Left-leaning website Wikipedia took the drastic action of blocking one of its founders from editing pages on Monday — after he had campaigned to make it more balanced and fair.
Last month, Larry Sanger launched WikiProject Intellectual Diversity (WID), a group designed to help reinforce the online encyclopedia’s “original, firm commitment to intellectual diversity,” by emphasizing neutrality and transparency.
I have chassidihe cousins who travel back and forth all the time and no one has been arrested, simply because they registered.
If someone is a sincere learner he is allowed to continue learning if he registered, unfortunately these bochrim are victims of their own rabbeim who gave them the unfortunate advice that they shouldn't register, If someone is not learning fulltime they must serve, but it doesn’t have to be in combat or even in the army. They can serve as part of national service (sherut leumi) in many different positions, including magen David/Hatzala, hospital workers, yad Sara, working with disadvantaged youths, etc
Here are some reactions to that article:
I know religious families who have sons who won’t be able to get married even after this “crisis” ends. They died in Gaza and Lebanon.
And what of the thousands of Frum soldiers who can’t be involved in Shiduchim because – hmm – they’re busy defending the lives of their fellow Jews, including those ingrates like the ones in this article? Cry me a river – I have less than zero sympathy for entitled spoiled brats like the Vizhnitz spokesperson in this article.
No the real crisis is that for the first time in history us Jews won’t fight for hashem. Our entire history is other nations trying to wipe us out and us fighting for our survival. This is the first time fighting is assur ? I grew up orthodox and never understood this issue, why all of a sudden are we too good to fight for ourselves?
The article is wrong. There is no travel ban. They can travel, as long as they aren’t on the draft dodger list. if they are, it’s not a travel ban anyway. It’s also not a shidduch crisis as who said that their bashert is international. Maybe it’s next door. If it’s that important, and both sides think it’s a shidduch, let the other side make the international trip. It’s anyhow going to be by chasidic standards only a few days. Not litvish style where the process can last several weeks.
This disconnect of this article to the actual matzav is truly astounding.
Your brothers are leaving their families to defend your lives for over two years now – getting limbs blown off, dying- and you are crying for sympathy for not being able to travel for a wedding?
Delays and travel bans imposed on yeshiva students who have been classified as “draft evaders” in Israel are creating a deep crisis in the Hasidic matchmaking world, according to a Kikar Hashabbat report.
Rabbi Shlomo Weiss, a spokesman for the Vizhnitz Merkaz Hasidic community, described the situation as painful and chaotic:”Young men can’t fly to get engaged, families can’t attend weddings, and married yeshiva graduates are being arrested at the airport in front of their children.”
He added:”We are in complete chaos. There is no one to talk to.”
One of the excuses of the Chardeie Torah leadership for not having their students enlist in the IDF is that they fear that they will go OTD! It seems that they don't really believe that the chinuch instilled in their bochrim can last any challenges in life and the ruchinyois that they embedded is very fragile, and are therefore fearful that the influence in the IDF will destroy the entire Torah perspective they had in their chardeie institutions!
Well here are Chardeim that went off the derech and they were never in the army!
The Value of Work
Many questions arose in response to my previous column, in which I explained the value of work and wrote that according to the Torah it is proper for a person to work and set fixed times for Torah study, rather than to learn all day as a kollel student and receive a living stipend. I explained that there is inherent value in a person working. In this column I will address some of those questions, and with God’s help, more in the next column.
Q: Is work not a curse imposed upon man as a result of Adam’s sin - so why did you write that it has value?
A: Before Adam’s sin, man was destined to be a worker and partner in the settlement of the world, as it is written: “And the Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to guard it" (Genesis 2:15). Our Sages added that man was not given permission to eat from the fruits of the Garden of Eden “until he had done labor" (Avot de-Rabbi Natan 11). And this too is part of God’s kindness toward man - that God created the world incomplete, in order to give man a place to be His partner in building and repairing it.
After Adam’s sin, ordinary work was no longer sufficient. Man now needed to toil with great hardship to atone for his sin, as was decreed: “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread" (Genesis 3:19). But even this labor is for man’s benefit - through his hard work to obtain bread, man atones for his sins and develops both himself and the world.
The Halakhic Ruling on the Debate Over Work
We further learn the value of work from the ruling of our Sages that even a wealthy woman who has servants and has no need to do household work should nevertheless work, because “idleness leads to boredom" - that is, to deterioration and distraction of the mind (Ketubot 59b). Admittedly, if she occupies herself with games such as chess or keeping pets, she will not be subject to boredom - yet there remains the concern that idleness will lead her to sin, as Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel said: “for idleness leads to licentiousness" (Ketubot 61b).
Therefore, if there is a dispute between husband and wife - the wife wishing to be exempt from all work while the husband wants her to work in some household or income-producing capacity - the wife is obligated to work. Conversely, if the husband wishes his wife to be exempt from all work while she wishes to work, the husband is forbidden to prevent her from doing so (Shulchan Aruch, Even HaEzer 80:2-3).
Those Who Are Idle Are Disqualified from Giving Testimony
Our Sages further stated (Sanhedrin 24b) that those who pass their time in idleness - such as dice players - are disqualified from giving testimony, “because they do not engage in the settlement of the world" (Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat 34:16). The Rambam likewise wrote: “One who occupies himself neither with Scripture, nor with Mishnah, nor with a way of the land (i.e., work) - is presumed to be a wicked person and is rabbinically disqualified from testifying, for anyone who has sunk to such a level is presumed to transgress most transgressions that come his way" (Laws of Testimony 11:1).
For the past several days, I've been receiving variations of the same question from readers. Not about a specific Hezbollah attack. Not about a specific statement from Washington. Not even about the details of the latest U.S.-Iran negotiations.
The question is much simpler:
How did the pressure suddenly shift from Iran to Israel? It is a fair question.
Only a short time ago, Iran appeared to be on the defensive. Israel and the United States were closely coordinated. Tehran and its proxies were under pressure. Hezbollah was constrained. The strategic momentum appeared to be moving in one direction.
Today, many Israelis feel as though the entire table has somehow been turned.
Whether that perception is fully accurate or not, it is worth examining why so many people have reached that conclusion.
The man is shameless. He didn’t kill the Ayatollah, the Israeli Air Force did. He didn’t take out Iran’s anti-aircraft capabilities, the Israeli Air Force did. The man is taking credit for the operations of a country that he is now throwing under the bus. pic.twitter.com/t9jmsyiI2a
— Joseph Gelman (@JosephGelman) June 20, 2026
🚨 NOW: Mark Levin fumes and demands the Trump administration "stop trashing, smearing, bullying the little state of Israel!"
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) June 21, 2026
"Stop cozying up to and telling us that the enemy regime in Iran is now more rational, more moderate, and a regime that we can deal with!"
"I don't know… pic.twitter.com/GwhsyJhhE5
