Free Republic

The government is planning to cede several sites in ancient Jerusalem to Muslim and Christian ownership, and Israel’s rabbis remain silent, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel has accused. “There is a terrible plan, called the ‘holy basin,’ to split Jerusalem between Christians, Muslims and Jews,” Rabbi Ariel said, speaking to Arutz Sheva. Rabbi Ariel, who heads the Temple Institute, continued, “The Christians will get the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount Zion, the Muslims will get the Temple Mount, and we Jews will need to visit the Kotel (Western Wall) under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority.” The Palestinian Authority (PA)...

A delegation from the Rabbinical Congress for Peace (RCP) met with Knesset ministers and MKs on Wednesday, urging them to prepare resignation letters to prevent land concessions in ongoing peace talks with the Palestinian Authority (PA). The meeting came as US Secretary of State John Kerry is in Israel for his tenth visit since taking office, reportedly launching a January diplomatic "offensive" to force Israeli withdrawals. RCP rabbis warned Tourism Minister Uzi Landau and Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir that they sense a complacency similar that prior to the "Disengagement" from Gush Katif. "It’s not enough to verbally oppose the current...

FULL TITLE: Orthodox rabbis 'plotted to kidnap and torture Jewish men with cattle prods and karate so they would divorce their wives' Two Orthodox rabbis have been arrested for allegedly plotting to kidnap and beat Jewish men - using cattle prods and karate moves - so that they would divorce their wives. Mendel Epstein and Martin Wolmark were arrested following a sting operation with an undercover agent posing as unhappily married woman in New Jersey, the FBI announced on Thursday. Orthodox rules allow only a man to initiate a divorce, but the rabbis allegedly told the woman they would torture...

Threatening letters were sent Monday to the offices of Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yonah Metzger. The identical letters said that this was the Chief Rabbis' “last chance” to drop their opposition to allowing women to pray freely at the Western Wall. The letters included threatening language and images. A drawing of a gun was scrawled on the letters. The text said that if the rabbis did not allow women – specifically "Women of the Wall" – to pray at the Western Wall as they wished, the rabbis “would return home with the dead bodies of hundreds of hareidi Jews.”

WHEN is a Jew not a Jew? When he’s a Karaite. Or so says Israel’s chief rabbinate, which, after 65 years of relative harmony with an ancient Jewish sect, is reopening an old and bitter schism. In recent months, rabbis working for Israel’s ministry of religion have deemed Karaite marriages invalid, fined their butchers for claiming to be kosher, and demanded that Karaites marrying Orthodox Jewish women should convert, sometimes having to undergo tavila, or baptism. “We are already Jews,” protests Moshe Firrouz, a computer engineer who heads the Karaites’ Council of Sages. “The rabbinate is denying us our religious...

It’s another one of those baffling mysteries. Muslims attack non-Muslims while shouting Allah Akbar and no one can figure out a motive. Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre, a spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office, said the two victims had been wearing Jewish skullcaps, and the attacker was detained after a chase through the synagogue. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which monitors anti-Semitic incidents worldwide, said in a statement that the assailant screamed “Allah-u-Akbar” — or “God is great” — during the attack. The rabbi, who is in his late 40s, was recovering from surgery for a neck injury and his 18-year-old son sustained lesser...

All of Obama’s inauguration rabbis were members of the same radical leftist groups opposed to Israel and funded by George Soros. This isn’t a wacky coincidence because the J Street Rabbinic cabinet isn’t that big. Instead Obama deliberately picked three extremist left-wing clergy, “Rabbi” Rick Jacobs, “Rabbi” Julie Schonfeld and “Rabbi” Sharon Brous. Jacobs and Brous are or were members of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet, an Anti-Israel organization funded by George Soros. The “Rabbinic” part is a name only as these people are not legitimate clergy, they are left-wing activists dedicated to the destruction of Israel and Judaism.

Israeli Chief Rabbis Yona Metzger, left, and Shlomo Amar. The Jewish Press JERUSALEM, January 3, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) - Israel’s two chief rabbis have again issued a letter to all synagogue and community rabbis urging them to condemn abortion and to support the work of Efrat, the country’s pro-life organization. In stronger language than they have used in their previous messages, Chief Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger and Chief Sephardic Rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar called the killing of the child in the womb “murder.” “As in past,” the letter reads, “we call on all rabbis in Israel” to “raise in...

Tonight, Rabbi David Wolpe gave the closing benediction. And he missed two key references: Jerusalem, and the State of Israel. He focused instead on the false leftist definition of tikkun olam, fixing the world. Tikkun olam is actually a kabbalistic concept that suggests that Jews have a responsibility to fulfill the commandments in order to rectify the cosmic cataclysm that occurred with creation. But leftists like to equate tikkun olam with the entire leftist program, no matter how many Jewish commandments that leftist program violates. Here’s Wolpe's transcript: Dear God, we are grateful that our nation is founded on the...

The administration of US President Barack Obama reacted sharply to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s recent comment that Obama had “thrown allies like Israel under the bus” regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons program. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that assistance “… provided to Israel by the United States has never been greater than it has been under President Obama. We have an extremely close relationship with Israel, which is appropriate given our unshakable commitment to Israel’s security.” Barack Obama an erstwhile supporter of the Zionist enterprise? Such drivel may stick with Hollywood’s glitterati, but outside of Tinseltown, the...

President Obama’s re-election campaign announced last month the launch of “Rabbis for Obama,” a group whose stated goal is to rally grassroots support for the President in the Jewish community. The announcement came amid reports that Jewish support for Barack Obama, while still strong, is dwindling when compared to his numbers in 2008; as well as some hard-hitting ads for GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney targeting Jewish concerns, especially regarding support for Israel. [Picture] Rabbis for Obama: Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Rabbi Brant Rosen, with Ayatollah Bojnoordi from 2008 trip to Iran. Photo from Shalom Rav blog [Picture] Rabbis for Romney:...

According to Noah Pollack, executive director of the Emergency Committee for Israel, President Obama’s attitude towards Jewish voters is astonishing. Speaking to The Jewish Press, Pollack said, “the Rabbis for Obama group, which includes Jews who are amongst the most hostile to Israel anywhere in America, underscores the lack of seriousness with which they take their effort to convince pro-Israel voters that this president is pro-Israel.”

WASHINGTON – More than 600 rabbis displayed their support for US President Barack Obama's reelection bid on Tuesday, joining a campaign initiative called Rabbis for Obama. Obama for America announced Tuesday that Rabbis for Obama is designed to “engage and mobilize grassroots supporters.” The rabbis represent themselves and not individual synagogues or organizations, according to the news release. The names of all the rabbis can be found on the website barackobama.com/rabbis. Most of the rabbis are Reform or Conservative, although a handful are Orthodox.

President Barack Obama's reelection campaign unveiled "Rabbis for Obama"—a group of more than 600 rabbis from across the country—at a time when Republicans are hoping to erode the Democrat's wide lead among Jewish voters. "Their ringing endorsement of President Obama speaks volumes about the president's deep commitment to the security of the state of Israel and his dedication to a policy agenda that represents the values of the overwhelming majority of the American Jewish community," Ira Forman, the campaign's Jewish Outreach Director, said in a statement. The announcement came with a state-by-state list of the rabbis backing Obama, who leads...

The Ometz watchdog group has filed a complaint to Defense Minister Ehud Barak over rabbis’ lectures on IDF bases. The group claimed there is a “phenomenon” in which soldiers are forced to hear the rabbis speak. “Among the lecturers in the IDF are ‘chozrim b’teshuva’ [those from secular homes who became religious – ed.] who talk about the process they went through, and ultimately these lectures have an element of ‘brainwashing,’” said Ometz head Aryeh Avneri. Avneri also expressed concern over a different matter: “Recently there was a completely new phenomenon, when a man wearing black clothes and with a...

Thomas Friedman calls rabbi "stupid" during lecture at Yale University

Deputy State Attorney Shai Nitzan has informed the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel that he has decided to turn down their demand to open an investigation against Professor Judd Ne'eman, an Israel Prize laureate in cinema studies due to Ne'eman's call for a civil war in a radio interview. Nitzan explained his decision. "I believe that Professor Ne'eman's statements do not suffice to consolidate grounds for opening a criminal investigation against him on the crime of incitement to violence as per your demand, because it is highly doubtful if the fundamentals of the article in the criminal code...

On Thursday, President Obama had a conference call with 900 rabbis. On Friday, one rabbi, Dr. Richard L. Rubenstein, gave this account (Hat Tip: Dan F). Agudat Israel, the Orthodox rabbinic group, was included but they were at the bottom of the list so that none of their rabbis had a chance to ask a question. This is hardly a surprise since Orthodox rabbis are least likely to be in Obama’s corner. Two questions were selected, one on the economy and the other on the Middle East. There were no surprises. It was an electioneering effort by the President which...

Frustrated by the restrictive no-fire orders handed down by IDF attorneys, local rabbis and leaders are asking the Chief Rabbis of Israel to take the rare step of issuing a direct contradiction. While the Rabbinate avoids involvement in military affairs, the rabbis said that in this case, the orders are a case of “pikuach nefesh,” life and death. A letter from Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe, Rabbi Yisrael Ariel, and Professor Hillel Weiss reads: To the Honorable Chief Rabbis of Israel, Rabbi Shlomo Amar, And Rabbi Yona Metzger As the new year begins, we wish you a good and sweet year,...

Convicted American terrorist who killed a U.S. army soldier two years ago has admitted he also fired 10 bullets at a rabbi’s home in Arkansas A convicted Muslim American terrorist who killed a U.S. army soldier two years ago has admitted he also fired ten bullets at a rabbi’s home in Arkansas, according to a letter obtained by the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act. Abdulhakim Muhammad said he shot at the home of Little Rock Reform leader Eugene (Gene) Levy before he carried out his deadly attack on army soldiers in June 2009, killing one and wounding...