McJunkin Wedding Photos

Goodbye Yoily Brach ז״ל

Zionists will allocate NIS 100 Million to pay Farmers who let their lands lay fallow during Shmitta Year!

Hey Satmar Farmers ! You guys not taking any money from the "medinah?"
I keep saying that the biggest Baalai Tzedakah are the Zionists!

The government will allocate NIS 100 million in extra funding for the Religious Affairs Ministry in order to assist in preparation for the upcoming shemittah year, the sabbatical year in which Jewish farmers are supposed to let their fields lay fallow.

The next shemittah year will begin this coming Rosh Hashana (Jewish new year) in September. The somewhat complex issues of shemita were thoroughly explained in Arutz Sheva articles in 2007, ahead of the previous shemittah year, which began then. The funding is expected to be approved Sunday during the weekly government cabinet meeting.

The Torah commandment to leave fields fallow for one year every seven years involves many complicated Halakhic (Jewish legal) issues, and opinions differ on how best to adhere to the laws without unduly harming farmers' livelihood.

Of the total sum, NIS 11.5 million will be available for educational organizations to provide assistance and guidance for farmers who wish to fulfill the precepts of shemittah. An additional NIS 2 million will be available to produce materials explaining the importance of shemittah.

Another NIS 2 million will be used for a special “Hakhel” ceremony, to take place at the Western Wall at the end of the shemittah year. According to the Torah, the entire nation is to gather at the Temple at the end of the shemittah year to hear the Torah read in public by the nation's leaders, in the Hakhel ceremony. The balance will be used to support farmers who need assistance in fulfilling shemittah properly.

Speaking to a large group of rabbis in January, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau appealed for unity during the shemittah year. The sabbatical has been marred in recent years by the ongoing debate between those who approve of the "heter mechira,” a process that permits "selling" the land to a non-Jew so that agricultural work can continue during the shemittah year. The process, which was strongly advocated by the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and originally approved by the first Chief Rabbi Avraham HaCohen Kook, is strongly opposed by the Ashkenazic hareidi rabbinate.

"I told the Rishon Letzion (Rabbi Yosef) that unfortunately there are rabbis who will try to make controversy between us, but in our positions we will sit together G-d willing ten full years without 'please part from me' (Genesis 13:9)," remarked the rabbi, emphasizing cooperation. (His Biblical reference was the the episode when Avraham and his nephew Lot parted ways due to irreconcilable differences in lifestyle).

Rabbi Lau noted that debates between rabbis are “today unfortunately portrayed as a desecration of G-d's name and as disputes. Every word out of place said by a rabbi can cause of desecration of G-d's name, contempt for rabbis and all people. We must guard the holiness of the land, but no less the holiness of man and of each other,” he added.

The Billionaire Bill Gates throws Israel Under The Bus because of Arab Pressure!

Yup, He is afraid that a bunch of towel wearing Arabs will stop investing with him, so he divests from an Israeli Company!
Time to buy Apple, folks!
Amid an international boycott against the company over alleged human rights violations, billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has sold a portion of his shares in G4S, the international British security firm that has current contracts with the Israel Prison Service.

HAARETZ.com (http://bit.ly/U5rCW5) reports that Palestinian NGO, Addameer, in conjunction with multiple other international organizations, called on Gates in April to divest in G4S over its treatment of Palestinian political prisoners currently being detained at Israeli detention centers in Ofer, Ketziot, and Megiddo.
Calls for Gates to divest stemmed from Addameer’s contention that Gates’ Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic entity, should not be affiliated with a company accused of human rights violations.
A spokesman for the Addameer Palestinian Prisoner and Human Rights Association praised Gates’ move, saying, “we have been arguing that it is completely unacceptable for a charitable foundation to be investing in a company, like G4S, which participates in gross human rights violations against Palestinian political prisoners, including child prisoners. We welcome this step in the right direction

Lewis Katz owner of Philidelphia Inquirer Killed in Plane Crash

Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner Lewis Katz is among the seven people killed in a fiery plane crash in Massachusetts, the newspaper’s editor said Sunday.

Bill Marimow confirmed Katz’s death to Philly.com, saying he learned the news from close associates.

The Gulfstream IV crashed as it was leaving Hanscom Field at about 9:40 p.m. Saturday for Atlantic City International Airport in New Jersey, said Matthew Brelis, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates the air field.
“There were no survivors,” Brelis said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the people on board and their loved ones.”

The identities of the other victims weren’t immediately released. Nancy Phillips, Katz’s longtime companion and city editor at the Inquirer, was not on board.

The 72-year-old Katz was one of two business moguls who bought out their partners last week with an $88 million bid for The Inquirer, which also operates the Philadelphia Daily News and the news website Philly.com.
T
he winners vowed to fund in-depth journalism to return the Inquirer to its former glory and to retain its editor, Marimow.
“It’s going to be a lot of hard work. We’re not kidding ourselves. It’s going to be an enormous undertaking,” Katz said then, noting that advertising and circulation revenues had fallen for years. “Hopefully, (the Inquirer) will get fatter.”

Katz, who grew up in Camden, New Jersey, made his fortune investing in the Kinney Parking empire and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network in New York. He once owned the NBA’s New Jersey Nets and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and is a major donor to Temple University, his alma mater.

The fight over the future of the city’s two major newspapers was sparked last year by a decision to fire the Inquirer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning editor. Katz and H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest wanted a judge to block the firing. Katz sued a fellow owner, powerful Democratic powerbroker George Norcross, saying his ownership rights had been trampled. The dispute culminated last week when Katz and Lenfest, a former cable magnate-turned-philanthropist, bought out their partners.

Officials did not speculate on what they think caused the crash. They said the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate and determine what happened.

Nearby residents recounted seeing a fireball and feeling the blast of the explosion shake their homes.

Jeff Patterson told The Boston Globe he saw a fireball about 60 feet in the air and suspected the worst for those aboard the plane.
“I heard a big boom, and I thought at the time that someone was trying to break into my house because it shook it,” said Patterson’s son, 14-year-old Jared Patterson. “I thought someone was like banging on the door trying to get in.”
The air field, which serves the public, was closed after the crash. Brelis said responders were still on the scene early Sunday morning.

Tennessee Family Converts to become "Heimeshe Yiden"

by Sandy Eller

A Tennessee family’s long journey to yiddishkeit comes to its conclusion today with the completion of their geirus and a proper Jewish wedding for the husband and wife, to be celebrated with their ten children.

Chad and Libby McJunkin were living in Chattanooga with their large family when they embarked on their quest for religion.
“They had always been very religious but they knew something was wrong,” Dovid Tzvi Steinberg, a friend of the McJunkin’s and a former Chattanooga resident, told VIN News. “They went to the Amish but quickly realized that the answers they sought weren’t there either and the Amish preacher told them, ‘You belong with the Jewish people.’”

Chattanooga has been home to an Orthodox synagogue since the late 1800’s and is home to Eastern Tennessee’s only mikvah. Chad McJunkin quickly hooked up with the local Chabad rabbi, who did his best to dissuade McJunkin from converting to Judaism. Still McJunkin persisted.
“Someone in Chattanooga suggested he contact me and we struck up a relationship,” said Steinberg, who said he and McJunkin became phone chavrusas.

The McJunkin children, seven girls and three boys, range in age from sixteen years to a toddler. All have been homeschooled until now and the McJunkins, will be making a Bar Mitzvah for their son in just a few weeks.

The McJunkins received their Ksav Geirus from Rabbi Yisroel Belsky and will now be known by their new names, Sholom and Nechama. The couple is to be married tonight by Rabbi Tzvi Mandel at Khal Bnei Yisroel in Flatbush.

Rabbi Mandel noted that the timing of today’s events, the first of the shloshes yemei hagbala, was extremely appropriate.
“I have been working with baalei teshuva for 30 years and you see that the Aibishter is getting together all of his children before Moshiach comes,” said Rabbi Mandel.

The Jewish community has already begun to raise funds for the new chosson and kallah and their brood with a crowd funding wedding shower campaign that was created by Alexander Rapaport, Executive Director of Masbia in hopes to raise $20,000 for essential items including new dishes, housewares, appliances, judaica items and kosher groceries.

To participate in McJunkin wedding shower, go to http://www.gofundme.com/weddingshower

The family will be returning to Chattanooga after the wedding but Steinberg speculates that they will soon be relocating to a Jewish community that will better suit their needs, possibly Baltimore.

The Family in Boro-Park this morning!

Beloved Musician Yoily Brach Succumbs to Illness at 30, Video

The following  is a letter Yoily sent out to his fellow musicians last summer:

"All my life I've worked around the clock, as in 19 hrs day, always worrying about tommorow. I never took a day off, no Sundays, vacations, a holiday. I deprived myself from every sugar, carb, red meat, drinks. I worked out for 2 full hrs EVERY day for the past 17 years. I walked around thinking "Dude, i'm in the best shape a person can be, I only eat Cancr fighting foods, I'm totally sick proof". And then from one min to the next while again thinking to myself, "I have a career, my wife has a career, I'm building a house, I've got my whole life planned out." Suddenly, out of left field, the circuit breakers went off!

My life changed forever!

There are lessons I've learned from all of this, and I'd like to pass them on to my friends. Here they are:

1. "Live today, don't worry about tommorow." And by "live" I mean use your time wisely.

2. The most important thing a person possesses is his family! When going through something traumatic like this, it's only your family that will do everything and anything to help you get through it. No money in the world will help you. All your days at work, all the money you've accumulated in the bank, cant be there to support you, and keep your mind strong. Why put work in front of your family? Why put them on the bottom of the list? When you look around, and truly realize that nobody is guaranteed with their life, regardless of their age, health condition, and worldly possessions. That is when you wake up realize "Hey, Whatever I have or have "earned" isn't because I have acquired it through my own hard work. I was given all of this to do something with it. All of these things "i worked for" was given to me for a purpose. And I now know that purpose isn't to busy myself with. To boast about my accomplishments with it. Everything you are given can be used in either 2 ways. Hold it, boast about it, stare at it and think to yourself "look what I did," Or, cherish it, use it to give back to your family. Spend your time truly making a difference in this world.

3. Realize that if you have enough money to pay your bills & you and your family are healthy, you are truly the luckiest person in the world.
Ok, my rant is now over 

Hope you're having a great summer.

Let's go for a drink sometimes 

JB"

Yoily Brach z"l on flute (left), Mo Kiss Guitar, Avi Bernstein Drums

Yoily with his daughter

Islamist Arrested In Brussels Jewish Museum Murders

French police have arrested a man suspected of being involved in the shooting deaths last weekend of four people at Brussels' Jewish Museum, official sources in Belgium and France said on Sunday.

The 29-year-old Frenchman was arrested in the southern French city of Marseilles on Friday and had a Kalashnikov and another gun with him, a French police source said. The man, from the northern city of Roubaix, had been in jail in 2012. AFP quoted sources close to the investigation as naming the suspect as Mehdi Nemmouche.

French media reported that the man was suspected of having stayed in Syria with jihadist groups in 2013.

French President Francois Hollande confirmed a suspect had been arrested and said France was determined to do all it could to stop radicalized youths from carrying out attacks.

"We will monitor those jihadists and make sure that when they come back from a fight that is not theirs, and that is definitely not ours ... to make sure that when they come back they cannot do any harm," Hollande told reporters.

The message "to these jihadists is that we will fight them, we will fight them and we will fight them", he said.

Hollande has said previously the attack was motivated by anti-Semitism.

"This is a relief," Joel Rubinfeld, head of the Belgian League against Antisemitism told BFM TV, saying he had received confirmation of the news.

"But this is also worrying us ... it is crucial that countries who have citizens who have gone to Syria take all necessary measures to make sure this does not happen again."

Police released a 30-second video clip from the museum's security cameras showing a man wearing a dark cap, sunglasses and a blue jacket enter the building, take a Kalashnikov rifle out of a bag, and shoot into a room, before calmly walking out.

Two of the four people killed in the attack, which authorities have surmised may have been motivated by anti-Semitism, were an Israeli couple from Tel Aviv who were vacationing in Belgium.

The bodies of Emanuel and Mira Riva of Tel Aviv, aged 54 and 53, were flown back to Israel last week and they were laid to rest on Tuesday.

Samuel & Diana Hirt Robbed at Gumpoint in their home, Friday Night in Beverly Hills

Hirt Home

Beverly Hills police continue their hunt for three intruders who shot an Orthodox Jewish woman last night after invading and robbing her home.

Both Samuel and Diana Hirt, who live at 420 Doheny Road in Beverly Hills, were home last night when the incident occurred at approximately 8:30 PM.
 
The Hirts host a minyan in their home and, reportedly, someone knocked on their door shortly after davening ended. The couple opened the door and three masked men barged into the their home. Police said that at least one of the men was holding a handgun.

Both Hirts were tied up by the intruders who also shot Mrs. Hirt in the leg. The robbers reportedly dragged the husband and wife throughout the house in their search for valuables. The burglars departed through the front door, fleeing the crime scene in a vehicle which drove away eastbound on Doheny Road.

Samuel Hirt untied himself after the intruders left and called police. According to CBS News, both victims were taken to Cedars Sinai Hospital, where Mrs. Hirt was treated for her injury, which was deemed to be non-life threatening. Mr. Hirt was taken to the hospital as a precautionary measure and was discharged today.
The Santa Monica Police Department conducted a search of the area with the Los Angeles Police Department, but so far, no suspects have been located.
Police did not say what items were taken from the home.

Blogger Rabbi Harry Maryles Defends Novominsker Rebbe's Criticism of "Open Orthodoxy"

Harry Maryles

As controversy continues to swirl around the Novominsker Rebbe’s public condemnation of Open Orthodoxy at the Agudah Dinner this past week,
the Modern Orthodox Rabbi and author of a popular blog on Orthodox Jewish thought has publicly expressed his own assessment of Open Orthodoxy, agreeing that it is inconsistent with Orthodox Judaism.

Rabbi Harry Maryles, a Chicago resident who writes the blog Emes V’emunah, said the despite the fallout from Rabbi Perlow’s remarks, there are times when it is imperative to speak out.
“There has been a lot of negative reaction, but sometimes you have to stand up and say the truth, when Torah hashkafa is being called into question you can’t let it go unchallenged.”

 Rabbi Perlow had harsh words for Open Orthodoxy, likening it to the Conservative and Reform movements and calling it “heresy.”

 

Maryles, who was in Rabbi Perlow’s 12th grade shiur at Beis Medrash L’Torah in Skokie,Illinois believes that there are two components that are integral to being an Orthodox Jew.
“One is the belief system, believing that the events in the Torah actually happened, The second is following the mitzvos. Those are the two things that make you Orthodox.”

Of particular concern to Maryles are public statements made by proponents of Open Orthodoxy, including Rabbi Zev Farber, a graduate of Yeshiva Chovevei Torah.
“After studying bible critics, he very strongly questioned whether events in the Torah actually happened and said that they were allegorical,” said Maryles. “No Torah was given at Sinai. Moshe Rabbeinu didn’t exist. The Avos didn’t exist. His understanding of the Torah is that it was an unfolding revelation and that while the bible is divinely inspired, the actual events described couldn’t have happened. This is apikorsus and has be to labeled as that.”

Allowing for the possibility that the events in the Torah didn’t actually take place puts Open Orthodoxy in the same category as Conservative Judiasm, says Maryles.
“Conservatives don’t require you to believe in biblical criticism, but they consider it legitimate and Open Orthodoxy is doing the same thing,” noted Maryles. “In terms of theology they are the same. That is kefira and violates at least some of the thirteen ikarim of the Rambam, which we have accepted as the basis of our faith for generations.”

Rabbi Asher Lopatin, president of Yeshiva Chovevei Torah, which describes itself as an “open Modern Orthodox rabbinical school”, invited Rabbi Perlow to further discuss the issue at hand.
“I welcome the Novominsker into the conversation of how all of us Orthodox Jews can bring the light of Torah to all Jews, in a meaningful way,” said Rabbi Lopatin. “Yes, the Novominsker Rebbe’s words were harsh, especially for a fellow Chicagoan, but I hope it can lead to a healthy engagement and discussion. We at Yeshiva Chovevei Torah, our talmidim and musmachim, are ready to learn from and listen to all who have a Torah message. That is what inclusive, passionate and Modern Orthodoxy is all about.”

Maryles said that his rejection of Open Orthodoxy has not necessarily been well received by all.
“I have gotten a lot of flak from my friends on the left, but I have to speak the truth. Proponents of Open Orthodoxy claim that they believe in the Torah but they allow someone like Zev Farber to be a member in good standing and they allow the negation of events in the Torah as part of their theology. You can’t do that and still call yourself Orthodox.”

While there were those who advised him to stay silent, saying that his statements would alienate those who currently consider themselves to be Open Orthodox, but might one day step up their religious observance and beliefs.
“You can’t accept kefira as a method of kiruv,” observed Maryles.
Maryles declined to comment on whether or not the Agudah dinner was the proper venue for the Novominsker’s attack on Open Orthodoxy, although he agreed that with the secular media in attendance, it might not have been the best time to take on this topic.
“I am not going to second guess or criticize the Rebbe,” said Maryles. “I am not in a position to criticize someone of his stature but as a leading rabbi in America, he has a right to speak out.”