Re-examining the Pollard Issue

R Yair Hoffman

This is yet another article that will probably generate controversy in some circles within the Jewish community.   Our history, however, since the rise of the Talmud and before, has always been one of intense analysis, debate, thought and discussion.  This political issue is no different, and it is perhaps time for another point of view to be presented.

Pollard was a United States civilian intelligence analyst convicted in 1987 of handing over state secrets in spying for Israel.  He was sentenced in March of 1987 to life in prison.  Since then, numerous Jewish organizations have stood completely behind Jonathan Pollard – not just in terms of advocating for his freedom, but in actually advocating for his outlook and perspective as well.[...]

Israel: Russian immigrants

NyTimes

MARINA from Belarus and Ida from Ukraine were selling jewelry on fold-up tables by the beach, alongside Malka from Georgia. On the way over, I had met Natalya from Russia and Igor from Uzbekistan, who were holding hands as they strolled around a hilltop park, sunning themselves on a sparkling winter afternoon. Should it have been any surprise that Yana, the saleswoman at the nearby mall, grew up in Azerbaijan?

All around me in the Israeli city of Ashdod, people were chatting in Russian, darting in and out of stores with signs in Cyrillic, living the lives that they had once lived, as if they were in a mythical, far-flung former Soviet republic. I had come from Moscow to explore Israel, but when I reached Ashdod, a port on the Mediterranean that is shunned by most guidebooks, I almost felt as if I were back where I had started. Minus the snow. [...]

Attacks against beis din by Orthodox Jews

Haaretz

It starts with a distant, dull roar along Rabbi Akiva Street in the largely Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv. Gradually the noise grows louder and infiltrates the half-open window of courtroom A. The proceedings lapse into silence, as the dayanim - judges in a religious court - the litigants and everyone else present listen attentively. It's almost 9:30 P.M., and the speaker system on the roof of a rented vehicle is broadcasting a recorded message. When the people in the courtroom are able to make out the words being blasted  through the speakers, they discover that the announcement is not about the funeral of an important rabbi or a pious woman.


At least 100 decibels burst through the half-open window, shaking the courtroom. The voices represent one side in a war  being waged by dayanim in a bid to maintain the exclusive power of the religious courts among the Haredi public. At this late hour, they are urging everyone to attend a demonstration being held that night against Zvi Bialostosky, "who is raising a hand against the Torah of Moses." [...]

Ad displays on the Kotel

Haaretz

Most people go to the Western Wall to pray, but now some will also head there to pay. 

The cabinet is set to approve a plan that would allow for sponsorship messages to be beamed onto the Western Wall, sources in the Prime Minister's Office told Haaretz Saturday.[...]

From Skinhead to Orthodox Jew

NYTImes

WARSAW — When Pawel looks into the mirror, he can still sometimes see a neo-Nazi skinhead staring back, the man he once was before he covered his shaved head with a yarmulke, shed his fascist ideology for the Torah and renounced violence and hatred in favor of God.

“I still struggle every day to discard my past ideas,” said Pawel, a 33-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jew and former truck driver, noting with little irony that he had to stop hating Jews in order to become one. [...]

Benefits of depression & negative moods

NYTIMES

The Victorians had many names for depression, and Charles Darwin used them all. There were his “fits” brought on by “excitements,” “flurries” leading to an “uncomfortable palpitation of the heart” and “air fatigues” that triggered his “head symptoms.” In one particularly pitiful letter, written to a specialist in “psychological medicine,” he confessed to “extreme spasmodic daily and nightly flatulence” and “hysterical crying” whenever Emma, his devoted wife, left him alone.

While there has been endless speculation about Darwin’s mysterious ailment — his symptoms have been attributed to everything from lactose intolerance to Chagas disease — Darwin himself was most troubled by his recurring mental problems. His depression left him “not able to do anything one day out of three,” choking on his “bitter mortification.” He despaired of the weakness of mind that ran in his family. “The ‘race is for the strong,’ ” Darwin wrote. “I shall probably do little more but be content to admire the strides others made in Science.”[...]

Former Takana member discusses Elon scandal

Haaretz

Dr. Hana Kehat began her fight against sexual harassment within Israel's religious sector even before initiating the Takana forum, from which she has now resigned in the wake of the Rabbi Mordechai Elon affair. Kehat is a founder and board member of Kolech - a feminist, religious Zionist movement established more than 20 years ago which aims to achieve equality for women within the religious community.

Kehat, a lecturer in Bible and Israeli thought, started taking on sexual harassment at Kolech, where she exposed how such harassment on the part of Rabbi Yitzchak Cohen, head of the women's religious college at Bar-Ilan University, had been handled. The affair nearly led to her firing from Orot College by its director, Rabbi Neria Guttel, and demonstrated the great need to establish the Takana forum. Kolech put pressure on Bar-Ilan; as a result the university set up an investigatory committee headed by Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, today one of Takana's leaders. [...]

Dual justice system for secular and religious Jews

Haaretz

Religious Zionism presents: a show of arrogance. For about three years, they kept their dirty laundry at home, but now they have been so kind as to display it for everyone to see. The fact that in the State of Israel there is an alternative law enforcement system such as the Takana forum, which investigates and metes out punishment only to religious Zionists, is intolerable. The fact that this system is run by the heads of a movement that in vain regulates to itself what is morally, ethically and culturally permissible is another sign of its arrogance.

A high school teacher at a secular school who sexually assaults his students would be turned over to the police. A rabbi at a yeshiva suspected of the same thing would be turned over to Takana. Perish any connection between them, but the criminal underworld also has its own judicial system with the means to investigate and punish. In that respect, there is no difference between the underworld and Takana. [...]

Chareidi society & challenge of the internet

Haaretz

There is no clearer sign that leaders have lost control than when they and their people can no longer trust each other. This breach of trust is at the root of an increasingly frantic campaign on the part of ultra-Orthodox rabbis against the Internet. The latest edict, announced at a gathering of rabbis and senior Haredi educators this week in Jerusalem, demands that all parents enrolling their children in ultra-Orthodox schools sign a written commitment that their home computers are not connected in any way to the poisonous web.[...]

Secular Israeli society & violence

YNET

Last week, an 18-year old boy went out to a movie at a Petach Tikva mall with two friends. They encountered a group of teens demanding a cigarette. The boy said he did not have one. The response came immediately: Blows to his entire body that prompted his hospitalization, putting his life at risk. The boy underwent three surgeries and regained his consciousness only five days later.

And it happened because he said he had no cigarette.

Two days later, the victim's father was interviewed. The interviewer referred to the attackers as "normative teens" from "good families." In the news, after the violent attacks, they are always described that way. Yet the truth is that a more fitting description would be "human animals devoid of morality and values" and perhaps also "violent whippersnappers." Describing them as "normative boys" is outrageous. [...]

Rav Sternbuch's shul: Purim Times

Rav Sternbuch: Reward for Tzedaka in this world

Bill against sexual harrassment by rabbis

YNET

MK Orlev, who initiated bill, says: From now on, rabbis will not be able to shirk their responsibility and maintain limitations on preventing sexual harassment. Orlev careful to deny any connection between timing of bill and Rabbi Mordechai Elon harassment affair

The Knesset plenum on Wednesday passed two similar bills in a preliminary reading stipulating that offers or treatment of a sexual nature suggested by religious or spiritual instructors to their students be considered sexual harassment. This also would apply if the recipient does not expressly decline the offer.[...]

Hamas founder's son was agent for Shin Bet

Haaretz
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Commentary & critique of main article

The son of a leading Hamas figure, who famously converted to Christianity, served for over a decade as the Shin Bet security service's most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership, Haaretz has learned.

Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder and one of its leaders in the West Bank. The intelligence he supplied Israel led to the exposure of a number of terrorist cells, and to the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures. [...]