July 2012 Blog Posts (5)

Yesterday, Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) launched a campaign to stop Magen David Adom, Israel’s renowned emergency service, from appointing Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, chief Rabbi of Safed, as head of their new rabbinical committee.

The committee will be setting religious guidelines on gender relations and issues of Tsniut (modesty) for volunteers in MDA. This appointment…

On Sunday, July 22, ARZENU could once again welcome a new member to our growing community of worldwide constituents. The launch of ARZA NZ took place at an event in Auckland with participants from New Zealand, Australia and Dalya Levy, director of ARZENU, online from Israel.

Below you can read the official statement from Udi Dvorkin, Formal Education and Community Shaliach in New Zealand.

Shalom…

ARZENU and the Israel Reform Movement has helped secure Kibbutz Lotan a NIS 3.7m grant from the JNF/KK"L for the construction of a bird-watching park as well as other eco-projects.

Read the full story below in a letter from Executive Director at Kibbutz Lotan, Mike Nitzan.…

The Rabbinate has come up with a new idea – kosher ratings of hotels in Israel. The concept of kosher hotels is not new in itself. However, the Rabbinate wants to take it even further than kashrut.

In the new rabbinical rating system employing a non-Jew in the kitchen, not having a gender segregated swimming pool or allowing people to talk on cell phones during Shabbat can result in a poor rating.

Help us prevent the Rabbinate’s attempt to, yet again, abuse…

Help us make the Kotel (Western Wall) a place for all Jews - not just the ultra-Orthodox who are currently in sole control of the holiest site in Judaism as well as the Western Wall Heritage Council, who administers the holy site.

By signing the petition you call for religious pluralism on the Western Wall Heritage Council by opening up the council to members from other streams of Judaism such as Reform and Conservative Judaism as well as secular Jewish…