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August 20, 2017 at 1:19 pm
The following is a translation of an article found in the Journal “Bais Yaakov”[1], written by Rabbi Shmuel Pliskin[2], about the solar eclipse[3] which the Chofetz Chaim viewed.
(Translation and footnotes by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Biron)
It was a typical summer evening, a warm Tuesday, and the elderly Chofetz Chaim had just finished Aleinu. After placing his siddur down on the table, the Chofetz Chaim looked around, scanning the crowd which had packed the narrow room for maariv.[4] Finally, the Chofetz Chaim gave a klop on the edge of the table and began.
“טוב ללכת אל בית האבל מלכת אל בית המשתה כאשר הוא סוף כל האדם”[5]. “The implication is that at a beis ha&...
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August 20, 2017 at 12:43 pm
Since Parshas Shoftim discusses the laws of the Jewish king, I thought it appropriate to discuss this topic, since we hope that the next Jewish king will come soon and be the Mashiach. This article was previously published in my book From Buffalo Burgers to Monetary Mysteries. Should you be interested in purchasing the book, you may do so via the website, RabbiKaganoff.com.
Shimon asked me recently what berachos we will recite when mashiach comes, and when we will recite those berachos. I must admit that, surprisingly, no one had ever asked me this shaylah before. I did discover two short responsa on the topic, both dealing only with certain aspects of the subject.
Subsequently, my son showed me a pamphlet that included a list of berachos that we will recite upon that auspicious occasio...
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August 20, 2017 at 11:54 am
An orthodox family returning home to Cleveland from the East Coast was involved in a very serious accident in Pennsylvania, late Thursday night, leaving children in critical condition and in need of Tehillim.
According to PA State Police, the accident occurred around 2:29AM on I-80 near mile-marker 66.6
A tractor-trailer was disabled from a previous crash and was facing south. The truck was turned over on its passenger’s side, and the trailer was blocking both westbound lanes of I-80.
The family travelling were travelling in a minivan in the right lane when it came around a bend and was directly upon the tractor-trailer in the westbound lanes. The van hit the trailer, penetrating halfway into the unit causing multiple air bags to deploy, as well as severe damage to...
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August 20, 2017 at 9:15 am
Barcelona - The chief of police in Catalonia said on Sunday he could not rule out that the last suspect still believed to be at large in the Barcelona attacks may have crossed to France.
"We don't have any specific information on this but it cannot be ruled out," Josep Lluis Trapero told a news conference in Barcelona, adding that border checks had been reinforced immediately after the attacks.
Trapero also said he could not confirm who was the driver of the van that killed 13 people in Barcelona.
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August 19, 2017 at 10:48 pm
A missing imam and a house that exploded days ago became the focus Saturday of the investigation into an extremist cell responsible for two deadly attacks in Barcelona and a nearby resort, as authorities narrowed in on who radicalized a group of young men in northeastern Spain.
Investigators searched the home of Abdelbaki Es Satty, an imam who in June abruptly quit working at a mosque in the town of Ripoll, the home of the Islamic radicals behind the attacks that killed 14 people and wounded over 120 in the last few days. Police were trying to determine whether Es Satty was killed in a botched bomb-making operation on Wednesday, the eve of the Barcelona bloodshed.
His former mosque has denounced the deadly attacks and weeping relatives marched into a Ripoll square on Saturday, tearfully ...
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August 19, 2017 at 10:46 pm
The day after President Donald Trump sparred with reporters on live television over assigning blame for violence at a white supremacist rally, White House aides were stunned, advisers were whispering their frustrations, business allies were cutting public ties with the White House and Trump was out of sight.
But Vice President Mike Pence was on message.
At a press conference 5,000 miles away in Santiago, Chile, Pence offered a robust defense of the president, while neither endorsing nor denouncing his words.
“What happened in Charlottesville was a tragedy, and the president has been clear on this tragedy and so have I,” Pence said Wednesday in response to a reporter’s question during a weeklong trip to Latin America. “I spoke at length about this heart-breaking s...
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August 19, 2017 at 10:44 pm
Dallas police officials say a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee has been vandalized.
The Dallas Morning News reported a crew of city workers went to Lee Park early Saturday to power-wash the spray-painted word “Nazis” off of the statue, one of three Confederate monuments in the city. A police spokeswoman says extra patrols will be in the park to prevent further vandalism.
City officials have been discussing whether to remove or relocate the city’s Confederate statues, a conversation hastened by violence that broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend.
The city’s four black city councilmen held a joint news conference Friday to say they supported removing the statues as a way to start healing the city’s racist past.
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August 19, 2017 at 10:42 pm
Solar glasses are a must for safe viewing of Monday’s total solar eclipse, the first to span coast to U.S. coast in 99 years.
And parents beware: Eye doctors urge strict adult supervision for eclipse watchers under 16 years old.
There should be absolutely no peeking without eclipse glasses or other certified filters except during the two minutes or so when the moon completely blots out the sun, called totality. That’s the only time it’s safe to view the eclipse without protection. When totality is ending, then it’s time to put them back on.
Totality means 100 percent of the sun is covered. That will occur only along a narrow strip stretching from Oregon, through the Midwestern plains, down to South Carolina. The rest of the U.S. gets a partial eclipse that extend...
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August 19, 2017 at 10:42 pm
WASHINGTON — For Susan Bro, mother of the woman killed at a rally organized by white supremacists, the president of the United States can offer no healing words.
She says the White House repeatedly tried to reach out to her on Wednesday, the day of Heather Heyer's funeral. But she's since watched President Donald Trump lay blame for the Charlottesville violence on "both sides."
"You can't wash this one away by shaking my hand and saying 'I'm sorry,'" she said in a television interview on Friday.
In moments like this, of national crisis or tragedy, presidents typically shed their political skin, at least briefly. They use the broad appeal of the presidency to unite and soothe, urging citizens to remember their humanity, their common bonds as Americans....
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August 19, 2017 at 10:34 pm
Carl C. Icahn, the billionaire investor, is no longer advising President Trump on regulatory matters.
In his first post on Twitter in three months, Mr. Icahn announced on Friday that “with President Trump’s blessing, I ceased to act as a special adviser to the president on issues relating to regulatory reform.”
The post linked to a letter on his website, in which he stated that he “never had a formal position” with the Trump administration.
Mr. Icahn announced his resignation a few hours before The New Yorker published an online article about the conflicts created by his advisory role. The writer, Patrick Radden Keefe, later said on Twitter that the White House told him Mr. Icahn had been fired as an adviser on Monday.
The advi...
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August 19, 2017 at 10:20 pm
The attacker was identified as a 17 year-old Palestinian from the West Bank town of Tulkarem.
A Border policeman was lightly wounded Saturday night after being stabbed near the Tapuah junction in the northern West Bank.The attacker, identified by the police as a 17-year-old resident of Tulkarm, was shot and killed by security forces.
According to police, a Palestinian approached the officers standing at the junction, pulled out a knife when they called on him to stop and then tried to attack them.The 21-year-old victim, who was stabbed in the leg, was treated by Magen David Adom paramedics and IDF medical forces at the scene.He was evacuated to the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson Campus in Petah Tikva and was reported to be fully conscious.Since October 2015, Palestinians have stabbed, ru...
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August 19, 2017 at 10:04 pm
PM Netanyahu to meet Russia's President Putin and US envoys to discuss Iran, Syria, and renewing talks with the Palestinian Authority.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet on Wednesday in the Russian city Sochi, near the Black Sea.
The two leaders will speak about regional developments, especially in light of Israel's concern that Iran's influence in Syria is growing.
"In the past two years Prime Minister Netanyahu has met with Russian President Putin every few months in order to discuss bilateral and regional issues and in order to prevent friction between the Israeli and Russian air forces in Syria, so far successfully," a spokesman said.
On Thursday, Mossad Chief Yossi Cohen, US National Security Advisor H...
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August 19, 2017 at 10:02 pm
A Weekly Shtikle mazal tov to my niece and nephew, Fraidy and Shmuel Clinton of Lakewood on the birth of their daughter, Malka Bracha.
An additional Weekly Shtikle mazal tov to my niece Kayla Levy on her engagement to Yosef Marx of Passaic, NJ. Mazal Tov to the extended Shonek, Levy, Bulka & Jakobovits mishpachos.
As we draw nearer to the much-hyped full solar eclipse across the United States, please see my essay on eclipses: Eclipses in Halachah and Machshavah
This week's parsha contains a number of sections related to various types of avodah zarah. Nowadays, it is very difficult for us to comprehend the strong inclination towards idol worship that existed in those times. This is because, as the gemara (Sanhedrin 64a) explains, the yeitzer hara for avodah zarah was destroyed d...
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August 19, 2017 at 10:01 pm
An Arab tried to infiltrate the community of Ateret on Friday night and fled when spotted by a local patrol.
An Arab attempted to infiltrate into the community of Ateret, in the Binyamin region, on Friday night.
Arutz Sheva has learned that a ladder had been placed on the fence of the community, and that quick action by the community platoon commander and a patrolman resulted in an Arab fleeing the scene before he was able to infiltrate into the community.
Security camera footage shows the escape route taken by the suspected terrorist, who headed towards the Palestinian Arab town of Rawabi.
Rawabi was built in Area A and is adjacent to Ateret. It is expected to have a population of approximately 25,000 people in approximately 6,000 housing units, with a final population t...
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August 19, 2017 at 9:50 pm
Holocaust survivor Sonia K. speaks to CNN, tells them the world may be in for another Holocaust - unless attitudes change.
In an interview with CNN, Holocaust survivor Sonia K. spoke about her experiences in the Holocaust and said that silence is the worst thing after hatred.
"Silence is the first thing after hate that is dangerous," Sonia explained. "Because if you are silent, it's an approval of what's going on."
According to Sonia, no one in the 1930s believed the Holocaust could happen - and no one today believes it can happen again. But the last few months "have felt like 1938 all over again" and Sonia now fears for her descendants.
"What do you want me to think? That it cannot happen again? Yes, it can happen. It's awful. When we came to Auschwitz, th...
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August 19, 2017 at 9:47 pm
'Work accident' foils terrorists' plan to carry out three simultaneous attacks.
The terrorists who on Thursday killed fourteen and injured over 100 in Barcelona and Cambrils had planned a horrific terror attack which was avoided thanks to a work accident.
According to Spanish media, the terrorists planned to travel in three trucks filled with explosives and gas balloons. One of the trucks would explode on Las Ramblas, a second one at a famous church, and the third near Barcelona's port.
On Wednesday, while the team prepared the attack, they accidentally detonated the explosives.
Authorities are still searching for 22-year-old Younis Abu-Yaqub, suspected of driving the van which rammed into a crowd on Las Ramblas.
Immediately after the atta...
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August 19, 2017 at 9:44 pm
Anti-Defamation League said Breitbart creator should not have been appointed, urges Trump to dismiss all staff with ties to 'extremists'.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Saturday responded to reports that US President Donald Trump had fired senior White House adviser Stephen Bannon.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said, "Hate has no place in our nation: not in our town squares and not in our White House. We are glad Steve Bannon will no longer advise the president."
"In November of 2016, when Bannon was first appointed, we called on the President to disassociate himself from someone who boasted about creating a platform on Breitbart for the alt-right, a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites.
"Now is the time for moral leadership. As...
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August 19, 2017 at 9:40 pm
America’s annual joint military exercises with South Korea always frustrate North Korea. The war games set to begin Monday may hold more potential to provoke than ever, given President Donald Trump’s “fire and fury” threats and Pyongyang’s as-yet-unpursued plan to launch missiles close to Guam.
Will the allies keep it low-key, or focus on projecting strength? An examination of this year’s drills and how the North might respond to them:
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THE WAR GAMES
The Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills, which will run through Aug. 31, will be the first large-scale military exercise between the allies since North Korea successfully flight-tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July and threatened to bracket Guam with intermediate range ballistic missile fi...
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August 19, 2017 at 9:33 pm
Thousands of demonstrators chanting anti-Nazi slogans converged Saturday on downtown Boston in a boisterous repudiation of white nationalism, dwarfing a small group of conservatives who cut short their planned “free speech rally” a week after a gathering of hate groups led to bloodshed in Virginia.
Counterprotesters marched through the city to historic Boston Common, where many gathered near a bandstand abandoned early by conservatives who had planned to deliver a series of speeches. Police vans later escorted the conservatives out of the area, and angry counterprotesters scuffled with armed officers trying to maintain order.
Members of the Black Lives Matter movement later protested on the Common, where a Confederate flag was burned and protesters pounded on the sides of a p...
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August 19, 2017 at 9:32 pm
The survey by YouGov shows that only 59 per cent of Britain’s 270,000 Jewish people feel welcome in the UK
One in three British Jews have considered leaving the country because they no longer feel safe here.
And almost four in 10 say they hide their faith for fear of antisemitic attacks, a poll found.
The survey by YouGov shows that only 59 per cent of Britain’s 270,000 Jewish people feel welcome in the UK.
And three quarters believe the Labour Party harbours antisemites.
Since Jeremy Corbyn became leader two years ago he has had to fend off claims he is not doing enough to tackle discrimination.
A report by MPs last year said his party failed “consistently and effectively to deal with antisemitic incidents”.
Former London mayor Ken L...
