"Yishar Koach" to Zvika Klein

Well done, Zvika! Here is a snippet:

This election is not just another political choice; it is a life or death decision that can literally affect the existence of the Jewish state. The stakes could not be higher. Harris’s presidency could lead to policies that embolden Israel’s enemies and weaken the US-Israel alliance, posing an existential threat to the Jewish state.

In stark contrast, while Donald Trump is unpredictable and controversial, his track record regarding Israel was consistently strong: he facilitated the Abraham Accords, acknowledged the Golan Heights as part of Israel, and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. His actions have strengthened Israel’s position and security in the region.

Is it Better to Kill a Terorist or Turn Him Over to the Police?

The shameful release of 1027 terrorists in return for Gilead Shalit is continuing to make waves. Rabbi Yosef Elitzur, one of the co-authors of "Torat HaMelech", came out with a not so surprising suggestion following the deal. I will quote jpost's mistranslation of part of what he wrote:

“When the state apparatus broadcasts in an unequivocal manner that there is almost no price to be paid for shedding Jewish blood, it is not clear if it’s a good idea to let the police take care of these issues,” the rabbi wrote.

“At the very least, if there is a window of opportunity in which you can claim selfdefense so that the [legal] framework won’t be overtly damaged, it is better to kill the terrorist and so raise the price of Jewish blood, which has been continually cheapened.”

Now the original Hebrew:

כאשר המערכת משדרת באופן חד וחלק שעל פגיעה ביהודים כמעט ואין מחיר (צאו וחישבו לבד תוך כמה שנים ישתחררו רוצחי משפחת פוגל..) – לא ברור אם טוב להשאיר למשטרה את הטיפול בדברים כאלה. אולי, לפחות כאשר נוצר חלון הזדמנות שבו אפשר לטעון להגנה עצמית וכך גם המערכת לא נפגעת כל כך, מוטב להרוג את המחבל וכך לייקר ולו במעט את דם ישראל שהולך ונעשה זול, למרבה החרפה

This is how jpost's translation should have been (omissions in bold) :

“When the state apparatus broadcasts in an unequivocal manner that there is almost no price to be paid for shedding Jewish blood (calculate by yourself within how many years the murderers of the Fogel family will be released) , it is not clear if it’s a good idea to let the police take care of these issues,” the rabbi wrote.

“Perhaps, at the very least, if there is a window of opportunity in which you can claim selfdefense so that the [legal] framework won’t be overtly damaged, it is better to kill the terrorist and so raise, even a little bit, the price of Jewish blood, which has been continually cheapened, to our great disgrace.”

All of the omissions are a disgrace considering that jpost put Rabbi Elitzur's comments in quotation marks and did not paraphrase him. However, the omission of the word "perhaps" in the second paragraph simply distorts what the Rabbi wrote. The word "perhaps" adds an important nuance and makes jpost's headline ("Better to kill a terrorist than call the police") patently false.

Terrible Translation at Jpost.com

This is just too funny:



Who are these "female rabbis"? Are they graduates of the Reform movement's Hebrew Union College, the Conservative movement's Jewish Theological Seminary, or both? Here is what they wrote:

The letter states, "There are quite a few Arab workers who give themselves Hebrew names. Yusef turns into Yosef, Samir turns into Sami, and Awabad turns into Ami. They ask to be close to you, try to find favor with you, and give you all the attention in world, they are actually here knowing to act with courtesy, acting as if they really care for you, say a good word, but their behavior is only temporary. The moment you are in their hands, in their village, under their control, everything changes."

"Your life will never go back to the way it was, and the attention you so desired will turn into curses, beatings, and humiliations," the letter warns.

Say what? My gut feeling was that there is something is very wrong here. A quick check on the Arutz 7 web site determined that the letter was not composed by "female rabbis", but by the wives of regular Orthodox rabbis. Someone at jpost translated "rabbaniot" (in Yiddish "rebbetzins") as "female rabbis"! Among the signatories: Rebbetzin Esther Lior of Kiryat Arba (Rabbi Dov Lior's wife) and Rebbetzin Shlamit Melamed of Beit El(Rabbi Zalmen Melamed's wife).

This reminded me of an old Yiddish saying:"It's a lot easier to become a rebbetzin than to become a rabbi." However, at jpost it's the same thing!

Translation is Not a Simple Matter

Jpost has an article about the Shas letter that I blogged about yesterday. Translating Hebrew into English is not an easy matter, especially when one is dealing with flowery language, imagery and idioms. I think that jpost really messed this one up:

"He cooked this dish in public in order to find favor in the eyes of those who hate Torah," it continues. "He, as a teacher, is kicking his rabbis. He is added to our troubles - peasants and haters of Torah sages - and caused a desecration of God's name."

It should read, in my humble opinion:

"He burned his dish in public in order to find favor in the eyes of those who hate Torah," it continues. "He is like a student who has rejected his rabbis. He is added to our enemies - ignoramuses and haters of Torah sages - and caused a desecration of God's name."

A Very Good Article About the Rabbi Motti Elon Scandal

Kudos to Stewart Weiss for summing the whole thing up so nicely. A snippet:

Just when we thought we had reached the pinnacle of cynicism, that we had seen it all regarding the dubious behavior of public figures, that nothing could shock us anymore, comes the dramatic allegations of sexual “impropriety and harassment” swirling around Rabbi Mordechai Elon. The “golden boy” of religious Zionism – once arguably the most popular rabbi in the State of Israel – now finds himself at the center of a scandal almost too impossible to believe.

As the revelations begin to trickle in, and clarity seeks to overcome confusion, the battle lines between the defenders and accusers are already being drawn. Soon, the public will once more be asked to choose between the tongue of gold and the feet of clay.

Just four years ago, Rav Elon seemed to be on top of the world. A scion of one religious Zionism’s most prestigious families, he was the head of arguably the most famous yeshiva in Jerusalem, the star of the crocheted-kippa generation. He attracted huge crowds of young people to his innovative classes on Torah and Talmud, held on campuses or classrooms throughout the land. A master at media, his words resonated through our TV sets, our radios and our newspapers. He was sought after as a speaker and officiating rabbi at weddings and funerals alike, and was even approached – in vain – to become the leader and savior of a struggling National Religious Party (which later disbanded and was resurrected as Habayit Hayehudi).

Alan Dershowitz Learns a Lesson About the Israeli MSM

What happens when Alan Dershowitz meets Razi Barkai?

It all began with an innocent enough request from Israel's Army Radio for an interview about the Goldstone Report and my 49-page response to it. The interview was conducted by an experienced host, Razi Barkai. Unbeknownst to me, Barkai had an agenda. He wanted to get me to say that I thought that Goldstone was a "moser."

Read the rest!

More Ignorance at Jpost.com

The people that purport to report news about Israel do not know the difference between Rabbi Avraham Shapira zt"l and Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira shlit"a. Here's an article about Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira accompanied by a pic of Rav Avrum:

Jpost Lies

See how the jpost editorial lies:

Radical settler Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, of the Har Bracha hesder yeshiva pre-army academy, instructed national-religious recruits to disobey orders that run contrary to the Land of Israel ethos. Though his institution is funded by the Defense Ministry (and Diaspora donors), Melamed let it be known that government officials would have to come to his mountain if they wanted to parlay; he would not come down to them.

Of course anyone familiar with Rabbi Melamed knows that he instructs his students to disobey any order that is contrary to Jewish law. The Rabbi has explained many times that the Torah has commanded us to settle the land of Israel. What's more, destroying Jewish towns in the land of Israel is a very serious sin. The silly editors of jpost are simply not telling the truth. The issue at hand is not "Land of Israel ethos". Shame on them for lying! Shame on them for making fools out of themselves!

Even Ha'aretz had to integrity to report that we are dealing with Jewish law and not "Land of Israel ethos":

Melamed has repeatedly urged troops to refuse to obey orders during the evacuation of settlements, and he reiterated this in his book.

"A simple halakha [law] is that it is forbidden for any person, whether a soldier or an officer ... to participate in the strictly forbidden act of expelling Jews from their homes and handing over any portion of the Land of Israel to enemies," he wrote. "Those who violate this violate several commandments of the Torah ... Moreover, anyone who considers the situation realistically knows with certainty that any such action encourages those who hate us and endangers the lives of many in Israel."

In another part of the book, Melamed wrote in favor of serving in the IDF, "in order to carry out the extremely important commandment of defending the nation and the land. However, we must reiterate that an order that facilitates an expulsion must be refused."

In response to the question, "What if many soldiers refuse; will that not cause the army to collapse?" Melamed wrote: "If many refuse, no such order will be given. At most, senior commanders will have to resign. On the contrary, it would be good if this happened. The majority of the senior officers are contaminated by politics. They are not commanders who can lead the army to victory, as was shown in the Second Lebanon War."

Shhhh! The Murderer is an Arab!

Update: The murderer was not an Arab! Read the update at the end of post.


For some reason the Jerusalem Post didn't want do publicize that the murderer was an Arab:

A man suspected of stabbing his former boss in a Ramat Gan store following an argument gave himself up to Tel Aviv police on Monday evening.

According to an initial investigation of the Monday afternoon incident, the killer arrived at a photocopying store on Arlozorov Street where he used to work as a courier. A discussion between the owner and former worker led to a heated argument, following which the former employee stabbed the man a number of times in the torso.

Children who were near the store and witnessed the stabbing yelled out 'a man has been stabbed!' and the owner of a restaurant located near the scene of the crime called the police.

A Magen David Adom intensive care unit evacuated the man in serious condition to Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital, where he died of his wounds.

Before he gave himself up, police were scouring the area for the man, and issued a gag order on his identity and picture. On Tuesday, he will be brought for a remand extension hearing.

The stabber is a known criminal with a history of violence, police said. He was arrested several times in the past for possessing a knife.

He's a killer and a criminal with a history of violence. The fact that he is an Arab is not important. Imagine what the Post would have written if the guy was a Hareidi!

In stark contrast, Israel National News doesn't want us to forget that the murderer is an Arab:

The Arab who stabbed his former Jewish employer to death because of a financial dispute on Monday has turned himself over to the police.

The murderer entered Dyo Nati (Nati’s Ink), an office-supplies store in Ramat Gan where he worked until recently as a delivery man, in the early afternoon hours, stabbed Netanel Mangami several times, and escaped. The victim was rushed to the hospital after resuscitation efforts on the scene, but died there of his wounds.

The murderer, an Arab living in Jaffa, arrived at the Dan Region police station at 11 PM, and will be brought before a judge for extension of his custody on Tuesday. He claimed that his victim had owed him 380 shekels.

Netanel, 32, was one of eleven siblings in a Chabad-Lubavitch family, and studied in a yeshiva in Lod. His wife is in her sixth month of pregnancy with twins, and the family has two other children, 3.5 and 2 years old. Family members described Nati as a “genuine man of kindness.”

Other recent cases of Arab violence against Jews – not including outright terrorism - include:

* The stabbing murder of a man in a Jerusalem hostel

* The gang murder by five Israeli-Arabs of a man in front of his wife and daughter in northern Tel Aviv

* An armed robbery of a Postal Authority office in an Arab town in the Galilee

* An accident caused by an Arab ambulance driver who hit an oncoming car near Beit El. A Traffic Police investigator told Israel National News that even though the ambulance was on its way to another accident, “he still has no authority to drive wildly or to hit another car, as he did and we will probably put him on trial.” Beit El security officer Menachem Tzur said the ambulance driver sounded his siren against the guidelines, and that “this is not the first time that PA ambulance drivers take advantage of their position to carry out dangerous overtakings and pass through checkpoints, even when not on urgent missions.” The driver said that the ambulance did not stop after the accident to offer help to the injured.

Asked what measures the police are taking against the reckless driving habits, particularly of Arab drivers, on Judea/Samaria roads, the officer said, “Just yesterday, we had a special blitz on Highway 60, between Eli and Adam, in which we gave out 150 tickets and revoked 12 licenses.” In answer to a question, he acknowledged that most of the tickets were to Arab drivers, “but Jewish drivers are also not entirely innocent; they barely ever drive with seat belts within their communities, and often drive with too many children in the car, and sometimes too fast as well.” He admitted, however, that on the highways, Arab drivers often pass slower cars with total abandon.

Also on Monday, a gang of 15 hooded Christian youths attacked a Jewish teenager in the Old City, beating him for no apparent reason.

Update: Israel National News got the story wrong here. If you click on the link to the original report you get a "404 - Page Not Found". I found the following on their web site:

A resident of Yafo (Jaffa) suspected of murdering a 34-year-old Chabad Chassid during a dispute Monday afternoon over payment worked last year as a security guard in the bureau of Ramat Gan Mayor Tzvi Bar, according to a report broadcast Tuesday night on Channel 2 TV. Oren allegedly turned himself in to police Monday night after fleeing the scene.

Assaf Oren, 20, is suspected of stabbing to death Nati Mangami, a resident of Bnei Brak, who owned the Nati Dyo Printing Press company. Oren was a former employee of Mangami, who was married and the father of two young children.

Jpost got the story right. Mea Culpa. I've been blogging long enough to avoid making posts like this!

The "Israel Post" Promotes the Latest False Messiah

The "Israel Post" is a free paper published by the Jerusalem Post Group. This was their front page this morning:



I wonder: Doesn't the editor have any sense of shame?

The headline reads,

"Tension in Israel in Before the "Placation Speach" in Which Obama is Expected to Present:
The New Middle East

Unfortunately, those of us who live here remember when the phrase "The New Middle East" was coined and what those who coined it brought us: Death and terror. We are not impressed by photographs of grinning American Presidents and Arab smiling despots. Shimon Peres' "New Middle East", in which he gave Arafat and his henchmen weapons and territory is much, much worse than "The Old Middle East".

What is the moral level of those that are promoting the latest false Messiah? Check out the special SMS number that they advertise on the back page. I won't elaborate.

Now that the speech is history it is interesting to note the different reactions in the jblogosphere here and here.

Update: Another related post. And yet another.

Something is Rotten Over at Jpost.com

Click here for details.

Swallowing the Bait: The Gullible Ortho-jblogger

Ocasionally I read posts on Ortho-jblogs from outside of Israel, particularly from the U.S.A., that cause me to shake my head with disbelief and ask myself: How can seemingly intelligent people be so gullible?

Now you, dear reader, are probably scratching your head and wondering what in the world is Cosmic X talking about. I'll describe a typical scenario:

Ortho-jblogger is a God fearing Jew that is interested in Israeli current events. Where does he get his news? He reads Ynetnews, Haaretz or Jpost. He comes across an item where religious Jews are described as doing or saying something outrageous. Ortho-jblogger immediately gets into a tizzy. How could religious Jews do such a thing? He starts blogging about the latest scandal. Sparks fly from his keyboard as he eloquently expresses his indignation. He is incensed at the desecration of the Divine Name! He is shocked by the insanity that has taken hold of his coreligionists! How could Rabbi Ploni do/say this or that? He publishes his post, feeling that he has done his duty in defending the honor of Torah and Judaism as he understands it. However, Ortho-jblogger does not realize that he has been had. He has swallowed the bait: hook, line and sinker.

Ortho-jblogger doesn't understand is that the sources that he gets his news from are not always accurate, and that's an understatement. Often the writers or the editors are promoting an anti-Torah agenda. They intentionally distort events and/or quote things out of context. Frequently their ignorance of Torah causes them to err. Sometimes a faulty translation of an article from Hebrew to English is at fault. In any case Ortho-jblogger is lacking the facts, an his rant is for naught. Not only that, but he will often disparage other Jews and even Torah scholars based on the erroneous information that he has received.

If Ortho-jblogger took his blogging more seriously, indeed, if he took his Judaism more seriously, he wouldn't hit the publish button so fast. He would consider the reliability of his news source. Do they have a particular agenda that may cause them to skew their reporting? Are they more interested in selling newspapers than in telling the truth? How would he rate their knowledge of Torah and Judaism on a scale from one to ten?

Ortho-jblogger would check out other news sources, such as Israel National News. True, INN has a right-wing religious agenda, and this influences their reporting. However, my experience is that they are for more accurate than any other source of news from Israel. Moreover, they are learned, God fearing Jews. When a rabbi says something or makes a halachic ruling they understand the issue. When INN errs they are not afraid to publish a correction.

Ortho-jblogger might also want to consult with the Ortho-jbloggers that live in Israel before he flies off the handle. There are quite a few of us. He will be better informed. His blog will become a source of information instead of a disseminator of disinformation. In this way he could save himself and the rest of us a lot of grief.