Is there a better way to get divorced? Best interest of the child? Mediation vs. Arbitration.
***Guest Hosted by Rabbi Avrohom Kahn *** Founder, Bais Din Vaad Hadin V’horaah, Rav, Congregation Khal New City
with Betzalel Rothstein – Mediator at Shalom Family Mediation – 10:58 with Rabbi Twersky – Av bais din of Bais din Kav Hayoshor – 20:16 with Rabbi Yitzchock Gruenebaum – Mediator in Monsey – 35:40
The great economist, Dr. Walter E. Williams, died today (may he rest in peace).
Some 25 years ago, he used to debate a liberal civil rights activist named Claude Lewis on a local news show in Philadelphia. On one occasion, Lewis referred to Williams as “African American.” Williams replied, “I’m not African American,” and laughed in his distinctive deep-throated way.
He went on to give a brilliant off the cuff history of the Euphemism Treadmill as it applied to him.
He said he used to be colored. Then he was a negro. Then he was black. Then he was African American. He told Lewis that he stopped at black and decided to get off the merry go round there.
It was delightful and illustrative.
This hypersensitivity to language, where euphemisms themselves become antiquated and considered rude in favor of other euphemisms – becomes downright Orwellian. And it is worse now than it was even when Walter Williams exited the merry go round.
Examples abound. The word ‘toilet’ fell out of favor because it sounds rude. But it was actually a euphemism for older words. This is why we now have bathrooms with no baths, restrooms with no places to rest, and powder rooms with no powder. We also have generic ‘facilities.’ What confusion for students of English.
Here is a helpful section from Wikipedia with more detail about this very example of the Euphemism Treadmill:
Frequently, over time, euphemisms themselves become taboo words, through the linguistic process of semantic change known as pejoration, which University of Oregon linguist Sharon Henderson Taylor dubbed the “euphemism cycle” in 1974, also frequently referred to as the “euphemism treadmill“. For instance, toilet is an 18th-century euphemism, replacing the older euphemism house-of-office, which in turn replaced the even older euphemisms privy-house and bog-house. The act of human defecation is possibly the most needy candidate for the euphemism in all eras. In the 20th century, where the old euphemisms lavatory (a place where one washes) or toilet (a place where one dresses) had grown from long usage (e.g. in the United States) to synonymous with the crude act they sought to deflect, they were sometimes replaced with bathroom (a place where one bathes) washroom (a place where one washes) or restroom (a place where one rests) or even by the extreme form powder-room (a place where one applies facial cosmetics). The form water closet, which in turn became euphemised to W.C., is a less deflective form.
George Carlin did a routine tracing the history of ‘shell shock’ (WW1) to ‘battle fatigue’ (WW2) to ‘operational exhaustion” (Korea) to ‘post traumatic stress disorder’ (Vietnam).
This language game is also a way for smug, Pharisaic people to show off their sense of superiority to others. I remember when the word ‘Neanderthal’ changed pronunciation, and anyone who pronounced the ‘TH’ sound was, well, a Neanderthal.
The target is constantly moving. When I was very young, probably about 1970, I made reference to a black guy. My well-intentioned aunt scolded me and told me to say “colored” instead. It turns out that she was already well behind the curve to which Dr. Williams referred. The Overton Window had already closed on her fingers. The boys in our neighborhood used to play a game called “smear the queer” – which was basically to throw a football around like a rugby ball and tackle and pile on the ball carrier until he gave up the ball. There were no teams and no score. I mentioned the game to my mom, who told me not to say “queer” because it was rude. Of course, today, the Acronym includes the Q for “Queer.”
The word “gay” is a classic case in point. We still dust off its older usage when we sing “Deck the Halls.” “Gay” used to be considered a slur, but it too is now part of the Acronym.
And at some point, Pakistan became Pah-kee-stahn for those in the know, and The Sudan and The Ukraine lost their definite articles among the truly sensitive of our species. It is also trendy to pronounce “Puerto Rico” and “Nicaragua” with a Hispanic accent, but the same people don’t pronounce “Québec” like a native, nor to they speak of getting a direct flight to “Frahnk-foort.”
The rules make no sense and follow no logic. The word “oriental” – which simply means “eastern” – has become taboo. Never mind the fact that the Japanese word for Japanese means people of the rising sun (which in Latin, when applied to the compass, is “oriens, orientis“), or that their flag depicts, well, a rising sun. But “oriental” is okay sometimes. Oriental people are not okay; oriental rugs are. Oriental salads are a gray area. But nobody takes umbrage with the opposite word “occidental” or its literal translation of “western” (though the idea of western civilization itself is under attack). It’s all very confusing.
Moreover, Frenchman, Englishman, and Irishman are okay; Chinaman is not. A professor who uses the word “niggardly” may well find himself losing his tenure and his job. We live in Alice’s Wonderland under the capricious reign of the Queen of Hearts and the linguistic confusion of Humpty Dumpty:
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
These language games are just a merry go round designed to assert a sense of moral superiority over others, a neo-Gnostic “us vs. them” desire for cultish peer acceptance, as well as self-serving outrage – which is the gold standard of the realm in our current culture dominated by Cultural Marxism and the pseudoscience of Intersectionalism.
In 1946, George Orwell addressed the political use of language in his essay “Politics and the English Language.” And of course, this theme of controlling thought by controlling language is one of the great themes in 1984.
Sunday, November 29, 2020, 11:39 Early Sunday morning, at approximately 5:00, a minor recovering from a traffic accident in which he was injured the previous week was detained in his bed at home in Yitzhar. He required a complicated operation on his arm, which was set in a cast. The policemen ignored the pleas of his parents, who asked them not to detain him due to his medical condition, which includes intense pain, and woke up the entire household. The minor was taken to the police station, interrogated on suspicion of involvement with an incident that occurred several weeks ago, and released after the interrogation.
At the police station the minor complained about his severe pain, but received no response from the policemen. Honenu Attorney Adi Kedar is assisting the minor: “A detention warrant for a minor is a last resort, to be used after all attempts to summon him in an organized manner have been tried, which was not done in this case. The Israeli Police rushed to issue a detention warrant and carried it out at a very early hour of the day, with no consideration for the minor’s sensitive medical condition. It appears that someone is looking for showcase detentions and intimidation, not measured law enforcement according to good judgment. I say, regretfully, that a family in Tel Aviv would have received different treatment. I call on Amir Ohana, the Public Security Minister, to carefully examine what is happening in the Yehuda and Shomron District.”
The minor’s father: “The Israeli Police came to our house in the middle of the night, woke up the entire family, caused a disturbance, and frightened the small children. We explained to them [the policemen] that the boy is recovering from an operation, he has a cast and is under medical care, but they paid no attention. The policemen didn’t listen. They showed total disregard. After several hours he was released. They couldn’t have summoned us in a normal way? For what was all the commotion? The educational damage to our children, the neighbors’ children and all the children in the community is irrevocable. For no reason they are causing a generation of children to not trust the police, not trust the State, and it’s all because of a lack of consideration by the policemen. What a shame.”
By the mid 18th century, separate communities of Ashkenazim and Sephardim developed in various parts of the Land of Israel. While there had been various Jewish communities in the Holy Land since the destruction of the Temple, the Sephardic community of the “Old Yishuv” owed its genesis to descendants of Spanish exiles who arrived in the years following the great expulsion in 1492. The Ashkenazim, on the other hand, arrived in several waves, the most well-known being the aliyah of the chasidic community on the one hand and those of the misnagdim—disciples of the Gaon of Vilna—on the other. The former began arriving in the mid 18th century while the latter came about a half century later.
The chasidim and perushim (as the misnagdim came to be known) formed their separate communities. Because of the very small size of both communities and the common challenges that they faced, it wasn’t long before there was a degree of intermixing (something unheard of back in Eastern Europe where the chasidic-misnagdic battles were still raging). Another interesting phenomenon is the slow and steady rate of intermingling between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. This was perhaps more evident among the chasidim (who as I mentioned in previous articles adopted a modified Sephardic rite based on the writings of the Arizal, who was himself of both Sephardic and Ashkenazic parentage).
The great chasidic leader R’ Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, who in 1777 led a group of 300 chasidim to Eretz Yisrael, believed in melding the various Jewish communities in the Holy Land together and married off his son Moshe to a respected Sephardic family. The bride’s dowry was 800 Turkish groschen (a large sum for the time). He also married off his daughter to the Abulafia rabbinic family from Tiberias. Perhaps more interestingly, even before that, Rabbi Gershon of Kitov (1701-1761), brother-in-law of the Baal Shem Tov (founder of the chasidic movement), married his daughter to the son of the Sephardic Chacham of Hebron.
Rabbi Gershon of Kitov was an interesting personality. When his more famous brother-in-law began propagating his ideas, Rabbi Gershon became a vociferous opponent. He eventually came over to his side and became a chasid himself. Rabbi Gershon made aliyah in 1742, making him the first immigrant of the chasidic aliyah. He initially settled in Hebron, which had a small community consisting solely of Sephardim. He was treated with great reverence there and spent most of his time studying in the study hall. He grew dissatisfied, as he wrote in a letter: “Although the Sephardim treat me with great respect I have not found anyone here who is like me in nature.” He eventually moved to Jerusalem, where his wife passed away. He was encouraged to remarry by the local Sephardim who offered him a match from one of their own but he demurred, claiming in a letter that he was unused to their ways and temperament. In that same letter, interestingly enough, he mentions that his daughter Esther was engaged to marry the very learned son of Rabbi Mordechai Rubio, the Sephardic Chacham of Hebron.
Last week President Trump granted a “full pardon” to Gen. Michael Flynn, his first National Security Advisor. In a White House statement announcing the pardon, the Administration pointed out that the relentless pursuit of Flynn was a partisan effort to overturn the results of the 2016 election.
The pursuit of Flynn was spearheaded by people who refused to accept the results of the 2016 election and worked to undermine the peaceful transfer of power, said the White House. These same people are the ones accusing Trump of undermining the election by challenging what appears to be serious voting irregularities in the 2020 presidential election.
That is called “projection.”
The White House statement also cites partisans in politics, the media, and the Deep State which sought to prevent Trump from being elected, to prevent him from taking office once elected, and to remove him on false pretenses once in office.
In order to push the false narrative that Trump was somehow elected due to the intervention of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the coup-masters had to make it appear that a high-ranking official was involved in monkey business with the Russians. Flynn was the unlucky victim of their smear machine, accused of “Russia collusion” over an innocent telephone call with the then-Russian Ambassador in Washington during the transition to a Trump Administration.
Yet when Joe Biden’s transition people bragged recently that Biden was connecting with foreign officials before inaugurated, the media praised it as a welcome return of the “experts” to foreign policy.
While it is very good news that President Trump is in the mood to pardon those victims of the warmongering Deep State, I very much hope that he is only warming up. It would be a great tragedy if other Deep State victims are left to suffer for their non-crimes.
Tweeting about her legislation that calls for charges against Edward Snowden and Julian Assange to be dropped and the Espionage Act reformed, US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard told President Trump, “since you’re giving pardons to people, please consider pardoning those who, at great personal sacrifice, exposed the deception and criminality of those in the deep state.”
My good friend Rep. Thomas Massie, a Ron Paul Institute Board Member, is a co-sponsor of Rep. Gabbard’s legislation, making it a real bipartisan effort to restore the rule of law in the United States and to rein in the Beltway warmongers.
Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are not criminals. They are heroes for telling us the truth about what criminals in government were doing in our name and with our money.
The fact is we were lied into war over and over again. While those wars were profitable for the military-industrial-Congressional-media complex, they snuffed out the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people overseas and robbed our own children and grandchildren of trillions of dollars wasted on neocon lies. And meanwhile, as Ed Snowden showed us, the intelligence community declared us the enemy and set up an elaborate internal spy network that would make the East German Stasi green with envy.
President Trump: you have the incredible opportunity to right the terrible wrongs perpetrated by the Obama/Biden Administration. History will smile kindly upon you if you also grant full pardon to Julian Assange and Edward Snowden – and any other truth-teller who faces persecution for exposing the Deep State warmongers.
