Charedi party likens Reform and Conservative converts to dogs with kippot

 

United Torah Judaism, an ultra-Orthodox party, released an election campaign video Tuesday night that seemingly compares people who convert to Judaism through non-Orthodox denominations to dogs wearing kippot.

The video, published online, drew condemnation from opposition leader MK Yair Lapid, who said that with this message, UTJ had joined the ranks of anti-Semites who often compare Jews to dogs.

The campaign video was released after the High Court of Justice ruled earlier this week that Reform and Conservative conversions to Judaism conducted in Israel would be recognized for citizenship purposes. The decision, which dents the Orthodox monopoly on religion in Israel, was widely condemned by ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, who vowed to pass a law to overturn it.

In the video, a series of photos were shown featuring dogs wearing the traditional Jewish kippa on their heads and wrapped in a talit, or prayer shawl. The images were apparently drawn from so-called Bark Mitzvah events held by some US Reform and Conservative Jews for their pet dogs.

As the images paraded on the screen, a narrator declared, “In the High Court of Justice, this is a Jew” while joking of one dog that “his grandfather was a rabbi, of course he is Jewish!”

The video ended with the message that only the UTJ party “will protect your Judaism, that of your children, and your grandchildren” and the campaign slogan “First of all the Jews.”

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Gérer Chazzan Yisrael Adler Sings Grammen by Satmar Purim Tish

 

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Lefties Still Rioting in Portland ...but You Won't read this in the Media

 Portland citizens are finally fed up with the lefty goons engaged in a rolling riot across the city for most of the last year. Will the city’s leaders who’ve enabled the violence take note?

Amid a two-hour Saturday-night rampage by 150 “protesters” through the Pearl District, fed-up locals shouted at the crowd to give it a rest and “go home.”

This time, the rioters’ target was the Immigration and Customs Enforcement service; fliers read, “No borders! No nations! Abolish deportation.” But not “no vandalism”: They smashed windows of restaurants, banks and grocery stores, destroyed a security car and left anti-ICE graffiti on buildings along the way.

Police, stretched thin by multiple shooting incidents around the city, made only two arrests. Then again, Portland prosecutors routinely spring these thugs, so what’s the point?

Other cities have calmed since the riots after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, but Portland has seen endless outbursts. Hundreds of Antifa marked Inauguration Day by vandalizing the city’s ICE building and the local Democratic Party headquarters.

Locals have had enough. One man screamed from his balcony at Saturday’s mob: “Ten years from now, what are you gonna do? Keep doing the same thing?”

Probably — unless the city finally starts treating them as the criminals they are.

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Mom’s heartbreak after baby swallows battery, dies: ‘It didn’t have to happen’

 Texas mother Trista Hamsmith lost her 17-month-old daughter, Reese, in December due to complications from swallowing a battery — and she’s doing her part to ensure the toddler did not die in vain.

“Kids are dying,” Hamsmith, 39, told the “Today” show. “We’ve got to do everything we can to get this information to parents and put pressure on the industry to make changes to protect the kids.”

Hamsmith, who lives in Lubbock, noticed that Reese, who was typically a lively character, began wheezing. She was also congested and lethargic, and a pediatrician said croup — an upper-airway infection that generally affects children — was the cause.

Not long after, Hamsmith noticed a button battery had gone missing from a remote control; later, at a local emergency room, doctors confirmed that Reese had swallowed it, and it burned a hole in her esophagus.

“This story needs to be told,” Hamsmith added. “It didn’t have to happen.”

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Prices of banned Dr. Seuss books skyrocket on eBay

Dr Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel, 1904 – 1991) sits at his drafting table in his home office with a copy of his book, ‘The Cat in the Hat’, La Jolla, California, April 25, 1957.

 These books are going away — but not if you’re willing to pay.

The prices of six Dr. Seuss titles exploded on eBay after the beloved author’s publisher said it would stop selling them because they contained racist images.

Prospective buyers placed bids in the hundreds of dollars Tuesday for vintage copies of the books that were listed for as little as $4.44 over the past week.

A 1955 edition of “On Beyond Zebra!” fetched a leading bid of $670 by 10:15 a.m. Eastern time — less than a day after it was put up for auction at a starting price of just $14.99.

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When Cuomo Stabbed Biden in the Back

 Joe Biden’s aides were furious that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo made a self-serving video for the 2020 Democratic National Convention and asked his camp to redo it — but they refused, a new book says.

“Every four years, Democrats asked themselves the same question about the New York governor and former Housing and Urban Development secretary: ‘How is Andrew Cuomo going to f- -k us this time?’’ write the authors of “Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency.’’

At the convention four years earlier, Cuomo had jarred on “for double his allotted time,’’ while his team refused to participate in fact-checking sessions beforehand, the book says.

Then last year, when Cuomo “was supposed to use his credibility to explain why Biden had the best plan for dealing with the pandemic,’’ he instead “recorded something of a tribute to himself,’’ write authors Jonathan Allen of NBC News and Amie Parnes of The Hill.

Cuomo’s team had sent over the video the day of the convention, the tome says.

The governor boasted in the clip, “We climbed the impossible mountain, and right now, we are on the other side.’’

He didn’t utter Biden’s name until 4 minutes and 50 seconds into the video — which was 5 minutes long, the book notes.

“The convention’s speechwriting squad watched in disbelief,’’ the authors write.

“They asked Cuomo’s aides to refilm it. The answer came back: No.’’

A source involved in the convention’s production said of Cuomo’s camp, “They put the speech on our doorstep, lit it on fire, rang the doorbell, and then ran away.”

The authors add, “Cuomo was much more of a headache for Democrats than any of the four Republicans who spoke on the first night — former Ohio governor John Kasich, former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman, former New York representative Susan Molinari and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman.’’

Reps for Cuomo did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment Tuesday on the book’s claims.

Cuomo is now in the fight of his political life amid sex-harassment allegations.

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Anglo-Israeli Grandma Goes Viral After Hilarious Interview With Israeli Anchor Rafi Reshef

Effi Hercky, an effervescent 81-year-old Anglo-Israeli never expected to rise to stardom at her stage in life, but a short interview with Israeli anchor Rafi Reshef has catapulted her onto center stage. Hersky’s heavy English accent, bubbly personality and comical interludes (she was interviewed in the gym, flexed her muscles for Reshef and then asked him if he is married) led her interview to go viral. Reshef even granted her a follow-up interview on his show, sensing the popularity she was getting.

Suddenly she is famous but doesn’t find it so comfortable, refusing to give autographs in  Netanya where she lives. Hercky has even been mimicked on a popular comedy show, Eretz Nehderet, in which actors dress up as popular public personalities.

Hercky married a Holocaust survivor and made aliya with him to a kibbutz, but he was killed in a tragic car accident 7 years later and she was left to bring up her children by herself. Yet she projects real joie de vivre and has been volunteering to cheer up patients at the Reut rehabilitation hospital for the past 20 years.

“Life is fun and life is good…and there’s no other place in the world I’d rather live in,” Hercky says about herself.

I24 news interviewed Hersky in English about her newfound celebrity status: 

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MK Pindrus: ‘IDF Converts Are Shiksas, Whoever Marries Them- His Father Should Sit Shiva’

 The political environment in Israel, never calm before elections, reached a stormy crescendo after MK Yitzchak Pindrus (UTJ) said at a conference Tuesday that “whoever converted under the auspices of the IDF is a ‘shiksa.’ If somebody marries her – his father should sit shiva.”

Rabbi Chaim Amsalem, a Sephardic rabbi who has written a number of books advocating a more lenient approach to conversion for those who have a Jewish parent or grandparent, said that “Pindrus exhibited total ignorance. The IDF conversions are performed by rabbis from the entire rabbinic spectrum, including chareidim and nationalist chareidi rabbis. The same judges sometimes even sit in the rabbinical courts and all is under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate. Pindrus turned them all into reform converts in one statement.”

Yemina leader Naftali Bennett also condemned Pindrus’s statement: “What a disgrace. Pindrus belittles and insults thousands of IDF soldiers who completed the process of halachic conversion. These soldiers decided to undergo full conversion while serving in the army. I will not let anyone harm them.

MK Zvi Hauser, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defence, said that “it is irritating to see how MK Pindrus forgot that Derech Eretz (ethics) precedes the Torah and wilfully insults thousands of soldiers. Our security and Pindrus’s security is in the hands of those fighting for the eternity of Israel. We cannot humiliate them and exclude them from our camp.”

MK Tehila Friedman said that “Reform conversion doesn’t disturb chareidim but rather any conversion which isn’t chareidi, especially that of the IDF. A soldier who is a Ger Tzedek could be called a shiksa. It’s not the reform but rather the Religious Zionists who are the issue.

In the wake of the criticism, Pindrus’s office issued a clarification, stating that shiksa is meant in the religious sense, “meaning that conversion is only according to halacha and halacha cannot be decided by law or by the court. A conversion which is not according to halacha is invalid and these women are not Jewish.

“Any attempt to take these words out of context and claim that there is contempt for their contribution to the defense of Israel is a distortion, since there are wonderful people protecting us including Druze and Arab soldiers but nobody mistakenly thinks they are Jewish.”

However it should be noted that Pindrus’s clarification does not assuage the criticism against him, as he still claims that the IDF conversions, which take place over an extended period of time and in accordance with halacha, are invalid.

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Texas And Other States Lift Mask Requirement, Allow All Businesses To Reopen

 Texas on Tuesday became the biggest state to lift its mask rule, joining a rapidly growing movement by governors and other leaders across the U.S. to loosen COVID-19 restrictions despite pleas from health officials not to let their guard down yet.

The Lone Star State will also do away with limits on the number of diners who can be served indoors, said Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who made the announcement at a restaurant in Lubbock.

The governors of Michigan, Mississippi and Louisiana likewise eased up on bars, restaurants and other businesses Tuesday, as did the mayor of San Francisco.

“Removing statewide mandates does not end personal responsibility,” said Abbott, speaking from a crowded dining room where many of those surrounding him were not wearing masks. “It’s just that now state mandates are no longer needed.”

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Watch the Previous Lubavitcher Rebbe As He Signs his US Citizenship papers in 1949

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