Tomorrow, on the holiday of Shavuot, in one of the synagogues of the town of Efrat in Judea and Samaria, two women will come up to read the Megillah of Ruth as both the men and women of the shul will be listening. This will not be taking place in a Reform or even Conservative synagogue, but in the Zemer Hazayit Orthodox synagogue of the town’s most prominent rabbi, who is one of its founders, Rabbi Shlomo Riskin.

“The initiative for the Megillah reading by women began with a constraint,” Dina Mann, one of the two Shavuot readers, told Maariv. Last Purim, the shul was looking for a man to read the Esther Megillah, and when none was found, the women of the community, many of whom have been reading the Esther Megillah for women for years, posed an halachic query to Rabbi Riskin, asking if they could read Esther in the absence of a qualified man.

The Efrat Rabbi answered that while men cannot keep the mitzvah of hearing the Esther Megillah by listening to a woman’s reading, it would be allowable with other megillahs (Ecclesiastics, Song of Songs, Ruth and Lamentations).

“One of the principles of our synagogue is the integration of women within the framework of halacha,” Mann said, “under the guidance and decisions of Rabbi Shlomo Riskin.”

“This point is deeply ingrained in the core idea of our synagogue,” she added.

The women will be reading the Megillah from the women’s section.

Mann said she expected the men of the synagogue to be very accepting of the new custom.

Rabbi Riskin told Maariv that he sees no problem in women’s reading behind a mechitzah. He said that the only reason he had not allowed women’s reading of the Esther Megillah had to do with the fact that some Ashkenazi rabbis are explicitly against it – while the Sephardim support it.

The Shulchan Aruch follows the Gemara Megillah in stating that it is permitted for women to go up to the Torah—which included reading allowed one’s assigned portion—but at the same time discourages actually letting them fulfill the mitzvah because it might offend the congregation.

It appears that Rabbi Riskin’s congregation is not easily offended.

Two female Arab motorists were hurt by Arab rock throwers on Road 60, near the tunnels in Gush Etzion, at around 9PM Wednesday night.

Over the past few days, Arabs have been throwing rocks and paint at Israeli cars driving down Highway 60, near Efrat, trying to cause an accident.

Last night, Arab stone throwers from El Hadr attacked a car they thought was Israeli, but was actually an Arab car with two women and 6 children in it.

The two Arab women were hurt by the Arab stone throwers, one seriously. They managed to drive to to the tunnel checkpoint where they received medical attention.

Last night, Israel security forces also captured a group of 5 Arabs who were attacking passing Jewish motorists on Highway 60 with stones. They were the unbelievable ages of 9 through 12. They got started young.

Arab youths near Efrat have been escalating their attacks against Jewish motorists driving down the main highway near Efrat.

For the second day in a row, Arab youths have been throwing stones at cars driving down Highway 60, near the northern entrance to the town.

Earlier today, the Arabs escalated their attacks and also tried to throw paint at the windshield of a passing car.

Army and police have belatedly arrived at the scene of of the repeated attacks, but at least one passing driver, who was nearly stoned, stopped and chased the youths away from the highway, saving lives.

In the past month, Arabs have thrown burning tires at passing cars, and stoned vehicles near the Efrat northern Entrance.

A surprising 80 percent of Israelis support the idea of Israeli sovereignty over all or part of Judea and Samaria, according to a new poll released by the respected Geocartography research institute.

The survey was commissioned by the University of Ariel, located in central Samaria, in advance of its annual Conference for Law and Mass Media.

The idea of Israeli sovereignty began to win popularity last year when a government-commissioned report by three legal experts, headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Edmund Levy, concluded that Israelis have the right under international law to live anywhere they want in Judea and Samaria.

The “Levy Committee” also debunked the popular concept, adopted by the United States and almost all of the international community, that Israel “occupies” Judea and Samaria.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu quickly shelved the report for “further study,” obviously not wanting to upset the Obama administration’s continuation of the long-buried “peace process” that it still promotes to an audience of none.

The most surprising results in the Geocartography poll related to the views of those who have left-wing views. More than a majority, in fact 60 percent, stated that Israel has to take sovereignty over at least part of Judea and Samaria.

Even among those who consider themselves thoroughly left wing, 42 percent agreed that international law must recognize Israeli sovereignty in part of the areas that the Palestinian Authority demands for itself, if it ever becomes an independent country

Overall, more than one-third of Israelis support Israeli sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria, and 25 percent think that it should apply to part of the area.

Most support for sovereignty undoubtedly is for Maaleh Adumim, a city of more than 40,000 located only 10 minutes away from Jerusalem, and the Gush Etzion communities, the largest of which is Efrat, heavily populated by Americans.

The nationalist Women in Green movement applauded the data that emerged from the poll.

“These figures might be surprising for a part of the Israeli public, but this comes as no surprise to us,” said Women in Green leaders  Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar.

“ In recent years we have been traveling throughout Israel  and wherever the question of sovereignty is raised, the idea is received favorably, with extensive support,” they added.

Asked by the Jewish Press if proposing sovereignty makes any sense in the wake of the American insistence to continue with its peace process plan, they said, “The Americans know that ‘two states for two peoples’ is, thank God, not a reality.”

Matar and Katsover also argued that with the failure of the peace process, there is no other alternative on the table, making Israeli sovereignty more of a viable option.

They dismissed many problems with sovereignty leaving Israel with a large Arab minority that could wreck the country’s Jewish identity.

The Women in Green leaders explained that there are several solutions to the problem but “first of all, let’s implement sovereignty and then we will deal with the arguments.”

Four different  proposals on coping with the demographics have been proposed, they said.

One idea is to offer all Arabs citizenship on the condition that they pledge loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state.

Another idea to the opposite extreme is to pay Palestinian Authority Arabs to leave Israel.

A third proposed solution is to grant them the status of residents without citizenship.

The fourth idea is to recognize that Palestine is Jordan, where the Arabs in Judea and Samaria could move.

European Union and American officials would be aghast at any of the suggestions, but after 22 years of failed diplomatic attempts to build up a Palestinian Authority that can self-govern and guarantee security for Israel as a neighbor, the peace process in retrospect seems even more far-fetched than Israeli sovereignty.

On Wednesday evening, residents of Efrat left the safety of their town’s borders to hold a peaceful protest along the main road leading to their northern entrance, which is also near the entrance to a nearby Arab village.

The Efrat residents were protesting the recent wave of Arab stone throwing, fire bombs, and burning tires that have left residents of Efrat injured and their cars damaged. Many of the attacks took place at the protest’s exact location.

The protest was organized by Women in Green leader, Nadia Matar, who demanded that the new Defense Minister take a stronger position against the Arab terrorists, and provide more protection on a daily basis.

Numerous soldiers were on site to protect the protesters, and in the video below, one can see some damage to one of their jeeps from Arab attacks. The protesters thanked the army for the job they are doing, despite being held back by the political echelons.

Numerous police were also at the protest site, but they were more busy photographing and filming the citizens of Efrat who were demanding protection.

March 30, “Land Day,” is an annual commemoration of the events of that date in 1976, when strikes and violent riots of Israeli Arabs erupted throughout the country, over government plans to appropriate a large area of land inside the “green line” to be used for security and housing purposes. Six Arabs were killed at the time.

The majority of Land Day demonstrators have always been Israeli Arabs, who carry Israeli ID cards and enjoy all the privileges of life in a Western democracy. This Saturday afternoon, ten thousand Israeli Arabs attended the central rally in the thriving Israeli-Arab town of Sakhnin. The Procession included activists from human rights organizations and supporters of Bedouin rights.

The participants, all Israeli citizens, raised Palestinian flags, and some activists were waving Syrian flags, in support of the Assad regime. Hadash party chairman MK Mohammed Barakeh said that “the commemoration of the 37th Land Day was marked by an escalation on the part of the establishment of taking what is left of the land of Arab citizens in the Negev, in addition to the Arab land shortages in the Galilee and the Arab Triangle.”

Two IDF soldiers were lightly wounded during a riot on Saturday outside the town of Qalqiliya in Judea and Samaria. The riot began at a large demonstration on the occasion of “Land Day.” A medical team evacuated the two soldiers to Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba for further treatment. A 5-year-old child injured by a stone thrown by Arabs at his vehicle outside the settlement of Efrat was taken to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem.

Immediately after the child had been injured, clashes erupted between some 20 Arabs with IDF soldiers, who responded with crowd dispersal means. Disturbances were also reported in Qalandiya, where a hundred Arabs clashed with IDF soldiers, who were forced to use riot dispersal means. No injuries were reported.

One person was arrested Saturday in a Land Day procession of a few dozen Arab residents of East Jerusalem, after police ordered demonstrators to disperse. There were no casualties in that incident.

During the Land Day rally in the town of Sakhnin, a crowd of pro-Syrian Arabs beat up an al-Jazeera crew member, to protest the network’s coverage of events in Syria. The Muslim network refused to file a complaint with the Israeli police.

A jeep with three Arabs was spotted outside the town of Ofarim in Judea and Samaria, as three rifles started to emerge from inside the vehicle. A police force gave chase, during which the Arabs threw their weapons out the windows. When finally stopped, the Arabs claimed to be hunters. Two hunting rifles and ammunition were found in the car. Al,three were taken in for questioning.

The Palestinian Authority made its case in the High Court Wednesday in a suit that claims the government discriminated against Arabs during a process that declared Givat Eitam in Efrat “state land.”

Givat Eitam is an area of approximately 500 acres and is so large that it has been termed “Efrat ‘B,’” where 2000 homes could be built.

The area includes approximately 75 acres bought by a Jew before the re-establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The land was registered with the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in order to protect the identity of the purchaser, Efrat Mayor Oded Revivi told the Jewish Press.

The entire Givat Eitam, literally the “Eitam Hill,” was state land under the Ottoman Empire and during the Jordanian occupation after the War for Independence until the Six-Day War in 1967.

However, apparently trying to avoid claims it is “occupying” the area that was not under any internationally-recognized rule, Israel kept the area as a sort of “no-man’s land” and did not allow Efrat to build on Givat Eitam or even work the land as a farm.

After a nine-year process towards declaring it state land, Israel allowed all parties to stake claims. Oded said that there were nine Arab claims on different parcels of land, and one was accepted. The government rejected the other claims because the land had not been worked for 10 years.

Arabs claim that Efrat blocked them from farming the land, an assertion that is difficult to swallow because if it were true, the supposed landowners could have gone to the courts. Furthermore, if they were the landowners, why was the same area “state land” under Turkish and Jordanian rule?

PA Arabs, buoyed by Peace now and other left-wing supporters who have succeeded in winning court cases on property claims without proving landownership, found a new tactic.

They appealed to the High Court in 2009 and accused the government of Israel of discrimination in the process of declaring Givat Eitam state land.

When the court heard the case on Wednesday, lawyers for the Arabs reasoned that since the process applied only to the land that is not owned by Jews, that proves that the government’s intention was only to take over what the Arabs said is their land.

One of the judges on the three-justice panel saw through the hollow reasoning. He asked the lawyer if he really thinks that the government would declare as “state land” an area that already is proven to be legally registered by Jews.

When a judge asks that kind of question in a hearing, it usually points in the direction of the eventual ruling, which will be handed down at a future date.

The argument “shows that the Arabs did not challenge the ‘state land’ designation’ innocently, according to Oded.

Asked what would happen if the High Court rules against the government and recognizes the Arab claims, Oded sad he really does not know.

The entire issue is buried in semantics. When Haaretz’s Amira Hess reported the story earlier this week, she wrote, “Local Palestinians have also expressed concern that if the land is claimed by the state, Efrat will be expanded and Bethlehem will ultimately be cut off from Palestinian towns to the south.”

Obviously, the land will be used for homes, but the other side of the coin is that the Arabs wants to cut off one area of Efrat from the other.

The claim that Bethlehem would be cut off from other Arab villages is patently false because building on Givat Eitam would not change the current situation.

Revivi told the Chinese news agency Xinhua three years ago, after the petition was filed in court,  ”Givat Eitam was declared state land three years ago, so it is not Palestinian land, and the whole city plan was laid out in 1983, for all of Efrat, so to come and say we are trying to expand is ridiculous because this was part of the original plan.”

Peace Now’s Hagit Ofran boldly admitted the facts don’t matter. She told Xinhua, “I don’t care when it was approved, it’s against Israeli interests because it makes a two-state solution much harder.”

That, of course, depends on a negotiated border of two states, something that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has categorically stated that is not for negotiation.

For the third year in a row, the youth of the town of Efrat in Judea and Samaria are at the very top of the IDF annual enlistment statistics, which also show that this town provides the highest share of officers per capita in the country. And so, according to Makor Rishon, this year, as in previous ones, the head of the local municipality Oded Ravivi was invited to participate last Wednesday—along with the rest of the heads of municipalities that are leaders in terms of their military recruits—in the annual ceremony conducted by HR Chief Maj.-General Orna Barbivai.

But, this year, Mayor Ravivi opted not to come to the ceremony: in his view, the current stats are a terrible injustice to young National Religious people who are serving their country.

“The IDF stats only include those who enlisted in the army. In Efrat the girls are also enlisting, but because most of our population is National Religious, most of our girls do National Service.”

Ravivi was enraged, saying, “It’s unacceptable that we’re the leaders in all the most important statistics, yet, in the end, we find ourselves in the 60th percentile because our young women prefer national service over the army. If the IDF does not appreciate our high number of officers and combatants, I prefer to stay away from this get together.”

Young Israelis of both sexes are able to choose, according to the law, between military service and national service—the latter including teaching in needy areas, work in hospitals and in EMT units.

According to the IDF HR enlistment statistics for 2012, 22.2 of Efrat’s recruits go on to make officers, while 80.4 of the town’s men serve as combat soldiers. About a quarter of the local girls also opt for military service, and out of those, 24% continue to officer school.

“We work hard to encourage doing a significant IDF service,” Ravivi told Makor Rishon. “Our youth are raised in an environment that stresses contributing to the nation. We offer pre-enlistment prep programs, so our young people learn how to arrive at those places.”