c. 2005 Religion News Service
Jews Call for Investigation into High Price of Sukkot Palm Fronds
JERUSALEM (RNS) An Israeli watchdog organization is calling on the Israeli government to investigate the high price of lulavs, a kind of palm frond used by Jews during the holiday of Sukkot, which begins at sundown Monday (Oct 17).
The Movement for Quality Government wants to know if this year’s worldwide lulav shortage is due to price gouging by Egyptian palm tree growers and exporters, as well as Israeli importers.
“There are families who can’t buy a lulav this year because of the price,” the Movement’s lawyer, Orna Gelbstein, wrote to the Israeli Department of Investigations, according to the Arutz Sheva, a religious radio program a few days prior to the start of the holiday.
“We suspect this (has transpired due to) agreements with Egyptian suppliers and control over existing supplies by local traders.”
Jewish law commands Jews to wave the lulav in their sukka, a temporary structure Jews construct to remind themselves of the ancient Israelites’ 40-year journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.
When Egypt announced recently that it would severely restrict the harvesting of its palm trees on the grounds that yearly harvesting was detrimental to their health, American and Israelis lawmakers lobbied the Egyptian government to overturn its decision.
In Israel, prices for Egyptian lulavs jumped from an average of $1 to $2 in 2004 to $10 to $20 this year, despite the fact that two Israeli businessmen managed to import an estimated 400,000 lulavs from Egypt. Exactly how the fronds suddenly became available has been a subject for debate and conjecture in Israel. Many, including other importers, accused the businessmen of conspiring with the Egyptians to keep prices exceptionally high.
A deal to import palm fronds from Jordan did not materialize, according to a Ministry of Agriculture official. The small number of Israeli fronds cost anywhere from $30 to $60, making it very difficult for poorer families to buy the fronds..
_ Michele Chabin
Mainline Leaders Rally Against Proposed Budget Cuts
WASHINGTON (RNS) Mainline Protestant leaders are urging Congress to scrap a budget blueprint that could mean deep cuts in programs for poor Americans, with a top Episcopal bishop suggesting Washington is guilty of “blasphemy.”
Leaders from the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and 52 local Lutheran bishops said Congress should cancel $70 billion in tax breaks if it also needs to cut $35 billion in domestic spending.
“For a nation to declare itself under God and neglect the poor in its midst is tantamount, in my mind, to blasphemy,” Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold said Thursday (Oct. 13) in a teleconference with reporters.
Congress is poised to take up President Bush’s $2.6 trillion budget, and must find $35 billion in cuts. A Republican-led budget bill proposes $10 billion in cuts to Medicaid (health care for low-income Americans), with hundreds of millions in additional cuts to food stamps and student loans.
In addition to the spending cuts, Congress will consider tax cuts worth up to $70 billion over five years. Critics say the two separate bills will increase the budget deficit by $35 billion, and tax breaks will favor high-income Americans.
Mainline churches who have made the 2006 budget their top domestic priority say the budget continues to be “unjust” and “immoral,” particularly after Hurricane Katrina exposed the unseen problem of poverty.
“What we saw in New Orleans, quite frankly, was the reality that there are millions in this country that are left behind not by the biblical rapture but by the rupture of the social contract in America,” said the Rev. John Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ.
Griswold and Thomas joined Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in trying to derail the streamlined “reconciliation” process that guides the budget process and limits lawmakers’ ability to offer amendments. “I think this budget … is an embarrassment to our country. We can do better,” Reid said.
Separately, 52 of the 65 bishops in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America wrote to Congress and said many of the programs that face cuts are the same programs that would help the victims of Katrina.
“Even as the number of people living in poverty and without (health) insurance has increased dramatically in the last five years, the last few tragic weeks in the Gulf Coast area have put a face _ indeed, thousands of new faces _ on poverty in the heart of our society,” the bishops said.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Mission Agency is Dumbfounded by Eviction Order from Venezuela
(RNS) A Christian missionary group being expelled from Venezuela vehemently denounced charges by President Hugo Chavez that the group is involved with the CIA.
Chavez announced in a nationally televised address on Wednesday (Oct. 12) that he wants to oust New Tribes Mission, a U.S.-based missionary group specializing in evangelism among indigenous groups.
The move is an attempt to purge Venezuela of U.S. “imperialist infiltration” and was based on intelligence that some of the missionaries are undercover CIA agents, Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel told reporters Thursday.
“The president’s decision was based on reports that their actions create situations that compromise the country’s sovereignty,” Rangel said.
In a statement on the organization’s Web site, New Tribes denied the allegations, saying the group has had no governmental ties in its 59 years of service in the South American nation.
“We have the highest regard and respect for the people, laws and country of Venezuela. New Tribes is not and has never been connected in any way with any government agencies. Our goal is to serve indigenous people,” the statement said.
The group further called for dialogue with Chavez to clarify the “misunderstandings and misinformation.”
Nita Zelenak, a spokeswoman for New Tribes Mission, told the Associated Press the organization does not plan to immediately remove its 160 personnel from the region and hopes to convince Chavez to rethink his decision.
“When you consider the people that we’re with, there really isn’t any sense of strategic information they would have,” Zelenak told AP.
The group said a recent remark by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson that the United States should “take him (Chavez) out” sparked investigations into the organization, the AP reported.
_ Jason Kane
New Orleans Officials Probe Charges of `Mercy Killings’ at Hospital
NEW ORLEANS (RNS) Based on allegations that doctors at Memorial Medical Center considered putting frail patients to death in the first days after Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti has ordered an investigation of all hospital and nursing home deaths after the storm.
In response to a request from Foti, Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard said he has supervised autopsies of 35 Memorial Medical Center patients at the temporary morgue at St. Gabriel.
These procedures included tests for narcotics such as morphine that could put people to death. The test kits were shipped to a Pennsylvania laboratory for processing, and Minyard said he does not know when the results will arrive.
Kris Wartelle, a Foti spokeswoman, said the investigation is expected to be finished in two weeks.
The bodies of 45 people were removed from the hospital. Of those, 11 people had been in the hospital morgue before the storm, and 34 people _ most of them weak patients in a long-term care center within the hospital _ died after Katrina blew through.
Published reports on the inquiry have relied heavily on allegations from Dr. Bryant King that doctors had discussed giving patients lethal overdoses of narcotics and that an administrator had suggested praying about it.
King could not be reached for comment, but two Memorial staff doctors who were at the hospital until the last patient left said no such discussions ever took place.
The administrator who allegedly urged praying denied doing so, said Steve Campanini, a spokesman for Tenet Healthcare Corp., Memorial’s owner.
The administrator, whom Campanini declined to name, “authorized me to say that there was no such meeting and that Dr. King either misspoke or is a liar,” Campanini said.
Memorial has been the focus of attention because of reports of doctors struggling to care for patients in darkness and stifling heat after generators failed and floodwaters surrounded the building.
Under these trying circumstances, “physicians and staff … performed heroically to save the lives of their patients,” Campanini said in a statement.
And if anyone had thought of mercy killing, “I’m of the opinion … that it would have been brought up through proper channels in the medical staff,” said Dr. Glenn Casey, the hospital’s head of anesthesiology. “That never happened.”
The inquiry grew out of the investigation of deaths of 34 residents at St. Rita’s Nursing Home, Wartelle said. The owners of that St. Bernard home have been booked on 34 counts of negligent homicide.
In a message published on http://www.nola.com, The Times-Picayune’s Web site, days after the storm, King’s sister, Rachelle King, said her brother had told her discussions of putting patients to death were under way.
Hospital management “decided to selectively withhold food and water from patients,” she wrote. “Doctors are being forced to decide who gets to live and who will starve to death.”
_ John Pope
Quote of the Day: Actor Wesley Snipes
(RNS) “The good Lord says `Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.’ These are the tenets I live by.”
_ Actor Wesley Snipes, reacting to a New York court’s dismissal of a paternity suit against him. He was quoted by the Associated Press.
KRE/JL END RNS
Editors: To obtain a photo to accompany the first item, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug. If searching by subject, designate “exact phrase” for best results.
