Jul 23, 2026
BEIT HAMIKDASH: IN THE MAKING (video)
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BEYOND THE WALL - The Call Of Geulah (video)
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Jul 21, 2026
Quote of the Day
When he held me and Romi [Gonen] I heard him talking on the phone with Sinwar his buddy, Az A Din Al Hadad and others.... how they are not talking together about us on the phone but they are burning together in the fires of Hell....
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We Found the Temple Mount Beams… But Then We Saw This (Not Clickbait) (video)
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Har Habayit,
video
Jul 20, 2026
Quote of the Day
not everyone who wears black and white is learning Torah. That is a lie. The people who have hurt the cause of the Torah-learning public the most is Goldknopf and gafni who say we are all learning Torah. No, not all of you are learning Torah.
-- Ofer Vinter
Vinter has been a bit of an unknown and enigma and I have seen much assumed about him and those assumptions have made him well liked, including in the more right wing part of the Haredi community... Vinter is going on the attack here as he camppaigns for the upcoming elections... we'lll see what the fallout is for going ont he attack against the Haredi representatives, even if what he is saying is true (and it is, obviously)
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Interesting Psak: Music in the Hospitals
Rav Yitzchak Zilbershtein, rav of Ramat Elchonon neighborhood of Bnei Braq was asked if the groups of people who go to the hospitals top bring cheer to patients by playing music, singing and dancing can contiue doing so during the Nine Days or if they should not play live music during these days of mourning over the destruction of the mikdash?
Rav Zilbershtein responded that the gemara says nothing is more important than pikuach nefesh, and bring cheer and joy to sick people is a great mitzva. Also, we find that joy and happiness helps the healing process. So it is a great mitzva to go tot he hospitals and play music and sing and bring joy to the patients who have serious illnesses even during these difficult days of mourning...
source: Haredim10
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Should You Be Going to Har HaBayit? ft. Rav Yehuda Levi (video)
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Har Habayit,
video
Inside Israel's Most Controversial Communities (video)
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video
Caesarea Today! 2000 Years of History – From Aqueduct to Ancient Roman City (video)
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video
Jul 19, 2026
New Haredi faction for elections
There is a Haredi election campaign running that looks like it could make things interesting.
We have seen in some previous elections attempts by new political formations in the Haredi community. A new party will form and run in the elections and the traditional Haredi parties will push hard against them leading to combinations of social threats against the people behind the new party along with pressure to drop out so as to not waste votes and to not take away votes from the traditional parties. In the past, with just a small number of semi-recent exception, the new parties do not even make it to the finish line and drop out well before the elections. TOV and DERECH were the exceptions that I can think of offhand and they continued to run all the way to the end (and even won some mandates) in municipal elections but not in national elections, and there was a Hared women's party that ran to the end of but ended up very weak after a tough campaign against them and beyond their actual existence did not really accomplish anything significant with their run achieving a very small pool of votes.
There has been talk in recent monthsof several new Haredi parties being formed. I saw one that would compete directly with Shas being formed by a Rav Abergil. I am aware of another that seemed to me to be a yeshivish anglo (or maybe part anglo) party, though I havent heard anything about them recently. I am hearing of another party being formed by groups like Rav Betzalel Cohen and others he is working with. We'll see what comes of all these and if they can withstand the pressure that will surely be levied on them. These are the traditional formations of parties and what normally happens to them as the elections approach.
There is a new campaign out there right now an dit is different than the traditional.
Instead of forming a new party and trying to garner support and withstand the pressures that are certainly coming, Motti Leitner, a municipal politician from Bet Shemesh (from the DERECH parrty) is now running a 2 million shekel campaign for the upcoming elections. He formed a faction, called "HaTzibbur Hacharedi" - the Haredi Public, and instead of campaigning for this as a party looking for support, he is campaigning right now to push the traditional Haredi parties to take him in as a representative of his facton. According to the current campaign, UTJ and Shas are both made up of various factions, and Hatzibbus Hacharedi would simply be another faction in the umbrella and would be given a specific slot on whichever list accepts him to represent his faction. His campaign is not seeming to target UTJ or Shas specifically but I think naturally it would be more in line with UTJ, though practically I think Shas might have a higher chance of adopting him (not that they will but that the chances are higher in my opinion).
Leitner's campaign is pointing out that yeshiva bochurim have become targets, the honor of Torah has been trampled, families are being crushed under financial burdens. These are traditional Haredi issues and technically exactly what the traditional Haredi parties supposedly deal with... so why is this new faction necessary? They say new blood needs to be infused into the traditional parties, more representation of the younger generation.
source: i24 News
Interestingly, DERECH, the party Leitner heads in Bet Shemesh, did not run a municipal campaign on traditional Haredi issues but seemed to represent the community called the "modern Haredim" which are young couples ansd families many of whom work and are not learning in yeshivas and have concerns other than things like the traditional concern of Haredi draft and money for yeshivas and the like, so I find it interesting that they are moving away from that and trying to bring the traditional campaigns to the younger crowd they claim to represent. I look forward to seeing how this develops..
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Monsters by the Walls
The big titilating news the other day was an announcement by Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, in coordination with Minister of Environmental Protection Idit Silman, that he intends to open a facility like Alligator Alcatraz which will be a prison for terrorists surrounded by a moat that will be populated with alligators (or maybe crocodiles?) to ensure the prisoners stay put.
Interestingly, the original Alligator Alcatraz did not have a moat with alligators but it was located the Everglades of Florida where alligators are commonly found in the wild. More interestingly, it did not work and Alligator Alcatraz, the original, was shut down.
![]() |
| I created this image via AI. I am not aware of any actual upcoming television series on this theme, though maybe the television producers can be talked into another season of Prison Break... |
In Israel this is not really even allowed. The plan was going to be to get the alligators (crocs?) from the Chamat Gader resort and relocate them to the Ketziot prison in Southern Israel. The National Parks and Nature Authority said they will not relocate the gators as the gators can only be used in Israel for research and education. To cricumvent that Silman signed an order changing the classification of the alligators (crocodiles?) to something like "managed wild animals for security needs" so the Nature Authority's objection would be moot and they could then be put in the moat.
Is it feasible or not? Plenty of discussion on the Internet about that. Maybe it is too expensive as the gators need to be cared for and fed, given medical care and whatever else gators require? Maybe they are not even effective at stopping prison breaks - gators sleep a lot and don't need to eat much (but no, I would not want to swim across a moat populated with possibly hungry gators). I don't know the answers to the big debates about this, but I do have one question I have not seen discussed at all.....
How common is it for terrorists or other "security prisoners" to escape from prisons in Israel that an alligator moat might even be effective and worthwhile? How common are prison escapes in general, even by regular criminals and not terrorists?
How necessary is it really, and if it gets done will it even accomplish anything that is not already being accomplished by normal security measures? Is there truly any purpose of it for anything more than some "likes" on social media, and some articles in the press that will excite some people before elections?
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Labels:
AI,
Idit Silman,
Itamar Ben-Gvir,
prison,
terror
Tweet of the Day
translation:אשכרה עירית ירושלים מכבים את המוזיקה ונותנים דוחות בשוק מחנה יהודה בגלל תשעת הימים pic.twitter.com/1oM7WossV9
— אלי (@sakranovsky) July 17, 2026
Seriously, the Jerusalem Municipality is turning off the music and issuing fines in the Machane Yehuda Market because of the Nine Days
I posted this because it went somewhat viral and the suggestion in it is interesting and cute, but it is wrong. The Jerusalm municipality twitter/x account responded that their shutting of the music and distributing of fines had nothing to do with the Nine Days. They were shutting down music and giving out fines because of municipal bylaws being violated in the playing of loud disruptive music during the "quiet hours", aka siesta hours, of 2-4pm, and also the business owners had put their music guy making all that noise out in the public walkway without a permit rather than inside their own premeses...
it is easy to assume even something as ridiculous as what was originally posted. It is good to get the true story.
While it might be against halacha to play music during the Nine Days (yes, there are different minhagim, and also different interpretations of what is considered prohibited music in regards to the Nine Days), as far as I know there are no laws against it in the legal books of Israel (other than wedding halls being shut down, and I dont think that is a law rather a directive from the Rabbanut kashrut authorities)...
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Labels:
Mahane Yehuda,
music,
nine days,
totd
Halacha Headlines: 7/18/26 – Shiur 568 – The Battle Over Mixed-Gender Combat Units in the IDF (audio)
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gender-segregation,
IDF,
podcast,
video
Former Prime Minister Bennett on CNN: "We'll Do the Job. We Need America's Back" (video)
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Naftali Bennet,
video
Jerusalem on the evening of July 9. Cool vibes and atmosphere at the Mahane Yehuda Market. (video)
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Labels:
Jerusalem,
Mahane Yehuda,
video
This May Just Change Your Life (video)
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Labels:
9 av,
Beis Hamikdash,
video
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