In a historic victory for religious liberty, Supreme Court agreed with Aguda and Catholics that Governor Cuomo can’t limit houses of worship if he excepts others such as theaters or bars. The 5-4 ruling is a reversal from a similar case in which Ruth Bader Ginsberg ruled against. Her replacement, Amy Coney Barrett, sided with the majority. John Roberts voted with 4 liberals. “In a red zone, while a synagogue or church may not admit more than 10 persons, businesses categorized as ‘essential’ may admit as many people as they wish.”Join BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click here to Join BJL status for engagements, births, deals, levayos, events & more Join BJL on WhatsApp Groups: Click here to Join an official BJL WhatsApp group for breaking news as it happens ...
Supreme Court votes 5-4 to grant Agudath Israel and the Catholic Diocese request to block Gov. Cuomo's attendance limits at houses of worship in New York. Barrett joins conservative wing in majority; Chief Justice Roberts joins the three liberal justices in dissentJoin BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click here to Join BJL status for engagements, births, deals, levayos, events & more Join BJL on WhatsApp Groups: Click here to Join an official BJL WhatsApp group for breaking news as it happens     
Baltimore, MD - Nov. 26, 2020 - BJL wishes a hearty Mazel Tov to Bracha Horowitz and Yosef Epstein (Monsey) on their engagement. Mazel Tov to Mr. & Mrs. Shloime Horowitz  יה"ר שיזכו לבנות בית נאמן בישראל. אמן
The visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu comes as Israel is ramping up ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, though Iran is also in the picture.  The private jet that took off from Israel on Sunday and banked south towards Saudi Arabia may have had some important passengers on board, but no one is talking about it. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mossad director Yossi Cohen reportedly met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman while U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was visiting the kingdom. Netanyahu was reluctant to admit his presence at the meeting, saying, “I never talked about these kinds of things, and I will not start now. I’m committed to strengthening Israel.” Join BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click here to Join BJ...
Iran has released Australian-British academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who was serving a 10-year prison sentence for spying, in exchange for three Iranians, state television in the Islamic Republic reported Wednesday. The broadcaster’s Iribnews website showed video footage of three unidentified men — one of them in a wheelchair — draped in Iranian flags and being met by officials. Join BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click here to Join BJL status for engagements, births, deals, levayos, events & more Join BJL on WhatsApp Groups: Click here to Join an official BJL WhatsApp group for breaking news as it happens      It also aired images of a veiled Moore-Gilbert entering a building with the Australian ambassador to Tehran, Lyndall Sachs, before taking off...
The White House is considering rescinding entry bans for most non-U.S. citizens who recently were in Brazil, Britain, Ireland, and 26 other European countries, five U.S. and airline officials told Reuters. The Trump administration imposed the bans in a bid to contain the novel coronavirus pandemic. It is not considering lifting separate entry bans on most non-U.S. citizens who have recently been in China or Iran, the officials said. Join BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click here to Join BJL status for engagements, births, deals, levayos, events & more Join BJL on WhatsApp Groups: Click here to Join an official BJL WhatsApp group for breaking news as it happens The plan has won the backing of White House coronavirus task-force members, public health and other federal agencies, the people...
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised Jonathan Pollard, an American who spent 30 years in US prison for spying for Israel, a warm welcome and a comfortable life in Israel now that parole restrictions have ended. “We are waiting for you, even during the time of the coronavirus, with open arms, and you will receive the genuine embrace of the Israeli people,” Netanyahu said in a video distributed by his office on Tuesday of part of a telephone call with Pollard and his wife Esther on Monday. A former US Navy intelligence analyst, Pollard was arrested in 1985 outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington — which turned him away as he sought refuge with law enforcement closing in. Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987. Join BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click he...
Fifty-five percent of American adults are concerned that the government is tracking them through location data generated from their cellphones, according to a new Harris Poll survey, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The survey also revealed that 77% of respondents said the government should get a warrant to purchase the kind of detailed location information that data brokers regularly buy and sell on the commercial market. Join BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click here to Join BJL status for engagements, births, deals, levayos, events & more Join BJL on WhatsApp Groups: Click here to Join an official BJL WhatsApp group for breaking news as it happens The government is currently buying such data for criminal law enforcement and border-security purposes, but w...
Baltimore, MD – Nov. 25, 2020 - It is with sadness that BaltimoreJewishLife.com informs the community of the petira of Mrs. Elaine Gesang, a"h, mother of Beth Tenenbaum. Levayah is private on Thursday, November 26. Shiva will be observed at until Wednesday morning, December 2, at 3405 W. Strathmore Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21215. Shiva visiting hours: Thursday 2:00 - 10:00 PM Friday 9:00 AM - 2:00 PM Motzai Shabbos 7:00 - 10:00 PM Sunday through Tuesday 9:00 AM - 10:00 PM Wednesday 9:00 - 9:30 AM Bila HaMaves LaNetzach...  
Baltimore County Public Schools systems and devices were struck in a ransomware attack late Tuesday, leading virtual classes to be canceled Wednesday. The Teachers Association of Baltimore County is warning teachers to leave their computers off and not turn them on or check email until they receive word from the school system. "We don't know at this point of a timeline but we are listening to our experts to guide us in the proper manner," Corns said. Join BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click here to Join BJL status for engagements, births, deals, levayos, events & more Join BJL on WhatsApp Groups: Click here to Join an official BJL WhatsApp group for breaking news as it happens Police Chief Melissa Hyatt said police are in the "preliminary steps" of an investigation but declined t...
MANAMA, BAHRAIN (VINnews) — A Jewish midwife who moved to Bahrain in the 1930’s is now a national icon in the tiny Gulf state, and was even immortalized in a recent Kuwaiti-Saudi television series as Umm Haroun (mother of Aaron). The popular series, published last April and screened during Ramadan, was a harbinger of the eventual normalization and peace agreement with Israel. Umm Jan (this was her real name) moved from Iraq to Bahrain where she served as a midwife to many prominent Bahrain citizens and was affectionately known as the “mother of everyone” or the “Midwife of Al-Muharraq”, Bahrain’s third largest city and its capital until 1923. Even though she died in the 1980’s, she is still remembered by many, even before the TV series ran. ...
TORONTO (AP) — Toronto police said Wednesday that they have identified a person of interest in the killing of Canadian drug company billionaire Barry Sherman and his wife nearly three years ago. Police Constable Jenifferjit Sidhu confirmed a report by the Toronto Star that a person of interest had been identified but not arrested. Sherman, who founded generic drugmaker Apotex Inc., and his wife, Honey, were found dead in their Toronto mansion on Dec. 15, 2017. The two were hanging by belts from a railing that surrounds their indoor pool and were in a semi-seated position on the pool deck. Sherman, 75, was known for litigiousness and aggressive business practices as he developed Apotex, which had a global work force of about 11,000. In “Prescription Games,” a 2001 book ...
Invariably when confronted with emotional pain, we do whatever we can to anesthetize ourselves as quickly and as completely as possible. But we see from this week's sedra that there is another way. One that when done with sincerity can bring us to places we never dared to imagine.
Ultrasounds.  Blood tests. Amniocentesis.  Genetic testing.     Some social commentators have a dark, dystopian view of these tests.  Others see in them great potential for happy, healthy babies and families.  Either way, they highlight that a woman’s pregnancy is a time rife with anxiety, hope, fear, and great possibility. And while the medicine and technology might be modern, the powerful emotions accompanying pregnancy have been felt since the beginning of time. And then [Leah] had a daughter and she named her Dinah (Bereishit 30:21) The name “Dinah” is derived from the Hebrew “to judge”.  A dayan is a judge.  We go to a din Torah to receive a p’sak din – a judgment in a dispute.  What was Lea...
Question #1: Robes? “May I daven wearing a robe?” Question #2: Tied Up “Must I wear a necktie when I daven?” Question #3: Belted? “Is there a halachic basis for wearing a gartel?” Answer: Since the beginning of parshas Tolados discusses how Yitzchak and Rivkah davened for children, it provides an opportunity to discuss the laws of proper attire for prayer. The Rambam lists five essential requirements for prayer and eight non-essential ones. An essential requirement is one that, if it cannot be fulfilled, one may not daven, even if this means that one will miss davening as a result. A non-essential requirement is that, if it cannot be fulfilled, one may and should daven anyway. One of the non-essential requirements is to be attired properly when...
President Trump on Wednesday tweeted that he had granted a pardon to his former national security advisor, Gen. Michael Flynn. Join BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click here to Join BJL status for engagements, births, deals, levayos, events & more Join BJL on WhatsApp Groups: Click here to Join an official BJL WhatsApp group for breaking news as it happens
The pieces of the Torah scroll were handed over to the Antiquities Authority for further research and safekeeping. Israeli police conducted a raid in the Druze village of Yarka on Monday and were surprised to recover sections of a 450-year-old Torah scroll. Aided by a police dog, officers conducted a search on a house in the northern Israeli village on suspicion of illegal drugs and weapons. Join BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click here to Join BJL status for engagements, births, deals, levayos, events & more Join BJL on WhatsApp Groups: Click here to Join an official BJL WhatsApp group for breaking news as it happens In one of the bedrooms, police discovered what appeared to be very old sections from a Torah scroll. Inspectors from the Israel Antiquities Authority were called to the...
JERUSALEM (VINnews) — The Kollel Chabad volunteer who called up Yaakov Wexler, an elderly Jerusalem resident last month to find out how he was coping with the lockdown, did not expect to hear such an astonishing life story from him. Yaakov told the volunteer, whose organization provides daily hot meals for him, that for nearly 50 years he had served as a Polish priest. Yaakov’s story begins in the Stare Swiecany (Shvintzian)  ghetto near Vilna in February 1943 where he was born, the second son of Yaakov and Batya Wexler, just over a month before the Jews of the ghetto were deported to their deaths in the Ponar forest in April 1943. Yaakov’s mother handed him over just a few days beforehand to a childless Polish Catholic couple, Pyotr and Emilia Waszkinel. Batya and ...
The Covid-19 death toll linked to U.S. nursing homes and other long-term care facilities has surpassed 100,000, according to a Wall Street Journal tally of data from around the U.S. The coronavirus disease is particularly risky for elderly people with underlying health conditions, and nursing homes house such residents in close confines. Outbreaks have also hit other kinds of senior homes like assisted-living facilities, and the deaths stemming from long-term care outbreaks comprise nearly 40% of the more than 260,000 overall Covid-19 deaths recorded by Johns Hopkins University. Join BJL on WhatsApp Status: Click here to Join BJL status for engagements, births, deals, levayos, events & more Join BJL on WhatsApp Groups: Click here to Join an official BJL WhatsApp group for...
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