Frum Israeli Meshiginers Put Mechitza in Elevator!

After Israel’s Supreme Court declared mehadrin buses illegal, we are introduced to mehadrin elevators.

The ארמונות חן simcha hall in Givat Shaul, Yerushalayim, has set up a mehadrin elevator divided by a curtain that separates men and women in the elevator.

The elevator is optional, for guests who wish to offer this new mehadrin service. A nylon curtain is placed in the elevator, permitting men and women to ride without seeking one another, in theory at least.

Hall owner Yosef Cohen told Walla News that on the day of one’s chupah, many wish to be especially careful regarding shmiras einayim and this is just another way of assisting them, nothing more.
Cohen adds that one hall in Bnei Brak has two elevators, one for men and a second for women but he purchased the hall, which only has one elevator so this is the solution for those wishing it. When asked what he has to say to the critics, Cohen questions why anyone finds this bothersome since it is only used upon request of a bal simcha.

How Jews Were Expelled From Arab Lands, Told by a Pro-Palestinian !

(Haaretz) — Nathan Weinstock hadn’t planned to write a book about the Jews of Arab lands. But when he looked for information about the modern history of Moroccan or Iraqi Jewry, he was surprised to discover that there was no book in French that told the story of the elimination of the Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa in the mid-20th century.
“In the end,” he says, “I decided to write it myself.”

One of the surprising discoveries he made was about the powerful bond with their roots felt by many of the roughly 1 million Jews in North Africa and the Middle East who left their homes in the decade after the creation of Israel.

“The story I knew,” Weinstock relates in a Skype interview from his home in Nice, in the south of France, “was that the Jews were happy to leave the Arab countries the moment they were given the opportunity to do so.
We were not told anything about the Jews’ deep connection with Arab culture, for example. It was only later that I learned that Jewish writers were the foundation of Iraqi literature. And that in mid-19th-century Egypt, the man who invented the nationalist slogan ‘Egypt for the Egyptians,’ and was known as ‘the Egyptian Molière,’ was a Jew named Jacob Sanua.

“In the course of my research,” he continues, “I found out that the story we had been told –
that the Jews left the Arab countries because they were Zionists – was for the most part wrong.
True, they had an affinity for the Land of Israel – that is certainly correct – but the organized Zionist movement was very weak in the Arab countries.
The great mass of Jews left under duress. They were expelled. They were subjected to such enormous pressure that they had no choice but to leave.”

Weinstock, a self-taught historian, now in his 70s, who previously published studies about the Bund movement in Eastern Europe and Yiddish literature, decided to assume the task of chronicling the expulsion of the Jews from the Arab countries.

The result is a book that was published in France in 2008 as “Une si longue présence: Comment le monde arabe a perdu ses Juifs, 1947-1967” (“A Very Long Presence: How the Arab World Lost Its Jews, 1947-1967)” and has now appeared in Hebrew (Babel Books; translated by Hagit Bat-Ada).

This is a very thorough, detailed, interesting and persuasive book, with more than 900 footnotes, and it is one of the first to deal in this context with the Jewish minority in Ottoman Palestine.

Weinstock has mostly relied on secondary sources, but has also used some primary sources in French from the archives of the Alliance Israelite Universelle in Paris, for example.
What makes Weinstock’s decision to write about the Jews’ expulsion from the Arab world especially surprising is his own political biography:

He was one of the leading figures in the anti-Zionist left in France during the 1960s and ‘70s. From viewing Israel and Zionism as a colonial project aimed at dispossessing the Palestinians, Weinstock underwent a dramatic conceptual upheaval that led him to address a painful and rarely discussed aspect of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“This book is the story of a tragedy,” he writes in a special introduction to the Hebrew edition, “of the uprooting of hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi Jews, who were torn cruelly from their homes and homelands.
Whole communities of Jews, who had always resided in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, underwent expulsion, persecution and malicious liquidations… Nevertheless, this drama remains unknown and it has been denied for a lengthy period.”

Weinstock, who was born in Antwerp in 1939, espoused anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian views even before the 1967 Six-Day War. As such, he was invited, three weeks before the war’s outbreak, to speak to the Palestinian students’ union in Paris. The Paris correspondent of the Israeli newspaper Maariv, Uri Dan, reported about the event at the time: “Most depressing of all was the appearance of Nathan Weinstock, a Jew, who had a place of honor on the stage and delivered the keynote address… Weinstock was even more extreme than the Arabs in the abuse he hurled against Israel.”

In retrospect, Weinstock explains, that event showed him the degree to which he played the part of the “useful idiot” at the time.

“I was thrilled when I got up to speak to the Palestinian students,” he told me. “Very naively, I was convinced that the Palestinian students would be happy to hear my pacifist message. So I was astonished when not one of them showed the least interest in what I said. Instead, they listened ecstatically to Radio Cairo, delighting in every word and swallowing the boastful announcements that the Arab armies would soon throw all the Jews into the sea.”

In 1969, Weinstock published “Zionism: False Messiah,” an anti-Zionist pamphlet (in French; an English translation came out a decade later) that quickly became the bible of anti-Israeli propaganda in France.
Gradually, however, he says, he became aware of “the anti-Semitic nature of the blind assault on Israel. First, ‘the Zionists’ are condemned, then the ‘Zionist takeover’ of the media, and finally ‘Zionist world domination.’ When I was quoted, my criticism of the Palestinians, however minor, was always omitted. In the end, I understood that I had been used. My listeners took no interest whatsoever in me. For them, I was a Jewish alibi for their anti-Jewish posture.”

The straw that broke the camel’s back for Weinstock was the failure of the Camp David summit in 2000. “Once again the Palestinian leadership avoided taking responsibility,” he says. “The Palestinian leadership was cowardly, declining to tell their nation that one has to know when to conclude the struggle, because the central goal has been achieved.”

How do you account for your polar reversal of position – from anti-Zionist guru of the radical left as a young man, to supporter of Israel today?

“In the 1960s I was under strong Trotskyite influence, and I took a doctrinaire approach to issues – not based on a genuine attempt to analyze them, but in order to adjust them to simplistic, pre-set positions. The radical left has not reconsidered that period, and in many senses sounds exactly the same today. When one looks at who supports the Palestinians in Europe – and it is clear that the Palestinians do indeed have rights that need to be addressed – one sees that they don’t care about anything else: not the Armenians, not the Cypriot-Greek issue, not what’s happening in Western Sahara. Only one thing interests them, and I cannot accept that.

“We also need to remember,” he continues “that Israel took a self-righteous stance in that period, and it was very difficult to voice criticism about its behavior. In the meantime, a generation of ‘new historians’ sprang up in Israel, such as Benny Morris, who took a realistic view of history. As in every country, there are dark areas in Israel which need to be examined. But has there been any country in history without dark corners that were kept hidden? This process is underway in Israel today – but where are the Palestinian ‘new historians’? To emerge from the tangle, the Palestinians must show courage and choose the path of coexistence with the Israelis. This is a task that only they can perform for themselves.”

In 1945, Weinstock notes, almost one million Jews lived in the Arab world, whereas today there are about 4,500, the great majority of them in Morocco. According to Weinstock, there is no precedent for such a dramatic termination of Jewish communities anywhere in the world, including during the Holocaust.

What, then, brought about the massive departure of Jews from the Arab countries?
 It was not Zionism that disconnected the Jews from their surroundings, he says.
 On the contrary: In most cases, the Zionist movement had a hard time mustering supporters. Jews also tried to become part of the Arab national-liberation movements.

For example, the chief rabbi of Egypt during the mid-20th century, Chaim Nahum, often spoke out against Zionism; in Iraq, Jewish communists founded the Anti-Zionist League. Activist Jewish communists in North Africa expressed solidarity with the Maghreb peoples and were in the forefront of the demand for national liberation.
Weinstock cites a large number of attacks and pogroms against Jewish communities that are rarely mentioned in history curricula in Israel. In 1912, 12 Jews were killed in Shiraz, Iran, and 51 were killed that year in Fez, Morocco. In 1934, 25 Jews were killed in the Algerian city of Constantine.

In Iraq, 150 Jews were murdered in the Farhud of 1941, a three-day pogrom. 
Seven years later, upon Israel’s establishment, Iraq declared martial law and launched a wave of anti-Jewish persecutions. Many Jews were arrested, tried and convicted, some were sentenced to death, others were given jail terms or slapped with large fines. At this stage, the Jews were forbidden to leave the country, but in March 1950 Iraq allowed the Jews to emigrate, provided they gave up their citizenship and their property.
“The ongoing deterioration in the Jews’ situation and the atmosphere of hate surrounding them led to a mass flight from the country,” Weinstock writes.

The majority of the Jewish population (90 percent of the community of 150,000) left that year, amid a massive plundering of their property by the authorities.

In Egypt, anti-Jewish disturbances broke out in November 1945, on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, but the declaration of the State of Israel three years later triggered serious persecution. Hundreds of Jews were arrested, accused of involvement in Zionist or communist plots and had their property confiscated. Continuous attacks on Jews began that June. Bombs were planted in the Jewish quarter of Cairo, and it and the Jewish section of Alexandria were set ablaze. Half the country’s Jewish community left at that time, with the remainder being expelled during the Sinai War of 1956. The Jews who were driven out were not allowed to take with or sell their property.
“The police arrived and pulled grocers, carpenters, woodworkers and glaziers – but also well-known lawyers – from their beds,” Weinstock writes.

Is there anything in common among the different communities?
“Yes, in terms of the legal and social status that the Jews shared under Islamic rule. They possessed dhimmi status, meaning ‘protected person.’ It afforded the Jews the authorities’ protection, but at the same time placed them in an inferior position, humiliated and scorned. Jews were not allowed to bear arms in these countries, in which carrying a weapon was considered a salient sign of manhood.

 In some cases, as in early-19th-century Morocco, Jews were made to go about barefoot, or to wear humiliating clothes.”
In return for protection by the government, the Jews had to pay a special tax. “Nothing better describes the contempt entailed in the status of dhimmitude,” Weinstock writes, “than the ritual of humiliation that accompanied the annual payment of the subjugation tax in Morocco, as recently as the end of the 19th century. Every year, on a fixed date, the head of each Jewish community had to turn over the money to the sultan’s representative, who for his part had to slap [the Jew] or hit him with a stick in order to hammer home the inequality between giver and recipient, by nature of their birth.”

In Yemen, the “Latrines Ordinance,” introduced in the same spirit, obliged the Jewish community periodically to clean out cesspools and clear away animal carcasses that blocked public roads. (The law remained in force until 1950.)

Weinstock describes a very different state of affairs from the oft-voiced myth about the harmonious relations between Jews and Arabs under Islamic rule. Less than 100 years after the Ottoman sultan invited the exiles from Spain to settle throughout his empire, for example, one of his descendants, Murat III, ordered “the liquidation of all the Jews.”

The sultan’s Jewish physician persuaded his mother to intercede, and the order was rescinded.
Over the years, numerous laws were enacted that discriminated against the Jews – from a prohibition against horseback riding to the necessity of wearing particular clothing, and from a ban on giving testimony in court to a prohibition against building homes over a certain height.

At the same time, Weinstock notes, the laws were not enforced identically in every place and in every period. For example, a study of the Cairo Geniza documents, which date back to the ninth century, shows that the clothing regulations were not observed at all.
“There were periods in which the Jews succeeded very well in the Muslim world,” Weinstock says. “At times they were part of the elite. The dhimmi regulations and the scale of humiliation also differed from place to place and from one period to another. But the central axis that dictated the attitude toward the Jews was their dhimmi status, which meant subjugation to the ruling Muslim group.”

Weinstock quotes a Moroccan sultan saying in the mid-19th century: “Our glorious religion grants them only marks of opprobrium and inferiority.”

Weinstock also examines the situation in the Holy Land through the dhimmi prism. The Jewish minority that lived under Ottoman rule experienced humiliation and subordination, he says. Anti-Jewish riots were fomented time and again in the 18th and 19th centuries. He quotes the British consul in Palestine as writing in 1831 that the extortion and acts of suppression against the Jews were so numerous that it was said “that the Jews have to pay even for the air they breathe.”

In the twilight of Ottoman rule, a century ago, the first “Hebrew city” was founded (present-day Tel Aviv), a revival of the Hebrew language began to be felt, and Jewish cooperative farming settlements were established. The local Arab population, Weinstock says, felt that the ground was being pulled from under it, as the dhimmi Jews, who were supposed to possess inferior status, were now striving for more – even for independence.

According to Weinstock, underlying the growing hostility toward the Jewish population in Palestine was the realization that the dhimmi Jews were shaking off their traditional legal status of humiliation and submission. In retrospect, the writer maintains, dhimmi status, on the one hand, and the declared attempt by the Zionist movement to be free of it, on the other, led ultimately to the Arabs’ rejection of the United Nations partition plan in 1947 and to the War of Independence the following year.
Local Palestinians and the Arab world refused to grant the Jews of the country a status different from dhimmi, and they were even less likely to recognize the Jews’ national rights. Zionism, for its part, could not accept Arab sovereignty over all of Palestine, a situation in which the Jewish minority would again find itself under dhimmi status. “Historically, then,” Weinstock says, “dhimmi status is the root of the conflict.”

What impact does this relationship have today?
“It continues to affect Israeli-Arab relations even today, because in Arab eyes the Jew who now lives in Israel is the same Jew whom they customarily saw as humiliated – and who is now taking his revenge. The Arabs experience Israel’s establishment and existence to this day as very painful revenge and as the reversal of dhimmitude. This is a very meaningful and deep aspect of the current political problem, which we cannot allow ourselves to ignore. Without understanding this, it is impossible to understand the conflict.”

Then why is it not dealt with more by academics and the press?
“For the Jewish world, the reason is that Ashkenazi Jews, in Israel and elsewhere, continue to be indifferent to and even disdainful of the Mizrahi Jews.

For the Arab world, this should come as no surprise, as self-criticism is not popular among Arab journalists, intellectuals and public-opinion leaders. With the exception of a very short incidental note by [the late Prof.] Edward Said in one of his books, it is hard to find serious references to the massive emigration of Jews from the Arab countries and its causes.
“The left tends to avoid the subject, because they don’t consider it ‘kosher.’ The left has become extraordinarily dogmatic and lacks the ability of self-criticism today. People define themselves as identifying with ‘the Palestinian cause,’ and that’s all: There is no thought behind it. This subject might upset their one-sided worldview, so they simply avoid it.


Read more: http://forward.com/articles/199257/the-inconvenient-truth-about-jews-from-arab-lands/?p=all#ixzz344CBEa00

Chasidishe Bochur dies drowning in mikva on Shevuois in Uman

 A Chasidishe Bochur  is dead after drowning in a lake while celebrating the Shavuot holiday in Uman, Ukraine, rescue workers in Ukraine said.

23-year-old Shlomo Zalman Kozlowski of Bnei Brak, Israel, drowned in the lake while immersing himself as part of a holy ritual.

Kozlowski went to Uman in order to celebrate the holiday of Shavuot at the grave site of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. After entering the lake his friends realized that Kozlowski lost his consciousness.

They pulled him out and alerted local rescue workers. Kozlowski was transferred to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The victim’s father was identified as Rabbi Shraga Feivel Kozlowski, a member of the Gur Hasidic sect. This was not the first time that a yeshiva student drowned in Uman.

Last year, 19-year-old Eliyahu Al of Netanya, Israel, drowned after immersing himself in the lake. Al died after suffering of hypothermia as the water of the lake was extremely cold.

חג שבועות שמח

In Monroe, "all children born from a marriage not officiated by the the Monroe Rav, are Mamzeirim!

Its official, folks, Satmar has totally separated from the Jewish Religion!
 They have their own religion with vague similarities to Judaism.
In this poster Satmar posts the names of people who were married by Harav Yoel Morgenstern, but not by the Satmar Monroe Rav, and so they are not part of anything that is holy,  Their offspring, also mentioned in the poster are not Kosher Children!

The Punishment of NOT Eating "Kreplach" on Shevuois

Loose Translation of the above writing in the sefer "Panim Me'eerim Shevuois"

It has been said  in the name of Harav Hakodosh Rebe Aaron Leib Hagodol, father of Harav Hakodosh Rebe Meir M'primishlan, that

" You can be certain that the ancestors of those who didn't eat Kreplach on the holiday of Shevuois, weren't by Har Sinai!"

The question now is: What happens is if I ate last year, but will skip this year, were my grandparents there or not!" 

McJunkin Wedding Photos

Goodbye Yoily Brach ז״ל

Zionists will allocate NIS 100 Million to pay Farmers who let their lands lay fallow during Shmitta Year!

Hey Satmar Farmers ! You guys not taking any money from the "medinah?"
I keep saying that the biggest Baalai Tzedakah are the Zionists!

The government will allocate NIS 100 million in extra funding for the Religious Affairs Ministry in order to assist in preparation for the upcoming shemittah year, the sabbatical year in which Jewish farmers are supposed to let their fields lay fallow.

The next shemittah year will begin this coming Rosh Hashana (Jewish new year) in September. The somewhat complex issues of shemita were thoroughly explained in Arutz Sheva articles in 2007, ahead of the previous shemittah year, which began then. The funding is expected to be approved Sunday during the weekly government cabinet meeting.

The Torah commandment to leave fields fallow for one year every seven years involves many complicated Halakhic (Jewish legal) issues, and opinions differ on how best to adhere to the laws without unduly harming farmers' livelihood.

Of the total sum, NIS 11.5 million will be available for educational organizations to provide assistance and guidance for farmers who wish to fulfill the precepts of shemittah. An additional NIS 2 million will be available to produce materials explaining the importance of shemittah.

Another NIS 2 million will be used for a special “Hakhel” ceremony, to take place at the Western Wall at the end of the shemittah year. According to the Torah, the entire nation is to gather at the Temple at the end of the shemittah year to hear the Torah read in public by the nation's leaders, in the Hakhel ceremony. The balance will be used to support farmers who need assistance in fulfilling shemittah properly.

Speaking to a large group of rabbis in January, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau appealed for unity during the shemittah year. The sabbatical has been marred in recent years by the ongoing debate between those who approve of the "heter mechira,” a process that permits "selling" the land to a non-Jew so that agricultural work can continue during the shemittah year. The process, which was strongly advocated by the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, and originally approved by the first Chief Rabbi Avraham HaCohen Kook, is strongly opposed by the Ashkenazic hareidi rabbinate.

"I told the Rishon Letzion (Rabbi Yosef) that unfortunately there are rabbis who will try to make controversy between us, but in our positions we will sit together G-d willing ten full years without 'please part from me' (Genesis 13:9)," remarked the rabbi, emphasizing cooperation. (His Biblical reference was the the episode when Avraham and his nephew Lot parted ways due to irreconcilable differences in lifestyle).

Rabbi Lau noted that debates between rabbis are “today unfortunately portrayed as a desecration of G-d's name and as disputes. Every word out of place said by a rabbi can cause of desecration of G-d's name, contempt for rabbis and all people. We must guard the holiness of the land, but no less the holiness of man and of each other,” he added.

The Billionaire Bill Gates throws Israel Under The Bus because of Arab Pressure!

Yup, He is afraid that a bunch of towel wearing Arabs will stop investing with him, so he divests from an Israeli Company!
Time to buy Apple, folks!
Amid an international boycott against the company over alleged human rights violations, billionaire and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has sold a portion of his shares in G4S, the international British security firm that has current contracts with the Israel Prison Service.

HAARETZ.com (http://bit.ly/U5rCW5) reports that Palestinian NGO, Addameer, in conjunction with multiple other international organizations, called on Gates in April to divest in G4S over its treatment of Palestinian political prisoners currently being detained at Israeli detention centers in Ofer, Ketziot, and Megiddo.
Calls for Gates to divest stemmed from Addameer’s contention that Gates’ Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a philanthropic entity, should not be affiliated with a company accused of human rights violations.
A spokesman for the Addameer Palestinian Prisoner and Human Rights Association praised Gates’ move, saying, “we have been arguing that it is completely unacceptable for a charitable foundation to be investing in a company, like G4S, which participates in gross human rights violations against Palestinian political prisoners, including child prisoners. We welcome this step in the right direction

Lewis Katz owner of Philidelphia Inquirer Killed in Plane Crash

Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner Lewis Katz is among the seven people killed in a fiery plane crash in Massachusetts, the newspaper’s editor said Sunday.

Bill Marimow confirmed Katz’s death to Philly.com, saying he learned the news from close associates.

The Gulfstream IV crashed as it was leaving Hanscom Field at about 9:40 p.m. Saturday for Atlantic City International Airport in New Jersey, said Matthew Brelis, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates the air field.
“There were no survivors,” Brelis said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the people on board and their loved ones.”

The identities of the other victims weren’t immediately released. Nancy Phillips, Katz’s longtime companion and city editor at the Inquirer, was not on board.

The 72-year-old Katz was one of two business moguls who bought out their partners last week with an $88 million bid for The Inquirer, which also operates the Philadelphia Daily News and the news website Philly.com.
T
he winners vowed to fund in-depth journalism to return the Inquirer to its former glory and to retain its editor, Marimow.
“It’s going to be a lot of hard work. We’re not kidding ourselves. It’s going to be an enormous undertaking,” Katz said then, noting that advertising and circulation revenues had fallen for years. “Hopefully, (the Inquirer) will get fatter.”

Katz, who grew up in Camden, New Jersey, made his fortune investing in the Kinney Parking empire and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network in New York. He once owned the NBA’s New Jersey Nets and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and is a major donor to Temple University, his alma mater.

The fight over the future of the city’s two major newspapers was sparked last year by a decision to fire the Inquirer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning editor. Katz and H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest wanted a judge to block the firing. Katz sued a fellow owner, powerful Democratic powerbroker George Norcross, saying his ownership rights had been trampled. The dispute culminated last week when Katz and Lenfest, a former cable magnate-turned-philanthropist, bought out their partners.

Officials did not speculate on what they think caused the crash. They said the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate and determine what happened.

Nearby residents recounted seeing a fireball and feeling the blast of the explosion shake their homes.

Jeff Patterson told The Boston Globe he saw a fireball about 60 feet in the air and suspected the worst for those aboard the plane.
“I heard a big boom, and I thought at the time that someone was trying to break into my house because it shook it,” said Patterson’s son, 14-year-old Jared Patterson. “I thought someone was like banging on the door trying to get in.”
The air field, which serves the public, was closed after the crash. Brelis said responders were still on the scene early Sunday morning.

Tennessee Family Converts to become "Heimeshe Yiden"

by Sandy Eller

A Tennessee family’s long journey to yiddishkeit comes to its conclusion today with the completion of their geirus and a proper Jewish wedding for the husband and wife, to be celebrated with their ten children.

Chad and Libby McJunkin were living in Chattanooga with their large family when they embarked on their quest for religion.
“They had always been very religious but they knew something was wrong,” Dovid Tzvi Steinberg, a friend of the McJunkin’s and a former Chattanooga resident, told VIN News. “They went to the Amish but quickly realized that the answers they sought weren’t there either and the Amish preacher told them, ‘You belong with the Jewish people.’”

Chattanooga has been home to an Orthodox synagogue since the late 1800’s and is home to Eastern Tennessee’s only mikvah. Chad McJunkin quickly hooked up with the local Chabad rabbi, who did his best to dissuade McJunkin from converting to Judaism. Still McJunkin persisted.
“Someone in Chattanooga suggested he contact me and we struck up a relationship,” said Steinberg, who said he and McJunkin became phone chavrusas.

The McJunkin children, seven girls and three boys, range in age from sixteen years to a toddler. All have been homeschooled until now and the McJunkins, will be making a Bar Mitzvah for their son in just a few weeks.

The McJunkins received their Ksav Geirus from Rabbi Yisroel Belsky and will now be known by their new names, Sholom and Nechama. The couple is to be married tonight by Rabbi Tzvi Mandel at Khal Bnei Yisroel in Flatbush.

Rabbi Mandel noted that the timing of today’s events, the first of the shloshes yemei hagbala, was extremely appropriate.
“I have been working with baalei teshuva for 30 years and you see that the Aibishter is getting together all of his children before Moshiach comes,” said Rabbi Mandel.

The Jewish community has already begun to raise funds for the new chosson and kallah and their brood with a crowd funding wedding shower campaign that was created by Alexander Rapaport, Executive Director of Masbia in hopes to raise $20,000 for essential items including new dishes, housewares, appliances, judaica items and kosher groceries.

To participate in McJunkin wedding shower, go to http://www.gofundme.com/weddingshower

The family will be returning to Chattanooga after the wedding but Steinberg speculates that they will soon be relocating to a Jewish community that will better suit their needs, possibly Baltimore.

The Family in Boro-Park this morning!

Beloved Musician Yoily Brach Succumbs to Illness at 30, Video

The following  is a letter Yoily sent out to his fellow musicians last summer:

"All my life I've worked around the clock, as in 19 hrs day, always worrying about tommorow. I never took a day off, no Sundays, vacations, a holiday. I deprived myself from every sugar, carb, red meat, drinks. I worked out for 2 full hrs EVERY day for the past 17 years. I walked around thinking "Dude, i'm in the best shape a person can be, I only eat Cancr fighting foods, I'm totally sick proof". And then from one min to the next while again thinking to myself, "I have a career, my wife has a career, I'm building a house, I've got my whole life planned out." Suddenly, out of left field, the circuit breakers went off!

My life changed forever!

There are lessons I've learned from all of this, and I'd like to pass them on to my friends. Here they are:

1. "Live today, don't worry about tommorow." And by "live" I mean use your time wisely.

2. The most important thing a person possesses is his family! When going through something traumatic like this, it's only your family that will do everything and anything to help you get through it. No money in the world will help you. All your days at work, all the money you've accumulated in the bank, cant be there to support you, and keep your mind strong. Why put work in front of your family? Why put them on the bottom of the list? When you look around, and truly realize that nobody is guaranteed with their life, regardless of their age, health condition, and worldly possessions. That is when you wake up realize "Hey, Whatever I have or have "earned" isn't because I have acquired it through my own hard work. I was given all of this to do something with it. All of these things "i worked for" was given to me for a purpose. And I now know that purpose isn't to busy myself with. To boast about my accomplishments with it. Everything you are given can be used in either 2 ways. Hold it, boast about it, stare at it and think to yourself "look what I did," Or, cherish it, use it to give back to your family. Spend your time truly making a difference in this world.

3. Realize that if you have enough money to pay your bills & you and your family are healthy, you are truly the luckiest person in the world.
Ok, my rant is now over 

Hope you're having a great summer.

Let's go for a drink sometimes 

JB"

Yoily Brach z"l on flute (left), Mo Kiss Guitar, Avi Bernstein Drums

Yoily with his daughter

Islamist Arrested In Brussels Jewish Museum Murders

French police have arrested a man suspected of being involved in the shooting deaths last weekend of four people at Brussels' Jewish Museum, official sources in Belgium and France said on Sunday.

The 29-year-old Frenchman was arrested in the southern French city of Marseilles on Friday and had a Kalashnikov and another gun with him, a French police source said. The man, from the northern city of Roubaix, had been in jail in 2012. AFP quoted sources close to the investigation as naming the suspect as Mehdi Nemmouche.

French media reported that the man was suspected of having stayed in Syria with jihadist groups in 2013.

French President Francois Hollande confirmed a suspect had been arrested and said France was determined to do all it could to stop radicalized youths from carrying out attacks.

"We will monitor those jihadists and make sure that when they come back from a fight that is not theirs, and that is definitely not ours ... to make sure that when they come back they cannot do any harm," Hollande told reporters.

The message "to these jihadists is that we will fight them, we will fight them and we will fight them", he said.

Hollande has said previously the attack was motivated by anti-Semitism.

"This is a relief," Joel Rubinfeld, head of the Belgian League against Antisemitism told BFM TV, saying he had received confirmation of the news.

"But this is also worrying us ... it is crucial that countries who have citizens who have gone to Syria take all necessary measures to make sure this does not happen again."

Police released a 30-second video clip from the museum's security cameras showing a man wearing a dark cap, sunglasses and a blue jacket enter the building, take a Kalashnikov rifle out of a bag, and shoot into a room, before calmly walking out.

Two of the four people killed in the attack, which authorities have surmised may have been motivated by anti-Semitism, were an Israeli couple from Tel Aviv who were vacationing in Belgium.

The bodies of Emanuel and Mira Riva of Tel Aviv, aged 54 and 53, were flown back to Israel last week and they were laid to rest on Tuesday.

Samuel & Diana Hirt Robbed at Gumpoint in their home, Friday Night in Beverly Hills

Hirt Home

Beverly Hills police continue their hunt for three intruders who shot an Orthodox Jewish woman last night after invading and robbing her home.

Both Samuel and Diana Hirt, who live at 420 Doheny Road in Beverly Hills, were home last night when the incident occurred at approximately 8:30 PM.
 
The Hirts host a minyan in their home and, reportedly, someone knocked on their door shortly after davening ended. The couple opened the door and three masked men barged into the their home. Police said that at least one of the men was holding a handgun.

Both Hirts were tied up by the intruders who also shot Mrs. Hirt in the leg. The robbers reportedly dragged the husband and wife throughout the house in their search for valuables. The burglars departed through the front door, fleeing the crime scene in a vehicle which drove away eastbound on Doheny Road.

Samuel Hirt untied himself after the intruders left and called police. According to CBS News, both victims were taken to Cedars Sinai Hospital, where Mrs. Hirt was treated for her injury, which was deemed to be non-life threatening. Mr. Hirt was taken to the hospital as a precautionary measure and was discharged today.
The Santa Monica Police Department conducted a search of the area with the Los Angeles Police Department, but so far, no suspects have been located.
Police did not say what items were taken from the home.

Blogger Rabbi Harry Maryles Defends Novominsker Rebbe's Criticism of "Open Orthodoxy"

Harry Maryles

As controversy continues to swirl around the Novominsker Rebbe’s public condemnation of Open Orthodoxy at the Agudah Dinner this past week,
the Modern Orthodox Rabbi and author of a popular blog on Orthodox Jewish thought has publicly expressed his own assessment of Open Orthodoxy, agreeing that it is inconsistent with Orthodox Judaism.

Rabbi Harry Maryles, a Chicago resident who writes the blog Emes V’emunah, said the despite the fallout from Rabbi Perlow’s remarks, there are times when it is imperative to speak out.
“There has been a lot of negative reaction, but sometimes you have to stand up and say the truth, when Torah hashkafa is being called into question you can’t let it go unchallenged.”

 Rabbi Perlow had harsh words for Open Orthodoxy, likening it to the Conservative and Reform movements and calling it “heresy.”

 

Maryles, who was in Rabbi Perlow’s 12th grade shiur at Beis Medrash L’Torah in Skokie,Illinois believes that there are two components that are integral to being an Orthodox Jew.
“One is the belief system, believing that the events in the Torah actually happened, The second is following the mitzvos. Those are the two things that make you Orthodox.”

Of particular concern to Maryles are public statements made by proponents of Open Orthodoxy, including Rabbi Zev Farber, a graduate of Yeshiva Chovevei Torah.
“After studying bible critics, he very strongly questioned whether events in the Torah actually happened and said that they were allegorical,” said Maryles. “No Torah was given at Sinai. Moshe Rabbeinu didn’t exist. The Avos didn’t exist. His understanding of the Torah is that it was an unfolding revelation and that while the bible is divinely inspired, the actual events described couldn’t have happened. This is apikorsus and has be to labeled as that.”

Allowing for the possibility that the events in the Torah didn’t actually take place puts Open Orthodoxy in the same category as Conservative Judiasm, says Maryles.
“Conservatives don’t require you to believe in biblical criticism, but they consider it legitimate and Open Orthodoxy is doing the same thing,” noted Maryles. “In terms of theology they are the same. That is kefira and violates at least some of the thirteen ikarim of the Rambam, which we have accepted as the basis of our faith for generations.”

Rabbi Asher Lopatin, president of Yeshiva Chovevei Torah, which describes itself as an “open Modern Orthodox rabbinical school”, invited Rabbi Perlow to further discuss the issue at hand.
“I welcome the Novominsker into the conversation of how all of us Orthodox Jews can bring the light of Torah to all Jews, in a meaningful way,” said Rabbi Lopatin. “Yes, the Novominsker Rebbe’s words were harsh, especially for a fellow Chicagoan, but I hope it can lead to a healthy engagement and discussion. We at Yeshiva Chovevei Torah, our talmidim and musmachim, are ready to learn from and listen to all who have a Torah message. That is what inclusive, passionate and Modern Orthodoxy is all about.”

Maryles said that his rejection of Open Orthodoxy has not necessarily been well received by all.
“I have gotten a lot of flak from my friends on the left, but I have to speak the truth. Proponents of Open Orthodoxy claim that they believe in the Torah but they allow someone like Zev Farber to be a member in good standing and they allow the negation of events in the Torah as part of their theology. You can’t do that and still call yourself Orthodox.”

While there were those who advised him to stay silent, saying that his statements would alienate those who currently consider themselves to be Open Orthodox, but might one day step up their religious observance and beliefs.
“You can’t accept kefira as a method of kiruv,” observed Maryles.
Maryles declined to comment on whether or not the Agudah dinner was the proper venue for the Novominsker’s attack on Open Orthodoxy, although he agreed that with the secular media in attendance, it might not have been the best time to take on this topic.
“I am not going to second guess or criticize the Rebbe,” said Maryles. “I am not in a position to criticize someone of his stature but as a leading rabbi in America, he has a right to speak out.”

 

Hillary Clinton in New Book says: Video caused attack on Bengazi? She wants to be President?

The liar tries to weasel out of the truth, and writes in her book, (Bold lettering is ours):

"there were “scores of attackers that night, almost certainly with differing motives. It is inaccurate to state that every single one of them was influenced by this hateful video. 
It is equally inaccurate to state that none of them were. Both assertions defy not only the evidence but logic as well.”

Excuse us, Miss Liar, this was a well planned attack,to coincide with 9/11 anniversary, and nobody ever heard or seen the video!

And Administration officials themselves who originally attributed the Benghazi attack to the video  retracted that account following criticism.

Clinton also writes that she didn’t see cables requesting additional security, a point she made during her congressional testimony in 2013.

Isn't this your job as Secretary of State, Miss President Wannabe?
If you didn't see the cables, you have no business being an administrator of State Department. Stay in retirement! 

Listen to this Chutzpah:
"Those who exploit this tragedy over and over as a political tool minimize the sacrifice of those who served our country,”

Miss "old bag" .....  an ambassador of the United States was brutally raped and then murdered, you don't think we ought to know what happened?"

Miss ("At this point, what difference does it make?") Clinton,"stay out of our lives! 

Gedolim speak to 10,000 empty chairs, set for Ladies Asifah against the internet!

The Yeshivah World Blog reports that the Gedolim spoke to 10,000 ladies at an Asifah whose agenda was to rant  against the internet, but they only posted pictures of empty chairs!

Just asking: Who was taking care of  the approximately 50,000 children that were home?

Another dumb question: why were they afraid to post the pictures of the ladies? For The guys on the internet? The guys know where to look if they want to look at ladies; they aren't looking at the "Asifah Cholent Ladies" believe me on this one!

No cheesecake to the husbands this Yom Tov! No time for that, must run to the Asifah!

10,000 invisible ladies

Some more invisible ladies

Gedolim addressing the empty chairs

More Gedolim addressing empty chairs!

This Gadol closes his eyes, not to G-D forbid peek at an empty chair!

Meir Porush tells embattled Jews in Europe that "It may not be better for Jews in Israel"

Sounds familiar?
Didn't the Satmarer Rebbe, R' Yoel Teitelbaum z"l, and the Belzer Rebbe z'l and others tell European Jews to stay where they are before WW2 broke out? Even those who held visas to Palestine?

Well, this Shaygatz, Meir "PourCrap' Porush is mimicking those same words to the Jews that are facing severe anti-Semitism in the European countries!

Tell me, guys, why is this not like what the "meraglim" said?
I'll bet that in a couple of years the Yeshivishe World will re-write what this "Shaigatz" just said.

MK Meir Porush of United Torah Judaism today dismissed a call by presidential hopeful MK Meir Sheetrit of Hatnua on European Jews to move to Israel, in the wake of the strengthening of extremist parties in the European parliament.
Arutz Sheva reports that Porush responded to Sheetrit by saying that the situation in Israel for chareidim may not be better than in Europe. “Over there they are interested in preventing the Jews from their share of the budget and here it is done to the chareidim,” he charged.

40 Beit Hillel "Gedolim" Pasken that Girls Can Join the IDF!

The Beit Hillel association of national-religious rabbis issued a ruling in Jewish law on Wednesday that women are permitted to perform military service, despite the longstanding opposition by the Chief Rabbinate and several senior rabbis.

The ruling came on the same day that a Knesset committee hearing found that the majority of religious girls’ schools do not allow the IDF to brief pupils about their enlistment options.

 

The debate surrounding national-religious women serving in the army has become increasingly strong within the community, as increasing numbers of women from the sector have enlisted.

In January, Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef reiterated the Chief Rabbinate’s longstanding prohibition on women’s enlistment, which prompted Finance Minister and Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid to call for him to be fired.

Additionally, senior rabbinical figures from the national-religious community’s more conservative wing, such as Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, have come out strongly against the phenomenon and have actively tried to halt the trend.

In the position paper that Beit Hillel issued on Wednesday, the association provided various sources from Jewish legal texts, emphasizing in particular not only the permissibility of women serving in the army, but women’s obligation to take part in wars for the defense of the Jewish people and the national effort required for this task.
“The purpose of this position paper is to encourage young women to enlist in the service of the people and the land – substantial service, whether in the national service program or in the IDF, as befits someone who sees herself as a graduate of the religious- Zionist education system,” the organization’s rabbis wrote.

In 1950, chief rabbis Yitzhak Halevi Herzog and Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel issued a ruling explicitly forbidding women to join the IDF.

The national service program was established to provide a solution for religious women who nevertheless wanted to contribute to the state.

One of the central concerns in Jewish law on the issue is the comparison that the Talmud makes between “men’s clothes” – which women are forbidden to wear – and military weapons. This comparison – along with a statement in the Talmud that “it is not the way of women to go to war” – was the basis for rabbinic bans on women’s enlistment.

More than 40 rabbis from Beit Hillel deliberated these and other issues in recent months and issued their decision, which argues that medieval Jewish scholars’ interpretation of the relevant Talmudic passages does not prevent women from serving in the army, especially since the wars and military operations Israel conducts today can be considered obligatory under Jewish law due to the real threat to Jewish lives.

According to Beit Hillel director Rabbi Ronen Neuwirth, statements in recent years from senior rabbis in the national-religious community – including Eliyahu, who said serving in the army was a sin for girls, and Ramat Gan Chief Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, who has also forbidden female military service – have put the hundreds of girls who do military service in an awkward position.
“They felt let down by the senior rabbinic leadership, and we received numerous messages from such girls who were worried how they would be viewed in the community,” Neuwirth said.

The Beit Hillel rabbis also leveled criticism at the Chief Rabbinate, saying that while its position had not changed, society in general, including the national-religious community, had changed.

However, Rabbi Shlomo Aviner – a prominent national religious figure and dean of the Ateret Yerushalayim yeshiva in Jerusalem’s Old City – criticized Beit Hillel for its ruling, saying that it did not have sufficient authority to make such decisions, and noting that several senior rabbis had forbidden female enlistment.
“They are good people [in Beit Hillel], but it is the great arbiters of Jewish law who may rule on such weighty issues,” Aviner told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. “They don’t have the legitimacy or authority, and neither do I, to make such innovations, and for sure not to overrule the Chief Rabbinate.”

The rabbi said even non-combat roles in the IDF were unsuitable for women, since they involved inappropriate contact with men and were immodest.

In reference to the growing numbers of religious girls joining the army regardless of rabbinic prohibitions and the rabbinic leadership’s position, Aviner said that “the criteria of truth are not pragmatic; truth is not what people do. Sometimes people make a mistake, and there’s a need to redress the mistake.”

Beit Hillel’s position paper included a section relating to possible problems for women in the army regarding contact with men, and the possibility of suffering form sexual harassment. However, it said that the IDF had changed significantly in recent years and had become much more protective of women in its ranks against such harassment.

The organization also recommended that religious women wishing to join the IDF seek to enlist in units such as Intelligence, the Education Corps and others where there are specific frameworks for them.

Also on Wednesday, the Knesset Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women and Gender Equality found that 70 percent of religious girls’ schools did not allow IDF personnel to present information about enlistment to their pupils.

Committee chairwoman Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) criticized this position, calling it a failure of the religious school system.
“The Council for the State Religious Education System has turned a blind eye to the issue of women’s enlistment in the IDF and the changes that are happening among national religious girls,” Lavie said.