Sunday, August 19, 2007
Research journal: Going to Synagogue makes you Live Longer
justice systems that operate in Israel:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/123409
Justice Minister: Justice System Biased
5 Elul 5767, 19 August 07 01:51by Gil Ronen(IsraelNN.com) Justice Minister
Daniel Friedmann supported the Right's contention that the justice system in
Israel persecutes people who are not perceived as leftist enough, in an
interview to Haaretz.
Friedmann delivered a long, crushing critique of the Supreme Court in the
interview. Among other things, he said the court should not have intervened on
security matters such as the route of the security barrier; the law preventing
"family unification" between Israeli Arabs and Arabs from Judea, Samaria and
Gaza; the IDF procedure in which a local Arab is used as a shield when knocking
on doors of suspected terrorists' homes, and the timetable for fortification of
buildings in Sderot and the Gaza Perimeter.
He said that the State Prosecution is too eager to press charges against public
figures, and noted the examples of former minister Aharon Abuhatzira, as well
as Aryeh Deri, Reuven Rivlin and Avigdor Lieberman. As for the case against
Chaim Ramon, his predecessor in the Justice Ministry: Friedmann says it was
"not even a borderline case, but a sub-borderline case," and hints that the
prosecutors' views may have affected their judgment.
Of the five cases mentioned above, only one . Ramon . is associated with the
left wing Ashkenazi-secular elite. Abuhatzira and Deri are Sephardic and
religious, and both represented Sephardic-religious parties. Reuven Rivlin was
about to be appointed Justice Minister when he was served with an indictment he
was exonerated from years later. The case against Avigdor Lieberman was dragged
out for seven years before it was dropped.
"I am not talking about bribery cases, about a heavy and clear cut case with
real evidence," Friedmann explained to his interviewers, who asked him whether
he believed the prosecution behaved conspiratorially. "I am talking about
borderline cases. When the prosecution has such wide latitude of action, even
if the prosecutor is simply behaving as his conscience dictates, and especially
if he is influenced by his attitude towards that public figure. then [the
public figure] is treated differently. If he is a person who belongs to one
category then he is treated one way, and if he belongs to a different category
then he is treated differently. This is a very unhealthy situation."
Asked whether he is sure that this mode of action is used with people who are
"disliked," Friedmann said: "I do not know. It is clear that the right wing
feels that they are treated more severely."
"We need to select judges with a different judicial attitude from the one that
is currently prevalent in the Supreme Court. The judges currently in office are
from a certain milieu, they live in their milieu and they don't see the
public." Friedmann noted retired Judge Menachem Elon as a positive example of a
judge who did not favor "judicial activism" like the current court does, and
was more moderate.
Judge Elon is a religious man, and his son, Benny Elon, is an MK for the
National Union / National Religious Party.
Minister Friedmann himself, an Israel Prize winning professor of law, is
considered to hold political views that are left of cente
2. After the Rabin assassination and in the wave of leftist McCarthyism
against freedom of speech that followed, a Haifa teacher was fired for refusing
to teach "Rabin's Legacy," meaning the North Korean style indoctrination in the
Oslo approach, hailing it as unchallengeably brilliant and correct.
The matter continues to drag on, years later:
Teacher claims political persecution
By ELIE LESHEM
Aug. 12, 2007 19:43
Yisrael Shiran, a teacher who used to be the principal of the Moria-Barkai
School in Haifa, on Sunday submitted a petition to the High Court of Justice
demanding that he be allowed to return to his former position following a sharp
plummet in the achievements of students at the school.
In 2000 Shiran won a lawsuit against the Education Ministry after he was
unlawfully suspended from his post for statements to the effect that studies
dedicated to the Rabin assassination should not necessarily include the study
of his "heritage". Shiran claimed that while the assassination itself was
considered a reprehensible act by almost all Israelis, Rabin's actions, and
especially the signing of the Oslo Accords, were not embraced by a broad enough
consensus to warrant its inclusion in the curriculum of all Israeli schools.
Then transportation minister Yuli Tamir and Aharon Zbeida, head of the Haifa
district in the ministry of education, wished to suspend Shiran following his
remarks, launching what Shiran's lawyers call "a personal and political smear
campaign" against him.
According to the current petition, when the Moria-Barkai School expressed their
wishes that Shiran return to "rescue" the school, Zbeida put his foot down and
prevented the school from hiring him.
According to Shiran's lawyers, since 2000 Shiran has continued to teach in many
schools- without encountering any objections on the part of the Education
Ministry.
Shiran's lawyers claim that many parents to students in the school have pulled
their children out of the institution, with many more threatening to do so,
following the Education Ministry's decision to prevent his return.
"The education minister and the Haifa district are jeopardizing our children's
education for the sake of.a personal and political settling of scores against
an outstanding teacher," Shiran's attorney, Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, said. "If
the ministry had no objection to his employment in the Orot Etzion School in
Efrat.then it can have no objection to him being employed by a school in
Haifa."
"In the past, Tamir has attempted to obtain personal gain from the teacher's
objection to the teaching of the Oslo Accords," she added. "The teacher,
[however], was cleared of all allegations, and was allowed to return to his job
after he was awarded compensation."
"The time is ripe for the Education Ministry and [Tamir] to learn a lesson in
good citizenship and just proceedings," she said.
3. We knew that all along:
Attending Synagogue makes you live longer, says academic journal in
Europe:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/f2044j2v77318842/?p=66a80b5f48f447d988d5c8381b5755f7&pi=0
What really matters in the social network.mortality association? A
multivariate examination among older Jewish-Israelis
Journal European Journal of Ageing
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
ISSN 1613-9372 (Print) 1613-9380 (Online)
Issue Volume 4, Number 2 / June, 2007
Category Original Investigation
DOI 10.1007/s10433-007-0048-2
Pages 71-82
Subject Collection Humanities, Social Sciences and Law
SpringerLink Date Tuesday, May 22, 2007
" Synagogue attendance is seen to promote survival mainly through its
function as a source of communal attachment and, perhaps, as a reflection
of spirituality as well. "
4. About those patriotic loyal Israel Arab leaders:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1186557478631&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
