Chaim Amalek writes:
More and more frequently one encounters young yeshivish Jews in New York who speak with a weird, unplaceable accent. When interviewed on television, they seem to be mentally slow to the point where one wonders if they might not be brain damaged. Sometimes they are, but usually they are not. What is happening is that although they have grown up here in America, they have been isolated from America to the point that they can barely speak English. Increasingly, it just isn’t spoken at home or in their yeshivas. Also, they seem to know virtually nothing of science, mathematics, history, music or anything else of extra-Talmudic origin. These are young men (the young women are invisible – are they all home taking care of their children?) whose life prospects have been circumcised by the design of the not-so-learned elders of Zion, the ultra -orthodox rabbinate, who appear to have concluded that if it isn’t in the Talmud, it isn’t worth knowing, so why waste time in the yeshiva teaching it?
Thanks to their Palestinian-like habits of procreation, their part of the Jewish world may indeed be growing by leaps and bounds. But it is also experiencing substantial inbreeding and downward movement in terms of its ability to interact with the broader world and influence events. I know they think that their forms of prayer and study of the Talmud will suffice no matter what, but that experiment was tried by their antecedents in Poland and Hungary during WW II with disastrous results.
Concerned Jews should stop supporting ultra-orthodox charities and communal institutions, as they are bad for the Jews.
Joe emails:
Luke, please proofread and spellcheck my emails before
you post them. It’s an embarassment for the jews to
have such bad typos!
I agree with amalek, that mainstream jews need to be made aware that their funding of the yeshiva world is akin to the sloppy monetary policy that created this subprime credit bubble mess.
Every dollar donated to yeshiva’s (like Lakewood) helps churn out a generation of ignorant field niggers and talibaner’s.
No only are "secular" studies given short shrift and considered unimportant, torah is placed on the back burner, and ethics completely forgotten.
97% of yeshiva graduates are incapable of normal function outside of the "black velvet" belt of lakewood, boro park, monsey, etc.
The reason that I don’t proof your emails before publication is that I want to make your point about the lack of good secular education at many yeshivot.
