‘Six knocks,’ Plus One .. Rabbi J.B. Soloveitchik's Theological Case For the State of Israel

On Yom Hatzma'ot, 1956, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “the Rav,” wrote Kol Dodi Dofek (“Listen – My Beloved Knocks”) in which he sought to place the Jews’ return to their homeland into perspective; it could not have been, he concluded, the result of coincidence or luck.

The Rav referred to a tragic parable in the Song of Songs in which a lover knocks on his beloved’s door one night, but she tells him she is tired and he should come back the next day. When he does not return, she searches for him but realizes that he is gone forever and that she has missed her chance for love. Today, when Jews in Israel are threatened by many enemies throughout the world, even assisted by some Jews, the Rav urges us to ignore their message of despair, self-doubt and defeatism.

When published, the Rav’s essay ran to 60 pages. I have highlighted its main points, added a few contemporary details, and included an additional “knock” to make the sound clearer.

1. The first knock of the Beloved (God) was when, despite the antagonism between the West and the Soviet Union, both recognized the legitimacy of a Jewish state. The United Nations came into being solely in order to facilitate that right, on November 29, 1947, and confirmed it by recognizing the State of Israel in May, 1948. A year later, Israel was accepted as a member of the United Nations.

2. Following the establishment of the State of Israel, the second knock was on the battlefield, when the small IDF defeated the mighty armies of five Arab countries.

Using the analogy of the Exodus from Egypt – when Pharaoh hardened his heart and ended up with a worse deal than was originally offered to him – the Rav considers the Arab attack a blessing in disguise. Had the Arabs accepted the UN partition plan and not attacked, Israel would have had to settle for a state which excluded Jerusalem, half of the Galilee and part of the Negev including Beersheba. It could not have survived.

3. The third knock was on the theological tent. Christian theologians claim that God deprived the Jewish People of its rights in the Land of Israel, and that all the biblical promises regarding Zion and Jerusalem refer, allegorically, to Christianity and the Christian Church; this is refuted by the establishment of the State of Israel.

Christianity declared that the Jewish covenant with God ended with Jesus – that is the real meaning of the term “Old Testament” – and declared themselves to be the “new” Israel. The powerlessness of Jews throughout the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern period reinforced this impression.

4. The fourth knock was in the hearts of perplexed and assimilated youths. The era of self-concealment (during the Holocaust) resulted in great confusion among Jews, particularly among young Jews, and produced widespread assimilation. The almost mystical ability of even a brief visit to the State of Israel to restore the Jewish identities of even the most alienated Jewish youth is the stuff of which legends are made.

5. The fifth knock, perhaps the most important of all, is that for the first time in the history of our exile, divine providence has surprised our enemies with the sensational discovery that Jewish blood is not free for the taking, is not hefker! 

The raid on Entebbe, on July 4, 1976, serves as the most visible and potent reminder of the consequences of treating Jewish lives with callous disregard. In this context, the Rav also cautions against substituting the promises of “the three great powers” (i.e., the US, USSR and Great Britain) for vigilance and self-defense. “A people that cannot ensure its own freedom and security is not truly independent.”

6. The sixth knock was when the gates of the Land of Israel were opened. A Jew fleeing from a hostile country knows that he can find a secure refuge in the Israel. And Jews who leave their comfortable, convenient environments to make aliya share in the redemptive power of Eretz Yisrael.

As Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal wrote in his book Eim HaBanim Smeicha, while hiding from the Nazis in Hungary: “The Land of Israel will become a universal center for the entire Jewish nation ... Even those Jews who remain in the Diaspora ... will be bound and connected with all their souls to the universal center which will be established in Eretz Yisrael ... and they will no longer be considered dispersed....”

This is a reference to the building of the Third Jewish Commonwealth in Eretz Yisrael.

7. The revival and flourishing of Torah learning throughout the world, and especially in Israel, the military victories of 1967 and 1973, the unification of Jerusalem, the flourishing of the Golan, and building Jewish communities throughout Yehuda and Shomron (Judea and Samaria) are among many “knocks” that resound around us. We have so much for which to be proud and thankful.

The art of listening is knowing what is worthwhile and what is not. “Shema Yisrael” – let our ears be open to hear, our eyes to see, and our hearts to appreciate with gratitude.

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Hatikvah.... Tell Your Rabbis, Askanim & Family.. "Enough is Enough"and Come Home!

 Hatikvah

US & Israeli Military Bands Surprise Holocaust Survivor (HaTikva)

Holocaust Survivor Never Thought She’d See This

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Yurzeit of R' Yeshaya Kerestir

 

"Reb Shayele" was known for his extraordinary Ahavas Yisrael, tzedaka, chessed as well as for his miraculous work for those in need of yeshuos.

היינט אין קרעסטיר pic.twitter.com/7Qc93pI1n2

— Hasidic2 (@hasidic_1) April 14, 2021

CNN Admits their entire operating is to be political hitmen for the Democrat Party..

So @CNN is a Super PAC that libels & defames on behalf of the Democrat Party but is operating under the guise of ‘Press’ which is a constitutionally protected institution.

The CNN staffer who was secretly recorded admitting the network used “propaganda” to help get Joe Biden elected president also said they played up the COVID-19 death toll for ratings — and that the order came down directly from top brass.

Charlie Chester, a technical Director at the cable network, was filmed by Project Veritas during a series of fake Tinder dates as he explained how “Fear really drives numbers.”

“COVID? Gangbusters with ratings,” Chester told the unidentified PV staffer.

“Which is why we constantly have the death toll on the side,” he continued, making reference to the coronavirus death tracker that would appear on the screen. “It would make our point better if [the COVID death toll] was higher.”

The Project Veritas employee, who was not identified and claimed to be a nurse, went on five dates with the CNN staffer, including the final one at a coffee shop in Chester’s neighborhood. It’s unclear when the dates took place.

On one of the meet-ups, Chester explained to the PV employee why the network went so heavy on COVID coverage, saying, “Fear is the thing that really keeps you tuned in.”

Going on to reference the death toll, Chester then said he had “a major problem with how we’re tallying how many people die every day, because I’ve even looked at it and been like, look at it and be like, ‘Let’s make it higher.’ Like, why isn’t high enough, you know, today?”

“And I’m like, what am I f–king rallying for? That’s a problem that we’re doing that,” he conceded.

Chester claimed there was a “red phone” that network president Jeff Zucker would use to call the control room to order producers to play up the Covid death count on screen.

“Like, this special red phone rings and they pick it up and it’s, like, the head of the network being like, ‘There’s nothing that you’re doing right now that makes me want to stick. Put the numbers back up. Because that’s the most enticing thing that we have.’ So things like that are constantly talked about,” the staffer said.

He also told his date that there is “no such thing as unbiased news,” and explained how that manifests at CNN. 

“Any reporter on CNN, what they’re actually doing is they’re telling the person what to say. It’s always, like, leading them in a direction before they even open their mouths,” he said. 

“And the only people we let on air, for the most part, are people that have a proven track record of taking the bait.”

A CNN spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment on the second part of the Project Veritas report.

In part one of the PV series, Chester was seen revealing that his network produced “propaganda” to oust former President Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential election

“Look what we did, we [CNN] got Trump out. I am 100​ percent going to say it, and I 100​ percent believe that if it wasn’t for CNN, I don’t know that Trump would have got voted out,” Chester said, adding that he came to work at CNN because he ​​”wanted to be a part of that.”

“Our focus was to get Trump out of office, right? Without saying it, that’s what it was.” 

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Getting vaccinated is how we beat Fauci and other lockdown-forever loons

 

The best kept secret of the pandemic — kept secret especially by our perma-doom-saying public-health authorities — is that the COVID-19 vaccines work. They work very, very well. Yes, even the Johnson & Johnson product just put on pause because of a one-in-a-million side effect.

The vaccines have shown incredible results in fighting off serious cases of COVID-19. These shots are scientific miracles — and you should take one at the first opportunity.

Take the vaccine, wait two weeks after the final dose, and then return to your 2019 life. Or better yet, make up for the last miserable year by taking your 2021 life to the next level.

Take off your mask as much as you can. You will still have to wear it in shops that require it, or on the short but deadly walk to your table at restaurants (eye roll). But you don’t need it anymore to walk your dog, push your child on a swing, hug a friend. Outdoor masking was always more about virtue-signaling. But your going mask-less now signals something else: You’ve gotten the jab, you trust in the science and you are moving on.

Make plans. So many of us have been in a holding pattern for more than a year. See friends, and not just the ones you’ve bubbled with for the last year. Fill your weekends. Have brunch, lunch and dinner out. Go to a museum. Lounge in the park. Go on adventures. Fall in love with someone new or with your spouse all over again.

Remember why you love your city. Change out of your leggings. Get dressed up. Find somewhere to go dancing. Go laugh your face off at a comedy show. You have taken the vaccine, and the pandemic is effectively over for you. Celebrate that — hard.

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Democrats planning to unveil bill that would add 4 justices to Supreme Court

 

Democrats are preparing to unveil legislation that would add four seats to the US Supreme Court. 

The bill, first reported by The Intercept, is expected to be introduced in both the House and Senate on Thursday.

It would up the number of seats on the high court to 13 from the current nine.

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, a co-sponsor of the bill, told The Wall Street Journal that adding justices “will shore up the public’s confidence in the court and its legitimacy in the public’s eyes.”

Also backing the measure are House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler (NY-10th District) Subcommittee Chair Hank Johnson (GA-4th District), and freshman New York Rep. Mondaire Jones.

The sponsors will announce the proposal at a press conference Thursday morning on the steps of the court, where they will be joined by activists from liberal groups including Take Back The Court, which has advocated for increasing the number of justices. 

“Our democracy is under assault, and the Supreme Court has dealt the sharpest blows. To restore power to the people, we must #ExpandTheCourt,” Jones wrote on Twitter.

Conservatives currently hold the majority on the bench after former President Donald Trump’s appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon.

It is believed Barrett — Trump’s third nomination to the court —  will cement the conservative tilt for decades, prompting calls from Democrats to increase the number of justices, who have lifetime appointments.

President Biden on Friday signed an executive order creating a commission that would study the “pros and cons” of expanding the court.

But Markey said that, “We need more than a commission to restore integrity to the court.”

Republicans and legal purists decry the idea as “court-packing” and say it will undo the court’s historical insulation from politics.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican, blasted the Dems’ proposal, saying that “Packing the Supreme Court would destroy the Supreme Court.” 

“The Democrats will do anything for power,” he wrote on Twitter.

“The moderate left is gone,” said President Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows. 

“This is who they are now. Open borders. Outlawing voter ID. Free healthcare for illegal migrants. And now court packing. This should be roundly rejected.”

Biden previously opposed adding seats.

Congress altered the number of justices on the court several times over the 19th Century from a low of five to a high of 10. The number was fixed at nine shortly after the Civil War.

In the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt unsuccessfully sought to expand the court after conservative justices ruled against some of his New Deal policies.

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Yom Hazikaron: Remembering My Brother Keeps Him Alive

 

Hillel Schwartz by the grave of his brother, Ezra Schwartz, who was killed in a Palestinian terror attack in Israel on Nov. 19, 2015

 For me, every day is Yom Hazikaron. Since I lost my older brother, Ezra, to a terrorist attack on Nov. 19, 2015, not a day has gone by that I do not think about him.

I remember Ezra every time my little brothers and I watch a Patriots or Yankees game, his most beloved teams. I see his infectious smile every time I step out of my comfort zone to reach out to someone new. And I laugh at his antics every Friday night when my family reads from the letters we received after his death, and we learn about how he choked down hot peppers on the camp bus or made ridiculous music videos in his bunkhouse at two in the morning.

His tragedy resonates with almost all who hear it. A Palestinian terrorist opened fire from inside a vehicle near the Etzion Junction in the West Bank, killing Ezra, along with an Israeli teacher and a Palestinian bystander. Ezra was studying as part of a gap-year program at a yeshivah in Beit Shemesh, and that day was on his way to deliver snacks to Israeli soldiers stationed near Efrat when he was shot. He was just 18 and preparing to attend Rutgers University after his year in the Jewish state.

When Ezra was killed, the entire Jewish community supported my family. There was so much sadness around the world. Everyone wanted to help us. We received condolence cards and letters from Ezra’s friends and acquaintances describing their interactions with him. Our friends carried us through those first few months. Strangers sent Hanukkah gifts. We felt honored to be Ezra’s family. In the midst of my tragedy, I felt so loved.

But for most Jews outside of our community of Sharon, Mass., south of Boston, Ezra’s impact has faded with time. Yom Hazikaron is a day for these Jews to remember their loss and rekindle the closeness the nation felt in the aftermath of his death. It’s a day to perpetuate the memory of my brother and everyone else who died for Israel.

But more than that, Yom Hazikaron is a day for my family and those like ours to realize that our loved ones have not been forgotten by world Jewry. Every mention of Ezra’s name brings us a bit of healing. It lets us know that we are not alone, that people still care. It even goes a little way towards bringing Ezra back to us. Every time someone does something in his memory, it shows us that even though he’s not here with us on earth, he is not totally gone; he is still with us, affecting our lives.

I have participated in communal Yom Hazikaron ceremonies ever since my brother’s death. But this year’s Masa Israel Journey ceremony was a new experience. For the first time, I was helping Ezra be remembered not by people who knew and loved him, but by thousands around the world who had never met him or even heard of him.

Ezra on far right with his siblings

Once in a while, I wonder whether Ezra’s repeated mention really makes a difference. But then I see the impact his story has on each new person who hears it—and I realize that if Ezra can change even one more life, it is all worth it. At the filming of this year’s Masa Israel Journey ceremony, I was sitting next to a man and a woman from another Masa program. This may have been their first time in Israel. I looked a little different than most of the wreath-holders, so they asked about my story. I told them about Ezra—and I could see their faces change. One of them started crying. Most of the people I encounter already know about my family’s experience, so I seldom have the chance to see how my brother’s story can move those hearing it for the first time. Each reading of Ezra’s name gives new people the opportunity to look him up, read about him and be inspired by something he did.

I am now nearing the completion of my year in Israel, an opportunity my brother never had. He will never attend Rutgers, start a career or build his own family. But as long as people remember him, Ezra will never truly be gone. He will live on in our stories, in our actions and in the children who bear his name.

This Yom Hazikaron, please take a minute to think of my brother. Read a story about him and maybe even do something in his merit. Ezra excelled at enjoying life and helping those around him. My family and I also encourage you to share your stories in Ezra’s memory with us, if you feel compelled to. In acts of kindness, you will be returning to him a bit of the life that was ripped from him, from my family and from the Jewish people.

Hillel Schwartz is the brother of Ezra Schwartz, an American victim of Palestinian terror in Israel in 2015.

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Inran Admits “1,000s Of Centrifuges Destroyed At Natanz,”

 

Thousands of centrifuges used to enrich uranium has been damaged or completely destroyed at the Natanz nuclear site, a senior Iranian official stated on Tuesday.

Alireza Zakani, the head of the Iranian parliament’s research center, detailed the damage incurred in the attack in an interview on state TV.

Zakani’s statement seems to confirm remarks by Channel 13 News analyst Alon Ben-David, who said that Iran’s provocative announcement that it will begin increasing uranium enrichment to up to 60% is “not a significant threat.”

Ben-David explained that due to the extensive damage at Natanz, Iran will not be able to reach 60% enrichment there and although it maintains about 1,000 additional centrifuges at its Fordo plant, those centrifuges can only enrich uranium up to 60% in very small quantities.

An increase of up to 60% uranium enrichment is significant since it is a short step away from weapons-grade uranium.

Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, an expert on strategic issues with a focus on Iran, terrorism and the Middle East, and a senior analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told JNS on Monday that the attack caused years of work to “go down the drain.”

“This isn’t the first time that centrifuges in Natanz have crashed in one way or another,” Segall said. “I’m not sure how many cascades [a group of centrifuges working together to enrich uranium more quickly] were destroyed there, and it is not clear what happened, but when a cascade breaks, this represents years of work that go down the drain.”

Segall also spoke about the political repercussions of the multiple attacks [attributed to Israel] on Iran’s “top-secret” sites, with Iranians mocking the regime on social media for being unable to protect its most critical assets.

“The regime has been exposed,” he said. “As it continues to absorb attacks, there is a growing erosion in its perception by the Iranian people, and certainly, by the Iranian diaspora.”

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Watch Storekeeper Refuse Money From IDF Soldier on on Yom Zikaron

 

קיוסק שלא לוקח כסף ביום הזיכרון מחיילים, מדהים. pic.twitter.com/azCzctr25C

— אריאל אלחרר (@ariel_elharar_) April 14, 2021

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Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme devastated the Jewish world, dies in prison at 82

 

Bernie Madoff, the fraudster who ran a $17.5 billion Ponzi scheme ensnaring thousands of investors, including a long list of Jewish organizations and families, has died at 82.

The Associated Press reported Madoff’s death Wednesday at a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.

Madoff was known as a selective money manager who made fantastic yet consistent profits for his clients until his entire operation was exposed as a scam amid the 2008 financial crisis. Madoff’s confession of his Ponzi scheme, in which he invented fake stock gains on paper and used new investments to pay off withdrawals from other investors, set off a virtual earthquake in the Jewish philanthropic world.

Among Madoff’s investors were European hedge funds, elderly retirees and a range of nonprofits. Among his victims were some of the most prominent Jewish institutions in the country, as well as Jewish celebrities like Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and Sandy Koufax, the Hall-of-Fame pitcher.

Madoff’s investors included Yeshiva University, elite Orthodox Jewish day schools in New York and Boston, Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, and other Jewish organizations and family foundations.

Many of those investors had met Madoff through the small world of Jewish philanthropy in New York and south Florida, and placed their money with his fund via friends of his such as Jeffrey Picower and J. Ezra Merkin, who operated hedge funds that invested heavily with Madoff. Merkin, a former president of the elite Fifth Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan, directed perhaps $1 billion of congregants’ money to Madoff, according to the New York Times.

So when Madoff, facing increasing pressure due to a national financial crisis, confessed his crime in 2008, the effects were felt across American Jewry. Following the confession, the Jewish Funders Network, which convenes Jewish donors, brought together 35 of the largest Jewish foundations to create a plan to provide emergency funding to some of Madoff’s victims.

Around that time, the Anti-Defamation League also documented an uptick in anti-Semitism that it concluded stemmed from the news of Madoff’s fraud.

The consequences of Madoff’s fraud have reverberated through the Jewish world for years. Some Madoff investors, such as Hadassah, had withdrawn more money than they invested over the years, and were subject to “clawback” suits in which they had to pay back the fictitious profits. While Madoff had claimed to be managing nearly $70 billion, most of that money (aside from what investors gave him) had never actually existed.

A trustee, Irving Picard, has spent the years since 2008 trying to recover the actual billions that Madoff stole. As of 2021, they had recovered and restituted more than $14 billion of the $17.5 billion Madoff took.

“They really felt that they had so much more money in their accounts,” Richard Greenfield, a lawyer who consulted for a handful of Madoff victims in Florida, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2018. “When they talk about their losses, they talk about the fictitious numbers in their accounts, and for some of them, it’s hard to explain: Your real loss wasn’t $200,000, it’s $10,000, which is what you put in.”

Madoff was born in 1938 in Queens, New York, and began working as a stockbroker in 1959. He married his wife, Ruth, that year and had two children. He originally made a name by investing in computerized stock trading in the NASDAQ market, and served as NASDAQ’s chairman.

He began managing private clients’ wealth in the 1970s. While he told Diana Henriques, who wrote a book about him, that the Ponzi scheme began in 1992, the federal prosecutor who led the criminal investigation of Madoff believes that Madoff started the scheme when he began his money-management business.

He collected accolades as his ostensible success grew. Madoff was named the treasurer of Yeshiva University, the flagship Modern Orthodox institution, and gained a reputation as a reserved but effective steward of Jewish organizational finances.

Then it abruptly ended. Madoff pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison. His two sons, whom he swore had no involvement in his fraud, predeceased him, one by suicide on the second anniversary of Madoff’s arrest.

In 2020, Madoff requested compassionate release from prison, telling the court he was dying from kidney disease. His request was denied.

He is survived by his wife, Ruth.

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My First Lesson In Zionism I Learned From The Kloizenberger Rebbe z"l

 

The most profound tragedy as well as the most uplifting confirmation of our faith were both experienced by the Jewish people within the very same decade of the last century: the shame of humanity that either cooperated with or silently permitted the decimation of the Jewish people and the diabolical atrocities of the Holocaust, and then- only three years after the suicide of Hitler - the newfound hope for humanity with the rebirth of the State of Israel confirmed by a vote in the United Nations.

To suggest that the Holocaust was the necessary price the Jews had to pay to return to their homeland after almost 2,000 years of destruction, exile and persecution, borders on the blasphemous.

However to overlook the inextricable juxtaposition of these two nationally defining events - the first bringing us down to the hellish depths of despair and the second raising us up to the dizzying heights of redemption- would be blinding oneself to the commanding voice of Jewish history. 

And so I begin this essay with my first lesson in Zionism, which emerged from the ashes of Auschwitz.

It was the Shabbas of the weekly portion Ki Tavo, toward the end of the summer of 1952. I had known that the Rebbe of Sanz-Klausenburg had taken over the Beth Moses Hospital, where he had built a very large Bais-Medrish  as well as a printing press to teach his disciples a trade, and I wanted to pray with the Chassidim that Shabbas morning.

When I arrived at the Bais-Medrish, I was amazed by the sea of black and white swaying figures that greeted my eyes, all newly immigrant Holocaust survivors. It was said about the Rebbe that although his wife and 13 children had been murdered, he had not sat shiva for any of them; he preached that those still alive must be saved with exit visas before one could be allowed the luxury of mourning for the dead. The Rebbe himself was among the last to leave Europe, insisting that the captain does not leave the sinking ship before its passengers.

I took a seat directly behind the Rebbe, who stood at his lectern facing the eastern wall and the Holy Ark, with his back to the congregation. The prayer was the most intense I had ever experienced, with no talking whatsoever, and chance individuals even bursting out in tears during varying parts of the service, apparently in response to a sudden association with painful memory.

Then the Torah reader began to chant the weekly portion. When he came to the passage known as the Tochecha, consisting of the curses that would befall the Israelites, he began to read (in accordance with the time-honoured custom) in a whisper and very quickly. 

A sound suddenly came from the place of the Rebbe; he said only one word: "Hecher, Louder."

The Torah reader immediately stopped reading, and seemed to hesitate for a few moments. I could almost hear him pondering. Did the Rebbe actually say "louder"? Would the Rebbe go against the custom of Jews in all congregations to chant the curses rapidly and in a barely audible voice? The reader apparently decided that he had been mistaken in what he thought the Rebbe had said, and continued reading in a whisper.

The Rebbe turned around to face the congregation, banged on the lectern, his eyes blazing:

"Ich hub gezugt hecher, I said louder," he shouted out. "Let the RBS"O hear! We have nothing to be afraid of. We have already received all of the curses- and more. Let the Almighty hear, and let Him understand that the time has come to send the blessings!"

I was trembling, my body bathed in sweat. Many people around me were silently sobbing. The Rebbe turned back to his lectern, facing the wall. The Torah reader continued to chant the curses loudly, and distinctively, and in a much slower cadence.

At the end of the additional prayers, after Aleinu, the Rebbe once again turned to his congregation, but this time with his eyes conveying deep love, 

"Mein tayere shevestern un brider, my beloved sisters and brothers, the blessings will come, but not from America. Indeed, G-d has promised the blessings after the curses, and He has already begun to fulfil His promise by bringing us home to Israel. May more blessings await us, but they will only come from Israel. Let us pack our bags for the last time. Our community is setting out for Kiryat Sanz, in Netanya, Israel."

Signed

Shlomo Riskin

Efrat

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Watch The Official Yom Hazikaron 2021 Ceremony on Har Hertzl

 

Starts at 5:32 mark

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On Yom Hazikaron We Remember the 146 U.S. citizens murdered and the more than 200 wounded by Palestinians

 Yom Hazikaron, observed today, is the day on which Israel remembers not only its fallen soldiers, but also civilians who were murdered by Arab terrorists. But there is one category of terror victims who, while technically included in that designation, have been almost completely forgotten—American victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism.

Since 1968, a total of 146 U.S. citizens have been murdered, and more than 200 wounded, in Palestinian Arab terrorist attacks. Most were tourists or college students spending a summer, six months, or a year of study in Israel—like my daughter, Alisa. Others were dual American-Israeli citizens living in Israel.

The parents of these victims reacted like Israeli parents do in the face of loss. They sit shiva for their children, siblings or parents, then go about putting one foot in front of the other trying to rebuild their shattered lives. Some of us try to participate in the on-going building of the State of Israel and move here. I did it; not because of Alisa’s murder but because of her life.

Obviously, in many respects there is no difference between a terror victim who was a citizen of one country and one who came from another country. What all of them have in common is that they were innocent targets of brutal savages.

Yet in several important respects, American victims are different.

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Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto Says Hitler Killed 6 Million Jews Because They Talked in Shul ... In Morocco they Didn't

 

Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto, head of the Jewish Court leaders in Morocco, slammed those who engage in idle talk in the synagogue and study hall, saying that such behavior is "horrifying and ruins everything."

The statements were made during the Tuesday night lecture at the Shuva Yisrael Yeshiva in Manhattan, when Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto wrote a letter in a Torah scroll and blessed the leaders of the Shomrim organization of Williamsburg.

"This is an enormous power and a great merit, not to speak during prayers. It is what holds up the world."

Regarding the coronavirus pandemic, he said: "The plague which we have been through is not simple. Since the splitting of the Red Sea, there was never such a thing as this, that G-d closed the entire world the way we had it now. These are signs that the Messiah is coming."

Rabbi Pinto also said that all of the Jews' significant troubles are caused by idle chatter in the synagogue.

"Torah sages have said that the Holocaust in Europe happened because they spoke during prayers. It did not come to Morocco, because we were careful not to speak during prayers," he explained. "Speaking during prayers is horrifying and destroys everything."

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Newly Elected MK Reform Rabbi Sneaks Sefer Torah into Kotel For Women ... He has MK immunity

 

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Chareidie Pilots in Israel

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WATCH – THE NEW FACE OF BLM... Daunte Wright's Last Video Post

 Check out Daunte Wright’s last video. 

This video of Daunte Wright flashing his unregistered handgun while smoking a blunt is one of the last videos he ever recorded. 

Wright was wanted on a warrant when he attempted to flee by car yesterday after being stopped by police near Minneapolis. Wright was in the process of getting arrested for a weapons charge & escaping police (on top of already having a warrant for his arrest) before he was killed yesterday by police.

Daunte Wright is the new face of BLM, as BLM claims Wright was killed for being Black.

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Israeli Study "a cup of yogurt can ‘cure’ your case of COVID-19"

 

Pre-clinical research by Israeli scientists, published in Microbiome, indicates that Kefir could be used to treat cytokine storms caused by coronavirus.

Can a cup of probiotic yogurt help save the lives of people with COVID-19?

Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev say they have identified molecules in kefir that are effective at treating various inflammatory conditions, including “cytokine storms” caused by COVID-19. Kefir, which is similar to yogurt but thinner in consistency, is a fermented drink made by inoculating cow’s or goat’s milk with microorganism mixtures, such as yeast and bacteria.

A cytokine storm is when the body’s immune system goes into overdrive and attacks itself – one of the leading causes of death in COVID-19 patients.

The research was conducted by PhD student Orit Malka and Prof. Raz Jelinek, vice president and dean for research and development at BGU. It was recently published in the peer-reviewed journal Microbiome.

Several years before the coronavirus pandemic, Malka noticed that yogurt had a therapeutic effect and began studying it in Jelinek’s lab, Jelinek told The Jerusalem Post. They identified molecules in the yogurt that had dramatic antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

“One of the main reasons people die of COVID is the cytokine storm,” Jelinek said. “Cytokines are immune molecules that are designed to help the body fight invaders like viruses. But in certain circumstances, and scientists don’t know exactly why, the body goes into a sort of overdrive and secretes many cytokines – so many that it kills you. That is what happens during COVID.”

“We knew that we had found these molecules in yogurt with anti-inflammatory properties,” he said. “So, when COVID started, we said, Let’s see if these molecules can help against cytokine storms.”

More at The Jerusalem Post

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