"Shalom Sivan, I read that you tested positive and that you are in isolation. Me too. I wanted to share a thought I had once my door was closed, and members of my household and my customers had to manage without me."In this week's Torah portion, Yitro joins the nation of Israel and notices that Moshe Rabbeinu, his son-in-law, is working from morning until evening, sitting in judgment of the people's disputes. Yitro does not understand why and asks Moshe: 'What is this thing that you are doing to the people? Why do you sit by yourself, while all the people stand before you from morning till evening?' Moshe Rabbeinu explains to him that his work is never done, that the people never stop coming to him, to which Yitro sharply responds: 'The thing you are doing is not g...
Vaccine boosters provide robust protection against severe disease from the omicron variant in the United States, according to three reports released Friday that offer the first real-world data in this country showing the utility of the additional shots in keeping vaccinated people out of the hospital. But the reports by scientists the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are arriving late to the winter surge in coronavirus cases that have choked the corridors of hospitals across much of the country. When omicron was first identified in late November and began spreading rapidly in the United States, millions of vaccinated people lined up for the extra shots. But that has slowed. To date, 39% of fully vaccinated people have gotten the additional doses, according to the CDC. Surveys ...
A Michigan judge has apologized to a 72-year-old cancer patient after she shamed him in court for not maintaining his yard and faced widespread condemnation for her harsh remarks. District Judge Alexis Krot told Burhan Chowdhury during a Michigan state court appearance over Zoom earlier this month that he “should be ashamed” of himself for being unable to clean up the grass that had overtaken the property. Chowdhury struggled to breathe as he explained to the judge that he was “very weak,” but Krot continued to criticize him for the neighborhood blight in Hamtramck, Mich., saying, “If I could give you jail time on this, I would.” “I made a mistake,” Krot said in a statement shared with The Washington Post. “I acted intemperately. I&rs...
A federal judge in Texas on Friday blocked President Biden's mandate for federal workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in the latest blow to the White House's vaccination efforts. Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed by former President Trump, wrote that the order exceeded the president's authority. The case is about "whether the President can, with the stroke of a pen and without the input of Congress, require millions of federal employees to undergo a medical procedure as a condition of their employment," Brown wrote. The Department of Justice immediately said it would appeal. The order comes after the Supreme Court earlier this month blocked Biden's mandate that employees at businesses with 100 or more workers get vaccinated or regularly tested, w...
A British man conducted Internet searches for influential rabbis, an imprisoned terrorist and gun and pawnshops in the days before he took congregants hostage inside a Texas Reform temple, according to law enforcement officials. FBI agents examining the digital trail left by 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram have found plenty of evidence hinting at his plan and state of mind in the days before the attack, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. Searches on Akram’s cellphone led him to focus on Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of New York City’s Central Synagogue, who has been named on various online lists over the past decade as one of the most influential Jewish people in the country. Akram, who was shot dead by FBI agents after a...
The Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday it had cleared more than three-quarters of the nation’s commercial fleet to land at airports where interference from 5G signals could pose a danger in bad weather, but indicated that some planes might never secure approvals. The agency has been reviewing devices called radar altimeters to determine whether they can still provide reliable measurements of altitude – critical information for landing in bad visibility – in areas with 5G towers. The potential for disruption became clear Thursday, when San Francisco-bound flights were diverted and others were forced to circle as poor visibility collided with the rollout of the new wireless networks. The diverted flights involved planes that had not been cleared to land where 5...
The media has pitched a rift between Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump, but the former president considers it a push of politics of division, Newsmax reports. “It’s totally fake news,” Trump told Fox News’ “Hannity” on Thursday night, refuting any talk of a rift between the top 2024 GOP presidential contenders. “I think Ron said last week, he said it very publicly, ‘The press is never going to get in the middle of my friendship with Donald Trump. We’re not going to do that stuff.’ “And he said it very strongly. I thought that was very interesting, actually, and very nice. But he said that, and I agree with him 100%. I have a very good relationship with Ron and intend to have it for a...
Haaatchu! One of the hardest things about writing is trying to do what I just did, that is, to write out the sound of a human sneeze. But G-d bless me for going out of my comfort zone and attempting to do so. And for heaven’s sake – or perhaps better stated, for your own sake – may G-d bless you too. One of the greatest pleasures of this world is when we sneeze. The tremendous amount of satisfaction is simply astounding. In fact, it’s not just scientists who attest to this, Chazal do so as well. The Gemarah in Meseches Brachos (24b) says that one who sneezes during prayer (i.e., Shemonah Esrei), it is a good omen for him, for just as they give him satisfaction in this world, so do they give him satisfaction in heaven. According to Rabbeinu Yonah, a sneeze during pr...
Meteorologist Ava Marie says today will feel very cold, with temperatures stuck below freezing all day. Luckily, most of the pavement had a chance to dry out yesterday, so the icy patches are very isolated. Friday will be cloudy but dry with highs only in the upper 20s. Tonight, a coastal low passes south of Baltimore, with snow accumulation likely on the Lower Eastern Shore. About 1-3” snow possible around Salisbury, with higher amounts possible closer to the coast. Baltimore will stay dry with lows in the teens.
 Baltimore, MD – Jan. 21, 2022 – 8:44AM - Greenspring Ave. is closed past the Beltway. Please use an alternate route.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) reportedly asked a group of Jewish individuals who were visiting the Capitol if they were there to do “reconnaissance,” the visitors told BuzzFeed News. Boebert is said to have seen the group of visitors on Thursday, looked at them “head to toe” and asked if they were visiting the Capitol to do “reconnaissance,” one person who saw the interaction told the outlet. “You know, I’m not sure to be offended or not,” one of the rabbis in the group told Buzzfeed News. “I was very confused.”  “When I heard that, I actually turned to the person standing next to me and asked, ‘Did you just hear that?’” the rabbi said. The group was there to meet with Rep...
“It came about on the next day that Moses sat down to judge the people, and the people stood before Moses from the morning until the evening. When Moses’ father-in-law saw what he was doing to the people, he said, “What is this thing that you are doing to the people? Why do you sit by yourself, while all the people stand before you from morning till evening?” Moses said to his father-in-law, “For the people come to me to seek God. If any of them has a case, he comes to me, and I judge between a man and his neighbor, and I make known the statutes of God and His teachings.” Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “The thing you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out both you and these people who are with you for the matter is too he...
Two members of the radical “Squad” are linked with a Muslim group that has rallied for the release of terrorist Aafia Siddiqui. Siddiqui is the convicted terrorist known as “Lady al-Qaeda”, whom Malik Akram, the Texas temple attacker, demanded be released during his hostage standoff last weekend. Antisemites Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have both joined up with Muslim-American rights groups which recently advocated for her release. In November, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) held a joint “Free Dr. Aafia” Advocacy Day in Washington DC, in an effort to lobby Congress for her release. One month later, CAIR honored Ilhan Omar as “American Muslim Public Servant of 2021” at its virtual g...
The latest surge of coronavirus cases powered by the omicron variant has caused extremely high numbers of employees to miss work because of illness, exacerbating the country’s persistent labor shortages and threatening to complicate the labor market’s push toward pre-pandemic employment levels. Between Dec. 29 and Jan. 10, approximately 8.8 million workers reported not working because they were sick with the coronavirus or caring for someone who was, according to data from the Census Bureau. Those numbers are nearly triple the levels from the first two weeks of December, before cases had started to peak around the country. They were also the highest numbers since the agency started taking the survey in April 2020 – well over last January’s peak of 6.6 million work...
You have to go back to the start of the coronavirus pandemic to find mortgage rates as high as they are this week. According to the latest data released Thursday by Freddie Mac, the 30-year fixed-rate average climbed for the fourth week in a row to 3.56% with an average 0.7 point. (A point is a fee paid to a lender equal to 1% of the loan amount. It is in addition to the interest rate.) It was 3.45% a week ago and 2.77% a year ago. The 30-year fixed average is at its highest level since March 2020, when it was 3.65%. Freddie Mac, the federally chartered mortgage investor, aggregates rates from around 80 lenders across the country to come up with weekly national averages. The survey is based on home purchase mortgages. Rates for refinances may be different. It uses rates for high-quality ...
A top Presbyterian reverend accused Israel this week of enslaving the Palestinians, and American Jews of not doing enough to stop it. “The continued occupation in Palestine/Israel is 21st-century slavery and should be abolished immediately,” said Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson II, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly for the Presbyterian Church USA. “Given the history of Jewish humble beginnings and persecution, there should be no ambiguity as to the ethical, moral and dehumanizing marginalization and enslavement of other human beings.” Nelson made the remarks during his Martin Luther King Day sermon, which has since been published on the Presbyterian Church USA website. “The United States of America must be a major influencer of calling this injustice both imm...
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