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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (127099)	4/16/2011 1:37:02 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 132070

“If we had lived in the second millennium BC, the millennium of Abraham, and could have canvassed all the nations of the earth, what would they have said of Abraham’s journey? In most of Africa and Europe, they would have laughed at Abraham’s madness and pointed to the heavens, where the life of earth had been plotted from all eternity ... a man cannot escape his fate. The Egyptians would have shaken their heads in disbelief. The early Greeks might have told Abraham the story of Prometheus ... Do not overreach, they would advise; come to resignation. In India, he would be told that time is black, irrational and merciless. Do not set yourself the task of accomplishing something in time, which is only the dominion of suffering. On every continent, in every society, Abraham would have been given the same advice that wise men as diverse as Heraclitus, Lao-Tsu and Siddhartha would one day give their followers: do not journey but sit; compose yourself by the river of life, meditate on its ceaseless and meaningless flow.” “The Jews started it all—and by ‘it’ I mean so many of the things we care about, the underlying values that make all of us, Jew and Gentile, believer and aethiest, tick. Without the Jews, we would see the world through different eyes, hear with different ears, even feel with different feelings ... we would think with a different mind, interpret all our experience differently, draw different conclusions from the things that befall us. And we would set a different course for our lives.” - Thomas Cahill, The Gifts Of The Jews

To: longnshort who wrote (127099)	4/16/2011 2:35:41 PM
From: Pogeu Mahone	Respond to of 132070

That is the same organized pedophila as the vaticans`. Civil authorities should crack down hard. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are leeches on society in Israel. ======================== Ultra-Orthodox Jews Pose Challenges In Israel JERUSALEM — Dramatic changes may be coming in Israel: Demographers now estimate about a third of last year's Jewish babies were born into the ultra-Orthodox community, an insular and devout minority that has long been at loggerheads with the rest of the increasingly modern and prosperous country. Ultra-Orthodox Jews – known in Hebrew as "Haredim," or "those who tremble" before God – have a birthrate far higher than that of other Israeli Jews, with 10 children in a single family not uncommon. They seem poised to become far more numerous and influential. Relations between Haredim and other Israelis have never been smooth. Critics have long complained that they shun work in large numbers in favor of religious study, rejecting mainstream Israel even as they rely on that mainstream for financial support. But increasingly, even some Haredim share a sense that things cannot continue as they are. "The Haredim have set up a state within a state and have a long conflict with the state of Israel, which is now on the eve of an explosion," said Kobi Arieli, a popular radio host and author from the liberal edge of the Haredi community. "There is no chance that this situation will continue." Many community leaders chafe at change, and are especially sensitive to secular concerns about their growing population. "What does society want us to do, kill ourselves? Our community is a fact and everybody needs to understand that we exist and are not going anywhere," said Rabbi Shmuel Pappenheim, a spokesman for the Eida Haredit, an umbrella group of ultra-Orthodox factions. "This community will continue to thrive and nobody can change it." Part of the issue is the community's poverty: About half of ultra-Orthodox adults do not work, and many men are full-time Torah students with government stipends that anger the secular majority but are nonetheless quite meager. Of the estimated 700,000 Haredim in Israel – around 9 percent of the population – just under 60 percent live below the poverty line. If Haredim don't begin working in larger numbers, the financial daily The Marker posited this week, "this threatens Israel's future."