-----
B"H
This type of insantity makes me wonder who the PM is being paid by . . .
M
-----
Palestinian security source reports large delivery of Kalashnikovs, other ammunition to West Bank to continue over next few days
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3430188,00.html
Ali Waked
Published: 07.26.07, 12:44 / Israel News
Some 3,000 rifles were delivered to the Palestinian security forces in Jericho on Thursday, a Palestinian security source told Ynet.
Israel allowed the entrance of four Jordanian trucks carrying Kalashnikov's and other rifles, along with hundreds of thousands of bullets and other ammunition into the Muqata'a compound in the city.
Dozens of National Security officers transferred the weapons to warehouses across the West Bank, the source said.
The source could not say where the funding for the equipment came from, but mentioned that nine more trucks were expected to arrive in Jericho over the next few days carrying bullet proof vests and additional equipment.
It is still unclear whether the delivery of the weapons was meant to strengthen the Palestinian security forces or for a possible transfer of responsibility of other Palestinian cities to the PA, the source said.
It was recently reported in Arab media that Qalqilya and Jericho would be the first cities to be transferred to the PA in the frame of a three-step plan being drafted by Israel and the PA.
Palestinian sources said that that weapon transfer and the training of the security forces would continue over the next few days.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Mystery of missing Mumbai scrolls riles Baghdadi-Indian community
By Fadi Eyadat
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/886331.html
On Monday, the eve of the Tisha B'Av, the fast day that commemorates the destruction of both Holy Temples, some 300 congregants arrived at the Kely Yakov Eini synagogue in Kiryat Bialik for evening prayers and the recitation of lamentations.
"During the service, people recalled the Torah scrolls that had been stolen [some four months earlier], and began to bemoan the missing scrolls. These were the holiest of holies among all our Torah scrolls," related Kely Reuven on Tuesday with deep sadness. Reuven, 51, the volunteer director of the synagogue, and all the members of the Baghdadi-Indian community, are deeply distressed by the disappearance of three Torah scrolls that are over 120 years old. They were brought to Israel from Mumbai in the early 1950s.
"These were handwritten scrolls," explains one of the congregants, "made of high-quality parchment and housed in pure silver containers."
The scrolls' disappearance was discovered about four months ago when a young member of the congregation opened the ark to kiss the scrolls one Friday evening.
"One of the worshippers asked the cantor, who was responsible for the removal of the scrolls from the ark," continued another member of the community. "The cantor claimed he had taken them for repairs." The cantor, 50, later changed his story, claiming he had taken them to a repository for damaged scrolls, because they were old and no longer usable.
After a covert investigation by the Central Unit of the Coastal Region, police arrested the cantor on suspicion of stealing and selling the scrolls, but later released him to house arrest.
Chief Inspector Yariv Cohen, who headed the investigation team, says the scrolls are worth over $150,000.
"The suspect has not confessed, but the story he is telling is fabricated," says Cohen. "The material [from the investigation] has been transferred to the State Prosecutor's Office. Now our goal is to find the scrolls."
Attorney Tami Ulman reiterated the suspect's claim of innocence.
"This man has been volunteering at the synagogue for 25 years, and this is the thanks he gets. There is no doubt that he was following Jewish law and did what was required with the scrolls, which were not usable."
"People don't believe it," said a member of the community Tuesday.
"Ever since we were small children," Reuven said, "when we began to learn how to pray, our fathers and grandfathers told us how special these scrolls were. After services, we always kissed those scrolls, and not the other ones. They were the holiest of the holy."
"They arrived here with our grandfathers," said another congregant. "Losing these scrolls was like losing a relative."
In the late 19th century, members of the Baghdadi community moved to India, and have since been known as the Baghdadi Indian community. In the early 1950s, they moved to Israel and settled in Kiryat Bialik. They missed India, and wanted to build a synagogue identical to the one in Mumbai, and did so with their own hands.
"The community did not receive any donations and never wanted to be dependent on anyone. Everything was from donations by community members. First, they built one story. Then, when there was enough money, they built a second story," relates Reuven. The synagogue has a fish pond in the garden, which is surrounded by palm trees. The names of the 12 tribes of Israel and memorial candles in memory of departed members of the community adorn the walls.
"The synagogue is our community center," said another congregant. "There are secular and religious [worshippers]. We all come here on festivals and special occasions. Some people come here to be with their friends and drink coffee in the courtyard."
Despite the estimation that the precious scrolls have already been sold, the police this week asked for the public's assistance in finding them. The police hope that the scrolls were purchased by someone whose conscience will move him to return them and will lead the police to the thief. The congregants no longer care who stole the scrolls.
"We're not interested in the thief. All we want is to get the scrolls back. They are very dear to us."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/886331.html
On Monday, the eve of the Tisha B'Av, the fast day that commemorates the destruction of both Holy Temples, some 300 congregants arrived at the Kely Yakov Eini synagogue in Kiryat Bialik for evening prayers and the recitation of lamentations.
"During the service, people recalled the Torah scrolls that had been stolen [some four months earlier], and began to bemoan the missing scrolls. These were the holiest of holies among all our Torah scrolls," related Kely Reuven on Tuesday with deep sadness. Reuven, 51, the volunteer director of the synagogue, and all the members of the Baghdadi-Indian community, are deeply distressed by the disappearance of three Torah scrolls that are over 120 years old. They were brought to Israel from Mumbai in the early 1950s.
"These were handwritten scrolls," explains one of the congregants, "made of high-quality parchment and housed in pure silver containers."
The scrolls' disappearance was discovered about four months ago when a young member of the congregation opened the ark to kiss the scrolls one Friday evening.
"One of the worshippers asked the cantor, who was responsible for the removal of the scrolls from the ark," continued another member of the community. "The cantor claimed he had taken them for repairs." The cantor, 50, later changed his story, claiming he had taken them to a repository for damaged scrolls, because they were old and no longer usable.
After a covert investigation by the Central Unit of the Coastal Region, police arrested the cantor on suspicion of stealing and selling the scrolls, but later released him to house arrest.
Chief Inspector Yariv Cohen, who headed the investigation team, says the scrolls are worth over $150,000.
"The suspect has not confessed, but the story he is telling is fabricated," says Cohen. "The material [from the investigation] has been transferred to the State Prosecutor's Office. Now our goal is to find the scrolls."
Attorney Tami Ulman reiterated the suspect's claim of innocence.
"This man has been volunteering at the synagogue for 25 years, and this is the thanks he gets. There is no doubt that he was following Jewish law and did what was required with the scrolls, which were not usable."
"People don't believe it," said a member of the community Tuesday.
"Ever since we were small children," Reuven said, "when we began to learn how to pray, our fathers and grandfathers told us how special these scrolls were. After services, we always kissed those scrolls, and not the other ones. They were the holiest of the holy."
"They arrived here with our grandfathers," said another congregant. "Losing these scrolls was like losing a relative."
In the late 19th century, members of the Baghdadi community moved to India, and have since been known as the Baghdadi Indian community. In the early 1950s, they moved to Israel and settled in Kiryat Bialik. They missed India, and wanted to build a synagogue identical to the one in Mumbai, and did so with their own hands.
"The community did not receive any donations and never wanted to be dependent on anyone. Everything was from donations by community members. First, they built one story. Then, when there was enough money, they built a second story," relates Reuven. The synagogue has a fish pond in the garden, which is surrounded by palm trees. The names of the 12 tribes of Israel and memorial candles in memory of departed members of the community adorn the walls.
"The synagogue is our community center," said another congregant. "There are secular and religious [worshippers]. We all come here on festivals and special occasions. Some people come here to be with their friends and drink coffee in the courtyard."
Despite the estimation that the precious scrolls have already been sold, the police this week asked for the public's assistance in finding them. The police hope that the scrolls were purchased by someone whose conscience will move him to return them and will lead the police to the thief. The congregants no longer care who stole the scrolls.
"We're not interested in the thief. All we want is to get the scrolls back. They are very dear to us."
Skirts against the Kremlin
BARBARA OBERMAN, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 25, 2007
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379003058&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
We became the 35s almost by chance. In was May 1971 and we were 35-year-old suburban housewives (regrettably a mere dozen of us, not the crowd we'd wanted) hunger-striking outside the Soviet Embassy in London on behalf of a 35-year-old Soviet Jewish woman, incarcerated without trial in a Soviet torture chamber.
We made BBC Radio's News at One later that day, which named us the 35s for the first time, and named me Margaret (rather than Barbara) as I gave my first on-air interview. Nonetheless, we were delighted to have media coverage - and thrilled when it bore fruit. Within 12 hours, an Israeli Embassy staffer secretly told us that Raissa Palatnik, the librarian for whom we'd demonstrated, had been moved to a regular prison cell, from where she would stand trial.
Looking back on those tumultuous times, I credit our artlessness and innocence for that first success and the many that followed. Our campaign was one of the opening salvos in the battle to free the then-unknown number of persecuted Jews inside the USSR - who were discovered to be the four million so-called Jews of Silence. It was a fight in which we took on not only the mighty Soviet Union, but also Israel's government and the Anglo-Jewish establishment. For their own separate reasons, both Israel and British Jews favored quiet diplomacy. We were appalled at their foot-dragging. All we could sense was impending doom, a catastrophic replaying of all-too-recent Jewish history.
My story with the 35s begins with the Six Day War, which sparked Jewish pride and revitalized Jewish identity across the USSR. I heard stories about these Soviet Jews for the first time on holiday in Israel that summer. Did Soviet Jews, I wondered, want to be silent or were they waiting for free Jews to shatter that silence?
The plight of Soviet Jewry, however, receded for me when we returned to London and plunged once more into our busy middle-class lives. I was then nearly 33, the youngest of my three children was only two and my husband Cecil and I were both active in British Jewish life - from Golders Green's Dunstan Road Synagogue to fund-raising through WIZO, JNF and JPA (today the UIA). It took another summer holiday in Israel for the spark struck in 1967 to flare.
It was then that a friend, Pesach Mor, a European-born lawyer and a former British Army officer, told us about a trip he'd recently made to the USSR, at some personal peril, to see the situation for himself. "They want to get out," he said. "They don't want to be Jews of Silence."
I RETURNED to London determined to act. The proper authorities, I believed, had simply to be galvanized. I called a meeting of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Anglo-Jewry's 200-year-old representative body, and its major subsidiaries. I can still see the long table round which we sat, the 15 to 20 people there representing the Chief Rabbi's Office and the Central British Fund, among others. I made an impassioned plea for the rescue of Soviet Jewry. They responded in a polite British way, whose subtext read that I was a Jewish housewife who knew nothing, was not positioned to take any kind of action and should go home and busy myself with more appropriate matters.
A CBF representative whom I met on the stairs following the meeting told me that parcels were quietly being sent to Soviet Jews, that I should guard my tongue and that public action was out of the question.
She left me unconvinced. I requested a meeting with then-chief rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits. The encounter turned into a three-hour slugfest, in which I desperately tried to convince this gentlemanly scholar that we were the heirs of those Diaspora Jews of a generation earlier who had failed to save the six million, and that he could help change the course of history. I don't think anyone had spoken to him like that before - but to no avail.
I had hit blank walls in every direction. I went about life with a heavy heart, attending any event connected with Soviet Jewry, increasingly frustrated and angry that I couldn't trigger the official bodies I'd been so certain would act for the Jews in trouble.
Early in May 1971, I attended a lecture given by Yitzhak Rager, then second secretary at the Israeli Embassy and later to be mayor of Beersheba and president of State of Israel Bonds. That was where I heard about Raissa Palatnik, at 35 the same age as me, imprisoned in a torture chamber because she'd wanted to leave Russia.
I was overwhelmed by Palatnik's story, and poured it out to Cecil as soon as I got home. Had my grandmother not emigrated to Britain, I could be where Raissa was now, I told him. While we couldn't bring out the numbers of demonstrators that American Jews did, I said, I wanted to gather other 35-year-old women to join me on hunger strike to gain recognition for her plight. The time for passive protests and short mentions deep inside the newspapers was over.
I MUST HAVE made more than 100 phone calls that night to family, friends and mothers of children at the three Jewish schools my children attended. Almost all of them asked if I'd had an okay from the Anglo-Jewish establishment. Few were willing to put themselves on the line when they heard I hadn't. In the end, barely a dozen of us - among them, my good friends Sylvia Wallis, Zelda Harris and Zena Clayton - made our way next day to the gates of the Soviet Embassy. Against this wonderful photo-op background, we held up a giant canvas banner that Cecil and our two sons had spent the night making in our dress factory. "USSR release Raissa Palatnik" it urged, for all the world to see.
The News at One interview followed, the 35s was born and we garnered our first triumph with Palatnik moved to an ordinary prison and given a trial date. The secretary of the Board of Deputies even sent us a congratulatory telegram. My home became our office, and the phone rarely stopped ringing. We wore black for our protests, we were young and well-groomed, and the media loved us. As our group grew, one member brought in a circle of her friends. Among them was Doreen Gainsford, a later leader of the 35s.
Palatnik's situation had improved, but she was still a prisoner. We decided that three 35-year old Jewish women in black - myself, Myra Janner (whose husband was MP Greville Janner) and Sylvia Wallis - would go to the Soviet Embassy each morning and present the ambassador's wife with a letter asking her "as a woman, to use her good offices to stop the KGB torturing Mrs. Palatnik… on behalf of all the 35-year-old Jewish married women in Britain."
Each morning at 11, British police escorted the three of us to the embassy gates, where we requested a meeting with the ambassador's wife - which of course we didn't get. Meanwhile, the rest of the 35s kept a round-the-clock vigil outside the embassy and cabled the wives of Soviet leaders such as premier Alexei Kosygin and party leader Leonid Brezhnev, calling for the release of Palatnik and other Jewish prisoners of conscience. Of course, we informed the media at every turn. After considerable publicity in the BBC and the national press, our letter was finally accepted.
We were getting quite clever at PR. Our press releases were original and our ideas were innovative. When The Times quoted the Soviet press about the situation of the Jews rather than our sources, 300 of us marched down Fleet Street on the newspaper, and the editor came out to talk to us. London's Jewish Chronicle of July 1971 reported that protests such as ours were impacting on the sentencing of Jews in the USSR, and called me "one of the enterprising leaders of the campaign."
DESPITE OUR successes, many of the 35s still yearned to be under the establishment umbrella. It was unheard of for a group of Jews - far less Jewish women - to act without formal approval from either Israel's government or the Board of Deputies.
The final straw came when two independent activists gained access to the Soviet Consulate, found anti-Semitic tracts there and read them through a window to the press below. During a TV interview that followed, one of the Jewish students involved crudely described his manhandling in the consulate and imprisonment in a cage for several hours.
This was followed by an apology to the Soviet Embassy from the Israeli Embassy - and a middle-of-the-night visit to our home by Yitzhak Rager, with a warning to "lie low." Cecil thought this was nonsense, but my intention wasn't to make trouble for Israel, so I obeyed. A week later, a 35s delegation told me they wanted to move under the auspices of the Board of Deputies.
I wanted the organization to continue, thrive and maintain its impetus, but I didn't want to be controlled by the Board of Deputies. This crisis was resolved for me by the wise counsel of Rabbi Leslie Hardman, MBE, a former British Army chaplain and the first Jewish chaplain in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after its liberation. He advised me to let the 35s go. Painfully, I did. It was like putting my baby up for adoption.
My baby was gone, but Soviet Jews still languished behind locked gates, so I set up a new organization: the Committee for the Release of Soviet Jewish Prisoners. It began with three stalwart core-members - Sonja Cohen, Frances Mary Marzel and myself - together with our families, whose moral and practical support kept us going. Cecil funded us, and my children came on demonstrations, lighting Hanukka candles in the freezing London streets and getting up to mischief of their own invention on behalf of the Jews in the USSR.
Michael Sherbourne, a Russian-speaker who kept daily contact with refuseniks in the USSR (and who, in fact, coined the term refusenik) was our personal link to those in trouble. Eminent academics, who admired us but didn't dare join us, became friends; wonderful writers wrote for us; and famous actors and actresses helped us.
My working past as a fashion model had left me intensely aware of the value of a good a picture. We hired a veteran news photographer, Sydney Harris, to accompany us to every event. Never flustered and always professional, he would provide large black-and-white prints within hours, which we sent by express mail to dozens of publications, often getting front-page coverage of even small demonstrations.
One reason our pictures were used so often is that the pretty girls were always maneuvered into the foreground - for which the Jewish press bitterly criticized me. My response that "you wouldn't take a rusty gun to the front line" received, of course, equally vituperative criticism. I was frequently pilloried in the Anglo-Jewish letters and editorial pages and then feted in the op-eds. British Jews simply didn't know what to make of an activist woman.
Our ways of attracting attention grew zanier. When the Ideal Home Exhibition displayed a Russian car, we surrounded it, wearing shirts adorned with the names of Soviet Prisoners of Zion (mine was Sylvia Zalmanson). A Daily Express photographer got a shot of our unceremonious ejection - and I got a 3:30 a.m. phone call from the Daily Express to say that Sylvia Zalmanson was on their front page and she looked remarkably like me. Our committee's secretary, Frances Kutock, allowed us to put her on a stretcher and push her down London's Bayswater Road, on one occasion as Anatoly Sharansky, on another as Zalmanson.
On another occasion, we rented a goat to symbolize Jewish scapegoats. We again dressed as prisoners, each with a Soviet-Jewish prisoner's name emblazoned on our sweaters, and led the goat down Bond Street. The goat, however, unfortunately took fright and bolted, with me desperately hanging onto its leash. Most of the photographers lost us, but Harris's pictures of the Jewish (e)scapegoat were printed around the world.
A Times op-ed by Bernard Levin about pregnant Soviet Jewish prisoner Ludmilla Prussakova prompted us to invite actress Hayley Mills, then pregnant herself, to demonstrate with us outside the Soviet Embassy. She duly turned up, charmed us all, was highly knowledgeable about the plight of Soviet Jews and spoke up for them when the media interviewed her.
In September 1971, I received a New Year card from the USSR. Written in Russian, it read: "Dear Barbara. We congratulate you and your family on the New Year, Rosh Hashana. We wish you lots of personal happiness, good health and success in everything. Many thanks for not forgetting us."
The trickle of Soviet Jewish activists making aliya in the 1970s gradually grew into a torrent. In 1987, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the majority of refuseniks to leave, and in 1991, when the Soviet Union fell and most restrictions on emigration were rescinded, the Jewish exodus became a flood. Today, more than a million Jews from the former USSR live in Israel, with about a half-million more in the US, Canada and Europe.
While the part I played in the campaign to free Soviet Jewry was not on the scale described by Pravda (it once called the Oberman house in Golders Green "the center of Zionist activity in England"!), I look back with enormous pride. We were non-working, middle-class Jewish housewives, with the support of husbands and children, and the hours to give to what was then a unique form of public protest. Despite the emerging women's movement in the West, we saw ourselves as housewives, who had taken the highly unusual step of bucking the establishment and grabbing the spotlight solely because we saw no other way.
We combined vision with a stubborn determination to put the plight of refuseniks on the world agenda, and we believed passionately that we could make a difference. This proved a potent combination. In the end, we and others like us did indeed show the mighty Soviet Union that Jews could not be denied their human rights because they were Jews.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379003058&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
We became the 35s almost by chance. In was May 1971 and we were 35-year-old suburban housewives (regrettably a mere dozen of us, not the crowd we'd wanted) hunger-striking outside the Soviet Embassy in London on behalf of a 35-year-old Soviet Jewish woman, incarcerated without trial in a Soviet torture chamber.
We made BBC Radio's News at One later that day, which named us the 35s for the first time, and named me Margaret (rather than Barbara) as I gave my first on-air interview. Nonetheless, we were delighted to have media coverage - and thrilled when it bore fruit. Within 12 hours, an Israeli Embassy staffer secretly told us that Raissa Palatnik, the librarian for whom we'd demonstrated, had been moved to a regular prison cell, from where she would stand trial.
Looking back on those tumultuous times, I credit our artlessness and innocence for that first success and the many that followed. Our campaign was one of the opening salvos in the battle to free the then-unknown number of persecuted Jews inside the USSR - who were discovered to be the four million so-called Jews of Silence. It was a fight in which we took on not only the mighty Soviet Union, but also Israel's government and the Anglo-Jewish establishment. For their own separate reasons, both Israel and British Jews favored quiet diplomacy. We were appalled at their foot-dragging. All we could sense was impending doom, a catastrophic replaying of all-too-recent Jewish history.
My story with the 35s begins with the Six Day War, which sparked Jewish pride and revitalized Jewish identity across the USSR. I heard stories about these Soviet Jews for the first time on holiday in Israel that summer. Did Soviet Jews, I wondered, want to be silent or were they waiting for free Jews to shatter that silence?
The plight of Soviet Jewry, however, receded for me when we returned to London and plunged once more into our busy middle-class lives. I was then nearly 33, the youngest of my three children was only two and my husband Cecil and I were both active in British Jewish life - from Golders Green's Dunstan Road Synagogue to fund-raising through WIZO, JNF and JPA (today the UIA). It took another summer holiday in Israel for the spark struck in 1967 to flare.
It was then that a friend, Pesach Mor, a European-born lawyer and a former British Army officer, told us about a trip he'd recently made to the USSR, at some personal peril, to see the situation for himself. "They want to get out," he said. "They don't want to be Jews of Silence."
I RETURNED to London determined to act. The proper authorities, I believed, had simply to be galvanized. I called a meeting of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Anglo-Jewry's 200-year-old representative body, and its major subsidiaries. I can still see the long table round which we sat, the 15 to 20 people there representing the Chief Rabbi's Office and the Central British Fund, among others. I made an impassioned plea for the rescue of Soviet Jewry. They responded in a polite British way, whose subtext read that I was a Jewish housewife who knew nothing, was not positioned to take any kind of action and should go home and busy myself with more appropriate matters.
A CBF representative whom I met on the stairs following the meeting told me that parcels were quietly being sent to Soviet Jews, that I should guard my tongue and that public action was out of the question.
She left me unconvinced. I requested a meeting with then-chief rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits. The encounter turned into a three-hour slugfest, in which I desperately tried to convince this gentlemanly scholar that we were the heirs of those Diaspora Jews of a generation earlier who had failed to save the six million, and that he could help change the course of history. I don't think anyone had spoken to him like that before - but to no avail.
I had hit blank walls in every direction. I went about life with a heavy heart, attending any event connected with Soviet Jewry, increasingly frustrated and angry that I couldn't trigger the official bodies I'd been so certain would act for the Jews in trouble.
Early in May 1971, I attended a lecture given by Yitzhak Rager, then second secretary at the Israeli Embassy and later to be mayor of Beersheba and president of State of Israel Bonds. That was where I heard about Raissa Palatnik, at 35 the same age as me, imprisoned in a torture chamber because she'd wanted to leave Russia.
I was overwhelmed by Palatnik's story, and poured it out to Cecil as soon as I got home. Had my grandmother not emigrated to Britain, I could be where Raissa was now, I told him. While we couldn't bring out the numbers of demonstrators that American Jews did, I said, I wanted to gather other 35-year-old women to join me on hunger strike to gain recognition for her plight. The time for passive protests and short mentions deep inside the newspapers was over.
I MUST HAVE made more than 100 phone calls that night to family, friends and mothers of children at the three Jewish schools my children attended. Almost all of them asked if I'd had an okay from the Anglo-Jewish establishment. Few were willing to put themselves on the line when they heard I hadn't. In the end, barely a dozen of us - among them, my good friends Sylvia Wallis, Zelda Harris and Zena Clayton - made our way next day to the gates of the Soviet Embassy. Against this wonderful photo-op background, we held up a giant canvas banner that Cecil and our two sons had spent the night making in our dress factory. "USSR release Raissa Palatnik" it urged, for all the world to see.
The News at One interview followed, the 35s was born and we garnered our first triumph with Palatnik moved to an ordinary prison and given a trial date. The secretary of the Board of Deputies even sent us a congratulatory telegram. My home became our office, and the phone rarely stopped ringing. We wore black for our protests, we were young and well-groomed, and the media loved us. As our group grew, one member brought in a circle of her friends. Among them was Doreen Gainsford, a later leader of the 35s.
Palatnik's situation had improved, but she was still a prisoner. We decided that three 35-year old Jewish women in black - myself, Myra Janner (whose husband was MP Greville Janner) and Sylvia Wallis - would go to the Soviet Embassy each morning and present the ambassador's wife with a letter asking her "as a woman, to use her good offices to stop the KGB torturing Mrs. Palatnik… on behalf of all the 35-year-old Jewish married women in Britain."
Each morning at 11, British police escorted the three of us to the embassy gates, where we requested a meeting with the ambassador's wife - which of course we didn't get. Meanwhile, the rest of the 35s kept a round-the-clock vigil outside the embassy and cabled the wives of Soviet leaders such as premier Alexei Kosygin and party leader Leonid Brezhnev, calling for the release of Palatnik and other Jewish prisoners of conscience. Of course, we informed the media at every turn. After considerable publicity in the BBC and the national press, our letter was finally accepted.
We were getting quite clever at PR. Our press releases were original and our ideas were innovative. When The Times quoted the Soviet press about the situation of the Jews rather than our sources, 300 of us marched down Fleet Street on the newspaper, and the editor came out to talk to us. London's Jewish Chronicle of July 1971 reported that protests such as ours were impacting on the sentencing of Jews in the USSR, and called me "one of the enterprising leaders of the campaign."
DESPITE OUR successes, many of the 35s still yearned to be under the establishment umbrella. It was unheard of for a group of Jews - far less Jewish women - to act without formal approval from either Israel's government or the Board of Deputies.
The final straw came when two independent activists gained access to the Soviet Consulate, found anti-Semitic tracts there and read them through a window to the press below. During a TV interview that followed, one of the Jewish students involved crudely described his manhandling in the consulate and imprisonment in a cage for several hours.
This was followed by an apology to the Soviet Embassy from the Israeli Embassy - and a middle-of-the-night visit to our home by Yitzhak Rager, with a warning to "lie low." Cecil thought this was nonsense, but my intention wasn't to make trouble for Israel, so I obeyed. A week later, a 35s delegation told me they wanted to move under the auspices of the Board of Deputies.
I wanted the organization to continue, thrive and maintain its impetus, but I didn't want to be controlled by the Board of Deputies. This crisis was resolved for me by the wise counsel of Rabbi Leslie Hardman, MBE, a former British Army chaplain and the first Jewish chaplain in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp after its liberation. He advised me to let the 35s go. Painfully, I did. It was like putting my baby up for adoption.
My baby was gone, but Soviet Jews still languished behind locked gates, so I set up a new organization: the Committee for the Release of Soviet Jewish Prisoners. It began with three stalwart core-members - Sonja Cohen, Frances Mary Marzel and myself - together with our families, whose moral and practical support kept us going. Cecil funded us, and my children came on demonstrations, lighting Hanukka candles in the freezing London streets and getting up to mischief of their own invention on behalf of the Jews in the USSR.
Michael Sherbourne, a Russian-speaker who kept daily contact with refuseniks in the USSR (and who, in fact, coined the term refusenik) was our personal link to those in trouble. Eminent academics, who admired us but didn't dare join us, became friends; wonderful writers wrote for us; and famous actors and actresses helped us.
My working past as a fashion model had left me intensely aware of the value of a good a picture. We hired a veteran news photographer, Sydney Harris, to accompany us to every event. Never flustered and always professional, he would provide large black-and-white prints within hours, which we sent by express mail to dozens of publications, often getting front-page coverage of even small demonstrations.
One reason our pictures were used so often is that the pretty girls were always maneuvered into the foreground - for which the Jewish press bitterly criticized me. My response that "you wouldn't take a rusty gun to the front line" received, of course, equally vituperative criticism. I was frequently pilloried in the Anglo-Jewish letters and editorial pages and then feted in the op-eds. British Jews simply didn't know what to make of an activist woman.
Our ways of attracting attention grew zanier. When the Ideal Home Exhibition displayed a Russian car, we surrounded it, wearing shirts adorned with the names of Soviet Prisoners of Zion (mine was Sylvia Zalmanson). A Daily Express photographer got a shot of our unceremonious ejection - and I got a 3:30 a.m. phone call from the Daily Express to say that Sylvia Zalmanson was on their front page and she looked remarkably like me. Our committee's secretary, Frances Kutock, allowed us to put her on a stretcher and push her down London's Bayswater Road, on one occasion as Anatoly Sharansky, on another as Zalmanson.
On another occasion, we rented a goat to symbolize Jewish scapegoats. We again dressed as prisoners, each with a Soviet-Jewish prisoner's name emblazoned on our sweaters, and led the goat down Bond Street. The goat, however, unfortunately took fright and bolted, with me desperately hanging onto its leash. Most of the photographers lost us, but Harris's pictures of the Jewish (e)scapegoat were printed around the world.
A Times op-ed by Bernard Levin about pregnant Soviet Jewish prisoner Ludmilla Prussakova prompted us to invite actress Hayley Mills, then pregnant herself, to demonstrate with us outside the Soviet Embassy. She duly turned up, charmed us all, was highly knowledgeable about the plight of Soviet Jews and spoke up for them when the media interviewed her.
In September 1971, I received a New Year card from the USSR. Written in Russian, it read: "Dear Barbara. We congratulate you and your family on the New Year, Rosh Hashana. We wish you lots of personal happiness, good health and success in everything. Many thanks for not forgetting us."
The trickle of Soviet Jewish activists making aliya in the 1970s gradually grew into a torrent. In 1987, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev allowed the majority of refuseniks to leave, and in 1991, when the Soviet Union fell and most restrictions on emigration were rescinded, the Jewish exodus became a flood. Today, more than a million Jews from the former USSR live in Israel, with about a half-million more in the US, Canada and Europe.
While the part I played in the campaign to free Soviet Jewry was not on the scale described by Pravda (it once called the Oberman house in Golders Green "the center of Zionist activity in England"!), I look back with enormous pride. We were non-working, middle-class Jewish housewives, with the support of husbands and children, and the hours to give to what was then a unique form of public protest. Despite the emerging women's movement in the West, we saw ourselves as housewives, who had taken the highly unusual step of bucking the establishment and grabbing the spotlight solely because we saw no other way.
We combined vision with a stubborn determination to put the plight of refuseniks on the world agenda, and we believed passionately that we could make a difference. This proved a potent combination. In the end, we and others like us did indeed show the mighty Soviet Union that Jews could not be denied their human rights because they were Jews.
Secy. Rice: Israel Must End Occupation of 'West Bank'
-----
B”H
She needs to go. She is an embarrassment and a shame to US foreign policy. I hope the Israeli government will refuse to speak with her after this obnoxious radio address, but I know that they will speak to her anyway. What they had of a back bone has withered away, replaced by jelly.
M
----
by Hillel Fendel
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123194
(IsraelNN.com) Speaking with Arabic-language Radio Sawa, based in Washington and Dubai, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice went further in her demands on Israel than President Bush did in his recent speech on Israel.
Rice, about to depart for the Middle East to prepare an upcoming international meeting of regional leaders, said that President Bush recently stated "very clearly that Israel's future will rest in Israel, in places like Galilee and in the Negev - and that the occupation of the West Bank will have to end, and a Palestinian state will need to be established."
In fact, however, in his recent speech, President Bush did not phrase this as a demand upon Israel, but rather cited Prime Minister Olmert as having "made clear that Israel's future lies in developing areas like the Negev and Galilee - not in continuing occupation of the West Bank. This is a reality that Prime Minister Sharon recognized, as well. So unauthorized outposts should be removed and settlement expansion ended."
Rice Sets New Standard
Pres. Bush also stopped short of saying Israel must withdraw from all of Judea and Samaria. Bush said rather that future Israel-PA negotiations must "lead to a territorial settlement, with mutually agreed borders reflecting previous lines and current realities, and mutually agreed adjustments."
By stating so clearly that the "the occupation of the West Bank will have to end," Rice has set a new standard for United States officials of her stature in opposition to Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria.
Secretary Rice did not deal with the question of what to do with the 240,000 Jews living in the non-annexed areas of Judea and Samaria (nor the roughly equal amount living in the outlying neighborhoods of Jerusalem beyond Israel's pre-1967 borders). Israel has not yet been able to solve the problems of the fewer than 10,000 Jews it evicted from Gaza two years ago; those Jews are still living in transient camps of temporary pre-fab houses, with no long-term housing or employment solutions in sight.
No Invitations Yet
Secretary Rice also told Radio Sawa that "no invitations have gone out yet" for the planned meeting. "I want to talk to our allies in the region and our friends in the region about how they see and what they would see to be a useful international meeting," she said. "[It] will be, as the President said, an opportunity to review our progress. It will be an opportunity to make commitments to support the Israelis and Palestinians in their discussions, in their future negotiations... The United States doesn't want Made-in-America solutions. We need the entire population of states that are devoted to the two-state solution to work with us. And so these will be very important consultations."
Bush: Hamas - Bad, Fatah - Great
President Bush, in his speech ten days ago, compared Hamas and Fatah in stark terms, painting a picture of contrasts in which the Arabs under PA jurisdiction can, seemingly, choose either evil (Hamas) or good (Fatah).
"This is a moment of clarity for all Palestinians," Bush said," and now comes a moment of choice... There is the vision of Hamas, which the world saw in Gaza - with murderers in black masks, and summary executions, and men thrown to their death from rooftops. By following this path, the Palestinian people would guarantee chaos, and suffering, and the endless perpetuation of grievance. They would surrender their future to Hamas's foreign sponsors in Syria and Iran. And they would crush the possibility of a Palestinian state."
"There's another option," Bush continued, "and that's a hopeful option. It is the vision of [Fatah] President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad; it's the vision of their government; it's the vision of a peaceful state called Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people. To realize this vision, these leaders are striving to build the institutions of a modern democracy. They're working to strengthen the Palestinian security services, so they can confront the terrorists and protect the innocent... And they're ensuring that Palestinian society operates under the rule of law. By following this path, Palestinians can reclaim their dignity and their future -- and establish a state of their own."
Rampant Fatah Terrorism and Hatred
In fact, however, Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have actually taken responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years. Just this week, WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein reports, Fatah terrorists organized yet another terrorist cell in Samaria for attacks against Israel. In addition, the 178 wanted Fatah terrorists whom Israel agreed to pardon last week if they would renounce terrorism described their hand-in of weapons as a "big joke."
Interestingly, Bush noted that Hamas men threw Fatah members out of apartment buildings during their recent battles, but neglected to mention that Fatah did the same to Hamas members.
As Caroline Glick wrote in the Jerusalem Post on Dec. 26, 2006, "If Abbas were interested in peace, he would not be demanding that Israel [do the following]: release terrorists from prison; stop arresting wanted terrorists; make it easier for terrorists to operate in Judea and Samaria by suspending IDF counterterror operations and taking down roadblocks; bring more terrorists into the areas from Jordan; arm terrorists through Egypt; and give him money to pay the salaries of terrorists."
Former Israeli Cabinet Minister Natan Sharansky succintly described the cultural milieu in the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority as one that “promotes genocide” against Jews: “As in Nazi Germany, there is an entire culture of hatred in Palestinian Arab society today, from textbooks to crossword puzzles, from day camps to TV music videos. Calling for the murder of Jews, as Jews, is the end result.”
B”H
She needs to go. She is an embarrassment and a shame to US foreign policy. I hope the Israeli government will refuse to speak with her after this obnoxious radio address, but I know that they will speak to her anyway. What they had of a back bone has withered away, replaced by jelly.
M
----
by Hillel Fendel
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123194
(IsraelNN.com) Speaking with Arabic-language Radio Sawa, based in Washington and Dubai, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice went further in her demands on Israel than President Bush did in his recent speech on Israel.
Rice, about to depart for the Middle East to prepare an upcoming international meeting of regional leaders, said that President Bush recently stated "very clearly that Israel's future will rest in Israel, in places like Galilee and in the Negev - and that the occupation of the West Bank will have to end, and a Palestinian state will need to be established."
In fact, however, in his recent speech, President Bush did not phrase this as a demand upon Israel, but rather cited Prime Minister Olmert as having "made clear that Israel's future lies in developing areas like the Negev and Galilee - not in continuing occupation of the West Bank. This is a reality that Prime Minister Sharon recognized, as well. So unauthorized outposts should be removed and settlement expansion ended."
Rice Sets New Standard
Pres. Bush also stopped short of saying Israel must withdraw from all of Judea and Samaria. Bush said rather that future Israel-PA negotiations must "lead to a territorial settlement, with mutually agreed borders reflecting previous lines and current realities, and mutually agreed adjustments."
By stating so clearly that the "the occupation of the West Bank will have to end," Rice has set a new standard for United States officials of her stature in opposition to Israel's presence in Judea and Samaria.
Secretary Rice did not deal with the question of what to do with the 240,000 Jews living in the non-annexed areas of Judea and Samaria (nor the roughly equal amount living in the outlying neighborhoods of Jerusalem beyond Israel's pre-1967 borders). Israel has not yet been able to solve the problems of the fewer than 10,000 Jews it evicted from Gaza two years ago; those Jews are still living in transient camps of temporary pre-fab houses, with no long-term housing or employment solutions in sight.
No Invitations Yet
Secretary Rice also told Radio Sawa that "no invitations have gone out yet" for the planned meeting. "I want to talk to our allies in the region and our friends in the region about how they see and what they would see to be a useful international meeting," she said. "[It] will be, as the President said, an opportunity to review our progress. It will be an opportunity to make commitments to support the Israelis and Palestinians in their discussions, in their future negotiations... The United States doesn't want Made-in-America solutions. We need the entire population of states that are devoted to the two-state solution to work with us. And so these will be very important consultations."
Bush: Hamas - Bad, Fatah - Great
President Bush, in his speech ten days ago, compared Hamas and Fatah in stark terms, painting a picture of contrasts in which the Arabs under PA jurisdiction can, seemingly, choose either evil (Hamas) or good (Fatah).
"This is a moment of clarity for all Palestinians," Bush said," and now comes a moment of choice... There is the vision of Hamas, which the world saw in Gaza - with murderers in black masks, and summary executions, and men thrown to their death from rooftops. By following this path, the Palestinian people would guarantee chaos, and suffering, and the endless perpetuation of grievance. They would surrender their future to Hamas's foreign sponsors in Syria and Iran. And they would crush the possibility of a Palestinian state."
"There's another option," Bush continued, "and that's a hopeful option. It is the vision of [Fatah] President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad; it's the vision of their government; it's the vision of a peaceful state called Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people. To realize this vision, these leaders are striving to build the institutions of a modern democracy. They're working to strengthen the Palestinian security services, so they can confront the terrorists and protect the innocent... And they're ensuring that Palestinian society operates under the rule of law. By following this path, Palestinians can reclaim their dignity and their future -- and establish a state of their own."
Rampant Fatah Terrorism and Hatred
In fact, however, Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have actually taken responsibility for every suicide bombing in Israel the past three years. Just this week, WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein reports, Fatah terrorists organized yet another terrorist cell in Samaria for attacks against Israel. In addition, the 178 wanted Fatah terrorists whom Israel agreed to pardon last week if they would renounce terrorism described their hand-in of weapons as a "big joke."
Interestingly, Bush noted that Hamas men threw Fatah members out of apartment buildings during their recent battles, but neglected to mention that Fatah did the same to Hamas members.
As Caroline Glick wrote in the Jerusalem Post on Dec. 26, 2006, "If Abbas were interested in peace, he would not be demanding that Israel [do the following]: release terrorists from prison; stop arresting wanted terrorists; make it easier for terrorists to operate in Judea and Samaria by suspending IDF counterterror operations and taking down roadblocks; bring more terrorists into the areas from Jordan; arm terrorists through Egypt; and give him money to pay the salaries of terrorists."
Former Israeli Cabinet Minister Natan Sharansky succintly described the cultural milieu in the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority as one that “promotes genocide” against Jews: “As in Nazi Germany, there is an entire culture of hatred in Palestinian Arab society today, from textbooks to crossword puzzles, from day camps to TV music videos. Calling for the murder of Jews, as Jews, is the end result.”
Waiting To Go Home
Outdated Interior Ministry rules stymie and delay converts who wish to make aliyah.
Michele Chabin - Israel Correspondent
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=14329
Jerusalem — The minute Kami Barker, who recently converted to Judaism, laid her eyes on Tel Aviv in May, she knew it was the place she wanted to call home.
“I was at home spiritually, but I also felt at home because it was a place where I could do more and be more accepted in places,” Barker, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair, said this week by phone from her Manhattan apartment.
In New York, Barker, who is an attorney, explained, “I often have to go a block or two out of my way to find an accessible sidewalk. In Tel Aviv there were a lot more curb cuts and people were very warm and very friendly. They would all come out and help, which hasn’t always been my experience in New York.”
Because her mobility challenges require her to live way downtown, close to her workplace, Barker, who was raised in an Evangelical Christian home in the Bible Belt, said she feels relatively isolated from mainstream Orthodox life in the heart of the city. She moved to New York in May 2005.
“While I’ve made genuine friends in the [downtown] community that regularly host me for Shabbat, I often spend Shabbat alone,” she confided. “When I visited Tel Aviv, I realized with every curb cut and accessible bus, restaurant and grocery store, that regardless of where I live in Israel I will be in a community. Hopefully, with time, I will no longer spend Shabbat alone, for Israel is, after all, one big Jewish community.”
Exactly a week after Barker returned to New York, she made an appointment with a Jewish Agency aliyah emissary to begin the process of immigrating to Israel.
While she expected to encounter some bureaucracy, the determined 27-year-old never anticipated the shaliach’s response.
“He told me I could submit my application but that the Interior Ministry would ignore it for a year,” Barker said, her voice catching. “He said I could appeal the process but that no one wins their appeal.”
The problem, Barker discovered, is an outdated Ministry of the Interior policy that forbids overseas converts from all streams of Judaism from making aliyah within a year of their conversion. Though the High Court of Justice has deemed the practice illegal, the ministry continues to enforce it.
Barker, who underwent a Rabbinical Council of America/Beit Din of America Orthodox conversion at a well-known Manhattan synagogue at the end of March, is one of the many converts who have been forced to put their plans on hold due to the ministry’s policy.
Although some politicians and other interested parties are trying to force the ministry to welcome the converts unconditionally, it’s proving to be an uphill battle.
In June, the Knesset Committee on Immigration and Absorption convened to discuss the issue, which affects “hundreds” of converts, according to testimony by Mazal Cohen, the Interior Ministry official charged with approving visa permits.
The rule stipulates that, once they become Jewish, all new converts must reside in the communities where they converted for at least another year.
The ministry introduced this protocol in 2002 ostensibly to prevent foreign workers with no real interest in being Jewish from receiving immediate, automatic Israeli citizenship. The Palestinian uprising was raging, and Palestinian laborers who were no longer permitted into Israel were being replaced by workers from the Philippines, Romania and China.
In response to a petition filed by 11 shut-out converts, in 2005 the High Court ruled that conversion constitutes full membership in the Jewish people and that converts are eligible to immigrate immediately. Then-Interior Minister Ophir Pines-Paz stated that the one-year rule was cancelled until such time as new criteria to determine a convert’s sincerity were established.
So far, no such criteria have been approved.
Rabbi Seth Farber, the director of ITIM, a Jerusalem organization that helps people tackle the bureaucracy of Jewish life in Israel, stresses that the current roadblock has nothing to do with the rabbinate.
“This is purely an issue with the Interior Ministry. In cases like Kami’s, this has nothing to do with the validity of the conversion. The Israeli rabbinate will approve her conversion, no questions asked. If Moshe Rabbenu himself had performed the conversion, the Interior Ministry wouldn’t allow her in!”
To underscore the difficulties facing newly minted converts, Farber leafs through reams of paper bursting out of a thick file folder on ITIM’s conference table.
“There’s a young and very sincere European woman who arrived in Israel as a tourist and decided to convert to Judaism,” he relates. “She studied for conversion in a recognized Orthodox program in Israel but when it became apparent that there were too many bureaucratic obstacles preventing her from doing the actual conversion in Israel she went back to her home country, where she converted in a rabbinical court recognized by the chief rabbinate. This was the summer of 2006 — exactly one year ago.”
Since then, Farber says, the woman has repeatedly been refused citizenship and sent first to the conversion court — which denied any jurisdiction — and then to the rabbinical court, which formally certified her Judaism. In the meantime, she was threatened with expulsion. Only after ITIM lobbied on the convert’s behalf did the Interior Ministry grant her a B1 work permit.
“Last week we received two conflicting letters from the Ministry of the Interior,” Farber says, with the look of someone who doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “One intimated she would continue to be denied citizenship until new criteria are formulated and another sent her case back to the conversion court — the very same court that denied jurisdiction nine months ago.”
A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry defended its handling of the European convert’s case, stating that it “did not deny any of the requests, but [rather] approved a temporary B1 visa until the regulations will be set ...When the regulations are approved, all [citizenship] applications will be checked again, as the court has decided.”
The spokeswoman could not comment on Barker’s case because the New Yorker, at the advice of the Jewish Agency emissary, has not yet formally requested citizenship.
Farber, who plans to petition the High Court to force the ministry to abide by the court’s 2005 ruling, says the ministry has “illegally taken upon itself the role of deciding who is a Jew and who isn’t a Jew. Hundreds of converts are being denied their Jewish status. This goes against a key principle of Jewish tradition.”
But Knesset member Moshe Gafni from the fervently Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party, defends the ministry’s practice.
“It’s impossible to know which converts are truly sincere and which converted simply to receive the government benefits that come with citizenship,” Gafni said.
When reminded that the High Court had struck down the protocol, the Knesset member responded: “The court’s decision was incorrect.”
Like Farber, Rabbi Maury Kelman, one of the rabbis who sat on the New York rabbinical court that converted Kami Barker, believes the ministry’s policy goes against Jewish law and values.
“A convert is Jewish in the exact same way that Abraham, Sarah, Moshe and the most learned rabbis of today are Jewish. To treat converts otherwise is, in plain words, to discriminate against them and to trample upon the most fundamental teaching of our Torah,” Rabbi Kelman told The Jewish Week.
Rabbi Kelman said he was “stunned” when Barker related her experience with the Jewish Agency aliyah emissary.
“I understand the Interior Ministry is justifiably concerned about foreign workers and I’m not advocating open borders,” Rabbi Kelman stressed, “but to discriminate against wonderful people who against many obstacles and odds decide to join our Jewish family is unconscionable.”
The rabbi urged the ministry “to find a way to deal with the workers that does not infringe on the rights of sincere converts.”
Rabbi Kelman, who personally taught Barker for more than a year at an Upper West Side synagogue, calls her “a wonderful person who has overcome tremendous obstacles to become Jewish.
“She could have easily decided that all the efforts in becoming Jewish — the three-to-four-hour journey to attend our weekly classes, the difficulties of keeping Shabbos and other mitzvot in a wheelchair, the [physical] challenge of immersing in the mikveh — weren’t worth it. And yet she persevered, and not only that, she’s decided to fulfill the fundamental mitzvah of making aliyah at a time when Israel needs talented and educated immigrants such as herself.”
Barker called her experience “incredibly frustrating and upsetting because I went through a long and rigorous Orthodox conversion, part of it to ensure my sincerity as a Jew. Now that I have proven to three rabbis that I’m sincere, committed and knowledgeable, I’m being treated differently than other Jews.”
As hundreds of North American Jews immigrate to Israel this summer with Nefesh B’Nefesh and the Jewish Agency, Barker can only sit on the sidelines and recall the same “unknown magnetic connection” toward Israel that brought her to Judaism.
“It’s not just the issue of waiting seven or eight months, though that’s very important, but the fact that if one of my friends who was born Jewish wanted to make aliyah immediately, he or she would be able to do so.
“The big deal is that according to Jewish law a convert is supposed to be treated equally to other Jews,” Barker said, “but this isn’t happening.”
Michele Chabin - Israel Correspondent
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=14329
Jerusalem — The minute Kami Barker, who recently converted to Judaism, laid her eyes on Tel Aviv in May, she knew it was the place she wanted to call home.
“I was at home spiritually, but I also felt at home because it was a place where I could do more and be more accepted in places,” Barker, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair, said this week by phone from her Manhattan apartment.
In New York, Barker, who is an attorney, explained, “I often have to go a block or two out of my way to find an accessible sidewalk. In Tel Aviv there were a lot more curb cuts and people were very warm and very friendly. They would all come out and help, which hasn’t always been my experience in New York.”
Because her mobility challenges require her to live way downtown, close to her workplace, Barker, who was raised in an Evangelical Christian home in the Bible Belt, said she feels relatively isolated from mainstream Orthodox life in the heart of the city. She moved to New York in May 2005.
“While I’ve made genuine friends in the [downtown] community that regularly host me for Shabbat, I often spend Shabbat alone,” she confided. “When I visited Tel Aviv, I realized with every curb cut and accessible bus, restaurant and grocery store, that regardless of where I live in Israel I will be in a community. Hopefully, with time, I will no longer spend Shabbat alone, for Israel is, after all, one big Jewish community.”
Exactly a week after Barker returned to New York, she made an appointment with a Jewish Agency aliyah emissary to begin the process of immigrating to Israel.
While she expected to encounter some bureaucracy, the determined 27-year-old never anticipated the shaliach’s response.
“He told me I could submit my application but that the Interior Ministry would ignore it for a year,” Barker said, her voice catching. “He said I could appeal the process but that no one wins their appeal.”
The problem, Barker discovered, is an outdated Ministry of the Interior policy that forbids overseas converts from all streams of Judaism from making aliyah within a year of their conversion. Though the High Court of Justice has deemed the practice illegal, the ministry continues to enforce it.
Barker, who underwent a Rabbinical Council of America/Beit Din of America Orthodox conversion at a well-known Manhattan synagogue at the end of March, is one of the many converts who have been forced to put their plans on hold due to the ministry’s policy.
Although some politicians and other interested parties are trying to force the ministry to welcome the converts unconditionally, it’s proving to be an uphill battle.
In June, the Knesset Committee on Immigration and Absorption convened to discuss the issue, which affects “hundreds” of converts, according to testimony by Mazal Cohen, the Interior Ministry official charged with approving visa permits.
The rule stipulates that, once they become Jewish, all new converts must reside in the communities where they converted for at least another year.
The ministry introduced this protocol in 2002 ostensibly to prevent foreign workers with no real interest in being Jewish from receiving immediate, automatic Israeli citizenship. The Palestinian uprising was raging, and Palestinian laborers who were no longer permitted into Israel were being replaced by workers from the Philippines, Romania and China.
In response to a petition filed by 11 shut-out converts, in 2005 the High Court ruled that conversion constitutes full membership in the Jewish people and that converts are eligible to immigrate immediately. Then-Interior Minister Ophir Pines-Paz stated that the one-year rule was cancelled until such time as new criteria to determine a convert’s sincerity were established.
So far, no such criteria have been approved.
Rabbi Seth Farber, the director of ITIM, a Jerusalem organization that helps people tackle the bureaucracy of Jewish life in Israel, stresses that the current roadblock has nothing to do with the rabbinate.
“This is purely an issue with the Interior Ministry. In cases like Kami’s, this has nothing to do with the validity of the conversion. The Israeli rabbinate will approve her conversion, no questions asked. If Moshe Rabbenu himself had performed the conversion, the Interior Ministry wouldn’t allow her in!”
To underscore the difficulties facing newly minted converts, Farber leafs through reams of paper bursting out of a thick file folder on ITIM’s conference table.
“There’s a young and very sincere European woman who arrived in Israel as a tourist and decided to convert to Judaism,” he relates. “She studied for conversion in a recognized Orthodox program in Israel but when it became apparent that there were too many bureaucratic obstacles preventing her from doing the actual conversion in Israel she went back to her home country, where she converted in a rabbinical court recognized by the chief rabbinate. This was the summer of 2006 — exactly one year ago.”
Since then, Farber says, the woman has repeatedly been refused citizenship and sent first to the conversion court — which denied any jurisdiction — and then to the rabbinical court, which formally certified her Judaism. In the meantime, she was threatened with expulsion. Only after ITIM lobbied on the convert’s behalf did the Interior Ministry grant her a B1 work permit.
“Last week we received two conflicting letters from the Ministry of the Interior,” Farber says, with the look of someone who doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “One intimated she would continue to be denied citizenship until new criteria are formulated and another sent her case back to the conversion court — the very same court that denied jurisdiction nine months ago.”
A spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry defended its handling of the European convert’s case, stating that it “did not deny any of the requests, but [rather] approved a temporary B1 visa until the regulations will be set ...When the regulations are approved, all [citizenship] applications will be checked again, as the court has decided.”
The spokeswoman could not comment on Barker’s case because the New Yorker, at the advice of the Jewish Agency emissary, has not yet formally requested citizenship.
Farber, who plans to petition the High Court to force the ministry to abide by the court’s 2005 ruling, says the ministry has “illegally taken upon itself the role of deciding who is a Jew and who isn’t a Jew. Hundreds of converts are being denied their Jewish status. This goes against a key principle of Jewish tradition.”
But Knesset member Moshe Gafni from the fervently Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party, defends the ministry’s practice.
“It’s impossible to know which converts are truly sincere and which converted simply to receive the government benefits that come with citizenship,” Gafni said.
When reminded that the High Court had struck down the protocol, the Knesset member responded: “The court’s decision was incorrect.”
Like Farber, Rabbi Maury Kelman, one of the rabbis who sat on the New York rabbinical court that converted Kami Barker, believes the ministry’s policy goes against Jewish law and values.
“A convert is Jewish in the exact same way that Abraham, Sarah, Moshe and the most learned rabbis of today are Jewish. To treat converts otherwise is, in plain words, to discriminate against them and to trample upon the most fundamental teaching of our Torah,” Rabbi Kelman told The Jewish Week.
Rabbi Kelman said he was “stunned” when Barker related her experience with the Jewish Agency aliyah emissary.
“I understand the Interior Ministry is justifiably concerned about foreign workers and I’m not advocating open borders,” Rabbi Kelman stressed, “but to discriminate against wonderful people who against many obstacles and odds decide to join our Jewish family is unconscionable.”
The rabbi urged the ministry “to find a way to deal with the workers that does not infringe on the rights of sincere converts.”
Rabbi Kelman, who personally taught Barker for more than a year at an Upper West Side synagogue, calls her “a wonderful person who has overcome tremendous obstacles to become Jewish.
“She could have easily decided that all the efforts in becoming Jewish — the three-to-four-hour journey to attend our weekly classes, the difficulties of keeping Shabbos and other mitzvot in a wheelchair, the [physical] challenge of immersing in the mikveh — weren’t worth it. And yet she persevered, and not only that, she’s decided to fulfill the fundamental mitzvah of making aliyah at a time when Israel needs talented and educated immigrants such as herself.”
Barker called her experience “incredibly frustrating and upsetting because I went through a long and rigorous Orthodox conversion, part of it to ensure my sincerity as a Jew. Now that I have proven to three rabbis that I’m sincere, committed and knowledgeable, I’m being treated differently than other Jews.”
As hundreds of North American Jews immigrate to Israel this summer with Nefesh B’Nefesh and the Jewish Agency, Barker can only sit on the sidelines and recall the same “unknown magnetic connection” toward Israel that brought her to Judaism.
“It’s not just the issue of waiting seven or eight months, though that’s very important, but the fact that if one of my friends who was born Jewish wanted to make aliyah immediately, he or she would be able to do so.
“The big deal is that according to Jewish law a convert is supposed to be treated equally to other Jews,” Barker said, “but this isn’t happening.”
Going to the trouble to be eco-kosher
BY ALAN COOPERMAN
The Washington Post
http://www.miamiherald.com/298/story/181748.html
First she had to find an organic cattle farm near her home. Then a shochet, a person trained in kosher slaughtering, who was willing to do a freelance job. Then a kosher butcher to carve the beef into various cuts and other families from her synagogue to share.
All told, it took Devora Kimelman-Block of Silver Spring, Md., 10 months to obtain 450 pounds of meat that is local, grass-fed, organic -- and strictly kosher. Which is a lot of effort -- and a lot of meat -- for someone who keeps a kosher vegetarian household.
''Here I am, leading this meat thing, and we don't even eat meat in our house,'' she said.
The only way to make sense of Kimelman-Block's effort is to understand that she is part of a budding movement, sometimes called ''eco-kosher,'' that combines traditional Jewish dietary laws with new concerns about industrial agriculture, global warming and fair treatment of workers. Eco-kosher, in turn, is part of the greening of American religion -- the rapid infusion of environmental issues into the mainstream of religious life.
Notoriously drafty churches are insulating their ceilings and buying renewable energy through a ministry named Interfaith Power & Light. Synagogues are switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs. The vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals drives a Toyota Prius, and more than 50 other evangelical Christian leaders have pledged to neutralize their ''carbon footprints'' through energy conservation.
But, for many people, the primary daily impact of rising environmental consciousness is on the food they eat. They want it to be produced locally, sustainably, organically and humanely. Increasingly, religious people view this as a religious obligation, not just a matter of good health or ethics. The trend is advancing particularly fast among Jews, who have a long tradition of investing food with religious meaning.
''I would no sooner bring eggs from caged, battery-farmed hens into my home than I would shrimp or pork,'' said Nigel S. Savage, who keeps a kosher household in New York. He edits a Web site, the Jew and the Carrot (www.jcarrot.org), that is devoted to what he calls ``the new Jewish food movement.''
Since going online in November, the Jew and the Carrot has vaulted from 300 hits a month to 300,000. But the most dramatic expansion of eco-kosher principles is likely to come in the next few years as Conservative rabbis and congregations, which occupy the middle ground between Orthodox and Reform Judaism, create a new ethical standard for food production.
The Conservative seal of approval will not be based on traditional kosher requirements, such as separating meat from dairy products, avoiding pork and shellfish, and slaughtering animals with a sharp knife across the throat.
Rather, the Conservative hechsher tzedek, Hebrew for ''justice certification,'' will attest that a particular food was produced at a plant that meets ethical norms in six areas: fair wages and benefits, health and safety, training, corporate transparency, animal welfare, and environmental impact.
Rabbi Morris Allen of Mendota Heights, Minn., head of the committee drafting the rules, said he hopes to have enforceable standards in place by Rosh Hashanah, in September. Within a year after that, he said, the justice certification should begin to appear on packaged foods.
Allen emphasized that the hechsher tzedek is meant to supplement, rather than replace, traditional kosher certification. Still, the idea has stirred attacks from some Orthodox authorities, who contend that it will cause confusion about what is truly kosher.
''We're not trying to muscle ourselves into the business that others have developed'' of certifying kosher foods, Allen said.
Only about 15 percent of the nation's roughly 5.2 million Jews keep kosher. Yet their buying power, plus the appeal of kosher items to some other consumers, has resulted in a huge market. Kosher certification now appears on 100,000 food products, made by 10,500 companies, worth $225 billion a year, according to Menachem Lubinsky, editor of the trade publication KosherToday.
In consumer surveys, less than a quarter of the shoppers who deliberately choose kosher products are observant Jews, Lubinsky said.
Kimelman-Block, who is married to a Conservative rabbi, recalled feeling ashamed after reading articles last year in the Jewish newspaper the Forward about the treatment of workers and cattle at a large kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa.
''I know that (the Iowa plant) is probably no worse than the other U.S. food processors, but they're doing it in the name of Judaism, in the name of holiness,'' she said.
Allen voiced similar feelings after he and other Conservative rabbis inspected the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, in March 2006 and found labor practices that they suspect are also common in non-kosher plants.
''We found people arriving from the mountainsides of Guatemala on a Tuesday and being on the front of the production line on Wednesday,'' Allen said. ``We saw people who could barely read Spanish getting training in English and having no idea what was said to them.''
Agriprocessors says the allegations were false or overblown and have been resolved, and Orthodox inspectors have reiterated that the plant's output is strictly kosher. But Allen said his visit to the slaughterhouse changed his thinking.
''Having promoted kashrut for 21 years and made it a central part of my rabbinate, all of a sudden it made sense to me: How could I be satisfied if the ritual aspects of kashrut were being followed, but the way the workers were treated was degrading and contrary to Jewish ethical norms?'' he asked.
As the movement catches on, the number of products certified as both kosher and organic is rising fast. The Jew and the Carrot Web site has spawned 10 community-supported agricultural cooperatives, in which Jews around the country have bought shares in local farmers' organic harvests.
One of them is Kimelman-Block's group of about 25 families at Tifereth Israel Congregation in Northwest Washington. Three years ago, they began obtaining fruits and vegetables from a local farm. This year, they arranged for free-range kosher chickens and grass-fed kosher beef as well.
Since many eco-kosher Jews are reducing or eliminating meat from their diet, Kimelman-Block is faintly embarrassed to be moving in the other direction. But after 14 years of mostly vegetarian eating, with occasional fish for protein, she is excited about consuming small quantities of beef and chicken -- as long as she knows its origin.
''Environmental issues used to depress me. It was just bleak,'' she said. ``Doing something makes me feel much more positive.''
The Washington Post
http://www.miamiherald.com/298/story/181748.html
First she had to find an organic cattle farm near her home. Then a shochet, a person trained in kosher slaughtering, who was willing to do a freelance job. Then a kosher butcher to carve the beef into various cuts and other families from her synagogue to share.
All told, it took Devora Kimelman-Block of Silver Spring, Md., 10 months to obtain 450 pounds of meat that is local, grass-fed, organic -- and strictly kosher. Which is a lot of effort -- and a lot of meat -- for someone who keeps a kosher vegetarian household.
''Here I am, leading this meat thing, and we don't even eat meat in our house,'' she said.
The only way to make sense of Kimelman-Block's effort is to understand that she is part of a budding movement, sometimes called ''eco-kosher,'' that combines traditional Jewish dietary laws with new concerns about industrial agriculture, global warming and fair treatment of workers. Eco-kosher, in turn, is part of the greening of American religion -- the rapid infusion of environmental issues into the mainstream of religious life.
Notoriously drafty churches are insulating their ceilings and buying renewable energy through a ministry named Interfaith Power & Light. Synagogues are switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs. The vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals drives a Toyota Prius, and more than 50 other evangelical Christian leaders have pledged to neutralize their ''carbon footprints'' through energy conservation.
But, for many people, the primary daily impact of rising environmental consciousness is on the food they eat. They want it to be produced locally, sustainably, organically and humanely. Increasingly, religious people view this as a religious obligation, not just a matter of good health or ethics. The trend is advancing particularly fast among Jews, who have a long tradition of investing food with religious meaning.
''I would no sooner bring eggs from caged, battery-farmed hens into my home than I would shrimp or pork,'' said Nigel S. Savage, who keeps a kosher household in New York. He edits a Web site, the Jew and the Carrot (www.jcarrot.org), that is devoted to what he calls ``the new Jewish food movement.''
Since going online in November, the Jew and the Carrot has vaulted from 300 hits a month to 300,000. But the most dramatic expansion of eco-kosher principles is likely to come in the next few years as Conservative rabbis and congregations, which occupy the middle ground between Orthodox and Reform Judaism, create a new ethical standard for food production.
The Conservative seal of approval will not be based on traditional kosher requirements, such as separating meat from dairy products, avoiding pork and shellfish, and slaughtering animals with a sharp knife across the throat.
Rather, the Conservative hechsher tzedek, Hebrew for ''justice certification,'' will attest that a particular food was produced at a plant that meets ethical norms in six areas: fair wages and benefits, health and safety, training, corporate transparency, animal welfare, and environmental impact.
Rabbi Morris Allen of Mendota Heights, Minn., head of the committee drafting the rules, said he hopes to have enforceable standards in place by Rosh Hashanah, in September. Within a year after that, he said, the justice certification should begin to appear on packaged foods.
Allen emphasized that the hechsher tzedek is meant to supplement, rather than replace, traditional kosher certification. Still, the idea has stirred attacks from some Orthodox authorities, who contend that it will cause confusion about what is truly kosher.
''We're not trying to muscle ourselves into the business that others have developed'' of certifying kosher foods, Allen said.
Only about 15 percent of the nation's roughly 5.2 million Jews keep kosher. Yet their buying power, plus the appeal of kosher items to some other consumers, has resulted in a huge market. Kosher certification now appears on 100,000 food products, made by 10,500 companies, worth $225 billion a year, according to Menachem Lubinsky, editor of the trade publication KosherToday.
In consumer surveys, less than a quarter of the shoppers who deliberately choose kosher products are observant Jews, Lubinsky said.
Kimelman-Block, who is married to a Conservative rabbi, recalled feeling ashamed after reading articles last year in the Jewish newspaper the Forward about the treatment of workers and cattle at a large kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa.
''I know that (the Iowa plant) is probably no worse than the other U.S. food processors, but they're doing it in the name of Judaism, in the name of holiness,'' she said.
Allen voiced similar feelings after he and other Conservative rabbis inspected the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, in March 2006 and found labor practices that they suspect are also common in non-kosher plants.
''We found people arriving from the mountainsides of Guatemala on a Tuesday and being on the front of the production line on Wednesday,'' Allen said. ``We saw people who could barely read Spanish getting training in English and having no idea what was said to them.''
Agriprocessors says the allegations were false or overblown and have been resolved, and Orthodox inspectors have reiterated that the plant's output is strictly kosher. But Allen said his visit to the slaughterhouse changed his thinking.
''Having promoted kashrut for 21 years and made it a central part of my rabbinate, all of a sudden it made sense to me: How could I be satisfied if the ritual aspects of kashrut were being followed, but the way the workers were treated was degrading and contrary to Jewish ethical norms?'' he asked.
As the movement catches on, the number of products certified as both kosher and organic is rising fast. The Jew and the Carrot Web site has spawned 10 community-supported agricultural cooperatives, in which Jews around the country have bought shares in local farmers' organic harvests.
One of them is Kimelman-Block's group of about 25 families at Tifereth Israel Congregation in Northwest Washington. Three years ago, they began obtaining fruits and vegetables from a local farm. This year, they arranged for free-range kosher chickens and grass-fed kosher beef as well.
Since many eco-kosher Jews are reducing or eliminating meat from their diet, Kimelman-Block is faintly embarrassed to be moving in the other direction. But after 14 years of mostly vegetarian eating, with occasional fish for protein, she is excited about consuming small quantities of beef and chicken -- as long as she knows its origin.
''Environmental issues used to depress me. It was just bleak,'' she said. ``Doing something makes me feel much more positive.''
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Settlers to expose violence on YouTube
Tovah Lazaroff, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 25, 2007
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379003127&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Settlers are taking their claims of police violence to one of the Internet's most popular sites, YouTube, where they plan to post video clips of security forces attacking right-wing activists on the outer edges of Efrat.
On Wednesday night, more than 1,000 people hiked for an hour to reach an undeveloped area of Efrat called Givat Haeitam.
In the past, organizers said, activists sought to build outposts on isolated hilltops outside of legal settlements. Now they are trying to put up new homes in sections of existing settlements that are legally designated for such activity, but where no formal approval to build has been given, such as Givat Haeitam.
Wednesday's event, said Rabbi David Marcus of Efrat, one of the organizers, "is part of a chain of events that will be held in multiple locations to show the government that they cannot choke the settlements."
The march was illegal; many brought still and video cameras with them. Upon their return, they turned in their clips of police and border police attacking protesters to Marcus as he sat with his computer in a blue tent on a main road in Efrat leading to the site.
"We have photographs," said one 13-year-old boy, still panting from the hike as he took off his knapsack and hunted for his camera.
Hanging off a fence on the other side of the street was a sign that read: "Judea Belongs to the Jews."
Marcus said the decision to turn to YouTube, which allows users to post personal and public video clips, to publicize Israel Police and Border Police brutality was a difficult one, but he saw no other way to combat the violence.
"It's not a pretty picture that we would like the world to see," said Marcus.
Already, he alleged, they had received countless accounts of police unnecessarily hitting and pushing activists.
For hours, people of all ages, from elderly with walking sticks to babes in arms, hiked to the site, where Efrat residents hope to build a new neighborhood. When soldiers blocked the road, they climbed up rocky slopes and stone fences, through the vegetable fields of neighboring Palestinians.
Along the way, many stopped to pray, individually or in groups.
While several hundred made it to the top of Givat Haeitam, others went only to the edge of the hill.
Hundreds of police officers were waiting for them. In some cases they hunted the protesters down through the rocky hillside and forced them to leave. In other cases they simply offered them rides.
Settlers reported the arrest of three to five activists. Police at the site said they didn't have exact figures for those arrested and the Border Police spokesman could not be reached for comment about the allegations of violence. But The Jerusalem Post observed no such incidents on the hilltop itself.
One 15-year-old whose hands were tied together by Border Police with a plastic strip, said he had been stopped because the officers thought he had spit on them.
"I didn't," he said.
One Efrat resident, formerly of New York, said his reasons for making the hike were personal. His mother, Sara Blaustein, was killed by terrorists in a drive-by shooting in 2000 on the road from Efrat to Jerusalem. The Palestinians shot her because they wanted this area to be free of Jews, and he came to the hilltop Wednesday to show that the Jews were not leaving, he said.
The clashes between Israel Police, Border Police and demonstrators continued past press time. As police buses with activists headed down the hill down into Efrat, they were meet by teens and some adults who tried to force them to stop and unload the activists. Security forces, in turn, pushed and dragged protesters off the road.
Earlier Wednesday, military and civilian police set up temporary roadblocks in Gush Etzion in an effort to prevent dozens of pro-settlement activists from reaching Givat Haeitam. They also held up a group of Peace Now members who were trying to enter Efrat through its northern edge.
Protest organizers Nadia Matar and Datya Yitzhaki of Women in Green said the event was a success.
Meanwhile, Border Police spent the fourth day in a row removing protesters from the site of the former Samaria settlement of Homesh, which was evacuated in August 2005, during disengagement.
And in the South, at the Kissufim crossing to Gaza and in Netivot, thousands of Gaza evacuees gathered to mark the second anniversary, on the Hebrew calendar, of the start of disengagement from the Strip.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379003127&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Settlers are taking their claims of police violence to one of the Internet's most popular sites, YouTube, where they plan to post video clips of security forces attacking right-wing activists on the outer edges of Efrat.
On Wednesday night, more than 1,000 people hiked for an hour to reach an undeveloped area of Efrat called Givat Haeitam.
In the past, organizers said, activists sought to build outposts on isolated hilltops outside of legal settlements. Now they are trying to put up new homes in sections of existing settlements that are legally designated for such activity, but where no formal approval to build has been given, such as Givat Haeitam.
Wednesday's event, said Rabbi David Marcus of Efrat, one of the organizers, "is part of a chain of events that will be held in multiple locations to show the government that they cannot choke the settlements."
The march was illegal; many brought still and video cameras with them. Upon their return, they turned in their clips of police and border police attacking protesters to Marcus as he sat with his computer in a blue tent on a main road in Efrat leading to the site.
"We have photographs," said one 13-year-old boy, still panting from the hike as he took off his knapsack and hunted for his camera.
Hanging off a fence on the other side of the street was a sign that read: "Judea Belongs to the Jews."
Marcus said the decision to turn to YouTube, which allows users to post personal and public video clips, to publicize Israel Police and Border Police brutality was a difficult one, but he saw no other way to combat the violence.
"It's not a pretty picture that we would like the world to see," said Marcus.
Already, he alleged, they had received countless accounts of police unnecessarily hitting and pushing activists.
For hours, people of all ages, from elderly with walking sticks to babes in arms, hiked to the site, where Efrat residents hope to build a new neighborhood. When soldiers blocked the road, they climbed up rocky slopes and stone fences, through the vegetable fields of neighboring Palestinians.
Along the way, many stopped to pray, individually or in groups.
While several hundred made it to the top of Givat Haeitam, others went only to the edge of the hill.
Hundreds of police officers were waiting for them. In some cases they hunted the protesters down through the rocky hillside and forced them to leave. In other cases they simply offered them rides.
Settlers reported the arrest of three to five activists. Police at the site said they didn't have exact figures for those arrested and the Border Police spokesman could not be reached for comment about the allegations of violence. But The Jerusalem Post observed no such incidents on the hilltop itself.
One 15-year-old whose hands were tied together by Border Police with a plastic strip, said he had been stopped because the officers thought he had spit on them.
"I didn't," he said.
One Efrat resident, formerly of New York, said his reasons for making the hike were personal. His mother, Sara Blaustein, was killed by terrorists in a drive-by shooting in 2000 on the road from Efrat to Jerusalem. The Palestinians shot her because they wanted this area to be free of Jews, and he came to the hilltop Wednesday to show that the Jews were not leaving, he said.
The clashes between Israel Police, Border Police and demonstrators continued past press time. As police buses with activists headed down the hill down into Efrat, they were meet by teens and some adults who tried to force them to stop and unload the activists. Security forces, in turn, pushed and dragged protesters off the road.
Earlier Wednesday, military and civilian police set up temporary roadblocks in Gush Etzion in an effort to prevent dozens of pro-settlement activists from reaching Givat Haeitam. They also held up a group of Peace Now members who were trying to enter Efrat through its northern edge.
Protest organizers Nadia Matar and Datya Yitzhaki of Women in Green said the event was a success.
Meanwhile, Border Police spent the fourth day in a row removing protesters from the site of the former Samaria settlement of Homesh, which was evacuated in August 2005, during disengagement.
And in the South, at the Kissufim crossing to Gaza and in Netivot, thousands of Gaza evacuees gathered to mark the second anniversary, on the Hebrew calendar, of the start of disengagement from the Strip.
Activists Prepare for Night at HaEitam Hill
by Gil Ronen
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123191
(IsraelNN.com) As night fell on Givat HaEitam, hundreds of Land of Israel activists had reached the top of the hill despite violence by security forces. MK Aryeh Eldad was headed towards the hill, in an attempt to lower tensions and report to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter about what was happening.
The activists want to create a new community at the site, which is adjacent to Efrat, south of Jerusalem. 13 people have been arrested, including Baruch Marzel, the head of the Jewish Front movement, who is being held on suspicion he incited youths to enter a closed military zone, and Rabbi Moshe Levinger, the father of the renewed Jewish community in Hevron.
The event's organizers said that hundreds of would-be settlers continue to stream up the hill and that those who reached the top had begun building a stone structure. At least two women were among those arrested. Organizers of the event at Givat HaEitam said that security forces used force on a large scale in their attempt to block activists' ascent to the hill.
"The ascenders, including old people and women, are being beaten with no justification by the IDF and the police," the organizers claimed. They said that Rabbi Levinger was also beaten by police.
'The ascenders, including old people and women, are being beaten with no justification by the IDF and the police.'
After being beaten back by police, the activists scattered in the fields and reorganized in groups of about 30 each before attempting the ascent again.
Before ascending the hill, the activists heard speeches by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat, Rabbi Levinger, Rabbi Gidon Perl and Rabbi Shimon Golan, among others.
Activists in Efrat said earlier Wednesday that the IDF should not have deployed large forces to fight them. "It is a national disgrace that in order to prevent the ascent to Eitam, the Yehuda Regiment assembled a large force that includes two infantry battalions, a reconnaissance unit and hundreds of police officers, including YASAM (SWAT) teams," they said. "This force should be used against terrorists and crime families and not against Jews," the HaEitam Headquarters said.
Security forces claim the community on HaEitam Hill is an "illegal outpost."
The HaEitam project is only the opening shot in a large scale campaign of renewal that the activists are planning to put into motion. The organization "Yishuv Achshav" is a coalition of organizations that include the Land of Israel Faithful, Youth for the Land of Israel, Women in Green and the Action Committees for Hevron and Kiryat Arba.
The organizers say that groups of families will settle on different hills in Judea and Samaria, with the purpose of building new communities in the Land of Israel. "This is our answer to the ongoing policy of surrendering to the enemy," they said. "We will ascent HaEitam Hill, strike roots in it and declare: 'we shall continue to build you, Land of Israel!'"
"Two years after the terrible eviction of our brothers from Gush Katif and northern Samaria," they lamented, "Gaza has become Hamastan. Sderot and nearby communities are bombarded." Despite the fact that "anyone with half a brain" now realizes that handing over parts of the homeland to the enemy endangers the country, they said, "our political leaders intend to surrender, retreat, give up, hand over and drive [us] away. Instead of trying to strengthen the People of Israel and defeating the Arab enemy endangering our existence on his own territory, the government busies itself day and night with attempts to set up a terror state in Judea and Samaria."
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123191
(IsraelNN.com) As night fell on Givat HaEitam, hundreds of Land of Israel activists had reached the top of the hill despite violence by security forces. MK Aryeh Eldad was headed towards the hill, in an attempt to lower tensions and report to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter about what was happening.
The activists want to create a new community at the site, which is adjacent to Efrat, south of Jerusalem. 13 people have been arrested, including Baruch Marzel, the head of the Jewish Front movement, who is being held on suspicion he incited youths to enter a closed military zone, and Rabbi Moshe Levinger, the father of the renewed Jewish community in Hevron.
The event's organizers said that hundreds of would-be settlers continue to stream up the hill and that those who reached the top had begun building a stone structure. At least two women were among those arrested. Organizers of the event at Givat HaEitam said that security forces used force on a large scale in their attempt to block activists' ascent to the hill.
"The ascenders, including old people and women, are being beaten with no justification by the IDF and the police," the organizers claimed. They said that Rabbi Levinger was also beaten by police.
'The ascenders, including old people and women, are being beaten with no justification by the IDF and the police.'
After being beaten back by police, the activists scattered in the fields and reorganized in groups of about 30 each before attempting the ascent again.
Before ascending the hill, the activists heard speeches by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of Efrat, Rabbi Levinger, Rabbi Gidon Perl and Rabbi Shimon Golan, among others.
Activists in Efrat said earlier Wednesday that the IDF should not have deployed large forces to fight them. "It is a national disgrace that in order to prevent the ascent to Eitam, the Yehuda Regiment assembled a large force that includes two infantry battalions, a reconnaissance unit and hundreds of police officers, including YASAM (SWAT) teams," they said. "This force should be used against terrorists and crime families and not against Jews," the HaEitam Headquarters said.
Security forces claim the community on HaEitam Hill is an "illegal outpost."
The HaEitam project is only the opening shot in a large scale campaign of renewal that the activists are planning to put into motion. The organization "Yishuv Achshav" is a coalition of organizations that include the Land of Israel Faithful, Youth for the Land of Israel, Women in Green and the Action Committees for Hevron and Kiryat Arba.
The organizers say that groups of families will settle on different hills in Judea and Samaria, with the purpose of building new communities in the Land of Israel. "This is our answer to the ongoing policy of surrendering to the enemy," they said. "We will ascent HaEitam Hill, strike roots in it and declare: 'we shall continue to build you, Land of Israel!'"
"Two years after the terrible eviction of our brothers from Gush Katif and northern Samaria," they lamented, "Gaza has become Hamastan. Sderot and nearby communities are bombarded." Despite the fact that "anyone with half a brain" now realizes that handing over parts of the homeland to the enemy endangers the country, they said, "our political leaders intend to surrender, retreat, give up, hand over and drive [us] away. Instead of trying to strengthen the People of Israel and defeating the Arab enemy endangering our existence on his own territory, the government busies itself day and night with attempts to set up a terror state in Judea and Samaria."
Settlers, rightists clash with police in attempt to build outpost
Last update - 23:40 25/07/2007
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/886074.html
Police arrested 13 youths during clashes between right-wing activists and security forces on Wednesday, after hundreds of settlers and activists attempted to build an outpost next to the West Bank settlement of Efrat.
The clashes come just two days after hundreds of settlers were forcibly removed from the evacuated West Bank settlement of Homesh.
The activists set out on Wednesday afternoon to march northwest from the Givat Hazait neighborhood of Efrat to Eitam Hill, about three kilometers away. Clashes began as dozens of Border Police officers confronted them on the way to the hill, in an attempt to stop them from marching.
Most of the rightists managed to bypass the gate and several barriers put in place by Israel Defense Forces, but were stopped just short of the summit they were attempting to reach. Arrests included Rabbi Moshe Levinger, from the particularly ideological Jewish community in Hebron.
Police came prepared with reinforcements in order to prevent the march. Much of the force involved in the clashes at Homesh were moved to Gush Etzion - the bloc of settlements, of which Efrat is the largest - where they were joined by officers from the Judea and Samaria police. The Israel Defense Forces also deployed a battalion stationed in the area.
Right-wing activists and settlers had previously announced their intention to form a new outpost Wednesday in the West Bank, with the support of at least nine right-wing action groups.
The area for the new settlement is adjacent to Efrat, a prominent and veteran settlement, which is located south of Jerusalem between Bethlehem and Hebron.
The right-wing activists are seeking to build the new settlement on Eitam Hill, which belongs to Efrat's municipal territory. The Housing Ministry had previously planned to build 2,500 housing units on Eitam Hill. However, the separation fence cut Eitam Hill off from Efrat proper, which is home to some 7,500 residents.
"The new settlement of Eitam is the first step of a five-stage plan to lift the chokehold that the cabinet has imposed on the settlement in Judea and Samaria," the organizers of the event said.
Additionally, settlers of the evacuated settlement of Nisanit in the Gaza Strip said they intended to return there Thursday. Security forces are preparing to block the attempt.
Former Gaza settlers mark two years since disengagement
Settlers evacuated from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank in the summer of 2005 marked on Wednesday two years since the disengagement, or in their words, "the destruction of Gush Katif and northern Samaria."
Events were held at four different locations in the south of Israel - Kibbutz Kissufim, the Sha'ar Hanegev regional council, Netivot and Sderot. Their common slogan was "connecting with the residents of the south."
The theme of the entire day was "He who remembers the past will build the future."
By Nadav Shragai, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/886074.html
Police arrested 13 youths during clashes between right-wing activists and security forces on Wednesday, after hundreds of settlers and activists attempted to build an outpost next to the West Bank settlement of Efrat.
The clashes come just two days after hundreds of settlers were forcibly removed from the evacuated West Bank settlement of Homesh.
The activists set out on Wednesday afternoon to march northwest from the Givat Hazait neighborhood of Efrat to Eitam Hill, about three kilometers away. Clashes began as dozens of Border Police officers confronted them on the way to the hill, in an attempt to stop them from marching.
Most of the rightists managed to bypass the gate and several barriers put in place by Israel Defense Forces, but were stopped just short of the summit they were attempting to reach. Arrests included Rabbi Moshe Levinger, from the particularly ideological Jewish community in Hebron.
Police came prepared with reinforcements in order to prevent the march. Much of the force involved in the clashes at Homesh were moved to Gush Etzion - the bloc of settlements, of which Efrat is the largest - where they were joined by officers from the Judea and Samaria police. The Israel Defense Forces also deployed a battalion stationed in the area.
Right-wing activists and settlers had previously announced their intention to form a new outpost Wednesday in the West Bank, with the support of at least nine right-wing action groups.
The area for the new settlement is adjacent to Efrat, a prominent and veteran settlement, which is located south of Jerusalem between Bethlehem and Hebron.
The right-wing activists are seeking to build the new settlement on Eitam Hill, which belongs to Efrat's municipal territory. The Housing Ministry had previously planned to build 2,500 housing units on Eitam Hill. However, the separation fence cut Eitam Hill off from Efrat proper, which is home to some 7,500 residents.
"The new settlement of Eitam is the first step of a five-stage plan to lift the chokehold that the cabinet has imposed on the settlement in Judea and Samaria," the organizers of the event said.
Additionally, settlers of the evacuated settlement of Nisanit in the Gaza Strip said they intended to return there Thursday. Security forces are preparing to block the attempt.
Former Gaza settlers mark two years since disengagement
Settlers evacuated from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank in the summer of 2005 marked on Wednesday two years since the disengagement, or in their words, "the destruction of Gush Katif and northern Samaria."
Events were held at four different locations in the south of Israel - Kibbutz Kissufim, the Sha'ar Hanegev regional council, Netivot and Sderot. Their common slogan was "connecting with the residents of the south."
The theme of the entire day was "He who remembers the past will build the future."
Feiglin promises victory in Likud race
JPost.com » Israel » Article
Jul. 25, 2007 21:49 | Updated Jul. 25, 2007 23:26
By GIL HOFFMAN
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379004354&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Likud leadership candidate Moshe Feiglin vowed to do the unexpected and win the August 14 Likud primary, at a rally of his supporters launching his campaign on Wednesday at Jerusalem's Ramada Renaissance Hotel.
Feiglin accused the incumbent in the race, opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, of being under pressure due to his competition. Defying polls suggesting that he had no chance of defeating Netanyahu, Feiglin mentioned the word "victory" repeatedly in his short speech.
"The victory will come," he said. "We can feel it in the air and in the hysteria of the other side. We are not playing games anymore. We intend to win this time. We have to win this time. I'm sick of it. I want to win this time."
Feiglin said the primary was taking place exactly a year after what he called "the devastating loss to Hizbullah" and two years after what he called "the expulsion from Gush Katif." He said "new hope would sprout" if he would win the race on the same day.
A homogeneous religious-Zionist crowd of more than 100 people listened to speeches from very diverse Feiglin supporters. The speakers included a secular woman who wants her children to receive a better Jewish education, a Russian immigrant, a haredi rabbi, a teenager expelled from Gush Katif and well-known attorney Haim Misgav.
Feiglin ascended the stage to a new theme song based on the Likud's anthem sung by singer Ariel Zilber, who sang the campaign jingle for Baruch Marzel's Jewish National Front party in last year's election.
Officials in Feiglin's campaign accused Netanyahu of trying to prevent Feiglin from running. They said a Netanyahu supporter submitted a petition hundreds of pages long to the Likud's central elections committee to block Feiglin's candidacy and the judge gave Feiglin just one day to respond.
Netanyahu's associates said they were working under the assumption that Feiglin would win some 30 percent of the vote and that they were trying to encourage a high voter turnout to keep Feiglin's numbers down.
World Likud head Danny Danon, who is running against Netanyahu and Feiglin, launched his campaign at the Western Wall on Tuesday during Tisha Be'av by handing out stickers with the slogan "Assad is waiting for Bibi," accusing Netanyahu of being willing to give the Golan Heights to Syria.
Jul. 25, 2007 21:49 | Updated Jul. 25, 2007 23:26
By GIL HOFFMAN
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379004354&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Likud leadership candidate Moshe Feiglin vowed to do the unexpected and win the August 14 Likud primary, at a rally of his supporters launching his campaign on Wednesday at Jerusalem's Ramada Renaissance Hotel.
Feiglin accused the incumbent in the race, opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, of being under pressure due to his competition. Defying polls suggesting that he had no chance of defeating Netanyahu, Feiglin mentioned the word "victory" repeatedly in his short speech.
"The victory will come," he said. "We can feel it in the air and in the hysteria of the other side. We are not playing games anymore. We intend to win this time. We have to win this time. I'm sick of it. I want to win this time."
Feiglin said the primary was taking place exactly a year after what he called "the devastating loss to Hizbullah" and two years after what he called "the expulsion from Gush Katif." He said "new hope would sprout" if he would win the race on the same day.
A homogeneous religious-Zionist crowd of more than 100 people listened to speeches from very diverse Feiglin supporters. The speakers included a secular woman who wants her children to receive a better Jewish education, a Russian immigrant, a haredi rabbi, a teenager expelled from Gush Katif and well-known attorney Haim Misgav.
Feiglin ascended the stage to a new theme song based on the Likud's anthem sung by singer Ariel Zilber, who sang the campaign jingle for Baruch Marzel's Jewish National Front party in last year's election.
Officials in Feiglin's campaign accused Netanyahu of trying to prevent Feiglin from running. They said a Netanyahu supporter submitted a petition hundreds of pages long to the Likud's central elections committee to block Feiglin's candidacy and the judge gave Feiglin just one day to respond.
Netanyahu's associates said they were working under the assumption that Feiglin would win some 30 percent of the vote and that they were trying to encourage a high voter turnout to keep Feiglin's numbers down.
World Likud head Danny Danon, who is running against Netanyahu and Feiglin, launched his campaign at the Western Wall on Tuesday during Tisha Be'av by handing out stickers with the slogan "Assad is waiting for Bibi," accusing Netanyahu of being willing to give the Golan Heights to Syria.
Police and settlers clash on two fronts
Jul. 25, 2007 19:37 | Updated Jul. 25, 2007 21:10
By JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379003127&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Security forces clashed with right-wing activists on two fronts on Wednesday as settlers attempted to build a community near Efrat and return to the former Samaria settlement of Homesh.
Police fought with settlers on Eitam Hill, near Efrat, over their wishes to go through with plans to build a neighborhood at the site. According to reports, six activists were arrested.
The organizers of the march, who were planning to lay down foundations on the hill, were reporting excessive police violence against protestors, including women and children.
Meanwhile, forces evacuated former settlers in Homesh, who claimed police had violently dragged them from the site and destroyed a tent and make-shift kitchen erected there.
Security officials were forced to remove settlers for a second time this week after a similar attempt to rebuild the community was made on Monday.
Earlier Wednesday, military and police forces set up temporary roadblocks in Gush Etzion in an effort to prevent dozens of activists from reaching Eitam.
The hill is part of the original government-sanctioned plan for the town and the land is Jewish-owned. A number of years ago, the Housing and Construction Ministry passed an initial approval for the building of 2,500 units on the hill.
However, during his tenure as defense minister, Shaul Mofaz decided that the security fence would not include the planned neighborhood, a move that prompted Efrat residents to take action before the fence's completion.
As well as attempting to stop the settlers from reaching the area, security forces held up a group of Peace Now activists who were trying to enter Efrat through its northern access.
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By JPOST.COM STAFF
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379003127&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Security forces clashed with right-wing activists on two fronts on Wednesday as settlers attempted to build a community near Efrat and return to the former Samaria settlement of Homesh.
Police fought with settlers on Eitam Hill, near Efrat, over their wishes to go through with plans to build a neighborhood at the site. According to reports, six activists were arrested.
The organizers of the march, who were planning to lay down foundations on the hill, were reporting excessive police violence against protestors, including women and children.
Meanwhile, forces evacuated former settlers in Homesh, who claimed police had violently dragged them from the site and destroyed a tent and make-shift kitchen erected there.
Security officials were forced to remove settlers for a second time this week after a similar attempt to rebuild the community was made on Monday.
Earlier Wednesday, military and police forces set up temporary roadblocks in Gush Etzion in an effort to prevent dozens of activists from reaching Eitam.
The hill is part of the original government-sanctioned plan for the town and the land is Jewish-owned. A number of years ago, the Housing and Construction Ministry passed an initial approval for the building of 2,500 units on the hill.
However, during his tenure as defense minister, Shaul Mofaz decided that the security fence would not include the planned neighborhood, a move that prompted Efrat residents to take action before the fence's completion.
As well as attempting to stop the settlers from reaching the area, security forces held up a group of Peace Now activists who were trying to enter Efrat through its northern access.
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High Court won't approve Katsav plea
Dan Izenberg, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 25, 2007
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184766062143&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
The state and former President Moshe Katsav's lawyers failed on Wednesday to convince a panel of five High Court justices that the decision to reach a plea bargain including watered-down charges against him was a reasonable one.
The court issued a show-cause order shifting the onus of proof from the petitioners to the state and demanding that it explain why it should not cancel the plea bargain agreement, why it did not include the "first Aleph" in the final draft of the indictment and why it did not grant all the women who had testified against Katsav a full hearing so that they could present arguments against the decision to reach a plea bargain.
The court hearings on the case will resume in about a month. In the first round of hearings, which ended on Wednesday, the petitioners had to persuade the court that they had a serious case which should be heard in depth. In the second round, the state will be on the defensive, and will have to justify its decisions to agree to the plea bargain and the other challenges rose by the petitioners. The state's response will be accompanied by a sworn affidavit by a key figure involved in the decision, presumably
Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz, who signed the plea bargain for the state.
In the meantime, the state may not file the indictment and the plea bargain in court, as it had intended, and will have to wait for the court's final ruling on the petitions. The court gave the state 21 days to reply to the show-cause order and the petitioners 10 days after that to respond to the state's arguments.
Outside in the Supreme Court hall following the court's decision, the lawyers representing the petitioners were jubilant. "We got exactly what we wanted," said Attorney Yehuda Ressler, who, together with Attorney Kinneret Barashi, represented the "first Aleph." In the original indictment, which Mazuz described to the public on January 23, the state had accused Katsav of conducting forbidden intercourse with consent by exploiting his authority and sexual harassment. In the final draft, the "first Aleph" was not even mentioned.
"The court has given us the chance to continue fighting to bring justice to light," said Barashi. "The court's decision to issue a show-cause order is an important one."
"The court rolled the hot potato back to the attorney-general and placed the burden of persuasion on his shoulders," said Attorney Eliad Shraga, head of the Movement for Quality Government (MQG). "The state failed to convince the court that its decision was reasonable, and, in my opinion, it won't be able to do so in the future. It is impossible to explain how an indictment that was so grave and bombastic could be reduced to an anorexic one which included hugs and strokes for the accused."
Attorney Tziona Koenig-Yair, the executive director of The Women's Network, which petitioned together with MQG, described the ruling as "an enormous accomplishment." She pointed out that there have been only three previous cases in which the court rejected a decision made by the attorney-general to close a criminal file without charges. "The decision reaffirms our faith in the Supreme Court," she said.
Meanwhile, Attorney Shai Nitzan, the state's senior representative in the case, told reporters that the court's decision was "predictable" and that he had no complaints about it. "This is a very sensitive and complex case," he added.
As noted above, the case is far from over and the petitioners have not won a total victory. It is possible that in the end, the court will decide that Mazuz's decision was not "outside the boundaries of reasonableness" - the legal criteria for determining whether or not the court may overturn the attorney general's decision.
Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch repeatedly stressed that she did not understand the huge difference between the January draft indictment and the final indictment in June. That is not a small thing, considering that Nitzan and Katsav's lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, spent a total of close to 10 hours trying to explain to her and the other justices why.
It is possible that the court already agrees with the state's claim that it should not intervene in the case, but feels that the matter is so serious that it would convey the wrong message if it rejected the petitions without a serious and exhaustive discussion.
But it is also possible that Nitzan and Feldman genuinely failed to convince the court in the 10 hours they had at their disposal. If the latter is true, it is hard to imagine what more ammunition they have to throw in to the court battle in the second round of hearings.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1184766062143&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
The state and former President Moshe Katsav's lawyers failed on Wednesday to convince a panel of five High Court justices that the decision to reach a plea bargain including watered-down charges against him was a reasonable one.
The court issued a show-cause order shifting the onus of proof from the petitioners to the state and demanding that it explain why it should not cancel the plea bargain agreement, why it did not include the "first Aleph" in the final draft of the indictment and why it did not grant all the women who had testified against Katsav a full hearing so that they could present arguments against the decision to reach a plea bargain.
The court hearings on the case will resume in about a month. In the first round of hearings, which ended on Wednesday, the petitioners had to persuade the court that they had a serious case which should be heard in depth. In the second round, the state will be on the defensive, and will have to justify its decisions to agree to the plea bargain and the other challenges rose by the petitioners. The state's response will be accompanied by a sworn affidavit by a key figure involved in the decision, presumably
Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz, who signed the plea bargain for the state.
In the meantime, the state may not file the indictment and the plea bargain in court, as it had intended, and will have to wait for the court's final ruling on the petitions. The court gave the state 21 days to reply to the show-cause order and the petitioners 10 days after that to respond to the state's arguments.
Outside in the Supreme Court hall following the court's decision, the lawyers representing the petitioners were jubilant. "We got exactly what we wanted," said Attorney Yehuda Ressler, who, together with Attorney Kinneret Barashi, represented the "first Aleph." In the original indictment, which Mazuz described to the public on January 23, the state had accused Katsav of conducting forbidden intercourse with consent by exploiting his authority and sexual harassment. In the final draft, the "first Aleph" was not even mentioned.
"The court has given us the chance to continue fighting to bring justice to light," said Barashi. "The court's decision to issue a show-cause order is an important one."
"The court rolled the hot potato back to the attorney-general and placed the burden of persuasion on his shoulders," said Attorney Eliad Shraga, head of the Movement for Quality Government (MQG). "The state failed to convince the court that its decision was reasonable, and, in my opinion, it won't be able to do so in the future. It is impossible to explain how an indictment that was so grave and bombastic could be reduced to an anorexic one which included hugs and strokes for the accused."
Attorney Tziona Koenig-Yair, the executive director of The Women's Network, which petitioned together with MQG, described the ruling as "an enormous accomplishment." She pointed out that there have been only three previous cases in which the court rejected a decision made by the attorney-general to close a criminal file without charges. "The decision reaffirms our faith in the Supreme Court," she said.
Meanwhile, Attorney Shai Nitzan, the state's senior representative in the case, told reporters that the court's decision was "predictable" and that he had no complaints about it. "This is a very sensitive and complex case," he added.
As noted above, the case is far from over and the petitioners have not won a total victory. It is possible that in the end, the court will decide that Mazuz's decision was not "outside the boundaries of reasonableness" - the legal criteria for determining whether or not the court may overturn the attorney general's decision.
Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch repeatedly stressed that she did not understand the huge difference between the January draft indictment and the final indictment in June. That is not a small thing, considering that Nitzan and Katsav's lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, spent a total of close to 10 hours trying to explain to her and the other justices why.
It is possible that the court already agrees with the state's claim that it should not intervene in the case, but feels that the matter is so serious that it would convey the wrong message if it rejected the petitions without a serious and exhaustive discussion.
But it is also possible that Nitzan and Feldman genuinely failed to convince the court in the 10 hours they had at their disposal. If the latter is true, it is hard to imagine what more ammunition they have to throw in to the court battle in the second round of hearings.
Congress mulls Jewish refugee cause
MICHAL LANDO, Jerusalem Post correspondent , THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 25, 2007
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379004431&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Two resolutions currently before Congress aim at requiring that any international discussion mentioning Palestinian refugees refer to Jewish refugees as well.
It is the latest attempt to bring greater attention to the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Groups advocating on behalf of Jewish refugees from Arab countries have stepped up efforts over the last year to bring the issue to the forefront of discussions relating to Middle East refugees.
Last fall, a conference on "rights and redress" for this population launched a campaign in Jerusalem to register all families who lost assets when Jews fled Arab countries following the creation of the State of Israel.
In May, the House Foreign Affairs Middle East and South Asian Subcommittee Chairman Gary Ackerman held a hearing on the subject, the first such Congressional hearing, according to his staff.
The two resolutions currently before Congress were introduced at a Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing last week that addressed the mass displacement of minority populations from Arab countries. It is estimated that 850,000 Jews fled Arab states following the creation of the State of Israel.
The resolutions - one in the House and the other in the Senate - instruct the president to ensure that any international discussion of Middle East refugees make mention of Jewish, Christian and other refugees "as a matter of law and equity."
Since 1947, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted 681 resolutions on the Middle East conflict, including 101 resolutions on Palestinian refugees.
"During that same period there were no UN resolutions, nor any recognition or assistance from the international community, for Jewish and other refugees from Arab countries," said Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), a member of the Caucus, at the briefing.
The principal parties involved in the Mideast peace process must restore "fidelity" to the narrative, said Irwin Cotler, human rights activist and former justice minister and attorney-general of Canada. Cotler blamed the UN for "distorting" this narrative.
"We need to rectify a historical injustice that has gone on for 60 years, and return the narrative of Jews from Arab countries to the Mideast narrative," Cotler told The Jerusalem Post. Cotler was unable to attend the briefing, but submitted written testimony that focused on the themes of "truth, justice and reconciliation."
Any Mideast peace process needed to address the "rights and redress" of Jews from Arab countries, said Cotler. More than that, he said, the US, in the course of its foreign policy, should ensure that any resolution regarding refugees must include reference to Jewish refugees.
"We are not saying we should exclude Palestinian refugees, but certainly should not be excluding consideration for Jewish refugees," said Cotler.
The hearing is the latest in a series of ongoing efforts to give the cause a higher profile.
"There haven't been too many times that Jewish refugees have been mentioned in Congress, and this [briefing] certainly shows that we are putting it on the radar screen," said Stanley Urman, executive director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, a coalition of Jewish communal organizations that worked with the Caucus to plan this briefing.
Of late, interest in the issue has permeated beyond the Jewish world. In late June, The Guardian published an article on this very issue, "The other right of return," by Egyptian journalist Khaled Diab. And Al Hura, an Arabic television station, covered the Congressional briefing last week.
"This shows that we are not only making the Jewish radar screen, but the Arab community is beginning to pick up interest," said Urman.
Groups like Justice for Jews from Arab Countries and Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA) asserted that the goal was not financial compensation, but rather recognition.
"We have targeted the US, made a representation to members of the European parliament, and to Russia's Foreign Ministry, and we hope to bring it to the UN in the fall," said Urman. "Our goal on the political level is to ensure that this is on the table for discussion - we have to move from truth, to justice, to reconciliation."
At the briefing, Regina Bubil-Waldman, cofounder and chair of JIMENA, told the story of how her family was nearly murdered while escaping from Libya in 1967. Waldman has brought her story and the larger issue of Jewish refugees to university campuses throughout the US to raise awareness. The story of Jews who were forced to flee Arab countries has largely been left out of hasbara efforts, said Waldman.
"Most of the people advocating campus hasbara, or to general audiences, bring good talking points, but neglect the fact that we have a good balancing narrative, namely that more Jews were made refugees than Palestinians," said Waldman. "The fact that we have been successfully absorbed by Israel doesn't take away from the fact that our home civilization has been destroyed, and that we are extinct from North Africa, where we were for 2,500 years."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1185379004431&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Two resolutions currently before Congress aim at requiring that any international discussion mentioning Palestinian refugees refer to Jewish refugees as well.
It is the latest attempt to bring greater attention to the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Groups advocating on behalf of Jewish refugees from Arab countries have stepped up efforts over the last year to bring the issue to the forefront of discussions relating to Middle East refugees.
Last fall, a conference on "rights and redress" for this population launched a campaign in Jerusalem to register all families who lost assets when Jews fled Arab countries following the creation of the State of Israel.
In May, the House Foreign Affairs Middle East and South Asian Subcommittee Chairman Gary Ackerman held a hearing on the subject, the first such Congressional hearing, according to his staff.
The two resolutions currently before Congress were introduced at a Congressional Human Rights Caucus briefing last week that addressed the mass displacement of minority populations from Arab countries. It is estimated that 850,000 Jews fled Arab states following the creation of the State of Israel.
The resolutions - one in the House and the other in the Senate - instruct the president to ensure that any international discussion of Middle East refugees make mention of Jewish, Christian and other refugees "as a matter of law and equity."
Since 1947, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted 681 resolutions on the Middle East conflict, including 101 resolutions on Palestinian refugees.
"During that same period there were no UN resolutions, nor any recognition or assistance from the international community, for Jewish and other refugees from Arab countries," said Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), a member of the Caucus, at the briefing.
The principal parties involved in the Mideast peace process must restore "fidelity" to the narrative, said Irwin Cotler, human rights activist and former justice minister and attorney-general of Canada. Cotler blamed the UN for "distorting" this narrative.
"We need to rectify a historical injustice that has gone on for 60 years, and return the narrative of Jews from Arab countries to the Mideast narrative," Cotler told The Jerusalem Post. Cotler was unable to attend the briefing, but submitted written testimony that focused on the themes of "truth, justice and reconciliation."
Any Mideast peace process needed to address the "rights and redress" of Jews from Arab countries, said Cotler. More than that, he said, the US, in the course of its foreign policy, should ensure that any resolution regarding refugees must include reference to Jewish refugees.
"We are not saying we should exclude Palestinian refugees, but certainly should not be excluding consideration for Jewish refugees," said Cotler.
The hearing is the latest in a series of ongoing efforts to give the cause a higher profile.
"There haven't been too many times that Jewish refugees have been mentioned in Congress, and this [briefing] certainly shows that we are putting it on the radar screen," said Stanley Urman, executive director of Justice for Jews from Arab Countries, a coalition of Jewish communal organizations that worked with the Caucus to plan this briefing.
Of late, interest in the issue has permeated beyond the Jewish world. In late June, The Guardian published an article on this very issue, "The other right of return," by Egyptian journalist Khaled Diab. And Al Hura, an Arabic television station, covered the Congressional briefing last week.
"This shows that we are not only making the Jewish radar screen, but the Arab community is beginning to pick up interest," said Urman.
Groups like Justice for Jews from Arab Countries and Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA) asserted that the goal was not financial compensation, but rather recognition.
"We have targeted the US, made a representation to members of the European parliament, and to Russia's Foreign Ministry, and we hope to bring it to the UN in the fall," said Urman. "Our goal on the political level is to ensure that this is on the table for discussion - we have to move from truth, to justice, to reconciliation."
At the briefing, Regina Bubil-Waldman, cofounder and chair of JIMENA, told the story of how her family was nearly murdered while escaping from Libya in 1967. Waldman has brought her story and the larger issue of Jewish refugees to university campuses throughout the US to raise awareness. The story of Jews who were forced to flee Arab countries has largely been left out of hasbara efforts, said Waldman.
"Most of the people advocating campus hasbara, or to general audiences, bring good talking points, but neglect the fact that we have a good balancing narrative, namely that more Jews were made refugees than Palestinians," said Waldman. "The fact that we have been successfully absorbed by Israel doesn't take away from the fact that our home civilization has been destroyed, and that we are extinct from North Africa, where we were for 2,500 years."
The loudest memories
As camps comfort Israeli children, thunder reminds them of attacks
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/07/25/
the_loudest_memories/?p1=email_to_a_friend
By Steven A. Rosenberg, Globe Staff | July 25, 2007
The children began to cry and shake when they heard the thunder and saw
the lightning during the camp dance. One girl fainted. Another hugged a
counselor so hard that she dug her fingernails into the woman's back.
Everyone had the same thought: The boom from the sky was a Qassam
rocket.
The boys and girls had traveled from Sderot, Israel, a dusty, war-torn
desert outpost one mile from Gaza, to spend a month at Jewish camps in
New Hampshire and Brighton.
For weeks, they had talked about summer crushes, swimming, and even a
play they were working on about their life back home in Sderot. And
slowly, the constant worry about the barrage of Qassam rockets fired at
their hometown by Palestinian militants from Gaza had eased.
"The noise returned me to Sderot," Sabrina Eliaev, 12, said in Hebrew,
offering an elegant comparison of her life there and her life in New
Hampshire: "But I know that thunder doesn't kill people, so I would
agree to having thunder in Sderot instead of the Qassams."
Eliaev and the 18 other children from Sderot have been in the Boston
area since June. The Russian Jewish community in Boston raised $62,000
to pay their way, in hope of returning the children to normalcy, if for
only a month.
The reaction to the huge thunderstorm made clear that the memories are
not too far distant.
"The Qassams are not fireworks; they kill people," said Hanan Yaakobov,
12, describing the rockets that have changed his own life dramatically.
In November, a Qassam crashed through the roof of a Sderot poultry
factory and killed Hanan's father. "Sometimes I feel like a child, but
most of the time I feel like an adult," said Hanan, who has short black
hair, the face of a child, and the eyes of an adult.
During their stay, the Sderot children who stayed in Brighton played
sports, enjoyed barbecues and went to the New England Aquarium, Cape
Cod, and Lovells Island in Boston Harbor. The New Hampshire contingent
stayed at the overnight camp.
Many learned to swim; others attended dance, theater, and art classes.
All had to take a mandatory math class the camp offers each weekday.
They also practiced a play about life in Sderot that they will perform
at synagogues in Brighton and Lynn today and tomorrow.
The series of vignettes describe the lives of children in a war zone.
In one scene, Sabrina plays Ella Abukasis, a 17-year-old Sderot girl
who was killed by a Qassam in 2005 while protecting her brother with
her body. In another scene, a Qassam explodes as a family celebrates a
Sabbath dinner. No one is hurt, but the Qassam causes the parents to
fight and the children to sit in anguish.
Earlier this month, as the girls rehearsed for their play about life
amid the Qassams in Sderot, they broke down and cried. "They were
saying how are we going to go back to Sderot after being here?" said
Masha Rifkin, a 20-year-old Cornell senior who co-wrote the play with
Noam Bedein, an Israeli who lives in Sderot.
According to the Israeli government, 33 percent of Sderot's 6,000
children under 17 suffer from post-traumatic stress. Children say they
often avoid going to the bathroom or taking a shower, fearing they may
not hear the red alert message that warns residents to find cover. Some
shake uncontrollably during and after the attacks. Over the last six
years, 5,000 rockets have landed in the Israeli city of 20,000.
The decision to bring Sabrina, Hanan, and the other children to the
Boston area followed a visit to Sderot in February by Masha Rifkin, the
coauthor of the play, who was born in Minsk and grew up in Newton. She
was stunned by the emotional toll the Qassams cause the people of
Sderot, especially the children.
"I saw these people, and they were all very transparent; it was clear
what they had been through," said Rifkin, who spent last semester at
Tel Aviv University.
After her visit, Rifkin sent e-mail to her mother about the city's
children, and within a couple of days Inessa Rifkin had forwarded the
e-mail to 300 people, mostly Jews from the former Soviet Union.
"People wrote back and said we had to do something," said Inessa
Rifkin, who moved to Boston with her husband and two children from
Minsk in 1988.
She then decided that she wanted to bring as many Israeli children as
she could to spend the summer in New England, away from the Qassams.
Rifkin and Irina Khavinson own a summer camp in New Hampshire and
offered to host 10 at no charge. Rabbi Dan Rodkin, who runs a Jewish
day school and camp in Brighton, also offered to host 10 children.
The effort to raise the funds reflected an increased activism by
Boston-area Russian Jews. With a plan in place to bring the children to
New England, money started pouring in from Russian émigrés. Within
months, more than $55,000 had been raised from almost 400 Russian Jews,
and $5,000 had been donated by New England's largest Jewish charity,
Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
In the spring, Masha Rifkin met with Natasha Panaitov, a Sderot social
worker, to help identify children who could come to the United States
for the camps.
They found Hanan, whose mother dresses in black and is still mourning
her husband's death. They also found children such as Eliaev, a
12-year-old with long black hair and almond eyes, who risked her life
by placing her body over her younger brother during a Qassam attack.
They also chose Slavik Landman, 13, who is still bothered by the image
of the Qassam that fell 30 feet away from him and killed two
Ethiopian-Israeli children three years ago. And they picked Yitzhak
Nachshonov, 13, who had not slept regularly in years and trembled at
the thought of a Qassam.
Hanan, 12, and Sabrina say they don't quite understand the total impact
of the trip. Both say they plan to stay in Sderot and raise families in
their hometown. They know that their lives will not change unless the
Qassams stop falling.
"That's the bad part and the reality that we can't really get away
from," Sabrina said.
One day in late June, on an outing to a Newton park, Hanan was asked by
an American counselor to describe what children his age go through when
a Qassam is fired from Gaza. Hanan grabbed the megaphone, and explained
that the children had 15 seconds to hide and calmly began repeating,
"Tzevah adom," mimicking the Sderot emergency announcement.
"I wanted to show them what we go through," he said.
When they return to Sderot at the end of the month, camp will be far
behind the visiting children, and most say they will spend their days
inside, watching television, playing computer games, and praying that
the Qassams will stop.
Meanwhile, the Rifkins say the Boston-Sderot connection will continue.
"We want to make Sderot our sister city," Inessa Rifkin said.
She said that the fund-raising netted an extra $18,000 and that the
money would be used in Sderot to establish an afterschool program this
fall.
The school would be created in a bomb shelter and offer classes such as
math, music, and art. She said many of the children who came to New
England would attend and help serve as mentors to other children.
Panaitov, the social worker in Sderot, also plans to be part of the
school. "The important thing is that we're thinking of their future,"
she said. "We hope to change the future of not only the kids that we
brought here but the kids in Sderot, too."
Steven A. Rosenberg can be reached at rosenberg@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/07/25/
the_loudest_memories/?p1=email_to_a_friend
By Steven A. Rosenberg, Globe Staff | July 25, 2007
The children began to cry and shake when they heard the thunder and saw
the lightning during the camp dance. One girl fainted. Another hugged a
counselor so hard that she dug her fingernails into the woman's back.
Everyone had the same thought: The boom from the sky was a Qassam
rocket.
The boys and girls had traveled from Sderot, Israel, a dusty, war-torn
desert outpost one mile from Gaza, to spend a month at Jewish camps in
New Hampshire and Brighton.
For weeks, they had talked about summer crushes, swimming, and even a
play they were working on about their life back home in Sderot. And
slowly, the constant worry about the barrage of Qassam rockets fired at
their hometown by Palestinian militants from Gaza had eased.
"The noise returned me to Sderot," Sabrina Eliaev, 12, said in Hebrew,
offering an elegant comparison of her life there and her life in New
Hampshire: "But I know that thunder doesn't kill people, so I would
agree to having thunder in Sderot instead of the Qassams."
Eliaev and the 18 other children from Sderot have been in the Boston
area since June. The Russian Jewish community in Boston raised $62,000
to pay their way, in hope of returning the children to normalcy, if for
only a month.
The reaction to the huge thunderstorm made clear that the memories are
not too far distant.
"The Qassams are not fireworks; they kill people," said Hanan Yaakobov,
12, describing the rockets that have changed his own life dramatically.
In November, a Qassam crashed through the roof of a Sderot poultry
factory and killed Hanan's father. "Sometimes I feel like a child, but
most of the time I feel like an adult," said Hanan, who has short black
hair, the face of a child, and the eyes of an adult.
During their stay, the Sderot children who stayed in Brighton played
sports, enjoyed barbecues and went to the New England Aquarium, Cape
Cod, and Lovells Island in Boston Harbor. The New Hampshire contingent
stayed at the overnight camp.
Many learned to swim; others attended dance, theater, and art classes.
All had to take a mandatory math class the camp offers each weekday.
They also practiced a play about life in Sderot that they will perform
at synagogues in Brighton and Lynn today and tomorrow.
The series of vignettes describe the lives of children in a war zone.
In one scene, Sabrina plays Ella Abukasis, a 17-year-old Sderot girl
who was killed by a Qassam in 2005 while protecting her brother with
her body. In another scene, a Qassam explodes as a family celebrates a
Sabbath dinner. No one is hurt, but the Qassam causes the parents to
fight and the children to sit in anguish.
Earlier this month, as the girls rehearsed for their play about life
amid the Qassams in Sderot, they broke down and cried. "They were
saying how are we going to go back to Sderot after being here?" said
Masha Rifkin, a 20-year-old Cornell senior who co-wrote the play with
Noam Bedein, an Israeli who lives in Sderot.
According to the Israeli government, 33 percent of Sderot's 6,000
children under 17 suffer from post-traumatic stress. Children say they
often avoid going to the bathroom or taking a shower, fearing they may
not hear the red alert message that warns residents to find cover. Some
shake uncontrollably during and after the attacks. Over the last six
years, 5,000 rockets have landed in the Israeli city of 20,000.
The decision to bring Sabrina, Hanan, and the other children to the
Boston area followed a visit to Sderot in February by Masha Rifkin, the
coauthor of the play, who was born in Minsk and grew up in Newton. She
was stunned by the emotional toll the Qassams cause the people of
Sderot, especially the children.
"I saw these people, and they were all very transparent; it was clear
what they had been through," said Rifkin, who spent last semester at
Tel Aviv University.
After her visit, Rifkin sent e-mail to her mother about the city's
children, and within a couple of days Inessa Rifkin had forwarded the
e-mail to 300 people, mostly Jews from the former Soviet Union.
"People wrote back and said we had to do something," said Inessa
Rifkin, who moved to Boston with her husband and two children from
Minsk in 1988.
She then decided that she wanted to bring as many Israeli children as
she could to spend the summer in New England, away from the Qassams.
Rifkin and Irina Khavinson own a summer camp in New Hampshire and
offered to host 10 at no charge. Rabbi Dan Rodkin, who runs a Jewish
day school and camp in Brighton, also offered to host 10 children.
The effort to raise the funds reflected an increased activism by
Boston-area Russian Jews. With a plan in place to bring the children to
New England, money started pouring in from Russian émigrés. Within
months, more than $55,000 had been raised from almost 400 Russian Jews,
and $5,000 had been donated by New England's largest Jewish charity,
Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
In the spring, Masha Rifkin met with Natasha Panaitov, a Sderot social
worker, to help identify children who could come to the United States
for the camps.
They found Hanan, whose mother dresses in black and is still mourning
her husband's death. They also found children such as Eliaev, a
12-year-old with long black hair and almond eyes, who risked her life
by placing her body over her younger brother during a Qassam attack.
They also chose Slavik Landman, 13, who is still bothered by the image
of the Qassam that fell 30 feet away from him and killed two
Ethiopian-Israeli children three years ago. And they picked Yitzhak
Nachshonov, 13, who had not slept regularly in years and trembled at
the thought of a Qassam.
Hanan, 12, and Sabrina say they don't quite understand the total impact
of the trip. Both say they plan to stay in Sderot and raise families in
their hometown. They know that their lives will not change unless the
Qassams stop falling.
"That's the bad part and the reality that we can't really get away
from," Sabrina said.
One day in late June, on an outing to a Newton park, Hanan was asked by
an American counselor to describe what children his age go through when
a Qassam is fired from Gaza. Hanan grabbed the megaphone, and explained
that the children had 15 seconds to hide and calmly began repeating,
"Tzevah adom," mimicking the Sderot emergency announcement.
"I wanted to show them what we go through," he said.
When they return to Sderot at the end of the month, camp will be far
behind the visiting children, and most say they will spend their days
inside, watching television, playing computer games, and praying that
the Qassams will stop.
Meanwhile, the Rifkins say the Boston-Sderot connection will continue.
"We want to make Sderot our sister city," Inessa Rifkin said.
She said that the fund-raising netted an extra $18,000 and that the
money would be used in Sderot to establish an afterschool program this
fall.
The school would be created in a bomb shelter and offer classes such as
math, music, and art. She said many of the children who came to New
England would attend and help serve as mentors to other children.
Panaitov, the social worker in Sderot, also plans to be part of the
school. "The important thing is that we're thinking of their future,"
she said. "We hope to change the future of not only the kids that we
brought here but the kids in Sderot, too."
Steven A. Rosenberg can be reached at rosenberg@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
A Parents' Small Request.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
http://muqata.blogspot.com/
Dear friends,
Today's [J@M: a few weeks back, the] New York Times carries a review of a film called "Hot House" that goes inside Israeli prisons and examines the lives of Palestinian prisoners. We're not recommending the film or the review. But we do want to share our feelings with you about the beaming female face that adorns the article. You can see it here.
The film is produced by HBO. So it's presumably HBO's publicity department that was responsible for creating and distributing a glamour-style photograph of a smiling, contented-looking young woman in her twenties to promote the movie.
That female is our child's murderer. She was sentenced to sixteen life sentences or 320 years which she is serving in an Israeli jail. Fifteen people were killed and more than a hundred maimed and injured by the actions of this attractive person and her associates. The photo is here.
Neither the New York Times nor HBO are likely to give even a moment's attention to the victims of the barbarians who destroyed the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem and the lives of so many victims. So we would be grateful if you would pass along this link to some pictures of our daughter whose name was Malki. She was unable to reach her twenties - Hamas saw to that.
Though she was only fifteen years old when her life was stolen from her and from us, we think Malki was a beautiful young woman, living a beautiful life. We ask your help so that other people - far fewer than the number who will see the New York Times, of course - can know about her.
Please ask your friends to look at the pictures - some of the very few we have - of our murdered daughter.
They are at: http://www.kerenmalki.org/photo.htm
And remind them of what the woman in the Israeli prison - the woman smiling so happily in the New York Times - said last year. "I'm not sorry for what I did. We'll become free from the occupation and then I will be free from prison."
With so many voices demanding that Israel release its terrorist prisoners, small wonder she's smiling.
With greetings from Jerusalem,
Frimet and Arnold Roth
On behalf of Keren Malki
http://muqata.blogspot.com/
Dear friends,
Today's [J@M: a few weeks back, the] New York Times carries a review of a film called "Hot House" that goes inside Israeli prisons and examines the lives of Palestinian prisoners. We're not recommending the film or the review. But we do want to share our feelings with you about the beaming female face that adorns the article. You can see it here.
The film is produced by HBO. So it's presumably HBO's publicity department that was responsible for creating and distributing a glamour-style photograph of a smiling, contented-looking young woman in her twenties to promote the movie.
That female is our child's murderer. She was sentenced to sixteen life sentences or 320 years which she is serving in an Israeli jail. Fifteen people were killed and more than a hundred maimed and injured by the actions of this attractive person and her associates. The photo is here.
Neither the New York Times nor HBO are likely to give even a moment's attention to the victims of the barbarians who destroyed the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem and the lives of so many victims. So we would be grateful if you would pass along this link to some pictures of our daughter whose name was Malki. She was unable to reach her twenties - Hamas saw to that.
Though she was only fifteen years old when her life was stolen from her and from us, we think Malki was a beautiful young woman, living a beautiful life. We ask your help so that other people - far fewer than the number who will see the New York Times, of course - can know about her.
Please ask your friends to look at the pictures - some of the very few we have - of our murdered daughter.
They are at: http://www.kerenmalki.org/photo.htm
And remind them of what the woman in the Israeli prison - the woman smiling so happily in the New York Times - said last year. "I'm not sorry for what I did. We'll become free from the occupation and then I will be free from prison."
With so many voices demanding that Israel release its terrorist prisoners, small wonder she's smiling.
With greetings from Jerusalem,
Frimet and Arnold Roth
On behalf of Keren Malki
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