Are Young Rabbis Turning on Israel?

Elliot Jager (h/t Doc's Talk)
For all the theological, ritualistic, and institutional differences separating the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements, for all their divergent approaches to revelation, halakhah, and communal
decision-making, what distinguishes the groups in the minds of many ordinary American Jews comes down to branding. Orthodoxy is on the right, Reform on the left. In the middle stands Conservative Judaism. But if the new crop of Conservative rabbis has anything to say about it, Conservatism may not occupy the center for very long.

That, at least, is the message of a recent report by the movement's Jewish Theological Seminary, based on a survey of political views among "Generation Y" rabbinical students—born in the mid-1970's to mid-1990's—and the Seminary's somewhat older rabbinical alumni, ordained since 1980. At first blush, the report purports to show what one would hope to find among the rabbinate: a solid Jewish identity and strong attachment to Israel. On closer examination, this identity appears increasingly filtered through a universalistic and liberal political perspective.

Among American Jews as a whole, according to the Pew Forum, 38 percent identify themselves as liberal; 39 percent call themselves moderate. In contrast, 58 percent of the Conservative rabbis surveyed and 69 percent of the rabbinical students called themselves liberal. It's hard to defend the center when you're not in it. These rabbis and rabbinical students are "pro-Israel," but they are redefining what "pro-Israel" means. As liberals, they hold an optimistic view of human nature: Though Palestinian leaders see their conflict with Israel as a zero-sum game, it seems hard for the rabbis to acknowledge this grim fact. Instead, they get their understanding of events in Israel from ideologically reinforcing left-oriented sources: liberal media outlets, Facebook posts, and Haaretz.
These sources help explain the conspicuous disconnect between the next generation of Conservative rabbis and mainstream American Jews on the subject of the Arab-Israel conflict. More than three-quarters of American Jews, according to the latest American Jewish Committee survey, believe that
the Arabs' goal is not merely the return of the "occupied territories" but the actual "destruction of Israel."
Only 30 percent of the JTS rabbinical students agreed with a similar statement. Indeed, fully 12 percent of the rabbinical students are "uncomfortable" with Israel's being a "Jewish state." To individuals with this
universalistic bent, moral relativism comes more naturally. Most of the future rabbis ;all of whom have studied in Israel; do not see Palestinian leaders as their enemies. A majority, 56 percent, say the Palestinian side is no "more to blame" than Israel for the ongoing conflict. Sure, Hamas dominates Gaza. Yes, the West Bank Fatah leadership refused to negotiate with the Netanyahu government during a ten-month settlement freeze. Even so, a majority of the rabbis wants an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders, with "land swaps" and a freeze on any "expansion of settlements in the West Bank."

Compare these views with the position of most American Jews in the face of unremitting Palestinian intransigence: 55 percent, according to an AJC poll, oppose a Palestinian state. In equally stark contrast, most Israelis, regardless of their political views, simply do not believe that today's Palestinian leadership is capable of making peace with Israel.

The JTS survey elicited the opinion of 68 percent of the rabbinical students that the "settler movement"; not just extremist settlers,;is a "threat." The survey did not bother to ask whether the Palestinians should be required to accept Israel as a Jewish state (the position of 96 percent of American Jews) or whether Mahmoud Abbas should abandon his demand for a Palestinian "right of return."
The survey tells us that 72 percent of the rabbinical students have engaged in efforts at dialogue with Arabs: Some head to Ramallah for the opportunity to socialize with Palestinians, while others take excursions to West Bank Arab villages with New Israel Fund-supported activists.

The survey says nothing about any commensurate efforts by the rabbis to understand the "settler mindset." Many report having visited a "settlement"; but the definition of "settlement" and the auspices under which the visits were made are left to our imagination.

We can guess the reasons for the disparate treatment of Palestinians and settlers. The rabbis believe AIPAC is not liberal enough. J Street, whose platform practically mirrors that of the Palestinian Authority, is closer to their hearts, with 58 percent approval. At 80 percent approval, the New Israel Fund is the absolute cat's meow.
The 63-year-old Zionist enterprise is a work-in-progress. No Israeli would suggest it is beyond criticism. But 30 percent of Reform rabbinical students return from Israel feeling "hostile" or "indifferent" toward the Jewish state; now we learn that 53 percent of JTS rabbinical students are "sometimes" or "often" ashamed of Israel.

Is it the ultra-Orthodox stranglehold on state-controlled religious life that alienates them? Too bad, then, that so few future Conservative rabbis volunteer extensively at Conservative-affiliated Masorti congregations in Israel.

Seminaries and professors have been unable or unwilling to provide their students with the moral compass needed to navigate between worthy universalistic values and particularistic Jewish standards. By the time they get to seminary, it may be too late. Most of today's rabbinical students did not attend Jewish elementary or high schools, though they are likely to have attended Camp Ramah. The attitudes
revealed in the JTS survey hammer home the need, now more than ever, for the community to find ways to provide its youth with, yes, a parochial education.

I'm not sure this is an issue you can indoctrinate people into. Education for me is not the answer. What needs to happen is we as Jews need to define our position online. The problem is that the media has monopolized thinking. The internet is an opportunity to reclaim the parameters of the argument. If it is believed that Nationalism is a bad character then one has no foundation to educate with. We as Jews need to reclaim the semiotics of the arguments. It is Judea and Samaria... there never was a place called the West Bank... for example... but further we need to define why borders and Nationalism is a positive attribute that reinforces and helps any neighbors to benefit as well. Jewish people need to take a cue from Republican thinking (no not the party). A Democratic Republic without defined borders is tyranny by definination. It is what they call the NWO. Forcing the youth to accept what is not logical will not help. What needs to happen is new people in the Jewish community must be accepted as thinkers. Jewish thought has become stale and was stuck in Socialist parameters. This must CHANGE!

Is Newt the only Republican who supports a unified Jerusalem?

NEWT PROMISES TO MOVE THE US EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM ON DAY ONE. WHEN HE ANNOUNCED THIS IN IOWA. IT WAS MET WITH A STANDING OVATION.

No true conservative should endorse any Republican who drags his feet on this issue. Time to pressure Romney, Cain and Perry. This is a message to the Norquist Republicans: The message is if you don't support a unified Jerusalem then you have no place in a future Republican party. Israel's values are Republican values.(RHINO COMMANDER from KingKong21)

The most ‘transparent’ president in history plans to authorize the Department of Justice to lie to the American people

(Bare Naked Islam) Both Democrats and Republicans are incensed about the Liar-in-Chief’s dangerous new proposal that would authorize a change in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) rules to allow the DOJ to state that a requested document does not exist when in-fact it does. Not a surprise, just more taqiyya from the terrorist in the White House.

Vatican calls for a “global authority bank”..sides with OWS

..."His blood be on us and on our children"...

The Catholic Church forbade usury.
I do not trust the HuffPo at all, but I have other sources

Vatican Backs Obama’s Global Agenda

(HUFFPO) The Vatican called Monday for radical reform of the world’s financial systems, including the creation of a global political authority to manage the economy.

A proposal by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace calls for a new world economic order based on ethics and the “achievement of a universal common good.” It follows Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 economic encyclical that denounced a profit-at-all-cost mentality as responsible for the global financial meltdown.

The proposal acknowledges, however, that a “long road still needs to be traveled before arriving at the creation of a public authority with universal jurisdiction” and suggests the reform process begin with the United Nations as a point of reference.

Vatican pronouncements on the economy are meant to guide world leaders as well as the global church. United States Roman Catholic bishops, for example, have released a voter guide for the 2012 election that highlights social concerns such as ending poverty.

“It is an exercise of responsibility not only toward the current but above all toward future generations, so that hope for a better future and confidence in human dignity and capacity for good may never be extinguished,” the document said.

It highlights that reforms must assure that financial and monetary policies will not damage the weakest economies while also achieving fair distribution of the world’s wealth.

The proposal also called for a “minimum, shared body of rules to manage the global financial market,” lamenting the “overall abrogation of controls” on capital movements.

While past Vatican pronouncements have condemned unfettered capitalism, the latest criticized “an economic liberalism that spurns rules and controls.”

It also attacked “utilitarian thinking,” saying what is useful to the individual does not always favor the common good.

(TELEGRAPH) By demanding that the worst excesses of global capitalism be reined in, the Holy See echoed the message of protesters encamped outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London, the indignados of Spain and the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US.

In a forthright statement, the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace called for an end to rampant speculation, the redistribution of wealth, greater ethics and the establishment of a “central world bank” to which national banks would have to cede power.

Such an authority would have “universal jurisdiction” over governments’ economic strategies.

Existing financial situations such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund were outdated and no longer able to deal with the scale of the global financial crisis, which had exposed “selfishness, greed and the hoarding of goods on a grand scale”.

The global financial system was riddled with injustice and failure to address that would lead to “growing hostility and even violence”, which would undermine democracy.
The Vatican hardly has an exemplary record on financial transparency and propriety.
Last year the Vatican Bank, known officially as the Institute for Religious Works, had €23m (£20m) of its assets frozen by Italian authorities as part of an investigation into suspected money-laundering.
After years of resisting calls for greater openness, the scandal forced the bank to adopt international norms on transparency.
The Holy See’s murky financial past has included, most notoriously, its involvement in the bankruptcy of Italy’s biggest private bank, the Banco Ambrosiano, in the early 1980s.
Its president, Roberto Calvi, who was nicknamed “God’s Banker”, was found hanged beneath Blackfriars Bridge, with investigators unable to rule whether he had committed suicide or had been murdered.
Thomas J Reese, a Vatican analyst at Georgetown University in the US, said the “radical” proposals put forward on Monday aligned the Holy See with the Occupy Wall Street movement and meant that the Vatican’s views on the economic crisis were “to the Left of every politician in the United States”.
He said the proposals reflected many of the encyclicals and addresses issued by Benedict XVI on the global economy during the last six years of his papacy.

JIMMY CARTER is being sued for his anti-Israel lies and propaganda

(Bare Naked Islam)FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER NAMED IN CLASS ACTION SUIT FILED IN NEW YORK COURT ALLEGING DECEPTIONS AND FRAUDULENT MISREPRESENTATIONS IN BOOK ATTACKING ISRAEL
Nitsana Darsha-Leitner, a lawyer from Toronto is famous for her pioneering lawsuits on behalf of victims of terror. Read about her previous endeavors and successes here: ISRAPUNDIT (H/T Jane)
The following press release is announcing her latest lawsuit in which she is suing Jimmy Carter et al for violating NY commerce law by publishing lies. She has fashioned the suit as a class action on behalf of all those who bought the book and were thus harmed. This is no small matter.
NEW YORK: An historic class action suit has been filed against former President Jimmy Carter and the Simon & Schuster publishing company alleging that Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, contained numerous false and knowingly misleading statements intended to promote the author’s agenda of anti-Israel propaganda and to deceive the reading public instead of presenting accurate information as advertised. The suit, captioned Unterberg et al. v. Jimmy Carter et.al (11 cv 0720), filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks compensatory and punitive damages.
The plaintiffs, who hope to have the case certified as a class action, are members of the reading public who purchased Carter’s book expecting that they were buying an accurate and factual record of historic events concerning Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.
The lawsuit contends that Carter, who holds himself out as a Middle-East expert, and his publisher, intentionally presented untrue and inaccurate information and sought to capitalize on the author’s status as a former President to mislead unsuspecting members of the public. The complaint alleges that the defendants’ misrepresentations, all highly critical of Israel, violate New York consumer protection laws, specifically New York General Business Law § 349, which makes it unlawful to engage in deceptive acts in the course of conducting business. While acknowledging Carter’s right to publish his personal views, the plaintiffs assert that the defendants violated the law and, thus, harmed those who purchased the book.
CARTER’S HUGS FOR HAMAS. After all, the Hamas leader has made Carter an honorary citizen of Gaza with a Gaza passport
The suit is the first time a former President and a publishing house have been sued for violating consumer protection laws by knowingly publishing inaccurate information while promoting a book as factual.
The plaintiffs are represented by attorney David Schoen, Esq. of Montgomery, Alabama and attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Esq. of Tel-Aviv, Israel.
The complaint notes that after the book’s publication some of Carter’s closest aides, including distinguished public officials and scholars personally involved in the events described, condemned the book as untruthful. Despite being presented with irrefutable proof that many of representations in the book are false, the defendants have refused to make any corrections.

Attorney Schoen stated that: “It is, indeed, a sad day for all of us as Americans, when a former President demeans the dignity of his office by intentionally misstating critically important facts concerning events of great historic significance and public interest, simply to advance a personal anti-Israel animus and to foster the agenda of the enemies of Israel who pump so much money into the Center which bears his name.”
Attorney Darshan-Leitner stated that: “The lawsuit will expose all the falsehoods and misrepresentations in Carter’s book and prove that his hatred of Israel has led him to commit this fraud on the public. He is entitled to his opinions but deceptions and lies have no place in works of history.”

A copy of the complaint is available here:
For more information please contact:
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner (516) 684-9983,
Email: nitsanad@zahav.net.il
David Schoen: (334) 395-6611
Email: David@Schoenlawfirm.com

RELATED STORIES/VIDEOS:
jimmy-dhimmi-carter-never-met-a-muslim-terrorist-he-didnt-like
jimmy-carter-is-suffering-from-advanced-alzheimers-disease
jimmuh-carter-narrowly-escapes-assassination-attempt

‘44% of Italians have negative views of Jews’

Vatican calls for a “global authority bank”..

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL,
JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
Study finds varying degrees of hostility toward Jews, ranging from traditional stereotypes to "pure anti-Semites." BERLIN – Forty-four percent of Italians are prejudiced or hostile toward Jews, according to a study issued last week. The report was issued by Italian Chamber of Deputies’s Committee for the Inquiry into Anti-Semitism. Deputy Fiamma Nirenstein, the committee’s chairwoman, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday that the findings were “very disturbing.” It was a “shock for everybody how much anti-Semitism in Italy and Europe” exists, she said. “Some 44% of the Italian population harbor some prejudice or have a hostile attitude toward Jews. They can be broken down into four subgroups,” according to the report. “The first group (10%) holds the ‘traditional’ anti-Jewish stereotypical views, such as that ‘Jews are not fully Italian,’ ‘you can never really trust them,’ and ‘when it comes down to it, they have always lived at the expense of others,’ but reject the ‘contingent’ prejudices (toward Israel and the Shoah).” The report continued that “the second group (11% of the population) only approve of the ‘modern’ stereotypical views, rejecting the ‘traditional’ and ‘contingent’ ones. They consider that ‘the Jews are rich and powerful,’ ‘they control and direct politics, the media and the banks,’ and moreover ‘they are more faithful to Israel than to the country of their birth.’” A “third group (12%) maintains ‘contingent’ convictions (‘all Jews use the Shoah to justify Israeli policy’), ‘they talk too much about their own tragedies disregarding other people’s,’ ‘Jews behave like Nazis with the Palestinians’), but they do not share the ‘traditional’ prejudices.” Lastly, the report cites a fourth groups as the “pure anti- Semites” (12% of Italians). This group holds all the elements of the previous three forms of Italian anti-Semitism. Nirenstein said the 39-page report was the culmination of “two-and-half years” of parliamentary hearings and intensive work. Though there were “some disagreements on what is anti- Semitism and what is anti- Zionism” during the committee discussions, “we recognized” when “criticisms of Israel become anti-Semitism,” she said. According to the report, for example, “... anti-Semitism can be observed in international political debate: the biased criticism of what Israel is doing in the developing situation in the Middle East. The process began with the adoption of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action in 2001. This provided the basis for the pronouncements of international leaders – and first and foremost the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is allowed to speak out... and even from the podium at the United Nations General Assembly – denying the genocide [the Holocaust] and advocating the annihilation of the State of Israel, in blatant violation of the UN Charter.” The Italian deputies recommended that “thought should also be given to the advisability of supporting initiatives at international level to refer the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ahmadinejad, to the International Criminal Court for the crime of incitement to genocide.” Nirenstein told the Post the committee invited Ruth Halimi, the mother of Ilan Halimi, “to Rome for the work of committee. She said police did not believe it was anti-Semitism” that motivated the murder of her son by a gang of French Muslim immigrants in 2006. French authorities failed to look “into right direction” and examine “who perpetrates anti- Semitism” in France, Nirenstein said. Speaking from New Haven, Connecticut, Dr. Charles Small, a leading expert on modern anti-Semitism who attended the presentation of the Italian report’s results last week, told the Post it “is an excellent document that examines the scourge of contemporary anti- Semitism is a comprehensive manner.” “The Italian parliament is the third nation, after the UK and Canada, to carry out such an inquiry and to produce a report,” Small said.

Moatassem Billah Gaddafi Mutassim before murdered

Mutassim with Hillary Clinton:

Gaddafi's fourth son, Mutassim Gaddafi, was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Libyan army. National Security Adviser Mutassim Gaddafi was believed to have actively tried to cultivate relations with Washington. Still, Mutassim seemed to of been even more embedded in Libya’s state-security firmament than Saif, and commanded their father’s elite presidential guard. He served as Libya's National Security Advisor, in which capacity he oversaw the nation's National Security Council. His name مُعْتَصِمٌ بِٱللهِ muʿtaṣimu-n (bi l-lāhi) could be latinized as Mutassim, Moatessem or Moatessem-Billah. Saif Al-Islam and Moatessem-Billah were both seen as possible successors to their father. h/t 9-11 do more then never forget, stop Islam

Gaddafi's End

FLASH BACK....

Gaddafi: Barakeh Obama is friend

Libyan leader praises US president: 'He is of Muslim descent, his policy should be supported, as he now leans towards peace'

Gaddafi stressed that Obama's presidency is "a major historical gain" and said, "He is someone I consider a friend. He knows he is a son of Africa. Regardless of his African belonging, he is of Arab Sudanese descent, or of Muslim descent. He is a man whose policy should be supported, and he should be assisted in implementing it in any way possible, since he is now leaning towards peace."

Saudi "Propaganda Center" Sets Up Shop in Vienna

(Hudson) Saudi Arabia is spearheading the establishment of a controversial new "interreligious and intercultural dialogue center" in the Austrian capital Vienna. The King Abdullah Center for Inter-Religious and Inter-Cultural Dialogue (here, here and here) was inaugurated at the Albertina Museum in downtown Vienna on October 13. The foreign ministers of the three founding states -- Austria, Spain and Saudi Arabia -- were in attendance. The institution will be located at the Palais Sturany on the Schottenring in the heart of Vienna. The Saudis say the purpose of the multi-million-dollar initiative is to "foster dialogue" between the world's major religions in order to "prevent conflict." (MORE PAIN)

Why doesn't King Abdullah open an "interreligious and intercultural dialogue center" in Mecca first?

Brussels: Islamic male attacks police for stopping wife

(Eye) Belgium has implemented a ban on the wearing of the burka since the 23rd of July this year. It was the reason why two policemen, who spotted a woman wearing the burka, stopped her and asked for her ID papers. Her husband, angry that the police dare stop his wife, physically attacked one of the policemen while informing his wife to go home.

Occupy Wall Street Parasites: North Korea Better than South Korea, Socia...