658 Montgomery Street. 1K
Brooklyn, NY 11225
Rosh Chodesh Sivan, 5765
To whom it may concern;
Recently a book was published with the title “Comrade: a gripping story of self-sacrifice and kiddush hashem” by Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser ????"?.
After an attempt to stop the sale of the book, and after receiving multiple inquiries about my role in this book, I am forced to tell the truth to the public.
This book was not the brainchild and compilation of the author, as he would like to portray1, rather it was already written up and complied by myself with the help of others by the time the author set his eyes on it, and was compiled in response to the request of the Lubavitcher Rebbe that Chassidim record their history and stories of self-sacrifice.
What was most shocking to me though, was that the manuscript which was given to the author in order to translate into English and despite countless requests to see the manuscript before publication he avoided showing it to any of my family members. Instead, he rushed to print my work heavily censuring out, (to my utter dismay) any reference of Lubavitch, their leaders2, or the Yeshiva Tomchei Tmimim. Also, he simply invented an extensive amount of the story.
When the extent of his forgery was brought to my attention, that entire sentences were translated word for word only to omit the name “Schneerson” or words like “Farbrengen”, I inquired with my relatives and was told that the author had reportedly said “if the Chabad family saw the manuscript, then it would have been ruined and it would not have been able to be published.”
Therefore, in order to stand clean, ?????? ????? ??’ ???????, I want to publicly declare, that the product is not what I wrote, (one can obtain my Yiddish original "??????? ??? ?????" in stores) I did not have any part in the falsifications and historical revisionism, I do not take part in the attempt to erase the history of my dear Rebbes who stood by me in my dark days in Soviet Russia and it’s Gulags. I therefore object to all of this nonsense done in my name.
Sincerely,
Boruch Mordechai Lifshitz
Formerly the Shochet of Moscow
What Is Marc B. Shapiro’s Ideology?
He says he’s Modern Orthodox and he seems to me to be Modern Orthodox.
And I guess that’s the answer to the question in my headline.
I asked Marc about his ideology Saturday night and he essentially said he was just a scholar.
But he must have a distinct ideology to write things like this:
Why would a scholar such as Dr. Shapiro be troubled by a rabbi’s attitude towards any group? Isn’t Marc Shapiro just doing scholarship? If he’s just doing scholarship, then why give a hoot if a rabbi says things that offend modern sensibilities? If Shapiro’s going to be troubled by that, then how could he not be troubled by the Torah where God commands genocide and dozens of other horrible things? So why get selective with outrage over a rabbi’s negative comments about women and penitents?
Joe emails: "You are making an interesting point inadvertantly. The idea that rabbis, particularly rabbis who are not the community posek, ie, rabbis who give shiurim in a yeshiva, are infallible and to be followed blindly without question, is a new phenomenon of the Artscroll/Aish Hatorah mentality of the last twenty to thirty years in the US, and since R. Shach and "daas Torah" in Israel (so since around the 80s). Prior to that, Jews were rather sophisticated in choosing yeshivot, teachers, rebbeim, and chassidic courts based on ideology, levels of Torah knowledge, etc. Let’s not even begin to think about pre-war Lithuania, where there were actual ideological movements in competition within the yeshivot. This fetishization of contemporary rabbis as daas torah is a recent phenomenon and probably is a result of the distinct decrease of their intellectual and learning ability, with political force substituting for respect based on achievement."