BALTIMORE (WBFF) -- Baltimore’s city council has defeated a measure that would limit local elected officials to three consecutive terms. “They help root out corruption and let elected officials know this is not a lifetime appointment,” said Councilman Issac “Yitzy” Schleifer, who sponsored the bill. Schleifer had asked his fellow council members to approve a charter amendment that would place the question on the November ballot. However, it failed to pass by a vote of 7-7. “I think there’s an argument that it maybe does more harm than good,” said Councilman Ryan Dorsey. Councilwoman Sharon Green Middleton called term limits oppressive.Read more at FOX Baltimore
                 In Bamidbar 31:23 the posuk teaches us that every vessel that was used with fire shall be koshered with fire and every vessel used with hot water requires to be koshered with hot water. The first question we need answered is; how can we kasher keilim? We have a rule “ein mevatlin issur Lekatchilah.” How can one be mevatel the issur of the goy’s kli by koshering it? The Shailos Utshuvos Rashba vol 1:495 among others, answers that the rule stating we don’t allow one to be mevatel an issur applies only if after you are being mevatel the issu...
Thousands of mostly Hasidic Jews make the annual pilgrimage to the tomb of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov Ukraine's Interior Ministry announced that it would bar Israeli visitors to Uman this Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) citing the recent coronavirus spike. A custom has developed where mostly - but not universally - Hasidic Jews make a pilgrimage to the central Ukrainian town to visit and pray at the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov - the figure who revived the movement and died in 1810. "The common opinion is that the arrival of tens of thousands of Hasidic pilgrims to Uman to conduct the celebration in the traditional format is impossible," mayor Oleksander Tsebriy said on Facebook, according to a report in The Jerusalem Post. Read more at i24
The lawsuit claims that EL AL has violated its own terms of service policy Israel's flagship airline EL AL was slapped with a massive $400 million class-action lawsuit on Tuesday over complaints that the company has refused to reimburse customers for canceled flights due to the coronavirus epidemic.  The lawsuit, submitted to the Lod Central District Court, claims that the total amount of tickets not reimbursed to passengers by the airline since March totals an estimated $440 million.  The complaint also accuses El Al management, which asked the customers to be patient as it continues to work with the government to restructure the company, has violated its own terms of service policy.   Earlier this month, EL AL announced it had reached a bailout agreeme...
Israeli law states that anyone in contact with a confirmed carrier must quarantine for two weeks Israel's Health Ministry said on Tuesday that more than 12,000 citizens were mistakenly sent into quarantine via the Shin Bet's (Israel Security Agency) phone tracking system, according to The Times of Israel. The mass surveillance system, usually designated for tracking suspected Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank, was reauthorized last month following a contentious debate in the Knesset (Israel Parliament).  But on Tuesday, it was revealed that tens of thousands of citizens were mistakenly forced into self-isolation after receiving a text message announcing they had been in close proximity to a coronavirus carrier.  Israeli law states that anyone in contact...
Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh on Monday joined a coalition of 18 attorneys general who have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration’s decision to make international students leave the U.S. if they intend to take classes entirely online starting this fall. The suit, which follows legal action taken by individual institutions including Johns Hopkins University, seeks to stop the rule from going into effect. It was filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts. “This reversal is a cruel attempt to throw hundreds of thousands of international students out of the country,” Frosh said in a statement. “The more than 20,000 international students attending universities in Maryland contribute $800 million every year to ...
'This is the most significant milestone since the launch,' head of space program says Israel has received its first images from the Ofek 16 satellite, launched into space on July 6, the Defense Ministry allowed for publication Tuesday. The high quality images were received overnight at an Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) control station in the city of Yehud in central Israel, a ministry spokesperson said in a statement. In the coming weeks, engineering teams are expected to complete the rigorous tests, and prepare the satellite for full operational use, the statement read. “This is the most significant milestone since the launch of the Ofek 16 satellite,” Head of the Space and Satellite Administration in the Defense Ministry Amnon Harari said. “The ...
Everything else about the coronavirus has become politicized in America, so why not a return to school as well? That’s the depressing state of play as President Trump pushes schools to reopen while Democrats heed teachers unions that demand more federal money and even then may not return. The losers, as ever, would be the children. The evidence — scientific, health and economic — argues overwhelmingly for schools to open in the fall. Start with the relative immunity of young children to the disease, which should reassure parents. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 children under age 15 have died from COVID-19. In a typical year 190 children die of the flu, 436 from suicide, 625 from homicide, and 4,114 from unin...
Turkey’s President Erdogan is vowing to “liberate Al-Aqsa mosque” in Yerushalayim from Israel, the official Turkish presidency website said. Erdogan also announced Muslim prayers at the Hagia Sophia museum, first constructed as a cathedral in the Christian Byzantine Empire and converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The mosque became a museum in 1935.
Joe Biden’s pledge to restore American jobs shows he has “good pollsters” but his calls for tax and regulatory increases will kill jobs rather than create them and plunge the United States into a “very deep recession,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich insisted Monday. “He has always been so close to China that it’s hard to imagine he would follow Trump’s policy of negotiating as toughly as (President Donald) Trump has, for example, with Mexico and Canada,” Gingrich said on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.” “Biden can whistle the tune, but he can’t dance the dance. When you look at his programs they would kill jobs in America.” Gingrich added that every economist he knows believes Biden’s tax incr...
President Trump is pushing a ludicrous theory that doctors are purposefully lying about the novel coronavirus pandemic because they want to harm his chances of re-election later this year, the Daily Beast reports.  Today, Trump retweeted the conservative conspiracy theorist and former game-show host Chuck Woolery as he dismissed medical experts as politically-motivated liars. The incendiary tweet read: “The most outrageous lies are the ones about COVID-19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust. I think it’s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I’m sick of it.” Read more at Daily Beast
Scientist Dr. Li-Meng Yan says supervisors covered up her potentially life-saving coronavirus research.
Southwest Airlines warned employees on Monday that passengers numbers need to triple by the end of the year in order to avoid layoffs. The airline has never had involuntary job cuts but passenger numbers are down 73 percent from 2019, Bloomberg News reported. It gave employees until Wednesday to apply for voluntary separation or to take extended time off because the company is overstaffed for the existing amount of flights. “Although furloughs and layoffs remain our very last resort, we can’t rule them out as a possibility in this really bad environment,” CEO Gary Kelly said in his weekly message to staff on Monday, according to Bloomberg. “We need a significant recovery by the end of this year, and that’s roughly triple the number of passengers from where w...
A New Jersey woman survived a harrowing mile-long ride through a storm drain after flash floods swept her and her car into the drainage system. Passaic Fire Chief Patrick Trentacost said Nathalia Bruno, of Newark, attempted to drive through deep and fast-moving water dumped by a powerful storm on July 6 when her car began to fill with water and float. Brook was able to escape from her vehicle before it filled with water but was pulled into a brook that runs beneath Passaic, the North Jersey Herald reported. Rutherford Police Chief John Russo said Bruno eventually was “shot out” of the drain into the Passaic River and swam across to the other side of the river where she was taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries and shock. Read more at ABC News.
Baltimore, MD – July 9, 2020 - It is with sadness that BaltimoreJewishLife.com informs the community of the petira of Dovid Moshe Yasnyi, z’l, father of Akiva Yasnyi. Akiva (443-970-9609) is returning to complete shiva in Baltimore outdoors at 3303 Taney Road, Baltimore, MD, 21215, beginning Tuesday evening 6:30 PM.Mincha/Maariv: 8:20 PMShacharis Wed morning 8:00 AM outdoors after which shiva concludes Bila HaMaves LaNetzach...  
Update as of 4:30 PM:B"h the Rosh Yeshiva situation is not life threatening.He is alert and in good spirits.###All are asked to daven for the posek hador, Maran Rav Dovid Feinstein, who is in need of rachamei Shomayim. Rav Feinstein has returned to the hospital after experiencing recurring symptoms. The rosh yeshiva, who is in Columbia Medical Center in New York City, needs our tefillos. Please daven for Dovid ben Shima l’refuah sheleimah.
The American “maximum pressure” campaign has clearly had a major impact on Iran, but a massive influx of Chinese investments will go a long way towards undoing it. With Iran and China working on a multibillion-dollar 25-year economic and security deal, Israel has many reasons to be concerned and even alarmed.The proposed agreement, leaked to The New York Times, which reported on it on Saturday, would lead to a closer military relationship between Tehran and Beijing, including joint military exercises, research and weapons development and intelligence sharing. It would also increase Chinese investments in Iranian banking, telecommunications and transportation, such as airports and railways. China would reportedly get a discounted supply of Iranian oil...
The Cabinet approved a draft law that includes several issues in the economic plan that will require changes to legislation: Expanding the eligibility for unemployment compensation, adjustment stipends for those aged 67 and over, assistance to the self-employed and businesses, expanding the permit for discharged soldiers to make withdrawals from their discharge deposits, and a tax exemption for withdrawals from advanced training funds. The Cabinet also approved a draft law to expand the 2020-2021 budgetary framework by NIS 24 billion in order to expand and implement the plan. The draft laws will be submitted for Knesset approval immediately. Following are details of the economic plan as approved by the Cabinet: A) Safety net for wage earners on unpaid leave 1) Unemployment compensatio...
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday ordered the closure of indoor activities of certain businesses statewide as cases of coronavirus surge in the country’s most populous state. Newsom, a Democrat, announced during a press briefing that all bars across the state must close-up shop and that restaurants, wineries, tasting rooms, family entertainment centers, zoos, museums and card rooms have to suspend indoor activities. The governor also announced that all gyms, places of worship, malls, personal care services, barbershops, salons, and non-critical offices, in counties on the state’s “monitoring list” had to shut down under the new order. The order affects more than 30 counties in the state, or about 80 percent of California’s ...
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