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Newsletter : 9fax0507.txt
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>JN May 7, 1999, Vol. 7, No. 86
Rabbi Arrested- Suspected in Kashrut Fraud
By IsraelWire
Rabbi Menahem Tzadok, 36, has been arrested on suspicion of
carrying out ritual slaughter of animals in a kitchen of the PLO
Authority autonomous city of Nablus. According to the charges,
after carrying out the ritual slaughter he placed fictitious kosher
stamps on the meat in order to market it in Israel. According to
Ministry of Agriculture inspectors, over the past two years, the
rabbi has been slaughtering sheep in Nablus and marketing it as
meat from central Israel, not from the PA autonomous area.
Orient House PLO Problem Comes to a Head
By David Gollust (VOA-Jerusalem)
The United States has intervened to defuse a potentially-explosive
Israeli-Palestinian confrontation over Jerusalem. US Ambassador to
Israel Edward Walker persuaded the Israeli government to hold back
24 hours on a threatened move to close offices in the PLO's
unofficial headquarters in mostly-Arab east Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered three offices in
the Palestinian compound -- "Orient House" -- closed last month on
grounds the PLO is using them for political activity in violation
on interim peace accords.
Both Palestinian and Israeli officials acknowledge there could be
violence, if Israeli police enter the compound to enforce the
closure order. Palestinians spurned an Israeli compromise offer
under which the senior Palestinian official in Jerusalem -- Feisal
Husseini -- would be allowed to continue operating his Orient House
office while two others would be moved to an Arab village outside
Jerusalem.
The status of Jerusalem is one of the most explosive issues of the
Middle East dispute, with Israel regarding the entire city as its
undivided capital and Palestinians saying east Jerusalem should be
the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Woman Contracts AIDS from Unit of Blood
By IsraelWire
A woman in her 50s has been infected with AIDS after receiving a contaminated unit of blood. Health officials say the case is the first and only in Israel, in which a person contracted AIDS from contaminated blood since the blood processing includes testing which began in April 1986. The blood unit given to the woman had also undergone the test but it appears the disease was in its incubation period and therefore went undetected.
The woman, who became ill in 1992, required medical treatment that
included units of blood given to her in a hospital in central
Israel. In 1994, she decided to have an AIDS check done at which
time she was told she was infected. She began to trace back in an
attempt to find out when and how she became infected and the blood
unit from 1992 was found to be the source.
The hospital contacted the nation's Magen David Adom blood bank,
which assisted in tracing back the number of the unit of blood
given to the woman. The unit number permitted officials at the
blood bank to track down the donor, who was also found to be an
active carrier of the HIV virus. He was unaware of the disease when
he donated the blood.
Blood bank officials report that they do not know the woman's
condition today, and there are no records indicating that any legal
suit has been filed since she became aware of the AIDS.
Blood bank officials say Israel's blood testing is the best
available to the medical community and there are no plans to make
any changes. But one senior physician explained that although the
test is a most thorough procedure, there is no 100 percent
guarantee.
Magen David Adom spokesman Shuki Gutman said at this time, one's
chances of contracting AIDS from a unit of blood in Israel are one
in 1.2 million -- odds significantly lower than in the United
States or Europe.
Increase in Number of Reform Marriages
By IsraelWire
The Reform Movement claims that 20% of the Israeli population chooses not to marry through the State Orthodox Rabbinate. Reform movement spokeswoman Merav Seger said that in 1997, 250 couples were married through the Reform movement, and last year, 400.
Rabbi Yehoram Mazor, chairman of the Council of Reform Rabbis in
Israel, said that couples choosing to marry through the Reform
movement are announcing their defiance of the Rabbinate, and
expressing their desire for tradition and a different Judaism.
Conservative Movement Says Piercing is Acceptable
By IsraelWire
Contrary to Orthodox Jewish law, the leaders of the Conservative
movement announced that even men, may pierce their ears and nose.
The movement recently published a comprehensive ruling on the issue
of body piercing, traditionally limited to women and only in
certain areas of their body.
The ruling also deals with one piercing one's sex organs, which it
states is not permitted for unmarried persons for reasons of
modesty. Nevertheless, if one goes ahead with the piercing, one
should do it in a sterile fashion to avoid injury and infection.
The ruling does state that one considering piercing portions of the
body, whether on the face of elsewhere, should take the feelings of
their parents into consideration before doing so.
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