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Javier E

Jared Kushner's Moral Failure Indicts Orthodox Judaism - Opinion - Forward.com - 0 views

  • the challenge for Jared Kushner, and everyone in our extraordinarily privileged generation, is to remember our ancestors’ suffering and honor their memories by defending the weak, vulnerable and oppressed today.
  • Slavery, in other words, was meant to ensure that Jews would remember powerlessness once they gained power. Jared Kushner is what happens when that memory fails.
  • How could Kushner — a Modern Orthodox golden boy — fail to internalize that? How could he invite Donald Trump’s Cabinet to his house for Shabbat dinner only hours after his father-in-law’s executive order banning refugees from entering the United States? How could he pose in a tuxedo alongside his wife, Ivanka Trump, on Saturday night as that executive order wreaked havoc on innocent people’s lives simply because they hailed from the wrong countries?
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  • . How could the Modern Orthodox community, a community that prides itself on instilling in its children Jewish knowledge and ideals, have failed so profoundly?
  • not all Modern Orthodox Jews share Kushner’s moral indifference. Last November, the Orthodox social justice organization Uri L’Tzedek organized a remarkable letter condemning “Trump’s hateful rhetoric and intolerant policy proposals.” On Monday, Rabbi Kenneth Brander, a vice president of Yeshiva University, sent out a tweet congratulating the Cardozo Law students who were working to help people hurt by Trump’s ban.
  • But these are the exception, not the rule. Kushner’s moral failure challenges the Modern Orthodox community — a community for which I have enormous admiration — to ask why it is often more stringent about ritual lapses than it is about ethical ones. Why do many Modern Orthodox Jews shudder at the thought of eating nonkosher cheese, yet proudly support Trump?
hannahcarter11

He Is Israel's 'Prince of Torah.' But to Some, He Is the King of Covid. - The New York ... - 0 views

  • Yet despite his seeming detachment from worldly life, Rabbi Kanievsky has become one of the most consequential and controversial people in Israel today.
  • The spiritual leader of hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews, Rabbi Kanievsky has landed at the center of tensions over the coronavirus between the Israeli mainstream and its growing ultra-Orthodox minority.
  • Throughout the pandemic, the authorities have clashed with the ultra-Orthodox over their resistance to antivirus protocols, particularly their early refusal to close schools or limit crowds at religious events
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  • Twice, during the first and second waves of the pandemic in Israel, he rejected state-imposed antivirus protocols and would not order his followers to close their yeshivas, independent religious schools where students gather in close quarters to study Jewish Scripture.
  • If anything, he said, the pandemic made prayer and study even more essential.
  • Both times he eventually relented, and it is unlikely that he played as big a role in spreading the virus as he was accused of, but the damage was done.
  • Many public health experts say that the ultra-Orthodox — who account for about 12 percent of the population but 28 percent of the coronavirus infections, according to Israeli government statistics — have undermined the national effort against the coronavirus.
  • Ultra-Orthodox society is not monolithic, and other prominent leaders were far quicker to comply with antivirus regulations. Ultra-Orthodox leaders say the majority of their followers have obeyed the rules although their typically large families, living in tight quarters under what is now the third national lockdown, have inevitably contributed to the spread of the contagion.
  • It is usually Yanki who shapes the way questions are put to the rabbi, potentially influencing the way that he might answer them.
  • In the past, he said, ultra-Orthodox leaders have tried to avoid direct confrontation with the state.
  • His pedigree adds to his prestige: His father and uncle were legendary spiritual leaders. But it is his relentless Torah study that gives the rabbi his authority — his followers believe his encyclopedic knowledge of Jewish teachings endows him with a near-mystical ability to offer religious guidance.
  • It is this devotion to religious study that made Rabbi Kanievsky — sometimes nicknamed the ‘Prince of Torah’ — so reluctant to tell his followers to close their yeshivas at the start of the pandemic.
  • “There is now a great epidemic in the world, a disease called corona and it affects many people,” one grandson shouted in the rabbi’s ear last year, following a question from a visitor, according to a video of the conversation. “He asks what they should take upon themselves so this disease does not get to them and there are no problems.”
  • Several weeks into the pandemic, the rabbi ordered his followers to obey social distancing guidelines, even equating scofflaws to murderers. In June, he said face masks were a religious obligation. In December, he gave his blessing to the vaccine, not long after recovering from the virus himself. In recent days he condemned a group of Haredi youths who clashed with police officers trying to enforce coronavirus regulations.
  • But he has contributed to one of the biggest-ever showdowns between the Israeli mainstream and the ultra-Orthodox, also known as Haredim.
  • But without speaking to the rabbi directly, it is hard to know exactly what he thinks.
aleija

Opinion | Ultra-Orthodox Jews' Greatest Strength Has Become Their Greatest Weakness - T... - 0 views

  • In Israel and the U.S., this isolated community is thriving. The coronavirus pandemic has shown why this may be its biggest problem.
  • Some of the schools refused, and the governor threatened as a consequence to withhold state funding.
  • At about the same time in Israel, a rabbi commanded his followers to open ultra-Orthodox schools, in defiance of government shutdown orders. Israel’s health minister warned these schools that they could face “heavy fines.”
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  • I will also state that I see much to admire in the ultra-Orthodox way of life: the sense of community and mutual responsibility, the emphasis on study, the devotion to tradition. And yet, I also feel an urgent need to advise ultra-Orthodox Jews to adapt to a new reality, one in which ultra-Orthodoxy’s great success — its ability to thrive in a modern world — has become its great challenge.
  • Ultra-Orthodox Judaism today is based on strict adherence to Jewish law, a highly conservative worldview and a rejection of many components of the modern world (from evolutionary science to television), with the aim of erecting a shield against secularization and assimilation.
  • eventy years ago, with the destruction of most ultra-Orthodox communities in Europe in the Holocaust, some assumed that the end of this branch of Judaism was near. However, with stubbornness and sophistication, high birthrates and social cohesion, ultra-Orthodox communities are growing and thriving.
  • Socially, Haredi neighborhoods and towns tend to be less than hospitable to outsiders, and as the neighborhoods expand, clashes with neighbors are common. So these communities are gradually becoming harder to ignore. And the pandemic might be the ultimate demonstration of the emerging problem. In Jerusalem and New York, where these Jews live in great and fast-growing numbers, a puzzled public begins to feel these communities have become too independent.
  • But the disobedience of a strong community — particularly one that could affect the health of the larger public — is more difficult to defend.
  • If Americans become hostile to the community, the consequences could be even graver. Anti-Semitism, already on the rise, feeds on fear and suspicion.
Javier E

The Orthodox Surge - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • In the New York City area, for example, the Orthodox make up 32 percent of Jews over all. But the Orthodox make up 61 percent of Jewish children. Because the Orthodox are so fertile, in a few years, they will be the dominant group in New York Jewry.
  • For the people who shop at Pomegranate, the collective covenant with God is the primary reality and obedience to the laws is the primary obligation. They go shopping like the rest of us, but their shopping is minutely governed by an external moral order.
  • The laws, in this view, make for a decent society. They give structure to everyday life. They infuse everyday acts with spiritual significance. They build community. They regulate desires. They moderate religious zeal, making religion an everyday practical reality.
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  • The laws are gradually internalized through a system of lifelong study, argument and practice. The external laws may seem, at first, like an imposition, but then they become welcome and finally seem like a person’s natural way of being.
  • At first piano practice seems like drudgery, like self-limitation, but mastering the technique gives you the freedom to play well and create new songs. Life is less a journey than it is mastering a discipline or craft.
  • there are still obligations that precede choice. For example, a young person in mainstream America can choose to marry or not. In Orthodox society, young adults have an obligation to marry and perpetuate the covenant and it is a source of deep sadness when they cannot.
  • “Marriage is about love, but it is not first and foremost about love,” Soloveichik says. “First and foremost, marriage is about continuity and transmission.”
Javier E

Russian Church Opposes Syrian Intervention - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • It is clear by now that Russia’s government has dug in against outside intervention in Syria, its longtime partner and last firm foothold in the Middle East. Less well known is the position taken by the Russian Orthodox Church, which fears that Christian minorities, many of them Orthodox, will be swept away by a wave of Islamic fundamentalism unleashed by the Arab Spring.
  • This argument for supporting sitting leaders has reached a peak around Syria, whose minority population of Christians, about 10 percent, has been reluctant to join the Sunni Muslim opposition against Mr. Assad, fearing persecution at those same hands if he were to fall. If the church’s advocacy cannot be said to guide Russia’s policy, it is one of the factors that make compromise with the West so elusive, especially at a time of domestic political uncertainty for the Kremlin.
  • The issue of “Christianophobia” shot to the top of the church’s agenda a year ago, with a statement warning that “they are killing our brothers and sisters, driving them from their homes, separating them from their near and dear, stripping them of the right to confess their religious beliefs
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  • The metropolitan asked Mr. Putin to promise to protect Christian minorities in the Middle East. “So it will be,” Mr. Putin said. “There is no doubt at all.”
  • The statements on “Christianophobia” amount to a denunciation of Western intervention, especially in Egypt and Iraq, which lost two-thirds of its 1.5 million Christians after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
  • Western analysts acknowledge the dangers faced by Christians in Syria, but say the church would be wise to distance itself from the Assad government and prepare for a political transition.
  • “If the Christian population and those that support it want a long-term future in the region, they’re going to have to accept that hitching their wagon to this brutal killing machine doesn’t have a long-term future.”
jlessner

Ultra-Orthodox Newspaper Appears To Have Edited Women Out Of Paris March Image - 0 views

  • An ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper in Israel appears to have edited out female world leaders from a photograph of Sunday's anti-terrorism rally in Paris, Israeli media reported.
  • Israeli site Walla!, however, noted that when ultra-Orthodox paper HaMevaser (The Announcer) ran the iconic photo, female leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo were all of a sudden missing from the scene.
  • In fact, it's not the first time in recent years that an ultra-Orthodox publication has cut a female leader from a photo in its print. The New York-based paper Di Tzeitung decided in 2011 to erase then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the image showing American leaders during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, The Telegraph noted.
lenaurick

Pope Francis, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kyril to meet - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Pope Francis will meet the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kyril, next Friday in Cuba, the Vatican announced Friday.
  • It will be the first meeting between the heads of the Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches in history. The Eastern Orthodox and Western factions of Christianity broke apart during the Great Schism in 1054.
  • The meeting will come less than a year after Francis' first visit to Cuba as Pope. He played a key role in the recent thawing of relations between the United States and Cuba, which reestablished diplomatic ties last year.
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  • "We need to put aside internal disagreements at this tragic time and join efforts to save Christians in the regions where they are subject to the most atrocious persecution,"
rachelramirez

In Historic Move, Pope to Meet With Leader of Russian Orthodox Church - The New York Times - 0 views

  • In Historic Move, Pope to Meet With Leader of Russian Orthodox Church
  • the first meeting between a pope and the Russian patriarch since the eastern and western branches of Christianity split nearly 1,000 years ago
  • it is another important milestone in his efforts to reconcile the Roman Catholic Church with Eastern Orthodox churches.
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  • discussions had been underway “for at least two years,” and the fact that both leaders planned to be in Latin America created the possibility of a “neutral place” for a meeting.
  • The two agreed to establish formal diplomatic relations only at the end of 2009, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia met Francis in June 2015, in what was seen as a break of Russia’s isolation from the West over the crisis in Ukraine.
  • Francis has worked to reconcile divisions in Christianity that trace to the Great Schism of 1054, which formally divided the Eastern and Western churches.
  • Alberto Melloni, a Vatican historian, also noted that the Cuba meeting has meaningful geopolitical implications, because it comes at a time when the United States and Europe diplomats are working to isolate Russia.
Javier E

Steve Bannon's Coalition of Christian Traditionalists - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • even as Bannon and various religious leaders seek to pit the values of Christianity against those of Islam, there is also an internal competition to decide who gets to define Christian traditionalism.
  • Two of the main players in this competition, American Christian traditionalists—including conservative Catholics like Bannon as well as evangelicals like Franklin Graham—and Russian Orthodox, are united in their desire to save Christendom from the perceived threat of radical Islam. But buried underneath that superficial agreement is a complex disagreement as to what Christendom even means.
  • In Bannon’s telling, the greatest mistake the baby boomers made was to reject the traditional “Judeo-Christian” values of their parents. He considers this a historical crime, because in his telling it was Judeo-Christian values that enabled Western Europe and the United States to defeat European fascism, and, subsequently, to create an “enlightened capitalism” that made America great for decades after World War II.
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  • upon his return to office in 2012, Putin realized that “large patches of the West despised feminism and the gay-rights movement.” Seizing the opportunity, he transformed himself into the “New World Leader of Conservatism” whose traditionalism would offer an alternative to the libertine West that had long shunned him.
  • Yet Bannon suggested that Putin is not really interested in conservatism but in changing Western perceptions of Russia, and for one main purpose: “At the end of the day, I think that Putin and his cronies are really a kleptocracy, that are really an imperialist power that want to expand.”
  • Here is where the ROC and ultra-conservative Russians have found allies in the West, and in particular among evangelicals: In a global fight for traditional families, it falls to them to promote heterosexual marriage, childbearing, and adoption as part of an overarching defense of “civilization.
  • While there are obvious connections between Trump and Bannon, Bannon and Dugin, American evangelicals and Russian Orthodox, there is no clear social, political or ideological framework tying them all together. And the gap between conservative and extreme right seems to be rapidly widening.
  • previously many conservatives focused on disputing the legal legitimacy of progressive policies, some conservatives have switched to opposing these policies under the banner of religious freedom.
  • Russian conservatives, led by the Orthodox Church, frame their need for moral conservatism and family values as a different type of freedom. Russian moral leaders insist that theirs is a freedom of association, the freedom to adhere to tradition rather than to the “totalitarian freedom” of the capitalist, pluralist West.
  • The possibility of a new global resistance to the values that have become stays of the mainstream progressive West raises the question of who will lead this resistance.
  • the difference here is that we’re seeing an emergence of Christian traditionalist, rather than progressive, global coalitions.
  • In a void that prelates and preachers struggle to fill, Trump will continue to be the face of a new traditionalism.
Javier E

Ultra-Orthodox Israelis Are Joining the Army - WSJ - 0 views

  • Soon after the May 1948 birth of the state of Israel, a meeting took place between David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, and Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz, a leading religious figure and head of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox (in Hebrew, Haredi) community. The result was the Status Quo Agreement, which charted two parallel lines: one for Jewish Israelis at large, whether secular or religious, the other tailored to the needs of Haredi Jews in particular.
  • Over the decades, the former “line” helped Jewish Israelis flourish in a modern state. The Haredi line restored the fortunes of a special religious world that, after being nearly destroyed in the Holocaust, was re-established. That world was upgraded with such institutions as Torah academies, synagogues, and Hasidic courts; in various subsects and religious activities; and in whole Haredi municipalities.
  • According to their political leaders, most Haredim hope to sustain their religiously devout and socially reclusive lives permanently under the protection of their longstanding civic exemptions. The rest of Israel demands and expects full participation.
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  • given the growth of Haredi society, from 3% of Israel’s population in 1948 to almost 14% today, profound challenges have arisen. Part of Israel’s recent social unrest is the product of tension between the Haredi and non-Haredi public over the military draft
  • Within two weeks, some 3,000 Haredi men had asked to join Israel’s armed forces.
  • In light of these developments, it is tempting to imagine that Israel has turned a corner and things will never be the same. People made similar predictions during the pandemic, and most of them weren’t realized. We need to ensure that this time, things won’t simply bounce back to where they wer
  • Israel’s calamity has sparked several awakenings. It’s obvious now that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however talented he may be, isn’t the Jewish messiah
  • We have seen the face of the true enemy and reabsorbed the ancient lesson that there is no negotiating with evil. It must be destroyed.
  • We have discovered that the international left—at least when it comes to Israel—will largely support its favored “underdog” along with its unquenchable thirst for Jewish blood.
fischerry

The Great Schism: Why it's taken 1,000 years for the Pope and the Patriarch to meet | C... - 0 views

  • The head of the Roman Catholic Church and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church are to meet for the first time in nearly 1,000 years tomorrow.
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    This article talks the meeting of the head of the Roman Catholic Church and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. They hadn't met for nearly 1000 years. 
fischerry

Great Schism on mend: Pope, Orthodox leader to show solidarity in visit with refugees i... - 0 views

  • Great Schism on mend: Pope, Orthodox leader to show solidarity in visit with refugees in limbo in Greece
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    This article talks about how 1000 years later, the Great Schism is on the mend. 
Javier E

Russian Orthodox Church Joins in Calls for Election Reform - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • “It’s amazing that this awakening of civic consciousness has affected the church as well, and not just lay people but clergy, too,” Sergei Chapnin, editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, said last week, on the sidelines of a seminar about Russia’s historical identity
  • the reaction inside the church arose from disgust at official dishonesty surrounding the election. “A Christian has to protest against lies, especially lies to millions of people,
  • He said clergy members were speaking out because they saw vote-rigging and fraud as violations of the Ten Commandments.
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  • “A priest knows very well that violation of the commandments never passes without a trace,” he said. “It always results in some grave consequences for violators and the entire society in which this act of falsehood occurs.”
maddieireland334

Russians mark less than merry Orthodox Christmas amid rouble fears - 0 views

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    Russians celebrated Orthodox Christmas with fears about the weak rouble still at the forefront of many people's minds. On Wednesday morning, the rouble was trading at more than 63 to the dollar, compared with a rate of 33 on Orthodox Christmas last year.
Javier E

'Revolution? What Revolution?' Russia Asks 100 Years Later - The New York Times - 0 views

  • MOSCOW — The Kremlin plans to sit out the centenary of the Russian Revolution.
  • There will be no national holiday on Sunday, March 12, the date generally recognized as the start of the uprising. Nor will there even be a government-issued official interpretation, like the one mandating that World War II was a “Great Victory.”
  • In comparison, the Kremlin has turned World War II into the apogee of national unity.
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  • Previously, the official narrative was an essay written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, in which he argued that deep distrust between the court and the educated elite along with German meddling brought about catastrophe.
  • The latter fits the Kremlin narrative that Russia has long been besieged by foreign aggressors and that the West strives to implant friendly regimes everywhere by sponsoring “color revolutions.” Columnists have been lumping 1917 among more recent color revolutions in places like Georgia and Ukraine, naturally listing the United States among the suspected agitators.
  • There is also a damning lack of heroic figures in the revolution. Czar Nicholas II was deposed and thus weak. Alexander F. Kerensky, the central figure in the provisional government, proved ineffective. Lenin fomented appalling bloodshed and destroyed the Russian Orthodox Church, a pillar of Mr. Putin’s support.
  • “Vladimir Putin cannot compare himself to Nicholas II, nor to Lenin nor to Kerensky, because that is not Russian history to be proud of,” said Mikhail Zygar, a Russian journalist and the author of a best-selling book, “All the Kremlin’s Men,” which details the inner workings of the Putin regime. “In terms of 1917, nothing can be used as a propaganda tool.”
  • Mr. Putin’s critiques of the revolution contrast markedly with his usual glowing tributes to Russian history. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “We know well the consequences that these great upheavals can bring,” he said in his state of the federation speech in December. “Unfortunately, our country went through many such upheavals and their consequences in the 20th century.”At an earlier public forum, after disparaging Lenin, he said, “We didn’t need the world revolution.”
  • At one recent forum, Vladimir R. Medinsky, the conservative minister of culture, said the revolution underscored the dangers of letting liberals rule, because they always put self-interest above Russia.
  • Metropolitan Hilarion of the Russian Orthodox Church, speaking at the same event, lambasted those who destroyed the czarist state rather than seeking compromise.
  • Liberals retort that a repressive government ignoring vast income disparity and curbing basic rights should be worried about history repeating itself.
  • “The authorities cannot celebrate 1917,” said Nikita Sokolov, a historian. “Whatever might have happened, the impulse of the revolution was social justice. A country with such inequality can’t celebrate this. Also, the authorities think that any revolution is a color revolution.”
  • At a recent forum, Leonid Reshetnikov, a historian and retired lieutenant general in Russia’s foreign intelligence service, described trying to explain to his granddaughter why the city of Yekaterinburg had a church dedicated to the czar and his family, who were canonized by the church, as well as a monument to Lenin, the man who ordered them shot there.
  • “We live in historical schizophrenia, with these monuments to Lenin, to all of them,” he said, going on to denounce any street protesters as potential revolutionaries.
Javier E

Used to Hardship, Latvia Accepts Austerity, and Its Pain Eases - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Hardship has long been common here — and still is. But in just four years, the country has gone from the European Union’s worst economic disaster zone to a model of what the International Monetary Fund hails as the healing properties of deep budget cuts. Latvia’s economy, after shriveling by more than 20 percent from its peak, grew by about 5 percent last year, making it the best performer in the 27-nation European Union. Its budget deficit is down sharply and exports are soaring.
  • Now its abrupt turn for the better has put a spotlight on a ticklish question for those who look to orthodox economics for a solution to Europe’s wider economic woes: Instead of obeying any universal laws of economic gravity, do different people respond differently to the same forces?
  • in Latvia, where the government laid off a third of its civil servants, slashed wages for the rest and sharply reduced support for hospitals, people mostly accepted the bitter medicine. Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, who presided over the austerity, was re-elected, not thrown out of office, as many of his counterparts elsewhere have been. The cuts calmed fears on financial markets that the country was about to go bankrupt, and this meant that the government and private companies could again get the loans they needed to stay afloat. At the same time, private businesses followed the government in slashing wages, which made the country’s labor force more competitive by reducing the prices of its goods. As exports grew, companies began to rehire workers.
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  • Economic gains have still left 30.9 percent of Latvia’s population “severely materially deprived,” according to 2011 data released in December by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, second only to Bulgaria. Unemployment has fallen from more than 20 percent in early 2010, but was still 14.2 percent in the third quarter of 2012
  • “I’m always asking people here, ‘How can you put up with this?’ ” said Juris Calitis, a Latvian-born Anglican chaplain whose family fled Soviet occupation in the 1940s and who returned when the Soviet empire crumbled. “It is really shocking,” added Mr. Calitis, who runs a soup kitchen at his church in Riga’s old town. Latvians, he said, “should be shouting in the streets,” but “there is an acceptance of hard knocks.”
  • In contrast to much of Europe, Latvia today has no tradition of labor activism. “What can you achieve in the street? It is cold and snowing,” said Peteris Krigers, president of the Free Trade Union Confederation of Latvia. Organizing strikes, he said, is nearly impossible. “It is seen as shameful for people who earn any salary, no matter how small, to go on strike.”
  • Also largely absent are the leftist political forces that have opposed austerity elsewhere in Europe, or the rigid labor laws that protect job security and wage levels. In the second half of 2010, after less than 18 months of painful austerity, Latvia’s economy began to grow again.
  • Since 2008, Latvia has lost more than 5 percent of its population, mostly young people, to emigration. The recent exodus peaked in 2010, when 42,263 people moved abroad, a huge number in a country of just two million now, according to Mihails Hazans, a professor at the University of Latvia.
  • Alf Vanags, director of the Baltic International Center for Economic Policy Studies here, is skeptical. “The idea of a Latvian ‘success story’ is ridiculous,” he said. “Latvia is not a model for anybody.”
  • A better and more equitable way out of Latvia’s troubles, he believes, would have been a devaluation of the currency, an option closed to Greece and 16 other countries that use the euro. Latvia kept its currency pegged to the euro, putting itself in much the same straitjacket as euro zone nations.
  • “You can only do this in a country that is willing to take serious pain for some time and has a dramatic flexibility in the labor market,” he said. “The lesson of what Latvia has done is that there is no lesson.”
julia rhodes

Israeli Secularists Find Their Voice in Yair Lapid - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Now, Mr. Lapid’s stunning success
  • is being viewed by many voters, activists and analysts here as a victory for the secular mainstream in the intensifying identity battle gripping the country.
  • the widespread draft exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox, integrating them into the work force, and shifting the balance of who pays taxes and who receives government aid.
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  • “People say, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t see myself as part of a society where women cannot sit in the front of the bus.’ People don’t want to be part of such an extreme society.”
    • julia rhodes
       
      BISMARCK!
  • But it is also code for a broader sociological shift,
  • 47 percent identified the religious-secular divide as the most acute in society, more than twice as high as the next ranked choice of politics, at 19 percent, followed by rich and poor, at 15 percent.
  • “The underlying issue is that there’s an ideological contest over the soul of the state of Israel and the Jewish people.”
  • “There are elements in the making of a Kulturkampf,”
  • And in late 2011, an international uproar was set off when a group of Haredi men spit at an 8-year-old Modern Orthodox girl on her way to school, calling her a prostitute because her clothing was seen as not modest enough.
  • Beyond the draft, Mr. Lapid’s party platform said it would “work to promote” civil marriage, including for same-sex couples, and “rectify inequality in family laws.” On his Facebook page, Mr. Lapid wrote that “as far as women’s exclusion is concerned there can be no compromise or negotiation.”
ethanmoser

Stropped train triggers major political row in Balkans | Fox News - 0 views

  • Stropped train triggers major political row in Balkans
  • A Serbian train halted at the border with Kosovo and bearing signs reading "Kosovo is Serbian," has fueled a major crisis in the Balkans and escalated a potential Russia-West row over dominance in the heart of the Balkans.
  • Serbia accused Kosovo's leaders on Sunday of "wanting war" and warned that it would defend "every inch" of its territory, a day after the train, decorated in Serbian Christian Orthodox symbols and flags, was prevented from entering the neighboring nation.
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  • Kosovo, supported by much of the West, declared independence from Serbia in 2008. But, Serbia and its Slavic Orthodox ally, Russia, do not recognize the split.
  • "Yesterday, we were on the verge of clashes," Nikolic said after a meeting of the country's top security body following the train's overnight return to Belgrade. He accused the Kosovo Albanians of "wanting war."
  • "We are a country which has to protect its people and its territory," Nikolic said, in the strongest rhetoric since the NATO-led troops took control of Kosovo's borders in 1999.
  • Tensions between Serbia and Kosovo have soared following the recent detention in France of Ramush Haradinaj, a former Kosovo prime minister, on an arrest warrant from Serbia.
  • Kosovo has called the warrant illegitimate and urged France to ignore it, while Serbia is urging Haradinaj's quick extradition to face war crimes charges.
qkirkpatrick

'Defending the Faith' in the Middle East - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • THE last several months have brought a dramatic escalation in conflict across the Middle East, almost all of it involving tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims
  • The kingdom has sent planeloads of weapons and millions of dollars to Sunni militants in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, many of them Salafi extremists. In contrast to Tehran, Riyadh has no compunction ab
  • And yet, as new and disturbing as these developments may appear, the linkage of sectarian and secular interests is a return to the classic geopolitics of religion in the Middle East
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  • Consider Imperial Russia’s claim to be the patron of Orthodox Christendom, a claim mainly targeted at its major regional rival, the Ottoman Empire. Following the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768 to 1774, the Treaty of Kutchuk Kainardji allowed Russia to represent Orthodox Christians in Ottoman lands.
  • The most spectacular efforts to employ the geopolitics of religion were made by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. In 1914, the sheikh al-Islam, who oversaw the empire’s religious affairs, issued five fatwas, translated into numerous languages, urging Muslims in the British, French and Russian empires to revolt.
  • The politics of religion undermined the Westphalian order, based on the principles of state sovereignty and territorial integrity.
  • To weaken the order of transnational sectarian protectorates in the region, their underlying conflicts need to be resolved. The clients — Sunni or Shiite — must be sensibly accommodated in their states’ power structures, which will reduce the appeal of foreign patronage.
  • More important, the international community must prevent any further escalation of the struggle between their main protectors, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
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    History of Middle East and how it has affected the events today.
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