September 1st is the real “New Year” holiday of Israel. It’s the date school starts, following a long summer vacation. Every child and parent knows this day. It’s a true celebration. Alas, it’s not the “school system” that starts on September 1st… It’s several different systems, some even start at different dates. Some children study […]

Israelis were shocked to hear that the new candidate for the “IDF Rabbi” position referred to homosexuals as “perverts”, but they were soon calmed by the explanation that this was only an academic biblical discussion. What’s this nonsense – ‘only an academic discussion’ – or in its Jewish flavor – ‘only a halachic commentary’? As […]

What business do politicians have with religious verdicts? Since when do parliament members determine the exact hour of the ‘Sabbath’, or whether the original circumcision process of a new immigrant to Israel was religiously correct? Alas, in Israel 2016 – religion (Orthodox Jewish, of course) has invaded most of our disciplines. The chair-thirsty politicians have […]

A team of ex-religious young Jewish people are [rightfully] suing the State of Israel for failing to educate them while there were younger. The State of Israel has long surrendered to the political pressure of the ultra-orthodox Jewish parties in the parliament, to avoid giving proper education in ultra-orthodox religious schools. Those religious rabbis and […]

It doesn’t matter if you make my country more “Jewish” or more “democratic”, even if you promote lots of “heritage” lessons in your schools or you don’t, even if your judges base their verdicts on ancient Biblical ruling or ignore it completely, even so you “mark” some organizations but not others, no matter how much […]

The ultra-Orthodox members of any religion – Judaism in particular – find themselves in a new kind of problem. Building walls between themselves and the outside world has always been a good strategy for nourishing religious contents, as silly as they may be. Alas, here comes the end of the 20th century with television, cellular […]

In February 1999 there was a big ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstration against the Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Hundreds of thousands of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) people demonstrated against the court’s recent decisions, which they seemed to dislike. In a nearby park, a much smaller demonstration was spontaneously formed, of non-religious people who protested against this mass […]

Egyptian el-Sisi and Turkish Erdogan represent two completely opposite models: The former “sort of” took leadership by force, but seems to impose democracy and relative secularism. The latter reached power democratically, but seems to impose a religious theocracy. The built-in weakness of democracy is the option to eliminate it from within, using democratic tools. This […]

This one really pissed me off. All this talks about the “Chosen People” always makes me feel uncomfortable. I am a Jew but I am not “chosen” in any way. Either I am the only person aboard (and all the rest are products of my imagination, a la Descartes) or everyone else is similarly “chosen”. […]

This morning I watched the Israeli Channel 2 morning program. The interview that caught my attention hosted two known figures, Dov Halbertal and Emily Amrusi, allegedly representing “left” and “right”, eagerly discussing “from both sides of the fence” the future of the Jewish nation and the State of Israel. Two people who believe that some […]