https://aish.com/the-books-of-the-maccabees/
One very important point is that the Books of the Maccabees were never preserved by the Jews. We only have them today through the Christians – because they were included as part of the Septuagint and later in the New Testament. (Maccabees I & II are both deuterocanonical books – works included as part of the Catholic Bible by but not the Protestant.) The original Hebrew of I Maccabees does not even exist today.
The family of a woman who was hit and seriously injured by a blazing dumpster sent rolling down a street by Haredi extremists during demonstrations in Jerusalem last week has defended those responsible, saying they meant to block a road and “did not mean to kill anyone.”
While Mirel Dzalovsky, a 40-year-old mother of 10, remains unconscious and on a ventilator at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, her relatives said the rioters “did something awful” but stressed that they were not looking for someone to blame.
“They were not trying to harm anyone. They were trying to block a street as part of a protest,” the family told Channel 12.
There are two frequent commentators who focus on attacking the chareidim . The latest is based on their observation that there has been widespread condemnation of the violent protests which caused serious harm to a chareidi mother of 10. Since this doesn't happen after every act of fanaticism - that is proof that all other acts of violence are acceptable to Chareidi leadership
That is simply wrong. I once asked Rav Sternbuch why he hadn't condemned an attack on a young woman in which acid was thrown at her. He replied that this was being done to get attention so it was counter productive to respond every time they do something outrageous
Sefer HaIkkarim (1:18): The Rambam writes in Sefer Madah 8th chapter of Yesodei HaTorah that Moshe Rabbeinu was not believed by the Jews because of the signs and wonders...The Rambam is saying that that the miraculous signs that were done by the prophets - like the dead person who was resurrected by Elisha or Na’aman’s cure from leprosy or Chananya, Mishael and Azariyah who were not harmed when thrown into a furnace or Daniel who was saved from the lions or Yonah who was saved from the belly of the fish and similarly all the miraculous signs that were done by the prophets or the foretelling of the future - are in fact not in themselves proof to the validity of prophecy. In fact, people other than prophets are capable of foretelling the future such as astrologers or diviners. Even the doing of miraculous signs, it is possible that some of them can be done by tzadikim or Chassidim - even though they are not prophets. For example, R’ Chanina ben Dosa and R’ Pinchas ben Ya’ir and his colleagues or by means of natural technology as Chazal tell us concerning King Chezkiyahu… who was saved from fire by the use of salamander oil. Alternately the supernatural events could be done through magic as we saw in Egypt or by utilization of Divine Names…because the Divine Names have the ability to bring about miraculous events. …
An Arizona judge ruled that two out of 10 claims, brought by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, challenging Democrat Governor-elect Katie Hobbs' election victory can go to trial.
Maricopa County Superior Judge Peter Thompson dismissed eight out of 10 counts in Lake's election lawsuit - ruling they did not fall under the proper criteria to bring election challenges under Arizona law.
The two counts that Judge Thompson ruled can go to trial involve printers malfunctioning on Election Day and ballot chain of custody. Lake claimed printers that malfunctioned were not certified and had "vulnerabilities" that made them "susceptible to hacking." She also claimed the printers malfunctioned because of "intentional action."
Last month, on 26 Marcheshvan, 5783, Rabbi Feivel Cohen – author of Badei ha-Shulchan and other works – ascended to the Heavenly Academy. Ten days later, Rabbi Mordechai Willig – chief justice of the Beth Din of America – delivered an eloquent appreciation for Rabbi Cohen [available at <https://www.yutorah.org/
The bulk of Rabbi Willig’s lecture explores Hilkhot Eruvin. Seeking to solve a particular difficulty in the field that is raised by Sfat Emet, Rabbi Willig [commencing 53:50 into the recording] cites a brilliant insight of Rabbi Cohen’s book Da‘at Kohen which clinches the discussion. It is at this point that Rabbi Willig turns to eulogizing Rabbi Cohen by describing the latter [not only as a proficient scholar in Eruvin but also] as a closet supporter of his prenup [viz. the 1993 Beth Din of America prenup] designed to rescue agunot.
Specifically, Rabbi Willig reports that – years ago, when Rabbi Willig was first contemplating his proposed prenup [before its ultimate release in 1993] – he studied Rabbi Cohen’s book Mi-Dor le-Dor, where the author elucidates how to execute an estate-inheritance-will via a shtar chatzi zakhar without running afoul of the rules of asmakhta (a contingency agreement wherein the person accepting liability never seriously anticipates that his obligation to pay will materialize and hence is halakhically invalid). After digesting the book’s contents, Rabbi Willig arrived at the conclusion that the same mechanism which Rabbi Cohen employs to bypass the asmakhta problem for a shtar chatzi zakhar can likewise bypass the asmakhta problem for committing a husband to pay his wife money as soon as she moves out of the house until such time as the husband will grant a get [=the essence of Rabbi Willig’s prenup, and a putative formula to rescue agunot].
Seeking confirmation, Rabbi Willig approached Rabbi Cohen with the prenup idea. In Rabbi Willig’s words: “He was very nice to me. He said: ‘You know, it’s very good, the sevara is right, but we’re not doing it over here in Brooklyn.’” The implication of Rabbi Willig’s testimony is that Rabbi Cohen agreed to his prenup in principle, but simply as a matter of voluntary policy [so as not to rustle the feathers of fellow Brooklynites] preferred not to implement the concept in his community.
Alas, Rabbi Willig’s extrapolation from shtar chatzi zakhar to the laws of gittin [and likewise Rabbi Cohen’s reported closet support thereof] is (be-mechilat Kevod Toratam) tenuous. In the case of a shtar chatzi zakhar, the sober-minded individual signing the document knows in advance that there is a reasonable probability he will die (until we are privileged to experience the messianic era when the mal'akh ha-mavet will disappear, as per the Gemara, Sukkah 52a) and so he sincerely wishes to bequeath property to others a moment before death occurs [as the shtar chatzi zakhar declares]. By contradistinction, in the case of Rabbi Willig’s prenup, the groom who signs the document does not seriously entertain the probability that his wife will ever demand divorce in the future. [If he realized that this was such a demanding wife, he wouldn’t have signed the document in the first place.] Hence, the quotidian money transfer specified in the prenup indeed represents an asmakhta which the husband is not obligated to pay, and if a secular court nevertheless threatens the husband that he will lose the specified money until he grants a get, then the get is invalid as per the Mishnah, Gittin 88b [that a get coerced by a secular court contrary to Halakhah is invalid].
Admittedly, it is true that the Mishnah, Makkot 3a compares the actuarial probability of future death to the actuarial probability of future divorce in calculating how much money to fine edim zomemin (witnesses who claimed that a husband divorced his wife without granting a ketubah, and were then discovered to be false by virtue of their not being in the location of the alleged divorce at the time of the alleged divorce). Perhaps it is this Mishnah that caused Rabbi Willig and Rabbi Cohen to believe that we can extrapolate from the shtar chatzi zakhar (i.e. anticipation of death) to the prenup (i.e. anticipation of divorce). Even so, however, a careful examination of Makkot 3a reveals that [regarding divorce] the Mishnah is discussing the actuarial probability that the husband will offer a get to his wife of his own free will in the future, not the actuarial probability that the wife will demand a get from her husband in the future [the latter representing the basis of Rabbi Willig’s prenup]. Thus, it remains the case that Rabbi Willig’s prenup is subject to the asmakhta objection. Ergo, it is precisely because of our sympathy for agunot that we should encourage any married couple which has signed Rabbi Willig’s prenup to sign the release form [revoking the secular court’s ability to enforce Rabbi Willig’s prenup] in Section A of my relevant essay at <http://www.scribd.com/doc/
Me-inyan le-inyan be-oto inyan (to borrow the expression from Kiddushin 6a), Rabbi Willig’s prenup plays an illuminating role in the specific agunah case of Epstein vs. Friedman. Namely, as reported at <https://yucommentator.org/
Alas, this approach (while well-meaning) represents a compounded error by Rabbi Schachter (be-mechilat Kevod Torato). Firstly, Rabbi Willig’s prenup would not have rescued Ms. Epstein from her agunah predicament since the prenup does not work altogether [as argued in the present article]. Secondly, even if there would be an [alternate] prenup that does work to rescue agunot [which indeed there fortuitously is, as explained in Section Q of my aforementioned essay at <http://www.scribd.com/doc/
And this brings us to my final point. Notwithstanding his reported closet support of Rabbi Willig’s prenup, Rabbi Feivel Cohen has clearly announced [in a public manner, and not merely in a private conversation] that Ms. Epstein remains the wife of Mr. Aharon Friedman according to Torah law. [See <http://daattorah.blogspot.
Rabbi Spira works as Editor of Manuscripts and Grants at the Lady Davis Institute of Medical Research [a Pavillion of the Jewish General Hospital] in Montreal, Canada.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/364652
The police are expected to announce in the coming days that the case against Rabbi Zvi Thau will be closed due to lack of evidence that he committed a criminal act, Kan News reported.
According to the report, the police were unable to formulate a basis for criminal charges after examining the complaints against the rabbi and no evidence was found which reached the required threshold for criminal charges.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/3780865-jan-6-committee-unveils-criminal-referrals-against-trump/
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol unveiled criminal referrals on Monday targeting former President Trump, recommending that the Department of Justice investigate the ex-president for inciting an insurrection, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to make a false statement and obstruction of an official proceeding.
The referrals mark the culmination of the committee’s 18-month probe of the Jan. 6 attack and the role Trump played before, during and after the riot. They are a crescendo in the panel’s central case that Trump was at the center of a conspiracy to keep himself in power.
https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/jan-6-committee-hearing-trump-updates?mod=hp_lead_pos1
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol voted to make a raft of criminal referrals to the Justice Department for former President Donald Trump related to his attempt to overturn the presidential election.
The committee took the action in the panel’s 10th and final meeting this year as it concludes its 18-month probe.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/18/jan6-committee-deliver-judgment-trump-00074365
The Jan. 6 select committee on Monday voted to formally accuse Donald Trump of four crimes, including assisting an insurrection, in his bid to subvert the transfer of presidential power to Joe Biden.
The panel contended that its evidence proved Trump provided “aid and comfort” to a mob that was ransacking the Capitol in service of his attempts to reverse his loss in 2020. It also said Trump could be charged with obstructing Congress’ Jan. 6 joint session, conspiracy to make false statements to the National Archives and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-december-19-2022/
The committee ‘has developed significant evidence that president Trump intended to disrupt peaceful transition of power under our Constitution,’ committee says
The United States on Sunday joined a call for an investigation into a deadly traffic incident over the weekend, in which an Israeli driver struck and killed two Palestinian brothers working on a disabled vehicle on the shoulder of a West Bank road.
The Palestinian Authority has called the Saturday collision, which took the lives of Mohammad and Muhannad Muteir from the Jerusalem-area Qalandiya refugee camp, an intentional ramming attack, while Israel Police says that it was an accident.
https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/sj5j696uj#autoplay
Residents of the capital's Haredi enclaves, claim that the police is afraid to enter, leaving the lawless extremists to riot at will, whether protesting immodesty, military service or infrastructure projects
