Trump makes 13 false claims in Cabinet meeting

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/16/politics/donald-trump-fact-check-cabinet-meeting/index.html

(CNN)President Donald Trump uttered a rapid series of false claims, at least 13 in all, during his Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. He made another claim for which there is no public evidence, and he offered positive words about an ally's accusation for which there is no public evidence.

Leave Jews Out of It

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/pitting-jews-against-people-color-wont-work/594100/

But Trump immediately forfeited whatever claim he might have had to raising valid questions about Omar’s appalling lack of gratitude when he included her three colleagues, all of them natural-born American citizens, thereby suggesting they are not genuine Americans. His attack was of a piece with the conspiracy theory he propagated to launch his most recent foray into politics: that the country’s first black president is not a natural-born American citizen. It was also of a piece with traditional anti-Semitism. Trump’s line of attack—instructing a group of American citizens to “go back” from where “they came”—is one that can easily be, and often is, deployed against Jews.

The claim that Jews are not loyal to the countries in which they reside is one of the hoariest, most pernicious of anti-Semitic slurs. Malleably affixed to a diasporic people, the accusation oozes from the left and right fringes of the political spectrum. Omar recently attributed her colleagues’ support for Israel to campaign donations and implied that American Jews “push for allegiance to a foreign country.” Long before that, the cantankerous Nixonian Pat Buchanan called Congress the “amen corner” of the “Israeli Defense ministry” and accused prominent Jews of advocating for wars that would be fought by “kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales, and Leroy Brown.” Whether emanating from the woke, anti-Zionist left or the reactionary, isolationist right, the charge is basically the same: Jews are an alien presence, always and everywhere unwelcome guests in those lands unfortunate enough to hos them<

Which is why Trump’s attempt to implicate American Jews in his bigoted harangue against the Democratic congresswomen is so pernicious. Some Jews, like Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii, have criticized Trump for citing the women’s views on Israel as justification for his tirade. “You really have to leave us out of your racist talking points,” he tweeted. “You are not helping us, you are not helping society, you are not helping Israel.” As the question of whether Jews are white is seriously debated among left-wing identitarians (so that Jews may be ranked on their intersectionality victim pyramid), Trump’s invocation of Israel to attack four ethnic-minority women is breathtakingly cynical, effectively working to pit Jews and people of color against each other.

House Passes Resolution Condemning President Donald Trump’s Racist Comments

Shaked blasts 'hypocritical' outrage over Rafi Peretz

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/266089

Former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked defended Education Minister Rafi Peretz (United Right) on Wednesday, calling the backlash against Peretz “hypocritical” and a de facto form of censorship.

Shaked’s spoke out following a public backlash against Peretz over his comments in an interview aired Saturday night in which he expressed support for so-called gay “conversion therapy” to help people with same-sex attraction alter their sexual orientations.

While Shaked emphasized that she personally is adamantly opposed to conversion therapy, the former Justice Minister said the attacks on Rafi Peretz were a hypocritical attempt to silence dissenting views.

On Tuesday, following the public backlash, Minister Peretz renounced his support for conversion therapy, calling such treatment “unacceptable and severe”.

In a letter to Tel Aviv school principals, Peretz wrote: "I know that conversion treatments are unacceptable and severe, and I understand that this is an invasive treatment that is incompatible with the human psyche, causing patients more suffering than relief, even reaching the point of life-threatening suicide that could be prevented.

As the leading targets of hate crimes, Jews are routinely being attacked in the streets of New York City.

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/287821/orthodox-jews-attacked-brooklyn-hate-crime

The incidents now pass without much notice, a steady, familiar drumbeat of violence and hate targeting visibly Jewish people in New York City.

Early on the morning of June 15, a Saturday, two men in a white Infiniti drove around Borough Park, a vast, traditional Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in central Brooklyn. Surveillance footageposted on the local website BoroPark24 showed a man jumping out of the car’s passenger side as someone in a shtreimel and long black jacket walked down the sidewalk in their direction. As the car idled, the passenger approached the Jewish stranger, lunged at him in a linebacker-like stutter-step, and then darted to the waiting vehicle, which promptly sped away. Levi Yitzhak Leifer, head of the Borough Park Shmira neighborhood patrol, said there were at least six and as many as nine reported incidents that night involving the same vehicle. Beresch Freilich, a rabbi who serves as a community liaison with the NYPD in Borough Park, said that some of the targeted individuals sensed a violent intent: “The car passed by going back and forth, and they felt it was trying to run them over.”

ANN COULTER BLAMES EUTHANIZATION OF BEAR THAT ATE MAN WHO OVERDOSED ON METH ON LACK OF BORDER WALL

https://www.newsweek.com/ann-coulter-blames-euthanization-bear-that-ate-man-who-overdosed-meth-lack-border-wall-1449637

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter on Tuesday blamed the euthanization of a bear in February, that was put down after it ate a man who had overdosed on methamphetamine, on the lack of a wall on the southern U.S.-Mexico border.

"The poor bear was euthanized for no reason. (Except that we don't have a wall on our border)," Coulter tweeted on Tuesday afternoon, alongside a link to a New York Post report, published in February, titled "Man eaten by bear after meth overdose."

How millennials replaced religion with astrology and crystals

https://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-millennials-religion-zodiac-tarot-crystals-astrology-20190710-story.html

She’s one of a growing number of young people — largely millennials, though the trend extends to younger Gen Xers, now cresting 40, and down to Gen Z, the oldest of whom are freshly minted college grads — who have turned away from traditional organized religion and are embracing more spiritual beliefs and practices like tarot, astrology, meditation, energy healing and crystals.

mistaken psak! ? הבן נעצר עם סמים של אביו - האם מותר לו לגלות?

https://www.kikar.co.il/323842.html

הרב זילברשטיין הכריע ופסק כי אסור לבן להסגיר את אביו. "כך גזרה תורה, כחוק שאין בו טעם, כפרה אדומה, שאין רשות להלשין על האב, כשם שיוסף הצדיק נשלח לבית האסורים על לא עוול בכפו ויצא לפתע, כך הבחור הזה, יגיע היום לפתע יוציאו אותו מהכלא ויעלה מעלה מעלה מבירא עמיקתא לאיגרא רמא".

that would mean that abused children can not call the police 

HAREDI JEWS EAT MATZAH WITH ‘HUMAN BLOOD,’ EGYPTIAN HEBREW SCHOLAR CLAIMS

jpost.

The practice of baking matzah for Passover with human blood, claims Professor of Hebrew at King Saud University Fouad M. Abdel Waheb, used to be common among Jews but today only ultra-Orthodox people do so, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) reported on Sunday. 

TRUMP’S USE OF ISRAEL TO ATTACK DEMOCRATS WILL BE COSTLY -ANALYSIS

jpost

There is no question that the Democratic Party is changing, and support for Israel is not what it used to be. Polls by the Pew Research Center show a growing gap between Republicans and Democrats, with nearly three times as many Republicans expressing more sympathy for Israel than for the Palestinians. As the Democratic Party keeps moving leftward, support for Israel will continue to decline.

Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the contribution Israel’s intimate relationship with Trump is also making to that decline. When Americans look at Israel and Netanyahu, they see Trump. And vice versa.

This leads many people to move away from Israel, even when it has nothing to do with what Trump might be doing. When the president uses Israel as his weapon against the Democrats, he only exacerbates that impression.

Smotrich: 'Rabbi Peretz has been lynched'

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/265951

Earlier on Sunday, Rabbi Peretz responded at length to remarks made against him. "Since I entered politics, I have learned that there is truth and there is the world of tweets. There is freedom of speech for statements of one type and freedom of incitement for those who explain another complex position."

"Since last night, I have been attacked from every platform on a lengthy interview (I sat for three hours for the first time in my life in front of a camera of which, in the media world, only ten minutes are used) which caused headlines that don't correspond to reality. I believe that most people who heard the interview being blasted didn't actually watch any of it. These were gut reactions which distorted my words, cheap populism which mainly serves the continuation of the rift in Israeli society and for this, I feel pained."

"I love and respect every person as he or she is. This is the essence of my educational path, this is my approach to life. That is the education I've given to thousands of graduates of the preparatory academy. The combination of a rabbi and a politician doesn't obligate me to hide the truth."

"I was also asked about my relationship with the LGTBQ community. Anyone who wants to hear exactly what I said is invited to watch the interview and see that it is not like what everyone is shouting. I said that first of all, I respect every human being. I emphasized that I was not giving grades to anyone. When I was specifically asked about conversion treatments, I said from my own experience that when I was approached by Religious Zionist students and asked for guidance, I referred them to professionals at their request and saw that it was possible. I did not say that I was in favor of conversion treatments."

"I first gave my students a hug and spoke to them warmly. I also offered to study and look into it together, with the goal that the student opposite me will recognize himself better. From that point, the choice is his own and I respect and love each one regardless of their sexual orientation. Sometimes the most convenient thing is to swim with the stream and scream with everyone. You'll learn that there are other opinions, complex but inclusive. Accepting the other is not the possession of one side. I am not coercive and I do not intend to impose anything on anyone."

Multiple arrests at Gush Etzion daycare not tied to child abuse

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/265946

Local authorities hinted that the rival group of daycare employees had filed a false complaint alleging child abuse in order to harm the three arrested staff members.

“After investigating the incident in regard to the management of the Tekoa day care center, we can clarify that we are talking about two groups of aides (sayatot) who last week got into an argument between themselves. As a result one of the aides threatened to call the police, and ended up doing so,” the Gush Etzion Regional Council said.

“We were informed that a thorough investigation is taking place NOT involving a case of child abuse, but rather these rumors are the result of the exploitation of the public atmosphere in Israel following other publicized incidents at day care centers,” the Council continued, referring to the recent arrest of 25-year-old Carmel Mauda, owner and operator of the ‘Baby Love’ daycare center in Rosh Haayin who was arrested recently for allegedly abusing 11 infants and toddlers placed in her care.

EDUCATION MINISTER PERETZ SLAMMED FOR ENDORSEMENT OF GAY CONVERSION THERAPY

https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Education-Minister-Peretz-endorses-gay-conversion-therapy-595564

Education Minister and Bayit Yehudi leader Rabbi Rafi Peretz caused a firestorm of protest Saturday night after stating he believes the highly controversial practice of “gay conversion therapy” - trying to change a gay individual’s sexual orientation - is effective. 

Peretz said that he himself has participated in providing such “treatment” to gay individuals in the past and that his approach is for the person in question “to get to know himself better and then decide” on their sexual orientation.

Changing Face in Poland: Skinhead Puts on Skullcap

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/world/europe/28poland.html?action=click&module=RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article&region=Footer

When Pawel looks into the mirror, he can still sometimes see a neo-Nazi skinhead staring back, the man he was before he covered his shaved head with a skullcap, traded his fascist ideology for the Torah and renounced violence and hatred in favor of God.

“I still struggle every day to discard my past ideas,” said Pawel, a 33-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jew and former truck driver, noting with little irony that he had to stop hating Jews in order to become one. “When I look at an old picture of myself as a skinhead, I feel ashamed. Every day I try and do teshuvah,” he said, using the Hebrew word for repentance. “Every minute of every day. There is a lot to make up for.”