Baltimore, MD – Nov. 26, 2021 -  10:51AM -The light at Sudbrook & Reisterstown Road is out. Traffic is moving a little more slowly than usual.     
Baltimore City firefighters are sounding the alarm over a number of engine and staffing shortages. Baltimore Firefighters Local 734 President Rich Langford told 11 News that pandemic-related problems and mechanical issues are adding to a mix of firehouse closures at a critical time for emergency response workers. With cold weather setting in and a string of fires just this week, the fire department said it needs equipment and staff to save lives. Cleanup and repair efforts began Thursday at a Brooklyn rowhome after an early morning fire destroyed at least four units. "I'm still a little shocked. It hasn't quite 100% hit me," said Rayne Hill, whose home was destroyed by fire. Hill said she lived on the second story with her stepbrother and that nothing is salvageable. "I...
The gravestone of Rabbi Aharon Yehudah Leib Steinman, ZT'L, was vandalized overnight Thursday-Friday, ahead of the fourth anniversary of his death. There were no immediate details on who perpetrated the vandalism, but Charedi news site Kikar HaShabbat said worshipers who arrived to pray at the gravesite in Bnei Brak on Friday morning saw “extremists” fleeing the scene. Municipal staff worked to clean the gravestone. Maran Steinman‘s fourth yartzeit is to be commemorated on Monday. There was no immediate comment from the police on the matter.
Nations took swift action Friday to halt air travel from southern Africa in reaction to news of a new, transmissible COVID-19 variant. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) cautioned against hastily imposing travel restrictions linked to the B.1.1.529 variant, warning officials to avoid "knee-jerk responses," the 27-nation European Union said it would propose stopping air travel from southern Africa. The EU joined Israel and the United Kingdom who are likewise imposing a travel ban. Will the U.S. also impose a ban? Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN that it's a possibility but that scientists need to first determine whether the variant can evade antibodies c...
Baltimore, MD - Nov. 25, 2021 -  Law enforcement is challenging enough, but add a challenging year and a challenging city and one cannot help but appreciate the sacrifice of our first responders. Baltimore Shomrim along with City Councilman Yitzy Schleifer were happy to extend their appreciation by providing a Knish Shop dinner for the men and women of the Northwest District Baltimore Police Department who work on Thanksgiving so their colleagues can spend time with their families.Thank you from a grateful community!
United Arab List (Ra'am) chairman Mansour Abbas said in an interview with the Kul al-Arab newspaper Thursday that the Arab parties must make every effort to prevent elections that could lead to the return of Benjamin Netanyahu to the prime minister's seat. Abbas said he does not regret joining the coalition, and that he becomes more and more convinced that Ra'am is going in the right direction every day. "We will not give up our national, religious, and human rights and these are red lines that we will not cross. Ra'am is the party that most of all realizes its religious and national goals," Abbas said. He addressed the issue of the Temple Mount and said, "The Temple Mount belongs to Muslims only. We are working in the government to make a commitment not to invade th...
At Spectrum Health, a major health-care system here, officials spent part of last week debating whether to move to “red status” in a show of how strained hospitals had become. A flood of mostly unvaccinated covid-19 patients was arriving at emergency departments already packed with people suffering other medical issues, sending capacity to unprecedented levels. The only hesitation for Spectrum’s decision-makers? Data suggested the covid surge was not over. “We don’t have a darker color,” said Darryl Elmouchi, president of Spectrum Health West Michigan. “So if we’re red now, what are we in two weeks?” He and other leaders ultimately decided Thursday to make the change, upgrading the health-care system to the most serious tier for the ...
The Torah openly tells us that Yosef’s brothers were jealous of him and hated him (37:4, 5, 8, 11). Ultimately, they wanted to kill him and only one single brother, Reuven, had the decency to protest and planned to save him. The Torah attests that Reuven sincerely planned on saving Yosef (37:21. See also Makos 10a). Indeed, the Midrash explicitly states that the Torah is in fact praising Reuven for his act and further states that had Reuven known that the Torah would praise him, Reuven would have actually saved Yosef with infinitely more enthusiasm and would have even carried Yosef home on his shoulders (Midrash Rabbah, Rus Ch. 5).  Usually, a Midrash comes to provide a novel concept or to bring home an extremely crucial component in serving Hashem. The above Midrash, however,...
“Now it came to pass when Joseph came to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his shirt, of the fine woolen coat which was upon him. And they took him and cast him into the pit; now the pit was empty there was no water in it.” (Genesis 27:23-24) From the opening verses in this week’s Parsha we see the animosity between Yosef and his brothers. The brothers feel that Yosef is arrogant and trying to lord over them. Yosef, seemingly oblivious to the impact of his dreams on his brothers, continues to share them. Tensions reach a boiling point, and when the brothers have Yosef alone, they decide it is time to eliminate him. The first thought was to kill him, but Reuven intervened and convinced the brothers to instead throw Yosef into a pit. The Torah tells that the pit w...
Agudah Convention 2021 Photo Essay as of Thursday, Nov. 25, 9:15PMPlease check back as this photo essay will be updated throughout the convention through Sunday afternoon, Nov. 28.
Finance Minister Yair Lapid is being mocked on social media over a 2015 video claiming he was nearly killed during army service. “They shot at me in Lebanon,” Lapid states in the video. “A Katyusha missed me by a few meters in Kiryat Shemoneh.” To get at the truth, Yehuda Shlesinger, a political writer at Yisroel Hayom, asked Lapid point blank whether it was true he was shot at near Lebanon. Lapid turned to him blankly and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re talking about… this is a question going back 40 years.” In 2017, Lapid wrote that he was dismissed from serving in battle units at the end of his preliminary training after suffering a severe asthma attack. He then spent his three years in the a...
The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany released a United Kingdom Holocaust awareness survey, which shows a surprising lack of awareness of historical facts — including the UK’s own connection to Holocaust history. Most respondents (52%) did not know that six million Jews were murdered, and 22% thought only two million or fewer Jews were killed. Asked about the Kindertransport to Britain before the Holocaust, 76% of respondents never heard of it. Some 67% of respondents wrongly believe that Britain allowed all or some Jewish immigration during the war, when it actually shut the door to Jewish immigration at the war’s outbreak. The majority (57%) believe that fewer people seem to care about the Holocaust today than they used to, while 56% believe that s...
Chassidim of the Kaliver Rebbe, Rav Menachem Mendel Taub, who passed away in 2019, were shocked to find that his kever on Har Hamenuchos was desecrated. This was the second such incident in a short time, they said. Tzuriel Krispel, CEO of the Israel Cemeteries Council, said he asked police to upgrade the security in the area. Har Hamenuchos is amid Jewish neighborhoods and less prone to desecration than Har Hazeisim.
Aviv Nets co-founder Tamir Goodman, once called 'the Jewish Jordan,' responded to the Covid-19 pandemic by creating an innovative product that has the NBA's interest. As Tamir Goodman sat in his living room in January 2021 with his family during yet another of Israel's several Covid-related lockdowns, he received an email from his children's basketball coaches that would set him on a path to a new venture involving several NBA teams and upcoming sales in one of America's largest sporting-goods chains. "We got an email saying we're not sure if we're ever going back to basketball practice, but if we do, every kid needs to bring their own basketball," says Tamir Goodman, adding that the new rule was intend...
Condemnation of the secret decision of a beis din in Tel Aviv to nullify a marriage on the basis of mekach ta’us (acquiring something under mistaken assumptions) continued, with Rav Chaim Kanievsky and Rav Gershon Edelstein saying the heter is worthless. “We hereby join the protest of the rabbonim and geonim against the desecration of kevod shomayim through the breach of halacha by three dayonim of the Tel Aviv Beis Din allowing a married woman to remarry against the halacha,” the gedolim wrote. “We warn everyone involved in appointing dayonim to be extremely careful not to appoint dayonim or a panel of dayonim prone to breach the halach...
Amid Jewish protests, the Lithuanian town of Šiauliai (Shavl) suspended the construction of a bicycle path routed to traverse a wooded area where Nazis and Lithuanian police murdered and buried thousands of Jews. “I’m shocked,” said Lithuanian Chief Rabbi Kolev Krelin, who helped stop the desecration. “If it is not enough that our people were murdered on this land, now their remains are defiled for a bicycle track?” Before the Holocaust, Šiauliai had 15 shuls, with some designated for merchants, tailors, shoemakers, butchers, and grave diggers. It also had a yeshiva and numerous chadorim.
The Biden White House is planning an in-person Chanukah party for next week, although the details were still tentative until this morning. This year, due to Covid, there were concerns about an in-person Chanukah party, but invitations finally went out, informing guests that the party will take place next Wednesday, December 1, at “5:30 o’clock.” In actuality, the invitation calls it a “Menorah Lighting,” rather than a Chanukah party. A White House spokeswoman said that she had no further information to share.
When Reuven hears his brothers plotting to kill Yosef with their own hands, he immediately intercedes suggesting they toss him into a pit instead, leaving him to die on his own. Although he did not reveal to them his ultimate intention to come back and retrieve Yosef, the Torah interjects and testifies that Reuven maneuvered it such for the sole reason ‘to rescue him and return him to his father’. Yet, Rashi cites the Midrash that quotes Reuven as saying to himself when first contemplating what to do, “I am the firstborn and the eldest, the sin will be attributed only to me”. Was he a hero that truly wanted to save his brother, or was he just trying to save his own skin and reputation lest his father place the blame all on him? The Maharshal asserts that his deed...
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