New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, the Democrat who cultivated relations across the political spectrum with his state’s substantial Jewish community, defeated Republican Jack Ciattarelli in a tight reelection.
The election Tuesday was closer than anticipated, with Murphy winning barely 50 percent of the vote in a low-turnout election in which Republicans focused on extended school closures and other unpopular coronavirus prevention measures.
A Florida man who was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder has been denied compensation for the 37 years he spent in prison.
Robert Duboise, 55, was released from prison in August 2020 after being behind bars since 1985.
However, Duboise had previously been to prison for non-violent offenses, and according to Florida state law, anyone applying for prison compensation is required to have a clean record.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/316370
After long nights of voting and debates, the coalition finally passed the budget last night (Thursday night). Now they will try to test its expansion. One such topic: cooperation with the haredi parties.
In recent months, the question of the haredi factions joining the government has received an unequivocal answer - Lieberman said "it is either me or them", and the haredi have made it clear that they are not interested in joining the government at all.
But senior government officials point to the new post-budgetary political situation as an opportunity to bring back the issue of cooperation to the table.
https://www.bhol.co.il/news/1295205
במכתב ששלח זקן הדיינים הגר"צ בוארון לדיינים שחתמו על הפסק התקדימי, הוא כותב כי "אין מקום להפקעת הקידושין - וכי אין להיתר זה כל בסיס הלכתי והוא בטל כעפרא דארעא, והאשה הינה אשת איש גמורה" | שניים מהדיינים חזרו בהם מהפסק, אך הגר"צ לא הסתפק בכך
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/shufersal-sued-after-secret-haredi-discounts-revealed-683999
A lawsuit was filed against the Shufersal supermarket chain on Thursday after it was revealed by Channel 12 that the chain was providing discounted prices on a special site for haredi shoppers.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/316300
Marjorie Taylor Greene made another comparison between America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and the Holocaust in an interview on Steve Bannon’s podcast on Tuesday, months after apologizing for making such comparisons at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“They’re ruining our country, these vaccine Nazis,” she said, according to NBC News, noting that she is still not vaccinated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsa_diNura
On 1 June 2021, The Times of Israel reported that a member of the Health Ministry panel that had been advising on COVID-19 vaccinations received death threats including the Pulsa DiNura during the process of approval for the inoculation of children.[18]
On 10 June 2021, Naftali Bennett, leader of the Yamina party and prime minister designate in the incoming national unity government, reportedly received a letter stating that the Pulsa DiNura had been invoked against him. The letter was unsigned but reportedly referenced ultra-Orthodox rabbis.[19
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/israel-passes-first-budget-in-35-years-683981
The Knesset passed the 2021 state budget into law in a 61-59 vote at 5:30 a.m. Thursday morning, giving Israel a new budget for the first time since March 15, 2018.
https://60ribo.org.il/the-chafetz-chaim-hated-russian-communist-leaders/
It was told in the biography of Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman (in the English Artscroll edition, page 59) what the Chafetz Chaim (who usually has the final say on what is Jewish Law) did to the Communist, Trotsky.
A certain heretic who was in Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi’s neighborhood would upset him by incessantly challenging the legitimacy of verses. One day, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi took a rooster and placed it between the legs of the bed upon which he sat and looked at it. He thought: When the moment of God’s anger arrives, I will curse him and be rid of him. When the moment of God’s anger arrived, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi slept. When he woke up, he said to himself: Conclude from the fact that I nodded off that it is not proper conduct to do so, to curse people, even if they are wicked. “His mercy is over all His creations” (Psalms 145:9) is written even with regard to sinners.
Berachos (19a)
There were these hooligans in Rabbi Meir’s neighborhood who caused him a great deal of anguish. Rabbi Meir prayed for God to have mercy on them, that they should die. Rabbi Meir’s wife, Berurya, said to him: What is your thinking? On what basis do you pray for the death of these hooligans? Do you base yourself on the verse, as it is written: “Let sins cease from the land” (Psalms 104:35), which you interpret to mean that the world would be better if the wicked were destroyed? But is it written, let sinners cease?” Let sins cease, is written. One should pray for an end to their transgressions, not for the demise of the transgressors themselves.
Moreover, go to the end of the verse, where it says: “And the wicked will be no more.” If, as you suggest, transgressions shall cease refers to the demise of the evildoers, how is it possible that the wicked will be no more, i.e., that they will no longer be evil? Rather, pray for God to have mercy on them, that they should repent, as if they repent, then the wicked will be no more, as they will have repented.
Rabbi Meir saw that Berurya was correct and he prayed for God to have mercy on them, and they repented.
GOP gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin is facing allegations of antisemitism after accusing allies of Jewish philanthropist George Soros of a shadowy campaign to place secret political operatives onto Virginia school boards.
In an appearance Tuesday night at a rally at the Burke Volunteer Fire Department, Youngkin tried to link Soros, his Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe and cultural debates roiling some suburban Northern Virginia public school systems. In particular, some parents are protesting equity initiatives they associate with critical race theory, an intellectual movement that examines the way policies and laws perpetuate systemic racism.
https://www.vox.com/2021/11/3/22752593/virginia-governor-results-youngkin-wins
Many on the right and in the national media have framed Youngkin’s attacks on the purported use of “critical race theory” in Virginia’s public school system as crucial to his success. It isn’t so clear that was what made the difference, though, since conservative candidates focusing on that issue in local races in New Hampshire and Connecticut lost.
And while Youngkin used the specter of critical race theory to appeal to the base, his TV ads aimed at swing voters had a wider focus. In those, Youngkin conveyed concern about the state of the economy and the state’s education system more broadly. He falsely claimed McAuliffe planned to raise taxes by over $5,000 per family, and argued that the state’s public schools were increasingly poorly run and unsafe.
Republican Glenn Youngkin, a businessman, has defeated former governor Terry McAuliffe to become Virginia’s governor in a race that was fraught with charges of antisemitism.
Local and national media organizations called the race, which was widely viewed as a barometer for Republican electoral strategy in the post-Trump era, early Wednesday morning.
Youngkin embraced former US President Donald Trump in the primary but distanced himself from Trump in the general campaign, while still managing to retain the support of Trump’s core constituencies.
Nearly 25 years after his bar mitzvah tutor pleaded guilty to sexual misconduct, a 40-year-old New Jersey native has sued the former tutor as well as the synagogue and day school that employed him.
The tutor, Akiva Roth, pleaded guilty in 1997 to four counts of lewdness, and lost his jobs at the East Brunswick Jewish Center, the former Solomon Schechter School of Essex and Union counties and Camp Ramah in the Berkshires. But the plaintiff in the lawsuit and two other former students of Roth who were interviewed over the past month contend that the three institutions failed to properly inform their communities of the situation, allowing Roth to continue teaching in other Jewish organizations for years.
