The shekel drops / Missionaries in Ramat Aviv

The battle raging Ramat Aviv isn't just about the neighborhood's character. It's a battle over Israel's image.

By Nehemia Shtrasler

The sight was elevating: 800 neighborhood residents took a break from what they were doing and went out to demonstrate. Their goal: to protect their homes. They weren't asking for much: just to maintain their way of life, the character of their neighborhood, their values, dignity and right to educate their children as they see fit.

Nobody was paying them. They had no political party or foreign sponsors. They collected the money to fund their demonstration themselves because they knew that if they didn't, the missionary group Chabad could continue to slowly take the neighborhood over, just as is happening in Migdal Ha'emek, Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem.

A few people set up a counter-demonstration against the 800. They believe that the people in question are merely "good Jews" who just rented a few apartments to preach Torah there. All they want is for us to put on tefillin a little, to light candles on Friday night. What charming simplicity.

They don't realize that it's a well-organized plan to take control of the neighborhood. They aren't even aware that a yeshiva opened in the neighborhood staffed by "messengers" who are prepared to sacrifice their souls for their Rebbe.

These "messengers" have one explicit goal: to return the people of the neighborhood to Judaism. The more Jews keep the Sabbath and follow the mitzvoth, the faster the Messiah will come. Though actually he already did come, in the form of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, according to Chabad. The Rebbe has died in the meantime, but he lives on - their belief system is a mystical, un-Jewish thing, about which the Rabbi Shach commented: "Chabad is the cult closest to Judaism."

As in every neighborhood, here too they identified the most vulnerable point: the young. That's why every Friday they ply the grove by the Alliance school, trying to persuade the children to put on tefillin and drop by the Chabad House for a "conversation." At night they lurk among the trees and on benches for the teens, offering refreshments and sweet talk. They cunningly tell these kids, "You have the soul of a righteous person," and don't cavil at saying that their mothers and fathers are sinners. They even whisper that people who don't honor Shabbat are doomed to hell.

Puberty is a vulnerable stage and some of these kids, who want to rebel against their parents anyway, listen. The nice people of Chabad have no problem taking in a youngster and destroying a family in Israel.

Where are the police and the municipality as strangers badger children among the trees at night?

The Chabadniks understand that the middle class is groaning under its burdens. So they opened a few kindergartens in the neighborhood that charge little and give much, including a hot meal. Some parents succumbed to the temptation - and lost their children. This neighborhood sorely lacks kindergartens without religious affiliation. But the city allows Chabad to open one kindergarten after another, even at the expense of a building that had been a cultural center until two years ago.

These Chabadniks with their butter-wouldn't-melt smiles have no problem flouting the law. They rent apartments and turn them into studios. They build without permits, establish hostels and mikvas in violation of municipal ordinances, but the city doesn't block them. Mayor Ron Huldai did denounce Chabad in Ramat Aviv, saying they were harassing the residents. But his job is to stop the harassment, not just talk about it.

Imagine what would happen to me if I went to Kfar Chabad, rented an apartment and dared to open a class to teach a modern interpretation of the Bible, or women's rights or Darwinism. In the evening I'd go out and roam the neighborhood, trying to persuade their children to visit my home on Shabbat to see what a nonobservant Jew does on the day of rest.

Soon enough you'd have to visit me at the burn ward at Ichilov Hospital, if not worse.

And if all that happened, the good souls among us would say: Why did he have to interfere in their way of life? Why provoke them?

But when they come from Kfar Chabad to Ramat Aviv, these same good souls say, in the name of an artificial, suicidal liberalism, "We should understand them," and, "We mustn't oppose others because that is unenlightened racism."

Only they are allowed to sell their rotten goods, rife with ignorance, superstition, terrible discrimination against women, bottomless hatred of Arabs and Gentiles, and nonsense about the Messiah. We may not even protect our values of humanism, education, rationalism, equality, literature and the great inventions of science that changed the face of mankind.

The battle in Ramat Aviv isn't just about the neighborhood's character. It's a battle over Israel's image, and the 800 residents who got up and left their homes and went out to demonstrate last Monday are just the harbingers.

Orthodox Jewish cop settles with Las Vegas department

An Orthodox Jewish police detective will get $350,000 from the Las Vegas police department to settle a lawsuit after he was prohibited from having a beard and wearing a yarmulke.

Liesl Freedman, the department's attorney, said Jan 26 that plainclothes Detective Steve Riback would be allowed to have a neatly trimmed beard no longer than a quarter inch.

Freedman said Riback also would be allowed to wear a baseball hat without a logo or with the department's logo.

Under the settlement in the religious-accommodation case, Riback has agreed to not to seek a promotion or transfer for at least two years.

Freedman said that if Riback transferred in the future to a section that doesn't allow hats or beards, he would have to file a new religious-accommodation request.

Rabbi fights town's zoning laws

By CHRIS NEWMARKER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

TRENTON -- A rabbi who sued Freehold Township because he claimed it was persecuting him over prayer services in his house now says the town is trying to meddle with his religious freedom by defining his home as a place of worship.

Rabbi Avraham Bernstein is expanding his federal lawsuit against the town, saying that a new law it passed defines his house as a place of worship, something area zoning laws do not allow.

For violating zoning laws, Bernstein could face several hundreds of dollars in fines, according to the township's attorney, Duane Davison.

Bernstein has amended his federal lawsuit, arguing that the new ordinance, adopted in late September, is too vague under federal religious protections law and is meant to further empower the town to retaliate against the rabbi for holding prayer services at his house.

"This is a small group of Jews meeting in somebody's home. That's it. If there are a hundred cars pulling up it might be some concern. But these people walk. It's their Sabbath. They can't drive," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville, Va.-based civil liberties group representing the rabbi.

At issue is whether Bernstein, a rabbi with the ultraorthodox Lubavitch Chabad, is allowed to host a minyon -- the necessary 10 men to pray under orthodox Jewish law -- at his home on Shabbat, which lasts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.

The Monmouth County township says he is violating local zoning ordinances because he is using his home as a house of worship, according to the lawsuit.

The town claims that it tried to work with the rabbi for years, but eventually had to respond to neighbors' complaints about large meetings, according to Davison.

"We defended him for years, but as the activity got more intense at the house, we decided maybe the neighbors had something to talk about," Davison said.

Bernstein, whose home is located across the street from the township municipal building, received a zoning violation in February 2007 and a summons in April. In May, he filed a lawsuit in state court.

He filed another suit in federal court in August, which included the claim that the town was retaliating against him because it "secretly set up a video camera" aimed at Bernstein's home.

But according to Davison, the camera was about 350 feet away and was needed to establish that about 35 to 50 people -- not the smaller groups claimed by Bernstein -- were visiting the home.

Last month, the Freehold Township Committee amended the zoning law to include a definition of a house of worship as "any structure of building that is used as the regular site for traditional services, meetings and/or gatherings of an organized religious body or community."

Rogers Officials Ask For Services To Stop

THE MORNING NEWS

ROGERS -- A religious service in a residential neighborhood is causing traffic and parking, problems for neighbors.

City Attorney Ben Lipscomb on Friday sent a letter to Rabbi Mendel Greisman asking he quit holding services in his residence until a conditional-use permit from the city is obtained.

Greisman owns a house at 5402 W. Redbud St. in the Hunter's Run subdivision. The house is listed as the address for the Chabad of Northwest Arkansas, according to the Arkansas County Data Web site at www.arcountydata.com/search.asp.

Churches are allowed in residential zones in Rogers, but only with a conditional-use permit, which Greisman doesn't have. Griesman also hasn't filed for a permit.

Lipscomb said Greisman maintains he is simply host of a Bible study, which most would characterize as different from a church or worship service.

However, Lipscomb said the photos from the Chabad's Web site look like a worship center, and there are reports of between 30 and 40 cars parked in the neighborhood by people attending the Chabad.

"If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and has webbed feet like a duck, then it's a duck," Lipscomb said.

Greisman did not return a message left at the residence on Friday.

Lipscomb said he realizes there is a need for Greisman's congregation to meet, but the city also has ordinances that must be followed.

Dan Brown, chairman of the Rogers Planning Commission, told a woman during a meeting on Tuesday that the commission has never denied a conditional use permit for a church. Brown was speaking with regard to another issue.

The issue of the chabad came to Lipscomb's attention when someone called the Rogers Planning and Transportation Department to complain about zoning violations.

Kevin Butler, 5407 W. Redbud St., filed on behalf of the Hunter's Run Property Owner's Association a complaint with Lipscomb's office citing, "Zoning violations, excessive vehicle traffic with parking congestion and excessive pedestrian traffic ... as a result of the opening of the 'Chabad House.'"

Hunter's Run is a subdivision with only 18 houses along two stretches of road that together total less than 1,500 feet. Upon entering Hunter's Run, Redbud Street takes a 90-degree turn to the south then takes another sharp curve to the west.

Cars are parked along this entrance, making it nearly impossible for a fire truck to get through if a house at the back of the neighborhood were on fire, Butler said.

Butler said the subdivision has covenants regarding acceptable traffic and parking situations and operating a business in a residence, although Butler said the covenants say nothing about a religious service.

Lipscomb did not set a deadline for Greisman's compliance.

"I didn't feel like we needed to be heavy-handed. We just want them to follow the city's zoning laws and obtain a conditional use permit," he said.

"If that doesn't happen in a reasonable amount of time, we will revisit the issue," Lipscomb said.

AT A GLANCE

Chabad

Chabad chassidism is a system of religious philosophy teaching understanding and recognition of the creator through the application of the three intellectual qualities of chochmah (wisdom), binah (understanding) and daat (knowledge). The initials of these three Hebrew words form the word "chabad."

Source: The Chabad at the University of Kansas, www.jewishku.com

Web Watch

Chabad Of Northwest Arkansas

www.jewishnwa.org