Outrage as Los Angeles synagogue hosting Muslim group covers up hostage posters

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hk79hacta?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=internal

The Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles, HAMAKOM(formerly Temple Aliyah), which also operates a community center, school and kindergarten, rented out its premises to a local Muslim organization, the Islamic Society of West Valley (ISWV), for a Ramadan event, and ordered the hostages' posters to be covered.

"The fact that they felt the need to hide posters of hostages to make terrorists and their supporters feel more what? Comfortable? says it all. They want to bow down to those who hate us instead of standing up loud and proud in support and defense of Israel," a local community member told Ynet.

Nasrallah rejoices at ultra-Orthodox threat about leaving country over military draft

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hjog5ol0a

Nasrallah referred to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant's statements regarding the draft and his call to find a solution. According to Nasrallah, the issue is currently "a big problem in Israeli society." He addressed the chief rabbi's ultimatum, where he threatened that all ultra-Orthodox would leave Israel if they had to draft, and rejoiced: "Let them pack their bags and leave."

Schumer's anti-Netanyahu speech stuns Israel

 https://www.axios.com/2024/03/14/schumer-israel-netanyahu-speech-reaction

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer's (D-N.Y.) speech calling for a new government in Israel landed like an earthquake Thursday, delivering a huge shock to the already tense U.S.-Israel relationship.

Why it matters: In addition to being the most senior Jewish elected official in the country, Schumer has had one of the longest and closest relationships with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of any U.S. politician.

Schumer's speech stunned officials and observers in both Washington and Jerusalem because he has been — and still is — the Democratic Party's most avid supporter of Israel in decades.

His harsh remarks about Netanyahu create more political space for other Democratic members of Congress to publicly voice their criticism of the Israeli government amid the ongoing war in Gaza.

After uproar, Schumer clarifies: Israel has the right to choose its own leaders

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/386773

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Thursday sought to clarify his remarks against the Israeli government which caused a firestorm.

“The US cannot dictate the outcome of an election. That is for the Israeli public to decide,” he wrote in a post on social media.

“As a democracy, Israel has the right to choose its own leaders. But the important thing is that Israelis are given a choice. There needs to be a fresh debate about the future,” he added.

Earlier, Schumer gave a speech in which he called for new elections to be held in Israel, saying that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "has lost his way." He further called the Prime Minister an "obstacle to peace."

Chuck Schumer Lectures Israelis on War and Peace

 https://www.wsj.com/articles/chuck-schumer-israel-benjamin-netanyahu-75bf4d58?mod=hp_opin_pos_3

But precisely because Israel is a democracy, accountability for Mr. Netanyahu is baked in. The Prime Minister at this moment represents a broad consensus in Israeli society that the country can’t afford to allow Hamas to continue its violent and corrupt control of Gaza after the horrors unleashed on Oct. 7.

Anatomy of a Conspiracy Theory and a Smear: Still, No Evidence of Trump Order for 10,000 Guard on January 6th

 https://www.justsecurity.org/93316/anatomy-of-a-conspiracy-theory-and-a-smear-still-no-evidence-of-trump-order-for-10000-guard-on-january-6th/

Nonetheless, on Mar. 8, Congressman Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) and The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway tried to resuscitate the claim. In a hyperbolic piece, Hemingway alleges that: “Former Rep. Liz Cheney’s January 6 Committee suppressed evidence that President Donald Trump pushed for 10,000 National Guard troops to protect the nation’s capital, a previously hidden transcript obtained by The Federalist shows.” Loudermilk mimicked this language in his own press release.

Loudermilk released the transcript in question, which is from Anthony Ornato’s Jan. 2022 interview with the January 6th Committee. Ornato was the Secret Service agent in charge of Trump’s protective detail before he was appointed Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff for operations. That is, Ornato went from being a career Secret Service agent to one of Trump’s political appointees. (The January 6h Committee noted in the executive summary to its final report that it “found multiple parts of Ornato’s testimony questionable.”)

Trump did not sign an order to deploy 20,000 troops on Jan. 6

 https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-trump-order-national-guard-156055113284

CLAIM: Former President Donald Trump signed an order to deploy 20,000 National Guard troops before his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but was stopped by the House sergeant at arms, at the behest of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. While Trump was involved in discussions in the days prior to Jan. 6 about the National Guard response, he issued no such order before or during the rioting. Speaker Pelosi does not control National Guard troops.

THE FACTS: New footage released Thursday of House lawmakers on Jan. 6 has sparked a resurgence of false claims and conspiracy theories about the insurrection.

Wealth would cause a Talmid Chocham to sin

 Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah (03:01) Any Torah scholar who spends much time in the business of the Torah and does not make much of a living, it  is a good sign for him. And if you ask if God loves his Torah why does he not make him wealthy? Because if he gets rich he will transgress the words of the Torah.

Work can be a Mystical Experience

 Michtav M’Eliyahu (1 page 34) In the Torah it is written: "And Enoch walked with G-d", and the Sages said that Enoch sewed shoes for his profession, and for each stitch that he sewed he had a  special unity with G-d. And I heard in the name of Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, who explained this statement very nicely, and he said, it can not be understood that at the time he was sewing that he had his thoughts directed to higher matters because such is clearly prohibited by halacha because a worker is not to be thinking about matters other than his work that he is doing for his employer Rather, what is meant by the unification with G-d, is what he thought in  his heart and mind, that  every stich should be good and strong, and that the shoes should be good, so that they would provide benefit to the one who would wear them. Enoch was attached to G-d in a similar manner in that he was concerned with providing others with good and pleasure. In other words he was imitating G-d in that he had no desire for anything other than the welfare of others and consequently he had not the slightest negative thoughts or deeds  about others. 

Riyadh says demand that US delegation chair remove kippah an ‘unfortunate incident’

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/riyadh-says-demand-that-us-delegation-chair-remove-kippah-an-unfortunate-incident/

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.”

US religious freedom commission leaves Saudi Arabia after rabbi co-chair is told to remove his kippah

 https://www.jta.org/2024/03/11/global/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

 https://www.jta.org/2024/03/07/religion/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.

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

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-literary-magazine-retracts-israeli-writers-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.”