Aryeh's Israel Outlook

I have been asking this question for years; as usual, Michael Freund puts it more articulately than I: Where is Orthodox aliya? By Michael Freund   THE JERUSALEM POST – May. 5, 2009 Earlier this year, a crisis erupted among American Orthodox Jewry, one that sent shock waves hurtling from coast to coast. At the speed of broadband, word spread quickly from one community to another about the budding calamity, which threatened to cast a pall on Jewish life as we know it. Various organizations rushed to issue statements, the Internet was abuzz with rumors and parents from Staten Island to Seattle naturally went into a panic. And just what, you might be wondering, lay at the heart of all this drama? Well, it had to do with raisins. Yes, you read that correctly: raisins. On January 27, New York's K'hal Adath Jeshurun, a prominent Orthodox congregation also known as KAJ, published a statement billed as an "important kashrus notice," which warned read...

[It's been a while since I've posted; and this wasn't even written by me. But Katie wrote a strong condemnation of the extremely damaging repurcussions of the movie "Walt with Bashir" so I wanted to get it up here. Published on The Jewish Week on February 18.] Please, No Oscar For `Waltz With Bashir' by Katie Green Jerusalem -- The other night, I watched on TV as various leaders in the Israeli film industry partied at an event held in honor of Ari Folman's documentary, "Waltz With Bashir". "Wouldn't it be great if we got the Oscar?" asked a beaming Channel 2 presenter after the footage was shown. My answer is that, no, it would not be great. It would be terrible. This film has done enough damage already, and after the Oscars it is going to do a lot, lot more. The film is by any standards a magnificent piece of art. If Ari Folman had climbed into a time machine, gone back 20 years, and taken a professional cameraman with him into the...