20% Israeli prisoners for domestic violence

Haaretz reports:

One-fifth of Israel's civilian prisoners were arrested on charges of domestic violence, a Knesset think tank found after examining data from the Prison Service. About 400 prisoners behind bars for domestic violence had been jailed five or more previous times, although not all previous convictions were for domestic violence, according to the Knesset's Research and Information Center.

In early November, over 1,800 prisoners were serving domestic-violence sentences, including 116 convicted of incest. Half of the domestic-violence sentences were between one and five years, though 129 prisoners are serving life sentences for these offenses.

More than 60 percent of domestic-violence detainees have been convicted and jailed for previous domestic-violence offenses. More than 90 percent of domestic-violence prisoners released in 2008 had not qualified for parole.

There were almost 900 sex offenders in Israeli prisons in early November, a little over 10 percent of the prison population.

In the first 10 months of this year, 10 women were murdered by their domestic partners, according to police figures included in the document. This may turn out to be a slight drop from 2007, in which 13 women were killed by partners over the entire year, while one woman was killed in a "family honor" incident. The 614 rape complaints in the first 10 months of the year also constitute a slight drop from the 640 complaints in the same period last year.

The police open nearly 15,000 domestic-violence cases every year, most of which are closed for lack of evidence or lack of public interest. The number of partner-violence cases that reach the court system is dropping steadily from 3,000 in 2004 to just 1,850 last year. [...]

History - What is a week?

NEVER ON A TUESDAY

By journalist/translator/illustrator

R' Avraham Broide,

email - broide2@netvision.net.il;

New website http://www.amazingjewishfacts.com/

At first glance, the "week" seems the odd-man-out of our calendar.

Because unlike the year that is measured by earth's yearly spin round the sun, or the month that is measured by the moon's journey round earth, the week seems disconnected from astronomical phenomenom. Its significance stems from Hashem creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh.

Is this why Shabbos is more sacred than other other day of the Jewish year?

THE CELESTIAL CONNECTION

Digging a little deeper, however, one soon discovers that the week has a celestial connection after all. This is evident from a couple of Gemaras where Rashi points out a clear correlation between the heavenly bodies and the seven days of the week.

For thousands of years, stargazers, astrologers, and astronomers noticed that almost the stars of the heavens are nailed in place against the backdrop of outer space. They march in unison across the heavens, never daring to make a misstep.

But gaze into space for consecutive nights and you might notice five rogue stars that disobey the rules, inching slowly between the stars. Some of them even backtrack during the process. The ancients named these stars planets, ancient Greek for "wanderers." The rabbis called them kochvei leches, wandering stars.

In fact, they are not stars at all, but planets circling their way around the sun as we do.

Add the sun and moon to these five planets and you get seven heavenly bodies. Chazal and the ancients arranged them in this order:

1. Shabtai (Saturn). 2. Zedek (Jupiter). 3. Maadim (Mars). 4. Chammah (the sun). 5. Kochav Nogah (Venus, the shining star). 6. Kochav (Mercury). 7. Levanah (the moon).

The Gemara (Berachos 59b) states that G-d created the heavenly bodies at the beginning of Wednesday night during the hour of Shabtai (Saturn). Rashi explains:

At this moment, when G-d placed the sun, moon and stars in the firmament, the seven heavenly bodies began their rule. And forever after they rule in the following order:

Saturn rules during the 1st hour, Jupiter the 2nd second, etc. Once the seven planets have run their course, the cycle starts again. Shabtai takes the 8th hour, Zedek the 9th, and so on.

It takes exactly a week for the cycle to work through all its permutations. After one week, Shabtai returns to the first hour of the day on Wednesday evening and the cycle repeats itself exactly like the week before.

Yet another Gemara connects the weekdays to the seven heavenly bodies.

The Gemara (Shabbos 129b) warns people never to perform bloodletting on Tuesdays, because on Tuesdays, Mars rules during an "even" hour. What does that mean?

Rashi explains:

If you calculate which heavenly body rules during the first hour of each weekday, the order is as follows:

Sunday - the sun. Monday - the moon. Tuesday - Mars. Wednesday - Mercury. Thursday - Jupiter. Friday - Venus. Shabbos (Saturday) - Saturn. (Do you see a pattern?)

Since Mars, symbol of the sword, pestilence and tribulation, falls during the first hour of Tuesday, seven hours later it will automatically fall during the eighth hour of the day. Eighth is an even number. Since even numbers are dangerous (as explained in the Gemara Pesachim 110b), one must avoid bloodletting the whole of Tuesday in order to avoid this planet-promoted hazard.

We see from all this that the names Sunday, Monday, and Saturday are no coincidence. They are named after the heavenly bodies that have ascendancy during their first daylight hour!

In fact, the Babylonians named every day of the week after gods associated with these "first hour" heavenly bodies, as follows:

Shamash (Sunday), Sin (the moon, Monday), Nergal (Mars, Tuesday), Nebo (Mercury, Wednesday), Marduk (Jupiter, Thursday), Ishtar (Venus, Friday), Ninurta (Saturn, Saturday).

IDOLATRY

If so, you might ask, how can Jews mention weekday names that are based on idolatry? Does the Torah not command (Shemos 23:13), "The names of other gods you shall not mention, they shall not be heard on your mouth?"

Discussing whether one is permitted to mention the names of coins named after idols, the Responsa Chavos Yair (chapter 1) mentions a few mitigating factors, including the permissibility of mentioning names of idols that are obsolete and no longer worshipped.

However, the Tzitz Eliezer (volume 8, chapters 8 and 14) objects to non-Jewish month-names due to their idolatrous connotations, and suggests writing 01, 02, etc., instead of their names. How he would get around the problem of saying weekday-names is unclear.

How did our modern weekdays develop? Some of them were altered by the Greeks and Romans when they substituted some of the Babylonian gods with their own, and later still the Teutons and Anglo Saxons threw out the Roman gods and substituted them with their own idols. As a result, the modern names of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, are named after obsolete Teuton and Anglo Saxon gods.

Wednesday, for example, started as Nabu in Babylon, became Mercurius in Rome, and ended up as Woden in Britain. Woden transmuted into modern day Wednesday.

Abuse by computer - Verdict in MySpace Suicide

NYTimes reports:

LOS ANGELES — A federal jury here issued what legal experts said was the country’s first cyberbullying verdict Wednesday, convicting a Missouri woman of three misdemeanor charges of computer fraud for her involvement in creating a phony account on MySpace to trick a teenager, who later committed suicide. [...]

Hostages seized in India - say Tehilim

YNet reported: New York Times

Israelis held hostage in Mumbai

Terrorists seize Chabad offices in Indian city, hold emissary's family hostage. Rabbi's son, nanny seen leaving place safely; gunshots heard from inside. Indian commando says one gunman killed, but four armed men remain in building. At least 10 sites attacked overnight; 101 people killed, 287 injured police reported that terrorists took over the Chabad offices at around 4:30 am Thursday and appear to be holding the family of the organization's emissary, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, hostage. Gunshots have been heard from inside the building.

A woman and a child were reportedly seen leaving the building safely on Thursday morning. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yossi Levy confirmed that the rabbi's two-year-old son and his nanny were released. The;condition of the Chabad emissary and his wife Rivka is unclear. Indian commando Amit Tiwari told Reuters that one of the gunmen hadbeen killed, but at least four armed men remained in the building.

"It is not clear what the gunmen want," Tiwari said. Rivka Holtzberg's mother, Yehudit Rosenberg, told Ynet, "I'm praying for them. I heard the nanny was questioned, and that they're alive but unconscious."[...]

Divorce & custody - Tender Years Clause

Arutz Sheva reports:

IsraelNN.com) An academic conference on a proposed change in Israeli divorce law – the annulment of the Tender Years Clause which grants automatic physical custody over young children to their mothers in divorce cases – turned into a emotional and stormy session as academicians, divorced fathers, social workers, feminist and non-feminist speakers argued in heated tones.


The conference, which was held in the Netanya Academic College, was chaired by Dr. Yisrael Tzvi Gilat, and the panel included Prof. Dan Shnitt. Shnitt is currently chairing a committee which was appointed by Tzipi Livni when she was Minister of Justice, and which is expected to recommend legislating an alternative to the Tender Years Clause.

The Welfare Ministry's Deputy Director, Moti Vinter, told the assembled audience that the ministry favors the annulment of the Tenders Years Clause. "We think that the family institution is changing, society in Israel is changing, men are becoming more involved in the institution of family," he said. "I think that the decision by Welfare Minister Yitzchak Herzog to enable the possibility of adoption by homosexuals and lesbians definitely proves… the willingness to adjust to far reaching change in Israeli society," he explained.

Vinter said, however, that the fact that Israel has s rabbinical court system makes it different from other western countries and suggested that annulling the Tender Years Clause immediately would not be a good idea after all. He recommended testing the idea in an experimental fashion before reaching a decision to strike the clause permanently from the law books.

Vinter and the other speakers had trouble finishing their speeches, however, because men's activists who sat in the front rows kept on interrupting them. The activists said, among other things, that the Shnitt Committee was illegitimate because it included feminist representatives, including a representative from Israel's largest women's union, Na'amat – yet has no representatives from the men's groups.

Senior Social Worker Niva Milner, who was also interrupted numerous times, said that the Welfare Ministry has changed its attitude on the subject of custody but explained that the change is mostly one of "discourse." The old discourse concerned parental rights, she said, and the new one involves parental responsibilities.

Prof. Yossi Gil, a member of a parents' group called "Horut Shava," said that the Tender Years Clause perpetuated the stereotypes of "mother as nanny and father as cash machine" and that both sexes should be interested in annulling it for the sake of equality. He noted that some people receive money in order to perpetuate the feud between men and women and singled out a feminist group that publicly supported a woman who sadistically murdered her husband.

Dr. Orly Binyamin of the Sociology and Gender Studies programs in Bar Ilan University caused a firestorm to erupt when she explained the reason for her opposition to striking the Tender Years Clause. "My opposition has nothing to do with my assessment regarding the skills of men as fathers or of women as mothers," she said. "The central point is that when the Tender Years Clause is annulled, women will lose their legal status as single mothers and therefore will not be eligible for [state] support."

The Tender Years Clause is based upon a principle spelled out by Maimonides, according to which children up to the age of six should be with their mothers in case of divorce. However, additional clauses from Maimonides which stipulate that the father has the right to raise his sons after they turn six are ignored by modern Israeli courts, and the Tender Years Clause has been extended and now applies to children of all ages. [...]

Messianic Jews & Birthright screening

JPost reports:

Trip organizers for Birthright have begun screening American candidates interested in free trips to Israel to prevent Messianic Jews from participating.

A questionnaire of a Birthright (Taglit) trip organizer that was obtained by The Jerusalem Post includes a question regarding applicants' religious faith.

Under a category entitled "eligibility rules," applicants are asked to declare that they are Jewish.

They are also asked to declare that "I do not subscribe to any beliefs or follow any practices which may be in any way associated with Messianic Judaism, Jews for Jesus or Hebrew Christians."

The questionnaire stipulates that if the applicant lies about any of the questions that confirm eligibility he or she will be immediately dismissed from the program and will lose a $250 deposit. In addition, he or she might be obligated to pay the full cost of the trip - valued at $2,500 to $3,000 - paid by Birthright.

Messianic Jews are often Jewish by lineage and/or identify themselves with the Jewish people, but believe that Jesus is the messiah. Most celebrate the Jewish holidays and study Jewish texts in addition to the New Testament.

Attorney Calev Myers, founder and chief counsel of the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, a nonprofit organization that provides legal counsel to Messianic Jews in Israel, called the screening practice "blatant, ridiculous discrimination" and "a shame."

"Instead of drawing children of Messianic Jewish families closer to their Jewish roots, they are excluding them from participating," he said. [...]

Conversion - Bnei Menashe & Christianity

Jpost reports:

Until 100 years ago the Bnei Menashe, like other peoples here in the Northeast of India, were animists - they believed that nature and animals had spiritual qualities. They practiced their own ancient religions and had their own time-honored customs, including ritual sacrifice.

At the end of the 19th century, Christian missionaries got to them, and with these missionaries came evangelical fervor. According to the story here, in the 1950s two men from the Kuki clan each had separate visions telling them that they were the lost Israelite tribe of Menashe and must return home to Israel. When they awoke from their sleep, they started spreading their vision amongst the Kuki. Slowly people started calling themselves Bnei Menashe, and the practice of Judaism started competing with Christianity.

Speaking to the Bnei Menashe here in Kangpopki, I am told something that I didn't fully grasp before, but which is quite startling: All of the Kuki in Northeast India - as well as elements of the tribe in neighboring Myanmar, totaling some three million people - are considered, by the two men who had the visions and by the current leadership, to be Bnei Menashe.

So even though only a tiny minority of the Kuki tribe have embraced Judaism and want to make aliya, they are all potential Jewish converts and Israeli citizens. All three million of them.

The vast majority of the Kuki throughout this region were converted to Christianity beginning in the first decades of the 19th century. There are currently some 7,200 who practice Judaism (according to the Shavei Israel organization, which assists "lost Jews" seeking to return to the Jewish people), or 30,000 (according to the chairman of the Kuki Cultural Welfare Committee in Kohima). The souvenir booklet commemorating 25 years of Judaism in Northeast India puts the number of practicing Jews at 2,300. It was published in 2001. Seven years later, with 1,500 from the community having since moved to Israel, even the lowest estimate is more than three times that high.

Whatever the true figure, it is peanuts compared to the potential number of converts. This is not to say that there is a secret plan to convert them all, or that Shavei Israel, Amishav (a Jerusalem-based organization that works to find descendants of the 10 Lost Tribes and reconnect them with the Jewish people) or anybody else is actively working to make inroads into this community for potential conversion. Remember, Judaism is a religion that forbids proselytizing.

In general, the Kuki are staunchly Christian. They love Israel because they have been told that Israel was the birthplace of Christianity. But as the practice of Judaism spreads amongst the Bnei Menashe Kuki, they themselves are drawing others into the fold. They say that they go from village to village spreading their message, following the good evangelical traditions in which their parents and grandparents were schooled by the missionaries.

This evangelical spirit also explains other aspects of the Bnei Menashe mind-set. When you ask them about who they are and where they're going, they answer largely in slogans and programmed responses. Question: Why do you want to move to Israel? Answer: It is the land of my forefathers and I want to pray three times a day; I want to be able to practice Judaism in the land of Jacob and Isaac...[...]

Prison Rehabilitation - Greater Success

JPost reports:

When Avraham Hoffman founded the Prison Rehabilitation Authority in 1984, 90 percent of prisoners in Israel found themselves back behind bars within a year of being released.

By the time he resigned as director-general of the authority in 2002, less than 60% of offenders were being sent back to jail, placing Israel well below the international average of 70-75%.

For this remarkable feat, and the groundbreaking methods he pioneered to give prisoners a ray of hope, Hoffman was awarded a prize by the International Corrections and Prisons Association last month in Prague - the same city he passed through when he was a month old and he and his mother were escaping the Nazis.

"Receiving the prize in Prague was very meaningful for me," Hoffman said last week. He recently returned from a lecture tour that took him around Europe to share his innovative ideas on rehabilitation.

The Prison Rehabilitation Authority was founded around the idea that "every person has the right to a new start," he explained, describing how a Knesset law provided government backing for the authority.

"Before the PRA existed, repeat offenders would stand before judges, and the judges asked of them, 'What should I do with you? This is your third time here.'

"The offender would reply, 'Your honor, what would you do in my position? I have no job, no basis in society.' The PRA was founded to remove this excuse," Hoffman said.

Moreover, until the authority was founded, the wives of prisoners were left helpless while their men did time. Only the underworld would offer to support the women financially, Hoffman said.

When the prisoners got out, their "buddies" would throw a party, welcome them back, and then demand a "payback" for looking after their families.

"The underworld figures did not want money from their newly released friends, but for them to get back into committing crimes. We came along to break the cycle of crime, by looking after the wives and children of the prisoners ourselves.

"When the prisoner gets out now, he doesn't owe anyone a thing," Hoffman said. Unlike other prison programs, the onus is on the prisoner to apply to join the Rehabilitation Authority. If approved by a prisons committee, the offender and the authority draw up a contract, under which the prisoner is released after serving two-thirds of his sentence.

The newly released offenders are then placed in urban hostels, kibbutzim and other places with the consent and support of the surrounding community.

"We need society's support, otherwise there is no rehabilitation," said Hoffman. The offender is then trained for a variety of jobs, and is obligated to show up for work. If the offender breaches the contract, he is sent back to jail.

"They are being taught to live. They don't know how to live simple lives, after being thrown out of schools and their homes at a young age. They have nothing to hold on to, so naturally they drifted towards crime," he said.

The feeling of "never being alone" is critical to the authority's success, he added."Being accessible 24 hours a day is everything in rehabilitation. All employees must commit to being available around the clock. What good are set office hours when a prisoner is threatening to jump off a high spot and needs to speak to you?" Hoffman asked. "We respect the prisoners, and we give them hope. Those who make it for two years without a relapse into drugs or crime become counselors for newly released prisoners. This is to prove that rehabilitation is possible," he said.[...]

R' Slifkin - context of ban /RaP

This was taken from one of RaP's comment to his analysis regarding Rabbi Tropper

SD said... I was trying to understand the relevance of Columbia's having awarded a PHd to Rebbetzin David for her dissertation on Rav Chayes.

RaP: Rabbi Eidensohn is always asking for "sources" and every now and again I like to inveigh with a jolly good one at that. The relevance in this case was to point out Rabbi Tropper's role in the ban of Rabbi Slifkin's books that ultimately it was a joint rabbinic effort by many Haredi rabbis, not just Rabbi Tropper, to have Rabbi Slifkin's revisionistic (in the sense that he introduced a "non-ArtScroll" gedolim-approved genre) writings about Judaism and science, essentially part of a larger historical struggle between how to reconcile IMPLICATIONS from Science/Biology with classical Judaism.

This is most definitely part of a longer term struggle that goes back to the days of Hellenism vs Judaism, then into the days of the Early Renaissance and the struggle between the Chachmei Sefarad and the Chachmei Tzarfas/Ashkenaz with the latter fighting the RAMBAM's views on Greek Philosophy, then the struggle of the major Renaissance where secular science began to flourish and spawned the Enlightenment and the Haskala. The fight against Rabbi Slifkin is in many ways a continuum and flare-up of the ongoing struggle between those willing to accept scientific theories and views from non-Jewish sources and those who do not. Rabbi Chiyes in his day inter-acted with maskilim and incorporated their views into his hashkofa and for that Rebbetzin David took him to task (read her work, it is thorough and makes lots of good arguments), just as Rabbi Slifkin was taken to task for incorporating non-traditional views, albeit with rationalizations and proofs from various sources that he garnered, just as Rabbi Chiyes did, and just as Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik ztk"l did in creating "Torah Umada", but this is getting to be too broad a discussion. [...]

RaP: [...] In fact few people know of this thesis but it has been online for a while now. And please assume good faith, as they say on Wikipedia, this is not about "exposing" this or that. It is much more than that, a large historical debate between different schools of thought and with many intellectual and human battles and skirmishes along the way. Rabbi Slifkin knew the risks he was taking by being an iconoclast and writing in a way about nature and animals that had not been done before in the English speaking Torah world and he was challenged and the Haredim decided to ban his books. This is not unusual. It has been happening with more frequency as many worlds converge and collide in our days. Rabbi Tropper knows about the school of hard knocks too, he helped to get Rabbi Slifkin banned and in turn he was banned by the BADATZ for his own more "enlightened" view about conversions that there should be mass proselytisation to non-Jewish spouses of intermarried Jews all in the name of "higher conversion standards" and by jumping down the throats of Batei Din he liked or didn't like.

All men are equal? - RaP vs. R' Micha Berger

Recipients and Publicity wrote: concerning "R' Tropper - Kiruv vs Geirus/ RaP's analysis":

RaP had written in the above post: "But what to do when confronted with interfaith couples where the Jewish one needs kiruv and the non-Jew needs conversion? This is not an easy quandary for all concerned but at rock bottom, regardless of what the interfaith couples are told or imagine, the gentile is NOT a "tinok shenishba" and has NO neshama while the Jew has a 100% holy neshama, which the converting gentile presumably desires. While male Jew can count for a minyan as would the greatest gadol on Earth, as would a 100% Halachically Jewish mother (even if she was anti-religious) give birth to a 100% Jew, on the other hand a goy MUST be excluded from a minyan. These are facts life and Jewish Law."

R' MB: Didn't HQBH make a point of having us all come from Adam so that things like this would not be said?

RaP:What micha said is really very surprising:

RaP: Yes indeed that is the classical answer and it is true, but why do you ignore the fact that Judaism holds that a non-Jew does not have THAT neshama that a Jew does have and indeed it is exactly THAT neshama that the sincere potential convert wants to have and should/does get upon immersion in the Bais Din's mikva when THAT neshama that he did NOT have enters into him/her upon immersion in the mikva of geirus. That is all I was saying and there was no need of you to move the issue into illogical non-relevant humanistic and globalistic egalitarian drive, when you could have just let the obvious Halachic reality stand without unnecessary questioning by you.

R' MB: One may argue whether the difference is qualitative or quantitative. Or whether it's inherent, or a product of our being part of a mission (whether a willing part or not).

RaP: These are just nice words that have nothing to do with anything, I am afraid. Why are you panicking and why do have so much trouble when THE key difference between a Yid a Goy is pointed out? I.E.: That a Yid has a Holy Neshama and Goy does not. That is why a Yid is a Yid and Goy is Goy. What don't I get here?

R' MB: But to deny that every human being has a tzelem E-lokim... The Tanya says such things, but I can't think of anyone else who does.

RaP: The "tzelem E-lokim" was not mentioned here nor was it discussed. And as you know, the use of the phrase and notion of "tzelem E-lokim" requires definition and context depending how it is to be used, but one this is for sure, the idea that somehow gentiles may have a degree of the the sublime "tzelem E-lokim" does NOT mean that they automatically can be assumed to have a neshama as well upon their desire to convert to Judaism. Far from it. Regardless of the sublime and noble Godly origin and roots of all mankind, to use the analogy of the Jewish sages, a gentile is in essence like "water" and only upon proper Halachic conversion does that gentile become "wine" when he/she finally immerses in the mikva as if it was a literal miracle of birth. Call it the ultimate BORN AGAIN phenomenon (of course the Christians stole this idea like almost all their best ideas from Judaism.)

So, sure, according to the Pantheistic and Panentheistic (Panentheism posits that God exists and interpenetrates every part of nature, and timelessly extends beyond as well. Panentheism is distinguished from pantheism, which holds that God is synonymous with the material universe) views of Tanya, which posits sparks of G-d in everything, but even Tanya teaches that while while animals have the nefesh habahamis and humans have nefesh, it is ONLY Jews who have a higher complete neshama, the "neshama Elokis sichlis" as the MAHARAL of Prague labels it most definitively, and it is precisely THAT "neshama Elokis sichlis" that a true ger tzedek receives upon the completion of a successful geirus and more specifically upon immersion in the mikva which for the ger is considered THE literal moment of BIRTH as a Jew when the "neshama Elokis sichlis" enters into hi/her just as it does when a Jewish baby is born to a 100% Halachicaly Jewish mother. And hence the expression of the Chazal: "Ger shenisgayer ketinok/kekatan shenolad dami" ("[a] convert who converts [is exactly similar to] like [a] newborn [JEWISH] infant/child") (Yevamot 48b).

Neo-Nazis Russian Immigrants II /Time

Time Magazine reports:

The last thing you would expect to find in the Jewish state would be homegrown neo-Nazis, but an Israeli court on Sunday jailed eight teenagers for beating up ultra-Orthodox Jews, gays and the elderly, while shouting, "Heil Hitler!"

The same gang of skinheads had painted swastikas and naked women on the doors of a Haifa synagogue. They had also attacked a drug addict in Tel Aviv and forced him to grovel and beg for forgiveness for being a Jew. They videotaped the spectacle and posted it on their website, spliced with clips of Adolf Hitler. And they weren't particularly secretive about their identities, having strutted around the beaches of Tel Aviv showing off their Nazi tattoos. And yet all of these neo-Nazis are Israelis — one of them is a Jewish teenager whose grandparents survived the Holocaust.

Tel Aviv District Judge Zvi Gurfinkel called their crimes "shocking and horrifying" and sentenced the youths, ages 16 to 19, to between one and seven years in prison. The judge conceded that the sentences were severe, but his objective, he said, was to discourage other young Israelis from joining neo-Nazi gangs.

Most Israelis reacted to the presence of neo-Nazis in their midst with a combination of surprise and revulsion, imagining that a country that rose from the ashes of Nazi death camps would be immune to the sort of anti-Semitic thuggery occasionally still seen in Europe and Russia. Israel, after all, has always offered itself as a sanctuary from anti-Semitism. (See pictures of 60 years of Israel.)

Israel's neo-Nazis seem to be rebellious misfits. They are the sons of immigrants from the former Soviet Union who came to Israel under its Law of Return, which grants citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent. (The Nazis used the same yardstick to decide who was Jewish enough to be dispatched to the concentration camps.) (See pictures of Kristallnacht.)

More than 1 million former Soviet citizens flooded into Israel in the 1990s, taking advantage of the Law of Return to escape the calamitous economic collapse that accompanied the demise of the Soviet Union. According to sociologists, nearly one-third of those immigrants have no deep sense of Jewish culture or identity. "The young Russian immigrants feel lost here," says Sergei Makarov, historian of Israel's Russian community. "They come from poor families who expected to be appreciated as loyal Jews when they arrived here," he says, adding, "Instead, they found themselves with no jobs and no recognition from the Israelis. They became bitter and frustrated. The neo-Nazi agenda fits them very well."[...]

"Strange Side of History" website / R' A. Broide

I have posted a number of articles by R' Avraham Broide in the last two weeks. For those who are interested in more, he now has his own website http://www.amazingjewishfacts.com/ based on his long running column in Yated Neeman (USA), "The Strange Side of History." In conjunction with the site, a weekly e.mail will contain an abbreviated strange event from Jewish history. Additional features are being added to the webstie at present.

Slaps not abuse say 70% of Israeli Arab women -

Haaretz reports:

Some 70 percent of Arab women in Israel believe women who are pushed, slapped or struck by their male partners are not victims of domestic violence, according to a poll conducted by the Na'amat women's organization.

The organization conducted the survey to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Some 73 percent believe women whose partners curse or humiliate them are not victims of violence. [...]

Blog appearance - Maximized for firefox

After a bit of investigation it seems that Blogger is maximized for Firefox and is not fully compatible with either Explorer or Chrome.

In Firefox I can increase the entire page with the fonts. With the other two - the size of the blog page is fixed and only the fonts can be enlarged or reduced. There are also certain formatting commands that are invisible in Firefox but are displayed in the other two.

If anyone has any way of getting around this problem I would appreciate  the information. In the mean time I will stick with the present template. Consequently the best way to view this blog is to use Firefox.