The lunatics of Gateshead

Read this astonishingly obnoxious letter, but read also between the lines because you'll see a large part of what's wrong with the neo-Litivsh world. It starts with dishonesty as the fake warmth is followed by palpable hostility and an open threat. The empty greeting of "warmest greetings" is there only to butter you up for the kill. So, too, is the promise of talking in a "respectful manner," the favorite term of yeshivists, which is followed by absolute condescension. 

These anonymous rabbis who wrote this unsigned letter, whoever they are, see themselves as owning Gateshead. They want total control. What's the harm if a guy opens up a little Chabad house? I have seen many small Chabad houses in Litvish communities. They don't take over the city. They barely get a minyan. What they get is a person or two who is not receiving what he needs from the Litivsh world--he might even have been destroyed by it-- and he's helped by Chabad. Passaic is like that. Manchester is like that. 

Perhaps they feel threatened because a year ago several hundred men attended a farbrengen. (article from December 25, 2024). The photographs show mostly Chassidim (non-Lubavitch and Lubavitch). The bearded ones wearing fedoras and untucked shirts are Lubavitchers. There's a Modern Orthodox kid in blue jeans.  There are few yeshivish people in the room.

See them as Jews who are benefiting from Chassidus, not a threat to the Litivsh way of life, unless it exposes how barren that life can be.  Litvish people are so brainwashed against Chabad -- that includes the authors of this letter -- that they generally don't go anywhere near it.

The condescension in this letter is so palpable that you need another word for it. It's disgust, and reminds me of 1940s era Aryan ideology of you know who. We must maintain religious purity as if the Litvacks of Gateshead have it. 

And of course, everything they are doing is in reverent obedience to "the gadolim." Nearly every stupidity of rabbis and principals in our times is in effect blamed on the "gadolim" because really it is  stupidity that is projected onto "the gadolim." 

This letter displays arrogance, sinas Yisroel, tyranny, and dishonesty. It's gross which is funny because you can tell that the authors see themselves as dignified and upstanding men of Torah. Let us hope that the clowns who wrote it spent hours and hours in bitul Torah debating each point as they usually do. And let us hope they hired a writer because Lord knows they lack the education to write it themselves. But the writer doesn't know how to spell check as he signed off with "parners for and on behalf of the Gateshead Kehilla Committee." Parners? A mangled word for mangled rabbis.