We will not sit in a government that includes concessions to the Palestinians in the framework of an agreement with Saudi Arabia

an interesting video is making the rounds on the Internet. A rabbi, in full rabbinic garb, is seen walking around Tehran, going to the market, and connecting with the Jewish community there.

When the Saudi Arabian Moon Sighting Committee convened last night but could not see the crescent, they decided to delay the start of Ramadan by one day, to start Sunday night - Monday, giving them another opportunity to see the new moon crescent on Sunday night.

They expect to be able to see the moon tonight to officially kick off the month of Ramadan.
source: Khaleej Times

I don't know how Ramadan works, but I am wondering if they have to keep an extra day of Ramadan, like two days of yomtov, because of this...

The molad, as announced in Israel, was on Saturday, so technically they should have been able to see some sliver of the moon somewhere, but maybe something else is required for Ramadan...

I debated whether to call this "headline fo the day" or "interesting psak". I went with "interesting psak" because it is more descriptive of this entertaining story.

I don't know if Arab Muftis publish detailed responsa analyzing the entire topic when issuing a "halachic" decision, or if they just make a pronouncement of their decision and that's it.

An Arab Muftu from Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, has issued a psak that if a man is unusually hungry, to the extreme, he would be allowed to eat his wife, or parts of her.
source: NRG

Obviously do not follow a psak publicized on the Internet without further clarification.

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Merkel-Gate a few weeks ago set off a stream of scorn, mockery, ridicule, humor, criticism and anger at the Orthodox newspaper (Hamevasser) for editing out the women (most notably Angela Merkel) from the picture of the anti-terror rally in France.

Michelle Obama just went with her husband to Saudi Arabia to pay condolences after the death of King Abdullah. They could not edit her out of the images and video, so they blurred her out completely.

See the video..


I think they need to hire the Haredi graphic artists in Saudi Arabia who seem to be more talented than the Saudi Arabian graphic artists. The Merkel-gate picture did not look like anything was missing or altered (unless you gave it a close inspection), while clearly Saudi Arabia's work is noticeable.

Will news media around the world make spoofs and comments about this scene?

Saudi Airlines to segregate sexes

  -- Times of Israel

well, if we ever do come to regional peace, Saudi Air should do pretty good business out of Israel!!

The recent cyber attacks, which began with the theft and publication of thousands of Israeli credit card numbers, raises an interesting question - if one were to find one of those credit card numbers that still worked, could one use it?

Now it seems obvious that it is not allowed. It is clearly theft, illegal and against halacha.

Abbed Taripi, a Saudi Arabian religious leader, has issued a fatwa - an interesting psak - this week, declaring that the use of stolen Israeli credit cards is permissible. Taripi's rationale, as reported by financiall newspaper Calcalist, is that these cards were not issued neither by an "Islamic bank" nor in Muslim countrys.

According to this "psak", the Arabs would be allowed to use pretty much any stolen credit card issued in any of the western countries, and not just Israeli cards.

Quote Of The Day

We don't want to be sandwiched between a nuclear state, which is Israel, and a potential nuclear state, which is Iran...Geography is the ruler here. They are our neighbors. We would love to have good relations with them. Imagine the wonderful things that could happen. The cross-Gulf culture and trade. What benefit it could bring to the area!
With our brain power, and Jewish wealth we can do wonders.

 --- Saudi Arabian Prince Turki Al-Faisal in Davos

(hattip to Yaak)

Everybody knows how concerned Hillary Clinton is about the state of the democracy of Israel. She is worried our democracy is on the verge of collapse, for a variety of reasons, in large part because of the fight over women's place in society..

Interestingly, the Secretary of State has not spoken out, or at least I have not noticed her saying anything about it, about the dear friends of the United States in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis just yesterday beheaded a woman after her being convicted of practicing sorcery. And, it just so happens to be that this was the 73rd such execution this year for similar crimes.

While Saudi Arabia is not a democracy, which to be honest should be even more of a concern to Hillary Clinton,   the treatment of women in that country should still be a cause of concern. Or is it ok in Hillary Clinton's eyes to behead a woman but not to remove their images from a few posters in Haredi neighborhoods or put them in the back of the bus?

At the same time, there is a nice Op-Ed today in the Jerusalem Post written by a woman who spent the last few weeks riding the 418 bus from Ramat Bet Shemesh to Jerusalem. The 418 is a bus line that is, officially or unofficially depending on whom you ask, designated as a mehadrin bus, meaning men sit in front and women in the back. This woman was testing the reactions of the regular passengers. She's get on the bus and sit in front. She wanted to see how common or uncommon the violent reactions really are.

She says that in the few weeks she spent riding the bus, there was not a single incident to cause concern. A few people mentioned things or muttered that she should be moving to the back, but when she made it clear she was sitting tight, they proceeded to ignore her.

In addition, the passengers of the 417 bus, a similar bus but not even unofficially mehadrin and also catering mostly to religious passengers, got some good press.

I’ve been freedom-riding the No. 418 “Mehadrin” bus between Ramat Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem for a few weeks, and here’s what’s been happening to me: nothing. I get on, pay my fare, sit down in the front of the bus, and then – that’s it.


I haven’t encountered one instance of physical violence, verbal threats or otherwise obnoxious harassment. There has been an occasional “Mehadrin!” muttered quietly by some men, but they gave up quickly when I ignored them. One man told me I was supposed to move to the back, as per the custom, but when I asked him if he could read the sign which states that riders can sit wherever they choose, he said, “I’m just telling you that this is the custom, you can do whatever you want.”


One bearded, black-coated man announced that women should move to the back, and when a secular-looking, jeans-wearing woman challenged him by asking if that was the law, he said, “No, but I am requesting that you do it.” We women stayed in our seats and didn’t hear another word from him or anyone else.


Once a man asked the bus driver to tell the women to move to the back, which I thought was a nice touch, as I don’t think it is modest for a man to begin a conversation with a random woman on a bus, even to discuss seating arrangements. For the record, the driver said in response: “I don’t know anything about this.”


On the 417, the non-segregated bus which essentially covers the same route as the 418, the passengers are almost all ultra-Orthodox. It is accepted practice that if two sets of seats are each half-occupied, with one man at each window seat, women riders will not sit down next to a man, but will instead politely ask one man to move next to the other man to free up seats for women (or vice-versa, with a male rider asking a female rider to move).


In almost all cases, when a man and woman are sitting next to each other, they appear to be married (although nobody asks to see their ketubah, or marriage contract). There are fewer screaming babies on the regular bus because families sit together and a man can hold his baby instead of forcing his wife to juggle an infant and a toddler.


Most of the men on the 417 study, work on their laptops or chat with the men sitting next to them during the ride. I have yet to see any inappropriateness borne of the mixed-sex environment. Everyone on the 417 bus has been exceedingly polite and modest. What behaviors are so offensive that a segregated bus is needed to save passengers from sin?

She concludes by telling Hillary Clinton to focus on women's rights in places like Saudi Arabia..

According to this news report, a woman beat the crud out of a Saudi "tzniyus policeman" when he approached her and her male walking companion to ascertain if they were married or not.

When a Saudi religious policeman sauntered about an amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz looking for unmarried couples illegally socializing, he probably wasn’t expecting much opposition.

But when he approached a young, 20-something couple meandering through the park together, he received an unprecedented whooping.

A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai’a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix.

For unknown reasons, the young man collapsed upon being questioned by the cop.

According to the Saudi daily Okaz, the woman then allegedly laid into the religious policeman, punching him repeatedly, and leaving him to be taken to the hospital with bruises across his body and face.
[...]
“The media and the Internet have given people a lot of power and the freedom to express their anger,” she said. “The Hai’a are like a militia, but now whenever they do something it’s all over the Internet. This gives them a horrible reputation and gives people power to react.”
[...]
"There is some sort of change taking place," Nadya Khalife, the Middle East women’s rights researcher for Human Rights Watch, told The Media Line. "There is clearly a shifting mentality regarding to the male guardianship law and similar issues. More women are speaking out, there are changes within the government, there is a mixed university, the king was photographed with women, they want to allow women to work in the courts and there are changes within the justice ministry. So you can witness some kind of change unfolding but it’s not quite clear what’s happening and it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight."

While I would not say the purpose of confronting self-appointed tzniyus police is in order to allow unmarried men and women to hang out together, I do believe in personal freedoms and if they choose to do so it is not the business of self-appointed (or any appointed) tzniyus police to stop them, let alone using the violent methods they have come to be famous for using.

And anyway it does not have to just be an issue with young unmarrieds. The tzniyus cops have been known to harass women whom they think are not dressed appropriately, married women sitting on "the wrong side of the bus", anybody who they suspect of doing something they consider wrong, as if they have a right to judge. Perhaps more women, and men, should have the courage to stand up to them the way the young woman in Saudi Arabia did and that might bring the end of the tzniyus police all that much closer...

The funniest article I have read recently was one in Ynetnews about a Saudi who wrote an article suggesting that just as men in Saudi Arabia are allowed to have multiple wives - up to four, specifically, so too Saudi women should be allowed to have multiple husbands.

Her call for polyandry was in the name of equality.

A Saudi female journalist stirred a row in Egypt after publishing an article in favor of polyandry for women.

The piece, published in the al-Masri al-Yaum newspaper, promotes the notion that women should be allowed to marry several partners, similarly to the right enjoyed by Muslim men. According to Islamic law, a man is allowed to be married to four different women at any given time, as long as he treats them equally.

However, journalist Nadin al-Badir suggested that polyandry be permitted to both women and men. The female writer also proposed that Muslim men be banned from marrying more women merely because they are bored with their current partners.

According to a BBC report Friday, a parliament member already filed a lawsuit against the newspaper for publishing the provocative item. s could be expected, the article also elicited angry responses among Muslim clerics, who argued that the ideas presented in it are anti-Islamic and that the journalist had no right to attack tradition.

And of course it concludes with the explanation that:

However, one cleric defended the article, claiming that it did not constitute an attempt to promote polyandry among women, but rather, it aimed to expose readers to the suffering of women as result of their husbands' conduct.

tha Talkbacks were also pretty funny, specifically #3 who said

Muslim Feminism: We also want to be backward and stupid like our husbands!" Why are they such morons?

The Saudis got upset at the following ad the Israeli importer of Nissan was running.. the ad pokes fun at the Saudis by introducing a more fuel efficient car. When the Saudi shiekh sees it, he flips out and attacks the car.
The Suadis threatened a boycott of Nissam unless the ad would be pulled. After initially holding out, Nissan finally decided to pull the ad.

Since they are pulling the ad, I feel like showing it, because it is pretty funny, until they get Youtube to pull it as well....

If you have been wondering why gasoline prices in the US have been so high, I think you might be about to get your answer.

According to the reports, some prince in Saudi Arabia, where they control most of the oil in the world, has just purchased the first private jumbojet. The purchase cost him 160 million Euros. That is something like $235 million dollars. And if that is not enough, he has decided to refurbish it to make it luxurious. the total cost will end up in the range of 250 million Euros (about 370 million dollars).

You can go read about all the luxurious amenities he is having installed in the airplane. The most frivolous of them all, in my opinion, is the 30 million Euros being spent on painting the outside of the plane in gold leafing...

So when you are pumping your gas at the station and paying over $3 per gallon, you now know where that money is going...