Editor – Joel Katz
By Itamar Eichner
www.ynetnews.com February
17, 2012
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld,
executive vice president of the International Rabbinical Assembly, the
association of Conservative/Masorti rabbis:
“Israel must have civil marriage. It must allow people to get married according to their own choice.
This is a civil society. In a democratic state you must allow for the right to chose how to marry.
We believe that if you give Israelis the right to chose, they will choose a Jewish wedding. But give them the right to choose, without coercion, because this makes Judaism meaningful.”
By Yizhar Hess Opinion
www.ynetnews.com February
8, 2012
Yizhar Hess is the Executive
Director & CEO of the Masorti Movement in Israel
Some of the people
they met admitted unequivocally – although they did not want to be quoted –
that the Orthodox monopoly in Israel has long since changed from an unpleasant
annoyance to a strategic threat to the strength of the State of Israel, both
because of its growing impact on relations between the Jews of the Diaspora and
Israel, and because of the alienation of hundreds of thousands of Israelis,
including many who are not halakhically Jewish, and for whom the Orthodox
establishment, in all of its variations, has managed to make Judaism odious.
By Gili Cohen
www.haaretz.com February
20, 2012
The Israel Defense Forces is planning to draft more
ultra-Orthodox recruits as part of a plan to counter the steady decline in the
number of conscripts since 2005, according to IDF personnel directorate
officials
Personnel directorate officials
say the two main factors influencing the number of new conscripts are the drop
in new immigrants and the rise in the population groups that don’t, as a rule,
serve in the IDF: the ultra-Orthodox and Israeli Arabs.
Nineteen percent of first
graders were part of the ultra-Orthodox educational system in 2000, and the
proportion is expected to reach 30 percent in 2014, according to the IDF.
By Kobi Nahshoni
www.ynetnews.com February
18, 2012
The IDF is advancing a
new initiative intended to better incorporate ultra-Orthodox youths serving in
the army.
The plan aims to
enable yeshiva soldiers to study in a kollel (an institute for full-time
advanced study of the Talmud and rabbinic literature) in the evenings, in
addition to receiving financial grants from the government.
By Rabbi
Eric Yoffie Opinion www.jpost.com February 16, 2012
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie
is the outgoing president of the Union for Reform Judaism.
As painful as it is for me to say this, I find
myself agreeing with proposals such as those by General Elazar Stern, who has
called for a blanket 10-year exemption from army service for haredim. This is
unfair, and indeed outrageous, but Israel’s well-being makes it necessary.
On the
other hand, it only makes sense if steps will be taken to draw—in fact, to
push—these men into the work force. And the only way to do that is to
significantly reduce the subsidies that the haredim receive from the government
for their yeshiva studies. Without this funding, young men will have no choice
but to get training and find work to support their families.
By Jeremy
Sharon www.jpost.com February 21, 2012
According to Rivlin,
the Tal Law needs to be passed to one of the Knesset committees for debate,
following which the committee’s recommendations will be brought for a final
vote in the Knesset plenum.
The law will expire in
August if not renewed by the Knesset before that time.
By Yair
Ettinger www.haaretz.com February 15, 2012
As the
dispute about women singing in the Israel Defense Forces refuses to die down,
both sides are citing Shlomo Goren, the late chief military rabbi who famously
blew the shofar at the Western Wall captured during the Six-Day War.
...Without
saying so explicitly, the letter is aimed mostly at claims by Rabbi Eliezer
Melamed of the Har Bracha Yeshiva, who has accused [Chief Military Rabbi Rafi]
Peretz of approving "an order against rabbinical law."
By Dr.
William Kolbrener Opinion http://blogs.timesofisrael.com February
5, 2012
William Kolbrener,
professor of English Literature in Israel, is author of Open Minded Torah: Of Irony,
Fundamentalism and Love (Continuum 2011).
But now, the army
and the government need to find further ways to accommodate the growing
ultra-Orthodox population that will pursue army service.
This cannot be done
by catering to religious fanatics who are looking for ways to discredit the
whole enterprise, but rather through sensitivity to the genuine requirements of
the ultra-Orthodox community, making army service, in the process, a more
acceptable option.
By Revital
Blumenfeld and Daniel Schmil www.haaretz.com February 21, 2012
City
buses should be allowed to operate on Shabbat, the Tel Aviv city council
decided on Monday - a move that would make the town Israel's second metropolis
after Haifa to offer extensive bus service on Saturdays.
By Ahuva Mamus www.ynetnews.com February 16, 2012
Yair
Lapid: "Shas, with its 11 mandates, had the entire
country wrapped around its little finger… Why? Because they know what they
want. If you want it enough there is always something to be done."
By Lahav Harkov www.jpost.com February 17, 2012
If Yair Lapid visits
the City of David, he will become religious and join Shas, Interior Minister
Eli Yishai joked at an Israeli Zionist Council and World Zionist Organization
event on Friday.
By Gil
Hoffman www.jpost.com February 16, 2012
Lapid outlined a four-step plan for “changing the
operating system of the country.” He called for changing the political system,
repealing laws that help the haredim avoid secular studies and army service,
fighting corruption, and encouraging economic growth.
By Patrick Martin www.theglobeandmail.com
February 17, 2012
At a presentation to a
Haredi teachers college last fall, Yair Lapid addressed an audience of 100
ultra-Orthodox Israelis, and surprised people by admitting defeat.
“We [secular Jews] used to
think your community would just disappear,” he said. “We saw you as a living
museum of the way Jews used to be.”
“But you have flourished
and Israel is yours as much as mine.”
“But since you are full
citizens,” he told them, no longer can they forego military service. Now, he
said, they must join the work-force and pay taxes; they must now become
tolerant of others.
By Lior Zeno and Zvi
Zrahiya
www.haaretz.com February
16, 2012
..."this
year crossed the red line: 50% of first grade students were haredi or Arab. If
we wait 12 years, the Zionist state will crumble."
...Secondly,
to cancel the Tal Law and the Nahari Law, so that all Israelis learn core
subjects. "We are not against them [Orthodox Jews], but we can't keep
carrying them on our backs," he said, adding that no-one should try to
convince him that there is something insulting about work. "Judaism
sanctifies the value of work."
By Rabbi
Seth Farber Opinion www.jpost.com February 15, 2012
Rabbi Haim Druckman
resigned last week from his post as the director of Israel’s Conversion
Authority in the Prime Minister’s Office, almost four years after he was
unceremoniously dismissed following the annulment of conversions performed
under his auspices.
...One can only hope
that Rabbi Druckman’s successor will be able to revitalize conversion in
Israel, and address meaningfully and responsibly the demographic time bomb that
is facing the Jewish state.
And if he isn’t able to address it in any
significant way, hopefully he’ll have the character to shut down the Conversion
Authority, and find a new method of dealing with the challenges that we all
face.
Israel’s Supreme Rabbinical Court has ceased to
function. The reason this week is that one of the four judges presently
on the court is sick (and two of them – the two chief rabbis – are not supposed
to sit on the same bench).
But why, you may ask, are there only four judges
on a court that is supposed to be made up of nine judges.
By Isi
Leiber Opinion www.jpost.com
February 14, 2012
Overall, it is clear
that prior to the haredi hijacking of the chief rabbinate and state rabbinical
institutions, the approach to conversion in Israel was far more accommodating.
...There are
organizations like Bet Morasha and ITIM, supported by a handful of courageous
rabbis like Rabbis Haim Amsalem, Benny Lau, Shlomo Riskin and Seth Farber,
whose observance and level of learning is beyond reproach, that are resisting
the extremists.
They should unite and
encourage other rabbis to join them to save Judaism from the control of a
haredi minority which exploits its excessive political leverage to coerce the
people and in so doing alienates and marginalizes Judaism from the nation.
By Rachel Levmore Opinion www.jpost.com February 18, 2012
The writer has a PhD
in Jewish Law from Bar-Ilan University; is a rabbinical court advocate,
coordinator of the Agunah and Get-Refusal Prevention Project of the Council of
Young Israel Rabbis in Israel and the Jewish Agency.
Lest one think
non-Orthodox Jews are immune to these problems, the impact of the get issue on
non- Orthodox Jews is clearly explained by Rabbi Seth Farber, who notes that if
new olim want “to open a marriage file in Israel, they will have to provide
certification from a recognized Orthodox rabbi.”
A woman who’s been
divorced will have to produce a get, and in the case of the daughter of a woman
who’s been divorced, “the rabbinate will insist on seeing an Orthodox get from
the mother before they allow the daughter to open a marriage file.”
By Esther Macner Opinion www.jewishjournal.com February 15, 2012
I am often asked: “Why are
you so preoccupied with the problem of get refusal. Have you ever been an agunah?”
For the past two decades,
the International Coalition for Agunah Rights (ICAR) has declared the Fast of
Esther as International Agunah Day, and it is observed throughout the world
with communal education programs.
In February 2010, a bill,
which did not pass, was presented to the Knesset to officially declare Agunah
Day to mark the annual Fast of Esther, on the eve of Purim.
The bill provided for an
annual Knesset hearing on the state of the abuse of get refusal, and to sponsor
educational curricula in all schools, youth groups, Israel Defense Forces, and
on the media.
By Uri Misgav Opinion www.haaretz.com February 21, 2012
Quietly,
over the past few decades, something startling has been happening in Israel. We
might call it "shrinking Israeliness."
...In
Israel's case, the most prominent of these forces is Jewishness.
But the people who tend to see tensions between
Jewish and democratic values as inescapable typically are either those most
pleased with Israel’s growing religiosity or those most concerned about it. Illiberal
rabbis believe that the truly religious cannot always adhere to democratic
values, and secularists believe that the religious can’t be trusted to protect
them.
In fact, Judaism can be inclusive, democratic
and liberal as much as it can be prohibitive, illiberal and undemocratic.
The Tzohar association
of rabbis conducted a modernized version of one of the more obscure ceremonies
of the Torah on Thursday, following the commandant known as the decapitated
calf.
Tel Aviv is humming
with Torah activity. This comes as a surprise to many who come here armed with
preconceived notions that they picked up from their last visit to Tel Aviv in
the seventies.
By Akiva Novick
www.ynetnews.com February
14, 2012
Genesis Land, a
Biblical farm in the Judean Desert, will hold an "Amazing Race" style
competition for young men and women from the national-religious sector who have
yet to find the love of their life.
By Dr. Samuel Lebens
Opinion www.haaretz.com February 20, 2012
If you want to be a
progressive political activist or commentator in Israel, fighting for justice
for Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, and fighting for the separation of religion
and state, then you still need to know how to speak the language of the people.
The language of the
Jewish people is still to a great extent the language of Judaism. What this
survey does tell us, more than anything else, is that only if you are
"Jewishly literate" will you be able to capture the imagination of
the Jewish people.
By Elana Sztokman Opinion http://blogs.forward.com
February 15, 2012
It’s not
just that female body cover in Orthodoxy has evolved, but that it has become
more and more extreme to the point of obsessiveness and even violence (see: Beit Shemesh).
What we
are witnessing in the Orthodox community is not the process of more people
becoming more devout but rather more and more people becoming a bit crazy about
the issue of female body cover.
All this
raises the important question of why? Why is female body cover seen as the
be-all-and-end-all of Jewish observance in so many circles?
Religious Zionism
leader Rabbi Shlomo Aviner is arguing that Akiva and Anhel Shmuli's
participation in a popular reality TV show goes against Jewish values and may
be considered a violation of Jewish law.
By Rabbi Jack Riemer www.sun-sentinel.com February
14, 2012
Elana Sztokman's book made me realize that we may
both be suffering from the same ambivalence between justice for women and the
needs of men as Orthodox Jews do, although the ambivalence takes different
forms within the two groups.
At any rate, keep your eye out for anything that
she writes because Sztokman has much to teach us about the natures of both
women and men in this fast changing world.
One of
the outcomes of the controversy over Rav Aharon Bina and his Netiv Aryeh
yeshiva in Jerusalem is the increased attention focused on the fact that teens
who spend a year in Israel are to a large degree on their own, with their
parents often in the dark about the policies and intellectual and emotional
environment of the institutions where they have sent their children.
By
Anshel Pfeffer www.haaretz.com
February 19, 2012
Shortly after he started work, JAFI set up
Jewish Agency International Development (JAID ), with Galperin as its president
and CEO.
JAID, which was to become the agency's main
fundraising channel, recruited dozens of new employees who work alongside the
existing staff of JAFI North America; among them two new vice-presidents,
Arthur Sandman and Nirit French, who make around $250,000 each.
"JAID is a monstrous and wasteful
structure built by Galperin," says a veteran agency employee, "while
all around the organization is cutting back and people are getting fired."
By Haviv
Gur Opinion www.haaretz.com
February 17, 2012
Haviv Gur
is the director of communications for the Jewish Agency for Israel.
Organizations like
ours compete in a professional marketplace. We don’t compete with the
government for our senior staff, but with other Jewish nonprofits.
Compare our salaries to any large organization doing comparable work – -even to organizations half our size –- and you’ll find that we are among the most frugal of the major Jewish organizations when it comes to executive compensation.
By Dan
Brown Opinion http://ejewishphilanthropy.com
February 17, 2012
Perhaps what is most
striking about the article is why is Haaretz picking on the Jewish
Agency alone? Is their compensation out-of-line with what other comparable
organizations are paying? If so, fair game. Let’s take a look at just two, both
– like JAFI – with a significant Jerusalem presence [information culled from
public records]...
Rabbi
Jeff Cymet is the rabbi of Tiferet Shalom—The Masorti Congregation of Ramat
Aviv.
We must
once again have the courage to remind Jews worldwide that if they choose to
live outside of Israel, they risk exiling themselves from their own heritage
and from sharing in their national destiny.
Many
cultures, religions and peoples share our universal values.
None share our
particular history.
Only in
Israel can we live not only according to our universal values but also immersed
in our unique Jewish culture as it has been shaped by our own heritage.
By Gil
Shefler www.jpost.com February 14, 2012
Phillip and Dorothy
Grossman, ages 95 and 93, respectively, are probably the oldest married couple
ever to immigrate to Israel.
By Shmuel
Rosner Opinion www.jewishjournal.com
February 14, 2012
That is
why one needs to be an optimist or a fool to believe that another study can
finally put to rest the talk of “distancing”, or at least help us rid of
“political distancing” brouhaha. Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m an optimist.
Not when it comes to this public debate.
By Yuval
Saar www.haaretz.com February 15, 2012
Eli
Valley’s comics may be crude and direct, but beneath that rebellious exterior
lurks a “nice Jewish boy.”
Do you feel like you’re a part of the young
generation of Jewish-American writers like Jonathan Safran Foer or Nathan
Englander? Is there such a thing as contemporary Jewish literature?
“In the past, it was common for Jewish writers
to not want to be called Jewish writers. They were just writers, capital W. I
think that’s changing, though. I like the term Jewish writer, I have no problem
with it. I’m proud of my culture and heritage. See, maybe that’s a sign I’m not
so self-hating after all,” he laughs.
High on the agenda –
funding (or specifically lack of) for Lapid, and why children who go on Lapid
are denied eligibility to participate on Taglit. There was strong consensus
that the high school programs have been neglected and more attention needs to
be given to the need to support them in the future.
Editor – Joel Katz
All
rights reserved.
