Thursday, February 23, 2023
Wednesday, February 22, 2023
R’ Yaakov Horowitz on Pictures of Women in Jewish Publications
Tuesday, February 21, 2023
First reading of bills related to the judicial reform approved in the Knesset
The Knesset on Monday night approved the first reading of the first two laws of the judicial reform being promoted by Minister Yariv Levin.
Two bills, which relate to the Basic Law: The Judiciary, were voted upon. The two clauses which were approved are a clause dealing with changing the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee, so that it has a majority of members of the coalition, as well as a clause that will prevent the Supreme Court from striking down Basic Laws.
The bills were approved by a majority of 63 MKs who voted in favor and 47 who voted against. They will now be returned to the Knesset Constitution Committee, which will prepare them for their second and third readings.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin said after the vote, "We have taken a very important step in the process of correcting the judicial system. No longer a legal system that belongs to the elites, no longer an aristocracy. From now on - the court will belong to everyone. I am again calling on the leaders of the opposition and its members - show responsibility. Sit down and negotiate. Understandings can be reached. But the legislation cannot be watered down. I am determined to pass the reform - and nothing will deter me."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters upon leaving the plenum, "An important night and a big day. We need to enter into negotiations without preconditions."
DemonRats Are Supporting People with Dementia Running the Government.. From President to Senators
Once upon a time we mocked the Soviet Union for its gerontocracy. Aged party leaders, bundled up in overcoats and fur hats to the point of near-unrecognizability, would be wheeled out to sit, immobile, as parades passed or party congresses opened. Their withered, stale leadership was emblematic of the decaying USSR’s withered, stale ideology — and industrial base.
But now the joke’s on us. A leading United States senator, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), can’t seem to remember important things, like her just-taken vote on a judicial nominee and her just-announced retirement. “Did I vote for that?” she asked an aide Wednesday, moments after leaving the chamber.
The day before, the oldest sitting senator announced she wouldn’t seek another term — or her staff did, anyway. Asked about her coming retirement an hour after the statement posted, Feinstein said, “Well, I haven’t made that decision. I haven’t released anything.” A staffer told her she had. As The Post reported, “an incredulous-sounding Feinstein” said, “You put out the statement?” before telling reporters, “I didn’t know they put it out.”
Well, Feinstein is 89. She shouldn’t be expected to remember things too well at that age. But maybe she shouldn’t be expected to serve two more years in the Senate, either.
Muslims Praise Congress for removing Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs Committee
Accusations of Islamophobia came almost immediately after the U.S. House of Representatives voted earlier this month to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from its Foreign Affairs Committee. The vote followed repeated promises from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to remove the congresswoman due to her history of antisemitic and anti-Israel remarks.
Omar took to CNN’s State of the Union show, saying “it is politically motivated, and in some cases, motivated by the fact that many of these members don’t believe a Muslim refugee, an African, should even be in Congress, let alone have the opportunity to serve on the Foreign Affairs Committee.”
If the censure of Omar is Islamophobic, that would be news to several Muslim reform groups that work to combat radical Islamism and praised McCarthy’s decision to remove Omar from the committee.
Asra Q. Nomani, co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement and a former professor at Georgetown University, told JNS that Omar is “a lieutenant in a dangerous network of leftists and anti-Israel Muslims that I call the ‘Woke Army.’ ”
New York Times Accuses Kiryas Yoel of diverting Millions of Dollars from Disabled Children to their other Moisdois
Kiryas Joel, a village north of New York City, has for years run a public school district that was created to serve Hasidic children with disabilities. The district has directed millions of dollars to the community’s private religious schools. https://t.co/cH2Kv9F7kA
— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 20, 2023
Response from KJ
The NY Times is continuing their attack on the Hasidic Jewish community by maligning the duly elected members of the Kiryas Joel School District Board of Education, who volunteer their time to support special needs students.
— Joel M. Petlin (@Joelmpetlin) February 20, 2023
This is our official response. Please share it widely. https://t.co/5s0nhqHlwk pic.twitter.com/TGrHRDZBbe
Monday, February 20, 2023
Building in Judea and Samaria is the best response to terrorism
The foreign ministers said that they "strongly oppose unilateral actions which will only serve to exacerbate tensions between Israelis and Palestinians and undermine efforts to achieve a negotiated two-state solution."
My favorite part of this statement is the term "unilateral." Retroactively denominating and proactively planning homes for Israelis in Judea and Samaria is apparently forbidden unilateral action. And I ask: What does unilateral mean in this context?
Does it mean that without Palestinian or American approval Israel must not move an inch? Does it mean that absent a Palestinian partner for peace who is willing to come to terms with reality – which is that Judea and Samaria are part of the Jewish people's patrimony and that much of this area will become Israeli sovereign territory in any future peace accord – the "Jewish settlement situation" should be frozen?
(This, of course, as opposed to Palestinian settlement activity in Area C of the West Bank which continues at breakneck speed with European funding and support.)
Well, in the eyes of at least some international observers I fear that this is exactly what "unilateral" means. Full stop. Israel has no legitimacy whatsoever over the Green Line, and it should begin dismantling settlements – never mind that it should not arrogantly add to the settlements.
And even more so, I sense that in their eyes, it means that the State of Israel itself is retroactively one big mistaken unilateral action taken by the wayward Jews against the "indigenous" Palestinian people and against a so-called "international consensus."
To all this, I have the following to say:
Re-establishment of a Jewish homeland in the Land of Israel after two thousand years of dispersion and persecution indeed was a "unilateral" action taken by the Jewish people!
Jews unilaterally decided to rally around the Zionist banner and reclaim Zion. Over the past 120 years they unilaterally fought their way back into the Land of Israel against Ottoman, British, and Arab opposition.
Missing in Haifa Yulia Zatz
A search and rescue effort in Israel's north turned dangerous over Shabbat when a live grenade was discovered near a populated area.
Yulia Zatz, a 44-year-old resident of Kiryat Bialik, vanished from her home on February 15. The Israel Police's rescue units and the Israel Dog Unit (IDU), a nonprofit specializing in locating missing persons, conducted extensive searches for her in the city and the surrounding countryside. The search continued over Shabbat out of fear for her life.
While searching for Yulia, the IDU search dog Maggie, along with her handler, found a live grenade in a field near the city. Police sappers were called to the scene and neutralized the grenade to render the area safe for continued search efforts. At another time during the search, a hostile individual was spotted near the search area and tracked down with the help of the IDU's working dogs.
The searchers used a variety of means to try and locate Yulia, including dogs, drones, bicycles, ATVs, and a proprietary incident management software. Unfortunately, she has not been located, and anyone with information as to her whereabouts is asked to contact the Israel Police at 100 or the Israel Dog Unit at 0544876709.
Eida Hachareidis Planning Huge Protest in Support of Arsonist Who Burned Down a Store and was unsuccessful in burning a family of 11 Living Upstairs
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| The "rotzeiach" Yeoshua Dadon |
*Beit Shemesh News*
A huge demonstration is being planned to be held tomorrow by the 'Eida Hachreidis ' in Jerusalem, in protest of the arrest of Yehoshua Dadon, a resident of the city (Beit Shemesh), against whom an indictment was filed for setting fire to a cell phone store in Jerusalem.
*בית שמש חדשות*
*הפגנת ענק* מתוכננת להערך מחר על ידי 'העדה החרדית' בירושלים, במחאה על מעצרו של יהושוע דדון תושב העיר נגדו הוגש כתב אישום באשמת הצתת חנות סלולר בירושלים.
Suspect in Shooting of Jews in L.A. Was Out on Bail for Gun Charges
The suspect who allegedly shot and wounded two Jews near synagogues in L.A. last week was out on bail for charges related to possessing a loaded gun on a public university campus last year.
Jaime Tran, 28, was arrested last week in connection with the shootings, which are being investigated as hate crimes. According to local police, the former dental student, who is now apparently homeless, had a history of making antisemitic statements.
Moreover, he had previously been arrested for a gun-related crime — but was out on bail. The Los Angeles Times reported (emphasis added):
The arrest Thursday evening of a suspect confirmed fears that the attacks were targeted. Jaime Tran — who authorities say has a history of making antisemitic statements, often specifically about Persian Jews — was taken into custody in connection with the shootings.
Tran, 28, was charged Friday with federal hate crimes. He admitted to police that he searched for a kosher market on Yelp before the shootings, according to a complaint unsealed in federal court in Los Angeles. If convicted, he faces life without parole in federal prison, prosecutors said. He was caught July 3 carrying a loaded handgun onto the Cal State Long Beach campus, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Police got a call about a man with a gun near the engineering school and approached him. Tran surrendered and told officers he was carrying the weapon for protection, according to prosecutors. That case, for which he was out on bail, remains open.
Daniel Russo a "Shoimer Shabbos" Pharmacist Admits selling $ 1 Million Illegal Drugs .. Is it any wonder why our teenagers are over dosing? They have help!
This sick criminal is the direct cause of supplying our children with illegal drugs. He was on the frontline as a pharmacist and had a great opportunity to talk to these teenagers of the dangers of taking drugs instead he supplied them with it. Howsick and demented?
A pharmacist in cahoots with crooked doctors admitted to illegally selling about $1 million worth of oxycodone pills out of his Queens drug store, the feds say.
Daniel Russo, 44, of Cedarhurst, LI, copped to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute oxycodone, distribution and possession of oxycodone, and filing false personal and corporate tax returns in Brooklyn federal court Friday, according to prosecutors.
“Russo was a drug dealer in a white coat,” Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, wrote in a statement.
“He abused his pharmacy license and the trust placed in him by the community to illegally distribute enormous amounts of oxycodone, spreading misery in the community and fueling addiction, all to enrich himself.”
The owner of Russo’s Pharmacy in Far Rockaway conspired with medical professionals and employees to fill fraudulent prescriptions of the addictive drug in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash between 2011 and 2014, prosecutors alleged.
Russo then failed to report more than $1 million in earnings, much of which he made from the illicit drug scheme, officials said.
More than a dozen doctors who Russo filed prescriptions for have already been convicted in connection with the oxycodone distribution scheme, according to the Department of Justice.
“At the same time Daniel Russo was illegally peddling oxycodone out of his pharmacy, he was pocketing – and not paying taxes on – income from those sales and others in his business,” said Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Goldberg.
“Everyone is required to pay their fair share of taxes, whether they make their money legitimately or through criminal activity,” the prosecutor said in a statement.
Russo now faces up to 67 years in federal prison, according to the feds.
Israeli Minister Tells Us Ambassador To ‘Mind His Own Business’ On Judicial Reforms
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| Amichai Chikli |
Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli rebuked U.S. Ambassador Tom Nides on Sunday, after the American envoy jumped into the debate over Jerusalem’s proposed judicial reform package.
“I say to the American ambassador, slam the breaks on yourself and mind your own business,” said Chikli regarding Nides’s call for the Israeli government to modify its initiative. “You’re not the sovereign here. We’d be happy to debate with you international or security affairs, but respect our democracy,” he added.
“The relationship with the United States is very important, but this intervention by Nides is very problematic,” said Chikli.
Satmar Purchases Yeshiva Torah Temimah Building On Ocean Parkway
Yeshiva Torah Temimah, the school that supported Kolko, the sexual pervert, has been sold to Satmar.
The purchase of the building was revealed at a Motzei Shabbos dinner benefiting the Mosdos of Satmar in Boro Park under the leadership of the Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg, HaRav Zalman Leib Teitelbaum.
The building being purchased by the chassidus is located on the corner of Ocean Parkway and Ditmas Avenue, and housed Torah Temimah’s Mesivta and Bais Medrash for decades.
Yeshiva Torah Temimah was founded and built by the Rosh Yeshiva, Rabbi Lipa Margolis, in 1958. Rabbi Margolis started off as a bus driver for Yeshiva Torah Vadaas and then graduated to being their star fund raiser. When R' Margolis started his own Yeshivah, he called it Yeshiva Torah Vadaas. The Real Torah Vadaas then took him to Bais Din, and R' Margolis was forced to change the name to Torah Temimmah.
The yeshiva grew to prominence between 1980 and 2000. He was Niftar in January 2022. The Rosh Yeshiva, Hagoan HaRav Shlomo Feivel Schustal, left the Yeshiva around 10 years ago, and opened his own Bais Medrash in Lakewood due to the number of Bochrim at the yeshiva growing smaller as the Litvish community in Flatbush declined.
Satmar announced that the name of the building will be “Binyan Lipa Friedman,” who donated $5 Million dollars towards the purchase. Lipa is a son of the famous “Moshe Gabbai” of Satmar.
Torah Temimah still runs a vibrant Yeshiva K’tana and Mesivta in their original building on the same street, located at 555 Ocean Parkway. Sources say that the funds of this building sale will not be going to the current Yeshiva Torah Temimah on Ocean Parkway, but to the other Mosdos of the original Torah Temimah, currently located in Staten Island.
The news is bittersweet for thousands upon thousands of Bochrim (now married with children) who learned in Torah Temimah, and for those who were abused by the Yeshiva's star teacher, Rabbi Kolko who abused any boy that could walk.
Chuster Rav, HaRav Shmuel Shmelke Leifer
Harav Shmuel Shmelke Leifer zt”l of Boro Park, passes away.
Throughout his life, Rav Shmuel was a sought-after speaker, whose sagely advice was absorbed by thousands of people. He was particularly vocal about his opposition to yeshivos turning bochurim away, which he strongly believed them astray.
He was also the rav hamachshir on many kosher eateries in Boro Park for several decades.
The levayah is scheduled to take place Monday morning at his Beis Medrash at 16th Avenue & 55th in Boro Park.
Hershy Schwartz murdered in his car near North Miami Avenue and NE 167th Street.
A dedicated volunteer for Chesed Shel Emes Florida was found dead Sunday morning in a North Miami Beach parking lot, the victim of what is believed to be an apparent robbery.
40 year old Hershy Schwartz was fatally shot in his car near North Miami Avenue and NE 167th Street.
Chesed Shel Emes director Mark Rosenberg learned of the homicide when North Miami Beach Police contacted him at 12:30 PM and told him that he was listed as Schwartz’s emergency contact.
Schwartz was engaged to Rosie Brustowsky of Lakewood, New Jersey, and his wedding was to take place next week in Lakewood.
“He was a person who didn’t know how to say no,” Rosenberg said. “He was literally a walking chesed shel emes and he took pleasure in bringing relief to others.”
Originally from Monsey, Schwartz had been living in Florida for more than 10 years and worked for an electric company.
Rosenberg said that Schwartz, who ran CSE’s shiva gamach that lends out Torahs, chairs, tables, water coolers and other items to mourners, was like family.
“Everybody knew that if you needed something done, you went to Heshy,” said Rosenberg.
Police are continuing to investigate Schwartz’s death, which does not appear to be an anti-Semitic attack.
There will be a 12 AM funeral for Schwartz at Yeshiva Toras Emes in North Miami Beach, 1051 North Miami Beach Boulevard, with a second funeral to be held on Monday in New York at 12:30 PM at Spring Valley’s Nikelsburg Shul, 6 Milton Place.
Schwartz will be laid to rest on Monday afternoon in Kiryas Joel.
Sunday, February 19, 2023
Radical left turns on woke New York Times
Under attack by transgender radicals from inside and outside the paper, top editors of The New York Times face a problem so difficult, I feel sorry for them. Well, almost.
The hesitation is warranted because the editors have only themselves to blame. After abandoning standards of fairness to push a crazy woke agenda, they are suddenly discovering that appeasing the far left is impossible.
The crash course in common sense comes with the lesson that the more you give the radicals, the more they want. And they don’t ask, they demand and make threats.
How did the Gray Lady not see this coming?
The pot boiled over last week when thousands of activists, celebrities and supporters, who include some staff writers and occasional contributors, blasted the paper’s coverage. They claimed in a letter there is a pattern of “editorial bias in the newspaper’s reporting on transgender, non-binary, and gender nonconforming people.”
A second letter from more than 100 groups, including GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign, accused the paper of publishing “fringe theories” and “dangerous inaccuracies.”
NBC reported that a billboard truck drove around the paper’s headquarters with messages such as, “Dear New York Times: Stop questioning trans people’s right to exist & access medical care.”
At first glance, the allegations seem preposterous, even a joke. After all, the paper’s coverage of transgenders is generally so fawning that it feels as if it belongs to a cult. Exhibit A was a gushy November profile under this headline: “For Ghana’s Only Openly Transgender Musician, Every Day Is Dangerous.”
Well, folks, that’s all the news from Africa!
If that isn’t woke enough, what would be? But too much is never enough for the activists, and the last thing they want is fair coverage because that would give legitimacy to critical views. In their absolutist world, there is only one acceptable view: theirs.
And so the mob is coming for the Times because the editors had the gall to publish less-than-cheerleading articles about gender surgeries on minors and other issues. An op-ed defending author J.K. Rowling, Public Enemy No. 1 in TransWorld, also made heads explode.
Despite the absurdity of the attacks, which include the demand that the Times hire four transgender writers within three months, the stakes are high for media outlets everywhere. Given the Times’ prominence, if the editors fail to defend independent journalism, other newsrooms will face pressure to fall in line and most will surrender.
Some already have. Take NBC. At the end of its article on the Times, it added an editor’s note that reads: “The writer of this article is a member of the Trans Journalists Association, one of the supporting signatories on the open letter penned by former and current Times contributors.”
That used to be called a conflict of interest and the writer wouldn’t be permitted to cover the story. Now it’s simply disclosed as if that absolves the perception of bias.
Meanwhile, the Times already faces a similar test of standards involving some black employees. Although it has operated on a virtual quota system for years to hire nonwhite journalists and corrupted its coverage to spot white supremacists behind every tree, the head of the union representing newsroom employees nonetheless calls the paper a racist bastion.
During a one-day strike over stalled contract talks, Susan DeCarava said no black employee, including 1619 Project guru Nikole Hannah-Jones, ever received the highest possible rating from managers. That proves, she told Fox News, the review process “is weighted against people of color.”
Fortunately, there is some reason for hope on the transgender front. Responding to the criticism, top newsroom editor Joe Kahn and opinion editor Kathleen Kingsbury defended the coverage and fired back at employees and contributors who joined the barrage.
“Participation in such a campaign is against the letter and spirit of our ethics policy,” they wrote in a staff email obtained by The Post, adding: “We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums.”
It was an appropriately tough response, but guild leader DeCarava quickly struck again. In a letter, she said employees have a right to protest the coverage, claiming it was a violation of federal law for editors to “threaten, restrain or coerce employees from engaging in such activity.”
That sounds like an overstatement of worker rights in a private company, but it adds to the pressure on management. Yet the reality remains that if punishments are not forthcoming, sound rules against employees participating in social and political movements are meaningless.
If, however, the participants are penalized, the editors are likely to face a larger staff revolt and perhaps suffer subscription cancellations by far-left readers.
Recent history shows editors at the Times serve at the mercy of the staff. Respected op-ed editor James Bennet was canned by the publisher after running a piece by Sen. Tom Cotton in 2020 that urged then-President Donald Trump to call in the military to put down urban riots.
Newsroom activists denounced the article, and publisher A.G. Sulzberger, after initially supporting Bennet’s decision, buckled and Bennet walked the plank.
Similarly, acclaimed science writer Donald McNeil was fired in 2021 after 150 colleagues signed an angry letter when they learned he had been lightly disciplined for using the N-word in a conversation with teenagers on a Times-sponsored trip two years earlier. According to McNeil, then editor Dean Baquet said he knew McNeil was not a racist but forced him out, saying, “Donald, you’ve lost the newsroom. People are hurt.”
The way things were
In another era, Times editors ran the newsroom instead of letting it run them. The legendary A.M. Rosenthal would listen to critics inside and out, including big advertisers, then usually tell them to buzz off because the paper couldn’t be bought or bossed.
His job, he famously said, was “to keep the paper straight” instead of letting reporters tilt coverage to the left. He had that passion inscribed on the footstone of his gravesite.
As for the staffers and contributors who publicly attacked their colleagues over the paper’s transgender coverage, Rosenthal wouldn’t have hesitated to hand out pink slips.
Indeed, he had a firm, clear view of conflicts of interest, which he demonstrated by firing a top female reporter who slept with and received expensive gifts from a politician she covered. The misconduct took place when she worked for another paper, but became public soon after she joined the Times. Rosenthal asked her if the report was true, she said yes and he told her to clean out her desk and never come back.
Staff members who requested a meeting were making a case the firing was too harsh when Rosenthal interrupted them to explain his unforgettable rule:
“You can screw elephants if you want to, but then you can’t cover the circus.”
How Biden subverts Israeli democracy
The Movement for Quality Government (MQG) in Israel is the far-left organization at the epicenter of the Israeli left’s war against the Netanyahu government. MQG began its current campaign of delegitimization, subversion and demonization immediately after the Netanyahu government was sworn into office on Dec. 29. The next day, MQG petitioned the Supreme Court to prevent Shas leader Aryeh Deri from serving as a minister in the government.
There was no legal basis for the petition. But that didn’t bother the lawyers at MQG.
In its petition, MQG claimed that the terms of a plea deal Deri reached with the State Prosecution last year on tax reporting errors barred him from serving as a minister. Never mind that nothing in the plea deal stipulated anything of the sort or that 400,000 Israeli voters cast their ballots for Shas with the full expectation that Deri would serve as a senior minister.
Abused wife’s visit to social services reveals husband married to another woman
Just over two years ago, C, then a very recent new immigrant to Israel, met D, a native Israeli man and the two began dating. Just weeks later, D proposed and convinced his fiancé that they should marry privately, outside of the authority of the Israeli Rabbinate – as required by law. Despite her initial insistence to proceed with the official channels, C eventually relented, and the marriage went ahead.
Already in the early days of the marriage, D began to abuse his wife, and the violence only intensified over time. About a year and a half ago, despite being in the latter stages of pregnancy, C realized that she couldn't suffer any longer and needed leave the marriage. She turned to the local branch of social services for assistance.
To C's great shock and dismay, after sharing her story with the office’s social worker, she was informed that another woman had approached the same office with an incredibly similar story. To everyone's surprise, further investigation confirmed that D was in fact married to both women – having married both women in private, unofficial ceremonies.
“From the very beginning he said that he wanted to marry another woman, but I never believed he’d actually do it,” C said. “In retrospect, I can even point to the exact day that he got married. It was just before Chanukah, and he had gotten all dressed up, like a groom. He left the house and didn’t come back for a week. When he finally returned, he announced that from now on, he would only be spending every other week with me.”
With these shocking new details in hand, C contacted the Ohr Torah Stone organization's Yad La’isha, the world’s largest, most comprehensive and experienced advocacy center for agunot. “Our first motion was to open a personal status file at the Rabbinical Court, to prove that C was indeed a married woman despite the fact that because of the private ceremony, she was still listed as single by the Interior Ministry,” explains Yad La'isha staff Adv. Dina Raitchik. “During the court proceedings, the man admitted he had a number of wives and even had the audacity to complain to the court that he wasn’t able to manage all of his marriages.”
In a hearing that took place last week, D conceded to quickly grant C a get, or traditional Jewish writ of divorce, freeing her from the marriage to begin a new life.