Kosher food and no women: The IDF's new guidelines for integrating Charedim

 

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has given final approval to the General Staff orders for the integration of haredim into the military, Channel 13 reported on Thursday.

According to the report, the orders are intended to ensure that every haredi soldier maintains the same way of life he did at home before enlisting.

Among the orders that will be incorporated into IDF regulations in some tracks: an absolute ban on women entering the base, and a ban on exposing soldiers to women.

In addition, the soldiers' commanders will only be observant, and in some tracks, there will be mandatory Torah study and prayers.

The order states that soldiers will be able to receive food in several levels of kashrut, according to the practice in their homes. They will be exempt from wearing a uniform in haredi population centers, and the customary oath of allegiance to the IDF will be replaced by a declaration of allegiance to avoid the Torah prohibition on false oaths.

In addition, an external rabbinical council will be formed to oversee the implementation of the orders.

Lapid & Bennett need Arab parties to form a government

 

Lapid & Bennett sit with the Atab MK

The unification of the Arab parties negatively impacts Netanyahu’s opponents, who are unable to form a coalition without relying on the votes of the Joint List, according to a poll conducted by the "Mida" Institute for Channel 12 News.

The poll shows that if elections were held today, the Likud party would win 27 seats, and Naftali Bennett’s party would win 21.

The Joint List, if the Arab parties unite, would achieve 12 seats, the Democrats 11, Shas 9, Yesh Atid 8, Yisrael Beytenu 8, Otzma Yehudit 8, and United Torah Judaism 7.

The Religious Zionist Party does not pass the electoral threshold, but is close to it. Also, the Blue and White Party and the Reservists’ Party do not pass the electoral threshold.

The opposition bloc achieves 57 seats, while the coalition bloc has 51, with the Arab parties in the middle.

A union between Bennett, Yesh Atid, and Gadi Eizenkot does not bring any change to the bloc map. A joint party of the three would win 38 seats, with Likud maintaining its strength with 27 seats. In this scenario, the Joint List gets 12 seats, the Democrats 11, Shas 9, Yisrael Beytenu 8, Otzma Yehudit 8, and United Torah Judaism 7.

צמאה לך נפשי

 

צמאה לך נפשי

See Reb Yitzchok Dovid Grossman on the right on the 0.27 mark

Saudi Arabia’s Ugly Pivot Against Israel

 by Dinah Bucholz

Before the war in Gaza, relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel had taken a hopeful turn, as the prospect of the Arab state joining the Abraham Accords appeared to be approaching reality. 

But the Oct. 7 attack derailed that plan, which appeared to serve one of Hamas’s goals of starting the war. Still, even during the war, there was hope that Saudi Arabia would continue to soften its stance and normalize relations with Israel.

But tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have since escalated. The two countries had long enjoyed warm relations and a strong strategic partnership, but differences regarding Yemen have turned into an emerging rivalry amid increasing hostility, with Saudi Arabia demanding that the UAE withdraw from parts of Yemen, while drawing closer to Turkey and Qatar, both hostile to Israel.

At the same time, Saudi Arabia started to jack up its anti-Israel rhetoric, including anti-Jewish conspiracies, on its state-run media and its local Al-Jazeera station, as the hope for normalization with Israel receded in the rear-view mirror.

This calls into question the wisdom of the November 18 meeting between President Donald Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (also known as MBS) about the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia. It also raises doubts about the reliability of Saudi Arabia as a U.S. ally, even as Trump continues to maintain a positive and warm relationship with MBS, who serves as the country’s prime minister.

The 770 Crasher May Not have been a Terrorist He actually wanted to convert

 The man who crashed his car Wednesday night into the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway was known to have visited other Chabad houses in recent months and reportedly sought to convert to Judaism but was turned away.

 Authorities said the driver claimed a mechanical problem caused the crash and that he had no terrorist intent.

Final hostage, Ran Gvili, is laid to rest

 The funeral procession for slain Israeli hostage, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, HY”D, has set off for his hometown of Meitar, where he will be buried. Thousands of Israelis and saluting police officers are standing on the sides of the road to pay their final respects.

*“I just wanted to tell you, my beloved child, that the hope you might return to us on two legs, or even one leg, gave us hope,” his mother, Talik Gvili, said in her eulogy.*

“Rani, my love, I promise you that thanks largely to you, all of Israel remembered that despite all the divisions, we are one big, strong people. Everyone is worthy of your sacrifice.”

Ran’s father, Itzik Gvili, recited Kaddish over the coffin, saluted and said,

 “Here, your friends are taking you.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu to the Gvili family:

 “Our souls are bound to yours. We met many times, crossing continents and seas together, including a heart-wrenching meeting with President Trump in Florida. We witnessed, up close and with deep emotion, the power of parental and sibling love. We embraced you in your pain then, and today we embrace you again-together with the entire nation-as a hero of Israel is laid to rest in his homeland."

This photo explains why the Jews need a State!

 

If you don’t understand why Jews must be back home, look at this image.

From November 30th to December 8th 1941, Nazi Einsatzgruppen, with the help of local collaborators, carried out mass executions in the Rumbula forest near Riga, Latvia.

Nearly 25,000 Jews from the Riga ghetto were murdered in just two days, including thousands of children.

Breaking the Silence! I Survived Incest Abuse Inside My Own Family

 DIN: Without judging her, I am very disappointed that she is allowing her abusers to continue abusing and producing more victims! I sincerely hope that with time she will report them to authorities. 

I also must point out that I know of at least two other cases of incest in New Square! 

Bassy is an incest survivor, advocate, and psychodrama co-facilitator dedicated to breaking the silence around childhood sexual abuse.

Through her lived experience and professional work, she focuses on spreading awareness, supporting prevention efforts, and helping remove the stigma and taboo surrounding incest and family-based abuse.

Bassy uses her voice to educate, empower survivors, and encourage open, honest conversations that promote healing, accountability, and safer communities.

The Famous Speech of Rabbi Lewin to the UN General Assembly July 1947 on the Agudah Position on Jews Returning to their Homeland

CHAIRMAN: I recognize Rabbi I. M. Lewin (CHAIRMAN of Agudath Israel). (Rabbi Lewin spoke in Hebrew.)

Rabbi I. M. Lewin: In the name of World and Palestine Agudath Israel, I wish to welcome you here and say how much we all hope that you may succeed in your task.

I think this is a first and unique event in history of representatives of fifty-five nations organized in the United Nations having come to the Holy Land, to Jerusalem, in order to hold an enquiry into the question of Palestine and of the Jewish People.

We appear before you as the representatives of independent orthodox Jewry organized in Agudath Israel in Palestine and all over the world.

It is our view that Divine Torah alone forms the eternal constitution of the Jewish people, and that it, and it alone serves as the foundation and essence of the existence of the Jewish people as the nation of the Lord; that Torah alone is the soul and backbone of that nation, and that whatever is formative in Palestine and within the Jewish people can be of lasting value and can have a right of existence only inasmuch as it is connected with and flowing from, the Almighty's Torah.

This, our view, presents an unbroken tradition of about 3,000 years, one that has forever been absolutely based on the Bible and its teachings, both written and oral, and that is independent and uninfluenced from any other spiritual foundation. In making this short address to you, I should like to assist you in solving the difficult problem in connection with which you have come here from this our point of view.

First of all: we declare the following to be our main aspiration, in which we feel united with the entire Jewish people.

The land of Israel and the People of Israel form one complete entity forever inseparable. In practice we demand, therefore, that the gates of the Holy Land be opened to all Jews wishing to come here; that the absorptive capacity of the Land be developed to the only possible limit; and that a political regime be established capable of guaranteeing free immigration, the development of the country and exploitation to the full of its absorptive capacity.

 The grandson of Holocaust survivors was blocked from attending the United Nations Holocaust Remembrance Day event in New York City after taking a photograph of influencer Lizzy Savetsky’s confrontation with security over an Israeli flag.

Julian Voloj was going through the security line at the U.N. General Assembly Hall when he saw security guards “harassing” Savetsky, a prominent pro-Israel social media influencer.

The security guards told Savetsky that she could not enter the event wearing her blazer, which had a bedazzled Israeli flag displayed prominently on its back. She was eventually allowed into the General Assembly Hall after checking her jacket.

“I do find it interesting that I was asked to check my Judaism at the door of an International Holocaust Remembrance Day event. Kind of ironic, no?” said Savetsky in an Instagram post about the incident.

After instinctively using his phone to take photos of the confrontation between Savetsky and security, Voloj said a security guard “stormed right to me, moved me aside, took my phone, used my face ID to access my photos and made me delete the pictures.”

From there, Voloj, who serves as the executive director of Be’chol Lashon, a nonprofit promoting Jewish diversity, said the security guard took his pass for the event and escorted him off the premises.