Netanyahu calls on PA to return to peace talks, drop delegitimisation.

Speaking at a press conference alongside Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Netanyahu reiterated “the only way we can achieve a lasting peace is through the concept of two states for two peoples – a demilitarised Palestinian state that recognises the Jewish nation state of Israel.” It is a position Netanyahu publicly declared last month in a similar setting with European Union foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini. Also last month, Netanyahu’s new government announced that it would “strive to reach a peace agreement” as part of its agreed policy guidelines and Interior Minister Silvan Shalom has since been appointed to head any future talks. The last round of peace talks, spearheaded by the United States, broke down in April 2014 after the PA agreed a unity government with Hamas.

Netanyahu said yesterday that he had discussed with Steinmeier, the “common quest to move forward on peace with the Palestinians” and to that end “I think the only way to move that is through direct negotiations … Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority has moved away from these negotiations.” He urged Steinmeier to, “Tell the Palestinians to stop their campaign to delegitimise Israel … Tell them to get back to the negotiating table. Tell them that we should negotiate without preconditions.”

Speaking to his cabinet yesterday, Netanyahu elaborated on Palestinian efforts to exclude or attack Israel in international forums. On Friday, the Palestinian Football Association (FA) eventually dropped a motion to suspend Israel from FIFA, football’s world governing body. However, Netanyahu warned that the Palestinian FA initiative formed just part of “a great struggle being waged against the state of Israel, an international campaign to blacken its name.” At its core, said Netanyahu, “this campaign to delegitimise Israel … seeks to deny our very right to live here.”

Source: BICOM

Religious group excludes non-Orthodox rabbis from Shavuot event The Tzavta Tel Aviv theater allows the snub for the second straight year.

Haaretz Newspaper, By Or Kashti | May 17, 2015

Tzohar, a group of moderate Zionist rabbis, has vetoed the participation of Reform and Conservative rabbis in this year’s all-night Shavuot study session next Saturdayat the Tzavta Tel Aviv theater.
A raft of political and religious leaders have thus criticized Tzavta for agreeing to cooperate with what some called the exclusion of non-Orthodox streams of Judaism. A similar dispute erupted at Shavuot last year, when Tzavta officials accepted the ban on the need “to build cooperation” with Tzohar. They said the policy was likely to change.

Leaders of Israel’s Conservative, or Masorti, movement, say they were told by Tzavta that such a change was a “long process” and that they should settle for the invitation sent to an official of the movement who is not a rabbi. “The secular community that plans to attend should know that it is not a pluralistic event that genuinely welcomes all streams of Judaism,” MK Tamar Zandberg (Meretz) said.

This year’s Tzohar-organized tikkun leyl will be the fifth all-night Shavuot study session at Tzavta. Tzohar describes itself on its website as “a powerful national movement of 1,000 Zionist rabbis and women volunteers who are leading the revolution for an ethical, inclusive & inspiring Jewish Israel.”

In promotional materials for the event, it says the annual affair “is considered one of the main tikkun leyl Shavuot events” and that is was “born out of curiosity and a desire to touch the various worlds and text comprising the mosaic of Jewish-Israeli identity.” The event’s leading organizers include MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid), Tzavta’s Gavri Bargil and Tzohar chairman Rabbi David Stav. Last year around 1,500 people of various levels of religious observance attended the event.

“After explicit, unequivocal promises last year that the refusal to have us would not be repeated, this year too it was decided to exclude non-Orthodox streams,” said the head of the Masorti Movement, Izhar Hess, who was invited to take part. “I’m not a rabbi and I don’t teach Judaism. That’s exactly what Tzohar seeks: the delegitimization of rabbis” who are not Orthodox, he said.

“Tzohar is a private organization that has the right to invite whomever it wants to its events,” says Tomer Persico, a fellow at the Elyachar Center for Studies in Sephardi Heritage at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. “The problem is that although the tikkun is defined as studying “the mosaic of identity,” in practice Tzohar is indicating who stays outside — non-Orthodox movements.

According to Tzohar, there is just one way to be Jewish, the Orthodox way. Secular Jews are invited to attend not because the Tzohar rabbis see secularism as a legitimate Jewish option, but because they see secular Jews as ‘babies who were captured,’” a Talmudic term for Jews who sin inadvertently because they were raised without the benefit of a proper Jewish education. Persico says that by cooperating with Tzohar’s exclusionary tactics, Tzavta helps to perpetuate the Orthodox stranglehold on Judaism in Israel.

Bargil rejects this criticism, saying that Tzavta “created the partnership with Tzohar in order to bring the various denominations closer together. That means all the speakers must be acceptable to all sides. After the participation of the non-Orthodox streams wasn’t supported last year,” Tzohar and Tzavta agreed that Reform and Conservative representatives, but not rabbis, would be invited to take part this year. Bargil said he hoped that next year rabbis from the non-Orthodox movements would be invited to lead sessions.

“Introducing social change requires great intelligence and patience. There are many tikkun layl Shavuot events for the general public, but the wisdom lies in bringing both religious and nonreligious people to the same place,” said Tzohar’s executive director, Rabbi Moshe Be’eri. “For that to succeed, there are boundaries that must be respected. That’s why we tried to be creative and invited the head of the Masorti Movement. The message can be the same; why insist that rabbis must be invited? I understand that it bothers them, but you have to take the long view.”