Op-ed: Beware of Sephardic extremists
US Jewish newspaper op-ed warns of 'small group of Sephardic anti-Zionist extremists'
While the vast majority of Sephardic Jews in Israel participate in the country's political life on every level, shy away from extremism, and are proud Zionists, there exists a "small but growing group of malcontents" forming an extreme anti-Zionist group, which have turned against the State of Israel, according to a new opinion piece, authored by Steven Plaut, a professor at Haifa University, which appeared in the American Jewish Press newspaper this week.
"Within Israel, Sephardim have held the most senior political leadership positions (other than prime minister) and are judges, professors, army commanders, leading entertainers, high-tech entrepreneurs, etc. The rate of Ashkenazi-Sephardi 'intermarriage' is high and has done much to eliminate the residual Jewish sub-ethnic distinctions in Israel. (I say that as someone who carefully answers to a Sephardic wife.)," Plaut wrote.
"Having noted all this, the point also needs to be made that there is a small but growing group of malcontents and political extremists who have emerged from the Sephardic communities. While Sephardic integration and participation in Israeli society is an unambiguous success story, these radicals are people who argue that not only are Sephardic Jews victims of rabid Ashkenazi 'racism' and 'discrimination,' but that they are in fact the natural allies of Palestinians and Islamists," he added.
The small group of anti-Zionists included, according to the op-ed, the academic Sami Shalom Chetrit, "whose personal website features claims that Israel behaves like Nazi Germany."
Plaut noted that it was ironic that the "disease of left-wing lunacy and assimilationist self-hatred that has long afflicted Ashkenazim and Western Jewish communities" had also reached "Sephardic communists and anti-Zionist extremists."
He concluded by saying: "Our Sephardic brethren may need to coin a Ladino, Arabic, and Hebrew equivalent or 'shande' (Yiddish for 'disgrace')."
Canada Jews seek unified conversion standard
The Canadian Jewish News (CJN) reported that the Toronto Orthodox Rabbinate has "put conversions on hold as it ponders whether to change the standards required" of converts.
The report added that the wish to set a universal standard for conversion, recognized around the world, was at the heart of the issue – leading the Toronto Bet Din to hold conversions until a decision is taken by Rabbinical Council of America on the issue.
Under the old criteria, "parents were required to agree to send their child to a Jewish day school, keep kosher and maintain a sense of the Shabbat and other Jewish holidays," the report said, adding: "Now being considered are the additional requirements that the families be Sabbath observant and follow all commandments, including prayer and wearing tfillin every day."
Aussie police blasted for not solving hate crimes
The governments of two Australian provinces, New South Wales and Victoria, have been the subject of a "scathing attack" for failing to see through prosecutions of anti-Semitic crimes, the Australian Jewish News (AJN) reported.
The report said Jewish communities were "concerned over the spate of unresolved crime which has been 'swept under the carpet.'"
"Aside from the jailing last year of two white supremacists who vandalized the Perth Hebrew Congregation in 2004, senior Jewish officials cannot recall a single prosecution over an anti-Israel or anti-Semitic attack in Australia since 1991," the AJN added.
A senior Jewish official said the point had been reached where the competence of the police authorities had to be questioned.
Recently, two ultra-Orthodox teenagers were physically assaulted in Melbourne, while an Israeli-born Yeshiva student has been hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage after "an incident" in Sydney last week.
