the Haredi community of Tzfat is upset at the mayor (that they elected  - to remind you, if relevant, the Haredi community supported a secular mayor despite a Haredi mayor running in the recent electoral race).

the mayor has planned the first ever Ladino Festival in Tzfat. The festival will include a variety of performers performing throughout the city in a variety of performances, shows and workshops, including in the older part of the city that has a more Haredi population. The festival started yesterday and is running through Thursday.

According to Actualic, some rabbis in Tzfat have written the mayor a letter complaining about this breach of the status quo as such a festival has never before taken place and been held in the haredi neighborhood.

Interestingly, they see the status quo as such - they don't like the existing annual Klezmer Festival either, but don't complain about it because it has been going on for so long, but the status quo in existence is that no new festivals will be added. During the Klezmer Festival, many from the Haredi community plan to leave the city for those days. This is worse because the city is bringing singers, from around the world, some of whom are not Jewish and the Iryah brought them in to defile the city.

According to Kikar, tens of Haredim held a hafgana yesterday outside the mayor's home to protest the Ladino Festival. The mayor updated the Haredi city councilmen with information about events being planned specifically for the Haredi community over the summer vacation. I guess he knows he can buy quiet.

As always, status quo issues only ever work in one direction. And, I did not even see referenced any official status quo agreement. This one seems to be imaginary - just because the previous mayor did not organize any other festivals the community thinks now it is not allowed for anybody to do so.

There is a report about an event at which Rav Rafi Peretz, Minister of Education, officiated called the International Physics Olympiad.

3 boys and a girl won prizes at the event. Peretz is coming under criticism for not shaking the girls hand, though he shook the hands of the boys. Peretz has responded to the criticism by saying he was not familiar with the protocol of the event and because she was first, he just did not realize he was supposed to shake her hand. Presumably by the next winner he had been told or figured it out.

In defense of Minister Peretz, besides for the fact that I don't see this as a bad thing, considering he is a religious politician, he also comes from a rabbinical background, not a political one. He is not a seasoned politician, and he likely falls back on his rabbinics considering he does not yet have developed political senses.

Nobody would expect any of the Haredi politicians to shake hands with a girl, and they are careful not to in the Knesset and at State visits from foreign dignitaries and at their meetings with female professionals, and nobody says boo when they don't. Just because Rav Peretz is dati does not mean he has to compromise on those same ideals, if that is what he believes is right. Even if I think it is ok to shake hands with a woman in a professional setting, I accept that others do not.

Besides for all that, this is a contrived crisis. If you watch the video in the original report of this incident, you will see that the girl did not even extend her hand toward Peretz for a shake. He did not rebuff her attempt to shake hands. She did not stick out her hand, and he did not stick out his. This entire crisis is made up and turned from something completely insignificant into an attack.

You can see the video on Mako.

the news has been reporting this afternoon about a 35 year old man in Bet Shemesh who has been arrested for attacking a 10 year old girl, with possibly other victims as well.

Kikar has added that the fellow arrested is haredi.

Of course the story and incident are troubling and difficult and I wish her the best and if this guy is guilty he should get a nice long prison sentence. Besides for that, what is promising, and relieving, about this report is that it shows that parents are no longer sitting back and not report incidents because the rabbi said not to or because it is a child who cannot be believed or because it will hurt the alleged perpetrators family and/or parnassa. Parents are showing more concern for the children (than for the communal concerns pushed by the rabbis who dissuade people from reporting) and are now reporting to the police, and the Haredi news sites are reporting on these incidents as well, though I do not expect the printed newspapers to report anything about it. Change takes time, but it happens.

It is possible that this is just one isolated case and reporting is not really on the rise, but it seems that this is accepted and acceptable now. I dont see any criticisms of how it should not have been reported, and I think the feeling is since the incident a couple weeks ago in Modiin Ilit with the 7 year old girl that this cannot be covered up any longer.

Then again, it might just be wishful thinking

In light of the construction having begun at the entrance to the city of Jerusalem that will keep the main entrance to the city closed to private vehicles for [at least] the coming 3 years...this post by Sivan Rahav Meir gets the FSotD

We will not participate and lend a hand to turning Israel into a halachic State. If there is a need to have work on Shabbos - it will happen. There will be work on Shabbos so as not to hurt the tens of thousands of soldiers and citizens who need to use the trains. This is not any breach in any way of the existing status quo.

  -- Minister of Science and Technology Ofir Akunis

Akunis joined the increasing voices from within the Likud talking openly about allowing work and/or public transportation on Shabbos, despite the Likud relationship with its natural coalition partners (ie the religious and Haredi parties) being diametrically opposed to such policies. And, this is in direct opposition to Netanyahu telling his people, the Likud MKs and Ministers, at an election rally yesterday to not talk about the "medinat halacha" issue anymore in any way. Despite what Netanyahu ordered yesterday, Akunis spoke about this just this morning.

While I am not sure if Likud policy has changed or not, they are definitely speaking differently in public. If this continues, at some point the voices will get too loud for the Haredi/religious parties to ignore.

this is interesting...

A Dati Leumi conference, organized by the Binyan Shalem organization, for women only did not allow any images of women at the conference. At the conference for women. These women stood there looking at each other and sitting next to each other and watching women speak, but anything printed could not have a woman's face on it.

The conference included lectures, shiurim and booths. The booths, selling clothes and other stuff, could not be adorned or decorated with images of women.
source: Srugim

This craziness has crazily spread to even more crazy applications. At a conference for women, only they could not see images of women in print!!

Avigdor Lieberman's new campaign ads is really a spoof on Donald Trump's presidential campaign "Make America Great Again". Avigdor Lieberman is campaigning to "Make Israel Normal Again"


ok. but with Rav Tau's new NOAM' party running a similarly-themed campaign, with the slogan "A Normal Nation In Our Land", it makes me wonder if perhaps Tau/Noam and Lieberman/Beyteynu will be merging or running together as a technical bloc...


Just joking. There is no way these two fit together. Funny though that they both want to make Israel "normal", each according to its own definition. What does "normal" mean to you? It is too subjective a word to be used so ambiguously...

Ehud Barak put out the following snarky election campaign video. The video does not discuss policies in any way but is a dig at Netanyahu who seems to never pay for himself but always has friends who pay for him. I like the snarkiness of the video.

The fiasco is that during the video, Barak pulls out his credit card to lecture Netanyahu. Barak did not bother getting a fake card, covering the number or turning it over. Thus, Barak exposed his actual credit card information to the entire world - or at least to the people who watch his videos. After realizing what happened, Barak was forced to cancel the card and have a new card issued. I can't wait to see how Netanyahu uses this fiasco in a coming response video.

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