Top Trump Officials Violated Hatch Act Ban on Political Activity During 2020 Campaign, Watchdog Says

 https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-trump-officials-violated-hatch-act-ban-on-political-activity-during-2020-campaign-watchdog-says-11636486702?mod=hp_listb_pos5

Several Trump administration officials showed a “willful disregard” of laws restricting government employees’ political activity in the final weeks of the 2020 presidential campaign, according to a federal watchdog report released Tuesday.

Only 60% of Israelis think Yigal Amir murdered Rabin — poll

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/only-60-of-israelis-think-yigal-amir-murdered-rabin-poll/

Only 60 percent of Israelis believe Yigal Amir assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, according to a poll released Friday.

The survey, which was aired on Hadashot TV news, was conducted to mark 23 years since Rabin was fatally shot by Amir at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. The report did not give details on the size of the poll or its margin of error

Shekel reaches NIS 3.11 to the dollar as 'avalanche' continues

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/shekel-reaches-nis-311-to-the-dollar-as-avalanche-continues-684489

Israel’s manufacturers and exporters are suffering as the shekel reaches its strongest level in 25 years. However, analysts don’t see the trend changing anytime soon.

The shekel traded at NIS 3.11 to the dollar Tuesday, retreating slightly after touching below NIS 3.10 the day before. Against the euro, the Israeli currency traded at NIS 3.59.

Yitzhak Rabin assassination conspiracy theories

https://en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Yitzhak_Rabin_assassination_conspiracy_theories

 The matter has been reported as clear cut in the media, and the Shamgar national inquiry commission and the court all drew the same conclusion that Amir was guilty of murder. Nevertheless, some inconsistencies in the evidence have been alleged, both in the medical records and in the inquiry testimony. These allegations and other suspicions have been included in occasional left-wing, and more prevalent right-wing conspiracy theories.

QAnon Followers Think JFK Jr. Is Coming Back on the 4th of July

 https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/qanon-jfk-jr-conspiracy-theory-854938/

 Hardcore Q believers think that JFK Jr. is not only alive and well, but also that he plans to emerge from his 20-year hiatus from public life by coming out and supporting Trump as his running mate in 2020. Moreover, they believe that a guy in Pittsburgh named Vincent Fusca is actually JFK Jr. in disguise, and they have made T-shirts promoting this belief.

America’s Forgotten Posek

 https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/interviews-and-profiles/americas-forgotten-posek/2013/03/24/

 He was the Gadol haDor in the United States prior to Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l. And, unfortunately, his rulings and his seforim have, by and large, been completely forgotten.

Walk into any shul or Seforim store and you will be hard-pressed to find a sefer written by Rav Yoseph Eliyahu Henkin zt”l. Open up a contemporary Halachic work and you will rarely find a ruling quoted in his name.

The Halacha of Rodef and the Rabin Shooting by Rabbi Chaim Jachter

 https://www.koltorah.org/halachah/the-halacha-of-rodef-and-the-rabin-shooting-by-rabbi-chaim-jachter-1

  The rules of Rodef, however, apply even in the absence of a Sanhedrin (Rambam Hilchot Rotze’ach 1:6-13 and Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 425).  In fact, the Rama applies the Halacha of Rodef to one who engages in forgeries.  Government authorities in the past imposed severe collective punishments (including executions) upon the Jewish communities in which a Jewish forger resided.  Thus, the forger endangers the community and is treated with the severity of a Rodef.

Rabin’s assassin had no Halachic basis to shoot Prime Minister Rabin.  Professor Schochetman notes that the shooting caused grave damage to the opposition to the Oslo process.  Moreover, it caused a profound Chillul Hashem whose impact we experience even nine years after the shooting.  Professor Schochetman (paraphrasing Teshuvot Chavot Yair 138) correctly describes the shooting of Yitzchak Rabin as "an foreign, evil, and bitter act." It is foreign to the Jewish people, it has no Halachic basis, it is morally reprehensible, and it has had bitter ramifications for Israeli society.

The right to self-defense- Rodef

 https://www.jpost.com/jewish-world/judaism/ask-the-rabbi-the-right-to-self-defense

  Equally significantly, Rabbi Yehuda Henkin (Bnei Banim 3:33) and Prof. Eliav Schochetman (Techumin 19) have compellingly argued (after the Yitzhak Rabin assassination) that rodef cannot be applied to democratically elected government officials, even if one deems their policies to be misguided and dangerous.

Rav Henkin opposed to anti-Zionists

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosef_Eliyahu_Henkin

Henkin vigorously opposed Zionism, but once the State of Israel was established he declared the need to support its continued existence, and denounced those who tried to undermine it. In 1959 he wrote:

I was shocked to read in Chomoteinu (Cheshvan 5719) the slanderous notion that we are required to give our lives to frustrate and resist the efforts of the State of Israel in its struggle against those who would rise up against them. This was stated as a psak din based on "Israel is restricted from rebelling against the nations." (Ketubot 111a) [...] but once done, though the admonition was ignored, we are required to support them with mesirut nefesh. [...] Once the state was declared, anyone who plays into the hands of the nations of the world even where there is no imminent danger, is clearly an informer and pursuer (rodef). All the more when there is danger to destruction of life in so doing. [...] Those essays I wrote before the advent of the state (many of which have been reprinted in my book Leiv Ivra) will testify to the fact that I am not a supporter of the government, and I objected to the entire idea of a state. (It is for this reason I am not a member of Agudah so that I not be judged incorrectly as one who agreed with their position in the founding of the state.) But now it is our obligation that we all support the state in the face of its external enemies and then go on to guide it in the ways of Torah.^[8]

 

 ^{https://web.archive.org/web/20050829193646/http://www.youngisrael.org/Divrei_Torah/Rabbi_s_Letter/#Rav%20Henkin%20ztz%E2%80%9Dl%20on%20Eretz%20Israel%20and%20Medinat%20Yisrael}

 

Rav Henkin openly challenged the anti-Zionist position of Neturei Karta and the Satmar Rebbe, Rav Yoel Teitelbaum, ztz”l. He wrote (1959 / 5719):

I was shocked to read in Chomoteinu of Cheshvan 5719 the slanderous notion that we are required to give our lives (limsor nefesh) to frustrate and resist the efforts of the State of Israel in its struggle against those who would rise up against them. This was stated as a p'sak din based on what we learn that Israel is restricted from rebelling against the nations (Ketubot 111a).

This opinion is clearly not in keeping with halacha [and which can result] in imminent dangers for millions of Jews. True, Chazal admonished subsequent generations about such a rebellion because it would entail danger to Jewish life, but once done, though the admonition was ignored, we are required to support them with our mesirat nefesh.

In fact this is precisely what occurred before the destruction of the second Beit haMikdash when Chazal warned the populace not to revolt against the Romans. Even the king (sic.) of Israel did not favor a rebellion. However, once the rebellion broke out and the war endured, the Sages of Israel assisted the rebels in their war. This is as the Midrash states that Yaakov and his sons did not want to go to war against Shechem. Once the deed was done (by Shimon and Levi) he reasoned: Shall I allow my sons to fall into the hands of the enemy? And so, he took sword into hand and went against them.

Now all the rabbis who were opposed to Zionism and the establishment of a state took up that position until the time that it was officially founded. Once the state was declared, anyone who plays into the hands of the nations of the world even where there is no imminent danger, is clearly a moseir and rodeif. All the more when there is danger to destruction of life in so doing... Surely, those who recently emigrated must be very weary of the state's efforts to strip them of their Torah way of life, but to proclaim that anyone who aids the state is a rodeif, well such talk is the severest form of redifa.

Such a sin derives from yet another transgression that they pre-judge all Zionists, Mizrachi and Agudah members and their rabbis, as heretics and apikorsim...

I call upon all the sagacious leaders who identify with this position to repudiate this stand immediately because the Arabs and their cohorts are using this material to strengthen their propaganda against Israel…
I have already written elsewhere that with vulgar protests we will not succeed with the powers that be. Such tactics make things worse. What has to be done is to get into the government and the Knesset to internally save what can be saved and to strengthen Torah and its adherents.

Those essays I wrote before the advent of the state (many of which have been reprinted in my book Leiv Ivra) will testify to the fact that I am not a chassid of the government, I objected to the entire idea of a state. (It is for this reason I am not a member of Agudah so that I not be judged incorrectly as one who agreed with their position in the founding of the state.) But now it is our obligation that we all support the state in the face of its external enemies and then go on to guide it in the ways of Torah.

And for the one who hears such vilification as was published in Chomoteinu and does not protest it is nearly certain that he will be ensnared in the foul invective....

 

 

סערת ביטול הקידושין: דייני ביה"ד חזרו בהם מפסק הדין התקדימי

 https://www.bhol.co.il/news/1294471

 חרי שגדולי הדיינים יצאו נגד פסק דין תקדימי של בית הדין הרבני בתל אביב שקבע על ביטול קידושין במקרה סבוך במיוחד, חזרו בהם דייני ההרכב המיוחד ופסקו כי האישה היא אשת איש ואסור לה להינשא ללא גט. כל הפרטים על הסערה שנחשפה בפרסום ראשון ב'בחדרי חרדים'

Another Greenblatt-Kaminetsky heter?!

https://www.israelhayom.co.il/judaism/judaism-news/article/5467246/ 

בית הדין הרבני בתל אביב פסק שיש לשחרר אישה מעגינותה באמצעות ביטול הקדושין, אך במהרה דיינים בכירים שחררו מכתב שבו תקפו את ההחלטה: "פסק דין שגוי שאינו נכון הלכתית" • בעקבות מחאת הבכירים, בית הדין חזר בו מהחלטתו

 

Missing teen rescued after making a hand gesture she learned from TikTok to signal for help

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/07/us/missing-teen-hand-gesture-asheville-trnd/index.html

 A missing teenager from North Carolina was rescued by Kentucky police after she signaled for help by using a hand gesture known on TikTok to represent violence at home, according to police.

The 16-year-old from Asheville, North Carolina, was reported missing by her parents on Tuesday, according to the Laurel County Sheriff's Office in Kentucky. On Thursday, a motorist in Kentucky called 911 to report seeing a girl in distress in a vehicle on the interstate.

"The complainant was behind the vehicle and noticed a female passenger in the vehicle making hand gestures that are known on the social media platform 'Tik Tok' to represent violence at home -- I need help -- domestic violence," reads the statement posted on Friday by the Laurel County Sheriff's Office.

The hand gesture is a one-handed sign someone can use when in distress, according to the Canadian Women's Foundation. Someone using the signal holds their hand up with their palm facing out, then tucks their thumb into their hand and then closes their fingers to trap thumb.

Year After Trump's Loss to Biden, Ex-President Still Clings to His 'Decertify' Push

 https://www.newsweek.com/year-after-trumps-loss-biden-ex-president-still-clings-his-decertify-push-1647221

One year after losing the 2020 presidential election to current Democratic President Joe Biden, former Republican President Donald Trump is still asking Arizona and other states to "decertify" Biden's win.

‘We’re Headed Toward One of the Greatest Divisions in the History of the Jewish People’

 https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/07/intermarriage-conservative-judaism/533637/

 

The question of Jewish pluralism becomes even more complicated in a global context. Increasingly, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders do not recognize the validity of liberal, American forms of Judaism, including some aspects of Conservative Judaism. In the last month alone, the Knesset, or parliament, has signaled plans to move ahead with a bill which would give the Orthodox rabbinate sole authority over conversions in Israel. The rabbinate helped quash a long-standing plan to create a gender-mixed worship space at the Western Wall, a sacred site in Jerusalem which is currently divided into men’s and women’s sections. And it recently released a list of rabbis who performed conversions that were later challenged, which included several dozen American rabbis and prominent Orthodox clergy. Outraged critics in America have referred to it as a blacklist.