Kesher Talk: 11/24/2002

What would Rashi do? A group of Jewish lawyers and legal scholars have formed the National Institute for Judaic Law to promote understanding of Jewish law among students and the general population.

One important legal mind who already has expressed an interest in Judaic law is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The Institute's director discussed Jewish law with Scalia a few years ago when the latter came to Buffalo to speak at his law school. The professor later received a letter from the justice noting the benefit of studying other law systems, especially one as developed as Jewish law.

“Knowledge of another legal system helped him to understand [the U.S. legal] system” better,” said the director of Scalia’s note.

The Catholic Scalia was one of three Supreme Court justices — along with Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both of whom are Jewish — who attended and delivered brief remarks at the institute’s kick-off event earlier this month at the Supreme Court. The 200-person event also included a sit-down kosher dinner, the first ever served at the nation’s highest court.

D.C. lawyer Alyza Lewin, who is helping to coordinate the institute, said the organization hopes to start a monthly luncheon program that will examine a particular issue, and is planning to hold a national conference on Jewish law and business ethics sometime next year.

Israel's "refuseniks" on tour: Israelis who refuse to join the IDF have 'wowed audiences with their bravery' while on a European tour:

So how big is the 'refusenik movement'? [The] campaign avoided the question, instead claiming that resfuseniks' 'willingness to pay the price imbues our protest with a moral and political effect [that is] out of proportion to our number'.

In fact, the refusenik numbers are relatively low. The official refusenik website currently has 504 signatories, all Israeli soldiers who have 'conscientiously refused' (rather than deserted) to take part in military action at some level (4). Under the headline 'What Israeli refuseniks?', Canadian policy analyst Neil Seeman writes in America's National Review: 'One must compare the number of "refuseniks" against a standing Israeli army of 186,500 troops and 30,000 reservists. Thus the ratio of "refuseniks" to participants is less than two per 1000 draftees, a trifling figure.' (5)

Yet this apparently trifling number of refuseniks have made a big impact in Europe and the USA. ... The refuseniks' popularity seems to reveal more about how we in the West view Israel now, than it does about the refuseniks' own strength of numbers or argument. ... Just as Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has become the punchbag of the anti-war movement, the war criminal we all love to hate, so the refuseniks have become its darlings.

But they're so nice, how can they be terrorists? The U.S. is growing impatient with European governments trying to differentiate between Hamas' suicide bomber wing and its charitable wing. The problem? Both wings are flapped by the same vulture.

Submit your nominations for the "Dishonest Reporting Award" for most egregious anti-Israel media bias. Honestreporting.com presents the award "to the journalist or media outlet that displays the most consistent and blatant anti-Israel bias. Send nominations to action@honestreporting.com

The original Palestinian refugees:

One has to understand that the existence of these refugees is a direct result of the Arab States' opposition to the partition plan of 1947 and the reconstitution of the State of Israel. The Arab states adopted this policy unanimously, and the responsibility of its results, therefore is theirs.

--- Emil Ghory, secretary of the Arab High Council, in an interview published on September 6, 1948 in the Lebanese daily Al-Telegraph.

(The JIA has more revealing history to share.)

Will the last one out of Jerusalem turn off the lights: I'm still in Israel, and while yesterday's rally went well (some coverage here) it's really depressing to see how empty the streets and shops are. Lots of my favorite places are gone and nothing has replaced them. The storefronts just stand empty. It's kind of like (l'havdil, for those who know what that means) the pain of the Jews in seeing their Holy of Holies exposed and empty. "How doth the Kentucky Fried Chicken sit solitary, when the city is full of people?"

Delay gathers support for Israel in church: Majority Leader Tom DeLay says he'll use "every tool" possible to ensure the House continues to strengthen the alliance between the U-S and Israel. The Texas Republican made the pledge yesterday at a joint religious service at a San Antonio church. He led the crowd of about five-thousand Christians and Jews in calling for the eternal preservation of Israel.

The Reverend John Hagee, who organized the service, also had a message for Saddam Hussein: "There's a Texan in the White House and he's gonna take you down."

Understatement of the week:

These acts are totally destructive to the Palestinian cause.

- Pro-Palestinian rabbi Michael Lerner referring to last week's bus bombing.

On the front lines: Time Europe magazine profiles the soldiers who patrol the danger zone of Nablus.

Greetings from Jerusalem: If anyone is in Israel, there is a rally tommorrow at 1:00 pm starting at Zion Gate. For more info go to the website. I'm running the media relations operation so come say hi. I'll be the one wearing the kippa.

Casualty statistics updated: Don Radlauer and the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism have updated their data on casualties from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (which I wrote about for TCS and Aish in the summer). ICT alo has set up a database you can query.

Hans Blix gets medieval on Sadaam: Did you hear what UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said on 60 Minutes this week?

What now? Well, let me tell you what now. I'm gonna call a couple of pipe-hittin' Swedish diplomats, who'll go to work on Saddam with a pair of pliers and a blow torch. You hear me talkin’, Iraqi boy? I ain’t through with you by a long shot. I’m gonna get medieval on your ass.

Ok, actually that was a figment of HappyFunPundit's imagination. But the rest of his posting is much more snide and satirical. And don't forget that HFP has a new domain all its own...

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