said to be serving in Gaza are a only a tiny percentage of what the number should be proportionate to the haredi population of Israel.

Haredi rabbinic leaders from all factions have ascribed Israel’s relative safety from thousands of Hamas rockets and missiles to various magic formulations based on God’s protection of the Land of Israel and the Jewish people, but have refused to acknowledge or thank the IDF, IDF soldiers, the Iron Dome missile defense system, the scientists who developed it and who help run it, or the US, which paid for it.

“Everything is really all from God,” one haredi rabbi recently said, going on to say that putting any trust in the Iron Dome or even praising it was a form of “idol worship.”