Minnesota rabbi charged in child sex sting operation

times of Israel

In most of the cases, the men responded to ads posted on Craigslist by undercover agents posing as young women or men seeking a hook-up.

Cohen, 44, who has no prior record, was arrested in February outside an apartment in North St. Paul, where the federal agent posing as a 15-year-old boy suggested they meet after a week of communicating through a hook-up site, the Forward reported.

Cohen was the director of outreach for the Minneapolis Community Kollel, an Orthodox community center that offers seminars and classes on Jewish texts and religious life. He ran the Kollel’s JWAY program for college students and recent graduates. He and his wife, Adina, also led private text studies with male and female students at the Hillel on the University of Minnesota campus, according to the Forward, though he was not employed by Hillel.

Cohen’s name was removed from the Kollel’s website.

Eikev; Can Malachim Read Minds? Rabbi Shloime Pollak

osfus in Meseches Shabbos 12b seems to imply that the Malachim (Angels) know everything that goes on in every person's mind. What is the source of Tosfus?!

Rabbi Shloime Pollak

Satmar leadership enraged after girls visit IDF museum

arutz 7

Leaders of the anti-Zionist Satmar hassidic sect were enraged after an Israeli Satmar girls summer camp were spotted visiting an IDF museum, Behadrei Haredim reports.

The Armoured Corps Museum in Latrun, near Modiin, is built on the site of a famous battle during the War for Independence in 1948 and memorializes Israel's tank corps. Early this week, photos surfaced of hundreds of hassidic girls enjoying a field trip at the site, which caused widespread condemnation throughout the anti-Israel community.

Satmar, known as one of the most dogmatically anti-Zionist Hassidic sects, refuses to recognize the State of Israel and calls on members living in Israel not to vote in national elections, even for haredi parties and not to accept any funding from the state, including National Insurance payments

Following an outcry from followers in both Israel and the United States, the Satmar leadership in Israel released a statement apologizing for the visit and explained that the girls had entered the tank museum because it was the only way to get to the nearby Latrun Park.

"When the students with the buses arrived there, they were not allowed to enter through there, but were brought down through the entrance of the impure army museum near the park," read the missive.

Corbyn ally says rabbis 'make up duff information' on anti-Semitism

ynet

Peter Willsman, a close ally of British Labour Party chairman Jeremy Corbyn, has accused rabbis of "making up duff information without any evidence at all" about anti-Semitism in the party, further escalating the crisis between Labour and the Jewish community in the UK.

A recording surfaced on Tuesday on comments Willsman made at a meeting of the Labour's national executive committee (NEC) last month, in which he is also heard accusing Jewish "Trump fanatics" of making up allegations of anti-Semitism in the party.

Leaders of the Jewish community expressed outrage over the remarks which were made during a meeting which concluded with participants deciding not to fully adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.

US imposes sanctions against Turkey

arutz 7

The Trump Administration imposed sanctions on Turkish officials Wednesday over the imprisonment of a US pastor Wednesday.

“Pastor [Andrew] Brunson’s unjust detention and continued prosecution by Turkish officials is simply unacceptable,” US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “President Trump has made it abundantly clear that the United States expects Turkey to release him immediately.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters: “We’ve seen no evidence that Pastor Brunson has done anything wrong and we believe he is a victim of unfair and unjust attention by the government of Turkey”

According to Bloomberg News, the Trump Administration compiled a list of individuals and institutions in Turkey to sanction if Pastor Andrew Brunson and other Americans are not freed.

The sanctions are based on the US sanctions in effect against Russia as well as associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Turkish lira dropped sharply in value in response to reports of the impending sanctions.

Last Thursday, US President Donald Trump threatened to impose economic sanctions on Turkey if Pastor Brunson was not released.

“The United States will impose large sanctions on Turkey for their long time detainment of Pastor Andrew Brunson, a great Christian, family man and wonderful human being. He is suffering greatly. This innocent man of faith should be released immediately!” he tweeted.

Trump reportedly asked the Israeli government to release a Turkish citizen accused of aiding the Hamas terrorist organization as part of a deal with Turkish President Recep Tayyp Erdogan to secure Brunson's release.

DONALD TRUMP KEEPS CALLING ADVERSARIES ‘GLOBALISTS,’ DESPITE WARNINGS IT’S ANTI-SEMITIC

President Donald Trump called out the Koch brothers, who are billionaire Republican mega-donors, as “globalists” on Tuesday. The brothers have long opposed Trump’s policy of increasing trade tariffs. 

On Sunday, Charles Koch, 82, devoted part of a news conference to criticizing Trump's tariff policies. "Every nation that's prospered is one that didn't engage in trade wars," he said, as reported by Bloomberg. Shortly afterward, it was made known that the Koch brothers would no longer back only Republican candidates.

Trump's attack echoed a line he used on the campaign trail to disparage adversaries, and sometimes allies, who disagreed with his worldview. On its surface, the word "globalist" seems like a convenient label for those who favor international cooperation over “America first,” isolationist policies.

Don Lemon: Trump lies coming in fast and furious

Alternative Medicine: Medically Disputed, Halachically Refuted? (Rabbi Moshe D. Tendler)

yutorah.

North Korea 'working on new missiles', US officials say

washington post
Trump’s self-proclaimed diplomatic coups keep unraveling

Whether you think President Trump is a success on the world stage or not, he's not nearly the success he's made himself out to be in recent weeks.

At several points, Trump has made claims about his foreign policy dealings that wound up being vastly overstated — if not completely...

What do the latest reports say?

On Monday, the Washington Post newspaper quoted officials as saying North Korea appeared to be building one or two new liquid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) at the Sanumdong facility near the capital, Pyongyang.

The factory is known to have produced the Hwasong-15, the first North Korean ICBM capable of reaching the US.

However, a US official told news agency Reuters that a liquid-fuelled ICBM didn't "pose nearly the threat that a solid-fuelled one would because they take so long to fuel".

Reuters also added that satellite imaging showed vehicles moving in and out of the facility, but not the extent of any missile construction.

What are experts saying about this?

These are not the first reports that North Korea may be continuing its weapons programme, casting doubt on the real impact of the summit in Singapore.

Satellite imagery of the Sanumdong facility shows that the site is "active", Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) told the Washington Post.

No, Donald Trump's poll numbers do not beat Lincoln, all other GOP presidents

politifact.

President Donald Trump is known for tooting his own horn. In recent weeks, one of the accomplishments he’s been trumpeting is his standing with Republican voters.

In a July 29 tweet, Trump wrote, "Wow, highest Poll Numbers in the history of the Republican Party. That includes Honest Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan. There must be something wrong, please recheck that poll!"

Our ruling

Trump said, "Wow, highest Poll Numbers in the history of the Republican Party. That includes Honest Abe Lincoln and Ronald Reagan."

Credit where credit is due: Trump is very popular among Republicans, and at one point, his approval rating within his own party trailed only George W. Bush among postwar Republican presidents.

However, no pre-1936 president served in an era with scientific polling, so Trump’s comparison of himself to Lincoln is spurious. Meanwhile, Trump’s approval rating at the time of the tweet ranked in the middle of the post-World War II Republican presidents, and measured in other ways, his support among Republicans was actually worse than every post-war Republican president except for Gerald Ford.

We rate the statement False.

Giuliani: 'Collusion is not a crime,' hacking is the real crime, and Trump 'didn't hack'

businessinsider

• President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said Monday that "collusion is not a crime."
• He also said that "the hacking is the crime" and that Trump "didn't pay" the Russians "for hacking."

---

President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani said in a pair of interviews on Monday morning that he was at a loss for how colluding with the Russians would be categorized as a crime. Instead, he shifted the conversation by noting that the president did not "pay them for hacking," which he said was the real offense.

Speaking on the "Fox & Friends" morning show, Giuliani said he had "been sitting here looking in the federal code trying to find collusion as a crime."

"Collusion is not a crime," he said, adding that the president is "absolutely innocent."

Later, in a discussion with CNN's "New Day," Giuliani said that if you "start analyzing the crime, the hacking is the crime."

"The president didn't hack," Giuliani said. "He didn't pay them for hacking. If you got the hacked information from the Russians here at CNN and you played it, would you be in jeopardy of going to jail? Of course not."

Jewish deicide

wikipedia.

is trump preserving this belief?

Jewish deicide is a historic belief among some in Christianity that Jewish people as a whole were responsible for the death of Jesus.^[1] The antisemitic slur "Christ-killer" was used by mobs to incite violence against Jews and contributed to many centuries of pogroms, the murder of Jews during the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and during the Holocaust.^[2]

In the catechism produced by the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church affirmed that the collectivity of sinful humanity was responsible for the death of Jesus, not only the Jews.^[3] In the deliberations of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI repudiated belief in collective Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus.^[4] It declared that the accusation could not be made "against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today".

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Christkiller

Christkiller

n., A person of Jewish faith.

Sorry, honey, but the stingy Christkillers at the bank wouldn't approve me for the loan. Looks like we'll have to wait until next year to buy the house.

http://www.aish.com/sp/so/Christ-Killer.html

Growing up, I could not confidently deny being “a Christ killer”. In third grade, I was told by a classmate I would burn in hell. In my reform synagogue, we had never discussed hell. I didn’t correct him, nor was I capable of standing up for myself.

the author

Now a college student, I experience this behavior on a new level. Friends roll their eyes at my Friday night plans that differ from theirs. When I was in Poland learning about the Holocaust, my best friend texted me, “Don’t freeze to death!” with a laughing emoji. How was I supposed to respond to his insensitive joke? After all, maybe he didn’t mean to offend. In these situations, defending myself seemed unnecessary; it’s not like they were damning me to hell.

BOB WOODWARD WILL PUBLISH 'HARROWING' TRUMP BOOK ON 9/11

newsweek

According to the Washington Post, where Woodward still works as an associate editor, the book’s title comes from what the journalist called “an almost Shakespearean aside” made by Trump when he answered a question about the nature of power.

President Barack Obama said in an interview with The Atlantic that “real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence.”

“Well, I think there’s a certain truth to that,” Trump told the Post when asked if he agreed. “Real power is through respect...Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word: ‘Fear.’ ”

Israel boosts funding for ultra-Orthodox tech entrepreneurs

timesofisrael

Israel’s Innovation Authority, in charge of setting out the nation’s technology policies and funding startups in their earliest stages, said it was expanding its support for ultra-Orthodox tech entrepreneurs, to make it easier for them to access funding and integrate into Israel’s booming tech scene.

A statement from the Ministry of Economy and Industry said that under the revised terms of a program that has been in force since 2014, technology enterprises at least 33 percent-owned by ultra-Orthodox entrepreneurs will be eligible for funding for two years: 75% of their R&D expenses for the first year and 70% for the second. The original program only provided funding for one year.

These startups will also be eligible for grants of NIS 2.5 million ($682,000) in the first year and of up to NIS 4.5 million in the second year. The program originally granted NIS 2.3 million in the first year alone.