June 6, 2011 (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.
By Jonathan Lis www.haaretz.com June 6, 2011
The main point of disagreement was Yishai's reluctance to extend the fasting hours on Yom Kippur. According to the new plan, Yom Kippur will take place during DST about fifty percent of time. Yishai consulted with religious authorities before adopting his position.
The matter will now go to the Ministerial Committee for Legislation, which will also hear private members' bills on the issue.
See also: Summer's going to last until October 1, Yishai announces
www.jpost.com June 6, 2011
By Nehemia Shtrasler Opinion www.haaretz.com May 31, 2011
After numerous delays the Kehat committee has submitted its findings on daylight saving time, and Interior Minister Eli Yishai is expected to announce his decision on the matter next Monday.
...Meanwhile, public pressure has grown, and online petitions are calling on Yishai to establish a normal daylight saving time.
After all, Yishai is not obliged to accept the committee's recommendations. He can turn the tables upside down and make a brave decision - Israel will adopt the European Union's daylight saving time, implementing it between the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October.
Committee submits Daylight Saving bill to Yishai
www.jpost.com May 30, 2011
A special Knesset committee established for examine daylight saving time has submitted their recommendation to Interior Minister Eli Yishai of Shas. Yishai organized the committee.
Yishai has said that he has not yet reached any final conclusions based on the report submitted to him recently, and will take the week to complete his inspections and will publish the decision thereafter.
Under the cover of darkness, West Bank holy site emerges as Israeli-Palestinian friction point
AP www.washingtonpost.com May 31, 2011
A modest stone building holy to Jews in the midst of this Arab city is becoming an increasingly volatile friction point, drawing growing numbers of pilgrims on nighttime prayer visits, unnerving Palestinian residents and putting Israel’s military into conflict with some of the worshippers it is meant to protect.
The monthly trips by religious Jews to this largely hostile city, coordinated with Palestinian security forces, emphasize the complexity of the Holy Land’s religious landscape and the sometimes deadly intersection of the sacred and the political.
IDF lambastes Jewish worshippers for endangering soldiers in visit to Joseph's Tomb
By Amos Harel www.haaretz.com May 31, 2011
The Israel Defense Forces strongly criticized Israeli worshippers who made their way to Joseph's Tomb in Nablus on their own early yesterday morning, saying they had endangered soldiers and themselves and risked a confrontation with the Palestinian Authority.
More than 200 worshippers entered Nablus without authorization after they could not find seats on the buses to the grave that had been organized by the army in coordination with the PA. The buses brought some 1,600 people to the tomb.
Jewish worshippers infiltrate Nablus, clash with IDF soldiers
www.haaretz.com May 30, 2011
Israelis, soldiers clash in Nablus at Joseph's Tomb
Hasidic sect takes succession war to the Internet
By Revital Hoval www.haaretz.com June 3, 2011
As the succession war in Haifa's Seret-Viznitz Hasidic sect heats up, one of the warring parties has resorted to the Internet as a weapon.
In recent weeks, video footage has begun circulating in emails and on the ultra-Orthodox website Behadrei Haredim that shows Rabbi Baruch Hager, grandson of the sect's current admor (rabbinic leader ), maligning key leaders of Haifa's Viznitz community to his 86-year-old grandfather and even managing to get the admor to speak out against them.
By Nir Hasson and Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com June 3, 2011
Yoel Krois decided in recent months to take a temporary break from the holy wars he ordinarily wages as the unofficial "sheriff" of the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea She'arim, in Jerusalem.
The battles against men and women walking together on Mea She'arim's sidewalks, against bus company Egged, against the Gay Pride Parade and against the Haredi politicians who sit in the infidels' Knesset - all of these can evidently wait, because Krois, a member of the extremist religious faction Eda Haredit, has a burning mission that keeps him glued to his storage room for days and nights: uploading his personal archive of 20,000 pashkevils, or street posters, to the digital collection of the National Library of Israel.
...So far, approximately 5,000 pashkevils have been uploaded to the library's Hebrew-language web site.
Some 15 percent of these will be blocked to viewers outside the library out of concern for slandering individuals named in them.
Visual Midrash: Torah Is Their Profession
Hiddush has recently created a visual representation of a consistent theme in the Jewish tradition hailing the primacy of work as means to earn a living rather than living off public charity (and materially gain from the study of Torah).
Threat of violence keeps police out of Jerusalem Haredi neighborhood
By Chaim Levinson www.haaretz.com May 30, 2011
Police are reluctant to enter the ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Mea She'arim because of residents' violence, a police spokesman said during a recent court hearing over the remand of a neighborhood resident.
A police official said in court Thursday that the reason the police had not arrested a wanted man for more than a month, despite knowing where in Mea She'arim he was, was that every time they go into the neighborhood police property is damaged and they do not want unnecessary confrontations.
By Kobi Nahshoni www.ynetnews.com May 31, 2011
The ultra-Orthodox central city of Bnei Brak has found a twin sister overseas – Lakewood, New Jersey, which also has a very large haredi community.
Many in the haredi public hoped that the move would bring some money into Bnei Brak, one of the poorest cities in Israel, but Asher rushed to lower expectations. "We're not here to 'schnorr' and to enrich the municipality's treasury. This is not our goal."
Nonetheless, Asher said he expected businesspeople from Lakewood investing in Israel to settle in Bnei Brak's new business center, as "their taxes will be a great contribution to the city".
Netanyahu must resume construction in Jerusalem
By Israel Harel Opinion www.haaretz.com June 2, 2011
Because of the freeze, real estate prices in Jerusalem are skyrocketing proportionally well beyond any other city in the country.
That is the main reason for the fact that the young people are abandoning the capital, and not, according to the slanderous claims of people with vested interests, because of Haredization.
Haredization does in fact exist and is burdensome, but it is actually those who want to prevent the domination of the Haredim who must lead the movement to prevent the departure of the secular population. In effect they are doing the opposite: They are waging a scare campaign, exaggerated for the most part, to cause people to become disgusted with life in the capital.
The Rabbi and the Paratroopers
Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, Migdal HaEmek and paratroopers from the IDF's Brigade 85 during the Second Lebanon War.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pACng5jMVvE&feature=player_embedded
The Tomb of Rachel - The Bene Israel Connection: Wanderers, emissaries, matriarchs and a holy site
By Dr. Shalva Weil http://asianjewishlife.org AJL Issue 6
Dr. Shalva Weil is a Senior Researcher at the Research Institute for Innovation in Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. She is a specialist in Indian Jewry and is the Founding Chairperson of the Israel-India Cultural Association
The tomb was even known by the Bene Israel of Bombay as one of the holiest sites to Jews over the generations even though they were disconnected from world Jewry. It symbolized fertility, and is of special significance to Jewish women. Rachel's birthday, which falls on the 11th day of the lunar month of Heshvan, has become a day of pilgrimage for thousands of Jewish women, who come from all over Israel to pray for their loved ones or themselves.
German passport popular in Israel
By Tzvika Brot www.ynetnews.com May 31, 2011
For many years, Israelis of German descent boycotted German products, refused to set foot on German soil and severed all ties with the country they were born in. But now, their own children and grandchildren are fighting for the right to become German citizens.
According to a new study, some 100,000 Israelis possess a German passport.
Austrian Jews want Israeli archive
AP www.ynetnews.com May 30, 2011
Austria's Jewish community is taking an Israeli organization to court in a bid to force it to return a trove of historical documents.
At issue is archive material about the Austrian capital's once vibrant Jewish community that survivors of the Nazi era loaned to the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem after World War II.
Jerusalem-area settlement asks nearby mosques to turn down loudspeakers
By Amira Hass www.haaretz.com June 2, 2011
The Ma'aleh Adumim local council is demanding that the loudspeakers announcing the Muslim call to prayer from some mosques in the adjacent Palestinian village of al-Eizariya be turned down because the volume is disturbing residents of the settlement, Palestinian sources told Haaretz.
Muslim sectarianism and the Jewish connection
By Jonah Mandel www.jpost.com May 30, 2011
Indonesian historian Azyumardi Azra, one of the world’s leading scholars of moderate Islam says Islam and Judaism can learn from each other.
This was his first visit to Israel, and besides his surprise over how green the country was, he noted how Jerusalem’s Old City was full of Muslims, Christians and Jews – a meeting place of Abrahamic faiths. But despite the religions’ common ground, the Middle East is not a place of religious tolerance.
By Liz Lawler Opinion www.lilith.org May 31, 2011
These are the people who hide behind talk of “bodily desecration,” rather than take a more nuanced view of the donation process. It boggles my mind to think that you, a Jew, might not want to save another person’s life.
By Rabbi Eliezer Melamed http://revivimen.yhb.org.il May 13, 2011
Each individual Jew is, however, responsible for enforcing the prohibition not to show mercy. It is forbidden to sell fields or houses in Israel to non-Jews that do not keep the seven laws of the sons of Noah. It follows, therefore, that it is forbidden to give any Arab that is not considered a ‘ger toshav’ any part of the Land of Israel.
Religious Zionism fights bachelorhood
By Akiva Novick www.ynetnews.com June 6, 2011
Hundreds of parents belonging to the religious Zionism movement are losing sleep over this problem. Rabbis are shocked by the extent of this phenomenon.
No, we are not talking about the future of the settlements or the level of education in the State of Israel: The religious public is concerned over the "bachelorhood phenomenon" – thousands of young men and women who have reached the age of 30 without getting married.
Israeli Jew turned Catholic priest named head of papal court
By Tomer Zarchin www.haaretz.com June 3, 2011
David Maria Jaeger, a Catholic priest who converted from Judaism, will be installed this morning as a prelate auditor of the Roman Rota, a papal law court that serves as the chief appellate court of the Catholic Church.
Jaeger has come a long way from his youth in downtown Tel Aviv. He attended Bilu Elementary School, at that time a school for Tel Aviv's religious Zionist bourgeoisie, studied at the Zeitlin religious high school and from there, went all the way to the Holy See's highest court.
Beneath Jerusalem, an undergound city takes shape
By Matti Friedman http://news.yahoo.com May 31, 2011
Underneath the crowded alleys and holy sites of old Jerusalem, hundreds of people are snaking at any given moment through tunnels, vaulted medieval chambers and Roman sewers in a rapidly expanding subterranean city invisible from the streets above.
PHOTO Gallery: Ethiopian community remembers its children who perished en-route to Zion
www.demotix.com June 1, 2011
In 2003 a committee of ministers dealing with immigration and absorption decided to erect a monument for the demoralization of the Ethiopian Jews who lost their lives en-route to Jerusalem, on Mount Herzl. The government decided an official memorial service would be held on Mount Herzl on the Jewish date of 28th of Iyar, symbolically coinciding with Jerusalem Reunification Day.
In March 2007 the monument was inaugurated. It was designed by architect Gabriel Kertesz, in cooperation with the Ethiopian community, incorporating monologues written by Ethiopian Jews describing their village life in Ethiopia, their yearning for Jerusalem and the hardships of the journey to Israel.
By Kasaey Damoza www.jpost.com May 31, 2011
The writer works for the government and is completing an MA at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In our community’s first years in Israel, there were only a few places that mentioned the story of the Ethiopian journey and only a few small monuments. But 30 years later, there are memorial ceremonies that take place in schools, municipalities and youth camps.
Gov't failures in Falash Mura immigration decried
By Ruth Eglash www.jpost.com June 1, 2011
The Israeli government is failing to adequately assist and support the thousands of Ethiopian Jews currently waiting in the city of Gondar to make aliya and is not properly preparing itself for the absorption of this group of immigrants, leaders of the Ethiopian community here and representatives of non-profits working in Ethiopia said this week.
First Time: Temple Mount Priestly Blessing on Jerusalem Day
By Hillel Fendel www.israelnationalnews.com June 2, 2011
For the first time in the history of Israeli restrictions on Jewish entry to the Temple Mount, the recitation of the Priestly Blessing was permitted there. It happened on Wednesday, Jerusalem Reunification Day, when hundreds of visitors – all of whom immersed in a mikveh (ritual bath) prior to coming and took other precautions required by Jewish Law – were allowed to enter the Temple Mount in groups of 30-40.
By Hagai Segal Opinion www.ynetnews.com June 1, 2011
The Chief Rabbinate feared that the holy mount will turn into a mass vacation spot and immediately after the war banned entry to Temple Mount.
The logic behind the ban was the same logic that in the past prompted haredi rabbis in the Diaspora to object to Zionism – grave concern that secular pioneers would desecrate the sanctity of the land.
With all due respect, this is a baseless ruling.
Moskowitz Zionism Prizes Awarded
By Elad Benari www.israelnationalnews.com May 31, 2011
Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, co-founder of the Nefesh B’Nefesh English speakers’ aliyah movement, Former MK Rabbi Chanan Porat, who helped re-establish the community of Kfar Etzion after the 1967 Six Day War following his service as a paratrooper, and recently retired director of the Mossad, Meir Dagan were the recipients of the 2011 Moskowitz Prize for Zionism.
UNESCO director-general hails joint work with Israel
www.jpost.com May 30, 2011
Highlighting her organization’s “excellent cooperation” with Israel in a variety of fields including education, culture, science and communications, the director-general of UNESCO said Sunday in Jerusalem that she had been “disappointed” by the process whereby UNESCO’s Executive Board last October passed five resolutions hostile to Israel.
She also inaugurated the “UNESCO for Tolerance and Peace Square” in Haifa, in the company of the city’s mayor Yona Yahav. At the ceremony dedicating the square, she praised the mixed Jewish- Arab city as an exemplar of coexistence and dialogue between all population sectors.
UNESCO chief inaugurates square for tolerance and peace in Haifa
http://news.bahai.org May 30, 2011
Ms. Bokova was speaking at a special ceremony held in the Baha'i gardens to inaugurate the UNESCO for Tolerance and Peace Square, situated at the point where Haifa's historic German Templer colony meets the terraced gardens of the Shrine of the Bab.
June 6, 2011 (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.
