News Roundup – Thurs. 5/19/11

“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more.”* Apparently, Japanese judges are not elected by Israeli Chasidim. The Tokyo High Court upheld a verdict of a six-year sentence for an Israeli Chasid convicted of drug smuggling.

The Orthodox community has issued a resounding critique to the Conservative Movement’s “Hechsher Tzedek”, a new kosher certification that seeks to re-imbue kashrus with ethical meaning. Searing analytical arguments were presented in the Yated Ne’eman, in the form of a one hundred and twenty three line hybrid quatrain/sestet poem, containing such blasting damnations as:

“If women are

Worked hard like men

With equal pay and rights

Then Hechser Tzedek’s

Got your back

The Rabbah for you fights”

In a surprising move, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Israeli Chief Rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger, decided that Lag B’omer should be celebrated a day later than usual because of scheduling concerns. Surprising, because we were under the impression that the laws of Judaism were inflexible to current realities. Does this mean there’s hope for that necessity of modern life, bacon ice cream, becoming available in a cholov yisroel version sometime soon?

Buddhists are the only major religion less frum than Jews, according to a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. In a comparison of twelve major religions, only 6% of American Jews asserted that “There is only ONE true way to interpret the teachings of my religion”, with Buddhists coming in at 5%. Jehovah Witnesses? 77%. I see an issur on birthdays on the horizon…

*see: “Classic American Movies Every Recovering Chasid Might Want to Familiarize Themselves With In Order to Function in American Society/The Wizard of Oz”

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