#Ultra-Orthodox and Messianic Jews

[xtruss]

Argument: Israel’s Protesters Refuse To Be Donkeys

An entire generation is taking to the streets to resist what they see as the rise of a corrupt theocracy.

— By Gitit Ginat | Foreign Policy | July 24th, 2023

Demonstrators block a highway during a protest against the Israeli government's judicial reform plan in Tel Aviv on July 24. Jack Guez/AFP Via Getty Images

Kaplan Street is one of the main thoroughfares leading into and out of Tel Aviv. It was built along the outline of a German Templar colony, whose pro-Nazi descendants were expelled from British Mandate Palestine during World War II. During the 1960s and 70s, it was filled with Israeli governmental and cultural institutions, such as the Jewish Agency and the Israel Journalists Association. These days, Kaplan is the street where, every Saturday, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protest the attempted judicial coup led by the coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Contrary to the common version in the global press, the protesters are not only the scions of the old, privileged establishment. Those gathering on Kaplan are a big tent, including both the financially comfortable and the struggling. While some of the protest movement leaders are military elites or tech moguls, many others are not. The most vulnerable of them are set to become the main casualties of Netanyahu’s judicial coup. That’s because their children, who study in the public school system, may witness its slow collapse due to funds being redirected to the religious and ultra-Orthodox institutions.

Their kids, who—unlike most ultra-Orthodox Jews—serve a full term in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), will sit idle at home because in Israel, there is no public transport on the Sabbath. Single mothers will have their state support reduced in favor of ultra-Orthodox families with multiple children. People who live in peripheral areas will have to struggle against an ultra-Orthodox takeover of their towns. The first step will be a political takeover of the municipalities, followed by massive benefits to the ultra-Orthodox population. According to reports, this process is already happening in cities such as Tiberias, Safed, Arad, and Mitzpe Ramon.

They are Jews, Palestinians, men, women, native Israelis, and immigrants who arrived from developing countries via the Law of Return. The common denominator for all of them is the struggle against turning into a so-called donkey.

In Jewish tradition, the Messiah’s Donkey refers to the donkey upon which the Messiah will arrive at the end of days. In Israel, the phrase refers to the doctrine ascribed to the teachings of Abraham Isaac Kook: The secular Jews, who represent the material world, are an instrument in the hands of God whose purpose was to establish the state of Israel and begin the process of redemption. Upon Israel’s establishment, the secular Jews would be required to step aside and allow the religious to govern the state.

Kook, who immigrated to Ottoman Palestine from what is now Latvia in 1904, is considered one of the spiritual fathers of religious Zionism. According to him, the Zionist enterprise was a new historical development of the era of redemption. Nevertheless, Kook was terrified of secularism. He believed that secular education had “sinned greatly against the spirit of Israel” and represented “the beginning of the decay and the basis of all bad assimilation.” Kook sought to settle the contradiction. The secular Zionists, he wrote, are allowed to be the bricks of the building of redemption, “but when the secret of the righteous is to be revealed,” it would be easy to differentiate “between God’s servants and those who are not.”

“Ben-Gurion’s compromises with ultra-Orthodox parties turned out to be a disaster for secular Israelis.”

Unlike Kook, Israel’s founder David Ben-Gurion was an atheist. He came from a religious background and respected Jewish heritage. At the end of the 1950s, a Bible study group gathered in his house, and the prophets were his favorite biblical characters. Nevertheless, Ben-Gurion did not attend synagogue and used to travel on the Sabbath. He made compromises with ultra-Orthodox parties only because of political constraints. It turned out to be a disaster for secular Israelis.

Kook’s prediction is about to come true, with one difference: Israel will not be a theocracy. It will be a country using religious law to allow profound corruption. In the past six months, there have been many reports on improper political appointments within the Likud party and its religious partners. Some of the coalition members have past criminal convictions, and there are reports of improper past conduct by others. And the country’s transformation into a corrupt religious state won’t only strengthen its ideological rivals—Israel is also a potential international drug trade route; such a shift may boost organized crime.

Over the next decade, the government plans to increase the budget of ultra-Orthodox educational institutions by 40 percent. This will make Israel the first country in the developed world that incentivizes schools that barely teach core subjects such as math, science, and English. The governmental supervision of ultra-Orthodox schools is weak, leaving vague information available about their curriculum. But according to sources in the education ministry, these schools teach primarily religious topics: the Talmud, Mishna and Torah.

English, math, and even Hebrew are studied at an elementary level. In addition, more than $600 million of the coalition budget will be dedicated to empowering Jewish identity among students in the state education system, IDF soldiers, university students, and residents of secular and liberal cities. Aryeh Deri, the head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, a convicted tax evader and one of the most powerful politicians in the coalition, plans a series of laws that might allow the ultra-Orthodox to take over secular towns politically.

Meanwhile, secular Israelis will pay six times more in taxes than the ultra-Orthodox, who constitute only 8 percent of the Israeli workforce. Their children will be obligated, as they are today, to serve a full term in the army (three years for men and two for women), while so-called national-religious men can serve in the army for a reduced term and most ultra-Orthodox are exempt.

Despite these facts, since the country’s founding, the secular population has been deprived of some basic liberties. This is because Israel has never created a constitution separating church and state. As a result, among other things, the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate holds a monopoly on marriage, which forces many secular Israelis to get married in other countries, or even online. Israel has no formal public transportation on Saturdays, which strands the millions of residents who don’t own a car.

“The liberals are beginning to realize that they will be used as the donkey up to the moment Israel is subjected to religious law,” said Yair Nehorai, a lawyer and the author of The Third Revolution, a book documenting the teachings of the rabbinic mentors of the messianic movement. “But this realization,” he noted, “is too difficult.”

“They will no longer be the majority in the country within a few decades, and they will have to say: This is not my country,” Nehorai said.

Israeli security forces use a water cannon to disperse demonstrators blocking the entrance of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem on July 24. Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images

The idea of dividing Israel into cantons, which for years has been received with mockery due to the country’s small size and security challenges, has been gaining more and more traction over the past few months, and liberals are angrily calling to separate “Israel” from “Judea.” For some, Judea means the occupied territories. For others, Judea represents all ultra-Orthodox and messianic Jews, whether they live in Bnei Brak (in Israel proper) or Hebron (in the West Bank).

Sagi Elbaz, the author of Emergency Exit: From Tribalism to Federation, the Road to Healing Israeli Society, told me that these cantons will begin with the liberal Israeli cities. “A secular rebellion manifested itself, for example, when the municipalities of Tel Aviv and several other liberal cities launched a network of bus routes that operate on the Sabbath,” he explained.

Until recently, Kaplan Street appeared to welcome protesters of all stripes. Next to No. 8, where the offices of the tech company Fiverr are located, CEO Micha Kaufman hands out free water bottles. Not far from Kaplan 17-19 stand the protesters of the “Anti-Occupation Bloc,” forcing passers-by to acknowledge the elephant in the room with signs such as “No Democracy with Occupation.” Kaplan 22 looks like the mother base of “Women Building an Alternative,” whose photos dressed as handmaids from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel A Handmaid’s Tale have gained worldwide publicity. Next to them are the members of “The Pink Front,” who have ironically swapped the Israeli blue-and-white flag for a pink-and-white one.

At the end of Kaplan and on the adjacent Namir Street, you can find the unironic blue-and-white. And khaki. This is the center of activity for “Brothers in Arms—Warriors Journeying to Save Democracy,” a grassroots umbrella organization that includes several reservist groups.

Israeli researchers have often noted that, compared to developed Western countries, Israel struggles with establishing a free and open civil society, as the Israelis are attached at the hip to their army. Despite this, the veterans demonstrating on Kaplan are not all the same: Some served in the special forces. Others spent three unremarkable years, mostly killing time. Some veterans abused their power over the Palestinians. Others were discharged with physical and mental scars.

Some believe that serving in the occupied territories is a critical security goal. Others feel that they were forced to go there, but never came out in public to say so. Some of them committed acts of heroism. A few others proved their heroism by refusing to commit acts that they have deemed immoral.

“This is the Most Irresponsible Government in the History of Israel.”

Brothers in Arms, the embodiment of the liberal side of the “People’s Army,” has the most leverage of any group in the Israeli protest movement. Now, with the coalition resuming its legislative blitz, special forces veterans have declared that hundreds of them will stop volunteering for reserve duty. The number of objectors is rising. Former directors of special intelligence operations have warned that units across the IDF, the Shin Bet and Mossad are angry and in a state of unrest.

Reserve Col. Ronen Koehler, one of the Brothers in Arms coordinators, told Foreign Policy that until mid-March, “we were just another activist group.” But in the time since, “we received a flood of phone calls from reservists who were expecting us to tell them what to do about their service.” There were questions from high-ranking commanders who have an in-depth understanding of Israel’s strategic infrastructure: What if you are ordered to shoot in a way you were never ordered to before, and you are experienced enough to know that you shouldn’t do it? What happens if a submarine crew is not sure that the person who sent them to sea is trustworthy?

“The flood of phone calls made us realize that something bigger than our protest activities was happening here,” said Koehler, who served as a submarine captain and is a former vice president at Checkpoint, a U.S.-Israeli hardware and software products company.

The government reached the same realization. A secret report that was submitted to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant caused a temporary halt of the judicial coup at the end of February, but it has now resumed with the passage of a law limiting judicial review on Monday—sparking even larger protests.

As successful as the protests have been, liberal civil society and the army veterans struggle to see eye to eye. For various reasons, some practical (to attract right-wing voters) and some ideological, the occupation is barely mentioned in speeches along the Kaplan encampment, and the number of Palestinian-Israelis joining the protests is low.

“The law could grant unlimited power to white-collar criminals, members of organized crime families, cocaine addicts, or messianic fundamentalists.”

Recently, the Anti-Occupation Bloc, which usually demonstrates far from the main stage, decided to pass through the main avenue. The protesters carried a massive sign reading: “We Must Resist Settler Terror.” Some of the Brothers in Arms tried to forcefully remove the sign. After a time, they published a half-hearted apology, and a few days later, they met with Anti-Occupation Bloc representatives to settle matters peacefully.

Some protest participants hate each other, while others love each other. Some are caught in love-hate relationships. “We should be glad about the greatest achievement we got: the creation of a new kind of centrist identity,” Koehler said. “This center includes various shades, from the capitalist, hawkish right that believed in Netanyahu so far but not anymore, through the liberal center and up to the social-democratic left.”

“The protest doesn’t have intrinsic content yet,” Nehorai admitted. “But when a serving coalition is acting in a frenzy, it makes us feel, every minute of every day, that we are connected. The liberal camp is a country that is just being formed.”

All Israelis are facing legislation that will grant unlimited power to anyone the government chooses; they could be white-collar criminals, rehabilitated members of organized crime families, cocaine addicts, or messianic fundamentalists.

A growing number of Israeli liberals, especially younger ones, will soon start negotiating the cargo loaded on their backs, the identity of the hand holding the reins, and the direction of travel. And ultimately, they will refuse to continue being used as donkeys.

— Gitit Ginat is a Freelance Journalist and a former writer for Haaretz.

[chanaleah]

Anti-zionism is almost always antisemitism.

Zionism is the belief that Jewish people deserve self-determination in our ancestral homeland, no more, no less. In fact, this is a human right for all peoples according to the UN.

Zionism doesn't necessarily mean support of the Israeli government's policies or actions, and zionism doesn't preclude a Palestinian state also existing.

Thus, anti-zionism means that you oppose Jewish people having the right to self-determination. If you believe that other groups are deserving of a human right as guaranteed by the UN, but not Jews, that is antisemitic in nature.

However, I can think of only two examples when anti-zionism is not antisemitism

1) If you oppose Israel on a theological basis.

This is often the case with ultra-orthodox Jews. They don’t have any opposition to Jews living in the land of Israel, but they don’t believe that a state should be established there on the basis of some sort of biblical thing having to do with the messianic age.

2) If you are against the existence of all states.

But if this is you, why target the only Jewish state in the world first? If you’re equally advocating for the destruction of all states, that’s fine. We might not agree, but that’s not antisemitic. But if you claim to advocate equally for the destruction of all states, but focus your energy solely on the one Jewish state, then that is antisemitic.

However, that's not to say all self-identified anti-zionists are actually antisemitic. And that is because most people don't really understand the meaning of zionism, because words like this have had their meanings warped over time to fit specific agendas. If you truly are an anti-zionist - you oppose Jewish people having a state, not on the basis of either of the two reasons above, then you are antisemitic.

But if your gripe with Israel is not its existence, but its actions, then you're not anti-zionist. And while you might still be antisemitic because of other reasons, this specifically doesn't make you antisemitic.

[mara-r-g]

If you filled a room with Jews from atheist to ultra-Orthodox, you would find precisely one thing we'd all agree on: Jesus wasn't the Messiah.

The group wouldn't agree on what to have for lunch (meat or dairy?) or whether the sky is blue (do you have to specify the shade? what about clouds?) but we would all agree that Jesus wasn't the Messiah. That's it.

Thus, there is no such thing as a Messianic Jew. It's just not possible because those are diametrically opposed ideas. You can't be both a Jew and a Christian at the same time. I know tons of Jewish atheists, though, including me, my father, my husband, and my kids.

Wait, I'm genuinely curious how can one be Jewish and atheist? /gen

Okay so, like, Christianity is a religion, right?

Judaism is a religion and a philosophy and a system of engaging with philosophy and a culture (actually like eight cultures holding hands in a trenchcoat) and a people in diaspora. It's a religion, sure, but it's a people first. My conversion certificate doesn't say that I "converted to Judaism" but that I joined the tribes of Israel (the people, not to be confused with the temporal nation), and I usually don't refer to myself as having converted but as having been adopted, ever since I heard a rabbi object to the term "convert" and explain why.

The Four Species of the Sukkot lulav and etrog have meanings tied to how we see our community:

The lulav (a frond from a date palm) has taste but no smell, symbolizing Jews who study Torah but don't perform mitzvaot.

The hadass (myrtle branch) has a good smell but no taste, and symbolizes Jews who perform mitzvaot but don't study Torah.

The aravah is a branch from a willow tree and has neither taste nor smell, symbolizing Jews who neither study Torah nor perform mitzvaot.

The etrog, a citrus fruit somewhat like a large lemon, has both taste and smell, and thus symbolizes Jews who both study Torah and perform mitzvaot.

A lulav and etrog is not kosher unless all 4 elements are present and tied together properly and in good repair, and thus a Jewish community is not complete without all 4 kinds of Jews.

Notice, too, that there's nothing in any of that about what those people believe. Belief just... isn't that big of a deal to us. It just isn't.

Christianity is very big on orthodoxy, which is to say, correct thought. That's the whole "if you think about it, it's as bad as doing it" view on the concept of sin/bad action. You can sin by thinking things.

That's not really, like, a thing for most lines of thought in Judaism. The focus in Judaism is more on orthopraxy or right action. What you think or believe doesn't matter so much -- it's what you do, whether you show up for your community when you're needed, take care of people, be involved.

But like. You can't even draw a line between Torah study and belief in G-d -- plenty of Jews study Torah without believing in G-d, because Torah study is not about belief either. It's a community bonding exercise where you discuss and argue this week's parsha, and through that you discuss how you want to live, what kind of community you are in, and what kind of person you want to be. You can read and study Torah alone, I guess, but it's not Torah study, not really.

As with all things in Judaism, it's a 2 Jews, 3 Opinions kinda thing, and someone could (and probably will) argue with the fine points of everything I've said, but the broad points are all largely applicable to most Jews.

Or, as @dadhoc says, "Judaism is a religion of one or fewer gods."

[jewish-privilege]

A self-professed "good Jewish boy from New Jersey," Rabbi Michael Elkohen had come a long way.

In the ultra-Orthodox enclave in Jerusalem where Elkohen now lives, he was often called on to perform marriages, circumcisions and other sacred Jewish rituals. He was even hired to write Torah scrolls, handwritten copies of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, in a task typically reserved for the most devout and highly trained scribes.

But for 15 years, Elkohen was apparently living a lie. The father of five with the black hat, beard and side curls was fluent in Judaic texts and traditions but living a double life: Born Michael Elk in Salem County, he was actually a Christian missionary sent to the Holy Land to convert Jews, according to two anti-missionary groups whose accusations have captivated Israelis in recent days.

Elk's tale has grabbed headlines across the Jewish state, where religious leaders see a growing trend of covert missionary work by evangelical Christians.

(...)

Elk "was a clearinghouse for missionary activity," [Rabbi Tovia Singer, director of Outreach Judaism, a counter-missionary group in Jerusalem. ] said in an interview. "He was able to guide missionaries on where to go in Israel. The idea of these messianic groups is to blur distinctions in order to lure Jews who would otherwise resist the Christian message."

(...)

The revelations have also raised questions about Elk's late wife, Amanda, who claimed to be the daughter of Holocaust survivors and died of cancer in February. Her ties to the faith also appear to have been faked, meaning her Orthodox funeral in a Jewish cemetery would defy religious law.

Michael and Amanda Elk emigrated to Israel using forged documents and with the help of South Carolina-based Morningstar Missions, according to Beyneynu and Outreach Judaism.

(...)

Elk's path to missionary work isn't completely clear, but he appears to have served as a minister for a time in Olympia, Washington, according to Alan Brill, a professor of Jewish-Christian Studies at Seton Hall University. He published an online interview with Elk in 2012.

(...)

Michael Elk eventually ran a yeshiva for Messianic Jews and sought to raise his prominence in the Jewish community, said Beyneynu founder Shannon Nuszen. His five children attended ultra-Orthodox schools, and Elk worked as a scribe, rabbi and mohel, performing circumcisions. He claimed to be a "kohen," a descendant of Aaron, the biblical high priest.  

All the while, he was working to coordinate missionary work in Israel, according to the watchdog groups. While living as a rabbi, Elk authored a book and anonymous blog posts about his work as an undercover evangelist, according to the Jerusalem Post.

(...)

"He's the leader of this new variety of infiltrators who portray themselves perfectly as very religious Jews," Nuszen said. "He teaches them everything from how to pronounce things correctly, how to dress, to the intricacies of Jewish law .... Michael has students and online followers all over."

She estimates that there are about 30,000 missionaries in Israel, 300 organizations focused on evangelizing Jews and 200 websites dedicated to converting them.

Elk authored a book under the pseudonym "Orthodox Jewish Rabbi" for Morningstar Ministries, based in Fort Mill, South Carolina. In an interview, the group's founder, Rick Joyner, recalled Elk attending Morningstar conferences and praised his "remarkable" religious knowledge.

"When people hear the word 'missionary,' they often think it means someone who is trying to convert them to Christianity, but that was not Michael's intent," Joyner said. "He was in Israel to help and to learn." [Alexis’s note: That’s because that’s LITERALLY the definition of missionary.]

(...)

The controversy is likely to set back efforts to build bridges among Jews and Christians in Israel, said Jonathan Feldstein, a former Teaneck resident whose Jerusalem-based Genesis 123 Foundation focuses on such work.

“The deceit of a Christian family living literally in disguise as Orthodox Jews will only serve to highlight the long and sadly very bad history of Christians persecuting and forcefully converting Jews," he said.

[rvexillology]

Flag of Israel but as an Orthodox state.

from /r/vexillology Top comment: Contrary to popular belief, the current State of Israel isn't a religious state in the sense that Judaism is not state law and many Israelis don't identify as religious. [Israel actually ranks in the top twenty in terms of having a population which identifies as nonreligious.](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/most-religious-countries-in-the-world/) This has always been an issue with the Ultra-Orthodox who think that the state of Israel being religious is imperative. Jews being back in Israel is one step but the next step is Jews following religious law again (something they emphasize as being of importance for the messianic age) So this flag is a reimagining of the flag of Israel. What would the flag be if it was a state founded by an Orthodox Jewish population rather than a state founded by a mixture of religious and secular Jews? **Symbolism:** - The flag is black and white as these are colors most associated with Orthodox Judaism. These colors also symbolically represent the creation story in the Torah where God separated the light from the darkness. It also represents the Jewish belief in the internal battle between the Yetzer hara (evil inclination) and our good. - [The bands are stylized to resemble the stripes of a tallis.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Hasidic_Men_on_Street.jpg/1200px-Hasidic_Men_on_Street.jpg) The current flag of Israel is designed using this same symbolism but this design gives it an Orthodox twist. - The star at the center is the Magen David (Star of David) which is associated with the current state of Israel and the Jewish people. The star has been made black (again a reference to Orthodox colors) - At the center of the star is a stylized Hebrew script which depicts the beginning of the prayer "Shema Yisrael" which is considered the foundational prayer for all of Judaism. - The script is depicted as a ball of fire. This symbolism relates to two themes. The first is that the script is reminiscent of the burning bush in which God spoke to Moses. The second is that it reflects a Jewish belief that your soul burns for the divine. Na Nachs (a Jewish subgroup) actually wear a pendant which states "my fire will burn" as sort of a chant for keeping the faith. This stylized script sits at the center of the black star to represent how this fire burns inside of every Jew. I didn't create the centerpiece of the design. That Shema Yisrael script is actually from an artist online. They can be found at the link below: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/ely-greenhut

[jacobsvoice]

Jewish Settlements: Past, Present and Future

(August 9, 2022 / JNS) Anyone wishing to understand the historic, religious and political significance of Jewish settlements in biblical Judea and Samaria (commonly misidentified as the “West Bank” under Jordanian control until the Six-Day War in 1967) should read Daniel Kane’s Mosaic article (Aug. 1) titled “The Changing Faces of Israel’s Settlement Movement.”

Although settlers are often depicted in the media (see The New York Times) as fanatics who have stolen Palestinian land, that reveals bias, not reality. The core of Kane’s analysis is the transformative expansion of settlement demography and ideology from religious Zionism at its inception to the current “heterogenous settler population” with an array of “ideologies, interests and sentiments.”

The settlement (actually resettlement) movement was ignited by Israel’s stunning victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. Jews began to reclaim their biblical homeland in Judea and Samaria, until then known as Jordan’s “West Bank.” Pioneering settlers focused on the ancient holy city of Hebron, the burial site of the biblical patriarchs and matriarchs where King David ruled before relocating his throne to Jerusalem. Its millennia-old Jewish community had been destroyed by rampaging Arabs in 1929.

Between Hebron and Jerusalem survivors from Gush Etzion, the cluster of communities that were decimated at the beginning of Israel’s War of Independence were also determined to return to their former homes. As former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion asserted: “There can be no redemption without extensive Jewish settlement.” Before long, however, settlers confronted the hostility of Israeli leaders. The Oslo Accords (1993), signed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO negotiator Mahmoud Abbas, called for the eventual closing down of settlements.

But Jewish settlers were not willing to surrender their biblical homeland. Some 600,000 Israelis now live in Judea and Samaria. As Daniel Kane explains, settlers are no longer a unified group of Israelis driven by history and religion to reconstitute their ancient homeland. They embrace “many distinct ideologies, interests and sentiments.” And, he notes, they are “dramatically overrepresented” in the elite units of the Israel Defense Forces.

Kane cites the diverse settlement population growth among both secular Zionists and ultra-Orthodox haredim. Gush Etzion, between Jerusalem and Hebron, is now home to Israelis, along the spectrum of secular and religious identity and ideology. Anything but messianic, it is a welcoming home for 30,000 Modern Orthodox residents and yeshivah scholars (including, until recently, my grandson). Some of its leaders even favor land-for-peace agreements with Palestinians.

Ma’ale Adumim, midway between Jerusalem and Jericho (in antiquity a border area between the tribes of Judah and Benjamin), is now home to 40,000 Israelis. There are 28 synagogues, a deluxe shopping mall and an enticing amusement park. Tel Aviv has two settlement suburbs where, notes Kane, the “primary motive for settling has at least as much to do with cost and quality of life concerns as it does with ideology.”

So it also is among haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews, whose initial opposition to settlements lest they provoke Arab violence yielded to the need for affordable housing to accommodate their large families. Now, ironically, the two largest Israeli settlements, Kane points out, “are nearly 100 percent haredi.”

The settlement movement, he concludes, “no longer exists as a coherent whole”; indeed, there are “many differences among them.” For the majority of settlers, the primary appeal is proximity to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. For haredi Jews, self-enclosure in proximity to biblical holy sites is determinative.

That variety is conducive to settlement growth and permanence. Any prospect of their disappearance to provide a pathway to “peace” between Israelis and Palestinians is far-fetched. In his illuminating analysis, Daniel Kane reveals why. The falsehood that violent Jewish settlers, living on “Palestinian” land, are obstructing peace is merely a political ploy designed to remove Israelis across the political and religious spectrum from their biblical homeland. It won’t work.

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of 12 books, including “Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel (1896-2016).”

[hero-smitten]

Well this is bullshit. Messianic “Jews” aren’t Jewish, so equating Reform Jews to them is inaccurate and disrespectful. Messianic Jews believe in Jesus an preach against Judaism. They actively work to convert Jews away from Judaism and toward believing in a false messiah. You cannot believe in Judaism and also that Jesus was the Moshiach! Reform Jews, on the other hand, do not engage in this belief of behavior, and do no harm in their religious practices. I’ve been Modern Orthodox just about all my life, and honestly what it has taught me is that a lot of Jews, from Reform to Ultra-Orthodox and everywhere in between, need to spend a heck of a lot less time judging fellow Jews for being somehow less than them. Reform Jews are still Jews. Messianics are not. Can something be a chilul Hashem when it’s between gradients of of Judaism? Because if so this comparison would be one. This anon needs to take a good look at themselves.

What I'm saying is is that I completely understand that messianics are terrible people, but lehalachah they're Jews but just very heretical ones. I'm my option they're halachically equal to sabbateans, karaites and, let's say, reform jews (sorry😕). All Jews, but, in my opinion, transgress basic hashkafic principles. But as much as I don't exclude reform jews from religious discourse, I don't exclude messianics either. (Also don't pelt them with etrogs it will break the mizbeach 😜)

Most of them aren’t ethnically Jewish and so aren’t even halachically Jewish to begin with. Not by anyone’s standards. That is the point. (Also that sabbatteans were literally cut off from the Jewish people so…not a good comparison or role model).

Honestly I hope you realize how awful you’re making yourself look for insulting me. Your emojis don’t make you look charming or soften your words they make you look like an asshole.

You look like a dick! And DEEP DOWN you must know how bad you make yourself look while you insult me otherwise you wouldn’t be anonymous.

[globalworship]

Messianic balcony worship in Israel

People at a Messianic moshav [settlement], Yad HaShmona, arrangesbalcony worship during coronavirus crisis

Reposted from https://news.kehila.org/messianic-moshav-yad-hashmona-arranges-balcony-worship-during-coronavirus-crisis/

In the video uploaded to YouTube, a worship team sings from a highly situated balcony in Yad HaShmona with microphones and loudspeakers. Neighbors from around the moshav joined them from their balconies with about 30 more connected through the “Zoom” app.

“Yoel Davis only edited one song and put it on YouTube, but we kept singing worship for over forty minutes,” says Ayelet Ronen, the moshav director, who features in the video singing together with Goldberg.

“We arranged it in advance and even put out speakers on the lower streets. We got word that they heard us in many of the surrounding communities – Neve Ilan, Abu Ghosh, Kiryat Yearim, and also in the TV studio where they air the channel 12 news.”

Learn about the Messianic community, 20 minutes out of Jerusalem, at http://yad8.com/

+++

The news article continues:

Kiryat Yearim is an ultra-orthodox community close to the moshav which has been featured in the news for experiencing a coronavirus outbreak with over thirty diagnosed cases and two thousand people in quarantine.

The lyrics of the song in the video are the Aaronic benediction from Numbers 6: “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

“I work with people in the local council of the communities in the area. I sent them the video, and they loved it. We received so many positive remarks from both secular and religious Jews. The council’s chief engineer told me she put it on to play in her office all day,” Ronen says.

“I believe we need to reach out and bless the ‘regular Israelis’ around us. We shouldn’t be afraid. I know it’s easier said than done, but I think this song gave us an opening. The video has thousands of views, and I think most are Israelis. It’s a great blessing, and it touches people’s hearts. We made it for believers, but we are so happy to see it reaches out even further and blesses more people. Our only regret is that we couldn’t do it earlier, because in the darkness you can’t see how many people joined us from their balconies and gardens.”

Yad HaShmona is the only Messianic moshav in the country. It was established in the 1970s by Finnish Christians with a heart for Israel, who received a special permit from then Prime Minister Golda Meir. It became a center for the Israeli Messianic community in Israel in the 1980s and has remained so since. In the last decade the moshav has enabled a development of private homes to be built on their premises, allowing other Messianic Jews who are not moshav members to reside there.

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[risprinabeachw-blog]

Orthodox jew dating rules

The Truth About Jewish Dating Rules Didn't find what you're looking for? I grew up in a homogenous small mountain town in Northern California where everyone was from a Christian background.  Rabbinic tradition acknowledges matter handed down from the Prophets, as well as.  The emancipation and modern means of transport and communication all jointly made this model untenable.  Why not take a glimpse into their lifestyle.  As in other aspects, Orthodox positions reflect the mainstream of traditional through the ages.  To an orthodox Jew, the rejection of these ideals and principles is tantamount to rejecting the ideals and principles of America to an American patriot.  While the spiritualist element of Hasidism declined somewhat through the centuries, the authority of Rebbes is derived from the mystical belief that the holiness of their ancestors is inborn.

Modern orthodox dating rules Learn about the Jewish circumcision ceremony.  What happens at a Jewish Funeral Jewish Religious Texts - A Brief Description An overview of Jewish prayer - daily prayers, Sabbath prayers, Holiday prayers and prayers for special occasions Shabbat Observance - Learn about the Jewish Sabbath.  Self-conscious Masorti identity is still limited to small, elitist circles.  I did not dive into any of these just slowly adapted this over time.  Kosher poultry includes chicken, duck, turkey and good, and some kosher fish are tuna, salmon, flounder, herring and mackerel.  Their influence varies considerably: In conservative Orthodox circles, mainly ultra-Orthodox ones, rabbis possess strong authority and exercise their leadership often.

Orthodox Jewish Dating Rules During the Middle Ages, two systems of thought competed for theological primacy, their advocates promoting them as explanatory foundations for observance of the Law.  The meat is then externally and internally salted with a coarse salt.  What do you need to know about Jewish dating singles? Along with these practices, Orthodox Jews practice the laws of , which means touch.  Halakhic literature continued to expand and evolve, with new authoritative guides being compiled and canonized, until the popular works of the 20th century like the.  American Modern Orthodoxy underwent growing polarization in recent decades.  By the turn of the century, the weakened rabbinic establishment was facing masses of a new kind of transgressors: They could not be classified nor as tolerable sinners overcome by their urges khote le-te'avon , neither as schismatics like the or , against whom all communal sanctions were levied.

Orthodox Jewish Dating Rules Jewish Law was considered normative and enforced upon transgressors with all communal sanctions: imprisonment, taxation, flogging, pillorying, and especially.  Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz of the Monsey Eruv said that all of the work done in New Jersey was done legally, and with the approval of both the utility company and local officials.  These symbols indicate to the consumer what foods are kosher, and whether those foods are contain dairy, meat or are pareva, neutral.  An easy guide to Orthodox Jewish dating customs, Jewish Dating Services online and how to go about the Jewish dating network What is Judaica? According to this doctrine, a Messiah will arise from King David's lineage, and will bring with him signs such as the restoration of the Temple, peace, and universal acceptance of God.  The authority to pass measures d'Rabanan is itself subject to debate — for one, Maimonides stated that absolute obedience to rabbinic decrees is stipulated by the verse and thou shalt observe, while argued that such severeness is unfounded — though such enactments are accepted as binding, albeit less than the divine commandments.

Orthodox Judaism Of course, the lying factor is a whole different story.  Summer camp, jewish sexuality, and.  The primary faiths represented were Mormons, small evangelical groups or Protestants, like my family.  Wayne State University Press 1995.  Become familiar with Jewish articles and items.  Learn about the many Judaica items out there.  My mom was raised Reform, but the best synagogue in.

Orthodox Judaism . ��Contact Chava, I will answer your questions on judaism with insight and wit.  Cultural, economic, and social exchange with Christian society was limited and regulated.  I really enjoy learning more about the jewish community, and have decided to go back to school with a major in Jewish studies, and have even recently looked into seminary.  Haredim are characterized by a minimal engagement with modern society and culture if not their wholesale rejection, by avowed precedence given to religious values, and by a high degree of rabbinic authority and involvement in daily life.  This plurality of opinion allows , rabbis tasked with determining the legal stance in subjects without precedent, to weigh between a range of options, based on methods derived from earlier authorities.

Modern orthodox dating rules Shechita, Ritual Slaughter Ritual slaughter is necessary for meat and poultry.  Relations between its different subgroups are sometimes strained, and the exact limits of Orthodoxy are subject to intense debate.  Read on for more about the movement, its leadership, and its connections to Cincinnati, Detroit, Scarsdale, New York, and, yes, Mattoon, Illinois.  Both its liberal-leaning wing, that includes organizations such as and , and conservative elements, like the , drifted away from the center.  Modern Orthodox Jews are sometimes indistinguishable in their dress from general society, although they, too, wear kippahs and tzitzit; additionally, on Shabbat, Modern Orthodox men wear suits or at least a dress shirt and dress pants, while women wear fancier dresses or blouses.

The Truth About Jewish Dating Rules Modernist understandings of revelation as a subjective, humanly-conditioned experience are rejected by the Orthodox mainstream, though some thinkers at the end of the liberal wing did try to promote such views, finding virtually no acceptance from the establishment.  Concomitantly, the movement has moved away from discouraging intermarriage and has focused on welcoming intermarried families.  In , Rabbi attempted to reinforce traditional norms.  Originally, Elazar produced an even higher estimate when he considered association by default and assumed higher affiliation rates, reaching a maximum of 5,500,000 that may be considered involved with Orthodoxy.  The next step when making kosher meat is nikkur.

The Truth About Jewish Dating Rules Others dismissed this view entirely, citing the debates in ancient rabbinic sources which castigated various with little reference to observance.  Have a question, on , Chava will answer your questions with insight and wit.  His own congregation has little contact with their more traditionally observant neighbors: Of course, there are quiet eruvs all over the country that nobody has objected to.  Notable examples are the -Kabbalistic theology of , who viewed history as progressing toward a Messianic redemption in a dialectic fashion which required the strengthening of heretical forces, or the existentialist thought of , who was deeply influenced by ideals.  The six concern God's status as the sole creator, his oneness, his impalpability, that he is first and last, that God alone, and no other being, may be worshipped, and that he is omniscient.  Reacting to Mendelssohn's assertion that freedom of conscience must replace communal censure, Rabbi Cohen of Hamburg commented: The very foundation of the Law and commandments rests on coercion, enabling to force obedience and punish the transgressor.

Modern orthodox dating rules Rank-and-file members may sometimes neither be observant nor fully accept the tenets of faith.  I was so connected to my Jewish identity that my betrayal of it was not even statistically probable.  Sure there are basic rules of dating that most people try to follow.  Many men grow beards, and Haredi men wear black hats with a skullcap underneath and suits.  The Messiah will embark on a quest to gather all Jews to the Holy Land, will proclaim prophethood, and will restore the Davidic Monarchy.  They exercise tight control over the lives of their followers.

[endtimeheadlines]

Biblical Proof That Jesus Truly Is God

(By Ron Cantor) God did not waste any time in revealing His triune nature to us. It can be seen in the very first chapter of Genesis. The first person to point this out to me was actually an ultra-Orthodox rabbi. His name was Yankel Kranz, and he was the leader of the Lubavitch community in Richmond, Virginia. The Lubavitcher rebbe, or “pope,” died in 1994, amidst claims that he was the Messiah.

After telling Messianic Jews for years that Isaiah 53 didn’t refer to the Messiah’s suffering (He will come as a reigning king, not a suffering servant—I was told), suddenly Rebbe Menachem Mendelson Schneierson was the fulfillment. Except, to the shock of his followers, he did not rise from the dead. For years, the Lubavitchers stood watch by his grave, but he did not appear. To this day, some believe he will rise. READ MORE

[globsnark]

Harassment at Messianic Jews’ center in Israel begins anew

(Morning Star News) After opposition shut down a meeting center for Messianic Jews in southern Israel last May, ultra-Orthodox Jews are harassing it again since it re-opened this month, sources said. Ultra-Orthodox Jews protested the presence of the center in Dimona, Israel on Tuesday (Jan. via Pocket from bitly http://bit.ly/2Fn4Xfu via IFTTT

[newstfionline]

Daily Life in Jerusalem? ‘Difficult’ and ‘Intense’ for Arab and Jew

By David M. Halbfinger, NY Times, Dec. 9, 2017

JERUSALEM--This is a tense city on a good day.

You feel it behind the wheel: The traffic signals turn red and yellow to alert a coming green. Hesitate a half-second before accelerating? A honking horn. Schoolgirls gesture at motorists as they step into a crosswalk, fingertips bunched and faces scowling: Will you wait, or what?

You see it in the crowding: Overstuffed apartments spilling onto one another, in teeming Palestinian neighborhoods, and in ghetto-like ultra-Orthodox enclaves, a few blocks apart on either side of the Green Line, the pre-1967 boundary with the West Bank.

You hear it in the way people talk--“The Arabs,” “The Jews”--about people with whom they have been sentenced to share a tiny patch of soil atop a ridge with no strategic value, over which the world has been battling for thousands of years, and negotiating on and off for decades, with no end in sight.

The world knows Jerusalem by the Old City and its Golden Dome, its ancient wall from the time of Herod, its Holy Sepulcher, its rough-hewed stones flattered by brilliant sunlight.

But Jerusalem is not just its postcard vistas. A pilgrimage is not the same as living here. The day-in, day-out friction can be draining. And when the conflict bubbles up, even natives can question why they persist.

“We all believe there’s something sacred in this city, but it’s too difficult,” said Tomer Aser, 35, who lives in Beit Hanina, in East Jerusalem. “You feel like you’re living in jail here. The people are so tense. And you feel yourself separated: You have to be with either the Israeli community or the Arab community. There’s no difference--we’re one country--but it’s Israeli Arabs, or Palestinians, or Israeli Jews.”

For Jerusalemites, stress is something to learn to live with. It builds up, day by day, culminating in the release and rest of the Sabbath--a one-day weekend that religious Jews build their lives around, and secular Jews and Arabs make the most of.

And the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, too, builds up a longer-term pressure, one that periodically threatens to burst out in episodes of violence.

With President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital roiling the West Bank and Gaza, the city was braced for its most serious flare-up in months, if not years. But no one was sure how bad it would get.

A ride on the Jerusalem Light Rail on Friday morning gave a taste of what that uncertainty can feel like.

The Red Line--the city’s only line, so far--begins in West Jerusalem at Mount Herzl, a monument to Israel’s origins, home of Yad Vashem and of Israel’s national and military cemeteries.

It runs all the way to the Arab East Jerusalem neighborhoods of Shuafat and Beit Hanina before ending in bustling Pisgat Ze’ev, one of several Jewish settlements built to encircle East Jerusalem on territory seized in 1967.

The light rail is a leveler, a modern convenience and conveyance, with efficient service, pleasant views--and visible security. A British student was stabbed to death on the line in April.

The line is not used by Arabs nearly as much as by Jews. After a Shuafat teenager was kidnapped near a light-rail station, tortured and killed by a group of Israelis in 2014, Palestinian protesters attacked the transit line as a symbol of the Israeli occupation.

On Friday morning, religious Jews prayed as they rode, two girls in school uniforms giggled, and an older Arab man clutched two bags of groceries and stared straight ahead.

“Nobody really wants to hate each other,” said Jane Aharon, a property manager originally from Seattle, who moved to Israel in 2003 and to Jerusalem in 2009. “But it’s intense.”

She added: “Things can happen around you.”

Intensity is not always bad. The light rail wends its way down Jaffa Street past the Mahane Yehuda market, where Friday mornings are helter-skelter with shoppers battling for challah and olives, for fresh fish and pomegranate seeds, all on deadline: The stores will close in a few hours, most of them until Sunday.

Shlomo Fitusi, a welder, 69, slowly makes his way through the thicket of shoppers on a bicycle, with kosher wine hanging from the handlebars in a bag.

He is a member of Chabad Lubavitch, a Hasidic sect, who lives near the Old City, and says he rises at 3 every morning and makes his way to the Western Wall by 4. He lived in France for a time but returned 14 years ago. “There’s nothing to do abroad,” he said. He added, with messianic fervor: “And soon Jerusalem will be the capital of the whole world.”

While this pride in the city is common, scratch the surface of nearly any Jerusalemite, and grievances will come pouring out.

The rail line makes a few more curves and reaches the Damascus Gate station, where in a parking lot for buses, Jamil Rajbi, 54, a driver, finishes praying and rolls up his fringed mat.

He lives in Silwan, an Arab neighborhood in East Jerusalem where Jewish settlers have begun buying up homes. One moved in next door. People throw rocks at the settlers’ cars, but the rocks now bounce off protective nets and onto Mr. Rajbi’s cars.

He said his community wanted to buy the house back and turn it into a kindergarten, but the new residents have refused to sell. “They drive us crazy,” he said.

At Damascus Gate, a phalanx of cameras are waiting to see what will happen when Muslims emerge from noontime prayers at Al Aqsa Mosque, in the sacred compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Inside the Old City, the Arab market is just as lively and cacophonous as the Jewish one, with vendors yelling to be heard about their strawberries, smartphone covers and sweatshirts. Prayers have ended, and a sea of people stream out. Their faces are upbeat.

Nabil al-Hejerasi, 65, says the message from the clerics was “to be patient, not to worry what other people say. The truth will come one day.”

An importer, Mr. Hejerasi lived in Minnesota for many years, but moved back to Jerusalem a decade ago. “Everybody loves home,” he said, adding that he cannot imagine being buried anywhere else. “You want to die at home.”

But he said it was not easy being back. “People are stubborn,” he said. “They don’t travel much, and their brain is working in one way. They only see close to their nose. Life is tough here for both sides, until peace comes.”

Down an alley leading farther into the Muslim Quarter, a noise wells up. Jewish settlers on a rooftop have thrown eggs at the Arabs below.

Suddenly a stampede: Three Israeli border police officers in riot helmets sprint by, chasing someone. A moment later the chase is ended. As the officers catch their breath, a woman curses them in Arabic; one of the officers returns the slur, adding, “Move along.”

But strife does not exist only between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem.

Back on the light rail, Rina Pure, who grew up in Acre, on the Israeli coast, said she bought her apartment in the French Hill neighborhood of Jerusalem years ago, “but now half the people are religious,” and it was getting to be too much for her to stay. She plans to join her daughter in Tel Aviv--one more in an exodus of secular Jews from the Holy City since the 1980s.

Ms. Pure said she still loved the city, speaking of it in the feminine, as in the sacred Jewish texts: “She’s beautiful. I love the atmosphere, the inspiration, the architecture. She’s unique. She’s the only one. She’s interesting. The people are good,” she said. “But I’m tired of it.”

It is well into the afternoon now, and the trains have stopped running in advance of the Sabbath. A taxi will have to suffice for the return trip.

“I’ve been driving for 18 years,” says Muhammad Ziada, 39. He says he has many Jewish friends, goes to their weddings, attends their relatives’ funerals, as they do for his.

“But there’s a big religion problem in Jerusalem,” he said. “It’s a city of racism. Once there’s a little bit of balagan”--chaos--“between Jews and Arabs, Jews won’t go in my taxi, and Arabs won’t go to the mall. And if I go into a religious neighborhood and they find out I’m Arab, they’ll stone my car.”

Mr. Ziada drives past a vacant property he says his family owns, but where he says the Israeli authorities have barred him from building. He refuses to sell.

“There will never be peace here,” Mr. Ziada says. But he does not lay blame. “If they take all the Arabs away, the Jews would eat each other. And the same thing with us.”

[jacobsvoice]

Zionism and Israel in the NY Times

New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chiefs have not been renowned for their impartiality toward the idea and eventual reality of Jewish statehood. For nearly a century, Zionism and Israel have been subjected to their relentless criticism in the guise of responsible journalism.

It began in 1928 when Joseph Levy was hired as the Times “Palestine correspondent.” At first fascinated by a land “flowing with milk and honey,” he was shocked one year later when rioting Arabs in Hebron brutally murdered sixty-seven Jews in a “wholesale slaughter” that spread throughout Palestine. But Levy soon blamed Zionist leaders for their failure to comprehend the harmful impact of their national aspirations on the local “Arab” population. “Palestinian” was not yet their self-identity.

Levy guided harsh critiques of Zionism into the Times from former British civil servant H. St. John Philby, who denounced the Balfour Declaration as “an act of betrayal for whose parallel . . . we have to go back to the Garden of Gethsemane”; and Judah Magnes, Chancellor of the new Hebrew University, who opposed the “extravagant interpretation of the Balfour Declaration” favored by Zionist leaders.

The Times did not appoint its first designated Jerusalem Bureau Chief until 1979, when David Shipler was posted in Israel. Fascinated by the struggle between “Arab and Jew,” he recognized that Palestinian identity “has come not from an ancient source but largely in reaction to the creation and growth of Israel.” He perceptively described Jewish settlers as “militant idealists” and “dreamers” whose beliefs “have surged through Jewish consciousness for thousands of years.”

Shipler perceived “conflicting impulses” in Israel: “a siege mentality” that reflected “the Jewish people’s long history of aloneness and persecution” and “an instinct for self-criticism.” Over time, Shipler’s criticism of Israel sharpened, but he remained attentive to its complexities and vulnerability in the conflict between two peoples in “the promised land.” And he confessed his puzzlement to Executive Editor A.M. Rosenthal that in the Times “Israel cannot be described as a Jewish state.”

In 1984 Shipler was succeeded by Thomas Friedman, who had become a sharp critic of Israel following its invasion of Lebanon. Infuriated by its alleged complicity in the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, he “buried . . . every illusion I ever held about the Jewish state.” Friedman’s subsequent coverage of Israel would reflect his fury over its perceived betrayal.

Israel, for Friedman, was a seething cauldron of problems for which he blamed “ultra-Orthodox messianic Jews” and “right-wing extremists.” He lamented that a generation of Israeli political leaders had failed to resolve the conflict with Palestinians, as though Yasser Arafat and his followers were blameless. Neither Palestinians nor Israelis, he concluded in his repetitive expression of moral equivalence, could acknowledge the legitimacy of their enemy. But Israel was to blame for its failure to adhere to its “biblical-moral tradition.”

Friedman’s reporting often reflected the bias of left-wing Israeli critics, Hebrew University professor and Peace Now advocate Yaron Ezrahi prominent among them. His own fondness for pithy analogies included the equation of Israel with stereotypical Jews, displaying “an uncanny ability to inject itself into the news.” Israel, he wrote in judgmental mode, had failed to embrace its own “biblical-moral tradition.” As he (self-revealingly) recognized, “for some people, there is something almost satisfying about catching the Jewish state behaving improperly.” Friedman was often satisfied.

Joel Brinkley, Friedman’s successor as Bureau Chief, quickly revealed his own political preferences. The Israeli election of 1988, he wrote, would determine “whether Israel is to be a conciliatory nation of the left” or “an assertively hardline nation of the right.” The reelection of right-wing Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, Brinkley concluded, assured “a right-wing theocracy ... dominated by religious fundamentalists.” Indeed, he wrote alarmingly, Israelis and Americans alike “worry that Israel “could become another religious fundamentalist nation, a Jewish version of Iran.”

Brinkley was followed by Serge Schmemann, who quickly decided that the failure of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks was Israel’s fault. Despite a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks he wrote that “extremists on both sides” were responsible. Deborah Sontag, his successor, concluded after visiting the Mahane Yehuda market site where Palestine suicide bombers had recently murdered thirteen Israelis, that Israelis and Palestinians alike had “vehemently accused the other of intransigence” – as though mutual accusations obliterated Palestinian terrorism.

Ethan Bronner, Jerusalem Bureau Chief between 2008-2012, perceptively confronted the problem of impartial coverage when “no place, date or event in this conflicted land is spoken of in a common language . . . [that] both sides can accept as fair.” Israelis stressed the return of Jews to “their rightful home” after “thousands of years of oppression” while Palestinians focus on “European colonialists” who “stole and pillaged” their land.

But Bronner was succeeded by Jodi Rudoren, whose preferred narrative was Palestinian suffering and Israeli culpability. Lionizing teen-age Palestinian stone-throwers, she dismissed it as a “rite of passage and an honored act of defiance.” Twice within three weeks she falsely asserted that Israel was building thousands of new settlements (prompting a Times correction) when, in fact, it was building new homes within existing settlements. Palestinian celebrations of terrorist attacks by family members drew more attention than the families of Israeli victims. Shortly before Rudoren completed her term as Bureau Chief in 2017, she blamed “Messianic Zionism” for making it “impossible for Israel to be a democratic and Jewish state” - and, some might say, impossible for her to be an objective reporter.

But the times may finally be changing at the Times. David Halbfinger, Rudoren’s successor, has taken predictable swipes at Netanyahu and settlements. But he recently demonstrated his empathy for Israeli coronavirus victims and their family members, praising a Tel Aviv hospital for its decision to permit relatives of a dying patient to have a farewell visit (April 20). “This is the moral thing. Nobody needs to die alone,” explained a hospital spokesman. Halbfinger’s coverage of Israel’s humane virtues, no less than condemnation of its moral failings, suggests that the Times may finally have a Jerusalem Bureau Chief whose self-defined mission is fair coverage of Israel, not reflexive criticism.

Jerold S. Auerbach is the author of Print to Fit: The New York Times, Zionism and Israel (1896-2016), chosen by Ruth Wisse and Martin Kramer as a Mosaic Best Book for 2019.  

[luminousfinn]

Okay, not the same anon as earlier, but... I know someone who converted from Christianity to Judaism, and I was wondering... Can you convert to Judaism without Jewish blood? I mean, I always assumed you could, but then I was getting in deeper in the scriptures, and it's just always been bugging me. I'm too afraid to actually ask someone in person, in part because I feel like the answer is really simple either way: You can, or you can't. So I feel like it's a stupid question to ask, but... Idk

No it’s not a stupid question at all and actually it’s not a yes or no question. Not to Jews anyway. Why? Because we love to argue about everything and anything, and one topic that has been debated for literally centuries is if you can convert to Judaism (i.e. become Jewish without being born Jewish.)

Now the vast majority today will say that yes you can convert to Judaism and as long as you keep the mitzvot you are as Jewish as any person who was born Jewish. But you will still find a minority - generally among that ultra Orthodox - that says no, you can’t.

This contradiction does not just have roots in the Torah, but also in the fact that not only does Judaic beliefs not demand conversion to Judaism to achieve Heaven when the Messianic Age comes - you only have to keep seven of the mitzvot as a gentile to achieve that - but also that historically if a Christian converted to the Jewish faith both they and the Rabbi who converted them would be executed. As in, it was literally illegal to convert to Judaism by pain of death in most Christian countries until quite recently historically.

Which is also one of the reason why you still today - by some Rabbi’s anyway - are turned away three times, before you’re accepted as a legitimate potential convert. The other is “why would you want to?”

Like why would you want to keep 613 commandments (mitzvot) when you as gentile only need to keep 7? Why would you want the extra hard job of trying to fix this world?

But to try and give your question a straight answer. If you as a Conservative, Reform or Reconstructionist Rabbi then the answer would be yes (with the above mentioned caveat in mind) and I have honestly not heard of even an Orthodox Rabbi in the Western world who would not accept a convert as long as the conversion is viewed as legitimate.

Of course... the thing is what it takes for a conversion to be seen as legitimate depends greatly on which movement the Rabbi you ask belong to, because all of them have different standards.

That’s the thing with a religion that is based on analysis and arguing, you end up reaching different conclusion and not always accepting those of the others as equally valid.

So I suppose this makes the answer to your question a, “mostly yes you can but...” And as you can see, not a stupid - or easily answered - question, at all.

[desarrollar]

Nowhere else recently have I seen something that displays the link between gentrification and colonialism as clearly as this:

HARPER’S MAGAZINE / JANUARY 2017

Israel’s economic settlers By Jamie Levin

For Israelis willing to move to the West Bank, houses are for sale in a hillside development in the expanding settlement of Eli. The Israeli government, which has occupied the West Bank for fifty years, considers the area disputed territory, though most countries, including the United States, view the settlements there—228 of them—to be a violation of international law. The first Jewish Israelis who moved to the West Bank after the Six-Day War were few in number and went mainly to reinforce Israel’s borders against neighboring states. Later, they came with religious and ideological motivations. In 1974, the founding of Gush Emunim (“Bloc of the Faithful”), a messianic movement, brought settlers who established new Jewish outposts. The first Israelis arrived in Eli ten years later, naming the town after a biblical high priest. Gush Emunim is now defunct, but the group’s development arm, Amana, continues to build around Eli. The construction of Eli Terraces Phase B adds close to 150 people to the town’s population of nearly 4,000. Jewish settlements in the West Bank are typically associated with Zionism, yet “quality of life” is the most commonly cited reason for moving to the Occupied Territory. As real estate in Israel’s cities becomes increasingly expensive, these settlements offer an affordable alternative. In a recent Pew survey, nearly half of Jewish Israelis ranked the economy as the “biggest long-term problem facing Israel,” which is the same number who cited security. The nation’s monetary frustrations reached an apex in 2011, when more than 300,000 Israelis—close to 4 percent of the population—took to the streets to protest the skyrocketing cost of living; the spark was a rise in the price of cottage cheese, but the focus of the movement soon turned to housing. Tent cities in the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street movement sprang up across the country. In response, fortytwo Knesset members drafted an open letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which they argued that building thousands of new homes in the West Bank could solve the problem. Since then, the discontent that the protests brought to the surface has continued to mount. Manuel Trajtenberg, an economist and Knesset member who headed a government commission to study Israel’s socioeconomic problems, said, “In the past seven years, housing prices have gone up eighty to ninety percent. If it was critical then, it is a crisis now.” Settlement developers have seized on Israel’s economic angst, and many are pushing the quality-of-life sales pitch. At the start of the Oslo peace process, in 1993, 110,066 Israelis were living in West Bank settlements. That number has more than tripled, to 350,010. Hagit Ofran, a settlement monitor for Peace Now, estimated that two thirds of the Jews living in the West Bank moved there for primarily financial reasons. These settlers fall into two main categories, Ofran said. The fastest-growing segment in the West Bank is the ultra-Orthodox Haredim, a group that has been priced out of Jerusalem. The second segment is classic suburbanites: families looking for big houses, nice back yards, and reasonable commutes—all for an affordable price tag. “For too long, our image of the settlements has been stuck in the 1970s and the idea of the messianic settler living there for ideological reasons,” Sara Hirschhorn, a scholar of Israel studies at Oxford University, said. The latest marketing strategy is also inherently a political move, she noted; the Israeli government has long sought to subsidize these Jewish-only settlements as a means of furnishing territory beyond the pre-1967 border—also called the Green Line—as typical suburbs. (Palestinians are not permitted to live in these communities, but often provide cheap labor.) “They wanted to erase the Green Line by advertising the idea that your home in the West Bank is the same as your home anywhere else.”

settlers in the West Bank and Sarah Treleaven Jamie Levin and Sarah Treleaven previously wrote for Harper’s Magazine on SodaStream, in the September 2013 issue. In the ad, Eli is described as a “great place to grow up.” While typical three- to four-bedroom apartments in Tel Aviv go for $850,000, a “giant” three-bedroom home in Eli starts at around $210,000. The ad also promises a discount on purchase taxes, and there are many additional incentives not shown. According to a report from Peace Now, West Bank settlers pay lower property taxes than other homeowners and receive a disproportionate share of state benefits, including funding for education and municipal services. “The settlements are getting cheaper at a time when more and more Israelis are struggling with the high cost of living,” Stav Shaffir, a member of the Knesset and a former leader of the economic protests, said. The ad also boasts that Eli is “close to everything.” A network of highways—many of which bypass Palestinian population centers— runs through the settlements, making Eli just a thirty-five-minute drive from Jerusalem. (These roads are less convenient for Palestinians, who without notice may be prohibited from driving through.) Eli hosts a community center, classrooms, a day care, a swimming pool, and a library. For the observant, there are multiple synagogues, and for the secular, a new shopping center. Nitza Farkash, an American Israeli who has lived in Eli with her family for sixteen years, said that she might prefer to live in a city like Tel Aviv if it were more affordable, but she chose Eli because it offers good schools for her children and a short commute for her husband. “It has its advantages,” she said. “It’s calm and peaceful. We can get to wherever we need to go.” The mundane economic concerns of Israelis tempted by lower housing prices—the same motivations that foster suburban sprawl everywhere—have dire consequences here. Eli and other nearby Jewish settlements bisect the West Bank, making the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state increasingly difficult to envision. Yehuda Lanzkron, the director of development for Eli, dismissed the possibility that the settlements could ever relocate to make way for Palestine. “There is no power or government in the world that can move such a big population,” he said. Recent polling has indicated declining support for a two-state solution among Jewish Israelis, and a majority no longer consider Israel’s rule over the West Bank to be a military occupation. About half of all Jewish settlers in the area live in consensus settlements, so named because the country aims to keep those territories in any future peace agreement with the Palestinians. (This “consensus” does not include the Palestinians, of course, who insist that permanent boundaries should be negotiated.) These settlements, which used to be clustered along the Green Line close to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, have gradually inched deeper into the West Bank. Despite multiple construction freezes implemented by the Israeli government over the past twenty years, the building continues. The most recent freeze expired in 2010, and in June, Israel approved a $20 million financing package for the settlements. Since the beginning of 2009, the Jewish population in the West Bank has grown more than 23 percent—compared with 9.6 percent growth for the national population. Eli’s leaders hope the expansion will continue. “In twenty years, come to Eli and you’ll see big buildings with ten or more floors,” Ido Meushar, the mayor, said. “You’ll see towers of high tech, just like in Ra’anana. You’ll see a community ten times bigger that comes together to celebrate Independence Day. You will see exactly what is happening in other parts of Israel.”