The police have now extended their ban, based on security concerns rather than pure legality, against Jewish prayer to not just be when on Har Habayit, but also now when anywhere near Har Habayit, including the Moslem Quarter of the Old City.

Rest assured, the police say it is fine to daven and do Jewish things at the Kotel and in the Jewish Quarter.

Thank you for that, by the way. Thank you for confirming that we are still allowed to pray at the Kotel and in the Jewish Quarter.

The police claimed in court that Jewish prayer in the Moslem Quarter is a provocation. And the courts accepted the claim.
source: NRG
At this point they might as well just say that Jewish prayer anywhere in Israel, Jewish presence even, is a provocation as the Arabs want us out and our prayer and mere existence in the area provokes them to violence, and therefore we should be banned from acting Jewish anywhere in the Middle East. After all, it is a provocation.

I don't wan to sound more upset that we cannot daven in the Moslem Quarter than that they already have not allowed us to daven or even say a bracha on a bottle of water, as davening in the Moslem Quarter is far less important to me and seemingly less significant. However, it seems to exacerbate the ridiculousness of the situation.

this is fascinating. in the sifting project that sifts through the dirt and rubble removed from the Temple Mount area by the Arabs, archaeologists have discovered pieces of marble flooring. After dating them and piecing them together, they realize they have discovered tiles from the floor of the Second Temple!

the tiles the pieced together indicate there were [at least] three different designs of tiles used in the Temple areas:





source: Walla, TOI

Rav Mazuz recently announced an interesting psak. The main part of the psak is actually nothing new, but he did add a couple of factors into it that make it noteworthy for me.

The Sefardi psak in general is that weddings do not include "yichud rooms". The kinyan is made at the chupa and after the couple goes home and has their yichud at home. Rav Mazuz stressed that this is the correct halacha, and so should be in practice.

Rav Mazuz added three points:
1. the yichud room minhag has been forced upon many sefardi communities and that is wrong.
2. the result of the yichud room is pritzus, as he calls it. His explanation is that the friends are hanging around outside the room and commenting and joking about how long they are in yichud for. It seems that this is pritzus. He also adds that it creates a problem as after yichud she would have to cover her hair according to all opinions, and many don't or it is not even realistic to demand that at the wedding, so she goes out to dance and party with her married hair uncovered.
3. Ashkenazim as well should not have a yichud room, according to halacha.
source: Srugim

The first point, I agree with (as if he needs my agreement). People should follow their own minhag, until a unified minhag is formed (which isn't going to happen so quickly), and sefardim should not feel pressured by their ashkenazi peers to perform ashkenazi minhagim.

The second point - I don't see it as pritzus, but ok. And there are a lot of opinions as to when a married women has to cover her hair by the wedding - before, during or after. His comment is important, but it is only one of the various opinions.

The third point is unusual an dI did not see a justification for him to say that Ashkenazim should also not have the yichud room. I guess it is because of the pritzus and the hair issue, but, again, each according to his minhag, until a unified minhag is formed.

the "Shabbat Hayom" guy strikes again... he is definitely determined and persistent...

This mess with the train lines, Shabbos and the politicians involved is still difficult to make sense of. Who did what and who knew what, and which conflicting story to believe...

Another question that has come to mind is how this compares with any work done during the days a Haredi minister was in charge of signing off on similar work permits.

Recently Aryeh Deri was the minister in charge, for a period of time, of signing off on such permits. I have not heard anybody in the news,  be it Haredi news media or secular news media, ask if Deri signed off on similar work permits in those days, nor does it seem anyone has looked into it to find out whether that happened or not. Officials in Rakevet Yisrael keep saying that the same type of work has been done on Shabbos for decades, always with permits. The Haredi politicians keep saying if that si true it was kept secret and nobody ever knew about it (though I am not sure how such a thing can be kept secret).

So, where are the people who should be looking into whether or not such work permits were issued during Deri's days as minister? Maybe he refused them, maybe he approved them, or maybe they did not exist. I think this would be a good barometer to determining what was known by whom and when.

And one more thought, Minister Yaakov Litzman has done a lot of great work in the Health Ministry, to the point where the Haredi parties have seen unprecedented popularity and favorable ratings among the general public. Even to the point that Litzman himself has been called the national sweetheart. That status is seriously at risk right now with the train fight raging. It shows how fickle the public really is - do something good for them, and they love you. Do something they don't like and they forget the rest very quickly.

We’re living under Israeli occupation,, but to be honest with you we’ve never seen anything like this from the Israeli soldiers

  -- Abdullah Halawa, brother of Palestinian police officer brutally killed by Palestinian security forces after being accused of plotting to murder two other offices, as quoted by the New York Times

weird segula. I can't tell if he is serious or joking..