June 4,
2012
Editor –
Joel Katz
By Yair
Ettinger www.haaretz.com
May 29, 2012
In an
unprecedented move, Israel has announced that it is prepared to recognize
Reform and Conservative community leaders as rabbis and fund their salaries.
Rabbis
belonging to either stream will be classified as "rabbis of non-Orthodox
communities."
The attorney general advised the High Court that the state
will begin equally financing non-Orthodox rabbis in regional councils and
farming communities that are interested in doing so.
*For complete review of
articles on this story, see end of edition.
By
Mordechai I. Twersky www.haaretz.com June
1, 2012
"My
intention is to ask that the operations of the Rabbinate be monitored so as to
limit its work to questions of kashrut and food, period," said Rabbi Uri
Regev, the president of Hiddush - For Religious Freedom and Equality.
"The
Rabbinate and Religious Council are knowingly acting against the law and using
its monopolistic power over kashrut to extort submission to its brand of Jewish
observance," Regev said in an interview with Haaretz.
By
Mordechai I. Twersky www.haaretz.com June
1, 2012
"There
is absolutely no suggestion or reference in the resolution in any way to a
boycott," Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of the
Rabbinical Assembly, told Haaretz.
"What
the resolution calls for is for our people to reach out directly to hotels and
to travel agents to make sure that our needs are being met in hotels that we
patronize in Israel."
By Jeremy
Sharon www.jpost.com May 28, 2012
The ITIM religious
rights advocacy group has accused the state’s Conversion Authority of adopting
a “closed door policy” toward non-Israeli citizens interested in conversion,
and claimed the authority has created a “negative image” that has led to an overall
decrease in conversions.
“It is unconscionable
that the Conversion Authority is discouraging spouses of Israelis to convert
within the national system,” ITIM director Rabbi Shaul Farber.
By Ophir
Bar-Zohar www.haaretz.com
May 31, 2012
A women's
security policy group is preparing to warn the Knesset that the drafting of
ultra-Orthodox men into the Israel Defense Forces must not come at the expense
of women soldiers.
The
Women's Forum for Policy and National Security, along with by WIZO, intends to
make this point on Friday before the newly-minted Knesset committee established
to examine ways of expanding the draft.
By Asher
Maoz Opinion www.haaretz.com
June 2, 2012
The writer
is Head of the Law School at the Peres Academic Center.
I will
therefore settle for stressing the sacrilege yeshiva students (more accurately
perhaps, men registered as yeshiva students) commit by shirking, thereby
shifting the entire burden of dying in the country's defense onto others while
they spend their time devoting themselves to the study of Torah.
By Kobi
Nahshoni www.ynetnews.com May 31, 2012
The IDF Rabbinate,
scratching its head over how to deal with kashrut challenges in the military,
is coming up with creative solutions.
Next week, the Israel
Navy will launch a competition between elite naval commando unit Shayetet 13's
missile ship crews to see who has the fewest violations of the laws of kashrut.
The prize? A "fun day" in the IDF Rabbinate
By Rabbi
Dov Lipman Opinion www.jpost.com May 31, 2012
The writer
is an educator, author and community activist in Beit Shemesh. He has rabbinic
ordination from Ner Israel Rabbinical College and a master’s in education from
Johns Hopkins University. He is also the director of the English Speakers
Division of the Am Shalem movement.
Haredi
journalists should stop lecturing everyone outside the haredi world about Torah
from Sinai, the value of Torah, and the infallible and perfect Torah world with
which no one should tamper.
Instead,
they should rally the haredi street to reject its isolationist, extremist and
self-serving political leadership, which long ago ceased to represent authentic
Torah values.
Worldly,
educated and more open haredim should muster the courage to help free their
community from the unfair imprisonment which has been imposed on it, instead of
grasping at straws to defend haredi isolationism.
By Kenneth
Jacobson Opinion www.jta.org May
30, 2012
Kenneth
Jacobson is the deputy national director of the Anti-Defamation League.
As one can
see from the issues discussed -- sexual abuse, service in the Israeli army,
secular education in Israel -- criticism of the haredi world goes beyond
individual behavior and enters the realm of the broader haredi community’s
beliefs, attitudes and policies.
That, I
would argue, does not automatically disqualify it as stereotyping an entire
community. When it is the prevailing view of the community, and most of its
members adhere to that view, it is acceptable to criticize from the outside.
Speaking to Army
Radio, Margi said "The Reforms think they are bringing a new spirit to
Judaism, but in practice it is bad spirit."
By Tamar
Rotem www.haaretz.com June 1, 2012
"A
World Apart Next Door" is flawed by an attitude bordering on
romanticization of the Hasidim. Intentionally and explicitly, it does not
depict the other side: the strictness and reclusiveness of the community, the
disputes and the violent quarrels within and between the different sects, the
problematic status of women, and the active opposition to Zionism on the part
of some of the communities, such as Satmar.
By Andrew
Silow-Carroll www.njjewishnews.com
May 30, 2012
The writer
is NJJN Editor-in-Chief
In last week’s column
I pondered the yawning gap between the haredim, or fervently Orthodox
Jews, and the rest of us. I received a number of on-line responses that are
worth sharing.
The alienation, I
suggested, goes two ways: The haredim have become increasingly estranged
from fellow Jews, and the non-haredi Jews have come to look upon the very
religious as backward, insular, and even corrupt.
By Maor
Buchnik www.ynetnews.com May 30, 2012
Six ultra-Orthodox men
were arrested for disrupting infrastructure works taking place near Habakkuk's
Tomb in the Galilee. The offenders claimed they were trying to prevent the
desecration of Jewish graves located in the area.
By Kobi
Nahshoni www.ynetnews.com June 1, 2012
The religious journal
'HaEda' slammed the singer's concerts in Israel, calling them
"disgraceful," and further stated that her faith in Jewish mysticism
which includes her visiting the graves of the righteous while in Israel,
"desecrates the holy sites."
By Dan
Pine www.jweekly.com May 24, 2012
“It’s
pretty amazing to see how different streams of Judaism can work together in
America — things we can’t make happen in Israel,” said Rachel Azaria, who is
Orthodox. “I’m trying to learn what can be done differently in Israel.”
By Gil
Shefler www.jpost.com June 1, 2012
When Ukrainian
businessman Vadim Rabinovich died, they named a square after him in Jerusalem’s Old City thanking him
for donating funds that helped rebuild the Hurva Synagogue.
But reports of his
death were greatly exaggerated, to paraphrase Mark Twain.
Major
General Elazar Stern Stern will visit Australia this month in his role as a member
of the board of advisers of the Shorashim initiatives being undertaken by the
Tzohar Rabbinic Association supported by the Harry O. Triguboff Institute in
Jerusalem.
By Reuters
www.haaretz.com June 01, 2012
Somewhere
in the Carmel hills, diamond exploration company Shefa Yamim hopes to uncover
the exact spot where faith meets science.
Inspired
by the words of a revered rabbi who prophesized that precious stones were
divinely buried in the area, the firm has been mining for about a decade along
the steep hills and lush valleys that surround the city of Haifa.
By Asaf
Shtull-Trauring www.haaretz.com May
30, 2012
Israel
Belfer, a young doctoratal student at Bar-Ilan University, has written a paper
discussing the implications of BCI on Jewish religious law. Combining a survey
of cutting-edge laboratory work with religious casuistry, Belfer raises questions
that might be startling to the uninitiated.
Does
kindling a fire by thought alone – an existing technological possibility -
constitute a violation of the Sabbath?
Dov
Maimon, senior fellow at the Jerusalem-based Jewish People Policy Institute,
said that Israel has failed to make the migrants feel an affinity to the state.
“This is
the main reason that they leave the country — even more than financial
difficulties,” he told the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and
Diaspora Affairs.
By Danna
Harman www.haaretz.com June 1, 2012
According
to data from the IDF, there are 800-1,000 foreign lone soldiers entering the
military every year. And, while exact statistics are not available, there is
evidence that a high predominance of them end up in the toughest of units.
*Special section on Attorney General's decision to recognize non-Orthodox rabbis
Israeli gov’t decision
to fund Reform, Conservative rabbis sets precedent for equality with Orthodox
June 4,
2012
Editor –
Joel Katz
All rights reserved.
