Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.
By Amos Harel www.haaretz.com November 14, 2011
“The removal of women from an array of core positions, the separation of women from the public sphere, and the forcible imposition of behavioral norms suited to a small portion of the religious population upon the army as a whole - all this causes serious damage to the army's image, and does not adhere to the IDF's spirit and ethos.”
Is there a connection between the warning of the outgoing Judea and Samaria Division commander, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon - who said a "radical minority, marginal in quantity but not in influence, is liable to bring about extensive escalation through what are called 'price tag' acts but reach the level of terrorism" - and the separation of women at the army's Simhat Torah celebrations?
By Dina Kraft www.jta.org November 14, 2011
Yisrael Schulman is one of several Haredi men trained by a company called Verisense: “Now people are living a very low quality of life," Schulman says. "I don’t think the community can survive without education and work.
“Ultimately more people will have to work, and you can feel a shift toward that. Change will come because people do want to work.”
By Gershom Gorenberg Opinion www.slate.com November 8, 2011
The following is adapted from Gershom Gorenberg’s new book The Unmaking of Israel.
In economic terms, the haredi revival in Israel has been disastrous. Israel's ultra-Orthodox community is ever more dependent on the state and, through it, on other people's labor.
Exploiting political patronage, ultra-Orthodox clerics have largely taken over the state's religious bureaucracy, imposing extreme interpretations of Jewish law on other Jews.
By exempting the ultra-Orthodox from basic general educational requirements, the democratic state fosters a burgeoning sector of society that neither understands nor values democracy.
And to protect their own growing settlements, haredi parties are now essential partners in the pro-settlement coalitions of the right.
Shahar Cohen [is] the youngest person on Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg's 15-member committee for social and economic change...
"For instance, the section on ultra-Orthodox employment could set in motion a genuine revolution if it is implemented.
The most positive aspect of that section is that it does not take a coercive approach; that is why many pragmatic-minded members of the Haredi community were prepared to endorse the report.
They also realize that the present situation simply cannot continue. More aggressive measures would have led them to close the door in the secular public's face.
[The report] is proposing training and education programs, and making working more attractive. How? By limiting state-funded yeshiva tuition to five years. Only 10 percent of yeshiva students - namely, only the outstanding students - would receive tuition funding after reaching the limit. The other 90 percent will thus be more motivated to go out and work."
By Yaron London Opinon www.ynetnews.com November 8, 2011
Halevy’s words prompted protests, of course. Members of Shas and United Torah Judaism accused him of resorting to grave incitement.
They are certain, or pretend to be certain, that the ultra-Orthodox improve the status of Jews before God, and that the more people study Torah, the greater the people of Israel’s security would be.
The ultra-Orthodox population is the Jewish people's insurance certificate. Israelis are not everywhere, yet in every sub-culture to which he or she is connected, he or she can be sure that their sons and their son's sons will continue to affiliate as Jews.
...The ultra-Orthodox public is the insurance policy for the continuing existence of the Jewish people. Even when the premium goes up, one does not forego life insurance.
By Sharon Shenhav Opinion www.jpost.com November 9, 2011
The writer, a Jerusalem-based women’s rights lawyer, is the director of the International Jewish Women’s Rights Project of the International Council of Jewish Women.
On October 31, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yonah Metzger informed Israel Radio, Reshet Bet, that he had visited a shelter for battered Orthodox women in Beit Shemesh and was horrified to hear of their suffering.
Rabbi Metzger’s concern and compassion is well deserved and to be commended. However, it comes a little late. Where has he been for the past 40 years? Has he been so out of touch that he doesn’t read newspapers or listen to radio or television?
Despite the changing daily reality of Israeli life, rabbis have continued to maintain their central role in the Jewish and Israeli experience, both as individuals and as an establishment.
What challenges do rabbis face, and what course of action do they take to meet those challenges?
These questions will be explored in a symposium in honor of the anthology Rabbis and Rabbinate: The Challenge, edited by Yedidia Z. Stern and Shuki Friedman and published by IDI and Am Oved.
This event is free and open to the general public with advance registration.
Registration: Tel. 02-629-2223 or yaelz@mishkenot.org.il
Rabbis and Rabbinate: The Challenge - On Ethics, Authority, and Responsibility
Tuesday, November 15, 2011, 3:00 p.m.–7:00 p.m.
The Jerusalem Center for Ethics - The Konrad Adenauer Conference Center, De Botton Auditorium, Mishkenot Sha’ananim, Jerusalem
The writer is the legal analyst of Israel Radio and a senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Yigal Amir is in jail but his senior partners to the murder of the prime minister are still free and happy.
Amir himself testified about those partners already on the night of the assassination when he said in his investigation:
"Without the rabbinical ruling or the 'din rodef' [the right to pursue and kill someone who has supposedly sinned] that applied to [Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin, issued by a number of rabbis that I know about, I would have had difficulty murdering. A murder of that kind must have backing. If I did not have backing ... I would not have acted."
By Akiva Novick www.ynetnews.com November 9, 2011
[The survey] reveals that 65% of seculars and 61% of traditional Jews identify with the Rabin memorial.
Among religious Jews, only 26% feel very affiliated with the memorial, while 39% reported feeling slightly affiliated.
By Jeremy Sharon www.jpost.com November 9, 2011
The Reform Movement in Israel presented a report to the Knesset Lobby Against Racism on Tuesday about racial incitement by rabbinical figures.
The report claims that most complaints against rabbis accused of religious incitement are not investigated.
Out of 48 complaints filed between 2002 and 2011, the police initiated just 18 criminal investigations, the report says. The remaining complaints were either dropped prior to investigation or were left unanswered.
By Hagai Stadler Opinion www.ynetnews.com November 10, 2011
Hagai Stadler, a member of the religious Zionism camp, is a Principal at the Yarden Management and Investment Group
Whether we want to or not, the murder of Yitzhak Rabin shall forever remain a terrible stain in the history of religious Zionism.
Up until now, the camp’s leaders chose to look down and avoid a genuine inquiry into the rift, out of defensiveness and populism.
Arie Hasit is an educator at Ramah Programs in Israel and is beginning the Israeli bet midrash program at the Schechter institute. The views expressed in this article are the author's alone.
...I would like to reclaim the label of “religious,” so that in Israel, religiousness is associated not only with the strict observance of the Sabbath and Kashrut, but with good deeds, charity, and a desire to make the world a better place.
Some years ago, I visited a great Torah luminary in Israel. Because of his independent and original views, he was increasingly isolated from the rabbinic establishment. He commented sadly: “Have you heard of the mafia? Well, we have a rabbinic mafia here.”
By Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com November 9, 2011
Some 100,000 people attended the Jerusalem funeral Tuesday of Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the head of the Mir Yeshiva, who died at the age of 68.
Mir, in Jerusalem's Beit Yisrael neighborhood, is believed to be the largest yeshiva in the world, though enrollment estimates vary between 3,000 and 5,000. It has a large affiliate in New York and branches in Modi'in Ilit and Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo.
An estimated 100,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews crowded the streets of Jerusalem Tuesday for the funeral of Rabbi Nosson Tzvi Finkel, the head of the capital's Mir Yeshiva, which is considered the Harvard of the Haredi world.
Most of the mourners probably did not know that in his early years the revered American-Israeli scholar regularly exchanged his skullcap with a baseball batting helmet.
By Eitan Kensky www.jewishideasdaily.com November 11, 2011
Finkelman argues that Haredi Jews, though they regularly borrow from secular society, are determined to maintain their separateness from it.
To do so, they create "symbolic boundaries" between themselves and the general culture. Haredi popular literature is a lens through which we can examine those boundaries.
By Tova Dadon www.ynetnews.com November 12, 2011
An explosion in a pipe in Ashdod has left hundreds of residents without water. Municipal workers who attempted to fix the malfunction met with resistance from ultra-Orthodox residents, who claimed that the work disturbs Shabbat.
By Jonathan Rosenblum Opinion www.jpost.com November 11, 2011
If one key test of a liberal education is the ability to learn new skills, then talmudic learning could be an important component.
True, talmudic learning will not teach one math, unless one studies the rabbis’ complex calculations of the lunar cycle; nor will it provide grounding in a specific science. But it is not irrelevant to any of these pursuits. And the combination of intellectual rigor, discipline and concentration required is unsurpassed.
By Jeremy Sharon www.jpost.com November 14, 2011
Police on Sunday brought in Chief Rabbi of Kiryat Motzkin David Meir Druckman for questioning in connection with a letter he signed with 24 other rabbis in 2008 calling for a boycott of Arab labor.
...The rabbi did, however, answer questions put to him by the police and declared that acted according to the law and has done nothing to require an investigation of him. He was brought to the Zvulun police station in northern Israel.
By Nir Hasson www.haaretz.com November 14, 2011
Archaeologists have resumed excavating the Jerusalem site where the Museum of Tolerance is to go up, amid controversy surrounding the exhumation of skeletons in what had been a Muslim cemetery for nearly 1,000 years.
In addition to fielding objections to the museum site, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is sponsoring and financing the project, also has to contend with the recent resignation of the two architects who planned the museum.
Although the cabinet decided a year ago to bring the last of the Falashmura from Ethiopia to Israel at a rate of 200 a month, an interministerial committee with responsibility for the operation has decided to reduce the rate to 110 a month.
...The committee contends that immigrant absorption centers where the Falashmura would be received are full, and ordered the pace of immigration of the Ethiopians to be reduced starting within a week.
AFP www.ynetnews.com November 11, 2011
Israel's Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Archbishop Fouad Twal, Chief Imam of Israel Mohammed Kiwan and the leader of the Druze community, Moufak Rate, were received together for a meeting, which is a continuation of interfaith dialogue of Assisi.
See also:
November 2011 www.wupj.org.il
Rabbi Moshe Zemer z"l (of Blessed Memory) was one of the most prominent leaders of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism, and one of the leading pioneers of Reform Judaism in Israel.
He established the Movement's communities in Ramat Gan and Tel Aviv and led the way to founding the Movement (IMPJ) and MaRaM (Moetzet Harabanim Hamitkadmim, The Council of Progressive Rabbis).
By Nir Hasson www.haaretz.com November 14, 2011
A Bible museum that will include a sculpture garden featuring biblical characters and exhibits showing what daily life was like in biblical times will be built in the Jerusalem area, the cabinet decided in a unanimous vote on Sunday.
November 8, 2011
Prof. Lifshitz and Prof. Shochetman are receiving the prize in the humanities for their far-reaching work in researching Jewish law.
Prof. Lifshitz, who holds the Henry J. and Fanny Harkavy Chair in Comparative Law, has done extensive research in Jewish law, harking back all the way to the time of the ancient sages.
Prof. Shochetman is the author of numerous books and research articles in the area of law generally and Jewish law in particular, in which his depth of analysis has stood out.
Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.
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