Israel to expel foreigners in order to “Be like Every other Nation”
This is published in today's English Ynet edition.
The announcement this morning by Interior Minister Eli Yishai of Shas that the foreign workers will undergo a "massive expulsion" is surprising not because of Yishai's undaunted ability to withstand public pressure. We've seen that before. What shocked me was his rationale: "Whoever is found will not receive refuge -- just like every 'civilized' country in the world," he said. Actually, the word he used, "metukenet" is difficult to translate. Based on the root "teken", which means either "correct" or "standard", it seems to mean that in a medina metukenet all norms are in order, that rules and regulations are in place to ensure a perceived decorum. Well, chasing out refugees may make us like other nations, but it will hardly make us civilized. Read the rest of this entry →
Rabbi Broyde took the time to write to me and insist that he absolutely, unequivocally, does NOT favor women rabbis, and that anyone who reads his article and comes to the conclusion that he DOES favor women rabbis would in no uncertain terms be mistaken. He also had some other choice commentary that I believe sheds light on the inner workings of the Orthodox establishment. Let's just say I'm not impressed. 
As I watched the violence in Jerusalem over the past weeks and listened to the accompanying rhetoric, I thought about Stanley Milgram. A social psychologist who studied patterns of human conformity (that is, why people tend to follow group behavior), Dr. Milgram conducted the famous experiments about “obedience to authority”, in which he pretty easily got people to administer presumably life-threatening electric shocks to other people just by telling them that they had to. “The experiment requires that you continue,” he told his subjects, who listened to the screams of those receiving the shocks (well, actors, unbeknownst to the shocker). “It is absolutely essential that you continue,” he would say, or, “You have no other choice, you must go on.” In a surprise even to himself, 65 percent of experiment participants administered the experiment's final 450-volt shock – a statistic that was replicated in later studies around the world. Only one participant absolutely refused to administer shocks before the 300-volt level. Moreover, according to Philip Zimbardo, none of the participants who refused to administer the final shocks insisted that the experiment itself be stopped, nor left the room to check on the victim.
I’ve been thinking about this as I wonder what motivates throngs of yeshiva students to abandon all human morality and violently destroy a city – their OWN city – and threaten the lives of other human beings, be them police, social service workers, or secular Israelis. I think that part of the answer can be found in Milgram’s analysis of obedience to authority. 
Orr Shalom, Israel's largest non-profit organization providing out-of-home care and therapeutic services to 1,300 children who have been removed from their homes by the social welfare services due to severe abuse and/or neglect, is showcasing an open-air photography exhibition entitled "Child, Home, Light" at the Tel Aviv Port this summer. The unique exhibition offers a rare glimpse into the world of the children for whom Orr Shalom cares. 
The rabbinic ordination of women – smicha – is one of the simplest items on the religious agenda today, according to Rabbi Yoel Bin Nun of Herzog College. Speaking at the Sixth Annual conference of the Kolech Orthodox Feminist institution in Jerusalem this week, Bin Nun argued that there is no problem whatsoever with women getting smicha, and that in fact, quite a few women have served as rabbis in Jewish history. Bin Nun brought examples from Talmudic times through Hassidic life of women who were rabbis in terms of both scholarship and communal leaders, and maintained that there has never been a problem with women's ordination in halakha or in practice.
