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- 29 oct 2010
Shas spiritual leader may back ban on renting to Arabs
Former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef cites centuries-old interpretation of halakhic ruling barring the sale of land to non-Jews.
A former chief rabbi of Israel on Thursday backed a centuries-old interpretation of Jewish religious law barring the sale of land to non-Jews.
Days after a group of rabbis urged Safed residents not to rent apartments to Arabs, former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef reiterated a 500-year-old halakhic ruling barring the sale of land in the Land of Israel to non-Jews - a move that appeared to be a show of support for the other rabbis.
With an increasing number of Arab students enrolling at Safed College, the city has also seen a rise in Arab students renting apartments there.
Rabbi Yosef's comments on Thursday were made at a beit midrash, an institution for religious studies, and contradicted remarks he made last Saturday night to a more general audience in Jerusalem.
Yesterday he addressed halakha, Jewish religious law, in greater detail.
Rabbi Yosef, who has been known to make controversial comments in the past, cited rulings based on the Book of Deuteronomy related to the Jewish people's inheritance of the land, the presence of other peoples on the land, and that the Jews should not make a covenant with them "nor show mercy unto them."
According to Yosef, this has been understood to mean barring the sale of land to non-Jews, based on an interpretation by Rabbi Yosef Caro, the 16th-century author of the codification of Jewish law, the Shulhan Arukh.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef did not, however, explicitly address the issue of renting apartments to non-Jews.
In yesterday's lesson, he said "selling to [non-Jews], even for a lot of money, is not allowed. We won't let them take control of us here."
The former chief rabbi is the spiritual leader of the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox Shas party, which refused to comment on his remarks.
In recent months, some rabbis and right-wing activists have campaigned against the sale of apartments to Arabs, particularly in mixed Arab-Jewish towns.
Two focal points of this effort are the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev, where followers of Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg of the Yitzhar settlement have been active, and Safed, where a group of rabbis claimed two weeks ago that the call not to rent to Arabs is supported by halakha. The latter event unleashed a storm of controversy in the Knesset, and led to stone-throwing last Saturday at Arab students' apartments in Safed.
The Abraham Fund Initiatives, which promotes coexistence between Jews and Arabs, condemned Rabbi Yosef's latest remarks, describing them as racist and having deepened the alienation between Jews and Arabs in Israel.
The organization said that the leader of a Sephardi-based movement, a community the Abraham Fund said had suffered from neglect and discrimination for many years, would be expected not to lend a hand to incitement, but instead work to promote tolerance.
http://bit.ly/aRVKCp 5 jan 2012, 14:18 , Respect
Maria Israeli Rabbi Calls for Genocide of Palestinians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLb_AmCi_4E
5 jan 2012, 14:18 , Respect
Maria 3 nov 2010
Israeli Rabbis Defend Book's Shocking Religious Defense of Killing Non-Jews
When I went into the Jewish religious book emporium, Pomeranz, in central Jerusalem to inquire about the availability of a book called Torat Ha'Melech, or the King's Torah, a commotion immediately ensued. "Are you sure you want it?" the owner, M. Pomeranz, asked me half-jokingly. "The Shabak [Israel's internal security service] is going to want a word with you if you do." As customers stopped browsing and began to stare in my direction, Pomeranz pointed to a security camera affixed to a wall. "See that?" he told me. "It goes straight to the Shabak!"
As soon as it was published late last year,Torat Ha'Melech sparked a national uproar. The controversy began when an Israeli tabloid panned the book's contents as "230 pages on the laws concerning the killing of non-Jews, a kind of guidebook for anyone who ponders the question of if and when it is permissible to take the life of a non-Jew." According to the book's author, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, "Non-Jews are "uncompassionate by nature" and should be killed in order to "curb their evil inclinations." "If we kill a gentile who has has violated one of the seven commandments%u2026 there is nothing wrong with the murder," Shapira insisted.
Citing Jewish law as his source (or at least a very selective interpretation of it) he declared: "There is justification for killing babies if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us, and in such a situation they may be harmed deliberately, and not only during combat with adults."
In January, Shapira was briefly detained by the Israeli police, while two leading rabbis who endorsed the book, Dov Lior and Yaakov Yosef, were summoned to interrogations by the Shabak. However, the rabbis refused to appear at the interrogations, essentially thumbing their noses at the state and its laws.
And the government did nothing. The episode raised grave questions about the willingness of the Israeli government to confront the ferociously racist swathe of the country's rabbinate. "Something like this has never happened before, even though it seems as if everything possible has already happened," Israeli commentator Yossi Sarid remarked with astonishment. "Two rabbis [were] summoned to a police investigation, and announc[ed] that they will not go. Even settlers are kind enough to turn up."
In response to the rabbis' public rebuke of the state's legal system, the Israeli Attorney General and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu kept silent. Indeed, since the publication of Torat Ha'Melech, Netanyahu has strenuously avoided criticizing its contents or the author's leading supporters. Like so many prime ministers before him, he has been cowed into submission by Israel's religious nationalist community. But Netanyahu appears to be particularly impotent.
His weakness stems from the fact that the religious nationalist right figures prominently in his governing coalition and comprises a substantial portion of his political base. For Netanyahu, a confrontation with the rabid rabbis could amount to political suicide, or could force him into an alliance with centrist forces who do not share his commitment to the settlement enterprise in the West Bank.
On August 18, a pantheon of Israel's top fundamentalist rabbis flaunted their political power during an ad hoc congress they convened at Jerusalem's Ramada Renaissance hotel. Before an audience of 250 supporters including the far-right Israeli Knesset member Michael Ben-Ari, the rabbis declared in the name of the Holy Torah that would not submit to any attempt by the government to regulate their political activities -- even and especially if those activities included inciting terrorist attacks against non-Jews.
As one wizened rabbi after another rose up to inveigh against the government's investigation of Torat Ha'Melech until his voice grew hoarse, the gathering degenerated into calls for murdering not just non-Jews, but secular Jews as well.
"The obligation to sacrifice your life is above all others when fighting those who wish to destroy the authority of the Torah," bellowed Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira, head of the yeshiva in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan. "It is not only true against non-Jews who are trying to destroy it but against Jewish people from any side."
The government-funded terror academy:
The disturbing philosophy expressed in Torat Ha'Melech emerged from the fevered atmosphere of a settlement called Yitzhar located in the northern West Bank near the Palestinian city of Nablus. Shapira leads the settlement's Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, holding sway over a small army of fanatics who are eager to lash out at the Palestinians tending to their crops and livestock in the valleys below them.
One of Shapira's followers, an American immigrant named Jack Teitel, has confessed to murdering two innocent Palestinians and attempting to the kill the liberal Israeli historian Ze'ev Sternhell with a mail bomb. Teitel is suspected of many more murders, including an attack on a Tel Aviv gay community center.
Despite its apparent role as a terror training institute, Od Yosef Chai has raked in nearly fifty thousand dollars from the Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs since 2007, while the Ministry of Education has pumped over 250 thousand dollars into the yeshiva's coffers between 2006 and 2007.
The yeshiva has also benefited handsomely from donations from a tax-exempt American non-profit called the Central Fund of Israel. Located inside the Marcus Brothers Textiles store in midtown Manhattan, the Central Fund transferred at least thirty thousand to Od Yosef Chai between 2007 and 2008.
Though he does not name "the enemy" in the pages of his book, Shapira's longstanding connection to terrorist attacks against Palestinian civilians exposes the true identity of his targets. In 2006, Shapira was briefly held by Israeli police for urging his supporters to murder all Palestinians over the age of 13.
Two years later, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz, he signed a rabbinical letter in support of Israeli Jews who had brutally assaulted two Arab youths on the country's Holocaust Remembrance Day.
That same year, Shapira was arrested under suspicion that he helped orchestrate a rocket attack against a Palestinian village near Nablus. Though he was released, Shapira's name arose in connection with another act of terror, when in January, the Israeli police raided his settlement seeking the vandals who set fire to a nearby mosque. After arresting ten settlers, the Shabak held five of Shapira's confederates under suspicion of arson.
Friends in high places:
Despite his longstanding involvement in terrorism, or perhaps because of it, Shapira counts Israel's leading fundamentalist rabbis among his supporters. His most well-known backer is Dov Lior the leader of the Shavei-Hevron yeshiva at Kiryat Arba, a radical Jewish settlement near the occupied Palestinian city of Hebron and a hotbed of Jewish terrorism. Lior has vigorously endorsed Torat Ha'Melech, calling it "very relevant, especially in this time."
Lior's enthusiasm for Shapira's tract stems from his own eliminationist attitude toward non-Jews. For example, while Lior served as the IDF's top rabbi, he instructed soldiers: "There is no such thing as civilians in wartime%u2026 A thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail!" Indeed, there are only a few non-Jews whose lives Lior would demand to be spared. They are captured Palestinian militants who, as he once suggested, could be used as subjects for live human medical experiments.
Otherwise, Lior appears content to watch Palestinians perish as they did at the muzzle of Dr. Baruch Goldstein's machine gun in 1994. Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinians and wounded 150 in a shooting spree while they prayed in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs mosque, was a compatriot and neighbor of Lior in the settlement of Kiryat Arba.
At Goldstein's funeral, Lior celebrated the massacre as an act carried out "to sanctify the holy name of God." He then extolled Goldstein as "a righteous man." Thanks to Lior's efforts, a shrine to Goldstein was constructed in center of Kiryat Arba so that locals could celebrate the killer's deeds and pass his legacy down to future generations.
Though Lior's inflammatory statements resulted in his being barred from running for election to the Supreme Rabbinical Council, according to journalist Daniel Estrin, the rabbi remains "a respected figure among many mainstream ZIonists." By extension, he maintains considerable influence among religious elements in the IDF.
In 2008, when the IDF's chief rabbi, Brigadier General Avichai Ronski, brought a group of military intelligence officers to Hebron for a special tour, he concluded the day with a private meeting with Lior, who was allowed to revel the officers with his views on modern warfare -- "no such thing as civilians in wartime."
Besides Lior, Torat Ha'Melech has earned support from another nationally prominent fundamentalist rabbi: Yaakov Yosef. Yosef is the leader of the Hazon Yaakov Yeshiva in Jerusalem and a former member of Knesset. Perhaps more significantly, he is the son of Ovadiah Yosef, the former chief rabbi of Israel and spiritual leader of the Shas Party that forms a key segment of Netanyahu's governing coalition.
Yaakov Yosef has brought his influence to bear in defense of Torat Ha'Melech, insisting at the August 18 convention in Jerusalem that the book was no different than the Hagadah that all Jews read from on the holiday of Passover. The Hagadah contains passages about killing non-Jews and so does the Bible, Yosef reminded his audience. "Does anyone want to change the Bible?" he asked.
Bibi buckles:
Only days before direct negotiations in Washington between Israel and the Palestinian Authority planned for early September, Yaakov Yosef's 89-year-old father, Ovadiah delivered his weekly sermon. With characteristic vitriol, he declared: "All these evil people should perish from this world%u2026 God should strike them with a plague, them and these Palestinians."
The remarks have sparked an international furor and earned a stern rebuke from Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. "While the PLO is ready to resume negotiations in seriousness and good faith," Erekat remarked, "a member of the Israeli government is calling for our destruction."
Palestinian Israeli member of Knesset Jamal Zehalka subsequently demanded that the Israeli Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein put Yosef on trial for incitement. "If, heaven forbid, a Muslim spiritual leader were to make anti-Jewish comments of this sort," Zehalka said, "he would be arrested immediately."
Here was a perfect opportunity for Netanyahu to demonstrate sincerity about negotiations by shedding an extremist ally in the name of securing peace. All he had to do was forcefully reject Yosef's genocidal comments -- a feat made all the easier by the White House's condemnation of the rabbi. But the Israeli Prime Minister ducked for political cover instead, issuing a canned statement instead of a condemnation. "Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef's remarks do not reflect Netanyahu's views," the statement read, "nor do they reflect the position of the Israeli government."
By refusing to cut Yosef loose, his party remains a central actor in the Israeli government. Thus the statement by Netanyahu was not only weak. It was false.
Max Blumenthal is the author of Republican Gomorrah (Basic/Nation Books, 2009) has just been released. Contact him at [email protected].
http://www.imemc.org/article/59356
5 jan 2012, 14:18 , Respect
Maria 6 nov 2010
Radical students from Yitzhar launch campaign against MAG
Calling themselves 'Your Wreckers and Your Destroyers,' the group of anonymous activists from Samaria are operating in their rabbis' name in an effort to protest against civil servants and law-enforcement agencies.
Students of rabbis Yitzhak Ginsburg and Yitzhak Shapira from Yitzhar have embarked in recent weeks on a campaign targeting Military Advocate General Avichai Mendelblit. The students are behind a protest letter disseminated in the neighborhood of the major general, and are also the ones who publicized his address.
Calling themselves "Your Wreckers and Your Destroyers," the group of anonymous activists from Samaria are operating in their rabbis' name in an effort to protest against civil servants and law-enforcement agencies.
The group had targeted police prosecutors Merav Ettinger and Shiri Laufer, whom they accuse of persecuting right-wing activists, as well as Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan whose portfolio includes law enforcement in the West Bank. They have also targeted two Civil Administration inspectors living in the territories, Rami Ziv and Bentzi Kessler.
The group focuses on public relations activities, disseminating flyers and when they deem it necessary, protest rallies opposite the homes of the persons they consider a threat.
In recent weeks the students have stepped up their activities against Mendelblit. On the website, The Jewish Voice, they published a number of unsigned articles about the military advocate general. In them they emphasize the views of Rabbi Shapira, who argues that the lives of innocent Palestinians should not necessarily be spared if it means protecting soldiers.
'Dangerous trend'
"A dangerous trend has developed in recent years of elements within the army working against our soldiers in an effort to initiate investigations against soldiers and emasculate them," one of the articles stated. "This trend has strengthened significantly recently, since Operation Cast Lead, and in the public there are strong voices calling out for a change of this situation."
In another instance, Shuki Hess from Yitzhar published an article on the site in which he wrote that "Mendelblit is breaking the necessary trust between a soldier and his commander. In his hands the investigation has become a criminal instrument. The process which Mendelblit is leading, with the backing of leftist groups, endangers us both militarily and morally."
Last week, The Jewish Voice published Mendelblit's address in Petah Tikva. The flier handed out last week in Petah Tikva against Mendelblit was signed by the group.
"Avichai is responsible for the conviction of two Givati soldiers," it read. "This is not the only instance in which Mendelblit has sacrificed the lives of our soldiers. In many other cases, soldiers who gave their all for us found themselves on trial because of him. According to Jewish ethics the lives of our soldiers are more dear than the lives of enemy civilians, but apparently Avichai thinks otherwise."
http://bit.ly/ccC3Se
5 jan 2012, 14:18 , Respect
Maria 8 nov 2010
Bnei Brak rabbis: Don't rent to refugees
Six of ultra-Orthodox city's religious leaders sign halachic ruling forbidding locals to rent apartments to Africans. 'Yeshiva students scared to walk on street at night,' says neighborhood rabbi, calling upsurge in Sudanese residents a 'spiritual danger'.
A few months after the publication of a rabbis' petition calling to avoid renting apartments in Tel Aviv to African immigrants, rabbis in Bnei Brak issue a similar halachic ruling Monday, prohibiting residents to rent out apartments in the religious city and its surroundings to African refugees and illegal immigrants at large.
According to the halachic ruling, signed by six leading rabbis from the city's haredi sector, "This appeal is against a horrible act of lawlessness, by which apartment owners rent their property to illegal immigrants etc'. This phenomenon has grown into gigantic proportions, and nowadays the situation is intolerable," it read.
"It is not only a general nuisance but leads to more serious problems. Families have already appealed to us over fears they have for their children", stated the law which included a clear warning: "Those who rent out the apartments (to the immigrants) take responsibility for spiritual consequences on their heads be it".
One of the signatories, Pardes Katz Rabbi Menashe Zelicha, told Ynet: "The Sudanese refugees have become a great nuisance for the residents. Some residents felt uncomfortable in Tel Aviv, where the secular public has more access to the media. (The public) expressed resentment and made them feel unwanted, so one of them came here and called over all his friends."
Rabbi Zelicha claimed that "if it was only two or three Sudanese, then they would not have been noticed. But this is a neighborhood with 40,000 residents, and we're talking about a few thousand (refugees). They walk around bored, gather on street corners and drink beer. Yeshiva students turned to me and said they were scared to walk on the streets at night; it is a spiritual danger, and Pardes Katz has turned into Sudan."
The neighborhood's rabbi also lamented that one of the residents turned to him, complaining that a few of the refugees harassed his daughter: "It spoils the neighborhood's spirituality. Our young guys are drawn to them, and go speak with them. We are not against the Sudanese; the government must take care of them either by building them their own neighborhoods, or by deporting them," Zelicha argued.
'Don't want assimilation'
Bnei Brak City Council member Gedalyahu Ben Shimon noted that the refugees and illegal workers are the ones suffering injustice. "The State doesn't give them a respectable place, and allows them to assimilate in the haredi public which is known to be conservative and isolates itself from the street.
"We don't want assimilation inside haredi communities. During last Yom Kippur we noticed many foreign workers sitting around, smoking hookahs and drinking beers on the main street, which is usually shut on this day," Ben Shimon added.
The councilman stressed that this sort of behavior was disrespectful toward the haredi public. "There isn't a single Jew that would agree to desecrate this holiday, which is so important to the Jewish people. They didn't even know it was a day of complete rest, and thought people were yelling at them for no reason.
"The State needs to rehabilitate them in welfare and education institutions. Currently, their human dignity is being ridiculed, because they are good and nice people. The haredi public knows how to accept and love the other, but when it's not right it's just not right," he said.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3981441,00.html
5 jan 2012, 14:18 , Respect
Maria 9 nov 2010
Rabbis provoke riots in Israel's "most racist" city
The tranquility of Safed, a small city nestled high in the hills of the Upper Galilee close to the Lebanese border, is not usually disturbed except by the occasional pilgrimage by Madonna or other famous devotees of the Jewish mystical teachings of Kabbalah.
But in the past few weeks, Safed -- one of Judaism's four holy cities -- has been making headlines of a very different kind. Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, last week declared it "the most racist city in the country."
The unflattering, and hotly contested, epithet follows an edict from Safed's senior rabbis ordering residents not to sell or rent homes to "non-Jews" -- a reference to the country's Palestinian citizens, who comprise a fifth of Israel's population.
At an emergency meeting, called last month to discuss the dangers of "assimilation" caused by Palestinian men dating Jewish women, the 18 rabbis warned that Safed was facing an "Arab takeover." Jewish residents were told to inform on neighbors who try to sell or rent to Arabs.
The number of Palestinians in the city, though low, has been steadily rising as Safed Academic College has expanded. There are now some 1,300 Palestinian students enrolled at the school.
The rabbis' statements have provoked a series of riots by local religious Jews, in which several homes have been attacked to chants of "Death to the Arabs." In one recent incident, three Palestinian students were beaten as shots were fired.
So far three Jewish youths, including an off-duty policeman, have been charged with participating in the violence. The policeman is accused of firing his gun.
The anti-Arab campaign escalated last week as posters were plastered across the city threatening to burn down the home of an elderly Jew if he did not stop renting to Arab students.
The owner, 89-year-old Eli Zvieli, said the posters appeared after he received phone threats and visits from several rabbis warning him to change his mind.
Jamil Khalaili, 20, a physiotherapy student at the college who rents an apartment with a friend in a Jewish neighborhood, said the atmosphere in Safed was rapidly deteriorating.
"We're being treated like criminals, like we're trying to steal their homes," he said. "It's got the point where many of my friends are wondering whether to leave. I want to study here but not if it costs me my life."
Leading the opposition to the presence of Arab students in the city is Safed's chief rabbi, Shmuel Eliyahu, who is employed by the municipality as head of its religious council.
"When a non-Jew moves in, residents begin to worry about their children, about their daughters. Many Arab students have been known to date Jewish girls," he told Israel National News, the main news agency of the settlement movement.
The 18 rabbis issued their joint statement after learning of the city's plan to build a medical school, which is expected to draw Palestinian students from across the Galilee.
They urged Jewish residents to shun a "neighbor or acquaintance" who rents to Arabs. "Refrain from doing business with him, deny him the right to read from the Torah and similarly ostracize him until he renounces this harmful deed," it read.
They have been given backing by a former chief rabbi, Ovadia Yosef, who used a recent sermon to tell his followers that "selling to [non-Jews], even for a lot of money, is not allowed. We won't let them take control of us here."
Similar anti-Arab sentiments have been heard in two other Jewish cities in the Galilee, Karmiel and Upper Nazareth. Both were established decades ago as part of a government "Judaization" program to settle more Jews in the country's most heavily Palestinian-populated region.
In Karmiel, thirty kilometers west of Safed, ads in local newspapers have been promoting a special email address for residents to inform on neighbors planning to sell homes to Arabs. According to Ynet, a popular news website, the email account is overseen by officials for Oren Milstein, the city's deputy mayor until he was fired last week.
Adi Eldar, the mayor, said Milstein had "damaged the city's image" after he gave a newspaper interview in which he boasted that he had prevented the sale of thirty homes to Arab families.
Milstein's replacement as deputy mayor, Rina Greenberg, is a member of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party of Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister, who advocates ridding the country of many of its Palestinian citizens.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Upper Nazareth, Shimon Gapso, who is also allied with Yisrael Beiteinu, has announced plans to build a new neighborhood for 3,000 religious Jews to halt what he called the city's "demographic deterioration."
Hundreds of Palestinian families from neighboring Nazareth have relocated to the Jewish city to escape overcrowding. Today, one in eight of Upper Nazareth's 42,000-strong population is Palestinian.
In August, Gapso said he felt "as happy as if I had a new baby" at the news that 15 extremist families from the former Gaza settlement of Gush Katif were establishing a Jewish seminary in his city.
Hatia Chomsky-Porat, who leads Galilee activists for Sikkuy, a group advocating better relations between Jews and Palestinians, said: "The political atmosphere is growing darker all the time. Racism among Jews is entirely mainstream now."
In Safed, the Palestinian student body, heavily outnumbered by nearly 40,000 Jewish residents, has tried to keep a low profile. However, one small act of defiance appears to have further contributed to Jewish residents' fears of a "takeover."
Inhabitants awoke recently to find a Palestinian flag draped on the top of a renovated mosque -- one of the many old stone buildings in Safed that attest to the city's habitation long before Israel's establishment.
In 1948, when Jewish forces captured the town, Safed was a mixed city of 10,000 Palestinians and 2,000 Jews. All the Palestinian inhabitants were expelled, including a 13-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, now the president of the Palestinian Authority who continues to hold office under controversial emergency decrees extending his expired term.
Khaliali said the city's history appeared still to haunt many of its Jewish residents, who expressed fears that Arab students were there to reclaim refugee property as the vanguard of a movement for the Palestinian right of return.
It is not the first time Eliyahu, the son of a former chief rabbi of Israel, has been accused of inciting against the city's Arab population.
In 2002, during a wave of suicide attacks at the start of the second Palestinian intifada, he called on Safed college to expel all Palestinian students.
Two years later he launched a campaign against intermarriage, accusing Palestinian men of waging "another form of war" against Jewish women by "seducing" them.
He narrowly avoided prosecution for incitement in 2006 after he agreed to retract his earlier statements.
The Religious Action Center, a group of Reform movement Jews, and several Palestinian MPs have demanded that Yehuda Weinstein, the attorney-general, investigate Eliyahu and the other rabbis for incitement to violence.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11616.shtml
5 jan 2012, 14:18 , Respect
Maria 10 nov 2010
Bnei Brak to 'expose' landlords who rent out flats to Africans
City officials say landlords subdivide flats, cram refugees in them with 'total disregard for general population'.
Following the halachic ruling issued by rabbis in Bnei Brak's Pardes Katz neighborhood according to which residents are forbidden to rent out apartments to African migrants, the municipality announced Wednesday its inspectors would work in the coming days against landlords who illegally subdivide apartments and rent them out to "many Sudanese who have arrived recently."
Speaking to Ynet, Mayor Rabbi Yaakov Asher explained, "Police do not deal with them on grounds that they have refugee status, and this is the only way we found to tackle the phenomenon.
"We may reveal the names of landlords who rent out apartments to refugees, but not before they receive prior notice," he said.
The City of Bnei Brak has the authority to file charges against people who subdivide apartments. A city official said the phenomenon is expanding "as many Sudanese who lived near the central bus station in Tel Aviv have left because of the police station located nearby."
According to city officials, some landlords cram as many as 10 Sudanese refugees into the apartments and charge $100-200 from each of them.
One official said the City is considering the possibility of revealing the landlords' names "so the public will learn the identity of those whose personal monetary interests outweigh the harm caused to the general population."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3982899,00.html
5 jan 2012, 14:22 , Respect
Maria 11 nov 2010
Brooklyn Rabbi Milton Balkany convicted of extortion
(JTA) -- Brooklyn Rabbi Milton Balkany, a Jewish day school director and political activist, was convicted in federal court of extortion.
Balkany, 64, was found guilty Wednesday by a jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan of extortion, blackmail, wire fraud and making false statements.
He was convicted of trying to extort a $4 million donation to his school, Bais Yaakov of Midwood, from billionaire Steven Cohen's SAC Capital, using damaging information he obtained from an inmate at a federal prison where he served as a spiritual adviser.
Balkany will remain under house arrest until his sentencing on Feb. 18. He could face 20 years in prison.
The rabbi has been active in fund raising for Republican politicians and has lobbied in Washington for several causes.
http://bit.ly/afr1ha
5 jan 2012, 14:22 , Respect
Maria 12 nov 2010
America's giant Holocaust claims fraud - more than just a blip?
- http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/jerusalem-babylon-america-s-giant-holocaust-claims-fraud-more-than-just-a-blip-1.324242
The scam that defrauded the conference of $43 million earmarked for Holocaust survivors was not just a matter of a few bad apples.
You could almost say it was a crime without victims. Sure, $43 million were stolen over the last 16 years through false claims submitted to two funds run by the Claims Conference, the main organization that administers reparations to Jewish Holocaust survivors. And granted, six present and former employees of the organization were at the center of the scam, including the man in charge of overseeing both funds.
But hey, according to Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, "it's less than one percent of funds distributed under those programs" and no authentic Holocaust survivor received less because of the scam. Well, that's okay then.
And of course, no one is saying this on the record, but most of the money came from the German taxpayer. So don't expect any official recriminations from that quarter.
The Manhattan district attorney was full of praise for the Claims Conference's cooperation in the investigation, saying without its help "in ferreting out this alleged scheme to defraud them, it never would have been exposed." So now the conference will hire an international consulting firm to help it strengthen its anti-fraud measures and everything will be fine. We should have no worries about allowing the conference to remain the Jewish people's sole custodian not only of official reparations from the German government, but also of property confiscated from Jews by the Nazis in former East Germany and other countries, and recently for stolen art treasures as well.
But just a moment. Six employees may seem a small number in a large multinational company or a government agency, but less than 100 people work at the Claims Conference's headquarters in New York, where all the suspects were employed. So even assuming that no other employee was tainted by the corruption, this was not just a matter of a couple of rotten apples; it was a sizable group operating within the organization for 16 years. Sixteen years!
And it doesn't even seem like the fraud was that elaborate. Indeed, it was almost wholesale - 4,957 false one-time payments and 658 fake pension claims.
The conference claims in its defense that this is but a drop in the ocean when compared to the number of recipients to whom it has made payments over the years, over 600,000. But if 5,615 claims were so easily fabricated, who knows how many other thousands of fake Holocaust survivors have been collecting payments over the years? I can't even bear to check the Holocaust denial websites to see how they must be crowing right now.
It would be easy to simply blame the conference for incompetence. But that is only a small part of the problem. The organization has no lack of impressive professionals. For example, Reuven Merhav, the chairman of its executive committee, is a former senior Mossad official, ambassador and director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, whose investigative skills were at least sufficient to make him a member of the Turkel Committee that is now investigating May's botched raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla. (Justice Jacob Turkel, the eponymous committee's head, is another Claims Conference director. )
No, the real problem at the Claims Conference seems to have been complacency. From various hints and off-the-record remarks to the press, you get the impression that conference leaders are trying to blame Russian organized crime. Apparently all those indicted had links to the group in Brooklyn's Brighton Beach that ran the operation.
That may well be true. But how does that exonerate the senior executives who allowed members of this gang to serve in positions where they authorized hundreds of millions of dollars a year in payments? Were there no serious background checks?
The conference is nominally accountable to a board of directors representing 25 Jewish organizations from around the world, some of them large and influential, others archaic and unrepresentative of any real Jewish constituency. But what interest do any of these directors have in demanding a comprehensive overhaul of how the conference does business or appointing an external committee to review this latest scandal?
In addition to the money going to survivors, the conference distributes tens of millions of dollars annually to a long list of organizations loosely involved in Holocaust commemoration and education. Many of these institutions are subsidiaries of the organizations represented on Claims Conference board of directors. They are not interested in altering this cozy arrangement, despite claims by survivors' groups that in the final years of survivors' lives, every spare cent should be going to their welfare.
One former director did dare to break ranks: Zeev Bielski, the previous Jewish Agency chairman, demanded answers to some uncomfortable questions. When he did not receive them, he launched an independent audit of his own, revealing to the press that the conference had over $1 billion of liquid assets in reserve.
He also argued that Israel, as home to the majority of living survivors, should have more of a say in how the New York-based organization allocates funds. This, of course, was a grave breach of protocol, and the cash-strapped agency was punished: Funds for its projects were withheld. Bielski was forced to back down with a groveling apology. Others learned the lesson.
The Claims Conference is the richest, most powerful and least answerable old-boys network in the Jewish world. Yet it is entrusted not only with billions of dollars, but with a duty to the welfare of Holocaust survivors worldwide until the end of their days. And no amount of scandal, media exposes and political pressure is about to change that.
http://bit.ly/9vmeDw
5 jan 2012, 14:22 , Respect
Maria 13 nov 2010
Radical Judaism in Israel
Khalid Amayreh's article "Major Rabbi Says All We Non-Jews Are Donkeys, Created to Serve Jews" is an eye opener for the world that has no idea as to what the concept of "Gentile" means in Orthodox Judaism.
Amayreh's description "infra-human beings or quasi-animals" accurately depicts the attitude towards Gentiles in Jewish tradition. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef the spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party that "forms part of the ruling coalition" expressed the sentiments held by Israeli political and religious leaders:
"the sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews."
"Non-Jews were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world only to serve the People of Israel.
The lives of non-Jews in Israel are preserved by God in order to prevent losses to Jews In Israel, death has no dominion over them. With gentiles, it will be like any person. They need to die, but God will give them longevity. Why?
Imagine that one's donkey would die, they'd lose their money. This is his servant. That's why he gets a long life, to work well for this Jew."
In view of his large following Rabbi Yosef "is considered a major religious leader," "a prominent Torah sage" and an "authority on the interpretation of Talmud" that "enjoys the allegiance of hundreds of thousands of followers" the Sabbath homily that contained these remarks will affect countless Israelis, who subscribe to the fanatical notion that they are chosen by God to be the rulers of the world.
Numerous passages from the Tanakh (The Hebrew Bible) encourage similar notions: " Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, foreigners shall till your land and dress you vines; but you shall be called priests of the Lord, you shall be named ministers of our God; you shall enjoy the wealth of the nations, and in their riches you shall glory" (Isaiah 61:5-6).
Rabbi Yosef's "comparison between animals of burden and non-Jews," further elucidated in the following statement "Why are gentiles needed?
They will work, they will plow, they will reap; and we will sit like an effendi and eat" thus reflects the zealous notion expressed in Isaiah 61:5-6.
The Torah-and- Talmud-based prejudice against Gentiles has been taking place for centuries, encouraged by Jewish religious authorities (see The Tale of Christmas Trees at Hanukkah and Menorahs at Christmas). As the article on "Theodicy" enlightens, "God is always God, but by no means good to all."
According to the Oral Torah, God is good "to those who keep the Torah" (see Religious Intolerance in Classical Judaism).
The Halachic laws (the collective body of Jewish religious law, including the 613 biblical laws) as practiced by all Jews from the 9th to the 18th centuries and upheld by Orthodox Judaism today, permit the killing of Gentiles that have violated the seven Noachian Laws, which according to the Talmud, should be followed by all mankind.
The Yeshiva World News official website justified Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira's and Yossi Elitzur's Torah HaMelech's (The King's Torah) (see The Ugly Face of the Zionist Jihad:
The Halachic Guide for the Killing of Gentiles) permission to kill Gentiles with the following statement: "The sefer [Hebrew for book] adds that killing a non-Jew who has violated the Seven Mitzvos [Hebrew for commandments] given to non-Jews because we care about torah and mitzvos, then this is acceptable. It stresses the importance of Eretz Yisrael, the halachic requirements of the land, and living within a torah framework."
According to Jewish Encyclopaedia, "the barbarian Gentiles who could not be prevailed upon to observe law and order" were not supposed to benefit from the Jewish civil laws, "framed to regulate a stable and orderly society," "based on reciprocity."
Deuteronomy 33:2 that refers to Moses' farewell address to the Jews "[2] The LORD came from Sinai, and rose from Seir unto them; He shined forth from mount Paran, and He came from the myriads holy, at His right hand was a fiery law unto them" is interpreted to mean that God "offered the Torah to the Gentile nations also, but since they refused to accept it, He withdrew His 'shining' legal protection from them, and transferred their property rights to Israel, who observed His Law."
The Jewish Encyclopaedia justifies the discrimination against Gentiles, connecting it to "the vile and vicious character of the Gentiles." Moreover, Gentiles are considered unreliable "it would be quite unsafe to trust a Gentile as a witness, either in a criminal case or in a civil suit. He could not be depended upon to keep his promise or word of honour like a Jew." The Talmud comments on the dishonesty of Gentiles "a band of strange children whose mouth speaketh vanity and their right hand [in raising it to take an oath] is a right hand of falsehood."
Rabbi Yosef's call for a "plague on Mahmoud Abbas" or his wish for Abbas "to vanish from our world" is rooted in Classical Judaism that discriminates against Gentiles. Halacha 16 in Chapter Nine of the Tractate Avodah Zarah from Mishneh Torah by Maimonides Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, born at Cordova March 30, 1135, died at Cairo December 13, 1204, whose acronym forms "Rambam" states:
"A Jewish woman should not nurse the child of an idolater, since, by doing so, she raises a son who will be an idolater. She should not serve as a midwife for an idolatrous woman [without charge]. She may, however, do so for a fee, lest strife arise. An idolatrous woman may serve as a midwife for a Jewess and nurse her child. [This must be done] in premises belonging to a Jew, lest the idolatrous woman kill the child."
The prejudice against Gentiles is curbed down only in fear of creating a negative posture against Jews living among Gentiles "lest strife arise" but not out of empathy.
Halacha 2 in Chapter Ten explains: "It is forbidden to offer medical treatment to an idolater even when offered a wage. If, however, one is afraid of the consequences or fears that ill feeling will be aroused, one may treat them for a wage, but to treat them free is forbidden." An exception to the prohibition occurs when a doctor treats a Ger Toshav a resident, who accepts monotheism and upholds the seven Noachian Laws: "[With regard to] a ger toshav, since we are commanded to secure his well-being, he may be given medical treatment at no cost."
Besides its overtly discriminatory content, Halacha 1 in Chapter Ten illustrates its author's, anti-Gentile sentiments.
"We may not draw up a covenant with idolaters, which will establish peace between them [and us] and yet allow them to worship idols, as [Deuteronomy 7:2] states:
'Do not establish a covenant with them'. Rather, they must renounce their [idol] worship or be slain. It is forbidden to have mercy upon them, as [Deuteronomy, ibid.] states:
'Do not be gracious to them'.
Accordingly, if we see an idolater being swept away or drowning in the river, we should not help him. If we see that his life is in danger, we should not save him. It is, however, forbidden to cause one of them to sink or push him into a pit or the like, since he is not waging war against us." The prohibition against saving a Gentile's life comes from a Talmudic interpretation of Leviticus 19:18 "[18] Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" where the Hebrew "re'akha," rendered as "thy neighbour," "thy fellow" or "thy friend" in various translations, is interpreted as "thy fellow Jew," not any fellow human being.
Consequently, Leviticus 19:16 "[16] Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people;
neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbour" is interpreted as an injunction against standing idly when the life of a fellow Jew is in danger, but not when the life of a Gentile is threatened.
The phrase "Rather, they must renounce their [idol] worship or be slain" is justified through Deuteronomy 20:17 that states:
"Thou shalt utterly destroy them." Thus "any gentile who does not accept the seven universal laws commanded to Noah and his descendants should be slain."
Two qualifying statements "Surely, this applies to nations which we conquer" and "Anyone who chances upon one of them and does not kill them violates a negative commandment, as [Deuteronomy 20:16] states:
'Do not allow a soul to live'" further clarify the murderous intent of Halacha 1. The rule indiscriminately applies to all Gentiles. But it is a "mitzvah to eradicate Jewish traitors, minnim, and apikorsim, and to cause them to descend to the pit of destruction, since they cause difficulty to the Jews and sway the people away from God, {as did Jesus of Nazareth and his students, and Tzadok, Baithos, and their students. May the name of the wicked rot.}."
The Commentary on the "mitzvah to eradicate Jewish traitors" states: "This refers to a person who betrays either Jewish lives or Jewish property to gentiles It is a mitzvah to kill a traitor wherever he is located. [This applies] even in the present era when cases involving capital punishment are not tried.
It is permitted to kill him before he betrays [someone].
Whoever kills him first merits. If, however, the traitor accomplished his objective and betrayed [a Jew to the gentiles], it is forbidden to kill him unless we presume that he will betray others."
In light of the present discussion, Rabbi Mordecahi Eliyahu's attitudes towards civilians in Gaza or the victims of the Asian Tsunami "those who died were paying for their governments' support of the Palestinians" can be identified as relating to Talmud's position towards Gentiles.
Talmud's interpretation of the Commandment against stealing is a good example. Exodus 20:12 "Thou shalt not steal" is understood to mean "Not to kidnap a Jewish person (see article 243), while the same law in Leviticus 19:11 "Ye shall not steal" is interpreted as an injunction against "stealing money" (see article 244).
Since the interpretation of "thy neighbour," "thy fellow" or "thy friend" is fixed to mean "thy fellow Jew" and not "thy fellow human being," article 285 referring to an injunction against giving "false testimony," article 297 against the "neglect" of "thy neighbour" (Leviticus 19:16) "in mortal danger" and articles 301, 302, 303, 304, 305 referring to injunctions against "gossip," "bearing hatred," "embarrassing any Jewish person," "taking revenge" and "bearing a grudge" restrict these acts only when they are committed against a "fellow Jew."
"Utter destruction" and "annihilation" are presented as a Positive Commandment and the prohibition against having mercy upon Gentiles, as a Negative Commandment, "one of the 613 mitzvot of the Torah." The decree that even peaceful Gentiles that are not at war with the Jews do not deserve to be saved is justified on purely religious grounds "Our Sages declared,
'Kill even the best of the gentiles'," or "Any gentile who does not accept the seven universal laws commanded to Noah and his descendants should be slain."
In an attempt to validate the decision, two qualifying statements follow: "These directives, however, can be interpreted to apply only in a time of war or in a time when the Jews have control over the gentiles. When the Jews are in exile or must take into consideration the dictates of gentile authorities, an idolater cannot be slain merely because of the sin of idol worship."
In other words, intolerance towards other beliefs part and parcel of the Talmudic teaching and the genocidal nature of the halachic laws become fully evident at times of war, Jewish autonomy, and Jewish power over Gentiles.
The same laws are modified or dispensed with at times when Israel is "subject to the good will of the gentile powers." "Hence, the laws mentioned in this halacha cannot be put into practice at present."
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's likening of "non-Jews to donkeys and beasts of burden" is in line with his attitude towards the U.S. President Barack Obama, whom he likened to a "slave" ruling over slaves. "We are being ruled by slaves," the spiritual leader of Shas pronounced in relation to the proposed "freeze" of settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Rabbi Yosef articulated the sentiments of many who do not have the political muscle to dictate their will to the President of Israel's Godfather, the United States.
His weekly sermon contained the following statement:
"What right do they have to tell us 'here you can build, here you can't build We are not their slaves," partially aired on Israeli radios a fact of great importance, dismissed by most commentators. Publicly inciting hatred against a U.S. president, because of the Administration's demands to "halt settlement activity," should have sent shock-waves around the world and opened the eyes of Americans as to the cunning nature of this so-called close ally. Yet, it didn't because the Zionist Media deliberately kept it off the news (see The Hijacked Democracy and the Zionist Media).
The radical views expressed in Rabbi Yosef's other remarks did not make to the headlines either he "referred to Arabs and Palestinians as "snakes" and "vipers" who were "swarming like ants."
Nor did the Iraqi born former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel spare his own "He called on God to strike down then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon over the 2005 withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip, and during the Lebanon war in July-August 2006, implied that Israeli soldiers killed in battle died because they didn't follow Jewish commandments."
The views articulated by the leader of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party are shared by Prime Minister Netanyahu who told his Cabinet "there would be no limits on Jewish construction anywhere in 'unified Jerusalem':
"We cannot accept the fact that Jews wouldn't be entitled to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem." Netanyahu's argument that calls for Israeli sovereignty over the entire city of Jerusalem is echoed in Rabbi Yosef's question: "Where is our Temple?
There are Arabs there!" and promise that the messiah "will throw all these evil ones out of here."
The presence of the Noble Sanctuary or Haram Al-Sharif in Arabic on The Temple Mount or Har Habayit in Hebrew (har Hebrew for "mount," "hill," "mountain"; bayit Hebrew for "house" with an attached definite article ha) is an irritant for radical rabbis like Ovadia Yosef and others.
The Orthodox Yeshiva Ateret Cohanim also known as Ateret Yerushalayim, founded by Motti Dan Hacohen, since its establishment in 1978, has helped Israeli Jews move to East Jerusalem and settle in the Arab neighbourhoods of the Old City, to solidify their presence near the Temple Mount in preparation for rebuilding the Third Temple.
The Ateret Yerushalayim's website calls The Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem "the holiest spot in the world" without, however, mentioning that this "holiest spot in the world" is called the Noble Sanctuary or Haram Al-Sharif in Arabic, and is as holy for Muslims as it is for Jews.
Orthodox Jews insist that the Noble Sanctuary must be destroyed before the Third Temple can be built. According to Desmond Alexander and Simon Gathercole, Chaim Richman of the Temple Institute claims that "detailed blueprints for the Third Temple have existed for several years" and other buildings related to the future Temple are "planned or have already been built," including a replica Sanhedrin, in the Jewish Quarter.
In 1982, Yoel Lerner, a member of Meir Kahane's racist Kach Party, who had served a three-year sentence for "plotting to overthrow the Israeli government" and establish a Torah-based theocracy, was convicted and sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for attempting to blow up the Dome of the Rock because he believed the site was once the place where an ancient Jewish Temple had stood and that Jews must insure the coming of the Messiah by removing obstacles like the Dome of the Rock:
"The Messiah will come to earth only after the temple is rebuilt and made ready for him." Ateret Yerushalayim's website announces that the Yeshiva "sees as its purpose the preparation of young men, from all strands of Israeli society, to love Torah and to be G-d-fearing" but avoids citing its head Rabbi Shlomo Aviner's statement quoted by Gideon Levy in his Haaretz article of June 1, 1998, entitled "The High Priests of Calamity":
"We will settle more and more of our holy city, until all of it is ours [we] won't be able to buy all the houses in the city Instead, [we] will make the [Arab] residents' life so bitter that the latter will eventually have to flee the city."
Similarly, the website proudly announces that "they follow in the footsteps of revered teacher Ha-Rav Avraham Yitzchak Ha-Cohain Kook and his son Rabbi Ha-Rav Tzvi Yehudah [Kook]" but fails to mention that Rabbi Abraham Kook taught Jewish supremacy:
"The difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews all of them in all different levels is greater and deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle."
Neither does it mention the fact that the good rabbi's fanatical son, Rabbi Ha-Rav Tzvi Yehudah Kook, founded the extremist group Gush Emunim with the slogan:
"The Land of Israel, for the people of Israel, according to the Torah of Israel" and that Gush Emunim believes that "God created the world for Jews, others are lesser beings, Greater Israel belongs to Jews alone, and holy wars are acceptable to attain it."
Rabbi Shlomo Aviner's educational background includes the fundamentalist religious school Merkaz Harav in Jerusalem, founded and headed by Rabbi Abraham Kook from 1924 to 1935, headed by Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Harlap form 1935 to 1951 and Rabbi Abraham Kook's son, Tzvi Yehudah Kook from 1951 to 1982, but omits to summarize the teachings of the Yeshiva:
"Non-Jews living under Jewish law in Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) must either be enslaved as water carriers and wood hewers, or banished, or exterminated" (see The Zionist Experiment of Eretz Israel).
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's notion of Gentiles as "infra-human beings," or "quasi-animals" follows a well-established tradition in Orthodox Judaism. The critical question of the Oral Torah: "Might one suppose that God is good to all?" is answered in the negative.
Moreover, the gentile solution "to the theology of world order" is considered "thin" and "one-dimensional"
"the gentiles serve God's will in ruling Israel, thereby punishing Israel for its sin, but will themselves give way to Israel at the last nicely served."
In the eyes of Westerners, the notion of religious fundamentalism is erroneously linked to Islam (see In the Shadow of the Commandments of Religion and The Zionist Strategy of Demonizing Islam).
Yet, Islamic fundamentalism has its counterpart in Israel in the form of radical Judaism. Unlike Israeli political leaders that since the Six-Day War of 1967 have adopted a policy of downright duplicity (see America Is Easy to Push Around), whereby religious zealots are criticized in public only to be complimented in private Ateret Yerushalayim's approbation by Ehud Olmert, who called it "fighters on the Jerusalem front," Benjamin Netanyahu, who praised its work as "the expression of an age-old aspiration," and Teddy Kollek, a moderate by reputation, who supported its actions, are examples out of so many Israeli radical religious leaders express their views freely.
As appalling as their comments are, these, nevertheless, serve to enlighten the rest of humanity to the true nature of radical Judaism. What these modern-day pseudo-prophets don't realize is the simple truth that the deep-seated beliefs of "chosen people," "superior race" and the myth of their entitlement to rule over inferior races affect not only the way in which Jews relate to the world but also how the world relates to the Jews.
* Anait Brutian (B. Mus. with Honours in Theory, McGill University; M. A. in Music Theory, McGill University) is a student in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill. Her previous research includes a self-published book entitled: Reconciling Geometry, Rhetoric and Harmony: A Fresh Look at C. P. E. Bach. She is currently working on another book on mathematical paradigms in literature (Old and New Testaments), art, architecture, and music. She can be contacted at [email protected]
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2010/11/13/radical-judaism-in-israel/
5 jan 2012, 14:22 , Respect
Maria 15 nov 2010
Rabbis: Falash Mura must convert
Haredi officials clarify Ethiopians Jews slated to immigrate Israel will have trouble marrying if they fail to undergo strict conversion process.
Ultra-Orthodox conversion officials clarified Sunday evening that the 7,846 members of the Falash Mura slated to immigrate to Israel from Ethiopia will have to undergo a strict conversion to Judaism. Those who fail to do so, the officials warned, would not be recognized as Jews and will have trouble marrying in Israel.
Rabbi Nachum Eisenstein, chairman of the International Rabbinical Committee on Conversions, who is considered an associate of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, leader of the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox community, told Ynet that the conversion must include the acceptance of a religious lifestyle as a condition for approving the immigrants' Judaism.
According to Eisenstein, this process is referred to as "strict conversion" but it is similar to regular conversion according to Jewish Law.
No one can rule that the Falah Mura members are Jews according to the Halacha, Eisenstein explained, as hundred and maybe even thousands of years have passed since this was a known fact in the families of origin.
He added that he and his fellow rabbis had many reasons to oppose this immigration, which could cause "many genealogy problems among the people of Israel", but that they were not objecting because of the issue's current political aspect.
Other rabbis, who have been working to bring the Falash Mura to Israel, confirmed that the immigrants would have to undergo "strict conversion." However, they said they were convinced that the process would be much easier than the conversion of immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
'Accustomed to religious lifestyle'
Rabbi Menachem Waldman, director of the Shvut Am institute and an expert on Ethiopian Jewry, explained to Ynet that many of the community members converted to Christianity starting in the late 19th century for about 50 years. From a halachic point of view a Jew cannot convert, so they are still considered Jewish, but their offspring must not convert for fear that some of them had married Christian women.
According to Waldman, who was sent the Chief Rabbinate to probe the issue in the past, the Falah Mura are direct descendants of Ethiopia's Jews and so their status must be similar. "I don't call it conversion but rather 'a return to Judaism,' he said, "even if it's basically the same thing."
Waldman added that the need to convert would not pose a problem for the Ethiopians, as they come from a religious country and have been holding a halachic lifestyle.
"The Falash Mura members prayed three times a day, maintained the sanctity of their family and lived a Jewish life back there, and when they immigrate to Israel they send their children to study in religious educational institutions," he said.
According to Waldman, the situation is more complicated among immigrants from the former Soviet Union, as the Halacha forces them to observe mitzvot in order to be recognized as Jews but this is not a lifestyle they are accustomed to.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3984875,00.html
Israel ethnically cleansing Ethiopian Jews with abortion pill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwvEWlEv5f4#t=17
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrOMDZt2xeo
Likud rebels turn to Rabbi Yosef
Rabbi Yosef and Minister Yishai
Settler leaders, Likud MKs convene in Minister Yuli Edelstein's office for emergency meeting ahead of cabinet's approval of 90-day settlement construction moratorium. MK Danon sends letter to Shas spiritual leader, says 'he has the power to stop the freeze'.
Likud Knesset members convened Monday afternoon in the office of Information and Diaspora Minister Yuli Edelstein in the Knesset for an "emergency meeting" ahead of the cabinet's approval of an additional 90-day settlement construction freeze.
MK Danny Danon announced during the meeting that he had sent a letter to Shas' spiritual leader Rabi Ovadia Yosef. "We will exert every effort to prevent the freeze," he said. "The key is in Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's hands. If Shas ministers abstain in the cabinet, the decision may pass."
Minister Edelstein
At the same time, Danon added, "we are working from here to stop the Israeli government from making such a decision, which will hurt the Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria."
The meeting was also attended by Coalition Chairman Zeev Elkin, MKs Yariv Levin and Tzipi Hotovely, and settler leaders including Yesha Council Director-General Naftali Bennett.
"We oppose the freeze and will do all we can to stop it," said MK Levin. "It's an inappropriate decision. We must say no to an additional building freeze in Judea and Samaria."
Rebels' meeting (Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg)
Minister Edelstein stressed the urgency of the matter in light of a cabinet meeting scheduled for Wednesday. "We have 48 hours to operate," he said. "Any decision made by Israel is a one-way decision and we have no way out."
MK Hotovely said, "The battle will be effective by expanding the ranks. We must not let the ideological ministers off the hook. They must be more decisive on the freeze and voice their opinion.
MK Elkin said the government's make-up may change soon. "We must understand that we are facing possible changes in the coalition. We are at a decisive point in terms of the coalition's composition. We already have replacements."
MK Levin
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu currently has ministers in favor of the three-month building freeze on his Political-Security Cabinet: Netanyahu himself, Ehud Barak, Yuval Steinitz, Yaakov Ne'eman, Dan Meridor, Gideon Sa'ar, and Binyamin Ben-Eliezer.
Six ministers plan to vote against the freeze: Avigdor Lieberman, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, Moshe Ya'alon, Silvan Shalom, Benny Begin and Uzi Landau. Shas Ministers Eli Yishai and Ariel Atias are expected to abstain. If the two Shas ministers decided to oppose the extended freeze, Netanyahu will lose the vote.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3984924,00.html
Rightist acquitted of attacking leftist
Judge rules circumstances of 'minor incident' involving Noam Federman, Breaking the Silence activist do not justify conviction.
Extreme right-wing activist Noam Federman was acquitted of attacking an activist of the left-wing Breaking the Silence organization on Monday. The incident took place three years ago near the grave of Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli physician who killed 29 Muslim worshippers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994.
Jerusalem Magistrate's Court Judge Yitzhak Shimon wrote in his ruling that "this was a minor incident which did not cause any damage", and that "the circumstances of the incident and the public interest do not justify Federman's conviction."
This wasn't the first time Federman faced a court of law. In September 2009, he was sentenced to four months in prison, which were exchanged with community service, after being convicted of inciting racism.
He was charged following remarks he made on a TV show: "There are delusional people who say we can live with the Arabs in coexistence. There are delusional people who say I can live together with cancer. What is a good Arab? An Arab who has yet to murder Jews? It's hard to find such people these days."
A few months earlier, a Jerusalem District Judge ordered the police to pay Federman NIS 5,000 (about $1,365) in damages following a false arrest in April 2006.
In the past Federman was also accused of possessing weapons, arms offenses, and being the mastermind behind the "Bat Ayin Underground", which plotted to target Arabs. During the trial the State Prosecutor's Office reneged on the indictment against him.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3984649,00.html
5 jan 2012, 14:22 , Respect
Maria 16 nov 2010
Rabbi threatens to support Lieberman as Prime Minister
Levanon speaks at emergency conference against the emerging possibility that Netanyahu would extend the building moratorium.
Rabbi Elyakim Levanon, head of the Elon Moreh Yeshiva, warned Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday night that if he broke his word and prolonged the construction freeze, prominent rabbis from the national-religious sector would call on their flocks to support Israel Beiteinu leader Avidgor Lieberman as the next prime minister.
Levanon was the last speaker at an emergency conference that took place in Jerusalem regarding the emerging possibility that Netanyahu would extend the construction moratorium.
The rabbi did not mention Lieberman by name, but he left no doubt as to who the leader of a big party, who tells the truth and has aspirations to be prime minister was, nor did he disregard the problems we have with some of his policies, such as on conversions.
Unlike Netanyahu, Levanon said, Lieberman will continue to speak the truth as the head of the state.
A member of the Knesset who lied in court lost his seat, he said of Kadima's Tzahi Hanegbi, but a prime minister who lied to an entire nation carries on as if nothing happened how could such a thing be? Participating in the Jerusalem gathering were some of the most senior rabbis from the national-religious sector, including Beit El Yeshiva head Rabbi Zalman Melamed, Or Etzion Yeshiva head Rabbi Haim Druckman, Mercaz Harav Yeshiva leader Rabbi Ya'acov Shapira, former rabbinical courts head Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, and some 80 others.
Most of the other speakers, however, were more positive in their addresses, and stressed the need to join forces and provide backing to the premier, who should under no circumstances agree to another freeze.
Shas received special attention as the party representing our brother in heart and soul in spreading Torah and faith, in the words of Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira, head of the Ramat Gan Yeshiva.
Don't hide the truth from [Shas mentor] Rabbi Ovadia Yosef you are building the bridge for this freeze, he said. It all depends on you; have courage.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel
On Bribes, Begging, and Lunacy
Nothing quite says "we encourage you to make peace with your neighbors" like a shipment of advanced weaponry.
If you thought the recent move by the United States to offer the Israelis $3 billion more than the $3 billion a year they get anyway in the form of advanced military fighter planes was farcical enough, guess again.
First, if you missed some of the reaction to Obama's offer, Mark Perry hit the nail on the head when he wrote:
The Obama Administration's newest promise to Israel is abject, embarrassing and gutless. Our country -- our president -- is rewarding a foreign leader who openly boasts that America "is something that can easily be moved," who urges a waiting game with the U.S. because he knows that Israel's friends in the Congress will defy a president who opposes him, who tells his cabinet that he will outfox Barack Obama. We are paying Israel to do something that is in their own interests -- and very much not in ours. That's extortion.
Christopher Hitchens, who seemed to resemble a previous version of himself in this piece, also described the situation well.
But this is where it gets loonier. This report from the Canadian Press seems to confirm Hitchens' worst suspicions:
The future of the Mideast peace process could rest in the hands of one very undiplomatic man: an outspoken 90-year-old rabbi who recently sparked an uproar by saying the Palestinian president should "perish from the world."
The ultra-Orthodox Shas Party is expected to hold the swing vote when Cabinet ministers decide on a U.S. proposal to resume Mideast peace talks. The two Shas ministers participating in the decision are waiting for instructions from the party's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.
"All decisions go through the rabbi," said Roi Lachmanovitch, a spokesman for the Shas interior minister.
More on Yosef here. http://bit.ly/cMux7t
Does anyone else wonder why we care so much about Israeli domestic politics? I find it hard to think of another situation where we cater our foreign policy to the whims of a foreign governing coalition to the extent that we are willing to embarrass ourselves. For example, when the Palestinians elected a government the U.S. did not like, sanctions followed promptly. But the logic is somehow inverted when it comes to Israel. When the Israelis elect a government the U.S. doesn't like, well, then we reward them with everything we've got.
I know some are trying to make sense out of the Obama administration's move and are arguing that he has limited options given domestic constraints, but I just don't understand how rewarding Israel's incorrigible behavior could be a good thing.
It seems like we are in for several months, if not years, of more failed policy toward this conflict, and Congress certainly will not be of any help. I recently wrote about how Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen was in the twilight zone, and she isn't the only one. Check out the video of the Congressman below arguing that its the Palestinians who must end their settlement building (Yes, you read that right).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ls2R3NsvCw
Seriously, after all of this can anyone really claim to have optimism or even cautious (read: naive) optimism about the future of U.S. policy toward the conflict?
I suppose there is one thing to be optimistic about: at least the United States is still a country of opportunities because clearly anyone, regardless of I.Q., can be elected into Congress. Sigh.
http://bit.ly/9z2zxU
US Jewish groups slam rabbis anti-migrant decrees
ADL and AJC say fear, prejudice have nothing to do with religion in response to Bnei Brak rabbis' ban on renting apartments to newcomers.
US Jewish groups on Monday condemned rulings by rabbis in Bnei Brak that ban residents from renting apartments to African migrants.
The Anti-Defamation League on Monday called the decrees issued last week in the largely haredi city "biased pronouncements." Six leading haredi rabbis in Bnei Brak issued a ruling that follows a similar call in July by rabbis in nearby Tel Aviv.
"The decision to rent an apartment to another human being shouldn't be based on ethnic background," the statement issued from ADL's Israel office said.
"We encourage the rabbis to follow the Jewish tradition of tolerance and empathy toward other human beings. We call on the religious, political and civic leadership in Israel to stand by the democratic values of acceptance and understanding and speak out against these biased pronouncements."
The American Jewish Committee also condemned the pronouncements.
This injunction is inspired less by religious belief than by fear and prejudice," said Eliseo Neuman, the director of AJC's Africa Institute. "Instead of emphasizing the biblical duty to care for the guest in our midst, it legitimizes discrimination and stokes hostility, dangerously undermining the principles of equality and tolerance upon which the State of Israel is founded.
We call on the rabbinical community in Israel, including the Chief Rabbinate, to add its voice and authority in reversing this worrying trend. Israel does face social tensions as a result of the growing migration into the country, but these are only exacerbated by irresponsible pronouncements of this kind.
According to figures released by Israel's Population, Immigration and Borders Authority, and cited by AJC, the number of African migrants entering Israel this year has increased by 200 percent.
Approximately 27,000 undocumented migrants from countries across Africa -- many of them practicing Christians and Muslims -- are estimated to be living in Israel. While some are seeking asylum from persecution in countries such as Sudan and Eritrea, a large number venture to Israel for purely economic reasons.
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=195532
Settler convicted of kidnapping, abusing Palestinian teen
Shiloh resident Zvi Struk kidnapped 15-year-old boy, beat him and left him naked, blindfolded and bound in field. Yesh Din: Most Palestinian complaints end without indictment.
Zvi Struk from the settlement of Shiloh was convicted Sunday of kidnapping and abusing a bound 15-year-old Palestinian boy.
The 28-year-old settler is the son of Yesha Human Rights Organization head Orit Struk.
The indictment stated that Struk, arrived at an outpost located between Shiloh and Kfar Kusra in the West Bank. He arrived on a mini tractor and began to chase Palestinian youths at the scene.
The youths attempted to escape, but Struk cornered one of them and his friend, armed with Struk's M-16 rifle, began to fire in the air. According to the prosecution, Struk then began to beat the boy, who had put his hands up in surrender, and knocked him to the ground.
The indictment went on to say that Struk's friend continued to beat the boy while he chased another youth, beat him, and dragged him to the mini tractor bleeding. He then proceeded to blindfold and tie him to the tractor, and rode off with his hostage in tow.
Amran Farah after attack (Archive photo courtesy of Yesh Din)
The prosecution claimed that the boy, Amran Farah, lost consciousness during the ride, and was brought to an open field where the two suspects beat him, undressed him, and left him blindfolded and tied. He remained there for a number of hours, until he managed to untie himself and find a car to take him home.
The boy was hospitalized in Nablus, and diagnosed with multiple contusions and lesions all over his body.
Struk had attacked the boy two months earlier, the indictment stated, while the latter was herding sheep with a friend near the village. Struk told them to leave the land, claiming it was his, and then beat the two boys. The settler also killed a young goat belonging to the Palestinian.
Ynet reported Tuesday that Jerusalem District Court Judge Amnon Cohen convicted Struk of assault under severe circumstances, kidnapping with intent to cause severe bodily injury and three more counts of assault.
The Yesh Din human rights group, which accompanied the Palestinian boy throughout the trial, expressed satisfaction with the verdict, but said, "According to our data, some 90% of complaints filed by Palestinians against Israeli citizens that hurt them or their property end without an indictment."
Yesh Din stressed that Struk's accomplice was never caught.
5 jan 2012, 14:22 , Respect
Maria 17 nov 2010
Mideast Talks May Hinge on Fiery Rabbi
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party, at a Jerusalem synagogue in May.
Ahead of a delayed Israeli cabinet vote on a proposal to freeze West Bank settlement construction for 90-days in order to restart peace talks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opponents within his own governing coalition are both trying to win the support of two ministers from an ultra-Orthodox party who appear to hold the crucial swing votes.
On Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu met with Eli Yishai, the interior minister, and Ariel Atias, the housing and construction minister, who are both members of Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party of Sephardic Jews, Israel's Ynet News reported.
Handicapping in the Israeli press indicates that the Shas ministers have the power to block the moratorium in the closely-divided cabinet, or allow it to go ahead.
As the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported, in the past Mr. Yishai has said that his party's spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, had ordered him to steadfastly oppose the freeze in every way possible. Even so, the Shas ministers have recently hinted that they might be willing to abstain from voting and thus allow Mr. Netanyahu to win by a single vote. A previous 10-month building freeze was approved with the tacit support of Shas members who left the room before a vote on that proposal.
On Monday, Ynet News reported that a member of Mr. Netanyahu's party, Danny Danon, said during a meeting of Israeli settlers and their supporters that he had sent a letter to the 90-year-old Rabbi Yosef urging him to have the Shas ministers vote against the pause in settlement-building on territory occupied by Israel since 1967. We will exert every effort to prevent the freeze, Mr. Danon said. The key is in Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's hands.
A spokesman for the Shas interior minister confirmed that the ministers were waiting for instructions from Rabbi Yosef. All decisions go through the rabbi, Roi Lachmanovitch told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Daniel Estrin of The A.P. observed that this means, The future of the Mideast peace process could rest in the hands of one very undiplomatic man. Rabbi Yosef, who was branded an elderly Sephardic ayatollah, by Christopher Hitchens this week in Slate, has generated controversy with a decade-long string of inflammatory statements.
Last month, the cleric was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League for saying that Goyim, or non-Jews, were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world only to serve the People of Israel.
In sermon broadcast on Israeli radio in August, the cleric said that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and all these evil people should perish from this earth. He added, God should strike them and these Palestinians evil haters of Israel with a plague. (Weeks later, Rabbi Yosef seemed to recant those remarks in a letter to Egypt's president, Hosni Mubarak, in which he said that he blessed all the leaders and peoples Egyptians, Jordanians and Palestinians who are partners to this important process and want its success, a process that will bring peace to our region and prevent bloodshed.)
In previous years, Rabbi Yosef made headlines when he said that Hurricane Katrina was God's retribution for President George W. Bush's support of the expulsion of Israeli settlers from Gaza.
In Israel, he was most widely condemned for remarks made in 2000, when he said that Jews who died in the Holocaust had been paying for sins they had committed in previous lives.
As my colleague John Burns explained at the time, those comments by Rabbi Yosef, who was born in Baghdad when it was one-third Jewish, were seen as a reflection of the divisions between Ashkenazic Jews, whose families lived in Central and Eastern Europe, and Sephardic Jews, mainly from the Middle East and North Africa, whose political power has grown. Shas draws much of its support from working-class Sephardim.
http://nyti.ms/aiK7dq
5 jan 2012, 14:22 , Respect
Maria 18 nov 2010
Calls grow against judicial rabbi who signed letter banning renting to foreigners
Rabbi Dov Domb.
The Conservative Movement has asked State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss to launch an investigation into a Tel Aviv rabbinic court judge who signed a letter calling on people not to rent apartments to foreign workers.
"We ask you to open an extensive inquiry, which has become necessary due to the numerous cases in which rabbinic court judges, whose position is like that of any other judge, disrespect the public position they hold and take an active part in debates, struggles and political campaigns," the director general of the Conservative Movement, Yizhar Hess, wrote Lindenstrauss. Rabbi Andrew Sacks, director of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel, also wrote the letter.
Rabbi Dov Domb, who signed the letter written by a number of Bnei Brak rabbis, holds a position in the rabbinic court is equivalent to the head of a panel of judges in the secular court system.
Sacks and Hess wrote that the letter borders on incitement and is part of a racist public campaign.
"Unfortunately, this involvement by Rabbi Domb is not unusual. It shows the trend is spreading recently through the rabbinic courts and whose leader is the president of the High Rabbinic Court, Rabbi Shlomo Amar," they wrote.
The Conservative Movement says the conduct of Domb and Amar clearly contravenes the spirit of their post and the rules of proper administration and ethics incumbent on judges and rabbinic court judges.
Last week, a group of public figures and intellectuals asked Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to launch a criminal investigation against rabbis who rule that it is forbidden to rent apartments to non-Jews. The letter called such pronouncements were "chilling" racism, and requested the suspension of rabbis who made such rulings.
Among the signatories to the letter were Israel Prize winners in various fields and Michael Ben-Yair, a former attorney general.
The letter was handed to Weinstein by approximately 100 members of the Shomer Hatzair, Noar Haoved Vehalomed and Hamahanot Haolim youth movements.
A few days after the rabbis' letter was published, the Bnei Brak municipality announced it was taking steps to see to it that refugees and illegal aliens leave the city. It has threatened to release a list of names of people who rent apartments to refugees and illegal aliens and has begun to send city inspectors to the Bnei Brak neighborhood of Pardes Katz to check whether apartments have been subdivided without permits and are being rented to illegal foreigners. The city is said to have compiled a list of about 80 such apartments, which were reported by neighbors.
The rabbinic courts fall under the jurisdiction of the Justice Ministry. Ethical rules binding on judges determine that a judge must not express an opinion in public on a matter that is not judicial and is controversial.
http://bit.ly/cDYOqP
US State Dept. says Israel violates religious freedom
Religious Freedom Report places Israel with Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq and Sudan; cites lack of gov't protection for non-Jewish holy sites.
Government allocations favoring the Orthodox, extra legal protection to Jewish holy sites and Orthodox hegemony over life-cycle events are among Israel's religious freedom violations highlighted in a US State Department report released Wednesday.
The International Religious Freedom Report 2009 placed Israel in the section with countries "where violations of religious freedom have been noteworthy." Israel is in the same section as such countries as Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq and Sudan. Another section of the report highlights countries, some in the violators group, where positive developments have been seen; Israel does not appear in that category.
While Israel's Basic Law describes the country as a Jewish and democratic state, "Government policy continued to support the generally free practice of religion, although governmental and legal discrimination against non-Jews and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism continued," according to the report.
The report pointed out that "Government allocations of state resources favored Orthodox (including Modern and National Religious streams of Orthodoxy) and ultra-Orthodox (sometimes referred to as 'Haredi') Jewish religious groups and institutions, discriminating against non-Jews and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism."
The report also took issue with the fact that three Messianic Jews who attempted to immigrate to Israel during the reporting period were denied and that national identification documents differentiate between Jews and non-Jews.
The report pointed out that the state does not recognize conversions to Judaism performed in Israel by non-Orthodox rabbis and does not support non-Orthodox conversion institutions in the country. It also highlighted that the only in-country marriages recognized by the state are those performed by the "Orthodox Jewish establishment," and that exclusive control over marriages rests with it. The report also points out that the Orthodox Jewish establishment determines who can be buried in Jewish state cemeteries.
The report also takes issue with Israel's policy on holy sites.
"The 1967 Protection of Holy Sites Law applies to holy sites of all religious groups within the country and in all of Jerusalem, but the government implements regulations only for Jewish sites. Non-Jewish holy sites do not enjoy legal protection under it because the government does not recognize them as official holy sites," according to the report.
The report also cited the Egged bus company for operating sex-segregated buses along some lines, the prohibition against women wearing prayer shawls at the Western Wall and the government's disproportionate funding of synagogues over the places of worship of other religions. It also cited animosity between secular and religious Jews, as well as animosity against Messianic groups.
The report applauded the Supreme Court for ruling that the government must stop discriminating against non-Orthodox conversion institutes in regard to state funding and the Education Ministry's approval of the accreditation of the country's first fully independent Arab university, Mar Elias College.
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=195875
Rightist rabbis back Lieberman for PM
Rabbi Levanon: PM's a lier
In protest of freeze, rabbis dub Netanyahu a 'fraud', call on Shas not to abstain from vote 'as in Oslo'.
Dozens of rightist rabbis rallied on Tuesday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's intention to accept the US proposal to renew the construction moratorium in the West Bank. The rabbis supported Netanyahu's replacement with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
The rabbis gathered for an emergency meeting to discuss the matter, then marched in front of Justice Minister Yaakov Ne'eman's home, demanding that he oppose the renewal of the construction freeze.
"Minister Ne'eman really is loyal... but he is under tremendous pressure to support the freeze," said Avi Smotrich, the town rabbi of the Beit Yatir settlement in the West Bank. "We are here to remind him of his loyalty. Jews of all generations have agreed to sacrifice their lives to fulfill the Torah, so what is this pressure in comparison?"
Rabbi Elyakim Levanon of the Elon Moreh settlement in Samaria slammed Netanyahu and called fellow rabbis in leadership positions to shift their support to Lieberman. "We are dealing with a fraud," he said. "A Knesset member who lies pays with his seat, but a prime minister can lie to the entire nation.
"There is a party head that definitely has his eye on leadership, and when he will lead the nation he will continue to speak the truth," he said without mentioning Lieberman by name. "You know who I mean." Elaykim noted that a Lieberman administration will cause a different set of problems, but expressed his support nonetheless.
'Don't hide behind abstention vote'
Rabbi Yehoshua Shapira, who heads the Ramat Gan Yeshiva likened continuing the moratorium to "drinking vinegar." According to him, Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak "drink vinegar" and tell themselves it is the last time, but soon find themselves drinking it again.
He turned to Shas members and said that the decision is in their hands. "Everything depends on you," he said. "Don't hide behind 'abstention' voting, as occurred in Oslo. My brothers, don't be afraid."
Rabbi Lior: Netanyahu, be strong
On Monday, Rabbi Dov Lior of the Kiryat Arba settlement in Judea published a letter in which he calls Prime Minister Netanyahu to resist the pressure from the US to resume the moratorium. "You have the honor of representing our people during one of the hardest periods in the process of our salvation," he wrote. "This is why you must stand strong against all the enemies threatening to harm us. I have no doubt that you will show decisiveness, the evil of the gentiles will diminish, and Hashem the God of Israel will help you get out of this mess."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3985825,00.html
Israeli Rabbi: Jews should make the Arabs flee
The Independent reports:
First they threatened to burn his house down. Then they pinned leaflets to his front door, denouncing him as a Jewish traitor. But Eli Tzavieli, an 89 year old Holocaust survivor, is defiant. His only crime is to rent out his rooms to three Arab students attending the college in Safed, a religious city in northern Israel that was until recently more famous for Jewish mysticism and Madonna.
A campaign waged by Shmuel Eliyahu, the town's radical head rabbi, culminating in a ruling barring residents from renting rooms to Israeli Arabs, means that Safed is fast emerging as a byword for racism.
I'm not looking for trouble, but if there is a problem, I'll confront it, says Mr Tzavieli, a Jew who survived Nazi forced labour camps and whose parents perished in Auschwitz. These [tenants] are great kids. And I'm doing my best to make them comfortable.
Didi Remez provides a translation of an article from the Hebrew Maariv:
Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi, of Safed is staging a tenacious battle these days. In his sights: Arabs, who are fighting a land war against us and who want to throw us into the sea, according to the rabbi. In a recent Halachic ruling the rabbi forbid Safed residents from selling or renting their homes to Arabs.
The ruling sparked a storm, but Eliyahu was unmoved. Jews don't have to run away from Arabs, said the rabbi in his first comprehensive interview, to be published in full in the Ma'ariv weekend supplement. Jews should make the Arabs flee.
One person in Safed rented his home to three Bedouins, says Rabbi Eliyahu. I went to visit him. The tenants asked me why are you against us? I told them we don't want to make Safed into an Arab city. Even if this were Tel Aviv I would object. How much more so when talking about the holy city of Safed. They told me you've got to recognize the fact.
This is life. This is reality. And I couldn't believe my ears. The Arabs don't even bother denying they've got a system. It's so simple: One person moves into a Jewish neighborhood, pays a high price and all the Jews leave immediately. Naturally, they don't want to live next door to them.
Their behavior is unpleasant. They stuck an old Arab woman into a public housing neighborhood. In theory, it was harmless. But as soon as she arrived she started to harass us. Every Shabbat ten cars of Arabs would come. The whole village was at her house. They played music, made noise. They had the nerve to act in a Jewish neighborhood in a way they never would have dared act in their village.
Was that an isolated incident? Not if you ask the holy rabbi. It is a behavioral phenomenon. You can't come to a quiet tourist town and feel like you're in an Arab village. If you're a guest, act like a guest. But if you want to feel like you own the place, then the Halacha says it is forbidden to rent a home to you.
As soon as there are more than three Arabs in a neighborhood, [in practical terms] it means the Jews will yield the center to them. Jews don't need to run away from Arabs. Jews should make the Arabs flee.
http://bit.ly/cGgY2C
Safed rabbi to be suspended for 'inciting war between Jews and Arabs'
Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu
Minority Affairs Minister Braverman says Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu is harming the fabric of relations between Jewish and Arab residents of the Galilee.
Minority Affairs Minister Avishay Braverman asked Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman on Wednesday to begin the process of immediate suspension of Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu from his post as municipal rabbi of Safed.
Braverman wrote Neeman that Eliyahu, whose salary is paid by public funds, has been conducting a campaign of racism against the Arabs for years. He also "spreads his extremist opinions in a variety of media outlets to various audiences, taking advantage of his position as Safed's rabbi to rule against renting apartments to Arab citizens." Braverman said that Eliyahu was harming the fabric of relations between Jewish and Arab residents of the Galilee, and wrote that the issue was not about the legitimate right to express an opinion.
He wrote that by virtue of Eliyahu's position as municipal rabbi he should be representing the spirit of Judaism, which is based on peace. "Moreover, as an appointee of the state, the rabbi is obligated not to work against it. His continued incitement against the Arabs in the Galilee does not serve the needs of the state."
Braverman added that the good relations between the Jews and Arabs of the Galilee is the cornerstone of coexistence and that he could not let "such a divisive individual continue his activities as the holder of an official state post." Calling Eliyahu's conduct "very dangerous," Braverman said the rabbi could spark a "fire that could lead to war between the Jews and the Arabs of the Galilee."
Braverman said he would visit Safed next week and would encourage the Jews and Arabs studying together at Safed College.
http://bit.ly/bp0BY6
5 jan 2012, 14:23 , Respect
Maria 21 nov 2010
Police: Haredim embezzled millions in ID fraud
Raid on yeshivas' offices reveals fake IDs believed to have been used to reap student stipends.
Jerusalem Police on Sunday raided the offices of three ultra-Orthodox non-profit organizations, which operate yeshivas in the capital and nearby towns of Beit Shemesh and Beitar Illit. Officers believe that the organizations embezzled millions from the State.
The haredi institutions are suspected to have produced fake IDs in order to receive monthly stipends from the Education Ministry for alleged yeshiva students.
Six suspects were arrested and four others were brought in for questioning. More than a 1,000 fake ID cards were discovered in the raid, along with computers and machines for printing and laminating the cards, and other equipment.
A preliminary hearing for a number of men detained during the raid has been scheduled for Monday.
Police officials said they monitored the organizations in question for quite some time. "The organizations presented a false record of hundreds of students who attend each yeshiva, and received money for these students," one official explained.
"The organizations we raided worked as factories through and through, systematically producing fake IDs, some for students not studying at yeshivas and some for people who do not exist," said Chief-Superintendant Haim Shmueli, who headed the raid.
"All of this was done in order to enlarge the annual stipends paid by the state. We checked, and found that just a slim percentage of students reported by the yeshivas actually studied there."
Police are also investigating the location laundering the embezzled money, and expect to make more arrests in the case.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3987802,00.html
Haredi MKs get threat letters
'Stop sucking our blood, pack your shtreimels and go to Brooklyn,' say letters sent with white powder.
Ultra-Orthodox MKs on Sunday complained of receiving threatening letters in envelopes with white powder inside.
"Stop sucking our blood," the letters say. "Pack up your stuff and your shtreimels and go to Brooklyn." The Knesset Officer has launched an investigation into the source of the letters, which were sent to MKs Uri Maklev and Moshe Gafni of United Torah Judaism.
"We, the enlightened people of Israel, demand that you, people of darkness, stop living at our expense by studying without working, and get out of our lives," the letters say.
"If you continue to squeeze out funds at our expense you will pay a hefty price, as we will fight you physically and not just through demonstration. You will feel our wrath on your selves and your synagogues. We will make your lives miserable and attack you in your cities and neighborhoods."
The letters, signed with a word play on 'price tag policy', a name given by settlers to acts of revenge against Palestinians in the West Bank. Beneath was a picture of a skull wearing a traditional hat and side-locks.
The letters were taken in by the Knesset Officer, but the white substance has not yet been identified.
Gafni's public relations adviser said in response to the letters that "it was clear to us that the rabid incitement against the haredim would lead to such maneuvers and even violence".
"It's too bad there is no real dialogue in Israeli society, only hate campaigns," he added.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3987791,00.html