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xtruss · 9 months

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Argument: Israel’s Protesters Refuse To Be Donkeys

An entire generation is taking to the streets to resist what they see as the rise of a corrupt theocracy.

— By Gitit Ginat | Foreign Policy | July 24th, 2023

Demonstrators block a highway during a protest against the Israeli government's judicial reform plan in Tel Aviv on July 24. Jack Guez/AFP Via Getty Images

Kaplan Street is one of the main thoroughfares leading into and out of Tel Aviv. It was built along the outline of a German Templar colony, whose pro-Nazi descendants were expelled from British Mandate Palestine during World War II. During the 1960s and 70s, it was filled with Israeli governmental and cultural institutions, such as the Jewish Agency and the Israel Journalists Association. These days, Kaplan is the street where, every Saturday, hundreds of thousands of Israelis protest the attempted judicial coup led by the coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Contrary to the common version in the global press, the protesters are not only the scions of the old, privileged establishment. Those gathering on Kaplan are a big tent, including both the financially comfortable and the struggling. While some of the protest movement leaders are military elites or tech moguls, many others are not. The most vulnerable of them are set to become the main casualties of Netanyahu’s judicial coup. That’s because their children, who study in the public school system, may witness its slow collapse due to funds being redirected to the religious and ultra-Orthodox institutions.

Their kids, who—unlike most ultra-Orthodox Jews—serve a full term in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), will sit idle at home because in Israel, there is no public transport on the Sabbath. Single mothers will have their state support reduced in favor of ultra-Orthodox families with multiple children. People who live in peripheral areas will have to struggle against an ultra-Orthodox takeover of their towns. The first step will be a political takeover of the municipalities, followed by massive benefits to the ultra-Orthodox population. According to reports, this process is already happening in cities such as Tiberias, Safed, Arad, and Mitzpe Ramon.

They are Jews, Palestinians, men, women, native Israelis, and immigrants who arrived from developing countries via the Law of Return. The common denominator for all of them is the struggle against turning into a so-called donkey.

In Jewish tradition, the Messiah’s Donkey refers to the donkey upon which the Messiah will arrive at the end of days. In Israel, the phrase refers to the doctrine ascribed to the teachings of Abraham Isaac Kook: The secular Jews, who represent the material world, are an instrument in the hands of God whose purpose was to establish the state of Israel and begin the process of redemption. Upon Israel’s establishment, the secular Jews would be required to step aside and allow the religious to govern the state.

Kook, who immigrated to Ottoman Palestine from what is now Latvia in 1904, is considered one of the spiritual fathers of religious Zionism. According to him, the Zionist enterprise was a new historical development of the era of redemption. Nevertheless, Kook was terrified of secularism. He believed that secular education had “sinned greatly against the spirit of Israel” and represented “the beginning of the decay and the basis of all bad assimilation.” Kook sought to settle the contradiction. The secular Zionists, he wrote, are allowed to be the bricks of the building of redemption, “but when the secret of the righteous is to be revealed,” it would be easy to differentiate “between God’s servants and those who are not.”

“Ben-Gurion’s compromises with ultra-Orthodox parties turned out to be a disaster for secular Israelis.”

Unlike Kook, Israel’s founder David Ben-Gurion was an atheist. He came from a religious background and respected Jewish heritage. At the end of the 1950s, a Bible study group gathered in his house, and the prophets were his favorite biblical characters. Nevertheless, Ben-Gurion did not attend synagogue and used to travel on the Sabbath. He made compromises with ultra-Orthodox parties only because of political constraints. It turned out to be a disaster for secular Israelis.

Kook’s prediction is about to come true, with one difference: Israel will not be a theocracy. It will be a country using religious law to allow profound corruption. In the past six months, there have been many reports on improper political appointments within the Likud party and its religious partners. Some of the coalition members have past criminal convictions, and there are reports of improper past conduct by others. And the country’s transformation into a corrupt religious state won’t only strengthen its ideological rivals—Israel is also a potential international drug trade route; such a shift may boost organized crime.

Over the next decade, the government plans to increase the budget of ultra-Orthodox educational institutions by 40 percent. This will make Israel the first country in the developed world that incentivizes schools that barely teach core subjects such as math, science, and English. The governmental supervision of ultra-Orthodox schools is weak, leaving vague information available about their curriculum. But according to sources in the education ministry, these schools teach primarily religious topics: the Talmud, Mishna and Torah.

English, math, and even Hebrew are studied at an elementary level. In addition, more than $600 million of the coalition budget will be dedicated to empowering Jewish identity among students in the state education system, IDF soldiers, university students, and residents of secular and liberal cities. Aryeh Deri, the head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, a convicted tax evader and one of the most powerful politicians in the coalition, plans a series of laws that might allow the ultra-Orthodox to take over secular towns politically.

Meanwhile, secular Israelis will pay six times more in taxes than the ultra-Orthodox, who constitute only 8 percent of the Israeli workforce. Their children will be obligated, as they are today, to serve a full term in the army (three years for men and two for women), while so-called national-religious men can serve in the army for a reduced term and most ultra-Orthodox are exempt.

Despite these facts, since the country’s founding, the secular population has been deprived of some basic liberties. This is because Israel has never created a constitution separating church and state. As a result, among other things, the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate holds a monopoly on marriage, which forces many secular Israelis to get married in other countries, or even online. Israel has no formal public transportation on Saturdays, which strands the millions of residents who don’t own a car.

“The liberals are beginning to realize that they will be used as the donkey up to the moment Israel is subjected to religious law,” said Yair Nehorai, a lawyer and the author of The Third Revolution, a book documenting the teachings of the rabbinic mentors of the messianic movement. “But this realization,” he noted, “is too difficult.”

“They will no longer be the majority in the country within a few decades, and they will have to say: This is not my country,” Nehorai said.

Israeli security forces use a water cannon to disperse demonstrators blocking the entrance of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem on July 24. Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images

The idea of dividing Israel into cantons, which for years has been received with mockery due to the country’s small size and security challenges, has been gaining more and more traction over the past few months, and liberals are angrily calling to separate “Israel” from “Judea.” For some, Judea means the occupied territories. For others, Judea represents all ultra-Orthodox and messianic Jews, whether they live in Bnei Brak (in Israel proper) or Hebron (in the West Bank).

Sagi Elbaz, the author of Emergency Exit: From Tribalism to Federation, the Road to Healing Israeli Society, told me that these cantons will begin with the liberal Israeli cities. “A secular rebellion manifested itself, for example, when the municipalities of Tel Aviv and several other liberal cities launched a network of bus routes that operate on the Sabbath,” he explained.

Until recently, Kaplan Street appeared to welcome protesters of all stripes. Next to No. 8, where the offices of the tech company Fiverr are located, CEO Micha Kaufman hands out free water bottles. Not far from Kaplan 17-19 stand the protesters of the “Anti-Occupation Bloc,” forcing passers-by to acknowledge the elephant in the room with signs such as “No Democracy with Occupation.” Kaplan 22 looks like the mother base of “Women Building an Alternative,” whose photos dressed as handmaids from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel A Handmaid’s Tale have gained worldwide publicity. Next to them are the members of “The Pink Front,” who have ironically swapped the Israeli blue-and-white flag for a pink-and-white one.

At the end of Kaplan and on the adjacent Namir Street, you can find the unironic blue-and-white. And khaki. This is the center of activity for “Brothers in Arms—Warriors Journeying to Save Democracy,” a grassroots umbrella organization that includes several reservist groups.

Israeli researchers have often noted that, compared to developed Western countries, Israel struggles with establishing a free and open civil society, as the Israelis are attached at the hip to their army. Despite this, the veterans demonstrating on Kaplan are not all the same: Some served in the special forces. Others spent three unremarkable years, mostly killing time. Some veterans abused their power over the Palestinians. Others were discharged with physical and mental scars.

Some believe that serving in the occupied territories is a critical security goal. Others feel that they were forced to go there, but never came out in public to say so. Some of them committed acts of heroism. A few others proved their heroism by refusing to commit acts that they have deemed immoral.

“This is the Most Irresponsible Government in the History of Israel.”

Brothers in Arms, the embodiment of the liberal side of the “People’s Army,” has the most leverage of any group in the Israeli protest movement. Now, with the coalition resuming its legislative blitz, special forces veterans have declared that hundreds of them will stop volunteering for reserve duty. The number of objectors is rising. Former directors of special intelligence operations have warned that units across the IDF, the Shin Bet and Mossad are angry and in a state of unrest.

Reserve Col. Ronen Koehler, one of the Brothers in Arms coordinators, told Foreign Policy that until mid-March, “we were just another activist group.” But in the time since, “we received a flood of phone calls from reservists who were expecting us to tell them what to do about their service.” There were questions from high-ranking commanders who have an in-depth understanding of Israel’s strategic infrastructure: What if you are ordered to shoot in a way you were never ordered to before, and you are experienced enough to know that you shouldn’t do it? What happens if a submarine crew is not sure that the person who sent them to sea is trustworthy?

“The flood of phone calls made us realize that something bigger than our protest activities was happening here,” said Koehler, who served as a submarine captain and is a former vice president at Checkpoint, a U.S.-Israeli hardware and software products company.

The government reached the same realization. A secret report that was submitted to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant caused a temporary halt of the judicial coup at the end of February, but it has now resumed with the passage of a law limiting judicial review on Monday—sparking even larger protests.

As successful as the protests have been, liberal civil society and the army veterans struggle to see eye to eye. For various reasons, some practical (to attract right-wing voters) and some ideological, the occupation is barely mentioned in speeches along the Kaplan encampment, and the number of Palestinian-Israelis joining the protests is low.

“The law could grant unlimited power to white-collar criminals, members of organized crime families, cocaine addicts, or messianic fundamentalists.”

Recently, the Anti-Occupation Bloc, which usually demonstrates far from the main stage, decided to pass through the main avenue. The protesters carried a massive sign reading: “We Must Resist Settler Terror.” Some of the Brothers in Arms tried to forcefully remove the sign. After a time, they published a half-hearted apology, and a few days later, they met with Anti-Occupation Bloc representatives to settle matters peacefully.

Some protest participants hate each other, while others love each other. Some are caught in love-hate relationships. “We should be glad about the greatest achievement we got: the creation of a new kind of centrist identity,” Koehler said. “This center includes various shades, from the capitalist, hawkish right that believed in Netanyahu so far but not anymore, through the liberal center and up to the social-democratic left.”

“The protest doesn’t have intrinsic content yet,” Nehorai admitted. “But when a serving coalition is acting in a frenzy, it makes us feel, every minute of every day, that we are connected. The liberal camp is a country that is just being formed.”

All Israelis are facing legislation that will grant unlimited power to anyone the government chooses; they could be white-collar criminals, rehabilitated members of organized crime families, cocaine addicts, or messianic fundamentalists.

A growing number of Israeli liberals, especially younger ones, will soon start negotiating the cargo loaded on their backs, the identity of the hand holding the reins, and the direction of travel. And ultimately, they will refuse to continue being used as donkeys.

— Gitit Ginat is a Freelance Journalist and a former writer for Haaretz.

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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 2 years

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Putin now feels betrayed by Jews around him and by the Jewish world as a whole: 1. Few Russian Jewish personalities have supported his military campaign against Ukraine. 2. Russian Jews have been disproportionately hostile to the military campaign against Kyiv. 3. Russian Jewish emigration has by far exceeded that of other ethnic communities in the Russian Federation. This threatens Putin with a brain drain and is viewed by him as a personal "Dolchstoß". 4. Many visible leaders of resistance to Putin's plans are Jewish: Zelensky, the famous artist Pugacheva who has recently fled to Israel because of her Jewish husband and countless oligarchs and influential bloggers and intellectuals.

This is a quote that actually comes from an article where the author tries defending Israeli neutrality towards Russia. Yet this author first has to admit that within the Russian Jewish world, this war extremely unpopular. (The oligarch Roman Abramovich, who has a long history of corruption, is against the war, though some suspect that it’s because he was sanctioned.) The author also has to admit that Putin’s blackmail of Russian Jewish agencies and threats towards Russian Jews who want to leave constitute ‘latent antisemitism’. So really, this author is contradicting his own untenable argument for Israeli neutrality towards Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

#russia #russian jews #jewish agency #putin #antisemitism #israel #israeli #israeli politics #arutz sheva #israel national news #volodymyr zelenskyy #roman abramovich #ukrainian jews #aliyah #law of return

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marcogiovenale · 6 months

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hadar morag intervistata dal 'manifesto' @ doclisboa

Da un’intervista di Lucrezia Ercolani a Hadar Morag, per “il manifesto“, 29 ott. 2023 ARTE E POLITICA. Parla la regista israeliana, a DocLisboa con il film Tzipora and Rachel Are Not Dead: «Siamo diventati ciò che più avversavamo. Non firmerò mai la clausola per il cinema “leale” allo Stato israeliano. Il festival ha rifiutato il patrocinio e vista la situazione ne sono felice» […] Come si…

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#cinema #Cisgiordania #conflitto #DocLisboa #espulsioni #Gaza #Hadar Morag #il manifesto #intervista #Israele #Jewish Agency #Lucrezia Ercolani #Nakba #Olocausto #Palestina #Tzipora and Rachel Are Not Dead

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adrianomaini · 7 months

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Le poche notizie sull'Ungheria furono date da Radio Vaticana in spagnolo il 24 agosto 1944

Le scarne notizie trasmesse da Radio Vaticana sulla situazione italiana fino alla liberazione di Roma furono affiancate da un assoluto riserbo sugli altri fronti.Il silenzio più assordante forse è quello tenuto sui rivolgimenti politici in Ungheria e sulla sorte degli ebrei ungheresi a partire dal marzo 1944. L’instaurazione di un governo controllato dai tedeschi significò l’applicazione della…

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bagnabraghe · 7 months

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Le poche notizie sull'Ungheria furono date da Radio Vaticana in spagnolo il 24 agosto 1944

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thejewishlink · 2 years

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Lapid Threatening ‘Effect on Relations’ if Jewish Agency Operations in Russia Banned

By Aryeh Savir/TPS • 24 July, 2022 Jerusalem, 24 July, 2022 (TPS) — Prime Minister Yair Lapid chaired on Sunday a discussion on the activity of the Jewish Agency in Russia after Vladimir Putin’s administration commenced operations to ban the Agency’s activities in the country, threatening that “closing the Jewish Agency offices would be a serious event that would affect relations.” Russia’s…

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#Jewish Agency #Russia-Israel Relationship

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a-typical · 6 months

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The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappé (2006)

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shivroy · 1 year

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do shiv and roman have exact ages

#i was going to message The Well-Versed Succession Mutuals #ie the jewish transmasc succession agency coven and the nonbinary swag side car members #all of whom i appreciate #but then got afraid of being annoying. because as you can see im in a silly goofy mood #[mr j funny face penalty face]

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xtruss · 25 days

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A UK Jewish Group has blockaded the entrance to Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) to demand that the government send aid to the Besieged Gaza Strip instead of sending arms to “Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Apartheid and Genocidal Zionist 🐖 Isra-hell.”

Among other calls, Naamod urged the government to reverse its decision to defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), which supports millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and regional countries.

The UK government announced in late January that it was pausing funding to Unrwa in the wake of Terrorist Zionist 🐖 Isra-helli Allegations that agency staff were involved in the 7 October attacks.

Naamod's actions also come after a Conservative MP admitted that the British government had received legal advice that “Terrorist, Fascist, War Criminal, Apartheid and Genocidal Zionist 🐖 Isra-hell Had Breached International Humanitarian Law.”

#Middle East Eye 👁️#Gaza | Forever Palestine 🇵🇸#UK 🇬🇧 Jewish Group #Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)#Besieged Gaza Strip #“Terrorist Fascist War Criminal Apartheid and Genocidal Zionist 🐖 Isra-hell.”#Naamod #United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa)#“Terrorist Fascist War Criminal Apartheid and Genocidal Zionist 🐖 Isra-hell Had Breached International Humanitarian Law.”

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deborahdeshoftim5779 · 10 months

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War criminal and pathological liar, Vladimir Putin, has now sunk to the new low of claiming that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy isn't Jewish, and is a 'disgrace' to the Jewish people. Putin cited his 'Jewish friends' as proof of this statement, before noting the massacre of Jews in Ukraine during the Holocaust.

Bear in mind, of course, Putin's blackmail of Russia's Jewish Agency, which has received unprecedented requests to help expedite aliyah to Israel. Russian singer Alla Pugacheva is one of those who have left the country out of protest against Putin's war. Several members of Russia's despicable Wagner Group are known neo-Nazis, as are members of other Russian mercenary groups in Ukraine. Research shows that Russia's FSB is protecting several known white supremacist organisations. Sergei Lavrov, Russia's Foreign Minister, caused uproar in Italy last year when he claimed that Hitler had Jewish blood.

As for the massacre of Jews in Ukraine during the Holocaust, this part is true. Of course, Putin didn't mention that Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died just days before he planned to carry out a second enormous massacre of the Jews, and that the Soviet Union was an inhospitable place for Jewish people. Clearly, Putin won't speak to men like Natan Sharansky, a famous refusenik. Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was censored when he tried writing music to describe the hardships of Jews in Russia. In the USA, the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King expressed concern about the treatment of Soviet Jews in the year before he died.

Many of us who watch with horror as Russian soldiers commit unspeakable crimes against innocent Ukrainian people would say that it's Putin, his supporters, and his establishment who are a disgrace to Russia. Putin has encouraged the very worst elements of Russian society through his illegal war, bringing lasting shame and international condemnation upon the entire country. All of this because he is desperate to remain in power and desperate to seize Ukrainian natural resources to back up the failing Russian economy.

Since Putin is still failing to deliver a victory, he has to resort to these desperate and pathetic attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It is a way of saving face, as the whole world can see how a far smaller country with no active navy has caused severe setbacks and losses for an invading army. Putin's boasts about Russian strength have been shown as empty, something that only surprises those who haven't paid attention to Russia's long-standing corruption problem. Putin and his gang have been stealing from Russia for decades, and the results are plain to see. That's why Russian soldiers steal frying pans, don't have proper equipment, are dying in droves, and are failing to win.

Putin has to distract from these facts by attacking Zelenskyy. As long as he remains in a chair dishing out insults, we know that he still cannot win. I wonder whether this is behind his recent claim that he had a peace deal on the table last year. Is all this talk about negotation a way of trying to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?

#putin #putin is a terrorist #stop terrorism #russian war in ukraine #stop war #free ukraine #volodymyr zelensky #antisemitism #russian jewish agency #aliyah #israel #russian jews

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brightgnosis · 6 months

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Acceptable Kashrus Agencies from cRc Consumer Kosher

#Acceptable Kashrus Agencies #cRc #Consumer Kosher #Jewish Studies #Food Is the Ultimate Love Language #Bookshelf #Tumblr Staff Has Ruined Links Now And I Hate Them For It

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zonetrente-trois · 6 months

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#Jennifer Podemski #PBS #Jewish Telegraphic Agency #Shira Li Bartov #Little Bird

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thejewishlink · 2 years

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Russia Orders Jewish Agency To Alter Operations In The Country

MOSCOW (JNS) – Russia has ordered the Jewish Agency to modify its operations inside the country, in a move that could hamper the organization’s ability to function, according to Israeli media reports. The move comes amid tensions centered on Israel’s position on the war in Ukraine, which Russian forces invaded in February, and ongoing Israeli strikes against Iranian assets in Syria–where Moscow…

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#Jewish Agency #Russia #Russian Justice Ministry

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myrajmedia1 · 10 months

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Empowering Jewish Businesses with Cutting-Edge Online Marketing Strategies

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In conclusion, Jewish marketing, Jewish online marketing, and partnering with a Jewish marketing agency like MyrajMedia are crucial for the success of Jewish businesses. By understanding the unique needs and preferences of the Jewish community and leveraging innovative online marketing strategies, MyrajMedia empowers Jewish businesses to thrive in the digital landscape, connect authentically with their target audience, and achieve their marketing goals.

#Jewish Marketing #Jewish Marketing Agency #Jewish Digital Marketing #Jewish Online Marketing #Digital Marketing for Jewish company

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