She’s part of an administration founded on backward steps.
So where’s the news?
See tagline....
Ping for your list, SJ.
The list, ping
INN news Arutz Sheva 02/11/09/Cheshvan15,1570 HORSESheet US Report Criticizes Israel's Jewish Character
by Hillel Fendel Follow Israel news
(IsraelNN.com) In its 2009 International Religious Freedoms Report, the U.S. State Department accuses Israel of “governmental and legal discrimination against non-Jews and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism.” The JewishIsrael organization, in its review of the document, calls it a “protracted denunciation against Israel’s Jewish character.”
The State Department report, released last week, analyzes religious freedoms in many countries of the world, and its section on Israel is entitled Israel and the Occupied Territories; the text explains that “Occupied Territories” includes “areas subject to the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority.”
JewishIsrael is an interactive internet portal that “provides a platform for ongoing monitoring and pro-active responses to aggressive missionary campaigns now targeting Jews for conversion in the Jewish State.”
“A disproportionate amount of the [State Department] report,” JewishIsrael notes, “is dedicated to depicting Torah traditions and Orthodox Judaism as oppressive, and to reporting on Israel’s ‘growing’ but ‘harassed’ community of apostate Jews and Christian missionaries.”
The report emphasizes, “Proselytizing is legal in the country and missionaries of all religious groups are allowed to proselytize all citizens.” It then criticizes Israeli “society” by reporting, “Society's attitudes toward missionary activities and conversion generally were negative. Most Jews were opposed to missionary activity directed at Jews and some were hostile to Jewish converts to Christianity.” Though this sentence merely describes the natural attitude of Jews living in the Jewish State after centuries of religious persecution, the implication is one of criticism.
The report notes that 56 percent of the public describes itself as traditional or religious, and that most of the remainder also “observe some Jewish traditions.” Despite this, it also includes the following statements of criticism:
“The Government implements some policies based on Orthodox Jewish interpretations of religious law which thereby discriminates against citizens adhering to other religious groups.”>/p>
“The Orthodox Jewish establishment also determines who is buried in Jewish state cemeteries, limiting this right to individuals considered Jewish by Orthodox standards.”
“Jews in most professions were prohibited from working on the Sabbath unless granted a special permit by the Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Labor.”
“In order to marry in government-recognized ceremonies, Jews had to undergo marriage counseling administered by the Orthodox religious authorities.”
“The Interior Ministry distinguishes between Jews and non-Jews on identification cards by printing the birth date of Jews in Hebrew letters according to the Jewish calendar while listing that of others according to the Gregorian calendar.”
Critical of Western Wall Prayers The report is critical of prayer customs at the Western Wall, second in Jewish sanctity only to the Temple Mount just above it. The report states:
“Governmental authorities prohibit mixed gender prayer services at religious sites in deference to the belief of most Orthodox Jews that such services violate the precepts of Judaism. At the Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism [sic], men and women must use separate areas to visit and pray. Women also are not allowed to conduct prayers at the Western Wall while wearing prayer shawls, which are typically worn by Jewish men, and are not permitted to read from Torah scrolls.” The report quoted that Jerusalem Institute of Justice (JIJ) as “alleg[ing] that the Interior Ministry refused to process immigration applications from persons entitled to citizenship under the Law of Return if it was determined such persons held Christian or Messianic Jewish religious beliefs.”
According to the State Department, the JIJ filed a petition to Israel’s High Court in May of this year on behalf of three Messianic Jews whose application for immigration was blocked by the Ministry of Interior. They cited an April 2008 High Court ruling according to which a person eligible to immigrate under the Law of Return could not be denied immigration rights on the basis of his identification as a Messianic Jew. “The case was ongoing at the end of the reporting period,” the report noted.
Ehh read the rest in the klink. We as Americans if we truly LOVE our Israeli friends( of which I am partially Hebrew) MUST quit sticking their mealy mouthed fingers in the EYES OF G!D and G!D's land that stretches from the great river to the Euphrates...even so come Lord Jesus.
I’d say it’s a forward step. Now she ought to resign in a huff and write a letter of protest, saying that the settlements are the true road to peace, and that the more there are, the merrier, that Israel should kick Fatah out of Ramallah as soon as possible, and never negotiate with the PLO again, and that the piece process Barry favors is nothing more than a recipe for disaster, and a repetition of the failed policies of the past 30 years. That would be an even further step forward, although I’d still never consider voting for the b*(#.