Exodus continues as more than 10,000 New Yorkers have moved to Florida in 2023

 

It wasn’t just a pandemic thing.

Another disillusioned batch of more than 10,000 New Yorkers relinquished their driver’s licenses for the Florida version in the first quarter of 2023, extending an ongoing exodus into the Sunshine State.

According to new figures from the Florida Department of Highway Safety, 10,824 Empire Staters swapped out their licenses in the first three months of this year.

The metric is considered a reliable indicator of migration patterns as it suggests a long-term decision to relocate.

While the pace remains brisk, the stampede out of New York slowed markedly compared to the same record-setting stretch last year.

In the first quarter of 2022, a staggering 14,834 New Yorkers cut bait on the Big Apple and moved their licenses to Florida.

A Naples broker told The Post this week that this slowdown was inevitable, highlighting soaring mortgage rates, low housing inventory and spiking Florida home prices.

“That was just unsustainable,” she said.

“I have clients who were set to move and just couldn’t make the numbers work anymore. This isn’t the same Florida as five years ago.”

She also noted that some remote workers who planned to migrate have either been called back into their New York offices or didn’t feel confident that they would be able to remain off-site indefinitely.

However in January Office occupancy in New York City was still only around 54%.

Fed up with rising crime, taxes and what many emigres decry as a declining quality of life, more Gothamites and upstaters moved to Florida in 2022 than any prior year in history.

Despite the end of COVID-19 restrictions and a return to quasi-normalcy, a total of 64,577 New Yorkers switched their licenses to Florida last year, according to agency figures.

The migration figures are backed up by US census bureau data released this week which showed Kings, Queens and Bronx counties in New York among the five losing the most people in the country between July 2021 and 2022; with a total of 213,000 moving out.

In that same period, three Florida counties: Polk, Lee and Pasco had some of the largest net gains, with a combined 85,000 people moving in.

Figures from Cornell University estimated during the first year of the pandemic from 2020 to 2021, 336,000 people moved out of New York City.

The census bureau had previously claimed in 2019 an average of 50,000 people a year move to the city.

Those who are leaving New York for sunnier climbs in Florida appear to be the well-heeled, as tony Palm Beach County saw the highest number of New York license exchanges in the first quarter of the year with 2,012, according to the data, they are followed by Miami-Dade and Broward County with 2,667 license switches.

"Law and Order" actress makes Aliyah

 

Hollywood actress Diane Neal has begun a new chapter in what is already an eventful life by making Aliyah to Israel.

Neal, who is best known for her role as Casey Novak in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, made Aliyah to Israel with Nefesh B’Nefesh, in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and JNF-USA. She arrived in Israel last November and began the organization's guided Aliyah process within Israel in March.

For now, Neal is residing in Tel Aviv, and she already feels at home - even when handling the often-challenging Israeli bureaucracy.

“Even when I was at Misrad Hapnim (Ministry of Interior office), I felt all the people that I’ve loved and came before me and died just so I could have the privilege to be here. I needed a place to feel safe.”

While the actress has put her career on hold for now, she hopes to use her time in Israel to learn more about the country.

“I'm new here and don't presume to know everything, but I'd like to learn more about Israel and be an ambassador for what Israel is. I want to do everything I can to help make Aliyah happen for others,” she said, adding that she’s interested in exploring the philanthropic and government advocacy worlds in Israel as she has experience in both realms.

Kyiv to name street for Ukrainian Nazi

 

Volodymyr Kubijovyč and Hans Frank with the Ukrainian harvest festival delegation. Wawel, German Occupied Poland, 1943.

The Kyiv City Council may be set to name a street after a Nazi collaborator and SS official, the director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, Eduard Dolinsky has reported.

According to Dolinsky, a street in the Ukrainian capital will be renamed following a motion passed by the city council, and will bear the name of Volodymyr Kubiyovych, who during the Holocaust was heavily involved in the formation of the Waffen-SS Galizien, a Nazi military force made up of Ukrainian volunteers.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Dolinsky explained that a historical expert commission within the Kyiv City Council had put forward several options for the renaming of what is currently Przhevalsky Street in Kyiv.

The names suggested by the historical commission were then put forward by the city council for a public vote on the Kyiv Digital app, where voting will remain open until April 16.

The option to rename the street after Volodymyr Kubiyovych has so far received a majority, with 31% of the vote, with the second and third highest options receiving just 18% and 10% respectively.

Once the public vote is closed, the Kyiv City Council will then vote to approve renaming the street after Kubiyovych.

Who was Volodymyr Kubiyovych?

Prior to the start of the Holocaust, Kubiyovych was a strong supporter of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-M) and in April 1941, he requested the creation of an autonomous state within Ukraine in which Poles and Jews would not be allowed to live. 

Later in the war, in 1943, Kubiyovych took on a key role in the formation of the Waffen-SS Galizien and publicly announced his willingness to take up arms and fight for the Nazi cause.

After the Red Army approached Poland in 1944, Kubiyovych fled to Germany, and then France after the Nazi surrender. In France, he served as the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies, the largest academic project taken on by Ukrainian expats during the Cold War.

The Encyclopedia of Ukrainian Studies was reflective of Kubiyovych's nationalistic views and was intended to preserve Ukraine's heritage under Soviet rule.

Kubiyovych's airbrushed legacy 

Today, the encyclopedia exists online, both in its native language and in English and is still frequently updated with articles focusing on Ukrainian heritage and culture.

The Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine avoids mentioning Kubiyovych's Nazi past, instead focusing on his work pre and post-World War Two, saying only that: "During the Second World War he headed the Ukrainian Central Committee (UCC) in Cracow and in 1943 took part in organizing the Division Galizien."

Kubiyovych died in Paris in 1985, and to this day is recognized by many as a prominent and important Ukrainian scholar, and his works continue to be widely circulated, despite his Nazi past.

Should a road in Kyiv indeed be named after him, it will not be the first time that Ukraine has chosen to honor Kubiyovych. In 2000, a pre-stamped envelope was issued by the Ukrainian postal service in honor of the 100th anniversary of his birth, and in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, a plaque honoring the Nazi official still stands to this day.

Leah (Lucy) Dee Laid To Rest In Kfar Etzion, Five People Receive Organ Donations

 

Before anyone comments with their "holier than thou" quotes that the organ donations are against halacha, think for a second, if this was your child, if this was your sister or brother, or parent in need of an organ, would you let them suffer and die? Or would you take the offer? I beg you guys not to judge! 

 Hundreds of mourners gathered at Kfar Etzion, south of Jerusalem, Tuesday, at the Levaya of Leah (Lucy) Dee, one of three victims murdered in the Jordan Valley terrorist shooting attack last Friday. Dee survived the initial attack and was in very serious condition, succumbing to her wounds Monday.

During the funeral, one of Dee’s surviving daughters, Keren, eulogized her mother saying that: “Losing a mother is like losing a life. We worked on our relationship until we became best friends. There is no one to tell us what to do anymore. A hole has been created that cannot be filled. Mom, you were everything.”

Tal Dee, Lucy Dee’s other surviving daughter, said: 

“I need you. You are taking care of Maia and Rina now, but who will take care of us?”

Dee’s brother said that his sister had “decided to give back to the community in the way she knew best, by teaching English classes and by cooking for new mothers and volunteers.”

Two days ago, Lee’s 20-year-old daughter, Maia, and her 16-year-old daughter, Rina, were laid to rest at the Kfar Etzion Cemetery.

Dee’s two daughters were killed in Friday’s attack, while Lee was critically wounded, succumbing to her wounds on Monday.

Dee, 48, was an English teacher at the Orot Yehuda Bnei Akiva school in Efrat.

After her death, Dee’s husband, Rabbi Leo Dee, and her three surviving children agreed to donate her organs. Five people have already benefited from the organs, with her heart going to a 51-yr-old woman, her liver to a 25-yr-old woman, a kidney to a 58 year-old man another kidney to a 39-year-old man (Beilinson hospital) and her lungs to a 58 year-old woman (Sheba hospital). Mrs. Dee’s corneas have also been donated and will be transplanted into other people.

Lapid Meets Fat Nadler to Discuss Opposition to Israel's Judicial Reform Despite the Fatso's proposal FOR Judicial Reform in the USA

 

Breitbart News criticized opposition leader Yair Lapid after he flew to the US on Monday to meet with Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who has proposed the most radical reforms in US history, despite Lapid’s own criticism of the judicial reforms proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Joel B. Pollak pointed out in an article published on Monday that, almost exactly two years ago, Nadler, who was then the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, unveiled a legislative proposal to “pack” the US Supreme Court — and give it a left-wing majority — by adding four new justices, whose seats would be filled by President Joe Biden.

Nadler did that despite the fact that President Biden had appointed a commission to study the idea first and which later warned that court-packing had “uncertain” benefits, Pollak noted.

“Not only did Nadler propose expanding the Court from nine seats — which it has had for over 150 years — to 13 seats, but he also demanded the Senate abolish the filibuster, a key minority protection, to do it,” wrote Pollak, adding a quote from Nadler who said at the time, “The American people have had enough. To restore power to the people, we must expand the Supreme Court.”

“Earlier this year, without a hint of irony,” Pollak noted, “Nadler led Jewish Democrats in Congress in opposing judicial reform in Israel, warning that it ‘could undermine Israeli democracy and … civil rights and religious freedoms.’”

Nadler was one of more than a dozen Jewish House Democrats who recently called on the Israeli government to suspend its plans to pass the judicial reform, in an extraordinary expression of concern by US government officials over a foreign, domestic political matter.

Pollak also noted that “Lapid has used similar terminology, claiming that judicial reforms — which largely parallel existing US law — would destroy Israel’s democracy, even though they would make the courts more accountable to the legislature.”

Breitbart News speculated that Lapid’s trip could be an effort to use pressure from outside Israel to affect negotiations between the government and the opposition over the judicial reform, which Netanyahu has paused to allow for talks.

Record number of Jews visit Har Habayis during Pesach despite threats

 

Since the beginning of Passover, 2,642 Jews have already gone up to the Temple Mount, the Beyadenu organization reported Tuesday morning.

This brings the total number of Jews who have ascended to the Mount since the beginning of the year to 27,675.

However, Jewish access to the holy site was not without challenges. Jewish groups were limited sometimes to 20-50 people at a time, and police did not allow Jews to stop for prayer or explanations during their ascent.

In addition, the ascensions often faced shouts of "Allah Akbar" by Muslim visitors, and attempts to disrupt and disturb the order, though no major incidents were reported.

Tom Nisani, CEO of Beyadenu, stressed the importance of normalizing Jewish ascent to the Temple Mount, saying: "The only way to achieve peace and security is through maintaining Israeli sovereignty in the State of Israel. Continued surrender and attempts to negotiate with terrorists will lead to more riots and more attacks. We thank the security forces for keeping the ascenders safe and demand that the Israeli government change the broken record and stop surrendering to terrorists."

During Jewish visits to the Temple Mount, the holy site was quiet and empty mostly except for the mosque area in the south where only a few dozen Arabs tried to curse and threaten the Jewish ascenders walking by. Large numbers of police officers were deployed to the area to prevent escalations.

The ascensions are currently taking place with time for prayer and explanations in the guided tours.

Israeli police, in addition to the additional precautions to prevent Jews from bringing religious symbols, conducted searches on the Jewish ascenders to prevent them from bringing food on the Temple Mount with them "due to the fast of Ramadan" in complete contradiction to the police’s own letter on the subject that the Beyadenu organization received in Ramadan of 2021.

Hart vs Haart a Tale of Two Families.... One Can't wait to Embrace Yiddishkeit while the other Hates It

 Meet LaDerryl & Danielle Hart

Now meet the very angry Julia Haart 

Sefiras Haomer

 

7 Ministers, 15 MKs, Thousands of Jews in Monday’s Evyatar March ..Sticking Their Thumbs in the eyes of the Far-Left!

 

Many rabbis, seven government ministers––including Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben Gvir, Orit Struck, Michael Malchiali, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Amichai Eliyahu, and May Golan––and fifteen Knesset members already confirmed their participation in the Evyatar march on Monday, April 10, in Samaria. 

While the left is engaged in trying to prevent the march, Shomron Regional Council is preparing for the arrival of thousands of participants, and an online campaign has been launched, asking people who plan to arrive to take selfies with the caption,

 “I’m also going to the Evyatar March.”

The march will started at noon on Monday, the fourth day of Chol Hamoed Pesach, at the Tapuach junction, and proceed in the direction of Evyatar.

The organizers expect more than 10,000 marchers. The course (see below) is stroller-friendly, which should encourage families with infants and small children to attend. The 2 km course should be covered in 25 minutes of a moderate walk.

Several right-wing politicians participated in a video produced by the Nachala movement, calling on the supporters of the settlement enterprise to come to the march at noon on Monday.

Labor Chairperson MK Merav Michaeli tweeted: “Seven ministers will participate in the march to an illegal outpost tomorrow. Anarchists from within the government. Instead of letting the security system prepare to prevent the next attack, it now has to deal with securing this irresponsible convoy. There has never been a government as willing to endanger Israel’s security as this government. Everything should be done to send them home.”

Naturally, Michaeli had nothing to say about the burden on the same security forces that’s been exerted by 14 straight weeks of protests that included shutting down main traffic arteries and twice even an international airport. Also, Evyatar is not technically illegal. Based on the deal struck between the residents of Evyatar and the Bennett government, this outpost is ready to become legal after a survey verified that it is sitting on state land and not privately owned by any Arab. Also, the march is approved by the IDF and absolutely legal, unlike, say, hundreds of protesters who invade a major artery like the Ayalon Highway and suspend traffic for hours at a cost of billions to the country’s economy.

Software engineer Noam Davidi responded: “The government dictates policy. The government’s policy is to legalize the outpost, which is why they’re marching. They decide and do. You do not decide and interfere with the process. … as to you… you lost the election. Better stay silent.”

And, also naturally, as is the case each time Michaeli takes to Twitter, her post was soon saturated with calls for her resignation, since she was responsible for the demise of the left and the disappearance of Meretz in last November’s elections.

Needless to say, Haaretz didn’t even bother to mention the Evyatar march, seeing as it is now the official manifesto of the revolution. Neither did News13, another bastion of pure left-wing ideology, which, like Haaretz, has dumped its right-wing hosts even though they brought their highest ratings. News12 also doesn’t feature on its website any reference to the march.

Lucy Dee, Mother of Maia and Rina has died of wounds sustained in the same attack.

 

 Hadassah Medical Center sadly announced that Lucy Dee, critically injured in last Friday's terrorist attack, had succumbed to her wounds. "We are saddened to announce the passing of Lucy (Leah) Dee, the victim of the fatal attack in the Jordan Valley that happened last Friday," the hospital said.

"48-year-old Lucy Dee was evacuated by helicopter to Hadassah Ein Kerem in critical condition, where our medical teams fought for her life over the past few days, in the trauma unit, the operating room, and the intensive care unit where she was treated.

"Unfortunately, despite supreme and unceasing efforts, due to her critical injuries, she was declared dead today.

"The social service team in Hadassah together with the management of the Efrat local council and the council's welfare officials will accompany the family in its difficult time.

"The Dee family warmly thanked the medical team at Hadassah who did everything possible to save Lucy and did not give up until her last moments. Despite the great grief and heartbreak, the family has decided to donate Lucy's organs in order to save other lives. Hadassah Medical Center shares in the family's great sorrow."

President Isaac Herzog commented: ""How much we hoped, how much we prayed, but tragically Leah, mother of Rina and Maia of blessed memory, who was fatally wounded in the terror attack in the Jordan Valley, has died of her injuries. On behalf of the entire people of Israel, I send my warmest condolences to the Dee family and pray that they will know no more sorrow. May her memory be a blessing."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented: "On behalf of all citizens of Israel, I convey heartfelt condolences to the Dee family on the passing of the mother of the family, Leah (Lucy), who was murdered in the severe terrorist attack in the Jordan Valley last Friday, together with her two daughters Maia and Rina."

Israel Gives in to Poland’s Demands to Teach Jewish Children who visit Auswich that the Cruel and Murderous Poles Were Tzaddikim" and Heros

 In March, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau signed an agreement on “cooperation in the field of study visits of organized youth groups, after the Lapid government last August canceled the visits of Israeli schoolchildren to Poland that were scheduled for last September through November. 

Israel announced that the two sides had reached a dead-end regarding content and security. Lapid, who served as both PM and FM, said the visits had been canceled due to the Polish government’s demand to intervene in the content that would be presented to the participating youths.

Now an agreement has been reached and is only waiting to be ratified by the Knesset and the Polish Sejm (pronounced “same”).

In its opening, the agreement explains that among its concerns is:

 “recognizing that negative ethical and moral attitudes such as racism and xenophobia, among others, largely stem from a lack of knowledge and insufficient education among young generations and that at the same time, both countries have a shared historical legacy which provides a foundation for facilitating bilateral relations.”

Because Poland and Israel on paper are ideally suited to be close and fast allies, and so many Israelis come from a Polish background or countries that border Poland – we should be friends. Commercially, the two countries benefit from a robust trade: In 2021, Israel exported to Poland gas turbines, pesticides, and medicine worth $364 million. Poland exported to Israel in 2021 raw sugar and beef worth $989 million. Practically sister nations.

There’s only this pesky thing about the events of 1939-1945 in Poland which Yair Lapid, whose father was a Holocaust survivor, refused to forgive. 

His successor either didn’t read the small print or didn’t assign to it a similar value. The deal he signed with Poland will, in fact, expose Israeli schoolchildren to Poland’s version of what happened under six years of German occupation, and don’t be mistaken, it will be all about Polish heroism in the face of the Nazi stormtroopers.

The devil hides in Article 2 section 1 of the agreements, which states that the “program of educational study visits will include in particular … study visits to sites commemorating the Holocaust and other crimes of the World War II, and additional sites, of special importance, to each nation’s history.”

Article 2 section 2 specifies: “In order to implement the provisions of [section 1], the parties will recommend sites and places for study visits specified in Annex 1 to this Agreement, which will be regularly updated…”

Scroll down to Annex 1, and, behold, it looks as if those Israeli teens will be treated to the entire Polish revisionism industry that whitewashes any trace of responsibility on the part of so many thousands of Poles in turning in Jews to the Germans, of stealing Jewish property, and, after the war, of lynching the few concentration camp prisoners who returned to their homes. Here’s the list, it is staggering. I’m sure that some of these museums are engaged in commemorating accurately and reliably the German (and Soviet) atrocities against Polish citizens. Many of them are reportedly engaged in whitewashing the country’s bloody past of antisemitism and collaboration.

One such center of shameless revisionism is the Ulma Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War II. It was inaugurated in 2016 in Markowa, to commemorate Josef and Wiktoria Ulma and their six small children who were murdered by the Nazis for harboring Jews. The Ulma family is among Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the Nations, which includes 6,700 Poles. Mind you, in 1939 the Polish population, not counting Jews, was about 32 million. But museums like the Ulma Family in Markowa create the impression that the vast majority of Poles spent the war years in a tireless search for Jews they could rescue. This museum desecrates the memory of the Holocaust, any sense of historical accuracy, any notion of decency and responsibility, and above all, it desecrates the memory of the saintly Ulma family.

Chareidim Do Not Attend Funeral of Maia and Rina Dee

 

In the last few weeks, three pairs of siblings were brutally torn away from the Jewish people.

The youngest pair of siblings murdered by the Arab savages were the Paley children; they were Chareidim. 

It seems that the Arab murderers do not distinguish between Jews, to them, a Jew is a Jew, is a Jew. To the murderers, a chilonie Jew, a Sfardie, an Ashkenazi, a Chasid, or a Yeshivish Jew are all the same. 

But to the Jews themselves there are differences.

 How do I know that? How do I know that even in tragedy we don't get together?

 There is a saying that says that one picture tells an entire story. If you look at the photos of the levaya of the latest kedoishim, Maia and Rina Dee, you will not find one single Chareidie Jew! Not one Yeshivish Jew, not one. 

And this wasn't a day where the bochrim were "hureving" over a daf in yeshivah, nooooooo! It was Choil HaMoied! 

I heard the father's hespid and he being magnanimous, praised the "achdus"of the Jewish people. 

I didn't see it, at least not at the levaye of his two daughters.

I am not a prophet nor a son of a prophet, and I don't pretend to know what message Hashem is giving us. 

But what I can do, and what every believing Jew should do is look back at what happened and try to take away our own ideas from these tragedies. 

   

Three sets of siblings were torn away, executed for no other reason then them being of the Jewish faith. Three sets of siblings! 

One set were Dati Leumi and went to the army, the murdered girls did shirut le'umi and of course the Chareidie children, were just children. The common denominator is that all three sets of martyrs were Shoimer Torah Umitzvois! It seems that Hashem didn't distinguish between Jews serving in the IDF and those who didn't! 

What I am taking away from this is that we, and when I say "we" I mean chareidiem, should be the ones to be mekareiv our chiloinie brothers and sisters, even if they hate us, even if they push us away.

 What a beautiful message did the chreidim of Bnei-Brak give to the world when they offered love to the far-left protestors that came to disrupt the Bnei-Brakers just two weeks ago.

Siblings were murdered and it is "siblings that have to get together in "achdus" and it is us.... yes us, frum Jews that should be the ones to initiate and facilitate shalom amongst us, and maybe then we will be able to show them through love how beautiful our traditions are.

Let's begin with our own, the ones that are Shoimrei Torah Umitzvois, Lets be supportive of them in times of joy and in times of tragedy. 

And for those who scream that we should not have anything to do with them and to scream "nazi" etc at their chiloinie brothers, I wonder what they would do, if their own child or their own grandchild, or brother or sister would go off the derech, would they scream "nazi" at them? 

This is what Jews do when a Terrorist Attack occurs

 Less than 24 hours after a terrorist attack took place on Dizengoff street in Tel Aviv, hundreds of Israelis from all walks of life gathered on the corner where the terrorist attack took place to welcome in Shabbat and pray for the people that were injured. This is Israel🤍

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Chad Gadya

 

Malka Leifer: The story behind Melbourne sisters’ 15-year fight for justice and Leifer's Depraved Acts Against those who Trusted Her

 

It was the drawn-out legal battle kept hidden from jurors as a 15-year battle to bring a principal to justice reached its final weeks.

Three sisters’ fight to hold Malka Leifer accountable may never have come to fruition if not for video taken by private investigators who tracked her to the West Bank settlement of Immanuel in late 2017.

The former principal of the Adass Israel School – a religious school catering to Melbourne’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community – had fled back to her home country in 2008 after allegations of the sexual abuse of students first began swirling.

Details about Leifer’s extradition from Israel are only now able to be published after a gag order expired as a Melbourne jury handed down their verdicts last week.

Victoria Police had initiated extradition proceedings in 2014 but the case stalled when an Israeli court found she was mentally unfit to stand trial.

A social worker, Chana Rabinowitz, had contacted the school board days earlier to report her client’s whispered admission that she had been sexually abused.

“She was hunched over into herself and she could only whisper what it was,” Rabinowitz told a Melbourne court last month.

“She told me she had been hurt sexually by Malka Leifer. She described some of what happened.”

Leifer had fled Melbourne with her family in the middle of the night on March 6, 2008, after receiving a warning from members of the insular community.

On Monday, a jury found the 56-year-old guilty of sexually abusing Dassi Elrich, 35, and her sister Elly Sapper, 34, while they were students and later as junior religious teachers.

She was acquitted on allegations of abusing their older sister, Nicole Meyer, 37.

The mother-of-eight had been recruited to lead religious studies at the all-girls school in 2001, to great excitement in the school.

“She came to the community and became this person that was revered as much as a rabbi, and I had never seen a woman that people looked up to like this,” Ms Erlich told the trial.

“She made me feel loved when I spent time with her … I was hoping that she would love me like a mother. I wanted to feel loved,” Ms Sapper said of their relationship.

The sisters first filed police complaints in 2011, sparking a decade-long legal battle fought through two countries’ court systems.

Leifer was arrested by Israeli police in August 2014 at the request of Australian authorities and placed on house arrest as she challenged the extradition process.

For close to two years, she avoided scheduled hearings in an Israeli court, claiming she faced panic attacks and was too unwell to attend.

Then, in June 2016, the sisters were undoubtedly shocked when news broke that Leifer had been found mentally unfit by a court-appointed psychiatrist and her extradition hearings would be delayed indefinitely while she received treatment.

Her lawyer, Yehuda Fried, told news outlets at the time she struggled to get clear instructions throughout the proceedings.

Leifer’s house arrest was lifted and she quietly continued on with her life.

Appeals from Australian government officials – including then-prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews – to re-examine the case failed to gain traction in Israel.

More than 200 hours of video proof showing Leifer out-and-about doing mundane tasks such as shopping and catching public transport, spectacularly captured national and international news headlines in 2018.

The sisters had travelled to Israel and met with the anti-child abuse organisation Jewish Community Watch, which arranged for a private investigator to track her down in the gated community.

It was then they launched the Bring Leifer Back campaign to fight for her return.

The footage galvanised Israel’s police force, who launched a fresh investigation and rearrested Leifer the same year amid suspicion she was feigning her mental illness.

A new assessment found she was able to stand trial and, by 2019, she was being held in the country’s only female prison awaiting extradition proceedings.

Israel’s former health minister Yaakov Litzman was placed under investigation the same year over allegations he had tried to pressure psychiatrists to find Leifer unfit to stand trial.

He stood down from the Israeli legislature, the Knesset, in 2022 and was sentenced to eight months jail after taking a plea deal for breach of trust.

A panel of psychiatrists engaged by the Jerusalem District Court found in 2020 that Leifer had faked her mental illness to avoid returning to Australia.

More than six years after Victoria Police first filed the request, Israel signed the extradition order in December 2020.

A female officer from Victoria Police travelled to Israel in early 2021 and Leifer was taken into Australian custody, touching down in the country on January 25.

During the following two years she faced a series of hearings across Melbourne courts before the case was eventually set down for a trial in February 2023.

Over seven weeks a jury heard evidence from the three sisters, police investigators, Adass Israel school staff, and psychologists and psychiatrists.

Leifer remained expressionless through the trial, sitting in adock at the back of a courtroom and was often seen reading a small gold and white coloured prayer book while silently mouthing words.

After more than 31 hours of deliberations spanning nine days, the jury re-entered the courtroom to a thick silence shortly after 3.45pm on Monday April 3.

Beyond reasonable doubt, they found Leifer guilty on five counts of rape, one count of rape by compelled sexual penetration, four counts of indecent act with a 16 or 17 year-old child, five counts of indecent assault and three counts of sexual penetration of a 16 or 17 year-old child.

The verdicts relate to incidents that occurred between 2004 and 2007 on school trips, during private education sessions at Leifer’s Elsternwick home, and backstage of a school play being performed at the Phoenix Theatre.

She was acquitted of five charges of rape and four charges of indecent assault, which were alleged to have occurred on school grounds or a June 2016 school camp in Blampied.

In their testimony before the jury, the sisters said their mother had been violent and abusive growing up, and school had felt like a safe haven.

Leifer, they said, had begun to show them a “warmth and care” they were not receiving at home.

Prosecutors argued the evidence proved the former principal had targeted the girls for their vulnerability, manipulating them with her affection.

“In each instance, she started with lesser acts so she could see the reaction and escalated over time,” crown prosecutor Justin Lewis told the jury.

“As far as the accused was concerned, they were ripe for the picking.”

Leifer has vigorously maintained her innocence, with her barrister Ian Hill KC telling the jury from the outset her interactions were “proper and professional”.

Outside of court on Monday, he told reporters he had “nothing to say at this time”.

The sisters, however, held hands as they faced TV cameras and a throng of journalists to proclaim; “the whole world will know that now, she is guilty”.

“Today we can start to take the power back that she stole from us as children,” Ms Sapper said.

“We have sat in this court for going on nine weeks now, every day listening to our truth and having people try to tear that apart and tear us apart.”

Ms Meyer, whose allegations the jury acquitted Lefier on, described the feeling as “bittersweet”.

“Yes it’s bittersweet, but she is guilty,” she said.

“I turned around and looked at her … if she doesn't want to look at me, so be it.”

Ms Erlich said the abuse had held them hostage for so many years but it was now “time to start looking forward”.

“This is the beginning of our future now, throwing off how the abuse has impacted us for so many years and it’s time to start our lives,” she said.

Shortly after the verdict was handed down, Adass Israel School principal Aaron Strasser issued a statement on behalf of the school.

“On behalf of Adass Israel School, we apologise to the survivors abused by Mrs Malka Leifer while they were students here,” he said.

“We are sorry for the distress they have suffered and the impact of that abuse on their lives and families.

“We commend the survivors’ bravery in coming forward.

“Adass Israel School complies fully with all child safety standards and regulations, and we have zero tolerance for abuse of any kind.”

Leifer will return to court for sentencing at a later date.

Very Disturbing Report: Son of George Soros Has Visited the White House 14 Times

 

Far Left-wing billionaire and Democrat donor George Soros’ son, Alexander Soros—who chairs the grant-making organization his father founded, Open Society Foundations—has apparently visited the White House numerous times since President Joe Biden (D) took office.

Last year, 37-year-old Alexander Soros had at least a dozen meetings with White House officials, per its visitor logs, the New York Post reported Saturday.

“His latest trips include visiting Dec. 1 with then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain’s advisor Nina Srivastava, who also worked on Biden’s presidential campaign, the logs show,” the outlet continued:

[T]he younger Soros was one of 330 people who attended a lavish state dinner on the White House South Lawn hosted by the president and First Lady Jill Biden honoring French President Emmanuel Macron and Macron’s wife, Brigitte.

A day later, Alexander Soros — who chairs the powerful, liberal grant-making network Open Society Foundations founded by his dad — met with both Advisor to the Counselor of President Mariana Adame and Deputy National Security Advisor Jonathan Finer, records show.