Knesset rejects Citizenship Law

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309333

The Citizenship Law, which prevents the unification of Palestinian Arab families, did not pass in a vote in the Knesset plenum early Tuesday morning.

59 MKs voted in favor of the law, 59 voted against it and two abstained.

Just before the vote, the coalition turned the vote on the law into a vote of confidence in the government.

Two members of Ra'am, including chairman Mansour Abbas, voted in favor of the law. MK Amichai Chikli (Yamina) voted against.

 

Chief rabbi: Better to live abroad than among secular Israelis

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/BkGcEvlT00 

 Israel's Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef has urged ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora not to move to Israel if it means living in a non-Haredi area with secular Israelis who would have a negative impact on their spiritual life.

Yosef made the comments during his weekly sermon on Saturday night while accompanied by Rabbi Haim Bitan, the visiting chief rabbi of the Tunisian island of Djerba.

Head-Covering IV: How

 https://www.deracheha.org/head-covering-4-how/

 As we have learned, Rav Moshe Feinstein rules that the Torah-level obligation is to cover at least most of the head . That leaves the amount of hair that can be left uncovered undefined.

In order to define how much hair can be left uncovered, Rav Moshe turns to the Talmud’s discussion of hair as erva! This is surprising, because Rav Moshe usually takes care to distinguish between the matter of erva and the obligation to cover one’s head, and does not consider women’s hair nowadays to be erva.¹⁰

Covid Is a Greater Risk to Young People Than the Vaccines

 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/04/opinion/covid-vaccine-kids-risks.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

 But in part because of that lower toll, some parents are on the fence about getting their school-age children and teens vaccinated. As reports of side effects from vaccination emerge, the risks from vaccines can seem greater than those posed by the coronavirus. However, it still makes sense — indeed, it is crucial — to vaccinate young people against Covid-19. This remains true even when we consider the worst possible outcomes from vaccination.

 Some doctors and parents may wonder, why not let teenage boys, who seem to be at the higher risk for myocarditis, wait a few years to be vaccinated,  especially in areas with low case counts? Or why not vaccinate them with one dose?

Lapid fumbles July 4 message with tweet of Liberia flag

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/lapid-fumbles-july-4-message-with-tweet-of-liberia-flag/

 Foreign Minister Yair Lapid made a flag faux pas Sunday when he congratulated the United States on its independence day in a tweet that included the flag of Liberia instead of the Stars and Stripes.

The African nation’s flag resembles the Star-Spangled Banner, with eleven red and white stripes and a white star on a blue square background in the top left corner.

Beit Shemesh mayor fires UTJ, Likud council members for 'damaging' city

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/beit-shemesh-mayor-fires-utj-likud-council-members-for-damaging-city-672882

 Beit Shemesh mayor Aliza Bloch fired six of her council members, all members of United Torah Judaism (UTJ) and the Likud Party, on Sunday.

Bloch, the first female mayor to serve the majority haredi (ultra-Orthodox) town, stated that she fired the six men on the grounds that they failed to pass several important decisions during council meetings, including in the education budget, which prevented money from going towards new study spaces that are needed in several areas of the city, all of them in haredi neighborhoods.

Why Are Gamers So Much Better Than Scientists at Catching Fraud?

 https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/07/gamers-are-better-scientists-catching-fraud/619324/

 Two weeks before Dream’s confession, and halfway around the world, another fraud scandal had just come to a conclusion. Following a long investigation, Japan’s Showa University released a report on one of its anesthesiology researchers, Hironobu Ueshima. Ueshima had turned out to be one of the most prolific scientific frauds in history, having partly or entirely fabricated records and data in at least 84 scientific papers, and altered data and misrepresented authorship on dozens more. Like Dream, Ueshima would eventually come clean and apologize—but only after a data sleuth had spotted strange anomalies in his publications. Many of his papers have already been expunged from the scientific literature.

 But the consequences of ignoring fraud can be drastic too, and whole evidence bases, sometimes for medical treatments, can be polluted by fraudulent studies. The entire purpose of the scientific endeavor is brought into question if its gatekeepers—the reviewers and editors and others who are supposed to be the custodians of scientific probity—are so often presented with evidence of fraud and so often fail to take action.

Operations for greater running speed

 Sanhedrin (21b) The verse continues: “And he prepared for himself chariots and riders and fifty people to run before him” (I Kings 1:5). The Gemara asks: What is the novelty of these actions, since other wealthy people do the same, even if they are not the sons of kings, with designs on the throne? Rav Yehuda says that Rav says: What was unique was that the runners all had their spleens removed and had the soles of their feet hollowed, removing the flesh of their feet, and these two procedures enhanced their speed. 

 Rashi 
נטולי טחול וחקוקי כפות הרגלים - נטולי טחול על ידי סם שהטחול מכבידו לאדם וחקוקי כפות הרגלים אין בשר בפרסותיהם ורצים על הקוצים ועל הברקנין ואינן ניזוקין: 

 

A runner'S - YUTorah

 A Runner’s “quick” fix:
Medical splenectomies in the Torah   Ayelet Bersson - 

The Gemara in Sanhedrin (21B) comments on this pasuk that these specified servants of Adoniya’s had their spleens surgically removed, enabling them to run faster. Rashi further elucidates that the spleen weighs a person down; thus, its removal causes increased speed.
As unusual as the Gemara’s explanation sounds, removal of the spleen to increase speed was actually a common surgical procedure throughout ancient times. In Pliny the Elder’s The Natural History, a Roman encyclopedic work written around 77 AD, Pliny cites an idea that the extirpation of the spleen “renders runners more efficient” [1]. In the Greek culture as well, marathon runners often removed their spleens to increase their chances of winning competitions [2]. Furthermore, there exists an old French saying, “To run as one with his spleen out,” which clearly exhibits the belief that speed is accelerated with the extirpation of one’s spleen [3].
The notion that the spleen plays an inhibiting role in swiftness is not just an obsolete, archaic concept. Twentieth century German physician and scholar, Julius Preuss, followed by Fred Rosner, Yeshiva College graduate and current Assistant Dean and Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, both firmly believe the Gemara’s statement describing the spleen’s adverse effect on speed. Preuss and Rosner both understand the Gemara literally, even within a scientific lens, that Adoniya’s physicians removed the footmen’s spleens in order to increase the soldiers’ speed [1, 4].The Gemara in Sanhedrin (21B) comments on this pasuk that these specified servants of Adoniya’s had their spleens surgically removed, enabling them to run faster. Rashi further elucidates that the spleen weighs a person down; thus, its removal causes increased speed.
As unusual as the Gemara’s explanation sounds, removal of the spleen to increase speed was actually a common surgical procedure throughout ancient times. In Pliny the Elder’s The Natural History, a Roman encyclopedic work written around 77 AD, Pliny cites an idea that the extirpation of the spleen “renders runners more efficient” [1]. In the Greek culture as well, marathon runners often removed their spleens to increase their chances of winning competitions [2]. Furthermore, there exists an old French saying, “To run as one with his spleen out,” which clearly exhibits the belief that speed is accelerated with the extirpation of one’s spleen [3].
The notion that the spleen plays an inhibiting role in swiftness is not just an obsolete, archaic concept. Twentieth century German physician and scholar, Julius Preuss, followed by Fred Rosner, Yeshiva College graduate and current Assistant Dean and Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, both firmly believe the Gemara’s statement describing the spleen’s adverse effect on speed. Preuss and Rosner both understand the Gemara literally, even within a scientific lens, that Adoniya’s physicians removed the footmen’s spleens in order to increase the soldiers’ speed [1, 4].The Gemara in Sanhedrin (21B) comments on this pasuk that these specified servants of Adoniya’s had their spleens surgically removed, enabling them to run faster. Rashi further elucidates that the spleen weighs a person down; thus, its removal causes increased speed.
As unusual as the Gemara’s explanation sounds, removal of the spleen to increase speed was actually a common surgical procedure throughout ancient times. In Pliny the Elder’s The Natural History, a Roman encyclopedic work written around 77 AD, Pliny cites an idea that the extirpation of the spleen “renders runners more efficient” [1]. In the Greek culture as well, marathon runners often removed their spleens to increase their chances of winning competitions [2]. Furthermore, there exists an old French saying, “To run as one with his spleen out,” which clearly exhibits the belief that speed is accelerated with the extirpation of one’s spleen [3].
The notion that the spleen plays an inhibiting role in swiftness is not just an obsolete, archaic concept. Twentieth century German physician and scholar, Julius Preuss, followed by Fred Rosner, Yeshiva College graduate and current Assistant Dean and Professor of Medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, both firmly believe the Gemara’s statement describing the spleen’s adverse effect on speed. Preuss and Rosner both understand the Gemara literally, even within a scientific lens, that Adoniya’s physicians removed the footmen’s spleens in order to increase the soldiers’ speed [1, 4].Preuss’s belief that the spleen inhibits swiftness was eventually eventually tested in 1922 by Jewish pharmacologist, David Macht. Macht, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, (and at Yeshiva College for a brief time), firmly believes in the synchronization of scientific discoveries with Torah and Talmudic ideas. Having read this Gemara, Macht decided to investigate the Talmud’s claim, and devised an experiment to research the correlation between medical splenectomies and speed. He trained fifty rats to walk across a thin rope, hypothesizing that the extirpation of the spleen would increase their speed and muscle coordination. Macht then splenectomized thirty rats, leaving twenty as his controls. As hypothesized, the average time to cross the rope decreased from 6.8 seconds to 4.6 seconds, signifying a correlation between spleen removal and advanced speed and muscle integration [3].
While Macht’s experiment attests to the ancient understanding of the spleen as an impediment to one’s speed, a major pragmatic question arises. How could a complicated surgery, that had a twenty-eight percent mortality rate even in the early twentieth century, have been performed so successfully with such a high survival rate before the discovery of antibiotics and modern surgical technology [2]?
One plausible resolution to this question is in Rambam’s twelfth century medical writings, where he states that the dangerous splenectomies were never performed in King David’s time. Instead, Rambam insists that Adoniya’s soldiers were given herbal drugs that shrunk their spleens, thereby decreasing the inhibiting weight [2].

Hundreds of protesters call for Abbas to resign over death of PA critic

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/hundreds-of-protesters-call-for-abbas-to-resign-over-death-of-pa-critic/

Hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators called for an end to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s 16-year reign on Saturday in the latest demonstration sparked by the death of PA critic Nizar Banat.

“Abbas, dissolve the PA, and get out of our way!” protesters called as they wound their way through Ramallah’s downtown.

As the protest heated up, hundreds of demonstrators began calling “the people want the fall of the regime” and “leave,” slogans associated with the 2011 Arab revolutions.

 The rally was part of a series of protests ignited by the death of Banat, a prominent opponent of the PA, while in the custody of Palestinian security forces last month. The demonstrations had paused following a harsh crackdown by PA security forces early last week.

RISING SMOKE: After 10.3M acres burned in US last year, West's 2021 fire season outlook uncertain

 https://www.foxnews.com/science/rising-smoke-after-10-3-million-acres-burned-in-us-last-year-wests-2021-fire-season-outlook-uncertain

 In a recent report, scientists at NOAA and NASA announced they had determined that the planet’s atmosphere has been trapping an "unprecedented" amount of heat, with the planet's energy imbalance approximately doubling from 2005 to 2019. 

Increases in greenhouse gases emitted, such as carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat in the atmosphere and capture outgoing radiation. The increasing imbalance is also due to increases in water vapor and decreases in clouds and sea ice.

In its National Climate Assessment, NOAA wrote that the fact the Earth’s climate is changing is "apparent across the United States in a wide range of observations."

"The global warming of the past 50 years is primarily due to human activities, predominantly the burning of fossil fuels," the agency said, noting "stronger evidence confirms" that an increase in extreme weather and climate events are related to human activities.

Unprecedented heat, hundreds dead and a town destroyed. Climate change is frying the Northern Hemisphere

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/04/world/canada-us-heatwave-northern-hemisphere-climate-change-cmd-intl/index.html

 Scientists have warned for decades that climate change will make heat waves more frequent and more intense. That is a reality now playing out in Canada, but also in many other parts of the northern hemisphere that are increasingly becoming uninhabitable.

Roads melted this week in America's northwest, and residents in New York City were told not to use high-energy appliances, like washers and dryers — and painfully, even their air conditioners — for the sake of the power grid.

In Russia, Moscow reported its highest-ever June temperature of 34.8 degrees on June 23, and Siberian farmers are scrambling to save their crops from dying in an ongoing heat wave. Even in the Arctic Circle, temperatures soared into the 30s. The World Meteorological Organization is seeking to verify the highest-ever temperature north of the Arctic Circle since records there began, after a weather station in Siberia's Verkhoyansk recorded a 38-degree day on June 20

Jerusalem wig shop vandalizer busted

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309194

 Police detectives conducted an operation on Friday after a number of cases in the past month during which businesses selling wigs in Jerusalem were damaged.

Police officers were waiting at one of the businesses for the suspect, who arrived at the scene armed with a hammer and spray paint and broke down the business door.

As he began to damage the store he was caught in the act and arrested.

At the end of his interrogation, the court approved extending his detention by four days

 

Cop’s life saved by a rock to the head — and the tumor it revealed

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/cops-life-saved-by-a-rock-to-the-head-and-the-tumor-it-revealed/

 For policeman Barak Daddon, getting hit in the head by a rock during a Jerusalem funeral may have been the best thing that ever happened to him.

Daddon, a superintendent, was commanding police forces securing a Haredi funeral in the capital some six months ago, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.

Clashes erupted between the masses that took part in the event and police officers attempting to uphold restrictions on gatherings, and Daddon was hit in the head with a rock, sending him to the hospital.

 

Women in the Modern Military: A Second Look

 https://www.jewishideas.org/article/women-modern-military-second-look

 One of the most contentious religious issues to roil Israeli society ever since the creation of the State has been the role of women in national service in general and in the military in particular. Israel was one of the first states to draft women into the military; the government gave religious young women the option of entering national service.  Haredi authorities considered even national service as a most serious violation of halacha, indeed an outright sin. R. Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz, the undisputed leader Israel’s Ashkenazi Haredi community when the state was proclaimed (he is generally known by the title of his best known writings as Chazon Ish), was unequivocal in his opposition. He asserted that national service was the virtual equivalent of adultery, idolatry and murder, three sins which Jews are mandated to resist even at the cost of their lives (yehareg ve’al ya’avor).[1] Needless to say, military service was totally out of the question as well. Indeed, R. Zvi Pesach Frank, the head of Haredi Beit Din and Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem for 36 years until his passing in 1961, explicitly stated that the drafting of women into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was a gzerat shmad, a decree compelling Jews to abandon their faith for another.[2]  Such hyperbolic statements reflect the depth of opposition that the Haredi leadership[3]evinced toward the policy of drafting women into the military.

 It is doubtful that the ongoing changes in both the means by which war is fought, and the treatment of women in the military, will have the slightest effect on many Haredi decisors. Their opinions regarding the intermingling of the sexes has hardened in recent years; and neither the evolution of combat operations, nor any regulations adopted either by non-Jewish militaries, or the IDF, will convince them to moderate their views. On the other hand, these changes may further moderate the views of those decisors who have chosen to address in constructive manner the issues of female membership in the military; the military occupational specialties (MOS) they might assume; and the commands to which they could ascend, whether in Israel, the United States, or other freedom-loving democracies.

Drafting Women for the Army and national service

Drafting Women for the Army
Rabbi Alfred  Cohen
https://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/735795/rabbi-alfred-cohen/drafting-women-for-the-army 

 Although we usually think of halacha - the study of Jewish law - as a dry, academic discipline, it is really a mistake to think of it in those terms. Halacha has a dynamic all its own; it is impossible to rule on a halachic matter from a distance, on a theoretical plane.

The halacha reflects much more than a choice between two intellectual alternatives; at certain times, it demands that the pasek, the rabbinic authority, consider the proposed action in the context of the times and the implications it might have for society. The Chazon Ish chose not to approach the question of a woman's going to war in the academic fashion that the topic had been discussed by scholars for some two thousand years. Nor did he dissect the problem into specific legal questions - may a woman bear arms, is it a mitzvah for a woman to fight for the Land of Israel, are there wars where she should be included, etc. On the contrary, the Chazon Ish saw the matter entirely as an issue of morality going to the very heart of Judaism. In a letter to a colleague, his brother-in-law Rav Yaakov Koniefsky reported that the Chazon Ish had declared that if the law were indeed passed, it was the duty of every Jew to resist unto death - literally. For him it represented an encroachment upon the prohibition of "Arayof" - immorality and licentiousness - which is one of the three mitzyot for which a Jew must choose death rather than transgress. Rav Koniefsky also writes that the Chazon Ish, the Brisker Rav, and the Tchebiner Rav all concurred that if the measure became law, every family with·a draft-age daughter would have to leave the country! So strong were they in opposing the danger that they equally opposed a similar plan to draft girls not for the army but for some alternate National Service.

They left no doubt as to the cause for their opposition - the army in any country. and Israel is no different, is a place where moral standards are relaxed. to say the least, and it was just not the proper environment for a Jewish daughter, Against their will, the girls would be affected by the atmosphere and the environment to which they would be exposed, a milieu which would replace the positive reinforcement they would have gotten at home from parents and family.
Rabbis Isser Zalman Meltzer and Tzvi Pesach Frank also issued pronouncements that a person must choose death rather than accede to the government decree, as did the Steipler Rav and Rav Shach. When another rabbi suggested that perhaps it would not be so terrible if the girls served under carefully supervised conditions, the Chazon Ish retorted that the rabbi's opinion was totally worthless and, had he had any children, he would not have been able to say something like that The Chazon Ish actually ruled that the Sabbath should be desecrated to avoid compliance with a draft order and urged parents and teachers to inculcate young women with the laws of dying "al kiddush Hashem;' in sanctification of the Name.

Sephardic Chief Rabbi: Women in the army? Only to cook and do laundry

 https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4891186,00.html

 Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef says women serving in the IDF is 'not the way of the Torah,' further determining that women should not do national service either; he claims his father Rabbi Ovadia Yosef 'died of the sorrow he felt over the drafting of yeshiva students' just as Chazon Ish, a religious leader in Israel’s early days, might have 'died of the sorrow this holy struggle against the enlistment of women caused him.'

Can Women Serve In The IDF According To Halacha?

 https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/interviews-and-profiles/can-women-serve-in-the-idf-according-to-halacha/2019/09/19/

Many assume that leading rabbis in the Religious Zionist camp support women enlisting in the IDF.

They are mistaken. Every leading Religious Zionist Torah authority forbids young religious women from enlisting in the army. Rav Shlomo Aviner has stated that women are not permitted to serve in the army just like they are not permitted to violate Shabbat.

Some people claim that Rabbi Shlomo Goren, of blessed memory, the first chief rabbi of Tzahal, permitted the enlistment of female soldiers, but he did so only in specific individual cases. Every other chief rabbi of Israel prohibited women from enlisting in the military. Outside of rabbis in the liberal camp of Religious Zionism – who are famous for expressing opinions contrary to the accepted halacha – the rabbinic opposition to women in the military is almost unanimous.

Historians ranked all the presidents. See where they have Trump

It's time Ilhan Omar and "the Squad" learned the truth about Israel and Hamas

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309061

U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" Tuesday, and was asked by host Jake Tapper about her long record of virulently anti-Israel comments (which included her comparison earlier this month of Israel to Hamas) and why some of her Jewish congressional colleagues had called her out for again issuing anti-Semitic tropes.

As Omar has done so many times in the past, she blamed her critics rather than take responsibility. "I've welcomed any time my colleagues asked to have a conversation to learn from them [and] for them to learn from me," said Omar, D-Minn. "I think it's really important for these members to realize that they haven't been partners in justice."

I'm a Palestinian Arab who grew up in a UNWRA refugee camp outside of Jerusalem, and been a human rights activist all my life. Let me say this as directly as I can: Rep. Omar does not know what she is talking about. Worse, for years, Rep. Omar has been engaged in not arguing any facts, but simply throwing out dirty anti-Semitic epithets, a mirror image of the anti-Semitism by "white supremacists" she claims to decry.

 

In first, rabbinical court rules lawyers of get refusers can be sanctioned

 https://www.jpost.com/judaism/in-first-rabbinical-court-rules-lawyers-of-get-refusers-can-be-sanctioned-672519

 Lawyers who act to prevent the giving of a get (Jewish divorce document) and harm divorce proceedings can be slapped with sanctions, the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court ruled in a groundbreaking decision earlier this week.

Av Beth Din Rabbi Meir Freeman, along with Rabbi David Berdugo and Rabbi Yitzhak Rabinowitz, issued the ruling after a husband who refused to give his wife a get stated that he was not opposed to issuing the divorce, but was doing so because his attorney had advised him to in order to benefit in financial negotiations against his wife.

Knesset approves law permitting IDF to revoke girls' exemptions

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309069

 According to the letter of the law, any girl who reaches draft age and signs a declaration that she eats only kosher food and does not travel on Shabbat, is entitled to an exemption from IDF service. In October, 2020, legislation was passed entitling the IDF to challenge such declarations and even revoke them, and on Wednesday, the Knesset passed, in its first reading, an extension of three years to this law, with 55
“What did the Chief Rabbinate – the halakhic authority of the State of Israel – have to say on this issue of drafting girls into the IDF?” demanded MK Moshe Gafni? “The Rabbinate stated that it is absolutely forbidden. Why are you bringing this law to a vote now? What for? You really want to go into minute detail about whether a girl made Kiddush on Shabbat, whether she’s really traditional? Is this a democratic state? This is forbidden, yehareg ve’al ya’avor [a sin that one is forbidden to commit even if one must give up his life due to refusal to submit] … This law goes against the decisions of all the rabbis of Israel.”
MKs voting in favor and 50 against.

MK Yisrael Eichler (UTJ) asked his fellow Knesset members to “imagine to yourselves that the Rabbinate got up one day and announced that it was establishing committees of inquiry to investigate the level of religious observance of this person or that. You would be up in arms, screaming that it was an Inquisition,” he accused. “But now, when it’s the Defense Ministry doing that, checking up on girls to see whether they really know Jewish laws, whether they really are traditional, you’re fine with it … The law requires only a declaration that the girl in question does not travel on Shabbat and that she eats kosher food. She doesn’t need to know the entire body of Jewish law. What these committees are trying to do is coerce these girls to enlist.”

 

Democracies Don’t Try to Make Everyone Agree

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/milley-critical-race-theory-marxism-racism-fox-news/619308/

 I’ve read Karl Marx. I’ve read Lenin. That doesn’t make me a Communist.”

— General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking to the House Armed Services Committee last Thursday

“He’s not just a pig—he’s stupid.”

— Tucker Carlson, Fox News television host, describing Milley

 

Former Democratic Congresswoman claims Jews caused 9/11 on Twitter

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/former-democratic-congresswoman-claims-jews-caused-911-on-twitter-672338 

 Former Democratic Congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney tweeted a dangerously antisemitic trope on Monday afternoon, accusing the Jews of being behind the 9/11 bombings.

This tweet has since been removed for violating Twitter rules. 

 

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_McKinney

 Other factors in her defeat were her allegations of Bush's involvement in 9/11,^[28][38] her opposition to aid to Israel, a perceived support of Palestinian and Arab causes, and alleged antisemitism in her comments.^{[39][40][41][42]} On the night before the primary election, McKinney's father stated on Atlanta television that "Jews have bought everybody. Jews. J-E-W-S."^[28] Cynthia McKinney had been through a long contentious relationship with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).^[43] Georgia political analyst Bill Shipp addressed McKinney's defeat saying: "voters sent a message: 'We're tired of these over-the-top congressmen dealing in great international and national interests. How about somebody looking out for our interests?'"^[44]

 

 

She is a well known nut and conspiracy theorist who was defeated for reelection

After Israel controversies, Omar says some colleagues ‘not partners in justice’

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-israel-controversies-omar-says-some-colleagues-not-partners-in-justice/

 US Representative Ilhan Omar on Tuesday said some of her fellow Democratic House members — specifically those who have criticized remarks she has made about Israel, some of them Jewish — “haven’t been partners in justice.”

In an interview with CNN, Omar was asked about some of her past comments that were critical of the Jewish state, including a 2012 tweet in which she claimed Israel “hypnotized the world” and another from 2019 implying Jewish money explained American elected officials’ support for Israel. Anchor Jake Tapper asked Omar if she could understand why House Democrats, and particularly Jews, would consider such remarks antisemitic.

Bill Cosby is a free man after Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturns sex assault conviction

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/30/us/bill-cosby-to-be-released/index.html

The panel of Pennsylvania State Supreme Court judges said in their opinion that the former Montgomery County district attorney's decision to not prosecute Cosby in 2005 in return for his deposition in a civil case was ultimately used against him at trial, the judges said.
"In light of these circumstances, the subsequent decision by successor D.A.s to prosecute Cosby violated Cosby's due process rights," the judges wrote.

 

Dov Hikind: Why won't Dem leaders denounce Ilhan Omar?

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309037

 In response to a Tuesday CNN interview in which Minnesota Democratic rep. Ilhan Omar doubled down on a controversial comment comparing Israel and the United States to the Taliban and Hamas, Jewish activist Dov Hikind took to social media to voice his outrage.

"Ilhan, the criticism you’re receiving is NOT about being a woman; NOT about being a Muslim; NOT about skin color. IT IS about the hate emanating from your mouth continuously!” he tweeted. “And the Dem leadership that’s enabled you to spew ignorant vitriol that fuels anti-Jewish violence!”

Plurality of QAnon followers think Jews plotting to rule the world

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/rylUb6u2O 

A recent survey reveals that almost half of all supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory believe that Jews around the world are using liberalism to undermine institutions and gain world domination.

The fringe theory is centered on the belief that former U.S. president Donald Trump is waging a secret campaign against enemies in the “deep state” and a devil-worshiping child sex trafficking ring.

ליצמן: בנט שיקר לי, לא אלחץ לו יד - הוא רפורמי כמו קריב

 https://www.kikar.co.il/395449.html

 טעיתי, טעיתי בזה שבנט נתן לי יד שעוד פעם הוא יעשה את הטעות הזאת שילך עם לפיד, כך הוא אמר לי, אני הראשון שהלכתי איתו בזמן שאחרים לא. אני חושב שזו בושה וחרפה לשבת בקואליציה שכזו.

"אני לא חושב שמה שאסור לחטוא בפומבי - מותר לחטוא בסוד, מה שאסור לחטוא אסור לחוט, לא בפומבי ולא בשקט".

Police, Palestinians clash as Israel demolishes East Jerusalem shop

 https://www.ynetnews.com/article/B1n5d9d300

 Israel demolished a Palestinian shop in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan on Tuesday, triggering scuffles between police and protesters who accused authorities of discriminatory enforcement of building permits in the holy city.

The shop was razed to make way for a national park to connect the City of David to Jewish heritage sites in Silwan. 

 

The municipality had given Palestinians until June 28 to dismantle the structures themselves.

Israel’s COVID vaccination rate soars again as teens flock to shot centers

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-covid-vaccination-rate-soars-again-as-teens-flock-to-shot-centers/ 

 The number of adolescent getting vaccinated against the coronavirus has risen sharply in recent days, raising hopes that a large portion of the country’s minors eligible for shots will be protected against COVID-19 in coming weeks.

As of Tuesday morning, nearly 32 percent of Israelis in the 10-19 age bracket had received at least one dose of the vaccine, up from around 23% a week earlier, Health Ministry data showed.

Authorities launched a renewed drive to vaccinate teens aged 12 to 15 last week, responding to mounting numbers of new cases, many of them attributed to the fast-spreading Delta variant of the virus.

Daycare assistant reported abuse - and got a criminal record

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/308992

 Or Yahya, the daycare assistant who exposed the abuse by daycare operator Carmel Mauda, worked for over two weeks with Mauda at the "Baby Love" center in Rosh Ha'ayin. During that time, she was exposed to severe instances of child abuse, and she recorded Mauda, went to the police, told the investigators what was happening, and even reported that the daycare had closed-circuit cameras which recorded the events.

The investigators found the horrific footage, and Yahya testified in Mauda's trial, helping the judges convict her. She also testified in the trial of daycare assistant Liraz Natan, who was also convicted.

Israel Hayom discovered that despite her report of the abuse at the daycare center and her testimonies in court, the Prosecutor's Office ordered the police to interrogate Yahya under warning, on suspicion that she was guilty of not reporting. Recently, the case against her was closed, but not due to lack of guilt, which would have allowed her to request its erasure. Instead, the case against Yahya was closed due to lack of public interest, leaving her with a criminal record which may influence her job prospects in the future, certainly if she wishes to work with children

Israel digs in heels on Gaza, demands captives' release

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/rivlin-gaza-rehabilitation-must-be-linked-to-israeli-captive-release-672344

In three high-level meetings this week, Israel has insisted on linking the rehabilitation of Gaza with the return by Hamas of the remains of two soldiers and the release of two captives.

President Reuven Rivlin raised the matter with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday in New York and with US President Joe Biden on Monday in Washington.

On Sunday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett raised the matter during his first phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi since taking office earlier this month.

 

Chief Rabbi Yosef: Science, math are nonsense, study in yeshiva instead

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/chief-rabbi-yosef-science-math-are-nonsense-study-in-yeshiva-instead-672378

Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef described Israel’s school core curriculum studies program as “nonsense” and said pupils should study in yeshivas instead where only religious studies are taught.

Yosef’s comments sparked criticism toward the Sephardi chief rabbi, who was accused of promoting dependence on government handouts and charitable donations instead of advancing self-reliance.

“There is nothing like the holy Torah, the Torah is above everything,” said Yosef in a recent synagogue address, first reported by the Kikar Shabbat news website.

“If a pupil is asked where do you want to go, a yeshiva high school [where religious studies are taught together with the core curriculum] or a holy yeshiva, there is no doubt, a holy yeshiva, there is no doubt,” declared the chief rabbi.

Pfizer, Moderna COVID vaccines produce ‘long-lasting’ immune response — study

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/pfizer-moderna-covid-vaccines-produce-long-lasting-immune-response-study/

The Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna coronavirus vaccines produce a continuing immune response, a study has found, indicating that they offer long-lasting protection against COVID-19.

 The study, published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, found that the vaccines “induce persistent” production of antibodies “enabling the generation of robust humoral immunity.”

In addition, the vaccines were found to produce high levels of antibodies against three known variants of the coronavirus, including the Beta variant first detected in South Africa. There was an even stronger antibody response to the variants among those who were vaccinated after already previously being infected with COVID-19.

Supreme Court Declines to Hear School Bathroom Policy Case in Win for Transgender Man

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2021-06-28/supreme-court-declines-to-hear-school-bathroom-policy-case-in-win-for-transgender-man

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a case over the right of a transgender man to use the school bathroom that aligned with his gender identity, handing a win to Gavin Grimm, the man at the center of the case, and ending his yearslong legal fight over the issue.

Grimm sued Virginia's Gloucester County School Board in 2015 after it enacted a policy barring him from using the men's restroom at the high school he attended and instead offered only the option of using a single-stall bathroom. Last August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled 2-1 that the school board had engaged in sex-based discrimination and violated the 14th Amendment.

 

Ultra-Orthodox rabbinic leadership: 12-year-olds must get vaccinated

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/ultra-orthodox-rabbinic-leadership-12-year-olds-must-get-vaccinated-672341

Two of the most senior rabbis in the ultra-Orthodox world, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, have called for all children 12-years-old and over to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

 

Yeshiva teacher suspected of sexually blackmailing his teenage students

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/yeshiva-teacher-suspected-of-sexually-blackmailing-his-teenage-students

Police say they have arrested a teacher at a Chabad yeshiva in central Israel on suspicion that he sexually blackmailed male students aged 14-15 using the Hangouts messaging app.

The teacher allegedly contacted the boys, presented himself as a fellow teenager, and after a while asked them for nude photos and sexually explicit videos, sometimes in exchange for money. He then threatened to publish the footage if they didn’t send him more material.

The suspect was arrested on June 16 and has been in custody ever since. He is accused of molesting a minor, blackmail and possession of obscene material.

 

At Home With... Rabbi Bulka

The WHO did not reverse its position on kids and COVID-19 vaccines

 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jun/24/facebook-posts/who-did-not-reverse-its-position-kids-and-covid-19/

 If Your Time is short

• Social media posts falsely claimed that the World Health Organization recently reversed its policy and said children shouldn’t be vaccinated against COVID-19.
• The posts were referencing an actual WHO webpage, but the guidance was originally posted on April 8 and reflected the organization's stance that vaccine supply is limited in some countries and children shouldn’t be prioritized over other high-risk groups because COVID-19 disease is milder in kids.
• The WHO updated the guidance for children on its webpage on June 23 based on a recent scientific advisory meeting in which the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was found to be safe for those ages 12 and up.

COVID: Was Israel wrong not to vaccinate children ages 12-15 right away?

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/covid-did-israel-screw-up-not-vaccinating-children-ages-12-15-right-away-672203

 Also on Sunday, the Israeli Pediatric Society published a new position paper reiterating their support for the vaccine, and addressing the issue of possible side effects.

Prof. Tzachi Grossman, the head of the organization, and its colleagues wrote that the risk for a child to develop a severe form of COVID if infected – which stands at 1:3000 – outweighs that of developing a myocarditis – which according to US data for ages 12-17 stands at 1:16,000 (according to Israeli data for the age group 16-19, the occurrence was 1:6,000).

COVID-19 Vaccine: What Parents Need to Know

 https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid19-vaccine-what-parents-need-to-know

 Should I consider getting my child vaccinated for COVID-19?

Yes. Although COVID-19 in children is usually milder than in adults, some kids can get very sick and have complications or long-lasting symptoms that affect their health and well-being. The virus can cause death in children although this is rarer than for adults.

Honig: Don't buy Bill Barr's latest story about the Big Lie

 https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/28/opinions/bill-bar-election-fraud-big-lie-honig/index.html

 Barr spoke to the Atlantic about his post-election turnabout, which culminated in his December 1, 2020, public statement to the Associated Press that "to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election." Barr tells of how he stood up to Trump, invoking Trump's wrath during the frantic post-election weeks when Trump tried desperately to overturn the election's results.

But Barr conveniently omits the crucial fact that, for months before his endgame turnabout, he had been relentlessly parroting and amplifying Trump's most dangerous lies about election fraud throughout the runup to the November 2020 election.

Inside William Barr’s Breakup With Trump

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/06/william-barrs-trump-administration-attorney-general/619298/ 

 Donald Trump is a man consumed with grievance against people he believes have betrayed him, but few betrayals have enraged him more than what his attorney general did to him. To Trump, the unkindest cut of all was when William Barr stepped forward and declared that there had been no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, just as the president was trying to overturn Joe Biden’s victory by claiming that the election had been stolen.

Theodor Herzl vs. Rabbi Kook

 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/theodor-herzl-vs-rabbi-kook-610614

The notion that there is an intrinsic contradiction between Theodor Herzl’s Zionism and that of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, first chief rabbi of Israel, is prevalent in many national-religious circles. Indeed, Rabbi Benny Lau asserts in “Statehood and spirit” (Magazine, August 30): 

McCaffrey Blasts 'Terrible' FOX News Attacks On Gen. Milley

Bennet and his Arab "supporters"

 https://mishpacha.com/southern-squatters/

But there is an additional price to be paid. To grasp the real total that Naftali Bennett paid for Ra’am’s political support, you need to take a trip south to the Negev Desert, where vast areas have been swallowed in recent years by illegal Bedouin building. Aside from chairmanship of the Knesset’s Interior Committee and of the Arab Affairs Committee, Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas secured a clause stipulating the legalization of three Bedouin villages in the Negev as well as a review of the status of 11 others.

Schumer Intervening in Fixsler Case

 https://hamodia.com/2021/06/25/schumer-intervening-fixsler-case/

 U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer is intervening in the case of Alta Fixsler, a brain-damaged, 2-year-old Jewish girl in the U.K. at risk of being removed from life support by a hospital in Manchester against her family’s will.

Alta’s family has waged a battle to keep his daughter alive. Her mother is an Israeli citizen, and her father an American. If Alta is unable to remain on life support in the U.K., the family is hoping to at least be able transport her to Israel or America for treatment.

Jewish activists have been working on getting the Israeli and U.S. governments involved in the case, to either pressure the British to keep Alta on life support or transport her to one of those countries.

 

Can Vitamin D Help Protect against COVID?

 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-vitamin-d-help-protect-against-covid/

 Given the results of Neale’s large-scale study and the modest benefits found in Martineau’s latest meta-analysis, it seems unlikely that vitamin D will prove to be a critical ingredient in fending off COVID-19 or modulating its severity. But these and other new trials may find it is useful in certain doses for certain populations. As Neale points out, “there is data that is suggestive” and enough smoke to indicate that you don’t want to be vitamin-D-deficient in a pandemic.

NYC mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa said Orthodox Jews are trying to take over the city

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/308717

 Video from 2018 surfaced this week of Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor of New York City, describing Orthodox Jews as a drag on the tax system.

“We’re not talking about poor, impoverished, disabled people who need help, we’re talking about able-bodied men who study Torah and Talmud all day and we subsidize them,” Sliwa says in the video. “And then all they do is make babies like there’s no tomorrow and who’s subsidizing that? We are.

“So are we the shmucks and putzes? Yes.”

Same-sex marriage in New York: A milestone a decade in the making

 https://www.lohud.com/story/news/2021/06/23/gay-marriage-ny-decade-later-same-sex-lgbtq-rights/7604811002/

 Marriage equality is one of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s earliest achievements, arriving at the end of the first legislative session of his first term, on June 24, 2011. Cuomo brokered the passage, convincing four Republican senators to cast votes of conscience to pass the bill.

The vote was a nail-biter. Not until Sen. Stephen Saland, R-Poughkeepsie, rose and gave his support was passage assured.