[Avodah] Austritt [was: Who Was Rabbi Nobel Anyway?]

Mon Jul 21 21:39:01 PDT 2008

On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 2:16 AM, <T613K at aol.com> wrote:

>   From: "Richard Wolpoe" rabbirichwolpoe at gmail.com
>
> >>As for your other point about C or R rabbis gaining legitimacy, the
> Yeshiva
> of Hartford made ALL local rabbis viz. O/C/R as honorary board members even
> though it was a Torah Umesorah school [founded in 1939} and people Like R.
> Shraga Feilb Mendlovich etc. were involved in it as well as Dr. Joe
> Kamenetsky
> later on.   Was this conferring "legitimacy" for those rabbis?  It is kind
> hard to say that. It was a community school but the tenets of the charter
> were 100% Orthodox.  they did hire a C rabbi to teach some Hebrew language
> classes.
>
> The split came later when a new generation C rabbi founded Solmon Shechter
> school.  Them the C rabbis broke with the Ortho Day School. <<
>
>
> >>>>>
> You wrote:  "the Yeshiva of Hartford made ALL local rabbis viz. O/C/R as
> honorary board members....  Was this conferring "legitimacy" for those
> rabbis?"
>
> Do your ears hear what your mouth is saying?  Why did they put "ALL the
> local rabbis" on the board?  Were they implying that those guys were
> actually rabbis?
>

They were conferring leadership roles.  They were not defending their brand
of Judaism.  What it meant was the school was inclusive. I guess it might
have made sense to make the presdients of all shuls as members, but the
rabbinical posts were more stable

>
> Oh no of course not, and I'm sure no one thought for a moment that
> they meant to imply anything about rabbinical about those clowns, oh no no
> no.
>

is the sarcasm really necesary to make your point?

> If my father had been the rav of Hartford or had anything to do with the
> founding of the school, you can bet there wouldn't have been any such board
> with quote "ALL the rabbis"!
>

I can also be the schol would have gone under> isntead this school is around
since 1939. Few Schoopls outside of NYC can say that. Austitt in ANY small
town afaik never worked. If you know otheiwse I chalenge you to produce the
evidence

>
> Now of course the O Jews who put "all the rabbis" on the board did it with
> a wink-wink to their own people, "Hey come on guys we're only licking their
> toes, we don't /really/ consider them rabbis, but hey, we need kids from
> their congregations and money from their people so.... wink wink!"
>

I think they considered them as leaders as clergy but they NEVER conferred
any legitimacy upon a non-Hlachic norm. If this distinciton is too subtle
for you to buy, that is OK with me but theat is no call for sarcasm

>
> How well this chanifa worked you can see in your last paragraph:  the C
> guys went ahead and started their own C school anyway.
>

Actaully your facts are wrong as well as the nature of your attacks. When
Rabbi MorrisSilvernam retired Rabbi Howeard Singer came to town and insisted
on his OWN austritt asyaing we cannot do bbusines with those Orthos and HE
broke away and started Solmon Shchechter. the Previosu non-Austirtt C Rabbis
wer content to run their Hebrew schools and give the OPrthos the monopoly on
Day Schools. It was DAVKA the Austrit mentality that drw resources,studetns
and funds fromn haveing only ONE communiyt day school under O auspices into
starting a SPLIT community that divided reesourcsandstudetns and made the
school more difficlt to support finanicially. This informtuate split was
precisely due to an application of Austritt but this by the C's AGAINST teh
O's. There wer fed up with O's running the community's ONLY Day School and
Stepp out [the meaning of Austritt} and caused a frfit that extists today.
So there were probably dozens of neeshamaos that MIGHT have been brought
clsoer to HKBH but isntead found a kind of Austritt and brought closer to
the kind of Torah NOT miSiani taugth as SS. Can we thank Asutritt thinking
for this? I think so!

> They weren't fooled and they certainly weren't co-opted into becoming Ortho
> or running the risk that any of their congregants would become Ortho.
>

*--Toby Katz
=============
*

The C's WERE upset when ther kids came home and aske d how comes there's
treif inthe ice box. I rembmer those stories well

>
> And what's that bit about hiring a C rabbi to teach Hebrew?!  Hebrew is not
> loshon hakodesh?  Hebrew is a secular subject?!
>
>

I don't know HOW you jump to conculsions> no one was saying that Hebrew was
NOT part of limudei Kodesh,  I was just reporting the facts.This C rabbi
FWIW had attended some O institutions and considered HIMSELF frum - albiet
he made his parnassa from a C shul. this brings up the other topic of what
is a C rabbi and is worhty of its own thread.

I cannot say for certain, but had he been a 100% ideoligcally C rabbi he
probably would nto have been given even hebrew. But you have a black and
white attitued. The REAL world has a lot of gray. Obviously they felt that
this man had a degree in Hebrew Ed. and it was safe enough for himto teach
Hebrew. I know the leaders of this institution were major players in Torah
u'Mesorah and certainly did not play this game lightly.  I am amazed at how
people on this list sometimes make things so simple when they are not so
simple.

The OU had dozens of non-Mehitza shuls in this era.  They all [afaik] had
rabbis with Ortho Semicah. And SOME C shuls had O rabbis who were there for
keiruv purposes and had been given specific teshuvos to do so.

FWIW, I know of a student who was at JTS and became a Chabadnik and the
Rebbe told him that "he can stay there so long as . Sha'ul Lieberman is
there."  so the Rebbecertainly saw some gray areas. There were even
Chabaniks in signifcant nubmers at YU. I hardly think that the rebbe was
ENDORSING YU by permitting some excpetional students to study there.

This Austrit idea of legitimzing is so highly exaggerated that I cannot
fathom it. I have frum friends who graduated Cattholic University and Holy
Cross College etc.   I(s that Chanifa?

Let's get real. The Yeshiva of Hartford had studnets from virtually every C
shul in my day.  And some of those yong men and women became exposed to
Torah and became frum. and MANY others becamse exposed and di NOT become
frum BUT are amongst the BIGGEST supporters and fundraisers for the School.

Rabbi Julius Berman was a graduate of the yeshiva of Hartford about a decade
before I did. Maybe you can discuss these issues with him becuase he was
certainly aware of hte dynamics much better than I.

It almost never ceases to amaze me how people reconstruct history to fit an
ideology instead of looking at the facts on the ground.

FWIW, there were bar mitzvahs in the C shuls of classamtes of mine etc. Even
those who DID attend knoew better than to daven in the C shul, those from O
backgrounds davened earlier and simply went the way they might to a non-frum
relative's simcha.

Maybe the MOST simple minded found that the C rabbis "honorary" membership
conveyed some kind of approval.   But simply most people were not so-minded.

The C movement DID become more "edgy" when a new generation of Rabbis - led
by howard Singer- pushed Somon Schechter school.s the Irony is that the R
rabbis seemed more comfortable with supporting the more commuinity and less
"Austritt" minded O Day School How ironic!

RabbiRichWolpoe at Gmail.com
see: http://nishmablog.blogspot.com/
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