Some people always look angry. It is just the way they look. Maybe they have a nearly permanent scowl, maybe it is the way they contort their face when they talk. Yair Lapid is an example of that to me - he seems to always look angry. Yaakov Asher always seems to look angry to me as well. Some people look angry, and some people take it further and act angry, and talk very aggressive and violently. Yitzchak Pindrus often looks angry, or on the verge of anger, but he seems to be extreme with his anger and his approach to things he doesnt like.

This seems kind of weird to me

Had I not alreadys elected a picture of the day, this would have gotten it..

In case anyone was worried about how extreme anti-LGBTQ Avi Maoz is rumored to be, calm down. Today he voted in favor of Amir Ochana's appointment as Director of the Knesset. 

While there was some talk and a few calls for a boycott against Doritos due to the Doritos ad in support of same sex marriages, there was not actually anything organized and coordinated, or a concerted effort to actually boycott the brand. Maybe some people stopped buying, but there was no official boycoot and no mass protest.

An ad published by Doritos in honor of Family Day has stirred some controversy that might even lead to a boycott.

In light of the Pride Parade in Jerusalem this past week, Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem Rav Shlomo Amar spoke about the issue in a recent shiur. And he spoke about it harshly.

I know chevra kadishas, at least in religious cemeteries or in religious sections of cemeteries, are generally careful to not bury an unrelated man and woman next to each other. Spouses are definitely buried next to each other, and I think siblings can be as well, though sometimes the logistics can get difficult as they try to avoid burying a woman between two men or a man between two women.

At the end of May it was announced that there would be a pride event in Bet Shemesh (along with a list of event sin other cities around Israel throughout the summer). At some point the event was removed from the LGBT website but not from Facebook. People wondered if perhaps the event was canceled or what the story might be.

It turns out the event is still going on, is back on the website, and will be taking place on July 25th as scheduled. What the event is exactly I am not sure, but it seems to not be a parade but an event. There was talk of it being in the old city center in the plaza by the shops, but then it seemed to be moved to Naimi. No official location has yet been announced, on either page, so it is unclear where it will be, though it seems likely it will be at the plaza of Naimi Mall.

As expected, this is going to cause a crisis in town. According to Kikar, rabbonim affiliated with the Shas and UTJ parties have issued a letter to the Iryah led by Mayor Dr Aliza Bloch protesting the event and calling upon whomever possible to help get the event canceled and removed from the city, using harsh words against it. By the way, according to the Kikar article the event will be held on Hagefen st. It happens to be that Hagefen St is not in a Haredi or religious neighborhood, but Kikar associates it as such by saying it is near and overlooks Bar Ilan St that has Haredi families (Bar Ilan is a mitchared neighborhood) so it could be a point of conflict.

UTJ activists have said that if it turns out the event will be [partially] funded by the City, they will pull out of the coalition.

The official response of the City of Bet Shemesh is that the Iryah respects and takes into consideration the sensitivities of the Haredi and Dati communities in the city and is not funding or supporting this event in any way, though any needs form the education and social welfare departments will be assisted. Mayor Bloch will not be participating int he event, as she has already stated. 

Assuming no secret Iryah funding is discovered, the event should go on and not cause any actual crisis, though the police will surely be on hand to ensure quiet and deal with any public safety issues.

It looks like it is going to be a hot summer in Bet Shemesh!

Dana Varon threw the entire country into a tizzy with her most recent video stating her opinion about the signs regarding man + woman = family...

here is the original video:



a news talk show had Varon on to talk about this and to defend her opinion..



I find it interesting how she got flustered here when under attack, She is usually very savvy and smooth on camera. She needs no advice from me as she is the media professional, but I personally think she was arguing, or defending, the wrong point. She kept saying it isn't personal, but kept turning it personal, even suggesting that homosexuals can still choose to marry man + woman despite their personal preferences. I think her argument or defense should have been that individuals can do whatever they want, but the State policy and things in the public sphere, such as the relevant signs, should be, and should be acceptable, to state what is normal, even if not everyone adheres to it. It can still be debated, but I think that is a much stronger position to defend.

definitely thought provoking and provocative. as expected, it received a lot of strong responses and emotions in various directions...



The best comment I saw was by Ben Waxman who pointed out his surprise at seeing such a post of tolerance from one of the founding members of Women For the Wall which was founded to oppose the Women of the Wall holding their services at the Kotel with women reading for the torah and wearing tallis and tefillin... I would be curious to hear a response/explanation from the author...

The Lakewood BlueClaws, a minor league baseball team, will be hosting its first ever "Pride Night" this Saturday as part of LGBTQ Pride Month.

Our favorite loudmouth and provocateur rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda Levin is leading the fight against this event specifically, and against Pride events in general.

What is interesting about this is that Levin's protest has been noted by a New Jersey radio station. They are now calling on people to attend the game, just to tick off the anti-gay rabbi. The headline of the article is "GO TO THE BLUECLAWS GAME TO TICK OFF THIS ANTI-GAY RABBI". By the end of the article they note that Levin does not represent all Orthodox Jews, nor are the Jews the only religion with lunatics like Levin and they quote an anti-gay tweet from a Christian pastor... but it is interesting that Levin, a Jewish rabbi, is the one they stress and take note of.

My guess is that this will be the best-attended game in BlueClaws history.

The Israeli organization of LGBT has published its list of upcoming events (by events I think the mean pride parades, but I am not sure - the website link for details about the upcoming event in Kfar Saba mentions a parade, but others future events listed so far offer no details). That list includes events in many smaller cities, such as Petach Tikva, Modiin, Ranana, Ramat Gan, Lod and many others. Surprisingly, the list includes an event in Bet Shemesh on July 25.

The first thought I had when I saw this was to remember that just a few years ago our [now former] mayor had said on television that there are no gays in Bet Shemesh (though he later walked that back and said he meant pedophiles). Perhaps the new mayor brought "the gays" with her to the city! Just joking.

I am not a fan of the spectacle created by anyone flaunting their sexuality and sexual preferences in public, and the pride parades are also often flamboyant, outlandish and somewhat shocking in what is on display on public. I am pretty confident that such an event, if it is a public event held in the streets of Bet Shemesh, will offend many local residents. Bet Shemesh is a town with a strong religious/haredi flavor, and even the non-religious portion of Bet Shemesh is mostly traditional. I hope that such an event will not start religious wars here - those are horrible, and since the municipal elections it has largely been pretty quiet on that front, and this is the type f event that can spark a renewal of those fights.

With many Jerusalem residents already trying to stop such events from happening in their city unsuccessfully, I am not really sure what can be done here. If it must be held, at least don't be overly provocative and push it through neighborhoods that will be opposed to it.

why is it that when a rabbi says something against the Pride Parade or against the Gay community (and usually it is not calls to violence), it becomes a very big deal yet when the Gay community or its supporters speaks harshly against rabbis, specifically issuing death threats or threats of violence, it barely gets mentioned? Violence is acceptable when it comes in support of the Gay community?

Rav Shmuel Eliyahu has been threatened due to his stance on the Pride Parade and the Gay community. Why is that ok? Why is that not considered a big deal?

so it seems Yated Neeman has taken the next natural step from airbrushing women out of pictures and from encouraging images of families of all-males in the Haredi community to now announcing same-sex marriages..

see the middle announcement of this piece of the "engagement page" from today's Yated Neeman newspaper


and the full page image..


Avraham Harlap and Yaakov Shwartzbrat are getting married! Mazel tov!

Yated has gotten far more liberal than I remember it!

All in good humor here. Yated has announced they regret the mistake and will take steps to ensure it does not happen again..

Yishai Shlissel Aressted From Prison Under Suspicion of Planning to Attack Participants in Pride Parade

  -- Maariv

The police announced that Yishai Shlissel, the man serving more than a life sentence in jail for the murder of Shira Banki during his attack on the Pride Parade last year, has been arrested, from his jail cell under suspicion for planning an attack on this years parade.

It seems he was in talks with his brother to plan an attack. His brother and some other family members had been picked up by the police earlier this week.

Can someone already in jail be arrested? Also, I am amazed at his determination to do harm to the paraders, even from his jail cell.

MK Dovid Bitan, the Director of the Coalition, had MK Ohana's law proposal for protecting LGBT people from harassment removed from the floor. That means it was not voted on. This was after Minister Litzman threatened a coalition crisis over the law. Ohana has attacked Bitan for giving in to Litzman's demands.

Bitan explains that he had two choices:
1. let the proposal continue to voting in the Knesset today, wher eit would fail as too many people opposed it
2. removing the proposal from the agenda and giving Ohana time to rally support for the bill and raise it again later after he has enough support

My following question might be due to a lack of understanding of the process, so I would appreciate anybody who could both answer the question and explain the process.

My question is, why does UTJ get to threaten the coalition every time they want to pass a aw that goes against the natural beliefs of, say, Likud MKs and insist that coalition discipline is in effect and everyone must vote in favor of their bill. And they do. Yet, when a bill like Ohana's goes up (or bills from other Likud MKs that were not supported by the Haredi parties) we do not see the Likud telling its coalition partners that they must vote in favor of the bill with coalition discipline in place. Bitan somehow has the power to tell him muster the support yourself. Why doesn't this work in both directions? Why can't the Likud put its weight behind its place in the coalition and its proposals?

I understand coalition politics, but I don't understand why it pretty much always goes in one direction. Just like Likud, for example, has to support bills it does not necessarily favor because of its coalition partners, so UTJ, for example, should also have to do the same, yet we rarely see them supporting a bill they don't like.

I do think the religious and Haredi community has a long way to go in changing attitudes about how to deal with homosexuality. For example I think it was unnecessary, and even wrong, for Minister Litzman to turn a proposed law to protect members of the LGBT community from harassment into a coalition crisis in order to have it taken off the table (as he did today to MK Ohana's proposal).

Despite that, I think it is wrong of the LGBT community to provoke the religious and Haredi community. The court recently upheld that in Beer Sheva when they wanted to have their parade through a religious neighborhood, and the courts said no. I think it was wrong of them to be provocative and hang their flags outside of the Great Synagogue today, and it was good of the mayor of Jerusalem to order them removed, upon Rav Stern's request.

The LGBT community avoids the Muslim areas of Jerusalem so as not to hurt the sensitivities of the Muslim community, and there is no reason they cannot do the same for the Jewish religious community, even if I think the religious attitude should be changed.