Justice Minister:Halacha shoud be law of Israel

Haaretz

Justice Minister Ya'akov Ne'eman on Monday said he believes Halakha (Jewish law) should be the binding law in Israel, Army Radio reported.

"Step by step, we will bestow upon the citizens of Israel the laws of the Torah and we will turn Halakha into the binding law of the nation," said Ne'eman at a Jewish law convention at the Regency hotel in Jerusalem, in the presence of many rabbis and rabbinical judges. [...]

YNet Clarification of what was meant

R Moshe Shapiro addresses kiruv organizations

Matzav

Nearly 50 participants from such organizations as Arachim, Lev L'achim, Nefesh Yehudi, and Hidabroot participated in the 2-day event (December 1-3) that included an electrifying address by Hagaon Harav Moshe Schapiro. Following his one-hour address that was a call to action to intensify efforts to be "mekarev levavos," Harav Schapiro fielded questions on kiruv for nearly two hours. Menachem Lubinsky, who represented Horizons/EJF called the conference "an unprecedented show of unity amongst all the major kiruv organizations." Prior to Dr. Abdi's address, the group saw a riveting video on a woman saved from a brutal life in an Arab village by Lev L'Achim. The woman, whose child was also saved, was taken to a shelter operated by the organization and she is now well on the way towards becoming an Orthodox Jewess. Thanks to a grant from EJF, Lev L'Achim has stepped up its efforts to extricate the Jewish women from a horrific life with their Arab husbands. Dozens of women have already been rescued.[...]

The missing mothers

Kikar Shabbat

במשפחה שלנו, במקום אמא ואבא, יש אבא ואבא.

לא תמיד זה היה כך. עד לאחרונה גם אצלינו היו אבא ואמא, כמו לכל המשפחות. אבל אז הכל השתנה.

Prof. Neusner returns to Reform Judaism

Forward

Once upon a time, there was a young man, a third-generation American who was raised in a classical Reform temple, who in the Reform manner celebrated becoming a bar mitzvah and who was confirmed in the Reform rite. He was inspired by his temple's rabbi to himself become a Reform rabbi. He held national office in the National Federation of Temple Youth, and he was admitted to the Reform movement's Hebrew Union College.

Then, on the very day this young man was supposed to begin studies at Hebrew Union College, he instead entered the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the intellectual citadel of Conservative Judaism. He agreed to give up the lobster dinners, the veal parmigiana and the BLT sandwiches that he had loved, and even to quit smoking on the Sabbath, as admission to JTS demanded.

The decision was not the result of a dramatic change of convictions. He simply thought he would get a better Jewish education at JTS than at HUC. To that goal everything else was secondary. Six years later, he was ordained by JTS as a Conservative rabbi.[...]

R' Metzger deviates from chareidi view on converts

Haaretz

In an unusual departure from the ultra-Orthodox stance, Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi has declared that anyone holding a conversion certificate issued by the State of Israel can register to be married in his place of residence. Yona Metzger's declaration, contained in a letter to the Knesset's Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs, comes on the heels of converts' complaints that local rabbis were refusing to recognize them as Jews according to Jewish law and to register them for marriage.

In recent weeks, the organization ITIM (The Jewish Life Information Center), which represents conversion candidates in their dealings with the authorities, prepared to file a petition to the High Court of Justice on the matter.

In response to the complaints, Rabbi Metzger said that in instances in which rabbis refuse to register converts to be married, he would "authorize a substitute marriage registrar that would carry out what the law requires."
 
This is the latest development in a controversy which surfaced about a year and a half ago, after ultra-Orthodox rabbis in official positions announced there was no validity under Jewish law regarding conversions performed through religious conversion courts. Rabbi Avraham Sherman, for example, who is a judge on the Rabbinical High Court, ruled that thousands of conversions performed by the special religious conversion court (under official state sponsorship) were invalid.[...]

Pharmacy is not kosher enough for Bnei Brak

JPost

You cannot please all of the people all of the time, especially when dealing with the religious sensibilities of the residents of Bnei Brak, a town with the nation's highest population density, little crime and some of the most zealously Orthodox Jews in the world.

That is what New-Pharm, a drugstore chain owned by Rami Shavit, discovered this weekend.

On Saturday night, dozens of Bnei Brak residents converged on the store, which opened six months ago, and demanded that it close its doors due to the negative influence the store's cosmetics and perfume departments might have on the town's young people.[...]

Rabbi attacked in Tzfat:Request for information

Dear Dr. Eidensohn,

I was reading R' Feldman's new book and he writes that a rabbi was attacked in Tzfat and the attacker only got fined $200. This would've happened in 1998 or, more likely, 1999. I was wondering if you know anything about said incident and if not, could you please put this up as a blog post so your informed readers may possibly inform me what the matziv was (I've searched and searched on Google to no avail)

Sincerely,
Baruch Pelta
=============
Moshe wrote:

The Rabbi was the chief rabbi of Tzefas Rabbi Levi Bistritzky. The attacker was Meir Baranes who later on ran over Rabbi Bistritzky causing him severe injuries from which he never fully recovered till he was Niftar. I attached a pic from this link http://chabad-il.org/sh/601-700/sh696.htm. See also http://www.shturem.net/index.php?mod=print&section=news&id=2796 <http://www.shturem.net/index.php?mod=print&section=news&id=2796>.