Jerusalem, Israel - May 31, 2023 - Chaim V’Chessed has reported extensively on the challenges involved in obtaining services at the US Embassy in Israel. Prior to the Pesach travel season, a sudden change in policy discontinued emergency appointments for newborns. At the time, there was a communal outcry, which led to the involvement of numerous public officials in the matter. Several U.S. legislators, including ranking members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Senators Richard Blumenfeld (D-CT), Robert Menedez (D-NY) and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), headed efforts with the State Department to rectify the situation.
At the time, the immediate pre-Pesach crisis was resolved. However, the overall state of affairs for American citizens in Israel r...
Rabbi Gershon Edelstein, one of the Charedi leaders, passed away yesterday at the age of 100. I remember after the great Rabbi Steinman passed away (at the age of 103), a meeting was held in which Rabbi Edelstein was supposed to give his first address as Rabbi Steinman's successor. There was enormous anticipation as to what Rabbi Edelstein's goals and mission would be. In his usual manner, he unfolded a small piece of paper and proceeded to give his list of priorities. He said we needed to fight our enemies but did not mention politics or laws before the Knesset. Instead, he saw the utmost urgency in curbing anger, eliminating lashon hara (insulting speech) and envy, and increasing acts of kindness. The audience was surprised, although whoever was acquainted with Rabbi Edel...
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is expected to launch another campaign for the Republican nomination for president next week in New Hampshire.
Christie is planning to make the announcement at a town hall Tuesday evening at Saint Anselm College's New Hampshire Institute of Politics, according to a person familiar with his thinking who spoke on condition of anonymity to confirm Christie's plans.
The news was first reported by Axios.
Christie, a former federal prosecutor, was a longtime friend of former President Donald Trump and adviser but seemed to stop after Trump's refusal to accept the results of the 2020 elections.
Christie also sought the GOP nomination in 2016 and dropped out of that race a day after finishing sixth in New Hampshire's...
Baltimore, Maryland – May 31, 2023 – 4:58AM - Commuters are advised to avoid the 2600 block of Smith Avenue (near Cherokee) due to a fire incident that occurred earlier this morning. Thankfully, no injuries have been reported as the two occupants of the affected home managed to evacuate safely.Local fire services are currently at the scene and efforts are ongoing to clear the area and restore normalcy as soon as possible. ...
Baltimore, MD – May 29, 2023 - BJL wishes a hearty Mazel Tov to Eli Taragin (Baltimore) & Aviva Itskowitz (Pittsburgh) on their engagement.
Mazel Tov Ari & Esti Taragin
יה"ר שיזכו לבנות בית נאמן בישראל. אמן!
Mortgage rates are beginning to feel the impact of the debt-ceiling standoff, jumping higher for the second week in a row amid the uncertainty.
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.57% in the week ending May 25, up from 6.39% the week before, according to data from Freddie Mac released Thursday. A year ago, the 30-year fixed-rate was 5.10%.
“The U.S. economy is showing continued resilience which, combined with debt ceiling concerns, led to higher mortgage rates this week,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.
Mortgage rates topped 5% for the first time since 2011 a little more than a year ago and have remained over 5% for all but one week during the past year. Since then they have gone as high as 7.08%, last reached in November. Since mid-Mar...
Elon Musk said Tuesday he was willing to expand his business in China, as he met Foreign Minister Qin Gang in Beijing on his first trip to the country in over three years.
China is the world’s biggest electric vehicle market and Musk’s company Tesla announced in April it would build a second massive factory in Shanghai.
Musk said he was “willing to continue to expand its business in China", according to a foreign ministry readout in which he also reportedly stressed Tesla’s opposition to economic “decoupling" with the United States.
Qin told Musk that China was “committed to creating a better market-oriented, rule-of-law-based and internationalised business environment" for foreign enterprises, the ministry said on its website.
The two countries, Qin...
The American semiconductor giant, NVIDIA, unveiled on Monday morning a supercomputer named Israel-1, estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to the company, it is the most powerful supercomputer in Israel and one of the most powerful on earth. It includes 2,048 H100 graphic processors and 2,560 BlueField-3 DPU chips, all developed locally.
The stated purpose of the new supercomputer is to facilitate collaborations with industry, support internal R&D, and serve as a showcase for building high-performance computers based on NVIDIA's new Spectrum-X platform.
A supercomputer is an exceptionally powerful entity, composed of thousands of processors, used for performing highly complex tasks, including the development of generative artificial intelligen...
The Israeli military early Tuesday morning made preparations for the demolition of the homes of a Palestinian terrorist who carried out a deadly shooting attack on the Dee family in the West Bank in April, and a suspect accused of directing the killing of a soldier last year.
On April 7, Hamas terrorists Hassan Qatnani and Moaz al-Masri opened fire at Lucy Dee, 48, and her daughters Maia Dee, 20, and Rina Dee, 15, as they drove through the northern Jordan Valley. The daughters were declared dead at the scene, while Lucy was rushed to a hospital in critical condition but died three days later.
Qatnani and al-Masri, along with a third Palestinian gunman, were killed in an Israeli raid in Nablus in early May.
In the predawn hours of Tuesday morning, the Israel Defense Forces...
Nvidia (NVDA) became the first chipmaker to ever hit a $1 trillion market valuation on Tuesday. Nvidia's stock rose more than 5% during the session, temporarily crossing over the threshold before giving back some of those gains in the afternoon.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker is now the ninth public company to ever hit the $1 trillion level, joining the ranks of tech giants such as Microsoft (MSFT), Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), and Apple (AAPL).
Nvidia shares have seen a stunning rally this year — up more than 165% since the start of 2023. The chipmaker is at the center of an AI craze thanks to its high-powered graphics cards and server products.
On Monday, Nvidia took the wraps off a slew of new AI-centric products, including a new high-powered super...
The last time an accused war criminal visited South Africa, he had to cut his visit short or risk being arrested. Now, the South African opposition wants to do the same thing to Vladimir Putin.
South Africa’s leading opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), said Tuesday it had taken legal action to force the government to arrest Putin if the Russian president were to visit the country.
Putin is currently under an international arrest warrant, issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in March, over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia as part of Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
The DA has now launched a court application requesting Putin be “detained and surrendered” to the ICC if he were to arrive in South...
The United States is still gathering information on reports of drones striking in Moscow, the White House said on Tuesday, reiterating that Washington does not support attacks inside Russia and is focused on helping Ukraine retake its territory.
"We saw the news and are still gathering information about what happened. As general matter, we do not support attacks inside of Russia," a White House spokesperson said in a statement.
The spokesperson said Washington was "focused on providing Ukraine with the equipment and training they need to retake their own sovereign territory," and pointed to Russian attacks on Kyiv, which has been hit by drones or missiles 17 times in May.
Russia said Ukrainian drones struck wealthy districts of Moscow on Tuesday, targeting areas where Presiden...
The top Chinese official who led Beijing’s COVID-19 response admits he can’t rule out that the deadly virus leaked from a lab.
“You can always suspect anything. That’s science,” Dr. George Fu Gao, who was China’s equivalent of Dr. Anthony Fauci, told the BBC when asked about the ongoing theory about his own nation’s scientists.
“Don’t rule out anything,” he told the podcast “Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origin.”
The global pandemic has killed 7 million people globally, according to the World Health Organization.
The scientist’s admission, no matter how vague, is stunning given how forcefully Beijing has always denied the possibility that researchers at the now-notorious...
In the last week of the Gadol Hador’s life, as the great light was preparing to ascent to Shomayim, Rav Gershon Edelstein, zt”l, who left this world at 100 years of age—following a century of Torah on this earth— sat down to sign a letter on behalf of Shas Yiden which was so close to his heart.
It would be the last signature in his lifetime. Rav Gershon alluded to the great Torah pillars of the past, Rav Meir Shapiro and the Ponovezher Rov, who established Torah for generations. He noted that the Pozna Ruv, Rav Avrohom Eisen, founder of Shas Yiden, has come to ‘seal’ their work by producing yungeleit who are ‘yodei haShas ve’haTorah.” He continued with a Bracha for the continued success of the organization in all of its endeavors,...
Several thousand people participated this afternoon (Tuesday) in the funeral procession of Rosh Yeshivas Ponevezh and Lithuanian community leader Rabbi Gershon Edelstein who died this morning at the age of 100.
The funeral procession began with the recitation of Tehilim and other liturgical prayers by the son of the late rabbi at the Ponevezh Yeshiva hall and ended at the Ponevezh cemetery in Bnei Brak.
The funeral procession was secured by thousands of policemen after a special operation for a mass funeral procession was announced by the Tel Aviv district. When the body was taken out of the Yeshiva hall, people crowded together to reach the bed so hard that they endangered one another, and a police officer had to call for the public to back away from the bed and refrain from climbing on...
Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced Theranos founder convicted on multiple counts of fraud, reported on Tuesday to the Texas prison where she has been sentenced to spend the next 11 years.
Holmes, 39, was due to arrive at a women's prison camp located in Bryan, Texas by 2 p.m. local time. The facility is located near her hometown of Houston, granting her greater access to family members.
Holmes has a nearly 2-year-old son and a 3-month-old baby, who she conceived after her conviction and prior to sentencing. The children will be raised by their father, her partner, Billy Williams. Most recently the family lived in San Diego, California.
According to a former inmate at the Texas facility, Holmes will be allowed up to 300 minutes per month to speak with loved ones on the phon...
Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has been diagnosed with dementia, according to The Carter Center.
“She continues to live happily at home with her husband, enjoying spring in Plains and visits with loved ones,” the organization said in a press release on Tuesday, referring to their hometown in Georgia.
Carter, 95, has been a longtime advocate on mental health issues, which The Carter Center said influenced the family’s decision to share her diagnosis.
“We recognize, as she did more than half a century ago, that stigma is often a barrier that keeps individuals and their families from seeking and getting much-needed support,” the center said. “We hope sharing our family’s news will increase important conversations at kitchen t...
Jerusalem, Israel - May 30, 2023 - The annual Eli Hurvitz Conference on Economy and Society, formerly the Caesarea Economic Policy Planning Forum, sponsored by the Israel Democracy Institute, is recognized as one of Israel's most influential economic conferences.
For 30 years, the conference has served as a crossroads where public discourse and professional knowledge in economics and society meet, with the aim of improving the decision-making processes in the administration and improving the quality of Israel's social and economic policy for the benefit of the public.
This year’s conference, held May 30-31, includes the participation of Israeli Government Ministers and Knesset Members, directors-general of government ministries, and senior lead...
Bnei Braq, Israel - May 30, 2023 - 10 Sivan 5783 - The oilam HaTorah is mourning the petirah of Gadol Hador HaGaon HaRav Yerachmiel Gershon Edelstein, ZT’L.
HaRav Edelstein served as the head of the Ponevezh Yeshiva for 80 years and was the Nasi of the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah. Following the petirah of HaGaon HaRav Aryeh Leib Shteinman, ZT’L, and HaGaon HaRav Chaim Kanievsky, ZT’L, he became the leader of the Torah community in Eretz Yisrael.
The levayah is provisionally set for 3:30 p.m. at the Yeshivas Ponevezh. A bittul melachah, has been declared in Bnei Brak city during the levayah
Jerusalem, Israel - May 30, 2023 - Sheba Medical Center is the largest hospital in Israel, ranked one of the 10 best in the world, and well known for its excellence in various medical fields.
Renowned for providing comprehensive and multidisciplinary medical care across a wide range of specialties, it has 10,000 employees and houses over 150 departments and clinics.
On Monday morning President Isaac Herzog hosted a 75-year celebration at Beit Hanasi in Jerusalem, Israel, with major donors, specialist physicians, and invited guests seated in the main hall of the Israel President's residence.
Sheba Medical Center was established in 1948 as Israel's first military hospital. It was founded as a response to the need for urgent medical care of wounded soldiers during the Israeli War...
