Despite the recent decline in Biden's approval, Trump's ratings were lower during his time in office.
"Biden's approval rating has clearly taken a turn for the worse in the past several weeks, but he is still faring better than Trump at this point in their presidencies," Burden said. "Trump had one of the lowest and steadiest approval ratings of any modern president."
https://fortune.com/2021/10/07/biden-approval-rating-stacks-up-to-past-presidents/
At the same point in their first-term, presidents Ronald Reagan (55.6%), George H.W. Bush (67.6%), Bill Clinton (50.2%), George W. Bush (82.9%), and Barack Obama (52.3%) all had much higher approval ratings. Meanwhile, Biden's current rating is a bit higher than Trump's 38.1% rating was on Day 261 in office.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/315549
Jewish, Catholic and Anglican leaders in the UK have issued a joint appeal to parliamentarians to reject a bill that would legalize assisted suicide.
In a letter dated October 19, the three religious leaders convey their “profound disquiet” over the Assisted Dying Bill, a private members’ which had its second reading in the UK parliament’s upper house on Friday.
Put forward in the House of Lords in May, the act would “enable adults who are terminally ill to be provided at their request with specified assistance to end their own life.”
We know Avraham was greatly concerned with justice.
When his nephew was captured he risked his life to save him
When Yishmael was kicked out he protested
When Sodom was to be destroyed he objected that perhaps righteous people would be killed
However when he was told to sacrifice his son - he made no protest at all! Why?
Ministers on Thursday opened Israel’s borders, starting November 1, to tourists who are vaccinated against COVID-19 or have recovered from the disease, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
However, only tourists from countries that aren’t defined as “red” due to high infection rates will be allowed in. Additionally, reports said tourists won’t be allowed in from countries that are seeing an outbreak of the new AY4.2 variant, which has been causing concern.
The vast majority of tourists have effectively been banned from entering Israel since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in March of last year. The reopening of borders has been delayed numerous times throughout the year, as COVID infections waxed and waned.
A father and son practising as Orthodox rabbis in America have been accused by anti-missionary investigators of being secret evangelical Christians.
The claims over Michael and Calev Isaacson — who have changed their family name from Dawson — would cause disastrous halachic problems for the Jewish community if true.
Sacred rituals performed by the two men include writing holy scrolls, washing the dead, and conducting weddings, divorces and even conversions.
Investigators allege neither man is Jewish, making any rituals in which they took part invalid.
They are suspected of being a “sleeper cell” of evangelical Christians who may ultimately attempt to make aliyah and embed themselves within Israeli society.
The Isaacsons have been accepted and welcomed in a number of Orthodox Jewish communities in locations across the US.
https://advocacy.ou.org/judaism-and-the-death-penalty-of-two-minds-but-one-heart/
If one can be certain of anything in a discussion of Judaism’s views regarding capital punishment, especially those held in a public forum, it is that the following statement in the Mishna (Makkot 1:10) will be quoted:
A Sanhedrin that executed [more than] one person in a week is called a “murderous” [court]. Rabbi Elazar ben Azarya states: “[More than] one person in 70 years [would be denoted a murderous court].” Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva state: “If we had been members of the Sanhedrin, no defendant would ever have been executed.”
While this passage properly finds its way into all discussions of the Torah’s approach to the death penalty, other Mishnaic statements of equal authority with different perspectives seem to be often overlooked. In fact, the very Mishna quoted above gives the last word to R. Shimon ben Gamiliel, who responds that had they indeed ensured that the death penalty would never be carried out, R. Tarfon and R. Akiva “would have been increasing the murderers in Israel.”
Tut (C.M. 2)
אף ע"פ שלא הי' דנין בחוצה לארץ דיני נפשות ודיני מכות ולא קנסות אם ראו בית דין שצורך שעה הוא שהעם פרוצים בעבירות דנין בין מיתה בין ממון בין כל מיני עונש. ואם הוא אלם חובטים אותו על ידי עכו"ם ואומרים לו עשה מה שישראל אומר לך: וכתב רב אלפס בפרק הגוזל בהא דקנסיה רב נחמן לההוא גברא דגזלן עתיקא הוה ש"מ דקנסינן בכי האי גוונא אפילו בח"ל. ודוקא גדול הדור כמו רב נחמן דחתניה דבי נשיאה הוה וממונה לדון ע"פ הנשיא או טובי העיר שהמחום רבים עליהם אבל דייני דעלמא לא ע"כ. ונראה שאפי' אין בדבר עדות גמורה שהיה מתחייב על פיהם בדין בשעה שהיו דנין דיני נפשות אלא שיש רגלים לדבר וקלא דלא פסיק אם נראה לדיין שיש צורך השעה לדונו בכך הרשות בידו: וכן יראה מדברי הרמב"ם שכתב יש לב"ד להלקות למי שאינו חייב מלקות ולהרוג למי שאינו חייב מיתה ולא לעבור על דברי תורה אלא לעשות סייג לתורה וכיון שרואין בית דין שפרצו העם בדבר יש להם כח לגדור ולחזק הדבר כפי מה שיראה להם הכל הוראת שעה ולא שיקבעו הלכה לדורות. וכן יש להם [בכל מקום ובכל זמן] להלקות אדם ששמועתו רעה והעם מרננין אחריו שהוא עובר על העריות והוא שיהא קול שאינו פוסק ולא יהיו לו אויבים שמוציאין עליו דבה רעה וכן מבזין את מי ששמועתו רעה ומבזין את יולדיו בפניו וכן יש להם להפקיר ממון שיש לו בעלים ולאבדו כפי מה שרואים לגדור פרצת הדור ולקנוס אלם ולנדותו ולהחרימו ולקללו ולהכותו ולתלוש שערו ולאוסרו בבית האסורים ולהשביעו בשם על כרחו שלא יעשה ושלא עשה כל אלו הדברים לפי מה שיראה לדיין שזה צריך לכך והשעה צריכה לכך ובכל יהיו מעשיו לשם שמים ואל יהא כבוד הבריות קל בעיניו שהרי דוחה לא תעשה של דבריהם וכל שכן כבוד בני אברהם יצחק ויעקב המחזיקים בתורת אמת שיהא זהיר שלא יהרוס כבודם אלא להוסיף כבוד המקום בלבד ע"כ:
Aruch HaShulchan (CM 2)
Moreover, the views of Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva are not
representative of the whole of Jewish law; rather, their opinions are
two among many and did not represent the opinions of mainstream Jewish
legal authorities. Thus, Judge Bright’s statement regarding the “virtual
impossibility” of an execution in ancient Jewish law reflects a
minority opinion.45 In fact, Professor Blidstein, on whose
article Judge Bright’s statement was based, deemed Rabbi Akiva to be
“the final expositor of a muted tradition.”46 Blidstein
further observed that Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel, who contested the views
of Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva, “was probably not alone in protesting
this virtual abolition of the death penalty. His is merely the clearest
voice.”47 The view of Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel appears to
find support in other rabbinic statements, which dispute the overriding
concerns that motivated Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva. For example, the
Rabbis of the Talmud comment on the Biblical verse which instructs that
in executing a murderer, “do not pity him.”48 According to
the Rabbis, this verse was a response to those who would oppose the
execution of a murderer on the grounds that, because the victim is
already dead, the taking of another life serves no purpose.49
As Blidstein explains, “[h]owever generous the motive, the perversion
of justice is evil, its motivation misguided. The Rabbis feared that
true love of humanity could only be undermined by indiscriminate
recourse to ‘mercy,’ which, as Rabbi Simeon ben Gamliel pointed out,
would deny an innocent society the concern shown the criminal.”50
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/first-they-came-for-alta/
Alta’s transfer from Manchester to Israel, he said, would cause her further pain. Death would be a better solution.
There has been little dissent. Britain and other European Union countries with socialized medicine have adopted a policy of euthanasia. The policy began with abortion on demand, followed by the right of a patient to end life-support. Then, parents and children were given the same right to kill their loved ones. Over the last few years, the policy has allowed hospitals to remove patients from life support against the wishes of the family.
The process of official murder is not difficult. The hospital submits the opinion of physicians that the doomed patient will never recover and that death would end his suffering. In 2017, Britain, supported by the European Court of Human Rights, refused to allow Charlie Gard, less than a year old, to be taken to a US hospital for experimental treatment. Against the wishes of her parents, a British hospital removed life support from Charlie, who died a day later.
