Cohen – dressed as the even more fearless Morad – showed off some top-notch Israeli technology: a tunnel detection wand that has been repurposed to sniff out pedophiles...Next Stop Brooklyn, New York...

Sacha Baron Cohen's 'Erran Morad' continues to shock- No shortage of Idiots on the Planet!

 

Character sings 'Yerushalayim Shel Zahav' on screen and humiliates senate candidate Roy Moore with pedophile-catching Israeli technology.

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  Roy Moore: Sasha Baron Cohen tricked me with Israel award
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  Sacha Baron Cohen exploits Americans' fetishization of Israel

Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Erran Morad’ continues to shock and humiliates senate candidate Roy Moore. 

Is there anything Col. Erran Morad can’t do?

Considering he’s a fictional IDF officer – or a Mossad agent, depending on his mood – Morad can get away with saying and doing just about anything.

In fact, the ending credits of each episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s new Showtime series Who is America? include the disclaimer “nothing in this series should be considered factual.”

But on the third episode of the show, which aired on Sunday evening, Morad continued to say and do outrageous things, while the men around him don’t seem to bat an eyelash.

And as buzz around the show climbs, more people around the globe are tuning in to watch Cohen’s ludicrous Mossad character dupe public and private figures. Though just 327,000 people watched the premiere on Showtime two weeks ago, the online figures tell a different story. As of Monday, a clip of Morad convincing congressmen to endorse arming toddlers has been viewed 14 million times. The segments featuring Morad – a cocky, macho and ridiculous stereotype of an Israeli terrorism expert – have proved the show’s most successful.

On the third episode of the show, Morad met up with Roy Moore, the disgraced GOP Senate candidate who just barely lost his race last year after nine women accused him of sexual misconduct – several while they were minors.

Cohen reportedly lured Moore to the meeting with the promise of honoring him for his dedication to the State of Israel. In a statement earlier this month after learning he had been duped, Moore said he did not know he was taking part in something “planned to embarrass, humiliate, and mock not only Israel, but also religious conservatives.”

And when they sat down, the fearless Cohen – dressed as the even more fearless Morad – showed off some top-notch Israeli technology: a tunnel detection wand that has been repurposed to sniff out pedophiles.

Not surprisingly, the segment ends with Moore storming off set away from the beeping wand, after stating: “I support Israel, I don’t support this kind of stuff.”

But that wasn’t it for Morad’s presence in this episode; he returned in a truly cringe-inducing clip (that is, if you weren’t already cringing) that involved training three anti-immigration Trump supporters how to lure and trap Mexicans.

It was here that Morad dropped any pretense of logic or sense, since there seemed to be nothing he could do that would tip the men off – or deter them from their plot to deport immigrants.

That included having one of them dress up as a 15-year-old Mexican girl celebrating her Quinceañera, complete with underwear sporting a fake vagina “based on Gal Gadot.” None of the men seemed to blink an eye when Morad – dressed as a mariachi performer – began singing “Yerushalayim Shel Zahav.” The truth may have only begin to dawn on them when actual police officers showed up to the scene of their trap.

With four episodes remaining in the first season, there’s no doubt viewers will be seeing more of “Erran Morad.” And more targets will be ignorant enough to find his tough-guy Israeli act entirely believable.

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Culture/Sacha-Baron-Cohens-Erran-Morad-continues-to-shock-563776?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=30-7-2018&utm_content=sacha-baron-cohens-erran-morad-continues-to-shock-563776

Serious observers should know that it’s pointless for mortals to ponder whether their Creator moves around rocks, even the sacred ones of the Kotel, to send them messages...

When a rock falls in a plaza . . .

The Kotel rock was a case of a stone meeting gravity. But it was also used as an excuse for Jewish score-settling while allowing the Palestinians to explain again why peace is not in sight.


 For all those that attended a Haredi yeshiva and read YWN, MATZAV, and VIN, are man worshipers, and are fans of Avi Shafran:

( Gravity, or gravitation, is a natural phenomenon by which all things with mass or energy—including planets, stars, galaxies, and even light^[1]—are brought toward (or gravitate toward) one another. On Earth, gravity gives weight to physical objects, and the Moon's gravity causes the ocean tides. The gravitational attraction of the original gaseous matter present in the Universe caused it to begin coalescing, forming stars – and for the stars to group together into galaxies – so gravity is responsible for many of the large scale structures in the Universe. Gravity has an infinite range, although its effects become increasingly weaker on farther objects.)




Look for the (Triple K) KKK hashgacha on every authentic UOJ psak. Accept no substitutes! KOSHER - from corruption. KOSHER - from bribes. KOSHER from mattress gelt.

Rely only on the KKK. Our yarmulkes are black!

 In ancient times, people looked to portents involving the heavens and earthbound events in order to try to understand the baffling world in which we live, as well as to discern the will of their Creator. In the 21st century—armed with science, sophisticated technology and mass communication—we’re much smarter than that. Instead of pondering the stars, we now expect the fall of a loose rock in an old stone wall to explain it all. 

When a boulder that was part of the ancient Western Wall fell this past week, it was just a matter of gravity, the loosening most likely caused by vegetation that grows in the ancient structure, the debris that birds place into crevasses or an accumulation of moisture. But the crash of a 220-pound piece of rock was enough to set off a storm of commentary—some of it serious and some delivered with tongue firmly planted in cheek. All of it was designed to score points in the wars Jews fight among themselves, in addition to the one Palestinians still wage against Israel’s existence.

The Kotel is the last remnant of the retaining wall surrounding the Holy Temple in Jerusalem that was destroyed by the Romans in 70 C.E. As such, it is more than a historical monument; it is infused with holiness for people of faith. Sadly, that has also made it a battleground on which efforts to ensure or suppress Jewish religious pluralism has played out.

A large chunk of stone dislodged from the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City at the mixed-gender prayer section on July 25, 2018.

The rock fell into the area separated from the main Kotel plaza and in which a relatively small area has been set aside for egalitarian prayer. A plan to expand access to the area has been blocked by those who are offended by non-Orthodox prayer services. The ensuing controversy has angered many Jews in the Diaspora.

So it wasn’t surprising that some people claimed that the rock falling was a sign of heavenly favor or disfavor, made more profound since had it fallen a day earlier on Tisha B’Av—when the area was packed with thousands of worshippers—some people almost certainly would have been badly injured or even killed. Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Dov Kalmanovich of the right-wing Jewish Home Party said the non-Orthodox might be the reason for the incident, and that these “quarrelmongers examine themselves, not the Wall.”

In response, a U.S. Reform rabbi wondered, in what was clearly intended as sarcasm, whether instead the all had “spit out a stone” in protest against the passage of the Jewish nation-state law days earlier. More thoughtfully, Alden Solovy, a Reform teacher and blogger, invoked traditional teachings about Tisha B’Av by warning that perhaps the sinat chinam—or “senseless hatred” that helped destroy Jerusalem 2,000 years ago—is now undermining the stability of the Kotel.

But as is often the case, these Jewish internecine battles can obscure the war their enemies still wage against them. While the Orthodox and the non-Orthodox bicker about who can pray at the wall and where, the Palestinians are still denying that the site has anything to do with the Jews.

As Khaled Abu Toameh reported in The Jerusalem Post, Omar Kiswani, director of the Al-Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount, claimed that the loose rock was the result of Israeli archeological excavations aimed at toppling the entire plateau and destroying Muslim holy places. Yusef Natsheh, director of Islamic Archeology and Tourism on the Mount, chimed in by saying that the slab falling was clearly a “pre-planned test” carried out by the Jews in order to test the strength the walls of the mosques before destroying them.

The spokesperson for the Fatah Party that runs the Palestinian Authority also said that the rock’s fall was proof that Israel was trying to destroy the mosque. Not confining himself to conspiracy theories, Fatah’s Osama Qawasmeh, who works for P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas, made it clear that the Kotel prayer areas were the property of Muslims, not the Jews arguing about them.

“We affirm that al-Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings, including what is beneath it, are purely Islamic,” Qawasmeh said. “The Jews have no right to it.”

He also called the visits to the Temple Mount by Israelis a “crime,” even though Jewish tourists are forbidden to pray at the sacred site in a futile effort to mollify the Palestinians.

If all this sounds familiar, it should. Palestinian leaders have been spewing such falsehoods, which amount to a blood libel against Jews, for a century in order to stir up hate. The recent “stabbing intifada” was set off in no small measure by Abbas’s claims that “stinking Jewish feet” were profaning Jerusalem’s holy sites. A stabbing murder of a Jew this week may well have been directly inspired by the latest P.A. lies about the Temple Mount.

So while Jews fight each other over prayer at the Kotel, Palestinians continue to seek to deny all of them the right to be there. Even the supposed moderates of Fatah seem to want not just a Jew-free West Bank, but also a Jerusalem where Jews have no rights—whether they are Orthodox or non-Orthodox.

Serious observers should know that it’s pointless for mortals to ponder whether their Creator moves around rocks, even the sacred ones of the Kotel, to send them messages. 

 Rather, they should remember that it’s that the contemporary wars of the Jews against each other—like the battles that took place inside Jerusalem while the Romans besieged the city—that undermine the unity needed to defend the Jewish people against those who would harm them and deny them their ancient home.

Instead of using the rock as a weapon in a domestic squabble, this would be an apt moment for all Jews to stop trying to insult each other. And if it’s the only way for the message to get through, let’s say that God moved that stone in order to send them a reminder to behave themselves and understand that their enemies make no such distinctions when seeking to spill their blood.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS — Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

Republish this article in your newspaper o

https://www.jns.org/opinion/when-a-rock-falls-in-a-plaza/

Yisroel Belsky Had To Die Before The OU Could Stop This Incredibly Cruel Act of Avoidable tsa’ar ba’alei chayim... Belsky Was an Advocate of ‘Shackle and Hoist’ --- “Shackle and hoist” slaughter is almost twice as fast as other, less agonizing methods and allows slaughterhouses to kill more than 90 cows per hour. This is the hidden cost of cheap kosher meat—and it’s the cows who are paying the price.

Orthodox Union to stop certifying kosher beef slaughtered using controversial method

 Judaism has a long, proud tradition of compassion for animals, known as the principle of tsa’ar ba’alei chayim. The kosher meat industry violated the trust of Jewish consumers by abusing cows to produce cheap meat.

Rabbi Avi Shafran, director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America, the umbrella organization of Charedi Jews in America, wrote that “kosher has nothing to do with health or ‘ethics.’ There are Jewish ethical laws and Jewish ritual laws. Kashrut is entirely in the latter category. And it is simply not Orthodox to contend otherwise.” June 2014

(JTA) — The Orthodox Union has told its approved beef purveyors in South America to stop using a controversial slaughter method.

The O.U., which is the largest kosher certifying agency in the United States, sent a letter to its meat purveyors in June notifying them that it would no longer accept meat slaughtered using the “shackle and hoist” method, said Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO of the organization’s kosher division.

The letter came after Israel decided to ban the import of any meat slaughtered using the method, in which the animal is pulled into the air by its legs and then flipped onto the ground before being slaughtered. Critics of the method, which is commonly used in South America but not permitted in Israel, say it puts unnecessary stress on the animal and is inhumane.

Israel’s agriculture department banned the method for imported meat last year and gave slaughterhouses, many of which also produce kosher meat sold to the U.S., until June 1, 2018, to comply. The Israeli policy said that slaughterhouses had to install rotating pens to turn the animal upside down, which is seen as more humane than using shackle and hoist.

On Monday, Genack told JTA that he expects that all slaughterhouses certified by the O.U. will stop the practice by the end of September. He estimated that about a third of the beef certified by the O.U. for sale in the United States comes from South America, with the rest being slaughtered in the U.S. and Canada, where the shackle and hoist method is not used.

“The O.U. for a very long time has been focused on this, trying to promote slaughter in the pen of beef, so we’re happy that Israel took that step,” Genack said.

The Israeli ban came after an undercover investigation and campaign to end the practice by animal rights groups, including the U.S. group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Israeli groups Anonymous for Animal Rights and Let the Animals Live.

PETA praised the O.U. decision in a statement to JTA.

“Stopping the import of ‘shackle and hoist’ beef to the U.S. is a historic step forward, and will help eliminate some of the worst abuses surrounding kosher slaughter,” said Hannah Schein, director of research and logistics for the organization’s cruelty investigations department.

Schein added that PETA “encourages kosher consumers who want to make the kindest choice” to consume meat substitutes instead of meat.

https://www.jta.org/2018/07/24/top-headlines/orthodox-union-stop-certifying-kosher-beef-slaughtered-using-controversial-method?utm_source=JTA%20Maropost&utm_campaign=JTA&utm_medium=email&mpweb=1161-5339-21723

Hershel Schachter's Slippery Slope....You Own This Schachter...

Karlie Kloss engaged to Joshua Kushner

Model Karlie Kloss is engaged to venture capitalist Joshua Kushner, who is the brother of President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The two have been dating for six years, and seemed to confirm their engagement in social media posts.

People broke the news. A source close to the couple told the magazine that Joshua Kushner "proposed a few weeks ago during a romantic weekend together in upstate New York. They're both overjoyed and happily celebrating. Their hearts are full and they're excited to build their future together."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/karlie-kloss-engaged-to-joshua-kushner/

FROM THIS:

Joseph Kushner (born Joseph Berkowitz ^[1]) (October 10, 1922 – October 5, 1985) was an American real estate magnate, the father of Murray Kushner and Charles Kushner, grandfather of Jared Kushner, Joshua Kushner, and Marc Kushner. At the end of his career, he owned over 4,000 apartments, houses, and properties, which he willed to his family. In August 1945, he married Reichel "Rae" Kushner (February 27, 1923 – 2004) in Budapest.^[1][2] Rae Kushner is from the Belarusian city of Navahrudak, and is remembered for their participation in the escape (via digging a tunnel) from the local Jewish ghetto established by the Nazis. In an area where about 10,000 Jews lived before World War II, about 550 survived. The story of Rae Kushner and her brother Honie is on display in the local Museum of Jewish Resistance, for which Charles Kushner was the chief benefactor.^[1] The Kushners came to the US as Holocaust survivors from Belarus in 1949.^[1]
The Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy and the Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School, both in Livingston, New Jersey, are named in their honour.^[3]
 

TO THIS - IN 2 GENERATIONS:

 Karlie Kloss - Early life and education

Kloss was born in Chicago, Illinois.^[1] She is the daughter of Tracy (née Fares), a freelance director, and Kurt Kloss, an emergency physician.^[8][9] Her family has Danish, German and Polish roots.^[9] She has three sisters.^[10] She moved to St. Louis, with her family, in 1994.^[1] Kloss has called her classical ballet training "a beautiful thing" that taught her how to move in the modeling world and was a great training ground for her runway walk.^[11] Kloss was "discovered at a local benefit runway show".^[12]

She is also the first woman, and the first openly transgender woman, to have been ordained by an Orthodox institution, having received her rabbinical degree in 2011 from the Viznitz Yeshiva in Kiamesha Lake in the Catskills...

Ex-hassidic transgender Rabbi Abby Stein on LGBT: You are not alone 

The transgender descendant of the Baal Shem Tov describes her journey from Williamsburg, NY to becoming the woman she is today.

Abby Stein, former Hasidic rabbi, talked about her journey to becoming the woman she is today, despite her sheltered religious upbringing, July 22, 2018

Tens of thousands are set to join Jerusalem’s March for Pride and Tolerance on Thursday, August 2, but according to the city’s haredi community, “Pride doesn’t belong in Jerusalem.” Thus ex-hassidic Rabbi Abby Stein opened her lecture last week at Tel Aviv’s LGBT Center, citing her Jerusalem-born father.

Raised in Brooklyn’s cloistered hassidic community, Stein, 26, is an American transgender activist, author, blogger, model and speaker. She is the first openly transgender woman raised in a hassidic community, and a descendant of the Baal Shem Tov – who founded the hassidic movement in Poland 250 years ago.

In 2015, Stein founded the first support group for transgender people of Orthodox background. She is also the first woman, and the first openly transgender woman, to have been ordained by an Orthodox institution, having received her rabbinical degree in 2011 from the Viznitz Yeshiva in Kiamesha Lake in the Catskills.

Since coming out as transgender a year after receiving ordination and subsequently leaving the hassidic world – sometimes referred to in Jewish communities as going “off the derech” – Stein has given more than 150 lectures on her experience to audiences across the United States and Israel.

Since quitting her community in 2012, Stein has had minimal contact with her family in Williamsburg, most of whom have shunned her. She currently splits her time studying political science and gender studies at Columbia University in Manhattan, and working as an educator, speaker and activist for transgender issues.

Following her Tel Aviv talk, Stein spoke to The Jerusalem Post about her time here, which has included 10 days studying with other rabbis at Jerusalem’s Shalom Hartman Institute.

“It’s been interesting,” she said about the religious atmosphere she has encountered in Jerusalem.

“It’s still hard for me sometimes to just look on from the outside.”

Stein visited Mea She’arim, where her father and grandparents grew up, and visited her great grandfather’s synagogue. “I definitely don’t feel like I’m part of that community anymore, and they obviously don’t see me as such.”

Despite being excommunicated from her family and community, Stein said Israel is an important place to her as a Jew. “It’s something personal. And that is a big part of the reason why so much of what’s going on here, the problems, bother me so much more.”

Stein hails from an illustrious lineage of hassidic rebbes, or “spiritual supreme leaders.” She is descended from the Baal Shem Tov (1698-1760), and his son Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh Isserles of Pinsk (c.1729-c.1779). Her ancestors “succeeded beyond their own expectations,” she said.

From a young age, Stein said she always knew she felt like a girl, and didn’t know that being ‘transgender’ existed. She only learned of the term when she secretly used the Internet for the first time at age 20 in a public library to Google search “How does a boy become a girl?”

Not knowing this was a possibility, Stein grew up with the rigid roles enforced by her strictly gender-segregated hassidic community. She said hassidic Brooklyn is the most gender-segregated society in North America and likely the world.

For Stein and others, this meant having no contact with those of the opposite sex apart from family. She was ordained as a rabbi by 18, married at 19, and had her first child at 20. It was shortly afterwards, in 2015, that she began her transition into becoming a woman.

The LGBT community is largely ignored by hassidic circles, Stein said.

“If they started hating us, that’d mean recognizing we exist,” she said, joking that her goal is to get the hassidim to hate LGBT individuals.

In her lecture, Stein reviewed the array of Rabbinic literature discussing gender. The Mishnah defines six sex identities, as does the Shulhan Aruch, which permits cross-dressing on Purim because it is for the purpose of simcha (gaiety), she noted.

Stein said after coming out as transgender, she shared some of these texts with her father, who still won’t accept her. But Stein is determined to prove that Judaism and LGBT can go hand in hand.

“You are not alone. You can do it. We can do it,” she said.

https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Transgender-Rabbi-Abby-Stein-ex-hassidic-on-LGBT-You-are-not-alone-563084?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=22-7-2018&utm_content=transgender-rabbi-abby-stein-ex-hassidic-on-lgbt-you-are-not-alone-563084 

ORTHODOX MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES NOT BEING MET:Both the chasidic and ultra-Orthodox segments of Orthodox Jewry remain particularly underserved, while the age group that needs the most attention includes children and adolescents. Eighty-five percent of responding clinicians identified the ultra-Orthodox as underserved in 1984, and 48 did so in 2009. Seventy-two percent of respondents in 1984 said chasidim were underserved, while 58 did so in 2009. READ MORE:

https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/orthodox-mental-health-needs-not-being-met-study/

God is busy throwing rocks??? ---- The rabbi of the main Western Wall plaza called for public “soul searching” after the incident. “This is an unusual and most rare incident that has not occurred for decades,” said Western Wall Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch. “The fact that this powerful incident happened a day after the 9th of Av fast, in which we mourned the destruction of our temples, raises doubts and questions which the human soul is too small to contain, and requires soul-searching.”

Soul-searching Optional: An archaeologist who visited the site later Monday warned that the entire Western Wall is “danger zone,” and said the public should stay away. Zachi Dvira said he noted multiple cracks in other stones and fears that another stone fall is just a matter of time. Other stones “could immediately fall on the heads of people,” said Dvira, who is completing a PhD on the recorded archaeology of the Temple Mount.

 

Miracle at Western Wall?

Stone falls off Western Wall, landing in empty Reform prayer plaza.

The stone that fell - Sign from God (not) - God is busy throwing rocks???

A stone fell off the Western Wall on Monday morning - but by miracle, no one was injured.

The stone fell into the egalitarian prayer plaza, also known as the "Ezrat Yisrael." It hit the prayer platform a few meters from a woman who happened to be visiting.

The Ezrat Yisrael will continue operating as usual, but the platform where the stone fell will be temporarily closed.

Yizhar Hess, who heads the Conservative movement in Israel, said, "A huge tragedy was prevented this morning. The Western Wall reminded us that it...requires regular inspections by engineers. Professionals are already at the scene."

"The prayer platform, which is next to the Western Wall itself, will be closed until further notice (the Ezrat Yisrael will function as usual)."

Hess also called for an inspection of "the entire Wall" in order "to prevent a huge tragedy in the future."

Unlike the other Western Wall prayer areas, the Ezrat Yisrael stands empty for most of the year, with the exception of occasional bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies. It also sat empty on Tisha B'Av evening, when Jews traditionally fast and mourn the destruction of both Holy Temples.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/249370

‘Kinderguardians’ --- “Today we’re going to teach you how you can stop these naughty men and have them take a long nap,” Cleave says as Baron Cohen’s character introduces “Puppy Pistol”.

 ‘Kinderguardians’ endorsed by many kosher yeshiva organizations and kosher for Passover use in synagogues and hotel programs

WATCH: Sacha Baron Cohen gets US Congressmen to endorse ‘Israeli' toddler gun program

 

Sacha Baron Cohen poses as an Israeli anti-terror commando seeking US endorsement for a fictitious toddler gun training program 

In the first episode of his provocative new show “Who Is America”, British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen poses as a macho Israeli commando and gets US Congressmen to endorse a fake gun training program for children as young as three.

The satirical seven-episode series, which premiered Sunday on Showtime, sees Cohen adopt different personas to interview unsuspecting public figures in a caricature of the American political and cultural climate in the era of Donald Trump.

In a preview of the series’ first episode, Sacha Baron Cohen disguises himself as boorish Israeli commando shopping a fictitious Israeli gun training program for toddlers called ‘Kinderguardians’ -- a caustic parody of Trump’s call to arm teachers in response to an epidemic of school shootings in the country.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Col. Erran Morad” enlists gun advocate Philip Van Cleave to star in a promotional video for program, featuring children’s songs and an array of weaponry adorned with stuffed toys called “gunimals”.

“Today we’re going to teach you how you can stop these naughty men and have them take a long nap,” Cleave says as Baron Cohen’s character introduces “Puppy Pistol”.

"Just remember to point Puppy Pistol's mouth right at the middle of the bad man," Cleave says. "If he has a big fat tummy, point it there!"

In Washington, Cohen manages to get Republican Congressmen Dana Rohrabacher of California and Joe Wilson of South Carolina, along with former Senate Republican leader Trent Lott (now a lobbyist for a Washington law firm), former Illinois Congressman turned radio talk show host Joe Walsh, and gun advocate Larry Pratt to endorse the program.

Pratt, apparently reading from a pre-prepared script, touts the “proven science” behind the program oblivious to the fact that it is peppered with nonsensical pop culture references.

“Children under five also have elevated levels of the pheromone Blink-182 produced by the part of the liver known as the Rita Ora. This allows nerve reflexes to travel along the Cardi B pathway to the Wiz Khalifa 40 percent faster saving time and saving lives,” Pratt says.

Asked to comment on his appearance in the video, a representative for Congressman Dana Rohrbacher claimed in a statement to i24NEWS that "[Baron] Cohen's people apparently used footage from an interview the Congressman submitted to earlier this year for a bogus Israeli television company supposedly celebrating the country's 70th anniversary."
 

"In the interview I spoke broadly of training young people at a responsible age in self-defense. At no time did I endorse training toddlers in handling guns," a statement from the Rohrbacher said.
"I love good satire, but good satire must reveal some basis in truth. This was fraud, a sick fraud," the Congressman added.

A press person for Congressman Joe Wilson referred i24NEWS to a story in a South Carolina newspaper in which Wilson is quoted as saying that "public officials of both parties, like everyone, can be the target of practical jokes."

 

Sacha Baron Cohen en Borat Sagdiyev

 

Walsh told CNN on Saturday that he was tricked into reading the words off a teleprompter, and that he had also been asked to read lines promoting other supposed Israeli ideas, including arming four-year-olds to defend themselves against terrorists.

“I’ll probably laugh at myself” Walsh told CNN, brushing off his appearance on the show. “He’s a funny guy because he gets people to say stupid things.”

“This is America” is Baron Cohen’s first new television venture in nearly a decade.

In another teaser for the series, former vice president Dick Cheney is asked to sign Baron Cohen’s character’s "waterboard kit" -- an empty water bottle.

Former vice presidential nominee and ex-Alaska governor Sarah Palin will also feature in the series, admitting on Wednesday she was duped into an interview with Baron Cohen who was disguised as a disabled US veteran.

Palin said she ultimately walked out of the interview and slammed what she called the Cambridge-educated comedian's "foreign commentaries" that disrespected the US military and middle-class Americans.

Sacha Baron Cohen first found fame in Britain in 2000 with "Da Ali G Show" that saw his wannabe rapper character interview unsuspecting public figures -- including business mogul Donald Trump before he was elected president.

He followed a similar format with hit movie characters that include bumbling Kazakh reporter Borat and gay Austrian fashionista Bruno.

https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/culture/179564-180716-watch-sacha-baron-cohen-gets-us-congressmen-to-endorse-israeli-toddler-gun-program?utm_source=SIM&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter_20180719_en&utm_content=&utm_term=

“We enshrined in law the basic principle of our existence. Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, that respects the individual rights of all its citizens. This is our state — the Jewish state. In recent years there have been some who have attempted to put this in doubt, to undercut the core of our being. Today we made it law: This is our nation, language and flag.”

Israel passes Jewish state law, enshrining ‘national home of the Jewish people’

 

After hours of furious debate, Knesset narrowly approve quasi-constitutional Basic Law, which critics say discriminates against Arabs and other minority communities

View of a plenum session in the assembly hall of the Knesset

The Knesset overnight Wednesday-Thursday passed into law the contentious nation-state bill that for the first time enshrines Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people” in its quasi-constitutional Basic Laws.

Lawmakers approved the bill in its second and third readings overnight, with 62 voting in favor, 55 opposed and two abstaining, after hours of heated debate in the Knesset chamber.
Similar to a constitution, the Basic Laws underpin Israel’s legal system and are more difficult to repeal than regular laws. The nation-state bill, proponents say, puts Jewish values and democratic values on equal footing. Critics, however, say the law effectively discriminates against Israel’s Arabs and other minority communities.

The law also declares that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, sets the Hebrew calendar as the official calendar of the state, and recognizes Independence Day, days of remembrance and Jewish holidays. One clause of the bill downgrades the Arabic language from official to “special” standing, but also cryptically stipulates that “this clause does not harm the status given to the Arabic language
before this law came into effect.” Read the full text of the law here.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Knesset plenum on July 18, 2018

Upon its passage, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the new law as “a pivotal moment in the annals of Zionism and the State of Israel.”

He said: “We enshrined in law the basic principle of our existence. Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, that respects the individual rights of all its citizens. This is our state — the Jewish state. In recent years there have been some who have attempted to put this in doubt, to undercut the core of our being. Today we made it law: This is our nation, language and flag.”

The most furious protests during the debate came from Arab lawmakers.

Arab List Knesset Member Jamal Zahalka at the Knesset plenum on July 18, 2018

Joint (Arab) List MK Jamal Zahalka ripped a printed text of the bill to shreds from the podium.

“I declare with astonishment and sorrow the death of democracy… The funeral will take place today in the plenum,” his fellow party member Ahmad Tibi said in an Arabic statement.

Earlier on Wednesday night, Likud MK Amir Ohana, who chaired the committee that hammered out the bill, hailed the imminent passage of the law as a “defining moment in the history of the State of Israel, the one and only state of the Jewish people.”

He called the law “historic,” and said it received the most serious legislative treatment of all of Israel’s Basic Laws, having been debated and revised for over a year.

On Sunday, Netanyahu and Education Minister Naftali Bennett reached an agreement to cut a controversial clause, which allowed the state to “authorize a community composed of people having the same faith and nationality to maintain the exclusive character of that community,” and replace it with a new clause celebrating “Jewish settlement” in Israel in general terms.

Lawmakers amended the bill accordingly just hours before the final authorization, removing the clause sanctioning housing discrimination on the basis of ethnicity or religion.
Some of the last-minute changes to the bill came after politicians, legal advisers and others warned that several of its clauses were discriminatory and could cast a dark shadow over Israel in the international arena.

President Reuven Rivlin, whose position is generally considered to be symbolic, expressed concerns about the now-amended clause in a rare intervention in Israeli politics last week. In a letter to lawmakers, Rivlin warned the legislation in its previous form “could harm the Jewish people worldwide and in Israel, and could even be used as a weapon by our enemies.”

Outgoing Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and Knesset legal adviser Eyal Yinon had also raised opposition to the earlier text.

Beit Shemesh municipal workers take down “modesty” signs in the city - put up by FAKE JEWS!

Judaism is already mentioned throughout the country’s laws and religious authorities control many aspects of life, including marriage. But the 11 existing Basic Laws deal mostly with state institutions like the Knesset, the courts, and the presidency, while Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty defines Israel’s democratic character.

First proposed in 2011 by Avi Dichter, then an opposition Knesset member with the centrist Kadima party and now a prominent Likud MK, the bill has seen numerous rewrites and parallel proposals.
Netanyahu enthusiastically threw his support behind the proposal, and had vowed for years that it would ultimately be passed into law.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/knesset-votes-contentious-jewish-nation-state-bill-into-law/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=b5ba55e56d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_07_19_12_04&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-b5ba55e56d-55186525

The Audacity of a Dope... I despise Obama but he is giving Obama too much credit...

Trump accuses Obama of rigging Russia investigation

 

The president also praised Putin and told Hannity that the Mueller probe is hurting U.S.-Russia relations.

 

President Trump accused his predecessor, President Obama, of rigging the ongoing Russia investigation against him and instructing an FBI agent to carry out the task, during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday night.

FBI agent Peter Strzok, a former member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team, has long been a target of conservatives, who claim his previous anti-Trump texts to a colleague with whom he was having an affair prove the Russia investigation is nothing more than a political witch-hunt. Trump has repeatedly echoed those claims, suggesting Strzok wanted to prevent him from winning the presidency and that the investigation is baseless, despite the numerous indictments Mueller’s team has handed down over the past year.

On Monday night, following his diplomatic summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, Trump took things a step further by implying his predecessor had directly ordered Strzok to rig the investigation against him.

After calling Strzok “a disgrace to our country,” Trump added, “You have to find out — who did Peter Strzok report to? Because it was James Comey and it was (former FBI Deputy Director Andrew) McCabe, but it was also probably Obama. If you think that Obama didn’t know what was going on….”



Trump offered no evidence to back that claim, appearing to make it up on the spot.

Trump previously accused Obama of spying on him, suggesting in March last year that the former president had wiretapped his offices in Trump Tower during the 2016 election — a claim that was later debunked by the Justice Department.

Trump had kinder words for Putin, who he praised as “very, very strong.” He then paraphrased Putin’s comments describing Mueller’s investigation as a “phony witch hunt,” saying the Russian president had told him it was preventing them from striking any deals, such as the “safety of nuclear.”

“President Putin said, one of the early things he said when we started, he said it’s really a shame because we could do so much good, whether it is humanitarian aid throughout the Middle East, whether it’s not just Syria, so many different things. The safety of nuclear, which ultimately, there is nothing bigger and more important,” he said. “And they drove a phony wedge, just a phony witch hunt, a rigged deal with guys like Peter Strzok and Comey and McCabe. The whole group. And you can imagine who else. It’s a real shame.”

Trump also said Putin was angry to hear about salacious allegations from the Steele dossier, which Russia’s president claimed were not true.

“It makes him angry when he sees it,” he said. “You know it’s very interesting — you look at what’s happening, you look at what — that whole thing. He understood it. And he was — I don’t know if you could see it — he was incensed even talking about it.”

Trump seized the moment to once again publicize Putin’s offer to help “analyze” U.S. intelligence on 12 GRU officers — Russian military intelligence — who Mueller indicted Friday for their alleged roles in hacking the DNC and DCCC servers, as well as the email accounts of Hillary Clinton campaign staffers.

“He’s willing to take those 12 people, there is no extradition,” Trump said. “But he is willing to let Robert Mueller’s people go over there and bring a big investigation of those people, working together with the Russian investigators.”

Monday’s interview was recorded shortly after Trump’s disastrous joint press conference with the Russian leader, who the U.S. intelligence community has “assessed with high confidence” directed a covert attack on the 2016 American election to help Trump.

Despite the intelligence community’s assessment, Trump has continued to downplay the threat Russia and Putin pose, choosing instead to paint his friendly relationship with the autocratic leader as diplomatic bridge-building.

https://thinkprogress.org/donald-trump-sean-hannity-fox-news-vladimir-putin-barack-obama-robert-mueller-64c19150ed79/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tp-letters

 I agree with Tom Friedman entirely on his take on Trump:

From the beginning of his administration, President Trump has responded to every new bit of evidence from the C.I.A., F.B.I. and N.S.A. that Russia intervened in our last election on his behalf by either attacking Barack Obama or the Democrats for being too lax — never President Vladimir Putin of Russia for his unprecedented cyberhit on our democratic process. Such behavior by an American president is so perverse, so contrary to American interests and values, that it leads to only one conclusion: Donald Trump is either an asset of Russian intelligence or really enjoys playing one on TV.

Everything that happened in Helsinki today only reinforces that conclusion. My fellow Americans, we are in trouble and we have some big decisions to make today. This was a historic moment in the entire history of the United States.

There is overwhelming evidence that our president, for the first time in our history, is deliberately or through gross negligence or because of his own twisted personality engaged in treasonous behavior — behavior that violates his oath of office to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Trump vacated that oath today, and Republicans can no longer run and hide from that fact. Every single Republican lawmaker will be — and should be — asked on the election trail: Are you with Trump and Putin or are you with the C.I.A., F.B.I. and N.S.A.?

It started with the shocking tweet that Trump issued before he even sat down with Putin this morning: “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!” The official Twitter account of the Russian foreign ministry — recognizing a useful idiot when it saw one — immediately “liked” Trump’s tweet and later added: “We agree.”

I’ll bet they do.

It only got worse when, in his joint news conference with Putin, Trump was asked explicitly if he believed the conclusion of his intelligence agencies that Russia hacked our elections. The president of the United States basically threw his entire intelligence establishment under a bus, while throwing out a cloud of dust about Hillary Clinton’s server to disguise what he was doing.

Trump actually said on the question of who hacked our election, “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia. And in a bit of shocking moral equivalence, Trump added of the United States and Russia: “We are all to blame … both made some mistakes.” Trump said that it was actually the American probe into the Russian hacking that has “kept us apart.”

To watch an American president dis his own intelligence agencies, blame both sides for the Russian hacking of our election — and deliberately try to confuse the fact that there is still no solid proof of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia with the fact that Russia had its own interest in trying to defeat the anti-Putin Hillary Clinton — actually made me sick to my stomach. I completely endorse the former C.I.A. director John O. Brennan’s tweet after the news conference:

“Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of ‘high crimes & misdemeanors.’ It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???”

Trump is simply insanely obsessed with what happened in the last election. But now he is president, and the fact that he may not have colluded with the Russians doesn’t mean he does not, as president, have a responsibility to ensure that the Russians be punished for interfering in our last election on their own and be effectively deterred from doing so in the future. That is in his job description.

Listening to Trump, it was as if Franklin Roosevelt had announced after Pearl Harbor: “Hey, both sides are to blame. Our battleships in Hawaii were a little provocative to Japan — and, by the way, I had nothing to do with the causes for their attack. So cool it.”

There is only one message Trump should have sent Putin in this meeting today: “You have attacked our democracy, as well as two core pillars of the global economic and security order that have kept the peace and promoted prosperity since World War II — the European Union and NATO. We are not interested in any of your poker-faced denials. Just know that if you keep doing it, we will consider it an act of war and we will not only sanction you like never before, but you’ll taste every cyberweapon we have in our arsenal — and some of your most intimate personal secrets will appear on the front pages of every newspaper in the world. Is there any part of that sentence you do not understand?

“So we will be watching you between now and our midterm elections,” Trump should have added. “I’m sure you know the date. If you behave well, we’ll talk again in December 2018 about anything you want — Ukraine, Syria, Crimea or arms control. Until then our C.I.A. and N.S.A. are on to you and your cyberspooks. And Vlad, as you may have noticed from my Justice Department’s recent indictment of 12 of your agents, you are not as good as you think.”

That is what a real American president, sworn to protect and defend the Constitution, would have said to Putin today. He would have understood that this meeting had only one agenda item — and it was not developing an “extraordinary” relationship.

It was d-e-t-e-r-r-e-n-c-e — deterrence of a Russia that has been increasingly reckless and destabilizing.

In the past few years what has Putin done to deserve an American president sucking up to him for an “extraordinary” relationship? Putin has seized Crimea, covertly invaded Ukraine, provided the missiles that shot down a civilian Malaysian airliner over Ukraine, bombed tens of thousands of refugees out of Syria into Europe, destabilizing Europe, been involved in the death of a British woman who accidentally handled a Russian nerve agent deployed to kill ex-Russian agents in England and deployed misinformation to help tip the vote in Britain toward exiting and fracturing the European Union.

Most of all, Putin unleashed a cyberattack on America’s electoral process, aimed at both electing Trump — with or without Trump’s collusion — and sowing division among American citizens.

Our intelligence agencies have no doubt about this: Last week, America’s director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, described Putin’s cybercampaign as one designed “to exploit America’s openness in order to undermine our long-term competitive advantage.” Coats added that America’s digital infrastructure “is literally under attack,” adding that there was “no question” that Russia was the “most aggressive foreign actor.”

I am not given to conspiracy theories, but I cannot help wondering if the first thing Trump said to Putin in their private one-on-one meeting in Helsinki, before their aides were allowed to enter, was actually: “Vladimir, we’re still good, right? You and me, we’re still good?”

And that Putin answered: “Donald, you have nothing to worry about. Just keep being yourself. We’re still good.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/opinion/trump-and-putin-vs-america.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Leifer’s story is just a part of a much broader problem in the community that is being hushed up by leaders. “It’s Sodom and Gomorrah in Emmanuel,” he said. “Child abuse, pedophilia… it’s rampant.”

Woman wanted for abuse in Australia accused of molesting Israeli girl

 

Resident of Emmanuel, where ultra-Orthodox former school principal Malka Leifer resided, claims she behaved inappropriately with his daughter

Former Australian principal Malka Leifer, who wanted in her home country for child sex abuse crimes is seen at the Jerusalem District Court on February 14, 2018

A school principal facing extradition from Israel to Australia over allegations she molested schoolchildren has been accused of continuing to sexually assault children while in Israel.

Although Malka Leifer has not been formally accused of a sex crime in Israel, one man claims she molested his daughter and cautions that she has been privately tutoring other children in the ultra-Orthodox West Bank settlement of Emmanuel, where she has been living.

In a story published by the Sydney Morning Herald on Sunday, the father, identified only as Daniel, further claimed that Leifer’s husband had admitted to him that she “likes to touch” because she is “loving,” but that even he is wary of leaving her alone with children.

Leifer, an Israeli citizen, left Australia for Israel in 2008 shortly after molestation accusations against her surfaced, skipped several extradition hearings in Israel because she had committed herself into psychiatric institutions for short periods coinciding with the court dates. She is wanted for questioning in Australia in connection with 74 instances of molestation, including rape, of several teenage girls at the Adass school in Melbourne. Many of the alleged crimes were committed during private tutoring sessions with the girls.

Australian authorities first filed a request for her extradition in 2014. Leifer, was arrested in the country at the time but later released to house arrest.

In 2016 she, her husband, and their 10 children went to live in Emmanuel.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews at a bus stop in the Emmanuel settlement in the West Bank

Daniel, an Emmanuel resident, said that at the time, residents of the community knew nothing of Leifer’s past or the accusations against her.

Shortly after arriving in the settlement, the former principal offered to tutor Daniel’s daughter Sarah in religious studies. he said. The report did not say how old the girl was at the time.
Sarah later told her father that Leifer had pulled at her clothes, pulling down her skirt and “started to touch” her.

“Her childhood was over from that moment,” he said.

Concerned over what his daughter had told him, Daniel said he hired a private investigator to watch the woman as she visited other children in their homes and lured “troubled, disadvantaged kids” into her own home by offering them food and free tutoring.

Widespread deprivation in the community made the offer of something to eat effective bait, Daniel noted.

“There is a lot of poverty, with families struggling to buy food,” he said.

On one occasion Daniel claims he saw Leifer “grab this young-looking blonde girl, pushing her, grabbing her boobs and ass. She was all over her, crazy-like.”

Daniel claimed that he spoke to Leifer’s husband about the alleged assaults.

“I asked him about his ‘handsy’ wife,” he said of her husband. “He said, ‘She likes to touch but that’s all she does, because she’s a loving person… but we did try not to leave her alone with kids.’”

Despite his complaints, Leifer would continue to send her son to their home with instructions to bring Daniel’s daughter for more sessions, the father said.

His daughter has since moved to a boarding school in the nearby town of Petah Tikva, he said.

Daniel began researching the former principal, who had been living in Israel with no restrictions on her freedom, and discovered her past and the accusations in Australia. He blasted Emmanuel community leaders for allowing the woman to live freely among residents, accusing them of not doing enough to protect children from.

“She carried on molesting children here after she was freed!” he told the newspaper. “They let her return here, to my home. To my town!”

The report described a tightly closed community living under the rule of ultra-Orthodox leaders who prefer to suppress reports of child abuse rather than involve authorities and deal with the unwanted attention.

“The issue became well known here in Emmanuel,” one resident was quoted as saying, “but it was comfortable for [her] to manage her life here because it’s a small town where nobody looks for trouble.”

Local residents said that community leaders were well aware of Leifer’s past but had failed to deal with the matter.

“They definitely knew she did what she’s been accused of, that’s why they told her not to teach young girls, and at the beginning, she obeyed those demands, things started to blow up after she volunteered to teach [Daniel’s daughter],” one source was quoted as saying.

The woman’s defense lawyer Yehuda Fried declined to comment on the accusations, saying that unless charges were filed he had no response to give, according to the report.

Daniel claimed that Leifer’s story is just a part of a much broader problem in the community that is being hushed up by leaders.

“It’s Sodom and Gomorrah in Emmanuel,” he said. “Child abuse, pedophilia… it’s rampant.”

The father vowed to campaign until the community addressed the issue.

“The Catholics went through the exposé of such crimes,” he said. “Now it’s our turn to address the big problem.”

https://www.timesofisrael.com/woman-wanted-for-abuse-in-australia-accused-of-molesting-israeli-girl/

So to discover whether there actually is or is not something beyond this anxious, guilty, fearful, competitive existence, it seems to me that one must have a completely different approach altogether.

Freedom From the Known

Man has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare – something we call truth or reality, a timeless state – something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.

Man has always asked the question: what is it all about? Has life any meaning at all? He sees the enormous confusion of life, the brutalities, the revolt, the wars, the endless divisions of religion, ideology and nationality, and with a sense of deep abiding frustration he asks, what is one to do, what is this thing we call living, is there anything beyond it?

In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behaviour as part of our tradition or whatever we happen to be.

 We look to someone to tell us what is right or wrong behaviour, what is right or wrong thought, and in following this pattern our conduct and our thinking become mechanical, our responses automatic. We can observe this very easily in ourselves.

We Have Been Spoon-Fed by Our Teachers

For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our teachers, by our authorities, by our books, our saints. We say, `Tell me all about it – what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?’ and we are satisfied with their descriptions, which means that we live on words and our life is shallow and empty. We are second-hand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves; nothing original, pristine, clear.

Throughout theological history we have been assured by religious leaders that if we perform certain rituals, repeat certain prayers or mantras, conform to certain patterns, suppress our desires, control our thoughts, sublimate our passions, limit our appetites, we shall, after sufficient torture of the mind and body, find something beyond this little life. And that is what millions of so-called religious people have done through the ages, either in isolation, going off into the desert or into the mountains or a cave or wandering from village to village with a begging bowl, or, in a group, joining a monastery, forcing their minds to conform to an established pattern. But a tortured mind, a broken mind, a mind which wants to escape from all turmoil, which has denied the outer world and been made dull through discipline and conformity – such a mind, however long it seeks, will find only according to its own distortion.

So to discover whether there actually is or is not something beyond this anxious, guilty, fearful, competitive existence, it seems to me that one must have a completely different approach altogether. The traditional approach is from the periphery inwards, and through time, practice and renunciation, gradually to come upon that inner flower, that inner beauty and love – in fact to do everything to make oneself narrow, petty and shoddy; peel off little by little; take time; tomorrow will do, next life will do – and when at last one comes to the centre one finds there is nothing there, because one’s mind has been made incapable, dull and insensitive.

Having observed this process, one asks oneself, is there not a different approach altogether – that is, is it not possible to explode from the centre?

The First Step is to Reject the Traditional Approach

The world accepts and follows the traditional approach. The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another; we mechanically follow somebody who will assure us a comfortable spiritual life. It is a most extraordinary thing that although most of us are opposed to political tyranny and dictatorship, we inwardly accept the authority, the tyranny, of another to twist our minds and our way of life. A respectable human being cannot possibly come near to that infinite, immeasurable, reality.

You have now started by denying something absolutely false – the traditional approach – but if you deny it as a reaction you will have created another pattern in which you will be trapped; if you tell yourself intellectually that this denial is a very good idea but do nothing about it, you cannot go any further.

 If you deny it however, because you understand the stupidity and immaturity of it, if you reject it with tremendous intelligence, because you are free and not frightened, you will create a great disturbance in yourself and around you but you will step out of the trap of respectability. Then you will find that you are no longer seeking. That is the first thing to learn – not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-shopping.

The question of whether or not there is truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.

And what is yourself, the individual you? I think there is a difference between the human being and the individual. The individual is a local entity, living in a particular country, belonging to a particular culture, particular society, particular religion. The human being is not a local entity. He is everywhere. If the individual merely acts in a particular corner of the vast field of life, then his action is totally unrelated to the whole. So one has to bear in mind that we are talking of the whole not the part, because in the greater the lesser is, but in the lesser the greater is not. The individual is the little conditioned, miserable, frustrated entity, satisfied with his little gods and his little traditions, whereas a human being is concerned with the total welfare, the total misery and total confusion of the world.

We human beings are what we have been  —  colossally greedy, envious, aggressive, jealous, anxious and despairing, with occasional flashes of joy and affection. We are a strange mixture of hate, fear and gentleness; we are both violence and peace. There has been outward progress from the bullock cart to the jet plane but psychologically the individual has not changed at all, and the structure of society throughout the world has been created by individuals. The outward social structure is the result of the inward psychological structure of our human relationships, for the individual is the result of the total experience, knowledge and conduct of man. Each one of us is the storehouse of all the past. The individual is the human who is all mankind. The whole history of man is written in ourselves.

Observe What is Taking Place Within and Outside Yourself

Do observe what is actually taking place within yourself and outside yourself in the competitive culture in which you live with its desire for power, position, prestige, name, success and all the rest of it – observe the achievements of which you are so proud, this whole field you call living in which there is conflict in every form of relationship, breeding hatred, antagonism, brutality and endless wars. This field, this life, is all we know, and being unable to understand the enormous battle of existence we are naturally afraid of it and find escape from it in all sorts of subtle ways. And we are frightened also of the unknown – frightened of death, frightened of what lies beyond tomorrow. So we are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is.

All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society. As human beings living in this monstrously ugly world, let us ask ourselves, can this society, based on competition, brutality and fear, come to an end? Not as an intellectual conception, not as a hope, but as an actual fact, so that the mind is made fresh, new and innocent and can bring about a different world altogether? It can only happen, I think, if each one of us recognises the central fact that we, as individuals, as human beings, in whatever part of the world we happen to live or whatever culture we happen to belong to, are totally responsible for the whole state of the world.

We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us. And only when we realize, not intellectually but actually, as actually as we would recognise that we are hungry or in pain, that you and I are responsible for all this existing chaos, for all the misery throughout the entire world because we have contributed to it in our daily lives and are part of this monstrous society with its wars, divisions, its ugliness, brutality and greed – only then will we act.
But what can a human being do – what can you and I do – to create a completely different society? We are asking ourselves a very serious question. Is there anything to be done at all? What can we do?

Will somebody tell us? People have told us. The so-called spiritual leaders, who are supposed to understand these things better than we do, have told us by trying to twist and mould us into a new pattern, and that hasn’t led us very far; sophisticated and learned men have told us and that has led us no further. We have been told that all paths lead to truth – you have your path  and they all meet at the same door – which is, when you look at it, so obviously absurd. Truth has no path, and that is the beauty of truth, it is living. A dead thing has a path to it because it is static, but when you see that truth is something living, moving, which has no resting place, which is in no temple, mosque or church, which no religion, no teacher, no philosopher, nobody can lead you to – then you will also see that this living thing is what you actually are – your anger, your brutality, your violence, your despair, the agony and sorrow you live in. In the understanding of all this is the truth, and you can understand it only if you know how to look at those things in your life. And you cannot look through an ideology, through a screen of words, through hopes and fears.

There is No Guide, Teacher or Authority

So you see that you cannot depend upon anybody. There is no guide, no teacher, no authority. There is only you – your relationship with others and with the world – there is nothing else. When you realize this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else is responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. Normally we thrive on blaming others, which is a form of self-pity.

Can you and I, then, bring about in ourselves without any outside influence, without any persuasion, without any fear of punishment – can we bring about in the very essence of our being a total revolution, a psychological mutation, so that we are no longer brutal, violent, competitive, anxious, fearful, greedy, envious and all the rest of the manifestations of our nature which have built up the rotten society in which we live our daily lives?

It is important to understand from the very beginning that I am not formulating any philosophy or any theological structure of ideas or theological concepts. It seems to me that all ideologies are utterly idiotic. What is important is not a philosophy of life but to observe what is actually taking place in our daily life, inwardly and outwardly. If you observe very closely what is taking place and examine it, you will see that it is based on an intellectual conception, and the intellect is not the whole field of existence; it is a fragment, and a fragment, however cleverly put together, however ancient and traditional, is still a small part of existence whereas we have to deal with the totality of life. And when we look at what is taking place in the world we begin to understand that there is no outer and inner process; there is only one unitary process, it is a whole, total movement, the inner movement expressing itself as the outer and the outer reacting again on the inner. To be able to look at this seems to me all that is needed, because if we know how to look, then the whole thing becomes very clear, and to look needs no philosophy, no teacher. Nobody need tell you how to look. You just look.

Can you then, seeing this whole picture, seeing it not verbally but actually, can you easily, spontaneously, transform yourself? That is the real issue. Is it possible to bring about a complete revolution in the psyche?

I wonder what your reaction is to such a question? You may say, `I don’t want to change’, and most people don’t, especially those who are fairly secure socially and economically or who hold dogmatic beliefs and are content to accept themselves and things as they are or in a slightly modified form.

With those people we are not concerned. Or you may say more subtly, `Well, it’s too difficult, it’s not for me’, in which case you will have already blocked yourself, you will have ceased to enquire and it will be no use going any further. Or else you may say, `I see the necessity for a fundamental inward change in myself but how am I to bring it about? Please show me the way, help me towards it.’ If you say that, then what you are concerned with is not change itself; you are not really interested in a fundamental revolution: you are merely searching for a method, a system, to bring about change.

You Won’t Find a System Within These Words

If I were foolish enough to give you a system and if you were foolish enough to follow it, you would merely be copying, imitating, conforming, accepting, and when you do that you have set up in yourself the authority of another and hence there is conflict between you and that authority. You feel you must do such and such a thing because you have been told to do it and yet you are incapable of doing it. You have your own particular inclinations, tendencies and pressures which conflict with the system you think you ought to follow and therefore there is a contradiction. So you will lead a double life between the ideology of the system and the actuality of your daily existence. In trying to conform to the ideology, you suppress yourself – whereas what is actually true is not the ideology but what you are. If you try to study yourself according to another you will always remain a second-hand human being.

A man who says, `I want to change, tell me how to’, seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder.

You may see the truth of this intellectually but can you actually apply it so that your mind no longer projects any authority, the authority of a book, a teacher, a wife or husband, a parent, a friend or of society? Because we have always functioned within the pattern of a formula, the formula becomes the ideology and the authority; but the moment you really see that the question, `How can I change?’ sets up a new authority, you have finished with authority for ever.

First of all, can you reject all authority? If you can it means that you are no longer afraid. Then what happens? When you reject something false which you have been carrying about with you for generations, when you throw off a burden of any kind, what takes place? You have more energy, haven’t you? You have more capacity, more drive, greater intensity and vitality. If you do not feel this, then you have not thrown off the burden, you have not discarded the dead weight of authority.

Activating Your Life Force Begins Now

But when you have thrown it off and have this energy in which there is no fear at all — no fear of making a mistake, no fear of doing right or wrong — then is not that energy itself the mutation? We need a tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when there is this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, that energy itself produces the radical inward revolution. You do not have to do a thing about it.

So you are left with yourself, and that is the actual state for a man to be who is very serious about all this; and as you are no longer looking to anybody or anything for help, you are already free to discover. And when there is freedom, there is energy; and when there is freedom it can never do anything wrong. Freedom is entirely different from revolt. There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there is freedom. You are free and from that centre you act. And hence there is no fear, and a mind that has no fear is capable of great love. And when there is love it can do what it will.

What we are now going to do, therefore, is to learn about ourselves, not according to me or to some analyst or philosopher – because if we learn about ourselves according to someone else, we learn about them, not ourselves – we are going to learn what we actually are.

Having realized that we can depend on no outside authority in bringing about a total revolution within the structure of our own psyche, there is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting our own inward authority, the authority of our own particular little experiences and accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and ideals. You had an experience yesterday which taught you something and what it taught you becomes a new authority – and that authority of yesterday is as destructive as the authority of a thousand years. To understand ourselves needs no authority either of yesterday or of a thousand years because we are living things, always moving, flowing, never resting. When we look at ourselves with the dead authority of yesterday, we will fail to understand the living movement and the beauty and quality of that movement.

To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigour and passion. It is only in that state that one learns and observes. And for this a great deal of awareness is required, actual awareness of what is going on inside yourself, without correcting it or telling it what it should or should not be, because the moment you correct it you have established another authority, a censor.

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