AxisMundi Jerusalem

from FaithWorld:

Don’t preach to us, Hamas tells secular West

The West is floundering in immorality and has no right to criticise the Islamist movement Hamas over the way it governs the Palestinian territory of Gaza, a veteran leader of the militant group said. Hamas strategist Mahmoud Al-Zahar told Reuters in an interview that Islamic traditions deserved respect and he accused Europe of promoting promiscuity and political hypocrisy.

"We have the right to control our life according to our religion, not according to your religion. You have no religion, You are secular," said Zahar, who is one of the group's most influential and respected voices.

"You do not live like human beings. You do not (even) live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticise us?" he said, speaking from his apartment building in the densely populated Mediterranean city.

Hamas, which is an acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement and means "zeal" in Arabic, won a fair, 2006 Palestinian parliamentary election and then seized control of Gaza in 2007 after routing rival forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas.

Sitting in a cavernous reception room, with an old Mercedes saloon car parked in one corner, Zahar denounced European states, such as France, for recently barring Muslim women from wearing full face veils in public.

"We are the ones who respect women and honour women ... not you," he said. "You use women as an animal. She has one husband and hundreds of thousands of boyfriends. You don't know who is the father of your sons, because of the way you respect women."

Read the full article here.

Giving no quarter, Jerusalem’s Armenians keep flame alive

The rare sense of space and calm that marks out the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City is both its blessing and its curse. The acquisition of the land, and construction of the beautiful St. James Cathedral at its heart, speaks volumes for the abilities of this small ethnic diaspora from the Caucasus to secure favour from the Ottoman sultans who partitioned the walled holy city in the hope of a bit of peace from religious rivalries.

But the limited, and shrinking population of the Armenians has made their Quarter an object of envy and desire for other groups, not least the fast-expanding Jewish Quarter next door, which has been massively rebuilt during 43 years of Israeli control after being ravaged during the period of Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967.

For a look at the issues, you can read our story and the accompanying factbox.

The Church itself, proud of a tradition that it was an Armenian king in 301 who first adopted Christianity as a state religion (some years before the Roman Empire), is  a solid fixture of Christian Jerusalem. The small ethnic Armenian lay community around it feels less sure of its future.

Having broken with authorities in Constantinople and Rome as early as the 6th century (in a complex dispute over the human and divine nature of Jesus), the Church later secured under the Ottoman-era status quo which still governs such matters a share of the tripartite governance of Jerusalem’s Christian holy sites, notably the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with the very much larger Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic denominations. The latter churches and a small community of their Arab Christian adherents dominate the Christian Quarter, leaving the Armenians in splendid, if potentially precarious, isolation in their own Armenian Quarter, following their distinctive traditions in their unfamiliar Indo-European tongue with its unique script.

Among challenges facing, the Armenians and the also dwindling populations of other Christian denominations is ensuring cooperation while retaining their distinct traditions. Inter-marriage among different Christian groups is seen by many as a welcome and inevitable way to maintain the communities, but also poses problems for those keen to maintain linguistic, religious and other differences.

Tensions, too, are frequent, not just with Jewish and Muslim populations in Jerusalem, but also within the holiest places of Christendom themselves. While the rich diversity of Christian worship in the city is a joy to many, scenes of armed Israeli police and troops having to pull rival priests, notably Greeks and Armenians, off each other within feet of Jesus’s tomb in recent times have done little to burnish the kind of ecumenism many church leaders preach.

Remembering Rabin: Commemorating or Politicking?

Today marks the 14th anniversary, according to the Hebrew calendar, of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination on Nov. 4, 1995, a day that many Israelis consider a stark reminder of political and religious fissures that have yet to be healed.

Rabin was shot in Tel Aviv at a rally to garner support for the Oslo Accords. His assassin, Yigal Amir, had a religious and right-wing background and rejected Rabin’s peace initiatives.

Today, Israeli papers are filled with reminders of the contentiousness that the death of one of Israel’s  historic figures symbolizes.

In a commemorative posting on the Israeli blog Israelity, writer David Brinn notes that Rabin’s assassination is “not a holiday that brings the country together.”

“The Right blames Rabin and his followers on the left for the failed Oslo process and the Left blames the right for the environment that enabled an Israeli to take the life of a prime minister.”

Today’s Haaretz reported that right wing-groups were calling on students in Jerusalem to boycott Rabin memorials. Activists said they planned to pass out flyers alleging the remembrance day was being used by the Left to demonise Jewish settlers and their supporters.

The Israeli daily also released an editorial noting that while Rabin had set into motion the creation of a Palestinian state, he was effectively following a course charted by his influential foreign minister, Shimon Peres, and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Jewish Custom in the Time of Swine Flu

In Israel, the death count for the H1N1, or swine flu, outbreak reached 7 yesterday, and for some citizens, fighting the virus has taken on some religious dimensions.

Israel’s leading paper, Yedioth Ahronoth, wrote an article about health concerns raised by Israel’s Ultra Orthodox media: kissing mezuzahs. A mezuzah is a tiny encasement holding a piece of parchment with a Jewish prayer enscribed on it. Mezuzahs are nailed to most doorways inside a Jewish home, and traditionally, Jews will touch the mezuzah and kiss their fingers when entering a house.  An ultra-orthodox journalist decided to ask seven doctors their opinion on whether this tradition could be dangerous in the Swine flu era.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, “The doctors unanimously agreed that bacteria leave high levels of residue on such objects, but six of them refused to comment on mezuzot in particular, ‘so as not to get in trouble with the rabbis’.”

Only one doctor in the article affirmed that their could be a direct link between kissing a mezuzah and contracting the virus.

The results lead some rabbis to make suggestions for how to preserve the practice in light of potential health hazards. Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar said, “If a specific order is given in the matter, the mezuzah must be kissed from the air, to ensure that the custom is not forgotten.”

It’s not the first problem there’s been concerning the disease and local beliefs. When it arrived in Israel earlier this year, the Ultra-Orthodox deputy health minister insisted on respect for the kosher dietary traditions that ban the eating of pork: he banned references to the illness as “swine” flu…

Earlier this week, we wrote about the ”flying rabbis” trying to combat the flu: “Dozens of rabbis and Kabbalah mystics armed with ceremonial trumpets have taken to the skies over Israel to battle the H1N1 flu virus.”

Insulting the intelligence

Good morning, children.

Today we are going to learn about two common rhetorical tricks that help greatly with the cynical manipulation of arguments.

First, disingenuousness. The Oxford Shorter English Dictionary defines disingenuous as “lacking in frankness, insincere, morally fraudulent”, in the sense of pretending not to know what you in fact know very well.

Second, the straw man argument.  Wikipedia defines this as misrepresentation of an opponent’s position, to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the straw man) and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original proposition.

Today, thanks to Mr Netanyahu, we have one handy slice of well-worn rhetoric to illustrate both rhetorical tricks.

Collective Punishment in Religious Jerusalem Neighborhoods?

Much ink has been spilled about the riots of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews in Jerusalem over the past several weeks (See our article on that here). Among some sources, there’s a note of disdain for this sector of Jewish population, seen as being contemptuous of the state of Israel while making up the largest portion of the country’s welfare recipients.

So I was a bit surprised to see one group rise to defend the Haredim this week –left-leaning bloggers. A few critiques were posted about Israel’s Jerusalem municipality’s reaction to Haredi riots. Philip Weiss, in his blog Mondoweiss, calls the police treatment of Haredim “bigotry.” And Jerry Haber, of the Magnes Zionist blog, began his latest entry saying, “I tend to distrust news reports about Haredim the same way I distrust news reports about Palestinians; both are hated sectors in Israeli society (though the haredim that participate in the state are much more privileged.)”

Not only bloggers took issue with police treatment of Haredi communities. Haaretz, Israel’s left-leaning daily, had an editorial condemning Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s “collective punishment against Haredim”.  They criticised his decision to halt municipal services to two ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, Mea She’arim and Geula in response to the street violence.  Barkat said this was done for safety reasons, to prevent attacks on municipal workers.

Arguing that only a slim minority out of “tens of thousands” of residents participated in rioting, the Haaretz editorial says that “for the municipality to declare war on an entire community will only further inflame passions and push Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community into a “them or us” stance toward the authorities … [Barkat] must strive to be a unifier and conciliator … Law enforcement is important, and he must insist on it. But he must not engage in populist hooliganism of his own.”

In the meantime, many of us may be wondering why all this rioting started in the first place. Recently, journalist Matt Baynon Rees wrote on just this subject, suggesting that the situation is actually a “sign of good times in Israel. Here’s why: It shows that Israelis think there’s nothing worse to worry about.” Despite difficulties on the horizon, such as the Israeli-U.S. standoff over a settlement freeze,  Rees argues that in comparison to the days of the Intifada, “these are easy times for Israel”.

Jerry Haber offers other reasons, ranging from a long-time psyche of victimisation among Haredim in Israel, to frustrations over the mayor’s decision to keep open a municipal parking lot on the Sabbath and the failure to stop Jerusalem’s gay pride parade. He also says that many Haredim don’t believe allegations by Israeli legal authorities that an ultra-Orthodox woman starved her child — accusations that touched off the urban violence (read more here).

Haber’s theory? “It’s vacation time for yeshiva bachurim [boys in religious school], and it’s hot outside. Those of us who have lived in Jerusalem for a long time … will recall that protests of this sort are a summer activity.”

The Many Sides of Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade

Although thousands of Israelis participated in Jerusalem’s 8th annual gay pride parade, which went off without a hitch, some signs of tension were visible. The parade ended with a small concert organized at a city centre park, which had been surrounded with high fences covered in black mesh.

Despite the cheerful singing and colourful banners, many participants who attend both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem’s gay pride parades, say the Israeli parade in Jerusalem, a holy city for the religious, is markedly different from a similar parade in the secular coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv, held a couple of weeks ago.

One Israeli marcher said Jerusalem, as a much more politically divided city, has a very politicized pride parade: “In Tel Aviv, the Gay Pride parade is more of a party. But in Jerusalem, it’s much more political, like a protest.” Several marchers echoed this sentiment. Na’ama, a member of Bat-Kol, an organization for Orthodox Jewish lesbians, agreed, adding: “It’s not like a protest-it is a protest. I don’t want to take it for granted that I can walk here. But we also have to fight for other rights, like the right to marry. And we still have a struggle with the rest of the Orthodox community to get them to accept us.”

Across the street from the park, a small cluster of demonstrators gathered to protest the gay pride parade. Most offered rather extreme interpretations of the gravity of allowing the pride parade. Daisy Stern, holding a sign saying “No Flags of Fags Here”, said she was “protesting and fighting this horrible trend that persists in this city, which is funded and masterminded by our enemies who don’t want to see a Jewish land and this is a way to break our spirits”. One student, who joked he was protesting “to be a hardcore fundamentalist”, added: ” I’m not so much against the gay part , I’m protesting the pride part. The bible says homosexuality is an abomination. Only an abominable person would be proud about their homosexuality.” Some held up copies of the Torah, and signs offering help for homosexuals.

Statements like these may explain why many gay pride marchers said they felt no desire to start a dialogue with those who protest their events. Ori, who came from Tel Aviv for Jerusalem’s parade, said, “The demonstration annoys me but it’s not like we have something in common to talk about, or to make a dialogue. It’s two completely different worlds.” One woman, dressed in a miniskirt and fishnets, had her face covered with a scarf, saying she was protesting how her city was becoming “another Iran … Look at this, we have blacked-out fences to protect others from seeing our event”.

Antagonism ran both ways. A small group of gay pride marchers stood across the corner from anti-parade demonstrators to mock them, dressed up as clowns with devil horns. Some people headed to the parade yelled at anti-parade demonstrators to leave.

The religious dimension to the pride parade isn’t solely one of religion against homosexuality. Reform Jews such as the youth group Netzer participated in the pride parade in large numbers, to show solidarity. One member said, “We want to show that Reform Judaism is open. There’s more than one way to be Jewish. We can’t follow egalitarianism in one sense and not another.”

from FaithWorld:

Visiting the Samaritans on their holy West Bank mountain

Samaritan High Priest Abdel Moin Sadaqa was relaxing on his porch watching Al-Jazeera on a wide-screen TV when we dropped by his home to talk about his ancient religion. "I like to keep up with the news," the 83-year-old head of one of the world's oldest and smallest religions explained as he turned down the volume. Told we wanted to make him part of the news, more precisely part of a feature on Samaritanism, he sat up, carefully put on his red priestly turban and proceeded to chat away in the fluent English he learned as a boy under the British mandate for Palestine. Our interview with him and other Samaritans were the basis for my feature "Samaritans use modern means to keep ancient faith."

Visiting the descendants of the biblical Samaritans was the last stop in a series of visits in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank I made after covering Pope Benedict's trip to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Leaving Jerusalem with Ivan Karakashian from our bureau there, we drove through Israel's imposing security barrier to Ramallah, picked up our Nablus stringer Atef Sa'ad there and then drove north along the web of priority roads that link the spreading network of Israeli settlements in the West Bank back to Israel. Signs of the Israeli-Palestinian face-off were all around -- Israeli army patrols and checkpoints, guarded Jewish enclaves flying the Star of David flag on the hills and Palestinian villages with their mosques and minarets in the valleys. The tension seemed to melt away, though, when we turned onto a narrow road to wind our way up Mount Gerizim to the Samaritan village of Kiryat Luza.

The West Bank Samaritans used to live in Nablus, the nearest Palestinian city, but left it when the first intifada in 1987 brought the tension too close for comfort. The Samaritans get along with both Israelis and Palestinians and many have identity papers from both sides, Husney Kohen, one of the faith's 12 hereditary priests, told us at the community's small museum in Kiryat Luza. But their custom of not taking sides and keeping secrets meant that gunmen began using their neighbourhood as a place to execute enemies in broad daylight without worrying about witnesses. "We weren't hurt, but we were afraid," he said. Now living on their holy mountain, the Samaritans feel safe.

The museum looked like a treasure trove of ancient Judaica, but Kohen made sure to point out the differences between Samaritanism and Judaism. "We are Israelites but not Jewish ... we have 7,000 differences between our Torah and the Jewish one," he declared as he showed a copy of a Samaritan scroll he said was the oldest book in the world. The original is locked in their temple for safe keeping. The museum boasted genealogical lists dating generations back to Adam and a few paintings of biblical scenes where Samaritans play a cameo role.

Amid all the ancient artifacts, it seemed strange to hear Kohen talk about Samaritan boys meeting girls over the internet or Samaritan couples going to Israeli hospitals for pre-nuptual genetic tests. Samaritan life is governed by strict laws, especially those isolating women during menstruation and after childbirth, but Samaritan women do not keep any other kind of purdah. In fact, they stand out in Nablus -- along with the few Christian women there -- walking around in western clothes and flowing hair among the veiled and covered Muslims. Kohen's oldest daughter works as a journalist for the Palestinian news agency Wafa, the second is a pharmacist and the third is studying English at the university in Nablus.

from Global News Journal:

Austrian far-right leader isolated over Israel stance

Senior figures from across Austria's political spectrum have condemned the head of the far-right Freedom Party, Heinz-Christian Strache, over his party's European election campaign directed against Israel and Turkey.

In an advertisement in the newspaper Kronen Zeitung, Freedom opposes the accession of Turkey and Israel to the European Union. Although Turkey is in EU accession talks, Israel is not.

Heinz-Christian Strache prepares for a TV discussion in Vienna, Sept. 17, 2008. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader (AUSTRIA)

"What is the most distasteful and despicable is the style," says Ernst Strasser, the conservatives' candidate in next month's elections for the European Parliament, referring to Strache's campaign. "This style is abusive. He vilifies other religions and ethnicities."

According to Chancellor Werner Faymann, Strache is "a hate monger, a disgrace".

"It makes absolutely no sense for Israel to be mentioned. Israel is not a candidate for accession. There isn't even an accession process. The only reason to mention Israel is to serve anti-Semitic prejudices. It is disgraceful."

from FaithWorld:

The pope’s whirlwind tour of the Holy Land

The Holy Land is scrambling in its preparations for the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI, pouring millions of dollars into infrastructure and security. It comes just nine years after his predecessor, John Paul II, made his historical visit. He will be travelling from May 8-15.

More than 1 million Christian pilgrims passed through Israel last year, and the tourism ministry is preparing for a spike in that number around the time of the pope's visit. The pontiff will travel with heavy security, sometimes on new roads built specifically for him.

You can scroll down and read about the key stops, in chronological order, on his whirlwind tour.

Pope Benedict will begin his trip with a few days in Jordan. He is expected to give a speech at the ancient basilica on Mount Nebo that overlooks the Jordan River and Jerusalem. Mount Nebo is believed to be where the Prophet Moses died.

The pope will also hold a mass at the Amman International Stadium

Yad Vashem -- One of the pope's first stops in Israel will be at the Jewish state's memorial to victims of the Nazi Holocaust. It is particularly significant because of the controversy surrounding his decision to lift the excommunication of a bishop who denies the Holocaust. Pope Benedict later admitted the Vatican mishandled the affair. He will meet Jewish Holocaust survivors and attend a ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance, a common stop among visiting dignitaries. He will also plant a tree in a nearby forest.

Inside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City, the area dubbed the "holy basin" is packed with sites, often overlapping, holy to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Besides being a political flashpoint, it is a destination for millions of tourists each year. The pope will make a number of stops in the Old City.