We Worked for Years to Wrest the Land of Israel from the Arabs

Image by followersoftheway via Flickr

“We worked for years to wrest the land of Israel from the Arabs, and now we’re not giving it back.”
“We hereby reply that it is prohibited by the Torah to sell a house or a field in the land of Israel to a gentile.” 

These were the direct quotes of two of the 300 signatories of a religious ruling prohibiting the rental or sale of property to non-Jews.  Other rabbis in Israel stated they signed this ruling as a matter of national security.  Rumors are that Arab governments are financing efforts to buy property, Jewish property that is, in northern Israel.

The ruling was first issued by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed, a city in northern Israel which has seen a steady increase in the number of Arab students coming to study at the local college.  The ruling cites Maimonides, and says there is a danger of intermarriage posed by selling land to non-Jews.  It also cites the sale could have an adverse effect on property values and it instructs Jews to ostracize and boycott those Jews who sell or rent land to gentiles.

This controversial ruling has rankled Israelis and has been denounced by two of the country’s chief rabbis,  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein.

Also opposing this “purification of the race ruling” is the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial calling the ruling “a severe blow to the values of our lives as Jews.”

I find it scary that the rise of nationalist and religious parties dominated by ultra-orthodox sects, who have no exposure to the secular world, will lead Israel towards a future that is more similar to that which many escaped from Germany.

Read more in the Wall Street Journal

Posted by nycnyc at 6:14 PM

Why are Florida’s Sex Offenders Moving in Together?

Why are Florida’s sex offenders moving in together?

Curiously Florida’s new laws regarding where sex offenders may live have created another problem…that of having multiple sex offenders living in one abode.  What is preferable to you?  To know there is one sex offender in your block or to have twenty living down the block because this is the only location far away enough from a school, a day care center or a park?

Randy Young, a registered sex offender runs a for-profit organization called Habitat for Sex Offenders.  Mr. Young was present when a 19-year-old girl performed fellatio on a 15-year-old boy, thus earning him a conviction in 2003 of  a lewd or lascivious act with a minor.  The Habitat finds housing for sex offenders ranging from child pornography to kidnapping and rape.

Broadview Park, a neighborhood with derelict vehicles and repossessed homes became an island that was a least 1,000 feet from the aforementioned institutions.  This neighborhood went in 2007 from having 4 registered sex offenders to 106 in 2009.  The solution to this concentration of sex predators was to increase the buffer zone to 2500 feet thus eliminating even more safe zones for these people.

“A good law would be figuring out where they could live,” rather than where they can’t said John Rodstrom, the commissioner of Broward County’s District 7, which includes Broadview, “But no politician would ever do that, because that’s the death of your career.”

Another problem associated with having sex offenders is the loss of home values.  In Fort Lauderdale after crossing State Road 7 where the buffer is at 1400 feet, homes that were appraised over a million are now selling at 200,000.  All the zoning restrictions did was to push the sexual offenders into the rich areas.  How ironic is that.  This article was written by using Irina Aleksander’s article in March’s 2010 The Atlantic.  Ms. Alexsander is a writer for The New York Observer.