Obama, the Mortal - Charles Krauthammer

Washington Post

What happened to President Obama? His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth. What happened to bring his popularity down further than that of any new president in polling history save Gerald Ford (post-Nixon pardon)?

The conventional wisdom is that Obama made a tactical mistake by farming out his agenda to Congress and allowing himself to be pulled left by the doctrinaire liberals of the Democratic congressional leadership. But the idea of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi pulling Obama left is quite ridiculous. Where do you think he came from, this friend of Chávista ex-terrorist William Ayers, of PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi, of racialist inciter Jeremiah Wright?

But forget the character witnesses. Just look at Obama's behavior as president, beginning with his first address to Congress. Unbidden, unforced and unpushed by the congressional leadership, Obama gave his most deeply felt vision of America, delivering the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president. In American politics, you can't get more left than that speech and still be on the playing field. [...]

Artzeinu:Driving Through Mea Shearim on Shabbos

Guest Post

Kindness Will Work Better

A number of years ago there was a young rebel who decided to go speeding through the streets of Mea Shearim on a Shabbos afternoon with his radio at full volume. As you could imagine, the indignant shouts of "Shabbos, Shabbos!" could be heard block in and block out. The indentations on the car from the stones hurled by angry Chassidim had already become evident after a few blocks.

Bedatz:New Guidelines for Protest

Badatz

My translaton of the guidelines for the demonstration:

At the instructions of the rabbinical leadership of the Eida Chareidis we are to go through the streets of Meah Shearim only until Rechov Shivtei Yisroel. Unmarried students and children are not to participate in any manner in the demonstrations. There is an absolute prohibition of doing any actions which can bring danger to life. No one is to go into the streets and interfere with traffic and similar activities. Furthermore no one is do any act of violence such as throwing stones or vegetables or similar things. Everyone is responsible to make sure that no one else violates any of these instructions. These prohibited activities are self-defeating and are destructive to the battle to properly honor Shabbos.

Rav Sternbuch:Having a successful Elul

54(2)

Rav Sternbuch denounces violent demonstrations

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VIN Interview with R' Yair Hoffman

Hooligans attack Palestinian cab driver

Attackers not chareidim

http://www.kikar.net/article.php?id=5223

Nachum Barnea is a noted columnist etc. He was there, said that the attackers were not charedim, did have black kipas but clothing was not charedi. Also after the driver climbed out of the car no one attacked him, only argued and cursed. so... listen to the recording.

[Title of post corrected and Haaretz's version deleted]


Jerusalem Post

In the latest development in an ongoing series of violent incidents, a group of haredim attacked an Arab taxi on Tuesday night at 2 a.m.

The attack was seen as an act of revenge after another cab driver, purported to be an Arab as well, hit a haredi protester with his taxi while speeding through the area during riots on Sunday night.

Shmuel Poppenheim, a spokesman for the Eda Haredit, said his organization was opposed to the use of violence, especially against non-Jews.

The Eda Haredit is opposed to the Zionist movement and the establishment of the State of Israel in part because of its use of violence against non-Jews, which is seen as dangerous incitement and a revolt against God.

Poppenheim instead blamed members of a yeshiva for newly religious men affiliated with a stream of Breslav Hassidism.

"Those guys look haredi because they dress like haredim but they aren't," said Poppenheim. "They are responsible for all the violence. We are not a violent people."

Poppenheim said that the head of the yeshiva had a "strange messianic" justification for using violence against non-Jews which is diametrically opposed to the Eda Haredit's way.[...]

Eidah issues new guidelines for protests

Haaretz

The Edah HaChareidis rabbis who have lead the Jerusalem protests throughout the summer will Thursday issue new guidelines for their struggle against the opening of the municipal Karta parking garage on Saturdays, Haaretz has learned. While not calling for an end to the disputes, the rabbis are calling to avoid violence and damage to property.

The letter, set to be published Thursday, is the first step taken by the Edah HaChareidis rabbinical court, or Badatz, to rein in the violence - which reached new heights earlier this week. On Saturday, two drivers attempted to run over protesters who were blocking their path near the parking lot, while on early Wednesday morning several dozen young people attacked an Arab taxi driver.

The letter, titled "Declaration and Warning," states that "in protests for the dignity of heavens, and against those seeking to overrun the fortifications of religious wisdom, one must still conduct himself by Torah law and spirit, not to carry out acts of violence like stoning, burning and spitting or to cause any damage to any property." From now on, the rabbis command, the protests will only be held inside the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods rather than by the parking garage itself. They also declared they were banning children and unmarried men from participating in the protests.

Despite the letter, disagreements with the ultra-Orthodox community continue. Rabbi Yitzhak Tuvia Weiss, the leader of Edah HaChareidis, was determined Wednesday not to accept the operation of the municipal garage during the Sabbath, and new leaflets and pashkavils announcing protests on the coming Saturday could be seen in the streets. It is also unclear what, if any, influence the rabbis have over the protesters, as many of the riots are sparked by young men not affiliated with the Edah HaChareidis and not followers of its rabbis. [...]

Kidney transplants- buying & selling

MASA campaigns against intermarriage

Haaretz

An organization that works to strengthen ties between Israel and Diaspora Jews Wednesday launched a scare-tactic campaign that urges Israelis to combat assimilation in North America by working to prevent the "loss" of their own Jewish acquaintances there.

The 10-day Hebrew-language campaign, to be shown on television and online, was prepared by a leading advertising firm at the behest of MASA, a partnership between the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government that helps finance and market semester- and year-length Israel programs for Diaspora Jews. [...]

Religious- secular divide in Israel

NYTimes

JERUSALEM — On Saturday, as on every Saturday in recent weeks, hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews gathered before dusk on the terraces above the Carta parking lot just outside the Old City walls. In black silk Sabbath robes and fur hats, they lined up in rows, perched and waiting.

Suddenly their foot soldiers arrived on the street below, protesters who surged past the newly opened luxury Mamilla Hotel. Police officers mounted on horses rushed to meet them as hotel guests looked on, bewildered, from windows on the upper floors.

This summer, radical elements of the ultra-Orthodox community have been demonstrating and rioting against city authorities, welfare officials and the police. For Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat, a secular high-tech millionaire trying to attract more business, tourism and professional types to the city, the timing has been inopportune, to say the least.

The tensions in this contested city usually run along an east-west, Jewish-Palestinian divide. But within the western, predominantly Jewish, section of the city, the cultural fault lines between religious and secular Jews run deep. Any change in the delicate status quo seems capable of setting off a riot, as Jerusalem's most zealous Jews and liberals vie for the city's character and soul.[...]

Obama's plan for schools

FoxNews

A suggested lesson plan that calls on school kids to write letters to themselves about what they can do to help President Obama is troubling some education experts, who say it establishes the president as a "superintendent in chief" and may indoctrinate children to support him politically.

Obama will deliver a national address directly to students on Tuesday, which will be the first day of classes for many children across the country. The address, to be broadcast live on the White House's Web site, was announced in a letter to school principals last week by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.

Obama intends to "challenge students to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning," Duncan wrote. Obama will also call for a "shared responsibility" among students, parents and educators to maximize learning potential. [...]

Abuse: Failure of sex offender alert programs

NYTimes

In all 50 states, registries of sex offenders have grown sophisticated and accessible in recent years, a response to high-profile attacks on children. People can search their neighborhoods for former convicts on state-run Web sites, sign up for private services that alert them if an offender moves nearby, even download an iPhone application, "Offender Locator."

But the case of Phillip Garrido, the California man accused of kidnapping a young girl and holding her captive for 18 years, is reigniting a debate about the usefulness of the government-managed lists and whether they might create a false sense of public safety.

Mr. Garrido, who had been convicted of kidnapping and rape in the 1970s, was listed, as required, on California's sex-offender registry (complete with a description of the surgical scar on his abdomen and his 196-pound weight) and had dutifully checked in with the local authorities each year for the past decade — all while, officials say, his victim and the two children he is accused of fathering with her were living in his backyard.

Sex offender lists have made far more information readily available to the public and the police than before, but experts say little research is available to suggest that the registries have actually discouraged offenders from committing new crimes.

And some experts say that the lists may lead people to presume that anyone registered must also be elaborately monitored, when, in truth, monitoring ranges enormously from place to place and state to state. In some cases, it amounts to little more than an offender mailing a postcard with his address to a police department once a year.[...]

Orthodox Judaism - is it a cult?

Rick Ross accuses Orthodox Judaism of being a cult

http://www.rickross.com/sg_jewish.html

What makes a religious group a cult?

Experts also have differing opinions about what puts a group into the question mark category. A few give the label to any religious group that doesn’t hold a specific set of doctrinal beliefs. Others say the only reliable dividing line is whether a group obeys the law. A lot linger somewhere in the middle.

Rick Ross, who heads up a religious research institute in New Jersey, is one expert who sees no problem in using the word cult. To him, there’s no reason not to use the term except for political correctness.

“Whether they call them cults, new religious movements or whatever, you see the same structure in behavior, the same structure in dynamics,” Ross said. “Groups that fit this pattern are very often unstable.”

France debates banning the burqa

NYTimes

PARIS — It is a measure of France's confusion about Islam and its own Muslim citizens that in the political furor here over "banning the burqa," as the argument goes, the garment at issue is not really the burqa at all, but the niqab.

A burqa is the all-enveloping cloak, often blue, with a woven grill over the eyes, that many Afghan women wear, and it is almost never seen in France. The niqab, often black, leaves the eyes uncovered.

Still, a movement against it that started with a Communist mayor near Lyon has gotten traction within France's ruling center-right party, which claims to be defending French values, and among many on the left, who say they are defending women's rights. A parliamentary commission will soon meet to investigate whether to ban the burqa — in other words, any cloak that covers most of the face.

The debate is indicative of the deep ambivalence about social customs among even a small minority of France's Muslim citizens, and of the signal fear that France's principles of citizens' rights, equality and secularism are being undermined. [....]