Monday, November 7, 2011

Religion and State in Israel - November 7, 2011 (Section 2)

Religion and State in Israel
November 7, 2011 (Section 2) (see also Section 1)
Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.


By Zvi Zrahiya and Nati Toker http://english.themarker.com November 7, 2011

Yet another aspect of the Trajtenberg recommendations for social and economic reform is being adjusted to suit narrow sectoral interests: Having a job will be dropped as an eligibility requirement for affordable housing.
This means that most of the homes built under the affordable housing program, Mehir Lemishtaken, are likely to go to Haredi families, as happened in the past.


By Zvi Zrahiya and Nati Toker http://english.themarker.com November 7, 2011

A survey found that 78% of the country's Jewish population supports implementing every aspect of the Trajtenberg committee's recommendations regarding integrating Haredi men into the workforce.
The survey, conducted for the nonprofit Hiddush - For Religious Freedom and Equality, found that 90% of non-religious Jews support the reform, while 94% of Haredim oppose it.


By Jpost.com staff and Lahav Harkov www.jpost.com October 31, 2011
President Shimon Peres, during a speech moments earlier, focused on the social justice movement and said that social justice is for all sectors of society. He called on haredim to join the workforce.


By Tobias Buck www.ft.com [need free registration to view article] November 6, 2011
“Two years ago, the battle between the ultra-orthodox and the secular population was about the sanctity of the Sabbath,” says Shahar Ilan, the vice-president of Hiddush, an Israeli pressure group for religious pluralism.
“Now the battle is about whether women still have a place in the public sphere.”


Rabbi Amsalem Backs Peres' Call on Haredim to Join Labor Force
By Aryeh ben Hayim www.israelnationalnews.com November 1, 2011
"Not everybody is suited to study Torah all day," Rabbi Amsalem said. 

"The way of Torah study that combines earning a living is the true path of our forefathers and this is how we should educate the young people. Someone who is truly enamored of Torah study will engage exclusively in that study."


By Rabbi Natan Slifkin Opinion www.jpost.com November 2, 2011
See also: The making of post-Haredism (original extended version)
When rabbinic authority is vested in yeshiva deans who are isolated from wider society (and often “handled” by various assistants), abuses of rabbinic power are inevitable. 
And a siege mentality has developed in which any criticism of haredi society, even coming from the inside, is to be fought or silenced.
As a result, many people in haredi society – including both those born into that society and those who joined in a spirit of youthful idealism – have grown dissatisfied.


By Kobi Nahshoni www.ynetnews.com November 3, 2011
Shas Minister Meshulam Nahari slammed the formerly captive IDF soldier Gilad Shalit for going to the beach with his father on the first Shabbat after his return instead of going to the synagogue for prayer.
Nahari claimed that Shalit and his father should have utilized the first Saturday after he was freed from Hamas captivity to say the benediction of deliverance – a Jewish prayer of thanks traditionally said by those who survived an adversity or were released from prison.


By Oz Rosenberg www.haaretz.com November 6, 2011
About a month ago he was spit at again, but this time, it hit his clothes. Garabidian, a former football player, said: "I pushed the two young ultra-Orthodox men up against the wall and asked, 'Why are you doing this?' 
They were really scared and said, 'Forgive us, we're sorry.' So I let them go."


Ultra-Orthodox spitting attacks on Old City clergymen becoming daily
By Oz Rosenberg www.haaretz.com November 4, 2011
Ultra-Orthodox young men curse and spit at Christian clergymen in the streets of Jerusalem's Old City as a matter of routine. In most cases the clergymen ignore the attacks, but sometimes they strike back.
Last week the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court quashed the indictment against an Armenian priesthood student who had punched the man who spat at him.
...Father Goosan and other Patriarchy members are trying to walk as little as possible in the Old City streets. "Once we walked from the [Armenian] church to the Jaffa Gate and on that short section four different people spat at us," he says.


By Lawrence Grossman www.jewishideasdaily.com November 1, 2011
Lawrence Grossman is the director of publications at the American Jewish Committee.

The Hazon Ish crafted a strategy meant to provide an independent social space for Haredim within Israel, yet today it increasingly entangles them in Israeli secular life. 

When he called for army exemptions for the 400 yeshiva students in 1949, did he dream that the number would multiply to 62,500 by 2010, triggering intense resentment among their fellow citizens?  

Would he have been satisfied to see that many of the Orthodox women he tried to protect from the secular world have become deeply involved in this world to support their husbands learning Talmud full-time?


Be fruitful and multiply
By Dr. Maya Choshen http://jiis-jerusalem-eng.blogspot.com October 31, 2011
A new study correlating fertility in Israel with the level of women’s religiosity, published in June of this year by Dr. Ahmad Hleihel of the Central Bureau of Statistics...
The fertility rate of Jewish women in Jerusalem (4.3) is significantly higher than that for Jewish women in Israel (3.0). 
The explanation for this lies in the higher proportion of haredi and religious women in Jerusalem compared to Israel. These women are characterized by high fertility rates – 7.5 children for haredi women and 4.3 children for religious women, compared to 2.1 children for secular women.


By Kobi Nahshoni www.ynetnews.com November 7, 2011
"I didn't say one word against the haredim as a group or individuals," Halevy clarified in an interview to Kol Hai Radio.
He explained that haredi radicalization leads to seclusion and deepens the rift within the Jewish people...


By Jeremy Sharon www.jpost.com November 7, 2011
But Halevy received some support from Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, head of the header yeshiva in Petah Tikva and a leading religious- Zionist figure.
“I partly agree with him,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “It’s very impressive that someone who was so senior within the security apparatus should point out that it will be the internal issues facing us which will determine the fate of the State of Israel.


www.ynetnews.com November 6, 2011
In a letter to Weinstein, Gafni wrote that Halevy's words crossed a red line and may bring harm to a "defined" sector of the public.


By Yoav Zitun www.ynetnews.com November 4, 2011
"The growing haredi radicalization poses a bigger risk than Ahmadinejad," Halevy said, adding that "the ultra-Orthodox extremism has darkened our lives."


Anglos for Am Shalem November 7, 2011

"The average Charedi is moderate and wants to get along with fellow Jews. It is the extremists who will rip Israel apart and destroy us through disunity and lack of interest in Judaism among the population if they get their way.
We have to be careful to make this distinction and embrace the Charedim who welcome a moderate Judaism and combat those who want it to be more extreme. This is one of the missions of Am Shalem."


By Melanie Lidman www.jpost.com November 6, 2011
Krois, a father of 13 (“for now,” he said) views the attacks on the haredi way of life with paranoia. He will work ceaselessly, and sometimes violently, to protect his community from the encroaching Zionist and secular institutions, he said, including demonstrating to have Mea She’arim included as part of a future Palestinian nation.
But he knows that the ultra-Orthodox won’t be able to keep modernity out forever, despite the dire warnings of the pashkevilim.
“The world is like a train,” he said, gesturing to the walls of his ad hoc museum, filled with knick knacks such as soda bottles from the 1920s.
“Everything is the same, the world is always moving forward,” he said, and no one, not even the haredim, will be able to stop it. “We just want to make sure that we’re in the last car of the train.”


By Renee Ghert-Zand http://blogs.forward.com November 7, 2011
First, they do not play in movie theaters, which are off limits to the Haredi sector. Instead, they are shown only to female audiences during holidays, when the films’ producers are able to rent event halls for screenings. 

Second, the films must be solely for educational purposes, and they are produced with the permission and under the strict supervision of rabbis.


Israeli MKs waver on support for Jewish identity bill
By Jonathan Lis www.haaretz.com November 7, 2011

The Knesset's legal advisor, Eyal Yinon, informed Barakeh that because the bill is neither racist nor does it reject the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people it must be approved for the Knesset agenda.

However, last week Yinon took the rare step of calling for a broad public and parliamentary debate on the draft law, citing its broad implications for Israel's constitutional status.

See also: 
Livni against Dichter's 'Jewish identity' bill
Rivlin: I won’t disqualify 'Jewish state' bill


Legal, but dangerous
Haaretz Editorial www.haaretz.com November 7, 2011

The bill is making MKs in Dichter's own faction uncomfortable, with party chairman Tzipi Livni expressing her vehement opposition to it. 

Several Likud lawmakers and government ministers are also upset by the initiative, and certainly by the bill's wording.


The question of Israel as a Jewish democracy
By Ilan Ben Zion Opinion www.haaretz.com October 31, 2011
Ilan Ben Zion is an active blogger currently living in Be’er Sheva; he is a graduate of Tel Aviv University with a Masters in Diplomacy.

If Israel is to properly protect its citizens’ rights, it must finally reach a national consensus –however difficult and daunting it may be - on what laws are above the state and the people.

We the people must ratify a constitution that guarantees individual freedoms, minority rights, separation of religion and government, and a clear system of checks and balances.


By Yair Altman www.ynetnews.com November 1, 2011
Education Ministry Director-General Dr. Shimshon Shoshani harshly criticized the establishments in a letter to their legal advisor, Attorney Itzhak Bam. 
"The students are involved in many violent acts against Palestinian residents and security forces, including during yeshiva study hours. Prominent rabbis in the yeshiva support and/or are involved in this violent activity and go as far as to incite the students to this sort of activity."


By Chaim Levinson www.haaretz.com November 1, 2011
Dorshei Yehudcha yeshiva high school is part of the institutions of Od Hai Yosef, headed by Rabbi Yitzhak Ginzburg. 

Two heads of the yeshiva, Rabbis Yosef Elitzur and Yitzhak Shapira wrote the controversial book "The King's Torah" which justifies the killing of non-Jews.


By Ilan Bloch Opinion www.jpost.com November 5, 2011
The fundamental message of the day should not be to laud the legacy of Rabin – which in any case means many different things to many different people – but rather to destroy the legacy of his murderer Yigal Amir, to absolutely reject the notion that a government can be changed with bullets, as opposed to through ballots, and to absolutely reject the use of violence within our society.
In this way, the day can promote a unifying message to Israeli society and the Jewish people as a whole, and avoid turning what should be a national tragedy for all into a politically partisan day, which would further cement the fractures in our society.


By Michael Freund Opinion www.jpost.com November 2, 2011
The writer is Chairman of Shavei Israel www.shavei.org

“Before the War, it was unheard of that every child learned in yeshiva the entire day; it was only a selection of students,” Rabbi Heller said, adding that, “Today, however, there is a new ideal that has no source in Torah: everyone has to learn Gemara, and someone who learns Mishna is considered a ‘loser.’” 

“Never in history,” he noted, “was there such a phenomenon. Throughout the generations, each person learned according to his level.”


Last wave of Ethiopian aliya delayed, central funder angry
By Ruth Eglash www.jpost.com November 2, 2011
“I am very disappointed by this new decision,” said Rabbi Yehiel Eckstein, president and founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), which has contributed more than $2.5 million to the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI)-led operation to facilitate the final phase of aliya for some 8,000 Falash Mura – Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity more than a century ago.
The new policy contradicts a decision announced exactly a year ago by the cabinet to bring the immigrants to Israel at a rate of 200 per month, ending organized aliya from Ethiopia by March 2014.


By Revital Blumenfeld www.haaretz.com November 2, 2011
A ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of Operation Solomon, in which over 14,000 Ethiopian Jews were airlifted to Israel in 36 hours, will take place tonight with the participation of Ethiopian community leaders, President Shimon Peres, Absorption Minister Sofa Landver and other government officials.


By Michael Smith, Daryna Krasnolutska and David Glovin www.bloomberg.com November 2, 2011
With a generally well-educated population of 7.4 million and a modern medical system, Israel has an acute shortage of organs, in part because of religious beliefs.

Just 12 percent of Israelis are registered donors, meaning they have consented to let their organs be used for transplants after they die, according to the Israeli National Transplant Center.

That compares with 40 percent of Americans. About 730 Israelis are currently waiting for a transplant, which is 13 times more than the number of such surgeries performed legally in Israel in 2010, according to the center.


KayamaMoms http://presentense.org

Halachic Approaches to Single Motherhood
Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, Rosh Yeshiva, Orot Shaul and member of the Surrogacy Advisory Committee

Single Mother by Choice Families in the Framework of the Orthodox Community
Rabbi Benny Lau, Director, Jerusalem's Center for Judaism and Society; the Institute for Social Justice, Beit Morash
November 1, 2011 19:30; Beit Yehudit - ICCY - International Cultural Center for Youth, 12 Emek Refaim, Jerusalem


Knesset Refuses to Declassify Temple Mount Report
By Gavriel Queenann www.israelnationalnews.com November 1, 2011
A joint session of Knesset sub-committees discussed on Tuesday a confidential report from the State Comptroller citing serious failures by authorities to safeguard and maintain the Temple Mount.


Religion and State in Israel
November 7, 2011 (Section 2) (see also Section 1)
Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.
All rights reserved.

Religion and State in Israel - November 7, 2011 (Section 1)

Religion and State in Israel
November 7, 2011 (Section 1) (see also Section 2)
Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.


By Tamar Rotem www.haaretz.com November 6, 2011

In her speech at a city council meeting, Azaria spoke about segregation on "buses, streets, health clinics and supermarkets .... This doesn't stay within the Haredi community; it seeps into our side very quickly, and it's threatening to women."
She says Barkat "acquiesced to the ultra-Orthodox in the name of dialogue. He is in favor of compromise, but he simply doesn't understand the ultra-Orthodox method. There's no way of forging compromise agreements with extremists; these people are making increasingly radical demands."
Azaria opposes the secular concept of live and let live. As she sees it, "what happens here is that the majority needs to surrender its values to extremist groups." She says there is no contradiction between her religious outlook and her campaign.


By Raphael Ahren www.haaretz.com November 4, 2011
Based on their interpretation of the 2001 Prevention of Stalking Law, about a dozen families, all with Anglo backgrounds, are demanding a restraining order against several extremist Haredim who protest regularly at the national-religious Orot Banot high school for girls.
 
The parents are also seeking to sue the extremists for damages, claiming their daughters suffer immensely from the constant harassment and require therapy.


By Chana Pinchasi www.ynetnews.com November 4, 2011
Chana Pinchasi is a doctoral candidate at the department of gender studies at Bar-Ilan University.
Haredi society and its leaders must be forced to take part in an open, incisive public debate that will bring about an understanding: What is our common space? How do we want it to look? And after a great deal of anger, mark boundaries that we can accept together.
Until such a debate is initiated we must not keep silent. We must not allow these norms to spread to the heart of the city, a city that must never again have a wall dividing it.


Taking back the billboards
By Jeff Barak Opinion www.jpost.com November 7, 2011
The writer is a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.

Just as women marchers at Take Back the Night rallies around the world don’t simply protest the issue of violence against women but also show that women united can resist fear and violence, a group of Jerusalem women are uniting to show that Israeli women can’t be airbrushed out of the capital’s advertising billboards.
In a guerrilla advertising campaign, six Jerusalem women have been photographed so that their pictures can be hung from balconies and windows throughout the capital with the slogan “Returning women to Jerusalem billboards.”
Over the past months, women have been steadily disappearing from street advertising in the capital, due in no small part to self-censorship on the part of secular advertisers scared of antagonizing the increasingly strident haredi community.


By Oz Rosenberg www.haaretz.com October 27, 2011
The Clalit health maintenance organization has recently issued stickers for children that completely exclude girls. The stickers, distributed in clinics in the Haredi community, are intended to be given to children as a prize for undergoing a medical treatment or examination. ... Even the sticker saying "good girl" shows four smiling boys.
Shahar Ilan, Hiddush: 
"The exclusion of women from the Israeli landscape is spreading like a disease," he added. "If the public doesn't rise up against it and put an end to this abomination, it won't be long before we find ourselves in a landscape without women."


By Eliezer Yaari Opinion www.jpost.com November 6, 2011
This time it seems that the conflict is different: it is not about a partition in Mea Shearim, it is not even about gender segregation in the army. It is about who will make the calls in our society.


By Nir Hasson www.haaretz.com November 2, 2011
"The idea is to return the city space to its natural state and turn the appearance of women into something boring, that no one notices," one of the originators of the idea, Rabbi Uri Ayalon, a Conservative rabbi who created a Facebook page called "uncensored," through which the women signed up to be photographed.
The women believe the problem lies with advertisers, who self-censor out of fear of the ultra-Orthodox. "Now we'll see the skies won't fall. I don't say it will pass quietly, but people will breathe easier when they see pictures of women returning to billboards."


By Renee Ghert-Zand http://blogs.forward.com November 3, 2011
Participants in the initiative emphasize that this is not about wanting to show skin in public. 

Scantily clothed female models disappeared from the Jerusalem streets long ago, and most residents do not have a problem with that. But they see no reason why “normal women in everyday situations” dressed in regular clothing should be eliminated from view.


By Bambi Sheleg Opinion www.ynetnews.com October 31, 2011
The fight for Israel’s public sphere in general and for Jerusalem’s public sphere in particular has taken off in the past decade.
...One could expect Barkat, who was elected by a secular and Zionist-religious constituency, to consider his voters’ agenda; after all, it is thanks to them that he is currently the mayor of Israel’s capital.
It’s unimaginable that Barkat, who was elected thanks to his "secular" views, is in practice implementing the policy of radical haredim in Jerusalem in order to secure calm or anything else which the general public is unaware of

The battle of Bet Shemesh
By Harriet Sherwood www.guardian.co.uk October 31, 2011
[Rabbi Dov] Lipman sees the events at Orot Girls as "a microcosm of what could happen in this country. At some point they will become a majority; it's a demographic fact. We can embrace the moderates or let the extremists run wild. We have to come down on [the extremists] hard, not let them have control.
"This is definitely a battle and we need to view it that way. It's not just about the school, but the future of Bet Shemesh and the future of the state of Israel."

VIDEO: Rabbi Dov Lipman interview on German TV - Beit Shemesh Girls School and ultra-Orthodox extremists

 


By Avirama Golan Opinion www.haaretz.com November 2, 2011
This is what should be done now: singing. Sing, girls. Face the heralds of darkness and sing. Everywhere. In the army, in the workplace, in the streets, in demonstrations, in marches, in the halls of the Rabbinate. Like Miriam, like Deborah, like the great women of yore.
Sing. Break through the sound barrier. That terrifies them. It disturbs them. They'll cry out that your pure voices are sinful and that your unkempt hair arouses animal instincts. This wild democracy led by talented, brave women who are making a difference threatens them and their stifling order.
So break out in song, girls. How lovely is your voice. Speak in song.


By Gili Cohen and Ilan Lior www.haaretz.com November 1, 2011
The “women singer ban” phenomenon has reached Tel Aviv high schools.


By Naomi Zeveloff www.forward.com October 28, 2011
According to Gershom Gorenberg, author of the upcoming book “The Unmaking of Israel,” pressure for sex segregation in public spaces is part of a ramped-up religious vigilance in the Haredi world, caused in part by a lack of passed-down direct knowledge of how traditional Jews in earlier generations actually lived day to day.

Many such religious and cultural practices were obliterated during the Holocaust, he said, and in their absence, Haredi communities in Israel and beyond have adopted a “stricter is better” approach to Jewish, or halachic, law.
In fact, they are innovations, Gorenberg said. 
“What I think is remarkable about this is that it is taking place in a community which is declaredly conservative and anti-innovation,” he said.


By Nancy K. Kaufman Opinion www.ncjw.org November 3, 2011
So on November 3, 2011, we decided to accompany Anat Hoffman of IRAC and take a “freedom ride.” 
It made perfect sense for us to do this on our first day in Israel, for as Anat pointed out, “NCJW has been next to the cradle of every failed or successful feminist effort in Israel.” And here we were again, riding the buses in the front and taking action.

Saudi women, Israeli women both need social change
By Elana Maryles Sztokman Opinion http://thejewishchronicle.net October 23, 2011
But I think there are also warning signs here for Israel. The movement for greater gender segregation and female body cover that is infiltrating Israeli public life — including buses, planes, the light rail, the post office, streets, conferences, army events, municipal events and more — has sinister echoes of Saudi Arabian life.
It is a reminder that the culture of gender segregation is not about a particular religious ideology but rather about embedded ideas about gender that are given a stamp of approval by religious authorities.


By Debra Nussbaum Cohen http://blogs.forward.com November 2, 2011
The Haredi influence in society as a whole means they take liberties. They defy the Supreme Court decisions on separate busing. 

No political party can afford to offend the Haredim because it means they back out of a government and the government falls. That has a serious effect on women.


By Jeremy Sharon www.jpost.com November 7, 2011
[Leading religious-Zionist Rabbi Dov Lior] also returned to the topic of religious soldiers listening to women singing in the army, and reiterated his stance that they should exempt themselves from any such events.
“Find a good excuse in order to leave before the women sing,” he told a student, adding however “you don’t have to explain to anyone why you need to suddenly leave.”


By Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com November 4, 2011
The Katzes are part of a growing trend: couples seeking an alternative to the state’s religious courts for the purposes of marriage and divorce.
Even if it is hard to bypass the Chief Rabbinate’s authority altogether, more and more people are refraining from setting foot in its courts, opting instead for private ones. There they find the efficiency and creativity sometimes lacking in the rabbinical establishment.
Tzohar, an organization of religious Zionist rabbis, and Mavoi Satum ‏(“Dead End”‏), an advocacy group for women denied divorce, are preparing a draft bill of their own that would grant judicial powers to private batei din.
Mavoi Satum is weighing a petition to the High Court of Justice asking it to give private rabbinical courts the same rights as those of Badatz Ha’edah Haharedit and Badatz Karelitz.


By Jeremy Sharon www.jpost.com November 2, 2011
The bill, proposed by MKs Otniel Schneller (Kadima) and Zvulun Orlev (Habayit Hayehudi), will require the courts to initiate a hearing within 30 days if the court hadpreviously ordered the husband to give a get to his wife through a “obligatory” or “coercive” decree, and within 90 days for an order which “recommended” or “commanded” that the get be given.
Batya Kehana, director of Mavoi Satum who helped draft the bill, expressed hope that the bill will help accelerate the process for women to be granted a get.
“We hope that the bill will help shorten the period of abuse and blackmail that women who are denied a get experience, and put an end to the foot-dragging that characterizes the rabbinical courts,” she told The Jerusalem Post.


By Tova Tzimuki www.ynetnews.com November 3, 2011
"The law means to transfer the responsibility of enforcing sanctions to the courts without needing to involve the denied party," Committee Chairman David Rotem explained.


By Kobi Nahshoni www.ynetnews.com November 1, 2011
The flagship project of the Tzohar organization - performing thousands of wedding ceremonies a year - is in danger of shutting down because the chief rabbinate and Ministry of Religious Services have stopped providing the movement with marriage certificates, Ynet has learned.
In recent months, Religious Services Minister Yakov Margi has instructed his office to cease issuing additional wedding certificates to the Shoham rabbinate, beyond a quantity that is sufficient for residents of the local council. Needless to say, the number is much lower than the thousands of couples that do it with Tzohar.


By Lourdes Garcia-Navarro www.npr.org April 7, 2010

Women's groups say these issues underscore the inherent contradiction between religious traditionalism and contemporary civil society in Israel — which was founded as a Jewish state but also a democratic, modern one.
Susan Weiss says nowhere is this more strikingly illustrated than in the so-called race to the courthouse.
"When you get divorced, you have to decide issues of custody, you have to decide issues of marital property, you have to decide issues of visitation rights — all sorts of ... matters that are ancillary to the issue of divorce," she says.


By Tomer Zarchin and Eli Ashkenazi www.haaretz.com November 4, 2011
Rabbi Mordechai Elon, who was indicted earlier this week for sexual assault and indecent behavior against two minors, denied the charges yesterday, calling them gossip, slander and lies.
"The charges are based on gossip and slander. Any claim that I confessed to these acts is a blatant, heinous lie," Elon said at a meeting with some 100 supporters and students in a synagogue in the northern town Migdal.
“I have been tried in a kangaroo court, put before a firing squad. This is anti-democratic, anti-Torah and inhuman."


By JPost.com staff and Joanna Paraszczuk www.jpost.com November 3, 2011
Following Elon's comments, the Justice Ministry spokesman said in a statement that the State Attorney's Office had not approached Elon's attorney or made contact with Elon in order to come to any agreement with him.


By Yair Ettinger www.haaretz.com November 4, 2011
Since February 2010, when the Elon affair was exposed with a bang, many asked whether the charisma of some rabbis, like Elon, had given them too much power over the delicate souls of their students, and whether they used their power to subdue their students' will.


By Jeremy Sharon and Joanna Paraszczuk www.jpost.com November 2, 2011
The Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment on Wednesday afternoon against Rabbi Mordechai Elon, charging him with five counts of indecent assault, and indecent assault by force.
According to the indictment, which was filed in the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, Elon, 51, the former head of Yeshivat Hakotel and a leading figure in the religious-Zionist world, exploited his position as a revered figure in carrying out the offenses against two minors.


By Aviad Glickman www.ynetnews.com November 2, 2011
Rabbi Motti Elon: "My behavior is apparently being construed in a different way to what actually happened. I never harassed anyone, let alone committed indecent acts. The indictment is baseless to the core and I shall prove my claims in court."


By Leon Cohen www.jewishchronicle.org November 6, 2011
A quiet “Jewish renaissance” is happening in Israel and has been growing for the last ten to 15 years in ways that were “unexpected in form and size.”
So contended Rabbi Benjamin Segal, 67, former president of Melitz-the Centers for Jewish and Zionist Education in Israel and former chair of the Masorti [Conservative] Movement in Israel.
...Above all, “this does not mean observance. The people are accepted as who they are,” Segal said. “That allows these people to learn, and sometimes choose” among observances.
And this movement is “wildly opposed” to religious compulsion or privilege, the products of the long-time mixing of religion and state in Israel, he said.


Shabbat Shalom: Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1–17:27)
By Rabbi Shlomo Riskin Opinion www.ohrtorahstone.org.il November 4, 2011
Jewish law provides for conversion, and no ancient halachic authority demanded total compliance with “Orthodox” law as a necessary condition.


By Rabbi Micah Peltz Opinion www.haaretz.com November 6, 2011
There is a debate about Israel education. Some advocates teach Israel in black and white.
For these educators, Israel is a country of the halutzim (pioneers) who built the land from nothing, that always justly battles its enemies, and that is the fulfillment of the centuries old dream to return to Zion.
Others, however, prefer to portray Israel in shades of grey. They respond to the black and white approach by saying that “things are not so simple.”


By Jessica Steinberg www.jta.org October 12, 2011
Call it circumstantial Zionism.
There’s been a recent uptick in North American aliyah -- of basketball players.
More than a dozen North American players have become Israeli citizens and joined professional Israeli basketball teams and second division squads in the past few years.
It’s not exactly a trend but the result of Israeli league rules, the NBA lockout and the dreams of one particular team owner.

Religion and State in Israel
November 7, 2011 (Section 1) (see also Section 2)
Editor – Joel Katz
Religion and State in Israel is not affiliated with any organization or movement.
All rights reserved.