Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 12, 2017

JTA Carmel Shama HaCohen, Israels ambassador to UNESCO, is second to none in his admiration for the Trump administrations United Nations envoy, Nikki Haley. In fact, hed like to clone her.

Shama HaCohen appreciated Haleys efforts in trying to head off last weeks vote by UNESCOs Heritage Committee naming Hebrons Old City an endangered heritage site. And he believes the joint U.S.-Israeli bid to kill a resolution Israel saw as one-sided might have succeeded had a U.S. official of Haleys caliber been onsite in Krakow, where the vote took place. (Haley conducted her efforts from New York.)

We didnt have the spirit that was strong enough, Shama HaCohen said in an interview.

Crystal Nix-Hines, the Obama administrations UNESCO envoy, left on Jan. 20. The Trump administrations failure to replace her is part of a broader slowdown in naming top State Department positions. According to reports, fewer than 10 of the approximately 200 State Department positions that require nomination and confirmation have been filled.

Shama HaCohen, a blunt-speaking former Likud member of Knesset, said the absence of Israels most important ally at UNESCO was having far-reaching effects on defending his country.

As soon as you have an ambassador, you have an ability to create a relationship with Washington, to advance an agenda, he said. The absence of envoys harms our efforts to defend Israel, he said. The United States is far from a capacity to bring her full complement to defend Israel.

Shama HaCohen is not the only official on the front lines of defending Israel concerned about under-staffing among the U.S. diplomatic corps.

The issue of staffing at the State Department is critical at UNESCO and in the myriad other areas where U.S. leadership is crucial, Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation Leagues CEO, told JTA. While there was a good-faith effort by Ambassador Nikki Haley and other members of the administration at UNESCO last week, the fact that there was no ambassador on the ground had an impact.

For months, a broad array of Jewish groups and lawmakers from both parties have decried the Trump administrations failure to fill another role: the State Departments anti-Semitism monitor.

We are also concerned by the Secretary of States seeming reluctance to appoint a special envoy to monitor and combat Anti-Semitism, which plays a critical role in raising awareness and action against anti-Semitism and anti-Israel actions globally, Greenblatt said. These positions should be filled as soon as possible.

The understaffing and how it affects Israel-related diplomacy has also caught the attention of Republicans in Congress.

We need more appointees in place, said Kevin Bishop, a spokesman for Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of the Jewish states most ardent defenders in the Senate, when asked about Israel-related diplomacy. He pointed to remarks by Graham on NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday: Secretary (Rex) Tillerson needs to staff up the State Department and use it wisely, Graham said, referring to a range of areas where he said it was AWOL. Im so worried about the State Department.

A State Department official told JTA that the Trump administration remained committed to defending Israel in every international forum.

We have been clear that the United States will oppose any effort to delegitimize or isolate Israel, wherever it occurs. We continue to do that, said the official. With respect to staffing, we continue to have a deep bench of experienced career professionals serving in key positions that are highly capable and able to help the Secretary lead the Department. We will continue the process of exploring and evaluating ways to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency, including optimizing the impact of available resources.

The White House has blamed Senate Democrats for obstructing nominations, noting in a release this week that Trumps nominees are on average taking longer to clear the Senate than those of his predecessors. But Trump has also been slow to nominate: A June 29 count by the Washington Post showed that of the 200-plus State Department positions filled by nomination, Trump had formally nominated just 20 and that the Senate had confirmed eight.

Dan Shapiro, until January the Obama administrations envoy to Israel, said career professionals were no substitute for diplomats who had the confidence of the administration.

When in the past, during the Obama administration when we were fighting an anti-Israel resolution to recognize a Palestinian state, it was all hands on deck, he said. We would have ambassadors in capitals raising it, we would have senior officials, secretaries and under-secretaries weighing with counterparts.

Without the personal relationships diplomats cultivate with their counterparts in other countries, Shapiro said, you dont have the tools available, you cant get to the most senior officials in other governments to be engaged to rally other countries to stand with us.

Shapiro said the lack of appointees is hindering another issue Israel says is critical: Pressing the Palestinians to stop paying families of people jailed or killed while carrying out attacks on Israelis.

We should be engaging many other governments at senior levels to urge them to let the Palestinians know we think its unacceptable, he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus government is generally pleased with the Trump administrations priorities, and appreciates that Trump himself raised the payments-to-prisoners issue in his meetings with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Indeed, Shama HaCohen said that part of his frustration was that the career diplomats in the U.S. UNESCO office were carrying out Obama-era policies seen as friendlier to UNESCO not because they sought to undermine Trump, but because it was the only guidance they had in hand.

Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said the UNESCO vote might have been an outlier: The Obama administration stopped paying dues in 2011 because UNESCO recognized Palestine as a state, and as a result the United States lost its capacity to vote, diminishing its influence at the body in any case.

We take the UNESCO issues very seriously and welcome the strong statements by Ambassador Haley, Hoenlein told JTA.

Daniel Mariaschin, the executive vice president of Bnai Brith International, said that the lack of staffing was a problem, but that Israels overall obstacle at the U.N. and its affiliated bodies was institutional bias.

Theres no question, having ambassadors with the worldview of Nikki Haley, building relationships, is important, he said. But automatic majorities, block voting which is built in the U.N. infrastructure. thats really where these problems lie.

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Under-staffed State Dept. Seen Hurting Israel - Jewish Week

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Posted By richards on July 12, 2017

Jeanette Chawki, far right, teaches League of Kitchens workshop participants how to cook Lebanese food. (Josefin Dolsten)

NEW YORK (JTA) Several times a month Jeanette Chawki welcomes a handful of strangers into her Brooklyn home. There, the visitors learn about life in her native Lebanon, talk about their own backgrounds, and eat food lots of it. Among the dishes visitors tried on a recent Saturday include freshly baked cheese-stuffed bread, tangy labneh with zaatar, chopped fattoush salad topped with fried pita bread and smoky babaganoush.

Chawki, a mother of three who moved to the United States in 2006, is one of nine instructors employed by the League of Kitchens, a New York-based business that offers cooking workshops taught by immigrant cooks.

She hopes that people come away from her class both with the ability to cook at least one new dish and a greater awareness ofLebanese culture.

I want [them] to know how Lebanese people are very generous, very friendly. I want to explain how we have [such a] wonderful country, its very nice, very good place to visit, and I would like to explain more about our food, Chawki said.

The League of Kitchens,whose name is a play onthe League of Nations,was itself inspired by a familys unique immigration story: Founder Lisa Gross fathers family is of Hungarian Jewish heritage and moved to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whileher mother emigrated from Korea in her 20s.

The fact that I grew up moving between two cultures moving between American Jewish culture and Korean culture also underlies this whole project. That gave me a certain comfort and understanding how to move between cultures, and connect between cultures, and thats really what were doing here, creating these opportunities for cross-cultural learning and exchange, Gross told JTA.

Gross, who founded the business in 2014, said providing ways for people to interact with immigrants has taken on an added significance following the election of Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to build a wall on the border with Mexico and restrict Muslims from traveling to the U.S.

An interesting side effect of the election has been a growth of interest in our business. I think people feel like not only is this a cool and fun experience, but its taken on political significance of supporting a company that is very much about recognizing and celebrating immigrants, Gross said.

Lisa Gross hopes the League of Kitchens can challenge peoples perceptions of immigrants. (League of Kitchens)

Workshops are taught by instructors from countries including Nepal, Mexico and Afghanistan, cost between $110 and $175 per person and run between two and a half to five and a half hours. Instructors receive 40-50 hours of paid training prior to teaching, are paid $25 per hour for the workshops, including preparation and clean up, and are compensated for ingredients.

I could really see and understand the immigrant experience in very personal way, said Gross, 35, aformer food writer who founded the urban agriculture project Boston Tree Party.Its so clear to me how much our country is built by immigrants, and the immigrants who come here bring so much expertise, energy and passion, and they contribute so much to our culture and society and to our food culture American food is immigrant food.

During her childhood in Washington, D.C.,Grossfelt like both insider and outsider in two cultures.

There was a little bit of a feeling of I dont really fit totally in either one, she said. Obviously within a typical Ashkenazi American Jewish community, I look a little Asian thats become more and more common, especially for younger kids, but for my generation [it wasnt]. I definitely didnt fit into the Korean/Korean American community, which in a lot of ways is very homogeneous and also theyre Christian.

Still, that didnt stop Gross from being involved in the Jewish community. At the urging of her mother, who converted to Judaism prior to marrying her father, Gross attended a Jewish day school through the age of 13. And the family would go to her fathers parents to celebrate the holidays and eat traditional Jewish food.

Gross hopes her workshops can provide a way to reverse preconceived notions both about immigrants and chefs.

[T]he immigrant, instead of being the displaced person in the inferior position, in this situation the immigrant is the teacher, the expert, the host, and they are people with incredible knowledge and expertise, and the students are really excited to learn from them and to hear their stories, Gross said.

And though it wasnt intentional, all League of Kitchens instructors are women.

In our contemporary food media landscape, so often its the white male celebrity chef who is recognized and celebrated, when most cooking around the world is done by women. And here are women who are immigrant women, who people might pass them and not think twice, but they have something really special to share. Creating a way for them to share that is really exciting, she said.

Chawki, who has worked for League of Kitchens since its launch, said she has had people visiting from around the United States and the world including England, Canada, Switzerland to attend her workshops.

People are coming from different countries, faraway, just to eat my food, to have class with me. This really mean[s something] to me, Chawkisaid.

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How a Korean-Jewish entrepreneur uses food to empower immigrants - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By admin on July 12, 2017

A vandal was caught on surveillance video last week drawing more than two dozen swastikas in freshly poured concrete in front of a New York City building whose owners are Jewish.

The concrete was poured Friday on the sidewalk outside a building in Brooklyn. The building's street surveillance camera captured a young man spending 35 minutes drawing nearly 30 swastikas in the still-wet cement early Saturday.

State Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn says the property owners discovered the vandalism Monday and alerted police. He says the video has been turned over to the New York Police Department. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

In April, the Anti-Defamation League reported an alarming spike in anti-Semitic incidents in the first quarter of 2017.

The ADL's "Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents," published on its website, noted a sharp increase in the harassment of American Jews, including double the incidents of bullying of schoolchildren and vandalism at nondenominational grade schools. Overall, the number of acts targeting Jews and Jewish institutions rose by 34% in 2016, to 1,266, and jumped by 86% in the first three months of this year, the report said.

The incidents were felt across the country but, continuing a consistent trend, the states with the highest number of incidents tended to be those with large Jewish populations and included California, New York, New Jersey, Florida, and Massachusetts.

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Wednesday July 12, 2017 - Israel Hayom

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Posted By richards on July 11, 2017

The penchant of the prime minister, Narendra Modi, for turning every meeting with a world leader into an over-the-top bromance is by now well known. So is his ability to blur the lines between friendly and over familiar. We have seen him swaying on a traditional Gujarati swing with Xi Jinping; taking Malcolm Turnbull for a metro ride in Delhi; steering the French president, Emmanuel Macron, through the gardens of the Elysee Palace as though he were the host and Macron his acolyte; and famously referring to the former American president, Obama, by his first name, Barack, not once or twice but 22 times in course of a single radio broadcast. Since many countries covet India's expanding markets and eagerly eye big ticket defence deals that New Delhi dangles before them, world leaders too have reciprocated Modi's hyper-friendly gestures, albeit a little gingerly. And every time Modi goes on a foreign trip, there is no end to gushing media coverage describing his sojourn as "historic" - even when it is, more often than not, just a continuation of India's engagement with the world that has steadily expanded over several decades past. Yet, even his critics will concede that Modi's visit to Israel last week and his excessive camaraderie with Benjamin Netanyahu were on a different plane altogether - and the trip was, in every sense of the term, historic. The P.V. Narasimha Rao government may have established full diplomatic ties with Israel back in 1992 and cooperation between India and Israel in many fields may have grown over the last 25 years. But Modi was absolutely right in describing his July 4-6 visit to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the first ever by an Indian prime minister, as "path breaking"; just as Netanyahu was spot on when he referred to 2014 as the turning point when "we had decided to tear down the final walls dividing our countries". That Modi and Netanyahu enjoyed a great chemistry was there for all to see - the frequent embraces; Modi's calling the Israeli prime minister by his pet name, "Bibi", and being referred to as mere dost in return; the private dinners; the schmaltzy meeting of the two with 26/11 survivor, Moshe Holtzberg; the walks on the beach. But it was not this personal chemistry or the decision of the two countries to elevate their relationship to "a strategic partnership" that made Modi's trip path breaking. What made it so lies in two profound decisions - a refusal and an acceptance - taken by Modi. His refusal to visit Palestinian territories such as Ramallah which all visiting Indian and world leaders make a point to do, and his acceptance of Netanyahu's "impromptu" proposal to visit the tomb of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Zionism, together underscore why exactly Modi's visit was so significant. The two decisions not just broke with India's long tradition of supporting the Palestinian people who were forced out of their homeland in 1948 and continue to be homeless or occupied, but they also reflect a much greater bond rooted in a common sense of history and ideology between the right wing leaderships currently ruling both India and Israel. Modi and Netanyahu were well aware of this historic shift. Within minutes of Modi landing in Israel, Netanyahu declared: "We love India. We view you as kindred spirits in our journey." A day later, Modi told the Israeli president, "I for I, when I say it, doesn't mean an eye for an eye. It means India for Israel." That was a deliberate rhetorical flourish to gloss over the fact that not all of India supports Israel unconditionally and from the time of Indian Independence in 1947 and the formation of Israel less than a year later in May 1948, India had been a resolute defender of the Palestinian people and a steadfast critic of Israeli aggression. Instead of "I for I", the more accurate description of what took place in Jerusalem would be "H for Z" - or Hindutva for Zionism. For the truth is that Hindu nationalism championed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha has always been supportive of Zionism and Israel for reasons both political and ideological. One key reason is that the RSS greatly admires Israel's success in fighting the Muslim countries that surround it. For RSS followers, a "Hindu" India and a "Jewish" Israel have long been regarded as natural allies in the fight against Islam - with occasionally a "Christian" America thrown in to make a more formidable troika. But the bonds between Zionism and Hindutva go much deeper. Zionism, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1897, was a political movement dedicated to the creation of a Jewish state and nation. The fusion of religious and cultural identity with a "holy" geographical entity is common to both Hindutva and Zionism. The Zionist idea, encapsulated in the Israeli declaration of Independence, states: "The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped... After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion... Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland..." In light of Europe's long history of anti-Semitism that culminated in Hitler's horrific Final Solution in the last century, the desire of the Jewish people to have a safe homeland gained much sympathy after the Second World War - not least from the guilt-ridden Western world that had failed to prevent the Holocaust. But much before Hitler came on the scene, V.D. Savarkar - in an echo of the Zionist creed - declared that Hindus alone were the legitimate people of India because their pitrabhoomi (fatherland) was the same as their punyabhoomi (holy land). In his book Hindutva, first published in 1923, Savarkar wrote: "... no people in the world can more justly claim to get recognized as a racial unit than the Hindus and perhaps the Jews." Elsewhere, in the same book, he wrote: "Look at the Jews; neither centuries of prosperity nor sense of gratitude for the shelter they found, can make them more attached or even equally attached to the several countries they inhabit. Their love is, and must necessarily be divided between the land of their birth and the land of their Prophets. If the Zionists' dreams are ever realized - if Palestine becomes a Jewish State and it will gladden us almost as much as our Jewish friends - they, like the Mohammedans, would naturally set the interests of their Holy land above those of their Motherland in America and Europe..." The RSS ideologue, M.S. Golwalkar, may have been less explicit in his admiration for Zionism and he even extolled Germany for showing "how well nigh impossible it is for Races and Cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one unified whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by." But Golwalkar's appreciation for the "race spirit" of the German people was in keeping with his belief that the bedrock of nationhood is religion, language, race and culture; not a shared citizenship based on universal values. In fact, Golwalkar's writings, too, borrow heavily from Zionist and Judaic exhortations. If orthodox Jews believe they are god's "Chosen People", Golwalkar has described India as the land of the Hindus or "The Chosen Land". He has written, for instance, "Our forefathers were of the conviction that throughout the world this is the holiest of the lands where the least merit will bear fruit a hundred or thousand-fold... It was given to the great sons of this soil to see and realize God in His full effulgence." Imbued with great pride in their ancient roots and their holy lands, and fed by centuries of real and perceived persecution, both Hindutva and strong strands within Zionism today seek to champion a muscular militarized nationalism that is exclusionary to the core and has no place for the un-chosen Other. No wonder Netanyahu and Modi bonded so well together. It was a meeting of hearts and minds, certainly - between a Hindutva hardliner and a zealous Zionist.

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Hindutva for Zionism - Kashmir Monitor - Kasmir Monitor

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Posted By simmons on July 11, 2017

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in Alexandria, Egypt.

Posted: Monday, July 10, 2017 10:39 am

Egypt allocates $22 million to restore historic Alexandria synagogue JNS.org Jewish News |

he Egyptian government has reportedly approved a budget of $22 million for the restoration of the centuries-old Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in Alexandria.

The Project Sector of Egypts Ministry of Antiquities last week sanctioned the funding for the restoration and development of the historic synagogue, which was recently closed for several months after its ceiling collapsed, the Egypt Independent reported.

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Posted in US & World News, Mideast on Monday, July 10, 2017 10:39 am.

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Posted By admin on July 11, 2017

The venerable and prestigious Orthodox synagogue of Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal, Canada, has called on Chief Rabbi David Lau to issue an apology to its communal leader Rabbi Adam Scheier after having rejected his affirmation of the Jewish status of a former congregant.

In addition, the community sent an official letter of protest to the Israeli consul-general for Quebec strongly objecting to the rejection by the Chief Rabbinate of Scheiers affirmation, and those of another 159 Diaspora rabbis.

The letter of protest is yet another low point for Israel-Diaspora relations, and reflects the deep dissatisfaction of many communities in North America, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform, with the attitude of the religious establishment towards Jews in the Diaspora.

On Sunday, a list was disclosed of 160 Diaspora rabbis whose letters affirming Jewish status for former congregants were rejected by the Chief Rabbinate in 2016, which included Scheier as well as other Orthodox rabbis, and numerous Reform and Conservative rabbis as well.

Concerns about the Chief Rabbinates rejection of such affirmations from Orthodox rabbis in good standing with their communities and communal organizations, as well as of clergy from the progressive Jewish denominations, have been an ongoing cause of friction for several years now.

Critics of the Chief Rabbinate believe that this lack of recognition of legitimate communal leaders stems from its distrust of non-haredi leaders and an agenda of empowering more conservative approaches to Jewish life in general.

Founded in 1846, Shaar Hashomayim is the largest Orthodox synagogue in terms of membership in North America, with some 1,300 families, representing close to 5,000 individuals.

Congregation Shaar Hashomayim calls upon Chief Rabbi David Lau to issue an apology to Rabbi Scheier and the other 159 rabbis on this list for publicly discrediting their rabbinic standing, reads the letter sent by the synagogue leadership to the Consul General of Israel for Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces, Ziv Nevo-Kulman.

The letter also demanded an apology to the Shaar Hashomayim community from the Chief Rabbinate for its actions that impact our members and our spiritual leadership, and called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to take the necessary steps to ensure that Diaspora Jewry no longer encounters systemic rejection from the Chief Rabbis office.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Scheier described the Chief Rabbinates posturing and policies on Jewish status issues as having brought shame to Israel, but said that its rejectionist stance towards much of the Diaspora rabbinate has been common knowledge for some time.

Scheier said that he was dismayed that the list of 160 rabbis exists at all, but added that he preferred to be associated with those on it than to be on the list of Chief Rabbinate approved rabbis.

I am neither upset or disappointed to be on this list. I would prefer to be on a blacklist with colleagues and friends who are extraordinary and trustworthy rabbis who I respect than an approved list of the Chief Rabbinate.

He said his challenge now was to ensure that his communitymaintains its love and support for Israel while at the same time confronting this injustice and speaking up in opposition to the Chief Rabbis stance.

On Sunday, Chief Rabbi David Lau issued a statement saying he was unaware that the disclosed list existed, although a source in the Chief Rabbinate acknowledged that Lau was aware that dozens of letters affirming Jewish status by different Diaspora rabbis are rejected every year.

In response to the letter from the Shaar Hashomayim community to the Quebec Consul-General, the Chief Rabbinate repeated its insistence that the list pertains to specific cases and not to the rabbis themselves, and said that the synagogue had "fallen into the trap of media manipulation... planted by people with an agenda."

Director of the ITIM organization which first obtained the list Rabbi Seth Farber argued however that the real agenda behind the rejections was that of the Chief Rabbinate in bolstering a conservative approach to Jewish life, coupled with its ineffective management of the issue.

The agenda of the Chief Rabbinate is to consolidate the power of right-wing Orthodoxy, but its also down to incompetence because there are also right-wing Orthodox rabbis on this list, Farber told the Post.

ITIM obtained the list after filing a freedom of information request to the Chief Rabbinate for the criteria it uses to determine which rabbis it accepts and which it rejects for the purposes of Jewish status affirmation.

The Chief Rabbinate has insisted however that it has no such criteria, and provided ITIM with a list of rejected rabbis instead.

Laus statement on Sunday took issue with one of the Chief Rabbinate clerks, Rabbi Itamar Tubul, who runs the institutions Department of Matrimony and Conversion, and said that he was unauthorized to compile such a list.

According to a source in the Chief Rabbinate, Tubul consults contacts of his in different US states to investigate the legitimacy of a rabbi issuing Jewish status affirmations, and also consults with Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef on such issues.

But ITIM director Rabbi Seth Farber rejected Laus response, saying that Tubul was the result, not the cause, of the Chief Rabbinates chaotic approach to the issue, and accused both chief rabbis of failing to take responsibility for this sensitive problem.

The question of Who is a Jew is being determined by Tubuls friends, and this isnt the way to run a country. The blame lies not at Tubuls feet but squarely at the feet of the chief rabbis, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Farber insisted.

The Post has learned that Shaar Hashomayim is not the only community which is protesting the policies of the Chief Rabbinate.

The United Orthodox Synagogues of Houston, with a membership of 350 families, will also be taking up their concerns with their regional Consul General, since their late leader Rabbi Joseph Radinsky was another of the Orthodox rabbis whose credentials were rejected.

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Canadian Orthodox synagogue protests Chief Rabbinate 'blacklist' to Quebec Consul General - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By admin on July 11, 2017

Congregation Shaare Zedek in New York City (Jim Henderson/Wikimedia Commons)

(JTA) A historic 179-year-old Conservative synagogue in New Yorks Upper West Side is moving forward with plans to house a 14-story apartment building.

The proposed project for the Shaare Zedek synagogue includes 20 condominiums, with a community center for the synagogue in the buildings first three floors, The Real Deal, a website focusing on New York real estate news, reported last week.

Some community members, concerned about issues such as increased traffic in the area, had asked the citys Landmarks Preservation Commission to consider naming the synagogues building a city landmark, but the commission issued a decision in October that the building didnt rise to the level of an individual landmark, The Real Deal reported.

Synagogue president Michael Firestone said in September during a community board member meeting that the congregation could not remain solvent without partnering with a developer, as several New York synagogues have done in recent years, The Real Deal reported, citing DNAinfo.

The synagogue, the third oldest in New York City, was established in 1837 by Polish immigrants,according to its website. It started on the Lower East Side and moved to Harlem before building at its current location. The current synagogue building was dedicated on April 15, 1923, and in 1944 the congregation paid off the mortgage.

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179-year-old NYC Conservative synagogue to go condo | Jewish ... - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

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Posted By richards on July 11, 2017

A secular and religious Jew walk arm in arm as a celebration of Jewish unity. (photo credit:KAREN ABRAMSON)

More than half of Jewish Israelis are in favor of changing the current status quo on religious life in the public realm, believing that current arrangements reflect haredi or religious-Zionist values, a new poll has found.

The survey, conducted for the Israel Democracy Institute, found that 55% of Jewish Israelis think that the way religious issues are handled by the state should change, compared with 33% who said they oppose changes.

Activists for religious pluralism and the separation of synagogue and state have been advocating for a change in religion in the public realm for many years, with key demands including the institution of civil marriage, greater freedoms on Shabbat and the dissolution of the Chief Rabbinates monopoly on many aspects of religious life.

As well as backing change to the religious status quo, an identical percentage of those polled, 55%, said that they believed religion and state arrangements reflect haredi or religious-Zionist values, with two-thirds of secular respondents saying that such arrangements represent specifically haredi values.

Interestingly, 57% of haredi respondents said the status of religion in public life represents either secular values or traditional values.

Among secular respondents who said they would like to see change to religious life in Israel, almost 100% said they support the separation of religion and state, or at least reducing the influence of religion on life in the country.

Some 46% of religious-Zionist respondents said they would support changes to the status quo, of whom 48% want the state to be more religious and 30% want the state to be less religious.

And 42% of haredi respondents said they also support change to the status quo, 76% of whom said they would like religion to play a greater role in Israeli life.

Among those identifying as traditional-religious Jews, 49% support separating or reducing the influence of religion, while among those identifying as traditional non-religious respondents, 80% were in favor of separating religion and state.

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'We want to separate synagogue from state,' say 55% of Israel's Jewish population - The Jerusalem Post

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Posted By simmons on July 11, 2017

JERUSALEM (JTA) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put a kippah on his head and read from the Bible during the weekly Cabinet meeting to illustrate the Jewish peoples and Israels connection to Hebron.

Sundays display came after the UNESCO World Heritage Committee on Friday acting on a request from the Palestinians, declared Hebrons Old City to be a heritage site in danger.

I would like to read fromGenesis 23:16-19, Netanyahu said in opening up the meeting. And Abraham hearkened unto Ephron; and Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the hearing of the children of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant. And after this, Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the cave of the field of Machpelah before Mamre the same is Hebron in the land of Canaan.And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Abraham for a possession of a burying-place by the children of Heth, Netanyahu said.

The connection between the Jewish people and Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs is one of purchase and of history which may be without parallel in the history of peoples. Of course this did not prevent the UNESCO World Heritage Committee last Friday from passing yet another delusional resolution which determined that the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the same Cave of Machpelah, is a Palestinian heritage site.

In fact, the resolution applied more broadly to Hebrons Old City and did not describe it as Palestinian, though it did note that the resolution was submitted by Palestine. An outside report that the committee cited in the resolution noted the Old Citys importance to Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Netanyahu reiterated an announcement first made Friday that Israel would cut an additional $1 million from Israels United Nations membership dues and transfer the funds to the establishment of The Museum of the Heritage of the Jewish People in Kiryat Arba and Hebron. The money also will be used for additional heritage initiatives related to Hebron, he said.

Israel announced in May that it would withhold $1 million in its funding for the United Nations following the passage by UNESCO of a resolution that condemned the countrys sovereignty in Jerusalem.

Israels annual contribution to the United Nations amounts to over $40 million, a spokesman for the mission told JTA in an email in January after Israel said it would withhold $6 million following a Security Council resolution the previous month condemning settlements.

The U.N.s budget for 2016-17 totals $5.4 billion, with the U.S. being the largest contributor followed by Japan and China.

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After UNESCO Vote, Netanyahu Reads From Bible To Prove Jewish Ties To Hebron - Jewish Week

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Posted By admin on July 11, 2017

Israels Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau said in a letter that he did not know of the existence of a blacklist of Diaspora rabbis and that it should not have been released to the public.

The chief rabbi was shocked to discover this list, read the letter written by an aide on behalf of Lau and issued Sunday. This was done without the rabbis knowledge or his agreement. How can a list like this be publicized without the rabbi being made aware of the list itself or of its publication?

The results of this are very serious, the letter continued. First of all, an employee in the Chief Rabbinate cannot decide on his own to publicize who the Rabbinate approves or not. Secondly, the damage this does to certain rabbis cannot be exaggerated including to the Chief Rabbinate.

The list consists of 160 rabbis from 24 countries whom the Chief Rabbinate does not trust to confirm the Jewish identities of immigrants. It includes rabbis from the United States and Canada, and Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbis. It was released to JTA and other news outlets over the weekend by Itim, a nonprofit that guides Israelis through the countrys religious bureaucracy, after it received the list as part of a freedom-of-information request made in 2015 in a Jerusalem municipal court demanding a list of approved foreign rabbis and received this list as part of that case.

According to a JTA tally of the 66 American rabbis on the list, at least one-fifth are Orthodox, including several prominent Orthodox rabbis and one alumnus of the Baltimore ultra-Orthodox seminary Ner Yisroel. The vast majority of US rabbis on the list are Reform or Conservative.

In Sundays letter, Lau ordered Chief Rabbinate Director-General Moshe Dagan to call in Rabbi Itamar Tubul, who kept and released the list, for questioning and a reprimand.

In December, rabbis at the Chief Rabbinate set up a controversial committee to vet conversions, but it is not clear whether the committee approved the published list.

Earlier Sunday, Lau had dismissed reports of a schism between Israel and US Jews over the Western Wall deal as fake news, claiming that the vast majority of American Jews never set foot in Israel anyway.

Speaking at a conference organized by the ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper Hamodia, Rabbi David Lau said that the biggest issue facing US Jews was not the Western Wall or the conversion bill, but intermarriage and apathy about the Jewish state.

In the past two weeks we have been exposed to lies, that American Jews are tearing themselves away from Israel, said Lau. Eighty-five percent of American Jews have never set foot in Israel.

At the end of June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government backtracked on a January 2016 plan to officially recognize a separate, permanent, pluralistic prayer area at Robinsons Arch, adjacent to the main Western Wall prayer area, in a compromise reached after years of negotiations between liberal Israeli and American Jewish groups and the Israeli authorities. The frozen deal would have given non-Orthodox Jewish leaders a joint role in the oversight of the pluralistic site. Currently, a temporary prayer facility exists there.

Archaeologists claim the egalitarian platform harms the visual story of the Western Wall by hiding important archaeological artifacts. (courtesy, Eilat Mazar)

Under ultra-Orthodox management, the main Western Wall area is separated between mens and womens prayer sections.

Lau rejected claims that the Western Wall was only for ultra-Orthodox Jews.

I was in the US a few months ago, he said. I was asked: Why do you not let people of other faiths come to pray at the Western Wall? I told them that is also false. I was at the Western Wall. Next to me was a man from Nigeria. I dont know how he prayed, who he prayed to. But he stood there. Did I bother him? Did he bother me?

Lau quoted the verse that My house is a place of prayer for all the nations, saying that all were welcome to come and pray. He did not explain how those who want pluralistic prayer could do so, but he said those making a fuss about the mixed gender plaza werent interested in coming to Jerusalem to pray.

A young member of Women of the Wall holds up the miniature Torah scroll during the monthly Rosh Hodesh service on June 25, 2017, in the womens section of the Western Wall plaza, just before Netanyahu froze the Kotel Agreement. (Melanie Lidman/Times of Israel)

Of the 15% of US Jews who have visited Israel, Lau said, many of them are Orthodox, or wanted only separate prayer at the Western Wall. He implied that the actual number who cared about a mixed plaza was insignificant.

In the same meeting at the end of June, the cabinet also advanced a bill that would have granted the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, an ultra-Orthodox-dominated body, sole authority over recognized Jewish conversions within Israel. The conversion bill, however, was shelved on Friday for six months.

Efrats Chief Rabbi Shlomo Riskin officiates at a conversion examination for the Giyur Kahalacha private conversion court, November 2015. (courtesy)

Lau said this was also fake news and denied that the judges on the rabbinate conversion courts were out of touch with reality.

You should know that most of the judges in rabbinic courts were officers in the IDF, he said. They are connected to the Jewish experience as much as everyone else.

But he said that Israel cannot allow a situation where any three Jews can convene to form a conversion court, and award certificates of conversion. They give a certificate, he said, but what about Judaism.

He stressed that Israel bears a responsibility to care for US and Diaspora Jews, who are our brothers. But the way to do that was not through the Western Wall or conversion, but through education and strengthening their Jewish commitment.

Lau, along with Chief Sephardi Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, was instrumental in pushing ministers to force the government to backtrack on the Western Wall deal. Just a week before the cabinet decision the rabbinate released a letter that condemned the plans to improve the mixed-gender prayer at the Wall.

View of the current mixed-gender prayer section at the Western Wall in Jerusalem Old City on March 6, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The position of the Chief Rabbinate is that the government decision on dividing the Western Wall is invalid and cannot stand, the letter said, according to a copy obtained by the Israel Hayom daily. The Chief Rabbinate is the highest halachic [Jewish legal] authority in the state, and therefore it is entirely forbidden to hold mixed prayer, men and women together, at any site of the Western Wall.

The governments reneging on the two decisions about the Western Wall and conversions were met with fierce opposition from American-Jewish groups, philanthropists, businessmen and various figures active in the Jewish world, as well as Israeli politicians, who expressed their dismay and disappointment. Some have intimated the decisions might impact financial contributions to Israel and warned of eroding support for the Jewish state.

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Chief Ashkenazi rabbi says he didn't know of 'blacklist' of Diaspora rabbis - The Times of Israel

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