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As long as deep in the heart the soul of a Jew yearns, and looks forward to the East with an eye to Zion, our hope will not be lost, the hope of two thousand years, to be a free nation in our land, The land of Zion and Jerusalem. כהנא צדק
(IsraelNN.com) The police and army have issued orders banning three Shomron Jews from their homes for three to four months. The explanation: "Your presence in the area represents a danger to the public order."
Various press reports state that the reason for the temporary expulsion is that the three might "disturb the Arab olive harvest." However, one of the three, Akiva HaCohen of Yitzhar, told IsraelNationalNews that this has nothing to do with the truth. "The olive harvest season begins only at the end of my four-month expulsion," he said.
(IsraelNN.com) Dr. Uri Davis, who has often termed Israel an "apartheid state" and refused to serve in the IDF, converted to Islam about a week ago and married a Fatah activist in Ramallah. The conversion ceremony involved two oaths in which Davis recognized Allah and the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Davis said he plans to follow the laws of Islam, but not devoutly.This is exactly why I say the true Zionist revolution is inevitable. These leftist piles of dung either don't reproduce at all, make yuridah, or convert to islam. When the dust settles, religious Zionists and rightwing Zionist nationals will be all that remains to hold the fort simply by attrition.
The conversion took place in a Moslem religious court in Baka el-Garbiye, an Israeli-Arab town just outside northwestern Samaria (Shomron).
Davis's lawyer explained that the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority know him for his great sacrifices on behalf of the "Palestinian problem" and the "realization of their rights." He noted that the consent of the Arab woman and her family to the marriage to a Jewish activist is an "admirable social development."
Ynet News: In the last 13 years, 301 women from Bat Yam who became undesirably impregnated and asked to terminate their pregnancies, decided to give birth at the last minute even though they knew that were to endure economic distress and difficulties in raising the child. Who or what caused them to change their minds?
Yedioth Bat Yam discovered the underground activities of an association led by Refael Barnaz, who is in charge of the welfare portfolio at the Bat Yam Municipality.
The group convinces women in distress not to give up on their pregnancies. The association promises to economically assist, to provide apartments, emotional rehabilitation and more all in the name of the heavens above and increased birthrates.
“A few years ago, someone told me about this 17-year-old girl who got pregnant by my friend and wanted to have an abortion because she was terrified that her parents would know she was pregnant,” said Barnaz about one of the cases after his activities were revealed.
“I met with her boyfriend, who was a soldier and he wasn’t prepared to listen to me and even warned me that if she ends up giving birth, he is out of the picture because his parents cannot know about this.
“When she entered her seventh month, one of the association’s donors agreed to contribute the wedding costs,” said Barnaz excitedly. “They got married and had a son and today they have three children.”
Former Knesset Member Yael Dayan said in response that “it is atrocious to make a woman do something by economic enticement and by instilling the fear that if they have an abortion, bad things will happen, despite the fact that they decided the opposite.
“This is a process supported by religious groups in order to scare women under the guise of motherhood and show them how good they will have it and how important this is and that they are actually saving them.”
A senior official in the municipality’s welfare department said, “If a woman has already come to sit in front of the pregnancy termination committee and some person comes and successfully convinces her or her husband to quickly alter their decision by promising them the world, it doesn’t sound serious to me. It isn’t right and it isn’t fair.”
Ynet: President Shimon Peres, who is celebrating his 85th birthday, has a non-militaristic solution to both the Iranian threat and global terror – developing alternate energies.
In a meeting with representatives of the students' village in the town of Dimona on Thursday, Peres said "today we face the problem of terror and Iran. The problem itself is like a swamp with mosquitoes. It's preferable to dry out the swamp than try to kill every single mosquito.
"When the price of oil rises, the terrorist organizations feel better; this feeling needs to be brought back down. The way to bring Iran, Venezuela and even Russia in some respects down is to lower the price of oil. Attacking oil fields is foolish. We can attack with energy, meaning create alternative energy".
J-Post: The cabinet decision to approve the release of some 200 security prisoners faced wide-spread criticism on Sunday.
"Instead of adopting a resolute stance against terrorism, the Kadima-Labor government continues to release hundreds of prisoners in return for nothing," said opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu. The Likud would "replace weakness with an uncompromising aggressive policy toward terrorism," he said.
Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai warned that the cabinet's decision jeopardized the chances of freeing captures IDF soldier Gilad Schalit.
Israel Beiteinu MK Yisrael Hasson said "the government insists on 'fixing' the damage it causes by inflicting significantly more damage," and that "a government that had not given in to Hizbullah and Hamas demands in the past would not have to give in to Fatah today by releasing prisoners in return for nothing."
Other right-wing MKs also blasted the cabinet decision, tying it into their recurring theme of a "government at the end of its road." MK Eli Gabai (National Union-National Religious Party) expressed outrage at the decision, saying the government was "defying common sense and the trust of Israeli citizens."
"This government, which has reached the end of the road both physically and morally, is releasing the prisoners in exchange for nothing, continuing to jeopardize Israeli citizens' security time and again," Gabai said.
"The government should be reminded that the homes of the terrorists who carried out the tractor attacks in Jerusalem have yet to be destroyed, and they are already hurrying to release the next tractor drivers," he said.
Likud faction chairman MK Gideon Sa'ar said the decision "crushes the public's faith that murderers and terrorists will receive their due punishment, and will harm Israeli citizens' security and the efforts to release Gilad Schalit. One can only imagine how the 'free' release of more than 200 terrorists will impact the level of demands that Hamas will put forward." Meir Indor and Dr. Aryeh Bachrach of the Almagor Terrorist Victims Association oppose the release and said Sunday that they would embark on a street campaign.
Indor took the Shas ministers to task for not taking a firm enough stance against the release and threatened to make it a campaign issue.
PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad welcomed the gesture, but said Israel should release even more prisoners.
"This is a positive step," said a senior PA official in Ramallah. "But we are continuing to insist that Israel must release all the Palestinian prisoners from its jails. This is the only way to move forward with the peace process."
(IsraelNN.com) Dozens of activists gathered Tuesday morning at northern Jerusalem, in order to establish a new Jewish neighborhood in the Arab neighborhood of Shuafat. But despite the legality of the activity, the police prevented the Jews from entering the location and arrested activists.
"Instead of enforcing the law you are becoming a criminal police force," MK Aryeh Eldad (NU/NRP) shouted at the officers. "You should have been fighting for the Jews' right to reach their lands and instead you are a criminal police force," he repeated.
MK Effie Eitam (NU/NRP) added: "I know many Arab families that live in the heart of the Jewish French Hill neighborhood, they're renting a home, and nothing happens to them. What we're seeing here is the second division of Jerusalem – once they divide Jerusalem with the separation fence, and now, even what is inside the socalled Jewish part of Jerusalem is being divided by declaring that there are places here to which Jews have no access."
The property that is planned to become the “East Gate” Jewish neighborhood was purchased more than thirty years ago by a Jew who lives today outside of Israel and was taken over by Arab squatters over the years. Aryeh King, a Jerusalem activist, received power of attorney to retrieve the land in the name of the owners.
(IsraelNN.com) The fast of Tisha B'Av, the "saddest" day in the Jewish calendar, begins on Saturday night as the Sabbath ends, and ends Sunday evening at sundown. Its name literally means "the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av," the date of some of the gravest tragedies to have befallen the Jewish People. Most notably, both Holy Temples in Jerusalem were destroyed on Tisha B'Av, but the list of calamities includes also the following:
- G-d decreed, following the Sin of the Spies as recounted in Numbers 13-14, that the Children of Israel would not be allowed to enter the Land of Israel until the entire generation had died out.
- The fall of Beitar, the last fortress to hold out during the Bar Kochba revolt in the year 135 C.E., fell to the Romans, marking the last milestone in the beginning of our current Exile. A year later, the Temple area was plowed under.
- The Jews of Spain were expelled by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.
- World War I erupted in 1914.
- The Jews of Gush Katif spent their last legal day in their homes in 2005, and were expelled three days later.
"Secular Jews for the Temple"
The centerpiece of Tisha B'Av mourning is the destruction of the Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash). Among the many groups that have sprouted over the past several years promoting awareness of the Beit HaMikdash is one named "Secular Jews for the Temple."
Ahuvyah Tabenkin of left-wing Kibbutz Ein Harod said, "It's true that we don't exactly represent a majority of secular Kibbutz members... but the pioneers have always been a minority: the Zionists were a minority among the Jews, those who came to the Land were a minority among the Zionists, those who worked the land were also a minority, and now we are a minority as well. But I hope that soon we will be the leaders."
Tabenkin has nationalist, political and historical reasons why the Temple and the Temple Mount are important. Asked if he has religious considerations as well, Tabenkin told Arutz-7's Ariel Kahane, "Well, the word 'religious' can be the subject of long discussions. Look, the Gerrer Rebbe once said, 'When the Haskalah [Enlightenment] came to the world, with science, physics, etc., we [the religious] left it for the secular Jews; when Zionism came to the world, we gave that too to the secular; and now we have also left the Repentance Movement for the secular.' Accordingly, it looks like we [the secular] will also have to build the Beit HaMikdash."
Asked whether he calls for the actual construction of the Temple, he said, "There are many religious authorities, including Maimonides, who say that the Temple must be rebuilt, and so I think it should be done... As a first step, we must show that we control the Temple Mount... I call upon all of Israel to come to the Mount on [Tisha B'Av] and show that it belongs to the Jewish nation."
Prominent rabbis permit the ascent to parts of the Temple Mount after certain Halakhic precautions have been taken.
Tisha B'Av Laws
The Sages enacted Yom Kippur-like restrictions on Tisha B'Av, including no eating, drinking, washing, or marital relations. Leather shoes are not worn, and even Torah study - a major source of Jewish joy - is restricted to topics connected with the Destruction of the Temples, Tisha B'Av, and the like.
Though the afternoon before Tisha B'Av is generally marked by mourning-like practices, this is not true this year, when the eve of Tisha B'av is on the Sabbath. The afternoon Third Meal is larger than usual, as it will be the last meal for over 24 hours, and the usual Sabbath songs are sung. However, one must not eat after sundown on Sabbath, even though the Sabbath has not yet ended.
When three stars have appeared, the "short Havdalah" is recited ["Blessed is He Who separates between Sabbath and weekdays"], and Tisha B'Av officially begins; leather shoes are removed and unlaundered weekday clothes are worn. The evening prayer service is followed by one of the Havdalah blessings, that of "light," and Eichah (Book of Lamentations) is read aloud.
The other Havdalah blessings are recited on Sunday evening before eating; the blessing on spices is not recited at all this week. Those who feel they must eat on Tisha B'Av for health reasons should consult an Orthodox rabbi.
Shabbat Shalom, and may you have an easy fast on Tisha B'av!
-MZ
Ynet: Despite his upcoming resignation and sensitive political status, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met Wednesday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the PM's official residence in Jerusalem.
During the meeting, Israel announced that it would release several Palestinian prisoners as a gesture to Abbas by the end of August. The Palestinian requested that the released prisoners include former Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Saadat, one of the masterminds behind the killing of Minister Rehavam Ze'evi.
Israeli officials refused to name or provide the number of prisoners to be released. However, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israel agreed to release a total of 150 prisoners.
Masei, 33: 50-53, 55-56: God spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan, at Jericho, saying: Speak to the Children of Israel and say to them: When you cross the Jordan to the land of Canaan, you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the Land before you; and you shall destroy all their prostration stones; all their molton images shall you destroy; and all their high places shall you demolish. You shall possess the Land and you shall settle in it, for to you have I given the Land to possess it ... But, if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the Land before you, those of you whom you leave shall be pins in your eyes and throns in your sides, and they will harass you upon the Land in which you dwell. And it shall be that what I had meant to do to them, I shall do to you.
(IsraelNN.com) Archaeologists have unearthed proof of another Biblical story at Jerusalem's ancient City of David, this time corroborating the Book of Jeremiah.
A completely intact seal impression, or "bula", bearing the name Gedaliahu ben Pashur was uncovered. The bula is actually a stamped engraving made of mortar.
Gedaliahu ben Pashur's bula was found a bare few meters away from the site where a second such seal, this one belonging to Yuchal ben Shlemiyahu, an elder in the court of King Tzidkiyahu, was found three years ago, at the entrance to the City of David.
According to Professor Eilat Mazar of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, who led the dig, the ancient Hebrew letters "are very clearly preserved." The seal impression was found in clay, she said.
In the Book of Jeremiah (38:1-4), both men were ministers to King Tzidkiyahu, who reigned from 597-586 BCE. The two, along with another pair demanded the death penalty for the prophet Jeremiah in response to his plea for the king to surrender the city to the oncoming hordes of the Babylonian conqueror Nebuchadnezzer.