Just over two years ago, C, then a very recent new immigrant to Israel, met D, a native Israeli man and the two began dating. Just weeks later, D proposed and convinced his fiancĂ© that they should marry privately, outside of the authority of the Israeli Rabbinate – as required by law. Despite her initial insistence to proceed with the official channels, C eventually relented, and the marriage went ahead.
Already in the early days of the marriage, D began to abuse his wife, and the violence only intensified over time. About a year and a half ago, despite being in the latter stages of pregnancy, C realized that she couldn't suffer any longer and needed leave the marriage. She turned to the local branch of social services for assistance.
To C's great shock and dismay, after sharing her story with the office’s social worker, she was informed that another woman had approached the same office with an incredibly similar story. To everyone's surprise, further investigation confirmed that D was in fact married to both women – having married both women in private, unofficial ceremonies.
“From the very beginning he said that he wanted to marry another woman, but I never believed he’d actually do it,” C said. “In retrospect, I can even point to the exact day that he got married. It was just before Chanukah, and he had gotten all dressed up, like a groom. He left the house and didn’t come back for a week. When he finally returned, he announced that from now on, he would only be spending every other week with me.”
With these shocking new details in hand, C contacted the Ohr Torah Stone organization's Yad La’isha, the world’s largest, most comprehensive and experienced advocacy center for agunot. “Our first motion was to open a personal status file at the Rabbinical Court, to prove that C was indeed a married woman despite the fact that because of the private ceremony, she was still listed as single by the Interior Ministry,” explains Yad La'isha staff Adv. Dina Raitchik. “During the court proceedings, the man admitted he had a number of wives and even had the audacity to complain to the court that he wasn’t able to manage all of his marriages.”
In a hearing that took place last week, D conceded to quickly grant C a get, or traditional Jewish writ of divorce, freeing her from the marriage to begin a new life.
Netanyahu Caves into Biden Pressure and agrees to freeze settlement construction, demolition of illegal Arab homes
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to a number of concessions to the Palestinian Authority, as part of the Biden administration’s push to broker a deal between the two sides to lower tensions during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Walla reported Sunday evening.
According to the report, two Biden administration officials say that the US has secured “understandings” with Jerusalem and Ramallah, under which both Israel and the Palestinian Authority will refrain from unilateral moves over the next few months.
The understandings, disclosed earlier this month, were reportedly finalized only following heavy pressure from the Biden administration.
Under the tacit agreement, the Palestinian Authority will hold off on its plans to have the United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution condemning Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria.
The resolution, drafted following the Israeli Cabinet’s decision to authorize nine communities in Judea and Samaria, is slated to be brought up for a vote by the 15-member council on Monday, and would demand Israel "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory."
The text "reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law."
The United States hinted Thursday it would likely veto the resolution, with State Department spokesman Vedant Patel calling the resolution “unhelpful.”
To avoid being forced to use its veto in the Security Council, the Palestinian Authority is expected, under the new arrangement, to call to have the vote on the resolution dropped from the Council’s agenda.
In exchange, Israel has reportedly agreed to freeze construction projects in Judea and Samaria and to halt or significantly reduce the demolition of illegal Arab structures in eastern Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria.
The duration of the construction freeze and reduction in demolitions is unclear, though the report claimed the US is hoping to reduce tensions during the upcoming Islamic month of Ramadan which lasts from March 22nd to April 20th.
An Israeli diplomatic official quoted in the report denied that any understandings regarding construction freezes in Judea and Samaria were reached.
Former WH doctor for Trump, Obama blasts 'alarming' Biden health report: 'The cover-up needs to end'
Texas GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician, is calling for an end to the "cover-up" of President Biden's health after the president's physical earlier this week claimed that he is healthy and fit to serve as commander in chief.
"The majority of Americans can see that Biden's mental health is in total decline, yet there is no transparency from the White House on what’s going on, if anything, to address this issue and his inability to do his job," Jackson told Fox News Digital. "Yesterday's written physical exam report released by Biden’s physician, Kevin O'Connor, further confirms that this administration is still adamant about concealing the truth."
Jackson also took issue with the fact that the report from Biden's physical, the second one he's taken since entering office, made no mention of the president undergoing a cognitive test amid his "deteriorating mental health."
Saturday, February 18, 2023
Is Netanyahu Considering Betraying Coalition Partners in Exchange for Plea Deal?
Against the background of the protest against the judicial reform and the growing concern in the legal community and the left-center politicians, there have been quiet, unofficial talks recently between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s associates and representatives of the circles opposed to the legislation, with the aim of reaching a solution, Maariv reported on Friday.
Anyone reading the Maariv report is instantly reminded of the “Greek island affair” of 2001, where businessman David Apple employed Ariel Sharon’s son Gilad as an extremely highly-paid consultant – which the police and the prosecution believed was Apple’s way of bribing Sharon Sr. In 2004, the case against PM Sharon was dropped, and shortly thereafter, Sharon decided, after decades as the “father of the settlement enterprise,” to turn into the executioner of the settlement enterprise, by expelling some 10,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria.
Look out, Jewish brothers and sisters, we may be treated to a remake of the same movie, this time starring defendant Benjamin Netanyahu who is facing three criminal indictments.
Officer Who Molested Female Otzma Yehudit MK Is Lapid Activist
Border Guard Superintendent Yasser Asadi, who was documented this week blocking Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har Melech to stop her from interfering with the uprooting of a Jewish vineyard in Binyamin, was active in the election campaign of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, Makor Rishon reported on Friday.
In an incident recorded during the evacuation of Kerem Ben-Eliyahu in Shiloh, Binyamin, four Border Guard officers surrounded Har Melech to prevent her from protesting in front of the bulldozers that uprooted the trees or trying to block them with her body
Justice Aaron Barak Former Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court is an Enlightened Despot
This article is a must read. It was first published in the New Republic in 2007!
Aharon Barak, a long-serving justice (eventually the chief justice) of the Supreme Court of Israel, who recently reached mandatory retirement age, is a prolific writer, and this is his most recent book. It is an important document, less for its intrinsic merits than for its aptness to be considered Exhibit A for why American judges should be extremely wary about citing foreign judicial decisions. Barak is a world-famous judge who dominated his court as completely as John Marshall dominated our Supreme Court. If there were a Nobel Prize for law, Barak would probably be an early recipient. But although he is familiar with the American legal system and supposes himself to be in some sort of sync with liberal American judges, he actually inhabits a completely different--and,to an American, a weirdly different--juristic universe.
I have my differences with Robert Bork, but when he remarked, in a review of The Judge in a Democracy, that Barak "establishes a world record for judicial hubris," he came very near the truth.
Florida Jewish man brutally sucker punched.
A Jewish man speaking Hebrew on his phone while riding his bicycle in Broward County, Florida was sucker punched by a passerby who also hurled antisemitic abuse at him.
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office (BSO) said it was still looking for the suspect, Local 10 reported.
The incident occurred in Dania Beach on February 7 at approximately 5:30 p.m., the department added.
BSO said in a statement that the vicious punch “caused the victim to fall off the bike and to the ground.”
“The attacker then approached the victim, who stood up. A few seconds later, the subject walked away,” they said.
Law enforcement identified the attacker in a separate incident caught on video in which he was in a verbal altercation with workers near the scene of the assault.
He was also captured on cell phone video accosting people who ran over to help the victim after he was knocked off his bicycle.
Rabbi Joe Soshtain of the Young Israel of Hollywood Synagogue called the incident “appalling.”
“That you can’t walk on your own streets and ride in your own streets, it’s a terrible, terrible feeling and things have to change,” he told the news outlet.
The victim was taken to hospital but has been released and is expected to recover.
Iran is ‘mapping’ Jewish leaders worldwide
The Iranian government is “mapping” Jews around the world with plans to kill them if Israel attacks Iran, according to a report in London’s Jewish Chronicle.
Catherine Perez-Shakdam, a Middle East scholar and research fellow at a think tank, met Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in February 2017. She believes that he was unaware that she is Jewish.
According to Perez-Shakdam, the only thing Khamenei fears is an Israeli attack. “He believes Netanyahu’s threats, and he knows that for now, Israel is militarily superior,” she told the paper. “He feels that the Iranian regime can’t sustain a defeat.”
During her trip, Perez-Shakdad was told of a plan to “map key Jewish figures around the world for Iran’s assassination squads,” per the Chronicle.
“The idea was to identify all prominent NGOs run by Jews, who was doing what in each business sector, the important rabbis,” she said. “They wanted to figure out their influence and where they lived with their families in order to target them.”
The paper noted that in November, British intelligence’s MI5 stated it had foiled 10 assassination attempts in just one year. It did not say if any of those attempts targeted Jews.
Friday, February 17, 2023
UFO shot down by $400K US missile may have been a $12 hobby balloon
One of the UFOs shot down last weekend by the US Air Force with a $400,000 missile may have simply been a $12 balloon belonging to an Illinois enthusiast club, a report said.
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade told Aviation Week on Thursday that it fears one of its diligently-tracked gasbags that recently went missing was mistaken as the mystery object taken out by the military over Canada on Saturday.
The Pico Balloon — a silver-coated, cylindrically shaped object — reported its last position at 38,910 ft. off the west coast of Alaska on Friday.
By Saturday, based on the balloon’s projected path, it would have been over the central part of the Yukon Territory around the same time a military Lockheed Martin F-22 shot down an unidentified object of a similar description and altitude in the same Canadian vicinity, the outlet reported.