R&D Info report: CSIRO’s latest research flagship, the $70 million Sustainable Agriculture Flagship, has been officially launched with the aim of increasing productivity by 50% and reducing carbon emissions by the same amount across Australia’s agricultural and forestry sectors.

CSIRO chief executive Dr Megan Clark said CSIRO scientists will collaborate with government agencies, universities and agribusinesses to find new, environmentally-friendly farming and forestry alternatives.

There will be four main research areas:

• Greenhouse gas management and carbon storage in land use systems. The target of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions per unit of food and fibre production by at least 50 per cent by 2030 will involve a mix of productivity growth, emissions reduction and carbon storage in soils and vegetation.
• Landscape systems and trends – innovative earth observation and knowledge systems to inform land use planning, policy options and natural resource assessment.
• Partnering for International Food and Fibre Security
• Partnering for impact – inoving collaboration with industry, government departments and agencies, and the research community.

Presumably the intention of publishing this here is to bring the program to the attention of Israel companies operating in this space. I can't help thinking, though, that Israel itself would benefit from just such a program!

10- A Libyan government delegation recently arrived in Turkey for discussions on the import of 100 million cubic meters of water annually to the North African country. Sources in the Turkish Energy Ministry say if an agreement is reached on the export of Turkish water to Libya, it will preclude the possibility of exporting water at the same time to Israel. According to reports, Libya is planning to buy large quantities of water from the project set up by the Turks on the Manavgat River. Over the past decade, Turkish companies and businessmen have invested some $150 million in the project which has so far not been put into operation. The governments of the two countries were due to jointly seek shipping companies that could transport the water to Israel. The Water Authority is believed to be in favour of importing water from Turkey, as a supplementary measure to water desalination, despite the high cost involved. However, the Finance Ministry is said to be opposed since the price of imported water would be about 80 cents per cubic meter, as opposed to 50 cents for desalinated water. A Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem said the two sides had made headway in the negotiations and were currently working on two contracts, one between the governments and the other with the water carrier. Further information on EMWIS website.

Perhaps this will put the final nail in the coffin of a somewhat unrealistic idea; importing water from Turkey by tanker. Israel can then focus its attention on the realistic and the achievable; a massive investment in desalination (coupled, of course with my Med-Kinneret Canal proposal!).

In these places with state-supported synagogues and Hebrew schools, Jewish children are taught that there is only one kind of Judaism.  They see - at public events where the leaders of the Jewish community have a role - only Orthodox rabbis.  Adherence to Orthodox Judaism is sanctioned and institutionalized by nothing less than the state.
 
In these cities and countries, then, is it so surprising that these young people see the only alternative to practicing Orthodox Judaism as leaving Judaism?  Only if they have been fortunate enough to have stumbled across some Progressive Jews, they may find their way to a new minority community and, as we have seen over and over again, find their own sacred place.

On the URJ Facebook page, this blog post was referred to under the title "the struggle of Progressive Judaism worldwide". Here in South Africa, we have often witnessed the efforts of organised Orthodoxy to deligitimise and sideline Reform Judaism, so I can relate to what's being said.

I've attempted to summarise the issues and some possible responses below. I hope that a coordinated approach along these lines will eventually find a place on the agenda on the WUPJ.

Issues:

- Access to funding from all levels of government
- Appropriate representation on Jewish community bodies
- Access to Jewish community resources
- Exclusion from community publicity and inventories, e.g. schedules of congregations
- The perception (both within and outside the Jewish community) that only one form of Judaism exists; Orthodoxy (the Big Lie of Authentic Judaism)

Possible responses:

- Set up a dedicated Equal Time response team within the WUPJ to tackle these issues, country by country, both proactively and reactively
- The response team should include legal, communications and PR specialists, and should work closely with progressive communities in the affected countries/regions
- Pressure the responsible government entities to provide funding for the progressive community on the same basis as for Orthodoxy
- Demand appropriate representation on Jewish communal bodies and access to community resources, or set up parallel institutions for the alternative streams of Judaism
- Campaign to ensure that progressive Jewish resources (e.g. congregations, schools, camps, etc.) are included on databases or inventories of overall Jewish resources, e.g. on Jewish community Websites
- Publicise and advocate to raise awareness that Judaism is not monolithic or monocultural; that many forms exist and all should be embraced (in the same way that Christianity embraces many churches). This should be addressed to both the Jewish community and the wider audience

This will require funding, which is unlikely to be available immediately. The main thing, however, is to identify and prioritise the issues, identify a range of responses, draw up a budget and begin looking for funding. In the meanwhile, the issues will have to be addressed reactively, on an ad-hoc basis and mainly by the communities concerned.

It's difficult to think of which countries are not (at least to some extent) affected by these issues (with the exception of the US and possibly the major English-speaking and Western European democracies). It certainly applies to South Africa and Israel, with Israel being a special case.

But Women of the Wall chairperson Anat Hoffman criticized the lack of political response to the treatment that Frenkel received. “I want Michael Oren to be drowning in e-mails and faxes and letters saying: ‘Do something about this. This is something we care about,’” said Hoffman, who is also executive director of the Reform movement’s Israel Religious Action Center.

Hoffman said that when she led the women in Rosh Hodesh prayer at Kotel, she heard ultra-Orthodox men jeering them, calling them “prostitutes” and shouting that “the Holocaust happened because of you.”

“But more than I heard the bullies, I heard the silence of all my supporters,” Hoffman said. “The silence of the majority of Israeli seculars, who have allowed this thing to happen; the silence of the court, the police, the mayor, the Knesset, and also the silence of my brothers and sisters, who know women read Torah and wear tallit.”

There is a struggle going on for the very soul of Israel, and of Judaism itself. Only one side, however, appears to be fully engaged in this struggle, while the other appears to be largely unaware that the struggle is even taking place (still less what the stakes are).

On the one side are ranged all the forces of ultra-Orthodoxy, fundamentalism, theocracy, backwardness, pseudo-Halacha, ultra-nationalism and xenophobia, corruption and the sternest notions of what constitutes Judaism. This "Black Hat Judaism" would like to see an Israel encompassing the entire Land of Israel, ruled by those who claim to speak in the name of God, at war with the entire world for a brief while; until it vanishes for the same reasons as did the 2nd Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. It is determined to reverse the revolutions in Jewish life brought about by the Emancipation, Enlightenment and Zionism, and appears intent on turning the Jewish world into a grim Kehilla or Shtetl writ large, without dissent or diversity.

On the other side we find openness, pluralism, tolerance, acceptance, learning, scholarship and science and the idea that Judaism is there to sanctify life, not replace it. This "White Hat Judaism" sees Israel as a full member of the family of nations; a state that is both Jewish and democratic. A state that upholds ideals of social justice and that allows all faiths - and all branches of the Jewish faith - to flourish.

This monumental struggle closely resembles that between the democratic and totalitarian worlds, which dominated much of the 20th Century. Let's hope that the democratic Jewish world wakes up, before it's too late!

In the context of this struggle, the distinctions between Conservative/Masorti, Liberal, Progressive, Reconstructionist, Reform and Secular Humanist Judaism no longer count. All that matters is for everyone who sees themselves as part of the Jewish democratic camp to support the individuals and organisations (such as Hiddush (Freedom Of Religion for Israel), IRAC and the New Israel Fund (NIF) that are in the vanguard of the struggle against the black tide sweeping through the Jewish world today.

Only 44 percent of Israelis define themselves as secular, as opposed to 64 percent of Swedes who define themselves as atheists;

The logic behind this article is so flawed that the article doesn't warrant a detailed critique. I do want to make a couple of comments however:
1. Gideon Levy is confusing the idea of religiosity and that of a theocracy. Even if 100% of the Israeli (Jewish) population was religious (in whatever sense), this still does not imply or require that Israel be a theocracy. Neither is a necessary precondition for the other. While I stipulate that Israel has too many theocratic features to qualify as a true democracy, it doesn't have to be this way. Stripping out the theocratic baggage from the Israeli system will not prevent or even affect anyone's religiosity.
2. "Only 44 percent of Israelis define themselves as secular, as opposed to 64 percent of Swedes who define themselves as atheists..." Secular(ism) has more to do with requiring a separation between religion and state than with religious beliefs as such. A secularist and an atheist are not one and the same. Someone who is religious (or observant, to use Orthodox terminoloy) can still be secular, i.e. favour a separation between religion and state.
3. Israel is something of an aberration regarding the Jewish attitude to secularism. Everywhere in the Diaspora, Jews tend to favour countries and political parties which oppose theocratic trends. Only in Israel are they neutral, in favour of (or at least not strongly opposed to) theocratic ideals. This simply demonstrates that the much-vaunted Jewish attachment to justice and equality has more to do with circumstances and less to do with an innate drive for prophetic values.

Barak says that the phenomenon does not exist at all hesder yeshivas, but only at a few isolated ones where extremist rabbis incite the soldiers, and so the IDF should continue the hesder system. But the hesder idea is invalid in principle. There is no reason in the world for religious young men to serve in the army for only a year and a half, instead of the three years served by their secular brothers. Why doesn't the IDF afford such conditions to those who go on to study engineering or computers? Are they less important than Talmud?

We should know that in all hesder yeshivas, and not only those of "extremist rabbis," the students undergo brainwashing against yielding any piece of holy land in the territories, and they listen to their rabbis before they obey their commanders.

There are entire battalions in the army today comprised solely of hesder yeshiva soldiers, who are likely to change sides and fight against the evacuation of settlements. The very fact that they belong to a large, strong and united community, broadly backed by a supportive population, by rabbis and politicians, arouses the suspicion of a mutiny. And so all the hesder yeshivas should be dismantled, and all religious young men sent to a full, three-year tour of duty, just like their secular friends. After their mandatory service, they can go and study whatever their hearts desire.

It is true that the Kfir battalion's signs of protest do not yet constitute a mutiny, but we must not underestimate them. They teach us what is liable to happen, and the wisest course is to take preventive steps. But in order to do so, we need a different defense minister, one who puts the interests of the State of Israel before any other considerations.

With Israeli society as fractured as it is (and with the growing rift between Israel and Judea (or Little Israel and Greater Israel)), it's time to completely disband the entire hesder yeshiva system, along with any other ideologically homogeneous units in the IDF. As Nehemia Shtrasler correctly points out, there is no longer any good or sufficient reason that those studying Talmud should serve only 18 months instead of 2 years. IDF leadership needs to ensure that there are no homogeneous units within the IDF, even down to the level of section or platoon. The continued existence of these militias or private armies is a far greater threat to the unity and effectiveness of the IDF than anything it has faced since the sinking of the Altalena. Act now, and let there be only one law and one defence force for all of Israel.
In many countries (even today), a group of soldiers announcing their intention to defy orders or mutiny in this manner would earn some a place in front of a firing squad. We're not there yet, but the danger to the integrity of the IDF and the State of Israel itself should not be underestimated.

The Internet Archive and founding companies announce today the launch of 301Works.org, a service to archive shortened Universal Resource Locators (URLs).  This will enable redirect services to incorporate these shortened URLs when a member company ceases business activities.

The use of shortened URLs has grown dramatically due to the popularity of Twitter and similar micro-streaming services where posts are limited to a small number of characters.  Millions of shortened URLs are generated for users every day by a wide variety of companies.

But when a URL shortening service shuts down, the shortened URLs people put in their blogs, tweets, emails and web sites break.  Unless users have kept a record of each shortened URL and where it was supposed to redirect to, it’s not possible to fix them.

A group of URL shortening companies and other interested parties realized the potential for harm to the user community and formed the 301Works.org organization to provide more security for the people who use these services every day.   Currently more than 20 URL shortening organizations have participated in an earlier form of this collaboration, and an industry leader, Bit.ly, has already begun donating archives of their URL mappings (pairs of long URLs and the generated shortened URLs).

This is a really worthwhile initiative that should be supported by all URL shortening services. Check whether the service/s you routinely utilise are on the list below (maintained on the 301Works.org blog) or not. If not, perhaps it would be a good idea to log a feedback or support ticket and ask if/whether they intend to support the initiative. If they don't plan to, perhaps it's time to look around for a new service.

* abbrr.com
* Adjix.com
* AppsFire.com
* awe.sm
* bit.ly
* buk.me
* Cli.gs
* Delivr.com
* ham.org
* idek.net
* Jdem.cz
* Lin.cr
* u.mavrev.com
* trcb.us
* Twurl.nl
* ur1.ca
* URLizer
* urlShort.com
* Xrl.us
* youific.com
* Zip.li

Major players such as bit.ly are already way ahead of the game. I'm nervous that I don't see my personal favourites (ow.ly and Digg.com) on the list.