During the Second Temple, the Greek empire reigned (over Israel),1 and they (the Greeks) passed decrees against the Jews and (tried) to erase their religion, and did not allow them to carry out Torah (study) or the commandments. They put their hands on their property and their daughters. They entered the Temple, destroyed and made the pure unclean. The Jews were in great distress because of them and were much oppressed, until the G-d of their fathers had mercy on them, delivering them from their hands and saving them. Then overcame, the sons of the Hasmonean High Priest, (the Greeks) and killed them and saved the Jews from their hands. They appointed a king from the Priests, and the kingdom of Israel was restored for more than 200 years until the destruction of (the) second (Temple). When the Jews overcame their enemies and destroyed them, it was the 25th of Kislev2 when they entered the Sanctuary (inner room) and did not find pure (olive) oil in the Temple, except one jar sealed with seal of the High Priest, and it did not contain enough to light except for one day only. But they lit from it the lamps of the Menorah3 for eight days, until they could crush olives and produce a (new quantity) of pure oil. For these reasons, decreed the Sages of that generation that these eight days that begin on the 25th Kislev, will be days of joy and praise. One lights on them lamps at evening at the entrance to the houses, every evening of the eight nights to show off and demonstrate the miracle. These days are called ''Hanukah'' that is to say ''they rested'' (chanu) on the ''25'' ('th of the month) because on the 25th they rested from their enemies. and also because of those days they (re)-dedicated the house (Temple) which their foes had defiled. Also some say that it is a commandment to increase slightly the festive meals on Hanukah. Another reason is because the work of (building) the Sanctuary (in the desert) was completed in these days. One should tell one's children the story of the miracles that were done for our fore-fathers in those days, (see Josephus) However, these meals are not considered as part of the commandment unless one says at the meal songs of praise. One should increase charity in these Hanukah days, for this can help mend any defects in our souls. This charity, should be given particularly to poor Torah scholars. (KSA 139:1)
1) 352 BCE until 70 CE
2) 139 BCE
3) The Menorah was made of gold and had seven branches.
Leaders from 46 countries, accompanied by high-level delegations, will make their way to the capital in the coming days, ahead of the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem on Thursday.
The arrival of over forty world leaders converging on Jerusalem this week might be a feather in the capitol's cap, but for residents who will suffer gridlock and road closures as a result, it could be more like a bone in their throats.Leaders from 46 countries, accompanied by high-level delegations, will make their way to the capital in the coming days, ahead of the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem on Thursday, marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Last week, Foreign Minister Israel Katz described the gathering as the “biggest event since th...
The PA daily newspaper 'Al-Hayat al-Jadida' published an opinion on Saturday calling on readers to commit murders to halt the events of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
The Palestinian Authority’s daily newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida (The New Life) printed an opinion piece on Saturday calling on readers to carry out murders in Jerusalem to halt the upcoming diplomatic event marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported in a press release on Sunday.Noted world leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prince Charles of the UK are expected to attend.
The opinion argues that while “the Holocaust done to the Jews is terrible,” it ...
Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett on Saturday issued restraining orders barring members of a radical left-wing group from Yehuda and Shomron.
Activists with a group called “Anarchists Against the Wall”—an anti-Zionist movement founded in 2003 to protest Israel’s security barrier—have been instigating “violent provocations” each week in a number of Palestinian villages, Bennett said, adding that there was evidence that the alleged violence was aimed at harming Israeli soldiers, damaging property and causing “serious public relations damage” to the country.
“Orders of this type have so far only been issued in the Jewish public against ‘price-tag’ activists, and will now also be directed against anarchist activis...
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal authorities are turning to a new tactic in the escalating conflict over New York City’s so-called sanctuary policies, issuing four “immigration subpoenas” to the city for information about inmates wanted for deportation.
“This is not a request — it’s a demand,” Henry Lucero, a senior U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, told The Associated Press. “This is a last resort for us. Dangerous criminals are being released every single day in New York.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration said Saturday the city would review the subpoenas.
“New York City will not change the policies that have made us the safest big city in America,” spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein said in an email.
...
ARNOLD, Mo. (AP) — A couple who had been together for nearly 65 years have died on the same day at a St. Louis-area nursing home.
Jack and Harriet Morrison’s beds were placed next to each other in their final hours, allowing them to hold hands, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Eighty-six-year-old Jack died first. Harriett, who was 83, died later on Jan. 11.
“I’m sad. But I know they’re at peace and they’re back together,” said Sue Wagener, a niece raised by the Morrisons. “It truly was a love story for the books.”
The couple went on their first date on Halloween of 1955. “They went to a little diner and never separated from that day on,” Wagener said. They married about six months later.
They met as Harriett accomp...
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The Iranian official leading the investigation into the Ukrainian jetliner that was accidentally shot down by the Revolutionary Guard appeared to backtrack Sunday on plans to send the flight recorders abroad for analysis, a day after saying they would be sent to Kyiv.
Hassan Rezaeifar was quoted by the state-run IRNA news agency as saying “the flight recorders from the Ukrainian Boeing are in Iranian hands and we have no plans to send them out.”
He said Iran is working to recover the data and cabin recordings, and that it may send the flight recorders — commonly known as black boxes — to Ukraine or France. “But as of yet, we have made no decision.”
The same official was quoted by the semi-official Tasnim news agency on Saturd...
Joe Biden offered some strong words against Mark Zuckerberg in an interview with The New York Times published Friday.
The former vice president said he sees the Facebook founder as a “real problem” and said it’s possible that his role in “propagating falsehoods” against Biden and other public figures may have broken the law. Biden was asked what he thought of Facebook after his campaign complained to the social-media giant last year about an ad that falsely claimed he blackmailed Ukrainian officials to help his son. Biden responded: “I’ve never been a fan of Facebook, as you probably know. I’ve never been a big Zuckerberg fan. I think he’s a real problem.”
Biden said his issue with Facebook is that it can host...
World’s only novel written in the Auschwitz death camp is to be released in English — some 75 years after its was brought into existence in the days that followed the liberation of the site by the Soviet Red Army on 27 January 1945.
Last Stop Auschwitz: My Story of Survival from within the Camp by by Eliazar de Wind is coming out on January 21 with Grand Central Publishing, days before the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Dutch-Jewish doctor de Wind wrote the novel under pen name Hans van Dam, hiding under a pile of clothes, fearing the uncertainty of the days immediately after the camp’s liberation.
The book offers his account of the atrocities the Nazis committed against the Jews in the camp, where de Wind was transferred from Westerbork transit camp after ar...
A Lithuanian parliament committee is drafting legislation declaring that neither Lithuania nor its leaders as participating in the Holocaust, a lawmaker working on the bill said last month at a conference.
“The Lithuanian state did not participate in the Holocaust because it was occupied, just as the Lithuanian nation could not participate in the Holocaust because it was enslaved,” said Arunas Gumuliauskas, a member of Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis’ Lithuanian Farmers and Greens Union Party.
About 95 percent of the country’s 250,000 Jews were killed the Holocaust after Nazis invaded in 1941.
Efraim Zuroff, Eastern Europe director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, slammed the proposed legislation as “the next step in Holocaust distortion in Eastern Europe&...
France’s justice minister told a leading Jewish newspaper this week that she was “particularly touched” by the case of Sarah Halimi — the 65-year-old Jewish woman who was brutally beaten and murdered by her Muslim neighbor in a public housing project in April 2o17.
Saying that she could “truly understand the emotion caused by this crime,” Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet nevertheless emphasized that she could not comment directly on the widely-protested decision by Paris prosecutors to excuse from trial Halimi’s accused murderer, Kobili Traore, on the grounds that he was delirious from his intake of cannabis on the night of the killing and therefore not criminally responsible.
Speaking with the newspaper Actualite Juive, Belloubet said that lega...
Baltimore, MD - Jan. 19, 2020 - BJL wishes a hearty Mazel Tov to Yonah And Sharona Abramowitz on the birth of a son.
יה"ר שיזכו לגדל בנם לתורה, לחופה, ולמעשים טובים. אמן
Mazel Tov grandparents Alan and Janet Abramowitz
A recycling cage that collects plastic bottles fell on a five-year-old boy on Sunday in Petach Tikvah near a daycare and caused a partial amputation of the boy's finger.
United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Yisroel Tzairi who was one of the first responders at the scene relayed: "When I arrived at the scene I was told by the staff that a large metal cage that is used to collect recyclable bottles fell on the boy's hand. Together with other EMS personnel from United Hatzalah's ambucycle unit, I treated the boy for his injury at the scene before he was transported to Tel HaShomer Hospital where the doctors will attempt to reattach the part of his finger that was amputated."
IDF forces shelled Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip Sunday afternoon, following a balloon bombing in southern Israel, Arab media outlets reported.
An explosion was reported shortly beforehand Sunday afternoon in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, near the Gaza frontier, apparently the result of a balloon bombing launched from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip towards Israel.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in Sderot.
After the bombing in Sderot, Arab media outlets reported that Israeli forces had shelled Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip, apparently in response to the balloon bomb.
No causalities have been reported in Gaza thus far. Red more at Arutz-7
2nd Lifeless Body Found In Israel In Less Than 7 Hours - 35-Year-Old Man Found In Field Near Rehovot
The body of a 35-year-old man was found in a field near Rehovot.
The man's body was found with no signs of life in a field near one of the bypass roads of Rehovot.
United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Aviran Sasson who was among the first responders at the scene said: "When I arrived at the scene I found a man lying on the ground with no signs of life. Unfortunately, he was pronounced dead at the scene due to the severity of injuries that he sustained. Police have opened an investigation into the incident."
This is the second incident in which a dead body was found in the past seven hours.
Earlier on Sunday morning, just before 7:00 a.m. a man, also in his mid-thirties, was found lifeless in a stadium in Netanya.
United Hatzalah volunteer EMT Ofir Roystone ...
A child is in serious condition and a mand and a woman were lightly injured as a result of a building fire in Nahariya.
The fire took place in a residential building on Yehuda HaMaccabi Street in Nahariya.
United Hatzalah volunteer EMT and Nahariya Chapter Head Menachem Goldberg who was one of the first responders at the scene said: "A boy, approximately 8-years-old, ran out of the burning apartment prior to the arrival of emergency teams. The boy was suffering from burns and severe smoke inhalation. Together with other EMS personnel, I treated a man and a woman who were extricated from the burning apartment by firefighters. Both of the adults were lightly injured and were suffering from smoke inhalation. All three were treated at the scene and then rushed to the Galil Medica...
In a shift toward transparency, the National Security Agency announced a bug that could have left over 900 million PCs vulnerable to attack.
Microsoft released a patch for Windows 10 and Server 2016 today after the National Security Agency found and disclosed a serious vulnerability. It's a rare but not unprecedented tip-off, one that underscores the flaw's severity—and maybe hints at new priorities for the NSA.
The bug is in Windows' mechanism for confirming the legitimacy of software or establishing secure web connections. If the verification check itself isn't trustworthy, attackers can exploit that fact to remotely distribute malware or intercept sensitive data.
"[We are] recommending that network owners expedite implementation of the patch...
Black Americans gave deeply pessimistic assessment of their place in the United States a Washington Post-Ipsos poll of African Americans nationwide shows, which reveals fears about whether their children will have a fair shot to succeed and a belief that white Americans don’t fully appreciate the discrimination that black people experience.
While personally optimistic about their own lives, black Americans today offer a bleaker view about their community as a whole. They also express determination to try to limit Trump to a single term in office.
More than 8 in 10 black Americans say they believe Trump is a racist and that he has made racism a bigger problem in the country. Nine in 10 disapprove of his job performance overall.
The pessimism goes well beyond assessments of the...
A federal judge on Friday sentenced former congressman Chris Collins to 26 months in prison for his part in an insider trading scheme and lying to the FBI.
“You had a duty to meet and you betrayed that duty,” U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick said as he handed down the sentence.
Collins tearfully apologized to his family and his constituents, acknowledging that he tipped off his son to confidential information that a small Australian biotechnology company’s new therapy for multiple sclerosis had failed a critical clinical trial. Collins’s son and several others used the information to avoid more than $700,000 in losses. Collins also admitted that he later lied to the FBI about the incident.
“I stand here today a disgraced former congressman,” said ...
PEQUANNOCK — A local car dealership is donating a brand-new minivan to the family of the Jersey City police officer who was killed in the line of duty last month.
The officer's widow, Laura Seals, will be behind the wheel of a fully loaded 2020 Honda Odyssey EX-L, worth more than $39,000.
Detective Joseph Seals, 40, a 15-year veteran of the city's Police Department, was shot at a cemetery on Dec. 10 by assailants who then drove to a nearby kosher grocery store, where they gunned down three more people. A lengthy shootout with police ensued, and the pair of suspects also were killed.
The van is being donated by Route 23 Honda, a dealership operated by Performance Auto Group, near the township's border with Wayne.
"That is what she want...