New World Order - Part 1: The Baal Maaseh (Lech Lecha)

Sefer Breishis holds some amazing secrets about who we are, where we are going, and what is happening in the world today. All the events of the world are foretold in the stories of Chava and the nachash, Kayin and Hevel, Dor HaMabul and Dor Haflaga, the four kings against the five, Yitzchok and Yishmael, Yaakov and Eisav, and Avraham's ten tests. 

Some are very easy to see but others are very well hidden. People who think there is no such thing as a Global Elite with an agenda for a New World Order and a One World Government are both ignorant of recurring world events and of the messages forecast in Sefer Breishis. They also do not understand the davening of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur (I intend to explain this in the next post.)

The following is a post that I wrote for Parshas Lech Lecha in 5779 (November 2008). It does not directly address the main topic of the New World Order but it is a very significant piece of the puzzle. In honor of Parshas Lech Lecha, I am reprinting it here as a prelude for what is to come.

The original title was:

Who Did the Land of Israel First Belong to After the Flood?

והכנעני אז בארץ

Rashi (Breishis 12:6) explains this pasuk to mean that:

The Kanaanim were progressively conquering Eretz Israel from the descendents of Shem, for the land fell within the portion of Shem when Noach apportioned the land…thereupon "And He said to Avram, 'To your offspring I will give this land…' ", i.e., I am destined to restore it to your offspring as they are the descendants of Shem.

I consider this Rashi as one of the most troublesome in all of Chumash, and I am not alone. For one thing, as Ramban points out, the Chumash clearly demarcates the borders of Kanaan in Parshat Noach (Breishis 10:19) which intimates that these are legitimate borders of the sons of Kanaan approved by Noach.

Secondly, Rashi seems to contradict himself profusely as follows:

Rashi in the first pasuk in Breishis (1:1) writes that the purpose of detailing the Creation as a preamble to the Torah was so that…

…if the nations of the world will say to Israel, "You are thieves, for you conquered the lands of the seven nations!", we will respond that "The entire earth belongs to HKBH. He created it and gave it to whom he saw fit. By his will, He gave it to them and by his will He took it from them and gave it to us."

This passage seems to imply that Rashi recognizes that the land was originally in the possession of the Kanaanim no less legitimately than it was later in our possession.

Further, in Bamidbar (13:22) Rashi confirms this sentiment by quoting the gemara in Sota (34b also Kesubos 112b) which says that it does not make sense to say that Chevron was built before Tzoahn of Egypt because "Does a man (Cham ben Noach) build a town for his younger son (Kanaan) before he builds one for his older son (Mitzraim)?" This clearly implies that Cham was the original master over the land of Kanaan and it was his right to build there.

Numerous commentators make note of this contradiction and at the forefront is Rabbenu Eliyahu Mizrachi (RE"M) who makes a note of it in all three spots (Breishis 1:1 and 12:6 and Bamidbar 13:22). And he repeats the same mantra throughout: These are contradictory aggadoth and Rashi acknowledges both. In Breishis 1:1 he points out that Rashi is prone to doing this in multiple instances in Chumash.

Two things bother me. First, the minor one and that is that to say "aggados chalukos" is always a last resort solution (kind of like אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה ) that we prefer to avoid. But, secondly, and more acute, I can accept the idea of contradictory aggadoth if there actually are two contradictory aggadoth – similar to the Talmud Bavli vs. Midrash Tanchuma issue I discussed previously about Ruth. However, in this case we know that Rashi's commentary on Bamidbar 13:22 is a gemara stated in 2 places. But what he says in Bresihis 12:6 (our pasuk) that Noach granted the land to Shem – where does he get that from?

It's not a Bavli, Yerushalmi, Midrash Rabba, Tanchuma, Yalkut or anything. How can we say aggados chalukos if it's not an aggada?? (Note - there are places that Rishonim quote Midrashim that are not found in the classic sources – see the famous Tosafot in Bava Basra 119b about the wood-gatherer that likewise has no known source.)

The best we have is a Toras Kohanim in Vayikra (Parsha 10:17) referenced in Ohr HaChaim (Breishis 12:6) that merely says:

והיא אינה אלא חלקו של שם ואתה בניו של שם.

That the land is the portion of Shem. It does not clearly state that Shem received the land when Noach apportioned it. Perhaps Toras Kohanim only means that it was destined for Shem but that Noach actually awarded it to Cham? And even if it was awarded to Shem from Noach, there is no mention about how or why it came to the hands of Kanaan. If this is Rashi's only source, it is only telling half the story. How does Rashi know the other half?

To summarize, the Talmud Bavli, Rashi in Breishis 1:1, and the Chumash in Breishis 10:9 all seem to indicate that Cham was the original legitimate sovereign of Eretz Israel. Yet, Rashi here (12:6) insists that Shem initially inhabited it and Cham stole it from him!

Who was here first?

Let us look at another troublesome pasuk.

The Chumash (Breishis 14:1) tells us, “And it was in the days of Amaraphel the king of Shinar, Aryoch king of Elasar, Kedarlaomer king of Eilam…”

Rashi tells us that Amaraphel was in actuality Nimrod. And we sure know who he was! He was the biggest, meanest king on the face of the Earth. Nobody messed around with Nimrod. He was Numero Uno. This is presumably why he is here at the head of the pack.

But wait! This is the last time Nimrod gets first billing. And he is only mentioned in this story one more time – batting third! What happened to him?

Only 3 pasukim later (Breishis 14:4) the pasuk says: “For 12 years they served Kedarlaomer…”

Kedarlaomer? Where did he come from? Oh yeah - Eilam! Where’s that?

Why were they serving Kedarlaomer? Wasn’t everybody subservient to the great and despotic Nimrod?

And in the next pasuk (Breishis 14:5), here he is again. He seems to be at the head of the pack.

Why him?

Rashi tells us: Because he was the “baal maaseh” (instigator) he entered into the thick of the frey.

Excuse me, but why was he the “baal maaseh”? Wasn’t he batting third at the beginning of this story?

With the help of Sefer HaYashar (a book of Midrashim of dubious authenticity) and the Oznayim L’Torah (Breishis 14:2 s.v. Asu Milchama) we can put a new spin on this story and perhaps an answer to the contradiction in Rashi.

You see, Nimrod was a tough mean guy. Probably the toughest and meanest there was. And he was a fierce king. He did not need to answer to anybody – except for one person: Kedarlaomer.

Yep, as great as Nimrod was, Kedarlaomer was greater. This is because Shem was the elite of Noach’s sons. He got first pick (even though Yefes was the bechor, Shem was born circumcised – Rashi, Breishis 5:32). And Eilam was Shem’s first born. He got first pick at everything. And Kedarlaomer was the favorite son of Eilam, the king. And a great king he was. Even Nimrod shuddered from him. This is because Noach made the sons of Cham servants to Shem (see Sanhedrin 91a)

When Noach apportioned the new world to his sons, he awarded the prime real estate – Eretz Israel – to his prized son, Shem. Shem in turn granted it to his first born, Eilam. However, Eilam did not want to take possession of Eretz Israel for himself. I can only venture a guess as to why – but I will suggest that the klal of ארץ ישראל נקנה ביסורים applied even from day one. So he chose to set up his kingdom in southern Iran instead (Shushan HaBira was in Eilam). But, so as to maintain sovereignty on this precious land, he had a great plan: He will “allow” his underlings, the slave nation of Kanaan, to settle the land; BUT – they must pay him an annual tribute. Among other reasons, this is so nobody should forget that the land is really his.

Of course, he didn’t want the dirty work of collecting taxes from these deadbeats – so he gave the job to his Numero Duo – his chief “enforcer” the invincible king of the sons of Cham – Nimrod. It was Nimrod’s responsibility to see to it that the Kanaanites pay their taxes to Kedarlaomer. Nimrod dealt directly with the populace, took his cut, and funneled the rest up to the boss.

For 12 years this arrangement worked just dandy. The people paid their taxes; to who? – to Kedarlaomer. Just they did it via Nimrod. Finally, for the next 13 years they staged a tax rebellion. Nimrod wasn’t happy but Kedarlaomer seemed not to notice so things dragged along. Finally, after 13 years, Kedarlaomer told Nimrod that enough is enough and that Nimrod had better talk some sense into these savages. Thus, initially Nimrod led the crusade into the Holy Land and Kedarlaomer just came along for the ride. As such Nimrod and his deputy Aryoch went first and Kedarlaomer and his pal Thidal came after. But in reality, it wasn’t Nimrod’s battle. It was Kedarlaomer’s. He was the real feudal lord of Eretz Israel, it was his land, not Nimrod’s. That is why he was the “baal maaseh”.

When the battle heated up (imagine the temperature in Sodom), Nimrod wasn’t getting the job done. I would surmise that Nimrod had mixed alliances as he was truly a Chammite and Kedarlaomer was a Semite. Nimrod didn’t want to wipe out fellow Chammites and in truth he was an anti-Semite. So, Kedarlaomer, who knew it was his fight, had to take charge. That is why in pasuk 14:9 his position is moved up ahead of Nimrod’s (as Rashi says) and again he is the only king named in pasuk 14:17.

Now, if we take all this as the real story (up to you) we can resolve the apparent contradictions in Rashi. Firstly, we will have to presume the following:

• Noach did not apportion the new world the day after they stepped out of the Ark. He first waited for his sons to produce a few generations of people to do some populating. When he finally did it, people such as Eilam and Kush and Nimrod and Kedarlaomer were already up and around.
  
  
• Immediately upon the apportionment of the new world, Shem received Eretz Israel, and he immediately granted it to Eilam who was ruled by Kedarlaomer, and he immediately sold Nimrod and the Kanaanim building rights in Eretz Israel. This was at the same time as Egypt was awarded to Mitzrayim son of Cham. As such, Cham had the initial building rights to both Kanaan (Eretz Israel) and Mitzrayim even though technically Eretz Israel never belonged to him. It was only his on loan.

With this approach, we can say that our Rashi (Breishis 12:6) understands that Noach actually awarded Eretz Israel to Shem but Shem immediately “sold” to Cham (Kanaan) the rights to “conquer” it. When Rashi says they “were progressively conquering it from the sons of Shem”, he didn’t mean they occupied it by force, but rather with permission granted to them from the sons of Shem (Oznayim L’Torah 14:2).

Now, it is no longer difficult that the Torah (10:19) acknowledges to Kanaan defined borders. These were the borders that were allocated to them in their contract with the sons of Shem.

Likewise, we can answer the Rashi in Breishis 1:1 that even though the land was the true inheritance of Shem, since the Kanaanim were the first to settle it, and it was done without force, it appears as if it was originally their land. We could truly answer the nations that the land always belonged to us (also, we can answer in the manner of the Talmud in Sanhedrin 91a) but since it will not satisfy those who only know what they see, we need an alternative response that the whole world belongs to its Creator.

And finally, the gemara in Sota and Kesubos (Rashi in Bamidbar 13:22) is justified in asking why Cham built Chevron for Kanaan before Tzoahn for Mitzrayim and it did not give the obvious answer that Chevron was built by Shem. This is because even though the land belonged to Shem, Cham was “sold” the license to build there.

Thus, in spite of what seems to be a major concession in Breishis 1:1, Breishis 10:19, and Bamidbar 13:22 – if we stick with the Rashi that we see here in Breishis 12:6 we can proudly assert that the land always was, is and will remain the property of the sons of Shem.

Now, wasn’t Yishmael’s mother Egyptian?

And the Sirens’ Loud Blare and the Rockets’ Red Glare –Absolute Proof that Moshiach is Near

 

Here is an excerpt of the famous passage from Yalkut Shimoni about the coming of Moshiach:

 

 

ילקוט שמעוני ישעיה ס' רמז תצט

 

א"ר יצחק שנה שמלך המשיח נגלה בו כל מלכי אומות העולם מתגרים זה בזה, מלך פרס מתגרה במלך ערבי והולך מלך ערבי לארם ליטול עצה מהם וחוזר מלך פרס ומחריב את כל העולם וכל אומות העולם מתרעשים ומתבהלים ונופלים על פניהם ויאחוז אותם צירים כצירי יולדה, וישראל מתרעשים ומתבהלים ואומר להיכן נבוא ונלך להיכן נבוא ונלך להיכן נבוא ונלך, ואומר להם: בני אל תיראו כל מה שעשיתי לא עשיתי אלא בשבילכם מפני מה אתם מתייראים? אל תיראו הגיע זמן גאולתכם, ולא כגאולה ראשונה גאולה אחרונה כי גאולה ראשונה היה לכם צער ושעבוד מלכויות אחריה אבל גאולה אחרונה אין לכם צער ושעבוד מלכויות אחריה:

שנו רבותינו בשעה שמלך המשיח בא עומד על גג בית המקדש והוא משמיע להם לישראל ואומר ענווים הגיע זמן גאולתכם, ואם אין אתם מאמינים ראו באורי שזרח עליכם שנאמר, קומי אורי כי בא אורך וכבוד ה' עליך זרח ועליכם בלבד זרח ולא על עובדי אלילים שנאמר, כי הנה החשך יכסה ארץ. באותה שעה מבהיק הקב"ה אורו של מלך המשיח ושל ישראל והולכים כלם לאורן של מלך המשיח 

 

 

English Translation:

 

Says Rabi Yitzchak –

The year in which the anointed King will be revealed will be when all the kings of the nations of the world are taunting each other. The king of Persia (Iran) is taunting the Arab king (could be Saudi Arabia, Jordan, or Qatar) and the Arab king goes to Aram (Syria or Turkey. Lavan HaArami was from Charan which is currently in Turkey) to take advice from them. The king of Persia returns and destroys the whole world and all the nations of the world tremble and panic and fall on their faces and they are gripped by pangs as of a woman in labor. And Israel trembles and panics and says, "To where can we come or go? To where can we come or go? To where can we come or go?” And I (the prophet is speaking on behalf of HKBH) say to them: “My children, do not fear. Everything that I have done, I have only done for you. Why are you afraid? Do not fear, for the time of your redemption has come!” And not like the first redemption will be the final redemption. Your first redemption was followed by distress and subservience to the nations, but with this final redemption, you will have no distress or subservience to nations afterward.

 

The Rabbis taught us –

At the hour when the anointed King comes, he will be standing on the roof of the Beis HaMikdash and he will announce to Israel and say: Oh you humble ones, the time of your redemption has arrived, and if you do not believe it, look at the light that has risen upon you. As the verse says: “Arise my light, for your light has come, and the glory of Hashem has risen upon you.” And it will shine upon you alone, and not upon the worshipers of idols, as it is written: “Behold darkness will cover the earth.” At that time, the Almighty will shine the light of the anointed King and of Israel and they will all go toward the light of the anointed King.

 

I first heard this Yalkut at the time of the Iranian revolution back in 1979. We thought it was “showtime” then and had such high hopes. That was a good 44 years ago, and it didn’t happen.

The world has only gotten darker since then. Very dark. The king of Persia has returned to destroy the world. And all the rulers of the world are rattling their sabers and taunting each other. I don’t know if it can get any darker than this. 

But, oh say! Can we now see the dawn’s early light?

And the rockets’ red glare and bombs bursting in air – and the sirens’ loud blare - give proof, through the night, that Hashem is still here…

…and that the geulah is near!

There is nothing to fear!

Jonathan Pollard of Yesterday Talks about the Jonathan Pollard of Today

 

Last May I wrote a post about the great Malka Leifer chillul Hashem called Irreversible Damage. I began by discussing four people who are on my Pidyon Shvuyim tefilla list.

Since that time, I scrapped two names on the assumption that their cases were happily resolved. I have no concrete knowledge, but since I haven’t seen updates on those cases, I assume they’re done. So, of those four, two names remain (I added two more). Those are Malka Leifer and Amiram Ben-Uliel (Amiram ben Nurit).

Both cases illustrate the total disdain our “Jewish” government holds for its religious citizens.

In the Malka Leifer case, there was a bit of confusion whether she is solely an Israeli citizen or a dual Israeli-Australian citizen. I assumed she was only an Israeli citizen, yet some readers sent me news items that explicitly claimed she is a dual citizen. As I wrote in my post about extradition law (HERE), this makes a whale of a difference on how hard or soft the Israeli government should be on a foreign extradition request. If the requesting country is asking to extradite their own citizen, it makes sense to comply. But if she is solely an Israeli citizen, the State has a responsibility to find and adhere to any legal excuse to refuse extradition. This is something they did not do.

I recently discovered from the sentencing hearing that she does not hold Australian citizenship at all. This contradicts numerous news items that claimed otherwise. In any case, this proves that the “Jewish” State of Israel was delinquent in their responsibilities toward their own natural-born citizen.

The case of Amiram Ben-Uliel is much more precarious. In this case the “Jewish” State of Israel framed one of its own loyal citizens for crimes he did not commit at any level. Here is the short description I presented in my earlier post:

West Bank resident was convicted for murder and arson in Duma incident and sentenced to 3 life terms. There is absolutely no proof to his guilt except a confession that was obtained from torture. See the story HERE and how to help HERE.

 

Note that even the Jerusalem Post has no problem referring to this fellow as a "Jewish Terrorist". This is beyond a travesty of justice. It is downright demonic evil. And it should be a major concern to all of us as Jonathan Pollard states.

Jonathan Pollard tells us in the embedded video how grave and dangerous this is. I urge everybody to see this 14-minute video. In case the video is not embedded in the email version of this post, please link to it at:

https://rumble.com/v3jk14q-jonathan-pollard-on-torture-and-amiram-ben-uliel.html 

Here is the video (Credit: Chananya Weissman):

 

 

Please daven and do whatever you can to help.

 

Chag Sameach!

The [Dis]Honest Truth – The Subjective Adjective Revisited

 

 

Author's Note - This post is a preface to an upcoming post about Dassi Erlich's soon-to-be-released autobiography.  As a background to this post, please see my August 2008 post: Lo Tosifu V'Lo Tigrau - The Objective of the Subjective Adjective.

 

Have you ever heard anyone say that “This is the honest truth”?

Doesn’t that come across as a little bit verbose? If it’s the truth, how can it be dishonest? Can the truth be dishonest?

Yes, it can. When the “truth” is stretched or shortened or bent out of shape (distorted), it may be a truthful report of facts, but is not telling a truthful story.

This is why witnesses are cautioned to tell, “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Firstly, the witness should not tell us anything that is not factual – it must be the truth. But this isn’t enough. The witness may be telling us a true account of only half the story, but the full story – the whole truth – says something else. So, we need him to also be sure to tell us the whole truth and not only some of it. Conversely, the witness may also “pad” the truth with some extra fluff which isn’t really true. But we want nothing extra. We want nothing but the truth.

So we see that there may be different types of “truth”. The honest truth and the dishonest truth. It goes without saying that the dishonest truth isn’t really true at all. It’s just that nobody can dispute the facts.

We get this from the Chofetz Chaim. In Hilchos Lashon Hara (10:2), Chofetz Chaim writes seven conditions for allowing one to say or write information that may be detrimental to another. Of course, it has to be absolutely true and first-hand knowledge and intended for a constructive purpose. Among the conditions, he writes (condition 4):

One may not inflate the infraction to appear to be any bigger than what it really is.

This means that whatever is stated cannot be overstated, overblown, exaggerated, or sensationalized for emphasis or “shock effect”.

In Be’er Mayim Chaim (clause 9) he expounds: 

It is elementary that this relegates it to a false report, and this constitutes motzi shem rah.

If it’s not the honest truth, it’s not the truth at all. But it makes for great propaganda.

This is the lesson I was trying to teach back in 2008 when I wrote the post: Lo Tosifu V’Lo Tigrau – The Objective of the Subjective Adjective.

Many times, the primary facts being reported are the real facts, but by adding some “subjective” detail or by omitting some “inconvenient” detail, it tells us a different story than the true story. It may technically be the truth but it’s not the honest truth.

In my 2008 post, I presented several examples of how adding a single unnecessary word or omitting a necessary one can make all the difference. For our purposes, I want to review three of the examples.

The first example is one of a transgression of “nothing but the truth”.

 

Example 1 - Added subjective adverb

This comes straight out of my book and it's on page 126. Here I am commenting on a story related by Noah Efron in his book, Real Jews:

 

Soon after the war, I flew El Al to the United States. I was squeezing back from the bathroom through a crowd of ultra-Orthodox Jews noisily praying in front of the emergency exit, when a flight attendant caught my eye and, smiling slyly, whispered in Hebrew, "You open the door, I'll push." I smiled back and found my seat.

 

Although it was not the focus of quoting the passage, I did comment in a footnote about one extra word. The word noisily. Here is what I wrote:

 

This adjective (Note - it is really an adverb; both I and my editors were sleeping on the job) is very telling. As it lends nothing to the story, it only serves to cast aspersions on the activity and, thus, to compromise Efron's claim to objectivity. I have both observed and participated in these "crowds" and I can attest to the fact that the participants typically make every effort not to raise their voices, that they can be barely heard above the din of the jet engines even at ground zero and that virtually no uninvolved passengers are even aware that the prayers are going on – unless they need the bathroom.

 

In this example, the adverb did not effect the story much, but, aside from its truthfulness being at issue, it betrays the sympathies of the teller and compromises his claims to objectivity.

 

What bothered me so much about his use of this adverb?

It is a term that can have a double meaning. At its pristine level, “noisily” means that it produces strong sound waves. But it is also used to characterize the event such as being wild, rowdy, and inconsiderate. In my eyes, the only reason to add this unnecessary adverb was to convey the added derogatory meaning which isn't really true. Hence, this is what Prof. Efron was trying to say to us. If so, I do not believe that this is the truth at all.

If you check out the original 2008 post, you may notice a commenter who calls himself “G”. G wanted to challenge my analysis and he asks, “Okay, why is your opinion of any more value than his?”

I don’t think G realized it, but he was really proving my point. Apparently, I have an opinion on whether the adverb “noisily” is appropriate, and Prof. Efron has an opinion on whether it is appropriate. It boils down to a matter of opinion. It seems that G concedes that this is an opinionated term. If one wants to tell the honest truth, there is no place for unneeded opinionated adverbs.

I think this is clearly what Chofetz Chaim meant in condition 4 about exaggerating the situation.

 

The second example was a transgression of not telling “the whole truth”.

Example 2 - Omitted adjective

Here is an example of the Lo Tigrau side of the coin. This comes out of Noah Efron's book as well but, as of yet, has not made it into mine. On page 60 of his book, Real Jews, he writes:

 

But the Jerusalem that produced Ginsburg is gone. To celebrate his wife's seventieth birthday, Ginsburg took her and several friends on a walking tour of the Jerusalem of her youth. When they went to visit her old school, a haredi vandal doused them with a bucket of water from the rooftop, because one of the women wore a sleeveless shirt. A couple in their seventies. They cannot even walk around what used to be their city. It is ruined.

 

Hmmm. Something doesn't seem right here. Where is there any indication that they cannot walk around what used to be their city? It seems there was a problem because somebody was sleeveless. If nobody was sleeveless, they can walk as much as they want. So, who says they can't walk in their city? They just can't walk sleeveless in their city. Efron seems to have forgotten to mention this one little detail. The fact that they are in their seventies he does not hesitate to remind us again. (BTW, Efron is a great great great nephew of the Bais HaLevi - the first RYBS- and is no total am haaretz. Why should he think there should be a cutoff date for tznius?) But in the course of that 5-word sentence, he forgets all about the sleeveless. And why is the Jerusalem that produced Ginsburg gone? Who says that she was able to walk around sleeveless 60 years ago? I tend to doubt it. Efron is wrong. Jerusalem is still here. It's Ginsburg that changed.

So let us rewrite his passage and insert this one little missing word:

 

They cannot even walk around sleeveless in what used to be their city. It is ruined.

 

Loses a bit its pizzaz, don't you think?

 

In this case, we can assume that all the facts of the story are absolutely true. No bending of the facts. We will assume that they really did walk around their old neighborhood, and they really did get doused by a chareidi vandal because one was sleeveless.

The problem isn’t in the main story, the problem is in the way Prof. Efron interprets the story for his readers in his follow-up comment. As I wrote in my post, leaving out one crucial detail makes his entire interpretation, and hence his point, totally false.

We don’t even need Chofetz Chaim for this one.

The third example is the one that is most relevant to the upcoming post. Once again it is a transgression of “nothing but the truth”. Here it is, slightly abridged:

 

Example 3 - Added subjective adverb

This example touches upon the issue of the Mehadrin bus lines and the commotion that has been stirred up over them. Believe it or not, I have not committed myself to declaring a firm position on the issue though my inclinations are quite obvious.

That said, I wish to comment on one of the news items that described one of the "celebrated" bus-brawl incidents. This is the Oct. 20, 2007 incident on the 497 Beit Shemesh bus as reported in the Jerusalem Post (link no longer available). The news item reads as follows (I italicized the keywords):

 

A haredi woman was attacked on a Beit Shemesh bus by five haredi youths Sunday for refusing to move to the back of the bus, police said.

 

The woman, who was seated at the front, asked an IAF soldier to sit next to her for protection. The attackers then turned on the soldier.

 

"They started beating me murderously," the soldier said in an interview.

 

The midday attack on the Egged 497 bus culminated in a clash between several dozen haredi men and police. During the melee, the suspects fled and the rioters were dispersed by police.

 

There were no injuries reported in the incident, but the tires of a police vehicle were punctured.

 

This article generated over 100 Talkbacks. As to be expected, most of them were comments suggesting all kinds of places the chareidim should "go back to". But two of them caught my attention, and, I must say that I am a bit ashamed that I did not notice this myself. These 2 Talkbacks relate to the quote from the IAF soldier about being beaten "murderously":

99. Hareidi Bashing Hzev - Israel 10/22/2007 10:52

 

I do Condemn the actions of these hooligans - but still stand astounded by the outpouring of hatred against chareidi world ! Reading the article it says : "There were no injuries reported in the incident" so how does that fit with the previous line "They started beating me murderously". This just serves as another example how some rare events - with no real injury - about chareidim can bring out all this hatred whereas the daily violence in the secular world can fill this website every day again

Here is another similar one:

81. No injuries were reported, Why Was a Haredi Woman Sitting With Men? Even weirder than the last hoax Efox - United States 10/21/2007 20:43

Yes the last one was a hoax with everyone else on the bus not noticing and the American Woman not being able to ID the men, but this one is different. This woman is supposedly Haredi but didn't act like one, yet there was clearly chaos when the police arrived, but no one was hurt? Just what kind of an attack leaves no one hurt?

I didn't write these Talkbacks, folks, and I am not claiming that any incident is a hoax. But they are valid points which do indeed indicate that these incidents do not always fit the print.

 

In both the first example of Prof. Efron and this third example of the Jerusalem Post, the subjective adverb was inserted to enhance the narrative. What makes the second one more egregious is that it is actually contradicted by another part of the narrative. Even my buddy G had no rebuttal to this one.

These types of distortions of the truth are commonplace. This is the way journalists slant the news. Especially the yellow ones. They constitute what we call propaganda. Theoretically, they also count as libel and defamation, although in practice, it may be hard to prove in court that a “true” statement is contextually false (or, perhaps, contextually false doesn’t count).

And, let’s not forget that, according to Chofetz Chaim, this changes the whole narrative to motzi shem rah. Dos is nisht emess un dos is nisht erlich!

News items come and go, but books are meant to be kept. When a book is written for the purpose of propaganda, the dishonest "truths" remain for posterity. If one really wants to write the honest truth, it is vitally important not to spice it up with unneeded subjective adjectives (or adverbs). Such a thing is a brutal betrayal of the truth.