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April 13, 2018

IDF: Captured Iranian Drone Was Set to Hit Israel with Explosives

Leave a Comment / Israel /

The Israel Defense Force (IDF) announced on April 13 that an Iranian drone that breached Israel in February was on its way to attack Israel with explosives.

The IDF tweeted that the drone “was armed with explosives & was tasked to attack Israel.”

“By intercepting the Iranian UAV, IAF combat helicopters prevented the attack Iran had hoped to carry out in Israel,” the IDF wrote. “The UAV was identified & tracked by Israeli defense systems until its destruction, effectively eliminating any threat the Iranian UAV posed.”

Here is video footage of the drone being captured:

According to YNet News, Iran claimed that the drone had “advanced intelligence gathering systems for electronic signals, images, communications and radar systems.”

The Iranian drone is eerily similar to a United States drone that Iran captured in 2011. The Obama administration meekly asked for Iran to return it, a request that was naturally shot down by the Iranian regime.

Back in February, Israel responded to Iran sending the drone by launching a flurry of 122 airstrikes against the Iranians in Syria. An Israeli F-16 was shot down by the Syrian Army, although the pilots survived.

“We dealt severe blows to the Iranian and Syrian forces,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defiantly said at the time. “We made it unequivocally clear to everyone that our rules of action have not changed one bit. We will continue to strike at every attempt to strike at us.”

IDF: Captured Iranian Drone Was Set to Hit Israel with Explosives Read More »

One Dead, Hundreds Injured in Latest Hamas-Led Gaza Riots

Leave a Comment / Israel /

As expected, the weekly Hamas-led Gaza riots continued on April 13, with one Palestinian rioter dead and hundreds of others injured.

The Times of Israel is reporting that a 28-year-old Palestinian man was killed by Israeli gunfire, and over 122 others were injured, per Hamas’ Gaza Health Ministry. Two of the injured Palestinians were reportedly journalists.

The April 13 riots featured protesters burning tires – which they had done the week prior – in addition to Israeli and American flags. The rioters also threw explosives and rocks toward the Israeli side of the border and attempted to fly a kite over to the Israeli side that had a firebomb attached to it.

Additionally, an explosive that the rioters were planning to use against the Israelis accidentally went off, resulting in potentially numerous Palestinians being injured.

Here are some of the scenes from the riots:

The IDF cracked down on the violent riots with riot control methods and firing snipers at the ankles of violent rioters.

“The IDF will not permit damage to the security fence or infrastructure that protects Israeli citizens and will act against the violent rioters and terrorists involved,” the IDF said, per The Times of Israel.

There were around 10,000-15,000 rioters at the April 13 riots, a marked decline from the 20,000 the week before. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman hailed the decline in rioters as a victory for Israel.

“Each week there are fewer rioters on our border with Gaza,” Liberman tweeted. “Our determination is well understood on the other side.”

One Dead, Hundreds Injured in Latest Hamas-Led Gaza Riots Read More »

Poll: Nearly Two-Thirds of Millennials Don’t Know What Auschwitz Is

Leave a Comment / United States /

A poll released on April 12 shows that nearly two-thirds of millennials don’t actually know what Auschwitz is.

The Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study found that 66% of millennials couldn’t identify Auschwitz; among all adults that number was 41%.

In fact, 49% of millennials couldn’t identify a single concentration camp or ghetto; that number was 45% among all U.S. adults. Forty-one percent of millennials also thought that two million Jews or less died in the Holocaust and 22% didn’t even know or weren’t sure what the Holocaust was. Among adults, those numbers were 31% and 11%, respectively.

Making matters worse was the fact that the poll found that 70% of all U.S. adults felt that less and less people care about the Holocaust and 58% thought that something like the Holocaust could happen again in the future.

The aforementioned numbers could be due to the fact that 80% of U.S. adults have never been to a Holocaust museum and 66% don’t know a Holocaust survivor.

However, there was some good news in the poll: 93% of U.S. adults said that all schools should teach their students about the Holocaust and 80% think it’s “important” that people know about the Holocaust to ensure that it never happens again.

Still, the whole point of #NeverAgain is to ensure that people don’t forget about the horrors of the Holocaust, and the Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study shows that there are “significant gaps in knowledge” in the country. This is at a time when anti-Semitic attacks in the U.S. increased by 60% in 2017 and anti-Semitic incidents throughout Europe increased.

However, a recent study found that anti-Semitic attacks globally declined by 9% in 2017.

Read the full results of the poll here.

Poll: Nearly Two-Thirds of Millennials Don’t Know What Auschwitz Is Read More »

This is Why We Took Archery at Camp - A Poem for Haftarah Shemini by Rick Lupert

This is Why We Took Archery at Camp – A Poem for Haftarah Shemini (Machar Chodesh) by Rick Lupert

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

You’d think, if you were the king, you
wouldn’t worry too much about your lineage
especially if you had a son who

as things went back in the days of kings
would automatically ascend to your throne.
Yet Saul, whose son’s best friend was David

who, if you know your history, is the most
sung about Jewish king of all time, was
deeply concerned the family line would

stop with him. Him meaning Saul, whose
son Jonathan warned his best friend, the future
King David, who hadn’t even heard the

name Goliath yet, through a secret code
of arrows, and, in particular, the way and
distance in which the arrows, would be shot

really wasn’t into the idea of David as the
future. I mean why spend so much time grooming
Jonathan for the Job if someday David was going

to get crafty with a slingshot and then be
given the keys to the kingdom? Not that
Saul had any idea about this yet. I’m just

writing this with the benefit of thousands
of years of knowledge – in particular the
knowledge that David was the future thing.

So arrows were shot, and instead of
coming ‘round the palace for the hope of
a feast, David takes the warning of his friend

(a real prince of a friend) and just gathers
up the arrows and probably dines alone
rather than face the death-wrath of

Jonathan’s dad. Good friends hug. Good friends
kiss. And the future king lives on forever
in the hearts of our people.

God Wrestler: a poem for every Torah Portion by Rick LupertLos Angeles poet Rick Lupert created the Poetry Super Highway (an online publication and resource for poets), and hosted the Cobalt Cafe weekly poetry reading for almost 21 years. He’s authored 21 collections of poetry, including “God Wrestler: A Poem for Every Torah Portion“, “I’m a Jew, Are You” (Jewish themed poems) and “Feeding Holy Cats” (Poetry written while a staff member on the first Birthright Israel trip), and most recently “Donut Famine” (Rothco Press, December 2016) and edited the anthologies “A Poet’s Siddur: Shabbat Evening“,  “Ekphrastia Gone Wild”, “A Poet’s Haggadah”, and “The Night Goes on All Night.” He writes the daily web comic “Cat and Banana” with fellow Los Angeles poet Brendan Constantine. He’s widely published and reads his poetry wherever they let him.

This is Why We Took Archery at Camp – A Poem for Haftarah Shemini (Machar Chodesh) by Rick Lupert Read More »

Ruvi Rivlin gets everyone singing

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

This Facebook video is beyond charming. Ruvi Rivlin, the President of the State of Israel, decides to get the people of Israel singing in anticipation of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. His big heart and joyfulness abound.

https://www.facebook.com/koolulam/videos/2118226415098757/

He explains that music brings everyone together.

“Words words words – blah blah blah – too many words.”

Ruvi and all that he picks up along the way in his offices sing together the famous song “Al Kol Eleh” (“Over all these things…”) made famous by Israeli poet/songwriter Naomi Shemer.

In the middle of Beit Hanasi (the President’s House in Jerusalem) he stops and says: “Wait – this isn’t enough!” The entire people of Israel have to join and sing too, so he invites everyone to sing – the secular and religious, Arabs and Jews, young and old, men and women and children. He asks they everyone put all else aside and come together as one.

“Over the honey and the stinger
Over the bitter and the sweet
Over our daughter, our baby
My God, watch over what is good

Over the flame that is burning
Over the water running pure
Over the man returning home
from far away

Chorus:
Over all these, Over all these
God please watch over them for me,
Over the honey and the stinger
Over the bitter and the sweet

Do not uproot what is planted
Do not forget the hope
Return me, and I will return
to the good land.

Watch over this house for me, my God,
the garden, and the wall
protect them from pain, from sudden fear
and from war.

Watch over for me the little I have
the light, the baby.”
over the fruit that has not ripened
and over what has already been reaped.

 

Ruvi Rivlin gets everyone singing Read More »

Torah Talk: Parshat Shemini with Rabbi Claudio Kupchik

Leave a Comment / Israel, Rosner's Domain, Rosner's Video /

Rabbi Claudio Kupchik became the Senior Rabbi of Temple Beth El of Cedarhurst in 2017.

Kupchik was born and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina. While completing medical studies at the University of Buenos Aires Medical School, he determined that Jewish studies and serving the Jewish people was truly his calling and his first love. He studied at the Seminario Rabinico Latinoamericano in Buenos Aires, the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical School in Latin America, where he was ordained in 1990. Upon coming to the US, he continued his studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary in NY achieving an MA in Talmud and Rabbinics. Rabbi Kupchik resides in Woodmere with his wife Ann-Rebecca Laschever. They have two boys, Jacob and Simon.

In parshat Shemini: Following the seven days of their inauguration, Aaron and his sons begin to officiate as kohanim (priests). Aaron’s two elder sons, Nadav and Avihu, offer a “strange fire before G‑d” and die. Aaron is silent in face of his tragedy. G‑d commands the kosher laws, identifying the animal species permissible and forbidden for consumption. Also in Shemini are some of the laws of ritual purity.

Previous talk on Parshat Shemini:

Rabbi Gordon Tucker

Rabbi Ahud Sela

Rabbi Andrew Paley

Rabbi Daniel Fellman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Torah Talk: Parshat Shemini with Rabbi Claudio Kupchik Read More »