B"H
The Toldot Avraham Yitzchak Rebbe Shmuel Yaakov Kahn visiting Boro Park / New York:
All photos HERE !
One commentator noticed that the location where the Tish is taking place is a wedding hall of Chassidut Bobov.
Whereas Rebbe Shmuel Yaakov Kahn is visiting New York, his younger brother, the Toldot Aharon Rebbe David Kahn, is being confronted with serious problems. The celebrity of Toldot Aharon, Rabbi Shmuel Chaim Pappenheim, got attacked by his own people last Erev Shabbat. Pappenheim entered the Toldot Aharon Synagogue of Beit Shemesh and was asked to leave by a group of "extremists". However, he refused and it all ended up in beating Shmuel Pappenheim.
Last night, the Toldot Aharon Rebbe wanted to make a decision and obviously punish those Chassidim who beat Pappenheim. They are apparently not allowed to join community activities for a couple of months.
The reason for Pappenheim being attacked was an interview he gave to the left - wing paper "HAARETZ":
Yet winds of change are blowing even among the most fanatic camp. Once, former Eda Haredit spokesman Shmuel Pappenheim was frequently dispatched to represent the official, extreme anti-Zionist line and to defend his sect, Toldot Aharon. But Pappenheim, a Beit Shemesh resident, recently came out of the closet as a sworn reformist: He is studying for a degree at Bar-Ilan University and heads an office encouraging ultra-Orthodox employment in Beit Shemesh, on top of his other public activities.
Pappenheim thinks that in the ultra-Orthodox's clash with outsiders, the extremists on both sides are failing to see the powerful processes underway in the ultra-Orthodox mainstream: The ultra-Orthodox are irreversibly opening up, he believes.
"This week I spoke before a Scout troop in Jerusalem, alongside a representative of Yisrael Hofshit [Be Free Israel, an organization that works to advance religious freedom and other democratic values], who denounced ultra-Orthodox extremism," says Pappenheim. "I told her she was missing the entire point. Israel's ultra-Orthodox public has begun to understand that it needs to take its fate into its hands. There are thousands of ultra-Orthodox in the army, in academia, in the free professions. Are they telling us we're in a religious war? On the contrary. The religious public is heading toward something great, and the rabbis' attempts to stop this are like the rooster running in circles after being beheaded.
"The Sicarii are acting out of frustration, not ideology, he says. "They see society around them progressing and are frustrated. They do not really think; they just act violently for the sake of causing action and chaos.
"Pappenheim believes the rabbis' attempts to turn back time are destined to fail. "I'm not seeing any students dropping out of ultra-Orthdox colleges" due to Rabbi Elyashiv's letter, he says. "That isn't going to help anymore. Maybe this is the rabbis' job, to try to stop the flow so that 16-year-old boys know their only aim in life is to study Torah, but this process is reality."
Pappenheim himself is being smeared by wall posters declaring, "Greeks have ganged up on us!" and draws condemnations from his extremist neighbors, but as the son of an aristocratic Toldot Aharon family, he retains access to the top.
"A married yeshiva student from Toldot Avraham Hasidut is serving in Shahar [a prestigious Israel Defense Forces technology program for married yeshiva students]. Things are happening. I told my rebbe and he asked: 'What? Do you think our married yeshiva students will also be there?' I said it could happen. He said, 'Such a thing should not come to us,' and I told him that while his role may be to prevent it, this is the process. We need to understand this and not shut our eyes. He knows this well. A month ago President [Shimon] Peres visited [Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's daughter] Adina Bar-Shalom's ultra-Orthodox college in Jerusalem. In the first row were three married yeshiva students from Toldot Aharon.
"Conflicting changes Pappenheim's remarks show that the discussion about "growing ultra-Orthdox extremism" ignores the fact that this sector, like the national religious sector, is going through conflicting processes. The public at large is now noticing the modesty revolution, which includes the segregated buses, the "Taliban" women in black cloaks, the gender segregation at the health clinics in Beit Shemesh and the advertising companies' reluctance to post outdoor ads with pictures of women in Jerusalem, but it has been going on for years.
Please find the entire HAARETZ article HERE !
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