Monday, April 19, 2004

The New York Times today has a puff piece on Yeshiva Chovevei Torah. (Look how cool we are! Here's a student playing a mini-guitar in the Beis Midrash! So unlike those stiffies at YU!) One thing I didn't know was that it was housed in a non-Orthodox school, the same one hosting that Hillel-type multiple-service congregation. Interesting, although I have no further thought on that. Also interesting is that S. Daniel Abraham, Slim-fast king and peacenik, and Dr. Zizmor, both YU donors, are on the board. Anyway, Jonas' comments at the school's dinner have overshadowed much, and Steven I. Weiss, at Protocols, calls him on claiming he didn't really say his asinine comments. Good for him. (Although one wishes he had a tape- I'm sure YCT does.)

In any event, Joshua Lamm had a great letter in this week's Jewish Week calling YCT on having Jonas bash YU like that. (I get the feeling Joshua Lamm is the designated "not-within-YU-but-defending-it" letter-writer, although if so, they'd probably have chosen someone with a, well, less-obvious last name, which also excludes me, although I don't have the family Joshua does.) After hoping that the YCT leadership has enough "spine and guts" (Jonas' infamous line) to condemn Jonas, Lamm's last line runs something along the lines of (I'm paraphrasing), "At least YCT students are getting one valuable lesson in the real world: that wealth does not equal intelligence." Touche. Although if he'd really want to be mean, he could have ended, "...that wealth equals power in the Jewish world."

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