Israel reopens embassy in New Zealand
April 22, 2010 by Steve
April 21, 2010
SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) – An Israeli embassy was back in New Zealand for the first time since 2002.
Monday’s opening in the central business district of Wellington signaled a new era in Kiwi-Israeli relations following a diplomatic meltdown in 2004, when two alleged Mossad agents were jailed for illegally obtaining a New Zealand passport. Wellington suspended high-level diplomatic relations for one year before Israel formally apologized.
Ambassador-designate Shemi Tzur, 64, who has served in Finland, Cyprus and Estonia, will present his credentials in an official ceremony, including a traditional Maori ritual, on May 7.
Pro-Palestinian protesters belonging to the organization No Israeli Embassy in Wellington said they would continue their plan to disrupt embassy operations.
The Israeli Embassy in Canberra, Australia, has overseen diplomatic affairs in New Zealand since Ruth Kahanov departed her post in 2002 following budget cuts.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, the son of a Jewish refugee from Austria, has family living in Israel.
[reprinted with thanks to the JTA]
ARZA Newsletter April 20
April 20, 2010 by nicola
Address by the President of the State of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres
at the Opening Ceremony of Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day (Yad Vashem 2010)
[translated from Hebrew]
Prime Minister, Speaker of the Knesset, President of the Supreme Court, Chief Rabbis, Government Ministers, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, Members of the Knesset, members of the Diplomatic Corps, Holocaust survivors, Righteous Among the Nations, ladies and gentlemen:
My brothers and sisters in Israel and the Diaspora, the days are growing longer. It’s the end of the month of Nissan, and evening is falling in Israel. On the houses in Mahane Yehuda, in Kiryat Yovel, Kiryat Moshe, Talpiot, Ramot and Gilo: evening is descending on the skyscrapers of Tel Aviv, the roofs of Haifa and the plains of Be’er Sheva. On Moshav Moledet, Kibbutz Grofit and Kiryat Shmona: the sunset’s rays are dimming over Tel Hai, Deganya and Masada.
A short while ago, dusk also fell in Antopol, Zuromin, Rudnik and Michalow - towns in which three quarters of the inhabitants used to be Jews - but no longer. Not one Jew remains. Evening descended on the village of Tostanovice, where 2,803 Jews were murdered; on Libau, in Latvia, where 7,101 Jews were murdered; on Chelm, near Lublin, whence 15,000 Jews were sent to their deaths.
Darkness has started to envelope Dachau, Auschwitz and Birkenau. Dusk has also fallen on Vishneva, where I was born, and where I visited, as an Israeli government minister. Of all the Jewish homes and synagogues not a single beam remains.
I went to look at the well that stood in the courtyard of our house. The water had not been touched by the fire. I raised the bucket, in order to taste the water of my childhood. The water had a charred flavour, the taste of the fire that consumed the people of the town, the members of my family, who had remained there.
Like a house of mourning, this evening is a canopy stretched over the thousands of communities, whose existence has been reduced to a tombstone, whose culture has become but a memory, and whose members have been turned to ashes.The sunset encompasses the synagogues and houses of study that were destroyed; the theatres and cultural institutions that were demolished; the books that were torched, and the schools that were reduced to ashes.
Everything was obliterated - the life, the houses, the culture, a scorched world. This fire will continue to burn within us, as an impossible farewell to six million of our brethren: men, women and old people, to one and a half million of our children, the immense potential of life and talent, which was eradicated - an irrevocable loss.
Someone passing through the town of Zborow, in Ukraine, would not know that in this place on one fine day at the beginning of 1941, a thousand Jews were shot to death, and buried in two pits. Today’s passerby would not hear the heartrending cry of April 9th, 1943, the day on which 2,300 Jews were forced to dig pits for themselves next to the Sokolinaya sports hall. They were murdered and thrown into the pits they had dug with their own hands.
“What shall I liken to thee, O daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, O virgin daughter of Zion?” it says in Lamentations, and this was also asked by the few who survived the selection on the platform at Birkenau, and the survivors who reached Eretz Israel and immediately volunteered to protect the Jewish people in its battle for independence. God is our witness, that in the state that was established by pioneers, and by refugees and survivors, the cry of the Shoah merges with the noise of the construction cranes.
Israel will never forget the two imperatives imposed by the Shoah: The firm command to establish an independent Jewish state, which can defend itself, and which yearns for peace. And the imperative to take threats of extermination, Holocaust denial and terror-mongers seriously.
We have a right and a duty to demand of the nations of the world that they not repeat the indifference that cost millions of lives, including their own citizens.
The ears of the UN have to be attuned to the threats of extermination uttered by one member country against another member country, for otherwise, the basis of the UN charter will be eroded. In order to achieve clear skies over the Middle East, one first has to dismantle the threats of annihilation. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of those capable of mass destruction, with voices encouraging that destruction - that is the most perilous combination to world peace. They turn the world into a place which is out of control.
A part of the Iranian people itself is ashamed and embarrassed by the tyranny that has overtaken it. The Arab states are aware that the anti-Israel incitement of Ahmadinejad is designed to camouflage his real goal, which is Iranian hegemony over the whole area.
World War II broke out to the accompaniment of the satanic incitement of the Nazis, and the claim that the Germans are the superior race and “Deutschland uber Alles”. There must be no return to the monstrous attitude that there is a superior person, a superior regime or a superior race that may do exactly as it pleases. Germany did not realize this in time, but the current German leadership has internalized the conclusions.
I recited Kaddish in the German parliament. And I believe that even those who do not speak Hebrew heard the historic truth that branded disgrace on German history and bereavement on millions of innocent people.
Our dead will not come back to life; their memory lives within us. Our wounds will not heal; our strength will not ebb. We are here now, together, Holocaust survivors and Righteous Among the Nations. Tonight, Holocaust survivors will kindle torches to the glory and eternity of Israel. Jewish history salutes you.
Faith is what enabled us to rebuild our state, which today has the largest number of Jews known to history. A state with great scientific aptitude; whose economy is thriving; whose security is steadfast; whose culture inspires emotion; whose democratic rule brings freedom to all its citizens, regardless of creed, nation or class. Our people rebelled against slavery, negated mastery, smashed idols, rejected discrimination, and we will continue in the same vein. Our eyes remain wide open to danger, at all times, and our hands remain unfailingly extended in peace.
There has never been another people which has been persecuted like us. And there is no other people that has rehabilitated itself like us. We remain a people with memory, faith and determination. And in the morning, we will once again go out to work, to build and create. The Shoah resonates in our hearts, while our actions generate rebirth.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Message to Diaspora Communities
on the 62nd Israel Independence Day (Jerusalem, April 2010)
Israel’s Independence Day celebrates a double miracle in the life of the Jewish people.
The first miracle is the restoration of Jewish sovereignty. There is no other example that I know of in the history of nations in which a scattered people, practically left for dead, has been abel to re-assert its national life.
The second miracle is what we’ve done since the establishment of the Jewish state. Israel is fast becoming a regional economic power and one of the world’s leading technological powers.
All the powers of creativity and genius in the Jewish people are bursting forth in every area: in science; in technology; in medicine; in the arts. This incredible burst of creativity promises a great future for the Jewish people and for all mankind.
This double miracle is a testament to the life-force of the Jewish people. It’s a testament to the deep wells of hope we carry inside us and to the deep connection that we have both to our past and to our future. The two miracles that have already occurred are only the beginning. If we stand together, if we remain committed to our common destiny, there’s nothing we cannot achieve.
Chag Sameach!
Converts petition over rabbis’ refusal to register marriage
by Yair Ettinger
Ever since the conversion law was defeated by the ultra-Orthodox members of Netanyahu’s coalition, new immigrants, together with public figures and religious Zionist organizations, have been looking for alternative ways to deal with related issues. A petition to the High Court of Justice yesterday requests it to end to the increasingly common phenomenon of ultra-Orthodox rabbis in senior government posts preventing citizens who have undergone legal and halakhic conversions from registering their marriages.
The petitioners are a couple from Ashkelon, Alina and Maxim Serdukov, who were forced to register their marriage outside their hometown after a long series of obstacles was put in their path, they say, by the Ashkelon rabbinate.
The petition was submitted by attorneys Tsuriel Lavi, Aviad Hacohen and Guy Carmi against the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and four chief rabbis - of Rishon Letzion, Rehovot, Ashdod and Ashkelon. According to the petition, these rabbis “raise many difficulties for converts seeking to register their marriages; they step beyond their authority and commit serious injury to the principles of equality and human dignity, the freedom to marry and religious freedom.”
Alina, who like her husband served in the Israel Defense Forces, converted during her army service. Serdukov says this fact is being used as an excuse by Ashkelon Chief Rabbi Yosef Haim Bloi to prevent registration of the marriage, even after, she said, she provided all the required documents, including a special certificate from the rabbinical court. “At one of the most moving moments in her life, while entering into the covenant of marriage, Alina’s request was refused, severely injuring her dignity,” the petition reads.
The couple is joined in the petition by the Itim Center, an Orthodox organization for converts headed by Rabbi Shaul Farber; Elazar Stern, who, as head of the adjutant general branch of the IDF, helped broaden the path to conversion in the army; and Dr. Aliza Lavie of the political studies department at Bar-Ilan University, among others.
Rabbi Farber of the Itim Center, who married the Serdukovs, told Haaretz, “After years of experience, we came to the conclusion that we could no longer allow militants in the rabbinate to control Judaism in the State of Israel. Not registering converts does harm to their basic rights, especially on the eve of Passover, when we are supposed to remember that we were once strangers in Egypt, and we have a moral obligation to care for those whose position in society is fragile.”
The phenomenon has become more widespread over the last two years. Because they have the authority to register marriages, ultra-Orthodox rabbis have the power to object to marriages by converts. According to the petitioners, this authority is persistently exploited as a matter of policy by the chief rabbis of Rehovot (Simcha Hacohen Kook), Rishon Letzion (Yehuda David Wolpe), Ashkelon (Yosef Haim Bloi) and Ashdod (Yosef Sheinin).
The petition says this “new custom is a bad one, which prevents the marriage registrars from carrying out their duties and injures thousands of people - converts who have tied their fate to that of the Jewish people and the State of Israel and who pay a heavy price, personally and emotionally; it does them injury, and injures their partners, who seek to enter into marriage with them, and their families. The [rabbis'] deviation from [the bounds of their] authority and the pretension of deciding a ‘new Halakha,’ in opposition to legal instructions, the instructions of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the decisions of rabbinical courts prevents hundreds and perhaps thousands of converts from exercising their basic right to marry, doing injury to their freedom, their dignity and the other basic rights to which they are entitled.”
Holding Leaders Accountable for Kotel Violence Against Women
by Micah Kelber
These days, we’re hearing about more ultra-Orthodox men who are turning to increasingly hateful tactics to prevent women from praying as they wish on their side of the Western Wall’s mechitza. Recently, they hurled chairs over the divider, even before the women had a chance to begin their davening. Once the police were called, the chair-throwing stopped; two men were arrested.
But there are some things to follow up on:
1. How many women have to be physically hurt before the Ministry of Religion and the Chief Rabbinate say, unequivocally, that this is unacceptable? The Prime Minister needs to take an unambiguous stand against this violence.
2. It seems to me from the video that there were more than two men involved. What should happen to the men who participate in such incidents? They shouldn’t be allowed back.
Give their names and photos to the guards at the entrances to the plaza, and simply turn them away when they try to enter. That’s what would happen if they acted so hatefully at a less holy place. Kal v’chomer - all the more so - at a place where everyone is required to be on their best behaviour, they should be excluded at least until they show that they can act in a manner that befits it. A committee of women should be convened to decide when they have demonstrated their ability to act decently towards women.
3. Here’s a question: I don’t know much about Israeli civil law, but what would have happened if someone would have gotten seriously hurt? Who could have been sued? Just the men who threw them? If there were rabbis encouraging this could their shuls be sued? Could the Ministry of Religion or City of Jerusalem be sued? If the dignity of the Kotel or the side of decency doesn’t lead those in charge of the Kotel to insist on peacefulness there, then the threat of a very expensive lawsuit might.
4. Israeli lawmakers passed legislation years ago that punishes anyone caught doing violence at Israel’s holy sites. Avinoam Sharom, an Israeli lawyer, sent me this information about the relevant laws. One wonders if these are being applied and how, from around the world, this case can be followed. The penal code states:
A person who wilfully and without proving lawful justification or excuse disturbs any meeting of persons lawfully assembled for religious worship, or wilfully assaults a person officiating at any such meeting or any of the persons there assembled is liable to imprisonment for three years.”
And the Protection of the Holy Places Laws, adds: whosoever does anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings with regard to those places shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of five years.
Women and men should let the Prime Minister know that he cannot look the other way when women are threatened with violence like this. He needs to lean on his ministers to deal with this once and for all - or find other people who can solve this problem. With all the rhetoric about Israel needing to protect herself, we should insist that Israel start by protecting women at its holiest place.