Residents of southern Israel who need information on the availability of their regular daycare services, employee rights and responsibilities associated with the security situation, and essential worker schedules are encouraged to call a hotline established by the Ministry of Employment.

Dial 1-800-201-180.

President Obama on Friday renewed America’s 33-year-old state of emergency against Iran.

The status was instituted by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 following Iran’s Islamic revolution, and allows the President greater autonomy in imposing sanctions and dealing with “unusual and extraordinary threat[s] to the national security, foreign policy and economy”.

Obama’s announcement followed a Treasury Department decision to impose additional sanctions against Iranian officials and institutions oppressing and censoring Iranian citizens.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said sanctions against Iran were meant to keep Iran from cutting Iranians off from the world with an “electronic curtain”.

Officials being sanctioned include the Minister of Communication and Information Technology, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and the Press Supervisory Board.

On Monday, United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni, who is Chairman of the Finance Committee, spoke out against the saturated (multi-level) burial plan being advocated by the Ministry of Religious Services.

“According to a report presented to the Knesset Legislative Committee, multi-level burial is not economically acceptable, because of the exorbitant costs involved, as well as the fact that it is not beneficial to the public,” Gafni told the Minister of Religious Services Yaakov Margi (Shas), who was invited to a meeting dealing with budget allocations for the multi-level burial project.

“A large portion of the public would prefer traditional field burial, even if it entails going long distances [to visit the dead], and we must facilitate it,” Gafni added.

Minister of Religious Services Margi argued that his office “held several deliberations last year and we are exploring alternatives. There are several restricted sites which won’t be put to use in the next century, and so there’s no reason not to designate them for [conventional] cemeteries, and we plan to work towards this.”

In the state of Israel more than 35,000 Jews die each a year. The conventional cemeteries permit the burial of 270 persons per dunam (roughly 68 per acre), which means that about a thousand acres each year are converted into cemeteries.

Shortage of land for residential construction, as well as areas appropriate for burial is a strategic problem the state of Israel is facing these days.

Saturated Burial is the general name for a number of burial practices, all of which comply with the rules of Jewish halacha and have received the approval of the Chief Rabbinate, according to the Ministry of Religious services.

These methods are in use at this stage mainly in Jerusalem, Haifa and its surroundings, the Tel Aviv area and the Sharon. Saturation Burial has significantly reduced the amount of land required for burial.

The rationale behind these burial practices is that placing more dead bodies per acre of land (the numbers range from 250 to 600 per acre) would spare the most limited resource in Israel: land.

The campaign against multi-level burials has been ceaseless in recent months, after the Ministry of Religious Services embarked on its campaign to endorse multi-level burials. Protest posters (pashkvilim) against “the edict that is spreading to every city” were distributed in major Haredi neighborhoods.

Some Haredi authorities have prohibited multi-level burial, saying it isn’t considered burial at all.

The Ministry of religious Services has suggested that once multiple- and mausoleum-burials become common, families of the deceased would be required to pay a great deal more if they wish to stick with conventional burial.

Galei Tzahal reports that 22,470 Yordim (Israeli emigrants) returned to Israel in the past two and a half years because of of new initiatives taken by the Ministry of Immigration to help bring them back. The initiatives included special perks (unnamed) and a relaxed interpretation of what perks the Yordim were actually entitled to, in favor of the returning Israelis.

In Israel, it pays to be a woman if you want to get ahead as legal clerk, lawyer or judge.

In a quiet revolution, women have begun to outnumber men in the Israeli legal profession, and while, for the moment, there are still more active lawyers who are men (28,231) than women (22,670), that gap is quickly closing.

Here are some numbers that may surprise you:

New graduating lawyers: 54% women (1128), 46% men (961). (Source: Israel Bar Association)

Ministry of Justice employees: 69% women (2564), 31% men (1145) (Source: Ministry of Justice)

Court Presidents: 71.5% women (15), 28.5% men (6) (Source: Court Spokesperson)

Judges appointed in 2011: 51% women (321), 49% men (305)

Soon men may need to demand affirmative action if they want to move up in the legal world.

So where does it still pay to be a man?

The last holdout where men still outnumber women is that of partners in the top private Israeli law firms, where men make up 73% of the partners compared to the women’s 27% (Source: Dun and Bradstreet).

The other last bastion of male control is of course as Rabbinical Court judges.

But not to worry, women are working to take those over too.

The Jewish Agency for Israel will provide emergency financial aid to three families whose homes were severely damaged this week after they were hit by a Grad rocket fired from Gaza. The emergency funding is provided through the Jewish Agency’s Fund for the Victims of Terror and will be transferred before Rosh Hashanah in order to allow the families to complete their preparations for the festival.

The Jewish Agency’s Fund for the Victims of Terror, which is supported by donations to the Jewish Federations of North America, as well as foundations and individual donors across the globe, provides additional material assistance to victims of terror and their families. The Fund works in coordination with the Ministry of Defense and the National Insurance Institute and since its foundation has provided financial assistance of 10 million dollars to hundreds of families.

In addition to the Fund for Victims of Terror, the Jewish Agency maintains an emergency fund to provide immediate assistance to victims of terror who have suffered injury or damage to property, in order to help with their initial recovery.

Immediately after the attack, a representative of the Jewish Agency visited the families in Netivot in order to ensure that they received the necessary support. Immediately after the visit, a decision was made to transfer emergency assistance before the Jewish New Year.

Israel’s transportation minister has threatened to withdraw funding for a Tel Aviv bicycle rental project if it allows the bicycles to be used on Yom Kippur.

Israel Katz said Sunday that the operating of the Tel-O-Fun project on Yom Kippur “is crossing a red line and breaking all the norms. The Tel-o-Fun project is important, but regrettably, [Tel Aviv Mayor Ron] Huldai is using it for political ends, harming the holiest day of the Jewish people.”

“This is an important and successful project,” Katz added, “and the Ministry of Transportation supports and even encourages the venture with budget allocations and the paving of bicycle paths. But if Huldai breaks all the rules and harms this sacred day of the Jewish people, I will cut off the ministry’s aid and support for the project.”

While most Jews in Israel do not drive on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, many take advantage of the empty roads to ride their bikes freely.

The program did not operate on Yom Kippur last year.

City transportation official Moshe Tiomkin told the Israeli business daily Globes that “There is no reason why, on Yom Kippur, which is our most sacred day, we should seek unnecessary conflict. Anyone who wants to ride a bicycle should use their own.”

Under the holiday plan, bicycles will be rented before the start of the holiday and will be able to be returned afterward without an extra fee, so as not to offend the religious community.

Israeli police are concluding an investigation that a senior official in the Ministry of Defense embezzled more than NIS 2 million earmarked for defense purposes. Details of the investigation have not yet been publicized.