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Showing posts with the label Hatzola

Of Making Many Books

And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end (Ecclesiastes 12:12) A pdf version of this essay  can be downloaded here [*] Years in brackets refer to an individual’s or book author’s year of birth Thought experiment for the day: Anyone born 1945 would be pushing towards 80 and mostly past their prime. So name any Charedi sefer written by someone born post war that has or is likely to enter the canon, be it haloche, lomdus, al hatorah or mussar. Single one will do for now — IfYouTickleUs (@ifyoutickleus) July 27, 2022 A tweet in the summer which gained some traction asked for a book by an author born from 1945 onwards that has entered the Torah and rabbinic canon or is heading in that direction. I didn't exactly phrase it this way and some quibbled about 'canonisation'. The word does indeed have a precise meaning though in its popular use it has no narrow definition. Canonisation, or ‘entering the canon’ is generally understood to

A Tale of Two Hatzoles (and two venues)…

… but one singer What I'm going to write about is so secret and so highly classified that not even all who regularly pop up for photo ops with the old bill and other epauletted worthies are in on this one. But in my mission to keep my readers informed I will nevertheless share it all with you despite the fact that I may be breaching the Official Secrets Act. But please lmaan hashem don't say you heard it from me because I'm in enough hot water as it is and this is one I can do well to avoid. You must have all heard of last night's kumzitz, between you and me little more than a fancy word for a concert especially when held on leil shishi , which took place at the Walthamstow Town Hall in aid of Hatzole North West. Its star performer was none other than Abraham Fried. Since the Walthamstow Town Hall is kind of on our turf the rabbis banned it. I mean, what use would rabbis be if they allowed concerts? All you have to do is allow one concert and next they'll be

The Tribune’s dodgy dossier

In the run-up to and aftermath of the Iraq war we got to hear a lot about the dodgy dossier in which it was claimed that Iraq could deploy biological weapons within 45 minutes. A journalist said it was sexed up and got himself into deep trouble, a scientist doubted its veracity and ended up taking his own life while those who commissioned and tailored the report to suit their needs were whitewashed courtesy of Lord Hutton. Well, the 45 minutes that forms the subject of this piece fortunately did not lead to war nor cost any lives though it is hardly less of a bombshell for that. In its report of the recent Hatzola fundraising evening, last week's Jewish Tribune causally dropped a supposed fact that 'the average waiting time for a London ambulance is 45 minutes.' No one in their right mind would accuse the Tribune of sexing anything whether up, down, diagonally or whichever position one can think of. Yet this 'statistic' appears in a box telling the story of a ma