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AddReply(294167,"dr","shmuel ben meir","palo alto","04/02/08","can someone give me a reason why as a dual citizen who would like to settle in \nisrae-i am one of many who could make contribution but cannt even get the govt. to give me an assignment to fill my service -like every israeli ");
AddReply(270544,"To #7: You and Kahane share one trait...","mike","Vienna, VA","01/24/08","...wishful thinking!  Open your eyes and rationally assess the situation.  I know it\'s hard.  Most people, yourself included, probably never actually think a day in their lives.  nonetheless, Jews are supposed to have brains.  Even if you don\'t use yours, they are still there.");
AddReply(270391,"Come on Mike #2","Choni Davidowitz","","01/24/08","Come on Mike; Can\'t you see anything in a positive light.\nThis is exactly what Rabbi Kahane proposed, and nothing and nobody is going to prevent this from happening.\nGod works in strange ways. PLEASE stop your talk of Holocaust in Eretz Yisrael.\nIf there is going to be a \"holocaust\" (Heaven forbid) it will affect only those Jews who choose to remain in their Exilic graveyards (Rav Kahane\'s words)");
AddReply(268946,"To sk","Yitzhak Klein","","01/20/08","I have earlier posted my position regarding criticism of blogs.  If you care to get my response offsite, send me an email.  ");
AddReply(268821,"A poor column, quite surprisingly.","sk","USA","01/20/08","Really, Dr. Klein, this was poor.  First, we both know what surveys in Israel mean:  not much.  Leftist surveys mean nothing.  The more commonly reported figures are that about 45-48% of Israelis call themselves secular.  Since the data you report conflict with this figure--which as I recall was fairly sensibly determined--you need to take the difference into account and explain it, if it can be explained.  It is bad scholarship simply to report numbers that happen to please you.\n\nSecond, your sneers regarding the US approach to church and state are absurd.  To be specific:\n\n\"Israel has not copied the United States’ silly legal doctrine that church and state are so separate that even private prayer cannot be tolerated in public schools. (To maintain this position consistently, you\'d also have to outlaw private prayer in public parks.)\"\n\nUh, no.  The issue with schools involved students being pretty much forced to encounter, in a small, closed space, religious practice, and, typically with the teacher\'s involvement or implied approval, being forced either to comply or to be excluded from what would usually be a majority that would be participating.  A park is not a comparable environment in any way:  it is not small, presence there is not legally compulsory, the goings on are not directed by an authority figure responsible to the state.  A park, like a sidewalk, is public land, and there, any expression of religion or speech is protected (with very few exceptions, as covered by slander laws).\n\nYou claim in your \"postscript\":\n\n\"It’s little appreciated that current American doctrine on the separation of church and state . . . is exactly opposed to the original intent of the first clause of the First Amendment.  Fact:  the phrase, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion . . .” was put there to prevent the Federal government from messing with official, established state churches.\"\n\nOh really?  Lewis Carroll in \"The Hunting of the Snark\" tells us:\n\n\"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.\'\'\n\nAnd what you say does have this merit:  it is often repeated.  But your \"fact\" is not a fact at all.  The Constitution was not designed to be seizing state prerogatives willy-nilly.  Nor could it appear to be doing so and still be passed.  It does not imply states have this or that prerogative; it just indicates those relatively unusual cases in which certain prerogatives would no longer be enjoyed by the states.\n\nNow let\'s look at the text of the First Amendment:\n\n\"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.\"\n\nIf this is read to mean that states would be able to institute state religions (thus implying that religious choice would be subject to the coercive powers of a state government), it would also follow that states could institute state-wide speech, assembly, and press restrictions, yes?  After all, only Congress is explicitely prohibited in each case. Do you support such \"states rights\" as well?  If not, why not?\n\nJefferson, in his _Notes on the State of Virginia_ (1781), Chapter \"Religion,\" says \n\n\"The convention in May of 1776, in their declaration of rights, declared it to be a truth, and a natural right, that the exercise of religion should be free; but when they proceeded to form on that declaration the ordinance of government [Articles of Confederation], instead of taking up every principle declared in the bill of rights [lower case, not the Bill of Rights], [left] them as they found them.\"\n\nHowever, it did abolish all existing religious restrictions emanating from Britain.\n\nNow, an \"absence\" in the Constitution does not imply that the STATES have the power.  It simply implies that the new central government does NOT have the power. And if it does not, the power is reserved to the states OR THE PEOPLE.  Having said that, though, Madison, Hamilton, and Jefferson were consistently against states having coercive power in relation to religion--and a state religion is inherently coercive.  Jefferson, in resisting any effort for a state religion in Virginia says:\n\n\"The error seems not sufficiently eradicated, that the operations of the mind, as well as the acts of the body, are subject to the coercion of the laws. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit.  We are answerable for them to our God.  The legitimate powers of government extend to such ACTS [my emphasis] only as are injurious to others.  But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god.  It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. . . .   It is error alone which needs the support of government.  Truth can stand by itself.  Subject opinion to coercion:  whom will you make your inquistitors?  Fallible men; men governed by bad passions, by private as well as public reaons.  And why subject it to coercion?  To produce uniformity.  But is uniformity of opinion desireable?  No more than of face and stature. . . . Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion.  The several sects perform the office of a Censormorum over each other.  Is uniformity attainable?  Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.  What has been the effect of coercion?  To make one half the world fools, and the other hypocrites.  To support roguery and error all over the earth.\"\n\nHe then points to other states that have no established religion:\n\n\"Our sister states of Pennsylvania and New York, however, have long subsisted without any establishment [of religion] at all.  The experiment was new and doubtful when they made it.  It has answered beyond conception.  They flourish infinitely.\"\n\nNow, I would have continued with excerpts from _The Federalist_ if I hadn\'t moved recently and somehow misplaced it.  But \"faction\" was considered a great problem in Federalist #9, and the \"solution\" was to make sure that no particular faction could seize control of government, and religious factions were certainly included in that mix.\n\nThe FACT is that the key intellectuals who formed the US were strong adherents to \"natural rights\" including freedom of conscience.  There were always people, then as now, who wanted to be coercive as regards religion, but please do not pretend that this was intended by the Founding Fathers.\n\nOh, and by the way, what has a state religion done for Israel?  Even though no one must profess Judaism, the temporal powers that the rabbis have been given have hardly benefitted either Judaism or the state.  Rather, it has corrupted both.");
AddReply(268480,"All true.","Michael A. Shoemaker","Eugene, OR, Under Saudi Arabia","01/18/08","It\'s true:  Israel has problems with \"church\" (read, shul) and state, but in the US, the attitude against religion is simply lunatic.  I remember my first year in public school, in 6th grade.  I was walking around the playground reading a new pocket dictionary I had gotten for my birthday.  The other students thought it was a Bible, and I got called into the Principal\'s office.  The Guidance Counsellor was next to the Principal, and they both had the gravest expressions of concern on their faces.  I was interrogated at some length, before they let me go.");
AddReply(268359,"The Israeli courts will rule against the Jewish students","mike","Vienna, VA","01/18/08","The way to deal with the problem is not to go to the Israeli court system.  The Israeli court system exists to oppress Jews and facilitate Islamic terror.  When faced with the \"phenomenon\" of Jewish youth rejecting Israeli brainwashing and embracing Judaism, the courts will certainly rule in favor of Israeli brainwashing.\n\nThe way to deal with the problem is via private conversations with the teachers and principals involved.  After these people understand the personal consequences of their behavior, this behavior will stop.  Oh, wait, there is no Jewish self-defense organization which could hold such private conversations and make a few relevant examples in order to drive the point home.  Hmmm....  I guess the Jews are screwed UNTIL THEY STOP PRETENDING THAT THE ISRAELI ENEMY IS A FRIEND!");
AddReply(268355,"For corrupting the youth...","Schvach","","01/18/08","...the malefactors get hemlock for breakfast; the kids get tefillin.");
AddReply(268343,"Actually, it\'s more dangerous than you think.","Nick L. Islam","Kfar Tapuach","01/17/08","Today they want to pray in schools; next, they\'ll want to pray on the Temple Mount. After that, they\'ll want to re-build the Beit haMikdash. Who knows where this will end if the courts don\'t stop them now?");

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