California has banned local authorities from outlawing male circumcision, striking a final blow to a San Francisco group that had hoped to put the matter to a popular vote.

The activists believe that male circumcision, a cornerstone ritual of the Jewish and Muslim faiths, is essentially culturally accepted genital mutilation, and should be a matter of individual, not parental, choice.

Dramatic changes may be coming in Israel: Demographers now estimate about a third of last year’s Jewish babies were born into the ultra-Orthodox community, an insular and devout minority that has long been at loggerheads with the rest of the increasingly modern and prosperous country.

Jewish law allows women to sleep with the enemy in order to get intelligence vital to Israel’s security, a rabbi was quoted as saying in a Israeli newspaper Monday, AFP reports.

The mass-selling Yediot Aharonot quoted an academic article by Ari Shvat, an expert in Jewish law, in which he said it was acceptable to have sex with “terrorists” in order to obtain information leading to their arrest.

The advice appeared to be directed at Israel’s Mossad spy agency, and is an exception to the traditional religious prohibition of deception and sex outside of marriage.

A Jewish settler who allegedly confessed to a 12-year spree of murderous hate-crimes has been arrested in the West Bank, Sky News reports.

Yaakov “Jack” Teitel, 37, was branded a Jewish “terrorist” in the Israeli media over attacks against Palestinians, left-wing and minority Israelis and homosexuals.

He is accused of murdering a Palestinian taxi driver and a West Bank shepherd in 1997.

In 2008, he allegedly maimed a 15-year-old boy with a booby-trapped present because he belonged to a community of Jews who believe in Jesus.

The Washington-based Pew Research Center’s global attitude survey found that 46 percent of Spanish, 36 percent of Poles and 34 percent of Russians viewed Jews unfavorably, while the same was true for 25 percent of Germans, and 20 percent of French.

Opinions of Muslims are also worsening compared with previous years, with 52 percent in Spain, 50 percent in Germany, 46 percent in Poland and 38 percent in France having negative attitudes toward them.