Anti-Israel ads in Washington
Subway system in US capital to host 20 poster ads filled with anti-Israel rhetoric
Commuters travelling on Washington DC's subway will be inundated with posters placed by an anti-Israel organization, the Canadian Jewish News (CJN) reported .
The 'US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation' placed 20 poster ads showing "an imposing tank pointing its main firing turret at a child with a schoolbag walking along a dirt road," the CJN said.
"'Imagine if this were your child's path to school. Palestinians don't have to imagine,' the poster states, before continuing to call for an end to US aid for 'Israel's brutal military occupation… paid for by US taxpayers like you,'" the report added.
It said that "CBS Outdoor, the New York-based firm that places in-station advertising for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), at first refused to consider the poster, but eventually relented to pressure from WMATA and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)."
The report quoted CBS Outdoor's Vice Executive, Jodi Senese, who is Jewish, as saying: "I'm very proud (of being a Jew). I thought the image was inflammatory, but I also believe in our First Amendment rights. As Jews (in America), we thrive on that right as well."
ACLU's Legal Director in Washington, Arthur Spitzer, who is also Jewish, "told the Washington Jewish Week it wasn't 'a case about Judaism or Israel… but about establishing someone's right to freedom of speech, which I agree with regardless of whether I agree with their particular political position,'" the report added.
US, Israeli rabbis end conversion battle
Israel's Chief Rabbinate and US Orthodox rabbis have ended a year-long dispute over standards of conversions to Judaism, New York's the Jewish News reported this week.
"The Rabbinical Council Of America (RCA) will soon establish regional conversion courts that will adhere to the strict halachic (Jewish law) standards laid down by Israel's Chief Rabbinate, RCA Executive Vice President Rabbi Basil Herring told The Jewish Week Thursday," the report said.
It added that the agreement would be announced at a New York press conference on Monday.
"The agreement follows a crisis between the RCA, the largest Orthodox rabbinical body in North America, and the Rabbinate, which decided some three years ago that it would no longer automatically recognize Orthodox conversions performed outside Israel unless the officiating rabbi was on a short list of 'accepted' rabbis," the Jewish News added.
Australian Labor party: We'll have nothing to do with Hamas
Australia's Labor party leader, Kevin Rudd, has been quoted by the Australian Jewish News (AJN) as saying that his party "will have nothing to do with Hamas unless it undergoes 'radical change,' a report said this week.
Addressing the Labor Friends of Israel, Rudd was quoted by the AJN as saying: "Hamas has not disavowed its policy of seeking the obliteration of the State of Israel."
"Hamas must change fundamentally its declared policy and its operational policy," the Labor leader said, adding: "Unless and until (it does), we will have nothing to do with Hamas at all."
"Labeling Hamas and Hizbullah as terrorist organizations, and Iran as a supporter and financier of international terror, Rudd said: 'We have no basis in engaging with any terrorist organizations,'" the AJN reported.
