A response to my comment regarding Bill Maher's anti religious views while supporting Israel was the basis for this diary. As Maher has expressed secular views, I felt that Maher's support of Israel was hypocritical. The response posted to my comment said Israel was a secular nation.
My contention is that Israel is a religious nation. Judaism is at the heart of Israel. That religion influences its government and policies. I reference as examples articles relating stories how religion influences the Israeli Government and society.
If Judaism is good for the Israelis, then Christianity must be just as good for the United States as the religious conservatives of the Republican Party want for America.
The Religious versus Secular in Israel.
The Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/...
Features Article
Sunday, January 2 2000
In the next millennium, Israel's religious and secular will either learn to work together or live apart.
A.Jerozolimski
Along the Great Divide
By Michael S. Arnold
(January 2) -- Will the division between secular and religious Israelis continue to grow in the new millennium, and if so, just how will it play itself out? A look at possible directions the conflict may take.
Neither Minister Michael Melchior, responsible for issues related to Israeli society and Diaspora affairs and who presents the first scenario, or author Ze'ev Chafets, who presents the second, can say with any certainty what will be the nature of religious-secular relations in Israel in two decades' time.
Only one thing seems sure: the informal "status quo," instituted at the birth of the state 51 years ago when both religious and secular believed the other side would soon fade away, will change as each realizes that the other is here to stay.
FEW people seem to envision a true separation of synagogue and state along the American model. After all, a country that defines itself as the Jewish state cannot divorce itself entirely from the religious implications of that calling.
"In contradistinction to Christianity and Islam you don't speak here about a religion that was meant for the individual or the whole world, but a national religion, one that was supposed to guide a definite people," says Aviezer Ravitzky, chairman of the Hebrew University's Jewish Philosophy department and a leading figure in the religious Zionist Meimad movement.
Contrary to the popular notion of an increasing polarization in Israeli society, Ravitzky posits a spectrum of religious identity - a bell graph, actually - with most Israelis neither fervently Orthodox nor ardently secular, but somewhere in the middle swell of traditionalism.
HIS VIEW is not far in that respect from the scenario presented by Rabbi Avraham Ravitz of United Torah Judaism, who says that in 20 years, religious and secular will live in increasingly separate and rarely intersecting worlds, hopefully with mutual respect.
Chafets, too, says that Orthodox and secular are likely to drift even further apart. With the influx of non-Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, the acceptance of non-Orthodox conversions performed overseas - perhaps one day of those performed in Israel, too - and growing pressure for civil marriage, both Ravitz and Chafets imply that Jewish society is likely to fragment into "kosher" and "non-kosher" Jews.
Ravitz talks about a stratum of "undefineds," Israeli citizens who are not halachically Jewish and will be listed in population registries as having no religious affiliation - with obvious implications for personal-status issues.
For Chafets, such de-facto differentiation already exists, as haredim rule out non-Orthodox Jews from their pool of marriage candidates.
"From their point of view we're polluting the gene pool and the bloodline at a very fast rate, and they'll soon have doubts about all of us," Chafets says, noting that he himself could be accused of this because of his marriage to a non-Jewish woman.
Without a separation between religious and secular, Chafets warns, the two sides could engage in "a prolonged and very difficult and maybe even bloody confrontation."
"It's very clear that the religious parties do not want a slightly more religious Israel. What they're about is a redefinition of the Jewish state to mean an Orthodox Jewish state," he says. "I don't think it's going to be easy to find them a place in Israeli life that both they and the secular will be happy with."
NOVELIST A.B. Yehoshua, in contrast, says that the next stage of religious-secular relations will be arrived at "in an evolutionary way, little by little."
When the questions of peace and war that have dominated Israeli politics from its inception are finally put to rest, Yehoshua says, the major secular parties can lay aside their partisan differences to work toward their common interest of protecting Israel's character as a modern, democractic, secular country.
Yet others think the religious-secular struggle can have no clear victor.
"One solution is a modus vivendi where religious and secular find out that they have broad Jewish, humanistic, Zionist ideals in common and build a model society on those ideals," says Melchior - a society with less religious legislation that is at the same time more Jewish.
His colleague Ravitzky, for example, notes that increasing numbers of Israelis are seeking some connection to the sources of Jewish tradition at the same time as pressure grows against religious legislation in Israeli life.
Yehoshua posits the idea of the Israeli citizen as the "total Jew" immersed in an encompassing "Jewish experience."
That, indeed, was the goal of the Labor Zionist founders of the state, who believed that the new Israeli would leave behind the trappings of exile for a more organic and holistic implementation of his Jewish nature in his own country. But if the state's Jewish content is not religious per se, then what makes it a Jewish state?
For Chafets, a secular Jewish state has two baselines - the Hebrew language and a majority of Jewish citizens, no more and no less.
Government offices would be closed on Saturdays, El Al would fly and businesses could open if they chose. Anyone wishing to send their children for a religious education could choose a private religious school which, shorn of government support, would be supported by donations and tuition fees. Synagogues, likewise, would be supported by their members, not the state.
But to Ravitz, it is the haredi yeshiva society that keeps the state Jewish, and guarding the spiritual borders of the Jewish state - in a peaceful future when the issue of haredi draft deferrals may be irrelevant - will continue to be their calling.
"Maybe [the secular] will come to understand that there is a large group of people that is keeping Israel as a Jewish society," Ravitz says.
Ravitzky's definition of a Jewish state is more inclusive. Judaism, he says, suffuses every question of policy in Israel. In this formulation, while the extent of religious legislation would decrease, even issues like the health budget or the borders of the state are essentially religious questions.
There are no easy resolutions for tough issues like non-Orthodox conversion and civil marriage, Ravitzky says - and no way those questions can be avoided in the coming years.
"In the United States, if someone is ultra-Orthodox and I'm Reform, we don't meet - maybe in the subway as American citizens, but not as Jews," he says.
"What Zionism has done is bring all of us together in stone-throwing distance, and we are doomed to live together. Therefore the clashes are inevitable."
© 1995-2000, The Jerusalem Post
Israel and Pluralism.
The Jerusalem Post
Today's OpEds:
Opinion Article
http://www.jpost.com/...
Friday, September 15 2000 02:35 15 Elul 5760
Acquiescing to pluralism
By Naomi Chazan
(September 15) - The vital debate over the role of religion has now begun in earnest. Once again, Ehud Barak has provided the trigger, but in this case for the wrong reasons and at the wrong time.
The issue of the connection between Judaism and the State of Israel has been brewing for some time.
The past year alone has been punctuated by crises revolving around religious issues, starting with the transfer of the turbine last summer, continuing with the seemingly endless disputes over the Shas school system, the Tal commission report, the Deri affair, the closure of shopping centers on Shabbat, and culminating in the internecine dispute among rabbinical authorities over shmita.
The urgency of reform is a direct outcome of the fact that the religious status quo – in force since the creation of the state - is simply not sustainable today.
Religiosity has increasingly been linked with ethnicity and socio-economic status, as the Shas phenomenon so strikingly demonstrates.
The religious attempt, to control the state and shape it in a halachic mold, is offset by the growing efforts of progressive elements to diminish (if not totally eliminate) what they consider to be the political stranglehold of religious groups on the lives of most Israelis.
Sadly, these days only confusion reigns.
While religious leaders call for making Israel more Jewish and argue over what that means, advocates of reform stumble over the definition of their objectives and program.
Those who wish to anchor democratic precepts in Israel and ensure a thriving and pluralistic Jewish life in the country, must distinguish clearly between the goal of separation of religion and state, and the rhetoric of separation of religion and politics.
The apparently more palatable notion of removing religion from politics presumes, in real terms, the elimination of religious parties and the removal of religious questions from the public agenda.
The separation of religion and state places matters of personal belief, religious conviction, and conscience squarely in the private realm. The state does not have the right to intrude in these areas, or to dictate their content. Separation of religion and state does, however, clearly place civil law above all other codes, and anchors this supremacy constitutionally.
The structural separation of religion from the state, therefore, is both critical to democratic life and essential for enabling religious and Jewish choice in Israel. Such a solution is predicated on the understanding that in the religious realm, consensus is not possible and it is necessary to agree to disagree by designing rules to live together.
If separation of religion and politics is not possible, separation of religion and state is not acceptable to those who want to see Israel as a "Jewish" state. To recognize the right to disagree is to acquiesce to pluralism and to contravene their holistic world view.
The current debate on religion in Israel is therefore all about the character of the state, the rights of its citizens, and the practices of its Jewish majority.
That is why it is so fundamental to the self-definition and future of the country. That is also why, Barak's motives aside, this issue must be dealt with now.
©1995-2000, The Jerusalem Post - All rights reserved.
Reform's Jerusalem Center Hit.
Ha'aretz
NEWS
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/...
Friday, July 7, 2000
Reform's Jerusalem center hit
By Baruch Kra
Ha'aretz Correspondent
In the latest of a spate of attacks on non-Orthodox religious buildings, vandals yesterday morning smashed the glass entrance to the Hebrew Union College, the Reform Movement's center in Jerusalem. "Satan" was spray painted on a nearby wall.
The case was transferred to a special unit set up to investigate the series of attacks.
A Reform community activist who lives in the building was wakened at 4 A.M. by a bang and called the police. They found the large glass door had been blasted - part of it had been shattered by vandals three weeks earlier.
This is the third attack on a non-Orthodox religious building in recent weeks.
© copyright 2000 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
One of the political parties making up the 31st Government coalition is Shas, a religious party. "Shas (the Association of Torah-Observant Sephardis) was set up in 1984 by the former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel, Ovadia Yosef, primarily to promote the interests of his Mizrachi ultra-Orthodox constituency."
Wednesday, June 30, 1999
16 Tammuz 5759
Updated Wed., Jun. 30 16:17
Shas, NRP row delays Barak
By DAVID ZEV HARRIS and LIAT COLLINS
The Jerusalem Post
JERUSALEM (June 30) - Shas and the National Religious Party were last night locked in conflict over control of the Religious Affairs Ministry, and as a result were blocking Prime Minister-elect Ehud Barak from finalizing his coalition lineup.
Coalition discussions with Shas focused on the problems surrounding its demand for full control over the Religious Affairs Ministry, while the NRP insisted the agreement it signed gives it at least half control. There were also problems regarding the jurisdiction of a Shas deputy minister in the Interior Ministry, a post it expects to receive if the cabinet is enlarged. The Ministry will be held by Yisrael Ba'aliya.
The Shas Council of Torah Sages, headed by the party's spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, has to approve the coalition agreements before Shas can bind itself to joining. The council will also decide on who gets which position.
This led Shinui leader Yosef (Tommy) Lapid to accuse One Israel of succumbing to Shas pressure. "If I had been communications minister, the first thing I'd have done would have been to close all the pirate radio stations," he said. "Instead of One Israel changing Shas, Shas is changing One Israel."
Although part of previous governments, the Ministry of Religious Affairs was dissolved.
Friday, July 28, 2000
Religions without a ministry
EDITORIAL
Ha'aretz
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/...
Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, the acting Religious Affairs Minister, published parts of a plan to dismantle his temporary ministry this week. The plan crystallized in recent months from a reform in theory into a substantive discussion, but apparently wouldn't have gone this far if not for the resignations of Shas and the National Religious Party from the government. It's also reasonable to assume that as soon as Shas even hints at a desire to return to the coalition, the plan would once again be shelved. Nonetheless, Beilin is proposing something important.
The departments of the Religious Affairs Ministry were originally amassed from the Interior, Justice and Education Ministries. The ministry then expanded, overreaching its original proportions for political reasons. It now operates in that twilight zone in which the State of Israel calls itself the state of the Jewish people, but at the same time, the status quo provides the Orthodox with an absolute monopoly on religious issues. The state is, of course, aware of the need to provide services to all the various religious groups in the country.
Over the years, these services have shrunk, with the ministry becoming a major conduit for political appointments and financial transfers to ultra-Orthodox organizations. Every State Comptroller's report on the ministry finds bad management, suspicions of false reporting, inflated numbers (especially in the yeshivas, which habitually report more students in order to win inflated budgets) and various other anomalies. These have all shaped the image of the Religious Affairs Ministry as the Religious Ministry, the exclusive province of the religious parties.
Much of the money transfered to the various non-profit organizations has created a distorted duplicity of revenue flows from the Interior Ministry, the Education Ministry and the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry (for example, religious boarding schools). Moreover, all the Religious Affairs ministers - including the two secularists from the Labor Party, Shimon Sheetrit and Uzi Baram, who tried to implement reforms - were faced with heavy pressure from the religious parties, rendering them unable to complete their endeavors. The ministry's growing budget (NIS 1.6 billion in 1998) was invested less in providing reasonable services to the religious and more in creating political ties between the religious parties, their voters, the ministry's institutions and the minister and his cronies.
Even if Beilin's plan is shelved, it would be worthwhile considering another plan, originally proposed by the Zadok Commission and backed by Shas in the past, to transfer the Religious Councils to the Interior Ministry and turn them into service departments in city halls and local authorities. Handing over the ministry's department of organization, which includes the yeshiva department, to the Education Ministry would be of no less importance.
Beilin's plan is only an interim step toward the vital redefinition of the relationship between religion and the state. The reform should be implemented.
© copyright 2000 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
On January 1, 2004, the Ministry of Religious Affairs was dismantled.
Religious Affairs
On January 1, 2004, the Ministry of Religious Affairs was dismantled. In accordance with Government Resolution no. 900 of October 8, 2003, the wing of the Religious Councils in the Ministry of Religious Affairs was transferred to the purview of the Prime Minister’s Office, including the areas of burials, the Chief Rabbinate (as a Division’s Authority) and the Western Wall Heritage Fund. The Office also coordinates the implementation of Government Resolutions regarding the dismantling of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, and handles all issues arising from the dismantling of the Ministry, including preparing legislation, as specified above.
The Legal Department of the Prime Minister’s Office
http://www.pmo.gov.il/...
Legal advice to the Prime Minister’s Office is provided by the Office Legal Department, which is responsible for all the legal aspects of the Office activities.
The Legal Department operates in extremely diverse fields, and include providing legal counsel to the Prime Minister’s Office and its departments, including: ... Religious Affairs which were transferred to the Prime Minister’s Office ...
Special Projects
The Legal Department participates in ministerial committees and inter-ministerial committees which deal with special projects.
Responsibilities for Religious Affairs
- The Chief Rabbinate of Israel Law of 1980
- The Law for Alternative Civil Burial of 1996
- The Law Prohibiting Fraud in Kashrut of 1983
- The Law for Rabbinical Housing in Their Places of Service of 2002
- The Jewish Religious Services Law [combined composition] of 1971
- The Law Preventing Teffilin and Mezuzah Fraud of 1974
- Responsibility for Religious Communities (and their organizations)
- Order in Council for the Land of Israel (sacred places) of 1924
- The Land Transactions Law (carrying out the mitzvah of the fallow year) of 1979
- Responsibility over kosher food for soldiers of 1948
- The Council for the Commemoration of the Jewish Legacy of Spain and the East of 2002
The name of the Ministry of Religious Affairs was changed to The National Authority of Religious Services while its web site address remain the same (http://www.religions.gov.il/).
The Religious and the Draft in Israel.
Thursday, July 1, 1999
Read our lips
By Israel Harel
Ha'aretz
Barak came to an agreement with the ultra-Orthodox, the main element of which, the security service law, will effectively grant a legal exemption from national service to yeshiva students over the age of 24. Both events are welcomed as creative and flexible policy-making. Had Netanyahu done the same, he would have been depicted as someone who had deceived the public and damaged security and the principle of equality before the law.
Yet it is a discriminatory law and, therefore, unacceptable. For 50 years, a problematic de facto exemption was in effect and the public revolted against it. Then comes Barak and instead of correcting this ongoing injustice, grants the ultra-Orthodox, de jure, status as a privileged group legally exempt from the burden of the supreme obligation in Israeli-Jewish society.
But a government that legally grants a privileged status to thousands of its youth, a status that exempts them from fulfilling national duties, damages the remnants of national solidarity.
And besides, it is obvious to all that as far as the draft is concerned, Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef would have issued the appropriate halachic ruling that would have enabled him to separate his party - and this would have been a desirable thing - from the clutches of the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox. Yosef has to provide for the upkeep, and this is his main goal, of his institutions, where his family members and thousands of others earn a good living and benefit from Shas's proximity to the corridors of power.
Meretz's propaganda machine will surely discover, you can count on it, how to purify the blight of sitting in a coalition with Shas, when everyone knows that the Religious Affairs Ministry (which even one of the chief rabbis deems superfluous) and the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry will continue to serve as pipelines for public funds to flow into fictitious organizations - which provide fictitious jobs for relatives, associates and party hacks.
The Religious and Holocaust Day.
Thursday, December 30, 1999
MKs blast Shas proposal for Memorial day
By Gideon Alon, Ha'aretz Knesset Correspondent
Ha'aretz
NEWS
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/...
A bill proposed by Shas to require the public to cover their heads and recite a verse of Psalms or the mishna at the sound of the siren on Holocaust Day or Memorial Day met with shock, disbelief and anger from the other Knesset parties. Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg took exception with the bill saying, "Anything that smacks of an attempt to use civilian legislation to determine religious norms for people who do not want them harms both religion and legislation. This is an unworthy bill."
MK Zevulun Orlev (National Religious Party) said that Shas's proposal is a desecration of God's name and that it causes much damage to Judaism and the religious public. He said that such a proposal could only deepen the rift between religious and secular Jews.
MK Yehudit Naot (Shinui) said the ultra-Orthodox would be wise to first stand at attention at the sound of the siren before they preach to others. "Isn't it enough that your yeshiva students don't serve in the army and now you dare to force your mourning customs on us?" she asked.
Corruption in the Israeli Government.
Ha'aretz
OP-ED
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/...
Tuesday, January 4, 2000
The corruption now runs much deeper than mere politics
By Ari Shavit
Trying to assess the ramifications of the Nimrodi affair and other recent public scandals, it's worth remembering that Israel's old Labor-Mapai regime collapsed over far less sensational affairs.The slew of corruption affairs in the 1970's that ushered in Menachem Begin's historic defeat of Labor in 1977 looks in retrospect like a paltry cluster of naive misdoings compared to the current cases of alleged corruption and malfeasance among the country's leadership and also cases of alleged corruption among the power elite that some claim involve police foot-dragging when it came time to investigate.
There was a feeling that the prevailing economic-political system had become morally bankrupt, and that the time had come to put an end to the political hegemony Labor had wielded since the founding of the state. It was time for a new regime, the public decided.
The public's thirst for change could be yet more potent today. True, the actual power regime which crystallized in the country after the collapse of the Mapai socio-democracy model and after a decade-long interim period was not exactly political. This was neither a Likud power order, nor a Labor regime - we are ruled by capital, by the wealthy. The new hegemony that replaced the workers-state regime belonged neither to the left nor to the right; instead, it was a hegemony of 100 families.
Therefore, the corruption scandals coming to the fore today tend not to be easily classifiable as belonging to either political side. Instead, they are affairs which exemplify, to an absurd degree, the new norms which were inculcated in Israel over the last decade by the new ruling power - the upper crust. This is a regime without a headquarters or party structure; nonetheless, it is the power structure which controls public life and the state of Israel today.
Levers of real power and influence have been moving out of the hands of the old moribund political framework, to be taken up by a small set of families and groupings of capital. It is a process in which the greater public, and the politicians who are supposed to be representing the public, are surrendering these levers of power without a murmur of defiance or protest.
A small group of barons has seized the bequest, assuming the mantle of power. Over the last decade, this new power group has wrested control of the economy - 44 percent of shares on the stock market are controlled by five commercial groups. Moreover, the barons have gained the ability to manipulate public discourse in Israel, by controlling most of the media, influencing a large share of the politicians, and shaping the main thrust of society's ethical fabric. Who knows how far their power has spread? Perhaps it includes parts of the law enforcement structure. Perhaps it ripples down the corridors of the President's House.
Indeed, the challenge we face today is more important. While the contents of the two current affairs differ, taken together, both a lot to say about the moral codes and civic norms that took root in Israel during the 1990's. This was a period when virtually everything was up for sale, when virtually everything - institutions and values included - became subordinate to the rule of the capital baron, when corruption in all its varieties (not merely forms that can be prosecuted legally) became an inseparable part of our lives. In fact, while Israel spoke sanctimoniously about its American-like democratic essence, it began to take on oligarchic patterns reminiscent of Russia.
Real action must be taken to break-up the concentrated oligarchy of power which rules Israel today, which is corrupting her, and moving her to the edge of the abyss.
© copyright 2000 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
Shas and Corruption.
Yishai calls on Deri to return to Shas
Gil Hoffman
Jul. 9, 2002
The Jerusalem Post
This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/...
Shas chairman Eli Yishai yesterday called on his predecessor, Aryeh Deri, to return to the party when he is released from Ma'asiyahu Prison, as expected next Monday.
When Deri leaves prison, speculation will resurface about whether he intends to return to the leadership of Shas, or live a non-political life as a Jewish educator, as he has hinted.
"I call on Deri to return home to Shas," Yishai told reporters in the Knesset. "I want him, the rabbi [Shas mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef] wants him, we all want him."
When asked whether Deri can return to the party chairmanship, Yishai said he can return to "whatever position [Shas mentor] Rabbi Ovadia Yosef wants." Yishai later told The Jerusalem Post that although he said a year ago that he was taking over for Deri only temporarily, Yosef later said very clearly that he wants him to remain in the position. He also noted that Deri himself has said he is not interested in returning to politics.
Shas leader wants his criminal record erased.
Tuesday, July 02, 2002 Tamuz 22, 5762 Israel Time: 08:25 (GMT+3)
Former Shas MK wants his crime record erased
By Jonathan Lis
Ha`aretz
Former Shas Knesset member Yair Levy, who was convicted and jailed for fraud and theft, has asked President Moshe Katsav to wipe his criminal slate clean. Levy's request, made several days ago, has been transfered to the pardons department of the Justice Ministry. A decision is expected in a few days.
Levy was released from Ma'asiyahu prison in August 1995, after serving around three years for fraud and forging corporate documents. He was sentenced to five years and his wife Geula was sentenced to six months community service.
Levy was convicted of stealing from Shas' El Hamaya'an school system , but a plea bargain was arranged and the sum stolen was reduced from NIS 588,000 to NIS 311,000. Two charges - stealing from a charity and siphoning funds from El Hamaya'an into his children's savings accounts - were dropped. His wife, Geula. was convicted of forging documents and served six months of community service, while he was sent to jail for four years. ... The affair came to light after an investigation by Ha'aretz, which discovered that Levy was using his job as a cover for illicit visits home.
The Religious and Homosexuals.
November 10, 2006
Israel Holds Gay Rally Under Heavy Guard
By GREG MYRE
The New York Times
JERUSALEM, Nov. 10 — After Supreme Court rulings, several nights of rioting and criticism from the Vatican, Jerusalem’s gay community staged a small, orderly rally today under heavy police guard.
The venue was changed twice as police sought a secure area well away from an ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood where youths have rioted in opposition to the event.
Many in the crowd said they were not gay and had come to show support for civil rights in what has become a contentious annual affair in this religious, conservative city.
"If it was up to me, I would send the gay community, who insisted on celebrating in Jerusalem, to Sodom and Gomorrah," said Eli Yishai, one of Israel’s deputy prime ministers and the leader of Shas, an ultra-Orthodox party that belongs to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s governing coalition.
In liberal, secular Tel Aviv, gay-themed events take place without a ripple. But in Jerusalem, there is always friction.
This year, the ultra-Orthodox again expressed strong opposition in advance of the march. On several nights during the past week, young men in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim rioted, throwing stones at police and burning garbage in the streets.
The Vatican on Wednesday urged the Israeli government to cancel the rally, saying it would "prove offensive to the great majority of Jews, Muslims and Christians, given the sacred character of the city of Jerusalem."
Ultra-Orthodox leaders agreed not to stage protests today. However, in a one-man demonstration, Rabbi Yehuda Levin, who flew in from Brooklyn, denounced the rally from the front gate of the stadium.
"They are making a statement against God himself," said Rabbi Levin, of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada. "They are creating bad feelings. They are not being tolerant of our feelings."
The Knesset revokes Court ruling on Homosexual marriages.
Last update - 20:15 06/12/2006
Knesset okays preliminary reading to revoke gay marriage ruling
By Gideon Alon, Haaretz Correspondent
Two weeks after the High Court of Justice issued a precedent-setting ruling authorizing five gay couples married abroad to be registered legally in Israel, the Knesset plenum on Wednesday approved in a preliminary hearing a bill to rescind the court's ruling.
The bill, which was initiated by MK Michael Eitan and approved in accelerated proceedings by a majority of 33-31, would prohibit the Population Registry from recognizing the unions until the Knesset has issued legislation approving same-sex marriages. The bill calls for a status quo on the issue, considering that Israel does not recognize homosexual marriages.
The Religious and the Holocaust.
Ha'aretz
OP-ED
Tuesday, August 15, 2000
Alienation from the Holocaust
By Hannah Kim
Three groups have always maintained an ambivalent attitude toward the Holocaust. It is a sweeping generalization, but on the whole, the Palestinians, the Sephardi Jews and the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox have all seen themselves as secondary victims of the Holocaust - each for their own reasons, and because they are the "other Israel."The Holocaust sped up the establishment of the state, which in turn caused the "Nakba," the Palestinian "Catastrophe" of 1948. Afterward, as the German reparation money started to come in to Israel, the gaps widened between the immigrants from Europe and the immigrants from Muslim countries. However, the ultra-Orthodox, who were anyhow alienated from the Zionist enterprise, disassociated themselves from one of the most visible and unequivocal symbols of independence after the Holocaust: serving in the Israeli army. Everything started there, "because" of the Holocaust.
It is apparently no accident that the three groups who have felt rejected are also those with the highest percentages of members living below the poverty line. They, who were not direct victims of the Holocaust, feel as if they have been victims of the Holocaust victims. "Their Holocaust, our catastrophe," wrote the author Emil Habibi. "Was the Holocaust entirely Ashkenazi?" - wondered the researcher Ilan Sa'adon, and he wrote that Jews of the Islamic nations might themselves have been distanced from the Holocaust, yet that they suffered as a result of the war. Both Habibi and Sa'adon, in the publication "Politika," 1986, agreed that it was not possible to draw a comparison. "There can be no comparison between the suffering that the Jews of Europe underwent, and between the suffering of the Palestinian people," wrote Habibi. "Whoever is looking for parallels between the situation of Europe's Jews during the Holocaust, and the situation of the Jews of the Muslim nations, is mistaken," wrote Sa'adon. Nothing is equal to the Holocaust, and thus one also has to proceed with extreme care, so as not to hurt the memory of the victims or to distress the survivors, and to be very respectful of the sanctity of the subject, an almost religious sanctity.
Dr. Udi Ophir, in his article "On the Renewal of God" (a word-play on the expression "Jewish Martyrdom for the Sake of God"), writes about the almost religious attitude toward the Holocaust on the part of those who today have come to be called "the old, established elites." "Even in our own language, that of 'sober' Leftists, some words are still holy. Even for us a raw nerve is left exposed, which is hurt when it hears God's name profaned, that is further wounded when that name is defamed, and the divine name in question is the Holocaust." The defamation of the name of the Holocaust, which means adopting a critical approach to the subject, is an act which has tended to shock us ever since the establishment of the state and right up to this very day.
The fact that Israel's Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day was set precisely on the date on which the Warsaw Ghetto uprising broke out is no coincidence. It's supposed to provide an answer to the claim that the victims of the camps were led "like sheep to the slaughter." Holocaust Day has become one of the symbols of the new state, the secular state. It is a symbol of its sovereignty, a symbol of the melting pot, a symbol of the proud new army, a symbol that has covered up, like a fig-leaf, those same three large, alienated groups. Moni Yakim, an activist for TAMI (political party representing Sephardi interests, at its height during the 1980s), yelled "Ashkenazi woman" at the judge, Victoria Ostrovski-Cohen, during the trial for misuse of public funds of the one-time minister of religious affairs, Aharon Abuhatzeira, a long time before Shas was established. At the time, very few people even tried to understand the awful alienation that lay behind this vituperative comment.
With the decline that afflicted the "old and established elites" there also occurred a decline of the holy of holies: dealing with the Holocaust. The shock generated from what Shlomo Benizri said, or what Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said on the Holocaust, brought out abuse from the other side. Avraham Poraz (of Shinui) promised to wipe Shas off the political map. Professor Yehuda Bauer didn't even attempt to contradict or demonstrate how misguided Benizri's foolish comments had been, but contented himself with invective instead. Instead of a debate, a brawl started up in the media, with the exception of the unusual words of Tom Segev, who found a positive aspect in the fact that the ultra-Orthodox were dealing with the topic of the Holocaust, about which they had been very evasive up to now, due to the inherent difficulty in facing up to the question of where God disappeared to during the Holocaust.
So, when will it be possible to mention the Holocaust without us descending into drunken brawls? When will it also be possible to talk about what the Holocaust caused to those who weren't its direct victims? Perhaps only when the starting point of the discussion is an understanding that the Holocaust has actually never been a canonical symbol with which each citizen of the State of Israel can identify fully.
© copyright 2000 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved.
It isn't the Holocaust, it's Zionism.
Ha'aretz
News
Tuesday, August 15, 2000
It isn't the Holocaust, it's Zionism
By Avirama Golan
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and MK Shlomo Benizri did not suddenly remember the Holocaust just because of Tisha B'Av or because of the political dead-end their party is facing. Moreover, it isn't the Holocaust per se which interests Shas, or its theological interpretation.
As part of their rearguard action against the tottering government of the left, they are using the Holocaust in order to revive an old and much more important war - against Zionism. In the way of the Haredim, they are sticking to values which have almost disappeared from this world.
Among the secular, Zionism hasn't been much in demand for some time. On the contrary, Zionist positions and historiography have been attacked mercilessly in recent years, especially by the left. New Historians have stripped the robes from the "Zionist narrative," revealing it to be false, one-sided and one-dimensional.
New Historians claim that Zionism made use of the Holocaust in its propaganda, in a cynical and calculated effort at forming the Jewish national state at the expense of the "Other," primarily the Arabs.
Secular consciousness has come a long way since the standard myth which was taught in schools like a religion, of "sheep to the slaughter" on the one hand, and of "heroism and revival" on the other. In various forms, in articles, books and plays, the traditional position of Zionism was challenged and fit easily into post-Zionist and post-nationalist theses which found an audience, mainly among the educated secular public. In this respect, the Haredim are on solid ground.
Even Zionist historians like Dani Gutwain of Haifa University have criticized the cynical use of the Holocaust as an educational tool. In his article "The Devaluation of the Holocaust," he argues that the visits to the death camps in Poland by teenagers do not contribute to a better understanding of the Holocaust. Instead, they lend themselves to xenophobia and isolationism, which contradict the Zionist ambition of moving toward normalization.
At the Education Ministry, however, they claim that visits to Auschwitz strengthen the national identity of the youth and intensify their motivation to join the IDF.
While the educational system and the secular establishment are making efforts to turn the Holocaust into the ultimate Israeli experience, contrary to trends in the new interpretations, the Haredim reveal their own narrative (not by chance did some of the New Historians defend them this week).
Starting in the early 1980s, the Haredi narrative became more focused and incorporated new motifs. The bigger the Haredi community became, the more it came to feel that it was being reborn from the ashes of Diaspora Judaism, which in Haredi lore is presented as a wondrous world, and its need to turn the Holocaust into an exclusive symbol became more pressing. Similarly urgent was the need to explain the role of God in a "bigger plan."
The Haredi world must prove to itself that there is God.
Benizri did not say anything different this week from the things screamed out by his rabbi, Reuven Albaz, from loudspeakers on top of cars, calling for a return to God.
Whoever wants to understand something about Haredi thought and the way in which it writes modern history (always a myth) gor itself, will find comfort in the following story:
This week, when the Admor of Slonim passed away, they said at Bnei Brak that he had heard that a death sentence was passed on the third third of the Jews (the first third was destroyed with the temple, the second third during the Holocaust). If that is so, said the Admor, take me instead, and to honor God, two more joined him: the Admor of Bobov and the Admor of Zutshka. You don't believe it? It's a fact - the three of them died, one after the other, and we were left alive.
© copyright 2000 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved.
Shas spiritual leader and the Holocaust.
Ha'aretz
Breaking News
August 6, 2000
Updated: 23:55 (Israel time)
11:20
Angry responses to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s words on the Holocaust
http://www2.haaretz.co.il/...
Angry responses to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s words on the Holocaust
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's sermon Saturday, in which he said the six million Jews that were murdered during the Holocaust were reincarnations of sinners of past generations, evoked angry response Sunday morning.
Rabbi Yosef stirs storm over Shoah.
Ha'aretz
News
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Monday, August 7, 2000
Rabbi Yosef stirs storm over Shoah
By Dalia Shehori, Yair Sheleg, Gideon Alon
Ha'aretz Correspondents
Adding cautiously-worded reservations to a fire-storm of criticism of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's Holocaust remarks, President Moshe Katsav yesterday "took issue" with the Saturday night sermon in which the Shas spiritual leader called the Nazis' murder victims "reincarnated souls of Jews who sinned in the past".
Katsav rejected reporters' suggestions that Yosef's remarks held Holocaust victims responsible for their own fate. "I cannot imagine, heaven forbid, that someone is accusing Holocaust victims of being sinners and responsible for what happened - the skin crawls when something like this is said."
In an uncharacteristically vehement reaction to the former chief rabbi's comments, Yad Vashem noted that similar remarks had been voiced in the past by extreme Haredi elements. "With all due respect to this leader or that, it is hard to understand where Rabbi Ovadia drew the boldness to explain the direction and ways of almighty Providence. It would have been better for this issue to have been left alone, without having set out an already-decreed and simplistic stance, such as that presented by the rabbi."
Shas charges 'Leftist censorship'
Shas, going on the counteroffensive, issued a statement yesterday blasting what it called "patronizing, brutal, gross interference in theological affairs, and an attempt to compel thoughts and beliefs" in the media-borne storm of criticism over Rabbi Yosef's reference to the Holocaust.
Shas figures said the rabbi's remarks had been taken out of context, "misquoted and distorted." Shas went on to accuse the left of trying to stifle free speech and "shut up" the religious party. "We don't intend to apologize for our beliefs and our world-view," the statement said, adding that "it was the bloated media coverage that damaged the memory of the perished."
In late March, Rubinstein ordered the police to open an investigation of the rabbi on suspicion of incitement, insulting a public official, and slander, after Yosef compared Sarid to Satan and Amalek, and an evil force whom "the Almighty will uproot as he uprooted Amalek."Following is the text of Rabbi Yosef's remarks:
"The six million Jews, all those poor people who were lost at the hands of those evil ones, the Nazis, may their names be blotted out - was it all for nothing? No. This was all the reincarnation of earlier souls, who sinned and caused others to sin and did all sorts of forbidden acts. They returned in reincarnation in order to set things right, and received, those poor people, all those torments and troubles and deaths under which they were killed in the Holocaust. They were all reincarnated souls. This is not the first time in their lives that their souls have appeared. They came to do atonement for their sins."
Channel Two Television reported that Rabbi Yosef during another lecture last night explained that all Holocaust victims were "saints and martyrs.
©copyright 2000 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved.
The flip side of Ovadia Yosef.
The Jerusalem Post
Opinion Article
http://www.jpost.com/...
Wednesday, August 23 2000 02:17 22 Av 5760
The flip side of Ovadia Yosef
By Moshe Kaveh
(August 23) - "Accord not sespect to the rabbi, when a desecration of God's name is involved." So taught our sages. Do we - Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike - dare apply this maxim to Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who recently asserted that Holocaust victims were the reincarnated souls of sinners?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Orthodox Jews can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to Yosef's increasingly intemperate outbursts, hiding behind the excuse that he is a "Torah giant." It is time to differentiate between a Torah scholar's halachic mastery and his purported, often dubious claims to unique theological insight or philosophical leadership.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef is one of the most important halachic sages of our generation. He has revolutionized the Sephardi legal approach within halacha, and revitalized the observance of halacha within the Sephardi community. He also has been bold and original (and moderate) in his halachic approach to matters of community relations, marital relations and the pursuit of peace for Israel.
But his "bludgeon-them-until-submission" approach to the government, judiciary, and secular population is far from acceptable; it has been neither original, nor wise, nor moderate.
Yosef's attitudes do not appear to be grounded in any broader, carefully organized theological framework, nor in any deeper, Divinely-inspired insight into the challenges and difficulties of our day.
As a result, it is neither outrageous nor religiously disrespectful, nor blasphemous, for us to say that Yosef's recent theological outburst was simply unacceptable. Indeed, it was offensive, quite preposterous in theological content, and certainly at variance with halachic norms meant to set limits of wise and appropriate speech.
As a religious Jew quite conversant with current theological debate, and as the son of Holocaust survivors, I believe that Jews everywhere have the responsibility to protest Yosef's botched attempt to explain the Holocaust.
(The writer is the president of Bar-Ilan University.)
© 1995-2000, The Jerusalem Post - All rights reserved.
Some Religious institutions are more equal than others.
Ha'aretz
TOP STORIES
Wednesday, November 3, 1999
Some Torah institutions are more equal than others
By Shahar Ilan, Ha'aretz Religious Affairs Correspondent
This year the Ministry of Religious Affairs will distribute a total of NIS 16.8 million to Torah research institutes, which prepare and publish religious books. A funding committee rates each institute according to the quality and importance of its publications, as well as the number of researchers it employs, with each point equal to some NIS 5150.
Paragraph 5 of the rating criteria, however, states that the committee can pick up to 15 institutes every year that are eligible for an additional 25 percent. Given that most of the criteria for budget allocations are determined by the quality of the publications, there appears to be little logic behind the preferential treatment.
The only real limitation on entering the club of exclusive institutes is "at least 7 years of activity as a research institute." ... In other words, an institute can receive preferential treatment whether or not it meets the seven-year requirement.
Neither the Yahaveh Da'at nor the Ma'or Yisrael institutes (see box) has been operating for seven years. According to the reasons provided by the committee, both these bodies were awarded preferential subsidies solely on the basis that they publish writings by Ovadia Yosef. One of the advisors to Minister for Religious Affairs Yitzhak Cohen of Shas is Rabbi Eliahi Sheetrit, who prepares Yosef's works for publication at these two institutes. Yahaveh Da'at has benefited from the extra allocation for three years, Ma'or Yisrael for two - meaning that this transfer of funds to Shas associates began during the last administration, when Shas was also in control of the Religious Affairs Ministry.
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
It's easier to get funding if you're in Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's family.
Ha'aretz
TOP STORIES
Wednesday, November 3, 1999
It's easier to get funding if you're in Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's family
By Shahar Ilan
The Ministry of Religious Affairs allocates outsize budgets of about NIS 500,000 each to 15 religious research institutions, almost all of them associated with political parties. Among the institutes given preferential treatment are three in which the sons of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef play a central role.
Among the institutes chosen to receive extraordinary funding this year:
-- Yahaveh Da'at will receive NIS 620,000. This institute is headed by Rabbi David Yosef, Ovadia Yosef's son and a close friend of former Shas leader Aryeh Deri.
-- Ma'or Yisrael (NIS 507,000) is headed by another of Ovadia's sons, Moshe Yosef, considered the most important person in Shas.
-- Or Hamizrah (NIS 519,000) is headed by Avraham Yosef, the chief rabbi of Holon and the son of Ovadia Yosef.
-- Rosh Pina, with an allocation of NIS 508,000, is headed by Nissim Deri, brother of the former Shas leader.
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
Israeli Politics and the Shabbat.
Ha'aretz
NEWS
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/...
Sunday, September 10, 2000
Barak's Sabbath vows cause a stir in Labor
By Yossi Verter
Ha'aretz Political Correspondent
Senior sources in the Labor party said yesterday that Barak's statements over the weekend regarding public transport on the Sabbath and allowing El Al to operate on weekends, are in conflict with the party's resolutions and platform, which support the status quo on the relation between religion and state.
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
Ha'aretz
Breaking News
http://www2.haaretz.co.il/...
September 10, 2000 Updated: 17:36 (Israel time) 11:05
Sources say Barak will not retract Shabbat transport statements
Sources close to Prime Minister Ehud Barak said that despite wide-ranging criticism, Barak has no intention of retracting his statements regarding the establishment of public transportation on the Sabbath and permitting El Al to operate on weekends.
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
Supermarket Defies the Israeli Government over the Shabbat.
Supermarket Defies Israeli Gov't
By Laurie Copans
Associated Press Writer
Saturday, March 13, 1999; 6:17 p.m. EST
JERUSALEM (AP) -- A Jerusalem supermarket defied a Labor Ministry threat to shut it down for employing Jews on the Sabbath by staffing only with Muslims and Christians.
Israeli law bans the employment of Jews on the Jewish Sabbath, from Friday evening to Saturday sundown.
Labor Minister Eli Ishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party has overlooked work at restaurants and other places of entertainment. But he said he is determined to close the store to safeguard the status quo in the Holy City.
Some 20 Jews showed up Saturday to demonstrate. They yelled ``Sabbath!'' at secular Jews and tourists as they filed out, carrying cigarettes, chocolates, bread and other items.
``The ultra-Orthodox can't do anything to us since this is all legal,'' Gordon said as he quickly doled out change to a young man in a black leather coat. ``They should just let us do what we want.''
About 70 percent of Israel's Jews are secular or at least not strict Sabbath observers.
© Copyright 1999 The Associated Press
Ministry threatens Intel over Shabbat.
Ha'aretz
TOP STORIES
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/...
Friday, November 19, 1999
Ministry threatens Intel over Shabbat
By Einat Fishbain, Ha'aretz Correspondent
The Labor Ministry, headed by Eli Yishai of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party, is threatening to stop funding courses that train new workers for Intel on grounds that the computer company is operating its Kiryat Gat facility on Shabbat without proper permits.
Under Israeli law, fines of NIS 4,000 per worker can be imposed on businesses that operate on Saturdays without proper authorization.
Knesset Member Yosef Paritzky of the stridently secular Shinui Party lambasted the Labor Ministry for the threat.
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
El Al Vows Not to Fly Over Cemetery.
El Al Vows Not to Fly Over Cemetery
By Jack Katzenell
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, January 2, 2002; 12:42 AM
JERUSALEM –– The Israeli government has promised ultra-Orthodox Jews that El Al airliners bound for New York will fly around a Jewish cemetery to avoid desecrating them, officials said Tuesday.
Under Jewish law, those of priestly descent are forbidden to enter a cemetery, and the defilement is believed to extend all the way up to the heavens. Some passengers had even asked to be wrapped in plastic bags to protect themselves from defilement.
Some ultra-Orthodox Jews who are descendants of the priests, or Cohanim, began flying by way of the Jordanian capital, Amman, or the Netherlands because those flights do not pass over the cemetery, said Yitzhak Soudri, adviser to Eli Ishai, leader of the religious Shas party.
To resolve the problem, Transport Minister Ephraim Sneh sent a letter this week to leading rabbis and ultra-Orthodox politicians, including Ishai, promising that El Al planes would avoid the cemetery.
He said El Al had promised to "adhere strictly to procedure, so as not to cause Cohanim among the company's passengers to commit a sin, heaven forbid."
© 2002 The Associated Press
Turning the Shabbat into a laughingstock.
Ha'aretz
NEWS
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/...
Sunday, August 29, 1999
Analysis / Avirama Golan
Turning Shabbat into a laughingstock
By Avirama Golan, Ha'aretz Correspondent
The writer Shalom Aleichem, who was fed up with the tiresome nitpicking over Jewish law (halacha), had Tuvia the milkman ridicule the learned debates over hypothetical halachic issues. But even Shalom Aleichem could not have imagined such a convoluted and transparent case as the turbine episode, which has nothing at all to do with keeping Shabbat.
The celebrations held by secular Israelis along the route of the turbine only demonstrates the sad state of the secular side to this war of cultures. But this embarrassing episode had little to do with the war of cultures. Only two groups hurried to make political capital over this issue: extremists from Shas and United Torah Judaism, on one hand, and Shinui MKs on the other.
The turbine episode may have ended for now, but Suissa, UTJ MKs Gafni and Porush and their colleagues will surely find other Shabbat violations that they can blow out of proportion. Perhaps Barak's coalition is not as shaky as it appeared, but the complex processes with ultra-Orthodox politics are liable to subject it to additional tremors.
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
Israel's turbine affair.
Ha'aretz
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/...
Editorial
Sunday, August 29, 1999
Pointless battle
The affair of the second turbine - which was transported on Shabbat, like the first one, but which produced a greater uproar - eventually ended in a compromise that could have been achieved at the start of the week, without unnecessary threats to the stability of the coalition. If the solution offered by Minister without Portfolio Rabbi Michael Melchior (Meimad) - that the turbine would be loaded before the beginning of Shabbat and unloaded only after Shabbat was over, and that the drivers transporting the turbine would be non-Jewish - satisfies the heads of United Torah Judaism and Shas, and if they are suddenly willing to ignore the hundreds of police officers and electric company employees that participated in the operation, then it is not clear why they waged such a stubborn battle.
The turbine affair was blown up out of all logical proportion, unjustifiably becoming a symbol for the struggle over the nature of the Sabbath. National Infrastructure Minister Eli Suissa was well aware, when he initiated the affair, that turbines had been transported on Shabbat during previous governments, without being considered a blow to the status quo. Suissa acted out of internal political motives, and it appears that the stability of the coalition - and even that of his own party within the government - did not interest him at all. He dragged his party colleagues and the spiritual leader of Shas, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, into a pointless battle, and they were unable to stop him.
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
Israeli Government Avoided a Political Crisis Over the Turbine.
Ha'aretz
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/...
Sunday, August 29, 1999
Last-minute flurry averts coalition crisis over turbine
By Yossi Verter, Ha'aretz Correspondent
The coalition crisis that was brewing over the turbine transfer was averted as a result of intense contacts begun Friday morning, after the two ultra-Orthodox parties threatened to bolt the government. Up to that point, Prime Minister Ehud Barak had taken pains not to get involved in the matter; he did not even telephone Haredi rabbis or businessmen.
On Friday morning, Minister-without-portfolio Rabbi Michael Melchior (One Israel) attempted to advance his proposal of two weeks ago - that the turbine be moved on Shabbat by non-Jews.
"The prime minister sees Shabbat as an important value, which has preserved Israel throughout the generations, and he refrains from attempts to create tension and desecration of the Sabbath over the issue."
Upon receiving their consent, Melchior called the attorney for the transport company, who agreed to send letters to the Haredi parties, saying efforts would be made to reduce Sabbath desecration.
But Melchior wasn't done yet. There were several more crises with the Haredim, who demanded assurance that he had Barak's authorization; the transport company, which expressed resentment at being used as a political football; and the National Religious Party, whose members suddenly felt the need to make their presence felt. All had to be dealt with before the issue could be resolved.
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved
Barak denied allegations that Shas received payoff in return for Turbine compromise.
Ha'aretz
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/...
Sunday, August 29, 1999
Turbine, government arrive safely
Barak, Shas deny allegations party received NIS10 million payoff in return for compromise
By Yair Sheleg and Anat Cygielman, Ha'aretz Correspondents
The transporting of a second turbine last Friday night was a complete success. The oversize load, towed by two trucks from its place of construction in Ramat Hasharon to the Rotenberg power plant in Ashkelon, set out before Shabbat and arrived at 8 A.M. Shabbat morning, two hours earlier than expected.
The office of Prime Minister Ehud Barak announced yesterday that there was no basis to the report aired yesterday evening on Channel Two that the Shas party has or will receive money in exchange for its moderate position over the Shabbat transport. The report claimed that the Shas educational network El Hama'ayan would receive NIS 10 million as part of a payoff of its massive debt. A spokesman for Barak emphasized that the prime minister did not get involved in the matter.
© copyright 1999 Ha'aretz. All Rights Reserved