What You Should Know:

 

MK Simcha Rothman: 6 Facts About our Right to Choose Amendment

Since the establishment of a right-wing government with a 64-mandate majority, the media have resumed their campaign of slander and fraud.

You’ve read a lot of things this week, and maybe it’s good practice for the next four years of right-wing rule in which we’ll live from one media-generated crisis to another, with little truth.

Let’s start with the simple stuff. There is no proposal, plan, desire or ambition to allow discrimination against any person. It doesn’t matter if they are LGBT, Jewish, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, Ethiopian, Russian, man, woman or any other division you wish.

We want the Israeli version of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado (2018), that dealt with whether owners of public accommodations can refuse certain services based on the First Amendment claims of free speech and free exercise of religion, and therefore be granted an exemption from laws ensuring non-discrimination in public accommodations—in particular, by refusing to provide creative services, such as making a custom wedding cake for the marriage of a gay couple on the basis of the owner’s religious beliefs. The court ruled 7–2 on narrow grounds that the Commission did not employ religious neutrality, violating Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips’s rights to free exercise, and reversed the Commission’s decision.

I don’t expect to convince those behind the biased and political campaign against us, but it’s important that you know my position, as well as the legal situation, its problems, and the actual proposed amendment to the law.

1. My principled position is that the law prohibiting discrimination in products and services should apply to the state and public service providers that are monopolies, and should not apply to private businesses. In other words, public hospitals and schools receiving state funding will be subject to the law prohibiting discrimination. However, the principle of freedom of occupation will apply to a private business whose owner is entitled to conducting their business as they see fit in a manner consistent with the principle of individual freedom.

Without anything to do with gays, religious people, or settlers – a private business may act as it pleases, and I believe in the market forces that would ensure that arbitrary discrimination against people does not pay off. We already see that banks and companies have announced that they reject discrimination and I certainly welcome it, as I have said explicitly, including in several interviews.

Incidentally, for this very reason exactly, I opposed MK Shuli Moalem’s amendment to the law that added prohibiting discrimination in a place of residence, which supposedly would have benefited me as a settler in an outpost.

2. Today the law in the State of Israel prohibits business owners from discriminating for a variety of reasons, and we are not proposing to change it in our bill. The law is not intended to make it possible to discriminate against anyone because of their sexual orientation, race, or origin.

3. Nevertheless, we have reached several absurdities under the auspices of the existing law, which under the guise of preventing discrimination against people or groups impose actions or deeds on individuals contrary to their beliefs.

The law has morphed into persecuting people or is being used for political harassment.

For example, the owner of a Haredi printing shop in Be’er Sheva was forced to print invitations to a pride parade. In response, the owner of a printing shop in Umm al-Fahm was forced to print invitations to ascend to the Temple Mount.

Newspapers have been forced to publish ads that contradicted and harmed their worldview, and harmed Messianic Jews who operated an event hall in the Jerusalem mountains and became subjected to legal persecution.

4. In a normal world, this matter would be resolved by judges with common sense, who would recognize such lawsuits as harassment and dismiss them. But in Israel, the judicial system turns them into flagship cases. Hence the proposed amendment to the law, that wherever a person is asked to perform action that’s contrary to his belief, his refusal to carry it out will not be considered discrimination.

5. This legislation has no special connection to the LGBT, just as it has no special connection to Islam, or to skin color, which is what I repeated in interviews. It is an assertion of the principle that a free country does not force a person to act in his private business contrary to his faith.

I am similarly not a fan of forcing artists to perform in Judea and Samaria if this goes against their belief. But you should note that despite the current illegality, when artists refused to entertain settlers, the left did not call it discrimination nor empathized with the hurt feelings of the settlers. On the contrary, Justice Hanan Meltzer rejected a government decree that suggested a funding preference to artists who “do not discriminate” against settlers.

6. Is a slippery slope or misuse of the proposed clause possible? Maybe. As we have seen, the current clause, too, can be misused. Therefore, my principled position would be to waive the entire section and allow civil society, which has more common sense than judges and lawmakers, to deal with the problematic cases and recognize the cases that are mere harassments.

In summary: I have not and will never call for harm to the LGBT community or any group in Israeli society. But it looks like, after a year and a half during which the media avoided dealing with LGBT rights so as not to embarrass a government that relied on Muslim extremists like MK Walid Taha and the rest of the Ra’am party, now that we are establishing a right-wing government, the media are champing at the bit to pull the public discourse to these places, never mind all the other, much more urgent issues in Israeli society.

Unfortunately, in the next four years the media will make every effort to tarnish the right-wing government. But it won’t deter us from working to restore governance, promote reform in the judicial system, promote Israel’s economy, and strengthen Israel’s Jewish character.

https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/opinions/mk-simcha-rothman-6-facts-about-our-right-to-choose-amendment/2022/12/28/

Rabbi Kessin – Currents Events, Rebbe and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Rabbi Kessin gives over the not-well-known history about the Eisav and Yaakov descendants, “the elder will serve the younger” prophecy, surrounding the twins that Rivka went to Shaim to consult.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the Roman emperor from 161 to 180 AD and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors, and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire lasting from 27 BC to 180 AD. Wikipedia  

Antoninus' relationship with Rebbe made it possible for Rebbe, Rabbi Yehuda ha-Nasi, to redact the final Mishnayos that we learn today. The burial cave of Rebbe is here in Beit Shearim. 

Wikipedia:  Judah the Prince was born in 135 CE  [became patriarch at the age of 30, and died at the age of about 85] to Simeon ben Gamliel II. According to the Talmud he was of the Davidic line. He is said to have been born on the same day that Rabbi Akiva died as a martyr.The Talmud suggests that this was a result of Divine Providence: God had granted the Jewish people another leader of great stature to succeed Rabbi Akiva. His place of birth is unknown.

Judah spent his youth in the city of Usha. His father presumably gave him the same education that he himself had received, including the Greek language.  This knowledge of Greek enabled him to become the Jews' intermediary with the Roman authorities. He favoured Greek as the language of the country over Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. In Judah's house, only the Hebrew language was spoken, and the maids of the house became known for their use of obscure Hebrew terminology. 

Judah devoted himself to the study of the oral and the written law. He studied under some of R' Akiva's most eminent students. As their student and through converse with other prominent men who gathered about his father, he laid a strong foundation of scholarship for his life's work: the editing of the Mishnah.

Rabbi Kessin explained that he gathered all the individual scholars and their understanding of each Mishna (which is our Oral Laws) and then mostly held by Rebbe Meir, the foremost talmid of Rabbi Akiva, when compiling the Mishnah.

A fascinating historical story that is held to be true. More fascinating reading at Judah HaNasi

Persecution at a Dangerous Level

 

WE 'ARE BUILDING' THE THIRD BEIS, See it, Believe it

 

Soon: Ancient Shiloah Pool in Jerusalem Fully Excavated and Open to the Public

The Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel National Parks Authority, and the City of David Foundation have begun the excavation of the historic Pool of Shiloah in Jerusalem. Located in the southern portion of the City of David and within the area of the Jerusalem Walls National Park, it is an archaeological and historical site of national and international significance. The Pool was first constructed some 2,700 years ago, as part of Jerusalem’s water system in the 8th Century BCE, during the reign of King Hezekiah, as described in II Kings, 20:20:

“Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool, and the conduit, and brought water into the city, are written in the Book of Chronicles of the kings of Judah.”

A rendering of the Pool of Shiloah in the Second Temple period. / Shalom Kveller, City of David Archives.

The Pool of Shiloah served as the reservoir for the waters of the Gihon Spring, which were diverted through an underground tunnel, and was already considered one of the most important areas in Jerusalem in the First Temple period. The Pool of Shiloah was renovated and expanded some 2,000 years ago at the end of the Second Temple period. It is believed that the Pool was used as a ritual bath (mikvah) by Jewish pilgrims as part of their purification ritual before entering the Temple (which included being sprinkled with the ashes of a red heifer).

  

In 1880, the Shiloah Inscription was uncovered in the water tunnel, just a few dozen meters from the Pool. The inscription, currently located at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum, is written in ancient Hebrew script and records how the Gihon Spring’s water was diverted to the Pool during the reign of King Hezekiah.

Over the years, many traditions have been associated with the Pool of Shiloah, and since the end of the 19th century it has been the focus of expeditions from around the world: in the 1890s, a group of British and American archaeologists led by Frederick Jones Bliss and Archibald Campbell Dickey uncovered some of the steps of the Pool; and in the 1960s, the British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon excavated the site.

In 2004, during infrastructure works carried out by the Hagihon water company, some of the pool’s steps were exposed. Consequently, the IAA commenced a systematic excavation under the direction of Professors Roni Reich and Eli Shukron. As part of the excavation, the northern perimeter, as well as a small portion of the eastern perimeter of the Pool of Shiloah were exposed. The perimeter of the Pool was built as a series of steps, allowing the bathers to sit and immerse themselves in the water.

According to estimates, the Pool of Shiloah went through multiple stages of development, and at the height of its glory, was approximately the size of 1.25 acres, inlaid with impressive flagstones. For the first time in modern history, the IAA excavation will conclude with the complete exposure of the Pool of Shiloah in the context of an official archeological excavation.

In the first stage, visitors will be able to observe the archaeological excavations, and in the coming months, the Pool of Shiloah will be opened for tourists, as part of a route that will begin at the southernmost point of the City of David and culminate at the Western Wall.

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion praised the project, saying, “The Pool of Shiloah in the City of David National Park in Jerusalem is a site of historic, national and international significance. After many years of anticipation, we will soon merit to uncover this important site and make it accessible to the millions of visitors who come to Jerusalem each year.”

Thank you Jewish Press for this article: https://www.jewishpress.com/news/jewish-news/soon-ancient-shiloah-pool-in-jerusalem-fully-excavated-and-open-to-the-public/2022/12/27/

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The Ataret Cohanim Association purchased and redeemed 5 dunams (~1.2 acres) of land in the Shiloach (Silwan) neighborhood Jerusalem, and took ownership of the property on Tuesday morning. https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/jerusalem/jews-redeem-land-in-shiloach-silwan/2022/12/27/

ANTISEMITISM ON THE RISE WORLDWIDE – Heed The Warning!

 

An 82-year-old prominent scientist was assaulted on a bus in Moscow by a much younger assailant who shouted that “Hitler should have finished the job, so I’ll do it for him.”

The assailant began hitting Vladimir Tselin, a researcher of radiation who has worked on the Russian space program, soon after Tselin boarded a bus on his way to work Friday, the news site MK reported Sunday.

Shouting about Jews and Hitler, the man followed Tselin out of the bus after Tselin got off to escape the assailant. 

No one on the bus or on the street intervened, according to the report, which did not say whether Tselin is Jewish. Tselin did tell MK he believes the assault was a hate crime “based on ethnic grounds.”

Physical assaults on Jews are rare in Russia, where authorities have pursued a tough stance on such hate crimes.

Tselin reported the incident to police and sought medical treatment for minor injuries he sustained in the incident.

Police are looking for the perpetrator.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/311493

MUST HEAR THE STATISTICS IN RAV RICHTER’S LATEST:

https://youtu.be/Y80uG3p0hoI

Rav Yehudah Richter – Breaking News, Jews!! Come Home to Israel Now! The Danger Is-Real!

(Part 1/2)

 

Seculars Celebrate Xmas Decorations

You ask Yaeli Amir, a seven-year-old Jewish girl growing up in a rural town in Israel, what her favorite holiday is, and she won’ t name any of the almost countless Jewish ones. Instead, she’ll say, without hesitation, “Christmas!”Amir knows all about Santa Claus, and the decorated tree people keep in their home, and the gift-giving. But the joy derives primarily from the weather: 

“It’s fun because it snows and you get to play in the snow,” she said. She hasn’t exactly gotten to play in the snow on Christmas in Israel. But she’s imbibed the holiday’s traditions while watching movies like “The Grinch” and going on a family trip to New York City, where she got to hug a Santa mannequin. Amir’s secular Jewish parents embrace Christmas, not for religious reasons but as an occasion for celebration. 

The same holds for Halloween. Yaeli’s mother, Dana, said her rural cooperative village, known as a moshav, is planning to host an American-style Halloween with costumes and trick-or-treating next year. “I am on the moshav’s education committee and we just talked about how we have to plan a Halloween party next year because all over Israel they have started to celebrate Halloween,” she said. “We are about the last moshav that hasn’t.” Signs that similar sentiments are widespread can be seen all over Tel Aviv, the bastion of secular Israel. The party stores near Tel Aviv’s Levinsky Market carry Christmas-themed decorations and clothing accessories. 

TIV TAM SUPERMARKET

Tiv Ta’am, a supermarket chain notable for selling food that doesn’t meet kosher dietary rules, has a large Christmas tree display at the entrance to its flagship store. Only about 2% of the population of Israel are Christians, the vast majority of whom identify as ethnically Arab, according to the Pew Research Center. One of the factors likely driving this trend is the influx over the past 30 years of more than a million immigrants from the former Soviet Union, many of whom were deeply secular and, in some cases, identified as Christian or had Christian spouses. Signs that similar sentiments are widespread can be seen all over Tel Aviv, the bastion of secular Israel. 

The party stores near Tel Aviv’s Levinsky Market carry Christmas-themed decorations and clothing accessories. The highly assimilated immigrants also brought with them a civic holiday called Novy God that resembles Christmas. Of course, the fact that the Holy Land is the place where Jesus is believed to have been born, lived and died raises awareness of the holiday, although in recent years COVID-19 and occasional unrest have suppressed tourism to Bethlehem and other sites connected to the Christmas story. Instead, with strict foreign travel restrictions in place, Jewish Israelis have been flocking to Christian sites like Nazareth. “We’re not going overseas so fast at this point in the coronavirus,” a Haifa psychologist, Roni Harari, told Agence France-Presse this week. “Here it feels like a little bit of abroad.” 

But there’s also a newer phenomenon at play: Israel’s massive tech sector. Concentrated in and around Tel Aviv, the culture among startups and established companies is shaped by secular Israelis, including a significant contingent of Soviet immigrants or their children. According to Tamara Raynor Cote, a public relations account manager and HR coordinator in Tel Aviv with lots of tech clients, the industry likes to foster holiday spirit during Halloween and Christmas. 

A lot of HR or office managers will buy into these holidays,” Raynor Cote said. “When I went to buy Halloween decorations it was me and all the HR managers of Tel Aviv.” She said tech companies who are competing to recruit from a limited supply of computer engineers want to project an image of excitement and cosmopolitan savvy. They routinely throw parties where pop stars perform, for example. Having employees celebrate during Christmas and Halloween at the office and posting photos of them doing so on social media generates a desirable kind of buzz.  “It comes down to wanting to look international and fun, it helps with recruitment,” she said. “Having the appearance of being a globally-minded company is appealing.” 

In a recent podcast discussing “Christmas in a Jewish Majority State,” the American-born Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevi suggested that Jews in Israel could appreciate Christianity and Christmas without the anxiety that religious Jews like him experienced growing up in the United States. “We were now a sovereign state with a Christian minority. We had reversed the dynamic. And so I felt this tremendous opportunity as an Israeli” to learn more about Christianity and Islam, he said on the podcast, a production of the Shalom Hartman Institute, where he is a senior fellow. “I could discover Christmas…. I could allow myself the possibility of holy envy to a religion that I’d grown up fearing and loathing.” 

Amid the holiday excitement, Dana Amir, Yaeli’s mother, paused to reflect on the significance of marking holidays that come from outside the Jewish tradition. When she was growing up, her family would have frowned upon the idea. “Someone said, ‘Let’s also do something for Christmas as a moshav,’” Dana recalled. “I told her, ‘Good thing my grandmother isn’t alive to hear what we are doing.’” But Dana says she is raising Yaeli and her two sisters to appreciate Judaism, and that enjoying the trappings of Christmas doesn’t come at the expense of celebrating Jewish holidays. “It’s all in good fun,“ she said. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/319202

“ The age of the apologetic Jew is over”

 

It’s time for Jews to say, ‘Sorry, not sorry’

The age of the apologetic Jew is over. Op-ed

(JNS) For many years, I have felt something that made no sense to me, but I felt it very strongly. The feeling was that Jews around the world who blatantly support our enemies are worse than our enemies themselves.

There are many examples of this, but to keep it simple, I’m talking about Jews who are ashamed of their identity, Israelis who are ashamed of their country and the combination of the two: Jews who are ashamed of their country and Israelis who are ashamed of their Jewish identity.

Why do these people bother me so much? Recently, the answer came to me: These people haven’t gotten the memo that Jews don’t have to be apologetic anymore.

Throughout our history, we were always apologizing:

“Sorry, I won’t learn Torah if it offends you, Greeks.”

“Sorry if we destroyed your economy, Germans.”

It’s not new. It’s even in the Torah. We sent spies to examine the land before entering it, and guess what 10 out of 12 came back saying? I’m sorry. “They are too strong. We can’t do this. We’re too small. We’re too insignificant. Sorry, but no.”

Today, we no longer have to apologize.

We don’t have to apologize for waving an Israeli flag, for praying on the Temple Mount, for holding a Torah scroll at the Western Wall or for living in our land—all of it.

But these people are constantly apologizing:

“We’re so sorry about the ‘occupation.’”

“We’re so sorry about those crazy religious people who want my kids to know the foundations of our history, our tradition and our religion.” We’re so sorry about those freaks who want and are willing to fight for every inch of this land.”

“We are so sorry that the citizens of Israel have spoken and democratically elected a right-wing government that realizes that there never was an Arab Palestinian state and there never will be.”

“We’re sorry, America. Please don’t pull your foreign aid. We depend on you.”

Those days are over.

We are home and some of us are proud to be home, while others are still stuck in the olden days when Jews would turn the other cheek. Want to know how this manifests? It’s simple: When you are ashamed of who you are, you blame yourself. 

There are many Jews out there who blame Israel for antisemitism: If only we didn’t ‘occupy’ the ‘Palestinians,’ there would be no antisemitism.”

“If only those haredi Jews wouldn’t dress like that and stick to their ‘primitive ways,’ people wouldn’t hate us so much.”

But they’ll never accept our apology, so it’s time we stop apologizing.

The new government is too right-wing for you? You must have confused me for someone who cares about your opinion.

Foreign aid? Go ahead, Biden, try to pull it. Try to boycott Israel, BDS. Go for it, let’s see how that goes for you.

We don’t need you any more than you need us. 

Allow me to officially declare that the era of the apologetic Jew is dead. It should rest in peace.

Now let me introduce you to a new creature: the proud Jew.

We have a lot to be proud of.

20% of all Nobel prizes have been awarded to Jews. We have the most moral army in the world. We are able to balance our military power with our unwavering need to behave morally and ethically, sometimes too ethically.

We lead the world in life-changing tech: Medicine, food, you name it, we are at the forefront of it all.

We took a desert that Mark Twain famously referred to as “a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land” and transformed it into one of the most flourishing societies in the Middle East and the world, and it only took us 75 years.

So, it’s time we all declared the apologetic Jew dead and introduced the world to a new breed of Jew, the proud Jew.

If we don’t respect ourselves, how can we expect the world to?

Our new government, despite its shortcomings, represents the proud Jew. There has never been more Torah learning than there is right now. We have never been stronger physically or economically. That’s something to be proud of.

This new government will support Torah. It will support the land of Israel—all of it. It will support our needs, not the needs of our enemies.

We have always talked about and prayed for the people of Israel, with the Torah of Israel, in the land of Israel. And now, we have arrived, not yet to the final destination, but we are well on the way.

For that, we, the Jewish people, should be proud, not ashamed and apologetic.

Or, in other words: Sorry, not sorry.

Hillel Fuld, named Israel’s top marketer, is a leading journalist, tech advisor, online influencer and expert on Israeli innovation. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/364962

Likud Condemns Dermer – We Condemn . . .

even though this has been resolved B”H, one should know the particulars: 

According to a report in the Maariv newspaper, senior members of the Likud party have sharply condemned demands made by former ambassador Ron Dermer regarding the position of Foreign Minister in the next government. "The demands being made are nothing less than insolent, given that this is a person who has never been a member of the Likud party and indeed has no voting rights in the Knesset," the report quotes.

UPDATE:  Netanyahu will not give Foreign Ministry to former ambassador:  Heavy pressure was put on Netanyahu over the weekend to leave the senior positions in the hands of the Likud. Journalist Dafna Liel reported that party officials estimated that Netanyahu was convinced and he that he no longer intends to give the foreign affairs portfolio to former Israeli ambassador to the USA Ron Dermer. (A7 Brief)

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Note:

This would have been Netanyahu’s “IN” with the American Govt. evil Dem. progressives, so he could continue bending backwards to the EU Nations and the DS. He must be shown that those days are OVER. We owe the UN and all the Eisavan govts no allegiance; they were and are all for our demise. They are now going to be “paid” for their “jealousy” toward the Jewish People and Nation ALL THESE THOUSANDS OF YEARS. Their ‘kindness’ is poison for us.

The Hypocrite Elect in the Beit Lavan

 

While the Chief Hypocrite was “playing up to the Jews” his rep. and the US rep. was defaming the Jews at the notorious antisemitic UN.

Here’s the thing, though: on Monday, even as the president was lighting his new, permanent menorah, Deputy UN envoy Robert Wood told the Security Council: “The United States expects to see equal treatment of extremists – whether Israeli or Palestinian.”

Wood later clarified he had meant Israel should carry out “arrests, convictions, and punishments, as well as equal allocation of resources to prevent and investigate violent attacks,” creating the obvious impression that Jewish thugs are attacking Arab civilians day and night using firearms – just like those nice Lion’s Den folks are doing.

What a friend we have in Biden (Biden Admin Demands Israel Provide ‘Equal Allocation of Resources’ to Countering Israeli ‘Extremists’ and ‘Palestinian’ Terrorists).

The president then quoted his speechwriters, who said that “the Talmud teaches us we cannot rely on or expect miracles; we have to earn them. Earn them. We know that task is not easy. No one knows better than this audience.”

The Gemara in Shabbat 32a relates that Rabbi Yannai used to say: a person should never stand in a place of danger saying that from above they will perform a miracle for him, lest they not perform a miracle for him. And even if they do perform a miracle for him, they might deduct it from his merits.

Rabbi Ḥanin said the source for Rabbi Yannai’s saying was Jacob, who said: “I have been made smaller (katonti) by all the mercies, and all the truth which You have bestowed on Your servant” (Genesis 32:11). In other words, since You have bestowed so much kindness and truth on me, my merits have been diminished.

The same Gemara relates that Rabbi Zeira would not go out and walk among the palm trees on a day when a southern wind was blowing, fearing that the trees might fall on him.

The president’s writers added another Talmudic citation for the boss, who said wisely: “Just as we light one candle after another, another lesson from the Talmud is this: no matter what challenges we face, we’ve never stopped moving forward. Think about it. Never once have we stopped moving forward. We must rise in our faith and holiness. Never decline. And as we do, let us also hold on to the hope, as the Jewish proverb says, even a glimmer of light can dispel much darkness.” 

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/us-news/biden-cites-the-talmud-at-hanukkah-reception-while-un-envoy-equates-jews-with-terrorists/2022/12/20/

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. . . as the world descends into the darkest of Teves darkness! [under the sway of Eisav]

Addendum:  "President Herzog: 'I condemn any statement that acts as a basis for exclusion’” [be careful]; under the law all business people have the RIGHT to refuse a customer in a private business. Supporting acts of toevah places one in the same basket. "'The state of Israel will uphold equal social and political rights [immorality is not social or political, but private] for all of its citizens, with no difference of religion, race, and sex,' that's what is written in the Declaration of Independence, and we all must keep that at any cost and without compromise. Any action against these basic values is dangerous to our very lives and existence as a nation and a state."

Herzog emphasizes: "I oppose any statement that acts as a basis for exclusion or any phenomenon that allows discrimination. I work and will work with all my ability as President of Israel, to prevent harm to parts and populations of the public.” THIS APPLIES EQUALLY TO ANY PRIVATE BUSINESS OWNER THAT DECIDES NOT TO ACCEPT A CUSTOMER! The Owner has equal rights also!

"Personal Freedom" Is Being Challenged – Govt in Jeopardy

NETANYAHU:  "We will ensure that there will be no infringement on the rights of ANY citizen of Israel.” 

That is EXACTLY What the MK is Proposing. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE LEGISLATION IS ABOUT, NOT FORCING SOMEONE TO GO AGAINST THEIR FREEDOM TO CHOOSE. NO ONE SHOULD BE "FORCED TO COMPLY" WITH ANYTHING THAT GOES AGAINST THEIR PERSON

NETANYAHU: This is not against anyone but the person who does not want to comply with a LG++++++++++ request; they can go elsewhere!!

UPDATE BELOW

* * *

Otzma Yehudit party chairman MK Itamar Ben-Gvir called Friday for the passage of legislation enshrining religious liberty and offering exemptions from anti-discrimination laws.

Speaking with Kan Bet Friday morning, Ben-Gvir defended the Religious Zionist Party – which ran on a joint list with Otzma Yehudit and the Noam faction in the November election – from criticism after it was revealed that the RZP had pushed for the inclusion of a religious liberty bill in its coalition agreement with the Likud.

The proposed legislation would protect business owners who decline to offer services due to their personal religious beliefs. Ben-Gvir lauded RZP chief MK Bezalel Smotrich for insisting on the inclusion of the religious liberty clause in the coalition agreement.

“I want to congratulate my friend Smotrich for demanding – and getting – this.”

Smotrich pushed for the inclusion of the religious liberty clause in the coalition agreement after a Beersheba printing house owner was fined after he declined to accept a commission to print flyers for a gay pride parade. 

We’re talking about this print shop [operator] in Beersheba who was asked to print flyers for the gay pride march, and he said ‘I don’t want to.’ Then all of the sudden, the court slaps him with a fine. Are we sane? What happened to personal freedom? The right of a person over his own business?” Ben-Gvir added that he would support the use of a religious liberty exemption to allow businesses to decline to offer services for causes he supports.

“Absolutely. If I want to print flyers for a flag march, and the print shop owner tells me he doesn’t want to do it, or ‘I don’t agree,’ that’s his right. The Left talks about democracy, but behaves like it’s the greatest dictatorship there ever was.”

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/364861

Further clarification:

Netanyahu has it backwards, it’s not on “race” as both parties would be Jewish. It’s on morality, and everyone has the responsibility to NOT condone OR to join with. G-d will judge accordingly.
The division is either “private business” or “Public and State sponsored” of an entity whether to permit or not permit. Woe to the state.

Rabbi Weissman – Prepping According to the Torah

Prepping According to the Torah … and more

People tend to decide on an ideology or course of action, and then hunt for Torah sources to justify it after the fact. Everyone would reflexively agree that this is intellectually dishonest and completely antithetical to the Torah, but almost everyone is guilty of this.

Followers of the Lubavitcher Rebbe decided that a dead person could be Moshiach — and that of all the deceased candidates to choose from, including King David himself, it would be the Lubavitcher Rebbe — only after he died, and then went cherry-picking to defend their claim.  Until the very moment he died, his followers went on the local news insisting that he would recover from his final illness.  When that false prophecy went awry, they simply buried it, changed their story, and built a new Torah around it.

When I was growing up, LGBTQ+++ wasn't yet a thing, just G, and the propaganda at the time was merely to be sensitive to their struggles (presuming they were actually struggling, not embracing it), and to "separate the sin from the sinner" (which is nonsense and antithetical to the Torah).  We know where things led from there, which was entirely predictable, but that didn't stop people from hunting for Torah sources to justify turning the Torah on its head every slippery step of the way.

The same is true with the muder of unborn children (which was given the sanitized term "abortion"), contraception, and encouraging singles to get married later and later in life.

The same is true with giving ever-increasing amounts of pharmaceutical products — none of which are actually good for you, though at times they may be necessary — to healthy adults and children alike.

The same is true with making every excuse imaginable for Jews to remain in the diaspora, no matter what.  If there is one area where Jews show their cleverness and ability to pick cherries, this is it.

And, of course, the same is true with justifying the tyranny and corruption of the last three years.  Locking people in their homes, forcing people to suffocate themselves, forcing people to take injections of Amalek juice, closing down shuls and yeshivas, redefining normal human contact as a deadly risk, and referring to anyone who thought otherwise as a rodef, with all that implies — all of that came complete with Torah sources and sanctimonious, manipulative assertions.  

I can provide numerous other examples of this intellectual dishonesty and abuse of Torah, and so can you.  When people start with a conclusion and then work backwards to justify it, they can always find a Torah source, or distort one, to give it some credence.  

That is not observing the Torah, but trampling all over it, because the Torah is here to inform us and guide us, not to serve as a crutch for those who first decide the way it's going to be.  We are supposed to approach the Torah with an unbiased mind, genuinely not caring what the "correct" answer is, and let the Torah speak to us, instead of imposing our will on the sources.

The same phenomenon has become the norm with "science", where the talking heads start with a desired conclusion (masks work, the shots are safe and effective, we need to become slaves and destroy civilization to save the planet, men and women are figments of our imagination, etc.) and then simply fabricate a study or a statistic to "prove" it.  

Prepping — or preparing for emergencies — has become more mainstream in recent times, and many Jews have begun to embrace this trend.  In principle this seems to be responsible behavior, even obligatory according to the Torah.  But how many people have actually studied what the Torah has to say on the subject?  Are there not boundaries, limits, and guiding principles when it comes to prepping as with everything else?

That was the subject of this week's Torah class, which was based on the parsha.  The recording is available at https://rumble.com/v21rm3o-r-and-b-torah-fellowship-38-prepping-according-to-the-torah.html.

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Check out this classic bit of propaganda from Avi Shafran in Ami Magazine from December 16, 2020.

https://www.rabbiavishafran.com/mask-ask/ 

Why Trojan horse publications like this are still allowed in the most "strictly Orthodox" world without a peep of protest is hard to understand.   

There's a lot wrong with this article from start to finish, more than I care to catalog, but there's one point he makes that bears particular mention.

"I felt that the benefit of covering my mouth and nose was outweighed by the danger to my health in not receiving sufficient oxygen. I could feel, I felt, that I wasn’t getting enough air.

But then I found research that showed that oxygen levels did not decrease as a result of masking — even when the masker was engaged in strenuous exercise...And so, I realized that it was really just the discomfort of breathing warm air and enduring fogged eyeglasses that argued against the public health benefit of wearing a mask. I was being a shul snowflake."

That's right, he could literally feel that he was starving for air (at least he felt that he felt that way, whatever that means), but a study claimed otherwise and made up an alternative reality to explain the feeling of suffocation he was experiencing. 

Therefore, he wasn't really starving for air, despite what his body was telling him.  And if you feel you are starving for air when you place something over your mouth and nose, you aren't, snowflake, so stop complaining about it and just get used to it. 

Avi Shafran is Agudath Israel of America's director of public affairs, and to the best of my knowledge has not issued a retraction and apology for his ridiculous, dangerous propaganda that runs entirely against the Torah.  But keep supporting the organization, because they are super duper Orthodox — all the gedolim say so, or something like that.

As for Ami Magazine, I guess as long as you virtue signal with hagiographies about gedolim and not showing pictures of women, you can get away with insidious propaganda and leading Jews astray from the Torah in the name of Torah.  

 

Cataclysmic Pestilence

Katastrofik Cuntageon

The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in partnership with WHO and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, conducted “Katastrophic Contageon,” a panda-emik tabletop exercise at the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on October 23, 2022. [re-run of 2019 only moresew]

The extraordinary group of participants consisted of 10 current and former Health Ministers and senior public health officials from Senegal, Rwanda, Nigeria, Angola, Liberia, Singapore, India, Germany, as well as Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Melanie Phillips Analysis

 

The European Union’s subversion of Israel

Israel’s controversial Maccabean Three may be channeling Jewish history all over again. Op-ed.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/364845

JNS) Liberal Jews in both the Diaspora and Israel have been hyperventilating over the “extremist” ministers in the incoming government headed by Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu.

These are the rabble-rouser Itamar Ben-Gvir, the theocrat Bezalel Smotrich and the ultra-socially conservative Avi Maoz.

With Netanyahu insisting that he will keep these three on a short leash, the rational position is to judge this government on what it actually does rather than wildly denouncing these men on the basis of their previous behavior.

But are liberal Jews capable of anything other than hysteria when it comes to people they have damned as beyond the pale of humanity itself? Are they able to judge these individuals in accordance with demonstrable evidence?

Take, for example, Smotrich. He opposes a Palestinian Arab state, maintains that Israel is entitled to settle in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria and claims that the Palestinian Arab agenda is to drive the Jews from the land. He has accordingly been accused of supporting an illegal land grab and anathematized as a Nazi.

Yet now information has surfaced that shows Smotrich is all too correct about the Arab strategy in the disputed territories—and that this strategy is being promoted by the very sort of people who denounce him as an extremist.

Earlier this week, Israel’s Channel 13 revealed that a document drafted by the European Commission in eastern Jerusalem proposed helping the Palestinian Authority secretly take control of land in Area C—which is supposed to be under full Israeli control according to the Oslo Accords—and suggested using left-wing NGOs in Israel for this purpose

The document, probably drafted in June, said the E.U. should map the land to “prove” Palestinian Arab rights in the disputed territories, as well as violate local land-planning law, without leaving any trace of its activities.

The document also called for “following and monitoring Israeli archaeological activity in the area,” claiming that this was being used as a pretext for settlement building in Judea and Samaria.

What this really means is that the E.U. wants to stop these excavations because they are consistently uncovering indisputable archaeological proof that the Jews are the indigenous people of the land.

By saying it wants to “prove” Palestinian Arab rights to the land, the E.U. revealed its true intention: to fabricate an entitlement that doesn’t exist. The only people with a legal, historical and moral claim to the land are the Jews. But the most important thing the E.U. document revealed is the sustained attempt by the Palestinian Authority and the E.U. to erase that unique Jewish claim via illegal construction.

As the Gush Etzion Council Head and Chairman of the Yesha Council Shlomo Ne’eman said: “Every week the State of Israel loses large areas, every day dozens of illegal homes are erected, roads are broken up and paved at significant points as part of an organized strategic plan. European governments are actively working to revise the borders of our country. In years past, this would be grounds for wars between nations.” 

For his part, Smotrich said: “The blatant involvement of the European Union in the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to establish facts on the ground and unilaterally establish a de facto Arab terrorist state in the heart of the Land of Israel is unacceptable, contrary to international law and incompatible with basic rules of diplomacy in relations between states.” Who could argue with that? He is correct. The E.U. has been caught bang to rights. While liberals scream that Smotrich is intent upon illegal “annexation,” it’s actually the E.U. and the Palestinian Arabs who are stealing land to which the Arabs have no entitlement.

As the international lawyer Professor Eugene Kontorovich has observed, the Palestinian Authority and the E.U. are rapidly annexing areas surrounding Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria. “The proposed policies of the [prospective Benjamin Netanyahu-led] coalition in Area C are not about changing the status quo—they are the bare minimum to preserve it,” he said. 

Yet none of this is news to those who have been paying attention. The NGO Regavim has been raising the alarm over this for years. It has also been warning of similar activity in the Negev, with the spread of illegal Bedouin settlement and associated lawlessness, including the systematic theft of IDF weapons and ammunition. This too is being funded and encouraged by the E.U.

Last February, Alan Baker, a former legal adviser to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, wrote for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs that an E.U. directive to mobilize and activate “national and international stakeholders through ad-hoc influencing actions on land rights to challenge the Israeli planning and permit regime in Area C” was deliberately encouraging the Palestinian Arabs to defy and undermine Israel’s authority there, which runs counter to the Oslo Accords.

The E.U. cannot maintain the status of ‘witness’ to the Oslo Accords while at the same time systematically undermining those Accords and encouraging the Palestinians to violate them,” Baker wrote.

The implications are astounding. The E.U. is in effect helping the Palestinian Arabs build a state in Judea and Samaria. It is also helping the Bedouin illegally carve up the Negev in a further dire threat to Israel’s security.

Yet few have paid this any attention. Israeli governments have ignored it because they have chosen not to open up yet another front against the Western diplomatic consensus. And that consensus dismisses as a “right-wing extremist” anyone who has the audacity to suggest—entirely correctly—that the Arabs have no legal rights to any of this land.

Indeed, a principal reason Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have gained power is that so many Israelis are utterly appalled at the way successive governments—including those led by Netanyahu—have ignored this growing threat to Israel.

Now this is out in the open. The E.U. can no longer pretend it is merely contributing to Palestinian “civil society.” Yet even now, there is no mention of any of this by the Western mainstream media. In Britain, the BBC has instead been busy fomenting yet more anti-Israel feeling by telling its audience that Netanyahu has finalized “the most extreme right-wing government in Israel’s history.”

Similar denunciations by Israel’s outgoing leftist prime minister, Yair Lapid, have been fueling hysteria in the West, not least among liberal-minded Diaspora Jews.

These have been heard describing the yet-to-be-formed Israeli government as “horrific,” and have already been blaming Israel for putting them in danger as a result.

Now the E.U. has been engulfed by revelations of a corrupt relationship with Qatar—the sponsor of Hamas and mortal foe of Israel. While details are still unfolding, this axis isn’t surprising. There’s a nexus between the universalism embodied by the E.U. and the desire to bring down Israel, the nation state of the most particularist culture in the world.

And it’s no coincidence that the majority of British Jews, who in 2016 voted for the U.K. to remain in the E.U. partly through their ludicrous belief that universalism actually protected them against antisemitism, have also swallowed many of the lies about the Palestinian Arab cause—and, like their liberal American counterparts, are now clutching their pearls over Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and Maoz.

While concerns about the extremism of this trio may be justifiable, the people they most resemble are the Maccabees. They were Jewish religious zealots who fought the Hellenized Jews because the Hellenizers were adopting Greek universalist precepts and, as a result, taking a wrecking ball to Jewish practices such as circumcision and Shabbat observance.

But the Maccabees fought and defeated the Jews’ Greek oppressors. While being rightly excoriated for violent extremism, the heroes of the Hanukkah story saved the Jewish people from tyranny.

It may be that today’s Maccabean Three are channeling Jewish history once again.

Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for The Times of London, her personal and political memoir Guardian Angel has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, The Legacy. Go to melaniephillips.substack.com to access her work.

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