Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren blamed his own government for giving him an “incomplete” report recently that led to his giving leaders of Conservative Judaism an inaccurate account of one of their members’ detention at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.
The woman, Nofrat Frenkel, was detained last November after she wore a tallit and carried a Torah in the women’s section of the main plaza approaching the wall. According to her account, which was supported by independent observers, police forcefully pushed Frenkel, an Israeli medical student and observant Conservative Jew, into a nearby police station, where she was interrogated and detained for two-and-a-half hours. The police had her sign a statement saying she would not go near the wall for the next 15 days.
When asked about the incident at the annual meeting of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism in December, Oren dismissed these accounts as “widely misreported,” saying she was simply “led away” from the area.
In the face of challenges to his account, the Israel embassy released a statement December 22 conceding he had misinformed the Jewish leaders. “The ambassador’s response was based on information he had requested and received from Israel, but which was subsequently proven to be incomplete,” the statement said.
“It is not clear why he got incomplete information,” said Oren’s spokesman, Jonathan Peled, in a follow-up interview. “He was clearly not given the whole picture at the time, and responded on the basis of information he received.” Peled said that Oren had demanded “a full and thorough inquiry so he will not be misled.”
“We hope to get the full file within a couple of days,” he said. “We have formally requested that we need an answer as soon as possible.”
In a phone call to David Lissy, executive director and CEO of the Masorti Foundation, Oren said that his earlier, inaccurate account was based on a police report. “He is personally looking into it and personally taking it very seriously,” Lissy told the Forward.
Oren gave a similar explanation to Rabbi Alan Silverstein, the Masorti movement’s chairman, in a separate phone call. The calls were in response to a letter the two wrote Oren voicing concern about the account he gave USCJ leaders.
The diplomatic coda to the November Kotel episode was only part of the affair’s aftermath. On and around December 17, Jewish women’s prayer groups and Torah study groups met for special gatherings around the world to mark the new Jewish month of Tevet in solidarity with Women of the Wall, the women’s prayer group of which Frenkel is a part.
In a rare example of interdenominational work, Reform Rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson and Rivka Haut, a Brooklyn Orthodox activist, worked together to promote the grass-roots effort. Ellenson, director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, an organization of female Reform rabbis, and Haut, who organized the first women’s group prayer service at the Kotel in 1988 penned a joint letter promoting the gatherings.
Others also spoke out, including Orthodox Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, spiritual leader of the Washington congregation Ohev Sholom — The National Synagogue. In a letter to Oren, Herzfeld condemned Frenkel’s detention as “offensive and dangerous.”
But in the weeks since her detention, Conservative Jewish groups in the United States did not speak out on the issue.
In response to inquiries from the Forward, Rabbi Steven Wernick, executive vice president of USCJ, at whose conference Oren gave his account, said on December 23, “If Israel’s going to be the home for all the Jewish people then it needs to be the home for all the Jewish people. Incidents like this make it harder for North American Jews to really get behind Israel in the way in which we want to.”
Frenkel’s police detention was but the latest in a series of incidents over many years involving Women of the Wall—a trans-denominational group—and the Orthodox rabbinical authorities that control the holy site, which marks the outer perimeter of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans. As is standard in Orthodox prayer venues, the site is sex segregated, and women may pray only individually and not as a community or minyan as men do.
Women of the Wall challenges Orthodox edicts that ban women from holding formal services at the Kotel site or conducting themselves in ways that vary from strict Orthodox practice. The Torah study groups and women’s prayer groups that gathered in solidarity with Women of the Wall represented a wide spectrum of the movement that has coalesced around this issue in response to the Frenkel incident.
When she heard about Frenkel’s experience, Simonne Horwitz, an assistant professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, hastily planned a trip to Israel for the December 18 service held at the Kotel. She joined 152 other women who came with Women of the Wall, many of them wearing prayer shawls under raincoats. Masorti officials say that many were members of their movement.
“I really felt the need to be there and not just talk about support,” Horwitz said. “It was my first time being able to really pray at the wall and not just put the note in. It felt really different, being part of a group.”
At the synagogue of Manhattan’s Jewish Theological Seminary, the flagship rabbinical school of the Conservative movement, women held a prayer shawl above them “like a hupah,” said Rabbi Lisa Gelber, JTS’s dean of students, and read a poem by the late Yehuda Amichai, A renowned Israeli poet.
“We took turns reading lines from the poem in Hebrew and English, then we sang together from Hallel [a prayer recited for the new month], calling on God to open up the gates of justice so we can come in to praise God,” she said. “It felt appropriate to acknowledge that this is an issue of justice. All of us, men and women, should be able to approach God in communal prayer wrapped in what helps define us as Jews.”
Solidarity study groups and services also took place in Scarsdale, N.Y., Bridgeport, Conn., Edison, N.J., Glencoe, Ill., Mendota Heights, Minn., and Charlotte, N.C., among other areas.
But Women of the Wall chairperson Anat Hoffman criticized the lack of political response to the treatment that Frenkel received. “I want Michael Oren to be drowning in e-mails and faxes and letters saying: ‘Do something about this. This is something we care about,’” said Hoffman, who is also executive director of the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center.
Hoffman said that when she led the women in Rosh Hodesh prayer at Kotel, she heard ultra-Orthodox men jeering them, calling them “prostitutes” and shouting that “the Holocaust happened because of you.”
“But more than I heard the bullies, I heard the silence of all my supporters,” Hoffman said. “The silence of the majority of Israeli seculars, who have allowed this thing to happen; the silence of the court, the police, the mayor, the Knesset, and also the silence of my brothers and sisters, who know women read Torah and wear tallit.”
Contact Debra Nussbaum Cohen at dnussbaumc@forward.com
The embassy requests that this statement, exclusive to The Forward, be used in its entirety:
Earlier this month at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism biennial convention, Ambassador Oren responded to a question based upon information he had requested and received from Israel, which was later proven to be incomplete. The ambassador has since demanded a full and complete report on the incident involving Ms. Nofrat Frenkel at the Kotel.
In the interim, the ambassador has contacted the leaders of the Masorti Movement to express his concern over this unfortunate episode and to reiterate the continued commitment of the State of Israel of upholding pluralism and democracy in Israel.
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Chazak U'Barukh to all! We need to let Mr. Oren know, American Jews will voice their concerns freely about issues in Medinat Yisrael. We are not a cash cow to be milked by Israeli politicians and then ignored.
It is indeed interesting that the Ambassador is demanding an "inquiry." In Israel we are very good at doing inquiries, especially when the answer is already known. Frenkel's experience of being arrested is the result of a known problem in Israel. It demands no special inquiry and Oren knows this. When it comes to religion and state in Israel the State privileges the Jewish at the expense of democratic thus enabling fundamentalist and extremist religion to rule. Here is another idea for an Inquiry. In East Jerusalem Palestinians are expelled from their homes so Jewish settlers can move in. What will happen when Palestinians start to reclaim the homes from which they were expelled in West Jerusalem? (Again Jewish trumps democratic).
Will Oren or any Israel official ever demand an inquiry into Israel's continued use of torture and its abject failure to investigate the complaints of hundreds of victims? That is what we need an impunity inquiry to cover it all, from Frenkels Talit to the GSS torture Chamber. If not now when?
It is indeed interesting that the Ambassador is demanding an "inquiry." In Israel we are very good at doing inquiries, especially when the answer is already known. Frenkel's experience of being arrested is the result of a known problem in Israel. It demands no special inquiry and Oren knows this. When it comes to religion and state in Israel the State privileges the Jewish at the expense of democratic thus enabling fundamentalist and extremist religion to rule. Here is another idea for an Inquiry. In East Jerusalem Palestinians are expelled from their homes so Jewish settlers can move in. What will happen when Palestinians start to reclaim the homes from which they were expelled in West Jerusalem? (Again Jewish trumps democratic).
Will Oren or any Israel official ever demand an inquiry into Israel's continued use of torture and its abject failure to investigate the complaints of hundreds of victims? That is what we need an impunity inquiry to cover it all, from Frenkels Talit to the GSS torture Chamber. If not now when?
Perhaps the answer is that there should be special times designated both for men and for women to pray at the Western Wall. That is, men (who might be offended) would not be allowed to (or have to) pray when it is the women's turn, and the women would not be allowed to pray when it is the men's turn. If very Orthodox women are offended, they can pray as they've always done, quietly and by themselves when the men's prayer time is going on. If less Orthodox Jewish men who are not offended by women praying in tallits etc. want to to pray during that time, they could do so. With specific times set forth, so that the possibly offended men know ahead of time, this should work. But it would have to be equal times -and not night and day. It would be fair to all.
The purpose of the mechitza separating the men from the women at the Kotel is to help the men concentrate on their devout davening and not be diverted by seeing women. So why are they looking over the mechitza? Get back to your davening!
Strange as it may seem that Israeli envoy in USA asking his corrupt government to enquire the woman at the wall episode!
When would he and hordes of backers of Israel right or wrong make demand that Inquire Israel war crimes it has been committing since its inception!
The Wailing Wall is a religious as well as national venue and symbol for the Jewish people, but it has been traditionally regulated by the Orthodox Rabbinate under Israeli law by the "status quo" agreements signed by Ben Gurion. It is not a place for non-traditionalist and radical feminists to express their own points of view. There were no female priests in the Temple and orthodox Judaism is inherently patriarchal in that regard. However, it should be noted that membership in the tribe is matriarchal under Jewish Law. That is, you are defined as a Jew only if your mother was a Jew when you were born. This inherent conferring of the power of determining "who is a Jew" was given to women in recompense that they do not officiate in the governance of Jewish tribal law. Hence women are NOT supposed to be rabbis or priests in the Temple or synagogue. This attempt by left wing radical feminists to overturn the 3,000 year old traditions of our tribe is rightfully resisted by the orthodox Rabbinate. As is the increasingly assimilationist tendencies of that same group.
Radical feminism has already done enough damage to the Jewish family and to the traditional structures that held our people together for over 2,000 years in exile.
In regards to some of the other comments I have read here, I want to reiterate that in accordance to the RULING of the Council of the League of Nations of 1920 and 1922, the Land of Israel is the JEWISH NATIONAL HOME of the Jewish people. And in accordance to the wording of the UN General Assembly resolution 181, it is the JEWISH STATE. That is, it is the sovereign homeland of the Jewish people just as Germany is the sovereign homeland of the German people, and Ireland the sovereign homeland of the Irish people. That does not mean that in German, Ireland or Israel, that non-German, non-Irish or non-Jewish people are to be deprived of basic civil and religious rights. Not at all. Even in England, according to its law, the sovereign king or queen of England must be Anglican, that is defender of the Church of England, and cannot be Catholic, Muslim, Jewish or Hindu. That does not make the UK an undemocratic state. The fact that Israel is the Jewish homeland does not make it an undemocratic state. The fact that the traditional Jewish clerical authorities who are authorized to in Israel to uphold ancient Jewish law intact at the Western Wall does not make it an undemocratic state. Israel does not interfere into how Muslims or Christian sectarian authorities run their Mosques and Churches in Israel. The rabbinical authorities in Israel determine "who is a Jew" in Israel, and thus are in opposition to the assimilationists just as Ezra the Scribe was in Judea some 2,500 years ago. And that is just fine with me.
The Wailing Wall is a religious as well as national venue and symbol for the Jewish people, but it has been traditionally regulated by the Orthodox Rabbinate under Israeli law by the "status quo" agreements signed by Ben Gurion. It is not a place for non-traditionalist and radical feminists to express their own points of view. There were no female priests in the Temple and orthodox Judaism is inherently patriarchal in that regard. However, it should be noted that membership in the tribe is matriarchal under Jewish Law. That is, you are defined as a Jew only if your mother was a Jew when you were born. This inherent conferring of the power of determining "who is a Jew" was given to women in recompense that they do not officiate in the governance of Jewish tribal law. Hence women are NOT supposed to be rabbis or priests in the Temple or synagogue. This attempt by left wing radical feminists to overturn the 3,000 year old traditions of our tribe is rightfully resisted by the orthodox Rabbinate. As is the increasingly assimilationist tendencies of that same group.
Radical feminism has already done enough damage to the Jewish family and to the traditional structures that held our people together for over 2,000 years in exile.
In regards to some of the other comments I have read here, I want to reiterate that in accordance to the RULING of the Council of the League of Nations of 1920 and 1922, the Land of Israel is the JEWISH NATIONAL HOME of the Jewish people. And in accordance to the wording of the UN General Assembly resolution 181, it is the JEWISH STATE. That is, it is the sovereign homeland of the Jewish people just as Germany is the sovereign homeland of the German people, and Ireland the sovereign homeland of the Irish people. That does not mean that in German, Ireland or Israel, that non-German, non-Irish or non-Jewish people are to be deprived of basic civil and religious rights. Not at all. Even in England, according to its law, the sovereign king or queen of England must be Anglican, that is defender of the Church of England, and cannot be Catholic, Muslim, Jewish or Hindu. That does not make the UK an undemocratic state. The fact that Israel is the Jewish homeland does not make it an undemocratic state. The fact that the traditional Jewish clerical authorities who are authorized to in Israel to uphold ancient Jewish law intact at the Western Wall does not make it an undemocratic state. Israel does not interfere into how Muslims or Christian sectarian authorities run their Mosques and Churches in Israel. The rabbinical authorities in Israel determine "who is a Jew" in Israel, and thus are in opposition to the assimilationists just as Ezra the Scribe was in Judea some 2,500 years ago. And that is just fine with me.
I wonder if jgarbuz makes this stuff up as he goes along. His long-winded explanation of why women determine Jewishness is fanciful. There is a very simple and true explanation for why Judaism is passed down through the mother: up to very recently with the advent of DNA testing, it was never possible to a certainty to know who is the true biological father of a particular child; however, it has always been known since the birth of Adam and Eve's children who is the biological mother of the child.
Secondly, for almost two thousand years we Jews have prayed at the Western Wall without a mechitza or these other very recent changes and Jews weren't pelting each other with rocks and cursing and spitting at each other over this status quo. Only since 1948 with the advent of the Chief Rabbinate's control of Jewish practice in the State has this occured. Historically and legally, the "status quo" arrangement never included the Western Wall, but if this is what jgarbuz wants, let's go back to the pre-independence situation at the Kotel and the sooner the better for all Jews.
Jgarbuz uses the worry that if the orthodox Chief Rabbinate doesn't control the practice of Judaism in the State of Israel, the population of the country will assimilate and lose its Jewishness. Maybe this argument holds weight in the Diaspora where the direction of the assimilation flows to a foreign culture held by a much larger population. in Israel, however, the culture of the country is Jewish as well as a large majority of even the totally non-observant Jewish population. Given the deep divide in the country between the Jewish and Arab populations caused by the ongoing security situation with the Arab countries, isjgarbuz even remotely suggesting that the majority of non-observant Jews ar going to become Arab and/or Muslim? The fear-mongering argument of assimilation is ludicrious when applied to Israel. If anything, the lock of the orthodox on the conduct of Judaism in the State has actually turned off the majority of Israeli Jews to the practice of Judaism. Maybe what is needed is a loosening of this grip in order to rejuvenate Jewish ritual life in Israel.
I wonder if jgarbuz makes this stuff up as he goes along. His long-winded explanation of why women determine Jewishness is fanciful. There is a very simple and true explanation for why Judaism is passed down through the mother: up to very recently with the advent of DNA testing, it was never possible to a certainty to know who is the true biological father of a particular child; however, it has always been known since the birth of Adam and Eve's children who is the biological mother of the child.
Secondly, for almost two thousand years we Jews have prayed at the Western Wall without a mechitza or these other very recent changes and Jews weren't pelting each other with rocks and cursing and spitting at each other over this status quo. Only since 1948 with the advent of the Chief Rabbinate's control of Jewish practice in the State has this occured. Historically and legally, the "status quo" arrangement never included the Western Wall, but if this is what jgarbuz wants, let's go back to the pre-independence situation at the Kotel and the sooner the better for all Jews.
To Mr. Goldstein
Isn't it wonderful that scientific DNA analysis has caught up to Jewish law? But the fact is, in Islam it is the father, the patriarch, who gives the child it's identity. The offspring of a Muslim father and a Jewish mother is a Muslim under Sharia law, but a Jew under Halacha.
As for 2000 years of praying there, I know that between 1949 and 1967 certainly no Israeli Jew was allowed to cross into East Jerusalem to pray at all. Not that that was of any concern to the socialist atheists who were running Israel at the time, but is this the past Mr. Goldstein is suggesting we go back to? And while the Wall, and all the Land of Israel was under foreign occupation and control, I just cannot say how much power the rabbis had during those many centuries to enforce anything.
There were many anti-Zionist Jews who never wanted to see the resurrection of the Jewish state in the first place, and only came to Palestine when all other doors were shut closed to them. Now that it is so easy and free to come and go, why don't they go elsewhere and assimilate already? Or is it that nobody else likes radical socialists overturning their own societies anymore? Maybe they had enough of that between 1917 and 1989? WHy must they seek to upend every tradition and institution they lay eyes on? What stirs in them? In Islam it is a death warrant to leave it. No such thing exists with us. Why don't these perpetual malcontents just leave, go into the nearsest chuch and get baptized this Christmas day and start the New Year? After all, Karl Marx's parents got baptized in order to get their bureaucrat jobs in Germany. Why can't the malcontents just leave well enough alone - OR JUST LEAVE?
I lived in Israel for ten years back in the 1980s. There is no reason why Jewish Israelis cannot eventually be assimilated into the Arab culture over time. Arabs are getting much better educated as time moves on. Christian Arabs in Israel actually have higher incomes, because they don't have to leave their businesses for reserve military duty all the time. Some Arab girls are very pretty, and some ARab men quite handsome. And as the Israeli Arab population continues to grow, I see no obstacle to assimilation as in ancient times if civil marriage or other such westernized contrivances are introduced. In fact, the Arabs are counting on it. Those who see no value in preserving a uniquely Jewish culture are counting on it as well. The cosmopolitan one-worlders will never quit in their dystopian vision of eliminating every vestige of uniqueness and individuality of different peoples and cultures. The soviet-style mindset is not easily dissuaded.
I lived in Israel for ten years back in the 1980s. There is no reason why Jewish Israelis cannot eventually be assimilated into the Arab culture over time. Arabs are getting much better educated as time moves on. Christian Arabs in Israel actually have higher incomes, because they don't have to leave their businesses for reserve military duty all the time. Some Arab girls are very pretty, and some ARab men quite handsome. And as the Israeli Arab population continues to grow, I see no obstacle to assimilation as in ancient times if civil marriage or other such westernized contrivances are introduced. In fact, the Arabs are counting on it. Those who see no value in preserving a uniquely Jewish culture are counting on it as well. The cosmopolitan one-worlders will never quit in their dystopian vision of eliminating every vestige of uniqueness and individuality of different peoples and cultures. The soviet-style mindset is not easily dissuaded.
It is a time to think and repent, and turn,,,,,we are not living in ancient times....we live now. G-D has created a new thing....in the earth;
For it is written...Jeremiah 31....Behold, the day---sssss cooooome, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast. That is Jew Muslin and Christians and other...
It is written in Jer. 32...Behold, I am the G-D of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?
Say NO! and it is written...of all mankind that has been sow into the house of Israel and the house of Judah....all nations, all . Jer. 32....And they have turned unto me the back, and not the face: though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction.
But they set their abominations in the house, which is called by my name, to defile it.
Now understand....our G-D is the G-D of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. One G-D, and our creator has made us One House, with His name on it. For it is written...Jeremiah 31...Behold, the day-sss commmmmme, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah:
The day-ssss that commmme are found in all our life time, in every generation, there has been a season, given for us to turn from sin. To Set G-D As A Seal Upon Our Hearts---hearts and mind in union with the will of G-D.
For this it is written Psalm 51....Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts:(heart and mind, the two sided tablets that every generation has broken ).....the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. The hidden part....the tent the vessel holding the law written on both sides, above and below....the covenant of heaven and earth.
Those who will not turn...are written in Jer. 31...But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those day--ssss, said the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their G-D, and they shall be my people. This is the covenant of the day and night, the ordinances of heaven and earth that are written in Jeremiah 33. Job 33 The Spirit of G-D made me(earth,flesh,sin, death) but the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (heaven, spirit, brought forth a child of G-D having everlasting life) Now....heed this....put it in your think tanks......
It is written....Jer. 33 Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the night, and that there should not be day and night in their season. Then may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priest, my ministers. Note...now what will happen.....
Jer.33....Then will I cast away the seed of Jacob, and David my servent, so that I will not take any of his seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: I will cause their captivity to return, and have mercy on them. Now, we are all sow in the house of Israel and Judah...Jer. 31 it is written..... So, this is all of mankind, is it not? So, who does G-D have in------captivity---???? and Jeremiah said, "HAVE MERCY ON THEM". NOT Good, so stop enough hate turn all of you to G-D. It is written in Jeremiah 33...Thus saith the LORD; If ye can break my covenant of the day and night, and that there should not be day and night in their season; Them may also my covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not have a son to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the priests, my ministers.
sorry for the end above I messed up....
Ask yourself who does G-D have in captivity???
We read it in 1 Enoch and Jubilees that the watchers were locked in the Abyss for their sins....
This is who will rule over those who brake and not keep the covenant of day and night, the ordinances of heaven and earth. We are to be given two breaths to live. One below and One above, for our eternal G-D is One.
For us it is written....Deuteronomy 32....Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:
Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our G-D.
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgments: A G-D of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.
They have corrupted themselves, their spot is not the spot of his children: they are preverse and crooked generation.
Do ye thus require the LORD, O foolish people and unwise? is not he thy father that hath bought thee? hath he not made thee, and established thee?
The Israeli police are simply used to whitewashing their aggressive actions. Unfortunately most of the time they are successful. Hopefully, this case will prove to be an exception.
Iam so angry now, after reading all that is said I could spit! What Germany, did not teach you anything...or did it keeping them hours in a police station were you interrogated. Police forcefully pushing......the bullies....of the stand by people that let this happened, to someone who was bring their hearts to G-D! Sounds like the pure race is back....now it is the Jew that bullies and interogates the silence of the courts and the pollice and all officals....sisters and brothers......Jews who keep silence! You are not more than the German's that keep silence when thay were dragging us out of public places. Is that not were it began????
Think of the EFFECTIVENESS OF GERMANY ACTIONS----
There is a struggle going on for the very soul of Israel, and of Judaism itself. Only one side, however, appears to be fully engaged in this struggle, while the other appears to be largely unaware that the struggle is even taking place (still less what the stakes are).
On the one side are ranged all the forces of ultra-Orthodoxy, fundamentalism, theocracy, backwardness, pseudo-Halacha, ultra-nationalism and xenophobia, corruption and the sternest notions of what constitutes Judaism. This "Black Hat Judaism" would like to see an Israel encompassing the entire Land of Israel, ruled by those who claim to speak in the name of God, at war with the entire world for a brief while; until it vanishes for the same reasons as did the 2nd Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. It is determined to reverse the revolutions in Jewish life brought about by the Emancipation, Enlightenment and Zionism, and appears intent on turning the Jewish world into a grim Kehilla or Shtetl writ large, without dissent or diversity.
On the other side we find openness, pluralism, tolerance, acceptance, learning, scholarship and science and the idea that Judaism is there to sanctify life, not replace it. This "White Hat Judaism" sees Israel as a full member of the family of nations; a state that is both Jewish and democratic. A state that upholds ideals of social justice and that allows all faiths - and all branches of the Jewish faith - to flourish.
This monumental struggle closely resembles that between the democratic and totalitarian worlds, which dominated much of the 20th Century. Let's hope that the democratic Jewish world wakes up, before it's too late!
In the context of this struggle, the distinctions between Conservative/Masorti, Liberal, Progressive, Reconstructionist, Reform and Secular Humanist Judaism no longer count. All that matters is for everyone who sees themselves as part of the Jewish democratic camp to support the individuals and organisations (such as Hiddush (Freedom Of Religion for Israel), IRAC and the New Israel Fund (NIF) that are in the vanguard of the struggle against the black tide sweeping through the Jewish world today.
All who want to pray at the Kotel should be allowed to do so.
However, this smells of a publicity stunt, though.
Are all the women in the picture above Jewish?
How is it that when people study the cultures and tribal laws of say the Navajo or Sioux or any ancient tribal people and culture, they do not presume to interfere and tell those people how to alter or change their tribal beliefs, laws and culture to conform to their own mindset and belief systems, and yet when non-Jews pick up a translation of our ancient Hebrew scriptures, they suddenly fancy themselves to be more knowing and wiser than our own Hebrew and Jewish sages and tribal leaders? Would I presume to tell those who follow, say the Koran how they are to live their lives? As long as they do not harm me or try to curb my own rights to live my life and to live freely in my ancient homeland, I do not care how they live their lives in accordance to their own scriptures. But everyone seems to be totally free to criticize the Jewish people and culture and legal system, and even question our rights to our tribal homeland.
Israel is as democratic a country as any in Europe. IT also happens to be the tribal homeland of the Jewish nation, and this was confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922. In addition, the UN recognized the right of the Jewish people to reestablish their state. Why do people of Celtic, Germanic, Angle, Saxon, or other tribes, with their own ancient traditions and culture, and who of their own volition chose to adopt a religion based in part on our ancient Hebrew scripture, now pretend to think they know so much about who and what we Jews are supposed to be like, and why are own laws are the way they think they are, and so on? From where do they get the gall, the hubris, the chutzpeh to tell us Jews things about ourselves based on their own misconceptions and prejudices? It is unsettling and disturbing to me, as I don't care to tell them how they are to live their lives. I don't tell the British how they should deal with Northern Ireland. I don't tell the Spaniars what they should do with the Basques. Nor the French what to do with the Corsicans. And so on. Yet everyone but everyone, based on their own quite narrow based conceptions, usually influenced by media distortions, feel fully qualified to lecture us Jews on pretty much everything.
As for the internal schisms within the Jewish people, we have had ancient schisms as well. We had Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes. WE had Hellenizers and Judaizers. Compromisers, assimilationists and Zealots. We've always had our internal squabbles and differences over what our purpose was, and how Jews should shape their relations within the context of their ancient culture and tribal laws as well as in relations to other tribes and nations. We've even had Zionists and anti-Zionists; ghetto dwellers, atheists, and assimilationists. Capitalists and communists. But for the most part we have been a democratic people and allow each individual to live his or her life in accordance to the FREE WILL we believe is God's gift, to be used and abused as we would have it.
I wish the rest of the world would just leave us be. We have enough internal conflict as is without needing any outside interferences.
How is it that when people study the cultures and tribal laws of say the Navajo or Sioux or any ancient tribal people and culture, they do not presume to interfere and tell those people how to alter or change their tribal beliefs, laws and culture to conform to their own mindset and belief systems, and yet when non-Jews pick up a translation of our ancient Hebrew scriptures, they suddenly fancy themselves to be more knowing and wiser than our own Hebrew and Jewish sages and tribal leaders? Would I presume to tell those who follow, say the Koran how they are to live their lives? As long as they do not harm me or try to curb my own rights to live my life and to live freely in my ancient homeland, I do not care how they live their lives in accordance to their own scriptures. But everyone seems to be totally free to criticize the Jewish people and culture and legal system, and even question our rights to our tribal homeland.
Israel is as democratic a country as any in Europe. IT also happens to be the tribal homeland of the Jewish nation, and this was confirmed by the League of Nations in 1922. In addition, the UN recognized the right of the Jewish people to reestablish their state. Why do people of Celtic, Germanic, Angle, Saxon, or other tribes, with their own ancient traditions and culture, and who of their own volition chose to adopt a religion based in part on our ancient Hebrew scripture, now pretend to think they know so much about who and what we Jews are supposed to be like, and why are own laws are the way they think they are, and so on? From where do they get the gall, the hubris, the chutzpeh to tell us Jews things about ourselves based on their own misconceptions and prejudices? It is unsettling and disturbing to me, as I don't care to tell them how they are to live their lives. I don't tell the British how they should deal with Northern Ireland. I don't tell the Spaniars what they should do with the Basques. Nor the French what to do with the Corsicans. And so on. Yet everyone but everyone, based on their own quite narrow based conceptions, usually influenced by media distortions, feel fully qualified to lecture us Jews on pretty much everything.
As for the internal schisms within the Jewish people, we have had ancient schisms as well. We had Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes. WE had Hellenizers and Judaizers. Compromisers, assimilationists and Zealots. We've always had our internal squabbles and differences over what our purpose was, and how Jews should shape their relations within the context of their ancient culture and tribal laws as well as in relations to other tribes and nations. We've even had Zionists and anti-Zionists; ghetto dwellers, atheists, and assimilationists. Capitalists and communists. But for the most part we have been a democratic people and allow each individual to live his or her life in accordance to the FREE WILL we believe is God's gift, to be used and abused as we would have it.
I wish the rest of the world would just leave us be. We have enough internal conflict as is without needing any outside interferences.
Something to think about.....
It is written....Isaiah 62....For Zion'a sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteouness therof go forth as brighttness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth.
And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory: and thou shalt be called by a---new name---, which the mouth of the LORD shall name.
Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy G-D.
Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shalt be called Hephsibath, and thy land Beulah: for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy G-D rejoice over thee. I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jersualem, which shall never hold their peace day of night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence. And give him no rest, till he establish, and tell him make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. It is written....Isaiah 63....Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shephed of his flock? where is he that put his holy spirit within him?
It is written.....Isaiah 65 For, behold, I creat new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall---not be remembered---, nor come into mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I created: for behold, I created Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of ----weeping shall be --no---more---heard--in--her, nor---the voice of the crying.
This land, that mankind fight wars over....will be gone, and the new heaven and the new earth along with Jerusalem, the city of our G-D Israel.
It is written...Ecclesiastes 12.....Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto G-D who gave it. What we all must ask our selves is do we have the spirit of G-D-----DID HE GIVE IT--TO YOU? now go down a few verses....Ecc.12...The words of the wise are goads,, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from ---ONE SHEPHERD. And further, by these my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: FEAR G-D, AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS: THIS IS THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.
"SET ME AS A SEAL UPON YOUR HEART" this is what G-D wants of us. Psalm 51...Behold, thou desirest truth --in--the--inward parts:(heart and mind)...and --in--the --HIDDEN PART--THOU ---shall --*make me*-- to know wisdom. Job 33...The Spirit of G-D *made me* (flesh, below, death do to sin) but the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (above, a child is given Us--Isaiah 9. a son of G-D is brought forth-Ps.2 this is the Declare Decree in Ps. 2 that we all are to obey.
Note: the lines above... *make me* to live above a son of the Living G-D, and *made me* below, flesh , This is the covenant of Day and Night, heaven and earth.
It is written for us....Ecclesiastes 3....Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
You say to your self we are not beast....or are we?
It is written...Jeremiah 31...Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.
This is in all of mankind....the G-D who created our DNA. Their is no such thing here on earth as a ---pure race! And those who try, work against G-D and the work of His hands. We are all now seeded.
Look back at Psalm 51...and read it after reading Jeremiah 31, see those who are seeded in the house of Israel....and I believe, it is a group of people, not a nation. For G-D scattered them, in every country.
Jer. 31 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those day--sssss ( in all generations for us to turn an put sin out) ....saith the LORD, I will put my law in their ---inward parts,---and write it in their---hearts;---and will be their G-D, and they shall be my people.
Those in Ps. 51 desire what G-D desires, and Jer. 31...these are the ones that desire to do their own will...and G-D has to do for them, what they would not do for Him.
It is written...Ecclesiastes 12.....Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto G-D who gave it. What we all must ask our selves is do we have the spirit of G-D-----DID HE GIVE IT--TO YOU? now go down a few verses....Ecc.12...The words of the wise are goads,, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from ---ONE SHEPHERD. And further, by these my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: FEAR G-D, AND KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS: THIS IS THE WHOLE DUTY OF MAN.
"SET ME AS A SEAL UPON YOUR HEART" this is what G-D wants of us. Psalm 51...Behold, thou desirest truth --in--the--inward parts:(heart and mind)...and --in--the --HIDDEN PART--THOU ---shall --*make me*-- to know wisdom. Job 33...The Spirit of G-D *made me* (flesh, below, death do to sin) but the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (above, a child is given Us--Isaiah 9. a son of G-D is brought forth-Ps.2 this is the Declare Decree in Ps. 2 that we all are to obey.
Note: the lines above... *make me* to live above a son of the Living G-D, and *made me* below, flesh , This is the covenant of Day and Night, heaven and earth.
It is written for us....Ecclesiastes 3....Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
You say to your self we are not beast....or are we?
It is written...Jeremiah 31...Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.
This is in all of mankind....the G-D who created our DNA. Their is no such thing here on earth as a ---pure race! And those who try, work against G-D and the work of His hands. We are all now seeded.
Look back at Psalm 51...and read it after reading Jeremiah 31, see those who are seeded in the house of Israel....and I believe, it is a group of people, not a nation. For G-D scattered them, in every country.
Jer. 31 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those day--sssss ( in all generations for us to turn an put sin out) ....saith the LORD, I will put my law in their ---inward parts,---and write it in their---hearts;---and will be their G-D, and they shall be my people.
Those in Ps. 51 desire what G-D desires, and Jer. 31...these are the ones that desire to do their own will...and G-D has to do for them, what they would not do for Him.
It is written for us....Jeremiah 31....Set thee up waymarks, make the high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: TURN AGAIN, O virgin of Israel, TURN AGAIN to these thy cities. How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath ----created----a new thing----in--the--earth, A woman shall compass a man.
Amb. Michael Oren’s credibility problem -- http://bit.ly/5DRqM0
Michael Oren's This is what G-D ask of him or any other Jew that lives in an other country.
It is written....Jeremiah 29....Build ye houses,and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; Take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters; and take wives for your sons, and givedaughters to husbands, that they may bear sons and daughters; that ye may be increased there, and not diminished. And seek the PEACE of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: FOR IN THE ---PEACE---THERE OF SHALL YE HAVE PEACE.
MICHAEL ORENS---IS TO ----SEEK---PEACE---OF THE ---COUNTRY---AND THE CITY---HE LIVES IN---THAT G-D HAND HAS PLACE HIM DOWN IN.