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- 24 febr 2011
Rabbi suspected of sexually assaulting 8-year old
Golan Heights Police arrested a rabbi in his thirties Wednesday on suspicion he sexually assaulted an eight-year-old boy who studies at the school under his charge.
The suspect has denied the allegations, and this morning police are due to demand the remand of his arrest.
- 3 mrt 2011
Rabbi: Boycott MK married to gentile
MK Wilf. Under attack
In special article, head of Zomet Institute slams MK Einat Wilf over her non-Jewish German husband. 'There are greater national traitors than me,' lawmaker says in response.
Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, head of the Zomet Institute dedicated to merging Halachic Judaism with modern life, has launched a scathing attack on a Knesset Member of the Independence faction over her marriage to a non-Jewish man.
He made his statement following reports that Wilf would be appointed chairwoman of the Knesset's Education Committee.
"I hereby call for a boycott of all of her public activities in these fields, as a clear negative character, being married to a German who is not Jewish (and I believe hasn't acquired citizenship either)," the rabbi wrote in an article published in a Shabbat leaflet.
"This call is not religious (there are more serious offenses) or nationalistic (there are greater 'national traitors' than her), or even social (there are MKs who present a poorer personal example). I just can't comprehend having an MK with a mixed marriage."
Rabbi Yisrael Rosen
But the rabbi's attack did not end there. "I know there are MKs who are not Jewish Muslim and Druze for example," he continued. "I won't be surprised and I won't be able to object if an immigrant from the former Soviet Union declares that he is the Knesset representative of the sector of immigrants who have yet to convert or who seek to maintain their foreign community as loyal citizens."
The rabbi added that he acknowledged the fact that he was forced to live alongside a large foreign minority, who are offspring of the Jewish people.
"But a Knesset member in a mixed marriage, for no reason, is more than I can tolerate," he said. "Especially when they have the nerve to declare Israeli 'independence' or claim the chairmanship of the Education or Immigration committees."
MK Wilf said in response, "I was happy to read in Rabbi Rosen's letter than he himself recognizes the fact that there are worse offenses than marrying a gentile and that there are greater national traitors than me."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4028422,00.html
5 jan 2012, 14:56 , Respect -
Maria 5 jan 2012, 14:56 , Respect -
Maria 31 mrt 2011
Rabbi: Tsunami result of haredi arrests
Rabbi David Twersky and followers
Leader of Rachmastrivka Hasidic dynasty says Japan punished for imprisonment of two yeshiva students convicted of drug smuggling.
Rabbi David Twersky, leader of the Rachmastrivka Hasidic dynasty, says the recent tsunami in Japan, which has left thousands of people dead, was the result of the arrest of two yeshiva students by Japanese authorities after being convicted of smuggling drugs.
"The Japanese don't understand why they keep on receiving blow after blow, and it never ends. If they want it to stop, they must release the two guys jailed in their prison immediately, and then experience salvation," the rabbi told his followers last week during a Purim celebration in Jerusalem.
Japan disaster
Haredi website Ladaat reported that the Rebbe asked for the names of the two jailed men and said a prayer for their immediate release. "Amen," the audience responded.
The yeshiva students were arrested in an airport in Japan in April 2008, in possession of a suitcase with some 90,000 Ecstasy tablets. The detainees' lawyers claimed at the time that the young men were victims of a 'sting' and were tempted with money, but the two were convicted the following year.
One of the detainees, a minor, was sentenced to eight years in prison, and Israel submitted a request to have him transferred back to the country.
The Rachmastrivka Hasidic dynasty is one of the biggest and most famous Hasidisms, with thousands of followers and many affiliates. It has two centers one in Jerusalem and one in Borough Park, New York.
Ahead of the Hasidic celebration last week, huge screens were placed near the Torah study house in Jerusalem, and the tish was broadcast live due to the density inside the building.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4050133,00.html
5 jan 2012, 14:56 , Respect -
Maria 3 apr 2011
Confessions Of A Jewish Infant Genital Mutilator
"I myself am an infant genital mutilator, a three-time offender. I didn’t personally carry out the act, but paid a proxy… to perform the deed."
San Francisco moves to introduce a ban on male genital mutilation, making it illegal to remove the foreskin of a boy under the age of 18 on the pain of a $1,000 fine and a year’s imprisonment.
In the course of the exhaustive research that preceded the writing of this column ?(yes, I did a quick Google search?), I learned a new word. Intactivism. My spell-checker may not yet recognize it but apparently intactivism is a growing movement. Its spiritual and organizational headquarters is in San Francisco but they are spreading globally, or so at least the various intactivist websites claim. If they have their way, the good people of San Francisco will have a chance in November to vote in a piece intactivist legislation and from the Bay Area, who knows where it will spread next.
Though it turns out that there are others vying for the crown of the intactivist capital: Members of the Swedish parliament were early adherents, passing their own law already 10 years ago. Oh, what is intactivism? It is believing so fervently in the right of baby boys to keep their foreskins intact that one is moved to actively agitating in favor of this position. It may be called in polite parlance circumcision and in most Jewish circles Brit Milah, but the intactivists are not having any of that word-laundering – it is forced mutilation of infant genitalia, and as such should be outlawed. Next week is the highpoint of their intactivities, with National Genital Integrity Awareness week in the United States.
This is probably the point where I have to clarify my own personal circumstances. I myself am an infant genital mutilator, a three-time offender. I didn’t personally carry out the act, but paid a proxy, also known as a mohel, to perform the deed. What’s worse, I had it done to my three sons, my very own flesh and blood, and invited friends and family to be present. It runs in our family. I am genitally mutilated. My father had it done to me and my brothers. ?(In the town where I was born, the circumciser was also the ritual slaughterer?).
Naturally, I was a bit squeamish about it at the time, certainly when it was done to me, but I have been socially conditioned, not to say brainwashed, into feeling no moral qualms.
When I heard by chance this week about the move in San Francisco to introduce to the ballot in November a ban on male genital mutilation, making it illegal to remove the foreskin of a boy under the age of 18 on the pain of a $1,000 fine and a year’s imprisonment, I knew I had to write a column about it.
“Just think of the fun I’m going to have with all the double-entendres,” I said to my editor. As usual, it was down to her to sound a wise word of caution. “Don’t overdo it,” she warned.
“Remember that on this particular issue, less is more.”
So I spent an amusing evening trawling through the intactivist websites, had a good laugh, and now, sitting down to write this column in the clear light of morning, I am forced to acknowledge that jokes aside, they do actually have a point. I could be arrested for smacking my children, but when I made a party to celebrate the cutting of my firstborn’s penis, I was showered with baby gifts and checks. Not that they I necessarily agree with the intactivists – actually they seem rather creepy – but we need a better case to defend the forcible removal of an intimate part of our baby boys’ anatomy than the ADL’s line that “this is a coveted ritual.”
Just use your imagination and think of the long list of atrocities and crimes against humanity that come under the heading of “coveted rituals.”
Neither am I impressed by the medical studies that purport to prove the health and hygiene benefits of circumcision. There is opposing research that supports the view that this is an unnecessary and potentially harmful procedure. I don’t expect doctors to be any less biased than journalists, and their scholarly papers reflect their own personal beliefs as much as their clinical trials and observations. And I have seen evidence of the potential damage when reporting on the case of Nissim Zeev, who was ordered by the Supreme Court to pay half a million shekels in damages to the parents of a baby who developed gangrene and suffered irreversible damage from a circumcision he performed in 1994. That did not stop him from becoming one of Shas’ most reactionary MKs and continuing to circumcise on a “charitable” basis.
Even if such cases are relatively rare and isolated, not enough is being done, in Israel and abroad, to prevent them and to prosecute the perpetrators. The New York mohel who allegedly caused the deaths of two babies from Herpes, transmitted when he did old-fashioned metzitza – sucking the cut on the baby’s penis, instead of using medically and rabbinically approved more hygienic methods – should have been hounded out of town and given up to the authorities, instead of being shielded by the Haredi leadership and by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
This is not a debate for logical or scientific arguments. I find it hard to articulate a sound moral justification, but I know that if I will again be blessed with a son, he will be circumcised. But only by a mohel who I know operates under complete medical direction and utilizes the latest in hygiene and safety implements.
The best counterargument to those trying to ban milah would be an international initiative by rabbis of all streams and persuasions to ensure that only such circumcisers be allowed to operate.
My real objection to the intactivists is not based on reason or religion, it is my gut feeling that they are infernal busybodies. They are the kind of people who under the guise of liberal values, want to invade my home, family and dinner plate and I feel it is our duty to stand up to them. No infant genitalia were harmed in the writing of this column, but I did go through half a pack of Marlboros, sitting and writing at an outdoor table of my local Jerusalem cafe.
All the butts were responsibly deposited in an ashtray and the second-hand smoke wafted harmlessly into the spring sky. Such conduct would have cost me a $500 fine in San Francisco. I’m sorry if that’s the best argument I can come up with, but I want to live in a country where I can choose to kill myself slowly with nicotine ?(financing the health system with my cigarette taxes in the process?) and be allowed to responsibly continue whatever family tradition I prefer.
http://fwd4.me/0jem 5 jan 2012, 14:56 , Respect -
Maria 6 apr 2011
Did rabbi sexually assault bride?
Jerusalem rabbi arrested over suspected indecent acts against newlywed bride, later released into house arrest.
Well-known Jerusalem Rabbi David Tovol was arrested last Sunday on suspicions that he committed indecent acts against a newlywed bride who sought his advice, Ynet has learned.
According to suspicions, last Sunday, a few hours before the arrest, a young newlywed couple came to the rabbi for a counseling session. During the session the rabbi asked the husband to leave the room and took advantage of the situation to sexually assault the bride.
The couple immediately filed a complaint against the rabbi at the local police station and police arrested him later that day. The rabbi chose to retain his right to silence and refused to cooperate with the police.
Sources familiar with the investigation told Ynet that the rabbi has no criminal record and no complaints had previously been filed against him.
A day after his arrest, the Jerusalem Magistrates Court released the rabbi into house arrest for five days under limited terms, which include a restraining order and a ban on making any contact with the complainants.
"After turning to me, he told me that his silence comes from the privilege he has by law as a religious minister hearing a confession," Tovol's defense lawyer Yehuda Shushan said after the hearing.
He noted that "after the privilege was broken by the complainant herself he agreed to cooperate with the police and told them the progression of events with the woman who is the wife of his good friend. Extremely intimate confessions were shared in the meeting, she obviously had concerns that he would leak the info, regretted her actions and decided to turn the tables on him so he would fear her. Hence, she took this despicable step of making a false complaint."
Haredi rabbis: Don't volunteer in MDA
Halachic ruling issued by senior ultra-Orthodox leaders says religious public must only volunteer in organizations 'operating according to the way of Torah'. Rescue organization in response: We honor our religious volunteers' lifestyle.
Ultra-Orthodox leaders are calling on the religious public not to volunteer in Magen David Adom, claiming that serving in the rescue organization leads to serious religious prohibitions and leads to spiritual danger.
The sector's newspapers published an ad signed by senior haredi leaders, including leader of the Lithuanian faction Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv, Rabbis Nissim Karelitz, Chaim Kanievsky, Aharon Leib Shteinman, the Sanz and Erlau Rebbes and others.
In the call, directed to "dear volunteers engaged in saving lives in the Holy Land," the rabbis rule that volunteers must favor haredi rescue services operating across the country and must not volunteer with MDA.
The ad is part of the ongoing battle between haredi rabbis and the national emergency organization, following MDA's attempt to recruit young ultra-Orthodox people for civilian service.
Modesty, observance problems
Rabbi Elyashiv.
"We hereby inform you that it is forbidden to volunteer in the Magen David Adom organization even for the purpose of saving lives," the rabbis wrote, adding that it was only permitted to volunteer "in an organization which conducts everything according to the way of Torah and Halacha."
According to the rabbis, "Volunteering not through these organizations may, God forbid, lead to serious prohibitions - both in terms of general conduct and spiritual influence, and in terms of Torah prohibitions and particularly Shabbat laws."
Talking to Ynet, sources involved in the ad pointed to difficult modesty problems the organization's haredi activists are forced to with. "MDA is the only national organization in the State which does not have a rabbi," one of them said.
MDA spokesman Zaki Heller said response, "Magen David Adom is Israel's national rescue organization which engages in saving lives 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
"As the rest of the security forces, like the IDF, the police and the firefighting services, MDA is particularly careful in maintaining and respecting the religious lifestyle of hundreds of its workers and volunteers who engage in saving lives routinely and during emergencies, on weekdays, Saturdays and holidays."
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4043780,00.html
5 jan 2012, 14:56 , Respect -
Maria 8 apr 2011
Top Sephardi rabbi's aide tied to illegal porn sales
Rabbi Yosef Pinto's top aide Ben Zion Suky, a well-known real estate developer and adviser in the U.S., is knee-deep in legal judgments.
In early 2005, porn producer and actor Ashley Gasper realized that someone was bootlegging his films. Counterfeit copies of Jules Jordan's Flesh Hunter 6 and Jules Jordan: Feeding Frenzy 2, among other titles, were showing up among the DVDs being returned to his distributor.
According to a recent decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Gasper soon learned that a Montreal firm was making illicit copies of the movies and selling them to wholesalers. The primary client of the Montreal bootlegger was a New York-based company called Direct Distributors, Inc., run by a young Israeli named Ben Zion Suky.
Suky, now a real estate developer, isn't just another businessman involved in two litigious industries. He's also the right-hand man to a powerful Sephardic kabbalist Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto with growing influence among Israel's political and business elite and in the American Jewish community.
Safed rabbi says struggle to keep the city Jewish moving forward
Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu
Chief Rabbi of Safed's latest statement follows his earlier call for Jews not to sell or rent homes to non-Jews.
The chief rabbi of Safed issued a statement this week proclaiming that efforts to keep the city Jewish are beginning to progress and must be widened, though he also added a plea for non-violence in the "struggle."
"The struggle to preserve the special character of the city of Safed is beginning to bear fruit here and everywhere in the country and it is necessary to continue with this here. It has not stopped with one call and a rabbinical ruling," wrote Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Safed, in a statement he issued this week under the heading "Continuation of the Rabbis' Letter on the Issue of Selling Apartments to Gentiles."
The official letter follows an earlier one in which Eliyahu called for Jews not to sell or rent homes to non-Jews. Racial tensions have risen in recent months with Arab students in the city reporting being attacked and having their property vandalized, including two cars which were torched last month outside the city's academic college. Anti-Arab posters have also been put up in the city.
In his letter, Eliyahu stressed that "this struggle has nothing to do with racism and hatred. It is aimed in its entirety only at preserving our state as Jewish."
Eliyahu also called for activists to refrian from violence.
"This struggle must not spill over into violence, which is both negative and interferes with the struggle," he said. "It is possible to win and it is necessary to win without violence. ... It is necessary to see this struggle as action completing the Law of Return and the declaration of a Jewish state, as a continuation of the redemption of lands by the founders of the state and as action completing the government's decision on Judaizing the Galilee."
http://fwd4.me/zC7
5 jan 2012, 14:56 , Respect -
Maria 14 apr 2011
Why are the security forces detaining hundreds in Awarta?
Former IDF Chief Rabbi calls for collective punishment of Palestinian villages in the West Bank
In 1990, I was serving as an operations sergeant in the Dir El Balah a town in the Gaza Strip in the so-called Civil Administration. On Rosh Hashana of that year, a reservist soldier named Amnon Pomeranz made a fatal error and took the wrong turn. Instead of reaching the Buriej military camp, he reached the Buriej refugee camp. He panicked, drove backwards too fast, and ran over two children. He drove blindly forward, and the vehicle hit a road. An angry mob formed quickly, started throwing stones. Pomranz left the vehicle, threw his gun away, and begged for mercy. The stones kept flying. He went back into the car, tried to start it, failed, was hit, lost consciousness. Three young men ran off to the nearby gas station, came back with jerry cans full of gasoline, poured it, set it on fire.
Our information on the events was extremely sketchy. When we received news about mass fleeing of the camp, Hamoud the AAA Arab Affairs Advisor connected the dots, left the base driving wildly, and charged to the place, calling everyone he could think of on the radio. He made it too late: The car was already on fire. Several days later, on the way home he was driving, I was sitting behind him he said he wanted to get near, to try and save Pomeranz, but was afraid the car will blow up, as it did several minutes later. His hair turned white.
In the meantime, the GSS arrested the people responsible. It was said that one of the idiots photographed everything but then again, they photographed lynches, too, no? and that the GSS managed to get the photographs. One of the two people who set the car on fire went missing. One night I think it was the second morning following the incident our two regular GSS officers showed up with an old man and a child, aged five to six years. The child was blindfolded. His trousers were wet with urine. They told me to watch over the child. I fed him out of a tuna-salad-with-tomato-sauce can. He was there for a rather simple reason: He was the brother of the missing suspect, and the investigators informed his family that should the suspect not turn himself in, they would ship the child to the Ansar detainees camp; there was no need detailing what will happen to him there.
It worked. The brother turned himself in the following day.
I have no idea what happened to the two of them. I have no idea what were their names.
The IDF keeps terrorizing Awarta, the village from which it claims the murderer(s) of the Fogel family came from. So far, the IDF gunmen have detained, and released, most of the men in the village; the gunmen also detained, and released, dozens of women. Minor pogroms also took place. Speaking to ISM activists in the village, they told me today they estimate that so far, about a thousand residents were detained (although most were released), and that the army keeps 25 residents in custody, among them a 16 year-old girl – earlier it was erroneously reported she is 14 – named Julia Mazen Awad, arrested on Saturday night. As usual, the gunmen caused widespread destruction in the village. Last night, the gunmen stormed a house, put all its inhabitants in one room and denied them food and water until curfew was lifted, at about noon today. One of the people so detained was a six months old baby. And I mean “storm” literally: The gunmen threw dozens of stun grenades into one of the houses.
Avihai Ronsky
The news about what goes on in Awarta slowly makes it to the general media, even though it keeps peddling the message of the security system, according to which there will soon be a breakthrough in the investigation. In the meantime, the IDF carries out extreme rabbi Avihai Rontski’s vision for Awarta (Hebrew): open, unabashed collective punishment. Rontski is no mere rabbi: He’s the former Chief Military Rabbi, known for such sage advice as declaring that as far as Jewish law is concerned, an IDF soldier is forbidden to offer medical treatment to an enemy soldier, and that the only reasons for offering treatment is the fear that Israeli POWs will be similarly treated, and the chance the captive may have useful information.
Arresting almost a thousand people is no way to run a serious investigation. Nobody thinks such a wave of arrests can actually promote an investigation; it is more likely to drown the few investigators in a sea of information they cannot corroborate. Even 25 detainees is somewhat over the top in an investigation looking for two, and perhaps only one, perpetrator.
So what's going on? I suspect that what happened in Dir El Balah in 1990 now takes place in Awarta. The detaining, particularly of women, is intended to terrorize the suspects and make them turn themselves in. As any ruthless regime knows, there's no better way to force someone to submit than taking his relatives hostage. A man may risk his own life; he is much less likely to do so when his family is under threat. And the GSS, needless to say, is not noted for protecting its detainees rights.
If that's the trick, so far it is not working. The need for repeated raids, for more arrests, proves that the suspects assuming there are any are yet to turn themselves in. And this has been going on for a month now. Perhaps they are have coarsened, and no longer care about the suffering of their relatives; perhaps the gunmen and the GSS are looking at the wrong place.
If and when the GSS proudly announces it made an arrest, which is doubtful given the amount of time that passed, one must bear in mind the methods used to achieve it. People who think the Palestinians are something less than human, that they will not ask for vengeance for senseless injustice, should not play the surprised victim when rage and hatred combust in the only way people who lack a formal army, tanks and air force, are capable of.
- 15 apr 2011
Israeli arrested for groping passenger on flight
US media report Rabbi Gabriel Bidani allegedly fondled female passenger on flight to NY number of times while she slept.
US media outlets reported Thursday that an Israeli rabbi flying from Tel Aviv to New York allegedly fondled a female passenger a number of times while she slept and when she confronted him he claimed: "It's a mistake I'm asleep". The report is based on US federal court records.
Rabbi Gabriel Bidani, 47, was charged with misdemeanor assault over the event which allegedly occurred on March 27 during Delta flight 269.
According to the report, an hour and a half into the 12 hour flight, Bidani reached over and put his hand under the complainant's blanket, placed it on her crotch and groped her.
The woman then jumped back, and Bidani quickly removed his hand from her groin," she said. The complainant told the FBI that she then pulled her blanket back over her head and body. But a few minutes later, Bidani allegedly again reached under the passenger's blanket, this time groping the passenger's breasts.
What are you doing, stop touching me, she told Bidani. He replied, It's a mistake, I'm asleep, an FBI agent said. The female passenger then left her seat to advise the flight crew of the incident. The flight crew confirmed the story with the FBI and one crew member described the woman as visibly shaken and frantic.
Bidani's lawyer Saul Bienenfeld, said that the rabbi asserts his total innocence and contends that the alleged sexual contact never occurred. Bidani posted $250,000 bond and was released from prison after surrendering his passport and agreeing to limit his travels to the New York City metropolitan area.
Home for Passover
At his April 5 arraignment, the Orthodox rabbi sought permission to return to Israel, though that request was denied by a magistrate judge.
In a subsequent motion, Bienenfeld asked for his client's curfew to be relaxed since during the Passover holiday he needs to be in synagogue past 9 PM and wishes to see more of those individuals who seek advice in communities that are not near the area that he is sleeping. At the time, Bidani was staying at a residence on Long Island.
Bidani's bail terms were modified Thursday when a judge agreed to allow him to fly back to Israel from April 14 to May 1. In a motion, Bienenfeld said that his client wanted to return to Israel for the Passover holiday, and had also recently learned that his father is gravely ill. Bidani's bond was increased to $500,000 by Magistrate Judge James Orenstein. The rabbi's trial will open on May 4.
5 jan 2012, 14:56 , Respect -
Maria 17 apr 2011
Report: Israel chief rabbi says Obama must free Pollard if he wants another term
Yona Metzger tells congregants in a Shabbat sermon that Jews who voted for Obama are disappointed, and U.S. president should release Pollard as mark of good faith.
The Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel, Yona Metzger, told congregants in a Sabbath sermon that if U.S. President Barack Obama seeks reelection, he must release Jonathan Pollard, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.
In the sermon delivered at Yeshurun Synagogue in Jerusalem on Saturday, Metzger told said there was a feeling that many American Jews that had supported Obama in the last election were disappointed in him, in no small part because of Obama's indifference to Pollard.
A civilian employee for the United States Navy, Pollard was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 on charges of spying for Israel. He is incarcerated at a federal jail in North Carolina.
"If Obama wishes to dictate Israeli policy, he must show that he has mutual interests with Israel," Israel Radio quoted Metzger as saying. The rabbi reportedly added that these "mutual interests" should be shown through releasing Pollard.
Pollard's release has long been a bone of contention between Isael and its chief ally. In January, the Prime Minister's Office sent a letter to Obama requesting the convicted spy's release on humanitarian grounds. This marked the first formal request by Israel for the release of Pollard.
"Even though Israel was in no way directing its intelligence efforts against the United States, its actions were wrong and wholly unacceptable," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote in the letter. "Both Mr. Pollard and the Government of Israel have repeatedly expressed remorse for these actions, and Israel will continue to abide by its commitment that such wrongful actions will never be repeated."
Pollard's health has reportedly been in decline, and he has been hospitalized on several occasions. Last month, he cancelled a meeting with Israel Social Affairs Minister Moshe Kahlon because he was feeling ill.
The United States responded to Netanyahu's announcement of his decision to send the letter by saying only that Pollard at present is still incarcerated.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu has raised this from time to time, both in his current incarnation and in his previous incarnation," State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley said. "All I can tell you is Jonathan Pollard remains in prison."
http://fwd4.me/zmf
5 jan 2012, 14:56 , Respect -
Maria 22 april 2011
Rabbi, sentenced to 32 years for molestation, released on bail. Alleged tampering by another rabbi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syCV-ziebAk
Rabbi Baruch Lebovits case on appeal by Alan Dershowitz and Arthur Aidala.
5 jan 2012, 14:56 , Respect -
Maria 26 apr 2011
Hundreds of rabbis sign edict prohibiting withdrawal from WB
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Hundreds of Jewish rabbis sent a message to Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday telling him that withdrawing troops from the West Bank was religiously forbidden.
The message signed by 350 rabbis protested Netanyahu’s declaration that he was ready to evacuate a number of areas in the West Bank and deliver them to the Palestinian Authority along with readiness to resume negotiations with it.
The rabbis included a Toratic edict in their message which prohibited withdrawing from West Bank land, describing it as the borders of the “Hebrew state”.
http://fwd4.me/00Ls
5 jan 2012, 14:57 , Respect -
Maria 27 apr 2011
Nazi rabbis call for expulsion of non-Jews from Palestine
From Khalid Amayreh
A conference of Nazi-minded rabbis in Israel has called for the expulsion of non-Jews, especially Palestinians, from occupied Palestine in order to maintain the "ethnical and religious purity of the peoples of Israel."
"Today there is a lot of land in Saudi Arabia and in Libya, too. There is a lot of land in other places," Dov Lior, the Nazi-minded rabbi of Kiryat Araba, an illegal settlement near Hebron, told the so-called fourth annual Ramale conference on Tuesday.
The main theme of the conference centered on how to get non-Jews in mandatory Palestine to leave the country for the sake of Jewish immigrants, many without roots in Palestine.
Lior, who in 1994 praised arch-terrorist Baruch Goldstein for massacring 29 Arab worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in downtown Hebron, said peace in the Holy Land was out of question because the Arabs wouldn't allow Jews to usurp the land.
He claimed that the Arabs were working against "our very existence," ignoring the fact that Israel itself is based on land theft, ethnic cleansing and aggression and as such could not be accepted by the victims, namely the Palestinians who are constantly discriminated against, terrorized, deported and killed for not being members of the "superior race."
Among other speakers attending the conference was Rabbi Shmuel Elyahu, notorious for his belief that non-Jews are mentally and intellectually notorious to Jews.
Elyahyu said Israel was fighting a different war over its very essence and character, adding that Jews and non-Jews shouldn't be allowed to intermix or be neighbors.
He suggested that while fascism was a repugnant idea in general, Jewish fascism was different because it was ordained by God.
Elyahu, son of the equally racist rabbi Mordechai Elyahu, the anti-Gentile rabbi, was the author of the so-called Rabbis letter" which implored Jews not to rent or sell property to non-Jews.
Critics say the letter, which was singed by more than 50 Israeli rabbis last year, resembled to a shocking degree the Nazi-era incitement literature against Jews in Germany when Germans were exhorted to refrain from renting or selling their property to Jews or mixing with them at the social level.
Talab al-Sanaa, an Arab Knesset member representing the Arabs of the Negev in southern Palestine, described some of the rabbis at the conference as "racist animals."
"These people breathe racism as they breathe oxygen. They think that the lives of non-Jews are worthless and have no sanctity, they think the property of non-Jews belong to Jews, they think that the Almighty created the whole universe for the sake of Jews."
Some of the more liberal Jewish speakers at the conference strongly rejected the anti-Arab discourse.
"People won't leave a city if it is a good place to live in, no matter who their neighbors are. I live in a neighborhood with Arabs, and I have no problem" said Acre mayor Shimon Lankari.
He added "with Arabs and Jews there will always be tensions, always. It is built inside of us and nothing can change this. They watch al-Jazeera and we watch channel 10 and 2, and there is nothing to do about this. If the city is strong, if the population is strong, people won't leave the city."
In his hate-filled speech at the conference, the rabbi of Kiryat Arba suggested that Israel should offer Palestinians financial incentives to leave their ancestral homeland.
Al-Sana retorted that "instead, we are happy to pay for a one-way ticket for him to leave the land."
"Our land rights are part of our basic rights, and we wouldn't trade them for any money in the world."
He noted that most of the speakers at the racism-promoting conference were themselves emigrants from distant lands in Europe and the Americas and those they had no roots in Palestine.
http://fwd4.me/00QX
W. Bank rabbi: Pay Beduin to move to Libya, Saudi Arabia
Rabbi Lior says state should encourage Arabs to "return to countries they came from"; Safed rabbi: Arabs want whole world to convert to Islam.
Israel must offer cash and other incentives to encourage Beduin citizens of the state to emigrate to other parts of the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia and Libya, a West Bank rabbi said on Tuesday.
“We must launch incentives, even offering money to encourage their return to the countries they came from.
Today there is a lot of land in Saudi Arabia and in Libya, too – there’s lots of land in lots of places,” Rabbi Dov Lior, Chief Rabbi of Hebron and the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, told the fourth annual Ramle Conference on Tuesday.
Lior admonished those seeking a diplomatic solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. “The Arab population is against the very existence of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, so I don’t think there is a solution that can sate their desires,” he said, adding that the issue of land ownership in Israel is “a tool used by Arabs” in their campaign against Israel.
He also said that if they are allowed to stay in Israel, “there will never be a solution [to the conflict], because they are working against our very existence.”
Organizers of the Ramle Conference said it was devoted to “holding a public debate on the uniqueness of Israel and its relations to the other peoples living both within and outside of the State of Israel.”
The theme of the conference – which was organized by the right-wing organization “Komemiyut” and sponsored in part by the Ramle municipality and the local Ramle Garin Torani, was “Land of the nation or land of all the nation’s citizens?” A small group of around a dozen protesters demonstrated outside the conference, which they called a “racism conference,” but left shortly after police arrived.
The conference dealt mainly with the issue of “mixed cities” and what speakers described as a worrying increase in the number of Arab Israelis living in such cities and buying property and land in Israel.
They also spoke of what they described as a usurping of open areas in Israel by the Arab population, especially in the Negev.
The list of speakers did not include any Arab Israelis or Arab parliamentarians or community activists, but an organizer told The Jerusalem Post that was not by design and that they had tried to host Arab and Druse speakers but the plans fell through.
Instead, the list of speakers was heavy on rabbis and parliamentarians identified with the right wing of the Israeli political spectrum.
One of those rabbis was Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, who gained notoriety last December after he penned the so-called “Rabbis letter,” which implored Jews not to rent or sell property to non- Jews, and which was signed by over 50 rabbis from around Israel.
Eliyahu said that Israel is involved in a war over its land and its Jewish character and that “today in Israel there is another war. There is an ongoing campaign to buy up Israel’s land. Are we going to be quiet in the face of this attack?” Eliyahu dismissed claims that he is a racist, saying “whenever I’m interviewed I ask the interviewer if they would want an Arab to live in their neighborhood.
Would they feel secure? Would they trust the Arabs whose national identity is Palestinian, who identify completely with Hamas and Hezbollah?” The rabbi added that “they [Arabs] want the whole world to convert to Islam,” and warned that the violence breaking out in the Arab world should be a warning sign about “these cultural standards which we can’t allow to enter Israeli society.”
He also said that the rabbis’ letter worked in Safed, where today, according to the rabbi, no Jews are selling or renting property to non-Jews.
Pini Badash, mayor of the Negev town of Omer, also spoke at length at the conference on the issue of Beduin communities growing and spreading across the Negev, which he said has already been lost by Israel.
Badash said that “the State of Israel has no teeth” in dealing with illegal Beduin construction, and that the state must found an ad hoc court to deal with the issue of land ownership.
Badash said that financial compensation should be offered to those Beduin whose homes are ruled to be illegal, adding that the houses “must be evacuated by force; there is no other solution. No Beduin will move on his own.”
A later panel of mayors of mixed cities appeared to have a more pragmatic and measured tone, with former Lod Mayor Ilan Hariri, Acre Mayor Shimon Lankari, and Ramle Mayor Yoel Lavi speaking of the challenges of running a mixed city and the importance of equality in funding and opportunities for all citizens of such cities, Arab and Jew.
Hariri said, “You must strengthen the Arab sector and help them grow. Otherwise, if they don’t have the opportunities, you have people in the streets, and people in the streets do bad things. If we want quiet and prosperity, there must be equality.”
Lankari disagreed with contentions that the Arab population doesn’t pay municipal taxes and said that in Acre nearly 90 percent of the Arab population pays the tax, and that “we need people to reach out and bridge across the different sectors.”
He disagreed with the contention that growing Arab populations drive out residents of such cities, saying, “People won’t leave a city if it’s a quality place, no matter who their neighbors are. I live in a neighborhood with Arabs. With Arabs and Jews there will always be tensions, always, it’s built inside of us and nothing can change this. They watch Al-Jazeera and we watch Channel 10 and Channel 2, and there is nothing to do about this. If the city is strong, if the population is strong, people won’t leave the city.”
After the conference on Tuesday, Israeli Arab MK Taleb El- Sana, from the Beduin town of Tel Arad in the Negev, dismissed Rabbi Lior’s cash-foremigration offer, and instead suggested that “we are happy to pay for a one-way ticket for him to leave Israel.”
He added that “our land rights are part of our basic rights, and we wouldn’t trade them for any money in the world.”
In response to Pini Badash’s statement, El-Sana said “Badash immigrated here from Tunisia, he has no roots here.
We accept him here as a guest, but the guest is trying to expel the host.”
He added that the “Negev has room for everyone, it’s 60% of the State of Israel, and we can live here together.”
http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=217979
Rabbi Lior: Encourage Bedouins to leave Israel
Head of Kiryat Arba yeshiva believes incentives should be offered to Bedouins so that they willingly 'return to countries of origin'.
Rabbi Dov Lior, rabbi of Kiryat Arba and head of the yeshiva there, chose to use the platform of the fourth Ramla conference to state that the State of Israel "must encourage Bedouins to return to their native land in Saudi Arabia and Libya".
Rabbi Lior made his statements at a special plenum devoted to the problem of the unrecognized Bedouin settlements in the Negev in the Halachic view following the Goldberg Committee recommendations which called for the regularization of the illegal Bedouin settlements. Rabbi Lior presented the considerations and decision over the questions raised by the committee decision in detail.
"With regards to the Bedouins I say that incentives should be nurtured, including financial incentives, to encourage the return to their countries of origin," the rabbi said.
"Today there is a great deal of land in Saudi Arabia. Libya also has some available land. They have enough land. I'm not saying that we won't help them from a humanitarian perspective – we'll help them there. If they are left here, there won't be any solution as they work against the people of Israel and the State of Israel."
The rabbi emphasized that the Bedouin population should receive assistance when they leave for the Arab countries, as opposed to the way the state acted when the residents of the Gush Katif settlements were evicted.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4060912,00.html
5 jan 2012, 15:23 , Respect -
Maria 4 mei 2011
Rabbi calls for sacrifice on Temple Mount
Jews evading Passover mitzvah are risking supernatural punishment, warns Safed's Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu.
The annual attempts to resume the Passover sacrifice received a first significant rabbinical backing recently. Safed's Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, a prominent religious Zionism leader, has called on the public to perform the sacrifice mitzvah on the eve of the Jewish holiday, in about two weeks.
Speaking during a Halacha lesson in Jerusalem last week, the rabbi warned that Jews evading the mitzvah were risking "Kareth" - a supernatural punishment for transgressing Jewish Law.
According to Rabbi Eliyahu, there is a halachic, legal and public possibility to offer a Passover sacrifice these days. During the lesson, he quoted senior rabbinical authorities, adding that Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalisher – one of the founders of modern and religious Zionism – had asked the Turkish sultan to allot an area on the Temple Mount for the erection of an altar for a Passover sacrifice.
The Safed rabbi went on to say that the Passover sacrifice could be slaughtered in front of the Dome of the Rock plaza, although the Temple no longer exists and the people of Israel are defined as "tameh met" (in a status of impurity which comes from contact with a dead body).
In order to overcome the greatest obstacle, beyond the political problem, an altar must be erected, the rabbi said. He also called for the preparation of "priesthood clothes", which are the only ones in which Kohanim (priests) can perform their work at the Temple.
Mission possible
Addressing the legal aspect, Rabbi Eliyahu claimed that every person has the right to perform the commandment of his religion according to his own understanding. He added that petitions filed with the High Court of Justice against the sacrifice were accepted only because the police were unprepared to secure the ceremony.
"It's perfectly clear that if the public pressures its representatives in the government or in the Knesset, everything will change. If the judges have ruled that the police must secure simpler protests, why not the Passover sacrifice?"
Eliyahu rejected the claim that it was impossible to resume the mitzvah publicly. Addressing the international diplomatic ramifications, he said, "We are being threatened that any movement on our part on the Temple Mount will launch the third world war… (But) we can free our souls of the horror of the gentiles, just like we freed ourselves before the Exodus."
He rejected the internal opposition too. "Some fear the public echo of the Passover sacrifice – how will the seculars view it? What will the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals say? The truth is that this should not even be discussed…
"We have already been scorned for the circumcision mitzvah, persecuted and condemned to death for that. Today the UN's health organization recommends that all men undergo circumcision in order to avoid illnesses."
Rabbi Eliyahu said the Torah had predicted that some would mock the sacrifice mitzvah. Such a person, he noted, is called in the Passover Haggadah, the "wicked son", who cleans his hands and says, "This doesn’t belong to me, this blood and primitiveness. I am an enlightened person. I respect animals. I don't slaughter them barbarically."
The rabbi estimated, based on the Bible stories, that those who oppose this mitzvah would eventually change their mind and join the Temple work.
'Break spiritual barrier'
In order to increase the motivation to offer a Passover sacrifice, Eliyahu noted that this is one of two "active mitzvot" (along with the circumcision), and that those evading it risk supernatural punishment and "cause great damage to themselves and to the entire world".
He added that his father, former Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, wrote that this custom may still exist these days.
"These things should make us break the spiritual barrier preventing us from thinking about offering the Passover sacrifice," Rabbi Eliyahu concluded.
He said his remarks were not lip service, but laws being learned "as a real demand and real preparation for the Passover sacrifice. Although we are not used to it, and have gotten used to living without a temple, we must change our ways."
http://fwd4.me/z20