US report: Religious coercion, violence in Israel rising

[Scurrilous]

State Department's annual International Religious Freedom Report points to strict conversion policy, segregated bus lines, violent haredi protests in Jewish state

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3986722,00.html

<snip>

"The past year has seen a significant rise in religious coercion and violence on a religious background in Israel, a US State Department report on religious freedom issued on Wednesday stated. The report surveys religious freedom parameters in some 200 countries around the world and devotes a 29-page chapter to Israel.

The report states that "approximately 360,000 citizens who immigrated from the former-Soviet Union under the Law of Return but are not considered Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinate, cannot be buried in Jewish cemeteries, divorce, or marry within the country."

It also noted that most of the Jews in Israel are not religious-Orthodox and oppose the Orthodox establishment's control of crucial aspects of their lives.

The report also mentions the High Rabbinical Court's 2009 ruling which cast a doubt on 40,000 conversions performed by the state.

According to the report, there has been a significant rise in hostility manifestations between secular Jews and religious Jews in the past year and pointed to violent haredi demonstrations involving vandalism and violence towards police officers.

Inter-religious conflicts are also mentioned: "There were reports on haredi Jews insulting and spitting at priests and nuns, and defacing with graffiti and throwing garbage and dead cats at monasteries in Jerusalem."

In the field of religious coercion, the report pointed to the separation between men and women in services in the Western Wall and the operation of the ultra-Orthodox chastity squads."


Link:

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2010/148825.htm

[Ozymanithrax]

1. Pretty bad when a group of intolerant bigoted fanatics...

consider most Jews not Jewish enough.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Ugh. The Religious Right are disgusting, whatever the religion.

[ishaneferguson]

3. By the standards of the Haredi

I am a Russian Byzantine Orthodox Christian.



Doesen't stop the Reconstructions (R. Mordechai Kaplan) from counting me in a Minyan -- but they're not haredi.

The Haredi also called my wife a harlot for having exposed elbows.

[oberliner]

4. And those standards are taken all too seriously in Israel

People need to speak out about it that's for sure.