Leah Hochhauser Chained for years to a man she considered abusive; her final wish was to dissolve the marital bond. She died trying.

 

by Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll 

Leah’s nightmare was to die an agunah, denied a Jewish bill of divorce, chained to the man who she said abused her for decades.

Leah was born to a Hasidic family in Stamford Hill, London. Of her upbringing, she said, “From when I was tiny, the only thing that was ever ingrained in me was that my goal in life was to get married and have children. So much so that when I wanted to study for an exam or do something that wasn’t compulsory, I was told, ‘You don’t need this to check Pampers.’”

Leah married, had six children, and lived for years with what she described as emotional manipulation and psychological abuse. “He never told me no, she said. But he would say things like, ‘The dress you made, it’s not even nice, I don’t know why you’re wearing it. Why are you going out with those weird ladies they’re not really your friends. Why do you listen to that horrid music?’ Slowly, slowly, he chipped away at my confidence. So you stop listening to the music, you stop buying the clothes, you stop going out…But if you ask him he’ll tell you, ‘I never told her she couldn’t…’”

Leah reached out for help. Her rebbe told her to give it another try. A rebbetzin she asked for help said she should “be glad he didn’t hit you.”

UN demands that Israel restore terror funds to PA

 

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan blasted Tuesday a letter signed by over 90 United Nations member states, demanding the "immediate" reversal of Israel's punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority.

The UN General Assembly late last month approved a resolution initiated by Ramallah calling on the ICJ to "render urgently an advisory opinion" on what it called was Israel's "prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory."

The Israeli Diplomatic-Security Cabinet called the move ongoing "political and legal war" and decided, among other measures, to withhold taxes and tariffs collected on behalf of and transferred to the PA, in an amount equal to that which Ramallah paid to terrorists and their families in 2022 under its infamous "pay-for-slay" policy.

The letter was signed by representatives of the Arab and Islamic countries, including Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan, along with Western and other nations such as Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Cyprus, Japan, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.

"Regardless of each country's position on the resolution, we reject punitive measures in response to a request for an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, and more broadly in response to a General Assembly resolution, and call for their immediate reversal," the letter states.

In parallel, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he "notes with deep concern the recent Israeli measures against the Palestinian Authority," adding that there should "be no retaliation… in relation to the International Court of Justice."

In line with the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet decision, Jerusalem last week transferred 138.8 million shekels ($39.5 million) of revenues collected for the PA to Israeli victims of terrorism and their families.

At a press conference, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, "We promised to fix this, and today we are correcting an injustice. This is an important day for morality, for justice and for the fight against terrorism. There is no greater justice than offsetting the funds of the Authority, which acts to support terrorism, and transferring them to the families of the victims of terrorism."

For his part, PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said the punitive measures would "promptly lead to [the PA's] collapse." In an interview with Haaretz, Shtayyeh described the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet decision as "another nail in the Palestinian Authority's coffin, unless there is immediate intervention by the international community, namely the [Biden] administration in Washington and Arab countries."

He added, "Previous Israeli governments worked to eliminate the two-state solution, and the current government is fighting the Palestinian Authority itself."

US State Department spokesman Ned Price described the step aimed at curbing and punishing Palestinian terrorism as a "unilateral move" that "exacerbates tensions."

The PA pays monthly stipends to Palestinians, and/or their families, for carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel. In 2021, the PA paid out an estimated 512 million shekels ($157 million) as part of this "pay for slay" policy.

Watch How Arabs Use Chareidim in Their War Against Israel

 

QUNTS love these Jews. Not only do they burn the ‘Israel’ flag and talk of its destruction, but they also share our thoughts on Zionist media control and haram-osexuality. Plus they look like proper Jews from cartoons, which makes them more useful to us. pic.twitter.com/MLWRVwjqDu

— Qunts News Network (@QuntsNews) January 17, 2023

Supreme Court rules against Deri – will Netanyahu gov’t fall?

 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would remove Interior Minister Aryeh Deri from his position should the Supreme Court rule that he cannot serve in the role due to his recent criminal conviction, Israel Hayom reported Wednesday.

At 4 p.m. Wednesday, the court issued its bombshell ruling – against Deri.

Deri has publicly said that he would not comply with a ruling ordering him to step down, and would refuse to resign from his position should the court say he cannot continue as a minister.

Netanyahu must now decide whether to remove Deri from his cabinet or act in direct contravention to the Supreme Court.

“The Prime Minister will express his opposition, but in the end will fire Deri,” a source close to Netanyahu told Israel Hayom.

The source added that the premier will use the ruling as an example of judicial overreach, presumably to strengthen Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s proposed overhaul of the legal system.

“We are in the midst of a major struggle, and here is an opportunity to show people who still don’t think that we need the… reforms how wrong they are,” the source said.

In a defiant interview hours after the Israel Hayom report, Shas MK Yaakov Mergi said that Deri’s removal from power could spark a major coalition crisis and the possible collapse of the government.

“If Deri is not a minister in the government, there is no government,” Mergi told radio station Kan Reshet Bet.

Mergi added that Shas’ council of rabbinical sages, which shapes the ultra-Orthodox party’s policies and agenda, would order that Shas quit the coalition if Deri cannot serve in a ministerial position.

On Tuesday, Shas MK Avraham Bezalel said that Supreme Court justices would be “shooting themselves in the head” should they rule against Deri.

In 2000, Deri was convicted of accepting some $155,000 in bribes while serving as Interior Minister. He was imprisoned for nearly two years.

In January 2022, Deri was given a one-year suspended prison sentence and a $53,000 fine in exchange for accepting a plea bargain for criminal tax evasion charges.

As part of the deal, Deri agreed to resign from the Knesset. At the time, he was serving as an MK in the Opposition.

Jew Hater Thomas Friedman from The New York Slimes urges Biden to ‘stop’ Netanyahu

 A senior columnist for The New York Times penned an op-ed Tuesday asking President Joe Biden to prevent Israel’s new government from enacting a bill it is formulating to reform the judiciary.

Thomas Friedman, a longtime political commentator on the Middle East known for criticizing right-wing governments in Israel, has adopted the Opposition’s claim that the proposed restructuring of the balance between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government – which would give more power to those elected by the public – would wipe out democracy in the country.

According to Friedman, Biden should intervene with some “tough love in a way that no other outsider can…

“The outcome has direct implications for U.S. national security interests,” he wrote. “Israel is on the verge of a historic transformation — from a full-fledged democracy to something less, and from a stabilizing force in the region to a destabilizing one.”

To back up this idea, he referred obliquely to the brief visit National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made to Judaism’s holiest site last month that was slammed around the world as an attempt to change the status quo.

Biden should tell Netanyahu that “if extremist ministers will change the status quo on the Temple Mount,” he “will not be a patsy” on the issue “because that could destabilize Jordan, the Palestinian Authority and the Abraham Accords — which would really damage U.S. interests.”

This would be in addition to telling Netanyahu that “you are riding roughshod over American interests and values,” and that if he was “going to put [the] courts under your political authority in a way that makes Israel more like Turkey and Hungary,” the president would “not be a patsy for that,” either.

Friedman ended in nearly apocalyptic terms, writing that if the administration turns “a blind eye to Netanyahu’s judicial putsch … we’ll sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.”

Friedman advised Biden to declare that the judicial reform is unacceptable and that the U.S. will not “be Netanyahu’s useful idiots and just sit in silence.”

The picture of the Chief of Staff and his wife worth a thousand words: The mechitza that separates women and men could not separate their smiles and love."

 

Charedi photojournalist Haim Goldberg was surprised by the number of responses he received to the photo he took yesterday of Incoming IDF Chief of General Staff, Lt-Gen Herzi Halevi, and his wife Sharon at the Western Wall yesterday.

"The truth is that I didn't really expect such a number of reactions to the photo of Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and his wife that I took yesterday at the Western Wall," Goldberg, who works for the Kikar Hashabbat news website, wrote on his Twitter account. "It surprised me, and of course thank you to everyone."

The photograph unexpectedly became the picture of the day, becoming widely shared on social media, where internet users found the image heartwarming.

"The image that the chiefs of staff try to achieve throughout their term, Herzi manages to achieve on his first day," wrote former IDF Spokesperson Ronen Manelis. "Now the rest of the tasks remain. Good luck. Commander, we are all behind you."

Fellow former IDF Spokesperson Avi Benayahu added: "This is exactly what they mean when they say 'a picture is worth a thousand words'. Lieutenant Geneal Herzi Halevi and his wife Sharon at the Western Wall plaza."

Former MK Haim Yellin wrote: "This is an amazing picture. And I am moved by how the mechitza [partition] that separates women and men cannot separate their smiles and love."

Journalist Avishai Greenzeig responded to Goldberg: "You are a very talented photographer." Ofer Hadad added: "One of the best press photographers."

Rabbi Yuval Ohali wrote at length about several insights that occurred to him after looking at the photograph. "This is a picture with a mehitza in the center," he wrote. "She does not seek to take it down, to lower it or to raise it, but to give it a place of honor. This is an image that respects the place where it is taken and the role that laws, fences and safeguards have."

He added: "It's a picture that puts naturalness at the center. It reminds us that we don't have to shout or fight and that we can simply get on a chair to feel at ease. There are some who will be disturbed by it and there are some who find it the most natural thing in the world - not to break down the walls but to build bridges over them."

"This is an image that puts the family at the center. It reminds us that between spouses, siblings or parents and children there can be arguments, divisions or differences of opinions, but at the end there is also a smile, one after which it is simply impossible not to love, and this reminder at this moment is very important. This is a picture which respects and loves the IDF. It shows us the paratrooper standing in the same plaza where the paratroopers stood a few decades ago, in the same plaza where he swore his allegiance, in the same plaza where he stands today as the commander-in-chief of the IDF. There is no grandmother who will not cry at seeing it," Rabbi Ohali said.

"This is a picture that respects us viewers," he noted. "It doesn't speak to the extreme people on one side who see it as oppression or exclusion, nor to the extreme people from the other side who want to see it as breaching a fence and disrespectful. This picture speaks to us, to the majority of the Jewish public who are moved, enthusiastic and love this picture."

Jewish US Senator Rosen Stabs Israel in its Heart Refusing to Meet Israeli Ministers from the right Democratically Elected

 

The delegation of US Senators included a number of high-ranking GOP members.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Photos

 

Jews deported from the Warsaw Ghetto following the revolt of April-May 1943 

Warsaw Ghetto courtyard following the April 1943 revolt.

POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews revealed on Monday new-found images of the Nazis mercilessly putting down the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Revolt.

Captured in secret by a Polish firefighter while German forces set fire to the Jewish ghetto, the photographs were recently discovered by the photographer’s son in a family member’s attic.

The photographer, Zbigniew Leszek Grzywaczewski, spent nearly four weeks in the ghetto (most likely between April 21 and May 15, 1943). In a diary he kept during the conflict, he wrote:

“The image of these people being dragged out of there [out of the bunkers—ZSK] will stay with me for the rest of my life. Their faces[…with a deranged, absent look…figures staggering from hunger and dismay, filthy, ragged. Shot dead en masse; those still alive falling over the bodies of the ones who have already been annihilated.”

The uprising lasted from April 19 (Passover eve) through May 16, 1943, and was the largest act of Jewish resistance against the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.

“The Germans sent the firefighters into the burning ghetto—their job was to ensure the fire did not spread to the houses on the ‘Aryan’ side. It was then that the 23-year-old firefighter took the photos,” noted the museum, which is located on the site of the former ghetto.

Mount Sinai Hospital Call Cops To Drag Away Daughters Visiting Their Sick Mother and Sabotages Transfer Request

 

A post on social media describes a heartbreaking situation, in which the family of an Orthodox Jewish patient at Mt. Sinai hospital is being denied visitation access. In addition, the police were called to drag away the patient’s daughters, as they begged hospital employees for help.

According to Meyer Tauber, a friend of the family, the patient is cognitively impaired and on a respirator. They are confused, frightened, and alone, yet the hospital is refusing to allow any relatives in to comfort them and monitor their care.

It appears the hospital is saying that Covid restrictions are the basis for the denial of access to visitors.

Mr. Tauber posted, “Just hung up the phone with a distraught and horrified family member who has a cognitively impaired parent at Mount Sinai Health System, I’m in tears. The family of the cognitively impaired patient at Mount Sinai Health System have been pleading with the hospital leadership…for over a week to allow them to simply be at their parents bedside….Their pleas, though, have fallen on deaf ears, and despite the clear guidelines issued by the New York State Department of Health, they were denied bedside access.”

He went on to say that the family became so desperate, they arranged a transfer to the Cleveland Clinic, yet the hospital “sabotaged” the effort.

The post said, “Feeling like there was no choice, the family got approval from Cleveland Clinic to initiate a transfer, but their transfer request was sabotaged by Dr Adel Bassily-Marcus at Mount Sinai Health System.”

It continued, “On Saturday, after 24 hours had passed that the hospital had neglected to perform the patient’s desperately-needed dialysis session, the two young daughters respectfully implored hospital personnel to help them meet their patients needs. To their shock and dismay, the nurses summoned the police who dragged out the two daughters from the hospital building in a very rough manner.”

 

Americans shouldn’t be swayed by the Israeli left’s freakout

 

Over the past several weeks, the anger toward and determination of the opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s newly elected government has reached hysterical, and even apocalyptic, tones. This should seem familiar to Americans, who have grown accustomed to the same kind of fever-pitch discourse ever since the emergence of Donald Trump on the political scene.

Indeed, his presidency wasn’t merely opposed by foes; it was “resisted,” with conspiracy theories about his colluding with Russia to “steal” the 2016 election. Since 2020, many on the right are so disillusioned by the results of that election—and by the way the corporate media and big tech helped skew coverage and suppress stories that might embarrass the Democrats—that they no longer trust the integrity of the electoral process.

The weaponization of rhetoric has now escalated to such an extent that Democrats spent the 2022 midterms in a not-entirely-unsuccessful attempt to paint Republicans as a “threat” to democracy. Their effort is in tune with the sea change in discourse that depicts rivals not merely as wrong—an attitude that’s necessary in a system where both sides must be willing to lose and cede power when defeated—but as evil.

So perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised at the way the people and parties who lost the Nov. 1 Knesset election are reacting. The same goes for the talk about the “mortal danger” that Netanyahu’s coalition supposedly poses to Israeli democracy (as author Yossi Klein Halevi did recently in the The Times of Israel and The Atlantic), which doesn’t allow for reasonable disagreement.

Woke DA Alvin Bragg encourages anti-Semitism by Offering Palestinian PLEA DEAL who assaulted Jewish man and vowed to 'do it again'

 

Manhattan's District Attorney Alvin Bragg is under fire after offering a plea deal to a man accused of an anti-Semitic attack who said he 'would do it again.' 

Waseem Awawdeh, 24, was offered an undisclosed six-month plea deal more than a year after he was arrested on charges of attacking Joseph Borgen, 30, while yelling anti-Semitic slurs.

Awawdeh and a pro-Palestininan group targeted Borgenm, who was wearing a grey kippa, and walking toward Times Square on May 20, 2021.

The suspect faced a seven-year jail sentence and was charged with  assault as a hate crime, gang assault, menacing, aggravated harassment as a hate crime and criminal possession of a weapon.

'If I could do it again, I would do it again,' Awawdeh allegedly said at the time. 'I have no problem doing it again.' 

The brutal attack was filmed showing Awawdeh beating Borgenm with crutches before calling him a 'dirty Jew' and pepper spraying him.

State Assemblymember Dov Hikind called out Bragg decision while calling Awawdeh a 'Jew killer.'

'[Bragg] offered Waseem Awadeh a sweet plea deal with a 6mo sentence, despite the fact that the violent Jew-hater said he would try to kill Jews again and showed no remorse,' Hikind wrote on Twitter.

'Awadeh and a mob attacked Joseph Borgen who was seriously injured and feared for his life! Shameful!' 

Former New York City judge Jeanine Pirro accused Bragg of forming an 'alliance' with criminals.

'By offering a plea deal in a vicious assault, that’s a hate crime to boot, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg proves his allegiance, not only to criminals, but to those victimized because of their religion and ethnicity,' Pirro wrote. 

Awawdeh’s lawyer, Peter Marc Frankel, confirmed the DA’s plea deal offer, which was first reported by the New York Sun.  

Kalman Yeger, New York City Councilmember, added that it was 'Open Season on Jews.' 

Eating just one salmon a YEAR is equal to a month of drinking water laced with 'forever chemicals' linked to cancer

 

There's bad news for sushi fans, as new research has revealed that eating just one freshwater fish a year is the equivalent to drinking water containing 'forever chemicals' for a month. 

Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances - or PFAS - have many uses in society, but have also been linked to cancer and other health conditions.

Researchers from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) analysed 500 samples of locally caught fish fillets from bodies of water across the USA.

They calculated that eating the contaminated fish equates to drinking a month's water with a PFAS concentration of 48 parts per trillion - a level that may be harmful.

The median level of total PFAS in the fish was 9,500 nanograms per kilogram, but this increased to 11,800 nanograms per kilogram for those caught in the Great Lakes of Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario.

This is 280 times greater than the amount recorded in commercially caught and sold fish.

Man exposes himself on "Flatbush Girl's" Livestream .... Her "haters" ...Frum Women who Hate her Thought it was "funny"

 

What happened during the Instagram Live?

Adina Miles-Sash, also known as FlatbushGirl on Social Media, started her live stream on Saturday night together with another organization. 

Suddenly someone asked if he could ask a question.

 Instagram influencer Frumee Taubenfeld said that. "It seemed urgent, so she answered it and it was a male who was exposing himself."

"It occured in a space that women were having safe conversations about critical resources that may be needed for unplanned pregnancies," she said while addressing the situation on her Instagram story. "[As well as] for women who were experiencing crisis when it comes to their reproductive health and their bodily agency."

Sash shared a screenshot of a commenter saying "I am a woman laughing at you trying to defend yourself when you knew eventually things like this would pop up."

The story went viral after a Jewish podcast "Mislabeled" spoke about it on their Instagram, turning it into a joke.

 "Someone jumped onto Flatbush Girl's [Instagram] live last night, just absolutely waving his shlong for the entire world to see," the podcaster said laughing

."Whoever was put in charge of this operation, you selected the right man," he continued. "Whoever this dude is, is an absolute professional."

Researchers Verify Written Records of Dovid Hamelech, Corresponding to the Tanach

 

Detail of a portion of lines 12–16 of the Mesha Stele, reconstructed from the squeeze

The Mesha Stele, a basalt stone that contains chronicles by Mesha, King of Moab during the late 9th century BCE, was found in 1868 in Jordan, east of the Dead Sea and site of the ancient city of Dibon, capital of Moab.

Scholars had suspected that the writings, in the extinct language of the Moabites, describe events corresponding to the Book of Kings in the Tanach (Hebrew Bible, Prophets and Writings), including references to the Israelite god, the “House of David” and the “Altar of David.”

However, the section that included the historical account surrounding King David was damaged and therefore could not be verified – at least not until now.

A “squeeze” (papier-mâché impression) of the full stele had been obtained just prior to its destruction. Pieces of the original stele containing most of the inscription were later recovered and pieced together. The remainder of the stele was reconstructed from the squeeze

Thanks to photographic evidence, researchers have confirmed that the stone indeed does contain references to the biblical King David (2 Kings, Chapter 3), according to an article titled “Mesha’s Stele and the House of David” published recently in the Biblical Archaeology Review.

The Mesha Stele details the victories of King Mesha of Moab over the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the magazine reports.

“In 2015, a team from the West Semitic Research Project of the University of Southern California took new digital photographs of both the restored stela and the paper squeeze. The team used a method called Reflectance Transformation Imaging… this method is especially valuable because the digital rendering allows researchers to control the lighting of an inscribed artifact, so that hidden, faint, or worn incisions become visible,” wrote researchers Andre Lemaire and Jean-Philippe Delorme.

The stele has been part of the collection of the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1873. In 2018, the Louvre projected light onto the high-resolution images, with the result being a much clearer image, enabling verification of the contents.

Linguists have also noted the strong similarity between the Moabite and Hebrew languages.

Tali Friedman is the kosher cooking guru to the stars

 

Tali Friedman is the kosher cooking guru to politicians and celebrities — if they know who to ask.

“I don’t advertise or do any marketing,” said the Jerusalem-based mother of four. “People find me by word-of-mouth.”

Last summer she was spotted leading Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who are Jewish Orthodox, through Jerusalem’s bustling Machane Yehuda market, where the cooking instructor keeps a well-outfitted culinary atelier to teach the ways of kosher cooking.

But her business was born out of a dark time in Jerusalem.

Read Prince Harry's description of his meeting with Rabbi Sacks

Prince Harry has revealed in his tell-all memoir that he was “admonished” in person by the late former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks after he wore a Nazi uniform to a fancy dress party in 2005, at the age of 20.

In his book ‘Spare’, Harry recalls how his father sent him to the home of Rabbi Sacks and how the experience made a lasting impression on the young royal, in part because the esteemed religious leader “did not mince his words”.

Harry says:

 “Pa sent me to a holy man. 51. Bearded, bespectacled, with a deeply lined face and dark, wise eyes, he was Chief Rabbi of Britain, that much I’d been told. But right away I could see he was much more.

“An eminent scholar, a religious philosopher, a prolific writer with more than two dozen books to his name, he’d spent many of his days staring out of windows and thinking about the root causes of sorrow, of evil, of hate. He didn’t mince words.

“He condemned my actions. He wasn’t unkind, but it had to be done. There was no way round it. He also placed my stupidity in historical context. He spoke about the six million, the annihilated. Jews, Poles, dissenters, intellectuals, homosexuals. Children, babies, old people, turned to ash and smoke. A few short decades ago.

“I’d arrived at his house feeling shame. I now felt something else, a bottomless self-loathing. But that wasn’t the rabbi’s aim. That certainly wasn’t how he wanted me to leave him. He urged me not to be devastated by my mistake, but instead to be motivated. He spoke to me with the quality one often encounters in truly wise people: forgiveness.

“He assured me that people do stupid things, say stupid things, but it doesn’t need to be their intrinsic nature. I was showing my true nature, he said, by seeking to atone. Seeking absolution. To the extent that he was able, and qualified, he absolved me. He gave me grace. He told me to lift my head, go forth, use this experience to make the world better.”

Watch this Female IDF Soldier Say "Shma Yisroel" at her Conversion!

 

Neturei Karta Thug who visited terrorist's family released from detention

 

After four days of detention, the Jerusalem Magistrate Court released a member of the extremist Neturei Karta sect who met with the family of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist in Jenin under limited conditions.

Under the limited conditions, the extremist will be distanced from Judea and Samaria for 180 days, he will be forbidden from contacting any of those who were involved in the case for two months, and he will be obligated to pay a 5,000 NIS personal and 3rd party bail and a 1000 NIS cash deposit.

Last Monday, a delegation from the radical sect visited Jenin and stayed in the home of Islamic Jihad leader Bassam al-Saadi. The delegation met several senior members of the terrorist organization and declared their support for the Palestinian cause.

They also met with Fatah secretary general Ata Abu Ramila.

A member of the delegation explained: "We are Palestinian Jews, we want to live under the Palestinian flag and not the Israeli flag, in one country, which is the Palestinian state."

Police arrested one of the three Neturei Karta members who met with terrorists from Islamic Jihad in Jenin earlier this week on suspicion of supporting and identifying with a terrorist organization and illegally entering Area A of Judea and Samaria, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority.

1.7 million Israeli immigration records spanning 1919 to 1979 made available online for free.

 

The genealogy website MyHeritage posted 1.7 million Israeli immigration records online this week, making accessible a trove of ship and plane passenger lists stored in bound tomes at the Israel State Archives.

The records cover arrivals to the country for about 60 years starting in 1919. They include details such as the name of immigrants, country of origin, birth year, date of arrival, destination city and the name of the vessel they arrived on.

MyHeritage is billing the records as the Israeli version of the Ellis Island database, and historians and genealogists have endorsed this view, calling the release a major moment for the field.

“The amount of information now available, and for free, is huge,” said Garri Regev, president of the Israel Genealogy Research Association.

The records are not just for experts; anyone interested in looking for details about the immigration of their relatives or others can use this dedicated website and search by names and other details.

Knowledge of Hebrew, the language of the original immigration lists, isn’t required. MyHeritage, headquartered in Or Yehuda, Israel, and Salt Lake City, Utah, ran every record through translation software, making them searchable in English and other languages. (Salt Lake City is a hub of genealogical research because it is home to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, known as the Mormon Church, which has a theological interest in ancestry.)

The Israeli data is comprehensive but not complete: Some immigration lists were missing from the archives, and some were in poor condition, affecting the quality of the scan. But genealogists encourage the public not to give up too quickly since names may have changed and spellings vary.

“You have to be creative when you search,” said Rose Feldman, who develops databases for the Israel Genealogy Research Association. “Sometimes it is by looking for the child accompanying the parents, sometimes by searching by the given name and year of birth or if you know the year of arrival. It is free, so it is just your time that is required.”

MyHeritage was an Israeli-owned company until it was acquired by Francisco Partners, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, for a reported $600 million in 2021.

Asked why the company went through the work of digitizing and indexing the files only to provide access to information for free, MyHeritage’s director of public relations, Sarah Vanunu, said the company has released records for free in the past and that doing so is part of its public mission.

“We see it as part of our mission to connect people with their family history through important historical records and amazing collections, and a gift to the community,” Vanunu said.

Charedim to Goldknopf on Attacking Shabbat Train Works: You Make Everyone Hate Us

 

By

David Israel

Last week, I reported that United Torah Judaism Chairman and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf sent a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Transportation Minister Miri Regev (Likud), demanding that the works being conducted on the railroad over the weekend be canceled (Goldknopf Ushering the Next Big Crisis over Train Works that Can Only Be Done on Shabbat).

On Monday morning, Kan 11 news reported that Goldknopf’s partners at UTJ are unhappy with his move. The news outlet cited Gafni’s people in UTJ (the Lithuanians) who said that “this is a mistake since any public attempt to deal with issues related to Shabbat causes the general public to be angry with the Haredi parties and this leads to incitement against them.”

Shas officials also criticized the chairman of UTJ who hails from the Hasidic faction of Agudat Israel, saying that “this should have been discussed in-camera and handled quietly and behind the scenes.”

Had Israel Railways obeyed Goldknopf’s decree against works on Shabbat, it would have had to suspend service on weekdays, since the electrifying of the rails cannot be done only at night. The result would have been an increase in traffic jams that would make––to name but one problem––ambulance response slower, placing human lives at risk. Now, if that doesn’t qualify as pikuach nefesh (desecrating Shabbat for the sake of saving a life), I don’t know what does.

But the Lithuanians in UTJ were doubly upset with the Hasidic chairman because he put them in a spot where they couldn’t publicly support desecrating Shabbat and so they had to go along, against their best judgment.

One shouldn’t go into politics unless one is prepared to betray all his principles and sell his grandmother in the same deal.

Transport Minister Miri Regev (Likud) responded to Goldknopf’s demand by announcing that she would give it the most serious consideration and make the strongest effort to comply by eliminating the works that were not crucial at the pikuach nefesh level – which, in practice, meant nothing was going to change.

Likud members have called on their Haredi coalition partners to “work together on finding appropriate solutions,” which also means absolutely nothing is going to change.