I've always thought that Israel Railways should be branded Is-Rail (or IsRail, etc.). You know, like Eurail (EuroRailways)? :-)
in reference to: Israel Railways Home Page (view on Google Sidewiki)19 November 2009
18 November 2009
Geddes Plan?
I assume this is a reference to the 1925 master plan for Tel-Aviv, drawn up by biologist and town planner Patrick Geddes (not Gaddis!).
in reference to:"Goldman's proposal would institutionalize a phenomenon that was defined in the 1920s by the Gaddis plan and tends to happen spontaneously."
- Surroundings / A lot of possibilities - Haaretz - Israel News (view on Google Sidewiki)
16 November 2009
Deny others what you take for granted
#1, @judith. Yours must be the most ignorant, obnoxious and hypocritical responses on this issue I have ever read. You live in NY and enjoy all the benefits of an open society, where there is a clear separation between religion and state, where religious coercion is all but impossible. You are quite content, however, for your brethren in Israel to live in a society where there is in effect no freedom of (or freedom from) religion. You obviously do not understand (still less deserve) the precious freedoms that previous generations of Americans fought for. Don’t deny others the rights and freedoms you take so for granted. The “Jewish country” (as you put it) does not need to be less just or free than any other; it should be more so. And, by the way, not everyone is fortunate enough to simply up stakes and leave a country because they disagree with some of its policies, nor should they be obliged to do (certainly not for the sake of being able to marry their partner).
in reference to:"1. They can leave if they don`t like it <a href="/hasen/objects/pages/ResponseDetails.jhtml?resNo=5447750&itemno=1128149&cont=2">They can leave if they don`t like it </a> 01:41 | judith 15/11/09"
- State may pay Israelis forced by religious restrictions to wed abroad - Haaretz - Israel News (view on Google Sidewiki)
15 November 2009
Post Diigo to Blogger (weekly)
Remembering the soldiers who built American Jewish life (Haaretz Israel News)
"During World War II, more than a half-million Jews served in the American military. Almost every Jewish family had a brother, son, husband, uncle or cousin in uniform. Entering the armed forces, often as teenagers, these Jewish servicemen sometimes left home with little more than a nominal sense of what it meant to be Jewish. Their experiences in the armed forces taught them not only how to handle a weapon and to fight, but also how to be American Jews.
Many non-Jewish soldiers and sailors met their first Jew in the military. Stereotypes abounded. Some Jewish soldiers reported being asked about their "horns" by their fellow servicemen."U.S. State Department: Israel is not a tolerant society (Haaretz Israel News)
- Despite boasting religious freedom and protection of all holy sites, Israel falls short in tolerance toward minorities, equal treatment of ethnic groups, openness toward various streams within society, and respect for holy and other sites.
The settlers camp remains pure (Haaretz Israel News)
- The State of Israel will not live or die over such an assassin, or a dozen more like him. The country is engaged in a national struggle with the settler state. If there is a strategic threat to Israel's continued survival, it sits on the hills of Hebron and Samaria. If there is one force that can bring down the continuation of the peace process, it is continued building in the settlements. If the U.S. ultimately chooses to cut Israel off, it will be because of the settlements.
Across the Green Line are two states, Palestinian and Jewish, which do not see eye to eye with the State of Israel. While the Palestinian state has a chance of reaching peace with Israel, the settler state sees Israel as a strategic threat and its leadership as a gang of ditherers, a state threatening to undermine the power of the settler state. In their eyes Israel is the real exile, dancing to the tune of a corrupt overlord.
The roles have reversed. No longer are settlers seeking to settle the hearts of Israelis; they are putting forth an unequivocal demand that Israelis inhabit the settlers' hearts - or else.
When there was a leader here (Haaretz Israel News)
The task of our generation is to complete the job of establishing the state that David Ben-Gurion began at 4 P.M. on a Friday. Yitzhak Rabin advanced the process at Oslo, and Sharon almost completed it. The three of them understood that Israel within the borders of the British Mandate had to be partitioned, if possible with the consent of the Palestinians and if not then with the consent of the world.
And when we carry out the partition, will there still be Qassam rockets? It is reasonable to assume that there will be - and from Lebanon as well, from where Katyushas are fired from time to time. But Israel will be saved as a Jewish and democratic state for generations to come and the Israeli army will deal with the rockets from our recognized borders. The world will no longer be dealing with the Palestinian issue and we will be freed to deal with education and with personal security and with saving the Negev and the Galilee, and to address the problems of the towns in the periphery and with establishing an exemplary society.Who is a Jew? Court Ruling in Britain Raises Question
In an explosive decision, the court concluded that basing school admissions on a classic test of Judaism — whether one’s mother is Jewish — was by definition discriminatory. Whether the rationale was “benign or malignant, theological or supremacist,” the court wrote, “makes it no less and no more unlawful.”
The case rested on whether the school’s test of Jewishness was based on religion, which would be legal, or on race or ethnicity, which would not. The court ruled that it was an ethnic test because it concerned the status of M’s mother rather than whether M considered himself Jewish and practiced Judaism.
“The requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act,” the court said. It added that while it was fair that Jewish schools should give preference to Jewish children, the admissions criteria must depend not on family ties, but “on faith, however defined.”Who are Diaspora Jews to tell us Israelis who is Jewish? (Haviv Rettig Gur)
American Orthodox rabbis, the Interior Ministry feels, can’t be trusted to decide who is in and who is out of the Jewish people.
It is the feeling of a handful of ignorant bureaucrats – ignorant of Judaism and Jewish identity, and ignorant of Israeli law – that decides the day.
Why? Because the Diaspora is silent and respectful. Instead of demanding respect for their support and love, the Diaspora assumes Israelis are either their betters or their “ethnic” cousins. Either way, you can’t demand too much.
So Ilana falls through the cracks.The New Jewish Convert (November/December 2009)
Back in the days of Ruth, Judaism’s most famous early convert, it wasn’t difficult to become a Jew. Despite being born a Moabite—a tribe with which the Torah forbade marriage—she became the great-grandmother of King David. Judaism then not only embraced converts but sought them: The Israelites grew from about 150,000 in 586 BCE to eight million in the first century CE largely by absorbing men willing to be circumcised and women marrying Jewish men.
Indeed, becoming a Jew was so popular that the word proselytize comes from the Greek word proselytos, which means to convert to Judaism. Non-Jews converted in Egypt, Syria and Rome, establishing Jewish communities. According to the historian Josephus, people followed Jewish customs in every known nation, including all Barbarian and Greek cities. In the land of Israel, he notes, conversion was not always a matter of choice: Under the Hasmonean kings, particularly Johann Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), the Idumeans were forced to be circumcised and live like Judeans or leave the country.End Hereditary Religion (About)
For centuries organized religions built their followers by imposing their dogma and superstition on non-consenting children too helplessly naive and powerless to reject what they are commanded to believe. Much of what is so maladaptive and destructive about organized religion will be discarded if religious institutions have to create their theology to pass the scrutiny and questioning of mature minds that value free inquiry and demand sensible answers to their questions. If several generations can be raised free of hereditary religion, totally new and reformed religions will have an opportunity to form. As things stand now, humanity is stuck in the iron age.
Shulamit Aloni - Shas 'racial purity' policy toward migrant kids is a disgrace (Haaretz Israel News)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fallen in love with the Judaism of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and other holy men around him, and despises the principles embodied in the founding document of the state - the "declaration of independence" that ensures the country will be developed "for the benefit of all its residents," that there will be "complete equality of rights for all citizens regardless of origin, race, religion or gender," as well as "freedom of religion and conscience." It seems our premier is convinced that democracy means elections when they need to be held and the existence of competing parties. As everyone knows, this is what they have in Iran, too.
Mofaz in the footsteps of Sharon (Haaretz Israel News)
Ariel Sharon was not an ideologue, but he left a legacy behind him: the division of the Land of Israel. Sharon did not believe in peace. He realized how deep the dispute really is, he did not trust the Arabs, and he remembered 1948. But as time went by, Sharon also lost faith in the occupation. Very belatedly, he realized that the status quo endangers the very existence of the Jewish state. Thus, he began looking for a third way when he was in his in his 70s. A way that would grant the Palestinians a state and grant Israel defensible borders without necessarily bringing the conflict to an end.
Synablog » Blog Archive » Beyond Spiritual Consumerism. . . Or Not
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
12 November 2009
Twitter Digest
This application would be a whole lot more useful if we could choose the Twitter usernames from a list of our existing Twitter Followers/ed.
in reference to:"To get started, enter one of more Twitter usernames below (one username per line) and use the links that will appear at the bottom."
- Twitter Digest (view on Google Sidewiki)
Affordy’s Titan LEV (Linux Extended Version)
>> Affordy’s Titan LEV (Linux Extended Version) looks and feels a lot like Windows XP, runs Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and many other Windows programs you’re familiar with, and can even run MS Office – but it’s not Windows. It’s a souped-up version of Ubuntu Linux, built specifically to make Linux palatable for Windows users.
Interesting. Linux on the desktop has somehow never managed to gain traction on the user’s desktop (or laptop/netbook). Perhaps Affordy’s Titan LEV (Linux Extended Version) can finally make that breakthrough? It will need to take ground quickly, though, to pre-empt Google’s planned Chrome O/S.
"Affordy’s Titan LEV (Linux Extended Version) looks and feels a lot like Windows XP, runs Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, and many other Windows programs you’re familiar with, and can even run MS Office – but it’s not Windows. It’s a souped-up version of Ubuntu Linux, built specifically to make Linux palatable for Windows users. The difference between “real” XP and Affordy XP is that the Affordy people will be maintaining their OS, issuing upgrades and integrating programs into the OS, making it a “living thing,” unlike the case with Microsoft’s now-defunct OS."
- The Afford(y)able Windows Operating System | israeltech blog (view on Google Sidewiki)
11 November 2009
Israel’s OECD membership
Great! The more international organisations of this nature Israel is able to join, the better. Not just for the obvious benefits to Israel (and other members, of course), but because it helps to hold a mirror up to aspects of Israeli society and policy that are outside the norm. That unwelcome attention will hopefully lead to Israel cleaning up its act in order to gain membership. I’m thinking here of ongoing efforts to settle the West Bank/Judea and Samaria, inequitable affirmative action favouring the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) minority, and the unequal treatment of religions and religious denominations due to Israel’s domination by the religiously Orthodox. Even if Israel tries and fails to achieve membership of supra-national organisations such as the EU and NATO, the effort to meet membership criteria could totally transform the Israeli political and social landscape in a positive way.
in reference to: Steinitz: Most OECD countries support Israel's membership - Israel Business, Ynetnews (view on Google Sidewiki)
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