30 july 2019
L-R: United Torah Judaism leader Yaakov Litzman, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Union head Bezalel Smotrich
Despite regulations, the court's legal advisor sends religious party leaders' recommendations for legislation that would expand the rabbinical system's powers, including allowing Jewish law to be used in civil cases, constructing new building to match that of Supreme Court
Senior officials in Israel's rabbinical courts prepared a document suggesting legislation for ultra-Orthodox parties to use during coalition negotiations after the April 2019 elections.
The document, which goes against existing regulations on the separation of the rabbinical courts and the political echelon, was obtained by Ynet's sister publication Yedioth Ahronoth.
It was sent out from the personal account of the rabbinical courts' legal advisor Rabbi Shimon Yaacovi two weeks after the elections, in an email entitled "Clauses for the government's basic guidelines." It was sent to several members of the ultra-Orthodox parties' negotiators as well as Bezalel Smotrich, the head of the National Union party.
The document contained suggested legislation that the ultra-Orthodox parties should demanded from the government during the coalition talks.
The most noteworthy item was proposed legislation that states that, "the rabbinical courts will have the authority to decide financial cases according to Jewish law, if all sides in the dispute agree."
Similar legislative attempts meant to increase the power and scope of the rabbinical courts beyond divorce and conversion, have previously been stopped in the past by the Supreme Court.
Other items in the document dealt directly with employment conditions for rabbinical court staff, demanding they be equal to those of workers in the civil court system.
Yaacovi also recommends that the government commit to assigning a budget for a new rabbinical court building and the chief rabbinate that is of equal standard to the Supreme Court building.
The legal adviser also sought to increase his own jurisdiction, recommending that he be authorized to appear before the Supreme Court for any injunction involving rabbinical courts without receiving permission from the attorney general.
The attorney general's office declined to comment.
A spokesman for the rabbinical courts denied that there had been any effort to interfere with the political process.
"Attorney Yaacovi was not involved in the coalition negotiations," the spokesman said in response to a query from Yedioth Ahronoth. "He did not and does not provide guidance to members of Knesset."
He added: "A document regarding legislative and budgetary needs of the rabbinical courts was sent to the senior management of the courts as well as to the director-general of the Ministry of Religious Services, as part of documents prepared for a government committee looking into conditions in the various court systems... Copies of the letter were made available to other people as well.
Despite regulations, the court's legal advisor sends religious party leaders' recommendations for legislation that would expand the rabbinical system's powers, including allowing Jewish law to be used in civil cases, constructing new building to match that of Supreme Court
Senior officials in Israel's rabbinical courts prepared a document suggesting legislation for ultra-Orthodox parties to use during coalition negotiations after the April 2019 elections.
The document, which goes against existing regulations on the separation of the rabbinical courts and the political echelon, was obtained by Ynet's sister publication Yedioth Ahronoth.
It was sent out from the personal account of the rabbinical courts' legal advisor Rabbi Shimon Yaacovi two weeks after the elections, in an email entitled "Clauses for the government's basic guidelines." It was sent to several members of the ultra-Orthodox parties' negotiators as well as Bezalel Smotrich, the head of the National Union party.
The document contained suggested legislation that the ultra-Orthodox parties should demanded from the government during the coalition talks.
The most noteworthy item was proposed legislation that states that, "the rabbinical courts will have the authority to decide financial cases according to Jewish law, if all sides in the dispute agree."
Similar legislative attempts meant to increase the power and scope of the rabbinical courts beyond divorce and conversion, have previously been stopped in the past by the Supreme Court.
Other items in the document dealt directly with employment conditions for rabbinical court staff, demanding they be equal to those of workers in the civil court system.
Yaacovi also recommends that the government commit to assigning a budget for a new rabbinical court building and the chief rabbinate that is of equal standard to the Supreme Court building.
The legal adviser also sought to increase his own jurisdiction, recommending that he be authorized to appear before the Supreme Court for any injunction involving rabbinical courts without receiving permission from the attorney general.
The attorney general's office declined to comment.
A spokesman for the rabbinical courts denied that there had been any effort to interfere with the political process.
"Attorney Yaacovi was not involved in the coalition negotiations," the spokesman said in response to a query from Yedioth Ahronoth. "He did not and does not provide guidance to members of Knesset."
He added: "A document regarding legislative and budgetary needs of the rabbinical courts was sent to the senior management of the courts as well as to the director-general of the Ministry of Religious Services, as part of documents prepared for a government committee looking into conditions in the various court systems... Copies of the letter were made available to other people as well.
15 july 2019
Chief Rabbi of Safed Shmuel Eliyahu takes to social media, attacking the LGBTQ community for trying to silence those who don’t agree with them and claims the ‘only conversion that should be prohibited by law’ is gender reassignment surgery
A high-profile Israeli Orthodox rabbi has issued his support of the education minister who backed conversion therapy for gay people, and even went one step further by suggesting that sex change operations must be out outlawed.
Rafi Peretz caused an uproar on Saturday when he voiced his support for the controversial practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, drawing a disavowal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government’s religious-rightist tilt has worried liberals at home and backers abroad.
Chief Rabbi of Safed and a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council Shmuel Eliyahu on Sunday called on the public to “support normality, common sense” and “families consistent of a mother and a father.”
“If you want to live in a normal country where expressing a sane opinion is allowed, you have to hold the education minister’s hand,” Eliyahu, a prominent figure in the religious Zionist movement, wrote on his official Facebook page.
"Even if you are not religious and even if you belong to the LGBTQ community - If you want to live in a country of freedom and brotherhood instead of violence and intimidation - write posts supporting the education minister,” he said on his social media.
He went on to imply that gender reassignment surgery is a type of conversion therapy as well yet it’s deemed acceptable by the society. “If you want to interfere with people’s lives by passing a law against conversion, this is the conversion that should be prohibited by law," he said.
"The LGBTQ people who are protesting against the education minister wish to permit conversions by the means of surgery and steroids, which they want to be funded by the state and the IDF.
“They believe only their opinion is legitimate and it’s forbidden to express a different view. Anyone who expresses an opinion that’s different from theirs should be disqualified from public office, which is why they’re calling for the education minister to be fired,” he added.
A high-profile Israeli Orthodox rabbi has issued his support of the education minister who backed conversion therapy for gay people, and even went one step further by suggesting that sex change operations must be out outlawed.
Rafi Peretz caused an uproar on Saturday when he voiced his support for the controversial practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, drawing a disavowal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government’s religious-rightist tilt has worried liberals at home and backers abroad.
Chief Rabbi of Safed and a member of the Chief Rabbinate Council Shmuel Eliyahu on Sunday called on the public to “support normality, common sense” and “families consistent of a mother and a father.”
“If you want to live in a normal country where expressing a sane opinion is allowed, you have to hold the education minister’s hand,” Eliyahu, a prominent figure in the religious Zionist movement, wrote on his official Facebook page.
"Even if you are not religious and even if you belong to the LGBTQ community - If you want to live in a country of freedom and brotherhood instead of violence and intimidation - write posts supporting the education minister,” he said on his social media.
He went on to imply that gender reassignment surgery is a type of conversion therapy as well yet it’s deemed acceptable by the society. “If you want to interfere with people’s lives by passing a law against conversion, this is the conversion that should be prohibited by law," he said.
"The LGBTQ people who are protesting against the education minister wish to permit conversions by the means of surgery and steroids, which they want to be funded by the state and the IDF.
“They believe only their opinion is legitimate and it’s forbidden to express a different view. Anyone who expresses an opinion that’s different from theirs should be disqualified from public office, which is why they’re calling for the education minister to be fired,” he added.
14 july 2019
Rafi Peretz
Educators from the LGBTQ community send a letter to Rafi Peretz, who voiced his support controversial practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, saying they will fight his 'dangerous and offensive statements'
Israeli teachers from the LGBTQ community on Sunday sent a letter to the education minister, voicing their strong disapproval of his support for so-called gay “conversion therapy" and were to hold a demonstration calling for him to be fired.
Rafi Peretz on Saturday voiced support on Saturday for the controversial practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, drawing a disavowal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government’s religious-rightist tilt has worried liberals a home and backers abroad.
"We will use all legal means at our disposal to protest the education minister’s dangerous and offensive statements," said the teachers, who are expected to hold a protest on Sunday evening, urging the government to dismiss Peretz from his position.
“Support for conversion therapy endangers students from all sectors of Israeli society,” the teachers said in the letter. “We call on the education minister to retract his statement, to apologize and to prove that he is indeed worthy of being entrusted with educating our children.”
We - teachers from all over the country, from every political spectrum, from all sectors that make up the colorful mosaic of Israeli society - can’t back an education minister who expresses such opinions,” the teachers added.
Conversion therapy, an attempt to alter sexual orientation or gender identity through psychological, spiritual and, in extreme cases, physical means, has been widely discredited in the West and condemned by professional health associations such as the American Medical Association as potentially harmful.
Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi and head of the ultranationalist United Right party who assumed the education portfolio in the Netanyahu-led coalition last month, said in a television interview he believed conversion therapy can work.
“I have a very deep familiarity with the issue of education, and I have also done this,” he told Israel’s Channel 12 TV.
Giving an example of a gay person he said he had tended to, Peretz said: “First of all, I embraced him. I said very warm things to him. I told him, ‘Let’s think. Let’s study. And let’s contemplate.’ The objective is first of all for him to know himself well ... and then he will decide.”
The remarks sparked furor in Israel’s center-left opposition, which ahead of a September election has sought to cast Netanyahu as enabling Orthodox indoctrination in a country whose majority Jews mostly identify as secular or of less stringent religious observance.
Israel’s LGBTQ Task Force, an advocacy group, demanded Peretz be fired, saying in a statement his views were “benighted”.
Shortly after the interview aired at the end of the Jewish Sabbath, Netanyahu said he spoke to Peretz for “clarification”.
“The education minister’s remarks regarding the pride community are unacceptable to me and do not reflect the position of the government that I head,” the premier said in a statement.
It was the second flap Peretz had caused in less than a week, after Israeli media reported that he had told fellow Cabinet members on Tuesday that the intermarriage of Jews and gentiles in the Diaspora amounted to a “second Holocaust”.
The comparison stirred up anger among U.S. Jews, who are mostly non-Orthodox, and drew a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, which said such statements cheapened the Holocaust.
Speaking to Channel 12, Peretz described himself as striving to balance respect for others, no matter their sexual orientation, with his duties as a religious leader.
“I honor everyone as people. I admit that I, personally - I am a rabbi of Israel. Our Torah tells us other things. But that does not mean that I look about now and give them grades,” he said.
Educators from the LGBTQ community send a letter to Rafi Peretz, who voiced his support controversial practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, saying they will fight his 'dangerous and offensive statements'
Israeli teachers from the LGBTQ community on Sunday sent a letter to the education minister, voicing their strong disapproval of his support for so-called gay “conversion therapy" and were to hold a demonstration calling for him to be fired.
Rafi Peretz on Saturday voiced support on Saturday for the controversial practice of trying to change an individual's sexual orientation, drawing a disavowal from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government’s religious-rightist tilt has worried liberals a home and backers abroad.
"We will use all legal means at our disposal to protest the education minister’s dangerous and offensive statements," said the teachers, who are expected to hold a protest on Sunday evening, urging the government to dismiss Peretz from his position.
“Support for conversion therapy endangers students from all sectors of Israeli society,” the teachers said in the letter. “We call on the education minister to retract his statement, to apologize and to prove that he is indeed worthy of being entrusted with educating our children.”
We - teachers from all over the country, from every political spectrum, from all sectors that make up the colorful mosaic of Israeli society - can’t back an education minister who expresses such opinions,” the teachers added.
Conversion therapy, an attempt to alter sexual orientation or gender identity through psychological, spiritual and, in extreme cases, physical means, has been widely discredited in the West and condemned by professional health associations such as the American Medical Association as potentially harmful.
Peretz, an Orthodox rabbi and head of the ultranationalist United Right party who assumed the education portfolio in the Netanyahu-led coalition last month, said in a television interview he believed conversion therapy can work.
“I have a very deep familiarity with the issue of education, and I have also done this,” he told Israel’s Channel 12 TV.
Giving an example of a gay person he said he had tended to, Peretz said: “First of all, I embraced him. I said very warm things to him. I told him, ‘Let’s think. Let’s study. And let’s contemplate.’ The objective is first of all for him to know himself well ... and then he will decide.”
The remarks sparked furor in Israel’s center-left opposition, which ahead of a September election has sought to cast Netanyahu as enabling Orthodox indoctrination in a country whose majority Jews mostly identify as secular or of less stringent religious observance.
Israel’s LGBTQ Task Force, an advocacy group, demanded Peretz be fired, saying in a statement his views were “benighted”.
Shortly after the interview aired at the end of the Jewish Sabbath, Netanyahu said he spoke to Peretz for “clarification”.
“The education minister’s remarks regarding the pride community are unacceptable to me and do not reflect the position of the government that I head,” the premier said in a statement.
It was the second flap Peretz had caused in less than a week, after Israeli media reported that he had told fellow Cabinet members on Tuesday that the intermarriage of Jews and gentiles in the Diaspora amounted to a “second Holocaust”.
The comparison stirred up anger among U.S. Jews, who are mostly non-Orthodox, and drew a rebuke from the Anti-Defamation League, which said such statements cheapened the Holocaust.
Speaking to Channel 12, Peretz described himself as striving to balance respect for others, no matter their sexual orientation, with his duties as a religious leader.
“I honor everyone as people. I admit that I, personally - I am a rabbi of Israel. Our Torah tells us other things. But that does not mean that I look about now and give them grades,” he said.
10 july 2019
Carmel Shama-Hacohen and Yaakov Litzman
Leaders of United Torah Judaism party say Carmel Shama-Hacohen will 'pay a heavy price' for allowing shuttle services along the central city's throughways on the Jewish holy day
The ultra-Orthodox are furious over the decision to allow public transportation on Saturdays in Ramat Gan, warning the central Israeli city’s mayor will “pay a heavy price” for allowing the move to go ahead.
The Ramat Gan city council on Tuesday approved plans to allow shuttle services along the city’s major throughways on Shabbat - the Jewish holy day. The move prompted members of the ultra-Orthodox political party - United Torah Judaism - to issue a statement condemning the decision and attacking the city’s mayor, Carmel Shama-Hacohen.
"Motivated by selfish interests and searching for publicity, the mayor has crossed the red line, thus staining the city of Ramat Gan with the destruction of religious values and the sanctity of Shabbat,” said the United Torah Judaism leaders, MK Yaakov Litzman and MK Moshe Gafni, in a joint statement.
“Carmel Shama will pay a heavy political price for this blatant move,” Deputy Health Minister MK Yaakov Litzman and Knesset Finance Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafni said.
The party leaders went on to describe the decision as “shameful and disgraceful” that violates the status quo and ignores the feelings of “tens of thousands” of Ramat Gan residents who observe Shabbat.
They also criticized Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein for giving the city councils authority over the issue of public transportation on weekends. "United Torah Judaism will work with legal experts to prevent the implementation of the disgraceful decision to harm the holy day of Shabbat and the status quo."
Shama-Hacohen said he’s “not bothered” by the fact the decision paints him in a negative light in the eyes of the religious public.
“It’s my responsibility … I meet with the city’s religious public and go to synagogues and none of the people whom I've met, have disagreed with Tuesday’s decision,” the mayor said.
“The people tell me what’s been happening in Ramat Gan over the last seven months since I became mayor is something they’ve never seen before,” he added.
Leaders of United Torah Judaism party say Carmel Shama-Hacohen will 'pay a heavy price' for allowing shuttle services along the central city's throughways on the Jewish holy day
The ultra-Orthodox are furious over the decision to allow public transportation on Saturdays in Ramat Gan, warning the central Israeli city’s mayor will “pay a heavy price” for allowing the move to go ahead.
The Ramat Gan city council on Tuesday approved plans to allow shuttle services along the city’s major throughways on Shabbat - the Jewish holy day. The move prompted members of the ultra-Orthodox political party - United Torah Judaism - to issue a statement condemning the decision and attacking the city’s mayor, Carmel Shama-Hacohen.
"Motivated by selfish interests and searching for publicity, the mayor has crossed the red line, thus staining the city of Ramat Gan with the destruction of religious values and the sanctity of Shabbat,” said the United Torah Judaism leaders, MK Yaakov Litzman and MK Moshe Gafni, in a joint statement.
“Carmel Shama will pay a heavy political price for this blatant move,” Deputy Health Minister MK Yaakov Litzman and Knesset Finance Committee Chairman MK Moshe Gafni said.
The party leaders went on to describe the decision as “shameful and disgraceful” that violates the status quo and ignores the feelings of “tens of thousands” of Ramat Gan residents who observe Shabbat.
They also criticized Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein for giving the city councils authority over the issue of public transportation on weekends. "United Torah Judaism will work with legal experts to prevent the implementation of the disgraceful decision to harm the holy day of Shabbat and the status quo."
Shama-Hacohen said he’s “not bothered” by the fact the decision paints him in a negative light in the eyes of the religious public.
“It’s my responsibility … I meet with the city’s religious public and go to synagogues and none of the people whom I've met, have disagreed with Tuesday’s decision,” the mayor said.
“The people tell me what’s been happening in Ramat Gan over the last seven months since I became mayor is something they’ve never seen before,” he added.
Spokesman for Rafi Peretz confirms the leader of a religious nationalist party and an Orthodox rabbi said 'assimilation is like the Holocaust' during a recent cabinet meeting
The new education minister has likened intermarriage among North American Jews to the Holocaust in a recent cabinet meeting.
A spokesman for Education Minister Rafi Peretz confirmed Tuesday that Peretz said that “assimilation is like the Holocaust” in a July 1 session.
Peretz is leader of a religious nationalist political party and former chief rabbi of the Israeli military.
Much of the American Jewish community abides by more liberal streams of Judaism, whereas Orthodoxy prevails among Israeli Jews.
Relations between North American Jews and the Israeli government have been strained in recent years after plans for a mixed-gender prayer area at the Western Wall were scrapped in 2017, and over differing opinions about President Donald Trump.
The 63-year-old Orthodox rabbi is no stranger to controversy.
Two months ago the Jewish Home leader refused to give a speech to a group of girls from a women’s Orthodox seminary ahead of their IDF enlistment, demonstrating a disagreement on the issue of drafting women into military with his predecessor (who served as an education minister and headed the Jewish Home) Naftali Bennett.
The new education minister has likened intermarriage among North American Jews to the Holocaust in a recent cabinet meeting.
A spokesman for Education Minister Rafi Peretz confirmed Tuesday that Peretz said that “assimilation is like the Holocaust” in a July 1 session.
Peretz is leader of a religious nationalist political party and former chief rabbi of the Israeli military.
Much of the American Jewish community abides by more liberal streams of Judaism, whereas Orthodoxy prevails among Israeli Jews.
Relations between North American Jews and the Israeli government have been strained in recent years after plans for a mixed-gender prayer area at the Western Wall were scrapped in 2017, and over differing opinions about President Donald Trump.
The 63-year-old Orthodox rabbi is no stranger to controversy.
Two months ago the Jewish Home leader refused to give a speech to a group of girls from a women’s Orthodox seminary ahead of their IDF enlistment, demonstrating a disagreement on the issue of drafting women into military with his predecessor (who served as an education minister and headed the Jewish Home) Naftali Bennett.
6 july 2019
From left to right: Otzma Yehudit members Baruch Marzel, Michael Ben Ari, Rabbi Dov Lior and Itamar Ben Gvir at the extremist party's campaign launch in Jerusalem on July 4, 2019
Far-right Israeli faction Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) has launched its election campaign by calling for the expulsion of Palestinians to what he described as their “countries of origin”.
Otzma Yehudit launched its campaign in Jerusalem yesterday, ahead of Israel’s general election, which will be held on September 17 after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a ruling coalition, following his re-election on April 9.
Party head Michael Ben Ari told the audience that, “we want to resettle our enemies in their countries […] we’ll give them a bottle of mineral water and even a sandwich. We’ll find them countries of origin they can go to.”
Otzma Yehudit has a history of anti-Palestinian incitement, and had previously called for the expulsion of Palestinians from both Israel and the West Bank.
Its members are followers of extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was banned from the Knesset in the 1980s. Kahane’s ideology also inspired Baruch Goldstein’s 1994 massacre at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque, which left 29 Muslim worshippers dead and scores wounded.
In March, WAFA further reports, Israel’s Central Elections Committee mulled barring Otzma Yehudit from contesting April’s election due to its anti-Palestinian rhetoric, with the Supreme Court eventually deciding only to ban Ben Ari from the list of candidates.
The party head slammed this decision at yesterday’s campaign launch, saying “they told us this [rhetoric] is racist […] they said they disqualified me for this”.
Far-right Israeli faction Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) has launched its election campaign by calling for the expulsion of Palestinians to what he described as their “countries of origin”.
Otzma Yehudit launched its campaign in Jerusalem yesterday, ahead of Israel’s general election, which will be held on September 17 after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a ruling coalition, following his re-election on April 9.
Party head Michael Ben Ari told the audience that, “we want to resettle our enemies in their countries […] we’ll give them a bottle of mineral water and even a sandwich. We’ll find them countries of origin they can go to.”
Otzma Yehudit has a history of anti-Palestinian incitement, and had previously called for the expulsion of Palestinians from both Israel and the West Bank.
Its members are followers of extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was banned from the Knesset in the 1980s. Kahane’s ideology also inspired Baruch Goldstein’s 1994 massacre at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque, which left 29 Muslim worshippers dead and scores wounded.
In March, WAFA further reports, Israel’s Central Elections Committee mulled barring Otzma Yehudit from contesting April’s election due to its anti-Palestinian rhetoric, with the Supreme Court eventually deciding only to ban Ben Ari from the list of candidates.
The party head slammed this decision at yesterday’s campaign launch, saying “they told us this [rhetoric] is racist […] they said they disqualified me for this”.
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