This historic case has inspired hundreds of other Israelis to get divorced from the Jewish religion. Israel is 15-37% atheist, so this comes as no surprise. The less religious people are in the middle east, the greater the chances are for an end the violence. If only more people of “Muslim” countries came out as atheists (or nonreligious), we could be closer that goal.

Kaniuk’s case has been celebrated as a victory for separation of state and religion in Israel. Actually, he may have fought the wrong battle. The court decision gives people more freedom to define themselves, but only according to predetermined categories. The division of Jewish ethnicity and religion is an embarrassingly simple bureaucratic distinction in place of the mixed up identities of real Jewish life—the kind of complications on which a novelist should thrive.

That said, the Kaniuk case has its benefits. It sheds light, for instance, on how Americans and Israelis misunderstand each other when they use the word Jew. And it helps show that the current Israeli government’s demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state is silly.

I’ve never liked the idea of a “Jewish state” because I don’t like the idea of any religion having it’s own state.

Israel doesn’t need a Palestinian stamp of approval to be a Jewish state. Nor does it need the registration system that Kaniuk used to voice his anger. It needs only a majority that considers itself Jewish in one not-quite-consistent way or another and that has the freedom to conduct a roiling, constant argument about Jewish culture. If Kaniuk’s suit reminds the rest of the tribe of how messy the issue of Jewish identity is, how unsuited it is for sharp delineations, he will have performed a service. [Read More.]

I wonder if this will, in fact, mix up any political happenings in regards to Judaism as an ethnicity rather than a religion.

Approximately 30,000 protesters marched in Tel Aviv last night, with social justice activists blocking central streets and chants of “Mubarak. Assad. Netanyahu” filling the air.

Tel Aviv police arrested 42 activists, which is an extremely rare number, “if not unprecedented,” according to +972 Magazine, which has been closely following the circumstances surrounding the sudden rise of Israel’s progressive left.

…

These protests, which began as explicit anger at the rising rental prices in cities across the country, have been fueled by the response of Netanyahu’s government, which initially, with hostile rhetoric, dismissed them as being part of a large, leftwing movement being funded by outfits such as the New Israel Fund. The initial rhetoric, which claimed that the protests were not about anything other than the “Zionist Left’s” political agenda, only served to increase protesters’ anger and resolve.

These reactions from Netanyahu and other government officials have served to broaden the protests, which have now moved from rent prices to a host of social justice issues: women’s rights, union rights and education reform, among other things, with general chants of “revolution” heard on the streets last night.

…

What has yet to be heard, in the protests, are calls for more democracy in the wake of the anti-democratic laws that have recently been passed. Also absent has been the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Wow. Read the entire article.

With regard to a young American Jew named Harald Fuller-Bennett, the Taglit-Birthright project to some extent achieved its goal. The project brings young Jews from around the world for a trip in Israel “in order to diminish the growing division between Israel and Jewish communities around the world; to strengthen the sense of solidarity among world Jewry; and to strengthen participants’ personal Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people,” to quote its own words. And indeed, about two years after coming on a Taglit-Birthright tour, Fuller-Bennett intended to visit Israel again.

…

But this time, the people working to diminish the distance between him and Israel were two Tel Aviv lawyers, Omer Shatz and Iftach Cohen, and Jerusalem District Court Judge Yoram Noam. Together, they overturned a bizarre attempt by the Shin Bet security service to accuse him of having connections with terrorists and intending to convert to Islam – for which reasons it barred him from entering Israel for 10 years.

Read the entire story here.

I also agree that the way the Palestinians are treated is mostly wrong. The Jews in Israel should know better. In my opinion, we should learn from the past, not repeat it. We should not treat others the way we have been treated. Christians were treated poorly at one point, then essentially went on a rampage to treat people worse. It makes no sense.

Helen Thomas was recently on Joy Behar but the video code doesn’t seem to working. Watch it here.

There are also some points on the Iraq War.

In any case, as I’ve aged I’ve come to understand the reality behind the debate. When my husband served in the Navy, he was in Israel. I’ve been to Israel as well, but it’s different as a typical tourist. And I was too young to remember anything anyway. So, Eric saw the way the Palestinians were treated, as a sub-species. He related it to being black in the forties in the US. (My family finds even his comparison antisemitic. But he married me, so…)

While I abhor Islam, that’s beside this point. I can’t agree with the idea that all the Israelis should up and leave because resident’s parents were told to live there (because no one else wanted them). But I don’t think it’s right to treat the Palestinians in a nasty, nor can you can’t ask them to leave. They were there first. In general, we must rise above treating people how we’ve been treated by someone else. It’s unfair and makes no sense in the long run.

I do not have a solution or any idea that would ease these issues except for all to abandon religion. And that’s isn’t going to happen any time soon.

Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land.

Or Yehuda Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon said missionaries recently entered a neighborhood in the predominantly religious town of 34,000 in central Israel, distributing hundreds of New Testaments and missionary material.

After receiving complaints, Aharon said, he got into a loudspeaker car last Thursday and drove through the neighborhood, urging people to turn over the material to Jewish religious students who went door to door to collect it.

“The books were dumped into a pile and set afire in a lot near a synagogue,” he said. [Read more.]

When the Nazis burned books, it was an atrocity. Aren’t we better than that now?

I understand PZ Myer’s point regarding the burning of the Koran. No books are holy and no one should really be offended by the burning of these books. I’m a little on the fence here because the protest that has been planned as a September 11th memorial. Pastor Terry Jones readily confused this act expressing this freedom to protest with the building of the Mosque/Community Center (with an undetermined range of distance it can exist from Ground Zero). While I don’t think the Koran is holy, as I don’t with any book, I also loathe the idea of burning books a la Fahrenheit 451 style. There is also the argument that we largely live in a post paper society. Does book burning hold any real meaning anymore anyway? Or is it about the symbolism?

Whether it’s Jews burning the Bible or Christians burning the Koran, I fail to see how it’s a good way to protest. How about reading these books and criticizing them? That works, too.

While considering the current state of affairs in the middle east, I do support Israel to a point. But, above everything else, I support peace.

You may or not be aware, but I had my Bat Mitzvah in Israel (I never actually learned Hebrew). However meaningless of a ceremony it is for women, as far as the tradition is concerned, it was still a lovely time. Besides, I didn’t make my friends sit through a boring ceremony later on, only a casual party. I know how to give the people what they want. ;) But I digress.

While this chart is a bit old, it surely shows a lot of money that America gives to Israel. I’ve always tried to understand why Christian conservatives support Israel. I pondered that perhaps it’s due to them wanting the Jews to all go live in Israel so America can become the “Christian country” they so long for. (No room for atheists, eh?) Haven’t we learned that every country reigned by religious rule is riddled with war? I’d love to see a day when no countries operate with religion as part of its laws.

Israeli settlers took over a Palestinian home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City today, evicting about 45 members of an extended family which has occupied the building for more than 70 years.

The settlers claimed to have documentation to prove they had purchased the building from the owners. The Palestinian tenants, who have been fighting attempts to evict them for many years, were challenging the takeover in court.

…

According to Mohammed Kirresh, 22, a member of the Palestinian family, “Jewish people and Israeli soldiers with weapons” came at 2am, when most of the family was at a wedding.

He said the family, which had rented the property since 1936, had won two previous court cases challenging eviction orders. He claimed the Israelis had broken furniture and damaged belongings. [Read more]

This reminds me of how Jews have been persecuted for many years. It’s not rational behavior, that after being treated a certain way for no reason, to treat others in the same way. Mostly, I speak from my experiences in America: Bigoted Jews, Mexicans who don’t like Puerto Ricans, homophobic blacks, and the list goes on and on. I come from the line of thinking of The Golden Rule, that it makes good sense to treat others as I’d like to be treated. Apparently, not everyone agrees. Turning years of persecution into reverse persecution only makes matters stickier. Yet people of all races, nationalities, etc. continue to do it.