Editor – Joel Katz
By Melanie
Lidman www.jpost.com March 2, 2012
The exclusion of women from advertisements on
buses and in public places is “a violation of the fundamental rights of women,”
according to an opinion the state submitted to the High Court of Justice on
Wednesday.
The opinion was filed in response to the
Yerushalmim movement petition to the court over the Egged advertising company’s
refusal to place ads featuring female models on buses in Jerusalem for fear of
vandalism from ultra-Orthodox extremists.
Allowing women to go on air has caused the Kol
Barama radio station's ratings to plummet, the manager of the ultra-Orthodox
station charged during a stormy meeting in the Knesset yesterday.
The Committee on the Status of Women was discussing
cases in which women have been excluded from the public square due to Haredi
pressure. During the debate, Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat and
several Knesset members accused Kol Barama of refusing to let women on the air.
By Omri Efraim
www.ynetnews.com
March 3, 2012
MK Yisrael Eichler (United Torah Judaism) was
removed from a Knesset Women's Committee meeting this week, after he called
members of the Reform Movement "anti-Semites."
Tuesday saw Reform Movement representatives
present the Knesset's Committee on the Status of Women with a report about
women's exclusion in Israel, at which point Eichler lashed out at them for
being "anti-Semites who hate Israel," adding that the "Reform Jews
are worse than our enemies."
See also: MK Eichler: Reform Jews worse than Arabs
http://hiddush.org February 29, 2012
Hiddush
successfully petitioned representatives of El-Al Airlines, calling their
attention to ultra-Orthodox airline passengers who were trying to establish
gender segregation on this flight from Brussels to Israel and asking them to
refuse such behavior aboard their flights.
In response, El-Al made it clear
that they are working to eradicate the phenomenon.
http://www.jewishexponent.com February 22, 2012
Gail Norry said she also brought up concerns
about recent news reports on ultra-religious communities in Israel attempting
to segregate buses and harass women.
"Women here are paying attention and we
wanted to see them take swift action to change course," Norry said.
"We want to see their citizens treated in as democratic fashion as
possible."
By Corinne
Sauer Opinion www.jpost.com March 5, 2012
The writer is the
director of the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.
So the way to solve
this latest social crisis is simply to transform public transportation into a
private commodity.
If buses were run by
private companies, seeking to maximize profits, the market and not the
government would dictate if buses should run on Shabbat, and whether women
should sit in the back.
Hundreds of activists
gathered in Beit Shemesh Sunday in protest of a plan to authorize 1,800
apartments for haredi Jews, Army Radio reported.
The protesters
gathered in front of the Council for Building and Planning as discussions on
the new plans took place.
By
Shulamit Binah Opinion www.forward.com March 5, 2012
Shulamit Binah is a Ph.D. candidate at Haifa
University, researching diplomatic history.
That was the nature of the state-and-religion
discourse in the long forgotten days of prestatehood. Who would foresee that,
65 years later, Israel would have no constitution; that the ultra-Orthodox
establishment would hold such a disproportionate influence over the vast majority
of Israeli Jews; that only a fraction of Haredim would share the burden of
defense, and that the majority of this community (65% according to the Taub
Institute) would choose to opt out of the workforce to live off state-sponsored
handouts?
By
Jonathan Lis, Yair Ettinger and Jack Khoury www.haaretz.com March 5, 2012
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation on
Sunday approved legislation that would raise the minimum age for marriage in
Israel under most circumstances from 17 to 18, with some Knesset sources
expressing doubts about the capacity of the police to enforce a change in the
law, in part because of the exceptions that will be allowed.
Draft legislation relating to this issue had
been stalled since 2004, primarily due to opposition from the ultra-Orthodox
community.
By
Jonathan Lis www.haaretz.com
March 4, 2012
The
proposals' sponsors say the aim is to prevent the forced marriage of girls,
particularly in the Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities, before they have
graduated from high school and gained the maturity to make critical life
decisions.
By Yair
Ettinger www.haaretz.com March 4, 2012
The
meeting was the result of conciliatory efforts between the Belzer Rebbe and the
Satmar Rebbe - the latest episode in a soap opera that has riveted hundreds of
thousands of Haredim around the world since last January.
...Not
long after that visit, at the end of 1981, the Belzer Rebbe used the occasion
of his regular sermon in Jerusalem to explicate the views of his uncle, Rabbi
Aharon, on issues of religion and state: in favor of taking part in Knesset
elections, an act he considered a "sacred obligation"; in favor of
taking budgets from the state; in favor of reinforcing the Belz camp; and
against "joining up with the wicked."
By Jeremy
Sharon www.jpost.com March 1, 2012
A group of 150 female
haredi high school students got a taste of the business world this week.
They participated in a
workshop on Tuesday in which they presented potential business ideas to a panel
of advisers from the First International Bank of Israel who provided
professional feedback and guidance for the proposed initiatives.
By Yaron Doron
www.ynetnews.com February
29, 2012
A 70-year-old
ultra-Orthodox woman found herself the target of a brutal religious hate crime
on Monday night, when four thugs broke into her home and beat her up before
leaving her handcuffed and bleeding.
"They were sent
by the Modesty Patrol," the woman, S., told Yedioth Ahronoth. "They
told me, 'You are destroying the neighborhood with you missionary
teachings."
By Oz
Rosenberg www.haaretz.com
February 29, 2012
Police suspect that a group of ultra-Orthodox
men brutally attacked a 70-year-old woman in her home in Jerusalem's Nahlaot
neighborhood on Monday, apparently believing her to be a Christian missionary.
The victim spoke to Haaretz from Hadassah
University Hospital, Ein Kerem, last night. She said that her attackers accused
her of hosting secular, non-Jewish women in her home.
http://www.jewishfederations.org/ February 29, 2012
In addition, JFNA’s
recent Board of Trustees meeting in Florida focused on how some of these civil
society challenges are impacting relations with the North American Jewish
community.
JFNA lay leaders and
professionals were also involved in a session on “Haredim and the Jewish
Collective,” hosted by the
Jewish Agency for Israel’s Makom at its February Board of Governors meeting in
Israel.
http://www.jewishfederations.org February
29, 2012
Those outside the
haredi community tend to have a single unflattering image of the ultra-Orthodox
population that does not necessarily represent reality.
The community is often
portrayed as work-shy, “economic parasites,” who leave the protection of the
State to others and sneer at anything but an ultra-Orthodox way of life. In
reality, the community is anything but homogenous, and most labels and
stereotyping tend to be false.
By John S.
Ruskay Opinion www.ujafedny.org
March 2, 2012
I was in
Israel to attend the Jewish Agency
Board of Governors meetings. JAFI has recently introduced a five-hour global
forum at each board meeting. It provides an opportunity to step back and
examine major issues facing the Jewish world.
The global
forum this week was titled “The Haredim and the Jewish Collective.” Many of us
have followed the skirmishes in Beit Shemesh.
There is also recognition that
the Haredi community in Israel, now approaching 1 million, is growing in number
and need. But this is not solely a Haredi issue.
There is
real concern that more and more of the ethnic and religious groups in Israel
are pursuing a narrower path, no longer identifying as part of the global
Jewish collective.
Are
examples of the “uncivil” society that took place in Beit Shemesh and elsewhere
indicative of divides too great to overcome? What does this mean for all who
value a robust Jewish democratic state?
By Eli Mandelbaum www.ynetnews.com March 3, 2012
A unique support group
intended to assist recently divorced Haredi women has begun operating in
Jerusalem. The support group is designed to help women deal with the negative
stigma that follows a divorce in the Haredi community.
"The community is
very helpful when it comes to death, but it's important to understand that
separation is a particular form of death," said Gila, a participant in
"Em Habanim" (the Center for families without a father).
By Tali Farkash www.ynetnews.com March 2, 2012
Until recently,
divorce in the ultra-orthodox sector was deemed provocation, a spit in the face
of a conservative society.
A divorcee was regarded as a local myth, a
neighborhood attraction in a community of couples. Today, separated couples are
becoming more common, even trivial, and no longer situated at the heart of
every scandal or gossip.
By Jack Khoury
www.haaretz.com March 4, 2012
The
Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) has asked the Israel Lands
Administration to cancel a recent tender for a housing development in Acre
because it is being marketed exclusively to religious families and is
discriminatory.
By Dina Avramson Opinion
www.ynetnews.com March 2, 2012
Full article published
in Makor Rishon's Motsash magazine
Indeed, there are
rules that must be adhered to for the sake of the state's character, and I
agree with that.
Yet is the land truly full of greater love for God when the
minority enforces its view on the majority and forces it to honor laws that do
not pertain to it?
Is the name of God indeed being sanctified every time the
religious scream out "you don't respect us"?
Former
chief Sephardi Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron may be indicated for his part in the
"rabbis' file" scandal, in which hundreds of security forces officers
were ordained as rabbis in order to qualify for a pay raise, the State
Prosecutor's Office announced on Thursday.
See also:
By Kobi Nachshoni
www.ynetnews.com March
5, 2012
Dozens of Israel
Postal Company employees in Ramat Gan refused to distribute thousands of copies
of the New Testament to city residents. They claimed such distribution is
forbidden according to the halacha laws, and might even be illegal.
Both religious and
secular postal workers were asked to hand out mail and advertisements on
Monday, along with thousands of holy Christian booklets translated into Hebrew.
The workers informed their supervisors that they refuse to distribute such
materials.
By Jeremy
Sharon www.jpost.com March 2, 2012
Four senior
national-religious rabbis have joined an initiative promoting “high-density”
burial as a means to alleviate the increasingly problematic lack of burial land
in the country.
The campaign,
initiated last week by the Ne’emanei Torah Va’Avodah national-religious
organization, was endorsed by Rabbis Benny Lau, Yuval Cherlow, David Bigman and
Yehuda Shaviv.
By Jeremy
Sharon www.jpost.com March 6, 2012
The ITIM religious
rights advocacy group in a new report criticized the Religious Services
Ministry for failing to compel burial societies to allow parents of a stillborn
infant to participate in its burial.
Burial societies in
Israel generally prevent families from attending or participating in the burial
of a stillborn child or one who dies within 30 days of birth, and also refuse
to tell families where the infants are buried in most cases.
VIDEO: ZAKA, Tzohar Bring Jews
Together on Purim
It is
former minister Shlomo Benizri's right to believe that his pain was greater
than Gilad Shalit's.
Whether his remarks upon his release from prison last week
express deep frustration or seek to be inflammatory, there's no point in
discussing comparisons that emerge from a person's soul. People have the right
to express their feelings, no matter how provocative.
See also:
By Jeremy
Sharon www.jpost.com March 6, 2012
The Orthodox Union is
holding 200 “karaoke-style” readings of Megilat Esther during Purim for the
hard of hearing, deaf and elderly in synagogues across the US, UK, Israel and
Australia.
The unique readings
will be conducted with the help of PowerPoint presentations beamed onto giant
projector screens, enabling participants to follow along visually as they see
the words being read highlighted in front of their eyes.
By Melanie
Lidman www.jpost.com February 29, 2012
Police caught two Arab
teenagers in the midst of destroying graves on the Mount of Olives cemetery in
Jerusalem on Wednesday afternoon.
The museum, which is
affiliated with Chabad, commissioned a team of artisans to recreate a model of
the ancient wall in the heart of Brooklyn to teach children about Judaism.
When the exhibition
officially opens on April 1, visitors will be invited to follow the tradition
at the Western Wall and place notes with their prayers and wishes in the
replica’s cracks and crevices.
Editor – Joel Katz
All
rights reserved.
