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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (7451)	4/4/2003 7:26:18 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21614

Most Israeli Jews share the formative experience of compulsory military service as well Except the ultra-Orthodox faction - who are the ones requiring most military support as they build their illegal settlements. They're exempt. They also get additional money to run their religious schools, which IMO are very close in principle to the madrassahs in that they emphasise study of religious works and theology... I'd be interested to know what if any secular education they provide, apart from lessons in claiming state funding...

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (7451)	4/4/2003 7:38:18 AM
From: zonder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21614

the state sponsored schools of Israel are secular , zonder So what? Does that mean the STATE of Israel is a secular state? Nope. Again: Israel does not have a constitution, and Torah is the basis for the legal structure of the country. That is, it is not a "secular" country. Israel has been unable to adopt a constitution full blown, not because it does not share the new society understanding of constitution as fundamental law, but because of a conflict over what constitutes fundamental law within Israeli society. Many religious Jews hold that the only real constitution for a Jewish state is the Torah and the Jewish law (halakhah) that flows from it. They not only see no need for a modern secular constitution, but even see in such a document a threat to the supremacy of the Torah and the constitutional tradition associated with it that has developed over thousands of years to serve the Jewish people in their land and in the diaspora.4 Their opposition is sometimes interpreted as the opposition of traditionalists to modernism or as a struggle between supporters of convention and custom versus supporters of a written constitution as law. This would be a serious misreading of the situation. The most traditionally Orthodox Jews are as convinced that their constitution, the Torah, is law and not custom or convention, as the most ardent supporters of a modern written constitution. Whatever one's opinion about the appropriateness of the Torah as the constitution of a modern state, it is impossible to ignore the fact that it was considered the constitution of ancient Israel and so treated by the Jewish people in the past.5 Jewish political culture does not recognize constitutions derived from convention; conventions and customs are important and, indeed, may attain the status of law for some purposes, but they are derived from a constitutional base and are not replacements for law. Quite to the contrary, the Jewish people as the first new society back in biblical times is strongly committed to the principle of fundamental law and the idea of constitution-alism derived from it. jcpa.org Most Israeli Jews share the formative experience of compulsory military service as well Not that this has anything to do with whether a state is secular or not, but you might like to know that the really religious guys in Israel are exempt from military service. And they don't even pay taxes. How is that for a "secular" country? Can you imagine there being different treatment of citizens depending on how deeply they observe a certain religion in the US, or any other secular country? Well, that is the case in Israel. Not that we need examples. No constitution and Torah as legal guideline says it all. Israel is not a secular country, nor has it ever claimed to be.