|
January 19, 2017 at 8:52 pm
On Friday 22 Teves, inauguration day for President-Elect Donald Trump in the USA, seventy heads of municipalities in Israel will hold a special gathering with Housing Minister (Kulanu) Yoav Galant during the afternoon in the Seven Arches Hotel.
The meeting is within the framework of commemorating 120 years since the First Zionist Congress in Basel and fifty years since the unification/liberation of Jerusalem. They will hear a clear message, that a united Jerusalem will remain the eternal capital of the Jewish People.
The event is being sponsored by the Zionist Council in Israel and the World Zionist Organization. Organizers point out the event will be held just several hours before Mr. Trump is sworn into office.
|
January 19, 2017 at 7:56 pm
Long-term US mortgage rates marked their third week of declines this week, after snapping a nine-week run of increases.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday the rate on 30-year fixed-rate loans fell to an average 4.09 percent from 4.12 percent last week. That was still sharply higher than a 30-year rate that averaged 3.65 percent for all of 2016, the lowest level recorded from records going back to 1971. A year ago, the benchmark rate stood at 3.81 percent.
The average for a 15-year mortgage declined to 3.34 percent from 3.37 percent last week.
Mortgage rates surged in the weeks since the election of Donald Trump in early November. Investors in Treasury bonds bid yield rates higher because they believe the president-elect’s plans for tax cuts and higher spending on roads, brid...
|
January 19, 2017 at 7:53 pm
It might be called a Forever stamp, but its price is anything but.
The cost of mailing a one-ounce first-class letter will jump from 47 cents to 49 cents on Sunday.
The last increase was in January 2014, according to the U.S. Postal Service. Postcards, letters mailed to other countries and heavier letters aren't affected.
The word "Forever" refers to when it can be put on an envelope not how long its cost will remain unchanged.
"Once it’s purchased, it never expires or declines in value, but at the time of purchase, it’s sold at the first-class one-ounce rate. You can use it forever," said Elizabeth Najduch, the USPS spokeswoman for metro Detroit, Flint and Jackson.
Forever stamps were first introduced in April 2007 and within four years,...
|
January 19, 2017 at 7:37 pm
When Hashem instructed Moshe to be His emissary to the Jewish people, Moshe was hesitant to accept his role, as he feared that it would hurt the feelings of his brother Aharon. After all, Aharon was older, and until this point he had served as the leader of the Jewish nation. To the contrary, however, when Aharon heard that Moshe was chosen by Hashem to lead the Jewish people he greeted Moshe with genuine happiness. Regarding this, the Midrash comments that had Aharon known that the Torah would actually praise him for greeting Moshe with joy, he would have gone above and beyond and would have even greeted him with a band of musical instruments (Midrash Rus Rabbah 5:6)!
Usually, a Midrash introduces a novel concept (chiddush) or stresses an extremely crucial component in serving Hashem. Ho...
|
January 19, 2017 at 6:31 pm
In this week’s Torah portion we find a reference to the prohibition to not hurt another person. Moshe saw Dasan and Aviram arguing and one lifted his hand to hit the other. Moshe called out “Wicked one, why do you hit your fellow” (Shemos 2,13)There is a prohibition against causing unwarranted physical pain to another person. (See Sefer Hamitzvos Hakatzar Prohibition 43) (Click HERE for inspirational stories about this mitzva that you may like to share with your family)
This brings us to the following true dilemma.
Ilana was a doctor who owned a health clinic in Israel. Among many of the services provided in the clinic were vaccinations and inoculations. The clinic was reimbursed, $10 for each vaccination by the government department of health services. ...
|
January 19, 2017 at 6:27 pm
After Pharaoh’s first attempt to crush the Jewish nation by imposing overwhelming physical burdens fails, as he observes the more he afflicts them the more they increase, he implements plan B.
The ‘king of Egypt’ confronts the Hebrew midwives, Shifra and Puah, instructing them to kill the Jewish sons on the birthstool. The Torah testifies that these midwives ‘feared G-d’ and refused to submit to the ‘king of Egypt’s’ directive. Not only do they allow the infants to survive but as the Torah attests how ‘they caused the boys to live’ by providing food and water as well. The ‘king of Egypt’ summons them once again questioning their defiance of his edict. The Torah describes how these heroes respond to ‘Pharaoh&rsqu...
|
January 19, 2017 at 6:24 pm
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most notorious cartel kingpin who twice made brazen prison escapes and spent years on the run as the country's most wanted man, was extradited to the United States on Thursday to face drug trafficking and other charges.
Mexico's Foreign Relations Department announced Guzman was handed over to U.S. authorities for transportation to the U.S. on Thursday, the last day of President Barack Obama's administration and a day before Donald Trump is to be inaugurated.
Two senior U.S. officials confirmed that Guzman was on his way.
One said the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration took custody of Guzman in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas, and a plane carrying him departed for New York at 5:31 p.m. Eastern time. The offici...
|
January 19, 2017 at 6:15 pm
70-year old lawyer sentenced to 1 year in prison, fines, after defrauding Holocaust survivors seeking compensation from Hungary.
The Be'er Sheva Magistrate Court sentenced to prison attorney George Selage, 70, whose license to practice law was revoked in 2011 following complaints from customers that he had taken advantage of his position to defraud Holocaust survivors.
According to the complaint, Selage filed claims for compensation from the German Government on behalf of at least 13 Holocaust survivors. However, he prepared affidavits and adopted the survivors signatures without meeting with them or receiving their permission.
Selage also submitted documents to the District Court in Be'er Sheva to receive official confirmation, according to which the documents were held ill...
|
January 19, 2017 at 6:13 pm
Nationalist party candidate tops poll ahead of April election.
JTA - National Front Party leader Marine Le Pen is the leading candidate for president of France according to a major poll.
Le Pen is polling at between 25 and 26 percent in the first round of the presidential election, according to the poll conducted by Ipsos Sopra Steria for the French daily newspaper Le Monde, the newspaper reported Thursday.
Former Prime Minister Francois Fillon, representing France’s center-right Republicans party, trails Le Pen by about 1 percent.
According to Le Monde, Le Pen has not yet started her campaign in earnest. As late as last month, Fillon led Le Pen in opinion polls by about 3 percent. Incumbent president François Hollande of the Socialist Party was eligible to r...
|
January 19, 2017 at 6:12 pm
85 terrorists killed in stealth bomber strikes against ISIS forces in Libya targeting Europe.
American airstrikes in Libya killed close to 100 ISIS terrorists at two separate training camps Wednesday night.
Defense officials told Fox News they estimate 85 ISIS terrorists were killed in the strikes, which hit camps 30 miles southwest of Sirte, Libya.
Two B-2 ‘Spirit’ stealth bombers operating out of Missouri dropped a total of 108 guided bombs on the two camps, which were struck again by drone aircraft in a clean-up sweep, firing Hellfire missiles. The bombers refueled five times during the mission, and returned back to their base in the US without landing.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters at a press conference Thursday that the terrorists killed in ...
|
January 19, 2017 at 6:10 pm
President-elect Donald Trump and his family arrive in Washington Thursday for Friday's inauguration ceremony.
|
January 19, 2017 at 5:08 pm
Jerusalem - A Defense Ministry legal advisor has asked the Justice Ministry to offer legal assistance to ultra-Orthodox IDF soldiers who suffer harassment in their home communities due to their military service.
Many ultra-Orthodox groups, known in Hebrew as haredim, oppose conscription for their young men on religious grounds. They say the atmosphere in the IDF is incompatible with their lifestyle, and they prefer to dedicate their life to Torah study. Members of the community have been exempt from military service since the 1950s, and Haredim who choose to serve are often subject to verbal and physical attacks from other segments of the community.
The new initiative will allow Orthodox soldiers to sue their attackers and eventually to receive monetary damages.
In a letter to deputy At...
|
January 19, 2017 at 5:04 pm
This afternoon, as part of the slate of ceremonies and events associated with Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the United States, Trump and Vice-President-Elect Mike Pence arrived at Arlington National Cemetery for the wreath-laying ceremony.
The solemn ceremony pays honor to those who have fallen serving the country in the armed forces. The wreath was laid at the Tomb of the Unknowns.
The event was private and not open to the public. The families of Trump and Pence were in attendance.
Later today, Trump will attend a welcome concert at the Lincoln Memorial that will be headlined by 3 Doors Down, Toby Keith and Lee Greenwood.
fgfg
|
January 19, 2017 at 4:58 pm
Twenty-seven Jewish community centers (JCCs) across 17 U.S. states received bomb threats Wednesday, marking the second nationwide wave of threatening phone calls to such facilities in a 10-day span.
Sixteen American JCCs had received bomb threats Jan. 9. For Wednesday’s incidents, the community centers were “well-prepared” to handle the threats and swiftly engaged in security protocols, according to the JCC Association of North America umbrella organization.
The states in which JCCs received bomb threats Wednesday were Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said.
“In the wake of last week’s calls, JCC...
|
January 19, 2017 at 4:56 pm
Watchdogs lauded the recent decision by a New York academic institution to prevent a notoriously anti-Israel group from organizing on its campus.
AMCHA Initiative co-founder Tammi Rossman-Benjamin and others told The Algemeiner on Wednesday that Fordham University’s preemptive measure indicates that its administrators grasp “the hateful precedent” that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has set elsewhere.
“Most officials at other schools do not understand what our research has clearly revealed: that the presence of an SJP or a like-minded chapter committed to opposing the existence of the Jewish state has a particularly serious impact on Jewish students,” she said. “Nor do they end up doing anythi...
|
January 19, 2017 at 4:53 pm
President-elect Donald Trump landed in Washington, D.C. this week for the events leading up to his inauguration on Friday as the 45th president of the United States.
Trump's close associate, Chairman of the 58th Presidential Inauguration Committee Thomas J. Barrack Jr., put on an event Tuesday evening to present Trump's ideas to the 147 foreign ambassadors, consuls, and diplomats currently serving in Washington. The event was held at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, where the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949. The choice was symbolic -- Trump wanted to send a message, particularly to U.S. allies, that he isn't as terrible as he is portrayed.
"I have great respect for your countries, I have great respect for the world," he said.
At the end of his speech, Trump gave ...
|
January 19, 2017 at 4:48 pm
The Israeli government announced that it has finished raising the height of the electronic border fence between Israel and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula by 10 feet in an effort to further curb illegal infiltrations.
Israel originally completed the 150-mile border fence, which runs from the Gaza Strip border to Eilat, in 2014. The fence was aimed at curbing illegal migration, drug and weapons smuggling and infiltration by terrorists. The Sinai Peninsula has been wrought with violence in recent years as the Egyptian government, with Israel's support, has battled an Islamic State-affiliated terror group in the region.
While the fence had significantly slashed the number of illegal migrants from Africa into Israel— from hundreds every month to only 213 in all of 2015—t...
|
January 19, 2017 at 4:46 pm
A Likud MK currently visiting the US said on Thursday he “definitely” hopes that an expected upcoming shift in American policy regarding Jerusalem would prompt the Israeli government to change the status quo on the Temple Mount and allow Jews to pray there.
In response to a question asked by The Algemeiner at an Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET) event on Capitol Hill, Yehuda Glick — a longtime advocate of equal prayer rights for members of all three monotheistic religions on the Temple Mount — said:
When I started 25 years ago, there were 100 Jews annually [visiting] the Temple Mount. In 2016, there were 20,000 and the numbers are growing. [Yet] this year was the quietest ever on the Temple Mount. Listen to the contradiction. People always said if J...
|
January 19, 2017 at 4:44 pm
A few hours before incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer told journalists on Thursday — 24 hours before the inauguration of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States — to “stay tuned” for the new administration’s decision about its proposed move of America’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Palestinians took to the streets of three West Bank cities to demonstrate.
According to Palestinian News Network, hundreds of flag-waving Palestinians held protests in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron, where banners, in English, read: “Trump, take your racism away from the Holy City,” and in Arabic: “The whole world is moving forward but the Trump administration is moving backwards.”
The protest...
|
January 19, 2017 at 4:41 pm
Donald Trump’s all-but-dismissal of human rights as a foreign policy principle could hit like an earthquake across a Middle East landscape beset by warring factions and beleaguered governments, with some players eyeing the prospect of once unimaginable new alliances.
Syria is the foremost test of Trump’s promise of a return to a hard-headed realpolitik and could quickly show whether America is truly abandoning promotion of democracy and the rule of law in a way that could reshape much of the region’s post-Cold War, post-9/11 order.
Trump has raised the possibility of a broad new U.S. partnership with Vladimir Putin’s increasingly authoritarian Russia and has even hinted at aligning with Syrian President Bashar Assad, which would amount to a dramatic reversal from ...
