I just love this gabbai's translation skills. I have no idea if the bracha worked and if this guy won his election or not, but I just love to see this gabbai making it up as he goes along - he didnt even remember the name of the politician he brought in and said everyone should vote for!

(warning: there's a small amount of female singing in the middle of the clip)

Today is election day in the US. Will the Democrats take the big hit they are expected to, or will they retain most of their power? That is the question. If you have not yet voted, get out now and show some respect to your democratic rights, and go vote! If you don't vote, you don't count.

And if you are going to vote in New York, listen to this. A friend received a phone call today. When he picked up the receiver, he heard an automated message - one of those calls telling you for whom to vote.

The phone call said, in ym friends description:

the fellow on the line started his recorded message in thick chassidish yiddish

............"Ich hays chaim hollendar un ich been gevain in tfisah" ("i am chaim hollendar and i was in jail")..........

mr hollendar went on to say how he was in jail and how eric shneiderman is the best candidate as he promised to help heimishe prisoners.

he said that voting for "ERRRR_IC" is mamesh pidyon shevuim and closed with a bracha that all listeners not have "legale" problems.

I dont know anything about Eric Shneiderman, if he is good or bad, if he supported this phone message or not, and am not going to tell you to vote for him or not. I find it amusing, and appalling, that prisoners and con-men have been given celebrity status and are considered men of influence.

Hollander was part of a ring of people in Kiryas Yoel who were caught in a massive tax fraud and money laundering scheme.

This guy is telling people for whom to vote? In the heimishe community this is an influential issue? Voting for this guy is pidyon shvuyim?

You can't make this stuff up!

1. The committee of ministers dealing with preparing new laws has passed an initial reading of a proposed new law. The law would require all Israeli flags to be made in Israel, and importing Israeli flags made in other countries would be illegal.
2. The committee of ministers dealing with preparing new laws has passed an initial reading of a proposed new law. This proposed law targets the exemption religious girls receive from army service - any religious girl who does not want to serve in the army currently has the ability to declare that she is religious and can't serve in the army for religious reasons and she gets her exemption automatically. The proposed law would require any such young woman seeking the exemption to bring a letter of "proof" that she actually studies in a religious school. The religious and haredi MKs are against the proposed law as it would make it more difficult to get the exemption, and it is a breach in the status quo. They are also concerned that young women who went to non-religious schools but have become more religious would have a very difficult time getting the exemption, under the new law.
3. MK Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz has finally submitted the proposal for the amendment to the terror organization law he has been talking about ever since he was attacked when he went to a shul in Mea Shearim. Katz has proposed to declare the "sikrikim" as an official terror organization.
4. The papers are not yet releasing a name, but a "to'ein rabbani" in the rabbinical courts has been arrested for sexually molesting his female clients. According to what I have been told, when he had clients who could not pay his fees, he worked out alternate payment plans, if you know what I mean..3 women have stepped forward so far with complaints, but they expect many more women were molested by him. He has admitted to the accusations.

This is a crazy story. It seems that, for some reason, Rabbi Nachman of Breslav left a command in his writings that his followers should always make sure that his descendants stay within the hassidic movement.

It seems that it has recently been discovered that all his descendants have continued living in the Ukraine and have all intermarried with non-Jews.

Some Breslavers are working hard and spending a lot of money in bribes to try to get them to agree to come to Israel, to become religious, and ultimately "lehitbraslev" (a word I just made up that would mean "to become breslav").

Ynetnews has the strange story, that sounds like it is right out of some fiction novel. Here is an excerpt of the story.

Rabbi Barzel immediately boarded the first flight to Tashkent and together with Pinto looked through the records of the Uzbekistani Ministry of the Interior. The two managed to trace Sarah Leah and Raizel Zerikovsky through their maiden names. "We reached Raizel's address," Rabbi Pinto relates. "We knocked on the door, which was crumbling down and entered a particularly shabby wooden house. A one and half bedroom apartment with primitive toilets and a shower in the kitchen. Something truly awful, like one would imagine a house from 300 years ago."

The two rabbis took Raizel to a local hotel to get away from the house. The following day they reached her sister Leah and found a great treasure in her house. "As we were talking we found a dusty old library," Pinto relates. "And after snooping around found loads of ancient Breslov books that their father had brought with him when he fled the Ukraine. They have not been touched since. First editions, unbelievable materials! They are worth tens of thousands of dollars."

The rabbis then launched a series of meetings to persuade the sisters, who had virtually no knowledge of Judaism, to leave everything and move to Israel. Hitting a note with their childhood memories, they managed to convince the women to make aliyah, but only on the condition that their daughters came too.

Ira, 25, Leah's daughter, is married to a local gentile called Sasha and the couple are parents to a boy and a girl. Raizel has two girls: Ella, a 28-year-old in the process of a divorce from Andrei, a 50-year-old gentile and native of Armenia; and Paina, 20, whom the rabbis convinced to cancel her engagement to a local man (helped by the fact they arranged the groom with a respected job and some funds).

Paina was flown to visit Nachman of Breslov's grave in Uman and eventually decided to move to Israel after considerable persuasion. She now attends a school for the newly religious in Jerusalem. "I'm happy I found my true place and true life," she says. One mission accomplished.

Did Palestinian PM Fayyad Attend The Ceremony in East Jerusalem Or Not?

To answer that question, you probably had to be there yourself, because if all you are doing is reading the newspaper reports, you would have no idea. Nor would you know what he said (and whether he said it from the ceremony or from elsewhere)..

Looking at the two main English news sites of Israeli news, you would get conflicting reports. Here are screen shots from both Haaretz and Jerusalem Posts front page headlines.

Haaretz reports Fayyad skipped the event and said that Jerusalem suburbs will one day be part of the PA:

Yet the Jerusalem Post reported that Fayyad did participate in the ceremony and he said that the suburbs of East Jerusalem are part of the Palestinian capital:

Which is it? One of these "respectable" newspapers is clearly running the wrong headline..

NRG is reporting a story that a fellow from Kfar HaRoeh, a religious moshav of the Hapoel Mizrachi movement, had been involved in a minor accident with an Egged bus while driving along the Coastal Road. The accident was so minor that the guy didnt even think the bus driver was aware anything had happened. During the incident, the driver bumped the bus that was driving alongside his car in the adjacent lane, and scraped the bus, causing some minor damage.

For 8 months the fellow walked around with this incident nagging at his conscience. He reviewed the incident in his mind many times, and was sure that he was at fault for the accident.

He finally decided that he had to come forward and compensate Egged for the damage he caused.

The fellow sent a letter to Egged explaining about the accident and the damage he had caused. He says that he evaluates the damage caused to be about 850 NIS worth, and asks that if the damage was greater than that, they should contact him and he will pay the additional amount. He attached a check for 850 NIS to the letter.

Egged management, at first, thought it was a joke and didn't believe the story. Only after they spoke to the fellow and understood he was serious did they register their shock, saying that they have never experienced a similar story where someone came forward on their own and said they caused damage and insisted on paying for it.

Regardless, they refused to take the money because they said no driver had reported any damage on the day and area he said the incident occurred, and therefore there is nothing to pay for, as no repairs were conducted because of the incident.

I wonder what I would do in a similar situation..probably just write it off saying they are a big corporation and they deserve it, and how many times they caused damage to private people (whether by bumping cars and avoiding payment of damages, or by their [at times poor] service) and never worried about paying for it or even did whatever they could to avoid paying (I happen to be aware of one such case that happened with relatives of mine). This guy has a strong conscience...

I like how the Iranian guy refuses to shake the Israelis hand, but has to stand there during the Hatikva...Take that Ahmadinejad! now we are better than you at weightlifting and at chess!

1. Name And Shame

2. Manhattan Resold For Beads

3. A Couple of Minutes With RivkA

4. Things Not To Do If You want To Seem Israeli

5. Craigslist And the Stolen Torah

6. In The Army Now

7. Chilean Miners Herald Mashiach

8. On Esther Petrack and Orthodoxy

Peter Beinart, the new darling of the liberal elite, a prolific writer, and thought to be an insightful analyst of world problems, returned from a summer trip to Israel with his family, and wasted no time attacking Israel for her intransigence on negotiating away land for peace. Beinart further knows that American Jews are not in sync with AIPAC and the old Zionist establishment that support Israel right or wrong. He holds nothing back in his painting Israel as doing no good for American prestige and power among Muslims. He accuses P.M. Netanyahu for treating Pres. Obama like a schmuck (yes, that's Beinart's use of the of the word) when they appeared at a joint press conference following their controversial and hurried meeting this summer, neither President Obama nor P.M. Netanyahu mentioned anything about their having discussed a Palestinian state or Gaza.

Well, in my mind, Beinart, Thomas Friedman, and others who think America should walk away from Israel, are the schmucks. They think they are doing Israel a favor by telling the world how wrong Israel's foreign policy is, and how it is damaging U.S. standing with Muslims. Beinart's arguments remind me of the Palestinian woman I heard interviewed on NPR who complained that the IDF does not rape Palestinian women, because their women aren't good enough to be raped by an occupying force. Whoever heard of such a thing, she screamed. Our women are not pretty enough or human enough to be raped by Israeli soldiers, according to this Palestinian knucklehead.

I think Beinart is confusing Americans' lack of concern about the survivability of Israel as a nation with a lack of interest by Americans. Sure there are existential threats to Israel, but Americans are worried sick and pre-occupied with our faltering economy, joblessness, and the high cost of health care if they can get it all. Israel has survived for more than six decades, and her future is not dependent upon the formation of another Palestinian or Arab state; that's just not high on the agenda of young Americans or American Jews. Could Israel be doing some things better? Of course Israel is not perfect, and her leaders say some awfully stupid things that a better public relations program at the very least would improve her image. But attacks from our friends demonstrate how free speech thrives in Israel unlike in her enemies' countries.

According to Beinart, a liberal cannot be an enthusiastic supporter of Israel. He doesn't define me or my politics. An American liberal can be for the war in Iraq and against it in Afghanistan; for pro-choice, unemployment benefits, child welfare support, and a n avid supporter of American aid to Israel. There is anguish among American Jews, but we always worry about everything, and no people has a greater guilt complex than Jews--thanks Mom. Mr. Netanyahu and Pres. Obama focused their public remarks on the Iranian threat of nuclear destruction in the Middle East and its potential for making dirty bombs that could be easily transported anywhere in the world. then you will see anguish. Beinart must have been too busy to hear the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the U.S. who publicly told Congress that the benefits of bombing Iran's nuclear program outweigh the short-term costs such an attack would impose (according to Eli Lake in The Washington Times). Or how about the reports that Egypt will not open it's locked and sealed borders crossings with Gaza, and pleads with Israel not to loosen her borders with Gaza for fear of Hamas getting too much a political jump start from winning political points while the P.A. festers.

For the record, Mr. Beinart, a schmuck is an insult usually meaning an obnoxious, contemptible person who is stupid, foolish, or detestable. Did you really mean to call our President that; or, did you mean he was treated like a shmendrick, best defined in The Joys of Yiddish as physically impressive but a weak person who has not yet grown up (politically wet behind the ears). A cute description would be of a woman who beat her shmendrick of a husband who crawled under the bed. "Come out!" she cried. "No!" he said. "I'll show you who's the boss in this house!"

No, Mr. Beinart, neither of these gentlemen is a schmuck or a shmendrick. They are two powerful leaders trying figure out how to survive in a world where the Flintstones have automatic weapons and nuclear bombs.

In Beitar Ilit they are very worried, as they are in many areas and communities, that the construction freeze can and might be renewed at any given moment. With a debilitating housing crisis happening, and the freeze causing tremendous loss of money to people who signed on houses, along with losses to kablanim, a solution was needed to avoid, as much as possible, the possibility of everything being frozen again at a moments notice. Not only that, but the plot in question was originally under construction by the Heftsiba company, that eventually went bankrupt a few years ago and the property remained untouched, despite the buyers having paid for their homes.

The kablanim got permission, due to the exceptional situation, to build at unusual hours - all night long. This despite the fact that the noise is keeping people awake at night, and is normally illegal at the wee hours of the night.

Residents who are disturbed, and whose children are disturbed by the noise and cannot sleep, also went to the city beis din and requested the kablanim be told not to build during those hours.

The beis din considered the situation and the claims, and came to a decision that they publicized. The beis din paskened that the neighbors should take into account the families who are in crisis, who are at risk of not having a roof over their heads, and they should accept the burden of the disturbance with understanding, and they should not do anything to prevent the work.

The beis din continued that the unusual work is only short-term, for a week, and the knowledge that carrying this burden for this period of time will definitely help tens of families who have suffered for a few years with concern about the houses they bought.

So by now everyone knows about the attempt to bomb a synagogue or two in Chicago. I have no idea why someone in Yemen or Saudi Arabia would choose Chicago as the target, rather than New York or Israel, but they did. I still remember when they caught one of the largest Hamas cells in America operating out of a bakery in Chicago, so Chicago is not foreign to extremists..

Anyways, the whole story sounded strange, and I am sure there is more we don't know than that which we do know. So, I asked my father, a very wise man who still lives in Chicago, what he thought about it.

Here are his thoughts, with his permission for reprinting.

Dr. G:
The reports in the media are so sketchy and the details vary from day to day that it is at best unclear what was sent and to whom. Several media have interviewed shul goers and p.r. people from different organizations. They all seem almost proud that their organization might be a target, i.e., they have achieved such prominence they are a target. More like peacocks! If this was a credible threat, then only human intelligence could have unmasked the plot. Regardless if the packages were detonable, lethal enough to have harmed anyone in the air or on the ground, or if they were just trial packages sent to see how security forces would react or even detect them, one thing is clear. There are moles or traitors among the terrorists willing to leak information for some kind of price. That's the key here, human intelligence; not drones, not spy in space satellites, not eavesdropping on cell calls, but on the ground, good old fashion spy stuff.


The media reports the targets were Jews and Jewish institutions, not random airliners or military bases or office buildings. This war against the Jews is exacerbated by Jimmy Carter's pandering to terrorists, by Obama's mollycoddler politics, by the media reports of Peter Beinart and Thomas Friedman and Helen Thomas, by UNESCO's repeatedly anti-Israel position papers and votes, and moves to boycott and disinvest from Israel by universities and labor unions. All these keep the focus on Israel and the Jews for now, so the next natural step is to target violent acts against any and all Jews anywhere in the world. The best thing about the editorial page of a newspaper is that nobody reads it.


This will pass in a short time, however. Obama will be so busy trying to save his presidency he won't have time for Middle East politics. The american people are sympathetic to Jews and Israel and this will only enhance our credibility with them. As the terrorists become more frustrated, they will target more soft targets in Europe and Scandinavia and will ignite the smoldering backlash already underway there.

And on another, more humorous, note on the same topic, the Yated expressed in its headline report about the great chasdei shamayim in their catching the bombs that were destined to explode in shuls in Chicago.

I wonder if they would have said the same thing if they knew t the time that the shul it was addressed to, Congregation Ohr Chadash, is a gay-lesbian shul..

Just Wondering..

IMHO, this is much better than the Chabad Telethon...