Glimpses of greatness set the tone for the week as participants in the 20th annual Yerushalayim Yarchei Kallah spent a breathless Sunday on a journey that spanned the continents and the centuries, inspiring them to reach for the highest heights in limud haTorah. Buoyed by the inspiration that reached unprecedented levels 46 days ago at the Siyum HaShas, hundreds left their day to day lives and businesses behind to join Agudath Israel of America's Torah Projects Commission at the Yarchei Kallah to plumb the depths of the sugyah d'kallah, which this year delves into inyanei tefilah. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, and businessmen from all across the globe cast aside their regular schedules, arriving in Yerushalayim to take advantage of a pre-Yarchei Kallah visit to the Israel Museu...
Thousands of frum Jews have been relying on the famous heter by Rav Moshe Feinstein, the great halachic posek of the past generation, that permits to consume dairy products that are cholov stam (milk not supervised by a Jew). In his responsa Igros Moshe (Yoreh Deah 1:47), Rav Feinstein ruled that such milk – also called cholov stam – is permissible because the governmental inspection of dairies can serve as verification that milk from non-kosher animals is not present. But a new letter that was recently discovered, and, to the best of our knowledge, was never published before, places key restrictions on that option. The letter was written in response to an inquiry by Reb Yitzchok Shlomo Hoffman OBM, a noted Jewish activist who would arrange kosher food for J...
Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz said Sunday he has proof that former President Barack Obama "personally asked" the FBI to investigate someone "on behalf of George Soros," the liberal billionaire megadonor.  Dershowitz's claim came soon after Attorney General Bill Barr openly asked President Trump to stop tweeting about ongoing Justice Department matters, saying it made it "impossible" to do his job. Barr, who also maintained that Trump never personally intervened in a criminal matter despite Democrats' allegations, was hit last week by a letter from former DOJ officials organized by a leftwing group demanding his resignation. "There was a lot of White House control of the Justice Department during the Kennedy administratio...
Democratic presidential contender Michael Bloomberg is set to join the Democratic presidential primary debate on Wednesday after he qualified for the forum with the release of a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.  “Mike is looking forward to joining the other Democratic candidates on stage and making the case for why he's the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump and unite the country," Bloomberg's campaign manager, Kevin Sheekey, said in a statement. "The opportunity to discuss his workable and achievable plans for the challenges facing this country is an important part of the campaign process."  Bloomberg did not qualify for the past debates due to the self-funding of his campaign. Instead, he has relied on deploying high-doll...
The corruption trial against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will begin on March 17, two weeks following the upcoming Israeli elections. The first hearing in the trial will be held then. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit formally submitted the charges against Netanyahu on January 28. The indictments center on three cases, Case 1000, Case 2000, and Case 4000. In Case 4000, the indictment revolves around allegations the Prime Minister expedited regulatory changes beneficial to the Bezeq telecommunications company’s owner Shaul Elovitch, in exchange for more positive coverage on the Walla! News website, also owned by Shaul Elovitch. Read mmore at Arutz-7
Yamina candidate Sara Beck criticized the arrest of former Likud MK Yehuda Glick on the Temple Mount Tuesday, accusing authorities of 'persecuting' Jews at the holy site. She said that "A state of affairs wherein under Israeli sovereignty Jews cannot visit the Temple Mount without police supervising their every move is ridiculous and absurd. The policy of persecuting and restricting only Jews directly encourages extreme Muslim elements." Beck further stated that "It (would be) better (if) the State of Israel stood in the way of incendiary and violent elements of our society and not of peaceful Jews seeking to fulfill their commandments."
Israel considered assassinating two high-ranking Hamas leaders due to their opposition to the parameters of the ceasefire agreement currently in place, senior Egyptian sources and officials in Gaza told the London-based pan-Arab media outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. According to the report, the Egyptian security delegation mediating between Israel and Hamas persuaded Israel to stand down. The two terrorist leaders Israel allegedly planned to target were Yahya Sinwar, leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and Marwan Issa, the deputy leader of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. Arab media outlets reported that Sinwar avoided meeting with members of the Egyptian delegation in Gaza out of fear that Israel would assassinate him. According to reports, those close to S...
Former Likud MK and Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick was released Tuesday afternoon after lengthy police questioning following his arrest on the Temple Mount. Glick was arrested Tuesday morning while visiting the Temple Mount with two US congressmen. Police claim he violated the rules of the visit. Responding to Glick's arrest, Yamina candidate Sara Beck said: "A state of affairs wherein under Israeli sovereignty Jews cannot visit the Temple Mount without police supervising their every move is ridiculous and absurd. The policy of persecuting and restricting only Jews directly encourages extreme Muslim elements." "It would be better if the State of Israel stood in the way of incendiary and violent elements of our society and not of peaceful Jews seeking to fulfill their comm...
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert filed a request to have his criminal record expunged by President Reuven Rivlin. According to a Ha'aretz report, Olmert's lawyers based their reasoning, among other things, on their client's contributions to the state, especially in the years he served as prime minister. Having his criminal record expunged would remove the seven-year "disgrace" period that elected officials indicted of criminal charges must face. The former Prime Minister recently expressed a desire to return to political life, but his associates are convinced he will not do so even if the President agrees to expunge his criminal record. Last week, Olmert met with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to discuss US President Donald Trump's "Deal of ...
“Difficult days lie before us, and it may be that dramatic steps and painful decisions will be required,” El Al CEO Gonen Usishkin wrote in an email to employees. The email came after the Israeli airline notified the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange that it was facing a crisis due to the coronavirus outbreak and new measures imposed by the Health Ministry, according to Globes. On Sunday, the Health Ministry announced that, in addition to those returning from China, travelers returning from Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau would also be required to quarantine themselves for two weeks. In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, El Al has temporarily canceled its flights to Beijing and Hong Kong, and reduced flights to Bangkok. “These are trying times for the...
Former MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) was arrested Tuesday morning on the Temple Mount. Footage from the arrest shows the MK being forcibly removed from the holy site by police officers. Police claim Glick violated "the site's regulations". Glick had been visiting the holy site with two American lawmakers at the time of his arrest.
Blue and White is the largest party with 34 seats, while the Likud wins 33 seats, according to Walla! news poll. A Walla! news poll conducted by the Midgam Institute and released on Monday shows that the political stalemate continues. If elections were held today, the poll found, Blue and White would be the largest party in the Knesset with 34 seats, while the Likud would win 33 seats. The predominantly Arab Joint List party wins 13 seats, and the Labor-Gesher-Meretz faction receives ten seats. The Shas party headed by Aryeh Deri has eight seats, as does United Torah Judaism. Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beyteu party wins seven seats. The Yamina party also has seven seats. The Otzma Yehudit party does not pass the electoral threshold. Divided into blocs, the right...
JERUSALEM (VINnews) — When Yehuda Sabiner was a young boy, he dreamed of being a doctor. This would not be an unusual dream for most people, but Yehuda grew up as a Gerer Chasid in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof and had no secular education whatsoever. “I didn’t even know multiplication tables”, Sabiner told Channel 13 in a recent interview. Sabiner (30), who recently completed his certification as a doctor, has become something of a celebrity in the Israeli press as the first Chareidi doctor in Israel who grew up in a totally Chasidic home. “I don’t think it’s unusual to find a Chareidi doctor in Israel, they usually come from abroad, but I don’t know anybody else who came from the Chareidi consensus to this vocation,” Sabiner ...
A delegation of ZAKA activists and members of the Jewish Cemeteries Commission in Europe (CPJCE) visited Auschwitz-Birkenau to investigate reports that thousands of bone fragments have floated above ground after heavy rains. The bones are principally in ponds near the crematoria were bodies were incinerated during the war, but also scattered throughout the camp’s 40 acres due to Poles searching the ashes for jewelry after the war. ZAKA director Yehuda Meshi Zahav said that solving the issue was a complex engineering and logistics project, and he appealed for help from countries which participated in Yerushalayim’s World Holocaust Conference.
After the discovery that thousands of army doors have invalid mezuzos or none at all, the Army Rabbinate launched Project Lintel and set up 6,000 mezuzos in hundreds of military dormitories. “The project was a significant response to demand from all units for mezuzos that are kosher lemehadrin,” said Army Chief Rabbi Eyal Karim. “Now that we have finished the dormitory rooms, we will energetically continue to the next step that includes the rest of the buildings and installations.”
Arguing that parking tickets should not be issued on Shabbos, an Israeli judge sharply reduced the 100-shekel ($27) parking fine given to a religious Herzliya woman who had parked illegally at the city’s marina and received two fines, one on Friday and one on Shabbos. She had argued that the second fine should be annulled as she could not move her car at that time. Expressing surprise that the Interior Ministry had authorized city parking inspectors to work on Shabbos, Judge Shlomo Isakson reduced her fine to one shekel. Shabbos work permits are only supposed to be issues in life-and-death situations.
Apple on Monday warned that it expects to fall short of revenue goals in the current quarter because of the coronavirus outbreak, underscoring the far-reaching effects of the public health crisis on the global economy. In a statement to investors, Apple said that while factories in China were reopening, iPhone production in the country was ramping up more slowly than expected. “Work is starting to resume around the country, but we are experiencing a slower return to normal conditions than we had anticipated,” the company said. “These iPhone supply shortages will temporarily affect revenues worldwide.” Demand for Apple products has also dampened in China, where all the company’s stores and many of its partner stores have shuttered, according to the statement...
Jeff Bezos announced the formation of the Bezos Earth Fund on Monday, saying it will provide $10 billion in grants to scientists and activists to fund their efforts to fight climate change. “Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet,” Bezos said in the announcement on Instagram. “I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change on this planet we all share.” The Amazon founder and CEO said the grants will go to individuals and organizations from around the globe, adding that the effort will “take collective action from big companies, small companies, nation states, global organizations, and individuals.” (Bezos also owns The Washington Post.) He said grants ...
President Trump on Monday accused former President Obama of “trying to take credit” for the strong economy. The president tweeted in response to Obama’s commemorating the 11th anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, “paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history.” “He had the WEAKEST recovery since the Great Depression, despite Zero Fed Rate & MASSIVE quantitative easing. NOW, best jobs numbers ever,” Trump responded. “Had to rebuild our military, which was totally depleted. Fed Rate UP, taxes and regulations WAY DOWN.” The Trump campaign also criticized Obama’s tweet, saying in a statement to Fox News that the economy is recovering bec...
Renowned Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt was disrupted by a group of anti-Israel activists during a talk on antisemitism at the University of California, Berkeley, last Thursday. In a Twitter thread posted on Sunday, Lipstadt pointed out that her lecture was on present-day antisemitism and had nothing to do with Israel, implying that the protesters had targeted her because she was a Jew speaking on Jewish issues. “My talk was about antisemitism here and now,” she said in a Twitter thread posted on Sunday. “Not about Israel. Three protesters positioned themselves next to me with signs attacking Israel.” “In the talk, when I spoke about antisemitism from the left, I mentioned that many people refuse to see antisemitism as legitimate,” ...
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