“Yoil Weingarten, Yakov Weingarten, and Shmiel Weingarten, leaders of Lev Tahor, an extremist Jewish sect based in Guatemala, have been found guilty of kidnapping a 12-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl and transporting the 14-year-old girl outside the United States to continue a sexual relationship with her adult male ‘husband.’ With this verdict, all nine Lev Tahor leaders and operatives charged for these heinous crimes have been held accountable. The defendants’ conduct — which included forced child marriages, physical beatings, and family separations — is unthinkable and has caused irreparable harm to children in their formative years. Whether in the name of religion or any other belief system, subjecting children to physical, sexual, or emotional abuse will never be tolerated by this Office.”
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
AG says army must start process to draft Haredim, warns against trying to bypass court
In a letter to legal advisers for both ministries, Baharav-Miara and Deputy Attorney General Gil Lemon noted that the state needs to tell the High Court of Justice by the end of the month what steps it is taking to draft the Haredi community.
“Beginning April 1, 2024, there will be no source of authority for a blanket exemption from military conscription for yeshiva students, and the defense establishment must act to draft them into military service in accordance with the law,” wrote Baharav-Miara, in a letter first published by Channel 13 news.
A government resolution from June 2023 instructing the IDF to temporarily not draft Haredi students despite the expiration of a law governing the matter will expire at midnight on Sunday night.
By March 31, the government was supposed to have found a way to comply with a court ruling from 2017, which determined blanket military service exemptions for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students to be discriminatory and illegal.
Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox block Route 4 in protest against IDF conscription
Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox protesters blocked the Route 4 highway outside the central city of Bnei Brak during a demonstration against conscription to the military on Monday, the date set as a deadline for the Defense Ministry to begin drafting Haredim.
The demonstrators belonged to the extremist Jerusalem Faction, which numbers some 60,000 members and regularly demonstrates against the enlistment of yeshiva students.
Protesters held banners reading “To jail and not the army,” “We will die rather than draft,” “Stalin is here,” and “Russia is here.” Police arrested six demonstrators and forcefully cleared the highway after the demonstrators refused to leave, opening the road to traffic after two hours.
Republicans slam Biden for proclaiming Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter, though it’s yearly observed on March 31
Elizabeth Alexander, a spokesperson for first lady Dr. Jill Biden, cast the Republican egg complaints as “misleading swirl” and posted on X, “The American Egg Board flyer’s standard non-discrimination language requesting artwork has been used for the last 45 years, across all Dem & Republican Admins.”
Fox News Runs Wild With Two Very Dumb Easter Outrages
https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-runs-wild-with-two-very-dumb-easter-outrages?ref=home
Just ahead of the Easter weekend, the White House issued nearly a dozen proclamations that included recognition for Cesar Chavez Day, Month of the Military Child, National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month. The administration also proclaimed Sunday to be Transgender Day of Visibility, a day of awareness that was established in 2009 and has been held annually on March 31.
Monday, April 1, 2024
Torah comes from the Children of the Poor
Nedarim (81a) Be on guard against scabs; take good care to study in company and be heedful not to neglect the children of the poor, for from them Torah goeth forth, as it is written, The water shall flow out of his buckets meaning, from the poor amongst them goeth forth Torah. And why is it not usual for scholars to give birth to sons who are scholars? — Said R. Joseph, That it might not be maintained, The Torah is their legacy. R. Shisha, the son of R. Idi, said: That they should not be arrogant towards the community. Mar Zutra said: Because they act high-handedly against the community. R. Ashi said: Because they call people asses. Rabina said: Because they do not first utter a blessing over the Torah.
Sunday, March 31, 2024
U.S. and Israel’s ‘Unprecedented’ Intelligence Sharing Draws Criticism
The intelligence sharing with Israel is conducted under a secret memorandum that the White House issued shortly after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack and amended a few days later, U.S. officials said. At about the same time, the U.S. expanded its intelligence collection on Gaza, having largely relied on Israel to spy on the enclave in recent years.
Donald Trump Warns Americans 'Won't Have a Country' If He Loses in November
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-warns-americans-wont-have-country-if-he-loses-november-1885362
Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, weighed in on a variety of topics — including his likely rematch with Democratic rival President Joe Biden on November 5 — during an interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade that aired on Saturday night.
"The most important day in the history of our country is going to be November 5," Trump said. "Our country is going bad. And it's going to be changed on November 5, and if it's not changed we're not going to have a country anymore."
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump's campaign, doubled down on the former president's remarks, telling Newsweek in an email on Saturday night: "Without law and order and safety for all Americans, we won't have a country anymore."
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Israel should ignore Biden and finish the job in Rafah
Israel has committed to going into Rafah, and the United States should work to ensure the operation is a success. Biden claims his objections to the Rafah operation are humanitarian in nature. If that’s the case, we should be pressuring Egypt to open humanitarian corridors and temporary camps in the Sinai Peninsula, where Gazan civilians can relocate while military operations remain ongoing.
Daas Torah Marriage Review
Fascinating and Comprehensive
Reviewed in the United States on January 8, 2024
Verified Purchase
The topic is fascinating and the work is comprehensive. I enjoyed learning the topics from the sources. The book does not contain "questions" which the sources "answer" but are lumped by broad category. This is great because it is objective and allows the reader to decide for himself. However, it also makes answers hard to find.
For example, I wondered what the Torah view on whether Homosexuality is nature or nurture. I found nothing in the section on Homosexuality but in the section of differences between gender I found a reference to the mekubal the Rekanti that there is no gender swap between Gilgulim (if u were a women in a previous Gilgul u will be reincarnated as a women) and that if a soul were to be in a the wrong body gender it would be infertile. My inference is that according to the Rekanti, gender disphoria can be real but such a person would be infertile. If a fertile person claimed gender disphoria it would not be genuine.
Similarly, if one wanted to look up "spicier topics" such as unconventional sex (anything other than missionary), one would not easily come to a conclusion. Relevant headings are Somdomy, Pleasure, Zera Livatala, and Rabbi Friedeld.
Last example, I was hard pressed to find the Daas Torah on how to Foreplay. The best I found was in the section "Behavior with wife can be learned from animals" it cites a Talmud passage to arouse one's wife with promises of clothing even if there is no intent to fulfill.
One section I was dissatisfied with was Birth Control. I assume the author did not wish to navigate such murky waters or that very little has been actually published on the subject.
All in all, amazing buy and highly recommended.
Trump posts video with an image of a hog-tied Biden, drawing a rebuke from Democrat’s campaign
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump drew criticism Friday for posting a video on social media that contains the image of a hog-tied President Joe Biden painted on the tailgate of a passing truck.
Friday, March 29, 2024
Trump Needs His MAGA Followers to Believe America Is Screwed
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-needs-his-maga-followers-to-believe-america-is-screwed?ref=home
MAGA (Make America Great Again) isn’t just a message on a red hat, it’s a mantra. And to acknowledge the ways America is currently great (and improving!) is to admit that the country does not, in fact, need a fulminating strongman like Trump to save us from the ashes of our once proud homeland.
As I have learned, saying something like “It’s great to be alive and in America right now” constitutes fighting words. That’s because Donald Trump needs his MAGA followers to believe America is screwed. The danger, of course, is that this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sin of Golden Calf and Working
Michtav M’Eliyahu (01 page 277) Both the Ibn Ezra and the Ramban believe that that the main sin with the Golden Calf was that they erred in descending from their high level to the level of nature even though this was done for pure motivation in that they wanted to remain in pure service of G-d according to their belief that Moses was no longer with them. This was the deception of the evil Inclination which encourages man to the apparent simplest course to achieve a goal (for example a person mistakenly thinks that the withstanding of a test always leads to sanctifying G-d’s Name) – we have already explained that this was the basis of Adam’s sin i.e., descent for the purpose of ascent. Repentance for this sin is difficult since it contains an aspect of sinning with intent to repent And the root of this sin are the sly tricks of the evil inclination to bring man down. It can be determined to be evil since it mixes together lust and spirituality. As we see when Eve stated “that the tree is good to eat and is lust for the eyes and pleasing to the intellect. Just as a person masks his combining Torah with working
Foreign Ministry on ICJ ruling: Israel places no limitations on the aid which enters Gaza
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/387569
“Israel will continue to promote new initiatives, and to expand existing ones, in order to enable and facilitate the flow of aid to the Gaza Strip in a continuous and extensive manner, by land, air, and sea, together with UN bodies and other partners in the international community. This includes ongoing efforts to increase the scale, and means of access for such aid despite the operational challenges on the ground and Hamas׳s active and abhorrent efforts to commandeer, hoard, and steal aid.”