“Burqa Ban” – Swiss Vote To Ban Face Coverings In Public

 

Swiss voters narrowly approved on Sunday a proposal to ban face coverings, both the niqabs and burqas worn by a few Muslim women in the country and the ski masks and bandannas used by protesters.

The measure will outlaw covering one’s face in public places like restaurants, sports stadiums, public transport or simply walking in the street. It foresees exceptions at religious sites and for security or health reasons, such as face masks people are wearing now to protect against COVID-19, as well as for traditional Carnival celebrations. Authorities have two years to draw up detailed legislation.

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Biden Deteriorating Daily... Forgets Name Of The Pentagon And The Name Of The Secretary Of Defense

President Joe Biden appeared to forget the name of the Pentagon and the name of the Secretary of Defense on Monday.

It happened when Biden was announcing the nominations of two female generals for promotion to four-star commands, hailing the nominees as “two outstanding and eminently qualified warriors and patriots.”

“And I want to thank the sec – the, the, ah former general. I keep calling him general, but my, my – the guy who runs that outfit over there,” Biden said.

“I want to make sure we thank the secretary for all he’s done to try to implement what we just talked about. And for recommending these two women for promotion.”

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Third stimulus check calculator: See how much money you could receive from relief bill

 Millions of Americans can expect to receive a third stimulus check after Senate Democrats approved President Biden's "American Rescue Plan" on Saturday, clearing the way for another $2 trillion injection of federal aid intended to boost the economy's recovery.

The cash payments included in the nearly $2 trillion stimulus bill are the largest yet, with individuals earning $75,000 or less eligible to receive the fully promised $1,400. Couples earning $150,000 or less will receive a check worth $2,800. Households will receive an additional $1,400 for each dependent child claimed on their most-recent tax filings.

As with previous rounds, Americans who earn more than the threshold line will still receive a partial check. But the money will phase out faster than previous rounds, cutting off payments for roughly 16 million Americans who qualified for previous relief payments, according to a preliminary analysis published by the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Individuals making $80,000 a year or more and couples making $160,000 a year, or higher, no longer qualify for the checks. That means individuals earning between $80,000 and $100,000, and couples earning between $160,000 and $200,000, are newly excluded from a partial check under the legislation.

You can use this free stimulus check calculator from Omni to determine how much money you will likely receive from the latest relief bill. If you've already filed your 2020 tax return, the payment will most likely be based on that income. If you haven't, the government will likely use your 2019 return to calculate how much you're owed.

Stimulus check eligibility emerged as a major point of contention during relief negotiations between different ideological factions of the Democratic Party. The party could not afford to lose the support of even a single Senate Democrat, as it needed all 50 members to pass the measure via simple majority with a procedural tool known as budget reconciliation and bypass a filibuster by Republicans.

President Biden pledged to pass $2,000 stimulus checks ahead of the Georgia Senate runoffs in January, which Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won. His administration views the $1,400 payments as a supplement to the $600 checks that Congress approved in December.

Lawmakers are racing to send the legislation to Biden's desk before March 14, when more than 11 million Americans will lose their jobless aid when two key federal jobless aid programs created a year ago under the CARES Act — and extended in the $900 billion relief package that Congress passed in December — lapse.

The American Rescue Plan also extends unemployment benefits at $300 a week through August, expands the child tax credit to offer parents up to $3,600 per child, includes $350 billion in funding for state and local governments and allocates billions of dollars for vaccine distribution.

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41 pregnant women, new mothers hospitalized with coronavirus

 Israel's Health Ministry on Monday morning reported that 2,331 people were diagnosed with coronavirus on Sunday, out of 65,036 test results received, for a 3.7% positivity rate.

Currently, the country has 37,698 active coronavirus cases, with 1,112 hospitalized. Of those, 708 are in serious condition, and 223 are on ventilators.

A total of 5,899 Israelis have died of coronavirus in Israel, including 38 in the past day.

The hospitalized coronavirus patients include 41 pregnant and newly postpartum women, including six who are in serious condition.

So far, Israel has vaccinated 4,960,396 with at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and 3,789,118 have received the second dose as well.

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Drake raps ‘I should probably go to yeshiva’ on new single

 

One of rapper Drake’s latest tunes gives a nod to his Jewish roots — even as he hints that he might be finding Jesus.

In “Wants and Needs,” one of three tracks in his “Scary Hours 2” EP released at midnight on Thursday, Drake meditates on his many sins. In one line, he raps: “Yeah, I probably should go to yeshiva, we went to Ibiza.”

Ibiza is an island just off the coast of mainland Spain known as a center of electronic dance music party tourism. So the insinuation in Drake’s line is that he could have used more of the structure and discipline of Orthodox Jewish schooling in his life, but instead he chose to immerse himself in a party culture.

The next lines reference fellow star rapper Kanye West, who often goes by the nickname Yeezy: “Yeah, I probably should go link with Yeezy, I need me some Jesus/ But soon as I started confessin’ my sins, he wouldn’t believe us.”

Then later in the chorus, Drake adds: “Should repent, I need me some Jesus in my life/ Amen.”
West has become an intensely religious Christian public figure in recent years, hosting religious services and basing his latest album on religious themes.

Born Aubrey Drake Graham in Toronto to a black father and Jewish mother, Drake attended Jewish day school as a kid and had a bar mitzvah, which he parodied on “Saturday Night Live.” He has since become guarded in talking publicly about his Jewish identity, despite hinting at it in some ways over the years (see his bar mitzvah-themed birthday party or his nightclub named after his Jewish grandparents).

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Rabbi Yechezkel Roth, the Karlburger Rov, Passes Away at 85

 

The Karlsburger Rov, Rabbi Yechezkel Roth, passed away this morning of an apparent heart attack at the age of 85 in his beis medrash in Borough Park.

Considered by many in the Chasidic world and beyond to be the most prominent leading rabbinic figure on Halacha in the U.S. Rabbi Roth was the author of the nine volume Emek Hateshuva, Rabbi Roth will be buried in Israel.

With his incisive mind and his vast knowledge, Rabbi Roth was a renowned poseik, whose guidance on intricate matters was sought by Jews of all stripes, from all locations. 

According to Mishpacha, Rabbi Roth came to Borough Park in 1972 at the request of the Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum, to serve on the local Satmar beis din. He had previously been living in Israel and in 1980 Rabbi Roth began traveling to Meron three times a year for several decades, spending weeks praying at the gravesite of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, which he considered to be a place of incomparable heavenly merit.

Rabbi Roth was known to spend most nights learning in his 53rd Street synagogue, taking just short naps in his chair. As previously reported News, Rabbi Roth suffered a massive heart attack nearly five years ago, returning to his synagogue and his beis din after his recovery.

Following a 2 PM funeral at 1558 53rd Street, Rabbi Roth will be flown to Israel for burial in Meron.

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Mrs Devorah Broiner Principal Of Israeli High School, Age 45, Dies Of COVID

Mrs. Devorah Broiner, a’h, passed away of the coronavirus at Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer on Motzei Shabbos at the age of 45.

The nifteres, a resident of Bnei Brak and a mother of eight, was the principal of a Chassidish high school for girls in Ganei Hadar in Petach Tikvah.

She began to feel unwell about a month and a half ago and tested positive for COVID-19. She was hospitalized after she began experiencing breathing difficulties but her condition continued to deteriorate and she was sedated and ventilated and attached to an ECMO machine.

Her family members told Kikar H’Shabbos that she had no preexisting medical issues and she wasn’t in any high-risk group for the coronavirus. 

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NY lawmaker wants sex ed for kindergartners

 

Get ready for the latest woke wave in education: comprehensive sex ed for kids as young as 5 — thanks to a new bill in the state Senate.

Legislation sponsored by state Sen. Samra G. Brouk, a freshman Democrat from Rochester, would tie New York’s health curriculum to standards written by a left-wing interest group that advocates “Sex Ed for Social Change” — and would make those lessons mandatory statewide.

Under that group’s current standards, public and charter schools would have to teach 5-year-olds about “gender identity” and instruct 8-year-olds on hormone blockers to prevent puberty in transgender-identifying preteens.

Kids as young as 11 would get lectures on “vaginal, oral, and anal sex”; study “queer, two-spirit, asexual, pansexual” and other gender identities; and receive explicit instruction on the use of external and internal condoms, dental dams and other contraceptives.

Brouk told The Post, “I am greatly concerned about the unacceptably high incidence of relationship violence, sexual harassment and assault, and online bullying in our society today. We must equip the next generation with the skills and education they will need to thrive.”

But her proposal would legally link New York’s schools to the shifting recommendations of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).

“We would be outsourcing our curriculum to this outside organization,” said Assemblyman Michael Reilly (R-SI), a member of the education committee. “That’s a concern.”

Some parents are also worried.

“The state constitution guarantees a basic education, but nowhere does it say ‘we have to prepare our kids to change their sex if they want to,’” said Sam Pirozzolo of the New York City Parents Union. “We have schools where 95% of kids can’t read or do math at grade level, and now they want to bring in these complicated social justice issues? That’s BS.”

Even parents who approve of sex ed in school are queasy about the envelope-pushing topics the law would require.

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Chareidie woman who crossed into Syria indicted

 

The State Attorney's Office today (Sunday) filed an indictment against the young Israeli woman who crossed the border into Syria and was returned to Israel through Russian mediation.

According to foreign publications, the Israeli was returned in exchange for the purchase of vaccines by Israel for the Assad regime. All details of the deal remain under embargo.

Defense attorney Anat Yaari and Iyad Azzam of the Public Defender's Office said, "Unlike past cases in which there was a violation of state security, yet no indictment was filed against people who crossed the border, in this case it is clear to all that the young woman did not harm and had no intention of harming state security."

"It is therefore incomprehensible that an indictment should be filed against a young woman without a criminal record and a complex personal background. We will need to consider the evidence further before we decide whether or not to petition for the case to be dismissed.

The IDF’s investigation of the young woman's passage to Syria revealed that the young woman touched an electronic fence that alerted the forces stationed on the Syrian border that someon was in contact with the fence, but the soldiers did not manage to reach the area fast enough to prevent her crossing the border.

The young woman arrived in the Majdal Shams area to cross the border. It was obvious that she knew the place well and had toured it in the past. She crossed a goat trail on Mount Hermon and reached an old fence on the mountain in a place not covered by IDF radar.

Towards midnight she climbed the fence and entered Syria.

The interrogation, which was presented to the commander of the Northern Command, Major General Amir Baram, determined that then soldiers on duty at the time were not at fault for not preventing her crossing the border. Sigificant steps have been taken to reinforce the security measures in that area.

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Record 63.5% of Haredim join Israel's workforce in 2020

 

Nearly two-thirds (63.5%) of Haredim in Israel were employed in 2020. 50% of ultra-Orthodox men, 63.5% of ultra-Orthodox women now earn their livings.

Israel saw a 1% increase in both male and female Haredi employment in 2020, following a 3% increase between 2016 and 2020, according to Labor and Welfare Ministry data obtained by Israel Hayom.

According to the data, Haredi employees made up just 60.2% of the workforce. While this decreased to 59.7% in 2017, the rate later increased again to a record 63.5% in 2020.

Haredi employment rates usually differentiate between men and women as the latter are more likely to work. Only a moderate increase has been seen in employment levels among Haredi men.

The female Haredi employment rate has been constantly rising, reaching a high of 76% in 2017.

Among men, the employment rate reached a record 50% in 2016.

Shas MK Moshe Arbel has worked for years to incorporate Haredim into the Israeli workforce. He said, "Employers and employees understand that the entrance of Haredim into the workplace is a welcome phenomenon that goes hand in hand with their Haredi identity."

Arbel noted, "The Haredim who work want to be incorporated in the job market without giving up on their unique identity as Haredim in the state of Israel."

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