The UN building in Jerusalem needs to be closed and erased from the face of the earth. This building may look beautiful on the outside, but it is crooked and distorted from within.

Shas is a faithful partner of the Likud but it was established on the account of many Likud voters. Despite the partnership, every party has the right to approach every citizen in the country and to try to persuade them to vote for it.

  -- Minister Gilad Erdan

I agree 100%

Minister of Internal Security Gilad Erdan has requested that the Chief Rabbis of Israel officially change the text of the prayer for the welfare of the soldiers of the IDF and that it should explicitly include the police and border patrol forces. The official text currently says "the soldiers of the IDF and the security forces", but Erdan says that today the front line of defense against terror and other danger is more often the police and the "Magav" forces so they should be explicitly included i the prayer.

Interestingly, just nearly a year ago the rav of the police forces proposed a similar change and Chief Rabbi Dovid Lau gave his blessings to it. I dont know why it needs to be requested again, but perhaps it was not then widely adopted or officially changed.

I looked in my Koren siddur and it says "soldier of the IDF and the security forces". My Artscroll siddur doesn't have the prayer at all, though if I remember correctly the RCA edition of the Artscroll siddur does, though I dont have it to check the text.

To be a bit "Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev", how wonderful is it that a secular minister in a secular government of a largely secular state is concerned that the police should be included in the people's prayers.. this did not (I do not know why not) come from a religious/Haredi minister or member of government or from a rabbi at any level but from a secular minister.... one can criticize and point to this or that speech and say they left God out of the picture and it is clearly belief in our own powers, or one can see that even if they do not always say it, they still seem to believe it...

this is always entertaining...

The ministers of the new government each held a ceremony a couple of days ago, each in his or her respective office. the ceremony was a transfer of the baton from the previous minister to the new minister.

Right before the transfer of authority, Gilad Erdan, formerly the Minister of Interior, signed a directive that would ease the construction of the sukka, without requiring a permit.

Some recent directives require the request for an exemption from requesting a permit for building certain temporary structures. Sukka is not in the list, but it is in the descriptive imagery of the directive. A sukka that is larger than 50 square meters or higher than 3 meters, would need official exemptions, while smaller or lower would not.

Erdan decided that with most sukkot placed on porches and rooftops, with them only being used for a week, he decided to ease the burden from those who keep mitzvot and all this is not necessary - they will not need to request exemptions - since it is not included in the law, but only in the explanation of the law, he felt he has that leeway..
source: Kikar

It reminds me of the joke of the policeman who received a complaint about someone's sukka. He went down to see it, and asked to see the permits for building a structure like that. The owner tried to explain that he has no permits, but it is only temporary.. The police did not want to hear any of it, once he heard the fellow has no permit. He slapped on a warning with an edict that the sukka must be dismantled and removed within 14 days.

Erdan is a good guy who works hard. It is a shame he has not yet been brought into the new government with a satisfactory level of responsibility..

I am happy to see that Minister of Interior Gilad Erdan has taken my advice. Just a few days ago I suggested one of the ways to punish terrorists that might be effective as a layer of deterrence would be to banish the families of terrorists from Israel, ala Yitzchak Rabin, and take away any social rights they have.

Sure enough, 2 days later, Erdan has announced that he is banishing the families of the Har Nof terrorists and revoking all their social benefits.

Unfortunately they are being banished to Gaza. In Gaza they will surely be fast-tracked to radicalism and join Hamas or whatever other groups train kids to be martyrs. They should be banned from Gaza and Israel, and should be banished to somewhere like a Lebanese hilltop, Syria, maybe even Jordan, if not further away (the North Pole?).


Those kids are potentially future terrorists, as they will grow up very upset at the State of Israel, but they probably already were anyway...

#bringbackourboys
#EyalGiladNaftali

Minister Gilad Erdan went to pay a visit to the boys at the yeshiva of Mekor Chaim...

Today's QOTD will be a double. It will be both ends of an exchange regarding the Likud's recent attack on Bayit Yehudi for the approach a number of it people have towards the integration of women in the public sphere...

As a traditional person, and as someone who was educated in religious institutions, it was important for me that my children would also be educated in religious institutions, so that they would get to know the Jewish history and heritage. And my children were educated in religious nursery schools. When I wanted my eldest son to continue on to a National Religious school, we were shocked to come upon the stubbornness to begin separating the genders already in 1st grade. So, we we forced at the end of the day to forgo that option.
I believe that positions such as those held by people from Bayit Yehudi and Tekuma are positions that will distance the younger generation from getting to know and from getting close to Judaism, and from its good and positive values..

  -- Minister of Protection of the Environment Gilad Erdan

in response (to Erdan and to Likud statements made by others such as Limor Livant and Gideon Saar)...

We are the only party in Israel that has chosen women with no need for reserved slots, rather by merit of their actions... Bayit Yehudi has 3 women in the first 12 spots on the list, while the Likud has only one woman in these spots. And in the merit of the chauvinistic campaign of Arthur Finkelstein, we will also get Gila Finkelstein into the Knesset at the 18th spot. 

  -- Ayelete Shaked (#2 on Bayit Yehudi list for Knesset)

I hapen to agree with Shaked that the Likud should not be picking fights with Bayit Yehudi (or even Shas), but should be focusing its campaign on those more in the center, and it should be highlighting its accomplishments...

Quote Of The Day

Without getting involved at this time in the discussion regarding the fact that we are supplying electricity to a territory that is ruled by a terror organization calling for the destruction of the State of Israel... It is incomprehensible that we would continue to supply electricity to the Palestinian Authority when at the same time Israeli factories and communities will be in the dark. I am not talking about sanctions against Gaza and definitely not against its residents. Rather, it is a basic and necessary step out of the recognition of "Your own poor come first"...

  -- Minister of Environment Gilad Erdan, in discussion regarding potential power outages in Israel over the summer due to shortages of electricity. Erdan recommended that if Israel should hit the bottom of the electricity barrel, instead of shutting off electricity in areas of Israel, the supply to Gaza would be temporarily halted until Israel's own supply is back to normal.


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Minister Gilad Erdan, speaking from the Knesset podium, gives MK Ahmed Tibi a lesson from the Torah - he explains the first Rashi in the Torah.

There is nothing like a visit to Kever Yosef to strengthen one's emuna - faith - that Eretz Yisrael belongs to the people of Israel. Kever Yosef is one of the places that even the other nations cannot say to us that we stole the land, as Kever Yosef was bought and paid for at full value.
The visits to holy sites are very emotional - unfortunately, we have lost some of them. We must take lessons from the past that after showing weakness brought us to losing control over important sites that are the root of the existence of the Jewish Nation. I pray that our return to [Kever Yosef] will be complete, and that every Jew will be able to come here to the holy sites and pray freely, and to other sites that we lost as well..

  -- Minister of Environment Gilad Erdan

See Srugim for quotes of what other officials said when they went together to visit Kever Yosef.

You talk today about peace and the deterioration of the political situation, yet during the time you were in charge there were two wars - one in the north and one in the south. In the north, besides for a dismal failure, we have seen Hezballah strengthen itself. Today is a symbolic day as we see Hezballah appoint the prime minister. Perhaps you should remind the director of your party about this, as she glorified herself with having brought about UN Resolution #1701.

  -- Minister Gilad Erdan to Kadima reps

Avigdor Lieberman related from his meeting with the French Foreign Minster, Bernard Kushner, "I told him when I first arrived in Nokdim there were 12 children. Today there are 170. I said to [Kushner]the children cannot go the summer and the winter without daycare. [Kushner] asked why they cannot go together with the Palestinian children in Bethlehem, just like the whites and blacks learn together." Lieberman explained there is a basic lack of understanding of the complicated reality in Israel.

Minister Gilad Erdan interjected, "Parents will not agree to educate their children in Bethlehem, to receive an education in how to deal with explosives."