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July 29, 2016 at 6:04 pm
The dust is still settling from a crowded candidate field and a tight race in what is perhaps Baltimore’s most diverse City Council District. This past spring, Isaack “Yitzy” Schleifer, 27 became the first new Democratic City Council candidate elected in District 5 in almost 40 years, following the retirement of Rochelle “Ricki” Spector, the city’s longest serving city council member. Schleifer was elected in the Democratic primary and there is no Republican opponent on the ballot.
Isaack Schleifer is the next City Council member for District 5. (Courtesy Photo)
But the packed field of seven candidates has left Schleifer picking up the pieces from a primary season that at times pitted neighborhood against neighborhood as community grou...
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July 29, 2016 at 6:02 pm
“Hee’n’nee no’sain lo es bree’see shalom ’ v Behold – I give hime My covenant of peace" Numbers 25:12
Rabbi Yaacov Haber shlit”a, writes regarding this week’s parshah that the lesson of Pinchas is to find our moment, to find our unique purpose in life – and not be afraid to act upon the discovery, letting nothing hold us back. When we achieve this lofty goal, like Pinchas, we will be blessed with a covenant of deep peace for us and for our children.
There is an irony to the ‘covenant of peace’ which Pinchas received, since it was achieved through an act of extreme violence. What is the take-home message the Torah is trying to impress upon us with this episode? Certainly, we are not encouraged to take up w...
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July 29, 2016 at 6:00 pm
The Gaza-based Islamic Jihad terror group proudly paraded its newest weapons in its family friendly “Bond of Blood” festival on Thursday, Palestinian news website Donia al-Watan reported.
The military arm of Islamic Jihad, known as the Al-Quds Brigades, unveiled a new long-range rocket at the event in a purported show of force against Israel. The group didn’t disclose any details on the exact capabilities and range of its newest advanced weaponry.
According to the report, the “the upgraded weapons show that the Al-Quds Brigades are ready to repel any Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.”
In pictures of the festival — which honors terrorists who died while carrying out attacks against the Jewish state and those wounded ...
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July 29, 2016 at 4:43 pm
The 30-kilometer segment from Eilat will include security roads, observation towers, and operations rooms.
Dozens of contractors and hundreds of trucks from the Ministry of Defense Engineering and Construction Department and the Border Administration are currently building a border fence on Israel's eastern border with Jordan.
The current segment from Eilat to the Samar sand dunes north of Timna is 30 kilometers long. The Ministry of Defense has built 24 kilometers of the fence so far, and is preparing to complete it in the coming weeks.
The NIS 300 million project will include security roads along the border, observation towers, military operations rooms, and other advanced facilities. The complex work also includes the construction of special protection for the Ilan Ramo...
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July 29, 2016 at 4:37 pm
Throughout chumash, we find examples of gratitude and compassion some of which are rather surprising. The most significant that come to mind are Moshe’s not smiting the ground or the water which facilitated his survival and our instruction not to show undue hostility towards the Egyptian because we were “guests” in their land. At the beginning of this week’s parsha, Moshe is commanded regarding the eventual destruction of the nation of Midyan for their role in seducing the nation towards the worship of Ba’al Pe’or and the illicit encounter involving Kuzbi. But Midyan was the nation that provided a place of refuge for Moshe when he fled Egypt. He spent a number of formidable years in Midyan and it is not inconceivable to suggest he enjoyed some form of pr...
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July 29, 2016 at 4:26 pm
URGENT...HaRav Emanuel Feldman and HaRav Aharon Feldman, Rosh Yeshiva Ner Yisroel, request tefilos for refuah shlaima for their brother, Refael Chaim Yoel ben Shaina Golda
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July 29, 2016 at 3:07 pm
New York - A foul smelling plant known as the “corpse flower” is finally blooming at the New York Botanical Garden in New York City.
The rare blooming began Thursday afternoon after more than 10 years of growth. It’s native to Sumatra’s equatorial rain forests, and emits an odor like rotting flesh while it’s briefly in bloom.
It’s one of the largest flowers on earth and can reach 6 feet in height. It emits the stench to attract pollinators.
The bloom at its peak only lasts about 24 to 36 hours — and it could be years before the flower blooms again.
Two boys survey the water surrounding the rare Corpse flower, one of the earth's largest flowers, which is about to bloom during a brief 24 to 36-hour period, inside the Haupt Conservatory...
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July 29, 2016 at 3:05 pm
New York - More than half of newborn babies are not breastfed within the first hour of life, putting them at heightened risk of disease and death, the United Nations’ children’s agency said on Friday, highlighting sub-Saharan Africa as an area of concern.
Feeding babies within an hour of birth passes on critical nutrients, antibodies and skin contact with their mothers that can protect them, UNICEF said.
Delaying breastfeeding by two to 23 hours after birth increases the risk of a baby dying in its first month by 40 percent and delaying by 24 hours or more increases the risk of death to 80 percent, UNICEF said.
Studies shows newborns account for nearly half of all deaths of children under age 5.
UNICEF, which has been campaigning to promote early breastfeeding,...
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July 29, 2016 at 3:02 pm
Toulon - Two people suspected of links to terrorism were arrested on Friday by armed police officers on a high-speed train in Toulon, in the south of France, and the train was searched, a train conductor announced to passengers, according to a Reuters witness.
The TGV train was traveling from Nice to Paris.
“There were two people suspected of planning an attack and they were removed from the train,” the conductor announced over the public address system.
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July 29, 2016 at 2:57 pm
Orlando, Fl - Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs says potential visitors to Florida shouldn’t think twice about coming to the Sunshine State.
Jacob’s jurisdiction covers the Orlando area’s major theme parks in the Orlando area, and she spoke to reporters Friday after Gov. Rick Scott announced that South Florida has the first four cases of Zika transmitted by mosquitoes in the U.S. mainland.
There have been no mosquito-transmitted cases in central Florida yet. But Orlando was the country’s most visited metro area last year with 66 million tourists, and tourism is Florida’s biggest industry.
Jacobs says Florida’s theme parks have some of the best mosquito control measures in place that she knows of and that the parks are safe.
But she encourages...
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July 29, 2016 at 2:49 pm
Washington - Restraints in infant car seats fit most newborns poorly, and low-birthweight infants in particular may not be well protected, Australian researchers say.
In their small study, fewer than one in five normal- and low-birthweight babies achieved a proper fit.
Historically, the smallest children’s car seats were designed for babies weighing between 6.5 and 9 pounds (about 3 to 4 kg) and do not account for lower-weight infants, said lead author Julie Brown, a senior research scientist at Neuroscience Research Australia in Randwick.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) classifies children born weighing less than 5.5 pounds (2.5 kg) as “low birthweight” and says 8 percent of U.S. babies fall into this category.
New car seat harnesses ...
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July 29, 2016 at 1:29 pm
Mendon, VT -Police in Vermont say a car ended up almost vertical when the driver swerved quickly in response to her GPS ordering her to “turn around.”
The car was suspended almost vertically on guy wires attached to a utility pole in Mendon on Wednesday night.
Police say 30-year-old Nabila Altahan of Dorchester, Massachusetts, was headed west on U.S. Route 4 when she passed her intended destination and the GPS gave sudden directions to turn around.
Police say Altahan reacted quickly to the instructions, leaving the road at a significant enough speed to propel the vehicle up the wires.
Neither Altahan nor her passenger was injured.
This Wednesday, July 27, 2016, photo provided by G. Ray Ault shows a vehicle on wires attached to a utility pole in Mendon, Vt. Police in...
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July 29, 2016 at 1:25 pm
When Rabbi Shmuel and Risha Kaufman couldn't have children, the Rebbe asked him about a shidduch date he once had.
Having grown up in Detroit, I flew there this week with my sister Dina Borenstein to comfort the family of veteran educator, Rabbi Shmuel Kaufman OBM, the beloved teacher in Yeshiva Beth Yehudah in Detroit. Sitting there, I was given additional details to the incredible Yechidus he had with the Rebbe resulting in the bracha to him and his wife to have children. I also heard another amazing story that is equally mind-blowing. This story was originally printed in the Kfar Chabad magazine a while back, but some details were not verified. Reb Shmuel came to Detroit as a single bochur to teach at Yeshiva Bais Yehudah, a Jewish day school consisting of two campuses at S...
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July 29, 2016 at 1:13 pm
The general public's aversion to the Rabbinate's aggressive reign over matters of religion signals that going against its monopoly on kashrut may very well win out.
When Yuval and Lin Djamchid decided to open a café in Eden Hotel, their intimate, 24-room hotel in Jerusalem, they knew they wanted it to be kosher, but not to have the traditional supervision from the Jerusalem rabbinate. So they chose Private Supervision, a new movement led by Rabbi Aaron Leibowitz, an Orthodox rabbi who is also a city councilor from the Yerushalmim movement, which is trying to revitalize Jerusalem.
“It was a matter of principle,” Yuval Djamchid told The Media Line. “We don’t like the Rabbinate and what it represents. We have enough problems without wo...
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July 29, 2016 at 1:03 pm
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday sarcastically called on the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to consider suing Egypt, France and Iran for their historic roles in securing a Jewish state in the land of Israel.
Danny Danon published his snide remark in a Twitter graphic in response to the recent announcement of plans by PA President Mahmoud Abbas to sue the UK for the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the historic document stating the British government would “view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” According to Abbas, the Balfour Declaration is the direct cause of the “Palestinian Nakba,” the “disaster” of Israel&rsquo...
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July 29, 2016 at 12:51 pm
On July 18 Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed publicly told a group affiliated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement that his city would continue to allow the Atlanta Police Department (APD) to be trained by the Israel Police in spite of the group’s demands to cease the training relationship due to their treatment of the Palestinians.
The decision by Reed comes amid nationwide protests and counter protests over police treatment of minority groups. Despite this heated environment, criminal justice experts and organizers behind U.S. police exchange programs with Israel believe that these claims by BLM groups are unsubstantiated, and that it is vital to maintain cooperation with countries like Israel at a time when police officers face dealing with an increasing number of te...
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July 29, 2016 at 12:45 pm
It’s been a long time since I saw a gesture this desperate.
At the recent Arab Summit in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, the Palestinian Authority (PA) foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, announced that his boss, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, had asked the Arab states prepare a legal case against Britain in retaliation for the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Balfour Declaration, which took the form of a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to the Zionist leader Lord Rothschild, confirmed Britain’s favorable view of a “national homeland” for the Jewish people in Palestine, which came under British control towards the end of World War I. For that reason, the PLO’s National Covenant dates the beginning of the “Zionist invasio...
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July 29, 2016 at 12:30 pm
New York - As the end of summer nears and dealers discount their 2016 cars to make room for next year’s models, shoppers who want to lease could find some hidden bargains. The key is to understand — and maximize — two little-understood aspects of leasing.
It all comes down to finding cars with high resale value and then negotiating a low purchase price. “This is what I like to call ‘the leasing window,’” says Scot Hall, executive vice president of WantaLease, which posts leasing bargains.
Michael Sin, co-creator of Leasehackr.com, adds, “People don’t know about it, but there are many underappreciated cars you can lease at bargain prices.” The forums on his site are filled with shoppers exchanging details of leasing deal...
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July 29, 2016 at 12:25 pm
Warsaw, Poland - Pope Francis’ visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau on Friday included an encounter with 25 Christian Poles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust — a powerfully symbolic meeting that Poland’s chief rabbi played a key role in orchestrating.
Rabbi Michael Schudrich, originally from the United States, had long hoped to see such a meeting in Poland between a pope and some of the remaining Poles who risked their own lives during the world to give aid to Jews.
Yad Vashem in Israel has recognized 6,620 Polish gentiles who sheltered Jews, so-called “Righteous Among the Nations.” Today fewer than 240 are still alive.
Remembering their sacrifices is an important part of Schudrich’s mission as head of Poland’s Jewish community, and he has o...
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July 29, 2016 at 12:20 pm
Parshas Pinchas / Shabbos Mevarchim Menachem Av / Baltimore Zmanim / Eruv is UP!
Baltimore, MD – July 29, 2016
Parshas: Picnhas
Today: 23 Tammuz
Chatzos: 1:13
Hadlakas Nairos: 8:03 PM
Shkiah: 8:21:32 PM
Tzais HaKochavim: 9:12 PM
Rosh Chodesh Menachem Av: Friday, Aug. 5th
