Post to Maskil_Activity 12/16/2009

• Netanyahu and Barak must stand strong against right-wing yeshiva - Haaretz - Israel News

  tags: Refusal

  • Barak's decision is only symbolic: It does not release the IDF from its problematic arrangement with the yeshivas, which have become a right-wing bastion in combat units and whose students view their rabbis as a parallel source of authority to their commanding officers. But its importance should not be underestimated. This is the first time the defense establishment, which for years has been negligent in dealing with lawbreakers on the right, has set a "price tag" for rabbis who undermine the foundations of democracy and tell their students which orders to obey and which to refuse.
    
    
    
    The support for Melamed among the heads of other hesder yeshivas, and their threats to discourage their students from joining the army to protest this "interference in a rabbi's spiritual path," shows the grave danger of creating within the army a private militia of the extreme r ight, subservient to the directives of the rabbis. It is difficult to imagine a more clear and present danger to democracy, and to the strength of Israeli society, than such threats of rebellion - even if they come wrapped in pretty slogans about hesder soldiers' motivation and contribution to the army.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Post to Maskil_Activity 12/15/2009

• Israel should bring Jewish law into its legal system - Haaretz - Israel News

  tags: Halacha

• Basic Law on Democracy (Haaretz Israel News)

  tags: Constitution

  • Under such circumstances, the need to enshrine the rules of the democratic game in a constitution is greater than ever. In the absence of the possibility of passing a constitution, a much less comprehensive, but essential, law should be passed: a Basic Law on Democracy. Below is the draft of such a bill:
    
    
    
    1. The State of Israel is a democratic state, in which decisions are made by the principle of majority rule, on the basis of general and egalitarian elections held every four years or less.
    
    
    
    2. The Knesset freely determines the laws and oversees the cabinet, and the Supreme Court freely oversees the actions of the legislative and the executive branches and of the Israel Defense Forces.
    
    
    
    3.The Supreme Court and the IDF are responsible for protecting this law.
    
    
    
    4. Any attempt to fundamentally harm the democratic character of the State of Israel shall be considered treason, punishable in accordance with the law.
    
    
    
    5. Amendments to this law shall require a two-thirds majority of Knesset members in each reading, but shall not involve fundamental changes to this law.
    
    

• One chain of command (Haaretz Israel News)

  tags: Refusal

  • That is a mistake. The government must not give in to those who do not accept its authority, particularly if certain rabbis threaten that their students will not enlist in the army. The more the state ignores the incitement in the hesder yeshivas, the more it allows it to grow.
    
    
    
    This growth is not "spiritual," as the rabbis label it. By virtue of the rabbi's position and the special arrangement between the army and the yeshiva, this growth effectively means a division of authority. The inciting rabbi is not "expressing his opinion." He is telling his students to do the opposite of what their commanders instruct them to do. This division is a surefire recipe for the breakup of the army and a sign of anarchy.
    
    

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The very soul of Israel

Once again I'm shocked to find that an editorial on an issue that is central to the very soul of Israel has attracted only one other comment! The beautiful Israel that so many of us have loved from near and far is slowly slipping away, steadily replaced by this sour, ugly Israel of an intolerant Halacha and uprooted olive trees. All I can say is, we'll be sorry when it's gone...

in reference to: The worst appointment - Haaretz - Israel News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Land is also a scarce resource!

While I'm every bit in favour of using alternative (preferably green) energy sources, we also need to realise that land (especially agricultural land) is one of our scarcest resources. When it comes to solar power, for instance, we should be covering every available roof surface with solar cells, NOT, taking valuable agricultural land out of production for so-called "solar farms". Likewise in the case of wind farms and bio-fuels. Wave and tidal power generation on a large scale also has the potential to decimate valuable coastlines.

in reference to:

"Kibbutz Meirav on Mount Gilboa is also planning to build its own solar generating array, but this will be much bigger - 5 megawatts spread over 100 dunams (25 acres) of its land. The kibbutz has already signed an agreement with the Solarit Doral company, which will build and operate the facility. The total investment is estimated at NIS 80 million, though the construction requires various approvals for the use of agricultural land for solar power systems."
- Real estate firms, kibbutz considering large solar plants - Haaretz - Israel News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Be afraid, be very afraid...

It's not Halacha as such that scares me (although I have no desire to see Halacha become the law of the land), but rather the modern-day practitioners, interpreters and adjudicators of Halacha. Both Halacha and (especially) its interpreters have a huge amount of work to do before it and they become fit to govern our day to day lives.

in reference to: Israel should bring Jewish law into its legal system - Haaretz - Israel News (view on Google Sidewiki)

The next step

In a sane, democratic society, there would a "next step" here: the whole hesder yeshiva system would be done away with completely, and yeshiva heads that encourage/instruct their students not to enlist would be thrown in jail and the yeshiva concerned closed.

in reference to: One chain of command - Haaretz - Israel News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Not One Shekel

The Israeli taxpayer and charitable donors (both in Israel and the Diaspora) could all benefit from a campaign to cry out against abuses such as this, and call for Not One Shekel of taxpayer/donor money to find its way into Haredi coffers (at least not until such time as they fully integrate themselves into Israeli society).
I am shocked that, despite the impact of this issue on each and every taxpayer, there was only one comment on this article.

in reference to: 'National service is yet another channel funneling money to Haredim' - Haaretz - Israel News (view on Google Sidewiki)

Celebate?

A typo in the text here. "Celebate" should probably read "celebrate". Oh well, at least you didn't tell us to celibate! :-)

in reference to: Happy Chanukah from the Jewish Agency (view on Google Sidewiki)

Allow Labels when using the Send to: Blogger function

When using the Google Toolbar Send to Blogger function, it opens up a useful little Blogger editor in a pop-up Window.
While the editor has most of the functionality one could want when editing a quick post on the fly, it could be made even more useful by including a field for "Labels", as per the built in Blogger editor.
Including the Labels field would allow the user to complete the post entirely from within the Send to Blogger function, instead of having to add Labels later in another editor.

in reference to:

"New! Send To You can use your Google Toolbar to share web pages via email, text message (SMS), or blog. To share an entire page, select from the Toolbar's "Send To" menu; to share an excerpt, simply select the section of the page you want to share before clicking "Send To.""
- Features - Toolbar Help (view on Google Sidewiki)

Post to Maskil_Activity 12/12/2009

• Op-Ed: Seven Principles to help heal the planet (JTA Jewish & Israel News)

  tags: climate change, global warming, green judaism

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Post to Maskil_Activity 12/11/2009

• Why silence over Israel's wrongs is anti-Zionist (Haaretz Israel News)

  tags: Zionism

  • We need to remember this Rashi because it suggests that American Jews should offer angry, vocal, confrontational critique when they feel that Israel is practicing particular policies that they find unworthy. Note the word that Rashi uses: "to fight." Not just to critique, not just to gently remind, not just to seek to influence, but to shout, to confront, to demand to be heard.
    
    
    
    If we want American Jews and Israel to be in a truly deep relationship, then we need to enable American Jews to be the ezer k?negdo, the helping spouse who fights. After all, they do enough helping. We can't ask American Jews to support us, visit us, give us their money, and be inspired by us, without allowing them - demanding of them - to tell us what they think. It is taxation without representation. It is an abuse of the relationship between us. It is blasphemy to the very notion of a Jewish state.
    
    
    
    This approach will ultimately lead to a much richer marriage between American Jews and Israel. Young American Jews throw their weight behind other causes, causes where demands are made on them, where they are encouraged to fight against injustice, to debate, to create change. We don't give them these opportunities with Israel. Go and change the world, we say; but when it comes to Israel, you must close off your creative energies, your critical thinking, your fiery emotions, and just support politely from the sidelines. No wonder they are not interested.
    
    
    
    
  • The lack of American Jewish voices in modern Israel is a tragedy. Israel, for all its wonders, its achievements, and its robustness, is not living up to its potential, and one of the reasons for that gap is the lack of American Jewish voices in its culture, religion, and politics.
    
    
    
    Thomas Friedman writes more perceptively about Israeli politics than any Israeli journalist or politician; why are his pieces not regularly and immediately translated into Hebrew? Abraham Joshua Heschel revolutionized our understanding of Jewish spirituality; most religious Israelis have never heard of him. Diaspora Jewish educational thinkers and practitioners have made enormous strides in working out how to get Jews of different religious streams to sit, talk, and learn together; Israel is decades behind. There are countless other examples. Both sides are at fault. Israelis have been too stubborn, too arrogant, or too busy, to listen; but American Jews have not been willing to be the ezer k'negdo, the spouse who fights.
    
    
    
    Israel is not living up to its potential, and one reason for that is because American Jews have not insisted that their voices be heard. This is scandalous. It is anti-Zionist. It is suicidal. It must change
    
    
    
    

• Not refusal at all (Haaretz Israel News)

  tags: Settlements

  • After all, we can understand a soldier whose conscience does not allow him to shoot on Shabbat, can't we? Well, the answer is absolutely not. That is precisely the path to the hardali takeover of the IDF: The rabbis have succeeded in keeping women away from their students, encourage them to turn to a rabbi on any issue related to "conscience" or "ethics," and have created a blatant separation between soldiers who have to obey every order every day of the week, and their favorites, the skullcap wearers.
    
    
    
    There can no doubt: The domination of the Israeli reality by the settler norm is a successful enterprise. Every fiery speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who bangs on the table with his fist and declares that "we will not agree to refusal from any side," and every demonstration of evasiveness by Defense Minister Ehud Barak who threatens to punish opponents of evacuation but ingratiates himself with the hesder yeshivas and says that we must not harm all of them "because of a handful of refuseniks," are increasing this domination.
    
    
    
    Just as the Supreme Court once permitted the two different legal systems in the territories and created a basis for apartheid, the political establishment is allowing the destroyers of democracy, who want to replace sovereignty with the rabbinate, to take it apart from within. That's not refusal at all. That's war.
    
    
    
    

• Israeli ecologists could help stop global warming (Haaretz Israel News)

  tags: Global Warming

  • I will start by relating that my late colleague, Prof. Hugues Faure of the University of Marseilles in France, who studied Saharan terrain and groundwater resources, calculated that if we used the groundwater beneath that desert for irrigation, and restored the greenery that covered it during the last ice age, the vegetation would absorb all the carbon generated by industry each year. According to his calculations, the water supply could last a few hundred years.
    
    
    
    In light of his findings, I convened a group of experts on water in arid areas at UNESCO's offices in Paris in 1998, after which we published a manifesto urging a worldwide campaign to plant trees in desert areas.
    
    
    
    Studies conducted since then in the Yatir Forest in the southern Judean Desert, by teams led by Prof. Dan Yakir from the Weizmann Institute of Science and from the Desert Research Institute at Sde Boker, indicate that in addition to the trees functioning as a trap for the huge amounts of carbon in the air, and as a means for transforming it into a substance that can help them grow, the stomata (pores) of the trees' leaves do not have to open to absorb the large amount of carbon dioxide in the air.
    
    
    
    Thus the amount of water secreted from the leaves is reduced, and the tree saves water and is able to grow even in relatively dry regions.
    
    
    
    And there is more to it: The shade provided by the trees planted in sandy expanses reduces the evaporation of the little rain that falls in the desert.
    
    

• Slip of the tongue? / His credo snapped (Haaretz Israel News)

  tags: Religion and State

  • After all, "Torah law" requires us first of all to immediately restore the death penalty. Without it, we will not be able to punish with the full extent of the law, through stoning or burning, for adultery, sodomy and a multitude of other sins. This crown, that Neeman seeks to return, is a crown of thorns and thistles and prohibitions and sufferings and cruelties that are not from the world of justice.
    
    
    
    And even if we were to replace "Torah law" with "halakha" - the full complement of Jewish religious law - we could still not relax, breathe a sigh of relief, we would still be choked and lacking air.
    
    
    
    Which halakha, exactly? That of Beit Hillel or of Beit Shammai, the less strict or more strict, or, in contrast - that of Ovadia Yosef, according to whom one's mouth should not be muzzled; or that of Eliezer Melamed, the hesder yeshiva head who is calling for soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate settlements; or that of Yitzhak Ginsburg, author of a hagiography of Baruch Goldstein? This crazed land is filled with religious teachers, and every gang has its own rabbi.
    
    
    
    There is no animal called halakha; there are many such animals, some of which are predators. We are as if devoured by evil beasts if these are our teachers, if these are our judges, and we shall no longer be able to perceive the coat of many colors of the "Jewish and democratic" state. Instead of judges in Jerusalem we will have a rabbinical court.
    
    
    
    Who would want to live here? Who could? We've already given them more than enough authority to run our lives, from birth to marriage to the grave. And what of our conscience, with a rabbi forced upon it?
    
    

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Post to Maskil_Activity 12/09/2009

• Reading "Success Is Not an Accident" and here's what it's about: - jackalopekid's posterous

  tags: no_tag

  • 

• An Israeli in Dubai (Haaretz Israel News)

  tags: Gulf

  • After four days in this wonderful place, I want to go home. Talking with the people has taught me respect for the ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, his vision and resolve. He developed the emirate from a beach to the top of the international glitterati scene with hardly any oil revenue, which made me think unhappy things about the leadership in Jerusalem.
    
    
    
    I learned about the order the local government preserves, the paucity of crime, the openness to strangers, and the political pragmatism of the emirs. I also feel uncomfortable about the hordes of foreign workers, who have a majority but no political power.
    
    

• Trust the settlers to lose the West Bank - Haaretz - Israel News

  tags: Settlements

  • For more than 40 years, Israelis have subsidized settlers, defended their enclaves with their life's blood, drove on disintegrating highways even as transportation budgets laid down dedicated settler roads to remote hills and preposterous trailer camps, all the while listening to West Bank rabbis issuing rulings justifying violence against Arabs, refusal to serve in the army, and opposition and resistance to Israeli soldiers, police, and government. It has further hurt the settler cause that their rightist allies have led the fight to foil a deal to free Gilad Shalit.
    
    
    
    The anger, the settlers are always shocked to discover, cuts both ways.
    
    

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Common error

Although the anchor text points to the (correct) Web address, www.kkl.org.il/eng, the link location points to http://www.jpost.com/servlet/www.kkl.org.il/eng, which is an invalid address.
In order to access the site, copy the anchor text, i.e. what's actually displayed in the article, or copy the link from here:
http://www.kkl.org.il/eng

in reference to: Green Revolution at the UN Climate Change Conference | KKL-JNF at UN Climate Change Conference | Jerusalem Post (view on Google Sidewiki)

Post to Maskil_Activity 12/08/2009

• Israel must join the Jewish world and go green (Haaretz Israel News)

  tags: Conservation

  • Israel is, on the one hand, a strange country, and on the other side it is a very strange country. It is at the gates of the OECD, asking to be a member of the developed countries' club, but also pretends it is still developing; it is consciously slipping in its overall effort to save the planet from the effects of global warming, but also expects to receive preferential treatment.
    
    
    
    The impression is that the international community is increasingly losing patience with our double dealings on all levels. Environmentally-conscious Israel is in its fetal stage. While awareness is developing here like a pregnancy, it is taking too long to reach term. The signs are there but there is no genuine willingness to complete it. Capital interests still have the upper hand in most instances in which there is a clash between greed and future welfare.
    
    

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Post to Maskil_Activity 12/04/2009

• Interview: Anat Hoffman (The Jewish Chronicle)

  tags: Pluralism

  • I don’t have a problem with those who don’t want us to pray at the Wall. I have a problem with secular politicians, secular mayors and secular police who put up with that. There is more than one way to express your Jewishness.”

    
    

    Of particular worry to her are the strictly Orthodox communities who opt out of Israeli national life. “In 2050, the Charedim will be 37 per cent of the population. Israelis are not going to put up for very long with the current economic formula. I pay my taxes twice for them not to pay taxes, I send my kids to the army so they can study Torah. Israel may not be economically viable in 50 years’ time. They have to change. They have to work like their brethren in New York or Golders Green.”

• Azure on "Coming To Terms With Christianity" (Spengler Forum at First Things View topic)

  tags: JC

  • Indeed, while Catholic leaders of recent times have repeatedly expressed sorrow and even remorse for hundreds of years of antisemitism, the Jewish world has not yet shown a comparable willingness to reconsider its own perception of Christianity. No one, of course, has demanded this of Judaism, for understandable reasons. Ever since Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century c.e., it was the Jews, the so-called Christ-killers, who were persecuted by the Church, and not the other way around. Today, however, circumstances demand that all established religions reexamine their traditional attitudes toward each other. Christianity, in all of its various denominations, has generally risen to the occasion. Judaism, for its part, has not.
    
    

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Link Field

You said "The Link field can be very useful if your blog posts are frequently about other articles, and you want the links to these articles visible on your public blog."

Wouldn't it be more correct to say that the Link Field transforms your blog post title into a link to the external article, rather than to your own blog post page?

in reference to:

"The Link field can be very useful if your blog posts are frequently about other articles, and you want the links to these articles visible on your public blog."
- What does the Link field do? - Blogger Help (view on Google Sidewiki)

Post to Maskil_Activity 12/02/2009

• 'Settlements are legal and legitimate under US law' (Israel Jerusalem Post)

  tags: “Whose, Land?”

  • The little-known Anglo-American Convention, a treaty signed by the US and British governments in 1924, stipulated that the US fully accepted upon itself the Mandate for Palestine, which declared all of the West Bank within its borders.
    

    "The treaty has been hidden," said OFICL director Mark Kaplan. "But if you look at the House [of Representatives] deliberations during World War I, people are saying, 'Look, we've invested a lot of money in Palestine, and we expect that this treaty will be upheld.'"
    

    Though the United Nations' 1947 partition plan declared the West Bank an Arab territory, the mandate's borders still hold today.
    
    
    
    
    

    "The mandate expired in 1948 when Israel got its independence," Kaplan said. "But the American-Anglo convention was a treaty that was connected to the mandate. Treaties themselves have no statute of limitations, so their rights go on ad infinitum."
    

    "The UN partition plan was just that-a plan," said OFICL chairman Michael Snidecor in a statement. "The General Assembly has no authority to create countries or change borders."
    

    
    
    
    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    
    

    
    

    
    
    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    
    
    

• If the Vilna Gaon was right, the 3rd Temple is on its way (Haaretz Israel News)

  tags: Haredim

  • However, secular and Zionist Orthodox Jerusalemites are concerned that two developments could lead to the synagogue becoming ultra-Orthodox.
    
    
    
    The first was the appointment of a rabbi for the synagogue - which happened about three years ago, when it was still a concrete shell - Rehovot's chief rabbi Simcha Hacohen Kook, who is considered close to the ultra-Orthodox non-Hassidic leader Rabbi Yosef Elyashiv. He was chosen by a panel of rabbis, with the blessing of Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.
    
    
    
    "A government company built the synagogue. There are procedures for how people are chosen. They made this choice to prevent the appointment of a Zionist Orthodox rabbi," said Anat Mufkadi, a member of the group concerned about the synagogue. Rabbi Elyashiv reportedly told Haredi journalist Shlomo Kook, the synagogue rabbi's nephew, that the expedited appointment was intended to "stop up gaps," comments understood to mean keeping a Zionist Orthodox rabbi from getting the post.
    
    

• Becoming Part of the Crowd (Israel Religious Action Center)

  tags: Pluralism

  • 
    Such an example of Haredi influence and power is not uncommon in Jerusalem.  But it baffles Noa.  “There are ultra-Orthodox Jews in big cities all over the world, and they manage to lead observant lives without violent outbursts toward the rest of the population.  It’s absurd that when they live in the Jewish state they can behave as such.”
    

    
    

    
    She continued, “I wonder if someone who doesn’t live in Jerusalem cares about this or not.  Only when people understand that what happens in Jerusalem affects everyone – Jerusalem is a microcosm of Israel, and its problems will one day blow up in our faces if we’re not careful.”
    
    

• Segregation is Unacceptable Humiliation (New Israel Fund)

  tags: Segregation

  • She also made copies of a ruling by Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the 20th century’s foremost halachic commentators, permitting mixed seating on public transportation on the grounds that this was not erotic contact, and saying that any man who experienced it as such has problems.

    
    

    Fisher said, “I am not aware of a single eminent rabbi who has ever ruled that there must be gender segregation in public places. Even the separation of men and women in Orthodox synagogues is a matter of custom rather than halacha.”

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Post to Maskil_Activity 12/01/2009

• High-tech lobby chief warns on Intel violence

  tags: Haredim

  • 
    Mankovsky believes that the attacks against Intel's fab in Jerusalem are a major threat at two levels. First, they harm Israel's attractiveness as an enlightened, business-friendly, and open economy. Second, the violence and vandalism are liable to cause Intel Corporation's management to decide to close the Jerusalem fab.

    
    Mankovsky warns, "Such an act will cost the jobs of hundreds of people employed at the fab, and lead to considerations to move operations to other countries perceived as more attractive. Closing the Intel fab in Jerusalem will prevent the opening of the next fab and/or R&D center by the company in Israel, and cause a domino effect."

    
    

• Politics, Not Principle

  tags: Pluralism

  • 
    It may be that given Israelis lack of interest in changing the status quo, our making a big deal of Israel’s lack of religious pluralism and the corruption of the
    Orthodox establishment will simply alienate more Jews from Israel, which is already considered by many American Jews to be problematic with regard to liberal issues of rights
    and freedom. Only an explicitly explained boycott of all businesses and institutions under the control of the Orthodox political establishment has any chance of even getting
    significant attention. This would mean no visits to Meah Shearim or the Kotel, no spending money in the Old City, no praying at Heichal Shlomo or the Central Synagogue, and
    no support of Old City yeshivas. As with any policy of "sanctions," this needs to be targeted to hurt those in power, and not those who are vulnerable but caught
    in the fray. Local Israeli civil disobedience on this issue — a few thousand Israeli women and men demonstrating and yes, even getting arrested as is necessary in
    any genuine civil rights battle — would probably be helpful. These activists would be a wonderful constituency for Jews living here to connect with, as they already
    feel alienated from Israel due to these issues.

    
    

• No one is poor by choice (Haaretz Israel News)

  tags: Welfare System

  • The data in the report shows not that ultra-Orthodoxy causes poverty but rather that poor people tend to become ultra-Orthodox, as the Shas phenomenon shows. The dismantling of the welfare state pushes the poor to seek help from ultra-Orthodox services. Embracing an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle in turn causes cultural changes among the poor, including an increase in the number of children in a family - which provides a justification for poverty.
    
    

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.