'Sellout’: Anti-vax conservatives come for DeSantis

 https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2021/07/26/sellout-anti-vax-conservatives-come-for-desantis-1389008

The Republican governor has come under attack from the medical community and Democrats as the Delta strain of Covid-19 sweeps through Florida, turning it into a national coronavirus hotspot. The state recorded more than 73,000 infections last week — four times as many as the start of July — leading to overcrowded hospitals and more than 300 deaths in the most recent seven-day period. Florida is now home to one in five new cases of Covid-19 in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 But as DeSantis encourages vaccinations — he said “vaccines are saving lives” — he is facing a backlash from the anti-vaccination wing of his political base. It’s the same group that praised him and helped thrust him onto the national stage for his hands-off approach to the virus. DeSantis, with 2024 presidential ambitions, has to walk the line between keeping his conservative base satisfied and keeping his state from becoming more of a disease hot spot.

 

CUNY professors quit union in protest over anti-Israel screed

 https://nypost.com/2021/07/25/cuny-professors-quit-union-in-protest-over-anti-israel-screed/

At least 50 CUNY professors have resigned in protest from their faculty union after it passed a one-sided resolution condemning Israel for recent attacks on Palestinians and threatening to support the movement to boycott and divest from the Jewish state, The Post has learned.

The controversial resolution approved by delegates of the union, the Professional Staff Congress, outraged many professors — some of whom are descendants of Holocaust victims and have relatives in Israel.

 

CUNY union claimed 'Israel massacres Palestinians,' professors resign

 https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/union-claimed-israel-massacres-palestinians-cuny-professors-resign-674925

 Over 50 professors from CUNY have resigned from their faculty union, Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY), in protest of the passage of a resolution condemning Israel, the New York Post reported Sunday. Multiple professors were very upset by the controversial resolution, according to the Post.

“With the PSC-CUNY resolution you have chosen to support a terrorist organization, Hamas, whose goal (`From the River to the Sea’) is to destroy the state of Israel and kill all my relatives who live there,” one professor wrote in his resignation letter, according to the Post.

Part 4: Rabbi Gestetner's Refutation of the Lies of Jacobson & Kahan

Religious Zionists' attitude toward non-Orthodox is slowly evolving

https://www.jpost.com/judaism/religious-zionists-attitude-toward-non-orthodox-is-slowly-evolving-650409 

In June, the Mekor Rishon newspaper hosted its first International Diaspora Conference, online, and with that, held a session about common denominators between Jewish communities around the world under the title “Shared Purpose: Who’s afraid to talk?”

That session was moderated by Prof. Gil Troy, an expert in the Diaspora and a columnist for The Jerusalem Post, and his two panel participants were Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, a religious-Zionist leader from the more conservative wing of the sector, and Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur, a female French Reform rabbi.

Religious Zionist rabbi: Let Reform have mixed services at the Western Wall

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/310396

 A senior Religious Zionist rabbi has called on the authorities in charge of the Western Wall Plaza to accommodate Reform and Conservative prayer groups at a separate section of the wall designated for egalitarian prayer.

Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, chief rabbi of the Samaria town of Har Bracha and dean of the local yeshiva, penned a piece on Arutz Sheva’s Hebrew website Thursday arguing that non-traditional prayer groups should be given accommodation at the Western Wall.

Kahana’s kashrut reforms get rabbinical backing

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/kahanas-kashrut-reforms-get-rabbinical-backing-674863

Last week, Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, a respected arbiter of Halacha, expressed support for Kahana’s measures, according to the Religious Services Ministry.

Har Bracha Rosh Yeshiva Rabbi Melamed: Reform Jews Entitled to their Mixed Services at the Kotel

 https://www.jewishpress.com/news/jewish-news/har-bracha-rosh-yeshiva-rabbi-melamed-reform-jews-entitled-to-their-mixed-services-at-the-kotel/2021/07/22/

 Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, the rosh yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Bracha near Shechem, wrote in Arutz 7 on Thursday that Conservative and Reform Jews must be allowed to pray at the Ezrat Israel section of the Kotel, and the Rabbi of the Kotel must take care of all their needs, including providing them with a Torah scroll (הרב אליעזר מלמד: תפילת הרפורמים בעזרת ישראל).

The German Experiment That Placed Foster Children with Pedophiles

 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/26/the-german-experiment-that-placed-foster-children-with-pedophiles

 Kentler’s career was framed by his belief in the damage wrought by dominant fathers. An early memory was of walking in the forest on a spring day and running to keep up with his father. “I had only one wish: that he should take my hand and hold it in his,” Kentler wrote in a parenting magazine in 1983. But his father, a lieutenant in the First World War, believed in a “rod and baton pedagogy,” as Kentler put it. Kentler’s parents followed the teachings of Daniel Gottlob Moritz Schreber, a best-selling German authority on child care who has been described as a “spiritual precursor of Nazism.” Schreber outlined principles of child rearing that would create a stronger race of men, ridding them of cowardice, laziness, and unwanted displays of vulnerability and desire. “Suppress everything in the child,” Schreber wrote, in 1858. “Emotions must be suffocated in their seed right away.” When Kentler misbehaved, his father threatened to buy a contraption invented by Schreber to promote children’s posture and compliance: shoulder bands to prevent slouching; a belt that held their chest in place while they slept; an iron bar pressed to their collarbone, so they’d sit up straight at the table. If Kentler talked out of turn, his father slammed his fist on the table and shouted, “When the father talks, the children must be silent!”

Moredes if forced by husband?

Otzar Haposkim (77)

Avoda Zara does it have actual power?

אמת ליעקב דברים פרק ד פסוק יט

(יט) וראית את השמש ואת הירח גו' אשר חלק ה' אלקיך אתם לכל העמים תחת כל השמים8.
עיין במפרשי התורה שישנם בעיקר שני מהלכים בביאור פסוק זה, דיש מפרשים דהשמש והירח נחלקו לכל העמים להאיר להם ומזהירה התורה אותנו שלא נשתחוה להם, אבל הראב"ע והרמב"ן כאן פירשו דיש לכל עם ועם כוכב ידוע ומזל מיוחד, וכן יש מזל לכל עיר ועיר, והם הם המשפיעים על העמים, וכן היא גם שיטת הרמב"ן לעיל בפרשת בראשית [א' פי"ח], עיין שם.
ונראה שיש כאן מחלוקת עיקרית ביסוד ענין עבודה זרה, דשיטת הרמב"ם בכמה מקומות היא דהעבודה זרה אין בה ממש כל עיקר ואין לה כח כלל, וכל המתפלל אליה ועובדה לא רק שהוא עובר על האיסור אלא הוא גם מבזבז זמנו לריק ולשוא, אבל דעת הרמב"ן היא שהקב"ה הטביע בטבע העולם שכל אומה יש לה משפיע משלה בעולמות העליונים והוא יש לו כח מסויים שיכול להשפיע על אומתו כל זמן שאין הדבר נוגע לישראל [דהרי אין מזל לישראל], אלא איסור עבודה זרה שנצטוו בה האומות הוא שאסור להם להתפלל למשמש הזה כי הרי כל כוחו נובע ממה שהטביע בו הקדוש ברוך הוא, ולכן התפילה והעבודה צריכה להיות לאלקי האלקים, כלומר להאלו־ה שהוא ממעל כל האלהים, ולכן צריכים להתפלל להקב"ה עצמו ולא לעבד שלו, אבל ודאי אם עובדים את העבודה שלהם ומתפללים אליה זה משפיע עליו לעזור להם ויש ביכלתו לעשות כן, וזהו ביאור הפסוק אשר חלק ה' אלקיך לכל העמים תחת כל השמים, והיינו שה' חילק לכל אומה אומה את השר והמשפיע שלה.
ועיין בספר שופטים [י"א פכ"ד] בדברי יפתח אל מלך עמון שאמר לו: הלא את אשר יורישך כמוש אלהיך אותו תירש ואת כל אשר הוריש ה' אלקינו מפנינו אותו נירש. ועיי"ש בפירוש הרלב"ג שפירש שעל דרך הלעג אמר כן. אבל לפי שיטת הרמב"ן לא היתה כוונת יפתח על דרך הלעג, אלא כוונתו היתה כפי פשוטו9, דבודאי יש כח לכמוש אלהיך להוריש לך מה שהוא רוצה, ומכיון שזה הוא מה שהוריש לך א"כ איך לך לבוא בטענות נגד ישראל שהם ירשו את מה שהורישם ה' אלקי ישראל, ודו"ק.

 

The complexities of vaccine hesitancy

 https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210720-the-complexities-of-vaccine-hesitancy

 First, some distinctions. While it is tempting to assume that anyone who refuses a vaccine holds the same beliefs, the fears of most vaccine hesitant people should not be confused with the bizarre theories of staunch anti-vaxxers. "They're very vocal, and they have a strong presence offline and online," says Mohammad Razai at the Population Health Research Institute, St George's, University of London, who has written about the various psychological and social factors that can influence people's decision-making around vaccines. "But they’re a very small minority."