Editor – Joel Katz
By Donniel
Hartman Opinion www.hartman.org.il
January 30, 2012
Israeli society needs to begin a new conversation,
not merely with the haredim, but first and foremost with itself.
This
conversation must entail a confronting of the reality of Israel as a
multicultural Jewish society, not to speak of Israel as a multi-national
society.
We must learn to think and talk about the rights of minorities and the
spaces they may be allowed within which to pursue their distinct cultural,
religious, and national identities.
...The fundamental rights of women, minorities, and
non-Orthodox Jews, as well as a commitment to democracy and Israel as the
homeland of the Jewish people must become constitutional values which no
particular ideology or group is allowed to trample or ignore.
To be a part of
modern Israel means not only to accept the benefit of its economic and military
resources but to accept its core principles.
Well, how long will this go on? When are we going to stop
giving in to the Haredim? What can we do about it?
...the ones to blame for this situation are exactly those
concerned citizens - those secular, middle-class people who carry the economy on
their backs, work hard, serve in the army, have moderate opinions and believe
in democracy and equal rights.
They're the ones to blame. Because ultimately, after all the
talking, complaining and demonstrating, only one day counts - election day.
By Naomi
Ragen Opinion www.jpost.com January 27, 2012
Attempts by modern-day extremists to turn back
the clock to the last century, not to mention the Middle Ages, are not as
widely popular among the haredi community as populist writings in major Israeli
dailies, haredi and secular alike, would have us believe.
In fact,
if recent haredi writings are to be believed, under the surface of a smooth,
united front, there bubbles a cauldron of diverse opinions reflecting outright
opposition to extremist and reactionary behavior that has apparently left many
members of the haredi community upset, embarrassed and ready to rebel.
I’d even
argue that a tipping point of sorts has been reached.
By Daniel
Santacruz www.jstandard.com January 27, 2012
An example
of the control extremists want to exert on the city, Lipman said, is the
skeleton of a mall at the corner of two busy intersections in Beit Shemesh that
has sat idle for five years.
The
building, built by a private developer, was to house stores and government
offices, including a post office.
Extremist
charedi, however, vandalized it and prevented it from opening, arguing that it
would encourage the mingling of men and women. The city failed to stand up to
the extremists, Lipman said.
By Rabbi Jonathan Duker Opinion
www.scribd.com January 29, 2012
Their approach
to this issue reveals another large gap between their perceptions and ours. In
the kannoi world view, only they are the true Jews, everyone else falls into
the category of the “eirev rav” (mixed multitude).
This is the true history of
the Jewish people. In every generation there is small group of “real” Jews, all
else are the “eirev rav”.
And it is
not the job of the Jews to teach Torah to the mixed multitude, rather it is
their job to shout the truth regardless of if anyone will listen. Screaming in
protest is not something they do as means to an end. Rather it is the essence
of their religion.
By Rabbi
Dov Lipman Opinion www.jpost.com
January 27, 2012
The writer is an educator, author and community
activist in Beit Shemesh and the director of the English Speakers Division of
the Am Shalem movement. www.rabbilipman.com
So it is
time for some introspection in the mainstream haredi leadership.
Why didn’t
it join the moderate haredim, the religious Zionists and the secular to condemn
the violence?
Why didn’t
its representatives come to the school even once to witness the venom coming
from these violent men and the fear on the children’s faces, to educate
themselves regarding the severity of the situation?
Why didn’t
the haredi newspapers cover the truly scared mothers and emotionally scarred
children of Orot?
Why did
they twist the words of the news reports and the rally into “anti-haredi”?
Why are
they so quick to speak harshly about this made-up campaign, lying to rile up
the haredi street?
By Samuel
Sokol Opinion http://5tjt.com January 26, 2012
Many in the Orthodox community have
tried to assuage their feelings of guilt by telling themselves—and anyone else
who is willing to listen—that the Sicarii do not belong to their community and
that the majority of chareidim deplore such activities.
While the second statement is most certainly true, the first is
just as assuredly a pernicious falsehood.
...Like it or not,
they are a part of us: the worst part. While we might deplore their behavior,
we too are responsible for it. Our culpability, however, is not due to an act
of commission but rather of omission: our failure to act against this cancer in
our midst.
Dr. Yehuda
Kurtzer of the Engaging Israel Project at the Shalom Hartman Institute
describes how ultra-Orthodox have gained a presence in the Israeli public
square and calls on other groups to "push back" against this by
providing a compelling democratic and pluralistic vision of Judaism in Israel.
By Jeremy
Sharon
www.jpost.com January 26, 2012
An ultra-Orthodox man
arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of involvement in a violent attack against a
woman in Bet Shemesh had his remand extended for three days in a hearing at the
Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday afternoon.
www.jpost.com January 25, 2012
Police arrested two
additional suspects overnight Tuesday for involvement in an attack by
ultra-Orthodox men on a woman hanging up posters for the Mifal Hapayis national
lottery in Beit Shemesh on Tuesday.
By Oz
Rosenberg www.haaretz.com January 26, 2012
Three of
four men who were held overnight as suspects in the assault of a woman in Beit
Shemesh Tuesday were released on Wednesday after the court determined that the
evidence against them was weak.
By Yoav Malka
www.ynetnews.com January 25, 2012
Beit Shemesh resident Natalie Mashiah, 27, who
was attacked by dozens of extremist haredi men while trying to put up posters
of Mifal Hapyis (Israel's national lottery) in a synagogue recalled the moments
of horror.
"I didn't even have time to pull down the hand brake, and they already surrounded me. They shattered all the windshields and threw stones at me. I begged them to stop, I promised to leave, but they wouldn't let me go."
A crowd
of ultra-Orthodox men jumped on 27-year-old Natali Mashiah's car in the Haredi
Ramat Beit Shemet Bet neighborhood, she said.
Members
of the crowd smashed her car windows and punctured her four tires before
spilling bleach on the inside of her car, said the Beit Shemesh resident,
adding that she believed the men were going to set her on fire.
As she
fled the car, she said she was hit on the head by a rock thrown from very close
range.
By Jeremy Sharon www.jpost.com January 25, 2012
Mayor Moshe Abutbul
said, “I again condemn violence of any kind carried out by extremist elements
from both sides, and call on the police to enforce the law with severity and
with zero tolerance for those breaking the law and disturbing public order.”
Rabbi Dov Lipman, head
of the Committee to Save Beit Shemesh that lobbies against ultra-Orthodox
extremism in the city, said Abutbol’s comments are “part of the problem.”
“When a woman is
attacked in this way, condemnation must be unconditional,” he said.
By Yair Altman www.ynetnews.com
January 24, 2012
While searching for a
place post her posters, which did not include images of women, several haredi
men surrounded her car, punctured the vehicle's tires, stole her car keys and
hurled stones at the vehicle. One of the stones hit the woman's head.
By Gil
Hoffman
www.njjewishnews.com January 25, 2012
MK Rabbi
Haim Amsalem: “Extremism must be fought without compromise,” he said. “Most
Israelis and Jews don’t want to create Kabul here. It’s a shame for all of
Israel.”
Amsalem
has also come out strongly against segregation on buses in which the mostly
haredi clientele request that women sit in the back. He believes there is no
place for discrimination against women in any public area.
To the Editor:Jewish law is a world constructed by men, for men and primarily about men. The core of the problem is that women are not equal partners and participants in formulating Jewish law.Putting the onus on men perpetuates the very inequality of the legal system. A more self-critical analysis is required of those in the Orthodox Jewish community who, like Rabbi Linzer, wish to live in a world in which women are equal.RACHEL BIALEBerkeley, Calif., Jan. 21, 2012The writer is the author of “Women and Jewish Law.”
By Aner
Shalev www.haaretz.com January 29, 2012
The state's subsidizing of the ultra-Orthodox
exacts a huge cost from us, an issue that has been widely discussed.
It is a loss that grows with the
ever-increasing Haredi population, and pushes Israel closer to the abyss.
What is less known, but no less important, is
that the Haredi population also pays a heavy price for the reverse
discrimination it receives from the authorities.
A comparison of the socioeconomic status of
ultra-Orthodox groups in Israel and New York is illuminating in this regard,
and fascinating conclusions may be drawn.
Haredi groups are not offered special subsidies
or easier conditions there, and yet the ultra-Orthodox population is
flourishing.
While most Haredim in Israel - despite, or
perhaps because of, the benefits heaped upon them - suffer poverty and many
other hardships.
By Roni
Brizon
www.ynetnews.com January 25, 2012
Roni Brizon is a
former Shinui Knesset member
Start fighting,
seculars, at once. Otherwise, you are certain to lose your country. Start
fighting because the only alternative is a foreign passport, a plane ticket,
and the hope that you will recognize the right moment to leave.
The Trajtenberg committee's recommendations for
increasing employment are set to be brought to the cabinet for approval Sunday,
with one glaring omission - all the proposals for increasing employment among
the ultra-Orthodox were dropped.
The team headed by Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg,
charged with drafting far-reaching proposals for economic and social change,
had called for increasing employment among the ultra-Orthodox by introducing
new incentives and training programs.
www.economist.com January 21, 2012
If
tomorrow’s haredim are as workshy as today’s, the start-up nation is
doomed. But trends that can’t continue, won’t, says Glenn Yago of the Milken
Institute, a global think-tank. The haredim are highly literate and
perfectly capable of working. Some day, they will have to.
Dr. Dan
Kaufman, Asaf Malchi , Bezalel Cohen www.jiis.org
2008
Many changes have taken place in the Ultra-Orthodox
population in recent years as a result of the development of new options for
academic and professional training for this sector.
By Ofer Petersburg
www.ynetnews.com January 26, 2012
Large Hasidic
movements – such as Ger, Vizhnitz, Satmar, Sanz and Belz – recently issued
special rules aimed at cutting wedding costs.
The Sanz movement, for example,
released a book of rules presenting the maximum prices the bride and groom's
families should pay for each wedding clause in order to save tens of thousands
of shekels.
By Rabbi Levi Brackman
Opinion
www.ynetnews.com January 30, 2012
Rabbi Levi Brackman is
co-founder and executive director of Youth
Directions.
Unfortunately, until the community’s economic
model becomes self sustaining, saving $20,000 on a wedding will not fundamentally
make a difference to the strained finances of so many in the haredi
communities.
This wedding expense guideline is but a small
band-aid that is trying to hide a gaping wound that has the potential to
mortally wound the entire community. It’s maybe a good start, but it does not
go far enough to make a real difference.
By Ari Galahar www.ynetnews.com
January 26, 2012
The Israel Fire and
Rescue Services' ultra-Orthodox unit in the Judea and Samaria District received
unusual reinforcement recently – a dog who can take orders in Yiddish.
"In order to make
the dog more accessible to the haredi sector, we trained him to act differently
than fellow dogs."
By Kobi
Nahshoni
www.ynetnews.com January 29, 2012
Senior Sephardic
religious leaders, including Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Shas spiritual leader
Ovadia Yosef, have published a harsh letter against the Internet, stating that
every person must save his relatives and others from the "spiritual dangers"
of the Web.
According to the rabbis, this is a superior
religious duty – from the Torah.
An Egged bus passenger filed a
complaint with the company this week after her driver refused to stop at her
station because of its proximity to a haredi neighborhood as the Sabbath was
about to begin, Army Radio reported.
Egged confirmed that it issued an
order barring tis drivers from entering religious neighborhoods if Shabbat was
about to begin.
However, following the Army Radio report, the bus company
apparently asked permission from the Transportation Ministry to leave Tel Aviv
earlier on Fridays to prevent, in Egged's words, "putting the buses at
risk" of arriving at religious neighborhoods near the start of Shabbat.
By Jeremy
Sharon
www.jpost.com January 30, 2012
Chief Rabbis in Kiryat
Ata, Ashdod, Beit Dagan, Or Akiva, Alfei Menashe and Or Yehuda will get salary
hikes of 54-143 percent depending on the size of the cities in which they
serve, if the Ministerial Committee for Socioeconomic Affairs passes the
proposal.
The rabbis from these
specific municipalities are receiving the increase because they were appointed
after the government decided in 2005 to reduce the salaries of municipal chief
rabbis due to economic considerations.
By Moti
Bassok and Lior Dattel http://english.themarker.com
January 30, 2012
The
proposed salary hike is progressive, giving more money to those earning less
and vice versa.
Rabbis in communities with a population of 10,000 or less, who
currently earn gross salaries of NIS 7,200 a month, would see their wages rise
143% in March, to NIS 17,500 a month before taxes.
Calling the raise
"scandalous," Regev asserted in a statement that the increase is an
example of cronyism among haredi parties that will come at the expense of tax
paying citizens.
By
Jonathan Lis www.haaretz.com January 30, 2012
At least two women will be on a 10-member
committee to appoint rabbinical judges, if the Knesset passes a bill the
coalition plans to support.
MK Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) said she welcomed
Sunday's decision by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation to have the
government back her bill, which stipulates that the panel that selects rabbinic
judges must include at least two women.
By Jeremy
Sharon
www.jpost.com January 30, 2012
Women’s rights groups
welcomed the step but said that even if the measure is signed into law it is no
guarantee that it will change the face of the rabbinical courts, which have
jurisdiction over divorce proceedings.
By Jeremy
Sharon
www.jpost.com January 16, 2012
A bill presented by MK
Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) on Sunday proposing to scrap all local religious
councils was given support on Monday from somewhat surprising quarters.
Rabbi Shimon Biton,
chairman of the Petah Tikva Religious Council, said in a radio interview with
103 FM that he “agreed with every word of Sheetrit’s bill,” and supported his
idea to transfer the provision of their services to local municipalities.
24 years
after the Shakdiel verdict concluded that discrimination of woman from
religious councils is illegal, only 23 women currently hold a position on the
councils.
There are
450 members of the 66 religious councils altogether. Women constitute only 5%
of their membership, one of every twenty members.
By Melanie
Lidman
www.jpost.com January 27, 2012
The six-year-old
Shorashim organization traffics not in priceless antiques, but in proving
Jewish identities to the Rabbinate, Israel’s religious governing body.
“We did so much to
bring [Soviet Jews] here, and now look how we’re treating them, like
second-class citizens,” said Shalom Norman, the director of the Harry Triguboff
Fund. Norman was also involved in negotiations to bring Jews to Israel in the
1980s and ’90s.
The Israel Land
Administration’s managing council approved Housing and Construction Minister
Ariel Atias’ affordable housing program Monday, despite heavy criticism from
within the government over the exclusion of workforce participation from the
eligibility criteria.
Rabbi Uri Regev, director of religious freedom
advocacy group Hiddush, said the program promoted “social injustice, rather than
social justice,” and accused Netanyahu and Steinitz of being motivated by
politics and of currying favor with the ultra-orthodox parties.
Giving preference to married couples constitutes
“a humiliation and disregard for the needs of the vast majority of the public,
who risk their lives serving in the army, but who get married much later than
haredi couples.”
Haaretz
Editorial www.haaretz.com January 26, 2012
Since
[Shas Housing Minister] Atias assumed his post he has concerned himself mainly
with the Haredim.
During
the past three years, they are the ones who got most of the subsidized
apartments, under the "mehir lamishtaken" plan, which awards
contracts to developers who commit to the lowest price to the homebuyer.
"The housing
minister's decision is an insult to those who went out to the streets (to
protest)," Livni said, adding that the measure makes the benefit only
accessible to the haredi sector.
By Moti
Bassok and Zvi Zrahiya http://english.themarker.com
January 29, 2012
Atias presented the new criteria on Wednesday.
The announcement drew fire because the criteria ignored the Trajtenberg
committee's proposal to give preference to people who performed army service
and couples where both parents work.
Instead,
they included measures that were likely to favor the ultra-Orthodox, who are
the main constituency of Atias' Shas party.
Rabbi
Uri Regev of Hiddush - Freedom of Religion for Israel, said: "The criteria
the housing minister is trying to dictate to the Israel Lands Administration
Council under his aegis show that he was and is first and foremost the minister
of the yeshiva students, not the minister of housing of the State of Israel.
It is to
be hoped that the voice of reason and social justice will be heard above all,
and that the council will reject the attempt to blur the distinction between those
who need public help because they cannot work, and those who chose not to work
but rather to live off the work of taxpayers and the public coffers."
http://english.themarker.com January 27, 2012
"This
is a sharp deviation from the committee's recommendations," Trajtenberg
said, referring to the committee he had headed that drafted recommendations for
social and economic reform.
His comments, made at a rabbinical conference at
the Ariel Institute, were reported by Radio Kol Hai.
Partnering
organizations: Hiddush – For Freedom of Religion and Equality, Be Free Israel,
Israel Religious Action Center, HaForum Ha'Hiloni (The Secular Forum), Ha'Forum
L'Shivyon B'Netel (The Forum for Equal Sharing in the Civic Burden), Ne'emnei
Torah v'Avodah.
We, the
citizens of Israel, from across the political spectrum, call on Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu to reject the criteria for affordable housing assistance as
proposed by the Shas Minister of Housing, Ariel Atias.
My
friend, the late Nehemiah Ginzburg, a member of Kibbutz Givat Haim Ihud, was an
admirer of Hartman.
He also admired the Orthodox philosopher and teacher
Yeshayahu Leibowitz. He begged me to become even closer to Hartman and to
listen carefully to his teaching. And that's what I did. I joined his select
group of students, an elite hevruta, a Jewish study group, that met at his home
on Friday mornings.
By Yedidya
Gorsetman and Gary Rosenblatt Opinion www.thejewishweek.com
January 24, 2012
Yedidya
Gorsetman is a senior at Yeshiva University where he is a features editor of
The Commentator, the official student newspaper.
Gary
Rosenblatt is editor and publisher of The Jewish Week. Ben Sales, former editor
of New Voices, contributed to this report.
For those
in the Modern Orthodox community who send their sons to yeshivas in Israel for
a year or two of post-high school study, it’s long been an open secret that Rav
Aharon Bina, rosh hayeshiva of Netiv Aryeh in the Old City of Jerusalem, has a
unique — many say bizarre — pedagogical style.
Supporters
call it “tough love”; critics call it abuse.
By Yechiel
Spira
www.jerusalemkoshernews.com January 29, 2012
I do not
recall a Chief Rabbinate alert causing a storm on the magnitude as the one
mentioning Haagen Dazs® ice cream, but there is always a first.
By Tom
Segev
www.haaretz.com January 27, 2012
An
article in the quarterly Cathedra: Journal for Holy Land Studies, published by
Yad Ben-Zvi by Dr. Giora Goodman, a lecturer in history at Kinneret College.
[I]t
appears the government did take very seriously the protests of the Vatican,
which fought for the rights of monasteries and convents to raise pigs - among
them the Convent of Saint Vincent de Paul in the Ein Karem neighborhood of
Jerusalem.
The
mother superior, Marguerite Bernes, was a Righteous Gentile who cared for
brain-damaged children. She said she was prepared to be die defending the pigs,
whose meat was necessary to nourish her wards.
By Jeremy
Sharon
www.jpost.com January 29, 2012
One hundred thirty
national-religious rabbis sent a letter to Supreme Court President Dorit
Beinisch on Thursday calling on her to cancel the court’s decision to destroy
homes in the Migron outpost.
Among the signatories
were senior national-religious figures including Rabbi Haim Druckman, head of
the Bnei Akiva youth movement and dean of Ohr Etzion yeshiva, Tzohar chairman
Rabbi David Stav, Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and Ramat Gan Chief Rabbi
Yaakov Ariel.
By Dr. Amnon Ramon, Jerusalem
Institute for Israel Studies http://allaboutjerusalem.com
January 6, 2012
In summation, despite
the small demographic presence of Jerusalem’s Christian communities and the
fragile and tenuous standing of Christian bodies, which operate in the city
under the shadow of Jews and Muslims who are struggling for control, the
Christian dimension is of the utmost importance in strengthening Jerusalem’s
universal standing. Both hawkish sides – Israelis and Palestinians – have a
clear interest in preserving the status of the Christian element (in all its
denominations).
By Eli
Ashkenazi www.haaretz.com January 30, 2012
In September
Stepman-Shmueli organized a meeting of about 100 descendants of Subbotniks from
the Russian village of Solodniki.
According to Yoav
Regev, author of the Hebrew book "Subbotniks in the Galilee," the
expression is "a popular nickname for the Russian converts who immigrated
to the Land of Israel out of a profound religious feeling, and with the
enthusiastic support of the Hovevei Zion ('Lovers of Zion' ) they took root on
the Israeli frontier."
Tens of
thousands are streaming to the town of Netivot to participate in ceremonies
marking 28 years since the death of the Baba Sali, Rabbi Yisrael Abuhatzeira.
The annual memorial ceremony, called the "hilula," is held the fourth
day of the Hebrew month of Shevat, at his tomb. His burial place has
become a shrine for many.
By Aviad
Glickman
www.ynetnews.com January 30, 2012
The Prison
Service's Parole Board decided Monday to reduce one third of former Minister
Shlomo Benizri's sentence for good behavior and support of fellow inmates in
the religious wing. Benizri was sentenced to four years in prison for accepting
bribes from contractor Moshe Sela. He is due to be released in April.
Editor – Joel Katz
All
rights reserved.
