A Result of Chasidic Culture or American/Western Culture?

Everyone is up in arms with this article that was published yesterday, an interview with a Chasidic developer from Brooklyn. When I first read this article I was utterly shocked and my immediate response was that this Chasidic guy is so stupid, he has no inkling that he is doing and saying something wrong. At best, this guy is a stupid ignoramus; at worst, he’s an outright racist and a bad person.

Many (including my friends and fellow bloggers Fred MacDowell and Shulem Deen) have commented extensively on this article, some pointing to some inherent flaws of Chasidim as a society that causes such behavior. I would like to examine this issue from two different and unique perspectives and show that this has nothing with the Chasidic society as a whole. If the Chasidic society can be blamed for something it is for the ignorance portrayed in this guy’s bold and blatant way of saying these statements – so matter-of-factly – in a public medium. But first I would like to state clearly my strong opposition to such behavior regardless who perpetuated it. I have actually written on this topic before and called some of them out on this blog and on other forums.

The ignorant bigoted and superstitious statements are possibly a result of the Chasidic upbringing but the behavior is in my opinion a result of the American dream.

The American dream says that anyone and everyone can be successful. Success in America is measured by the bottom line on your balance sheet, how much money you earned, how much real estate you own etc. We exalt making lots of money more than anything else. The sharks on the popular TV show ‘Shark Tank’ are heroes to millions of Americans, including many Chasidim. Hundreds of books are published every year on how this person or those people went from rags to riches and how YOU can do it too. These books are extremely popular. No one will read a book on how a person didn’t have a job, how they went into real estate and when they reached an earned income level of two hundred thousand dollars, they were satisfied and stopped working. No one will publish a book that tells the story of how someone was an honest hard working plumber all his life, paid his bills and never went to Cancun or Hawaii for vacation.

This is the world that we live in. People grow up knowing that it is their duty to work hard, take risks and become as rich as possible. People see it as their duty to make sure that their business runs as efficiently as possible to turn the highest profit possible. Some paint it with an altruistic paint brush and say that it is their duty to the shareholders of their company. They will say whatever makes them feel better, but at the end of the day they are the ones going home with millions or billions in their bank account, not the shareholders.

This isn’t a result of the Chasidic upbringing; this is a result of an American capitalistic greedy upbringing. When a CEO takes home a million dollar bonus, flies in a private jet and parties on a luxury yacht, while hundreds of (black) employees in his company toil away seventy hours a week to bring home a minimum wage salary that doesn’t cover their expenses, is that a result of the Chasidic society? How about when banks foreclose on homes while turning a multi-billion dollar profit “for its shareholders”? Is that also a result of the Chasidic upbringing? When companies lay off thousands of workers, thus rendering them and their families homeless, whose fault is that?

Isn’t this exactly what these shark real estate investors are doing? Aren’t they simply running a business as efficiently as possible to bring in the most money they can? Why when these people behave so atrociously do you blame the Chasidic system? This has nothing to do with the Chasidic system; this has to do with the American system, one which the separatist and sheltered Chasidim have unfortunately not succeeded in protecting themselves from.

I know many developers who do this, many are Chasidim, as are most people I interact with on a daily basis, but many are secular or non-Jewish altogether. I judge these people very harshly but not differently than the way I judge any other ambitious businessman – that will do whatever they can within the grey confines of the law and still get away with it – to make more money and become richer, while people around them suffer because or despite of them.

Another point that needs to be taken into account, in order to gain some perspective, is the archaic and somewhat unfair nature of rent control laws in some areas. I’m not very familiar with the specific laws in order to be able to comment on the topic on an intellectual level, but I do know that most of the shenanigans that we are discussing here happen mostly in these areas that have such properties that are protected by these laws. I have read many explanations as to why it happens. The point is that the government needs to do a hard examination on those laws and see if they aren’t ending up hurting those same people that they are meant to protect. Sometimes the Talmudic idiom is correct, “the mouse isn’t the thief; the hole is the thief”.

An Important Lesson That My Kid Taught Me

Sometimes we are so self absorbed that we don’t notice our own kids and how they morph into this unique human being. We see our kids as extensions of ourselves, as a being that we need to help shape and form. We dismiss them as little kids with no sense of morality and fairness. They receive the most attention when they do something that makes US look really good or really bad. But we need to take a step back every once in a while and view them not as OUR kid, or not as a kid at all.

There is much that we could learn from our own kids, if only we could learn to listen to them and respect THEM more. I learned this one day when I had the following conversation with one of my kids.

He came home from school very upset and distraught.

Me: Why are you so upset today?

Him: My rebbe hit me today.

Me: I’m sure you aren’t claiming that he just hit you out of the blue for no reason at all. What did you do?

Him: I tore up a paper into tiny pieces and my rebbe told me not to. Later someone passed my desk and all the papers went flying all over the class floor. My rebbe got very upset and he hit me on top of my head. It’s not fair! I was in the process of throwing the papers in the garbage, that boy passed and they all flew away. It was not intentional.

Me: Giving him a big hug, I told him that people make mistakes, rebbes are human beings and they could also make mistakes.

At this point his eyes welled up and he says in a choking voice: That’s exactly my point! I understand that he made a mistake, but why can’t he understand that I too am a human being that makes mistakes sometimes?

I gave him another hug and I said: You are so right.

I was amazed how this little human being picked up on this great point that we adults fail to see. We expect from kids what we don’t expect of ourselves. We give ourselves and other adults the benefit of the doubt in areas that we wouldn’t do it for kids. We really should.

When a Community Became So Heartless – Part 2

This week, in the Satmar newspaper ‘Der Blatt’, there was a letter to the editor from supposedly a local school administrator. Here’s a rough translation of the letter.

Dear editor,

You may hear your friends besmirching the schools and the leadership because their kids weren’t accepted to a school. Instead of giving the schools credit for keeping the schools pious and on a high standard, people are talking bad about and defaming the school’s reputation.  

If you hear such slandering you should know that most of these originate from the loathsome ‘Whatsapp’, where people incite each other with lies and deceit.

As a school administrator I can assure you that we judge every single Jewish soul in full earnestness and the decisions aren’t taken easy. If the decision (to reject a child) is due to the parent’s behavior, well, for this it says “The wise have eyes in their heads”.

In short, there is no problem at all with our school system and its terrible selection process, the problem is Whatsaap.

Divergent – The Biggest Threat To Our Society

di·ver·gent – diˈvərjənt,dī- – adjective – tending to be different or develop in different directions.

I am not a big fan of futuristic fantasy movies but somehow this movie resonated with me very strongly and I found it extremely entertaining. It wasn’t the storyline or the acting that got me; rather it was the underlying messages and motifs that hit so close to home.

‘Divergent’ is a story set in in a futuristic dystopian Chicago. After world war destroys society, the remaining people are divided into five factions: Abnegation (the selfless), Amity (the peaceful), Candor (the honest) – they become the judges and lawyers, Dauntless (the brave) – they become the law enforcement, and Erudite (the intelligent) – they become the scholars, scientists, inventors etc.

At the age of sixteen every boy and girl undergoes a serum-based aptitude test that indicates the faction into which they would best fit. The child is then free to choose which faction they want to join. After passing a grueling initiation process they become official members of that faction. If they don’t pass the process they are relegated to society’s fringe group, the faction-less (homeless). Once a faction is chosen, there’s no changing and there’s no going back home. All this is done to ensure the peace and harmony, and that “human nature” won’t interfere and harm what is deemed the progress and betterment of all the people.

The biggest threat to society is the ‘divergent’, because the divergent doesn’t fully fit into any of the five factions, the divergent is intelligent, the divergent is an independent thinker, the divergent follows the path which nature dictates them rather than simply following the herd. There’s always the fear that they won’t conform to hierarchy. The divergent must be found out and eradicated from society at any cost. Members of all groups (besides Abnegation) are trained and programmed to spy on their friends in an effort to weed out those few divergent.

Divergent members who succeed in fooling the system must quickly learn to play the system, or they will be found out and face the harsh consequences. The divergent in ‘Dauntless’ has to learn to think, speak and act like a Dauntless. The divergent must do things that go against their beliefs and against nature or they may lose their lives. The divergent doesn’t have the liberty to express their real thoughts and beliefs, they definitely wouldn’t dare to wonder aloud and question the standard principles and opinions, as this might give away the fact that they are actually divergent and this is deemed the greatest threat to society.

When one divergent finally recognizes another divergent among their peers, they could allow themselves to express their real thoughts and feelings without fear. They can also help and support each other navigate in their tough deceptive lives. This makes it easier for the both of them and they could each look out for the other.

I don’t want to ruin the movie for those who haven’t seen it yet, so I won’t share the rest of the plot. I wonder, how many of you can identify with this idea? Some people say that they feel like a square peg being fitted into a round hole. I don’t think that there are square pegs or round pegs in society. I think that there are people in society. Every person is made up of different and diverse personalities which includes being somewhat square, somewhat circle, somewhat triangle etc. Trying to fit anyone into anything isn’t anyone’s greater good other than the fitter’s. This, though, is only concerning being squeezed and uncomfortable, as opposed to the divergent, for them it is a matter of life and death. There are so many more thoughts to share on this idea, but we’ll leave it here for now. I strongly recommend this movie, if any of this resonates with you. Enjoy!

When a Community Became So Heartless

I came across this article in an old Ami magazine that brought me to tears. Due to lack of time, I won’t repost the whole article. A short synopsis, some quotes and a picture of the full article should suffice. I urge you all to print it and spread the word, so that we can create awareness and hopefully stop this nonsense that has gone way too far for way too long.

This five year old kid was rejected from schools where she was expected to attend, because supposedly the parents weren’t good enough for those schools. After sitting at home for five months, while all her friends were at school, askanim intervened and secured an interview for the mother and child. This is what happened at the interview:

After some discussion the principal whipped out a ruler and commenced to measure my sister’s (the mother) hemline, neckline and shaitel, tweaking, poking, pulling and pushing. She informed Shaindy that if the school were even to consider Miriam; Shaindy has to report on an ongoing basis to a rebbetzin of the school’s choosing. The rebbetzin will either approve or disapprove of Shaindy’s wardrobe.

As the principal critiqued her clothing, Shaindy glanced furtively through the window at the teachers and secretaries in the adjoining office, embarrassed that she could be seen. She hid her trembling fingers behind her back and said, “I went through the school’s list of rules and warnings about tznius and I saw very few that apply to me.”

“And that’s exactly the problem!” the principal replied accusingly….. “We aren’t looking for the high and mighty who come thinking they’re already perfect. You must submit and act in accordance with OUR wishes.”

Shaindy was stunned. But the principal wasn’t finished. “Who is your mother? What kind of person did she bring you up to be? Do you consider yourself balebatish? Because if you do, we don’t want you.”

The article goes on revealing more of the ugliness that is unfortunately the daily reality for so many of us. The principal explains that they deliberately waited to grant this interview till five months into the school year “if we’d met then, you wouldn’t have been willing to change. At this point maybe you will be ready to do as we say.”

This is unbelievable! Some of you probably think that this story is highly exaggerated. I don’t know anything about this particular story, but I do know many similar stories (including the inspections, rulers etc.) that happened in Boro Park, Lakewood, Williamsburg and of course in – the holy of holies – Monsey. How did this happen to us? When did we become such a malicious and hateful community with no regard to our neighbor’s feelings? The term ‘achzarim binei rachmanim’ seems more appropriate and fitting than the original one.

There are many unfortunate people in our community who are in a lot of pain. There are families with a terminally ill patient, mothers with sick children, children with abused and abusive parents, people who got in trouble with the law and are in jails and many more. There are so many benevolent organizations to care for these people and their families. But what about our foundational institutions, the schools for our children? What happened to them? Is there anyone out there who cares for the healthy and legally responsible people who are going through terrible and painful experiences at our own hands? Is there an organization caring for those kids who can’t go out of their homes because of the excruciating feelings of guilt and shame? Is there anyone who is willing to wipe the flooding tears of all these people who have been wronged and hurt? Are there any leaders, just one responsible leader, who cares enough and stand up to these monsters with no hearts and stop them?

This subject is too painful for me and I don’t have the strength to continue to write. All I can say is that this nonsense must stop now! We must go back to our Jewish roots and start caring for our brothers and sisters. We must fight these people who have strayed from the Jewish path and have taken our schools hostage! It’s a time of cheshbon hanefesh for all of us and its time that the schools and their leaders make a cheshbon hanefesh too.

 

 

Rabbi Warns: Lose Your iPhone or You’ll Lose Your Wife and Kids

In a short essay that I posted a few weeks ago, the day after the women’s ‘Internet Asifa’ in Boro Park, I asked the following questions. What exactly is expected from the women? Are they supposed to control their men? Is it their responsibility? These and similar questions were raised by BP women like my wife.

Well, this week there was a women’s ‘Internet Asifa’ in Monsey, and Rabbi Chaim Faivel Schnebalg, a leading Rabbi in the area, was the keynote speaker. In his speech, Rabbi Schnebalg addressed precisely this issue. Rabbi Schnebalg was addressing the women directly and telling them that the kedusha of their home and their kids is their responsibility, and they must make sure that smartphones and other technology don’t infiltrate their home, chas v’sholom. Rabbi Schnebalg then related the following story. A woman was doing everything she could to shield her kids of the evil technological devices, but her husband kept on bringing them into their home again and again, and he refused to get rid of his personal smartphone. One day the woman gave her husband an ultimatum, either get rid of your smartphone within twenty four hours, or I will take the kids back to my parent’s home. “This is the courage that a  yiddishe mama needs to have, to stand up for the chinuch of her children”, thundered Rabbi Schnebalg.

Let’s take a moment and try to look at this from their point of view. Let’s say that these rabbis have made the calculation that the probability of children who grow up in a home with a smartphone, going off the derech, is very high. Did they ever compare this to the effect on children growing up in a home with only one parent? Is breaking up families such a light matter in their eyes?

I’m not here to rebuke Rabbi Schnebalg, or any rabbi for that matter. I’m here to warn you, my dear readers, know what these chachamim have in mind for you. Don’t think that this is just another speech where you’ll here a dvar torah, maybe some hisoirerus to do teshuvah and a bracha from the skulener rebbe. This is what you could expect to hear nowadays at any and every gathering, incitement to break up families. “My way or the highway” is their new motto.

The Evolution of the Four Inch Tznius Rule

In the last ten fifteen years, every frum woman knows that their dress or skirt is supposed to end at least at four inches below the knees. Everyone knows this to be a “halacha”. The problem is that in the Shulchan Aruch, the basis to traditional orthodox halacha, there isn’t even the slightest mention of this. What then is the source of this so called “halacha”?

The one and only book source for this “halacha” is Rabbi Eliyahu Falk’s ‘Oz V’hadar Levusha‘. The reasoning behind this “halacha” is as follows. The knees must be covered at all times, and only if your skirt/dress is four inches longer than the knees is it possible to keep them covered even while sitting or ascending/descending stairs. This is a nice explanation, but nice reasoning doesn’t create “halacha”. This isn’t what I want to discuss here.

The bigger issue is that if this four inch “halacha” is so a clear cut, how come the rabbis of previous generations didn’t seem to know about it? Some might argue that women in previous generations didn’t wear such short dresses and skirts, so there was no need to address this matter. This is so not true. I challenge every one of you to look up pictures from twenty, thirty and forty years ago. You’ll find that women, from the most chareidi families, wore dresses that barely covered their knees (while standing), and that five, six and even ten years old girls practically wore mini dresses. It seems clear that no one knew of this four inch “halacha” back then. Here are some pictures from a wedding of a prominent Satmar family, around 1970. You can clearly see that the dresses were shorter than what most Satmar women wear today.

On the Yiddish language forum kaveshtiebel.com, there has been many discussions about the evolution of the tznius rules and in particular this four inch rule. The discussion intensified when certain chasidic communities decided to become holier than the pope and up the ante by enforcing a five-seven inch rule. You might think that this is a joke, but this is the absolute truth. In their opinion, Rabbi Falk isn’t stringent enough, after all, which yekke is stringent enough for a chasid? So if Rabbi Falk says that the “halacha” is four inches, then the REAL “halacha” must be more than that.

When Satmar School of Kiryas Joel published their new regulation pamphlet, which included a letter from their rabbis claiming that according to “halacha” the skirt/dress must be five-seven inches longer than the knees, they didn’t anticipate what some might find in archives. Reuvein posted the archived minutes (attached here) of a general meeting held in 1977; the early days of Kiryas Joel. At that meeting the speaker proposes a “NEW rule”, that in Kiryas Joel women should not wear clothes that doesn’t cover their knees, not only women, but every girl from three years and older. Notice that there’s no mention of an extra four inches, let alone seven inches. It is pretty clear from the context that this rule was especially established as a stringency for the holy village of Kiryas Joel, that three year old girls should also wear their dresses/skirts ‘TILL’ their knees. 

In another comment, Reuvein posts letters from the Beth Din of the Eida Chareidith of Jerusalem and other Israeli rabbis, in it the rabbis proclaim that women must leave their dresses ten centimeters (approx four inches) longer than the knees. Their reasoning seems to coincide with Rabbi Falk’s. The question though is, was their decree accepted by all the other rabbis? The answer is a clear and resounding no!

In yet another comment added a few hours ago, Reuvein posts a picture of Rabbi Moshe Ber Beck’s ‘Bayit Yehudi‘ on tznius. [Rabbi Beck is the leader of the Neturei Karta and the Jewish burka movement in the US. I doubt that you can be more machmir than him.] In this booklet – published in 1978 – Rabbi Beck tries to find the most stringent tznius rules. When it comes to the rules pertaining to the length of the skirts, he complains that frum chareidi women wear their dresses shorter than the knees (image 1), those who do make their kids wear them till their knees, are looked down upon as crazies (image 2) and he quotes the above mentioned four inch ruling from the Beth Din of the Eida Chareidith of Jerusalem, and he adds that the rabbis of Williamsburg haven’t accepted this stringency, they only require the dresses to be ‘TWO INCHES’ longer than the knees.

This explains why the planned massive tznius gathering in Monsey has been postponed twice already. The organizers cite that the posponements are due to the scheduling conflicts with Rabbi Falk’s schedule. Why is Rabbi Falk so important for such a meeting? Well, now we know why. Rabbi Falk is the source of all these rules, without him there are no hilchos tznius.

It’s pretty clear that this whole issue has no basis at all, it’s a stringency like all the other stringencies, והמחמיר תבוא עליו ברכה. Those who do want to abide by these four or seven inch rules, should remember that it’s a stringency and not a “halacha”. This means that the women who decide to be more stringent with lashon hara, tefila and not with this, aren’t any less special. No one should think for one moment that this was always the accepted rule, it clearly wasn’t.

Here is a family portrait of the Satmar Rebbe’s kids. Notice the length of the dress of the – apparently – five-six year old daughter, Satmar rebitzen of Monsey.

I want to commend Reuvein and the kaveahtiebel admins for bringing all this information to the forefront and making sure that history isn’t revised. We need to remember what our parents did, or else we put our whole mesorah into question.

 

 

 

What Exactly Is Expected Of Us Women?

Yesterday we had the third annual ‘Internet asifa’ in Boro Park, but this time it came with a twist. This time the rabanim made the asifa and the speeches for the women instead of to the men, as is customary. My wife did not attend the asifa, for many reasons. After the asifa she got an update from a friend who was there, which made her very upset. The following is approximately word for word of her response to my question as to what bothers her.

The rabanim always seem to find a way to throw the guilt at the women. Time and time again they remind us how our homes are our responsibility, the ehrlichkeit of our kids depend on us, we need to be in control of our husband’s kedusha, and the future of Klal Yisrael lays on our shoulders. This is so unfair! Why us? What power do we have over our men?

Whenever tragedies happen in the community, it’s always about the breaches in modesty by the women. At the ‘tznius gathering’ in Boro Park a couple months ago, the rabbis were trying to get the women to change their modes of dress by throwing much guilt at them. Why? What have the women done to deserve that? This is just another perverse way to mistreat the women of the community.

And now they come to us with this Internet issue. They already had two massive Internet rallies, both didn’t include much of our sex, not in planning, pontificating or in participation. But all of a sudden they figured out this great idea, how they could rein in the few rebels who still have smartphones and Internet. We’ll get our “shmates” – the women, to clean up the mess. We’ll make them feel guilty about it till they’ll force their husbands to comply.

What do they think a wife can do? Do they really think that a wife can convince their husband? Do they want us to sacrifice our shalom bayis for this? Why are they making us feel guilty, as if somehow our husbands non-compliance is our fault? Why are we responsible for our husbands or for the results of their actions or inaction?

This is why I am so upset about all this. This is besides the fact that all these gatherings are planned and executed by men without much consultation or help from us lowly dumb women, who have the “bina yeseira”.

We Have Much Bigger Problems Than YCT

“@YosefRapaport: Agudah leader Rabbi Perlow: “afra lepimay to the so called rosh yeshiva of YCT” swinging attack on open Orthodoxy at #Aguda92dinner “kfira””

Apparently, the gadol hador, the Navominsker Rebbe found nothing more urgent to address at yesterday’s dinner, than the grave problem that we face, YCT. I’m not going to get into the debate over YCT and Open Orthodoxy, we’ll leave that for another occasion. For now I’d like to address the esteemed leader of Agudas Yisrael.

Dear Navominsker Rebbe,

I would like to make you aware of a few tiny details within our community that seemingly you aren’t aware of.

1) Did you know that 99.99 percent of your constituency, have little or no knowledge of YCT and OO? Even those who do know, care very little about it. It’s not a knock on them or anything, it’s just that with the large families, growing expenses, diminishing income etc, YCT has to take a back seat on the agenda. And when I say “back seat” I’m talking about the one on a bus, not a car.

2) Did you know that there’s a financial crisis looming over the chareidi community in the US? One that worries every sane person in the community to no end. How will we survive with such large families on such meager incomes, when we do not educate our kids, we are not innovative at all, we are being kept technologically years behind the rest of the world, and our lifestyles are up to par if not ahead of the rest of the world.

3) Did you know that Brooklyn, Lakewood, Queens and Monsey has only that much living space, and we’re outgrowing those areas? The rent and prices for houses are ridiculously higher than the rest of the area. In Boro Park we pay 2200 dollars for a two bedroom shithole which needs twenty thousand dollars worth of renovations before we can even move in. How is a family that earns six hundred a month from kollel and two-three hundred a week from the wife’s teaching job, supposed to survive? Did you know that there are many other states in the US other than New York and New Jersey where people could live for much cheaper?

4) Did you know that many parents feel that the chinuch and education given in most of the chareidi schools is negligible? There are no basic classes on hashkafa. Kids grow up doing mitzvos and keeping tradition in robotic fashion, without any idea why they are doing it. Kids graduating chasidic yeshivos cannot write coherently in Yiddish, let alone in English. Our kids aren’t given the necessary tools to survive in the real world, not in the Torah world, much less in the secular world.

5) Did you know that people from all ages are turning away from Orthodoxy and from Judaism altogether by the droves? Some leave the community altogether, others stay and play the game as if they are still frum but in reality they don’t believe or observe anything.

6) Did you know that although the sexual abuse issue isn’t on the forefront anymore, it hasn’t been dealt with properly (or at all)? There are still kids out there who are vulnerable to abuse. There are so many victims who haven’t been given the least bit of validity and much needed help.

7) Did you know that there’s a big problem with kids being denied regular access to one of their parents for the sole sin of that parent not believing exactly as you’d like them to believe? Why should kids be denied of their natural right to two healthy parents?

8) Did you know that there are hundreds of kids in Boro Park, Lakewood and Monsey, from chareidi homes, who want to go to chareidi schools, but are rejected for stupid reasons such as the mother driving or because she’s wearing a wig a few inches longer than their mother, or because of the color and style shirt that the father wears? Did you know that there are hundreds of families that can’t afford the exorbitant amount of tuition that the yeshivos and schools charge?

Did you know that I can list at least another twenty issues that aren’t very important but will still be more relevant to us than the “YCT problem” that you addressed. Why did you feel that it was necessary to address YCT at this big event? Don’t you know that this is simply a non-issue to us? But now it did become an issue, after our “gadol” decided to uncharacteristically curse them with the most coveted of all Jewish curses, “afra lepimei”. Wow! What a role model!

We are shocked and ashamed that this is who our leaders are. How much hope does our community have. This act doesn’t seem Torah’dig and definitely isn’t sensible. Now let’s see what kind of spin the chareidi media will put on this story.

Chilonim Must Hate Chareidim Because Chazal Say So

I am reposting my Facebook post from Monday for those who haven’t read it yet.

 

Most of Klal Yisrael was elated with the results of the poll taken by Dr Mina Tzemah that showed that the divide between secular and chareidi Jews in Israel isn’t that big at all. That is “most” because apparently for Yitzchak Frankfurter this news wasn’t positive at all. While all other Jewish publications and media outlets accepted the brunt of the blame for the current situation and concluded that there must be a change in the way that the chareidi media relates to the Jews that aren’t chareidim, Ami’s editorial denied and refused to take the blame, and instead they laid the blame onto the shoulders of chazal and the chareidi rabbis.

Dr Tzemah’s poll showed that chareidi and secular Jews don’t hate each other and they could get along well. To this Frankfurter has four responses.

1) Secular Jews DO hate chareidim. It must be so because chazal said so.
2) It isn’t the chareidi media that invented this myth of hatred, chazal did.
3) The Chazon Ish would’ve opposed such a poll in the first place.
4) Taking a poll to see if something that chazal tell us if true or not, is heresy according to the Rambam.

Way to go Frankfurter! Way to go!