Religious & Secular in Israel

Likud and Jewish Home circles say they've reached an understanding Haredi recruitment at age 21, Shas will not get Interior and Housing Portfolios.

44% said they prefer their party to compromise on principles to join Netanyahu's coalition.

Jewish Home has begun to promote principles previously associated almost exclusively with Yair Lapid's agenda.

Two Conservative rabbis were among the women arrested.

One of the paratroopers in attendance announced that, after they had liberated the Kotel, everyone was welcome to pray there.

If Shas is invited to join the coalition, it is sure to torpedo most of Netanyahu's national agenda.

Yesh Atid perceives a possible peace process as a response to an ensemble of threats looming over the State of Israel.

On Saturday night, Rav Ovadia attacked the Jewish Home party saying it was not the home of Jews but of goyim.

Toward early mid-afternoon the tents start popping up on the lawn in the park across from the Cave of Machpela.

Rabbi Cherlow said that it is possible that the great concession of Temple Mount began with the late IDF General Motta Gur and his paratroopers.

Israel's Supreme Court on Monday ordered the Minister of Religious Affairs Yaakov Margi and the Chief Rabbinate Council to explain why they not allow single women to immerse in state-run mikvahs.

The last of the youths detained in the fire bomb (Molotov cocktail) case have been released. Honenu attorney David HaLevi stated: “The detention was superfluous...

Among the items that Tzohar is calling for will be to elect new rabbinical court judges who would be more open to the needs of the general public, not just the religiously observant sectors; and new guidelines for managing the marriage, divorce and conversion processes in Israel – three areas that have been particularly alienating to secular Israelis.

The final say on whether or not Israel will go it alone against Iran's nuclear facilities depends on the two architects of that plan, and on the IAF which will carry it out. It will also depend on the Obama Administration and on whether or not the Saudis and the Gulf states will give their tacit approval. But that same decision will also depend on the approval of a 92-year-old Sefardi Rabbi from Jerusalem, whose thumbs-up or down could kill the plan or give it life.

The new, renovated Scientology Center opened in Tel Aviv. IDF Radio interviewed a man who said his family fell apart when his wife joined the Church of Scientology.

We have grown accustomed to these letters being directed at Haredi women. Now, surprisingly, this letter is addressed specifically to the men.

Against the background of the expiration on August 1 of the Tal Law, which attempted to manage Haredi recruitment, the Moetzes Gdolei HaTorah (Assembly of Torah Sages), the supreme rabbinical policy-making council of several Haredi organizations in Israel convened Monday night in Bnei Brak at the home of leader of the Lithuanian sector, Rav Steinman, to solidify the policy of military conscription.

Senior Jerusalem rabbis permitted a late-night removal of the body of a Haredi rabbi from its grave, on the night between Thursday and Friday last week, because family members, who are Breslov Hasidim, claimed the "spiritual level" of the nearby dead was insufficient, causing what could be considered the desecration of the dead.

On Saturday night, Tisha B'Av 5772, some 50 men, women and children, members of the settlement nucleus of Yad Yair, together with the Benjamin Settlers Committee and residents of Gush Talmonim, mourned the destruction of Jerusalem, and shared their private grief over the destruction of their settlement more than three years ago by the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria.

Haredi consumers are not, by and large, part of Israel's social protest movement, but their shopping savvy, it turns out, is evolving constantly.

During his weekly talk, the Ashlag Rebbe, Rabbi Simcha Avraham Halevy, challenged politicians who promote the notion of an equal burden, describing them as imbeciles. He proposed a solution to the inequality: "Let every secular boy be forced to bear the burden of defending the homeland of Israel and fulfill his national duty to study Torah and keep the mitzvot." He also said, "The nation of Israel did not survive our brutal history by the deterrence of the IDF, nor by the might of the State of Israel, but by the merit of the study of Torah."

Chairman of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer club Itzik Kornfein said in an interview to Israel TV's sports channel that a number of Haredi businessmen have expressed their desire to invest money in his team, on one condition: that Beitar would not play on Shabbat.

The 78 year old who took part in the liberation of Temple Mount in 1967 is banned from entering the holiest Jewish site by Israeli Police, who say he will face charges.

Israel's Supreme Court and the Attorney General are showing a kind of zeal one normally attributes to religious fanatics. Rather than pursuing a pragmatic, financial compensation to the claimant, as is normal in similar civil cases, both the high court and the AG appear hell bent on getting Justice. The Likud rank and file are preparing to do war with these two enemies of Israel's democracy.

The Board of Trustees of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary voted to accept gay and lesbian students for ordination. “The Schechter Rabbinical Seminary views the serious process leading to this decision as an example of confronting social dilemmas within the framework of tradition and halachah,” Board of Trustees Chair Hanan Alexander said in a statement.

The Knesset Economic Committee held a heated discussion Monday over the composition of incoming Broadcasting Authority Supervisory Council. MK Jacob Katz argued that the previous text perpetuated a distortion which was causing large communities to feel alienated and segregated from public broadcasting. Ten years ago, Katz's own "Pirate" alternative radio station was taken down in the spirit of that same old law.

Many of the participants in an emergency conference last night were adamant on the need to “give up our lives” over the preservation of Torah study, in face of a growing public push for Haredi military service. In the Israeli marketplace of ideas, two views competed this morning: "Don't push them too fast, or you'll get nothing but conflict" – versus "It's time for everybody to carry their fair share of the load." Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman was on the money when he accused retired Supreme Court President Beinisch of committing a hit-and-run…

The first Israeli pol to be taking a ride on the back of the Supreme Court's decision to kill the Tal Law is stating her motivation bluntly: "I'm sick and tired of hearing that it's impossible to implement the law, because the Haredim or the Arabs don't want to join." Being sick and tired can be a recipe for political success in Israel – provided you don't face a field of multiple opponents who are all equally disgruntled.

On the heels of the Supreme Court's annulment of the Tal Law, and following weeks of harsh debates over the coerced participation of religious soldiers in IDF sponsored concerts with women singers, the IDF Chief Rabbi admitted Thursday that despite his liberal ruling on the matter, soldiers should be allowed to avoid entertainment they find religiously problematic.

The website kipa.co.il reports that Col. Lior Hochman, Commander of the 460 Armored Corps Brigade, prohibited the brigade rabbi from speaking at a military...