Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization
or movement.
CONVERSION
A controversial bill that would allow local rabbis to oversee conversions to Judaism in Israel passed the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Wednesday by a vote of 7 to 4.
The bill will now return to the Knesset plenum for its second and third readings, which likely will take place during the Knesset’s spring session
Rabbi Gilad Kariv, executive director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, welcomed the new law as well as “any move aimed at making the conversion process easier,” adding that his movement will “stand its ground to ensure that the law remains unchanged during the next reading.”
By Rabbi Uri Regev
By Rabbi Reuven Hammer
This law and that law will not solve the problem. Drastic measures are needed to solve the problems that confront Israeli society in religious matters. Only the elimination of this governmental monopoly, the Chief Rabbinate, will do.
Israeli gossip columns were abuzz this week over news that a reality television star discontinued her conversion to Judaism after the Orthodox rabbinate demanded that she quit her budding acting career.
Yesh Atid MK Rabbi Dov Lipman said Levy’s case demonstrated the need for a new approach to conversion, referencing legislation on the issue currently in the Knesset.
Shortly after the newspaper article appeared, the story broke in the media that Levy had been told she could not continue toward conversion if she insisted on continuing to study acting and working as a performer.
She told the press Sunday that she was shocked by the news that came in a phone call from the rabbi she was studying with toward conversion, who was acting as her liaison to the conversion court. He said he was told by the conversion authority that “An acting career does not go together with the spirit of the religion.”
"Dear Alin Levy,
There’s something I want to say
to you: Don’t convert to Judaism. Don’t apply to convert.
Keep your distance from the
rabbinate, from its rabbis, its judges, its clerks, its kashrut inspectors…"
see also: http://hiddush.org/
KOTEL/WESTERN WALL/WOMEN OF
THE WALL
By Bonna Devora Haberman
By Vanessa Ochs
By Shulamit Magnus
By Rachel Cohen Yeshurun
SHABBAT
Mayor Huldai replied to the letter on Tuesday and stressed that only one percent of service-providing businesses could operate, and only in places and areas where their operation does not cause disturbance.
Last month Tel Aviv's city council authorized a new proposal which paves the way for regulating business operation on Saturday.
The protracted battle to have the capital’s newest and largest cinema operational during Shabbat, despite a government mandate to keep it closed, hit a roadblock Sunday when the Supreme Court ruled that the decision to keep Cinema City open must be put to a vote at Jerusalem’s city council.
By Gil Troy
WOMEN
AND JUDAISM
BRIT MILAH/CIRCUMCISION
AGUNOT/MARRIAGE
A number of major Jewish American organisations plan to join forces with Israeli groups to end the Israeli chief rabbinate’s control over marriage, burials and other personal status issues.
RELIGION AND STATE/JEWISH
AND DEMOCRATIC STATE
ALIYAH/ISRAEL-DIASPORA
RELATIONS
CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY
GENDER-SEGREGATION
Israeli beauty queen Doron Matalon is a firm believer that good things can come from bad experiences. As a soldier in December 2011, she was sexually harassed by an ultra-Orthodox man on a Jerusalem bus.
Now, as the first runner-up in the recent 64th Miss Israel pageant, she plans to use her newfound fame to help advance the fight for women’s rights in her country.
PURIM
HOMOSEXUAL/GAY/LGBT
COMMUNITY
IDF HAREDI DRAFT
By Rabbi Daniel Landes
ORGAN DONATION
BEIT SHEMESH MUNICIPAL
ELECTIONS
[Sign] “Women are requested not to use this
sidewalk.”
Mayor Abutbul: “There won’t be discrimination! We’ll build yeshivas
and mikvahs for secular residents too!”
RELIGION AND SOCIETY
See also: http://batmelech.org/
ADINA BAR SHALOM: ISRAEL PRIZE
Bar Shalom, who will receive the award on Israel's Independence Day, told Ynet moments after receiving the news: "I am very excited. This decision surprised me and I am very grateful to those who selected me."
She added that her joy was mixed with sorrow: "All my life I wanted to have my father by my side when anything happy happened in my life. I hope that he can see this from above and that he is glad that I have honored him and the family.
"When father received the prize I was six years old, and I said to myself that I hope he will be proud of me for doing good deeds and caring for others. He wanted to change the world, and I am helping him. It's a sort of closure which only took place thanks to the home I was raised in."
RELIGIOUS ZIONISM
TEMPLE MOUNT
By MK Moshe Feiglin
Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization
or movement.
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rights reserved.
