Crazy rabbis are waking up, must be the spring

We Jews don't have very many crazy clerics, but the ones we do have are really trying very hard to get in the news.

(OTOH, how do I know that there are only few? The vast majority of Jews make do with very few rabbis; for all I know the most religious 10% might all be rabbis. Whatever.)

Anyway, Rabbi Nahum Gortald from a rabbinical court south of Tel Aviv urged the authorities to limit the number of female foreign workers, lest the men run away with them. They are stealing our men and jobs! (Well, probably not the rabbis' men and jobs.) This request comes after a woman lodged a complaint at the court after her husband had an affair with a Filipina employee. The government will summarily ignore the request, just like it usually does.

Mind you, if I were married to somebody who goes to Rabbi Gortald to complain about me, I would probably have an affair with a Filipina employee too.

While Rabbi Nahum Gortald is concerned about the Israeli women not having enough men, Rabbi Yaakov Yosef has the opposite problem. He wants to banish hopeless old bachelors (the ultra-orthodox men over 20) from Jerusalem. This will encourage them to find a wife by 19, because, as the rabbi says, "any man who reaches the age of 20 must hurry without tarrying," or else he won't find himself a wife. You heard, men? Hurry up, for tomorrow you might turn twenty and then it will be too late! No woman will ever want you again!

Hold on, I thought they had a massive problem with leftover women whose husbands were stolen by Filipina employees?

The rabbi might have a point, though. If I were to take a husband who'd just read Talmud all day instead of performing marital duties, he better be very young and very pretty. And then we'll talk about those marital duties. Maybe by the age of 20 they are too old to be persuaded to have sex.

On the other hand, what is the rabbi thinking? If some morons listen to him and actually leave Jerusalem, there will be even fewer religious women for them elsewhere. Then they might be lured into bed by secular women. Or, god forbid, Filipina employees.