Our response to the situation at the Kotel, then and now* Rav Kook z"l

 

The Mufti of Jerusalem has just accused the Jews of rioting at the Kotel and claimed that they were attempting to take over the Al-Aksa Mosque. This accusation did not only appear yesterday, but also at the time of the Arab riots at the Kotel in 5689 (1929). At that time, *Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak HaCohen Kook* published an incisive response to the Mufti of his day, although it seems that it could have been written this morning:

"All of the civilized world knows that the Jews never stopped praying at the Western Wall. Everyone knows that the moniker of 'Wailing Wall' was given to it on account of the tears that Jews wept there for generation upon generation, in the midst of penetrating prayers of every heart and soul.

"The Mufti's claim that Arabs were threatened is false. There is no foundation to this. No Jews, even the young among them, ever threaten anyone. They only stand their ground to defend themselves and, especially, their elders, their women, and their weak when others converge on them. It is a vain and terrible slander to say that the Jews desecrate the holy places of the Muslims, something that has never entered their minds.

"Is this the strategy of those Muslims going to pray, to arm themselves with swords and knives? And who can fail to understand that the Arabs who carry these weapons do so for the sole purpose of committing murder.  And how dreadful it is when they turn their prayers into a libel against Jews so that they can justify murder and the spilling of innocent blood.

"The truth is so obvious that a horrible injustice has been instigated by some Muslims through incitement against a quiet people that labors, body and soul, in the Holy Land.

"We hope that the tradition of peaceful co-existence, where all the residents of Eretz Yisral build together the beloved and neglected land, and transform it into the Garden of Eden it is meant to be - that this same holy tradition will prevail over the lying schemes and deception, the impurity and malice we have witnessed of late."

Amen.

Jerry Seinfeld'a TV mom on ‘Seinfeld,’ dies at 93

 

Liz Sheridan, who played doting mom to Jerry Seinfeld on his hit sitcom, died early Friday. She was 93.

Sheridan died in her sleep from natural causes, five days after her April 10 birthday, said Amanda Hendon, her longtime representative and friend. She did not provide further details, including where Sheridan was living.

Her “Seinfeld” role as Helen was her best known but followed decades of work on stage and screen. In the 1970s, Sheridan appeared on Broadway in plays and musicals, the latter including “Happy End” with Meryl Streep and “Ballroom.”

“She was always very grateful to her fans and felt blessed to have enjoyed decades of work in the entertainment business,” including performing in her one-woman show, “Mrs. Seinfeld Sings,” Hendon said in a statement.

Another “Seinfeld” mom, Estelle Harris, died two weeks ago on April 2. Harris, who played hot-tempered parent to Jason Alexander’s George Costanza, also was 93.

The story behind the violance at the Har Habayis

Rabbi Uri Pilichowski

What’s happening in Jerusalem and how did the situation get so bad?

It’s important to note that any analysis of the current tensions without the larger context of the decades long conflict is bound to be lacking. For weeks Palestinian extremists have been using any excuse to spread rumors that Jews are planning to take over the Temple Mount. While Jews find this outrageous, the average Palestinian believes it – every single time the rumor is spread.

Harav Brant Rosen a Reform Rabbi adapts the Satmar Shita vis a vis Israel

On March 30, Rabbi Brant Rosen of Tzedek Chicago, a synagogue on the heimish North Side of the city, made the unusual announcement that his congregation had “just voted to adopt anti-Zionism as a core value.” The proclamation arrived within days of 11 murders in a wave of terrorist attacks across Israel. On April 7, three more Israelis were killed on Dizengoff Street in the heart of Tel Aviv in this new wave of violence. It’s not often that an established synagogue declares its antipathy against the Jewish state as a core part of its identity—but then again, this wasn’t out of step for Rabbi Rosen, who’d been working himself up to this very moment for the better part of the past decade.

As it happens, I’ve known Rabbi Rosen since before “I was a man.” I grew up in Skokie, Illinois, and attended the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in neighboring Evanston, where Rabbi Brant held the rabbinate. Back then, he was, I suppose, a kind of liberal Zionist. I didn’t have much of an impression of him, other than that he seemed kind and Jewish. In 2002, when I became a bar mitzvah, Rabbi Brant led the service. In his notes on my d’var (which I recently read again), he seems reasonably sympathetic to Israel. 

By the time Rabbi Brant left JRC in 2014, my father and I had heard through the grapevine that he’d become a radical pro-Palestinian activist, and in our family, “Rabbi Brant” became a catchall for a certain kind of Jew we simply could not understand. When I moved back to Chicago this past year, I couldn’t help but go back to the source. I wanted to know: Who are these people? What even is a “non-Zionist” synagogue during the most spiritually elevated time of the year? 

To try to find the answer, I attended Tzedek’s 2021 High Holidays services over Zoom.

Employee sues his company because they made him an unwanted birthday party and wins $450,000

 

Days before his birthday in August 2019, an employee at a Kentucky-based laboratory asked his office manager to not arrange a celebration for his birthday.

It wasn’t the fear of getting older, but rather an anxiety disorder that can spur “panic attacks in stressful situations,” according to court documents. The employee, who was hired in October 2018 by Gravity Diagnostics, did not want a celebration because “being the center of attention” can trigger his disorder, the documents state.

When the company threw him a lunchtime party against his wishes, it triggered a panic attack and he left abruptly to spend his break in his car. Four days later, after his office managers confronted him about his reaction to the party, he was fired from the Northern Kentucky company, court records show.

He eventually sued Gravity Diagnostics, and this week, a jury awarded the man $450,000 in damages for his lost wages and emotional distress.

The New Minhag of the LGBT Community

 

Absolutely not… I’m an lgbtq Jew and this is not what a Seder plate is. Nothing about this resembles Judaism or Pesach(Passover) in any way, it’s just a plate with random foods on it. Judaism and Jewish practice is not your political tool, especially not for anti Zionism pic.twitter.com/9zYziZKFvT

— Max (@lilbuddymax) April 14, 2022

Entire Haggadah is one long blog post about Jews making Aliyah ... Does Satmar have a different haggadah?

 

I don’t understand how antizionists can celebrate Passover. The entire Haggadah is one long blog post about Jews making Aliyah. If you’re an antizionist then are you rooting for Pharaoh?

— Yoni Leviatan (@songsofyoni) April 13, 2022

Zera Shimshon Pesach

 

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Police Arrest 4 Jews Planning to Bring Korban Pesach on Har Ha'Bayis

 

The police arrested on Wednesday night four Israeli Jews who stated they had plans to sacrifice a lamb on Friday on the Temple Mount ahead of the Passover holiday.

The police stated after the arrests that in recent days, reports have been circulating about “the encouragement of extremists to be arrested by the police in an attempt to reach the Temple Mount and act illegally.”

Acting on a court order, the police arrested four Israelis for questioning, residents of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, on suspicion of “intending to violate the order,” as well as “calling to violate public order or violate a legal provision.”

How the FBI Planned to Kidnap a Governor and Blame it on Trump

 

The FBI got walloped last week when a Michigan jury concluded that the bureau had entrapped two men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Those men and others were arrested a few weeks before the 2020 election in a high-profile, FBI-fabricated case that Joe Biden claimed showed President Trump’s “tolerance of hate, vengeance, and lawlessness to plots such as this one.” But the jury verdict exposes how the feds have created the monsters they parade to vindicate their vast power over Americans.

Michigan was a swing state in the 2020 election. When the arrests were announced, Whitmer speedily denounced Trump for inciting “domestic terrorism.” 

Biden won the 2020 election because of the early voting, and the Michigan kidnapping plot was one of the biggest stories in October 2020. Prior to the presidential election, Attorney General Bill Barr assured that news did not leak about multiple federal investigations into Hunter Biden. But the FBI felt no such constraints and trumpeted a ludicrous scheme that was shot down even by a jury that a federal judge had largely blindfolded.