World

May 27, 2009

Zionist Group Opposes Yemenite Rescue to N.Y.

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The World Zionist Organization is pressing the United Jewish Communities not to aid the transfer of Yemenite Jews to a New York community.

The Jerusalem-based WZO is drafting a statement to the UJC asking the North American Jewish federation umbrella organization to stop raising funds for an effort to help some 113 Jews who want to leave Yemen and move to a Satmar Chasidic community in New York.

Jews in Yemen have had their property attacked by local Islamists; a Jewish man was murdered earlier this year.

“We believe they should be offered the option of coming to Israel and that the UJC, which is a partner of the Jewish Agency, shouldn’t be raising money to bring them to the Satmar community without making every effort to offer them the option of coming to Israel first,” Paula Edelstein, who sits on the WZO executive committee and is co-chair of the Jewish Agency’s Immigration and Absorption Committee, told the Jerusalem Post.

The WZO also objects to the fact that the Satmars, who have been helping the Yemenite Jews, are not Zionists.

In March, the Jewish Agency for Israel, which is charged with facilitating aliyah to Israel, said it opposed the move of Yemenite Jews to New York instead of Israel.

“We vehemently oppose the emigration of Jews in distress anywhere in the world to the USA, including the group of Jews from Yemen, who will not be coming to Israel,” a spokesman for the agency said in March. “The destination for the Jews of the world — among them the Jews of Yemen — is in their ancestral homeland in Israel.”

Jewish Teachers in California Allege Discrimination
Two Jewish public school teachers in California have alleged religious discrimination in a federal lawsuit.

One of the teachers in the Edison school district is a rabbi.

Rabbi Bruce Neal alleged that he was forced to take off his yarmulke, and that he and fellow teacher Jean Bornstein were criticized for their kosher diet, religious clothing and observance of Jewish holidays, ABC-TV in Bakersfield, Calif., reported.

“They have been singled out as Jewish teachers,” attorney Alan Reinach told the news channel. “They were shunned, excluded, treated like non-persons because they’re Jewish.”

Both teachers at the Orangewood Elementary School also claim they were denied promotions because they were Jewish.

Wiesenthal Center Warns on Apathy in EU Vote
Voter indifference could empower so-called anti-Semitic parties in the upcoming European Parliament elections, the Simon Wiesenthal Center warned.

“In the past, low voter turnout has played into the hands” of European parties and their allies which “are openly anti-Semitic and some include convicted Holocaust deniers,” said a statement released Friday by the center.

In the same statement Shimon Samuels, the center’s European international relations director, called on its members to vote June 4-7 in what will be the continent’s largest European Union-wide election.

Among the political parties causing concern is the newly formed anti-Zionist party headed by French comedian Dieudonné, who has been convicted on charges of anti-Semitism.

On Sunday, French Justice Minister Rachida Dati said that despite an attempt by some French politicians to oust Dieudonné’s party from the elections, the group would remain in the campaign.

“For the moment, we don’t have any evidence capable of preventing Dieudonné from running,” she said on the French TV network Grand Jury RTL-Le Figaro-LCI.

Indifference to the EU elections appears to be growing in France. Fifty-four percent of eligible French voters said they would not vote in the EU Parliament election, according to a poll for the daily Le Parisien published Sunday — an increase of 3 percent from 2004.

The Wiesenthal Center is arguing that votes can influence the Israel-Europe relationship and Jewish life in Europe because the EU Parliament will address issues such as anti-Semitism, an Iranian nuclear threat, dialogue with Hamas and Hezbollah, and trade agreements with Israel.

Some 736 members of the European Parliament will be elected by proportional representation to represent 500 million Europeans in the 27 member states.

Yeshiva to Train Women to ‘Function as Rabbis’
Rabbi Avi Weiss has launched a yeshiva to train Orthodox women to “function as rabbis.”

Known as Yeshiva Maharat, the school is expected to be up and running in September and will offer women part-time instruction in all areas of Jewish law, pastoral training and a synagogue internship.

Its name is taken from an invented title conferred in March upon Sara Hurwitz, previously the “spiritual mentor” at Weiss’ synagogue, the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale. Maharat is a Hebrew acronym that stands for spiritual, halachic and Torah leader.

“We’re training women to be rabbis,” Hurwitz told the Forward. “What they will be called is something we’re working out.”

Weiss was said to be considering calling Hurwitz a rabbi at the urging of several Orthodox feminist leaders.

The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance called Hurwitz’s “ordination” and the new school’s establishment a “historic moment.” In a hint of disappointment, JOFA noted that another milestone will be reached with the ordination of Orthodox female rabbis.

Hurwitz acknowledged that graduates of the new program may have trouble getting jobs. At present, only a handful of Orthodox synagogues employ women in positions in which they function more or less as the equal of male rabbis, with the exception of performing public ritual roles during worship services.

“You have to start somewhere,” Hurwitz told JTA. “We have to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward, and I think that the community will follow.”

Briefs courtesy Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

A version of this article appeared in print.

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