This is interesting. And enlightening.

לויפט צו שחרית pic.twitter.com/xDOLzhnXGz

— Hasidic_3 (@Hasidic_3) November 7, 2021

so many good jokes, just look at the replies to this clip..

While Life in Israel remains a fan and supporter of Israeli Orthodox Mother Of Five world-class runner Beatie Deutsch, you would be mistaken to think that she is the only world-class runner coming out of Israel. She is the only frum mother of five world-class runner, but not the only runner. She is not even the top Israeli [female] runner, but she is in the top group in our book!


Israeli runner Lona Chemtai Salpeter won female 1st place in the Tokyo Marathon this morning, and even better is that her finishing time was world-class. Lona set a new women's record for that course, running at 2:17:45. Only five women ever have run faster times than Lona in a full marathon, and Lona's finish time is 8th best women's time ever.


Congrats Lona. If Beatie can't be in the Tokyo Olympics because of the changed date to Shabbos, at least Israel is still well-represented..

You can watch the final moments of Lona's race and of her crossing the finish line from about the 3:56 marker..

any new immigrants here?

According to JPost, the Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Lion, is inviting all new immigrants from within the past year to run in the Jerusalem Marathon for free. Another reason to make aliyah!

To take advantage of this you don't have to run the full marathon of 42.2km. You can join in a fun and lovely experience on the streets of the great city of Jerusalem with thousands of other people and run shorter distances such as 5km, 10km, or 21.1km, and even shorter distances, if that is more realistic for you, all for free. It costs you nothing to go out and have a great time at a great event!

According to JPost:

Moshe Lion, mayor of Jerusalem, announced on Monday that new immigrants to Israel will be able to run for free in the Jerusalem Winter Marathon. The move was made to encourage more immigrants to participate in the largest sporting event in Israel.
"Participants are running together in the Jerusalem Marathon, all of Israel, including the new immigrants. Those that immigrated within the last year are invited to run without paying fees. To the new immigrants- I am proud and excited to host you in the Jerusalem Marathon." said Lion.

Immigrants that immigrated to the country between January 1, 2019, and March 20, 2020 will be able to register and run for free.

Registration for the 2020 winter marathon will end on March 14, with six different kinds of options for the participants to chose from. Options include a full marathon (42.2 km), a half-marathon (21.1 km) a 10 km race, 5 km race, a family marathon (1.7 km), and a community marathon (800 m). The race itself is scheduled to take place on March 20.

I don't know how you get that discount. Maybe during registration on the Jerusalem Marathon website there is a place you can include your aliya information and then the price gets cut to 0. Or maybe ti is automatic. To register in Israel you need to put your teudat zehut number in. Perhaps it automatically identifies your immigration date and gives you the free promo.

Walla News is reporting that the authorities, led by the Ministry of Health, is considering canceling the Tel Aviv Marathon scheduled for this Friday, due to fear of the Corona Virus and travelers entering Israel for the marathon.

The issue was raised in a discussion today among authorities among a list of possible measures to be taken to prevent the spread of Corona.

The Tel Aviv Marathon event draws about 40,000 participants among the variety of races, plus police, MDA and members of other organizations securing the event.

According to the report, the authorities will weigh the chance of people who might have been exposed to and possibly carrying the virus and the risk it presents to the event participants, versus the event itself.

Various health professionals are quoted as saying this needs to be taken seriously but the decision should be weighed carefully. And the concern is not being exaggerated.

It sounds exaggerated to me, though obviously if the risk is real canceling would be the right move. It seems more like the common CYA method of making decisions here. Sort of like back when a runner in the half marathon of Tel Aviv about 6 or 7 years ago died from heat stroke and then for the next couple of years they made all runners sign waivers and take stress tests, until they somehow realized they were being stupid. Hopefully the risk won't be significant, and they'll determine that the events can proceed as planned.

Beatie Deutsch, AKA Speedy Beatie, seems to be dropping out of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Unfortunately, The Olympic schedule changed and the marathon that had been scheduled to be run on Sunday has been moved back to Saturday. Beaities announced the change in a post on her social media accounts and that she would have to drop out of the race because of it. Unless, she could get them to change it back.

Beatie's post on FB:



According to the BBC, the reason the date was changed is because of a location change. Being the new location of the marathon, in Sapporo Park which is 500 miles north of Tokyo, they changed the entire range of events from August 2 to August 6-9, with the women's marathon on August 8.

I don't see them changing the schedule for one person. If, however, it can become a movement, with many people talking about it and contacting them and the issue of religious freedom being raised and they can be seen as being more inclusive, then perhaps it might be worth their consideration.

The Press Office for the IOC Media team can be reached at pressoffice@olympic.org . I do not know if they are the right people for this, but I looked around the IOC site and could not find any more specific contact for any administrative team that might deal with this. If someone else knows, please share.

I recommend writing or calling the relevant Olympic committees to protest the change and request changing it back so our religious representative can participate. And if they refuse to, we will be proud that our representative stays true to her ideals.

Congrats again to "Speedy Beatie" Beatie Deutsch on winning another [half] marathon, this time representing Israel in Riga...

Beatie kept Shabbos and put on a better show than Eurovision, and specifically Israel's representative at Eurovision...

Winner of the Tet Riga Marathon 21km race is BEATIE DEUTSCH 1:17:34! #RunYourGold pic.twitter.com/E3jU0XkFZZ

— Tet Riga Marathon (@TetRigaMarathon) May 19, 2019

a lot of people are complaining about the Giro D'Italia bike race happening in Israel right now.

The Giro D'Italia is one of the 3 prominent bike races in the world and for the first time ever they are starting the race outside the borders of Europe, specifically in Israel.

The 2 [main] complaints are:
1. Shabbos shouldn't take a hit for a cycling event, perhaps especially for a foreign event that really has nothing to do with us.
2. why should we be so inconvenienced by them with road closures and the like, especially as you can see by the numbers of people turning out to watch at the various stages, most people seem not to care too much about it.

Regarding Shabbos, I agree. chilul shabbos should not be excused for a cycling event. I am not sure how it is justified here and how the Haredi/Dati MKs let it happen with no significant protest. Perhaps because the chuilul shabbos was largely by non-Jews, with the police only securing the event as they are obligated to do as pikuach nefesh. I am not sure. It seems hard to justify, but it went down with nary a peep from the people in place to defend the honor of Shabbos, so perhaps they found a reason it is ok.

Regarding the logistics and social issues - that's part of living in a modern state. There are events that are deemed important enough that it is worth the governing authorities to close off roads or whatever else that is an inconvenience for some people. Sometimes it is a marathon or a cycling event, sometimes it is a commemoration of a local or global person worthy of recognition for something, sometimes it is a block party or a local business event or a hachnassat sefer torah or whatever.

These events are important. They raise awareness to whatever the event is honoring or recognizing. In this case, perhaps it raises awareness to the sport of cycling, and fitness in general. Maybe more people will take up cycling, or other forms of sport and exercise, and become healthier as a result. More than that, there is also world recognition of Israel and Jerusalem and the advancement of financial and commercial relationships with foreign companies and governments. And there are surely other important considerations. It is generally a minor inconvenience to the few for the greater good of the nation.

And, it is not fair to complain that so few people turn out to watch. With the first day of the event happening on a Friday, with a massive heat wave, perhaps people just didnt want to spend many hours standing outside in the oppressive heat. With the event also running through Shabbos, that left the entire religious public out of the picture. With Sunday being a ride from Beer Sheva to Eilat, that is a lot of empty land down south that just doesn't have enough people to be out there, and many probably dont want to spend hours going down south just to watch a few minutes of cyclists whizzing by for a few minutes. It also is not fair to compare the crowd turnouts in the tiny State of Israel, with little culture for such events to the millions that turn out for the race in countries like Italy and France and whatnot.

All that being said, it is worth noting that the Giro D'Italia race was founded by Italian biker Gino Bartali who helped save much of Italian Jewry during the Holocaust. Bartali was involved in saving some people directly, but he spent most of his time sneaking false documents and papers in the body of his bike under the guise of his training. Those papers saved thousands of Jews from falling prey to the Nazis. If you want more details, here is a BBC article about Gino Bartali, and it is easy enough to find more information about him and his efforts during the war. While his being a hero to the Jewish people does not justify chilul shabbos, honoring him does justify, along with the other justifications, a minor inconvenience of a few road closures and some traffic for a day or two.

Beatie came in at 3:09 at the Jerusalem Marathon, running as a frum woman and dressed tzanua, in a skirt, and she was even the first Israeli woman to finish! and look at her attitude..

I am not quite sure what they are actually threatening to do, but "the Haredim" are threatening to somehow shut down the Jerusalem Marathon this Friday if the yeshiva student arrested this past Sunday for being AWOL (as a follower of Rav Shmuel Auerbach and part of the "Peleg Hayerushalmi" he avoided all the IDF notices and did not even do the initial registration with the IDF) is not released immediately.

They seem to be particularly upset this time, as if the previous times boys were arrested they were not really so upset, because previous arrests were made randomly, when the authorities happened to stumble upon the relevant young man, while this time they planned his arrest and got him at home while he was out of yeshiva for Purim break after he successfully evaded the IDF arresting forces for over a year.

They consider this an escalation, though I am not sure why. Because they planned it and looked for this guy? I am not quite sure how somebody evades arrest for this for over a year. If he was learning in his yeshiva. How hard could it have been to find him?

Anyways, they say that with the marathon event requiring much of the city roads to be closed down anyway, and to prevent any disturbances they will have to deploy an immense number of police and security forces, along with dealing with traffic disruptions all over the country, and their protests will exasperate the disruption of traffic.

So, basically, they are saying they are going to hold some more protests at various major intersections in Jerusalem and in other cities around the country, and that will "seal the fate of the Jerusalem Marathon".
source: Ynetnews

Do they think the Israel Police does not have enough forces to deal with their additional disruptions? Even if their upcoming protest would be wildly successful, what fate would it seal for the marathon? Do they think the police will shut down the marathon because of some protest somewhere holding up traffic? The issue might be easily resolvable - divert some marathon runners, especially female ones, through the protests and have them cause some disruptions of their own...

They are a bunch of delusional loons who think they wield more power than they actually do.