HUGE Breaking News: Colt Cabana is the New NWA World Champion
Congratulations to the New NWA World Champion, Colt Cabana. This is Colt’s first major national title. He is the first ever openly Jewish NWA Champion. The title itself has been held by some of the greatest champions ever including Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, and Harley Race. The title itself was linked with TNA for a while as well.
College Basketball Week Starts RIGHT NOW
Congrats to Jared Mintz for being named first team all Patriot League. Click “>HERE. Chris Wroblewski of Cornell was named to the second team (read If more awards come in we will try to let you know.
And Let Us Say…Amen.
-Jeremy Fine
For more info check out www.TheGreatRabbino.com
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The Shabbat Nightmare
She lit the Shabbat candles. He blessed the wine. The oldest sprinkled salt on the challah, and they thanked God for the delicious golden bounty.
Together they sat – faces warmed by candlelight. The rain outside threw frigged daggers against the windowpane.
But they were inside – cozy and safe from Winter’s last gasp.
Maybe they ate chicken soup. Maybe vegetable barley. Maybe they had cholent, and chopped liver and kuggel.
Maybe she baked the little ones’ favorite Parve chocolate cake.
And that night they went to bed in the wrapped stillness of Shabbat – in a peaceful quiet, they tucked their children in —the youngest one just a baby, born only last month. Maybe her body still ached from the memory of birth. Maybe he rubbed her back while she drifted off.
Maybe they never heard The Terrorist come in—the tinkling of glass, and his footsteps muffled by the whoosh of wind and rain.
Maybe The Terrorist killed them first.
Or maybe the children.
Maybe The Terroist’s blade sliced swiftly through their vocal cords, severing them before they could scream.
And maybe just before The Terrorist slaughtered the newborn his hand trembled for a moment as he watched the infant’s tiny chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. Rise and fall.
Maybe they bled out as fast as mercy could allow.
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Charlie Sheen hires Israeli bodyguards
Actor Charlie Sheen has hired Israeli military veterans as round-the-clock security guards.
The guards were hired over the weekend after a crazed fan broke into his home, surprising Sheen and his entourage as they relaxed by the pool, according to reports.
David Pack of Kansas City, Kan., was arrested for trespassing on March 10 at night, shortly after police completed a raid on Sheen’s home.
Sheen was fired last week from his hit CBS sitcom “Two and a Half Men” in the wake of a rant against the show’s Jewish executive producer that was called “borderline anti-Semitism.” The series was not canceled, however.
Warner Brothers said Sheen’s “statements, conduct and condition prevented him from performing his essential duties.”
Sheen, in a radio interview Feb. 24 and in a letter posted on the TMZ website, called “Two and a Half Men” executive producer Chuck Lorre a “contaminated little maggot,” said he was a “clown” and “stupid,” and referred to him several times as Chaim Levine. Lorre’s given name is Charles Michael Levine.
“By invoking television producer Chuck Lorre’s Jewish name in the context of an angry tirade against him, Charlie Sheen left the impression that another reason for his dislike of Mr. Lorre is his Jewishness,” Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League’s national director, said in a statement. “This fact has no relevance to Mr. Sheen’s complaint or disagreement, and his words are at best bizarre, and at worst, borderline anti-Semitism.”
Sheen has called on the ADL to apologize. He also claims that he is Jewish because his mother, actress Janet Templeton, is Jewish, and that he is proud of it.
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Pittsburgh day schools offering free tuition
Pittsburgh’s Jewish day schools are offering free tuition to new students in grades 3-11 for the coming school year.
The initiative is being paid for by the three schools—the Community Day School, Hillel Academy and Yeshiva Schools, all in the residential Squirrel Hill neighborhood in the east end of the Pennsylvania city—as well as by a grant from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh’s Centennial Fund for a Jewish Future.
The free tuition program is for local, permanent residents who apply to one of the day schools for the first time and meet admission guidelines. The student must currently be enrolled in any school in Allegheny County and must be enrolled at one of the day schools prior to the start of the 2011-12 school year.
Nearly 900 students combined are currently enrolled in the three schools. Tuition ranges from more than $4,600 to $14,000 per year, depending on the school and the child’s grade.
“Pittsburgh Jewish day schools provide the highest quality private school education coupled with a deep and lasting connection to Jewish values,” said Chuck Perlow, chairman of the Pittsburgh Jewish Day School Council. “With a strong connection to this community, Hillel Academy, Community Day School and Yeshiva Schools are working collaboratively to give more children and their families the opportunity to experience all that a Jewish day school education has to offer.”
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European anti-Semitism and xenophobia are linked, report finds
European anti-Semitism and xenophobia are linked, report finds
March 13, 2011
BERLIN (JTA)—Anti-Semitism and other forms of xenophobia are closely linked among Europeans, and Hungarians and Poles are the most likely to hold extreme anti-Semitic views, according to a new report.
The report, “The State of Intolerance, Prejudices and Discrimination in Europe,” was released March 11 in the framework of a conference by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a think tank associated with the Social Democratic Party in Germany. The foundation commissioned the new evaluation of a 2008 survey by researchers at the University of Bielefeld of about 1,000 people in eight European countries: Germany, Poland, Holland, Great Britain, Italy, Hungary and Portugal.
Asked whether they agree with the statement that “Jews have too much influence in my country,” 69.2 percent of Hungarians and 49.9 percent of Poles agreed. The lowest levels were in Holland, with 4.6 percent agreeing. Germany, with 19.6 percent, was in the middle, sociologist Beate Kuepper told JTA in a telephone interview.
Kuepper, Andreas Zick and Andreas Hoevermann evaluated the data for the foundation.
Scientists found that those with anti-Semitic tendencies also were likely to be xenophobic against other minority groups, including Muslims, as well as resentful of homosexuals and women, Kuepper said.
Kuepper said she was most surprised by the fact that Germany’s level of anti-Semitism was about average, given the strong public message against anti-Semitism, including the emphasis on Holocaust education. She also said that the results for Poland bore out those of previous studies, which show that religious-based anti-Semitism is extremely high there, at 70 percent.
Researchers find, she said, that “lots of Poles will agree” with the statement that Jews today can be blamed for the death of Jesus, “whereas in the Netherlands people would jump out of the phone if you ask them something like that.”
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Israeli team leaves for Japan aid mission
A civilian Israeli search-and-rescue team left for Japan in the aftermath of a major earthquake and tsunami.
The team organized by IsraAID, an Israeli humanitarian umbrella group, left Israel Sunday morning to assist in an area to be determined by Japanese authorities, according to The Jerusalem Post.
The group—six medical professionals and search-and-rescue experts—said it would reach Japan, which was struck last Friday by an 8.9-magnitude quake and then a tsunami, through South Korea, and then continue on to Toyko or Osaka.
Meanwhile, five Israeli businessmen and one Israeli tourist had not been located as of Saturday night, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
As many as 400 Israeli tourists are currently in Japan, according to reports.
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Israelis demonstrate following Fogels’ funeral
West Bank settlers reportedly attacked Palestinian property in revenge attacks following the funeral of five members of a Jewish family fatally stabbed in a suspected terror attack in their home.
Protesters also held demonstrations across Israel Sunday in sympathy with residents of the West Bank, blocking intersections throughout the country.
Israeli media quoted Palestinian sources as saying that settlers set five cars on fire in the Hawara village near Itamar, the West Bank settlement where the Fogel family lived, and threw stones at Palestinian cars passing near Kedumim.
Palestinians also reportedly threw stones at buses returning to the Itamar area from the funeral of the family. The parents and three of their six children were killed last Friday night.
Protesters blocked junctions throughout Israel, some holding signs reading “We are all settlers” and “Peace isn’t signed with blood.” One of the largest demonstrations took place in Tel Aviv at the Azrieli Junction, located near the army’s national headquarters. Passing drivers honked in solidarity.
Meanwhile, the head of Israel’s Government Press Office is demanding an apology from Cable News Network over its coverage of the attack, saying it avoided describing the incident as a terrorist attack and placing the words ‘terrorist attack’ in quotation marks in a headline on its website.
The CNN report said that the Israeli military was searching for an intruder, though the official Israel Defense Forces statement said that soldiers were searching for the terrorist.
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Murder of West Bank family members spurs protests, new housing approval
Demonstrations in solidarity with settlers and a Cabinet committee’s approval for new housing in the West Bank are among the Israeli responses to the suspected terrorist attack that killed five members of a West Bank Jewish family.
An estimated 20,000 people attended Sunday afternoon’s funeral at a cemetery in Jerusalem to mourn the deaths of Udi Fogel, 36, and Ruth Fogel, 35, and their children Yoav, 11; Elad, 4; and Hadas, 3 months.
Two sons—Roi, 8, and Yishai, 2—were sleeping in a side bedroom and were spared in the Sabbath eve attack in Itamar on March 11. A daughter, Tamar, 12, returned home at midnight from a youth group program to discover the massacre.
The family had been evacuated from Gush Katif and lived in Ariel before building a home in the northern West Bank, near the Palestinian city of Nablus.
Following the funeral, protesters holding demonstrations across Israel in sympathy with residents of the West Bank blocked junctions, some holding signs reading “We are all settlers” and “Peace isn’t signed with blood.” One of the largest rallies took place in Tel Aviv near the army’s national headquarters. Passing drivers honked in solidarity.
Israeli media quoted Palestinian sources as saying that settlers set five cars on fire in the Hawara village near Itamar and threw stones at Palestinian cars passing near Kedumim. Palestinians also reportedly threw stones at buses returning to the Itamar area from the funeral.
Earlier Sunday, an Israeli Cabinet committee approved the construction of hundreds of housing units in West Bank settlements, reportedly in response to the attack.
The vote, after several months of no new construction approval, is for 500 housing units in Gush Etzion, Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel and Kiryat Sefer.
The settlements are believed to be among those that will remain as part of Israel under a peace agreement with the Palestinians. The committee discussed expanding the Itamar settlement or creating a new settlement in memory of the victims, Haaretz reported.
The United States, which wants an Israeli freeze on settlement building, reportedly was informed of the decision.
Danny Dayan, chairman of the Yesha Council settlers’ umbrella group, called the approval of new housing in response to the attack “a small step in the right direction.” He said it was “deeply troubling that it requires the murder of children in the arms of their parents to achieve such an objective.”
At the funeral, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said Udi and Ruth Fogel personified devotion to the Zionist vision and were pioneers.
“Your hands held both scythe and book, teachers and settlers whose entire lives were the love of their country and the love they had for their neighbors,” Rivlin said. “Build more, live more, more footholds—that is our response to the murderers so that they know—they can’t defeat us.”
On Sunday, it was clarified that the fringe Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades of Imad Mughniyeh had claimed responsibility for the attack. The group is named for Mughniyeh, who was Hezbollah’s chief of military operations until he was killed by a car bomb in Damascus in 2008. Hezbollah blames Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency for the killing.
In Gaza, Hamas officials reportedly handed out candy to residents in celebration of the attack.
Israeli military and police forces were scouring the West Bank Sunday for the murderer or murderers, as well as to prevent revenge attacks by Israeli settlers.
“Israel will not stand by idly after such a despicable murder and will act vigorously to safeguard the lives of the citizens of Israel and punish the murderers,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released after the Sabbath ended. “I expect the international community to sharply and unequivocally condemn this murder, the murder of children.
Netanyahu also called on the Palestinian leadership, who he said condemned the attacks with “weak and mumbled statements,” to “stop the incitement that is conducted on a daily basis in their schools, mosques and the media under their control. The time has come to stop this double-talk in which the Palestinian Authority outwardly talks peace and allows—and sometimes leads—incitement at home.”
PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad “firmly” condemned the attack, The Jerusalem Post reported.
The White House and the Mideast Quartet—the diplomatic grouping of the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States that guides the peace process—also condemned the attack, offering their condolences to the victims’ family and to the Israeli people.
“There is no possible justification for the killing of parents and children in their home,” said the White House statement, which called the attack an act of terrorism.
“Attacks on any civilians are completely unacceptable in any circumstance,” the Quartet’s statement said. The Quartet also called to “expedite efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian and comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.”
Volunteers for ZAKA, a search and rescue organization, described the scene shortly after the terror attack as “absolutely horrific.”
“We saw toys lying next to pools of blood, Shabbat clothes covered in blood and everywhere the smell of death mixing with the aroma of the Shabbat meal,” one volunteer said.
The volunteers said the sights were “among the worst we have ever seen.
Israeli President Shimon Peres said in a statement that the attack “indicates a loss of humanity. There is no religion in the world or any faith that allows these kinds of horrible acts.”
Meanwhile, the head of Israel’s Government Press Office is demanding an apology from Cable News Network over its coverage of the attack, which avoided describing the incident as a terrorist attack, and then placed the words ‘terrorist attack’ in quotation marks in a headline on its website.
The CNN report said that the Israeli military was searching for an intruder, though the official Israel Defense Forces statement said soldiers were searching for the terrorist.
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West Bank square dedicated for Palestinian terrorist
Palestinians in an official ceremony named a town square in the West Bank after a terrorist involved in killing 37 Israelis.
Members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction were on hand Sunday for the unveiling of a plaque in memory of Dalal Mughrabi in Al-Bireh, near Ramallah, Reuters reported. No PA government officials attended the ceremony, according to Reuters.
Mughrabi was killed in a 1978 bus hijacking on Israel’s coastal road. She had directed the hijacking of two buses on the coastal road between Haifa and Tel Aviv, which led to the murder of 37 Israelis, including 13 children.
One year ago, the Palestinian Authority had canceled official ceremonies to name the town square for Mughrabi after pressure from U.S. peace envoy George Mitchell and Vice President Joe Biden at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request. The planned ceremony conflicted with a Biden visit to the region.
The PA said at the time that it would place the official monument at a later date.
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