David Kelsey emails: “You idiot! You moron. You katan. You cow. You idiot!”
This is how Rabbi Orlofsky, a former NCSY leader and “kiruv professional” talks to his students at Ohr Somayach about Rabbi Weinreb, a scholar and a gentleman, and emeritus spiritual leader of the Orthodox Union. Many even outside strict Orthodox circles admire Rabbi Weinreb because he is a thoughtful, complex, and compassionate thinker.
What was Rabbi Weinreb’s provocation? Defending Rabbi Slifkin’s right to publish a book that embraced evolutionary theory and an earth older than 6,000 years.
And yet…NCSY, an Orthodox Union subsidiary, continues to quietly send public school teenagers to Ohr Somayah and Neve Yerushalayim, and are afforded greater and greater access to non-Orthodox Jews from the public school system through their “cultural” program, the Jewish Student Union. Yeshiva University continues to maintain a relationship with Ohr Somayach’s Derech Institute.
Please listen to Rabbi Orlofsky’s two podcasts on Failed Messiah: http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2010/08/audio-what-ohr-somayach-teaches-its-students-567.html#comments
Rabbi Burg, isn’t it time to officially break ties with this institution, just as NCSY would with ANY institution belonging to a non-Orthodox Jewish denomination? Isn’t it time to make it official NCSY policy that Ohr Somayach and her sister school, Neve Yerushalyim, are outside the paradigm of acceptable institutions for your advisers to facilitate public school graduate attendance?
