New Article: Rabbi Eli Mansour: Destroying Our Noble Sephardic Heritage
David Shasha
Rabbi Eli Mansour: Destroying Our Noble Sephardic Heritage
The Brooklyn-based Haredi Rabbi Eli Mansour has worked diligently to help undermine our noble Sephardic heritage by adopting the alien ways of the Ultra-Orthodox Ashkenazim.
For all his devoted efforts, he has become one of the most popular rabbis in the American Syrian Jewish community and has helped to spearhead a revolutionary transformation of the Sephardim.
He has attacked Maimonidean Jewish Humanism:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/nPRtXx4KPd0/rfKyhMSmCQAJ
He has promoted religious worship in the cemetery:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/trEbcWhJpfk/ASOK8SK4ykwJ
He has allied himself with the Ashkenazim against our rabbis on a wide array of ritual matters, such as Egg Matzoh on Passover, riding a bike and playing ball on Shabbat, and most importantly on the Torah education of women and their religious obligations:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/hm4lS3ELjN8/pKUjyWE7bwcJ
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/dD3-4eXP3tY/bk-IGrgCAgAJ
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/Kmi5UgxrL9I/ZakBPZDhDRYJ
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/Davidshasha/mansour/davidshasha/ubDhb1IhFIg/xfwsHJ-Pl_4J
In each of these cases Mansour proudly sided with the Ashkenazim against our rabbis.
Mansour’s work is firmly rooted in the soil of Franco-German PILPUL and its rigid authoritarian fundamentalist tendencies.
I was particularly intrigued by his discussion of this week’s Torah portion:
http://www.dailyhalacha.com/WeeklyParasha.asp?ParashaClipID=667
Here is the final paragraph from the article:
In our day and age, we need spiritual protection more than ever. Not unlike Yosef, we are submerged in a culture that is hostile and antithetical to our traditions, values, ideals and way of life. And, this culture infiltrates our homes constantly, to the point where we can no longer hide from it. But in addition, our culture is progressively chipping away at the notion of parental authority. Our greatest source of protection from hostile spiritual influences – Kibud Ab, respecting parents – is itself quickly growing “out of style.” We need to reinforce our commitment to this vitally important Misva, to the obligation to respect and obey parents. Just as this Misva protected Yosef in Egypt, it is what will protect us, too, from the overwhelming hostile influences to which we are exposed on a constant basis in our society.
“We are submerged in a culture that is hostile and antithetical to our traditions”!
When I read that line, and the following discussion on respecting parents, I thought of the way that the Sephardic Jewish community has spit on the graves of its sages and its intellectual leaders while embracing the Ashkenazi Jewish heritage.
And in this Mansour has led the charge!
His Haredi alienation from the larger world is a firm repudiation of Maimonides’ weltanschauung which seeks accommodation and integration into that larger world and its philosophical and scientific values, while continuing to carefully maintain our sacred Jewish traditions.
How ironic it is that one of the foremost examples of the Ashkenazi Haredi revolution in the community cannot even see that it is his own hostility to our tradition that has helped erode the classical Sephardic civilization and the values of Jewish Humanism and replace it with the authoritarian, anti-intellectual Da’as Torah of Lakewood and Bnei Brak.
David Shasha