Perplexing Questions People are Asking About the Yeshiva CV19 Guidelines, by Shoshanna Silcove

    The initial letter for CV19 guidelines for the Chabad Melbourne Community, which were sent out to the email lists of Yeshiva Centre and Young Yeshiva, left one with many perplexing questions.
This letter was written on the Melbourne Beis Din letterhead and signed by several community Rabbis and local G.P.'s.
    It is perplexing as to why they felt the need to go above and beyond the government restrictions at the time. For instance, back then the government allowed indoor gatherings, yet the Yeshiva guidelines only gave permission for outdoor minyanim. Why were they even more restrictive than the very strict Victorian government? Moreover, it seems there was no scientific justification for this.
    Equally perplexing was the restriction on davening with a minyan for shacharis while mincha and marriv were allowed. In their second letter they tried to explain this but, their explanation was even more perplexing. It said that since shacharis davening was longer in duration than the other two, one may tend want to sit down, implying that the virus could be caught from the seats.  Additionally, one brings tefillin bags and talleism which could also make the virus spread. This begs the question, do the doctors  who signed this letter believe that sitting down, tefillin bags, and taleism are able to spread CV19?  This seems improbable that they believe this as this goes against the known science.
     Another inexplicable restriction was the closure of the men's mikvah. The women's mikvah was still open, so why close the men's? Also, did this mean the doctors who signed this believe that the virus lives in chlorine? If so, this would be inexplicable because to believe so would be absolutely against the known science. So why close any mikvaot at all?
     One of the Rabbis actually directed the community to call the police should they see anyone violating the CV19 restrictions. Even a lay person who is not a Rabbi or a doctor finds this extremely problematic considering that this could fall under the category of mesirah (the prohibition against informing on a Jew to the gentiles). Now one could argue that this directive to inform was because of the commandment of pekuach nefesh (the saving of a Jewish life) which takes precedence over everything else. However, this argument does not hold water when one considers that the Yeshiva restrictions went above and beyond even the very strict Victorian government restrictions, and those very extreme restrictions would therefore not, according to science, going to be effective in saving any lives at all. So one is left perplexed as to why a Rav would instruct Jews to inform on other Jews?
    So  all this begs the questions: were the signatories of this letter following science or not? Moreover, why did they feel compelled to go above and beyond the restrictions that the government required? What could have possibly motivated these contradictory, inconsistent restrictions that do not seem to be based on the known science and seem to make no sense at all? Were they just basing all this on their own fear ? If so, then could one assert they are spreading mass hysteria?
    From where or what do the signatories of these letters base their directives on? Inquiring minds would like to know.
 

 


 

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Musings of a COVID19 Skeptic Part 4, by Shoshanna Silcove

    When Rabbis and community leaders are gaslit by the media/government complex they make foolish decisions that threaten to damage or even destroy their communities. When Rabbis and community leaders become intoxicated by their power, they become blinded to their own foolish mistakes. When Rabbis and community leaders prioritise their public image and approval from the gentile government as more important than the interests of the people they serve, they become frauds. When Rabbis and community leaders allow themselves to be ruled by their hearts and not their minds, when they are gripped by the fear and mass hysteria whipped up by the media/government complex, they can become impervious to all logic and facts and they are then dangerous to their communities' well being.

   Can all this happen? Is it happening? Torah warns us of the danger of unbridled egos and power lust. Rabbis, according to Judaism, are not given respect automatically, it has to be earned. There are many examples in Jewish history of all kinds of Rabbis over the ages who either because of foolishness or their own evil impulses caused huge destruction to the Jews they were supposed to be serving. We cannot be naive and blind followers of Rabbis as that is not the Torah way. Rabbis are not closer to G-d or higher than regular people. In fact, we are taught that Rabbis have a special responsibility to do the right thing or they can bring whole communities down. The Lubavitcher Rebbe spoke about the teaching of 'Me Heichan dan tuni?" which means 'From where do you derive this legal decision?" This is a question we not only have a right to ask Rabbis, but we are compelled to because we Jews must understand the reasoning, logic and sources of their decisions. Judaism is not a cult.

     In the beginning of the CV19 crisis I had a conversation with a Rabbi I had a close and respectful relationship with for over two decades.  I questioned his assertion that every extreme measure, including shutting down the entire world economy, was worth it to save even one life. My viewpoint was that this was patently absurd. As expected the Rabbi quoted a few Torah sources to back up this absurd assertion, especially the law that states that the saving of a life takes precedence over everything else ( known as Pekuach nefesh). I  explained my view was that his usage of that law was not as clear cut as he made it out to be under these unusual circumstances, that he was using this law without taking into account the context of our situation.

   The example I gave to illustrate was a hospital. A hospital has limited resources. The decisions made are based on the best allocation of those resources. Should they expend them on a single patient with a small chance of recovery, and perhaps use those resources all up on someone who they know will die soon? Then there may be no resources left to save other patients who need those resources to live, and many more will die than just the one terminal one.  Or should they use those same resources on patients who they know they can save, and have more left over to save many more lives?  I explained this is how society works. Society is constantly doing a cost benefit analysis knowing that it is inevitable that some people will die, as that cannot be avoided. Therefore, society must ask, what is the best possible allocation of our resources for the best possible outcome ? Another example is, we know if we keep the speed limit at ten kilometers an hour on the highway there will be virtually zero deaths. But we do not do that. Instead we keep the speed limit at one hundred kilometers an hour knowing this will definitely cause deaths. Why does society do this? Simply because we accept that in order for a society to function at its best level for the greater good we must accept there will be some negative and even tragic outcomes that cannot be avoided. Society cannot actually function any other way. Without making  a cost  benefit analysis and allowing for an acceptable level of risk, society would be in total  anarchy and chaos. This seems to be quite evident.

      The response this Rabbi gave me was that this is the same thinking as the Nazis. I was stunned. Not only was this response a disgusting insult, but it made no sense. This is a highly intelligent person, how could he make such a specious, illogical, and blatantly wrong comparison? It was then that I realised his response was fear based. The panic and fear gripped him to the point where his thinking abilities were completely suppressed. This Rabbi is a very good well meaning person. He is actually very compassionate and suffered some personal loss from CV19. His desire is that no one else should have any more pain and loss or death. His motives are altruistic However, the panic and fear overrode his critical thinking abilities making him incapable of seeing the bigger picture.

   Therefore, when this Rabbi came out with extreme Draconian restrictive measures that went even further than the government, and were not based on the known scientific evidence, I was not surprised. Furthermore, this became mass hysteria that it is shared by a group of Rabbis and community leaders, walking in lockstep conformity to each other. This mass hysteria is then shared further with the community at large, many of whom are  also very fearful and misinformed by the government/media propaganda. 

    Dennis Prager, famous American commentator, author and radio host, taught me some very important lessons. One of these is that having knowledge does not mean someone has wisdom, that they are two very different things. An expert can have many degrees, have extensive knowledge in their field, but still be foolish and unwise. When a person is gripped by strong emotions such as fear and panic, they can lose their ability to be wise.

    Morever, more and more people worldwide are beginning to realise the point I was trying to make that Rabbi see several months ago, and that is that the economic lockdowns, the Draconian community restrictions, actually did more damage than the CV19 virus did. It is now becoming crystal clear that the economic crash the lockdowns caused  are resulting in many more deaths than the virus due to many factors. These are unintended consequences like deaths from the dramatic frightening rises in suicides, violent crimes, domestic abuse, drug and alcohol abuse etc, all things that are rising because of people being economically devastated.   Wise people  who were against these draconian restrictions and lockdowns were able to foresee all these unintended consequences.

  The same unintended consequences threaten to destroy our own Jewish communities as well. Well meaning but spooked community leaders and Rabbis are instituting unnecessary and Draconian restrictions that not only make no logical or scientific sense in terms of the public health,  but are also absolutely poisonous and noxious to our spiritual, mental, and financial well being. And my fear is that the damage that ensues can never be repaired, G-d forbid.

    It is imperative upon each and every one of us to take it upon ourselves to get a grip on our fear and use our minds. We must spend time and effort to verify what the Rabbis and community leaders are telling us. We cannot passively accept their directives at face value. We live in a world replete with information at our fingertips. We must do our own research. We must be responsible adults and equip ourselves with the knowledge to be able to understand and ask the right questions, before it is too late and we soon find ourselves living in a community that is unrecognizable to our Jewish sensibilities and one we loathe to pass onto the the next generation.

    

Musings of a COVID19 Skeptic-Part 3, by Shoshanna Silcove

Isn't it interesting that so many men who were never seen at minyanim (except for Shabbes) in the pre-Corona days, are now lauding some of the Rabbis for having instructed people not to go to minyanim? It used to be that they felt a twinge of guilt for not going to minyanim. But now, after some of the Rabbis sent out the strongly implied message that minyanim are not compulsory, their guilt is minimised. Not only that, they can now virtue signal, all about how noble they are for staying home, that not going to minyanim is actually a virtuous thing. 

These men never heeded these Rabbis in the past about other issues regarding Torah and Mitzvot, and are now going around self righteously saying 'The Rabbonim said' to excuse their lack of observance of davening with minyanim in the past until now, and to make themselves feel and look very virtuous. 

Furthermore, some of the Rabbonim neglected to explain just how crucial davening with minyanim is to Chassidim, and even went so far as to tell people to call the police and report anyone davening with a minyan. And at that time when some of the Rabbonim instructed people to moser on their fellow Jews for davening with a minyan, those minyanim were actually legal. Where are our Chassidisha hashkofos? Why aren't Rabbonim giving out the message, that even with this Corona situation, that davening with minyanim is chiyuv? Is all this Torah based or based on virtue signaling and their obsession to  get approval from the goyish government? None of this is based on the correct Chassidisha hashkofos in my opinion (am I allowed to have an opinion?). Their motives seem to be ulterior and not leshem shamayim.

Musings of a COVID19 Skeptic-Part 2, by Shoshanna Silcove

"Facts don't care about your feelings," Ben Shapiro, American conservative political commentator, public speaker, media executive, and author.

"The brain rules the heart," a Chassidic adage from The Tanya

    My mother's passing made me into an outsider from the age of five. I was the only girl in the entire Forest Road Elementary School who lost their mother. This gave me instantaneous playground fame. Everyone seemed to be staring at me, the adults with sad sympathetic looks and, the children with a combination of confusion and fear. Maybe it could happen to their mothers too? They whispered behind my back. I was that girl whose mother died. Her passing made me used to being able to walk a different path to those around me.

    Nevertheless, being an outsider did not mean that I would not become a victim of mind control. At one time or another we all fall victim to mind control. It's is all around us and,  takes on  various methods and forms. It can be ordinary advertising that uses repetition and emotional manipulation to motivate us to buy things, or it can be indoctrination by schools and religious institutions. 

    I went to Stonybrook University to get an education. I wound up getting an indoctrination into left wing ideologies. There simply were no alternative views presented, so like most students, I assimilated the usual left wing  'isims' of academia. It would not occur to me that I fell victim to mind control until I became religious through Lubavitch.

    Learning Torah true Judaism caused me to challenge every aspect of my life as well as all the secular orthodoxies I had been inculcated with. It was then I realised just how much mind control I had been subjected to all my life and vowed to never allow that to happen to me again. I would remain a questioner. This suited my new religious lifestyle just fine because Torah encourages questioning and is in fact largely based on discussion, critical thinking, and debate.

   However, while Torah encourages critical thinking, the culture of an Orthodox Jewish community sometimes does not. This often encourages conformity. It is to me a strange and inexplicable paradox that there is sometimes a gap between Torah learning, which emphasizes discussion and debate,  and the culture of Orthodox communities, which can tend to value social conformity.

    Which brings us to our current situation regarding the COVID19 phenomena. It did not take long for me to start asking the right questions.  Factual questions. While many around me were gripped by emotion, I lost sleep thinking and thinking, trying to figure it all out. Too much of what the government and the media was telling us just did not add up. While almost everyone around me in my community blindly accepted the mainstream narrative, I could not help but notice the inconsistencies and discrepancies.
    Was I scared? Who wouldn't be scared? The media was doing its level best to scare the wits out of everyone. Many in the local community here in Melbourne became totally preoccupied with the reports of  what seemed to be a horror show going on in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Many of the people here were connected to people in New York who either became infected or  passed away. They were grieving and traumatised,  so much so that often when I  aired my questioning of  the  narrative I would get the same reply, 'Do you know what is happening in Crown Heights?"  This line was supposed to prove to me that this was the most horrible pandemic since the bubonic plague, and that what was happening in Crown Heights was an apocalypse. The reports from Crown Heights was all the proof  one needed, and if I questioned that,  then I was being a cold callous person who cared nothing for human life. I kept hearing that same line over and over again by many different people in our community. It was bizarre how almost everyone was in the same panicked hysterical state of mind.  
    I realised that when a person is panicked their cognitive abilities can literally turn off, they cannot think rationally, everything becomes an emotional reaction. Of course,  I reminded myself that the facts don't care about my feelings, and I kept repeating the Chassidic adage of 'the mind rules the heart".  While others could hardly discuss issues rationally, while people retreated more and more into their homes, into their shells, cowering in terror, I kept researching and probing.  It did not take long for me to actually discover the inaccuracies we were being told. These inaccuracies are so blatant and the only reason they were so easily accepted is because of the mass hysteria. 

to be continued, in part 3.....
    

    

   

Musings of a COVID19 Skeptic--Part I, by Shoshanna Silcove

    It has been said that cool heads prevail, but do they? As I watch the majority of modern society go down the rabbit hole of COVID19 mass hysteria and panic, I question the validity of that saying. It's as if one day someone flipped a switch and suddenly we were thrust into a surreal world in which panic and paranoia are the new norm.
    Admittedly at first, I too got caught up in the fervour of it all. I listened to the ominous news reports of rising infection and death tolls akin to the Spanish flu of 1918. Scary words like 'pandemic' conjured up images from a bad science fiction movie.  I was worried and lost sleep. I wore gloves and a mask when I went to the supermarket. My initial response was fear.
    Then after a couple of days, I found myself contemplating the onerous task of washing every single grocery item before putting them away, and I took hold of myself. This is not healthy, I thought, this is panic and hysteria. This is no way to live.
    Death and loss are not strangers to me. My mother passed away when I was five years old. As a child I lost many close relatives.  My father always told me that life was for the living, and life must go on. That attitude helped me get through the grief of my childhood. Many years ago at age 24, I came close to dying and, had a near death experience. I am, unfortunately, quite practiced in the emotions and rituals of grief over lost loved ones, and I overcame my own fear of death many years ago. Perhaps this, along with a skeptical analytical nature, helped me to control myself from joining the mass hysteria and panic of COVID19.
    It is never easy to follow the path less traveled. It is far easier to follow the pack and accept the media/government narrative without question. Nevertheless, I noticed that the story we were being told had too many holes in it and it kept shifting.
   Initially, we were told to expect literally millions of lives would be lost to COVID19. The hospitals would be overrun. The chemists would be running out of drugs. Almost every house would have had at least one infection, or even worse, a death. We were warned, stay home, or you will be risking lives. This would be a plague!  I waited and watched from my home in Melbourne, Australia. I heard horror stories coming out of Italy, England, and America.
    As a member of the Jewish Orthodox Chassidic sect known as Lubavitch,  I was especially interested in the events of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, NY, the headquarters of the Lubavitcher Chassidim, and a place I lived in for 14 years.  Lubavitch is a close knit group, everyone is only six degrees from everyone else, even from overseas. The Jewish community in Melbourne were horrified to hear of a number of people passing away in Crown Heights.
    Fear is an extremely powerful emotion. I once heard a business coach say fear stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. Often when a person is gripped by fear their intellectual faculties can be stifled.  I wondered, was this applicable to COVID19? I was stuck home like everybody else, and on top of that I was suffering from a bruised hip from a fall so I couldn't really move around much. So I decided to do research, to do some truth seeking, and find out if the Great Panic of 2020 was actually anything to panic about  at all and,  I discovered  what may be of interest to others.

....to be continued in Part 2.

A Plea to Rabbis Not to Submit to Tyranny, by Shoshanna Silcove

The paranoia, the mass hysteria, the naivety of many of the Rabbis when it comes to the COVID medical tyranny, who totally submit to the tyrannical lying government with their ignorant Draconian decrees and virtue signaling, that is destroying Jewish life, all combined, means it stinks to be in the frum community these days. I am especially disappointed in many of my fellow Chabadniks. Have they forgotten what it means to have courage? These are descendants of Jews who were unafraid under the Soviet oppression, who would go to the ends of the earth to make sure the mitzvah could be performed even under the pain of death. And many did indeed die. And today, supposedly in the name of pekuach nefesh (saving of life), they are slavishly, naively, and sheepishly submitting to and trying to force upon us absurd unnecessary restrictions, going even beyond what the government demands. Why? Because of fear from the mass hysteria and lies by the media? Because of fear of losing government funding? Fear of losing prestige, hence the virtue signaling? Some Rabbis say these extreme restrictions are for pekuach nefesh. I wonder, how exactly is this pekuach nefesh to go beyond what even the tyrannical corrupt government requires? As the Rebbe taught us to ask, "Mei Heicahn Dan Tuni"?( From where do you derive such a directive?). This is what our Rebbe taught us we need to ask Rabbonim when we cannot accept or understand their directives or decisions. Rabbis are not closer to Hashem than the rest of us. I daven that they remember the strong Chabad tradition and history of courage and of strength to go against the evil societal trends, and get a hold of their senses with the Chassidic adage of 'Moach shalit ha el ha lev',(mind over the heart) and use their Chochoma, Bina and Daas, (Knowledge, Intuition, and Wisdom) and do the work needed to truly understand the facts of the situation we are in before they do untold damage, especially to our youth!

Every Aussie a Fair Go, by Shoshanna Silcove

I have a good idea, all the people who are calling for an economic shutdown should agree to not have any income. It makes sense. If you want to stop the incomes of millions of other people because you believe money is not important and we must save lives by shutting everything down, than you should agree to giving up your income too, even if it comes from Centrelink, ok?

How Did the Mass Hysteria Happen?, by Shoshanna Silcove

The initial projection models were way, way off. The so-called 'experts' admitted as such. This triggered the panic. Then governments and world leaders acted on those overblown inacurate numbers and the momentum of mass hysteria was exacerbated by the mass media. The media driven hysteria, combined with the political motivations of the left, which saw and grabbed an opportunity to spread more authoritarian government socialist control, brought us to this situation. Politicians and 'experts' cannot now reveal that they went down the wrong path lest they lose face. This will be recorded in history as the world depression that did not have to happen and, one of the greatest follies of mankind.

Say Bye Bye to Religious Jewish Life in Australia, by Shoshanna Silcove

Religious Jewish life for Chabad in Australia is ruined. Anash here are scared out of their minds with a mass hysteria that is unbelievable. They have been completely traumatised by the totalitarian mind control of the government/media complex. I doubt they will ever go back to shule. Imagine a Shavous without shule! How I wish the Rebbe were here to guide us! Most of them, except for a minority who are still capable of some critical and rational thought, believe all the propaganda and lies fervently without even daring to ask a question. This submissive zombified mind set will ruin their lives and the lives of their children. I have been trying to show people in anash information, cold hard facts, to help them assuage their irrational terror, but mostly to no avail. They are on the path of total self destruction.

Australia Used to Be a Nice Country, by Shoshanna Silcove

Australia was a very nice country while it lasted. In a matter of a few weeks our feckless, power hungry, ego maniacal, foolish, reckless, political leaders destroyed our rich capitalist system. Our civil liberties are being unraveled by the day. Australia is now well on its way to become a socialist country. We will all be much poorer and less free. A democratic capitalist govt has no right to disrupt our businesses and take away our private property rights. A democratic capitalist govt has no right to put us under surveillance and restrict our freedom of movement. These policies are only done by authoritarian dictatorships. And yet the majority of the Australian public, in a media driven stupor, and under the spell of mind control, is voluntarily marching down the path to their own subjugation.

The False Choice of Lives Before Money, by Shoshanna Silcove

Firstly, I am not afraid of either an economic crash or of death, as I am only afraid of G-d. Secondly, any discussion of a solution to the Corona crisis that minimizes or ignores the enormous impact of an economic halt on human life, is short sighted, unserious, foolish, and shallow. We live in an extremely complicated and interdependent socio-economic structure. Any artificial interference or halt to our socio-economic activity has a huge domino effect and directly impacts human lives. It is interesting to note that the vast majority of people who are calling for economic cessation are not at risk of losing their livelihoods, businesses, homes, or of starving to death. In such circumstances it is very easy to be flippant about closing down the economy because such people believe they are not affected by it (although they very well might be down the line but are in denial of that fact presently ). The meme of “lives before money” is media driven virtue signaling that makes one sound so noble but, is in reality foolish and selfish because it neglects to take into account the many millions of lives that will be ruined or destroyed by economic devastation. There are myriad of examples of this devastation to human life that are occurring with increased frequency daily, so much so that it is quite apparent to all except those in denial that the Corona virus is far less a threat to human life than the economic devastation that is being forced upon us as its cure.

Crown Heights and Corona both begin with 'C", by Shoshanna Silcove

It is always tragic when people die, every life is precious. As Torah believing Jews we know Hashem takes a person's life when He decides, and He has a myriad methods of doing so. All those Yidden who passed away in NY recently from Corona--well their time had come, Corona or no Corona. The average age of the people in Crown Heights who passed away from Corona was way over 70, and many were in their upper 80's and even 90's. They most likely did not die from Corona, but with Corona. In other words, they were frail and perhaps ill, and anything that weakened their immune systems, even a common cold, would have ended their lives. There are a small number of young people who passed away supposedly with Corona, but we cannot say for sure if they actually died because of Corona because we do not know if they have other diseases as well, and we do not do autopsies. For us to all extrapolate from these deaths in NY, that we who are not in the vulnerable categories, are all in equal and extreme danger of dying from Corona, is completely unfounded and irrational. This is based on fear. I studied this carefully. The chances of a person who is not in the vulnerable category of dying from Corona are far too insignificant to merit this level of panic and restrictions. IN fact, as time goes on we are finding out that more and more people had Corona and that the vast majority of these cases had either very mild symptons or none at all. This means the death rate for Corona is actually no higher than the death rate for the common seasonal flu. The initial models were false and they projected many millions of deaths. The mass media reported those false projections and whipped up a hysterical frenzy the like of which the world has never seen. Now the politicians who ordered the shutdowns of most of the world economy are in the mode of saving face--they cannot admit the truth, that the Corona virus was never actually the apocalyptic pandemic they made everyone believe. They need to justify their reckless and foolish actions which have triggered a spiral towards a worldwide economic depression. Hence, they will flood the media with propaganda justifying why they just destroyed the world economy for what it is being revealed was simply a bad flu. Of course, as Jews we believe everything is part of His Master Plan. Obviously He wants all this to happen, but that is a topic for another time.

How Bob Dylan Brought Me Closer to Yiddishkite, by Shoshanna Silcove

“ Does Judaism believe in life after death?”

Post Rosh Hashana Musings

One of my new year's resolutions is to resume blogging. Another Rosh Hashana has come and gone and we are still in galus (exile). For some reason I feel disappointed after Rosh Hashana (and Yom Kippur) every year because I somehow expect that Moshiach should have come. I think it is because of the shofar blowing, it is so moving and stirring and feels like redemption is upon us. I close my eyes and picture all the Yidden miraculously transported to The Beis Hamikdash (the Holy Temple) and we are all united in song and joy. Then I open my eyes and feel disappointed. However, since Moshaich, it is written, will come when least expected, I shouldn't really anticipate his arrival at the holiest moments of the year, but I still do. Rabbi Zvi Hersh Telsner gave over a beautiful vort before shofar blowing. He said the commandment of shofar blowing is only mentioned in Torah once. We Yidden have been faithfully blowing shofar each and every Rosh Hashan for thousands of years in thousands of cities throughout the ages. Yet, all we ask The Master of the Universe that He give us one single shofar blowing--that of The Great Shofar, the Shofar Hagadol, thereby heralding the coming of Moshaich. He was a bit choked up when he said this and I also became tearful. It was a moving moment for me.

Prevention of Child Abuse Worth More than Cure, by Shoshanna Silcove

This past Shabbes a young mother in our community asked me a question that made me shudder. “Do you know if the pedophile who abused Manny Waks is still in Yeshiva College or not?” I told her I had no idea of his identity and she went on to express her great trepidation at sending her still very young children to school there.  “ I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel the mosod is doing enough to protect my kids.”

Open letter to Zeddy Lawrence editor of the Australian Jewish News

Zeddy,

While I agree you are most conciliatory to deal with on a personal level, the paper you edit is not very Jewish at all. Does it really represent the Jewish community? Certainly not the majority. The majority is not in favour of gay marriage as a basic human right, nor is it in favour of pandering to Muslim extremists. The Jewish News's reason for existence is not to serve Jews, Judaism, or the Jewish community, but to make a profit, even at all of our's expense, especially the frum. Unfortunately, it's like having a neurotic relative, and we are stuck with your paper as a forum to reach large numbers of Australian Jews with our messages, regardless if it represents our way of life and views or not. Do not mistake our (the silent majority's) reluctant participation in your paper as support of your editorials or perspective.

Ironic you say you  feel you were maligned in this blog when you are the editor of a paper that engages in diatribes, specifically against religious Jews, on a regular basis. Remember how the AJN besmirched Rabbi Engel from Adelaide, who by the way was found not guilty of all criminal charges. Why never any front page apology for that? Because he is Orthodox?

Your projection of the death of the Australian Jewish community should cause you to take stock of the paper's direction since the only faction of Jews in Australia that is growing and has a bright future is the Orthodox. Maybe you should stop biting the hand that can and will feed you?

As far as the coverage of Lion FM is concerned, I am happy you printed my letter but, I understand there were quite a number of other letters on my side of the fence that were not published. Still, my letter does not compensate for the biased and one sided reportage of the past year. Come one Zeddy, surely you can do better than this!

Don't miss Lea Goldsmith from Itamar tonight on The Melbourne Jewish Women's Show

Tonight 7 PM
on www.lionfm.org.au--click on listen live
on The Melbourne Jewish Women's Show with Shoshanna and Ilana
hear interview from Israel with Lea Goldsmith from Itamar


link of Lea and her huband the Mayor of Itamar here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MfEtsZv6qw&feature=share

This Week's The Melbourne Jewish Women's Show

Continuing each week online

This Week's 
The Melbourne Jewish Women's Show

with your hosts Shoshanna Silcove & Ilana Leeds


Thursday Evening, June 23, at 7:00 PM at

Listen on the live stream here: http://www.lionfm.org/listen.html

An All New Segment:
One mother's struggle and triumph with her autistic son

This Week's The Melbourne Jewish Women's Show

This Week's
The Melbourne Jewish Women's Show
with your host Shoshanna Silcove this
Thursday Evening, April 7, at 7:00 PM on 96.1 FM
New Segment
                          with
fellow presenter Robin Aron from Mornings with Lion
and special guest
Yankel Wajsbort-Director of Kosher Australia
Topic: The Inside Story of Pesach and Kashrus
Listen on the live stream here: http://www.lionfm.org/listen.html
to contact Shoshanna and offer your feedback email her: lionfmwomen@gmail.com

Results from The Melbourne Jewish Women's Show!

Rabbi Bondar just told me a couple showed up at his shule in Frankston cause they heard my radio show about the new Jewish community there. They are going to the Bondar's this Fri night. They are new here in Australia from Colombia. I am so happy!