Baltimore, MD - Feb. 20, 2019 - Due to the inclement weather there will NOT be a Women's Halacha Shiur this evening in the Shul.  It will be rescheduled for another date. 
A new survey found that over half of Israelis who vote for right-wing parties do not drive on Shabbos and say Kiddush, while half of those who vote for the left go shopping on Shabbos. About 55 percent of the Jewish public believe it very important to be connected to Jewish tradition. The survey also found that only 16 percent of Israeli Jews vote for the left and left-center, leading to the conclusion that that a party seeking relevancy should aim for a more Jewish program. At the same time, Yediot Acharonot reported that many restaurants have dropped blatantly treif items from their menus and had their bottom line increase as a result.
A divorced mother was empowered by the court to vaccinate her 12-year-old daughter despite the objections of the minor’s father in a verdict given by judge Yehoram Shaked on Wednesday. The mother, who has full physical custody of the girl, was forced to turn to the court in order to get permission to vaccinate her daughter after the father objected, arguing “there’s no chance she’ll contract measles” and insisting that his daughter “doesn’t want to [be vaccinated].” In the verdict, the court included the testimony of Dr. Lior Ungar of Sheba Medical Center, who said that, “if an amusement park had a roller coaster ride in which one out of 600 children who rode on it would be ejected from the ride and killed, would you allow your child ...
Baltimore, MD – Feb. 20, 2019 – BJL wishes to offer Sheri Seaman and Harry Felsher a hearty Mazel Tov on their engagement. יה"ר שיזכו לבנות בית נאמן בישראל. אמן!
New York - Police are investigating the death of a man who killed in an accident at a crowded subway station in midtown Manhattan. It happened just before 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the 42nd Street and Grand Central subway station. Police say the 39-year-old man from Queens got his clothing or bag caught on a moving train and was dragged down the platform and onto the tracks where he struck an electric power box. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. His identity has not yet been released. According to a Metropolitan Transportation Authority official, the platform was not crowded at the time, and it appeared that the train was already moving when the man entered the platform. The official said it was unclear why the man made contact with the train. An unnamed law enforcement official to...
The Topeka, Kansas, company, which filed for bankruptcy protection this week, will allow returns and exchanges of non-final sale items through the end of this month for goods bought before Feb. 17. Payless said Wednesday that it received court approval to support the orderly closing of about 2,500 stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada, as well as its e-commerce business. It also received authorization to pay employee wages and benefits, as well as claims from critical vendors. Retail operations outside of North America, including company-owned stores in Latin America, are separate entities and are not included in the bankruptcy filing.
Thuringia, Germany - The longtime leader of Germany’s Thuringian Jewish community was laid to rest on Wednesday in the state’s capital city of Erfurt, with high ranking officials and religious leaders among the 200 mourners who turned out to pay their respects. Wolfgang Nossen died at the age of 88 on Saturday after a long illness, reported Der Ostthüringer Zeitung (http://bit.ly/2SeWwJ9).  Among those who came to bid a final farewell to Nossen were Thuringian Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow, bishops Ilse Junkermann and Ulrich Neymeyr, and local and state political leaders.  He was recalled by the community’s spiritual leader Rabbi Alexander Nachama as someone who spent his entire life fighting for Jewish rights and supporting the State of Israel. In his remar...
Marine Mountain Warfare Training Center, CA - Hunkered down behind a wall of snow, two U.S. Marines melt slush to make drinking water after spending the night digging out a defensive position high in the Sierra Nevada. Their laminated targeting map is wedged into the ice just below the machine gun. Nearly 8,000 feet (2,440 meters) up at a training center in the California mountains, the air is thin, the snow is chest high and the temperature is plunging. But other Marines just a few kilometers away are preparing to attack, and forces on both sides must be able to battle the enemy and the unforgiving environment. The exercise is designed to train troops for the next war — one the U.S. believes will be against a more capable, high-tech enemy like Russia, North Korea or China. The wea...
Jerusalem - Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems will unveil a new long-range stand-off air-to-surface missile at the Aero India Air Show in Bengaluru, India, this week. The new projectile, named Rocks, is an advanced, stand-off range air-to-surface missile, which can be launched at a distance sufficient to allow attacking personnel to evade defensive fire from the target area. The missile can be used against high-value targets, stationary and re-locatable, even in theaters where the enemy employs effective GPS countermeasures. Equipped with either a penetration or blast fragmentation warhead, the missile can destroy above-ground or well-defended underground targets in heavily surface-to-air-defended areas. Rocks is launched at a significant standoff range, well outside of the...
Baltimore, MD – Feb. 20, 2019 – Baltimore City Councilman Ytzy Schleifer rushed to the scene of the fire at The Imperial which began at 9:08 AM, this morning, Feb. 20.He reports that there is a tremendous damage on the third floor, and the unit's directly underneath, as well as the unit directly above the location of the origination of the fire.Surprisingly, especially with the extent of the damage, the property managers of The Imperial, have not yet been on scene.  Schleifer is currently assisting on relocating all 3rd floor residents as well as the other affected. He has been working closely with the Office of Emergency Management as well as the Baltimore City Fire Department and the Red Cross, ensuring that everything is being handled immediately and in an orderly ...
Updated as of 3:37 PM - Sources say the cause of the fire was an electric blanket that short circuited.Updated as of 1:42 PM - Baltimore Chaverim reports that Park Heights at Clarks is now OpenUpdated as of 12:11 PM - (Citizens App) A firefighter on scene says that all residents of the building are safely sheltering in place or have been safely evacuated.Special Kudos to Chaverim who worked so well together with the Baltimore City Fire Dept. Above: Female firefighter injured while fighting the fire was moved on the stretcher by Chaverim units 68 & 52 from inside the building. The units lifted the stretcher over the hoses and brought it down to Park Heights Ave to a waiting ambulance where she was then transported to Mercy Hospital for treatment for her non-life threating injuries ...
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has struck a preliminary election deal with two fringe religious-nationalist parties in a bid to unify his hard-line bloc ahead of April elections. Netanyahu’s Likud party announced Wednesday it would reserve the 28th spot on its parliamentary list for the Jewish Home party and grant it two Cabinet ministries in a future government if it merges with the Jewish Power party. Jewish Power is comprised of hard-line religious nationalists who have cast themselves as successors to the banned Kahanist movement, which advocated forced removal of Palestinians from Israel. Recent polls project Likud winning about 30 of parliament’s 120 seats, while Jewish Home and Jewish Power may not have enough support to enter parliament on thei...
Washington -  Can Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders recapture the magic that fueled his first presidential campaign? To win the nomination, he may not need to. As Sanders, a 77-year-old self-described democratic socialist, formally launches his 2020 campaign, the lessons of President Donald Trump’s victory in the GOP’s packed 2016 contest loom large. With better-established Republican contenders dividing the GOP primary vote that year, Trump began racking up primary victories with 30 to 40 percent of each state’s vote. He captured his party’s nomination even as six or seven of every 10 primary voters backed another Republican candidate. Sanders’ team is betting that the bar for victory in the more-crowded 2020 Democratic field could be even lower. That simp...
Jerusalem - Arab terrorist Mamduh Amru on Wednesday was sentenced to 30 years in prison and was ordered to pay NIS 258,000 in compensation after he was convicted of causing the death of Eliav Gelman while carrying out a stabbing attack at the Gush Etzion Junction three years ago. Gelman was standing at a hitchhiking station at the Gush Etzion Junction when Amru, 26 from the village of Dura in the Hebron area, attempted to stab Israelis waiting for a ride. Gelman pulled out his gun and charged towards the terrorist, but was fatally shot by IDF soldiers who were firing at the terrorist. The court ruled in a previous hearing that the terrorist was responsible for Gelman’s death since the shooting was caused by his actions. According to Haim Bleicher, a lawyer representing the family...
New York, NY - Feb. 20, 2019 - Agudath Israel of America is pleased to congratulate Rabbi Abba Cohen, Washington director and counsel and long-standing vice president for federal affairs, on being named to the broader position of vice president for government affairs. Appointed to the Agudah’s fledgling office in Washington D.C. thirty years ago by Rabbi Moshe Sherer z’l, Rabbi Cohen has distinguished himself as an exemplary and respected advocate for the Jewish community in our nation’s capital. Knowledgeable, experienced and a true public servant who has represented the Agudah on a variety of matters both to the federal and to foreign governments, Rabbi Cohen’s efforts have paved the way for many successful initiatives that have brought significant benefits to th...
The Noam Elimelech explains that money is like fire; it can be used to create, protect and nourish, or it can be used to harm and destroy. How to balance wealth, material beauty, comfort and desire with spirituality?  How we manage our inherent materialism speaks to how we manage the fundamental tension between the physical and the spiritual.  It is not surprising that how we embrace (or don’t embrace) materialism speaks directly to our sense of good and evil.  Unfortunately, too often the culture in which we find ourselves pushes us in the direction of materialism rather than holiness.  Our Torah portion speaks to the tension between the material and the holy.  To be counted in the first census, each male twenty years or older was to perform the mitzvah o...
In a letter Tuesday to Gov. Larry Hogan and top lawmakers, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh called out what she considered misleading and false statements by the owners of Pimlico Race Course, and called on Annapolis to support a measure related to the track's redevelopment. The Stronach Group, which owns both Pimlico and Laurel Park, receives slots revenue to fund purses and upkeep at both tracks, but has been reluctant to spend much of that money on the Baltimore track, which hosts the Preakness Stakes. A recent Maryland Stadium Authority report put a $424 million price tag on demolishing and rebuilding the property to include retail a hotel and townhouses. After the report came out, Stronach COO Tim Ritvo responded with a shrug, telling racing outlet BloodHorse that ...
Baltimore, MD - Feb. 20, 2019 - BJL wishes a hearty Mazel Tov to Chana and Ariel Drabkin on the birth of a daughter.
Jerusalem, Israel - Feb. 20, 2019 - Initiated by the department for events in Jerusalem City Hall, Shaon Horef, or Winter Noise, street festival is back for the eighth year, each week in a different location around Jerusalem, israel.  Each Monday night in February, the Shaon Horef Cultural Festival transforms the streets in various Jerusalem neighborhoods into a lively cultural venue. The festival attracts thousands of young people and welcomes the public to enjoy hundreds of performances, exhibits, and workshops at no charge. This year there are more than 80 events, with hundreds of artists and musicians performing. The festival aims to promote local businesses and to use the attraction as an engine for financial growth.  Last year City Councilman Aryeh King prote...
New York -  A federal housing official’s monthlong tour of New York City public housing complexes hit a speed bump when she got stuck in an elevator Tuesday. Lynne Patton and 10 other people including reporters and photographers were trapped in an elevator at the Frederick Douglass Houses in Manhattan for about 10 minutes when someone accidentally hit the alarm switch. The group had to be freed by firefighters. “Thank you, New York’s Bravest! Sadly, NYCHA residents — elderly & disabled — endure this type of debilitating systematic failure on a regular basis,” Patton later posted on Facebook , using the acronym for the New York City Housing Authority. Patton, the New York-New Jersey regional administrator for the Department of Housing and Urba...
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