But a community that directs its men to life-long study while its women are tasked with child rearing and providing an income for the household is doomed to live in poverty.

Israel's new government is redefining 'religion and state' 

 

Opinion: The capitulation of the former Netanyahu administration to the demands of Haredi politicians presented the country with economic and societal threats that the new coalition must take steps to reduce if it hopes to retain its legitimacy to lead

Perhaps the most prominent change between Israel's previous government and the new one is in its approach to matters of religion.

 

It is not a tactical shift in policy or the result of political or personal whims. The new government is changing strategy, dictated by the reality of life in Israel.

 

HAREDI JEWS AT THEIR HOLIEST TEMPLE IN JUDAISM

 

HAREDI KNESSET MEMBERS ON LUNCH BREAK

The previous government's extensive capitulation to the demands of the ultra-Orthodox parties presented Israel with two existential threats: one economic and the other societal.

 

The economic threat stems from the insistence of Haredi political leaders to perpetuate the state-financed yeshiva study adopted by Israel in the years after the Holocaust, when European Hassidic Judaism seemed in danger of disappearing altogether. 

 

But a community that directs its men to life-long study while its women are tasked with child rearing and providing an income for the household is doomed to live in poverty.

 

The victims are first and foremost the members of the Haredi communities themselves, of course. 

 

But the economic impact has spread to the entire population, which is required to subsidize an unproductive sector of Israeli society - an increasingly difficult and expensive task.

 

The societal threat comes from the clash between the conservative ultra-Orthodox worldview and secular Israel.

 

Haredi communities are hermetically sealed off from other sectors of society, even when they live in the same cities.

 

When a member of such a community ventures out into the world, they arrive with demands for their religious needs to be accommodated, most prominently separation of the sexes. 

 

Haredi men do not see images of women in the public sphere and women are even absent from advertisements on city buses and billboards in their communities.

 

This fact alone prevents ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis from sharing the same public spaces even as their political leaders often work together to further mutual interests.

 

But now Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's government has announced a series of reforms that would lead to the privatization of Israel’s kosher certification process in order to increase competition in a field currently monopolized by the ultra-Orthodox Chief Rabbinate.

 

The announcement was met with fury from the Rabbinate, which has control over all aspects of Jewish life in Israel. 

 

But the Rabbinate cannot have sole authority unless it moves to represent a majority of Israeli society and the ultra-Orthodox alone do not determine who receives kosher certification and who is deemed as a successful convert to Judaism.

 

United Torah Judaism leader Yaakov Litzman, Shas chair Aryeh Deri and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a meeting of the previous cabinet

Now that some ultra-Orthodox politicians are coming to terms with the fact that their benefactor, former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is about to return to power, some are considering how best to promote dialogue with the new administration.

 

They also understand that if such a dialogue is allowed to proceed, at least some of the announced new policies could be reversed.

 

But if the government decides to suspend its strategic shift, it may also lose its legitimacy.

• https://www.ynetnews.com/article/skbnhwljt
  

“No one holds a monopoly over Jewish traditions: not on Judaism, not on nationalism,” Bennett said, reprimanding the haredi MKs. “No one will preach to me or anyone else what loving other Jews means. We all love the Jewish people, we all love our country.”

 

Ultra-Orthodox histrionics over religion, state may backfire - analysis

 

Both ultra-Orthodox parties have denounced the government as “treif," have accused Bennett of being “a con artist” and repeatedly denounced the government for "destroying Judaism."

UNITED TORAH FRAUD JUDAISM MAFIA Party MK Ya’acov Litzman (left), UTJ MK Moshe Gafni and Shas head Arye Deri converse during a meeting at the Knesset earlier this month. 

 

“This is a black day for the state and the government… The State of Israel has lost the right to call itself a Jewish and democratic state,” said United Torah Judaism leader MK Moshe Gafni.

 

“The ultra-Orthodox public will not forget or forgive the prime minister and his partners,” he added.

 

These words were uttered not in August 2021 but in March 2014. And they were said not in reference to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett but rather regarding then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

 

The 36th government of Israel was sworn into office this June amid a bitter, rancorous political atmosphere that has gotten ever sharper and acrimonious.

 

The parties and MKs of the opposition are apparently in competition as to who can summon up the most splenetic accusations against the current coalition – and it is hard to say who is winning.

But the ultra-Orthodox MKs are certainly giving it all they have.

 

Gafni, in his enmity towards the current government, denounced Bennett as no less than a murderer over his handling of the latest COVID-19 outbreak, although he later retracted the remark.

 

The UTJ chairman has also labeled Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana “Antiochus,” the Seleucid Greek ancient enemy of the Jews in the time of the Hasmoneans who sought to eradicate Jewish practice.

 

On Monday afternoon, Gafni denounced Bennett as “destroying Judaism” while being ejected from the Knesset plenum for unruly behavior during the prime minister’s speech, while Shas chairman MK Arye Deri exploded with anger during the same speech and repeatedly called Bennett a liar.

 

Both ultra-Orthodox parties have denounced the government as “treif” – meaning non-kosher but with a sharper meaning of “impure” – have accused Bennett of being “a con artist” and repeatedly denounced the government for “destroying Judaism.”

 

SO WHAT explains this extraordinary outpouring of venom toward the prime minister and the government?

 

The reality is that much of the righteous anger expressed by the ultra-Orthodox MKs is mere theater, curated for their constituents and designed to inculcate how vital the haredi parties are to the well being of the haredi community.

 

Denouncing proposed kashrut reforms as “destroying Judaism” – as if Judaism only flourished in the 73 years in which the Chief Rabbinate of the State of Israel had a monopoly over kashrut licensing – is merely a way of ginning up the ultra-Orthodox street and creating the impression that the Jewish religion is under attack.

 

The budget cuts to the ultra-Orthodox sector, especially the cuts to child daycare subsidies for families in which the father studies full time in yeshiva, are actually a boon to UTJ and Shas and allows them to denounce the government as undermining Torah study and Judaism and seeking to destroy the haredi community.

 

The ferocious outbursts of Shas and UTJ in the opposition today serve the same purposes as the similar outbursts seven years ago in the face of government legislation to increase haredi enlistment: to make the ultra-Orthodox community feel under attack so as to impress upon it the importance of voting for the haredi parties as the protectors of their rights and budgets when the next elections come around.

 

When the government first took office, it was thought that there was a possibility to eventually bring the ultra-Orthodox parties in to stabilize the coalition, but the likelihood of such an outcome appears to be especially distant at present, with every vitriolic outburst from Gafni and Co. making it seemingly ever more unlikely.

 

Bennett himself has begun pushing back harder against the Gafni and Deri’s attacks, accusing Shas and UTJ on Monday afternoon of protecting a corrupt and mismanaged kashrut system and rejecting their scolding over the state of Judaism in the country.

 

“No one holds a monopoly over Jewish traditions: not on Judaism, not on nationalism,” Bennett said, reprimanding the haredi MKs. “No one will preach to me or anyone else what loving other Jews means. We all love the Jewish people, we all love our country.”

 

IF THE RHETORICAL battle between the prime minister, his government and the ultra-Orthodox parties continues its current level of intensity, it would appear hard for either to row back the situation, especially for Shas and UTJ.

 

How would it be possible for Gafni and Deri to now sit in a government they have attacked as undermining and destroying the Jewish religion in the Jewish state?

 

This state of affairs could in fact lead to an even greater schism between the two sides.

 

If it seems impossible to ever bring the haredi parties into the coalition to stabilize it, why bother trying to accommodate them when it comes to dealing with the sensitive issues they care about?

 

If they cannot be reasonable about kashrut reform, why bother being sensitive about implementing the Western Wall agreement?

 

If bringing in term limits for municipal chief rabbis – who would otherwise serve for decades on end with no accountability – is denounced as destroying Judaism, why worry about moderating reforms for the conversion system?

 

If Bennett’s government is going to be compared to the destructive enemies of the Jewish people, why worry about finding solutions for Israeli citizens who cannot get married in the State of Israel?

 

The dramatic and theatrical denunciations of the ultra-Orthodox parties will no doubt play well with their voter base and make the community well motivated for the next elections, whenever that might be.

 

But at the same time, it could provide Bennett, a known liberal and religious moderate, with the excuse and opportunity to enact more far-reaching changes to Israel’s religion and state model than he might have otherwise decided to make.

 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/ultra-orthodox-histrionics-over-religion-state-may-backfire-analysis-675753?_ga=2.7998258.1023142591.1626642421-322123844.1568527356&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Iran+suspected+of+carrying+out+hijack+off+UAE+coast&utm_campaign=August+3%2C+2021+Night&vgo_ee=Jn367jKILnpErXAAhCpdDovy7T5YEJ8ohjC9vauJg30%3D

Following a meeting of the rabbis of the Council of the Chief Rabbinate on Monday, the organization’s executive arm, the body issued a decision stating that any rabbi utilizing the proposed reforms would violate Jewish law and said it would not accept the dictates of the religious services ministry on the issue.

 

Chief Rabbinate declares it will not cooperate with gov't kashrut reforms

 

Chief Rabbi Lau said that religiously traditional Israelis and foreign visitors will not be able to understand the differences between competing kashrut authorities

Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau.

The Chief Rabbinate has declared it will not cooperate with the government’s proposed reforms to the kashrut supervision system, describing them as “dangerous” and “the destruction of kashrut and Judaism in Israel.”

 

Following a meeting of the rabbis of the Council of the Chief Rabbinate on Monday, the organization’s executive arm, the body issued a decision stating that any rabbi utilizing the proposed reforms would violate Jewish law and said it would not accept the dictates of the religious services ministry on the issue. 

 

The decision was signed by head of the council Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef and the 11 other members of the council, while Chief Rabbi David Yosef, applauded the decision. 

 

Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Last month, Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana announced a program of reform which would allow independent kashrut authorities headed by a Chief Rabbinate-qualified rabbi to provide kashrut supervision, with the Chief Rabbinate establishing standards and functioning as a regulator, including operating an inspection authority to oversee the work of the independent kashrut authorities. 

 

Additionally, if independent authorities seek to operate under alternative standards a municipal chief rabbi together with two other rabbis with qualifications to serve as municipal chief rabbis, could establish their own kashrut authority under their own guidelines, which would still be subject to the Chief Rabbinate’s inspection authority. 

 

These measures would abolish the Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly over kashrut licensing, which has been described by state comptroller’s reports as suffering from severe deficiencies and from corruption. 

 

“The Council of the Chief Rabbinate declares that according to Jewish law it is forbidden for a rabbi to give kashrut [certification] or deal with kashrut issues outside of his [municipal] boundaries in a place where another rabbi is serving,” wrote the council in its decision on Monday. 

 

The council was referencing the requirements of the proposed reforms in which the independent kashrut authorities which will be established must be headed by a rabbi with qualifications from the Chief Rabbinate to serve as a municipal chief rabbi. 

 

That authority will be able to provide kashrut licensing and supervision anywhere in the country, as opposed to the current system in which only the local municipal chief rabbi and rabbinate can grant a kashrut license. 

 

“The Council of the Chief Rabbinate was established (by law) in order to give instructions in Jewish law to the people, and will not cooperate with the decision to turn it [the Chief Rabbinate] to a council which accepts dictates in order to implement political policies which contravene Jewish law. Principles of Jewish law are not up for negotiation, the Torah of Israel cannot be changed.” 

 

CHIEF RABBI David Lau gave backing to the council’s decision, and also denounced the reforms.

 

Lau delineated his opposition to the reforms in a letter to his colleague Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef welcoming the Council of the Chief Rabbinate’s opposition to the proposals on Monday. 

 

In  his letter, Lau claimed that religiously traditional Israelis and tourists would suffer from the reforms, which are now part of the state budget’s arrangements law, since they would not know how to discern between reliable and unreliable kashrut authorities. 

 

He also attacked the central notion of the reforms of creating competition between kashrut authorities, saying such competition would harm the level of kashrut.

 

And he also criticized Kahana’s proposals, without mentioning him explicitly, for not consulting with a committee of the Chief Rabbinate established to examine options to improve the quality of kashrut supervision in the country. 

 

The committee was established back in March 2016 and it made modest proposals for reform which were never implemented by the Chief Rabbinate. 

 

And he attacked the “three rabbis” alternative track for establishing a kashrut authority, saying such rabbis would lack experience in kashrut supervision, and compared the track to an alternative health ministry run by three coronavirus denying doctors. 

 

Lau also alleged that those who were happy with the proposals were among those who “harm the Jewish character of the State of Israel,” saying that this fact “proves the proposals are not designed to help Judaism.”

 

He said he hoped the Council of the Chief Rabbinate would convene shortly “to discuss how Israel’s rabbis should act on this issue,” as well as how to react to coming reforms to the conversion process that Kahana also plans to introduce. 

 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/chief-rabbi-lau-denounces-govt-kashrut-reforms-675700?_ga=2.132638858.568025549.1627802182-1229034299.1617710680&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Israel+places+US%2C+Italy%2C+France%2C+Greece+under+severe+travel+warning&utm_campaign=August+3%2C+2021+Day&vgo_ee=Jn367jKILnpErXAAhCpdDovy7T5YEJ8ohjC9vauJg30%3D

“Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam,” he began in Hebrew, the sterile divider behind him sealing off the patients with Covid-19 from the uninfected. “Blessed are you, Adonai our God, sovereign of all, who has kept us alive, sustained us and brought us to this season.”

 

A New Surge at a Santa Monica I.C.U.

They thought the worst of the pandemic was behind them. Then a new wave of cases arrived at the I.C.U. at Providence Saint John’s Health Center.

 

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Two months ago at Providence Saint John’s Health Center, Dr. Morris Grabie stood at a makeshift plastic wall in the intensive care unit and prayed.

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה' אֱ-לֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הַעוֹלָם, שֶׁהֶחֱיָנוּ וְקִיְּמָנוּ וְהִגִּיעָנוּ לַזְּמַן הַזֶּה ‎ 

“Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha’olam,” he began in Hebrew, the sterile divider behind him sealing off the patients with Covid-19 from the uninfected. Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.

Around the physician at the hospital in Santa Monica, Calif., a small army in scrubs — doctors, nurses, technicians — bowed their heads, bearing witness to what seemed to be the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Sixty-nine lives on the ward had been claimed by the virus. Pain and grief, life and death, fear and loss — month after grinding month — all of it had unfolded behind that thin divider.

And yet on this day, not a single patient in the Saint John’s I.C.U. had tested positive for the coronavirus. Dr. Grabie turned, and the I.C.U.’s medical director, helped by a respiratory therapist, zipped the wall open.

“We were all in awe,” recalled the medical director, Dr. Terese Hammond.

It was June 1 at 7:56 a.m., a Tuesday.

Now the ward’s Covid section is back and sealed off again.

Covid-19 is surging once more, at Saint John’s and in the world around it, driven by vaccine resisters and the virus’s hyper-contagious Delta variant. In California, new infections are appearing at a rate not seen since February. Governments, schools and businesses are starting to require masks indoors and vaccinations.

 

Vickie Gaddy, a nurse at the intensive care unit with a 44-year-old patient who later died. Doctors at the hospital say more younger people with Covid-19 are being sent to the I.C.U

 

Los Angeles County is recording more than 2,500 new cases daily, and among the unvaccinated, hospitalizations and deaths are mounting. Even in affluent Santa Monica, where about 80 percent of residents are now vaccinated, dozens of people each day are testing positive for the virus, and hospitals like Saint John’s — a 266-bed facility that typically serves the ordinary needs of the beach communities around it — are being inundated again.

Last week, so many Covid patients were in intensive care that the space behind the plastic wall was not enough. The hospital had to reconfigure and expand the unit. Bonifacio Deoso, a nurse on the unit, was down to one weary question:

“When will this ever end?”

For the past three weeks, the 23-bed intensive care unit has been packed, Dr. Hammond said. Eight patients on the ward were being treated for the virus or related infections as of Sunday morning. Four were being treated with ECMO, a particularly labor-intensive, round-the-clock protocol.

Seven other patients were in the step-down I.C.U. on supplemental oxygen as they recovered from infections. “People are coming in sicker,” Dr. Hammond said. At least six people have died from Covid-19 in intensive care at St. John’s since June 1.

The wave of new cases is particularly challenging because it accompanies another surge — patients who had put off elective surgeries and other health care during the pandemic. In addition to the Covid-19 cases, Dr. Hammond’s staff has been caring this time for people with severe illnesses unrelated to the pandemic, except to the extent that missed doctor’s appointments and postponed routine screenings helped to land them in intensive care.

The patient demographics this time are different as well. Earlier in the pandemic, most were transfers from other Providence health care centers. Now many more are local and younger, Dr. Hammond said, and are being sent to intensive care after emergency room visits.

Given Santa Monica’s high vaccination rate, she said, the influx is “disconcerting.”

“Santa Monica was pretty protected,” she said.

While vaccinated people appear to be getting far less sick from infections, the superior powers of the Delta variant are allowing the virus to proliferate in their systems and to spread, lethally, to the unvaccinated. Some 20 percent of Santa Monica residents — and nearly 40 percent of those in the county around it — have not yet been fully inoculated, despite the entreaties of public health experts.

“You’re here to take care of the human regardless of the decision they make,” said Vickie Gaddy, a nurse in the unit. But the new rush of infected patients, so soon after the optimism of June 1, has been crushing for Dr. Hammond’s exhausted staff members.

“As an I.C.U. nurse, you know you’re going to see a certain amount of death,” said Masha Crawford, who also works with the hospital’s Covid-19 patients. But, she said, “in this pandemic, you see people who should not be dying die.”

Ms. Crawford said that before the pandemic, she loved working out. Now, she has no appetite for exercise or self-care.

“The new wave” of cases, she said, “has taken that energy.”

Dr. Brian Tu, an emergency medicine physician, says he is concerned about the hospital workers outside the unit who now are being exposed to the virus, a result of so many cases being detected through emergency room visits.

Dr. Stefania Pirrotta says the sheer relentlessness of the new surge has made her “angry.”

Just two months ago, she said, she was hopeful. Now there is no end in sight.

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/01/us/covid-santa-monica-icu.html

“Threats by rabbis have brought us to incredibly dark places in recent Jewish history. What ought to be a debate about the Jewish future and how to implement Jewish law in the State of Israel has become a forum where individual rabbis see an opportunity to destroy others.”

Municipal chief rabbis: Excommunicate rabbis who back religious reforms

 

A group of municipal chief rabbis have called for other municipal chief rabbis to be excommunicated should they establish kashrut authorities or their own conversion courts.

A group of municipal chief rabbis have called for excommunicating other municipal chief rabbis who establish kashrut authorities or their own conversion courts, as proposed by pending government legislation.

 

The list of rabbis includes the Chief Rabbi of Mevasseret Zion Rabbi Shlomo Ben Ezra, Chief Rabbi of Nesher Rabbi Yitzhak Halevy, Chief Rabbi of Ramle Yehiel Abuhatzeira, and several other prominent rabbis.

 

“A person whether rabbi or hacham or visionary who oversteps the boundaries to give kashrut [supervision] or who establishes conversion courts of any kind without permission from the leading rabbi of the locality, or the local rabbinate, or the chief rabbinate, will be excommunicated. He will be ejected from the holy community of rabbis and of the Jewish people and the trust in him to provide kashrut [supervision] or to do conversions will be removed. He will be like a false witness who is disqualified from giving testimony,” wrote the rabbis.

 

The letter was issued under the letterhead of the Committee of Rabbis of Israel and signed by hand by the signatory rabbis.

 

The letter refers to reforms proposed by Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana which would end the Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly on kashrut supervision, and allow anyone with qualifications to serve as a municipal chief rabbi to establish an independent kashrut authority.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition, Kahana also intends to introduce legislation allowing municipal chief rabbis to establish their own conversion courts, decentralizing the Chief Rabbinate’s control over the process.

 

After initially publishing the original letter, the same rabbis published a milder version of their missive, denouncing both pieces of legislation and any rabbi who utilizes such a law, but falling short of calling for them to be excommunicated.

 

The Itim religious services organization sent a request to Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar that a complaint be filed to a disciplinary court against the signatory rabbis, saying such language and threats violate disciplinary laws for religious services which prohibit municipal chief rabbis from acting against the law or government policy.

 

“It’s inappropriate and even illegal for government employees such as municipal chief rabbis to express their disagreement with government policy and threaten others who wish to implement government policy with all kinds of religious threats,” said Itim director Rabbi Seth Farber.

 

“Threats by rabbis have brought us to incredibly dark places in recent Jewish history. What ought to be a debate about the Jewish future and how to implement Jewish law in the State of Israel has become a forum where individual rabbis see an opportunity to destroy others.”

 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/municipal-chief-rabbis-excommunicate-rabbis-who-back-religious-reforms-675310?_ga=2.7479092.701792966.1627328385-1969581575.1579377799&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=First+in+world%2C+Israel+agrees+to+give+seniors+60%2B+third+COVID+jab&utm_campaign=July+29%2C+2021+Night&vgo_ee=Jn367jKILnpErXAAhCpdDovy7T5YEJ8ohjC9vauJg30%3D

This is one problem with trusting our rationality: The choice we make now, before we catch the virus, may not be the choice we will wish we had made once we get sick. Then there’s the stubborn fact that individual decisions have collective consequences.

 

What if the Unvaccinated Can’t Be Persuaded?

I hate that I believe the sentence I’m about to write. It undermines much of what I spend my life trying to do. But there is nothing more overrated in politics — and perhaps in life — than the power of persuasion.

It is nearly impossible to convince people of what they don’t want to believe. Decades of work in psychology attest to this truth, as does most everything in our politics and most of our everyday experience. Think of your own conversations with your family or your colleagues. How often have you really persuaded someone to abandon a strongly held belief or preference? Persuasion is by no means impossible or unimportant, but on electric topics, it is a marginal phenomenon.

Which brings me to the difficult choice we face on coronavirus vaccinations. The conventional wisdom is that there is some argument, yet unmade and perhaps undiscovered, that will change the minds of the roughly 30 percent of American adults who haven’t gotten at least one dose. There probably isn’t. The unvaccinated often hold their views strongly, and many are making considered, cost-benefit calculations given how they weigh the risks of the virus, and the information sources they trust to inform them of those risks. For all the exhortations to respect their concerns, there is a deep condescension in believing that we’re smart enough to discover or invent some appeal they haven’t yet heard......

 

READ MORE: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/29/opinion/covid-vaccine-hesitancy.html

Mark Your Calendar To Get The Delta Variant of Covid - Maybe Even Die ( Al Kiddush Hashem) - November 18 - November 21 - Stay Tuned To Which Jew Gets To Be Hospitalized In The ICU - Or Gets To Be Buried Next To The Noviminsker Rebbe! --- Exciting Time For Klal Yisroel --- Maybe Even The "Last Supper"!

 

The Agudah Convention

November 18 - November 21, 2021 / 14 Kislev - 16 Kislev

We are pleased to announce that we will iy'H be having The Agudah Convention this coming November – specifically, with a change from the usual date to November 18 - November 21, 2021 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Stamford, CT. (Please note the CHANGE OF DATE.)

The convention has always been our organization’s signature event of the year, bringing together our “Agudah family” for several days of chizuk, chavershaft and practical planning in the presence of many of the leading Gedolei Yisroel of our time. 

But even more than that: With so much happening on the contemporary Jewish scene – the unprecedented historic threat against the independence of our yeshivos; the alarming rise in anti-Semitism both in America and abroad; the rapidly deteriorating political climate in America; the escalating challenges of raising ehrliche, healthy children in today's world; the internal economic, social and moral challenges our community faces – it is essential that Klal Yisroel gather together under the leadership of our Gedolei Yisroel to discuss, to plan, and to take achrayus for whatever is incumbent on us to do communally as a tzibbur or individually as yechidim.

Additional information and details to follow. But for now please mark your calendars for November 18 - November 21, and make plans to join us for what promises to be a most memorable Agudah Convention.

B'yedidus,

 

Rabbi Labish Becker

 

Rabbi Shai Markowitz

Under the current kashrut system of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, the possibilities range from food actually being kosher at best, to deception in many cases. The system functions somewhere between disorganization, to say the least, and outright chaos. There is also a jungle of private “Badatzim” (rabbinical courts) which results in a “double kosher tax” that all Israelis pay.

 

What Israelis want: Kosher food at affordable prices 

 

The new minister of religious affairs has a plan to provide more reliable supervision and lower food prices - all without harming the Chief Rabbinate 

 

Metzger Locked Up For His Crimes!

Yona Metzger, former chief rabbi of Israel, was arrested  on the suspicion of bribery, fraud, breach of trust, money laundering, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.

Representatives of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel deliver a Kosher Certificate to a local restaurant

 

Under the current kashrut system of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, the possibilities range from food actually being kosher at best, to deception in many cases. The system functions somewhere between disorganization, to say the least, and outright chaos. There is also a jungle of private “Badatzim” (rabbinical courts) which results in a “double kosher tax” that all Israelis pay. 

 So, the kosher reform promoted by Minister of Religious Affairs Matan Kahana is a revolution on a historic scale in the kashrut system, and, if implemented wisely, it will offer kosher food consumers reliable kashrut certification and lower prices.

Kashrut certification in Israel today is granted, by law, by the Chief Rabbinate. In practice, those who confer kosher status are the local rabbis who oversee the local kashrut system and set the halachic standards for its operation. Alongside them are many Haredi private courts (Badatzim) that provide additional kashrut certification beyond that of the Rabbinate, usually according to stricter standards.

The kosher market in Israel generates about NIS 3.5 billion a year. Most Jews in Israel (about 70 percent) consume kosher food exclusively and about 80% of food businesses hold a kosher certificate. Today, the Chief Rabbinate has a monopoly on kashrut under the law. There are also 20 Badatzim, which sometimes employ the Rabbinate’s kashrut supervisors, at tax-payer expense, as well as the “Tzohar” organization, which provides independent kosher status. Kashrut departments in the religious councils and local rabbis set the standards of kashrut, appoint the inspectors, and manage their operation.

The result of this decentralized structure is low-level kashrut and operational chaos, as reflected in state comptroller reports, High Court rulings, harsh investigative articles, and several criminal investigations. The standards for kashrut certification vary from city to city, the providers hire their own inspectors, and the supervision of inspectors is poor. The existing kashrut system hardly provides what is most important to almost all Israelis – kosher food at affordable prices.

The reform promoted by Minister Kahana is historic and embodies a promise of better, more reliable kashrut. Its cornerstones are the creation of a uniform set of kashrut standards, and the transfer of kosher certification to private entities to be supervised by the Chief Rabbinate.

Under the proposal, the Chief Rabbinate, or a panel of three municipal chief rabbis, will set the halachic standards of kashrut. Private bodies licensed by the Rabbinate will grant the actual kosher certification. The proposed structure would remedy most of the ills of the kashrut system: first, it would create an order — the menu of criteria for all links in the food chain would be uniform and not subject to the whims of local rabbis; second, each body’s certification standards would be transparent to consumers; third, the supervision of inspectors will be more significant and will increase the level of kashrut; fourth, competition between bodies would lead to lower certification prices; fifth, providers would not hire their own inspectors (as the High Court has long demanded), and their employment conditions would improve; and finally — the bizarre situation of three or even four kashrut hechshers on certain products, and the resulting high cost to consumers, would disappear.

Cries of foul by Haredi MKs and the Chief Rabbinate should not mislead. The Rabbinate is alarmed by the loss of control over its rabbis and functionaries, and Haredi MKs are alarmed by the anticipated economic loss facing the Haredi Badatzim under their wings.

The truth is, apart from the economic benefit and the reliability of kashrut, the reform will only strengthen the Chief Rabbinate and save it from itself. Instead of local rabbis engaging in managing kashrut, they will be freed up to spiritually lead their communities. On the national level, the Rabbinate will be significantly strengthened as it will supervise the certification process.

The reform is important in another aspect: after years of stagnation — and Haredi control in order to gain power, money, and jobs — religious services in Israel are now led by a minister who has the public’s best interests at heart. Kahana is ready to fight against a religious establishment that sanctified the status quo, – and it did so not out of pure motives. We should hope that this is only the first harbinger of many necessary improvements. 

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-israelis-want-kosher-food-at-affordable-prices/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2021-07-27&utm_medium=email

 

BMG’s KCL: Is It Really Kosher??

ByYehudah Shain

 

 As the saying goes “an Organization that is formed for an illegitimate purpose can only produce an illegitimate result”. Let us see how BMG’S  KCL, has done in their many years pretending to be a reliable kosher agency!

 

 READ:

https://jnews.us/bmgs-kcl-is-it-really-kosher/

“I am convinced that this program will bring more businesses to use kashrut and bring honest supervisors who are Torah scholars into the market who will work for a dignified salary, which he will receive from the kashrut authority and not from the business under supervision”

 

Kahana’s kashrut reforms get rabbinical backing

 

Senior religious-Zionist rabbis back end to Chief Rabbinate monopoly, after hardline rabbis opposed the measures.

Two senior religious-Zionist rabbis have come out in support of the reforms proposed by Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana (Yamina) that would end the Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly over kashrut supervision.

 

The proposed reforms would encourage more food businesses to obtain kashrut supervision, Rabbi Yaakov Medan, co-dean of the Har Etzion Yeshiva in Alon Shvut and a respected leader in the religious-Zionist community, told Kahana in a letter Saturday night. The measures would not undermine the Chief Rabbinate, he wrote.

 

It was important to preserve the respect and honor of the Chief Rabbinate, provided it does not negatively impact the provision of effective kashrut supervision, Medan wrote.

 

Last week, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, a respected arbiter of Halacha, expressed support for Kahana’s measures, according to the Religious Services Ministry.

 

Last Monday, Kahana announced a program of reforms that would allow independent kashrut authorities to provide supervision, with the Chief Rabbinate functioning as a regulator and operating an inspection authority to oversee their work.

 

The program would end the Chief Rabbinate’s monopoly over kashrut supervision. It was strongly opposed by the Chief Rabbinate and the chief rabbis.

 

Last Thursday, several senior rabbis in the hard-line wing of the religious-Zionist community said they were against the reforms. The reforms are opposed by the chief rabbis, and therefore they could not support them, they said.

 

Petah Tikva Chief Rabbi Micha Halevi expressed concern that since the reforms allow for multiple independent supervision authorities, should a business lose its kashrut license from one authority due to bad practice, it could swiftly apply to a different authority for a new license.

 

Care must be taken not to allow such a business to automatically obtain a license from another authority, Medan wrote.

 

“I am convinced that this program will bring more businesses to use kashrut and bring honest supervisors who are Torah scholars into the market who will work for a dignified salary, which he will receive from the kashrut authority and not from the business under supervision,” he wrote.

 

One of the biggest deficiencies of the current system is that kashrut supervisors are paid directly by the business they supervise. That situation is a prime cause of corruption, according to the State Comptroller’s Office, and the High Court of Justice has ruled it must stop.

 

“We are all committed to the honor of the rabbinate and to the honor of the rabbis, but also to the mitzvah of the Torah, ‘You shall not fear any man,’ when we come to strengthen such a vital and beloved mitzvah as the mitzvah of the kashrut of the food entering our mouths,” Medan wrote.

 

Any reforms must be approved by the Chief Rabbinate, a group of the most senior and respected conservative religious-Zionist rabbis, including Rabbi Haim Druckman, Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Yaakov Ariel and Rabbi Haim Steiner, wrote in a letter last Thursday.

 

“Although there is a need for improvement on specific issues, such as kashrut, everything must be done only with the agreement of the Chief Rabbinate,” they wrote.

 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/kahanas-kashrut-reforms-get-rabbinical-backing-674863?_ga=2.173228715.940558116.1627147710-1969581575.1579377799&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Israeli+government+faces+major+diplomatic+tests+from+Russia&utm_campaign=July+25%2C+2021+Night&vgo_ee=Jn367jKILnpErXAAhCpdDovy7T5YEJ8ohjC9vauJg30%3D

Busting the kashrut monopoly represents a return to an age-old form of rabbinic authority, and heals the damage of public distrust in state religious institutions

 Imagine if there were only ONE kashruth agency in the USA!

 

THE KASHRUTH INDUSTRY IN ISRAEL AS IT EXISTS IS PAYING FOR "PROTECTION" - NOT ON RELIABILITY! I'VE SEEN THIS DISGRACED AGENCY AT WORK - UP FRONT AND PERSONAL!

 

 

Israel needs a Judaism that is more personal and accountable 

 

Busting the kashrut monopoly represents a return to an age-old form of rabbinic authority, and heals the damage of public distrust in state religious institutions

Ever since the Romans put an end to the council of elders known as the Sanhedrin in the fifth century,  religious Jewish communal life has been placed in the hands of local rabbinical authorities, primarily the mara de-atra (Aramaic for master of the house). As the major Rishonim, the formative rabbis who codified Jewish law, the Rambam and the Rif state “asu gedolim eilu kerabam”  they have made these great ones their teachers.

This mandate to follow the local rabbinic leaders makes sense. Such figures understood the local realities and sensitivities and felt a closeness to the community and the individuals who formed it. These rabbis were easily accessible and prominent in their locales.

This did mean that Jewish law or custom could differ from place to place, but this was something to be embraced rather than feared. This is one of the reasons why the reforms being enacted by the new government in Israel to decentralize issues like kashrut, conversion, marriage and divorce should likewise not be feared, but rather welcomed.

While the media like to describe this government as “the government of change,” which it certainly is, it is more than that. We are looking at issues and situations that have sadly become stagnant at best and corrupt at worst and seeking to create new realities, or in the case of reform in the arena of religion and state, to return to a former reality that serves the interests of society as a whole.

More than this is a breaking of the Rabbinate’s monopoly on issues like kashrut, there is a dismantling of the equation created in recent times in which kashrut has been equated with corruption. 

Unfortunately, average Israelis see what has become of kashrut with their own eyes, and when they associate a central part of Judaism as dishonest, it moves them further away from it.

This is why, from my first days in the Knesset, I dealt with issues relating to religion and state, including the issue of kashrut. I saw that the relationship Jews in Israel had with the issue of kashrut certification in the State of Israel – the lack of clarity, the double payments for the same kosher supervisor for different certifications – threatened not only the status of the rabbinate, but also and especially the status of Judaism in the state.

For a nation that prides itself on being both Jewish and democratic, this is a sharp blow to our central ethos. It harms our Zionist spirit.

Furthermore, dissolving the rabbinate’s monopoly on kashrut has significant economic implications estimated at many millions of shekels every year – shekels that will end up in the consumer’s pockets in substantial savings.

Most of all, however, the reforms led by Minister of Religious Affairs Matan Kahane are a step toward rebuilding the credibility of kashrut. From now on, those who keep kosher in this country can rest assured knowing that the kosher certification that a business owner chooses will be free of outside considerations, and will be a certificate attesting to kosher supervisors who fulfilled their role more faithfully than before. Certification will be provided by local rabbis who are cognizant of the reality on the ground and are known and accessible to the patrons.

As with all competitive markets, the business owners and the consumers will have the freedom to choose. If they see that a particular kosher supervisor is not living up to their commitment, they can take their business elsewhere. When there is no choice and a monopoly in any particular market, it invariably leads to corruption and the constant raising of cost which has an impact on the price the consumer has to pay.

Cronyism and extreme centralization are never good things for any modern industry, and become the enemy of ethical and moral behavior. That is why the enactment of desperately needed reforms is central to the ethos of this government. Of course, like any monopoly on the verge of shattering, there will be voices who will cry and threaten.

Reforms by this government are taking place across the spectrum. Excessive bureaucracy is being limited, regulatory burdens are being eased, competition is being increased in many industries and the cost of living is being reduced.

These are principles that unite this government, and we dare not leave issues relating to religion and state behind.

Whether religious, traditional or secular, being Jewish should be a source of pride for all. Every time a Jew in Israel meets an aspect of Judaism they see as petty or corrupt, it erodes this pride and weakens a central aspect of the Jewish solidarity and peoplehood that are the foundations of this country.

There is a reason our great rabbis, in their infinite wisdom, saw the need to create a more personal and accountable Judaism, which survived for thousands of years.

It is time for the State of Israel to return to that Judaism. 

 

https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-state-of-israel-needs-a-judaism-that-is-more-personal-and-accountable/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2021-07-22&utm_medium=email

"Killing People"

 

The Anti-Vaccine Movement Is Much Bigger Than Facebook

 

 

Late last week President Biden achieved something I’d thought impossible: He got me to feel bad for Mark Zuckerberg.

Sure, it was only a little bad, but that’s no small feat. As I spent the weekend brushing up on funereal dirges to play on my tiny violin, I couldn’t help but marvel at the president’s rhetorical shoddiness regarding Facebook’s role in Americans’ refusal to get vaccinated, the most important obstacle to the nation’s full recovery from the pandemic.

By accusing Facebook and other social media companies of “killing people” through what Biden said was their lax policing of vaccine misinformation, the president reduced the complex scourge of runaway vaccine hesitancy into a cartoonishly simple matter of product design: If only Facebook would hit its Quit Killing People button, America would be healed again.

Worse, Biden fed into the bogus right-wing notion that Facebook and other social media giants now operate as media arms of the Democratic Party, a belief that will only undermine whatever greater action against vaccine nonsense that the companies might take. If Facebook decides, tomorrow, to ban all criticism of the Covid-19 vaccines, its actions will be instantly undermined as Big Tech censoring “the truth” to satisfy the radical left or some other such reflexive dismissal. On cue, The Wall Street Journal editorial board declared on Monday that Biden was only criticizing Facebook because “Facebook has bent to politicians far too much, inviting this latest assault.”

Finally, in the blundering way he took on the tech giants, Biden illustrated the profound challenges that bedevil calls for stricter regulation of social media. Facebook and Twitter, like The New York Times and Fox News, enjoy a right protected by the First Amendment to post or to amplify — or to not post or not amplify — just about any legal content they care to.

In a free society, a president accusing a media company — even one whose chief executive insists it’s not a media company — of mass death simply for disseminating legal content should make us all a little uncomfortable. Sure, Facebook has a right to kick you off its site for lying about vaccines — but if the president fiercely exhorts Facebook to do so, the argument that you’re being censored by the government becomes a lot more plausible.

You might defend Biden’s passion here on the grounds of public health. But it’s probably past the point of utility. Researchers who study vaccine hesitancy say that social networks play a huge role in the spread of dangerous lies about vaccines. Perhaps there was a time, months or years ago, when Facebook and other social media companies had the power to stop the anti-vaccine movement from swallowing up so many Americans.

But if that was ever the case, there is little evidence it still is. Polls show that about a fifth of Americans refuse to get a Covid vaccine, and the divide is highly partisan. As The Washington Post’s Philip Bump has noted, states that voted for Donald Trump in the last election are suffering vaccination rates far lower than states that went for Biden. This suggests the anti-vaccine movement has achieved a kind of cultural escape velocity.

Consider, after all, how widely anti-vaccine lies are now echoed on the right — vaccine misinformation has become a staple of Fox News, conservative talk radio, prominent Republican members of Congress and many organs of conservatism. (THEY ALL GOT VACCINATED)

Continue reading the main story

Biden, thankfully, seems to have quickly realized his comments were unhelpful. After Facebook pointed out that a survey it sponsored found that 85 percent of its American users are vaccinated against Covid or plan to be, the president conceded that “Facebook isn’t killing people” but said that a handful of Facebook members are doing so by spreading lies about the vaccines.

I’m glad he did so. But I worry that by dragging the vaccines further into the partisan mire, Biden’s slip-up will cause long-term damage in the effort to get Americans to trust these miraculous shots.

Renée DiResta, the technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory and an expert on how the anti-vaccine movement has spread online, has said that one of the main reasons the movement has taken off is the savvy way it has navigated new currents in media.

While the American public health community repeatedly bungled its messages on Covid, online influencers understood “how to gain the confidence of people they will never meet, make content that captures attention, and persuade audiences to take action,” DiResta wrote in April. A worthy countercampaign, she suggested, would embrace the same distributed model — it will require an army of family doctors, religious leaders and other trusted local officials to slowly and deliberately undo the lies about vaccines that have seeped into the culture.

In a lengthy document published last week, Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general, issued a similar call for a distributed effort against vaccine hesitancy. Of course, inspiring such a countermovement will not be easy. 

 Much simpler to just blame Facebook.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/20/opinion/coronavirus-vaccine-facebook.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=OpEd%20Columnists

Rabbi Clowns Around On Tisha B'Av - Another anti-Semite, This One with a Hat and Beard! Jew Hate Is Jew Hate!

 

Senior haredi rabbi: New government should be 'erased from the world'

 

'Bennett government is taking from haredi children to give money to Arabs,' says Rabbi Meir Mazuz, dean of the Kisse Rahamim yeshiva.

 

Rabbi Meir Mazuz

A senior haredi rabbi excoriated the national unity government over the weekend, calling for its elimination.

Rabbi Meir Mazuz, the dean of the Kisse Rahamim yeshiva and a leading halachic decisor for the Tunisian haredi community, called Sunday for the Bennett government to be “erased from the world”, and accused it of depriving the haredi sector of funding in order to benefit the Arab sector.

During the traditional lamentations recited during the Tisha B’Av fast Sunday, Rabbi Mazuz blasted planned government cuts to daycare and preschool subsidies for children of full-time yeshiva students, saying the move was meant to take food “from the mouths of religious school children in order to benefit the Arabs.”

Finance Minister Avidgor Liberman, who has proposed an end to the inclusion of yeshiva students in the list of occupations eligible for daycare and preschool subsidies, has argued that the cuts are part of a larger program to trim Israel’s massive deficit.

The coalition members, Rabbi Mazuz continued, “are the enemies of the Torah, the enemies of Torah scholars, the enemies of the Jewish people. They funnel money to the Arabs without end, while taking food away from religious children who are learning in Torah schools.”

The government’s “time will come, for all of them. They will be erased from the world.”

 

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/310151