New US intel report shows Russia, Trump and GOP acolytes have same goals

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/17/politics/trump-russia-elections/index.html

 A new US intelligence report that finds Russia interfered in the 2020 election to help Donald Trump and hurt Joe Biden also underscores a fundamental truth: The gravest threat to US democracy comes from within.

The report, released by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, finds that Moscow sought to inject misleading information about Biden into the campaign through officials and others close to Trump.

The real bombshell it contains is not the confidence of the spy agencies that Russia hoped to subvert American democracy. It is that US intelligence experts effectively confirmed that for the second election in a row, Trump acolytes repeatedly used, knowingly or otherwise, misinformation produced by the spies of one of America's most sworn foreign adversaries to try to win a US election.

A Review of International Beit Din Case 105

 https://www.torahmusings.com/2015/09/a-review-of-international-beit-din-case-105/

Rav Hershel Schachter published a letter encouraging his students and colleagues to not rely on IBD rulings, to which other dayanim across the country added their agreement. ^[1] Specifically, Rav Schachter challenged a particular ruling relying on a well-known opinion of the Ritva. This is a reference to the IBD psak (ruling) on Case 105 (from here on: Psak 105), available in both English and Hebrew on the IBD website. ^[2] The IBD website tells us that “This psak is representative of several decisions handed down by the International Beit Din.” Additionally, Rabbis Simcha Krauss and Yehuda Warburg of the IBD have written with regard to Psak 105 that “This psak din as well as other IBD decisions are available for public scrutiny on our website.” ^[3] As such, it seems appropriate to subject Psak 105 to the examination which Rabbis Krauss and Warburg have invited. I strongly encourage any reader not to take my word, but to read the English and Hebrew versions of Psak 105 in conjunction with this review. This review will assume that the reader is generally familiar with the contents of Psak 105, including the background and final decision.

 

Renewed protest of International Beis Din

 

Important letter from Rav Hershel Schachter, Rav Gedalia Dov Schwartz, Rav Nota Greenblatt, Rav Avrohom Union, and Rav Menachem Mendel Senderovitz regarding the "International Beit Din"

 http://www.torahweb.org/torah/docs/ibd-machaa.html

 למותר לא דין ולא דיין שטות דבריאלא של לפוסקים עצמם שמינו קלים
בינלאומיים, כבי ד" שבלשכת הגזית, לפגוע בקדושת ישראל שע"י חופה וקידושין
וחבל על בזה ולהאריך הדיו ועל הנייר נטע צבי גרינבלט, מעמפיס, כ"ב תמוז תשע"ה

The “International Beit Din”- A Very Troubling Update

 https://yated.com/international-beit-din-troubling-update/

Two years ago, when the activities of IBD became known and were investigated by established poskim, these poskim issued a strong “Letter of Mecho’oh” against IBD. This letter was published by TorahWeb and is available at http://www.torahweb.org/torah/docs/ibd-machaa.html. In their letter, the poskim explain that IBD was using specious heteirim (such as lack of yichud eidim, designation of witnesses, from the Ritva, which is a mere chumra l’halacha and does not invalidate a marriage). The poskim also stated that in previous generations, only gedolei hador, such as Rav Yitzchok Elchonon Spector, Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzensky and Rav Moshe Feinstein, could be mattir agunos, and that the IBD members, who are not anywhere near this stature and are three regular rabbis, were acting way out of their league by issuing such heteirim. The Letter of Mecho’oh referred to the IBD members as acting with “chutzpah gedolah” by doing that which only poskei hador are qualified to do.

 

Permitting sinning to reduce it?

 Igros Moshe (O.C. 4:35) Concerning the issue of mixed dancing of men and women, it is clearly prohibited even if the woman are not Nida and surely is prohibited if they are Nida And they don’t refrain from dancing with married women.  It is not relevant to permit mixed dancing  with the claim that if you don’t permit it in the social hall they will go to the regular dance halls where they will be dancing with non-Jews.

FBI facing allegation that its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh was ‘fake’

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/16/fbi-brett-kavanaugh-background-check-fake

The supreme court justice was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford and faced several other allegations of misconduct following Ford’s harrowing testimony of an alleged assault when she and Kavanaugh were in high school.

Kavanaugh denied the claims.

 The FBI was called to investigate the allegations during the Senate confirmation process but was later accused by some Democratic senators of conducting an incomplete background check. For example, two key witnesses – Ford and Kavanaugh – were never interviewed as part of the inquiry.

 Among the concerns listed in Whitehouse’s letter to Garland are allegations that some witnesses who wanted to share their accounts with the FBI could not find anyone at the bureau who would accept their testimony and that it had not assigned any individual to accept or gather evidence.

Agunah

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agunah

Finding a flaw in the marriage ceremony is considered to be a last resort in releasing an agunah. It is rarely used as it is typically difficult to find actual cause in most marriages sufficient to invalidate them retroactively. In Jewish law, a marriage must be performed in front of two witnesses. In order to release the agunah, efforts are made to identify reasons why one of the witnesses was ineligible. This is typically unachievable as strong efforts are made at the time of marriage to ensure the validity of the witnesses and the marriage ceremony. Another possibility is to prove that the woman did not consent to the marriage clearly and of her own free will, so that the marriage ceremony is declared invalid. This too is not generally accepted amongst the halakhic authorities as there is generally no method to disprove intent. It is felt that the purpose of this endeavor is solely or primarily to retroactively delegitimize a marriage that was performed and accepted often many years previously. Annulling the marriage has no impact on the status of the woman's children. However, since it is not a generally accepted mechanism, it may leave the wife susceptible to a halakhic ruling that she was still married, and any subsequent relations with another man to be adultery. And it may lead to other halakhic problems, so it is only used as a last resort by the authorities that do accept its use.

 

Aviva Kaplan-Wallach Still Has Not Received Her Get

 http://agunahandherget.com/aviva-kaplan-wallach-still-has-not-received-her-get/

 She got a heter from International Beis Din and she remarried and yet still wants a get?!

We can not understand why, since her marriage is over, she should not be granted a Get as expeditiously as possible in a Jewish Court of Law, a Beis Din, as this is what is expected by those who adhere to Orthodox Jewish law. If Aviva is not given her Get, she is called, in Orthodox Jewish law, an Agunah (chained), which means she is forever chained until such time Aviva is given a Get.

In addition, by Aviva not being given her Get, she is not allowed to move on with her life and have closure. She can not date, or, if she so desires, remarry. It is cruel, inhumane, and against Orthodox Jewish law to withhold a Get.

Bible scroll from Bar Kochba era discovered in Judean Desert

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/298577

 The historic discovery comes 60 years after the last discovery of biblical scrolls in archaeological excavations. In addition to the scroll fragments, the operation uncovered additional extraordinary finds from various periods: a cache of rare coins from the days of Bar-Kokhba, a 6,000 year-old skeleton of a child – likely female, wrapped in a cloth and mummified, and a large complete basket dating back 10,500 years, likely the oldest in the world.

Our German-made Passover seder plates - Mendel Horowitz

 https://www.jns.org/opinion/our-german-made-passover-seder-plates/

To accompany the familiar narrative, on our Passover table, heirlooms link my children tangibly to their past. Incorporating their material objects into our rituals is both an homage to our ancestors’ determination and a prayer for the perpetuation of their faith.

Problematic divorce

 Rav Moshe Sternbuch (1:781): It often happens that the wife goes to secular court and receives a large judgment for maintenance for herself and her children. The husband is not able to pay it so he is forced to make a deal with his wife that he will divorce her and in exchange she forgives him from paying or to reduce what he owes her. So in order to be exempt from the judgment of the secular court which actually the court is stealing from him, he is forced to give her a get. The wife’s lawyer does not allow this exemption without the giving of the get. The wife is therefore forcing her husband to divorce her by using the pressure of the judgment of the secular court which is not in accord with the halacha and thus constitutes theft by the wife.  The pressure to divorce her includes fear of being imprisoned or monetary fines.  The Chazon Ish states that even though the pressure is not explicitly to divorce but since it is pressure to pay something not according to halacha we need to be concerned that the get is not valid.

Advising Against the Use of the International Beit Din: A Translated Letter From Rabbi Hershel Schachter, Shlita

 https://jewishlink.news/features/9425-advising-against-the-use-of-the-international-beit-din-a-translated-letter-from-rabbi-hershel-schachter-shlita

 https://jewishlink.news/features/9425-advising-against-the-use-of-the-international-beit-din-a-translated-letter-from-rabbi-hershel-schachter-shlita

It is a tremendous chutzpah that these three rabbis joined this beit din. Questions of this most serious nature—permitting a woman to remarry without a divorce—were brought to Rav Yitzchak Elchanan, after him to Rav Chaim Ozer and in our time to Rav Moshe Feinstein, all of whom were recognized as the greatest of their generations. It is forbidden for average rabbis to involve themselves in these matters because whoever does not understand the nature of marriages and divorces cannot be involved with them. In our generation, we present these questions to the few Torah scholars who have specialized in these laws and apprenticed under greats, and who therefore have a tradition about where to be lenient and where strict.

I encourage my colleagues and students not to rely on any ruling from this beit din because they have no standing. I heard that one of the judges resigned and I asked the other two to also remove themselves in the future from this bad activity and to inform the public not to rely on the lenient rulings they already issued, since their entire approach is not according to the law.

(Rav) Tzvi (Hershel) Schachter, Tammuz 5775

Can CBD Cure What Ails You?

 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-cbd-cure-what-ails-you/

 Proponents say yes, but scientific studies on the effectiveness of this chemical derived from cannabis are a mixed bag

 Though CBD is legal to sell, the FDA has made it clear that unapproved CBD products cannot be in food, beverages, cosmetics or sold as a dietary supplement; neither can they be marketed with unsubstantiated health claims. CBD can be purchased as oils, tinctures, sprays, creams, capsules, lollipops, chocolates, energy bars, trail mix and gummies, among other things. It can even be vaped. (According to Pam Miles, past president of the Association of Food and Drug Officials, one restaurant chain offered sandwiches infused with CBD as part of a promotion, so you know we’re already there in terms of availability.)

Statement from the ZAKA Search and Rescue Organization

 https://zakaworld.org/statement-from-the-zaka-search-and-rescue-organization-meshi/

The management of the ZAKA Search and Rescue organization, its members and volunteers received with shock and astonishment the testimonies allegedly related to its chairman Yehuda Meshi-Zahav that were published Thursday by Haaretz.

The organization’s management has confidence in the official investigative authorities who will examine in the most professional way those matters that require investigation.

 Out of concern for the holy organization that I built with my two hands and a deep recognition of its essential nature for the fabric of society in our country, I draw the obvious conclusion from this great storm, even when these stories are unfounded, gossip and the settling of scores against me.

 As a first step, I request to relinquish the honor that has been bestowed upon me by the decision to award me the Israel Prize in a sign of recognition for the activities of the organization and for the activities of every single volunteer.

Secondly, the situation in which I find myself, requires me to take time out from my responsibilities as chairman until the cloud has been removed.”

Pentagon fires back after Tucker Carlson mocks women in armed forces

Rambam and showing respect to your opponent

 

There is much comment these days about the need for respectful debates of those you disagree with. "In the old days people were respectful of those with whom they disagreed." Below is the letter the Rambam wrote regarding a psak he disagreed with.

 

 

 

 

Sex offender who fled to Israel extradited to US

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/298403

 A Brooklyn "rabbi" who had fled to Israel in 2010 to escape arrest on charges of sexually assaulting children was arraigned in a Brooklyn courthouse on Thursday.

Gershon Kranczer, 65, had eluded authorities for years in Israel before being arrested in January 2020. He was denied bail in his first US court hearing, which took place a day after Kranczer was extradited from Israel.

Kranczer was the principal of a Brooklyn yeshiva before fleeing to Israel, where he did not immigrate or have a residency permit, amid a criminal investigation in 2010. The US Justice Department asked Israel to extradite Kranczer for years, but Israeli authorities tried and failed to find him until January 2020, when he was arrested.

CBD chocolate and Daas TORAH

 

Accused child molester extradited to NYC after fleeing to Israel in 2010

 https://nypost.com/2021/03/11/accused-child-molester-extradited-to-nyc-after-fleeing-to-israel/

 A Brooklyn man who fled to Israel in 2010 amid accusations of child molestation was extradited back to the Big Apple on Thursday, officials said.

Trump said he knew virus was deadly but still played down crisis: Woodward book

 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-book/trump-said-he-knew-virus-was-deadly-but-still-played-down-crisis-woodward-book-idINKBN2602TR

“The fact is I’m a cheerleader for this country. I love our country and I don’t want people to be frightened,” Trump said at the White House. “We’ve done well from any standard.”

According to the interviews, CNN and The Washington Post reported, Trump knew the virus was dangerous in early February.

“It goes through the air,” Trump said in a recording of a Feb. 7 interview with Woodward. “That’s always tougher than the touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed.

 

 

International beis din

 

"Mamzer" alert!

 

Science and Religion (Part 1)

 https://www.etzion.org.il/en/science-and-religion-part-1

Every scientific discovery which appears to contradict the Torah, in truth, comes to strengthen our religious understanding; "to build upon it the palace of the Torah." This is similar to the idea of the kodesh kodashim being built on top of the kodesh and chol. Scientific discoveries actually contribute to the enhancement of the world of the "beit midrash." Once we have reached the level of kodesh kodashim, and we are comfortable with this principle regarding science, we can then give an honest criticism of scientific ideas. They may not yet be sufficiently developed (as was the case with evolution in Rav Kook's day), they may be inaccurate or primitive or merely incorrect, but in any event our criticism must not stem from feeling attacked by science. As Alfred North Whitehead believed, science leads religious men to better religious understanding. For example, in the past people had a more literal understanding of the statement "God lives in the heavens." However, after scientific discovery revealed the nature of the heavens, the idea is understood in a spiritual sense. His presence is not geographically defined; He is everywhere, but is hidden as if He were "in the heavens."

Lecture #25a: Letter 91 - Torah and Scientific Theories

 https://www.etzion.org.il/en/lecture-25a-letter-91-torah-and-scientific-theories

 It is important to note that a hundred years ago, when the letter was written, the scientific world had not arrived at any convincing answer, other than Darwin's hypothesis, as to how the world as we know it began. The theory of evolution was greeted in the religious world – especially the Christian world – as an atheistic teaching, since it proposed a manner of the world's creation that did not assume any transcendental will and was based on the assumption that our natural world can be understood purely on the basis of its internal processes. Darwin's theory that man was a descendant of apes likewise contradicted the foundations of the religious perception of man – a perception that regarded man as fundamentally different from other natural creations, and therefore maintained that he must have been created separately (and obviously by God).

Dinosaurs and Torah

 https://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/238/Q1/

But doesn't the apparent age of the dinosaurs contradict the Torah? Well, to claim so, one would have to claim to understand what the Torah actually means with its account of Creation. But this raises many matters of interpretation; for example, how do you measure a "day" when the sun is only created on the fourth one? How do you determine the flow of time when it varies depending on how near you are to objects of large gravitational mass? Since we have so little understanding of these matters, how can dinosaurs frighten us?

Far from being frightened by dinosaurs, Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz, author of the Tiferet Yisrael commentary on the Mishna, received the news of fossil discoveries in the nineteenth century with delight. As he had undoubtedly expected, they confirmed everything that we knew all along. He writes:

 

Study on samples from US Haredi Jews casts new light on first days of COVID-19

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/study-on-samples-from-us-haredi-jews-casts-new-light-on-first-days-of-covid-19/

A paper published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, a peer-review journal that is open to the public, concludes that the coronavirus was spreading widely in Orthodox communities across the country last spring around that Jewish holiday — before public health warnings were given about the dangers of large assemblies.

 

Now Israeli citizenship is like a Las Vegas wedding

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/298201

Even Conservative rabbis do not recognize Reform conversions. When I spoke at a Reconstructionist temple’s public panel alongside a Reform rabbi and a Conservative rabbi on the subject of conversion, everyone in the audience expected that a major onslaught would be directed universally at me once I spoke simple truths. But that never happened. Instead, when the Reform rabbi said that he does not require immersion into a mikveh for conversion — or even into a swimming pool or home bath tub (not that either of those last two would have any halakhic consequence at all) — it was the Conservative rabbi who interjected: “My movement would not recognize such a conversion!”

 

‘Worse than Mengele’: Medics reveal antivaxxer threats as union calls for probe

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/worse-than-mengele-medics-reveal-antivaxxer-threats-as-union-calls-for-probe/

The Israeli Medical Association called on Wednesday for a criminal investigation into threats and incitement from antivaxxers against health care professionals working to encourage vaccination.

The statement came the day after the revelations that Prof. Galia Rahav, a member of the Health Ministry panel that has been advising on vaccinations, was receiving threatening messages from antivaxxers.

 

‘שאט נפש, בושה וכלימה’: גינוי חריף לאיומים על פרופ’ גליה רהב

 https://ch10.co.il/news/659613/#.YEihStyxWcw

 

בהודעת משרד הבריאות נאמר בין היתר: “אנו מגנים איומים וגינויים כלפיי צוותי הרפואה והרופאים השוחרים במדע. פרופ’ גליה רהב הסכימה לתת מזמנה הפרטי והיא שותפה בצוות הוועדה המייעצת למשרד הבריאות, בהתנדבות מלאה. אנו מודים לכל חברי הצוות על השתתפותם ומוקירים זאת”.

בהודעה נאמר עוד: “פרט לכך פרופ’ גליה רהב מטפלת במסירות ובמקצועיות באלפי חולים במחלות זיהומיות בכלל ובוודאי במגפת הקורונה והצילה את חייהם של אלפי אנשים”.

במשרד ציינו: “אנו דוחים בשאט נפש את ההודעה המגנה אותה ומשווה אותה לעבר האפל של העולם. זו בושה וכלימה עבור אותם אנשים שבחרו להתבטא ככה.

“בזכות שיתוף הידע והשיח בין המומחים אנו בחזית המאבק בקורונה ותוצאות מבצע החיסונים הן מהטובות בעולם, זאת משתקף בבטיחות ובמועילות החיסון בישראל”.

'Court ruling creates danger of Israel being overrun by fake converts from Africa'

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/298219

 “The real question we have is [how] to prevent fake conversions that could enter the country,” he said in the interview, which was broadcast by the Tel Aviv International Salon. “You know, a lot of people want to come into Israel. In fact, I put up a fence, they call it a wall, but I prevented the overrunning of Israel, which is the only first-world country that you can walk to from Africa. We would have had here already a million illegal migrants from Africa, and the Jewish state would have collapsed.”

Science and Torah Rav Sternbuch

Rav Sternbuch Scienceand Torah by yadmoshe on Scribd

Dr Klafter and Rav SHmuel Kaminetsky regarding SLIFKIN AFFAIR

zootorah.

https://www.imamother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18838

6) Seeing religious leaders who are ohavei yisroel, moser nefesh for fellow Jews, humble, kind, empathic, and able to listen has a deep impact on all Jews, especially young children. When Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky shlit"a came to Cincinnati for a wedding, he spoke at our day school to all the children. My daughter was extremely young at the time, and whenever she hears the name Kamenetsky she immediately and enthusiastically states, "I met him!". This made an impact on her. 

1. 
   

GOOGLEBOOKS
GOOGLEBOOKSBinyamin Klafter, MD

Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry University of Cincinnati College of Medicine 222 Piedmont Ave, Suite 8500

Cincinnati, OH 45219

Phone: (513)475-8710

FAX: (513)475-8023

Email: From: Nachum Binyamin Klafter, MD

To: The Esteemed Rabbi David Feinstein, l'\11tJ'',W [ address removed]

I am writing this letter to Rabbi Feinstein in my capacity as the head of the Education Committee of the Chafetz Chaim-Cincinnati Hebrew Day School, which is a Torah UMesorah affiliated institution. I am also writing personally, as a Jew who takes seriously Rabbi Feinstein's positions in ;,::,1,;, and ;,::ipw;,. (Rabbi Feinstein may not remember me, but he has spoken to me by phone when I was referred to him by Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky for a very complicated ;,1,~w, and with Rabbi Feinstein's po::i we were blessed with another daughter 3 months ago, ';,"J.)

It has come to my attention that Rabbi Feinstein signed a ban on the books of Rabbi Nosson Slifkin which calls upon him to bum his writings and retract publicly the beliefs expressed in his books. The ban characterizes his writings, among other things, as " t:l'l'\'m mrm ;-ii,::,:, '1:11." The ban also forbids the book from being brought into any religious home. The books referred to are The Science of Torah, Mysterious Creatures, and The Camel, the Hare, and the Hyrax. The ban states that Rabbi Slifkin should no longer be allowed to teach Torah or engage in t:rp,ni :in'j?. The ban additionally states that the Torah scholars who signed approbations to his books have retracted their endorsements.

I am familiar with the contents of The Science of Torah, and Mysterious Creatures, but have not yet read the third book mentioned in the ban. Rabbi Slifkin's writings reflect the same teachings and attitudes to which I have been exposed for many years now by my own rabbis regarding statements by 't"m which appear to be contradicted by contemporary scientific knowledge. In addition, some of the ill11j? '11,'j''; staff members of our day school (who are all rmrc r:rpo,~, 1:mw 'N1') share many of these attitudes. I am very concerned that our school faculty and I espouse ideas which Rabbi Feinstein believes are "mrm ;,-,,~:, '1:11."

I am told by several individuals in close contact with the in;, ,,,,,. that the signatories of this ban were shown only excerpts from Rabbi Slifkin's writings, and that none of them read his books in their entirety. It is obviously very easy when dealing with such delicate issues (like, for example, the limitations or fallibility of our sages) to take Rabbi Slifkin' s statements out of context and create an impression that his remarks were derogatory or disrespectful to ?"m. However, the noted Rabbis who have given their m?JJD;-J to Rabbi Slifkin's books all have the impression that Rabbi Slifkin shows tremendous reverence for ?"m and thirst for their teachings. (See, for example, Rabbi Yisroel Belsky's enthusiastic ;-J?JJD;-J to The Camel, The Hare, and the Hyrax, which indicates that he studied the entire book carefully.) Would Rabbi Feinstein consider examining Rabbi Slifkin's books more thoroughly, or meeting with him for clarification about what his beliefs are? As one can imagine, the personal consequences of this ban for Rabbi Slifkin (now branded by this ban as a p?J and ,~,:,) are quite severe.