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Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report http://www.IsraelNationalNews.com ------------------------------------------------ Delivered Daily via Email, Sunday thru Friday Wednesday, Apr. 05 '17, ט' בניסן תשע"ז HEADLINES: 1. AN ARAB BAKERY THAT OBSERVES PASSOVER? 2. 'IT'S HEARTBREAKING - BUT THE SUPREME COURT IS RIGHT' 3. POLL: LIKUD-27, YESH ATID-29 4. BENNETT URGES CABINET MEETING OVER SYRIAN CHEMICAL ATTACK 5. QUADRUPLETS BORN IN SHAAREI TZEDEK HOSPITAL 6. GUATEMALAN MAYOR TO SERVE YEAR IN JAIL FOR EXPELLING HAREDIM 7. WHITE HOUSE BLAMES OBAMA FOR CHEMICAL ATTACK 8. THE EFFECTS OF THE TUITION CRISIS IN NORTH AMERICA ON ISRAEL 1. AN ARAB BAKERY THAT OBSERVES PASSOVER? by Baruch Gordon This is a true story that occurred 47 years ago, and this writer corroborated with the granddaughter of the chief character, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman, in order to write it. The venue is Yefet Street in Yafo (Jaffa) where Jews and Arabs once owned businesses, one next to another. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shtouber owned a shoe factory on the colorful Yafo street, next to the famous Arab-owned Abulafia bakery. In Israel, almost every supermarket and corner grocery ceases selling bread or any leavened products during the weeklong Passover holiday, in accordance with Jewish law which prohibits bread. Non-observant Jews from Tel Aviv would line up at the bakery on Passover to buy bread products; the Abulafia family worked overtime to supply the increased demand. Rabbi Shlomo Zalman's tender Jewish soul ached at the site of seeing fellow Jews straying from Passover tradition and indulging en masse in Abulafia's baked goods. He approached the bakery's late owner Sayeed Abulafia with an attractive offer. "How much profit do you make on the week of Passover," the Rabbi asked. "Passover is our most profitable week of the year," Sayeed answered, disclosing the staggering amount which was equivalent to the cost of an apartment in Yafo. Imbued with rock-solid faith that he would succeed, the Rabbi told Sayeed that he would organize the exact amount for him, if he would close his bakery for the entirety of Passover. And so it was. Sayeed, closed the bakery, took advantage of the time to do a few renovations, enjoyed the vacation, and didn't lose a penny of profit. For the next five years, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Shtauber would arrive one week before Pesach with the payoff, and Sayeed agreed each year to close on Passover. In the 6th year, Sayeed came early to the rabbi's shoe factory to change the agreement: "Our family has had so much profit and blessing from Allah in the merit of our closing on Passover, that there is no longer any need to pay us. We will stay closed without the money." Both Sayeed and Rabbi Shlomo Zalman since passed away, but Sayeed's grandson who carries the same name, now runs the bakery and honors the same family tradition: "This Arab bakery closes on Passover," says the young Sayeed. Recently, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman's grandson Chaim Shtauber brought Sayeed a copy of the original agreement between their grandparents. The picture of the two grandchildren standing together in front of the bakery holding the original agreement can be viewed here. [Sign up now to get the exact stats of Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria at the West Bank Jewish Population Stats website.] 2. 'IT'S HEARTBREAKING - BUT THE SUPREME COURT IS RIGHT' by Uzi Baruch The Israeli Supreme Court on Monday denied an appeal filed by the parents of a fallen soldier to reopen the case regarding the future of frozen sperm samples which could allow their son to posthumously father a child and provide them with a grandchild. While the court’s decision drew bitter outcries from the soldier’s parents and their supporters, one prominent Israeli rabbi claims the ruling has the backing of Jewish law. Shaked Meiri was a 27-year old reserve soldier when he was killed in an army training accident in the Golan Heights in 2004. Meiri was a newlywed, married just three months before the fatal accident, and had no children with his wife, Shela. Immediately after the accident, Meiri’s widow accepted an offer by the IDF to extract sperm samples from Meiri and to preserve them for later use, though it is unclear whether they remained viable. Ownership of the 19 preserved samples became a point of contention between Meiri’s parents – Hadarat and Roni - and his widow. While Meiri’s widow has since remarried and had two children, the fallen soldier’s parents wished to use the samples to produce a grandchild with a surrogate mother. But Meiri’s widow refused to use them herself prior to getting remarried, and has since insisted that no one else make use of the samples. A 2015 ruling by Judge Miriam Kraus of the Petah Tikva Magistrate’s Court divided the 19 samples between Meiri’s widow and his parents, a decision which would have enabled his parents to produce grandchildren with the samples. Judge Kraus ruled that the wishes of the deceased should be considered in the case, and the strong probability that he would have wanted to father children was grounds for enabling him to do so, even if posthumously. In December 2016, however, the Supreme Court overruled the lower court’s decision, ruling that the parents may not use the sperm samples without the widow’s approval. According to the 4-1 split decision, parents have no standing to clarify what their deceased child’s wishes might be in a hypothetical situation, nor do potential grandparents have rights to grandchildren. On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the parents to reconsider the ruling, effectively closing the case. "The court has decided that I won’t have any grandchildren from my son, Shaked," said Hadarat Meiri, Shaked’s mother. But Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, dean of the Amit Orot Shaul Hesder Yeshiva and founding member of the Tzohar rabbinical organization, says the court’s ruling was in accordance with Jewish law. "It’s heartbreaking, but the Supreme Court was right in its decision," said Rabbi Cherlow, "because in a dispute between a widow and bereaved parents, [in this case] on the use of the husband’s sperm, the widow comes first, and her choice prevails." Rabbi Cherlow explained the logic behind the preference for a widow’s opinion over that of a man’s bereaved parents. "From the moment a man makes a covenant with his wife and she with him, that relationship is binding above all others. This idea is conveyed in the description of Creation [in the Book of Genesis]: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.’ That’s the proper, ethical way to approach [this case]." "This choice [to marry] is made of their own free will, and it includes in it the joint decision to bring children into the world. Even if you would say – in my opinion, incorrectly – in a case where there is no widow that the parents have a right to bring children into the world with their son’s sperm, when his widow opposes it we must obey her decision and view her as the one empowered to make the choice what to do." 3. POLL: LIKUD-27, YESH ATID-29 by Arutz Sheva Staff A Channel 10 poll released Tuesday evening reveals that if elections were to take place today, the Likud would receive 27 mandates while Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid party would receive 29 seats. According to the poll, if former education minister Gidon Saar, who announced on Monday his return to the Likud and to politics after a two-year hiatus, would be at the helm of the Likud, the two parties would both receive 29 seats. Despite this poll, 68% of Likud voters stated that they would prefer Netanyahu to lead their party, while only 13% expressed a preference for Gidon Saar. The other results of the poll predicted the Joint Arab List would receive 12 seats, Jewish Home-10 seats, the haredi UTJ party - 7 seats, Meretz- 7 seats and Shas, Yisrael Beitenu and Kulanu all with 6 seats. 4. BENNETT URGES CABINET MEETING OVER SYRIAN CHEMICAL ATTACK by Arutz Sheva Staff Education Minister Naftali Bennett(Jewish Home) addressed prime minister Netanyahu Tuesday and asked him to convene an urgent cabinet meeting regarding the chemical attack which occurred in Syria. The attack involving chemical weapons in the northern Syrian province of Idlib Tuesday morning killed roughly 100 people and left hundreds more injured. Bennett said that the discussion should focus on the humanitarian perspective, the regional security ramifications, the significance of the use of chemical weapons and the calculated genocide taking place in Syria. He added that the attack on civilians by using chemical weapons requires renewed security thinking on the part of the Israeli security cabinet. Prime Minister Netanyahu also referred to the massacre perpetrated by Assad and said that "the shocking pictures from Syria ought to shake any human being. Israel sharply condemns the use of chemical weapons in any situation and especially against helpless civilians. Israel calls on the international community to fulfill its promise made in 2013 and remove the chemical weapons from Syria." He added that "this cruel war emphasizes the fundamental imperative that we will always defend ourselves by ourselves against every enemy and every threat." According to reports from Syria, one of the hospitals to which the wounded were being evacuated was bombed from the air. The Assad regime denies using chemical weapons, while France and the Syrian opposition have called for an urgent meeting of the U.N. security council. 5. QUADRUPLETS BORN IN SHAAREI TZEDEK HOSPITAL by Eliran Aharon A set of healthy quadruplets was born at the Shaarei Tzedek medical center from a spontaneous pregnancy. The quads were born during the Purim festival after they had undergone a long journey, as they travelled from Mexico to Israel in their mother's womb. The 24-year-old couple married about two years ago and decided to move to the husband's birthplace in Mexico. The couple did not immediately succeed in getting pregnant but now have four healthy children. The babies, two boys and two girls, were born by caesarean delivery in the 33rd week of pregnancy and weighed 1.5 kg on average. "Cases of spontaneous birth of quadruplets are very rare," said Professor Arnon Samuelov, the head of the maternity department in Shaarei Tzedek and the doctor who performed the operation. "Even in extra-uterine pregnancies such births are uncommon." The happy mother described her shock at hearing about the unusual pregnancy: "In the two years that we did not succeed in getting pregnant I felt that we should go back to the land of Israel and the moment I found that I had a multiple pregnancy I knew it was time to return. I am grateful that we have come back and that the children were born in Israel." Multiple births are not unknown to the family as the grandmother of the babies had herself given birth to triplets, but the couple still cannot believe that after the two-year wait they have four healthy children. At present they are preparing to take care of the four babies. "Obviously we will need a seven-seat car and I suppose that we will have to share caring for the babies between us. At first the children will be divided into two cribs," said the father, adding that family and friends were pitching in and offering their help with the babies. 6. GUATEMALAN MAYOR TO SERVE YEAR IN JAIL FOR EXPELLING HAREDIM by AFP The former mayor of a town in western Guatemala has been sentenced to a year in prison for forcing out a community of haredi Jews in 2014, prosecutors said Tuesday. Rodolfo Perez was found guilty of coercion over the incident in the predominantly indigenous town of San Juan La Laguna. He was given the option of paying a $1,000 fine to escape jail time. During his trial, Perez argued he had given the expulsion order to end "a clash of cultures" with the community of around 500 ultra-Orthodox Jews, many of whom had arrived in 2014 from Canada, where they had battled allegations of child abuse. He argued that the community, hailing from various Latin American and European countries as well as the US and Israel, had disrespected local indigenous traditions, particularly concerning the dead, and conflicts had arisen with locals. The Jewish group moved to the outskirts of the capital, Guatemala City, 75 kilometers (45 miles) away, in September 2014. After police raided their community last year looking for a girl that Israel had declared kidnapped and to look for child abuse, they relocated to a town to the east, Oratorio, where they plan to build homes. The group practices an ultra-orthodox form of Judaism started in the 1980s and known as Lev Tahor, under which the women wear a form of black head-to-toe cloaks similar to the Muslim chador. Its adherents do not believe the state of Israel to be religiously legitimate. 7. WHITE HOUSE BLAMES OBAMA FOR CHEMICAL ATTACK by Yedidia Ben Or The White House stated Tuesday that the Obama administration is responsible for creating conditions allowing for the chemical attack in the Idlib province. White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a briefing that "These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the last administration's weakness and irresolution. President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a 'red line' against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing." This morning it was reported that the Assad regime had bombed the Idlib province from the air with chemical weapons, killing 100 and wounding 400 more people. The city of Idlib is still in the hands of rebel forces. A human rights organization in Syria quoted medical sources who treated victims of the attack as saying that the wounded were suffering from fainting spells and suffocation. Others were suffering from palpitations and other symptoms of gas attacks. It was later reported that the hospital to which the wounded were evacuated was also bombed. The Assad regime denied that it had used chemical weapons in the attack. 8. THE EFFECTS OF THE TUITION CRISIS IN NORTH AMERICA ON ISRAEL [youtube:2026623] The Echad l’Echad Foundation has made as its mission to support those dedicated to Torah learning within the religious Zionist community. Echad l’Echad, which began back in 2009, supports the learning of thousands of students from across the spectrum in religious Zionist yeshivas. The fund, which needs to distribute approximately two million shekels, is in a period of setback and needs our help. Until recently, Echad l’Echad was funded by four main donors, two of whom reside in the United States, each of whom donated approximately $100,000 annually. Two of these donors significantly lowered their donations. One who was expected to give half a million shekels ($125,00) gave around $20,000 instead. The second, unfortunately is not able to donate this year at all. We asked Rabbi Yitzchak Neriya, founder and chairman of the organization, how he views the situation. His answer was very eye-opening. He claims that they anticipated this happening. Rav Neriya explains that anyone who knows American Jews understands that donations to Israel are decreasing due to the astronomical tuition costs affecting all of the communities throughout North America. This obligates philanthropists to give increasing amounts to their own communities and less to Israeli organizations. "This is why we are not surprised," he said. "The tuition crisis in North America is indeed very difficult and I don’t know how it will be solved." "Another thing," Rav Neriya adds, "is that I think the financial situation in Israel is, baruch Hashem, good. The Israeli population has the means to help but isn’t always aware of the importance as they are not taught to give as the Jewish community outside of Israel is. An additional problem which makes it difficult for potential donors in Israel to give is that many Israelis with means feel that the government is responsible for supporting organizations and they are not used to being partners with causes and giving of their own means.? "We did not expect the crisis in the United States to affect us so quickly, but we are hopeful that instead of four large donors we will have thousands of small donors who will help us continue the operations of the Echad l’Echad Foundation. By being forced to reach out and expand our donor pool we can view this ‘crisis’ as an opportunity to allow many more individuals to partner with us in strengthening Torah within the religious Zionist community." To donate in shekels - click here To donate in U.S. dollars - click here To donate in Canadian dollars - click here - and in the drop down menu in section A please click on One to One. ------------------------------------------------ Subscribe to this Daily Israel Report: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Subscribe/ | |
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