Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or
movement.
The High Court ruling [on
the Tal Law] may have kicked the Knesset into a legal abyss, but it has also
given the politicians a chance to come up with a new social contract balancing
the demands, opportunities and benefits of education, jobs, housing and
national - not necessarily military - service.
Such a contract will
take time to plan and needs a certain degree of consensus for implementation,
which will again take years. Don't expect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in
his falling-apart-at-the-seams office and on the brink of a war with Iran, to
draft that new social contract in these months before elections.
[Rabbi
Shmuel] Auerbach's letter is not just about the yeshiva students. Its timing,
the prominence on the first page of the Yated, and the fact that he is the only
rabbi speaking on behalf of the Lithuanians, constitute the first open move in
the contest to succeed Rabbi Yossef Shalom Elyashiv as the unofficial leader of
the Lithuanians.
The
editors of Yated Ne'eman favor Auerbach because of his ideological rigidity. By
publishing his letter, they have also showed their true colors.
They are
influential but not necessarily kingmakers. Auerbach's rivals who are thought
to be more flexible, have their own powerful supporters, but they have never
shown much of a stomach for a fight.
By Yigal Walt Opinion www.ynetnews.com
February 24, 2012
While a compromise between religious and secular
Israelis is unavoidable if the two groups wish to maintain some semblance of
coexistence, the nature of such conciliation may have to be significantly
different than the status quo that has prevailed here for many years.
Let us hope that both sides will be wise enough
to focus on the common interest, rather than on their fundamental (yet
bridgeable) differences.
Otherwise, the events of the past year will only serve
as a prelude to the inevitable disintegration of the world’s only Jewish state.
By Nir Hasson
www.haaretz.com February 26, 2012
"Haredization stopped for two reasons: The
secular public realized it had no place else to go, and the Haredi public
opened up," an important neighborhood figure said, speaking on condition
of anonymity.
"Ramot has been becoming Haredi for 25 years,"
Ramot Council chairman Ze'ev Landner said. "The facts prove that when
there's a public that can stand up for its principles, it's possible to stop
the process and learn to live together.
Knesset
member Rabbi Haim Amsalem and political activist Rabbi Dov Lipman, a resident
of Beit Shemesh and a leader in the effort to fight religious extremism in the
city, were among four government representatives who participated earlier this
month in the 60th National Prayer Service in Washington.
Lipman
believes that the cosmopolitan attitude among Orthodox Jews in America is
largely due to the fact that secular education is a requirement in yeshiva day
schools.
“It’s
important to get more haredim involved with the rest of society,” through army
service and joining the workforce, he maintains, in accordance with the values
espoused by Am Shalem.
The Kfar Saba
Magistrate's Court on Thursday extended the remand of the principal of a haredi
school for girls in Netanya who is suspected of sexually assaulting students.
The suspect denied the allegations.
A principal of a
haredi educational establishment and certified rabbi is suspected of sexually
assaulting his female students, Ynet learned Tuesday.
It is suspected that
senior haredi leaders and politicians tried to keep the affair, which is now
under police investigation, under wraps.
By Nir Hasson
www.haaretz.com February 23, 2012
The case
of an Armenian Orthodox priest, who allegedly punched an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva
student who had spat at him, was heard in Jerusalem District Court on Wednesday
after the state appealed an earlier court decision to drop charges against the
priest.
The
state prosecutor's office, which filed the appeal, argues that allowing the
priest's action to go unpunished would encourage other citizens to respond in a
similar manner.
By Eva Illouz www.haaretz.com
February 22, 2012
But Shas went a step further than Agudat Yisrael.
While the latter was happy to remain an isolated community defending its
economic interests, Shas used a broader tactic, made itself into a broad-based
social and economic movement and used resentful demagoguery to denounce
inequalities.
Instead of
promoting a truly egalitarian social agenda, it appealed to ethnic pride and
revenge, and used state funds to cater to its own electoral sectors.
Shas
thrived on class divisions, ethnic resentment, alienation, and an empty
rejection of Western/secular/democratic culture under the guise of rejecting
"Ashkenazi" culture.
It became
the caricaturized reflection and prolongation of the "ethnic"
Mizrahim the Ashkenazim had created - narrowly and fanatically religious,
one-dimensional, fearful of cosmopolitanism and of the great European
tradition.
But Shas
even went further: It strengthened and deepened the unholy alliance of state
and religion and used state institutions to push forward discriminatory
policies against non-Jews such as foreign workers, based on sectarian religious
ideology.
The
state has agreed to increase the pace of immigration from Ethiopia, after
several months bringing in fewer members of the Falashmura community than it
had promised.
The new arrangement
will mean that instead of only 110 new immigrants arriving in Israel each
month, as has been the case for the last few months, some 250 Falash Mura –
Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity more than a century
ago – will be allowed to immigrate.
The Tzohar rabbinical
association and the volunteer emergency and disaster organization Zaka have
teamed up to spread brotherly love as the holiday of Purim approaches.
In light of recent
intercommunal tensions between the haredi and secular worlds, Tzohar and Zaka
initiated “Operation Increase the Love,” which will enable people from secular
and ultra-Orthodox communities to send mishloah manot, as the food packages are
known, to each other.
By Tia Goldenberg,
Associated Press http://finance.yahoo.com
February 21, 2012
One man prays to heal the legs he broke in a car
accident. An older woman pleads for grandchildren. Another visitor has come to
see "God's secretary."
These believers are part of a growing phenomenon
in Israel, where hundreds of thousands of people from starkly different backgrounds
flock to the tombs of ancient Biblical figures or modern-day rabbis, seeking
blessings and claiming they've witnessed miracles.
Speaking at a debate
held on Tuesday at the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee,
Ministry of Health Director General Ronny Gamzo said that thousands of tissue
samples and organs belonging to autopsied bodies will be buried within three
months.
Lichtenberg is 52
years old and thin, with glasses and a neatly trimmed beard. Born into an
Orthodox Jewish family in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, he moved to Israel in 1986
after graduating from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx and has
worked at Herzog more or less ever since.
It’s here that he has become one of
the world’s leading experts on the peculiar form of madness that struck Ronald
Hodge—a psychiatric phenomenon known as Jerusalem syndrome.
www.ynetnews.com February
22, 2012
A couple of religious educators turned to Rabbi
Yuval Sherlo to hear his opinion on the show. "There is no doubt that in
light of the show, secular society in Israel now has a great deal of respect
for 'The Jewish Home' and believes that a relationship within that home is
healthy, full of love and trust – all due to the much discussed couple who even
in moments of hardship live in amazing cooperation and admirable coherence.
"Yet the question
that must be raised is – is this the sanctification of Hashem? Or is it just
something nice? Or, is it even possible that this is a profanity of his name?
And one final question: Is this a way to influence the Israeli nation?"
Security personnel
used force to disperse hundreds of Muslim worshipers at the Temple Mount on
Friday who rioted and threw stones following a tense week in the Old City.
Eleven police officers were lightly injured and treated at the scene. A total
of ten protesters were arrested, though a number of additional arrests are
expected.
By Yair Altman www.ynetnews.com February
24, 2012
Friday prayers at
Jerusalem's Temple Mount turned into a scene of violent riots as protesters
hurled stones at security forces who in turn broke into the al-Aqsa Mosque
compound.
Overnight on Monday,
police raided an apartment in the Ramot neighborhood and found far-right
materials related to theTemple Mount, including flyers from an extremist
website.
Police arrested an activist who is one of the central figures in the
extremist website “Our Temple Mount,” Jerusalem Police spokesman Shmuel Ben-
Ruby said.
See also: Jpost and Ynet articles
See also: Jpost and Ynet articles
An investigative
report by Yedioth Ahronoth revealed the ongoing failure of various Israeli
authorities in safeguarding the rare archeological treasures found on Temple
Mount. Information elicited by the newspaper showed that the Waqf is
consistently erasing any trace of Jewish history at the site.
Just a few hours
before Members of Knesset gathered at the Mount of Olives for the 20th yarzeit
of former prime Minister Menachem Begin on Monday, American Jewish leaders
urged the Knesset to improve the security situation at the ancient Jewish
cemetery, which suffers from grave desecration and stone throwing against
worshippers.
By Melanie Lidman www.jpost.com
February
26, 2012
The deteriorating
security situation at the Mount of Olives cemetery is set to be discussed on
Monday at an emergency hearing with the Knesset Committee on Immigration,
Absorption and Diaspora Affairs, after Diaspora Jewish leaders made saving the
cemetery one of their central concerns.
By Nir Hasson
www.haaretz.com February 28, 2012
Under an
ordinary residential building in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood, a
robotic arm with a camera inserted into a Second Temple-era burial cave has
revealed mysterious inscriptions and drawings on ossuaries.
By Nir Hasson
www.haaretz.com February 25, 2012
The
national heritage proposal that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented to
the cabinet this week is attracting criticism for including only sites that are
part of the Jewish and Zionist narrative.
By Nir Hasson
www.haaretz.com February 27, 2012
A senior
official in the Catholic Church has called on President Shimon Peres to use the
power of his office to apprehend those responsible for a number of incidents in
the past few weeks in which Christian sites in Jerusalem were vandalized.
Custodian of the Holy
Land Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who is responsible for the care of Catholic
holy sites in Israel, wrote to President Shimon Peres last week, calling on him
to urge authorities to prevent vandalism and attacks on churches and Christian
places of worship.
Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or
movement.
All rights reserved.
