Opuscula Conversion wars: Rabbis vs. Rabbis

 

Israel's Chief Rabbinute is taking up the challenge of Israel's Zionist Rabbinute - and to some extent, traditional rabbis outside of Israel.

The alleged bone of contention: conversions.

It's a big business and currently the only official game in town is the Chief Rabbinates'.

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

The Chief Rabbinute has distanced itself far away from the conversion processes that go back to the most notable converts: Abraham Avinu and Ruth.

The Chief Rabbinute is a long way from what Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides or Rambam) set forth. As far as the Rambam was concerned, the requirements a potential convert had to meet were simple:

Study and perform some "minor" mitzvot and agree to expand both study and performance of additional mitzvot. He never demanded that a convert know, and practice, all the mitzvot.

Pretty much what Shamai's counterpart told a potential convert eons before Rambam.

The Chief Rabbinute has made a business of conversions with year-long mills (for a fee) and a promise by the convert that he or she never will be a backslider, never will fail to perform all the relevant mitzvoth.

Because it can, the Chief Rabbinute will revoke a convert's conversion if it feels the convert is not living up to the Chief Rabbinuite's standards - never mind if the convert has married and given birth to children being raised as Jews.. (It is unfortunate, but this has happened in Israel.)

The Israeli Chief Rabbinute has usurped the authority of rabbis outside of Israel, anointing only a select few with the authority to convert people, subject to review by the Chief Rabbinute, of course. (One of the anointed ones recently was involved in a "peeking into the mikveh" as female converts immersed.)

The Chief Rabbinute, because it controls all religious life for Jews in Israel, has a vested interest in maintaining control of the conversion process. Any procedure lacking the Chief Rabbinute's seal of approval is not acceptable by the religious establishment. (Israel's Interior Ministry does not necessarily abide by the Chief Rabbinute's opinions.)

Conservative conversions are not acceptable - period.

Reform conversions certainly are not acceptable. (FromWikipedia, Reform Jewish Views: Reform Judaism rejects the concept that any rules or rituals should be considered necessary for conversion to Judaism. In the late 19th century, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the official body of American Reform rabbis, formally resolved to permit the admission of converts "without any initiatory rite, ceremony, or observance whatsoever." (CCAR Yearbook 3 (1893), 73–95; American Reform Responsa (ARR), no. 68, at 236–237.)

Even "orthodox" conversions are not acceptable unless they are performed by an anointed rabbi as Rosh Bet Din (head of the three person conversion committee).

Enter the Religious Zionist Rabbinute.

I'm not certain how the Religious Zionist Rabbinute would change what the Chief Rabbinute does.

I understand the Religious Zionist Rabbinute wants to make things easier for a person who wants to convert, but nowhere on the WWW did I find what the Religious Zionist Rabbinute requires. I read that it, like the Chief Rabbinute, requires certain studies in its institutes - how long, emphasis, and cost never are mentioned.

There was a law proposed - but prevented from being presented to the full Knesset (Israeli parliament) - that would have put conversions into the hands of local rabbis. Admittedly this could have resulted in people "shopping" for a lenient rabbi, one who demanded only what Rambam demanded along with circumcision for males and the mikveh for all.

The Religious Zionist's concern, they claim, is to formally convert young people who have been educated in Israeli schools - some in Israeli religious schools - and who are in their daily lives in all respects Jews, albeit for some non-observant Jews, as are many "accident-of-birth" Jews in Israel.

The reasoning is that unless these non-Jewish "Jews" are converted, they will marry "real" Jews and no one will know if a child's mother is the daughter of a Jewish woman. The issue is raised due to immigration by "Russian" Jews and non-"orthodox" Jews from around the globe, primarily the U.S>, Canada, U.K., Australia, and Germany, the latter which gave us both Reform and Conservative movements.

Perhaps the answer is for the Chief Rabbinute to develop a CLEP-like test to determine how much a prospective convert already knows about Judaism before sentencing the prospect to undergo lessons about subjects in which he (or she) already is proficient.

Just a thought.

Opuscula Force feeding prisoners Violates human rights

 

HOW DARE THE ISRAELI OPPRESSORS force feed Palestinian prisoners illegally held in Israeli prisons for simply trying - and often succeeding - to kill Israeli men, women, and children.

The nerve!

Damned if they do and damned if they don't - as Solomon allegedly said, there is nothing new under the sun, and for the Israelis this truth marches on.

OK, I know that suicide is prohibited under JEWISH law, but the hunger strikers are not Jews.

I know we (Jews) are obliged to preserve life, but the people refusing to eat are in prison because they attacked Jews. The Talmud Bavil tells us if a person comes to kill you, kill him first (Berakoth 58a based on Shemot 22 1).

While these people came to kill Jews - along with the occasional non-Jew - since they are incarcerated - having been tried and convicted - Israel cannot, or at least should not - kill the prisoners.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Israel need not force feed the prisoners whose sole intent is to be released from gaol so they can prove recidivism reigns and they can again attack Israeli men, women, and children, all the while gaining honors and income from their masters in the PA (an organization that, while existing only on the charity of others, will not pay its debts but it can pay stipends to terrorists in Israeli jails and pensions to survivors of terrorists killed in the act).

I truly am surprised that a hew and cry has not (yet) arisen from the ranks of the liberal, terrorist sympathizers of the world or from the ranks of the sponsors of terrorism, e.g., Iran, Saudia, complaining that the (once) Zionists are forcing food down the prisoners' throats or nutrition into their veins.

I hardly am a liberal, but here I agree: FORCE FEEDING PRISIONERS IS WRONG AND INHUMAN. If they want to die of hunger, let them. It is an almost painless way to commit suicide. Not as fast as a suicide/murder bomb favored by many Islamic terrorists, and only the striker dies by this method.

WHERE ARE THE LEFTISTS, THE LIBERALS, THE BLEEDING HEARTS? Why aren't they protesting the Israelis inhumane treatment of Palestinian terrorists who are being force fed, whose civil and human rights are being so blatantly violated by their Israeli jailers.

Let them die

It is their privilege and their right.

Opuscula Obama vs. victims Of Muslim terrorists

 

U.S. protects Iran, PA
Despite court decisions

 

Two seemingly unrelated articles caught my attention this morning.

The first, a link from the Dry Bones cartoon for Thursday, August 06, 2015, led me to an AP story titled U.S. Likely to Intervene in Palestinian Terror Case.

The second, initially seen on Israel HaYom, appears on the Business Insider web site under the heading Victims of Iran-backed attacks who won $1.5 billion in court are suing the US to keep sanctions in place.

The first item, linked from the Dry Bones editorial cartoon, tells readers that The U.S. government is moving closer to intervening in a high-stakes civil case over deadly Palestinian terror attacks as officials met Tuesday with victims' families to discuss concerns over a jury verdict worth hundreds of millions of dollars.. Pretty strong words for the AP; "deadly Palestinian terror attacks."

The AP copy continues: At issue is $218.5 million in damages awarded by a New York jury in February for attacks that killed 33 people and wounded hundreds more — a penalty that lawyers say would be automatically tripled under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act, but that the State Department fears could weaken the stability of the Palestinian government.

The victims, understanding that the PA only has ready cash to pay salaries to jailed terrorists, stipends to dead terrorists' survivors, and monuments honoring the terrorists' "heroism," are willing to take payments over time. (Based on the PA's payments for water and electricity provided by Israel, even token payments to the terrorists' victims seems unlikely.)

Like the first item, the second is a case of the federal government protecting a terror sponsor; this time, Iran.

The Reuters' story begins NEW YORK (Reuters) - Twenty U.S. citizens who won more than $1.5 billion in court judgments against Iran for its support of militant attacks sued the U.S. government on Wednesday to try and prevent it from lifting sanctions on Tehran under an international nuclear deal.

The lawsuit in federal court in New York said that unfreezing Iranian funds would rob the victims of the attacks in Israel and the Gaza Strip of “their last remaining opportunity to pressure Iran to satisfy their judgments."

It has been suggested that the victims of PA-sponsored attacks get their money from the funds the U.S. government provides the PA on a continuing basis (ignoring what the PA does with the money).

The same might be applied to Iran's frozen funds; take out the $1.5 billion awarded by the courts and distribute it to the victims of Iran-sponsored terrorism before lifting sanctions on Iran.

Will either suggestion win Obama's approval?

Does it snow in Key West?