Israeli government plans to demolish synagogues used by thousands of Jews in Gaza Strip
COUNTDOWN / Will settler synagogues face the bulldozer's blade?

By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/
Wed., April 27, 2005 Nisan 18, 5765

THE RUMOR MILL - TUESDAY, 26 APRIL

One of the most emotionally charged issues of the disengagement plan, particularly for the Jewishly observant communities of most Gaza settlements, is the fate of the synagogues and cemeteries of the enclaves slated for evacuation.

The sensitivity of the issue has only grown in the wake of a government decision to save some $25 million and skirt international criticism by leaving the settlers' homes intact. This despite fears that terrorists may move into homes left behind by the families of their victims.

Until this week, senior government officials maintained that the synagogues in the 21 Gaza and four northern West Bank settlements to be evacuated would be dismantled and rebuilt in the evacuees' new communities within Israel.

On Monday, however, a senior defense ministry official told Army Radio that there was "no practical possibility" of taking apart the houses of worship and moving them.

As an alternative, the ministry planned to salvage one wall of each synagogue to serve as a part of new synagogues to be built for the evacuees in Israel, the radio reported. Memorial wall plaques, Torah arks, paneling and other elements would also be salvaged re-installation in the new structures.

Concern deepened on Tuesday, when a defense official told Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that although a final decision is still days away, "Israel will have no choice but to destroy most of the synagogues and ritual baths in the settlements slated to be evacuated, to avoid the possibility of Palestinians desecrating them."

No simple moves

No decision taken by the Defense Ministry will be an easy one. In the Gaza Strip alone, officials face the following challenges.

LARGE SYNAGOGUES - In Gaza's central settlement-town of Neve Dekalim, there are three major synagogues, each of which can hold 1,000 worshippers.

There are also seven other large synagogue structures in Gaza enclaves.

COMMUNITY SYNAGOGUES AND YESHIVAS - There are more than 20 other synagogues in communities and yeshiva seminaries in the Strip. A minority, including those built in caravans, are small and self-contained enough to be moved whole, and these will likely be transported to Israel in any event.

RITUAL BATHS - There are a total of 22 ritual baths in the Gaza settlements. Most may be relatively easily transported. Others are structures of relatively large scale and heavy construction which included excavation, and they are unlikely to be moved.

CEMETERIES - There are a total of 48 Jewish graves in the Gaza Strip. Sources in the IDF Rabbinate said Tuesday that it would take about a week for the graves to be exhumed for reburial in Israel.

At present, the plan is for the process to begin only after the last settlers have been evacuated.

In the major settlement bloc of Gush Katif, the news of the possible demolitions was met with incredulity and anxious defiance.

"This is something that the human mind cannot fathom, I simply cannot believe that a Jewish government is prepared to demolish synagogues," said prominent Gaza Rabbi Yosef Elnikaveh.

Should the disengagement take place, "the government must find a way to transport the synagogues," he said, adding that he believed that there were ways to dismantle and rebuild the existing structures, even the largest of them.

He noted that the present yeshiva in Neve Dekalim was originally located in the northern Sinai settlement city of Yamit, which was evacuated in 1982 by then-defense minister Ariel Sharon under the terms of the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.

The yeshiva was successfully dismantled and rebuilt in the Gaza settlement, which now has a population of some 1,500.

In any event, Rabbi Elnikaveh stressed, the option of demolishing synagogues made no rational sense.

"There is a mosque that faces Neve Dekalim, from which they have fired at us for years now, and the government of Israel did not destroy that mosque, even though they were shooting from it. What logic is there in leaving a mosque that radiates murder, and at the same time destroying synagogues? I simply don't understand this."

"Moreover, does it seem rational that a Jewish government would demolish a synagogue?" asked Rabbi Elnikaveh. "Where can it derive permission for such an act? When a synagogue is decrated in France, the entire Jewish world is up in arms.

"In all of Jewish history, it has never happened that Jews destroyed a synagogue."

"If, heaven forbid, this takes place, I will sit on the ground and weep as though it were Tisha B'Av and it was the destruction of the Holy Temple."
- posted by Izak @ 10:40 PM (0) comments

 
Senior citizens discover the joys of Judaism
Growing Joys
One amazing couple proves that it's never too late to change.
by Sara Yoheved Rigler
http://www.aish.com/spirituality/growth/Growing_Joys.asp
(Author Biography:Sara Yoheved Rigler is a graduate of Brandeis University. Her spiritual journey took her to India and through fifteen years of teaching Vedanta philosophy and meditation. Since 1987, she has been practicing Torah Judaism. A writer, she resides in the Old City of Jerusalem with her husband and children. Her articles have appeared in: Jewish Women Speak about Jewish Matters, Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul, and Heaven on Earth.)

Ninety-year-old Lorie Zeller flew from Los Angeles to Israel for her grandson's Bar Mitzvah. At the party, I approached the sprightly, white-haired nonagenarian and told her, "Mazel tov. I hear that your grandson read the Torah beautifully on Shabbat."

"Oh, yes, he was splendid," Mrs. Zeller replied. "But I couldn't follow the whole portion. I've just begun learning Hebrew."

"You've just begun learning Hebrew?!" I exclaimed. At that point her son Dovid walked by. "I'm in awe of your mother," I told him. "At 90 she's just begun learning Hebrew!"

"Don't be in awe of her," Dovid responded with an ironic smile. "She didn't just begin learning Hebrew. She began three years ago."

Passover is called, "the holiday of spring." The point is emphasized by placing on the Seder plate a sprig of parsley or other green vegetable emblematic of springtime -- the season of growth. Indeed, Passover is also celebrated as the birth of the Jewish nation. Everything about this festival is associated with new beginnings and change -- as the Hagaddah says, "from slavery to freedom... from subjugation to redemption."

The radical changes in which the Passover moment abounds are not only for the young. The Torah requires every single Jew to look upon her/himself as if s/he "personally had gone out of Egypt." This requirement obligates the 90-year-old as much as the 22-year-old. Of course, at the time of the Exodus itself, the Jews who left Egypt spanned the spectrum from newborns to octogenarians. Moses, Miriam, and Aaron were all in their 80s when they left Egypt and marched headlong into the desert. Apparently God assumes that it's never too late to make radical changes.

PERSONAL CHANGE IN THE GOLDEN AGE

Is it really possible to make radical changes later in life? Many of us regard youth as the time for growth, change, and personal transformation. While people in their 40s and 50s have been known to make major career or life changes, the period after 60 is often regarded as a stage of enjoying the fruits, but not planting anew. While pensioners enjoy traveling to new places, they rarely work at developing new skills, or, an even more formidable task, becoming new people.

Or do they?

Leah Abramowitz, founder of Israel's Geriatric Institute, maintains that while many people face old age clinging tenaciously to every detail of their lives, from their morning routines to the dilapidated couch they refuse to replace, others regard their later years as a golden opportunity to do all the things they never had time to do before. For example, Mrs. Lorie Zeller, the nonagenarian cited above, started working four days a week in the Book Center of the C.G. Jung Institute at the age of 64 and "took early retirement" at the age of 89.

Some exceptional people regard the post-60 years as an ideal time to work on improving themselves. Free of the pressures of career and raising children, they turn to the task of fixing character flaws that have plagued them for decades.

My friend Suzanne, for example, was chronically late, by an hour or more, for her entire life until an "epiphany" at the age of sixty broke her tardiness habit. At 63, she tackled her inveterate disorderliness. After forty years of feeling helpless to keep her house neat despite the gentle importuning of her husband and grown children, she finally transformed herself -- and her house -- into a paragon of order.

SPIRITUAL GROWTH

Gerontologists have identified three factors that account for what they call, "successful aging":

1. good health
2. ample social contacts
3. a sense of a meaningful existence

While "a meaningful existence" can be achieved through taking care of a spouse or volunteering for a good cause, ultimate meaning is achieved through spiritual pursuits.

"The older generation has the greatest interest in spirituality," claims Leah Abramowitz. She notes that even on kibbutzim founded by staunch Socialists who had eschewed all religion, when these erstwhile Socialists retire, they love to sit and learn Torah and Talmud.

"They're cramming for the next stage of life," Leah Abramowitz explains. "In every stage of life, there's a next stage. In youth, we study and prepare for college. In college, we prepare for a career. During our working life, we prepare for retirement. When you get into old age, the next stage is the Next World. Even non-believers unconsciously intuit that they're going to meet their Maker, and they have to get ready."

My mother-in-law started lighting Shabbos candles at the age of seventy, and my mother, o.b.m., went to the mikvah for the first time at the age of 76.

BUBBY IRMA AND HER COWBOY

Even more courageous and adventuresome are those rare souls who transform their whole existence to God-centered lives in their seventh decade. Nate and Irma Charles, who had made aliyah from America, moved into Jerusalem's Old City when they were in their early 60s. Natie started studying with various rabbis there, and discovered that he had a lot to learn about Judaism. Religiously, Natie and Irma were Conservative Jews. "Once I started learning Torah," Natie recounts, "I got a whole new perspective on what it means to be a Jew."

Natie and Irma's three children were already grown. The single black spot in their lives was that one daughter, married for 12 years, had not succeeded in becoming pregnant. When Natie consulted Rabbi Noah Weinberg, the Rosh Yeshiva of Aish HaTorah, about this, Rabbi Weinberg suggested that it might help if their daughter were to observe a particular mitzvah.

Natie phoned his daughter back in America, and passed on the rabbi's advice. Her terse reply was: "You've been in Israel so long you sound like the Moonies."

After several more months, and a failed adoption attempt, she decided to take Rabbi Weinberg's advice. Seven weeks later she phoned her parents. Natie picked up the phone and heard only silence. "Hello? Hello?" he kept asking. Finally came their daughter's choked voice: "I'm pregnant."

Natie looked at Irma. Two emotions surged up in both their hearts: Exuberant joy and overwhelming gratitude to God. "At that moment," Natie recalls, "it was clear to both of us that we had to give something back to God. We decided to keep Shabbos and kashrus and the other mitzvot."

It was a total change of lifestyle for Natie, 63, and Irma, 62. Natie started to wear a kippa and to learn Torah every day -- a practice he has continued for the last 20 years. Irma became the devoted "Bubby" of an entire community of yeshiva students and young couples. Her cooking skills -- in her newly-kashered kitchen -- became legendary as she routinely fed a dozen guests every Shabbat night. More than 25 young people filled "the House of Charles" for Kiddush every Shabbat morning. On the eve of her 70th birthday, Irma published a popular cookbook-cum-memoir, Adventures in Bubby Irma's Kitchen. The book begins with the words, "I am thankful to the Almighty, who has allowed me, even after all these years, to enter into His world and has given me the opportunity to learn about Torah and mitzvot."

Changing life-time habits is difficult, not only because the force of inertia hampers such efforts, but also because adopting a new action subtly incriminates one's previous actions, instigating the defensive response, "What was wrong with the way I was doing it before?" In her book, Bubby Irma describes the conflicting inner voices that beset her after she had learned that an egg must be cracked into a glass and checked for bloodspots before being considered kosher:

One day, I was baking my famous Babka, and as I always did, I started to break the eggs into the dough. A little voice inside said, "No, no, I have to crack the eggs into a glass and check that there's no blood."

I walked away from the dough and got a glass to crack the egg into. But I couldn't crack it. I heard a voice again: "Irma, you've been cooking for 39 years and never cracked an egg into a glass. It's ridiculous. Don't do it!" So I walked back to the dough and started to crack the egg.

Again I was stopped by a voice that said, "Irma, if you are going to do something, do it right." So I cracked it into the glass, and what I saw and smelled put me into a state of shock. Not only was the egg rotten, but it was full of blood and even had a part of the beak formed. I dropped it and stood there in awe of Hashem. He had found a way to get His message across to me.

Change later in life also requires a good measure of humility. To admit that the practices of a lifetime can be improved upon is a challenge to the ego. Bubby Irma's humility is as legendary as her cooking. Fannie Schwartz recalls one pre-Passover period when Irma was becoming observant. Twenty-two-year-old Fannie looked around Bubby's kitchen and informed her that she would have to cover two more surfaces. Irma grimaced. Did she really have to heed the instructions of someone 45 years her junior? Bubby gave Fannie a look, but she did it. And when she was finished, she flashed Fannie her trademark smile.

For Irma and Natie, inner transformation became not a one-time feat, but a way of life. They both constantly strive to learn and to grow. At the age of 66, Natie learned from Irma how to make challah. Every Thursday night, a band of young American students from a local Jewish-learning program would crowd into the Charles's kitchen to watch Natie demonstrate how to make challah dough and Irma demonstrate how to braid it. While in his 70s, Natie adopted the practice of carrying a notepad with him wherever he goes. When he hears an interesting lesson about the week's Torah portion, he jots it down. At the Shabbat table, he pulls out the notepad and delivers "a word of Torah."

For some two decades, Irma also regularly attended Torah classes where frequently a half-century separated her from the other students. Even after developing a heart condition when well into her seventies, she would struggle up two flights of steps to Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller's class on improving one's character traits. She is currently finishing her second book, another cookbook-cum-memoir, entitled, The Adventures of Bubby Irma and Her Cowboy. When diagnosed with cancer at the age of 82, Bubby Irma told me: "I'm trying to figure out what God wants me to learn."

For those of us a few or many years younger than Natie and Irma, their example of flexibility, perseverance, and good cheer in the face of adversity is a constant inspiration. Rabbi Shmuel Schwartz relates that when he was a 25-year-old neophyte studying in at Aish HaTorah and he would get discouraged, he would look over at Natie sitting there plugging away learning the aleph bet [the letters of the Hebrew alphabet] and be galvanized to keep trying.

In the Midrash, God proclaims: "Because Israel is young and I love him." The sages explain that "young" refers to the ability to grow and change. How much God must love Natie and Bubby Irma!
- posted by Izak @ 2:23 AM (0) comments

 
Struggles of a Jew: Overcoming the fear of wearing a Jewish skull-cap
The Kippah Debate
From Aish.com
(Note: "Kippah" is the Hebrew for "Yarmulka" or "Skull-cap".)
by Richard Rabkin
http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/jewishsociety/The_Kippah_Debate.asp
23 Adar II 5765 / 3 April 2005

(Richard Rabkin received an undergraduate degree in religious studies from the University of Western Ontario, and a Law Degree from the University of British Columbia. He presently lives in Toronto and dreams of coming back to Israel where he spent some time learning at Aish HaTorah http://www.aish.com/ )

"The first time that I wore a kippah outside of synagogue in Canada, I was petrified. I had just got back from Israel, where I became religious and where kippahs are about as common as cellular phones. But when I came back to Vancouver, I didn't have the courage to start wearing a kippah.

My reasons were many: I didn't have the courage to stand up to the questioning of my friends and family. I didn't have the courage to be a "model Jew" and have all of my actions judged, because I was wearing a kippah. I simply didn't have the courage to make the statement that wearing a kippah makes.

However, my first Shabbat in Vancouver, I was informed that one is not allowed to carry anything on Shabbat (in the absence of an eruv, which didn't exist). That meant that after shul I couldn't put my kippah in my pocket!

What was I going to do? I had an hour walk home! What would people think of me? I didn't have too many options.

I thought about sprinting home so people could only see a cat-like figure rushing by them which wouldn't give them time to make out my head covering. But I realized that I was not at all cat-like, and that I could probably sprint for about a block before I would fall to the ground in convulsions. So I decided to bite the bullet and walk all the way home wearing my kippah.

During that walk home, I must have looked like an escaped mental patient with a serious case of paranoia. When someone walked by me I would think to myself, "What are you looking at? Are you looking at my kippah? What's wrong with you? Haven't you ever seen a Jewish person before? RACIST PIG!"

Actually the person walking towards me was probably thinking to himself, "This man approaching me looks like he is addicted to crack. I hope he doesn't beat me up."

ADVANTAGES OF KIPPAH-WEARING

As the months and years went on I got more comfortable wearing my kippah and started wearing it almost all of the time.

But when I applied to summer internships at law firms in Vancouver I didn't wear my kippah to the interviews. "Who is going to hire me if I am wearing a kippah?" I asked myself. Despite the fact that Canada is probably the most multi-cultural, tolerant country in the world, I still couldn't do it.

But I discovered there were problems with not wearing a kippah at work.

Since my co-workers had no reason to think that I was different, my first day at the firm, they took me out for lunch to a restaurant called "The Spotted Prawn."

While all of my co-workers ordered various shellfish dishes forbidden to me, I wanted to ask if the chef could make me a special dish -- like, perhaps, roasted water with a side dish of sliced water seasoned in water. Instead, I ended up ordering a salad, but I knew that I was still compromising my kashrut standards.

From then on, it was bag lunches for me.

For professional and spiritual reasons, I decided to move to Toronto. With my previous kippah-wearing difficulties under my belt, I was determined to go to my Toronto interviews wearing a kippah.

COMING OUT

My first interview was in a downtown firm that I was really interested in. I got into the elevator, which was to take me to the 45th floor, a little nervous about the kippah thing but forging on courageously.

I noticed another guy in the elevator wearing a kippah as well. I felt immediately relieved. We struck up a conversation and I told him which law firm I was interviewing at.

"Oh, that is a great firm," he said. "Congratulations on getting an interview there." He paused for a second and then continued, "I should warn you. I've heard they don't really like it if people wear their yarmulkes to work."

My heart sank into the pit of my stomach. I am not sure if that was from hearing the news or because the elevator came to an abrupt landing on the 45th floor. I exited cautiously and looked both ways as if I was going to set off the "kippah alert alarm." I turned to the man in the elevator and thanked him for the advice.

"No problem," he said to me while he stepped out of the elevator as well.

"Good morning Mr. Rothstein," the receptionist said to my friend in the elevator. "Your 9:00 appointment is here to see you." My elevator buddy -- a partner at this firm -- winked at me and laughed. "Good luck in the interview. Come by my office when you are done if you get the chance."

My interview went well and I could see that my decision to wear a kippah was paying off already. Some of the lawyers told me, without me asking, that I would have no problem observing Shabbat at this firm, even in the winter months when Shabbat begins early.

The firm also wanted to take me out for dinner, but they offered to set up a get together in the office so that I could come without having to order roasted water. I didn't have to explain myself, my kippah did the explaining for me.

Once I put the kippah on they knew exactly where I stood. It was also a symbol for me to know where I stood, in that my internal "religious" thoughts and feelings had to be reflected by external actions.

You may think that I was overly neurotic about my kippah dilemma. But the fact is, that once someone puts on a kippah, he is making a statement.

For me, it is a statement to myself and to others of my commitment to Judaism and the Jewish people. After becoming more secure with my own Jewish identity, I have finally found the courage to make it."

Click to see more articles by Richard Rabkin
- posted by Izak @ 6:03 PM (0) comments

 
Homosexuals plan an "invasion" of Jerusalem
Clerics urge Jerusalem to ban gay parade

By Amiram Barkat and Daphna Berman
http://www.haaretz.com/
Thu., March 31, 2005 Adar2 20, 5765

"Please do not upset our lord" was the joint appeal from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clerics at a news conference in Jerusalem yesterday to protest plans to host the WorldPride gay festival in August.

The clerics warned that the 10-day festival would seriously disrupt the peace, and called on the Israeli authorities to prevent it.

Chief rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yonah Metzger joined Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah, Chief Executive of the Greek Orthodox Church Archbishop Aristarchos, the spokesman for the Armenian Church Bishop Aris Shirvanian, Sufi sheikhs Abdul Aziz Bukhari and Abdul Salaam Manasra, and Rabbi Menachem Froman of Tekoa. The news conference was organized by the Chief Rabbinate in cooperation with a campaign launched a month ago by Pastor Leo Giovinetti, an evangelical leader from California, and a group of conservative Orthodox rabbis from Israel and the United States.

The WorldPride event, last held in Rome in 2000, is to include street parties, workshops and a gay film festival. Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski has said he has no say on the matter, as public events are licensed by the police and not City Hall. Amar and Metzger pleaded with festival organizers to take it elsewhere.

"There is enough tension in our city these days because of the disengagement," Amar said.

Metzger called the festival "a bad idea, both in terms of location and timing," and requested: "Please do not damage the holiness of Jerusalem. Preserve its character, preserve its peace."

Christian clerics emphasized their respect for homosexuals' rights, but said organizers must show similar consideration for believers' feelings.

Muslim clerics took a harsher line, warning the festival will provoke divine retribution on the city.
- posted by Izak @ 5:36 PM (0) comments