Syrian commander killed in Israeli airstrike

 

Seven Syrian army fighters, including a senior commander involved in weapons development, were killed in Israeli airstrikes, Wednesday, rebel aligned Syrian media outlets reported Wednesday night.

According to the reports, the senior military official killed in the airstrikes was Ayham Ismail, who commanded a unit tasked with manufacturing electronic components for the Syrian army's missile system.

According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, four foreign nationals, apparently from Iran, were also killed in the attack.

A senior Syrian military official who defected during the country's civil war told the London-based pan-Arab Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper that Ismail was a chemist and engineer by profession. The official confirmed Ismail had been taken out in an attack on a military facility known as "Sector 1000."

While media outlets aligned with the Damascus regime denied the reports, regime supporters shared photos of the funerals for those killed in the strikes to social media.

On Wednesday, the Syrian state-owned SANA news outlet reported Israeli jets struck targets adjacent to Damascus. It noted Syria's aerial defense system was activated in the attack but did not mention any casualties inside Syria in its reporting.

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The real reason Charedi leaders turned against Bennett

 

by Yifat Erlich

If the verbal lashing Haredi politicians gave Yamina leader Naftali Bennett Tuesday teaches us anything, is that they are afraid. Very, very afraid.

It is not, however, the inception of a Center-Left government that is troubling them, nor are they bemoaning the apparent end of the Netanyahu era. They are worried about one thing: being cut off from the state's coffers.

The last 45 years have seen the ultra-Orthodox parties man the benches of the opposition only twice: the first from 1074-1977 and the second from 2012-2015. Those anomalies aside, the Haredim have made sure to maintain a tight grip on their place in the coalition, and an even tighter grip on their seats in the powerful Knesset Finance Committee, which they have transitionally chaired.

However, they have never used their political clout to help the Israeli public as a whole. All they every cared about was their own sector. That narrow vision has only increased the maladies plaguing Haredi society, which failed to use the massive state budgets diverted to it to become a productive sector, becoming, for the most part, dependent on the state.

I'm an ardent supporter of the world of Torah and I'm all for making it as great as possible. But few are those who can dedicate their lives to these studies, and rather than cultivating these chosen few, the ultra-Orthodox sector has fostered generations of mediocre youth, who are both unable to delve into their studies nor are they able to make an honest living.

Moreover, the Haredi leadership's narrow views have prevented any attempt to resolve the conversions crisis. Other issues – anything that didn't serve solely their constituents – have fallen by the wayside as well.

This narrow view is the biggest sacrilege of all.

On Tuesday, Shas and United Torah Judaism leaders launched a ferocious attack on Bennett, denouncing him as "evil" and even going as far as demanding he removes his kippah.

Why are they so furious with the future prime minister? Because Bennett represents a different type of religiosity – one that has deliberately disengaged from the sector; one that is infused with reverence for God and love for the Torah but also has a broad vision and concern for Israeli society as a whole, and one that embodies productivity and responsibility.

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Liberman said to tell party members Charedim won’t be joining government

 

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman reportedly told members of his right-wing, secular party Tuesday that the Knesset’s two ultra-Orthodox parties will not at any point be part of the prospective unity government, despite assertions by senior coalition leaders that the Haredi slates are still welcome to join.

“It is not possible for the ultra-Orthodox to join the government. Anyone who claims that the ultra-Orthodox can be added to this government is deluding himself and others,” Liberman said at a faction meeting, according to a Wednesday Channel 12 report.

The comments appeared to have been directed at Yamina chairman and prime minister-designate Naftali Bennett, as well as Yesh Atid chairman and foreign minister-designate Yair Lapid, who have both insisted that they have not shut the door to a coalition with the Haredi parties, even though the prospective government currently has a majority of secular factions and no hardline religious ones.

Bennett, in particular, is believed to be interested in folding Shas and United Torah Judaism into his coalition in order to expand the bloc of right-wing parties.

However, Shas and UTJ leaders all but put to bed such a possibility at a Tuesday press conference where they launched a stunning assault on Bennett.

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Shira Haas gives life to a devastating illness in Israeli film ‘Asia’

 

Shira Haas, the Israeli actress who vaulted into superstardom with her roles in the TV series “Shtisel” and “Unorthodox,” has a track record of playing multifaceted characters. Nonetheless, she faced unprecedented challenges when making the new film “Asia,” which dominated last year’s Ophir Awards (the Israeli equivalent to the Oscars) and is seeing a US release this week.

In the starkly photographed, minimalist film, Haas plays Vika, a tough yet sensitive kid struggling from a degenerative neurological disease. She lives with her single mother, Asia (Alena Yiv), a free spirit, and the two women are forced to come to terms with Vika’s accelerating condition.

For Haas, who was diagnosed with kidney cancer at age 2 and saw her growth stunted as a result of her chemotherapy treatments, the role presented a unique challenge.

“First, I had to deal with Vika’s physical condition, which changes from scene to scene, and it had to be very specific – from the way Vika holds a cup to the way she walks,” Haas told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency over the phone from her home in Tel Aviv. “Though it is never spelled out in the movie, she has ALS [Lou Gehrig’s disease]. We consulted with a doctor throughout.”

Writer-director Ruthy Pribar based the story on the prolonged death of her own sister 14 years ago, having recalled her mother’s relentless, selfless devotion over that period. Pribar, who wrote the script during her own pregnancy, said she often wondered if she could measure up to her own mother when she became one.

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Amid housing shortage, Apartments in Israel ‘flying off shelves’

Ramat Beit Shemesh Gimmel 

 Israel’s red-hot real estate market has been booming over the last several months, with demand for housing far outpacing supply. Increased immigration to Israel has exacerbated the problem, with new citizens and people thinking about becoming citizens looking for a dwelling in the Jewish state. As the competition to purchase property in Israel becomes stiffer, new trends are emerging, such as the willingness to buy a home sight unseen.

Rafi Shulman, co-founder of Olim Advisors, an organization that helps people make aliyah and find a home in Israel, says the prices of properties are skyrocketing because of the crowded real estate market.

“The prices of houses continue to increase,” he told The Media Line. “It’s just mind-boggling.”

“There is just more demand, specifically in certain areas, like Ramat Beit Shemesh for example, or Modi’in or Jerusalem, that are popular places for new citizens,” Shulman added. “We work with developers and we get the sense that they [apartments] are literally flying off the shelves.”

Ariyel Maresky, the owner of RE/MAX Vision in Jerusalem, the largest real estate company in Israel’s capital city with more than 30 agents, also says the real estate market is booming.

“I’ve been in the field for almost 20 years and I don’t remember such a high demand before,” he told The Media Line.

However, Maresky disagrees that housing prices are going up more than usual.

“Both in sales and rentals, we don’t really see a larger surge in prices,” he said. “Jerusalem has always increased 5% to 7% annually. I don’t think this year is any different.”

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16-year agunah freed from marriage after rabbinical court rulings

Yaakov Hoffman Father of the Get-Refuser 

 A woman who suffered a debilitating stroke that left her disabled, and whose husband deserted her as a result and refused to give a bill of divorcefor 16 years, was finally freed from her long-defunct marriage on Tuesday night.

The case involves landmark halachic and legal decisions, first by the Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court, then by the Supreme Rabbinical Court, and finally by the High Court of Justice, which identified the multimillionaire father of the husband as the key obstacle to a divorce, fined him and denied him the right to leave Israel until the divorce was issued.

Having been stuck in Israel for five years since 2016, facing mounting fines, and with the High Court of Justice upholding this situation last year, it appears the father finally relented and permitted his son to issue a bill of divorce on Tuesday night through a rabbinical court in New York.

In 2005, an American ultra-Orthodox couple were on a trip to Israel. During the visit, the wife, identified only as D., suffered a medical brain trauma, leaving her permanently disabled, following which her husband eventually abandoned her and their children in Israel, returned to the US and refused to grant her a divorce ever since.

The wife’s legal team has said that the husband’s recalcitrance was due to his having been insulted and angered by his wife’s request for a divorce after he behaved inappropriately while visiting her before the marriage broke down. He then abandoned her.

The Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court ruled in 2013 that the man was obligated to grant a divorce, but he ignored the decision.

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SHOCKING! Hunter Biden addressed his white lawyer as "Nig__" and told Obama ‘you my nig__ Barack’ in texts unearthed days

 

• Text messages obtained by DailyMail.com reveal Hunter Biden used the n-word multiple times in banter with his lawyer  

• The president’s son, 51, flippantly addressed corporate attorney George Mesires, who is white, by the racial slur, with phrases including ‘true dat n***a’ 

• In a December 2018 conversation, Hunter asked Mesires: ‘How much money do I owe you. Becaause (sic) n***a you better not be charging me Hennessy rates.’

• In another chat a month later, Hunter cracked jokes about his penis and then told Mesires ‘I only love you because you’re black’

• ‘It’s so annoying when you interject with frivolity,’ the Chicago lawyer replied 

• The damning texts have emerged just days after his father, President Joe Biden gave a speech decrying racism on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa massacre

• Biden has sought to portray racial justice as a top priority for his administration 

• Hunter also saved a meme with a photo of his father hugging Barack Obama with a caption describing a joke conversation

• ‘Obama: Gonna miss you, man  Joe: Can I say it? Just this once? Obama: *sigh* go ahead Joe: You my n***a, Barack’

Hunter Biden used the n-word multiple times in conversation with his white, $845-per-hour lawyer, his texts messages reveal.

The shocking texts may prove embarrassing for his father President Joe Biden, who just last week gave a speech decrying racism on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa massacre, and has sought to portray racial justice as a top priority for his administration.

The president’s son joked in a January 2019 text to corporate attorney George Mesires about a ‘big penis’, and said to the lawyer: ‘I only love you because you’re black’ and ‘true dat n***a’.

In another text a month earlier he wrote to the Chicago lawyer saying: ‘how much money do I owe you. Becaause (sic) n***a you better not be charging me Hennessy rates.’

Mesires replied: ‘That made me snarf my coffee.’

Hunter added: ‘That’s what im saying ni…’, cutting off the racial slur mid-word, then texted a picture to Mesires. 

LITTLE SAMPLE, HERE …

More at The Daily Mail

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Anti-Israel protesters block Zim cargo ship in Oakland, plan further actions

 

Anti-Israel protesters at the Port of Oakland are claiming victory in preventing a Zim container ship from unloading its cargo on Friday, and organizers were planning further actions this week against ships of the Israeli-owned firm in other port cities.

The Volans, a container ship owned by the Haifa-based Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd., docked in Oakland but turned back out to sea later in the day after workers with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 declined to cross the line of protesters to unload the ship’s cargo.

It was the first time in seven years that a Zim container ship came into Oakland’s port.

The action was led by the San Francisco-based Arab Resource and Organizing Center, or AROC, as part of its weeklong “Block the Boat” campaign conceived as a response to Israeli actions in Gaza during the 11-day conflict last month. Protests were scheduled at ports including Seattle, Los Angeles and New York in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which seeks to damage Israel’s economy over its policies toward the Palestinians and occupation of the West Bank. Estimates of the number of protesters in Oakland ranged from 100 to 500.

“Block the Boat” organizers online also indicated similar actions would take place this week in Detroit, Vancouver, Philadelphia and London.

Protesters have criticized Zim as an Israeli government entity, but the company was privatized and restructured some time ago.

An employee in the human resources department of Zim’s U.S. headquarters in Virginia told J. by phone on Friday that the company “would not be commenting” on the situation.

The company did give a statement to the London-based Middle East Eye.

“Due to operational constraints and long delays in the port of Oakland, and in order to meet schedule departures in the Far East, we will be calling on other US West Coast Ports until further notice,” Zim said, not mentioning the protests.

In August 2014, during the last major Israel-Hamas conflict, the Zim-owned Piraeus was met with protesters at the Port of Oakland and turned back out to sea, waiting quietly and then returning in the evening to port, where the ship was unloaded overnight by longshoremen.

A union statement said the workers’ initial refusal was due to the “volatility” of the environment. The next month, a second Zim ship was prevented from unloading in Oakland, and in October of that year, a third Zim ship bypassed Oakland.

A version of this article originally ran in J. The Jewish News of Northern California.

BY SUE FISHKOFF

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Teacher Lectures Her School Board in Colorado

 

Beautiful. pic.twitter.com/zF52cmYt5A

— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) June 9, 2021

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Under the Bus! White House ‘Perplexed’ By Kamala Harris Performance on First Foreign Policy Trip

 

Unnamed White House “insiders” were left “perplexed” by the performance of Vice President Kamala Harris on her recent trip to Guatemala and Mexico to address the root causes of the immigration problems at the US Southern border.

This report comes from CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, who joined the vice president on her trip and shared his insights on CNN New Day Wednesday morning.

Harris has been a lightning rod for criticism from conservative media and politicians, who have been laser-focused on her unwillingness to visit the border since she took office.

But Harris’s apparent dismissal of “playing the part” appears to have given rise to criticism from the left as well, or as the chyron read during the CNN segment read, “VP HARRIS TAKES CRITICISM FROM ALL SIDES IN FIRST FOREIGN TRIP.”

Diamond introduced the segment in a manner that won’t likely be well-received in the vice president’s press shop.

“The Vice President saw this trip as an opportunity to burnish her foreign policy credentials after entering office with very little foreign policy experience,” Diamond opened, adding, “She also hoped to make real progress on the root causes on migration from Central America.”

“There was certainly progress, but there are now concerns that some of that progress may have been overshadowed by her answers to some of these questions that her team knew that she would be facing,” he noted. “It’s left some of the administration officials perplexed, and the vice president’s team frustrated.”

Diamond then explained in a pre-produced package how Harris’s flat-footed answer on visiting the border during an interview with NBC News’s Lester Holt was not ideal. She claimed, “We have been to the border,” which suggests either officials of the Biden administration or perhaps her own visit before taking office, though Holt pushed back to remind the Vice President that she herself has not been. 

Her response noting that she also hasn’t been to Europe went viral.

Diamond expanded on the concerns from the White House in his package.

“Some administration officials are quietly perplexed about the Vice President’s answers to some questions, in particular the particular question she got from Lester Holt where she equated the question about the border with Europe. There was hope the trip would be a success, and in the end, they feel it may have been overshadowed by some of her answers to these questions,” Diamond reported.

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