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March 22, 2019 at 4:43 pm
Jerusalem - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday that he will sue two of his main political rivals for libel over remarks relating to a graft scandal relating to a German submarine deal.
In a video published on Netanyahu’s Facebook page the veteran Israeli leader said he has instructed his attorneys to take legal action against former army general Benny Gantz and ex-defence minister Moshe Ya’alon, both of the centrist Blue and White party.
Israel faces elections on April 9. Netanyahu faces no charges in the submarine matter, but possible indictment in three other corruption cases. He has denied all wrongdoing and accuses his opponents of carrying out a politically motivated “witch-hunt.” Read more at Reuters
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March 22, 2019 at 4:42 pm
[Ed. Note] Out of the respect and recognition of the impact made by longtime BJL friend and contributor, Reb Shaya Gross, z’l, we will maintain a living memoriam to Shaya through the sweet words and thoughtful insights of his Divrei Torah. BJL readers will remember his weekly column on the Parsha and on various Torah ideas and concepts. These meaningful words will help us remember this special young man who will be sorely missed and for those who did not merit to know him, this will be the most appropriate way for them to become familiar with who he was.
Feeling despondent that all of the joy of Purim is over? After Purim, one of my Rebbeim would always quote a Rashi in Gemara Taanis that says we should increase our joy in Adar. Rashi goes on to explain that this in...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:55 pm
The Israeli Rabbinate is increasingly using DNA testing to help decide the Jewishness of individuals seeking to marry. In almost all cases, this involved immigrants from the former Soviet Union or their offspring.
About half a dozen complaints against the practice were filed over the past year with the ITIM organization, which helps immigrants and converts navigate religious bureaucracy.
Officially, the Rabbinate only uses DNA results to buttress evidence of a person’s ancestry, but never relies on it exclusively.
Yet not everyone is happy with this. Rabbonim of Yerushalayim’s Eretz Chemdah Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies DNA have been pushing for the acceptance of testing of mitochondrial DNA that is inherited exclusively from a person’s mother as conc...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:51 pm
Majdal Shams -Druze Arabs and Israeli settlers on opposite sides of the dispute over U.S. President Donald Trump’s support for Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights agree on one thing - it won’t change matters on the ground.
The fertile hillsides of the Israeli-occupied Golan are scattered with villages inhabited by 22,000 Druze, an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam. Many still have relatives on the Syrian side of the fortified boundary.
In Majdal Shams, older residents remember being part of Syria before Israel captured most of the heights in the 1967 Middle East war, occupying and later annexing it in 1981.
That annexation was not recognized internationally, and although they have lived under Israeli rule for more than half a century and shopfronts bear ...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:48 pm
Poland - Warsaw is likely to refuse Holocaust denier David Irving entry to Poland later this year, the foreign minister said on Friday, citing local legislation that bans denying the genocide.
Israel had urged Poland to deny Irving entry after reports that he planned to lead a tour of Nazi concentration camps in the country. The author of several books, Irving has denied that the Nazis murdered six million Jews during World War Two.
Irving confirmed to Reuters by email that he had planned to visit Poland later this year, as he has in the past.
“Negation of the Holocaust is not allowed by Polish law, therefore he will not be welcome here in Poland if he wants to come and present his opinions,” Jacek Czaputowicz told reporters at a press conference.
Irving sued an American hi...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:47 pm
Town Of Ulster, NY - The arrest of a New York man on charges of harassing a Jewish co-worker at a health food store is the latest in a rising number of anti-Semitic episodes reported in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Friday.
The Democrat joined state police Superintendent Keith Corlett for the announcement of the arrest of William Sullivan, 21, of Saugerties, on a misdemeanor count of aggravated harassment.
Police said the conflict occurred March 11 at Mother’s Earth’s Storehouse in Ulster, outside Kingston, 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Albany. The female employee was in the produce cooler with another co-worker when Sullivan appeared in the doorway, shut off the lights and told her, “You’re in the gas chamber now,” and then insulted her Jewish faith ...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:45 pm
United Nations - The U.N.‘s cultural agency said Friday it is considering whether to remove its recognition of a Belgium carnival as a valuable piece of cultural heritage following accusations of anti-Semitism during a parade.
UNESCO, Jewish organizations and European authorities have condemned the supposed anti-Semitic and racist nature of a parade float at the Aalst Carnival that featured puppets of Jews earlier this month. Another group paraded in Ku Klux Klan hoods and robes.
“It’s not the first time that these racist and anti-Semitic floats parade in this festival,” the agency’s director-general Audrey Azoulay said, adding that its duty is “to be vigilant and uncompromising regarding such occurrences.”
A few days after the March 3 parade, E...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:44 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the United States sanctions on North Korea (all times local):
2:25 p.m.
President Donald Trump says he is reversing his administration’s decision to slap new sanctions on North Korea, ordering them withdrawn.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders says Trump “likes Chairman Kim and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary.”
Trump says in a tweet that, “It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea.”
But he says, “I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!”
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about which sanctions Trump was referring to. His a...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:44 pm
Philadelphia - Some problem police officers in Philadelphia have been assigned to monitor security cameras in a highly sensitive Homeland Security intelligence facility.
The location has become a sort of holding area for officers on restricted duty, meaning they are unfit for street duty because of pending criminal charges or accusations of wrongdoing, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer .
Among those assigned to the unit is a homicide detective accused of making secret cash payments to an imprisoned informant and a former detective accused of coercing false confessions.
Police Commissioner Richard Ross defended the practice in an email to the newspaper, saying that it’s a low-risk and “efficient” use of officers who work under stringent supervision, and that they h...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:41 pm
‘Life, Liberty & Levin’ host Mark Levin joins ‘Hannity’ to discuss the radicalized Democrats’ push to abolish the Electoral College, lower the voting age, and stack the Supreme Court.
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March 22, 2019 at 3:40 pm
Reaction and analysis to veteran journalist Ted Koppel’s comments from Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.
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March 22, 2019 at 3:36 pm
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, an avowed progressive, is continuing to support AIPAC amid calls for Democrats to skip this year’s policy conference in Washington, D.C. De Blasio’s team confirmed he will deliver remarks at the annual conference this weekend — another example of daylight between him the left flank of the Democratic Party on the issue of Israel.
He plans to speak about “the progressive pro-Israel movement” in front of an estimated 18,000 people at the conference Monday, his spokesperson Jaclyn Rothenberg said. On Sunday, he will be interviewed on stage by AIPAC’s national director for progressive engagement, Marilyn Rosenthal.
Earlier this week, the liberal group MoveOn called on Democratic presidential candidates to forgo the confer...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:35 pm
Left looks to blame Trump for mosque attacks; Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson weighs in on critics calling Trump racist.
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March 22, 2019 at 3:33 pm
Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shaprio weighs in on the entitlement generation on ‘The Ingraham Angle.’
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March 22, 2019 at 3:27 pm
Chareidim give significantly more of their time and money to charitable causes than other Israeli populations.
The Chareidi Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA) found that while 59% of Israeli Jews give tzedokah, among chareidim the figure is 89%, with 67% giving over $140 monthly. Among religious Zionists, the figure was 80%.
Volunteering of time for charitable causes is prevalent among 21% of secular and traditional Jews, while for religious Zionist and chareidi Jews, the figures are 33% and 38%, respectively.
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March 22, 2019 at 3:22 pm
Agudath Israel of America warmly welcomes the announcement made by President Donald Trump recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights, a mountainous range overlooking Israel, were captured after Syria attacked Israel during the Six Day War and have been in Israel’s hands for nearly 52 years.
All who are familiar with the geography and military history of the region recognize the strategic importance of the Golan Heights. Syrian control of the mountain range posed a mortal danger to Israel. It furnished Syria and terrorist groups a formidable military advantage, providing them with a base from which to launch deadly attacks against Israel and its citizens in the lowlands below. For the past 52 years, with Israeli control of the area, the threat of Syrian...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:22 pm
US President says Democrats are anti-Israel and anti-Jewish and "it's a disgrace".
US President Donald Trump on Friday repeated his claims that Democrats are “anti-Israel” and “anti-Jewish”.
“The Democrats have very much proven to be anti-Israel,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House en route to Florida, according to the Washington Post. “There’s no question about that. And it’s a disgrace. I mean, I don’t know what’s happened to them, but they are totally anti-Israel. Frankly, I think they’re anti-Jewish.”
Trump made similar comments two weeks ago, after the House of Representatives passed a broad resolution that called out bigotry of all kinds without directly c...
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March 22, 2019 at 3:17 pm
Parshas Tzav / Baltimore Zmanim / Eruv is UP!
Baltimore, MD – Mar. 22, 2019
Parshas: Tzav
Today: 15 Adar II (Shushan Purim)
Chatzos: 1:14 PM
Hadlakas Nairos: 7:02 PM
Shkiah: 7:20:33 PM
Tzais HaKochavim: 8:11 PM
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March 22, 2019 at 12:56 pm
President Donald Trump on Friday continued to claim there was "no collusion" between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia as Washington braces for special counsel Robert Mueller's highly anticipated report.
"I have no idea about [the] Mueller report," Trump told reporters outside the White House before he departed for a meeting with foreign leaders at his private Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. "We're going to see what happens, it's going to be very interesting...there was no collusion, there was no obstruction — everybody knows it. It's all a big hoax."
He added that Attorney General William Barr "will ultimately make a decision" about the report's release.
Trump noted that he did not know when Mueller would submit his report when asked if the report w...
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March 22, 2019 at 12:52 pm
Rav Chaim Kanievsky, shlita, never issued predictions of when Moshiach is coming, said his son-in-law, Rav Yitzchok Kolodetzky.
Rav Kolodetzky was referring to a story that when someone asked Rav Chaim whether to get an Israeli ID before the elections in order to vote, he replied that Moshiach will have come by then.
“The gedolei Yisroel of all generations had the Thirteen Principles imbued deep in their hearts and constantly expected Moshiach’s arrival every day,” Rav Kolodetzky clarified. “Therefore, in general, when they are asked questions about the far-future, they spontaneously reply that they expect Moshiach to have come by then.
“But he never established a time or date when he would certainly come and oft...
