Neville Chamberlain – Please, tell me, who gave you the right to arrogate exclusive use of the word “frum”? For generations the word has meant “observant”. It has encompassed the entire spectrum of halachic Jewish practice. Yeshiva bochrim – frum. many, many soldiers in the IDF, frum. Mrs. Sara Levine, frum. You, frum. Me, frum. students at BMG, frum. Students at YU, frum. Students at Bais Yaakov, frum. Students at Frisch, Moriah, or BPY, frum. chasidim -frum. dati-tzioni-frum.
To paraphrase a line from a children’s movie from many years ago ” I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Language is elastic. when one twists it to promote or achieve one’s own ends, it eventually reverts back to its original shape and meaning. Frum is frum, and beyond that we are all still responsible for one another even beyond the definitions of observance. Responsible for the ol of learning torah, and responsible for the ol of defending am yisrael physically as HKBH has made possible and essential. And shockingly, the two responsibilities are NOT mutually exclusive. hundreds of thousands of FRUM Jews have done both for longer than the medina has even existed.
And every single one of us, every Jew, should have Hakoras Hatov for the fallen, HYD, who demonstrated this, every day of their service.