Posts Tagged ‘Jewish’
Friday, January 22nd, 2010
John L Allen Jr; 22/1/10
If it’s true that only a soldier can fully grasp the horrors of war, perhaps it likewise takes a theologian to appreciate the limits of theology. That may help explain a striking paradox about the papacy of Benedict XVI: He’s a true theologian-pope, yet a core element of his legacy will be to sideline theology as the focus of Catholicism’s engagement with other religions. Another chapter was added to that legacy this week with the pontiff’s Jan. 17 visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome, the first time a pope made the trip since John Paul II’s groundbreaking visit in 1986. Pope Benedict XVI shakes hands with Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, the chief rabbi of Rome, at the main synagogue in Rome Jan. 17. (CNS/L’Osservatore Romano via Reuters). Understandably, media attention was concentrated on debates over Pope Pius XII, the wartime pontiff whose alleged “silence” on the Holocaust is among the most polarizing issues in Catholic-Jewish relations. In late December, the Vatican announced that Benedict XVI had signed a decree of heroic virtue for Pius, moving him a step closer to sainthood. On that score, the visit seemed to mark the birth of a new star in the Jewish world: Riccardo Pacifici, President of the Jewish Community in Rome, who had the rare opportunity to challenge the pope in public.
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Tags: Christianity, Jewish
Posted in Christianity, Israel & Palestine, Religion | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 25th, 2009
Adele Horin ; 25/11/09
In the Jewish religion the family is sacred, and ”peace in the home” an abiding value. So when rabbis were asked to speak out to their communities about domestic violence, the initial response from some was that it was unnecessary to do so. ”People just said ‘It doesn’t happen in the Jewish community’,” said Roberta Freedman, of the welfare agency JewishCare. But starting today, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, 16 rabbis from 16 synagogues will take part in a 16-day campaign to educate their communities about domestic violence. They will speak from the bimah, or pulpit, in the synagogue to counter the culture of denial in their communities, and to direct people to help. Ms Freedman, manager of family and children’s services, said the rate of violence against Jewish women was probably no different from the rest of the community but US research indicated that due to family and community pressures Jewish women took seven to 10 years longer than average to leave an abusive relationship.
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Tags: Domestic Violence, Global, Jewish, USA
Posted in Gender & Marriage, Health & Children, Human Rights, USA, Womens Rights | No Comments »
Friday, October 30th, 2009
30/10/09
Switzerland’s biggest Jewish groups have described a far-right push to ban mosque minarets as a threat to religious harmony and the integration of Muslims. The Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities and the Platform of Liberal Jews in Switzerland said a November 29 referendum on minaret construction ”poses a threat to peaceful relations between the religions and inhibits the integration endeavours of Muslims in Switzerland” as well as infringing religious freedom, ”a concept enshrined in the constitution”. Islam is the second largest religion in Switzerland after Christianity with 310,000 followers out of a population of 7.5 million. Four minarets have been built and the construction of a fifth is planned.
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Tags: Europe, Jewish, Muslim
Posted in Human Rights, Religion | No Comments »
Thursday, September 24th, 2009
24/9/09
The Vatican defended itself on Wednesday over accusations about its handling of a Holocaust-denying bishop after a Catholic prelate said the Holy See was informed two months before the controversy erupted. The conflict surrounding traditionalist Bishop Richard Williamson resurfaced hours before Swedish television – which broke the original story last January – was due to air another documentary saying top Vatican officials knew about Williamson’s comments before Pope Benedict lifted his excommunication. The Vatican lifted the excommunication of Williamson and three other bishops of the ultra-traditionalist Society of St Pius X (SSPX) in an attempt to heal a rift in the Church that began in 1998 when they were ordained without permission.
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Tags: Christianity, Human Rights, Jewish
Posted in Christianity, Human Rights, Israel & Palestine | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009
23/9/09
Religious Jewish women, the primary cooks in Orthodox families, have long ruled kosher kitchens and served as crucial, informal kosher watchdogs for their families and guests. But those women are rarely trusted with the even more powerful, formal task of professionally supervising the production of kosher food. This may be starting to change. For the first time, both the Orthodox Union and Star-K, two large Orthodox kosher agencies, are offering courses for women in the Jewish dietary laws of kashrut this year. Neither course will explicitly train women to be mashgichot, official kosher supervisors, even though there is no religious prohibition against it, and the move has caused some debate and friction within religious circles. Still, around 25 women came to the New York area in August to attend a five-day advanced course organized by the O.U. that included visits to industrial kosher kitchens and classroom sessions intended to provide “a comprehensive, in-depth overview of the entire kashrut industry, including the home kitchen,” said Rabbi Yosef Grossman…
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Tags: Jewish, Religion, USA
Posted in Religion, USA | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
Jason Steger; 12/9/09;
- A Lucky Child; Thomas Buergenthal. Profile
In Thomas Buergenthal’s account of his time spent in a Polish ghetto, a labour camp and then Auschwitz as a 10-year-old, he recalls several events that haunt him today. A would-be escaper is caught and, with his comrades, handed over to the Gestapo. The gallows are put up in front of Buergenthal’s barracks and the inmates forced to watch the battered men die. The Germans make prisoners act as hangmen. One finds his hands shaking so much he can’t handle the rope; the condemned man turns to him, kisses his hand and eases his head into the noose. It outrages the Gestapo officer, who boots away the chair on which the wretched man stands.
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Tags: Europe, Human Rights, Jewish
Posted in Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, War | No Comments »
Sunday, June 7th, 2009
Tom Hyland; 7/6/09
Arguing has been described as the Jewish national sport. Two Jews, the saying goes, three opinions. If so, the argument in Melbourne’s Jewish community has become a bit more lively. The Sensible Jew wants a say. Elbowing into the argument, the Sensible Jew says it’s time for Australian Jewish moderates to be heard — in Jewish affairs, in representing the community to the rest of society, and in the wider debate about issues affecting Jews, like Israel. The Sensible Jew, a blog launched by two Melbourne women, doesn’t hold back. It attacks established Melbourne Jewish leaders like Danny Lamm and Colin Rubenstein as “unrepresentative swill”. Their heavy-handed response to perceived anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel wins the Jewish community no friends and instead reinforces anti-Jewish prejudice, they say.
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Tags: Australia, Israel, Jewish
Posted in Australia, Israel & Palestine | No Comments »
Sunday, May 31st, 2009
Mark Russell; 31/5/09
The Jewish community has forced its national sporting body into an embarrassing backdown on plans to ban non-Jewish players from its teams. Maccabi Australia (MAI), the largest Jewish organisation in Australia, issued a directive early this month giving clubs until December 31 next year to get rid of any non-Jewish players. The national body, which has 9000 members aged from five to 85, claimed its constitution had always dictated that clubs should consist exclusively of Jewish players, without exception, and it was time to police it. The move was legally protected under the Equal Opportunity Act, which allows a club to discriminate if it is deemed to be acting to preserve a minority culture.
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Tags: Australia, Jewish, Racism
Posted in Australia, Human Rights, Religion | No Comments »
Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
2/4/09
A team of New York prosecutors, counselors and religious leaders will work to combat sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. The centerpiece of the outreach program, which was announced Wednesday by District Attorney Charles Hynes and leaders from community-based organizations that serve Jewish communities, is a hot line abuse victims can call and speak to a culturally sensitive social worker. The establishment of the team, which will focus on child sex abuse, comes partly in response to a discussion on State Assemblyman Dov Hikind’s radio show in the summer of 2008. The show prompted dozens of listeners to come forward with stories of children being molested.
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Tags: Children, Jewish, Sexual Abuse, USA
Posted in Health & Children, Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, Religion, USA | No Comments »
Thursday, March 12th, 2009
12/3/09
Germany issued an arrest warrant last night for John Demjanjuk – the alleged Nazi war criminal “Ivan the Terrible” – over the deaths of thousands of Jews at Polish death camps in World War II. Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk, now living in the US, is thought to have assisted in the death of at least 29,000 Jews during his time at the Sobibor death camp. He is also alleged to have served in Treblinka. Demjanjuk was charged last night by Munich prosecutors with more than 29,000 counts of accessory to murder for his time as a guard at Sobibor in Nazi-occupied Poland between March and September 1943. “In this capacity, he participated in the accessory to murder of at least 29,000 people of the Jewish faith,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
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Tags: Europe, Holocaust, Human Rights, Jewish, WWII
Posted in Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, War | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
Rebecca Spence; 7/1/09
When Elliot Kukla, a Reform rabbi, came out as transgender six months before his ordination in 2006, he never imagined how openly the Jewish community would be addressing transgender issues just three years later. This month, he is poised to address a West Coast regional conference of Reform rabbis on the subject, and even the elderly Jews that he works with in the Bay Area are largely accepting of his identity. “I’m so amazed at the old ladies who will turn to their friends and say, ‘Did you meet the nice, young transgender rabbi?’” Kukla said. “Some of that is San Francisco, but that conversation would never have happened a few years ago.” For nearly a decade, Kukla, 34, has been publishing articles and giving talks in the Jewish community on the topic of transgender people. But over the past year, education and advocacy initiatives dealing with transgender rights in the Jewish community have increased to a level never before seen.
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Tags: Gender, Jewish, USA
Posted in Gender & Marriage, Religion, USA | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
Rachelle Unreich; 24/6/08
When he was 18, Menachem “Manny” Waks flew to Israel, to enrol in the Israeli army. For some Jewish men his age, this is a rite of passage; for Waks, it was even more poignant, as it marked the moment he left behind his Hasidic Jewish roots to start living his life as a secular Jew. As soon as the plane took off, Waks locked himself inside its tiny bathroom and began to shave off his long beard. “It was the first time I had ever used a razor, and I didn’t know how,” he says. “I did it without shaving cream, so I was bleeding everywhere. All I knew was that I wanted to be normal. “On the way, we stopped off in Thailand, where I got my first proper haircut. I felt a sense of freedom. It was like, ‘Wow, I’m all on my own’.” At Monash University tonight, Waks will introduce Leaving the Fold, a documentary about ultra-Orthodox Jews in Canada, the US and Israel who try to free themselves from their sheltered communities — and often have to go it alone in the process.
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Tags: Jewish, Religion
Posted in Israel & Palestine, Religion | No Comments »
