Vaccinate the Gay Away…. Huh? Rabbi Daniel Asor and His Dangerous Assertions…

If Vaccinations Cause Homosexuality, Can they Then Cure It?

There are no words to describe the the following article which almost feels like it should be satirical, if it were not such a serious and perilous approach to both vaccinations and homosexuality. Rabbi David Asor, who has tens of thousands of followers has told his followers that vaccinating against Covid-19 using a vaccination that has an embryonic substrate could cause homosexuality. It is important to note that leading religious leaders have supported vaccinating their communities. But Asor’s positions are dangerous.

Fervently religious observers of all faiths, sports fans, rioters and many protestors have put their followers, fans and fellow supporters at great risk. They have spread that risk to innocents, civilians with whom they come into contact following their acts of Constitutionally protected speech and assembly. Thousands and thousands have died or been sickened, some losing their livelihoods, some losing their homes, some spending months in and out of autoimmune flare-ups, not because they made a choice to be a proverbial conscientious objector. How Constitutional freedoms even have a place in a world that has been wholly upended due to Covid-19 remains a point of scholarly debate – but that’s an article for another day.

It may be that the only path to normalcy is vaccination, a point many religious leaders have acknowledged. But Azor is afraid of injecting a homosexuality gene? Huh?

Rabbi David Azor believes – and has preached his gospel – that Covid-19 was spread to cull the population, that Bill Gates is “trying to establish a new world order,” that a number of US governmental organizations are trying to create a “brutal arm” and that the vaccinations against Covid-19 can cause homosexuality. Let’s just say for a second that all of those assertions are correct. Ask yourself to define “organized and zealous” religious practice. Is it not similarly a way of controlling fellow followers, creating a religious world order? All organized religion, protest, cronyism, following is a form of control – whether it is control of religious belief and activity, methodology in protest, cronyism to political parties – it is all about control and some sort of vast organizing of the controlling body versus the controlled populous.

While many would disagree, sexual orientation and preference is not a choice. It is as much a part of a person’s being as their DNA. And it should be embraced like blue eyes, red hair, height and everything else there is about a person. We don’t need to love it or even approve of it, but acceptance and tolerance should come without question, it should be part of this “world order” to which Asor ascribes. To assume homosexuality can be “cured” by prayer, conversion therapy or some other form of demeaning and dehumanizing practice is to engage in abuse. Full stop. To assume that it can be spread or somehow injected is an absurdity.

But, let’s assume for a second that Asor is correct, that a virus based in human embryonic substrate can somehow cause homosexuality – only for the purposes of academic argument, we ask Rabbi Daniel Asor if the converse is also true.

If vaccinations can cause homosexuality then is the converse also true? Can vaccinations then cure homosexuality? Certainly it must work both ways?

Israel has vaccinated 1.8 million people in record time | Illustration: Reuters/Dado Ruvic

Popular rabbi warns followers COVID vaccine ‘could make you gay’

In addition to purporting a false link between vaccines and homosexuality, Rabbi Daniel Asor also claims that both the virus and the vaccines are the work of a “global malicious government” trying to “establish a new world order.”

Rabbi Daniel Asor’s assertion goes against decrees issued by leading rabbis in Israel and around the world, who have called on ultra-Orthodox society to take every precaution against the global pandemic, including getting vaccinated.

The Haredi community has recorded extremely high morbidity rates due to repeated flouting of social distancing directives.

Asor, who has tens of thousands of followers on social media, is no stranger to controversy. In his latest online sermons, he argued that “any vaccine made using an embryonic substrate, and we have evidence of this, causes opposite tendencies. Vaccines are taken from an embryonic substrate, and they did that here, too, so … it can cause opposite tendencies.”

In addition to purporting a false link between vaccines and homosexuality, Assur also advocates various conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, claiming, among other things, that both the virus and the vaccines are the work of a “global malicious government,” comprising the Freemasons, the Illuminati, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and others, who are “trying to establish a new world order.”

He further argues that the virus was released to “cull global population” and that the vaccines seek to further this agenda.

Asor calls the World Health Organization and pharma giants Pfizer and Moderna “criminal organizations” that have deliberately mislead ultra-Orthodox leaders into supporting vaccination drives by presenting them with false data on its components and efficiency.

Further spinning his conspiracy theory, Asor claims that the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, a Department of Homeland Security that has joined forces with Israel’s National Emergency Authority to battle the pandemic, maintains a “brutal army” in Israel that will be secretly embedded with local law enforcement to further the global government’s nefarious agenda.

It should be stressed that leading rabbis in the Sephardi and Ashkenazi comminutes have deemed COVID-19 vaccines to be safe and are urging their followers to be immunized.

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Crimes and Misdemeanors, Survival of the Frummest – Systemic Fraud [Opinion]

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This opinion piece is being posted with full permission of the Author, Rabbi Yossi N. Minor edits and formatting changes have been made from the original which can be found on Facebook, here.

Survival of the Frummest, Part 3 — Crimes and Misdemeanors –

One of the most troubling aspects of today’s ultra-Orthodox community is the systemic fraud perpetuated by so-called frumme Yidden. This fraud, aka geneivishe shtick, comes in many varieties and flavors, but the common denominator is that it’s all illegal. The most prevalent of these frauds are those perpetrated against government social welfare programs.To the extent that there is welfare abuse within the hareidi community, one may ask, what makes it systemic? The answer is simple: the various Hareidi community councils (BP, CH, Willie, etc.) actively encourage and assist community members to sign up for every welfare program available. Now, it is true that many of these individuals were eligible for the programs at the time they signed up, but as their income grows, they become ineligible. However, once a hareidi individual with little secular education is dependent on government welfare, he will be reluctant to give up welfare benefits.And this is precisely the Hareidi communities’ game plan from day one. In other words, the community consciously regards the government’s social safety net — food stamps, medicaid, wic, section 8, etc. — as part of their budget, not as a last resort for a few struggling individuals. Every year, hundreds of Hareidim get married with the intention beforehand of relying on government welfare to make ends meet. The Crown Heights Community Council and the various other Hareidi community councils in NYC were established with the purpose, among others, of filling out welfare forms for community members. Thus, to use yeshiva language, welfare for Hareidim is not a believed, but rather a lechatchillah.An integral part of the welfare fraud and abuse within the Hareidi community is the wide-spread phenomena of working off the books, or under the table. Without working off the books, families’ income may increase over time to the point of risking losing welfare benefits. This is the reason that most, if not all, yeshiva teachers, rebbes, and administrators work either completely off the books or half on and half off. By working off the books, the Hareidi community also ensures that their taxes will be lower than otherwise – or that they’ll pay no taxes at all. In short, as the Talmud teaches, aveirah goreret aveirah, a transgression brings another transgression in its wake.

This is how Hareidi welfare fraud leads to tax fraud.

One might assume that welfare fraud would be more likely to be committed by the 40% of Hareidim who live below the poverty line. But Hareidi fraud is not confined to the poor alone. On the contrary, as you climb up the food chain, the fraud only gets larger and more pernicious.

Rubashkin from Crown Heights and Samet from Kiryas Joel are perhaps the most colorful and well-known criminal defendants within the Hareidi community. However, the minyan at the Otisville Correctional Facility is large and ever-changing as new members join and old members leave .This is not to say there is no fraud within the Modern Orthodox Jewish community.

The implosion of Platinum Partners — the shady hedge fund run by Murray Huberfeld and Mark Nordlicht — is one example of fraudulent activity perpetrated by members of the MO community. Overall, though, MO fraud is not a community organized activity. An MO council to help individuals apply for welfare does not exist in Teaneck. The same cannot be said for the Hareidi community, where the fraud is wide-spread and systemic and where many members are semi-literate at best in English.

One may ask, how can systemic fraud be so prevalent in ultra-Orthodox communities? Aren’t they meant to be the ones upholding the Torah, which directly forbids stealing?

The answer is rather straightforward: stealing from the government, ie. gentiles, is not considered stealing. The logic behind this notion goes something like this: the Talmud rules that one need not return the lost object of a gentile or excess money paid for goods by mistake. Welfare benefits are akin to a lost object or excess money – and thus need not be returned. This is where racism also comes into play. Hareidim claim that welfare fraud is pervasive among other minority communities, so why shouldn’t we also get money from the government? At least we’re using it for Torah and Mitzvot!

It’s only a matter of time before the government wakes up and realizes the systemic nature of welfare fraud within Hareidi enclaves. When that time comes, which it will eventually, Hareidi society will have to begin preparing its youth for the real world. Until then, the fraud continues.

By: Rabbi Yossi N.

The Crisis of Authority in Haredi Ranks and the Void Left Behind – Covid-19

ORTHODOX JEWS IN BROOKLYN ON APRIL 29, 2020. SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES.

American Orthodoxy’s Twilight of Authority

When the established rabbis go silent, others, including civic-minded philanthropists and charismatic outsiders with inflammatory social-media presences, fill the void.

The events this autumn in Brooklyn’s ḥaredi (Orthodox) communities have been quite extraordinary, even revelatory. Contrary to popular hope, herd immunity to the coronavirus has not been achieved; the city government’s response to the new second wave has been heavy-handed and possibly discriminatory; and in turn its legitimate attempts to enforce closures, social distancing, and mask wearing have been spurned rather than obeyed, thanks in part to the emergence of the since-arrested agitator Heshy Tischler as an outspoken voice for what he hopes constitutes the silent majority of the ḥaredi world. That this convict-turned-politician-turned-radio-host-turned-riot-inciter has found significant—though by no means total or even majority—support for his combative message reflects important and overlooked changes in the ḥaredi community in recent years, most notably the appearance of a serious crisis of authority in its ranks. This is most revelatory of all. As America at large is dealing with the hollowing out of institutions and the rise of politicians with inflammatory social-media presence, the ḥaredi world is too, even if the institutions are rabbinic and the social-media platform is more likely to be WhatsApp than Twitter.

Ḥaredi attitudes toward leadership have long differed from those of their surrounding communities, Jewish or gentile. Much of the community subscribes to a theology of Daas Torah (“knowledge of Torah”), whereby leading rabbis—those with the greatest degree of Torah knowledge and therefore the greatest degree of insight into the divine mind—are empowered to make all major communal decisions. We see this approach very much in effect today in Israel, where the two senior rabbinic authorities—Rabbi Gershon Edelstein and Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky—are engaged in political negotiations through the ḥaredi parties, in determining when to reopen yeshivas, and simultaneously in messaging to their communities on how to proceed. The two rabbis having often been at odds with each other in recent months notwithstanding, the fact remains that the prevailing ideology of Daas Torah dictates that these rabbis (and their courts and handlers) make policy on nearly every issue for their ḥaredi followers. In America, a similar rabbinic seat of authority rests with the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah, the council of great rabbinic sages, which is affiliated with the Agudath Israel of America. (The organization lost its leader, Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, “the Novominsker rebbe,” to COVID-19 in April, added several members in September, in a move towards relative youth, and lost Rabbi Dovid Feinstein, one of its elder statesmen, just two weeks ago.)

For as long as there have been rabbis, those possessing expertise in Torah knowledge have been consulted on issues large and small in their areas of training—Talmud and halakhah (Jewish law). Daas Torah goes well beyond that, into a presumption that their training in Torah qualifies leading rabbis as experts to be consulted on all worldly issues. There is some controversy as to when exactly the approach took hold. Lawrence Kaplan and Jacob Katz, two historians of Jewish law, have argued that this is an innovation of the modern period, possibly stemming from the 18th-century revolution of Ḥasidism. Others, like the rabbi Alfred Cohen, have argued for roots in the pre-modern period.

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Hareidim – A Primer – “Fundamentalism is a Recent Creation”

This is being reprinted with permission from the administrators of the “Frum Watch” Facebook Site. It speaks to the differences among various Jewish sects. For Additional Reading we invite you to also consult a site called “Rationalist Judaism with other notes by Rabbi Dr. Natan Slifkin.

The Hareidim – a Primer

In light of the recent civil unrest and civil disobedience displayed in hareidi communities the world over, we bring to you a short primer on the Haredim. Hopefully, this brief outline will afford our readers a better understanding of the nature and composition of the community.

Not all haredim are hasidic, but all hasidim are haredim. In general, the hareidi community comprises two distinct communities, hasidim and non-hasidim. Both are ultra-Orthodox Jews, also known as frum Jews, hence the name of this Facebook group. The hasidic community contains multiple sects, such as Satmar, Chabad, Ger, Belz, and many others. For the most part, all the hasidic sects are at odds with each other, with some also at war. The reasons for this division and rancor are varied, some are battles over turf, others battles over ideology and influence. For example, the Satmar and Chabad sects have been at war for the better part of the past 50 years. However, of late, they have agreed upon a cold truce. This detente was due to the joining of forces to repel the treif influence of the internet and other evil secular influences.

Hasidic sects, except Chabad and Breslov, are led by a living rebbe, or admor (grand rabbi). Chabad is still in the throes of its failed messianic experiment, which collapsed with the death of M.M. Schneerson, their rebbe, in 1994. Unable to accept their leader’s failure to bring the messiah, Chabad leaders have refused to appoint a rebbe in his place. Most Chabad followers recognize their rebbe’s death and burial in Montefiore Cemetery, Queens; however, some still refuse to accept that he is no longer among the living. This extreme Messianic faction controls the main 770 synagogue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. They believe the rebbe is the long awaited messiah and, though we can’t see him, is still alive.

The case of Breslov is somewhat similar to that of Chabad in that a new leader was never appointed after Rebbe Nachman’s (their founder) death in 1810. Breslov, too, is a fervently messianic group. However, Breslov has never officially proclaimed Rebbe Nachman as messiah, but instead insisted that his light will burn until the messiah’s coming. Breslov hassidim place great importance on praying by Rebbe Nachman’s grave in Uman, Ukraine, on Rosh HaShana.

The non-hasidic hareidim, aka Litvish, aka yeshivish, Jews, mostly hail from the area of pre-war Lithuania and live in the Flatbush/Midwood section of Brooklyn and Lakewood, N.J. They are led by the non-hasidic faction of Agudas Israel of America. Agudah, for short, is the leading umbrella group of American ultra-Orthodox Jews. Agudah not only protects the interest of the non-hasidic community, it also tries to cover up the misdeeds of the hasidim. For this reason when the New York State Education Department ordered hasidic yeshivas to teach their students the mandated minimal secular subjects, it was Agudah who sued them in Federal Court. It was this same Agudah who recently sued Governor Cuomo when he ordered the shuls in Boro Park and Flatbush closed for Simchat Torah.

A third group of hareidim, that of Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews, also exists. This group is much more prominent in Israel, where their political party, Shas, holds 9 seats in the Knesset. Hareidi Sephardi and Mizrachi Jews are primarily found in the US in the Syrian community of Brooklyn.

All hareidim are suspicious of secular authority, scientific knowledge, and anything “modern.” They feel that they must reject secular authority whenever it infringes upon their Torah lifestyle. It is this rejection of secular authority that is behind all the ills in the hareidi community. For example, cheating on one’s taxes is legitimized because leading a Torah lifestyle is expensive and very costly — from private school yeshiva tuition to the price of glatt kosher meat. Working off the books and not paying taxes is the only way for many frumme to get by. In addition, cheating and scamming the welfare system is also legitimized on this account. How else is a frum family of 10 living in a 3 bedroom section 8 apartment going to survive?

The rejection of civil authority is also behind the widespread disregard of social distancing guidelines currently wreaking havoc in hareidi enclaves the world over. They believe, as the Belzer rebbe made clear, that they cannot allow the guidelines to interfere with their day-to-day Torah lifestyle. If people have to die, so be it, the Torah lifestyle must go on.

We must emphasize that the extreme fundamentalism of current hareidi practice, theology, and philosophy is a recent creation. In earlier times, observant Jews had a healthy respect for science, doctors, and civil authority. Whether on account of the Holocaust, the creation of the State of Israel, or otherwise, the hareidi community’s rejection of civil authority is unprecedented in the annals of Jewish history.

Please note that, though the demographics are not in their favor, there still exists a substantial group of Modern Orthodox (or MO) Jews. Modern Orthodox Jews are generally college educated professionals and businessmen. While ritually observant, this group is familiar with contemporary culture and respects the rule of secular law.

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New Square Celebration – Covid-19 Defiance in Rockland County

Last night in Rockland, NY (in New Square – founded by my great-uncle… my family really stepping up 🤦‍♀️) – end of Yom Tov (holiday) gathering.

Not sure what to feel anymore. It's not the whole community, but will continue calling it out.
Via @nmoster:pic.twitter.com/XXCqlW6zcV

— Abby Stein (@AbbyChavaStein) October 12, 2020

Feeling Targeted? Are Religious Jews Committed to Protecting Everyone? Covid-19

From the files of First Amendment Activist

Is this discrimination or is the uptick in Covid-19 cases within the ultra-Orthodox Community in the United States and in Israel a numerically quantifiable increase Covid-19 activity and spread that requires taking immediate and unequivocal action?

This man from Borough Park is well-spoken and wearing a mask He claims anti-Semitism and discrimination. However, it is our opinion that he is mistaken given the video footage available from the Spring, the Summer and now the Fall of the ultra-Orthodox community NOT abiding by Covid-19 restrictions, social distancing or keeping out of packed shuls.

Is also quite tragic that this man seemed okay with a group beating up a “Moser” [snitch] which is the tragedy within this community. There seems to be a line drawn between the acceptable and the unaccepted.

This is posted, however, with respect and admiration insofar as the speaker who is being respectful and, as already stated, is wearing a mask.

He also may very well be accurate regarding the safety of walking around in his community late at night (so long as you are not a “Moser”).

The tragedy is that his views are shared by much of the community that feels the good it does exempts it from the necessity of compliance and “civil justice” appears to be okay.

We hold that religion does not exempt the community from being respectful regarding Covid-19 a threat to everyone.

Are Haredi Jews Inciting Anti-Semitic Violence by Their Own Defiance? – Covid