Kesher Talk

Reform. A summit on "Arab Reform Issues" was held in Alexandria last month. Here are their resolutions on reform. This is one of the most hopeful documents I've seen in ages. (via Islamicate.

And while I'm on the subject of reform, Irshad Manji's book The Trouble With Islam is out. Reform Judaism arose out of the Haskalah, a nineteenth-century Jewish counterpart to the Enlightenment. Could Reform Islam be on the way?

posted by Rachel @ 4/02/2004 03:32:18 PM  

Dhimmi spoken here. The EU, unable to continue hiding the antisemitism report it commissioned last year, tries to whitewash the findings instead.

The headline findings contradict the body of the report. This says most of the 193 violent attacks on synagogues, Jewish schools, kosher shops, cemeteries and rabbis in France in 2002 - up from 32 in 2001 - were "ascribed to youth from neighbourhoods sensitive to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, principally of North African descent. "The percentage attributable to the extreme Right was only nine per cent in 2002," it said.

The report on Belgium said most of the fire-bomb and machine-gun attacks on Jewish targets were the result of a spillover from the Palestinian intifada.

. . . The EU suppressed a report last year by German academics concluding that Arab gangs were largely responsible for a sudden surge in the anti-Jewish violence, allegedly because the findings were politically unpalatable.

Victor Weitzel, who wrote a large section of yesterday's far more detailed study, told The Telegraph that the latest findings had been consistently massaged by the EU watchdog to play down the role of North African youth. "The European Union seems incapable of facing up to the truth on this," he said. "Everything is being tilted to ensure nice soft conclusions. When I told them that we need to monitor the inflammatory language being used by the Arab press in Europe, this was changed to the 'minority press'. Honestly, it's incredible," he said.

UPDATE: An expanded discussion with many supporting links at Winds of Change. The last line is the best.

posted by Judith @ 4/02/2004 02:43:43 PM  

The Jewish way in marriage: why the Orthodox should not control Israel:

G.V. and M.V., new immigrants from the C.I.S, have been fighting for the right to get married and share an apartment since last December. They are not one of the young couples whom the Chief Rabbinate sees as taking bites out of the Jewish character of their new homeland.

... In fact, G.V. and M.V. are two senior citizens who came to live in Israel after divorcing their spouses in the CIS more than two decades ago.

But the rabbinate does not recognize the fact that in the former U.S.S.R. the only kind of divorce was civil divorce. It is demanding that the two seek out their former spouses in the huge expanses of their former country of residence. If they are unable to find them, they will not be considered divorced and cannot remarry. On this basis, the Absorption Ministry refuses to allocate them an apartment in an immigrants' hostel, residence in which is a privilege reserved for married couples only.


G.V. and M.V. are among the growing number of citizens, estimated by the Forum for Civil Marriage at 300,000, who cannot marry in their own country. Alongside them are others who do not want to marry in an Orthodox ceremony, the only option available to Jewish Israelis. A quick fix to their problems was promised by Shinui as a central plank in their election platform.

Today, Shinui is expected to abstain in the vote on the Bronfman-Pines bill, citing coalition considerations and the fact that they are waiting for the recommendations of a committee, established at the behest of Shinui as part of its coalition agreement seeking solutions for those who cannot marry according to halakha (Jewish law). The committee, consisting of representatives from Shinui, the Likud, the National Religious Party (NRP) and the National Union, was to have concluded its deliberations this month. In fact, it has met only four times and does not seem close to a solution.

In spite of the numerous experts and witnesses that have testified before the committee, it is still stuck in the preparatory stage of defining its target population. For people who have been turned down for marriage by the Chief Rabbinate because they are a "mixed" couple, or considered "lacking religion," MK Nissam Slomiansky (NRP) is willing to consider an easy conversion process. However, MK Ronnie Brizon, Shinui's representative on the committee says, "We are not interested in a solution that is limited to non-Jewish couples," MK Ronnie Brizon, explained. If a solution is not found, we have a few bizarre ideas we can apply through the justice and interior ministries that are in our hands."

One of the "creative" ideas raised by the committee is "marriage registration," that will recognize a couple as married in terms of rights and benefits, although this status will be automatically revoked if the Jewish half of the couple decides on a rabbinic wedding with another person. "A registration bureau for lepers will never be established," Brizon declared. "This is merely an upgraded version of common-law marriage," Russian-speaking civil marriage activists said of the registration idea, "which will turn us into second-class married couples."

That is the way Vadim and Yelena Michaelov have been made to feel. The Michaelovs came to live in Israel over six years ago, and although both are Jewish, they failed to successfully navigate the obstacle course set for them by the rabbinate. This included providing translated documents of their mothers and grandmothers who had died in the former Soviet Union, and supplying witnesses who knew their mothers and grandmothers. They finally chose to do what 1,972 other Israelis did in 2001: get married in Cyprus. They are among 3,586 Israeli citizens born in the former Soviet Union to marry abroad because they had been turned down by the rabbinate for marriage in Israel, according to the most recent available Central Bureau of Statistics data.

"I am Jewish enough to serve in the reserves," 32-year-old Vadim Michaelov said, "but not good enough to get married in my own country. We suffered, and our parents suffered. The only person who benefited from the situation was the clerk in Cyprus. He was making a lot of money out of the foolishness of the State of Israel. We were in Cyprus for 24 hours, and it took just one more day before were were registered as married by the Interior Ministry. Is this normal?"

The immigrants direct most of their barbs against Shinui, which garnered enough immigrant votes based on its promise to deal with the marriage issue to elect six MKs. They are less angry at the National Union, another immigrant party which, once it joined the National Union, ceased to be a focus of immigrant expectations.

MK Yuri Stern of the National Union stated that his party will vote against the civil marriage law. "We have no interest in lending our support to muscle through an empty measure that might torpedo the chances of the committee of reaching a decision," Stern said. "I sense that the atmosphere in the committee is ripe for a decision," he added.

Representatives of the immigrants, who follow the committee's deliberations with concern and are worried about the outcome of today's vote, do not share Stern's feeling. "When we came here, Israel was one of four countries, including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan, which did not have civil marriage," David Edelman, of the Forum for Civil Marriage, said. "Since that time, thanks to American influence, Afghanistan now has civil marriage, while Israel is one of only three that still has none. (Ha'aretz, March 10)

posted by William @ 4/02/2004 08:58:06 AM  

Mmm. Matzah. I just went to my first community matzah bake at my shul. Making matzah is easy and fun. (We decided ours was made under "casual rabbinic supervision," since our rabbi was our enthusiastic matzah-baking instructor.)

Some web-searching has revealed a million recipes for matzah kneidlach, a great many matzah desserts and even a recipe for matzah spanakopita, but I'm not finding recipes for matzah itself.

So I blogged ours. Enjoy.

posted by Rachel @ 4/01/2004 08:52:57 PM  

Hannukah: "like a Western!": Mel Gibson, already getting lashed by many Jews for his film "The Passion of the Christ," recently talked about tackling a more distinctly Jewish film--one about the festival of Hanukkah.

"The Maccabees' family stood up and made war," said Gibson, speaking on a US chat show two weeks ago. "They stuck by their guns and they came out winning. It's like a Western."

Somewhere between Braveheart and Blazing Saddles lies the truth, I guess...

posted by William @ 4/01/2004 08:29:10 AM  

Ottoman era Jewish costume exhibit in New York (March 31-May 7): According to a report from the Anadolu Agency, the exhibition, entitled, ''The Sephardim and The Turks: Living Together for 500 Centuries'' will be opened in New York's Center for Jewish History.

The exhibition displays costumes organized by region and period. It is a part of an ongoing program to highlight the cultures, artworks, histories and achievements of Turkish and Jewish peoples living side by side for centuries.

posted by William @ 3/30/2004 08:56:01 AM  

Full analysis of U.S. foreign aid to the Middle East: A lengthy report from the Congressional Research Service.

posted by William @ 3/29/2004 09:00:48 AM  

Jews of the Old West. HBO's new series, Deadwood, features a Jew. Sol Star (John Hawkes) is an Austrian Jewish entrepreneur who teams up with former Sheriff Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) to seek his fortune during the Gold Rush in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1876 -- not by prospecting, but by selling wares to the prospectors.

posted by Tamara @ 3/29/2004 07:36:03 AM