Women Answering the Phone Threatens to Destroy the Jewish Community
We’re not quite sure who recorded this thoroughly insane rant, but rumor has it that it’s some Satmar loon from Kiryat Yoel.
Here’s the translation from Yiddish:
Do we have to be afraid of things other than Hashem, the blessed One?
You answer a telephone…a woman answers a telephone…
First of all, today, we put on message, even by the “haimishe” Jews, there is a message machine—and if a wife or a daughter speaks into it, this is a dear…this is a lewdness, this is a curse that we should find among us such a thing.
Secondly, we answer telephones. Okay then, so a wife answers, a son answers, a daughter answers, a boy calls his friend… and the sister picks up the phone. This is like the flame from menorahs. And it lights a bonfire. It is a fright in the world!
As long as we have technology today, and it really doesn’t make a difference one way or the other, we would need a special line that will be driven to be 100% modest, a line for males and a line for females.
It doesn’t make a difference. You can get a line that you don’t call out, that you can just receive calls; you have a line, you pay for it, it’s worth it.
A woman, even if she picks up, it can start right after the wedding—this one, a young wife, calls that one, and it’s worthless…
We have seen over time, there a times when a man wants to walk, he asks questions, he wants to make himself “batampte” (literally tasty—but it means socially attractive or savvy in this case), he wants to be “geshmack” (literally lipsmacking good), he wants to be haimish (a homey). It can bring to the point to completely destroy a home.
We are asking, and, of course, this is a new thing, and you might dismiss this as another “fresh story”. No, that’s not the case.
You should know that we are playing with fire. This is a vital matter.
We should see to it that the edict and those who first came up with it, should be given credit from Heaven for the future to come (in Yiddish the words mean eternity), and we will give it to them.
We have to watch, we need to be careful. There should be numbers for the men to call the men and the women to call the women.
That’s right folks: Simply hearing a woman’s voice at the other end of the telephone will cause you to lust wantonly and, as such, will surely destroy your marriage.
Did any of these great khakhamim ever stop to think that the absence of normal/healthy/plutonic/egalitarian relationships with women may be more responsible for their fetishization and objectification than say, engaging them as equal human beings and learning to cope with/master your hormones?
“the absence of normal/healthy/plutonic /egalitarian relationships with women may be more responsible for their fetishization and objectification than say, engaging them as equal human beings and learning to cope with/master your hormones?”
I’ve spent time with ultra-Orthodox families. And, in general, I find their treatment of gender differences to be an asset, not a liability. Sure there are kooks in every community. But we i.e. non-traditionalists, are so busy trying to reinvent personality, gender, etc. (we think it’s a God given right), and our payoff is alienation and anxiety (don’t believe me…take look at the increase of SSRI medication over the past few years).
We’ve got a lot to learn about marriage and relationships from traditionalists.
“the absence of normal/healthy/plutonic /egalitarian relationships with women may be more responsible for their fetishization and objectification than say, engaging them as equal human beings and learning to cope with/master your hormones?”
Yeah, they better watch out for that fetishization and objectification. Next thing you know, they’ll be posting Suicide Girls pictures on their websites.
Whoever came up with this one obviously had too much phone sex in younger years.
i listened to the clip and i still rolling, ouch my side hurts
boyoboy, J, you said it.
i can’t even believe that mobius has the chutzpah to write with a holier-tan-thou posture about “healthy” relationships to women after posting those SG photos. seriously… i cannot even believe it.
mobius… congrats. you’ve just won 2005’s unbelievable poseur of the year award. what are you gonna do now?
shtriemel: There is no evidence what so ever that there is less mental illness in traditionalist communities. There is an increase in the use of aspirin since aspirin was invented too. Those kinds of slogans say nothing, and are anecdotal. They make it difficult to divorce without social ostracism. That doesn’t mean they are happier.
agreed with mobius. while there is obviously a lot to be said for modesty and traditonal values, of course complete seperation of the sexes is going to lead to a lack of understanding about each other. fetishizing of something that is so off-limits is only natural. heh, that clip is hysterical
Oh what the hell, I mean maybe we should put them in burkas too.
j+chazar: i knew when posting this there’d be someone who’d make that remark.
to be perfectly honest, i have never really been ‘turned on’ by the photography on suicide girls (though i suppose that could be because i like bukkake). jk! and as a photographer, designer, and creator of web-based communities, i view the site through a very different lens than i would guess most people.
there is a very big difference, however, between posting suicide girls for the sake of simple objectification, vs. posting them for the sake of having a laugh about their chanukah photosets.
i thought the shoots were funny and incredibly awkward. not sexy.
btw–i have incredibly healthy relationships with women. you can ask any of them. it’s because i have healthy relationships with women that seeing them naked in stupid funny photos doesn’t make me mess myself. oh horror!
shtreimel. the rebbe needs to twist your ear or knock your teeth out. That was all normal behavior when i was growing up.
I was called a ho for saying gut shabbos to my brothers’ friends. I was treated like a slut for most of my teen years by a bunch of psycho rabbis who kept one hand on their dicks when they taught us chumash in beis yakov. Today, I can’t have a platonic relationship with men from Brooklyn or Rockland County because they are insane when it comes to sex. If a woman hospitality worker (ie., a waitress) is wearing something slightly revealing, the frum guys decide she is a ho sent to distract them and take them to bed. I was there and got into a conversation with one of these “men” –(infants) and so forth.
This phone thing? Just more proof that the more my family inbreeds the more psychotic they become. Soon sex is going to consist of sending sperm in turkey basters to the woman you chose who still lives with her parents. You will be able to marry via proxy, send over the do-it-yourself spermload and forget it.
Yikes. Looks like the rule is openess and understanding towards people of different cultures and ideals unless they are Haredi Jews. Yes, we’re all Jews and their standards may not match ours but really we need to be a liittle respectful of their way of life and their desire, in the face of tremendous outside pressure and ubiquitous outside media, to maintain said way of life. RESPECT. Please.
Kyle’s mom,
So since my uncle was an alcoholic, all uncles are alcoholics huh? Got it.
yeah, moby, i guess we’re just so predictable, us “haters of seeing our jewish sisters’ boobies on proud display” types.
and please, with the “i view the site through a very different lens than i would guess most people” crap. boobies are boobies, man. my bet is, even major porn directors still get hard-ons while shooting their movies, even though they’ve seen the same stuff day-in, day-out for years…
that shit wasn’t “funny.” what, you’re “having a laugh” at these sisters’ “awkwardness?” these are daughters of israel, your sisters, for god’s sake! what the f*ck is so funny about it?
this, coupled with (as ck mentioned) your schoolyardish finger-pointing at communities that do tniyut any differently than you…
get your head straightened out, man!!! quit talking about tolerance/egalitarianis m and spouting hatred/misogyny!
oh freakin please.
if a woman is comfortable enough with her body that she chooses to share its appearance freely, that’s her choice. good gave you eyelids and neck which can turn 180 degrees for a reason.
if a man is so uncomfortable with his own sexuality that he demands women be oppressed as a result, that’s not acceptable. he doesn’t have a right to inhibit others because he’s incapable of controlling himself.
i don’t see how that’s inconsistent or hypocritical. it’s called civil libertarianism.
“good gave you eyelids and neck which can turn 180 degrees for a reason. ”
God is good…sometimes. Anyway, you can edit that yourself.
However…
It’s clear that God created rabbis to be psychologically astute (more so than many of my psychotherapy colleagues) and as a result, legal fences were created to help us (flawed humans) avoid committing the very sins you’re claiming we should be above. I can honestly say I don’t have your discipline to distinguish between web porn, web nudity and web porn/nudity/artsty images.
I see naked woman…I think sex. Perhaps I’m just a perv. I’d like to think it’s because I’m human.
mobius,
apologies for the disrespectful-sounding lashon above.
these issues are so huge, and we went over them on pesach.
it just doesn’t make sense to me you couldn’t arrive at the conclusion not-to-post those pics without someone you know and love objecting (and thank you sarah for doing so). of course, it’s usually our friends and loved ones who get us to see straight and do the right thing, and not our ivory-tower philosophizing.
i think pr0n is one of the biggest forms of oppression in our society, and i think that the vast majority of women that pose for it are extremely uncomfortable with their sexuality, not vice-versa. why else would they be posing nude? they seem to be seeking mass confirmation that they are beautiful and desirable. i think anyone truly comfortable with his/her sexuality would not need this type of confirmation from a mass audience. from a lover/spouse, surely — not from pimply masturbating teens everywhere. the fact that there are jewish sisters out there who are so profoundly uncomfortable is a cause for lamentation and reflection, not for laughing at or ogling them.
i guess what i’m saying is… i expect more from you, dude. jewschool freaking rules. but, i’m sad to say, that type of stuff really does pull it down. and yeah, haredi tzniyut is wacko — news at 11! so freaking what if they want to set up separate phone lines for men and women in their homes? i can’t decide which is worse: oppressing women by hiding them away from the men, or oppressing them by showing them naked and splayed on billboards.
I’m astounded that this is taken seriously as if this the fixed policy of the Satmar community.
Anybody can call any of the many Satmar Yeshivah offices and you will get a woman answering… The general aversion for anything hasidic or ultra orthodox is the cause for beleiving this tape as representative of anything but a crazed man whom I happen to know!
This man is a single man never married… in his late 50’s. He is a well known figure in Williamsburg Brooklyn NY USA, but very few people know his origin. I do! He is originally from Canada… born to a very modern orthodox family …during the 60s he had to flee Montreal for being acused …. (you can take a guess why but consider his mysogeny…and make up your own mind..)… went to Israel and joined the Neturei Karta thus he sees himself as forgiven… drank the poisened waters from Rabbi Amrom Blau and clique ….came back to Canada then USA and has since been active in Neturei Karta .. he however is obssesed with women… a family friend of mine had him for the seder and had to prepare the entire seder for him in an extra room because he wounldnt sit with a woman at the table … but the woman (related to me) was a rightous woman she gave in to his “meshigas” because she had pity on him… so there he sat alone doing his seder shtick…
Recently he has started an call in phone number where one could call in and listen to rants about .. u guessed… this clip is from those rants … hasidim call in for fun and laughter to listen to his rantings for ammusment…
In Williamsburg this man is considered nothing more than a clown but sadly for the crowd that visits this blog .. he must represent true hasidism..
Shame on us and you all!! (for giving this clip any serious consideration)