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this made me chuckle...

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What does going on the attack mean?

In my opinion, going on the attack means not just complaining about the campaign while also complaining that "they should first draft all the Arabs and the come to us" or "there are more draft dodgers in Tel Aviv, deal with them first", or other similar kvetching I have heard.. Rather, do something about it. 

What is there to do about it? Go to the Supreme Court with a suit against the government (and/or the Attorney General and/or whoever else might be relevant)  to force them to draft the Arabs and not just ignore them. Sue the government et al to go after the draft dodgers in a more serious manner. Sue the government to look at the Hesder programs to determine if they are also not sharing the burden equally considering the shorter army service they do. Sue the government for any other shortages or discrepancies in service by any other minority population.

Will that upset lots of people? Sure. That would be the point, but it would also ponit out publicly the unfairness, from the Haredi perspective, in goign only after the Haredim.

Stop complaning and do something about it.

Well, they might finally be doing something about it.

Some Haredi organization named Emes L'Yaakov is doing just that. They have petitioned the Ministry of Defense  and other relevant parties with a demand to stop the illegal discrimination between different groups that do not get drafted to the army. This petition of the Ministry of Defense is a leadup to filing a petition with the courts. 

The petition claims that while yeshiva students who do not get drafted have been slapped with financial sanctions and limitations losing subsidies and grants, while other students who did not induct into the army continue to enjoy their personal benefits uninterrupted. Additionally, Haredi educational institutions have been losing funding  for students who were not drafted while Universities and the like do not get docked for students who did not enlist.

The petition also complains about the Dati Leumi community saying they draft for less time but have had no sanctions placed on them and on their institutions. Anyone not drafting equally should get their funding cut proportionally.

And if the government does not draft other minorities, they should impose similar sanctions on those communities similar to sanctions being imposed on the Haredi community.

the petition says that if immediate action is not taken, they will go to the Supreme Court 

source: Kol Rega

I can see this backfiring, as people get even more upset with the Haredim over this attack, but it would really bring the issue to the forefront and not leave it as just a Haredi issue. 

I also think it does not go far enough, but maybe it is good as a first step with a plan to  raise the pressure further down the road. They should be suing for discrimination and selective enforcement. Sue the government to draft the Arabs. Sue the government to go after draft dodgers in a more hard handed manner. Sue the government to cancel the inequal hesder arrangement. 

If they would be wildly successful, it could also backfire because then everyone is equally punished and equally drafted so they have nothing left to complain about, and forcing them use more enforcement will end up with more enforcement against them too. But they would have to be wildly sucecssful for that to happen which honestly seems unlikely.

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To that end, they hired an agent to make all the arrangements to put on such a massive Shabbos event, including the renting of tzimmers, or AirBnBs, along with hostels in the area. In an attempt to keep the prices form skyrocketing, they kept quiet that it is a massive group shabbos of Satmar. I guess they simply looked for and rented lots of individual places as if the renters were renting on a small basis. Also, the agent was supposed to somehow prevent any other groups from coming to Meron this Shabbos so as to avoid a situation in whch there would be other people inappropriate for their atmosphere ruining their Shabbos.

At some point one of the larger hostel owners in the area somehow picked up on what was happening and got upset he had been hoodwinked - had he known a bg group was coming he would have charged more! The fellow went to Beis Din and sued to cancel the arrangements claiming "mekach taus" - a mistaken deal. He wants to get the deal canceled and renegotiate the rentals at higher prices.

Satmar responded to beis din saying that's exactly why they did not say it is a big Satmar group - to avoid the prices being increased.

I am curious how this will turn out. It sounds like an interesting case. The guy renting out his hostel already knws it is a big group, though he didn't know how big. Still, what's that his business? He rents rooms out, why should he make more just because it is a big group. Maybe he should be giving a discount because they are renting in bulk rather than just a few individual rooms!

I guess we have to wait patiently for publication of the decision!

In light of that, MK Pnina Tamano-Shata (Kachol Lavan) proposed a law to have the government fund each returned hostage, and the family of each dead hostage, to the tune of 4 million shekels. The idea being, their recovery should be dependantupon the success of a crowd funding campaign but they should be taken care of by the State after what they went through.

Today the proposal came to vote. The Coalition voted it down 50-40 thus defeating the law and sending the hostages back to the crowd funding platforms.

I have not seen any explanation, as of the time of this writing, given by members of the Coalition who voted against. If anyone can explain why they voted against, please explain in the comments. Did they think the law should say 6 million or 3 million or 1 million? Do they think they are not responsible to help with their recovery? Or if you saw an explanation given by Coalition members, please point me in that drection. 

It seems the government that funded Hamas refuses to also fund its victims.

The government that expanded itself to 25 ministries with tremendous waste wont spend on the hostages.

To be fair, it should be noted that via Bituach Leumi the hostages and families do get an initial sum of 60000nis each, along with 9000nis per month for life, along with some other financial assistance packages for various purposes...

I would really like to hear what the coalition considered bad about this law proposal that they had to oppose it.

That means those orders form Amazon you make to avoid paying for shipping and taxes limiting the order to a maximum of $74.99, will soon become easier on you with the limit of free shipping with no taxes going up to $150 (and the new limit might even be set as high as $200).

I don't know what this will do to local businesses, and I am sure business owners and groups will complain about this, but consumers are definitely going to enjoy this change. Hopefully we wont spend way too much because of it, as if we already dont with the lower limit.

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in recent years Jonathan Pollard started speaking up in public and has even flirted with registering a political party to run for upcoming elections. I cannot really say that I have agreed with much of what he has said publicly in recent years. Everything I have heard him say was a bit too extreme for my pallette. 

Finally today he said something I agree with...

in a radio interview with Kan, Pollard said that the entire current political leadership needs to go home and be replaced with new people with different perspectives and different views, a clean sweep across left, center, and right. Pollard also criticized PM Netanyahu despite previously being a supporter. Pollard criticized Netanyahu for what he called Netanyahu's "subservience" to Washington and says he was naive when he previously said he could not imagine a better Prime Minister - now he can imagine one.

I agree with Jonathan Pollard about this - I think all current political leadership should resign and go home, while new blood comes in to take over. I would love to see some of the heroes (soldiers, former hostages, etc) of the war (Charvoit Barzel, Tekuma, Oct 7 War, Simchat Torah War, whatever you want to call it) go into politics and into leadership of the country. 

I actually agree with a slight caveat. 

They should all go home and be replaced. Yes, the caveat being, there are a probably a few little known MKs/Ministers who don't do much and have little to no connection to the policies and failures that led to the October 7 massacre, but they should probably be going home for other reasons like not doing anything to justify their positions. And they are batel brov gadol, nullified by the overwhelming majority.

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heavy rains overnights and in the early morning hours caused flooding and power outages around the country. Bet Shemesh was hit hard too with flooding in different parts of the city, with some roads becoming inpassable.. in this instance a transport van driving kids to school got stuck in a flood.. some guy pulled his trusty kayak out of his closed and went out to rescue the kids...

I am not quite sure what he did to rescue the kids, or what his plan was.. maybe he just reassured them.. I dont see how he could have fit 10 or 15 kids in the kayak to row them to safety... maybe he made a bunch of trips back and forth... either way, A for effort and ingenuity

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