David P. Goldman on Israel's Religious Jewish Majority

The following by David P. Goldman is resposted here with permission of the Middle East Forum:

Israel at a Point of No Return - In the Right Direction

by David P. Goldman
PJ Media
February 12, 2014

http://www.meforum.org/3748/israel-jewish-demographics

David P. Goldman

I should like to advance a conjecture which I lack the qualifications to adequately develop: The global Left, and the Israeli Left most of all, perceives that the clock is running out, and has worked itself up into a froth of hysteria against Israel. The world of John Lennon's "Imagine," where there are no countries and no religions, is about to dissipate like last night's marijuana fumes. The demographic time bomb that worries the Left is not the relative increase of Arab vs. Jewish populations between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, speciously cited by John Kerry and a host of other errant utopians: it is the growth of the Jewish population itself, and Israel's transformation into the world's most religious country.

Israel now has a religious majority, as Times of Israel blogger Yoseif Bloch observes:

"According to our Central Bureau of Statistics, 43% of Israeli Jews are secular, 9% are haredi, and the remaining 48% are somewhere between masorti (traditional) and dati (religious): 23% the former, 10% the latter, and 15% smack in the middle. These five groups do not parallel the five groups identified by Pew, e.g. Orthodox is a denomination, while dati is a declaration."

Rabbi Avi Shafran: "Ferry Tales"

The following by Rabbi Avi Shafran is reposted with permission.

Open and Shut Case

Rabbi Avi Shafran


The lady on the Staten Island ferry the other day was clearly grunting for my ears.

With my unfashionable beard, dark suit and black hat, tagging me as an Orthodox Jew is pretty much a slam dunk. And, having commuted, along with my beard and hat, on those huge orange floating shuttlecocks four or five days a week for the better part of two decades, I have many memorable (at least to me) stories to tell. I’ve never gotten around to setting them down in writing (though choosing the imaginary collection’s title, “Ferry Tales,” was easy).