@NetureiKarta protests on Shabbat today in Manhattan. No Manhattan synagogues would accept them these scumbags don’t pray to anyone except Allah and Muhammad. They are Hamas supporters and need to be treated as enemies pic.twitter.com/CioHOeaPOL
— Betar US (@Betar_USA) February 16, 2025
Breaking MAGA Trolling News! Trump Forces Leftist Press and Politicians To Walk Past His Mug Shot As They Enter The Oval Office In Ultimate Troll Move
— Alex Jones (@RealAlexJones) February 15, 2025
Watch More Breaking News And Reports Here:https://t.co/VURSxDZHxi pic.twitter.com/JpDEmNVtdU
🚨 NEW: Police CHANGE terrorist headshot to allow her to wear her niqab
— Darren Grimes (@darrengrimes_) February 15, 2025
This is beyond parody. A woman convicted of preparing acts of terrorism—planning to take her own children to become martyrs for ISIS—gets a special accommodation from the police because she’s upset about… pic.twitter.com/ZJ1szSID1G
The discovery was made after Nadir reportedly asked a colleague to clear out his locker following his dismissal. The staff member, feeling uneasy about the request, instead alerted authorities. Police arrived at the hospital, conducted a search, and allegedly found the morphine vial inside.
The powerful painkiller, which is strictly regulated, has now become a focal point in the ongoing investigation. Authorities are working to determine how the drug ended up in Nadir’s possession and whether it was taken from hospital supplies.
In a further twist, sources close to the investigation revealed that forensic tests are underway to analyze fingerprints on the vial. While Nadir has denied taking the drug, investigators are exploring all possibilities, including whether someone else may have placed it in his locker.
The morphine discovery adds another layer of controversy to a case that has already sparked widespread outrage. Nadir and his colleague, Sarah Abu Lebdeh, were fired and barred from practicing as nurses nationwide after a video surfaced showing them refusing to treat Israeli patients and making inflammatory remarks. The fallout has prompted condemnation from government officials, healthcare professionals, and the wider community.
Police have also searched Nadir’s home, seizing multiple items for further examination. Meanwhile, hospital officials have reviewed security footage and inventory records to determine if additional medication is unaccounted for.
Authorities have yet to confirm whether criminal charges will be filed in relation to the morphine discovery. However, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb stated that investigators are taking the matter seriously and are considering all available evidence.
Nadir, who was reportedly treated by emergency services on Thursday night following a “concern for welfare,” has issued a lawyer-drafted apology for his remarks but insists the incident was a misunderstanding.
The investigation remains ongoing.
by Asher Cohen
I loosely translated it from the Hebrew!
The phenomenon of the ultra-Orthodox attacking the national religious and their views is permanent, seasonal, like a natural phenomenon. This time it is Rabbi Dov Landau, head of the Slobodka Yeshiva, one of the leaders of the Lithuanian wing. And in accordance with their custom, this time too, it is just a matter of disqualification and lash out, but not anything substantive in his argument!
And it is almost always striking that the vast majority of the national religious rabbinical leadership is silent.
Up until the time of writing this column, a browsing of the general and sectoral news sites brings up just one single response. Only Rabbi Yitzhak Ben David, head of the Sha'arei Zion Beit Midrash for the training of city rabbis under Rabbi Nissim, came out publicly criticizing Rabbi Landau.
"I'm not so much a statesman," Rabbi Landau tells his listeners modestly, "I'm not very knowledgeable about the details," but Daat Torah is Daat Torah, and we must present a historical, political background"
First, and this is an explanation that we heard over and over again during the current war, only Torah scholars saved Am Yisrael from a much worse outcome:
"The fact that Am Yisrael, who are the people of God, made a state of destruction and heresy, is a great obligatory study... Torah scholars are saviors, and there is no explanation as to why the Arabs did not unite to annihilate the entire land God forbid, save them all."
To the direct question about the sacrifice of the national religious, he answers:
"So I said, they are being killed because we don't learn enough, and we have to save even more. They are killed because their rabbis teach them a distorted Torah, those who know the Zionist idea, what used to be, the Bnei Akiva movement, it still exists, but I don't wish them any blessing, their slogan was... Not the Creator of the world, not the Torah, 'Eretz Yisrael, for the people of Israel according to the color' – I say – 'the Torah of Israel,' this is what exists." (This is the wording and syntax in the original...).
And then comes a historical analysis centered on the preference for Jewish existence under Arab rule:
"I don't know what would have happened at the beginning of the state if there had been a UN rule here, it would have been an excellent situation, there's a letter from the Brisker... Against Shertok, Sharett, a letter to the diaspora from 1948, it is possible to live well with the Arabs without a state, if we go further back, it is possible, as Rabbi Chaim Sonnenfeld did, to respect the Arabs, it was quite good that the Arabs ruled here, the situation is best, the Arabs would rule, they would be respected, they would not interfere in it."
In conclusion, it should be noted that when he mocks Rav Kook, he describes him as "the first chief rabbi" without his name, in contrast to Rav Fishman-Maimon, who is mentioned by name, but of course without the title of rabbi. (Hanani Breitkopf, "Rabbi Landau: I am not a statesman, but we were saved from the attack thanks to Torah study; Zionism brought disasters", Kikar HaShabbat 7.2.2025)
It is very possible that in normal times, there would have been room to say, as I heard one of the rabbis of the Hesder yeshivot say, that it is better to ignore it.
After all, these are Chareidie views that have been known for several generations, as will be immediately clarified. And if we are dealing with an old argument dating back to the days of Rav Kook (to which Landau went so far), what is the real point of the response?
But we are not in normal times.
Much has already been said about the heavy price that the National Religious Society has paid and continues to pay, in all its shades, in the high weight of its members among the fallen in the war, and in the continuation of its unceasing contribution to the war effort. The comes after more than a year of a harsh war that is still ongoing, and after the empty benches in the yeshivot and the national religious kollels stood out and still stand out.
Hopefully, by the time this column was published, appropriate responses had already been heard, and especially many, from rabbis. For if the deaf are silent at this time, revach ve'hatzala will come from another place
1. Two historical events took place 80 years ago: in May 1945, the Nazi beast was defeated, and four months earlier, in Shevat 5705, Rabbi Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal, one of the first to sit in the Malchus of Torah in all European countries, was brutally murdered by the Nazis.
Rabbi Yissachar Teichtal (hereinafter referred to as the Rabbi) was a giant of the generation: the Rosh Yeshiva of a Yeshiva for excellent students which he founded in the city of Pieshtian, Czechoslovakia, and was a well-known Av Beit Din who sent halachic responsa to all corners of Europe (and these were compiled in the ingenious Mishnah Shachir teshuvois).
Rav Teichtal understood quite early on that the Nazi devil was destining the Jews for total extermination. At that time, he still saw Zionism as the handiwork of the corrupting devil, as he was a clear follower of the greatest enemy of Zionism in those days, the Rebbe of Munkács (who, for comparison, hatred of Zionists by the Satmars and the other anti-sects paled in comparison to the enmity of Munkács).
The Rabbi did not sit idly by in the face of the imminent danger. In 1942 he fled Slovakia from Nazi Amalek to Hungary, where Jews were less persecuted (although Jews also suffered from Hungarian anti-Semitism). In the end, Hungary's sympathy for Germany did not help, which too was occupied by the Nazis in March 1944. The Rav returned to Slovakia and hid in an attic in Bratislava (which the Jews called Pressburg), but in the end he was caught due to informants and sent like the rest of his brothers on the death train to Auschwitz, where he was a burnt offering like the rest of his people.
2. From between the slits of the attic, he witnessed the Nazi devil's abuse of the Jews, and he caught chilling rumors about the extermination machine – and realized that he had lived his entire life a mistake by his opposition to Zionism. The transformation he underwent was complete. He saw the Zionist movement as an emissary of Divine Providence, which provided a safe haven for the persecuted Jewish people; And its people were perceived by him as emissaries of God to save the people and ensure the continuation of Jewish existence.
His new expression of this new ideological upheaval was recorded in his Torah book which he wrote in the same attic, "Ein Habanim Semeicha" (86, p.), in which all the quotations quoted from dozens of Torah books were written down from his genius memory, without the sources before his eyes.
In his book, he expresses enthusiastic support for Zionism, immigration to the Land of Israel and its settlement, and expresses utter contempt for the rabbis and Rebbes who stopped the Jews from fleeing and reaching a safe shore in the Land of Israel, and compares them to the meraglim who slandered the land:
"The spies were bribed by the biases that were hidden in their hearts. It is also in our time! Even rabbis and rabbis and Chassidim – this one has a good rabbinate, this has a good Rebbe, and this one has a good business or a good fabric or a good and honorable position – if they go to Eretz Yisrael, their situation will be weakened... Most of the time, a person deceives himself and thinks that his actions are for the sake of Heaven, and in fact he is managed by the bias that lies deep within him... that a person sees only what he wants to see" (pp. 38-39 in "Eim Habanim Semeich").
In all his greatness, the Rabbi humbly admits his ideological error, and notes in the face of the horrors of the Holocaust that he made a bitter mistake, like many of the rabbis of his generation:
"In my eyes, too, I was disgusted of this enterprise of building the land... And only after we were afflicted with this exile did I examine this halakha, and God enlightened my eyes that I was mistaken and those rabbis who opposed it were also mistaken "
And in another place: "All those who are... Against the immigration, against the building, and against the settlement of the land, they are the plague of the meraglim. And all those who choose Aliyah are the plague of Yehoshua and Kalev," says the Rav Teictal, calling on the public "to take upon ourselves for raising the keren arzeinu... And let us walk arm-in-arm in this holy enterprise, and then the work of our hands will be satisfied before the Holy One... And this will ultimately trickle down to us all... bringing Moshiach in our times " (p. 667).
3. However, the rabbis of the Chareidie communities in our time, who have already merited and continue to enjoy in the Land of Israel the pleasures of the national home established by the Zionist movement in the Land of Israel, kick all this goodness, and refuse to go "arm-in-arm in this holy enterprise."
Not only do they not allow their followers to participate in their defense and the defense of the land, but they also slander and curse those who do the holy work, and there were those who forbade the sending of food to the soldiers during the last war, for the evil reason: it is clear that the soldiers will not recite a blessing over the food, and this will be because "you shall not place an obstacle before the blind." That's it.
It's true that not everyone is like that. There are Chareidim who volunteer to pay out of their own pockets for soldiers who were spotted in an ultra-Orthodox restaurant. "Your bill has already been paid," restaurant owners say to the soldiers who sacrifice their lives for the defense of the nation in the Land of Israel – including the Chareidim . At the very least, they fulfill the mitzva of gratitude, which Judaism commands (see Sefer Ha-Chinuch).
For example, Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, one of the leaders of the Chareidie community and Nasi of the Committee of Yeshiva Heads (who died a year and a half ago), compared the soldiers who gave their lives for the people and the land to those who were killed in Lod –
The story recorded in Talmud about two ordinary Jews that gave their lives to save Klal Yisrael and were rewarded with a glorious reward from heaven.
Rabbi Edelstein said: "Secular Jews who are not observant of Torah and mitzvot, if they give their lives to save others out of love for others, they have a world to come like those who were killed in Lod who gave their lives for the benefit of the people of the city. ...
What is nationalism? Love of the people. Secular people in the army give their lives to save others., Isn't this just the Lod fatalities? If the secular is willing to sacrifice his life more than the Chareidie, he is greater than him... Jewish nationalism is different from non-Jewish nationalism, and it is the love of the people of Jews and is blessed."
4. But there are also those who continue to insult and curse, and they are from the mainstream, not from the Jerusalem sect.
Rabbi Dov Landau, known in the Lithuanian world as the leader of the generation, recently mocked "those with knitted kippahs, who are confused" who give their lives for the salvation of the Jewish people; And despise God: "They are killed because their rabbis teach them a distorted Torah, whoever knows the Zionist idea, what used to be, the Bnei Akiva movement, it still exists, but I don't wish them any blessing."
Rabbi Landau also claimed – and this is a complete distortion – that if HaMedina had not been established and replaced by an Arab government, our situation would have been excellent.
It has forgotten the pogroms that Arabs caused against the Jews of the country, even before Zionism. Thus, for example, the riots perpetrated by Arabs against the Jews of Safed in 1834, decades before Zionism, in the style of the Gaza massacre: dozens were murdered and wounded, many women were raped, and the rest fled with only their clothes for their bodies to be like animals in the mountains and valleys. Is this the paradise that the ultra-Orthodox yearn for?
I wonder what the Rav Teictal would have said about the Rav Landau's thoughts.
Emotional Reunion: Sagi Dekel-Hen meets his wife, Avital, and his parents, Naomit and Yonatan, for the first time since his release.
The Times of Israel reported on Tuesday that Palestinian Authority’s cabinet minister and veteran terrorist Ahmad Majdalani will head the new Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment, which PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas has announced will be in charge of all social welfare payments, including those to terrorists and their families.
Some media reports have claimed that terrorists will now receive payments only if they are in financial need, not according to the longstanding criteria of the length of their prison sentences (meaning, how many Jews they killed).
This is an obvious and outrageous ruse. Majdalani, the Palestinian Authority, and the terrorists will all be able to simply claim that because these terrorists are in jail, their families are in need.
The families of dead terrorists will say they are in need since their breadwinners are no longer alive. Of course, these terrorists are no longer alive because they either blew themselves up or were killed while attempting to commit murder.
Indeed, the fact that the new agency will be run by a veteran terrorist ensures that it will promote the needs of terrorists. The fox will be guarding the hen house.
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, on Thursday, rejected Israel’s decision to maintain an IDF presence in five locations in south Lebanon after next week’s deadline set by the ceasefire agreement.
Berry said the United States, the key mediator of the ceasefire, “informed me that the Israeli occupation will withdraw from villages it still occupies on February 18, but it will remain in five points.” He added: “I informed them in my name and on behalf of President General Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Judge Nawaf Salam of our absolute rejection of this proposal.”
However, a Trump administration official told Al Arabiya on Thursday that the presence of Israeli troops at five locations in Lebanon would depend on the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) along the southern border.
“Israeli presence in the five points directly bears on whether the Government of Lebanon ultimately does what it has promised to do, and unlike the Biden administration we will not be grading on a curve,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to the same official, the first test of newly elected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun’s leadership will be whether the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), which he previously led before becoming president, enforces the ceasefire agreement Lebanon signed in November 2024 and counters Hezbollah’s efforts to reassert itself.
The official also suggested that Aoun has a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to lead Lebanon away from the influence of Hezbollah and Iran, a challenge for which he has a mandate from the people.
Speaker Berri met with US Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson and US Major General Jasper Jeffers, who co-chairs a five-party committee, which includes the United States, France, Lebanon, Israel, and UN peacekeepers, tasked with identifying and addressing ceasefire violations.
“I refused to discuss any extension to the deadline for Israel’s withdrawal,” Berri said. “It is the responsibility of the Americans to enforce the withdrawal, otherwise they will have caused the greatest setback for the government.”
The Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire has been in effect since November 27, following more than a year of hostilities, including two months of a full-scale war.
As part of the agreement, Lebanon’s military was to deploy in the south alongside UN peacekeepers as the IDF withdrew at the end of a 60-day period, which was later extended until February 18.
Hezbollah was also to vacate its positions in the south, near the Israeli border, during this time, and move north to the other side of the Litani River, some 28 kilometers from Israel’s border. It hasn’t. Instead, Israel has been forced to violate the ceasefire frequently to attack Hezbollah combatants in the forbidden zone, as well as bomb from the air Hezbollah warehouses with recently-transported weapons and ammunition, care of the Iranian government.
The Gaza strip is still home to “hundreds of miles” of Hamas terror tunnels — and it could take years to eliminate them and vanquish the terrorist organization, Israel’s consul-general revealed to The Post.
“It will take time,” Ofir Akunis said during a sitdown this week. “We can stop [the war] after Hamas is not there — maybe it will take another year or two years.”
“It took six years, six years for the Western world, to defeat Germany,’ Akunis noted.
Despite 15 months of intense bombing before a ceasefire negotiated by President Trump last month, Hamas staged a military parade to mark the temporary cessation of hostilities and has moved to swiftly reassert control over Gaza in recent weeks.
On Saturday the terror group released three more Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of prisoners in Israeli jails — extending the fragile ceasefire.
Should hostilities resume, the war would “look different” than the last 15 months of fighting, Akunis said, declining to elaborate.
Akunis steadfastly refused to attack President Biden by name but he could not resist a smile when asked to compare the two American leaders’ approaches to the powder-keg region.
“I think that now there is a new attitude in the American administration,” he said.
Both Israel’s invasion of Rafah and control of the Philadelphi Corridor dividing Gaza and Egypt were vociferously opposed by the Biden administration. This time around he had “no doubt” about total American support for whatever was necessary to root out the terrorist threat, he said.
“I don’t think that anyone will say to the Israeli government not to, let’s say, act in Rafah as an example or about the Philadelphi Corridor.”
Many Democrats and Arab nations in the region continue to hold out hope for a two-state solution, President Trump has largely dashed that hope with a new proposal that would allow the United States to take over Gaza and the Palestinian population there to be relocated.
Akunis called it “the first new idea” in the Middle East since the Sykes-Picot agreement — a secret 1916 treaty between the United Kingdom and France which divided the Middle East between them after World War I.
“All of the international community must be open to new ideas,” he added, making clear a two-state solution is no longer viable.
“This is our land,” he said — adding that the West Bank, which Israel calls Judea and Samaria, was part of Israel. Conservative members of Israel’s governing coalition have long vowed to annex the territory which was once earmarked to be part of a Palestinian state.
“Gaza was a Palestinian state,” Akunis thundered, “Do you think that the Israelis should accept the idea of the same terror state in Judea and Samaria and in the Gaza Strip again? The answer is no.”
Though population transfers were often employed to resolve 20th-century conflicts — like between India and Pakistan in 1947, and Greece and Turkey in 1923 — critics have insisted moving Palestinians would be “ethnic cleansing,” something Akunis dismissed out of hand.
“When we asked the Jews to leave the Gaza Strip 20 years ago, what was that?” Akunis said. “It’s not a matter of Jews or Muslims. This is part of a solution.”
Akunis also had sharp words for Qatar — a longtime backer of Hamas, who harbors their leaders and whose Al-Jazeera news network regularly pumps the region with radical Islamic propaganda.
“Qatar has been playing both sides for many years. On one hand, it supports and funds Hamas and its allies in Gaza and around the world, while on the other hand, it hosts negotiations. This double game must end,” the consul said.
“Instead of building tunnels underground in Gaza, it should be building towers and new homes above ground in the Gaza Strip. Also, the support for the violent protests of Hamas supporters on American campuses must be stopped.”
A federal judge denied the immediate reinstatement of eight inspectors general who were fired by President Donald Trump last month, opting for a slower time frame to consider the case.
The inspectors general argued that Trump firing them violated the law because he did not do so without justification or a 30-day notice to Congress and that they should be reinstated. The plaintiffs had petitioned the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for a temporary restraining order and to reinstate them immediately as the case proceeded.
Judge Ana Reyes, who was appointed to the federal court by former President Joe Biden, denied the requested restraining order and admonished the plaintiffs during the short hearing Friday, according to the New York Times.
Reyes reportedly raised her voice, cut off one of the lawyers representing the fired inspectors general, and found the plaintiffs' arguments not sufficient for the quick action. She took specific issue with the inspectors general waiting roughly three weeks after they were fired for the emergency relief.
“Why on earth did you not have this figured out with the defendants,” Reyes asked during the hearing, per the outlet, “before coming here and burdening me and burdening my staff on this issue?”
“Are we really here right now on the sixth hearing of this day for me to decide whether to grant a [temporary restraining order] given the circumstances that you guys could not even bother filing a [temporary restraining order] for 21 days?” she added.
Reyes allowed the plaintiffs to continue with a request for a preliminary injunction, a less urgent procedure to halt the president's actions, and gave the government until next Friday to respond to the plaintiffs' motion, according to the docket.
All three were kidnapped during the October 7 massacre.
Avital, wife of Sagui Dekel-Chen, shared her emotions ahead of the moving meeting with her husband: "My breath came back, I'm very emotional. He's such a cutie. There's an enormous amount of relief that he's in the IDF's hands."
Ruth Horn, mother of Yair, who was released Saturday, and Eitan, who is still captive in Gaza, responded to Yair's release and thanked those who supported the family since the October 7 massacre.
"Thank you very much, send a huge hug to everyone who is there, who have been supporting me since the first day," she said. "Very soon I will see Yair, and like you said - we are all continuing until Eitan is here. A huge hug to everyone and thanks for all the support."
Yair's family said: "We can breathe a bit. Our Yair is home, after he survived hell and horrors in Gaza. Now, we need to bring back Eitan, so that our family will truly be able to breathe. We thank the IDF soldiers and the security forces who sacrifice their lives and bodies, and we send condolences to the bereaved families who lost their most beloved, for all of us."
"I don't see an alternative to what's being proposed."
Hamas supporters are so desperate they’re literally hiring protesters on Craigslist—offering up to $1,000 to prop up their terror-loving tantrums.
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) February 13, 2025
Imagine needing a paycheck to cheer for rapists, kidnappers, and murderers. pic.twitter.com/VRVvNOnvP4
DIN: I came across this "letter to the editor" to the FJJ, The Flatbush Jewish Journal, from a guy who calls himself "Rabbi Morris Goldman" and who lives in West Orange, New Jersey! This "Goldman" character is answering a previous "letter to the editor" in the Flatbush Jewish Journal written by a Moshe Bodner in the January 30 edition of the FJJ
ASK THE RABBI?
The January 23, 2025 issue published an excerpt from the book Ask The Rabbi by Chaim Mintz, Artscroll Productions. The questioner acknowledged that secular Zionism is flawed and asked whether religious Zionism is also flawed?
The response was "Yes, the accepted Torah-true worldview based on Talmud (Kesuvos 111a) is that we are not to have any Jewish-run government at all until the arrival of Moshiach." As you are aware, many "Torah true" rabbis do not agree with Rabbi Mintz's view, and it is, at the very least, questionable whether we may rely on Aggadata for Psak Halacha. Is this position, that Religious Zionism is contrary to halacha, held by the FJJ ownership and editors?
Moshe Bodner Woodmere, NY
I must address the response of "Rabbi" Goldman to the Bodner letter because the FJJ has a pretty large circulation and some readers may take Goldman's letter as fact when in truth it is full of half-truths and whole lies!
I will break up his letter and respond to his fictitious thoughts!
MG (Morris Goldman): In response to Moshe Bodner's letter last week in regards to the Torah Hashkafa about the religious Zionism ideology, in which he wrote that there are many ''Torah true rabbis'' that do not hold of Rabbi Mintz's view that religious Zionism is also flawed.
DIN: I don't know who this Rabbi Mintz is but I can say that Rabbi Mintz's view goes contrary to the Avnei Nezer, Drishas Tzyon, Netziv , Rav Teichtal, Rav Henkin etc .
In fact we spoke a lot about this previously on this blog and we pointed out that the Gemarra that Rabbi Mintz quotes is an "aggadetta" and this view is not brought in the Rambam's Mishna Torah, nor is it brought down anywhere in the entire Shulchan Aruch!
The gemarrah itself doesn't mention when this "oath" took place, with whom it took place, and who was there when it took place and where it took place!
What is fascinating is that the Maharsha who is on constant alert and explains all aggadetas, doesn't say one word and skips over this gemarrah! ! What is also interesting is that Ezra HaSofer totally ignored this quoted gamarrah and made Aliya and cursed those who remained in Baval!
Not only that but most of the greatest Tzaddikim ignored that aggadeta and made Aliyah, The Ramban, The Gra and the Besht were on the way but were prevented for one reason or another but their Talmedim made aliya in mass! The Chafetz Chayim sold his home in Radin to make Aliyah but had to abandon his plans! The Gerer Rebbe, the Belzer Rebbe, The Biayler Rebbe, The Kloizinberger, Rav Chaim Zonninfeld, Rav Dushinsky,The Chazon Ish, The Steipler, Rav Shach, Rav Shteinman, ...I can go on and on..all made Aliyah!! And now I'll reveal a secret ...Even the Satmar Rebbe made Aliyah, but then relocated to the US after his Chassidim in Israel rejected him because of his terrible advice pre WW2 that Jews should not emigrate to the US as that was a "treifine medina" and to Israel as that was Zionistic!
MG: I just wanted to say that you can actually look at the archives of the Agudas Yisroel asifa in the 1930's, in which a poll was conducted among the participating rabbis, and almost all the rabbis there were strongly against the founding of the state and against the ideology that they were trying to promote. You can see for yourself at how they write about the idea.
DIN: The 3rd Knessiya Gedolah was held in Marienbad in Sept 1937 There was no "poll"! At this conference, the Aguda reiterated their anti-Zionist positions and distanced themselves from the Mizrachi Movement that was founded by the great Gaon and Tzaddik Rav Yitzchok Yaakov Reines z"l!
As an aside, note that the Netziv was one of the founders of the Choiveve Tzion, a Zionist Religious Organization encouraging a State !
Ironically, the Agudah took part in the St. James Palace Conference convened by the British just two years later early in 1939, and coordinated and partnered with the Zionists! Since you asked readers to "look at the archives" I did and found this fact!
But It's important to point out that the Agudah dropped its anti-Zionist position after the Holocaust, when they realized albeit too late that if a State had been established then it would have saved 6 million Jews!
In fact, Aguda established a political party in Israel endorsed by its Gedoilim and appointed members who ran and won seats in the Zionist Knesset. So much for Rabbi Mintz's ridiculous arrogant opinions!
MG: For example, R' Elchanan Wasserman who wrote against the Zionist movement very strongly.
DIN: True, but if instead of fighting Zionism, he would have supported a State, he could have saved himself and his entire Yeshiva from annihilation! Most Chareidie Rabbanim dropped their anti-Zionism stance while witnessing the largest destruction of the Jewish people in its entire history!
MG: And even among our Gedolim in America you can hear how R' Avigdor Miller speaks about it in every other speech in which he denounces the state and their leaders, and states that the entire founding of the state is against Halacha and hashkafa of a frum Torah jew.
DIN: I'm glad you brought up R' Avigdor Miller who I knew personally and was at his Q&A on Sunday in Flatbush many times!
With all due respect to Rav Miller, he was in the USA in a warm comfortable home when my grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, and two brothers were being gassed to death! אינו דומה שמיעה לריאה!
Rav Miller wrote a book called "A Divine Madness' where he outrageously actually blames the Holocaust on Zionism!????
One could argue in reverse, the argument put forth by Rav Teictal in his sefer Eim Habanim Semicha, that the Holocaust happened because the Jews DIDN'T listen to the call of the Zionists, and instead chose to remain in the galuth!
Interesting that he refrained from publishing this work while he was alive, and kept it in his drawer in a manuscript, it was published posthumously by a grandchild ! Many Holocaust survivors were outraged, in fact, the Kloizinberger Rebbe z"l who lost a wife and 11 children in the Holocaust said in response to people who said they knew what the reason of the Holocaust was "He who knows, would never speak, and He who speaks doesn't know"?
It's important to point out that in the early 50s and 60s Neturei Karta could not understand or speak English and it was Rav Avigdar Miller who translated all the Neturei Karta hate propaganda against the Jewish State from Yiddish into English!
As far as Goldman's comment that "that the entire founding of the state is against Halacha and hashkafa of a frum Torah Jew." this statement is not only patently false but a total distortion of the views of Gedoilei Yisrael such as Hav Kalisher, Harav Reinis, the Netziv, Harav Kook, Rav Teichtal, Rav Henkin etc.and more recently the Rabbis of Gur, Belz, Slonim, Stolin and Rav Shach, Rav Chaim Kanievski, Rav Ovadia Yosef all who appointed their own members to the Zionist Knesset, and established their own parties!
MR: That is besides for the fact that how can we forget the thousands that lost their whole heritage due to the state forcing them to cut off their payos and forcing them to desecrate the Shabbos. (for ex. Yaldei Taimen,Yaldei Tehran).
DIN: I have to admit that this was a tragic period in the founding of the state, but I see that Goldman doesn't write the epilogue where Haaretz did a survey about two years ago and found that many of these descendants have now returned to Yiddishkeit and have beautiful families! While in the USA, children of Chareidie families have totally abandoned their Chareidie backgrounds and became OTD with many marrying shiksas! At least in Israel, there is a 95% chance according to the latest Pew Research Poll that a Chilonie will marry another Jew!
MG: As mentioned, we must stay far away from these people that are trying to do everything in their power to make other things (that the Gedolim said is Kefira) more important than our holy Torah of the past thousands of years. I would like if the writer can please write in which rabbis you know that hold of such things.
DIN: Yes, stay far away from us with your crazed childish false views! I listed above a partial tiny list from Hundreds of Great Talmeide Chachamim who do "hold such things"
Hey Goldman, what are you doing living in West Orange? How many of the residents are intermarried? How many are OTD?
What I am amazed is that a guy calling himself "Rabbi" living in the comfort of his home in West Orange NJ, spews hate and vitriol on the Jewish people and their rabbanim living in Israel, while Jewish children in uniform are still dying, and millions of Goldman's brothers and sisters are still running to shelters!
The Talmud in Chulin 63b states:
אמר רב אבהו, ראה זו איה, ולמה נקרא שמה ראה
עומדת בבבל וראה נבלה בארץ ישראל
"Rabbi Abahu said, the bird called Raah is the same bird called Ayah. Why is this bird called Raah? Because the bird stands in Babylon and can see a carcass in Eretz Yisrael!"
The Baal Shem Tov asks, if Hashem created this bird that it can see so well, why is this bird Tamei?
Mr. Goldman... Listen to his answer!
The Baal Shem Tov answers that if a person is in Chutz Le'aartz and sees a "neveilah" in Eretz Yisrael, he sees only bad things, he sees chilonim, he sees Zionists, a person like this can only be tamei!
מי שפוסל במימו פוסל
Calling Rabbanim who are Religious Zionists... "Flawed!" Is being mevazeh Talmeidi Chachamim! From Goldman's letter is משמע that one cannot be mevazeh Chareidie Rabbanim, but being mevazeh Religious Zionist Rabbanim is no problem!
The Goldmans of this world are blind to the fact that the Ribbono Shel Olam orchestrated the founding of the State so that all Jews would have a home, no questions asked! Pretty soon the goyim in West Orange New Jersey are going to round up the Jews there, where will the Goldmans run??
MG: Rabbi Morris Goldman West Orange, New Jersey
DIN: The Mintzs and the Goldmans of this world are not bringing us any closer to Mashiach!
Here!
— Adi 🎗 (@Adi13) February 12, 2025
You guys are amazing. This was fast, and they are gone!
pic.twitter.com/cUiH1YpxME
Hezbollah will never forget the Pagers. 📟
— Vivid.🇮🇱 (@VividProwess) February 12, 2025
No eyes.
No legs.
No balls.
This will go down as one of the most incredible anti-terrorism operations in the history of warfare, and Israel is behind it.pic.twitter.com/S8Tt3oqOHK
The fragile cease-fire that stopped 15 months of war in the Gaza Strip looks increasingly likely to end at noon on Saturday after just 27 days.
President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said intense fighting would resume in the war-torn enclave unless Hamas releases all hostages in Gaza by that deadline.
Currently, 31 people are being held in the Palestinian enclave, along with the bodies of 36 others.
The ultimatum comes after the Iran-backed terror group’s decision to withhold the release of the next three hostages scheduled for Saturday after accusing Israel of violating the terms of the cease-fire agreement.
With Israel and Hamas both preparing their forces to resume war, and mediators scrambling to broker peace, the fate of the hostages and civilians caught in the middle remains unclear.
However, a return to war may be just what Hamas and its backers in Tehran want, experts say.
That’s despite Hamas’ Health Ministry reporting a terrible cost to the war: Officials say more than 48,000 people have been killed, though that figure doesn’t distinguish between terrorists and civilians.
What’s more, Netanyahu’s government and his allies in Washington have become increasingly convinced that the cease-fire is no longer tenable, many observers believe.
Following the start of the cease-fire deal on Jan. 19, Hamas shocked the world by orchestrating large parades during the weekend hostage exchanges, boasting its ability to rebuild its forces despite Israel’s claim that it killed more than 17,000 fighters.
According to some intel reports, the terror group has used the destruction and deaths in Gaza to recruit and replenish its forces.
As a result, the group has little to lose if the war resumes as Hamas attempts to gain even more concessions from Israel.
Joe Truzman, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defending Democracy, said Hamas knows the leverage it holds following the outrage from last Saturday’s hostage exchange, which saw three Israelis, who appeared to be emaciated, paraded through Gaza City.
“Hamas is capitalizing on the public outrage generated by the distressing images of emaciated hostages to amplify pressure on the Israeli government for further concessions,” Truzman said in a statement.
On Saturday US District Judge Paul Engelmayer, an Obama appointee, barred “political appointees” from accessing internal Treasury Department systems — an utterly baseless, and frankly ludicrous, order.
In effect, Engelmayer prohibited Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and his politically accountable employees, along with Elon Musk and President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, from doing their jobs, in favor of rule by unelected bureaucrats.
The Constitution nowhere empowers the judiciary to issue such a ruling, so in response, Vice President JD Vance correctly posted on X: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
Then the left lost its mind.
