JERUSALEM — A subject ordinarily not on the top of Israel’s national agenda has become a hot topic in recent weeks, following media reports that the country’s two chief rabbis sent a letter to all state-funded rabbis urging them to discourage abortions.

In the letter, which was disseminated in late December, Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger noted that approximately 50,000 abortions are performed in Israel every year — 20,000 approved by Health Ministry abortion committees and 30,000 unapproved procedures performed illegally in private clinics.

The chief rabbis wrote that abortions, which Judaism permits under certain circumstances, “delay the coming of the Messiah.” The vast majority of abortions, they said, “go against Jewish law”...READ MORE

• Abortions delay Messiah's arrival, Israel's chief rabbis say Telegraph
• Chief Rabbinate: Torah Says Abortion Is Murder Israel National News

SAN FRANCISCO — Should the pro-marriage votes of Catholics, Baptists and other people of faith in California be disregarded as irrational, “discriminatory” and unconstitutional?

That’s the extraordinary question being asked in a federal lawsuit argued on behalf of two same-sex couples to overturn Proposition 8, the 2008 measure passed by 52% of California voters to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

During two and a half weeks of rapid-fire testimony in San Francisco, the plaintiffs’ legal team worked to build a case claiming that Prop. 8 should be thrown out, in part, because it was swept to victory on a tsunami of “irrational” religious “prejudice and hostility,” generated by discriminatory “messaging” put out by a broad coalition of Mormons,...READ MORE

• Calif. marriage trial draws friends with briefs The Washington Post
• Gay Marriage Trial Rests, and a Key Ruling Awaits Time

MILOT, Haiti — When Dr. Rick Pitera, an anesthesiologist based in Livingston, N.J., left for Haiti days after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake leveled much of that nation’s capital, Port-au-Prince, friends and colleagues feared for his safety and tried to stop him.

It would be Pitera’s third trip to the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, and even the threat of earthquake aftershocks and social instability didn’t deter this father of three. Like many physicians and nurses who had previously volunteered their services at Hôpital Sacré Coeur in Milot, he felt an irresistible force pulling him back to a place where he could make a difference for patients at risk of dying from untreated injuries.

Within an hour of his arrival at Hôpital Sacré Coeur, Pitera was plunged into a...READ MORE

• Victims From Haiti Arrive in Atlanta The New York Times
• 2 U.S. centers open to treat badly injured Haitian evacuees The Washington Post
• Pace of giving slows a bit for Haiti relief effort The Washington Post