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Giyur: Zionism's Major Challenge and Test

Giyur: Zionism's Major Challenge and Test
By Bambi Sheleg  |  17/12/2009
More than a million olim, new immigrants, have arrived in Israel over the past few years and they include some 300,000 persons who, according to Jewish law, are not Jewish. The arrival of these immigrants has again sparked a debate that is almost as old as the State of Israel itself: Who is authorized to convert a non-...

“The State should not decide who is a Jew”
By Ruth Gavison  |  17/12/2009
“The State must reflect the complex nature of the Jewish identity during this period and not try to make decisions about it. The State must therefore include this plurality and allow non-judicial processes to determine the characteristics of identity and belonging. The courts and the legislators cannot and should not ...

My Thirteen Principles of Faith
By Eliyahu Birnbaum  |  17/12/2009
"I think that joining the State of Israel by force of the Law of Return cannot be totally equated with joining the people of Israel by force of conversion. Conversion is a halakhic, personal, category; the Law of Return is a category of national and civil affiliation." Rabbi Eliyahu Birnbaum sets forth his id...

Attention: Hardliners on Conversion
By Tzvi Zohar  |  17/12/2009
Tzvi Zohar, who for many years has engaged in the study of the halakha of conversion, together with Prof. Avi Sagi, asserts that: "From among the Sages of Israel in the Mishna, to the Talmud, medieval commentators, and great rabbis, there has not been a single authority who conditioned the validity of conversion o...

“The Rabbinical Establishment Is in Total Denial”
By Micha Odenheimer  |  17/12/2009
Dr. Chaim Peri, who has been the Director of the Yemin Orde Youth Village in Israel for the past 25 years, engages here in an unprecedented attack on the rabbinical establishment in Israel and on the educational system of the Religious Zionist movement. He accuses them of having missed an historic opportunity in the wa...

Kaddish for a non-Jewish Father
By Ana Birkenauer  |  17/12/2009
Ana Birkenauer, a convert from Germany, writes about her journey from her parents' home, affiliated with the German left, to the community of the Yakar Synagogue in Jerusalem, and her return to her parents' home, as a Jew

The Holocaust and the Resurgence of Courage as a Modern Jewish Virtue
By Alexander Green  |  17/12/2009
The movie Defiance, directed by Edward Zwick and based on the book written by Nechama Tec, emerges as one of the first Hollywood movies to suggest that the problem facing modern Jews is a lack of courage

Blog
By Agata Pełeszuk  |  17/12/2009
Recently Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate, has come to Hungary with a first visit after tragic events of the Holocaust

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