Monday, July 12, 2021
5,000 New Immigrants from the US and Canada are Scheduled to Make Aliyah by the end of 2021
Nefesh B'Nefesh, the non-profit organization who in conjunction with the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and JNF-USA facilitate Aliyah from North America reports incredible increase in numbers as its summer season is readily underway.
According to data published by the organization, an expected 5,000 new immigrants from the US and Canada are scheduled to make Aliyah by the end of 2021. During the COVID pandemic the number of Aliyah requests and files opened spiked and in 2020 Nefesh B'Nefesh recorded a total of 14 000 requests, compared to 4,582 in 2019. As of July 2021, over 4000 applications have already been submitted.
In 2020, a total of 3,168 immigrants from North America arrived in Israel through Nefesh B'Nefesh. Since January 2021, 1500 Olim from North American have already arrived in Israel, showing a 95% increase over the same time period in 2020 and 22% more than in 2019, the organization reported.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, despite all the challenges and uncertainty, interest in Aliyah has continued to rise. As a result, we have worked harder than ever to overcome the hurdles and prepare for the unexpected as best as we can,” said Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Nefesh B’Nefesh. “Our dedicated staff has been working round the clock to support and help facilitate the Aliyah of our Olim, who have shown incredible resilience in the face of delayed dreams and continue to inspire us with their commitment to the Zionist dream of living in Israel.”
This year's Aliyah wave is expected to reach its peak this summer with over 2000 Olim, where 1000 are planned to arrive in August alone.
"We have always wanted to live in Israel but leaving family has always been a big deterrent. Our parents both live in America but we really believe that the best place to live is Israel and we hope that our parents will come to visit and also eventually move after us,” said Lilian Aharon, one of the hundreds of Olim making Aliyah this summer with her husband Joseph and their two sons, Michael and Nathan from Florida to Efrat.
“We have always wanted to move but were always too scared to make the jump, but we have come to understand that now is the best time for us and we are very very excited!" She added.
3-year-old Emunah Cohen dies after getting trapped in family's car while playing during the Sabbath in southern Israel.
The toddler who died over the weekend after becoming trapped in a locked car has been identified as Emunah Cohen, a resident of the town of Ma’agalim, an Orthodox town in the Sdot HaNegev Regional Council in southern Israel.
Cohen, 3, was the great-granddaughter of Rabbi Baruch Hori, a prominent Tunisian rabbi.
According to an investigation of the incident, the girl apparently entered the car on her own Saturday while playing. She was unable to open the car door from the inside, and was trapped inside for some two hours, before family members found her.
A team of MDA emergency first responders rushed her to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba while performing resuscitation techniques. However, doctors were ultimately forced to pronounce her dead.
Shimon Maman, a senior MDA paramedic, said: “When we got there, we saw a girl about three years old unconscious outside of a car with a high body temperature. She had no vital signs. We provided medical treatment and performed advanced resuscitation techniques, then we evacuated her to the hospital while she was in critical condition.”
Sunday, July 11, 2021
Aliyah Can Save American Jews – And Israel
We’ve been told a picture is worth a thousand words, yet sometimes additional text creates a clearer understanding of the photograph. I refer to the photo snapped last week in the White House of President Joe Biden kneeling before Rivka Ravitz, Israeli President Rivlin’s chief of staff and Orthodox Jewish mother of twelve children.
Biden was impressed by Ravitz’s maternal status. His introduction to Mrs. Ravitz – her work title as well as her maternal title – sincerely touched the president. He led Ravitz into an adjoining room and showed her a picture of his mother, whom he remembers fondly.
So how does one explain the fact that the same president, who claims to be an observant Christian who personally believes in family values, heads a party and a nation that has accepted non-Christian values, a party and nation that is slowly turning hearts and minds toward a far-left ideology that was considered nearly dead when John Kennedy became president, in the early sixties of the last century?
An article on The Jewish Press’s website informed me of the politically correct expression for the institution of motherhood today. No longer referred to as “Mom” or “Mother,” we are now expected to perceive women like Rivka Ravitz and refer to them as “birthing persons!”
Too many parts of The United States are under sway to a far-left, almost Marxist, ideology, the foundation for a crumbling empire. Is that where America is headed? If the politically correct term for “mothers” has now become “birthing persons,” then yes, America is self-destructing.
The Charedi Conundrum
The repugnance and absurdity of Dan Perry’s Jerusalem Post screed against Haredim is readily apparent from the headline:
“Haredim, not Arabs or Iran, are the biggest threat to Israel.”
Although you can’t always blame the writer for the headline, in this case you can, because in his text he calls Haredim the “primary threat” to Israel’s future.
One must be filled with loathing to reach the conclusion that faithful Jews are a bigger threat to Israel than hostile Arabs who wish to dismember the state or Iran that yearns for Israel’s nuclear destruction. From where does such antipathy arise? One never knows the internal motivation and biases of another but we can ascertain the sources of his fears from his world view.
How the Zionist IDF Rescued 102 Jews 45 Years Ago in a Daring Mission in Africa
9 Minute Version
Vintage Video of Rav Chaim Kanievski with his Rebbetzin Visiting Harav Eliyashiv in the Sukka
Towards the end of the video , Rebbetzin Kanievski the daughter of Harav Eliyashiv tells him a bizarre story, that a neighbour of hers has an aquarium with 5 fish, and when the neighbour's husband left for shul on Erev Yom Kippur, the fish stood up in the aquarium and wouldn't move until the husband came home from shul.
She asks her father Harav Eliyashiv "what the significance of this story is?"Rav Eliyashiv brushes off the story ....
Clueless "Camel'eh" says voter-ID laws wouldn’t work for rural voters Because "they cannot photo copy their ID"
Kamala Harris absurdly says it’s “almost impossible” for rural Americans to photocopy their ID pic.twitter.com/J94IuGBFLv
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 10, 2021
Vice President Kamala Harris was criticized Saturday for suggesting that rural Americans wouldn’t be able to comply with new voter-ID laws because they lack photocopying equipment.
Harris was asked on BET-TV about whether she believes there is room for compromise with Republicans on measures requiring voters to include a copy of identification with their ballots.
“I don’t think that we should underestimate what that could mean, because, in some people’s mind, that means, well, you’re going to have to Xerox or photocopy your ID to send it in to prove that you are who you are,” the Democrat told host Soledad O’Brien in an interview aired Friday night.
“There are a whole lot of people, especially people who live in rural communities, who don’t — there’s no Kinko’s, there’s no Office Max near them,” Harris continue
Critics blasted Harris on social media over the comments.
“Kamala and her party think rural communities don’t have cars, or shopping, or retail, or internet, or phones, or computers or mailboxes,” conservative commentator Steven L Miller postedon Twitter.
“This reminds me that they made Kamala Harris who has only ever lived in cities an envoy to rural Americans,” freelance journalist Zaid Jilani wrote.
Harris was referencing recent measures passed in Republican-led states like Georgiaand Texas that supporters claim will reduce election fraud, but that detractors argue will disenfranchise voters.
Benny And Malki Weisz From Lakewood Are Both Found In Rubble
R’ Yisrael Tzvi Yosef (Benny) Weisz, Z”L, from Lakewood, was found in the rubble of the Champlain Towers on erev Shabbos. His wife Malki A”H was identified on Shabbos afternoon.
Plans are being formulated to have both Niftarim flown to Lakewood for a Levaya on Sunday. Details will be published when available.
The Weisz couple had traveled to Florida that fateful Thursday to spend Shabbos with Malki’s father, Chaim Rosenberg, z’l, who had purchased a condo in Champlain Towers only last month. His body was found on Thursday.
Benny, 32, who grew up in Vienna, and his wife Malki, 27, from New York, settled in Arzei HaBirah in Yerushalayim after their marriage and moved to Lakewood at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak. Sadly, he and his wife did not have children.
“Benny was on one hand very gifted, I think he bordered on genius, but on the other hand he was very humble and part of the chevrah,” one of Benny’s friends in Israel told Kikar Shabbat. “He never tried to show that he knew more than others but his accomplishments in limmud Torah was way above the usual.”
“Benny was very connected to the Rosh Yeshivah HaGaon HaRav Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi and attended his shiurim on Kodshim. Even after he moved to the States, he would get up in the middle of the night to hear HaRav Ezrachi’s shiur, which he delivered via teleconference during the pandemic.”
“Benny also felt connected to many tzaddikim and learned many sifrei Chassidus and incorporated what he learned into his life. He used to give shiurim on the parsha from his house and would say words of emunah and chizzuk.”
A friend of Benny’s from the US told Kikar: “What especially set Benny apart was his ben adam l’chaveiro. He knew how to really give to others. One of his neighbors told me that he once told Benny a vort on the parsha, and from then on, every year on that parsha he would thank him for the vort and tell him how he remembered it when he was reviewing the parsha.”
Saturday, July 10, 2021
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle get award for having only two kids
A British charity, committed to limiting family size to help save the environment, this week gave Prince Harry and Meghan Markle an award for their decision to have just two children.
Population Matters will award the couple, who welcomed their second child last month, the equivalent of $695 for their “enlightened decision” to have a small family and for serving as “role models for others,” according to reports.
“Having a smaller family reduces our impact on the Earth, and provides a better chance for all our children, their children and future generations to flourish on a healthy planet,” the charity said in a statement. “We commend the duke and duchess for taking this enlightened decision, and for affirming that a smaller family is also a happy family.”
The couple told British Vogue in 2019 that they were planning “two maximum” to reduce their impact on the environment. Last month, they welcomed their second child, a daughter named Lilibet. Their first child, Archie, was born in 2019.