https://nypost.com/2021/03/11/accused-child-molester-extradited-to-nyc-after-fleeing-to-israel/
A Brooklyn man who fled to Israel in 2010 amid accusations of child molestation was extradited back to the Big Apple on Thursday, officials said.
Friday, March 12, 2021
Trump said he knew virus was deadly but still played down crisis: Woodward book
“The fact is I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country and I don’t want people to be frightened,” Trump said at the White House. “We’ve done well from any standard.”
According to the interviews, CNN and The Washington Post reported, Trump knew the virus was dangerous in early February.
“It goes through the air,” Trump said in a recording of a Feb. 7 interview with Woodward. “That’s always tougher than the touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed.
Thursday, March 11, 2021
Science and Religion (Part 1)
https://www.etzion.org.il/en/science-and-religion-part-1
Every scientific discovery which appears to contradict the Torah, in truth, comes to strengthen our religious understanding; "to build upon it the palace of the Torah." This is similar to the idea of the kodesh kodashim being built on top of the kodesh and chol. Scientific discoveries actually contribute to the enhancement of the world of the "beit midrash." Once we have reached the level of kodesh kodashim, and we are comfortable with this principle regarding science, we can then give an honest criticism of scientific ideas. They may not yet be sufficiently developed (as was the case with evolution in Rav Kook's day), they may be inaccurate or primitive or merely incorrect, but in any event our criticism must not stem from feeling attacked by science. As Alfred North Whitehead believed, science leads religious men to better religious understanding. For example, in the past people had a more literal understanding of the statement "God lives in the heavens." However, after scientific discovery revealed the nature of the heavens, the idea is understood in a spiritual sense. His presence is not geographically defined; He is everywhere, but is hidden as if He were "in the heavens."
Lecture #25a: Letter 91 - Torah and Scientific Theories
https://www.etzion.org.il/en/lecture-25a-letter-91-torah-and-scientific-theories
It is important to note that a hundred years ago, when the letter was written, the scientific world had not arrived at any convincing answer, other than Darwin's hypothesis, as to how the world as we know it began. The theory of evolution was greeted in the religious world – especially the Christian world – as an atheistic teaching, since it proposed a manner of the world's creation that did not assume any transcendental will and was based on the assumption that our natural world can be understood purely on the basis of its internal processes. Darwin's theory that man was a descendant of apes likewise contradicted the foundations of the religious perception of man – a perception that regarded man as fundamentally different from other natural creations, and therefore maintained that he must have been created separately (and obviously by God).
Dinosaurs and Torah
https://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/238/Q1/
But doesn't the apparent age of the dinosaurs contradict the Torah? Well, to claim so, one would have to claim to understand what the Torah actually means with its account of Creation. But this raises many matters of interpretation; for example, how do you measure a "day" when the sun is only created on the fourth one? How do you determine the flow of time when it varies depending on how near you are to objects of large gravitational mass? Since we have so little understanding of these matters, how can dinosaurs frighten us?
Far from being frightened by dinosaurs, Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz, author of the Tiferet Yisrael commentary on the Mishna, received the news of fossil discoveries in the nineteenth century with delight. As he had undoubtedly expected, they confirmed everything that we knew all along. He writes:
Study on samples from US Haredi Jews casts new light on first days of COVID-19
A paper published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, a peer-review journal that is open to the public, concludes that the coronavirus was spreading widely in Orthodox communities across the country last spring around that Jewish holiday — before public health warnings were given about the dangers of large assemblies.
Wednesday, March 10, 2021
Now Israeli citizenship is like a Las Vegas wedding
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/298201
Even Conservative rabbis do not recognize Reform conversions. When I spoke at a Reconstructionist temple’s public panel alongside a Reform rabbi and a Conservative rabbi on the subject of conversion, everyone in the audience expected that a major onslaught would be directed universally at me once I spoke simple truths. But that never happened. Instead, when the Reform rabbi said that he does not require immersion into a mikveh for conversion — or even into a swimming pool or home bath tub (not that either of those last two would have any halakhic consequence at all) — it was the Conservative rabbi who interjected: “My movement would not recognize such a conversion!”
‘Worse than Mengele’: Medics reveal antivaxxer threats as union calls for probe
The Israeli Medical Association called on Wednesday for a criminal investigation into threats and incitement from antivaxxers against health care professionals working to encourage vaccination.
The statement came the day after the revelations that Prof. Galia Rahav, a member of the Health Ministry panel that has been advising on vaccinations, was receiving threatening messages from antivaxxers.
‘שאט נפש, בושה וכלימה’: גינוי חריף לאיומים על פרופ’ גליה רהב
https://ch10.co.il/news/659613/#.YEihStyxWcw
בהודעת משרד הבריאות נאמר בין היתר: “אנו מגנים איומים וגינויים כלפיי צוותי הרפואה והרופאים השוחרים במדע. פרופ’ גליה רהב הסכימה לתת מזמנה הפרטי והיא שותפה בצוות הוועדה המייעצת למשרד הבריאות, בהתנדבות מלאה. אנו מודים לכל חברי הצוות על השתתפותם ומוקירים זאת”.
בהודעה נאמר עוד: “פרט לכך פרופ’ גליה רהב מטפלת במסירות ובמקצועיות באלפי חולים במחלות זיהומיות בכלל ובוודאי במגפת הקורונה והצילה את חייהם של אלפי אנשים”.
במשרד ציינו: “אנו דוחים בשאט נפש את ההודעה המגנה אותה ומשווה אותה לעבר האפל של העולם. זו בושה וכלימה עבור אותם אנשים שבחרו להתבטא ככה.
“בזכות שיתוף הידע והשיח בין המומחים אנו בחזית המאבק בקורונה ותוצאות מבצע החיסונים הן מהטובות בעולם, זאת משתקף בבטיחות ובמועילות החיסון בישראל”.
'Court ruling creates danger of Israel being overrun by fake converts from Africa'
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/298219
“The real question we have is [how] to prevent fake conversions that could enter the country,” he said in the interview, which was broadcast by the Tel Aviv International Salon. “You know, a lot of people want to come into Israel. In fact, I put up a fence, they call it a wall, but I prevented the overrunning of Israel, which is the only first-world country that you can walk to from Africa. We would have had here already a million illegal migrants from Africa, and the Jewish state would have collapsed.”
Tuesday, March 9, 2021
Dr Klafter and Rav SHmuel Kaminetsky regarding SLIFKIN AFFAIR
Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry University of Cincinnati College of Medicine 222 Piedmont Ave, Suite 8500
Cincinnati, OH 45219
Phone: (513)475-8710
FAX: (513)475-8023
Email: From: Nachum Binyamin Klafter, MD
To: The Esteemed Rabbi David Feinstein, l'\11tJ'',W [ address removed]
I am writing this letter to Rabbi Feinstein in my capacity as the head of the Education Committee of the Chafetz Chaim-Cincinnati Hebrew Day School, which is a Torah UMesorah affiliated institution. I am also writing personally, as a Jew who takes seriously Rabbi Feinstein's positions in ;,::,1,;, and ;,::ipw;,. (Rabbi Feinstein may not remember me, but he has spoken to me by phone when I was referred to him by Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky for a very complicated ;,1,~w, and with Rabbi Feinstein's po::i we were blessed with another daughter 3 months ago, ';,"J.)
It has come to my attention that Rabbi Feinstein signed a ban on the books of Rabbi Nosson Slifkin which calls upon him to bum his writings and retract publicly the beliefs expressed in his books. The ban characterizes his writings, among other things, as " t:l'l'\'m mrm ;-ii,::,:, '1:11." The ban also forbids the book from being brought into any religious home. The books referred to are The Science of Torah, Mysterious Creatures, and The Camel, the Hare, and the Hyrax. The ban states that Rabbi Slifkin should no longer be allowed to teach Torah or engage in t:rp,ni :in'j?. The ban additionally states that the Torah scholars who signed approbations to his books have retracted their endorsements.
I am familiar with the contents of The Science of Torah, and Mysterious Creatures, but have not yet read the third book mentioned in the ban. Rabbi Slifkin's writings reflect the same teachings and attitudes to which I have been exposed for many years now by my own rabbis regarding statements by 't"m which appear to be contradicted by contemporary scientific knowledge. In addition, some of the ill11j? '11,'j''; staff members of our day school (who are all rmrc r:rpo,~, 1:mw 'N1') share many of these attitudes. I am very concerned that our school faculty and I espouse ideas which Rabbi Feinstein believes are "mrm ;,-,,~:, '1:11."
I am told by several individuals in close contact with the in;, ,,,,,. that the signatories of this ban were shown only excerpts from Rabbi Slifkin's writings, and that none of them read his books in their entirety. It is obviously very easy when dealing with such delicate issues (like, for example, the limitations or fallibility of our sages) to take Rabbi Slifkin' s statements out of context and create an impression that his remarks were derogatory or disrespectful to ?"m. However, the noted Rabbis who have given their m?JJD;-J to Rabbi Slifkin's books all have the impression that Rabbi Slifkin shows tremendous reverence for ?"m and thirst for their teachings. (See, for example, Rabbi Yisroel Belsky's enthusiastic ;-J?JJD;-J to The Camel, The Hare, and the Hyrax, which indicates that he studied the entire book carefully.) Would Rabbi Feinstein consider examining Rabbi Slifkin's books more thoroughly, or meeting with him for clarification about what his beliefs are? As one can imagine, the personal consequences of this ban for Rabbi Slifkin (now branded by this ban as a p?J and ,~,:,) are quite severe.
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