Comments on: Jewish and Israeli Blog Awards – Last Day to Vote!

By: Gil Student

Gil Student — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 11:19:00 +0000

I would not expect Rabbi Menken to take a position that could get him harrassed by extremists and possibly lose funding for some of his projects. So let me take the lead and say unequivocally that my teacher R. Ahron Soloveichik had no problem with an “Old Earth”. He was, however, no fan of evolution. See his book “Logic of the Heart, Logic of the Mind” in which he discusses these issues.

By: Tovya

Tovya — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 04:19:18 +0000

Oh you guys don’t have to flatter me with your reference to your favorite blogs. I know you guys love me, and that is good enough for me.

By: grandmuffti

grandmuffti — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 04:04:37 +0000

Rav Menken, Gil student, enough was said a while ago. (re: Muffti’s directive that we shut the fuck up about the JIBs). DK and TM, thanks for the love, dudes! Muffti liked that one too! And to think that rant could bring you two together for the second time today would warm the heart of the Muffti if he had one.

By: David Kelsey

David Kelsey — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 03:00:14 +0000

Hey, look who stopped by? While your here, any direct answer to the dinosaur and “Old Earth” questions, Rabbi Menken, or would you prefer to punt on those two for a change? Why not set the record straight? Surely it can be given a yes or no, at least in terms of possiblity? That it is possible that there were dinosaurs, and it is possible that the earth IS NOT less than 6,000 years young, but is billions of years older than that.

Right?

By: Yaakov Menken

Yaakov Menken — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 01:06:44 +0000

Ditto what Gil said. No, there’s no slugfest. No, I did not insinuate some “seedy email campaign” — that would indeed have been hypocritical, as I’ve emailed friends myself.

What I “insinuated” was direct ballot stuffing, the source of which both Gil and I were equally unaware. And, lo and behold, I was absolutely right.

Enough said?

By: Gil Student

Gil Student — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 22:32:11 +0000

Come on. That’s hardly a slugfest between me and Rabbi Menken. And he actually turned out to be right. Two wise guys in a particular college sent a considerable number of votes my way.

By: themiddle

themiddle — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 21:26:32 +0000

Kelsey, if you agreed with me more often you’d also be right more often.

By: DK

DK — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 21:14:25 +0000

Wow! I agree with TM for like the second time in only a year! I also thought Mufti’s 13 Attributes was definitely the best Jewlicious post this year.

By: themiddle

themiddle — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 20:32:23 +0000

I vote for shin-kicking.

By the way, to add insult to injury with these JIBS, I think our best post this year wasn’t Conservative Judaism but Muffti’s Adonai Adonai

jewlicious.com...

By: michael

michael — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 19:22:59 +0000

Michael agrees with Muffti. And I would like to propose that, in the future, the JIBAs not be settled by voting, but rather by an old-fashioned pistol duel. It’s a win-win scenario: either people refuse to participate, or they get shot.

By: grandmuffti

grandmuffti — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 19:15:57 +0000

Hey, Muffti has a novel idea. Let’s all shut the fuck up about the JIB awards; for whatever good they do, they seem to incur a rather inordinate amount of interblog animosity and jealousy. We’ve had enough of that this year when Jewlicious and Jewschool spatted. Kill the li’l dog, vote Stormfront for best Israel advocacy, whatever. Let’s get to more interesting things, such as Lisa Loeb’s dating life and the toxic waste outside Laya’s appartment!

By: Jobber

Jobber — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 18:43:57 +0000

Of course Gil fixed the bids, he is black hat American Yeshivish, what are you, naive?

By: ano

ano — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 18:32:48 +0000

I didn’t say YM was traditional. I used the term “traditional Judaism” because you did, making wild generalizations about it on the basis of one individual on one blog.

By: DK

DK — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 18:02:00 +0000

Anon,

Yaakov Menken is NOT “traditional,” he is Fundamentalist. There is a difference, as THEY will be happy to point out to you when deriding non-Fundamentalist Orthodox Jews as “Modern”.

By: esther

esther — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 17:50:06 +0000

I am so losing this competition it’s not funny. I blame you, Jewlicious.

By: themiddle

themiddle — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 17:46:47 +0000

Seriously, this competition has been, um, silly at best. It’s been worthwhile to have been exposed to a bunch of new and not so new very fine blogs, but I find some of the current results hard to believe.

By: ano

ano — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 17:36:59 +0000

DK: One blog’s success (or the fact that a sucessful group blog includes a certain individual) proves that traditional Judaism is dominated by Fundamentalists? I’d be on better ground arguing that DovBear’s success proves that the Modern Orthodox are dominated by left-wing Democrats.

Your apparent hate for traditional Judaism seems to be getting in the way of your reasoning ability.

By: DK

DK — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 17:15:33 +0000

Menken’s and cross-currents’ success is proof that traditional Judaism is not only conducive to Quiescent Fundamentalism, but it is, in fact, largely dominated by it. Though I obvously prefer Hirhurim, I hope Cross-Currents wins, so that we will have to stop fooling ourselves.

As Menken straight out if the earth is really not even 6,000 years old, and if there were living and breathing dinosaurs. Watch him refuse to answer the question.

By: anon

anon — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 15:14:19 +0000

Hirhurim responds