by Y-Love [➚] · Tuesday, May 8th, 2007
The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies have released their census projections for the near future for Jerusalem. The Holy City has seen a Jewish population increase of 140% since it was reunified in the Six Day War. On the “Arab” side, however, the population has increased 257% over the same period, outpacing their Jewish counterparts by 83%.
And according to the statisticians, it’s not that Palestinians are moving in, it’s that Israelis are moving out. If current population trends continue, Jerusalem is in for a huge demographic shift.
On This is Babylon I attempt to give some insight as to what is driving this demographic shift in the Holy City.
Because if these statisticians are correct, we may be the among the last generations to remember a majority-Jewish Jerusalem.
On the other hand, statisticians have been known to exaggerate.
by Y-Love [➚] · Friday, May 4th, 2007
The JTA today breaks the news: Roseanne Barr’s Christian now.
Roseanne Barr says she follows Christ and that “millions of Jews are not Zionists.”
The comedienne, who has touted her Jewish birth and upbringing in the past, told fans on her blog that she could no longer consider a mainstream TV talk show career “because I have opinions that are not sanctioned by the powers that be who refuse to allow even one dissenting voice over the airwaves of television.”
She added, “I truly believe that millions of Jews are not Zionists, and that even if they are, they do not support Israeli occupation. I believe that Jews all over this planet choose peace in the Middle East over the never-ending death machine of hatred and division and terror that exists there now. I am a Kabbalist, as was Jesus Christ…(the one whom I follow). He tells me to seek first the Kingdom inside of my soul, and leave the rest to Him.”
Et tu, Roseanne? I mean, first it was Dr. Laura repudiating her Judaism, and now you, too, Roseanne?
Ignoring the blatant implications of the “powers that be” line (“Zionist-controlled media” I’m sure didn’t have as much panache), Roseanne’s declaration of anti-faith is unique in that it ties Christianity into Kabbalah. The painting of the founder of Christianity as an ancient Kabbalist may actually do wonders for the Kabbalah Centre — maybe they’ll finally sell a red string to Pat Robertson.
by Y-Love [➚] · Thursday, April 12th, 2007
The Conservative Movement‘s debate over whether or not to implement a new “tzedek hechsher” reflecting a particular company’s compliance with extra-dietary standards of Jewish Law was the subject of an article today in the Jewish Exponent:
Jewish law clearly has a lot to say, of course, about ritual slaughter, and the proper preparation of kosher meat and poultry. There’s also plenty in the Torah and Talmud that focuses on employer-employee relationships, and the ethics of how to treat workers.
Except for a few historical cases where rabbinical authorities tried to link the two issues, generally, they’ve been considered sperate spheres.
But a newly formed commission created by the Conservative movement is calling attention to conditions faced by workers at kosher-meat plants. The Commission of Inquiry is weighing whether or not to call for a “Tsedek Hekhsher,” combining the Hebrew word for justice with the traditional term for kosher certification.
The initiative would create a process to certify that kosher meat and chicken were prepared in an environment where workers are paid fairly and on time, treated with dignity and receive adequate safety training.
I’m livid about this. Not about the Conservative movement doing hechsherim, or about the difference in standards in what can be called “kosher” by law.
What I simply can not understand is, “where are the Orthodox in all this”? A particular kashrus organization was lauded for its requiring compliance to laws of alcoholic consumption for its hechsher, while entire segments of Jewish Law are relegated to virtual irrelevance.
On Thisisbabylon.net I go into much more detail about this, and I attempt to show that, when it comes to kashrut, many questions — of actual codified Jewish Law — are being sorely left unasked…yet I still can’t drink the water in Brooklyn.
by Y-Love [➚] · Thursday, March 29th, 2007
Someone please enlighten me: just what…in the hell…is this?
As the Washington Post blog tells us:
Rove, well aware that these affairs are overly produced, became part of the headline entertainment at last night’s annual Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner. He was cajoled on stage by the comedians from the ABC show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” And he flubbed his first line.
The improv skit quickly turned from random and uncomfortably weird to riotous when Mochrie and Sherwood led Rove in a rap song in which Rove played a rapper — “M.C. Rove” — and danced and hopped around on stage. He got really into it, at one point pulling out his cell phone and blackberry, taking multi-tasking to new heights.
USA Today has their take on it, complete with the priceless call-and-response:
“What’s your name?”
“I’m M.C. Rove.”
You’ll just have to see the video.
by Y-Love [➚] · Monday, March 26th, 2007
In Orange, Texas last week, a parole officer filed a lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice alleging that he had endured, over the prior thirteen years, more than enough racism, and the camel’s proverbial back had been broken:
Freddie Hackney Jr. endured a lot of racial and religious prejudices over the 13 years as a parole officer for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice before he stood up for himself.
Hackney, 43, filed a lawsuit in February with the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Beaumont Division. The suit is against not only TDCJ, but also his former supervisor James Gossett Jr.
Hackney continues to work as a parole officer, but Gossett was reportedly given an ultimatum to resign or be fired and he has since resigned from his job and is now working at a local restaurant.
“I cannot continue to be abused for being born. I will not apologize for being the man God made me. I can no longer continue to be TDCJ’s ‘whipping boy,’†said Hackney in a written statement.
Hackney lost his faith in internal investigations shortly after starting his job. He came into work one morning and found the words “nigger you talk you die†spray painted in large letters on his wall. Everyone in the office was forced to work at alternate location during an investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
In the weeks prior to Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, Hackney submitted a request in writing to be allowed to take the day off in lieu of another traditional holiday. Gossett advised Hackney he had used the wrong form for his request.
Hackney then submitted a second request to be able to observe in his religious freedoms. However, Gossett refused to sign and approve the requests, according to the petition filed with the court.
However, the petition states two other co-workers were allowed to take off from work to observe Ash Wednesday, a Catholic holiday.
Analysis of the story shows: what Mr. Hackney received at the hands of his co-workers were largely racist in nature, calling him a “gorilla”, “nigger” on the wall, etc. And, might I add, indicative of a brain activity level one usually finds only in the demographic for adult diapers. Mr. Gossett’s crime vis-a-vis the racism was largely a crime of omission. Mr. Gossett’s crime of commission was anti-Semitic in nature, the active denial of equal accommodations for religious sensibilities.
The combination of these two facts makes my heart go out to Mr. Hackney even more. To turn to an authority in the face of racism is quite a hard thing to do — especially when the EEOC, with all of their high-falutin’ official paperwork and pomp, gets called in to investigate a warning of “talk and you die.” But then to find that authority to be anti-Semitic, only to be sent back into the sea of racists?
I think that this coming Passover, considering that Mr. Hackney has only recently become free of his unsafe working environment, for Mr. Hackney to “see himself as if he was just released…from the house of bondage” should prove itself to be an easy mental endeavor. The torture of receiving abuse for two different reasons from two different groups of people at one workplace, I’m sure, was Mr. Hackney’s personal “egypt” this year from which he prayed for redemption. It is also my sincere hope that Mr. Hackney’s case draws attention to the precarious situations of other Jews of color going through similar trials.
And to top it off, Mr. Hackney is not seeking punitive damages, only a public admission that he had been wronged. What a mensch.
by Y-Love [➚] · Monday, March 19th, 2007
For the sake of peace among men, so that no one could say to another, “My father was greater than your father†… to proclaim the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, for when a human being strikes many coins from one mould, they all resemble one another, but the supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, fashioned every man in the stamp of the first man, and yet not one of them resembles his fellow. (Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5)
Racism isn’t always easy to spot. But on one day in 1960 in South Africa, racism showed its ugliest of heads in the form of the Sharpeville Massacre.
In South Africa of the 1950s, “pass laws” were the law of the land, stating, among other things:
Pass laws required that Africans had to carry identity documents with them at all times. These books had to contain stamps providing official proof that that the person in question had permission to be in a town at that time. Initially only men were forced to carry these books, but soon law also compelled women to carry the dreaded documents.
According to Section 10 (1a-d) of the 1954 Native Urban Areas Act Africans could only stay in an urban area for more than 12 hours if they:
a) Had been born there and had lived there ever since.
b) Had worked there for ten years under one employer, or had lived there for 15 years without breaking any law (including pass laws)
c) Were the child or wife of a man permitted to live in the urban area on the conditions of (a) or (b) mentioned above.
d) Signed a contract to migrate from a rural reserve to a specific job for a limited period of time in an urban area after which they must return home.
Contract workers’ families were not allowed to join them in an urban area.
On March 21, 1960, members of the Pan Africanist Congress, beating out their brethren at the African National Congress by 10 days, scheduled a protest against the racist pass laws. Their peaceful protest — which was to have as its climax handing the passes in in a show of defiance — was met by South African police opening fire on approximately 300 demonstrators and killing 69 of them. The day would, almost 35 years later, be declared the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination by the United Nations, and Human Rights Day in South Africa.
This year’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has as its theme “Racism and Discrimination – Obstacles to Development†according to the press release, and the UN ends its release with an exhortation:
The United Nations, through its lawmaking, human rights monitoring and awareness-raising roles, has an important part to play in the fight against racial discrimination. But each and every one of us must also make a stand: we must disavow discriminatory and intolerant acts in our personal lives and speak out forcefully against them in the public sphere.
Let us mark this International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination by recommitting ourselves to the equality of all human beings, and by resolving to make every effort to realize this simple, yet powerful, ideal.
Amen.
by Y-Love [➚] · Wednesday, March 14th, 2007
At the nexus of brand marketing and contemporary Torah Judaism you will find this blog, where I ask the question, “Who is Moshiach’s target market?”
Jewish tradition is replete with phrases regarding the generation to which Moshiach will come. The generation to experience the Messianic transition is to be “(brazen-)faced as a dog”, is to “thirst for the words of G-d”, and so on. Today, our classification systems are less likely to offer an animal analogy as they are to rely on psychographic, consumer research, or demographic data.
I proffer that Web 2.0, social networking, and social marketing — buzzwords which are becoming the lifeblood of the new marketing arenae — provide a uniquely pro-Messianic environment.
So who is Moshiach destined for? The collaborators, the individualists, or the workaholics? The “early adopters” or the “echo boomers”?
Baruch Hashem for BrandWeek.
by Y-Love [➚] · Sunday, March 11th, 2007
I was introduced to a blogger today who might have forever gone unnoticed in the Jewish blogosphere. A blogger who, honestly, may have lived and died, without so much as a blurb in the news media.
Avraham lives in Mogadishu, Somalia. A 19 year old young man who lives with his mother, he paints out a picture of what his daily life is like as a “Yahud” in Mogadishu where, in his words, 99% of the people are Muslim.
He speaks nostalgically of back when “the government used to have control” of the Islamic courts, and daydreams sometimes about returning to Yemen — where there are at least “more Jewish people”. But he knows, he could never leave his mother (presumably, alone) in Mogadishu.
A blog from a point of view I have never heard before, which really puts words like “exile” and even the entire holiday of Purim into a new perspective for me. I only hope Avraham can keep blogging.
Meet Avraham and his mother. Visit AvrahamShanshi.blogspot.com.
by Y-Love [➚] · Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
The British WorkplaceLaw.net printed a story which I think could prove groundbreaking in the area of labor law and race relations. A white, British native-born worker has been given the go-ahead to make her case in an Employment Tribunal on claims she was racially harassed by “jokes” insulting black people:
A white woman who claims she was racially harassed by “jokes” insulting black people has won the right to take her case to an Employment Tribunal.
Pat Gravell claims that, despite being white and British, she was harassed by jokes and comments made by colleagues because she found them distressing and offensive.
She says that colleagues sent her texts referring to black people as monkeys, and made offensive references to the mixed-race marriage of comedians Dawn French and Lenny Henry.
According to Gravell, her former employer Bexley Council actively did nothing to stamp out this type of racism; she hopes her claim will force employers to tackle casual racism in their workplace.
A tribunal had originally struck out her claim last September, because it believed that her claim had no reasonable prospect of success.
“Casual racism”. Not to be distinguished from formal, black tie racism, “casual racism” is often sorely overlooked in American society, often referred to as “understandable”, “unavoidable”, or even “natural.” One can also find it defended, with attempts to stamp out usage of racial slurs rendering one branded as a member of the “grammar police” or vigilance against it being deterred in favor of “just letting people be.”
Ms. Gravell was having none of this.
During [her] original claim, Gravell alleged the Council discouraged staff from challenging racist remarks made by their clients, and that a manager told her that the cost of tackling racist behaviour by staff, by sending them on a course, would be “prohibitive”.
An Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has now ruled that her case does have merit and that Gravell can proceed with her claim. The EAT said the fact that Gravell is white is not a “killer blow”, and her claim should be judged on its merits.
Bexley Council denies creating an environment in which racism could flourish, and intends to launch a Court of Appeal challenge to the EAT’s ruling.
An environment in which racism could flourish no doubt creates the “uncomfortable” work environment proscribed by EEOC regulations in America — when racism is allowed to flourish, the workplace becomes unfit for all workers. That being said, it is not surprising, in fact it is almost logical, that a white person would be affected. The dearth of claims like this leads me to one of two conclusions — either that one’s privileged status renders the “boat” too comfortable to be “rocked” by a discrimination claim from which one would not benefit, or that people are, en masse desensitized to our fellow humans’ suffering.
Wanting to judge humanity favorably, I’m more inclined to say the former. It is my most sincere hope that claims like Ms. Gravell’s, ken yirbu, are voiced in more and more venues, in the widest, whitest and wiliest of arenas. It is only then that “casual racism” will begin to be taken as seriously as its uglier, more “formal” counterpart.
by Y-Love [➚] · Tuesday, February 20th, 2007
“E noi che siamo donne, paura non abbiamo
La base non vogliamo, la base non vogliamo.â€
And we who are women are not afraid
We don’t want the base, we don’t want the base.
This past Saturday saw the Italian town of Vicenza embroiled in a fierce protest, with up to 200,000 residents taking to the streets to voice their opposition to the planned US military base to open in their town. The Atlantic Free Press reports:
The women singing and chanting at the head of the massive march on February 17 in the picturesque Italian town of Vicenza have been fighting to stop a U.S. military base from being built in their community….Unlike campaigns organized by activists or political parties, this movement sprang from the community itself. The main organizers are Italian women, many of them housewives who were outraged when they learned that a US military base would be built on the site of an old airfield called Dal Molin. The old airfield, which is now a green space, is right next to their homes and is less than two miles from the city’s historic center.
Many residents also worry that the new base will make Vicenza a target for a terrorist attack. “With the Bush policies causing so much resentment in the world, such a large base could get us caught up in Bush’s wars,†said Vicenza resident Anna Faggi.
The expansion would effectively raise American military presence in the area over 60% to 4,500, and the new base is being planned to be able to “house the full 173rd Airborne Brigade”, a “quick response force” for Europe.
While this project is part of a larger initiative to reduce American military presence in Europe, the new base is scheduled to cost $576 million and be completed by 2011.
These protestors are not people who are anti-American, they are only people who want their city — which was already dedicated a “world heritage site” by UNESCO in 1994 for its architecture — to be used for peaceful purposes, for purposes they determine themselves, without another military base. They are residents who feel betrayed by their government. An additional American presence is not the problem, as one resident stated:
Gina Masi, a 17-year-old from Vicenza dressed in punk-style black with lots of spiked metal, came running up to me afterwards, in tears. “Please tell your people that we are not anti-American,†she insisted. “Look at me. My clothes are American, the music I love is American. Even my boots are American Eagle. But we want to relate to Americans through culture and music, not military bases and war.â€
Unfortunately, some Americans don’t want to be related to positively.
To aid these women in their wonderful, worthwhile cause of helping to stop the spread of American global militarism, email medea@globalexchange.org to offer your help.
by Y-Love [➚] · Wednesday, February 14th, 2007
When was the last time one hundred percent of American Jews agreed on anything?
Apparently, 2004.
100 percent of Jews said that the war in Iraq was their “one issue that mattered most” in the 2004 election, according to Pew Research.
Number caring about the economy, corruption, corporate abuse, or anything else: 0%.
by Y-Love [➚] · Monday, February 12th, 2007
The newest imported delicacy in Israel: anti-Semitism!
YNet reports:
Here is a phenomenon that none of the authorities in Israel want to deal with: Anti-Semitism by people who have come from the Soviet Union, and who use the word ‘Jew’ as a legitimate curse. Number of incidents is on the rise
“I was walking my dog in Tel Aviv. When I went to cross the street there was a drunk- looking man standing next to me. My dog got scared and started to bark at him. I apologized and continued walking. I suddenly felt someone push me and I fell on the floor. The drunken man pushed me to the ground, took the leash and started to choke the dog. He was screaming at me “Stinking Zhidovka! (A derogatory name for a Jew in Russian). You Jews destroyed Russia and disturb all the normal people living hereâ€. (Ella Shapira, a Russian immigrant)
“Everyone sweeps the issue of anti-Semitism in Israel under the rug†says Zalman Glichevsky, the president of the organization. “There is a leading skinhead website, and I discovered that they have a discussion group which includes Russian speakers from Israelâ€. Glichevsky, who immigrated to Israel in the early nineties, began to investigate the matter. He put an ad in a newspaper for Russian speakers and appealed to anyone who had ever experienced anti-Semitism in Israel.
Russian immigrants beating Jewish immigrants
“To my surpriseâ€, he tells, “I received hundreds of responses and I continue to receive them today….Shapira is angered by the comprehensive disregard of the problem. “This is a subject that no one likes or is afraid to speak of. For the workers in the Jewish Agency, bringing new immigrants to Israel is a good business, many people profit from it. But they are bringing people who have no connection to Judaism, and some who have been brought up to hate it. I often encounter these situations…a few weeks ago I went into a clothing store and the two saleswomen began to talk about me in Russian: ‘Here is a dirty Jew, she is going to touch everything and make it dirty.’ They were shocked when I answered them in Russian and explained to them that it is forbidden to speak that wayâ€.
I fail to understand how any Israeli government agency can live with itself when converts are called for to be excluded from the Law of Return, but this comes in under the auspices of the same law. And even under the proposed changes, it still won’t alleviate this problem but perhaps even exacerbate it, as the new conditions, “alternatively”, call for Israeli citizenship to be offered to “relatives of Jews currently covered by the Law of Return.” (Granted, charedi leaders don’t back the proposed legislation, but still.)
Observant Ethiopian Jews who came to Israel — who by any other standards in Edut ha’Mizrach would be charedi — were told flatly that their lineage was not provably Jewish and that they would have to convert. Yet members of Nazi organizations are allowed to operate with no question in their status as Jews? Officials talk seriously about barring Ethiopian immigrants from even entering one town, but immigrants from Europe are given carte blanche? This can happen?
I can’t help but fault, at least partially, if not by commission then by omission, Tzafon Tel Aviv Ashkenazi elitism and ethnocentricity for allowing this to happen. I’m not generalizing — the majority of the perpetrators of anti-Semitic incidents within Israeli borders are “Russian-speaking youth”, some the “descendents of Jews” — were there an influx of “descendents of Jews” (70% of whom do not qualify as Jews under Jewish Law) from Arabic-speaking countries bringing with them Hamas mindsets, I highly doubt it would be tolerated to this point.
500 incidents in 2001? An increase in 2003? Authentic Jews have to go around gathering signatures of rabbis and re-converting (or re-marrying, or re-divorcing) — and there’s this?
I’m pissed off and this can not be tolerated in any capacity. There has yet to be any serious talk of reducing the unchecked immigration from Eastern Europe — in anywhere near the same capacity as it’s been spoken of for their Ethiopian or Indian counterparts. Other than racism, I fail to see why. I fail to see any more of a detrimental element the Jewish state could possibly contain. Nazi activity? Even if there’s “no chance” of them “gaining any power.”
If there’s any pressing issue that calls for the revamping of the Law of Return, it for damn sure is not some underpaid Thai worker.
It’s ha’Reich ha’Shlishi.
by Y-Love [➚] · Monday, February 5th, 2007
I am a product of kiruv institutions. I learned in Ohr Somayach yeshivot, I pray in Chaba”d houses, I have friends who work for Aish Discovery and Gateways. I get literature from JEP, JEMM, JAM, and every other monosyllabic organization beginning with J purporting to be the organization that “has brought back so many Jews to Torah”.
In light of this, I don’t even know what to say when I read articles like this.
I understand the sentiment, and I empathize, and can even partially identify. But Uri Orbach’s “Please Don’t Come For Shabbat” piece in YNet today caught me off guard and, in my opinion, is lamentably counterproductive:
Do me a favor, secular friends, don’t come over for Shabbat. I simply can not handle your adorable little Tomer turning off the light in the bathroom…
Please don’t come over on Shabbat. With your never-turned-off cellular phone and the visible pack of cigarettes you clumsily try to hide.
Don’t come visiting on Shabbat, not even if you call in advance. If we happen to invite you – please politely decline. Because it pushes our buttons. We with our “mishigas,” our rules and our old habits. We will ask you to arrive before sundown so you don’t desecrate the most holy day of the week, and after dinner we’ll pretend not to know you drive your car back home. That’s not our business…
Just imagine what having secular guests on Shabbat means. Welcome to hell: lights turned on and off by mistake, toilet paper ripped, text messages flying, toasts popping, yarmulkes falling, kids turning on the TV. Our own children, innocent of the taste of sin, are tempted by a life of atheism…Go explain to the kid in the hip-hopish hairdo why you simply cannot serve pancakes on Saturday morning and why the TV is off limits…
Yes, some of my best friends are secular, but on Shabbat I pretend I don’t have any. I love them, I cherish them but I won’t call them and they don’t call me.
Don’t come on Shabbat, stop by on Sunday, Monday, and bring all of your kids with you. But not on Shabbat. It’s too complicated. One Shabbat – two nations.
One commenter, Reuven from Ra’anana who is no stranger to anyone who reads YNet Talkbacks, puts it quite starkly:
…I still shudder when I think about how far down and how far removed secularism has schlepped the Jews of Israel. We really need do need a two-state solution.
So it’s being said now. Two Israels: one for the religious, one for the secular. While I even fall prey to giving this idea positive lip service (because, let’s face it, from both sides it does seem tempting at times), is it a serious proposition that to divide an already minuscule portion of “Jewish land” among religious and non-religious Jews would be a good thing?
Perhaps we’re a long way from piyus. Perhaps we’re a long way from 100% peaceful coexistence.
But surely we can’t have to build another wall.
Shabbat is complex, and to the religious person, it is too important to have one’s electrical preparations set asunder by toddling Tomer.
But, “two nations”? “Two state solutions” for religious and secular Jews? Such legislation should never even be spoken of. The negative far more than nullifies the positive.
by Y-Love [➚] · Thursday, February 1st, 2007
From USA Today:
Comedian Al Franken has decided to run for the U.S. Senate from Minnesota in 2008, a senior Democratic official from Minnesota said Wednesday.
Franken told the official, who did not want to be identified because Franken has not made an announcement, that he had decided to run in a recent conversation. Andy Barr, the political director of Franken’s Midwest Values Political Action Committee, declined to comment.
The news was not unexpected. Franken has been calling members of the Minnesota congressional delegation to get their input on a run, and he announced this week that he would be leaving his show on Air America Radio on Feb. 14. He told listeners he would be making a decision on a race soon.
In a statement, Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey said he was confident Minnesotans “will reject Franken’s divisive, scorched-earth attacks.”
I don’t know how many of Jewschool’s readers are as firmly entrenched in the Al Franken fan base as I am. Air America was — and still is — the destination for many of us to hear intelligent talk from people who think like us and not like them.
Perhaps a cynic with biting sarcasm is what the Senate floor needs. One can only wonder what Al Franken would have quipped to the 9/11 Commission, during Supreme Court confirmations, to the Iraq Study Group.
Minnesotans elected a professional wrestler governor, and that governor went on to garner the highest approval ratings of any governor in Minnesota history. They elected a halal-observant representative. If Franken’s platform has merit, I have a feeling that Minnesota will be one place he will surely be heard out instead of typecast as a “media personality”.
Eat your heart out, Sean Hannity.
by Y-Love [➚] · Thursday, January 25th, 2007
There simply is no limit to Israeli ingenuity.
A hat tip to Israel @ LG for turning me on (no pun intended) to something I had never even thought of before.
Edible lampshades.
Shuli Levin’s lampshades look so good you could almost eat them. But rather than cultivate the squash-like gourds that grow outside his studio in Bnei Zion, a moshav north of Ra’anana, for food, the intrepid Israeli industrial designer transforms their fibers into hip, cutting-edge eye candy for the home.
A graduate of Tel Aviv’s Ascola School of Design, Levin launched Studio Shulime (Studio on the Fringes) in 2003, staunchly adhering to the principles of sustainable design: recycling, reuse of materials and reducing the amount of virgin material needed for the production of his light fixtures and furniture.
“There is such a thing as positive consumption,” Levin told ISRAEL21c. “I want to return a sense of environmental awareness to Israel.”
Can’t help but love the sentiment, and the lampshades don’t look half bad either.
“You’ll never believe what they’re doing with squash these days!”
by Y-Love [➚] · Thursday, January 25th, 2007
First impression upon reading this breaking story from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: someone decided to re-release an excerpt from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, translating into Russian, and changing some key facts.
But lamentably, this is no macabre attempt at humor, this is an official statement from a Russian legislator:
Jews are attempting to commit genocide against ethnic Russians, a Russian lawmaker claims in a recent article.
Nikolai Kolomiytsev, a former State Parliament deputy and member of the Russian Communist Party’s Central Committee, wrote the article, which was posted on the party’s Web site, according to a Jan. 18 report on antisemitizmu.net.
The article accuses Jews of causing unemployment and promulgating drug addiction and alcoholism in an attempt to undermine the naturally “collectivist†nature of Slavic peoples, thus hastening their extinction.
Promulgating drug addiction and alcoholism? Jews bringing down Gentile morality? This isn’t even original!
The Russian Communist Party, besides being notoriously anti-Semitic, is attempting to re-unify the former Soviet Union under a socialist banner. The party’s head, Gennady Zyuganov, plans to run for president of Russia in 2008. They got 16.75% of the vote in Moscow in 2005 — and in the arctic district of Nenetsia, they received 27% of the vote and beat Putin’s United Russia party.
They received 13.7% of the popular vote in the election which saw Vladimir Putin become the new president.
When an official party’s lawmaker says such things about Jews — and this party is getting parliamentary seats in various regions (Georgia’s region of Abhkazia also enlisted their support for its Communist Party) — and 51 out of 450 national parliamentary seats in 2003 — one can not help but notice.
by Y-Love [➚] · Wednesday, January 24th, 2007
Plans for permanent housing for Jewish settlers removed from Gaza, after over ten months of bureaucracy, are now beginning to come to fruition, the Jerusalem Post reported yesterday.
As JPost reports:
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged on Tuesday to start building new homes for 400 Gaza evacuee families in the Lachish region, between Jerusalem and Beersheva within six months.
“There is no limit to the area’s potential,” said Olmert as he visited the empty construction site in the South.
“I would like, not in one year, but already within six months to come here again to see the tractors working and to breathe in the dust, to see the foundations being poured and the buildings rising,” he said. “There is no reason that this will not happen.”
Government plans call for creating seven new communities in Lachish with approximately 4,600 housing units. About 400 of the units have been earmarked for Gaza evacuees still living in temporary homes.
This is great, however, as Arutz Sheva reports, at least a few residents are skeptical the governments’ plans of permanent housing will ever be carried out, with their representative saying, “our faith will return when we see the tractors at work.”
However, one can not gloss over the glaring discrepancy in numbers:
According to the Disengagement Authority, only about 200 of the 1,350 Gaza families who plan to build new homes have received building lots from the state. The lots in Lachish have yet to be formally assigned.
So let us do the math: 200 of the original 1,350 families have received building lots from the state. An additional 400 lots will be assigned in Lachish. Even if we will assume that all of the housing is two-family housing, this would still be housing only for 1,000 families. This would still potentially leave 350 families still without lots to build homes on, still in trailers or hotels, still without permanent housing, 18 months after the Disengagement.
And, remember, we are talking about lots, not one new home has been actually built for the evacuees.
Some residents want to be relocated into communities resembling the communities they left — they want to be relocated with their neighbors, leaving social ties intact. It is highly unlikely that all residents with such feelings will have their requests met.
Housing and Construction Minister Meir Sheetrit adjoined his own feelings to PM Olmert’s pledge for housing:
“There is absolutely no justification for this. With all due respect, this is not the way to run things. This could have all been approved in a day,” he said.
Could have? Only history will verify the veracity of that statement. But one thing is for sure, it definitely should have. Relocating over one thousand families with no destination, no plan B, and no talks of a destination (as there is over a half-year gap between the Disengagement and the beginning of the talks which led to this Lachish project) is irresponsible at best, a crime against the humanity of one’s own population at worst.
In addition, even with these new construction plans, many of the evacuees’ needs will still be left sorely unfulfilled. Disengagement Administration head Zvia Shimon noted that while the construction is welcome, “alongside construction we need to find solutions for employment, education and welfare.” “Still need to find a solution for education” — does this mean that hundreds of kids are still without permanent schools?
Is Olmert’s “new vision” too little too late for the relocated settlers?
by Y-Love [➚] · Thursday, January 18th, 2007
The Talmud teaches in Yevamot – “converts are as harmful for Israel as an ailment of the skin.” The Tosafot, including one convert, commenting on this Talmudic teaching give various answers for why this could be.
None of the answers given there are as horrible as this.
From YNet:
Indictment: Jewish convert aided terror
Assaf Ben David, 39 year-old Palestinian convert to Judaism, charged with conspiring to aid his brother, a member of Islamic Jihad
The Haifa District Attorney’s Office filed an indictment at the Haifa District Court Thursday against Assaf Ben David for conspiring with the enemy, and having contact with a foreign agent.
The indictment accused Ben David of contacting his brother, a member of Islamic Jihad and other terror organizations with the intention of aiding in attacks against Israel.
Ben David, a 39 year-old Palestinian who converted to Judaism, left both his village and his religion to become haredi.
Born Husam Hafez Suafta in 1968, Ben David began the conversion process when he was about 25 years-old, and received his Israeli citizenship in 1996. He married an Israeli woman, with whom he has two children and two stepchildren who currently serve in the IDF.
So he converted — and became charedi — but in the end, perhaps blood is thicker than water. Perhaps his brother being in Islamic Jihad meant that he had to aid and abet Islamic Jihad. With that comes the destruction of Israel, and with that comes this indictment.
The sad part is the timing — or perhaps the journalists’ agenda. Converts’ status under the Law of Return is already under dispute, and this is only going to serve to make the situation worse. Indeed, the number 2 comment on the YNet article already reads:
2. I WAS RIGHT!!!! NO CONVERTS SHOULD BE ALLOWED INTO ISRAEL! (End)
Rabbi Amar, Jerusalem (01.18.07)
I wonder how he converted. If he converted under the Rabbanut, this is only another symptom of the problem: an overworked rabbinate which remain under an increasingly secular government.
My rav says that the Israeli government should get rid of the rabbinate altogether as a government agency. If this is the kind of oversight it’s doing, then how could one disagree?
And if this was an independent beis din, then there are three rabbis out there who have a huge task ahead of them — to be m’karev,to bring back to Judaism, the jihadi convert they converted, to send someone straight to Ramallah with hamin and kugel to bring him back to the charedi way of life to which they introduced him.
Their responsibility, having converted Mr. Ben-David, is no less — and they may even have a halachic imperative to do so.
Overseeing a conversion means creating a Jew – a responsibility not to be taken lightly. Hopefully this rude awakening will lead to creation of more safeguards to enable sincere converts and not, as I fear, the closing of doors for all those from all nations of the world who desire Torah.
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