Uncensored News from Israel » religion

Government funds first reformist synagogue in Israel

admin — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:56:58 +0000

in Modiin, headed by a female “rabbi”. Thus is established a precedent for state recognition and encouragement of reformism.

Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar mitigates the Rabbinical Court’s damage

admin — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:26:46 +0000

Rabbi Shlomo Amar is technically a Chief Sephardi Rabbi, but since the Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger is a very dubious figure, Rabbi Amar is the highest rabbinical authority. Rabbi Shlomo Amar’s spokesman hinted that the High Rabbinical Court nullified all the conversions by the government rabbi Chaim Druckman against Rabbi Amar’s express order. Never mind that such an order to a rabbinical court is highly illegal. The High Rabbinical Court, infuriated with Rabbi Druckman’s practices, however, went ahead and nullified hundreds of his conversions retroactively. Rabbi Amar implied that the rabbinical establishment will ignore its High Court’s decision.

High Rabbinical Court revokes 1000s of conversions

admin — Fri, 02 May 2008 12:26:53 +0000

The Rabbinical Court of Israel struck down all the conversions performed by the establishment rabbis Haim Druckman and Co of the Israeli Conversion Authority. The court also handed down a long-overdue decision that declares invalid all conversions whereas the proselyte abandons Jewish observance soon afterwards.
Female converts are deemed to have three major ritual obligations: preparing hala bread and lighting candles for Shabbat, and immersing themselves in mikveh bath monthly. None is in the Torah; as for the mikveh, the Torah prescribes washing one’s body, which shower does properly enough. Ruth, the proselyte grandma of King David, would have been surprised by such requirements.

The decision affects retroactively all the Conversion Authority’s conversions after the 1999.

Israeli government and reformist churches of America want to step up fake conversions, which pushes the Orthodox conversion courts onto defensive for evermore stringent demands.

The Rabbinical Court’s decision is a major setback for the government which tries to assimilate masses of non-Jewish Slavs who entered Israel under the misguided amendment to the Law of Return which allows anyone with a single Jewish great-grandparent to claim Israeli citizenship. Anyway, only a minuscule portion of non-Jews expressed interest even in the fast-track “Allah Akbar” government conversions.

Oddly, the Rabbinical Court’s decision is subject to the review by the anti-Semitic ultra-left atheist Israeli Supreme Court which would likely overrule it. The Orthodox establishment would cling to its own conversion and refuse recognizing the government’s converts as valid marriage partners for religious Jews. In effect, the government’s policy creates second-class Jews on the legal level of bastards.

The Rabbinical Court introduced a legal fiction of invalid conversion: presumably, if a convert ceases observing Jewish law, she never honestly intended to observe it in the first place. Insincerity at the time of conversion invalidates it. Strictly speaking, the law is not applied retroactively, but the conversion itself is proved false by the convert’s future actions.

The Rabbinical Court’s decision is, counter-intuitively, a major step in liberalizing the conversion. Previously, rabbinical judges who oversee the conversion where under immense pressure to assure sincerity and determination of the prospective converts. Unwilling to run any risks, the rabbis imposed tremendous tests on converts. The new ruling abrogates this need for the overwhelming proof. By allowing nullification of a conversion at any time in the future, the Rabbinical Court provided conversion rabbis with the ultimate instrument for ascertaining determination of the prospective converts. Previously, a considerable proportion of converts stopped observance soon after the conversion, but now that becomes impossible as lax observance invalidates the giyur.

Rabbi: Cross is offensive to Jews

admin — Thu, 01 May 2008 17:54:34 +0000

The Chief Rabbi of the Western Wall barred Cardinal Brady, other cross-wearing Christians from praying at the Western Wall. Rabbi Rabinowitz reasoned God won;t enjoy their prayers.
At the same time, hordes of Arabs were sitting, walking, and urinating just above the Western Wall, on the Jewish-liberated, Arab-occupied Temple Mount.

Knesset discusses hametz verdict

admin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:23:29 +0000

MK wrangle their hands over the decision by Jerusalem court to lift penalties for selling leavened bread on Pesach.
The decision hinges on the wrong assumption that places of business are not public places. The court imagines that places like grocery store, restaurant or pizzeria which advertise and open itself to public are not “public places” where the laws bans sale of hametz.
While the Jerusalem court ruled on the divine commandment, Israeli Supreme Court rejected the case by Sderot residents to make the government protect them from Kassam rockets. The Supreme Court claimed it has no prerogative over the government matters.

Shas sets a commandment on vote

admin — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 17:44:32 +0000

Shas MKs demanded that Israeli government votes on a bill banning sales of leavened bread on Pesach. That’s a curious incident of democratic decision-making over a major commandment. According to Shas, government ministers should vote whether to heed God.
The government proved more straightforward and refused hearing the bill.

Shas: Forget Judea, it’s about bread

admin — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:06:47 +0000

A religious Shas Party again threatens to quit the government, this time over the idiotic court ruling which allows to sell leavened bread on Pesach. Shas, however, doesn’t quit the coalition despite the “peace” talks with the Palestinians aimed at giving away Judea and Samaria.

Jerusalem court allows selling leavened bread on Pesach

admin — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:03:48 +0000

Jews waited for a state of our own 1,900 years. In prayers and supplications, we longed to return to the holy city of Jerusalem. We returned, and now can buy hametz on Pesach in Jerusalem.

Rabbinical Court: Israeli courts are a “gentile entity”

admin — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:27:04 +0000

The Supreme Rabbinical Court handed down this decision on a divorce case, banned Jews to use Israeli civil courts as lacking any authority on Jewish matters. In Rabbi Kahane’s pun, “You cannot get any lower than Israeli High Court.”

Rabbi Lior: Kill the government

admin — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:23:19 +0000

Rabbi Dov Lior of Kirayt Arba and Hebron issued a commonsense halachic ruling prohibiting transfer of any weapons to any Arabs. The halacha comes a bit late, as Israel has already supplied Palestinian enemies with massive quantities of weapons and ammunition.
The ruling admonishes all Jews, especially IDF soldiers and officers to disrupt weapons transfers to Palestinians.
Rabbi Dov Lior declared the participants of such transfers “spillers of Jewish blood”, which automatically condemns them to execution.

Olmert promises Ovadia Yosef settlement expansion,

admin — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:14:21 +0000

600 apartments in Betar Illit. It seems that Olmert bribes Rabbi Ovadia in the expectation of the imminent Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. Rabbi Ovadia is expected to keep substantially quiet about the withdrawal as long as his constituency receives some kickbacks.

Israeli Conservatives Jews are not so conservative

admin — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 19:15:39 +0000

Jerusalem Conservative Schechter Rabbinical Seminary banned a party by visiting American Conservative students to celebrate an anniversary of the shameful “rabbinical” decision which allowed ordination of homosexual and lesbian “rabbis.”

A sect to the right of haredim

admin — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 18:38:53 +0000

Israeli police arrested a woman in Beit Shemesh who insanely abused her 12 children. The woman appeared to head a minuscule group of ultra-ultra Orthodox Jewish women whom even the Eda Haredit spokesman described as “crazies” in their zeal.

Rabbi: Hang the terrorist’s sons

admin — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:51:11 +0000

Chief Rabbi of Tzfat, the ancient center of Jewish education in Galilee, called on the Israeli government to re-enact the events of Purim by hanging the family of Merkaz HaRav terrorist on a 70ft gallows.
The smart rabbi carefully avoided the crime of incitement by clarifying that he calls upon the government to conduct the hangings, and not on individuals.

Missionaries: Jews and Muslims united against us

admin — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:39:10 +0000

Following the mail bomb sent to a family of missionaries in Ariel, other messianics claim it’s only a tip of the violence directed at them. That’s exactly what Judaism directs Jews to do in regards to missionaries of foreign religions. About 0.3% of Jews converted to anti-Semitism.

Christian missionary receives a mail bomb,

admin — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:25:50 +0000

a family member wounded. Ortez family in Ariel fished for prospective Jewish converts, which is a capital offense in Judaism.

Rabbi Dov Lior: Boycott the Arabs

admin — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:43:45 +0000

Following a similar halachic ruling by Rabbi Kamensky, Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, very authoritative among conservative Jews, declared it illegitimate to hire Arabs in Israel regardless of their citizenship,or to rent them apartments.

The sane rabbi: boycott the Arabs

admin — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:20:50 +0000

Hugely respected halachic authority Rav Haim Kanevsky ruled against employing Arabs in Jewish establishments on the grounds of danger to life. The Rav’s reasoning is straightforward: since we are at war with Arabs, employing them endangers Jews and there absolutely prohibited under the Jewish law. The halachic decision comes in the wake of Merkaz HaRav attack by the Arab driver of the yeshiva.
Rav Kanevsky also ruled that Jews must be given preference in employment before any non-Arab foreigners except in the cases of clear wage disparity.
Rav Kanevsky’s ruling comes just a quarter of century after Rabbi Meir Kahane pleaded with rabbinical authorities of Israel for such halachic decision. During Rabbi Kahane’s speeches, MKs of religious parties walked away from the Knesset, leaving Rabbi Kahane talking in the empty hall.
Rav Kanevsky’s halachic decision will be extremely controversial, as it practically mandates Jewish religious institutions to fire Arab employees. The ruling might be ignored, overturned by the rabbis more subservient to Israeli regime, or even challenged in secular court. According to Israeli laws, the Rav committed the crimes of racism and incitement, and it remains to see whether the leftist crowd would try to charge Rav Kanevsky as they have charged less prominent people for similar pronouncements.

Rabbi Schachter: My statements are not my views

admin — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 16:23:20 +0000

In those words Rabbi Schachter of the Yeshiva University apologized for calling on his students to shoot Olmert should he give up Jerusalem.
But the rabbi’s original statement makes sense: if Jews incurred casualties to conquer the city, why shouldn’t there be at least one casualty of giving it away?

Shas demands a full-scale invasion of Gaza

admin — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 16:57:55 +0000

How about sending some of Shas constituency, the ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the IDF first?

Dan buses: Shabbat business is unprofitable

admin — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:54:29 +0000

Disregarding the protests of leftist loonies, Dan bus company cancels Shabbat lines. We were told three thousand years ago that Shabbat business is not profitable for Jews.

Kosher meat will be more expensive

admin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:09:27 +0000

Under the pressure of “animal rights” groups (that’s not about voting rights for Israeli Arabs), Israeli Chief Rabbinate mandates more expensive “rotating pen” method of slaughter in Latin America, a major supplier of kosher meat.

Mazuz drops investigation of chief rabbi

admin — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:38:28 +0000

Leftists Attorney General Mazuz didn’t find enough evidence to indict Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger on corruption charges, but demands that he leaves his office of the head of Rabbinical Court. Metzger is notoriously unclean in financial matters, as only natural for any bureaucrat, religious or otherwise. RAMBAM warned against religious leaders assuming state’s (Exilarch’s) powers.

Metzger against premarital sex

admin — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 16:01:47 +0000

Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger, whose integrity is often questioned, prohibited single women from attending ritual mikveh bath. Post-menstrual mikveh bath is a pre-condition of sexual relations. Metzger imagines the modern religious women who ignore the biblical prohibition of extra-martial sex would be deterred from sex by being unable to perform ritual bathing.
The Torah mandates that participants in pre-marital sex eventually marry. There is no straightforward prohibition of extra-marital sex for divorced men and women.

Rabbis won the conversion

admin — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:07:10 +0000

Rabbis have foiled Israeli government’s struggle to step up fake conversions. After the Knesset adopted an absurd law recognizing as Jew anyone with a Jewish great-grandfather, the Jewish Agency flooded Israel with 200-800 thousands of fake Jews and non-Jews. Unable to deport them, Israeli government wants to gloss the problem over by converting them. Only about 2,000 convert each year while most are unwilling to become religious Jews. American reformist gang joined the government’s efforts to dilute Jewish identity. Israeli government formed a new Conversion Authority which, however, have only added sixty rabbinical judges to speed up the bureaucracy.
Jewish law positively forbids encouraging converts or otherwise facilitating the conversion.

Chief rabbi commits apostasy

admin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 18:13:44 +0000

Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi Yona Metzger offers a stupid plan for Palestinian state in the Sinai. The rabbi needs to know that Sinai, too, is a part of the Promised Land, not to be abandoned to Arabs.

Israeli company fined for violating Shabbat

admin — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 22:59:56 +0000

Tel Aviv court slapped Best Buy with $20,000 fine for employing Jews on Shabbat. Technically, the company transgressed a labor rather than religious law: generally, no Israeli can be employed on the day his religion sets as a holiday, even if he is atheist. Many Israeli companies employ Jews on Shabbat, and thousands of fines are issued annually with dozens of cases decided by courts. The judge strove to dress the religious prohibition in social terms by declaring that the Sabbath law means the families to enjoy the same day of rest together. In religious terms, the law is nonsensical, as the commandment prohibits anyone working on Shabbat “in your town.”

Israeli Supreme Court orders 1,400 Christian Blacks into Israel

admin — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:22:43 +0000

The Supreme Court ruled that Israeli government should allow 1,400 more of Ethiopian Falash Mura into Israel. The Christian Blacks would then be given an opportunity to convert to Judaism. Another billion of Blacks would gladly follow. Israeli government claims there are no more more Blacks left even with the remotest Judaic roots, while the Ethiopians claims they need to bring thousands more relatives to Israel.

Rabbis indicted for calling Arabs donkeys

admin — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:17:11 +0000

Israeli prosecution filed charges of racist incitement against two rabbis who at the meeting in Jerusalem insisted that Jews must study separately from Arabs (that’s a major religious concept in Judaism) and abusively called Arabs two-legged donkeys (something most Israelis would agree with).

Israel reestablishes Religious Affairs ministry

admin — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 18:05:03 +0000

Jewish state is not secular

Christians join the Jewish Agency’s board

admin — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 20:33:14 +0000

in exchange for $45 million donation from the International Fellowship for Christians and Jews (sic). Considering how many Slavs the Jewish Agency has imported into Israel, the move is long overdue.

Good rabbis choose Judea

admin — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 16:20:16 +0000

The maverick Chabad rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe joined the movement for establishing the State of Judea.
Judea won’t be more defenseless than Israel who faces Iranian and Pakistani nuclear threats.

Jews pray against peace

admin — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:00:14 +0000

15,000 Jews prayed at the Western Wall for the failure of Annapolis peace show

Vatican demands tax breaks in Israel

admin — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 12:33:33 +0000

And how about the status of the Most Favored Religion? Vatican also laments Israel confiscating some its lands. Vatican can try claiming its lands from Italy first. Why should Israel recognize that inherently anti-Semitic religion at all?

Hysteria among Breslav Chassidim

admin — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:47:00 +0000

Breslav Chassids petitioned Ukrainian president over the fate of Rabbi Nahman’s grave in the Ukrainian town of Uman. Simple-minded chassids gave power of attorney to a Jewish crook who signed a contract with Ukrainian crook for development of the place. Now the Ukrainian crook, a minor businessman and an insignificant member of the Ukrainian parliament, blackmails the chassids by threatening to build over the grave.
Chassidim are notoriously brave when combating the nice Israeli government, but tremble before the Ukrainian anti-Semites. Tens of thousands of chassidim visit Uman every year, but they are unable even to guard their sanctuary against the Ukrainian barbarians.
It eludes chassidim that Ukrainian law positively prohibits building over the recognized historical monuments, such as Rabbi Nahman’s grave, and so the entire blackmail is moot.

Haredi morons are Israel’s hope

admin — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 22:18:50 +0000

A group of ultra-Orthodox youth attacked an ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman on an Israeli bus for refusing to move to the back seat - a women’s place. The young scum thought it okay to touch the woman indecently but not sit next to her. On a positive note, the gathered ultra-Orthodox crowd fearlessly engaged the police in prolonged fight and punctured tires of the police vehicle - something that moderate Israeli protesters shy from.

Israel advocates demand religious freedom for Arabs

admin — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 20:56:47 +0000

Dershowitz lambastes Fata for setting morality squads which arrest Arabs publicly violating the fast of Ramadan. The leftist Dershowitz fails to understand that Fatah is correct here: religion deserves respect. But accepting the Muslims’ right to enforce their basic religious precepts begs the similar question in regard to Israel: should, for example, Shabbat observance be mandated in public? Dershowitz, like other leftists, deny religion and is ready to humiliate religious Jews and Arabs alike.

Israeli police arrest Christians

admin — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 23:16:36 +0000

Three Christians arrested, one of them holding a wooden cross, at the Sukkot march in Jerusalem. Pretty intolerant, but hey, it’s a Jewish city.

Interior Ministry paves way for reformist conversions

admin — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 16:29:32 +0000

Israel grants the right of return to people with Jewish blood and to Jewish converts. Faced with Reformist conversions as easy as saying Allah Akbar, secular Israel has to choose on purely religious matters of conversion. The current preference given to Orthodox Judaism in unsupportable in secular framework.
Israeli Interior Ministry drafted its own rules of conversion: the study (of whatever quality) must be at least nine months long. The convert has to reside in the community the conversion takes place in. That should exclude the converts popping up to the more permissive rabbis. The draft rules sensibly try to limit conversion for the sake of Israeli citizenship. That would prevent a few hundred fake converts from entering Israel – a mere drop on the background of 1.4 million Arabs already here.

Sanhedrin backs down from its verdict

admin — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:26:39 +0000

Prof. Weiss, member of the newly reconstructed highest Jewish court, retracted his death curse of an IDF traitor who evicted religious Jews from Hebron.
Olmert was a rare public figure who didn’t join the chorus of condemnations against Prof. Weiss, ranging from the Peace Now to Netanyahu.

Police arrest a good Jew for setting a pork-selling shop on fire

admin — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 10:36:22 +0000

in Netanya. Local municipality bans pork sale in city center.

Scientists confirm Obadiah Shoher’s prognosis on Jewish demography

admin — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:45:27 +0000

Vastly different birth rates among the atheist and religious Jews might soon make Jewish people predominantly religious again. Ultra-Orthodoxes are 17% in the UK, 10% in the US, and 14% in Israel. With atheist Jews assimilating and the older generation passing away, religious Jews will regain the scene.

A funny line from haredi clown

admin — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:23:48 +0000

Ultra-Orthodox rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a spiritual leader of the renegade Shas party declared, “A woman’s knowledge is only in sewing.”

Today, the Temple was destroyed

admin — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 08:34:40 +0000

While commemorating this date, remember that Israeli government gave the Temple Mount to Arabs, tolerates Arab shrines on the Temple remains, refuses to rebuild the Temple, and bans Jews from praying at the Temple Mount.

HOT cable TV finally found the enemy of Jewish state

admin — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 19:34:32 +0000

HOT plans to take a missionary station off the air. Israeli broadcasters have no problem with streams of leftist propaganda.

Clan of Levi gathered in Jerusalem

admin — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 19:57:19 +0000

For the first time since the second century C.E., members of the clan of Levi, including Kohens, met in Jerusalem. Their credentials are supported with genetic research. 300-400 years ago, many Jewish families traced their roots back to Levites with certainty. The clan of Levi will minister in the Third Temple, to be built on the site now occupied by Muslim structures.
Kohanim declared priestly blessing over Israel.

IDF rabbis suggest Jewish soldiers listening to Arab FM radio

admin — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 22:27:41 +0000

The Army rabbis banned religious soldiers from listening to Jewish radio stations on Shabbat.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews with guts

admin — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 16:19:13 +0000

Fringe of the ultra-Orthodox, extreme anti-Zionist Jews again proved they are the only large group of Israeli Jewish society not afraid of police. While the right wing from Kahane Chai to Moshe Feiglin is cowed down by police repressions, and even the mainstream ultra-Orthodox Jews refrain from anti-gay protests after the police’s pogrom in Jerusalem, the extreme religious groups fight for their right to live as they see fit. Overflowing the Jerusalem ultra-Orthodox communities, Neturei Karta, Satmar, Toldot Aharon and other group took over Ramat Beit Shemesh. They mandated the dress code, closing hours, and segregation rules to local shops and restaurants. The ultra-Orthodox didn’t cease protesting after the police arrested seven of them. The Jews from Neturei Karta, a sect whose leaders attended the Holocaust denial conference in Iran, accused Beit Shemesh police chief of Nazi-like attitude. Religious Jews participate in mass demonstrations, burn trash cans, and stone buses to substantiate their right to live according to the Orthodox Jewish law. Whether their goals are sensible or not, they are the only large Jewish group in Israel which has the guts to oppose the establishment.

Ultra-Orthodoxes oppose army, work, assimilation

admin — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:33:33 +0000

Israeli government will start implementing Tal law that allows ultra-Orthodox Jews civil substitute for army service. Civil service is long offered to pederasts and peaceniks.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews oppose the IDF as assimilationist secularizing enterprise. The IDF scrapped religious units where the ultra-Orthodox Jews served with great distinction.
After completing one year of civil service, ultra-Orthodox Jews will be allowed to legally work in Israel. Jews who didn’t serve in the IDF are not allowed to work, though Israeli Arabs work freely without the burden of conscription or civil service.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews are anyway employed in black market economy and won’t jump on the opportunity offered by the Tal law.
Israelis generally decry the ultra-Orthodox exemption from the IDF service, though voice no opposition to similar exemption for Israeli Arabs.

Jewish Agency urges Allah Akbar conversions

admin — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 00:17:34 +0000

Atheist members of the Jewish Agency (Sohnut) which flooded Israel with 500,000 non-Jews urged the government of Israel to accept Reformist conversions. The Reform Judaism sets no obligatory requirements for a Jew whatsoever. Islam, at least, requires the converts to say, Allah Akbar. The Reform conversions don’t ask for that much.