The big titilating news the other day was an announcement by Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, in coordination with Minister of Environmental Protection Idit Silman, that he intends to open a facility like Alligator Alcatraz which will be a prison for terrorists surrounded by a moat that will be populated with alligators (or maybe crocodiles?) to ensure the prisoners stay put.

According to news reports, one of the Hamas terrorist set to be released as part of yesterday's exchange refused to be part of the swap.

Ynet this morning published the menu of meals served to Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails. This refers to Hamas terrorists who had taken part in the Nochba force that perpetrated the invasion and massacre on October 7 2023, some of whom were later captured and taken prisoner (ie I do not know if Hamas prisoners or other Arab terrorists in jail receive the same meals).

There is a coalition crisis at the moment regarding Minister of Internal Security Itamar Ben Gvir's decision to not extend to the term of the Commissioner of the Prison Services. Ben Gvir says he wont extend her term because she has refused to implement his policy decisions.

The "full right" government is so far not [yet?] doing the big things they promised, such as how they just refused once again to evict and dismantle the village of Khan Al Ahmar and requested another delay from the courts, but at least they are getting the small things done. Right now rockets are being shot from Gaza and we will soon see if Netanyahu resorts to the old methods of shooting retaliatory salvos at sand dunes and empty buildings or if they will "flatten Gaza" and show them who is in charge as the full right government promised.

Remember the "pay for protest" program that went live for Lag B'Omer, in which the thugs who were looking to fight with the police and thwart the official Lag B'Omer arrangement with a price list for forms of protest including getting beaten by police, getting arrested, etc?

There is an investigative committee working to uncover what happened at the Gilboa Prison that allowed six Arab prisoners to escape recently. 

I am very happy that Naama Yissachar was released from prison, and I am happy that PM Benjamin Netanyahu made tremendous efforts to get her out of prison and bring her back to Israel, and he deserves praise for is efforts and success.

Even if she did something wrong, she did not deserve what happened to her. She was being used as a pawn in an international political power play. But for her, for her family, she did not deserve that and the efforts to get her released were worthy and praiseworthy.

I am happy Naama Yissachar got out of the Russian prison and came home safe and sound, but the method of her coming home and the royal treatment she was given was a bit inappropriate and overdone. She could have gotten out of jail and gotten a flight home. She did not need to be picked up by the Prime Minister's plane and she did not need to be given a royal welcome.

A reporter from Channel 13 News, Maor Tzur, has reported on his Twitter feed a very strange story from the Hermon Prison.

According to the series of tweets, in the past few days there have been 4 prisoners, both Jewish and Arab prisoners, claiming to be possessed by a dybbuk. The Jewish prisoners requested Rav Dovid Batzri to be brought in to exorcise the dybbuk. Rav Batzri is supposedly a modern-day dybbuk expert and has been involved in [many of] the various dybbuk incidents that have cropped up in recent decades.

Note - I am mixing info from Tzur's tweets and from the news blast of the Hamoked Whatsapp group.

According to Tzur, the rabbi of the prison was brought in to deal with it. It seems he or the warden then involved the medical staff of the prison and the "dybbuk" was dealt with. It also seems a sheikh was involved due to some of the involved prisoners being Arabs. I guess they only requested Rav Batzri, if at all, but the prison claims nobody was brought in from the outside and it was dealt with internally by the prison medical and administrative staff.

To me it sounds like bored prisoners who found a way to generate a couple of exciting days with changed routines. Dybbuks are always fun, though presumably not for the person supposedly possessed by one.

פרסום ראשון ומוזר: בימים האחרונים אסירים בכלא חרמון טוענים שנכנס בהם דיבוק. מדובר על מקרה כנראה רביעי שהיה היום כאשר אסיר החל להשתולל במשך חצי שעה כשהוא צורח שיש בו נשמה ושרוצים להרוג אותו. כאמור, זהו המקרה הרביעי שהיה השבוע. הנהלת הכלא זימנו באופן מיוחד את הרב של הכלא.

— Maor Tzur (@TzurMaor) January 7, 2020

תגובת שב״ס לדיבוק:
לפיקוד בית הסוהר הגיע דיווח על אסיר הטוען כי הוא ׳אחוז דיבוק׳. סגל האגף הגיע למקום לבדוק את טענות האסירים .*לא זומן* שום גורם דת כזה או אחר לכלא.
האסיר מטופל על ידי גורמי רפואה .
לפני מספר חודשים דווח על טענה דומה שטופלה אף היא על ידי גורמי הרפואה.

— Maor Tzur (@TzurMaor) January 7, 2020

Kikar is reporting about a bar mitzva in Bnei Braq that turned into a prison reunion.

A lawyer, a Haredi fellow named Elyashiv Rabin, made a bar mitzva for his son last night. Mazel tov. Much nachas.

According to the article, this lawyer is a powerful guy, formerly an activist for Shas and then for Eli Yishai, but also hobnobbed with the rich and famous. I didn't look it up but it seems he was also somehow involved in the Holyland scandal that ended up sending Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to jail - I think his brother went to jail over it as well and he was one of the witnesses against Olmert.

Either way, this Rabin fellow made a bar mitzva and invited all his buddies from the Maasiyahu prison. Ehud Olmert was there as was former Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, his brother Meir Rabin, and Eli Samchayoff..

There is nothing important here. I just thought it was funny that the guy invited all his prison buddies and turned the bar mitzva into a reunion for them.

Kikar has an article about a couple of Haredi women from Beitar Ilit who are in prison (Neve Tirza)  for child abuse in their work as nursery school teachers. The article is about a claim made by their lawyer saying that the women were treated poorly in jail and made to remove their hair covering and to wear "training" pants - against their religious beliefs and lifestyle.

The lawyer, Tali Gottleib, says that despite she herself being secular there is nothing more shocking than such a serious breach to the honor of a woman or to a person and her right to her faith.

I think it is horrible that their human rights were trampled. Even prisoners deserve to be treated fairly and are deserving of having their faith and religious sensibilities considered and protected. That being said, I do know something more shocking than the trampling of these women's basic rights of faith and religious beliefs - that is, beating up on little kids in their care is far more shocking than the fact that the prison guard made them uncover their hair.

and here is the article from the New York Times that Bill Maher is joking about...

Minister of Internal Security Gilad Erdan has made an executive decision that Hamas members in Israeli jails will not be allowed to watch the upcoming World Cup competition in jail. He is also looking into the legal options for changing the current rules in order to be able to prevent security prisoners from watching specific shows or channels.

Erdan's goal is to increase the pressure on Hamas to release the bodies of Israeli soldiers (Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul) they are holding in captivity, along with Avra Menegistu and Hisham A Sayid that were abducted by Hamas.
source: Srugim

I wait to see if watching a soccer game is so much more powerful than political and financial pressures and can get the job done where those could not.

In general, if the reports as to what freedoms they have in jail are true, while it is still difficult to compare a prison stay to summer camp (as their freedoms are often described as such), they do seem to have too many freedoms in prison and making their stay a bit more difficult could make the threat of prison more of a real threat.

I have already written about the complaint by Haredi prisoners in jail about the new enforcement of the rules that does not allow them to wear their hats and jackets when they go to the shul for davening.

To be more clear perhaps, I do not care if the prison services allows them to wear their hats and jackets or disallows them to do so. My only comments are on the style of the complaints about not being allowed to. If the prison services decides it is not a problem and they can wear it, good by me, and if the prison services decides it is a problem, also good by me.

Some further developments in the story made me clarify the above. The prison services representatives went to meet with leading Haredi rabbonim to discuss the issue. According to the report in Behadrei, some interesting arguments were made.

1. Rav Edelshtein supposedly encouraged them to allow the Haredi prisoners to wear the hats and jackets. In addition, Rav Edelshtein encouraged the prison services to deal with ensuring that when the Haredi prisoners finish serving their various sentences they should be able to find employment and work, so that they will not return to their criminal ways.

This is important, and it should be a part of whatever rehabilitation program they put the prisoners through. It is important that they be trained to be productive members of society.

Interesting, though, that he wants to send them out to work to keep busy and not send them to kollel. And maybe had they been trained originally to be productive members of society with the ability to find gainful and meaningful employment, this would not have happened to many of them in the first place.

2. one prisoner said, "we were judged to be here, but we weren't judged to remove our hats and jackets. what is this Russia?"

that's funny. Jail includes a prison uniform. Part of being in jail is wearing the uniform. Nothing to do with Russia. If they give a reprieve for religious reasons, that's fine, but let's not act like going to jail just means being behind bars but you can do whatever you want. Being sentenced to time in jail means you get everything that comes along with that.

3. one prisoner said "there are admorim here and rosh yeshivas here and they learn torah together, so why take away their hats and jackets?"

a little tzniyus would be helpful. They are proud of the amazing admorim and rosh yeshivas learning together, rather than being embarrassed and ashamed that admorim and rosh yeshivas are in jail???

4. one son of a prisoner who became Haredi while in prison said  that his father has become makpid on all the chumras and does not skip over a single paragraph of halacha, and is devastated that he cannot wear the hat and jacket as his preparation for approaching God in prayer (as the pasuk says to prepare before approaching God). He feels as though the system is chasing him.

I guess he regrets his crimes too, and not just the lack of hat and jacket and in the future will be as makpid about fllowing the law as he is abotu following his newly discovered chumras. He can always prepare in a different way. "Heekon likrat Hashem Elokecha" does not have the definition of hat and jacket. It is defined as prepare yourself. So prepare in a different way. Make a different item of clothing special for prayer.

The prison services has reportedly decided to no longer allow the Haredi prisoners in Maasiyahu Prison to have hats and jackets for use in the shul during davening. Rav Metzger personally was disallowed from wearing his frock and homburg in the Torah wing of the prison. Another Harredi prison, a businessman, complained through his family that he was disallowed from wearing a hat and jacket this past Shabbos during the services.

ShABAS - the prison services authority -  responded saying that the rules do not allow prisoners to have hats and jackets in the prisons. Prisoners in the religious wings are allowed to have black pants and white button-down shirts..
source: Actualic

Let them feel like they are in prison, rather than in yeshiva. Make them all wear orange jumpsuits. This is not a halachic issue that they need these things, such as kosher food or time to daven, ability to observe Shabbos, or the like. I don't know why it was allowed until now and suddenly stopped, but it should never have been allowed in the first place.

Why should this fall under an allowance under the category of human dignity while other prisoners have to wear prison garb? If some people say their uniform is important for their dignity, every prisoner should be allowed to wear whatever clothing style he or she wants and prefers and there should be no prison uniform at all.

Rabbi Yona Metzger has submitted a request for a presidential pardon. He seems to have agreed to not apply to serve in any official capacity as a rabbi, though he is also requesting that he not be stripped of his title.

Metzger has done nothing wrong by requesting a pardon. It is part of the process and he is fully entitled to try to take advantage of it.

I do hope President Rivlin rejects the request, at least now after just a year of jail and with the request to not be stripped of his title. The chilul hashem he caused is much worse than the actual crime. He doesnt need a pardon. Only Hashem can pardon him for his crimes. He can get out early for good behavior like any other convict.

Today's big news is that US President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of Shalom Rubashkin.

Mazel tov to him and to his family.

My one comment is that this need not become a spectacle. Rubashkin does not need to be treated as a hero, as a martyr, as a tzaddik. His family and friends and the community at large can surely be happy that he has been released from prison, but turning this into a cause for a big public celebration is wrong, in my opinion.

Rubashkin committed fraud and hurt a lot of people. His sentence might have been overly harsh, but he committed some serious crimes. From the news reports and social media, along with the pictures and video being posted, there's a big party going on around him right now. According to some reports, people are asking him for brachos - he's being treated like a tzaddik who has been unduly tortured.

I think a little tniyus in this matter is appropriate. The frum community has a lot to learn about not turning criminals into tzaddikim.