The new law requiring supermarkets to charge 0.10nis per plastic bag is now in effect. Supermarkets are, for now, giving out to shoppers subsidized multi-use bags - the amount of which depends on how much you purchased, though you have the ability to buy more.

Here are my initial thoughts, from my one experience in the supermarket since it went into effect:
1. it is still new and will take time for people to get used to and for the system to get the kinks out
2. very strange but they only charge the 10 agurot for the shopping bags at checkout. if you take vegetables and bag them in the bags located by the veggies, you don't pay for those bags. I asked the cashier, and she confirmed that.
Usually those bags are flimsier and don't have handles, so shoppers wont really take those bags in bulk to bag their groceries, but it seems almost pointless, from the perspective of saving the environment, to charge for these plastic bags to minimize usage but not to charge for the other plastic bags.
3. the reusable bags Osher Ad was giving out were ok, but I couldnt really fit much in there. 3 bags for what I spent was not enough. After a couple of shopping trips though I will likely have enough of these bags accumulated and will bring them with me.
4. The bags were ok, but they cant really handle anything heavy - in one of the bags I put a couple of heavier items and the handles ripped right off.
5. reports have it that people are not deterred by a 0.10nis charge for bags and are willing to pay that much and just continue using them. It seems that they should have written the law to charge more to actually have an effect. I recall that initially the law was going to be 0.50nis per bag but it was changed to get more support.
6. Osher Ad is giving out the reusable bags after you pay for your groceries - you take your receipt to the bag person and get the correct amount of bags. That means, for as long as this goes on, people are going to pay for their groceries, go get the bags, go back and bag the groceries. this will cause longer checkout delays. I don't know what other supermarkets are doing about this. I understand they can only give them out after because before you pay they don't know how many you should get for free. Still, it is causing frustration for shoppers to have to wait until after paying before being able to start bagging.

I have suggested this in the past, so I think it is a good law, even if the exact details need to be fleshed out and ironed out.

MK Dudi Amsalem (Likud) is proposing that a sitting Prime Minister will not be investigated for crimes he is accused of having committed.

Amsalem explains that there is an army of people trying to bring down the Prime Minister (i.e. Netanyahu) and this will put an end to that obsession.

However, because a Prime Minister who committed a crime should not just be let off the hook for his crimes, the law would include a clause saying that the period of the term of prime minister would not be included in the count for any relevant statute of limitations. Amsalem adds that in the past 20 years every single PM has been under investigation and it paralyzes the government systems. To replace a PM, the proper way is to vote him out of office in elections, not via the police.
source: Behadrei

It has been pointed out here before by commentators that a solution would need to be found for not allowing the case to go cold - sometimes an investigation can be harmed by not collecting evidence when it is still warm, and it can make it much more difficult later.

Another issue would be that certain crimes would not to be excepted form this law - such as if a PM was being accused of treason, or some other laws that put his ability to function properly into question. I would think that would include bribery, but that seems to be the basis for just about every accusation against every PM, so that would make this law moot.

Another question would be regarding re-election. When a PM finishes his term, can the open, frozen, investigation be used against him in election campaigns? Should an accused PM be allowed to run for another term with this cloud over his head? Will a frozen investigation, one with accusations that maybe he could have easily been cleared of (as PM Netanyahu has done so far of all his accusations), hurt a PM up for re-election as he has to campaign under the cloud of suspicion rather than having been able to nip it in the bud?

MK Elazar Stern posted this online saying that this was not a Chanukah miracle but is part of their normal routine as he and MK Gafni run together to go daven mincha and offset each other in the Knesset balance while absent (i.e. it is common protocol that if an MK from the coalition or opposition needs to leave for a particular reason and will have to miss a vote , someone from the other side of the benches will also leave to offset that. This is not a rule and at times they don't agree to offset one who will be out, but usually they agree too).

this Friday, January 6, will be the ceremony inaugurating the construction of the new Bet Shemesh baseball field.

The ceremony will include a number of MLB baseball players, including Danny Valencia, Sam Fuld, Ty Kelly, Ike Davis, Ryan Lavarnway, Josh Zeid, Cody Decker, Jon Moscot, Corey Baker, Jeremy Bleich and Gabe Kapler.

there was a time when we would dream of a Yemenite Chief of General Staff of the IDF. Now we dream about a Haredi Chief of General Staff of the IDF.

  -- Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman, at event with Haredi soldiers of Netzach Yehuda

Mendel Roth recreates the shtetl for this stunning music video

The coalition is once again heading into some shaky ground. It has been very stable until now, as none of the coalition members has any interest in causing new elections.

The latest threat to coalition stability is not, in my opinion, the newest investigation into Netanyahu's financial affairs. That will surely lead to new elections if anything concrete is discovered that leads to an indictment, but the issue with the coalition is now Aryeh Deri and Shabbos.

In a previous government, Interior Minister Silvan Shalom separated the control over making decisions about stores opening on Shabbos from his ministry due to what he said was a conflict of interests. That authority was removed from the Interior Ministry and placed in the hands of a committee created for this purpose.

Aryeh Deri, now the Minister of Interior, wants that authority taken back from the committee and put back into the hands of the Interior Ministry - i.e. him.

The reason he wants this now is due to the committee being set to issue its recommendations regarding the request of the City of Tel Aviv to allow more stores to open on Shabbos. Aryeh Deri is worried that this will lead to more stores being opened legally, and he wants the authity back in order to prevent that.

Deri has supposedly threatened the coalition stability over this, and Minister Litzman has come out in support of Deri.

PM Netanyahu has so far resisted Deri's demands. Netanyahu is afraid that giving the authority back to Deri, thus ensuring the closure of the relevant stores, will give Lapid even more momentum and a sharper rise in the polls at his own expense.

It seems a decision on this matter has been, for now, delayed.
sources: Kikar, Behadrei

Giving in is only a matter of when, as Netanyahu cannot afford coalition instability, especially with polls showing Likud dropping in support and just about everyone else among the relevant players increasing (i.e.Shas, UTJ, Lapid, Habayit Hayehudi). They will surely find a way to make Deri happy while minimizing the damage. Neither Deri nor Netanyahu want elections.

The one question I don't get is that even with Lapid's high numbers it seems the right and left blocs are more or less staying the same. With those numbers, it would be very difficult for Lapid to form a coalition. And furthermore, with all the various parties in Netanyahu's coalition announcing, for whatever reason, that they would reocmmend Netanyahu for Prime Minister in upcoming elections and not Lapid, it seems the next coalition, assuming polls are correct, will have the same, more or less, results as what we have today in government, with perhaps slight shifts. So, if they are all goign to recommend Netanyahu anyways, what game are they playing now threatening elections? I think this further points to it being an empty threat, as they stand nothing to gain by it.

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..

If you are a resident of Bet Shemesh and wish to buy a new hat, now might be your chance to do so and save some money in the process. According to signs posted, the City of Bet Shemesh is subsidizing hats purchased at Ferster to the tune of 100nis. Locations for getting the coupon are posted in the sign.

I do not know fi they only sell "black hats" for men or if they sell other kinds as well, but you are welcome to go check it out...

and good for Ferster for getting all the business promoted by the city.. I wonder what their competition thinks of that, or if there was a tender issued for this purpose...

By now we have all seen the pictures of Santa putting on tefillin, and they seem to be more and more common nowadays, but I have never seen Santa at the Kotel before..

YStuds


celebrating in Bahrain


Breslavers go to a pub


Maoz Tzur with MC


Mostly Kosher - Maoz Tzur