BALTIMORE (WBFF) -- Baltimore Police need help identifying two suspects wanted in connection to several robberies that occurred in the northwest district Friday. Police say, around 7 p.m., two suspects entered the Khal Chassidim Synagogue on Park Heights Avenue, pointed a gun at a man and attempted to rob him. “The man who had the gun pointed at him dove at the guy and tried to swat the thing away and then they ran away,” Heshie Klein with the Khal Chassidim Synagogue said. “Honestly I don't even know if they knew this was a Synagogue." Police are also investigating two other robberies that occurred in the same area, one on Clover Road and the other on Park Heights near Glen Avenue. Police believe the same two suspects are responsible for all three robberies. ...
Amid all the planning, predictions and even prayers for the 13th Global Siyum Hashas, not a single member of the massive team that planned the worldwide celebration of limud haTorah ever expected things to turn out quite the way they did. Starting on December 16th in Melbourne, Australia and moving on days later to Mexico City, the Global Siyum HaShas of Daf Yomi began a month-long trek across the planet, igniting an unprecedented passion for Torah in every city, at every siyum.  Throughout North America, Europe, Australia and Israel, well over 500,000 people participated in multiple siyumim and like the mountaintop flames in Mishnaic times that signaled the coming of Rosh Chodesh from one locale to another, the torch of Torah circled the globe, setting hearts and souls on fire. Rav...
This article is adapted from my newly released sefer, “What Can I Say... Today?” (The sefer can be ordered online at Feldheim.com and is coming to Baltimore this week, b’ezras Hashem!) All halachos mentioned herein are complex and part of a larger framework. The purpose of the article is to raise awareness of these essential halachos. Hence, one should not draw any practical conclusions without first consulting a Rav. Over the course of writing the sefer, I had the privilege of submitting questions to Rav Yitzchak Berkovits shlit”a, one of the leading poskim in the halachos of Shmiras Halashon, and receiving responses. I was also given access to other responsa of Rav Berkovits regarding these halachos. The following are questions and answers that were reviewed by ...
Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Palestinian leaders threatened Sunday to withdraw from key provisions of the Oslo Accords, which define arrangements with Israel, if US President Donald Trump announces his Middle East peace plan next week. Trump was scheduled to unveil the plan ahead of his meeting in Washington this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, who has called Trump "the greatest friend that Israel has ever had", said he hoped to "make history" in Washington this week. But the Palestinian leadership was not invited to the talks and has rejected Trump's initiative amid tensions with the US president over his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital. World powers have long agreed that Jerusalem's fate should be set...
The German government on Wednesday returned three works of art stolen from a Jewish lawyer and collector during the Nazi occupation of France to descendants of their original owner, reported France 24. The two paintings—Dame en Robe du Soir (“Woman in an Evening Gown”) and Portrait d’une Dame (“Portrait of a Woman”), both by Jean-Louis Forain, were handed over to the relatives of Armand Dorville, along with a drawing by Constantin Guys, a Dutch-born Frenchman who was a Crimean war correspondent. Dorville died in 1941. His works were distributed to museums and private collectors, according to France 24. His family was unable to flee France when it was occupied by the Nazis from 1940-44; most of them were killed. “It is no longer possible to make ...
A volley of rockets landed near the US embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad Sunday, two security sources told AFP, in the latest unclaimed attack on American installations in the country. AFP reporters heard loud thuds emanating from the western bank of the Tigris, where most foreign embassies are located. One security source said three Katyusha rockets hit near the high-security compound while another said as many as five struck the area. Read more at ndtv.
The coronavirus now has a whistleblower — a nurse in Wuhan who insists in a shocking online video that close to 90,000 people in China have the disease, far more than the 1,975 reported by officials. “I am in the area where the coronavirus started,” her video begins. Wuhan is the epicenter of the outbreak. “I’m here to tell the truth,” the anonymous nurse says in the video, which shows her wearing a full-head face mask. “At this moment, Hubei province, including the Wuhan area, even China, 90,000 people have been infected by a coronavirus.” Read more at NY POST.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Sunday offered for the first an apology for the war-time persecution of Jews on behalf of his country. “Now the last survivors are still with us, I apologize today in the name of the government for what the authorities did at that time,” Rutte said. Rutte was giving an address in Amsterdam in memory of victims of the Holocaust on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Only 38,000 of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands survived World War II, but no government apology has been offered for the role the authorities played. Read more at i24NEWS.
NEW YORK (VINnews) — Robert Holden, a New York city councilman, met with officials in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York after he had called on the FBI to launch a probe into what he termed the “deep-rooted fraud” in the New York Department of Education (DOE). “I’m encouraged by my meeting with the US Attorney. His team is taking this seriously,” Holden told The New York Post. FBI agents have already contacted several whistle-blowing teachers whose names he provided after Holden had charged the DOE with “an apparent pattern of conspiracy to cover up” grade-fixing, cheating and other wrongdoing. Holden claimed that this behavior warranted an investigation under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizat...
US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib lost no time Saturday retweeting the post of Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official who wrote, “The heart just shatters. The pain is unbearable. No words.” while retweeting the words of a fake activist who created a modern-day blood libel against the Jews of Jerusalem. “KIDNAPPED & EXECUTED” wrote “realSeifBitar” whose account has since been suspended by Twitter. “7 year old #Palestinian child Qusai was kidnapped by a Herd of violent #Israeli settlers, assaulted & thrown in a water well was found this morning frozen to death in Beit Hanina, #Jerusalem after #Israeli forces assaulted search teams” Ashrawi, a seasoned politician with a reputation for false anti-Israeli stat...
The Palestinian Authority reacted angrily to the invitation the Trump Administration extended to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader MK Benny Gantz to the White House next week to discuss the administration’s peace plan. Nabil Abu Roudina, spokesman for PA president Mahmoud Abbas emphasized the PA’s “total opposition” to US resolutions which, among other things, recognize Yerushalayim as the capital of Israel. He warned: “If this deal (Deal of the Century) is declared in its unacceptable form, the Palestinian leadership will announce a series of steps aimed at preserving our legitimate rights, and we will demand that Israel bear its full responsibility as an occupation government. We warn Israel and the US government against crossing ...
George Soros, American-Jewish philanthropist and investor, announced a new $1 billion educational initiative aimed at promoting free and open societies at World Economic Forum in Davos on Friday. The initiative aims to establish the Open Society University Network, which would “reach the students who need it the most” and “promote the values of open society — including free expression and diversity of beliefs.” It also seeks to “strengthen foundations of open society amid authoritarian resurgence” in the world and foster a global research network countering polarization through “educating students to examine issues from different perspectives and advance reasoned arguments.” Read more at i24NEWS.
Israel’s foreign minister told a leading Russian news outlet on Wednesday that the Jewish state “probably would not exist” had it not been for the “victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany” in 1945. Speaking ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Jerusalem for the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz told the newspaper Izvestia that the people of Israel remembered “the contribution of Soviet soldiers to the fight against Nazi persecutors.” The foreign minister’s interview was widely reported in the Russian press, with the Tass news agency highlighting Katz’s observation that “the victory gained by the Red Army and the anti-Hitler coalition wa...
Neil Quinter, former chief counsel to Sen. Feinstein, weighs in on Trump’s defense team giving opening arguments during the impeachment trial.
Apple is pushing back against a European Union initiative that would standardize chargers for all types of smartphones and devices. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, is currently considering legislation to cut back on electronic waste, after a previous voluntary approach didn’t meet its expectations, according to an EU official. European lawmakers have been complaining that users are often required to carry different chargers for similar devices. The iPhone maker’s so-called lightning charging cables for Apple products don’t plug into devices made by Samsung Electronics Co. or other electronics companies. Being forced to use a common standard could turn a bespoke product that Apple sells at high prices into a commodity, cutting into its profit. ...
About 40 million consumers who have fallen behind on their bills or have rising debt levels could see their credit scores fall significantly under changes being made to FICO. Fair Isaac, which produces the widely used credit score, said the severity of the downward shift for those with the lowest credit scores, 600 or below, would depend on how recently the consumer had fallen behind and by how much. About 40 million consumers who already have high credit scores, at least 680, could see it rise even further. “Consumers that have been managing their credit well . . . paying bills on time, keeping their balances in check are likely going to see a gain in score,” Dave Shellenberger, vice president of product management scores, said in a statement. Overall about 110 million peop...
Reported anti-Semitic hate crimes in Los Angeles increased by a little more than 60 percent between 2018 and 2019—the highest total for hate crimes on the basis of religion, according to data released on Wednesday by the Los Angeles Police Department. Of the reported 81 total hate crimes that targeted religious groups in 2019, 69 of them were anti-Jewish, compared to 43 of the 52 total hate crimes in that category the previous year as anti-Semitic—or a 60.5 percent increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes. There are more than 500,000 Jews in Los Angeles, according to Brandeis’s Steinhardt Social Research Institute. There were five reported hate crimes that targeted Muslims in 2019, compared to just two the previous year, followed by four hate crimes targeting other religio...
While in Israel for the Fifth World Holocaust Forum, President of Albania Ilir Meta met with soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces on Jan. 23 and thanked them for their help following November’s deadly earthquake in his nation. Meta visited the Ramla military base, where he embraced Israeli soldiers and awarded the “Golden Eagle Decoration” to the IDF’s National Rescue Unit. The 6.4-magnitude earthquake that struck on Nov. 26 in Albania killed 51 people and injured more than 3,000. It also damaged more than 11,000 buildings, leaving as many as 13,000 people homeless. The natural disaster was the deadliest earthquake to hit the country since 1979. Israeli military engineers were among the foreign volunteers who worked on determining whether some buildings were s...
We shall not allow the creation of a Palestinian state, hard-right Israeli parliamentarian Ayelet Shaked has on Saturday, as the Middle East peace plan drafted by the administration of US President Donald Trump is about to be unveiled. “We do not know all the details, but I can say that we will not allow land to be ceded to Arabs or anyone. Our land is ours. In addition, we will not allow the recognition of a Palestinian state. We believe that a Palestinian state is a dangerous thing for the state of Israel and we will certainly not allow that to happen,” Shaked said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12. US President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will unveil his plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his r...
Sen. John Barrasso reacts to Trump’s defense team accusing House Committees of denying the President due process.
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