A 14-year-old girl was seriously injured after being hit with a hammer that was thrown through the windshield of the car she was riding in.
The incident took place around 2:20 a.m., Sunday, Oct. 10, just south of Exit 14A on I-87, in the town of Ramapo in Rockland County.
According to New York State Police Trooper Tara McCormick, a preliminary investigation determined that a hammer went through the windshield of a vehicle, striking the front seat passenger.
The victim was transported to Westchester County Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries.
The incident remains under investigation. State Police are asking anyone who may have information regarding this incident to contact State Police Tarrytown at 800-842-2233.
It girl novelist Sally Rooney has reportedly refused to allow her new novel to be published in Hebrew because she supports a boycott of Israel.
The acclaimed Irish novelist turned down Modan, the Israeli publisher that translated her previous books, because of her outspoken views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Haaretz reported.
“When Modan approached Rooney’s agent in an attempt to sign another translation deal, the agent announced that Rooney supports the cultural boycott movement on Israel and therefore does not approve translation into Hebrew,” Haaretz reported as an addendum to its reprint of an interview Rooney gave last month.
Rooney’s agent, Tracy Bohan, confirmed that the author had declined the translation of “Beautiful World, Where Are You,”
Modan confirmed that it would not be publishing the award-winning writer’s third novel, but declined to say whether this was due to a boycott, the Telegraph said.
Rooney, 30, has previously been outspoken about her opposition to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the Telegraph noted.
She recently signed a so-called “Letter Against Apartheid” that called for “an end to the support provided by global powers to Israel and its military; especially the United States.” The open letter also urged governments to “cut trade, economic and cultural relations.”
In her second novel, “Normal People,” the main characters attend a protest against Israel’s role in the 2014 Gaza war, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency also noted.
The reported boycott immediately brought condemnation.
“Boycotting the Hebrew language — spoken by millions of Jews worldwide — has nothing to do with Palestine. It’s just racism,” tweeted Stephane Savary, a member of the National Council Vice-Presidents of the UK-based Zionist Federation.
Political pundit Gerard Howlin, meanwhile, insisted, “Sally Rooney’s refusal to allow her new book be translated into Hebrew is book burning in another way.”
Literary scholar Gitit Levy-Paz wrote in Forward that “Rooney’s decision surprised and saddened me.”
“Rooney has chosen a path that is anathema to the artistic essence of literature, which can serve as a portal for understanding different cultures, visiting new worlds and connecting to our own humanity,” Levy-Paz wrote.
“Given the rise of antisemitism in recent years, especially in Europe, the timing of her choice is dangerous.”
There is a story told about the Gaon of Vilna, who was walking with his talmidim past a bar on Friday night on the way to shul. Suddenly one of his talmidim noticed that a former talmud of the Gaon was sitting in the bar, smoking a cigarette.
The Gaon commented that after this former talmud dies and comes up to heaven to face judgement for disgracing the sanctity of Shabbos, he will still be asked if he learned "maaseh markava" .... Kabbala.
In other words, even ,someone who has gone so far off the religious path that he publicly desecrates the Sabbath, still has an obligation to learn all parts of the Torah including the mystical aspects ... being a "mechallel Shabbos" does not give one an exemption , a pass.
That got me thinking, that before I go, I should delve into some Kabbala. Not that I am done learning Shas, Tanach, Halacha etc., but maybe just to dabble a bit so that I can say I tried, even though I will never be a "kabbalist"
And so I started my journey into Kabbalah, learning Chassidishe Seforim that contain Kabbalistic concepts albeit in a filtered way.
I also learned Tanye. The Tanye was written by the first Lubavitcher Rebbe who is called the "Baal Ha'Tanya" named after his sefer the "Tanye"
In this sefer he describes a kabbalistic concept called "Tzimzum". This is not the forum to discuss this deep concept but just to whet your appetite, let me explain very briefly and simply.
We all believe that Hashem is everywhere. If you ever went to the planetarium, and looked up at the vast sky with billions of stars, you will never find earth on your own. They will direct you to a tiny speck in the sky.
So how does Hashem manifest Himself into our own very lives and bodies, when He is so so huge and compared to the Universe we are so tiny and minuscule ?
The answer is, because Hashem is unlimited and infinite, He must therefore constrict (Tzimzum) His powerful manifestation, so that limitation and finitude can be actualized.
I just gave you a very simple surface explanation, just so that you can follow my story.
After learning Tanye I decided to delve into the Litvishe sefarim and I started learning Nefesh Hachayim, a small booklet written by R'Chaim Volozhin, the star pupil of the Vilna Gaon.
This booklet, Nefesh hachayim was printed posthumously by his son, R' Yitzchok, after R' Chaim on his deathbed begged him to publish Nefesh Hachayim "exceedingly quickly."
R' Yitzchok did not publish it right away and procrastinated and his son, Chaim, named after his father died within the year of his birth and soon after, his 8 year-old son died. R' Yitzchok in his preface to Nefesh HaChayim attributed these deaths for his procrastinating; not publishing the booklet immediately.
In this Nefesh Hachayim, R' Chaim also discusses the kabbalistic concept of "tzimzun" but has a different understanding, (I thought) than the Baal Ha'Tanye, and I was confused.
And even though I understand that Chassidic and Litvishe views differ, but "tzimzum" is "tzimzum" and can only have one understanding.
So one nice day I went into a shul in Beit Shemesh to daven Mincha. There was a half hour break between Mincha & Maariv, and I had time to browse the sefarim in their library and there, lo and behold, I saw on the shelf a two-volume set called "Nefesh Ha'Tzimtzum" by Avinoam Fraenkel.
I brought the book over to my seat in shul and opened it up and saw that it was an English translation of the Nefesh Hachayim. But it wasn't just a translation, it had very sensitive annotations with referencing and cross referencing, and the pinnacle of the book was clear and had profound sections that analyzed and discussed the topic of Tzimtzum in a highly innovative, truth-seeking and meticulous manner.
I decided that this would be my shul, because I became so engrossed in the sefer that I couldn't tear myself away from it. In fact one night I became so engrossed that I forgot to come home and my wife sent people to look for me.
Across the aisle, sat a young man who was apparently watching me as I learned this sefer, and he asked me what I found so intriguing. I told him, that I was trying to reconcile the view of Tzizum of the Baal Hatanye and the Tzimzum understanding of the Nefesh Hachayim, and I was hoping that this sefer would have the answer.
That's when he told me that he was Avinoam Fraenkel the author of those books and proceeded to tell me that he discusses it in Volume two. He then took me to his home and gave me a set of his seforim.
Why am I telling you this?
Avinoam Fraenkel just finished his new book a translation of "Shomer Emunim" a sefer written by Rabbi Yosef Ergas, in the late 1720's. Rabbi Ergas, was an Italian Kabbalist.
Shomer Emunim powerfully responds to those who claim Kabbalah was fabricated. It also explains Kabbalistic concepts simply, dispelling the illegitimate views of those encouraging blasphemous religious compromise by distorting those very concepts.
The original Shomer Emunim Hebrew text, together with its complete, facing-page, English translation and commentary, are presented in an innovative and easily digestible format. See the video below
You can get the sefer on Amazon. I get no commissions from the sale of these books, and I am only promoting it because I found these sefarim fascinating and I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.
A study conducted at Sheba Tel Hashomer Hospital and published Thursday shows a consistent decline in the neutralizing antibodies six months after receiving the second dose of Corona vaccine, in all but one group: overweight people.
The study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (Waning Immune Humoral Response to BNT162b2 Covid-19 Vaccine over 6 Months) included 4868 participants, with 3808 being included in the linear mixed-model analyses. The level of IgG antibodies decreased at a consistent rate, whereas the neutralizing antibody level decreased rapidly for the first 3 months with a relatively slow decrease thereafter. However, obese participants (those with a BMI of ≥30) had a 31% increase in neutralizing antibody concentrations as compared with nonobese participants.
The study concluded that six months after receipt of the second dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine, the humoral response was substantially decreased, especially among men, among persons 65 years of age or older, and among persons with immunosuppression.
Israel’s National Drone Initiative, which first began its flights over urban areas in January 2021, launched on Sunday its third phase, in participation of five companies that operate autonomous drone networks.
This is the third stage in a series of eight demonstrations expected to take place during the coming two years, during which tens of thousands of sorties will take place in Israel’s skies.
This phase, with the participation of 16 Israeli companies and international representatives, includes 10 days of flights that will take place above residential areas in Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Ramat Sharon, Herzliya and the city Hadera, where the project was launched, while in parallel a flight transport will take place in Brazil, controlled by the management system in Israel.
The drones are expected to carry out around 300 flights per day and carry out different kinds of tasks on flight paths assigned by the joint control system, including the delivery of sushi, security missions for an emergency facility, ice-cream deliveries, and flights to deliver donated blood, platelets and plasma from the Magen David Adom (MDA) Blood Bank to Sheba-Tel HaShomer Hospital.
It appears that the town of Yavne, home to the Sanhedrin in exile after the destruction of the Second Temple, became a worldwide powerhouse of wine production some 1,500 years ago. A vast, well-designed industrial estate from the Byzantine period with an impressive wine production complex—the largest of its kind in the world in that period—has been excavated in the city of Yavne over the past two years.
This large-scale excavation has been conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority as part of the Israel Land Authority’s initiative to expand the city. The plant includes five magnificent wine presses, warehouses for aging and marketing the wine, kilns for firing the clay jars in which the wine was stored, tens of thousands of fragments and intact earthen jars, and well-planned access from each facility to the others.
Drinking wine was very common in ancient times, for children and adults alike. The water was not always clean or tasty, so wine was used as a kind of concentrate to improve the taste. Each of the exposed winepresses covered an area of about 225 square meters. Compartments were built across the treading floor for fermenting the grape juice after it had been crushed by barefoot workers, and next to them there stood two enormous octagonal-shaped vats for collecting the extracted liquid.
Sources state that they did not let their mother hospitalize him as his oxygen trended down to the 70’s and lower until he was critical and was admitted to the ICU.
As soon as shiva ends I expect them to accuse the hospital of malpractice and murder.
The BBC described Alfred Dreyfus — a French-Jewish officer accused of treason in the Dreyfus Affair — as a "notorious Jewish spy" in its summary for the first episode of a period police drama released on October 9.
"Paris, 1899. The French Republic is in turmoil as rumors spread about the release from Devil's Island of Dreyfus, the notorious Jewish spy," read the summary for episode 1 of BBC's Paris Police 1900.
According to the BBC, the summary was later changed to avoid misunderstanding. The line from the program page was rewritten to describe Dreyfus instead as having been "previously arrested for spying."
"The sentence was not intended as an [sic] historical statement, but to reflect the rumors towards the Dreyfus case that we see in the drama — which also depicts the rise of antisemitism," the BBC Spokesperson said in response to a Jerusalem Post inquiry.
"For the BBC to produce a series featuring Alfred Dreyfus, who was baselessly accused of treason, and then describe him as a 'notorious Jewish spy' is an insult to his memory and to the Jewish community in general," Emanuel Miller, a media analyst at the media watchdog organization HonestReporting, told The Jerusalem Post. "The Dreyfus case represented a key moment in Zionism's history and in the eyes of many is a byword for the miscarriages of justice suffered by Jews throughout the ages. How many times must a Jew's name be smeared?"
"While the website text was quietly changed, the BBC evidently feels it doesn't owe Jews an apology, much less take serious steps to familiarize its staff with the basics of antisemitism in order to prevent such easily avoidable mishaps," Miller said to the Post. "Unfortunately, judging by past experience, the BBC is unlikely to apologize for the insulting mischaracterization."
Alfred Dreyfus was a French Jewish Military officer who was falsely accused of treason in 1894 in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War. Dreyfus's officer sword was publicly broken, he was stripped of his rank, and imprisoned on Devil's Island. Eventually, reports of an army cover-up of Dreyfus' innocence and scapegoating were leaked to the press, later leading to his exoneration in 1906.
The antisemitism surrounding the scandal convinced Theodor Herzl, then a journalist and later one of the founding fathers of Zionism, of the necessity of establishing a Jewish state.
Developers were about to build a building on this site on Rechov Luz in Beit Shemesh Alef, just blocks from where I live, and discovered a Kosher Mikvah and an olive press on site. So instead of another building the Zionists will build a park around this new find so that all of us will enjoy sitting where our grandparents lived during the times of the Chashmonim...
Who knew that 2,000 years later a descendant would move around the corner from where my ancestors lived
תושבי בית שמש בתקופת החשמונאים בוודאי לא העלו בדעתם, שמקווה הטהרה ובית הבד שבו הם מייצרים שמן, יהפכו בתוך 2,000 שנה, לחלק מהגן הציבורי של תושבי בית שמש המודרניים
חורבת אל כיך ברמת בית שמש נחפרה במשך שש עונות חפירה, בניהולה של ד"ר אלנה קוגן זהבי מרשות העתיקות. ממש בימים אלו, נשלמות עבודות הפיתוח של השטח הציבורי בשכונה, בתום עבודות השימור רחבות של מינהל השימור של רשות העתיקות במימון משרד השיכון. במסגרת העבודות, ייצבו המשמרים את הממצאים, והם שילבו אותם בצורה הרמונית בפארק הארכיאולוגי. צוות השימור שלנו הכשיר את העתיקות, כך שכיום ניתן לבקר בהן באופן חופשי, ובהמשך ישולבו בגן שלטי הסבר והמחשות.
סיפורה של חורבת כיך הולך הרבה אחורה. אחרי הגירוש הגדול של נבוכדנאצר מלך בבל, כל שפלת יהודה ננטשה לחלוטין. מבנה מהתקופה הפרסית שנתגלה באתר, גילה לנו שהחזרה לשם אחרי הגירוש החלה בתקופה הפרסית – במאה ה-4 לפנה"ס. מבנים נוספים, מאוחרים יותר שנחשפו, מהתקופה החשמונאית, ובהם מקווה טהרה ציבורי, גת לייצור יין ובית בד, סיפרו את סיפורו של הכיבוש החשמונאי והתעצמות השלטון היהודי באזור.
היישוב אמנם ננטש אחרי חורבן בית שני, אבל סוף הסיפור, כמו שאנחנו מכירים אותו, טוב, והיום שוכנת לה כאן עיר יהודית מודרנית, שתהנה מפארק ארכיאולוגי חדש ומונגש.
What exactly did Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Joe Biden discuss about settlements? And what’s behind leaks that want to suggest cracks in their relationship?
This is how the Israeli government and Chareidie leadership respond to Hamas threats. Hamas is correct in their celebration - this is a surrendering indeed. I wonder what would be the next Hamas demand that Israeli government will yield to. And I'm sure that Hamas, encouraged by such surrender will come up with next demand.
A ruling allowing a Jew to silently pray on the Temple Mount for the first time was reversed by a Jerusalem District Court judge on Friday.
District Court Judge Aryeh Romanov agreed with an appeal by Public Security Minister Omer Barlev and the police, ruling that only Muslims are allowed to overtly pray on the Temple Mount.
“What is important… is the fact that there was someone who noticed the praying, which evidently shows that the prayer was overt. If it was not overt, no one would have noticed it,” Romanov wrote.
Hamas was ecstatic after the Jewish prayer ban was reinstated, calling it a “surrender to the threats made by Palestinians.”
In September, police banned Rabbi Aryeh Lippo from the Temple Mount for two weeks after he was seen praying on the holy site. But Jerusalem Magistrate Court Judge Bilha Yahalom ruled that Lippo had a right to return to the holy site. “His daily arrival at the Temple Mount indicates that this is a matter of principle and substance for him,” Yahalom wrote.
Abortion is never simple — no matter the state, the stage of pregnancy, or the reason.
While the nation is besotted with headlines, as Roe v. Wade is once again brought to the forefront of debate, we often overlook the actual stories of women who go through this experience.
But there is one group of women for whom abortion is an especially fraught decision — women in religiously conservative communities, and particularly, women of the Orthodox Jewish community.
. They cancel all their business in Israel and claim they are not boycotting. When confronted with their manifest double standards, they mumble "international law."
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the co-founders of Ben & Jerry’s told Axios in an interview on Sunday that the decision by Unilever, Ben & Jerry’s parent company, to stop selling the ice cream in Judea and Samaria is not a boycott of Israel.
Greenfield said that the states which decided to divest from Ben & Jerry’s based their decisions on “misinformation” that “Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever are being characterized as boycotting Israel — which is not the case at all. It’s not boycotting Israel in any way,” he said.
Greenfield also falsely asserted with a straight face that "what Israel is doing is considered illegal by international law."
Cohen and Greenfield, who sold Ben & Jerry’s to Unilever in 2000, were also asked in the interview why Ben & Jerry’s continues to sell ice cream in Georgia and Texas, which have abortion bans.
“I don’t know,” Cohen replied. “It’s an interesting question. I don’t know what that would accomplish. We’re working on those issues, of voting rights. ... I think you ask a really good question. And I think I’d have to sit down and think about it for a bit.”
Unilever caused an uproar with its controversial July 19 announcement that it will stop selling the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in Judea and Samaria.
In response to the announcement, several US states have announced they would divest from Unilever. These include New Jersey, Arizona and Florida and Texas.
Shortly after the announcement, Cohen and Greenfield wrote in a bizzare op-ed inThe New York Times that they are “proud Jews” and supporters of Israel but also added that “it’s possible to support Israel and oppose some of its policies, just as we’ve opposed policies of the U.S. government.”
“As such, we unequivocally support the decision of the company to end business in the occupied territories, which the international community, including the United Nations, has deemed an illegal occupation,” they wrote.
Shabbos ended and I opened up my social media. One of the very first posts I noticed was posted by Deborah Lipstadt. The same Lipstadt who writes about Holocaust denial. President Joe Biden nominated her to be the United States Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating anti-Semitism.
She has been subpoenaed to serve as an expert witness in the case (civil) against the organizers of the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally. She will be testifying about the antisemitic ideology, rhetoric and symbolism that she claims was evident at the rally. Funny, though, she wasn’t there. Usually hearsay is not allowed in court. She has been an outspoken anti-Trumper for years. I bet Mort Klein of ZOA wasn’t asked to testify. Klein was born to Holocaust survivors in a displaced persons camp in Günzburg, Germany, and recognizes the dangers of left wing anti-Semitism.
Princes Road synagogue in Liverpool, United Kingdom.
This was the news in The Times of Israel. I don't really see what the "chidush" here is, if he still supposedly has his "tool" he could technically be asked to be the tenth in a Satmar shteebel too. ....it seems that the guy who dressed up as a girl, knows deep down that the whole thing is a farce and so he was "maskim"
A transgender woman in the United Kingdom recently helped an Orthodox synagogue in Liverpool complete a minyan despite not being a man by gender.
The Princes Road synagogue asked the woman to complete the prayer quorum on the first day of the Sukkot holiday, September 21, the Jewish News reported, in turn citing The Jewish Telegraph. According to Jewish law, 10 men are the minimum needed to hold a prayer service.
“According to Jewish law, she can be counted in a minyan and we were one person short,” said the synagogue’s Rabbi Yigal Wachmann. “We took into account her sensitivities. I asked her permission so as not to offend her. She was fine with it.”
The woman sat in the women’s section throughout the service, according to the newspaper.
“It’s always good to see Jewish communities such as Princes Road welcoming and including their trans members,” said Dalia Fleming, Executive Director of Keshet UK, which supports LGBT+ Jews
“There’s no one model that works for every community or Jewish trans person, and many communities are just starting to work this through. In the meanwhile, Keshet UK really wants to see these conversations are reported sensitively and kindly, to avoid causing hurt to LGBT+ people, and to give communities and their LGBT+ members time and space to create an authentic approach that works for them.”
The number of coronavirus deaths on Saturday surpassed 7,900, as the number of new cases continued to plummet, Israel's Health Ministry said Sunday morning.
As of Sunday morning, Israel had seen 7,904 coronavirus-related deaths since the start of the pandemic, including five people who died Friday, seven who died Saturday, and two who died Sunday.
On Saturday, 1,023 new coronavirus cases were diagnosed, bringing the number of active cases nationwide to 28,159. Of the 674 coronavirus patients who are hospitalized, the vast majority - 463 - are in serious condition, and 222 of those are in critical condition. A total of 186 coronavirus patients are intubated.
Among those who are in serious condition and under age 60 years of age, 5.7 people per 100,0000 are unvaccinated, compared to 0.9 who received one or two doses of the vaccine and 0.3 who received three doses.
Among those in serious condition who are over age 60, 125 per 100,000 are unvaccinated, compared to 21.3 who received either one or two doses and 2.1 who received all three doses.
At the same time, just 1.99% of coronavirus test results received Saturday were positive, down from 2.13% on Thursday and 2.01% on Friday.
This rabbi is really proud of his new “piece” of clothing.
Rabbi Raziel Cohen of Morris County, NJ, has designed a $550 kapota — the long jacket donned by married Hasidic men on Shabbat and holidays — meant to comfortably conceal a gun.
After he got married about two years ago and graduated to wearing a kapota, “I realized right away it was a problem,” said Cohen, 24, of the cumbersome garment, which is traditionally fashioned with buttons and a belt known as a gartel.
The issue: He couldn’t easily pull out the Glock 19 or Glock 17 he always wears during synagogue.
“When you draw a gun, you have to do it safely, quickly and efficiently — ensuring that it’s not a risk to the person drawing the gun or to those around him,” said Cohen, an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
So he designed a “Tactical Kapota” with quick-access snaps hidden under a decoy version of the buttons traditionally required for the jacket.
“The buttons are definitely too time-consuming to undo,” he said, adding that “efficiency” is essential. “The snaps are safer. With this design, you’re able to expose the gun through those layers of material faster.”
Miami-based manufacturer Shaul Snovsky produces and sells the “luxury” kapotas. “People are calling me all the time for the product,” he said. “I’m not trying to sell anybody fear. You don’t want to be sheep going to the slaughter.”
“The danger increased. I’d like to be safe and be in control — I don’t want to be a victim,” said Aaron, a 20-something Hasidic New Yorker who asked The Post to withhold his last name for safety reasons. “It comes down to a matter of seconds. That’s not enough time to call for help or rely on someone else.
“This kapota allows me to not waste time,” added the married father of young children, who said has a concealed carry permit.
Cohen, who does chaplain work in prisons, is also known as the “Tactical Rabbi,” as he is firearms instructor and founder of National Defensive Firearms Academy. He regularly videos to educate people on protecting themselves and staying safe and gun safety. Indeed, it’s not uncommon to see him outfitted in tactical fatigues and a monogrammed bulletproof vest one day and his traditional black hat and religious attire the next.
“People who think anyone who carries a firearm is a vigilante, that we’re looking for confrontation,” said Cohen, noting that drawing an actual firearm should be the last resort after exhausting every other layer of protection. “It’s not true. People are getting killed in synagogues and houses of worship — the places where we never want to be the most vulnerable, but are the most vulnerable. I don’t want to have a firearm in synagogue, but that’s a perfect world we don’t live in. It’s sad.”
Cohen, who holds a concealed carry permit in a handful of states, also holds a permit to own and purchase firearms and ammunition with a license in New Jersey. (There are firearms that are legally able to be stored in the synagogue, which the rabbi has access to.)
Given the recent rash of Jewish hate crimes around the country, including a spike this past spring stemming from unrest in Israel, tensions are high.
“Anyone who said they weren’t scared is lying,” said Cohen. “I’m not scared only because I’m prepared. We’re not trying to take over the role of law enforcement. We’re just trying to make sure that until we get there, we’re able to protect ourselves.”
