Thursday, March 6, 2025
A third of America's biggest donors are Jewish
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/syphsshjkl
Bloomberg, who donated over 1 million shekels to rebuild Israel's north and $44 million to the Magen David Adom health emergency service, continued to solidify his position at the top of the 50 biggest American philanthropists with donations totaling $3.7 billion, twice as much as the amount donated by the second billionaire named on the list, Netflix founder Wilmot Reed Hastings Jr. who with his wife, Patricia, donated close to $1.6 million in the past year.
NZ fires envoy to UK who questioned Trump's grasp of history
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3yew446k5o
New Zealand has fired its most senior envoy to the United Kingdom over remarks that questioned US President Donald Trump's grasp of history.
At an event in London on Tuesday, High Commissioner to the UK Phil Goff compared efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine to the Munich Agreement of 1938, which allowed Adolf Hitler to annex Czechoslovakia.
Goff recalled how Sir Winston Churchill had criticised the agreement, then said of the US leader: "President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office. But do you think he really understands history?"
Trump agrees to one-month tariff reprieve aimed at helping U.S. automakers
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/03/05/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-autos/
Less than 48 hours after slapping tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico, President Donald Trump agreed to a one-month reprieve for automobile imports that qualify for duty-free treatment under the North American trade agreement negotiated during his first term.
The president’s decision followed a phone conversation with executives from the Big Three automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis — who sought relief from the new import taxes. Each of the automakers over the past several decades has developed complex supply chains that cross North American borders multiple times before delivering a finished product.
World Leaders Are Secretly Teaching Zelensky the Art of Buttering Trump Up
Volodymyr Zelensky is receiving a crash course in how to grovel for Donald Trump’s favor after the Ukrainian president’s disastrous Oval Office sit-down last week, according to a report.
His teachers are seasoned Trump-handlers: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron, the New York Times reported. The two men are giving Zelensky advice on how most effectively to flatter Trump, inside sources told the Times.
The Trump Tariff Roller Coaster
President Trump gave a one-month tariff reprieve to auto makers on Wednesday, a day after his 25% tax on imports from Mexico and Canada took effect. Everyone else will still pay. Welcome to the Trump tariff thrill ride, where you never know what’s going to happen next.
Stock prices surged Wednesday after official news of the auto reprieve, which had been signaled by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. GM and Ford shares jumped in particular. This is the second time Mr. Trump has blinked on tariffs, and investors may figure he’ll do it again in a month.
Elon Musk wants to save Western civilization from empathy
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/elon-musk-rogan-interview-empathy-doge/index.html
While Musk said he believes in empathy and that “you should care about other people,” he also thinks it’s destroying society.
“The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy, the empathy exploit,” Musk said. “There it’s they’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response.”
Empathy, he said, has been “weaponized.”
It’s an important thing to remember as Musk turns his crusade toward the US government. While President Donald Trump has said cuts will not touch safety net programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, except to root out fraud, Musk made clear during the interview that he believes that the concept of Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme.”
Amy Coney Barrett Sparks MAGA Fury Over Trump Supreme Court Decision
https://www.newsweek.com/amy-coney-barrett-maga-fury-trump-supreme-court-ruling-2040203
Supporters of President Donald Trump turned their sights on Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett—and to a lesser extent, Chief Justice John Roberts—after they sided with the court's liberals in a ruling against the Trump administration on Wednesday.
The court currently has a 6-3 conservative supermajority, but both Barrett and Roberts have at times broken ranks and voted with the court's liberal wing in rulings that have infuriated the MAGA base.
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Open Orthodoxy, Rav Moshe, and the Importance of Being Earnest
https://www.torahmusings.com/2014/01/open-orthodoxy-rav-moshe-and-the-importance-of-being-earnest/
In 1956, Rav Moshe was one of eleven rabbis who banned Orthodox participation in the interdenominational Synagogue Council. [7] In his responsa, Rav Moshe consistently referred to non-Orthodox clergy with a mocking transliteration (רבאייס) rather than acknowledge their rabbinical statuses.
As for his rulings, Rav Moshe never budged. To him, Reform and Conservative exponents were heretics. In 1950, he refused to recognize their conversions altogether and subsequently disregarded the non-Orthodox’s powers to officiate weddings. [8] A decade later, Rav Moshe denied the sanctity of a blessing pronounced by a Reform or Conservative rabbi and forbade Orthodox Jews from answering “amen” to those benedictions. [9] He refused to offer non-Orthodox rabbis aliyot in 1965. [10] In 1972, he strongly discouraged Orthodox Jews in need of a place to pray from renting space in Conservative synagogues. [11] Five years afterward, Rav Moshe prohibited Conservative rabbis from using Orthodox mikva’ot for conversion ceremonies. [12]
Rav Moshe’s attitude frustrated non-Orthodox rabbis, to say the least. Reform Judaism’s leading authority on Halakhah penned a learned response in opposition to “Orthodox aspersions against Reform marriages” in 1963. [13] In addition, the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards acknowledged that Rav Moshe’s stance on conversion made matters difficult for its Conservative community but ultimately refused to augment its policies. [14] Conservative leaders revealed heightened irritation in the 1970s. After a review of Rav Moshe’s rulings, a Conservative writer asked: “what do his responsa do for the sanctity of marriage and unity of the Jewish people?” [15] Another leading Conservative halakhist applauded that sentiment and hoped that others would respond to Rav Moshe’s harsh decisions. [16]
Supreme Court rejects Trump’s request to keep billions in foreign aid frozen
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/05/politics/supreme-court-usaid-foreign-aid/index.html
A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected the Trump administration’s request to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid approved by Congress frozen.
However, the court did not immediately say when the money must be released, allowing the White House to continue to dispute the issue in lower courts.
The ruling was 5-4.
“The unsigned order does not actually require the Trump administration to immediately make up to $2 billion in foreign aid payments; it merely clears the way for the district court to compel those payments, presumably if it is more specific about the contracts that have to be honored,” Vladeck said. “The fact that four justices nevertheless dissented – vigorously – from such a decision is a sign that the Court is going to be divided, perhaps along these exact lines, in many of the more impactful Trump-related cases that are already on their way.”
Larry Summers Thinks Trump’s Tariffs Are a Disaster
https://www.thefp.com/p/larry-summers-thinks-trumps-tariffs
The former Treasury secretary says: ‘I have never seen as irrational a consequential policy put in place by an American administration.’
U.S. stocks tumbled Tuesday, wiping out all of the markets’ gains since Trump’s return to power. The tariffs come at a moment of growing economic unease. U.S. consumer confidence dropped more quickly last month than at any point in the last four years. And while it’s true that Trump’s protectionist instincts are well-known—tariff, he said last year, is “the most beautiful word in the dictionary”—these new measures are more extreme than any he has imposed before.
Interactions with Non-Religious Jews
https://halachipedia.com/index.php?title=Interactions_with_Non-Religious_Jews#cite_note-8
Rav Elyashiv's opinion was that there is a doubt whether they are a tinok shenishba or not and we're strict for both possibilities.[7]
Rav Moshe Feinstein held that we can't apply tinok shenishba status to someone who lived near an Orthodox community and was aware of religious Jews. However, Jews who didn't know of religious Jews can be considered tinokot shenishbau.[8]
Rav Ovadia Yosef held similarly that it depends on whether they were familiar with a Torah community. In practice that could mean non-religious Israelis and "in town" Americans are not considered tinokot shenishbau.[9]
Sin not to know – Netziv
Bamidbar (22:24) Balaam said to the messenger of G-d, “I sinned because I did not know that you were standing in my way. If you still disapprove, I will turn back.”
Netziv (Bamidbar (22:24) I sinned because I didn’t know – Bilam’s main sin was his ignorance. He should have thought more carefully to understand what was happening to him
Republicans Told to Scrap Town Halls After Avalanche of Protests
https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-scrap-town-hall-protests-2039753
Constituents have berated GOP lawmakers over cuts made by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a newly formed agency focused on slashing federal spending.
On Monday, Trump dismissed the town hall uproar as the work of "paid 'troublemakers.'" Many Republican leaders echoed this, claiming the protests were orchestrated by Democrats rather than genuine voter outrage over the cuts.
Furious constituents across the country have expressed concerns at Republican town halls, highlighting a growing pattern of public frustration over DOGE policies, particularly over Musk's apparently vast influence.