Community spokesperson David Zwartz said that attempts to convince Agriculture Minister David Carter to reverse the ban on shechitah had failed, prompting Jewish leaders to engage a leading Auckland-based law firm.

“Draft proceedings are currently being reviewed by a QC and a final decision will be made following receipt of his advice,” Mr Zwartz said.

Mr Carter announced the ban in late May, over-ruling advice from the National Animal Welfare Advisory Committee to exempt shechitah from a new Animal Welfare Slaughter Code.

It means New Zealand’s 7,000 Jews have no access to kosher chickens. However, kosher meat can be imported from Australia.

“The minister is firm in his resolve to preserve his position, which does not give the Jewish community a secure, continuous supply of kosher meat,” Mr Zwartz added. “This is disappointing and has meant turning to progress the work on a legal action.”

The legal case is likely to focus on the ban’s apparent violation of New Zealand’s Bill of Rights, which protects the right for a person to practise their religion, and its possible breach of the Animal Welfare Act, which contains provisions for religious rights.

The impending legal battle – which some believe could be a test case – threatens to be embarrassing for Prime Minister John Key, whose mother was a Jewish refugee who escaped Austria on the eve of the Holocaust.

The development comes just weeks after the European Parliament voted in favour of new regulations requiring kosher meat to be labelled “meat from slaughter without stunning”.

When 240 observant Jews sat down to the 18-course dinner earlier this month, they were served a veritable zoo of animals that were unlikely candidates to be eaten under traditional Jewish dietary laws, known as kashrut.

Eating kosher, the organizers want to say, does not just mean chicken soup and matzo balls; the list of animals eaten by Jewish communities around the world throughout history is longer and stranger than most people think.

“It’s about keeping a 2,500-year-old tradition in our hands,” said Ari Greenspan, one of the organizers. “We have such a rich tradition but because of commercial food production, the only things slaughtered today are those that are financially feasible and grow quickly.”

The biblical rules that govern Jewish diets include a blacklist of animals that may not be eaten, like pigs, vultures or fish without scales. Beef is kosher, pork is not. Trout is kosher, crab is not. Religious Jews abide by these rules to the letter, but probably wouldn’t think to replace standards like beef or chicken with permitted alternatives like the water buffalo or pheasant served at the dinner.

The dinner’s organizers — Greenspan, a dentist, and Ari Zivotofsky, a rabbi, both 47 — have spent decades investigating the nether reaches of the kosher kitchen.

The two met as teens in a Jewish religious school near Jerusalem. When they learned kosher slaughter, they realized the list of permitted animals was under threat because people were dying and taking little-known traditions with them. Some dietary directions not spelled out clearly in the Bible — particularly methods of poultry slaughter — must be passed down orally by a living witness, Greenspan said.

Without witnesses, more animals may go the way of the peacock. It was one of 30 birds pictured in a 150-year-old Italian book on kosher poultry, but no one alive remembers how to slaughter it in a kosher way, the organizers said. So today peacock is off the Jewish menu.

The two traveled to more than 40 countries, interviewing aging kosher butchers and documenting traditions like eating locusts, common among the Jews of Yemen.

The research culminated in the July 22 dinner.

Dishes included sparrows, doves, deer, roasted elk and grilled cow udders. Pheasants flown in from Rome were rolled into cinnamon pastille pastries. Greenspan and Zivotofsky found three kosher butchers, from Algeria, France and Israel, who remembered how to properly slaughter guinea fowl.

A cadre of rabbis and academics explained each course to the diners. They also discussed long-running debates over the kosher status of some animals, such as swordfish, which was also served.

Zivotofsky read from a ruling by a 16th-century rabbi who said that swordfish has scales in water, meaning it is kosher, though the rabbi claimed the scales fall off when the fish is out of the water. That made it suspect enough that Zivotofsky wouldn’t eat it at the dinner, though others did.

The organizers also restored a species to the kosher menu: the shibuta, a fish mentioned in the Talmud, the ancient commentary on the Bible that defines Jewish law. It is believed to refer to the Barbus grypus, a carp that grows in the Euphrates River. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, Greenspan said, he asked a military rabbi to confirm the fish was kosher. It was. At the dinner, shibuta from Turkey was served as a fried fish cake.

The locusts were nearly a disaster.

“We had someone raising them for us in Israel, but then there was a heat wave,” Greenspan said. “They all died. We were up a creek. Locusts are the big hit of dinner.” The organizers heard about an institution in Britain that grows insects, and Greenspan called a British cousin who brought the locusts to Israel in his suitcase.

Accountant Gadi Levin tore off the six legs of one of the brown locusts, about the length of his thumb, and bit into its crunchy body. Stir-fried, the locust was earthy and redolent with soy sauce.

“It was delicious,” said the 37-year-old South African-born Israeli. “It tasted like a barbecue crisp.”

“Disorder in the area of the runways, or even close by, could disrupt flights to Israel,” an airline industry source said. “No airline will fly to an airport where there is violent disorder.”

 
Renovation and widening work was recently begun on the runways to improve safety. One runway was due to be lengthened, which would enable one runway to be designated for takeoff and the other for landing.

A few days ago, Antiquities Authority workers discovered the ancient graves at the site of the renovations. On Wednesday it appeared that haredi figures had been informed – the same groups that had tried to prevent the construction of the ER room at the Barzilai Medical Center (Ashkelon) and are now demonstrating in Jaffa against construction at a site in which other graves have been discovered.

New ‘graves affair’?

Initial investigations suggest that the newly discovered graves are not Jewish. However, the Airports Authority has begun receiving telephone calls which suggest a new “graves affair” is developing.

The site of the graves was to be included in the renovation work only in the second stage, in over a year’s time. Nonetheless, the religious figures are demanding the work be halted now, for fear of harming the graves. The Airports Authority is investing some NIS 800 million ($210 million) into the renovation and extension works.

Even though this site is within the “sterile” area of the airport, protected by a security fence and armed patrols, authorities fear haredi groups may attempt to enter to prevent the work from continuing.

The Airports Authority held an emergency meeting Wednesday, with the participation of Chairman Ovadia Ali and Director-General Kobi Mor. Various solutions were discussed in case the Haredi groups insisted that work be completely halted on the site.

Mehadrin Kosher Poultry pleaded no contest before Judge Stephen B. Lieberman to violating the state’s Solid Waste Management Act and Clean Streams Law from August to October 2008.

Lieberman said the probation will end when the fine is paid.

Deputy Attorney General Steven Portman said the charges were filed in August 2009 based on a report from the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Portman said there have been no recent complaints about the plant in the 1100 block of Lincoln Road.

Mehadrin’s lawyer, James J. West of Harrisburg, said the company has spent $300,000 on improvements and is working with the state and the township to comply with environmental standards.

West said Mehadrin is fixing all the problems that were caused by the previous owners.

The company bought the plant from G&G Poultry in May 2008.

Paul A. Herb, Exeter wastewater plant superintendent, said the township is working with the company to keep it in compliance with the township ordinance.

The township in April sought a court order to prevent the plant from discharging wastewater into the township system.

The township and the company then agreed to a settlement that required the company to pay $95,000 to cover overdue sewer bills, obtain an industrial waste permit and comply with township regulations on the discharge.

The operators of the plant under G&G had been sentenced in county court to probation for violating environmental laws.

Thus, for example, the Yedioth Ahronoth daily interviewed A., a 26-year old yeshiva student who tutors at a heder, or a religious elementary school, in Jerusalem.

“I go there every day for an hour, and receive $300 cash a month. It’s not much, but it’s cash so that’s nice. It’s great money for an hour of work a day,” he said. As to the subjects A. teaches, they include Math, Hebrew, and “a little about the destruction of the second temple”.

“Of course the content is suitable for the haredi sector,” he said. “We don’t teach Zionism.”

When asked whether the students are taught subjects such as Science, History, Literature, or English – which are considered basic subjects by the state – A. answers, “Never.”

He went on to describe the pupils’ day. “After morning prayers, at 8:30, we enter the heder. In the morning we study Torah,” said A. “Only the last hour of school is dedicated to basic subjects.”

The study by Yedioth Ahronoth was a sequel to its report two weeks ago, in which the paper revealed that many of the schools receiving funds from the state for teaching basic subjects were actually teaching almost nothing on the Education Ministry’s curriculum.

Calculations by the ministry show that around $7 million are going to waste every year because of this, and the lack of supervision in the schools. Two inspectors charged with maintaining the Education Ministry’s standards were found to have made false reports on the number of hours of basic subjects being taught: By reporting on more hours of basic subjects the supervisors obtained extra funding for the schools.

An official at the Justice Ministry was unsurprised, and told the paper the schools had many adjustments to make before basic subjects could be taught. “They have no teachers and no books,” she said.

Saturday: The day of the star?

Yedioth Ahronoth put together a test, which included 10 questions taken from lesson plans for grades 1-3 on the various basic subjects – Math, Hebrew, History, Civics, Science, and English. The exam, simplistic by all accounts, included questions such as: ‘On which continent is Israel located?’ ‘Who was Napoleon?’ and ‘What is the square root of 81?’

The paper presented the test as a survey of general knowledge to 25 teachers from the haredi sector as well 25 teachers who work at state schools.

The results were shocking. Among haredi teachers, the average score was 59, with 40% of those tested getting five or more questions wrong. Half of those tested did not know how to complete the first line of the national anthem after having been given the three first words out of four. One answered: “I don’t know and I don’t want to know.” Another wondered if it was a line from the bible. There were a few who knew the answer but could not recite the second line. When asked the meaning of the word “Saturday”, 65% did not know. Among the answers were: The name of a month, the name of a meal, and “the day of the star”.

Many spelled the words “spelling mistake” wrong. Napoleon was declared a Russian emperor and an IDF chief of staff. The boiling point was named 42 and 60 degrees Celsius. Israel was said to be located in Europe. One of those tested got nine questions correct. “Did I get 100?” he asked, but was told he did not, because he could not complete the first line of the national anthem. “In that case I got 101,” he scoffed.

Teachers belonging to state schools received an average of 96, and many were surprised at the simplicity of the quiz. Some enlightened the auditor on the various subjects involved, such as Napoleon’s beliefs and conquests. One teacher talked about the scale that preceded Celsius and Fahrenheit, which he said was computed by Sir Isaac Newton. Another recounted the history of the word ‘Saturday’, and explained that it was derived from the name ‘Saturn’.

Granted, these teachers would probably not have excelled as well at questions on Torah and Talmud, but the paper stressed that the issue at hand was that of basic subjects, which the educators tested were supposed to be teaching at the time they were quizzed.

Certification required, but not enforced

The state has stipulated recently that haredi teachers must be certified by one of the various teaching colleges located throughout the country. Certification requires three years, and uncertified educators who were already teaching were required to complete two years of studies.

But reality paints an entirely different picture. Many rabbis have ordered haredi teachers to begin working first, and then consider getting certified. In addition, the inspectors ordered to make sure only certified teachers are working in the schools are the same inspectors who were revealed by Yedioth Ahronoth to be drawing up false reports on the basic subjects taught in schools.

And their conduct was found to be no different when it came to supervising the teachers’ education. A quick check revealed that 15% of teachers were still in the process of achieving certification, while the other 85% had records with the Education Ministry which had never been verified. Because of the lack of supervisors, no one had gone over the files to ascertain that the teachers are certified, as per the new order.

Yedioth Ahronoth interviewed 10 haredi teachers from Bnei Brak, Jerusalem, Ashdod, and Elad, none of whom has a teaching certificate. Some of them were not even aware of the requirement, and were unfamiliar with the concept. When asked whether he would be willing to obtain such training one of the interviewees answered that his experience of 10 years in the field was more than enough. “I’m certain the rabbis won’t allow this oppression to continue,” he said.

‘I’ll never learn English at age 32′

In the haredi sector, any teacher of basic subjects (no matter which) is called a “Schreiber”, or a writer. Usually, one such Schreiber is charged with teaching each grade all of the basic subjects they are meant to study.

When basic subjects are taught in haredi schools, it is usually at the end of the day, when both student and teacher are tired, and in many cases they are relinquished entirely. This is problematic because these are the only studies the haredi children have in common with the Western world, and involvement in the job market becomes nearly impossible for those who don’t learn them.

Many economists believe this is the reason 65% of haredi men are unemployed. “Schreiber is a derogatory term,” says R., a 32-year old haredi man who has recently begun to study in secret at the Open University.

“If we flunked the Schreiber subjects or cut class everything was fine, as though nothing had happened. The only thing that was important was Torah studies, at which we had to excel and get good grades. There was a test on the Talmud almost every week, but there were often no tests on Schreiber subjects, or just one a year,” he said.

“I will never forget the shame I suffered when I tried to make up what I lacked. The courses I take at the Open University are also attended by secular and National-Religious people, and often when I ask questions people stare and make fun of me behind my back. I don’t know English to this day, and I doubt that at my age I will be able to learn it.”

‘No one knows what they teach’

Girls are a different matter. Their education has vastly improved over the past few years and most study all of the basic subjects in school. This revolution was led mainly by the (female) teachers, most of whom are certified and many of whom have gone on to study degrees. But most male teachers have only finished eight years of formal education, and because of the lack of supervision it is often difficult to know what, exactly, these men are teaching their students.

“No one actually knows what or how they teach, or what they know aside from Torah. Haredi education is largely obscured from the view of the secular public, and supervision is irrelevant. They do whatever they want,” said Dr. Nahum Balas, who researches the education system.

Dr. Yaakov Lopo, another researcher, stressed the lack of standardized testing in the haredi sector. “When these tests do not exist no one knows what the level of knowledge and education is and there are no objective measurements,” he said. “You can’t check the teachers’ level either. I think the teachers there are mainly chosen according to relations, contacts, and their level of knowledge on the Torah.”

And unqualified teachers who are otherwise unemployed stand to gain quite a lot from such part-time work. A haredi family of six in which neither of the parents work receives between $1,040-1,300 a month. Even an additional $300 is a relative goldmine.

“Most of the teachers receive cash handed to them each month, without contracts or wage agreements,” Dr. Lopo said. “Usually the amount is set in dollars, and the rate in shekels is not set according to the bank but rather by the rabbis. They determine the rate of the dollar, they determine what is studied, and they determine what our society will look like.”

When presented with the findings, the Education Ministry was evasive. “The ministry has no knowledge regarding the identity of these teachers,” said a formal statement on the uncertified teachers located by the paper. It should be mentioned that the demand for certification was stipulated by the ministry three years ago, and includes all teachers, haredi and secular.

Regarding the claim that the ministry had not verified the certification of 85% of haredi teachers despite having records on them in its possession, the ministry stated that “the additional supervision demanded by the ministry will lead to maintenance in this field”.

Just as an air of mystery surrounded the case of the missing Torahs, their return is equally as baffling. However, Wilschanski isn’t focused on the mystery as much as they are in awe of the documents being returned.

“This is phenomenal. It’s a miracle,” Wilschanski said.

Ron Sanders, a member of the synagogue, received a phone call months ago from someone calling on a pay phone in Brooklyn. The person told Sanders he dropped off the Torahs at an address listed on their website and then the man hung-up. The address was the home of man who did some work for Sanders. However, the man didn’t live at the south Chicago address anymore.

“I asked him if he would go to his old address to pick them up, but the people that lived there weren’t home,” Sanders said. “He left a little note months ago and they (the people currently living at the house) just called Saturday night.”

The new residents at the home said the package had been dropped off in the middle of the night at the Chicago residence. They didn’t realize what the package contained until they found the phone number on the note and called Sander’s friend, who wished not to be named. Now, the Torahs and a Hebrew book are in a safe place under lock and key in Wilschanski’s home after being stolen just days before the start of Passover in 2008.

The congregation had owned the two Torah scrolls since the 1950s and they were considered the heart of the Synagogue.

“The Torah is the tenet of our religion. It’s a sacred article of our religion and was used continuously,” Wilschanski said.

For over two years, Wilschanski had been borrowing a Torah from Milwaukee. Meanwhile the congregation worried if the person who took the Torahs was taking care of it properly.

“We keep it in a special cover, we held it in a special closet and we treated it with respect,” Wilschanski said. “To get it back is a sense of relief. Now we have what we need, but also in a spiritual sense we have our Torah back in the congregation and we feel this way because we feel a responsibility for it. With that said, someone went to a great deal of trouble stealing it, but they also went to a great deal of trouble returning it.”

Torahs, which cost tens of thousands of dollars, are handwritten and take close to a year to write. When theirs was stolen, people from the community — Jews and non-Jews— donated money for the temple to get a new one and they had commissioned a scribe to write one for them, which is now almost complete.

“We didn’t expect to get it back, but the new one is practically done and when we get it we had planned to make a celebration out of it,” Wilschanski said. “There was such an outpouring of support when they were stolen — morally and financially. This is coming full circle now… and we are more than thrilled.”

While the congregation is thrilled to get the Torahs back, 20 new Torah books and a laptop are still missing.

There is no information on whether there are survivors, Defense Ministry spokesman Constantin Spanu said. Officials were scrambling to reach the accident site near the central Romanian town of Zarnesti, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of Bucharest, he said.

Spanu said the Israeli transport helicopter CH-53 was flying at low altitude and lost radio contact mid-afternoon Monday.

The ministry said the cause of the crash was still unknown, but Defense Minister Gabriel Oprea has ordered an investigation and sent officials to the area.

A Romanian medical evacuation helicopter and two Israeli helicopters were trying to locate the crash site.

Earlier this month, the ministry reported that an Israeli CH-53 made an emergency landing on July 18 due to unspecified technical problems.

Romanian and Israeli troops are taking part in Blue Sky 2010, 11-day joint aviation exercises in which troops are trained to fly at low altitude in search, rescue and medical evacuation exercises.

The Israeli military spokesman’s office said only that it was looking into the report.

The petition also came out against the manner in which he was arrested – in the middle of the night by dozens of policemen.

Beit El Rabbi Shlomo Aviner told Ynet on Monday that the book “Torat Hamelech” is a “halachic-academic work, a pedagogical work,” and, therefore, there is no justification to send its author to prison.
 
According to Aviner, the “‘religious laws governing the killing of a non-Jew’ outlined in the book are a legitimate stance and must be addressed via clarification of halachic sources and nothing else.”
 
‘Treated like worst of criminals’

Despite this, Rabbi Aviner said that he is against the book’s publication. “I do not think it is correct to write various halachas on killing a non-Jew, just a Swede should not write about killing a Norwegian,” he said. “It is clear that it is forbidden to kill non-Jews for naught, and it is clear that in a time of war, it is permissible to defend yourself against anyone shooting at you, even if he is a ‘good’ person.”
 
Even head of the Tzohar organization, Rabbi David Stav, known as one o the moderate forces within Religious Zionism, condemned Shapira’s arrest: “Regardless of the level of halachic legitimacy of his opinions, it is unreasonable and illogical that a rabbi in Israel be treated like the worst of criminals. For some reason, they are treating him in a way they would not dare treat public officials or even Palestinians.”
 
Rabbi Stav said that he would expect the security forces to contact Shapira and summon him to the police station honorably, and not treat him as someone who is likely to escape and evade investigation.

“Nothing new happened yesterday or today,” he mentioned. “Apparently, it was simply a desire to mock and humiliate him.”

In principle, the Tzohar chairman believes the State has the right to arrest rabbis over their halachic positions if they believe there is significant concern that they may be acted on or could realistically encourage breaking the law so as to prevent “chaos.”

“A distinction must be made between making a theoretical statement and a model for an operative plan of action,” he said. “For this matter, even if it is halachically permissible to kill Arabs, it is the State’s right to arrest whoever says this,” he said.

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A large number of police descended upon the home of Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira early Monday morning to bring him in for questioning. Shapira, head of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the Jewish settlement of Yitzhar, was arrested in January on suspicion of direct involvement in the arson attack on a mosque in the West Bank, but was released after questioning.

Israel Radio reported that Shapira was detained on Monday because of a book he published, called Torat Hamelech, which deals primarily with the halachic rulings regarding the permissibility of killing non-Jews.

The rabbi is suspected of inciting violence against non-Jews.

He was released by authorities and allowed to return home Monday after being  interrogated. Shapira reportedly told police that his work was a book regarding the interpretation of religious law and not an incitement to action.

MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) criticized the state prosecutor over the arrest of Rabbi Shapira for writings in his book Torat HaMelech on Monday.

“Shai Nitzan of the state prosecution has appointed himself as a censor. In this country it is permitted incite against and oppose Judaism in the name of “freedom of expression,” yet rabbis are led away in handcuffs for writing books,” said Ben-Ari. “Shai Nitzan is returning us to the days of Czarist Russia,” he added.

Some of the halachic guidelines mentioned at the back of Torat Hamelech in a section entitled “Conclusions – Chapter Five: The Killing of Gentiles in War,” include the following prescription, “There is a reason to kill babies [on the enemy side] even if they have not transgressed the seven Noahide Laws [to believe in God, not to commit idolatry, murder, theft or adultery, to set up a legal system, and not to tear a limb from a live animal] because of the future danger they may present, since it is assumed that they will grow up to be evil like their parents….”

Police suspect that the boy’s school class left the site to tour the city without extinguishing the flames they had lit.

The blaze erupted at around 1:30 P.M. in the Aminadav Forest, just outside the capital’s Ein Karem neighborhood. Firefighters attempting to contain the fire reported that the flames were closing in on the nearby hospital, where police say dozens of cars caught alight in the hospital parking lot. Approach roads to the hospital were closed for several hours, except for ambulances.

Police ordered hundreds of residents of nearby moshavim Ora and Aminadav to evacuate their homes, fearing the flames would reach them. Some 30 firefighting teams and five firefighting airplanes battled into the evening to control the blaze. Last night, Jewish National Fund officials estimated that over 1,000 dunams (about 250 acres ) of forest had already been incinerated.

Probably some form of fireworks, “said police officer Goran Billberg.

The damage to the building is restricted to a few small glass panes broken.

Following the incident police tighten their supervision of the synagogue, and consults with the Jewish community.  Several times in the past has Malmö synagogue and the church subjected to threats and attacks, but police said no incidents have been reported in years prior to the night’s blast. Offense classified as vandalism.

Paramedics From Ichud Hatzalah along with an ambulance crew from Magen David Adom tried to resuscitate and shock the man for close to a half hour before a doctor pronounced the Yungerman dead at the kever.

The man, a Baal Tseuvah from the Ramot Section In Jerusalem married a year ago and has a two week old baby at home, reports say that his sisters wedding was supposed to be tonight as well.

Zaka Volunteers are working with Israeli Police to release the body of the man after the medical examiner requested to perform an autopsy on the body.

[YiddishNayes]

The Lake Delhi dam, about 45 miles north of Cedar Rapids (the city where R’ Shalom Rubashkin was charged), failed as a result of “massive rain — a very unusually high amount this season,” according to Jim Flansburg, communications director for Gov. Chet Culver.

Culver told CNN that nearly 10 inches of rain had recently fallen in a 12-hour period in the area and was “too much water for the dam to hold.”

The roads on either side of the dam — which were part of the cement dam’s containment measures — apparently gave out as a result of the rainfall, Flansburg told CNN.

The National Weather Service reported a 30-foot-wide gap in the berm alongside the dam.

Video showed massive amounts of water violently gushing from the pool behind the dam into the Maquoketa River below. Nearby homes and buildings were under water up to their eaves.

However, as of Saturday evening, the waters appeared to be receding, Flansburg said.

Much of the flooding occurred in farm areas instead of well-populated neighborhoods, Flansburg said, adding a would-be catastrophe was avoided.

Earlier Saturday, residents in Hopkinton, a town of about 700, were given minutes to flee approaching floodwaters, Flansburg said.

No injuries were reported.

The town of Monticello, where Culver was meeting with emergency personnel, was also under a flood warning.

Amanda Duck, a trained weather spotter along with her husband in Monticello, told CNN she had been watching the water slowly rise all day.

By evening, water was beginning to seep over a road that runs behind her house and into her neighbor’s yard, she said.

“We’re both just in a state of shock,” Duck said. “We’re just trying to keep our wits about us and help our neighbors.”

Culver activated the National Guard in the area to help with recovery efforts, his office said.

He also issued disaster proclamations for Delaware and Jones counties due to the flooding.

Culver credited the lack of injuries to local officials providing early warning to residents in the flood plain about the possibility of a dam breach.

The governor said such a failure had never happened before.

Al-Nahari, Hebrew teacher in one of Raydah’s two Jewish schools, asked to be left alone but Al-Abdi then opened fire with a submachine gun until he was riddled with bullets, the father said in statement.

Al-Abdi, mentally unstable, is alleged to have murdered his wife two years before he killed Al-Nahari, but was not jailed because he agreed to pay compensation to the wife’s family, an Al-Abdi’s tribal affiliate told local media.

Ahmed Al-Sarihi, a security official was quoted as saying Al-Abdi was a religious extremist that suffered from mental problems and that during questioning he admitted killing Al-Nahari and telling police that “these Jews must convert to Islam.” “Al-Abdi met Al-Nahari and told him “Jew, accept Islam’s message” and then shot him five times with an AK-47 assault rifle,” he said.

He also said that Al-Abdi, a retired pilot in the Yemeni air force, showed no remorse for his actions and repeatedly interrupted the prosecutor during the hearing to renew his confession, adding that Al-Abdi has repeatedly said he carried out the murder after warning Yemeni Jews that he would kill them unless they converted to Islam.

Yemeni Jews enjoy special protection from Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Salah but covert exoduses out of Yemen continue as a result of occasional violent attacks against them by some radicals.

Since 1949 about 50,000 members of the once-thriving Yemeni Jewish community are reported to have been secretly airlifted to Israel.

Last month the European Parliament voted in favour of the amendment to the provision of food information to consumers, just two weeks after New Zealand banned kosher slaughter.

Henry Grunwald QC urged the Board of Deputies on Sunday to contact their MPs before the bill comes back for discussion in September.

The ruling, which only applies to food from religious slaughter, has been widely condemned by the Jewish community. Mr Grunwald said kosher prices could rocket because the non-kosher market, which takes the 70 per cent of shechita-slaughtered meat not permitted to Jewish consumers, might be deterred by the labelling.

He said: “We will do everything we can to make sure this does not become European law. We’re not going to allow a discriminatory amendment to stand in EU parliament which singles out one method of slaughter.”

In a joint statement, the Rabbis and Imams Advisory Group of the Chief Rabbi’s Office, and the inter-faith organisation, Faith Matters, said: “We support the concept of fair and universal labelling, but believe that such an amendment is naked discrimination.

“It singles out religious communities who have been extremely careful to undertake humane food preparation for thousands of years.”

According to a Thursday report in Yediot Aharonot, Slonimer Hassidim attending an assembly at the recently reunified Beit Ya’acov school last week apologized to the Sephardi parents and said they’d had no intention of saying the latter were insufficiently observant, which they had implied during the heated affair surrounding the school that recently reached a resolution.

“We didn’t go to prison because we are racists,” they said, and proceeded to invite some of the parents of girls in the so-called “general track” to send their girls to the new school they had in the works.

Last month, the High Court of Justice imprisoned 35 fathers of girls enrolled in Emmanuel’s Beit Ya’acov primary school for holding the court in contempt. The parents had refused to return their daughters to the school once the separation they had unlawfully established between the more stringent hassidic track and the general track had been removed.

The original petition was submitted by Yoav Laloum and the nonprofit organization Noar Kahalacha in July 2008. The petitioners charged that the mostly hassidic parents had established, without permission from the Education Ministry, a separate school within the confines of the recognized Beit Ya’acov school.

Only those girls who adhered to the strict and Ashkenazi-oriented regulations of the new school were admitted. As a result, the overwhelming majority of students in the new school were Ashkenazi.

On August 16, 2009, the court accepted Laloum’s petition and ordered all elements of discrimination in the school to be removed.

When the Independent Education Center (Hinuch Atzma’i) obeyed the order and removed the partitions, the hassidic-track parents responded by withdrawing their daughters from the school and establishing an adhoc, unauthorized school.

Over the school year, these primarily Slonim parents continued to refuse to merge their daughters with the mainstream girls, arguing that their own religious customs and ways of life differed from those of the other families.

? They insisted that their demand for separation had nothing to do with ethnic discrimination.

The court found the parents in contempt of court and ordered their imprisonment.

However, after accepting a proposal by Shas spiritual mentor Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and the rebbe of Slonim, according to which all the girls studying in Emmanuel would come together at the Beit Ya’acov school for three days of lectures by spiritual leaders from all streams, the court temporarily suspended the ruling that had led to the fathers’ incarceration.

While the Slonimers have claimed all along that the separation was a result of religious stringency and not racial discrimination, the Yediot report said that the recent outreach was most probably due to the fact that the hassidim needed a certain quota of students to get the partial state funding for their planned school.

Rabbi Yitzhak Weinberg, one of the Emmanuel fathers who spent just over a week in prison, stressed that while the new school was indeed short a few heads, money was not behind the appeal to the Sephardi parents.

“All along, we said it’s not about race, but the High Court went out against our rabbis, and therefore we went to prison. We will take any student who meets the criteria,” he said.

In response Thursday, Laloum said, “We are glad that the segregating hassidim in Emmanuel have internalized that through the unity of Israel we will bring about the redeemer.”

He also expressed hope that the underlying motivation for inviting these girls would change from being fiscal. Citing the words of Emmanuel’s Ashkenazi Rabbi Yitzhak Barlev, according to whom there is no real difference between the girls, Laloum said that in light of that attitude, “we would hope that the unity would be real, and not only due to budgetary concerns.”