Americans’ support for Israel at record low, backing for Palestinians at all-time high

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-americans-support-for-israel-at-record-low-backing-for-palestinians-at-all-time-high/

This week’s poll found that Republican sympathies with Israelis have remained relatively steady, at 75% vs. 10% for Palestinians. Among independents, the Israeli-Palestinian split was 42% to 34%.

The poll found that 55% of Americans, and majorities of Democrats and independents, support the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Among Republicans, support for a Palestinian state was at 41%.

Less Than Half in U.S. Now Sympathetic Toward Israelis

 https://news.gallup.com/poll/657404/less-half-sympathetic-toward-israelis.aspx

Although Americans remain more likely to say their sympathies in the Middle East situation are with the Israelis rather than the Palestinians, the 46% expressing support for Israel is the lowest in 25 years of Gallup’s annual tracking of this measure on its World Affairs survey. The previous 51% low point in this trend of Americans’ sympathy for Israelis was recorded both last year and in 2001.

At the same time, the 33% of U.S. adults who now say they sympathize with the Palestinians is up six percentage points from last year and the highest reading by two points.

Given their majority-level sympathy for the Palestinians, it follows that Democrats are also broadly supportive of an independent Palestinian state. About three-quarters of Democrats, 76%, are in favor of such a state, compared with 53% of independents. While 41% of Republicans support a Palestinian state, 49% are opposed.

Democrats’ support for a Palestinian state has been trending upward since 2021, whereas independents’ has been relatively steady over the same period. Republicans’ support is up 15 points after dropping sharply last year.

'Look at the sea change now': Enten on 56-point swing among Dems supporting Palestinians

'Why the hell did you vote for the bill?': GOP senator slammed for megabill whiplash

What you're feeling is the banality of cruelty from Trump and the Republican Party

Elon Musk Responds to Trump's 'Back Home to South Africa' Comments

 https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-trump-south-africa-2093392

Musk was one of the most prominent supporters of Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, spending at least $250 million to support his bid. However, he has been deeply critical of Trump's "big, beautiful bill," a major tax and spending package that passed the Senate with Vice President JD Vance's tiebreaking vote. It now heads back to the House.

The package would raise the U.S. debt ceiling by $5 trillion, impose large tax cuts and increase spending on border security and defense. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it would add $3.3 trillion to U.S. fiscal deficits over the next decade. The bill also reduces health insurance and food subsidies for some lower-income households.

Musk described the bill as "political suicide" and "utterly insane and destructive," adding on X, "It gives handouts to industries of the past, while severely damaging industries of the future."

After Running Hot and Cold, Trump Heaps Praise on Netanyahu

 https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/trump-netanyahu-israel-praise-566d399f?mod=hp_lead_pos10

Relations between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have had plenty of ups and downs. As the two leaders prepare for a White House visit set for next week, things are decidedly on the upswing.

Trump has showered Netanyahu with praise for leading a 12-day assault on Iran aimed at setting back Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, a conflict the U.S. joined by launching bunker-busting airstrikes on underground Iranian uranium-enrichment sites.

Now the White House has renewed its push for a halt to the war in Gaza. In a Tuesday evening social-media post, Trump said Israel had agreed to the “necessary conditions” for a 60-day cease-fire with Hamas, a goal likely to come up in his meeting with Netanyahu.

“I hope, for the good of the Middle East, that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better — IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Since the Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran, Trump has weighed in on Israel’s domestic affairs, urging Israeli authorities to drop charges against Netanyahu that accuse him of corruption, fraud and breach of trust. Netanyahu denies wrongdoing. The calls represent rare interference by a U.S. leader in a foreign country’s domestic judicial process.

“Bibi and I just went through HELL together,” Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “Bibi could not have been better, sharper, or stronger in his LOVE for the incredible Holy Land. Anybody else would have suffered losses, embarrassment, and chaos!”

Trump has called the case against Netanyahu a political witch hunt and compared it to his own legal issues. Trump was found guilty of falsifying business records by a New York court last year and also found liable for sexual abuse in a civil case. Trump has denied wrongdoing and called both the cases against him disgraceful.

Trump’s decision to add U.S. forces to the air campaign against Iran and then to champion Israel’s leader reflects the president’s affinity—in military and political affairs—for leaders he sees as winners.

Trump-Musk feud reignites over the ‘big, beautiful bill’

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5380120-trump-musk-fight-over-bill/

The Senate’s version of the bill, which narrowly passed earlier on Tuesday, would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion between 2025 and 2034, roughly $1 trillion more than the House-passed version, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!” Musk wrote on X.

“And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.” 

How Republicans got Murkowski to yes on Trump's megabill - Not in my backyard

 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/01/murkowski-trump-alaska-megabill-00435981

What Murkowski was wrangling for was pretty basic: How to blunt the impact of the bill on her state.

“What I tried to do was to ensure that my colleagues understood what that means when you live in an area where there are no jobs, it is not a cash economy,” she told reporters. “And so I needed help, and I worked to get that every single day.”

And as part of Senate Republicans’ sweeping final amendment to the bill that was part of the overnight negotiations, they removed a controversial tax on solar and wind energy projects that Murkowski and a handful of other Republicans were agitating to be removed.

Another goodie bordered on the obscure, if not for the senator: Bowhead whaling boat captains recognized by the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission will be able to deduct more for whale-hunting-related expenses, up to $50,000 from the current $10,000.

Tamar Epstein and the Scarlet Letter: The Kaminetskys and Rabbinic sanctioned adultery

Jewish society is faced with a major crisis - how to deal with a case of rabbinic sanctioned adultery. On the one hand we have adultery - which is one of the worst sins and one which is based on betrayal of the most important human - that of husband and wife. This betrayal aspect is why it is used as a metaphor for betrayal in the relationship of G-d and the Jewish people. There is a primal revulsion towards the betrayal of  a wife who has an affair with another man. It also is one of the most defiling of sins - because of its violation of the sanctity of marriage.

At the same time we are faced with another theme - loyalty to rabbinic authority and gedolim. There is no higher praise than to say one has emunas chachomim i.e., obeys the decisions and views of G-d representatives - the rabbis. In this case Rav Shmuel Kaminetsky and Rav Nota Greenblatt are American gedolim who have the stature of being of the select group of transmitters of G-d's Torah and Mesorah.

The halacha is very clear - Tamar Epstein is a married woman who is married to a man not her husband - the definition of adultery. But she did it with the guidance and encouragement of two major rabbinic figures. However the rabbis who sanctioned this adulterous relations refuse to justify their actions. By their silence they are demanding acceptance of their activities simply because of their status and authority as gedolim - not because they are experts in the halacha - or are correct.

From the point of view of the Kaminetskys and Greenblatts they are saying they have no need to justify anything they do - no matter how horrific in appearance - because they are gedolim. They are hoping that the perceived obscenity of what they are doing will eventually be forgotten and they will succeed in getting away with distorting the Torah. Thus they are not only giving the appearance of violating the Torah by facilitating apparent adultery but they are violating a specific requirement of halacha - that decisions which appear wrong - need to explained in detail to the public.

What about the other rabbis who know that R Greenblatt and the Kamenetskys are wrong? Why haven't there been loud cries of outrage from our rabbinic leaders? The answer is that the rabbis are very uncomfortable with being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Thus they are dodging the question with a technicality. They acknowledge that it is highly unlikely that there is a valid justification for the marriage without a get. However they say that they can not judge whether this is truly a case of adultery - unless they see a written justification for the act to which they can agree or disagree. Without this written justification - they feel they need to assume that what great rabbis have done - must be correct. The fact that the failure to provide a written justification is a violation of halacha - while puzzling - is also something which they say must be given the benefit of doubt.

So the crisis continues - a blatant act of adultery, a brazen concealing of justification,  demands of "trust me I am a gadol", timidity and fear of rabbinic leaders in addressing the issue - and the accelerated loss of emunas chachomim and growth of cynicism by the masses.

Rabbinic Authority - Descriptive vs rational justification

One of the outcomes of the discussions [ I II III ] about Chazal and Science is that there are two disparate models being used here. Each side thinks it is obvious that their model is correct. On the one hand we have the insular chareidi model which says that the only relevant information is that which comes from seeing the text the way our godolim see it. On the other hand are those that argue that it is fine to use that approach for practical halacha but one needs to be and has the right to be concerned with objective truth.

This reminded me of the summary of Prof. Michael S. Berger's excellent book - Rabbinical Authority. He says that determining the source of Rabbinic authority in the traditional world is basically a description of what a particular community considers to be authoritative. On the other hand the more modern elements say that we need to identity objective sources of authority - which are independent of what people in a particular community do.

p154-155

"Interpreting legal texts led us in chapter 9 to introduce Stanley Fish's analysis of literary criticism, which situates all interpretation within the context of interpretive communities. Indeed, a "text" has no existence independent of such a community, for only a community, with its values, assumptions, principles, etc., may construe a text as a "text" in the first place. We teased out the implications of such a model for interpretation in legal traditions in general and in the Jewish legal tradition in particular, showing how the ways the Sages read the Torah became characteristic of that community and were subsequently (consequently?) applied to the Mishnah, the Talmud, and even medieval codes.

All three chapters of part III offered alternative understandings of authority that, to varying degrees, rejected the Enlightenment assessment of authority. The Enlightenmentent model demands that some justification be provided for forgoing one's own independent judgments and decisions in order to defer to another's view. But in part III I tried to show that authority is embedded in a form of life which, in the end, renders such rational justification beside the point. Applying a Wittgensteinian approach to the issue of Rabbinic authority, we saw that the issue could not truly be understood outside a set of circumstances that already situates it - and those subject to it - in a particular context. Description, rather than justification, was seen to be a helpful and productive way of analyzing authority. The question that came up in the nineteenth century and that continues to the present is not really about the authority of the talmudic Sages but is about the contemporary relevance or appropriateness of a form of life that makes the Sages of late antiquity central to one's entire outlook and set of concerns. Various interpretive communities, represented in part by the range of Jewish denominations today, have resolved this issue in a variety of ways, and each, in the end, construes the "text of the Talmud" and "Rabbinic authority" quite differently. The choices made by each community naturally bear consequences for its members, but it is only in terms of these interpretive communities that we can properly discuss the issue of the Talmud's, or Rabbinic, authority.

No simple solutions, therefore, await us as we inquire into the nature of Rabbinic authority. Sages, texts, and interpretive communities and forms of life mix inextricably in complex and subtle ways such that the effort to separate them and view one as antecedent or primary to the others fails to capture how authority is to be understood in Judaism. Rabbinic authority is necessarily conceived in the intricate interface of community and text, a fitting condition for "the people of the Book."

Rabbinic Authority - Medical Model

 At one time I resided in the idyllic Brooklyn community of Midwood. One of my fellow residents was Rabbi Steinwurtzel a dayan of the Bobover Beis Din and a well known talmid chachom. He used to travel regularly by bus to Boro Park. One day I saw him waiting at the bus stop and offered him a ride to Boro Park. On the way I asked him what the basis of Rabbinic authority was. He replied it was like that of a doctor.

I assumed he meant that just as a doctor is understood to know more than I because of his training and education in scientific research and thus his authority comes from superior knowledge so is is the authority of the rabbi comes from superior knowledge. 

However I have recently come to a different understanding. Just as doctors were not automatically seen through history as authorities but only relatively recently partly because of advances in medicine and the need for extensive training and expensive equipment. However a major component of their authority comes from social pressure and taught cultural values. Similar rabbinic authiority requires social pressure and cultural training.   [See Paul Starr's book on the Social Development of Medicine]

Religious Freedom in America

 I'm reading "Sacred Liberty: America's Long, Bloody, and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom" by Steven Waldman and wanted to share this quote with you.

"Those who demand religious rights have too often been mocked and murdered, tarred and feathered. The same nation that boasts of its commitment to religious liberty also allowed for the following injustices. In the seventeenth century, Massachusetts hanged people for being Quakers. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, nine of the thirteen colonies barred Catholics and Jews from holding office. In 1838, the governor of Missouri issued Executive Order 44, calling for the “extermination” of the Mormons. Protestant mobs burned convents, sacked churches, and collected the teeth of deceased nuns as souvenirs during anti-Catholic riots in the 1830s—just one of the many spasms of “anti-papism” that roiled America from the colonial era until well into the twentieth century.""Hundreds of thousands of Africans were stripped of not only their liberty but also their religions when they were brought to America, in what one historian called “a spiritual holocaust.” After the Civil War, the United States government banned many Native American spiritual practices while coercing indigenous children to convert to Christianity. Before and during World War II, Jehovah’s Witnesses were imprisoned, beaten, and even castrated for refusing, as a matter of conscience, to salute the American flag."

Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/2wwL4Qy

U.S. Halts Key Weapons for Ukraine in New Sign of Weakening Support for Kyiv

 https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-halts-key-weapons-for-ukraine-in-new-sign-of-weakening-support-for-kyiv-35d78cfc?mod=hp_lead_pos9

Withholding Patriot air-defense missiles comes as Ukraine faces persistent Russian air attacks

The U.S. has stopped the delivery of air-defense interceptors and other weapons intended for Ukraine and is using them instead to beef up Pentagon stocks, a Trump administration official and two congressional aides said Tuesday.

The U.S. move to withhold arms deliveries earmarked for Ukraine reflects the Trump administration’s slackening commitment to aiding Kyiv in its defense against Russia. Administration officials have stressed the need to focus more on the longer-term threats from China and, more immediately, military needs in the Middle East.