The beis din has now issued its ruling, and it is pretty much as expected.

First, they profited just fine, even if they could have profited more had they known and chosen to take advantage of that information.

Second, there is no cause to cancel the business deal retroactively and it is not a "mekach taus" - the agreements they signed are in effect, even if in hindsight it turned out to be a better deal for one of the sides rather than the other.

Third, the community looking for rentals is under no obligation to reveal its plans in advance and cannot be expected to knowing it would increase their costs unfairly. They have the right to conduct their business wisely to get reasonable prices.

It was a silly claim in the first place suggesting Satmar had to give the owner the opportunity to take advantage of them. 

Smotritch has said he will not impose new taxes on the public (it is an election year) and when Netanyahu said he wants to increase the defense budget by 350 million shekels over the next ten years Smotritch basically said over my dead body and he wont agree to raising taxes to cover it - he said the PM himself can take responsibility for that.

The other day Smothritch signed an order allowing local municipalities to increase the arnona tax on residents. Today Smotitch explains himself saying that isnt a tax we put on residents, the local municipality does, so dont blame us - they are allowed to increase the arnona rate, but we suggested they dont. Blame them.

The other day Smotritch announced he will soon be signing an order to double the VAT exemption on personal imports (aka online shopping from Amazon and Ali Express, etc) to $150 or maybe even $200, though he has not yet signed the order, which make consumers happy. Then it becomes known that he is considering raising VAT to 19% (PM Netanyahu seems to be opposed to this at this time).

Recently the Ministry of Transportation announced prices are set to go up once again  in January after a very recent increase. After public outrage they cancelled that. Did they not think people would be upset when they initially announced it? 

This is very strange for an election year. I guess they feel confident their base will support them no matter what they do, even increasing already high taxes.

I dont really care how this would affect Melania and Barron Trump as the American news media sites do, but if this passes it could affect a lot of people who have made aliya to Israel. And more so it could affect a lot of people who are thinking of or even in the stages of planning and applying for their aliya to Israel. People who make aliya don't necessarily want to give up their original citizenship. They usually want to keep it, either simply to make travel easier as olim often travel a lot (eg to visit family left behind or for work, etc), and then there is the old Jewish thing about having two passports just in case...

According to the proposal, an American citizen with dual citizenship would have one year to renounce the second citizenship. If by the end of the year one did not renounce, that person would automatically be stripped of their US citizenship.

The article linked above points out that this is in conflict with the 14th Amendmentso it has hurdles to overcome.

I also think President Trump, considering the ramifications to his family, will put forth some effort in getting this bill buried. 

I also think they wont do this considering how it would affect many other people and, probably more importantly, losing all that foreign tax money by American citizen expats who have moved to other countries and taken up citizenship where they live. Strip them of their citizenship and suddenly tens/hundreds of thousands of people no longer have to file, and [sometimes] pay, US taxes.

Still, it is a worrying trend that this si being proposed, and form the Republican no less!

Yes, a People that is supposedly suffering from genocide and famine is tripping over itself to buy iPhone17s, including gold plated iphones with embedded diamonds. They can afford to pay upwards of $10000 for the newest fancy iPhone, or $2500 or so for more basic models, but they cant afford to buy food and are starving?

I hope Israel at least has these rigged for potential future "beeper" style use should it be necessary...

Netanyahu in an interview with the New York Times said he would ignore incoming Mayor of NY Mamdani's statement that if Netanyahu comes to NY he will arrest as per the international warrant. When asked if he will actaully test it, he said, wait and see, and reaffirmed that he plans to go to NY after Mamdani takes office.

Good for him.

I am not even sure the ICC ruling applies to the USA as the USA is not a signatory of the ICC. So I am not sure Netanyahu could be arrested there even if someone actually wanted to arrest him. Additionally, Mamdani is a mayor of a city - does that give him authority to make arrests?

Anyways, PM Netanyahu is talking big about going to NY. I assume it is because in the USA he feels he can rely on President Trump to intervene if Mamdani actually tries to do anything about that. He did not talk so big when he had the pilot change the route on his USA trip a little while back to avoid flying over European countries that said they would arrest him. He also did not talk so big when he canceled trips to European countries after they said they would adhere to the ICC ruling and arrest him...

ברכות לראש המוסד הנכנס האלוף רומן גרופמן.

רומן הוא קצין מצטיין שלא מפחד לומר את האמת ולחתור למגע.

רומן הוא בן חבורה מצומצמת מאד מהפיקוד הבכיר ערב השביעי באוקטובר שהתריע שוב ושוב על הקונספציה ועל הסכנה שיש בקניית שקט מדומה.

אני בטוח שהוא יקח את ההישגים המדהימים של המוסד…

— בצלאל סמוטריץ' (@bezalelsm) December 4, 2025

Best of luck to Roman Gofman in his new position (I think he only starts it in June 2026) and we all wish him much success. His success is our success, is Israel's success.

so Gofman warned them time and again before October 7 and they didn't listen?  And now they are planning to listen to him or only when he says what they want to hear?

As an aside, didn't they used to never announce the names of the heads of Shabak and Mossad? They always referred to them as an initial, until recently. Now they annoucne the names and who the candidates are and who has been selected and appointed, though other senior positions are still only referred to by a letter...

this is posted here to honor Jonathan Conricus

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Mayor Weiss told JNS she grew up Conservadox and after going to NCSY she became Orthodox.

She was already midway through her third term on City Council so is not new to the local politics. She says she wants to be nonpartisan and deal with the issues in a unifying way, unlike the previous mayor who was mroe divisive as is common in today's political climate.

When asked if she is going to ask her rabbi everything that coems up, she said she was involved in many laws and issues on city council for nearly 15 years and did not call her rabbi every time they discussed an issue. People need to calm down, I guess. Though she is getting rabbinical guidance in how to deal with situations that will arise on Shabbos and holidays, and is meeting with the emergency services to understand when they need to be in touch with her so she can be prepared for those eventualities.

It seems Michele Weiss is the first ever Jewish Orthodox Woman Mayor in the USA!

Good luck to the new Mayor!

today's TotD is actually from 2014...

Yes, Yahya Sinwar who was known as the Butcher of Khan Younis had a brother (now deceased) named Mohammed Sinwar who was considered even mroe hard line and more brutal than Yahya... and he worked for Btselem as a field researcher....

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this made me chuckle...

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What does going on the attack mean?

In my opinion, going on the attack means not just complaining about the campaign while also complaining that "they should first draft all the Arabs and the come to us" or "there are more draft dodgers in Tel Aviv, deal with them first", or other similar kvetching I have heard.. Rather, do something about it. 

What is there to do about it? Go to the Supreme Court with a suit against the government (and/or the Attorney General and/or whoever else might be relevant)  to force them to draft the Arabs and not just ignore them. Sue the government et al to go after the draft dodgers in a more serious manner. Sue the government to look at the Hesder programs to determine if they are also not sharing the burden equally considering the shorter army service they do. Sue the government for any other shortages or discrepancies in service by any other minority population.

Will that upset lots of people? Sure. That would be the point, but it would also ponit out publicly the unfairness, from the Haredi perspective, in goign only after the Haredim.

Stop complaning and do something about it.

Well, they might finally be doing something about it.

Some Haredi organization named Emes L'Yaakov is doing just that. They have petitioned the Ministry of Defense  and other relevant parties with a demand to stop the illegal discrimination between different groups that do not get drafted to the army. This petition of the Ministry of Defense is a leadup to filing a petition with the courts. 

The petition claims that while yeshiva students who do not get drafted have been slapped with financial sanctions and limitations losing subsidies and grants, while other students who did not induct into the army continue to enjoy their personal benefits uninterrupted. Additionally, Haredi educational institutions have been losing funding  for students who were not drafted while Universities and the like do not get docked for students who did not enlist.

The petition also complains about the Dati Leumi community saying they draft for less time but have had no sanctions placed on them and on their institutions. Anyone not drafting equally should get their funding cut proportionally.

And if the government does not draft other minorities, they should impose similar sanctions on those communities similar to sanctions being imposed on the Haredi community.

the petition says that if immediate action is not taken, they will go to the Supreme Court 

source: Kol Rega

I can see this backfiring, as people get even more upset with the Haredim over this attack, but it would really bring the issue to the forefront and not leave it as just a Haredi issue. 

I also think it does not go far enough, but maybe it is good as a first step with a plan to  raise the pressure further down the road. They should be suing for discrimination and selective enforcement. Sue the government to draft the Arabs. Sue the government to go after draft dodgers in a more hard handed manner. Sue the government to cancel the inequal hesder arrangement. 

If they would be wildly successful, it could also backfire because then everyone is equally punished and equally drafted so they have nothing left to complain about, and forcing them use more enforcement will end up with more enforcement against them too. But they would have to be wildly sucecssful for that to happen which honestly seems unlikely.

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To that end, they hired an agent to make all the arrangements to put on such a massive Shabbos event, including the renting of tzimmers, or AirBnBs, along with hostels in the area. In an attempt to keep the prices form skyrocketing, they kept quiet that it is a massive group shabbos of Satmar. I guess they simply looked for and rented lots of individual places as if the renters were renting on a small basis. Also, the agent was supposed to somehow prevent any other groups from coming to Meron this Shabbos so as to avoid a situation in whch there would be other people inappropriate for their atmosphere ruining their Shabbos.

At some point one of the larger hostel owners in the area somehow picked up on what was happening and got upset he had been hoodwinked - had he known a bg group was coming he would have charged more! The fellow went to Beis Din and sued to cancel the arrangements claiming "mekach taus" - a mistaken deal. He wants to get the deal canceled and renegotiate the rentals at higher prices.

Satmar responded to beis din saying that's exactly why they did not say it is a big Satmar group - to avoid the prices being increased.

I am curious how this will turn out. It sounds like an interesting case. The guy renting out his hostel already knws it is a big group, though he didn't know how big. Still, what's that his business? He rents rooms out, why should he make more just because it is a big group. Maybe he should be giving a discount because they are renting in bulk rather than just a few individual rooms!

I guess we have to wait patiently for publication of the decision!

In light of that, MK Pnina Tamano-Shata (Kachol Lavan) proposed a law to have the government fund each returned hostage, and the family of each dead hostage, to the tune of 4 million shekels. The idea being, their recovery should be dependantupon the success of a crowd funding campaign but they should be taken care of by the State after what they went through.

Today the proposal came to vote. The Coalition voted it down 50-40 thus defeating the law and sending the hostages back to the crowd funding platforms.

I have not seen any explanation, as of the time of this writing, given by members of the Coalition who voted against. If anyone can explain why they voted against, please explain in the comments. Did they think the law should say 6 million or 3 million or 1 million? Do they think they are not responsible to help with their recovery? Or if you saw an explanation given by Coalition members, please point me in that drection. 

It seems the government that funded Hamas refuses to also fund its victims.

The government that expanded itself to 25 ministries with tremendous waste wont spend on the hostages.

To be fair, it should be noted that via Bituach Leumi the hostages and families do get an initial sum of 60000nis each, along with 9000nis per month for life, along with some other financial assistance packages for various purposes...

I would really like to hear what the coalition considered bad about this law proposal that they had to oppose it.

That means those orders form Amazon you make to avoid paying for shipping and taxes limiting the order to a maximum of $74.99, will soon become easier on you with the limit of free shipping with no taxes going up to $150 (and the new limit might even be set as high as $200).

I don't know what this will do to local businesses, and I am sure business owners and groups will complain about this, but consumers are definitely going to enjoy this change. Hopefully we wont spend way too much because of it, as if we already dont with the lower limit.

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in recent years Jonathan Pollard started speaking up in public and has even flirted with registering a political party to run for upcoming elections. I cannot really say that I have agreed with much of what he has said publicly in recent years. Everything I have heard him say was a bit too extreme for my pallette. 

Finally today he said something I agree with...

in a radio interview with Kan, Pollard said that the entire current political leadership needs to go home and be replaced with new people with different perspectives and different views, a clean sweep across left, center, and right. Pollard also criticized PM Netanyahu despite previously being a supporter. Pollard criticized Netanyahu for what he called Netanyahu's "subservience" to Washington and says he was naive when he previously said he could not imagine a better Prime Minister - now he can imagine one.

I agree with Jonathan Pollard about this - I think all current political leadership should resign and go home, while new blood comes in to take over. I would love to see some of the heroes (soldiers, former hostages, etc) of the war (Charvoit Barzel, Tekuma, Oct 7 War, Simchat Torah War, whatever you want to call it) go into politics and into leadership of the country. 

I actually agree with a slight caveat. 

They should all go home and be replaced. Yes, the caveat being, there are a probably a few little known MKs/Ministers who don't do much and have little to no connection to the policies and failures that led to the October 7 massacre, but they should probably be going home for other reasons like not doing anything to justify their positions. And they are batel brov gadol, nullified by the overwhelming majority.

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heavy rains overnights and in the early morning hours caused flooding and power outages around the country. Bet Shemesh was hit hard too with flooding in different parts of the city, with some roads becoming inpassable.. in this instance a transport van driving kids to school got stuck in a flood.. some guy pulled his trusty kayak out of his closed and went out to rescue the kids...

I am not quite sure what he did to rescue the kids, or what his plan was.. maybe he just reassured them.. I dont see how he could have fit 10 or 15 kids in the kayak to row them to safety... maybe he made a bunch of trips back and forth... either way, A for effort and ingenuity

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Yoaz Hendel, founder of the "Miluimnikim" party aspiring to reach the Knesset in the upcoming elections whenever they will be, sent an official letter to the Board of Trade recommending that Haredim who did not serve in the IDF not be employed, and employers should instead give employment priority to those who served and who have done reserve duty.

Hendel suggests that unless the State encourages enlistment by giving people who enlist priority, the private sector will do so in its place. Hendel also says that just as on October 7th private citizens went into action filling the void left by inaction of the authorities, the private sector will also create its own carrots and sticks in the employment sector.. the State encourages not enlisting by giving them employment priority so the business sector must do it on its own. The government prefers the stability of its coalition over the legislation of a positive draft law, so the general public has to finish that work in its place.

The complaint against this is that it is explicitly against the law that calls for equal opportunity, shivyon, in the workplace. It also goes against the policy of affirmative action in which the hiring of Arabs and Haredim is prioritized. 

thoughts:

1. funny that suddenly the law referring to shivyon not being kept bothers them

2. comment #1 works both ways - f shivyon bothers you regarding the army, it should bother you reardng employment too. both sides of the Knesset regularly accuse each others, and their followers, of hypocricy in all sorts of matters when calling for policy issues, when each making the call is equally acting hypocritically.

3. I am not sure the Haredi community should be banned from employment. I get wanting them to serve, but they should also be able to obtain gainful employment (when they are no longer required to serve).

4. There are suggestions that the Haredim in turn should ban such companies that refuse to employ Haredim. That might work for retail stores and the like but it wnot help them get their foot into the hi-tech sector or other massive industries like the defense industry or whatever. They are going to ban intel or Checkpoint or Nvidia or other companies like that - how?

The milk made by the REMILK company is supposedly pareve and vegan friendly. I would like to see some rabbis and kashrut experts familiar with the process weigh (pun intended) in on this. I dont know what daiy proteins are and how they affect things, but this lab made milk is developed from dairy proteins so as an ignoramus I wonder how it is paeve if it is made from actual dairy proteins.

the milk reportedly tastes identical to real milk but it contains 75% less sugar while it has the exact (or almost exact) same texture and taste and properties as real milk. 

I am not the biggest of milk drinkers out there but if the concensus is really that this lab milk is pareve I can see it revolutionizing the kosher scene as meat can now be cooked in milk that is identical to milk that cant be used. Until now it has been exciting to try kosher cheeseburgers and the like but the pareve cheese out there is not really the same, as good as it might be melted over a burger. Cooking meat in actual milk that is supposedly the same looks like it could change so much about what we eat

this is just weird

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Tehran dams are drying up with one completely empty and another sitting at less than 8%. Mashad is down to about 3% water capacity. There seems to be no rain on the horizon in the immediate future. News reports say that the government is considering evacuating Tehran because of the water shortage if they cant conserve enough right away.

I dont want to gloat. The people are suffering due to the government's focusing almost exclusively over the years on Israel and spending billions and billions on a nuclear program, and continuing to now, instead of on working to solve their more immediate and acute problems. 

The Iranian government should put aside its nuclear ambitions and use its money to make the lives of their people better, solve the water problem, solve other problems that plague their society. 

The idea of such a boycott would be to cause damage to the markets and bring the government to its knees needing to save the economy from collapse.

The anonymous sources in the Haredi community have been threatening such movements for a long time already. I dont know if they have the power they think they have or if they think they have more power than they do, but a boycott like that could definitely do at least some damage.

That being said, I see some problems with this..

If they boycott all the big companies, what are they going to eat? they need to continue eating just like everyone else does.

And, if they think they buy enough that stopping the purchases would have a major effect, what is their alternative? they still have to spend money on food so they will spend it via other companies? This might hurt specific companies like Tnuva, Osem and Strauss, but how will it hurt the economy if they are still spending the same money just on other products?

How much of an affect can they have on the big companies? If you go into Haredi stores, a lot of what is sold is off brand products and not products from the more expensive bigger companies. Obviously this is not 100% as Tnuva and Tara dairy products are sold in Haredi stores as are Osem cereals and bamba and pasta etc, but a lot of of the products are from smaller companies anyway. I dont know numbers and how to compare what they buy from the large companies vs what everyone else buys from them and what they buy from smaller companies, but it might be a consideration.

Is it ok to hurt companies that have nothing to do with the draft issue in any way to hurt the government? It is not like Tnuva or Osem can turn around and say ok forget it, we wont draft the Haredim. It is not up to them and they have nothing to do with this.

I am not even sure what bringing the government to its knees on this issue looks like in this scenario. Strauss, for example, starts to suffer from lack of sales. The government sees the quarterly earnings report of Strauss and Tnuva dropping badly and the related stocks start dipping badly. What does the government do - go to the Haredi leadership and say we wont draft your boys just dont crash the markets? I just dont see this playing out like that. Do you see it as a realistic maneuver?

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what do you think of this? Is he a crackpot? Isnt that what people thought about the original Noah?

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Soldiers head back to the bases from Jerusalem via the train station while Haredim from around the country head into Jerusalem via the same train station for today's rally/protest

submit your best caption ideas!

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not great... they didnt even put mustard on it...

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I did this several times over the past two years for the processions of local hero soldiers being taken for burial after falling in the war, it is nice to do it in a more celebratory fashion for the celebration of a returned hostage...

If not for all the "Bibisitting" the US administration is doing to make sure we dont go back to war, the ceasefire might well have already been ended...yet to Trump this is everlasting peace. 

Lu Yehi, as they say... let it be.. who knew we could achieve everlasting peace just like that...

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here is the cut version, full version below

and the full version, from minute 31:

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  -- Finance Miister Betzalel Smotritch

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beautiful

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