Cadets dismissed from officers' course for going to synagogue instead of class
Several IDF soldiers have been dismissed from an officers' course for
going to synagogue instead of to class, and the National Religious MK's are furious about it.
The lesson was moved to an earlier time at the last moment, and therefore coincided with the regular time for the shacharit prayer. The soldiers – who are from the Gefen Battalion – prayed instead of attending the lesson.
MK Zevulun Orlev (Jewish Home) said that it was unacceptable that the IDF does not allow shacharit prayer at its proper time. "Only during an operational need or an emergency or during war, should the prayer give precedence to the operational need."
"It is too bad that all those involved – the commanders, the battalion rabbi and the combat soldiers – were not able to solve this problem, and instead turned it into a crisis."
Orlev blamed the IDF top command, too. "I call upon the Chief of Staff and the Head of Personnel Branch to change the atmosphere and create a more placating atmosphere that will allow religious and hareidi soldiers to serve in the IDF, in combat units too, while completely maintaining their religious lifestyle."
If the army wants everyone to serve, they're not going to make it easier for religious soldiers to do so by doing things like this. I have a friend who heads an advocacy group for religious soldiers, and in the past he has told me similar things to what Orlev said. And the truth is - what Orlev said makes sense.
But the army seems determined to drive as many religious soldiers as possible out of its officers' corps (recall the story about the women singing, which also happened in an officers' course). The last gasp of the 'secular revolution'? Maybe.
Labels: IDF, religious freedom
The IDF has a long history of disputes with its Rabbinate
Contrary to popular perception, there is a long and interesting history of disputes between the IDF and its rabbinical corps, including some cases where the rabbis refused to follow orders or advised soldiers to refuse to follow orders.
You can read about some of them
here.
Labels: IDF, religious freedom
Is Soros behind the Beit Shemesh riots?
I am sure that many of you have heard of the ongoing unrest in the Jerusalem corridor city of Beit Shemesh between certain anti-Zionist Haredim and parts of the National Religious community.
I don't want to get into a discussion of who is right and who is wrong - assuming that the dispute is a real one. That's not the topic of this blog. You can write me whatever you want about it by email, but I will delete comments that are going in that direction. Rather, I want to share with you an interesting theory regarding who might be behind the unrest.
The Sultan Knish - Daniel Greenfield - believes that the bogeyman himself -
George Soros - is financing the anti-Zionist Haredim who have allegedly spit in the faces of young girls (and worse).
Many think of Judaism as a single religion, but it has as many denominations and subsets as Christianity does. Orthodox Judaism equally breaks down into countless subsets. Most of the problems in Jerusalem concern 19th century immigrant sects which never reconciled themselves to the creation of the State of Israel, and have in some cases made common cause with Islam.
The Neturei Karta, who have been denounced by every mainstream Orthodox denomination, were friendly with the Ayatollah Khomeini and are friendly with Ahmadinejad. They held prayer vigils for Arafat and took blood money from his kleptocracy. They are best thought of as the Jewish version of the Westboro Baptist Church which pickets military funerals, complete with gloating messages after terrorist attacks and assaults on other Orthodox Jews.
One Neturei Karta leader who was famously photographed in a liplock with Iranian genocidal thug Ahmadinejad also met with Neo-Nazis and his children were expelled from school after being taught to cheer terrorist attacks. Other Neturei Karta leaders have met with Farrakhan and Hamas terrorists. But while some NK leaders forbid traveling to Israel, much of the movement (which despite its small size has its own splinter groups) is still embedded in Jerusalem. There it has engaged in a variety of violent incidents against Jewish businesses and residents. And like their Muslim brethren, their feelings for women mirror their feelings for Zionism.
Leftist media describe Neturei Karta leaders as "Anti-Zionist Jews" when they're doing a story on their participation in an Anti-Israel protest in New York or London, but when they attack bookstores or girls' schools in Israel then they are suddenly "Ultra-Orthodox Extremists" even when the people they are attacking are Orthodox Jews.
The Neturei Karta assaults on Jews and their support for terrorists have been a problem for some time. And the outrageous prayer vigils for Arafat and the harassment of Jewish schoolgirls are all despicable and depraved behavior by a corrupt cult which has engaged in kidnapping and child abuse. The NK are not the only ones involved, but they are at the heart of the problem.
However the Soros funded left is exploiting the anti-social behavior of their fellow anti-Zionists to demonize Israel, build a protest movement for their own purposes and launch a wider campaign against religious Jews. Their technique involves conflating violent incidents with local customs to create the appearance of a larger social problem. Thus an assault on a bus is equated to religious soldiers leaving a musical performance which violated their religious sensibilities.
Read the whole thing.
Frankly, I'm not sure I buy into this. While Neturei Karta and Toldoth Aharon (the sect that is largely behind the Beit Shemesh demonstrations) are both anti-Zionist, they are not identical. Toldoth Aharon does not do things like travel to Iran to kiss Ahmadinejad. In fact, most of them refuse to leave Israel at all and have done so for seven or eight generations. I seriously doubt that Toldoth Aharon would knowingly take any kind of support from Soros. Of course, it is possible that Neturei Karta is egging Toldoth Aharon on (they both live in the same neighborhood in Jerusalem).
Hmmm.
Labels: George Soros, Neturei Karta, religious freedom, Toldoth Aharon
Religious coercion goes both ways
I'm sure a lot of you - especially the Israelis - have heard about all the arguments going on among various religious groups in one of the towns outside Jerusalem. I really don't want to put them on this blog, but I think
this is probably a fair summary of how to think about it.
Labels: religious freedom
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, October 9.
1) Find the real headlines
a) Imams stand in solidarity with burned shrine And yet, during the "tunnel" riots of two weeks ago, there were incidents of murder and sacrilege. One occurred in Nablus, an Arab town under P.L.O. control. There is in Nablus a Jewish religious site, Joseph's Tomb. Under the P.L.O.-Israeli peace accords, it remained a tiny enclave peopled by devout Jews and, for protection, a few Israeli soldiers. On Sept. 26, it was attacked by a Palestinian mob throwing firebombs. Six Israelis were killed. Many prayer books were burned. This is the Middle Eastern equivalent of a mob of whites torching a black church, killing parishioners and burning its holy objects. Yet, while the tunnel received enormous coverage complete with diagrams, the desecration at Joseph's Tomb, if reported at all, merited at most a few sentences. And a similar Palestinian attempt to firebomb Judaism's third holiest shrine, Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, received in the major American press no mention at all, save one in the New York Times--in a picture caption on page 12!
(From Desecration of Truth by Charles Krauthammer: )
b) Imams stand in solidarity with attacked shrine Bullets were fired at Rachel's Tomb as soon as the riots began, from the Aida refugee camp between Beit Jala and Bethlehem, and from the roofs of buildings located to the west, south and east. Palestinian Authority security forces, who were responsible for keeping order, not only failed to prevent the violence, they actively participated in it. When the gunfire at soldiers and visitors increased, the Israeli army took to the neighboring roofs. Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the battles, Shahar Vekret and Danny Darai. Darai was murdered by Atef Abayat, a Tanzim operative who headed the main terrorist network in Bethlehem at the time.17 In his book Permission Given, Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman revealed that not only was Abayat not arrested, as Israel demanded from the Palestinian Authority, but Yasser Arafat personally instructed that he be paid.
( From The Palestinian Authority and the Jewish Holy Sites in the West Bank: Rachel's Tomb as a Test Case by Nadav Shragai)
c) Rabbis stand in solidarity with burned mosque More than a thousand rabbis from around the world have signed a statement denouncing the burning of an Israeli mosque as police arrested a suspect who is alleged to be a Jewish extremist. “We condemn those in Israel who exacerbate conflict and strife, and who insist that only one people or religion belongs to this land,” said the statement, which organizers say was overwhelmingly signed by U.S. rabbis.
Regarding those who insist "...only one people or religion belongs to this land," Palestinian Media Watch recently observed: The day after PA Chairman Abbas delivered the Palestinian Authority's request for statehood to the UN, PA TV, which is controlled directly by Abbas' office, broadcast a map that erases Israel and envisions Palestinian sovereignty over all of Israel. The map includes both the PA areas and all of Israel (excluding the Golan Heights) wrapped in the Palestinian flag - a symbol of Palestinian sovereignty over the whole area - and has a key through it, symbolizing ownership.
The key I believe is a symbol of the homes the Palestinians claimed to have left while fleeing the Jews. What's frustrating about the Rabbis who stand with the mosque is that they don't acknowledge that he is a fringe character in Israeli society. Every major politician spoke out against the arson. The Israeli police investigated and arrested a suspect. He will be tried and if found guilty, will be punished. He will not be celebrated. Contrast that with Mother of 4 terrorist murderers chosen by the PA to launch statehood campaign: The Palestinian Authority chose the mother of 4 terrorist murderers, one of whom killed seven Israeli civilians and attempted to kill twelve others, as the person to launch their statehood campaign with the UN. In a widely publicized event, the PA had Latifa Abu Hmeid lead the procession to the UN offices in Ramallah and to hand over a letter for the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
Among the Palestinians, even moderate Fatah celebrates terror.
2) A headline that you wouldn't have seen 30 years ago. Arab Spring activists from Egypt, Tunisia and Libya observing Poland’s election
3) I get by with a little help from my friends
As the end to the American military presence in Iraq is approaching, the United States is embarking on an a "Marshall Plan" for Iraq. The State Department will take over operations in Iraq from the U.S. military by the end of the year, in its biggest overseas operation since the effort to rebuild Europe after WWII. The Washington Post reports that some 16,000 civilians eventually will work under the American ambassador to Iraq, the scale of which has raised concerns among lawmakers and others.
Iraq is demonstrating its gratitude. More than six months after the start of the Syrian uprising, Iraq is offering key moral and financial support to the country’s embattled president, undermining a central U.S. policy objective and raising fresh concerns that Iraq is drifting further into the orbit of an American arch rival — Iran. Iraq’s stance has dealt an embarrassing setback to the Obama administration, which has sought to enlist Muslim allies in its campaign to isolate Syrian autocrat Bashar al-Assad. While other Arab states have downgraded ties with Assad, Iraq has moved in the opposite direction, hosting official visits by Syrians, signing pacts to expand business ties and offering political support.
The first article also reported: U.S. military officials have said Iraq’s security forces are “good enough” to contain violence after the drawdown.
But the Washington Post reports that there will a delay in the pullback of Iraqi troops from cities: The delay is an acknowledgment that even after four years of declining violence, Iraq’s police force is not capable of maintaining security on its own. The other worry is that violence will increase when American troops complete their own withdrawal from the country at year’s end.
I believed that deposing Saddam Hussein would remove a threat to the Middle East and open the door to a stable pro-Western Iraq. I guess that was overly optimistic.
Labels: Arab spring, Fatah, Iraq, Joseph's tomb, Palestinian Authority, Rachel's tomb, religious freedom, Tuba Zanghariya mosque
The Sodom of the 21st century
As I read Amil Imani's account of behavior that Iran's 'Islamic Republic considers 'compassionate,' I could not help but think of biblical Sodom where a tall guest was put in a short bed and cut down to size while a short person was put in a long bed and stretched all night long. Local residents who welcomed guests were bound to be punished, and in fact one young girl was punished by being tied to a tree covered in honey. You can guess what happened to her. Iran, which considers itself to be moral and religious, sounds
remarkably like Sodom in the way it treats those who are different.
Months later, she was informed that the sentence would be implemented at dawn the next day. This presented the last chance for the jailers to beat her as severely as they could before she died. They were intent at making the most savab (performing religiously meritorious acts) they could while they had the chance.
The beating she received on that day was so severe that she lost consciousness. When the executioners arrived to hang her, they could not revive her. They faced a serious problem. How can an unconscious woman who cannot stand on her feet be hanged?
A temporary stay of execution was ordered. In due time, Mrs. M regained consciousness only to suffer many more months of the dreadful ordeal. On several occasions, the order to hang her was re-issued. But the severe repeated beatings had shattered her body as well as her mind. She could no longer stand on her feet. She got around only by crawling. The jailers were relentless in their viciousness. On several occasions, they staged mock hangings. They would come to her cell and say the fatehe (prayer for the dead), place the noose around her neck, and hold her up and let her collapse on the ground.
Eventually, no one knows why, she was released from prison, a barely able to walk. She did not get to die in one day, as did her innocent beloved husband. The demonic agents of the Islamic Republic saw to it that she got to live a life of dying every day for the rest of her life.
The Islamist’s credo is fairly straight forward in dealing with religious minorities or infidels living in their midst: if you can’t reason with them to change their belief then literally beat some sense into their heads. And if that doesn’t work, then a bullet to the head or a noose around the neck ought to put an end to the “problem.”
Read the whole thing.
Labels: cruelty, Iran, religious freedom, Sodom
Priest's throat slit in Tunisia
Here's another new Arab 'democracy' that can't quite get the '
freedom of religion' part straight (Hat Tip:
Atlas Shrugs).
Tunisia's official TAP news agency says a Catholic priest from Poland has been killed and his body had multiple stab wounds and his throat was slit.
The report cites the Tunis archbishopric as saying 34-year-old Marek Marius Rybinski worked at a religious school in the Tunis suburb of Manouba. His body was found Friday in the school parking lot.
In a statement, the Interior Ministry said the killing appeared to be the work of a "group of extremist terrorist fascists," judging by the way it was carried out.
The statement denounced extremists' "exploitation ... of the current exceptional circumstances to make trouble."
On Saturday, 18,000 Tunisians came out to demonstrate in favor of the country's
Christian and Jewish population.
Some 18,000 Tunisians came out Saturday in the capital city of Tunis to protest against bigotry. The demonstrators decried recent Judeo-Phobic rhetoric against the Jewish community and memorialized Father Marek Rybinski, a Polish-Catholic priest who was stabbed to death on Friday. The demonstrators called for religious tolerance. One of the organizers stated, "We must stand side by side and show religious tolerance towards each other." Among the slogans at the rally were, "Terrorism is not the voice of Tunisia!" and "Muslims, Christians, Jews, we all Tunisians!"
I still recommend that Tunisia's Jews make aliya.
Labels: Islamic terrorism, Muslim Jew hatred, religious freedom, Tunisia
Oy vey....
What America has come to....
Congregation Beth Elohim, at 274 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn, will host two events next weekend exploring and responding to Islamophobia in America and in Israel.
On Friday evening, January 14, from 7-9 PM, there will be a panel discussion exploring a response to Islamophobia led by Lisa Miller, Religion Editor at Newsweek Magazine, with Daisy Khan of the American Society for Muslim Advancement, Iain Levine from Human Rights Watch, and Beth Elohim's Rabbi Bachman.
On Saturday afternoon, January 15, from 12:30-2 PM, there will be a Shabbat luncheon and an accompanying discussion with Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center and Director of Women at the Wall, on the topic of religious pluralism in modern Israel.
Who is representing Israel and the Jewish people at either of these events?
If anyone doesn't recognize the name, Daisy Khan is the wife of the Imam of the Ground Zero Victory Mosque.
Oy vey....
Labels: Ground Zero Victory Mosque, Islamophobia, Israel, religious freedom
'Palestinian' blogger apologizes for his 'stupidity'
26-year-old blogger, Walid Husayin, who called the Muslim God a "primitive Bedouin" and Islam a religion of "irrationality and ignorance," has apologized to his family and the 'Palestinian people' after spending a month in a 'Palestinian Authority' jail. He sought forgiveness for what he called his '
stupidity.'
A Palestinian atheist jailed for more than a month for sharing his anti-Islam views on the Internet has apologized for offending Muslims, and a Palestinian military spokesman said he expected "positive" developments in the case.
Rights groups have criticized his arrest as a demonstration of the limits on free speech under the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, which has trawled Internet sites like Facebook as part of a crackdown on dissent and unpopular views.
I don't get this. If he insulted the 'Muslim God' shouldn't he be apologizing to the 'Muslim God'? Since when are the 'Palestinian people' Muslim? Were 'Palestinian' Christians offended by what he said? Why? And is an 'apology' elicited by a month of (torture?) jail a sincere apology that ought to make a difference to the 'Muslim God'? Were his comments 'stupidity' in the first place?
Labels: Palestinian intolerance, religious freedom
State Department report on Israel: The conclusions were written before the report
On Friday, I reported that Hillary Clinton's State Department has issued a report castigating
religious freedom in Israel. But it seems that the State Department first decided what it wanted to conclude and then
adjusted the facts to fit the conclusion.
But a number of question marks that arise from the report’s stances on controversial and unsettled matters in Israeli society suggest that disproportionate weight was given to the input of the various NGOs and media reports cited, without presenting the full complexity of the rather complex topics.
One of the many issues touched on in the report is that of Israelis who are not Jews according to Halacha. “Approximately 360,000 citizens who immigrated to the country from the former Soviet Union under the Law of Return but are not considered Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinate cannot be buried in Jewish cemeteries, divorce or marry within the country,” the report says. But this misses the mark, since such people can divorce in an Israeli civil court so long they are not considered Jewish.
Regarding the Kotel, the report states that “Ultra-Orthodox ‘modesty patrols’ attempted to enforce gender separation and a path designated for ‘men only’ was installed opposite the Western Wall.” Such a path does indeed exist, at the behest of ultra-Orthodox men who wish to reach the inner plaza for prayer with less exposure to the tourists, including women, who abound in the outer plaza. Needless to say, the necessity of such a path is only a result of a mixed plaza.
The further statement that “Mixed-gender ceremonies have been banned in the Western Wall plaza” is inaccurate; among the few nonreligious ceremonies to take place in that plaza are the swearing-in of IDF paratroopers and that on IDF Memorial Day, and neither has gender-separated seating.
The report also presented the state-funded haredi schools under the section dealing with proselytizing.
“Some ultra-Orthodox groups that proselytize secular Jews, encouraging them to adopt ultra-Orthodox practices and beliefs, enjoyed government funding. The Ministry of Education funded a special network of schools aimed at promoting Orthodox Judaism to non-Orthodox Jewish children, and funded other organizations that hold similarly motivated activities,” it states.
This presumably refers first and foremost to Shas’s Ma’ayan Chinuch Torani network, and perhaps to the Ashkenazi-run Independent Education Center. A spokesman for the Ministry of Education strongly rejected the presumed proselytizing nature of those haredi educational networks, if indeed the intention of the report was to refer to those.
Regarding the civil rights of Israelis who are not Jewish by Halacha but entitled to citizenship due to the Law of Return, the report correctly states that under the law “the government grants immigration and residence rights to individuals who meet established criteria defining Jewish identity and also to certain family members. Eligible family members include a child or grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew, and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew.”
However, the report goes on to fuse together “the right to full citizenship” for such people and the “government financial support for immigrants,” which is supposedly denied of those whose Judaism is not recognized by the Chief Rabbinate, with the matters pertaining to “Jewish status for purposes of personal... issues.
“The government uses a separate, more rigorous standard based on Orthodox Jewish criteria to determine the right to full citizenship, entitlement to government financial support for immigrants, the legitimacy of conversions to Judaism performed within the country, and Jewish status for purposes of personal and some civil status issues,” the report states.
There's more - read the whole thing.
The fact is that for most secular Israelis, 'the shul I don't go to' is Orthodox. There is very little Conservative and Reform here because most people aren't interested in them. Yes, there are problems with non-Jewish olim (immigrants) from the former Soviet Union, but non-Jews are able to marry here without the interference of the rabbinical courts. For that matter, so are Jews, although they must nominally marry overseas.
All in all, interfering with the nuances of one religion or another seems completely out of place for a United States government agency, all the more so to go around comparing Israel unfavorably to Iran and Saudi Arabia. It's clear to me that the same crowd of non-affiliated and non-halachically Jewish people that started J Street is exercising its influence in the State Department. That connection needs to be exposed.
Labels: Chief Rabbinate, J Street, religious freedom, US State Department
US State Department makes itself arbiter of Judaism, condemns Israel
For the second year in a row, Hillary Clinton's State Department has issued a report castigating Israel for a lack of religious freedom, placing us in a category with countries like
Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Somalia.
The U.S. State Department under Secretary Hillary Clinton claims that Israel violates religious freedom at the same level as Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and China.
“Religious freedom can be restricted in a variety of ways, from the overt to the subtle,” explains the department's annual International Religious Freedom Report on 198 countries and territories surveyed by its foreign service personnel, released Wednesday for the period July 1, 2008 - June 30, 2009. A wide spectrum of efforts are used to undermine such rights, extending to multilateral, regional and global arenas, the report continues.
Part I of the Executive Summary discusses overall conditions during the reporting period in countries where “violations of religious freedom have been noteworthy.” Israel is listed among 30 nations selected for this category -- including Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen -- due to the emphasis of the Jewish State on maintaining the status quo with regard to respect for Jewish legal standards.
Israel's adherence to specific Jewish legal (halakhic) strictures are the basis for some of the American claims, though the State Department report does not note that non-adherence to these would violate Jewish religious freedoms. (For last year's State Department denunciation of Israel and responses, click here.)
The report complained, for instance, that three Messianic Jews were denied the right to immigrate to Israel during the reporting period. Other issues of contention included Israel’s unwillingness to recognize conversions performed in the country which do not meet criteria under Torah law, identification cards (Teudot Zehut) that differentiate between Jews and non-Jews, and the authority over marriages and burials exercised by the Chief Rabbinate, which is Orthodox.
All religions have freedom of worship in Israel -- unlike the other countries mentioned above.
What is the State Department trying to tell us? That they know better than the rabbis what Jewish religious law requires? This is the only country in the region in which minority religious rights are protected and where people are free to worship however they choose. And she classifies us with Iran and Saudi Arabia where women are property and cannot go out in the streets without a male escort? Outrageous. Simply outrageous.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Chief Rabbinate, religious freedom, US State Department
Several IDF soldiers have been dismissed from an officers' course for going to synagogue instead of to class, and the National Religious MK's are furious about it. 
