Israel’s Great Rabbis?

Elliot Resnick writes:

Israeli "gedolim" are really a curious lot. They take stands on the most peculiar issues and remain silent on issues that seem to demand an outcry.

Sparking the above observation is the ban — signed by Rav Elyashiv, Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, Rabbi Chaim Pinchas Sheinberg, the Gerrer and Belzer Rebbes and more — of an Avram Fried/Shwekey concert in Jerusalem.

At first I thought that the laws against playing live music in Jerusalem (a long-debated topic in Jewish law) sparked this ban. Instead it turns out that the rabbis are concerned with the intermingling of men and women (although curiously, the rabbis oppose the concert even if the men and women are seated separately, which apparently they are).

Now obviously immodesty is an important and relevant issue, which perhaps calls for the rabbis’ intervention (although in my experience, this concern is not really existent at concerts with separate sitting). However, is a ban really called for? A ban is a serious matter. Why take such a harsh approach?

A harsh approach might be called for when gays from around the world march in Jerusalem, spitting God in the face in one of the worst ways imaginable. Yet, when that matter came up this summer and last summer, most of these rabbis turned mute.