Israeli Public Wants Urgent Action Against Climate Change
In advance of Copenhagen, a new survey shows that Israelis seek action against climate change.
The Israeli public is a few steps ahead of its government in wanting to see strong action on climate change, according to a new poll conducted by Ben Gurion University.
The survey was done ahead of the international Climate Summit which will convene in Copenhagen on December 7th, where a new international framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is hoped to be created. Read more
Freedom of religion for all in Jerusalem – except women?
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Politics, Religion
Relations in Jerusalem between the haredi community and virtually everyone else seem to be at its nadir. In addition to almost weekly protests by hundreds of haredi demonstrators against hi-tech giant Intel’s operation of its Har Hotzvim factory on Shabbat and the Shabbat opening of parking lots outside of the Old City to accomodate the multitudes of visitors, last week another incident took place which raised the wrath of the city’s more tolerant residents and prompted a response.
A member of the Women of the Wall female prayer group was arrested and the group was expelled from the area of the Kotel for reading from a Torah scroll.
“We debated among ourselves whether or not to read from the Torah at the Kotel itself or to take the Torah to Robinson’s Arch,” Nofrat Frenkel told The Jerusalem Post. “In the end we decided that because nobody seemed to mind, we would go ahead and read the Torah at the Kotel.” She was arrested and later released by police.
The women were actually violating a compromise reached two decades ago with Supreme Court mediation, where it was agreed that women who wished to wear tallitot and kippot and read from the Torah would be allowed to do so at Robinson’s Arch, adjacent to the Kotel, and not directly in front of the Kotel, so as not to offend Orthodox worshipers.
Last week’s service, however included there was a contingent of women from North America who are here to attend a rabbinical ordination ceremony to take place at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College, and the women decided to hold their service at the Wall.
Rabbi Felicia Sol, of the B’nai Jeshurun Synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, said that the attempt to read from the Torah was an experiment with “pushing the boundaries.”
“It is ridiculous that in a Jewish state that is supposedly democratic, women cannot pray the way they want to and only one definition of Judaism is accepted,” Sol told the Post.
Indeed. As a result of the incident and the ongoing Shabbat protests by the haredim, a coalition of secular, Conservative, Reform and modern Orthodox residents of Jerusalem marched in the streets on Saturday night in an attemtp to ‘take back’ the city.
According to Rabbi Barry Schlesinger, who heads the Masorti (conservative) congregation in East Talpiot which I attend, the demonstration wasn’t anti ultra-Orthodox. The message was positive, calling for religiouls pluralism in the city.
“When Gen. Motta Gur proclaimed that “the Temple Mount is in our hands” [in 1967], he never thought to exclude women wearing talitot in the Kotel plaza,” he wrote following the march.
However, according to some participants, the rally was sort of railroaded by Meretz anti-haredi sentiments, and that the average kippa sruga Orthodox resident of Jerusalem failed to support the idea of women being allowed to pray as they wish at the Kotel. An editorial in The Post asked where Orthodox rabbis like Michael Melchior and Bennjamin Lau were.
According to Rabbi Yosef Rosenfeld, whose group, the Council for the Protection of the Sanctity of Shabbat, is one of those leading the haredi protest, the counter-demo will do little to stop their cause.
Rosenfeld explained to the Post that some of the signs carried by protesters, including, “Iran is here” or the phrase “religious coercion,” were offensive to members of the haredi community, and would mobilize further demonstrations.
Meanwhile, the one person who could be coming down heavy on the haredi demonstrators who are disrupting life for the rest of Jerusalem’s residents – Mayor Nir Barkat – is sticking to platitudes and diplomacy.
He issued a statement after the raucous weekend which said, “We must live in Jerusalem alongside each other. The partnership between us is larger than it seems, and if we would only unify, and treat one another with mutual respect, we’d succeed in facing the major challenges that stand before Jerusalem.”
Somehow I don’t think a resident of Mea Shearim is going to unify with talit-wearing Nofrat Frenkel and dance around the Kotel holding a Torah together.
Nostalgia Sunday – JNF-KKL stamp club
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Nostalgia Sunday, Travel
About a week and a half ago, an event took place at the Jewish National Fund House in Tel Aviv that might be termed historic: the revival of the JNF-KKL stamp collectors club.
Most people know that the Jewish National Fund – Keren Kayemet (JNF-KKL) raises funds using the trusty old Blue Box method of coin collection — in addition to Tree Planting Certificates and Soliciting Big Donations. But few today remember that the JNF-KKL also issued and sold stamps which, for a brief period in May 1948, were actually used as postage stamps in the newborn State of Israel.
Here’s what happened the other night, according to Dr. Arie Ben, founder and director of the JNF House museum and educational center. “The [stamp collector] group members, who came from all parts of the country, first visited our museum, which is celebrating 21 years of activity… Attending the gathering was a collector who is a pediatrician by trade, a retired academic from the Weizmann Institute who for years was a plant scientist, and a diplomat from Israel’s foreign service. Another of those present had set up a unique website offering information and collectors items for sale… we were also honored by the presence of a 92-year old collector who showed me a picture of the first meeting of the JNF-KKL collectors club… At the end of the evening, it was decided to revive the legendary ‘JNF-KKL stamp collectors club’, which was first founded in 1937 and held its first gathering in the JNF House meeting room, only days after being founded.”
The stamps hold a special place of honor in JNF-KKL history and the museum has an exhibition of stamps based on Ben’s research into 108 years of the organization’s activity. The JNF House itself, which includes the museum (also known as The Provisional People’s Council & Administration Museum), is a classic example of 20th century Tel Aviv Bauhaus architecture, and is located at 11 Zvi Shapira St., Tel Aviv, walking distance from the Dizengoff Center.
JNF-KKL’s online archive is also a treasure trove for the interested philatelist and include images of artist sketches for the stamps, as well as the stamps themselves. Another great source: the Sol Singer Collection of Philatelic Judaica.
Gilad, Amir and Marla
With negotiations heating up over the release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for up to 1,000 hardened Palestinian prisoners, debate on the merits of the deal have been all over the news for days, as well as in discussions within our own family. Two recent events have made it particularly personal.
The debate is, of course, over whether it is incumbent on the Jewish state to strive tirelessly to save any captive taken in war – a promise that the army makes to its soldiers and to which that the Shalit family has been campaigning these past three years – or whether the greater good outweighs the needs of the individual where, in this case, releasing prisoners may potentially lead to the death of tens if not hundreds of Israelis if those Palestinians return to terrorist activities.
This heartbreaking question represents a classic moral dilemma and one that was vividly portrayed on the TV series MASH. In the show, a group of South Korean refugees is hiding in a bus in the vicinity of enemy soldiers. In that group, a mother holds a crying baby. It is clear that if the baby does not stop bawling, the enemy will hear. The hide out will be exposed and all the refugees will be killed.
Does the mother smother her baby in order to save the others?
When this question is put out to test groups, about 50% of the respondents say they would kill the baby to save the group. But when the question is phrased differently – would you kill your own baby? – the number of yes’s drops precipitously. (In the MASH episode, the mother does kill her baby.)
The argument for not killing the baby is that you don’t know absolutely for certain that the enemy soldiers will find you. Perhaps a bomb will explode outside the hiding place and the soldiers will all die or flee. Calculating the odds is a zero-sum game that no parent, or any human being for that matter, should ever have to play.
The same is true for Gilad Shalit. We don’t know that the terrorists released will 100% for sure return to terrorism that will lead to more deaths. We do know, however, that if a deal is cut, Gilad Shalit will be set free. Is it worth it?
Danny Gordis, writing in The New York Times last, week, says that releasing Shalit “makes no strategic sense.” But, he goes on, “with the conflict likely to persist, and with our sons and daughters asked to make extraordinary sacrifices to keep us safe, they need to know that we are n less devoted to them than they are to us.”
Now here’s where it gets personal.
Last week, our son Amir joined the army. He is now in the position to be kidnapped as a soldier, just like Gilad Shalit. Were we in Shalit’s parents’ shoes, wouldn’t we act in exactly the same way, doing anything to free our child?
On the flip side, among the terrorists slated to be freed is the mastermind behind the bombing of the cafeteria at Hebrew University in 2002 where our cousin Marla was killed. What kind of justice is there when the murderers of young 22-year-old Jewish studies student can now walk around free and plot similar atrocities? What will stop such a terrorist from killing again?
These are not easy decisions. They are ones that we wish we as a nation didn’t have to make. And the arguments on both sides are valid. I’m not going to attempt here to take a stand. There are plenty of other pundits who have articulated the positions better and more vociferously than I could on the small stage of this blog.
Ultimately, it is up to our elected officials to make the call. And they seem intent on cutting a deal. Right or wrong, that’s the nature of democracy and it’s the backbone behind our return to this land. Without it, we might have no Gilad Shalits. But we would also have no country. And that’s a calculation I can live with.
Luxe Jerusalem
The Waldorf Jerusalem under construction
I’m apt to think that we should be making Jerusalem more palatable and affordable for younger folk, rather than butler-hiring, $17,000 per square meter buyers…and we should refrain from encouraging developers to create projects in politically questionable neighborhoods that end up being bought by foreigners.
In my mind, $6 million residences are fine, as long as there’s plenty of other options for the rest of us.
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