People have every right to be angry about the government’s move. It just reneged on its agreement, and that isn’t right. Substantively, though, the government didn’t change the status quo.
There are four important aspects to the government’s decisions on Sunday relating to egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall and the conversion bill. The first is that by and large, the headlines of the stories distort rather than explain what the government decided.
The second is the nature of the American Jewish community’s response to the government’s moves.
The third important aspect of the story is what the government’s decisions tell us about how the government perceive Israel’s relations with the American Jewish community.
Finally, the aftershocks of the decisions tell us something important about the prospects for Jewish unity today.
To the first issue. From the headlines in the newspapers, it is easy to assume that the government just struck a blow at egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall plaza and changed for the worse the status of non-Orthodox conversions in Israel. But neither is the case.
As far as the Western Wall is concerned, the government decision doesn’t harm the egalitarian prayers at the holy site. For the past several years, egalitarian prayer services have been taking place regularly at Robinson’s Arch along the southern wall of the Temple Mount Plaza, just outside the archaeological park.
The area, easily accessible from the Dung Gate, is easier to reach by car and foot than the regular Western Wall complex.
In January 2016, after protracted negotiations with progressive American Jewish groups, the government agreed to connect the Robinson’s Arch complex to the Western Wall complex. The government also agreed that management responsibility for the egalitarian prayer area would be transferred from the ultra-Orthodox-controlled Western Wall Foundation, to a new body that would include representatives of Reform and Conservative Judaism as well.
On Sunday, the government reversed that decision.
People have every right to be angry about the government’s move. It just reneged on its agreement, and that isn’t right.
Substantively, though, the government didn’t change the status quo. It just chose not to change it.
While wrong, it doesn’t justify the vitriol being leveled at the government by American Jewish leaders threatening to rethink their support for Israel.
As for the conversion law, the government’s decision on Sunday should make the members of the American Jewish community angry, but not for the reasons they claim. The draft conversion law the government just approved doesn’t change the status of converts who were converted by non-Orthodox religious courts outside of Israel.
Twenty years ago, the Neeman Commission decided, with the agreement of the Reform and Conservative movements, that people who converted in Reform or Conservative conversions outside of Israel would receive citizenship if they chose to make aliya under the Law of Return. They would not, however, be registered as Jews for the purpose of marriage, divorce or burial by the state rabbinate.
This would remain the case under the proposed law.
The people who are harmed by the conversion law are the more than half a million Israeli citizens from the former Soviet Union who made aliya under the Law of Return because they have Jewish lineage, but are not halachicly Jewish because their mothers are not halachically Jewish.
As Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, the chief rabbi of Efrat and noted conversion expert, explains, “According to great halachic authorities like the former chief rabbi of Israel Rav Ben-Tzion Uziel, although [these Israeli citizens] are not formally Jewish and must undergo a formal conversion, ‘it is incumbent upon the Religious Court to convert them because they have Jewish seed (zera Yisrael).’” Riskin adds, “Of course, we must always encourage observance of the commandments, but the bottom line must be to love and embrace them; they are living in Israel and their children will be going to the IDF.”
Uziel’s ruling informs the conversion policies of religious-Zionist rabbis and conversion courts, but it is rejected by the ultra-Orthodox religious authorities who today exercise absolute control over state conversions.
When the Neeman Commission reached its accord with the Conservative, Reform and Orthodox Jewish authorities in 1997, the Orthodox authorities included both ultra-Orthodox and religious-Zionist, or Modern Orthodox, rabbinic authorities.
As a result, the assumption of the commission members was that the state conversions would be conducted in an atmosphere that reflected a plurality of views represented in the Orthodox Jewish world, including the view of Rav Uziel, which informs the judgment of religious-Zionist rabbinic authorities.
This assumption ceased to be correct however in 2004.
That year, then-prime minister Ariel Sharon’s coalition began unraveling. Sharon’s decision to adopt the policy of the Left and unilaterally withdraw from Gaza while destroying the Israeli communities in Gaza and northern Samaria and forcibly expelling their 10,000 residents tore his party and government apart. Sharon fired the ministers from the National Religious Party and the National Union.
To survive in office, Sharon had to retain the support of the ultra-Orthodox parties. To this end, he acceded to their demand to kick religious-Zionist rabbis out of the state rabbinate and replace them with ultra-Orthodox rabbis. Sharon’s move gave the ultra-Orthodox total control over all state conversions.
Since then, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis have used their absolute to cancel the conversions performed by the most senior rabbis in the religious-Zionist community. Some of the converts affected have been Jews for decades and raised Jewish children.
Their Judaism and that of their children was retroactively denied by the rabbinate.
The ultra-Orthodox rabbinic courts subject half a million Israeli citizens who made aliya under the Law of Return to humiliating and drawn-out conversion processes even though many of them have lived their entire lives as Jews in Israel.
Rather than be given consideration as Rav Uziel and the national-religious religious authorities prescribe, they are treated as though they never had any relationship with the Jewish people of which they have always considered themselves members.
Due to the progressive American Jewish groups’ enthusiastic support for the withdrawal from Gaza and the destruction of the Israeli communities in Gaza and northern Samaria, they did not object to Sharon’s move.
And now, by mischaracterizing the government- backed conversion bill as a slap in the face to Reform and Conservative converts, they miss the real reason they should be fighting the legislation.
They should be fighting the bill because a large majority of the members of their communities are intermarrying. The children of many of those marriages who want to make aliya will be subjected to the same humiliating conversion processes undertaken by the ultra-Orthodox state rabbinic courts as the half a million Israelis who are not registered as Jews with the Chief Rabbinate face.
The fact that this doesn’t seem to be a concern for them indicates two things. First, their anger over the proposed law is not substantive. The contents of the bill – from their perspective – do not change the status of their converts. They have been living at peace with that status, which they agreed to, for 20 years.
At the same time, the American Jewish leaders who threaten not to speak to or host Israeli politicians who support the bill, ignore the fact that the current law would doom the children of their intermarried community members to second-class status in Israel if they try to convert halachically in the framework of aliya, rather than ensuring that they are treated with the love and respect their deserve.
Along these lines, and in relation to the Israeli citizens from the former Soviet Union, Rabbi Riskin notes, “The entire fabric of Israeli society would be torn asunder if a division were made between Israelis and halachic Jews. The religious courts must do their utmost to expose them to basic Shabbat, festivals and kashrut observance, but the most important goal must be to bring them into the Covenant with the Jewish people. After all they have gone through because of their ‘Jewishness’ under the Communist regime, it behooves us to incorporate them within our Jewish collective as part of the miracle of the ingathering of the exiles.”
So both in the case of the government’s decision regarding the Western Wall and in relation to its decision regarding the draft conversion law, American Jewish leaders are reacting with fury unhinged from the substance of the decisions themselves.
They cry foul to perceived, but largely imaginary, slights while ignoring the real problem with the conversions bill.
This then brings us to the government, and what apparently motivated it to take action that so provoked the American Jewish leadership.
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, vice president of the Conservative Rabbinic Assembly, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of preferring momentary political advantage to the interests of the Jewish people. In her words, “The prime minister will do what he sees as beneficial for the next five minutes of his political life… There’s no possible way that the prime minister and his officials can argue they’re acting in the best interests of the State of Israel. They are betraying the citizens of the State of Israel in order to keep themselves in power for the next five minutes.”
While nasty, her criticism is not without foundation.
But what was Netanyahu’s alternative? If the American Jewish community flies off the handle and declares war against the government, threatening to blackball the elected leaders of the Jewish state when they adopt measures that while impolite have little substantive effect on their positions, then why should Israel take their views into account? If everything that the government does is terrible, then dialogue is reduced to recrimination. Sitting with progressive Jewish leaders from America means being subjected to a lecture about how terrible Israel is by people who do not live here and are not interested in having a serious discussion about what is actually on the table.
The fact that they are not interested in having that sort of discussion, and that they have no interest in making Israel their home, is demonstrated by their indifference to the real implications of the draft conversion law. Leaders truly invested in the future of both their communities and of their communities’ ties with Israel would be appalled by the retention of monopoly control over conversions by rabbinic authorities who refuse to recognize the difference between children of intermarriage and non-Jews with no relation to Judaism and the Jewish people.
They would insist that religious-Zionist rabbis be reinstated in the state rabbinate, and work avidly to ensure that conversions once approved cannot be overturned.
The real problem here is that while everyone involved speaks of the need for Jewish unity, no one involved in the conversation seems to be motivated to work toward that goal.
Jewish unity isn’t achieved by mutual recrimination.
And it isn’t achieved by one-upmanship. It is achieved through compromise based on mutual respect and love for fellow Jews. Absent that, nothing good will come from negotiations or laws or agreements. Absent that, nothing good will come at all.
The Reform and Conservative movements support the Palestinian Arab cause against Israel, They endorse Palestinian demands for unilateral Israeli withdrawal from strategic disputed territory. Their lecture circuit is dominated by anti-Israel speakers who are sympathetic to the Palestinian terrorists (albeit some of these speakers are Israeli citizens). Now they are urging boycotts of el-Al and other Israeli businesses! If the Israeli government and the Israeli media had any self-respect, they would demand a total end to this anti-Israel behavior before meeting with Reform and Conservative leaders or making any concessions to their demands concerning the Wall or any other matter. Why should people who are hostile to Israel’s security and economic interests receive any privileges from Israel!
Sounds like an Ephraim Kishon movie.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
I’m surprised you never heard of Flatto-Sharon, he cut a huge splash in Israel, and kept himself in the news. I was actually living in Israel then, from 1975 on, (even went there to be married in the Holy Land) and there was quite a bit going on as to whether they expel him. He was a French embezzler who got away with a huge sum belonging to others. They reported that is was around $175 mill…… I’ve read your comments below and would like to correct them as they seem Wiki inspired -I think. He not only could barely speak Hebrew, He was totally ignorant of the language and never mastered it enough to carry a converation-for years. He made strong efforts to make himself popular so that he would not be extradition might be overlooked. He paid a large sum to buy the football team with the most mashuggena supporters… Beitar. So he had a fifty thousand raving savages to fight for him ..just in case…. Beitar was having huge success for a few years before this and it was some sort of phenomenon as it was a very insular team with a very small base to chose from. It made huge headlines …just like Flatto… He used to preen himself sitting in the owners area, and I recall at the time that he reminded me of a Roman Emperor, Lord of all he could see.
As for his “political career” nobody took him seriously, and all the talk was that be bought his way into the Knesset…..the reason being-of course- that a sitting MK could not be pulled out and deported. That was his reason for going into politics and buying his supporters. It was like a comede noir in a way… He provided a light hearted laugh, because of his incompetence combined with his chutzpah… because he unabashedly took advantage of the enormous public corruption in Israel, like being in an Arak Souk…. He didn’t know what shame was, and in Israel at the time it was a rarity……speaking from personal experience only, having been swindled out of what amounted in all, over $250,000 by as barefaced chutzbaniks…including Govt. Depts as could have been found in a month’s search. That was why, after about 14 years, My family and i (4 lovely kids all born in Israel), left.
@ honeybee:
I think you look charming. You know in 18th Century France, it was the women who wore the mustaches and Broad Brimmed hats!
@ ArnoldHarris:
I live for feedback like that. If anything else makes you laugh, please feel free to let me know. Politics is a chore I do because I know how and I feel responsible but I don’t enjoy it.
https://youtu.be/UPw-3e_pzqU
Unlike Willie Sutton:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Sutton
“…Sutton was an accomplished bank robber. He usually carried a pistol or a Thompson submachine gun. “You can’t rob a bank on charm and personality,” he once observed. In an interview in the Reader’s Digest published shortly before his death, Sutton was asked if the guns that he used in robberies were loaded. He responded that he never carried a loaded gun because somebody might get hurt. He stole from the rich and kept it, though public opinion later turned him into a perverse type of Robin Hood figure. He allegedly never robbed a bank when a woman screamed or a baby cried.[5]…
‘Sutton’s law
In a famous apocryphal story, Sutton was asked by reporter Mitch Ohnstad why he robbed banks. According to Ohnstad, he replied, “Because that’s where the money is.” The quote evolved into Sutton’s law, which is often invoked to medical students as a metaphor for focusing a workup on the most likely diagnosis, rather than wasting time and money investigating every conceivable possibility.
In his autobiography, Sutton denied originating the pithy rejoinder:
The irony of using a bank robber’s maxim as an instrument for teaching medicine is compounded, I will now confess, by the fact that I never said it. The credit belongs to some enterprising reporter who apparently felt a need to fill out his copy. I can’t even remember where I first read it. It just seemed to appear one day, and then it was everywhere.
If anybody had asked me, I’d have probably said it. That’s what almost anybody would say … it couldn’t be more obvious.
Or could it?
Why did I rob banks? Because I enjoyed it. I loved it. I was more alive when I was inside a bank, robbing it, than at any other time in my life. I enjoyed everything about it so much that one or two weeks later I’d be out looking for the next job. But to me the money was the chips, that’s all.[1]
The Redlands Daily Facts published the earliest documented example of Sutton’s law on March 15, 1952 in Redlands, California.[9]
A corollary, the “Willie Sutton rule,” used in management accounting, stipulates that activity-based costing (in which activities are prioritized by necessity, and budgeted accordingly) should be applied where the highest costs occur, because that is where the biggest savings can be found.[10]”
@ Ted Belman:
Also:
“I Am A Muslim, And I Support Trump’s Travel Restrictions
By Mudar Zahran – 8 Tammuz 5777 – July 2, 2017 0”
http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/i-am-a-muslim-and-i-support-trumps-travel-restrictions/2017/07/02/
@ Ted Belman:
“Jews, Arabs to Gather in Jerusalem to Discuss ‘The Jordan Option’
By Hana Levi Julian – 9 Tammuz 5777 – July 2, 2017”
“…A Jewish-Muslim alliance — which now has morphed into the International Jewish-Muslim Dialogue Center (IJMDC) — is launching the first international-interdenominational conference to be held in Jerusalem this October. The gathering will focus on the heated topic of “The Jordan Option: The Ultimate Alternate Solution” with the alliance issuing a ‘call for papers’ this week that describe ways to support such a solution.
“IJMDC believes that peace will come to Arab and Jew alike through making Jordan into what it always intended to be, the rightful home for the Arabs of the British Mandate for Palestine and leaving the lands west of the Jordan to the Jews” said Michael Ross, IJMDC director.
Jerusalem-based organizer Ted Belman, publisher and editor of the Israpundit Israeli blog, is slated to chair the event…”
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/jews-arabs-to-gather-in-jerusalem-to-discuss-the-jordan-option/2017/07/02/
You should post more articles by and about this Belman guy. Sounds promising.
@ Edgar G.:
Poor Olmert was just released for poor health. As Prime MInister, they locked him up and threw away the key for some really minor bribery when he was a local official. I guess it helps to be popular. But, seriously, warning bells go off in my head when I hear about some leader being deposed because of “corruption.” We’ve seen how the Obama and the Clintons got off, among others, but look at the Ukraine, S. Korea, Israel, the attempts to bring down Trump. It seems that leveling corrruption charges is a way for politicized repressive apparatuses (apparati?) to effect a coup.
“At the end of his tenure as prime minister, Olmert was perceived as having turned, in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, from a hawkish to a dovish policy. After serving as PM he was sentenced to serve a prison term over convictions for accepting bribes and for obstruction of justice during his terms as mayor of Jerusalem and as trade minister.”
Wikipedia
I have found myself wondering if Olmert, like Sharon, another one, like Netanyahu now, wasn’t trying, futilely, to politically propitiate his legal leftist persecutors.
@ ArnoldHarris:
I just started a fun novel with a similar wry* Communist and ex-Communist humor — “The Yid” by Paul Goldberg, about a group of eccentric Jewish actors and friends who were heroic swash-buckling Communist veterans of the Civil War and WWII who refuse to go along quietly during the “Black Years” and set out to stop and take revenge against Stalin.
By a 2nd Gen Black Years survivor who dedicates the book to his father.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/21/books/review-the-yid-paul-goldbergs-first-novel-taunts-stalin.html
https://www.amazon.com/Yid-Novel-Paul-Goldberg-ebook/dp/B00XU115MI
I took it out of the library as an ebook but it’s only $10 – print or ebook. Worth it, so far.
https://www.amazon.com/Yid-Novel-Paul-Goldberg-ebook/dp/B00XU115MI
*like the Wrye Memorandum and Pollard. Wrye. Toast.
@ Edgar G.:
Oh, this guy is a hilarious character. Like something out of Damon Runyan. There should be a comic movie about him. Thanks. I never heard of him, I thought, at first, you meant Ariel Sharon, and saw that he was a Sabra, so I googled the name, unlikely as it is. (Incidentally, Amerigo Todt’s last name means death in German. Where do they come up with these names.? I once had a pair of students — twins — named, Dejeuner and Tajeuner — fourth graders in a music class — I didn’t have the heart to ask Dejeuner if she knew her name meant breakfast in French. I wondered if their parents named them while having a bad trip at Woodstock or something.
Here’s more on the unlikely Flatto-Sharon
“…Once ensconced in the Knesset, Flatto-Sharon joined Menachem Begin’s coalition, with one of his first acts being to vote in favour of a law that prohibited the extradition of Israeli citizens.[3] He sat on the Economic Affairs Committee and in 1978 he renamed the party Development and Peace.[5] During his Knesset term he was involved in negotiations to free Israeli POWs.[3] The party ran in the 1981 and 1984 elections, but did not pass the electoral threshold of 1% in either, and subsequently disappeared. Flatto-Sharon was never extradited to France to serve the five-year sentence given to him in his absence, as the five-year statute of limitations had expired.
In 1984 he was sentenced to three months community service for bribery during the 1977 election campaign. It had emerged that he had “bought votes in 1977 by promising apartments to young couples and homes to others at reduced prices” as well as paying voters (who were described as “campaign workers”) and giving money to a local party in Dimona to be associated with his party. His community service was performed in a state agency in Tel Aviv.[2]
Flatto-Sharon is now an established multi-millionaire and works as a radio talk-show host; his show, named Flatto Bli Heshbon (Flatto without accountability) is broadcast on numerous stations, including Radius 100, Lev HaMedina, Radio Haifa and Radio Darom FM.[6]…”
Wikipedia
I guess he’s Israel’s Willie Sutton.
@ Edgar G.:
Oh, I see. This might explain it: ”
…In 1975 he made aliyah to Israel, fleeing the French authorities as he was wanted for embezzling $60 million.[2] Despite barely speaking Hebrew, in 1977 he formed a one-man party, also named Flatto-Sharon, to run in the Knesset elections that year, hoping to obtain parliamentary immunity to avoid extradition to France.[3]
The list won 2% of the vote, enough for two seats. However, as it was a one-man list, only one seat was taken.[4] It has been suggested that the surprising level of support that the party won was a response to France’s refusal to extradite Abu Daoud, who was wanted in Israel for the murder of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich.[3],,,”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmuel_Flatto-Sharon
Sounds reasonable enough to me, considering the circumstances. What about you?
Also, Lansky wasn’t just some embezzler. “He played a large role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld.” – Wikipedia
@ Edgar G.: Who is “Flatto-Sharon?”
Israel turned away Pollard?
Wikipedia article on the Wye Agreement:
“…On the final day of the negotiations, the agreement almost fell through. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked President Bill Clinton to release Jonathan Pollard, an American naval intelligence officer who has been serving a life sentence since 1985 for giving classified information to Israel. A bitter disagreement arose, with Netanyahu claiming that Clinton had promised to release Pollard, and Clinton saying he had only promised to “review” the case. It was reported that then-Director of the CIA George Tenet had threatened to resign should Pollard be released.
The agreement was finally signed by Netanyahu and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat at the White House, with President Clinton playing a key role as the official witness…”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wye_River_Memorandum
“…The US says it will not change the parole conditions of convicted Israeli Jonathan Pollard, who was released from jail Friday after spending 30 years behind bars. Washington says he will have to spend five years in the US before he can leave for Israel…”
Nov. 21, 2015
https://www.rt.com/news/322982-pollard-spy-israel-usa/
“Jonathan Pollard loses appeal to ease parole conditions”
May 24, 2017
http://www.jta.org/2017/05/24/news-opinion/united-states/jonathan-pollard-loses-appeal-to-ease-parole-conditions
Something changed?
@ Sebastien Zorn:
The let in Flatto-Sharon, and not only that he was actually elected to the Knesset……
But they also turned away Jonathan Pollard………
@ Sebastien Zorn:
He was one of the boys, but mostly involved in the financial aspects of whatever racket was happening. He was a mobster because he was intimately connected with those who planned murders and etc. He obviously knew about them. I think he organised and ran the Mafia gambling syndicate all over the country. I recall reading in a biography of Frank Costello, who succeeded Lucky Luciano when he was deported, that Lansky, Siegal, and Luciano were pals since childhood. How true it was I don’t know but I think he was a sort of “ideas” man for the Mobs (plural)
There were Italian Mobs, Jewish Mobs etc. There was a short lived Bugsy and Meyer gang. But Murder Inc was either a name given by the Press, or when they made the movie. When he was finally put on trial, all they could charge him with was unauthorised gambling or something like that. I’m not sure he was even fined, And that was after spending his whole life in the Mob rackets. I read that he lived the rest of his life modestly in Florida . According to his widow whom I heard interviewed on TV, her Myerel never did anything wrong and was a wonderful husband, and that they had very little money, because he plunged everything in Cuba . The idea was great but the timing…….. just before Castro took over…… after they’d spent multi millions to start huge casinos and etc. I remember when it all happened. He was a guy who interested me.
By coincidence, when living in Panama about 7-8 years ago I often used to meet a 2nd cousin of his, and he was quite proud of him……………*******. He said that Lansky was mostly a brain who came up the hard way..
I mean Lucky Luciano.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky
Major mobster. So what if they could never pin anything on him. So Israel should have let him in? You’re kidding, right? You think he’d demand a place at the Kotel? Or just “a piece of the action.”
Star Trek A piece of the Action ending
https://youtu.be/FbBuNGVDNCM
@ Edgar G.:
Correction, Lucky Luciano
“Meyer Lansky (born Meier Suchowla?ski;[2] July 4, 1902 – January 15, 1983), known as the “Mob’s Accountant”, was a major organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles “Lucky” Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate in the United States.[3]
Lansky developed a gambling empire that stretched across the world…Although a member of the Jewish Mob, Lansky undoubtedly had strong influence with the Italian Mafia and played a large role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld …Despite nearly fifty years as a member-participant in organized crime,[5] Lansky was never found guilty of anything more serious than illegal gambling.”
Yeah, Israel really oppressed this poor guy by turning him away. I’m just awash with tears.
@ Edgar G.:
Correction, Lucky Luciano:
“Meyer Lansky (born Meier Suchowla?ski;[2] July 4, 1902 – January 15, 1983), known as the “Mob’s Accountant”, was a major organized crime figure who, along with his associate Charles “Lucky” Luciano, was instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate in the United States.[3]
Lansky developed a gambling empire that stretched across the world. He was said to own points (percentages) in casinos in Las Vegas, Cuba, The Bahamas and London. Although a member of the Jewish Mob, Lansky undoubtedly had strong influence with the Italian Mafia and played a large role in the consolidation of the criminal underworld (although the full extent of this role has been the subject of some debate, as he himself denied many of the accusations against him).[4]
Despite nearly fifty years as a member-participant in organized crime,[5] Lansky was never found guilty of anything more serious than illegal gambling.[6] He has a legacy of being one of the most financially successful gangsters in American history. Before Meyer Lansky fled Cuba, he was said to be worth an estimated $20 million (equivalent to $140 in 2016). However when he died in 1983, his family was shocked that his estate was worth less than $10,000, with Lansky saying before he died that Cuba “ruined” him.[1]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_Lansky
@ Edgar G.:Wasn’t Meyer Lansky the cofounder of Murder Inc. along with Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel?
@ honeybee:
Because you are logged in. If you weren’t you wouldn’t be able to comment.
@ Sebastien Zorn:xx
I remember the fuss and bother about Meyer Lansky, and how the US Govt was going after him. He offered untold sums to the Israeli govt to accept him, and by the Law of Return he was entitled to be allowed in…but they refused him, which, at the time I thought was dirty……Then after Lansky submitted to the US legal procedures, he was found NOT guilty……..
Israel and Jews, always manage to bugger up things…something like snatching “Defeat From The Jaws of Victory”. Lansky should have been welcomed with open arms and made Minister of Finance. I read a very interesting vignette by his widow, who said that “my Myerel never did anything wrong, he was a prince”…
It never ceases to amaze me that they go through agonies for years trying and maybe succeeding in passing very neccessary laws, and then in mitten derinnen the PM who seems to have a unique veto over everything and everyone except the High Court (they were too smart for him) says NO.. It really makes government decisions by the Ministerial Committes and then the full Knesset rather pointless……….. Are they there because of “jobs for the boys”….. or do they perform any useful function when they have an instant veto hanging over rtheir heads, like Dionysius hung the sword over Damocles whilst he was “bongoing” the king…..
@ honeybee:
Meyer Lansky was turned away. It was actually in the movie, “The Godfather.” Or one of the sequels. His character has another name. Do they accept mobsters now? By the way, the bungling assassin/bodyguard who gets killed strangling him was, probably an inside joke, a very famous Hungarian/Italian sculptor and occasional actor by the name of Amerigo Todt. He did work for the Vatican in Rome, his childhood home is a museum named for him in Hungary. A genius sculptor cast as a bungling strangler. Pretty funny, huh? Must have been an inside joke, no?
@ ArnoldHarris:
The political nutrition joke went something like this:
I now know the reason that I never encountered anti-semitism, at least to my knowledge, growing up in Manhattan in the 60’s and 70s, though I have met others who said they had. This was the era of addiction, but in my case, my addiction was boon as well as bane. I was addicted to instant ramen.
It’s all about understanding root causes, as liberals love to say.
It turns out, that it is now a fundamental axiom in the science of political nutrition* that anti-semitism is caused by carbohydrate
deficiency!
Yes, and the chemical formula for you scientists out there, is E=n³ which spelled out, stands for “Every Nazi Needs a Noodle**”.
Now, as in every genuine scientific endeavor, there is room for disagreement, there is, it should be noted, an alternative explanation, namely, that anti-semitism is caused by severe dehydration, the recommended treatment*** for which is, naturally, thorough liquidation. Take two aspirin, rest in peace and call me in the morning.
*Marx said he was inventing a new field, “political economy”
**Long after I was no longer a Stalinist – we didn’t deal with gore, just silly chemistry like Marxist formulas like Capital = CMC, while small commodity production is represented by the formula MCM – I read in a book by Robert Conquest, the Willliam Shirer of the Soviet Union (great name, what? Like the war correspondant, Wolf Blitzer, ha ha) that the “noodle” was the NKVD’s humorous nick-name for a bullet in the back of the head delivered to prisoners being marched down the sub-basement stairways of the Lubianka).
*** “Treatment” was the Nazi euphemism for the whole process leading to our extermination.
I always got a big laugh without explanation from Soviet Jewish and part Jewish emigres for all of this without explanation.
A liberal ultra-Orthodox guy exploded at me when I told this joke at a seder, “Jews don’t kill.” I responded, “Oh yeah, read the Torah, lately?”
I have a half-Jewish cousin, raised as a Christian, who was a Buddhist Nun at the time, who thought it was funny.
Welcome back, Arnold and Honeybee, I missed you guys!
Some people have no sense of humor.
Actually, a lot of people.
Especially Democrats.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
SZ,
Both Victor Moore and Edward Arnold were born and raised in the era of big-time live vaudeville, and the two of them together on the big screen could and probably did keep people laughing all week long. So I owe you one for finding that particular screen gem.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
Ted why am I having problem loggin to the Pundit
Why do I have a male face ? Women should be wearing a babushka. Or a bikini!
yamit82 Said:
Does this mean Texans too !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yamit82 Said:
yamit82 Said:
yamit82 Said:
@Arnold Harris
I don’t suppose you recall my “political nutrition” joke from last September.
or this:
“Pay The Two Dollars”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKT8QoboD1g
Not as a kid. All the bigger shock. Would I have remained a Leftist? It didn’t come from Whites. Though all my White Leftist “comrades” made excuses for them, said I must have said or done something “racist.” Total strangers, harassing or attacking me out of the blue. Reminds me of the quip, “A Conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged.”
@ Sebastien Zorn:
So the Jew-baters/haters smacked you around when you were a kid?
They tried the same thing with me, but it had a different ending.
I was a 14-year-old freshman kid in Senn High School on Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood on the north side of the city. One October afternoon in 1948, I was in a woodworking shop class, along with three bad-asses. Their leader was a tall, mean guy who was a couple of years older than me. I don’t remember his name, but Nordic Bob will do. His adoring buddies were a pair of Greek-American brothers, Al and Solon.
That particular day, hour, and moment, I was carrying in one hand a piece of wood which I was reshaping, and in my other hand, a claw carpenter’s hammer. And I was walking through narrow aisles from one part of the woodworking shop to another.
I only got about 15 feet, when I found Nordic Bob blocking my path and grinning down at me. I shifted to my left to get around him, then to my right. Nordic Bob shifted in turn, to block me.
Then suddenly I blacked out and found myself on the floor. Nordic Bob was bleeding from where I had gone upside his face with the big carpenter’s hammer, just before he knocked me down and out. Al and Solon stood there, frowning at me and muttering threats of physical violence.
My mom had to meet with the school principal, listening to warnings of school violence.
But aside from that, something almost magical came to be. I found that I could walk the long halls of that high school, and all the other students would ever so carefully keep a clear distance away from me. That clear distance was about 42-48 inches. Which wasn’t incidental. It was in fact the length of a 14-year-old’s arm with a carpenter’s claw hammer at the business end of that arm.
That incident, for me, 69 years ago this coming October, was one of the decisive events of my long life, and I have never forgotten it. As long as I am still alive, I will remember it. The Day of the Hammer.
Nordic Bob, if he is still alive, probably still has on the left side of his face a scar put there by the last thing he would ever have expected from a young Chicago Jew-boy.
Al and Solon went on to join the Chicago Police Department. There, they made the mistake of ganging up with about six other thoroughly crooked Chicago cops operating out of northside Summerdale Police Station. They had gone into business with a well known and mostly successful burglar. There burglar would break into stores up and down North Broadway Avenue, while his Police Department protectors stood watch in case a civilian happened to show up and spoil their loot-taking.
They must have been the most surprised cops in the history of Chicago when, one day in 1960, early in the morning, squads of honest cops showed up at their homes and placed them under arrest. What had happened? Richie Morrison, their burglar partner, had ratted them out and turned state’s evidence on them in return for immunity. Needless to say, life for the racketeers in blue was all but over, including the lives of Al and Solon.
I’m not as religious as I ought to be, but I can’t help but think HaShem, in all his glory, has had a hand in all of the above.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker
@ Sebastien Zorn:
You’re the first man who caused me to laugh heartily this day.
“1492?” Right on.
Arnold Harris, Outspeaker@ Sebastien Zorn:
Problem is: us “racial” Jews don’t exactly have a choice and history and religion aside, Israel was reborn thanks to secular Jews like Herzl, Weizman, Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky who understood that we have to have our own place because the Goyim will never accept us, in the long run, no matter what we do. Assimilation?lTell it to the Jews of Spain and Germany. I speak as somebody who didn’t even have any kind of religious upbringing but was stopped and harassed and even beaten for being a Jew. An obvious Jew. On sight. All other things being equal, I would love for there to be complete separation of religion and state in the Jewish state as everywhere else but for the law of return. We must have the law of return because there was many a time and there will be again when no other place will allow us in. The Nazis encountered two tribes in central Asia, I remember reading, one converted in to Judaism and one had converted out. They murdered the one that converted out. It was about race. I am very suspicious of gentiles who want to convert — to watered down versions of Judaism that de-emphasize Jews as a people and want us to surrender to our enemies — so that they can become Israeli citizens. I want there to be as many hoops as possible for them to jump through because where there is no investment, there is no committment. Enough about kindness to strangers. Are we omnipotent? Strangers must make us want to trust them first. (Should I make a joke about accepting candy from strangers? Naaah. I’ll skip it, but you get the gist.)
@ Ted Belman:
Riskin sold out to missionaries, supports them in Israel and receives millions of donations from them…. In other words he is dirty corrupted and has a large portion of the religious nationalists opposed to him some publicly others not. Any position he takes in favor of liberalizing halacha must be suspect. Millions of christian missionaries with phony reform conversions could with his help destroy not only Israel but Judaism itself….
Anybody can be an Israeli even illegal black gangstas allowed to immigrate and receive permanent residence….They are a Black Heb cult of some thousands. If them why not black Africans and Any Arab? The Jewish agency supported by christian missionaries and the reform movement in America help to import some half million non Jewish Russian opportunists into Israel each for their own reasons none of them being the good and welfare of the Jewish state of Israel. Most of those Russian are antisemitic, some neo-Nazis, and many are christians. Ben Gurion gave the orthodox control regulating Jewish status to avoid civil war one authority that most Israeli Jews could recognize as authoritative. The absolute worst situation for us is to give a secular court power to determine who is a Jew and by definition rule authoritatively on issues relating to Jewish Law. In so doing it will mark the end of any semblance of unity and divide the country. Where there is a semblance of unity today deep division will replace it and for what? Handful of disgruntles non Jews? Reform Jews who care little for Israel and have done zip to help and support us? Those same Jews who supported the likes of Obama and Hitlery should tell uis what it means to be a Jew… Most don’t know the difference between a chupa and a challah. Manyh Israelis complain but when they have a choice opt for an orthodox wedding and Brit with a religious mohel.. The kikds still have bat and bar mitzvot all homes have Mezzuzot etc…… Most of us don’t have a problem with the religious but complain anyway/ I don’t know anyone who has chosen to be buried by non religious rabbis in a non religious cemetery. My personal feelings about Russians with status problem is either to leave preferable or convert according to halacha… prick and dip don’t do it. Having lesbian rabbis perform conversions don’t cut it and TG for the haredim who stand strong against these neo christians. Sum up either change the Law of return being more specific or ban the reform from interfering in our affairs. The Reform Jews are not our brothers and sisters but a fifth enemy column very dangerous and should be kept at arms length for our own best interests they will destroy Israel like theyh have Judaism in America///// Not worth the trouble or risk.
Bear Klein Said:
sraeli Supreme Court Chief Justice Miriam Naor on Wednesday issued a temporary injunction against the Interior Ministry ordering it to explain within two months why 11 petitioners who underwent Reform or Conservative conversion in Israel should be refused a Certificate of Oleh (immigrant) based on the Law of Return, and why they should not be registered as Jews in the Population Registry.
The Law of Return (Hok Ha-Shvut) was passed in 1950, giving Jews the right of return and the right to live in Israel and to gain Israeli citizenship. In 1970, the right of entry and settlement was extended to people with one Jewish grandparent or people married to a Jew, although they were not considered Jewish under Jewish halakha. Those who immigrate to Israel under the Law of Return are immediately entitled to gain citizenship in Israel.
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According to the halakhic definition, a person is Jewish if his or her mother is Jewish, or if he or she converts to Judaism. However, Orthodox Jews do not recognize conversions performed by Reform or Conservative authorities. But the Law of Return states that any Jew, regardless of affiliation, may immigrate to Israel and claim his or her citizenship.
In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that all conversions performed outside of Israel would be recognized by the authorities under the Law of Return. The court had already ruled in 1989 that conversions performed outside of Israel were valid for the Law of Return, regardless of whether they were Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. The 2005 ruling extended that decision, finding that overseas conversions were still valid even if the individuals did the preparatory work for the conversions while residing in Israel.
Now it appears that the Supreme Court is prepared to bring down the last vestige of halakhic Judaism regarding conversion, in an attempt to authorize Reform and Conservative religious courts in Israel to covert, forcing the state to accept their converts as Jews.
The current Interior Minister, Aryeh Deri, is an ultra-Orthodox Jew, and will most likely fight the court’s obvious plan tooth and nail. But in the end, he will have one of three choices: obey the court (not going to happen), resign (not likely), or change the law, which is, in fact, anchored in the Haredi parties’ coalition agreement.
Can the Law of Return be changed today? Can the 1970 dreaded ruling allowing non-Jews to be accepted as Jews also be revoked, while the Knesset is at it? The fate of Netanyahu’s government may depend on it.
http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/supreme-court-wants-interior-ministry-to-explain-why-reform-converts-arent-recognized-by-the-state/2016/05/25/
Bear Klein Said:
“We can start with conversion. I think the vast majority of Israelis would say, Let’s open the market, and whoever wants to convert should come and convert without the interference of the government. The Supreme Court has ruled that any conversion by an Orthodox religious court should be recognized, yet the government has decided to go against this, due to pressure from the haredi parties.
The next issue is marriage. According to a recent poll, most Israelis are in favor of civil marriage. Many Israelis feel resentment that those who don’t pay taxes and don’t go to the army are the ones who decide not only about war and peace (within the government), but also what marriage looks like in this country. The larger parties (Likud/Labor) would actually prefer to follow the will of the people, but because of politics, they give in to haredi parties and give them the power to determine marriage and divorce.
The average citizen is angry, because they feel they are not counted and not wanted, even after they’ve given everything they can to society. And people are voting with their feet. They go to Cyprus to get married, they don’t bother converting, or they simply leave the country. We need to pay attention to them and their concerns. We don’t want to wake up in five or 10 years and find that another half a million Israelis have left the country because they don’t want to live in this society anymore, where a minority controls the reality for the majority.”
Above part of a good article – http://www.jpost.com/In-Jerusalem/Making-Jewish-life-accessible-498312
I totally agree with R. Riskin who said “but the most important goal must be to bring them into the Covenant with the Jewish people. After all they have gone through because of their ‘Jewishness’ under the Communist regime, it behooves us to incorporate them within our Jewish collective as part of the miracle of the ingathering of the exiles”
If everything that the government does is terrible ..
‘Everything’ means 98.8%.
The remainder can be broken down as follows:
1.0% neutral.
0.2% good.
The Government simply got lucky.
The least sucky approach to this empiricism is to make government as small as possible, and thereby minimize the terribleness.
the state rabbinate.
Arghh!
High-priests of Big Government.
I find myself thinking of the Brecht poem, “The Democratic Judge”
“An Italian barkeep
came once before the judge who examines
those who seek U.S. citizenship in Los Angeles. After earnest
Preparation
and handicapped by his inability
with the new language
he gave as answer to the question:
What does the Eighth Amendment mean? hesitantly:
1492. Because the law requires of the applicant
Knowledge of the national tongue
he was rejected. Appearing again
three months later, and armed with further studies
but unfortunately still handicapped by his inability with the
New language
he was this time given the question: Who
was the victorious general in the Civil War? His answer
Was:
1492. (Given in a loud and friendly voice.) Sent away once again
and appearing a third time, he answered
a third question: For how long is a President
Elected?
again with: 1492. Now
the judge, who liked the man, recognizing that he could not
Learn
the new language, asked him,
how he made his living, and learned: through hard labor. And so
when he appeared a fourth time, the judge asked him the
Question:
When
was America discovered: And based on his correct
Answer
1492, he was made a U.S. citizen.”
https://abev.wordpress.com/2005/12/16/the-democratic-judge-a-new-translation/
I don’t understand this:
“Twenty years ago, the Neeman Commission decided, with the agreement of the Reform and Conservative movements, that people who converted in Reform or Conservative conversions outside of Israel would receive citizenship if they chose to make aliya under the Law of Return. They would not, however, be registered as Jews for the purpose of marriage, divorce or burial by the state rabbinate.
This would remain the case under the proposed law.”
So, that means that they can immigrate but once in Israel, they are not allowed to marry, divorce or die?
And, here’s a question, if you do the currently accepted Orthodox conversion, and you then do whatever you want, can they take it back? If not, why is everybody so rigid? Do the dance, and then do your own thing. “Pay the Two Dollars.” No? Or is it a “dignity” thing.