https://beitarillit-online.com/4308/
תושבי בניין ברחוב פחד יצחק בו נעשות עבודות בנייה ללא היתר ופיקוח, הכוללות עבודות חציבה וחפירה בסמוך ליסודות בניין המגורים, קיבלו אמש צווים החתומים על ידי ראש העיר המכריזים על הבניין כמבנה מסוכן, המקרה נחשף לאחר שבאחת מחצרות הבניין נפער בור, אשר בעקבותיו ביצעה העירייה ביקורת בה התברר שבוצעה חפירה מתחת לבניין, שחשפה את כלונסאות הבניין מהנדס העירייה הוציא חוו"ד שהמבנה מסוכן לשהייה ובעקבות כך, רה"ע חתם על צווים בהתאם.
As is common knowledge - it is often difficult to obtain permits for changes to an apartment in Israel and as a result much is done without permit or concern for safety
It is also common knowledge when buying an apartment to check what is legal and what was added illegally.
It is also common knowledge that there is a severe housing shortage and thus strong financial incentive to create illegal apartments.
Problem aside from the illegality and possible need to demolish structures is the question of safe building practices being ignored.
Example you have new apartment buildings built to proper safety standards which are ruined by the owners on the ground floor who excavate large areas extending from their apartments. They destroy support pillars of the building as well as physical support for the building bt removing rock or soil.
There have been cases of collapse and damage to the building as well as the new construction.
Anyone complaining against theses illegal structures is labeled a moser.
One case I know where the new construction collapsed. One neighbor was suspected of telling the government and was ostracized by the entire building while the one who actual caused the real damage is viewed as a tzadik.
While it is nice to attack secularist etc for picking on our community The frum world is doing nothing about this dangerous reality. In other words if the community doesn't supervise itself it has no justification for complaining about government involvement
https://www.torahmusings.com/2019/10/the-missing-160-years/
In a recent lecture, Rav Hershel Schachter says that there are great sages (“gedolim”) on both sides of the issue — some who accept rabbinic chronology and some who modify it in one way or another. He points to the Maharshal’s (Rav Shlomo Luria, 16th cen., Poland) comment in Chokhmas Shlomo (Sanhedrin 52b) in disagreeing with the Talmud’s conclusion that he should not be considered like someone who disagrees with the Talmud because there is no current practical implication to his view. Similarly, there is no practical implication to disagreeing with the Talmud on chronology. Rav Schachter also points to Rav Zerachiah Ha-Levi (12th cen., Spain), known as the Ba’al Ha-Ma’or, in his commentary to the beginning of Rosh Hashanah where he explicitly disagrees with the Talmud about the list of Persian kings (and his colleague, the Ra’avad, says that this is against our tradition).
https://www.simpletoremember.com/other/History166.htm
Rather than dismiss the Greek tales altogether, Dr. Heifetz has recognized that folklore often contains much truth, even if it cannot always be taken at face value. Just as the Greek stories about Assyria an extra Darius and Cyrus. Had and Babylonian are interpreted by modem scholars in the light of inscriptions, Heifetz takes the traditional view of this period as given in Seder Olam as his framework, and reexamines the Greek tales within this framework. In doing so, not only do many of the Greek stories make better sense, but an entirely new dimension is added to the Jewish picture of history.
https://www.etzion.org.il/en/tanakh/ketuvim/sefer-ezra/kings-persia-and-missing-years
The differing chronologies, moreover, carry major consequences for the dating of Purim. Having so dramatically shortened the Persian empire’s span, the rabbis place the Purim story before the Second Temple was built. According to modern scholarly consensus, however, Purim did not take place until some fifty years after the Second Temple was completed. As Rabbis Yoel Bin-Nun[4] and Menachem Leibtag[5] have suggested, this difference might have profound implications for the meaning of Esther. If the narrative unfolded decades after the Temple had been rebuilt, we might be more likely to view the Megilla as a satire castigating the Jews of Shushan for remaining in the Persian capital instead of returning to their own capital Jerusalem.
It has also been posited that certain calculations in the Talmud compute better according to the academic dating. Two possible harmonizations are proposed by modern rabbis:
Shimon Schwab points to the words "seal the words and close the book" in the book of Daniel as a positive commandment to obscure the calculations for the Messiah mentioned within, so that the true date of the Messiah's arrival would not be known.[28] However, Schwab later withdrew this suggestion for numerous reasons.[23]: 281-285 [24]: 66–67 [25]: 67–68, 93
An alternative solution suggests that the sages were concerned with the acceptance of the Mishnah. There existed a rabbinical tradition that the year 4000 marked the close of the "era of Torah". The authors of the Ḥakirah article propose that the sages therefore arranged the chronology so that the redaction of the Mishnah should coincide with that date and thus have a better chance of acceptance.[25]: 67–115
Horious (12a) R. Ammi said: He who wishes to ascertain whether he will live through the year or not shall, during the ten days between the New Year and the Day of Atonement, kindle a lamp in a house wherein there is no draught. If the light continues to burn he may know that he will live through the year. He who desires to engage in business and wishes to ascertain whether he will succeed or not, let him rear up a cock; if it grows plump and fine he will succeed. He who desires to set out on a journey and wishes to ascertain whether he will return home again or not. let him station himself in a dark house; if he sees the reflection of his shadow he may know that he will return home again. This, however, is not a proper thing to do, lest his courage fail him and he meet with misfortune in consequence. Said Abaye: Now that it has been said that omens are of significance, a man should make a regular habit of eating, at the beginning of the year, pumpkin, fenugreek, leek, beet and dates.
The State Board of Regents voted Monday to approve new regulations on secular-studies in private schools, requiring each school to prove to state officials that their curriculum is “at least substantially equivalent” to that offered in public schools. Passage of the regulations transforms the relationship between government and private schools in the Empire State, and caps a years-long battle over what secular education each child deserves and whether it should be determined by parents or governmental authorities.
As much as it can be a mistake to generalize about conditions in these schools and as much as the Times' motives and reporting are suspect, the willingness of many Jews to reflexively circle the wagons around them and to defend the resistance of the ultra-Orthodox leadership to even minimal scrutiny or accountability for their failures in secular subjects is not merely a mistake. It's consigning a large and important part of the Jewish community to a future of poverty that would be indefensible if we were describing any other group.
In any case, secular studies were normally incompatible with traditional Judaism. Training in medicine was impossible without breaking Jewish law, especially the dietary laws, the Sabbath and festivals.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265771667_The_Yeshiva_as_a_Political_Institution
This insular approach mirrored the greater Haredi world and its strict binary opposition of tradition and modernity. The newer model of the yeshiva, however, not only challenged secular hegemony but also sought to reshape Orthodoxy into a community responding proactively to the secular critique of religion. Yeshivas following this model became political institutions — political because they sought to transform the Jewish world by direct action and presented a religious alternative to the hegemony of secular political forces. The founding of Tomchei Tmimim in 1897,3 the first political yeshiva in imperial Russia, was an attempt to create a shift in the constantly retreating battle of Orthodoxy with secularization and assimilation. In the late 19th century, the relationship of Jewish communities with the Imperial regime had drastically deteriorated, giving particular urgency to an emerging discourse about Jewish secularism and nationalism.4 Initial attempts at forming a constructive Orthodox response in the political arena were a major failure.5 Reforms in Jewish religious education reached into primary schools, vocational training, and post-secondary education.
“Most graduates of ultra-Orthodox schools… are happy with the education they receive and they have no desire to leave,” he said. “But those that do want to leave their communities, they feel imprisoned by the education they never received.”
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/yeshiva
The new trends in the spiritual life of the Jews of Russia found an echo among the youth in the yeshivot. In many places the masters endeavored to keep the students from any contact with secular literature, and in Slobodka in particular there was strict supervision. The movement toward acquiring general culture did not touch the ?asidic yeshivot at all, perhaps since most of them were in small towns far from the cities. Money for their maintenance was collected by emissaries who were at the same time wandering preachers. Apart from the large yeshivot there existed in several localities small yeshivot for the local youth supported by the community and the neighborhood. Since married students were not accepted in the yeshivot and the codes were not studied in them, those married students of the Talmud who wanted to become ordained for the rabbinate would unite inkolelim . Such kolelim existed in Volozhin (in a branch of the yeshiva), in Eishishok, Minsk, Vilna, and other places. An exceptionally high standard was attained by the Perushim kolel in Kovno headed by Isaac Elhanan Spektor (d. 1897), which in the 1890s had more than 200 students. Both the members of these kolelim, whose studies lasted from three to four years, and their families, were adequately supported.
