Parashat Bahar Bechukotai

Lag baOmer

advance for Jewish feminism

Women who pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem can wear tallitot and tefillin, despite a standing order by police that sought to prevent the practice.

So ruled a Jerusalem court Wednesday, potentially altering the status quo at Judaism's holiest site dramatically.

Judge Moshe Sobel of Jerusalem's District Court said police were misinterpreting a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that recommended -- but did not order -- women who pray at the wall to desist from wearing tallitot and tefillin. Police had interpreted that 2003 ruling to mean that any woman wearing the prayer instruments at the Kotel could be arrested.

According to the Times of Israel, Judge Sobel wrote:

“The conclusion in the ruling is not phrased as an order directed at the Women of the Wall, but as a recommendation,” Sobel wrote in the decision, and the ruling “did not ban the Women of the Wall from praying in any particular place.”

The judge's ruling also means that women wearing tallitot and tefillin need not pray only at Robinson's Arch, which had been the longstanding practice.

The issue came to a head on April 11, when five women from a group called Women of the Wall were arrested by police for disturbing the peace. They are engaged in a longstanding protest at the kotel against the Orthodox authorities there who have prevented them from praying in the fashion they wish.

The Jerusalem police or the state prosecutor can now appeal Judge Sobel's ruling to the Supreme Court. N

Iran over the red line

http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-already-past-nuclear-red-line-expert-says/

Bombing taught in KG

Israel to the UN: The Prerequisites for Peace - Amb. Ron Prosor (Mission of Israel to the UN)

Israeli UN Ambassador Ron Prosor told the UN Security Council on Wednesday:

• Peace must be built on a foundation of education for tolerance and coexistence. Under the Palestinian Authority, students learn history from textbooks that glorify terrorists. They learn geography from atlases that erase Israel from the map. Gaza kindergarten graduations feature "terrorist dress-up." Five-year-olds stage plays that glorify jihadists and suicide bombers.

John Kerry shows true colors

John Kerry’s Shameful Moral Relativism

Seth Mandel | @SethAMandel04.22.2013 - 12:25 PM

Those who doubted the wisdom of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s apology to his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in March had their first “I told you so” moment the very next day. Speaking to Turkish reporters, Erdoganappeared to immediately backtrack on his end of the rapprochement, which included dropping the case against the Israel Defense Forces for defending themselves from the Turkish-supported flotilla activists seeking to violently crash the naval blockade of the terrorist group Hamas.

A successful normalization of relations between Israel and Turkey would be beneficial to regional stability, so Netanyahu presumably offered the apology fully aware of the risks of dealing with Erdogan and believing they were outweighed by the rewards. But one of the reasons some opposed the apology at all was because they understandably feared it would legitimize the status of victimhood claimed by the violent invaders and endorse a frightful moral relativism which already undermines Israel’s attempts to defend itself.

But the moral relativism between the IDF and the armed naval invaders, while unfortunate, is fully eclipsed by the offensive and indefensible moral relativism Secretary of State John Kerry offered this weekend in trying to soothe Erdogan’s ego. According to the Associated Press:

Kerry said he understood the anger and frustration of those Turks who lost friends and family in the raid. The former Massachusetts senator said last week’s Boston Marathon bombings made him acutely aware of the emotions involved.

“It affects the community, it affects the country. But going forward, you know, we have to find the best way to bring people together and undo these tensions and undo these stereotypes and try to make peace,” he said.

This was always a concern about putting Kerry in charge of diplomacy. Kerry possesses neither principle nor expertise, and so the odds of him saying something both daft and morally bankrupt are always high. Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon no doubt spoke for many in Israel when he responded:

“It is never helpful when a moral equivalency is made confusing terrorists with their victims,” Danon told The Times of Israel. “As our American friends were made all too aware once again last week, the only way to deal with the evils of terrorism [is] to wage an unrelenting war against its perpetrators wherever they may be,” he said.

The armed Turkish invaders Kerry has developed such sympathy for were on a ship funded by a terrorist organization with ties to Hamas and other jihadist groups seeking to challenge Israel’s navy in order to help Hamas. If they were victims at all, it was of their own violent ideology. Though we don’t know yet what motivated the Tsarnaev brothers to perpetrate the monstrous bombing they are believed to have carried out and the additional ones law enforcement officials believe they were planning, the biographical picture beginning to emerge paints at least the elder of the two as “increasingly militant” in his Muslim faith.

But whether the Tsarnaevs were inspired by Islamic radicalism at all is beside the point in the case of Kerry’s comments. The victims in Boston were victims of a brutal and murderous attack; the “victims” to whom Kerry compared them were in the act of carrying out their own attack. Kerry’s comments also put Israelis trying to contain a terrorist enclave next door on the same moral plane as those terrorists and their allies.

Perhaps Kerry misspoke. If not, his worldview is warped, dangerous, and dishonorable. The same administration officials who nudged Netanyahu to apologize to Erdogan should pay a visit to Kerry. The secretary of state owes a round of apologies thanks to his inauspicious start as America’s chief diplomat.

Our newest Jew

Interaction with Chabad and non Ortho convert

Dealing with Chabad and non Orthodox converts:
from a convert
"I told you I was going to visit the Chabad center.  Well, you know I try to be more observant.  I included the Chabad center rabbi in on the tefillin query.  He refused to offer assistance, saying that I wasn't Jewish and shouldn't be attempting to do mitzvot!
He went on, later, to send me this link: http://whoisajew.com.  In the first few paragraphs of the introduction in this article, it makes inferences of fellow Jews being Nazis, or similar.

Now I know why prophecy is closed and the messianic era isn't here! G-d's own "Chosen People" can't even be halfway decent to one another, much less actually be priests to the nations!!!!

Yes, your beit din warned me.  Yes, I knew of these issues second hand before I ever boarded the plane to Chicago.  Yes, I know Hassidim/Ultra Orthodox are worse.  But it never "hits home" until it personally happens to you.  It was like being hit by a brick thrown intentionally from a new friend.


I don't know what I'll do.  Certainly, to eliminate this, I'll have to go through another conversion.  (You may or may not remember.  I originally tried to convert via orthodox.  But since I couldn't afford to move into their plush lakeside eruv-complete community, they wouldn't allow me to convert as orthodox.  Also, since my wife wasn't a jew!)

It seems to be an impossible situation, created by the orthodox to keep people from becoming orthodox, so they can oppose those who aren't orthodox.

I pray G-d recognizes the utter lack of justice in each and every aspect of this situation"

what I told him? "I wouldn't waste my time or energy on them. Life's too short. Surround yourself with positive, uplifting, supportive people, not negative. You are a Jew, as much as that guy"

Boston bomber and jihad

Bombing Suspects Lauded Jihad

IPT News
April 19, 2013

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3981/bombing-suspects-lauded-jihad

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While police in and around Boston hunt for 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers, information gathered from various social media outlets indicate that he and his brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, harbored radical Islamic beliefs.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed overnight as police closed in on him and the hunt for Dzhokhar remains active. An MIT security officer was shot and killed in the firefight.

This is believed to be Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Youtube page. Several of the posts feature radical Islamic rhetoric. In addition, a graphic video about Syria appears on Tsarnaev's page on a Russian version of Facebook.

The brothers came to the United States from Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim state which declared independence from Russia in 1991, resulting in years of violence and terrorist strikes. Another video Tsarnaev posted was simply called "Terrorists." But that video has been taken down. Yet another that was posted last summer, lauds "The promised emergence of the black flags from the promised land of Khorasan." It celebrates jihadis posing "with a flag of the Taliban's Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," the Long War Journal reported. The video has an apocalyptic message anticipating a time when the forces of Islam, led by the Mahdi, the Guided One, will conquer the world prior to the Day of Judgment. Part of this battle will be the conquest of the Holy Land.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a boxer who told an interviewer in 2009 that he had no American friends. "I don't understand them," he said. An Amazon.com wish list believed to be Tamerlan's includes several books on forgery and the books The Lone Wolf And the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule and Allah's Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya, New Edition.

Eric Mercado, a former high school classmate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, told CNN that he and his friends remember a conversation in which Tsarnaev said, "When justified, terrorism isn't necessarily a bad thing." The comment was dismissed as outlandish. "No one wants to believe that their friend from high school is a quote-unquote 'terrorist,'" Mercado said.

The bombs, reportedly packed inside pressure cookers, bear striking resemblances to instructions offered by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire magazine. One article suggested that pressure cooker bombs should be "placed in crowded areas and left to blow up. More than one of these could be planted to explode at the same time. However, keep in mind that the range of the shrapnel in this operation is short range so the pressurized cooker or pipe should be placed close to the intended targets and should not be concealed from them by barriers such as walls."

Top 10 lies 4-10

Top 10 lies about Israel 1-3

Israel's 65th greatest country

More on kedoshim

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Parashat kedoshim

Anti Semitism up

After a two year downturn, global antisemitism spiked in 2012, spurred by attacks on Jews in France and far- right political parties in Europe, a new study found.

There were a total of 656 attacks on Jews in 2012, an increase from 526 in 2011. There were 200 anti-Jewish incidents in France, the country with the highest number of anti-Jewish events.

The report, a joint effort by the European Jewish Congress and Tel Aviv University, was released on the eve of Yom Hashoah in Israel.

Researchers blamed far-right governments and Muslim extremists for the increase in anti-Jewish attacks.

Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress, called for strong action by the European Union, charging that governments — particularly Hungary —were not doing enough to curb these parties’ activities and protect minorities.
“Neo-Nazis have been once again legalized in Europe, they are openly sitting in parliaments,” said Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress.

Researchers said the attack on Jews in Toulouse, where four people were killed at a Jewish school, seems to have promoted, not inhibited, further incidents.

“This shows that the desire to harm Jews is deeply rooted among extremist Muslims and right-wingers, regardless of events in the Middle East,” said Roni Stauber, the study's chief researcher.

Holocaust book for children

Parashat Shemini basic rules of kashrut

Abraham's home city

Archaeologists’ Discovery May Be Abraham’s Home City of Ur

“Terah took Abram his son, and Lot…and Sarai… from Ur…to go to the land of Canaan.” No one has ever found Ur – until now, with a “breathtaking find” of a 4,000-year-old public building near Ur.

By: Tzvi Ben-Gedalyahu

Published: April 5th, 2013

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Excavation in progress at Tell Khaiber, Iraq
Photo Credit: Manchester University professor Stuart Campbell 

British archaeologists have discovered a huge 4,000-year-old building that probably was in use in the ancient city of Ur, where the forefather Abraham lived before leaving with his father Terah for Israel, then known in the Bible as “the land of Canaan.”

The ancient city of Ur was discovered approximately 90 years ago and is thought to be Abraham’s birthplace, but the latest discovery is the first time a building has been unearthed that might be connected with the city or have religious connections to it.

The unearthing of the large structure, approximately 260 feet on each side, includes several rooms around a large courtyard.

“It might be an administrative building, it might have religious connections or controlling goods to the city of Ur,” Manchester University archaeologist Stuart Campbell told the Associated Press.

Among the artifacts discovered were signs of idol worship, which also was prevalent in Canaan until Abraham introduce the concept of one Deity to the world.

Iraq is known to host a wealth of history underground but has not been accessible to Western archaeologists for more than three decades because of the tyrannical regime of Saddam Hussein and ensuing wars.

One of the images that was found is that of a ram, the animal that Abraham sacrificed in Canaan after God “tested” him with His order to sacrifice his only son. Yitzchak (Isaac), who was to inherit the land for future generations of Jews, as written in the Bible:

“And Abraham stretched out his arm and took the knife to slaughter his son, and the angel of God called from the heavens and said, Abraham, Abraham…. Do not stretch forth your hand to the lad, nor do the slightest thing to him, for now I know that you are a God fearing man, and you did not withhold your son, your only one, from Me.

“And Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw a ram caught in a thicket by its horns and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it as a burnt offering instead of his son.”

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About the Author: Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu is a graduate in journalism and economics from The George Washington University. He has worked as a cub reporter in rural Virginia and as senior copy editor for major Canadian metropolitan dailies. Tzvi wrote for Arutz Sheva for several years before joining the Jewish Press.

There is no partner for peace

Rockets, Hate and Kerry’s Fool’s Errand

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary04.03.2013 - 10:40 AM

Two weeks have passed since President Obama spoke to an audience of Israeli students and urged them to pressure their government to make peace with the Palestinians. To further that aim, Secretary of State John Kerry is expected back in the country this week to push for a renewal of peace talks. Kerry will busy himself with shuttling between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. But while Kerry talks, the deteriorating cease-fire between Israel and Hamas along the Gaza border is illustrating the futile nature of his mission.

Palestinians fired rockets again into southern Israel from Gaza this week, showing that the cease-fire Hamas agreed to after Israel’s November counter-offensive to stop such outrages may be collapsing. This shows that despite Washington’s focus on propping up Abbas as a credible partner for peace, the independent Palestinian state in all but name in Gaza still has the ability to veto any hopes for an end to the conflict. But it also puts the entire enterprise of peacemaking in a different perspective. As much as the president seemed to place the onus for negotiating a deal on Israel, the armed terrorist camp in Gaza serves to not only maintain the level of violence on a low if persistent flame, but also keeps the pressure on Abbas to find more excuses to not talk to an Israeli government that has already said it will negotiate without preconditions. The reality of Palestinian politics has an unfortunate way of outstripping American diplomatic initiatives, something Obama should have taken into consideration before sending Kerry out on this latest fool’s errand.

Abbas has already demonstrated repeatedly that he is in no position to seriously negotiate peace with Israel, let alone sign such an agreement. But that isn’t stopping Kerry from diving into a new round of shuttle diplomacy any more than the reality of Hamas’s hegemony in Gaza is causing him to ponder the fact that a divided Palestinian leadership makes a deal impossible.

According to numerous reports, the current sticking point for getting Abbas back to the negotiating table is his demand that Israel release long-term security prisoners as a “goodwill gesture,” an issue that’s been prioritized because of sympathy generated by the death of a 64-year-old Palestinian in Israeli custody. But this is just one more of a long list of excuses that Abbas has trumped up in order to avoid talks rather than a genuine obstacle to peace.

The issue of the prisoners is often represented in the international press as one of concern for the fate of Palestinian protesters who have been unjustly jailed by Israelis in order to suppress dissent. But the prisoner who just died is a perfect illustration of just how misleading that assumption can be. The late prisoner was incarcerated for his role in sending a suicide bomber to blow up an Israeli café, not for conducting a peaceful protest or even throwing a rock.

As Kerry ought to know, the real obstacle to peace isn’t Israeli settlements or building in Jerusalem. It is the hate for Jews and Israel that is fueling the rocket fire from Gaza. But instead of trying to mollify Abbas’s bogus concerns about prisoners, the secretary would probably do more to advance the cause of peace were he to address the ongoing fomenting of hatred by the official PA media.

As Palestinian Media Watch reports, this month a children’s program on official Palestinian Authority television showed a child reciting a poem that referred to both Zionists and the “sons of pigs”—a traditional Muslim reference for Jews. The poem, which was received with applause, spoke of Jews killing children, raping women in the streets and defiling the Koran and Jerusalem, while urging Muslims to rise up and defeat them. So long as such expressions are not only considered mainstream enough for general Palestinian discourse but are part of the PA’s education agenda, peace isn’t difficult; it’s impossible.

This shows once again that the gaps between the two sides in the Middle East conflict are not about borders but about a willingness to live in peace. PA propaganda isn’t just outrageous; it directly contradicts President Obama’s endorsement of the right of Jews to live in peace in their historic homeland. Until that changes, Kerry’s shuttle diplomacy will be just a waste of time.

PA Continues to Advocate for Israel's Destruction

by IPT News  •  Mar 20, 2013 at 6:14 pm

http://www.investigativeproject.org/3949/pa-continues-to-advocate-for-israel-destruction

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Calls for liberating "Palestine" have been reverberating among the various Palestinian political factions for decades.

Hamas actively pursues Israel's destruction, but how does the Palestinian Authority (PA) differ from the terrorist organization?

A recent Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) report highlights the PA's continued efforts to propagate the Palestinian refugees' "right of return" within Israel. This narrative is perpetuated at the core of PA schools and is clearly disseminated throughout history, civics, and Arabic language textbooks. For example, MEMRI points to a fourth grade textbook, which says, "Four and a half million Palestinians live in the diaspora outside Palestine… Most are refugees waiting to return to the motherland, from which they were expelled."

Other examples start as early as second grade and run throughout primary school textbooks. By subjecting children to continuous propaganda regarding an eventual "return" to Israeli cities like Haifa and Jaffa, the PA is clearly indoctrinating future generations on the virtues of a one-state solution. In that scenario, Palestinians would outnumber Israelis stripping Jews of a homeland.

This tactic is part of the broader strategy of subjugating younger generations of Palestinians to propaganda that glorifies terrorists and advocates for violent jihad for the purposes of destroying the Jewish state.

The Palestinian culture of death has been exposed in various forms throughout the years. Among the more notorious examples was a children's television program that featured a Mickey Mouse knockoff calling for martyrdom and violence against Jews. Moreover, MEMRI reports that the PA continues to praise terrorists such as Dalal Al-Mughrabi, commemorating the anniversary of a terrorist attack which killed 35 Israelis and injured dozens of civilians. Former and current PA officials continue to glorify such atrocities, describing Mughrabi as an inspirational figure and role model.

Furthermore, PA President Mahmoud Abbas recently claimed that there is "no difference between [the PA's] policies and those of Hamas." Based on the PA's educational curriculum, media dissemination, and terrorist glorification, the international community must look behind the PA's doublespeak before pressuring Israel to make further concessions.