(THE TIMES OF ISRAEL. JEREMY SHARON)
In a landmark ruling on Tuesday, the High Court of Justice ruled unanimously that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students into the military since there is no longer any legal framework to continue the decades-long practice of granting them blanket exemptions from army service.
(JULIA FRANKEL. Time of Israel).
Though they’re major landowners, churches traditionally were exempt from property taxes; leaders call warning letters a ‘coordinated attack’ on Christian presence in Holy Land
Leaders of major churches have accused Israeli authorities of launching a “coordinated attack” on the Christian presence in the Holy Land by initiating tax proceedings against them.
While Israeli officials have tried to dismiss the disagreement as a routine financial matter, the churches say the move upsets a centuries-old status quo and reflects what they called mounting intolerance for the Christian presence in Israel and the West Bank.
(The Times of Israel. Michael L. Feshbach).
Friends, I want to express my deep gratitude to you, and to your wonderful pastor, for the invitation to be with you this morning. Reverend Ney is certainly familiar with, and a friend of the Jewish community in this area, having davened out of a different siddur – I mean prayed out of a different prayerbook – over years of service as the accompanist at both my congregation, Beth Israel, in its original Atlantic City location and, later, at Emet Shalom, now part of Shirat Hayam synagogue in Ventnor. And then, of course, she also taught at the Hebrew Academy.
This is my second time in this special place. The first was last November, for the area interfaith Thanksgiving service. I used that occasion to thank Reverend Ney for her powerful words of support for the Jewish community at a service of solidarity held a few weeks prior, a gathering meant to bring comfort following the events of early October. What she said then was, and remains, deeply meaningful to me, and to many others.