Trump, like the Republican opportunists who cling to him like remoras under a shark and stinks like zevel on your shoes, doesn’t care about shame—he cares about getting away with it. Indeed, rather than leaving the public arena, Trump has reveled in it all, rolling around in the garbage of his own life and grunting happily about how the rules don’t apply to the real elites like him.

 But to focus on which indictment should come when, is to ignore that Trump has already admitted to his awful behavior in the events around the case. Trump (who sometimes refers to Stormy Daniels as "Horse Face") denies that he had an affair with the porn actor...

'You shall teach them with your children, to speak with them, when you sit in your home, when you walk on the way, when you lie down and when you arise” [Deuteronomy 11:19].

Torah Umesorah's Mission -

The chinuch of our children has been a major factor in the exponential growth of Torah and Yiddishkeit in North America over the past 80 years.

Torah Umesorah’s establishment in 1944, by Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz zt”l, was for the very purpose of assuring the continuity of Klal Yisroel on these shores.

 The results far surpassed his expectations. Starting with barely a handful of yeshivos, Torah Umesorah’s network today includes over 850 schools, 350,000 students and 25,000 teachers, and the quality and scope of chinuch at an all-time high.

This alone should have eliminated him as the featured speaker at a recent Torah Umesorah convention. PM

 

An American Tragedy

 

Donald Trump is about to be charged with crimes in New York. I do not know if he is guilty of any of these charges—we don’t even know the exact accusations yet—and neither do you. That’s for a jury to decide, and both Trump and the state of New York will have their day in court. In that sense, this is a good day for America, because it shows, in the most direct way possible, that no one in this country is above the law.

But this whole mess, no matter how it turns out, and no matter what other charges may come at Trump from elsewhere, is also an American tragedy. Trump’s status as a former president has not shielded him from answering for his alleged crimes. The indictment itself is shot through with tension, because Trump is, in fact, a former president and a current leading presidential candidate—which underscores the ghastly reality that no matter how much we learn about this crass sociopath, millions of people voted for him twice and are still hoping that he will return to power in the White House.

Trump’s defenders will argue that the New York case is just a local political vendetta, and that the potential crimes involved are relatively minor. As my colleague David Graham has noted, “Falsifying records is a crime, and crime is bad,” but this is like trying to get Al Capone on tax evasion, especially because “the Manhattan case seems like perhaps both the least significant and the legally weakest case.” David also notes that even some Trump critics wish Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had waited for Trump to be indicted on more important potential charges.

I’m not so sure. Trump has kept his supporters in a state of high tension over the past few weeks, first claiming that he’d be arrested on Tuesday, March 21, and then, in an appalling cultlike rally in Waco, bellowing that 2024 would be “the final battle” after previously warning that to indict him would be to court violence and civil unrest. Perhaps the New York charges have popped that bubble of tension; Trump can now go and whine about that while others prepare the case arguing that he has committed crimes against American democracy.

But to focus on which indictment should come when is to ignore that Trump has already admitted to his awful behavior in the events around the case. Trump (who sometimes refers to Stormy Daniels as "Horse Face") denies that he had an affair with the porn actor, but no one contests that he authorized paying her off, nor does his legal team deny that he lied about that money while standing in Air Force One—part of their risible argument that she was being paid hush money to keep quiet about an affair that never happened. They’re simply saying that technically, he didn’t violate any namby-pamby laws about ledger entries and campaign funding.

To our shame, we have too often let those kinds of arguments define the Trump legal saga. If Trump is brought to trial on the far more serious charge of attempting to strong-arm Georgia election officials, his defenders will claim that that indictment, too, is just local huckstering. They will find other excuses in the event that he somehow must answer for his role in trying to overturn our constitutional processes. And once again, even after looking at Trump’s own behavior, including his phone call to the Georgia secretary of state and the exhortation to the mob on January 6, too many Americans will focus on whether he committed an actual crime instead of coming to their senses and realizing that in any functional and healthy democracy, someone like Trump would have been shamed and forced into political and social exile years ago.

Trump, like the Republican opportunists who cling to him like remoras under a shark, doesn’t care about shame—he cares about getting away with it. Indeed, rather than leaving the public arena, Trump has reveled in it all, rolling around in the garbage of his own life and grunting happily about how the rules don’t apply to the real elites like him. Forget about Richard Nixon, who publicly resigned; Trump isn’t even Spiro Agnew, a man who seethed with rage at the felony corruption charges against him but had the sense not to brag about them. (Agnew insisted on his innocence for two months and then took a plea of “no contest” to a single tax-evasion charge, after which he mostly vanished from public view.)

No such luck this time. Win or lose in court, Trump is determined to bring us all into a summer-heat dumpster with him for as long as he can. And that leads to the last and most shocking thing about today’s news: Late this afternoon, New York local media reported that security was tightening up in certain areas of the city. That’s how we knew something was coming: The former president had already told us that he fully intended to trigger violence if the institutions of the law tried to touch him.

Tomorrow, all NYPD officers have reportedly been ordered to be in full uniform and ready to deploy. And again, somehow, we’ve just accepted this as the new normal. We no longer even blink when New York, a city scarred by multiple terror attacks against its innocent citizens, has to go on alert just to charge Trump with a crime. That one fact, more than any other, tells you how far down the long slide into vice and venality—and violence—Trump has dragged this country.

Every defendant, including Donald Trump, deserves the presumption of innocence. But when it comes to our civic and political innocence, Americans long ago lost whatever is left of ours.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2023/03/donald-trump-indicted/673577/

The jury in the Malka Leifer child sex abuse trial has reached unanimous verdicts on some of the charges in the case, but is yet to reveal its decision in court.

 

Malka Leifer sex abuse trial nears end as jury set to reach some unanimous verdicts

Former school principal Malka Leifer will continue to be tried on the remaining 27 charges after two were dropped.

The jury in the Malka Leifer child sex abuse trial has reached unanimous verdicts on some of the charges in the case, but is yet to reveal its decision in court.

Key points:

• The 12 person jury has indicated it will be able to reach unanimous verdicts on all 27 counts
• The former Melbourne school principal is accused of sexually abusing three sisters on school grounds 
• The jury will continue deliberations tomorrow morning

Mrs Leifer, the former principal of the Adass Israel school in Melbourne's inner-south east, has pleaded not guilty to 27 charges dating back two decades.

The complainants in the case are sisters Nicole Meyer, Dassi Erlich and Elly Sapper, former students of the school who came forward to police.

They alleged Mrs Leifer abused them in secret on the school grounds, on school camps and at the principal's home.

Mrs Leifer faced a County Court trial that heard evidence over six weeks, with the jury retiring to consider its verdicts last Wednesday.

Around 4pm this afternoon, the jury foreperson was asked by Judge Mark Gamble whether they had reached unanimous verdicts on some charges, and whether they had been unable to do so on others.

"Yes," the foreman replied.

The jury foreman agreed that with further time to deliberate, the panel of 12 could reach unanimous verdicts on all counts.

The jury was not asked to reveal the breakdown of their finalised verdicts, nor give an indication about whether they had found Mrs Leifer guilty or not guilty on any counts.

They will resume deliberations from 10:30am on Wednesday.

Earlier in the day, the jury passed Judge Gamble a note saying it was "unlikely" they would reach a unanimous decision on all charges.

"Can you please offer direction on a deadlock? Is it possible to use a majority verdict on charges?" they asked.

Judge Gamble told them to continue their discussions.

He said history had shown with time, juries had been able to reach conclusive decisions.

Mrs Leifer was in the dock to hear proceedings on Tuesday, as were the three sisters, who sat in the court gallery.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-28/malka-leifer-trial-sexual-abuse-trial-jury-update/102038320

We simply cannot ignore that Zionism is the only safeguard to the survival and prosperity of Jewish life today, and that Jews have longed for a homeland of their own for centuries.

 

A Message From Campus: Judaism Can’t Exist Without Zionism

George Washington University

Not long ago, while walking through George Washington University’s campus, I came across several posters with headlines that read “Judaism does not equal Zionism,” “Judaism values love,” and “Jewish values reject Zionism.”

 

One particular headline grabbed my attention: “Judaism exists without Zionism.”

 

Really? I think not. Giving this proposition the slightest consideration would entail some serious historical distortion. 

We simply cannot ignore that Zionism is the only safeguard to the survival and prosperity of Jewish life today, and that Jews have longed for a homeland of their own for centuries.

Across US campuses, the Jewish Voice for Peace organization (JVP) has become the face of Jewish anti-Zionism, in solidarity with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and numerous other organizations that seek to undermine or eliminate Israel.

JVP claims that Zionism corrupts Jewish values of “justice, equality, and dignity,” and that Israel’s eradication will foster peace and a return to authentic Jewish values.

JVP does perhaps get one thing right: Judaism can exist without Zionism — but only as a religious philosophy. Indeed, modern Zionism began as a secular movement, yet its DNA is inextricably shared with Judaism. Jewish history, culture, and values make them not only inseparable, but interdependent.

Zionism is defined as the movement for self-determination and statehood for the Jewish people in their ancestral homeland, the land of Israel. Theodore Herzl, a secular Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, conceived Zionism as a means for Jews to have a “normal existence” in a state of their own, in the face of incessant and violent antisemitism.

Zionism has enabled both diaspora and Israeli Jews to practice their religion in relative safety and engage in Tikkun Olam, the Jewish principle of repairing the world. It has contributed to the peaceful practice of Jewish worship on almost every continent, even in some regions once hostile to Jews.

According to a 2022 survey published by the American Jewish Committee about the state of antisemitism in America, 90% of the public agrees that saying “Israel has no right to exist” is inherently antisemitic. Yet, contrary to common sense, the claim that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is widely contested, especially across college campuses where BDS is highly active.

This contradiction illustrates that many college students are either ignorant about Zionism, or have been turned against Israel by lies from groups like JVP, SJP, and more.

To be clear, anti-Zionism is shorthand for “Israel has no right to exist.” And when we see anti-Zionism on the rise, we know that antisemitic persecution will follow.

BDS makes no secret of its mission to seek an “end of Israel” — and they use JVP to perpetuate their anti-Jewish bigotry. Tragically, well-intended JVP members have fallen victim to BDS propaganda.

Make no mistake, anti-Zionist Jew-hatred is an attack on all Jews. Dr. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a BDS supporter, denigrates Tikkun Olam as a philosophy that “camouflages [Israel’s] oppressive power”; he also spews antisemitic tropes such as “Jews use money for nefarious purposes.” These same efforts to demonize and delegitimize Jewish self-determination trace directly to ancient Jew-hatred rooted in Christian blood-libel propaganda used during the Spanish Inquisition, Russian pogroms, and the Nazi Holocaust.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Hezbollah terrorist group, once wrote, “If we searched the entire world for a person more despicable, weak and feeble in mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew.” He then adds, “Notice, I do not say the Israeli.”

The charter of another terrorist group, Hamas, reads, “the Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them.” In essence, Hitler’s Final Solution is what anti-Zionism espouses after all.

JVP envisions not a two-state solution for the neighborly coexistence of Palestinians and Israelis, but one bi-national state for both peoples. Eventually, this will mean Israel cannot remain a democracy, or will become an Arab state.

Regional demographics cannot be ignored: While only 7 million Jews inhabit Israel, more than 300 million Muslim Arabs occupy neighboring Middle Eastern nations. The Pew Research center expects a 74% increase in the Middle Eastern Muslim population by 2050. Clearly, Jews will always remain the regional minority.

Disavowing Zionism, as JVP suggests, effectively subjects Jews to their former state of precariousness — to the same conditions that Jews endured in old Europe, the Soviet Union, or the Arab world before Israel’s independence. Israel provided the only viable safeguard for three million Soviet Jews and approximately one million Jews from Arab lands who were expelled from the communities they inhabited for centuries. Zionism made this possible.

Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel once said, “I can live as a Jew outside Israel, but not without Israel.” Over the centuries, Jews have emphatically written things down, driven by the tenet of “le dor va dor” — from generation to generation. Annual Haggadah readings during Passover remind Jews of liberation from slavery in ancient Egypt, calling upon Jews to fight for freedom and believe in God.

Despite all of Israel’s internal turmoil, modern Zionism remains rooted in compromise while enabling the existence of Judaism. It was for this purpose that the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan established side-by-side Jewish and Palestinian states. Israel accepted the plan but, to this day, militant Palestinian organizations prevent the establishment of a formal Palestinian nation.

Palestinian Human Rights activist Bassem Eid has said, “Why trust the BDS? Why trust the Jewish Voice for Peace? We lost trust with these people … Everybody knows the BDS agenda is to destroy Israel and not to bring peace. The Palestinians should not participate in this.”

The Jewish value of Pikuach Nefesh always preserves life — existence — over death. A true Jewish voice for peace would engage with Zionism through the lens of Jewish values, employing the Jewish principle of Tikkun Olam for constructive criticism. Perhaps JVP should change its name.

By Sabrina Soffer, the commissioner of the Presidential Task Force to Combat Antisemitism at George Washington University.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/03/29/a-message-from-campus-judaism-cant-exist-without-zionism/

Is It Possible To Be Smart & Dumb Simultaneously? Bibi Misses The Point --- He Lost Trust As A Mensch!

 

Why Netanyahu paused the march of tyranny and nobody who loves Israel can rejoice yet

 

Had he not fired Gallant, the PM would right now be enacting his key autocratic edict. His overreach merely compelled a timeout, unless Herzog can somehow find a path to salvation

 

Police use a water cannon to disperse demonstrators blocking a highway during a protest against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to overhaul the judicial system, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, March 27, 2023

 

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his key coalition allies on Monday morning that he saw no alternative other than to pause their legislative blitz neutering Israel’s judiciary, the far-right Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben Gvir was reportedly the most bitterly opposed.

“We are letting the anarchists win,” protested Ben Gvir (using the coalition leaders’ favored term for the defenders of our democracy), according to an unconfirmed account of the conversation reported by Channel 12 news.

“We’re not letting them win,” Religious Zionism party chief Bezalel Smotrich is said to have retorted. “We’ll only halt the legislation for a few months.

At which point the justice minister, Yariv Levin, reportedly summed up: “You’re all correct, but we need to be smart. We’ll pass the legislation later on, but not now. We have people in Likud who are opposed; I’m not sure that we’d have 61 [votes in the 120-seat Knesset]. The people want reform, and they will get it, but we also have to look at what’s going on outside [with the anti-overhaul protests, etc.]; it can’t be ignored.”

The exchange helps underline why, when Netanyahu told the nation on Monday evening that he was halting the legislation’s progress for a few weeks, his declared readiness to do so “out of national responsibility, out of a desire to prevent a rift in the nation,” was instantly dismissed as empty rhetoric by the leaders of the mass protests, and opposition leader Yair Lapid warned that Netanyahu might be up to his old tricks.

After all, Levin had vowed repeatedly, during the three months since he unveiled plans to give near-absolute power to the coalition and leave Israelis’ most basic rights unprotected, that his “reforms” would not be halted “even for a minute,” and reportedly threatened to resign should the march to enactment be interrupted.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and Justice Minister Yariv Levin in the Knesset in Jerusalem on March 6, 2023.

Furthermore, the prime minister had insisted as recently as Thursday that, while no disagreement should be allowed to “endanger our joint future,” a central element of his de-democratization assault, the law that gives the coalition control over the appointment of judges, would be approved by the Knesset this week, as planned, in its current form.

What, then, prompted Netanyahu to magnanimously announce the temporary shelving of that law and the others in the pipeline on Monday evening, and Levin to back him in the coalition meeting earlier in the day?

The simple fact, as the justice minister reportedly acknowledged, that despite heading a 64-strong coalition in the 120-member Knesset, they were no longer certain that they had the votes for an absolute majority — not technically required to pass the judicial selection law, for which a simple majority would suffice, but a major asset in defending the democracy-shattering legislation before a still-functional and independent High Court.

What had changed since last Thursday was that Netanyahu had fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, for having the temerity to privately and then publicly warn that the national divide over the coalition’s bid to change the way Israel is governed was prompting deepening dissent in the ranks of the military, to the point where it constituted a “clear, immediate, and tangible threat to the security of the state.”

The dismissal of the defense minister on Sunday night, in turn, triggered a spontaneous national uprising, angry demonstrations that raged for hours among a growing swath of the citizenry who saw, in Gallant’s brutal termination, further evidence that Netanyahu continues to place personal and political interests above the core needs of the state.

And those protests, in turn, finally prompted a handful of Likud politicians to publicly raise concerns — not, heaven forbid, about the content of the Netanyahu-Levin legislation, but about the way it was being steamrollered through parliament, with a speed and brutality that, opinion polls have indicated, was gradually alienating ever more of the public.

With the support of the likes of Nir Barkat, Yuli Edelstein, David Bitan, Eli Dallal and Danny Danon no longer guaranteed, and Gallant himself most unlikely to vote with the coalition, Levin was compelled to point out that “I’m not sure we’d have 61.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (left) and MK Yuli Edelstein arrive for a meeting of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, in the Knesset on March 27, 2023

 

‘One way or another’

Does all this mean that Netanyahu’s promise to halt the legislation and engage in dialogue is merely a case of him playing for time — ostensibly heeding the concerns of the electorate while allowing public anger to subside and herding his Likud colleagues back into line, ready to revive the self-same legislation just a few weeks from now?

That is indeed almost certainly the plan. His gambit also confuses the public and thus likely weakens the mass protests against de-democratization. It yields the added bonus that Netanyahu has deepened the friction in the opposition camp between the relatively statesmanlike if wary Benny Gantz, who welcomed Netanyahu’s speech, and the warier-still Lapid. And it immediately separates — not ideologically but practically — the anti-Netanyahu political leadership, which will now engage with the prime minister’s representatives in a dialogue brokered by President Isaac Herzog, from the protest organizers, who have unsurprisingly concluded that the prime minister is still intent on enacting his “dictatorship laws” and who will only stand down if the current legislation is scrapped.

Don’t forget, Netanyahu, in his speech, made clear that work on the legislation would resume after the Passover break, that the overhaul would end up passing “one way or another,” and that the “lost balance” between the branches of government would be restored. “We will not give up on the path for which we were elected,” he vowed.

The march of tyranny was merely taking what Netanyahu described as “a timeout.”

Nonetheless, the prime minister’s spectacularly intemperate firing of Gallant prompted not only an outpouring of public rage but also nationwide strike action on Monday. Overseen by the Histadrut labor federation, this entailed dozens of canceled flights at Ben Gurion Airport, the shuttering of some local councils, and the closures of shops, restaurants, malls, banks, universities and more. The Histadrut called off the strike action as soon as Netanyahu had finished speaking, but it has now shown its potency, and would likely be ready to order repeat action if needed.

And Netanyahu has also now found himself dragged back into contact with Herzog, would-be judicial peacemaker in chief, whose alternate package of reform proposals the coalition summarily rejected just two weeks ago.

Herzog’s challenge

The president has, to put it mildly, an uphill battle as he now resumes his negotiating efforts, and the stakes could not be higher.

The elements of this national crisis remain as problematic as ever. Netanyahu and his allies want to shackle the justices in order to advance a radical, discriminatory, and in some cases, racist and theocratic political agenda, at odds with Israel’s democratic and tolerant Jewish foundational principles. They won a decisive election in November and enjoy fervent and wide support.

 

Supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan rally near the Knesset in Jerusalem, Monday, March 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Oren Ziv)

But half the country didn’t vote for them, and some of their own voters are deeply unhappy that they did. If the surveys are to be believed, the coalition is hemorrhaging support, which can only reinforce its desire to marginalize the judiciary and maximize its hold on power.

On Monday morning, the coalition-controlled Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved the legislation that gives the government control of judicial appointments, precisely as Levin had planned and Netanyahu had promised. On Tuesday morning, the draconian edict was formally filed for its second and third (final) readings in the Knesset plenum, which can now take place at any moment.

Anti-government protesters burn tires near Beit Yanai, Israel, Monday, March 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Had he not fired his defense minister, the prime minister would right now be enacting into law the centerpiece of his judicial takeover. Instead, that peremptory tactical overreach, by a would-be despot who preposterously invoked King Solomon as his role model on Monday night, means he and his cronies will have to wait.

The fear is that it won’t be for long. “We need to be smart,” as Yariv Levin said. “We’ll pass the legislation later on.”

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/why-netanyahu-paused-the-march-of-tyranny-and-nobody-who-loves-israel-can-rejoice-yet/

The Straw That Broke The Haredi Knesset Members' Back! ---- McDonald's even announced it was closing all of its locations in the country.

 

Netanyahu set to suspend Israeli judicial overhaul plan after protests

 

Burger King Next? Too Risky!

Israelis gather outside the Knesset, carrying Israeli flags and anti-government placards early on Monday, to protest against the government's plan to introduce judicial changes.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to announce Monday that he is suspending his coalition's judicial overhaul legislation after a night of mass protests and the announcement of a general strike across much of the country, officials in his Likud party said.

Why it matters: Israel, including its economy, has faced instability and an unprecedented political and social crisis since the plan to weaken the country's Supreme Court was announced in January.

Driving the news: Netanyahu shocked Israel on Sunday when he fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who a day earlier called for the legislation's suspension, saying the plan "created an internal rift that poses a clear and immediate threat for Israel's national security."

• After Gallant was fired, spontaneous demonstrations erupted across the country.
• More than 100,000 Israeli protesters blocked Tel Aviv's main highway for hours Sunday night and thousands more demonstrated in front of Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem and in other cities across the country.

The big picture: In a rare move, the head of Israel's workers' union announced on Monday morning a general strike across the country until the legislation is suspended. Such a strike hasn't taken place in decades. Many of Israel's largest workers' unions are controlled by people affiliated with Netanyahu's Likud party.

• The private sector as well as workers in all government ministries and municipal authorities joined the strike. McDonald's even announced it was closing all of its locations in the country.
• As a result of the strike, Israel's international airport and kindergartens were shut down and hospitals started dealing only with emergency cases.

Behind the scenes: Netanyahu held intense discussions with members of his coalition government, aides and family members on Sunday night, Likud officials said.

• Some Likud ministers urged him to stop the legislation, with several going on television.

• Netanyahu on Monday morning held a meeting with the leaders of his coalition's parties during which Itamar Ben-Gvir of the far-right Jewish Power party threatened to leave the bloc if the legislation was suspended.
• In a dramatic turn later Monday, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who had also threatened to resign, issued a statement stressing that he would respect any decision Netanyahu makes regarding the judicial overhaul. He also said he would work to stabilize the coalition in order to prevent the government from collapsing. Levin's announcement gave Netanyahu important backing for suspending the legislation.
• Senior Likud members are pressing Netanyahu to reverse his decision to fire Gallant. Netanyahu hasn't sent Gallant a formal letter firing him, which means the 48-hour process of the decision coming into effect hasn't started yet.

What to watch: Netanyahu is expected to address the nation on Monday. 

A Thought From The "AI" Rabbi...BotWitz

 

Parshat Vayikra is the third weekly Torah portion in the book of Leviticus, which is the third book of the Torah. It deals primarily with the sacrificial system of the ancient Israelites, including the various types of offerings that were brought to the Tabernacle or Temple.

Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, is a holiday that commemorates the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. It is one of the most important holidays in the Jewish calendar and is celebrated in the spring, usually in late March or early April.

Although Parshat Vayikra and Passover are not directly related, there are some connections between them. One of the main themes of Parshat Vayikra is the idea of atonement, which is achieved through the offering of sacrifices. Similarly, Passover is a time for Jews to reflect on their own spiritual redemption and liberation from slavery, and to seek forgiveness for their sins.

Another connection between the two is the idea of purity and cleanliness. In Leviticus, there are many laws regarding cleanliness and purification, especially in relation to the sacrificial system. Similarly, Passover involves a great deal of cleaning and preparation, both in the home and in the synagogue, in order to ensure that everything is free from chametz (leavened bread) and other impurities.

Overall, while there may not be a direct connection between Parshat Vayikra and Passover, both deal with themes of redemption, atonement, purity, and spiritual renewal, which are central to the Jewish faith.

ChatGPT Mar 14 Version. 

Here we have a subspecies of that bias evinced by a Jewish rabbi and gender activist, who claims that Judaism has long recognized a whole range of genders—six, to be exact.

 

Rabbi’s NYT op-ed misleadingly claims that Jews recognized six genders

whyevolutionistrue Mar 21

Here we have another example of what I call the "reverse appeal to nature", except that it's a "reverse appeal to Judaism". The former trope goes like this, "What my ideology says is good is what I must find in nature." That is, if you're a gender activist, you must argue that since there is no sexual binary in humans (a false assertion, of course), then there is no sexual binary in animals in general (another false assertion).

Here we have a subspecies of that bias evinced by a Jewish rabbi and gender activist, who claims that Judaism has long recognized a whole range of genders—six, to be exact.  This is also false, for the "genders" adduced by rabbi Elliot Kulka, a transgender man, are not socially enacted sex roles but what doctors call "disorders of sex development"( DSDs): very rare conditions when the development of sexual characteristics goes wrong (DSDs, despite Anne Fausto-Sterling's claim, are not "new sexes"). These ancient Jewish categories do not correspond to the kind of genders people recognize today—and Rabbi Kukla admits it.  The fallacy here is imposing onto one's historical religion what what sees as good today: the recognition and approbation of different genders. (Unlike biological sex, which comes in only two forms in humans, genders can be multifarious, as they are social roles or identities assumed by biological males or females.) Somehow the Rabbi thinks it gives succor to the social justice movement to show that Jews recognized people who were victims of sex-trait development gone awry.

The article identifies Kukla as "a rabbi who provides spiritual care to those who are grieving, dying, ill or disabled. He is working on a book about grief in a time of planetary crisis." Wikipedia also notes that he's "the first openly transgender person to be ordained by the Reform Jewish seminary Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles."

Read his op-ed by clicking on the screenshot below, or you can find an archived copy here for free.

Why Evolution Is True

“The Orthodox community, including the Modern Orthodox community, has had their fair share of scandals dealing with abuse. Everybody’s aware. There’s no hiding anything today.”

 

Rooting out abuse is a rapidly growing Orthodox communal concern, survey finds

 

“Children and education are top priority. Therefore, anything that puts that priority at risk is taken very seriously,” Rabbi Yehuda Stern told JNS.

 

 

(March 20, 2023 / JNS) A new Nishma Research profile of U.S. Orthodox Jewish communities shows growing acceptance of women leaders and growing concern about child abuse.

Nishma, which deals exclusively with Orthodox communities, polled nearly 1,900 people, who self-identified as Orthodox—whether Modern Orthodox, Chassidic or yeshivish.

Dealing with those who commit physical, mental or sexual abuse is an issue that the “community must address in the next decade,” said 82% of respondents. That issue was one of the least concerning to respondents in Nishma’s 2017 poll, which mainly focused on Modern Orthodoxy. In the 2023 data, released on March 1, addressing abuse was almost tied with the No. 1 concern, the cost of Jewish education.

“There are more breaking stories of abuse, and once there is an awareness of it, there is a reaction against it,” Chaim Waxman, professor emeritus of sociology and Jewish studies at Rutgers University told JNS. “The Orthodox community, including the Modern Orthodox community, has had their fair share of scandals dealing with abuse. Everybody’s aware. There’s no hiding anything today.”

Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, executive director at the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at New York University, told JNS that for the Orthodox community, “children and education are top priority. Therefore, anything that puts that priority at risk is taken very seriously.”

Sarna agreed with Waxman that Orthodox parents are more aware of the problem of abuse and “really want to make sure the educational structures are dealing with the issues properly.”

‘Increased expectation of women in congregational life’

One of the most dramatic areas of differences between Nishma’s 2017 and 2023 surveys was in the area of women serving in the clergy.

Some 38% of Modern Orthodox respondents strongly agreed that women should have the chance to serve in “clergy-related” positions, while 31% somewhat agreed. In 2017, 34% strongly agreed and 22% somewhat agreed, so those who agreed at least somewhat that women should have clergy-related positions increased by more than 23% in the six years.

Three-quarters of Modern Orthodox respondents said women already hold lay leadership positions in their synagogues. Only 16% of Chassidic and 21% of yeshivish respondents said the same. Women cannot serve in the clergy in haredi (yeshivish and Chassidic) communities. They cannot be rabbis in almost all Modern Orthodox communities, although some have positions of rabbanit or yoetzet halachah, which are clergy-related.

“The increased expectation of the role of women in congregational life, even in leadership life, is not something I’m surprised by,” said Waxman, who noted that he pointed out the pattern at an online conference a few years ago.

Waxman attributes the uptick in part to increasing numbers of Modern Orthodox women taking part in higher Jewish education, which commands respect. “It’s easier to talk to women on certain issues. I think there will be a greater acceptance of it,” he said. “It’s not a revolution, but it is increasing.”

The trend has “taken different manifestations in different sub-communities within Orthodoxy,” added Sarna.

Whether an Orthodox woman is called maharat (an acronym denoting a female leader of Jewish law, spirituality and Torah), rabbanit or rebbetzin (Hebrew and Yiddish, respectively, for the wife of a rabbi), women are taking on more significant roles.

Rabba Sara Hurwitz, co-founder and president at Yeshivat Maharat in New York City, told JNS that the work of organizations like hers has been “normalizing Orthodox women in positions of leadership.”

The facts on the ground are changing, and “as more women assume those leadership roles in the community and become more visible, I think the community is recognizing the added value that they bring to the table, to the Torah, to the tradition,” she said.

Even in the more stringent haredi world, there has come to be a recognition that “women are not looking to throw out halachah,” bringing greater acceptance, according to Hurwitz.

Hurwitz described a ripple effect taking place among Orthodox women, who are coming to recognize “their internal ability, and potential and power. And within the confines and context of a community, they’re figuring out how to serve in their own way and in a way that’s appropriate for their community.”

Immigration to Israel

Emotional attachment to Israel remained strong across all points of Orthodoxy in Nishma’s survey, but only between 5% and 9% of the sectors surveyed said it is very likely it will make aliyah in the next five years. Respondents cited spiritual; religious; and communal and family connections most as explanations for making aliyah.

Antisemitism, which has been steadily rising in the United States, garnering increasing headlines, does not appear to drive religious Jews to consider immigration to Israel. That doesn’t surprise Sarna.

“When you talk about physical safety, I don’t know if people perceive living in Israel as being safer than living in America. Yes, they’re surviving antisemitism, but there are also increasing attacks in Israel,” he said.

The cost of education is a determining factor, he said. “When people do the math on their family expenses and see they’re spending $100,000 to $200,000, which I will not need to spend when I go to Israel, that makes a big difference.”

‘Turning the lights on in a room’

Waxman was taken aback by the relative lack of concern among Modern Orthodox respondents about what he calls the “dropout rate” or what the survey calls “off the derech,” Hebrew for “path” or “road.” This is the rate of formerly-observant Jews moving to a non-observant life.

“I was very surprised that the Modern Orthodox seem to be less concerned about it,” said Waxman. “They’re quite optimistic given that the dropout rate among the Modern Orthodox is high relative to the haredi Orthodox.”

Communal priorities were somewhat similar across the sectors surveyed, but “off the derech” was a top four concern for haredim, but just No. 12 for Modern Orthodox respondents.

Other topics that all strains of Orthodoxy saw as important were the cost of maintaining an Orthodox home, intermarriage and assimilation.

All sectors find their lifestyle fulfilling, with increasing levels of Orthodoxy common across the board.

Sarna said he would like to see further exploration of economic matters and of the migration of Orthodox Jews to low-tax states.

Most importantly, these types of studies need to be conducted, he said.

“So many studies, for one reason or another, purposely neglect the Orthodox community. So this is like turning the lights on in a room,” he said. “That’s essential as that community is growing in numbers and in influence.”

“Unless we understand ourselves—and unless we enable other people to understand our own priorities—then we are not going to get the resources that we need in an efficient way,” added Sarna. “We’re not going to have the impact that we’d like to have.”

https://www.jns.org/rooting-out-abuse-is-a-rapidly-growing-orthodox-communal-concern-survey-finds/

How an Ancient Story of Renegade Rabbis Caught With "Black Market Technology" Can Help Us Navigate ChatGPT’s Apocalyptic Aura

The promise—and the threat—of artificial intelligence is that the world as we know it is ending. Even Sam Altman, the creator of ChatGPT, recognized that behind economic promise glows an apocalyptic aura: “AI will probably most likely lead to the end of the world, but in the meantime, there’ll be great companies.” 

It’s not just tech leaders who feel this way. Even the most casual users of ChatGPT feel this dread. Will teaching become untenable? Will my job be filled by a computer? Will robots rule the world? While these questions may not quite seem apocalyptic, the fear they express echoes Sam Altman’s comment.

From fountain pens to movable type, major technological advances always precipitate crises. At the time, the looming change seems to threaten our way of life. But, in hindsight, the changes are drained of their emotional charge and often appear to have altered the world for the better. 

As astute observers of human nature have noted, the technology that was new when our parents were children is an accepted fact of life in our adulthood, while the new gadget just around the bend terrifies us as we catch a glimpse of it. How might we bridge the gap from our current threatened moment to a better future?

We might begin by looking to the past for sources of wisdom. The struggle to reconcile our past human experiences with the promise of the new tools we create is as old as the history of human invention. The Talmud, the ancient record of law and lore studied by Jews for generations, includes a powerful story about the potential and pitfalls of new media. 

In the story, two renegade rabbis are caught with black market technology: a written scroll of rabbinic stories. Handwritten scrolls of rabbinic thought may seem like a far cry from AI—or, indeed, from the category of technology itself—but just like the tools of the digital age, writing was a human-made tool designed to make life easier. Yet much like AI today it sparked panic. 

These rabbis were crossing a technological red line: All religious teachings other than the Bible itself were to be transmitted orally, from teacher to student. According to this section of the Talmud, it was forbidden to write down any religious teaching outside of the text of the Bible. 

And yet, despite the clear prohibition articulated in this passage, some scholars were so excited about the promise of a new technological frontier for their material they committed their ideas to writing. By applying the technology of writing to rabbinic teaching and learning, their own ideas would be better preserved, and future generations would gain access to unprecedented riches of learning, as each new scholar’s wisdom could be passed on to new communities. 

The Talmud is a heavily edited literary compilation, not a record of a single conversation, so even though it’s presented as a live issue in the story, the very fact that readers are encountering the tale in the Talmud—a work literally made possible by the technology in debate—means that writing down rabbinic teachings is a foregone conclusion. 

The narrator’s voice, which initially forbids this kind of writing, eventually relents, rationalizing that such dissemination is simply impossible without writing technology. Caught between a theological commitment and a pragmatic need, the Talmud yields to practical progress.

But the Talmud doesn’t completely yield to the inevitability of technological development. Instead, it investigates this new technology. And that’s ultimately what we can learn from it. We can ask ourselves what’s at stake in adopting this new technology. Although Altman is happy to state his fears about AI out loud, for most of us it’s hard to do so without sounding hyperbolic. 

The Talmud has no such qualms. Regarding the technology of the written word, theologically, the Talmud contends, what was at stake was no less than the opportunity for a relationship with the Divine. When thoughts are written down, they lose their flavor, their spirit, their intentionality.

Strengthening bonds between individuals and making knowledge accessible to entire communities are both core missions of human civilization. At the heart of Jewish learning is a tension between deep, intensive knowledge that builds relationships on the one hand, and a desire for the democratization of knowledge on the other. The spoken word, the word that goes back to the first moment of revelation, connects people to one another and to their past but is limited and unreproducible; the written word is not designed to create personal relationships between individuals, but is more easily disseminated to a greater number of people.

We experience AI as a crisis because, like the rabbis of the Talmud, we actually have conflicting needs and desires. We crave the efficiency of AI because it can save time and effort, helping us write emails, make phone calls, and recall and summarize information. At the same time, we’re seeking human connection when we do reach out, and AI fails to provide that soul-to-soul contact. Jewish authorities accept writing as a viable mode of transmission rather than lose knowledge to the inconsistencies of human memory. Yet even while accepting this technological shift, they make sure to place value on the human transmission that’s being at least partially replaced by this change.

We can negotiate a non-apocalyptic future of living with AI only by having open and honest conversations about this tension. Successfully navigating what seems like an earth-shattering transition depends not on creating “great companies,” but on empowered citizens who decide what values to prioritize when building new technologies. 

At the heart of this sense of impending doom that surrounds current AI models is our fear of lost engagement. We’re less afraid that we’ll be ruled by robots, and more frightened that talking to ChatGPT might keep us from talking to our friends or creating meaningful connections with people whose emotions are as real as ours. The final lines of this Talmudic story, the mic-drop moment, express a version of this fear. According to the Talmud, the Divine Being itself worries about the danger of estrangement inherent in over-reliance on written text. “Should I write the greater part of my Torah? In that case the Jewish people would be considered like strangers.” 

Quoting the Deity is the strongest possible way for the Talmud to state its concern about what happens when new technologies develop for disseminating knowledge. We need not quote a deity, but as we head toward new frontiers of AI, we do need to heed the warning and prioritize the need to form meaningful human connections. 

 

https://religiondispatches.org/how-an-ancient-story-of-renegade-rabbis-caught-with-black-market-technology-can-help-us-navigate-chatgpts-apocalyptic-aura/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-an-ancient-story-of-renegade-rabbis-caught-with-black-market-technology-can-help-us-navigate-chatgpts-apocalyptic-aura&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-an-ancient-story-of-renegade-rabbis-caught-with-black-market-technology-can-help-us-navigate-chatgpts-apocalyptic-aura

A Yid With No Sechel & No Credibilty - Even If Trump Is The Most Disgusting Sub-Human On The Planet! (He Is) --- Sharpton noted that he’s been a spiritual advisor of sorts to Cohen for years. “You called me to have prayer with you before you went to jail, and I talked to you while you were in jail,” Sharpton said, adding, “a lot of anguish.”

Ex-Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen Says Evidence Against Former Boss Is ‘Irrefutable’

 https://twitter.com/TheRevAl/status/1637543859679813632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1637543859679813632%7Ctwgr%5E8592647342eb21d7cf0776ad5fe0b9e98ac3bb0a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Furbanhollywood411.com%2Fattorney-michael-cohen-says-evidence-against-trump-is-strong%2F

Michael Cohen, the ex-personal attorney for former President Donald Trump, said prosecutors in New York have “irrefutable” evidence against Trump.

Cohen made the statement during an interview Saturday, March 18, on Rev. Al Sharpton’s MSNBC show, Politics Nation.

Trump faces what’s been described as an imminent indictment over a hush-money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels, to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.

“No one is above the law,” Cohen said in the interview.

The attorney pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison in 2018, for arranging the payment to Daniels.

“So if it was good enough for me to go, it should be good enough for him,” he said about Trump.

The interview was recorded shortly after the former president posted a statement on social media saying he expects to be arrested within days, and urged his supporters to “Protest, take our nation back!”

“Illegal leaks from a corrupt & highly political Manhattan district attorney’s office … indicate that, with no crime being able to be proven … the far & away leading Republican candidate & former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week,” Trump wrote Saturday on his Truth Social app, according to Reuters.

Cohen compared the case against the former president to the one against late gangster Al Capone, who was convicted in 1931 of tax evasion.

“The law is the law, the same way under the Capone, the Al Capone theory. They couldn’t get him for murder, racketeering, extortion, they couldn’t get him for bootlegging or any of the other crimes. They got him for [tax evasion].”

Cohen added that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg “is not making a mistake.”

“The team that is putting this case together, they’re very competent. They know all the facts,” he said.

Cohen, who served as Trump’s fixer for years, acknowledged that he’s being attacked by conservative media outlets for doing interviews criticizing Trump. But the attorney seemed unfazed.

“That’s okay. Very much like when I went and I testified before the House Oversight Committee, I come with the facts,” he said. “I come with the documentary evidence.”

Sharpton noted that he’s been a spiritual advisor of sorts to Cohen for years.

“You called me to have prayer with you before you went to jail, and I talked to you while you were in jail,” Sharpton said, adding, “a lot of anguish.”

The full interview with Michael Cohen can be viewed here.

 

https://urbanhollywood411.com/attorney-michael-cohen-says-evidence-against-trump-is-strong/