Trump meets Mamdani in the Oval Office: Winners, losers and takeaways

 https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5618271-trump-mamdani-meet-affordability

The oddest of political couples had a startlingly positive meeting Friday afternoon when President Trump came face-to-face with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (D) in the Oval Office.

Biggest winner: Zohran Mamdani

The encounter was, by any reasonable measure, a big success for the 34-year-old incoming mayor.

Mamdani achieved his key objective in finding common ground with Trump without ceding any real issue of principle.

Just Say No to Palestine

 https://mishpacha.com/just-say-no-to-palestine

    Is Trump intent on delivering a Palestinian state?

It should be clear that the Trump administration, which views foreign policy through a transactional lens, sees greater economic potential and investment opportunities in the Arab world than in Israel. Trade with the Arab world doesn’t have to come at Israel’s expense. In 2024, US trade with Israel in goods and services totaled $55 billion, nearly 40% of the $141 billion the US traded in the Middle East and North Africa, but Trump is setting new priorities, along with his top two Middle East envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, who are more than knee-deep in personal business transactions with the Arab world.

Israel must steel itself to reject pressure to sign deals that benefit other parties far more than they benefit them, and to prevent pushing the Middle East further away from real peace and stability.

Modern Jewish Era

 What was the critical factor?

Shabtzai Tzvi

Mendelson

Napolean

Spinoza

Emancipation

Zionnism

Chasidim

Kabbala

Shulchan Aruch

White House defends Trump calling female reporter ‘Piggy’

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/11/20/trump-reporters-piggy/

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Thursday defended President Donald Trump’s decision to call a female reporter “Piggy” on Air Force One, claiming the insult reflected the “frankness” that helped him win a second term.

As he faces political blowback for his handling of the files related to deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Trump has escalated his disparagement of female reporters.

Days later at a White House event with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Trump called Mary Bruce, the chief White House correspondent for ABC News, a “terrible person and a terrible reporter” and called her network “fake news.” He also urged his Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, to revoke ABC’s broadcast licenses in response to Bruce’s questions, which concerned the killing of Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the Epstein files.

JD Vance expressed hope his Hindu wife will become a Christian. That’s ruffled feathers in India

 https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/21/world/jd-vance-wife-india-religion-debate-hnk-dst

Speaking at an event last month with Turning Point USA at the University of Mississippi, Vance was asked by an audience member about Christianity and American patriotism.

“Why are we making Christianity one of the major things that you have to have in common to be one of you guys? To show that I love America just as much as you do?” the audience member asked.

“This is completely in contrast to Vance’s previous comments that his wife’s Hindu upbringing and values inspired his own return to faith,” Priyanka Deo, US correspondent of Indian network NDTV, said on Instagram, adding that his latest remarks suggest acceptance in the United States is conditional and predicated upon becoming a Christian.

rump’s Texas Gerrymander Backfire

 https://www.wsj.com/opinion/texas-redistricting-map-gop-house-donald-trump-doj-gerrymandering-supreme-court-460691a7?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

President Trump’s insistence that Texas Republicans redraw their House map before the 2026 midterms is looking like it could backfire in a big way. A federal court on Tuesday struck down the new map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The dispute is a legal hash, but it suggests the GOP didn’t look before leaping into a mid-decade gerrymander free-for-all.

Mr. Trump saw redistricting Texas as an easy way to pick up five GOP House seats next year. At first state officials resisted. They jumped on board after the Justice Department sent the state a letter in July, claiming “serious concerns regarding the legality” of House seats that Texas drew in 2021, after the last Census. The DOJ said those seats were “coalition districts,” in which two or more minority groups add up to a majority. The letter called this a violation of the law and constitution.

Brooklyn DA Backs Reduced Sentence for Notorious Child Molester

 https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/13/brooklyn-eric-gonzalez-nechemya-weberman

Gonzalez’s position isn’t a totally new take. 

On Andrew Cuomo’s last day in office as governor in 2021, Gonzalez asked him to commute Weberman’s sentence, arguing in part that the severe punishment “might deter other victims from coming forward and witnesses from participating in a process that could result in such an excessively harsh outcome.” 

Antisemitic mob descends on historic NYC synagogue — urging the ‘resistance’ to ‘take another settler out

 https://nypost.com/2025/11/20/us-news/antisemitic-mob-descends-on-historic-nyc-synagogue-urging-the-resistance-to-take-another-settler-out

A hateful mob of anti-Israel protesters descended on a prominent New York City synagogue Wednesday night, chanting “Globalize the intifada” and sinisterly urging the “resistance” to “take another settler out.”

Some 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan and heckled Jews attending an event by Nefesh B’nefesh, a Zionist organization that helps Jews immigrate to Israel, according to the Times of Israel.

“It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events,” one protest leader told the crowd.

Trump calls Democrats' message to troops seditious behaviour, punishable by death

 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2p2dz9zk2o

President Donald Trump accused six Democratic lawmakers of "seditious behaviour, punishable by death", after they released a video urging US service members to refuse unlawful commands.

The six lawmakers, all of whom have served in the military or intelligence community, called Trump's remarks dangerous and said they amounted to threats against elected officials.

Sen Kelly, who served in the Navy and is a former astronaut, says: "Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders."

"No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our constitution," the lawmakers say in the video.

"This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens," it says. "Like us, you all swore an oath to protect and defend this Constitution. Right now, the threats coming to our Constitution aren't just coming from abroad but from right here at home."

RFK Jr. breaks yet another promise

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/11/20/kennedy-rfk-jr-cdc-website-vaccines-autism

The Post reports that the change, which echoes the views of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and President Donald Trump, was made without consulting career scientists at the agency responsible for vaccine safety. It also blatantly violates a pledge that Kennedy made to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana), who delivered the key vote for his confirmation, that the “CDC will not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism.”

Kennedy and his allies might have the power to edit government websites, but they cannot erase the dozens of high-quality studies that have thoroughly shown that children who are vaccinated are no more likely to be diagnosed with autism than their unvaccinated peers. Nor can they deny the consequences of their anti-vaccine movement: This year, the United States recorded its highest number of measles cases in more than three decades thanks to epidemics in areas with low vaccination rates. This led to the deaths of two children and one adult, all unvaccinated

CDC website changed to contradict scientific conclusion that vaccines don’t cause autism

 https://apnews.com/article/cdc-autism-vaccines-7b1890f626dd5921fafd00fdd1e6425a

 A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website has been changed to contradict the longtime scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism, spurring outrage among a number of public health and autism experts.

The CDC “vaccine safety” webpage was updated Wednesday, saying “the statement ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim.”

The change is the latest move by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to revisit — and foster uncertainty about — long-held scientific consensus about the safety of vaccines and other pharmaceutical products.

“We are appalled to find that the content on the CDC webpage ‘Autism and Vaccines’ has been changed and distorted, and is now filled with anti-vaccine rhetoric and outright lies about vaccines and autism,” the Autism Science Foundation said in a statement Thursday.

Fugitive wanted in US for child sex crimes arrested in Jerusalem

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b1ljop3xzl

Mordechai Yomtov, a former teacher wanted for extradition to the US on child sex abuse charges, nabbed in capital's Tel Arza neigborhood; convicted in 2001 for assaulting boys aged 8 to 10, he fled to Israel with a fake passport in 2002 after violating parole

Trump-Marjorie Taylor Greene breakup shakes MAGA: ‘Mom and Dad are separated’

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/11/20/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-maga-georgia

In Greene’s Georgia congressional district, much of the MAGA base has her back against Trump, who has called her a “traitor.”

“We got Donald Trump trying to take care of the world,” said the chair, Jim Tully, pacing in front of the lectern. “Got Marjorie Taylor Greene trying to take care of the country.”

Greene’s recent tensions with Trump went far beyond the Epstein files. The congresswoman also suggested the Trump administration is too focused on foreign affairs, criticized aid to Argentina and assailed her party’s approach to health care in a slew of media appearances. Days after Trump drew MAGA backlash for saying that the U.S. needs foreign workers because it does not have enough “talented people” for specialized jobs, Greene said she would introduce a bill to end the H-1B visa program at the center of the controversy, saying, “I serve Americans only.”

But even some of Greene’s Republican critics say that her populist message has resonated in the district and that it will be difficult to oust her. Trump is also trying to unseat Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), another House Republican who has clashed with him.

Trump defense of Tucker Carlson interview with Nick Fuentes sparks chatter in GOP Jewish circles

 https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5613912-conservative-rift-tucker-carlson-nick-fuentes-trump

President Trump’s defense of conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson’s interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes is sparking backlash among Jewish conservatives who backed the president’s pro-Israel policies, creating another rift with a key group of supporters.

Fuentes was quick to tout Trump’s comments, thanking the president in a post on the social platform X.

“I’m going to say it. The GOP has a Nazi problem. And the more we pretend like we don’t, the worse it’s going to get. We do. Don’t tell me we don’t,” far-right activist Laura Loomer, who is Jewish and has the president’s ear, said Wednesday in a post on X.