Frum boy on "America's Got Talent"! Video

Coins dating from Bar Kochba era found!

Israeli archaeologist Emil Aladjem holds up one of four extremely rare Roman era gold coins, near a gold ring and ear ring as well as some 140 silver coins (C,L) and several cosmetic implements (C-R), inside the Israeli Archaeology Authority headquarters in Jerusalem, Israel, 05 June 2012. EPA/JIM HOLLANDER

Archaeologists have discovered a treasure comprising of about 140 pieces of gold and silver coins, with gold jewelry, probably hidden by a rich lady in a time of imminent danger during the Bar Kochba revolt of some 1880 years ago.

The Israel Antiquities Authority or IAA presented the find on Tuesday and said it was recently exposed in an excavation in the vicinity of Kiryat Gat in southern Israel.

The rooms of a building dating from Roman and Byzantine period were exposed during the course of the excavation. Archaeologists discerned that a well had been dug in the ground of the courtyard of the old building and refilled. To the surprise of archaeologists, a spectacular treasure of exquisite quality was discovered in the well. It was wrapped in a fabric cloth that had deteriorated.

According to archaeologist Emilio Aladjem, who directed the excavation on behalf of the IAA, "The magnificent treasure includes gold jewelry, including a pendant handmade by a jeweler in the form of a flower and a ring with a gemstone in which is a hallmark of a winged goddess, two silver bars were probably kohl sticks and some 140 gold and silver coins."

"The coins were discovered dating from the reigns of Roman emperors Nero, Nerva and Trajan, who ruled the Roman Empire between 54-117 CE. The coins are adorned with images of the emperors and their reverse side are the representations of cults of the emperor, symbols of the brotherhood of warriors and mythological gods like Jupiter seated on a throne or Jupiter catch lightning in his hand."

Saar Ganor, an archaeologist in the district of Ashkelon and Western Negev of the  IAA added that "the composition of numismatic artifacts and quality are consistent with hidden treasures that have been previously attributed to the time of the revolt of Bar Kochba. During the uprising, between 132

-135 AD, the Jews under Roman rule would mint coins of Emperor Trajan with the symbols of the revolt. "

"This treasure includes gold and silver coins of different denominations, most of them dating from the reign of Emperor Trajan.

This is probably a cache of emergency that was concealed at the time of imminent danger by a wealthy woman who wraps her jewels and money in a cloth and hid deep in the soil before or during the Bar Kochba revolt. It is now clear that the owner never returned to claim the treasure."

New York Limits the amount of Herring ! Kiddush Clubs depressed!

The days of fishing unlimited herring from the waters in New York from the Hudson River, which dates back to colonial times, may be coming to an end.

Faced with plummeting numbers of herring in the river and elsewhere along the Atlantic coast, the 

Department of Environmental Conservation proposes a first ever limit on the amount of the popular fish that can be captured.

Under the proposals, the fishermen

would be able to land with maximum 10 herring between March 15 and June 15, when hundreds of thousands of small fish come from the Atlantic by the river north to Troy Dam to spawn. The fishermen usually use herring as bait for bass, a popular sport fish that also comes on the river in the spring and feed on herring. 
Herring is a also popular fish eaten by many Ultra Orthodox Jews on Shabbat.

Orthodox Sex Abuse Family: They tried to Shut Us Up with Chivas Regal

The family of a Brooklyn man being treated for drug addiction in California traces his problems back to sexual abuse by a yeshiva teacher, when he was just 9 years old. "I do recall the rabbi being over here, trying to hush up my dad," Yosef Werner--the abuse survivor's brother--told PIX 11 Friday.

20 years ago, Daniel "Benji" Werner came home from the Yeshiva of Brooklyn one day and started confiding in his mother at theirMidwood home. "He told me the rabbi was touching him," Yehudis Werner told PIX. "And I said, 'What??!!"

Benji Werner told his mother the teacher would call him up to the front of the class, take the boy behind the desk, place Benji on his lap, and then put his hands in the boy's pants and molest him.

Mrs. Werner said she called her husband, Aaron, and he started contacting other parents from Benji's class. She told PIX several parents had heard the same thing from their children. Soon after, she said the family received calls from religious leaders. "They called up my husband and said 'if you continue to call parents, we'll make your name mud.'"

Yehudis Werner told PIX that because the family with eight children had recently emigrated to Brooklyn from Israel, they didn't want to rock the boat back then by going to police.

The Werner family decided to talk to PIX 11 now, because of recent publicity surrounding the District Attorney's office and how it's handled sexual abuse cases in the Orthodox Jewish community. The Kings Country District Attorney, Charles Hynes, told reporters this week he's ready to put handcuffs on any religious leader who threatens witnesses in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods.

Back in 1992, Benji Werner's parents took him out of the yeshiva and transferred him to a school on the lower East Side of Manhattan. But within a couple of years, Yosef Werner recalls his kid brother was getting into trouble, at the age of 11. "I know he was popping Ecstasy pills at a very early stage," Yosef Werner told PIX.

From rehab in California, Benji Werner told PIX 11 by phone Friday, "I basically isolated myself. I was depressed. After two years in my new school, one of the kids introduced me to marijuana. I smoked it and it would deaden my feelings." Werner acknowledged he later took Ecstasy and acid.

Through tears, Benji Werner's mother told PIX, "My only regret? I wish I got him counseling at the time." She told PIX her son tells her not to feel so badly. "He said, 'At least you did better than other parents. You put me in a new school.'" Yehudis Werner said she recently told her son, "Benji, thank you for confiding in me."

When PIX 11 contacted Yeshiva of Brooklyn Friday, a man who answered the phone said he was the principal. When I identified myself and asked if Benji's rabbi was still working at the yeshiva, the man told me, "No, he is no longer here." When I asked why, he responded, "None of your business. This is a private school."

Six years ago, Benji Werner and his brother paid a visit to the Kings County District Attorney's office. But Benji Werner was already 24 years old, so too much time had passed; under state law, there could be no prosecution, because of the statute of limitations.

Yosef Werner, a teacher, said he was working with a liason in the Orthodox Jewish community to get an apology from Benji's old teacher. But it never happened. "I did get a bottle of Chivas Regal from this individual who was trying to bribe me to shut my mouth up," Werner said.

Werner's father, Aaron, is dead now, and Yosef Werner said Friday, "I want people to see this story, because my father wanted this to come out in the 1990's."

When PIX 11 asked Benji Werner if he will get over his trauma, he replied, "Yes, I will, because I'm talking about it now. For years, I didn't talk."

Benji Werner expects to be in rehab for at least another, three months.

Anouck Markovits, leaves Satmar and writes best selling novel "I Am Forbidden"

Anouk Markovits was born into a Satmar family, but left the community at age 19 to avoid an arranged marriage.

 Anouk Markovits’s novel moves and fascinates, she writes about  about the Satmar Hasidim, the most isolated and insular of Jewish communities. The Satmar movement opposes all forms of secular culture and of Zionism. It began in 18th-century Hungary, but today is mainly based in Brooklyn and in upstate New York, though there are smaller communities elsewhere, including in Montreal. To write an intimate, respectful and yet critical novel about the workings of this community is no mean feat.
Markovits is well-positioned to lift the veil of secrecy that hangs over fundamentalist Hasidic sects. She was born into a Satmar family in France, but left it at the age of 19 to avoid an arranged marriage. She went on to study at Ivy League U.S. universities and then to write fiction in French. I Am Forbidden is her English debut and has already been sold in 10 countries.
The novel opens in Transylvania on the eve of the Second World War with an arresting scene: The teenage Torah scholar and cantorial prodigy Zalman Stern unwittingly “sins” by having an erotic dream featuring his study partner’s wife. Zalman, who over the course of the novel will become a harsh patriarch, accepts the teachings of the Talmud at face value. Much will ride on the dictum that “Whoever emits seed in vain deserves death” and not just in this vivid beginning.
Markovits infuses a great narrative arc with lyricism and immediacy. When 5-year-old Josef witnesses the brutal slaying of his mother and baby sister in 1939, it’s as if we are right there, trying to decipher the moment’s horror through a child’s innocent eyes. He is hidden by the family’s Gentile maid, who, though she hates Jews, yearns for a child of her own.
Monstrous historical events are telescoped into filmic images as, five years later, Josef, in turn, saves a little girl – also orphaned during an atrocity – and engineers her escape to the household of the same Zalman Stern with whom the story started. This child, Mila Heller, the daughter of Zalman’s former study partner, will become one of the dual heroines of the novel.
The other is Atara, Zalman’s oldest daughter. The two girls are closer than close and share the trials of displacement as the family is transplanted to France after the Iron Curtain descends over Eastern Europe. In Paris, at the age of 8, Atara experiences her first seeds of rebellion. Having mistakenly infringed the rules of the Sabbath by riding a bike in a park, she receives a severe beating from Zalman.
Atara, whose story surely echoes the author’s, begins to question the dictates of orthodoxy and the infallibility of the Satmar Rebbe, in whose behaviour she detects self-serving hypocrisy. (The Rebbe, a historical figure, escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary through the agency of the controversial Zionist Rezsö Kasztner, who negotiated with Eichmann to save a trainload of doomed Hungarian Jews. Yet the Rebbe had bitterly denounced Zionism and afterward claimed that he was saved not by Kasztner, but by a miracle of God.)
When Atara runs away from home, the focus shifts to the obedient and faithful adopted daughter, Mila. This is where the novel really shines, as Markovits explores the dichotomy between the comfort and costs of belonging to a tight, closed off group. By concentrating on the sister who conforms, she delivers a character study of great nuance and sensitivity.
Mila’s destiny is joined to Josef, who had been sent to the Rebbe’s court in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when the war ended. With tenderness and compassion, Markovits portrays their youthful arranged marriage, circumscribed wedding night and devotion to each other. But this love is gravely tested when Mila fails to conceive. By this time she, too, is in Williamsburg and discovers that there’s not much to life there for a childless young woman.
Fate and faith, free will and strict commandments collide, as Mila and Josef react to their situation in ways that have dark and far-reaching consequences.
Steeped in erudition and seething with emotion and energy, I Am Forbidden is driven by a breathless momentum that makes it hard to put down. It will stay with me for a long time.

I Am Forbidden, By Anouk Markovits, Bond Street Books/Doubleday Canada, 300 pages, $29.95

Rav Avraham Tzvi Wosner of Monsey bans Witnesses at a wedding who own a smart phone!

Rabbi Avraham Tzvi Wosner in Monsey ruled this week, abiding by the  decision of his grandfather, that those who own smart phones or have Internet access without filters are banned from being witnesses at a Jewish court proceeding.

According to the report, the decision of Rabbi Wosner came at a wedding when he found out a witness to the wedding ceremony had a phone that had internet access. He ordered that other witnesses be found.

Jewish Band performs in Krakow Poland singing "Aveenu Malkeinu", Video

Colorado Indians Jewish?

(JTA) – Israeli geneticists have linked a Native American population in Colorado to Jews expelled from Spain during the Inquisition.

Geneticists at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv discovered the genetic mutation marker BRCA1 in a group of Mexican Indians who had emigrated from Mexico to the United States over the past 200 years and settled in Colorado, Haaretz reported Wednesday.

BRCA1 is found in Jews of Ashkenazi origin and leads to a higher incidence of breast and ovarian cancer.

Researchers say the mutation found in the Colorado Indians is identical to that of Ashkenazim, according to Haaretz, and dates to a period more than 600 years ago. Jews were expelled from Spain in the 15th century.

Researchers say this offers genetic proof that some of the Jews expelled from Spain who reached South America intermarried with the indigenous population, whose descendants later migrated to Mexico and then the United States, Haaretz reported.

Colorado’s Mexican Indians do not have any traditions that link them to Jews, according to Eitan Friedman, who headed the Sheba team.

VosizNeias censors Rabbi Slifkin's article on Daf Yomie

Vosizneias posted the following article by Rabbi Nathan Slifkin then removed it because of pressure!
Here is the article from Slifkin's Blog"

But who are the guests of honor at the grand Siyumim? Who performs the siyum, who makes the speeches, who gets the glory? Not the Daf Yomi participants and not even the maggidei shiurim. Instead, it's the roshei yeshivah.

This is not only tragic; it's also ironic. For the roshei yeshivah are the ones who not only do not learn Daf Yomi; they also often speak out against it!

Now, to be sure, there is room to criticize Daf Yomi. The breakneck pace means that the learning is often superficial and not committed to memory. But there is room to criticize the yeshivah style of learning, too. Spending endless weeks on three lines of Gemara is not exactly the traditional form of study. And learning without coming to clear halachic conclusions is entirely in opposition to the reasons for learning Torah that the Rishonim give.

But whatever the respective merits and drawbacks of the different approaches to learning Gemara, one thing is clear: yeshivos don't do Daf Yomi. Rabbi Meir Shapiro wanted all Jews to be studying the same material at the same time; yeshivos make no such effort. Rabbi Meir Shapiro wanted masechtos of the Gemara that are not usually studied to receive their due respect; yeshivos ignore those masechtos on principle. Daf Yomi is about covering ground in Shas, whereas in most yeshivos, the emphasis is on endless analysis of a few lines of Gemara - the "oker harim" approach instead of the "Sinai" approach. Most fundamentally of all, Daf Yomi is for ba'alei battim, the laymen from whom society is built, not yeshivah students. Why, then, would roshei yeshivah be the ones getting the glory at the Daf Yomi Siyum HaShas, and giving intricate pilpulim in Gemara (and in Yiddish!)? Mah inyan Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel aitzel Sinai?

If I'm not mistaken, the explanation is as follows. The grand pomp of the Siyum HaShas, with tens of thousands of participants, offers Agudas Yisrael an opportunity to further one of their primary goals: strengthening the Daas Torah form of rabbinic authority, and specifically that of roshei yeshivah.

(Ironically, this latter aspect is not only contrary to tradition of Judaism in general; it is even contrary to the original form of Agudas Yisrael. The Council of Torah Sages of Agudath Israel were originally mostly either community rabbis or those with experience in such roles; today, they are virtually all roshei yeshivah who have never functioned in any such role.)

These are thy Gedolim, O Israel! That is what the siyum haShas does. Make the biggest public Jewish event, and give the stage exclusively to the people that you want to publicize as the heroes and leaders of the Jewish community.…

Daf Yomi is about the ordinary man who takes his ArtScroll Gemara on the train with him every morning on the way to work. He is the hero of the Siyum HaShas. Let's grant him his well-deserved honor!

New York State will outlaw Anonymous Posts on the Web!

 New York state lawmakers are proposing to effectively end the 1st Amendment for the sake of stopping cyber bullying and what they refer to as “baseless political attacks”.

New York State Assembly bill S06779 will require websites based in New York to “remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post.”

Jim Corte, member of the Assembly of the 10th District in New York, is promoting that Internet Protection Act (A.8688/S.6779). Assemblyman Dean Murray and Sen. Thomas O’Mara, R-Big Flats are also sponsoring the legislation.

Corte asserts that his “legislation turns the spotlight on cyber-bullies by forcing them to reveal their identity or have their post removed”.

Within the proposal are preventive measures to keep “people from posting anonymous criticism of local businesses”. Businesses would be allowed to judge online reviews that place them in a negative light as disruptive to their financial ability and therefore be empowered to have those postings removed from websites under the guise of “rival competitors”.

The proposal also includes language combating mean-spirited political attacks that “add nothing to the real debate and merely seek to falsely tarnish the opponent’s reputation by using the anonymity of the Web”.

This over-reaching proposition will “ensure that there is more accurate information available to voters on their prospective candidates”.

“While the Internet is a wonderful resource for social networking, sadly it can also be used to anonymously bring harm to others,” said Assemblyman Dean Murray, R-East Patchogue. “This bill will offer them the opportunity to either confront the person making these comments by having that person identified or have the comment removed all together in the case where this comment is false or slanderous.”

The website must provide a toll-free number or email address where “victims” of alleged cyber bullying can contact the webmaster to have the comments removed. No judge or jury is necessary. Simply the victim’s accusation is enough to have any comment removed for supposed offences.
In the event a complaint is filed, the webmaster will be mandated to contact the anonymous commenter, who is given a mere 48 hours to identify themselves as the author of the post or else the comment will be deleted.

“The internet has been a great innovation for our time, it’s brought forth a lot of advantages, but with that, there are abuses that come with it,” said O’Mara. “This will help lend some accountability to the internet age.”

However, the measures taken to legitimize positive from defacing comments regarding cyber-bullying, online business reviews and political attacks are not defined.

Only the power to change the content of the Web and force users to use their real identities is mentioned.

Murray would like to see the legislation be picked up nationally. He hopes this proposal will turn into a federal bill that will mandate the internet’s content across the US.

“There’s got to be a starting point,” said Murray. “If we don’t start somewhere, it’s not going to spread. A lot of times New York does lead the way for the nation.”

Assemblyman Peter Lopez, R-Scoharie, co-sponsor of the bill, believes that the internet is a kind of ‘wild west” where “anything goes”. Lopez hopes that this remanding bill will curtail the internet to make it a “beneficial [resource] and make sure it is used properly”.

Who decides if the internet is being used properly?