SURPRISED? Abbas Party Official Admits: Conflict is About ‘Very Existence of Israel, not Borders’ and Kosher Cheeseburgers: Coming Soon to a Restaurant Near You By Rabbi Daniel Friedman and May dead ‘Zionists’ bodies’ be eaten by rats: Not hate speech, Twitter says and spreadsheet pains and suggestions and Russian Oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov, Flees to Israel & Gets Citizenship and The Portion of Bechukotai in the synagogue on Shabbat in Israel (different portion outside of Israel)
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
Muhammad Al-Lahham, a member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council, said in a May 15, 2022 show on Alghad TV (Egypt) that Fatah's conflict with Israel is about the very existence of Israel, and not about borders. He said that after being banished from 70 countries, the Jews had come to Palestine in order to "erase the truth" even though the Arab nation had never done them any harm. He said: "It is either us or them in this land." For more about Muhammad Al-Lahham, see MEMRI TV Clip No. 6840.
The MEMRI Lantos Project exposes anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in the Middle East region and Middle Eastern communities in the West with the aim of supporting legislation and educating media and the general public.
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
The Portion of Bechukotai
The entrance into the Land of Israel is preceded by specific instructions. The people of Israel are commanded to observe the laws of the Torah in order to survive in the land. The laws of nature in Israel are directly intertwined with the level of observance of the commandments. "If you follow my commandments…" (Leviticus 26;3), then "I will give rain in its appropriate time" (26;4).
The rain that falls is conditioned upon the observance of the commandments. In the event that the people of Israel do not observe the commandments they will suffer the Almighty's punishments. G-d's wrath will stop the rain and bring terrible plagues upon the people.
Despite the fact that the expression "charon af" (wrath) is not found in these verses, it is alluded to in the unique letters found in the verse "even I will do this" (Leviticus 26;17) which begins with the word "af".
(Remazei Yoel)
In addition, the entire section of the curses is full of these specially curved letters "pei".
Russian Oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov, Flees to Israel & Gets Citizenship
Edited by: TJVNews.com
Jewish Russian billionaire and former owner of NBA team the Brooklyn Nets, Mikhail Prokhorov, has made Aliyah and became an Israeli citizen, according to a report on Monday on the Ynet.com web site.
Having arrived in Israel several days ago on a private jet from Switzerland, the 56-year old businessman and former owner of the Brooklyn Nets basketball team, is seeking Israeli citizenship. Currently, Prokhorov owns the largest producer of gold in Russia. His estimated net worth is approximately $13.8 billion, according to the Ynet report. Prokhorov also tried his hand in politics, running unsuccessfully in the 2012 Russian presidential elections, when Putin regained the presidency after a stint as prime minister, according to a Times of Israel report.
The report indicated that Prokhorov maintains a close alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Unlike other Russian oligarchs, the Ynet report said that Western sanctions have not been imposed him as Russia's war on Ukraine rages on unabated. The relationship between the two Russian oligarchs deteriorated subsequent to the launch of his presidential bid. Despite qualifying he did not oppose the Russian leader but only offered himself as an alternative, as was reported by Ynet.
The Ynet report also said that since he touched down in the Holy Land, Prokhorov has filed all the requisite paperwork to become an Israeli citizen. Under the country's Law of Return, Jews, their immediate family and grandchildren have the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship, the report added.
The Jerusalem Post reported that Prokhorov received citizenship after passing eligibility tests conducted by Nativ, an independent administrative unit at the Prime Minister's Office responsible for checking aliyah eligibility for Jews born in former Soviet countries.
Prokhorov has played a key role in the proliferation of electric vehicles in Russia and is a co-founder of Russian hybrid electric car venture Yo-Mobile, according to the Ynet report. An article that recently appeared in the New York Post indicated that Prokhorov relinquished his ownership of the Brooklyn Nets with is an NBA franchise due to large part to pressure applied on him by Putin. The Ynet report said that Putin's pressure on him was "kind of a litmus test for loyalty in the face of Western sanctions following Moscow's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014."
Prokhorov owned the Brooklyn Nets for a decade; from 2009 to 2019.
In 2016, tensions grew between Prokhorov and Putin when the former's media group known as Onexim published details pertaining to shady financial dealings involving Putin's son-in-law. In response, the tax authorities and the federal police raided the company's offices, according to the Ynet report.
Forbes Magazine listed Prokhorov as the 193rd richest person in the world.
Kosher Cheeseburgers: Coming Soon to a Restaurant Near You
Imagine a world where every restaurant was kosher. Every McDonalds. Every KFC. Every Pizza Hut. Not to mention all the finest dines. That's impossible, right? You must be talking about some future utopian era.
No. It's real. And it's happening very soon.
In 2002, NASA began developing technology to produce meat in a laboratory by cloning other meat cells. Scientists theorized that a piece of steak could be produced without ever killing a cow. That way, astronauts living on the space station could eat meat to their hearts' delight without the need to import all their food from planet Earth.
When the news first broke, I received a shayla: If it didn't come from a cow, would the beef be fleishig or pareve? Simply put, were we about to taste the very first kosher cheeseburger? I researched the matter and presented my findings to the RJJ Journal of Halacha and Contemporary Society. A few weeks later, I received the response: they weren't interested in publishing science fiction.
I wasn't surprised. After all, it's a journal of "contemporary," not "future" society. Fair enough.
But then, six months later, I received another letter from the journal editor. They'd decided to publish my piece. Just one condition: The editorial committee had requested the addition of a paragraph at the end of the article opining that it was highly improbable that kashrus agencies would ever approve of the concept of pareve meat. I agreed and the article was published.
That was 2007. And for the next five years, the halachic world paid little attention to the issue. But then, all of a sudden, the "science fiction" started picking up momentum. As environmentalists realized the potential benefit of mass-produced cow-free beef, investment in the new technology accelerated. And the poskim began to take notice. Over the last decade, the responsa on the issue have proliferated, with more and more rabbis weighing in on the kashrus and status of man-made meat.
Recently, a new approach has emerged, however, that may be a game-changer. In order to appreciate what has shifted, let's review the process of lab-produced meat. Basically, we take a single meat cell and place it in a vegetable culture. It then divides and reproduces itself. Those two cells then become four, and so on and so forth, until you have millions of copies of the original cell. And so if the original cell was extracted from a cow rib, you could reproduce a rib, simply by multiplying the cells.
Is it fleishig? Back in 2007, I suggested that maybe it could be pareve, because it's essentially plant based. But technically speaking, if it was a meat cell that multiplied, then presumably it's still a meat cell.
Here's where the new technology gets interesting. What if I wanted to create a piece of chicken? I could take a cell from some chicken and reproduce it. But I'd still have the same problem. Chicken times chicken is still chicken. But let's say we extracted the cell from an egg. An egg contains all the same DNA as a chicken, and yet it is pareve! And so we could create a pareve chicken from an egg! Which, of course, puts a whole new spin on the "which came first" conundrum.
This next bit gets a little complicated. Certain rabbis in Israel recently issued a ruling that applies a similar framework to animals. Many of us may be familiar with the concept that during the first forty days of pregnancy, in certain situations we consider the fetus "as water." In other words, it is not yet considered a living human being. A similar concept may be applied to animals in their pre-embryonic (blastocyst) stage.
Let's remind ourselves that certain animal products are meat. And others are dairy. Thus, it should not come as a surprise to learn that certain by-products – specifically waste-products – are deemed inedible and therefore pareve. The rabbinic ruling issued this week declared that pre-embryonic cells fall under this category.
Now think of the possibilities that creates. If, sometime in the near future, all beef was grown in a laboratory from pre-embryonic cells, it could all be kosher and pareve!
But how about pork? While the declaration did not address the question of non-kosher animals, suggestions have been made that the same approach might apply.
Nevertheless, most major poskim – including the leading voice on the issue Rav Asher Weiss – are opposed to the concept of pareve beef, let alone pork. And so despite all the media attention the recent responsum has received, don't expect to eat a cheeseburger anytime soon.
Rabbeinu Bahya (Vayikra 11:4) cites what he deems a incorrect belief that the pig is called "chazir" because in the messianic era, it will return to the side of holiness and become kosher. But maybe it's not so far-fetched, after all. For now, based on today's science, the poskim have ruled it out. But the technology is ever evolving and advancing rapidly. Perhaps we are closer than we think.
May dead 'Zionists' bodies' be eaten by rats: Not hate speech, Twitter says
Enass Karimeh, the Lebanese journalist who called for Zionists to be eaten by rats (Instagram/Screen grab
Israeli Twitter user says tech giant's staff told him tweet calling for Zionist bodies scattered in the streets and consumed by rats doesn't violate hate speech policy.
By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
A prominent Lebanese journalist who called for the mass slaughter of Zionists and for their dead bodies to be consumed by rats in the streets did not violate Twitter's hate speech policy, according to an Israeli user who reported the remarks.
"Scatter the bodies of the Zionists everywhere, so it is not said that the rats are hungry in Palestine," Lebanon24 journalist Enass Karimeh wrote on Twitter last week.
"May God strengthen your fight," she added, alongside an emoji of a Palestinian flag.
Ohad Merlin, a pro-Israel advocate and social media influencer, wrote on Twitter that he had raised concerns about the tweet's hateful content but was then informed that Karimeh's remarks fall into the realm of acceptable speech on the platform.
"Hello @Twitter," Merlin tweeted, including a screenshot and translation of Karimeh's tweet.
"This verified user just called to scatter me and my friends' dead bodies so that rats would eat them. I tried reporting the tweet along with a few friends, but your kind-hearted team held that it does not violate terms of use. So what exactly ARE your terms of use?"
Merlin's observation that the user is verified on Twitter is significant. The blue checkmark on a user's profile confirming that Twitter confirmed the true identity of the account holder indicates that the person is important enough that the social media site has taken steps to ensure the account is legitimate.
For example, celebrities have a blue checkmark next to their names so that fans aren't fooled into believing an impostor profile is really the public figure it purports to represent. The fact that Karimeh is verified on Twitter means that she has made significant contributions to the media world, at least in her native Lebanon.
Twitter's apparent refusal to intervene when it comes to speech that is hateful to Zionists, Israelis, and Jews calls to mind a recent report about another social media giant's refusal to acknowledge antisemitic content.
Hassan Khaled, an Egyptian-born consultant whose employing firm was retained by YouTube to screen Arabic-language content on the platform, said he was forced out of his job after raising the alarm about videos promoting terror and antisemitism.
