Kupat Ha'Ir the dishonest Tzedaka Organization loses 15.6 million Dollars in stock investment

The Megurit housing fund has seen its stocks tumble in the three months since it went public, the Kikar Hashabbat Hebrew news website reported on Sunday. 

Stock prices fell 12% before the markets closed Sunday, and share prices have seen a slump of 14.2% over the past week.

Kupat Ha'ir, one of the largest haredi charities in Israel, that has been accused of fraud and deception, invested 60 million shekels ($15.6 million), or 24.9% of the fund's value. It has lost 6 million shekels ($1.5 million) to date. The burial society invested 40 million shekels ($10.4 million) and has lost million shekels to date.

According to Kikar Hashabbat, non-haredi institutions have also lost money after investing in the Megurit fund. The organization 'Excellence' and the Jewish National Fund have lost 4 million shekels each.

The Megurit fund announced Sunday morning that it would buy back many of the shares it sold off three months ago. The repurchases are meant to strengthen the value of the shares by reducing the percentage that is held by the public.

The Megurit fund is the first of its kind in Israel. It brings together smaller investors to pool larger amounts of money together and jointly purchase land around the country. the fund administers the land until it reaches profitability.

Amona ! Headache for Netanyahu?

I’m a South African Activist Who Used to Fight Against Israel—Until I Went There

Tshediso Mangope grew up under apartheid and believed that Israel had the same policies. But seeing the country for himself changed his perspective.

As a black South African and member of the African National Congress (ANC), I have often heard the accusation that Israel is an apartheid state—and therefore a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to be based on a single state of Palestine between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. 

I recently made a trip to Israel and the West Bank in order to understand the issues and the prospects for resolving the conflict.

Traveling through the country encouraged me to reflect upon the suggestions by some sections of the Palestine solidarity movement—particularly those advocating for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel—that it is possible to establish one country between Israel and Palestine based on a “one-state” solution, like the one we established here in South Africa.

Mrs. Devorah Goldfein killed by her own car in lakewood

The woman who was Niftar Erev Shabbos in Lakewood in a tragic accident, has been identified as Mrs. Devorah (Sharon) Goldfein A”H.

Mrs. Goldfein A”H, approximately 75 years old, was tragically killed after her own vehicle apparently struck her, pinning her underneath 

She was transported by Lakewood First Aid to MMCSC, where she was Niftar.

Askonim immediately rushed to the scene and to the hospital to ensure proper Kavod Ha’meis, and to expedite the release.

Baruch Hashem, with the assistance and efforts of Lakewood and County officials, Askonim were able to have the body released before Shabbos.

The Levaya will be taking place at 11:30 AM on Sunday morning at the 7th Street Chapel in Lakewood, and the Kevurah will be taking place in Lakewood.

The Nifteres was to celebrate the Bris of a grandson tomorrow morning, and the wedding of a grandchild tomorrow night.

In Election, Monsey Voted 90.2 % for Trump, New Square 96% for anti-Israel Hillary

Donald Trump polled well in traditional GOP strongholds in Rockland County, official results for the Nov. 8 election show, LOHUD reports.

Clinton’s support in Shikun Skver was strong. She won 96 percent of the vote in one New Square district, her biggest percentage in the county.

Trump’s scored his biggest percentage victory – 90.2 percent – in another Ramapo district, in Monsey.

The Problem With Dor Yeshorim

Genetics activist Sarah Dworcan says singles tested by the Dor Yeshorim organization are not "safely assured."

By Sarah Dworcan for COLlive

We are taught that the truth always prevails. But there are times when one cannot stand by and wait for the truth to be uncovered. When lives are at stake, every moment matters, and if you know something that can save a life and yet you remain silent, you too are culpable.

The Dor Yeshorim article posted on COLlive.com on Thursday, December 1st, outraged me.

Not because my child was born with an extremely rare but known Ashkenazic genetic disease, after we had both been tested by Dor Yeshorim before marriage and told we were "compatible."

It is because the lies and manipulation continue to fester.

This year alone, 25,000 young frum boys and girls will be tested by Dor Yeshorim and will think, as we did, that their genetic prospects are safely assured.

In our communities, Dor Yeshorim is painted as The Angel. This is not only misleading; it is dangerous.

The article simply fails to mention the most important fact — Dor Yeshorim only tests for 7 diseases. There are a total of 39 life-threatening Ashkenazic diseases, made up of hundreds of mutations.

In addition to the limited diseases, Dor Yeshorim only account for one known mutation of each disease that they actually test for. Who makes the decision of what disease is deemed "serious" enough to warrant being tested for? Is being at-risk for metabolic crisis, coma and death each moment of everyday considered serious enough? Apparently, not.

Also not mentioned is the "second panel" issue. The second panel only tests for another 7 diseases, which amounts to a total of 14 diseases. That is 14 out of 39. This second panel needs to be personally requested and an additional fee paid for.

Besides the fact that the concept of limited panels in the genetic world is outdated, why does a second panel even exist? If those diseases are important, surely it should all be on one test? And why only for an additional seven diseases? What about the other twenty-three?

Finally, Dor Yeshorim is NOT a medical organization, despite what their picture and tagline would have you believe.

How does this continue when their choices affect lives? Do these lives not matter? Are they not, in their words, "ensuring healthy children for Klal Yisroel”?

In truth, I believe it is better not to do genetic testing than to be tested through Dor Yeshorim. That way, at least people do not have a false sense of security that they have been "comprehensively genetically tested."

That is why my husband Yossi Dworcan and I founded Jnetic, an initiative to raise awareness regarding the systems used in screening for genetic disorders prevalent in the Jewish community.

We are working to get the facts straight and, as a community, take a stand. All known life-threatening diseases and mutations should be tested for.

* Upon request of the patient, as with any other personal medical information, results should be available and explained by a genetic counselor.

* The stigma and fear factor associated with carrier status should be broken. The answer to this is: Education, education, education. There is no shame in being a carrier; every person in the world is a carrier for at least 5 different mutations. We, as Jews, simply have a higher chance of being carriers for the same diseases because of our likely common lineage.

* When both parties are carriers, there are ways to have healthy children to the best of science's ability. These options are Halachically and medically sound and should be explained to the community.

* "Compatible" and "not compatible" are not medical terms, and we should not allow them to label us as such. Breaking up a shidduch (match) because both parties are carriers for a genetic mutation is something that we, as individuals, should be able to make an informed and educated decision about with the help of medical professionals. Making this decision for others is called playing G-d.

* Cost is not a factor. Check out Jscreen. More comprehensive tests are available at a cheaper rate than that of Dor Yeshorim’s, plus they include genetic counseling.

* MOST importantly: We all have the right and obligation to be informed and educated.

I don't expect you take my word for it. I encourage you to reach out to a medical professional who specializes in genetics and specifically how it relates to the Jewish community. If you would like a reference to one, please feel free to reach out to us at info@jnetic.org.

Hebrew may be world's oldest alphabet

A photo of Sinai 375a, a stone slab from Egypt, which is now located in the Harvard Semitic Museum. This photo contains the name Ahisamach (Exodus 31:6) on the two horizontal lines. (Credit: Douglas Petrovich)

The oldest recorded alphabet may be Hebrew. According to a controversial new study by archaeologist and ancient inscription specialist Douglas Petrovich, Israelites in Egypt took 22 ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and turned them into the Hebrew alphabet over 3,800 years ago.

The discovery of this early Hebrew alphabet has proved  to scholars the dates Petrovich has for the Israelites’ stay in Egypt – 430 years to the very day, as recorded in Exodus 12:40-41, equaling 1876-1446 BC – 

The road to Petrovich’s discovery started back in 2012, when he was researching hieroglyphic inscriptions online from an Egyptian stone slab dated 1842 B.C. The slab, known as Sinai 115, identified Joseph and his sons Ephraim and Manasseh– all figures from the Hebrew Bible, the latter of whom inscribed the hieroglyphs on the slab himself. Something in the text Manasseh wrote– translation “6 Levantines: Hebrews of Bethel, the beloved,” which referred to himself, his son, and four other Hebrews on a turquoise mining expedition– caught the eye of Petrovich. It was the world’s oldest letter, he says.

“On this otherwise Middle Egyptian caption were a Canaanite syllabic and the world’s oldest attested proto-consonantal letter–‘B’, depicting a house for the Hebrew consonant bayit,” Petrovich told Foxnews.com. “It was this single proto-consonantal Hebrew letter that helped me to understand that the world’s oldest alphabet, the language of which has been unidentified for over 150 years of scholarship, is Hebrew.”

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Petrovich's electronic drawing of Sinai 375a, which includes the separation of words and identification of proto-consonantal letters with biblical/modern Hebrew letters next to them (Credit: Douglas Petrovich).

Petrovich, who currently teaches Ancient Egypt at Wilfred Laurier University, isn’t the first to identify Hebrew as the language of the world’s oldest alphabet. Back in the 1920’s, a German scholar named Hubert Grimme identified some of the inscriptions as Hebrew. However, unlike Petrovich, he was unable to identify all of the letters in the alphabet correctly. This led to failed translations and rejection by other scholars.

Putting together a complete alphabet, detailed in a soon–to–be–released book by Petrovich, was no easy task.

“I was translating Middle Egyptian and proto-consonantal Hebrew inscriptions that nobody ever had translated successfully before,” he said. “There were many ‘A-ha!’ moments along the way, because I was stumbling across biblical figures never attested before in the epigraphical record, or seeing connections that I had not understood before.”

Dividing words properly was also a hurdle because the letters all run together, without any spaces between them or punctuation.

After finally completing the alphabet, Petrovich was able to translate 16 Hebrew inscriptions from four different sites in Egypt and Sinai. In these inscriptions he found a number of distinctly Hebrew words, including the naming of 3 biblical figures: Asenath (the wife of Joseph), Ahisamach (the father of Oholiab, who was appointed to build the tabernacle in the desert), and Moses, who was credited by the Hebrew Bible as being the man who led the Israelites out of Egypt.

“I absolutely was surprised to find [the reference to] Moses, because he resided in Egypt for less than a year at the time of his provoking of astonishment there,” Petrovich recalled. “In fact, the Hebrew letters ‘M-Sh’ could have other meanings, and I had to examine every other possibility for those uses of Hebrew words with those letters. Only after realizing that every other possibility had to be eliminated, whether due to contextual or grammatical limitations, was I forced to admit that this word must be taken as a proper noun, and almost undoubtedly refers to the Moses who is credited with writing the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, known as the Torah.”

The inscription with the Moses reference dates back to 1446 or 1447 B.C.– the final year of the Israelites’ stay in Egypt– and describes events written about in Exodus 1, such as the enslavement of Hebrews. In the inscription, Moses is depicted as a man who inspired awe in the Hebrew community, which would match well with the biblical events describing Moses’ encounters with the pharaoh.

Petrovich hopes that skeptics, instead of coming to pre–conclusions about his claims, will study his new findings with an open mind and be objective.

“My discoveries are so controversial because if correct, they will rewrite the history books and undermine much of the assumptions and misconceptions about the ancient Hebrew people and the Bible that have become commonly accepted in the scholarly world and taught as factual in the world’s leading universities,” he said. “To my skeptics, I say, ‘Continue to be skeptical. Do not accept my conclusions until you are convinced they are correct.’ Truth is un–killable, so if I am correct, my findings will outlast scholarly scrutiny.”

Further details can be found in Petrovich’s book “The World’s Oldest Alphabet” (Carta Books), which will be available in the coming weeks.

Trump the "tweeter"

Fried Kugel Balls for Chanukah .....

Recipe comes from the Nosher via My Jewish Learning:

Ingredients

1 12 oz package wide egg noodles
4 eggs
½ cup sugar
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
8 oz full fat sour cream
10 oz canned, crushed pineapple (drained)
1 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp salt

For assembling:

2 eggs
1 Tbsp milk
4 cups cornflakes, crushed
Vegetable oil for frying
Sea salt
Powdered sugar (optional)

Directions

To make the kugel:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a deep, square baking dish (8×8 or 9×9). If your baking dish not a square, the kugel will be too thin and you won’t be able to scoop the kugel into balls.

Cook noodles according to directions (around 8-10 minutes). Drain and use right away.

Place butter in a large bowl. Add hot noodles right on top and allow the butter to melt.

In another bowl, whisk eggs, sugar and vanilla together. Pour mixture on top of noodles and mix. Add sour cream, crushed pineapple and salt and mix again.

Pour noodle mixture into greased baking dish. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until just golden on top. Place in fridge overnight.

To assemble and fry:

Using a medium or large size cookie scoop, form chilled kugel into balls. Place on a baking sheet or place and put into freezer or fridge for 20-30 minutes. This will help them keep their shape when frying.

Heat vegetable oil over medium-high heat in a large, deep pan. Kugel balls don’t need to be completely submerged in oil, just about halfway.

Crush cornflakes into crumbs and place in a bowl. In another bowl combine eggs and 1 Tbsp milk.

Remove kugel balls from freezer. Dip into egg mixture, the cornflake crumbs. Fry balls in oil, about 1 minute each side until golden brown.

Place fried kugel balls on a paper towel lined plate to remove excess grease. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt while still hot.

Top with powdered sugar if desired. Serve while warm

Biblical storm cloud of dust and rain 'sent by God to put a barrier between Israel and ISIS'

Claims are being made that a biblical storm cloud of dust and rain was 'sent by God' to act as a barrier between Israel and ISIS .

The huge storm allegedly stopped on the border of Syria, and was 'unable' to enter Israel's Golan Heights region.

DIN: Can't be, because the Satmar Rebbe said in 1967 that G-d doesn't perform miracles  for the IDF ... only the "sitra achreh" do  miracles! 

But the Rebbe also said that the "6 million Jews were murdered by Hashem" and one shouldn't ask questions  .... so according to this logic, Hashem only kills,  doesn't save or perform miracles! Get me a stiff drink, folks!

Footage of the strange weather phenomenon was uploaded to Facebook by Israel News Online.

They claimed that the storm was an act of God, or 'divine intervention' to protect Israelis from the notorious terror group.

It is believed that the storm occurred last Thursday, December 1, at around 8am.

On Facebook, Israel News Online wrote: "A weather phenomenon occurred at 8am Thursday on the other side of the Syrian border, in the same place where ISIS attacked Israel.

This strange storm of what appears to be dust, cloud and rain did NOT cross the border fence into Israel. It sat like a barrier between ISIS and Israel."

One Facebook user replied: Absolutely the divine intervention of God protecting Israel. Amen!"

Other more cynical viewers disagreed, adding: "Actually, sorry to be boring, but it's simply a weather phenomenon."

But Israel News Online hit back almost immediately, writing: "Yes it is of course. Now do we ask who controls the weather? Whatever the cause it sat between ISIS and Israel and did not enter Israel."