EVERY SIGNATURE MATTERS - THIS BILL MUST PASS!
CLICK - GOAL - 100,000 NEW SIGNATURES! 75,000 SIGNATURES HAVE ALREADY BEEN SUBMITTED TO GOVERNOR CUOMO!
EFF Urges Court to Block Dragnet Subpoenas Targeting Online Commenters
CLICK! For the full motion to quash: http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/hersh_v_cohen/UOJ-motiontoquashmemo.pdf
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Friday, February 14, 2025
This Terrorist/Traitor Belongs In Jail For Life! Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior official in Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party agreed, stating that Agudat Yisrael’s hotline was “definitely violating the existing law.”
“Let us recall that the penal code stipulates severe prison sentences for anyone who incites or solicits a person liable for military service not to serve, and that the things described… may amount to committing a criminal offense, especially at a time when the State of Israel is at war.”
Hotline linked to cabinet minister is advising Haredi callers to ignore draft orders
‘You don’t have to do anything, just ignore them,’ assistance center established by Meir Porush tells father of yeshiva student who was instructed to report to IDF
Worried Haredi yeshiva students who call a telephone hotline linked to Jerusalem Affairs Minister Meir Porush have repeatedly been advised to ignore draft orders and lie to the Israel Defense Forces, a Times of Israel investigation has found, prompting calls for a criminal investigation into potential violations of the 1986 Security Service Law.
The hotline was established amid a push by the IDF to draft ultra-Orthodox youths, who until recently enjoyed exemptions from the military, and a campaign by Haredi parties to ensure that a new law being crafted on the issue would largely enshrine the exemptions.
Addressing a gathering of his Shlomei Emunim movement in December, Porush announced that “in recent days, we have established an assistance center for those facing the threat of conscription at the central office for public inquiries of the Agudat Yisrael Jerusalem Center.
“Although the situation seems insoluble and it is unclear to what extent it will be possible to assist every request and rescue those who turn to us from the danger of conscription, we will do our best to assist Torah scholars as much as possible to immerse themselves back into the sea of Torah without unnecessary worries,” he said.
Shlomei Emunim is a part of the larger Agudat Yisrael faction, which in turns represents the Hasidic community’s interests within the coalition’s United Torah Judaism party (the other faction in UTJ is the non-Hasidic Degel Hatorah).
Following Porush’s announcement, The Times of Israel called the hotline to ask about its activities. A representative stated that he was unable to provide “any advice” for young men of draft age.
Instead, he claimed, the hotline was only set up to provide pro bono legal advice for “older people who got married and have all sorts of personal issues that could exempt them from the draft.”
However, this was only partially true, with multiple current and former members of the ultra-Orthodox community who called the hotline reporting that they were actively advised to ignore enlistment orders and obstruct authorities’ efforts to follow up on the matter.
A pattern of behavior
Zalman, a member of the ultra-Orthodox community, said that he was told to disregard any draft orders sent to his son. All the hotline callers who spoke with The Times of Israel agreed to do so on condition that they be identified by a pseudonym due to fear of reprisal.
“What they are suggesting at this stage is to ignore it, not deal with it,” he said, claiming that he was told: “If you received an initial call-up order, you are like thousands of others. You don’t have to do anything, just ignore them.”
The hotline similarly told Dovid, a former Hasid, to lie to the IDF about his son’s whereabouts.
“Generally, with a boy of 17 there is nothing special to do. You need to be careful, if somebody calls, say that you are not in touch with your son and you don’t know where he is. Don’t say that he saw the draft orders,” the hotline told him.
Dovid was further instructed to tell his son not to attend any demonstrations or give the police any excuse to ask for his identification number and see that he is a draft dodger.
Speaking with Chaim, a 19-year old yeshiva student, the hotline did not explicitly advise ignoring orders. Instead he was told to relax and only come back for further advice when an arrest warrant was issued against him.
“They kept saying that you haven’t received an arrest warrant yet and there is nothing to fear and nothing to worry about. And I said to them, What if there is an arrest warrant? ‘Call us and we will help you,'” Chaim recalled.
Since last summer’s High Court of Justice ruling that the government must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, the IDF has sent out thousands of draft orders and subsequently issued 1,212 arrest warrants. Last week, an ultra-Orthodox yeshiva student was arrested at Ben Gurion Airport for trying to evade an IDF draft order by leaving the country.
Some members of the community charged that the hotline and similar efforts were doing more harm than good and misleading them about the ramifications of their actions.
The approach is highly ill-advised and has the potential to cause widespread damage, complained Moshe, an ultra-Orthodox man in his late twenties who has been in touch with several of the competing hotlines being run by elements of the Haredi community.
“These organizations are just a cover for a larger failure of members of Knesset and politicians who are unable to do anything. Establishing these organizations on a large scale is quite ridiculous because they actually have no solution to offer,” he said.
“I think it’s irresponsible to tell people to [avoid the army] and hide from them the meaning of being AWOL. You need to tell people, listen, you are going to be deserters, that is, to be a criminal with a criminal background. They don’t say this and a person doesn’t know what he’s getting into.”
An ‘illegal’ operation
“There is no doubt that this is illegal,” former IDF manpower chief and Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern told The Times of Israel, calling the advice given by the hotline “unethical” and insisting that he was unsurprised that Minister Porush “encourages people to cheat.”
Stern is a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which is currently debating a controversial enlistment law demanded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox coalition partners.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior official in Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party agreed, stating that Agudat Yisrael’s hotline was “definitely violating the existing law.”
“I think that we all understand the coalition reality, but at the least the prime minister has to make it quite clear that he won’t tolerate this behavior from any member of the coalition,” the official said.
In an email to The Times of Israel, Tomer Naor, an attorney for the Movement of Quality Government watchdog group, said his organization was planning to contact the police and attorney general to demand a criminal investigation into the matter.
Responding to the quotes shared by hotline callers, Naor wrote: “A very disturbing picture emerges, according to which elements that are directly connected to a party in power are allegedly operating an entire system that assists in violating the laws of the State of Israel.”
“Let us recall that the penal code stipulates severe prison sentences for anyone who incites or solicits a person liable for military service not to serve, and that the things described… may amount to committing a criminal offense, especially at a time when the State of Israel is at war.”
No relationship to the Agudat Yisrael faction
When The Times of Israel visited the premises of Agudat Yisrael’s hotline on Wednesday morning, an employee referred all questions to a spokesman for the initiative, who turned out to be Minister Porush’s representative Shmuel Kramerski.
Asked for comment, Kramerski replied that those manning the hotline had been told that everybody should “act in accordance with the instructions of their rabbis.”
“The purpose of answering the phone is to advise and guide the person who decides to act in accordance with the instructions of his rabbis, and not a determination or recommendation to a person on how to act,” Kramerski said. Any representative behaving otherwise would be disciplined, he added.
A spokesman for Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, the Agudat Yisrael chairman, denied any connection between his boss and the hotline, telling The Times of Israel that “this is related to Porush, the institutions of Agudat Yisrael Jerusalem belong to [him].”
The Israel Police did not answer requests for clarification regarding the legality of the hotline’s activities, while the IDF spokesman’s office declined to comment.
The Prime Minister’s Office likewise declined to discuss the issue, instead directing The Times of Israel to speak with Netanyahu’s Likud party, which did not respond.
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Zayt nisht meshuge! Loz im geyn (tzum doctor)! Abi gezint! As long as you’re healthy! Vaccination rates have been declining nationwide since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and now sit below 93 percent. An estimated 280,000 kindergartners in the United States do not have documentation of an M.M.R. vaccine, according to federal data.
No, no, zayt nisht meshuge! Loz im geyn! Abi gezint! Take off! Hosti gezen in dayne lebn? (Don’t be crazy! Let him go. As long as you’re healthy! Take off! Have you ever seen such a thing?).
Measles Outbreak Hits Town in Texas
As of Tuesday, 22 children and two adults had been infected, all of whom were unvaccinated, local officials said.
A worsening measles outbreak has taken root in Texas, sickening two dozen and hospitalizing nine on the western edge of the state, where childhood vaccination rates have dwindled in recent years.
As of Tuesday, 22 children and two adults had been infected, all of whom were unvaccinated, local health officials said. The outbreak comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a staunch critic of childhood vaccines, has been nominated to be the country’s next health secretary, causing public health experts to worry that similar upticks of preventable illnesses will become more frequent.
“There’s a feeling this is going to be more and more common,” said Dr. Cameron Wolfe, an infectious disease expert at Duke University.
The Texas outbreak has so far been limited to residents of Gaines County, which borders New Mexico and has roughly 20,000 residents. Last year 82 percent of kindergarten students received the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, according to state data. That figure is roughly 10 percentage points lower than the average vaccination rate in Texas public schools and far below the federal target of 95 percent for measles vaccination.
Vaccination rates have been declining nationwide since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and now sit below 93 percent. An estimated 280,000 kindergartners in the United States do not have documentation of an M.M.R. vaccine, according to federal data.
Texas public schools require children to have received certain vaccines, including the M.M.R. shot, but parents can apply for an exemption for “reasons of conscience,” including religious beliefs.
Last year, more than 13 percent of K-12 students in Gaines County received a vaccine exemption, according to state health department data. That is one of the highest exemption rates in the state.
Lara Anton, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said that the cases had been concentrated in a “more insular” community in the county, among people who attend church and private schools together. Many of the children are also home-schooled, Ms. Anton said.
Local health departments have set up drive-through vaccination clinics in Seminole, a city at the center of Gaines County known for its large Mennonite community. So far, these have been well attended, Ms. Anton said.
The most common side effects of measles — a high fever and a blotchy red rash — typically resolve on their own within a few weeks. But serious complications, including pneumonia and brain swelling, are possible, especially for children younger than 5.
Roughly one in five unvaccinated people who become infected with measles is hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ms. Anton said that all nine of the hospitalized patients were school-age children, and that many of them had spent time in the intensive care unit.
“It is a serious disease,” she said. “We are trying to impress that upon the community, that you need to take steps now to protect yourself.”
State health officials warned that cases would likely pop up in surrounding communities because of the “highly contagious nature of this disease.”
The New Mexico Department of Health reported this week that a teenager who lived in a county bordering Texas tested positive for measles, though the child did not have any known exposure to the Gaines County outbreak.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/science/measles-vaccination-texas.html
Nearly 70 doctors in NJ sign letter urging vaccines amid outbreak – New Jersey 101.5 FM Radio
NEW JERSEY HEALTH DEPT.
https://www.nj.gov/health/cd/topics/measles.shtml
Measles
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
“Never Again” is Never Again FOREVER. Why does Israel’s usually unbreakable spirit seem so influenced by actors with, at best, marginal interest in it? This may sound naive, as Israel needs major players like the US. However, that shouldn’t justify pushing Israel into bad deals.
Israel’s Hostage Dilemma: In Search of the World’s Understanding and Respect - An understanding world is a luxury Jews and Israel cannot afford. To survive, Israel must fight.
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| Supporters and family members of hostages kidnapped during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 |
“As soon as you settle in America, gather your children, and go to Israel. Then, once you see that land, I want a letter from each of you, telling me in detail how it is over there.”
Those were the words of my grandfather, Misha, the family’s great patriarch, who was born in a tiny shtetl near Vitebsk in 1902 into the family of a rabbi.
He grew up to become an important surgeon, fought in three wars, had most of his immediate family murdered by the Nazis, survived Soviet antisemitism, and finally outlived his wife and all his children, including my father.
My grandfather was a Jew by faith, by race, and by identity. He was a true Zionist who believed that Jewish destiny was not just in its religion, but also in its absolute right to be able to determine its own independent future. For him, as an unbreakable Soviet Jew, betrayed by his country’s promises about egalitarianism and equality, bruised by the most humiliating acts of antisemitism, he believed in the State of Israel, the only place in the world that would not compromise a Jewish life.
My grandfather carried that Zionist flame within him for the rest of his life, but never got to see his promised land. Years and years later, I traveled there on his behalf, but I fell in love with it all on my own.
Jews in Israel learned not to compromise. They defended their state, so their land would never be taken, and their children would never be without a home. Israel knew how to listen to its own voice — until 2011, when Gilad Shalit, held captive by Hamas for 1,934 days, was exchanged for 1,027 Palestinian and Arab-Israeli prisoners. Of these, 280 were sentenced to life in prison.
Among them was Yahya Sinwar, serving four life sentences, who masterminded the October 7, 2023, attack.
As of late, while in the midst of its existential crisis, Israel is trying in vain to seek the world’s understanding and respect. It mistakenly believes it can achieve both. The world does not want to understand Israel, nor the Jewish plight within the context of Israel.
In 1976, Palestinian and German terrorists hijacked an Air France plane with Israeli passengers, diverting it to Entebbe, Uganda. Demanding prisoner releases, they threatened to kill hostages. Israel launched a daring rescue mission, freeing nearly all hostages but losing three in the process, including mission leader Yoni Netanyahu. The most heated debate took place before the actual resolution of this operation between then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who strongly believed in the deal in the absence of the military option, and Shimon Peres.
Rabin later shared with his speechwriter Yehuda Avner: “When it comes to negotiating with terrorists, I long ago made a decision of principle, well before I became prime minister, that if a situation were ever to arise when terrorists would be holding our people hostage on foreign soil and we were faced with an ultimatum either to free killers in our custody or let our own people be killed, I would, in the absence of a military option, give in to the terrorists. I would free killers to save our people.”
Peres, on the other hand, who at the time was Israel’s Defense Minister, held a different view. To him “deal” meant giving in to hijackers for the first time in Israel’s history. Although we all know Peres as the ambassador of peace, during that crisis he strongly believed that negotiation with terrorists was off limits because it was not part of Israel’s make up.
He said: “If we give in to the hijackers’ demand and release terrorists, everyone will understand us but no one will respect us. If, on the other hand, we conduct a military operation to free the hostages, it is possible that no one will understand us, but everyone will respect us, depending of course on the outcome of the operation.”
Israel under Rabin was on the verge of negotiations, but once the IDF presented the military plan, the decision to proceed was made, despite the risk of casualties. Thus, another chapter in Israel’s history of rescue missions was written. This demonstrated to both its enemies and the unfriendly international community that Israel would not compromise its national integrity to gain society’s understanding and insincere sympathy.
Why does Israel’s usually unbreakable spirit seem so influenced by actors with, at best, marginal interest in it? This may sound naive, as Israel needs major players like the US. However, that shouldn’t justify pushing Israel into bad deals.
The October 7, 2023, attack presented Israel with its most devastating hostage crisis. As of February 10, 2025, eighty of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas remain in Gaza, with at least a third believed dead. Hasn’t Israel been here before? How could this deal be made after such a tragedy and most complex military operation, which drastically diminished Hamas?
There is intelligence that Hamas is regrouping; this cancer will grow. If Israel retreats after receiving hostages, some in body bags, it has every reason to anticipate a repeat of October 7th. Mothers embracing their children today may tomorrow be replaced by other mothers agonizing over their children’s fate all over again. The job of a parent is to shield their child from danger for as long as they can, but the job of a government, in this case the Israeli government, especially its leadership, is to protect the entire nation from all foreseeable danger, so that “Never Again” is Never Again FOREVER.
Throughout my life, first under the hypocritical iron fist of the Soviet empire and later as an immigrant in America, where some of the most important values and traditions of America’s greatness are too frequently compromised, I have always admired Israel, a nation salvaged from near extinction. I have revered Israel for its unwavering commitment to its core mission since its founding as a sovereign nation: the defense of its land and its people. For at least 63 years, it never faltered in this.
After the first three women were released this year, I heard: “Why not celebrate with them? They feared this day wouldn’t come. Celebrate with those young women!” or “Happy now? You got your deal, your hostages. Move on, stop this bloodshed.”
Frankly, it doesn’t concern me that non-Jews refuse to see this deal’s weakness; it saddens me that my people neglect how harmful it is for Israel and Jews.
As a human and mother, I want every hostage home, no matter the price. Seeing mothers with daughters breaks my heart with happiness, heartbreak, and disappointment. As a Jew, mother, and Zionist, these people are in hell because of deals like this, like 2011’s, which led to October 7th. Today’s rushed deal anticipates similar tragedies, different mothers lamenting, children orphaned. A new government will seek a new solution.
An understanding world is a luxury Jews and Israel cannot afford. To survive, Israel must fight.
The world will never understand or forgive a nation which, after losing 6 million to genocide, created its own state from the ashes and became a maverick of modern civilization. Had Jews and their promised land been losers, surrounded by enemies, swallowed by neighboring states, and became Israelis with a victimhood mentality, the world might have forgiven their roughness. But Israel’s story is different. The past 77 years, however difficult, have been a victory for Israel and every Jew there. Strong, courageous victors fighting for their people, knowing they are all potential hostages, these Israelis will never be sympathized with. All that remains is respect, existing without love or understanding, founded on reason. It would be impossible not to respect Israel’s refusal of weak deals — its only duty being to protect its country from future tragedies.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2025/02/11/israels-hostage-dilemma-in-search-of-the-worlds-understanding-and-respect/Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Thank G-D For The Chief Rabbinate! - BARUCH HASHEM - BARUCH HASHEM - BARUCH HASHEM - BARUCH HASHEM - BARUCH HASHEM -
Chief Rabbinate: Kosher for Passover pizza must have a 'mountain of cheese'
Chief Rabbinate demands that kosher-for-Passover pizzas differ obviously from regular pizzas.
- 1 minutes
A company trying to import kosher for Passover pizzas from abroad was met with an unexpected demand by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.
The Chief Rabbinate's Rabbi Avi Kozman updated the company with the news that in order to receive kosher certification, there needs to be a "mountain of cheese" in the center of the pizza, Ynet reported.
The Rabbinate explained that this would differentiate the kosher for Passover pizza from regular pizza eaten year-round.
The Rabbinate also said that the pizza's appearance must be changed from round to square or rectangular. In a letter sent to the importer, the Chief Rabbinate demanded: "In the center of the pizza, there must be double the amount of cheese, so that it creates a shape resembling a mountain."
The importer attempted to explain that such demands are impossible to meet, since the pizza is packaged in a carton, and that additional cheese would raise the cost for the importer by 15%, estimated to equal 8-10% of the price of the product in Israel.
"Why does the Chief Rabbinate demand changing the shape of the pizza, if the package clearly states, 'Kosher for Passover under the supervision of the Chief Rabbinate,' both on the front and on the side of the package?" the importer queried.
UOJ EITZA TO IMPORTER: MEET THEM IN THE BATHROOM AT THE DAN WITH A FEW LARGE PAPER BAG$. יישר כח - חזק וברוך
Monday, February 10, 2025
Reviewing Israeli discourse since October 7 on the roots of the intelligence fiasco conjures up a bleak, at times even exasperating, picture. At its center is the difficulty of pointing to the true malfunctions, tinged with doubt over the ability to change following this colossal failure.
The war as an intelligence lab, understanding the failure leading to Hamas massacre
Analysis: The roots of the present catastrophe are not limited to the events of the night between October 6 and 7 but reflect an extreme and long-lasting lack of understanding of the enemy
Senior intelligence officers spoke of the lessons learned from the past, primarily the need for humility and caution, while being blind to the fact that they themselves were symptomatic of the same disease
When the roots of a failure remain untouched, it is no surprise that past flaws resurface, headed by the tendency to impose our own logic on our object of study
Friday, February 07, 2025
This is the story of a controversy that shook the world of Torah study and academic research 120 years ago. “The truth is that I forged it. I did not find a manuscript, but everything I wrote was composed from the words of the sages that I gathered from various sources.”
Did It Exist or Not? The Missing Order of the Jerusalem Talmud
Discoveries and disappointments, rumors and accusations, fraudsters and conspiracies—along with an adventurous journey across the dusty roads of Turkey. This is the story of a controversy that shook the world of Torah study and academic research 120 years ago.
As if the early decades of the 20th century weren’t turbulent enough—especially in the Jewish world—a storm that erupted in 1905 sent shockwaves through the community of Torah scholars for years. It was a global controversy, brimming with drama, and if you aren’t already familiar with this story, it’s about time you heard it!
Before diving into the details, let’s set the stage. The Mishnah, compiled by Rabbi Judah the Prince around 200 CE, is divided into six orders (shas): Zera’im (Seeds), Mo’ed (Festivals), Nashim (Women), Nezikin (Damages), Kodashim (Holy Things), and Taharot (Purities). Each order is further divided into tractates.
About 150 years later, in the Land of Israel, the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled. Later, in Babylonia, the Babylonian Talmud was written. Both Talmuds expand upon and explain the Mishnah, documenting legal discussions and the evolution of Jewish law as debated by the sages of their time. However, not every tractate of the Mishnah is included in the Talmud (Gemara), and some tractates appear in only one of the two Talmuds. For instance, the Babylonian Talmud contains tractates from parts of Kodashim, but the Jerusalem Talmud lacks the order of Kodashim altogether.
Or at least, that’s what was believed—until 120 years ago. And thus, the controversy was born.
A Lost Manuscript or a Fabrication?
For centuries, scholars debated whether the Jerusalem Talmud once included the order of Kodashim and was lost over time, or if it was never compiled in the first place. According to Maimonides and several other authorities, a Jerusalem Talmud for Kodashim did exist nearly 1,700 years ago. Others argue that it never did.
In 1868, Rabbi Benjamin Hirsch Auerbach claimed he had heard that a manuscript of the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim was hidden in the Vatican Library in Rome. This rumor attracted fraudsters, who, in 1873, attempted to collect money from unsuspecting Jews to fund a trip to Rome, where they would supposedly retrieve and publish the lost text. However, they were exposed before any damage was done, and Vatican experts confirmed that no such manuscript existed in their collection.
Fifty years later, in the 1920s, Rabbi Mordechai Farhand, a dayan (rabbinical judge) from the Nitra community, traveled to the Vatican to search for the manuscript. He found nothing.
But in fact, the Vatican episode was one of the milder chapters in the saga of the missing tractate.
A Dramatic Announcement
In 1905–1906, an electrifying proclamation spread across the Jewish communities of Europe. According to the announcement, Rabbi Shlomo Yehuda Elgazi S”T (Sephardi Tahor, or “pure Sephardi”), also known by the Ashkenazi surname Friedländer, from the city of Satmar, had discovered the lost Jerusalem Talmud order of Kodashim. He intended to publish it, complete with his own original commentary, as a continuation of his earlier work Cheshek Shlomo, which covered other orders of the Jerusalem Talmud.
Excitement swept through the world of Torah study. Leading rabbis endorsed the printing of the long-lost text. A year later, the first volume, containing the tractates Chullin and Bekhorot, was offered for sale.
Seemingly overnight, contradictions that had puzzled scholars for centuries—regarding laws of ritual slaughter, Temple service, and sacrificial offerings—were resolved. Difficult halakhic questions found clear answers, all thanks to Friedländer’s newly printed Talmud.
A Treasure Hunt Across Turkey
Where had Friedländer found the lost order of Kodashim?
In his introduction to Tractate Chullin, he described the discovery in vivid detail. According to his account, his brother, Eliyahu Elgazi, traveled to Izmir on business and purchased books from the estate of Rabbi Yehoshua Benveniste, who had died in Turkey 250 years earlier. Among the volumes were first-edition printings of the Jerusalem Talmud, annotated by Benveniste himself. Eliyahu, knowing his brother was writing a commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud, sent the books to him.
In one of the volumes, Friedländer allegedly found two old letters that deepened the mystery.
One letter, signed by the Chief Rabbi of Constantinople, expressed support for publishing Rabbi Benveniste’s annotations on the Jerusalem Talmud for Kodashim. This suggested that such a manuscript did indeed exist. The letter detailed how a converso named Don Abraham HaLevi, who lived in Lisbon, had befriended a priest from Barcelona who was also a former converso. The priest entrusted Don Abraham with a bundle of manuscripts, which he then carried with him to Turkey. There, he gifted them to Rabbi Benveniste, who had helped him return to Judaism. Among the documents, Rabbi Benveniste was astonished to find the long-lost Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim.
But the second letter painted a different picture. According to this letter, Rabbi Benveniste ultimately decided not to publish the manuscript, fearing that it would be seen as heretical. At the time, the Jewish world—especially in Turkey—was still reeling from the false messianism of Shabbetai Tzvi, whose radical teachings had led to the abolition of many religious commandments. The discovery of a “new” Jewish text, especially one as significant as a missing section of the Talmud, might have raised suspicions and been used as justification for further religious upheaval.
Friedländer was captivated by these letters. He had to find the manuscript.
His brother Eliyahu and their friend, Rabbi Yaakov Kobi, embarked on an adventure across Turkey, searching for descendants of Rabbi Benveniste in the hopes that one of them still possessed the treasure. Eventually, they tracked down a villager named Suleiman Benveniste, who showed them an amulet wrapped in silk, claiming it was the missing Talmud. To their disappointment, the manuscript was in terrible condition, with large sections missing.
Eliyahu and Yaakov convinced Suleiman to send the manuscript to Friedländer in Hungary, promising him a share of the profits from its publication. According to Friedländer, a colophon at the end of the text revealed that the scribe, Yitzhak Bar Yosef Albergloni, had copied the Talmud in the year 1212 from a carefully edited manuscript once owned by Hai Gaon, the leader of Babylonian Jewry at the time.
If true, this was a stunning discovery. The lost Jerusalem Talmud had finally been revealed.
The War for the Truth
But the euphoria was short-lived. The first to dampen the excitement of Torah scholars and talmudic researchers was Rabbi Dov Aryeh Ritter of Rotterdam, who, in an article, described his initial joy at hearing about the discovery—only to later express disappointment upon realizing it was a forgery. Soon, other rabbis across Europe began questioning the authenticity of the book. Rabbi Dov Baer Ratner of Vilna published a series of articles exposing Friedländer’s fraud.
Friedländer, however, did not sit idly by. He fiercely responded to anyone who suggested that the text was a forgery. One of his students, Avraham Rosenberg, wrote a scathing rebuttal in his book Aneh Kesil (Answer a Fool), directly attacking Rabbi Ratner.
Another prominent critic of Friedländer was Rabbi Meir Dan Plotzky, who, in his book She’alu Shalom Yerushalayim, systematically analyzed the text and demonstrated that it was fraudulent. Another of Friedländer’s students, Yosef Ben Mahar”i, came to his teacher’s defense in his book Herev Nokemet (Avenging Sword), launching personal attacks on Rabbi Plotzky but failing to address the substantive evidence of forgery.
Despite mounting skepticism, Friedländer published another volume of the so-called Jerusalem Talmud—this time on the tractates Zevachim and Arakhin.
Meanwhile, the Rebbe of Gur and many others demanded to see the original manuscript, which Friedländer claimed was kept by Suleiman Benveniste. But Friedländer repeatedly evaded such requests. No one ever saw the manuscript or the letters he claimed to have discovered in Turkey.
The Mask Falls
Jewish Europe was in turmoil. Some were thrilled by the discovery, while others decried it as an elaborate fraud. At the height of the controversy, Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Halevi Horowitz of Hermannstadt published damning information on another deception by Friedländer: He had claimed to have received an amulet from a Zurich museum, allegedly written by Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschutz, from which he supposedly deduced that Eybeschutz was a Sabbatean. Rabbi Horowitz’s investigation, however, revealed that no such amulet existed—Friedländer had fabricated the entire story to bolster his supposed expertise in deciphering manuscripts. With this revelation, many concluded that his “students” Avraham Rosenberg and Yosef were fictitious as well, and that Friedländer himself had authored the books defending his fraudulent claims.
The final blow to Friedländer’s reputation came from the rabbis of Dvinsk—Rabbi Yosef Rosen, known as the Rogatchover Gaon, and Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk—who officially declared the Jerusalem Talmud on Kodashim a forgery. It remained unclear, however, whether Friedländer had personally forged it or had acquired the forgery from another source.
Over time, pieces of real information about Friedländer surfaced. He had claimed to have studied at the famed Volozhin Yeshiva and to have served as deputy rabbi of Frankfurt, head of a rabbinical court in western Germany, assistant rabbi of Satmar, and head of a yeshiva. None of this was true.
So, who was he, really?
He was born in Belarus under the name Zusia. A gifted and intelligent young man, but certainly not a Sephardi named Elgazi. He married a woman, abandoned her during his wanderings, and later married another without ever divorcing the first. He was a talented scholar, impressing rabbis with his knowledge and articles published in Torah journals.
“The Truth Is That I Forged It”
There is no doubt that Friedländer had a unique talent. He crafted a complex and intricate story about discovering the manuscript, and if he indeed wrote it himself, he must have possessed deep knowledge of rabbinic literature and persuasive writing skills. According to Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Yanovsky in his 1913 pamphlet Tzaid Ramaiah (Hunting for Fraud), Friedländer relied heavily on the book Yafeh Einayim by Rabbi Aryeh Leib Yellin. This book compiled Talmudic discussions from across rabbinic literature, making it an excellent resource for inserting relevant citations—or even fabricating new ones.
Friedländer also exploited legal rulings by Maimonides and his contemporaries that lacked explicit sources. Conveniently, he “found” those missing sources in his own forged Jerusalem Talmud. In response to Rabbi Yanovsky’s accusations, Friedländer published a rebuttal pamphlet titled Letz Hayayin (The Wine Jester), predictably attacking his critic rather than addressing the evidence.
Years after Friedländer’s death, the truth came to light. In a 1951 article published in HaPardes, Rabbi Yekuthiel Yehuda Greenwald described his encounters with Friedländer in Khust and later in Satmar. As a young man, Greenwald had been impressed by Friedländer’s charismatic and mysterious persona, supporting him during the Jerusalem Talmud controversy. But in the article, written nearly 40 years after the scandal, Greenwald revealed what Friedländer had once admitted to him: “The truth is that I forged it. I did not find a manuscript, but everything I wrote was composed from the words of the sages that I gathered from various sources.”
Many books and articles have been written about this strange affair. Today, it is widely known that the Jerusalem Talmud order of Kodashim is a forgery, and yet it was reprinted in facsimile edition in Israel in 1996 and in the United States in 2003. But does anyone actually want to study it?
If you still have your doubts, come visit the National Library, order a copy from our rare books collection, and see for yourself!
Thursday, February 06, 2025
Yesterday, President Donald Trump single-handedly collapsed the most destructive idea of the last hundred years—Palestine.
The End of ‘Palestine’
Yesterday, President Donald Trump single-handedly collapsed the most destructive idea of the last hundred years—Palestine. During meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials, Trump said he was going to move 1.7 million Palestinians out of Gaza. And just like that, he broke the long spell that had captured generations of world leaders, peace activists, and Middle East terror masters alike, who had paradoxically come to regard the repeated failure and haunting secondary consequences of the idea of joint Arab Muslim and Jewish statehood in the same small piece of land as proof of its necessity.
Palestine was a misshapen idea from the beginning, engendered by an act of pure negation. The Arabs could have gone along with the U.N.’s partition plan like the Jews did, and chosen to build whatever version of Switzerland or Belgium on the eastern Med in 1948. Instead, they resoundingly chose war. That’s the storied “Nakba” at the core of the Palestinian legend—the catastrophe that drove the Arabs from their land and hung a key around the neck of a nation waiting to go home. The Arabs chose the catastrophe; they chose war, based on the premise that they would inevitably win and exterminate the Jews.
Yet despite repeated military failures, and the increasing distance between the first-world powerhouse that the Israelis built and their increasingly war-torn, third-world neighborhood, the global conscience was always predisposed to rebuilding what the Palestinians destroyed. Accordingly, the Palestinian Arabs became a tribe of feral children whose identity was carved out of the relentless vow to eliminate Israel and slaughter the Jews en masse—despite repeated failures, each one more crushing than the last.
Trump said, enough, we’re not rebuilding Gaza. Time for a new idea—the Gazans have to to go, they can try to start again somewhere else, in a land where every building still standing isn’t already wired to explode.
Gazans waged an exterminationist campaign against Israel, and they lost. At any other time in history, save the last 75 years, they would be lucky to lose only territory and not have their legend and language permanently deleted from the book of the living.
What if they won’t go, or if the Egyptians and Jordanians won’t take them? They’ll take them, said Trump. Ah, he’s talking big, but it’s not real, say the experts—after all, he’s a real estate guy, and he’s pretending it’s just another property deal to pressure Hamas—Mar-a-Gaza. You can’t move a million people just like that, says an American electorate that elected Trump because he promised to deport tens of millions of illegal aliens who crossed the U.S. border in the last four years. He’s nuts says the D.C. foreign policy crowd: He’ll destabilize Egypt and Jordan, and undermine America’s best Arab friends and allies in the region.
Yet Trump is right to see both Egypt and Jordan as paltry constructions with little-to-no ability to project force on America’s behalf, and whose survival depends month to month on American aid. Cairo is useful to the United States only insofar as it, one, makes sure the Suez Canal is open and, two, observes the peace treaty with Israel—i.e., continues its campaign of repression against a populace of 112 million people who can barely afford to buy bread, and many of whose dreams are filled with the same insanity that drives Hamas. The only antidote to this misery that Egypt’s rulers have found is blaming the Zionists next door for the ills of their own society, while torturing religious extremists in their prisons. Maybe when Elon Musk is finished fixing Washington he can conduct an audit of where American money goes in Egypt. Somehow, I doubt he’d get in the door.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s problem is that he allowed Hamas to smuggle arms through the Philadelphi crossing into Gaza, thereby violating Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel—which is what we nominally pay him for. From the perspective of Trump, an American president keen to enforce treaty obligations, Sisi has a new chance to prove himself as a friend of America and not a grafting liar by adding a million Gazans—who in the past have been ruled by Egypt and have family names like al-Masri (“the Egyptian”)—to Egypt’s existing population of 112 million, amounting percentagewise to roughly the same number of legal immigrants that the United States accepts per year. Sisi can deal with the Hamas members among the Gazan immigrants the same way he deals with Muslim Brotherhood militants in his own society—or he can give them all medals for their service. It’s up to him.
And if not? Well, he might remember that Hosni Mubarak’s regime collapsed not because of Muslim Brotherhood-led street protests during the 2011 Arab Spring but because Barack Obama withdrew his support from the longtime U.S. ally.
With money from the Gulf states, or even Israel, Sisi can afford to absorb Palestinians and might even volunteer to take all of Gaza—the average salary in Egypt at present being the equivalent of $5,000 per year. He can then leave Jordan’s King Abdullah responsible for the rest of the Palestinians in the likely event that Trump, as he did in his first term, encourages Netanyahu to annex the Jordan Valley, or goes a step further and acknowledges Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.
Since the CIA has long treated the Hashemite Kingdom as a key asset, we can expect within the next week The Washington Post’s David Ignatius to publish an article based on intelligence sources—i.e., U.S. and Jordanian spies—concocting a story about Trump’s rationale for “destabilizing Jordan.” The reality is that the Jordanians, with U.S. help, put down a Palestinian rebellion in 1970. The country of a little more than 11 million is already estimated to be two-thirds Palestinian, the rest Jordanian tribesmen, and it’s hard to see how adding another 500,000 Palestinians will make it harder for Jordan’s notoriously effective security services to contain their neighbors, especially if the offer includes a few dozen more Black Hawk helicopters. After all, no one will expect the Jordanians to allow Hamas to build a giant tunnel-city stuffed with rocket factories beneath their encampments while giving them billions in foreign aid to pay for it all.
Again, the key players here aren’t Jordan and Egypt but the oil rich Gulf Cooperation Council states, especially Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and of course Qatar. Trump might make Saudi largesse in resettling the Gazans a precondition for the much-hyped prospect of normalizing relations between Riyadh and Jerusalem. Given the fact that Israel regularly attracts nine- and 10-figure investments from Silicon Valley’s biggest funds, the reality is that the Saudis have little to offer Israel except for money applied to exactly this type of local purpose. Moving millions of Gazans who have repeatedly attacked their Israeli neighbors out of what is now a shattered war zone is a sensible investment in the kind of stability that helps rich people get richer.
The Arabs and Democrats are only the most vocal of the many opposed to Trump’s initiative. Left-wing governments from Europe to Australia are lining up to pledge their allegiance to the fantasy of a Palestinian state, in the hopes of propitiating Muslim and Arab constituencies at home—whose understanding of “peace” means eliminating Israel. But even leaving the patent bad faith of those professing “peace” aside, moving Gazans out of Gaza is the only sane option 14 months after they initiated a campaign of rape, murder, and hostage-taking that brought their own house down on their heads.
After all, what’s more fanciful, moving 1.7 million people out of Gaza, a large portion of whom would simply be required to board air-conditioned buses or walk across the nearby Egypt border, or compelling them to live in a giant rubble field booby-trapped by an Iran-backed terrorist group? Estimates vary as to how long it would take to clear Gaza of explosives—half a decade or more? Fifteen years? Twenty? Are the Gazans supposed to live quietly in tents for the next decade or two while their homes are rebuilt next door? Where? In “temporary cities” made of Dwell Magazine-like rehabbed shipping containers built by graduates of Birmingham University? In Hamas’ tunnels?
Regardless, should the Palestinians remain in Gaza, they would invariably return to war no matter how much munificence the Gulf Arab states, the European Union, and perhaps even the U.S. might shower on the toxic sand castle built over the past two decades with billions of Western aid money. Proof the Palestinians can’t and won’t keep the peace is that even after they won a reprieve when Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff forced the Biden administration’s cease-fire on Jerusalem, Hamas and its NGO-supported human shields celebrated in the streets as if the Hamas space program had successfully landed Palestinians on Mars. Even as Israel released jailed murderers, the Gazans paraded Israeli hostages through the ruins of Gaza like trophies of war.
The Saudis, Qataris, Emiratis and others who now rend their clothes while lamenting the likely fate of their ant-farm death cult might well have counseled: Quiet brothers, you have been spared. Don’t bring attention to yourselves. For the winds of Gaza shift on a whim and who knows if you are not next to be swept away by fate—or the American president.
Here is the stark reality: Gazans, not just the enlisted members of the Hamas brigades, waged an exterminationist campaign against Israel, and they lost. At virtually any other time in history, save the last 75 years, they would be lucky to lose only territory and not have their legend and language permanently deleted from the book of the living.
Trump’s generous offer to the Gazans therefore signals a return to history, but with a twist. Trump has not only spared them, but vowed to provide them with new lives, better lives, work, new homes, a chance to raise their families in peace, an existence not premised on total and permanent war with a more powerful adversary destined to rout them entirely, and would have already done so if not for the objections of other powerful global players.
Trump, in his innovative mercy, has offered to save the Palestinian people from their own history, and give them a new idea to live by. They should thank their maker for the chance to start anew—and give thanks as well to the American president, who realistically promises them a better future, backed by U.S. global power. Given the repeated failure of the multi-decade-long dream of eliminating and replacing the Jews of Israel, it seems unlikely that the Palestinians will receive a better offer.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/end-of-palestine