Shmuel Grinberg |
Religious Researcher in a Gloomy Assessment
Beit Shemesh will lose its non-Orthodox residents and become another poor ultra-Orthodox town*
“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” Rav Kook z"l
Shmuel Grinberg |
Religious Researcher in a Gloomy Assessment
Beit Shemesh will lose its non-Orthodox residents and become another poor ultra-Orthodox town*
The National Holocaust Museum was said to be too much of a “great significant and national importance” for King Willem-Alexander, 56, not to be at the inauguration, according to the Netherlands Government Information Service.
Isaac Herzog’s attendance was described as “a huge blow to anyone who cares about the fate of the Palestinian people and values justice” by the K7 alliance of Dutch mosques.
The organization argued that the Dutch government should not receive the Israeli dignitary, adding: “But certainly not by our king. We therefore ask his majesty not to participate in Herzog’s reception.”
It criticized the president for signing an artillery shell with the phrase “I rely on you” before it was fired toward the Gaza Strip.
Details of his trip to Amsterdam for the museum opening were on Wednesday leaked to Israeli media.
The Sephardic Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, commented Saturday evening on the haredi draft law.
“There are Yeshiva students who go to reserves. Not everyone merits to learn Torah. Everyone merits to be a student, and Torah students are exempt from army service under any circumstances, no matter what. If they force us to go to the army, we will all leave Israel. We will buy tickets and leave. There can be no such thing,” he claimed.
“All the secular community understands this, and they need to understand that without Torah, without study halls, without yeshivas, there will be no existence and no success for the army. The soldiers succeed in the merit of those studying Torah. Everyone needs to say this with pride - we are studying Torah, and it is the Torah that protects us.”
Two Ohio women have been accused of driving the body of a deceased 80-year-old man to a bank to withdraw money from his account before dropping his body off at a hospital.
Karen Casbohm, 63, and Loreen Bea Feralo, 55, were charged Tuesday in Ashtabula with gross abuse of a corpse and theft from a person in a protected class, according to Ashtabula Municipal Court records.
Police said they were called Monday evening and told that two women had dropped off a body at the Ashtabula County Medical Center emergency room without identifying the person or themselves. A few hours later, one of them contacted the hospital with information on the deceased, who was then identified as 80-year-old Douglas Layman of Ashtabula.
Officers responded to Layman’s residence and made contact with Casbohm and Feralo, who told them they had found Layman deceased earlier at the home where all three resided. Police allege that, with the help of a third unnamed person, they placed Layman in the front seat of his car and drove to a bank where they withdrew “an undisclosed amount of money” from his account.
Layman’s body “was placed in the vehicle in such a manner that he would be visible to bank staff in order to make the withdrawal,” Ashtabula Police Chief Robert Stell said in a news release Thursday. Stell told the (Ashtabula) Star Beacon that the bank ”had allowed this previously as long as they were accompanied by him.”
Lt. Mike Palinkas told WEWS-TV that one of the women had been in a live-in relationship with Layman for several years while the other had been staying there for a few months. The women said it was normal for them to take money from the account, but Palinkas said he didn’t have a full explanation for why they went there that day.
“Allegedly, they wanted to pay some bills but outside of that, there wasn’t a specific motivation provided,” Palinkas said.
Casbohm was arraigned and ordered held on $5,000 bond while Feralo is scheduled for arraignment next week. It’s unclear whether they have attorneys; numbers listed in their names had been disconnected. A message was sent to the county public defender’s office seeking comment if the office was defending one or both.
Police said they continue to investigate and other charges are possible. The coroner’s office said an autopsy to determine the cause of Layman’s death could take up to eight months.
47 year old Chana Daskal lived in Seagate, but had been staying most recently in Monsey because of an illness that was unrelated to the injuries she sustained in the deadly crash. Dozens of people turned out amid steady rains for a Motzei Shabbos funeral for Daskal that was held at the home where she had been staying, with burial taking place at the Har Shalom Cemetery in Airmont.
Daskal, her husband David, Aryeh Zvi Fastag, Shayie Lichtenstein and Avi and Barbara Wajsbaum, were all returning from their aerial tour of the Grand Canyon on August 11th when their helicopter crashed into the 5,500 foot Grand Walsh Cliffs in the Arizona desert some 60 miles away from Los Angeles.
Daskal sustained life-threatening injuries in the crash, which took the lives of everyone else aboard the Eurocopter AS350, including pilot Kevin Innocenti. The Los Angeles Times (lat.ms/3wNLrbU) reported that the crash took place at 2:30 PM, with flaming wreckage of the helicopter scattered around the area.
All six passengers were thrown clear of the helicopter when it slammed into the ground on the desolate mountain, according to The New York Times (nyti.ms/3veDTyp), with just the pilot remaining inside.
“It was demolished,” said Steve Johnson, a spokesperson for the Mohave County, Arizona, sheriff’s office. “The only things recognizable were the tail and rotor blades.”
Daskal, the mother of two young boys, was found by rescuers pinned under the helicopter’s burning tail section and was airlifted to the University Medical Center in Las Vegas, with burns over 80 percent of her body. She sustained a broken back in the crash and had both of her legs amputated.
According to the Arizona Daily Sun (bit.ly/3TtTWlm), Daskal was hospitalized in Las Vegas for five months before she was airlifted to Staten Island University Medical Center’s regional burn center in January 2002. At the time, she thanked those who rescued her, as well as the medical team who treated her and surrounded her with love and prayers.
“Without them I would not have had the strength to survive everything that has happened to me,” said Daskal, who noted that she was confident that G-d had had a reason for keeping her alive.
The National Transportation Safety Board ultimately found that the crash was caused by a pilot error, reported the Associated Press (bit.ly/48QpHcC). Daskal settled a lawsuit for $38 million in 2005 against the estate of the pilot, the helicopter manufacturer and the tour company, which had charged $317 per person for the three-hour tour, which included a picnic along the Colorado River.
Daskal’s medical bills had topped $11 million by 2005, and her lawyer, Gary Robb, estimated that her future care could cost $23 million. At the time of the settlement, it was ranked as the largest pretrial cash settlement for a personal injury case in the United States.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Saturday that he will propose that Spain’s parliament recognizes a Palestinian state.
So where will the 7 million Jews go? He says that "this is out of moral conviction". Here is a guy whose ancestors expelled all its Jews from his country, and now wants to take a giant piece of Israel and give it to a bunch of uncivilized barbarians "Moral Conviction" my tuches!
“I will propose granting Spain’s recognition to the Palestinian state,” Sánchez said. “I do this out of moral conviction, for a just cause and because it is the only way that the two states, Israel and Palestine, can live together in peace.”
Sánchez added his voice to a chorus of other European leaders and government officials who have said that they could support a two-state solution in the Middle East as international frustration grows with Israel’s actions in the Palestinian territories.
French President Emmanuel Macron said last month that it’s not “taboo” for France to recognize a Palestinian state. British Foreign Minister David Cameron said that the United Kingdom could officially recognize a Palestinian state after a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.
Sánchez said that his position on the conflict in the Gaza Strip is much like his country’s support for Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago.
He stressed that Spain demanded “respect for international law from Russia, and from Israel, for the violence to end, the recognition of two states, and for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.”
His comments at a rights conference in the city of Bilbao came as aid shipments were headed for Gaza amid the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and a new international willingness to work around Israeli restrictions.
Five months after Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage, Israel’s military has battered the territory, killing more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
As of the end of 2023, Israel’s population of women was 4,949,800, of whom approximately 31.3% were aged 0-17, approximately 54.8% were aged 18-64, and approximately 13.9% were aged 65 and over. This, and other data on the status of Israeli women, was released by the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics ahead of International Women’s Day 2024, to be observed Friday, March 7.
In Israel, Muslim women marry at an earlier age than other segments of the population. Their average age of marriage is 23.5, compared to 25.4 among Druze women, 25.6 among Jewish women and 27.6 among Christian women. (This data is from the year 2022).
In 2022, the average age of all Israeli women who gave birth increased to 30.7, a year and eight months higher compared to the average age in 2000.
The average number of children that a woman in Israel is expected to give birth to during her lifetime (Total Fertility Rate) is 2.89, higher than the average in OECD countries, which is 1.58.
In 2023, approximately 1.2 million Israeli women (35% of the total) are mothers of children who are up to the age of 17. Of them, 90% live with their spouse.
Women in Israel live longer than men. Their life expectancy in 2022 was 84.8 years, compared to just 80.7 among men.
However, Israeli women are only expected to live 79.7% of their lives without health problems that impair functioning, as opposed to men who are expected to live 83.1% of their lives without such problems.
Torat_IDF reports that five Gazans were killed by the deadly US airdrops, condemned the US for their deaths, and called on the US to stop sending supplies to Hamas.
Besides the killed Gazans, multiple people were also wounded by the impact from the US aid. Videos from within Gaza show children chasing after the shipments as they land. At least two of those killed by the US are reported to be children.
Israeli citizens have been protesting the delivery of humanitarian aid into the Hamas terror stronghold, as the shipments delay Hamas’s surrender and allows them to continue to hold Israeli citizens hostage.
On Thursday, Biden announced he will also set up a seaport to get even more humanitarian aid into Gaza for the Gazan civilians, which Hamas then takes for themselves.
Unfortunately, the one step that would actually get civilians out of danger – facilitating and allowing their exit from the Gaza war zone, is not on the table. The US, Egypt and the world are holding the Gazans hostage to create a “Palestinian” state and perpetuate the conflict.
“To many Israelis, he’s a terrorist. To many Palestinians, he’s their Mandela,” she wrote of the convicted murderer, widely believed to have directed the first and second intifadas, which killed and wounded thousands of Israeli civilians.
Amanpour has previously apologized for comments about Jews and Israel. She said live on air that she “misspoke” 12 days after she said that Rabbi Leo Dee’s unarmed wife and two daughters were killed in a “shootout.”
I'm curious if President Biden ever told the leader of any of the 49 majority Muslim countries that they would be having a "come to Jesus" meeting, or is that language reserved for the only Jewish country in the world? 🤔 https://t.co/SuzXUP1SXi
— Joel M. Petlin (@Joelmpetlin) March 8, 2024
President Joe Biden ‘s growing frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to mount, with the Democrat captured on a hot mic saying that he and the Israeli leader will need to have a “come to Jesus meeting.”
The comments by Biden came as he spoke with Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., on the floor of the House chamber following Thursday night’s State of the Union address.
In the exchange, Bennet congratulates Biden on his speech and urges the president to keep pressing Netanyahu on growing humanitarian concerns in Gaza. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg were also part of the brief conversation.
Biden then responds using Netanyahu’s nickname, saying, “I told him, Bibi, and don’t repeat this, but you and I are going to have a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting.”
An aide to the president standing nearby then speaks quietly into the president’s ear, appearing to alert Biden that microphones remained on as he worked the room.
“I’m on a hot mic here,” Biden says after being alerted. “Good. That’s good.”
The goal is “not to have goytes by the registers by the stores where teenage boys and young men shop in order not to entrap the Jewish youth,” the sign says, referring to non-Jewish women. “We’ve directed female cashiers that they should not provide services for the men, and the female cashiers are exclusively for women and girls.”
On a visit to W Fresh on Thursday, some customers seemed to defy the new poster or to not see it, while others seemed to comply. Two male customers purchased items from a Hispanic female cashier. A man who appeared to be in his thirties walked toward her as well, then stopped for a moment in front of the sign, and then went to a male cashier instead. Three cash registers were open, and the store was not crowded enough for any lines to form. An employee who claimed to be the manager declined to comment on the posters but said it was not his decision to place them.
The poster said that the store arrived at its decision after consulting with the Hisachdus Harabanim, known in English as the Central Rabbinical Congress, a Satmar-affiliated group of rabbis better known for its kosher certification program for food. The organization’s beth din, or rabbinical court, did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Shtetl.
Earlier this year, Shtetl reported that a poster carrying the signatures of 26 principals of Hasidic boys’ schools warned shopkeepers that if they continued to employ non-Jewish women, they would discourage their students from shopping at those stores. That poster also cited the Hisachdus Harabanim.
Williamsburg grocery stores have long been settings where Hasidic concerns about modesty have played out.
In 2012, the New York City Commission on Human Rights filed a complaint against seven Hasidic-owned stores on Lee Avenue after the stores put up signs in various languages urging non-Haredi customers to “dress in modest clothing” in order to be allowed entrance, according to the book A Fortress in Brooklyn: Race, Real Estate, and the Making of Hasidic Williamsburg. The city later reached an agreement with the stores that while they could encourage “modest” dress, they could not prevent customers who dressed differently from entering the store.
Rabbi David Stav, Chief Rabbi of Shoham and chairman of the Tzohar Rabbinical organization, presents a new approach to bringing the haredi community to IDF service.
‘’Every Jewish resident of the state of Israel has to serve in the army, no exceptions,” Rabbi Stav told Arutz Sheva - Israel National News. “It’s a commandment from God, Maimonides writes clearly that it means even newlyweds, and the prophetess Devorah curses those who do not report for duty (Judges 5:15, 5:23).”
He turned to the practical aspects of the problem: “It is impossible to force a million people to go to the IDF. None of the past proposals were ever implemented practically, and the IDF actually faked numbers because it is impossible to force people into the army against their will. Today, the State exempts them from the army and instead encourages them to join the workforce, rather than label them as draft dodgers and illegal workers.”
“We suggest that the law be altered to allow any religious individual to exempt themselves from the army by declaring that it contradicts their lifestyle. This will remove the dependency on the yeshiva community and allow the government to instead encourage service in other organizations, such as the Fire and Rescue Service, MDA, and ZAKA, and from there provide the national service vouchers needed for a better education and integration into the workforce.
The Bergen County Jewish Action Committee (BCJAC) called on municipal, state, and federal authorities Thursday to take “decisive action and protective measures” in response to a campaign of harassment targeting the Jewish community and an event to be held in a Teaneck synagogue.
Pro-Palestinian Authority demonstrators issued public calls this week to protest an informational Israeli real estate program set to be held Sunday (March 10) at Congregation Keter Torah.
The Israel Real Estate Fair is taking place just a few hours before the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, a period in which radical Islamists escalate harassment, threats and attacks against Jews around the world.
As they have elsewhere in the United States and abroad in the wake of Israel’s defensive war against the terrorist group Hamas following the October 7th massacre, the pro-Hamas terror supporters have also escalated their attempts to target Teaneck’s Jewish community, which comprises about 40 percent of the town’s population.
According to BCJAC Spokesman Yigal Gross, “It is no coincidence that this random quiet New Jersey town has become such a flashpoint for pro-Palestinian activism. These protestors are here because we are here. They are seeking out and targeting Teaneck’s Jews.
“We support citizens’ right to free speech, but the right to worship is equally sacrosanct — which we worry they are now seeking to limit.”
On the same day, Congregation Keter Torah is also set to hold its annual “costume swap” — an event expected to attract hundreds of children and their parents — ahead of the upcoming Jewish holiday of Purim.
Gross told JewishPress.com that similar protests, including one in the neighboring town of Englewood, attracted unruly mobs from out of town and devolved into chaos with vandalism, violence and arrests.
“We can disagree on political issues, but we all have a responsibility to maintain a basic level of decency and decorum and preserve the peace and security to which everyone living in Teaneck is entitled,” he said.
Gross added that BCJAC, a grassroots coalition that advocates for the safety and well-being of Teaneck’s Jewish community, does not believe the pro-Hamas demonstrators represent the Muslim community of Teaneck.
“We believe there are bad actors trying to drive a wedge between Teaneck’s residents and to isolate and intimidate its Jewish community,” he said.
“Thankfully, they are failing in their efforts. Our community continues to stand strong and proud. The event will go on as planned, and we are thankful that neighbors of all background and faiths as well as local law enforcement are standing with our community in these difficult times.”
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
— David Gray (@DGrayTexas45) March 7, 2024
Just when you think this administration can’t say anything stupider…
John Kerry thinks if Russia would just announce what they are doing to reduce emissions then people would feel better about them killing Ukrainians.
SERIOUSLY!! 🤪👀🎯😲 pic.twitter.com/F9FLkffRJd
resident Biden’s outgoing climate czar, John Kerry, is being mocked for suggesting that the world might “feel better” about the ongoing bloodshed in the Ukraine war if Russia cut its emissions.
“Russia is one of the largest emitters in the world. If Russia wanted to show good faith, they could go out and announce what their reductions are going to be and make a greater effort to reduce emissions,” Kerry, 80, said during a foreign press briefing in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.
“Maybe that would open up the door for people to feel better about what Russia is choosing to do at this point in time.”
The backlash against Kerry, who made the remarks a day before officially stepping down as Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate on Wednesday, was swift.
“At this point, the Biden admin is like a continuous SNL skit,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tweeted alongside a clip of the climate czar’s comments.
“I had to listen to this three times to make sure Kerry really said this. And he did. Embarrassing beyond words, and quite frankly, utterly offensive!” International Legal Forum CEO Arsen Ostrovsky wrote on X.
Radio host Buck Sexton also chimed in, tweeting: “The insane gibberish of a climate fanatic.”
Others piled on, with one social media user calling Kerry a “raving lunatic” and a “climate clown.”
“Just when you think this administration can’t say anything stupider… John Kerry thinks if Russia would just announce what they are doing to reduce emissions then people would feel better about them killing Ukrainians,” another user tweeted.
Kerry’s controversial comments came after a Russian news agency reporter probed him about the US-Russian relationship tied to his climate agenda.
“I believe that Russia has the ability to be able to make enormous changes in what they really want to do. I mean, if Russia has the ability to wage a war illegally and invade another country, they ought to find the effort to be responsible on the climate issue,” the climate czar responded.
“Unfortunately, because of the actions that Russia took in an unprovoked, illegal war against another nation, we have not been engaged in discussions with Russia,” he continued.
“Sadly, and I say sadly, obviously, because it’s a loss for the world not to be able to have Russia acting constructively on this issue, but we need every country, including Russia.”
Kerry, a former secretary of state and onetime Democratic presidential candidate, announced last month he was stepping down from the role after serving as Biden’s top climate diplomat since 2021.
Vahid Beheshti said: "The message is 'We are ready.' The Iranians are saying that they are ready for an Israeli attack that will crush the Ayatollah regime, and then the Iranian people will join and help bring down the regime. On my last trip to Israel, as the first Iranian to speak in the Knesset, I stated that the only way to achieve peace in the region is to eliminate the Islamic Republic. We have an army of 80 million Iranians who are thirsty for freedom and democracy to meet them.
I also emphasized targeting the main officials of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp, nuclear sites, and the regime headquarters within Iran. Referring to my statements in the Israeli parliament, the brave people of Iran expressed their demand for support in fighting against terrorists of the Islamic Republic."