Roundup
Roundup from page 10
looking for work due to the very harsh
repercussions that this wave will have on
the character and future of the State of
Israel:'
Egyptian Border Barrier
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israel began con-
struction of a new barrier along its bor-
der with Egypt.
Engineers were scheduled to fan out
along Israel's southern border Monday
and prepare the ground for the construc-
tion of the barrier and electronic fence.
The nearly $375 million project is being
undertaken in order to prevent migrant
workers from entering Israel, as well as to
deter terrorists and drug smugglers.
Large parts of the border between
Israel and Egypt are demarcated with
fencing. The new barrier will be con-
structed first along the main infiltra-
tion routes near Gaza and Eilat and will
include two layers of fencing, including
barbed wire.
Hundreds of illegal migrants from
Africa enter Israel each week. Nearly
11,000 have entered Israel since January,
according to Israel's Population and
Immigration Authority. Most are search-
ing for work, though a couple hundred
asylum seekers have been granted refu-
gee status in recent years.
Dozens of migrants, who pay smug-
glers thousands of dollars to help them
cross the border from Egypt into Israel,
have been shot and killed by Egyptian
soldiers.
Jailed For Threatening Jews
CHICAGO (JTA) -- A dual Jordanian-
American citizen was sentenced to more
than two years in prison for mailing a
bomb threat to a Jewish day school in
Chicago.
Mohammad Alkaramla, 26, of Chicago's
North Side, was sentenced Nov. 24 to 25
months in prison for mailing a letter to
the Ida Crown Jewish
Academy that threatened
to blow up Jewish educa-
tional institutions as well
as injure or kill Jewish
individuals in the city.
The letter, which was
received on Dec. 31, 2008,
was addressed to rabbis
Mohammad
and leaders of the Jewish
Alkaramla
community.
Alkaramla was con-
victed in July in U.S. District Court and
ordered jailed until his sentencing.
Arrested in March 2009, Alkaramla had
written a letter that threatened "Will Give
You until 01.15.2009 to back OFF from
Gaza in Palestine or will set our explosive
in your areas, it very important to make a
12
December 2 2010
quick action before we make our decisions
to set bombs in the fowling [sic] addresses."
The letter, which was received during
Israel's monthlong war with Hamas in Gaza,
then listed 22 addresses of Jewish educa-
tional centers in the Chicago area, according
to the Chicago Sun-Times.
A draft of the letter was found on
Alkaramla's laptop computer. He could have
received up to 10 years in jail.
Military Conversion Bill
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- A Knesset committee
approved a bill to protect Israeli soldiers
who have converted to Judaism through
military conversion courts from having
their conversions annulled.
The bill, approved Sunday by the
Ministerial Committee on Legislative
Affairs, would force all state agencies,
including rabbinic courts, the chief rabbis
of cities and other Orthodox marriage reg-
istrars to accept the converts as Jews.
Members of the haredi Orthodox party
Shas opposed the bill, which was initiated
by David Rotem of the Yisrael Beiteinu
Party. The measure advances to the floor of
the Knesset, where it must be approved in
three readings.
In September, a state prosecutor argued
before Israel's Supreme Court, during a
court hearing to address the refusal by
town and city rabbis to register converts
for marriage, that conversions of Israeli sol-
diers by the military rabbinate are not valid.
About 4,500 soldiers, the majority of them
women, have converted to Judaism while in
the Israeli military.
"Recently, doubts have been cast over
the validity of [military court] conversions,
despite the fact that they are being carried
out in accordance with Jewish religious law','
Rotem wrote in the introduction to the bill.
"To remove any doubt, and remove the
cloud hanging over the heads of previous
converts and those studying for conver-
sion today, this bill proposes that it be
stated clearly that the chief military rabbi
is allowed to set up conversion courts and
that the confirmation from such a court
will serve as a valid conversion certificate:"
The Israeli organization Hiddush-
Freedom of Religion for Israel is opposing
the bill, saying it will not solve the problem
and that the state should recognize conver-
sions performed by rabbis of all streams of
Judaism.
Hiddush President Rabbi Uri Regev
called the bill "an objectionable and anti-
religious legislation which should be
opposed by anyone who is committed to
democracy and religious freedom."
"The Knesset should not be forcing on
rabbinic courts and city rabbis its inter-
pretation to halachic conversion. Rather
it should end the Orthodox rabbinate's
Rabbi Arnie, third from left with the lime-green T-shirt, along with Shir Tikvah
congregants in Jaffa
Shir Tikvah Aids Israel's Neediest
JAFFA -- During a recent visit to Israel, Congregation Shir Tikvah of Troy, led by
Rabbi Arnie Sleutelberg, volunteered at the Jaffa Institute's Food Distribution Center
packing food parcels for needy families residing in Tel Aviv and Jaffa.
The Jaffa Institute (www.jaffainstitute.org ), a private, nonprofit that provides a host
of social services to thousands of severely disadvantaged children and their families
in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, delivers food parcels to 350 families twice a month.
The distribution of food parcels not only addresses the desperate hunger of these
individuals, but also bolsters their emotional state as they know someone cares.
monopoly over conversion and marriage
altogether, and maintain that rabbinic
edicts and decisions would apply only to
those who voluntarily choose to accept
them': Regev said.
He added, "Any other 'solution is merely a
patch, and a bad one at that."
Iranian Nuclear Reactor
TEHRAN (JTA) -- Iran's first nuclear
power reactor will go online in late January,
the head of the country's Atomic Energy
Organization said.
The loading of 163 fuel rods into the
Bushehr reactor is complete, All Akbar
Salehi said Saturday, according to Iranian
state media outlets. The water inside the
reactor's core needs time to gradually warm
up, after which several tests will be carried
out, Salehi reportedly said.
Fueling of the reactor was delayed in
recent months by what Iran called a small
leak in a storage pool and not by the
Stuxnet computer worm, which allegedly
was designed to sabatoge Iran's nuclear
power program, as is widely believed.
The nuclear reactor is a joint project with
Russia and has cost upward of $1 billion.
Progress has been delayed on the plant at
least five times in the past 15 years.
Construction of the plant had begun
in 1975 under a contract with Germany,
which pulled out following the 1979 Islamic
Revolution. Russia took over the contract
in 1992.
Iran is under U.S. and international sanc-
tions because of its nuclear program, which
Iran says will be used to produce electricity
and which the West believes could be used
to produce nuclear weapons.
Heads German Jews
BERLIN (JTA) -- For the first time, Jews
in Germany have elected a representative,
Dieter Graumann, born after the Holocaust.
The board of the Central Council of
Jews in Germany unanimously elected
Graumann, 60, to head the 60-year-old
organization, at its meeting Sunday in
Frankfurt.
Graumann, born to Holocaust survivors
in Israel, succeeds Munich native Charlotte
Knobloch, 78, who decided not to run again
after four years in office.
The board represents
about 110,000 Jews who
are registered members
of Jewish communities.
An estimated 100,000
more Jews are not affili-
ated with congregations.
Noting that the Jewish
Dieter
population
has soared
Graumann
since 1990, with the
influx of former Soviet
Jews, Graumann said he hoped to build
stronger alliances between the postwar
establishment community and the new
immigrants, as well as to encourage the
younger generation to identify Jewishly.
Graumann's parents, who met in a
displaced persons camp in Germany and
immigrated to Israel, returned to Germany
when Graumann was nearly 2 years old.
They settled in Frankfurt, where Graumann
now runs a real estate firm.
The former head of the Frankfurt Jewish
Sports Club TuS Makkabi, Graumann was
elected to the board of the Central Council
in 1995, representing the Frankfurt Jewish
community.