Great-grandmother, 93, Crowned 'Miss Holocaust Survivor' in Israeli Pageant

  -- Haaretz

really? a Miss Holocaust Survivor beauty pageant? I guess whatever brings some joy to a Holocaust survivor is a good thing, but this is very strange...

I pray that the day after the elctions are over Hashem should grant us that the Angel of Forgetfulness should come and everyone should forget what is about to happen now..you will all soon be very confused and you will reveal that Tommy Lapid is a tzaddik compared to me..

  -- Mayor of Elad Yisrael Porush, gearing up for contentious elections in Elad

this is horrible. What kind of human being goes and physically attacks someone else, unprovoked in any way, especially an elderly person?

How did the pastrami sandwich become such an icon of American Jewish food? Learn more from The Nosher.

A study performed by the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine on 20 Jewish men has discovered that putting on tefillin daily, for a duration of 30 minutes each day, has cardiovascular health benefits.

Dr. Jack Rubinstein led the research group and gather 20 Jewish men for the study - 9 who don tefillin daily and 11 who do not. All the men were in good health and between the ages of 18 and 40. They recorded baseline information of the participants and then again more data after laying the tefillin for 30 minutes.

To quote:

The usage of tefillin, also called phylacteries, dates back to scriptural commandments in the books of Deuteronomy and Exodus urging the faithful followers to comply with religious law and to "bind them as a sign upon your arm.” Rubinstein says the binding of the arm and the discomfort users often report may serve as a form preconditioning and offer a substantial degree of protection against acute ischemic reperfusion injury (a section of the heart is deprived of oxygen and then damaged when re-oxygenated) that occurs as a result of a heart attack.
"One of the ways that protection occurs is through pain,” says Rubinstein, also a member of the UC Heart, Lung and Vascular Institute. "Feeling pain is actually a preconditioning stimulus.
"We found people who wear tefillin in either the short or long term, recorded a measureable positive effect on their blood flow. That has been associated with better outcomes in heart disease,” says Rubinstein.
Blood flow was higher for men who wore tefillin daily and improved in all participants after wearing it just once as part of the study, explained Rubinstein. Men who wore tefillin daily also had fewer circulating cytokines—signaling molecules that can cause inflammation and negatively impact the heart—compared to non-users, suggesting that near daily use elicits an effect similar to that observed with other methods of eliciting remote ischemic preconditioning-like effect.
[...]
Rubinstein says there are studies out of Israel that have found Orthodox men have a lower risk of dying of heart disease compared to non-Orthodox men. This protection is not found in Orthodox women who usually don’t wear tefillin.

There you have it. Wearing tefillin daily makes your blood flow better.

כשנתניהו ״קורא לאדמו״רים״ לאשר את חוק הגיוס אחרי שליברמן אומר הבוקר שלא ישנה פסיק בחוק, עולה החשד שהוא כבר החליט להקדים את הבחירות, אבל מנסה לתמרן ככה שהחרדים יהיו אשמים בהן

— יאיר שרקי (@yaircherki) October 14, 2018

I was completely shocked when I first saw a report about this and thought it can't be true...but now I am seeing it in a few places along with video. While it is still shocking, now it seems to be true..

It seems a number of young women from the Satmar community in New York have recently baptized themselves to Christianity. There is video of one of them, the daughter of a Hassidic Rebbe (the Dezher Rebbe) from Flatbush, Mindel Paneth - now going by the name Hayden Paneth, who went to school in the Satmar school system. A Satmar girl from Monsey named Leah Levy also did the same. Supposedly there are others - some say a total of four known who did it publicly and others say there are tens of these young women, many of whom did it privately.

I have no idea how many actually converted to Christianity. It does not really matter. Every single one is a Jewish world destroyed and even just one is a horrible tragedy. I have not heard a reason given, though some online are pointing to, and blaming, the extreme Satmar views against Zionism. It might be that or it might not be that. They have extreme views on a lot of things, not just Zionism, so without any explanation from these young women, it is really just guessing to point to one aspect of Satmar life and blame that. It also seems to be a trend, if it can be called a trend, within Satmar. I have not seen or heard about it among other groups.

I first saw it discussed in the Haredi news website Haredim10.  That made me start looking around and I saw it discussed in an online Haredi forum, and then found the following post in English (with video) about it. Then Ben Waxman posted a Maariv article about it on Twitter.



Very shocking and very sad.

Satmar educators are looking at these extreme acts and wondering if something in their education system needs to be changed. As one is quoted, it would be one thing if some girls just stopped living a Haredi life, went off the derech, stopped keeping mitzvos, even becoming fully secular, but converting to Christianity is a protest, an evil act, some sort of revenge against something...

I really hope the reports are exaggerated. Even though I am no fan of Satmar and would not have any problem with these girls, and many more, leaving Satmar if they don't like that lifestyle and instead adopting a different sect or stream within Judaism, it is very sad to see them leave like this.

The government has been trying to find ways to deal with the danger of electric bikes, especially of kids (though not just) riding electric bikes dangerously and often in ways that are illegal.

The government is working on passing a bunch of regulations for the riding of electric bikes. In the meantime, Minister of Transportation has come up with a novel idea that does not need passage of law or any government vote. Katz has ordered his ministry to lower the minimum age for taking the theory test, the first step towards getting a drivers license, from 16 years and 3 months of age to 15.5 years.

Katz figures that because one can only start riding electric bikes, legally, from the age of 16, having them studying for and taking the theory test of general road safety will give these young men and women a lot of important knowledge about safety before they begin riding electric bikes.
source: Kol Hai News and Haredim10

It doesn't sound like a bad idea. It sounds logical even. It seems like this would cause these kids to start their driving lessons a bit younger, which is also fine... The biggest problem with it, that I can see, is that kids don't wait until 16 before riding the electric bikes. I regularly see kids much younger than 16 riding them. Without the enforcement of all the other rules, this is not going to really do much.

It does seem a bit funny to move everything younger in order to try to make things safer. It seems logic would dictate making the age older so the kids are more mature...

One question came to mind when Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz was talking about the opinion of the Ran that we wouldnt be able to have a law abiding society if we didnt accept one witness on many matters..

It made me wonder - if the Ran is correct, how did Hashem, or the Gemara and Chazal, set up a system of not accepting one witness, until the Ran came along, expect society to exist and function when not allowing one witness? How were we supposed to do it before the Ran came up with his idea?

Along a similar vein, in general how was society expected to maintain itself as a law abiding society without anarchy when the rules of beis din seem to be so difficult to convict or punish anyone, by not accepting one witness, no women testifying, not believing children, needing warnings, etc. There are so many rules that seem to make it impossible to keep society in line because everyone knows that they will not have to fear being punished in beis din because it will be impossible to prosecute them. Especially on crimes committed in private against another person, though perhaps public crimes might be more controllable.