Media Releases – February 1999
February 1999
February 5, 1999 Project Unify
February 14, 1999 Coming To Grips With Jewish Survival
February 28, 1999 Nadia’s Radio Show — Excerpts
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Project Unify
Shalom,
There is a fax campaign underway to try to influence the various
nationalist parties to unite in order to avoid a repeat of the catastrophe
of 1992 when thousands of votes were lost due to fragmentation.
Included here are the fax and phone numbers (all numbers in area code
“02”) of the individuals in question. REST ASSURED THAT EACH FAX
OR PHONE CALL REALLY COUNTS. The people in question have to
make decisions about these issues in the very near future, and each
communication of this sort will carry a lot of influence.
With Hashem’s help we can and will succeed even at this late stage.
Name FAX Phone
———- ——– ———–
MK Binyamin Zeev Begin 675-3100 675-3296
MK Michael Kleiner 675-3896 675-3802
MK Rehavam Ze’evi 675-3907 675-3555
MK Rabbi Binyamin Elon 675-6411 675-3414
MK Moshe Peled 675-6439 675-3888
MK Hanan Porat 675-3199 675-6457
MK Tzvi Hendel 675-3898 675-3850
MK Nisan Slomiansky 675-3898 675-3855
Pinchas Wallerstein 997-3113 997-5386
Here is a sample letter you can use.
Dear MK ——,
As a concerned citizen and a lover of Eretz Yisrael, I wish to
express my gratitude to you for taking risks for the Land and People of
Israel. You have spoken strongly by rejecting Wye, and in the short term at
least, the madness of surrender to the PLO has been put on hold.
However, we must look ahead to the long term, and learn from our
mistakes of the past, in particular the distastrous 1992 elections. In short,
we cannot afford the loss of any Nationalist-camp votes, period. The entire
Nationalist camp is demanding nothing less than a unified front, which is
the only hope for inspiring hundreds of thousands of tired, disillusioned
citizens,
the only hope for running a winning campaign, and for winning back the
hearts of
the people, and for consolidating our hold on our beloved homeland.
We realize that there are serious issues to be worked out between
the various parties of the nationalist camp. However, the common
denominator of
the struggle for our homeland must be and is the overarching goal. This
being so, the political will to win will yield a way to be found to work out
the problems.
We are willing and able to do whatever must be done to this end,
because we believe that this is the only way to succeed in our common goal. On
the other hand, we will not support parties which run independently and thus
threaten to repeat the disaster of ’92.
With love of Israel and wishes for success,
****
* Yehuda Poch * Phone: 03-640-8249 / 640-6154 *
* Coordinator for Project Development * Fax: 03-640-7080 *
* Tel Aviv University * email: yehudap@post.tau.ac.il *
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Jerusalem, February 14, 1999
Coming To Grips With Jewish Survival
A hullabaloo has been raised by the decision of the religious
community to voice a protest against recent actions and decisions
by the Supreme Court affecting Jewish Law (Halacha). It is
undisputed that the right of assembly wherein peaceful criticism
is leveled against the Government, or any of its arms, is a
widely accepted practice in a democracy. The Supreme Court, as an
arm of this Government, would seemingly be subject to such
criticism. Particularly is this true because of the Supreme
Court’s new practices of activism on religious matters. There is
no doubt that their decisions have seriously affected the
heretofore existing “Status Quo” between the secular and
religious, and even among various Jewish religious groups, some
of whom have totally abandoned the need to observe Halacha.
What appears to be ironic is that the Media, and others siding
with the Supreme Court, are quick to label as undemocratic, and
against the “rule of law”, those who wish to protest against such
actions and decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court. These critics
are strangely silent when it comes to the well known
anti-democratic machinations which keep the Court dominated by
secularists. The selection of High Court Judges (in which the
present Justices play an active rolein insuring the continuation
of this undemocratic “status quo”) effectively results in there
being a quota of only one religious Jew being allowed to sit on
the Supreme Court at any given time. This masked quota system,
seriously flaws any “democratic” arguments of these critics. Such
proscribed representation in the highest Court is in grave
disproportion to the actual numbers of religious Jews in Israel.
In fact these very critics, who just happen to vigorously support
the”Oslo Peace Process, misleadingly claim that Oslo insures the
continuance of a Jewish State. They choose to ignore, as the
Supreme Court itself has done, that the Oslo Process and the
method of its adoption, was illegal according to Israeli Law in
existence at that time. Furthermore,the proponents of the Oslo
Process pursued this process illegally, at a time when the law
forbade them to do so. The Supreme Court, although petitioned,
has deliberately chosen to duck facing these questions. It merely
labeled the matter “political”, and refused to consider it.
Inexplicably, neither the Supreme Court, nor the aforementioned
“defenders of democracy” see any inconsistency with the Court
presently intervening on questions affecting Jewish religious
law; whereas when asked to review the questionable and
undemocratic methods and contents of”Oslo”, it showed remarkable
“judicial restraint”. All this, the Court does under the guise of
trying to inappropriately force on Israel’s religious community,
what it wrongly conceives of as American democracy. In fact it is
an attempt to further secularize Israeli society, according to
the orientation of the members of the Court. The “rule of law”,
as expressed by the Court, flies in the face of the religious
beliefs of a large segment of our population. The protestors, who
live in accordance with historic and traditional Jewish Law, have
every right to protest against a Court which attempts to force
its own secular orientation and values on them. Isn’t the
upcoming protest, then, what true “Democracy” is all about?
Ruth and Nadia Matar
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Jerusalem, February 28, 1999
The five-minute program by Nadia Matar, the chairperson of Women for
Israel’s Tomorrow (Women in Green), on Arutz 7 has been changed to a
one-hour program on Thursday mornings, 10:10-11:00. The following are
excerpts from last week’s program.
I would like to read to you a letter to Hanan Porat, and portions of
an article by Amnon Shomron:
To
MK Hanan Porat
The Knesset
Jerusalem
Shalom!
I am sorry about your removal, or, to be more accurate: the “putsh”
against you by the politicians of the NRP Central Committee.
I saw you on the Politika program on television. You called for
“stocktaking” by the religious-Zionist camp. In my humble opinion,
the stocktaking is very simple: the NRP demonstrated that it no
longer represents the entire public of the national camp, but only
the small clique of Central Committee members who are concerned only
about their source of livelihood, and not for Eretz Israel.
Those who claim that the NRP list is “balanced” and gives expression
both to the “hawks” and to the “doves” in the camp are deceiving the
public. According to this view, Rabbi Yitzhak Levi is supposed to
represent the “hawkish” camp. Unfortunately, this claim was correct
in the past, but since Rabbi Yitzhak Levi became a government
minister, his “hawkishness” has vanished, his voice is not heard on
any foreign affairs or security topic, and the NRP has been swept
away in the wake of Minister Shaul Yahalom, who, as is known, has
undergone a “Meimad” transformation.
Don’t live with false hopes! There will be no stocktaking by the NRP
Central Committee and by the NRP leadership, nor is there any
mechanism currently existing that will express the stocktaking by the
entire NRP voting public.
The stocktaking must be that we are to rebuild the national camp, and
you, Rabbi Porat, must be among the founders and leaders of this
camp. Do not leave political life today, when such a large public
thirsts for leadership! The public longs for a new, large, and strong
national camp that will arise in the wake of the unification of
Moledet, Tekumah, Tzomet, Herut, and those who leave the NRP such as
yourself (and, with God’s help, also MK Tzvi Hendel, who also
received a nonrealistic place in the Knesset list) who will naturally
join Tekumah.
With such a united list we will be able, with God’s help, to obtain
up to 15 seats in the next Knesset, and we will thus be able to bind
Bibbi, as well as faithfully expressing the voice of tens of
thousands of people in the national camp.
We are with you in your pain, aleh ve-hatzlah – may you ascend and
succeed!
With the blessing of the people and the Land,
Ruth and Nadia Matar,
Chairwomen, Women in Green.
The NRP to Your Left
Amnon Shomron
[…] This week the NRP took its leave of the public of its
supporters in Judea and Samaria, and from a large right-wing public
throughout Israel. […] In a conscious manner, the Central Committee
of the party decided to change its profile, to shake itself free of
the central concern with matters concerning Eretz Israel, in favor of
opening the ranks to a more moderate public.
The problem, as the NRP will very shortly realize, is that there is
no such public. It abandoned the NRP and will not return to it. Tens
of thousands who will find refuge in the joint right list that will
arise, if it will arise, will now leave with them. The political
zigzag of the NRP is likely to finally disintegrate this magnificent
party. End of quote by Amnon Shomron.
We all hope that the reports of optimistic progress in the
negotiations between Moledet, Tekumah, and Herut are well-based, and
that, with God’s help, they will very soon become a single and united
list, which will constitute a home for the hundreds of thousands of
members of the national camp.
For those who need proof of the vicious propaganda against the
religious public in “Ha’aretz,” the following are excerpts from an
article published on Wednesday:
Ha’aretz, February 24, 1999
Study: Many Children Aren’t Necessarily a Blessing
Efraim Ya’ar
[…] The time has come to subject this concept [of large families
being beneficial] to a critical test that will clarify if many
children in a family is actually something good and beneficial. […]
There is room to ask […], who should shoulder the responsibility
for the raising of children and the supplying of their needs? […]
The experience that has been garnered in Israel and in other places
in the world teaches that, with the exception of a thin stratum of
well-to-do families, families with many children generally require
substantial financial aid in order to provide their children with
basic needs in the realms of health, nutrition, housing, clothing,
and education and culture. Supplying these needs is especially
problematic in ultra-Orthodox families, because of the low rate of
participation by the heads of these families in the labor force.
[…] According to the study, about 55% of the gross income of the
ultra-Orthodox family in Jerusalem in 1995 came from support by
government institutions. […] The clear significance of the
government support is that the entire public participates in its
financing, whether or not it agrees to this. The question that must
be asked is, what is the justification for this?
[…] Even if we assume that the increase in the Israeli population
is an essential national need, there still is room to ask if
encouraging high birth rates is the correct way to attain this goal.
Along with the contribution of large families to the increase in the
Israeli population, the damage caused to these families and to
society must also be taken into account.
This damage finds expression in many varied spheres, especially in
three important and interrelated matters: the development of the
children’s intelligence, their educational achievements, and their
standard of living. The research information that has been amassed in
Israel and in the world indicates that the IQ of children with an
especially large number of siblings is lower to a noticeable degree
than the average IQ of all children, that is to say, the uncontrolled
increase of children acts to the disadvantage of the development of
their inherent intelligence potential.
[…] According to these data, the level of achievements and
aspirations of Jewish pupils in Israel tends to be lower when the
number of siblings is higher.
[…] The main conclusion is that family size generally has a
negative influence on the number of years of schooling of the
children. […] This influence appears in Israel among families of
Eastern origin, and also among families of Ashkenazi origin. Within
the Muslim population, in contrast, it was not found that family size
influences the education of the children, apparently due to the role
played in this sphere by the hamulah [extended family].
[…] Generally speaking, we may state that the structure of
opportunities and chances of social and economic mobility of children
from especially large families (speaking mainly about six or more
children) are considerably less than those of children from
relatively small families. This is because families with many
children are forced to “disperse” the resources at their disposal
among a large number of offspring, so that the investment in each
child is relatively small, whether we are speaking or material
resources, emotional resources, or the resource of time. The
characteristic result is the especially not good chances of the
children to obtain the “human capital” needed for integration and
advancement: suitable education, values, and skills. In other words,
at least from the social and economic aspect, the large family has
difficulty in bringing blessing to their children, and their
contribution to society, from this aspect, is, for the most part,
more negative than positive.
The conclusion that emerges from this discussion is that, in terms of
considerations both of benefit and morality, there is no reason why
the state should encourage the increase of large families and give
them aid, in the form of incentives of one sort or another. […] The
research experience and knowledge teach that the number of children
in the family is generally related to the general education of the
parents, and especially to the education of the mother: the higher
this is, the number of children tends to drop. This apparently is
because educated parents are more influenced by rational
considerations in planning family size. Consequently, policy intended
to raise the general educational level in society can contribute in a
significant manner to this goal.
[…] From a state-oriented perspective, we must think of ways that
will not encourage excessive numbers of children, such as increasing
the incentives for the first two or three children, and limiting
[these incentives] for additional children.
Professor Ya’ar teaches in the Sociology Department in Tel Aviv
University, and heads the Steinmetz Center for Peace Studies.
The tendentiousness of the article is so transparent – those
conducting the various studies mentioned in the article apparently
were shocked by the fact that a major demographic revolution is
underway in Israel. It is a fact that most of the Jewish children are
born at present into traditional, religious, and ultra-Orthodox
families. These children receive education with love of the people of
Israel, the Torah of Israel, and the Land of Israel. In less than a
generation, we will be the majority here, and our children will take
control of all the state institutions: the army, the media, the
courts, everything….
And the secular left is afraid of this, deathly afraid.
They consequently felt the need to find a foolish study that
presumably proves that an abundance of children is harmful, not only
to society, but to the children themselves.
We cannot denigrate this article as if it were ridiculous. If, Heaven
forbid, the left were to take power, I do not doubt that they would
use fabricated studies such as this to try and stop the many children
born to religious families.
Their hatred of our camp is so great that they are capable of such
terrible things; consequently, this article must serve as a warning
light for all of us.