Ki miTzion tetze Torah . . .??!—Shooting ourselves in the collective foot: On banning books & exploiting employees

“For out of Zion will go forth the Torah …?”

I begin with the sad saga of the banning of Rabbi Nosson Slifkin’s books on science and Torah, which has been all over the Jewish blogosphere. Since everyone else has already said everything that there is to say, and said it a lot more eloquently than I could, I’ll link you to some good posts on the subject:
“BANNED!!!,” at http://hirhurim.blogspot.com/2005/01/banned.html;
“R. Slifkin defends himself,” and “Kefira [atheism]-last word of the day(from me),” two Thursday, January 13 posts at http://houseofhock.blogspot.com/;
“Slifkin Ban Spurs Innovation!,” (for your amusement, at Shpoof.com) at http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/shpoof/2005/01/camp_dogma_open.html;
“The Rise of Fundamentalism,” at http://daashedyot.blogspot.com/2005/01/rise-of-fundamentalism.html#comments and “Issues of the Slifkin Controversy,” at http://daashedyot.blogspot.com/2005/01/issues-of-slifkin-controversy.html#comments;
“The ban, the halachic process, and haredi posekim,” at http://biurchametz.blogspot.com/2005/01/ban-halachic-process-and-haredi.html;
the Monday, 17 January 2005 post “Defining the Borders of the Traditional Community: Slifkingate, Ideology and the Guys on Cellphones on the Steps of Mir Yeshiva,” at http://www.chakira.blog-city.com/ ;
and the Thursday, January 20 post, “Ignoring Reality,” at http://outofstepjew.blogspot.com/

To read what the banned author himself has to say, go to his website, http://zootorah.com/controversy/controversy.html.

For the believers among my readers, I think the last word on the Slifkin controversy goes to the Out of Step in Kfar Saba at http://outofstepjew.blogspot.com/: “too many RZ's [Religious Zionists?] (especially the rabbis)in Israel haven't a clue as to what science or the scientific method is. they don't realize that if the Torah is true - then by definition it cannot contradict scientific fact ...”


“ . . . u’d’var HaShem miYerushalayim?”/and the word of the L-rd from Jerusalem?”

Thanks to Miriam Shaviv of http://bloghd.blogspot.com/ for bringing this to my attention:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/530158.html


And this is how the State of Israel encourages aliyah from North America??!

Update, also from Miriam Shaviv of http://bloghd.blogspot.com/:
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Still no sign of any Sabras caring....
Rabbi Michael Melchior, Israel's deputy Education Minister, has vowed to overturn by the end of the month (!) the ministry's policy of not recognizing undergraduate diplomas issued by U.S. universities that accept a year of yeshiva study in Israel as degree credits.Not that he's done it yet -- but of-course it took an immigrant to feel strongly about this injustice and take up the case.