From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!arens@UCBKIM
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: The strange world of *Jewish* fundamentalism, for a change...
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.188
Posted: Sat Apr  2 16:21:24 1983
Received: Sun Apr  3 05:10:29 1983

From: arens@UCBKIM (Yigal Arens)
Received: from UCBKIM.ARPA by UCBVAX.ARPA (3.332/3.20)
	id AA10503; 2 Apr 83 16:20:56 PST (Sat)
To: net-religion@BERKELEY


>From the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, March 18, 1983.

	Last week "Chabad" [Lubavitcher Hassidic Jews] held in a
	Tel Aviv hotel an evening that was described in the media
	as "unusual":  a public auction ("in a Jewish atmosphere"),
	whose purpose was to raise money for the construction of a
	building for a Yeshiva.  What did they sell?  One item that
	received a lot of special attention was a $100 bill that
	had received the blessing of the Lubavitcher Rabbi [who
	resides permanently in Brooklyn].  The bill was put in a
	golden frame, and the potential highest paying buyer was
	officially and authoritatively promised by the Rabbi
	"Blessing and success, health and a good life".

	The lucky buyer of this blessed item was a dear Jew by the
	name of Eliezer Glass, the manager of a chemical factory in
	Beit-Dagon.  He paid for the gift 170,000 Shekels -- 45
	times its nominal worth!  That is what economists would
	call: the Rabbi's added value.


Yigal Arens
UC Berkeley