Ari says

Report: Jewish poverty rate in the U.S. higher than in Israel

2007-11-16T09:28:00.000+02:00

Haaretz reports,

Steven Nasatir, JUF / Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago president, says one of every five Jews among Chicago's 270,000 Jews is poor or almost poor according to the federal government's definition. He says there are no figures for the general poverty rate among Jews in the United States, but according to the federations' umbrella organization, the UJC, 15 to 20 percent of American Jews are poor.

In fact, the Jewish poverty rate in the United States is higher than that in Israel. In Israel 24 percent of the population is considered poor, but about half is not Jewish.

New York also has a high rate of Jewish poverty. "Usually the words 'Jewish poverty" are seen as a contradiction in terms, says William Rapfogel, CEO of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. "It's not. More than a quarter of the members of the world's richest Jewish community live close to the poverty line."

A survey conducted for the federation five years ago showed that 350,000 Jews in New York City and state live close to the poverty line. The highest poverty rate is in Brooklyn. Ultra-Orthodox families make up 27 percent of those living below the poverty line, 23 percent are Russian speakers under the age of 65, 21 percent are Russian speakers over 65, 13 percent are non-Russian speakers over 65 and 16 percent are unemployed or handicapped.

See the article for more.

Arabs rally for Shalit, Regev, Goldwasser

2007-11-15T07:27:00.000+02:00

Ynet reports,

Dozens of Israeli-Arabs participated in a rally for the realese of kidnapped soldiers Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Golwasser in the village of Kfar Kassem on Wednesday evening.

Guests of honor included MK Ibrahim Sarsur (Ra'am-Ta'al) and Noam Shalit, Gilad's father.
Shalit told Ynet that participants "expressed their support for my family and for Gilad. They believe in co-existence and working to better the relationship between our communities."

Cont.

Back to Israel...

2007-11-12T08:17:00.001+02:00

On Sunday the 18th of November I head over to Israel for three months. The vague plan is to share my time between learning Hebrew at ulpan, volunteering and doing whatever else takes my fancy. I hope to update the blog fairly regularly (certainly more regularly than in recent times) and discuss what i'm up to as well as interesting things i've been reading.

Speaking of which, i've just added an element to my side-bar called "Ari's Starred Items" which contains direct links to items that i have read and enjoyed in google-reader.

I hope you enjoy reading over the next few months! As always, feedback is welcome.

Facebook and hyperreality - what i should have written in my sociology essay

2007-11-04T08:48:00.000+02:00

Earlier in the year I learned about the concept of hyperreality. The term hyperreality was first used by sociologist Jean Baudrillard in his book “The Gulf War Did Not Take Place” (1995) to describe a situation where through technological communication, reality itself becomes a product of that technological communication.

As members of the 21st century, it is interesting to consider the impact of hyperreality on our lives. The flavour of the month appears to be facebook. Not only is media such as newspapers being splattered with references to and articles about facebook, real-life conversations and situations are dominated by discussion relating to facebook.

Recently, i have noticed that barely any social occasion can occur without someone either requesting that a certain photo be "facebooked" or someone mentioning the "relationship status" of a "mutual friend" or a funny "wall-post" which they have received. I am personally approaching my one-year facebook anniversary and am not proud to tell you that I am a perpetrator of the aforementioned crime*. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of facebook, has been quoted saying that he wants to make facebook an indispensable part of life social interaction and disturbingly, he seems to be succeeding in achieving his goal. I'm not sure what are the ramifications of the intertwining of facebook and real-life social interaction, but the situation certainly bares a resemblance to Baudrillard's definition of hyperriality and that concerns me.

*Yes, i noticed the irony of this post being fed into my facebook "notes!"

Islets of Langerhans

2007-10-31T10:20:00.000+02:00

I just found this cartoon that i drew when i was doing biology in year 12. Maybe some of you will appreciate it. Click on the image to make it larger.

Writers' blog

2007-10-30T14:11:00.000+02:00

As you may have noticed, i didn't blog for a few months. The main reasons for my lapse in blogging were: i didn't feel i had anything original to say, i felt that what i did write was written poorly and that very few people were actually reading my blog.

My question to you, my reader, is what would you like me to write about?

Thanks for your input!

Remembering Rabin

2007-10-30T05:50:00.000+02:00

On Sunday night my friend (Bez) and I attended commemoration for Yitzchak Rabin, the ex-Prime Minister of Israel who was murdered by a Religious Zionist Jew in 1995. The event- Melbourne's only official commemoration of Rabin - was organised by Hashomer Hatzair, Australian Jewish Democratic Society and Meretz Australia (all of these organisations are on the political left). There were hardly any attendants and I am fairly certain that Bez and I were the only people present who would identify themselves as being part of the Orthodox Community (EDIT: apparently there were a few others).

The speakers focused on Rabin himself and there was little more than a brief mention of the effect that Rabin’s murder had on Israeli society and the way it changed Israel's perception of democracy. Most importantly, it did not assess the role and responsibility of the Religious Zionist community for Rabin’s assassination. This was a highly appropriate approach considering the background of crowd and the hosts(and something that I fully support) but was disappointing considering that this was Melbourne's only official event in honour of Rabin.

Due to the event's lacking of breadth and the significance of Rabin's murder, I feel that it was the responsibility of a united community body such as the Australian Zionist Youth Council (AZYC) or the State Zionist Council (SZC) to hold a ceremony which focused on these additional aspects. Moreover, in light of current attempts by Yigal Amir's supporters to push for his exoneration, the Religious Zionist community of Melbourne should have made certain that it discussed and debated the reaction of the Religious Zionist community to the assassination, the lack of preventative actions taken by the community and the way that Religious Zionists should approach politics today, 12 years after the assassination.

As for the commemoration that actually took place, I don't want to go into the details of the speakers, but i would like to mention an analogy made by one of the speakers in response to a question from the audience. The speaker described how when he first came to Australia (he was originally from Israel) , farmers from the Victorian Highlands held a protest and drove their tractors to Parliament (or some similar building) and protested about their right to live and farm as they always had. The speaker remarked the farmers' cause seemed noble but that the reason why the farmers were being deterred from their traditional style of farming was because it is not suited to the Australian environment and it is not sustainable or the best use of limited resources. Despite this, Australians remain sentimental about the myth of The Man From Snowy River.

The speaker then compared the farmers' situation to the Zionist Dream and noted that what the Zionists originally set-out to do is not necessarily what is best suited to present-day Israel, its inhabitants and its neighbours. But like the myth of the Man From Snowy River, the Zionist Dream persists. Interestingly, a member of the audience (a guy from Hashomer Hatzair) pointed out that in the case of the farmers, the body politic was represented by the parliament and a lawful and logical decision could be made but in the case of Israel, the body politic consists of Israeli citizens and is not representative of all those affected by Israeli policy and therefore the decisions that it makes are not as fair as those made about the farmers.

It is also interesting to note that the event was concluded with the singing of Shir L'Shalom (the Song famously sung before Rabin was murdered) and that Hatikva was NOT sung.

Whilst I am on the topic of Rabin, I would like to mention the brilliant speech given by R' Aharon Lichtenstein of Yeshivat Har Etzion soon after the murder of Rabin. You can read the transcript of the speech here.

Melbourne Graffiti Tours

2007-10-27T15:24:00.000+02:00

Last week saw the arrest of a Queensland teenager for allegedly coming down to Melbourne for the sole purpose of tagging Melbourne's trains and other public transport. All the authorities seem to be distressed by the phenomenon of groups of teens traveling to Melbourne to graffiti, but I think they're missing out on a brilliant tourism opportunity.

Imagine it; Melbourne Graffiti Tours: $700 all inclusive (airfares, accommodation and paint - bail money not included). It would be perfect for the artsy image the city is always trying to put forward...

Middle East solution - take advice from MASH

2007-09-02T03:02:00.000+03:00

The other day I was watching an episode of MASH where Frank schemes to setup a boxing match between Klinger and Zale to make himself feel manly and to impress Margaret. When Hawkeye and BJ catch on, they convince Klinger and Zale to sabotage the boxing match and both punch Frank.

I was thinking, wouldn't it be great if the Palestinians and Israelis got together, realised how stupid their conflict is and decided to figuratively punch the rest of the world in the head? I know i'm dreaming but still, it's a nice thought...

politicans hit wiki

2007-08-24T10:18:00.000+03:00

It seems that Aussie politicians have been editing wikipedia entries in order to make themselves look better.

One offender was the PM and other members of the Federal cabinet etc.,

A new website, WikiScanner - which traces the digital fingerprints of those who make changes to entries in the online encyclopedia - points to the department as the source of 126 edits on subjects ranging from the children overboard affair to the Treasurer, Peter Costello.

On June 28 an employee of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet modified Mr Costello's entry to remove a reference to the nickname "Captain Smirk".

WikiScanner also identifies employees of another department, Defence, as the most prolific Wikipedia contributors in Australia. After the Herald made inquiries yesterday, the department said it would ban Defence staff from accessing the encyclopedia, which is billed as the "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit".

Defence computers were found to have made more than 5000 edits to Wikipedia entries, including to articles on the "9/11 Truth Movement", the Australian Defence Force Academy and even the Vietnam War-era Pentagon Papers.

Not to be left out, it seems the office of the premier of NSW also brushed over some damning information:

The online encyclopedia's entry on Mr Iemma had previously included details of an outburst he had at a media conference last year, where he called the then chief executive of Sydney's Cross City Tunnel a "f---wit", unaware that his microphone was switched on.

Iran to sit on anti-racism committee

2007-08-24T09:26:00.000+03:00

Ynet reports that Iran is set to sit on a UN anti-racism committee.

The decision to include Iran in the committee has been slammed by UN watchdogs. "As a UN spokesperson against racism, Iran will invert totally the message and mission of the United Nations," Anne Bayefsky, senior editor of the New York-based Eye on the UN, said in a press release.

"Iran is now poised to wrap itself in a UN flag as a lead agent of the next global conference against racism, Durban II," she added, referring to the 2001 UN conference on racism held in Durban, South Africa, which saw unprecedented levels of anti-Zionist rhetoric and calls for Israel's destruction.

strippers and politicians

2007-08-21T07:33:00.000+03:00

You've got to worry about the state of Aussie politics... Michelle Grattan of the Age reports the current "stripper affair":

KEVIN has done it, not just once but twice, as he confessed last night. Brendan Nelson has done it, when he was 20. Alexander Downer says he has never done it when on official business. Tony Abbott won't talk about whether he's done it, because he doesn't want to fib. And nobody quite dares to ask John Howard whether he's been to a strip club.

Gough Whitlam, on the other hand, has been to the classical French version — and what's more he took a government minister, and a female one at that.

While the great strip club debate raged on yesterday, with accusations and denials about whether the Government had smeared Mr Rudd — who flagellated himself for the umpteenth time — the former Labor prime minister, highly amused, recalled his visits to the Lido cabaret and the Folies Bergere in Paris.

Mr Whitlam told The Age that as ambassador to UNESCO in the 1980s he was expected to take visiting ministers and opposition figures to the two famous clubs. He escorted Susan Ryan, who was education minister and minister assisting then prime minister Bob Hawke on the status of women, to the Lido, "where the exploitation of women is very tasteful".

"Paris had real class in nightclubs," said Mr Whitlam, who chose not to make any specific comments about Mr Rudd. "Nothing so crass as they have in New York."

Read on

Israelis polled on government's policy of expelling refugees

2007-08-07T06:35:00.000+03:00

As pointed out by a few people and also discovered by myself, ynet has reported the results in a survey in which Israelis were asked whether they support the government's policy of expelling refugees. The exact question posed was,

"Over the past year 1,500 refugees from the Sudan have illegally entered Israel. The government believes most of them have come here looking for work. While the refugees claim they are escaping persecution and genocide and returning would mean certain death. Recently the government of Israel adopted a policy to deport most of the refugees to Egypt soon. Do you support the government's policy of deporting the Sudanese refugees or do you think that they should be allowed to legally stay in Israel?"

Overall, 47% were in favour of the policy, 39% were opposed and 14% were undecided. The breakdown is as follows,

A breakdown of the data found that 42% of women opposed the policy whereas only 36% of men said the same. A majority of men, 54%, were in favor of the government's policy compared to 40% of women.

Attitudes towards religion also seem to play a role, the study found that the more religious the individual, the more likely they were to support the government's policy.

Of those who identified themselves as strictly Orthodox, 67% were in favor of expulsion compared to 13% who opposed it. Among respondents who identified themselves as religious, 55% were in favor of expulsion compared to 35% who were opposed. Similar figures were noted for respondents who defined themselves as traditional – 52% favored expulsion compared to 31% who opposed it.

The only sector where support for the government's policy was the minority opinion was among secular respondents – 39% favored expulsion compared to 49% who opposed it.

Egyptian soldiers kill 4 Sudanese refugees at ISraeli border

2007-08-03T06:46:00.000+03:00

An AP article on Ynet reports,

Egyptian soldiers killed four Sudanese refugees, beating two to death in front of horrified Israeli soldiers, an Israeli TV station reported Thursday, screening what it said was army surveillance video and interviews with the soldiers.

Egyptian police said that authorities arrested two Sudanese refugees Thursday, seriously injuring one when he scuffled with police. But Egyptian police Capt. Mohammed Badr did not report any deaths.
Channel 10 TV said the incident happened late Wednesday night. In the video, the refugees are seen running toward the border with Israel. Then, according to one of the soldiers, who was not identified and whose voice was distorted, Egyptian soldiers opened fire, killing two.

The other two tried to climb the border fence but were tackled by Egyptian soldiers, the TV report said.

Israeli soldiers were sent to the scene to try to help the refugees, and at one point they got into a tug-or-war with the Egyptians, each side holding on to the Sudanese.

"We pulled one way they pulled another, they pointed their guns at us," said one of the soldiers. He said the Israelis let go for fear that the Egyptians would fire at them.

Then the Israeli soldiers said they watched helplessly as the Egyptians passed the two refugees from one to the other, beating them. "We saw them gang up on them and beat them on the ground until they stopped moving," said one soldier.

"They killed two men with their own hands and sticks and rocks," he said. "We heard them crying and screeching in pain until they died."

The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident. There was no confirmation from Egypt of any

refugees being killed.

Hundreds of Sudanese refugees, many from the war-wracked Darfur region, have crossed the desert border from Egypt into Israel in recent months.

Last month, Egyptian border guards shot and killed a Sudanese woman and wounded four others. She was the first Sudanese refugee to be killed.

I urge you to note if your local newspaper includes the story and if it doesn't write in quoting this article.

Finally

2007-08-02T02:06:00.000+03:00

Finally, it looks as though UN peacekeeping troops will be deployed in Darfur, starting in October. The Age reports,

The UN Security Council voted 15-0 to begin sending a joint UN-African Union force of as many as 26,000 troops and police to Darfur before the end of the year to quell violence that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced more than 2 million in four years.

The full force will take about a year to muster and could cost $US2 billion ($A2.4 billion), said peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno, who added that a substantial number of troops would arrive before year's end.

Meanwhile, the Save Darfur Coalition issued a statement, imploring world leaders to,

muster the “determined political will” to implement the resolution and to surpass the measure’s glacial timeline by deploying peacekeepers to Darfur as they are recruited.

Let's hope this brings an end to the madness and killing.

The Coming of Messiah - in Bendigo?

2007-08-01T12:06:00.000+03:00

So, here's what i learnt today. Apparently, Isaiah 62 contains the quote, "God wants to crown Bendigo with his Glory." Just in case it never occurred to you, the place to be when the Messiah comes and the Temple is rebuilt is none other than Victorian town, Bendigo. At least, according to The Tabernacle of David Bendigo Australia . I'm bloody confused and am definitely getting it all wrong, but you've got to admit it's an amusing pamphlet.

A Godless Campaign

2007-08-01T11:51:00.000+03:00

Check out Uri Orbach's attempt to reform the commandment not to use God's name in vain in his article, "A Godless Campaign."

If the Ten Commandments were written today, there would certainly be a clause for believers: “A person shall not make excessive use of the name of the Lord. The name of the Holy One Blessed be He shall not be used or publicized for personal, political, or commercial use. Explicit, direct, and public use of the name and/or one of the names of the Creator (henceforth ‘Hashem’ and any other name known to the public) will be considered a transgression of one of the Ten Commandments:”You Shall Not Take, 5767/2007."

A Jewish lesson in self hate

2007-07-30T16:00:00.000+03:00

I really enjoyed Bradley Burston's piece titled, "What self-hating Jews can teach Muslims." Burston starts off by definining "self hate" and pointing out its value and the pitfalls of believing in your own superiority.

Self-hate, in the Jewish context, is assailed by traditionalists, quantified by sociologists, catalogued by hobbyists, ribbed by comedians, feared by parents.

It is also underrated.

Simply put, we have much to learn from the self-hating Jew. Like the paranoid who is under actual surveillance, the Jew who is viciously critical of matters Jewish - or for whom Jewishness and Israel are sources of shame - may shed light on issues we may wrongly choose to ignore or accept.

...

At the core of it, one suspects, is the goes-without-saying superiority complex embedded in the teachings of many Jewish religious figures and deeply ingrained in much of the Jewish public at large, the assumption that the Jewish mind is of higher quality, the Jewish heart of broader tenderness, the Jewish soul of more profound morality, and the Jewish belief system of greater legitimacy.

It's time we got over it.

Perhaps we need our self-haters to help.

Burston then explains how this trait of self hate could assist the Muslim world,

The sense of moral superiority and ultimate entitlement is strong within Islam as well. This has proven no healthier for Muslims than it has for Jews. It has reached its most extreme form in jihadism, and an explicit goal of eventual domination of all areas once ruled by Muslims. But in making war on the West, Al-Qaida has effectively touched off a war against Islam. For quite some time, the vast majority of victims of worldwide Islamic terror have been Muslims.

...

May we, Muslim and Jew, have the wisdom to address our own failings with the vigor with which we attack each others'.

Let's hear it for healthy self-hate. It may just be what the world needs now.

Though, if the Jewish Self-Haters are meant to be acting as role models for their Muslim counterparts, you'd think this might give them a false sense of superiority and jeopardise the process.

Votes for children and haredi rabbis ban hiking

2007-07-29T05:13:00.000+03:00

It's a few days old and in the meantime, Victorian Premier Steve Bracks has resigned, but this is too bizarre to ignore. The Age reports,

Evan Thornley, Mr Bracks' parliamentary secretary for national reform policy, suggests parents should have the right to vote on behalf of their children under 18 - the more children, the more votes.

He sees this as a natural progression in the evolution of our democracy, from the 19th century when only men who owned property could vote, through to all men getting the vote, then women, then the recent lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18.

The goal of moving from "one vote, one value" to "one person, one vote" would be to break down short-term thinking and encourage thinking about cross-generational issues such as global warming, education funding and job creation.

In totally unrelated news,

Haredi leaders are warning their congregations against hiking, following two outdoor deaths of yeshiva students. "Don't be tempted to hike because it's life-threatening," Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and Rabbi Aharon Steinman wrote in a statement meant to be released to the community formally in the upcoming days.

A 15-year-old yeshiva student from central Israel died Friday afternoon after he collapsed due to dehydration during a trip to Amud River in the north. The evening before, 20-year-old Zvi Miller, a yeshiva student from Netanya, died after dehydrating during a hike along the Zeelim River when he and his friends ran out of water.
...
The Teshabin Yeshiva in Jerusalem, where Miller had been a student prior to his death, announced they were cutting short the summer vacation and asking students to return to the yeshiva by the end of the week, in the hopes that Torah study would prevent additional tragedies. Several other yeshivas announced that they intended to follow suit.

You'd think it would be smarter to explain the need to keep hydrated... but apparently that is not the way things are meant to be done.

Alternative rabbinical court system...

2007-07-21T15:10:00.000+03:00

Rivkah Lubitch writes about a proposal to establish an alternative, women-friendly rabbinical court system:

Today’s rabbinical courts must undergo a fundamental change, not just an administrative change. At a conference held last week by Kolech, the religious women’s forum, there was a discussion on establishing alternative rabbinical courts (and yes, we need to find them another name!). The new court must be based on four things: the inclusion of women, educated and knowledgeable judges, judges with both vision and daring on issues of Jewish law, and on a constant search for justice. Anything less will not be a solution, just a recycling of what already exists.
....
Finally, the new court must be based on seeking justice. This demand is not self-evident, since there is a contradiction between justice and the fact that a get, a Jewish divorce, depends on the husband’s will. This is because if the get is subject to the husband’s will, then he will not give a get without the woman giving in to his demands. And if the woman surrenders, then this is not justice. So as long as the problem of the coerced get is not solved, it won’t be possible to get justice in the rabbinical court. The new court must make justice its guiding principle.

Interesting.

Prostitution degree in NZ a possibility

2007-07-18T07:41:00.000+03:00

The Age reports,

Funding for tertiary courses in prostitution could be considered under changes aimed at boosting quality and relevance in the sector, New Zealand education officials say... TEC chief executive Janice Shiner said under the new system a request to provide prostitution courses would be assessed against the same criteria as any other course.

Bloody weird.

I'm back... and Kiryat Gat municipality Vs Bedouin boys

2007-07-16T16:27:00.000+03:00

Sorry for the lack of blogging over the last week - i was out of contact.

It seems i got a nice "welcome back to the internet" present from ynet in the form of an article describing how the Kiryat Gat municipality has held an emergency meeting to deal with the phenomenon of Jewish girls falling for Bedouin boys...

The Kiryat Gat municipality has decided to act against a phenomenon it has been dealing with for years: The southern town's female teenagers fall in love with young Bedouins and leave home.

An "emergency conference" held in the city on Sunday was aimed at "preventing a disaster," according to Haim Shalom, the conference's initiator, who heads the municipality's community, welfare and health department.

Leaflets used contained inflammatory quotes which claimed to be from the Koran. Rahat Mayor Talal al-Krenawi, refuted the quotes, commenting:

All the quotes presented are not real and are absolute nonsense. On the contrary, the Koran supports women's rights and has said more than once that a woman must not be harmed

In general, the Koran does not present violent stances. I suggest to those who brought these quotes to go study before they write nonsense. The Koran is holy, and the person who wrote those quotes does not understand anything.

Ethiopian Jew speaks out against Darfur refugees

2007-07-06T08:25:00.000+03:00

Danny Adino Ababa, an Ethiopian Israeli who spent time in Sudan during his family's Aliyah journey, writes why Israel should not assist Sudanese refugees.

Ababa distinguishes between Jewish refugees and the Sudanese,

There are Jewish refugees here who chose to become a part of this people, and who feel like refugees no less than those who maintain that they fled the hell of Darfur. I am sensitive to their plight, and perhaps there is some truth to the argument that they are being persecuted. However, the exodus from Egypt is shrouded in a crude lie.

They depart in a planned manner, in a detailed and financed program with one objective – not to flee, but rather, to seek their fortune. If we lend a supporting hand to the Sudanese refugees, we should also give it to the Russian prostitutes who infiltrate Israel through the Egyptian border – because both share the same objective - to earn a decent living.

Ababa explains that he would reject Sudanese refugees,

Perhaps I am speaking out of vengeance. Yes, I am acting out of vengeance. From that pain, from the deep memories that have left scars which refuse to heal. I am a refugee who was hurt by the Sudanese treatment. And today, as an Israeli, they are knocking at my door and asking me to extend a helping hand. But I do not wish to do so. They do not deserve it. Not here.

Ababa seems to be confused about the details,

Had the world cared about them, it would have taken them in. The Arab nations shirk responsibility despite them being Arabs just like themselves. And with regards to Christian refugees – the Christian world is far greater than our tiny piece of land.

Currently, the black (Muslim) population of Darfur is fleeing from Arab militias, showing Ababa's lack of understanding of the situation. Furthermore, Ababa's statement that "perhaps there is some truth to the argument that they are being persecuted," seems odd given that the most conservative statisticians have the current death toll at 300,000.

With greatest respect to Ababa and his family's suffering, I have to say that i am disturbed by Ababa's condemnation of an entire, diverse, population. Especially since many of the current refugees would have been children, if even alive, at the time of his family's time in Sudan.

Battle of the hypocrites

2007-07-04T02:57:00.001+03:00

In today's Age, Waleed Aly, a lecturer in Monash Uni's Global Terrorism Research Centre, discusses the battle of ideologies between al-Qaeda and the West.

Aly argues that because would-be terrorists are now "recruiting themselves",

The implications are clear: a terror threat that is self-perpetuating, and too random to be dismantled systematically. It follows that, ultimately, the only way to defeat it is to dismantle it intellectually; to persuade people not to subscribe to radical ideology. And that is only achievable by winning the battle for Muslim hearts and minds: the battle of ideas.

He then argues that currently, the West is held in very low regard by many Muslims,

Western governments, then, face a simple but significant charge: hypocrisy. To this, they may vehemently protest. But in the context of the war on terror, their most crucial audience, the Muslim world, is, in large numbers, not convinced. This has frightfully devastating potential for the West's cause in the battle of ideas, and it is imperative to understand the seriousness of this challenge.

This is juxtaposed by the image that Bin Laden and others have constructed,

Ponder his myth for a moment: the young man who inherits a fortune but leaves it all behind to trek through the Afghan mountains in the depths of a vicious winter to repel the invading Soviets. Later, he settles in Sudan and devotes his wealth to building basic infrastructure such as roads. All along, he refuses worldly indulgences. He could live in a palace, but opts instead for a cave. This is not accidental. The symbolism is potent, even if rarely understood in the West. Bin Laden manages to present himself as the very opposite of every perceived Western indulgence: sincere rather than arrogant; self-sacrificing rather than self-interested; charitable rather than greedy. He brings a deceptively principled veneer to his deeply unprincipled conduct.

Aly concludes with,

While al-Qaeda presents itself as a vanguard for the defence of Muslim honour, it has, along with its affiliates, massacred considerably more Muslims than anyone else in recent years. Deadly bombings, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, have shaken its credibility. It is difficult to maintain you are acting in Muslims' defence when you demonstrate little compunction in killing them.

In the battle of ideas, it is not as though al-Qaeda is invulnerable.
The problem for the West is that, at this point, the Muslim world's reckoning appears to be that the greater hypocrisy is not in the West's favour.
The predicament is urgent, because it is this judgement, more than anything else, that will determine who wins the battle of ideas. As the weekend has shown, that calculus may be fatal.

Initiative for IDF soldiers to preserve sperm "just in case"

2007-07-02T08:08:00.000+03:00

Ynet reports,

One year after seeing their comrades fall in the Second Lebanon War , some 150 soldiers, both in active service and in reserve decided to sign a biological will according to which they will freeze sperm for the future use by their spouses.

Some soldiers, who currently do not have significant others, have their parents down as executors of their will, allowing them to choose if the sperm is to be used to impregnate a surrogate.

The article tells the story of "A", a 31yr old reservist in the IDF,

A contacted Rosenblum and signed a biological will stipulating his sperm is to be kept frozen for five years, allowing his wife to use it is she sees fit.

"It costs NIS 2,000 (about $470) for the initial procedure and another NIS 700 ($165) a year to preserve the sperm," said A. "We have no idea what's going to happen and I want to make sure I can have children."

Rosenblum has recently started a new initiative, calling for the forming of a special sperm bank for IDF soldiers.
Every man joining the IDF would be able to donate sperm, which would be kept until the donor is 45.

Should the donor be harmed, the use of the sperm would be at his spouse or parents discretion.

Defining Israel

2007-07-01T06:11:00.000+03:00

Once again, i found myself looking up the definition of "Israel" in urbandictionary.com, an online dictionary where users contribute definitions.

Interestingly, the higher ranked definitions are pro-Israel. Some of the funnier entires i found were,

2. Kind of like Teaneck, only less expensive.

and

Israel is a heavily aid-dependent communist country in the Middle East. Much like North Korea, it would collapse without massive injections of cash from its' main sponsor (in Israel's case, the US)

and

A country who know it can get away with anything cos Big Daddy ('Ol Uncle Sam) is watching its booty.

What is a nation?

2007-06-30T13:07:00.000+03:00

I was scanning through ynet after Shabbat and saw the headline "Was there ever a Palistinian 'nation'?" and straight away, i new i had to respond. You can read the rest of Dr Ofir Haivry's article, but the heading pretty much says it all. Haivry argues that historically speaking, the Palestinians were never a nation and that we should consider this in our evaluation of Gaza and the West Bank. He summarises his premise in one line:

Arafat's death and Israel's withdrawal from Arab population centers revealed that forced unification and hostility towards Israel are apparently the only characteristics of the Palestinian "nation."

Now, i know it is dangerous to bring up Yeshayahu Leibowitz when dealing with politics (or sadly -in some crowds- when dealing with anything), but i think he has a spot-on rebuttal of the argument that the Palestinians are not a nation. In Liberating Israel from the Occupied Territories * he writes,

But the Palestinians consider themselves a people, and that is the decisive point. Most historians and sociologists deny the existence of the Jewish people, most historians and sociologists. However, we are not interested in the opinion of other people as to whether the Jewish people really exists. It’s our business, not anyone else’s. The same goes for the Palestinians; it is not Israel’s business to decide whether a Palestinian people exists or does not.

When confronting the conflict in the Middle East, it is plainly stupid to argue over definitions. If we are to attempt to solve the real issues, we must get past silly attempts to de-legitimise the existence of either side. The bottom line (perhaps, not the Green Line) is that some people claim to be Palestinians and others to be Israelis and we must deal with them as such. I don't know the details nor how we are to treat Gaza and the West Bank, but i do know that any attempt to de-legitimise nationhood is merely a matter of semantics and does nothing to address the actual situation.

* Please don't take this as support for the entire essay. Yes, i have read it and yes, i realise that Leibowitz is extremely harsh in his condemnation of Golda Meir and others. That said, though i don't agree with everything he ever wrote or said, i greatly value Leibowitz's views on Torah, life and politics, and believe that his opinion should be heard and considered.

Rabbi Rosen says no to Sudanese refugees and aiding Gaza

2007-06-29T08:50:00.000+03:00

Ynet reports that Rabbi Israel Rosen of Zomet, has announced that Israel should not give refuge to Sudanese refugees and that Israel has no obligation to the inhabitants of Gaza.

“The problem is very difficult due to the risk of a ‘slippery slope.’ Where will this business end and how big will it get? Can we bear the burden of lending help while our own poor are in desperate need of medicine? Furthermore, there is a security risk in the infiltration of hostile elements,” the rabbi writes.

Rosen unequivocally opposes absorbing the refugees in Israel, even temporarily, or assisting them on the other side of the border. “The UN should take care of them, this is what it was created for,” he writes.
Referring to the question of sending aid to Gaza, the rabbi says, “I see no moral obligation, ‘in the name of the prophets’ to send to any neighboring country, and certainly not our bitter enemies, flour, sugar, oil and milk, and not even fuel and electricity.”

I have to say that i am shocked by these quotes. I have previously found Rabbi Rosen to be very reasonable and sensible in his approach to contencious issues. Needless to say, i am not much of a fan of these latest statements. I assume the full article will appear in this week's edition of שבת בשבתו...

male singer accused of kol isha

2007-06-28T05:50:00.000+03:00

Ynet reports that Eliyahu Haim Fayzakov, a 20 year old male haredi singer from Netanya, has had his music blacklisted by haredi radio stations because his voice sounds too feminine.

Fayzakov responds,

"There are still a lot of people who encourage me to keep singing. My voice is unusual and even special."

You be the judge.....you can listen to one of his songs on ynet. Oh and don't worry, it is certainly not kol isha.

Rally in CBD and democracy...

2007-06-25T08:53:00.000+03:00

Earlier today i went to a rally in the CBD in Melbourne which called for the release of the Israeli soldiers who were taken captive about a year ago. The turnout was nothing special - mainly youth movement bogrim, school kids, a few older community members and some Israelis. Speakers included Senator Mitch Fifield, Mark Dreyfus QC and Anat Kiviti-Manor (a close friend of Ehud "Udi" Goldwasser, one of the captive soldiers).

Fifield, a Liberal politician, gave a typically pro-Israel, Liberal speech. Indeed, it appears to be almost identical to the one he gave at a similar rally a year ago, so i will quote from there. Fifield commented that,

Israel is being attacked from within the boundaries of two territories that claim to be democracies. If the Palestinian Authority and the Government of Lebanon are the true democracies they claim to be, then they will take action to stop the attacks, to stop the abductions.

If they are true democracies they will enforce the rule of law within their territories, they will cease to feign an incapacity to act. All that is required of Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority to enforce the rule of law is the will to do so.

Now aside from any problems i have with Fifield's politics, i am disturbed by his definition of democracy. A quick look through any good dictionary will make clear that democracy refers to a "majority rule" by a defined population. Sure, you can find a more articulate definition, but essentially, democracy is a system of political rule. Now, if the PA or Lebanon were hypothetically to democratically elect a government which then chose to declare war on its neighbour, it would remain a democratic nation. Democracies can declare war on other countries, even if these wars are perceived to be unfounded or immoral, this does not effect their status as a democracy.

So often when people wish to attack the actions or morality of a government or nation, they do so by insulting its political process. The West often seems to think that other democratically elected governments will emulate their own and in the process they forget that culture, religion and day-to-day experiences all effect a population's voting preference. It's time for us to learn that democracy does not necessarily equal a Western puppet-state and that if we wish to address other issues relating to a population, we should analyse aspects of their background, rather than attacking their status as a democracy or assuming that the presence of a democratically elected government will solve all issues.

EDIT: The AJN has posted transcripts of all speeches, including Fifleld's. The excerpt to which i was referring is:

And let us not forget, the territories from which these kidnappings and attacks were launched claim to be democracies.

But real democracies respect the rule of law. Real democracies do not take hostages. Real democracies do not allow entities within their borders to operate outside the law - to launch attacks on their neighbours and to kidnap their citizens.

A National Emergency (since1770)

2007-06-22T08:27:00.000+03:00

Today's headline in the Age reads "A National Emergency: PM Acts" What is the emergency? Has Australia been invaded? Is there a massive bushfire? An escaped murderer? No, this national emergency is extreme alcoholism and sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities.

What i found so strange about the title is the urgency and immediacy it exudes. It's as if this crisis which has clearly been many years in the making (and for which a federal government of 11 years must be at least partially to blame), has been discovered this very instant.

What is Howard's solution? The Age reports that,

Aborigines in 60 settlements will face bans on alcohol and pornography, and their welfare payments will become conditional on school attendance and child health.
Authorities will be able to demand child health checks, seize control of Aboriginal land and homes for five years, and dispatch interstate police, indigenous troops and managers into the settlements.

Whilst Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has given in-principle support, leaders of the Greens and the Democrats slammed Howard's approach.

Personally, i find the plan disturbing. It seems to have been decided based on recommendations by Indigenous lawyer and activist Noel Pearson, but without dialogue and collaboration with community elders. It seems we haven't learnt our lesson. Once again, Australia is showing the Indigenous community that it knows best. Even if these moves achieve some positive results, i have no doubt that a more community-based effort would be more effective.

Female terroists: the ultimate women?1

2007-06-20T15:17:00.000+03:00

Today, I wrote on a topic which discussed gender and war/terror in my politics exam. In my research for the topic, i ended up reading a few articles about female terrorists.

I came accross this paragraph in Karla J. Cunningham's, 'Countering Female Terrorism',

"[A lady] met two women, both of whom she refers to as "Larissa," who were female combatants years before women escalated into more substantial acts of violence. The first Larissa clearly served in combat roles but was sent home to attend to her daughter with the death of her husband. Once home she fulfilled a variety of roles, becoming a liaison officer in charge of counter-espionage, an intelligence agent, a sniper, a cook, and a nurse."

What disturbed me was how proud i was of "Larissa." I thought to myself, "How cool is this girl?! Seriously the ultimate woman, aside from cooking, nursing and looking after her daughter, she's also a sniper, in charge of counter-espionage and an intelligence agent!" The more i read about these female terrorists, the more i'd find myself cheering them on; hoping that they'd kill one more civilian than their male counterpart or that they'd have participated in one more conflict.

Even as I was reading and cheering, i was thinking to myself that i am being pretty inhumane and ghoulish. If it was just an ordinary male terrorist, i'd be disgusted by each death they caused. Yet somehow, i was identifying with these women.

I know this is nothing particularly strange, after all good authors and journalists guide readers in identifying with all sorts of nefarious and outlandish characters. Even still, i was shocked by my realisation of how easily manipulated i can be. It also caused me to think about the importance of trying to view things objectively and not be swayed by impassioned and manipulative language.

Jerusalem Rally for Refugees from Sudan

2007-06-17T12:58:00.000+03:00

This coming Tuesday (19th of June), there will be a rally held at 3:30pm at the Rose Garden (in front of the Knesset) in Jerusalem. The aim of the rally is to call for the granting of legal refugee status to those who have fled the genocide in Sudan and sought refuge in Israel.

The rally is being organised by a bunch of organisations including CARD, Amnesty International, Meretz Youth, various student organisations and HAeD, the organisation that i am part of. The rally will be a great chance for people from across the political spectrum to unite under a common cause.

If you are in the area, please make an effort to come. Also, please publicise the event.

Here is a copy of the flier in English and Hebrew.

So to recap, the details are:

Tuesday June 19th at 3:30pm
Rose Garden (in front of the Knesset), Jerusalem, Israel.

For recent stories about the refugees, see here and here.

The Second World

2007-06-17T02:05:00.000+03:00

I was reading Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilisations for my politics class. Huntington's essay itself deserves discussion and as i will probably be writing about it on my exam, i will hopefully discuss it in a post.

Anyway, at one point, Huntington mentions "second world" countries. Now, as someone who has grown up after the Cold War (or was way too young to remember the fall of the Soviet Union), i had no clue that "second world" referred to communist states.

It concerned me that i have been throwing around the terms "first world" and "third world" for years without thinking about the existence of a "second world". I asked a few politically aware friends my age and very few correctly defined the term "second world".

It's incredible how quickly things change. Yesterday on the radio someone was describing life in Shanghai in 1995. She told of there being so few foreigners that she and her friends were viewed as "freaks" or "celebrities" and how one could only make international phone calls form 3 locations in the city. Today, Shanghai is almost unrecognisable.

Rather on dwelling on my lack of knowledge about the "second world" i prefer to marvel at the changes the world has been through in the last decade which has led to the term becoming defunct. Who knows, maybe in a decade teenagers won't know the meaning of terms describing ugly situations. It's not likely, but there's no harm in hoping...

Civil war, rockets and ponytails...

2007-06-15T08:19:00.000+03:00

Whilst Gaza is embroiled in civil war and Sderot continues to be blasted with rockets, a teenage boy who has been cutting off girls' ponytails is on the loose in Bnei Brak.

Ynet reports,

Mystery in Bnei Brak: Zaka volunteers have announced a manhunt in the city Thursday, as they search for a haredi youth, believed to be 13, who allegedly cut off the hair of at least seven young girls, ages 8-12.

According to witness accounts, the boy seems to carry a pair of scissors with him. Upon encountering a girl whose hair is in a ponytail – and after making sure the coast is clear - he grabs her head, cuts off her hair and runs away.

The girls' families, and other fearing their daughters' safety, called on Zaka to find the youngster, who was photographed in the act Thursday afternoon.

"So far, we know of seven cases," Motti Boskin of Zaka told Ynet. "We have volunteers tracking him down, and hopefully we'll find him soon… this isn't our normal line of work, but given the sensitive nature of the case, we're more than happy to help."

Rule Britania... or not

2007-06-13T05:42:00.000+03:00

For those of you unaware, last Monday was the Queen's Birthday. Or rather, all Aussie states and territories (besides Western Australia, which holds its birthday party in October) celebrated the Queen's birthday by holding a public holiday. Noting the ridiculousness of the situation, newspapers used the occasion of this otherwise meaningless holiday, to spark the republic/constitutional monarchy debate.

Brett Hogan, incidentally the Victorian convener of Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, attempts to argue the case for Australia remaining part of the British monarchy. Other than the typical pro-monarchy arguments, Hogan alleges one of the more bizarre uses of the monarchy,

In many countries, the things we tend to take for granted — like an apolitical public service, police that enforce the law rather than doing the work of the government, armed forces that are deployed to defend the state rather than overturn the government, independent judges that impartially interpret the law and governments that leave office when they lose an election — do not exist.

In Australia, these principles are closely tied to the existence and integrity of the Australian Crown. Under a Crown, the vast powers of the state are restrained by the need to be politically neutral.

His claim that "monarchy represents the optimistic side of human values, such as tradition, family, respect for those who've gone before you, humility, charity and duty," ignores monarchy's tradition of war, sibling/family rivalry, oppression and abuse of power.

Conversely, Catherine Deveny takes a colloquial approach in contending that Australia should become a republic. Deveny argues that Australia being part of the monarchy makes her feel "like a 40-year-old still living at home with my parents."

She continues,

Despite attempting to delude ourselves that we are "world class", a "global leader", or "part of the axis of evil" — sorry, meant to write "member of the coalition of the willing" — we are a dole-bludging bong-head living out the back of our parents' place. (No offence to dole-bludging bong-heads living out the back of their parents' place.)
Even Prince Charles thinks that it's time we flew the coop. He's gone down to the bungalow, stormed in and said: "Are you still here? One thought one got one's arse into gear ages ago. One might consider pulling one's finger out and getting one's own life."

Well, i take it that you've figured out where i stand on the issue... the monarchy is outdated, superfluous and should have no influence on Australia. I just hope that Australia gets it's act together - it's taken its royal time!

Flexidoxy and the slippery slope

2007-06-11T03:56:00.000+03:00

I was just having a look through the Zeek archives and came across this article by Jay Michaelson titled "My Journey to Flexidoxy." In the article, he explains the change in his halakhik observance and philosophy from his time as a ba'al teshuva, to his current practice, which he terms "flexidoxy." I found this to be a valuable and intriguing perspective on halakha and personal attachment to Judaism and observance.

He begins by outlining the various stages of his "religious life":

At stage one, I did what I was told, lighting the candles when I was supposed to, eating only the right foods. I did this probably out of a desire to "do the right thing" and please authority figures -- mainly I was just following orders. At stage two, I came to see that some of these practices really felt good; now I lit the candles when I was supposed to, but not to impress authority figures -- to have an experience. Lighting candles felt good. But, of course, not always. Sometimes shabbat coming in meant denying myself various pleasures or activities -- what then? At stage three, I placed God ahead of me. Now I lit the candles not because I was told, and not because it felt good, but because it was part of a system in which the "right thing" was larger than "what felt good." And from that system, from the participation in a community and structure that was larger than myself, I derived a sense of value that was far more powerful than my individual pleasure. Even when lighting the candles gave me no subjective feeling at all, it had an objective reality that was outside my own preference -- and that felt like the point.

First, I came to see the supposedly trans-subjective values within halacha as, in fact, highly subjective -- just someone else's subjectivity. For me, the most obvious example has been in the area of sexuality, in which ambiguous Biblical verses have been (subjectively) interpreted in excessively broad and oppressive ways, by (subjectively-minded) people with their own particular agendas.

Second, I've noticed that the predicted catastrophe of pick-and-choose just hasn't happened. Here again, sexuality led. I thought that when I came out, that that would be the end of my religious observance. After all, now the balloon had been punctured, and the whole system compromised. But in fact, the opposite was the case. Not lesser love, but greater. Not less spirituality, but more. Likewise when I began to allow myself small exceptions to the rules.

Third, as my practice has slowly liberalized over the past five years, I've tried repeatedly to "check in" with why I'm doing it at all.

Michaelson then explains his current thinking:

Today, I regard my halachic observance not as the pursuit of a trans-subjective spiritual value, but as a dozen roses I buy for my lover. Why not eleven, instead of twelve? Why roses, instead of dandelions? There's no real reason, other than the fact that, in our shared cultural understanding, a dozen roses means "I love you" in a way that eleven dandelions does not. I find, when I break shabbat or kashrut, that I can feel a little cut off from love -- whether internal or external, I leave to theologians. It doesn't feel good. I concede that some of why it doesn't feel good is pure guilt -- but alongside that guilt is, I think, a genuine desire for intimacy with the universe, which I conceptualize as God. As Buber said, I can't really say much about whether I believe in God in the third person, as an It with these or those properties. But when we are speaking of God in the second person, when I am speaking to You, then of course You exist and have been laughing the whole time at my all-to-clever brain's peregrinations in philosophy.

Often, when I debate aspects of Judaism (especially women's issues), people present me with the "slippery slope" argument. Whilst it is certainly something to be taken into account, i feel that the argument is often given disproportionate weight and is used to distort and manipulate a debate because no better argument can be found.

This may seem an odd place to make this statement (i.e. Michaelson's siutation could very easily be interpreted as an example of a "slippery slope" situation). Even still, i think that there is something to be learned from his experiences and that he believes that his Judaism has progressed. No, i am not advocating "flexidoxy," rather i am arguing that the "slippery slope" argument should be put into perspective. Instead of focusing on the negatives of negative results of a potential "slippery slope" case, we should try to maximise the positives and embrace the reality of a situation. That does not mean that we should strive for imperfection or regression, but that if put in a difficult situation or surrounded by thoughts that are alien, we should search for commonalities and truth.

Rainbow Divide

2007-06-07T08:34:00.000+03:00

Ynet reports that groups of observant Jews and other right extremists plan on going to Tel Aviv to protest against the Gay Pride parade being held on Friday. This comes as the Knesset approves the first of two bills aimed at banning Gay Pride parades in both Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel.

Sources from the headquarters of those against the Parade told ynet,

"We have decided to cross to the secular, leftist field because they have to understand that they're not the only ones how can cause provocations."

"We've abstained from demonstrating in Tel Aviv in previous years, but if the gays can come to Jerusalem, there is no reason that sanctity can’t come to Tel Aviv."

Ignoring the self-righteousness of that statement, i feel it's important to note how the protesters take it as given that Tel Aviv is a purely "secular, leftist" place and that by default, Jerusalem is clearly a holy, "sanctified" city.

This reminds me of an article i read, which is part of ynet's Ambassador serries where a secular NB, a Tel Aviv(nik?), acts as a tour guide for a Canadian tourist. In one episode, NB reluctantly takes the Canadian to Jerusalem.

He notes that,

I'll admit it: the last time I was in Jerusalem most of its inhabitants were Jebusites, and the Western Wall had a big sign on it saying: "This project will be completed by April 512 BC." Most of my Tel Avivian friends concurred. Most of us avoid visiting our eternal (and by "eternal" I mean till Ahmadinejad will press the red button) capital.

The reason is, of course, the false reality of the complacent Tel Avivians: They are certain the world is comprised of people like them. If you spend your life in central Tel Aviv, you might think the world is filled with people by saying "coffee," they actually mean "cappuccino," work in advertising, never miss a spinning class, and favor movies by Antonioni.

Clearly, the piece aims to be humorous and dramatic and in doing so, exaggerates the situation. Still, NB does well in depicting the growing rift in Israel between secular and religious, or perhaps Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. We are currently seeing the extent of that rift with the nonsense surrounding the Gay Pride parade and there seems to be no rainbow in site.

Classified Culture

2007-06-07T06:47:00.000+03:00

Every so often, i found myself flicking through my local paper, the Bayside Leader. The "paper" (I use that term loosely) contains a few stories about local celebrities and some other nonsensey local stories, but seems to really be an excuse for property advertisement. Also featured in the Leader is a classified section, including personal ads.

Here are a few examples of what you can find in personal ads section:

First up, we have the snob,

FOXY LADY sought, tall mature blue-blooded aristocrat seeks upper class tall male mature Lady who loves dressing in furs.

Up next, we have the realist. He might be selling himself short, or maybe just truthful...

WHY NOT PICK ME!44 yr old GSOH [good sense of humour], reasonable looks, honest. kids ok

And lastly, a genre that is all too common i.e. the married seeking married,

MATURE MARRIED male seeks married lady for discreet times W/suburbs

MARRIED MAN 58 gentle, discreet, seeks woman in similar situation.

I know personal advertisement isn't a very good indicator of society, but i still find this type of thing disturbing. What makes it weirder is that this all appears in what is otherwise a cosy local paper. Is this some sort of profound statement about the state of society, or just the manifestation of something that had been around forever. You make up your own mind... i think i'll remain disturbed.

Sabbateanism and religious anarchy

2007-06-06T03:03:00.000+03:00

I just read and enjoyed "Why I study Sabbateanism" by Jay Michaelson on Zeek.

In the article, Michaelson explains that he first set-out to learn a more traditional form of Hadisim,

I knew that somehow, some way, this hasidic rabbi [R. Aaron of Staroselse] would end up justifying the Torah-and-mitzvot lifestyle to which he was committed, as, of course, he did. The same was true of the wrestling-with-texts crowd at the American yeshivas in Jerusalem, my this-is-just-my-lifestyle dati leumi non-Anglo friends, and the rest of the observant community. Of course, there are countless sincere seekers within and beyond traditional Judaism. But in my work, as in my life, I kept being drawn to the religious margins, to the people for whom the answers are not set in advance.

He then turned to study Sabbateanism, the legacy of the 17th Century false messiah Shabbatai Tzvi,

This is why I study Sabbateanism: not because of the specific doctrines of the movement, or because of the personality of Sabbatai Zevi, but because these were sects of Jews who remained attached to some kind of Judaism, but who created a form of Judaism well beyond the pale of normative religious figures... But above all, I'm captivated by that vertiginous moment in which there are suddenly no rules, no guides - and yet there is also a pull to faith. True nihilism bores me; I can't think of anything less interesting than the same hipster angst that has caused people to be cool, ironic and unhappy for two hundred years. But religious anarchy - where things matter, but they're not how the authorities say - that is the world which I actually inhabit.

I strongly recommend reading the whole article...

Can low expectations lead to good results?

2007-06-05T12:18:00.000+03:00

In an article published in the New York Times, Tom Segev discusses what the situation could have been if Israel hadn't retained the West Bank after the Six Day War.

He concludes that though he is of the generation that grew up believing in peace,

...peace with the Palestinians has not come one inch closer. As a result more and more Israelis realize today that Israel gained absolutely nothing from the conquest of the Palestinian territories. Speculating again in hindsight — Israel may have been better off giving up the West Bank and East Jerusalem without peace than signing the 1994 peace agreement with Jordan while keeping these territories. Forty years of oppression and Palestinian terrorism, both extremely cruel, have undermined Israel’s Jewish and democratic foundations. With about 400,000 Israelis living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank and with extreme Islamism as a driving force among the Palestinians, the conflict has become infinitely more difficult to solve.

He then identifies the current generation of Israelis as being cynical,

Hence young Israelis have good reason to look at my generation and say, “You blew it.” I suppose we did. In contrast to my generation, these young people no longer presume to know what should be done to solve the conflict; indeed they often no longer believe in peace. Many resort to cynical skepticism and fatalistic pessimism.

Interestingly, he claims that it is this very pessimism that could be a cause for hope,

And yet — less idealistic and more pragmatic than people of my generation — young Israelis may also be more realistic than us. Their immediate challenge is conflict management, rather than futile efforts to formulate grand schemes of ultimate solutions to the conflict. With fewer hopes and lower expectations they just may be able to make life at least somewhat more livable for both Israelis and Palestinians. Given the present circumstances, that would be no small accomplishment.

From talking with people lately, it really feels like no one has any solutions. Every policy seems to be about minimising harm or loss of something (lives, territory, sovereignty - whatever). I guess, according to Segev, we've hit a point that's so low, something must improve. And yet, I believe that until we Jews start acting pro-actively and looking to assist the other side, there can be no positive outcome. It is only when we are fully engaging with the priorities and wishes of both sides, that we can achieve a positive outcome.

It is for this reason that unilateral decisions, such as the Disengagement from Gaza, can be at best, a part of a solution. Only true dialogue will lead to a true and lasting solution and who knows, maybe even peace.

All Men Are Liars

2007-06-04T14:09:00.000+03:00

Over the last few months, I've really been enjoying Sam de Brito's blog All Men Are Liars. The blog is thoughtful and looks at issues such as gender, discrimination, society and day-to-day events; all from a man's point of view.

In his most recent post, he claims that,

It's... my growing belief that the need for universal gender equality outstrips every other pressing world issue, including global warming and environmental degradation, overpopulation, third world debt, poverty and disease.

...
As Richard H. Robbins says in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism: "The informal slogan of the Decade of Women became 'Women do two-thirds of the world's work, receive 10 percent of the world's income and own one percent of the means of production'."

"On a global scale, women cultivate more than half of all the food that is grown. In sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean, they produce up to 80 percent of basic foodstuffs. In Asia, they account for around 50 percent of food production. In Latin America, they are mainly engaged in subsistence farming, horticulture, poultry and raising small livestock," says Erwin Northoff of the Inter Press Service.

Certainly, an opinion worth considering.

While I'm at it, here are a few posts on All Men Are Liars which i found entertaining (warning:language is often strong and explicit):

"The Retrosexual"
"Lessons from a prostitute"
"Bitches, hos and your daughter" - Discusses male attitude to derogitory language

I particularly enjoyed one comment:

For crying out loud Dizzy, did it ever occur to you that maybe the reason you're not sensitive to use of the words b**ch, s**t, ho or n***er to refer to women and blacks is because you're
WHITE and MALE ?

Children and politics

2007-06-03T12:52:00.000+03:00

I was just looking through some photos from the Disengagement and was once again struck by the prominence of young children. Sure, they are disproportionately represented in photos due to their cuteness, but the truth is that in Israel at least, children are present at many political events. Often, dressed by their parents to make a political statement.

The presence of children at political events concerns me. On the one hand, it can be argued that taking children along to events like rallies and protests serves as an "education." This is a contention that i have heard many times from members of the Israeli Right (though, i am positive has been argued by other political ideologues). In their minds, they are teaching their children about the importance of loving the Land of Israel (in the case of Disengagement) or members of the Jewish people (in cases such as protests for Jonathan Pollard or captured prisoners).

Still, there is something about that line of argument that makes me very uncomfortable. Where does one draw the line between education and coercion? Is it fair to impose your political views on your children? In doing so, are you turning them into political pawns?

And yet, if you believe that parenting is about teaching children values and political activism is a value you hold dearly, this appears to be a moral thing to do.

After all this circular argument, my intuition is that we must make a fair distinction between exploitation and hiding children from politics. Perhaps it is ok to bring children to rallies, but not to dress them in politically aligned clothing or coerce them into making a statement that they are too young to properly understand. In this way, they can the process of observe political activism but not be prostituted by their parents or other adults.

Though, the question still remains at what age is someone able to make independent choices about politics or religion, if ever?

What do you think?

(Photo credits: http://www.kitracahana.com/ )

Shleppers

2007-06-02T16:53:00.000+03:00

Over the last week, news outlets and current affairs programs have been reporting a rag-tag group of adolescent football players being fined by the council for playing Aussie Rules Footy in parks in Melbourne without a permit. The council claims that as an organised group, they must affiliate with a football club and pay for a permit. The group, known as "Shleppers" is comprised of mainly Jewish adolescents who rock-up to a park on a Sunday, divide themselves into teams and have a kick. The Shleppers argue that they are just a group of people getting some exercise and are totally disorganised and therefore should not require a permit.

What's interesting is that the Channel Nine report makes no mention of the Shleppers being Jewish, even though many of the people interviewed can be clearly identified as Jewish as they are wearing kippot (skullcaps) and tzitzit (fringes).

On the other hand, Channel 7 mention that the Shleppers are "mostly Jewish."

It strikes me as odd that so little attention is paid to the obvious... but maybe that's a good thing.

Micronations - an Aussie phenomenon?

2007-05-30T07:52:00.000+03:00

Apparently, there are a disproportionate number of "micronations" which have seceded from Australia. What is a micronation? Well, a micronation is usually the result of a person, family or small group of people deciding to create their own sovereign state within a recognised state. The creators of these micronations often declare themselves Emperor or King and produce their own stamps and coins, but are not recognised by international bodies.

As i mentioned before, Australia hosts a disproportionate number of micronations. Particularly amusing is Gay & Lesbian Kingdom, which notes,

On the 13th of September 2004, the Gay Kingdom declared war on Australia. This also means that the Kingdom sees itself as an independent country. The independence is based on the fact that Australia is guilty of “unjust enrichment,” because of the government’s plan to amendment the marriage act so as to prevent homosexual couples who were married overseas to have their relationship recognised. The law of “Unjust Enrichment” states: “If something is unjustly taken compensation must be made.”

The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom claims that it is a sovereign state because,

Under the Untied Nations and International Law external overseas territories of all governments have the legal right to self government and self determination. The Coral Sea Island are international recognised by the government of Australia and by all nations and by the United Nations as an external overseas territory of Australia and as Australia has passed into legislation homophobic laws that clearly discriminate against its homosexual people the gay and lesbian activists presumes that the full force of International Law applies to the Kingdoms Independence

As for why it is a kingdom and not a republic,

Dale [the leader] was originally voted in as the administrator of the gay and lesbian government. Upon legal advice his title was changed to that of Sovereign on the grounds that under Australian law (Australia is a Kingdom) a defacto prince trying to claim his crown cannot be charged with treason, this law goes further and states in fact that anyone hindering a defacto prince or his supporters from obtaining his crown can themselves be charged with treason. To date this law has protected the Gay Sovereign and members of his government from Australian law and its legal system and courts. Had a republic model of government been chosen all the gay and lesbian activists could have been charged with treason and been bought before the Australian courts.

Other Australian micronations include the Principality of Hutt River (which claims to be Australia's oldest micronation), United Oceania, Sovereign State of Aeterna Lucina and the Province of Bumbunga.

Also of interest is Akhzivland, which was established by an Israeli hippy called Eli Avivi who declared himself president of Akhzivland in 1970.

According to a goworldtravel.com, President Avivi remarked

“This way I can stay in Israel, but in my own country.”

And when faced with legal action, he says that the judge,

“threw out the action against me and said there was no case to answer,” Avivi explains. This legal ambiguity over the status of Akhzivland continues to this day.

I wonder if Avivi has any tips for the Palestinians...

Justice Minister: Israel should help Darfur refugees

2007-05-29T17:04:00.000+03:00

It seems that we are finally getting somewhere with the Darfur refugee situation with Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann saying on Tuesday that Israel must do more to assist the refugees.

"Israel's treatment of the refugees should be in line with what happened 3,000 years ago in Egypt. The refugees should be seen as slaves who have fled, and they must be helped as much as possible," he said at an Israeli Bar Association conference in Eilat

He also stated,

"Israel must become part of those who help the refugees. It is important that we realize that they need help and we must provide them with the assistance they need. That is the desired approach, not to treat them as criminals. We are obliged to assist foreigners, and anyone who has escaped danger and slavery."

Now, let's see some action!

Coming out of the classroom closet

2007-05-29T02:56:00.000+03:00

In the article Coming out of the classroom closet, Avner Shapira discusses the current situation of gay teachers in the Israeli school system.

The article features the personal story of a lesbian teacher who came out to her class. I'm not sure what to make of the following statement made by the teacher,

"I found One of the boys even shouted in the hall after class; 'Teacher, you're the first lesbian I've ever met and it is so cool!'"

The article brings up the question of not only how much a student has the right to know about a teacher's personal life, but how much a teacher should divulge. Is it simply a matter of personal judgement?

Believe in Something

2007-05-27T10:06:00.000+03:00

Recently, Ynet in conjunction with "Ruach Tova" (Good Spirit) created a new section of its website, which is devoted to "Activism."

About "Ruach Tova"
The “Ruach Tova” organization was formed with the objective of instilling a different spirit in the Israeli society and the Jewish community worldwide, a new spirit, a spirit of giving. In every one of us there exists the capacity to share the good and give it to others in need. "Ruach Tova" was founded in order to support and strengthen the tradition of communal responsibility of the Jewish people by encouraging giving and helping, contributing and volunteering of people from all walks of life.

It seems like a great idea. Rather than pushing a specific cause, ynet is facilitating viewers with a wide range of worthy organisations (helping Jews and non-Jews). This comes at the same time as facebook (a social-networking website) launches its own "causes" application. The application allows users to "join" and donate to not-for-profit organisations and like everything in facebook, users' actions are displayed prominently on each user's page. Thereby encouraging positive peer-pressure...

In my mind, this is the ultimate utilisation of the internet, By compiling and summarising vast amounts of information and making it accessible, they are making it simple for people to choose and assist in a cause.

The whole concept reminds me of a song by Aussie punk band No Idea, "Believe In Something."

Rabbi Lau supports Darfur refugees

2007-05-25T07:12:00.000+03:00

Chief Rabbi Yisrael Lau has petitioned PM Olmert to release the Sudanese refugees held in Israeli jails.

"We, the members of the Jewish people, who suffered from persecutions and the world's indifference to our fate when we came to Israel as refugees, cannot allow ourselves to ignore the suffering and distress of other nations… the Torah orders us to love the foreigner."

Rabbi Lau's statements come a week after Kiryat Arba Rabbi Dov Lior made a "ruling" against the refugees. Thankfully, he appears to be a lone voice.

Hopefully Rabbi Lau's high-profile plea on behalf of the refugees will speed-up the process required to free the refugees from idiotic technicalities.

Gay Pride to go ahead in Jerusalem

2007-05-24T23:42:00.000+03:00

Despite the violence and civil disturbance caused by protesters last year, the Jerusalem Police have given the Open House a permit to hold a Gay Pride Parade in June, this year.

The High Court ruling specified the district police must provide the permits and security necessary for the gay pride parade.

"This said", the letter continued, "it is within the district commander's jurisdiction to determine, according to the intelligence information and/or evidence he may have at hand, on any restrictions he sees fit to apply to the event, it's location, and arrangements.

Let's just hope that the city and its inhabitants have learnt something from last year and that Jerusalem won't - once again - dissolve into hateful violence.

40 years since '67

2007-05-20T23:42:00.000+03:00

In 1967, two highly significant events took place that shape the way i live my life as an Australian and a Jew. Israel won the Six Day war and in the process came into possession of a lot of territory, the ramifications of which is plainly obvious to anyone vaguely connected with international politics. The other event that occurred was the 1967 referendum which altered two sections of the Constitution that affected the treatment of Aboriginal Australians.

Being the forty year anniversary, there are many articles and features being published about both events. This morning I read the published snippet of a larger piece by Noel Pearson, an Indigenous lawyer who was involved in the amending of the Native Title Act in 1993. He makes two very interesting points as he argues against victimhood.

On racism,

There is a dichotomy in popular discussion of racism. It is assumed that people and ideas come from one of two possible sides: those who are racists and those who are not, those who are subject to racism and those who are racists.

The polarity between those who consider racism a serious problem and those who do not is generally seen as a left-right split. This is simplistic and misleading. There is an arc of views held by non-indigenous Australians that goes from denial to moral vanity, to acknowledgement and responsibility. For Aboriginal people, the arc of views goes from separatism to victimhood and to pride and principled defence.

And on victimhood,

We indigenes of Australia are confused in our cultural understanding of victimisation and victimhood. Yes, individuals and groups in our society are victimised in a variety of ways. But it is a terrible thing to encourage victims to see themselves as victims.

Both statements are clearly directed towards Indigenous Australians, but also have an important message for others. In the case of post '67 Israel, I think Pearson's message is suited towards everyone - the Israelis and the Palestinians. The situations are clearly very different but there is certainly a universal lesson to be learned from Pearson's remarks.

I will leave-off here before i get to the contentious issue of "Sorry." Sorry, but it's too much to handle at this early hour. To be discussed another time...

Kiryat Arba rabbi against Darfur refugees

2007-05-17T09:28:00.000+03:00

Ynet reports that Rabbi Dov Lior or Kiryat Arba made a ruling that Israel must not allow Darfur refugees.

"We are not currently in a state of peace. We are in a state of war, surrounded by enemies, and we don't know whether tomorrow they (the refugees) will join those who hate us," Rabbi Lior said. "Therefore, the State of Israel must not allow such a thing."

Showing his complete understanding of the situation in the Sudan,

The rabbi added that the fact that Sudan fought against Israel during the War of Independence in 1948 was another reason why the refugees should be rejected.

Don't think that he's picking on the Sudanese especially, he has some nice words to say about Arabs too,

“We believe that every people should sit in its own land,” Rabbi Lior said. Jews have the Land of Israel, he said, and Arabs have half of the Saudi Arabian peninsula. “We want to help them return. We support the right of return for everybody,” he said to applause.

Lovely.

A secular view on Israeli politics

2007-05-17T05:17:00.000+03:00

Avirama Golan discusses the "odd mix" of Religious Zionists in politics at the moment,

The leaders of the national-religious sector have presented Israeli society with an odd mix: There are the rabbis who visited the Temple Mount and encouraged a mass pilgrimage to the site, and there are also two bills submitted by MK Zevulun Orlev to redefine the nature of public activity on Shabbat. The rabbis who initiated the delusional pilgrimage to the Temple Mount hail from the hardal (ultra-Orthodox national-religious) stream that advocates right-wing and ultra-Orthodox political extremism. Their extreme views compete with those of the most conservative ultra-Orthodox rabbis. They even accept the latter's authority to protect halakha (Jewish traditional law) - even at the cost of the suffering of would-be converts and agunot (literally, "chained women," whose husbands refuse to grant them a religious bill of divorce), and the strict educational demands made of religious youth.

All of a sudden, these rabbis changed their minds and were willing to bend halakha as if it were malleable. Even menstruating women were told they could obtain rapid ritual purification, so long as they arrived en masse to the Temple Mount. Without blinking, they are taking aim at the deep-rooted feelings and belief of the Jewish public for over 2,000 years and threatening to transform a political and national conflict into an irreparable religious rift.

Gold concludes with,

One would have to be blind or evil not to notice the break in society and to ignore its destructive results. Orlev's bill makes it clear it is not the breakdown into religious and secular that is significant, but the breakdown between those who flout their people and country in the name of fanatic belief and are willing to endanger everyone for its sake, and those who are concerned for the future of the society in which they live. If secular people are wise enough to understand the significance of Orlev's bill and accept it, they will help the public, religious and non-religious alike, to disengage from the fanatics on the mount.

This is certainly a different viewpoint and the first secular opinion that i've read about the NRP's decision. I really don't read and post enough from Ha'aretz.

On that note, I particularly enjoyed today's editorial which - in my opinion - seems to be a balanced take on the Israeli political scene.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in clashes between Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip over the past few days. Gunmen and activists of both movements have been hurt, as have innocent bystanders. Since the Palestinians are killing their own people, without outside assistance, this is supposedly an internal matter. Only supposedly, because Israel cannot watch with indifference as events unfold not far from its territory, and because Israeli citizens, residents of the western Negev and particularly Sderot are paying the price of the chaos in Palestinian society.

The primary obligation of every government is to protect the well-being of its citizens and the sovereignty of its territory. The rockets launched from Gaza are striking Israelis despite the Israeli withdrawal to the Green Line. For too many years - about half a dozen - the governments of Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert preferred to absorb the blows from what a Sharon adviser scornfully called "flying objects." The citizens under Qassam fire have the right to better protection than that being accorded to them. The hard question is whether in this case the best defense is offense, and if so, what kind.

Both action and inaction have a price, but in the end both are supposed to be based on forethought. The Olmert government is not perceived by the public as worthy and serious. Defense Minister Amir Peretz is already packing for the Finance Ministry, or for home. Olmert, who is refusing to draw the necessary conclusions about himself from the Winograd Committee report, is scuffling with the state comptroller and under criminal investigation. The fateful decisions about Gaza justify the swift establishment of a different government, with more reliable and skilled people in key positions. The soldiers who in the end will be sent to Gaza, if the Palestinians do not come to their senses and hold their fire, and the civilians who will watch them and worry on the home front should be able to trust that the decision-makers have acted in good judgment.

(EDIT: replaced "Gold" with "Golan")

Is Modern Orthodoxy a subculture?

2007-05-16T14:57:00.000+03:00

The other day we were discussing “subcultures” in my sociology tutorial and were given the task to think up subcultures aside from the traditional types (punks, hippies etc).

The categories we used to define a subculture are:

Language/slang

Dress

Media (consumption and production)

Space/hang-out

Connections/loyalty

Morals/beliefs/politics

In my group, we struggled to find a subculture that we had been a part of (we weren’t the coolest people you’ve ever met), but then I decided to use Melbourne-style Modern Orthodox Judaism. I was unsure if it was valid because it is really a subset of a religion, but it seemed to fit in perfectly with all the requirements.

Language/slang – mixture of English, Hebrew and Yiddish

Dress/fashion – Guys wear coloured, crocheted kippot; girls wear skirts

Media (consumption and production) – a combination of mainstream culture and own bands and music genre

Space/hang-out – in the “Ghetto”, around Mizrachi (community centre) and Bnei Akiva

Connections/loyalty – To Bnei Akiva, Mizrachi, the wider community, Israel and Australia

Morals – Torah-based but somewhat in-line with mainstream Australia on most matters

Politics – generally right-wing (sadly) and pro-Israel

The tutor questioned whether a religion could be a subculture (apparently religions are usually discounted because they are too big) but agreed that it fit surprisingly well with the requirements. We haven’t really learnt anything new from this, but it shows the all-encompassing nature of the “MO” lifestyle (which is often attacked from those on the right, for being too acculturated).

How to deter cultish paintballers with prayer

2007-05-15T09:28:00.000+03:00

Usually, when random people come up to you at universities, they are asking you to sign some petition or if you have found god. Not at Monash University. At Monash, we constantly have people coming up to us and asking us if we want to play paintball. This may seem harmless to you, but it’s really very annoying and a little odd: Why exactly do these people want us to play paintball? Do they not have anyone to play? Are they from some cult paintball society? Do they work for a paintball company?

When discussing the paintballers with some friends, I heard the following story. One lunchtime, a group of (Jewish) friends had finished eating their lunch and began to say Birkat HaMazon (grace after meals), which they did by moving their lips to the words of the blessings. As they were mumbling, a paintballer came up to them and asked them if they’d like to play paintball. Simultaneously, they looked up at him and continued to move their lips until they had finished the blessings. After, one replied “no” to the bewildered paintballer.

Rather than feeling embarrassed to pray on campus, students should make the most out of the situation. If there’s anyone you want to freak-out, start praying (bow and striking your chest for extra effect)! Don’t feel left out if you’re not one to pray - you can still use this method, just mouth watermelon or something.

NRP proposes Sunday as day-off

2007-05-14T11:21:00.000+03:00

The NRP has seen the light!

A bill proposing declaring Sunday an official day of rest will be put forward by National Union-NRP chairman MK Zevulun Orlev in the coming days.

According to the bill, Friday will be turned into a regular workday, until Shabbat begins, and the weekend will last until Monday morning.
At the same time, certain restrictions on Shabbat will be lightened by legally turning a blind eye on things such as public transportation, so that the secular public will be able to travel.

At the same time, certain restrictions on Shabbat will be lightened by legally turning a blind eye on things such as public transportation, so that the secular public will be able to travel.

Whenever I have asked Olim (new Israelis) what the is biggest challenge of adapting to Israeli life, they invariably comment the increased stress of not having Sundays. For observant people especially, Fridays(the unofficial day-off) is filled with Shabbat preparations. Also, there is no possibility of going out one day a week and knowing that you can sleep-in a little the next day.

I just wonder how this will effect Muslims... maybe they should be pushing for a three-day weekend.

Double standards with female politicians

2007-05-13T14:02:00.000+03:00

Meg Mundell offers a sharp assessesment of society's double standards when judging male and female politicians:

Men who live in the public eye don't cop the same scrutiny as their female counterparts. Nobody wonders aloud why many of them don't have kids. They are free to grow hair out of their ears, sport a weird chin, rack up a face full of wrinkles, and nobody gives a hoot. Hell, they're not being paid to look good or reproduce — they're men, dammit, and they have a job to do! Nobody deconstructs their fruit bowl and pronounces it inferior.
....

That's the problem, according to popular myth: it's hard to tell. Women in the public eye are caricatured into one of three cliches: the Freaky She-man, scorned for not being feminine or pretty enough — her armpits are too hairy, her clothes too frumpy, her eggs too unfertilised; the Good Mother, who must tone down her sexuality or risk the venom of colleagues and commentators — and don't even think about breastfeeding in parliament; or the Hot Babe whose success is due to her looks, so shouldn't be taken seriously.

I wonder how Israelis cope with Tzipi Livni... I guess they have the experience of Golda Meir.

Israel's reliance on miracles

2007-05-12T16:24:00.000+03:00

Yair Lapid writes a spot-on assessment of Israel's reliance on "miracles":

There have been too many times that we got away with it, or at least it seemed to us that we did. Maybe miracles happened that allowed us to ignore the truth. It’s really miraculous just how many miracles happen here.

Miracle: The education system is collapsing but the number of scientific publications is the largest per capita in the world.

Miracle: A flourishing high tech industry which evolved despite the convoluted and corrupt government bureaucracy.

Miracle: Today’s youth have grown up in a climate embracing hedonism and shirking responsibility yet the number of new recruits volunteering for the elite combat units continues to grow every year.

Miracle: We are the country that everyone loves to hate but one of the favorites among foreign investors.

Miracle: Despite the conflict between Jews and Arabs, Orthodox and secular, settlers and left wingers, Israel has one of the most stable democracies in the western world.

I beg to differ about Lapid's last point, but otherwise, he seems to be accurately describing Israeli society.

He concludes his article asking for a leader,

Wanted: A leader

During the coming days we will all continue to be busy with one of our favorite national sports of beheading the leader. I don’t deny that it’s amusing and kudos to Eitan Cabel who won the ‘remember-who-resigned-first’ contest. It also gives us a feeling of: "look we responded." We did something; we tried to fix the situation. But nothing’s been fixed.
The Israeli establishment – military and civilian – will stay what it is: Unstable, off-handed and aimless, without management skills.

Our search for ‘a leader with experience,’ for lack of a better word is really - sad. Experience in what exactly? If our state institutions don’t function, then whoever is there first will proclaim he wasn’t there when they were established.

Why are we again looking for one person to have all the answers? When will we insist that we can only have all the answers when there are enough people to ask enough questions?

(Hat tip, Seraphya)

Jewish-Arab women meeting leads to assimilation, duh

2007-05-11T09:15:00.000+03:00

Ynet reports,

In a statement published by the town's chief rabbi, Azarya Basis, and four other local rabbis, they wrote, "We unequivocally protest the 'One on One' event of Arab and Jewish women, scheduled to take place this Friday…We hereby warn that such meetings are forbidden according to the Torah… and call on the entire public not to attend this meeting or others like it."

Note, the event would be for women. Rabbi Basis made the logical conclusion that,

"Assimilation already exists in Rosh Ha'ayin. Forbidden relationships even resulted in babies. I refuse to give legitimacy to such meetings,"

Hmm. I'm clearly missing something... Luckily, Rabbi Yehiel Hindi clarified things,

"In the gathering there would be gentile cooking, drinking and dancing that might create friendships and marriages between the people… it is because of such events that we witness cases of assimilation in the country every day, cases in which Jewish women are seduced by Arabs, and bring miserable families into the world."

Right. At least the Mayor had something positive to say,

"This is a business fair for Jewish and Arab women aimed at empowering women and emphasizing their abilities," he explained. "It is meant to spotlight the beautiful sides of Israeli society – they are all citizens of the state – and at the same time emphasize the town's pluralistic character, by hosting women from all across the country...."I think this is a very positive move, which symbolizes unity," Sinai concluded.

You really have to wonder what in the world is running through some people's heads. Seriously.

Is virtual child porn a crime?

2007-05-10T04:02:00.000+03:00

An article in today's Age discusses the status of virtual child pornograph y. Specifically, relating to Second Life (an virtual world "avatars" and live a "second life") and adults acting out sexual fantasies by creating child-like "avatars."

Apparently, the legal status of "virtual" child pornography is subjective,

In Germany, "virtual" child pornography is illegal and punishable by up to five years in jail. In the US it is not a crime. In Australia it is somewhere between the two and is largely untested.
"This is a constant grey zone," said Monash University new media lecturer Brett Hitchins. Law was dictated by the country or the state but the internet was neither and there was no internet-specific law.

Specifically, relating to the Australian state of Victoria,

Under section 67A of the Victorian Crimes Act, a person who engages in virtual sex with a child avatar or who deals in virtual child porn could be successfully prosecuted, lawyers said.

The act does not mention the internet or virtual reality, but does include imagery in computer games that "describes or depicts a person who is, or appears to be, a minor engaging in sexual activity or depicted in an indecent sexual manner or context".

It is illegal to publish such images, and a game such as Second Life could be deemed to be a "publication", said Connor O'Brien, the chairman of the Law Institute of Victoria's criminal law section.

The question really boils down to what society deems "wrong" about child pornography. Is society disturbed by the abuse of real children or an inherent immorality of sexually depicting children. If it is the former, then there should be no legal backing for persecuting someone for creating virtual child porn. Though, the likelihood of virtual child porn spurring people to create or view real child pornography must be taken into account.

All up, it seems rather murky. The border between "acceptable" pornography and "unacceptable" pornography is too blurred and confused as it is. Until this can be better defined, any meaningful resolution of the issue of virtual pornography is unlikely.

Israel donates to Darfur

2007-05-09T11:36:00.000+03:00

Israel's finally getting the right idea about Darfur! Ynet reports,

The Foreign Ministry will donate NIS 20 million ($5 million) to victims of genocide in Darfur, Sudan, following a recommendation presented by Daniel Miron, head of the Ministry’s Human Rights Division.
...
According to the recommendation, Israel will transfer NIS 16 million ($4 million) to four international aid organizations, and purchase $1 million worth of medicine and water desalination equipment from Israeli companies, which would be given to the refugees.

In addition, the ministry’s Center for International Cooperation (MASHAV) intends on establishing a camp in Kenya where two Israeli doctors will be sent in order to care for hundreds of patients.According to the recommendation, Israel will transfer NIS 16 million ($4 million) to four international aid organizations, and purchase $1 million worth of medicine and water desalination equipment from Israeli companies, which would be given to the refugees.

Speaking of Darfur and Israel, Eytan Schwartz writes a poignant piece about Israel's response to the genocide in Darfur as well as its treatment of the Darfur refugees currently in Israel. We at HAeD work closely with Eytan on exactly these issues.

On the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, the phone rang. Garang, a Sudanese refugee who has been jailed for a long time in one of the prisons in the Negev was on the other end. Turn on Channel 1 quickly, he said, somebody is talking about my country. That can't be true, I told him. This is Holocaust Memorial Day. They're probably airing the ceremony from the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. Yet Garang insisted, and he was right: On stage I saw Tommy Lapid, the chairman of the Yad Vashem board, talking about the genocide raging in Sudan for several years now.
This anecdote has two points – the first one is encouraging, while the second one is a little less so. We'll start with the encouraging one: If a representative of the Holocaust commemoration establishment (and a Holocaust survivor himself) sees fit to tie the Holocaust of the Jews to what is going on in Sudan today, it means that at least in terms of awareness we are starting to fall into line with the Western world.
...
Now, to the less pleasant point: As opposed to other horrors in the world, where all we can do is express sympathy and shake our head with sadness, in the case of the Darfur genocide Israel can actually offer assistance, but it chooses to stick its head in the sand.

If you are in Israel and feel strongly about these issues, please sign up for our email list and send us an email if you'd like to be further involved.

Kahane tzadak?

2007-05-08T10:09:00.000+03:00

I was looking for some material on/by "Rabbi" Meir Kahane and came across this interview.
Rabbi Kahane comes straight out with the statements that you'd expect from him, such as:

Q: Does that mean that Kach does not encourage violence, but if a member of Kach commits acts of violence, you support him?

A: This applies not only to Kach members, but to anybody. And I approve of anybody who commits such acts of violence. Really, I don’t think that we can sit back and watch Arabs throwing rocks at buses whenever they feel like it. They must understand that a bomb thrown at a Jewish bus is going to mean a bomb thrown at an Arab bus

and

Q: What would you say if all Israeli Arabs decided to convert to Judaism tomorrow?
A: Obviously, we wouldn’t agree to it, because they wouldn’t want to convert for honest reasons. It takes years to convert a person, don’t forget that. Anyway, the Arabs won’t do it. They think that Jews are their enemies.
As a matter of fact, leftist Jews despise the Arabs. I don’t despise the Arabs. Liberal Jews think that they can buy the Arabs. Jewish racists think that there can be good Arabs, nice Arabs. They believe that they can educate them to be good Arabs. What the leftist Jews call good Arabs are not what I call good Arabs. For me, the good Arab is a proud Arab. And I understand this good Arab. Because I too have national pride.

Interestingly, Kahane makes the following prediciton,

Q: In your opinion, who would be the best candidate as a dictator?
A. At this moment, Sharon, without any doubt. He has the best claim. But he is a very, very bad person.

Q: Why?

A: He is very bad! I’m not talking about his political views. I don’t judge him according to his views. He’s bad. He’s a liar. He has no moral principles. He has no ideals. He’s capable of doing anything, and I’m just as afraid of him as the Left are.

Well, if nothing else, Kahane predicted Sharon's swing to becoming pro-disengagement... I guess in this situation, Kahane is indeed "tzadak".

Israeli students apathetic?

2007-05-08T02:00:00.000+03:00

I was just reading an article about the university students' strike in Israel (which has been going on for more than 3 weeks).

Shiri Lev-Ari writes,

The Israeli student has always been branded as apathetic, and many claim that students only demonstrate when their own pockets are in danger of being hit. Common knowledge maintains that Israeli students arrive at university older than their peers abroad, tired, following military service, and already responsible for other aspects of their lives (earning a living, serving in military reserve units and starting a family). It is no wonder that the Israeli student lacks the energy for youthful rebellion.

I never thought of Israeli students as being apathetic. Maybe they are apathetic compared to other sections of Israeli society. Israeli student activity certainly seems higher than activity in Australia....

Speaking of Israeli student activity, tonight there is a panel being held (on the topic of Darfur) at the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew U, in Jerusalem.

Details:

At the Givat Ram campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Feldman Aleph Hall), 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday May 8^th.

Moderator: Dr. Rony Blum, Department of Public Health, Hebrew University

Speakers:

* Dr. Robbie Sabel - Hebrew University Faculty of Law, former Legal Advisor to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs -

-Genocide in International Law: How does International Law affect what is happening in Darfur today?

* Professor Yair Auron - Chair, Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication, The Open University, Israel -

-Israel and the Genocides of Other Peoples.

* MK Ran Cohen - Chairman, Knesset Committee on Foreign Workers - The Israeli Government's Attitude Towards Refugees from Darfur.

* Yiftach Millo - Founder of Asaf, Organization for the Aid of Refugees and Seekers of Asylum in Israel -

-A Firsthand Account:Work with Refugees from Sudan, in Africa and Israel.

* A shuttle will be leaving the Har Hatzofim campus at 17:20.

* The panel will be taking place in Hebrew.

* Free admission

For more information, please contact:

Keren - 054-6769379, Naama - 052-5525012

Hamas taking the Mickey

2007-05-07T14:35:00.000+03:00

Ynet reports,

A Mickey Mouse-like character is making regular appearances on Hamas's al-Aqsa TV to teach Palestinian children that Islam will "dominate the world," the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) organization said in a press release. Sections of the video are available for viewing on PMW's website.
...
"From Palestine, oh Saraa', what do you mean? From Gaza, Jerusalem, Ramallah, or from all of Palestine?" Farfur asked. "Yes, from all of Palestine," she answered.

Well, it seems that Mickey's finally fulfilled his original mater's anti-Semitic (sort of) wishes...

This all reminds me of one of John Safran's clips from Race Around the World, where he breaks into Disneyland and hangs up plaques attesting to Walt Disney's true character (among other things).

She did what?

2007-05-06T03:19:00.000+03:00

Kortezz Uraban tells a bizarre story about a friend being freeked out by the (Jewish) girl he was dating having previously gone out with an Arab.

On the third date, in a coffee shop on the beach, we started talking about crazy things we did. We played this sort of game where you tell two things about yourself, one true and the other false and the other one must guess which is which. It's a funny way to talk about he skeletons in my closet and get to know her's and hope for the best.

"Her's were:
A. I participated in an orgy

B. I had an Arab boyfriend

"Do you get it? Know what? I was willing to be open-minded as long the answer was A. Yet fate had other plans. "You dated an Arab?" I asked. "yes," she replied nonchalantly, "it was a while back, a real nice guy I met in college. We were together for a month. Not a big deal."
"That instant the smile was wiped off my face. From a cute, interesting girl she turned into a mega freak with a big neon sign – dated an Arab – blinking over her head".

I'm not sure what this indicates... Racism? Jewish pride? What exactly does it mean to be a "secular" Israeli? I guess, even in this story, the writer holds a different opinion, but none-the-less I find the story rather disturbing.

Israeli's gone Arab?

2007-05-03T14:55:00.000+03:00

In his article on ynet, Ray Hanania discusses whether Israel's reaction to the Lebanon war is "Arab." He ends with this highly amusing anecdote:

I remember when my dad first sat me down as a kid to explain the facts of "Arab Life" to me
He said, "Ray, you are an Arab."

Wow. I didn’t know that.

Being an Arab, he continued, means there is good news and bad news. The bad news is I have a nose so large I can’t just use a handkerchief to blow my nose, he explained. I have to use a towel. And since a towel is too big to fit in my back pocket…

I interrupted Baba trying to show him I was smart, and said, "that means I have to wear it on my head, right Baba?"

Right, he said.

"But the other bad news," he said, "is that being an Arab means you are going to get your butt kicked repeatedly …" Dad paused and took a deep breath, and continued the sentence with a deep sigh, "by the Jews."

"The Jews?" I asked surprised. "I thought those were the people who were beat up by everyone? They’re going to beat us up?"

Yes, Baba explained. "And, worse. They will do it in less than six days. Real humiliation," he said.

Wow, I thought. That is bad news. But then I asked, "Well Baba, if that’s the bad news, what’s the good news?"

"Well," dad said, "The Good news is that when the Jews kick your butt and it takes longer than six days to do it, you’re going to feel like you won."

Hmmmm. Maybe Olmert is an Arab after all?

John Safran

2007-05-03T13:43:00.000+03:00

For those of you who don't know of him, John Safran is an Jewish-Australian comedian who attended Yeshiva College (a Chabad school) in Melbourne. In 1997, Safran won a TV competition called "Race Around the World" held by ABC (the national broadcaster). The competitors were required to travel around the world filming 4 minute documentary-style movies, which were voted on by a panel of judges. Safran's entries were quirky, funny and often centred around religion. Since the Race, Safran has filmed a series called"Music Jamboree" and in his most recent series called "John Safran Vs God," Safran tests out and challenges all types of religions.

In Vs God, Safran, who is already technically a "black protestant" after the Race Around the World, participates in a voodoo ceremony involving a priest biting of goat's testicles, drinks peyote, attempts to join the KKK, places a fatwa on an Aussie TV personality and ends the series by getting exorcised.

Why am I telling you this? Well, I'm a massive fan of his work and it occurred to me that since a lot of the people who read this aren't Australian, they may not be aware of Safran. I have to warn you that he is rather crude, swears a bit and in there is the occasional bit ritual slaughter...

Still, if you can cope with some obscenity and are a fan of witty, personal, challenging and comical TV, then you'll love him.

Here are a few of my favourites:

Episode 8 of Race Around the World, filmed in Israel, Safran evaluates God's involvement in Aussie rules football (WARNING: swearing and pixelated nudity).

Closing rant in Vs God, Safran takes a shot at humanity-student atheists:

Vs God, Safran attempts to join the KKK:

You can download his radio show (which he hosts with a Catholic priest) here.

The "Sanhedrin's" peace proposal

2007-05-02T00:06:00.000+03:00

A few years back there was talk of a group of rabbis wanting to reform the Sanhedrin (council of 71 rabbis who are deemed to have universal authority by Jews). The Sanhedrin was formally disbanded in 358CE and though there have been a few attempts to reform it, none has taken succeeded.

In October 2004, a group of rabbis appointed itself the Sanhedrin in Tiberias. Even though there are prominent rabbis involved, most notably (to me) R' Adin Steinzaltz (author of many, many books and translator of the Talmud), it is considered a fringe movement and has not been received by the vast population of Torah-observant Jews.

Why am i telling you this? Well, the Sanhedrin has now come up with a peace initiative. It has decided to invite world leaders to assist in the rebuilding of the Temple.

Ynet reports,

In recent days, the group members have drafted a letter that will be translated into 70 languages and sent to all government institutions in the world, including “the sons of Esau and Ishmael” who do not hold diplomatic ties with Israel.

...

In the letter, the rabbis of the self-proclaimed Sanhedrin warn that the world is nearing a catastrophe, and write that the only way to bring peace among nations, states, and religions is by building a house for God, where Jews will worship, pray and offer up sacrifice, according to the vision of the prophets.

The rabbis also call on the non-Jews to help the people of Israel fulfill their destiny and build the Temple, in order to prevent bloodshed across the globe.

The letter will initially be translated into English, Spanish, Arabic, French and Farsi, and later also into Russian, Chinese and Japanese, and will include an invitation to world leaders to attend a conference dedicated to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem five months from now, during Succot.

Prof Hillel Weiss of the Sanhedrin explained that the Torah and the prophets have tasked the Jewish people with the responsibility for world peace. He stressed that the group’s project was to rebuild the Temple, not a “church for all nations,” but added, “We have all descended from the same father, this is not another primitive and racist approach.”

Even more amusingly, Arutz 7 ends its report on the topic with,

Those currently sitting on the Sanhedrin stress that they have all assumed their seats on condition that they give them up to anyone greater in wisdom who joins. Those interested in becoming involved with the Sanhedrin should contact the Sanhedrin secretariat at: 02-566-1962 (972-2-566-1962 from outside Israel).

What are you waiting for? Give them a call! Could make a great reality TV show...

No longer the National RELIGIOUS Party?

2007-05-01T02:29:00.000+03:00

From now, candidates for Israel's National Religious Party (NRP) "will not be asked to declare they observe Torah and mitzvot, and will be able to be elected members even if they do not wear a kippah."

Kobi Nahshoni writes,

The two significant amendments that will be introduced to the charter stipulate that the party will strive to preserve the state’s Jewish character (instead of “religious character”), and that it will accept as a member “any Jewish man or woman who observes Torah and mitzvot, or the Jewish tradition, and who identifies with the party’s goals and aspirations.” The phrase “observes the Jewish tradition” represents the change.

So reading between the lines, NRP has decided that it now wants to fawn ordinary right-wing folk, not only those wearing crocheted kippot. I wonder how many voters/candidates will actually be attracted to the National RELIGIOUS Party if they're not actually religious. Surely, other right-wing parties such as Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beitenu are into preserving the "Jewish nature" of the State of Israel.

This seems to be another case of the Israeli voting system's failure to act in a coherent fashion. If the NRP achieves its goal, we will have another superfluous party vying for votes from the vague religious/secular right. If Israel insists on this system of proportional representation, then it should at least have parties representing different things.

For more information on Israel's electoral system, go here.

Kosher Klothes

2007-04-30T00:47:00.000+03:00

Good news, everyone. You can now buy "kosher clothing" (maybe i should get a patent out on "kosher klothes")!
Ynet reports,

The strictly Orthodox sector has established a new modesty court to grant kashrut certificate to women's clothing stores.

....

The ultra-Orthodox newspaper Bakehila ('in the community') reported over the weekend that an assembly of rabbis gathered at the home of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the "great posek" (arbiter of Jewish law) and decided to establish the modesty court.

Court representatives will examine the garments sold in clothes stores and will grant kashrut certificates to worthy vendors.

A few weeks back i mentioned to someone that people seem to take kashrut way more seriously than, say, shatnez and that you don't see people making their own clothes just-in-case there might be some mixing of wool and linen (i'm talking about above what can be scientifically tested). It seems that they've gone one better.

Torah Tots for Jesus?

2007-04-28T16:14:00.000+03:00

Personally, I'm a big google fan. I use google for everything: email, groups, searching etc. The way google makes its money is by selling ads and it does a fine job of it, with googleads appearing everywhere. Unfortunely, many websites are unaware of the ads that are shown on their website.

I have noticed a large number of Jewish websites which show "Jews for Jesus" ads on their websites. I find this rather disturbing, especially since some of these websites cater to children.

For example, the Torah Tots website.

and ynet:
Maybe it just shows up when you brows from Australia. Check it out... or better still, write to any website that shows these ads and ask them to ban the ad.

Jewish fundamentalism

2007-04-27T08:46:00.000+03:00

I'm currently in the middle of writing an essay about "Jewish fundamentalism." I'm having fun researching the topic and drawing on much that i have previously read. I thought i'd link you to a few interesting articles on the topic.

An article which appeared in Azure by Aharon Rose entitled "The Haredim: A Defense" . Rose concludes with an argument which i find probematic:

Once, during a heated debate on the question of whether the Haredi community helps or hinders the future of the Jewish people, my teacher and rabbi Professor Shalom Rosenberg, a researcher of Jewish history, claimed that the Haredim are the “savings account” of the Jewish people. In contrast, the modern Jewish movement may be compared to “venture capital,” used to invest in bold political and ideological ventures. Surely, we can see the value in both. Indeed, there may come a time when the modern Jewish community will need to dip into its reserves. The resilience of the Haredi community assures us that these reserves will always be there.

Samuel Heilman discusses Jewish Fundamentalism drawing on his usual argument that modern orthodoxy is in decline.

The differences between active and quiescent fundamentalism, two stages of the phenomenon, help explain developments among contemporary Orthodox Jewry, which is also divided along these lines. Included in the former category are Orthodox Jewish settlers in the Land of Israel as well as Chabad Hasidim who are on a mission to transform Jewish life. Those who make up haredi Jewry, and in particular those in the world of the yeshivas, constitute the latter category. The year of yeshiva study spent in Israel by young Orthodox Jews from America plays an important role in shaping these categories.
And my favourite, Haym Soloveitchik discusses the evolution of Orthodoxy and its "swing to the right".

If I were asked to characterize in a phrase the change that religious Jewry has undergone in the past generation, I would say that it was the new and controlling role that texts now play in contemporary religious life. And in saying that, I open myself to an obvious question: What is new in this role? Has not traditional Jewish society always been regulated by the normative written word, the Halakhah? Have not scholars, for well over a millennium, pored over the Talmud and its codes to provide Jews with guidance in their daily round of observances? Is not Jewish religiosity proudly legalistic and isn't exegesis its classic mode of expression? Was not "their portable homeland," their indwelling in their sacred texts, what sustained the Jewish people throughout its long exile?
The answer is, of course, yes. However, as the Halakhah is a sweepingly comprehensive regula of daily life-covering not only prayer and divine service, but equally food, drink, dress, sexual relations between man and wife, the rhythms of work and patterns of rest-it constitutes a way of life. And a way of life is not learned but rather absorbed. Its transmission is mimetic, imbibed from parents and friends, and patterned on conduct regularly observed in home and street, synagogue and school.

Anyone got any other suggestions?

barking up the wrong sheep?

2007-04-27T07:33:00.000+03:00

The Age reports:

Thousands of Japanese have been swindled in a scam in which they were sold Australian and British sheep and told they were poodles.

Flocks of sheep were imported to Japan and then sold by a company called Poodles as Pets, marketed as fashionable accessories, available at $1,600 each.

That is a snip compared to a real poodle which retails for twice that much in Japan.

The scam was uncovered when Japanese moviestar Maiko Kawamaki went on a talk-show and wondered why her new pet would not bark or eat dog food

EDIT: Apparently, this is an urban legend. See Snopes for more information.

modelling religion

2007-04-26T04:30:00.000+03:00

Following on from recent posts about how we view religion, top Israeli model, Hava Mond , talks about how she prays at the beginning and end of each day, only eats kosher, does not work on Shabbat and refuses to pose in swimwear or underwear.

Mond was raised Safed and as a daughter of a religious family was enrolled at the city's religious girls' school. She never dreamed of becoming a model, but rather hoped to study law and become an attorney. Yet, at 16-years-of age while traveling in London with her aunt she was approached by an agent from the Select modeling agency who offered her a job.

She refused, saying that she was religious and that she hadn't completed her high school studies. The modeling agency waited until she turned 18. Mond completed her national service and only then embarked on her meteoric modeling career.

When asked if it is a problem for her to pose with low cleavage, she responded:

"No, my appearance is very misleading, I have my red lines. On the one hand I manage with low cleavages and I even wear short skirts, but on the other hand I pray in the mornings and usually in the evenings as well. The fact that a girl is covered from head to toe doesn't make her better or more religious than I am . Ultimately, what counts is your conduct and what's inside. Who knows, perhaps I am more diligent than other girls in some things."

The true legacy of the Anzacs

2007-04-25T04:15:00.000+03:00

Today is Anzac Day. The day where Australia and New Zealand remember the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) who fell in WWI.

For Australians, the story of the Anzacs is one of the most nationally important. Indeed, it is said that Australia truly became a nation on the shores of Gallipoli. The story is presented as one of mate-ship, heroism and bravery. Little attention is paid to the reason for the soldiers being involved in the war in the first place i.e. little colonial Australia out to prove its obedience to Mother England. Little attention is paid to the reality that Australia had one of the highest casualty rates
(65%) of the armies of the British Empire.

Rather than merely mourning Australia's loss and celebrating the legacy of the Anzacs, we should also dedicate the day to remembering the stupidity and murderous ambitions which lead the world powers to enter into WWI. If nothing else, Anzac Day must teach us the value of peace and of questioning orders.

With that in mind, may their legacy be remembered.

Why wear a kippah?

2007-04-24T12:18:00.000+03:00

Following my last post on Israeli society's black-and-white approach to religion, I was excited to read Asaf Wohl's* explanation of the social symbolism of the kippah (skullcap).

Is it possible that a hidden righteous man, one who holds two of the 36 slots for righteous men, wears an earring? Of course it is. It’s even possible that he’s one of the ten righteous men who are promised a place in Paradise during their lifetime. But—and any boy with sidelocks will tell you this—“religious he’s not."

So what’s the difference between “religious” and “observant”? Well, in order to be religious it’s enough to put a kippah on your head. To observe the commandments is far from simple. How can you not “hate your brother in your heart” if he slanders you, and besides, it’s been two weeks and he hasn’t yet returned the drill? You see? It’s hard.
....
What, then, makes people wear a kippah? The answer can be found in the reason that people join clubs: benefits. The membership benefit program for the kippah - and long skirt-club includes a feeling of security in community, a feeling of elitism, and most importantly, a sweeping exemption from the need to think.

Not suprisingly, Wohl concludes,

I believe that, to the extent possible, we should make an effort to avoid labeling—which is inherent in us— about the type of kippah, the color, the size, and the type of crochet stitch. And yes, the lack of a kippah as well. It’s a good idea to remember that the act of placing a kippah on your head does not do anything either between the kippah wearer and his God, or the kippah wearer and his fellow man. This quote from I Samuel 16:7 is well put: “For man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

Interestingly, the English byline is:

Asaf Wohl has a BA in philosophy and is the winner of the Dean’s Prize for Excellence for MA students in the Jewish History Department of Haifa University.

The Hebrew byline is:

הרב אסף גולן, סגן מנהל בית ספר בצפון, בעל טור בעיתון הצופה, כותב סיפורים ושירה ובוגר המדרשייה וישיבת שבי חברון

I'm very confused. Not only are the names different (Wohl in English, Golan in Hebrew), so are the qualifications (one talks about university qulaifications and the other about religious qualifications). I'm assuming that once again, there was a dodgy translation.

Edit: The correct link for the Hebrew version is here. Serves me right for just reading the title and not the actual article! The other piece is a response to Wohl's article.

Jewish or Israeli?

2007-04-24T10:10:00.000+03:00

Once again, Ynet and Gesher join forces to survey the Israeli population about how they view they view themselves religiously and nationalistically (for those interested, here's the hebrew article -the English translation is a little weird).

50 percent of respondents said they were Jewish first, 45 percent said they were Israeli first and the remaining five percent said that both titles did not represent them.

Not surprisingly,

Among secular Israelis, 72 percent said they were more Israeli compared to 23 percent who said they were more Jewish.

Interestingly, 82% of people who identified as "religious" regarded themselves as Jewish first, with 8% who said they were Israeli first. The gap was 92% to 5% amongst those identifying as Hareidi.

All-in-all the results are not unexpected. They do, however, show one of the clearest reasons for the political divide between the religious and the secular i.e. each side views themselves as having a different identity.

The results also show a very rigid definition of "Jewish". I wonder what the answers to the survey would be like amongst Diaspora Jews. I imagine that those who in Israel would be pigeon-holed as being "secular", would identify themselves as being culturally Jewish or whatnot. It's a shame Israeli society is so black and white (or should I say blue and white?).

Palestinian security forces emotionally disturbed

2007-04-22T02:58:00.000+03:00

Roee Nahmias reports on Ynet that members of the Palestinian security forces are seeking help for being emotionally disturbed by the internal tensions.

"One member of the Hamas security force came to me suffering from high tension, which was causing physical problems. He said he felt fear from the fact that he would burn in hell forever if he fired even one bullet at someone," the doctor said.

He told of another case, in which a member of the security forces arrived with similar symptoms. "He said he couldn't fire at another Muslim, and that he felt pain and bitterness," al-Aqra said.

The question that is begging to be asked and is ignored... what pain do they feel at the thought of killing non-Muslims?

"HIV chasing" in the Gay community

2007-04-21T14:18:00.000+03:00

The recent trial of a Melbourne man convicted of intentionally infecting 16 men with HIV has brought to light a subculture where gay men seek to become infected with HIV, reports The Age.

One man tells an interviewer,

"I wasn't actively seeking it, but maybe there were parts of me, dark corners, that wanted it, that were thinking, 'Let's just do it and get it over and done with and then it won't be an issue'," he said.

However,

Many gay community leaders and spokespeople for HIV and AIDS lobby groups last month dismissed claims of "bug chasing" and "conversion parties" — group-sex parties where positive men have unprotected sex with negative men to give them the virus — after the concepts were aired during Neal's court case.

Mike Kennedy, the executive director of the Victorian AIDS Council — the peak body representing gay men living with HIV and AIDS — this week again told The Age it was an urban myth.
"You will find one of everything you look for," Mr Kennedy said. "But the notion that this is a big scene, absolutely not. The language of 'gift givers', 'bug chasers' and 'conversion parties' — it's something that's come off the internet."

Also in today's Age was a feature piece on the topic by Karen Kissane and Julia Medew. This one thoroughly freeked me out. Just a warning, the article (though not the bits that i've quoted) is highly explicit.

While Victorian AIDS Council chief executive Mike Kennedy says most infections are passed on innocently by people who did not know they had the virus, the HIV worker challenges this: "The majority of people that I have known have all been recklessly infected."
The worker says there are three degrees of recklessness. Some HIV-positive people drop hints to see if they are picked up on, perhaps mentioning the fact that they are going to a clinic or seeing a counsellor. If the partner does not inquire further, it is assumed that the partner is HIV positive too. "I've had a number of cases where this has happened in the past month."

The next level of recklessness is where a person who is HIV-positive goes into a sexual encounter with the attitude that it is the other person who should be assuming responsibility for raising the issue. Some have a view, the worker says, that " 'the onus is on them to ask me, if they are negative and they care about their status. If not, I'm not going to disclose it because it's not their business unless they make it their business.' That's probably the stance of at least 50 per cent of HIV-positive people in Australia," the worker says.

The third level of recklessness involves deliberately lying and/or trying to infect others, a phenomenon the worker says is extremely rare. The motive "is first of all revenge, societal revenge because 'some bastard gave me this, I am going to get back at all those gay bastards'."

I really can't say how much of this stuff is true and how widespread the issue is, but it's a scary thought, none-the-less.

Equality in death

2007-04-20T08:34:00.000+03:00

The story of 32 people murdered in America still dominates The Age website and received a special banner on the top of theage.com.au for over 24 hours. Yet, the story of 191 deaths in one day in Bagdad is given a fleeting headline before being relegated to the “world news” section within a few hours.

It’s no wonder that Seraphya, who is currently in New York, commented to me earlier that though the Virginia Tech tragedy was numerically much worse than the Columbine Massacre (which occurred 8 years ago, today), the public’s interest and shock at the recent tragedy is much less.

The sad reality is that we are easily desensitised to death. Unless we make a conscious effort to mourn and mention every single life lost in all conflicts and circumstances, we risk becoming a totally heartless society.

I shudder to think about the prospects for those in Darfur and other genocide-stricken regions around the world.

What's in a name?

2007-04-19T06:31:00.000+03:00

What's in a name? A lot, according to Palestinian-American, Ray Hanania.

Speaking of the "Zionist Entity" he writes:

Of course, The Iranians blamed the controversy on the "Jewish controlled media," on "Zionism" and especially on the "Zionist Entity," which is the term they use to refer to a word that is practically illegal to say in Iran, "Israel." I never understood that whole thing about not calling Israel "Israel" and calling it the Zionist Entity instead.

"Entity" is a powerful word. I mean, when you are an entity, you are basically an official corporate structure with many benefits. If the Arabs wanted to undermine Israel, they would call it by its name, Israel. "Down with the Zionist Entity" doesn’t have the same impact as saying "Down with Israel."

Do have a look at the rest of the article, it's a good one.

Supreme court: women allowed to eulogise

2007-04-18T17:03:00.000+03:00

Ynet reports that the Israeli supreme court has decided that,

"The burial society will not forcibly separate between the sexes in the cemetery, and women too will be able to eulogize,"

The article adds:

The plaintiffs, Liat and Rivkah Luvitch, claimed that Petah Tikva Chief Rabbi Shimon Solomon banned women from actively participating in funerals held at the city's Segula cemetery.

According to Soloman's ruling women were forbidden from accompanying the deceased to his final resting place and forbidden from delivering a eulogy for them. A strict separation was to be maintained between the sexes throughout the course of the funeral procession.

The Supreme Court ruled that the rabbi's order violated the basic rights of women and discriminated between the residents of Petah Tikva and other towns.

Rivkah Luvitch filed the appeal following the death of her father, Israel Prize Laureate Charles Liebman, a renowned sociologist. Luvitch sought to deliver her father's eulogy but when she started to approach the microphone in the funeral home a representative from the burial society blocked her path and told her that "in Petah Tikva women do not eulogize." The guidelines were referred to as 'the Jerusalem practice.

Craziness. There seems to be weird stuff coming out of Petach Tikvah these days...

Survey on Jews and Sexuality

2007-04-17T05:18:00.000+03:00

Yesterday, i was talking with a few friends about this survey on Jews and Sexuality that is currently being conducted. Ironically, today when i was looking for the survey (which i filled out in February) i found an article on it published in yesterday's edition of the Jerusalem Post.

A study being conducted by Mark Guterman, a doctoral student in psychology, and Orit Avishai, who is working on her PhD in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, is attempting to close that gap.
The research, which began in early January, examines how Jews worldwide from across the denominations observe nidda, the period of marital separation in the days during and following a woman's menstruation, and negia (prohibitions on premarital touching), and how these practices relate to sexual satisfaction.
An on-line survey (http://www.jewishsurveys.org/), circulated through blogs and message boards, poses some 50 questions intended to gather quantitative and qualitative data on the practices of singles and married couples. Participants are asked to respond to statements that include: I am satisfied with my spouse as a sexual partner; After sex I feel relaxed, fulfilled; I have good communication with my spouse about sex.

The article also mentions another survey conducted by the same people on a similar topic:

Initial research done by Guterman in his home community in Staten Island, New York, in the summer of 2005 revealed that many modern Orthodox Jews who claim to abide by the nidda laws were violating certain prohibitions, especially what Guterman calls the more "lenient" ones that include tapping each other on the shoulder, sharing a couch cushion, eating directly from leftovers of a spouse or holding hands.

I can't wait to see the results, which should be published sometime after June.

Never Again

2007-04-15T16:43:00.000+03:00

Today is "Yom HaShoah", the remembrance day for the Holocaust (or in Israel or "Yom HaShoa U'Gvurah", the remembrance day for the Holocaust and and heroism").

When meditating over the events of the Holocaust and hear the phrase "Never Again" please think of the practical implications. In the words of Eli Wiesel, a holocaust survivor, author and Darfur activist, “As a Jew who does not compare any event to the Holocaust, I feel concerned and challenged by the Sudanese tragedy. We must be involved. How can we reproach the indifference of non-Jews to Jewish suffering if we remain indifferent to another people’s plight?”

---

As an aside, I've posted a few pictures which I took when I was in Poland last year.

A red filter turning the sky over Majdanek to blood:

A memorial at the site of Treblinka:

An earily beautiful sunset over Belzec:

i'll drink to that....

2007-04-15T09:55:00.000+03:00

Today's editorial in The Age discusses the way (Australian) society treats alcohol and argues that it is time to "reassess."

I found this paragraph to be particularly poignant:

But there is a tendency to regard excessive drinking, particularly among the young, as cool and a natural rite of passage, rather than a potentially dangerous activity that needs to be reigned in. And binge drinking is certainly not restricted to teenagers — they are surrounded by adults drinking to excess. Little wonder they follow suit. Binge drinking should not be dismissed as a harmless, passing phase: it can lead to potential problems with alcohol dependency later in life, and all the attendant havoc that can wreak.

It's about bloody time we as Australians look into how society relates to alcohol. Now it's time the Jewish community to get into the spirit...

2007-04-14T16:24:00.000+03:00

Two years ago, right before Israel's Disengagement from Gaza, Mobius of Jewschool created this icon, which says "veahavta l'reakha k'mokha" which means "love your fellow like yourself." The Blue and Orange represent the pro and anti disengagement, respectively.

Some friends and I decided to stick them around Caulfield, the "ghetto" in Melbourne, Australia. This is a photo of the sticker we put on a pole:

And this is a photo of the same pole that we took earlier tonight:

As you can see, it's a little smudged and the colour has drained, but if you look closely, you can decipher the words. I think it speaks for itself...

The irony is that during that time, I made my own graphic which says "Ahavat Yisrael Hi Iveret Tzvaim" or "Love for Israel is Colour-Blind."

Google Earth aids visualisation of the crisis in Darfur

2007-04-12T07:51:00.000+03:00

From the United States Holocaust Memorial website:

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has joined with Google in an unprecedented online mapping initiative. Crisis in Darfur enables more than 200 million Google Earth users worldwide to visualize and better understand the genocide currently unfolding in Darfur, Sudan. The Museum has assembled content—photographs, data, and eyewitness testimony—from a number of sources that are brought together for the first time in Google Earth.

Crisis in Darfur is the first project of the Museum’s Genocide Prevention Mapping Initiative that will over time include information on potential genocides allowing citizens, governments, and institutions to access information on atrocities in their nascent stages and respond.

"Educating today’s generation about the atrocities of the past and present can be enhanced by technologies such as Google Earth. When it comes to responding to genocide, the world’s record is terrible. We hope this important initiative with Google will make it that much harder for the world to ignore those who need us the most."
— Sara J. Bloomfield, Director, USHMM

Halacha and the Exodus: have we lost the plot?

2007-04-11T17:07:00.000+03:00

Once again Uri Orbach hits the nail on the head. This time, he writes about the harm of becoming overly stringent with halacha.

That’s all Okay, no? No, not at all. Everyone gains in this non-food chain, right? No. The Torah loses. Because once they start issuing kashrut certification for products that don’t need it, they cause disdain for real kashrut. When consumers see that everything is commercialized and everything has Badatz kashrut certification, then they also begin to fear that perhaps kashrut certification is not a serious issue. Admit it: Even the most strict of the strcitly Orthodox ridicule the abundance of types of kashrut certification. They laugh and they pay, they ridicule and they buy.

This Pesach, i couldn't help being irritated by the extreme measures which are "required" to obliterate chametz from our lives for the 8 days of the festival. I coudn't get passed the ridiculousness of people having a 2nd "Pesach" kitchen (used once a year to prepare for and use during Pesach), kosher for Pesach detergent and soap etc.

It all seems so extreme. Surely God doesn't want us commemorating the Exodus from Egypt by purchasing a new, chametz-free toothbrush (to be accompanied by kosher l'pesach toothpaste, of course)! Somewhere along the line we have clearly lost the plot.

Yes, details are important (indeed, they drive halacha), but once we loose site of the greater picture, those same details can pull us away from the goal they were originally intended to assist us to achieve.

It's no coincidence that we count the days following Pesach, culminating in Shavuot. Indeed, we celebrate arguably the most important moment in Israel's nationhood, the receiving of the Torah, with a holiday which has almost no unique laws!

Can hell "freeze over" twice?

2007-04-11T01:50:00.000+03:00

'I COME in peace," says Irish republican leader Gerry Adams in last week's issue of satirical magazine Private Eye. To which his archenemy, firebrand Protestant preacher Ian Paisley replies, "And I'm the Pope."
In The Daily Telegraph, a horned fellow with a pitchfork skates glumly across ice near a sign that says, "Hell."

If you're anything like me (a young Jewish Australian) then the concept of peace in Irelend doesn't seem like the greatest deal. Yet, the more i look into it, it seems that Northern Ireland peace is indeed a case of hell freezing over.

As a human being, I am thankful for what is hopefully the end of a long bloody conflict and as a someone living in the time of this Israeli/Palestinian mess, i sense a spark of optimism. I know that the two situations are totally different, but at the very least, the citizins of Northern Ireland identified with the Israeli/Palestinian conflic when they adopted sides as pro-Israel (Protestant) and pro-Palestinianin (Catholic) in a ridiculous "flag war". Furthermore, hatred and bloodshed certainly existed.

I can't help thinking that if diplomacy can defeat hatred in Northern Ireland, then maybe the Israeli/Palestinian "hell" will also freeze over. I just hope that we won't have to suffer for that amount of time...

Sectariansim by Kippah

2007-04-10T14:31:00.000+03:00

An insightful article by Moti Zafed about sectarianism within orthodox Judaism in Israel.

We, the religious, are very good in helping needy, experts in organizing fundraisers and secret charity campaigns, promote educational projects, and know how to mend the hearts. We raise our children on "Love of Israel" and on "All Jews vouch for each other," but let us be honest, without taking the dirty laundry out: it seems that the level of tolerance in our home leaves a lot to be desired.

Well, Zafed isn't telling us anything we didn't already know, but it's important that it's coming from an Orthodox source.

I have to say, i am particularly confused by his comment regarding Petach Tikvah,

what is your synagogue: do you pray with the hesder yeshiva graduates, or with the "modern-Orthodox"?

As far as i know, the Yeshiva in Petach Tikvah is quite "modern-Orthodox" by Israeli standards... Maybe someone will clarify this for me.

The Final Stage

2007-04-07T17:08:00.000+03:00

Here's a dvar torah which last year i delivered orally and this year, wrote-up for a Bnei Akiva Melbourne. It relates to the cycle which start's with the exodus and continues to the Sinai covenent and the entry into Israel and then Exile...

Hope you enjoy!

The Final Stage

As Bnei Yisrael prepare to leave Egypt, they are a people of potential. Avraham has been promised that his descendents will become a great people and that this will be achieved following a period of slavery in Egypt. They are a disorganised bunch: the 12 sons of Yaakov are bound together by a shared history stemming from the experiences’ of the Avot.

Following the exodus, Bnei Yisrael develop into a nation because it is at this point that they are given the ability to actively reach towards Hashem through the acceptance of 3 mitzvot: during the experience of the exodus they are given the mitzvah of Korban Pesach (1) and before leaving Egypt, the males are required to perform Brit Mila (2). Soon after the exodus, Bnei Yisrael receive the mitzvah of Shabbat (3).

However, the epitomising event occurs when Bnei Yisrael receive the Torah at Har Sinai. The phase that begun with the exodus is completed with this event. Here, Bnei Yisrael truly forms as nation, as a people with a shared past, promised future and an active role which can only be fulfilled cooperatively. R’ Jonathan Sacks writes that the “collective responsibility in Judaism is associated with the Sinai covenant.[1]” With the Sinai covenant, the foundation has been laid and only the involvement of the entire people can ensure success as individuals and as a nation whose job is Avodat Hashem.

Yet, Judaism runs according to the philosophy that nothing exists as an end of itself. Matan Torah is just a step which enables Bnei Yisrael to move closer to Hashem. The next step in this quest is to be attained by inhabiting the Land of Israel. This is outlined explicitly by R’ Shimshon Raphael Hirsch when he writes that, “[Bnei Yisrael] received, therefore, the gifts of a land and its statehood, not, however, as an end unto itself, but solely as a means for carrying out the Torah. [2]”

So we see that the inhabiting of Eretz Yisrael is seen as a vital step forward in the quest to achieve Hashem’s will.

Thus far we have covered 3 stages in Bnei Yisrael’s history:
1) the exodus

2) Matan Torah

3) Eretz Yisrael

What then happens when Bnei Yisrael is exiled from its land? Stripped of their land, it is as if Bnei Yisrael arrive once again at the stage of Matan Torah (the 2^nd stage), the ultimate point of both national formation and recognition of Hashem and his mitzvot.

We see evidence for this when we look at the reasons for the destruction of the 1^st and 2^nd Batei Mikdash and thus, the 1^st and 2^nd exiles. The gemara[3] notes that the 1^st exile was due to the abuse of the 3 cardinal sins (murder, illicit relationships and idol worship) – all of which are sins which cause disunity in Bnei Yisrael by disrupting the relationships between the people and take away their focus from being a force obeying the Divine Command. According to the gemara[4], the 2^nd exile was caused by sinat chinam (baseless hatred), which is by definition demonstrating disunity.

So, by removing Bnei Yisrael from Eretz Yisrael, Hashem is forcing Bnei Yisrael to re-form as a group, to reprepare themselves to be on the spiritual benchmark required to receive the Torah.

This message is something on which we can meditate this Shavuot. No matter what stage of the exile one believes us to be in, we are, unfortunately but undeniably, not all living as a unified nation in our land. So, at this time of Matan Torah, we should each try to raise ourselves to the level that we were on at the acceptance of the Torah at Har Sinai. In doing so, we will bring the entire nation closer to the final stage of Redemption.

[1] Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks (2005), To Heal a Fractured World, p 115

[2] Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Nineteen Letters, p60

[3] Talmud Bavli, Yoma 9b

[4] Talmud Bavli, Yoma 9b

Matza Obsession

2007-04-06T02:31:00.000+03:00

Every year during Pesach, i am jolted by the number of Jews, who otherwise seem ambivilent to Judaism, eat only matza (unleavened bread) for 8 days. As someone who follows the laws of Kashrut all year round, it seems odd that so many people feel the need to eat matza during pesach.

Indeed, i can understand why so many people participate in sedarim. After all, the seder was created to be interactive and discussion-based. It is easily transformed according to the spin of the participants. Yet, this eating Matza thing baffles me. Maybe it's tradition or nostaligia.

What's particularly interesting is that this fixation with matza also exists in Israel. As Steve Plocker writes,

An extraordinary scene was evident on Passover eve at an Israeli food chain that is also open on Shabbat and holidays: Workers covered the shelves on which non-kosher-for-Passover foods were displayed.

The chain, it appears, will neither display nor sell chametz (leavened food) during Passover, but it will not shut down its stores. The chain adheres to the law – but particularly to its clients' expectations. They are not perturbed by the stores being open on Friday evenings and Shabbat, but they are perturbed by chametz being sold openly.

According to a survey taken for Ynet's Jewish Channel and the Gesher Organization,

the survey showed that a significant majority of 74 percent of Israel's Jewish public does not plan on eating leavened food for the duration of the holiday.

Eleven percent said that they would eat leavened foods, but promised they would only do this in their own homes so as "not to disrespect others."

The remaining 15 percent do not keep kosher at all.

Indeed, the same survey reported that

94 percent of the Jewish Israeli public will celebrate Passover Seder in the traditional manner, including a festive supper and a reading of the Passover Haggadah.

Israel's Sex Slaves

2007-04-04T12:16:00.000+03:00

Well, since we're currently celebrating Pesach, i thought to continue along with the theme of slavery/freedom.

I was just catching up on the news are read an article on ynet entitled "Israel's Sex Slaves." The article itself says nothing overly enlightening, but it reminded me of a talk i attended last year about "Human Trafficking" in Israel.

For those unaware, there are an estimated 3000 female sex-slaves currently in Israel.

According to the Task Force on Human Trafficking:

Who is involved in trafficking in Israel?
Trafficker: Usually nationals of the FSU who have ties with organized crime. These are the men and women responsible for the “sale” of women to brothel owners and pimps in Israel.
Smugglers: Most trafficking victims in Israeli are smuggled through the border with Egypt. Bedouin smugglers transport women across the Sinai desert and into the country.
Pimps/brothel owners: Exploit the victims by forcing them to receive 10-15 clients per day on average, often without any pay. Not all pimps and brothel owners have criminal records. Some men and women simply see this as an “industry” with relatively low risks and very high profits.
Private industry: Hotel, newspapers, drivers and internet services are guilty of providing services to pimps and brothels thereby enabling the exploitation of women.
Clients: Without clients, there would be no market for the exploitation of victims.

Who are the Task Force on Human Trafficking?

The Task Force on Human Trafficking (TFHT) works to help Israel put an end to human trafficking within its borders. TFHT's aim is to:
Encourage stronger government measures to stop traffickers
Secure better rights and services for victims
Promote public awareness about trafficking in Israel

The TFHT lists a number of ways to take action, including signing their petiton. Please spend the few minutes it takes to sign the petition and in doing so you will help rid Israel of corruption and more importantly, stop the abuse of the women.

Google taking us for a flush

2007-04-01T13:08:00.000+03:00

I'm loving Google's April Fool's pranks, which are scattered around all google's sites. So far, my favourite is TiSP:

Sign up for our free in-home wireless broadband service

Sick of paying for broadband that you have to, well, pay for?

Introducing Google TiSP (BETA), our new FREE in-home wireless broadband service. Sign up today and we'll send you your TiSP self-installation kit, which includes setup guide, fiber-optic cable, spindle, wireless router and installation CD.

There's even an installation guide with pictures!

Or if TiSP isn't your thing, maybe you should try Google Gulp or maybe you'd prefer getting hard copies of emails sent to you... ahh google.

.xxx for porn is rejected

2007-03-31T13:25:00.000+03:00

According to the AFP, as quoted by The Age :

The body responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers on Friday rejected plans to establish a new ".XXX" domain for racy or sexually explicit websites.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said an ".XXX domain" would not resolve the issue of how to protect "vulnerable members of the community".

....

Baucus said that a .XXX domain would help parents use filtering software to keep children from accessing pornographic sites, and would help prevent hapless Internet users from inadvertently stumbling onto sexually-explicit websites that they would prefer not to see.

Dayenu - it should have been enough!

2007-03-29T15:01:00.000+02:00

As many of you know, i am/was very active in Darfur awareness when I was in Israel last year. Following our Day For Darfur rally, i decided to compose something creative on the topic.

I drew a link between Pesach, the holiday where Jews celebrate become a free people, to the situation in Darfur, where the threat of the Janjaweed and others has caused the population of Darfur to loose their freedom to live peacefully in their own homes.

I have always been a fan of the paragraph known as "Dayenu" which is from the Haggadah and read at the Seder (ritual meal) on Pesach. The original prayer is structured "Had You only done X for us, it would have been enough" and starts off talking about God taking the Israelites from Egypt and as it continues, more fantastic miracles are mentioned.

In light of all this, i enlisted the help of some friends to write the following poem, in both hebrew and English. As we approach this year's celebration of Pesach, it is important for us to think of others who are less free than ourselves.

Dayenu

היינו צריכים לפעול

אילו רק אסרו אנשי סיוע

אילו רק הרסו את אספקת המים

אילו רק שרפו בתים ושדות

אילו הממשלה רק הזיקה לעמה

אילו רק התקיפו משפחות חסרות בית

אילו רק רצחו אזרחים תמימים

אילו רק עינו את הכפרים

אילו רק בצעו אונס קבוצתי

אילו רק הרגו תינוקות תמימים

אילו רק ביצעו רצח עם

ואם כל זה לא מספיק לנו להתחיל לפעול ולעזור להם מה כן?

בואו נתגייס כולנו ונעזור לעצור את רצח העם בדרפור.

Had they only arrested relief and aid workers	It should have been enough
Had they only destroyed water supplies	It should have been enough
Had they only burned homes and crops	It should have been enough
Had the government only struck its own people	It should have been enough
Had they only attacked displaced families	It should have been enough
Had they only murdered innocent civilians	It should have been enough
Had they only tortured villagers	It should have been enough
Had they only perpetrated gang rapes	It should have been enough
Had they only killed babies	It should have been enough
Had they only committed genocide	It should have been enough to make us act against the genocide in Darfur!

Also, last year, Edah composed a special reading to be read at the Seder to remember the genocide in Darfur. Another suggestion i have heard includes leaving an empty chair at your table, causing the children to ask why there is an empty chair (in the theme of the child-focused Seder).

mmm, must be the smell of petrol

2007-03-28T07:05:00.000+02:00

I've always thought that city-dwelling 4WD owners are being ridiculous at best by driving those things in the city and suburbs... well, in response to her controversial article about the Grand Prix, this week, Catherine Deveny has dedicated her column in the Age to that topic, with rather amusing results.

And her follow-up:

And not just shame on you for driving these anti-social, arrogant four-wheeled bullies. Shame on the car companies for appealing to your insecurity by sucking you in with slogans like "Give way — not" (Jeep), "Get in or get out of the way" (Toyota HiLux) or the "class-kicking" HiLux 4WD utility with its "intimidating styling", "aggressive bonnet scoop" and "dominating moulded front bumpers". YEAH! What next? "Kill everyone and destroy the planet NOW WITH FREE AIR!" Suck up that free air, baby, because soon we'll be paying for it.

When I discovered that the word Pajero really is Spanish for wanker, I thought to myself: "It must be my birthday!"

Modern Orthodoxy Vs Religious Zionism... again

2007-03-27T01:45:00.000+02:00

I just discovered that someone found their way to my blog by googling "modern orthodoxy religious zionism", which is pretty much my dream come true. I decided to conduct the same search to see how my blog ranked and was side-tracked by the first site listed on google. Its mention of "LieblerYeshivaCollegein Melbourne, Australia" caught my eye (it's actually called "Leibler Yavneh College").

The article itself is by Rav Yosef Blau on the topic of Religious Zionism and Modern Orthodoxy and is being written for The World Mizrachi Movement.

Rav Blau concludes that

Our initial question about the relationship between religious Zionism and modern Orthodoxy has two opposing answers, which depend on differing understandings of the bases of religious Zionism. When it represents a sharing of the Zionist dream of a return of the Jewish people to their home to live a full national life, defining that life in Torah terms, then modern Orthodoxy is the natural approach to fulfilling this vision. However if it is fundamentally a manifestation of active messianism then there is no necessary connection between the two.

This is a pretty non-committal answer. Or rather, dodging around saying explicitly that there is no inherent connection between Modern Orthodoxy and Religious Zionism.

What i find particularly disturbing is Rav Blau's comment that

The Mamlachti Dati school system, the Bnei Akiva yeshiva high schools, the Ulpanot (for girls), the Yeshivot Hesder and Bar-Ilan University in Israel are rejected by the haredi world as too modern while the secular community considers them Orthodox.

When will people realise that being pigeon-holed into a category from the outside doesn't mean that it is an accurate definition. In this case, it is clearly inaccurate. Whilst some of those institutions hold a true respect for Modernity, such a sweeping statement cannot accurately define all aforementioned institutions. In each category, there exist some more or less sympathetic towards modernity.

For an accurate view on Modern Orthodoxy, see Frum and Frummer by Samuel C Heilman or anything by Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks.

"2 much txt can = ill-advised sex "

2007-03-26T12:24:00.000+02:00

I was originally drawn to the article 2 much txt can = ill-advised sex not because of the catchy title but because of the picture alongside it. About a month ago, i noticed that the Age has a sample set of uniforms in which it dresses its models for mock-scenes involving school children. The reason i noticed this is because the girls' uniform happens to be the exact same uniform worn by girls at my old school. It's rather freeky because lately, the articles where the uniform has been featured are mainly about cyber bullying, sex scandels and the like. None of which are things that a school would want associated with its uniform... I'm sure my old school uses a generic uniform and that its a matter of chance, but it's still amusing.

Anyway, after getting past the picture, i actually read the article, which turned out to be worthy in its own right.

Professor Doreen Rosenthal said mobiles and the internet had created an accelerating intimacy between adolescents, with many making relationship decisions more swiftly than previous generations. Electronic communication tended to shrink the time span in which friendships developed, leaving teenagers more exposed to risky decision-making.

"These new forms of communication seem to be speeding up relationships," said Professor Rosenthal, whose new book, Sexuality In Adolescence: Current Trends, was launched last week at Melbourne University. "For many teenagers, this acceleration of intimacy is occurring without the usual checks and balances of face-to-face contact. It's a pseudo-intimacy. You don't create genuine intimacy through these mediums.

The article continues on to claim that

"When we asked girls in years 10 to 12 who had casual partners, what they meant by a regular relationship, many replied it meant somebody they had known for about a week," she said. "In order for these young girls to feel OK about having sex, they had to consider that a one-night stand was a regular relationship, or was going to be a regular relationship."

I find this frightening. But then, as with most things in life, it comes down to the need to reduce cognitive dissonance. I guess that means that those in favour of educating teens about sex being more than just physical, are part way there.

The article also writes that

Victoria's education department has included a sex education website, (yoursexhealth.org), developed by Professor Rosenthal and her colleagues, in its Edulist, a search engine used by secondary schools. The website has had more than 3500 online visitors nationally and from Europe, the US, China and other nations since it was launched last month.

This seems to be a pretty cool initiative. But don't take my electronically transmitted word for it, after-all i might be leading you on with "pseudo-intimacy."

Israelis: friendly and welcoming, apparently

2007-03-24T15:50:00.000+02:00

Ahead of today's England Vs Israel soccer match, an English fan said the following:

"I came over yesterday, and I can't get over how relaxed it feels," said Tony from Swindon. "The Israeli people I met were all really friendly and welcoming. This is a lovely, lovely country. It's got great beaches too," he added.

Well, you can certainly tell he's not Australian with the beach comment. As for the friendly comment, he's clearly been in a tour bus or something, not public transport...