Jewish Life in Poland 90 Year ago

 

 

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Israel plans to allow individual tourists back into the country starting July 1

 

Israel could ease entry procedures for foreign visitors who have been vaccinated against the coronavirus from the beginning of next month, allowing regular tourists traveling outside organized groups to enter the country for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

International travel to Israel has been greatly limited, due to lockdown restrictions imposed to prevent COVID-19 strains from reaching the country. At times, Israel’s borders were entirely shut to foreigners. Tourists cannot currently travel to the country unless visiting a first-degree relative, and then under restrictive conditions.

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri sent a letter Thursday to Border Authority Director-General Shlomo Mor-Yosef telling him that he had consulted with the Health Ministry Yuli Edelstein, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi, and professional teams from various ministries on the matter.

As a result, a decision was taken to allow vaccinated visitors from a list of countries that is yet to be determined by the Health Ministry “to enter Israel with a shortened process that will be put together in the coming days.”

He did not explain what the “shortened process” would involve.

Deri told Mor-Yosef that in light of the COVID-19 vaccination programs in other countries, “there is room to broaden the easing of entry to Israel for foreigners and to change the existing methods of approval that put an enormous load on Israel’s representatives abroad and on the Immigration and Population Authority in the country.”

Deri wrote that the target date to start the pilot would be July 1.

Tourism Minister Orit Farkash-Hacohen welcomed the move, tweeting that “it is about time that Israel opens up to tourism and takes advantage of being a vaccinated country for the benefit of its economy.”

Farkash-Hacohen said that the changes would apply to individual tourists, rather than groups.

In April, Farkash-Hacohen unveiled a four-part plan to restart foreign tourism to Israel in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, including a global advertising campaign, flight incentives to Eilat, and the reintroduction of large international events.

Israel recently began accepting organized tour groups back into the country.

A national inoculation drive has already seen over half the Israeli population vaccinated against COVID-19 and brought down daily caseloads from the thousands seen at the beginning of the year to just six people diagnosed on Wednesday.

Health Ministry data published Thursday showed there are just 202 active virus patients in the country. Since the start of the outbreak early last year 839,627 people were diagnosed with COVID-19 in Israel and 6,428 are known to have died of the disease.

Israel has largely lifted domestic lockdown restrictions on public life that were applied to prevent the virus from spreading.

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Two dead in accident near Givat Zev Junction

 

A 60-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man were killed on Friday evening in a collision between two private vehicles on Route 443 near the Givat Ze'ev junction.

The woman was trapped inside one of the vehicles and was pronounced dead after being pulled from the vehicle.

Three other people were injured in the accident, including a 76-year-old woman in serious condition, a 13-year-old boy who was moderately to seriously injured, and a 78-year-old man with moderate injuries.

Magen David Adom paramedics provided the injured with medical treatment and evacuated them to Shaare Zedek and Hadassah Ein Kerem hospitals in Jerusalem.

Police are investigating the accident.

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WATCH – Anti-Semitic robbers snatch yarmulke, money from Jewish man in NYC

 

Three men on motorcycles robbed and harassed a young Jewish man in Brooklyn before yanking off his yarmulke — in another apparent anti-Semitic attack in New York City.

The hateful holdup — which was caught on video — happened on Metropolitan Avenue and Graham Avenue in Williamsburg on the afternoon of June 2, police said on Friday.

The alleged bigoted bikers approached the 21-year-old and demanded his money while making statements that disparaged Jews, according to the NYPD.

When the victim tried to call 911, the suspects allegedly snatched off his religious headgear and hightailed it up Manhattan Avenue.

The robbers remain on the run, according to police.

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Possible mass grave found near Auschwitz

 

A Polish resident has uncovered what may be a previously undiscovered mass grave near the grounds of the notorious Auschwitz Nazi death camp. 

Police and prosecutors in the country are now probing the find after the unidentified resident spotted some 12 human skulls and a number of other human bones along a bank of the Sola river, ABC News reported. 

The gruesome discovery was made near the southern Polish town of Oswiecim when water levels of the river had run low, according to the report. 

Police are probing if the remains are linked to the death camp, but a spokesperson for the Auschwitz Museum told ABC Friday that they were discovered outside of its perimeter. 

More than a million people were killed at the camp during WWII, which was constructed by the Germans during The Holocaust. 

Most of the people murdered at Auschwitz during the Holocaust were European Jews

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Zera Shimshon Parshas Korach

 

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Lieberman Begins Going After Chareidim

 

The projected Finance Minister of the next government, is slated to be Avigdor Lieberman, who in the past has been no friend of the Chareidi parties. On Wednesday, Lieberman began preparing for his new position as being the person most in control of the Israeli economy by requesting a detailed budgetary expenditure.

The request was published in the economy magazine The Calcalist, which stated that Lieberman specifically requested the detailed expenditure list with regard to money transferred to educational institutions and other bodies that go beyond the national budget, as well as those that were transferred in the past as part of coalition agreements with all of the various parties.

While not only the Chareidi parties received funds that were transferred as a result of coalition agreements in the previous government, but in recent years, the main benefactor of these funds has been the Chareidi parties and their public.

This is not a regular request from every incoming Finance Minister prior to starting his job, so it is suspected among the Chareidi parties that Lieberman wants to delve into the issue in-depth and research just exactly what money the Chareidi public is receiving.

It is feared that he plans on ceasing the transfer of these funds to the Charedi parties and institutions.

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Biden’s retracts Trump’s mandated discounts on insulin & epi-pens

 

The White House this week gave President Biden the greenlight to move forward with removing a Trump-era health care policy designed to bring down the price of insulin.

Biden’s bid to retract the rule was approved on Monday, as reported by Politico, with the expectation that the Department of Health and Human Services could publish the retraction within the coming days.

The measure, signed off on under the previous administration in December, aimed to require some 340B community health centers to deliver savings to low-income patients for insulin and epinephrine in a bid to bring down unaffordable prices.

Spokespeople for the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services did not return FOX Business’ request for comment.

The rule was scheduled to go into effect in January but was frozen at that time.

Earlier this year, the National Association of Health Care Centers said the rule would “adversely impact Community Health Centers” and make it harder for low-income patients to afford the medications.

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Pelosi Forced To Seek Ways to quell uproar over Omar's latest Anti-US and Anti-Israel comments

 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she welcomed a clarification from Rep. Ilhan Omar over a tweet about Israel that critics on both sides of the aisle said had unfairly compared the U.S. and Israel to terrorist groups.

In a written statement, Pelosi, D-Calif., said that “drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the U.S. and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines peace and security for all.

“We welcome the clarification by Congresswoman Omar that there is no moral equivalency between the U.S. and Israel and Hamas and the Taliban,” Pelosi continued.

Jewish lawmakers criticized Omar, D-Minn., for the tweet she posted Monday showing a video of her questioning Secretary of State Antony Blinken about how domestic courts can handle war crimes. Accompanying the clip, Omar added a message that read, “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan, and the Taliban. I asked [Blinken] where people are supposed to go for justice.”

A group of legislators led by Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Ill., released a statement late Wednesday condemning Omar’s tweet: “Equating the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban is as offensive as it is misguided. Ignoring the differences between democracies governed by the rule of law and contemptible organizations that engage in terrorism at best discredits one’s intended argument and at worst reflects deep-seated prejudice.”

In response, Omar initially blasted her fellow Democrats.

“It’s shameful for colleagues who call me when they need my support to now put out a statement asking for ‘clarification’ and not just call,” she wrote in a tweet on Wednesday. “The Islamophobic tropes in this statement are offensive. The constant harassment & silencing from the signers of this letter is unbearable.”

On Thursday afternoon, however, Omar released a statement offering the requested clarification.

"To be clear: the conversation was about accountability for specific incidents regarding those [International Criminal Court] cases, not a moral comparison between Hamas and the Taliban and the U.S. and Israel,” she wrote. “I was in no way equating terrorist organizations with democratic countries with well-established judicial systems."

With a number of key votes that will require a unified Democratic caucus, the statement from Pelosi appeared designed to strike a delicate balance, condemning the likening of Israel to terrorist groups while accepting Omar’s clarification.

Omar, a Somali refugee and one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, has battled with pro-Israel members of Congress and Democratic leadership since taking office. In 2019, she apologized after making controversial comments about the pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

While most Democrats stayed quiet on Omar’s latest remarks, she received backing from other progressives who have been more outspoken in their criticism of Israeli policy toward Palestinians.

“I am tired of colleagues (both D+R) demonizing [Omar],” tweeted Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who is of Palestinian descent. “Their obsession with policing her is sick. She has the courage to call out human rights abuses no matter who is responsible. That’s better than colleagues who look away if it serves their politics.”

“Pretty sick & tired of the constant vilification, intentional mischaracterization, and public targeting of [Omar] coming from our caucus,” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. “They have no concept for the danger they put her in by skipping private conversations & leaping to fueling targeted news cycles around her.”

Ahead of Pelosi’s statement, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., tried to ramp up pressure on the speaker to take action against Omar.

“Rep. Omar's anti-Semitic & anti-American comments are abhorrent,” McCarthy tweeted. “Speaker Pelosi’s continued failure to address the issues in her caucus sends a message to the world that Democrats are tolerant of anti-Semitism and sympathizing with terrorists. It’s time for the Speaker to act.”

Israel has faced increased scrutiny in Washington after weeks of military clashes between Israel and Hamas earlier this year that killed more than 200 Palestinian residents of Gaza and at least 12 Israelis. Omar, Tlaib and Ocasio-Cortez were among the Democrats supporting a resolution that would have delayed a $735 million arms deal between the U.S. and Israel.

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The Lying Al Jazeera Reporter That Claims that Israeli Police Broke Her Arm....

 

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She’s Running for New York City Council. But Newspapers Won’t Publish Her Photo.

 

In all but one way, Amber Adler is running a pretty normal campaign for New York city council. She knocks on doors and attends rallies; she campaigns outside of grocery stores and subway stations; she puts posters up across her district and places ads in local newspapers.

But look for a picture of her face in one of those local papers, and you’re not likely to find one. Why not? Because most of the magazines and newspapers in her neighborhood refuse to publish her photo.

Adler, 37, is the first Orthodox Jewish woman to run for city council in her Brooklyn district, which includes ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods scattered throughout Borough Park and Midwood. And as she heads toward her June 22 primary, she’s a victim of a fairly recent trend among Jewish media outlets in Orthodox neighborhoods in the United States: a refusal to publish photographs of women and girls for religious reasons. Which means if Adler wants campaign ads printed in the Jewish news, she can’t be in most of them.

For Adler, who is only the second ever Orthodox woman to run for publicly elected office in Brooklyn, the visual gag-order is yet another hurdle in an uphill campaign. She is butting up against expectations that Orthodox women don’t assume positions of communal authority and should instead stick to more internal-facing roles. 

She’s trying to change that perception — and also highlight some of the other issues that Orthodox women face, including a system of religious divorce that frequently leaves them trapped in broken marriages. (Such a woman is referred to by the Hebrew term “agunah,” which literally means “chained.”) Adler, who herself spent two years as an agunah and speaks candidly about the experience, supports a current bill in front of the New York state legislature that would make coercive control a Class E felony. 

But how far can she get in making things better for women when she can’t even get her photo in the paper? 

“If you’re designing a building and you’ve never seen someone with a disability, you won’t understand that you need a ramp. Obviously those people are going to be left out. That’s what’s happening [to women] in Orthodox Judaism right now,” said Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll, a Jerusalem-based writer and activist who opposes banning images of women from Jewish media. “Community leaders are making decisions without even considering how they're going to impact women.”

The erasure of female images from Orthodox media began over two decades ago as a fringe movement in insular Hasidic neighborhoods in Israel (Hasidism is a subgroup of ultra-Orthodox Judaism known for its particularly stringent positions and mystical leanings). The practice is not explicitly dictated anywhere in Orthodox law. It grew out of the Talmudic injunction that men must “guard [their] eyes” against immodest and potentially arousing images — a directive designed to prevent any sort of seminal emission not intended for procreation, including masturbation, which is a matter of grave concern in Orthodox law. Countless rules — including those dictating the dress and behavior of women — have been justified in the name of safeguarding men against this supposed infraction

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Charedim fear shtreimel industry will be banned in Israel

 The Charedi community in Israel fears that Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel intends to destroy the streimel industry, Behadrei Haredim reported.

A shtreimel is a fur hat which is often worn by hasidic and haredi Jews from eastern Europe. They are usually made from the tails of Canadian or Russian sable, beech marten, and baum marten, and are among the most expensive parts of traditional hasidic dress.

The fear is that the Supreme Court will strike down the religious exemption to the the new bans on the fur industry and the grounds that such exemptions are unequal.

Minister Gamliel had sat on the new regulations for a year due to opposition from the haredi political parties. Today, she finally passed the regulations, which will take effect in December.

At the time the regulations were proposed, a legal opinion was presented to the Knesset members, written by Adv. Amir Kadri, in which he raised concerns that "an argument could be made that the term "religion and tradition" should be interpreted narrowly, and that shtreimels, which are not a halacha (although a tradition) are not a purpose for which it is permissible to deviate from the general provisions of the proposed law, and the prohibition includes them as well," the trade of which is subject to a criminal prohibition.

The passage of the regulations comes as the haredi parties are about to move into the opposition, making it more difficult for them to influence and pass legislation.

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Syrian commander killed in Israeli airstrike

 

Seven Syrian army fighters, including a senior commander involved in weapons development, were killed in Israeli airstrikes, Wednesday, rebel aligned Syrian media outlets reported Wednesday night.

According to the reports, the senior military official killed in the airstrikes was Ayham Ismail, who commanded a unit tasked with manufacturing electronic components for the Syrian army's missile system.

According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, four foreign nationals, apparently from Iran, were also killed in the attack.

A senior Syrian military official who defected during the country's civil war told the London-based pan-Arab Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper that Ismail was a chemist and engineer by profession. The official confirmed Ismail had been taken out in an attack on a military facility known as "Sector 1000."

While media outlets aligned with the Damascus regime denied the reports, regime supporters shared photos of the funerals for those killed in the strikes to social media.

On Wednesday, the Syrian state-owned SANA news outlet reported Israeli jets struck targets adjacent to Damascus. It noted Syria's aerial defense system was activated in the attack but did not mention any casualties inside Syria in its reporting.

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The real reason Charedi leaders turned against Bennett

 

by Yifat Erlich

If the verbal lashing Haredi politicians gave Yamina leader Naftali Bennett Tuesday teaches us anything, is that they are afraid. Very, very afraid.

It is not, however, the inception of a Center-Left government that is troubling them, nor are they bemoaning the apparent end of the Netanyahu era. They are worried about one thing: being cut off from the state's coffers.

The last 45 years have seen the ultra-Orthodox parties man the benches of the opposition only twice: the first from 1074-1977 and the second from 2012-2015. Those anomalies aside, the Haredim have made sure to maintain a tight grip on their place in the coalition, and an even tighter grip on their seats in the powerful Knesset Finance Committee, which they have transitionally chaired.

However, they have never used their political clout to help the Israeli public as a whole. All they every cared about was their own sector. That narrow vision has only increased the maladies plaguing Haredi society, which failed to use the massive state budgets diverted to it to become a productive sector, becoming, for the most part, dependent on the state.

I'm an ardent supporter of the world of Torah and I'm all for making it as great as possible. But few are those who can dedicate their lives to these studies, and rather than cultivating these chosen few, the ultra-Orthodox sector has fostered generations of mediocre youth, who are both unable to delve into their studies nor are they able to make an honest living.

Moreover, the Haredi leadership's narrow views have prevented any attempt to resolve the conversions crisis. Other issues – anything that didn't serve solely their constituents – have fallen by the wayside as well.

This narrow view is the biggest sacrilege of all.

On Tuesday, Shas and United Torah Judaism leaders launched a ferocious attack on Bennett, denouncing him as "evil" and even going as far as demanding he removes his kippah.

Why are they so furious with the future prime minister? Because Bennett represents a different type of religiosity – one that has deliberately disengaged from the sector; one that is infused with reverence for God and love for the Torah but also has a broad vision and concern for Israeli society as a whole, and one that embodies productivity and responsibility.

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Liberman said to tell party members Charedim won’t be joining government

 

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman reportedly told members of his right-wing, secular party Tuesday that the Knesset’s two ultra-Orthodox parties will not at any point be part of the prospective unity government, despite assertions by senior coalition leaders that the Haredi slates are still welcome to join.

“It is not possible for the ultra-Orthodox to join the government. Anyone who claims that the ultra-Orthodox can be added to this government is deluding himself and others,” Liberman said at a faction meeting, according to a Wednesday Channel 12 report.

The comments appeared to have been directed at Yamina chairman and prime minister-designate Naftali Bennett, as well as Yesh Atid chairman and foreign minister-designate Yair Lapid, who have both insisted that they have not shut the door to a coalition with the Haredi parties, even though the prospective government currently has a majority of secular factions and no hardline religious ones.

Bennett, in particular, is believed to be interested in folding Shas and United Torah Judaism into his coalition in order to expand the bloc of right-wing parties.

However, Shas and UTJ leaders all but put to bed such a possibility at a Tuesday press conference where they launched a stunning assault on Bennett.

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Shira Haas gives life to a devastating illness in Israeli film ‘Asia’

 

Shira Haas, the Israeli actress who vaulted into superstardom with her roles in the TV series “Shtisel” and “Unorthodox,” has a track record of playing multifaceted characters. Nonetheless, she faced unprecedented challenges when making the new film “Asia,” which dominated last year’s Ophir Awards (the Israeli equivalent to the Oscars) and is seeing a US release this week.

In the starkly photographed, minimalist film, Haas plays Vika, a tough yet sensitive kid struggling from a degenerative neurological disease. She lives with her single mother, Asia (Alena Yiv), a free spirit, and the two women are forced to come to terms with Vika’s accelerating condition.

For Haas, who was diagnosed with kidney cancer at age 2 and saw her growth stunted as a result of her chemotherapy treatments, the role presented a unique challenge.

“First, I had to deal with Vika’s physical condition, which changes from scene to scene, and it had to be very specific – from the way Vika holds a cup to the way she walks,” Haas told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency over the phone from her home in Tel Aviv. “Though it is never spelled out in the movie, she has ALS [Lou Gehrig’s disease]. We consulted with a doctor throughout.”

Writer-director Ruthy Pribar based the story on the prolonged death of her own sister 14 years ago, having recalled her mother’s relentless, selfless devotion over that period. Pribar, who wrote the script during her own pregnancy, said she often wondered if she could measure up to her own mother when she became one.

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Amid housing shortage, Apartments in Israel ‘flying off shelves’

Ramat Beit Shemesh Gimmel 

 Israel’s red-hot real estate market has been booming over the last several months, with demand for housing far outpacing supply. Increased immigration to Israel has exacerbated the problem, with new citizens and people thinking about becoming citizens looking for a dwelling in the Jewish state. As the competition to purchase property in Israel becomes stiffer, new trends are emerging, such as the willingness to buy a home sight unseen.

Rafi Shulman, co-founder of Olim Advisors, an organization that helps people make aliyah and find a home in Israel, says the prices of properties are skyrocketing because of the crowded real estate market.

“The prices of houses continue to increase,” he told The Media Line. “It’s just mind-boggling.”

“There is just more demand, specifically in certain areas, like Ramat Beit Shemesh for example, or Modi’in or Jerusalem, that are popular places for new citizens,” Shulman added. “We work with developers and we get the sense that they [apartments] are literally flying off the shelves.”

Ariyel Maresky, the owner of RE/MAX Vision in Jerusalem, the largest real estate company in Israel’s capital city with more than 30 agents, also says the real estate market is booming.

“I’ve been in the field for almost 20 years and I don’t remember such a high demand before,” he told The Media Line.

However, Maresky disagrees that housing prices are going up more than usual.

“Both in sales and rentals, we don’t really see a larger surge in prices,” he said. “Jerusalem has always increased 5% to 7% annually. I don’t think this year is any different.”

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