Wednesday, November 01, 2006
11/01/2006 10:36:00 PM | 
Posted by
JoeSettler
There seems to be some confusion as to what the JoeSettler blog is about.
There are those that think they can use it as their soapbox for whatever they believe in. There are those that think it is a place for dialogue between diverging viewpoints. There are those that think it is a place for rebutting what I say (or at least making the attempt).
Let me make this clear.
JoeSettler is my soapbox.
I hear leftist and anti-religious drivel all day long on the news, from my friends, and from my colleagues.
I started this blog because the Left decided to expel 8000 Jews from their homes – and this is my answer to your evil act – whether you participated, anticipated, or simply appreciated it.
This is a blog about, and from the perspective of Israel and Torah Judaism, with emphasis on the Torah mandate of conquering and settling all of Eretz Yisrael (from Tel Aviv to Rafiach Yam).
The objective of this blog is to promote a Jewish State in Eretz Yisrael as opposed to a state full of Jews like we have now.
If your opinions are anti-Torah, I’m not interested in seeing them here.
Don’t take it personally (or do take it personally, that’s your business), but my site isn’t here for promoting your ideas or creating dialogue. Nor am I interested in wasting my time arguing with you when your philosophies and values are so diametrally opposed to mine. When you start off so wrong on the basics, any common ground is transitory, and ultimately the conclusions will be in opposition. Sharon proved that last summer.
JoeSettler is for promoting my ideas.
If you want clarification, that might be one thing, but if you want to argue. Go away. I’m not interested.
I’m sorry if you don’t like my attitude on my blog, but too bad. I’m forced to hear your type of drivel all day long and this is my place to vent.
I would also recommend this prerequisite basic reading list before participating in this blog to ensure you are well founded in the basics of any post and understand the actual underlying innuendos and allusions as opposed to your imaginary suppositions:
(In no particular order)
• Tanach
• Rabbi Chaim Zimmerman
• Rabbi Eliezer Berkovitz
• Rabbi Meir Kahane
• Rambam
• Siddur
• Yoram Hazony
• Rav Kook
• Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsch
• Rabbi Slifkin
• Rav Steinzaltz
• Ramchal
• Maharal
• Rabbi Sol Roth
• Clausewitz
• Moshe Feiglin
There are those that think they can use it as their soapbox for whatever they believe in. There are those that think it is a place for dialogue between diverging viewpoints. There are those that think it is a place for rebutting what I say (or at least making the attempt).
Let me make this clear.
JoeSettler is my soapbox.
I hear leftist and anti-religious drivel all day long on the news, from my friends, and from my colleagues.
I started this blog because the Left decided to expel 8000 Jews from their homes – and this is my answer to your evil act – whether you participated, anticipated, or simply appreciated it.
This is a blog about, and from the perspective of Israel and Torah Judaism, with emphasis on the Torah mandate of conquering and settling all of Eretz Yisrael (from Tel Aviv to Rafiach Yam).
The objective of this blog is to promote a Jewish State in Eretz Yisrael as opposed to a state full of Jews like we have now.
If your opinions are anti-Torah, I’m not interested in seeing them here.
Don’t take it personally (or do take it personally, that’s your business), but my site isn’t here for promoting your ideas or creating dialogue. Nor am I interested in wasting my time arguing with you when your philosophies and values are so diametrally opposed to mine. When you start off so wrong on the basics, any common ground is transitory, and ultimately the conclusions will be in opposition. Sharon proved that last summer.
JoeSettler is for promoting my ideas.
If you want clarification, that might be one thing, but if you want to argue. Go away. I’m not interested.
I’m sorry if you don’t like my attitude on my blog, but too bad. I’m forced to hear your type of drivel all day long and this is my place to vent.
I would also recommend this prerequisite basic reading list before participating in this blog to ensure you are well founded in the basics of any post and understand the actual underlying innuendos and allusions as opposed to your imaginary suppositions:
(In no particular order)
• Tanach
• Rabbi Chaim Zimmerman
• Rabbi Eliezer Berkovitz
• Rabbi Meir Kahane
• Rambam
• Siddur
• Yoram Hazony
• Rav Kook
• Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsch
• Rabbi Slifkin
• Rav Steinzaltz
• Ramchal
• Maharal
• Rabbi Sol Roth
• Clausewitz
• Moshe Feiglin
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20 comments:
Hmm - you could have also mentioned my blog as recommended reading ;-)
Your posting reminds me of Rush Limbaugh, to whom I used to listen regularly back when I lived in America. He would begin his show every day with a brief clarification for new listeners:
"This show isn't about what you think. It isn't even about what America thinks. It's about what I think."
If only we had a Rush Limbaugh on Israel Radio, that would be the beginning of a real revolution in Israel.
Yes, it would be.
The closest thing we ever had here was Adir Zik on Arutz-7.
Someone like Rush Limbaugh is possible in America because there is a thriving, private-sector, non-government-controlled media. Not so here in Israel, where the electronic media is run by the government, and even a private offshore radio broadcaster is prevented from operating...
But that's the point, the air is full of left-wing hosts. Some quite virulent00, but but not a single right-winger is allowed to host on Israel or Army radio.
We have Mordechai Lavi on Radio Kol Chai (under Shas control), but he is the exception that proves the rule.
Martin,
Maybe I just want to hear how much people like me?
This basic reading list is basic not just for this blog, but for any Jew that actually wants to know what Jewish classical and modern thinkers of Judaism say about Torah and Judaism - and what Judaism is (except Clausewitz, which is just good, if long, reading).
But why remain an "ignoramus"?
You have an incredibly vibrant intellectual heritage that you were born into (or joined) with an advanced philosphical foundation. I'm not saying I'm arrogant or elite (or maybe I am which I'm quite OK with). I'm asking you to join me and be knowledgable about the community that gives you your underlying identity.
Perhaps after reading Rabbi Chaim Zimmerman, for instance, one would understand the mitzvah of "timcheh et zecher amalek" and who, when, where and why it applies, rather than making idiotic comments that show you are an ignoramus when it comes to your own people, history, and philosophy.
Finally, there is a difference between someone (say you) giving your viewpoint on a topic (which I tend to disagree with), and someone rudely coming on to my site insulting the Torah and Judaism and making ignorant superficial comments without understanding any of the underlying philophies of what he is parroting, or another essentially saying we can/should act like animals because we are animals. Or some idiot calling me a racist when I said that most cars in the PA controlled areas are stolen (particularly when I got the numbers directly off the Israeli Police and Palestinian Authority websites - whose correlation proves that most of the cars in the PA were stolen from Israelis). And it really does bore me when someone throws in the Holocaust as a reason to accept/tolerate any and every act or behavior (or specifically the ones they agree with). It's so overdone.
Unlike what the liberal thinks, there are things that are subjectively and objectively wrong. I am considering writing a post about it in the future if I find the time.
I consider it quite paradoxical that there are those that can't tolerate what they see as my lack of tolerance.
I am fighting this culture war to maintain and promote Israel's Jewish identity - and Jewish means Torah, not Matza balls and nostalgia.
I have no problem with Nazis (or gays) marching down the streets of democratic America (I actually don't know if homosexuality is permissable or forbidden to Bnei Noach - since it simply isn't a research topic on my todo list), but here in Israel my goal is a Jewish/Torah-based democracy, not a secular pseudo-democracy full of Jews.
By the way, if you absorb what I say, ex cathedra or not, then there is hope for you.
:)
As a last point, this isn’t a blog for arguing about the basics, you can go to DovBear or XGH, to name two, for that.
Consider this the Advanced Shiur not Remedial Whatever. If you don’t accept the foundations, there’s no common ground to argue the advanced subjects.
(As an aside, I also have a problem with certain “Kachnikim” that write here misinterpreting the Rambam and Kahane. But Lurker generally tries to correct them for me.)
Two questions:
1. Who is Rabbi Chaim Zimmerman?
2. Whatever happened to Adir Zik?
Joe, as a kashrut-keeping, Shabbat-observing, sort-of-secular Jew, living in Israel, I find myself in the odd position of usually agreeing with you.
Sort it out, it makes sense.
I wouldn't mind seeing the secular State of Israel base itself more firmly on Jewish fundamentals (but not necessarily fundamentalists), simply because that's why we're all here in the land.
Shmilda:
1)
Rav Chaim ZImmerman
2) Adir Zik: He died, I think of cancer.
Michael:
That's all I ask. I think a little more history and knowledge by the general masses would change a lot attitudes in this country. I don't want a fundamentalist country (though there are undoubtedly those that would define anything but the most lax, liberal, leftist country as fundamentalist) either, but this country does need a return to its fundamentals.
Also: Rabbi Chaim Zimmerman
"underlying philophies of what he is parroting"
I was never under any conflicting impression in terms of who you tolerate, or wish to read, your blog. (Which is why I seldom visit these days. But hey, when I do, always nice to feel so very welcomed...)
Shavua Tov.
pp: And yet strangely enough you are welcome here to visit.
:)
pp: good catch on the spelling mistake too.
I recognize almost everyone on your list except for Rav Sol Roth.
Can you tell me something about him?
I am not a big fan of Rav Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, inspite of the positive contribution of "Torah im Derech Eretz", because he unwittingly, through his anti-Zionism and fanatical dedication to the principle of "separate communities", led to the driving apart of the religious and non-religious and introduced the idea of "political correctness" into the religious world, where what party you vote for becomes more important for many people than your level of religious observance.
I will expand on this if you are interested.
"I don't want a fundamentalist country"
"but here in Israel my goal is a Jewish/Torah-based democracy"
please draw the line for me between a fundamentalist country and a torah-based one. this seems to me to be a very subjective distinction that probably even few religous israelis couild agree on once you get down to the level of specifics.
Ari:
That is an excellent question that I contemplate often.
After all, my version of a Torah based democracy is different than say the version someone from Bnei Brak might want to have (though interestingly I did hear someone from Agudat Yisrael give a definition I really liked).
But the difference may not be so much be in the definition but rather the implementation.
For example, Israel professes to be a true democracy, yet its implementation of democracy is so openly flawed and radicalized you have to be kidding yourself if you thought we actually have that (unless your definition of democracy is incredibly narrow, exactly as it seems to be understood by the average Israeli – who thinks elections once every few years for the same exact people is the sum total definition of democracy).
From administration detentions of citizens without trial for months on end, judicial activism to the point of openly overriding the legislature, selective implementations of the rule of law, the near complete inability of citizens to vote out failed politicians and their policies, the simple fact that I am not even allowed to pray on the Temple Mount(!), and so on.
It would certainly be objectively easier for me to draw the line between Israel’s current implementation of democracy and true democracy – as there are so many examples.
Your question deserves a full post (or 10) and I should write something.
In the meantime I recommend reading everything on this website, you can start with .
As they describe an implementation I agree with.
Also I recommend reading papers by Paul Eidelberg on Democracy, Israel and Judaism. He comments here occassionally, so maybe he'll add a few good links.
The links got all messed up.
I'll try again a later or just google him yourself.
Personally I come here for the fine sweet rolls. So very tasty. ;)
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