On poverty

I subscribe to a livejournal community called "Poorskills" The community gives tips on how to save money on various things, ways to do things better or more cheaply, and so although I'm not today poor, I find these skills valuable.
Today I woke up to see this post.

The poster talks about how this country has gone from at least tolerating the poor ( of course, there wouldn't have been any need for Reverend Jackson to do something like this if there hadn't been some stigma even then) to a time when something like this is seen as totally out of nowhere. And it's true - today, to do a piece like this, where someone publicly led the poor in chanting that they had inherent worth, would be pretty much unthinkable - even on Sesame Street.

What has happened to us as a nation? Even in the comments, I notice a few people talking about people gaming the system - and sure, there are people doing that, but people end up gaming the system when the system can't meet their needs. It's not great and fun to be on welfare. You don't live well, and it's not luxury. People who are lying to receive more benefits are doing it because they can't get along any other way.

And we are so judgmental about who is on welfare. But there's not way to know who is really on welfare, or who will need it. The Torah tells us that when our hands are open the poor will disappear from the land. Our hands should be open, because all of us are just a few bad days away from welfare and charity ourselves - a car accident, your health insurance refusing to pay up for a serious condition (or disenrolling you after years of honest payment, because they don't want to pay out for your condition), a job loss (which in this economy people should understand, but somehow don't seem to) a job that doesn't pay enough - there are people out there working two or three jobs and still not really making enough to pay for rent and food, let alone health care.

I wish for more generosity of heart for all of us. Not just because any of us, at anytime, could need help - indeed, that is the very premise of religion - all of us depend upon God's grace - the Torah says that when we are wealthy, we will come to believe that our comfort is the result of our hands and the work of our hands, but that we are wrong. None of us own anything, no matter how we fool ourselves.
But even if we did, those who didn't are still, all of us, God's children.



By the way, I had occasion to meet the Reverend Jackson once,and the man is just enormously tall.

When the Chickens Went on Strike

Although most modern Jews have abandoned the practice of Kapores, in some parts of the community, it is still common. I'm not sure what the Masorti movement thinks it will accomplish by joining with the SPCA -Tel Aviv, ince the parts of the community that are practicing kapores aren't the parts likely to care what the masorti movement does, but all in all, it can't hurt.

In the story from which I took this post's name (an adapted tale based on the original story by Sholom Aleichem) the author in fact points out that the practice of taking a chicken (male for men, female for women) swinging it over one's head to "catch" one's sins, and then slaughtering it, is not exactly halacha ( Jewish law). And while in general one ought not to depend on fiction for accurate portrayals of Jewish law, in this case, it happens to be correct. Not only is "Where is it written?" a good response, but where it is written, the rabbis aren't too happy with it, considering it (Like many folk customs which have become embedded in Jewish practice) akin to idolatry, or at lest very improper.

And reasonably so, while it might be a midat chesed (act of mercy) to buy a chicken which one will then donate to the poor to eat (although that does raise some questions about how that came about... really? We're giving our sins to the poor to eat? Hmmm. I hear a sin eater story in here somewhere for those of us familiar with that southern custom), the problems with the ritual as a whole are numerous. For now, let's set aside the problem of tzaar ba'alei chaim - the requirement not to be cruel to animals (in this case, by packing them in itty bitty crates sitting around in the sun all day until it's time for them to be grabbed and swung around by the feet) and concentrate on the symbolism of the custom itself.

While there seems to be some kind of yearning for authenticity as played by certain elements of the Jewish community which favor dress styles not native to Israel, but rather early modern Europe, I've never been able to fathom why people attach their sentiments to these kinds of customs (including within the community, but without it as well). There's somehow a sense that it looks or feels more authentic - but how could it be? If Judaism and our peoplehood is based upon our connection to God through God's commandments, as the Torah tells us, then one couldn't possibly repent by swinging a chicken around.
I far prefer the formulation of the Talmud (Brachot 17a) (See the bottom of the post) which likens the fat that one loses during a fast to the fat offered as a sacrifice in the times when the Temple stood. That makes far more sense to me.

Most importantly, if w are repenting, we cannot hope to shed our sins elsewhere without the ful act of teshuvah that goes with it. Whether we are speaking of ourselves as individuals, our individual communities, or Israel as a whole, our own sins cannot be displaced by any symbolic act, whether we're talking about swinging a chicken or saying that the other party involved has done bad things and so they have to repent first. NO, we are responsible for the sins of ourselves, and the sins of our people. If we wish for peace, we have to act first to recognize and admit our sins; to make reparation to those whom we've harmed; to confess to God - because in doing so, we humble ourselves and take into our hearts that our acts, whether accidental or intentional, whether preemptive or retaliatory, were wrong; and then to not do it again when the opportunity presents itself.
Stop building settlements, stop demolishing homes, stop blaming others for acts over which we have agency. Goldstone isn't our enemy, and taking on against him, as the Rabbinical Assembly has just, entirely ridiculously, done, will not bring peace.
As long as we treat acts for which we need to repent as thought they were public relations bloopers which can be addressed if we only change our spin, there will not be kaparah, atonement, no matter how long we fast on Yom Kippur, no matter how many chickens we swing. We have to do the work ourselves.

(From the Yom Kippur Haftarah Isaiah 58:2-7)
They ask Me for the right way,
They are eager for the nearness of God:
3 "Why, when we fasted, did You not see?
When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?"
Because on your fast day
You see to your business
And oppress all your laborers!
4 Because you fast in strife and contention,
And you strike with a wicked fist!
your fasting today is not such
As to make your voice heard on high.
5 Is such the fast I desire,
A day for men to starve their bodies?
Is it bowing the head like a bulrush
And lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call that a fast,
A day when the Lord is favorable?
6 No, this is the fast I desire:
To unlock the fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.
7 It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
And not to ignore your own kin.

When R. Shesheth kept a fast, on concluding his prayer he added the following: Sovereign of the Universe, Thou knowest full well that in the time when the Temple was standing, if a man sinned he used to bring a sacrifice, and though all that was offered of it was its fat and blood, atonement was made for him therewith. Now I have kept a fast and my fat and blood have diminished. May it be Thy will to account my fat and blood which have been diminished as if I had offered them before Thee on the altar, and do Thou favour me.. (Brachot 17a)

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There Shall Be No Hoarding

I admit it. The reason I haven't posted up until now on the amazing new book by Rabbi Jill Jacobs is only partly because I've been reading it slowly. Really, a big part of it is that books this good just don't come around all that often, and I'm feeling kind of 1st gradish about sharing. But we all have to grow up sometime. Or at least, if we don't someone will come along and make us share our toys. Ahem.

SO, Rabbi Jill Jacobs wrote, There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition for all of us. Framed by a foreword from the utterly menschlikh gadol Rabbi Elliot Dorff, and prefaced by Simon Greer, Jacobs wrote the book during her tenure at Jewish Funds for Justice as rabbi-in-residence.

Grounded deeply in Jewish text, Rabbi Jacobs begins with her own journey to understanding how Jewish canonical texts are actually far more deeply invested with the everyday experience of poverty and need than most of us will (God willing) ever be, and how allowing the midrash, the talmud and other of our classical works to really enter us, not as something which we read for fun or education just because they're important texts, but to really become doors to a perception of God and our fellow human, can cause us to be transformed through those texts, in the way that the rabbis meant us to be.

While she does this, Rabbi Jacobs also takes on the imprecise... well, let's be honest, the complete meltdown of "Jewish" terms such as "Tikkun Olam," "Tzedek" (as in the ubiquitous, and so therefore now nearly empty, verse "Tzedek, tzedek tirdof," the favored phrase of Jewish organizations that don't know -or at least can't be bothered to find- any other text, no matter what the topic under discussion) and "Prophetic Judaism" into the utterly meaningless and restores them to a Jewish and more faithful context (And can I say, thank you thank you thank you).

This isn't to say the book is completely without flaw. Like the tradition of leaving in tiny flaws to prove that a human creation cannot be perfect, there are some minor quibbles I have here and there. Primarily, I think that Rabbi Jacobs occasionally slides between "we can say that..." and the assumption of the supposition. Or that there doesn't seem to be much room for the individual and national relationship/ communion with the divine in any context other than social justice. But these are minor quibbles in a book so terrific, that I will be buying it for all my friends. How can I make any complaints about someone who at least implicitly supports my observance that, while everybody loves Hillel, it is Shammai who in his grumpy stringency, is actually the one who is more concerned for the disempowered and helpless (p. 32).

Rabbi Jacobs' book also includes an excellent, concise introduction to the canonical texts, meaning that even the beginner can make sense of what Rabbi Jacobs writes, and I hope, that reading her work, will come to see that Judaism and social justice cannot be untangled from Judaism and Jewish law - that the system is a holistic one, and that Judaism does indeed give us a mission.

As Jacobs herself states in the conclusion, wrapping up her fine book with a brief codicil about Judaism in the public sphere, ""What is missing...is a real public discussion about how Jewish law and tradition might address contemporary policy questions... when Jews engage in the public discourse as Jews, we should bring Jewish law and principles into the conversation in such a way as to enrich... discourse...The commitment to living our Judaism publicly should then push us to take public action on these principles, both as individuals and as a community... We will witness the emergence of a Judaism that views ritual observance, study and engagement in the world as an integrated whole, rather than as separate and distinct practices."

As God and the rabbis meant it to be.

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Holey Cow!

Failed Messiah and Gawker report on the latest (what? Not over yet?) scandal in the kashrut world. After the last round of scandals, Agriprocessors hired a PR firm - because as we all know, Public Relations is far preferable to tshuvah when a corporation sins- to restore its image. The firm, 5WPR, who has also represented the charming so-called "pro-Israel" pastor, John Hagee, (who hates homosexuals and Muslims and has had to apologize for sliming Catholics, oh, yeah and also blamed Jews for the death of Jesus, called liberal Jews "poisoned" and "spiritually blind," and been relatively unconcerned that he hopes for a preemptive nuclear attack on Iran even though he believes it will lead to the deaths of most Jews in Israel) apparently has engaged in some antics of its own.

It seems that 5WPR has left multiple comments on several blogs, including JTA and Failed Messiah's, under a variety of aliases, and also posing as Rabbi Morris Allen of the Hekhsher Tzedek, as well as JVNA officer John Diamond and another frequent FailedMessiah commenter (all, as FM points out, federal crimes). The comments were designed to support Agri, bolster one another and discredit Hekhsher Tzedek, the Conservative Movement and Rabbi Allen. Failed Messiah posts screen shots of the comments - well worth looking at, if only for their utter ridiculousness.

Chad Gadya

Liveblogging from the Hazon Food Conference (for more see Jewschool's posts from YehuditBrachah).



We all have a huge amount to say about the goats. I'm not sure that this was planned, but in some ways, this topic has nearly taken over the Hazon Food Conference. And I do not think that this is necessarily a bad thing. The questions that have arisen throughout the past years, regarding the ethics of eating meat - especially kosher meat produced in factory farms, slaughtered in places like Agriprocessors, where the heart of kashrut seems to have bled right out are questions which are just right for the people of this new Jewish sustainable food movement to address.

And while there is a lot going on at this conference, your intrepid livebloggers (YehuditBrachah, KungFu Jew and KRG) have set aside an entire post to talk about the shchita and the conversations surrounding it.

Thursday night, the first night of the conference, Nigel Savage of Hazon started out by explaining how it came about that it was decided to shecht a goat this year at the food conference. Last year during the conference, Nigel asked meat eaters if they would still eat meat if they had to participate in the death of the animal: some said yes, others: no; he then asked the veggies if they would eat meat if they were part of its slaughtering: again, some said no, but others, yes. From this arose the idea to try to humanely schecht a goat at the Hazon Food conference.
That is how Nigel introduced the first panel of the conference: a panel including a shochet, Rabbi Yehuda ben Chemhoun, Rabbi Seth Mandel of the Orthodox Union, who oversees all American slaughterhouses, the shepherd who raised the goats Aitan Mizrahi, the woman who continued to shepherd them when the shepherd separated them from their dams (he is a dairy farmer, and this is how female goats are kept giving milk) Rachel Gall, Dr. Shamu Sadeh of Adamah and Simon Feil.

Supreme Court refuses to hear birthcontrol challenge

On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to reexamine a new York court ruling upholding a state law that forces religious-based social service agencies to subsidize contraceptives as part of prescription drug coverage they offer employees.

Since New York is one of 23 states that require employers that offer prescription benefits to employees to cover birth control pills as well,this refusal to hear the case will actually have quite wide effect. I suppose I should mention that I am very surprised by this, given the current makeup of the court. The original law was made in 2002, called the "Women's Health and Wellness Act" and requires health plans to cover a number of services aimed at women, including contraception, mammography, cervical cancer screenings and bone density exams.

According to AP,

Catholic Charities and other religious groups argued New York's law violates their First Amendment right to practice their religion because it forces them to violate religious teachings that regard contraception as sinful.

"If the state can compel church entities to subsidize contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs, it can compel them to subsidize abortions as well," the groups said in urging the court to take their case. "And if it can compel church entities to subsidize abortions, it can require hospitals owned by churches to provide them."

Other Catholic and Baptist organizations are part of the lawsuit. Seventh-Day Adventist and Orthodox Jewish groups signed onto a brief filed in support of Catholic Charities.

Three years ago the court rejected a challenge to a similar law in California....
The New York law contains an exemption for churches, seminaries and other institutions with a mainly religious mission that primarily serve followers of that religion. Catholic Charities and the other groups sought the exemption, but they hire and serve people of different faiths

This is all pretty amazing in my eyes, but a welcome respite from the usual (at least recently) hijinks of the high court. While, I sympathize with the religious organizations that don't want to offer services that their faith group opposes, I have to say frankly, that if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Catholic hospitals are now a juggernaut in the American health care system, and if they decide tomorrow that arterial plaque is holy, I don't want to have travel possibly to another state to get treatment for heart disease. This reminds me of the entire brou-ha-ha over the D&X procedure, in which Congresspersons were shown doctors performing dilation and extraction abortions, and obviously it looked yucky; well, that's because when you do surgery, there's blood. Open heart surgery isn't all that pretty either. Nevertheless, sometimes people's lives are at stake, and according to Jewish law, when one's life is at stake one not only may, but must, take action. Thus, if I live in a place where I can't get services because all the hospitals are run by Catholic institutions, my religious beliefs are being violated. And that holds, according to the groups pursuing this case, even if I can find a Jewish doctor to perform my bypass surgery, or whatever.

Yay to New York, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia (the other states with similar laws).

If you don't live in one of these states, consider it a good idea to get a law like this passed in yours. One should be able to consult one's own religious teachers and guides for instruction on what is permissible, and not have to obey someone else's. Your doctor and you should be making your health care decisions, not the pope, or some reverend so-and-so somewhere.

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Kibbutz revival?

A few days ago, the New York Times ran an article describing the apparent renewal of kibbutzim in Israel. After years of decline, beginning inthe 1980's, recently, people are again lining up to get into kibbutzim.
The article points out a couple of interesting things, one of which is explicit: that the renewed kibbutzim are not quite (for the most part) run inthe way that traditional kibbutzim were run, but rather as, "a kind of suburbanized version of it."
The article continues, explaining,

On most kibbutzim, food and laundry services are now privatized; on many, houses may be transferred to individual members, and newcomers can buy in. While the major assets of the kibbutzim are still collectively owned, the communities are now largely run by professional managers rather than by popular vote. And, most important, not everyone is paid the same.

Now, granted the old, purely socialist system didn't really work all that well. We all know human nature, and in Israel, as anywhere else that this particular ideology was exercised, all kinds of unfortunate consequences resulted, the mildest of which is the obvious: that many people just didn't pull their weight. Not to mention all the later reported problems with the communal children's houses: the bullying and sexual abuse that sometimes resulted.

Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder about some things that weren't said: the recent changes in Israeli (following American) society such as the "greed is good" mentality of the 1980's resulting in the dismantling of Israeli social support systems - and how that process perhaps actually contributed to the current revitaization of the kibbutzim, as people tire of a society in which everyone is completely out for themselves, and the future is economically very uncertain. I also wonder if the suburbanization of the kibbutzim is any kind of success story. Aren't there other ways of attracting people into a community?
In some ways, it seems to me that this question is the exact same one facing Jews in communal institutions all over the place: how do you entice people into building communities in which people are actually part of a community and not just a fee for service relationship? The sad thing is, that this is indeed what most people are craving, but at the same time, our societies are currently so individualistic that we see any kind of responsibilty to others over the long term as inconvenient. And let's not even get started on the subject of intergenerational responsibilty. Of all the various shuls and independant minyans out there, how many are genuinely welcoming of people of very different backgrounds and places in their lives?

How have we come to this? -"young professionals" minyans, 20 something minyans, old fart minyans, whatever... where is the sense that we need to sacrifice having things our way some of the time? And I am not targetting any particular group when I say this. In my opinon, there is no one who isn't a culprit. From wealthy older folks holding onto services which barely anyone attends, to younger groups who are unwilling to make any kind of provisions for people who might not love the all-Carlebach channel. I suppose I could list on forever all the diferent niches who aren't talking to one another. And lest I leave it out, that includes the various "movements" as well.

I suppose I have wandered a bit astray from the point of the article, but I often wonder, when we talk about renewal, if the things we are renewing have the value and the solidity to really be communities for the long term, because what I don't see in many of these renewed communities, is obligation, love, or community.

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Plastic water bottles

Have been in the news a lot lately. First, we read about how actually bottled water may well be less safe than tap water, as it isn't covered by the same regulations. Then, we had the reports on plastic seeping into our edibles and drinkables - and thus into us - causing possibly generations of fertility problems, among other health effects, and of course there's the environmental problem - in san francisco, plastic water bottles are no longer permitted to municipal employees on the city's budget - and kudos to them, I say, since they have some of the best water in the country (in D.C., this would probably not be such a good idea. Here in MD, where the water is quite fine, thank you, I think it would be a good idea). So, if you haven't had all you can take about plastic and especially plastic water bottles, here's one more take on them - use of oil:
From Reason Magazine

Every Little Bit Helps... Right?

Juliet Samuel | August 14, 2007, 11:09am

Conscientious greens fix their sights on plastic water bottles:

In the last few months, bottled water — generally considered a benign, even beneficial, product — has been increasingly portrayed as an environmental villain by city leaders, activist groups and the media. The argument centers not on water, but oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels a year just to make the plastic water bottles Americans use, according to the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, plus countless barrels to transport it from as far as Fiji and refrigerate it. ...

The US currently uses 20 million barrels of oil per day. First we’re going to ban plastic bags, slicing away a giant 0.16% of that consumption. Now, bring on the plastic bottle ban, slashing a full 0.02% from the oil guzzling. Take that, global warming!

AgriProcessors: When abusing people and animals isn't enough

What? Again? Can't these people get it together?
Believe it or not, AgriProcessors is in the news again.



According to the Forward, in March and September of 2006 the USDA sent the AgriProcessors plant manager a “Letter of Warning” reviewing a series of problems, including: receiving 250 non-compliance records from the United States Department of Agriculture during 2006, five of them for inadequate safeguards against Mad Cow disease, and at least 18 records for fecal matter in the food production area (Including one, on December 26, in which the inspector wrote that during multiple checks of 10 chickens “fecal contamination varied between 70 and 80%.” and another, similar, citation a day later).
Oh, yeah! MMM. Take that, all you folks who buy kosher "because it's healthier." Granted, IMO, this is not a place whose products I would be sanguine about calling kosher, as we've seen reported here on Jewschool several rounds of violations of actual kashrut, as well as violations of other halachic obligations, including the acceptable treatment of workers. See: צִיּוֹן בְּמִשְׁפָּט תִּפָּדֶה וְשָׁבֶיהָ בִּצְדָקָה, Where’s the beef now? Kashrut update on Rubashkin’s, Another beef with kashrut in the news, and Kashrut Brouhaha Has Legs; just one month ago, Mobius added this gem to the treasury: Agriprocessors: Still trayfin’ it up,
and Failed Messiah continues to do a wonderful job documenting this unbelieveable, interminable scandal.

In case that all hasn't turned you veggie yet, just compare: the entire beef, poultry and egg industry had 34 recalls in 2006, AgriProcessors had two during the last eight months, both of them Class I, the highest risk level.

In case there's any doubt, I'd like to note that these items are not disconnected. As the Forward reports,

The documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the United Food and Commercial Workers, which has been attempting to unionize the workers at the Postville plant. The documents all stem from incidents between January 1, 2006 and January 24, 2007. They are being released to the public by the UFCW at a press conference later today...
Jim Blau, assistant director of strategic resources at the United Food and Commercial Workers, said that workers at the plant tipped the union off to food safety problems. Blau said his organization, which represents close to 300,000 food production workers, was interested in dealing with the issues at AgriProcessors as a matter of protecting the industry.

“When you see things like this — it’s not good for the industry that there is a company that’s out there behaving like this,” Blau said.

Way back when, I spent some time working to organize workers in another industry. I want to emphasize that one of the reasons that it's so important to do so is because unions don't just protect the workers themselves. Unionized workers are able to report problems with lesser fear of reprisal. I myself know of several individuals who after whistle blowing, were protected by unions when their employer tried to fire them. It's not just a matter of some people you didn't really care about all that much who you'll never meet, and maybe who don't even speak your language.
That's pretty important according to Jewish law: they are to be protected, and paid honestly, and treated with respect. It's a Jewish obligation, and one which a kosher slaughterhouse ought to be obliged to meet before it can call itself in compliance with Jewish law. And let's not even review the problems of the slaughter itself, which fails to follow the law it claims to follow in order to make its ginormous profit off the wallets of Jews who are, essentially a captive audience (just try to find an independant shochet these days. I know of one, I'm sure there must be a few others - is there one in your city?).
But since self-interest is the cornerstone of progress, let's just say what's really going on: these folks have no qualms about doing whatever they want to increase profit. The limitations don't seem to be laws of kashrut directly pertaining to the meat itself, nor to the laws pertaining to the treatment of workers. Now it's apparent, they don't even care about the safety of the people eating the meat. It's in the best interest of the Jewish community to make sure that workers are safe and able to report on what's going on behind the scenes without threat of reprisal.
I don't know when the Tzedek Hechsher will be making its now long-promised appearance, but Baruch Hashem, it couldn't be too soon.
But don't worry, I'm sure this will all be brushed off as a plot by the liberal Jews or the anti-semites to harm Orthodoxy.

Whoa. I think steam is coming out of my eyeballs. Wait, I need to go have some sweet tea or something. Hold the burger, willya?

hattip to Arieh Lebowitz at the JLC
Cross-posted to Jewschool

Life at Minimum Wage

I suspect no one who reads this blog is going to be shocked by the news that money buys less than it used to. Yes, its' true what the old fogies say, everything really is more expensive.
But for a moment, let's consider what that means to not only those of us who work for minimum wage, but also most of the rest of us - that is to say, everyone except the small number of people who have gotten exponentially wealtheri due to Republican efforts to give welfare to the well off (and take it away from the undeserving poor - that is: you)


The center for American Progress has created a chart showing how this breaks out:
For example: "A week of hamburger dinners for a family of four, for example, is roughly $20 more expensive today than it was in 1997—an increase of nearly 40 percent."

Today's wage increase is long-overdue progress: before today, the minimum wage was at its lowest level in 50 years. A family of three supported by one minimum-wage earner lived roughly $5,400 below the federal poverty line—earning just $10,700 every year. Now that family will bring in $12,168 before taxes, and when the wage reaches $7.25 in 2009, they'll earn a little over $15,000. It's a start, but it's not enough: the federal poverty level for a family of three is $17,170. More and more generous increases are required to ensure that every American worker earns enough to support his or her family. The United States is the wealthiest country in the world—one in which the phrase "working poor" should not apply to anyone.

Full story here

Those of us who are owners of businesses need to do less fighting against efforts to even out the income disparities. I realise that, in fact, many business owners are struggling too, but good ethics are good business. Let your workers unionize, give them benefits, work out ways for the parents to have flex time or other ways that they can care adequately for their children. And don't forget about your maids.

The "Status Quo" is a state of woe

According to the Jpost, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called Sunday on religious and secular cabinet ministers to reach a compromise on legislation that would expand Rabbinic Court jurisdiction in divorce cases. "Feminists," which apparently means any women with a grain of sense, are protesting this bill as discriminatory against women.
It seems to me that this is somewhat of an understatement. The Rabbinic Courts have long been er, discriminatory against women; that is to say, they tend to arbitrate in favor of the husband, and extort money (that is, money that would normally be part of her financial rights in the divorce, such as child support) from a woman before granting her release from her husband. That is, in cases where he will grant her a divorce at all, since by and large the religious courts don't much force the issue (there have been a few exceptional cases where the husband has been jailed for failing to give a get, but by and large, this problem - which could be halachically solved, and has been by the Masorti movement, and will not be, by the Orthodox, because the options that they once considered acceptable were adopted by the Masorti movement, making them treif by association- remains an enormous one for Orthodox women, in which the courts demand that she submit to all sorts of craziness in order for them to pressure the husband to give her a divorce).

According to the JPost article

Rabbinic Courts Administration spokeswoman Efrat Orbach said the proposed legislation would simply maintain the status quo.

"The Supreme Court recently overturned decades of precedent during which the Rabbinic Courts litigated in monetary matters connected with the divorce process, even after the husband gave his ex the divorce writ," Orbach said.

"This bill simply anchors in law what has been common practice for a long time now."

Because Israeli law needs to have more religious control. the hegemony not being yet complete. This is a terrible idea. The status quo is not such a beautiful thing that it needs to be "anchored in law." To the contrary, the status quo is quite broken and needs to be fixed.


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