Rabbis hold prayers in besieged Gaza

Four rabbis held the Sabbath prayers in a hotel in Gaza city on Saturday evening to express solidarity with people stranded in the besieged Gaza Strip.

The four rabbis are members of Neturei Karta movement, a Jewish group that doesn't believe in Zionism and insists that Israel doesn't represent Jews.

"I understand the opinions of Palestinians towards Jews," Rabbi Yisrael David Weiss, an American citizen, told Xinhua, adding that "Judaism rejects Zionism and its approach."

It is important to realize that there are many Jews world wide who believe the State of Israel is an abomination.

Israel settlements: rabbis say soldiers' loyalty to God trumps army orders

In Israel, a standoff is escalating between the Israeli defense establishment and religious nationalists over the possible evacuation of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. On Thursday, a group of rabbis published a letter saying a soldiers' loyalty to the divine takes precedence over their commanders.
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The declaration was signed by dozens of teachers in government-affiliated religious seminaries – known as "hesder'' yeshivas – after Defense Minister Ehud Barak took the unprecedented step earlier this week of cutting ties with a hesder yeshiva because its dean, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, openly advocates refusing of orders in case of an evacuation.

Read more at Christian Science Monitor.