https://www.kikar.co.il/330126.html
כחמישים חרדים קיצונים הגיעו בצהריים (שני) לאתר העבודות על מסלול הרכבת הקלה, שמתוכנן לעבור בתוך שכונת 'גאולה' החרדית, והרסו כליל את כלי העבודה והתשתיות שכבר הונחו במקום.
Tuesday, September 10, 2019
הבטיחו - וקיימו: הקיצונים השחיתו את קו הרכבת ב'גאולה'
https://www.kikar.co.il/330126.html
כחמישים חרדים קיצונים הגיעו בצהריים (שני) לאתר העבודות על מסלול הרכבת הקלה, שמתוכנן לעבור בתוך שכונת 'גאולה' החרדית, והרסו כליל את כלי העבודה והתשתיות שכבר הונחו במקום.
Exclusive: US extracted top spy from inside Russia in 2017
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/09/politics/russia-us-spy-extracted/index.html
In a previously undisclosed secret mission in 2017, the United States successfully extracted from Russia one of its highest-level covert sources inside the Russian government, multiple Trump administration officials with direct knowledge told CNN.
A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy.
The decision to carry out the extraction occurred soon after a May 2017 meeting in the Oval Office in which Trump discussed highly classified intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.
https://www.salon.com/2019/09/09/cia-and-white-house-dispute-report-of-us-spys-removal-from-russia-over-safety-concerns-under-trump/NOAA Chief Scientist Says Move To Contradict Agency And Back Trump Was 'Political'
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/759209532/noaa-chief-scientist-says-move-to-contradict-agency-and-back-trump-was-political
NOAA's top scientist said Monday that he's investigating why the agency's leadership endorsed President Trump's false tweet that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian, after Birmingham-based meteorologists from the National Weather Service publicly pushed back on it.
In an email, Craig McLean, acting chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, called the move by the agency to back the president inappropriate, suggesting it was politically motivated.
"I am pursuing the potential violations of our NOAA Administrative Order on Scientific Integrity," McLean wrote. "My understanding is that this intervention to contradict the forecaster was not based on science but on external factors including reputation and appearance, or simply put, political."
Trump makes unfounded voter fraud claim — while campaigning for seat opened by GOP cheating
https://www.vox.com/2019/9/9/20858164/trump-fayetteville-north-carolina-rally-explained-voter-fraud
On Monday night, President Donald Trump was in North Carolina to stump for Dan Bishop, a Republican who is competing with Democrat Dan McCready in a special election on Tuesday to fill the Congress seat vacated by former 9th District Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) after evidence emerged that the Harris campaign was involved in a ballot tampering scheme.
But in a sign of just how brazen Trump’s lies can be, the president used the occasion not to try to draw a distinction between Harris’s scandal and Bishop’s campaign, but to make baseless accusations that undocumented immigrants are involved in massive voter fraud in California.
Monday, September 9, 2019
Sunday, September 8, 2019
INCITEMENT AGAINST RELIGIOUS JEWS AND THEIR PARTIES DISFIGURES ELECTION
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Know-Comment-Snub-the-anti-religious-scallywags-600777
This has been a lackluster summer-fall election campaign, devoid of nearly all passion, with one exception: incitement against religious Jews and religious parties.
In fact, the venom against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that characterized the April election campaign has been bested this month by vituperation against haredi (ultra-Orthodox) and religious Zionist politicians. It’s hunting season on Jewish tradition, the traditional Jewish family, Jewish scholarship, displays of religious belief, the rabbinate, rabbinical courts, Shabbat legislation, and even religious cultural events.
They are competing for the votes of, say, 5%-10% of ardent Israeli secularists who fear “religionization” or detest religion more than they care about the “occupation” of the Palestinians.
The religion-baiting campaigns of these politicians goes way beyond the limits of acceptable debate regarding the role of religion in politics or the appropriateness of legislation that impinges on religious freedom (or guarantees freedom from religion). Their fiery agitation goes way beyond expected (and accurate) criticism of the haredi-ized rabbinical bureaucracy.
The tone and phonetics of their imprecations are plainly self-hating and antisemitic. If such campaigning were to be used abroad, every Jewish defense agency would be screaming bloody murder.
Guest Post rabbis accused of sexual abuse Joe Orlow
Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn, the owner of this Daas Torah blog, has been extraordinarily gracious to me and many others over the years. He has published numerous of my guest posts and given me an opportunity to comment virtually without restraint.
Yet, this post may not make the cut. It goes beyond provocative and accusatory and crosses the line, perhaps, into fundamentally questioning the viability of the Yeshiva system as it stands today in America.
Through this blog I reluctantly learned of the extent of molestation that goes on in Yeshivas and Seminaries. To be sure, others guided me also in my attempt to untangle this most difficult topic. Rabbi Yehuda Levin has brought up this issue. Rabbi Dovid Eidensohn introduced me to this blog and shared information he has gathered from his sources.
There are way too many cases to make a complete list of incidents that led me to where I am today in my having a vantage point to examine the underbelly of the beast. Some cases stand out more than others. Rabbi Dovid Eidensohn told me of a case, if I recall correctly, of a boy in a Yeshiva who complained of homosexual activity between some students in his dorm, and was subsequently expelled for pushing the matter.
The incident of the many allegations against a founder of girls' seminaries in Eretz Yisrael stands out.
And of course there is the ongoing technical molestation of a woman by her own husband who it turns out is not her husband, a cruelty inflicted on her by a conspiracy of her Rabbis.
The pattern of these and other documented cases on this blog and other blogs, both recent cases and cases going back decades, is that complainants, people who protest against molestation, are labeled "troublemakers".
I do not include links to webpages because because I cannot vouch for their veracity nor their adherence to Halachic standards of speech (including allegations against those who are not able to respond). There are webpages that illustrate the points I've made but I will leave it the reader to use thir discretion in independently researching the matter.
The above is a lead-in to the continuing saga of a case that has pushed me over the edge.
There is an abundance of evidence that Rabbi Daniel Greer is a danger to the community. He has been accused of molesting students. He has invoked the Fifth Amendment in court proceedings regarding his sexual activity with male Jewish teenagers. To plead the Fifth is to exercise the right not to be compelled to testify in a way that incriminates oneself.
The Jewish community would seem justified in acting to protect people from Rabbi Daniel Greer. Yet, when Rabbi Greer wants to make a Minyan, he has been able to get young men from a nearby town to Daven with him. Only when the young men get there, it seems to be, do they learn that he is an alleged molester, as locals warn them upon their arrival.
By happenstance, I was discussing this case with someone who had his phone in speaker mode, and someone with him said he had been with a group that indeed was lured to make a Minyan and that he only learned on his arrival why apparently no one in the city would Daven with Rabbi Greer.
This made the case personal. Why hasn't there been a hue and cry against Rabbi Daniel Greer? Why is this blog and a few others online seemingly the only place to raise the alarm? Why aren't there better mechanisms to stop molestastion?
The answer is coming into sharp focus for me. It took me long enough.
Within what we call the Yeshivish, Chareidi, Litvish, whatever term you prefer, world, the widespread and appalling lack of truly effective safeguards against molestation is not the result of pathetic passiveness. I speak as an outside observer. Maybe I've missed something. I'm willing to admit that. Prove me wrong and I will be much obliged. Certainly my intent is not to overgeneralize. Some places may have have rules that are the means to eradicate degeneracy in their midst.
I'm beginning to find too much of a pattern, though, and I've come to believe it's a strategy. The prevailing conscious attitude is that nothing must be done to give the impression that Torah observant families and their communities are less than perfect. When something comes up to shake this illusion, the approach is to do all possible to ignore it, unless that becomes impossible, such as when it became abundantly evident a Kosher store had been selling the public Treif chickens.
I think this overarching principle to preserve appearances is perhaps an alternative meaning to the term Sinas Chinom, baseless hatred. The word "Chinom", "gratuitous, for no reason" (according to the Jastrow Dictionary), as in "freely given hatred", is related to "Chain", "grace", the quality of being "likeable".
Sinas Chinom, responsible for so much of our troubles in this last Galus, could thus be though of as "likeable hatred" as well as "baseless hatred": exhibiting groundless hatred to some in order to be liked by others. That's a stretch, and may violate laws of grammar, but aptly describes the willingness to sacrifice all, including integrity and self-preservation, to satisfy the drive to appear perfect. "If hating fellow Jews, in this case being quiet as boys unknowingly end up associating with a know molester, is what it takes to get the world to buy that our community is wonderful, so be it."
So, that is why Rabbi Greer is shunned but not ostracized totally. It just "wouldn't be nice" to do that to him, as well as "not nice to publicize the idea among students that Jews can be molesters." Well, sometimes being nice is actually nasty. If this is what Yeshivas and Seminaries have become, places where the occasional student is sacrificed on the altar of perfection, maybe it's time to start over.
Instead of treating students nastily in the service of conformity to some nebulous standard of perfection, let's try sacrificing conformity in the service of being nice to students.
But will that happen without outside coercion? Obedience to parents and teachers has become the idol to worship, never to be questioned nor veered away from. Even if the teacher is requiring a student to be their sex slave.
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Trump is taking money from Puerto Rico’s recovery and European security to fund his wall
A National Guard readiness center in Puerto Rico. A hazardous material storage building on a US military base in Germany. A training facility for special operations forces working to deter Russia in Europe. Upgrades at the US Military Academy in West Point, New York.
Those are just some of the 127 affected military construction projects that will be defunded and delayed so President Donald Trump can build roughly 175 miles of wall on the southern border. In total, construction efforts in nearly half of all 50 states — as well as 19 countries, three US territories, and some classified locations — will have their funding diverted to pay for the barrier.
The Trump administration announced last February it would find $3.6 billion from previously approved military construction projects to fund the wall effort. But it wasn’t until Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s letter outlining the funding diversions was released to the public on Wednesday evening that the full scope of the financial diversion became clear.
In Esper’s telling, the move will help the military better provide support to the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts to patrol the border.
“These projects will deter illegal entry, increase the vanishing time of those illegally crossing the border, and channel migrants to ports of entry,” he wrote in a letter to Pentagon colleagues dated September 3. “In short, these barriers will allow [the Pentagon] to provide support to DHS more efficiently and effectively. In this respect, the contemplated construction projects are force multipliers.”
But many lawmakers, mainly Democrats, don’t see such a rosy picture, arguing that the move erodes Congress’ authority to approve spending and could hurt the military’s ability to fight current and future wars. But many are also likely angry because military projects that would’ve brought jobs to their states or districts will be paused for now.
Virginia, for example, has four military projects that will be impacted, to the tune of just over $77 million — which helps explain why Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) has been publicly blasting the administration’s decision. “Taking money away from our military — including funding to support critical projects here in Virginia — will mean we are less equipped to tackle threats here at home and abroad,” he wrote in a Wednesday statement.
The growing fury means it’s possible Democrats in Congress might try to block the move — which means a bruising political fight could be around the corner.
“The battles will be more political than legal,” William Banks, an expert on national security law at Syracuse University, told me. “It’s possible for Congress to enact — over a veto — funding restrictions on this or new funds that the president wants or needs. There’s lots of horse trading to come.”
The funding “delay” is really more of a “cancellation” in practice
The Pentagon keeps saying these projects are either delayed or deferred, but the reality is that Congress must again approve them before they can move forward. That means it’s more accurate to say these efforts are canceled until they’re reapproved again.
The wild corruption of Trump’s golf courses deserves more scrutiny
President Donald Trump canceled a planned state visit to Poland on Thursday, saying his presence was needed in the United States to deal with Hurricane Dorian. But he actually went golfing. This was an unfortunate choice, more as a superfluous diplomatic insult than as a situation where the president’s input was substantively needed. To the extent that he did anything at all related to the hurricane he mostly contributed confusion by saying, falsely, that Alabama was in the path of the storm.
Though all recent presidents have had a somewhat inexplicable love of golf, when Trump goes golfing it’s different from normal presidential golfing because he golfs at luxury golf clubs that he owns.
This means that when the White House senior staff and the Secret Service do things like rent golf carts to ensure that the president remains safe and well-briefed while on the links, it’s not just an expenditure of public funds but an expenditure that directly lines Trump’s pockets. This just about the most straightforward example of political corruption that one can imagine. (When it turned out that Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh was making companies that contracted with the city buy copies of her book, she was drummed out of office almost immediately.)
But in the United States of Trump, it wasn’t even the most egregious golf-related act to stem from the ill-fated trip to Poland. Yet nobody in any position of influence in politics seems to be trying to do anything about it.
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
Violating the Vineyard" Update:
Wed., 4 Ellul, '79
By Binyomin Feinberg,
Contributor to The Jewish Press*
* Views and perspectives herein do not necessarily reflect those of the ownership or management of The Jewish Press.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Giyus Banos updates throughout the week, visit:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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As of now, Avigail L. H. risks arrest by Israeli military police for her courageous refusal to comply with anti-Torah Israeli draft orders - while her mother battles both cancer and the IDF simultaneously.
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A 17 y/o Chabad girl in Israel, Avigail L. H., is under immediate threat of arrest, despite being under 18, because of her refusal to comply with Israeli military draft orders. Her mother, Mrs. Ruth E. H., a baalas teshuva, and a former Israeli Air Force captain, who has been battling cancer for seven years, is simultaneously battling the government's bizarre insistence on harassing her only daughter.
Avigail submitted her religious certification properly and on time. But, in February, just after she turned 17, her mother had a shocking conversation with a Jerusalem Draft Office official, Keren L. (now a Colonel). In that
conversation, according to Mrs. H., Officer L. refused to accept that Avigail is Chareidi, and therefore legally entitled to a religious exemption." I will decide" that question she said, adding that "I will profane (or "violate") The Vineyard ("Achalail et HaKerem"), and I will start with your daughter."*
Since then, the family has been enduring incessant harassment by the IDF draft office. Now Avigail has been threatened with arrest.
It is Keren's antireligious agenda of "profaning the Vineyard" that is what appears to be behind the bizarre vendetta against this indisputably Chareidi teenage girl.
As the legal process proceeds, this needless battle takes a serious toll on the health of the severely ill mother. It's literally a situation of pickuach nefesh. B"H, an especially suitable attorney has been retained for this case.
Donations for attorney fees are needed. Donations may be made to "Shomrei Torah," 646-585-3044. Specifically designate funds for the case of Avigail Leah H..
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Elul! Holiness and Yet Strife in Israel Rav Dovid Eidensohn
I am a deeply religious Jew as is my family, most of whom live in Israel. But I am told and have noticed myself, that although the Orthodox Torah community has many children and are eventually to become the majority of Israeli Jews, at this time the very strong religious suffer from some secular Israelis. Why?
It all began in the beginning of the twentieth century in 1917. Then, the British who were not winning the First World War, had a Jewish scientist Chaim Weizman who invented a new kind of bomb. The British used it and won the First World War.
Eventually the British army conquered and even entered Israel. I saw the pictures of that time. The General of the British army and Chaim Weizman stood at the side welcoming the marching British troops into Jerusalem. Next to them, slightly lower than these two, were the rabbi of Jerusalem Rabbi Yosef Shalom Sonnenfeld and another rabbi.
These years of the First World War saw entire countries in mortal combat. People suffered and the Jews surely suffered. As time went on, although originally the British backed Jews because of Chaim Weizman and his bomb, eventually, many Arabs openly hated Jews in Israel and plotted to kill them. The new British government now turned against the Jews. It began to forbid Jewish men to enter Israel. Finally, in 1948, after six million Jews had been murdered by the Germans, the nations of the world allowed Jews to have a tiny part of Israel for their new country.
The Israeli government has various small groups who vote for them. The election in Israel of a new government takes in consideration that the chamber of the government accepts 120 seats. But the large group of voters does not even have forty seats. So groups merge.
1
The group that can assemble 61 seats is appointed by the President of Israel to form a government. In the past five elections the Premier of Israel off and on has been Benyamin Netanyohu. Although not personally religious, his Likud Party is basically religious, and his style of assuming the Premiership has been to join his Likud to other parties usually of Orthodox Jews.
The previous effort of Netanyohu to remain Premier of Israel foundered when an opponent refused to join his party unless religious Jews served in the military. This caused the government to fail to find a single party that could produce the next Premier. So a new election was scheduled for a few weeks in September 17.
Another issue dividing the religious and secular is the extreme ruling of the great rabbis of the world that Jewish women may not serve not only in the Israeli army, but in any capacity at all decreed by the government. A Jewish woman is only allowed to be guided by her father and her husband, not the government, even if it requires them to pray every day.
These and similar issues have caused problems for years, although the Orthodox are rapidly becoming the major force in the Jewish community, and although the Arabs who are also represented in the Israeli government hate Jews and regularly some Arabs murder Jews.
Arabs who murder Jews are allowed to vote for Israeli governments. But some secular people maintain that Arabs may vote but religious people who oppose Arabs murdering Jews may not.
There are three things dividing the religious and irreligious. The religious believe in the Torah of HaShem. The secular do not in general accept the Torah. But some hate religious people. and some do not. We know that Moshiach is on the way, we hope soon!
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
חב"ד | שאלות לרב | בגד - ימין על שמאל
בגד - ימין על שמאל
נושא: מנהגים
הרב המשיב: הרב יוסף ש. גינזבורג
תאריך: י' בסיון התשס"ה (17/06/05)
השאלה:
עד כמה חשוב להקפיד שצידו הימני של הבגד יהיה רכוס על צד שמאל ולא להפך?
תשובת הרב:
מנהג ישראל להקפיד על כך בבגדים העליונים (חליפה וכדומה), ומשמעות הדבר - שה'שמאל' (המייצג את ה'דין') בטל ל'ימין' (המייצגת את ה'חסד'). בתצלומים מלפני כמה דורות, ובפרט של גדולי ישראל מחוגים מגוונים, גם שאינם-חסידים, רואים שכך היה מקובל בעבר בקהילות ישראל.
Chareidim Don’t Work and Won’t Go into the Army
https://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/muqata/chareidim-dont-work-and-wont-go-into-the-army/2019/08/07/
Avigdor Liberman is putting in overtime to convince Israeli voters that this election is about Religion, State and Chareidim (the Ultra-Orthodox)- when it is only about dethroning Netanyahu, distancing Liberman’s former close partners – the Chareidim, from the government, and if his latest faux pas is any indication, to maneuver his way into the premiership.
We’ve all heard claims how Chareidim don’t work, that Chareidim don’t go to the army, that Chareidim don’t carry their share of the national burden. Liberman’s supporters are saying Liberman is raising this anti-Chareidi / anti-religious flag for their own good and ours.
The tone, the rhetoric, the Sinat Chinam is horrifying – and far too many people accept these statements/assumptions as fact.
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