02 November 2026
AGAIN Scooter Battery Fire Deaths
Why doesnt someone sue the battery makers (class action group) for designing a faulty battery that is PRONE TO EXPLODE AND BURST INTO FIRE AND KILL FAMILIES. This is NOT the first tragedy! The stick vacumn also uses a recharging battery, so i wont buy one. Dont trust Mfg.
BRONX TRAGEDY: Four Family Members, Including Three Children, Killed In Apartment Fire Sparked By E-Scooter Battery
Four members of the same family, including three children ages 11, 15 and 16, have died following a devastating apartment fire in the Bronx caused by a lithium-ion battery from an electric scooter.
The fire broke out Wednesday inside an 11th-floor apartment at the Patterson Houses in Mott Haven. Officials say the scooter was charging near the front door, blocking the family’s escape. The children’s father survived and remains hospitalized.
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And Now a Battery Store blows up
BATTERY BLAZE: Fire At Yerushalayim Electric Bicycle Shop Triggers Explosions And Thick Smoke
AISH: The Last Jew of Pek'in Margalit Zinati
The Last Jew of Peki’in
by Galia Berry, https://aish.com/the-last-jew-of-pekiin/
Peki'in has had a Jewish presence since the Second Temple period, until Arab riots in the 1930s. Meet the remaining member of the Zinatis, the only family who returned.
My husband and I recently visited the village of Peki’in, 40 minutes from our home in the Galilee. It was incredibly moving to meet Margalit Zinati, the 86-year-old lone surviving Jew of Peki’in, and to visit the cave where some speculate Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai hid from his Roman oppressors. I love that every single corner of Israel not only has such a wealth of geopolitical and religious history, but that we feel a genuine spiritual connection and link to the Land we now call home.
Margalit Zinati, age 86
When the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, there were a few families who survived the starvation and massacres; they managed to flee to other areas in Israel. Twenty-four families of Kohanim (priests) thus settled in different parts of the Galilee, including three places near where I live, but these villages today (Kfar Yasif, Shraram, and Arrabe) are strictly Arab (Muslim, Christian or Druze).
Peki’in, high on a mountaintop in the Galilee, is another village settled by Jews from the time of the Second Temple. Three now-unemployed families of Kohanim (without a Temple to serve, the Kohanim were without work) came to live there as well. The Talmudic sage Rabbi Yehoshua ben Haninah transmitted Torah in Peki’in, and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (who was one of Rabbi Akiva’s greatest disciples) would hide there. The synagogue served as Rabbi ben Hanina’s house of study. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1837, but rebuilt in 1873. Two stones in the synagogue are said to have been brought by the Kohanim from the destroyed Second Temple, and there they can be seen to this day.
Second Temple relics
There is a discussion in the Talmud with Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (also known as the “Rashbi”), who was a strong opponent of the Roman regime. Rabbi Yehuda praised the Romans for their architecture and engineering. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai retorted that the Romans were self-serving and brought immorality and hardship. When the Romans got wind of the conversation, they sentenced the Rashbi to death for sedition. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai avoided capture and spent several months hiding with his son Rabbi Elazar in different places in the Galilee, finally settling in a cave in Peki’in where he hid for 13 years. The cave was close to a spring and a carob tree; both provided their sustenance.
The spring. The statues are of Druze leaders.
To preserve their clothes, they buried themselves naked up to their necks in sand, only wearing their clothes on the Sabbath, and learned Torah all day, every day. It was in this cave that he studied Kabbalah (Jewish mystical thought) and wrote the holy Zohar, the original book of Kabbalah. With the death of Emperor Hadrian, the decree against the Rashbi and Rabbi Elazar was nullified, and after 13 years they finally emerged from the cave that had served them so well.
Today considered a holy site, the cave and a huge carob tree (perhaps an offshoot of the original?) are visited by Jews and Arabs alike. The Arabs refer to the place as “Bnei Yakov” (sons of Jacob). Candles, coins, oil and hastily written supplications are placed at the entrance to the cave by pilgrims and tourists.
Notes and candles left in the cave by pilgrims
The opening is narrow and the cavern mostly blocked off by boulders – said to be the result of a major earthquake.
Over time, much land was stolen from the Jews. In modern times, things did not get any better. Surrounded by Druze, Christian and Muslim neighbors, some years were, however, peaceful. The Jews assimilated, not in religion, but in adopting Arab dress and language and generally influenced by Arab culture. These Jews were known as “Mustarabim.”
Unfortunately, Jewish homes and land continued to be misappropriated. In the 1920s a Jewish school was built, and there were 50 families still in Peki’in. In the1930s, several Arab pogroms during the Great Arab Revolt resulted in Jews being terrorized and murdered, and many surviving Jews fled Peki’in in 1938 – 1940, never to return. This was the only time in Peki’in’s history that the town was devoid of Jews since the days of the Destruction of the Temple.
Ironically, almost all of the remaining Jewish property was legally sold to Arabs in the 1940s by the Jewish Agency/Jewish National Fund. Disregarding Peki’in’s important historical Jewish legacy, they decided for the remaining Jews’ own safety it was best for the them to settle elsewhere, and they used the money from the property sales to buy land to establish “Peki’in HaHadasha” – a “new” Peki’in village located a few miles away.
Only a single determined, heroic Jewish Peki’in family returned in 1940: the Zinati Family, who were direct descendants of one of the three priestly families who came from the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem to Peki’in so many generations ago. The patriarch Zinati had been rounded up by a gang of Arabs and taken to the town square. The mob said he was a waste of a bullet and prepared a bonfire and kerosene to burn him alive.
It was only through the intervention of a Muslim neighbor that saved his life at the last possible moment that he survived. Life became increasingly difficult, and when the school closed down, the Zinati children were sent to boarding school in Jerusalem, with only the parents remaining in Peki’in. The son eventually married and left to raise a family elsewhere. Only the Zinati daughter, Margalit (born in 1931) who by now had finished school, remained in Peki’in with her parents. At that point, she decided her own fate: she would never marry. She felt obligated to care for her parents as they aged, and she knew that if she would get married, she would be forced to live with her husband outside of Peki’in. She was determined to keep a Jewish presence in Peki’in alive, no matter what the cost.
The last Jew of Peki’in, Margalit Zinati is not going anywhere. She still receives visitors daily. She wakes early and hobbles to the synagogue, greeting her neighbors in Arabic along the way. There, she takes a broom and begins sweeping the synagogue interior, as well as the courtyard with its enormous mulberry tree. She loves the tourists and Israelis who flock there to see a living testament to a nearly forgotten era. She entertained us in her heavily-accented Hebrew, reminiscing about her childhood, her neighbors, and Jewish life in Peki’in. She points out the artifacts in the synagogue that were brought by the displaced and exiled priests from the Holy Temple over 2000 years ago when they fled Jerusalem.
She explains that she is still getting over a bout of pneumonia, but she bends without much difficulty to pick up some fallen mulberries off the courtyard ground, walks to an outdoor sink and washes them off, offering us a handful of the fruit. Her eyes twinkle and she beams with pride over her role as caretaker of such an important place. She shows us pictures from numerous awards ceremonies where she was honored, and brags that she was chosen to light the torch for Israel’s 70th Independence Day celebration earlier this year.
She showers her visitors with blessings and they repeatedly wish her “good health, until 120.”
As we get ready to leave, she escorts us from the courtyard. “Of all the Jews, only we returned,” she says. “The other families were too scared. We’re not afraid of anyone. We fear only God above.”
Shalom Pollack: 1984
In 1984, a man shunned by civil society, but of great foresight and courage, warned his fellow Jews that there would be a political alliance between the Left and the Arabs.
At the time, people ridiculed and hated him for his alarmist, hateful, "divisive" message.
In those days, the Israeli Left were insulted by the very idea that they would desert the Zionist ethos and offer the Arabs a share in ruling the Jewish country.
There were always deals with local Arab power brokers to trade favors in exchange for influence with clans or villages. Thus, even devout Muslims would at times vote for Jewish religious or Marxist parties if their clan leaders instructed them to.
That was "normal" local corruption.
The warning was not about petty influence peddling in the shadows, but a conscious ideological stand by large parts of the Jewish political leadership; the result of a disconnect from anything Jewish, nay, an abhorrence of anything Jewish.
This self-hatred of their Jewish identity would eventually throw them into the arms of the Jew hating Arabs.
The brilliant, shunned man of 1984 predicted the now-famous "Red- Green" alliance.
Many on the Left convinced themselves that the Arab hate of 1948 could be appeased; that they could be bought to stop hating and start loving us. They thought they could transform the Arabs into Israelis just as they transformed themselves from Jews to Israelis.
The problem was that the Arabs were loyal to their identity, unlike those Jews who fled from it.
The more patronized by the miserable Jews, the bolder they voiced their hate and contempt.
The same Israelis, fleeing their Jewish identity, brought us Oslo, Oct. 7 and the political tsunami of 2026
The Arabs launched the attack through the ballot box that was patronizingly granted them.
We beckoned them to express what they really think in the material paradise the Israelis built for them.
They were certain that they knew what they were really thinking but goofed.
As their material situation improved, as their growing criminal activity was cuddled, so did their resentment and hate for those who tolerated it
In 1970, PM Golda Meir observed,, "There will be peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate ours."
In 2026, we can say there will be a secure Jewish state when "Jews love their Jewish identity as much as the Arabs love theirs".
Materialistic Israelis detached from Judaism, tired of ideology and conflict, believed the Arabs would mirror their own weaknesses in return for material benefits.They were sure that they would assimilate into hedonistic Israeli society, joining the country that is "fun to live in" (former PM Ehud Olmert)
That may work elsewhere.
It does not work in the land that God gave to a holy People, where the rules of history are unique.
When the besmirched and isolated man spoke in the Knesset, warning his fellow Jews of the catastrophe awaiting us, he spoke to an empty hall.
Every single member of the Knesset left when the "mad man" spoke.
There was a prophet amongst us in 1984.
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מרגלית זינאתי מפקיעין ואוריאל רוזנבאום ב"ערב חדש".wmv
מרגלית זינאתי מפקיעין (81) מתארחת בערב חדש 25.7.12 עם השחקן אוריאל רוזנבאום, ביחד מעלים קטע מהצגה המועלית בביתה ומספרים את סיפור יהודי פקיעין המוסתערבים ומשפחת זינאתי. . מתארח באולפן ד"ר לביא שי ממכון יד בן צבי בירושלים שחוקר את סיפור יהודי פקיעין
Margalit’s family never left the land of Israel
Margalit’s family never left the land of Israel
The myths that Jews are ‘colonial settlers’ or that the Arabs are the indigenous inhabitants of the land are belied not only by the millennial presence of Jews in the Middle East, but that Jews have lived continuously in the land of Israel. Margalit Zinati’s family never left the Galilee village of Peki’in.
Margalit Zinati is not Sephardic, Ashkenazi, or Yemeni Her family has lived in the Galilee continuously for over 2,000 years. She comes from a family of Cohanim who left Jerusalem pon the destruction of the 2nd Temple and found safe haven in the town of Peki’in.
Peki’in was a Jewish village since the time of the Temple and is mentioned extensively throughout the Mishna and Talmud. It is recorded that the influential Sage Rabbi Yehoshua and his many disciples set up their Yeshiva in Peki’in.
The Jewish population of Peki’in saw a significant drop during the Crusader and Mamluk period. During the early Mamluk period documents show the growing presence of Druze in the village. But Jews continued living in the village throughout, the majority of which were Kohanim.
Margalit Zinati’s family have been the caretakers of the ancient synagogue of Peki’in, believed to be the original site of Rabbi Yehoshua’s Talmudic yeshiva 2,000 years ago
The interior of the synagogue appears similar to other ancient synagogues in the Galilee; Large open space with “benches” built into the structure under the windows
Peki’in is also the site of the cave where Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai and his son hid from the Romans A common tradition cites this is the site of the cave. Druze and Christians of Peki’in also hold to such a tradition. They called this cave “The Cave of Jacob’s Children.” https://www.jewishrefugees.org.uk/2023/11/margalits-family-never-left-the-land-of-israel.html
Margalit Zinati, last remaining member Beis Sheni Priestly Family
Margalit Zinati (Hebrew: מרגלית זינאתי; born October 1931[1]) is an Israeli Jewish woman and member of the ancient Zinati family, which is one of the three priestly families that have lived in Peki'in for millennia.[2][3]
Margalit was for years the only Jew in the city and guarded the ancient synagogue. Margalit is known as the "keeper of the Jewish embers" in Peki'in.[4] In 2018, the 70th anniversary of the independence of the State of Israel, she was chosen to light a torch in the torch-lighting ceremony
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| 2 September 2026 |
Margalit Zinati is the daughter of Yosef and Saada Zinati, and sister of Shaul Zinati.[6] She is fluent in Arabic and Hebrew.[7]
Most Jews fled Peki'in permanently during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt, but the Zinati family decided to return after temporarily moving to Hadera for a few months between 1938 and 1939.[8]
At fourteen, Margalit left Peki'in to attend school for four years: first at kibbutz Yagur, then at the Lämel School in Jerusalem, and finally in Rehovot.[9] She returned at the outbreak of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War,[7] in which her brother Shaul participated.[10] The family was forced to leave yet again for a period of time by Fawzi al-Qawuqji's forces.[11] She returned to Peki'in after the war, deciding not to marry so she could stay in the village to protect the synagogue and her parents' fields.
Source: Wikipedia (with footnotes)
Armstrong Institute: Jews vs. Israelites? An Introduction to the Lost Tribes of Israel
Jews vs. Israelites? An Introduction to the Lost Tribes of Israel
All Jews are Israelites. Are all Israelites Jews? Scholars have long debated this question. Can we really know the answer?
From the July-August 2026 Let the Stones Speak Magazine Issue
What is the difference between the terms Jews and Israelites? It is a common assumption that these terms are perfectly interchangeable and refer to exactly the same group of people. Many believe that all Jews are Israelites and that all Israelites are Jews.
These terms are preloaded with significant historical meaning and weight. They are also indelibly connected to one of the great enduring biblical mysteries—that of the “lost 10 tribes” of Israel.
Let’s start with the basics. The biblical name Israel was first applied to the patriarch Jacob and used as an umbrella term for the 12 tribes descending from his 12 sons—aka, Israelites. Israel/Jacob had a son named Judah, who was the patriarch of one of these tribes. This is the name from which the term Jew derives. (This is more obvious in Hebrew than in English: יהודי, Yehudi—Jew; from יהודה, Yehuda—Judah. “Judahite” is therefore arguably a better English counterpart to “Israelite.”)
Most will be aware that the original united monarchy of Israel fractured following the reign of King Solomon. At this time, the 10 tribes in the north established the kingdom of Israel, which was led initially by the Ephraimite King Jeroboam i (1 Kings 11:31-35). In the south, the tribe of Judah, ruling from Jerusalem—together with the neighboring smaller tribe of Benjamin and a part of the priestly line of Levi—formed the kingdom of Judah. Israel’s initial united monarchy and eventual split into two distinct kingdoms is well-attested, both biblically and archaeologically (see, for starters, our exhibit issue, “David and Solomon’s Monumental Kingdom”).
The northern kingdom of Israel lasted barely two centuries before being conquered and deported by Assyria in the late eighth century b.c.e. The kingdom of Judah lasted nearly 150 years longer, before being conquered and deported by the Babylonians in the early sixth century b.c.e.
Here’s something many people probably do not know: The very first time the word “Jews” (יהודים, Yehudim) appears in the Bible is in the second book of Kings—a full 12 books into the Bible, in a passage of text recording events that occurred near the end of the biblical kingdom period—after Israel’s split into two kingdoms. Even more interestingly, this first time the word is used is describing a conflict between “Israelites” and “Jews”—clearly, two distinct entities, with distinct terminology applied to each.
In this conflict, the “Israelites” of the northern kingdom formed an alliance with Aram (Syria) against the “Jews” from the southern kingdom of Judah: “Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to war; and they besieged Ahaz [king of Judah], but could not overcome him. At that time Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath to Aram, and drove the Jews from Elath …” (2 Kings 16:5-6).
This is the moment the saga of the “lost 10 tribes of Israel” begins. Where did the lost tribes ultimately go? Who are their modern-day descendants? Their identity is not the focus of this article. Rather, its purpose is to introduce the concept of the lost tribes through the use and interpretation of the terms “Jews” and “Israelites.” Why is this important?
It’s important because—despite the obvious ancient distinction between these terms and the peoples they represent—they have come to be used so interchangeably that each has been rendered effectively meaningless. Among scholars there is tremendous confusion and debate about these terms, leading to a significant degree of ignorance and confusion on this pivotal topic of national identity—both ancient and modern.
Amalgamation of Terms—and Peoples?
A case in point: Jewish historian and rabbi Dr. Henry Abramson of Touro University in New York City, in his 2020 lecture “The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel,” described how “Jews were taken from the northern part of the land of Israel” during the Assyrian conquest of the late eighth century b.c.e. He immediately caught himself in his use of the terminology, however, quickly adding: “I tend to use the term ‘Jews’ anachronistically—just forgive me for it—most Jews do that” (emphasis added throughout).
Another case in point comes from Joel Kramer, of the popular YouTube archaeology channel Expedition Bible. In a 2022 episode titled “The 10 Lost Tribes of Israel—Are They Really Lost?” (with nearly a million views), he argued that the “12 tribes of Israel are preserved in a remnant that survived the Assyrian conquest,” made up of “refugees that were fleeing the destruction of the northern kingdom” into Hezekiah’s southern kingdom of Judah, becoming amalgamated into the southern population. As such, with representation of survivors among each of the tribes, Kramer argued that there is “no such thing as the ‘lost’ 10 tribes of Israel”—with the northern representatives now incorporated into Judah (and thus referred to as “Jews”).
Fast-forward to the return of the Jewish exiles from Babylon to the Holy Land in the latter part of the sixth century b.c.e. This is the time of the rebuilding of the second temple—the time of Zerubbabel, later Ezra and Nehemiah. The return of the Jews at this time is often assumed to be a fulfillment of the great prophecies of the restoration of wider Israel to their homeland, with the ingathering of the tribes—as above, with the terminology of “Jews” now commonly seen as synonymous with Israel, if they were not already seen as such before.
Yet the genealogies of these returnees make it abundantly obvious: These people descended from the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Levi, the tribes that exclusively constituted the southern kingdom of Judah. Their genealogies are clearly documented in passages such as Ezra 1:5, 3:9, 4:1 and 10:9.
Note too, these exiles came from areas within Babylon, not Assyria. And they returned to Judahite locations mainly in and around Jerusalem, not to land or cities in the north (now occupied by the Samaritans).
What about the claim that the 12 tribes were preserved in a remnant that survived the Assyrian conquest? There is some piecemeal archaeological evidence indicating certain northern Israelites fled into Hezekiah’s Judah and Jerusalem at the time of the Assyrian conquest (see here for more detail). But this represented a tiny fraction of the northern kingdom. The annals of Sargon ii, for example, describe his deportation of tens of thousands of captives from his completion of the siege of Samaria alone—the final nail in the coffin following numerous battles and deportations from the time of Tiglath-Pileser iii (see Sidebar 1).
Fast-forwarding another 500 years, the first-century Jewish historian Josephus leaves no room for doubt on this matter. He affirms that there remain only “two tribes in Asia and Europe subject to the Romans, while the 10 tribes are beyond Euphrates till now, and are an immense multitude, and not to be estimated by numbers” (Antiquities 11.5.2).
Bible Aside
Biblically speaking, we do witness a sharp distinction between the use of the terms Israelites and Jews, with the latter terminology used most especially in the works of Jeremiah, Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah—all works following the fall of the northern Israelite kingdom.
Yet modern scholarship is leery of an overemphasis on internal biblical information. After all, as the popular view goes, most of these biblical texts were assembled long after the events they purport to describe anyway—with many believing most of them to have been composed in the post-exilic period. Thus, the Hebrew Bible is a compilation of texts specifically written by Jews, for Jews, about Jews—if you believe it, that is.
Prof. Zvi Ben-Dor Benite represents this critical perspective in The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History:
Derived mainly from the first and second books of Kings, the story [of the divide and collapse of the separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah] has been universally regarded by 10-tribes seekers as historical truth. Of course, nearly two centuries of probing biblical criticism and contested biblical archaeology have taught us nothing if not that the biblical narrative cannot be treated as a chronological history narrating the past as it happened.
Indeed, in the case of the biblical narrative with which we’re concerned here, it is important to bear in mind that at least the first part of the actual (as opposed to the prophetic) history of the 10 tribes story (the first book of Kings, which tells the story of the united kingdom created by David and its split into two under his grandson) is considered by biblical scholars to be almost entirely fictional. The second part, found in 2 Kings (which covers the history of the two kingdoms and the deportations of the Israelites), is thought to have been heavily edited and full of interpolations.
For those who subscribe to this (highly contestable) view—divorced from the necessity of taking at face value these biblical texts and instead giving primacy to a much later corpus of Second Temple Period literature and archaeological evidence—a definitional battleground has formed around how the terms “Israel,” “Jews,” etc were being used during these later periods. And for the past century, the scholarly consensus was that the terms Jews and Israelites were indeed being used synonymously to refer to the same group of people at this time.
What is the key source of this consensus? Irony of ironies, it traces back to a radical member of the Nazi Party!
