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 כ"א בתשרי תשע"ח / Wednesday, Oct. 11 '17 Subscribe to this Daily Israel Report -http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Subscribe Headlines
1. Thousands at Western Wall for Hoshana Rabbah prayersby Yoni Kempinski [video:2033792] [album:open Read Rabbi Dr. Raymond Apple's explanation of Hoshana Rabba here: Hoshana Rabbah - What is it About? It’s the unknown quantity of the Jewish calendar as far as most Jews are concerned. It brings no massive crowds to the synagogue although it fills the Western Wall , but hardly anybody non-Orthodox has ever even heard of it. It always falls on a weekday and no-one has time to savour its ceremonial and liturgical poetry. It is a solemn day with almost a Yom Kippur spirit and yet it is part of the joyous festival of Sukkot. This is Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day of Sukkot. You know it is Sukkot because we sit in the sukkah, there is Hallel with lulav and etrog, and there is a circuit of the synagogue with worshippers holding lulav and etrog in their hands. But many of the prayers are solemn, the melodies recall Yom Kippur, and it is seen as a day for repentance. The name Hoshana Rabbah is not Biblical; Num. 29:32 refers simply to “the 7th day”. Hoshana Rabbah means either “the great Hoshana“; hoshana is a prayer for salvation, based on two words, hosha na, “please save”. The term hoshana is also applied to the bundles of willow twigs which are beaten until the leaves fall off; an early name for the festival was yom sh’vi’i shel aravah – “the 7th day of the willow”. The link with willows is suggested by the prayers for rain said on Sukkot. Willows need adequate water, and according to the Mishnah this is the time of year when the Almighty decides whether the coming year will have enough rain. There is a belief that God told Abraham that if his descendants are not forgiven on Rosh Hashanah, they will be forgiven on Yom Kippur; if they are not forgiven on Yom Kippur they will be forgiven on Hoshana Rabbah. This makes the 7th day of Sukkot our final chance of forgiveness during the month of Tishri. The Jerusalem Talmud (Rosh HaShanah 4:8) commenting on Isa. 58:2 (“They seek Me day by day”), says there are two days when people seek God – Rosh HaShanah and Hoshana Rabbah. A more nationalistic Midrash says that the people of Israel and the nations of the world both claim that their own principles are superior, but when on Hoshana Rabbah the cantor holds the Torah scroll aloft and the congregation surround him, the angels joyously proclaim, “The Children of Israel have prevailed! The Children of Israel have prevailed!” There was a folk belief that on Hoshana Rabbah there is no shadow to the head of a person who is going to die during that year, and hence some people used to check their shadow that night to see whether it is still normal size. A more rationalistic belief is that Hoshana Rabbah is the messianic dimension of Sukkot. There is even a tradition that on this day we can actually hear the messianic footsteps. Thus when we put aside the lulav and etrog and take up the willow twigs and beat them, we echo the words, kol m’vasser v’omer – “A voice brings tidings and proclaims”. The tidings are those of the Song of Songs 2:8, Kol dodi hineh zeh ba, “The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes!” Making Hoshana Rabbah a solemn day of forgiveness was therefore the rabbis’ way of teaching us that the tikkun olam, the “mending of the world” that is part of messianism, has to begin with a personal act of spiritual mending. 2. Special broadcast: Hoshana Rabbah meal in Dnipro, Ukraineby Uzi Baruch 3. Watch: Hard landing for world's largest passenger jetby Tzvi Lev [youtube:2033779] 4. Did Jewish Breitbart journalist see the Nazi salutes?by Tzvi Lev [youtube:2033774] An explosive new video shows Jewish Breitbart tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos singing 'America the Beautiful' in a Texas bar while white nationalists perform Nazi salutes in front of him. The video, which was reported on by Buzzfeed, was taken in April 2016 at the One Nostalgia Tavern in Dallas. As Yiannopoulos sings, white nationalists such as Richard Spencer scream out "sieg heil". The video was filmed by Devin Saucier, who writes for the white nationalist magazine American Renaissance. Yiannopoulos claimed in his defense that he has "extreme myopia", and could not see the Nazi salutes being performed in front of him. Yiannopoulos pointed out to the Independent that he frequently wears glasses and was not wearing any in the clip. “This is how my vision is without glasses. It’s worse in dark rooms," he told the newspaper. "I knew they were there, but I did not see them do this.” The video was part of a wide-ranging investigation that Buzzfeed published which exposed Breitbart's ties to neo-Nazis and white nationalists. According to the report, Yiannopoulos was in frequent contact with white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, and often used their ideas and aims in articles he published. For example, when Yiannopoulos needed material for an article he was working on about the Alt-Right, he emailed Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer, who works as the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer's systems administrator, for help, asking him to "braindump some thoughts for me". Yiannopoulos also allegedly used Nazi motifs as his email passwords. In a trove of leaked emails Buzzfeed received, Yiannopoulos told a coworker that his email password "began with the word Kristall" (likely referring to Kristallnacht), and used "LongKnives1290" as the password for another account. 'LongKnives' is the night that Adolph Hitler consolidated power over the Nazi party, and 1290 was the year the Jews were expelled from England. Yiannopoulos responded to the allegation by claiming that it was all done as a joke. "I have said in the past that I find humor in breaking taboos and laughing at things that people tell me are forbidden to joke about," Yiannopoulos told Buzzfeed. "But everyone who knows me also knows I'm not a racist. As someone of Jewish ancestry, I, of course, condemn racism in the strongest possible terms. I have stopped making jokes on these matters because I do not want any confusion on this subject. I disavow Richard Spencer and his entire sorry band of idiots. I have been and am a steadfast supporter of Jews and Israel. I disavow white nationalism and I disavow racism and I always have.” 5. Sukkah at Brandenburg Gate makes historyby Yoni Kempinski Those passing Berlin's Brandenburg Gate during the intermediate days of the Sukkot holiday were surprised to see an impressive sukkah standing opposite the gate. After the Nazis came to power, Brandenburg Gate served as a symbol of their strength. Berlin Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, who also serves as the city's Chabad emissary, welcomed Jewish residents and tourists, offering light refreshments and inviting them to use the Four Species. Rabbi Teichtal quoted one of his visitors as saying "he was really upset that he would not merit this year to fulfill the commandments pertaining to the holiday of Sukkot." "He didn't stop thanking us for giving him this opportunity," Rabbi Teichtal said. "To him it wasn't just any opportunity - it was an opportunity to express Jewish strength, an opportunity to take the Four Species opposite the gate which once symbolized so much evil." In addition to the sukkah, Rabbi Teichtal organized activities in Berlin throughout the holiday. "We also have mobile sukkahs, which allow Jews throughout the city to fulfill the holiday's commandments," he said. 6. Ted Belman explains his Ultimate Alternative Solutionby ILTV [youtube:2033797] 7. 'Hezbollah determined to give itself option to attack America'by Elad Benari [twittervideo:2033783] The United States on Tuesday announced multi-million dollar rewards for two senior members of the Hezbollah terrorist group. Reports earlier this week said the State Department would offer a reward of $12 million to anyone with information leading to the discovery, arrest, or charge of the two, but the State Department would not confirm the reports until Tuesday's official announcement. The State Department's Counterterrorism Bureau said it would give $7 million and $5 million, respectively, for information leading to the capture of Talal Hamiyah and Fuad Shukr, reported i24news. An informational leaflet described Hamiyah as the head of the organization's External Security Organization, its "element responsible for the planning, coordination, and execution of terrorist attacks outside of Lebanon." Shukr was described as a senior operative who played a central role in planning and carrying out the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American service personnel. Nicholas J. Rasmussen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said before announcing the reward that the U.S. believes that Hezbollah is determined to give itself an option to carry out attacks inside the United States. "It is our assessment that Hezbollah is determined to give itself a potential homeland option as a critical component of its terrorism playbook," Rasmussen said during a briefing, adding that before the September 11, 2001 attacks, Hezbollah was responsible for more American deaths than any other foreign terrorism group. Hezbollah is blacklisted as a terrorist organization in the United States, whichregularly sanctions members of the group. Washington has in the past imposed sanctions on the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and two other members of the organization, for their alleged role in aiding the Syrian government in its crackdown on opposition forces. In May, Saudi Arabia and the United States jointly blacklisted Hashem Safieddine, president of Hezbollah's executive council, which oversees the group's social and economic activities. 8. Death toll rises to 17 as fires ravage Californiaby David Rosenberg The death toll from a series of forest fires in Northern California rose to 17 Wednesday morning, three days after the blazes were ignited across counties north of San Francisco earlier this week. Nearly a dozen fires ravaged the northern Bay Area and Northern California’s wine country in Napa and Sonoma counties this week. At least 17 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the fires, some of which continued to rage out of control early Wednesday morning. More than 2,000 buildings have been destroyed. Authorities expanded evacuations across Napa County late Tuesday night, as fires threatened tens thousands of structures in Napa and neighboring Sonoma counties. On Monday, California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency for much of Northern California and beyond because of the multiple wildfires. The declaration covers Napa, Sonoma and Yuba counties. In total, the fires covered some 120,000 acres of land across Northern California Tuesday, leading Congressman Mike Thompson (D., CA-5) to declare the fire the worst in California history. In October 1991, a single firestorm ravaged the Oakland hills in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area, killing 25 and destroying some 3,300 homes across 1,500 acres. [youtube:2033764] Subscribe to this Daily Israel Report - http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Subscribe | |
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