I have heard this logic before, the need to support the weakest party - being the Arab party, though I do not think it is common...

Kudos to Chief Rabbi Dovid Lau who today helped free an aguna from her chains.

the mother of a man refusing to give a gett to his wife died, and Rabbi Lau ruled that the mother would not be allowed for burial until the gett is given, or arrangements made.

Reports even have it that the chevra kadisha, unsure of what to do with the body of the mother waiting for burial, asked Rav Chaim Kanievsky about this and he said Rav Lau is correct in his instructions and the body should not be buried until the case is resolved.

I don't know the details of the case, but I would assume, based on Rav Lau's instructions, that the mother approved of what her son was doing and assisted him despite the fact that he was chaining his wife, and therefore it was ok to involve her in death in obtaining the gett at the expense of her burial.

At the end of the day, this man caved and agreed to give the gett, freeing up mom for burial. He supposedly had to commit in writing and give a large financial deposit. He lives abroad so the gett could not be given immediately. Hopefully this person won't get his mother buried and then retract his commitment.

Kudos to Rav Lau for taking even extreme measures like this to resolve the hopeless plight of this woman.

I saw the response of the Likud and it made me laugh. Netanyahu signed a deal of submission with  Hamas. I signed a vote-sharing agreement with Kachol Lavan. It seems to me my agreement is better.

  --MK Avigdor Lieberman (YisraelBeyteynu), after coming under strog criticism from Likud and other right-wing parties for signing the vote-sharing agreement with Kachol Lavan

Rav Moshe Shternbuch has issued an interesting psak about riding the trains in Israel after Shabbos.

Ladaat brings the psak of Rav Shternbuch, Raavad of the Eida Hachareidis, that one should not ride any Israeli train that runs on any line that was worked on on Shabbos until the time of "kdei sheyaasu", the amount of  time it takes to have done that specific work not on Shabbos, wuill have passed. Only after that time has passed will it be ok to ride the trains.

Unfortunately he does not say how much time that is, but he gives the general rule of not riding the train until the amount of time that it went into operation was advanced by the work done on Shabbos has passed.

Rav Shternbuch adds that the authorities should be told about this, as doing so prevents future chilul shabbos as they would try to avoid any boycott, as has happened in other areas in the past.

Interestingly, Rav Shternbuch says there is a discussion about whether something produced via chilul shabbos should be prohibited forever or only for the same amount of time it took to produce on Shabbos. The example given is of someone who dug a grave on Shabbos and that is prohibited forever, but the question is if that was specific for that case but in other scenarios "the amount of time" would be enough or if by other things as well the prohibition is permanent. Rav Shternbuch brings sources that the permanent prohibition was only in that scenario of the grave but not in other cases. Normally "kdei sheyaasu" is all you need.

And therefore, he concludes, riding the train is ok but only after "kdei sheyaasu" will have passed, and to calculate that amount of time one has to be able to figure out how much additional time would have been needed to work on the rail lines had they not worked on them on Shabbos.

Maariv has an interesting report from an anonymous senior diplomat saying that Israel has offered the Palestinians the ability to leave Gaza and emigrate to anywhere else int he world, even using a southern Israeli airport to do so. Israel would also help them arrange flights and shuttle them to where they need to go and would pay any relevant costs as well.

The only condition being that they have to find a country willing to take them in.

According to the report, 35000 Gazans have left for greener pastures in the past year without any involvement from Israel.

The senior diplomat added that attempts to find foreign countries willing to take them in, including other Middle Eastern countries, failed, as none of the countries approached were interested or willing to help on this matter.

What is interesting about this?
1. It seems the Netanyahu government is adopting in some form the proposal of Moshe Feiglin and Zehut, after scoffing at Feiglin for proposing such an unrealistic plan. Feiglin wanted to offer payment to families willing to emigrate as encouragement.

2. No country wants to take them in, Not much of a surprise there. Individuals might find willing countries, but a country willing to take in a large amount? What country wants that on their head? They all have enough problems of their own without importing more.

3. If Israel is serious, they should offer more than just arranging the flight and offer some sort of incentive for the potential foreign government to make it worth their while to say yes, or to at least consider it seriously.

4. Regardless, it is hard to imagine any significant number would be willing to leave their homes for anything more than temporary refuge.

Hey @RepRashida and @IlhanMN, Do you know who can't visit their grandfather? My children, because my father Richard Lakin was murdered by Palestinian terrorists who were paid TWO MILLION DOLLARS by the Palestinian Authority.  Were you planning on suggesting they be given a bonus? https://t.co/5xAcun8qEj

— Micah Avni | מיכה אבני 🇮🇱 (@micah_avni) August 17, 2019

There is a tradition in the Ukraine to greet world leaders, any important guest really, with a loaf of bread and salt, Korovai, on a rushnyk - some sort of embroidered ritual cloth. The guest, the honored world leader, is supposed to take a piece of the bread and eat it.

With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a two day visit to the Ukraine to try to poach voters away from Avigdor Lieberman, he and Sara were greeted with the traditional Korovai bread as they deplaned. PM Bibi is a pretty good sport and he took a piece of the bread and ate it. Sara, on the other hand, is a bit more picky. Bibi handed her a small piece of the bread, to which she upturned her nose and dropped it tot he ground and cleaner her fingers of it.

Let's go to the tape:
This is a causing a little bit of an international stir, with Ukranians upset at the snub and disrespect, and some Israelis upset at Sara's continued spoiled brat behavior (I will not even discuss the reports from the airplane trip to the Ukraine...)

In an attempt to judge Sara favorably, I will suggest that she did not want to eat the bread because it is not kosher. She knows every time an Israeli official eats non-kosher food at an official ceremony it becomes a crisis back home in Israel with the religious and Haredi parties threatening the Netanyahu government, so she chose to abstain rather than eat non-nosher food and cause a problem. Little did she know, she was not supposed to throw the bread on the floor and treat the bread with such disrespect. Rather, she was supposed to put it in a bag and put it on a wall not far from a garbage can so it would rot on its own without being put in the garbage or treated disrespectfully in some other manner (eg being thrown on the ground). So, she averted one crisis but caused another.

Kikar is reporting about a bar mitzva in Bnei Braq that turned into a prison reunion.

A lawyer, a Haredi fellow named Elyashiv Rabin, made a bar mitzva for his son last night. Mazel tov. Much nachas.

According to the article, this lawyer is a powerful guy, formerly an activist for Shas and then for Eli Yishai, but also hobnobbed with the rich and famous. I didn't look it up but it seems he was also somehow involved in the Holyland scandal that ended up sending Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to jail - I think his brother went to jail over it as well and he was one of the witnesses against Olmert.

Either way, this Rabin fellow made a bar mitzva and invited all his buddies from the Maasiyahu prison. Ehud Olmert was there as was former Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, his brother Meir Rabin, and Eli Samchayoff..

There is nothing important here. I just thought it was funny that the guy invited all his prison buddies and turned the bar mitzva into a reunion for them.