Monday, June 24, 2019

Why You Shouldn’t Love Your Kids More Than Your Partner

https://time.com/5586397/loving-your-spouse/

Parents’ love for their children can make them do peculiar things. Like staying up until 1 a.m. gluing glitter on a second-grade class project. Or driving 40 miles to deliver a single soccer cleat. Or, perhaps, bribing their teenagers’ way into a fancy college. But one of the weirdest things parents do is love their children more than their partners.
Before you call child services, let me be clear: Of course you have to love your kids. Of course you have to put their needs first. But doing so is also a no-brainer. Children, with their urgent and often tricky-to-ascertain needs, easily attract devotion. Spouses don’t need to be fed and dressed or have their tears dried and are nowhere near as cute. Loving your kids is like going to school–you don’t really have a choice. Loving your spouse is like going to college–it’s up to you to show up and participate

Jared Kushner’s Palestinian peace plan reads like a real estate developer’s brochure

https://qz.com/1650724/kushners-palestinian-peace-plan-resembles-real-estate-brochure/

The plan is premised on three tenets: “Unleashing economic potential, empowering the Palestinian people, and enhancing Palestinian governance.” It’s replete with buzzwords, charts, and tables. It promises investments in private enterprise, education, health care, and government in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. It features images of happy Palestinians, with minimal mention of Israel and no discussion of the state of Palestine.

Shockingly, it contains no political solution to the problem Kushner was tasked with solving. It doesn’t address the famously difficult questions that have doomed other peace proposals, like the status of the city of Jerusalem or Palestinians’ right of return. There’s no talk of what might be done with Israeli settlements in occupied territories, nor any discussion of borders at all. What it offers is a carrot and a warning:

Donald Trump, again, falsely says Obama had family separation policy

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/jun/21/donald-trump/donald-trump-again-falsely-says-obama-had-family-s/


Our ruling
Trump said, "When I became president, President Obama had a separation policy. I didn’t have it. He had it."
The Obama administration did not have a policy to separate families arriving illegally at the border. Family separations rarely happened under the Obama administration, which sought to keep families together in detention. Then, based on a court decision, it released families together out of detention.
Separations under Trump happened systematically as a result of his administration’s policy to prosecute all adults crossing the border illegally. After mounting public pressure and criticism, Trump signed an executive order to stop separating families. Around 2,800 children have been reunited with their families because a court ordered the Trump administration to do so.
Trump repeatedly attempts to change the narrative about family separations, but the facts remain the same. Obama did not pass down to Trump a policy to separate families.
Trump’s claim is inaccurate. We rate it False.

Sunday, June 23, 2019

CHIMEN ABRAMSKY’S HOUSE OF TWENTY THOUSAND BOOKS

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/189017/chimen-abramsky

The narrative of the heretical son and the pious father engaged in a titanic patricidal clash on behalf of tradition and modernity is a stock cliché of Jewish storytelling. Yet the case of the Abramskys, the gap between the arch-conservative rabbi father and the eminent radical son was clearly in a league of its own. Chimen’s father Yehezkel Abramsky was a savant of Torah scholarship in his native Belarus. The scion of a grand rabbinical line, he was possessed of a photographic memory, incredible powers of memorization (which he bequeathed to his bibliographer son) and a genius for biblical exegesis. Groomed from childhood for a major career in the Litvak Orthodox world, he became a rabbi at the age of 17. Yehezkel, was also actively outspoken in his anti-Communism. For this crime he was prevented by the Soviet authorities from taking up a rabbinic post offered to him in late-1920s Palestine. Assuming the editorship of an anti-Communist journal got him arrested and sentenced to five years in a Siberian labor camp.

Trump: I didn't call Iran strike back, I just stopped it for now

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/264952

On Thursday night, it was revealed that Trump had approved military strikes against Iran in retaliation for downing an American surveillance drone, but pulled back from launching them.
On Friday, the president tweeted that he was "cocked and loaded" to strike several targets in Iran but deemed the loss of life would be disproportionate to the downing of an unmanned US drone.
Earlier on Saturday, Trump announced that he would impose new sanctions on Iran on Monday.

White House Unveils $50 Billion Economic Plan for Palestine Amid Doubts

https://time.com/5612756/white-house-50-billion-palestinian-plan/

Palestinian leaders, angered by what they and their supporters see as blatant U.S. bias toward Israel, want nothing to do with the workshop and will not participate. The Palestinians have called for mass demonstrations against the conference on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
“The plan cannot pass because it ends the Palestinian cause,” Abbas said on Saturday. “We are not going to attend this workshop, the reason is that the economic situation should not be discussed before a political situation, so long as there is no political situation, we do not deal with any economic situation.”
Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh said a “political horizon” is essential for any Palestinian cooperation. “Our cause is a political one and should be dealt with as such. It is a strategic mistake and the American administration is committing daily mistakes against the Palestinian people. Without Palestinian approval, there is no value to any meeting, and without a political horizon, no one will deal with any effort. This conference was born dead just like the deal of the century.”
In Gaza, the rival Hamas militant group has also condemned the conference. “In one voice, we say no to the Manama workshop and the deal of the century,” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said. He appealed to Bahrain’s king to “take a brave, strong, authentic Arab decision not to host this workshop” and called on Arab countries to cancel their planned participation.
Complicating the Bahrain meeting is the fact that it coincides with a pledging conference in New York for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, a 70-year-old institution that the Trump administration has defunded and wants to eliminate entirely. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, already provides health, education and other services to millions of Palestinians.
Its supporters suspect the administration purposely scheduled the Bahrain conference to conflict with its event, noting that Kushner’s peace plan partner Jason Greenblatt has publicly called for UNRWA’s dissolution. Greenblatt argued last month that the agency perpetuates Palestinian victimhood, abets anti-Israel sentiment and is an inefficient drain on funds that could be better directed.
Regardless of American intent, the dueling meetings are likely to leave donors, particularly European nations, in an awkward position: torn between supporting an established international organization or a mystery concept being put together by a U.S. administration that has in two years reversed a half-century of American Middle East policy.
Since Trump took office, he has recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moving the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv, downgraded the consulate devoted to Palestinian issues, shut down the Palestinian office in Washington and slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to the West Bank and Gaza.
Such steps have made Kushner’s prospects for success in Bahrain even slimmer, according to experts.

Two Fox News hosts question Trump's comments about Iran: 'This just doesn't add up'

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/22/media/fox-iran-chris-wallace-shep-smith/index.html


Trump has a cozy relationship with Fox News. He's hired a number of former employees from the network to posts within his administration.
    The president also reportedly corresponds directly with Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, conservative firebrands who currently host evening programs that routinely praise the president.
    Smith, who hosts daytime news coverage, and Wallace, the anchor of Fox News Sunday, have stood apart from Fox's opinion-oriented colleagues. Smith and Wallace have previously questioned or criticized actions by Trump or his administration.

    Friday, June 21, 2019

    A heinous rape case stuns the nation, but a hasty indictment is no shock to some

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-heinous-rape-case-stuns-the-nation-but-a-hasty-indictment-is-no-shock-to-some/

    Apathy for the devil

    For Jewish Community Watch, an NGO that works to combat child sexual abuse, the ongoing rape investigation has been a point of particular frustration.
    While she faulted police for bungling the probe, JCW director Shana Aaronson reserved much of her criticism for the broader Israeli public and their representatives, accusing them of only paying attention to violence against women when there is a possible nationalistic aspect.
    “The reality is that no one would ever have heard or cared about this case [if the suspect had been Jewish] and it’s a very sick indictment of the community and the politicians in this country that they only care about child rape when the rapist is an Arab,” she said, clarifying that she did not intend to downplay the severity of the alleged case at hand.

    How Donald Trump created one hell of a mess with Iran


    Trump seemed to take particular pleasure in killing deals negotiated by President Barack Obama's administration -- whether it was the Iran nuclear agreement, the Paris climate accord or the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that was designed to contain China -- even if he didn't propose viable alternatives in their place.
    After pulling out of the Iran deal, the Trump administration imposed tough new sanctions on Iran, while the Europeans stuck to the deal.
    Trump's Iran strategy didn't seem like much of an alternative plan -- beyond trying to destroy the Iranian economy in order to foment protests against the regime, potentially leading to regime change, long a goal of Bolton's.

    Thursday, June 20, 2019

    ‘My Whole Life Is a Bet.’ Inside President Trump’s Gamble on an Untested Re-Election Strategy

    https://time.com/longform/donald-trump-2020/

    Once again, Trump is putting his own instincts at the center of his campaign. The political mercenaries who tried to discipline his impulses in 2016 have been shown the door. The 2020 campaign is unmistakably Trump’s show. “We all have our meetings,” the President says. “But I generally do my own thing.” Campaign staff have been hired to follow Trump’s lead, and the President has made it known that when he tweets a new policy or improvises an attack at a rally, everyone had better be ready to follow along. “He blows the hole and everyone runs into the breach,” says an aide.



    Trump 2020 Looks A Lot Like Trump 2016

    Minister: Police may have bungled investigation of 7-year-old’s rape

    https://www.timesofisrael.com/minister-police-may-have-bungled-investigation-of-7-year-olds-rape/

    Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan acknowledged on Thursday that police could well have botched their investigation into the alleged rape of a seven-year-old Israeli girl.
    Erdan, the cabinet member responsible for overseeing the Israel Police, told Kan public radio that law enforcement failed to carry out the measures necessary for uncovering the truth.
    “I wrote on Facebook that this indictment cannot stand with all these holes,” Erdan said.

    Rav Nossan Kaminetsky describing what Making of a Gadol is

    Kame Netsky 2 by on Scribd

    Wednesday, June 19, 2019

    Until the phony seruv of Rav Kaminetsky's beis din is removed - he and his beis din are in cherem

    update: The correct term is nidoi - but I used the term cherem in the title as the general non-halachic term for ostracizing and thus the term is explained as being a form of cherem in the post below.

    I confirmed with Aharon's law school classmate who spoke to R' Herschel Schachter and R' Sholom Kaminetsky in December 2010 (which I believe is before the Seruv was issued) that the two Rabbis were aware of the Baltimore Beis Din's involvement and they intentionally ignored the Beis Din's involvement". He said he is willing to discuss this with Rov who needs to know the information.


     Guest Post

    Rabbis Aryeh Ralbag, Yisrael Belsky, Mordechai Wolmark, Shmuel Kamenetsky, Gavriel Stern and Hershel Schachter are in [nidui] [cherem] 

    The issuance of a purported "seruv"[contempt] against Aharon Friedman was outrageous from the very beginning.  The Union of Orthodox Rabbis did not bother to issue even a single hazmana [summons} before purporting to issue the "seruv."  In addition, the parties had previously signed a shtar beirurin [binding arbitration agreement] with the Baltimore Beis Din.  Furthermore, as ,the Baltimore Beis Din recently noted even putting aside those two points, the Union of Orthodox Rabbis had no right to issue a "seruv" against Aharon because he lives in a different State than the location of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis.

    It is hard to imagine that the signatories of the "seruv" were not very well aware of these points and deliberately signed the "seruv" knowing that the "seruv" was baseless.  If the signatories were not knowledgable about the rules for issuing a "seruv", they should have not been involved in issuing seruvim.

    In any case, even if the signatories were not previously aware of these rules and had some excuse for nonetheless involving themselves in a matter concerning which they had woefully inadequate knowledge, it has been several days since the Baltimore BD issued its letter clarifying matters, so there can no longer be any confusion or the least bit of doubt about this matter. One who wrongfully issues a seruv, or signs in support of such seruv, himself has the status of being in [nidui][cherem] as pointed our by Rav Reuvain Feinstein's recent letter, and has been previously noted by others concerning this case.

     The refusal of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis, Rabbi Ralbag and the other signatories to retract the "seruv" is well beyond outrageous and makes a mockery of halacha, beis din and the Jewish community.  They must immediately retract the "seruv" - or they have the status under halacha [Jewish Law] of being in [nidui] [cherem].