(JNS.org) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinehad on Tuesday admitted that the West’s sanctions have created problems for the Islamic Republic’s oil exports and banking.
“There are barriers in transferring money, there are barriers in selling oil,” he said on television, according to Israel Hayom.
The West has launched an “all-out … war” against Iran by imposing the sanctions, Ahmadinejad said. In July, the European Union banned oil imports from Iran, just after the U.S. enacted tough measures against Iran’s central bank. The sanctions are aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad said that Iran is “removing” the barriers, without saying how.
Oren denies Democratic chair’s comment that he called Republicans ‘dangerous for Israel’
Oren denied the Democratic National Committee chair’s account in a statement Tuesday.
“I categorically deny that I ever characterized Republican policies as harmful to Israel,” he said. “Bipartisan support is a paramount national interest for Israel, and we have great friends on both sides of the aisle.”
The Examiner quoted Wasserman Schultz as saying the following at the Monday session: “We know, and I’ve heard no less than Ambassador Michael Oren say this, that what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel.”
According to Hadassah magazine, Wasserman Schultz has made similar comments regarding Oren before.
“What the Republicans are doing is dangerous. They are using Israel as a political football… Israel’s ambassador [to the United States], Michael Oren, has said this,” according to an interview with Wasserman Schultz that the magazine published in August.
Exclusion of Jerusalem from Democratic platform ignites controversy
President Barack Obama has an “unshakable commitment to Israel’s security,” the platform stated, citing his administration’s allocation of “nearly $10 billion in the past three years” to help maintain the Jewish state’s qualitative military edge. Through diplomatic support, Obama has displayed “steadfast opposition to any attempt to delegitimize Israel on the world stage,” the platform added.
In 2004 and 2008, but not in 2012, the Democratic platform said Jerusalem “is and will remain the capital of Israel” and called for the resolution of the Palestinian refugee issue “by allowing them to settle [in a Palestinian state], rather than in Israel.” The Republican Jewish Coalition on Tuesday expressed “outrage” that the platform “strips recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel from the party’s official policy document.”
The National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) responded that President George W. Bush “signed waivers 16 times to avoid moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.”
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, speaking at the Western Wall this summer, affirmed Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital and vowed to move the U.S. embassy there. But despite Congress’s passage of a resolution in 1995 calling for the embassy’s relocation to Jerusalem, every U.S. president since that year has kept the embassy in Tel Aviv.
By comparison, the 2012 Republican platform says: “We support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state with secure, defensible borders; and we envision two democratic states—Israel with Jerusalem as its capital and Palestine—living in peace and security.” Romney, in a statement Tuesday, called it “unfortunate that the entire Democratic Party has embraced President Obama’s shameful refusal to acknowledge that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.”
Former congressman Robert Wexler, who helped draft the Democrats’ platform, called criticism of the Jerusalem omission “total cherry-picking of the language” and “completely absurd in terms of trying to fabricate some kind of stepping back [on the administration considering Jerusalem to be Israel’s capital],” according to the Jerusalem Post. But Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the Democrats’ Minority Whip in the House, told the Post “I wouldn’t have taken it out” when asked about the Jerusalem language.
The 2012 Democratic platform also removed language from 2008 calling for continued sanctions against Hamas. Regarding the Iranian nuclear threat, the platform said Obama has “made clear that the window for diplomacy will not remain open indefinitely and that all options—including military force—remain on the table.” However, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey’s recent statement that he does not want to be “complicit” in a potential Israeli strike on Iran has fueled concern about the administration’s military support for Israel.
Washington Post commentator Jennifer Rubin wrote that the platform “is the most radically unsupportive statement of policy on Israel by any major party since the founding of the state of Israel.” NJDC President David A. Harris, offering a polar-opposite take, said the Obama administration “has the most pro-Israel record of any on record.”
“From record aid to Israel to unsurpassed supplemental missile defense to heightened military cooperation to an unprecedented perfect voting record at the United Nations to gathering a global coalition against Iran, President Barack Obama has tirelessly worked to strengthen the special partnership between the United States and Israel,” Harris said in a statement.
Alexandria synagogue, contrary to earlier reports, will hold High Holiday services
However, security concerns did change one component of the services. “The only difference is a rabbi and cantor who usually lead the services were denied entry to the country,” Gaon said, the Jerusalem Post reported. Instead, Gaon informed a Jewish official that he would lead services himself, the newspaper said.
Egypt’s historic and once vibrant Jewish community has been reduced to just a few dozen elderly members, down from nearly 80,000 in 1922. However, the small Jewish community has been spared during the Arab Spring protests. “Even at the height of protests the Jewish community was left alone,” said a Jewish official who spoke to Gaon, according to the Post.
Modern Orthodox rabbinical school announces leadership change
(JNS.org) The modern Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School (YCT) has announced that Founder and President Rav Avi Weiss will be handing over its presidency to Rabbi Asher Lopatin, a former Rhodes Scholar and the spiritual leader of Anshe Sholom B’nai Israel Congregation in Chicago.
“It moves YCT out of its founding stage into the realm of institutional viability,” Weiss said in a statement.
Known for an innovative and sometimes controversial (by Orthodox standards) approach, YCT has become a leader in modern Orthodox rabbinic education under the guidance of Weiss, who was named by Newsweek as one of America’s 50 most influential rabbis. “Rav Weiss built YCT into an educational institution that has taught students to question, to crave new understandings, and to embrace all kinds Jews and non-Jews alike,” said Steven Lieberman, chairman of the board at YCT.
However, the Rabbinic Council of America (RCA) and other Orthodox groups have been critical of YCT, and the RCA does not accept the school’s ordination.
The development and implementation of the succession plan was a component of a 2011 $3 million grant that YCT received from the Jim Joseph Foundation, according to a YCT press release.
Lopatin is slated to take over full-time in July 2013.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org and reprinted with permission