“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
Rivka Ravitz Mother of 12 |
President Joe Biden made an unusual gesture of respect for the chief of staff of his Israeli counterpart earlier this week.
President Reuven Rivlin and his chief of staff and bureau chief Rivka Ravitz met with President Biden in the Oval Office Monday, during President Rivlin’s final trip to the US while in office.
While speaking with Rivlin and Ravitz, Biden learned that Ravitz has twelve children, prompting him to kneel down before her.
“I have a picture of my mother here,” Biden said during the meeting, “You must see who she was.”
Biden also met with President Rivlin’s daughter, telling reporters he spoke with the Rivlins about their family.
“I’m so delighted his daughter is here. She’s in the back right there. And I got to — I got to meet her and talk about our kids and grandkids and all the like.”
When you are in your twenties it's ok not to know exactly what you will pursue in life, it's ok, you are still young and you are still searching, trying to understand your role in life in this world and G-d.
Itty Andrusier and Leah Goldsmith see it differently, two American Chabad girls twenty-one years old after meeting in a seminar in Australia when they were 18 years old decided to merge their energy and create a seminar that would fulfill all their requests in what they thought was missing in the Chabad seminar panorama.
With the full support of both their parents who are very successful shluchim in Miami and in Dallas, the girls despite their young age and not being married yet, got the green light to become the Creative Directors and bringing their seminary vision to life.
The Jean Schottestein Institute called Orya was established in the quiet neighborhood of Har Shmuel outside Jerusalem, with a twenty-staff program and thirty-six girls from all over the world.
Watch the chat I had with these incredible young girls and the project they had in mind and made it into reality after a lot of hard work, faith in Hashem, and in their Rebbe (Lubavitch).
The president pledged that Tehran will not acquire nuclear weapons on “my watch.” But if he reinstates Obama’s deal the crisis will occur after he leaves office.
By Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS.org
Outgoing Israeli President Reuven Rivlin met with U.S. President Joe Biden in Washington this week and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Rome. The theme of both meetings as far as the Israelis were concerned was happiness with the Biden administration.
As far as Rivlin and Lapid are concerned, any problems facing the alliance were the fault of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom both men despise despite coming from different ends of the Israeli political spectrum. Lapid went out of his way to declare that “mistakes were made” by Netanyahu, whose policies toward Democrats he described as “shameful and dangerous.” Rivlin was equally eager to portray Biden as a reliable friend of Israel who should be taken at his word when he makes promises about protecting its security.
That’s exactly what the administration wants to hear even if the attempt to depict the Democrats as having been wronged by Netanyahu is inaccurate. After all, it was former President Barack Obama who undermined the alliance between the two democracies with his appeasement of Iran, which Netanyahu was right to oppose. And castigating Netanyahu for embracing the historic tilt of the Trump administration and the Republicans toward Israel is equally senseless.
Just yesterday we posted an article by "Kol Berama" a Viznitz yiddish newspaper that trivialised the tragedy of the condo collapse in Florida, stating and implying that a few "chabad families missing' in the condo is no big deal and not the end of the world.
Well this DIN post went viral, and it didn't take long for the editors to place a full page "apology" in today's newspaper.
They claim that their statement
""People originally thought that only a couple of Chabad families perished in the Florida Condos, yes indeed, it is a very big loss, and a terrible tragedy, but it's not something that one has to turn the entire world around."
was misunderstood, and what they meant was that unfortunately the world has become "immune" to tragedies...
What that has to do with their "Chabad", only the writer knows, and he hasn't explained it ..
After rereading their article, nothing they wrote was "misunderstood" ...and their statement trivialising the tragedy and specifically naming the "Chabad Families" cannot be understood in any other way...
At any rate, DIN is not in a position to accept an apology for Chabad; Chabad being a "benevolent" chassidus will forgive their stupidity. Chabad knows that Viznitzers are not the sharpest blades in the drawer.
But this is Donald Trump (well, his company), so normal standards didn’t apply.
The company’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, walked in on his own — yet the prosecutors made a show of handcuffing him and walking him down a hall crowded with reporters.
Vance acquired years of Trump Organization tax records, yet all he’s found is an alleged failure to pay proper taxes on corporate perks like cars, tuition and apartments. Any other company and it’s a civil suit, an audit, perhaps a hefty fine.
If Vance had any evidence suggesting serious fraud (as press leaks long suggested), he’d have included them already. MSNBC hosts and blue-checked Twitter are slobbering that the CFO will cut a deal and reveal the real crimes. Why hasn’t he flipped yet, they yell. Maybe because there’s nothing to flip on?
When it comes to Trump, liberals are giving Wile E. Coyote a bad name. We’ll get him this time! Just you wait!
Thursday’s indictment is plainly a bid to justify the vast time and resources Vance and James devoted to the case these last two years, prompted by nothing more than the ravings of then-President Donald Trump’s embittered former personal attorney, Michael Cohen — who never had anything to do with the Trump Organization.
Trump’s attorney, Ronald Fischetti, says prosecutors told him the ex-prez won’t be charged “for now.” But it’ll plainly be never: All that Vance & Co. really have is partisan hate, not evidence.
“In my more than 50 years of practice, never before have I seen a district attorney’s office target a company over employee compensation or fringe benefits,” Fischetti said. “It’s ridiculous and outrageous.”
We’ve seen the nation grow ever more partisan in recent decades, with each party starting congressional investigations into the other when it’s in power. But this is a new frontier. Offices like the Attorney General of New York and District Attorney of Manhattan, which should be focused on crime, not politics, have become inquisitions, trying to mete out the revenge Nancy Pelosi couldn’t. It’s appalling — and will only backfire on them.
Sources say that Rabbi Shlomo Noginsky was stabbed just after 1:00PM outside his Chabad House, known as the “Shaloah House” on Chestnut Hill Avenue near Dighton Street.
Boston Police have a suspect in custody. A motive was not known.
Noginsky was rushed to a local hospital, but was being transferred to Boston Medical for major trauma.
His name for Tehillim is Shlomo ben Zlata Miriam.
According to a report, Noginski was sitting on the front steps of the Shaloh House on his cell phone. The suspect approached him, drew a gun and asked Noginski to take him to his car. When the suspect attempted to force Noginski into the car, the rabbi tried running across the street to a small park called Brighton Common, where the suspect stabbed Noginski multiple times in the arm. As the rabbi tried to fend off the attacker he raised a commotion, finally causing the suspect to flee. The suspect was apprehended by police almost immediately.
A father and son charged in a deadly fire at a suburban New York assisted living facility had been performing a pre-Passover cleaning ritual that involves heating kitchen utensils to burn off traces of forbidden food, the Journal News reported.
It remains unclear what specific role Rabbi Nathaniel Sommer of Monsey and his son, Aaron Sommer, allegedly played in the March 23 fire at Evergreen Court Home for Adults in Spring Valley that killed a resident and a firefighter, the newspaper reported.
The Sommers were arraigned Tuesday on charges of manslaughter, assault and arson in connection with the fire and are due back in court Friday. Information on their attorneys wasn’t available.
Volunteer firefighter Jared Lloyd and a 79-year-old resident of the facility were killed in the fire, which caused a partial collapse of the building.
Records show that the Evergreen Court fire was reported about 90 minutes after the Nathaniel and Aaron Sommer had left the facility after preparing the kitchen for Passover, the Journal News reported.
It remains unclear what specific role Rabbi Nathaniel Sommer of Monsey and his son, Aaron Sommer, allegedly played in the March 23 fire at Evergreen Court Home for Adults in Spring Valley that killed a resident and a firefighter, the newspaper reported.
The Sommers were arraigned Tuesday on charges of manslaughter, assault and arson in connection with the fire and are due back in court Friday. Information on their attorneys wasn’t available.
Volunteer firefighter Jared Lloyd and a 79-year-old resident of the facility were killed in the fire, which caused a partial collapse of the building.
Records show that the Evergreen Court fire was reported about 90 minutes after the Nathaniel and Aaron Sommer had left the facility after preparing the kitchen for Passover, the Journal News reported.
Lawyers who act to prevent the giving of a get (Jewish divorce document) and harm divorce proceedings can be slapped with sanctions, the Jerusalem Rabbinical Court ruled in a groundbreaking decision earlier this week.
A Black Jewish diversity chief at a nonprofit group for children’s book authors resigned amid backlash after she neglected to specifically condemn Islamophobia in a statement denouncing antisemitism.
April Powers, chief equity and inclusion officer at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, issued a statement this month saying the organization denounces “all forms of hate, including antisemitism,” citing an uptick in crimes against Jewish people. Critics apparently took issue with Islamophobia not being specifically mentioned in the statement.
Ms. Powers apologized in a statement announcing her resignation Sunday, saying she “neglected to address the rise in Islamophobia, and deeply regret that omission.”
“As someone who is vehemently against Islamophobia and hate speech of any kind, I understand that intention is not impact and I am so sorry,” she wrote. “While this doesn’t fix the pain and disappointment that you feel by my mishandling of this moment, I hope you will accept my sincerest apologies and resignation from the SCBWI.”
Ms. Powers, who introduced herself as being Black and Jewish in a welcome video last June, explained in a postTuesday on her personal Facebook page that she was not fired or forced to resign from the nonprofit, Newsweek reported.
The organization’s executive director, Lin Oliver, issued a statement Sunday accepting Ms. Powers’ resignation and apologizing to “everyone in the Palestinian community who felt unrepresented, silenced or marginalized.”
“SCBWI acknowledges the pain our actions have caused to our Muslim and Palestinian members and hope that we can heal from this moment,” Ms. Oliver wrote.
Anat Kimchi, a 31-year-old Israeli-born doctoral candidate and scholar at the University of Maryland, wrote a paper published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology in 2019 attempting to prove America’s criminal justice system was racist against “young black offenders” and “black drug offenders.”
While visiting Chicago over the weekend, Kimchi was ambushed and stabbed in the back and neck while walking near a homeless encampment at 401 South Wacker at around 3:35 p.m. Police said witnesses told them the assailant was a homeless “slim black male with long dreadlocks who wore a red bandana and a blue tank top,” CWB Chicago reported.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday that police know the man who fatally stabbed her and are “scouring the various homeless encampments downtown” to find him.
While speaking with CBS 2 Chicago, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown expressed bafflement that Kimchi would walk on such an “obscure route” which only leads to a freeway and an underpass with a homeless encampment.
Given her field, one can imagine she may have purposefully gone to the encampment to see first hand the horrible oppression that “white supremacist America” was subjecting these disadvantaged, underprivileged victims of white supremacy to due to no fault of their own.
Loose translation of the circled sentences
"People originally thought that only a couple of Chabad families perished in the Florida Condos, yes indeed, it is a very big loss, and a terrible tragedy, but it's not something that one has to turn the entire world around."
Applicants for a US passport will now be able to choose whether they identify as male or female and won’t need medical certification if their choice differs from the gender listed on other documents like a birth certificate, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday.
Blinken also said that the Department will soon give applicants the option of describing themselves on their passport as “non-binary, intersex, and gender non-conforming,” though he added that change would take time to implement due to “extensive systems updates.”
According to Blinken, the moves are another step “toward ensuring the fair treatment of LGBTQI+ U.S. citizens, regardless of their gender or sex.” America’s top diplomat added that he was announcing the move “after considerable consultation with like-minded governments who have undertaken similar changes.”
The American Civil Liberties Union welcomed the move to add a third gender identification option.
“Improved access to accurate passports will have such a profound impact on the lives of trans, intersex, and non-binary folks across the country,” ACLU campaign strategist Arli Christian said in a statement. “Now people will be able to fill out a passport application and indicate M, F, or X — whichever is most appropriate for them.
Despite a hateful wave of anti-trans legislation this year, trans, non-binary, and intersex people know who we are and we need recognition of who we are — not permission,” Christian added. “Today’s action demonstrates an important first step in realizing a whole-of-government policy for accurate IDs.”
Wednesday’s announcement was the latest acknowledgment of the LGBTQ community by Blinken. In April, he authorized US diplomatic missions to fly the rainbow-colored Pride flag on the same pole as the American flag at embassies and consulates around the world. Last week, Blinken announced the State Department would fly the “Progress” flag — which incorporates a black, brown, light blue, pink and white chevron into the pride flag design — for the first time ever to mark Pride Month.
“We … value our continued engagement with the LGBTQI+ community, which will inform our approach and positions moving forward,” Blinken said. “With this action, I express our enduring commitment to the LGBTQI+ community today and moving forward.”
Where is the "Shomer Yisrael" Cryi'n Schumer? .....
In an interview with CNN on Tuesday, host Jake Tapper confronted Dem. Rep. Ilhan Omar about her comments equating the US and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban and asked her if she regretted her comments.
Omar replied: “I don’t. I think it’s really important to think back to the point that I was trying to make. Obviously, I was addressing Secretary of State Blinken.”
Four people have been arrested, including two facing manslaughter charges, and two others face arrest warrants in connection with a fatal fire at a Rockland County home for elderly residents.
The arrests were announced on Tuesday, June 29 by Rockland County District Attorney Thomas Walsh during a press conference following a three-month investigation into the Tuesday, March 23, fire at Evergreen Court Home for Adults in Spring Valley.
The fire, which caused the building to partially collapse, killed Spring Valley Volunteer Firefighter Jared Lloyd as he was rescuing residents and a 79-year-old resident of the home.
"Today is the culmination of a multi-agency investigation that left no stone unturned," Walsh said. "I informed the Lloyd family today of the arrests made today. While we can't bring Jared back, today is a step in the right direction."
Those arrested for their actions that allegedly caused the fire include Aaron Sommer and his son, Nathaniel Sommer, who were both charged with:
Two counts of manslaughter
Both men were arraigned and are being held at that the Rockland County Jail. Their next court appearance is scheduled for Friday, July 2.
Also arrested were Spring Valley building inspectors Wayne Ballard and Raymond Canario who were both charged with filing false reports to the state in connection with fire inspections. They were officially charged with offering a false instrument of filing and falsifying business records.They were processed and released.
Walsh said arrest warrants were also issued for Denise Kerr of New York City and Manuel Lema of Pomona. Kerr is facing a charge of reckless endangerment, and Lema faces charges of criminal impersonation and obstructing governmental administration.
Walsh, who declined to answer any questions regarding the role each of those arrested played in the fire and deaths as to "not taint a grand jury," said his goal was to hold those arrested responsible for the fire and their actions.
Rockland County Executive Ed Day said: "The fact that these arrests came from many different facets of this situation says a lot about how comprehensive and in-depth this investigation has been along with the different aspects of accountability and criminality we are dealing with." Walsh said the investigation is ongoing.
On a recent morning before communal prayers at a synagogue, Harry Rosenberg told a friend that his new beachfront condo in Florida offered a much-needed change of scenery after an awful year in which he lost his wife to cancer and both parents to COVID-19 in New York.
The home in Surfside was to be a gathering spot for visiting children and grandchildren, and his daughter and son-in-law were doing just that when they traveled to the condo last week from New Jersey to join him for the Sabbath.
Hours later, the building collapsed, and all three family members are missing in the rubble.
Their cascading tragedies — cancer, COVID-19 and now the flattening of the building — are reminders of the excruciating toll the collapse has taken on families after what was already a grief-filled year.
Elsewhere in the building, a woman also sought a fresh start in Florida after falling ill and recovering from COVID-19. Another man was visiting Florida to attend the funeral of an old friend who died after being infected, and a Colombian family was in Miami to get the vaccine.
“He told me, ‘It is the next chapter of my life.’ He went through hell. His parents passed away. His wife passed away,” said Steve Eisenberg, who saw the 52-year-old asset manager last week at the synagogue.
Rosenberg “came to Florida to breathe a little bit,¨ said Rabbi Sholom D. Lipskar, founder of the Shul of Bal Harbour, the synagogue he joined.
When the building tumbled to the ground, Rosenberg's daughter, Malky Weisz, 27, and her husband, Benny Weisz, 32, had just arrived for their visit on the second floor of Champlain Towers South. So far, 12 bodies have been recovered. Almost 150 people are still unaccounted for.
Described as a family man and observant Jew, Rosenberg had launched a young adult center for mental healing at a hospital in Israel in memory of his late wife, Anna Rosenberg.
Before his wife died last summer of a brain tumor, he spent three years taking care of her, a close friend said.
“He put his life on hold,” said Maurice Wachsmann, a friend of Rosenberg's for more than 30 years.
Months after her death came more heartache. His father died of COVID-19 in January, and weeks later his mother died of the same.
“It was extremely difficult," Wachsmann said. “He did everything for his parents. Family first, before everything."
Rosenberg decided to move to Florida, first renting smaller apartments and finally buying last month the larger condo in Surfside, north of Miami Beach.
Last week, Rosenberg traveled to New York for the baby-naming ceremony of his second grandchild and rushed back to Miami to prepare for his daughter and son-in-law's visit. She works as an auditor at a branch of the Roth & Co accounting firm in Farmington, New Jersey. Her Austrian-born husband works in finance.
In his short time in Florida, he was already known by people in the community. Fellow members of the synagogue and his family are now anxiously awaiting any news from the scene. In the pile of rubble, family and friends have spotted one remnant of his life at Surfside from afar: a white couch.
Inside was the headstone of Elvis Presley’s mother, Gladys, which had been stored in the Graceland archives along with 1.5 million other items since 1977. And on the upper left side of the long-unseen marker — designed by Elvis himself — is a Star of David.
Yes, the King of Rock and Roll had Jewish roots.
The headstone, which was taken from storage only in 2018, is now on display at the sprawling complex in Memphis where Elvis lived from 1957 until his untimely death 20 years later at the age of 42. It sits in Graceland’s Meditation Garden, just outside the mansion and a few feet from Elvis’ own grave.
On Monday, 24 Miami apartment buildings, including two owned by Miami-Dade county, were put on a list for serious structural violations after being flagged during an emergency audit.
The two dozen buildings had not gone through a mandated 40-year recertification process, reported the Miami Herald, citing county records.
The audit took place two days after the 12-story Champlain Towers South building in Surfside collapsed. The back portion of the tower containing 136 condo unit caved in suddenly early Thursday morning, leaving little but a 30-foot high mountain of rubble. The building had been in the middle of its own 40-year recertification process when the disaster occurred.
Two Miami-Dade county owned buildings made the list. The 88-unit Little River Plaza and Ward Tower 1 were built in the 1970s and had violated repair orders.
Local leaders cited a lack of federal funding for the lack of work on the buildings.
The Washington Examiner quoted Michael Liu, Miami-Dade housing director, who said that the county has a regular $10 million annual shortfall and was forced to make difficult choices “based on severity and threats to health and safety.”
Champlain Towers South was reportedly behind in repairs in several key areas, needing $630,000 in electrical repairs, $254,000 in structural repairs, $3.8 million in garage and pool deck upgrades, and $3.2 million in building facade work, according to documents released by the city of Surfside.
US President Joe Biden will visit the site of the apartment building collapse in southern Florida later this week, the White House announced on Tuesday, according to AFP.
"On Thursday, July 1, the president and the first lady will travel to Surfside, Florida," the Biden administration said in a statement, adding that details for the trip would be provided later.
The 12-story oceanfront condominium in Surfside, a neighborhood near Miami, collapsed in the early hours of Thursday last week, with the official death toll of 11 expected to rise as hope dwindles for 150 people still unaccounted for.
An engineer who three years ago examined the residential building that collapsed found that the complex was suffering from "major structural damage."
The report noted damage to the concrete slabs under the pool and cracks and significant disintegration of the columns, beams and walls of the underground parking garage in the 13-story building.
The damage to the building, which was erected 40 years ago and went through a re-approval process, was apparently caused by prolonged exposure to the salty air of Florida's south coast.
On Friday, reports emerged that a researcher's 2020 paper detailed evidence that the building had shown signs that it had been sinking since the 1990s.
Police in Kuwait have arrested a resident - an Egyptian man - for posting a video online in which he rants about bad weather and dust storms, The Associated Press reported on Tuesday.
Kuwait's Ministry of Interior said Sunday the person behind the “offensive” video was arrested and referred to authorities, which would “take the necessary legal action against him.”
In a dashboard camera video posted on the social media app TikTok, the man can be heard complaining about the blinding sandstorm that has engulfed Kuwait for the past few days.
“I'm inside a dust storm right now, I literally can't see anything in front of me,” the man is heard saying, showing the dust coating the highway like a thick fog.
“Fine, Kuwait, fine,” he adds, with an expletive in Arabic. The clip went viral on Twitter, racking up tens of thousands of views.
The arrest of the man underscored the country's restrictions on expression and drew criticism on social media Monday over his detention, according to AP.
Kuwait stands out for its outspoken parliament and relatively vibrant civic life but authorities routinely use the cybercrime law to police criticism and prosecute dissidents.
In 2016, a Kuwait University professor was charged with "blasphemy" after stating that the Kuwaiti constitution holds legal dominance over the Koran.
In 2013, individuals in Kuwait were accused of offending the emir, with a former MP being handed a jail term for insulting the Gulf state's ruler.
Many of Twitter’s cryptocurrency zealots are often notorious trolls, but one particular thought leader stands out from the rest. He happens to be a rabbi.
“Twitter people either use it to scream at each other and not be nice, which I don’t like,” says micro-influencer Rabbi Michael Caras, also known as @thebitcoinrabbi. ”I enjoy connecting with my two communities through Twitter, both Jewish Twitter and Bitcoin Twitter.”
Caras, a rabbi associated with the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement, is fascinated by the way that Bitcoin, both the network and the asset, relates to halacha (Jewish law). And since he’s quite vocal about it online, Caras says that strangers slide into his Twitter messages each week to ask for advice and spiritual guidance on the topic.
Before serving as a public bridge between the two worlds, he studied at Yeshiva Ohr Tmimim in Israel and now teaches both Judaism and technology classes at Maimonides Hebrew Day School in New York. Caras has been interested in Bitcoin since 2017, and in 2019 he published a children’s book about it that has sold more than 10,000 copies.
The book, a secular introduction to basic economics for kids, tells a tale of children learning about how to use Bitcoin as money by running a lemonade stand in a town called Bitville.