Editor –
Joel Katz
By Amir
Mizroch Opinion http://amirmizroch.com April 24, 2012
The writer
is editor of the English
Newsletter Edition of Israel Hayom
We cannot
continue to allow the ultra-Orthodox parties to hold their own people hostage
to backwardness, poverty, and a life of blind servitude to hundred year old
self-styled ‘geniuses’, while also holding the secular middle class hostage to
their growing material demands, and bleeding it dry.
...Only in
Israel do Haredi men not work. Where I grew up in Johannesburg, haredi men work
and learn. In America, they work and learn. All over the world Haredi men work
and learn. Just here they don’t.
The
secular majority and the Haredi minority must learn to coexist in this country
while respecting each other’s ways, in the knowledge that we all have to pitch
in and do our part. Nobody is outside the tent.
...More
and more Israelis are looking for alternatives to the rabbinates. It is time we
opened Judaism up. People should be allowed to practice their faith as they see
fit.
The
government can and should strengthen Jewish education, Jewish culture, Jewish
history, and Jewish traditions, but it should do so in an inclusive way. And by
doing this, we can liberate Judaism from its increasingly political overtones.
Interview with Nobel
laureate Dan Shechtman
Q: You’ve also said that the
government should fine those schools that don’t teach a core curriculum.
Yes. Schools that don’t teach the basic curriculum required by the Ministry of Education should not be funded by the state. You don’t teach what the state wants? Then you pay. We won’t.And if a parent prevents his child from obtaining an education that would enable him to obtain a profession in the future, this is child abuse. Not teaching the child, not giving him the chance to feed his family in the future, parents that do this should be punished.
Q: It’s the state that has allowed
this abuse.
Absolutely. For political reasons, the state made terrible mistakes, one after the other. And the people who demanded this, their power is growing all the time. We have more and more ignorant people, who want their people to be as ignorant as they are.
By Jeff
Barak Opinion www.jpost.com
April 29, 2012
The writer is a former
editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.
What the country
really needs is a government prepared to deal with the most serious issue
facing Israeli society: the economic unsustainability of the haredi way of life
and the effect it has on the rest of society given this sector’s
ever-increasing population growth.
Dry statistics are one
thing, but a chance meeting at a recent social event with a haredi acquaintance
drove home for me the sheer absurdity of today’s system.
How, for
instance, are we going to stably reconcile the conflicting imperatives of a
first world democracy with respect for the religion that sustained us in exile?
The
Orthodox – increasingly ultra-Orthodox – stranglehold on life-cycle events
cannot hold.
And the ad
hoc arrangements that have produced, for the first time in Jewish history, an
entire demographic sector that has abandoned the religious requirement to join
the productive workforce, cannot be sustained.
It is as
untenable for the willfully ill-educated, impoverished members of the
ultra-Orthodox community as it is for the rest of the society that is
resentfully supporting them.
By Rabbi
Uri Regev Opinion http://ejewishphilanthropy.com April 27, 2012
The writer
is President, CEO, Hiddush
[H]owever
well intentioned the Jewish Agency for Israel and Makom’s goals were in
confronting these issues, I fear they did not provide the assembled Jewish
leadership with the necessary exposure to the facts to understand the
situation, nor did they adequately address expert opinions which call for
decisive measures to handle this urgent situation.
The
question that the participants in the Jewish Agency forum should be asking
themselves is this: are you confident that the school of thought presented to
you adequately faced the facts, and has a plan that will halt Israel from this
threatening cycle?
Should we
not be presented with multiple perspectives and be able to come to our own
conclusions?
By Yonatan
Ariel Opinion http://ejewishphilanthropy.com
May 1, 2012
Yonatan
Ariel is the Executive Director of Makom, an initiative of the Jewish Agency, which creates
and presents the Global Jewish Forum.
We
identified three different circles within the Haredi community in Israel.
·
The
Rejectionists – those who wish to isolate themselves from Israel and the
mechanisms of statehood.
·
The
Residents – those who wish to isolate themselves from Israeli society but wish
the state and its organs to provide for them.
·
The
Citizens – those who wish to be educated to a high level both in classical
Judaica and in secular subjects that can fuel their ability to work, pay taxes,
do some kind of national service and to live a Haredi life.
We asked
what it would take to move more Haredim to the category of self- perception as
Israeli Citizens, rather than as Israeli Residents.
By Stephen Bisk http://ejewishphilanthropy.com
April 27, 2012
It appears
to me, someone with a lot of dealing in both the secular community and the
ultra orthodox community, that your position to sharpen the response to the
issue of the secular-ultra orthodox divide would be more likely to be
counter-productive than productive.
...Please
also understand that change in the ultra-orthodox occurs slowly, glacierally.
This community places prime value on tradition, and carries an ingrained
cautiousness to change.
While
secular society is highly innovation oriented, and change is embraced easily
and naturally, one must judge another society based on where it is coming from.
Relative
to the history of the ultra-orthodox community, there has been sweeping change
in this new millennium.
By Joel Braunold
Opinion
www.haaretz.com April
30, 2012
The bigger
question, perhaps, is do the Haredi communities want to join the rest of the
Jewish Israeli community?
The Jewish
communal structures need to find some way to represent the fasting growing
element of the community if they are to keep their representative function in a
meaningful way.
With the
younger generation absconding along with the Haredi community keeping to
themselves, the structures that have existed up till now will find themselves
in an increasingly existential challenge.
Excerpted
From: Trial and Error The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann, Harper Bros., New
York, 1949, pp 568-9
“Religion should be relegated to the synagogue and the homes of those families that want it; it should occupy a special position in the schools; but it shall not control the ministries of State.”
The writer is CEO,
National Council of Jewish Women
Israel,
however, is caught in an unusual conundrum -- how to ensure the egalitarian
principles upon which Israel was founded while acknowledging the lack of
separation between religion and state that was (supposedly) guaranteed in the
U.S. Constitution but never made explicit in Israeli laws.
As a
result, ultra-religious parties, way out of proportion to their numbers in the
general population, have gained significant power in the Knesset, due to the
desire of some major parties to include them in their governing coalitions in
order to retain power.
By Amira
Lam www.ynetnews.com April 28, 2012
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huladi: "Herzl did not speak of a Jewish state, but rather, about a state for Jews," he said. "A Jewish state would mean…Jewish law instead of democracy. If we'll have an ultra-Orthodox majority here, Israel will turn into a fundamentalist state like Saudi Arabia."
By Ron
Kampeas www.jta.org April 23, 2012
Murray
Koppelman saw women pushed onto the back of a bus in Tehran and had a nightmare
about Israel’s future.
Koppelman,
a well-known philanthropist in New York, is behind a New Israel Fund pledge
drive to combat discrimination against women in Israel. He will match every new
dollar donated to the New Israel Fund up to $500,000.
Interview
with Daniel Sokatch, CEO, The New Israel Fund
[Murray
Koppelman] was worried, though, because he saw things that reminded him of
developments in Israel that have been unsettling to him in recent years, like
the segregation of buses, like the removal of images of women in the public
sphere, like the attempted crackdown on human rights or civil rights
organizations to do their jobs.
These
things disturbed him, and he came home and said, ‘I don’t want to see my
beloved Israel go down that path.’ That’s what the campaign is about.
By Jeremy
Sharon www.jpost.com April 25, 2012
Residents of Beit
Shemesh had to string up Israeli flags down a central thoroughfare in the city
for Independence Day, because, they say, the municipality refused to do so.
Although many streets
throughout Beit Shemesh have been generously festooned with flags, Herzog
Street, which runs directly between the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Ramat
Beit Shemesh Bet and the more modern neighborhood of Givat Sharet, was not
included in the patriotic street decorations.
By David
Lev www.israelnationalnews.com
April 25, 2012
Rabbi Metzger said,
learning Torah in memory of the fallen soldiers was far preferable to other
ways of commemorating the day, when Memorial Day “has turned into a day of
songs,” he said, adding that he hoped many other communities would undertake
the practice.
On the eve of
Independence Day, the Israeli flag seemed to adorn virtually every home and car
across the country; but it was hardly mentioned in an article published that
day in an ultra-Orthodox children's paper, which featured a thorough review of
the flags of the world.
Rabbi Uri Regev,
Hiddush:
"This is another
proof that the core educational program, which includes civics and history
studies, must be imposed on the ultra-Orthodox educational system, in order to
make sure that haredi children also learn the real story behind the foundation
of the state and its symbols, instead of growing up in a reality that boycotts
the state."
See also: Ultra-Orthodox children's paper excludes Israeli flag
See also: Ultra-Orthodox children's paper excludes Israeli flag
By Maayana
Miskin www.israelnationalnews.com
April 27, 2012
The hareidi-religious
community in Israel largely abstains from Independence Day celebrations.
However, this year as every year, the Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak, a large
and respected institution, marked the day by raising the Israeli flag.
By Elad
Benari & Yoni Kempinski www.israelnationalnews.com April 26, 2012
Israelis celebrate
Independence Day with parties, barbecues, fireworks and live performances. Not
all, of course, begin the festivities with prayer in the synagogue.
However, Shlomo Abramson said he believes the
prayer is indeed the most important part of the celebration.
By Nir
Hasson www.haaretz.com April 28, 2012
A
Jerusalem mother of two was sent a threatening letter on Thursday, in yet
another case of exclusion of women. In the letter, the woman was told she must
leave the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood immediately, for having “crossed the
limits of the Torah of Israel.”
She added
that she is not a malicious person, and has no desire to stir up anyone. “I do
wear pants, but not short ones,” she explained.
83% of
Jewish Israelis believe in making housing subsidies conditional on willingness
to work to your ability. That is, to grant subsidies only to those who work,
are trying to work, or are unable to work. Only 17% were opposed to these
conditions.
By Steve
Linde www.jpost.com April 29, 2012
The new ‘Hatikva,’
which features some of the original lyrics and some new lyrics, was released
for Independence Day. The singer said her new anthem, which she aims to be more
inclusive, has sparked debate.
Rather than singing “A
Jewish soul still yearns” in the anthem, Carlebach sings, “An Israeli soul
still yearns,” and instead of “An eye still gazes toward Zion,” she sings “An
eye still gazes toward our country.”
The contest is
organized by the IDF chief education officer, the IDF Rabbinate, the Ministries
of Defense and Education, the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund.
By Eli Ashkenazi
www.haaretz.com April
27, 2012
A fifth mikveh has
been found in the caves on the Galilee's Cliffs of Arbel, indicating that the
people who lived there under Roman rule were most likely kohanim, Jews of the
priestly class, said Yinon Shivtiel, one of the researchers who found the
ritual bath.
According to Shivtiel,
the effort needed to build mikvehs under such difficult circumstances indicates
that these cave dwellers were probably kohanim.
"These people saw it as an imperative to build a mikveh in their shelter, in a cave on a steep cliff," he said.
By David
Lev www.israelnationalnews.com
April 25, 2012
The
economic daily Calcalist on Wednesday featured a large ad placed by Jews for
Jesus offering readers an app that leads them to the organization's website,
where there is a “hard sell” in Hebrew on why Jews should believe in Jesus.
By Ruth
Eglash www.jpost.com April 29, 2012
In an attempt to
expand its operations and further strengthen ties between Christians across the
globe and Israel, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is
reaching out to new communities on two continents and has recently opened
offices in South Korea and Australia.
Editor –
Joel Katz
All rights reserved.
