religion

Haredim exhibited less zeal during the destruction of Gush Katif. Haredim prove not averse to military service.

(survey by Steven Cohen of Hebrew University)

Jews cannot pray at the tomb without army presence for safety reasons. Tomb of Joshua had to be covered with concrete to prevent Arab vandalism.

Recent study by Hebrew university indicates a third of Israeli Conservative rabbis in favor of ordaining homosexual colleagues. When Israeli political clique is permanently embroiled in sexual scandals, the rabbis understandably want more choices at workplace. It became old-fashioned to sexually harass women; gay rabbis can make headlines by harassing males.

Faithless Jews spearhead moral objectivism. Communist Jews destroyed societies in the name of moral idealism, but conservative Jews don’t try to establish new values. They succumb to the pressure of liberal US opinion, thus commonsense Canadians show much less support for gay rabbis. Major Christian churches universally reject gay priests and expelled scores of high-ranking homosexuals. Christians and Muslims accept that abomination always exists, could never be fully extirpated; Conservative Jews solve the problem by elevating abomination into the moral norm.

Hardly any Conservative believes that the Torah actually intended moral equality of perverts. Rather, they are skeptical of Torah’s divine origin and feel free to modernize the text, ignoring it here and twisting there. Thus ordaining gay rabbis in direct violation of the commandment to purify Jewish nation from homosexuals. Nothing stands between gay rabbis and gay marriages; once Conservatives reject the biblical condemnation of homosexuality, they must logically agree to same-sex marriage and to homosexuals’ right to adopt others’ children.

Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism are silent on homosexuality, but implicitly condemn it as a failure to meet the major societal obligations of familial life and procreation. Conservative rabbis who allow same-sex relations ignore the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. Some accept homosexuality as parallel orientation after the gays establish normal families with women and bear children. But married people who engage in homosexuality violate the injunction against adultery, offend their wives, and perform abomination for pleasure only – clearly unacceptably.

Of all major religions, only Judaism and Islam explicitly prohibit homosexuality. Ataturk understood the importance of sexual morality for religion, thus protected and promoted homosexuals in his drive to uproot Islam. In Egypt, relaxation of anti-gay laws similarly took place when secular government confronted Islam.

Most societies tolerate homosexuality among laypeople, but Conservative and Reform Judaism are the only two major religious movements that accept gay and lesbian priests. These rootless movements have no values to defend and act as political parties: vote for us and do whatever you like, we only need your vote. Just like political parties pander to every audience with senseless, mutually exclusive promises, so the Conservative movement allows local rabbis to act on the wishes of their atheist congregations and either admit or ban gays. Conservative and Reform rabbis impose no demands on the Jews: homosexuality is nice, eating pork acceptable, violation of Sabbath – okay. They redefined Judaism from religion into communal activity where the members only have to participate in parties held for bar mitzvah and high holidays. Their Judaism is hollower than empty eggshell.

Conservative rabbis do not voice a religious opinion when admitting homosexual colleagues, but expand their movement by lowering the common denominator.

declare Rabbi Wolpo a lone maverick with no ties to Chabad. Wolpo purchased big board space on Israeli buses to sport the Rebbe’s face and the statement, “A Palestinian state is a disaster for Israel.”

After ousting ministers and other government officials, Attorney General orders Justice Ministry to fire the members of the rabbinical council that oversees Gentiles’ conversion to Judaism. Mazuz, with no religious knowledge whatsoever, has decided that the rabbis are unqualified to serve as judges.
Israeli Left insists on drastically simplified religious conversion as a way to assimilate 500,000 Gentiles which the Jewish Agency brought to Israel mostly from Russia, often with fake documents. Though other countries have secularized, Israeli government usurps the rabbinical authority.

The Labor used the pretext of Winograd report to threaten Olmert with leaving the coalition government. Olmert maneuvered for the support of United Torah Judaism faction. As a sign of his good faith toward the religious parties, Olmert supported a bill to finance religious schools on par with secular schools.
Te Labor kicks Olmert over the Winograd report even though the report attributes most failures to Labor’s boss Peretz, a Minister of Defense during the Second Lebanese War.

Sohnut (the Jewish Agency) brought to Israel half a million Gentiles with remote (a grand-grandparent) or fictitious connection to the Jewish people. When the Russian aliyah ended, Sohnut invented a new business for itself: massive simplified conversions.
Rabbi Amir denounced Sohnut’s usurpation of rabbinical authority. The rabbinical court is sufficiently liberal: 85% of applicants receive the conversion certificates.

MK Orlev (NU-NRP) tables a Knesset bill to switch to Saturday-Sunday weekend. The bill will correlate Israeli economy with the West’s. Weekend will start Friday afternoon for Jews to prepare for Shabbat rest.
The bill corrects the situation, long recognized as absurd, when moderately religious Jews have no full day for active rest because Shabbat starts on Friday evening and ends on Saturday evening – and Sunday they go back to work. Now the Jews will be able to enjoy Sunday for various activities prohibited on Shabbat such as driving to see the friends. The bill can increase the Shabbat observance by allowing Jews to both properly celebrate Sabbath and enjoy secular activities on Sunday.
The bill, if approved by the Knesset, also allows for some public transportation on Sabbath to minimize the religious transgression: Jews could ride instead of driving.

bans Jews from participating in the missionary Christian women conference. Knesset’s Christian lobby (Christian Allies Caucus) defends Jewish right to attend a Christian conference.
Christian missionary groups, notably the evangelical International Christian Embassy, are ardent supporters of Israel whose establishment they view as a necessary step toward Apocalypse.

Immigrant Absorption Minister Boim will set up alternative conversion court manned by amenable rabbis who “recognize the immigrants’ needs.” Needs of the Jewish nation? Who cares.
Boim accuses the rabbis of demanding that converts lead religious family life.
The number of conversions is running now at historically high 1,000 a year.

Saudis arrested a Christian for being in Mecca. Jews and Christians are banned from that city venerated by Muslims.
Israel gave the Temple Mount to Arabs and mulls partitioning of Jerusalem with Palestinians.

The left-leaning quasi-reformist group which ordains lesbian rabbis is a major force in the US, but has limited presence in Israel.
Masorti Conservative movement pays NIS12,000 salaries to its rabbis. Israeli government’s Jewish Agency finances a large part of the Conservative’s budget. Conservative movement aims at subverting Orthodox Judaism.

Leaders of Jewish communities and denominations wordlwide protest the IDF’s decision which forced religious Jews to serve in non-observant regiments. Religious Jews are not obliged to serve in the IDF but many do, and with great distinction.

The former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza in response to missile attacks against Sderot. Judaism holds the entire enemy population responsible for attacks on Jews. The Allies similarly held all Germans responsible for the Second World War and bombed German cities indiscriminately.
Chief Rabbi Eliyahu, uniqely among the religious establishment, was a major supporter of Rabbi Meir Kahane.

NRP, Shas brought the bills that ban gay parades in Jerusalem or, alternatively, anywhere in Israel, for the reasons of religious sensitivity and incitement. Olmert renounced the bills, as did the leftists.
The leftist Supreme Court is likely to strike down the bills if passed in the third reading.
Religious Jews succeeded last year in pushing the gay parade into a stadium. A zoo would be a better place.

Chief Rabbi of Hebron Dov Lior blasted those who equate plight of Darfur Blacks with Holocaust. Rabbi Lior correctly pointed that Darfur refugees are not hunted down outside of Darfur, nor is there a program of comprehensive annihilation of them. Once in Egypt, they are safe and Israel need not admit them.

Rabbis from Edah Yehudit laid curse on participants in the gay parade in Jerusalem. The curse does not affect gays per se but only those who publicly offend the sanctum of Jerusalem. The leftist Supreme Court permitted parade of sexual perverts in Jerusalem. It remains to be seen whether homosexuals will file police complaints against the rabbis for inciting the Almighty against them.

Continuing a policy of submitting Judaism to political correctness, various leading rabbis banned their followers and students from participating in protests against the gay parade slated to happen in Jerusalem on June 21. More than 10,000 Orthodox Jews protested the parade on Sunday.
The conformist rabbis offered various justifications for their submission to leftists: property damage (several demonstrators burned a few trash bins; trash is more important than Jewish values), students’ curiosity about the idea they opposed (as if they have never heard about homosexuality before), and similar equally shameful pretenses.
Polls indicate a third of Israeli population does not care about gay parade in Jerusalem. Hamas and other Arab terrorist organizations that demand Jerusalem for the Palestinian state do not care to threaten attacking the homosexuals parading in the holy city.

Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar announced that since Jews have obligations toward animals, all the more Israel should help the Palestinians by stopping Fatah-Hamas fighting. That, Rabbi Amar reasons, should be done somehow without endangering Jewish lives.
Rabbi Amar misses that the Torah enjoins Jews to care about domestic animals rather than wolves.