Tag Archives: Topic: Judaism

Haaretz: Israel Police are investigating threats to hurt the rabbi in charge of Jerusalem’s Western Wall if he does not allow a Jewish women’s prayer group equal worship rights at the holy site, a police spokesman said on Monday.

Religion Clause Blog: In Thaler v. Amzalak, (NSW Sup. Ct., May 27, 2013), the Supreme Court of the Australian state of New South Wales set aside an award by a Bet Din (Jewish religious court) in a commercial dispute.

Wall Street Journal: The IRS has admitted targeting groups that wanted to speak on issues during the 2012 election season. But did the agency also target tax-exempt groups that opposed Administration policy priorities?

AP: Israeli police say vandals have spray-panted slogans on the home of one of the leaders of a liberal Jewish women’s group that has angered ultra-Orthodox communities over its demands for equality of worship.

How Appealing links to coverage and the ruling in Rich v. Secretary Florida Department of Corrections.

Religion Clause Blog: In Israel today, Women of the Wall held their first prayer session since a court decision (see prior posting) vindicating their right to pray at Jerusalem’s Western Wall wearing prayer shawls (traditionally worn only by men).

The Times of Israel: Jews are currently permitted to ascend to the volatile holy site, but police forbid them from worshiping there.

The Volokh Conspiracy has posted a very interesting fact and graphic.

Miami Herald: Friday’s morning House Session opened as it usually does. A religious leader invited by a House member offers a prayer for guidance to the lawmakers. And as usually happens, the reverend, invited on Friday by Rep. Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, concluded “we ask these things in the name, and through the merits of Jesus Christ, thy son and savior, amen.” But that final invocation of Jesus Christ is a growing concern for Jewish members, according to Rep. Jim Waldman, D-Coconut Creek.

Washington Post: Women who want to wear prayer shawls while praying in the women’s section of the Western Wall are not breaking the law, according to a landmark decision handed down Thursday (April 25) by the Jerusalem District Court.

Aleteia.org: A century ago, during the reign of the last of the Muslim caliphs, Christians in the Middle East amounted to a fifth of the population, with thriving strongholds in Egypt, Palestine, and the regions now known as Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Today, that community is in a state of rapid, terminal decline. Best estimates now put the Christian population at around five percent, but even these few are being squeezed out by persecution, war and occupation. The near-destruction of these ancient Christian communities during the past half-century is an important historical event. This all goes to say that the astonishing fact that it has been consistently underreported in the West is a disgrace.

The Guardian: Natan Sharansky calls for plaza to include area for mixed public, while retaining the segregated sections for orthodox worshippers

Religion Clause Blog: Last September, New York City’s Board of Health adopted a controversial rule that requires informed consent from a parent or guardian in a Jewish ritual circumcision where a mohel will use the controversial procedure known as metzitzah b’peh.

Jordan Lorence at Speak Up Movement: Controversy continues to swirl around an anti-Israel “BDS” event at Brooklyn College on February 7, in which police removed four Jewish students from the event advocating for “BDS,” which is “boycott [of], divestment [from] and sanctions [against])” Israel. School officials are now investigating the removal, according to an article in the Jewish Daily Forward.

Religion Clause Blog: In Berkowitz v. East Ramapo Central School District, (SD NY, March 21, 2013), Jewish teachers and nurses sued after school officials refused to abide by provisions in collective bargaining agreements allowing teachers and school nurses to use paid sick leave days for observance of religious holidays.

Religion Clause Blog: Oral arguments are scheduled for March 26 in Hollingsworth v. Perry, and on March 27 in United States v. Windsor. These dates are the first two days of Passover– holidays in the Jewish calendar on which traditional Jews abstain from work.

Haaretz: ctively revising the three monotheisms’ archaic homophobic legacy may not be 100% historically honest, but it is certainly necessary for reframing more tolerant versions of these religions.

Religion Clause Blog: The Forward reported yesterday on the unique problems of religious accommodation in complying with the federal Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 faced by ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools. Under the Act and implementing regulations, federal assistance for a school’s food program is available only if the school’s menus meet specified nutritional guidelines.

AP: A Dutch appeals court has upheld a (EURO)60 ($90) fine against an Orthodox Jew who refused to show police an identity card, citing religious reasons.

Religion Clause Blog: Applying Germany’s new law enacted in December to confirm the legality of religious circumcisions performed with parental consent by specially trained members of the religious community, a court in the German city of Hof has dismissed charges that had been filed last year against a rabbi.

Houston Chronicle: U.S. Sen. John McCain said Wednesday he has expressed strong disapproval to Egypt’s Islamist president about his past comments about Jews. Despite an uproar in Washington over the remarks, he said he and other congressmen will press for more aid to Egypt’s ailing economy.

LifeSiteNews: Israel’s two chief rabbis have again issued a letter to all synagogue and community rabbis urging them to condemn abortion and to support the work of Efrat, the country’s pro-life organization.

Spiegel Online: Archeologists are studying the ruins of a buried Christian empire in the highlands of Yemen. The sites have sparked a number of questions about the early history of Islam. Was there once a church in Mecca?

NY Times: German lawmakers on Wednesday passed legislation ensuring parents the right to have their boys circumcised, bringing a close to months of legal uncertainty set off by a regional court’s ruling that equated the practice with bodily harm.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach at Jerusalem Post: No Holds Barred: The Guttmacher Institute’s data that 85% of all abortions take place outside of marriage would have us address the subject not as a social wedge issue but by cultivating a culture that commits to marriage.

AP: A top court in Poland said Tuesday that the ritual slaughter of animals by religious groups, including Jews and Muslims, violates the country’s constitution and animal protection laws.

Haaretz: On the anniversary of the Jewish matriarch Rachel’s death, devout Jews from around the world bring their prayers to her tomb.

Religion Clause Blog: Arutz Sheva reported yesterday on a religious discrimination lawsuit filed in Israel against the city ofModi’in because it closed its popular Anabe Park to non-residents of the city last month during the holiday of Sukkot.

Andrew Doran at First Things: In the fall of 2010, a few months before revolution swept the Muslim world, I happened to be in Yemen for work. The trip coincided with the start of the Eid holiday, which provided ample free time to see much of the capital, Sana’a. One afternoon, en route to the hotel from the historic Old City, the driver pointed out the window at a group of men standing on a vacant corner. “Look!” he said with the excitement of happening upon a rarity. “Those are Jews.” They were some distance away, and whatever distinguished them from other Yemeni, I could not see it through the window of an SUV. In the blink of an eye, they were no longer visible. At the start of the last century, there were tens of thousands of Jews in Yemen; today, there are perhaps hundreds

Chicago Sun Times: “The Christian community is vanishing, and it is not because of Islamic terrorism,” the Rev. Dr. Donald E. Wagner, program director of the Friends of Sabeel North America told the Sun-Times Editorial Board last week. “It is because of losing land, of having economic deprivation and just little future for the kids.”

LA Times: How can it be, they ask, that in the state of Israel, Jews and Christians are banned from praying at Judaism’s holiest site, while Muslims can worship freely? Even the U.S. State Department has cited Israel’s ban on non-Muslim prayer on the plaza in its annual report on religious freedom, they note.

The Christian Century: Jews from Manhattan to Mozambique held prayer vigils on Monday (Oct. 22) to protest the arrest and incarceration of an Israeli feminist as she was leading 250 American Jewish women in prayer at the Western Wall.

JewishVoiceNY.com: Americans United for Separation of Church and State claims that the yeshiva violated this expected separation when it received undue economic gain from the city government and did not provide comparable value in return. In 2001, the Orthodox educational institution completed a lease agreement with the City of Waterbury that granted it the use of the University of Connecticut’s campus, which had been left unoccupied after the college relocated downtown. The yeshiva committed to pay a monthly rent of $5,000, with an additional three percent increase annually.

CNSNews: A leading Jewish human rights group is urging President Obama to sever ties with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood after its top leader called for “holy war” against Israel.

Religion Clause Blog: A widely anticipated lawsuit was filed in federal district court in New York yesterday challenging a recently adopted New York City Board of Health regulation requiring informed consent from parents before a controversial method is used in the Jewish religious circumcision of their infant sons.

Business Recorder: French authorities vowed Tuesday to show zero tolerance for anti-Semitism as new details emerged of the suspects detained in a crackdown on Islamic extremists who allegedly targeted the Jewish community.

AP: Israel’s foreign minister has condemned the vandalism of the Romanian church in Jerusalem, the latest in a string of attacks on Christian sites in the Holy Land.

Fox News: Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the perpetrators defaced a wall leading to the Church of the Dormition. The century-old structure is built on the site where tradition says the Virgin Mary died. The graffiti, which read “Jesus, son of a whore, price tag,” had already been removed by midmorning, said Rosenfeld.

New York CBS Local: On the region’s subways and buses, most ads we see don’t get much attention. But that may change with a pro-Israel ad that will soon grace MTA property which reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”

AP: After a series of attacks by vandals on Christian holy sites in Israel, normally tight-lipped Roman Catholic officials are beginning to speak out, publicly appealing to authorities to take a stronger stand against the violence.

NY Times: But now, some Jewish leaders say, the circumcision debate has exposed how ignorant many Germans are about Jewish beliefs. “This discussion has shown that we are foreigners in our own country, doing something that Germans are not supposed to do,” said Stephan J. Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. “We are accused of torturing our own children.”

NY Times: The New York City Board of Health unanimously passed a regulation on Thursday that will require consent from parents before an infant can have a form of Jewish ritual circumcision, prevalent in parts of the ultra-Orthodox community, in which the circumciser uses his mouth to remove blood from the incision.

Washington Times: Hundreds of Palestinian Authority Arabs have been assaulting a Jewish village in the Binyamin region since Saturday afternoon, Tatzpit reports.

Religion Clause Blog: The Palm Beach Post reports that Palm Beach County, Florida, Democratic Party Chairman Mark Alan Siegel resigned Friday, two days after making controversial remarks about pro-Israel Christians.

Times of Israel: State does not authorize mohels, requires that parents be informed of the procedure’s medical risks before consenting

Haaretz: Statement by top clerics, including Jerusalem’s Latin Patriarch, urges authorities to apprehend those responsible; Netanyahu: Israel will punish perpetrators severely.

AP: A top state official says infant male circumcision for religious reasons is legal in Berlin . . .

Religion Clause Blog: As previously reported, the New York City Health Department will vote on Sept. 13 on proposed rules to require written informed consent by parents to a controversial Jewish ritual circumcision method that health authorities say can spread herpes.

Volokh Conspiracy: At the risk of provoking the ire of anti-circumcision zealots (you know who are), I thought I’d mention that the American Academy of Pediatrics, reversing a previous neutral stance, is now endorsing male circumcision based on a review of recent scientific evidence.

Religion Clause Blog: In the Australian state of Tasmania, the Tasmania Law Reform Institute has recently released a 101-page report on Non-Therapeutic Male Circumcision.

Commentary Magazine: As the Times of Israel reports, criminal charges have been filed against a rabbi in Northern Bavaria for performing circumcisions. According to the Juedische Allgemeine, a Jewish weekly, the state prosecutor of Hof confirmed that charges had been filed against Rabbi David Goldberg, who serves the community of Upper Franconia for “harming” infants by performing the rite of brit milah, the covenantal ritual at the heart of Judaism.

TimesofIsrael.com: TV reporter adds: ‘I doubt Obama could say anything that would convince PM to delay a possible attack’ . . . The report added that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak believe Obama would have no choice but to give backing for an Israeli attack before the US presidential elections in November.

Middle East Forum: “Any time young people approach me in order to get married, I ask them various questions about their future. Eighty percent of them say they do not envision any future in France.” This is what one rabbi in Paris told me last week. I heard similar statements from other French rabbis and lay Jewish leaders: “We have a feeling the words are on the wall now,” one leader in the Lyons area confided to me. “It is not just our situation in this country deteriorating; it is also that the process is much quicker than expected.”

The Florida Times Union: The federal government has sued Florida’s Department of Corrections for not offering kosher meals to all prison inmates.

Religion Clause Blog: A jury in a California state trial court this week awarded $1.2 million in compensatory damages and over $400,000 in punitive damages to members of the Friends of Israel Defense Forces for violation of the anti-discrimination provisions of California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act by a hotel at which the group was holding an event.

AP: Israel’s existence is an “insult to all humanity,” Iran’s president said Friday in one of his sharpest attacks yet against the Jewish state, as Israel openly debates whether to attack Iran over its nuclear program.

Religion Clause Blog: The Forward reports today on the growing opposition in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community to a proposed rule (full text) published last month by the New York City Health Department that would require written informed consent by parents to a controversial ritual circumcision method.

Religion Clause Blog: JTA reported Monday that Norway’s ombudsman for children has proposed that Jews and Muslims replace circumcision of boys with a symbolic non-surgical ritual.

Chicago Sun Times: Jewish leaders refused to engage in the dialogue. They were so concerned about the mayor’s private meeting with Farrakhan they demanded an audience of their own to clear the air. Daley used that meeting to deny ever suggesting the give-and-take.

Haaretz: Though it has no legal status, resolution aimed at calming outcry against court’s verdict banning circumcision of a minor; government to draft legislation later this year.

Religion Clause Blog: Jewish Journal reported yesterday that rabbis from around Europe have held a 3-day meeting in Berlin to plan how to combat the ruling from a court in the city of Cologne last month banning ritual circumcision of young boys.

AP: Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews are protesting in Jerusalem against attempts to draft members of the cloistered community into the Israeli military.

AP: The Conference of European Rabbis is calling on Germany’s Jewish community to continue circumcising baby boys . . .

AP: An Israeli parliamentary committee on Monday denounced a ruling in Germany banning ritual circumcision, saying the decision infringes upon religious freedom . . .

Religion Clause Blog: . . . Jewish congregations on Tuesday submitted an application to the European Court of Human Rights contending that Hungary’s new Church Law is illegal and discriminatory. Hungary’s Constitutional Court has already rejected their claims.

Turtle Bay and Beyond: . . . the Landgericht Köln (Cologne High Court), found in a recent judgment that the circumcision of a young boy at the request of his parents was an illegal assault against the boy’s bodily integrity, which, in principle, constitutes a punishable crime.

Religion Clause Blog: European Jewish Press reported yesterday that in Latvia, Justice Minister Gaidis Berzins resigned Thursday in protest of Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis’ announced plans to create a commission to investigate paying restitution to families of Latvian Jews who property was taken during the Holocaust.

Religion Clause Blog: As reported by Radio Netherlands Worldwide and JTA, the Dutch Senate on Tuesday voted not to ratify a law that would have banned Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter.

Religion Clause Blog: In 554 Queen Anne Road Inc. v. Teaneck Board of Adjustment, (NJ Super. Ct., June 18, 2012), a New Jersey state trial court, finding “voluminous issues of material fact,” refused to grant summary judgment to either side in a zoning dispute between an Orthodox Jewish congregation and officials in Teaneck, New Jersey.

David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy: A new study of the American Jewish population in the New York metro area contains this stunning statistic: sixty-one percent of all Jewish children in the area live in Orthodox households.

Religion Clause Blog: Time Magazine reports that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report yesterday on Neonatal Herpes Simplex Virus Infection Following Jewish Ritual Circumcisions that Included Direct Orogenital Suction — New York City, 2000–2011.

Washington Post: The Conservative branch of American Judaism has formally approved same-sex marriage ceremonies, nearly six years after lifting a ban on ordaining gays and lesbians.

JTA.org: A Toronto Islamic school has lost the right to use a public school for its classes after anti-Semitic teachings were discovered in its curriculum and posted on its website.

Telegraph: The Pope’s representative in Britain has urged Roman Catholic leaders to form a united front with their Muslim and Jewish counterparts to oppose gay marriage.

Religion Clause Blog: The Forward reported yesterday that Hannah Rosenthal, the United States special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, held a meeting earlier this week with Ilmar Reepalu, mayor of the Swedish city of Malmo, to call attention to the anti-Semitism rampant in the city and the city’s lack of adequate response to it