Eat your vegetables (while you can)

May 25, 2009 - 11:21 AM by David · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business, Food, General, Life, Politics 

The Mahane Yehuda shuk in Jerusalem - prices on the way up?

The Mahane Yehuda shuk in Jerusalem - prices on the way up?

We’ve got so many problems on our plates right now in Israel – the Iranian threat, Hamas, Hizbullah, the debate about settlements and illegal outposts. But it’s encouraging to note that not every issue is a life or death existential conundrum.

Sometimes it also comes down to fruits and vegetables. Hundreds of vendors and growers are expected to converge on the Knesset this week as the Knesset Finance Committee prepares to discuss the country’s draft budget for 2009, which includes imposing a 16.5% value added tax on fruits and veggies. Currently there is no VAT on those items, and those food staples are still affordable among all segments of society.

“The increase will cause problems throughout all of the economy, from restaurants to falafel stands to canned goods, and will ultimately lead to inflation,” warned Likud MK Miri Regev, who was planning to do a walkabout in her local vegetable shuk in Kiryat Gat to protest the tax.

A family spending 500 shekels ($125) a month on fruits and vegetables would find their bill increased by over 82 shekels – no small amount when you’re living on a budget.

“In a period of recession, we expect that people should have more money to invest into the economy, and this proposition would do exactly the opposite. The increased VAT will become an engine that will stop the economy,” Regev told the Jerusalem Post.

“We have absorbed a lot of difficulties and decrees,” said Meir Yifrach of the Vegetable Growers Association, “but this time we won’t sit quietly.”

Regev met with Finance Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ) and secured invitations for produce-sellers, including supermarket owner Rami Levi and owners of market stalls, to come and testify before the committee on the impact of the proposed tax.

According to the Post, Regev also plans on meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to try to convince him to remove the clause from the budget before it is voted on by the Knesset in the coming weeks.

“I am sure that the prime minister, who showed responsibility by canceling the social-welfare cuts that the Finance Ministry’s accountants had included in the budget, will do the same for this,” said Regev.

Fruits and veggies in season have always been a staple at our house, and it would be shame to find them suddenly turned into ‘premium’ items overnight.

Tags: , , ,

Court rules state must fund non-Orthodox conversion courses

May 21, 2009 - 8:49 AM by David · 8 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Politics, Religion, coexistence 

UTJ's Moshe Gafni is not happy with neither the court decision nor with Reform Jews.

UTJ's Moshe Gafni is not happy with neither the court decision nor with Reform Jews.

In one of those I-can’t-believe-Israel-needs-a-court-to-decide-this decisions, the High Court this week ordered the state to fund non-Orthodox conversion institutions along with Orthodox ones.

The ruling was the result of a petition filed by the Reform Movement in Israel demanding equal funding for its conversion classes vis-à-vis those run by private Orthodox institutions.

While the ruling may not have any impact on the status of the conversions themselves in the eyes of the state. it may influence the religious status quo and future court rulings on other questions of funding for religious services, where the Orthodox stranglehold on funding has frozen out other strains of Judaism.

Until now, non-Orthodox conversion programs have not been eligible for funding, which is provided by the Immigration Absorption Ministry to Orthodox schools.

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, director-general of the Reform Movement, said the decision was “very important and constituted one more step in the process of ending the Orthodox monopoly in Israel.”

He added that the ruling “was the harbinger of a series of High Court decisions to come which will eventually lead to a strategic agreement between the state and the Reform and Conservative movements regarding their status in Israel.” But Kariv cautioned that the process would still take many years.

One indication of that was the reaction to the ruling by haredi Knesset Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) who holds the purse strings of the budget for religious funding. He said that he’ll block any attempt to transfer state funds to non-Orthodox institutions involved in preparing converts to Judaism.

“The Reform Movement is not a legitimate form of Judaism,” Gafni told The Jerusalem Post. “The Reform are a bunch of treacherous backstabbers to Judaism. They are jokers who operate without hierarchy and without rules.”

He added that the court’s decision to compel the state to fund non-Orthodox conversion institutes was a slippery slope that was liable to undermine the Jewish character of the state.

“Gafni should know that he, like all other Israeli citizens, must adhere to the law. He is probably just showing off to his friends and supporters in Brooklyn,” Kariv responded.

It looks like this is just the beginning, and not the end of the battle between the Orthodox and the Reform in Israel. Strap your seatbelts.

Tags: , , ,

 

© 2009 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap