Saturday, March 3, 2018

Every Friday the Wall Street Journal has something called "Houses of Worship" aka "Houses of Stupidity".

This Wall Street Journal article is about the Orthodox Jewish. These are the extremists. They have a lot in common with Muslim scum. For example evolution makes them cry. Also they share the Muslim terrorist requirement to force women to cover their hair because the God/Allah fantasy requires this bullshit. Another thing they share with terrorists is a fear of pork steaks. They don't like pigs and pig farmers. The stupid, it burns.

Virtually every Jew I have met is a normal person, aka atheist. These extremists are a minority.

Here is the weekly religious stupidity from the Wall Street Journal:


Backstage during an event in Jerusalem dubbed "Modest Fashion Day," the first of its kind in Israel, whereby designers showed off their clothing creations aimed at Orthodox Jewish women.
Modesty on Instagram Is a Tough Balance. Orthodox Jewish women trade fashion tips and photos online. Is it kosher?
By Batsheva Neuer March 1, 2018 17 COMMENTS

Orthodox Jewish fashion blogging may sound like an oxymoron. Yet the unlikely social-media phenomenon has taken off, particularly on Instagram. Today the best known modesty bloggers have thousands of followers and shape how countless Jewish women dress across the world. But is it all kosher?

Orthodox women face a host of sartorial challenges thanks to prohibitive rabbinical dress-code guidelines. When in public, they must cover their shoulders and knees at all times. Married women are required to cloak their hair. Modesty fashion bloggers claim to offer less-restrictive solutions to the challenges presented by such rules. Layering solves the no-shoulders precept. Luscious, celebrity-like wigs have the hair covering covered, while trendy maxi-skirts screen the knees.

These blogs aren’t only about working around rules: Some even infuse their platform with biblical teachings and spiritual growth maxims. It isn’t unusual for a blogger to publish a petition for prayer, followed by a runway image of the newest Burberry dress.

“Being in the fashion industry, you are surrounded with all kinds of trends and styles. So you have to be strong and put a barrier in between the not-so-modest trends,” Rachelle Yadegar, an Orthodox modesty blogger in Los Angeles, told me in January. “I would love to just throw on a pair of light-wash denim jeans and a slouchy T. But I don’t.”

Although the bloggers ostensibly try to advance principles of modesty, it isn’t always clear whether their material is consistent with the spirit of Jewish law. Chavie Lieber, an Orthodox Jew and reporter at the fashion site Racked, is skeptical. “The subculture of modest fashion bloggers who hawk luxury merchandise while idealizing something as personal as the laws of tzniut”—Hebrew for modesty—“has always been confusing to me,” she said. “The entire emphasis seems to be on the exterior without considering what else modesty means.”

From a traditional Jewish perspective, the notion of modesty extends to both sexes, and far beyond the technicalities of skin exposure. Micah the prophet established the principle that God requires of mankind to hatzneh lechet, or walk humbly before the Lord. Moses is lauded in biblical texts as the humblest man on earth.

“The challenge is to be attractive without being attracting,” according to Rabbi Efrem Goldberg, who runs an Orthodox congregation in Boca Raton, Fla. “Dressing provocatively through tightness, style or suggestion, even if covering all the right places, violates not only the spirit of the laws of modesty, but the letter of the law as well.”

One modesty blogger—who boasts more than 30,000 Instagram followers—often posts photos with shoes or bags that likely cost more than some of her followers’ monthly rent. The same fashionista in August 2017 shared a picture of herself wearing a diamond-encrusted Cartier watch while kneading challah dough, the weekly Jewish ritual meant to invoke Kabbalistic charm. Another blogger, who colors her posts with more-religious messaging, once shared a photo of herself at a medieval rabbi’s gravesite.

But even skeptics like Ms. Lieber sympathize with Orthodox women who feel uninspired by their clothing: “If the idea is to be a muse for the Jewish community, then power to them. There’s definitely a need for that in the fashion community.” It’s the overt materialism that “just doesn’t align with Jewish values.”

“Our mission is to engage the mundane and elevate it, to embrace the physical and transform it into spiritual opportunity and experience,” said Rabbi Goldberg. “If approached in this way, ‘modest fashion’ is not an oxymoron, but rather an attempt to appreciate the aesthetic of fashion, an expression of the beauty of God’s world.”

Halakha, Hebrew for Jewish law, directly translates as “walking.” The name serves as a reminder that Judaism isn’t merely a legal code but an all-encompassing lifestyle. While Judaism doesn’t mandate austerity or self-abnegation, its focus—at least according to the rabbis—ultimately is on the depth of the soul. If Halakha is to be met, modesty blogging might require more soul-searching and fewer brand names.

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