Violent, excessive and racist. No, not the Pamela Geller ads on Manhattan buses that council choosing civilization over Jihad or Holy War. Civilization you say? How about an Israeli rabbi ordering his flock to burn iphones, which is a way sort of, of keeping the civilization pure. And is said civilization so fragile and weak that the outside world has to be blurred with special glasses in case the temptations of the flesh are too much?
There is a certain double standard here in that if Salafist psychos were to implore their herd to torch their phones,or stone the phone, the satire would be loud and clear across all the beacons of freedom. And the lionizing of Haim Hefer who in an infomercial for Zionism is Racism, lambasted and unloaded on Moroccan immigrants for also lacking civilized values. But it is Yom Kippur, ostensibly a powerful declaration of cancelling and invalidating any and all labels, labels, restrictions, barriers and name tags that tend to obscure the supposedly inherent sparkling essence creating an indivisible people. At least in theory….
JERUSALEM (AP) — An influential ultra-Orthodox Israeli rabbi ordered his followers this week to burn their iPhones, the latest move in a campaign by the insular community to encourage its members to keep the outside world — and specifically the Internet — at bay.
The decree by Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 84, came ahead of Judaism’s holiest day, Yom Kippur, which begins Tuesday. It said that it was forbidden to own the smartphone, and those who already had one must burn theirs….
—Former prime minister Ehud Olmert can return to politics before seven years despite his conviction for breach of trust, the Jerusalem District Court ruled Monday.
The court slapped a fine of less than $18,000 on him and gave him one-year suspended jail sentence but did not accept the prosecutor’s request that Olmert serve six months in community service.
The first Israeli Prime Minister ever to be convicted for a crime, he was convicted two months ago on a charge of breach of trust while he served as Industry, Trade and Labor Minister. He still faces charges of bribery in the Holyland apartment project, re-zoned for construction when he was mayor of Jerusalem.
A sentence of community service of more than three months would have implicitly defined the crime as one of moral turpitude, prohibiting him from re-entering politics for seven years.—Read More:http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/160254#.UGJ1PFFb76M image:http://59toppsblog.blogspot.ca/2011/08/441-john-roseboro.html
The religious Yated Neeman newspaper published the ban on its front page this week, as mainstream Israeli newspapers were gushing about Apple Inc.’s eagerly anticipated new smartphone, the iPhone 5.
Israel’s growing ultra-Orthodox minority tenaciously guards its traditional way of life against the influence of the secular majority. Many shun TVs and computers to avoid images that break their standards of modesty and values.
The iPhone prohibition comes amid a push in recent months by ultra-religious Jewish leaders around the world to steer their flock away from the temptations of the Internet. Tens of thousands of black-suited Jewish men gathered in a New York stadium in May to hear some of the community’s most famed rabbis lecture on the dangers of what they deemed immoral content accessible via computers and smartphone. The rally was broadcast live to other crowds in stadiums in London and Jerusalem.
—Deserved or not? The Douche bag comments aside from the song and dance man; Americans can Arab bash as good as they get and the N.Y. press is a jingoistic and racist, and excessive as any other. What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding? Image:http://www.iranian.com/main/2012/sep/new-york-post
After this week’s decree, large posters sprang up throughout Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, calling iPhones “an abomination 24 hours a day.” They called on community members to kick iPhone owners out of religious seminaries, and warned them to keep their children away from the children of iPhone users.
Ultra-Orthodox rabbis have stepped up their camp
s against smartphones in the lead-up to Yom Kippur, a period of religious introspection.At the entrance to Jerusalem’s outdoor vegetable market, a group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in traditional long black coats and black fedoras showed off their “kosher” cell phones — simple devices with Internet access and video capabilities blocked, stamped with a seal of approval by a rabbinical council. They said iPhones are dangerous….
— Shaike Levi, an Israeli comedian and actor, told Israeli television that Mr. Hefer represented “a milestone not only of Israeli culture, but of Israeli-ness.”
Mr. Hefer could be an acerbic critic. He caused a stir a decade ago when he denigrated the culture of Moroccan Jewish immigrants to Israel. (He later apologized.) He made no secret of his dislike of Shimon Peres, the former prime minister who is now president of Israel. Nor did he hide his disdain for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In a column in the newspaper Maariv last year, Mr. Hefer wrote that Israeli society had replaced idealism with hedonism and that it was now controlled by “tens of thousands of lawyers” and “money-changers exchanging shekels for dollars.” Extolling the modest living conditions of David Ben-Gurion, the first premier of modern Israel, Mr. Hefer described Mr. Netanyahu as “eating dinner above the casino.” —Read More:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/world/middleeast/haim-hefer-israeli-songwriter-and-poet-dies-at-86.html image:http://latimes.tumblr.com/post/13978029701/dodgers-1965-world-series
“It takes over your life. It takes over your mind,” said Yitzhak Kabalo, 46, a telemarketer for ultra-Orthodox charities.Read More:http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-rabbi-followers-burn-iphones-150844815.html
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