Editor – Joel Katz
Special edition on Women of the Wall coming soon
Rabbinate
Organizations such as Hiddush and the Movement
for Quality Government will be justified in their demand to disqualify
candidates like Eliyahu and Yosef, in part because the comments of someone who
holds a public office are seen as a reflection of the official state position.
Therefore, we believe that for the sake of
religious freedom there needs to be a separation. Like all citizens of Israel,
rabbis are entitled to full intellectual freedom.
But in order to provide this
freedom the rabbinate must relinquish its state-backed monopoly over religious
services and rabbis should stop receiving a salary from the state’s coffers.
If rabbis wish to express their opinions, let
them do so as individuals who enjoy the freedoms of democracy, not as
representatives of the State of Israel.
By Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie
[Rabbi
Joseph B. Soloveitchik] was right. In 1972, the Chief Rabbinate was in a
state of disintegration. We can only imagine what he would say about it today.
He clearly believed that an independent rabbinate, severed from the suffocating
embrace of government, was necessary to address the problems of Jewish life.
For that to happen, the Chief Rabbinate must be dismantled, and this year’s
government-sponsored election must be the last.
Intellectuals and artists call on Netanyahu to oust
Habayit Hayehudi over support of extremist rabbi
Finance
Minister Yair Lapid … was asked to comment on the forthcoming election of the
chief rabbis of Israel.
He replied, “We have Rabbi Shay Piron, No. 2 on our
list of Knesset candidates, who was ordained by the Sephardi chief rabbi. I
tell everyone who asks me about this to talk to Piron, and I say that whatever
is agreed on with him is fine by me.”
Religion and State issues
Jewish Identity Administration
IDF Burial
IDF and Haredim
IDF Hesder
IDF Haredi draft bill
Attack on IDF Haredi soldier
Haredi society
Education
When it
comes to reducing inequality, he added, the government is not the only one
responsible to take action.
“I hope
that those who cause inequality from their behavior, who won’t study the core
curriculum, that they will also contribute to it. If they contribute, then it
can change,” he said, alluding to ultra-Orthodox schools that don’t teach basic
math, science and English.
Long
before the extreme Right goes ahead and adds millions of Palestinian Arabs to the
country’s population, it would be worthwhile to consider that even without
them, at least half of Israel’s children already today − Arab Israelis and
ultra-Orthodox Jews, constituting 28% and 20%, respectively, of the children
enrolled in the country’s primary schools − receive an education at a level
that is below that in many Third World countries.
Kashrut
Aliyah and Diaspora
Temple Mount
Editor – Joel Katz
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