FEATURED JOBS
Comments (0)A bill that allows civil marriage in Israel to couples who could not be married by the rabbinate failed by a large margin in its initial reading.
The Civil Union bill, introduced Wednesday by the Kadima Party’s Meir Sheetrit, was defeated 58-22. One-third of the Kadima lawmakers did not participate in the vote, the Jerusalem Post reported.
The bill allows a civil marriage where at least one member of a couple is not recognized as Jewish. It creates a marriage registrar in the Justice Ministry authorized to legalize civil marriages for those who are not eligible to marry by current law as well as divorces.
The bill does not contravene Jewish law since it does not allow civil marriages for those who may marry by Jewish law, according to Sheetrit’s office.
It is the second civil union bill to fail this winter. A more comprehensive bill sponsored by several Kadima members was defeated in October.
All but one member of the Yisrael Beiteinu party led by Avigdor Lieberman voted against the bill, even though the party election platform promised that the party would submit its own civil union bill within a year of taking office. Kadima is in the government coalition with the fervently Orthodox Shas party, which opposes any kind of civil marriage.
“It is a travesty that in the State of Israel there are people who must travel to Cyprus to get married,” Sheetrit said after the vote. “These individuals are citizens of Israel, they live in Israel, their children serve in the army and even give their lives for the state, and yet they cannot legally marry.
“The members of Yisrael Beiteinu are apparently more interested in their spot in the government than in keeping promises made to their voters, but I am more interested in bringing a solution to the more than 350,000 Israelis who want to but cannot legally marry.”
Israelis Resign from Hadassah Hospital Board
As the spat between Hadassah: The Women’s Zionist Organization of America and the doctors at its medical center in Israel heats up, three Israeli members of the hospital’s board have resigned.
The doctors’ union at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem has been protesting the resignation of the hospital’s director, claiming he was pushed out by the Hadassah home office. Hadassah leaders in New York have insisted that Shlomo Mor-Yosef resigned on his own.
Mor-Yosef has never said whether he was pushed out, but after a long silence he is now asking for a two-year extension on his contract, which expires in 2010.
The board members resigned over the financial state of the hospital, the Jerusalem Post reported, and the declining dollars that Hadassah has been allocating toward daily operations at the hospital. The women’s organization has been focusing on raising the money to complete the opening of a new $300 million medical tower on the medical center’s Jerusalem campus.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the resigning board members said that more than a year ago, “the board of the medical organization decided to postpone their strategic plan because the board of the Hadassah organization in New York had already decided to end Prof. Mor-Yosef’s term.”
The newspaper also reported that “The resigning members also complained that with less money being donated by HWZOA, they had proposed the establishment of a friends’ organization in Israel that would donate funds directly to HMO, but this was opposed by the American members of the board, who preferred to continue to have its monopoly over fund raising.”
Hadassah is claiming that the board members were intimidated into resigning. The organization said in a statement that it “accepts with great regret” the resignations, calling the three Israeli board members “dedicated people.”
“We are troubled to think,” the statement added, “that an orchestrated campaign of harassment and personal attack may have forced these three people to step down, especially during these difficult times when their service was especially needed. These attacks have been highly critical of the devoted women of Hadassah and even have criticized American Jews in general.”
Olmert Corruption Trial Begins
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asserted his innocence at the start of his trial on corruption charges.
“Several months ago, when I came here for the first time, I said that I came as an innocent man and that I would leave as an innocent man,” Olmert said Thursday morning upon his arrival at the Jerusalem District Court. “Today the bombastic declarations, plastic descriptions and personal slander end.”
Olmert is on trial in three cases: for allegedly paying for family vacations by double billing Jewish organizations through the Rishon Tours travel agency; for allegedly accepting envelopes full of cash from American businessman Morris Talansky; and for allegedly granting personal favors to attorney Uri Messer when he served as trade minister in the Investment Center case.
The ex-Israeli leader is charged with fraud, breach of trust, falsifying corporate records and tax evasion.
Olmert is the first former Israeli prime minister to stand trial. He resigned as prime minister in September 2008 after police investigators recommended that he be indicted.
Olmert’s office manager, Shula Zaken, is a co-defendant in one of the cases.
Jerusalem District Prosecutor Attorney Eli Abarbanel acknowledged in his opening statement that there were problems with the testimony given by Talansky, who allegedly gave Olmert envelopes containing thousands of dollars over a period of several years.
“Not a crumb of his word has been proven,” Abarbanel said. “Talansky has no interest in harming Olmert; he’s not delusional.”
“There were envelopes. Regarding the monetary amounts there is disagreement, but regarding the envelopes there is not.”
The main prosecutor in the case, Jerusalem District Prosecutor Uri Korb, went on leave last week for an unannounced period of time at the request of the Justice Ministry following the publication of insulting statements he made about judges and attorneys associated with the ministry while teaching a college seminar. Korb reportedly knows the prosecution’s case the best.