I am impressed. Naftali Bennett has been trying to persuade PM Netanyahu for so long to appoint him as Minister of Defense, and Netanyahu has regularly called his bluff and refused.

Ayelet Shaked has been trying to make her way back into the Likud but has been finding nothing but locked doors in front of her.

Suddenly Netanyahu is in this situation of no government after two elections, with the possibility of someone else forming the next government. He see Ayelet Shaked courting Avigdor Lieberman, and he sees Naftali Bennett talking about the need for a unity government, even without him, while also seeing him talking to Benny Gantz's people.

Out of fear of the 55-bloc crumbling, Netanyahu offers Bennett what he has wanted for so long - the Ministry of Defense. And, Yamina and Likud will run on a joint ticket, essentially, bringing Shaked back into the Likud. While for now it is just technical, it is already bringing Shaked part of the way in, and the door is now open for either a full merger or other changes that will find Shaked fully in the Likud.

And, this morning Uri Ariel tendered his resignation from the Ministry of Agriculture. Quietly. Just went away.

Journalist Yaki Adamker reported that Ariel resigned after Netanyahu requested he do so, considering that it is illogical that a party with 7 mandates should hold 4 ministries. So he retired. Without screaming about Bennett taking away his job or anything like that.

Very strange. But look what a little fear of losing control of the government can do...

it is a shame Ruchi Freier did not take the interview as scheduled. Personally most of the things mentioned are not issues in my mind. Hatzala cant complain about issues like funding and response time and whatever else, if they do not let the organization grow. Most of those issues are things Hatzala probably had the same issues with when they were just getting started. Obviously an organization of 25 or 50 people is not going to be able to have the same response time as Hatzala, but as the organization grows that will improve. The anecdotal cases of people who died or nearly died are also not relevant. I am sure there are hatzala patients who have received bad treatment, wrong treatment, or even with the right treatment did not respond. not everyone is perfect, and not every case goes according to textbook - as long as that is not the norm (and I have no idea if it is or is not).

The one issue mentioned that is concerning, to me, is the experience and training. If they are going to go out on calls and try to save lives, they must have the proper training and experience required. If they are skipping that and sending novices into the field with nobody more experienced assisting, that is bad. I hope that is not the case.

pretty cool

EL AL is ending the service of their Boeing 747, after 48 years of operation. This video is part 2 of 2 featuring the final EL AL B747 Flight LY1747 from Rome to Tel Aviv on 3 November, 2019. The 747 flight took a one-time flightpath to create the 747 shape commemorating El Al's final commercial 747 flight. The final flight flew low over the Mediterranean, south-west of Cyprus to fly and “draw” in the shape of 747 jumbo jet; a complex two-hour manoeuvre revealed in real-time by flight tracking apps such as FlightRadar24. Watch the video how the pilot drew the 747 in the sky before returning to Tel Aviv for an emotional farewell.

Either somebody will break, or we will end up in elections. I do not know who will break, but I can tell you who will not break - we will not break. Every week we sit and look each other in the eye and declare the bloc is alive and well... there is Avigdor and there is Yvette - Avigdor is a Jewish name, a nice name - Avigdor sits with us, does things with us, can agree t the Draft law that we agreed upon, can go with Netanyahu and all is fine. Yvette is a politician that does one thing one time and another another time. He has a split personality and is unpredictable. Before the municipal elections Lieberman begged us to work together to get Moshe Le-On elected mayor of Jerusalem. After that he turned on us. I am familiar with institutions that deal with split personality.

  -- Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman

Nearly a decade after a woman converted to Judaism, the beis din is considering revoking her conversion.

This woman was originally married to a non-Jew. Eventually they got divorced, and now she wants to marry a Jewish man. When applying for marriage the beis din discovered that during her original conversion period she was continuing her relationship with her non-Jewish boyfriend and she hid it from the beis din. She deceived the beis din and they will now look into the possibility of revoking her conversion.

The beis din stated that normally the rule of not looking into another beis din's conversions would not allow them to consider revoking the conversion, but in this case she herself told them that she deceived the original beis din regarding her relationship with the non-Jew. They must therefore redirect her back to the original beis din and look into what happened and investigate the conversion process in her case. In the meantime, she is being added to the list of people who cannot marry.
source: Israel Hayom

Obviously, some are upset about the fact that a beis din can possibly revoke a conversion nearly ten years after it happened. Converts should not have to walk around unsure if one day a beis din will say you are not Jewish.

And I agree with that. Once converted, converted. There are no backsies. A convert is as Jewish as any other Jew, and no matter what happens after the conversion, it cannot be taken back. The Shulchan Aruch even says if certain things were done improperly during the original conversion, the conversion remains valid. And, as well, the recent trend of rejecting some rabbis who do conversions as not doing them properly, despite being Orthodox rabbis, or not being knowledgeable enough or important enough to do conversions, is a crock. That does not fly in halacha and only works in Israel because the Rabbanut has been given centralized power to do such things.

This case seems to be different than that. In this case she seems to possibly have deceived the beis din doing the original conversion. If she deceived them it was not just regarding the intent of the conversion, which might still be ok after the fact, but in her actions. I dont know if the deception of hiding a non-Jewish boyfriend is strong enough to determine the original conversion invalid, but I can understand looking into it.

Converts should not need to walk around for years, for the rest of their lives, wondering if a rabbi will come over and question his or her Judaism. But converts should not be deceiving the beis din doing the conversion and sometimes that deception might need to be investigated.

----- UPDATE TO POST ------

It has been clarified to me that she did not deceive anyone in this case. The story is that she met a man in the conversion class with her and they decided to marry. He decided not to go through with the conversion. She did continue keeping kashrut.

As well, someone sent to me the tshuva of Rav Shaul Yisraeli, published by Eretz Chemda, that says even in a case of full deception and the convert never had any intention on keeping mitzvos, once the person has been converted, the conversion remains valid because they wanted to be part of the Jewish nation. Rav Yisraeli qualifies that by saying this is bdieved, and lechatchila we do not convert people who do not accept upon themselves to try to keep mitzvos as fully as possible. After the fact, the conversion remains valid and there is no such thing as revoking a conversion.

So, in light of this, in this case as well, her marriage should not be prevented and investigating her conversion is "honaas ha'ger"

Yarmulkes, Wigs Fly Over Jewish Ambulance Brouhaha

  -- Kings County Politics

No yarmulkes or wigs were flying in this heated session, but it makes for a great headline

2 of PM Netanyahu's advisers, Ofer Golan and Yonatan Orich, went to Rav Chaim Kanievsky for brachas. These two advisers have been involved in the investigations against Netanyahu, with their phones recently confiscated. Rav Kanievsky blessed them but he also told Orich to get a haircut, though not to cut his peyos..

The following pashkevil went up on the walls of the Mea Shearim area... it is protesting the increasing chilul shabbos around the country, especially in Jerusalem, with additional bus lines going into operation and an increasing number of stores opening for business, with municipal money being spent on chilul shabbos activities.It has even reached the point with the city providing its cleaning and garbage collection services on Shabbos itself in a number of areas such as in the Mahane Yehuda area.

Because of all that, the writers are calling for a garbage rebellion. Anybody who holds Shabbos as valuable will take his garbage out and place it in the streets rather than in the garbage bins and leave the garbage in the middle of the lanes. This will be an expression of protest that is measured, mida knegged mida.

from tweet by Shlomi Heller

Throw the garbage in the middle of the streets? To me it just sounds like every other protest and rally they hold  out there in that part of the world...

The Prime Minister updates all the time about the negotiations between the Bloc of 55 and Kachol Lavan. I will tell you a scoop - until now, most of the discussions between them have been on the topics of the weather and the climate..

  -- MK Moshe Gafni (UTJ)

Either Gafni is being facetious, which I can appreciate, or Netanyahu is pulling a fast one over him and he is falling for it