Proof that the EU is worthless

They don't want to admit Muslim "migrants" are causing the rape crisis in Europe (via Jihad Watch):

There is ‘no link’ between the migrant crisis and the wave of sex attacks in Cologne during New Year celebrations, EU officials believe. Above, fireworks were thrown into the New Year’s crowd outside Cologne’s main station, prompting members of the public to flee

They document the first vice president of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, stating that the two events are ‘not related’, according to Matthew Holehouse for The Telegraph.

Minutes state: ‘As far as the crimes in Cologne were concerned, he [Timmermans] said that these were a matter of public order and were not related to the refugee crisis.’

They also suggest officials want ‘the unconditional rejection of false associations between certain criminal acts, such as the attacks on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, and the mass influx of refugees’.

This should be perfect proof why no sane person would want their country being part of the EU itself, if this is how they're going to conduct their policies, and even another reason why the Euro currency should be rejected. The EU is a textbook example of a dhimmified operation seeking to destroy their own continent.

Fear of another Holocaust

A new poll's shown that a quarter of Israelis are rightly worried it could happen:

Over half -- 59% -- of Israelis are afraid to travel outside the country, with 25% saying they are usually afraid to do so, and 34% saying they have become more afraid this past year, a poll commissioned by the World Zionist Organization shows. [...]

Another worrying number also emerged from the poll: 25% of Israelis believe there is reason to fear that another Holocaust will be perpetrated against the Jewish people, and 24% believe there is a chance that the State of Israel will cease to exist.

Unfortunately, it's a very legitimate fear, and Europe's governments are already proving it with their failure to admit Islamofascism is a danger to civilized society. But if, God forbid, such a thing should happen, I'd like to know if any Israelis will be willing to join the army to do battle against the Islamic tyrants worldwide? Those who don't cannot expect to win the battle.

Jihadism lurked at Paris Disneyland park

A Muslim was arrested in possession of guns and a Koran at the French Disneyland theme park:

A man carrying two handguns, ammunition and a Quran was arrested Thursday at a hotel in Disneyland Paris, and his girlfriend was also held, police sources said.

The man was “detected upon his arrival at the Disneyland hotel where he had a reservation. Hotel security found two handguns, a Quran and ammunition on him,” said the source.

A separate police source said that the metal detector had rung out as the man passed through.

Police were called and arrested the suspect while they secured his vehicle.

They then tracked down his girlfriend who was also taken into custody. [...]

France is on high alert after a devastating terror attack in November saw Islamic State group gunmen and suicide bombers target Paris cafes, a concert hall and the Stade de France national stadium, leaving 130 dead and hundreds injured.

The bloodshed was the second major attack in France within a year, as the country has become a prime target for the jihadist group operating out of Iraq and Syria.

If they really want to put a stop to these savages, they're going to have to start approving laws that allow for exile of all such venom. And they're going to have to do it fast.

Holocaust victims honored as anti-semitism continues in Europe

A special service was held to honor Holocaust victims, and one representative said:

Federica Mogherini, the European Union's top foreign affairs representative, said in a statement: "We must be honest enough to admit that more than 70 years after the Shoah, anti-Semitism is still alive in our 'civilized' European Union."

If he works for the EU, that's remarkable he's willing to admit - at least in theory - that the EU is just one cog in a circuit of anti-semitism, and responsible on its own part for much of the Muslim anti-semitism now poisoning Europe and causing Jews to leave the continent. So long as the EU's members are so degrading, the fight against antisemitism will be very difficult.

Rise of anti-semitism on college campuses in USA

The Washington Free Beacon (via Accuracy in Media) reports that anti-semitism on college campuses in America rose considerably and frighteningly last year, and included death threats and nazi-style demonstrations.

Depending on what communities are in focus, what's particularly shocking is how many people out there got such terrible upbringings that they'd be willing to commit felonies and resort to vulgarities.

The former Haredis who leave that world

Here's a worthy article, not something very frequently found in Haaretz, about the growing number of ultra-Orthodox who're leaving that lifestyle behind, and one family that just recently left:

Evening was beginning to fall on the playground that one sees from the balcony of the Heller family home in Beit Shemesh. Six-year-old Pini entered the house excited, his cheeks flushed. “Mom, I played with the ball,” he declared, speaking in Yiddish. There was an unmistakably triumphant tone in his words.

Yisrael Heller and his wife, Rachel “Cheli” Heller, exchanged a quick look. They were sitting at a table on the balcony, their 1-year-old baby cavorting between them. It looked like another ordinary day, as though a boy coming into the house holding a ball was an everyday event. In fact, it was one more sign of the revolution the family is undergoing.

In the closed Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community in which the Hellers lived until not long ago, children only came home from school at this time of the day, playing with a ball was beyond the pale and Hebrew was the language of the “Zionist heretics”: To speak it was strictly forbidden (other than as the holy tongue).

A few months ago, the Hellers and their four children left Ramat Beit Shemesh, a Haredi neighborhood within Beit Shemesh, a city between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. They stole out from their apartment late at night, without telling family or friends. Their move had been preceded by an ugly wave of rumors, accompanied by pressure that pushed them into a corner and made their lives intolerable, until they were forced to leave ignominiously.

The target of the firestorm was Yisrael, head of the household and a man of power in the community. He had trimmed his beard and had gradually started to deviate from the community’s stringent dress code, referred to as the Yerushalmer [that is, "Jerusalemite," which is also the name of the sect] style. The members of the community are quick to spot the slightest change in shirt style or hat size; such behavior is considered a gross infringement of the rules and traditions to which it adheres.

“Within a single day, rumors spread that I was becoming a ‘questioner’ [giving up the religious life],” Heller relates now. “That I was studying ‘The Guide for the Perplexed’ [a forbidden text even though it is by Maimonides, the 12th-century Torah scholar] in Jerusalem every Sabbath eve, that men and women attended the tisch [a gathering of Hasidim around their rebbe] I went to, where I was playing a musical instrument. I started to receive threats, questions from functionaries. I realized that I was under surveillance.”

In their former small, insular community, identified with the most extreme sects of Haredi society, the disappearance of the Heller family is perceived as desertion, the crossing of a red line. Still, everyone expected them to return. Within hours, all 12 employees of his consulting firm resigned. Heller was not surprised: The move was intended to signal him that his livelihood would be harmed if he didn’t return to the straight-and-narrow. But he did not yield, nor did he beg for mercy.

“There is a great deal of fear. But after you contend with it, you feel good,” he says, a thin smile on his lips.

Brave new world

For good reason the Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet neighborhood where the Hellers formerly lived is known as the Casbah. The so-called Taliban women walk the streets here, together with their daughters, their faces completely veiled. Yisrael Heller, 32, and his wife Rachel, 31, had been an integral part of this conservative community. Yisrael’s family is well-known among the Haredi public as one of the most zealous, over many generations. His father, a rabbi, moved to Ramat Beit Shemesh from Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Mea She’arim neighborhood when Yisrael was a child, and became a leader of the so-called sikarikim – an extremist group that is behind many of the violent demonstrations by Haredim in Jerusalem and Beit Shemesh over desecration of graves, army service and other issues.

Yisrael, the second oldest in his family, is a media expert and strategist who gained a reputation when working on various campaigns launched by closed Haredi communities. Is it conceivable that someone like him, the scion of a deeply rooted Jerusalem family, would leave the community? Now all the evidence has led his former neighbors to one logical conclusion: that Heller has become a Christian, God help us.

Well, hardly. He and his family simply fled into the adjacent Haredi neighborhood in Ramat Beit Shemesh. To ease things, Heller initially informed everyone that he had become a Hasid of the Bratslav sect, and inwardly he hoped that something of the Hasidic feeling would cling to him, but in vain.

“As long as the children don’t speak Hebrew,” Heller’s mother warned him, when she grasped that his decision to leave was irrevocable. For her, if the grandchildren speak Hebrew, they will have severed every tie to Judaism. In fact, after they moved, the family did not stop speaking Yiddish or sitting down together around the Shabbat table. Not to please other people, but because “you don’t leave a good thing – that’s something you learn as a child,” Heller says.

The new neighborhood is a different world. The population, though Orthodox, is moderate in its views and behavior, and immeasurably more open than the one they left. The new apartment, where they live in complete anonymity – none of their neighbors knows them or their parents, and no one asks questions – is like a refuge for them. It’s a first stop on their migration, a first foothold in the world outside the walls.

Contrite mercenary

Yisrael Heller is not the first person to leave Haredi society, nor will he be the last. But his move is more resonant, in part because he took a whole family with him. He’s a former editor of the ultra-Orthodox magazine Ha’eda (The Community), and was an adviser to and creator of major public campaigns mounted by the Haredi community in recent years. Most prominently there was the struggle against service for ultra-Orthodox men in the Israel Defense Forces, in 2014. Heller also organized campaigns against yeshiva students attending secular colleges, and he waged a fierce fight against Internet use. His campaigns, which crossed the lines of individual Hasidic courts, had the effect of strengthening the conservative forces in Haredi society.

Heller even coined a term, “hardak” – a combination of Haredi and harak, the Hebrew word for insect – that was intended to humiliate Haredim who did army service, and to stigmatize such service in the eyes of the community. According to Shahar Ilan, vice president of Hiddush, an organization that promotes religious tolerance, “The hardakim campaign had a very significant influence in the period after the new draft law was passed, and it continues to negatively brand Haredim who enter the army to this day. In the most intense period, children would chase Haredi soldiers, calling them ‘hardakim.’ The campaign’s influence waned after the government was dissolved [in 2015] and it became clear that the law would be revoked.”

In his period as a media adviser, who helped develop strategies to change public opinion within the ultra-Orthodox world, Heller was close to Haredi functionaries and rabbis. He describes himself now as a kind of mercenary and admits that it took him a while to consider the full implications of his actions. The more strongly the campaigns took root, the more alienated he himself became from them and the less he was able to justify them to himself. Today he seems contrite about that period.

Heller says he actually began to break away when he was just a teenager. “I was never truly religious,” he says. “As a boy, I experienced great torment and I grappled with a big, inner question: Why am I like this? I wanted to change. I liked studying but didn’t connect with prayer. I spent time on the street instead of in the synagogue. My father didn’t grasp the situation. He has 13 children, and if he understood, he preferred to ignore it. When people reported on me, he tried to ‘tame’ me. But I kept doing my thing.”

One day, around bar-mitzvah age, Heller saw a man jump to his death at a construction site next to his home. “I started to think about death,” he recalls. “I asked myself why someone would want to die. Why one lives. As a Haredi, the answers are very clear. But I was flooded with thoughts. About the world-to-come. They teach you that secular people are useless garbage, but suddenly you understand that every person has a soul.”

During adolescence, he started fishing newspapers out of recycling bins and mailboxes, and read them avidly. When he was a yeshiva student, he would spend hours in the local library reading books on philosophy, history and whatever came to hand. He wanted to remove the shackles but lacked the resolve to take even one step. His sense of helplessness paralyzed him. After marrying, at 18, he abandoned his daydreams, doubts and agonies of faith in order to immerse himself in making a living. He began to learn about the world through the Internet and taught himself, slowly but persistently, English and computer programming. He became an authority on graphic design in the Haredi press and entered the media world. He thought that his crisis of faith would recede, but the opposite was the case.

In the meantime, he was distraught over the dynamics between the different sects within the Haredi community. “In my work, I became acquainted with the workings of Haredi society,” he explains. “I discovered that there is a great deal of hatred. Every group knows that it has its ‘outstanding rabbi of the generation’ – and that the rabbi of the other group must be diminished in stature. The more I push him down, the higher I will elevate my rabbi. In all of Haredi politics, there is no discussion of what Hashem [God] really wants. That’s not part of the lexicon.

“In fact,” he continues, “you can be a Haredi and not think about God at all. No one thinks about God, but they are all working in the name of God, against the Zionists, against the Internet. That’s the method. The moment you understand how things work, you feel disconnected. And then you ask yourself: Why do I observe Shabbat? Because I’ve been trained to do it? What about Yom Kippur? The method isn’t based on belief but on empty slogans. As a result, when you lose the Haredism [literally, the fear], and take a critical view, there’s no way you can continue. It wasn’t until I shed Haredism that I was able to start thinking about God, and my faith was then built from the ground up. I have a different view of the Torah now; I discarded Haredism and became a Jew.”

Heller adds that the Torah is spoken of as “the way of truth,” but “actually, nothing has anything to do with the truth: Contrary to what people think, the Torah of the Haredim is not the Bible. The Torah of the Haredim is new prohibitions that were created in the past decade, such as against learning a profession or serving in the army. They are observed more rigorously than the prohibitions in the Torah. And there are also the rules of modesty: the length of the skirt, the thickness of the stockings, the width of the hat. The true Torah contains not a word about the current form of modesty. It’s all politics between the rabbis – which of them will be more extreme.”

The trigger for his dramatic move was the Internet campaign Heller led two years ago: He began to violate the rules of Shabbat. “It took me time to think about the children,” he says, “because I myself was caught up in the whirlpool for years. But when I began violating the Sabbath, the penny dropped. You realize that it’s your life, that you’ve fallen badly, and you ask yourself whether you will take the children down the same path. Will they, too, marry at 18 and have a child every year? You know that you are running the lives of your wife and of your children. I saw them coming back from the heder, without any knowledge. They learn Gemara [Talmud] there the whole day, not Bible, not anything Jewish. The atmosphere fans hatred of others.

“My son would see a soldier and shout ‘Hardak!’ – a word that was my creation," he says without any obvious pride. "That upset me. I felt that my children were becoming part of the routine, even if I was more liberal. I realized that I had to find the way that was appropriate for me, and that I would then be able to educate my children honestly. It came to me that I was responsible for their lives and that I did not want to continue with this way of life, primarily for their sake, not for mine.”

‘Gateway to knowledge’

The battle over use of the Internet is “one of the greatest failures of Haredi society,” Heller says. “The Web is truly the element that has the power to topple the walls. It’s a gateway to knowledge, to expressing opinions, a place that can provide support to people who are alone. Everyone who remains in the kollel [yeshiva for married men] is a Haredi; everyone who has Internet will shake off Haredism.”

According to him, “The rabbis themselves don’t really understand what the Internet is, but they are very afraid of it. The world of the functionaries who are busy trying to uproot the Internet is as tiny as that of an ant. They keep harping on lascivious stories and feed the rabbis with fear of images of women. What interests Haredim of all stripes – Lithuanians, Hasidim, Sephardim – is their own ego: Will something harm them politicially or benefit them? I would listen to the discussions and think to myself: There is a very serious Haredi public that believes you and accepts what you say. Just don’t speak in the name of God and religion.”

It is a “distortion” to educate a boy against looking at women, says Heller. “[It’s as if] you’re buying him inappropriate eyeglasses. It’s sick. And it also won’t work, because you might be blocking his vision but he will see women in his imagination. And certainly, when the Internet arrived, this public lost its reverence: There is a serious core public that pursues a spiritual life, but it’s diminishing by the day. I am aware of a very large public that has two phones, one kosher [in which Web access is disabled], the other non-kosher. These people don’t believe the rabbis. They don’t pray, they don’t put on tefillin – unless someone is watching. There is no God there.”

Then why don’t they leave Haredi society?

“It’s a matter of convenience. Haredi society is founded on dependence. When a person gets married, he needs charity, food distribution, synagogues. He needs a society. It’s a dependent system that manages to hold everyone by the throat, to the point where even someone who is asking questions finds it easier to suppress them. You stay by force of inertia. People don’t have the strength to leave. Their children will be thrown out of school – and who has the energy to look for a new one?

“I left because I was no longer capable of lying to myself and of continuing to live in a milieu that has no future. I envisioned my children entering the system, becoming part of the fanaticism, having to raise a large family without any way to make a living. If you get a job you’re considered second-class. I couldn’t tolerate the acceptance of the saying, ‘It’s all from heaven.’ The lives of Haredi men are over at the age of 36. To marry off their children they start scrounging for money and sink into endless debt. And then there’s the next one to marry off – it never ends.”

Incident of the dog

When Heller felt that the disparity between his inner and external lives was threatening to overwhelm him, he decided to share his anguish with Rachel. It was a gamble. He didn’t know his wife well enough to be able to predict how she would react to being told about his secret life and his dreams. Would she take the children and leave? Or would she sympathize and join him?

They’d been married 11 years at the time and had three children, the oldest a girl of 10, the youngest a boy of 3. He and his wife grew up in a similar cultural and familial milieu, both of them from large, extremist Jerusalem families. Yisrael, as mentioned, is the second of 13 children; Rachel is the eighth of 16. But, what did he know about her? Not much. They became engaged after a meeting of half an hour when she was 17 and he almost 18. Within a year they were parents.

“Mentally, many Haredi couples live separate lives,” Heller notes. “The man lives a full life, apart from his wife.” That was their pattern, too: He was preoccupied with business and other matters, she worked and looked after the home. They only engaged in small talk. But nevertheless, Rachel had a gut feeling that something was happening to her husband, even if she couldn’t pinpoint it.

“Immediately after the wedding, I understood that he wasn’t totally ‘involved,’” Cheli says now. “He got up in the morning and didn’t pray. He wasn’t serious about anything. It hurt me that he was going to end up in hell, and I didn’t tell a soul. He was cut off from the family. During the day he disappeared, I didn’t know where he was. There was no communication between us.”

Yisrael: “I was alone with all the doubts. I didn’t share with her. She had her reward-punishment, heaven-hell Judaism. It was all built on fear. I saw that she had not the slightest doubt.”

His confession, about a year ago, was a turning point. “For the first time in our marriage we spoke honestly, and for hours,” Heller relates. “I didn’t want to ruin her. I felt that it would be on my shoulders if I told her that there is no God, and she ended up following me only because she respected me. I told her she didn’t have to think as I did, but I asked that she try to accept me nevertheless.”

“I cried all night,” Cheli recalls. “I wanted to understand how it had happened to him. I didn’t know what I felt.”

The next day they went to a café to talk. A first date in 13 years. “I didn’t know my wife until then. The conversations brought us closer,” Heller says, adding, “I was in conflict with myself. I didn’t want her to go through the wild experience I’d had. But it turned out that she is very sharp. Not conflicted. The moment she understands, she draws conclusions much faster than I do.”

Cheli did not run to her parents. She read one book and then another, investigating the life in which she’d been raised. Questions of choice, love, partnership and freedom of expression came up for discussion at the kitchen table. “I wanted to know,” she explains, “to understand his world. I didn’t want him to leave me. I loved him.”

After a few weeks, she decided to take the plunge and follow him. “We discovered our love,” Heller says, his face radiant. “In this process we found one another anew and fell in love. I even proposed again.”

Despite the feeling of liberation, they decided not to act hastily. The children would remain in their institutions of learning, at least for the rest of the school year. But in the end they were forced to leave before then.

“I didn’t want to play a double game with the children,” Heller says now. “We started to speak to them clearly. Not hiding what we really are. The result was that the children started to speak freely in school. My daughter told a girlfriend that she wanted a dog. Parents complained. I understand them, they are afraid.”

He was summoned urgently to his daughter’s school. He was told that he would be better off placing his daughter with another family, “so she can live there temporarily.” Children began to hit his son in the schoolyard. Heller knew he had to remove them from their schools before they were hurt.

‘Into an abyss’

At present, Yisrael and Rachel Heller feel like refugees on a desert island. But they are not alone. A thin but steady trickle of families has been leaving the Haredi world lately, including some from the most closed circles. For example, it’s hard to exaggerate the intensity of the aftershock when it became known that the director of the educational institutions of a large and well-known Hasidic sect in Jerusalem had left the community with his eight children, within the last year. Or when two sons from a respected family of the extreme Toldot Aharon sect left with their families to pursue a secular way of life. “Suddenly two families we knew disappeared, as though they’d fallen into an abyss,” a Hasid from the community says. “In a small community like ours, that’s a big gap.” Now, he says, “no one talks about them. It’s taboo.”

According to the veteran researcher of Haredi society Prof. Menachem Friedman, “Waves of people leaving Haredi society are intensifying today, because the boundaries have become loose.” He adds, “The financial difficulties with which Haredim are now coping, against the background of the vast size of their society, and the massive exposure to the Internet, have created a situation in which access cannot be blocked even for the most extreme among them.” These social processes “are allowing entire families and not just individuals to leave Haredi society.”

However difficult it may be to venture into the great wide world without the various economic crutches typically available to Haredim, adds Friedman, “outside, there’s a better prospect of making a living.” Whereas in the past, the window of opportunity for leaving was narrower, and the chances of a Haredi man with children being able to get along outside was negligible – these days, with multiple opportunities available for such men to acquire an education and a profession, the tables have turned.

“When young people of 18 or 19 leave, it’s a tragedy – they are alone, they lack the core subjects of education and they have no profession,” Friedman says. “They sink into depression. In contrast, the ability of older entrepreneurs to establish themselves economically helps them disconnect more easily.”

Men seem to be dominant in the current wave of persons leaving Haredi society. “The men have leisure to think, while Haredi women give birth every year and support the family. That is their tragedy,” Friedman avers. Consequently, “the real hurdle is the wife. If she can be persuaded to live in a new reality, the road is already paved.” In many cases, he notes, she has little choice: “She has no hope of help from her parents and is lost economically. What is she going to tell them – that she getting a divorce and they are going to have to take responsibility for her and the children? They’re not capable of that. And what will happen to her? Who will want to marry her?”

Reliable statistics about the extent to which people are leaving the Haredi world are hard to come by. Not everyone is affiliated with one of the organizations that assist such individuals. According to one such NGO, Out for Change, drawing on 2012 data of the Central Bureau of Statistics, some 1,300 persons up to the age of 25 leave the community each year, and the figures decline as age rises.

Moreover, the difficulty in finding data is also due in part to the way people are leaving today: In contrast to the past, not everyone who leaves the Haredi world today classifies himself or herself as secular per se. Instead of sharply severing ties and rejecting ultra-Orthodox culture, the transition may be less drastic or dramatic now. As with the Heller family, many of those who leave make do, at least in the first stage, with simply departing physically, freeing themselves from the constraints of their former, closed communities and situating themselves between the two worlds.

A hotline for the lost

The wave of people leaving Haredi society has brought about the emergence of a new organization that offers support to those who do not identify with secularism even if they are total nonbelievers. Not surprisingly, it was Heller who came up with the catchy name: Uvacharta (literally, “and you have chosen”). The group, which is also meant to provide help not just to individuals but to families, was founded by Meir Naor, a tireless man of 36 and a former member of the Belz Hasidic sect. Even though he is no longer the director, he remains a magnet for those in need of professional and emotional support.

The NGO receives hundreds of calls a month and is currently assisting about 50 families who are in various stages of leaving the ultra-Orthodox world. “I don’t see a specific barrier, which, when you are one side, you are still part of the community, but as soon as you cross that line, you are not,” Naor says. When he left, more than a decade ago, things were different. Back then, he recalls, “if you made a particular change, in your thinking, your appearance, you dropped out, and then you’d decide that you are an atheist. It’s no wonder, because you get an education that hammers black-and-white perceptions into your head.”

Uvacharta took root in 2014, when suicides by former Haredim who lost their faith, among them a good friend of Naor’s, spurred him to become involved in thinking of ways to assist the leavers: “We launched a Facebook group called ‘leaving and entering the heart.’ Within a week we had 700 friends. We recruited volunteers and provided urgently needed accommodations, emotional support and employment. When the situation calmed down, I tried to get a handle on the reasons for the distress. One thing that stood out was that an overwhelming majority – 85 percent, according to a study by Out for Change (a group that works for the rights of people leaving ultra-Orthodoxy) – are people who are on a continuum of movement of identity change and do not define themselves as secular.”

When people suffer an acute crisis, Naor says, it is caused by “the undermining of the sense of identity and belonging. We are a group of people who ask every morning what we believe in and what we do not believe in. We do not live between the worlds but try out both.”

Naor can’t predict whether those leaving the Haredi world will continue to move about within the Orthodox community or will drop out entirely. Nor can he say whether they will one day constitute a critical mass in an election, for example. He paints an optimistic picture that not everyone will accept, when he says that the creation of Uvacharta has profoundly changed ultra-Orthodox society.

“In the past the Haredi society was dichotomous. Every small change of dress, for example, was labeled a deviation. That has changed. Many styles of Haredism that did not exist before are now considered legitimate,” he says. “No one is inspecting their tzitziot [prayer-shawl fringes].” That remains to be seen.

Learning with the kids

It’s early afternoon. Bluma “Blimi” Heller, a bespectacled, smiling girl of 12, takes her arithmetic workbook out of her schoolbag and proudly shows her father the problems she has solved. She and her 11-year-old brother Moish, aren’t yet registered in school. The reason: Not one state-religious school in Ramat Beit Shemesh would have them, because they don’t know the language (Hebrew) and because of the huge educational disparities between them and veteran pupils.

Pini, age 6, though, is in kindergarten, even if he should really be in the first grade. Unlike for Yisrael, who speaks Hebrew well thanks to many “stolen hours” of reading and because he has interacted with the outside world – for his children, who grew up protected in a Yiddish-speaking environment, the transition is not an easy one. They have to acquire Hebrew as if they were new immigrants, and to learn basic skills in arithmetic and English, as well as general knowledge and learning skills.

Under Israel’s compulsory education law, the local government is responsible for the education of children in its jurisdiction and is supposed to provide assistance where required. But for some reason, these children are invisible as far as the municipality is concerned. Last July, Heller had to beg the director of the Beit Shemesh primary schools department, Uri Ben Hamo, before the latter referred him to a few local state-religious schools; there, the principals shooed him away.

Heller: “One school agreed to place them in a class two years below where they should be. We refused. They are smart children and there is no reason they can’t integrate with their peers if they receive learning support.” (The Beit Shemesh Municipality did not respond to a query from Haaretz.)

Since September, the parents have been home-schooling the two older children and paying for private tutors in arithmetic and English, as well as for textbooks. Heller supervises the studies and teaches the children Hebrew. They are making good progress, their mother says: In three months, Blimi has reached third-grade level in math and English. She started from zero. In the closed Haredi communities – in contrast to the Beit Yaakov network associated with the independent education system – girls are taught core subjects only in the most rudimentary fashion. Blimi’s major difficulty is Hebrew, “because I am used to Yiddish with lots of aleph and ayin,” she says, laughing, referring to two letters of the alphabet. In conversation she gets stuck frequently and asks her mother for words.

In the meantime, the parents are filling in their own gaps with help from the children’s textbooks. Heller looks disappointed when he asks Blimi if she’s already studied fractions, and she says she’s still on double-digit multiplication. Like most Haredi men, he never studied mathematics systematically – now he’s taking advantage of the opportunity to learn. Cheli, for her part, is learning English and improving her Hebrew. One day she hopes to study at the academic level herself.

The children are sociable and open, and long for friends. Moish was happy to leave the heder, where he was hit regularly with a rod. “If I was late, the rebbe would hit me, so I was afraid to come late,” he says. After being thrashed, he relates, he would be upset: “It doesn’t help you to learn at all. A boy who is beaten sits with his head on the table between his hands. He doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”

Blimi has quickly adopted the bad habit of Israeli children of offering one-syllable answers to parents’ prying questions. How was her bat mitzvah? “Fun,” she replies.

There was no chance that girlfriends from her old school would come to the celebration, held at home; Blimi understood that she was an outcast and didn’t even invite them.

Initially, after they left, she did call her friends, but she constantly had the feeling that they were evading her. “Either I was told that they weren’t home, or if they did answer they hung up quickly, saying they had to help their mother,” Blimi says. Their behavior hurt, but Moish suffered more, she says. He was attacked by friends from school when he showed up in the neighborhood dressed differently from the others. Children called him a “goy” and made fun of him.

Among the girls whom the parents did invited to her bat-mitzvah party were a few Yiddish-speakers from families who had made a similar transition. One is two years younger than Blimi. Three years ago, this girl’s parents and her four siblings moved from a Yiddish-speaking community in Jerusalem to the center of the country. The girl’s father relates proudly that his 6-year-old son has already read all the Harry Potter books. “He did not remove the black kippa,” his father adds. “He’s an idealist [who says], ‘No one is going to tell me what I will wear on my head.’ He has something of me in him. I’m proud of my children. They are pure joy.”

Not only cholent

The Hellers are preoccupied with the concept of being free to make decisions in every aspect of their lives. “We are trying to impart the idea of freedom to the children,” Yisrael says. “They are starting to think, to feel, to go with the flow. But it’s amazing to watch it from the side. They can tell us, ‘We don’t want to do this or that.’ I’m all for it. But Haredim call it ‘impudence.’ I also get their cooperation in their schooling. It’s not pleasant for them to stay in the house and learn all day, but I keep telling them, ‘If you don’t learn, you won’t know.’”

Discussions about Judaism and faith are also part of the domestic dialogue. “It’s something new for the children to be able to talk about it openly,” says their father, who says it’s important for him to broaden their choices even when it comes to food: “Haredim eat cholent on Shabbat morning. We don’t do that. Everything is open. I ask them what they like to eat, to make suggestions.”

Cheli, who in old photos in the family album seems to lack joie de vivre, is gradually coming into her own. She will soon start a job in Tel Aviv. She is growing her hair out; like all married women in zealous Haredi circles, her head had been shaved beneath the wig. Now, “I have given my hair a great deal of air, so it will grow beautiful and healthy,” she says, pushing hair back from her forehead. It is indeed lovely and glossy.

One day the family even went to the beach in Tel Aviv. Cheli had never been in the sea, nor had the children. She took a few steps in the sand and scattered her hair to the wind.

I'm glad they were all able to leave behind an unhelpful world and start a new life where they really can practice Judaism in a way that it was meant to be, without any ridiculous notions that they must be isolationists rejecting modern inventions and society. It's quite an interesting account of a man who'd grown up in an extreme environment, but was able to see the light and make his way to it.

A new report on Lev Tahor

Foreign Policy (via Naomi Ragen) has another expose on the Islamized Haredi cult that's been guilty of child abuse and mind control influence, who're now residing in Guatemala under the shield of local authorities who haven't cooperated in dealing with them.

It's clearly going to be very hard to put the Helbrans operation out of business. But somehow, it has to be done, for the sake of the children and all others involved.

2 women stabbed in Beit Horon

Two young Muslims infiltrated the parameter at Beit Horon where they stabbed two women, and one of the victims was critically injured:

Two Palestinian assailants stabbed and wounded two Israelis in a suspected terror attack in the settlement of Beit Horon on Monday night, before they were shot and killed by a security guard.

Judea and Samaria district police said that officers who arrived at the scene found two explosive devises, and called in police sappers to neutralize them.

Police said their initial investigation determined that the attackers entered a general store in the settlement and stabbed a woman multiple times, leaving her badly wounded. Another person outside the store was stabbed and lightly hurt by the attackers before they were shot by the security guard.

On the TV news, it was said the explosives were pipe-bombs. The two assailants should now burn in hell for their violence.

The left fails to condemn Ezra Nawi

They certainly haven't done so convincingly. The Jewish Week brought up the case of the convicted child rapist who gleefully threw Arabic land owners under the bus:

It was repulsive viewing: the sight of a Jewish man gleefully suggesting that he had played a part in another man’s death.

Ezra Nawi recounted a story of a Palestinian man who tried to cut land deals with settlers and is now dead. Nawi, a towering figure on Israel’s activist left, said: “I have a hand in this,” and appeared to try to put the wheels in motion for another Palestinian man to head toward this same fate.

Nawi’s words and actions, captured on hidden cameras, are the scandal of the month here in Israel. The activist left should have proved its moral compass by condemning what it saw, by saying that it was beyond the pale, by realizing that once in a while it’s OK to react to something like the rest of the country. But it failed.

Even sadder, the people who wrote this op-ed are leftists themselves:

Now, before I continue I want to say that the current campaign by the Israeli government against the Israeli activist left leaves me uncomfortable, and in this column last month I criticized rightist politicians for their obsessive attempts to delegitimize Breaking the Silence, which is perhaps the most controversial of all the groups of the activist left.

"Obsessive"? What's so obsessive about their concerns that isn't so about leftists whose only interest is in providing the PLO with enough territory to commit jihadism? And who turn their backs on Islamic child bridemongering? I'm not sure what this dummy's point is here, but it's bottom of the barrel. He's got to consider that something's rotten in the leftists of today who obsess themselves with political issues like these, and that the time has come to start refraining from political activism. It really isn't healthy for anybody.

The courts have made it official now that Nawi was arrested for his repulsive crime. If the author of that otherwise slapdash column in New York is smart, he'll distance himself from "Rabbis for Human Rights" and not call them "esteemed". Because they're not.

Update: more on The Times of Israel.

Germany keeps letting in the interlopers

It's clear at this point Angela Merkel has to shoulder some blame for what the "migrant" crisis from Muslim countries has led to (Hat tip: The Gateway Pundit):

Germany said on Wednesday Austria’s decision to cap the number of refugees it will let in and tighten border controls was “not helpful” to German efforts to negotiate a European Union-wide solution to the migrant crisis and ensure Turkey’s support.

Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke during a meeting with her conservative allies in Bavaria, the state bordering Austria that serves as an entry point for virtually all migrants heading to Germany, two members of the Bavarian party told Reuters.

Merkel is under popular pressure to cap migrant arrivals that last year reached 1.1 million, reducing her popularity and fuelling support for an anti-immigration populist party.

She wants to stem the influx by improving conditions at Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, giving Turkey aid in exchange for a crackdown on people smugglers responsible for the passage into Europe of many of the migrants from that country, and distributing refugees across the EU based on a quota system.

Her efforts have produced little tangible results to calm critics at home, including her Christian Social Union coalition ally in Bavaria who want her to reverse her open-door policy for refugees and shut Germany’s borders.

It's not hard to see why anybody who thought before that Merkel was a positive example for Europe would think differently now. She's basically allowing the very kind of communities the Nazis would approve of - in sharp contrast to Jews - into the country. And she's forming partnerships with Turkey, failing to recognize the taqqiya in their positions, nor does she understand that they're more or less behind the effort to injure Europe and influence the influx of Muslims to the continent. Giving Turkey any kind of financial aid could easily end up funding terrorists there just like Iran is doing, and is still another waste of taxpayers' money.

If Merkel's voted out of office after this, it'll be her own fault. She's let down many women and proven she's not fit for her job. This is also a country that may still be outlawing homeschooling (except, presumably, for Muslims). And what was the whole point of announcing that multiculturalism is a failure if Merkel's still bent on letting these invaders into the country?

Kerry admits money channeled to Iran will be used for terrorism

The dreadful secretary of state has admitted what should be obvious:

Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged to CNBC Thursday that some of the money Iran received in sanctions relief would go to groups considered terrorists.

When asked about whether some the $150 billion in sanctions relief to Iran would go to terrorist groups, Kerry reiterated that, after settling debts, Iran would receive closer to $55 billion. He conceded some of that could go to groups considered terrorists, saying there was nothing the U.S. could do to prevent that.

"I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists," he said in the interview in Davos, referring to Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps. "You know, to some degree, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that every component of that can be prevented."

But he added that "right now, we are not seeing the early delivery of funds going to that kind of endeavor at this point in time."

But that doesn't mean they won't. They most definitely will, and he knows it. How odd that he's willing to admit what's wrong, even as he clearly intends to stand by idly and allow them to continue doing this. And that's probably worse than a politician who won't admit to failure. It's also a huge disfavor to the American public how the administration is wasting their tax dollars to fund an autocracy. Money that, if Kerry and Obama wanted to, they could withdraw from funding to Iran, but clearly have no intention of doing so.

British doctors want to ban Israel from WMA

No sooner did a riot break out at the London university by anti-Israelites, now a group of medics in Britain wants to get Israel thrown out of the World Medical Association (Hat tip: Truth Revolt):

A group of 71 British physicians have begun to exert pressure on the World Medical Association (WMA) to revoke the membership of the Israel Medical Association (IMA), it was revealed in a Knesset meeting on Wednesday.

IMA representative Dr. Ze'ev Feldman announced the disturbing new step during a Knesset Science and Technology Committee meeting on the subject of boycotts against Israeli academic institutions.

"The sword of the boycott has been raised against the scientific medical community in Israel," he declared, warning that Israel’s medical doctors are “in grave danger."

"The professional British journals have adopted the idea of letters to the editor that libel Israel doctors," he added. "They claim our doctors perform medical torture on Palestinian patients.”

It sounds like those blood libels coming out of Sweden from a few years back. Most telling about these anti-Israelists is that they'll even go after leftists, no matter how much they disrespect their own country. I honestly would not want to get medical treatment by any of those kind of UK doctors.

MLK week

Here's an article on Breitbart by Jarret Stepman about this year's Martin Luther King memorial day, the causes he fought for, and how they endure today.

Anti-Israel crowd in London predictably goes berserk

Right on cue, the pro-PLO movement in Britain has come out to curse at somebody from Israel, no matter his own political standings:

Pro-Palestinian protesters became violent, smashing a window and setting off fire alarms, during a speech by legislator and former Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Ami Ayalon in London on Tuesday evening.

Police were called to rein in the budding riot at King’s College, during which one of the evening’s organizers claimed to have been assaulted, according to local media reports.

“Violent protesters set off multiple fire alarms to interrupt the talk. They also banged on windows, threw chairs and screamed to the top of their voices,” event co-organizer David Tamman posted on Facebook.

“Attendees inside felt the walls and windows shake as they were struggling to hear the talk, looking genuinely scared for their security,” he continued.

“Indeed they had reason to. It got violent as a few managed to push their way into the building, brake a glass window and physically assault a friend of mine. his came along with a tirade of verbal abuse inches from the faces of many jewish students. It got to a stage where the police felt the need to call in around 15 police officers and two vans. 2 female friends of mine cried from the fear and abuse and I stood there staring at a poster on the door declaring Kings College London to be a 'safe space' and thought - what a lie. The truth is, universities across the UK are not safe spaces (if you happen to be a Zionist Jew).”

“Ironically, Ayalon was talking in front of a white board describing the rules for ‘safe spaces’ at universities. But there is no ‘safe space’ for an Israeli-Jew at British universities,” agreed attendee Richard Millett in a post on the website of UK Media Watch.

“As soon as the doors shut the frustrated anti-Israel activists pounded the doors and the windows looking into the talk. They screamed ‘Free Free Palestine,’ ‘Viva Viva Palestina’ and ‘From the River to the Sea Palestine will be free’ and smashed a window.”

“There can be no justification for the events last night at KCL. The KCLSU Israel society were hosting an event about peace and were greeted by violence and intimidation,” the Union of Jewish Students said in a statement.

Britain is no longer the country that conceived the Magna Carta. If they were, they wouldn't be allowing all these tyrants to run wild.

The chilling traces of Cosby's biases, in some of his past works

I found this Time article recently about one of the entries in disgraced "comedian" Bill Cosby's series of children's books called Little Bill, this one called "My Big Lie". I knew vaguely about this series if only because it was adapted into an animated TV cartoon in the early 2000s, and after Cosby's whole rape scandal made headlines, it's pretty clear it won't retain much of the value it may have once had. Here's a description:

To anyone familiar with the allegations surrounding Bill Cosby, the book is a gold mine of irony. “Hello, friend! I’m Little Bill,” it begins. “Sorry. I can’t play with you now. I have to stay in my room and think about what I did wrong.” In the book, Little Bill lies to his parents about why he was late for dinner: he says he got into a man’s van when really he was playing basketball. When his parents try to call the police, he admits his “big lie.”

It’s eerie, too, that Cosby’s book for children is not just about lying, but about making a false accusation, namely that some creepy man lured him into a van. It shows how much Cosby thinks that false allegations are not only possible, but routine — a fallacy that has been repeatedly debunked by experts. Yet Cosby has repeatedly accused his alleged victims of lying, and in November sued seven of them for defamation.

So Cosby was apparently making it look as though young children lie about situations that could involve child rapists? This is utterly head-shaking and sigh inducing. And it may not be the only irony in his past work for children. I did some research on his past products, and discovered an episode from Fat Albert titled "Spare the Rod", broadcast in 1979, that dealt with child abuse, and the girl who'd fallen victim to it here was being abused by her mother.

Back at the time it was originally produced, not many may have thought there was anything wrong with its viewpoint, since there are vile mothers who abuse their children just as much as vile fathers can. Yet when looked upon through the lens of the modern discoveries about Cosby's past misdeeds, one can rightly wonder if Cosby was trying to say that mothers are the real abusers, and not so much fathers. Which just goes to show how twisted his whole mindset is.

In any case, the series' impact has already been irreparably damaged, and it's already clear that it won't be widely viewed again in the forseeable future.

Mother of 6 murdered right in front of her children

This jihadist knifing took place in Otniel, and it's one of the most terrible that could happen. The culprit has been arrested, and his house will hopefully be destroyed very soon.

Here's an article about the respect paid by the defense minister for the mother at her funeral.

British chief rabbi supports teaching Islam in schools

I've got a bad feeling about this:

Britain’s chief rabbi has called on the country’s Jewish schools to amend their curricula to include Islamic studies in order to be able to comply with new educational guidelines being put in place by the government.

In an interview with the Jewish Chronicle published on Wednesday, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis took a radically different position than he had expressed in the past, when he and representatives of other Orthodox organizations advocated against the push for British schools to include a second faith in their religious studies curriculum. [...]

“It is more important than ever that our children have a better understanding of Islam and that we build strong relationships with British Muslims. As such, the chief rabbi has recommended that schools take this opportunity to teach students Islam, a faith which is widely discussed but often poorly understood in public discourse,” he said.

“Although the chief rabbi has not issued any formal guidance on this issue – since, ultimately, it is for the schools themselves to judge how best to tailor their curriculum – we have had a series of positive discussions with a number of our schools and made recommendations to them,” the spokesman added, calling the chance to include Islamic studies a “valuable opportunity.”

The Reform Movement in Britain praised Mirvis on Thursday, with the movement’s senior rabbi, Laura Janner-Klausner, telling The Jerusalem Post that she felt that teaching about Islam was both “an excellent idea” and “long overdue.” [...]

Rabbi Marc Schneier, the founder of the New York based Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which works on Muslim-Jewish dialogue both in the United States and Europe, also approved of the decision.

“Given that Jewish communities live alongside Muslim communities not only in the UK, but around the world, it is very important for Jewish youth to be exposed to the guiding principles of Islam,” he said.

British Muslims were likewise welcoming of the move, with the Muslim Association of Britain stating that it believed that such a policy would foster better understanding and cohesion in society.

“The more schools teach about other religions, the more understanding will prevail among children, which can only be a positive thing,” said association president Omer El-Hamdoon.

Some of those highlighted parts suggest this will not be an honest explanation of Islam given by any Jewish school in the UK. At worst, it could lead to another generation of pseudo-Jews siding with Islamofascists against Israel. The chief rabbi in the UK is as galling as the Reform movement supporting this, and possibly worse. It's a pure show of dhimmitude indeed. No wonder the local Islamists are so enthusiastic.

Sweden's foreign minister attacks Israel, gets into corruption scandal

Margot Wallstrom, the foreign minister of Sweden, has already caused Israel enough disgust by attacking the right to defend against jihad knifers and such. Now, after all the revolting hostility she's put on display, she's gotten herself deep into a corruption scandal:

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, who has become public enemy No. 1 in Israel over her remarks criticizing the security forces for carrying out “extrajudicial killings” against Palestinian terrorists, appears to be entangled in a brewing corruption scandal at home.

According to the Swedish daily Aftonbladet, the country’s largest trade union, Kommunal, is alleged to have rented out luxury apartments in Stockholm at steep discounts to their market value to corporate executives and senior officials from the ruling Social Democratic party.

The apartments were reported to have been overseen by a maintenance firm that made sure to remove them from the market so they could be reserved especially for senior government figures and trade-union executives.

The TT news agency reported on Friday that one of the tenants who took up residence in these apartments was Wallstrom.

The foreign minister denied the accusations, claiming she was “cheated.”

“The declaration that they presented to me was a forgery,” she is quoted as telling TT. “And this is totally unacceptable.”

Oh, that defense is a barrel of laughs alright. "Cheated"? Some Israelis could feel that way too after the manner she's taken. Worse, they could feel disgusted, and with good reason. It's no surprise somebody that reprehensible in her conduct could be involved in such an awful scandal, and she should be ashamed of herself. This could be just the punishment she deserves after all the trouble she's caused.

Why wasn't Robert Levinson among the US prisoners released by Iran?

A number of Americans held prisoner in Iran were released as part of the latest in dhimmitude by the US government. But a Jewish-American hostage is not among them:

Jewish-American Robert Levinson was not included in a prisoner exchange with Iran that came as the UN nuclear watchdog confirmed Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal and the West rolled back sanctions.

Iran on Saturday released five Americans it was holding in its prisons or in detention, four of them as part of a prison swap which included the release of Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post journalist detained on espionage charges since 2014.

[...] President Obama and the European Union immediately ordered the suspension of a range of sanctions that had been imposed on Iran because of its suspected nuclear weapons program.

As part of the deal, Interpol removed 14 Iranians from its wanted list. A number of news agencies initially speculated that some of those named were suspected of involvement in the deadly deadly bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center, but this proved untrue and the reports were retracted. “Speculation that any of the 14 fugitives was at all connected to the bombing in Argentina is patently baseless and untrue,” a US official told JTA. “The fugitives faced sanctions or export control violations.”

Levinson, 68, of Coral Springs, Fla., has been missing for close to nine years. CNN quoted Levinson’s family as expressing happiness for the other families, but saying it was “devastated” that he was not among those released.

And if he's still held in Iran's dungeons, then Obama's administration has really sunk low in abandoning people in distress. This is just the latest in the worst cave-ins they could do. It's a terrible day for everyone.

Haredi school in London ordered shut for failure to teach English

If this is a Satmar school we're talking about, I couldn't care less:

Britain’s Department for Education has ordered a haredi Orthodox school in north London to close by next month.

The Charedi Talmud Torah Tashbar school has operated illegally for 40 years, does not teach children English and, according to inspectors, was failing to meet “minimum” standards, the Independent reported Thursday.

The school, which has more than 200 students, encourages “cultural and ethnic insularity because it is so narrow and almost exclusively rooted in the study of the Torah,” inspectors said following an investigation of the school, according to The Independent.

I would just dispute whether they're actually dedicated to study of Torah, because of how they ignore any and all points made in the Torah about the importance of working for a living, and even serving in the army to defend against more serious demons like jihadists. If not, then it's an absolute corruption and misinterpretation of the Torah they're teaching.

Inspectors said the school was founded to prevent students from “developing a wider, deeper understanding of different faiths, communities, cultures and lifestyles, including those of England.”

The school was unavailable for comment, according to the Independent.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the education department’s chief inspector of schools, said in December that the country’s Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills may also prosecute those running unregistered Islamic religious schools.

Since they bring that up, I sure hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. The UK system has been a joke far too long.

Jihadists in Burkina Faso

The latest jihad attack took place in the African city of Burkina Faso. At least 2 women were among the monsters too:

At least 23 people were killed and at least 126 others were held hostage for hours by al Qaeda-linked militants — including two female jihadis — in the Burkina Faso capital, officials said Saturday.

The fiery attack took place on a tourist hotel and nearby restaurant. Gunfire could still be heard around the Hotel Splendid in the capital, Ouagadougou, as local forces backed by French gendarmes battled to take back the building early Saturday.

AFRICOM spokesperson Major Nathan Broshear said U.S. military personnel also worked alongside the Burkina Faso and French forces in the operation to recover the hostages. Broshear wouldn't share many details but said a small number of U.S. forces directly assisted in the hotel, and were focused on rescuing the civilians, not engaging the assailants.

The State Department told NBC News it was trying to establish whether any Americans were victimized in the assault, which began late Friday when attackers fired into the Cafe Cappuccino restaurant.

Four extremists were killed, one of whom was eventually found at another nearby hotel, security minister Simon Compaore told reporters.

The 126 hostages were freed after the morning call to prayer echoed across the city.

"We had just placed our meal orders in Cafe Cappuccino and around fifteen minutes later we heard gunshots," a French survivor told The Associated Press.

"They started to shoot at everyone. We dropped to the ground and as soon as anyone raised their heads they fired at them immediately. We had to play dead. They shook people by the foot to see if they were alive or not, and, if they were alive, they shot them."

Jihadism is everywhere now, and al Qaeda, tragically, is still active. The world's become a very dangerous place, even in Africa.

Chief rabbinate should be dissolved

Isi Leibler is right:

The tensions created by the ultra-Orthodox Chief Rabbinate within Israeli society have ‎extended to the Diaspora and are now undermining relations with the Jewish state.‎

Ironically, this is taking place at a time when many Israelis are returning to their spiritual roots. ‎Although Tel Aviv remains outwardly a hedonistic secular city, the secular Ashkenazi outlook ‎that dominated Israeli society is in decline, and even setting aside haredim, Israelis today have ‎become increasingly more traditionally inclined and religiously observant. ‎

The past decades have witnessed the emergence of observant Jews at all senior levels of ‎society. There has been a dramatic revolution in the Israel Defense Forces with national-‎religious soldiers now occupying senior positions, assuming roles in combat units parallel to ‎what their kibbutz predecessors did in the early years of statehood. There is even a thirst for ‎spiritual values among secular Israelis, accompanied by a major revival of the study of Jewish ‎texts. ‎

Yet simultaneously, there is revulsion and rage at the corruption, extortion and political ‎leverage imposed by powerful haredi political parties and their rabbis.‎

Unfortunately, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis have effectively exploited their political leverage to ‎assume control of the Chief Rabbinate, which, ironically, they themselves have always ‎despised.

Current Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau and his Sephardi counterpart, Chief Rabbi Yitzhak ‎Yosef, represent the antithesis of the Chief Rabbinate created 90 years ago by Rabbi Abraham ‎Isaac Kook, who strove to unite the nation. They stand in sharp contrast to earlier occupants ‎such as Chief Rabbis Yitzhak Herzog and Ben-Zion Meir Hai Uziel, who were great scholars, ‎passionate Zionists, and always sought to blend Judaism with compassion and worldliness.‎

The current incumbents are narrow-minded bureaucrats completely dominated by the most ‎extreme ultra-Orthodox elements who seek to impose their stringent religious interpretations ‎upon the entire nation.‎

Today these rabbis are creating significant tensions throughout Israeli society by their lack of ‎compassion and the inflexibility in which they administer issues relating to personal status. As a ‎monopoly, they are able to wield their power and ignore the current conditions facing Jews in ‎a modern Jewish state and instead they impose the most rigid interpretations.‎

That's why I think it's high time to challenge this in court, and call for better state laws to end the monopoly. I think that maybe it's best for those who do marry within Israel to request rabbis who aren't Haredi, and also when holding a funeral for late relatives. Some people should write in their wills that they do not want any Haredi rabbi who condones extreme stringency to host a funeral for their passing. And some should probably write up speeches condemning any reprehensible conduct they perform.

There are ways if you know how to find them to make improvements, and the time has come to do so.

Another legal petition to remove illegal "modesty signs" in Beit Shemesh

The case of the illegally posted sexist signs in Beit Shemesh is going to court again:

The infamous modesty signs in the city of Beit Shemesh are once again in the spotlight, as the next legal battle against them is poised to commence.

A magistrate’s court ruled last year that the Beit Shemesh municipality was negligent in not removing them and ordered the city to pay compensation to four women who filed a law suit over the issue.

The court did not have the authority to order the signs removed, however, so a new suit was filed at the Jerusalem District Court requesting it to order the notices removed. A hearing on the case has been set for next week.

For several years, prominent signs have been on display in haredi neighborhoods of Beit Shemesh, placed by extremely conservative haredi synagogues and communal organizations, telling women to dress modestly in the particular area of the city where the signs were posted and not to tarry outside certain places, particularly synagogues.

Four women living in Beit Shemesh requested that the municipality remove the signs, but they were not taken down, resulting in a law suit filed by the Israel Religious Action Center, the legal arm of the Reform Movement in Israel, on behalf of the four women.

Honestly, this is something positive that the Reform movement is doing, and Orthodox movements who don't join in and help with this suit are missing a lot of potential to show responsibility. There's signposts like these in some Haredi neighborhoods in Jerusalem too, and they have no place in sane society either. This lawsuit is something the Beit Shemesh mayor throughly deserves for his failure to get rid of the signs.

Ayelet Shaked condemns leftists who ignored Ezra Nawi

The justice minister gave a special speech in the Knesset panning the leftists who turned their backs to the horrible sins of the murder-supporting pedophile who collaborated with the PLO:

The case of the left-wing activist caught on camera saying he turns in Palestinians who sell land to Jews to the Palestinian Authority to be tortured and killed shows the need for the NGO transparency bill, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said in the Knesset on Wednesday.

Shaked excoriated organizations that paid Ezra Nawi, the activist working for far-left NGO Ta’ayush who was caught bragging on a hidden camera by an undercover right-wing activist. The clip was broadcast on Channel 2’s Uvda program last week.

Days later, Channel 2 News reported that B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence and Rabbis for Human Rights paid Nawi for work, such as organizing demonstrations by Palestinians.

“You accuse IDF soldiers of blindfolding terrorist suspects, while you close your eyes and back someone suspected of helping kill an innocent person,” Shaked said. “After so many declarations that are detached from reality about actions that ‘remind you of dark periods in history,’ you can’t see the darkness that took you over... the moral plague of darkness that befell you.”

Referring to Nawi’s criminal past, Shaked added: “You call returning parts of its historic homeland to the Jewish People ‘colonialism,’ meaning to criticize Israel, but in the same breath, you don’t mind saying that a pedophile convicted of sodomizing a 15-year-old minor ‘rules.’” Shaked compared the organizations’ names to “newspeak” from George Orwell’s 1984, saying they do the opposite of what they claim.

B’Tselem, whose name comes from the Biblical idea that all humans are created in the image of God, “cannot even manage to criticize its activist who is suspected of harming an innocent man created in the image of God. Why?...

Can’t a person who sold land to Jews also be defined as a person? Are you so hateful? Did politics make you lose your minds to that extent?” Shaked asked.

As for Rabbis for Human Rights, Shaked said they forgot that “do not murder” is one of the Ten Commandments.

“Did you forget that aspect of Jewish law?” she asked. “You cannot call yourselves an organization of rabbis or people who care about human rights.”

Rabbis for Human Rights issued a statement that it froze its ties with Nawi in light of the Uvda report; however, the organization’s leader, Rabbi Arik Asherman, went to Nawi’s trial this week, to support him.

Shaked pointed out that Ta’ayush means “coexistence” in Arabic, and wondered if they meant coexistence between torturer and victim.

The Justice Minister’s speech was part of her response to a motion to the agenda about the ramifications of the Uvda report.

The rabbis are clearly not real ones, and should be defrocked. It's clear now that they haven't severed any ties with Nawi, and have only given reason why nobody sane should associate themselves with them. They're nothing more than crime-supporting organizations with no moral compass who should be shunned.

Democrat senator's guest at SOTU conference is anti-Israeli Islamofascist

Who did senator Cory Booker invite to a State of the Union address? A Muslim Brotherhood apologist (Hat tip: Accuracy in Media):

Sen. Cory Booker’s (D., N.J.) guest of honor at tonight’s State of the Union address is an Islamic-American community leader who has publicly lashed out at Israel and once defended the Muslim Brotherhood organization as “misunderstood,” according to various reports.

Booker has invited as his guest to the annual speech Ahmed Shedeed, president of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, a community center tied to the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.

While Booker and others have long touted Shedeed as a moderate Muslim voice, the leader has gone on record in the past criticizing Israel and defending the Muslim Brotherhood, according to reports.

And that's not all:

Meanwhile, before Shedeed became president of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, the institution gained a controversial reputation.

Prior to Shedeed becoming president of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, one of the alleged bombers of the World Trade Center in 1993 was reported to have had his bank statements mailed to the Islamic Center, according to a 1993 Newsday report on the money trail that federal prosecutors were following as part of their investigation into the terror attack.

So they were associating themselves with a terrorist involved in the first attack on the WTC? That makes Shedeed a lot worse than previously thought. Booker should be ashamed of himself for having anything to do with such an awful man.

PLO collaborator Ezra Nawi is a pedophile

The Irish Times covered the case of the dhimmified leftist who betrayed Arab land owners to the PLO, and reveals that not only is he homosexual, he also raped an Arab youngster years before:

Mr Nawi was sentenced in 1997 to six months in prison for the statutory rape of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy. In 2009 he was sentenced to a month in prison for assaulting police officers in the West Bank.

The Irish Independent says he had an affair with senator David Norris. Who presumably had no issues with Nawi's exploitation of children?

And in related news, Nawi was arrested while trying to flee the country:

A radical leftist activist was arrested by police at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Monday evening, after his name came up in the "Uvda" investigative TV report last Thursday showing how a group of radical leftists get the Palestinian Authority (PA) to execute Arabs.

The activist apparently tried to flee Israel, just days after the TV show which revealed the part of the group in getting Palestinians in Judea and Samaria tortured and killed for trying to sell land to Jews. [...]

The radical leftist organization B'Tselem, whose activists were also documented conducting similar activities in the piece, responded by defending executing Palestinians as the "only legitimate channel" of stopping Jews from purchasing land in Judea and Samaria, the Biblical heartland of Israel.

When those leftists start justifying murder, you know something is horribly wrong with modern mentality. No sane person should have anything to do with them. It's been revealed that Nawi is also on the payroll of Rabbis for Human Rights, which has decidedly lost the right to call themselves that. And, since his official arrest, it's been reported that he's been charged with contacting a foreign agent.

Some of these left wing outfits have been trying to distance themselves from Nawi, but it's far too late. How is it that his record of committing sexual abuse didn't worry them earlier? No one should believe none of them never knew. Their willingness to overlook sexual abuse of minors committed by that monster should be enough to tell any sane human being that they should keep far away from such bigoted ogres, and not provide them with any money for funding.

Leftists accepting Islamic sex abuse

Jamie Glazov writes about how there's leftists out there who see nothing wrong with rape, and in Germany, even the authorities may be willing accomplices:

We are also now aware that German police fired water cannons at German protesters in Cologne who gathered to protest the rapes and sexual assaults committed by the Muslim refugees. Right, it is not the Muslim migrants who committed sex assaults that are being shot at with water cannons, but those who feel that what they did violates women’s rights and western values.

At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if Angela Merkel has blame to shoulder. Indeed, some German citizens have said she's got to go. And if she's voted out because of this scandal, then in that case, it'll be her fault for otherwise implying that the victims of Muslim rape are at fault.

Martin Indyk lied about Netanyahu

A lie from years ago has been peeled back, exposing an ingrate who wanted to be enemies with somebody simply because of his political position:

A PBS documentary on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rise as a politician features former US Ambassador Martin Indyk who claims Netanyahu made controversial comments to him at Yitzhak Rabin’s funeral. While video evidence proves Indyk falsified at least part of his story, he appears to vindicate Netanyahu of being responsible for Rabin’s murder.

Frontline’s controversial “Netanyahu at War,” which had its premier showing on PBS Tuesday night, depicts the Israeli politician as a feisty character who does not shy away from confrontation, and in fact, relishes it.

In that context, Netanyahu’s battle with President Barack Obama over the Iran nuclear deal is seen as just one in a long series of fights Netanyahu has been engaged in since the beginning of his political career. He may not be your favorite political figure, the film argues, but you must admire him for his oodles of testosterone, if for nothing else. And like the Israeli leader or not, it’s impossible not to admire his tenacity.

In that context, the film stops short of actually blaming the Rabin assassination on the atmosphere that Netanyahu allegedly generated during the election campaign. For one thing, it relies heavily on left-wing speakers for the narrative, so that, for instance, Rabin’s alienation of the right does not exist in the film, nor is his expressed view that he was only the prime minister of most of the people.

[...] The Prime Minister’s Office and his former advisers dismissed Indyk’s allegations as a fabrication. Footage of the funeral reveals he never actually sat anywhere near Netanyahu.

Indyk later offered a second account of the incident and claimed that the remarks in question had been made at a special Knesset ceremony prior to the funeral itself, although footage from that event shows only family members were seated and that Indyk was not present.

A leaked diplomatic cable published by the Wikileaks from that time and which discusses the ramifications of the assassination, has Indyk reporting that Netanyahu viewed the incident as “a disaster for the Jewish people, a disaster of Israel and a disaster for the Right…i’ll be decimated [at the polls] if elections are called soon.”

Shai Bazak, Netanyahu’s aide at the time, denied Netanyahu ever expressed the comments in question. Bazak said that he was with Netanyahu on the night of the assassination, and the discussions surrounded the tragedy, and not political gain.

Read the whole article, but for now, ponder what kind of a disgrace Indyk is by lying about the time, and then trying to cover his tracks with more lies upon lies. He owes an apology, but it's clear he'll never do so.

Tel Aviv gunman killed while hiding in his own town

The jihadist who murdered at least two people in Tel Aviv earlier this week has been tracked to his own town, where he was killed in a gun fight with authorities:

Shin Bet domestic intelligence agents together with the Border Police's Counter-Terrorism Unit officers shot and killed terrorist Nashat Milhem in his hometown of Arara in northern Israel on Friday, after he tried to fire on them, thus ending a days-long pursuit of the terrorist behind three murders in Tel Aviv.

Milhem was found in a hideout and discovered after the Shin Bet received information on his location on Friday, following an intensive Shin Bet - Israel Police investigation that included many undercover and overt operations to track him down.

The Arab-Israeli terrorist had been on the run since January 1, when he opened fire at Israelis sitting at the Simta bar in Tel Aviv, murdering Alon Bakal and Shimon Roimi, and later, shooting dead cab driver Amin Sha'aban near the Mandarin hotel in north Tel Aviv during his getaway.

According to security forces, Milhem identified the Shin Bet agents and the Counter-Terrorism unit officers as they approached a structure he used as a hideout.

He tried to escape, and then opened fire at security forces using the Spectre M4 Falcon sub-machine gun in his possession, which he also used to murder his victims in Tel Aviv the previous week, the Shin Bet stated.

Agents and special forces "returned fire and killed" the suspect, the Shin Bet said. "There were no injuries among our forces."

Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, commenting on the counter-terrorism raid, said that it "proved once again that the State of Israel will pursue until the end those who seek its harm, anywhere, within the country, along its borders, and far from them, and it will place its hands on them. This is our commitment to the security of Israeli citizens."

The murderer can now go and boil away in hell for his violent Islamofascist crimes.

Newly elected Monroe council will hopefully do what it can to prevent Kiryas Joel misuse of nearby land

A new council has been elected in Monroe, New York, partly because of how Kiryas Joel's exploitation and disrespect for neighbors turned off the last one:

“The Village of KJ is suing Monroe for their ‘no’ vote on the 507 acre annexation, while Preserve Hudson Valley and nine municipalities are suing KJ and Monroe for their ‘yes’ vote on the 164 acre annexation.

“We can be sure that the litigation launched by the Village of Kiryas Joel to overturn the 507 acre annexation decision will now be properly litigated by the Town of Monroe with Cardone and McGinn as Councilmen.

If they do what's possible to stop those Satmar socialists from getting what they don't deserve, that's why the election of the new council members is good news for Monroe. It's already shameful that KJ is acting litigious in revenge for not doing as they demand.

Left-wing Israeli activist has Arab blood on his hands

A far left activist is responsible for betraying Arabs who sold land to Jews, turning them over to the PLO for execution:

A well-known far-left Israeli activist was recorded as saying that he aided Palestinian authorities find and kill Palestinians who sell land to Jews.

In a report aired Thursday by Israel’s Channel 2 television program Uvda, the activist, Ezra Nawi, was secretly recorded saying that he had turned in the land brokers to Palestinian security services, who would then kill them.

Nawi, of the Israeli-Palestinian Taayush group, who was unaware of being recorded, is heard during the report talking of four Palestinian landowners who contacted him, thinking he was also involved in the land trade.

"I give their photos and their phone numbers immediately to the [Palestinian] Preventive Security Force," Nawi says in the recording. "The Authority catches them and kills them. But before they kill them they beat them up."

In the Palestinian Authority, the penal code reserves capital punishment for anyone convicted of selling land to Jews. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas published an order in October 2014 hardening the punishment for Palestinians who sell land to "hostile countries" and their citizens. The order amended the Palestinian penal code to include stricter penalties for those who sell, rent out or act as real estate mediators with "hostile countries."

The report by Channel 2 investigated left-wing groups operating in the West Bank and the footage used was obtained by right-wing activists who infiltrated these groups.

Nawi can be seen during the recording obtaining information from a Palestinian who believed he was a Jew interested in purchasing land.

According to the Uvda report, an activist from the Israeli left-wing human rights group B’Tselem helped Nawi set up the would-be seller in a sting operation.

Nawi, responding to the report and the criticism and against him, denied entrapping the broker. "The opposite is true. He came to me and presented himself as a land broker," he said, according to Israeli daily Ha'aretz. Since I assumed he was sent to frame me and tarnish my name in the Palestinian community, I had no choice but to report the incident to the Palestinian Authority, lest I be deemed a land buyer. I regret that the report is part of the effort to sabotage my activities, and the activities of my friends alongside the Palestinians."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the report with a Facebook post saying it “unmasked radicals among us, whose hatred for settlements has pushed them over the edge to the point of delivering innocents for torture and execution. Those who encourage murder cannot continue to hide behind the hypocritical pretense of caring for human rights.”

The disgusting and repellent man who betrayed the Arabs has blood on his hands, and even if he didn't physically murder them himself, he's still guilty of setting them up to be murdered, and of supporting the same. His whole defense is laughable, because what all he really cares about is his image with the PLO themselves. His criminal actions have drawn backlash, starting with the prime minister, as noted above:

The Ch. 2 report drew backlash from numerous politicians and public figures. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on his Facebook page that the report "exposed the true face of the extremists among us, driven crazy by the hatred of the settlements to the point of turning in innocent individuals [leading to their] torture and execution." He further said that "the investigative report is another testament to the cruel conduct of the Palestinian Authority, which tortures and murders Palestinians whose only 'crime' is selling land to Jews."

He called on "all sectors of Israeli society" to condemn the acts in the report. "Those who encourage murder cannot hide behind the hypocritical façade of 'caring for human rights.'"

Education Minister Naftali Bennett said on Facebook that he had spoken with the ambassadors of the U.K. and France, demanding that they stop donating to Ta'ayush and B'Tselem. He also said he expects the "leaders of the left," including Isaac Herzog, Tzipi Livni, Yair Lapid "and even Zehava Galon to condemn such activity. Murder is murder is murder."

The former head of the Shin Bet security service, Yuval Diskin, said on Twitter that Ezra Nawi should be sent to jail, but added that "the data shows that there is no basis for comparison between violence coming from the right and violence coming from the left."

Oh, for heaven's sake. He shouldn't be dragging that in, no matter how poorly some would-be rightists made themselves look by mimicking Islam. But the point is well made now that Ta'ayush and B'Tselem cannot receive funding because of these horrific crimes they've implicated themselves in. Nawi should be imprisoned, though if he's sent to a prison where Muslim criminals are kept, he'll probably convert willingly. And of course that wouldn't be good, even if it's just like him to do so.

Charlie Hebdo deserves a PEN award

The Weekly Standard wrote about the courage Charlie Hebdo certainly had in past years to mock Muhammed, and now, there's a company called PEN America who wants to give them an award. I hope they receive it.

Muslim teen arrested before he could commit knifing

Another terrorist stabbing has been thwarted, fortunately:

Police on Thursday arrested an unidentified 16-year-old Palestinian male in Jerusalem for allegedly planning to carry out a terrorist attack in the capital.

According to police, the suspect was arrested at the Shuafat refugee camp checkpoint after Border Police stationed in the area saw him behaving suspiciously.

“Police units surrounded the suspect and upon questioning and searching him found a knife carefully hidden on his back, inside his t-shirt,” said Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. “He was arrested and admitted to intending to stab a security officer inside Jerusalem.”

Rosenfeld said no one was injured during the arrest and that police continue to enforce heightened security in the capital to prevent future terrorist attacks.

But will he get psychological counseling? I don't think we can count on that, even though it's vital he does.

Norway's police have lost Oslo

The Scandanavian city where the faustian pact with the PLO was signed has been lost to their oh-so precious multiculturalism, and Islamofascism:

Gronland is a district in Oslo, Norway, very close to Parliament. Per a Poqari News report, the area looks like “Karachi, Basra, and Mogadishu all rolled into one.” The situation has devolved to such a point that the police in Gronland have declared: “Oslo is lost.”

Gronland’s been on track to join the caliphate for a while. A little over two years ago, Muslims in Gronland were pushing for it to become part of the Islamic State.

Poqari News reports that Norway (and all of Europe) is no longer recognizable as such, that women are routinely raped, men are robbed on a regular basis, the police have given up, and there are sharia patrols.

In 2015, there were 50 rape reports filed in Gronland, where, like all of Oslo, 100% of rapes of native Norwegian women by strangers are committed by Muslims. Across Norway, as with all of Europe, women dare not go out at night alone, the risk of rape is so incredibly high.

Also in 2015, robberies in Gronland averaged one a day. In the past ten years, more than 4,000 people have been robbed, often right near the Gronland police station, which is in an immigrant ghetto.

The Norwegians pushed for dhimmitude in Israel, and simultaneously pushed for it back in their own country. And now, for a country that's not so big, they've got a gigantic problem flooding their whole area. It's honestly hard to feel sorry for them, so long as one gets the vibe they have no problem with Islamism and hold hostility towards Israel, as is the case in Sweden. At this point, it's clear the country that was a nazi collaborator during WW2 is on its way to becoming a war zone, and they dug themselves a big hole.

Jihad knifer killed at French police station

An incident similar to various ones in Israel of recent took place in Paris:

Officers shot and killed a knife-wielding man wearing a fake explosives vest outside a police station in northern Paris on Thursday, French officials said, a year to the day since an attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo launched a bloody year in the French capital.

France has been under a state of emergency since a series of attacks claimed by the Islamic State group killed 130 people in Paris on Nov. 13, and tensions increased this week as the anniversary of the January attacks approached. Soldiers were posted in front of schools and security forces were even more present than usual amid a series of tributes to the dead.

Officials said the man shot to death Thursday wore a fake explosive vest and threatened officers at the entrance of a police station minutes after French president Francois Hollande, speaking in a different location, paid respects to officers fallen in the line of duty.

Pierre-Henry Brandet, the Interior Ministry spokesman, said the man at the police station is believed to have cried out "Allahu akbar," Arabic for "God is great." He has not been identified, and Brandet told The Associated Press that police do not believe anyone else was involved.

Which makes it a "lone wolf" jihad attack.

Alexis Mukenge, who saw the shooting from inside another building, told the network iTele that police told the man, "Stop. Move back." Mukenge said officers fired twice and the man immediately dropped to the ground.

The Goutte d'Or neighborhood in Paris' 18th arrondissement, a multi-ethnic district not far from the Gare du Nord train station, was locked down, as were two metro lines running through the area, though they later reopened.

Police expanded their security cordon about an hour after the attack, swiftly and roughly clearing out hundreds who had gathered at a subway station and along nearby streets. Shops were ordered shuttered along neighboring streets, and shop owners hastily rolled down metal shutters.

Neighborhood resident Nora Borrias was unable to get home because of the barricades. Shaken by the incident, she said "it's like the Charlie Hebdo affair isn't over."

It's not. It won't be for a long time. It's lucky the explosives belt wasn't real, but next time, it definitely could be.