Chief Rabbi Amar Bans Debt Settlement Haircuts - Globes

I just saw this small article from Globes:

Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar yesterday issued an unprecedented Halakhic ruling against debt settlements involving sharp discounts (haircuts) by the controlling shareholders and executives of financial institutions. At a press conference with the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, Rabbi Amar said that controlling shareholders should bear the costs of heavy losses. The Halakhic ruling also bans cross-ownership.

Rabbi Amar's ruling states that executives and controlling shareholders of large companies should take responsibility for the financial losses caused to the public, and that controlling shareholders and money managers cannot evade this responsibility even if they were negligent and without bad faith.

Rabbi Amar also banned investment in institutions owned by them, or in affiliated institutions; i.e. he banned cross ownership.

For more articles on Business and Halacha regarding bankruptcy and corporate structures see these:

• "Bankruptcy: A Halakhic Perspective"
  Rabbi Yitzchok A. Breitowitz
• "Bankruptcy - A Viable Halachic Option?"
  Steven H. Resnicoff
• "A Jewish Law Perspective on the Propriety of Discharging Personal Debts"
  Prof. Steven H. Resnicoff
• "Jewish Law and Modern Business Structures: The Corporate Paradigm"
  Michael J. Broyde & Steven H. Resnicoff
• http://www.businesshalacha.com/hotline-articles/limited-liability

Breaking News!! Chareidi Cartel Disqualified from Charish Tender

Just a short time ago the Israel Lands Administration committee that determines which bids win the tenders to develop land auctioned off by the government published the results for the city of Charish.

A group of 12 Chareidi non-profit buyers' groups were disqualified because they were illegally organized under one (for profit) company. That left one Chareidi non-profit that won two plots for 291 apartments. It seems that the winners of the biggest plots were therefore a bit surprised to learn that they had indeed won. Also, the disqualification left 4 plots for 319 apartments without a winning bidder.

The committee decision comes after a lawsuit was filed by some of the other buyers' groups against the Chareidi bloc alleging illegal coordination of bids and anti-competitive behavior. The Chareidi groups were being led by a number of ex-politicians. 

According to a person interviewed in one article, Chareidim will probably still own 1 out of every 5 apartments in Charish.

Personally, I think that while the city might be end up being more mixed than the Chareidim had hoped for, they will eventually find a way to buy some of the land for a reduced price. I'm not sure how, but that's the way things seem to happen.

Here is a link to the Hebrew article about this.

According to this article if the Chareidi groups appeal the decision, they may incite the Land Administration to bring criminal charges, something they have not decided to do yet. 

Here is the list of the results of the Charish tender from the press release.

And here is an English article 

Is Refusing Orders Really Illegal?

The recent brouhaha over Naftali Bennett's statement and subsequent retraction calling on soldiers to disobey orders to evacuate Jews living over the Green Line is confusing to me. Many took Bennett to task for calling for soldiers to refuse orders, saying that it is a dangerous statement.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said:

"This is a serious issue. Israel's existence is based on its army. I was quite surprised to hear that Naftali Bennett supports insubordination as a personal example. I heard Moshe (Bogie) Ya'alon, who was once the IDF chief of general staff, say the right thing: 'Israel's existence is based on the IDF. The existence of the IDF is based on following orders. There can be no insubordination. Not from this side or from that side.' No one who supports insubordination will serve in my government."

But I thought the Nuremberg Trials put the "Just Following Orders" defense to rest. There are times when a soldier is expected to disobey a direct order.

I think that Moshe Feiglin had it right when he referenced the Torah portion discussing the Jewish midwives who disobeyed Pharaoh's order to kill the Jewish newborns. 

He also said:

"A country which sanctifies liberty must reserve a place of honor for conscientious disobedience.

If we refuse to do so, then we must all request Eichmann's forgiveness for executing him and throwing his ashes into the sea, as this is exactly what he claimed: 'I followed orders'."

And he later clarified: 

"The comparison I made was not intended to compare anyone with anyone else, but rather a comparison regarding the underlying principle. The principle is that a person must be able to draw a moral line for himself, and that any general statement about the requirement to follow any orders at anytime is fascist."

I think the argument made by the Prime Minister that a soldier must always follow orders is not strictly correct. I think what he, and others, mean to say is "A soldier must always follow an order to evict people from areas that the government deems necessary, whether it be for 'Peace' or for any other reason." The issue is not so much about obeying an order but about obeying orders to remove Jews from their homes, a la Gush Katif.

I found this editorial making a similar point as well.

Does the New Law Against Too-Thin Models Violate the Basic Law?

The JPost had an article stating that: 

Starting on Tuesday, female and male models who have a body mass index (BMI) of less than 18.5 may not be shown in the media or on Israeli websites or go down the catwalk at fashion shows...

The law, also sponsored by Likud-Beytenu MK Danny Danon and believed to be the first of its kind in the world, does make violations a criminal offense bearing a fine. But violators can be sued in court by interested citizens, including families whose relatives have suffered or died due to eating disorders encouraged by images of overly thin models.While the media that publish or present illegal images are not liable, they will get a bad image for doing so; the company that produced the ad, ran the fashion show or used the overly skinny presenter can be taken to court.

In addition, any advertisement made to look with Photoshop or other graphics programs as if the model has a BMI under 18.5 has to be labeled with the warning that the image was distorted. The warning must be clear and prominent, covering at least 7 percent of the ad space.

Even the Wall Street Journal has picked up the story.

I wonder, however, whether this law is against the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation which states that: Every Israel national or resident has the right to engage in any occupation, profession or trade. What if there is a model who naturally has a BMI of less than 18.5? Is she going to be forced to give up her career?

The Basic Law does have two provisions which might protect the law from being overturned:

Section 4: There shall be no violation of freedom of occupation except by a law befitting the values of the State of Israel, enacted for a proper purpose, and to an extent no greater than is required, or by regulation enacted by virtue of express authorization in such law.

Section 8: A provision of a law that violates freedom of occupation shall be of effect, even though not in accordance with section 4, if it has been included in a law passed by a majority of the members of the Knesset, which expressly states that it shall be of effect, notwithstanding the provisions of this Basic Law; such law shall expire four years from its commencement unless a shorter duration has been stated therein.

We'll have to wait and see if this law is challenged in court.

Israel Bar Association Surveys Interns

The Israel Bar Association just sent out a 12 question survey to legal interns (stagiaires) asking the following questions (it was multiple choice but I am only including the questions):

1. Do you think the internship in its current form properly prepares you to work as a lawyer?
2. Was it hard or easy for you to find an internship?
3. If it was hard for you, why do you think that was?
4. During the internship did you only perform legal work?
5. How many hours a day did you work?
6. Do you feel received fair treatment from your employer?
7. How do you rate the quality of your internship?
8. How do you feel about the suggestion to institute an entrance examination at the end of law school as a precondition to beginning an internship?
9. What is your position regarding extending the length of the mandatory internship?
10. What is your position regarding creating a training school to run simultaneously with the internship?
11. What is your position regarding the proposal to change the bar exam to also test critical thinking and analysis rather than rote memorization?
12. Do you think there is a need to change the system to one that institutes standards to determine who can qualify to be an interns mentor (מאמן)?

I think making the bar exam more like the American bar exam to test critical thinking/ analysis and application of the law is a much better idea than the current exam that tests rote memorization. I don't think that the internship should last for more than 1 year. During the internship, salaries are very low. To make interns collect such a pittance for more than 1 year is unfair. I don't see why they need an exam after law school but before the internship. Students take plenty of exams in school and then the bar exam. Why is there a need to insert another test? How would that exam be different than the bar exam?

Israel Hayom | Equal opportunity cyberdefenders protect Hamas alongside the IDF

Equal opportunity cyber defenders protect Hamas alongside the IDF

In an era of rampant cyberwarfare, CloudFlare CEO Matthew Prince acknowledges he is something of a war profiteer, but with a wrinkle.
News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Matthew Prince CloudFlare's serves as an internet intermediary that shields website from hacking attempts.  |  Photo credit: Reuters

When the Israeli army and Hamas trade virtual blows in cyberspace, or when hacker groups like Anonymous rise from the digital ether, or when WikiLeaks dumps a trove of classified documents, some see a lawless Internet.

But Matthew Prince, chief executive at CloudFlare, a little-known Internet start-up that serves some of the Web's most controversial characters, sees a business opportunity.

Founded in 2010, CloudFlare markets itself as an Internet intermediary that shields websites from distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks — the crude but effective weapon that hackers use to bludgeon websites until they go dark. The 40-person company claims to route up to 5 percent of all Internet traffic through its global network.

Prince calls his company the "Switzerland" of cyberspace — assiduously neutral and open to all comers. But just as companies like Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have faced profound questions about the balance between free speech and openness on the Internet and national security and law enforcement concerns, CloudFlare's business has posed another thorny question: what kinds of services, if any, should an American company be allowed to offer designated terrorists and cybercriminals?

CloudFlare's unusual position at the heart of this debate came to the fore last month, when the Israel Defense Forces sought help from CloudFlare after its Web site was struck by attackers based in Gaza. The IDF approached the same company that provides those services to Hamas and the al-Quds Brigades, according to publicly searchable domain information. Both Hamas and al-Quds, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, are designated by the United States as terrorist groups.

Under the USA Patriot Act, U.S. firms are forbidden from providing "material support" to groups deemed foreign terrorist organizations. But what constitutes material support — like many other facets of the law itself — has been subject to intense debate.

CloudFlare's dealings have attracted heated criticism in the blogosphere from both Israelis and Palestinians, but Prince defended his company as a champion of free speech.

"Both sides have an absolute right to tell their story," said Prince, a 38-year old former lawyer. "We're not providing material support for anybody. We're not sending money, or helping people arm themselves."

Prince noted that his company only provides defensive capabilities that enable websites to stay online.

"We can't be sitting in a role where we decide what is good or what is bad based on our own personal biases," he said. "That's a huge slippery slope."

Many U.S. agencies are customers, but so is WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing organization. CloudFlare has consulted for many Wall Street institutions, yet also protects Anonymous, the "hacktivist" group associated with the Occupy movement.

Prince's stance could be tested at a time when some lawmakers in the United States and Europe, armed with evidence that militant or terrorist groups rely on the Web for critical operations and recruitment purposes, have pressured Internet companies to censor content or cut off customers.

Last month, conservative political lobbies, as well as seven lawmakers led by Ted Poe, a Republican from Texas, urged the FBI to shut down the Hamas Twitter account. The account remains active; Twitter declined to comment.

Material support

Although it has never prosecuted an Internet company under the Patriot Act, the government's use of the material support argument has steadily risen since 2006. Since Sept. 11, 2001, more than 260 cases have been charged under the provision, according to Fordham Law School's Terrorism Trends database.

Catherine Lotrionte, the director of Georgetown University's Institute for Law, Science and Global Security and a former Central Intelligence Agency lawyer, argued that Internet companies should be more closely regulated.

"Material support includes Web services," Lotrionte said. "Denying them services makes it more costly for the terrorists. You're cornering them."

But others have warned that an aggressive government approach would have a chilling effect on free speech.

"We're resurrecting the kind of broad-brush approaches we used in the McCarthy era," said David Cole, who represented the Humanitarian Law Project, a non-profit organization that was charged by the Justice Department for teaching law to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is designated by the United States as a terrorist group. The group took its case to the Supreme Court but lost in 2010.

The material support law is vague and ill-crafted, to the point where basic telecom providers, for instance, could be found guilty by association if a terrorist logs onto the Web to plot an attack, Cole said.

In that case, he asked, "Do we really think that AT&T or Google should be held accountable?"

CloudFlare said it has not been contacted about its services by the U.S. government. Spokespeople for Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, told Reuters they contracted a cybersecurity company in Gaza that outsources work to foreign companies, but declined to comment further. The IDF confirmed it had hired CloudFlare, but declined to discuss "internal security" matters.

CloudFlare offers many of its services for free, but the company says websites seeking advanced protection and features can see their bills rise to more than $3,000 a month. Prince declined to discuss the business arrangements with specific customers.

While not yet profitable, CloudFlare has more than doubled its revenue in the past four months, according to Prince, and is picking up 3,000 new customers a day. The company has raked in more than $22 million from venture capital firms, including New Enterprise Associates, Venrock and Pelion Venture Partners.

Prince, a Midwestern native with mussed brown hair who holds a law degree from the University of Chicago, said he has a track record of working on the right side of the law.

A decade ago, Prince provided free legal aid to Spamhaus, an international group that tracked email spammers and identity thieves. He went on to create Project Honey Pot, an open source spam-tracking endeavor that turned over findings to police.

Prince's latest company, CloudFlare, has been hailed by groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists for protecting speech. Another client, the World Economic Forum, named CloudFlare among its 2012 "technology pioneers" for its work. But it also owes its profile to its most controversial customers.

CloudFlare has served 4Chan, the online messaging community that spawned Anonymous. LulzSec, the hacker group best known for targeting Sony Corp, is another customer. And since last May, the company has propped up WikiLeaks after a vigilante hacker group crashed the document repository.

Last year, members of the hacker collective UgNazi, whose exploits include pilfering user account information from eBay and crashing the CIA.gov website, broke into Prince's cell phone and email accounts.

"It was a personal affront," Prince said. "But we never kicked them off either."

Prince said CloudFlare would comply with a valid court order to remove a customer, but that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has never requested a removal. The company has agreed to turn over information to authorities on "exceedingly rare" occasions, he acknowledged, declining to elaborate.

"Any company that doesn't do that won't be in business long," Prince said. But in an email, he added: "We have a deep and abiding respect for our users' privacy, disclose to our users whenever possible if we are ordered to turn over information and would fight an order that we believed was not proper."

Juliannne Sohn, an FBI spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Michael Sussmann, a former Justice Department lawyer who prosecuted computer crimes, said U.S. law enforcement agencies may in fact prefer that the Web's most wanted are parked behind CloudFlare rather than a foreign service over which they have no jurisdiction.

Federal investigators "want to gather information from as many sources as they can, and they're happy to get it," Sussmann said.

In an era of rampant cyberwarfare, Prince acknowledged he is something of a war profiteer, but with a wrinkle.

Israel Hayom | Israel gets same-sex divorce before same-sex marriage

The article:

An Israeli court has awarded the country's first divorce to a gay couple, which experts called an ironic milestone since same-sex marriages cannot be legally conducted in the country.

A decision this week by a family court in the Tel Aviv area "determined that the marriage should be ended" between former Israeli lawmaker Uzi Even, 72, and his partner of 23 years, Amit Kama, 52, their lawyer, Judith Meisels, said on Tuesday.

Legal experts see the ruling as a precedent in the realm of gay rights in a country where conservative family traditions are strong and religious courts oversee ceremonies like marriages, divorces and burials.

While Israel's Interior Ministry still has the power to try and veto the decision, it would likely have to go court in order to do so, Meisels said.

A 2006 high court decision forced the same ministry, headed by an ultra-Orthodox cabinet member, to recognize same-sex marriages performed abroad and ordered the government to list a gay couple wed in Canada as married.

Same-sex marriages are performed in Israel, but they have no formal legal status.

"The irony is that while this is the beginning of a civil revolution, it's based on divorce rather than marriage," newly divorced Kama, a senior lecturer in communications in Yezreel Valley College, told Reuters.

He and Even, both Israelis, married in Toronto in 2004, not long after Canada legalized same-sex marriage. They separated last year, Kama said.

It took months to finalize a divorce as they could not meet Canada's residency requirements to have their marriage dissolved there. At the same time in Israel, rabbinical courts in charge of overseeing such proceedings threw out the case, Kama said.

By winning a ruling from a civil court, Kama and Even may have also set a precedent for Israeli heterosexual couples, who until now have had to have rabbis steeped in ancient ritual handle their divorces, legal experts say.

"This is the first time in Israeli history a couple of Jews are obtaining a divorce issued by an authority other than a rabbinical court, and I think there is significant potential here for straight couples" to do so as well, said Zvi Triger, deputy dean of the Haim Striks School of Law near Tel Aviv.