Thursday, October 1, 2009

Religion and State in Israel - September 30, 2009 (Section 1)

Religion and State in Israel

September 30, 2009 (Section 1) (continues in Section 2)

If you are reading in email or RSS feed, please click here to read ONLINE

Editor – Joel Katz

Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.


Jerusalem backs giving rabbi posts to non-Haredim

By Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com October 1, 2009

The struggle for the seats of the Jerusalem's municipal rabbis has long been fought within religious circles - most often between religious Zionists and the ultra-Orthodox.

But yesterday, the Jerusalem municipality announced in a letter to the Supreme Court that traditional and secular Jews should also have a say in the matter.

According to the municipality, two-thirds of the city's Jewish populations are "Zionists," or non-ultra-Orthodox Jews, and this fact has to be considered when choosing municipal rabbis.


Minister to reconvene meeting over J'lem chief rabbi's post

By Matthew Wagner www.jpost.com September 29, 2009

Religious Services Minister Ya'acov Margi caved in last week to critics and called to redo a step in the process of choosing the next chief rabbis of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem citizens concerned that Margi was attempting to rig the voting process have petitioned the High Court of Justice, demanding more transparency.


Religious Zionists petition court over bias in selection of J'lem chief rabbis

By Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com September 25, 2009

Attempts by Religious Services Minister Yaakov Margi (Shas) to push through the election of Jerusalem's chief rabbis received a blow yesterday when religious Zionist groups petitioned the High Court against him.

The petition, submitted by the Neemani Torah V'Avoda movement and Jerusalem City Council member Rachel Azaria, states that the ministry has made a "grab" that shows preference for the appointment of ultra-Orthodox representatives to the body that elects the rabbis.


Leading rabbis issue halachic ruling against Shabbat elevators

By Matthew Wagner and Elan Miller www.jpost.com October 1, 2009

Elevators operating in Shabbat mode should not be used, according to a recent halachic decision issued by the heavyweights of the haredi rabbinical world.

"Regarding elevators on Shabbat, it is my opinion as well that one should not use them on Shabbat, whether one goes up or down," read a statement dated last Friday, signed by Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the nonagenarian spiritual leader considered the most important living halachic authority in Ashkenazi haredi circles.

Rabbi Israel Rosen, who heads the Tzomet Institute, which also finds halachic solutions to technological problems that arise on Shabbat, called the declaration against Shabbat-mode elevators "outrageous."

"The people behind the publication of that notice are stirring up trouble and causing unnecessary angst to innocent people who rely on Shabbat-mode elevators," said Rosen, a religious Zionist rabbi.

Rosen, whose solutions are not always accepted in more haredi circles, suggested that Elyashiv was not even behind the decision, but that there were extreme elements vying for Elyashiv's backing of public policy agendas.

"Apparently the people behind this are from Bnei Brak, where there are no tall buildings. Therefore, no special effort has to be made to find a solution to the use of elevators on Shabbat," he said.


Haredim balk at new ban on Shabbat elevators

By Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com September 30, 2009

In halachic terms, Tuesday's announcement, which appeared as a tiny notice in the religious newspaper Yated Ne'eman, has snowballed into a strong disagreement that threatens to destroy a rare halachic consensus, not to mention the routines of hundreds of thousands of observant Jews around the world.


Rabbinate accepts bill equating brain death with the end of life

By Yair Ettinger and Dan Even www.haaretz.com September 24, 2009

Rabbinical figures around the world were astonished by the Chief Rabbinate Council's decision Tuesday, which stated that a Knesset bill equating brain death with the end of life "is in line with halakha."

The bill would allow organs to be taken from a deceased person before his heart has stopped beating - an essential condition for removing vital organs such as the heart, lungs and liver for transplant.

The council's decision represents the first time the state's official rabbinical body has expressed unanimous approval for such a sensitive law, slated to be enacted in the near future.


Haredi parties seek to block yeshiva budget cut

By Zvi Zrahiya, Moti Bassok and Ronny Linder-Ganz www.haaretz.com October 1, 2009

Religious parties in the coalition are objecting to the government's proposal to cut ministerial budgets and promised funding for coalition partners, in order to shift money to defense and health.

Ultra-Orthodox sources said yesterday that Finance Committee Chairman Moshe Gafni, of United Torah Judaism, and Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who chairs Shas, would not support cutting yeshiva budgets, and may offer their own amendments to the proposal.


Netanyahu to pull Yeshiva funding to pay for flu shots, military

By Meirav Arlosoroff www.haaretz.com September 30, 2009

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will need all of his leadership prowess to muster the needed support for an NIS 2 billion budget cut which, if approved, will slash deeply into the supplement funding promised to the Haredi parties under the coalition agreement.

As the bill stands, the move will trim NIS 300 million off of additional funding promised for yeshivas, and an additional NIS 100 million promised to Shas, United Torah Judaism and Habayit Hayehudi.

Netanyahu's government coalition agreements made many budget-related promises to woo coalition members, including an additional NIS 750 million to finance yeshivas.

The new proposal aims to erase NIS 750 million from various programs, or 20% of the funding negotiated under the various coalition agreements. T

he bill means that the ultra-Orthodox parties stand to lose a substantial portion of the funding they were able to wrangle through government coalition negotiations.

Although the Finance Ministry's bill proposes to cut just half of the promised budgeting immediately and the balance in 2011, the fact is not likely to sweeten the bitter pill that the ultra-Orthodox parties will be asked to swallow.


Ending Daylight Saving Time: Surrender or compromise?

By Amnon Meranda www.ynetnews.com September 27, 2009


Former Interior Minister Avraham Poraz:

"It is an unnecessary and unjustifiable capitulation. It is abuse of the public. Their claim is that it is difficult to fast during daylight savings time. If they would set the start of prayers for one hour later, it would have precisely the same result," said Poraz.

Knesset Member Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz):

"The opposition of ultra-Orthodox officials to daylight savings is unfounded and entirely arbitrary, and harms the public, including the haredim themselves.

He added that he believes daylight savings should be in place in Israel throughout the year and that clocks must be moved forward an additional hour in the summer months.

"As the entire world takes maximum advantage of the sunlight, here, in our sun-filled country, the free majority capitulates to an extremist minority. As such, tomorrow at 6:00 pm, darkness will fall on all of us," claimed Horowitz.

MK David Azoulay (Shas):

"The law is essentially the result of a compromise between the religious and the non-religious public…”


The world's shortest summer

By Nehemia Shtrasler Opinion www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

The Haredi and religious wheeler-dealers have driven the public here crazy for years, saying that it is impossible to fast when daylight savings time is in effect.

It's too hard and it's even inhumane, they've said, and therefore it is incumbent on the state to take action and switch out of daylight savings time prior to the onset of the fast.

…This year, the absurdity does not reach its highest heights, but in the future there will be a situation where Yom Kippur begins earlier, in the first third of September, such that standard time will be moved two months earlier than other countries.


Plans for new Haredi city in Negev angers environmentalists

By Ron Friedman www.jpost.com September 29, 2009

The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel is spearheading a campaign to prevent the planned construction of Kasif, a new city for the haredi community, in the Negev, near Arad.

In April, the government approved a decision calling to build a new city that would help draw people to the Negev and find a solution for the housing challenges facing the haredi community.

A team of experts from the Housing and Construction Ministry recommended building a new, separate city that could house 50,000 residents and would be planned with institutions and services needed by haredim.


Dialogue group seeks to foster Haredi-secular coexistence

By Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

Like many other organizations, Havruta is aimed at forwarding the cause of coexistence, but it's the first aiming to link ultra-Orthodox and religious non-observant Jews.

Another feature distinguishing Havruta from similar groups is that all of its activity is carried out one-on-one: Man to man, woman to a woman, and almost exclusively over the phone.


Israeli Military Recruiting Kollel Students for Technical Jobs

By Samuel Sokol www.5tjt.com September 24, 2009

Facing dwindling enlistment and wanting to utilize a largely untapped manpower pool, various branches of the Israeli Defense Forces have begun looking at ways to enlist chareidi-religious soldiers.

Inspired by the success of the Nahal Haredi infantry program, Major General Eliezer Shkedi, former commander of the Israeli Air Force, founded a special pilot project dubbed Blue Dawn in 2007 to recruit kollel students.

Trained as aircraft mechanics and technical personnel, all inductees are required to be at least 22 years of age and are promised benefits similar to that of the Nahal Haredi.


Beitar Battles the Net

http://shmais.com September 26, 2009

Click here for VIDEO (Hebrew)

Source: www.col.org.il

At a meeting of local Rabbis last week, a decision was made in the religious town of Beitar Ilit to compel all residents to agree to no longer being connected to uncensored Internet.

“Every Torah and educational institution and school principal will make sure that the students learning in their schools comes from a home that doesn’t have any uncensored Internet.”

The Rabbis added that anyone who has to use the Internet for work purposes should only be connected through a kosher network such as Rimon, which blocks access to any inappropriate sites.

The new campaign to promote kosher Internet in Beitar Ilit, is called Chasima Tova (“chasima”=block in Hebrew).


Jerusalem protestor sued for cost of burned trash container

By Nir Hasson www.haaretz.com September 24, 2009

The Jerusalem Municipality yesterday filed a civil suit against a city resident, seeking compensation for a trash container he had set on fire.

The man, an ultra-Orthodox resident from Neveh Yaakov who was protesting the arrest of the Jerusalem mother accused of starving her child, was caught in the act on June 28 by a policeman.

He has already been brought up on criminal charges, the only protester to be indicted for that act. The city is suing him for the cost of the container - NIS 1,324.

Protesters caused an estimated NIS 1 million in damage to trash containers, cars and street lights.


Report: Only 37% of haredi men work

By David Regev www.ynetnews.com September 30, 2009

Only 37% of haredi men work, as opposed to some 80% of their secular counterparts, according to statistics presented to Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer while touring centers for women's employment in the ultra-Orthodox town of Modiin Ilit.

Among working women, there is also a significant gap. Some 49% of haredi women are gainfully employed, while 70% of secular women work.

The average gross monthly salary of haredi women is NIS 3,690 (about $980), about 40% lower than haredi men's gross monthly salary, which stands at an average NIS 6,123 (about $1,625).


'Starving mom' trial postponed

‘Abusive mom’ unlikely to be separated from kids


Lulav growers: Egyptian imports are pushing down prices

By Eli Ashkenazi www.haaretz.com September 30, 2009

A top-quality lulav from Kibbutz Tirat Zvi, made of palm fronds picked in the broiling Israeli summer, will cost as much as $100 in chilly New York this week, as people prepare for the Sukkot holiday, which starts Friday.

Lulavs are ritual objects used only on Sukkot, and Moshe Zakai, who works on Tirat Zvi's date palm plantations, is proud of the overseas demand for his products.

But in Israel, these same lulavs will probably fetch at most NIS 70 - due to what local farmers consider unfair competition from Egypt.


Israelis look to Gaza for cheaper lulavim

By Matthew Wagner www.jpost.com September 30, 2009

Religion is often blamed as an obstacle to peace between Muslims and Jews. However, the demand for lulavim (palm fronds) ahead of Succot may now foster trade with the Gaza Strip.

Gazans will be permitted to export lulavim to Israel after Religious Services Minister Ya'acov Margi received special permission to do so from Defense Minister Ehud Barak.


Palm branches for succah roofs stolen from forests

http://jewishnews.net.au September 30, 2009

JNF forest rangers have discovered dozens of palm and date trees illegally stripped of their branches along the banks of the Nahal Harod.

Palm branches are in high demand in Israel because of their use as roofing for succahs.


Preparing for Sukkos in Modi'in Illit

The empty streets of Israel on Yom Kippur


The Body Politic Electric

By Michael Weiss www.slate.com September 25, 2009

It's becoming increasingly difficult for Israel to unplug for Yom Kippur.


Rabbi Elyashiv: No Crocs on Yom Kippur

By Ari Galahar www.ynetnews.com September 25, 2009

Rabbi Elyashiv of the Lithuanian stream of ultra-Orthodoxy has ruled that it is best not to wear Crocs shoes on Yom Kippur even though they are not made out of leather and, therefore, would seemingly be permissible for the holiday.

His reasoning behind the ruling is that they are too comfortable, and thus don't provide the level of suffering one should feel on the holiday.

The halachic ruling came in response to a question posed to the rabbi by a young yeshiva student asking whether it is permissible to wear on Yom Kippur shoes one would normally wear throughout the year.

In response, the rabbi ruled it is best to avoid wearing Crocs on the holiday. "It is permissible legalistically, but it is inadvisable," said Rabbi Elyashiv.


Kaparos in the Streets of Yerushalayim - 2009

Slichot Prayers at Kotel

Slichot Prayers at Kotel


Rabbinical Court: Shofar Blower Can't Be Removed

www.israelnationalnews.com September 29, 2009

The Safed Rabbinical Court ruled that the Ashkenazi HaAri Synagogue cannot remove the High Holidays' shofar blower from his position because he has been filling the post for ten years and should be considered tenured.

The shofar blower had filed charges against the synagogue's manager (gabbai), who had removed him from his position.


Yom Kippur: A Growing Vacation Opportunity

By Irit Rosenblum www.haaretz.com September 29, 2009

Not all Israelis will be spending the fast in synagogues: The number going abroad for a Yom Kippur vacation has been rising steadily over the years.

About 20,000 people are expected to travel for the fast day tomorrow. Most are keeping to sites near home in the Mediterranean such as Turkey, Greece and Cyprus, though many are going to European cities such as Barcelona, London, Amsterdam, Rome and Paris.

The numbers are up about 15% this year over last, said a major travel Internet site. Israelis are also taking vacations locally, as many are combining the weekend with the holiday for a four- or five-day vacation.


Only matter of time until seculars drive on Kippur

By Tali Farkash Opinion www.ynetnews.com September 29, 2009

No doubt, and remember where you heard it first, the secular culture war will be felt by us on upcoming Yom Kippur holidays – without a haredi touch of hand.

The tolerance of the free minority is bursting. Until when will they be coerced into foregoing the barbecue on the roof during their day off because the neighbor will crinkle her nose?

Until when will they be forced not to take advantage of the quiet intersections in order to go visit their parents in Givatayim?

After all, the Tel Aviv kids on rollerblades and bikes won't shout at them "Yom Kippur!" – what are they? Dosim (a derogatory term for religious people)?


Rabbi Daniel Landes, director of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, describes the physicality of repentance.

Rabbi Einat Ramon, a lecturer at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, asks, "Can one atone for an ideology?"

Rabbi Ronald Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel, writes in the royal we about collective sin.

Felix Posen, a proponent of Cultural Judaism, writes that to interest the majority in Yom Kippur, it needs repackaging and reformulation.


Framing the message

By Lior Alperovitch www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

"The lives of Haredi Jews revolve around reading. From age three to their golden years, Haredim constantly read and study.

Whereas the reading material is usually difficult and complex, comics are an entertaining, easy vehicle for conveying educational material and messages compatible with ultra-Orthodoxy's outlook."

Like their children, Haredi adults, who spend much time studying Torah, need a literary respite from their studies. They find it in suspense stories in the weekend supplements of their community's newspapers. Readers of both sexes love the weekly installment format.

"Ultra-Orthodox homes have no television sets," notes Rabbi Moshe Grylak, Mishpacha's editor-in-chief. "Since there are no telenovelas or weekly TV series, reading is the favorite pastime, and the weekly installments fit the bill."


Ateret Cohanim marketing Old City homes for 22 Jewish families

By Nir Hasson www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

An organization committed to populating East Jerusalem with Jewish residents has said that it has six properties in the Old City to sell to 22 Jewish families, which would bring the number of Jews living in the Arab quarters of the walled city to 1,000.


New brochure touts hot Jerusalem real estate - in the capital's Arab neighborhoods

By Abe Selig www.jpost.com September 30, 2009

A brochure recently released by the Ateret Cohanim organization and obtained this week by The Jerusalem Post features a number of high-value properties the group has apparently put up for sale inside the Christian and Muslim quarters of Jerusalem's Old City, along with the east Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan, Ras el-Amud and Sheikh Jarrah.


Religion and State in Israel

September 30, 2009 (Section 1) (continues in Section 2)

If you are reading in email or RSS feed, please click here to read ONLINE

Editor – Joel Katz

Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.

All rights reserved.

Religion and State in Israel - September 30, 2009 (Section 2)

Religion and State in Israel

September 30, 2009 (Section 2) (continued from Section 1)

If you are reading in email or RSS feed, please click here to read ONLINE

Editor – Joel Katz

Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.


Immigrant groups decry sex segregation at Western Wall citizenship ceremonies

By Cnaan Liphshiz www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

Plans to separate new immigrants according to sex at Jewish Agency ceremonies near Jerusalem's Western Wall would both discriminate against the new arrivals and go against their preference, according to immigration-assistance officials.

Paula Edelstein, chairwoman of the immigration and absorption committee at the Jewish Agency, told Anglo File that Rabbi Rabinovitch has for the first time demanded that men and women be seated apart during the ceremony.

"My comments about the ceremony at the Wall were made in a wider context, which was the creeping trend of separation in Jerusalem - in buses, at the Wall and elsewhere. I am not focusing on the Wall, my issue is with separation in general," she said.


'Reform claims of gender segregation at Western Wall plaza false'

By Haviv Rettig Gur www.jpost.com September 25, 2009

The Western Wall's Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitz and Jewish Agency officials have blasted critics from the Israeli Reform Movement, saying that their claim that agency events at the holy site could be canceled due to forced gender separation were false.

In recent years, Rabinovitz told the Post, many groups have sought to conduct events and ceremonies at the Wall, "practically turning it into an event hall."

"Now, none of us want to show up at the Kotel and have to listen to some politicians, or even to the Kotel rabbi, blasting on a loudspeaker," he explained.

So the Kotel administration decided that henceforth, no non-prayer events - "not for the Orthodox and not for anybody else" - could be held at the site, with the sole exception of national events traditionally held there, such as the IDF's swearing-in ceremonies and the national Memorial Day service.

To get approval for the aliya ceremonies this summer, "the Jewish Agency presented these olim ceremonies as prayer events," said Rabinovitz.

After a few such events were held, one of which saw excited Ethiopian olim break into a traditional mixed-gender dance, Rabinovitz approached agency officials and noted that the events were not being conducted as prayer services.


Secular public is just not interested

By Anshel Pfeffer Opinion www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

Western Wall Rabbi Rabinovich may technically be a civil servant, but his real bosses are a small number of senior ultra-Orthodox rabbis who lay down the line.

And over the last decade or so, that line has steadily moved away from the Wall and now encompasses the entire area, all the way up to the houses of the Jewish Quarter.

Technically, only the small sunken courtyard adjacent to the Wall is a place of prayer, and therefore divided between men and women.

But Rabinovich, with his small army of publicly-funded guards, has tried to enforce his rule much further away.

Separate entry gates for men and women have been erected, and at every opportunity, ugly wooden fences and signs have also been erected, crisscrossing the entire enclosure in an attempt to enforce the Orthodox idea of modesty - which basically means keeping men and women, boys and girls, apart from each other at the earliest possible age.


Challenging the religious status quo

By Matthew Wagner www.jpost.com September 27, 2009

Should marriages performed by non-Orthodox rabbis in Israel be recognized by the state? Should Reform and Conservative conversions performed in Israel be recognized?

And if the authority of non-Orthodox rabbis is recognized should they also be entitled to receive a salary from the state just like Orthodox rabbis?

…MK Uri Orbach (Habayit Hayehudi) said he also opposed the [civil marriage] initiative.

"This is a Jewish state and we should not be allowing intermarriage." Commenting on Hiddush's initiative, Orbach said, "Every so often the Reform Jews try to strengthen their hold here in Israel under a different guise.

"But until the Reform movement manages to bring to Israel half a million Jews, they will remain an organization that makes its impact by petitioning the Supreme Court and by publicizing provocative press releases like this latest initiative."

Hiddush's Rabbi Uri Regev, who as former head of the Reform movement's Israel Religious Action Center is a veteran activist for religious pluralism, admitted that in the current political climate it would be difficult to dismantle the Orthodox monopoly over religious services.

"The challenge we will present has value in itself even if we do not manage to bring change immediately," he said.


Shas MK: Ease Conversion for IDF Soldiers of Jewish Descent

By Gil Ronen www.israelnationalnews.com September 23, 2009

MK Rabbi Chaim Amsalem (Shas) is vigorously pursuing a plan that would ease the conversion to Judaism (giyur) of descendants of Jews who immigrated to Israel and served in the armed forces.

The plan is seen as a revolutionary one, coming as it does from a rabbi and politician who belongs to the hareidi-religious stream, which is not known to favor military service at all.

MK Rabbi Amsalem has now completed an essay explaining his idea and sent it to 1,000 rabbis from all orthodox streams in Israel, in the hope of receiving their support and comments for the plan.


Two decades later, FSU immigrants making their mark in Israel

By Dina Kraft www.jta.org September 17, 2009

…More significantly, [there are] hundreds of thousands of immigrants not considered Jewish according to halachah, or traditional Jewish law.

That has forced Israel to grapple with some fundamental questions about its Jewish identity. Israel’s Law of Return allows only for those with at least one Jewish grandparent to immigrate, along with their spouses.

Many immigrants from the former Soviet Union want the government to ease its immigration criteria to allow non-Jewish family members to come to Israel.

Immigrants and their children who have grown up in Israel and encounter this problem say they are resentful of a system that readily accepts them for military conscription -- one in five Israeli soldiers hails from the Russian-speaking immigrant community -- but does not consider them full Jews.

"It's an issue that hurts many," said Michael Zinigrad, a chemistry professor who emigrated from Russia in 1992 and is now rector of the Ariel University Center.

Elazar Leshem, an immigration expert affiliated with the Hebrew University and Ariel University Center, says one of the main reasons potential immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have not come to Israel are staying away is the sense that families with mixed Jewish parentage suffer discrimination in Israel.

"Israel is losing out on a huge human resources as a result," he said.


Asking for forgiveness from the convert

By Rabbi Seth Farber Opinion www.jpost.com September 25, 2009

The writer is the founder of ITIM: The Jewish Life Information Center and rabbi of Kehillat Netivot in Ra'anana.

Hundreds of Orthodox converts have "reconverted" in the past year, in order to stay ahead of the curve, but more worrisome is that thousands haven't. And they live in fear and trepidation that their Jewishness will be denied.

Al het that we didn't speak up louder to help those seeking to convert.

Al het that we didn't cry out when conversions were annulled.

Al het that we didn't scream when rabbis wantonly rejected other rabbis' converts - without looking at each case individually.

Al het that we allowed converts to be oppressed, and politics to guide religion.

And perhaps the worst al het of all:

Al het that we don't believe in ourselves to stop this horrifying treatment of fellow Jews.

On Yom Kippur night, when we ask God to forgive the sins of the converts, let us include a prayer, to forgive our sin against the convert.


Who is a Jew? The great debate

www.thejc.com September 30, 2009

The recent Court of Appeal ruling over school admissions has brought the issue of Jewish identity into sharp relief. Four thinkers, from across the communal spectrum, tackle the issue in a round table discussion with Gerald Jacobs.

“It is going to take another 100 years for Israel to find its religious identity. The strictly-Orthodox Jews living in Bnei Brak could be living in a Polish ghetto.

So many of the “halachists” — whose decisions we are touched by — are people who have no concept whatsoever of what it is to have a child coming who is, for example, converted by a Reform Beth Din.

What do they know about a Reform Beth Din? Or interaction with the non-Jewish world? The things that we struggle with on a daily basis.”


Shouldn't Religion in Israel Attempt to 'Wear' All the Colors of the Rainbow?

By Rabbi Andrew Sacks Opinion www.jewishexponent.com September 24, 2009

The writer directs the Rabbinical Assembly in Israel and the Bureau of Religious Affairs of the Masorti [Conservative] Movement.

The Jews of Israel are torn as to what should be the nature and place of Judaism in the Jewish state.

Ought it to mirror the black of the ultra-Orthodox haredi world or reflect the colors of the rainbow, as Israelis allow themselves to realize that there is more than one way to live as a Jew?


Repent the day before you die

By David Forman Opinion www.jpost.com September 27, 2009

I choose not to universalize the mandate for contrition. Instead, I will primarily address one particular segment of the population, those who claim for themselves the title "true believers" - Orthodox Jews.

I do not intend to impugn all Orthodox Jews with crass generalizations.

…The silence of the religious establishment during the riots in Jerusalem implies complicity on the part of too many of our Orthodox rabbinic leaders.


Secular-Friendly Yom Kippur Services

By Hillel Fendel www.israelnationalnews.com September 24, 2009

Over 170 gatherings have already signed up for special Yom Kippur services for the uninitiated, sponsored by the Tzohar Rabbis Organization.

Tzohar means “window,” and the organization says it’s a “window between worlds” – the religious and the secular. It is dedicated to reaching out to the secular public and helping to fashion the country's Jewish identity via dialogue and "the search for common elements of identity."

"Our goal is to help secular Israelis feel less alienated when it comes to religious practice," says Rabbi David Stav, Chairman of Tzohar.

"We want to show them that there are many ways to embrace religion and become spiritually involved with one's Judaism."


Secular yeshiva marks Yom Kippur with meditation

By Kobi Nahshoni www.ynetnews.com September 30, 2009

The Bina Center for Jewish Identity and Hebrew Culture marked the holy day this year, for the fourth time, in a Jewish-Israeli version, with the atmosphere of a yeshiva.

On the agenda: A prayer, "a personal conversation with Hayyim Nahman Bialik," meditation and blowing a shofar. On the menu: An optional fast.

Bina, which operates as part of the network of seminaries in Israel, has not avoided questions such as "who do I pray to?" and throughout the years has formed a version combining segments from the festival prayer book with Hebrew literature and poetry, and an agenda which includes traditional customs alongside more "Israeli" content.


The Zionist loss of nerve

By Yehezkel Dror Opinion www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

The writer is a professor emeritus of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was founding president of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute.

MASA's misguided PR stunt should not cause Zionist leaders and organizations to retreat from an essentially correct, substantive message

…while the new chairman of the Agency was right to halt the campaign, Zionist leaders should have strongly criticized the denial of the truth by some strident Diaspora leaders and insisted on the validity of MASA's main message.

Not doing so constituted a clear loss of Zionist nerve.


Birthright breakaway announces own program, says he will help underwrite it

By Raphael Ahren www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

Roughly two months after a split over ideological differences, the president of Birthright Israel's largest trip organizer told Anglo File this week that he personally would help fund his new initiative to bring Diaspora Jews to Israel on free 10-day trips.

Shlomo Lifshitz, who heads Oranim Educational Initiatives and is widely known as Momo, says he left Birthright after he was told to stop urging participants to marry Jewish partners and consider moving to Israel.


The strength to face each other

By Natan Sharansky Opinion www.jpost.com September 26, 2009

The writer is chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel

There are two great Jewish communities on the face of this earth - Israeli Jewry and Diaspora Jewry.

A bridge connects us - and however convenient it might seem to occasionally turn our back on this bridge, we must not do so.

Each community must engage the other - and understand that our own, continued existence is bound up in the continued ability of the other community to flourish alongside us.


$6m. gift earmarked for TA's Museum of the Jewish People

www.jpost.com September 29, 2009

Last week's $6 million gift from Russian-Israeli billionaire Leonid Nevzlin to Beit Hatefutsoth, the Tel Aviv-based Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, is the start of a major international effort to help fund a vast new Museum of the Jewish People targeted at Israelis.

According to experts, most Israeli youth pass through the state education system without a single lesson on the Diaspora.

More than 60 percent of 150 history and civics teachers polled said the subject of Diaspora Jewry had never entered their classrooms, according to a 2006 study by the American Jewish Committee's Israel/Middle East Office and the Levinsky College of Education in Tel Aviv. Another 25% said they did not know if it had been taught in their classrooms.

Only 13% said they had taught it or heard of it being taught at least once.


A new edge for Jewish philanthropy

By Ruth Eglash www.jpost.com September 29, 2009


At first glance, Jgooders.com looks like any other Jewish organization's Web site.

Listing a variety of social welfare and cultural projects in Israel and the Jewish world, encouraging surfers to "get involved" and volunteer, Jgooders could, in fact, pass for its own philanthropic organization attempting to rally the international Jewish community for support.

However, Jgooders runs no projects of its own and fund-raises nothing for itself, rather it is a Jewish philanthropic "start-up" offering individual donors and Jewish or Israeli charities the chance to raise money with ease via new technology and social media promotion.


Right of Reply: Bnei Akiva - today & tomorrow

By Yona Goodman Opinion www.jpost.com September 23, 2009

Newman goes on to accuse Bnei Akiva of looking back over its "right shoulder" to see whether it satisfies the demands of the haredi community.

Well, we see nothing wrong with learning good things from anybody, including the haredi world. But the truth is that Bnei Akiva's main effort is not looking backward, but forward, toward the great challenges that face Israel, and to strive to contribute in coping with them.

In reply to: Bnei Akiva - then & now

By David Newman Opinion www.jpost.com September 7, 2009

In the past it used to look over its left shoulder to ensure that it was given a kashrut certificate for being Zionist enough by the world of secular Zionism, while today it looks over its right shoulder at the Orthodox world for recognition that it is Orthodox enough.


The ties that continue to bind

By Tamar Rotem www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

For the constantly expanding group of people who call themselves "datlashim" - a Hebrew acronym for "formerly religious" - the prolonged search for a new identity that still corresponds in some way with the old one becomes an end in itself, because they do not consider secularism an appropriate alternative.

These are mainly young people in their late twenties, or thirty-somethings, who come from religious-Zionist circles, who do not lead a religious lifestyle and do not consider themselves bound by halakha (traditional Jewish law).

"When you leave religion, first of all everything falls apart. Mainly the connection between belief in God on the one hand, and religion and ethics on the other. At first you become a nutcase.

After all, there's nobody to punish you. Then you go to look for new ethics. During the first years you don't pray either. You try to understand your limits. But after a while you say to yourself: There's no God, f--- it, but I want to feel."

The formerly observant, he continues, are yet another group seeking a new era, and perhaps looking to strengthen the turn back to traditional Jewish literature, and to support the various secular batei midrash.


With God's help

By Ben Shalev www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

Interview with musician Etti Ankri

A few years ago, Ankri began covering her hair, a choice that surely did not help her career. But here, too, she had no choice. "I yearned to put on a head covering," she says.

Might she stop performing in front of men? "It's strange that the secular media of all things is constantly preoccupied with this," she says.

"One thing is important for me to say. There are people who don't buy tickets because they think the concerts are just for women.
They should be aware that I am not at that level. I can't say where I'll be tomorrow. I hope that I will grow closer to the Holy One Blessed Be He, but I can't be sure."

When she is asked again about this, more directly, she answers, "It's too intimate. I'll tell you but don't write it."

When the interview ends and it turns out that the battery in the tape recorder ran out before Ankri discussed this sensitive subject, she smiles and says, "Does that seem like a coincidence to you?"


When ignorance isn't bliss

By Ruth Beloff www.jpost.com September 26, 2009

As the co-founders of Choice of the Heart (Bechirat Halev), a marriage education program for newlyweds and "nearlyweds," the two women are striving to equip couples with the tools to launch them into a loving and lasting relationship.

Based on the Prepare/Enrich mentoring program developed in the US after 30 years of research by social scientist David Olson, Choice of the Heart (www.choiceoftheheart.org) is a series of workshops dedicated to empowering married and engaged couples to learn to communicate and understand each other.

"Religious couples are trained in Halacha, but they need to know how to communicate, which is the key to intimacy," she asserts. "In the religious world, men and women are separated from early on. In our workshops, they are all together."

As for Haredi couples, the Miller and Lurie team can work with them one on one.


Opening the 'present' together

By Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Opinion www.jpost.com September 26, 2009

Certainly it behooves us to partner with the nearly two billion Christians to teach the message of ethical absolutism.

These Noachide commandments of universal morality such as "Thou shalt not murder" must be accepted by every human being, alongside religious pluralism, granting everyone the right to pray to God in his own way, or even not to pray at all.

…Given this understanding, we can and we must partner with the Christian world for the sake of the God of love, peace and morality - the only hope for a future world.

This, however, with one strong proviso: We cannot partner with any group whose raison d'être is to convert Jews to Christianity now. We ask to be respected as we are now, with all our failings, just as we respect the Christian world as it is now.


They pray to Jesus, don't they?

By Akiva Eldar Opinion www.haaretz.com September 30, 2009

In order to grasp the extent of the crisis between religious Jewish settlers in the Binyamin region and their Christian Evangelist benefactors, have a look at the www.frontlineisrael.com Web site.

In the middle of the site's home page, between a call to return to the evacuated community of Homesh and request for contributions to reestablish Gush Katif evacuees in communities in Judea and Samaria, the surfer is invited to watch a report aired on Channel 1.

…Receiving tens of millions of dollars annually from Christian preachers and enlisting their support against political initiatives is a great mitzvah. But exposing our children, heaven forbid, to their doctrines? There is a limit.


Bible politics and Palestinian Zionists

By Tristan Sturm www.haaretz.com September 27, 2009

For as many as 1,000 other Protestant Palestinians who are the protégés of American Baptist missionaries, the conflict is refracted through the lens of American millennialism. The result is a rapidly growing number of Palestinian Christian Zionists.

…These Christians have found a new meaning in their role in the land, by forming proselytizing missions to convert the Jews. Most espouse an End Time theo-politics borrowed from Christian millennialism that shares much with the religious Zionism formulated by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.

They not only believe that the return of the messiah hinges on Israeli territorial maximalism but also - like most American Evangelicals - believe that Jews have a special biblical role as the chosen people.


Religion and State in Israel

September 30, 2009 (Section 2) (continued from Section 1)

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Editor – Joel Katz

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