Foreign Ministry claims plan to count Chabad emissaries time abroad as national service is illegal
The Shaked Committee's plan to count time spent by emissaries of Chabad in places outside North America and Western Europe as national service has been branded 'illegal' by Israel's Foreign ministry. The Shaked Committee is the committee that came up with the new draft law whose principal goal is to draft Haredim. The Chabad emissaries would count toward the quota of Haredim who are required to be drafted or do national service.
The Shaked Committee agreed that a select number of Chabad volunteers
would be seen as working on behalf of the state of Israel, and their
activities would be funded through the Sherut Ezrahi program for
non-military national service.
However, Foreign Ministry officials say that only Foreign Ministry
staff have the legal right to work overseas as a representative of
Israel. All others must apply for a tourist visa or work visa from the
host country.
Ministry personnel also expressed concern that Chabad volunteers
could end up in jail for violating local law. “We’re putting people in
places that they shouldn’t be in under local law,” they warned.
The law's provision would affect about 100 Chabad emissaries.
Just absurd: Due to Foreign Ministry work sanctions, Chabad Houses worldwide will give consular services to stranded Israelis
— Amir Mizroch (@Amirmizroch) June 24, 2013
Europe continues to delude itself that Hezbullah is not a terror organization, or alternatively that it has a 'political branch' that is not a terror organization. Europe will not ban Hezbullah, partly because they fear it, partly because they don't recognize the full extent of its threat and that it cannot be bought off in the long run, and partly because Hezbullah 'only targets Jews' anyway.
But Europe's appeasement of Hezbullah comes with an ever increasing price. JPost reports that shortly after the Burgas terror attack last summer, an Iranian woman traveling on a Canadian passport was caught surveilling the Chabad Center in Sofia.
An Iranian-sponsored female agent in her 50s, holding a Canadian
passport, traveled from Istanbul to Sofia several weeks after the bombing of the Israeli tour bus
in the Black Sea resort town of Burgas in July 2012. She was arrested
on her first day in Sofia after the Bulgarian police, on high alert,
noticed she was monitoring the Chabad center.
Her mission was to
survey the Chabad center – which houses a synagogue – and not the main
Sofia Sephardi synagogue, as first reported.
The Canadian may be a dual Iranian-Canadian citizen.
...
Dr. Matthew Levitt, director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism
and Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a
leading authority on Hezbollah’s global terror operations, told the
Post that, “It would not surprise [us] if Iran or Hezbollah were found
to be behind this plot [against the Chabad center] last year. Recall
that five years earlier Western intelligence indicated that ‘Hezbollah
chiefs and Iranian intelligence officials had put Bulgaria on a list of
nations propitious for developing plots against Western targets.’ “Their
first attempt at killing Israeli tourists failed when a suspicious
package was noticed on a bus carrying Israeli tourists from Turkey to
Bulgaria in January 2012. Six months later Hezbollah operatives struck
again, this time with devastating success in Burgas.”
The latest
disclosure about Iran’s alleged monitoring of the Chabad center may add
new weight to the EU talks about banning Hezbollah, Iran’s chief proxy
in Europe.
Dr. Wahied Wahdat-Hagh, an expert on Iranian terrorism
in Europe and senior fellow with the Brussels-based European Foundation
for Democracy, told the Post on Saturday, “Europe needs to wake up and
learn from Hezbollah’s terrorism.” He said the group uses Iranian
“know-how and money” to launch its terror attacks.
Islamic terror organizations have a special place in their hearts for Jews in general, and for religious Jews and especially for Chabad in particular. People who are visibly Jewish seem to disturb them more than others. And the world doesn't care.
The student was knocked unconscious on Tuesday when he strolled late
at night in the center of the city. A band of 15 Arab youth pounced on
him, dragged him into a dark corner and pummeled him, using sharp
weapons.
The student lost consciousness, and the attackers fled when a passerby spotted them and called police and medics.
The police are investigating, but have but have not caught the attackers.
The Milan-based Center for Jewish Documentation's Observatory on
Anti-Jewish Prejudice reported last month that the number of
anti-Semitic episodes in the country soared last year.
The incidents ranged from street insults and swastika graffiti to physical aggression.
''We observed approximately 70 cases so far this year, most of them
graffiti and online attacks, over 40% more than last year,'' said
Observatory researcher Stefano Gatti. ''The boom might be due partly to
more efficient data-gathering, but the episodes have undeniably
increased,” he added.
Gatti also pointed out that Italian pundits and politicians ''such as
Silvio Berlusconi, Beppe Grillo or Piergiorgio Odifreddi'' are now
writing discriminatory posts and telling racist jokes. ''Making certain
issues seem normal, even funny, is one of the root causes of the rise in
anti-Semitic episodes in Italy,'' Gatti said.
An individual at the Chabad House in Venice who did not wish to be named
told The Algemeiner that the student was recovering and that such
incidents were rare in Venice. The source also indicated how the Jewish
community would respond. “We will answer evil with kindness,” the source
said.
Of course, Chabad of Venice might have an interest in Jewish tourists continuing to come there.... Just sayin'....
“Since [the March 2011] Toulouse massacre we
often hear of violent attacks against Jews. They are testament to an
underlying problem that requires examination and a solution,” Chief
rabbis Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar wrote in a letter to EU President
Herman van Rompuy.
Last year, French-Algerian Mohammed Merah
gunned down a rabbi and three children outside a Jewish school in the
southern French city of Toulouse. He died after a prolonged standoff
with French police.
In September, in a Rosh Hashanah greeting, the
president of the European Commission warned of a rise in racism and
anti-Semitism in Europe.
“At a very difficult time, both economically
and socially, when some people, even within Europe, are tempted to
reconnect with old demons — populism, racism and anti-Semitism — we need
more than ever to uphold, to protect and to promote together our common
ideals of peace, tolerance, reconciliation and respect for human
dignity,” Jose Manuel Barroso wrote in a message sent to the European
Jewish Congress.
The ADL reported last March that anti-Semitism
in Europe is at “disturbingly high levels,” with an average of nearly
one-third of those surveyed across 10 countries holding “pernicious
anti-Semitic beliefs.”
The study found large swaths of the population
subscribing to classical anti-Semitic notions such as Jews having too
much power in business, being more loyal to Israel than their own
country, or “talking too much” about what happened during the Holocaust.
Investigate and do what about it? Given that Europe is being overrun by Islam, do we really need an investigation to tell us that Europe is becoming more anti-Semitic?
And to think that Venice is one of the few places in the world to which Mrs. Carl has admitted she would like me to take her....
Here's an appearance of the Chabad Boys' Choir in Khazakhstan and they're singing Kol b'Rama Nishma, about our mother Rachel, whose death is a part of this week's Torah portion.
Alan Dershowitz is the type of Jew the 'international community' claims to like. He is pro-Israel but he is a proponent of the 'two-state solution' and in the style of Israel's Left would gladly give up all of Judea and Samaria - if only there was someone willing to take them.
Professor Dershowitz recently visited Norway where he offered to lecture at three different universities free of charge. All of them turned him down. Professor Dershowitz wrote a post about his experiences, which he called Norway's "boycott" of pro-Israel professors. I've taken the scare quotes off the boycott - because after reading Dershowitz's post, I have no doubt the boycott is real. And I have no doubt that it extends beyond professors to anyone connected to Israel. In fact, if it doesn't extend to all Jews already, it's on its way there.
Only once before have I been prevented from lecturing at universities in a country. The other country was Apartheid South Africa where the government insisted on "approving" the text of my proposed talks on human rights. I declined.
But despite the refusal of the faculties of Norway's three major universities to invite me to deliver lectures on Israel and international law, I delivered three lectures to packed auditoriums at each university. It turns out that the students wanted to hear me, despite their professors' efforts to keep my views from them. Student groups invited me. I came. And I received sustained applause both before and after my talks. Faculty members boycotted my talks and declined even to meet with me. I was recently told that free copies of the Norwegian translation of my book, The Case For Israel, were offered to several university libraries in Norway and that they declined to accept them.
It was then that I realized why all this was happening. At all of the Norwegian universities, there have been efforts to enact an academic and cultural boycott of Jewish Israeli academics. This boycott is directed against Israel's "occupation" of Palestinian land, but the occupation that the hundreds of signers referred to is not of the West Bank but rather of every single inch of Israel. Here is the first line of the petition: "Since 1948 the state of Israel has occupied Palestinian land…" Not surprisingly, the administrations of the universities have refused to go along with this form of academic collective punishment of all Jewish Israeli academics. So the formal demand for an academic and cultural boycott has failed. But in practice, it exists. Jewish pro-Israel speakers are subjected to a de facto boycott. Moreover, all Jews are presumed to be pro-Israel unless they have a long track record of anti-Israel rhetoric.
Read the words of the first signer of the academic boycott petition—an assistant professor of Trondheim named Trond Andresen as he writes about the "Jews"—not the Israelis!
"There is something immensely self-satisfied and self-centered at the tribal mentality that is so prevalent among Jews. [Not] only the religious but also a large proportion of the large secular group consider their own ethnic group as worth more than all other ethnic groups. [Jews] as a whole, are characterized by this mentality…it is no less legitimate to say such a thing about Jews in 2008-2009 than it was to make the same point about the Germans around 1938. [There is] a red carpet for the Jewish community…and a new round of squeezing and distorting the influence of the quite dry Holocaust lemon…."
This line of talk—directed at Jews not Israel or Israelis—is apparently acceptable among many in the elite of Norway. Consider former Prime Minister Kare Willock's reaction to President Obama's selection of Rahm Emanuel as his first Chief of Staff:
"It does not look too promising, he has chosen a chief of staff who is Jewish, and it is a matter of fact that many Americans look to the Bible rather than to the realities of today...."
Willock, of course, did not know anything about Emanuel's views. He based his criticism on the sole fact that Emanuel is a Jew.
All Jews are apparently the same in this country that has done everything in its power to make life in Norway nearly impossible for Jews. Norway was apparently the first modern nation to prohibit the production of Kosher meat, while at the same time permitting Halal meat and encouraging the slaughter of seals, whales and other animals that are protected by international treaties. No wonder less than 1000 Jews live in Norway. No wonder the leader of the tiny and frightened Jewish community didn't get around to meet me during my visit to his country. (The Chabad rabbi did reach out to me and I had a wonderful visit with a group of Norwegian Jews at the Chabad house.) It reminded me of my visits to the Soviet Union in the bad old days.
Here's Chabada's account of Dershowitz's visit to the Oslo Chabad House - where he met the only Jews who were willing to receive him in Norway.
Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz met with leading members of Oslo’s Jewish community at the city’s Chabad House last week, where he spoke about the extreme anti-Israel, anti-Semitic attitudes he encountered in Norway. He urged them to take lessons in Jewish pride and courage from Chabad.
The world famous civil rights lawyer who is typically invited to meet with heads of state wherever he travels, told the group of about 30—among them a number of professors—that he was turned down for meetings with Norway’s leaders. His offers to speak at NTNU-Trondheim and Oslo universities were also declined because of his views on Israel.
“I’ve spoken at every major university in the world, German, Russian, Chinese universities, and even at Bir Zeit. Only twice in my life have I been turned down. The first time in Apartheid South Africa when I was Nelson Mandela’s lawyer, and the only other time has been here.”
One of the things I greatly admire about Chabad is how they are willing to go to the ends of the earth to bring Jews closer to Judaism. Nine years ago, Mrs. Carl and I (and son # 3 child # 6, who was a toddler at the time) spent a Sabbath with another Chabad emissary in another European community. We were in touch by email before we went and offered to bring him anything he wanted from Israel. He wanted very little.
When we got there, we found out that he and his wife make all their own food because there is almost nothing Kosher available in the country in which they live. He had been there for many years, and he and his wife have many children bli ayin hara (warding off evil eyes). He has more children than I have. Many more.
His wife home-schooled their children until they were 12-13, and then they were sent off to a boarding school in another Jewish community that is 16 hours away by car or train. And they usually don't come home for the holidays. They go to New York to spend holidays with the Lubavitch community.
But the most amazing thing was what he told me about the community itself. He said that anyone whom he convinced to become religious had to immediately move out of the community, because their basic needs as religious Jews could not be fulfilled there (we were in the country for a week and brought all our own food). So the rabbi himself never had a base of supporters with whom he could work. Obviously, his dedication to this extremely thankless task is astounding. I suspect that Oslo, whose emissary looks much younger (the man with the long black beard in the picture above) is, if anything, worse than that other community where I visited.
And if I were in that emissary's position in Oslo, I believe I would have to place a high priority on getting Jews to leave the country. Oslo is a hostile environment to Jews even if they are not being rounded up to concentration camps, God forbid.
If you look at the comments to the post about Dershowitz's visit to the Chabad House, you will see that (at this moment) there is one comment and it is taking the rabbi to task for inviting Dershowitz to speak there. The commenter states that Dershowitz is a proponent of the 'two-state solution.' The Lubavitcher Rebbe zt"l (may the memory of the righteous be a blessing), as is well-known, was a proponent of a one-state solution for Jews only.
I disagree with the commenter. The most important thing that the Oslo Chabad rabbi did was to show his flock how completely hopeless their situation is in Oslo. After all, if Alan Dershowitz, who is identifiably Jewish but holds politically correct views, is prevented from speaking in Norway, what hope is there for those who are religious or who are on their way to becoming religious? By inviting Dershowitz, the rabbi performed a selfless act for which he is to be commended.
From his perch in Heaven, the Lubavitcher Rebbe of blessed memory must be smiling this morning (and let me add immediately that I am not a follower of Lubavitch and therefore I am saying this as an ordinary simple Jew). The Israeli government has finally recognized the many services Chabad-Lubavitch performs abroad for traveling Israelis and for the Jewish people generally. It is going to participate in the costs.
Committee Chairman Danny Danon (Likud) complimented the activities of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. “Every Jew who arrives at any remote point in the world knows that they have a place on holidays and Shabbat. The government already invests today in Jewish education in the Diaspora, and should use this power to take responsibility for places where travelers are concentrated on the holidays,” he said.
Danon called on Religious Services Minister Ya’acov Margi (Shas) to prepare a proposal for a cabinet decision to determine criteria to provide financial support for Chabad institutions to cover security and education- related expenses.
Rabbi Berel Lazar, the chief rabbi of Russia and a Chabad rabbi, told the Knesset committee that most Israelis are exposed to Chabad Houses during emergency situations and tragedies, but that even in routine situations, they are an address for Israelis seeking lodging, food, a telephone call to home or just rest.
“The existence of the Jewish people in the Diaspora is part of Jewish existence in Israel, and thus there should not be any problem with utilizing Israeli budgets,” he said, adding that money should be allocated not just to Chabad Houses but to other Jewish institutions.
Lazar added that recently, when the embassy was closed in one of the Caucasian states out of concern that it could be targeted for attacks marking the anniversary of the death of Hezbollah terrorist leader Imad Mourghniya, the embassy’s security officer recommended that the local Jewish school be closed.
Lazar said that he was concerned that when the school was reopened, the local Jews would be hesitant to send their children – and so instead of closing the school, the institution remained open with increased security arrangements.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I think this is great.
The Washington Post has a blow-by-blow description of the massive Mumbai terror attack two years ago, including this description of (Nariman) Chabad House (Hat Tip: Daily Alert).
The six-story Jewish center known as the Chabad House was attacked about an hour after the assault began.
Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, the red-bearded, 29-year-old director, and his pregnant wife, Rivka, 28, had entertained visitors in the second-floor dining room that night. Two rabbis from New York, Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum and Ben-Zion Chroman, had stopped in to say goodbye as they wrapped up a trip to India to certify kosher food products.
When Holtzberg heard shots and screams, he grabbed his cellphone and called a security officer at the Israeli consulate.
"The situation is bad," he said.
Then the line went dead.
The gunmen shot the Holtzbergs and the visiting rabbis. The Holtzbergs' son, 2-year-old Moishele, wandered among corpses and debris until the next day, when his Indian nanny crept upstairs, grabbed him and escaped.
News that one of his men had been captured reached Mir in the command post. Mir decided to try to win his release by using the two female hostages who were still alive at Chabad House: Yocheved Orpaz, an Israeli grandmother, and Norma Rabinovich, a Mexican tourist.
Mir told a gunman to hand Rabinovich the phone. He ordered her to propose a prisoner exchange to Israeli diplomats. She reported back to him after her conversation with the Israelis, addressing him as "sir."
"I was talking to the consulate a few minutes ago," she said, her voice shaking. "They are calling the prime minister and the army in India from the embassy in Delhi."
Mir's serene tone made him sound like a helpful bureaucrat.
"Don't worry then, ah, just sit back and relax and don't worry and just wait for them to make contact," he told her.
Hours later, Mir gave the order to kill her. A gunman named Akasha sounded reluctant. Mir turned icy when he learned the two women were still alive. He demanded: "Have you done the job or not?"
Akasha executed the women as Mir listened, according to the transcript. The gunfire echoed over the phone.
The next morning, helicopter-borne commandos swooped onto the roof. Mir gave real-time orders as he watched the gunfight on television. Akasha reported in a hoarse, strangled voice that he had been wounded in the arm and leg.
"God protect you," Mir said. "Did you manage to hit any of their guys?"
"We got one commando. Pray that God will accept my martyrdom."
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
