Arutz Sheva Daily Israel Report
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Wednesday, Nov. 16 '16, ט"ו בחשון תשע"ז
HEADLINES:
1. HOW THE TRUMP WIN SURPRISED EVERYONE - INCLUDING TRUMP
2. TEFILLIN RECOVERED FROM GARBAGE DUMP
3. DAUGHTER OF NAZI OFFICIAL ASKS FORGIVENESS
4. 'JEWISH LAND OWNERSHIP IN JERUSALEM NEEDS TO BE RESPECTED'
5. WATCH LIVE: REGULATION LAW DEBATED IN KNESSET [IN HEBREW]
6. CEO VOWS TO ASSASSINATE PRESIDENT TRUMP
7. CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS MEETS WITH BELARUS PARLIAMENT
8. EUROPEAN RABBIS WORK FOR UNIFIED STANDARDS IN CONVERSIONS
1. HOW THE TRUMP WIN SURPRISED EVERYONE - INCLUDING TRUMP
by David Rosenberg
Donald Trump's stunning upset victory last Tuesday stunned media outlets, pollsters, political analysts, and millions of Clinton supporters who had confidently predicted a Democratic win.
The surprising Republican defeat of the former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defied mainstream political prognosticators, most of whom saw a Clinton win as all but certain.
On Election Day The New York Times gave Clinton an 85% chance of winning – and that was one of the most generous towards Mr. Trump, with only Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight giving him better odds, showing a 71% chance of a Clinton win.
The Huffington Post, by comparison gave Clinton a 98% chance, while the Princeton Election Consortium had the Democrat at a virtual lock with better than a 99% chance of winning. PredictWise and the Daily Kos fared little better, putting Clinton's chances at 89% and 92% respectively.
After the election, explanations and apologies for the miss rolled in, with Larry Sabato writing "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa," after confidently predicting Trump would lose the electoral college 216 – 322. Trump won 306 to 232.
Even Trump's supporters say they were surprised by the results, with 62% telling a Gallup poll after the election that they had not anticipated a Trump win. Seventy-five percent of all adults were surprised by the Trump victory.
But that surprise was not limited to Trump's supporters – the Trump campaign itself had long predicted that Clinton was the favorite to win.
While like most campaigns, Team Trump projected confidence that their candidate would win, behind closed doors their own data showed the odds were against him.
"Trump's own data team actually projected him losing this race in 93 out of 100 scenarios," Megan Murphy told Bloomberg Businessweek.
As Trump's polling hit rock-bottom three weeks ahead of the election, his campaign estimated he had just a 7.8% chance of winning.
While FBI chief James Comey's announcement 10 days later on the renewal of an investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private server for handling classified emails gave the Trump campaign a meaningful boost, even on the eve of the election, the Trump team showed their candidate with just a 30% chance of winning, Bloomberg reported.
A few staff members, however, had radiated optimism while the campaign's own numbers suggested Clinton was on her way to victory.
Brad Parscale, the campaign's digital guru, was consistently bullish on Trump's odds.
"By the Friday before the election, I had predicted that we were gonna win 305 electoral votes," he told Fox News' Megyn Kelly on Tuesday, regarding a prediction that would ultimately be just one shy of the actual result of 306 electoral votes.
"[On the] Friday [before the election], I was 95% sure [of a Trump win], Sunday I was even more. I got more nervous Tuesday morning because I knew so much, I just had to wait."
2. TEFILLIN RECOVERED FROM GARBAGE DUMP
by Ben Shaul
Dozens of volunteers from the haredi community searched over the past few days for a lost set of Tefillin in New York, after the owner accidentally threw them out with the garbage.
Against all odds the team of volunteers did eventually manage to locate the lost Tefillin, which had been thrown out in the Rochester area.
One individual was so concerned about the recovery of the traditional Jewish phylacteries that he put up a cash reward for the return of the Tefillin.
After an extensive search, the pair of Tefillin were found in a garbage dump.
The case drew wide coverage in the local haredi media, with some Hasidic newspapers dubbing the search a "Sanctification of God's name".
A similar incident occurred in Israel a year and a half ago, when a resident of Tel Aviv accidentally threw out his pair of Tefillin in the garbage – only to be recovered later with the aid of several officials from the local municipality.
3. DAUGHTER OF NAZI OFFICIAL ASKS FORGIVENESS
by Arutz Sheva Staff
76 years ago, the brother of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Dov Ber Schneerson, was murdered by the Nazis outside the city of Dnepropetrovsk in the Ukraine.
On Monday, the daughter of the Nazi official responsible for the Dov Ber's murder and the murder of others who, along with Dov Ber, had been hospitalized at the Igren Hospital near Dnepropetrovsk, came to ask forgiveness from the Jewish People.
Lubavitch.com reported that Mrs. Lilo Bhatia, the daughter of Nazi Wilhelm Ober who oversaw the murders, arrived to the site with a delegation from Germany. She came to the mass grave near the hospital where those murdered were buried, as well as to the memorial for Dov Ber Schneerson on the hospital premises. She also met with leaders of the local Jewish community.
Dov Ber Schneerson had been hospitalized in Igren as the Nazis had conquered the area. Upon arriving at the hospital, the Nazis murdered the patients inside.
The Nazis primarily tortured the Jewish patients before brutally murdering them. Those murdered were buried in a mass grave in front of the hospital.
Dov Ber was 35 at the time of his murder.
4. 'JEWISH LAND OWNERSHIP IN JERUSALEM NEEDS TO BE RESPECTED'
by Ido ben Porat
Ha'aretz reported this morning that the Ateret Cohanim organization, which works to ensure the rights of Jewish landownership in Jerusalem's Old City and in eastern Jerusalem, has submitted an evacuation order against nine Arab families in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.
Thus far, the organization has submitted 72 such orders against Arab families in that area due to their residency where the Jewish "Yemenite Village" neighborhood stood at the beginning of the 20th century.
In 2001, the magistrate court officially appointed Ateret Cohanim to continue the legacy of the original "Hekdesh Benvenisti" organization, which the local Jewish community established in 1899 to oversee the development of the Yemenite neighborhood.
Since then, Ateret Cohanim has worked to evacuate Arabs living in the neighborhood on Jewish property. In the past two years, legal procedures gained momentum as several Arab families were evacuated.
According to the report, last year the Abu-Nab family was evacuated due to the family's illegal residence in what was once the ancient synagogue of the Yemenite Village. As of late, the building is undergoing renovations so as to make it a functioning synagogue again. A giant "star of David" which lights up at night has been installed on the building's roof.
Investigator for the left-wing "Ir Amim" ["City of Nations"] group, Aviv Tatarsky, told the paper that "the government of Israel, which helps remove residents of Batan al-Hawa [in Silwan] from their legally-obtained homes, is the same government that breaks ethical norms and proper protocol in order to ensure that the people of Amona remain on the lands of Silwad."
He continued, "Getting out of the dead-end of 'Greater Israel' will only be possible if they recognize the rights of Palestinians in Jerusalem and internalize the need for the two peoples to come to a political solution."
Attorney Moshe Segal, representing "Hekdesh Benvenisti," said in response: "The various courts, and at their head the Supreme Court, ruled that the "Hekdesh" is the sole owner of these properties, and it is expected that the rulings of the courts will be respected accordingly."
5. WATCH LIVE: REGULATION LAW DEBATED IN KNESSET [IN HEBREW]
by Arutz Sheva Staff
[video:2008031]
The Knesset debate over the proposed Regulation Law opened Wednesday afternoon, as the bill's drafters, Shuli Mualem (Jewish Home), Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home), Yoav Kish (Likud), and Nissan Slomiansky (Jewish Home) defended the piece of legislation from critics on the left, and looked to firm up support within the coalition, as Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu) expressed misgivings about some aspects of the law.
6. CEO VOWS TO ASSASSINATE PRESIDENT TRUMP
by David Rosenberg
The chief executive officer of a digital security company has been forced to resign, following a series of violent rants directed at President-elect Donald Trump.
Matt Harrigan, founder and now former CEO of PacketSled, stepped down on Tuesday from his position at the San Diego-based company after a series of Facebook posts on Monday led to a Secret Service investigation.
In his comments, Harrigan explicitly threatened to murder the president-elect.
"I'm going to kill the president. Elect [sic]," he wrote, saying he was "getting a sniper rifle and perching myself where it counts. Find a bedroom in the whitehouse that suits you mother******. I'll find you."
Harrigan even taunted the president-elect's security detail, writing: "Bring it, secret service."
At the end of his extended online rant, Harrigan expressed his disgust with the United States, writing, "In no uncertain terms, f*** you America. Seriously. F*** off."
The response was not long in coming for Harrigan, and within hours PacketSled had placed him on leave, and had notified the Secret Service of his stated goal of assassinating the president-elect.
"PacketSled takes recent comments made by our CEO, seriously. Once we were made aware of these comments, we immediately reported this information to the secret service and will cooperate fully with any inquiries. These comments do not reflect the views or opinions of PacketSled, its employees, investors or partners. Our CEO has been placed on administrative leave."
Harrigan attempted to play down the incident, claiming his comments were "intended to be a joke, in the context of a larger conversation, and only privately shared as such. Anyone who knows me, knows that I do not engage in this form of rhetoric with any level of seriousness and the comment does not represent my real personal views in any regard."
Despite his attempt to walk back the violent posts, however, by Tuesday Harrigan was forced to resign from the company.
Last week a British journalist, Guardian writer Monisha Rajesh, sparked a similar controversy when she tweeted "IT'S ABOUT TIME FOR A PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINATION!"
A Los Angeles Times writer, Steven Borowiec, was fired days before the election for a tweet calling for Trump's demises.
7. CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN RABBIS MEETS WITH BELARUS PARLIAMENT
by Yoni Kempinski, Minsk
[youtube:2021067]Within the framework of a convention of the Conference of European Rabbis in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, a special meeting was held today between rabbinical representatives of the Conference and members of the National Assembly (the parliament) of Belarus.
The Chairman of the National Assembly, Dr. Mikhail Myasnikovich, thanked the rabbis for holding the convention in Belarus, while the rabbis noted that Belarus had been the location of the yeshivas, the academies of Jewish learning, in which the rabbinical leaders of the previous generation had studied.
Myasnikovich said that the efforts of the Conference to return Jewish life to Belarus would receive full support from local authorities. "We will help in all matters to return Jewish life [in Belarus] to its former glory, if even only to a small degree."
Myasnikovich, whose position as Assembly Chairman is defined as the second most powerful in the country, added that Belarus will allot special space for a Jewish cemetery. Today, Jews in Belarus are buried in general cemeteries in plots allotted for Jews.
The Assembly Chairman further suggested setting up joint efforts with the Conference of European Rabbis for developing sites of Jewish significance, such as synagogues.
8. EUROPEAN RABBIS WORK FOR UNIFIED STANDARDS IN CONVERSIONS
by Yoni Kempinski
[youtube:2021071]One of the more sensitive topics that arose during the convention in Belarus of the Conference of European Rabbis involved the subject of conversions.
Chairman of the Conference, Menachem Geli, explained to Arutz Sheva the complexity involved in the issue, and described efforts to create standardized rules and regulations in conversion courts across Europe.
"We will define unified standards that obligate all the rabbinical judges," Geli said. "At the first stage, we will catalogue all the courts, their work methods and those licensed to deal with conversions."
"Rabbis not licensed to do conversions will be ejected from the Conference," Geli said.
At the Belarus convention, rabbis who from all around Europe explained the methods and policies on conversion in their respective countries and cities.
They emphasized the need to coordinate with one another, as well as with conversion authorities in Israel, in order to maintain unified standards.
Similarly, they announced that, in the coming year, an international convention will take place during which European and Israeli rabbinical authorities will meet to work on creating unified policy with respect to conversions.
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