Davie, the USCIRF vice chair, described the incident as “stunning and painful,” adding: “It directly contradicted not only the government’s official narrative of change but also genuine signs of greater religious freedom in the Kingdom that we observed firsthand.”
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
US religious freedom commission leaves Saudi Arabia after rabbi co-chair is told to remove his kippah
A U.S. government delegation tasked with monitoring religious freedom around the world cut a visit to Saudi Arabia short after Saudi officials demanded that a prominent rabbi on the trip remove his kippah.
Saudi officials told Rabbi Abraham Cooper, co-chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, to remove his kippah while in public, the commission said in a statement on Monday.
Cooper, an Orthodox rabbi and the director of global social action for the Simon Wiesenthal Center advocacy group, “politely” refused the request with the backing of U.S. embassy staff, the statement said.
Orthodox women activists pledge to hold ‘sex strike’ to protest religious divorce refusal
For the last seven weeks, Sash — an Orthodox feminist activist in Brooklyn known by her Instagram handle, Flatbush Girl — has led a team of activists, lawyers, and community leaders pursuing a “get,” or Jewish divorce document, for Berkowitz. Berkowitz’s husband, Volvy, is refusing to issue the get that would complete their divorce, making her what is known as an “agunah,” or “chained woman” who cannot remarry under Jewish law.
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Aide tried to stop Trump praising Hitler – by telling him Mussolini was ‘great guy
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/12/mussolini-trump-hitler-john-kelly-jim-sciutto-book
Donald Trump’s second White House chief of staff tried to stop him praising Adolf Hitler in part by trying to convince the then president Benito Mussolini, the Italian fascist dictator, was “a great guy in comparison”.
“He said, ‘Well, but Hitler did some good things,’” the retired marines general John Kelly told Jim Sciutto of CNN in an interview for a new book.
“I said, ‘Well, what?’ And he said, ‘Well, [Hitler] rebuilt the economy.’ But what did he do with that rebuilt economy? He turned it against his own people and against the world. And I said, ‘Sir, you can never say anything good about the guy. Nothing. I mean, Mussolini was a great guy in comparison.”
Kelly, a retired US Marine Corps general, was homeland security secretary in the Trump administration before becoming Trump’s second chief of staff. Resigning at the end of 2018, he eventually became a public opponent of his former boss.
US literary magazine retracts Israeli writer’s coexistence essay amid mass resignations
Emily Fox Kaplan, a Jewish writer who had shared the essay before it was retracted, wrote that she saw the criticism of Chen’s essay as part of a much wider dynamic.
“The problem, when it really comes down to it, is that it presents an Israeli as human,” she tweeted. “The people who are losing their minds about this want to believe that there are no civilians in Israel. They want a simple good guys/bad guys binary, and this creates cognitive dissonance.”
Some non-Jewish writers also lamented the piece’s retraction.
“Anyone who wants to seriously grapple with war had better be prepared for far more shocking opinions than are found in this thoughtful essay by a translator and writer living in Israel,” tweeted Phil Klay, a US military veteran whose writing draws on his war experiences. “Shame on @GuernicaMag for pulling it down.”
Honoring father brings him to sin
Sefer Chasidim (338) When it is time to do G-d's work nullify your Torah (Tehilim 19) Normally the son will do the work, even though the father is an ignoramas and let the father be free to do as he pleases. But if the son knows that when the father is sitting idle he is engaged in bad deeds, such as going after prostitutes, or getting involved in quarrels and gossip about others or other sins, the commandment is for the son to let his father work so that he does not sin at that time. However if the father tells his son “Go study Torah and I will keep busy by chopping wood or I will take over your job” then the son should study Torah.
Biden says he never meant to keep classified documents. Hur stands by report on president’s memory
While Biden fumbled some details in his interview, the full transcript could raise questions about Hur’s depiction of the 81-year-old president as having “significant limitations” on his memory. It paints a more textured picture of his discussions with prosecutors, filling out some of the gaps left by Hur’s accounting of the exchanges.
Fighting frumkeit with frumkeit
Yesterday I traveled to Beit Shemesh for Sheva Berachos with the Chasidic portion of the family
One of my nephews told me the following -
There was a very very pious Jew who was so frum that when he was on his first trip in an airplane the stewardess asked him if he wanted a drink - He was so upset hearing a female voice he threw up.
Later in life he had a job which required walking a short distance from the frum bus - through a block of Manhattan. He couldn't deal with the sights so he decided to ask his Rav for permission to stop work to preserve his holiness.
His Rav thought about the issue and said he could not give him permission.
The holy man asked for an explanation for refusing his request which was obviously needed
The Rav answered simple "It states clearly in Chovas Halevavos - that the foundation of all Prishus (asceticism) is to have an adequate job so that you are not a burden on others - Obviously I can not tell you to stop working."
Chovas HaLevavos (09:05)And likewise, you need to use your body for what will provide your livelihood, so that you will be saved from borrowing and stealing, and from needing the kindness of people to support you and to benefit you, thereby giving away to them your merits, and giving your piety to he who was pious towards you. Likewise, so that you won't be a burden on people, as one of the Sages said: "G-d will have great mercy on His servants who separate from this world, but only if his separation has not become a burden on his friends, because he engaged in a trade thereby freeing them from troubling themselves for him", as written: "For you shall eat the labor of your hands: happy shall you be, and it shall be well with you" (Tehilim 128:2). It has already been said: "the beginning of abstinence is the securing of a livelihood". And it was further stated: "the beginning of abstinence is to think properly on arranging the obtaining of one's needs", which means to work to secure one's needs.
Hannity’s Tale of Trump’s Jan. 6 National Guard Order Blows Up in His Face
For months, Fox News star Sean Hannity has led his network’s charge to push the flimsy claim that former President Donald Trump ordered thousands of National Guard troops to secure the U.S. Capitol in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 insurrection. This assertion, meant to undermine the Jan. 6 House committee, was pushed by Hannity on his primetime TV show 43 times and his daily radio program 48 times, according to liberal watchdog Media Matters. The committee, however, refuted this claim when it shared testimony from former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller saying Trump gave no such order. “I was never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature,” Miller said in the video released on Tuesday. “There was no direct—there was no order from the President.” The ex-Trump official added: “We obviously had plans for activating more folks, but that was not anything more than contingency planning. There was no official message traffic or anything of that nature.” Trump, meanwhile, insisted just last month that he “suggested & offered” up to 20,000 National Guard troops be deployed. Other defense and security officials, however, have testified that Trump never asked for a law enforcement response to the attack.
Trump did not sign an order to deploy 20,000 troops on Jan. 6
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense provided a timeline of the agency’s involvement in preparing for and responding to the attack on the Capitol. The timeline shows no such order, and notes only that on Jan. 3, the president concurred with activating the D.C. National Guard to support law enforcement at the behest of Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser. When the rioting started, Bowser requested more Guard help, on behalf of the Capitol Police. That request was made to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, who then went to Miller, who approved it.
Neither Pelosi nor the House sergeant at arms could have stopped an ordered deployment of National Guard troops because Congress doesn’t control the National Guard, legal experts say. Guard troops are generally controlled by governors, though they can be federalized, said William C. Banks, a law professor at Syracuse University. The online claims “make no sense at all,” Banks said, adding, “The House sergeant at arms, he or she is not in the chain of command. Nor is Nancy Pelosi.”
Jan. 6 committee yet again debunks Trump claim of 10,000 troops
Trump and his defenders have repeatedly claimed that the violence at the Capitol two years ago would have been prevented if only his order for 10,000 troops had been heeded. We have explored this claim twice before and debunked it, each time awarding Four Pinocchios.
Trump, in his post, says he made a “recommendation for troops” and that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) failed to act on it. But the evidence shows Trump did not issue any formal request — so there was nothing for Pelosi to heed. The committee report says it found “no evidence” to support the claim that he ordered 10,000 troops.
Moreover, the committee said that when he referenced so many troops, it was not because he wanted to protect the Capitol. He “floated the idea of having 10,000 National Guardsmen deployed to protect him and his supporters from any supposed threats by left-wing counterprotesters,” the report said.
Trump White House aide points finger at Jan. 6 National Guard call-up in 14th Amendment tria
Patel, who was the chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, argued that it was instead D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser who delayed calls for the National Guard in the days before the riot.
“The authorization came in beforehand. It was relayed to the appropriate officials in D.C. and the Capitol Police. It was declined, and we acted when their request finally came in on January 6,” he continued.
Patel made the argument during the third day of the Colorado 14th Amendment hearings over whether Trump can be removed from the 2024 presidential ballot due to his involvement in the Jan. 6 attacks.
He said that Trump had authorized the deployment of 10,000 to 20,000 National Guard troops to support law enforcement in multiple meetings he witnessed.
But that claim contradicts findings from the House committee investigating Jan. 6, which was told by Trump administration Defense Secretary Christopher Miller that Trump never ordered troop deployments.
Monday, March 11, 2024
Sex Trafficking Survivor Says Sen. Britt’s SOTU Story Was Bogus
Romero also told the network that Sen. Britt got multiple elements of her story wrong. She was trafficked by a pimp who worked to force vulnerable girls into prostitution, Romero said, not Mexican drug cartels. She was also never trafficked inside the U.S.; while Britt did not explicitly say Romero had been trafficked in the U.S., some viewers may have got that impression from the senator’s phrase: “We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a Third World country; this is the United States of America.”
Romero’s captivity also took place between 2004-08, during President George W. Bush’s second term. Again, Britt did not specifically say when Romero had been trafficked, but presented her story in the context of the “disgrace” of Biden’s border policies. Lastly, Romero confirmed she met Britt at an event on the border that was attended by multiple other government officials and anti-human trafficking activists—a detail that Britt omitted, making their meeting sound like a more private, personal encounter.
“‘Someone using my story and distorting it for political purposes,’ she told me, ‘Is not fair at all,’” Romo said Romero told him.
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