timely for Purim

I think this qualifies for the weirdest or strangest campaign issue, or maybe attack, to come up so far..

Minister Moshe Kachlon attacked Lihi Lapid, Yair Lapid's wife. His attack is regarding her participation in "hafrashat challa" events - she famously hosted one such event during the last election campaign in 2015.

I have seen in the news here and there about other such events Lapid participated in, but I have not paid attention closely to it and do not know how frequently or infrequently she does these things. I do not even know why it came up now - maybe she announced participation in another hafrashat challa event, I don't know.

Anyways, Moshe Kachlon criticized her saying she does not even know  what the mitzva is and does not know what she is doing. Kachlon added "my mother did all the mitzvot, such as hafrashat challa - I dont know if Lihi Lapid understands anything about what she is doing, but my mother understood".
source: Kikar

Huh?

I have no idea if Lihi Lapid understands what she is doing or not. I also do not care. I also do not care if Mrs Momma Kachlon understood what she was doing or not. I have no idea what this about or why it came up or what Kachlon wants to get out of it. It sounds like one of those fights common among 9 year old kids - my dad is stronger than your dad..

Definitely one of the weirdest campaign issues to come up so far

Mishpacha Newspaper (link to Kikar article) is reporting that PM Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to go to Rav Chaim Kanievsky to get a bracha for success in the upcoming elections. Deri heard about the plan and vetoed the visit. he was worried that pictures of Netanyahu getting a bracha from Rav Chaim Kanievsky would only increase Haredi support for Netanyahu and help him take voters away from the Haredi parties and cause them to vote Likud.

Deri is probably right that that would have happened had the meeting taken place.

Deri should have also considered that Shas promoting Netanyahu in nearly all their campaign advertisements might also do that (there were reports yesterday that Netanyahu has benefited the most from those Shas ads, far more than Shas has and Shas is now going to change campaign strategy because of it)...

Deri already showed he controls Netanyahu (somewhat) and the government when he successfully vetoed a deal between Netanyahu, Habayit Hayehudi and Eli Yishai that had nothing to do with Shas. Now he is showing that he also controls the gedolim - not just the sefardi gedolim but also the Ashkenazi gedolim.

Aryeh Deri gets to decide who gets in to Rav Chaim Kanievsky for a bracha and who does not? Let Rav Chaim decide that - he is pretty smart and savvy and would know how such a picture could be used and he can decide to allow it or not.

Assuming Rav Chaim Kanievsky's brachas help, withholding that bracha from Netanyahu could also be a disaster for the Haredi parties who have thrown their lot in with Netanyahu. If he does not win, the Haredi parties will be in a bind for a while.

This hurts every Haredi Jew. When Omer Yankelovitch will run by himself in his own party - let's see if he gets in then, if he did anything

  -- Deputy Minister Meir Porush, when asked in a Kikar interview about Omer Yankelevitch running in a non-Haredi party

pretty much anybody running in his own party by himself will not get in. That is the purpose of the 3.25% minimum threshold. Porush also would not get in if he ran by himself in his own party. Neither would Gafni or Litzman or Deri or most MKs. Yankelevitch also would not get in on her own, but so what? That's why she is running as part of a larger party, just like every other hopeful MK.

The main interesting part of the quote is how Porush refers to Yankelevitch as a male. Either he just made a grammatical mistake, or he does not even know who Yankelevitch is and is assuming Yankelevitch is male. The name "Omer" is not common or gender specific, so perhaps he just does not know but was told about a Haredi person running in a non-Haredi party....

בטקס מרגש הענקתי היום אזרחות ישראלית לשחקן הכדורסל של הפועל ירושלים, אמארה סטודמאייר, או בשמו העברי יהושפט. שחקן כדורסל גדול, איש נהדר, שגריר אדיר של מדינת ישראל ושל בירתנו ירושלים, שקשר את גורלו עם ישראל. מזל טוב יהושפט! pic.twitter.com/Mz4ovQwCHY

— אריה מכלוף דרעי (@ariyederi) March 13, 2019

Stoudamire recently converted to Judaism after a long connection to Israel and Judaism as someone with "Hebrew roots".

Mazel tov!

I find it interesting how much of a platform the media has given former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The guy sat in prison for bribery and corruption, yet every day or two the media is asking him his opinion on the state of the country and the upcoming elections.

And now he has the gall to talk about how corrupt PM Benjamin Netanyahu is and that all he talks about is words of incitement against anybody not with him.

Commenting on Netanyahu's style of incitement is not so bad. It happens to be true, and while some may not like his style, that is not corruption or illegal. Olmert commenting on how corrupt Netanyahu is and how he stole from the people is the problem - who made Olmert the moral authority? What gives Ehud Olmert any moral standing to complain about Netanyahu's corruption.

As the Rambam said, one must accept the truth from whatever the source - Olmert might be speaking truth, and Netanyahu is under investigation for all those things and if found guilty will pay for his crimes. My question is why is Olmert being given a platform and he himself should not be acting like a moral authority.

An avreich in Bnei Braq asked Rav Zilbershtein, rav of Ramat Elchonon neighborhood of Bnei Braq, an interesting question about eating dairy after meat.

The avreich explained that his wife does things very slowly. Often he comes home for the lunch break after morning kollel and it takes her a very long time to make him his lunch, while he is extremely hungry. He says, today on the way home he was very hungry so he stopped in a meat restaurant to get something to eat.

Sure enough he gets home and his wife surprises him saying that lunch is ready for him! She surprised him witha hot plate of his favorite cheese blintzes!

This is called Murphy's Law. The one day she makes him lunch on time, and his favorite food, he can't eat it because he is fleishige!

Now he has a dilemma - what to do? he can't eat the dairy blintzes because he just ate meat, but if he tells her he ate meat on the way home, she'll get upset at him and it will turn into an extended fight! What to do? He asked Rav Zilbershtein if for shalom bayis he would be allowed to eat the dairy meal even though he had just eaten meat.

Rav Zilbershtein responded that he is not allowed to eat the dairy blintzes after meat. The only thing chazal allowed for shalom bayis is lying - they did not give permission to violate any other prohibition. So, he cannot eat the blintzes but he can lie for peace - he can tell her that he had eaten meat at a pidyon haben, that in reality did not happen, before he came home.
source: Kikar

Finally! I love it! Even though nobody is talking much policy in this election campaign, finally they are talking about other things than which prime ministerial candidate they would recommend to the President for the formation of the next government.

As we get closer to the elections and the polls become less meaningless (not more meaningful, just less meaningless), parties are finally noticing the people they expected to vote for them might not actually do so.

So, we have UTJ attacking Feiglin, Likud attacking Feiglin, Blue and White, and The New Right. Bennett is attacking Blue and White and Feiglin. Shas is attacking Kachol Lavan, quietly the Likud, Yisrael Beyteynu, and Feiglin. Everyone is attacking the Otzma Yehudit people. Labor seems to be entirely ignored, as is Meretz, and we already know nobody will sit with the Arabs so they can be ignored as well. Kachol Lavan is attacking Feiglin, the New Right, and the Likud. Kachlon is attacking Kachol Lavan, though I haven't noticed anybody bothering to attack them..

Feiglin seems to have become a central figure - important enough to be attacked by many of the other parties who until now felt they could ignore him.

The campaigning is finally picking up a little steam and becoming interesting!