Huge development for pluralism in Israel

Huge development for pluralism in Israel

The Canadian Jewish News

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Israel funds Conservative, Reform rabbis


JTA, Monday, June 4, 2012

Tags: Israel
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Rabbi Miri Gold

The Israeli government has decided to pay the salaries of non-Orthodox rabbis and recognize them as community leaders.

The attorney general’s office advised the Supreme Court last week that Reform and Conservative rabbis in some parts of Israel will be recognized as “rabbis of non-Orthodox communities” and will receive wages equal to those of their Orthodox counterparts.

Only rabbis in farming communities and regional councils – not in cities – will be eligible for the funding. The vast majority of Israeli Reform and Conservative communities are in large population centres.

The attorney general’s office has said that for now, up to 15 non-Orthodox rabbis may receive state support. Before this decision, only Orthodox rabbis received state funding.

Some 4,000 Orthodox rabbis serve as rabbis of their communities and draw a salary from the government. Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said the rabbis to be recognized would be known as a “rabbi of a non-Orthodox community.”

The non-Orthodox rabbis will receive their salary from the Culture and Sports Ministry, rather than the Religious Services Ministry, which funds Orthodox rabbis. In addition, funding will go only to the rabbis of communities that request it, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Non-Orthodox rabbis, unlike their Orthodox colleagues, will have no authority over Jewish law or ceremonies such as marriage or divorce.

Last week’s announcement followed out-of-court negotiations over a 2005 petition by the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism and Rabbi Miri Gold, a Reform rabbi from Kibbutz Gezer in central Israel. Rabbi Gold had asked the government to fund the Gezer Reform community just as it funds Orthodox communities and their leaders.

A panel of judges presided over out-of-court negotiations, led by Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein. Earlier this month, the panel asked the attorney general to intervene.

Many in the Jewish world greeted the announcement enthusiastically.

Natan Sharansky, chair of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel, called the development a step toward Jewish unity.

“I believe this decision has both practical and symbolic importance,” Sharansky said. “It contributes significantly to the strengthening of the relationship between Diaspora Jews and Israel. The Jewish Agency sees this decision as a bridge and as another step toward bringing unity to the Jewish people.

“The government’s decision… gives official recognition to these dynamic community leaders and rabbis who work tirelessly to build strong and vibrant Zionist and Jewish communities throughout Israel,” Sharansky added.

“We have a long-term goal to have an inclusive, democratic, pluralistic Israeli society,” said Rabbi Daniel Allen, executive director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America. “We’re going to be patient and persevere until the ideal meets the real. This is one step forward in that effort.”

ARZA Canada, the Reform Zionist organization in Canada, applauded the attorney general’s announcement, noting Rabbi Gold will be the first non-Orthodox rabbi to be recognized and paid by the State of Israel.

“After a seven-year court battle, which so many of us have supported, it is rewarding to see that progress is being made for a pluralistic approach to religion in Israel. This is a very significant victory for religious freedom in Israel,” said Les Rothschild, president of ARZA Canada.

Rabbi Jennifer Gorman, executive-director of Mercaz-Canada and the Canadian Foundation for Masorti Judaism, both Conservative organizations, called the development an important step.

Although only rabbis in smaller communities are affected, it opens the door to the possibility of expanding recognition of non-Orthodox rabbis in larger centres, she said.

“Our hope is that it will keep the conversation going and that Conservative and Reform rabbis are accepted for all communities,” she said.

“The Masorti movement is growing by leaps and bounds in Israel” with 63 congregations now part of the Masorti movement, with eight of them added in just the last few years, she said.

“With that sort of growth, you can see that it’s also important to Israel that as a pluralistic view of Judaism grows in Israel, the government goes along with that,” Rabbi Gorman said.

“This is a big step for religious pluralism and democracy in Israel,” Rabbi Gold said. “Israeli Jews want religious alternatives, and with this decision, the state is starting to recognize this reality. There is more than one way to be Jewish, even in Israel.”

In New York, the Rabbinical Assembly of the Jewish Conservative movement and the World Union for Progressive Judaism were also among those that lauded the decision.

“This is a historic day for Israelis and Jews around the world,” said Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice-president of the Rabbinical Assembly. “In order for Judaism to grow and thrive in Israel, it is necessary that the government recognize its obligation to provide equal funding to various Jewish religious streams and expressions that flower in the Jewish state.”

Yizhar Hess, the executive director of Israel’s Masorti movement, said there is a more important issue than the initial number of communities receiving financial support: Conservative and Reform Jews in these areas will no longer have to donate privately to support their rabbis while also paying taxes to support the Orthodox-dominated rabbinate.

This, he hopes, will allow more Conservative congregations to form and reduce the Israeli movement’s dependence on donations from America. Three-quarters of the Masorti movement’s annual budget of approximately $4.5 million (US) now comes from the Diaspora.

“The only way for a Masorti rabbi to act as a Masorti rabbi was to be able to raise enough funds from donations and dues to make a living,” Hess said. “We know that there are more communities that want to reach out and have us.”

David Lissy, executive director of the Masorti Foundation in New York, pointed to two recent surveys of Israeli Jews showing increased awareness of and identification with non-Orthodox movements. One, a recent report by the Israel Democracy Institute and the Avi Chai Foundation, showed that 30 per cent of Israeli Jews had attended a Conservative or Reform service.

“More and more people feel that they would like to take responsibility for their Jewish identity,” Hess said. “They understand that there is more than one way to be Jewish.”

ARZA noted last week’s announcement followed other developments advocated by the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center. Among them, the Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the placement of a Reform rabbi on the religious council of Mevasseret Zion (a town west of Jerusalem); the High Court ruled that forced gender segregation on public transportation is discriminatory and prohibited, and it ordered the allocation of pre-fab units to non-Orthodox congregations for synagogue buildings.

With files from Paul Lungen

IRS targets pro israel

Obama IRS harassed pro Israel groups

Posted: 30 May 2013 02:22 PM PDT

(John Hinderaker)
It wasn’t just the Tea Party: it has been widely reported that the IRS also has harassed and discriminated against pro-Israel charities, In the Free Beacon, Alana Goodman pursues the story:

A Washington Free Beacon investigation has identified at least five pro-Israel organizations that have been audited by the IRS in the wake of a coordinated campaign by White House-allied activist groups in 2009 and 2010.

These organizations, some of which are too afraid of government reprisals to speak publicly, say in interviews with the Free Beacon that they now believe the IRS actions may have been coordinated by the Obama administration.

does anyone really believe Obama did not coordinate the whole thing?
Frequent Visitor to the White House

John Steele Gordon | @steelegordon 05.27.2013 - 9:15 PM

The Washington Examiner reported on Monday that Mark Everson, Commissioner of Internal Revenue from 2003 to 2007, during the Bush administration, visited the White House exactly once while in office. Indeed he felt like he’d “moved to Siberia” so out of the ordinary political loop was he. But Douglas Shulman, Commissioner from 2008 to 2012, during the Obama administration, visited the White House 118 times (Daily Caller yesterday updated it to 158) just in 2010 and 2011. His successor, Steven Miller, also visited “numerous” times.

The Commissioner of Internal Revenue is a managerial position, not a policy-making one, although his input on the practical realities of tax collection and how the IRS is structured might well be very useful if the President was planning a big push on tax reform. But no such push has been forthcoming. Obama’s sole interest in the tax code has been to raise rates on high earners. So what was the commissioner doing going to the White House more than once a week on average?

By his own admission he knew by the spring of 2012 (he resigned in November, 2012) that organizations with the words “Tea Party” in their names were being targeted for extra scrutiny. Is it really believable that someone who had a Wall Street career before coming to Washington five years ago was so politically naïve that he didn’t see the potential for scandal in that information and give the White House a heads-up? And, assuming he did so, is it believable that none of those White House staffers—who can hardly claim political naiveté—did not pass the information along to the president, leaving him to learn of it in the papers?

WHEN ASKED WHY we visited so often by Congress, he said to attend the Easter Egg hunt.

Bury our heads in the sand to be pc?

Do we just bury our heads in the sand? There is the real world and the world we wish existed

British Soldier Hacked to Death in Islamist Attack in London - Gordon Rayner and Steven Swinford
A British soldier has been butchered on a busy London street by two Islamist terrorists. The men attempted to behead the soldier, hacking at him in front of dozens of witnesses, before both were shot by police.
After the killing, one of the men, believed to be a British-born Muslim convert, spoke calmly into a witness's video phone. "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone. Your people will never be safe. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day."
Witnesses said the men used a car to run over the soldier just yards from the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, southeast London, before setting about him with knives and a meat cleaver. As they attacked the soldier, one of the men shouted "Allahu akbar." (Telegraph-UK) Mayor of London says it is not about islam. 

Boston marathon bombers did it for islamic jihad. 
Ft Hood Muslim psychiatrist, still collecting full salary, kills many and shouts Allah akbar. But Obama says workplace violence. 

A Palestinian Peace Message - Editorial (Wall Street Journal Europe)

Palestinian politics has overwhelmingly rejected the notion of the Jewish state's legitimacy. Yet the "peace process" marches on, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and UK Foreign Minister William Hague in the Holy Land again this week to give it another try.
Enter Jibril Rajoub, veteran Palestinian politician and member of the Fatah Party's 20-person Central Committee. Appearing May 1 on Lebanese television, Rajoub said in Arabic that "The resistance, for us in Fatah, is still on the agenda. I am talking about resistance in all its forms." Such as? "By God, if we'd had a nuclear weapon, we would have used it this morning."
Quite a message from a man who a few years ago recorded a Hebrew-language television ad assuring Israelis "I am your partner." But so it goes with a Palestinian leadership bred by Yasser Arafat, who made an art of delivering different messages to different audiences in different languages.
A two-state solution will be at hand when Palestinian leaders endorse it - consistently, in Arabic, to the Palestinian people and to the Arab world at large, in children's textbooks and at their summer camps. 

Friend of mine sent me this



Do you remember ? ? ? ?

1. In 1968 , Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by a Muslim male.

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by Muslim males.

3. In 1972 a Pan Am 747 was hijacked and eventually diverted to Cairo where a fuse was lit on final approach and it was blown up shortly after landing by Muslim males. 

4. In 1973 a Pan Am 707 was destroyed in Rome , with 33 people killed, when it was attacked with grenades by Muslim males.

5. In 1979 , the US embassy in Iran was taken over by Muslim males.

6. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by Muslim males.

7. In 1983 , the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up byMuslim males .

8. In 1985 , the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by Muslim males.

9. In 1985 , TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens , and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by Muslim males.

10. In 1988 , Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by Muslim males.

11. In 1993 , the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by Muslim males.

12. In 1998 , the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by Muslim males.

13. On 9/11/01 , four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take down the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by Muslim males.

14. In 2002 , the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against Muslim males.

15. In 2002 , reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded by---you guessed it was a--- Muslim males.


But we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us.
British soldiers are told now not to wear uniforms off base so as not to provoke jihadists. Europe is done for. Jews already can't wear Jewish identifying material in many places in Europe.

Iran is scared??? of Obama's promise to not let Iran get nuclear weapons

Iran is scared??? of Obama's promise to not let Iran get nuclear weapons

WJD

Sanctions? Diplomacy? Iran doesn't seem much to care.

Diplomats said Wednesday that Iran had installed 700 new centrifuges this year alone to speed a nuclear program that Israel and the West say is intended for the production of nuclear weaponry.

The Associated Press reports that diplomats leaked details of an International Atomic Energy Agency document set for release on Wednesday. In it, theagency says:

The new IR-2m centrifuges are believed to be able to enrich two to five times faster than the old machines. For nations fearing that Iran may want to make nuclear arms, that would mean a quicker way of getting there.

American funds are going to anti-Israel NGOs

WJD

The U.S. Congress received a report on Tuesday showing that American funds are going to anti-Israel NGOs that seeks to promote delegitimization, boycotts, and even antisemitism.

NGO Monitor, a watchdog group that monitors such organizations, compiled the report on the National Endowment for Democracy, a government-funded non-profit created in 1983.

The president of NGO Monitor, Gerald M. Steinberg, gave examples of several problematic groups, including MIFTAH, which is "involved in anti-Israel campaigns and anti-Semitism, including repetition of the infamous blood libel" and has accused Israel of murdering Palestinian children; and Windows, which makes "highly offensive comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany."

Both the report and Israeli diplomats are seeking better oversight of such groups and the dispersal of government funds. They note that the ideologies promoted by these groups are an obstacle to peace and in contradiction to U.S. policy.

Israel prefers Assad stays

WJD

Israeli intelligence officials were quoted in the U.K. Times on Saturday saying that Israel would prefer a weakened Assad regime in Syria, rather than a victory for rebel forces.

According to YNet, one official was quoted saying, "Better the devil we know than the demons we can only imagine if Syria falls into chaos and the extremists from across the Arab world gain a foothold there."

Many observers of the conflict have concluded that Syrian rebel forces have been essentially taken over by Islamist forces, including some affiliated with Al-Qaeda.

Another official reportedly said that Israel would prefer "that the two sides fight each other instead of joining forces against Israel." This was the case during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, when an Israeli official quipped that "it's a shame they can't both lose."

Israel and Syria have been official enemies for decades, but since the 1973 Yom Kippur War have maintained an uneasy but nonetheless stable ceasefire on Israel's northern border.

Why did IRS go lenient on terrorist groups and tough on pro Israel?

 Why did IRS go lenient on terrorist groups and tough on pro Israel?

IRS scrutiny of pro-Israel group called into question

Posted: 14 May 2013 08:15 AM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

Josh Gerstein at Politico reports that the same Internal Revenue Service office that singled out Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny also challenged Israel-related organizations, at least one of which filed suit over the agency’s handling of its application for tax-exempt status.

The group in question is called Z Street. It alleges that one of its attorneys was told that its application for tax exemption was delayed and sent to a “special unit…to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies.”

As Gerstein explains, Z Street sought the 501(c)(3) status applicable to most charities, allowing for tax deductible donations. Most of the Tea Party groups that have come under scrutiny applied for 501(c)(4) status, which allows advocacy groups to avoid federal taxes on their operations but doesn’t render donations to the groups tax deductible. However, both kinds of applications are processed in the same Cincinnati office.

What is the IRS’s explanation for investigating Z Street? It admits that applications mentioning Israel received special attention, but says this was because “Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a higher risk of terrorism.”

This is absurd. Israel may have (or have had) a high risk of being victimized by terrorism. But this fact should create no presumption that groups concerned about, or connected with, Israel are linked with terrorism. And absent that concern, what is the justification for extra scrutiny? Under the IRS’s logic, maybe it should now consider providing extra scrutiny to charitable groups headquartered in Boston.

Under President Bush, the IRS cracked down on “charitable” groups that support or sympathized with terrorists — an outgrowth of the fact that Muslim charities funneled money to Islamic terrorists. But, says Gerstein, President Obama has backed away from this approach, declaring that he thought government rules were unfairly impeding Muslims from carrying through on their religious obligation to donate to charity.

How ironic that the Obama IRS now seems focused instead on a tiny pro-Israel group that questions the president’s approach to the Middle East.

The IRS’s response to Z Street’s lawsuit raises more questions than it answers. The concern, according to the IRS, was not whether pro-Israel groups contradict Obama administration policy, but rather whether they violate “public policy.”

One doubts the ability of bureaucrats to distinguish Obama policy from “public policy.” Giving IRS the benefit of the doubt (but why would we at this point), the stated public policy in question is that the government shouldn’t bestow a benefit on an individual or organization engaged in illegal activity like terrorism, or in an officially disfavored activity such as racial discrimination.

But why would a pro-Israel advocacy group be suspected of engaging in terrorism or racial discrimination?

And how do some of the questions posed to pro-Israel groups relate to terrorism or racial discrimination? Among the inquiries sent to at least one group were:

Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?

Describe your organization’s religious belief system towards the land of Israel.

The proper answer to the second inquiry is, none of your damn business.

It’s too early to reach firm conclusions about the allegations in Z Street’s suit against the government. But the matter warrants our close attention.