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December 7, 2016 at 11:26 am
The United States prides itself in being a unified country. The Pledge of Allegiance declares us "one nation under God." The Declaration of Independence also says we are "united Colonies," and the Preamble to the Constitution says, "We the People of the United States, to form a more perfect Union."
And yet throughout history, we the people have rarely been interested in coming together for a common cause. We may be united in government, but we certainly aren't in policies. During the American Revolution against British imperial rule, approximately 20 percent of the population took up the cause of the Loyalists and supported King George III. The Civil War, less than a century after the Revolution, is the prime example of divisiveness: South versus North, slaveholders versus...
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December 7, 2016 at 11:18 am
Last year Target.com announced that they would be delivering to Israel, which made everyone in Israel excited, but yesterday Target made a decision to block all Israeli computers from being able to view their website.
Anyone from Israel who tries to access the site gets an”Access Denied” message.
Courtesy: Yael A.
Yael A. an American student now living in Israel confirmed with her friends that they too could not access the site and contacted Target support to find out why she was blocked. Target responded with this letter.
“The reason you’re unable to place orders on Target.com from Israel is to ensure the data security of all our guests. Target.com has made the conscious decision to block IP addresses originating from Is...
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December 7, 2016 at 10:26 am
A US military jet has crashed into the sea off the Japanese coast, according to reports.
The F/A-18 Hornet was stationed at the Iwakuni base in the Yamaguchi prefecture and is understood to have gone down at 6pm local time off the southern Kochi Prefecture.
Initial reports from the Japanese Defence Ministry said the lone pilot and ejected from the fighter jet and survived the crash.
According to the Kochi Maritime Security Division, the Maritime Self-Defense Force sent information that the US military fighter crashed about 56 miles south of Muroto Cape.
Japenese coastal defence patrols are now scouring the area for signs of damage to any fishing boats or commercial vessels that may have been in the area at the time.
The US Marine Corps’ Iwakuni Air Station is home to around 5,00...
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December 7, 2016 at 10:20 am
On this date 75 years ago, Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese forces, leaving over 3,400 casualties and pushing the U.S. to join the Allies in World War II.Japan launched the surprise attack with airplanes and submarines on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor.More than 2,400 Americans were killed and over 1,000 were wounded during the bombings. Over 300 aircrafts and 19 Navy ships, including eight battleships, were damaged or destroyed.The next day the U.S. declared war against Japan. When asking Congress for a Declaration of War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously called the attack "a date which will live in infamy."On Dec. 11, 1941, the U.S. declared war on Germany and Italy, joining the Allies in World War II.
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December 7, 2016 at 10:13 am
Starbucks Corp set an annual revenue growth target of 10 percent and profit growth target of 15-20 percent for the next five years, and the coffee chain said it planned to open 12,000 stores globally by 2021.
The company also said on Wednesday it would open an outlet of its high-end coffee chain, Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room, in Europe, bringing the number to five globally.
Details of the launch will be announced early next year, the company said.
Starbucks said last week that Chief Executive Howard Schultz would step down to focus on the company's high-end coffee shops.
The company also said it would have Reserve coffee "bars" selling premium coffee in up to 20 percent of its 37,000 stores by 2021, more than it had previously targeted.
(Reporting by Sruthi Ramakrishnan in B...
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December 7, 2016 at 10:12 am
Washington (CNN)President-elect Donald Trump formally introduced his pick to lead the defense department Tuesday, as he brought his "thank you" tour to Fayetteville, North Carolina.
"In order to succeed in our defense policy, we must have the right person to lead in our Defense Department," he said, reading from a Teleprompter. "This is why I am proud to formally announce today my intention to nominate General James "Mad Dog" Mattis as the next Secretary of Defense for the United States of America."
Trump appeared disciplined -- much unlike past campaign rallies when he broke from his talking points to makes news -- and stayed mostly on script during his rally.
He laid out his plan for the US military saying that instead of "racing to topple" foreign regimes that "that we know nothi...
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December 7, 2016 at 10:11 am
Alongside daily threats from the Iranian regime to “retaliate” if US President Barack Obama signs a ten-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Aerospace Force asserted on Tuesday that Tehran has enhanced the quantity and quality of its ballistic missiles, the semi-official news agency Fars reported.
According to the report — that also reminded readers of the IRGC’s testing in March of long-range missiles, one of which was adorned with the Hebrew message: “Israel should be wiped off the earth” — Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said, “In addition to enhancing the precision-striking power and quality of ballistic missiles, the Iranian ...
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December 7, 2016 at 10:11 am
Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party, hailed the preliminary passage of a controversial bill to legalize Israeli settlement outposts as paving the way for Israel’s eventual annexation of Judea and Samaria.
The legislation passed its first legislative test Monday, passing a preliminary Knesset reading in a 60-49 vote. The bill still faces three more readings before it can become law.
The measure has been staunchly opposed by many in Israel, including Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who has said that the bill violates international law. The measure has been also opposed by the U.S., the European Union, and the United Nations. Israeli opposition leader MK Isaac Herzog called the preliminary passage a “dark day for the Knesset.&rd...
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December 7, 2016 at 10:09 am
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel refused entry to an activist with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement Monday, the first such case since the Israeli government introduced a bill to that effect in November.
Isabel Phiri, a Malawian member of the World Council of Churches and a known BDS activist, was stopped by Ben Gurion International Airport authorities while trying to enter Israel on a tourist visa.
According to reports, Phiri's passport was flagged and Population and Immigration Authority officials at the airport contacted the Interior Ministry for instructions. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri and Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan jointly head Israel's public diplomacy efforts against the BDS movement.
Deri instructed airport authorities to...
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December 7, 2016 at 10:07 am
US senators have received more than 22,000 emails in the past week asking them to back a recently proposed bill — the Taylor Force Act — that would cut off US funding to the Palestinian Authority if it continues to pay monetary rewards to terrorists and their families, a major Christian group advocatingfor the legislation said on Monday.
“No American, regardless of political persuasion, should tolerate our tax dollars funding terror,” Pastor John Hagee — the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) — said in a statement. “This legislation ensures the PA cannot use our money to incentivize murder — it’s that simple.”
CUFI director David Brog added, “The fact that CUFI members have sent over...
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December 7, 2016 at 9:38 am
Baltimore, MD - Dec. 7, 2016 - In the third aliyah of Parshas Vayeitzei, Yaakov marries both Rachel and Leah. Originally, Yaakov only wanted to marry one wife, and build Klal Yisroel entirely through Rachel. However, when he ended up marrying both Leah and Rachel, due to the tremendous sacrifice on the part of Rachel, conflict was introduced into the building of the Jewish nation. There are different elements that Leah and Rachel each brought into the marriage. Lavan wanted to undermine their togetherness as sisters, but it was only because of their original connection and core commitment that the situation developed as it did.
Click here to listen
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December 7, 2016 at 9:35 am
The six-day conference of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction, which came to a close on Sunday, was accompanied by the repeated broadcasting on official PA TV of a song calling for the violent annihilation of the Jewish state, a Jerusalem-based research organization reported on Monday.
According to the Palestinian Media Watch report, during the course of the 7th Fatah Congress, held in Ramallah Nov. 29-Dec. 4, the song — an ode to Fatah for its decades of commitment to Israel’s destruction through terrorism – was played 11 times.
The following is an excerpt of its lyrics – key among them the demand to “slice open the enemy’s chest,” and assertion that the “sound of rifles gives us joy”:
Shoot ...
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December 7, 2016 at 9:34 am
A lecturer at Northwestern University was given the Nazi salute last month by a passerby, the student newspaper The Daily Northwestern reported.
According to the report, the Jewish Studies teacher was walking near the school’s Hillel Center on the evening of November 23, when a passenger in a black SUV asked him for directions to the Jewish campus organization.
After the lecturer complied, the man asked him whether he is Jewish. When he said yes, the man leaned out the window, performed the salute and said, “Heil Hitler.”
Michael Simon, executive director of Northwestern’s Hillel, called the incident an act of “blatant antisemitism,” and told the paper that he has been in touch with University Police (UP) to inc...
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December 7, 2016 at 9:34 am
The plans of a Volkswagen-owned vehicle manufacturer to do business with Iran are morally troubling given the German automotive giant’s Nazi roots, an investigative journalist and expert on Nazi economic history told The Algemeiner on Tuesday.
“For Volkswagen’s Czech Skoda subsidiary to make industrial pick-up trucks that could enable the advancement of the nuclear program that Tehran promises will destroy the Jewish people, this would ensure history’s determination that this company, Volkswagen, has once again turned to financial enrichment via genocide,” Edwin Black — author of the 2001 book IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation — said.
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December 7, 2016 at 9:32 am
A congressional bill advancing the fight against antisemitism on college campuses will not “diminish or infringe on” First Amendment rights, a spokesman for a co-sponsor of the motion introduced in the US House of Representatives told The Algemeiner.
Roy Loewenstein, press secretary for Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY), was responding to backlash directed at the recently introduced bipartisanAntisemitism Awareness Act of 2016, which demands that the Department of Education take into consideration what some critics consider the controversial definition of antisemitism — due to its inclusion of certain forms of anti-Israel activity — as set forth by the State Department and its Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism.
...
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December 7, 2016 at 9:21 am
Rav Yaakov Edelstein, senior rov of Ramat Hasharon, will, in the coming days, undergo a complicated medical procedure.
Rav Edelstein, who underwent a major surgery last Purim, recovered from that procedure and returned to his normal daily schedule.
During the most recent time period, Rav Edelstein has communicated by writing letters due to difficulty he has had speaking due to his previous surgery.
Rav Edelstein has weakened in recent days and therefore, at the recommendation of his doctors, will be undergoing medical treatment, made complicated by his advanced age.
All are asked to daven for Rav Yaakov ben Miriam.
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December 7, 2016 at 9:18 am
It's a mistake any parent can easily make in winter: putting your child in a car seat bundled up in their winter coat. And it could be deadly.
Sue Auriemma from Kids and Cars showed TODAY national investigative correspondent (and his 3-year-old son Blake) the potential danger: When a child is wearing a winter coat, it may feel like they are strapped snugly into a car seat when the straps are actually dangerously loose.
At an official crash test lab in Michigan, a child dummy that appeared to be securely strapped into a car seat came hurtling out of it in a simulated 30-mph crash.
Experts say to strap your child securely in their car seat without their coat on. "Instead of putting the coat on him, you can put the coat over him to keep him warm," Auriemma said. "Or you c...
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December 7, 2016 at 9:07 am
About 300 shadchanim from across Israel gathered this week to discuss the important matter of shidduchim for older singles.
The event was held several hundred feet from the Kosel, in the ballroom of Yeshivas Aish HaTorah.
The conference was organized by the Hagefen organization headed by Rabbi Chaim Shmerel, roshyeshiva of Yeshivas Oraysa.
The event was divided into three parts. The panel that opened the conference featured the mayors of chareidi cities, Chanoch Zeibart of Bnei Brak, Yaakov Gutterman of Modiin Illit and Meir Rubinstein of Betar Illit.
The panel discussed professional opportunities and the job market, issues that often affect matchmaking.
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December 7, 2016 at 9:03 am
Of the different approaches in dealing with the dangers of technology, the Stoliner Rebbe is known to have a more engaging approach. Seeing it as a reality of life, the Rebbe puts more of a focus on confronting it than avoiding it.
On Motzei Shabbos Parshas chayei Sarah, Hagaon R’ Shimon Spitzer a prominent Magid Shiur in Karlin delivered and explained the Rebbe’s approach on dealing with the challenges posed by technology.
The following is a free-style translation from Yiddish to English of the shiur on Technology by R’ Shimon Spitzer regarding the Rebbe’s derech in this sensitive area, courtesy of Bechadrei Chareidim.
‘A Different Kind of Battle’
In this past week’s parsha, we read how Eliezer repeated a few times, “I am the servant of ...
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December 7, 2016 at 9:00 am
Few events in World War II were as defining as the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The "date which shall live in infamy" - as President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously put it - prompted the American entry into the war, subdued an entrenched isolationist faction in the country's politics, and, in the long run, prefigured Washington's assumption of the role of global superpower.
2,403 Americans died and 19 vessels were either sunk or badly damaged in the attack, which involved more than 350 warplanes launched from Japanese carriers that had secretly made their way to a remote expanse of the North Pacific. It caught the brass in Hawaii by surprise and stunned the nation.
"With astounding success," Time magazine wrote, "the little man has clipped the big f...
