Sunday, January 22, 2023
Wall Street Journal Says that Israel Needs Judicial Reform Says "Supreme Court the way its now Is ‘Threat To Democracy’ In answer to Thomas Friedman
After New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman called Tuesday for President Biden to intervene in Israel’s judicial reforms, claiming that they will negatively impact US regional security concerns, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial supporting exactly those reforms.
The article explained that “Israel’s Supreme Court has more power than America’s but without the democratic checks. Unbound by any constitution, and loosed from requirements of standing and justiciability, Israel’s court strikes down laws that it finds merely ‘unreasonable’ which can cover most anything. Israel’s court even has a veto on the appointment of new justices, in contrast to the U.S. where the President and Senate share the appointment power.”
The paper cited the example of the court’s revoking Deri’s appointment as minister, despite the fact that no law was cited to keep him out of the government. The tendentious claim that the appointment was “unreasonable in the extreme” was an attempt to deprive voters of their democratic rights. The article conceded that “the court may be making the sounder judgment on character, but in a democracy that decision is left to voters and the politicians they elect. By vetoing the appointment anyway, the court interferes with the power of the people to pick their leaders, via a legislature that makes the law and an executive who fills out the cabinet.”
The paper concluded that “with this action, the court has provided clear evidence of its overreach, making the best argument for the Israeli right’s judicial reforms.”
The article also cited the fear that the court “will next reject as unreasonable any reforms to the court itself,” and this could lead to a constitutional crisis in Israel but stressed that Israeli democracy is “resilient” and would know how to attenuate the court’s overweening power.
Saturday, January 21, 2023
Camel'eh Harris Gives a lesson in Electricity ... Treats Adults like 3 year-olds
Kamala Harris explains electricity pic.twitter.com/3e3TL9ZqpH
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 20, 2023
Watch Al Gore Un-hinged ... To think that he almost made it to the Presidency
Is Al Gore okay? pic.twitter.com/qhSmzgMvz2
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) January 19, 2023
Friday, January 20, 2023
The unhinged reaction to the new Israeli government
The unhinged reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government represents a crisis for the Jewish people both in Israel and in the Diaspora.
This crisis is not principally over the divisions that have obviously opened up within the Jewish world. It is over the fact that so many Israelis and Diaspora Jews have now shown that they have only the shallowest understanding of what being the Jewish people actually means.
The histrionics of this reaction defy belief. Words and phrases like “criminal,” “authoritarian,” “morally corrupt” and “fascist” are being bandied about to describe the new government, even though it has done nothing criminal, authoritarian, corrupt or fascist. Indeed, it has hardly done anything at all yet, since it only came into existence three weeks ago.
One of the most imbecilic poses being struck, by no less than former Prime Minister Yair Lapid, among others, is telling the public to overturn the government to save Israeli democracy. But the only people threatening democracy are those inciting civil war to overturn a government that has been democratically elected by the people.
Boruch Taub and Binyamin Chafetz both residents of Cleveland, tragically killed in plane crash near the Westchester County Airport
The Jewish community in Cleveland was plunged into mourning Thursday night as word spread of a horrific tragedy which took the lives of two of its well-known Baalei Chesed.
Boruch Taub Z”L and Binyamin Chafetz Z”L, both residents of Cleveland, were tragically killed in a plane crash near the Westchester County Airport
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, a Beechcraft A36 being piloted by Boruch Taub Z”L reported engine troubles at about 5:25pm local time when it was about one mile from the Westchester County Airport. A call was then made to report low oil pressure and an emergency was declared a few minutes later. A “MAYDAY” was heard over air traffic control minutes later, after which no contact was made with the aircraft.
The plane had departed from JFK Airport to Cuyahoga County Airport in Richmond Heights, Ohio and had diverted to Westchester County Airport to attempt an emergency landing, but sadly never made it there.
Search and rescue teams combed the area for hours, locating the wreckage just before 11:00pm. Sources say that the plane was found in the trees on a small island on a reservoir just near Westchester County Airport.
Misaskim and Rockland Chaveirim were on the scene around an hour after the incident, and are working closely with NTSB and other Federal, State and Local authorities to ensure proper Kavod Hames.
Thursday, January 19, 2023
IDF Soldiers Throws Italian Activist "klavta" Over His soldier and Israel then deports her
Israel deported an Italian activist to Italy after security forces detained her during a raid in the West Bank, Israeli authorities said Tuesday, accusing her of having links to a Palestinian militant group.
The Israeli military arrested Stefania Costantini during a pre-dawn incursion Monday into the the Dheisha refugee camp in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
Footage shared on social media shows an Israeli soldier picking up Costantini and flipping her over his shoulders as she shrieks. A group of soldiers drag her out of the camp and shove her into a military vehicle, videos show.
Italian media described Costantini as an advocate for Palestinian rights. Israel’s Shin Bet security service said Costantini was arrested on suspicion of belonging to, and transferring funds to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The militant group, known as the PFLP, was involved in hijacking passenger planes in the 1960s and 1970s and later claimed responsibility for suicide attacks during the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in the early 2000s. It is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
The Shin Bet said Costantini arrived in Israel on May 2 last year on a tourist visa and was summoned for interrogation last September about her alleged involvement with the PFLP. Costantini did not report to authorities “and even continued her activities” for the militant group, the security agency said. Israel deported her on Monday afternoon, the Interior Ministry said.
The COBAS leftist labor union in Pisa, Italy, to which Costantini belongs, expressed “consternation” at the news of her arrest and deportation. The union said it was concerned for Costantini’s “health and safety.”
The group described Costantini as a specialist working with students with disabilities who has long sought to defend “those whose rights are denied.” Several months ago, the group said, Costantini left her life in Italy and moved to a Palestinian refugee camp. It made no mention of the Israeli security agency’s allegations.
The Italian consulate in Jerusalem did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Israeli and Italian foreign ministries also did not comment.
But on Monday, the day of Costantini’s deportation, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen wrote on Twitter that he held a phone conversation with his Italian counterpart. The readout of the call focused on the countries’ joint efforts to “fight terrorism” and boost their “political cooperation.” It made no mention of Costantini’s case.
Israel has stepped up its fight in recent years against Palestinian activists and rights groups. Last summer, the Israeli military raided and shuttered the offices of Palestinian human rights organizations that it designated as terrorist groups over their alleged links to the PFLP. Nine European countries rejected Israel’s charges against the rights groups, citing a lack of evidence.
Rosh Yeshivas Son Puts on Tefillin After His Father's Response to a Lady Goes Viral
Just last week we posted a video that went viral about a Rosh Yeshiva admitting that is own son wasn't wearing tefillin. Now his son put on tefilin in response1
A truly amazing story took place this past Shabbos in Cleveland, during a special community weekend of Chizuk spent with the Mir Yeshiva of Eretz Yisrael.
A local community member related the following story on a video which was posted to Twitter: On Shabbos, a certain Russian Baalas Teshuva whose son is currently studying in the Mir in Eretz Yisrael approached one of the Mirrer Roshei Yeshiva who was there for Shabbos, and expressed her gratitude about the fact that her son is the first person in her family to wear Tefillin in 150 years.
The Rosh Yeshiva replied, “Please give me a bracha, because my own son does not wear Tefillin, please give a bracha that he resumes wearing Tefillin.”
This story alone is truly inspiring, especially observing the humility and sincerity of the Rosh Yeshiva. However the story does not end there.
The son of the Rosh Yeshiva was informed about the story of the Russian mother, and was apparently so moved and inspired, he put on Tefillin and said Shema, and recorded it.
In a video, he said “For the woman in Cleveland, the story moved me, I’m the son of the Rosh Yeshiva and this is for you.”
A woman asked for a bracha from a major rabbi whose son started wearing tefillin.
— David/Dovid Bashevkin (@DBashIdeas) January 18, 2023
Rabbi turned around and asked her for a bracha for *his* son that stopped wearing tefillin.
Now that Rabbi’s son shared his own video.
The original video That Rabbi’s Son pic.twitter.com/d0mObVXhMD
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
Leah Hochhauser Chained for years to a man she considered abusive; her final wish was to dissolve the marital bond. She died trying.
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
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
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| Jews deported from the Warsaw Ghetto following the revolt of April-May 1943 |
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| 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.
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.”
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
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.
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