Netanyahu's 'Justice' Minister: Talmudic Law Should Be Binding In Israeli State

Israel's Justice Minister: Jewish Law Should be Binding

By Yair Ettinger - Haaretz

December 8, 2009

Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman on Monday said he believes Jewish law (Halakha) should be the binding law in Israel, Army Radio reported.

“Step by step, we will bestow upon the citizens of Israel the laws of the Torah and we will turn Halakha into the binding law of the nation,” said Neeman at a Jewish law convention at the Regency hotel in Jerusalem, in the presence of many rabbis and rabbinical judges.

“We must bring back the heritage of our fathers to the nation of Israel,” Neeman said. “The Torah has the complete solution to all of the questions we are dealing with,” he added.

However, Neeman’s statements during the conference were received with applauds from participants, among them Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

Other guests at the event included Likud MK Yisrael Katz, Interior Minister Eli Yishai and Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger.

full article:

http://www.forward.com/articles/120475/

Also see:

The World's Most Kosher Army

The World's Most Kosher Army

Witness the piety of the 'Israel' 'Defense' Force command: pious in their enforcement of Talmudic Sabbath laws and pious in their Talmudic slaughter of non-Judaic civilians.

"The laws of Shabbat are like mountains suspended by a hair."

Soldier sent to detention for cooking on Shabbat after cat ate his meal

Kfir brigade soldier about to eat Shabbat meal finds out a cat has 'tasted' their meal. Soldier offers to cook new meal, gets caught, sentenced to 20 days in detention for violating IDF rules

Hanan Greenberg
Published: 12.02.09 / Israel News

A combat soldier from the Nahshon battalion was sentenced to 20 days in detention, after he found out a stray cat "tasted" his Shabbat meal and decided to cook a new meal, despite IDF's strict orders that forbid cooking on the holy day.

Last weekend, the soldier and his friends, who serve with the Kfir division, entered the base's dining room, and intended to eat from a pot of cholent (meat stew) that was cooked according to the Shabbat regulations.

However, before they managed to dig in, the soldiers were surprised to discover that a cat ate out of the pot. The soldier, who refused to eat from the tainted pot, offered instead to make a light meal for him and his friends.

As his luck would have it, during the meal preparations, one of the kitchen's staff arrived and instructed the soldier to stop cooking immediately.

Details of the incident were handed over to the battalion commander, who decided to put the soldier on trial and sentenced him to 20 days in detention for violating IDF orders.

"There are clear orders about observing the Shabbat, and even if the food was inedible there are other options to get food without desecration of the Sabbath," said IDF sources.

The soldier's battalion friends, who expressed discontent with the harsh punishment, claimed the soldier "did not mean to disrespect anyone; he only wanted to make a meal – a symbolic punishment would have been sufficient."

IDF's Spokesperson office said in response: "This is a case of a soldier which was sentenced to detention due to disorderly conduct and violation of IDF rules. The soldier has been known to have disciplinary problems in the past."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3814139,00.html

also see:

Benedict Cites Talmud Approvingly, Suggests Jesus Acted in Accordance with it

Robert Sungenis Writes ...

The Gaza Massacre was Perpetrated by a Religious Extremist Terrorist Organization

"The percentage of religious men among the senior IDF officers grew exponentially in the past decade. By 2005, half of the junior command and approximately 30 percent of the senior officers were religious, and, for the first time in Israel’s history, four members of the general staff wore skullcaps." (Yoram Peri, "Land versus State: Israel and its Army after the Disengagement")

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=154

The booklets distributed by the Israel Defense Forces rabbinate during the combat in Gaza, which Amos Harel wrote about in Haaretz yesterday ("IDF rabbi told troops fighting in Gaza: We must not cede a single inch of Israel), and the "Jewish Awareness" publications distributed by IDF Chief Rabbi Avichai Rontzki, prove once again that the rabbi is giving his position a new and alarming interpretation ... Rontzki distributes sermons written by Rabbi Shlomo Aviner that preach ... the killing of civilians ... In such an atmosphere, it is no wonder that extreme right-wing organizations are also smuggling into IDF bases sermons by Yitzhak Ginsburg, the rabbi of the yeshiva at Joseph's Tomb. Ginsburg wrote the book "Baruch Hagever," which praises the massacre by Baruch Goldstein against Arabs in the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994, and he is considered the spiritual mentor of the most violent and extremist settlers. Thus, under the aegis of the army's chief rabbi, IDF soldiers are being exposed to chauvinist and racist incitement ... ("A rabbinate gone wild," Haaretz, Jan 27, 2009)

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1059124.html

Orthodox [Judaic] soldiers are among the most motivated personnel in the IDF, with disproportionately high numbers volunteering for elite combat units and reserve duty, according to experts ... (Jerusalem Post, Matthew Wagner and Yaakov Katz, Aug. 6, 2007)

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1186066390493

"When there is a clash between a directive in the spirit of the [IDF ethical] code and an order of Jewish law, it is clear that one must listen to the opinion of Jewish law." (IDF Chief Rabbi, Colonel Rabbi Avi Ronsky as quoted in Haaretz, Feb. 21, 2006)

http://web.archive.org/web/20060225225238/http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/685158.html

"Part of my job as the chief military rabbi, perhaps the central part, is to reconnect the soldiers with the values of Judaism." (IDF Chief Rabbi, Colonel Rabbi Avi Ronsky, By Ariela Ringel-Hoffman - YNet, Oct 17, 2006)

http://www.shechem.org/interact/publish/article_233.shtml

IDF's fervently Orthodox unit
is seeking a few good men

By Tom Tugend Published: 04/30/2007

An Israeli infantry battalion of fervently Orthodox soldiers plans to launch an advertising campaign this summer in major Jewish newspapers in the United States and Britain seeking more foreign recruits ...

"I love the fact that I can fully live out my Jewish values while at the same time protecting Israel," Taylor says ...

Theoretically, any man -- no women, of course -- who meets these basic criteria can join the battalion, but in practice some 70 percent come from fervently Orthodox homes in Bnei Brak and other haredi enclaves.

Time is set aside for daily Talmud study and the food is glatt kosher. No women are allowed on the Jordan Valley base, but on Shabbat married soldiers can meet their wives outside the base.

"Nahal Haredi has the highest proportion of Diaspora volunteers of any Israeli unit," Klebanow said. "They come to us with high motivation, and many subsequently make aliyah. Sometimes they are more Zionistic than native-born Israelis." ...

"Our enemies learn one way, and the one and only way is through the language of war and the language of the sword."

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/news/article/20070430idfharedicampaign.html


Inside the IDF Photo Essay: Purim in the IDF

Xavier University Gets Even More Kosher

Rabbi Abie Ingber installed a menorah at the Vatican in 1999 on the pagan feast day of Holocaustolatry, "Yom ha Shoah," which is said to still be where he left it. Last year Rabbi Ingber proclaimed that he was involved in an effort to move Judeo-Catholic bridge-building beyond the clergy and “into the pews.” Xavier University is now paying Rabbi Ingber to do just that. Rabbi Ingber was already a director at Xavier University's Hillel Jewish Student Center. Hillels on college campuses function as the student arm of the Judaic Freemasonic B'nai B'rith.

Rabbi Ingber Going To Work At Xavier University

After 32 years in the same job, a local Rabbi is taking on a new challenge.

Rabbi Abie Ingber has retired as Director of the Hillel Jewish Student Center in Cincinnati for a position at Xavier University.

Rabbi Ingber will be the founding Director of Interfaith Community Engagement at Xavier.

In October of last year, Ingber went to Rome for the first Lay Conference on Catholic-Jewish Relations.

http://www.wcpo.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=e79a48f7-7416-4c16-8907-c1e73febb975

The Kosher State of Catholic Teaching Material According to the Man who Kosher Slaughtered it

Today, you can’t read two consecutive chapters in any Catholic religious education textbook without talking about Jews and Judaism. That is buttressed by the history of Catholics and Jews in the United States. It was not incidental that the agenda of the American bishops going into the Second Vatican Council, as well as coming out of it, was religious liberty, ecumenism and Catholic-Jewish relations. (Eugene Fisher, interviewed in National Catholic Reporter, February 23, 2007)

http://www.centerforcatholicjewishstudies.org/Archives/ncr02_23_07.htm

see:

http://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2007/05/scoundrel-eugene-fisher-to-retire.html

Barack Obama: Certified Kosher

A variant of the email spoken of below was circulated among "trads" I'm sorry to say. I'm even more sorry to have to say that this comes as no surprise.

From the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot:

Jewish groups condemn attacks on Obama

Yitzhak Benhorin

01.16.08, Yediot Aharonot

Leaders of the Jewish organizations in the United States issued a joint letter Tuesday night condemning the email being distributed both in Hebrew and in English attacking Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

In the email, Obama is depicted as a Muslim pretending to be a Christian and seeking to take over the White House and handing it over to the control of al-Qaeda.

In an open letter to the Jewish community, the leaders said that they would not endorse or oppose any candidate for president, but felt compelled to speak out against "certain rhetoric and tactics in the current campaign that we find particularly abhorrent".

"Of particular concern, over the past several weeks, many in our community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo to mischaracterize Senator Barack Obama's religious beliefs and who he is as a person."

The letter was signed by Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League; William Daroff, vice president of the United Jewish Communities; David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee; Nathan J. Diament, director of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America; Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center; Richard S. Gordon, president of the American Jewish Congress; Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Phyllis Snyder, president of the National Council of Jewish Women; and Hadar Susskind, Washington director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs ...

Full article:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3494849,00.html

China Goes Kosher

The rabbis and their kosher racket: a "solution" in need of a problem, and a dumb goy population to finance it.

China Goes Kosher as Exporters Use Rabbis to Reassure Consumers

By Mark Drajem

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Chinese exporters, facing a U.S. backlash over tainted food products, are turning to an unlikely group of inspectors to help clean up their act: Jewish rabbis.

Kosher certifications by rabbis have doubled to more than 300 in China in the past two years, according to the Orthodox Union, a New York-based organization that does inspections. The group expects thousands more plants to get certified in the next few years, covering everything from spices and chemical additives to frozen berries, sliced garlic and beef.

Chinese exporters, eager to gain access to the $11.5 billion U.S. kosher market, had already begun seeking the certifications before the uproar over contaminated seafood, toothpaste and pet food began last year. Now, after a rush of recalls, the rabbis say the companies are paying for the inspections to ease growing concern among U.S. consumers about imports from China.

``When we certify a product, consumers know there is another pair of eyes'' on it, said Mordechai Grunberg, an American rabbi whose seven-member team examines Chinese factories, scans company books, and even drops in for surprise inspections to ensure the biblical dietary laws are followed.


... Fully half the Chinese exports to the U.S. of $2.5 billion a year in food ingredients, such as coloring agents and preservatives, are kosher, up 150 percent from two years ago, the Orthodox Union estimates.

``We are experiencing phenomenal growth,'' said Rabbi Moshe Elefant, chief operating officer of the kosher-certification body.

While the rabbis see to it that the products adhere to such laws as prohibitions on pork and the mixing of meat and dairy,they don't perform scientific food-safety tests.

``There is definitely marketing power to have a kosher symbol on products,'' said Mark Overland, who directs the kosher and organic department at Cargill Inc., the largest U.S. agricultural company. ``But it would be a misnomer to equate kosher with food safety.''

Many consumers disagree. Buyers of kosher products -- the majority of whom in the U.S. are non-Jews -- are seeking healthy and safe products, according to a 2005 survey by Lubicom, a marketing firm specializing in kosher products ...


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a9Eb.vP.8FjU&refer=asia

Everything's Kosher in Washington D.C.

Mrs. Laura Bush joins Rabbi Mendel Minkowitz, left, Rabbi Hillel Baron and Rabbi Binyomin Taub, right, during the koshering of the White House kitchen Monday, Dec. 10, 2007, in anticipation of Monday night's lighting of the Menorah and Hanukah reception. White House photo by Chris Greenberg

G. W. Bush sez: "The Talmud instructs families to place the menorah in public view -- so the entire world can see its light."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071210-3.html

Indeed, no one can accuse G. W. Bush of failing to uphold this Talmudic mandate:

Rabbi Rosen of AJC Reassures "World Jewry" on Vatican Compliance

Jul. 14, 2007 22:56 | Updated Jul. 15, 2007 9:04

Mix realism with humility

By DAVID ROSEN

The directive issued this week by Pope Benedict XVI concerning the use of the traditional Catholic Latin (Tridentine) Mass has led to some extreme reactions. As a result there have been suggestions, echoed uncritically in the media, that there is some kind of new Catholic initiative for the conversion of Jews, and that Jewish-Catholic relations are regressing.

This is completely incorrect.

To begin with, the pope has reiterated time and again his commitment to close, respectful relations with Judaism and the Jewish people, which he has reemphasized as unique for the church, as Judaism and the Jewish people are its very foundations. He has already received numerous Jewish leadership groups, and began to do so even before receiving Protestant groups, let alone delegations from other religions.

The Catholic Church has rejected proselytism and since the second Vatican Ecumenical Council in the sixties has abandoned any institutional "mission to the Jews."

The church has not changed its position on these matters ...

We [at the American Jewish Committee] received reassurances in the course of the past months from the Vatican, and in the Pope's guidelines there is in fact a restriction on the use of the Latin Mass during the days preceding Easter, which is when the prayer for the conversion of the Jews was recited. Yet it is not clear how extensive this limitation is, and we have accordingly asked the Vatican to issue a clarification that we hope will confirm that there is no official warrant whatsoever for reciting that text ...

THE CATHOLIC Church has a commission to promote relations with World Jewry. Its primary partner is the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, which I chair. It also has a Bilateral Commission with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, which meets regularly and has further strengthened ties between Israel and the Vatican. Next year's Synod of Bishops will focus on the way Scripture should be taught and preached in order to avoid any anti-Semitic or anti-Judaic prejudices.

All this shows that we have made enormous strides in these bilateral relations ... (Rabbi David Rosen, International Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee, Jerusalem Post July 14, 2007)

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184168563451&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

"Jews" warn Pope over Latin Mass

EDITOR'S NOTE: The expected Motu Proprio pertaining to the traditional Latin Mass, if it ever comes, will be kosher. Solve et Coagula.

Jews warn Pope over Latin Mass

By Marc Shoffman - Tuesday 1st of May 2007

Jewish campaigners this week expressed concerns over relations with the Roman Catholic Church as they awaited a papal decree which could approve prayers calling on Jews to convert.

Conservative Catholics have urged Pope Benedict XVII to bring back the traditional Latin Mass, a Good Friday liturgy including prayers for Jews to follow Jesus Christ.

The controversial prayer, which was outlawed by the Vatican in the 1960s, reads: “Let us pray also for the Jews, that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ."

It was dropped as part of a move to improve relations between Catholics and Jews in 1965 but the Vatican is now considering reintroducing it to create greater unity within the Church and with conservative bishops.

The Latin Mass, however, could be reintroduced excluding the controversial segment.

Interfaith workers have contacted the Vatican raising concerns about the language in the prayer. The International Council for Christians and Jews wrote to the Vatican describing the paragraph as "profoundly demeaning."

A decision was expected on Monday but has now been delayed. [Papal Knight] Rabbi David Rosen president of the International Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations said no news is good news.

He told TJ: “It is a reflection of the Pope’s desire to create greater unity in the church, the intention is not to set the clock back. We are alerting the Vatican that elements of the prayer provide implications for Catholic and Jewish relations.”

Edward Kessler, Executive Director of the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations recently raised concerns about faith relations after the Pope failed to question an Easter sermon by Vatican official Raniero Cantalamessa which focused on Jewish complicity in the death of Jesus.

Writing in Catholic newspaper, The Tablet, Kessler said: “It generated no contradictory response, even though it was published in the official Vatican press.”

He told TJ: “If the Latin Mass is reintroduced it will change relations between Christians and Jews.”

Sir Sigmund Sternberg, who has been named a papal knight by the Vatican, said he would raise the issue with the pontiff when he meets him next month, but he quashed concerns that the prayer would be introduced. He said: “I don’t think this will happen, our relationship with the Catholics is a good one.” [for who?]

The Vatican said it is still awaiting the Pope’s final decision.

Meanwhile, the Vatican has placed the issue of fighting anti-semitism high on its agenda for an international Roman Catholic conference next year. It includes a questionnaire for bishops to examine “attitudes of anti-semitism” in biblical passages in their church.


http://www.totallyjewish.com/news/world/?content_id=6170

Kosher Catholic Exegesis

EDITORS NOTE: Since the rabbis have only one flimsy document, Nostra Aetate, to build their Noachide church upon, others must be created.

Synod outline says Bible is source of Christian unity, bond with Jews

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The Bible is a source of Christian unity and is evidence of Christianity's special bond with the Jewish people, said the outline for the next world Synod of Bishops.

The theme of the synod, scheduled Oct. 5-26, 2008, will be: "The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church."

... Christianity and Judaism are "grounded in the same covenant, because God, who is always faithful to his promises, has not revoked the first covenant" with the Jewish people, it said.

Croatian Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, told reporters, "We would be happy if everyone said this is no longer a problem, but it is a question that must be asked."

"Our relationship with the Jewish people is very special, and we hope every shadow of anti-Semitism has disappeared," he said.

The archbishop said his office had not begun drawing up a list of the guests who will be invited to the synod, but he did not rule out the possibility of inviting a Jewish representative along with the delegates from other Christian churches. Such guests participate but do not vote at the synods.

Full Article:

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0702368.htm


The outline specifically asked bishops to report on any incidents in which the Scriptures are misused "to ferment attitudes of anti-Semitism," a problem usually associated with readings about the passion of Jesus and the role of the Jewish leaders of his time.

Fighting anti-Semitism will be among issues discussed at the world summit of Catholic bishops next year, according to The Associated Press. Pope Benedict XVI has recently approved a 60-page document that asks bishops to examine sacred texts and how they may be misconstrued to promote anti-Jewish sentiments.
Full Article:

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/living/17167318.htm

The need to step up the fight against anti-Semitism will be a key issue for the world's Roman Catholic bishops at a meeting at the Vatican next year.

An entire section of a preparatory document released by the Vatican on Friday is devoted to the Church's relationship with Jews, noting the "close associations of the two in faith" and calling for efforts "to overcome every form of anti-Semitism."

The 60-page document, which was approved by Pope Benedict XVI, outlines the suggested topics and includes a questionnaire to be answered by local bishops.

After asking if priority is given to dialogue with the Jews, the questionnaire calls on bishops to investigate the use of biblical texts to "ferment attitudes of anti-Semitism."

"Much has already been done, but everything must be done to dispel every shadow," the
synod's general-secretary, Bishop Nikola Eterovic, said during a news conference to present the agenda for the October 2008 meeting.

Full Article:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3393155,00.html

No reciprocal effort from the rabbis is planned, of course.

Benedict's Kosher Via Crucis

Pope makes Nazi atrocities part of Stations of the Cross

Pope speaks of Nazi atrocities in Easter ritual
By Malcolm Moore in Rome
April 7, 2007 Daily Telegraph (UK)

The Pope shocked many Catholics last night with a dramatically revised version of the Stations of the Cross, one of the central rituals of the Easter ceremony. The ceremony, also known as the Via Crucis, recreates Jesus's path on the day of his death from the Antonia fortress to Golgotha, where he was crucified.

The Pope carried the cross for the first and last of the 14 stops on a candle-lit procession around the Coliseum in Rome. However, this year the Pope chose to change both the route and the content of the ceremony. The Vatican said the changes were designed to reflect the gospels more truly and to link Jesus's suffering with the suffering of mankind today.

One of the boldest changes came on the third stop, where Jesus is given up to Pontius Pilate by the Sanhedrin, a council of Jews. The Pope recalled the sentence that was passed over the Jews by the Nazis, and their suffering in concentration camps. He quoted Etty Hilesum, a Dutch Jew, who was executed in Auschwitz in 1943, saying: "We must oppose every new horror and crime with a new piece of the truth and goodness. We may suffer, but we must not succumb."

Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, the prefect of the Ambrosian Library in Milan and a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, was asked by the Pope to update the ceremony. He said: "I did not want the ceremony just to be a simple recollection of a past event. I wanted worshippers to feel and live through the raw and bitter reality like a neighbour."

The new changes also included cutting the stop where Jesus drops the Cross, as well as a reference to St Veronica, who mopped Jesus's brow. St Veronica is merely apocryphal and not mentioned in the gospels.

However, a reference to Judas Iscariot was inserted for the first time because, in the words of Mgr Ravasi, "dawn follows night, out of darkness comes light, and after betrayal comes penitence." Later, on the ninth stop, where Jesus met a group of women, the Pope spoke out against the suffering of "violated" women. He recalled the women "who have been subjected to tribal practices", the mothers in crisis and alone, "the Jewish or Palestinian mothers and those in all lands ravaged by war, the widows and old ladies forgotten by their children".The ceremony ended with St Matthew's Passion by Bach.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/07/weaster07.xml

also see:

Kosher Catholicism