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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Is this additional evidence Israel has lost its mind?

My good friend "the beadle" reports that the learned and exalted Members of Israel's august Parliament are considering a bill that would offer new protections for political speech. Only one problem. The bill limits these protections to Rabbis teaching Torah. Presumably everyone else is still at risk. Here's what the proposed law says:

Rabbis will not bear criminal responsibility and be immune to any legal action as result of the publication of a Jewish law essay, endorsement of any book, or any written or oral expression pertaining to Israel's Torah.
Shall we understand this to mean that a non-Rabbi who writes a book is not similarly protected? How are we defining Torah? How are we defining Rabbi? What about a Muslim cleric who writes something pertaining to the Koran? Is he without protections? On what basis?

I confess to shooting from the hip, as usual, and to not having looked at the Parliament minutes, or to have read anything other than this so perhaps I've got it wrong.  Less lazy readers, what say you?


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