The 7th-Century Massacre of Arabian Jews, and Its Legacy

 https://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/history-ideas/2021/07/the-7th-century-massacre-of-arabian-jews-and-its-legacy/

The turning point came after one of those tribes, the Banu Nadir, chose to sit out a battle rather than fight alongside the prophet—because they didn’t want to fight on Shabbat. When he was defeated, he took out his rage on these Jews:

Muhammad’s atrocity against the Qurayza Jews

 https://www.answering-islam.org/Authors/Arlandson/qurayza_jews.htm

In AD 627, Muhammad committed an atrocity against the last remaining major tribe of Jews in Medina: the Qurayza.

He beheaded the men and the pubescent boys and enslaved the women and children. In doing this, he wiped an entire tribe "off the map" to use the language of the President of Iran, recently.

The purpose of this article is full disclosure and straightforward analysis about early Islam. How and why did this atrocity unfold?

Herschel Walker's 'Baggage' Becoming 'Unbearable': Georgia GOP Lt. Governor

 https://www.newsweek.com/herschel-walker-baggage-unbearable-geoff-duncan-1749512

"And if we're being intellectually honest, Herschel Walker won the primary because he scored a bunch of touchdowns back in the '80s, and he was Donald Trump's friend. And now we've moved forward several months on the calendar and that's no longer a recipe to win."

What Jewish-free zones mean on campus

 https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/what-berkeleys-jewish-free-zones-mean/

Anti-Zionism is flatly anti-Semitic. Using "Zionist" as a euphemism for "Jew" is nothing more than a confidence trick. Like other forms of Judeophobia, it is an ideology of hate, treating Israel as the "collective Jew" and smearing the Jewish state with defamations similar to those used for centuries to vilify individual Jews. This ideology establishes a conspiratorial worldview, sometimes including replacement theory, which has occasionally erupted in violence, including mass shootings. Moreover, Zionism is an integral aspect of the identity of many Jews. Its derogation is analogous, in this way, to other forms of hate and bigotry.

DeSantis Warned by Fox's Rivera He Will 'Feel the Wrath' of Latino Voters

 https://www.newsweek.com/desantis-warned-foxs-rivera-he-will-feel-wrath-latino-voters-1749268

Fox News host Geraldo Rivera warned that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will suffer losses at the polls from Latino voters upset with the governor for transporting migrants to Martha's Vineyard last month.

"Governor DeSantis will soon feel the wrath of Florida's Latino voters outraged by his toying with the lives of those Venezuelan refugees he exploited," Rivera wrote in a tweet Wednesday.

Jerusalem Haredi phone store destroyed in fire; owner claims foul play

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/jerusalem-haredi-phone-store-destroyed-in-fire-owner-claims-foul-play/

A cellphone store in Jerusalem was gutted by fire overnight Sunday, with the shop’s owner claiming it was a deliberate attack over for his refusal to stop selling a certain device considered by some to be “non-kosher.”

העדה החרדית במכתב לציבור: התפללו לרפואת הראב"ד

 https://www.kikar.co.il/haredim-news/428577

בית הדין של העדה החרדית בירושלים במכתב קריאה לציבור להעתיר בתפילה לרפואת הגר"מ שטרנבוך, עקב חולשה ומצבו הבריאותי • בפנים: שמו המלא לתפילה

Wall Street Journal rips Trump’s ‘death wish’ rhetoric

 https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3671632-wall-street-journal-rips-trumps-death-wish-rhetoric/

The Journal’s editors wrote on Sunday that “Trump could be working and spending money to elect a GOP Congress, or to help his home state of Florida recover from Hurricane Ian.”

“Instead he’s attacking Mr. McConnell and his wife as part of a personal political vendetta, and putting every Republican candidate on the spot to respond to questions about the Trump rant,” they added. “Mr. Trump always puts himself first, and with this rhetoric he may put others at genuine risk of harm.”

Bennett has reservations about Lebanon deal: It's different from what I knew

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/360751

Channel 13 News reported that Bennett held several discussions on Monday in which he examined the agreement on a security and political level, and he is expected to formulate a clearer position before the discussion in the cabinet on the agreement. Bennett believes that it is very important to settle the matter and allow continuous activity of gas production. He has not yet decided whether to exercise his right to veto the agreement, although it is not certain that it is at all relevant, because of the ongoing legal proceedings against the agreement.

Religious Israeli Political Parties: "Put up or Shut Up"

 BS"D 

Religious Israeli Political Parties: "Put up or Shut Up"

ANOTHER IDF-Refusenik Girl Languishes in Israeli Military Prison, In Wake of "Religious" Political Perfidy

Oct. 3, '22/ 8 Tishrei, 5783 (Parshas Ha'azinu)

By Binyomin Feinberg, former contributor to 'The Jewish Press'

Three days before the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, at about 4 AM Israeli time on Oct.2, a 20-year-old sefardic girl from near Jerusalem got a rude awakening, when she was hauled away to IDF Military Prison Ten (near Netanya). Her "crime:" compliance with the Torah prohibition against serving in the Israeli military. Unfortunately, in flagrant violation of Torah law (and, le'havdil, basic human rights norms), Israel drafts 18-year-old girls to serve in the immoral exploitative military environment.  Her draft date was November 19, 2020. Thus, according to the Israeli Army, she has been absent from for almost two years.  That carries significant penalties in Israeli Military Court. Consequently, Maital bas Tamar - experiencing her second military incarceration "al-Kiddush- HaShem" since early January 2021 - now ranks among the meritorious women of Israel who demonstrate by example the self-sacrifice ("mesiras-nefesh") the Torah demands of them - and of every one of us - to resist the abomination of drafting women into the Army.

Ever since the early days of the State of Israel, women serving in the Israeli Army has been prohibited in the most severe terms, by Orthodox authorities across the spectrum.  Leading Torah Sages went as far as to declare women serving in the Israeli Army a sin we're obliged to sacrifice our very lives to avoid - and to oppose. No Torah-true Rabbi would ever sanction such a thing (although, what and whom you will find espousing the very antithesis of the Torah - in the name of the latter - never ceases to challenge the performance acumen of the best Hollywood has to offer).

For several thousand years, forcing women to serve in the military has been shunned by the vast majority of civilization, even under the direst of circumstances. Apparently, even the most depraved among the nations recognized that if an enemy attack compels a country to draft its own mothers and daughters into military service, then it has inflicted on itself damage surpassing what any enemy could do. AT THAT POINT, what they then would "stand for" is not worth dying, fighting, or even living for. This is a lesson which perhaps pales in comparison to the pristine vision of the Brisker Rov OB"M. The Brisker Rov, an internationally venerated leader of Chareidi Jewry, shunned most domestic demonstrations against the Israeli government, due to concerns over protesters endangering their lives. However, he himself held of - and personally participated in - demonstrations against the drafting of girls into the Israeli Army, because that's a cause for which all Jews - not just the targeted girls - are obliged to risk and even sacrifice our lives, if need be - to resist.

The codifier of the Mishna (circa 200 CE), Rebbe Yehuda HaNasi, proclaimed, in part: "Yaish kon'eh o'lamoh be'Sha'ah achas," some merit to acquire their portion [in The World-to-Come] in a solitary, enviably-short span of time, by their intensity of devotion and sacrifice (see the inspirational paradigms cited in Talmud Avoda Zorah 17a, 18a and 10b). These refusenik girls provide living examples for each one of us to be ready to emulate, when called to do so. In this sense, they are our teachers, if we accept the challenge to become their "students."

Why are we here? WHY is this type of outrage even necessary to discuss? The political power of religious/ chareidi voting blocks has grown to the point where there should be no need blog about this, or to block traffic and inconvenience commuters (who need to get to work etc.) over such state-perpetrated, antireligious, misogynist persecution of innocent women protecting their personal purity. This type of arrest, and all others akin to it, should have been prevented with one phone call. In fact, the phone call should have been rendered obsolete by an across-the-board universal service-exemption for all women, religious or otherwise. In fact, the Brisker Rov declared the war against drafting ANY girl even more vital than ensuring the exemption for those boys who dedicate their lives to a career of toiling in Torah (as we've cited previously from Sefer Yelled Sha'ashu'im p. 348; cf. p. 350).

So, precisely WHY is it that, instead of safeguarding our most precious national treasure, one of the most spiritually dangerous places for "peripheral" Jewish girls to grow up is -- in the ostensibly Jewish State, which - "by law" - forces tens of thousands of Jewish girls and young women to serve in the only Mideastern co-ed military between Cairo and Tehran?

Is it not, in grave measure, due to the consistent dereliction of duty of the ostensibly religious/ Chareidi political parties who make sure to employ their increased political power in directions other than saving ALL women from the indignities of the military draft? Let it be known than any such "religious" Israeli political party that refuses to genuinely, publicly, consistently, and unequivocally push for a universal service exemption for ALL women is in truth NOT Chareidi, NOT religious, and not genuine. Period. Anyone who votes for such "religious" parties, as if they would be what they claim, should at least acknowledge his or her employment of "willing suspension of disbelief."

Let's daven for Maital bas Tamar and all those like her. If we can do harm, we can be far more effective in doing good.

Have an uplifting Yom Kippur and a Gmar Chasima Tova.

~~~

"... And if someone, like Pinchos, is one among a multitude, and every man is against him when he dares to speak out for truth and to fight for the Law -- the more lonely his stand, the greater the number of his adversaries, the more powerful is his word, the mightier his deed."

--  Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch OB"M (1808-1888), (in "Judaism Eternal," vol. 2, p. 293)

###

Sen. Rick Scott, carrying on a tradition, takes credit for infrastructure funding he opposed

 https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/feb/02/sen-rick-scott-carrying-tradition-takes-credit-inf/

But Scott didn’t vote for the law that’s funding the Everglades project. Neither did Sen. Marco Rubio, the Florida colleague he shared the credit with.

That makes Scott part of another growing political tradition: lawmakers claiming credit for things made possible by legislation they opposed. It’s how some lawmakers navigate the awkward situation when they’ve voted against something that the public broadly supports, especially bills that funnel money to localities and create jobs and economic opportunity.

DeSantis’s pleas for hurricane aid raise hackles amid vast partisan divide

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/01/desantis-hurricane-ian-aid-disaster-relief-florida

Critics have noted that among DeSantis’s first acts after being elected to Congress in November 2012 was to join 66 Republican colleagues and vote against a government aid package for victims of Hurricane Sandy, which killed more than 100 as it devastated north-eastern states.

Ron DeSantis Is Taking Credit for Millions in Federal Relief

 https://www.governing.com/finance/ron-desantis-is-taking-credit-for-millions-in-federal-relief

Gov. Ron DeSantis has been on a spending spree for months, taking credit for millions of dollars in federal stimulus money he’s handing out to mostly rural Republican counties while at the same time bashing President Joe Biden’s big government spending.

Federal bucks have bolstered the state budget for two years in a row, shoring up the state’s reserves, and funding such things as the governor’s job growth program, climate “resiliency” against rising waters, road projects, broadband expansion, college training programs and tax cuts.

“I think it’s hypocritical,” said Ben Wilcox, research director for Tallahassee-based government watchdog group Integrity Florida. “He’s taking credit for something that’s not really his to claim credit for.”

On hurricane relief votes and hypocrisy

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/30/hurricane-relief-votes-hypocrisy/

In life, there are coincidences, and then there’s how members of Congress vote.

As Florida surveys the damage done by Hurricane Ian and confronts how to recover from it, the New York Times on Thursday ran a piece noting that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was once quite skeptical of expansive federal disaster relief. Some of his first votes as a member of Congress in 2013 were against bills to help the Northeast recover from Hurricane Sandy. But then he voted for a 2017 bill that included relief funds for his home state amid Hurricane Irma. Now he’s in a position of not just asking the federal government for help, but also potentially to enact an expansive aid package of his own.