I actully agree with Lindsay Graham!
— David Vance (@DVATW) February 1, 2026
President Trump cannot threaten like Reagan and act like Obame. pic.twitter.com/zG5pAHyU5B
“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” Rav Kook z"l
I actully agree with Lindsay Graham!
— David Vance (@DVATW) February 1, 2026
President Trump cannot threaten like Reagan and act like Obame. pic.twitter.com/zG5pAHyU5B
The parents of fallen IDF soldier Shai Aravis A”H, finally receiving his personal weapon with which he fought with until the last moment
by Rabbi Yair Hoffman
To this day, people marvel at his Chumash – a product of a mere nine months of researching and writing – an endeavor that would take others ten years or more to create – and one that would not match the quality of it. In the annals of modern Torah scholarship, few figures have left as indelible a mark in such a brief time as Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan zt”l. Described by those who knew him as “a meteor, a dazzling light that illuminated the darkened skies of post-Holocaust Torah learning, but burned out far too soon,” Rabbi Kaplan’s life was a testament to the transformative power of Torah and the boundless potential of the human spirit. In his mere forty-eight years, he produced approximately fifty books, inspired countless souls to return to their heritage, and opened doorways to realms of Jewish thought that had remained inaccessible to English readers for centuries.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a letter to all U.N. member nations obtained Friday by The Associated Press that cash for its regular operating budget could run out by July, which could dramatically affect its operations.
DIN: #1
Let’s begin by addressing his argument about the ג' שבועות—an argument so weak that even Satmar abandoned it.
No Jew ever witnessed these “ג' שבועות” and no one can identify when or where they supposedly occurred.
This aggadatah appears in Kesubos 110a, yet Rashi and Tosafos offer no commentary on it. None of the major commentaries printed at the back of the tractate—Rosh, Ran, Maharsha, Rif etc., mention it. It is entirely absent from the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, and it receives no mention whatsoever in the Shulchan Aruch or its nosei keilim.
I have already cited Emailim BaTorah, which notes that
"the Zohar in Parshas Vayechi explains that “Bnos Yerushalayim” refers to the neshamah. The Avnei Nezer therefore concludes that since the oaths were made with the soul and not with the physical human being, they do not apply to us in any halachic sense.
Indeed, the overwhelming majority of Gedolim—Agudas Yisroel, Shas, Degel, and most of the leading Torah authorities—did not consider the ג' שבועות to have halachic force. Even those who opposed the establishment of the State did not base their position on these oaths."
#2
Next, he invokes כיבוש הארץ & התגרות באומות.
This claim keeps resurfacing, regurgitated by commentators living abroad in comfort and safety, while criticizing Israel.
They live far from danger yet speak harshly about the State of Israel—whose soldiers risk their lives daily to protect millions of Jews in the only Jewish country on earth, surrounded by hostile enemies—and then accuse Israel of “provoking the nations.”
Jewish husbands leave their families for months, placing themselves in danger and leaving their wives and children as living widows and living orphans in emotional and financial strain, all to defend Jewish lives. Yet this commentator dismisses and mocks their sacrifice as “התגרות באומות”
The audacity is astonishing. What exactly do they offer as an alternative—disband the army? Avoid defending ourselves so as not to “antagonize” others?
Insanity!
As for כיבוש הארץ: The Ramban explicitly writes that settling the Land of Israel and securing it are mitzvos aseh d’Oraisa בזמן הזה.
Every major war Israel has fought was initiated by surrounding hostile nations that swore to destroy and eliminate her. Suggesting that Israel should have simply stood by passively defies both logic and halachah.
Finally, he quotes a 75-year-old description by Ben-Gurion in reference to the IDF that the IDF is a “secular melting pot.”
And what of it? So?
Since when does a historical comment override Torah obligations such as
?לא תעמוד על דם רעך
or
?ואהבת לרעך כמוך
The army has made significant efforts to accommodate Chareidim, yet he claims that mainstream Chareidim should not enlist.
Why should others bear the burden entirely? Why should Chilonim die for you?
Moshe Rabbeinu has a message to this fool
?האחיכם יבוא למלחמה ואתם תשבו פה
My message to this Lakewood-based WhatsApp administrator is simple: We do not need your commentary, and we do not need your interference. Please stay out of our affairs.
Hussam Abu Safyia was photographed wearing a Hamas camo military uniform while at a gathering of Hamas elites to celebrate the completion of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in 2016, according to the Jerusalem-based watchdog NGO Monitor.
Safyia’s photo appeared on the Gaza Medical Services‘ Facebook page — a group overseen by the Hamas-run health ministry.
The ceremony was attended by ranking members of the brutal terror group, including Gen. Abu Obaida Al-Jarrah, Director of Military Medical Services Saeed Saoudi and National Security Forces commander Col. Naeem Al-Ghoul, according to the post.
Following Hamas’ massacre of over 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, which led to the war in Gaza, Safyia penned two screeds in the Times bashing Israel on Oct. 29, 2023, and Dec. 2, 2024.
“We are suffering and paying the price of the genocide that is happening to our people here in the northern Gaza Strip,” Safyia wrote in one op-ed.
Critics decried media giving the alleged Hamas member any ink.
“Those who platformed Abu Safyia must do some serious soul-searching, and figure out how they ended up promoting the propaganda of a literal Hamas terrorist,” NGO Monitor senior researcher Vincent Chebat said.
The Times referred to the colonel as a “pediatrician and the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza” in each op-ed.
Neither Safyia nor the Times disclosed his alleged affiliation with the terror group, even though Palestinian media refers to him by his military rank. He is also referred to as a colonel in a 2020 Facebook post on the Gaza Strip Medical Services page.
An IDF spokesman said Safyia was a ranking member of Hamas, and that the hospital was teeming with hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.
Neither NGO Monitor nor the IDF accused Safyia of participating in any specific terrorist acts.
The New York Times did not respond to The Post’s request for comment. The Post was unable to reach Safyia.
The Israeli Defense Forces confirmed Safyia was apprehended during the war on suspicion of “involvement in terrorist activities.” He was not charged and was released by the IDF, but the Israeli Prison Services agency did not respond to a request for comment on his current whereabouts.
Specifically, when it comes to the homeless he’s decided to let freeze to death.
Last weekend saw at least 10 New Yorkers die in the cold, and temps remain glacial now.
Yet the mayor’s sticking by his order to cops and other city workers to leave encampments alone last weekend and not force the homeless to come in out of the deadly cold.
The idea is that the city should respect the autonomy of these (highly dysfunctional) individuals — which sure sounds like an obsessive care for “rugged individualism” to us.
That he himself called that “frigidity” is all the more damning.
Why is the newly prominent Democratic Socialist leader embracing a cold, laissez-faire attitude out of a Charles Dickens novel?
The most his office will do to get people into the collectivist warmth of a homeless shelter is “redouble outreach efforts.”
“Outreach” is a magic word in blue-city social services circles, because the alternative — compulsory shelter — is (mysteriously) a big no-no.
Even when a homeless person is clearly mentally ill, the ethic among the provider class is to make contact, extend the offer of help . . . .and retreat.
Under Mayor Eric Adams, the city had a policy of “involuntary removal” of homeless people with severe mental illness, but Mamdani rejects that approach because it doesn’t yet lead to “permanent supportive housing.”
Well, involuntary elementary school doesn’t always lead to an Ivy League degree, either, but it’s a good first step.
Nor is it remotely humane or compassionate to leave people to freeze to death just so you can push for some transformative change that might benefit others.
Even the designation of a “Code Blue,” which means it’s cold enough to override normal shelter admission policies, isn’t enough to let the city force people to come inside, unless they’re found to be in a state approaching death — but if they’ve gone hiding after the “outreach” crew has stopped by, they probably won’t get found in time.
It’s bizarre: Progressives are completely down with meddling maximally in people’s lives most of the time — taxing us, regulating us, telling us how to tip on food delivery and where to dispose of our vegetable peels.
But they become fiercely libertarian when it comes to letting mentally ill people refuse to come out of the cold.
“The law, in its majestic equality,” snarked Nobel Prize winner Anatole France, “forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges.”
Mamdani’s corollary is that the law permits rich and poor to sleep outside in the cold.
Sorry: Virtually everyone sees the value in rejecting “the frigidity of rugged individualism” in extreme cases, and the virtue of imposing the “warmth of collectivism.”
Live up to your clear promise, Mr. Mayor, and do right by the city’s most vulnerable.