Israel has about 131,000 millionaires, and its population is getting wealthier quickly, according to a Monday report from the Swiss banking firm Credit Suisse.
Israel ranks 23rd worldwide in its total number of millionaires, and by 2024 is expected to have 173,000 millionaires, representing a growth rate of 32 percent, the annual Global Wealth Report found.
The report surveyed worldwide wealth from mid-2018 to mid-2019.
The total number of Israeli millionaires is relatively high, placing the Jewish state slightly below more populous countries including Brazil and Poland, although some states with fewer people, including Norway, Switzerland and Hong Kong, had more millionaires.
The 32% expected growth rate put Israel in the middle of the pack for wealthy countries.
Republicans brought House Democrats’ impeachment investigation to a halt on Wednesday as around two dozen GOP House members stormed into a closed-door deposition with a Defense Department official. Democrats said the move compromised national security as some of them brought electronic devices into a secure room.
As a series of diplomats have been interviewed in the probe, several of them detailing President Donald Trump’s efforts to persuade Ukraine to investigate a political rival, many Republicans have been silent on the president’s behavior. But they have been outspoken about their disdain for Democrats and the impeachment process, saying it is unfair to them even though they have been allowed to participate.
“The members have just had it and they want to be able to see and represent their constituents and find out what’s going on,” said Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Reform panel. That committee is one of three leading the investigation, and its members are allowed into the closed-door hearings.
Jordan said things were at a “standstill.” And after several hours, a handful of members remained in the room. The deposition with Laura Cooper, a senior Defense Department official who oversees Ukraine policy, was temporarily on hold.
The Republicans decried that the deposition was happening behind closed doors and said Americans should be able to read the transcripts of any interviews being conducted as part of impeachment.
Democrats have promised to release the transcripts when it won’t affect their investigation, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has pushed back on the criticism of the depositions.
Schiff said in a letter to colleagues last week that “the majority and minority have been provided equal staff representation and time to question witnesses, who have stayed until the majority and the minority have asked all of their questions – often late into the evening.”
Several Republicans appeared to be tweeting from the secure room. North Carolina Rep. Mark Walker tweeted: “UPDATE: We are in the SCIF and every GOP Member is quietly listening.” Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter wrote that “my Republican colleagues and I just stormed the impeachment hearing room and finally got in.”
The Gerrer hassidic dynasty – the largest, wealthiest and most influential of the hassidic communities in Israel – is facing an unprecedented schism that could, and likely already has, damaged its prestige and power.
After several years in which tensions have simmered between Gerrer Rebbe Yaakov Aryeh Alter and his first cousin Rabbi Shaul Alter, events over the course of the recent Sukkot holiday boiled over. These tensions resulted in breakaway prayer services by Shaul and his followers, and a statement by Shaul that he was establishing new institutions for the Hassidim that have followed him out of the mainstream Gerrer community.
Its after Yom Kippur and the Tzadiikim of Meah Sharim are back to embracing the murderers of Jews that make Jewish daughters and women into Jewish widows and orphans ...
Nearly a third of Jewish Americans say they have hidden their religious identity or avoided carrying items that would identify oneself as Jewish in public due to threats of anti-Semitism, according to a poll released Wednesday.
A study by the American Jewish Coalition (AJC) found that 31 percent of the respondents said they had "avoided publicly wearing, carrying, or displaying things that might help people identify [them] as a Jew."
Twenty-five percent of those surveyed also told pollsters that they at least sometimes "avoid certain places, events, or situations out of concern for [their] safety or comfort as a Jew."
The survey's results come as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) says the rate of anti-Semitic incidents has doubled in the U.S. since 2015.
There continues to be "an alarmingly high number of anti-Semitic acts," ADL national director Jonathan Greenblatt said in April.
“We’ve worked hard to push back against anti-Semitism, and succeeded in improving hate crime laws, and yet we continue to experience an alarmingly high number of anti-Semitic acts,” Greenblatt said at the time.
Early numbers for 2019 suggest that the problem is continuing, as the ADL recorded roughly the same number of anti-Semitic attacks in the first half of 2019 as it did in the first half of 2018.
AJC's poll contacted 1,283 Jews living in the U.S. over the age of 18 between Sept. 11-Oct. 6. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
President Reuven Rivlin will task Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz with forming a government on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced earlier this week he was unable to do so.
A statement from Rivlin’s office on Tuesday said the president will officially give Gantz the mandate to try and build a Knesset majority after his chief of staff completed a second round of consultations with representatives of all Knesset parties.
The two will sign a document establishing the appointment at 8 p.m. and make statements.
Along with his new status as prospective prime minister, Gantz this week will receive a security detail from the state.
Earlier Tuesday, the secular right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party said it would not be endorsing anyone for prime minister in the second round of coalition talks, while Netanyahu’s allies reiterated their support for the prime minister.
Netanyahu announced Monday that he had failed to form a majority government in the Knesset, marking a major setback for the embattled prime minister that plunges the country into a new period of political uncertainty.
Facing a Wednesday deadline, Netanyahu said he was returning the mandate to form a government to Rivlin, blaming his failure on Gantz, Blue and White deputy head Yair Lapid, and Yisrael Beytenu party leader Avigdor Liberman
Rabbi Shmaryahu Yosef Nissim Karlitz, a senior rabbi and major halakhic posek of the Litvish community in Israel, passed away Monday evening. He was 93.
Rabbi Karlitz was a member of the leaders of the Degel Hatorah faction and served for many years as the rabbi of the Ramat Aharon neighborhood of Bnei Brak.
He played his central public role in establishing the Bnei Brak Beit Din and served as its head for over 50 years.
Rabbi Karlitz was hospitalized two weeks ago at the Maayanei Hayeshua Medical Center in Bnei Brak due to cardiac problems.
During Simchat Torah, there was severe deterioration in his medical condition when he underwent CPR twice after losing consciousness.
The world of Torah and Halacha has said farewell to Rabbi Nissim Karelitz, one of the leading Lithuanian public leaders in the last generation, who passed away at the age of 93.
Journalist Yisrael Cohen, a Kol B'Rama commentator on haredi affairs in various media venues, talks about the rabbi's image, influence, and uniqueness.
A Sukkos concert in Yerushalayim is causing outrage among many people.
At the concert a popular song titled “Reb Shaya ben Reb Moshe” was sung by a popular performer. As the song was being sung, a large screen displayed a photo of the holy Tzadik Reb Shayele Kerestirer, who the song is about.
In a despicable Bizayon, surrounding the image of Reb Sheyele were rats and mice running across his face.
The “justification” of this warped and disgusting act was done due to a story that people claim happened in the time of the Tzadik when he told someone with a mice infestation to hang his photo as a prevention.
A great-grandson of Reb Shayele says that his grandmother lived in his house until WWII broke out, and she claims that this entire story never happened, and that he was against photos and therefore there are no photos of him other than a passport photo. In fact all his descendants vehemently deny that this “Segula” originated from Reb Shayele.
