Unlocked by Blogger -- Thanks For Your Support

This is my last post at this URL until the next time I get locked out. So please read this post and go back to

http://themagneszionist.blogspot.com/

Shavua Tov, a Good Week, Readers

I don't know when my blog was unlocked, but everything seems ok now, for the moment.

I am still a bit shaken by what I consider to be a violation of my blogging space, and I still suspect people who are unfriendly to my blog. One of my readers suggested that the culprit was somebody who was unhappy that I called the settlement of Efrat ugly. Don't laugh. The few times I have blogged about Efrat I have received some very nasty reponses from Efratians.

And that's a shame because although none of my best friends lives in Efrat, I have very good friends who live there. I can criticize the settlement without dumping on some of the settlers there.

But maybe the whole thing had nothing to do with Efrat.

Anyway, I am closing this URL until the next time.

Thanks for your support!

Washing Israel's Dirty Linen in Public During the Nine Days

This is a blast from the past (last year), but still timely

Question:

Dear Magnes Zionist,

Is it permissable to wash Israel's dirty linen in public during the nine days?

On the one hand, there is a mitzvah to rebuke one's neighbor, and exposing Israel's wrongdoing is done as a rebuke. On the other hand, it is forbidden to launder clothes during the nine days, and washing one's dirty linen publicly borders on mesirah and halshanah, i.e., informing to the gentile authorities.

Answer:

To wash Israel's dirty linen in public during the Nine Days is not only permissible, but actually a mitzvah.

But here I would make a distinction. With respect to petty sins and acts of injustice, those that are part and parcel of the Israel experience, it is not permitted to launder these during the Nine Days. That is because the Nine Days are days in which we are to feel the full force of the spiritual galut (exile) in which we live. Protesting such minor injustices relieves us, psychologically, of the galut guilt.

However, with respect to the major acts of Israeli injustice against the Palestinians -- not exposing these would be akin to not laundering soiled underwear during the Nine Days -- a most unhealthy and dangerous practice that brings disease and even death. And these are the sorts of acts that need repeated public laundering, and that exposing them makes one feel worse rather than better -- because they remind us of the moral rot at the heart of the State that needs to be removed.

So, continue to wash Israel's dirty linen in public during the Nine Days, but focus on the truly filthy laundry.

Shabbat Shalom

The Magnes Zionist

Note to my non-orthodox readers: it is forbidden according to Jewish law to wash clothes and to wear new clothes during the nine days before the Ninth of Av (which begins this Monday night), as a sign of mourning over the destruction of the Temple.

The Magnes Zionist Blog Is Still Locked Out

Shabbat comes in soon, and the Magnes Zionist Blog is still locked out by Blogger. Apparently, someone unfriendly to the Magnes Zionist (hmm...I wonder who that could be) was able to convince the Blogger robots to consider it a splog (spammer blog).

Within the next day or two or three, the real people at Blogger will look at the blog and see that it is not a spamming blog. Unless, of course, overzealous rightwingers have hacked into it to make a spamming blog.

In any event, the only thing that silences Jerry is Shabbat and holidays, and I will figure out a way to continue blogging next week.

You can still read posts at the old address.

http://themagneszionist.blogspot.com/

I just can't add new ones there until it is unlocked.

Shabbat Shalom