Israel Railways can proceed with Shabbat repair work, Israel’s Supreme Court rules
Israel Railways can do repair and construction work on Shabbat, at least temporarily, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled.
The interim ruling issued Sept. 6 prevents Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from ordering a halt to the Saturday work, according to reports.
Lawmaker Zahava Galon, head of the left-wing Meretz party, had filed a petition to have the work proceed after Netanyahu called off the work slated for 20 sites. Haredi Orthodox political parties had sought the work stoppage and threatened to bolt the ruling coalition, perhaps toppling the government, if the work was not canceled.
Ultimately the work went forward at three sites where it was determined that the failure to proceed could endanger lives. The delays led to the work being extended into the Sunday morning rush hour, causing major traffic jams and stranding commuters who rely on the railway system.
Netanyahu accused Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, a member of his own Likud Party, of fomenting a political crisis over the issue for Katz’s political gain.
A special Knesset session to debate allowing work on Shabbat was postponed until Sept. 19, due to the Muslim Feast of the Sacrifice holiday, which would have prevented Arab lawmakers from participating, Haaretz reported. — jta
Officials send letter seeking referendum on West Bank future
The granddaughter of slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin joined a group of former Israeli military and government officials in launching a campaign demanding a referendum on the future of the West Bank and Gaza.
Groups including Peace Now and Blue White Future also initiated the campaign, titled “Decision at 50,” to consider the future of Israel on the 50th anniversary of its capture of the West Bank. Artists and social activists also signed on.
“This is the most sensitive and explosive issue in Israeli society today, and we demand that after 50 years we will get the right to decide on our own future,” the founders of the initiative said in a statement on Sept. 5. “We cannot allow ourselves another 50 years of governments’ indecision, during which decisions are made every day on the ground.”
The group sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling for the promotion of a referendum and requested a meeting with him.
“A decision through a referendum on the most critical question for the future of Israel will be a statement regarding where Israel is heading and provide guidance to Israeli governments in their policy making on this crucial matter,” the letter reads.
Among those who have signed on are Noa Rothman, Rabin’s granddaughter; Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shin Bet and an ex-Knesset member; Gen (Res.) Amram Mitzna, a former Labor Party chairman; Rabbi Michael Melchior, a former Knesset member, and Gilead Sher, chief of staff and policy coordinator to Ehud Barak, a former prime minister and defense minister. — jta
Netanyahu considers Abbas meeting under Putin’s auspices
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is considering meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas under the auspices of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In a meeting Sept. 5 with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Putin’s special envoy for the Middle East, Netanyahu discussed the Putin proposal to host a face-to-face meeting with Abbas in Moscow, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.
Netanyahu is reviewing the proposal and considering the timing of a possible meeting, according to the statement. He told Bogdanov that he is always ready to meet with Abbas directly and without preconditions.
In late August, Abbas’ office said the Palestinians were ready to participate in a peace initiative.
The Palestinians favor the French peace initiative launched in June at a one-day summit in Paris of foreign ministers from two dozen countries aimed at rebooting peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, who were not invited to the event. The ministers proposed an international conference to further talks between the two sides by the end of the year without setting a date.
Israel has balked at the initiative, saying it enables the Palestinians to continue to avoid the direct talks Israel wants.
Abbas and Netanyahu last met officially in 2010, but it is believed that since then they have held secret meetings. — jta
Women of the Wall hold prayer service without Torah scroll
The Women of the Wall blew shofars to celebrate the new month of Elul and held a bat mitzvah, though without a Torah to read from, during morning services at the Western Wall.
A Torah scroll brought by the group for use on the women’s side of the prayer section was confiscated by officials at the security entrance to the wall on Sept. 4. Some 60 women took part in the service.
Women of the Wall board member Rachel Cohen-Yeshurun tried to take a Torah scroll from the more than 100 on the men’s side, but was stopped by plainclothes police officers and escorted out of the plaza, according to Women of the Wall.
Cohen-Yeshurun said in a statement posted on Facebook that she was “a bit bruised and shaken” following the incident.
Haredi Orthodox women attempted to disrupt the morning service for the new month by screaming, spitting and blowing whistles. They were stopped by ushers wearing florescent vests, who formed a barrier between the protesters and the Women of the Wall.
Police protection for the group was increased starting last month after the women appealed to Israel’s attorney general, citing fears for their safety.
In the past, Women of the Wall members have smuggled a mini-Torah scroll into the women’s section. During another service, male supporters of the group hoisted a scroll over the divider between the men’s and women’s sections, encountering violent opposition.
In 2003, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a government ban on women wearing tefillin or tallit prayer shawls, or reading from a Torah scroll at the Western Wall, saying it violated “local custom.” Three years ago, a judge determined that the group’s activities were not illegal, and women have not been detained over wearing prayer shawls for several months.
Women of the Wall has held a special prayer service at the holy site nearly every month for the last 20 years on Rosh Chodesh, or the beginning of a new Hebrew month, at the back of the women’s section. — jta
Sharansky won’t seek new term at Jewish Agency
Natan Sharansky announced he will be stepping down from his position as chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel next June.
Sharansky, 68, will complete his second term before he leaves. He took the post in June 2009.
“I’m not going to serve another term,” he told the Jerusalem Post on Sept. 5. “I told the prime minister. It’s not healthy for the organization. There must be new people and new ideas.”
Sharansky, a famed Soviet prisoner of conscience who was able to immigrate to Israel in 1986, said he will continue working to foster connections between diaspora Jewry and Israel without specifying in what capacity.
“All my life I’ve been doing the same job really — connecting between Israel and world Jewry. I’m not going to leave this topic,” he said.
The Jewish Agency, the world’s largest Jewish nonprofit group, promotes Jewish immigration to Israel and Israel awareness abroad. It also runs programs for vulnerable operations in Israel. Most of the organization’s funding comes from Jewish communities outside Israel.
Sharansky’s recent efforts include trying to secure a compromise for an egalitarian plaza at the Western Wall and calling for wider recognition by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate of conversions done by rabbis outside the Jewish state.
He has served in the Knesset and in various ministerial roles. Most recently he represented the right-leaning Likud Party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2006. — jta
Israel’s SpaceCom to get $2 million for satellite lost in launchpad explosion
Space Communication, which owned the sophisticated Amos-6 satellite lost when the rocket it was to ride into space exploded on the launchpad, is set to receive more than $2 million in compensation from Israel Aerospace Industries.
Israel Aerospace Industries, or IAI, a government-owned corporation, provided the insurance for the satellite.
Space Communication, or SpaceCom, a publicly traded Israeli company, also said that it expects to receive $50 million from SpaceX or “have the launch of a future satellite carried out under the existing agreement and with the payments that have been made.”
The company’s stock has fallen some 45 percent since the Sept. 1 explosion of the unmanned SpaceX rocket, which was in the midst of a routine fueling test for a Sept. 3 scheduled launch from Florida’s Cape Canaveral when it exploded.
The rocket was scheduled to hoist into orbit the Amos 6 satellite, built by Israel Aerospace Industries and owned by SpaceCom Ltd. in partnership with Eutelsat Communications of France. It was expected to operate for 16 years in part on behalf of Facebook and bring internet connectivity to sub-Saharan Africa and television service to providers in Europe and the Middle East. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the project in June 2015.
SpaceX is a private aerospace company founded by entrepreneur, engineer and inventor Elon Musk. It reportedly was to be sold to China’s Beijing Xinwei Technology Group, in a deal reported to be worth $285 million, conditional on the successful launch of the satellite. It is not known how the explosion will affect the sale.
The cause of the accident is under investigation. — jta
Archaeologists restore Second Temple tiles
Archaeologists working in Jerusalem have restored floor tiling that was part of the courtyards of King Herod’s Second Temple more than 2,000 years ago.
It was the first time archaeologists successfully restored a part of the Temple complex built by King Herod, who ruled in Jerusalem for three years beginning in 37 BCE, according to Gabriel Barkay, director of the Temple Mount Sifting Project.
The flooring “enables us to get an idea of the Temple’s incredible splendor,” Barkay said in a statement.
The tiles were opulently designed, said Frankie Snyder, a member of the archaeology project.
“This type of flooring, called ‘opus sectile,’ Latin for ‘cut work,’ is very expensive and was considered to be far more prestigious than mosaic tiled floors,” Snyder said. “The tile segments were perfectly inlaid, such that one could not even insert a sharp blade between them.”
The Temple Mount Sifting Project was founded in 2005 to recover archaeological artifacts that had been removed from the Temple Mount area by the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, which manages the Muslim buildings at the site. The archaeology project is run under the auspices of Bar-Ilan University and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. — jta
Hebrew U. profs win science prize
Two Hebrew University of Jerusalem professors seen as pioneers in the field of epigenetics were honored with an award often seen as a precursor to a Nobel Prize.
Howard Cedar and Aharon Razin received Columbia University’s 2016 Horwitz Prize, the New York school announced on Sept. 6. Gary Felsenfeld of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, also was awarded the prize.
Forty-three previous Horwitz Prize winners have gone on to win the Nobel.
Cedar and Razin’s work has strongly influenced epigenetics, the study of how organisms change by altering gene expression and not genetic code. Felsenfeld’s research has helped explain how chromatin, a combination of DNA and proteins, regulates gene expression.
“These three scientists have advanced our understanding of how gene regulation works and what happens when the processes go wrong,” Lee Goldman, chief executive of Columbia University Medical Center, said in a news release. “These are fundamental medical discoveries that may lead to innovative treatments for a range of diseases.” — jta