I don't get what's happening in Chabad in Crown Heights. They found that tunnel a while back but have not really publicized why someone dug it, but they did say the initial theory of it being dug during Covid to gain access to the yeshiva during lockdowns was false.

So yesterday a couple was caught smuggling in to the country 375 pounds of Fruit Roll Ups.

An American couple was caught trying to smuggle 375 POUNDS of Fruit Roll Ups into the State of Israel after prices skyrocketed once the snack became part of a viral TikTok trend.

Did you pack your bags yourselves and also are they full of exclusively candy? pic.twitter.com/GtGh76Z9n9

— Amy Spiro (@AmySpiro) May 1, 2023

I am not sure the wedding mikva thing is going to catch on and become trendy, but nowadays you can never predict these things accurately.

This is just insanely crazy.

In photos from the nuptials, the groom is dressed as a Nazi SS officer and the bride is seen sitting on top of a Volkswagen Beetle that has been painted in a camouflage pattern, draped in a Nazi flag, and given a fake license plate with SS bolts.
Fernando, whom Mexican media said is a public official, said the couple chose the Nazi theme because they venerate Hitler.

This singer performed on America's Got Talent.... During her performance, the video caught an angle of her raised arm... check out her tattoo...

The jokes, and comments, practically write themselves.

A realtor dealing in foreclosures in Baltimore took on a house from foreclosure that he discovered to be very strange. In the house he discovered an indoor pool, but a very strange pool.

Here is the excerpt from Realtor.com (video below):

The former owner sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into the townhouse and installed the pool. He then opened it up as what DeLorenzo described as “a bathhouse.”
“There’s no beds, no closets," he says. “The reason the baths are wide open is because no one was ever meant to live there. It was just for his private use. Wild parties used to happen in the house.”
An indoor pool, open baths, and not much else inside? You do the math.
The 952-square-foot space is completely open, with the pool as its centerpiece. A spiral staircase, a metal catwalk, and a diving platform all surround the pool from above.
[...]
DeLorenzo cautions that the pool would probably need to be filled in.
“Most homes have an indoor pool in a separate, contained section of the house," he said. "This is just open.”
Along with the obvious liability of the pool's placement, he noted that air quality and mold could be an issue for the next owners if the pool stays in place.

and here is the video:


can this possibly have been a mikva?

the diving platform is strange. I grant you that. Nobody is diving into a mikva. But maybe they have that wrong and maybe diving was not the purpose of the platform. a 12 foot deep pool is strange, for both swimming and for a mikva. The length of the pool makes it seem impractical to have actually been a pool. Maybe some sort of pool of water to cool off in rather than to swim, or maybe a mikva...

what do you think?

massages in the mikva are prohibited, except for in the sauna and then only on the upper body...

okey dokey

are people really doing this? is it really an issue?

I have zero intention of getting involved in any way in the upcoming local elections. I will not be supporting or endorsing any candidate nor will I campaign on behalf of any candidate or party. I also have no intention of commenting on the various campaigns from a political perspective, though I will comment on side issues that are campaign/elections related.

Such as the following:

I dont get this. It makes me scratch my head.

Behadrei is reporting that Moshe Montag, from a different party (Degel Hatorah) than Mayor of Bet Shemesh Moshe Abutbol (Shas) and from a party that has not yet expressed its own support for Abutbol, is running the coalition negotiations for Abutbol. The article is about the Likud pulling its support from Abutbol due to Montag not agreeing to some of the demands made by the Likud

 How is that possible? isnt that a conflict of interests? When Degel sits with Abutbol to negotiate what Abutbol will offer them in exchange for their support, does Montag just make an appointment with himself and sit down in his own living room or at a coffee shop all by himself?

Abutbol has someone from a different party that does not yet support him running the electoral support negotiations. Weird.

Kikar has a report about someone from Boro Park, a Bobover Chassid, who named his newly born daughter a combination of 9 names.

Her name is Leah Hinda Tzirel Malka Etya Sheina Chana Chava Toiba (and her last name Folger).

This reminds me of the joke about a guy who had a baby and went to the rabbi to ask what name to give the baby. The Rabbi said, I dont know, Yaakov, Shimon, Refael, Yitzchak, Chaim, Dovid... Sure enough, at the bris the fellow named his son Yaakov Shimon Refael Yitzchak Chaim Dovid...

I do feel bad for the rabbis and lawyers and bureaucrats and anyone else that will need to fill out forms in her future - every time she is going to fill out some sort of official document she is going to have sit there writing out all these names, sometimes multiple times on the forms or in triplicate or whatever. And then there might not even be enough space on many of these forms for her full name!

Kapparos is a weird enough ceremony that it always is good for providing weird experiences, and even some controversy.

Sarah Chandler of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center has come up with a new procedure for kappparos. Instead of grabbing the chicken and whipping it through the air, as she says, one would say the kapparos and then embrace the chicken while confessing the sins. A hug solves all ills.

Just to be fair, I would protest the use of the terms grabbing the chicken and whipping it through the air. I rarely see people whip it through the air. Most people wave it gently and uncomfortably. Also the grabbing it is unusual. Most people pick up the chicken very hesitatingly and cautiously.

Back to the hugs, even though hugging the chicken is not the Standard Operating Procedure, I don't think hugging the chicken is really any weirder than waving it over one's head. Or any weirder than waving palm fronds, confessing sins over a body of water with fish (and throwing crumbs in or not), eating a fish head or any of the other symbolic customs we perform on our holidays...

Still weird. I am not hugging a chicken, though I am also not waving it over my head...

Some rabbi in Washington DC has an interesting interpretation of the name "Yom Kippur".

We all know the saying that Yom Kippur is a day similar to Purim (Ki-Purim). The explanations of that saying are varied, yet I never before heard one saying that Yom Kippur is like Purim in the sense that like Purim is  "topsy turvy" and upside down, so Yom Kippur should be as well, and therefore hold Yom Kippur services in a bar. I would assume he is also channeling the above average drinking on Purim and adding that atmosphere of the beer bar to Yom Kippur.

According to the Religion News Service, Rabbi Aaron Potok and Sarah Hurwitz will be doing just that - holding Yom Kippur services in a beer garden.

Criticism abounds and is obvious.

Weird.

This Back to School sale, buy 2 and get 1 free, seems a bit strange..



unless it is the parents who are meant to enjoy the vodka in celebration of the kids finally going back to school!

this performance has created quote a stir, and is quite shocking... even stranger that the music for the performance was from Israeli singer Achinoam Nini, and the female skater was Vladimir Putin's wife..

Baruch Dayan HaEmes.

Sadly, and it is being reported much sooner than expected, the fellow who recently sold his illness to a non-Jew for 600nis has passed away from his illness.

interestingly, Walla mentions that selling an illness is not anything new. They quote Rav Cholek, the head of Ezer Miziyon, who says he asked Rav Kanievsky about selling one's illness to a non-Jew as part of the sale of chametz on Pesach. The probem with that might be that when you buy your chametz back after Pesach you would also be buying back your illness. It seems Rav Kanievsky responded that you can buy your chametz back and have no intention of buying back the illness and have no worries..
source: Kooker, Walla, Srugim

Strange story.

A sick avreich, I assume with cancer but the illness has not been disclosed, sold his sickness to an Arab for 600nis. He did not really sell the sickness, as he paid the Arab 600NIS to take it from him.

Maybe that means he bought the health of the Arab? I am not sure what the right way to say this is. He gave his sickness to the Arab and paid him 600nis to take it.
source: Kooker


I am not sure why the Arab would want it. He must not believe in the ability to transfer a sickness like that and figured he is getting a free 600nis out of this deal.


I have heard of people selling their souls. I don't remember hearing of someone selling their sickness.

I wonder if there is a clause in the sale of no refunds, no exchanges. Does this transaction fall under the Israeli law requiring a seller to take back a sale within two weeks (for store credit) for whatever reason the buyer wants out?

What I would really like is to see a follow-up article in a few months that will let us know how each of these two are doing - did the Arab get sick and the avreich get healthy? did it not make the switch? This is interesting, but I'd really like to know what happens down the line...

Divorce cases are rarely "pretty". but some are just strange. Even very strange.

A recent case in Haifa had a husband divorcing his wife and accusing her of performing witchcraft on him. He was making this claim in the hope that he would not have to pay her the value of the ketuba, which was very high.

The dispute was over the ketuba of 1,555,000nis. The husband claimed in the beis din that he should not have to pay it because she was attacking him with witchcraft. he brought in video evidence of her slipping unknown powders into his drinks - and he says it might have been poison or mystical poison.
As well, he brought in a former-shipputznik (renovator) and current "distributor of mystical materials and student of kabbala" to show that she had purchased 9000nis worth of witchcraft materials and potions that he had whipped up for her in order to "cause enemies to submit and to be able to control people".

The husband's claim was that a wife that deals in withcraft is considered a rebbelious wife, meaning there is justification for forcing a divorce and she "loses" her rights to the ketuba.

In response the wife claimed that she had placed things in his drink, but they were supplements to his coffee and not potions and witchcraft. Regarding what she bought from the shipputznik/mystic, she admits to the purchase but says she never made use of it.

Anyways, after much contemplation about this strange set of claims, the dayyanim decided that she was not involved in witchcraft and there was nothing special or unique about the list of materials and potions she had bought from her supplier and there is no evidence of real witchcraft and just because somebody makes a potion and says it is mystical and powerful does not actually make it so. And, the fact that a wife uses witchcraft, which in this case is not clear, against her husband, is not a reason to mkae her lose her ketuba.

That being said, the beis din decided to force a compromise, as they have the right to do, and decided that he would have to pay her ketubah to the tune of 250,000nis.
source: Ladaat

weird.

no further comment necessary

This is sill. I saw this all over world media, and even Israeli media - it was not just a wacky headline printed by one paper.

In the match between Wales and Israel, Gareth Bale was set to kick a free kick to try tow in the game. Israeli footballer Tal Ben Haim wwaved his hands and did what papers are calling "cast a spell", "cursed the kick", performed "voodoo", ,"witchcraft"... and sure enough the ball sailed over the goalposts.
source: Wales Online

I am surprised that none of these papers have asked Ben Haim what it was he did, if there was a special incantation he murmured as well, and what all that was about. Was it casting an ayin ha'ra? was it nothing, just a way to shake up Bale and try to keep him a bit off-balance? Is Ben Haim a wizard or warlock?

Here is the video...

.

this is just too weird! Tzitzit in a snap!

an online store selling tzitzit corners - tzitzit hanging from leather snaps for the belt. I can't tell if it is satire or serious. They think the normal tzitzit are connected to the belt loops, so this is a solution for the complications of using the belt loop. They have a beautiful leather crafted corner snap with the tzitzit attached.

I wonder if the blue strings are made from one of the various tchelet options, or if they are just dyed blue.

In the list of benefits, they say it is good for teens, women and executives.

they say they have seen many begn to keep the mitzva as a result of these tzitzit. funnily enough, they are not keeping the mitzva by wearing these!

Besides for a variety of these tzitzit corners, the only other product on the website seems to be an attache case.