Religion, Nationalism, and Terror

Haredi sect brands Chief Rabbi Metzger ‘Zionist stooge,’ wicked - Haaretz, February 5, 2008

The strongly anti-Zionist Neturei Karta sect of ultra-Orthodox Jewshas attacked Ashkennazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger as a “very well paid Zionist stooge” and a “a wicked emissary of evil” who should be expelled from Israel, following Metzger’s reported comments proposing that poor Gazans be moved to a Palestinian state established in the Sinai.

The statements, reported in Haaretz last week, spurred an angrily worded response from Neturei Karta, which has often taken vocally pro-Palestinian stances against Israel.

Denouncing Metzger’s Sinai proposal, the group refered to him as the “so-called Chief Rabbi of the so-called State of Israel” and as a “very well paid Zionist stooge”.

Referring to Zionism as an “idolatrous cult,” Neturei Karta called for Metzger to “removed from the Holy Land,” describing him as “a wicked emissary of evil”.

Metzger had said that his plan would be to “take all the poor people from Gaza to move them to a wonderful new modern country with trains buses cars, like in Arizona - we are now in a generation where you can take a desert and build a city. This will be a solution for the poor people - they will have a nice county, and we shall have our country and we shall live in peace.”

Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Ultra-Orthodox Jews, among the approximately 800,000 in Israel, heading off to pray last week in Jerusalem’s Old City.

A Modern Marketplace for Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox - New York Times, NYT, November 2, 2007

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — When Larry Pinczower switches on his cellphone, the seal of a rabbinate council appears. Unable to send text messages, take photographs or connect to the Internet, his phone is a religiously approved adaptation to modernity by the ultra-Orthodox sector of Israeli life.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews, among the approximately 800,000 in Israel, heading off to pray last week in Jerusalem’s Old City.

More than 10,000 numbers for phone sex, dating services and the like are blocked, and rabbinical overseers ensure that the lists are up to date. Calls to other kosher phones are less than 2 cents a minute, compared with 9.5 cents for normal phones. But on the Sabbath any call costs $2.44 a minute, a steep religious penalty.

“You pay less and you’re playing by the rules,” Mr. Pinczower, 39, said. “You’re using technology but in a way that maintains religious integrity.”

A community of at least 800,000 people — out of 5.4 million Jews living in Israel, a country of 7.1 million — the ultra-Orthodox, though comparatively poor, form a distinct, growing and important market, and Israeli companies are paying attention. While there are rabbinical strictures against watching television, using computers for leisure, immodest attire and unsupervised mixing of men and women, the Israeli market economy has adjusted in creative and surprising ways.

Some 60 percent of ultra-Orthodox men do not work regular jobs, preferring religious study. More than 50 percent live below the poverty line and get state allowances, compared with 15 percent of the rest of the population, and most families have six or seven children, said Momi Dahan, an economist at the School of Public Policy at Hebrew University.

Is the (Haredi) party over? - Haaretz, October 16, 2007

Deri believes that the existence of ultra-Orthodox parties antagonizes the secular public, bringing about “phenomena like Shinui, that makes secular people think that the ultra-Orthodox want to force their lifestyle on them.” In short, said Deri, the ultra-Orthodox parties “create hatred and confrontation without being very useful.” As long as the ultra-Orthodox continue to operate within sectarian political parties, Deri stressed, the usefulness of such parties in terms of serving Haredi interests “will be small and the damage, in my humble opinion, will be great….”

According to Deri, the main internal struggle that Israeli society will face after “the implementation of the disengagement puts an end to political debate,” will be “the cultural struggle for the general character of the state. On the one hand are Shinui and others who want a completely Western and totally free country, and on the other hand, the whole public, that wants the country to be - to one degree or another - a Jewish state.” The ultra-Orthodox, he said, have got to get involved in this struggle together with traditional Jews in the Likud and other parties.

‘Foreskin’s Lament: A Memoir’ by Shalom Auslander - BOOK REVIEW - Los Angeles Times - calendarlive.com, october 14, 2007

Auslander…can be a moving writer; many passages describe with great skill the airless, oppressive climate of Monsey. Perhaps the finest chapter recounts the time his father — a carpenter who wanted for respect in the scholarly community — was commissioned by the local rabbi to build a new ark for the congregation’s Torah scrolls, only to be humiliated and ignored upon its unveiling.

And he can be funny: A reminiscence of his first dalliance with non-kosher food ranks with sections of “Portnoy’s Complaint.” Auslander watches a Gentile order ahead of him at a poolside hot-dog stand. “Vinnie stood beside me, piling his pig dog high with sauerkraut and thin-cut pickles. I stared, open-mouthed, as he flipped his hair back, cleared a path to his mouth, and took a bite. It was as if he’d never heard of Leviticus 11:7.”

Source:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFA+Publications/Photo+exhibits/

Our+Country+-+Photographs+by+Alex+Levac.htm

Les ultra-orthodoxes israéliens exigent le respect de la shmita, année sabbatique pour les cultures, Le Monde.fr, le 14 septembre 2007

A l’occasion du Nouvel An juif, jeudi 13 septembre, jour où débute la 5 768e année du calendrier hébraïque, la question de l’année sabbatique se pose à nouveau. Jusqu’à présent, les arrangements étaient facilement acceptés. Il suffisait, en fait, de procéder à des ventes fictives de terrains à des non-juifs et le tour était joué. Cela permettait aux juifs de continuer à cultiver leurs champs et surtout d’obtenir le certificat de kashrout nécessaire pour vendre les produits et les consommer en accord avec les préceptes de la religion juive. L’année suivante, les terres étaient restituées aux propriétaires et personne n’y trouvait vraiment rien à redire. Sauf quelques orthodoxes ultras qui estimaient que ces tours de passe-passe ne respectaient pas la lettre des textes.

“LES LOIS DE LA TORAH”

Cette année 5768, les choses sont différentes. Les orthodoxes juifs, les haredim, font une énorme pression sur le grand rabbinat d’Israël pour que ces petits arrangements cessent et que l’on s’en tienne à la Halakha, le droit rabbinique. “Pas question de contourner les lois de la Torah même si l’on a beaucoup de sympathie pour les difficultés des paysans”, explique le rabbin Meir Bergman, chef d’un groupe ultraorthodoxe. Et d’ajouter : “Dieu pourvoira à leurs besoins.”

Liberaland and Haredistan - Haaretz - Israel News
The burning of the Alei Shalechet crematorium probably doesn’t surprise anyone who has been following Israel’s ongoing culture war. However, Shas Minister Yitzhak Cohen’s statements have raised the stakes. He said he would push a bill criminalizing cremation, a bill that would “put an end to those who are implementing a Final Solution once again.”