Asked if this kind of (Christian) threat gives her anxiety about the place of Jews in the United States, she said, “Firstly, I’m Jewish. There’s always anxiety. So, fair question.”

Puritans in America

In the Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and other colonies, Puritans set up new governments with the same source of power - religious authority. These governments claimed that their right to rule was granted to them by the Christian God, and therefore they had absolute power to punish people for their thoughts, beliefs, words, actions, and even their bad luck. People were humiliated, shunned out of town, fined, beaten, mutilated, tortured, and killed. These acts of punishment weren’t for violating civil laws, but interpretations of divine laws.

 

Democracy

Most people believe their god is flawless. If a government claims to derive its authority from a flawless God, then any decision made by the head of state must also be flawless. Therefore, the power of that government is unlimited....  

The Constitution

Thomas Jefferson, in his letter to the Danbury Baptists reiterates that:

religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State..

 

 

According to current estimates, approximately 0.2% of the world's population is Jewish. This means that out of the global population, only a small fraction identifies as Jewish

 

The Jewish woman leading the fight against American Christian nationalism

 

Since 2018, Rachel Laser, the first Jew to lead Americans United for Separation of Church and State, has worked with Christian allies to keep religion from influencing US laws

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JTA — For decades, Americans United for Separation of Church and State called its adversaries “religious extremists.” Today, the group has a more specific target: fighting Christian nationalism.

The decision to sharpen the language was made by Rachel Laser, the group’s president for the last six years. A Jew and the first member of a religious minority to lead Americans United since its founding in 1947, Laser wanted the group to be more clear-eyed about what she sees as a growing threat to religious pluralism in the United States: the belief that American laws should favor Christian values over those of other religions.

But it was not an easy decision for her to make.

“On some deep level, I worry about alienating Christians, as many Jews do,” Laser wrote last year in the group’s magazine. “When you are part of a mere 2% of the population, it can feel perilous to risk fostering adversity with 65% of the population.”

That anxiety about the optics of her leadership surfaced even before she took the job. During her interview, Laser recounted to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, she asked the board outright: “Why aren’t you hiring Christian clergy?”

Americans United had always been led by pastors, but Barry Lynn, who served as the organization’s previous leader, from 1992 to 2018, said he welcomes a departure. If there were any concerns about having a Jew lead a fight against Christian nationalism, Laser has proven it’s possible to do so, he said.

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, speaks in front of the US Supreme Court with Rep. Jamie Raskin

“I’ve thought about that a lot, but I just don’t think it’s a burden or a problem because she works very collaboratively with board members who are themselves Christians and she works in coalitions,” Lynn said. “She understands the depths of the danger that Christian nationalism presents to both Christianity and to religious minorities.”

Laser, 55, is married to intellectual property lawyer Mark Davies. They have three children and the family belongs to Adas Israel, a Conservative congregation in Washington, DC. She began her journey in Chicago, where she grew up with Jewish activist parents who didn’t prioritize religious life. But when she followed a friend to Sunday school, she encountered Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, a progressive Reform Jewish leader who was deeply involved in civil rights and other social justice causes.

“I was a very curious kid, and he encouraged me to ask questions,” Laser said, fighting back tears as she recalled Wolf, who passed away in 2008. “The more questions I asked, the more he appreciated me. That’s why I value being Jewish.”

Laser (her name is pronounced LAZZ-er) carried those values into a career focused on public service. After earning a law degree, she held senior roles in organizations advocating for reproductive rights, including as the deputy director of the Religious Action Center.

“She’s a knowledgeable Jew who cares deeply about Jewish concerns,” said Rabbi David Saperstein, who led the Religious Action Center during Laser’s time there. “She fit very comfortably into the view that social justice was a central part of what it means to be a Jew.”

He said he hired her because she was already a proven bridge builder, and it was important for the organization to work across political and ideological lines in Washington. It’s a skill that would be critical when Americans United tapped her in 2018, tasking her with adapting the group for a polarized era.

She took the helm during the second year of Donald Trump’s first presidency, as debates over religion in public life were intensifying. Laser commissioned research to gauge public attitudes and test Americans United’s messaging.

The results were mixed. “Religious extremism” resonated with most audiences, but “Christian nationalism” was less familiar — and even sounded positive to some people.

“We didn’t want people to think we were insulting Christianity or patriotism,” Laser said, so she decided against emphasizing the term.

Then came the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol.

Laser saw the insurrection as a wake-up call. In the rioters’ biblical rhetoric and religious rituals, she recognized Christian nationalism as a potent and underappreciated threat. She soon hired Andrew Seidel, a prominent critic of Christian nationalism. On his first day as the new vice president of strategic communications at Americans United, Seidel testified before Congress about the role of Christian nationalism in the Capitol insurrection.

Americans United began using the term regularly, aiming to educate the public while highlighting church-state separation as a critical countermeasure.

Violent rioters, loyal to President Donald Trump, storm the Capitol in Washington, January 6, 2021.

“The antidote to Christian nationalism is church-state separation,” Laser said in an interview. “It’s the kryptonite that prevents Christian nationalists from codifying their views into our laws.”

Under Laser’s leadership, Americans United has taken high-profile legal actions, such as suing Oklahoma over its proposed religious charter school and representing a Tennessee Jewish couple rejected by an adoption agency due to their faith. The group also helped raise awareness earlier this year about Project 2025, a detailed conservative proposal for Trump’s second term from the Heritage Foundation.

Donors have responded to these efforts. In 2023, the organization reported $17.9 million in revenue — almost triple what it was raising before Laser took over.

But Laser’s tenure hasn’t been without controversy. The organization’s employee union and some former board members have accused her of fostering a toxic work environment and prioritizing publicity over policy and legal work. After commissioning an outside investigation of the organization’s work culture, the board said Laser has its full support.

Laser’s efforts to counter Christian nationalism reflect broader tensions in American society. While religious affiliation is declining, Trump’s political alliance with the Christian right has energized a vocal minority.

“I love you, Christians,” he said on the campaign trail. “In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.” And the vast majority of them did vote for him.

Since the election, Trump has put together for his next administration a slate of deputies that reflects his strong political alliance with the Christian right, from his nominee for White House budget director Russell Vought to his preferred candidate for defense secretary, Pete Hesgeth.

But while giving Republicans a resounding victory, American voters also rejected many of the specific policies promoted by conservative Christians. In seven states, including four won by Trump, voters approved measures to protect abortion rights. All three state proposals to allow public funding to flow to private and religious schools were defeated. Laser calls these outcomes a rejection of Christian nationalism and a continued endorsement of the principle of church-state separation.

In saying that a solid majority of Americans agree with her worldview, Laser relies on surveys like those from the Public Religion Research Institute.

“We find that by a margin of about two to one, most Americans reject Christian nationalism,” said PRRI’s president, Robert Jones.

He said he’s confident in the results because the statements the surveys test against are ”fairly unambiguous.”

“They’re things like, ‘US law should be based on the Bible,’ ‘To be truly American, you must be Christian’ and ‘Christians should take dominion over all areas of American society,’” he said.

As the term “Christian nationalism” has come into play in recent years, Jones’s group has been studying how people respond not only to the underlying attitudes, but also to the term itself.

“We are finding people who qualify as Christian nationalists based on our criteria have a positive view of the term, and people who are rejecting that worldview have a negative view of the term,” Jones said. “So it’s not just a term used by one side to smear the other.”

The phenomena can be seen in the strong sales of a 2022 book called “The Case for Christian Nationalism,” by conservative political theorist Stephen Wolfe, and in prominent politicians, like US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sen. Josh Hawley, who have embraced the moniker.

But even as one term has become more common, the question of what language to use is far from settled. Advocates on either side of the debate over the place of religion in public life make various choices for strategic or other reasons.

Sorting through the rhetoric has required substantial attention from Ruth Braunstein, a professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut. That’s because earlier this year, she was awarded a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to map out the individuals and groups fighting Christian nationalism.

Many of the 100 groups added to the list so far don’t use the term Christian nationalism.

“Some, for example, talk about defending or promoting pluralistic democracy,” Braunstein said. “Others talk about creating a more inclusive vision of American identity.”

A growing bunch, including Americans United, do. And for Braunstein, it was easy to figure out how Laser’s group fit into her project.

“They have a high profile, historical gravitas and respect, and the resources to be able to provide support to other organizations,” she said. “So I think of them as an important node in this broad network.”

A few weeks ago, Laser went on CNN to be briefly interviewed about her opposition to plans in Oklahoma and Texas to bring Christianity into the classroom. She didn’t mention anything about her identity. She simply delivered Americans United talking points: Parents, not politicians, should decide when and if children are exposed to religion; state mandates sully rather than enhance religion; mixing church and state goes against the country’s founding ideals.

But one viewer who contacted CNN to complain about Laser’s statements discovered through Google, or correctly assumed, that Laser is a Jew. He made her identity the center of a lengthy tirade, which he ended with a broad threat.

“When Jews go into the public square to attack Christianity, then we have a problem,” the angry viewer wrote. “Stop abusing the people that treat you kindly because, eventually, the patience will run out.”

Rachel Laser, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Asked if this kind of threat gives her anxiety about the place of Jews in the United States, she said, “Firstly, I’m Jewish. There’s always anxiety. So, fair question.”

But then she went on to emphasize that she’s never felt alone in her activism. She’s always surrounded by Christian allies.

As soon as she took the helm, for example, she set up a faith advisory for Americans United and packed it with pastors (as well as other faith leaders). When her group files lawsuits against policies it opposes, it always includes Christian plaintiffs.

“It’s more important to make it clear that Christians are leaders in this cause,” she said. “In any case, however, I don’t plan to go anywhere. This country has given so much to Jews and I feel gratitude for that. I want to ensure that my kids and my kids’ kids can enjoy and be proud of the same America.”

 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/meet-the-jewish-woman-leading-the-fight-against-american-christian-nationalism/?

Breaking The Back Of The Pathetic & Corrupt Haredi Ideology On The Mitzva To Serve In Time Of War When There Is An Existential Threat To The Jewish Nation...

  "I wish, with God’s help, that there will be ultra-Orthodox soldiers in the IDF’s elite units like the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit. I have great faith in God, and that’s what drove me to enlist—to help heal the rift within the nation."

דברים כ׳:א׳-ט׳

(א) כִּֽי־תֵצֵ֨א לַמִּלְחָמָ֜ה עַל־אֹיְבֶ֗יךָ וְֽרָאִ֜יתָ ס֤וּס וָרֶ֙כֶב֙ עַ֚ם רַ֣ב מִמְּךָ֔ לֹ֥א תִירָ֖א מֵהֶ֑ם כִּֽי־יְהוָ֤ה אֱלֹהֶ֙יךָ֙ עִמָּ֔ךְ הַמַּֽעַלְךָ֖ מֵאֶ֥רֶץ מִצְרָֽיִם׃ (ב) וְהָיָ֕ה כְּקָֽרָבְכֶ֖ם אֶל־הַמִּלְחָמָ֑ה וְנִגַּ֥שׁ הַכֹּהֵ֖ן וְדִבֶּ֥ר אֶל־הָעָֽם׃ (ג) וְאָמַ֤ר אֲלֵהֶם֙ שְׁמַ֣ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אַתֶּ֨ם קְרֵבִ֥ים הַיּ֛וֹם לַמִּלְחָמָ֖ה עַל־אֹיְבֵיכֶ֑ם אַל־יֵרַ֣ךְ לְבַבְכֶ֗ם אַל־תִּֽירְא֧וּ וְאַֽל־תַּחְפְּז֛וּ וְאַל־תַּֽעַרְצ֖וּ מִפְּנֵיהֶֽם׃ (ד) כִּ֚י יְהוָ֣ה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶ֔ם הַהֹלֵ֖ךְ עִמָּכֶ֑ם לְהִלָּחֵ֥ם לָכֶ֛ם עִם־אֹיְבֵיכֶ֖ם לְהוֹשִׁ֥יעַ אֶתְכֶֽם׃

 

First recruits enlist in new IDF haredi combat brigade

 

Moses spoke to the militia, saying, “Let troops be picked out from among you for a campaign, and let them fall upon Midian to wreak יהוה’s vengeance on Midian. You shall dispatch on the campaign a thousand from every one of the tribes of Israel.” So a thousand from each tribe were furnished from the divisions of Israel, twelve thousand picked for the campaign. Moses dispatched them on the campaign, a thousand from each tribe, with Phinehas son of Eleazar serving as a priest on the campaign…

Numbers 31:2-9

 

In the Tanach, Joshua led the Israelites to battle against 31 kings and conquered their lands for seven years after Moses' death:

 

Battle of Jericho

 

Joshua led the Israelites in battle against the city of Jericho, a great fortress city. The Israelites marched around the city seven times, blowing trumpets, until the walls came down. There were no Jewish casualties. 

 

Joshua led the Israelites to capture other towns in the north and south, bringing most of Palestine under Israelite control.

 

Joshua was a military leader, a devoted Torah student, and a pragmatic leader. He was also the second link in the chain of Torah transmission, receiving it from Moses and passing it on to the "Judges"

 

The brigade aims to enable haredi soldiers to serve in combat roles while fully preserving their religious lifestyle and identity.

 

First recruits for the IDF Hashmonaim brigade arrive at the Tel Aviv recruitment office. January 5, 2025.

First recruits were drafted into the new IDF infantry "Hashmonaim" brigade at the Tel Hashomer recruiting office on Sunday.

The brigade aims to enable haredi soldiers to serve in combat roles while fully preserving their religious lifestyle and identity.

The establishment of such a brigade is another step in integrating the ultra-Orthodox community into military service.

The IDF hopes that the brigade will expand and become an integral part of the combat unit landscape, as approximately 3,000 fighters are expected to enlist in the coming years.

Among the new recruits was Moishy Weiner from Yehud, who chose to postpone his service until he could join the new brigade.

"I want to enlist and contribute like everyone else, but it’s important to me that it’s in a place that suits me, where I can feel at home," Weiner said. 

"We understand that this is just the beginning and that it's an important step for all of us. There are concerns about basic training—it's natural—but the desire is strong. We want to make history through action," he added.

"We are excited and looking forward to the new framework," Nathan Adler from Lod noted. "There is a lot of uncertainty and many questions, but I’m already eager for my first operational mission."

'War influenced me'

"The war influenced me; that's why I chose to enlist," he continued. 

"During this time, I saw more friends enlisting and contributing. I told myself that giving three years of my life won’t negatively impact me," he stated, further affirming, "I know there’s a lot of talk about the brigade, and I hope we live up to expectations. I wish, with God’s help, that there will be ultra-Orthodox soldiers in the IDF’s elite units like the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit. I have great faith in God, and that’s what drove me to enlist—to help heal the rift within the nation."

---

---

Elroi Dalal, a newly enlisted soldier in the brigade, stated, "We’re taking everything with a grain of salt, but I truly want this to succeed. It’s not something to be taken for granted that we now have a framework that allows us to maintain our identity while serving in a combat role."

Elroi's father, who accompanied him on enlistment day, shared, " Today we are embarking on a new journey. There is a great sense of excitement, as well as hope that the brigade will continue to grow and serve as a meaningful framework for the years to come." 

 

 

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-836153?

There Should Be An Immediate Meeting Of The Agudath Israel Over Shnitzel mit Latkes, To Decide What Kappitel Tehillim To Say For "Acheinu"!

 

"You coYou could  it in the way Rav Elya Brudny’s voice cracked as he said the word “achim”, the love, emotion and heart with which he spoke of the brotherhood that is Agudas Yisroel: he spoke about the bond between all Yidden, crying at the plight of families devastated by war in Eretz Yisroel, fallen soldiers, injured soldiers, newly bereaved parents, wife and children….Hashem yishmor!

 Rav Yosef Frankel, who discussed the fact that every Yid carries the situation in artzeinu hakedoshah on their hearts at all times, you could feel the sense of achrayus and connection.

 

The Kol Koreis and emails calling for tefillos, signed by the members of the Moetzes Gedolei Torah, have been coming all year, but seeing their anguish and distress up close is a reminder of how personal it is: this year, the convention was one long tefillas rabbim as well."

 

 

The Chairman's Take - One Agenda

Shlomo Werdiger 

From:news@agudah.org

 

 

Amid multi-front war: IDF sees 891 soldiers killed, 38 suicides over 2 years

 

Some 558 soldiers died in 2023 and 363 in 2024.

IDF soldiers in northern Gaza Strip conducting operation in the area of the Indonesian Hospital, where a Hamas launch site was located.

 IDF SPOKESMAN’S UNIT

 

The IDF said on Thursday that 891 soldiers have died during the war years 2023-2024, including a jump in suicides to 38 during that period.

Five hundred fifty-eight soldiers died in 2023 and 363 in 2024. Of those, 512 were killed in fighting and operations, three in local terror attacks, 10 from natural health problems, and 17 from suicide.

Of the 363, 295 were killed in fighting and operations, 11 by local terror attacks, 13 from natural health problems, and 21 from suicides.

Over 5,500 soldiers have been wounded during the war.

Sgt. Maj. (res.) Eliran Mizrahi's funeral at the Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem 

 

Of the 17 suicides in 2023, nine were mandatory service soldiers, four were officers, and nine were reservists.

Of the 21 suicides in 2024, seven were mandatory service soldiers, two were officers, and 12 were reservists.

In 2022, there were only 14 suicides, and none of them were reservists.

In 2013, 2018, and 2020, the suicide numbers were in single digits. The highest number of suicides in the last 24 years was in 2005, with 36.

The IDF said that all suicides were a problem and that the reservist army had spiked considerably in size because of the war but that it was throwing increased resources at addressing the problem for all soldiers and, especially reservists.

However, the negative trend created a hole in IDF arguments that it has done enough in mental health areas to help soldiers, without even getting into debates about how the IDF is handling post-traumatic stress disorder on a broader scale.

---

Majority of soldiers killed in Gaza

Of the 891 deaths, 390 were mostly in Gaza in 2024, 329 were in 2023, including October 7, and others were in Lebanon, in the North, and in the West Bank.

In terms of total losses, the 1948-1949 War of Independence was still the worst, with over 6,000 Israeli deaths, including around 4,000 soldiers.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War is still second, with a loss of around 2,650 soldiers. However, if the current war continues, it could potentially eventually pass this number given that 1,200, mostly civilians, were killed on October 7, 2023.

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Six hundred fifty-seven soldiers were killed during the First Lebanon War in 1982 and in the immediate years following.

In more recent years, the previous high in deaths of soldiers was in 2002, with 235.

Next, the IDF said that there were nine road accident deaths in 2023 and 20 in 2024.

The IDF said it is working on improving in that area but did not give much in terms of specifics.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-835808?

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A Few Thoughts About the New Year

Sam Harris Jan 1

READ IN APP

The following is an edited transcript from the Making Sense podcast:

Well, another year has elapsed, and 2025 is upon us. If you’re over a certain age, every year now appears absurdly futuristic. (How young do you have to be for 2025 to not look like the chyron at the start of a science fiction movie?)

As I look back over the year, and look ahead to what may be coming, it’s hard to escape the sense that we are witnessing more than the usual degree of change and chaos. Liberal democracies are under threat globally. The conflict between Israel and her neighbors continues, and there is the looming prospect of a proper war with Iran. There was the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and uncertainty about what comes next. The war in Ukraine continues to rage, and there is simmering hostility between the US and China. Unlike most other periods in memory, if someone came from the future and said, “Don’t you realize that World War III started months ago?”—that would seem, if not plausible, at least possible.

And in this context, it remains hard to believe that we’re returning Donald Trump to the White House. There are just so many reasons why this seems like a bad idea. To name only one: He is the sort of president who thinks that Pete Hegseth should run our Department of Defense. The list of Hegseth’s disqualifying sins is so long and miscellaneous that it is hard to perceive his nomination as anything other than a terrible mistake—that is, until one recalls that Trump put forward Matt Gaetz to run the Department of Justice. Happily, Gaetz is suffering the fate of so many who come within range of Trump’s enthusiasm—humiliation and oblivion (that is, until he resurfaces selling gold-plated rifles or starts a podcast with Andrew Tate). These nominations really do seem like some sort of troll or act of vandalism—both Gaetz and Hegseth could be easily cast as villains in a Batman movie. Less obscene, but perhaps even more dangerous, we have the prospect of Tulsi Gabbard serving as Director of National Intelligence. Her well-documented patience, if not fondness, for the Assad regime isn’t aging very well. Listen to her describe her meeting with Assad on Joe Rogan’s podcast, where she directly responds to all the criticism she received for speaking so diplomatically about Assad. The level of naivete and frank delusion on display—given who we knew Assad to be at that point—is just astounding.

When the world could really use a shining city on a hill—that is, a healthy, liberal democracy capable of leading, not merely by force, but by example—we have decided to return a man to the presidency who refers to his fellow citizens (Democrats who didn’t vote for him) as “vermin” and “scum.” We can’t pretend that this is normal. And it has been, frankly, nauseating to see the parade of business leaders—many of whom despise Trump and his effect on our politics—race to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the man’s ring (and much else). It’s tempting to ask these captains of industry, all of whom are rich beyond imagining, “What’s the point of having fuck-you money if you never say fuck you?” This was an opportunity to say, “We’re rich enough, and our companies will be fine. This is still a country of laws, and if the President targets us in any way, our lawyers will be ready, and real journalists will be eager to tell the story.”

I’m not betting that everything Trump does in his second term will be bad—and I’m certainly hoping for the best. But all these billionaires should understand that normalizing Trump and Trumpism by purchasing million-dollar tables at the Inauguration isn’t without risk of embarrassment. Just take a moment to reflect on how this will look if any of the darker possibilities of a second Trump term are realized.

Or just give another thought to January 6^th. It’s only decent to notice that no one is worried about what will happen on that date this year. We won’t see Kamala Harris or Joe Biden inspire a mob to attack the Capitol. How refreshing! Everyone who is now sanewashing Trump and Trumpism should at least acknowledge the difference here. And it’s worth reflecting on how much worse January 6^th 2021 could have been, and how Trump played no role at all in preventing the worst possible outcomes.

If you are someone who thinks that the significance of January 6th has been exaggerated, what do you think would have happened if the people who were chanting “Hang Mike Pence” had gotten their hands on him? Do you actually think that people who had travelled halfway across the country at the summons of the President, and just spent the previous hours stabbing police officers in the face with flag poles—and who had successfully breeched the Capitol as a result of this violence—and who were now, by their own account, hunting for the Vice President and other leaders in Congress—do you really believe that these people would have suddenly turned docile and shown themselves merely eager to chat if they had found their quarry cowering under a desk? What about the people carrying zip ties, did they just want to talk to Nancy Pelosi? Do you really not understand that what appears merely ridiculous in failure was likely to have been horrific in success? Spend some time reading about the French Revolution, or any other circumstance where the crowd actually gets its hands on the people it is hunting. Perfectly normal human beings regularly behave like monsters when they join a mob.

It may seem strange to re-litigate an event from four years ago, but it reveals the danger of treating Trump like a normal president. I really think we escaped tragedy on that day as narrowly as Trump escaped assassination in 2024. How strange would it be to normalize that? The fact that Trump is still alive doesn’t make the attempts on his life any less real, or disturbing, or significant of ongoing danger to him. Just imagine if I said that the attempts on Trump’s life didn’t need to be taken seriously—they’ve been blown way out of proportion—because the guy was barely scratched. I know people who have been injured far worse in their own kitchens! Would that make any sense? No. And yet no one who is busy laundering Trump’s reputation seems to understand the obvious parallel to January 6th.

How would Trump and Trumpism seem if a couple of Senators had been beaten to death or hurled out of windows on that day? How would Trump’s continuous lying about the election having been stolen seem? Again, ask yourself, what would have happened if the mob had gotten hold of Nancy Pelosi or Mike Pence? It’s no credit to Trump that this didn’t happen. He knew that the people he had turned loose on the Capitol were calling for Pelosi and Pence to be killed—for hours, he knew this, and he just sat on his hands. Whether he actually said that Pence deserved to be hanged, as Cassady Hutchinson testified, will surely be doubted by Trump’s defenders. But what cannot be doubted is that he declined to lift a finger to defend his vice president, or any other member of Congress, for hours. He just watched the violence on television and refused to do anything useful. Of course, he has done nothing but defend the rioters ever since and has promised to pardon them. And he still claims that he won the 2020 election.

This is the person who will be president of the United States in a few weeks. This is the person you are honoring with your million-dollar tables at the Inauguration. He is capable of making your efforts to normalize him more than a little embarrassing.

Anyway, stepping out of politics and looking ahead to the new year, I think it’s worth reflecting on why we are tempted to reflect at all at the end of each year. What is it about the calendar change that matters?

We may as well ask the question that lurks behind every New Year’s resolution: What is a good life?

Or, put another way: What makes life good? Or, with a slightly different emphasis: What is life good for?

Of course, there are many answers—or parts of answers. Love and friendship. Creative work and enjoying the creativity of others. Learning—that is, growing in our understanding of some sliver of reality. Or learning new skills—doing things that are hard or beautiful, or are just fun. And, of course, there is pleasure, of all kinds. If your life is full of laughter, sunsets, sex, ice cream, and rewarding work—you’re probably not miserable. Though you might be—amazingly, you might still be miserable. Of course, there is also compassion. There is so much suffering in the world. Relieving some portion of it is one of the good things we get to do here.

However, there is a deeper answer to the question of what makes life good, and one can be led to it if one interrogates any of the answers already given. What makes love and friendship, or creativity, or learning, or fun, or laughter, or compassion good? And how are they different from all the things that seem to make life less than good—hatred, terror, boredom, despair, envy, resentment, contempt…

There is a deeper answer that is more philosophical, or spiritual—and, therefore, tends to be unhelpfully bound up with religion. When I talk about this, I tend to talk about meditation. And while it is a helpful starting point, and even a necessary one, it is also misleading. Meditation sounds like a practice—it is something you do, something you add to your life. In the beginning, it certainly seems this way. Did you meditate today? “No, I forgot.” Or, “Yes, for 10 minutes, right before lunch.” But meditation isn’t something you do—it is something you cease to do. It is just non-distraction. It is the freedom to notice what is already here. When you meditate, you’re not changing anything about yourself—which itself is a profound change in attitude. In real meditation, you are recognizing the condition in which all apparent changes occur—the very nature of your mind.

So the question about a good life becomes, what is there to notice, right now, that matters? What is available to your powers of attention in this moment that is important, or even sacred? (Again, the language one reaches for begins to have religious connotations.) There is a freedom to be found here in recognizing what it’s like to be you—what life is actually like in each moment, rather than what you think it’s like, or hope it’s like, or fear it’s like. Meditation is simply noticing what is real, as a matter of experience, now and always—but always, and only, now.

If you are alone in a room, what is in that room with you? What are you, really, as a matter of experience? And where are you? And where is the room? Are you in it, or is it—in some sense that is philosophically and scientifically interesting—in you?

Every religion will tell you that there is something you have to believe at this point—there is something to profess, if only in the privacy of your mind—some set of propositions that must be added to your solitude to redeem it and make it sacred. But this is demonstrably untrue. You can believe all sorts of things, but belief is not enough. Ideas are not enough. Thought is not enough to make solitude and silence matter. In fact, thought is the very thing that makes the privacy of our minds often feel like a prison.

What is life good for when you are alone with your thoughts? And aren’t you always alone with your thoughts? Even when you are out in the world with other people, there is a veil of opinion, judgment, prejudice, and pointless chatter that comes between you and everyone and everything. Don’t you see how every experience, no matter how pleasurable or intense, gets distorted by your mental efforts to grasp it, secure it, prolong it, rehearse it, narrate it, compare it, or change it?

I’m not saying that thoughts aren’t useful, or even necessary. They obviously are. And their character matters, because we spend most of our time lost in them. If we spent most of our time dreaming, our dreams would determine the quality of our lives—so they, too, would matter. And the truth is, dreams are nothing other than very vivid thoughts—and ordinary thoughts are dreams, of a kind.

Meditation is nothing other than the act of waking up properly, if only for moments at a time. That’s why we called the app “Waking Up”—it’s more than just an analogy. There really is something dreamlike about our default state of thinking every moment of the day. I haven’t talked about this topic much on the podcast of late, because it’s my whole focus over at Waking Up. If you want to know more about meditation, and why I think it’s important—and why much of what people think they know about it is mistaken—you can find all of that at in the Waking Up app.

As for New Year’s resolutions, I have one this year that I hope will cover more or less every aspect of my life. It’s not a concrete resolution, exactly—it’s more like a new conceptual frame that I will try to place around everything. I’m going to try to live this year as though I knew it would be my last. I’m perfectly healthy, as far as I know. And I don’t mean to be morbid. But I think it is very powerful to put the finiteness of life at the very center of one’s thoughts, more or less all of the time. The question, “Would I do this if I knew I only had a year to live?” is quite clarifying of one’s priorities. It might seem like too stringent a filter—it would seem to prevent any long-term planning, for instance. But I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I have kids, and I obviously care about their future. And I care about the future of society generally. There are many things I might do that could, at least in part, be motivated by a time horizon that stretches beyond 2025. For my New Year’s resolution, I’m going to work with this thought: “Would I do this, would I pay attention to this, would I care about this, if I knew that 2025 would be my last year of life?”

Would I watch a bad movie? Probably not. Would I watch a bad movie with my girls? Absolutely.

This year, I’m going to do my best to live in a way that would be impossible to regret. I know I can’t control everything. Almost everything that will happen in the world, and much that happens in my life, will be outside my control. But I can pay attention. I can cease to be preoccupied with things that don’t really matter. I can let my hopes and my fears vanish—I can notice that they are always in the act of vanishing. And I can increasingly enjoy life as it is in the present. Perhaps you’ll join me.

Wishing you all much happiness in the New Year…

The Death Of A Raging Anti-Semite....

ISIS TERROR - DRIVER: SHAMSUD DIN JABBAR

  

NEW YEAR SHOCK
ISIS TERROR ON BOURBON STREET
TRUCK RAMMING ATTACK
DRIVER: SHAMSUD DIN JABBAR
TEXAS NATIVE, FORMER ARMY
15 DEAD, 30+ INJURED

Living In A Medina Shel Chesed....The U.S. attorney’s office said that its deal with Katz’s brings to a close its 13-year “Manhattan Restaurants ADA Compliance Initiative”

Let us acknowledge the Hakarat Hatov that we as a people owe what Rav Moshe Feinstein called a “Medina shel Chesed”. From the time of our first exile, over 2,500 years ago, we have never been as welcomed as a people as we have been in this country. Banishments, exiles, inquisitions expulsions pogroms and worse, followed as wherever we went. In this country, we never faced the ignominies that were heaped upon us in other lands. No doubt, we faced difficulties like many other groups and ethnicities, but we were given opportunity and we grasped it. My grandfather felt as if the Statue of Liberty had spread out her arms to embrace him as his ship sailed into Ellis Island in 1913.

 

Feds settle with Katz’s Deli over ADA violations 

 

The kosher-style restaurant agreed to pay a $20,000 fine and improve its facilities for disabled people. 

 

Katz's Deli (founded 1888) in New York City

 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced on Monday that it settled a lawsuit with Katz’s Deli over violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act at the Lower East Side landmark.

The kosher-style restaurant agreed to pay a $20,000 fine and improve its facilities for disabled people through a consent decree.

“The main entrance of Katz’s Deli is not accessible, the restaurant does not provide sufficient dining surfaces for persons with disabilities and despite having been renovated in 2018, its restrooms fail to comply with the ADA,” the U.S. attorney’s office stated. 

“Notably, the consent decree provides for staff to assist individuals with disabilities in using the main public entrance, ensures that the required number of accessible dining surfaces are provided and requires renovations to the men’s and women’s restrooms at Katz’s Deli,” the Justice Department stated.

Founded in 1888 as Iceland Brothers across the street from the current deli location, Katz’s bills itself as New York City’s oldest deli and is famous for its towering pastrami-on-rye sandwiches, matzah ball soup and other Ashkenazi staples in what was once the center of Eastern European Jewish migration to the United States. 

It is also widely known for its depiction in the 1989 comedy “When Harry Met Sally….”

“During World War II, the three sons of the owners were all serving their country in the armed forces, and the family tradition of sending food to their sons became the company slogan ‘send a salami to your boy in the Army,’” per Katz’s site.

“During the peak of the Yiddish theater, the restaurant was forever filled with actors, singers and comedians from the many theaters on 2nd Avenue, as well as the National Theater on Houston Street,” it adds. “Although the age of the Yiddish theater has passed, Katz’s still has its fair share of famous customers, whose photos now line our walls.”

The U.S. attorney’s office said that its deal with Katz’s brings to a close its 13-year “Manhattan Restaurants ADA Compliance Initiative,” which evaluated the accessibility of the 50 most popular restaurants in the borough, as rated by the 2011 Zagat guide.

https://www.jns.org/feds-settle-with-katzs-deli-over-ada-violations/?

 

Versus A Country Run By Right Wing - Anti-Zionists - Ultra-Orthodox Jews:

 

 

Consumer body accuses Rami Levy supermarkets of violating bottle deposit law

Israel Consumer Council seeks court backing for class action lawsuit after receiving over 1,000 complaints about difficulties returning recyclables, getting refunds for deposits (OY VEY)

 

Israelis shop at a Rami Levy supermarket in Modiin

The Israel Consumer Council is seeking court approval of a class action lawsuit against Rami Levy, after receiving more than 1,000 complaints about the supermarket chain’s stores refusing to accept bottles for recycling and deposit fees.

The filing, submitted to the Beersheba District Court on December 18 and announced by the council this week, alleges that Rami Levy does not allow bottles to be returned manually when collection machines are not functioning, and limits the hours in which it accepts the recycled bottles.

The request also cites cases in which stores have returned the deposit through credit vouchers rather than cash, contrary to the law.

Since 2001, when the government passed the Deposit Law on Beverage Containers, a refundable sum, usually of 30 agorot ($0.08), has been added to the cost of all canned beverages, along with glass and plastic bottles ranging from 100 milliliters to 1.5 liters in size, to encourage people to return them after use. Since December 2021, the law has also included containers of 1.5-5 liters.

But implementation has been anything but smooth.

According to a July 2023 report by the Knesset Research and Information Center cited in the application, a bottle deposit complaints hotline established by the Environmental Protection Ministry in December 2021 and operated by the consumer council has received 9,010 complaints. Of these, 60 percent were filed over stores’ failure to accept beverages marked with deposit labels.

Court rulings have since determined that the return of beverage containers must not be limited to certain hours and that obstacles should not be placed before those asking to return bottles in exchange for a deposit.

The application said that between 2022 and 2024, the council received 1,017 complaints against Rami Levy — 139 in 2022, 323 in 2023 and 555 in 2024.

It alleged that Rami Levy stores refused to accept beverage containers for which deposits had been paid on purchase, limited the number of containers that could be refunded on a given day and the times when bottles could be returned, issued refunds only as vouchers rather than cash, and even refused to honor those vouchers after the day on which they were produced. It further charged that the company refused to accept beverage containers from minors, including in cases where parents were present, and that customers had been subjected to “humiliating and contemptuous behavior” by Rami Levy employees.

The council said requests to the company to change its behavior had proved fruitless and that these were not one-off mistakes, or oversights. “The evidence gathered indicates that the Deposit Law is being systematically and intentionally violated by the respondent,” it wrote.

The bottle deposit complaints hotline can be reached at 03-5100190.

A request for comment from the company’s legal adviser was not answered by press time.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/consumer-body-accuses-rami-levy-supermarkets-of-violating-bottle-deposit-law/?utm_source=The+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=daily-edition-2025-01-01&utm_medium=email

Israel is rebuking Pope Francis for committing a “genocide blood libel against the Jewish state” and reminding the pontiff of the Vatican’s silence during the Nazi Holocaust amid an escalating diplomatic row between the Holy See and Israel.

 

Israel Accuses Pope Francis of ‘Genocide Blood Libel Against the Jewish State’

 

Pontiff gets a robust history lesson on the Jewishness of Jesus.

 

December 30, 2024 by Jules Gomes 15 Comments

Israel is rebuking Pope Francis for committing a “genocide blood libel against the Jewish state” and reminding the pontiff of the Vatican’s silence during the Nazi Holocaust amid an escalating diplomatic row between the Holy See and Israel.

In a strongly worded letter to the pontiff dated December 18, Amichai Chikli, minister of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, reprimands Francis for his part in a recent display portraying Jesus as a Palestinian Arab and schools the pope on the Jewishness of Jesus.

“There is no other way to understand the decision to present his image in a cradle, wrapped in a keffiyeh,” Chikli stresses. “Had this been a one-time matter, I would not have written. However, just a few weeks before this strange and false homage, in a more severe expression, you echoed the new blood libel, insinuating that the State of Israel ‘might be’ committing genocide in Gaza.

“It is a well-known fact that Jesus was born to a Jewish mother, lived as a Jew, and died as a Jew,” Chikli writes in his three-page missive. He cites Matthew’s gospel, reminding Francis of the “well-known fact” that “Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea.”

Lessons in Jewish and Roman History

Chikli quotes other biblical texts reiterating to Francis the significance of “Bethlehem” and “Judah” in Jewish history. He notes that Bethlehem is both the city of Rachel’s death and David’s birth, explaining that Rachel is Israel’s matriach and David is Israel’s archetypal king.

“It is also a well-known fact that the term ‘Jew’ originates from Judah, the fourth son of Leah, from whom the Tribe of Judah descended,” the minister points out.

Chikli proceeds to give the pope a lesson in Roman history and the empire’s attempts “to eradicate the connection between the Jews and Judah; one of the most prominent of these was Emperor Hadrian.” He records details of Titus’s destruction of the Second Temple and the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which resulted in the massacre of 580,000 Jews.

“Hadrian was not satisfied with the physical destruction of the Jewish settlement; he anticipated the future, to the day when the Jews would seek to return to Judea. Therefore, he renamed the province of Judea ‘Syria Palestina,’ after the Philistines, the arch-enemy of Israel,” he writes, explaining the origin of the name “Palestine.”

In a dig at Francis, Chikli also notes that the pope can verify the evidence for himself by driving just “13 minutes by car from St. Peter’s Basilica” and examining the Arch of Titus with its depiction of Israel’s conquest and humiliation by the Romans.

Papal Rewriting of History

Referring to the pope’s recent comments calling for an investigation into the alleged genocide in Gaza, reported by The Stream, the minister contends: “This is a desperate and disgusting attempt to rewrite history.”

“As a nation that lost six million of its sons and daughters in the Holocaust, we are especially sensitive to the trivialization of the term ‘genocide’ — a trivialization that is dangerously close to Holocaust denial,” he notes.

Chikli details how the term “genocide” can be aptly applied to Nazi Germany, which “for the first time in the history of nations, set as its ultimate goal the complete annihilation of an unarmed people with whom it had no conflict, and most of whom were not even living in its territory.

“Let us recall that between the Jews, who made up less than 1% of the population of Germany in the 1930s, and the Germans, there had been no prior violent, territorial, religious, or political conflict,” he notes.Recalling the “sickening strategy” of the “Final Solution,” the minister cites as one example the Treblinka death camp, where 845,000 Jews from Poland, including children and elderly people, were murdered in gas chambers and then dumped into execution pits, concluding: “This is what genocide looks like.”

Vatican Silent During the Holocaust

“The Vatican’s silence during those dark days of the Shoah is still deafening,” he writes, asking Francis to “clarify your stand regarding the genocide blood libel against the Jewish state,” a “new blood libel” recently promoted against Israel by the human rights organization Amnesty.

Chikli concludes by drawing Francis’s attention to the the 60th anniversary of the Nostra Aetate Declaration from the Second Vatican Council, which will be celebrated in 2025. The declaration marked a “significant milestone in the relationship between the Jewish people and Christianity,” he maintains, noting that Francis is known to be “a close friend of the Jewish people.”

The Vatican has maintained a diplomatic silence on the minister’s letter, with neither Vatican News nor Avvenire, the Italian bishops’ media, reporting on it.

In response, the pope has doubled down on Israel since Chikli’s letter, twice in public remarks last weekend accusing the Jewish state of massacring children in Gaza.

Francis Falsely Claims Cardinal Banned from Gaza

On Saturday, in his annual Christmas greetings to the Roman curia, Francis claimed that the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa “was not allowed into Gaza, as had been promised.”

“Yesterday children were bombed. This is cruelty. This is not war. I wanted to tell you this because it touches my heart,” the pope told members of the Vatican bureaucracy.

Citing the monk Dorotheus of Gaza, Francis added: “Yes, Gaza, the very place that is presently synonymous with death and destruction, is a quite ancient city, where monasteries and outstanding saints and teachers flourished in the first centuries of Christianity.”

However, a day later Vatican News confirmed that Pizzaballa had visited Gaza and presided at Mass as well as administered the sacrament of confirmation to several young people. The pope’s media did not refer to the Israeli ban on the cardinal’s visit to Gaza.

Instead, it acknowledged that “this is the second time that Cardinal Pizzaballa has managed to enter Gaza and visit the community led by the parish priest Fr. Gabriel Romanelli, following his visit on 16 May last.

“To ensure maximum security on the route, news of the visit was only given after arrival in the community,” Vatican News explained, hinting at the possibility that the pontiff may have been misinformed about Pizzaballa’s visit to Gaza.

The Holy Shmendrik mouthpiece also confirmed that the Latin Patriarch “will make his solemn entry into Bethlehem, where he will be welcomed by another suffering community and where he will celebrate Christmas Eve Mass in St. Catherine’s Church,” debunking rumors that Israel was restricting Pizzaballa’s visits to his Catholic flock in Judea and Samaria or the Gaza strip.

Undaunted, in his Angelus address at St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Francis attacked Israel again, stating: “And with sorrow I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty; of the children machine-gunned, the bombing of schools and hospitals… So much cruelty!”

Severing Jesus from His Jewish Roots

Commentators previously slammed the de-Judaization of Jesus under the Francis pontificate.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen), a holocaust denier and terrorism sponsor whom Francis warmly welcomed to the Vatican on December 12 as The Stream reported, has redefined Jesus as “a Palestinian messenger” of hope in his 2023 Christmas address. Palestinian officials have also described Jesus as “the first Palestinian martyr,” and as a Palestinian jihadist.

“In the story of Christmas, Christ was born in modern-day Palestine under the threat of a government engaged in a massacre of innocents,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat activist and politician, posted on social media on Christmas 2023.

“Rewriting history that Jesus wasn’t a Jewish resident of the Jewish country of Judea but rather a Palestinian man who was persecuted by Jews is gaining ground around the world, including in the Vatican,” international relations expert Dr. Yvette Alt Miller wrote in response to the Vatican featuring Jesus on a keffiyeh.

“Jesus was a Jew. If he were alive today, the world’s elites would be clamoring for him to be thrown out of Judea as a settler,” wrote British columnist Melanie Phillips in 2015, after the Vatican agreed to recognize Palestine as a state. “And Jorge Mario Bergoglio, aka Pope Francis, would be amongst them.”

Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral. This article was cross-posted with the author’s permission from The Stream.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/israel-accuses-pope-francis-of-genocide-blood-libel-against-the-jewish-state/?