Ynet is publishing a letter from the son of a Qassem rocket fatality, 12 year old Hanan Yaakobov to Ehud Olmert. Hanan’s father Yaakov was killed last week after a Qassam hit the factory where he worked. It is very troubling to see the adults around this child using him to make their point, whether it is right or wrong.

“Mr. Prime Minister, today we have joined our fellow youths from Sderot who have been marching towards Jerusalem in protest for several days. We come to Jerusalem today to tell you one thing: Your government has failed, you have failed, you need to take responsibility and go home.

“For six years now living in Sderot is not truly living, we have no security, no quiet, and we feel as though you don’t care at all. My father, may he rest in peace, wouldn’t even let us take down the garbage because he was scared for us. In the past month alone over 300 Qassams have fallen here and that hasn’t made you or your government do anything.

“Our family emigrated from Russia 12 years ago. I can assure you that this could never happen there. There the government would not allow an entire town to be turned into cannon fodder for so long a period. But you don’t care, you continue to employ policies of fear and weakness on the backs of Sderot’s residents and agree to a ceasefire on the Arab’s conditions. And even now that there is a ceasefire the Qassams continue and we continue to live in fear.”

“Our family could simply leave Sderot and move elsewhere, somewhere quiet and safer but then what? After we left Gush Katif we will leave Sderot and then leave Ashkelon and where will we end up then? We feel it is our duty to stay in the town and we will remain strong but you must go home because you have failed and you have no solution. Mr. Prime Minister – you failed when you couldn’t protect my father. Resign.”

Dina Gottliebova Babbitt, who was sent to Auschwitz with her family and fiancé from Czechoslovakia, saved her life in Auschwitz painting for Mengele and SS guards. The portraits she made of doomed gypsies were acquired by the Auschwitz Birkenau Museum and Memorial in the 60’s and 70’s and they want to keep them. The LATIMES today has a long and moving story about this elderly Jewish woman, who now lives in Northern California, has been trying for several decades to get them back. Her case has support from Congress, community leaders, and even hundreds of cartoonists.

In September, about 450 cartoonists and artists from around the world petitioned the museum to make reproductions and give the originals to Babbitt. Signers include Art Spiegelman, creator of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Maus” graphic novels about his family’s Holocaust experience.

You see after she emigrated to America, she worked for Hanna Barbara as a cartoonist!
The artwork of a slave laborer belongs in Auschwitz says the museum, where else can the horror of the place be better illustrated. Babbitt and others say, why not hang copies of the originals in the museum and send the originals to the painter.

Nothing can bring back the gypsies who were sent to the gas chambers, but returning the paintings will help heal the wounds and soul of this survivor. Hello, Your Honorable Polish Ambassador Reiter, do you get it?

Just in case you feel like voicing you opinion, here is the contact page from the Polish Embassy.

Gawker links to a New York Post story about a rabbi whose actions will make all of the secular/cultural/national/anticlerical Jews among us feel rather smug. But there’s a bit of smugness to be shared by all Jews–forcing an adult woman with whom one is having an affair to watch art documentaries and use correct grammar is a bit better than molesting one’s altar boys, is it not?

*Apologies to Woody Allen.

Okay, war sucks. Nobody wants war, nobody likes war, and generally people would rather lounge in hammocks near the beach drinking iced lemonade rather than participate in war – directly or as an unwilling participant. In that regard, I guess we should all throw up our hands in joy at the recently instituted cease fire between the Israeli government and the PA. Or part of the PA. Or all of the PA except for the Palestinian terror groups that claim not to belong but are affiliated. Shucks, you know who I mean.

Olmert and Peretz, who should have resigned by now for the travesty of a war they led a couple of months ago in Lebanon, have not resigned and continue to muck things up. The latest muck-up is this sudden cease-fire. Now, don’t get me wrong, I assume they are privy to information which I do not have at my disposal and make decisions on the basis of that data. Who knows, maybe there’s some sort of magical, secret development that we lay-people have not learned about and which has made Olmert push for this sudden cease fire. I don’t believe, however, that this is what was driving them. Rather, there were a few issues which probably drove them to do it…

Click on the link just below this to have the pleasure of reading the rest…

(more…)

Some of you may know, I’m obsessed with Hebrew. I think about it constantly, every time an Israeli utters a word, I’ve got the linguistic equivalent of ‘Terminator vision’–I’m listening to inflection, especially to guttural pronunciations I still struggle with, dissecting and diagramming the word’s root and biblical derivation, where apparent, and wondering what other words are related.

So naturally, when the Wall Street Journal published an item last week about the new Zune MP3 player, designed to give iPod a run for its money, and the article happened to mention that the name of the player was awfully close to a Hebrew vulgarity, my parents naturally saved the piece for me. Not that I had lots of vulgar slang experience, but the process for analysis was still the same. Commence ‘Terminator vision.’ I immediately extrapolated to the word “zonah,” which was at least right at the root.

Then I remembered that there was another word, descriptive of the male anatomy, that was closer to “zune.” Still, it wasn’t close enough. Then I remembered that Email is not pronounced “ehmail,” but “eee-mail.” iPod is not pronounced “eepod,” but “eyepod.” (Although I have no doubt that unhipper Israeli parents are looking everywhere for the “eepod” and are unable to find it. That pronunciation recalls the ephod, part of the priestly garments, if I recall correctly, but I supposed Apple did not intend the allusion.) I said it aloud. “Z-une.” “What does that mean in English?” my parents asked. Oy. So I told them. I said the f-word to my parents. On Shabbat.

Of course, if only we had waited until after Shabbat, we’d have been able to check the internet, where such news had already been discussed on various tech blogs. Microsoft was counting on this MP3 player to take a bite out of Apple’s market share; but apparently, despite some positive reviews, Marketwatch reports that Apple’s $29.99 iPod USB power adapter (along with 74 other items) is outselling the Zune on the ‘Zon (that’s Amazon.com). But probably not because there’s a Hebrew vulgarity in the name.

Like I told my parents, the name’s not going to make a product successful in Israel. But if the product is a success here, the product will be a success in Israel. Specifically, I said that if a company decided it had a new hot product, and instead of calling it iPod, or Wii, or Blu-Ray, or Zune, it decided on “Shilshul,” if it was a success in the States, I am pretty sure Israelis would still buy it. (Think about it: “First there was a Pentium, now there’s new Intel Inside: Shilshul.”) We almost brainstormed on creating a product that would test this theory, but the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to think about a product of any sort named Shilshul. Of course, I assume that people don’t feel the same way about shilshul as they do about ziyun. But I’m no international marketing specialist. It’s only a theory.

As part of Synaplex Shabbat, an initiative to “draw in Jews not presently attending synagogue” and “expand the range of possible Sabbath observance for established congregants, Town & Village Synagogue is hosting a dinner and roundtable discussion with some of your favorite bloggers. See info below:
Jewlicious, Jewschool, Kesher Talk, Blogs of Zion, My Urban Kvetch, JDaters Anonymous, Shabot6000 – are all part of a vibrant virtual community that is reinvigorating the conversation and connections among Jews. Come hear four Jewish bloggers representing seven blogs read some of their favorite posts and talk about the impact of the Internet on Judaism.

RSVP required to TVSynaplex@yahoo.com or 212-677-8090 x26, by Monday, December 4, with advance payment of $20/adults, $15/young adults & students, $10/children under 13.* This includes a Chinese buffet dinner…

Pay online at www.paypal.com (click “send money”, insert townandvillage@aol.com and note it is for Dec 8 dinner); or send check payable to Town & Village Synagogue at 334 East 14th Street, NY NY 10003, writing “Synaplex” in memo space.

Hope to see you there!

A wreath with a peace sign in it drew the wrath of a condo association recently, who threatened to fine the offending condo owner 25$ a day until she took it down.

The funniest part of the story is that while many agreed that the wreath was offensive, there was little consensus over what the wreath represented. Some said it was a Satanic symbol, others said it was an anti-war symbol. Probably some thought it those are one and the same. Amazingly, some sensible people thought it meant nothing and they were fired from the architectural control committee,

Ah, Colorado. And to think that Muffti thought he lived in a state full of wackos.

One of the great things that happened at Hillel’s Just For A Day was meeting Jewish students from around the country who flew in for the GA-LA. One of those was Adam from University of Michigan who inquired about my Jewlicious 3.0 walking billboard t-shirt that Rachel (Bookstein) had made for the Beach Hillel crew.

Adam is one of the founders of Jewish Student Weekly, a free e-newsletter/magazine distributed online about Jewish student life and issues. The first issue I saw is amazing, runs 27 pages (yes that is 27 pages and they have flashy real ads in it). It is a very ambitious project, and very important. In Adam’s words:

There are important things to think about like the countdown to fantasy football, show times for Borat and hours of operation for your local cyclotron. Scratch the last one. Then there are important Jewish things to think about like the people, news and issues impacting our generation. Enter Jewish Student Weekly. JSW is a free e-newsletter for young Jewish adults across North America. We profile fascinating students, analyze the important issues impacting our community and share occasional Seinfeld quotes.

JSW is completely student-run, and if you subscribe, you can win five pounds of chocolate-chip challah. Sign up online at www.jewishstudentweekly.com and email them ideas at jewishstudentweekly_at_gmail_dot_com.

JSW is clearly unhindered by the contraints of publishing on paper, distribution, and so-forth, the common difficulty of old-media journalism. JSW is headed for great things, I encourage everyone to sign up and see where this revolution in Jewish student journalism will take us.

California Skinheadz win the 17th HSOW award. The California Skinheadz, in their own words,

With the prompting of some of our new found brothers who were for real I planted our flag and have slowly created one of the best skinhead crews I have ever seen. We are few in numbers but strong in heart and mind. Loyalty to one another and strong belief in our struggle for racial survival are paramount in our code of conduct. It has been a long time coming but, we are here, our battle flag has been planted, and lose or win we will never falter from our course.

Well, at least they are few in numbers. So far as Muffti can tell, they basically sit around listening to the thrash/punk that skinhead bands put out year after year. Nice stuff like Browntown Burning Down by the Angry Aryans and Some Niggers Never Die (They Just Smell That Way) by Johnny Reb. If you have the nerve, you can take a listen to some of these tracks on their Music page. Muffti has to admit to kind of liking Here She Comes Again by Max Resist (mostly because it isn’t especially racist or anti-semitic).

Anyhow, the site also contains a kinda shallow collection of text files, such as:
Who Rules America Central thesis: certain powerful Jewish families control America through their ownership and interest in the mass media. Lists names and companies.

They also have a small video page with some WWII German Propaganda films. The Cali Skinz also run a contest, with the theme ‘Best Racially Motivated Poster’. Muffti isn’t entirely sure what that means – would an entry depicting white people and black people dating count since it is motivated by the need for racial tolerance count? – but he’s pretty sure it’s not good. Oh well.

Anyhow, that’s about all you need to know and you can check out the rest if you so desire. Muffti is no fan of these guys but they do seem to have a sense of humour. On their ‘about us’ page, the author claims:

Somewhere in this time I met up with a young head from Visalia. My brother Doug (our webmaster). We had many adventures drank, fought, and fornicated our way all over California. I guess some of us did more than others (I think I did most of the drinking and fighting).

Muffti likes to think that just maybe if he’d spent a little more time fornicating he wouldn’t be designing crappy hateful websites.

Read this excellent opinion piece by Barbara Crook at JPost.

I’m a Jew by choice. It’s the most important choice I ever made in my life, and perhaps the most important choice I will ever make.

Almost eight years after my husband and I completed Orthodox conversions in Canada, every action in my life is defined by my Jewish identity and my desire to be on the front lines for Israel.

I’ve been on numerous Jewish boards, including that of an Orthodox outreach organization, was named woman of the year by my local chapter of Emunah and have lectured about Jewish leadership across Canada. And whom do my Jewish-born friends call when they have questions about Jewish laws or tradition? The convert, of course.

I’ve been to Israel 18 times since my first trip in May 2003, have led missions to Israel and taught Canadian and American university students how to defend Israel. I spend most of my vacations studying Hebrew in Jerusalem, and work for an Israeli organization that has defended Israel in parliaments and conferences around the world.

According to Jewish law, I have all the obligations and privileges of any Jew born of a Jewish mother. But if Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar gets his way, when the time comes to make aliya I will be denied the basic right of equality to other Jews under the Law of Return. Rabbi Amar wants to change Israeli law so that only Jews born to a Jewish mother would be entitled to automatic citizenship.

“[Converts] are able to come as citizens through other laws, and that is fine… of course they will be considered,” he told Israel Radio.

In other words, all Jews are equal, but some Jews are less equal than others.

Beyond my personal outrage, I find it hypocritical that a rabbi in his position would try to subvert Torah law for his own political purposes. He is angry that both the conversion process and the Law of Return have been abused by a minority of converts. And it appears that he is also trying to use this proposed change to delegitimize Conservative and Reform conversions.

These are certainly issues that need to be debated and resolved. But Judaism does not resolve a social and political problem by abandoning an intrinsic Torah directive, supported by extensive rabbinic law, that not only asserts the full rights and equality of converts, but actually demands extra caution regarding the feelings and sensitivities of Jews by choice.

RABBI AMAR is in blatant violation of both the letter and the spirit of Judaism when he discriminates against converts. In numerous places, the Torah stipulates the legal equality between born Jews and Jews by choice in all laws: “There shall be one law both for you and for the convert that lives with you. This is a law forever for all generations, as you are, so shall the convert be before God. One Torah and one law shall be both for you and for the convert (Numbers 15).

Of course, Barbara Crook can say these things to Amar precisely because she’d had an Orthodox conversion, but what she writes applies to converts to Judaism in other movements as well.

Shabbat shalom dear readers.

Source

So apparently Amy Winehouse is a member of the tribe, although with a punim like that you kinda knew it already. She’s got this bad girl image going, but she sure can sing. And yes, in case you were wondering, she does have a song called F**k Me Pumps. Although, I think she’s trying to be funny.

Hat tip to Mentalblog.

Okay, so it’s not exactly quality television…

So picture this –

You’re on a mountain top way station near the Chinese border surrounded by Vietnamese ethnic minority villages. The inhabitants of these villages live, dress and farm much like they have for hundreds, if not thousands of years, but for the ubiquitous presence of TVs.

Only the young generation, hawking their tribe’s wares to tourists knows any English beyond “buy from me, buy from me”.

You pass by several young girls, who ask where you’re from; upon saying “Israel” and walking on, they break into song “ha kova sheli, shalosh pinot, shalosh pinot la kova sheli”.

What the heck? How pervasive is Israeli travelling that 12 year old girls from the Black H’mong tribe can sing a Purim song and call me “hamuda”?

The kids skipping school and selling stuff on the streets are terribly friendly, even after they realize you aren’t buying anything. The above mentioned Hebrew speaking ones hung out with a group of us for a good chunk of the night.

Seeing and hearing about their odd little tribal customs like no kissing, ever, not parents, not husbands or how they change the style of their hair upon marriage, their dress (they too wear the same outfit their people have been wearing for the last several hundred years everyday TM, but they apologize to you for their shameless conformity) reminds me that my heritage too is tribal at its core, with our own style of dress, customs and folklore. It’s just that we’ve prospered enough to have the option to leave it behind.

A blessing and a curse to be sure. Still, I just find myself happy that us Jews never got reduced being an ancient tribal tourist attraction, hawking menorahs on the street of some backward country where you can’t drink the water. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

…and married her. Let Muffti tell a quick story:

After the first seder, Muffti trecked (ok, in a car) up to his bestest friend Kenny’s place to say hello. While sitting around the remains of a seder, Muffti offhandedly mentioned something peripherally related to marriage. The following ensued:

Kenny’s Mom: Thank you, [Muffti]. That raises the question, Kenny, when are you and Robin going to get married already?
Kenny and Robin: Thanks a lot, [Muffti].

–20 minutes of ‘why-they-aren’t-getting-married-anytime-soon’ discussion—

Kenny’s Mom: Fine, I’ll drop it.
Muffti: Ummmn…sorry?

–2 months pass–

Kenny on Phone: [Muffti], I’m getting married!

This past Sunday:

Mazel Tov to Kenny and Robin. Muffti had a great time and even wore a tuxedo!

The first in a series of posts about Jews and coffee

Those who know me know I love coffee. One of my students from UCLA, Jonathan P. brought me a delicious bag of Ugandan coffee from the Mirembe Kawomera Cooperative and the Thanksgiving Coffee Company. TCC have high moral and ethical ambitions and Jewish roots. Not the kind of Jews that make the international scandal sheets for rigging contracts and bringing down powerful politicians that were on their payroll. But another kind of Jew, the tikkun-olam yid that is out there trying to run an ethical and ecologically sensitive company:

Founded in 1972 by Joan and Paul Katzeff, Thanksgiving Coffee has long been a pioneer in transforming the coffee business. Our philosophy blends business and politics; our goal is to be a force for change in support of social and economic justice, and environmental sustainability.

The light roast coffee deserves it’s name “delicious peace.” According to the website: Mirembe Kawomera (mir´em bay cow o mare´a) means “delicious peace” in the Ugandan language Luganda. It is the name of a Ugandan cooperative of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian coffee farmers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Okay, seriously, a holiday of giving thanks that unites all of us and brings us together with family and friends is definitely an activity worth pursuing. Have fun with your friends and family, enjoy the food and drink, rest on the day off and we’ll see you all refreshed in a couple of days. Feel free to support the economy by shopping on Friday, by the way, not that we would encourage such a thing on Jewlicious.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh, to learn more about the Jews of Turkey…

JTB3.0: Facebook Photos FAQs Location Lodging Passes/Tickets JTB2.0

We have reps now on over 60 campuses across North America. The Facebook group Jewlicious 3.0, (besides checking here) is the best way to keep up-to-date on everything about Jewlicious at the moment. So if you have not joined, or don’t have a Facebook account, watcha waiting for?

Here is a recent post from the “wall”:

Josh W. (San Diego, CA) wrote
at 1:23am on November 20th, 2006
here’s my little advert…

JEWLICIOUS: Its not Israel but it is the most spiritually fulfilling, friendship inspiring, sensory engrossing experience you may ever have outside of Eretz Yisrael.

Hundreds of Jewish young adults of all backgrounds come together for 3 days in March. Come and go as you please, and all inclusive accomodations if you stay.

Mark your calenders and don’t miss Jewlicious @ The Beach 3.0!!

You’re gonna love it, and you’ll be talking about it for months after its gone. Personally, I can’t wait! – JOSH

If you’re like me, you’ve stayed awake nights wondering…”What kind of Moses would Val Kilmer make?” And your prayers were slightly answered with “The Prince of Egypt,” where the voice of Moses was supplied by the former Jim Morrison. “Ah yes, but what if he were to sing?…”

Now’s your chance to pick up the DVD recording of “The Ten Commandments: The Musical,” which was produced in Los Angeles in 2004 and is now available on DVD for home viewing.

For the complete review, see my post at Beliefnet here.

I hope it’s incompetence.

One of the mysteries of the recent war in Lebanon was the use of cluster bombs by Israel. The topic is very much alive because the UN continues to claim that over a million unexploded cluster bombs remain strewn throughout S. Lebanon and because there are many special teams in place to attempt to remove these bomblets which have injured or killed about a dozen people since the war ended. The UN also claims that Israel has not provided detailed maps of where these bombs may have landed.

I suggest that this is because the IDF has no clue.

First, let’s deal with the absurdity of this story. Cluster bombs can be very nasty weapons because they are essentially large containers carrying hundreds of mini bombs that spread out over an area. Use of these bombs is permitted by international law when attacking military targets. However, their impact can be quite harsh and they are therefore considered to be a harmful weapon the use of which is highly questionable. Israel had committed to the US, its supplier of these bombs, only to use them in particular circumstances, and it is possible that they violated these terms in the recent war.

So where is the absurdity? Not only did these US bombs have a failure rate of about 40% (meaning that 40 out of every 100 bomblets didn’t explode), thereby worsening the post-war impact on Lebanese civilian society, but it turns out that the Israeli arms industry was aware of this problem and developed cluster bombs with a success rate in the high 90s. They sell these bombs to armies around the world. But they don’t sell them to the IDF. Why would the IDF not use exceptional, indigenous, fairly prices cluster bombs and instead buy outdated, poorly-performing American cluster bombs? Because Israel receives military aid from the US every year and is obligated to spend 75% of it in the US on American arms. What do they buy? Lousy cluster bombs.

Then Israel goes to war and actually starts lobbing gazillions of these bombs into Lebanon knowing they don’t work well. You think to yourself, they must have had a good reason for this: they wanted to punish the villages that support Hizbullah; they wanted to prevent civilians from returning quickly to these villages after the war; they felt the bombs neutralized Hizbullah operatives during the war; etc. Well, maybe somebody thought that but nobody knows who thought what. Weeks after these stories came out, and weeks after the IDF kept saying that use of all armaments was within international conventions of war, it turns out that the IDF Chief of Staff wasn’t reading newspapers and had no idea they were being fired.

That’s right, the Chief of Staff didn’t know. Or he says he didn’t know. Artillery officers and soldiers are claiming targets came from the offices of the General Staff, not from local commanders. The Chief of the General Staff says he didn’t know. In fact, what he said was that learning about it did not surprise him but disappointed him!!! What?! He knew it could happen but didn’t stop it? He allowed others to dictate such an important part of the war effort? He considers his officers to be little children and he hopes they will perform nicely but if they don’t he’s not surprised just disappointed?

There is now at least one investigative committee looking into this issue and I suspect a couple of the other more broad investigative committees will eventually consider this issue as well. Let’s hope that they come out with a reasonable story about what took place here. Most of all, let’s hope that story is the truth and nothing but the truth. The IDF cannot become an institution that cannot be trusted by the government of Israel or by its citizens. It must be trusted to be a smart, ethical army that will prepare well for Israel’s contingencies and treat its own soldiers with care and concern, just as it will treat its enemies harshly while ethically sparing their non-combatants from harm.

Story about this.

Another story about this.

Yet another story about this.

Peace Now has leaked an Israeli government report that claims that about 38% of settlement land in Judea and Samaria, AKA the West Bank, is privately owned by Palestinians. If true, and there seems to be some truth to the report even if ultimately the numbers are not as high as depicted here, this is a bombshell for a number of reasons.

First of all, it is entirely illegal to build outposts or settlements on somebody else’s privately owned land in a territory. Not only does this violate international law, but even if one subscribes to the Israeli government’s view that international laws such as the Geneva Convention don’t apply to the Territories, such construction is a violation of Israeli law. Peace Now claims it is a violation of a Basic Law and there is a High Court ruling from the ’70s that agrees with this view.

Second, not only are many outposts and settlements built on private Palestinian lands according to this report, but large sections of towns and settlements that most Israelis consider part of Israel, such as Giv’at Ze’ev (a Jerusalem suburb) are built on private Palestinian land. Giv’at Ze’ev’s area is built over land that is 44% private Palestinian land. In the NY Times article that came out tonight about this story, they describe a legal victory by a Palestinian over Giv’at Ze’ev over a building that was built on his land. The ruling, in his favor, has not been enforced in 7 years. A Giv’at Ze’ev town council member claims that the building is actually outside the town and its jurisdiction, although this seems to be a convenient fiction. The building is a synagogue.

Third, it turns out that over 40% of the area West of the Security Fence is privately owned by Palestinians including an incredible 86% of Ma’aleh Edumim, the huge town a few minutes away from the Jerusalem city line. This is an area that Israel assumed it would keep in any peace negotiation, just as it assumes that ultimately some parts of the West Bank will remain in its possession.

Fourth, while the claims do ring true that land has been purchased by Jews from Palestinians but the Palestinians wish to keep quiet about it, it is hard to believe that 40% of the land has been purchased. Another question mark is how this land came into private ownership and when it came into the possession of the Palestinians. Obviously, the past century has been a very active one in this area and there was no concept of private land ownership until the mid-1800s.

The definitions of private and state land are complicated, given different administrations of the West Bank going back to the Ottoman Empire, the British mandate, Jordan and now Israel. During the Ottoman Empire, only small areas of the West Bank were registered to specific owners, and often villagers would hold land in common to avoid taxes. The British began a more formal land registry based on land use, taxation or house ownership that continued through the Jordanian period.

Large areas of agricultural land are registered as state land; other areas were requisitioned or seized by the Israeli military after 1967 for security purposes, but such requisitions are meant to be temporary and must be renewed, and do not change the legal ownership of the land, Mr. Dror, the Civil Administration spokesman, said.

But the issue of property is one that Israeli officials are familiar with, even if the percentages here may come as a surprise and may be challenged after the publication of the report.

It may be that both of these issues minimize the 38% number somewhat, but will probably not come close to where it should be according to Israeli law which is 0%.

Fifth, while this is news that many will not wish to hear, it cannot be ignored. As long as Israel doesn’t annex Judea and Samaria, it is simply not permitted to build or have its citizens built communities and homes on private land. Needless to say, it also raises painful moral issues and it is not enough to brush them away by claiming that God gave Jews this land or that the state of Israel knew what was going on here. Ultimately, in case anybody hadn’t noticed yet, the Palestinians cannot be ignored and legitimate grievances must be addressed in a manner that is equitable to both sides.

This is not the end of the world, however (sorry, Evangelical Christians who are waiting for it), since there may be mechanisms to rectify this problem. Unfortunately for Israel’s current government, these solutions involve peace negotiations, eventual reparations and probably a serious land swap (Lieberman fans are probably salivating at the sound of that). In fact, it seems Olmert has given this some thought already:

Asked about Israeli seizure of private Palestinian land in an interview with The Times last summer, before these figures were available, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: “Now I don’t deny anything, I don’t ignore anything. I’m just ready to sit down and talk. And resolve it. And resolve it in a generous manner for all sides.”

He said the 1967 war was a one of self-defense. Later, he said: “Many things happened. Life is not frozen. Things occur. So many things happened, and as a result of this many innocent individuals on both sides suffered, were killed, lost their lives, became crippled for life, lost their family members, their loved ones, thousands of them. And also private property suffered. By the way, on all sides.”

Mr. Olmert says Israel will keep some 10 percent of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, possibly in a swap for land elsewhere. The area Israel intends to keep is roughly marked by the route of the unfinished separation barrier, which cuts through the West Bank…

Israel’s High Court has ruled that gay marriages conducted abroad must be recognized by the state of Israel. The government is balking at this decision, but as I understand it, it’s now going to be legally binding.

In a precedent-setting ruling, the High Court of Justice on Tuesday ruled that five gay couples wedded outside of Israel can be registered as married couples, Army Radio reported.

A sweeping majority of six Justices in favor and one against ruled that the common-law marriages of five gay couples obtained in Toronto, Canada, can appear as married on the population registry.

The gay petitioners sought to force the state to give equal recognition to common law marriages of heterosexual couples to those of gay marriages, which can be performed in certain countries.

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel that filed the petition on the behalf of the couples, argued before the court that the Interior Ministry’s refusal to register them as married compromises their right to equality and to hold family life, and is based on “homophobe social perceptions.”

The court rejected the position of the State Attorney, that states recognizing single-sex marriages cannot expect Israel to recognize such nuptial agreements drawn in these countries.

On the very same day it has been reported that Chief Rabbi Amar, who was behind the Israeli Rabbinate’s refusal a couple of months ago to accept certain Orthodox conversions conducted in the US, has submitted a request to Olmert to stop accepting any foreign converts from any streams as Jews upon their arrival in Israel.

Chief Sephardi Rabbi Shlomo Amar has proposed amending the Law of Return so that converts to all three principal streams of Judaism – Reform, Conservative and Orthodox – would no longer be eligible for automatic Israeli citizenship.

In an interview with Israel Radio Tuesday morning, Amar commented on his proposal.

“We don’t want a situation where the Law of Return and the rights that it grants are being used indiscriminately,” Amar said. “[The proposal] relates to the conversion aspect of the Law of Return, and to those who convert. They are able to come as citizens through other laws, and that is fine. They can come and request citizenship. There are a lot of people that do this, and of course they will be considered.”

If Amar’s proposal is approved by the Knesset, only Jews born to a Jewish mother or other relatives of Jews currently covered by the Law of Return would be entitled to automatic citizenship.

Sources close to Amar said the proposal was presented to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday in the hope that the cabinet would sponsor it as a bill in the Knesset.

Nobody has said what the legal status will be of a gay man who makes aliyah after he converts to Judaism with a Reform rabbi in the US and then marries in Canada an Israeli-born gay man who served in the IDF but was born to Russian olim where the wife (his mother) has questionable Jewish lineage.

Haaretz reports that President GW Bush gave the ok for a center to be built in Israel in his name:

President George Bush was informed on Tuesday of an initiative to establish a center under his name in Israel, as a sign of gratitude for his support for the country and its security. Outgoing Israeli Ambassador to the United States Daniel Ayalon asked Bush for the go-ahead to establish such a center during a farewell meeting with the president and his deputy, Dick Cheney. Bush told Ayalon that “freedom” would be a worthy subject for the center to focus on.

Ayalon has yet to approach donors with a request to finance the establishment of the “Bush Center” in Israel, but does not expect to encounter difficulties when it comes to raising the funds. The outgoing ambassador will continue to work on the matter with White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten.

First, I love that they’re calling Cheney Bush’s “deputy.” Reminds me of Deputy Dawg. Or a deputy sheriff in a small western town, plagued by local saloon-plunderers, shootouts at high noon, and an abundance of tumbleweed.

And secondly, I think this is another proof of the prophecy of Ben Stiller, who, with his seminal fashion model classic, “Zoolander“, predicted that there would be a “Derek Zoolander Center For Children Who Can’t Read Good And Wanna Learn To Do Other Stuff Good Too,” where the slogan is, “we teach you that there’s more to life than being really, really good looking.”

With Borat on the minds of most American Jews, a man who cringes at the sight of Jews, one might think that this Central Asian republic is Judenrien. Well, there are Jews in Kazakhstan. As it says on Mitsva.kz: They have 35,000 Jews and two capitals. Sounds very Jewish.

On a recent speaking tour, Rabbi Shevach Zlotopolsky of Almaty, Kazakhstan, principal of the Ohr Avner Jewish School, a traditional faith-based school and orphanage in Almaty with 200 Jewish children as enrolled students as well as another 20 orphans spoke to in Sharon, MA.

The organizers of the event in Sharon, a couple that had gone to Kazachstan to adobt, have now become unofficial ambassadors for the country’s small Jewish community.

Our main goals for this presentation and our ongoing efforts overall is raise money and awareness for the school and for the Jewish community in Kazakhstan. Part of this is to let people know even that there is a Jewish community in Kazakhstan,” said Marsha Schaffel at the presentation event.

And who else is going to go to such a far-flung place, and open up a Jewish school and orphanage? Well, what movement would go there… Hmmm.

According to the Jewish Virtual Library:

Today, between 12,000 and 30,000 Jews live in Kazakhstan. They are predominately Russian-speaking and identify with Russian culture. Approximately 2,000 are Bukharian and Tat (Caucasion Mountain Jews). Almaty is the main Jewish center of the country, with approximately 10,000. Smaller Jewish communities are spread out across this large country (four times the size of Texas) in places such as Karaganda, Chimkent, Astana, Semiplatinsk, Kokchetav, Dzhambul, Uralsk, Aktyubinsk, Petropavlovsk and several villages.

(more…)

This is apparently a photo of the annual gathering of many Chabad rabbis and their associates who are involved in outreach to the broader communities. There are many more photos (gallery one, gallery two) of what seems truly strange and incredible to me. Do they believe that this is really what the God of the Israelites envisioned way back at Mount Sinai?

Hat tip: Mentalblog