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Women's singing: Gantz proposes compromise
Ynet
Published: 27.12.11, 12:01
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1. For heavens sake doesnt thos bozo have more pressing issues
Al   (12.27.11)
to centend with? The arab world is imploding...Your eastern front is exposed to Iran now with the USA out of Iraq. Syria is in meltdown mode. The southern border is porous and this clown is worried about what? Get rid of him...He is a clown and has no business being a COS.
2. If a single soldier is 2 b excused from an informal social
Sephardi Leftist ,   Israel   (12.27.11)
gathering, then we must clearly define what is meant by "informal social gathering". I for one would feel very comfortable with including ALL religious ceremonies, religious learning sessions and any appearance by a civilian rabbi in this new category of "informal social gathering". That way no soldier of the IDF would need to feel co-erced or uncomfortable about who she/he is or how they choose to believe in G-d (or not believe in G-d) In other words Chief of Staff Gantz, I respectfully request that you extend this exception to ALL IDF soldiers.
3. Shameless drama in Israel
Sarah B ,   U.S.A. / Israel   (12.27.11)
4. @1 please recontext your message in a different way....
watcher ,   Israel   (12.27.11)
your comments are very valuable but you reduce their value by including an unnecessary personal attack against the Chief of Staff of the IDF. Al, in disrespectiing the Chief of Staff of the IDF you have effectively disrepected every single soldier of the state of Israel. That is a very large disrepect. Kol HaKavod L'Tzahal!
5. equality
Michael ,   Haifa   (12.27.11)
One would hope that secular soldiers be excused from having to listen to rabbinical preachers brought into the base (as was reported in YNET yesterday)
6. The begining of the end of Israel..
Hatikvah   (12.27.11)
7. IDF will maintain equality for women?
Orly ,   Jerusalem, Israel   (12.27.11)
Does that mean that women will no longer be featured singers at events and will instead do whatever it is the guys do, or does it mean that there will be formal events with featured male singers to which women in the military will be required to attend? It does seem as though the whole female-singers-in-the-army epitomizes inequality between men and women serving in our forces.
8. There is no compromise with fundamentalists!
Dorothy Friend ,   Tel Aviv   (12.27.11)
It is one sided giving in. So they are doing us a big favor by going into the army? But only if they get special treatment?
9. We like women soldiers, not hareidi fanatics
Arctodus Simus ,   Fort Yukon-Alaska   (12.27.11)
10. @4: I am sure you had the same respect for Dan Halutz!
David ,   Karmiel, Israel   (12.27.11)
If you remember, Chief of the General Staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz (Ret) was more concerned about his share portfolio than the war in Lebanon! You might remember too that Chief of the General Staff Ehud Barak, now Minister of Defense, left injured and dying soldiers after the Tzalim Bet accident instead of telling the medics to use his helicopter to evacute the injured and lives might have been saved. No doubt you respected him for this too. The position of Chief of Staff is not an Holy Cow. The IDF is not a democracy, it is an Army and armies need discipline and if the Lt, Gen. Ganz is going to kowtow to religious soldiers who insult our female soldiers because prejudice against women, then the General is allowing political pressure to influence his decisions and should step down. Lt. Gen. Ganz is a very good military commander but he has no place in the IDF if he allows a minority to belittle our female soldiers!
11. I rather be around 1000 women soldiers
Mike ,   Raanana Israel   (12.27.11)
than beside one hardie, the thought of which turns my stomach.
12. dorothy @ #8
aliza ,   israel   (12.27.11)
Most of the religious soldiers are not fundamentalists and do not have to be discriminated against because they are religious. After all many, many religious soldiers have been killed in action defending Israel.
13. #7, #8
israel israeli ,   tel aviv   (12.27.11)
It means that there will be an entertainment program (rabbis, singing women, lap dancers, strippers) and any solder who doesn't want to participate can guard or do mitbach.
14. why is anyone singing anyway?
moron ,   galut   (12.27.11)
15. #2 as far as I know soldiers not obliged to go to learning
rebecca ,   Modiin   (12.27.11)
I dont know what was in yesterdays report but as far as I know the most any soldier is obliged to listen to is a very short blessing. They are not obliged to go to learning, even in "hardi" units. Again, most I know incl seculars, are happy to have a blessing before battle. Cover their options.
16. an army of singers?
chaim witz   (12.27.11)
Honestly, I do not understand why all this fuzz about singing. Is this an army of a country in war, or a music school? And what are we going to do when our enemies come with full strength? To put female singing militaries in the front, hoping out-of-tuned songs will turn them away? This is an army. SHUT DOWN THE FEMALE SINGING AND PUT THE MILITARIES TO GET READY TO WAR!
17. Let's have some real equality
Gee ,   Zikron Yaakov   (12.27.11)
Have Muslim cadets be required to say Kiddush on Friday night dinners and have a glass of wine. See the uproar over that one. Why must people's religious rights be violated for the sake of entertainment? I say this a retired secular IDF officer.
18. 8 Dorothy Friend, Tel Aviv: There are certain things that
Rivkah   (12.27.11)
offend HaShem's people who are trying to sing the Song of Moses as best they can by living the Torah. I just hope they learn the Song of the Lamb, too.
19. Fair enough.
nibor ,   israel   (12.27.11)
For the formal gatherings, maybe the haredi soldiers can be given sun glasses or sleeping masks while the women sing, or they can look down at the floor. Or maybe it's high time that Shulcan Aroch or the Halacha be re-examined. Judaism is constantly being reinvented, why not now?
20. @16 singing women soothe the soul
moi ,   ici   (12.27.11)
what better way to get war ready then by having beautiful women sing so that the soldiers remember exactly who it is they are defending!
21. Ganz DOESN'T get it! How old is he? Religious males are not
Bunnie Meyer ,   Los Angeles, CA USA   (12.27.11)
supposed to hear women sing, part of Orthodox belief. SO, schedule the women singing at the end, let the religious men be excused at the end, and all is well. How can he get this far up the military ladder and not understand something this simple?
22. @18 r u talking about Shari Lewis' Lamb Chop song?
Sarah B ,   U.S.A./Israel   (12.27.11)
you know the little sock puppet called Lamb Chop don't you?! Socks over your fingers will help keep them away from the keyboard
23. #17
Ze'ev ,   Nbg, germany   (12.27.11)
Why must people's secular rights be violated for the sake of religious extremists?? I say this as a democrat, trusting in the law of a democracy!
24. #21, Not Quite
Orly ,   Jerusalem, Israel   (12.27.11)
First: Judean law does NOT distinguish between observant/religious and non-observan/non-religious Jews in any matter. Second: The prohibition is not to hear the women sing, but to listen to them. Third: Only listening to the singing of women on the sexually prohibitive level of "erva" is forbidden. Finally: Orthodoxy is not a belief it is the obedience to a set of laws. In the army: Today that we do not keep the laws of purity unmarried women are always presumed to be on the level of "erva" prohibition (and a married women is certainly). The soldiers are not forced to listen, only to hear, but if an individual cannot control himself he should be allowed to excuse himself on a personal basis - if the discipline is not a matter of life and death. Being required to commit to an event featuring the singing should be seen as outright prohibited if not a matter of life and death, ending up at one is another story. One would think that the military of a Jewish country would take these matters into consideration. One would also think that given our security situation there would not be a division in the military of singing performers - if there were such divisions for men, then the majority of the military would be Haredi (most Haredim, at a delicate age, are afraid to make a step to change their way of life and the only units available to keep that have extreme physical requirements while the demand to join is far, far greater than those meeting these requirements). Having the women's divisions include "singing" is an insult to women and their equality in society. To the commenter from LA: You understand the delineation certainly no better than the chief of staff and you should certainly not be one to dictate to him how to "get it."
25. JESUSALEN
cristian ,   JESUSALEN   (12.28.11)
cannot be justified under any sense religious crime,kill in the name of God,alah or any be mythological is primitive societies,where explanations of reality were made through supernatural beings,today that has no place,it is a large and heterogeneous world where we can live with the fundamental differences,still the attacks show intolerance and the degree of primitivism of some fundamentalist groups,we or may not be in agreement with the dogmas and the major figures of religion but can not under no sense oppose the celebration of the right to freedom of any person in this world,despite the sectarian and highly dangerous speech that we wanted to replace God and secular humans want to distinguish the good from evil,thousands of people worldwide know differentiate between good and evil,humanity and inhumanity and what happened is a sign of how badly we are 21st century as a result of religion,a human life is more valuable than all faiths together,respect for freedom is still pending matters within the religious dogmas,at the moment we have only a planet where living and live,so it is absurd that we are killing us by worship gods or have different religions,for many of us,make no sense for lack of logical or scientific rigous but others do and that should be tolerated,the battle we face today is not that of religious versus seculars or believers vs atheists but that is a war between the medieval world and the world today,between the era of the dark ages vs the era of information and science,almost a thousand years ago launched the crusades,today the same standard bearers,could it be time to stop already once these current genocidal?
26. 18
john Darren ,   cairns-Australia   (12.28.11)
Witch lamb are you talking about.Be specific.
27. Thank God
Az   (12.28.11)
That somebody came to the reasonable solution. But aside from that... Where in the Torah does it say that a man is not allowed to be in the *presence* of singing women??? There seems to be a rather hazy line between piety and confabulation.
28. Third try to answer 22 & 26, Sarah and John: There is a Lamb
Rivkah   (12.28.11)
who was the Sacrificial Lamb who fulfilled the Spring Feasts of HaShem long ago and who will return to fulfill the Fall Feasts of HaShem as the Lion of Judah to deliver Israel. He is Rabbi Yehoshua, the Jewish Messiah who was rejected by the Jewish establishment long ago so that Gentiles could be grafted into HaShem's Kingdom. If the Thousand Year reign had been established when He came long ago as the Jews wanted (a deliverer King not a sacrificial Lamb and servant), then the Gentiles would not have had a two thousand year chance at HaShem's Kingdom along with the Jews. The Song of the Lamb is believing Yehoshua the Messiah died for the sins of those written in the Eternal Book of Life and was resurrected three days later and ascended to Heaven and returned for forty days and was seen by many before returning to sit at the right hand of His Father in the Heavenly Jerusalem. The Shroud of Turin was His burial cloth and the radiation burns of a photographic image proves His resurrection, too.
29. The Lord works in mysterious ways...
Az   (12.28.11)
But sometimes it's written black on white, on sheets of leather. "the Jewish Messiah who was rejected by the Jewish establishment long ago so that Gentiles could be grafted into HaShem's Kingdom" Perhaps you should look into the "gospel of Judas," if your prejudices do not prevent you. The black on white I'm referring to is the part in the Torah where it says (in translation anyways): "... you shall neither add to nor remove from My Word ..." Which is effectively what Yehoshua ben ??? did. Some say that God works not primarily through hidden ways, but through the obvious and plain-to-see-for-all. Were the Jews not being subjugated by the Romans at the time, they might have strangled/impaled/burned/stoned Yehoshua themselves. Though I do not know which specific method of execution applies to heretics :-D
30. 29 Az: I assume you are speaking to me since your post
Rivkah   (12.28.11)
seemed to. The Torah and Tanakh and the Peshita Aramaic Text of the New Testament (Renewed Covenant) books except for Revelation pass the ELS Scripture Code tests for authenticity. The Talmud and Emperor Constantine's changes to the Jewish religion of Yehoshua do not. The commandments of man whether Jewish (Talmud) or Christian (Emperor Constantine, the Council of Laodicea which was apostate, too; Papal edicts and much more) are not the Commandments of HaShem as the Torah and Talmud and Peshitta Aramaic Renewed Covenant are. Much was added and/or deleted or changed in translations and edicts of those not God over the centuries, so going to the original Hebrew and looking at translations that are directly from that if one does not speak or read Hebrew, is advised. I have to get "The Scriptures" and "The Hebraic Roots Version Scriptures" that are published in South Africa for reading and references since the American Bible publishers are owned and corrupted by atheists who hate God. The Authorized King James Bible is not a good translation but it was corrupted by 50,000 changes into the New King James Version and the NIV and other versions that are so corrupt they are leading more people to hell than to heaven.
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