חאלימויד גערעדעכץ

AP Photo

Hello there. My name is Hirshel Tzig. I have a blog here in the 'sphere that I sometimes update. I hope y'all will stop by here every once in a while, and tell all your friends about the blog as well.

I haven't read the Mishpacha magazine article where R' Yehuda Krinsky tells all to Yitzchok Frankfurter, so I have no opinion as of now. What I did notice somewhere - I think it was on one of the Chabad websites - was the article somewhere about the Ribnitzer Rebbe, zt"l, where his Rebbetzin was asked all kinds of questions about her late, great husband. Somewhere in the article she says that her husband held the Satmarer Shittah. Closed quote. Then she says that he went to the Kosel or permitted others to go, I forget which it was. Even when she traveled to the Holy Land she asked him if she could go to the Wall, and he said it was OK, as long as she didn't go very close to the stones. And why? because of the Kedusha! Not because the Zionists defiled it, or something. So tell me; what kind of Satmarer shittah is that?! Just say it like it is; that he was shlepped to Satmar, because his handlers thought it better for business!

There was this one guy - a protege' of mine, he likes to call himself - where he blasts Mishpacha for doing the interview/article in the first place. A bad business decision he calls it, since the shtarke yeshivishe oylem is gonna cancel their subscriptions en masse. "They don't want their children to emulate that man," he tells me. There are many aspects to such an opinion. First, I find the attitude so high and mighty that yesterday's supper rises to your throat. Who do these nobodies of questionable yichus think they are?! Other than the Rosh Yeshive types most of these Yankee doodle dandies grew up here in America with little direction, and under the auspices of Horowitz MARGARETEN and the Morgen Journal. Where does this phony Kano'us come from?! We discussed this before, I don't want to repeat the same diatribe again. Nu, shoin, vos darf men redden.... VeDal. What gets me is him saying that they crossed the line not when writing about MO Rabbis, movies and when they write "heypech Daastoyreh," but when they write respectfully about the Rebbe.... It would be funny were it not so sad.

Which brings me to another such story; one that shook me to the core, despite the fact that these things shouldn't surprise me at this point anymore. In our Ir haTorah VeHaChesed (Greater) Monsey there lives a certain high profile doctor. It seems like over YomTov some Lubavitcher yungerman crossed his back yard in order to hurry to shul. We can argue the point of whether or not he was allowed to do what he did, but he definitely did no damage and doesn't do it very often. The doctor's wife - a fine Bas Yishmoelroel saw him and yelled something to the effect of "you Lubavitcher pigs are bringing down the property values in Concord..." (Concord area in Monsey) The man was not happy and came to shul that evening to insruct the ROV in our shul to make sure to lecture his kelblech congregants not to G-d forbid cross this man's backyard. This was not enough for the doctor and his friend who tagged along. He came back the next day again, before Maariv Motzoei Yom Tov, and waited for the Rov to finish the shiur before Maariv before confronting him again and making sure that he did his duty. Believe me, I had no idea this was happening until after the fact, because if I did there would be no return visit from this mechutzef/Anti-Semite.

A search of his name told me that he's the head of a department at a prestigious hospital in New York City. Which would make you think that he overcame his MESIVTA-level hate of LUBAVITCH, but I guess old habits die hard, even for doctors... I would imagine organizations honor this man, and meshulochim may even get a nice check from this man if his machshefah wife isn't home to shoo them away. But even all the years spent in college, Med School and at his current practice, where he must have come across situations that he had to control himself, and I'm sure he's had some Lubavitcher patients pass through his office, none of that ever made that deep-seated hatred go away. Which goes to show you that hatred of LUBAVITCH - and maybe it would happen to other groups as well if a beshtreimeled yid used his lawn to cut a path across his lawn - doesn't go away no matter how hard you may try. I would like to pick this guy's brain and get to the bottom of it. Maybe he had a Lubavitcher friend who took his lunch money, or a patient who never paid his bill, or a Lubavitcher once cut him off on the Palisades.