Reported compromise permits women to say Kaddish at Kotel
(JNS.org) A compromise agreement has reportedly been reached to allow women to say the Kaddish mourners’ prayer at the Western Wall, although they will still be barred from brandishing traditionally male external religious symbols such as prayer shawls.
Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz said he had agreed to the proposal, presented by MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) and Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky, in which police would not arrest women for saying Kaddish.
The agreement followed an uproar over a letter sent by Jerusalem District Police Commander Maj. Gen. Yossi Pariente to the Women of the Wall organization recently stating that police would enforce the law and arrest any woman donning a prayer shawl or saying Kaddish at the Western Wall.
Announcing the compromise agreement on Thursday, Lavie said, “Today it was proved that the path of dialogue is that which leads to change.”
Women of the Wall chairwoman Anat Hoffman responded defiantly, however, saying she would continue to wear a prayer shawl at the wall next week despite the law, and would encourage other members of the organization to do the same.
“I won’t tell a Jewish woman not to wear a tallit [prayer shawl]. Furthermore, on the upcoming Rosh Hodesh [the first day of a new month, when special prayers are said], I will also encourage the wearing of the tallit,” Hoffman told Israel Hayom.
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UN peacekeepers failing to stop Hezbollah arms, says Israel’s national security advisor
(JNS.org) Israel’s top national security advisor said that United Nations peacekeepers are failing to track Hezbollah arms in southern Lebanon.
“Under pressure, a multi-national force is like an umbrella that gets folded up on a rainy day,” Yaakov Amidror, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security adviser, said in a Tel Aviv University speech, Reuters reported.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is a multi-national peacekeeping force established by the UN in the late 1970s to maintain peace in the region. Following the 2006 summer war between Hezbollah and Israel, its mission was beefed up to include “assisting the government of Lebanon to restoring authority in the area,” according to UNIFIL’s website.
Amidror also said that despite UNIFIL’s efforts, Hezbollah has continued to amass an arsenal of 60,000 rockets, including 5,000 long-range missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv.
“Has Hezbollah avoided bringing any kind of rocket, missile or other arms into southern Lebanon because UNIFIL is there?” he said, according to Reuters.
While the northern border with Lebanon has remained largely quiet since the 2006 summer war, Israel is deeply concerned with Hezbollah gaining control of chemical weapons or other advanced weapons systems from Syria, amid the ongoing civil war there.
Hezbollah has recently come under increasing pressure both at home and abroad. The French government recently said that it would urge the European Union to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Meanwhile, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati resigned last month over infighting in his government between the pro-Hezbollah Shi’a Muslim bloc and the Western-supported Sunni Muslim bloc. Mikati, who was originally backed by Hezbollah, fell into disfavor with the group following tensions over Hezbollah’s support for embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Many Western-backed Sunni Muslims have sought to distance Lebanon from the fighting in Syria.
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Israel divestment resolution overturned by University of California, Riverside students
By Sean Savage/JNS.org
The University of California, Riverside (UCR) student government has overturned a recent student senate resolution that urged the University of California (UC) system to implement Israel divestment.
When the resolution—titled “Divestment of Companies that Profit from Apartheid”—had passed in early March, opponents of the Israel divestment measure argued that they were not given enough time to prepare for the vote.
“There was not enough time or opportunity among Senators to discuss the resolution due to public forum, and there was not a presentation of the issue from both perspectives,” student senator Megan Crail, who voted against the resolution March 6, told UCR’s Highlander News.
This prompted the student government to revisit the resolution April 3. At a campus auditorium that was filled to capacity, speakers from both sides were able to present arguments for and against the resolution, according to UCR student Jackie Zelener, co-president of UCR’s Highlanders for Israel, UCR Hillel president, and the UCR Emerson Fellow for the pro-Israel education group StandWithUs.
Following the presentations, the student government voted 10-2 to rescind the resolution.
“I am proud of our community for working together through all of this. Hopefully this will be a stepping stone for peaceful dialogue in the future,” Zelener told JNS.org.
StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein told JNS.org in a statement, “We are proud of the students at UC Riverside who made the case for Israel tonight. We are also grateful to the student government for offering the pro-Israel, pro-peace students a chance to voice their concerns about the falsehoods that were presented initially to the student government.”
“StandWithUs will continue to encourage students to work against the destructive, divisive and deceptive agenda of the boycott movement,” Rothstein said.
The divestment resolution at UCR was part of an ongoing global effort by anti-Israel activists on college campuses that hit California state schools particularly hard.
In late 2012, the University of California-Irvine (UCI) passed a similar divestment resolution. More recently, the student council at nearby University of California-San Diego (UCSD) and the student union at Canada’s York University joined the calls for divestment from Israel.
Meanwhile, student bodies at University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University and the United Kingdom’s Oxford University have rejected Israel divestment resolutions.
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NYC Jewish baby gets herpes from circumcision ritual, health dept. says
(JNS.org) A second New York City Jewish newborn in three months has contracted neonatal herpes from oral suctioning conducted during ritual circumcision, according to New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Conducted by some mohels (circumcisers) in ultra-Orthodox circles, the procedure involves orally sucking away blood from the infant’s genital area after the bris (circumcision). While many mohels use a sterile pipette instead, those who do not risk infecting newborns with herpes simplex virus type 1, which can be fatal for infants and can cause permanent brain or physical damage.
In January 2013, New York’s health department began mandating parents of infants about to undergo ritual Jewish circumcision to sign a consent form permitting mohels to use the oral method, known as metzitzah b’peh. In the recent case of herpes contraction, the parents did not sign that form, The Forward reported. The infant survived, but it is not yet clear whether he sustained any long-term damage.
According to a study published in the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report in June 2012, one in 4,098 New York City male newborns have either contracted or were probably exposed to the herpes virus. Though this incidence is not high, it is 3.4 times greater than the incidence among newborns outside New York.
Critics of New York’s metzitzah b’peh regulation believe the city is violating the U.S. Constitution by policing the religious rite. Additionally, State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, however, has said the regulation “thrusts the city deeper into a nanny-ocracy that has dubious implications” and is “a deliberate insult to the intelligence and dignity of Orthodox Jews who live in this city.”
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Israel investment gives oil giant Shell cold feet
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Just days after Israel joined the exclusive club of natural-gas producing nations, one industry giant appears less than pleased.
Israel’s Tamar offshore gas field, situated 50 miles west of Haifa, started production after four years of exploration and drilling by the Jewish state, the Israeli government announced last Saturday. Israel has an additional gas field, Leviathan, about 80 miles from Haifa’s coast.
Royal Dutch Shell, one of the largest multinational oil companies worldwide, is mulling whether to sell its $7 billion share of the Australian energy company Woodside after Woodside purchased a large share of the Leviathan natural gas field’s reserves, just off the Israeli coastline.
The Anglo-Dutch oil giant is interested in selling because the company fears that direct or indirect investment in Israel could strain its relations with Arab nations.
Woodside recently signed a deal to purchase 30 percent of the Leviathan field’s reserves for $1.5 billion. Speaking with the Wall Street Journal, Luke Smith, a senior energy analyst at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said Shell’s direct or indirect investment in Israel could complicate its extensive activities in Arab oil-producing nations.
Some of Shell’s most lucrative investments are in countries with hostile relations to Israel. Most of them do not maintain formal diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.
Smith speculated that Shell might be interested in selling its share of Woodside to BHP Petroluem, a unit of Australia’s BHP Billiton Ltd. Shell has an estimated 23 percent interest in Woodside.
Royal Dutch Shell is a joint Anglo-Dutch company that was established in 1907 and employs more than 90,000 people worldwide. Its sales totaled $467 billion in 2012 and profits reached $26.8 billion. The company has headquarters in The Hague and in London.
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Pink Floyd member and Israel critic Roger Waters event canceled at NY Jewish venue
(JNS.org) A planned event with Pink Floyd band member Roger Waters, a vocal critic of Israel, at New York City’s 92nd Street Y has been canceled following opposition efforts from the pro-Israel community.
The 92nd Street Y, which was scheduled to host “A Conversation With Rogers Waters” on April 30, wrote to its email list Wednesday, “This event has been cancelled. We will be issuing refunds to all ticket-holders.” The bassist and co-lead vocalist of Pink Floyd, Waters accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid” and “international crimes” in a November 2012 address at the United Nations, and last fall was also at the forefront of efforts to boycott an Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
On Wednesday, the watchdog group JCCWatch.org issued a “Jewish Community Alert” email that asked supporters to voice their opposition to the Roger Waters event. Besides for the 92nd Street Y, JCCWatch.org asked supporters to contact leaders of the UJA-Federation of New York, which provides funding for the Y.
“It’s absolutely outrageous that Jewish community funds are going to help Roger Waters spread his anti-Semitic message,” Richard Allen of JCCWatch.org said in the email.
David P. Steinmann, a Manhattan resident who lives around the corner from the Y, wrote in an email letter to UJA-Federation CEO John S. Ruskay, UJA-Federation President Jerry W. Levin, and 92nd Street Y Executive Director Sol Adler that, “Roger Waters is an Israel hater with a public anti-Semitic message. Because of his position as the lead singer of Pink Floyd, he has both high visibility and (undeserved) credibility.” Waters “has worked to persuade other artists to boycott performing in Israel, has led the efforts to boycott the Israel Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall and persuaded Stevie Wonder to cancel a benefit performance for Friends of the IDF—the very Israelis who risk their lives every day to preserve the Jewish state of Israel,” Steinmann wrote.
“To permit [Roger Waters] to appear at the Y with the implicit—and knowing of his anti-Israel activities— explicit approval of his hatred for the Jewish state and its Jews, would be a self destructive thing to do to the Y, to the Jewish people and to the State of Israel,” he wrote.
Ruskay, Levin and Adler did not immediately return requests for comment from JNS.org.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org