At the beginning of last summer the Ministry of Interior migrated to the biometric passport system. All new passports could only be issued as biometric passports. This created a rush on the Ministry of Interior at the beginning of travel season and lasted throughout the summer. It seemed like the Ministry of Interior was under-prepared and overwhelmed and could not handle all the requests. Many people paid the high price for a temporary passports due to the delays with the regular passports.

Minister of Interior has now announced that the fact that the Ministry could not handle all the requests in such a short period of time is not the fault of the people and the extra expenses the people incurred in paying for temporary passports is the responsibility of the government, and the government will refund that money.

Deri said that in the coming days there will be a form published online (on the Ministry of Interior website) to fill out and whoever paid the high price for a temporary passport and fills out the form will get his money back.
sources: Behadrei, Ladaat

Burger Ranch opened its first branch in the areas of Judea and Samaria (i.e. over the "green line", in occupied territories, in the West Bank) today, in the city of Ariel.

5 years ago McDonalds refused to build a branch in the mall in Ariel, due to its politics. At the time, after that stir, the owners of Burger Ranch said they would proudly open a branch there. Naftali Bennett promised he would eat the first hamburger when they open. Today they finally opened the branch and Naftali Bennett kept his promise.

[In a one-state scenario,] the prime minister of Israel in a few years will be called Mohammed.

  -- President of the United States Donald Trump, talking with King Abdullah of Jordan

Wow PepsiCo just announced they are joining the thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of people around the world who love to buy SodaStream - PepsiCo is buying Israeli company SodaStream for $3.2billion!

Mazel tov!

I like the visuals in this clip...

MUSIC VIDEO by Brian K. Spector and Y. Shofario This independent, non-associated production was made before the decision to release Jonathan Pollard on parole. Jonathan Pollard still lives a very restricted life to this day.

if only we could go back to the days when highly-placed public officials could appoint their friends and relatives to jobs and positions without everyone else complaining and making trouble... #simplertimes

(for those unaware, this is about the appointment of the Chief Rabbi's brother in law to be the head of the batei din in Jerusalem after which a number of complaints against the appointment were filed with the Justice Ministry)

As we get closer to the holidays, it seems the authorities are aware of the increase in people attempting to smuggle fruits into the country and they therefore step up their level of inspection and enforcement. The fruits commonly being smuggled are esrogim for the upcoming Sukkos holiday.

Some bring an esrog for themselves, or a few for the members of their family, while others bring in tens or hundreds of esrogs to sell.

From the perspective of fruit being smuggled in, it does not matter if you are bringing in 1 or 100 or 1000 - the problem of importing foreign bugs along with the fruit is the same and thus possibly causing new infestations of unknown species, as is the concern of the Ministry of Agriculture.

According to Behadrei, a woman from Ashdod was just caught smuggling 40 esrogim in from Spain, after he suitcase did not arrive with her, and she reported it missing. When they found the suitcase and brought it in, they checked it and found the esrogim.

Anyways, the funny part of this is that Ministry of Agriculture statement on the matter included a note that because it is prohibited to bring in "4 species" from foreign countries, in order to avoid distressing situations, the Ministry of Agriculture will gift a "blue and white" set to any traveler who brings a set in with him or her from abroad.

The Ministry will exchange your foreign set with a local Israeli set.

That is a nice gesture. I wonder if they will do so at the equivalent value of the set confiscated, or at least a similar level of kashrut. Meaning, if someone bought a set of Mehudar aleph aleph mehadrin min hamehadrin chazin ish esrog in New York or London and tries to bring it in with him, will the Ministry give him a kosher lbracha set or a mehudar set?

While the ministry isnt obligated to, and thus I would not expect it of them, it is basically pointless if most people won't use the set given to them by the Ministry and they really should not bother wasting their money. Cute idea, but basically a waste of money

this is funny. the police arrested someone, a yeshiva bochur, for his involvement in the recent violent  protest rallies in Jerusalem, of the Peleg protests against the draft law. The charges brought against this fellow were a slew of charges such as violence, attacking a police officer, preventing a police officer from doing his work, danger on public roads, and more..

It turns out that the police only arrested this guy because he was wearing a white shirt, but they did not actually know that he did anything wrong. They simply grabbed a charedi fellow and arrested him and claimed he did all that stuff - stuff that was done, but not by him.

The courts released this fellow after it being proven that the only basis for the police arresting him was his white shirt - his lawyer, Itamar Ben Gvir, showed that the police had stood far away from the hafgana and there is no way they could have actually identified him as having thrown stones or overturning garbage cans. Someone did it, but not him. Being that there were many people, hundreds or thousands, wearing white shirts and dressed similarly, the arrest was deemed baseless, against the claims of the police that he was easily identifiable as the only one wearing a white shirt - a ridiculous claim at such a hafgana.
source: Haredim10

I would think they would have these hafganot fully documented with photographers and videographers, as they do in many other situations, and would be able to figure out who acted violently and broke the law and arrest the right people. It is very strange, surreal almost, that they arrested someone just because of his white shirt and thought that would be good enough to be considered positive identification in a sea full of white shirts. The police have to do better.