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It is offensive to have a go at Shinui’s leader Tommy Lapid. Even if you don’t like any anti-religious things he may have said, he is a very decent, good man, and a defender of Israel. When interviewed on a BBC programme two or three years ago, the rude, offensive, anti-semitic interviewer gave him a very hard time, but he answered the evil questions heroically. At the end of the interview the interviewer said that it had been a pleasure to speak to Lapid; Lapid said he wished that he could have said the same of the interviewer. If you don’t like Shinui, fine, but don’t bash Lapid - he is a good Jew.
By Robin Mitzman on 2008 01 21


I find this post offensive both in tone and misinformation. For now, I will content myself with 2 points (okay, maybe 3). There has never been, in the charter of Beit Hakerem, any rules forbidding Jewish houses of worship or mikvaos. I challenge you to back up this pernicious claim. It is simply false.
It is socially inappropriate (though perfectly within legal bounds) for Shas to set up shop in BH. Just as it would be socially inappropriate (but within legal bounds) for Na-ar Oved to set up shop in Har Nof. I wonder how HN residents would react to that?
The triumphalist tone of the post is disturbing. Today there may be the sense of Orthodoxy on the rise with secularism on the ropes. But 100 years ago—and less—the opposite was true. Who is to say what the next 100 years will bring? A little humility, please. And somehow, I find the triumphalist tone toward other Jews—many of whom, regardless of religious sentiment, choose to live and even die in the Land of Israel (David Grossman’s son comes immediately to mind) off-putting, to say the least.