On Monday the Jerusalem District Court sentenced 30-year-old Sabar Kashour to 18-months in prison after he told a Jewish woman that he too was Jewish before they had consensual sex. When it was later revealed that Kashour was a married Arab man the woman called the police. The case ended up in court where Kashour was convicted of rape and ordered to pay NIS 10,000 (about $2,800) to the woman as compensation.

Judge Tzvi Segal said that the situation was not a case of  "classical rape by force," but added that if the woman "hadn't thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have cooperated."

Kashour's sentence has prompted some to ask: Since when has consensual sex by deceit been rape? "If any married man who has ever lied in order to get sex would be charged with rape, there would be no room in our prisons," wrote Sima Kadmon, who later added, "What if someone... told a woman that he is a wealthy single man, while he was in fact poor and married? Would he too be convicted of rape?"

Gideon Levy, a liberal Israeli commentator, has also taken issue with the verdict, saying: "I would like to raise only one question with the judge. What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman?"

What do you think about this case?

And if he were Jewish? [Ynet]
Arab guilty of rape after consensual sex with Jew [Gaurdian]

The town of Dothan, Alabama is offering Jewish families $50,000 to move to the town in an effort to revive a once thriving Jewish community.

"Dothan was just like so many small towns in the South that had thriving Jewish communities in the 1800s and the 1900s," said Rob Goldsmith, who runs the Family Relocation Project, but since then the Jewish population has withered and synagogue members are mostly elderly.

Enter Larry Blumberg, a Dothan native who runs more than 60 hotels. He suggested the town convince 20 young families to move to the Alabama town, offering 1 million dollars in incentive funds that would equal $50,000 per family.

"It's a pretty interesting idea," says Dr. Stuart Rockoff, head of the history department at the Institute of Southern Jewish Life in Jackson, Miss. "Dothan is a pretty small community, and if they are even able to attract a handful of Jewish families it is going to have a transformative effect on the congregation."

So far Goldsmith has met with seven families. Three of them have moved to Alabama and three out of the other four are seriously interested in transplating their lives to Dothan.

Any other takers?

$50,000 offered to Jewish families to move to Alabama town [National Post]

According to a recent article on the Huffington Post, "a huge outdoor art poster that blends Mickey Mouse's image with that of a swastika and a nude woman's body is causing a stir in Poland." The poster is artist Max Papeschi's interpretation of the "'horrors' of the American lifestyle" and is displayed near a synagogue as part of an art exhibit opening in the fall. Although the piece has angered many and even been vandalized twice, lawmakers have decided that the poster - titled "NaziSexyMouse" - does not violate Poland's laws against glorifying the Nazi party.

Mickey Mouse With Nazi Symbol Causes Anger In Poland [Huffington Post]

Earlier this week a Knesset committee advanced the Rotem Conversion Bill, which proposes to give the Orthodox rabbinate control of all conversions in Israel - and, by extension, control over Jewish births, marriages and deaths. If passed, the bill would undermine the authority of rabbis from the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel, where they have already been struggling for recognition. "[This bill] sets us back 20 years" said Rabbi Steven Wernick, executive vice president of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, adding that the bill "delegitimizes most of North American Jewry" and raises the issue  of "who has the authority to determine someone's Jewish identity."

Alana Newhouse summarized the situation in a recent New York Times article titled "The Diaspora Need Not Apply," writing:

If passed, this legislation would place authority... in the hands of a small group of ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, rabbis... not only dividing Israeli society but threatening to sever the vital connection between Israel and the American Jewish diaspora.

The problem is... that the beliefs of a tiny minority of the world's Jews are on the verge of becoming the Israeli government's definition of Judaism, for all Jews....

...If this bill passes, future historians will inevitably wonder why, at a critical moment in its history, Israel chose to tell 85 percent of the Jewish diaspora that their rabbis weren't rabbis and their religious practices were a sham, the conversions of their parents and spouses were invalid, their marriages weren't legal under Jewish law, and their progeny were a tribe of bastards unfit to marry other Jews.

Many Conservative and Reform rabbis have been emailing their congregations to make them aware of this bill and in the hopes that its passage can be prevented. The Masorti website even has a form letter that can be filled out and sent to Benjamin Netanyahu requesting that he intervene.

For more information about this bill, check out the following articles:

Israel considers restricting citizenship for some who convert to Judaism [Washington Post]
Are You Jewish Enough? [Jewish Journal]
The Diaspora Need Not Apply [New York Times]
Alienating the Diaspora [Jerusalem Post]