Experts Aghast As Biden Set To Name Malley As Iran Envoy....The one who Gave the Iranian Murderers Billions in Cash

US President Joe Biden has selected Robert Malley, a veteran Middle East official, as his administration’s special envoy for Iran, according to Thursday reports.

Malley was previously a top national security aide to former US president Barack Obama.

Meanwhile Hady Amr, a former deputy special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the Obama administration, was appointed Thursday as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israel and Palestinian Affairs in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.

Amr was involved in ultimately failed efforts to broker a Middle East peace deal in 2013-14.

Malley currently runs the International Crisis Group. Iran hawks are “aghast,” believing Malley to be a key architect of the 2015 nuclear deal that former president Donald Trump withdrew the US from in 2018, AP said without citing named sources. These hawks are said to fear Biden “wants to rejoin the Iran deal at any cost and may be willing to sacrifice the security of Israel and the Gulf Arab states to do so,” AP reported. The hawks, it said, regard Malley as less than fully supportive of Israel.

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Rav Chaim Kanievsky Makes Front Page of New York Times

 

The following is from a New York Times article today accompanying a picture of Rav Chaim Kanievsky that appeared on its front page:

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 93, can’t use a phone. He rarely leaves his house. His family says he has never successfully made a cup of tea. His closest aides think he doesn’t know the name of Israel’s prime minister. He studies the Torah for, give or take, 17 hours a day.

Yet despite his seeming detachment from worldly life, Rabbi Kanievsky has become one of the most consequential and controversial people in Israel today.

The spiritual leader of hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews, Rabbi Kanievsky has landed at the center of tensions over the coronavirus between the Israeli mainstream and its growing ultra-Orthodox minority.

Throughout the pandemic, the authorities have clashed with the ultra-Orthodox over their resistance to antivirus protocols, particularly their early refusal to close schools or limit crowds at religious events. Similar conflicts have played out in the New York area.

Rabbi Kanievsky, issuing pronouncements from a book-filled study in his cramped apartment in an ultra-Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv, has often been at the fore of that resistance. Twice, during the first and second waves of the pandemic in Israel, he rejected state-imposed antivirus protocols and would not order his followers to close their yeshivas, independent religious schools where students gather in close quarters to study Jewish Scripture.

“God forbid!” he exclaimed. If anything, he said, the pandemic made prayer and study even more essential.

Read more at New York Times.

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Soldier Eliminated Terrorist in Gush Etzion Junction : 'I saw he had a knife, I shot and neutralized him'

דיווח ראשוני: חשד לניסיון פיגוע בגוש עציון, המחבל נוטרל@carmeldangor

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) January 31, 2021

 

Preliminary IDF investigation of the attack at the Gush Etzion Junction this morning reveals that an attacker armed with three knives attached to a stick arrived at the junction and tried to stab IDF fighters operating in the area.

An IDF fighter responded by firing and neutralizing him. There are no casualties to our forces.

Corporal E., a fighter from the Kfir Brigade's Nachshon Battalion who neutralized the attacker, related: "I was standing at the northern hitchhiking position, at Gush Etzion Junction, to protect the civilians who were there. I saw a suspect walking on the road who began to move rapidly towards me and towards civilians who were there, I recognized that he had drawn a knife, I shot and neutralized the terrorist."

"I have been here in operational employment with my battalion friends for about a month. We stay alert all the time to avoid cases like this. We will continue to protect the residents of Gush Etzion and protect the home."

The stick on which the knives were attached

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Gamestop Day Traders Don't Care If They Lose All Their Money As Long As They Can Stick it to Wall Street

They’ve endured a financial crisis. Two deep recessions. Mounds of student debt. Stagnant pay. Costly health care. Dim job prospects.

They’ve seen the uber-rich grow richer while a pandemic threw tens of millions of people out of work and left many more isolated and vulnerable at home.

Now, they feel, it’s payback time.

Nearly a decade after the Occupy protest movement left Wall Street more or less unscathed, the citadel of financial might faces a new assault.

Day traders, mobilized on a Reddit chatroom, have poured about all the money they can find into the stocks of a struggling video game retailer called GameStop and a few other beaten-down companies. Their buying has swollen those companies’ share prices beyond anyone’s imagination — and, not coincidentally, inflicted huge losses on the hedge funds of the super-rich, who had placed bets that the stocks would drop.

Their strategy, of course, is freighted with risk. The prices of the stocks they’ve bought are now multiples above any level justified by revenue, earnings or future prospects. The danger is that at any time, the stocks could collapse.

Maybe so. But as one Reddit user wrote Friday, asserting that hedge fund financiers would drink Champagne as they looked down upon Occupy Wall Street protesters in 2011:

“I’d rather lose it all than give them what they need to destroy me … I’ll burn it all down just to spite them.’’

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Harav Dovid Soloveitchik Rosh Yeshiva of Brisk is Niftar at 99

 Petira of Hagaon HaRav Meshulam Dovid Halevi Soloveitchik ZATZAL, Rosh Yeshivas Brisk. He was 99.

The levaya will begin at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning, beginning from the niftar’s home on Eli HaCohen 17 and pass by the nearby Yeshivas Brisk on the way to Har Hamenuchos.

The Rosh Yeshivah contracted the coronavirus in October and after initially being treated at home, was hospitalized at Hadassah Ein Kerem after his condition worsened and was subsequently sedated and ventilated.

He was released to his home in early December, where a private ICU unit had been set up. His condition continued to deteriorate, until his Petira early Sunday morning.

The Niftar is the fifth of twelve children and the third son born to the Brisker Rov, Hagaon HaRav Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik and his Rebbitzen Alte Hindl. His exact date of his birth is unknown, but it is known that his older brother Reb Chaim was born in January 1920 and his younger brother Reb Refoel Yehoshua was born in spring 1924.

The Rosh Yeshiva emigrated to Mandatory Palestine with his father during World War II, and they settled in Yerushalayim. He married the daughter of HaRav Asher Sternbuch of London. He is the brother-in-law of Hagaaon HaRav Sternbuch, the Posek from Yerushalayim.

In the late 1970s, he opened opened his yeshiva in the Gush Shemonim section of the Givat Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem.

Below is the last-known video of the Rosh Yeshivah, z’tl. After the Rav was released from the hospital on Erev Shabbos Chanukah, two talmidim visited and sang for the Rosh Yeshivah, z’tl.

"ועיננו תראינה" > וידאו בלעדי: התיעוד האחרון של זקן ראשי הישיבות >> https://t.co/1kkiGSKWm2 pic.twitter.com/KM1irH50Tn

— משה ויסברג (@moshe_nayes) January 31, 2021

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ 

NBC Accuses Frum Anne Neuberger a Biden Pick of Having "Dual Loyalty"

It's Starting guys ....pack up before it's too late ..

By David Isaac, World Israel News

In what would have seemed unthinkable only a short time ago given the bipartisan support for Israel, a Biden pick’s suitability for a cybersecurity post is being questioned because she donated to AIPAC, America’s largest pro-Israel lobbying group.

Anne Neuberger, the National Security Agency’s cybersecurity director, was announced as the new deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology by the Biden administration in mid-January. Accounts at the time depicted her as eminently suitable for the job, having served also as head of the “Russia Small Group,” which handled Russian cybersecurity threats.

Through a family foundation, Neuberger, who is Jewish, donated $500,000 to AIPAC. The news was first reported by the far left journal Mother Jones. The article seems to suggest there is a conflict of interest, and by doing so indirectly raises a dual loyalty charge against Neuberger.

NBC, which ran with the Mother Jones story, subsequently apologized for the shabby reporting involved.

“After a number of readers raised issues with this article, NBC News conducted a review and has determined that it fell short of our reporting standards. In order to warrant publication, it needed on-the-record quotes from critics, rather than anonymous ones. The article should have also included more views from those who believe that donations to AIPAC do not represent a conflict. And it did not give Neuberger adequate time to respond to our reporting. NBC News is leaving the article on our website in the interest of full transparency with our readers.”

It would represent a sea change if support for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a nonpartisan group promoting strong U.S.-Israel ties, is considered a disqualification from office.

AIPAC’s annual conference, a nonpartisan affair, routinely features a slew of both Democratic and Republican politicians, who all agree on the “unbreakable” bond between the two countries. 

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Watch This Frustrated Dad Addressing the School Board!

 

WATCH: Frustrated father addresses school board in Loudoun County, Virginia @alisciaandrews

pic.twitter.com/SvIAgorPKQ

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 27, 2021

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ 

Rand Paul Perfectly Explained to the Senate the Ridiculousness of this Impeachment Trial

 

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

Purple Wool From Kings David and Shlomo Era Found by Archaeologists

"King Solomon has made his carriage out of the timber of Lebanon. He has made its posts of silver, its base of gold, its seat of purple fabric. Its interior is inlaid with love by the daughters of Jerusalem,"  Shir Hashirim (9-10).

Now, for the first time in Israel or the entire southern Levant, rare evidence has surfaced of cloth dyed royal purple dating back to the time of kings David and Solomon.

Researchers from Israel Antiquities Authority, Tel Aviv University, and Bar-Ilan University spent years studying colored woven fibers excavated at Timna in the Negev Desert, the site of King Solomon's famed copper mines. Carbon-14 dating determined that they date from 1,000 BCE, the period in which David and Solomon reigned in Jerusalem. They published their findings on Thursday in the journal PLOS ONE.

The purple color, known as "argaman" in Hebrew and extracted from a type of Mediterranean sea snail at a distance of some 300 km (186 miles) from the Timna Valley in the southern Negev Desert, is mentioned in biblical sources a number of times. However, this is the first time that a Bronze Age woven fiber dyed royal purple has been found in Israel or anywhere else in the region.

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ

The Tragedy for Charedim from COVID has Created a Crisis for Judaism Itself

The mayor of Antwerp, the Belgian city that is home to about 15,000 haredi Jews, has warned that their failure to comply with coronavirus measures threatens to trigger a wave of anti-Semitism.

The Belzer Chassidic sect shut their synagogue in the city after the police twice found it was violating emergency measures forbidding group prayer. COVID-19 infections in two heavily Jewish neighborhoods of Antwerp are reported to be four times higher than in the rest of the city.

This is a pattern being repeated in many countries: haredim dying from the virus in hugely disproportionate numbers, but with their communities’ significant infractions of the COVID regulations provoking widespread criticism and fury.

Supporters say they are being scapegoated. Many of these communities have been observing the restrictions; a number of prominent rabbis have ordered the closure of yeshivahs and schools; and others have reversed their previous rulings to keep them open when they have become aware of the risks.

Certainly, there’s a tendency to lump all the haredim together and unfairly blame them all. But the behavior of many—in keeping open their educational institutions against government instructions, ignoring social distancing at weddings and other large gatherings, and refusing to wear face masks—is deeply troubling and is having tragic consequences.

In London’s Stamford Hill, the police have launched an investigation to find out who was responsible for arranging a 150-strong wedding that took place on the premises of a haredi girls’ school. In a particularly distressing irony, the school’s former principal, Rabbi Avrohom Pinter, himself died of COVID after trudging in desperation from house to house to beg the area’s haredim to stop flouting the restrictions.

KINDLY SUPPORT OUR BLOG BY BROWSING THE ADS

THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIMESֱ