History has been made with the first "country club" being built and opened in the Bedouin city of Rahat in southern Israel. "Country Club" in Israel usually means swimming pool and perhaps a gym. The Rahat Country Club definitely has a pool, built to the tune of 32 million shekels and form the video below, it looks beautiful and I am sure the residents will enjoy it.

Itamar Ben Gvir, a lawyer and right-wing activist, has petitioned the Attorney General with a threat to go to the Supreme Court. After the Supreme Court required the town of Kiryat Arba to open its municipal pool to reasonable hours of mixed swimming, despite the vast majority of the residents opposing it and only wanting separate swimming options, Ben Gvir says the same rule should be applied in Rahat and the pool should be required to be open for mixed swimming, despite the fact that the local residents are opposed.

The Attorney General has accepted the argument and informed the city of Rahat that based on the Supreme Court decision in Kiryat Arba, the local government is not allowed to separate between men and women, even at the behest of the residents. Being the first pool built in the Bedouin sector, this takes on extra urgency as it would be precedent setting.
source: Kan

Are we now going to see suits and counter-suits all over the country forcing pools with separate swimming to change to mixed swimming due to discrimination? Can the courts not find a way to allow residents to swim gender-separate should they consider this important? The courts recently allowed an academic leadership course in the Haredi community to continue on as planned as gender separate. I don't know what case can be used as a precedent for what, but if it can be allowed in that course, and if the recent Chabad event in Tel Aviv was allowed by the courts to function with a mechitza, there should be some way to allow separate swimming as well. If not, where does this end? Will the courts ban every religious behavior in public because it discriminates against something in some way?

a new building project has been publicized for the City of Jerusalem. The project would be planned for the religious community and would consist of several hundred housing units to be built in the neighborhood of Bet Chanina.

Bet Chanina is an Arab neighborhood in Jerusalem, so the announcement about this project has drawn some ire along the left side of the political spectrum. Avi Gabbay, head of the Labor - Zionist Union party, for example, criticized the plan saying that he is all for building homes in Jerusalem, but to build such homes for Jews, Dati Jews, in the heart of an Arab village, which Bet Chanina is, is just poking the bear and will only bring trouble.

Aryeh King, on the other hand, said that this project will pass the test of the Supreme Court and will be built and it will be for religious Jews only, not even secular Jews will be allowed to buy there. King says that if the Supreme Court allows Arabs to buy homes in Pisgat Zeev they will have to allow Jews to build homes in Bet Chanina. He added that when they bought the land they used subterfuge so that the sellers would not realize it was Jews buying the land.

What I dont get is if the Supreme Court allows anyone to live anywhere (and I dont know that that is th ecase. just because they let Arabs buy in Jewish neighborhoods does not mean they will allow Jews to buy in Arab neighborhoods, though they should.) how can King say that this project would only be for religious Jews and not even secular Jews will be allowed to buy in the project - if it goes to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court might allow it but using the principle the assumption is based on they would also have to open selling of homes to Arabs and secular Jews, 

According to a report on Kikar, the people of the Arab village of Husan, along with some people from the neighboring Jewish town of  Beitar, are upset that the army has decided to try to put an end to the recent increase in stone throwing incidents from Husan on cars passing on the road below the village (375). To that end the IDF has now prohibited the entry of Jews into Husan, and IDF tractors blocked the egress from Husan to the road forcing locals to use an alternate bypass road.

The Husan people are upset that they are now losing all the Jewish business [mostly] from Beitar, and say it will have the opposite effect from the desired effect. They say it is kids doing the stone throwing, urged by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and they have no control over this no matter how much the IDF punishes them. The say the IDF knows who is responsible and can punish those families alone and not everyone collectively, but they prefer to have the village leaders do the dirty work, though it will be ineffective.

The Beitar people are upset that now they will have to pay more for construction materials and for getting cars repaired because they cannot go to Husan to take advantage of the cheaper prices.

1. they basically support and confirm the concept of economic peace that many, including Bibi, have spoken about. Meaning, as long as they are making a decent living, they won't want to get involved in all that fighting that often hurts them economically. The people of Husan are saying exactly that. It i sjust kids. We just want to make a living. Hurting our bottom line by banning the Jews will just radicalize more people.

2. weird how despite the regular terror inflicted on the Jews, both local and others just passing through, [some of] the people of Beitar are still upset at the thought of having to go somewhere else and pay more money to fix their cars and buy goods. They'd prefer to support the people throwing stones on them then to pay extra elsewhere.

3. they all claim to know better than the IDF what security measures will and will not work.

4. Maybe Israel should just build a wall around Husan.

What were you doing last night at 3am?

I am not someone who does things spontaneously. I do not like surprises and like to stick to my general plans. Last night I did what is definitely one of the most spontaneous things I have done in a very long time.

At about 2:30 AM I get an sms text message from my friend Elchonon. I do not know why I saw it, but the message said that he had to beat up 50 people to get on the bus. I asked back "the bus to where?" and he tells me he is at the grave of Yehoshua Bin Nun. I told him I had been there a few years ago and had he told me about the trip I wold have like to go with him. He told me there are buses all night and I can go to Geula in jerusalem and get on the last bus still.

I got dressed and I was out of the house by 2:40 am and on my way to Jerusalem. I found the bus location and fought my way on to the last bus. I slept most of the way there and when I woke up we were already in the middle of the Arab village called Timnas Harsa, a.k.a. Timnas Heres as it is called in the navi Yehoshua described as the burial place of Yehoshua Bin Nun.

This shabbos is the yahrtzeit of Yehoshua Bin Nun and every year the army opens up his grave site for access to Jews on his yahrtzeit. It is the one day a year Jews can go there to pray.

Along with Yehoshua Bin Nun, in the same village is also buried Calev Ben Yefune. The grave with the blue marker is that of Calev, while the white-walled gravesite is that of Yehoshua. They are covered with graffitti as you can see from the following pictures.

as you can see from this picture below, someone had painted a swastika on the wall of the gravesite of Yehoshua and it was whitewashed over just before our visit to the grave

I got back at about 9 am, just a few minutes late for my weekly Friday morning chavrusa. Definitely a worthwhile trip, even though I lost a night of sleep.

It was a special experience to be able to go to Yehoshua's gravesite. He was one of our early leaders. He brought our nation into Israel and administered the division of the land among the Tribes. Yehoshua was the student and assistant of Moshe Rabeinu. We study the book he wrote as the first book of the Neviim. This was an experience of connecting with our past. An experience that is rare, and the opportunity must be jumped at.

I just found out that this night at Kever Yehoshua seems to have been sponsored by the jblog society. Every shift that was at the kever last night had a jblogger, which is pretty amazing considering 90% of the attendees are Breslaver Chassidim. I just got off the phone with Jameel - he was there on the first shift from 12:00 am to 1:30 am. Elchonon was there from about 1:30 until about 3:30. I was there from about 4:15 until 6:45.