Sunday, December 20, 2009

the definition of capitulate

Boneh, the portion of Habonim Dror's gap year program I was coordinating this fall, is over. Last week I led a seminar for the same chanichim about the history of Habonim, in which we visited kibbutzim founded by movement graduates, examined the widespread privatization of kibbutzim, and looked at some of the urban kvutzot that have sprung up in the past decade or so.

From now through January, I'll be preparing for the next machzor of Boneh, which begins in February and will include around 20 Australians and possibly New Zealanders. I might go to Europe in January, but my plans aren't finalized yet.

I wrote on this blog about the role that people who place halakha above Israeli law played in Rabin's assassination, and I wrote about the settlement freeze. It turns out there are two explicit connections in the news.

Last week Rabbi Eliezer Melamed called for soldiers to refuse orders to enforce a construction freeze in West Bank settlements on the grounds that it would violate halakha. Defense Minister Ehud Barak responded by revoking the status granted to Melamed's yeshiva, which has been a hesder yeshiva. Other rabbis at hesder yeshivas responded to Barak by sending letters to students saying essentially the same thing as Melamed. Today Melamed agreed to "denounce political demonstrations by Israeli soldiers in uniform". Haaretz characterized Melamed's statement as a capitulation. Because he had initially refused to sign any statement at all, his agreement to sign a letter could be interpreted as a capitulation. However, I doubt that he has budged in his principles. Last week he compared Barak's treatment of his yeshiva to the propagation of a blood libel.

A few weeks ago, Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman said that
"step by step, Torah law will become the binding law in the State of Israel." Here's an article which quotes him explaining himself, and here's a really interesting article which criticizes him and then sort of supports the idea as a means of recognizing the value of Jewish legal precedent.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

irreverent continuity programming

For hilarious satire on what occupies Jewish leaders today, check out Eli Valley's new cartoon, Metamorphosis, which made me spit milk on my laptop.