Israeli city divided by religion after close vote

Posted Thursday, Oct. 31, 2013 

 

By ARON HELLER

Associated Press

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel — After a contentious mayoral election between secular and ultra-Orthodox rivals, this deeply divided city has become a flashpoint for a religious struggle that is threatening to tear Israel apart.
Claiming the election was stolen, secular and moderately religious residents of Beit Shemesh are arranging large demonstrations against the ultra-Orthodox mayor, demanding a new vote and even suggesting the city be split in two. But the protests go far beyond the alleged election fraud. They cut at the very nature of Israel as it tries to maintain its character as both a Jewish state and a pluralistic democracy.

"I really feel like they (the ultra-Orthodox) are trying to conquer our city. It's not 'live and let live.' They are pushing us out," said Etti Amos, 56, who has lived in Beit Shemesh since her family emigrated from Morocco when she was a child. She said her three children have left town because they saw no future.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews make up about 10 percent of Israel's population. Maintaining a strict lifestyle that revolves around prayer, most live in ultra-Orthodox dominated towns or in insular neighborhoods in larger cities like Jerusalem.

While generally keeping to themselves, they often face resentment from the general public for shirking compulsory military service while receiving taxpayer stipends to pursue religious studies. They have also caused controversy by trying to force their conservative lifestyle on others.

Beit Shemesh, a city of about 100,000 west of Jerusalem, is split almost equally between the ultra-Orthodox and the others — a vibrant mixture of secular, modern Orthodox, Russian and American immigrants and Jews of Middle Eastern descent who all coexist peacefully. Frictions have increased as neighborhoods have begun to overlap.

Residents also say that the ultra-Orthodox mayor has neglected their needs, reneging on promises to build a sports stadium, a cultural center and a library, while funneling resources and construction projects almost exclusively to his own community.

"If the current planning policies continue to be as they have, there will be no need for an election in 2018 because the ultra-Orthodox will already be a clear majority," said Daniel Goldman, a modern Orthodox religious activist. "There is a constant undercurrent of tension and the more the ultra-Orthodox grow, the more influence they wield in City Hall, the more we feel uncomfortable."

Last week's municipal election highlighted the divisions. Secular challenger Eli Cohen said the campaign should have focused on the mismanagement by incumbent Mayor Moshe Abutbul. Instead, it became about religion.

Official results show voters lined up almost entirely along religious affiliation. Ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods voted overwhelmingly for Abutbul, while other areas supported Cohen, with a little more than 900 votes separating them.

Dozens of witnesses have alleged fraud, including ballots that were damaged and disqualified, and residents with questionable identification trying to vote more than once.

About 2,000 people demonstrated late Tuesday, calling for a new election.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said eight people have been charged with voter fraud after being found with 200 fake ID cards.

Abutbul rejects the accusations and says he won fairly. He boasts of paving roads and building malls and restaurants that cater to secular residents and says he will continue to serve everyone equally.
"Even if they need to have a revote at one or two ballot boxes, the results will stay the same," he told The Associated Press. "The city will stay the same city. There is room for everyone. ... I build for everyone. Those who will try to distort my image will face stiff resistance."

He said those who questioned the election were "making it such that good people will not come to the city."
With their high birth rates, the ultra-Orthodox are the largest growing segment of Israeli society. Many see Beit Shemesh as a battle that could signal trends in the country.

In its most extreme neighborhoods, the ultra-Orthodox have erected signs calling for the separation of sexes on the sidewalks, dispatched "modesty patrols" to enforce a chaste female appearance, and hurled stones at offenders and outsiders.

Other signs exhort women to dress in closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts, and announce that computers and Internet connections are prohibited.

In the most famous case, an 8-year-old girl was assaulted two years ago by extremists who spat on her and called her a whore for walking through their neighborhood in an "immodest" fashion.

The ultra-Orthodox say these are isolated events blown out of proportion by a secular media that seeks to defame them. Most insist they embrace fellow Jews and harbor no ill will. But at the same time, they see a future in which Beit Shemesh will become the biggest ultra-Orthodox city in Israel.

It's a sentiment that has Avi Vakhnin, a 47-year-old merchant who has lived his whole life in Beit Shemesh, saying he feels like he is in "mourning" after the election.

"They've taken over and got funding from the government to build new buildings while I can't pay for my mortgage," he said. "But we are not going to give up. It's going to be a war."


More indication that Israel must choose between being a Jewish State or a Democratic State. It can't be both at once without being racist and politically favoring Jewish religionists. And more indication Jews are conducting a religiously sanctioned racial war to place "pure" Ashkenazim ultra-Orthodox Jew(ish convert descendants) in top governmental positions to expand the Ashkenazim racially organized Jewish settlement projects "for Jews only". 

Relative: Egyptian family rejects Israel honor

Posted: Oct 20, 2013 6:36 AM

Updated: Oct 20, 2013 6:36 AM

CAIRO (AP) A member of the family of the first Arab honored by Israel for risking his life to save Jews during the Holocaust says the family isn't interested in the recognition.

The Egyptian doctor, Mohamed Helmy, was honored posthumously last month by Israel's Holocaust memorial for hiding Jews in Berlin during the Nazis' genocide, but a family member tracked down by The Associated Press this week in Cairo said her relatives wouldn't accept the award, one of Israel's most prestigious.

"If any other country offered to honor Helmy, we would have been happy with it," Mervat Hassan, the wife of Helmy's great-nephew, told the AP during an interview at her home in Cairo this week.

Mohamed Helmy was an Egyptian doctor who lived in Berlin and hid several Jews during the Holocaust. Last month, he was honored by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial as "Righteous Among the Nations" the highest honor given to a non-Jew for risking great personal dangers to rescue Jews from the Nazis' gas chambers.

On Sunday, the museum criticized the family's decision. "We regret that political sentiment seems to have overcome the human aspect and hope one day that the latter will prevail," Yad Vashem said in a written statement.

Typically, the museum tries to track down living family members to present the award in a ceremony, but in the case of Helmy, who died in 1982 in Berlin, Yad Vashem said it had not been able to find any living relatives.

With the help of a German historian, the AP obtained the certificate of inheritance of Helmy's wife Emmi, who died in 1998. The document contained the names of three relatives in Cairo, and when contacted by the AP, Hassan agreed to share her memories of Helmy.

Hassan said the family wasn't interested in the award from Israel because relations between Egypt and Israel remain hostile, despite a peace treaty signed more than three decades ago. But, she cautioned, "I respect Judaism as a religion and I respect Jews. Islam recognizes Judaism as a heavenly religion."

The family's reluctance to accept the prize highlights the lingering hostility toward Israel felt by many Egyptians, even after the two countries signed a historic peace treaty in 1979. While security ties between the nations are tight, political relations have always remained cool and many ordinary Egyptians remain hostile to the Jewish state. Holocaust denial is also common throughout the Arab world, where recognition of the Holocaust is often seen as undercutting Palestinian suffering.

"Helmy was not picking a certain nationality, race or religion to help. He treated patients regardless of who they were," she said.

Dressed in a veil, the 66-year-old woman from an upscale neighborhood of Cairo was pleased to talk about her husband's great-uncle. She and her husband, who did not want to give his name to the AP, say they visited Helmy regularly in Germany.

Helmy was born in 1901 in Khartoum, in what was then Egypt and is now Sudan, to an Egyptian father and a German mother. He came to Berlin in 1922 to study medicine and worked as a urologist until 1938, when Germany banned him from the public health system because he was not considered Aryan, said Martina Voigt, the German historian, who conducted research on Helmy.

When the Nazis began deporting Jews, he hid 21-year-old Anna Boros, a family friend, at a cabin on the outskirts of the city, and provided her relatives with medical care. After Boros' relatives admitted to Nazi interrogators that he was hiding her, he arranged for her to hide at an acquaintance's house before authorities could inspect the cabin, according to Yad Vashem. The four family members survived the war and immigrated to the U.S.

"I think it's remarkable, it's inspiring," said Irena Steinfeldt, director of Yad Vashem's "Righteous Among the Nations" department.

After the war, Helmy picked up his work as a physician again and married Emmi. The couple never had any children.

"They did not want to have children for fear of the wars," remembered Hassan. "They did not want them to see the horrors of war."

Yad Vashem says it has other names of relatives of Helmy that appeared in his will as his heirs and Yad Vashem forwarded this information to the Egyptian ambassador in Israel and were informed that authorities in Egypt were looking to find them.

No legitimate Jewish claim to Palestine: Founding Mothers of Ashkenazi Jews May Be Converts, Study Finds

Bloomberg.com

By Elizabeth Lopatto - Oct 8, 2013 12:26 PM PT

About 80 percent of Ashkenazi maternal ancestry comes from Europe, not the Near East, according to a study that suggests a mass conversion of women to Judaism may have occurred in Europe more than 2,000 years ago.

The findings come from studying mitochondrial DNA, which passes from mother to offspring, in about 3,500 people, the authors wrote in a paper in the journal Nature Communications. About 80 percent of the maternal linages of Ashkenazi Jews came from Europe, the scientists found.

The Ashkenazi are the most common Jewish ethnic division. Previous efforts to trace origins of Ashkenazi Jews have been spotty and controversial, the authors wrote. The latest research used a larger database than in previous attempts, allowing them to unravel the entire mitochondrial genomes.

“A detailed genealogical history for every maternal lineage in the Ashkenazim is now within reach,” wrote the authors, led by Gil Atzmon of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “In fact, it should soon be possible to reconstruct the outlines of the entire dispersal history of each community.”

The four major female founders of the Ashkenazi show roots in Europe 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. So do most of the minor founders, the study found. Only 8 percent of the mitochondrial DNA shows signs of being from the Near East.

There had been some evidence mass conversions, especially of women, to Judaism throughout the Mediterranean in the past, the authors wrote in the study. That resulted in about 6 million citizens, or a tenth of the Roman population, who were Jewish.

Palestinians do have options for change and resistance

[HumanRights]

From: Mazin Qumsiyeh 

Cc:Human Rights Newsletter

Sun, Oct 06, 2013 11:37 PM

Palestinians do have options for change and resistance
By Mazin Qumsiyeh
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=636397

On November 28, 1947, the CIA predicted accurately the meaning of
Truman's push to partition Palestine: "Armed hostilities between Jews
and Arabs will break out if the UN General Assembly accepts the plan
to partition Palestine ... the resulting conflict will seriously
disturb the social, economic, and political stability of the Arab
world, and US commercial and strategic interests will be dangerously
jeopardized ... The poverty, unrest, and hopelessness upon which
Communist propaganda thrives will increase throughout the Arab world."

It has been 20 years since the Oslo process and we can engage in a
postmortem analysis of the dozens of failed initiatives and plans for
"peace," or pacification. Some would tell us our choices are or were
limited. Ten years ago, our departed friend Professor Edward Said
wrote: "Who is now asking the existential questions about our future
as a people? The task cannot be left to a cacophony of religious
fanatics and submissive, fatalistic sheep ... We are that close to a
kind of upheaval that will leave very little standing and perilously
little left even to record, except for the last injunction that begs
for extinction. Hasn't the time come for us collectively to demand and
formulate a genuinely Arab alternative to the wreckage about to engulf
our world?"

Today, seven million of the 12 million Palestinians around the world
are refugees or displaced people. There are some 5.8 million Israeli
Jews and nearly 6 million Palestinians who live under the rule of the
apartheid Israeli state. Half the Jews who live in Palestine/Israel
are immigrants.  Israel stole most of the land and now controls some
93 percent of the land of Palestine (before the British invasion and
the Balfour Declaration, native and Zionist Jews collectively owned
only 2 percent of Palestine).

It is tempting for some people to lose faith in the possibility of
liberation and justice after 132 years since the first Zionist colony
and 65 years after the 1948 Nakba. There was a phrase in the 1960s
civil rights struggle, "free your mind and your ass will follow."
Surely when we free our minds we will see there are many options,
despite the attempt of our oppressors to convince us that our options
are gone, save for surrendering or issuing empty slogans.

Surely, we as a people can and do chart a path forward. What are our
options outside of sloganism or defeatism? That is to say, outside of
current policies of endless talk or endless negotiations while weak?

The other options are not magical nor new; many have already
articulated them in clear visions in countless studies.

Why not revive the original charter of PLO to liberate all of
Palestine? Why not democratize the PLO to really represent the 12
million Palestinians around the world? Why not refuse to suppress
resistance and instead engage in massive popular resistance throughout
historic Palestine?

Why not engage in resistance in areas outside of Palestine? Why not
target Zionist companies and interests world wide by economic boycotts
and even sabotage? Why not expose and confront the network of Zionist
lobbyists that support war crimes and support Zionist control? Why not
engage in educational campaigns and media campaigns and lobbying
around the world?

Why not build alliances with powerful states that could provide
protection or support, like China, Russia or Brazil? Why not promote
boycotts, divestment, and sanctions? Why not work through
international agencies including the International Court of Justice to
bring Israeli war criminals to justice and challenge membership of
Israel in the UN and all its agencies? Why not do all the above and
even more?

Politicians are reluctant to consider change because they believe they
are important. To justify their inaction and lack of backbone, they
even lie. But people can and do force politicians to change.
Regardless of how they got into power or the nature of governing
systems, leaders cannot afford to ignore strong people demands. But if
the people are complacent and ignorant, this is the best scenario for
status quo politicians.

We saw changing policies in the Ottoman Empire from support of Zionism
to rejection. We saw changes in British policies in response to the
Palestinian revolution of 1936 and continuing pressures even recently
when the British parliament voted against attacking Syria on behest of
Israel.

And we saw the power of resistance in 1987-1991 in challenging both
the complacency of leaders in Tel Aviv and Tunisia. Surely we can also
learn lessons from the limitations of military might whether in
Vietnam in the 1960s or in Iraq in 2003, or Lebanon in 2006, or Gaza
in 2008. More recently we can see dramatic shifts and retreats in
issues dealing with Syria and Iran. History is dynamic and not static
nor is it to the liking of status quo politicians.

The original Zionist project was for control of the area between the
Euphrates and the Nile. Here we are 130 years later and even the area
between the Jordan and the Mediterranean is roughly at parity between
Jewish Israelis and Palestinians. When Balfour declaration was issued
in 1917, there were 650,000 Palestinians in Palestine; today there are
nearly 6 million.

Surely this is not a hopeless scenario. After denying our existence,
the Palestinian flag now flies around Palestine even inside the Green
line. Surely this should not be at the expense of Palestinian flags on
security uniforms preventing Palestinians from engaging in resistance
or as backdrops with Israeli and American flags in endless
negotiations.

Martin Luther King, Jr stated once: "Cowardice asks the question - is
it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the
question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it
right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is
neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because
it is right."

The author is a professor at Bethlehem University. He previously
served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke and Yale.

(Paid agents of Israel have already put comments on this article on MaanNews!!) 

The views expressed in this article are the author's and do not
necessarily reflect Ma'an News Agency's editorial policy.

http://popular-resistance.blogspot.com/2013/10/options.html

Israeli court rejects Israeli nationality status

By TIA GOLDENBERG, Associated Press

Updated 2:32 am, Friday, October 4, 2013

• 
  FOR STORY ISRAEL NATION : In this June 12, 1997 file photo, an Orthodox man walks behind a Palestinian man on a street in the walled Old City of Jerusalem. Israel's national population registry lists many “nationalities” and ethnicities, among them Jew, Arab, Druze and more, but one ethnicity is conspicuously absent from the list: Israeli. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled this week that residents cannot identify themselves as Israelis in the national registry because it could affect the country’s Jewish character, in court documents obtained Thursday, Oct, 3, 2013. Photo: Greg Marinovich

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's population registry lists a slew of "nationalities" and ethnicities, among them Jew, Arab, Druse and more. But one word is conspicuously absent from the list: Israeli.

Residents cannot identify themselves as Israelis in the national registry because the move could have far-reaching consequences for the country's Jewish character, the Israeli Supreme Court wrote in documents obtained Thursday.

The ruling was a response to a demand by 21 Israelis, most of whom are officially registered as Jews, that the court decide whether they can be listed as Israeli in the registry. The group had argued that without a secular Israeli identity, Israeli policies will favor Jews and discriminate against minorities.

In its 26-page ruling, the court explained that doing so would have "weighty implications" on the state of Israel and could pose a danger to Israel's founding principle: to be a Jewish state for the Jewish people.
The decision touches on a central debate in Israel, which considers itself both Jewish and democratic yet has struggled to balance both. The country has not officially recognized an Israeli nationality.

National and ethnic loyalties are often layered in Israel, a country founded on the heels of the British colonial mandate and initially populated by Jewish immigrants along with a small indigenous Jewish population and a larger Arab community.

There are Jews and Arabs. But the Jewish majority distinguishes itself between those from eastern Europe and those whose families originated in Arab countries. These communities are further divided based on the country, or even the village, their ancestors came from.

The 20 percent Arab minority also has Israeli citizenship, and many identify themselves as either Christian or Muslim. Israel is also home to a smattering of other minorities.

The national population registry lists a person's religion and nationality or ethnicity, among other details. Any Jew, no matter what his country of origin, is listed as a Jew. Arabs are marked as such and other minorities, such as Druse, are listed by their ethnicity.

Judaism plays a central role in Israel. Religious holidays are also national holidays, and religious authorities oversee many ceremonies, such as weddings and funerals. Yet since Israel's establishment in 1948, a distinct Israeli nationality has emerged, including foods, music and culture, and for most Jews, compulsory military service. While roughly half of Israel's Jewish population define themselves first and foremost as Jewish, 41 percent of Israelis identify themselves as Israeli, according to the Israel Democracy Institute, a think-tank.
In the Supreme Court case, the 21 petitioners argued that Israel is not democratic because it is Jewish. They say that the country's Arab minority faces discrimination because certain policies favor Jews and that a shared Israeli nationality could bring an end to such prejudice and unite all of Israel's citizens.

"The Jewish identity is anti-democratic," said Uzzi Ornan, the main petitioner who runs "I am Israeli," a small organization devoted to having the Israeli nationality officially recognized.

"With an Israeli identity, we can be secure in our democracy, secure in equality between all citizens," said Ornan, a 90-year-old professor of computational linguistics at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.

Israeli Arabs have long contended that, despite their citizenship, they are victims of official discrimination, with their communities receiving fewer resources than Jewish towns. While some Arabs have made strides in recent years in entering the Israeli mainstream, they are on average poorer and less educated than their Jewish counterparts.

The court's deliberation focused mainly on how an officially recognized Israeli identity could pose a threat to Israel's founding ideals and cause disunity. The court said it was not casting doubt on the existence of an Israeli nation.

Anita Shapira, a professor emeritus of Jewish history at Tel Aviv University, said that Judaism and Jewish nationalism go hand in hand and that if nationalism develops into an Israeli one, the Jewish essence will be lost. She also said it could estrange Jews from other countries whose connection to Israel is through religion.
"The attempt to claim that there is a Jewish nationality in the state of Israel that is separate from the Jewish religion is something very revolutionary," she said.

Ornan also appealed to Israel's interior minister in 2000 and took the matter to court in 2003 in a failed attempt to identify as Israeli. He vowed to continue his campaign.

Others have also tried to tackle the population registry. The late Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk persuaded a court in 2011 to have him listed as being "without religion," though his ethnicity remained "Jewish." Secularists considered the change a coup.

The flag of Israel shows that it is a Jewish state and as this report and many others have shown, as a Jewish State, Israel cannot be a democracy for non-Jewish Israeli citizens despite all the propaganda put out that Israel is a democracy. Talk to Palestinian Israelis on that one..