On the penultimate day of Chanukah, police detectives discovered a number of valuable archaeological items, among them a coin from the Hasmonean era, in the possession of an Arab from eastern Jerusalem. The Hasmonean-era coin is marked with the image of a menorah, the ritual candelabra that was used in the Holy Temple. Police detectives from the Jerusalem district were searching the home of the Jerusalem Arab, a man in his thirties, when they found dozens of ancient coins of great value. The suspect has been detained for questioning and the coins have been transferred to the Jerusalem police department, prior to being examined by the Antiquities Authority. Among the coins is one that appears to date back to the times of the High Priest Mattityahu Antigonos, who lived in the first ce...
New U.S. coronavirus testing rules aimed at slowing the spread of the omicron variant will begin Monday, when all international travelers must show proof of a negative test taken within a day of their flight to the United States. The new requirement announced this week is part of a strategy that includes the extension of a mandate that people on commercial aircraft and in other transportation settings wear masks, as well as the expansion of a program offering voluntary testing for new arrivals at key U.S. airports. Airline and travel industry officials said Friday they were generally supportive of the temporary measures, seen as a way to ensure passenger health and confidence in flying. The new rules call on airlines to build upon a foundation for testing created earlier in the pandemic....
Israel’s Shin Bet has put Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana under guard after discovering a group saying that he has a ‘din rodef‘ – a ruling sanctioning his murder. Haaretz reports. Sources have tied the threats to Kahana’s efforts to undermine halacha and Yiddishkeit in areas such as kashrus and geirus, conversion. The Shin Bet ordered the boosted security following the discovery that an extremist group had called for applying the din rodef permitting the killing of a person whose actions threaten another’s life. The din rodef is based on the idea that “the saving of the life of a person pursued by an attacker is so important that even the killing of the pursuer is allowed to save the person from the pursuer, if no o...
Baltimore, MD – Dec. 3,  2021 - It is with regret that BaltimoreJewishLife.com informs the community of the petira of Edward Bernard, z’l, father of Rick Bernard. Shiva in Baltimore begins with Mincha on Monday at 4:30PM at 2804 Cheswolde Road, Baltimore, MD 21209 Minyanim:Mincha: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - 4:30 pm Shacharis: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday - 7:00 am The family requests no visitors between 12:00-1:00, 6:00-7:00 or after 9:00. The family also requests that all visitors wear a mask.  Bila HaMaves LaNetzach…
Booster shot would initially target immunocompromised individuals Israeli health officials this week are expected discuss authorizing a fourth Covid-19 booster shot for immunocompromised individuals as the omicron variant circulates globally, Channel 12 news reports. The Health Ministry's vaccination advisory committee and the team in charge of epidemics will not be considering the fourth dose for the general population, but only for the vulnerable group that has not developed antibodies. However, the third dose was originally targeted to the immunocompromised in July and then was authorized for the general population.  Over 4 million Israelis have received all three vaccine doses, according to Health Ministry data. The experts will also talk about vacc...
Hundreds of worshipers protested as the Women of The Wall held prayer services Sunday which included protest shirts in violation of decisions by the court and attorney general which prohibit protests at the Western Wall. The Western Wall Heritage Foundation said that the women had persistently acted in violation of these decisions. The foundation and the police called on the sides to prevent violence and desecration of the holy site and separated between the rival groups. A Sefer Torah was also brought to the women’s section in violation of the rules. A senior official from the chareidi parties said that MK Gilad Kariv, a reform rabbi, had made a deal with police that he would not come and arouse provocations if the Women of the Wall would be allowed to bring a Sefer Torah. Kariv ...
President Biden announced a plan with much fanfare on Thursday for free at-home COVID-19 tests as part of his effort to tame the pandemic this winter. But the catch is that people will still have to pay the cost up front for the tests, which can be over $20 for a pack of two at the local CVS, and then submit receipts to their health insurer to get reimbursed.  That process has raised concerns among experts that the upfront cost and added hassle of reimbursement will still cause barriers to testing, a contrast to European countries where tests are free or just a couple of dollars up front.  Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said Biden’s announcement would “certainly make at home testing more accessible,” but added that &ldqu...
In the wake of last week’s decision by the Jerusalem Regional Committee to promote the establishment of a new chareidi neighborhood on the site of the former Atarot airport, Israeli transport minister Merav Michaeli is attempting to promote a different idea. Michaeli suggests renovating the airport and using it as an entrance point both to Jerusalem and the PA – the only place which could be used jointly both by Jews and Palestinians. It is unclear whether Michaeli is touting the move due to strong US criticism of the establishment of a new neighborhood there and in order to maintain Israeli control of the disused airport or whether she simply wishes to block the establishment of another Jewish neighborhood adjacent to Ramallah. Michaeli recently established a committee to lo...
A blast was reported Saturday in the vicinity of the nuclear site in Natanz, Iran, according to preliminary reports by student union media outlets. After the initial reports surfaced , the authorities in the Islamic republic announced that the explosions were part of a test of air defenses’ response to a potential attack. The explosion was heard in the skies over the Iranian city of Badroud, just 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the nuclear plant, according to a report by the official IRNA news agency “Badroud residents heard the noise and saw a light which showed an object had just blown up in the skies over the city,” a witness told IRNA. There were also unconfirmed reports of villages being evacuated in the region of the nuclear site. Some social media sites claimed t...
The United States is “making decisions” and preparing “for a world in which there is no return” to the Iran nuclear deal, a senior State Department official said yesterday, following last week’s disappointing negotiations over resuming the 2015 accord. “We’ve been waiting patiently for five and a half months” since Tehran suspended talks in June, the official said. “The Iranian government said it needed time to get ready.” “What we’ve seen over the last week or so is what getting ready meant for them . . . it meant continuing to accelerate their nuclear program in particularly provocative ways” to gain leverage in extracting unreasonable concessions far beyond the scope of the original agreement, the official s...
The omicron variant is likely to have picked up genetic material from another virus that causes the common cold in humans, according to a new preliminary study, prompting one of its authors to suggest omicron could have greater transmissibility but lower virulence than other variants of the novel coronavirus. Researchers from Nference, a Cambridge, Mass.-based firm that analyzes biomedical information, sequenced omicron and found a snippet of genetic code that is also present in a virus that can bring about a cold. They say this particular mutation could have occurred in a host simultaneously infected by SARS-CoV-2, also known as the novel coronavirus, and the HCoV-229E coronavirus, which can cause the common cold. The shared genetic code with HCoV-229E has not been detected in other nove...
Lowy Institue, a foreign policy think tank, attributed Covid to China's weakened regional influence Deepening security uncertainties in the Indo-Pacific, as well as China’s weakened regional power due to the Covid pandemic, present a “significant” risk of war, the Lowy Institute said in a report on Sunday. United States allies in the region and key balancing powers - such as India - are more than ever dependent on US capacity and willingness to counter China’s rise, the Australian-based foreign policy think tank suggested. Simultaneously, Beijing is seeking to dissuade Southeast Asian countries from joining a US coalition. China is also upgrading its military exchanges with Russia and Pakistan, as well as North Korea, creating a trio of Chi...
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas, is warning Israel against approving construction plans for 1,058 housing units in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem. In a statement, Abu Rudeineh called the Israeli government "extremist" and accused it of trying to establish facts on the ground in a race against time, in order to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state that is geographically connected between its various regions and with its capital being eastern Jerusalem. He said the decisions taken by the Israeli government regarding construction in the “settlements” prompted the PA leadership to speed up the steps announced by Abbas in his last speech to the UN General Assembly, centering on a reassessment of relations w...
The police issued administrative orders on Friday against two Temple Mount activists banning them from the Old City of Jerusalem. Raphael Morris, head of the Returning to the Mount organization, and Uri Shilo, the movement's area coordinator, received orders banning them from the entire Old City, including the Temple Mount. Last week, at the beginning of Hanukkah, movement activist Yair Kehati was arrested and taken to the police station for what he called an "intimidation call" with Shabak agents over his activities regarding the Temple Mount. Kehati said that he was then released without being charged, In addition to Kehati's arrest, during the holiday a number of other activists in the movement were summoned for questioning by the police, and after they refused to comply w...
Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai tells Arutz Sheva that there is no need to be concerned by the investigation into the two officers who shot dead a terrorist who had stabbed a civilian in Jerusalem yesterday. "It's a standard procedure that the Department of Internal Investigations investigates every shooting incident," Shabtai says. "Two new heroes were added to the Hanukkah holiday yesterday, the policeman and the policewoman who killed the terrorist." "The policemen who acted yesterday in the attack were called to take back their weapons and are already back on duty again today," the commissioner adds. Asked if there has been an escalation in Jerusalem recently, he replies, "In recent weeks we have experienced three terrorist incidents that I was happy that t...
Baltimore, MD – Dec. 5, 2021 - BJL wishes a hearty Mazel Tov to Chaim & Shoshana Chernoff  on the birth of a son. יה"ר שיזכו לגדל בנם לתורה, לחופה, ולמעשים טובים. אמן!
Baltimore, MD - Dec, 3, 2021 - With tremendous thanks to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we want to share how lucky we feel to be part of such a special community. Raising funds while still dealing with the effects of Covid has been challenging. And yet, thanks to your support, we were able to reach and exceed our campaign goal. Thanks to your help, Bnos Yisroel students will continue to thrive and 288 students will be provided with much needed scholarship support. We made a decision before this campaign, that EVERY DOLLAR raised above 1 million dollars would be given DIRECTLY to our incredible staff members in the form of raises and bonuses. At this point, we have raised $1,159,406 from 2885 donors, and we are thrilled that $159,406 will be added to the pay of our 180 dedicated and special staff memb...
A socialist politician has been duped into thinking that she was planning an event with the “Chief Rabbi” of Gaza. In reality, her campaign was communicating with a Jewish pro-Israel lawyer, running a parody Twitter account. The pseudo-account of “Rabbi Linda Goldstein” has posted wildly hilarious tweets, telling terrorists to conduct social distancing in terror tunnels, and posting pictures of a Menorah made of Qassam rockets. Linda calls herself the “Jewish issues advisor” to terrorist leader Ismail Haniyeh. One tweet said, “Excited to announce Hamas has given me permission to build the first and only Jewish Ghetto in Gaza! By default, wherever a Jew lives they’re Colonizing. Ghettos ensure Jews don’t displace Palestinians.” ...
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