Myths & Facts: Archived Online Exclusive | Jewish Virtual …
Posted By richards on December 15, 2016
The Talmud | Torah.org
Posted By richards on December 12, 2016
The Talmud is the name given to the printed edition that includes both the Mishna and the Gemara.
If the Mishna is a very brief outline of the laws of the Oral Law, the Gemara is the explanation that fills in all the gaps. After the very brief, focused style of the Mishna, studying the Gemara presents a tremendous contrast. While it is concise (one or two words often translate to whole sentences in English), the Gemara will often branch off into long side discussions. By doing this the Gemara often appears to have forgetten the original question entirely until at last, when the smoke has cleared, every loose end is tied up.
Line by line, word by word, the rabbis of the Gemara (known as Amoraim) examine the Mishna and explain its intentions. You wont find Amoraim arguing with the rabbis of the Mishna. The goal of an Amorah was to explain, to clarify and often to resolve contradictions between one Mishna and another in order to come to the correct ruling the Halacha.
But it wasnt just Halacha that occupied the Amoraim, as the Gemara is much more than just a dry legal text book. The Gemara is a living portrait of a living nation. The student of Talmud is rewarded with a good peek into the private lives of unusually great people. We see their brilliant minds, their pain, their struggles, their relationships and even their jokes. We also see the common Jew of those centuries, his cares, problems and often remarkable dedication to a Torah life.
Theres purpose in every word of the Gemara every story and even every joke contains an invaluable lesson in how to live as a Jew. The Gemara depicts how every aspect of our lives (and not just the Halachic), must be in service of G-d. How much money should a man spend on the frivolous needs of his wife? How should he deal with bad-tempered kids? What kind of profit margin should he aim for in his business? Its all there, theres no area of the human condition that isnt touched by the words of the Talmud.
The Talmud (and, by extension, the study of the Talmud) has been the all consuming focus of the Jewish people for the past 1500 years. The intense effort this study demands has honed the Jewish mind and shaped both the Jew and his community.
The Talmud both defines and creates Judaism and many of our enemies know this. Over the centuries there has been no book more viciously searched for and destroyed by Christians than the Talmud. Many thousands of priceless, handwritten volumes of the Talmud (and other sacred Jewish books) were burned throughout the last thousand years of Jewish settlement in Europe. Many of the great libraries of Europe (including that of the Vatican itself) are filled with unique and valuable manuscripts of Talmudic commentary.
The fact that there are Jews alive today (and there are tens of thousands) who can still sing the song of the Talmud and the fact that there are still copies of the Talmud (and there are tens of thousands being printed every year) can be nothing else than the product of a great historical miracle.
And the fact that there is still a Jewish nation today and that G-ds Torah is still practiced by so many Jews is the direct result of that miracle.
See the rest here:
The Talmud | Torah.org
Hasidic philosophy – Wikipedia
Posted By richards on December 12, 2016
American Jews – Wikipedia
Posted By richards on December 11, 2016
Myths & Facts: Archived Online Exclusive | Jewish Virtual …
Posted By admin on December 11, 2016
The Palestinian Authority held a free, democratic election in 2005. Israel is building the security fence as part of a land grab to control the West Bank and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. The demographic threat to Israel posed by Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza is overrated and therefore Israel need not make territorial compromises. Israel is killing Palestinians with radiation spy machines. Unlike other Arab women, Palestinian women are not killed for dishonoring their families. Israel has moved the border so it will not withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip. Hamas should be permitted to participate in Palestinian Authority elections. Israel's disengagement from Gaza was a victory for terror. Israel is obstructing Palestinian elections. Academic freedom means any criticism of Israel is permissible in a university. The Palestinian Authority held a democratic election and Israel and the rest of the world must accept that Hamas was the victor. Israel is digging under the Al-Aksa mosque and intends to destroy it. Israel is responsible for disparaging cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. The Palestinians have maintained a truce and ceased terror operations against Israel. The PA is entitled to international aid because Hamas was democratically elected and the Palestinian people should not be made to suffer because Israel doesnt like the election outcome. Saudi Arabia has ended its boycott of Israel. Israel is knowingly desecrating a Muslim holy place in Jerusalem by building a museum on top of a cemetery. Hamas is a threat only to Israel. Palestinians have the right to sell land to Jews. Israel has no justification for withholding tax monies due to the Palestinian Authority. If Israel ends the occupation, there will be peace. Israel deliberately targets Lebanese civilians. Israel should exchange Arab prisoners for soldiers kidnaped by Hamas and Hizballah. The media is fairly and accurately covering the war in Lebanon. Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians during the war instigated by Hizballah. A unity Palestinian government will reinvigorate the peace process. Saudi Arabia has proposed a new formula for a comprehensive peace. A new report proves Israeli settlements are built on Palestinian land. The overwhelming majority of casualties in the war with Hizballah were civilians. Abbas is helpless to stop the terrorists. Israel is obstructing progress toward a Palestinian state. Israeli Arabs are unpatriotic. Women are not recruited to become suicide bombers. Palestinian terrorist groups are committed to a cease-fire. Israel is damaging the Temple Mount and threatening Islamic shrines. Palestinians are moderating their views toward Israel. The Arab peace initiative reflects the Arab states acceptance of Israel. Israel is denying health care to Palestinians. The Hamas takeover of Gaza poses no threat to Christians. Lebanon has abided by UN Resolution 1701 and poses no direct threat to Israel. Israel is once again expelling Arabs from Palestine. The occupation has sapped Israel's morale as reflected by the decline in Israelis willing to serve in the IDF. Israel has nothing to fear from a nuclear Iran. Israels presumed nuclear capability is stoking an arms race. Irans nuclear program threatens only Israel. No state in the world connects its national identity to a religious identity. Arab participation in the Annapolis conference signaled a new attitude toward Israel. Palestinians prefer to live in a Palestinian state. Israel and the Palestinians agree a future Palestinian state will have an army. Gaza settlers greenhouses have bolstered the PA economy. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is Israel's fault. Israel's actions in Gaza were disproportionate and unprovoked. Israel's enemies must recognize the Jewish state's right to exist. Palestinians are driven to terror by poverty and desperation. Israel must negotiate with Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas has rooted out the corruption in the Palestinian Authority . Hizbollah is a resistance movement whose only interest is fighting Israel. Palestinian terrorist groups agreed to a cease-fire to advance the peace process. Olmert's resignation means the end of peace talks with the Palestinians. Arabs cannot vote in Israel. Israel is intolerant of homosexuality. Hamas will not break a ceasefire. Arab states' sincerity in promoting their peace initiative is reflected in their positions in international forums. Charles Freeman was the right choice for chair of the National Intelligence Council and the Israel lobby was responsible for his not being appointed. Arab states support Iran. Netanyahu is not an advocate for peace. The United States missed an opportunity to address the issue of global racism in its non-participation in Durban II. Abbas is ready to accept a Jewish state in the framework of a two-state solution. Khaled Meshaal seeks peace, not the destruction of Israel. The popes trip to Israel shows that issues between Israel and the Vatican have been resolved. Obama and Netanyahu have irreconcilable visions of peace. Netanyahu's government refuses to honor past agreements on settlements. There is urgency to resolve the Palestinian-Israel conflict. Palestinian leaders are committed to peace. Fatah's Sixth Congress proved the party's rejuvenated committment to peace. Saudi Arabia is on the path to normalizing relations with Israel. The Goldstone Report proves Israel is guilty of war crimes in Gaza. In exchange for a settlement freeze, Arab states are offering overflight rights as a peace gesture to Israel. Jews were responsible for the defeat of Egypt's candidate for UNESCO. The enemies of Israel will not misuse the Goldstone Report. Amnesty's water report fairly portrays Israel. The threat Hizbollah poses to Israel has diminished. Syria is ready for peace with Israel. Settlements are an obstacle to negotiations. Egypt's blockade of Gaza has provoked international criticism. George Mitchell threatened Israel. The U.S. is maintaining Israel's qualitative edge. The Israelis and the Palestinians share equal blame in creating recent obstacles to peace. Israel is an apartheid state. Israels Inclusion of Rachels Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs as Jewish Heritage Sites is an attack on Palestinian sovereignty and Islam. The re-dedication of the Hurva Synagogue is an affront to Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority promotes a culture of tolerance and peace. The flotilla bound for Gaza was on a humanitarian mission. The naval blockade of Gaza does not affect Hamas and only hurts innocent civilians. UNIFIL has kept the peace in southern Lebanon. Palestinian Authority leaders have a mandate from the people to pursue peace. Ending the moratorium on settlement construction is designed to torpedo peace negotiations. Renewed settlement construction in the West Bank proves Israel is uninterested in peace. Israel has instituted a racist loyalty oath requiring immigrants to pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. The Palestinians can pressure Israel into negotiating on their terms by unilaterally declaring statehood." Israel cannot be both a democratic state and a Jewish state. The UN helps preserve Jewish holy sites in the Palestinian Territories. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is a moderate interested in compromise. Israel is the only country in the Middle East that feels threatened by Iran's nuclear ambitions. "Saudi Arabia is an ally of the West in the war on terror." The viability of a future Palestinian state is severely hampered by the continued construction of Israeli settlements." Israel illegally demolished a Palestinian national landmark in East Jerusalem." Israel is required by international law to supply goods and services to Gaza - its blockade is collective punishment." Israel must accept the demand of Palestinian refugees to 'return' in order for there to be peace." The Egyptian revolution has no impact on Israel's security. Turmoil in Egypt is a result of the failure to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. America's veto of a UN Security Council resolution condemning settlements undermined peace talks. American media coverage of Israel is proportional with coverage given to the rest of the Middle East. 'Israel Apartheid Week' promotes peace. Palestinian terrorism is a byproduct of the 'cycle of violence' perpetuated by Israel. Israel unnecessarily maintains checkpoints to control and humiliate the Palestinians. Rockets shot from Gaza at southern Israel do not cause enough damage to justify military retaliation . Justice Goldstone remains convinced that Israel committed war crimes documented in the Goldstone Report. The Iron Dome Missile Defense System negates the need for Israel to engage in military operations against Hamas in Gaza The targeted assassination of terrorist leaders is a counterproductive military strategy Hamas-Fatah reconciliation paves the way to peace negotiations with Israel. Israel unjustly responded with violence to the protests of Nakba day. Israel must withdraw to the June 4, 1967 boundaries. "Gaza does not receive necessary humaitarian supplies due to Israel's blockade.&l's blockade." "Palestinian protestors staged non-violents demonstrations on the Israeli-Syrian border." "The 'Flotilla 2' is intended solely to relieve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza." "The United Nations repudiated the claim that Israels naval blockade of Gaza is legal." "A Unilateral Declaration of Independence is the Palestinians only avenue to advance the Peace Process." "Palestinian leaders claim that the future Palestinian state will welcome Jews and Israelis." "Mahmoud Abbas is working toward reaching peace with Israel." "Due to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel's economy has been suffering." - "Gaza does not receive necessary humaitarian supplies due to Israel's blockade." - "The 'Flotilla 2' is intended solely to relieve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza." - "The United Nations repudiated the claim that Israels naval blockade of Gaza is legal." - "A Unilateral Declaration of Independence is the Palestinians only avenue to advance the Peace Process." - "Palestinian leaders claim that the future Palestinian state will welcome Jews and Israelis." - "Mahmoud Abbas is working toward reaching peace with Israel." - "Time is not on Iran's side vis-a-vis its acquiring the atomic bomb." - "Due to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel's economy has been suffering." - "Of the Palestinian prisoners released in the Shalit deal, most who have spoken out say they will renounce terror." - "Israel's proposed rebuilding of the Mugrabi Gate leading to the Temple Mount is an act of religious war." - "The Palestinian leadership wants to normalize ties with Israel." - "The Palestinians agreed to negotiate with Israel without preconditions." - "Palestinians terrorism is no longer a threat to Israel." - "Israel no longer faces any threats from Gaza." - "The rights of Palestinian women are protected in the Palestinian Authority." - "Palestinians are talking about peace with Israelis in Jordan." - "Terrorism against Jews is limited to attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories." - "Israeli democracy is threatened and Americans need to speak out to save it." - "Iran is the only Muslim nation in the Middle East seeking to develop nuclear technology." - "Women do not have equal rights in Israel." - "Israel's policy of targeted killings is immoral and counterproductive." - "Israel does not support humanitarian development and sustainablity in the Palestinian territories." - "Israel is whitewashing history to promote the judaization of Jerusalem." - "The State Department knows the capital of Israel." - "Israeli policy has caused an exodus of Christians from the West Bank." - "The United States is committed to ensuring a complete halt to the Iranian nuclear program." - "Israel's new unity government reduces the prospect for continued peace negotiations with the Palestinians." - "Palestinians no longer object to the creation of Israel." - "Mahmoud Abbas has rooted out corruption from the Palestinian Authority." - "The rise of Islamists in Egypt's government does not pose a strategic threat to Israel." - "The Palestinian Authority promotes a culture of tolerance and peace toward Israel." - "Egyptian-Israeli security cooperation is at it weakest point in years." - "Israel is culpable in the 2003 death of American activist Rachel Corrie." - "Intelligence about Iran's nuclear program may be as faulty as the information about Iraq's." - "We will know when Iran has a bomb and can take action at that time." - "Iran should be allowed a nuclear weapon since Israel has one." - "Anti-Semitism is on the decline around the world." - "Iran does not believe it can win a nuclear war." - "Iran wants to control its nuclear stockpile and would never give a bomb or nuclear material to terrorists." - "We are seeing accurate media coverage from Gaza." - "Israel is deliberately targeting the media." - "Israel's war in Gaza was immoral because more Palestinians died than Israelis." - "The Israeli construction plan called the E1 project threatens the two-state solution and the contiguity of a future Palestinian state." - "Israeli policies are obstructing peace." - "If Iran has a bomb, it can be deterred the way the U.S. deterred the Soviet Union." - “Israeli settlements are an obstacle to Mideast peace. - “The Palestinians are now ready to make peace with Israel. - “Attacking Iran will create more instability in the Middle East. - “If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was solved, the Middle East would be at peace. - “Israel has created separate bus lines to segregate Jews and Palestinians. - “The European Union has no reason to name Hezbollah a terrorist organization. - “Non-lethal Palestinian rocket attacks have no impact on Israel's civilian population. - “Israelis overreact to harmless rock-throwing by Palestinians. - “The Palestinian Authority is committed to reforming Palestinian society. - “Now is a good time to revive the Arab peace initiative. - “Syrias chemical weapons pose no threat outside of Syria. - “Israel has refused to discuss a compromise on the future of Jerusalem. - “'Nakba Day' has nothing to do with the peace process. - “An Israeli attack on Iran would endanger U.S. interests in the Middle East. - “The United States helped Israel defeat the Arabs in six days in June 1967. - “The election of Hassan Rouhani eliminates the Iranian nuclear threat. - “The U.S. must be involved in any successful peace process between Israel and her neighbors. - “Israel 'occupies' the West Bank. - “Palestinian leaders enter peace talks with Israel sharing a common desire for democacy. - “Israel must make concessions for the peace process to succeed. - “Christians are a protected minority in the Middle East. - “Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is disinterested in peace with the Palestinians. - “Palestinians support the boycott and divestment movement against Israel. - “Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei issued a fatwa against producing nuclear weapons. - “Iran is isolated because of the international sanctions regime. - “Israel is responsible for expelling the Arabs of Palestine during the 1948 War of Independence. - “The Palestinians have made concessions to advance the peace process; Israel has remained uncompromising. - “A third intifada will erupt if Israel does not satisfy Palestinian demands. - “The negotiated compromise with Iran removes Tehran's nuclear weapons threat. - “The Iranian government is committed to fulfilling the terms it agreed to in the Geneva nuclear deal“
MYTH
The Palestinian Authority held a free, democratic election in 2005. top
FACT
Elections are not synonymous with democracy. Several Arab countries hold elections, including Egypt and Syria, but they have only one candidate, and there is no doubt about the outcome. The dictators are always reelected with nearly 100 percent of the vote. In those nations, no one seriously claims the elections are democratic.
In the case of the Palestinian Authority (PA) elections held in January 2005, the standards were higher. These were advertised as an example of democracy and, compared to other Arab states, the voting was a considerable advancement toward free elections.
Still, the election could hardly be called competitive as the outcome was never in doubt. Seven candidates ran for president, but the only question was the size of Mahmoud Abbas margin of victory. He won with 62.3 percent of the vote. His nearest challenger was Mustafa Barghouti with 19.8 percent.1
The election had a much lower turnout than expected (62 percent), and supporters of the Islamic terrorist organizations largely boycotted the vote, as did Arabs living in east Jerusalem. Thus, Abbas was conservatively estimated by al-Jazeera to have received the support of only about one-third of the eligible voters.2
The election process went smoothly and, despite Palestinian predictions of Israeli interference, international observers reported that Palestinians were not obstructed by Israel from participating in the election. In fact, Palestinian and Israeli officials were said to have worked well together to facilitate voting.3
Free elections can only take place in societies in which people are free to express their opinions without fear.
Natan Sharansky4
Immediately after the election, however, 46 officials from the PA Central Election Committee resigned, confirming suspicions of voting irregularities and fraud. The Committee had come under pressure from Abbas staff to extend the vote by an additional two hours and to allow non-registered voters to cast ballots to guarantee a larger turnout and improve Abbas chance of a landslide victory.
The day of the election, gunmen stormed the Committee offices to demand that Palestinians who were not registered be allowed to vote. The deputy chairman of the Committee, Ammar Dwaik, said he was personally threatened and pressured and confirmed that some voters were able to remove from their thumbs the ink that was supposed to prevent double voting.5
While Abbas is now seen as a legitimately elected leader by most Palestinians and the international community, the PA has no history of democratic institutions, so it remains in doubt whether the various terrorist groups will also accept his leadership, and whether the security services will enforce the presidents will.
Natan Sharansky observed that It is important that these elections took place, because it important that the new leadership comes, or will come, not through violence. That can be the beginning of the process of democracy.6 To move closer to true democracy, Abbas will also have to remove his predecessors restrictions on the freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, and the press. Then perhaps the next election will be truly free and democratic.
MYTH
Israel is building the security fence as part of a land grab to control the West Bank and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. top
FACT
The purpose of the security fence is the prevention of terror. Its route has been carefully plotted to maximize the security it provides to the citizens of Israel and minimize the inconvenience and harm to Palestinians. The route of the fence must take into account topography, population density, and threat assessment of each area. To be effective in protecting the maximum number of Israelis, it also must incorporate the largest communities in the West Bank.
After the Israeli Supreme Court ruled the government had to more carefully balance security concerns and harm to the Palestinians, the route of the fence was adjusted to run closer to the Green Line. When completed, the fence will now incorporate just 7 percent of the West Bank less than 160 square miles on its Israeli side, while 2,100 square miles will be on the Palestinian side.
If and when the Palestinians decide to negotiate an end to the conflict, the fence may be torn down or moved. Even without any change, a Palestinian state could now theoretically be created in 93 percent of the West Bank (and the PA will control 100 percent of the Gaza Strip after the disengagement is complete). This is very close to the 97 percent Israel offered to the Palestinians at Camp David in 2000, which means that while other difficult issues remain to be resolved, the territorial aspect of the dispute will be reduced to a negotiation over roughly 90 square miles.
MYTH
The demographic threat to Israel posed by Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza is overrated and therefore Israel need not make territorial compromises. top
FACT
A study was recently published that suggested the assumption that Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza pose a demographic threat to Israel has been exaggerated because the actual population in the territories is significantly lower than what is reported by Palestinian Authority (PA) officials. According to a study by a team of independent researchers, the 2004 Palestinian-Arab population was closer to 2.4 million than to the 3.8 million cited by the PA.7
The independent study comes up with its figures largely by deconstructing PA statistics, but Israel's leading demographer, Professor Sergio DellaPergola of Hebrew University, has challenged the result, saying his estimate of 3.4 million Palestinians is based on Israeli data (the CIA estimates the population for the West Bank and Gaza at 3.6 million). According to DellaPergola, 4.7 million Arabs now live between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River out of a total of 10,263,000. The Jewish proportion of this total is 51 percent. DellaPergola argues that because of the higher rate of birth in the Arab community, they have the demographic momentum, and that by 2020, the proportion of Jews is likely to drop to 47 percent and could fall to 37 percent by 2050.8
Even if the new study is more accurate, it only has a minimal impact on the demographic reality. According to Israeli census figures, the population of Israel today is approximately 6.8 million. If we add the 2.4 million Arabs the new study says live in the territories, the total population from the river to the sea would be 9.2 million (including about 1.3 million Israeli Arabs). The Jewish population is roughly 5.2 million or 57 percent, slightly better than DellaPergolas estimate of 51 percent.
These overall statistics also distort the debate over the disengagement from Gaza where the demographic picture is crystal clear. According to the new study, the Arab population there is more than 1.07. The Jewish population, according to the State Department, prior to the evacuation was 7,500, which means the the percentage of Jews in Gaza was a fraction of 1 percent.
The independent study focuses solely on discrediting the PA statistics and does not address the crucial issue of future trends, which DellaPergola shows are clearly in the Arabs favor. The new report argues that the growth rates in Israel and the territories have been lower than previously forecast (though they use figures for only the last four years), but even the new figures show that the growth rate for the Arabs remains higher than that of the Jews, so the proportion of Jews should continue to decline.
Recent data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics suggests the situation may be even worse. The Bureau said that the proportion of Jews within the current borders of Israel is expected to decline from the present figure of 78 percent to 70 percent in 2025 because of the higher birth rate among Israeli Arabs. According to Industry and Trade Ministry data released in March 2007, Jewish women in Israel on average have 2.69 children each and give birth to the first at age 30. Muslim women have an average of four children and give birth to the first at age 27.9
Many proponents of territorial compromise argue that these demographic trends make it impossible for Israel to remain both a Jewish and democratic state if it holds onto the West Bank and Gaza. If a majority of the population of Israel, or even a significant minority, were non-Jews, then the Jewish character of the state would likely change. In fact, the new report states that As in 1967, Israel faces a very real issue on the status of a large minority population in the West Bank and Gaza (emphasis in the original). Extremists have suggested that non-Jews could be prohibited from voting, but this would make the state undemocratic. Since no Israeli leader even those labeled as right-wing fanatics who dream of Greater Israel have found a way to square this circle, Israel has never annexed the West Bank and Gaza. And now one of those hardliners, Ariel Sharon, was moved by the demographic reality to initiate the disengagement plan.
Many people argue that it is impossible to predict the future, and that most past projections were proven inaccurate. Earlier doomsday predictions were upset by large influxes of immigrants, and many Israelis still believe this will be their demographic salvation. After more than one million Jews from the former Soviet Union arrived in the 1990s, this view was temporarily vindicated, however, there only about 8 million Jews in the entire world outside Israel, and a large number would have to decide to move to Israel to offset the demographic trend. This is especially unlikely given that roughly 75 percent of the Jews outside Israel live in the United States from which very few emigrate.
The demographic issue is still only one variable in the Israeli political calculus related to territorial compromise. The other principal concerns are whether Israel can have greater peace and security without controlling some or all of the territories. That is a matter of great debate within Israel. For now, the majority of Israelis have come to the conclusion that withdrawal from Gaza and part of Samaria is in Israels best interest.
MYTH
Israel is killing Palestinians with radiation spy machines. top
FACT
Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels was the master of the big lie tactic in which a lie, no matter how outrageous, is repeated often enough that it will eventually be accepted as truth. It is a propaganda tool the Palestinians have repeatedly tried to use to tar Israel. Past examples have included specious claims that Israel massacred 500 people at Jenin,10 infects Palestinians with the AIDS virus,11 and drops poison candy for children in Gaza from airplanes.12
The latest calumny from the Palestinians is the claim that Israel is using a radial spy machine at checkpoints, and that the device killed a 55-year-old Palestinian woman.13The charge is apparently related to the Palestinian Authoritys decision to close a checkpoint on their side of the border in Gaza to protest Israels use of advanced radio-wave machines for searching Palestinian travelers.14
The device is the SafeView Millimeter Wave Radar, an American-made portal system that uses millimeter a safe wave holographic technology to screen travelers from Egypt for weapons and explosives. Unlike metal detectors, this system is capable of detecting virtually any man-made object, regardless of the type of material, by transmitting ultra-high frequency, low-powered radio frequency waves as people pass through the portal. The waves penetrate clothing and reflect off of the persons skin and any items being carried. A sensor array captures the reflected waves and uses a desktop computer to analyze the information and produce a high-resolution, 3-D image from the signals.15
Since the allegation is coming from the official Palestinian media, it represents a violation of the Palestinian Authoritys commitment to end incitement against Israel.
MYTH
Unlike other Arab women, Palestinian women are not killed for dishonoring their families. top
FACT
Maher Shakirat learned that one of his sisters was thrown out of the house by her husband for an alleged affair. Shakirat strangled his sister, who was eight months pregnant, and forced two other sisters he accused of covering up the affair to drink bleach. One of those was badly injured but escaped, but the third sister was also strangled by her brother.
Palestinian women who bring dishonor to their families may be punished by male family members. The punishments may range from ostracism and abandonment to physical abuse to murder. Honor killings may be carried out for instances of rape, infidelity, flirting or any other action seen as disgracing the family. By killing the woman, the familys name in the community is restored.
Women are usually not allowed to defend themselves; they are considered minors under the authority of male relatives, and may be killed based on a family members suspicions. An allegation of misbehavior is sufficient to defile a mans or familys honor and justify the killing of the woman. Men who carry out these murders in the Palestinian Authority typically go unpunished or receive a maximum of six months in prison.16
Because these crimes often go unreported, it is difficult to determine the actual number of victims in honor killings, but the Palestinian Authoritys womens affairs ministry reported that 20 women were murdered in honor killings in 2005, 15 survived murder attempts, and approximately 50 committed suicide, often under coercion, for shaming the family.17
According to a June 2005 poll, 24% of Palestinians said that if a family discovered that one of its daughters was involved in a case of family disgrace (e.g., adultery), the family should kill the daughter to remove the disgrace.18
MYTH
Israel has moved the border so it will not withdraw completely from the Gaza Strip. top
FACT
Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian Authoritys Minister of Civil Affairs, has claimed that Israel moved the northern border of the Gaza Strip about 1.2 miles, and that Israel's disengagement will not be complete unless it withdraws to the 1949 armistice lines.19 By suggesting that Israel is holding onto a piece of Gaza, the Palestinians are threatening to create a Shebaa Farms issue that could undercut the prospects for peace created by Israel's courageous decision to evacuate all its citizens and soldiers from the area.
Substantively, Dahlans claim is inaccurate. The border of Gaza was originally determined during the 1949 Rhodes Armistice negotiations with Egypt. A year later, Israel agreed to move the border southeast, creating a bulge in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. In exchange, Egypt redrew the border in the north, moving it more than a mile southwest. According to Israel's National Security Council chief, Giora Eiland, the border was reconfirmed in the Oslo accords.20 Today, Netiv Haasara, a community of 125 families, many of which were evacuated from settlements in the Sinai as part of the peace treaty with Egypt, is located in the area Dahlan wants included in Gaza.
In the case of Shebaa Farms, the Lebanese terrorist group, Hizballah, has speciously maintained that Israel did not fully withdraw from Lebanon, despite the UN's verification that it has, and used Israels presence in the Shebaa Farms area as the pretext for continuing its terror campaign against Israel. If the Palestinians adopt a similar policy toward the sliver of land they claim to be part of Gaza to perpetuate their image as victims, and to try to win propaganda points by claiming to still be under occupation, they will once again demonstrate that they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
If the Palestinians continue terrorist attacks against Israel, and make claims to additional territory, rather than focusing on state-building within Gaza and meeting their road map obligations, Israel will have little interest in pursuing negotiations regarding the West Bank.
MYTH
Hamas should be permitted to participate in Palestinian Authority elections. top
FACT
The second Oslo agreement (Oslo II) between Israel and the Palestinian Authority prohibits the nomination of any candidates, parties or coalitions that commit or advocate racism or pursue the implementation of their aims by unlawful or non-democratic means (Annex II, Article II).21 Under this agreement, Hamas, a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians alike, cannot legally participate in Palestinian national elections. The Covenant of Hamas says nothing about democracy or elections. It does say that when enemies (the Jews) usurp some Islamic lands, Jihad becomes a duty binding on all Muslims. In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has warned that Israel will not cooperate with the Palestinian Authority during elections if candidates from Hamas are allowed to participate. An armed organization doesn't become democratic once they participate in the election, Sharon said.22
Yossi Beilin, the leader of the Meretz-Yahad Party, and one of the architects of the Oslo accords, said that recognizing Hamas as a legitimate political entity is a gross violation of the Israeli-Palestinian interim agreement, and that in the global struggle against terrorism, it would be surprising indeed if Israel, paradoxically, were to acquiesce in the legitimization of a terrorist organization under its very nose.23
The United States has left it up to the Palestinians to decide who can participate in the Palestinian Legislative Council; however, National Security Council spokesperson Frederick L. Jones II said the U.S. would never have diplomatic relations with candidates from a terrorist organization.We do not believe that a democratic state can be built when parties or candidates seek power not through the ballot box but through terrorist activity, Jones said.24
MYTH
Israel's disengagement from Gaza was a victory for terror. top
FACT
Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank was applauded by the international community as an important and painful step toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even the United Nations, which rarely has anything positive to say about Israel, praised the determination and political courage shown by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon25 in implementing the disengagement plan peacefully and successfully.
In an effort to bolster their standing with the Palestinian public, groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad claim it was their terror campaign that forced Israel to withdraw.26 In fact, the terrorist groups did nothing but bring death and destruction to the people of Israel and their fellow Palestinians. Israel was not driven from the territories, it made a calculated decision to leave based on its own interests.
The 8,000 civilians who lived in Gaza were viewed by the terrorists as targets, and Israel had to devote a great deal of its human and material resources to protect these innocent people. In addition, Sharon agreed with those who concluded it would make no sense for Israel to hold on to an area with a Palestinian population exceeding one million. By withdrawing, Israel's security has been enhanced, and the Palestinians have been given the opportunity to govern themselves and demonstrate whether they are able and willing to create a democratic society that can coexist with Israel.
At the time of the disengagement, Israel had dramatically reduced the level of terror, and the security fence around Gaza had a nearly perfect record of preventing the infiltration of suicide bombers. Israeli forces had severely damaged the terrorist infrastructure and killed or jailed most of the leaders of the major terror groups. The disengagement took place after Israel won the Palestinian War the Palestinian Authority had instigated in 2000, and the withdrawal took place from a position of strength, not weakness.
Palestinian extremists can claim whatever they want, but even they know the truth. As Zakariya Zubeidi, the leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorist group observed, Not only was the intifada a failure, but we are a total failure. We achieved nothing in 50 years of struggle; we've achieved only our survival.27
And the Palestinian people are not fooled by the rhetoric of the terrorists, as is evident by this comment by Mohammed Ahmed Moussa, a grocer in Jabaliya, who said, Let's be frank. If Israel didn't want to leave Gaza, no one could have forced them out. Those who claim the rockets and attacks made them leave are kidding themselves.28
MYTH
Israel is obstructing Palestinian elections. top
FACT
Israel is a democracy and believes in free elections as the best means of insuring representative government. Consequently, Israel has been supportive of the idea of democratic elections in the Palestinian Authority. In the 2005 presidential election, international observers reported that Israel made no effort to impede the vote. To the contrary, it took a number of measures to facilitate the election.
Similarly, Israel has no intention of interfering in the upcoming legislative elections in the PA. While there is some dispute about whether and how Palestinians living in Jerusalem may participate, a similar issue was resolved before the last election.
The Jerusalem issue, however, is being used as a smokescreen by the Palestinians to obscure their internal divisions. Palestinian officials have been talking for months about delaying the elections scheduled for January 25 because of chaos and disorder throughout the PA, and because of fears that they will lose power and that Hamas will take seats from the dominant Fatah party.
Many Palestinians also legitimately fear the election will not be fair. With just three weeks to go before the election, the Palestinian election commission resigned because the commissioners said Prime Minister Ahmed Korei was interfering with their work. After the last election, 46 officials from the PA Central Election Committee resigned to protest voting irregularities and fraud.
The problem for the PA today is not any Israeli interference in their affairs, it is the Wild West climate that now dominates the Gaza Strip and much of the West Bank. So long as the PA is unable to insure the safety of its residents, it will be unable to hold a free democratic election.
MYTH
Academic freedom means any criticism of Israel is permissible in a university. top
FACT
The one place in America where anti-Semitism is still tolerated is in the university, where academic freedom is often used as a cover to sanction anti-Israel teachings and forums that are anti-Semitic.
In an address on the subject of academic freedom, Columbia President Lee Bollinger quoted from a report that described a professor as someone whom no fair-minded person would even suspect of speaking other than as shaped or restricted by the judgement . . . of professional scholars. He also spoke about the need for faculty to resist the allure of certitude, the temptation to use the podium as an ideological platform, to indoctrinate a captive audience, to play favorites with the like-minded, and silence the others.
Many faculty, however, do not resist temptation; rather, they embrace their position as an ideological platform. Those who abuse their rights, and insist they can say what they want, hypocritically denounce others who exercise their right to criticize them. To suggest that a professors views are inappropriate, or their scholarship is faulty, is to risk being tarred with the charge of McCarthyism.
Legality is not the issue in evaluating the anti-Israel, sometimes anti-Semitic speeches and teachings of faculty and speakers on campus. No one questions that freedom of speech allows individuals to express their views. The issue is whether this type of speech should be given the cover of academic freedom, and granted legitimacy by the university through funding, publicity or use of facilities.
For the last several years, for example, an anti-Semitic forum has been held at different universities by the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM). In 2004, the conference was held at Duke University. Organizers were asked to sign an innocuous statement before the event calling for a civil debate that would condemn the murder of innocent civilians, support a two-state solution and recognize the difference between disagreement and hate speech, but refused to do so. By hosting a group that could not bring itself to object to the murder of Jews, Duke gave their views legitimacy and tarnished the universitys academic reputation. The 2006 PSM conference is being held at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
It is sometimes suggested critics seek to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel. There is a clear distinction, however, between criticism of Israeli policy, which you can read in any Israeli newspaper, and anti-Semitism, in which the attacks against Israel challenge its right to exist, or single Israel out among all other nations for special treatment, as in the case of the PSMs call for the end to Israeli occupation in all of Palestine and divestment from Israel.
A related question is whether the presentations are in any way academic or scholarly. Few people would claim that a conference in which anti-black, anti-gay, or anti-woman sentiments were expressed would be protected by academic freedom, and yet that is the shield used to permit attacks on the Jewish people.
Palestine means Palestine in its entirety - from the [Mediterranean] Sea to the [Jordan] River, from Ras Al-Naqura to Rafah. We cannot give up a single inch of it. Therefore, we will not recognize the Israeli enemy's [right] to a single inch.
Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar29
MYTH
The Palestinian Authority held a democratic election and Israel and the rest of the world must accept that Hamas was the victor. top
FACT
Winston Churchill said that Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried. It was a step forward, then, for the authoritarian Palestinian Authority to hold elections that by all accounts were conducted fairly. Nevertheless, so long as the Palestinian people continue to be denied by their leaders the freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and the press, the election cannot be considered truly free and democratic.
While democratic outcomes are preferable to the alternatives, the rest of the world is not obligated to have a relationship with elected leaders whose policies and views are dangerous. Adolf Hitler was elected by the German people, but few people would suggest today that the rest of the world should have ignored his genocidal views and treated him as an equal just because he emerged from a democratic process. Similarly, the current Iranian president was elected and is still widely viewed as a pariah because of his threats to destroy Israel and to pursue nuclear weapons in defiance of the rest of the world.
The Palestinian people chose to elect members of an organization whose avowed purpose is the destruction of Israel by violent means. Hamas is recognized throughout the world as a terrorist organization. Since the election, Hamas leaders have reaffirmed their commitment to the Hamas covenant calling for the liberation of all of Palestine and they have made clear it they have no intention of disarming.
Israel now has on its borders a quasi government run by people who oppose negotiations and compromise. Hamas can now take over all of the security services and weapons that have previously been given by Israel and others to the Palestinian Authority to keep the peace. The institutions that were bound by agreements to stop the violence, confiscate illegal weapons, end smuggling and cease incitement are now controlled by the very people most responsible for terror, gun running, and the use of the media and schools to demonize Israel and Jews.
Most of the world understands that Hamas is not a partner for peace and that it is a terrorist group that threatens the stability of the region. The United States and other countries rightly have said that it must recognize Israel and renounce terror before any diplomatic or economic support can be given to the PA. Of course, we went through a similar exercise in 1993 when similar demands were made of the PLO. Yasser Arafat made the necessary commitments in a letter to then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, but he never matched the words with deeds. The world will be wise not to make the same mistake with Hamas.
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Jerusalem Talmud – Wikipedia
Posted By richards on December 11, 2016
The Jerusalem Talmud (Hebrew: , Talmud Yerushalmi, often Yerushalmi for short), also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmuda de-Eretz Yisrael (Talmud of the Land of Israel), is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talmud after Palestine or Land of Israel rather than Jerusalem is considered more accurate by some because, while the work was certainly composed in "the West" (as seen from Babylonia), i.e. in the Holy Land, it mainly originates from the Galilee rather than from Jerusalem in Judea, as no Jews lived in Jerusalem at this time[1][2] The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the Land of Israel, then divided between the Byzantine provinces of Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda, and was brought to an end sometime around 400.[citation needed] The Jerusalem Talmud predates its counterpart, the Babylonian Talmud (known in Hebrew as the Talmud Bavli), by about 200 years,[citation needed] and is written in both Hebrew and Jewish Palestinian Aramaic.
The word Talmud itself is often defined as "instruction".[3] Both versions of the Talmud comprise two parts, the Mishnah (of which there is only one version), which was finalized by Judah the Prince around the year 200 CE, and either the Babylonian or the Palestinian Gemara. The Gemara is what differentiates the Jerusalem Talmud from its Babylonian counterpart.
The Jerusalem Gemara contains the written discussions of generations of rabbis in the Land of Israel (primarily in the academies of Tiberias and Caesarea), compiled c. 350-400 CE into a series of books.[citation needed]
The Babylonian Gemara, which is the second recension of the Mishnah, was compiled by the scholars of Babylonia (primarily in the Talmudic academies of Sura and Pumbedita), and was completed c. 500. The Babylonian Talmud is often seen as more authoritative and is studied much more than the Jerusalem Talmud. In general, the terms "Gemara" or "Talmud," without further qualification, refer to the Babylonian recension.
Following the redaction of the Mishnah, many Jewish scholars living in Roman-controlled Syria Palaestina moved to the Sasanian Empire to escape the harsh decrees against Jews enacted by the emperor Hadrian after the Bar Kokhba revolt. The remaining scholars who lived in the Galilee area decided to continue their teaching activity in the learning centers that had existed since Mishnaic times.
The Jerusalem Talmud probably originated in Tiberias in the School of Johanan bar Nappaha. It is a compilation of teachings of the schools of Tiberias, Sepphoris and Caesarea. It is written largely in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, a Western Aramaic variety that differs from its Babylonian counterpart.
This Talmud is a synopsis of the analysis of the Mishnah that was developed over the course of nearly 200 years by the Talmudic Academies in Syria Palaestina (principally those of Tiberias and Caesarea). Because of their location, the sages of these Academies devoted considerable attention to analysis of the agricultural laws of the Land of Israel. Traditionally, the redaction of this Talmud was thought to have been brought to an abrupt end around 425, when Theodosius II suppressed the Nasi and put an end to the practice of semikhah (formal scholarly ordination). It was thought that the compilers of the Jerusalem Talmud lacked the time to produce a work of the quality they had intended, and that this is the reason why the Gemara do not comment upon the whole Mishnah.[4]
In recent years scholars have come to doubt the causal link between the abolition of the Nasi and the seeming incompletion of the final redaction. However, as no evidence exists of Amoraim activity in Palestine after the 370s, it is still considered very likely that the final redaction of the Palestinian Talmud took place in the late fourth or early fifth century.[5]
According to the Jewish Encyclopedia,
Yerushalmi has not been preserved in its entirety; large portions of it were entirely lost at an early date, while other parts exist only in fragments. The editio princeps (ed. Bomberg, Venice, 1523 et seq.), based on the Leiden manuscript and on which all later editions are based, terminates with the following remark: "Thus far we have found what is contained in this Talmud; and we have endeavored in vain to obtain the missing portions." Of the four manuscripts used for this first edition (comp. the note at the conclusion of Shab. xx. 17d and the passage just cited), only one is now in existence; it is preserved in the library of the University of Leyden (see below). Of the six orders of the Mishnah, the fifth, odashim, is missing entirely from the Palestinian Talmud, while the sixth, ohorot, contains only the first three chapters of the treatise Niddah (iv. 48d-51b).
The Leiden Jerusalem Talmud (Or. 4720) is today the only extant complete manuscript of the Jerusalem Talmud. It was copied in 1289 by Rabbi Yechiel ben Yekutiel the Physician of Rome and shows elements of a later recension. The additions which are added in the biblical glosses of the Leiden manuscript do not appear in extant fragments of the same Talmudic tractates found in Yemen,[6] additions which are now incorporated in every printed edition of the Jerusalem Talmud.
The Leiden manuscript is important in that it preserves some earlier variants to textual readings, such as in Tractate Pesachim 10:3 (70a), which brings down the old Palestinian-Hebrew word for charoseth (the sweet relish eaten at Passover), viz. dkeh (Hebrew: ), instead of rbeh/rabah (Hebrew: ), saying with a play on words: The members of Isse's household would say in the name of Isse: Why is it called dkeh? It is because she pounds [the spiced ingredients] with him. The Hebrew word for "pound" is dakh (), which rules out the spelling of rabah (), as found in the printed editions. Yemenite Jews still call it dkeh.[7]
There are significant differences between the two Talmud compilations. The language of the Jerusalem Talmud is Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, a Western Aramaic dialect which differs from that of the Babylonian. The Jerusalem Talmud is often fragmentary and difficult to read, even for experienced Talmudists. The redaction of the Babylonian Talmud, on the other hand, is more careful and precise. The traditional explanation for this difference was the idea that the redactors of the Jerusalem Talmud had to finish their work abruptly. A more probable explanation is the fact that the Babylonian Talmud wasn't redacted for at least another 200 years, in which a broad discursive framework was created. The law as laid down in the two compilations is basically similar, except in emphasis and in minor details. Some scholars, for example David Weiss Halivni, describe the longer discursive passages in the Babylonian Talmud as the "Stammaitic" layer of redaction, and believe that it was added later than the rest: if one were to remove the "Stammaitic" passages, the remaining text would be quite similar in character to the Jerusalem Talmud.
Neither the Jerusalem nor the Babylonian Talmud covers the entire Mishnah: for example, a Babylonian Gemara exists only for 37 out of the 63 tractates of the Mishnah. In particular:
The Babylonian Talmud records the opinions of the rabbis of Israel as well as of those of Babylonia, while the Jerusalem Talmud seldom cites the Babylonian rabbis. The Babylonian version contains the opinions of more generations because of its later date of completion. For both these reasons it is regarded as a more comprehensive collection of the opinions available. On the other hand, because of the centuries of redaction between the composition of the Jerusalem and the Babylonian Talmud, the opinions of early amoraim might be closer to their original form in the Jerusalem Talmud.
The influence of the Babylonian Talmud has been far greater than that of the Jerusalem Talmud. In the main, this is because the influence and prestige of the Jewish community of Israel steadily declined in contrast with the Babylonian community in the years after the redaction of the Talmud and continuing until the Gaonic era. Furthermore, the editing of the Babylonian Talmud was superior to that of the Jerusalem version, making it more accessible and readily usable. Hai Gaon, on the preeminence of the Babylonian Talmud, has written:
Anything that has been decided halachically in our Talmud (i.e. the Babylonian Talmud), we do not rely on [any contradictory view found in] the Jerusalem Talmud, seeing that many years have passed since instruction coming from there (i.e. the Land of Israel) had ceased on account of persecution, whereas here (i.e. in Babylonia) is where the final decisions were clarified.[9]
However, on the Jerusalem Talmuds continued importance for the understanding of arcane matters, Rabbi Hai Gaon has also written:
Whatever we find in the Jerusalem Talmud and there is nothing that contradicts it in our own Talmud (i.e. the Babylonian Talmud), or which gives a nice explanation for its matters of discourse, we can hold-on to it and rely upon it, for it is not to be viewed as inferior to the commentaries of the rishonim (i.e. the early exponents of the Torah).[10]
In addition, the Jerusalem Talmud remains an indispensable source of knowledge of the development of the Jewish Law in the Holy Land. It was also an important resource in the study of the Babylonian Talmud by the Kairouan school of Chananel ben Chushiel and Nissim ben Jacob, with the result that opinions ultimately based on the Jerusalem Talmud found their way into both the Tosafot and the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides.
The Babylonian Talmud has traditionally been studied more widely and has had greater influence on the halakhic tradition than the Jerusalem Talmud. However, some traditions associated with the Jerusalem Talmud are reflected in certain forms of the liturgy, particularly those of the Italian Jews and Romaniotes.
Following the formation of the modern state of Israel there was some interest in restoring the Palestinian Talmud's traditions. For example, David Bar-Hayim of the Makhon Shilo institute has issued a siddur reflecting the practices found in the Jerusalem Talmud and other sources.
Compared to the Babylonian Talmud, the Jerusalem Talmud has not received as much attention from commentators, and such traditional commentaries as exist are mostly concerned with proving that its teachings are identical to Bavli.
One of the first to make a commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud was Solomon Sirilio (14851554), whose commentaries cover only the Order known as Zeraim and the Sheqalim section of the Moed.[11] Sirilio's commentary remained in manuscript form until 1875, when it was first printed in Mainz by Meir Lehmann. Today's modern printed editions almost all carry the commentaries, Korban ha-Eida, by David ben Naphtali Frnkel (c. 17041762) of Berlin, and Pnei Moshe, by Moses Margolies (c.1710?1781) of Amsterdam.
A modern edition and commentary, known as Or Simchah, is currently being prepared in Beersheba; another edition in preparation, including paraphrases and explanatory notes in modern Hebrew, is Yedid Nefesh. The Jerusalem Talmud has also received some attention from Adin Steinsaltz, who plans a translation into modern Hebrew and accompanying explanation similar to his work on the Babylonian Talmud.[12] So far only Tractates Pe'ah and Shekalim have appeared.[13]
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Jerusalem Talmud - Wikipedia
Sephardic law and customs – Wikipedia
Posted By richards on December 11, 2016
Sephardic law and customs means the practice of Judaism as observed by the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, so far as it is peculiar to themselves and not shared with other Jewish groups such as the Ashkenazim. Sephardim do not constitute a separate denomination within Judaism, but rather a distinct cultural, juridical and philosophical tradition.
Sephardim are, primarily, the descendants of Jews from the Iberian peninsula. They may be divided into the families that left in the Expulsion of 1492 and those that remained as crypto-Jews and left in the following few centuries.
In religious parlance, and by many in modern Israel, the term is used in a broader sense to include all Jews of Ottoman or other Asian or North African backgrounds, whether or not they have any historic link to Spain, though some prefer to distinguish between Sephardim proper and Mizrai Jews.
For the purposes of this article there is no need to distinguish the two groups, as their religious practices are basically similar: whether or not they are "Spanish Jews" they are all "Jews of the Spanish rite". There are three reasons for this convergence, which are explored in more detail below:
Jewish law is based on the Torah, as interpreted and supplemented by the Talmud. The Talmud in its final form dates from the Sassanian period and was the product of a number of colleges in Babylonia.
The two principal colleges, Sura and Pumbedita, survived well into the Islamic period. Their presidents, known as Geonim, together with the Exilarch, were recognised by the Abbasid Caliphs as the supreme authority over the Jews of the Arab world. The Geonim provided written answers to questions on Jewish law from round the world, which were published in collections of responsa and enjoyed high authority. The Geonim also produced handbooks such as the Halachot Pesuqot by Yehudai Gaon and the Halachot Gedolot by Simeon Kayyara.
The learning of the Geonim was transmitted through the scholars of Kairouan, notably Chananel Ben Chushiel and Nissim Gaon, to Spain, where it was used by Isaac Alfasi in his Sefer ha-Halachot (code of Jewish law), which took the form of an edited and abridged Talmud. This in turn formed the basis for the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides. A feature of these early Tunisian and Spanish schools was a willingness to make use of the Jerusalem Talmud as well as the Babylonian.
Developments in France and Germany were somewhat different. They too respected the rulings of the Geonim, but also had strong local customs of their own. The Tosafists did their best to explain the Talmud in a way consistent with these customs. A theory grew up that custom trumps law (see Minhag): this had some Talmudic support, but was not nearly so prominent in Arabic countries as it was in Europe. Special books on Ashkenazic custom were written, for example by Yaakov Moelin. Further instances of Ashkenazic custom were contributed by the penitential manual of Eleazar of Worms and some additional stringencies on sheitah (the slaughter of animals) formulated in Jacob Weil's Sefer Sheitot u-Bediqot.
The learning of the Tosafists, but not the literature on Ashkenazic customs as such, was imported into Spain by Asher ben Yeiel, a German-born scholar who became chief rabbi of Toledo and the author of the Hilchot ha-Rosh - an elaborate Talmudic commentary, which became the third of the great Spanish authorities after Alfasi and Maimonides. A more popular rsum, known as the Arba'ah Turim, was written by his son, Jacob ben Asher, though he did not agree with his father on all points.
The Tosafot were also used by the scholars of the Catalonian school, such as Nahmanides and Solomon ben Adret, who were also noted for their interest in Kabbalah. For a while, Spain was divided between the schools: in Catalonia the rulings of Nahmanides and ben Adret were accepted, in Castile those of the Asher family and in Valencia those of Maimonides. (Maimonides' rulings were also accepted in most of the Arab world, especially Yemen, Egypt and the Land of Israel.)
Following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Jewish law was codified by Joseph Caro in his Bet Yosef, which took the form of a commentary on the Arba'ah Turim, and Shulan Aruch, which presented the same results in the form of a practical abridgement. He consulted most of the authorities available to him, but generally arrived at a practical decision by following the majority among the three great Spanish authorities, Alfasi, Maimonides and Asher ben Yeiel, unless most of the other authorities were against them. He did not consciously intend to exclude non-Sephardi authorities, but considered that the Ashkenazi school, so far as it had anything to contribute on general Jewish law as opposed to purely Ashkenazi custom, was adequately represented by Asher. However, since Alfasi and Maimonides generally agree, the overall result was overwhelmingly Sephardi in flavour, though in a number of cases Caro set the result of this consensus aside and ruled in favour of the Catalonian school (Nahmanides and Solomon ben Adret), some of whose opinions had Ashkenazi origins. The Bet Yosef is today accepted by Sephardim as the leading authority in Jewish law, subject to minor variants drawn from the rulings of later rabbis accepted in particular communities.
The Polish rabbi Moses Isserles, while acknowledging the merits of the Shulan Aruch, felt that it did not do justice to Ashkenazi scholarship and practice. He accordingly composed a series of glosses setting out all respects in which Ashkenazi practice differs, and the composite work is today accepted as the leading work on Ashkenazi halachah. Isserles felt free to differ from Caro on particular points of law, but in principle he accepted Caro's view that the Sephardic practice set out in the Shulan Aruch represents standard Jewish law while the Ashkenazi practice is essentially a local custom.
So far, then, it is meaningless to speak of "Sephardic custom": all that is meant is Jewish law without the particular customs of the Ashkenazim. For this reason, the law accepted by other non-Ashkenazi communities, such as the Italian and Yemenite Jews, is basically similar to that of the Sephardim. There are of course customs peculiar to particular countries or communities within the Sephardic world, such as Syria and Morocco.
An important body of customs grew up in the Kabbalistic circle of Isaac Luria and his followers in Safed, and many of these have spread to communities throughout the Sephardi world: this is discussed further in the Liturgy section below. In some cases they are accepted by Greek and Turkish Sephardim and Mizrahi Jews but not by Western communities such as the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. These are customs in the true sense: in the list of usages below they are distinguished by an L sign.
For the outline and early history of the Jewish liturgy, see the articles on Siddur and Jewish services. At an early stage, a distinction was established between the Babylonian ritual and that used in Palestine, as these were the two main centres of religious authority: there is no complete text of the Palestinian rite, though some fragments have been found in the Cairo Genizah.[1]
Some scholars maintain that Ashkenazi Jews are inheritors of the religious traditions of the great Babylonian Jewish academies, and that Sephardi Jews are descendants of those who originally followed the Judaean or Galilaean Jewish religious traditions.[2] Others, such as Zunz, maintain precisely the opposite.[3] To put the matter into perspective it must be emphasized that all Jewish liturgies in use in the world today are in substance Babylonian, with a small number of Palestinian usages surviving the process of standardization: in a list of differences preserved from the time of the Geonim, most of the usages recorded as Palestinian are now obsolete.[4] (In the list of usages below, Sephardic usages inherited from Palestine are marked P, and instances where the Sephardic usage conforms to the Babylonian while the Ashkenazic usage is Palestinian are marked B.) By the 12th century, as a result of the efforts of Babylonian leaders such as Yehudai Gaon and Pirqoi ben Baboi,[5] the communities of Palestine, and Diaspora communities such as Kairouan which had historically followed Palestinian usages, had adopted Babylonian rulings in most respects, and Babylonian authority was accepted by Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world.
Early attempts at standardizing the liturgy which have been preserved include, in chronological order, those of Amram Gaon, Saadia Gaon, Shelomoh ben Natan of Sijilmasa (in Morocco)[6] and Maimonides. All of these were based on the legal rulings of the Geonim but show a recognisable evolution towards the current Sephardi text. The liturgy in use in Visigothic Spain is likely to have belonged to a Palestinian-influenced European family, together with the Italian and Provenal, and more remotely the Old French and Ashkenazi rites, but as no liturgical materials from the Visigothic era survive we cannot know for certain. From references in later treatises such as the Sefer ha-Manhig by Rabbi Abraham ben Nathan ha-Yari (c. 1204), it appears that even at that later time the Spanish rite preserved certain European peculiarities that have since been eliminated in order to conform to the rulings of the Geonim and the official texts based on them. (Conversely the surviving versions of those texts, in particular that of Amram Gaon, appear to have been edited to reflect some Spanish and other local usages.)[7] The present Sephardic liturgy should therefore be regarded as the product of gradual convergence between the original local rite and the North African branch of the Babylonian-Arabic family, as prevailing in Geonic times in Egypt and Morocco. Following the Reconquista, the specifically Spanish liturgy was commented on by David Abudirham (c. 1340), who was concerned to ensure conformity with the rulings of halachah, as understood by the authorities up to and including Asher ben Yehiel. Despite this convergence, there were distinctions between the liturgies of different parts of the Iberian peninsula: for example the Lisbon and Catalonian rites were somewhat different from the Castilian rite, which formed the basis of the later Sephardic tradition. The Catalonian rite was intermediate in character between the Castilian rite and that of Provence: Haham Gaster classified the rites of Oran and Tunis in this group.[8]
After the expulsion from Spain, the Sephardim took their liturgy with them to countries throughout the Arab and Ottoman world, where they soon assumed positions of rabbinic and communal leadership. They formed their own communities, often maintaining differences based on their places of origin in the Iberian peninsula. In Salonica, for instance, there were more than twenty synagogues, each using the rite of a different locality in Spain or Portugal (as well as one Romaniot and one Ashkenazi synagogue).[9]
In a process lasting from the 16th through the 19th century, the native Jewish communities of most Arab and Ottoman countries adapted their pre-existing liturgies, many of which already had a family resemblance with the Sephardic, to follow the Spanish rite in as many respects as possible. Some reasons for this are:
The most important theological, as opposed to practical, motive for harmonization was the Kabbalistic teachings of Isaac Luria and ayim Vital. Luria himself always maintained that it was the duty of every Jew to abide by his ancestral tradition, so that his prayers should reach the gate in Heaven appropriate to his tribal identity.[10] However he devised a system of usages for his own followers, which were recorded by Vital in his Sha'ar ha-Kavvanot in the form of comments on the Venice edition of the Spanish and Portuguese prayer book.[11] The theory then grew up that this composite Sephardic rite was of special spiritual potency and reached a "thirteenth gate" in Heaven for those who did not know their tribe: prayer in this form could therefore be offered in complete confidence by everyone.
Further Kabbalistic embellishments were recorded in later rabbinic works such as the 18th century emdat Yamim (anonymous, but sometimes attributed to Nathan of Gaza). The most elaborate version of these is contained in the Siddur published by the 18th century Yemenite Kabbalist Shalom Sharabi for the use of the Bet El yeshivah in Jerusalem: this contains only a few lines of text on each page, the rest being filled with intricate meditations on the letter combinations in the prayers. Other scholars commented on the liturgy from both a halachic and a kabbalistic perspective, including ayim Azulai and ayim Palaggi.
The influence of the Lurianic-Sephardic rite extended even to countries outside the Ottoman sphere of influence such as Iran, where there were no Spanish exiles. (The previous Iranian rite was based on the Siddur of Saadia Gaon.[12]) The main exceptions to this tendency were:
There were also Kabbalistic groups in the Ashkenazic world, which adopted the Lurianic-Sephardic ritual, on the theory of the thirteenth gate mentioned above. This accounts for the "Nusach Sefard" and "Nusach Ari" in use among the Hasidim, which is based on the Lurianic-Sephardic text with some Ashkenazi variations.
From the 1840s on a series of prayer-books was published in Livorno, including Tefillat ha-odesh, Bet Obed and Zechor le-Abraham. These included notes on practice and the Kabbalistic additions to the prayers, but not the meditations of Shalom Sharabi, as the books were designed for public congregational use. They quickly became standard in almost all Sephardic and Oriental communities, with any local variations being preserved only by oral tradition. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many more Sephardic prayer books were published in Vienna. These were primarily aimed at the Judaeo-Spanish communities of the Balkans, Greece and Turkey, and therefore had rubrics in Ladino, but also had a wider distribution.
An important influence on Sephardic prayer and custom was the late 19th century Baghdadi rabbi known as the Ben Ish ai, whose work of that name contained both halachic rulings and observations on Kabbalistic custom based on his correspondence with Eliyahu Mani of the Bet El yeshivah. These rulings and observations form the basis of the Baghdadi rite: both the text of the prayers and the accompanying usages differ in some respects from those of the Livorno editions. The rulings of the Ben Ish ai have been accepted in several other Sephardic and Oriental communities, such as that of Jerba.
In the Sephardic world today, in particular in Israel, there are many popular prayer-books containing this Baghdadi rite, and this is what is currently known as Minhag Edot ha-Mizra (the custom of the Oriental congregations). Other authorities, especially older rabbis from North Africa, reject these in favour of a more conservative Oriental-Sephardic text as found in the 19th century Livorno editions; and the Shami Yemenite and Syrian rites belong to this group. Others again, following R. Ovadia Yosef, prefer a form shorn of some of the Kabbalistic additions and nearer to what would have been known to R. Joseph Caro, and seek to establish this as the standard "Israeli Sephardi" rite for use by all communities.[13] The liturgy of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews differs from all these (more than the Eastern groups differ from each other), as it represents an older form of the text, has far fewer Kabbalistic additions and reflects some Italian influence. The differences between all these groups, however, exist at the level of detailed wording, for example the insertion or omission of a few extra passages: structurally, all Sephardic rites are very similar.
(The Od Abinu ai series, mentioned under "North African Jews" below, is based on these editions.)
(for fuller list see Spanish and Portuguese Jewish prayer books)
(see also under Vienna editions)
(and many others)
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Sephardic law and customs - Wikipedia
Dohny Street Synagogue – Wikipedia
Posted By richards on December 9, 2016
The Dohny Street Synagogue (Hungarian: Dohny utcai zsinagga/nagy zsinagga, Hebrew: Bet ha-Knesset ha-Gadol shel Budapesht), also known as The Great Synagogue or Tabakgasse Synagogue, is a historical building in Erzsbetvros, the 7th district of Budapest, Hungary. It is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world.[1] It seats 3,000 people and is a centre of Neolog Judaism.
The synagogue was built between 1854 and 1859 in the Moorish Revival style, with the decoration based chiefly on Islamic models from North Africa and medieval Spain (the Alhambra). The synagogue's Viennese architect, Ludwig Frster, believed that no distinctively Jewish architecture could be identified, and thus chose "architectural forms that have been used by oriental ethnic groups that are related to the Israelite people, and in particular the Arabs".[2] The interior design is partly by Frigyes Feszl.
The Dohny Street Synagogue complex consists of the Great Synagogue, the Heroes' Temple, the graveyard, the Memorial and the Jewish Museum, which was built on the site on which Theodor Herzl's house of birth stood. Dohny Street itself, a leafy street in the city center, carries strong Holocaust connotations as it constituted the border of the Budapest Ghetto.[3]
Built in a residential area between 1854-1859 by the Jewish community of Pest according to the plans of Ludwig Frster, the monumental synagogue has a capacity of 2,964 seats (1,492 for men and 1,472 in the women's galleries) making it the largest in Europe and one of the largest working synagogues in the world (after the Beit Midrash of Ger in Jerusalem, the Belz Great Synagogue and Temple Emanu-el in New York City).[citation needed] The consecration of the synagogue took place on 6 September 1859.
The synagogue was bombed by the Hungarian pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party on 3 February 1939.[4] Used as a base for German Radio and also as a stable during World War II, the building suffered some severe damage from aerial raids during the Nazi Occupation but especially during the Siege of Budapest. During the Communist era the damaged structure became again a prayer house for the much-diminished Jewish community. Its restoration started in 1991, financed by the state and by private donations, and completed in 1998.
The building is 75 metres (246ft) long and 27 metres (89ft) wide.[5] The style of the Dohny Street Synagogue is Moorish but its design also features a mixture of Byzantine, Romantic and Gothic elements. Two onion domes sit on the twin octagonal towers at 43 metres (141ft) height. A rose stained-glass window sits over the main entrance.
Similarly to basilicas, the building consists of three spacious richly decorated aisles, two balconies and, unusually, an organ. Its ark contains various torah scrolls taken from other synagogues destroyed during the Holocaust.[citation needed]
The Central Synagogue in Manhattan, New York City is a near-exact copy of the Dohny Street Synagogue.[6]
The torah-ark and the internal frescoes made of colored and golden geometric shapes are the works of the famous Hungarian romantic architect Frigyes Feszl. A single-span cast iron supports the 12-metre-wide (39ft) nave. The seats on the ground-floor are for men, while the upper gallery, supported by steel ornamented poles, has seats for women. This synagogue is very different from other synagogues as it is the only one to have pipe organs and a cemetery.
Franz Liszt and Camille Saint-Sans played the original 5,000 pipe organ built in 1859.[7] A new mechanical organ with 63 voices and 4 manuals was built in 1996 by the German firm Jehmlich Orgelbau Dresden GmbH.[8] One of the most important concerts in the Synagogue's history was in 2002, by the organ virtuoso Xaver Varnus. A crowd of 7,200 filled sanctuary seats and standing space, some four-hours before the concert,[citation needed] to hear the artists virtuosity.[9]
It was only in the 1990s, following the return to democracy in Hungary, that renovations could begin. The three-year program of reconstruction was largely funded by a US$5 million donation from Hungarian Jewish American Este Lauder and was completed in 1996.[10][11]
The Jewish Museum was constructed on the plot where Theodor Herzl's two-story Classicist style house stood, adjoining the Dohny synagogue.[12] The Jewish Museum was built in 1930 in accordance with the synagogue's architectural style and attached in 1931 to the main building. It holds the Jewish Religious and Historical Collection, a collection of religious relics of the Pest Hevrah Kaddishah (Jewish Burial Society), ritual objects of Shabbat and the High Holidays and a Holocaust room.
The arcade and the Heroes' Temple, which seats 250 people and is used for religious services on weekdays and during the winter time, was added the Dohny Street Synagogue complex in 1931. The Heroes' Temple was designed by Lzlo Vg and Ferenc Farag and serves as a memorial to Hungarian Jews who gave their lives during World War I.
In 1944, the Dohny Street Synagogue was part of the Jewish Ghetto for the city Jews and served as shelter for many hundreds. Over two thousand of those who died in the ghetto from hunger and cold during the winter 1944-1945 are buried in the courtyard of the synagogue.
It is not customary to have a cemetery next to a synagogue, the establishment of the 3,000 m2 cemetery was the result of historical circumstances. In 1944, as a part of the Eichmann-plan, 70,000 Jews were relocated to the Ghetto of Pest. Until January 18, 1945, when the Russians liberated the ghetto, around 8,000 to 10,000 people had died, although, one part of the deceased were transferred to the Kozma Street Cemetery, but 2,000 people were buried in the makeshift cemetery. In memory of those who had died, there is a memorial by the sculptor, Imre Varga, depicting a weeping willow with the names and tattoo numbers of the dead and disappeared just behind the Synagogue, in the Raoul Wallenberg Holocaust Memorial Park.[13]
The Raoul Wallenberg Emlkpark (memory park) in the rear courtyard holds the Memorial of the Hungarian Jewish Martyrs at least 400,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered by the Nazis.[14] Made by Imre Varga, it resembles a weeping willow whose leaves bear inscriptions with the names of victims. There is also a memorial to Wallenberg and other Righteous Among the Nations, among them: Swiss Vice-consul Carl Lutz; Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian man who, with a strategic escamotage, declared himself the Spanish consul, releasing documents of protection and current passports to Jews in Budapest without distinction (he saved five thousand); Mons. Angelo Rotta, an Italian Prelate Bishop and Apostolic Nuncio of the State of Vatican City in Budapest, which issued protective sheets, misrepresentations of baptism (to save them from forced labor) and Vatican passports to Jews, without distinction of any kind present in Budapest (saving fifteen thousand), who saved, with his secretary Mons. Gennaro Verolino tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II. Carlos de Liz-Texeira Branquinho a Portuguese diplomat, serving as Portugals Charg d'Affaires in Budapest in 1944, issued protective Passports to hundreds of Jewish families, altogether about 1,000 lives were saved due to his actions.[15]Carlos Sampaio Garrido the Portuguese Ambassador who resisted the Hungarian political police when the police raided his home arresting his guests. The Ambassador physically res
isted the police and was also arrested but managed to have his guests released by invoking the extraterritorial legal rights of diplomatic legations; five of the guests were members of the famous Gabor family.
Dohny means tobacco in Hungarian, a loan word from Ottoman Turkish (duhn), itself borrowed from Arabic (dun). A similar Turkish loanword for tobacco is used throughout the Balkans (e.g. duhan in Bosnian).
Theodor Herzl in his speeches[16] and the Jewish Encyclopedia referred to the Dohny Street Synagogue as the Tabakgasse Synagogue. The Dohny Street Synagogue is also known under the name of the Tabak-Shul, the Yiddish translation of Dohny Synagogue.
On October 23, 2012, an Israeli flag was burned in front of a Budapest synagogue, reportedly by members of Jobbik, an ultranationalist Hungarian political party.[17][18]
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Dohny Street Synagogue - Wikipedia
Congregation Shevet Achim – Island Synagogue
Posted By richards on December 9, 2016
is on Mercer Island! A Series of 7classes, Thursday Mornings, November 3rdthrough December 22nd 9:00 a.m. 10:00 a.m. (No class on Thanksgiving November 24th)
In the Social Hall at Island Synagogue Island Crest Way and SE 47th Street, Mercer Island
Zumba is perfect for everybody and every body. Zumba takes the "work" out of workout, mixing low- and high-intensity moves for an interval-style, calorie-burning dance fitness party. Once the Latin and World rhythms take over, you'll see why Zumba Fitness classes are like exercise in disguise.
A total workout, combining all elements of fitness cardio, muscle conditioning, balance and flexibility, boosted energyand a serious dose of awesome!
Jessica is a choreographer, dancer, actor, singer, director and youth educator in musical theatre. Jessica received the 2014 Gregory Award (recognizing contributions to Seattle Theatre) for Outstanding Choreography; you may have seen Jessicas work recently in The Sound of Music at the 5th Avenue Theatre, and productions at Seattle Musical Theatre and Village Theatre. She has taught Zumba at Island Synagogue for a year.
Special early 7-class series rate is only $35(thats just $5 per class!) Drop-ins are $7 per class.
MetLife Stadium – Wikipedia
Posted By simmons on December 9, 2016
MetLife Stadium is an American sports stadium that is located in East Rutherford, New Jersey. It is part of the Meadowlands Sports Complex and serves as the home stadium for two National Football League (NFL) franchises: the New York Giants and the New York Jets. The stadium is owned by the MetLife Stadium Company, a joint venture of the Giants and Jets, who jointly built the stadium using private funds on land owned by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority. The stadium opened as New Meadowlands Stadium in 2010. In 2011, MetLife, an insurance company based in New York City, acquired the naming rights to the stadium. At a construction cost of approximately $1.6 billion, it is the most expensive stadium ever built[8] and is the second-largest stadium in the NFL in terms of seating capacity.
MetLife Stadium is the only NFL stadium shared by two clubs: the Giants and Jets. It and Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, home of the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s Los Angeles Clippers and Los Angeles Lakers, are the only current facilities to house two teams from the same sports league in the United States.
As Giants Stadium approached 30 years of age, it was becoming one of the older stadiums in the NFL. The Jets, who had been the lesser tenants at the stadium (which was called simply "The Meadowlands" for Jets games), sought to have their own stadium built in Manhattan proper, the proposed West Side Stadium. Originally intended to be the 85,000-seat main stadium for New York's bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, it was designed to be downsized to 75,000 seats for the Jets. However, the West Side Stadium would have required significant public funding, which collapsed in 2005. The Jets then entered into a partnership with the Giants to build a new stadium in which the two teams would be equal part.
Construction on MetLife Stadium, as seen in 2007 (top) and 2008 (bottom) near Giants Stadium
The stadium is distinguished by an outer skin of aluminum louvers and by interior lighting capable of switching colors, depending on which team is currently playing; blue for the Giants and green for the Jets.[9] This idea originated at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, which is shared between the city's two major soccer clubs, Bayern Munich and 1860 Munich. Unlike Giants Stadium, MetLife Stadium can easily be converted from a Giants game to a Jets game or vice versa, within a matter of hours.[10] The total linear length of louvers is exactly 50,000 meters (50 kilometers) or 163,681 feet (31.1 miles).
Front row 50 yard line seats are 46 feet (14m) away from the sideline, which is the shortest distance of all NFL stadiums. To change the field decorations, two 4-person crews take appx. 18 hours using forklifts and other machinery to remove the 40 sections of FieldTurf which make up the teams' respective endzones.[11] Unlike most NFL stadiums, the NFL's logo is painted at midfield, instead of the logo of one of the teams, also shortening the transition time. The replaceable team logos at midfield were removed in August 2010, after Domenik Hixon tore his anterior cruciate ligament at a practice at the stadium during training camp.[12]
Unlike a number of other new NFL venues, MetLife Stadium does not have a roof, as proposals to include a roof failed, over a dispute for funding.[13] Thus, indoor events such as the Final Four cannot be held at the facility, which runs counter to the original aims for a new stadium in northern New Jersey.[14]
20 giant high-definition-ready light emitting diode (LED) pylons, located at the north and east entrances, display videos of the team currently in-house. The pylons measure approximately 54 feet (16m) high by 20 feet (6.1m) wide. Inside, are four 30 feet (9.1m) by 116 feet (35m) high definition video displays, and hang from each corner of the upper deck.[15]
The new stadium has seating for 82,500[2] people, including 10,005 club seats and approximately 218 luxury suites, making it the second-largest NFL stadium in terms of total seating.[16]
MetLife Stadium includes a total of four locker rooms: one each for the Giants and Jets, as well as 2 for visiting teams. The home teams have locker rooms on opposite ends of the stadium with a visitors' locker room adjacent to it; the unused visitors' locker room is used for spillover by the home team, on game days.[16][17]
The two teams formed the New Meadowlands Stadium Company, LLC (now MetLife Stadium Company), a 50/50 joint venture, to build and operate the stadium. The two teams leased the parcel of land on which the stadium stands from the NJSEA for a 25-year term, with options to extend it which could eventually reach 97 years. After the 15th year of the lease, and every five years, hence; one of the 2 teams may opt out of the lease after giving the state 12 months notice. However, if one team leaves for a new stadium, the other team would have to remain for the remainder of the lease. Based on the teams' histories, this clause presumably allows the Jets to eventually decide they want to play in their own stadium and leave if they can find a way to finance it. However, the high cost of building and relocating to a new stadium makes this very unlikely (although the Jets have relocated their facilities to Florham Park, New Jersey). The teams also get parking revenue from the Meadowlands' western parking lots year round, even when there are no events at the stadium (this would occur when other parts of the Meadowlands host events).[18]
Allianz, a financial services and insurance company based in Germany, expressed interest in purchasing naming rights to the stadium. The proposal was for a period of up to 30 years,[19] and was estimated to be valued at between $20 million and $30 million USD. However, it sparked protests from New York's Jewish community (the largest outside of Israel) and the Anti-Defamation League, which opposed the move due to close ties in the past between Allianz and the government of Nazi Germany during World War II. However, Rabbi Jay Rosenbaum, secretary general of the North American Board of Rabbis, agreed that although survivors' sensibilities are understandable, a naming deal is legitimate. "I have found Allianz to be receptive, to be sensitive and a friend of the Jewish people today," he said.[20] Allianz sponsors the venue that inspired the color-change technology for MetLife Stadium: Allianz Arena in Munich. No agreement was reached and talks between Allianz and the teams ended on September 12, 2008.[21]
On June 27, 2011, it was reported that insurance company MetLife entered discussions to purchase naming rights to the stadium.[22] The new name, MetLife Stadium,[23] became official when all parties signed a 25-year deal on August 23.[24][25][26]
In June 2009, the New Meadowlands Stadium Corporation and the EPA signed a memorandum of understanding that outlines plans to incorporate environmentally-friendly materials and practices into the construction and operation of MetLife Stadium. The agreement includes strategies to reduce air pollution, conserve water and energy, improve waste management, and reduce the environmental impact of construction. The goal of the agreement is to save the emission of nearly 1.68 million metric tons of carbon dioxide during the stadium's construction and its first year of operation. Under this agreement, the stadium construction must use around 40,000 tons of recycled steel, recycle 20,000 tons of steel from Giants Stadium, install seating made from recycled plastic and scrap iron, and reduce air pollution from construction vehicles by using cleaner diesel fuel, diesel engine filters, and minimizing engine idle times. Other goals of this agreement include providing mass transit options for fans and replacing traditional concession plates, cups and carries with compostable alternatives. The New Meadowlands Stadium Corporation is to report the progress on its goals to EPA every six months. Based on the reports, the EPA has stated it will quantify the benefits of the venue's environmental efforts.[27][28]
MetLife Stadium is accessible via Exit 16W on the western spur of the New Jersey Turnpike and is also located adjacent to Route 3 and Route 120. Coach USA provides bus service between the stadium and the Port Authority Bus Terminal.[29]
The Meadowlands Rail Line operates on event days between the newly constructed Meadowlands Station and Hoboken Terminal via Secaucus Junction, where there is connecting service to Pennsylvania Station (New York City), Pennsylvania Station (Newark), and other New Jersey Transit rail operations. The line opened to the public on July 26, 2009.[30]
On May 25, 2010, it was announced that Super Bowl XLVIII was awarded to the stadium, the first time a Super Bowl would be played in the New York metropolitan area, and the first time that a non-domed stadium in a cold-weather city would host it.[43]
The Seattle Seahawks defeated the Denver Broncos 438 for their first Super Bowl victory, when MetLife Stadium hosted Super Bowl XLVIII on February 2, 2014.[44] The NFL requires that a Super Bowl hosting stadium must have an average temperature of 50 or higher in February or be held in an indoor climate-controlled facility. However, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell waived this requirement. The stadium was allowed on the ballot because of a "unique, once-only circumstance based on the opportunity to celebrate the new stadium and the great heritage and history of the NFL in the New York region".[45][46]
On April 7, 2013, WWE's 29th annual flagship event, WrestleMania 29 was held at MetLife Stadium. It drew 80,676 fans, it is the third highest attended event in the history of WWE after WrestleMania III and WrestleMania 32
The main event was John Cena challenging WWE Champion The Rock. Also featured was CM Punk versus The Undertaker. The penultimate match was Triple H versus Brock Lesnar in a no-holds-barred match.
WrestleMania XXIX garnered 1,048,000 PPV buys, 205,000 fewer than the previous year's event.[47] The event set a new record for the highest grossing live event in WWE history, grossing $72 million.[48]
The first international exhibition match was between Mexico and Ecuador on May 7, 2010 in front of 77,507 fans. The stadium hosted another international exhibition soccer match between the United States and Brazil on August 10, 2010. Brazil won 20 in front of a near-sellout crowd of 77,223; the game was played on a temporary grass field.[63][64] The stadium hosted another international friendly, between the United States and Argentina on March 26, 2011, which ended in a 11 draw and was played in front of a sellout crowd of 78,926.[65] Another exhibition match in preparation for 2014 FIFA World Cup was played on November 14, 2012 between Colombia and Brazil, with Brazil acting as the local team despite a higher affluence of Colombian fans.
On June 26, 2016, the stadium hosted the Copa Amrica Centenario Final, a special 100th anniversary edition of the Copa Amrica, organized jointly by CONMEBOL and CONCACAF, hosted by the USA, and the first to take place outside South Amrica. Chile beat Argentina 4-2 on penalties after a 0-0 draw after extra time to claim their second consecutive Copa Amrica Championship.
On August 3, 2016, MetLife Stadium hosted a 2016 International Champions Cup match between Real Madrid and F.C. Bayern Munich. Real Madrid won the game 1-0.
On October 16, 2010, Rutgers hosted Army in the first college football game to be played in the new stadium, with the Scarlet Knights defeating the Black Knights in overtime, 23-20. During the game's second half, Rutgers player Eric LeGrand was injured on a special teams play, defending a Rutgers kickoff, and paralyzed from the neck down.
The stadium hosted the 12th Siyum HaShas, a celebration of the completion of the Talmud through the 712-year Daf Yomi study program, on August 1, 2012. At 93,000 seats, it was the highest capacity crowd in the stadium's history, due to on-field seating and a ticket sell-out. The siyum was a Department of Homeland Security level two security event, the most critical short of a presidential visit.[66][67]
On September 7, 2012, the stadium hosted the first New York's College Classic game, with the visiting USC Trojans defeating the Syracuse Orange, 42-29. Syracuse has relocated three of its home games from the Carrier Dome to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey under the banner of New York's College Classic, losing all three games; a fourth was played against Notre Dame in September 2014.
Since 2012, the stadium has been the main site of the two-day electronic music festival Electric Daisy Carnival's stop in the New York Metropolitan Area bringing electronic acts such as Armin Van Buuren, Hardwell, Porter Robinson, Tiesto, and many more.
On September 27, 2014, Syracuse Orange hosted Notre Dame Fighting Irish in their fourth New York's College Classic, which boasted 76,802 fans in attendance. Syracuse lost their fourth straight classic, 31-15.
Media from the New York Jets and New York Giants:
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