December 20, 2010 (Section 2) (see also Section 1)
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Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.
Cabinet approves stipend limits to most yeshiva students
By Herb Keinon and Rebecca Anna Stoil www.jpost.com December 19, 2010
The government on Sunday voted to limit to five the number of years certain kollel students will be able to receive a monthly living stipend from the state, while a select few – some 2,000 characterized as “perpetual students” – will be eligible for the allotments in perpetuity.
The Movement for Progressive (Reform) Judaism, the Masorti (Conservative) Movement and Hiddush – For Religious Freedom and Equality – all organizations that support religious pluralism in Israel – blasted the decision.
“The government has missed a historic opportunity to fix an error that threatens the future of Israeli society, and chose to ignore the clear position of most of the Israeli public, which is fed up with haredi evasion of both military service and employment,” Rabbi Gilad Kariv of the Reform Movement said.
Cabinet approves Haredi allowance plan
Cabinet set to approve plan to phase out Haredi handouts, starting in five years
PM to present new Haredi stipend plan
Cabinet to approve limits on stipends for yeshiva students
Jpost.com Editorial www.jpost.com December 16, 2010
This package is an important development that was long in the making but which could not be forced before its time.
Recognition has finally sunk in among haredi leaders that the present situation is untenable. And secular Israelis now fully appreciate the need to accommodate haredi needs for the sake of attaining mutual goals.
...Now, it is to be hoped, we are entering a new, healthier phase in the rehabilitation of the Jewish people after the Shoah. Haredi society, numbering close to 800,000, or 11% of Israel’s population, will gradually begin sharing more of the burden of running a modern Jewish state.
Challenging orthodoxies, Shas maverick seeks to put Israeli haredim to work
By Leslie Susser www.jta.org December 15, 2010
Shas MK Amsellem wants to build a genuinely socially concerned party independent of rabbinic fiat. Unlike conventional haredi Orthodoxy, which turns its back on modernity and often on the secular Israeli state, Amsellem is willing to entertain a working symbiosis between haredi Orthodoxy and the modern world. He also is unabashedly ready to call himself a Zionist.
His positions have earned him rogue status in Shas.
Cabinet approves bill excusing ultra-Orthodox from IDF service
By Haaretz Service www.haaretz.com December 19, 2010
The cabinet decided Sunday to limit the period during which married yeshiva students are entitled to stipends to five years. The decision will only be fully implemented, however, in another five years.
...To be exempt from military service according to the recommendations, Haredim would have to do a year of alternative service with the police, the Magen David Adom ambulance service, the Fire and Rescue Services or the Prison Service. The arrangement would apply to married students up to age 22 if they have no children, or bachelors over 24.
IDF chief: We are in favor of incorporating Haredis into the military
By Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com December 19, 2010
"Our concern lies with providing the exemption [to army service]. We think that the age for exemption should be 24-25, or younger for individuals with children. Equality is important here. For instance, you have a community of academics that enter army service at age 22-23. Why shouldn't they, too, enjoy an exemption?"
IDF Chief of Staff Ashkenazi: Integrate Haredim in army
Cabinet to vote on excusing ultra-Orthodox from IDF service
PM to present new Haredi national service plan
Minister, opposition slam cabinet's proposal for yeshiva stipends
Haredi funds to be limited to 5 years
Cabinet to approve one-year civilian service for Haredim
Gov't ties haredi civil service to IDF exemption
New plan to double Haredi IDF enlistment
Kadima MK: Haredi IDF recruitment 'deceptive'
Beware the Military-Religious Complex
By Gershom Gorenberg Opinion
Hesder Yeshiva soldiers: The Privileged
By Nehemia Shtrasler Opinion www.haaretz.com December 17, 2010
The time has come to dismantle the separate platoons and to conscript every religious youth into full, three-year service, just like their secular colleagues.
The IDF is still the melting pot of Israeli society; only there can a "Russian," an "Ethiopian," a "yuppie" and a "dos" (religious person ) run together over the hills in squad exercises, making sure the line is straight so that none of them will get a bullet from behind.
Kadima: PM bought MK's vote on Carmel fire probe in return for Hesder Yeshiva funds
By Jonathan Lis and Mazal Mualem www.haaretz.com December 14, 2010
According to Hasson, who is the Knesset Control Committee chairman, in exchange for Ariel's vote against the probe the Prime Minister promised him that the Defense Ministry will allocate a sum of NIS 21.8 million to the hesder yeshivas, religious seminaries where students also serve in the Israel Defense Forces.
2010 army figures show 25% jump in Haredi enlistment
By Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com December 15, 2010
About a thousand ultra-Orthodox young men mustered into special Israel Defense Forces service tracks during the past year, according to 2010 wrap-up statistics compiled by the army's personnel division, obtained by Haaretz.
IDF Chief: Do justice with Hesder Yeshivot
www.ynetnews.com December 14, 2010
"We must do justice with the yeshiva students. They serve in the IDF and have an important contribution to the command and reserve forces. I understand the commanders' desire to have everyone do everything, but this is the arrangement."
Regarding Army Service for Women
By Rabbi Shlomo Aviner Opinion www.ravaviner.com December 13, 2010
[R]egarding military service for girls, that program has always been rejected entirely by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, and Ha-Rav Tzvi Yehuda issued the same ruling. If, however, a girl enlists all the same, we have to engage in damage control.
We must therefore praise the “Aluma” Organization which directs girls to army programs in which less immodesty prevails, providing them with guidance and assistance all through their service.
Reform Movement petitions court against Safed rabbi
www.jpost.com December 16, 2010
The Israeli Reform movement petitioned the High Court on Thursday to instruct the attorney general to charge the chief rabbi on Safed, Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, with incitement for his religious ruling banning the sale or rental of apartments in the city to Arab Israelis.
The Attorney General shirks his duty
Haaretz Editorial
Israel is not a Halakhic state
By Israel Harel Opinion
When Rabbis Give Israel A Black Eye
New York Jewish Week Editorial
High Court asked to try rabbi calling for no renting to non-Jews
Rabbis: Raise your voices against extremism
By Isi Leibler Opinion
Taking a clear-headed approach to the rabbis' letter
The rabbis' letter and the Jewish state
By Prof. Ruth Gavison Opinion
The farce of a secular and democratic Jewish state
By Gideon Levy Opinion
U.S. Rabbis Offer Rare Rebuke of Israeli Edict
The Continuing War for Safed & Rabbis Letter
Poll: 55% back rabbis' anti-Arab ruling
By Rabbi Donniel Hartman Opinion
Rabbis behind anti-Arab manifesto seek compromise with Netanyahu
Knesset Speaker Rivlin: ‘Rabbis’ letter’ is discriminatory
Rabbi Haim Druckman: 'OK to rent to Arabs when security not at stake'
Education Ministry official rejects rabbis' anti-Arab manifesto
U.S.-based rabbi: Edict against renting to Arabs endangers Jews abroad
We all owe Israel's racist rabbis a vote of thanks
By Bradley Burston Opinion
By Rabbi Michael Abraham Opinion
Victimized by rabbis who lack God's image
By Shulamit Aloni Opinion
S.F./Bay Area (local) rabbis condemn ruling against renting to non-Jews
Is it permissible to sell or rent an apartment to a non-Jew in the Land of Israel?
By Rabbi David Golinkin
In Israel, a rabbi who argues that anti-Arab measures are un-Jewish
Rabbis sign petition against religious discrimination
US rabbis speak out against rabbis' letter
Rabbis Against Religious Discrimination urge Israeli colleagues to denounce letter against renting
Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein's Response to the Letter Banning Sale of Homes to Gentiles in Israel
An Independent and Courageous Rabbinate
Vox Tablet www.tabletmag.com Produced by Josh Gleason December 13, 2010
Luzer Twersky spent the first 23 years of his life in Hasidic enclaves in Brooklyn, London, and suburban New York. For much of that time, he struggled to square his own beliefs and desires with those of his family and community.
Two years ago, he gave up and left. It was a painful decision, and one for which he paid dearly, if predictably—his family now considers him as good as dead.
Secular Jews Tour a Foreign Culture: Hareidi Jews
By Gil Ronen www.israelnationalnews.com December 14, 2010
A new internal tourism initiative brings groups of secular Jews to hareidi-religious neighborhoods and homes, smashing stereotypes and creating new bonds among Jewish groups that drifted apart over centuries.
The tours are largely a Chabad initiative and focus on hassidic communities in Jerusalem.
Finance Minister Steinitz: Haredi, Arab workforce integration still too slow
By Sharon Wrobel www.jpost.com December 13, 2010
Although the level of participation in the labor market increased significantly since the beginning of the year, the integration of the haredi and Arab population is still slow, Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said Monday.
“The level of participation of the haredi and Arab population is an important parameter, and we have a problem here,” he said at the Globes Israel Business Conference in Tel Aviv. “In 2010, there was a significant increase in participation in the Israeli labor force.
Upheaval in a Breslav Hasidic court
By Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com December 15, 2010
The kind of court revolutions in history books and fables can also occur in the Hasidic courts. This week, a revolution, for all intents and purposes, occurred in the Shuvu Banim community of Breslav Hasidim in Jerusalem.
The contender for the throne is the spiritual leader himself, Rabbi Eliezer Berland, who reinstated himself after asserting that he had been exploited for years by the powerful court built around him by his son and grandson.
By Jonathan Rosenblum Opinion www.jpost.com December 17, 2010
Anti-Haredi bias explains much of the venom directed at Yishai, but there was something else pushing the media agenda as well: the desire to avoid thinking about a truly scary subject.
By Peggy Cidor www.jpost.com December 17, 2010
Who is going to explain to Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef that the fact that he is eager to see one of his sons seated as the Sephardi chief rabbi doesn’t mean the rest of the city’s residents are voiceless?
To increase his son’s chances, Shas representatives at the Knesset and at the Religious Services Ministry are closing deals with the Ashkenazi Haredim.
Halacha expert slams ban on visiting Kotel on Shabbat
By Jonah Mandel www.jpost.com December 17, 2010
Senior haredi Ashkenazi adjudicator Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv recently prohibited visiting the Western Wall on Shabbat due to halachic problems with the security cameras there.
But Rabbi Yisrael Rozen, head of the Tzomet Institute, said Thursday that “whoever wants to prohibit the Western Wall cameras will have to order religious people to stay away from yeshivas, hotels, banquet halls and public areas, all of which use online security cameras.”
Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv says Western Wall cameras desecrate Sabbath
AP www.washingtonpost.com December 15, 2010
A leading Israeli rabbi has declared the Western Wall off limits to the faithful on the holiest day of the week because of security cameras that he says desecrate the Sabbath.
Israel's Core Curriculum Meets Fierce Haredi Opposition
By Nathan Jeffay http://forward.com December 14, 2010
A tug-of-war is taking place over the government’s attempt to impose a core curriculum in ultra-Orthodox elementary and high schools, and it’s not just about education. It cuts to the heart of a bitter conflict within Israeli society on the issue of authority.
Israel’s Education Ministry has launched a zero-tolerance policy toward Haredi schools that refuse to teach the ministry’s prescribed secular studies curriculum.
But a fight over course content has quickly morphed into something broader.
By Tzofia Hirschfeld www.ynetnews.com December 15, 2010
Some 40 couples belonging to Tel Aviv 'Garinim Toranim' - groups of idealistic, religious zionist individuals and families who try to effect social and religious development in underdeveloped communities, were trained for the program.
Any couple registering for marriage in the Tel Aviv Rabbinate can now choose [to] exchange the counseling session for a 'date' with a religious couple, have a cup of coffee and hear about traditional Jewish matrimonial relations right from the source.
Nof Zion buyer believed to be Bashar al-Masri
Secularism and Its Discontents
By Yehudah Mirsky www.jidaily.com December 17, 2010
How do you say "secular" in Hebrew? The current term is hiloni. (Roughly 45 percent of Israelis characterize themselves as hiloni, while another 25 percent call themselves, intriguingly, masorti/lo-dati, traditional/nonreligious.)
The term appears to have been first used by Micha Yosef Berdiczewsky, the enfant terrible of modern Hebrew letters, and was intimately connected with the rise of Zionism. Yet it didn't become part of Israel's lingua franca until the 1950s; for decades, the reigning term had been hofshi, free—free, that is, of the law.
December 20, 2010 (Section 2) (see also Section 1)
Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.
All rights reserved.
