A Forgotten Interview with One of the Great Talmudists of Pre-War Eastern Europe

Serving for most of his career as the rabbi of the ḥasidic congregation of the first Russian, later Latvian, city of Dvinsk (modern-day Daugavpils), Joseph Rozin (1858-1936) was widely considered the foremost rabbinic mind of his day. Rozin, known as the “Rogachover Gaon” (the talmudic genius from Rogachov), was frequently consulted by other rabbis for his opinions on halakhic matters, which he approached with sometimes stunning unconventionality. In 1933, M. Gurtz, a correspondent from the New York-based Yiddish paper Der Morgen-Zshurnal, conducted a rare interview with the Rogachover, reproduced in translation at the link below. In his introduction to the text, Marc Shapiro describes the sage’s “complete originality and independence as a legal scholar”:

Take the question of the halakhic standing of civil marriage, which is [the subject of] one of the major rabbinic disputes of the 20th century (a dispute that was later extended to the status of marriages performed by Reform and Conservative clergy). Does a non-halakhic marriage create a marital bond that requires a halakhic divorce (get) to dissolve the union? While halakhic authorities lined up on opposites sides of the dispute, the Rogachover charted a unique path. . . . In brief, he argued that . . . the origin of the non-halakhic marital bond is in the [pre-Mosaic] Noahide code [i.e., the seven universal commandments given, according to rabbinic tradition, to mankind via Noah], and for Jews this status can be ended only with a [special] get, which is written differently from a typical get. . . .

The Rogachover’s special love for Moses Maimonides, who in his eyes stood above all other medieval [sages], is not only seen in his halakhic writings or in his volumes of commentary on Maimonides’ [code of Jewish law]. Unusual among his contemporaries, the Rogachover also intensively studied Maimonides’ [philosophical magnum opus] the Guide of the Perplexed, and [some] of his notes on it survive. . . . A number of philosophical expressions found in the Guide were applied by him in an original fashion to halakhic texts.

Read more at Jewish Review of Books

More about: Divorce, East European Jewry, Halakhah, History & Ideas, Seven Noahide Laws, Talmud

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa