Aryeh's Israel Outlook

For all those who don't understand ENGLISH, this is a pretty funny, short video about  English Accents :

Truth is there's something for everyone in President Obama's MidEast speech : support for reform, commitment to Israel, Palestinian state, opposition to Iran & Syria. But at base two things must be recognized: They're beginning to understand democracy ; they still don't understand the Arab-Israeli conflict . First, the Obama administration understands the issues relating to the desire for freedom in the Middle East, including the dangers - and should get credit for supporting and promoting democracy and reform in the region. Obama has started to talk the talk - not only applauding, but demanding that regimes in power, including Syria and Iran, stop killing their people and start responding to the legitimate demands of the governed. And walking the walk - in steps, and a bit late, but still important - by giving massive aid ($2 billion in funds and debt-forgiveness to Egypt alone!). What a message to the protesters in Syria and Yemen (and Gaza and Iran): overthrow...

A Moment of Moral Clarity By NATAN SHARANSKY How many protesters must a regime murder before it is no longer fit for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council? How many thousands of dissidents must it jail? How many acts of international terrorism must it instigate? The line is invisible — but Syria, having too openly crossed it, has now been forced to vacate its candidacy in the May 20 elections to the council. It is good that Syria has been removed, just as it is good that Libya has been suspended from membership. But what was Muammar el-Qaddafi’s blood-soaked regime doing on a human-rights body in the first place? What separates it and Syria from Cuba, China and the other dictatorships that make up the council majority and brazenly sit in judgment on the human-rights record of others? Why has the free world remained largely silent? In the run-up to the elections, such questions are more urgent than ever. Something very important and very dramatic is happening in the Arab-Muslim Middle...

Converted to the Conversion Bill By Aryeh Green I’m a moderate, traditional Jew. I’ve been following and supporting the progress of Natan Sharanky’s efforts to find a solution to our society’s conversion issues for over a decade, and was very excited when the Neeman Commission proposed its conversion courts. Here was a moderate, practical, Halachic forum to move quickly ahead to enable the conversion of immigrants from the FSU (and others!) who have thrown their lot in with the Jewish people by coming to live in (and defend, and die in) the Jewish State. Over the past two weeks, I have given talks at and spoken to Jewish leaders and communities in 8 cities across America – and I am quite frustrated at the misunderstandings rampant, and even more so at the unnecessary wedge being driven between non-Orthodox Jews abroad and Israelis (of all sorts). Even if ( if ) the Rotem conversion law was perhaps flawed before the recent excising of the section affecting the Law of Return –...

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...

A STORY FOR YOM HAZIKARON & YOM HA’ATZMAUT I would like to share with you a “coincidence” that happened in our family just before Pesach, as I believe the story has relevance to Yom Ha’atzmaut and the miracle of our living here. The hours of Yom HaZikaron will are dark ones, so I am hoping this story will offer some comfort. A few weeks ago, I got a phonecall from my parents’ friend Becky. Becky is now in her seventies, but my family first came to know her in 1939 when she and her parents and sister fled Germany and came to live in rented rooms on the upper floor of my grandmother’s house. My grandparents lived in Stamford Hill, London , which even then was a very Jewish area, but my grandparents were not observant Jews, not even traditional Jews. My grandpa had a grocery store and I am not even going to tell you what kinds of foods were for sale in that shop! My grandparents loved the refugee family living upstairs, and a warm friendship sprung up between them. S...