84 Israel's Creationist Calendar: "2448 years after Creation - 3,321 years before the present year, 5769"

Israel's Creationist Calendar: "2448 years after Creation - 3,321 years before the present year, 5769"

(1) At loggerheads: Netanyahu snubs Obama over settlements
(2) Netanyahu 'doesn't care what Britain thinks of Israel'
(3) Israeli Rabbis ban Marriage for Jews Not Jewish Enough
(4) Not Jewish enough - Ukrainian couple deported after 18 years in Israel
(5) Israeli court rules against segregating Sephardic and Ashkenazi pupils
(6) Claude Lanzmann's film Shoah was initially ordered by israeli Foreign Affairs
(7) Proving The Oral Law. NB "2448 after creation—approximately 3,321 years before the present year, 5769"
(8) Polish Fury as Russia presents 'evidence' Poland sided with Nazis before war
(9) Adolf Hitler 'did shake hands with Jesse Owens'

(1) At loggerheads: Netanyahu snubs Obama over settlements

From: Sadanand, Nanjundiah (Physics Earth Sciences) <sadanand@mail.ccsu.edu>  Date: 05.09.2009 12:37 PM

U.S. and Israel again at loggerheads over settlements

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5831E120090904

Fri Sep 4, 2009 12:48pm EDT

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Israeli government's plan to approve more construction in Jewish settlements put it on a collision course with the Obama administration on Friday, threatening U.S. efforts to revive Middle East peace talks.

The White House reacted with dismay to word that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will authorize the building of new settler homes on occupied land before considering a freeze on such construction. ...

A Netanyahu aide, who declined to be identified by name, said that after the several hundred housing units are authorized, the Israeli leader would be prepared to consider a moratorium on building, lasting a few months. ...

Obama has taken the public stance that Israel must halt all settlement activity under the "road map." Palestinians say settlements, built on land Israel occupied in a 1967 war, could deny them a viable state.

(2) Netanyahu 'doesn't care what Britain thinks of Israel'

From: Josef Schwanzer <donauschwob@optusnet.com.au>  Date: 31.08.2009 10:47 AM

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/netanyahu-doesnt-care-what-britain-thinks-of-israel-1779391.html

The Independent
August 30, 2009

Netanyahu 'doesn't care what Britain thinks of Israel'

By Kate Youde

Leading members of Jewish community say Israeli premier's visit to UK was a 'missed opportunity'

The editor of The Jewish Chronicle has accused Israel's Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, of not caring about British public opinion after he refused to give any interviews during his visit to London last week.

In a comment piece in the newspaper, Stephen Pollard - though essentially supportive of Mr Netanyahu - concludes of his office: "The truth of it is that for all they moan about coverage of the Middle East, they don't actually care. They don't care if Brits end up thinking they are warmongers. They don't care if they are losing the PR war. And they don't care if those of us who do care are left fuming at their wilful refusal to do anything to help us counter Israel's appalling image."

Mr Netanyahu's three-day trip included meetings with the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and President Barack Obama's special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, as well as a visit to the Palestine Exploration Fund. But Mr Pollard's view that the Israeli leader's refusal to speak on the record to the British press, aside from a "blink-and-you-missed-it-stage-managed press conference" in Downing Street, was a wasted PR opportunity has received widespread support. ...

(3) Israeli Rabbis ban Marriage for Jews Not Jewish Enough

From: IHR News <news@ihr.org> Date: 19.08.2009 06:40 PM

Jonathan Cook
http://www.countercurrents.org/cook070809.htm

Israeli Rabbis Ban Marriage For Jewish 'Untouchables'

By Jonathan Cook

07 August, 2009
Countercurrents.org

Tel Aviv: Two immigrants from the former Soviet Union staged a very public wedding in the streets of central Tel Aviv this week to highlight the plight of hundreds of thousands of Jews barred from lawfully marrying in Israel.

Nico Tarosyan and Olga Samosvatov chose to tie the knot in a special ceremony on Tuesday -- watched by family, friends and curious passers-by -- after Orthodox rabbis had denied them the right to wed.

The rabbinate says that Mr Tarosyan cannot prove he is Jewish according to its strict standards and therefore should not marry Ms Samosvatov, who is considered a proper Jew.

Mr Tarosyan, aged 34, who moved to Israel from Moscow in 1995, called his treatment by the rabbis "humiliating".

"In Russia we were hated because we were Jews and here in Israel we are discriminated against as Russians," he said.

An underclass of Jews has emerged in Israel since the early 1990s, when more than one million immigrants began pouring into Israel following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Many were entitled to emigrate to Israel under the Law of Return, which requires only that they have a single Jewish grandparent. But the authorities -- keen to bolster the number of Jews in Israel's demographic battle with the Palestinians -- also allowed some to arrive with little documentation or faked papers.

This set the new immigrants on a collision course with Israel's Orthodox rabbis, who regard themselves as guarding the Jewish people's ethnic and religious purity, said Ofer Kornfeld, the chairman of Havaya, an organisation that officiates at unrecognised weddings like the one conducted in Tel Aviv this week.

"Civil marriages are not possible in Israel," he said. "So the rabbis get to decide who can marry and who cannot."

Israel has passed control of all matters relating to personal status -- births, marriages and divorces, and deaths -- to rabbis belonging to the strictest stream of Judaism, Orthodoxy.

Havaya, said Mr Kornfeld, offered unrecognised, secular and non-Orthodox Jews the chance to marry in a ceremony that retained Jewish rituals while tailor-making the event to their own convictions.

Official figures show that as many as 350,000 Jews are classified by the rabbinate as having "no religion", and are therefore unable to marry in Israel. Their only option is to wed abroad -- the marriage is then recognised on their return.

These immigrants face major hurdles in seeking to prove their Jewishness to the rabbis' satisfaction. They must produce evidence that they have a Jewish mother or grandmother in a procedure that can be upsetting to those affected, said Mr Kornfeld.

"Many don't even try because they know it's a difficult and humiliating process that can take months or even years to complete and there is no guarantee of success."

For a man, the rabbis demand that he prove he is circumcised and produce a birth certificate stating that his mother was a Jew, a proof many immigrants from the former Soviet Union have difficulty providing.

"It may help if you can prove that your mother spoke Yiddish or, if she is dead, supply a photo of her gravestone with a Magen [Star of] David," said Mr Kornfeld.

Mr Tarosyan, a computer engineer, said that, although he failed to impress the rabbis, both his parents were considered Jews in Russia. In Moscow, he said, neighbours had daubed anti-Semitic graffiti on the family's door.

Ms Samosvatov, 29, who immigrated from Ukraine with her mother when she was 15, said although the couple considered this week's wedding in Tel Aviv to be the true ceremony, they were saving to travel to Prague later in the year to conduct a recognised wedding.

Mr Kornfeld said they would be following in the path of a growing number of Israelis. "About 6,000 couples wed abroad each year, often in eastern Europe. That's about a fifth of all marriages."

It is not only Jews classified as without a religion who are forced to leave the country, he said. Many recognised but secular Jews, who do not wish to submit to an Orthodox ceremony, tie the knot abroad, as do those marrying across religious divisions.

Israel's Muslim, Christian and Druze citizens -- comprising nearly a fifth of the population -- have their own separate religious authorities who are given exclusive oversight of weddings.

Demands to reform the law have been growing for more than a decade, but every parliamentary bill on civil marriage has been defeated, usually following stiff resistance from the religious parties.

However, a new bill, approved by a ministerial committee last month, seems more likely to become law. It allows for a limited form of civil marriage that applies only to couples where both lack a religious status. Mr Tarosyan and Ms Samosvatov would not qualify as the rabbis consider one of them a Jew.

The religious parties were forced to agree to the Civil Marriage Bill as a condition for entering the government of Benjamin Netanyahu in the spring. The compromise was needed because civil marriage was the key platform of another coalition partner, the far-right Yisreal Beiteinu party of Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister, who is now facing corruption charges. The party draws heavy support from the Russian-speaking population.

The liberal Haaretz newspaper welcomed the bill as a "first crack in the religious monopoly" on marriage, but other observers have doubts.

Avirama Golan, writing in the same paper, warned that the law would apply only to a tiny number of couples and would in practice entrench the power of the rabbis, who before approving a wedding would still force couples to submit to lengthy and humiliating investigations to ensure that neither was a Jew.

She added that such couples would be forced into a ghetto, giving "birth to their shunned children who will marry among themselves and be registered separately in the communal records".

The rabbis' agreement to the reform, analysts point out, was possible because the bill maintains barriers preventing assimilation between the majority designated as real Jews and those the rabbis consider "without religion".

Mr Kornfeld said the rabbis' grip on marriage has continued even though nearly 70 per cent of Israeli Jews defined themselves as secular. Even among the religious, some regard themselves as belonging to the more moderate Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism.

Conversion to Orthodoxy is tightly restricted by the rabbinate, with only a few hundred people approved each year. Those converting are forced to adopt a strictly observant lifestyle for themselves and their children.

A general lack of sympathy for the problems of recent Russian immigrants was reflected in a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute this week. It found that half of all Israelis polled believed that only those born in Israel could be a "true Israeli". Conversely, only 28 per cent of Russian-speaking immigrants in their 30s saw their future in Israel.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.

(4) Not Jewish enough - Ukrainian couple deported after 18 years in Israel

From: ReporterNotebook <RePorterNoteBook@Gmail.com> Date: 29.08.2009 12:00 AM

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3768400,00.html

Ukrainian couple deported after 18 years in Israel

Oz Unit arrests couple due to false documentation. Pair previously received deportation warrant but went missing. Daughter allowed to stay since married Israeli

Raanan Ben-Zur
Published: 08.27.09, 21:10 / Israel News

A couple that immigrated to Israel 18 years ago was arrested by Oz Unit members in the town of Kfar Yona on Thursday after presenting alleged false documents pertaining to the wife's Jewish status. The two remained in Israel despite a previous decision to deport them.

Banishment
Immigration Authority launches search for foreign workers / Tal Rabinovsky
City-wide search launched just hours after Tel Aviv protest against deportation of foreign children
Full story
Both man and wife, aged 52, moved to Israel in 1991 claiming the woman was Jewish, according to a birth certificate. The two made aliyah together with the woman's daughter, now aged 34. They were provided with Israeli citizenship and immigrant benefits.

The two recently invited the woman's mother to move to Israel and she was asked to provide a birth certificate. Having done so it was revealed she was not Jewish and consequently neither was her daughter. A more extensive examination indicated that the mother's birth certificate was genuine, however her daughter's was a fake.

Upon the discovery it was decided to deport the couple from Israel. They were then given an opportunity to settle their citizenship but failed to do so. In late 2008 the couple filed a petition with the High Court of Justice against the decision to deport them but was rejected by the court which gave them time to make arrangements for departure.

Still, the two remained in the country while their daughter, who married an Israeli, was permitted to stay.

The couple eventually went missing and an inquiry by the Immigration and Population Administration's Oz Unit was launched in an attempt to locate them.

Unit members discovered they were residing in Kfar Yona in central Israel. Their house was raided early Thursday and the two were arrested and remanded until their deportation.

In a hearing on the matter, the husband claimed that even if their documents are proved false he would not leave the country since his whole life is here. The woman claimed that an employee of the Ministry of Interior had framed her.

(5) Israeli court rules against segregating Sephardic and Ashkenazi pupils

From: Kristoffer Larsson <kristoffer.larsson@sobernet.nu> Date: 08.08.2009 08:53 AM

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/08/07/1007098/israeli-court-rules-against-segregation

By Gil Shefler · August 7, 2009

(JTA) -- A school in the West Bank settlement of Emmanuel has been ordered to cease segregating between Sephardic and Ashkenazi pupils.

The Israeli Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the Beit Ya'akov girls school's practice of holding separating classes for students based on their ethnic origin was unlawful, Ha'aretz reported.

"The right to sectarian education is not absolute, especially when it clashes with the right to equality," Justices Edna Arbel, Edmond Levy and Hanan Meltzer wrote in their ruling.

The judges threatened to close the school unless it complies with their ruling.

(6) Claude Lanzmann's film Shoah was initially ordered by israeli Foreign Affairs

From: D Date: 02.09.2009 12:38 PM

According to Pierre Assouline's blog on french Le Monde site:

        "this important film [Shoah], originally a command of
        a senior Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs..."

        ["ce film essentiel, à l’origine une commande d’un responsable
        du ministère israélien des affaires étrangères"]

http://passouline.blog.lemonde.fr/2009/08/21/claude-lanzmann-le-maitre-du-temps/

Assouline, a writer and journalist, is a reliable witness as, according to the yerouchalmi web site, he's both a jew and a sionist:

http://yerouchalmi.web.officelive.com/Documents/yer86.pdf

The job of a Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not to write the historical truth, but rather to expose some truth that fits its interests.

(7) Proving The Oral Law. NB "2448 after creation—approximately 3,321 years before the present year, 5769"

http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2009/08/annals-of-wishful-thinking-proving-the-oral-law-234.html

August 17, 2009
Annals of Wishful Thinking:
"Proving" The Oral Law
Reasoning circularly, from conclusion to "proof."

http://www.5tjt.com/news/read.asp?Id=4721

Proving The Oral Law

By Rabbi Yair Hoffman
Published on Thursday, August 13, 2009 - COMMENTS (1)

Sometimes people need a boost in their emunah. This week's parashah, Re'eih, provides us with an interesting boost, as well as food for thought. There is a fascinating verse that describes the notion of shechitah, Jewish slaughter.

The verse states, "You may slaughter your cattle and small animals that G-d has given you, in the manner that I have prescribed" (Devarim 12:21). And yet nowhere in the written law is there any previous (or further) instruction as to how to slaughter.

A bit earlier we find another interesting verse. The pasuk (11:18) tells us that one must place frontlets ("totafos," tefillin) between the eyes. But nowhere does the Torah tell us what these frontlets are.

There are parts of the Bible that are difficult to understand—indeed they are almost inexplicable to the uninitiated. Yet Jewish tradition sheds enormous light on these areas, as does the archaeological record.

All devout Jews believe that Moses brought down the Torah from Mount Sinai in the year 2448 after creation—approximately 3,321 years before the present year, 5769. (Christians, Muslims, and Mormons believe that various additional scriptures—the Gospels, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, etc.—later also became part of the bible, but they too believe in the Sinaitic revelation of the Five Books of Moses.)

Jewish tradition, known as the Oral Law (Torah she'be'al peh), provides us with the full explanation of the issues described above. Regarding the frontlets, Jewish tradition tells us what they are: sections of the Bible must be written on parchment and carefully placed inside leather boxes. An animal hair must be wrapped around the parchment, as well. The leather boxes must be completely square and completely black. These are frontlets. These traditions go all the way back to Moses—in the language of the sages, they are "halachah l'Moshe miSinai." The archaeological record has turned up many of these frontlets dating back to Biblical times. The point is that if you believe in the Bible, you cannot believe that Moses delivered the bible free of any oral explanations.

Similarly, we have a tradition as to five different requirements for the slaughter of an animal (see Chulin 28a). These traditions, too, date back to Moses.

Perhaps a modern-day illustration of the concept of an oral tradition would be useful.

Imagine you are having surgery. You proceed to the surgeon's office and he tells you something extraordinary: In the medical school at which he was trained, there was a newfangled, experimental curriculum; there were no teachers, only textbooks. There were no people to orally hand down traditions or surgical techniques, no one to teach the doctor how to actually perform surgery. But the theory that the medical school relies upon is that all (or almost all) that the doctor needs to know is contained in the textbook. Would you let this surgeon, who was never shown any surgical techniques in practice, operate on you? Not quite!

And yet this is what some people would have you believe regarding the Bible: "G-d gave the Jewish people a book through Moses. Period. End of story."

No—quite the contrary. Any thinking person would realize that Judaism is a way of life, and the oral explanations surely do exist. Indeed, there were a number of Christian scholars throughout the generations who recognized this. The greatest Christian biblical commentator was a fellow by the name of Nicolaus de Lyra, (c.?1270–1349 CE). De Lyra was a French Franciscan who recognized and based a good portion of his commentary on the Oral Law. ...

The author can be reached at yairhoffman2@gmail.com.

NOTES.

1. "Amos" in the original refers to Amotz (Anglicized as "Amoz"), not to be confused with Amos (the prophet). In the Latin alphabet, the letter S represents the sounds "tz," "sh," and "s."

(8) Polish Fury as Russia presents 'evidence' Poland sided with Nazis before war

From: Josef Schwanzer <donauschwob@optusnet.com.au> Date: 02.09.2009 05:36 AM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/01/russia-poland-nazis-secret-documents

Fury as Russia presents 'evidence' Poland sided with Nazis before war

    * Luke Harding in Moscow
    * guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 September 2009 20.12 BST
    * Article history

Russia today released secret documents from the archives of its foreign intelligence service that it said showed how Poland sided with the Nazis before the second world war and tried to destroy the Soviet Union.

Russia published 400 pages of documents gathered by undercover Soviet agents between 1935 and 1945, including telegrams, letters and reports intercepted from Polish missions abroad. Their release coincided with the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of war.

The declassified files from Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service allegedly show that Poland was plotting against the Soviet Union in the years preceding the war, which began when Hitler invaded western Poland on 1 September 1939.

Seventeen days later, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland. But according to the SVR, Poland was not simply a victim of Soviet aggression, but had been actively pursuing an anti-Soviet foreign policy from the mid-1930s. This included supporting anti-Soviet national groups in Ukraine, the Caucasus and central Asia.

Lev Sotskov, a retired KGB major general who compiled the documents, said there was evidence Poland signed a secret protocol with Germany in 1934. Citing a report written by an unidentified Soviet agent, he said Poland had agreed to remain neutral if Germany attacked the Soviet Union.

His claims provoked uproar at a press conference in Moscow, with Polish journalists jumping to their feet and denouncing the document as a fake. There were also heated exchanges over the role played by Jozef Beck, Poland's foreign minister in 1939, amid unsubstantiated claims he was a German agent.

The "protocol" goes much further than the 1934 non-aggression pact between Poland and Nazi Germany, under which both sides agreed not to attack each other. Sotskov denied that the release of the protocol was a provocative gesture. "We should be glad these things are coming into the open," he said.

Tonight, Polish historians said there was no evidence to suggest such a protocol ever existed. "This is absolute rubbish," said Mariusz Wolos, of Poland's Academy of Sciences. "Nothing similar has ever turned up in archives in Germany. Just because some agent wrote it doesn't mean it's true. There isn't much new here. The documents [released by the SVR] simply confirm what British, German and Russian historians already know." What would be interesting would be to find out the identities of the Soviet Union's agents in Poland. But they aren't telling us."

Asked why Russia had decided to release such contentious material now, he said: "It's part of the struggle for historical memory. Russia is keen to show that it isn't just Hitler and the Soviet Union who were responsible for the war."

The documents show that a group of Polish spies based in Paris took part in a secret operation called Prometheism to incite an uprising in Ukraine, Georgia and other Soviet territories. "We know all about that. It's already written about," Wolos said.

Other documents declassified include a letter from Hermann Göring following a visit to Warsaw in 1937. Göring passed on an assurance from Hitler that Germany wouldn't attack Poland, warning that the real danger to Poland came from Moscow – "not just from Bolshevism but from Russia".

The publication follows the release two weeks ago of documents on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, signed by the Soviet Union and Germany on the eve of war. Sotskov today repeated his claim that the deal, under which Hitler and Stalin agreed to carve up eastern Europe, "gave the Red Army two years to prepare for the war".

(9) Adolf Hitler 'did shake hands with Jesse Owens'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/6008196/Adolf-Hitler-did-shake-hands-with-Jesse-Owens.html

A veteran German sports reporter has claimed that Adolf Hitler did in fact shake hands with black US athlete Jesse Owens at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Published: 7:03AM BST 11 Aug 2009

At the time, it was reported that Hitler had stormed out of the stadium furious that Owens, who had just run his way to the first of four gold medals in the 100 metres, had beaten his Aryan sportsmen.

However, Siegfried Mischner, 83, said that Owens carried around a photograph in his wallet of Hitler shaking his hand before he left the stadium.

Owens, who felt the newspapers of the day reported "unfairly" on Hitler's attitude towards him, tried to get Mischner and his journalist colleagues to change the accepted version of history in the 1960s, the Daily Mail reports.

Mischner, who was a reporter at the time, claimed Owens showed him the photograph and told him: "That was one of my most beautiful moments."

He said: "It was taken behind the honour stand and so not captured by the world's press. But I saw it, I saw him shaking Hitler's hand.

"The predominating opinion in post-war Germany was that Hitler had ignored Owens.

"We therefore decided not to report on the photo. The consensus was that Hitler had to continue to be painted in a bad light in relation to Owens."

Mischner's claims cannot be verified because all other witnesses, including Owens, are dead.

Owens, who died in 1980 aged 66, was the son of sharecroppers and won four track and field gold medals - the 100m, the long jump, the 200m and the relay race - at Berlin.

He insisted that he had not been snubbed by Hitler but made no reference to meeting him and shaking hands.

"When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticising the man of the hour in Germany," he said.