Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on December 28, 2021

Yocheveds baby is 3 months old, and she can no longer conceal him. Any day now, the Egyptians will hear him crying. Shes seen it happen with her neighbors. They will barge into the house. They will tear him from her arms, and, laughing, throw him into the mighty Nile.

So she prepares a waterproof basket, nurses the baby to sleep, places him inside on a blanket, and walks down to the river. She kisses the baby, gazes at him one last time, covers the basket, and sets it down in the reeds. As she turns to leave, she sees that Miryam, her eldest child, 5 years old, has followed her to the river.

Yocheved walks home, bereft. Miryam stations herself at a distance to know what will happen to her baby brother. Did Yocheved entrust her with this task? Did Miryam take it upon herself, refusing to go home with her mother?

Miryam waits. She hears the laughter of young women approaching, hears them chattering in Egyptian, sees the glint of gold on a royal headdress. This can only be the daughter of Pharaoh, the cruel oppressor. Miryam prays with all her heart that the baby will not cry, that the basket will stay hidden until someone more sympathetic comes along.

But Pharaohs daughter, Bitya, has noticed the basket and sends her maidservant to fetch it. Miryam, hidden in the reeds, watches Bitya open the basket and sees her royal face soften in pity as she realizes: This is one of the Hebrew children.

The baby cries. He is hungry, his diaper is wet, the light coming into the basket has startled him. Bitya looks at his round face, his fine dark hair, his tiny fingers. He is a beautiful baby. She wishes, for a moment, that she could pick him up, hold him, comfort him. It is really so sad, the situation with the Hebrews. But there is nothing to be done about it.

Bitya is about to close the basket and continue on her way to bathe, when she hears a voice beside her.

Shall I go and call you a nursing woman from among the Hebrews, and she will nurse the child for you?

The speaker is a slightly muddy little girl, dressed like a Hebrew. She speaks respectfully but boldly to the princess. And she seems to be convinced that Bitya has decided to care for the baby in the basket.

Go, Bitya says to Miryam.

What does Bitya mean, when she says go? She might just be telling Miryam to go away, to leave her alone. She might not be entirely sure what she means. But Miryam chooses to understand that single word as an acceptance of her offer to find a wet nurse. The little girl smiles and runs off.

When she returns a few minutes later, with a woman who is clearly her mother, Bitya is holding the baby from the basket. She bounces him gently and he calms down, resting his head on her shoulder. He is so sweet, so little. She loves him already. The wet nurse holds out her arms, and Bitya tells her, Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will give your payment.

Bitya stands by the river and watches Yocheved carry the baby back towards the Hebrew settlement, with Miryam at her side. She feels a sudden elation. She did not have to harden her heart, to close the basket and walk away. The baby will live, and he will become her child. I have drawn him from the water, she says to herself.

Ilana Sober Elzufon is a Yoetzet Halacha in Yerushalayim, and a writer and editor for Nishmat's Yoatzot Halacha websites (yoatzot.org) and for Deracheha (deracheha.org).

Continued here:

Miryam and Bitya | Ilana Sober Elzufon | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

Category: Hebrew | Comments Off on Miryam and Bitya | Ilana Sober Elzufon | The Blogs – The Times of Israel
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 28, 2021

The arrival of a newborn is always an occasion for celebration and joy. A childs first Christmas, however, is also an opportunity for family members to project their hopes and unfulfilled dreams onto the next generation. That Harvard onesie or baseball bat under the tree are not-so-subtle hints about the life you want for your child. Just as people heap expectations on new arrivals today, baby Jesus had a lot to live up to. For Christians, Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one of God, a descendant of King David, and the one who would save the world. Thats a lot for any of us to shoulder, but especially an infant. These messianic expectations are particularly prominent during the Christmas season popping up everywhere from beloved Carols to childrens Christmas books. But what does it mean to call Jesus the Messiah? And did Jesus live up to societys expectations?

Even if you think of Christmas as more about the tree, Santa, and present than anointing or kingship, the imagery and language of a royal messiah ripples through the Christmas story. According to the Gospel of Matthew, the Magi (sorry, there arent Three Kings in the Gospels) come to see the one born King of the Jews. The angels proclaim the arrival of Christ the Lord to the shepherds in the Gospel of Luke. The word Christ, which to modern readers seems like a family name, just means anointed one and is the Greek version of the Hebrew word Mashiah or anointed. Its from the Hebrew that we get the English word Messiah. The twin themes of royal lineage and messiahship are found everywhere in the Nativity story.

For Jews who lived at the turn of the Common Era, the Messiah (or messiahs in some instances) was very much on their minds. At the time the holy land was occupied and controlled by the Roman Empire, and people wrestled with the economic and political ramifications of foreign occupation. As a result, Jews spoke about a coming anointed one, a Messiah, who was spoken of in scripture and who would liberate them from their oppressors and usher in a new era of independence and flourishing. Matthew Novenson, senior lecturer in New Testament and Christian Origins at the University of Edinburgh, and author of two books on Messianism, told the Daily Beast that the Messiah was a kind of mythology, that had a solid foundation in scriptural sources, that was useful for making religious sense of Judeas complicated political situation in the early Roman Empire.

There was considerable diversity of thought, however, about what the Messiah would be like. Some claimed that he would be, like King David, a monarch who would lead a successful military rebellion. Others emphasized his prophetic or priestly credentials. Others still, like the inhabitants of Qumran who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, seemed to have thought that there would be two messiahs. This model reproduces the organizational structure of ancient Israel, when the people were led by both a King and a High Priest.

These messiahs, Novenson told me, were often associated with certain ancient scriptural heroes, in particular Aaron the high priest and King David. We can see the same tendency among followers of Jesus: Our sources about Jesus mostly associate him with King David, either saying that he was a descendant of David, or that he did things like David did, or both. There was no set script here. The messiah was a mythological construct that was constantly being redescribed and reinterpreted. There were other early Christians, Novenson noted, who tried to distance Jesus from David, just as there were ancient Jews who did not appear to care about the idea of a messiah at all.

The infancy stories about Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, however, are preoccupied with messianism because stories about ancient kings and heroes were, generally speaking, fascinated by childhood stories. Just as every Marvel superhero has his or her origin story so too biographies of political leaders, generals, and revolutionaries were interested in where the great man came from, who raised him, and what kinds of auspicious events accompanied his birth. In this context the appearance of a star was not unusual. Dr. Robyn Walsh, an associate professor at the University of Miami, told me that from the biblical Abraham and Moses, to Alexander the Great and the Roman emperor Augustus, the birth of great leaders, heroes, and founders of cities were often marked by celestial events. Broadly speaking, she said, ancient artwork and propaganda used stars to symbolize the transition of political power or birth of a new order. Birth stories, quasi-miraculous events, and narratives about influential figures go hand in hand.

Of course, as every practicing Christian knows, Jesus was no Alexander the Great or Augustus. He didnt overthrow the Romans or lead a successful rebellion. As a result, later generations of Christians (including our own) reinterpreted the references to messiahship in the Gospels as spiritual kingship, rather than literal earthly rule. This simple fact led to the development of a particularly problematic explanation that is found in modern scholarship, religious writings, and on popular websites: the idea that the Christian messiah wasnt political, he was spiritual.

A study guide for high school students, produced by the BBC, for example, hints at this idea. It suggests that the term Messiah may not be helpful because it might confusing[ly] evoke ideas of earthly monarchy. It would be a misleading, it seems, to think of the messiah as a political earthly figure.

Out of this crucial distinction have grown other antisemitic sentiments and ideas: namely, that Jews couldnt understand their own scriptures. Jews of Jesuss day, the argument goes, may have been anticipating a political messiah, but they were fundamentally wrong. The Christian website gotquestions.org, for example, connects this supposed misunderstanding about the Messiah to an even more troublesome idea: the Jewish rejection of Jesus. The website reads, The Jews rejected Jesus because He failed, in their eyes, to do what they expected their Messiah to dodestroy evil and all their enemies and establish an eternal kingdom with Israel as the preeminent nation in the world. The prophecies in Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 describe a suffering Messiah who would be persecuted and killed, but the Jews chose to focus instead on those prophecies that discuss His glorious victories, not His crucifixion.

(At risk of being a pedant, although they are important passages for Christians, we should note that neither Isaiah 53 nor Psalm 22 refer to a crucified messiah. It thus seems unfair to imply that Jewish interpreters were overlooking something. You have to have a suffering messiah to read these texts this way.) The bigger problem here is the idea that Jews rejected Jesus: Jesus himself and all his first followers were Jews. Historically, the idea that Jews rejected Jesus has been linked to the dangerous and erroneous idea that the Jews were responsible for killing the messiah.

Some Christians go even further and assert that Jewish messianism is not just wrong or mistaken, it is actually demonic. In his work on messianism, Novenson argues that these explanations arent just tragically cruel and antisemitic, they are also grounded in some profound historical errors. When Christians claim that Jesus was a spiritual messiah they do so because they take for granted the messiahship of Jesus and say whatever they need to say to maintain that axiom. Its precisely because Jesus suffered and because Christians believe he was the messiah that Christians argue for a spiritual messiah who suffers.

In truth, says Novenson Christian messianic texts are not categorically different from Jewish messianic texts. They do describe Jesus as a political figure. Novenson told me that, The idea of Jesus as a political, not just spiritual, messiah appears in a number of Gospel sayings and stories (e.g., Matt 10:34: I did not come to bring peace, but a sword), but above all in the widespread early Christian idea of the future coming (or parousia) of Jesus to execute judgment and rule over the nations. In other words, early Christians do anticipate that Jesus will behave as a political messiah, just not yet.

The sharpest example of this, Novenson said, is the book of Revelation in which Jesus returns and a New Jerusalem descends onto the earth. There are all kinds of things to worry about in this vision of the Second ComingRevelation describes genocide and the widespread destruction of non-believers in ways that should be ethically concerning for devout Christiansbut the point here is that the Jesus of end of days is as political a messiah as they come. As Wil Gafney, author of the recently published Womens Lectionary for the Whole Church and Hulsey Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brite Divinity, has written, this is the problem with romanticizing monarchy and Christly kingship. David, who we name-check throughout our Christmas celebrations, was a warlord and a thug. Kingship, says, Gafney, comes with so much baggage. If we want to augment the messiahship of Jesus it should be for this reason.

What the broad view of Christian messianic expectation means, Novenson writes in his book Grammar of Messianism, is that Christianity did not change the definition of messiah; it just chose from among the available ancient Jewish definitions, then added its own details to the developing tradition. Its one thread in a tapestry of ancient interpretative traditions about the meaning of scripture and the identity of the messiah. We can see a very similar thing, said Novenson, happening in texts about other Jewish messiahs like Judah Maccabee, Bar Kokhba, or Rabbi Judah the Patriarch. The point of all of this is that the celebration of the birth of the Messiah does not need to invoke inaccurate or antisemitic ideas about Christianitys superiority to and difference from Judaism. Christianity is not uniquely special. On the contrary, our Nativity story is fully embedded in the theopolitical thought of first century Judaism.

See the original post:

The Way We Think About the Messiah Is Very Problematic - Daily Beast

Category: Hebrew | Comments Off on The Way We Think About the Messiah Is Very Problematic – Daily Beast
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 28, 2021

Supplemental Jewish teen education is undergoing its largest evolution in nearly seven decades.

In Pittsburgh, there are no longer weekly after-school classes for post-bnai mitzvah students, taught by experts in Hebrew, religion or Israel. Instead, leaders at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh are working to understand where teens are now and how to meet their current needs, said Chris Herman, the JCCs division director of Jewish life.

Since 2015, the JCCs J Line program offered teen experiences on Wednesdays and Sundays. It was created after the Agency for Jewish Learning shuttered its doors earlier that year. The AJLs teen supplemental education, J Site, was replaced with J Line; J-Serve, HaZamir Pittsburgh and Hebrew learning programs were also taken over by the JCC.

Get The Jewish Chronicle Weekly Edition by email and never miss our top storiesFree Sign Up

J Line will still exist, Herman said, but it will look different moving forward.

As were emerging post-pandemic, our approach to J Line has been to create shorter experiences of four to six weeks that are independent of one another and that are different days and times of the week, Herman said. They may explore a specific topic through a Jewish lens or informed by Jewish learning thats specific to just that area, and then they can dive in and have deep, meaningful conversations.

Herman said JCC leaders have spent the last several years looking at national and local data about teen education and concluded a new approach was needed.

Theres a recommendation that if youre doing the same thing you were five years ago, youre probably doing it wrong, he said.

It became apparent, Herman said, that teens were no longer available or interested in attending regular Sunday morning Jewish classes.

Unable to meet in person during the pandemic, Herman worked with JCC leadership to reimagine how J Line could look and operate.

The brand will still exist, Herman said, and will still include Jewish subjects, but will also include programs like a college prep series developed by Brenna Rosen, the JCCs director of Jewish teen life.

Were going to explore, not only the secular aspects of preparing for the next step of your life, but also look at things like, Here is Hillel, here are Jewish gap year experiences, trade schools. Were doing that through a Jewish lens, Herman said.

The various programs will still be primarily in-person group experiences, but some, like a national Talmud-based class by the Teen Beit Midrash of Hebrew College, will be offered virtually.

Were interested in asking kids what they want to be doing and what they want to be working on and if they are interested in taking leadership positions, Rosen said.

She said that J Line leaders want to empower teens to create meaningful Jewish experiences.

The changes come at a time when the Jewish teen education experience is being examined and rethought both locally and nationally.

In March 2019, the Jewish Education Project released its report Gen Z Now: Understanding and Connecting with Jewish Teens Now. It worked with 14 youth organizations, studying nearly 18,000 teens, conducting what the organization believes is the largest study of American Jewish teens in history.

JEP Chief Program Officer Susan Wachsstock said teens in the study didnt identify the type of education they preferred; instead, they articulated where they found opportunities for growth.

Teens could tell you what was happening on the soccer field that helps them grow, she said. They could talk about teamwork. They could talk about grit. They could talk about resilience. When they thought about Jewish experiences, it was much harder to make that correlation to where and how it was helping them grow and help their development.

Wachsstock said the decline of the formal Hebrew high school has been taking place for decades.

Our constructs are shifting, she said, and the global nature of the world today means that teens are connecting online to different experiences, communities and online learning.

Still, she said, community experiences such as camp are important in helping teens build a sense of self.

I think inherent to the concept of education is that youre constantly growing and moving and changing, and if the system itself is not growing and moving and changing and is static, that means were not recognizing the influence of the world around us on the learner and therefore not providing effective education, she said.

Locally, the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh is working to help teen-focused organizations understand and plan for teen engagement.

Rabbi Amy Bardack, Federations director of Jewish Life and Learning, said the organization has created a task force and hired Rosov Consulting to look at the future of Jewish teen learning and engagement in Pittsburgh.

The goal is to design a model for programs and funding that would begin next year under the guidance of consultants and using data through the research were starting, she said.

As part of the research, the task force will meet with adult professionals who work within youth-serving organizations in one-on-one interviews 15 separate times. Five different focus groups, consisting of five to seven Jewish teens, will also be formed.

The research will take place in December, January and February, and will include the entirety of the geographical region and the span of Jewish affiliation.

Future funding and programming will be decided on the new research.

Bardack said when the AJL closed, Federation provided approximately 55% of the former agencys funding to the JCC for teen education.

Were now six years into that and it is a good time to stop and look and see what the community wants, she said. What do our partners in the community who feed teens to us, what do they think teens need? What do they think our new opportunities might be?

Bardack stressed that while Federation is the convener of the conversations, the JCC will continue to be a partner.

[The JCC is] one of our largest agencies, she said. They have reach in the suburbs and city. They run our big overnight camp. Theres no way theyre not going to be implementing teen learning and engagement.

Bardack pointed to programs like the Diller Teen Fellows Fellowship which Federation helps implement but is coordinated by the JCC as an example of the partnership between the two agencies.

Echoing Herman, Bardack said it made sense to reexamine the Jewish teen landscape every half-decade.

You should always be rethinking things every five years, she said. If youre not, youre not keeping up with trends and best practices. PJC

David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.

View original post here:

Rethinking the brave new world of Jewish teen education - thejewishchronicle.net

Category: Hebrew | Comments Off on Rethinking the brave new world of Jewish teen education – thejewishchronicle.net
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 28, 2021

Police have launched an investigation into the circumstances of a car explosion in the central Israeli city of Kafr Qasem on Tuesday that injured the driver.

The man is believed to have been the target of anArab gang, following a chain of assassination attempts that is ongoing between two gangs from the towns of Jaljulya and Tira. In the feud, three people have been wounded, and several more shootings have occurred.

LISTEN: From COVID to the end of Bibi, Israel's top stories in 2021

The man, a 30-year-old resident of the central Israeli Arab town Jaljulya, was transferred to Beilinson Medical Center for care, according to Magen David Adom emergency services.

The man reportedly stopped his vehicle in the middle of the road after sensing that something was not right, and then jumped out of the car before it exploded.

Last week, a woman was killed and two others injured in a car explosion in the central Israeli city of Ramle, in what police suspect was an assassination.

The Abraham Initiatives, an NGO working toward equality between Jews and Arabs, has recorded 123 murders related to criminal disputes in the Arab community in 2021.

More here:

Man narrowly avoids assassination by escaping exploding car in central Israel - Haaretz

Category: Israel | Comments Off on Man narrowly avoids assassination by escaping exploding car in central Israel – Haaretz
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 28, 2021

A group of parents of elementary school students in a gifted program has petitioned the High Court of Justice against an Education Ministry decision requiring such students to pass an additional exam in the sixth grade in order to remain in a gifted track in secondary education. The new exam is expected to be given within a few weeks.

Before the change was introduced, children who passed the screening test administered in second grade were automatically allowed to continue in gifted programs into junior high and high school. The change is the result of a shortage of slots for gifted students and a desire to broaden participation in gifted programs to as many students as possible.

The parents who filed the petition claim that the new requirement will harm their children in the event they fail and are forced to switch to a regular classroom. But many parents of gifted students chose not to join the legal action. My sons spot in the gifted class isnt registered in the land registry, one father quipped. There is also importance to considerations of equality and fairness.

Some students in the gifted track can choose between placement for the entire school week in a separate gifted class, which generally operates out of a regular school building, or attending regular classes while being excused one day a week to do enrichment study elsewhere. The decision is influenced by a number of factors.

There are only seven elementary schools in Israel in six communities with separate classes for gifted students. All are in central Israel. The educational and social preferences of the students and their parents also influence the decision. About 4,500 of the countrys 21,000 gifted students are in entirely separate classes.

The petition challenging the sixth grade exam was filed about two weeks ago by 10 parents. Their lawyer, Yonatan Berman, claimed that the Education Ministry did not assess the educational, social and emotional implications of requiring a student who was in a gifted class in elementary school to be retested. He said the 10 petitioners represent a larger group of about 200 parents and children.

The Education Ministry rejected the arguments and noted that the change in policy was made public two years ago.

The petition made a distinction between gifted elementary school children who spend most of their week in a regular classroom and those represented by Berman, who are in separate gifted classes for the entire week, who the petition claimed could suffer social and emotional harm. According to a professional opinion of a psychologist cited by Berman, the transfer to a regular classroom for these children would harm the sense of self-worth of gifted children. A second opinion by a psychiatrist cited by Berman warned of the prospect of emotional difficulties to the point of fear, depression and the risk of suicide.

In a letter to Berman, the ministry said that in light of the limited number of slots in gifted classes operating in elementary schools, it is important to test students in the sixth grade. Screening the students then would open up slots for gifted secondary school students from communities that do not have gifted programs in their elementary schools, and to those who have been identified as gifted after second grade, the ministry said.

View post:

Parents of gifted students appeal to Israel's high court over new test - Haaretz

Category: Israel | Comments Off on Parents of gifted students appeal to Israel’s high court over new test – Haaretz
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 28, 2021

Multinational business information company Dun & Bradstreet said Monday that Israels economy grew by seven percent in 2021, beating out a global average of 5.9%.

According to the study, Indias economy grew by 9.5% and Chinas by 8%.

The Dun & Bradstreet report noted that although Israels economy was showing significant improvement, driven by a strong tech sector and booming real estate activity, a number of industries such as tourism, restaurants, and entertainment continued to suffer in 2021.

In addition, a shortage of raw materials and supply chain disruption as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic have negatively affected the construction and electric goods sectors as well, the report said.

The report noted the continued uncertainty surrounding the Omicron strain of the virus, but said that Israel was showing resilience so far during the pandemic, especially due to the widespread vaccine rollout.

Sign up for the Tech Israel Dailyand never miss Israel's top tech stories

Meanwhile, unemployment has dropped throughout the year with the lifting of various pandemic-related restrictions.

A closed restaurant on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv, during a nationwide lockdown, January 6, 2021 (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

The report said that while approximately 46,000 businesses closed in Israel in 2021, around 63,000 had opened or returned to operation. The report said that as of the end of 2021, there were around 620,000 active businesses, of which around 96.5% (about 600,000) were defined as small businesses.

The entire global economy, and the Israeli economy in particular, showed an improvement in economic and business indices in 2021, after in 2020 it, like many local economies, was significantly affected by the coronavirus crisis, said Efrat Segev, vice president of data and analysis at Dun & Bradstreet Israel.

The tech industry, which has significantly influenced the positive data presented by the Israeli economy, continues to be the economys main engine of growth, and the main task of the government and the companies in the industry will be to see how this growth can permeate into into additional strata, thus addressing both workforce growth and helping to reduce the widening gaps in the population, Segev said.

Efrat Segev, vice president of data and analysis at Dun & Bradstreet (Niv Kantor)

Earlier this month, the OECD said that the Israeli economy was rebounding strongly in 2021, beating forecasts. The organization cited the countrys ongoing booster vaccination campaign, a recovering labor market, and a booming local tech sector.

Economic activity rebounded strongly in 2021 and GDP is projected to grow robustly by 6.3% in 2021, 4.9% in 2022 and 4% in 2023, the OECD said in its December 2021 Economic Outlook report for Israel.

Meanwhile, Israeli exports are expected to reach record highs of $135 billion to $140 billion in 2021, up 18.5% from last year, the Economy and Industry Ministry projected on Monday in a new report.

The ministry said the data was gleaned from the first three quarters of 2021. In 2020, Israeli exports reached $114 billion, preceded by $117 billion in 2019, according to ministry data.

For the first time, exports of services a loose term that includes Israeli technology services like cybersecurity and artificial intelligence appeared to be exceeding exports of goods, the ministry noted. In 2021, exports of services are set to amount to 51%, with 49% for goods.

Exports resulting from the sale of startups and companies jumped by about 257%, leading service exports to increase overall by 30%, the ministry said.

In the tech sector, exports of programming services and research and development services grew by 25% and 15%, respectively, the ministry said.

The commodities sector, meanwhile, grew by 15%, an increase that has not been seen in recent years, according to the report. The strongest commodities subsector was the diamond exports, which grew by 65% in 2021.

A majority of Israeli exports (not including diamonds) went to the European Union (39%), followed by the US (33%) and Asia (25%).

Youre serious. We appreciate that!

Were really pleased that youve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.

Thats why we come to work every day - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.

So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we havent put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.

For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.

Go here to read the rest:

Israels economy grew by 7% in 2021, beating global average, study finds - The Times of Israel

Category: Israel | Comments Off on Israels economy grew by 7% in 2021, beating global average, study finds – The Times of Israel
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 28, 2021

An explosion is seen on the water surface behind a member of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) during a joint military exercise called the 'Great Prophet 17' in the southwest of Iran, in this picture obtained on December 22, 2021. IRGC/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

Register

Dec 24 (Reuters) - War games conducted this week by Iran in the Gulf were intended to send a warning to Israel, the country's top military commanders said on Friday, amid concerns over possible Israeli plans to target Iranian nuclear sites.

The Revolutionary Guards' war games included firing ballistic and cruise missiles. State television showed missiles flattening a target which resembled Israel's Dimona nuclear reactor at the conclusion of the exercises on Friday.

"Through a simulation of the Dimona atomic facilities, the Revolutionary Guards successfully practiced attacking this critical centre of the Zionist regime in its missile exercise," the semi-official news agency Tasnim said.

Register

"These exercises had a very clear message: a serious, real ... warning to threats by the Zionist regime's authorities to beware of their mistakes," Guards chief General Hossein Salami said on state TV.

"We will cut off their hands if they make a wrong move. ... The distance between actual operations and military exercises is only a change in the angles of launching the missiles," Salami added.

Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri said 16 ballistic missiles of different classes had been fired simultaneously and had destroyed predetermined targets.

Britain condemned the launch of ballistic missiles during the war games.

"These actions are a threat to regional and international security, and we call on Iran to immediately cease its activities," the Foreign Office said in a statement. read more

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Saeed Khatibzadeh, rejected the British statement as "meddling in Iran's defensive capacity," state media said.

Iran says its ballistic missiles have a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and are capable of reaching arch-foe Israel and U.S. bases in the region.

Iran has one of the biggest missile programmes in the Middle East, regarding such weapons as an important deterrent and retaliatory force against U.S. and other adversaries in the event of war.

Israel, which opposes efforts by world powers to revive Tehran's 2015 nuclear deal, has long threatened military action if diplomacy fails. Iran says its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.

Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz has called on world powers not to allow Iran to play for time at the nuclear negotiations, in recess at Iran's request and scheduled to resume next Monday. read more

Israel is widely believed to be the only Middle Eastern country with a nuclear arsenal.

Register

dubai.newsroom@thomsonreuters.comEditing by Gareth Jones, Hugh Lawson and Leslie Adler

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

The rest is here:

Iran says war games in Gulf were warning to Israel - Reuters

Category: Israel | Comments Off on Iran says war games in Gulf were warning to Israel – Reuters
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 28, 2021

Kudos to the Heritage Foundation workers who pinned down crystal-clear evidence of ugly bias among those pushing diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.

Specifically, proof that US university DEI staffers are overwhelmingly anti-Israel and pro the government of China.

They identified 741 DEI officials at 65 different campuses, then examined each ones Twitter feed for statements on Israel and China.

As the report summarizes, 96 percent were critical of Israel, with 605 tweets that bashed the Jewish state vs. just 28 that praised it. Meanwhile, China a vastly larger nation with far greater impact on world affairs and a terrible human-rights record got 133 positive tweets against 83 negative ones.

The overwhelming pattern is that DEI staff at universities pay a disproportionately high amount of attention to Israel and nearly always attack Israel, the researchers note.

DEI staffers supposed purpose is to combat bias and create campus safe spaces for students. In reality, they obsessively push (and impose) progressive dogma: not just critical-race-theory nonsense but all leftist orthodoxy, including hostility toward Israel.

Per one tweet from an assistant director of an Office for Institutional Equity and Diversity: No apology for a pro-apartheid Zionist organization holding a reception? I guess theres no justice for Queer Palestinians here. (The left loves to pretend Israel is just like the old South Africa and that Zionism is racism.) No concern for being inclusive of the schools Jewish students there.

And of course anti-Israel attitudes regularly go with outright hatred of Jews. Notably, anti-Semitic attacks have skyrocketed on many campuses. The 2020-2021 school year, for example, saw at least 244 reported anti-Semitic attacks, up from 181 the year before. But thats irrelevant to the DEI worldview.

Diversity, equity and inclusion are all fine things, but DEI officialdom is typically about a very different agenda. The consultants and bureaucrats paid to push DEI across America and in plenty of K-12 schools, not only on campuses are far worse than just a waste of money.

More:

In practice, 'diversity, equity and inclusion' boils down to leftist dogma, including hatred of Israel - New York Post

Category: Israel | Comments Off on In practice, ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ boils down to leftist dogma, including hatred of Israel – New York Post
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 28, 2021

The lesson that US President Joe Biden wanted to teach Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has been learned and the two leaders willprobably talk soon. That, at least, is the hope in Jerusalem. The Americans punched Bennett in the nose, a very senior diplomatic security source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. This was a clear American signal about the rules of the game and the relationship they expect to see between the White House and the prime ministers office. I think Bennett got the message.

A clear indication that Bennett did, indeed, get the message can be found in his public silence in recent weeks on the issue of the nuclear negotiations with Iran. The harsh criticism that Bennett had publicly directed at the policy of the West, and specifically of the United States, has recently dropped below the radar and is conveyed, if at all, only behind closed doors. A senior political source speaking on condition of anonymity quoted last week Bennett on this specific issue, saying, The point has been made. Theres no need to harp on it.

The glitch between Jerusalem and Washington was triggered by aChannel 13 News report according to which the White House was ignoring Bennetts request for a phone call with Biden, which the Israelis had put in weeks ago. The response by the prime ministers office to the report was essentially true, saying there had not been an official request for such a phone call. On the other hand, there had been an informal one. Al-Monitor has learned that it was conveyed by Bennetts influential policy aide Shimrit Meir (who was a guest on Al-Monitor On Israel podcast last April) to the new American Ambassador Tom Nides in Tel Aviv.

In hindsight, Israel concedes that the whole process had been mishandled, allowing the president to deviate from diplomatic protocol and ignore the request. The request did not go through the usual channels, a top Israeli diplomatic source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. The Israeli Embassy in Washington was completely unaware of it. Had it been aware, it would have tried to help. Al-Monitor has also learned that the embassy in Washington had recently recommended that Jerusalem avoid asking for a phone call between the prime minister and the president because the time was not convenient.

What prompted the American displeasure was a story leaked by the prime ministers office about a recent conversation between Bennett and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. From what Al-Monitor learned, the leak was inaccurate, to say the least. It failed to mention that Blinken was the one who called Bennett, and it described the call as difficult and focused on Iran.

The State Department regarded the leak as an attempt by Bennett to score points with Israeli voters by presenting himself as being tough with the Americans, at Blinkens expense. In fact, it seems that Bennett was trying to create a nonexistent clash between himself and Blinken, whom the Israelis actually consider the most conciliatory link in Washington. The Americans countered with a leak according to which Blinken was the one who initiated the phone call, which actually focused on a US reprimand over an Israeli plan to push through approval of construction in the East Jerusalem area of Atarot. But the real payback came when Washington ignored the informal request for Biden to call Bennett, a call which has not occurred so far, as far as we know.

On the other hand, last weeks visit in Israel by US national security adviser Jake Sullivan has been described as excellent. The gaps between us and the Americans have been defined, another senior Israeli diplomatic source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, and they are a lot less major than it appears. According to the source, the current US assessment of negotiations with Iran and of Irans conduct is almost identical in both capitals, Jerusalem and Washington. If anything, the Americans are even taking a slightly tougher approach than we are, the source said. Where they might differ is on the question of the response if and when the talks collapse. Sullivan promised his Israeli hosts that the United States would not continue with the negotiations ad infinitum and said a deadline would be reached in a matter of weeks.

And what then? Israel is hoping the United States will revert to its maximal pressure policy on Iran applied by the Trump administration, impose additional sanctions on Iran, intensify its isolation and put a viable, concrete military option squarely on the table. The Americans have yet to decide. The senior Israeli diplomatic source described the US position as a strategic embarrassment, arguing that Iran is not among Bidens priorities right now. Washington is currently focused only on the three 'Cs' corona, China and climate, said the source. Iran is not there, and we are trying to move it up on the list as much as possible, the source added.

Officials in Jerusalem are hoping Sullivans visit has allayed tensions between the White House and the prime ministers office and that the differences have been ironed out. Bennett is finding it hard to deal with perpetual US pressure regarding developments in the West Bank.

That is the only thing they care about, one of Bennetts associates admitted on condition of anonymity. They call up all the time about Atarot, about Sheikh Jarrah, about settler violence against Palestinians, about construction in the settlements, the associate told Al-Monitor, referring to the saga of the forced evictions of Palestinians from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

That being said, in the internal disagreement within the two ideologically disparate wings of Bennetts government, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid have apparently the upper hand. Rejecting the approach of publicly criticizing the administration, they preach against outing the differences with the United States. Bennett, it seems, has been forced to fold and join them.

Thus, Gantz has become the go to guy for the Americans. They believe him. They view him as a reliable asset with whom they can clarify and iron out issues. They appreciate his policy, which allows for arguing and fighting between Jerusalem and Washington behind closed doors, while presenting a unified public stand. They too have heard the quote attributed to Gantz: We have no other America.

Read the original here:

Israel's Bennett gets scolded by the White House - Al-Monitor

Category: Israel | Comments Off on Israel’s Bennett gets scolded by the White House – Al-Monitor
Tags:

Posted By admin on December 28, 2021

The word rabbi originates from the Hebrew meaning "teacher."

The term has evolved over Jewish history to include many roles and meanings. Today it usually refers to those who have received rabbinical ordination and are educated in matters of halacha (Jewish law). They are the ones knowledgeable enough to answer halachic questions. Most countries have a chief rabbi they rely on to settle halachic disputes.

The state gives rabbis the permission to perform weddings. Technically, you don't need one; however, it's important to have a rabbi to make sure that the complicated marriage ceremony is done properly. Valid witnesses are needed to make the marriage official. The criteria constituting a valid witness differ among the movements. In Israel, a rabbi is needed for the secular legality of the wedding. The purpose of a rabbi is like that of using a judge or a lawyer in civil matters to ensure that the law is complied with. This differs from the nonJewish concept of a minister having some necessary mystical connection with God that is required to make the ceremony valid.

The term rabbi was first used in reference to the rabbis of the Sanhedrin during the first century C.E. Throughout the medieval period the term referred to the common man, while the term harav implied scholarship.

Similar to modern times, many of those with rabbinical ordination in the talmudic period pursued other forms of livelihood unrelated to that of a rabbi. Today many rabbis are simultaneously doctors, lawyers, psychologists, etc. By the 12th century, however, the job of rabbi had become a full-time occupation.

Also similar to modern times, the rabbis of talmudic times had many obligations. They were supposed to determine the Jewish calendar, serve as a judge in the rabbinical court, help ensure a form of social welfare in the community, and try to increase religious observance.

The rabbis of talmudic times were the sole authority on the Oral Torah. (This was before Oral Torah was written, and no one had the opportunity to study the law for themselves). The rabbi was also revered as being a figure closer to God than anyone else in the community. He was thought to have the ability to curse and bless individuals. A rabbi has no actual power under Jewish law. While Catholic priests are often used as intermediaries between man and God, rabbis are nothing more than regular people who may be officially recognized through a process of ordination, or informally by virtue of the respect they have earned for their knowledge and righteousness.

Today the role of a rabbi mirrors that of a Protestant minister. He serves the community as an educator, social worker, preacher, and occasionally conducts prayer services. The rabbi is not required to lead prayer services - any knowledgeable congregant can carry out the service. Catholic priests can give absolution for sins, rabbis can't (unless you're asking forgiveness for something you've done against the rabbi personally).

The Conservative, Reconstructionist and Reform movements began to grant women semicha in the last few decades. Orthodox congregations do not ordain women as rabbis. They follow the stricter interpretation in the Talmud prohibiting women from serving as witnesses or judges.

Sources: Judaism 101, Smith, Jonathan Z., Ed. The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion. HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1995 and Wigoder, Dr. Georffrey, Ed. The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia Publishing Co., 1992, Shamash

Read the rest here:

Rabbi - Jewish Virtual Library

Category: Rabbi | Comments Off on Rabbi – Jewish Virtual Library
Tags: