The beis din has now issued its ruling, and it is pretty much as expected.

First, they profited just fine, even if they could have profited more had they known and chosen to take advantage of that information.

Second, there is no cause to cancel the business deal retroactively and it is not a "mekach taus" - the agreements they signed are in effect, even if in hindsight it turned out to be a better deal for one of the sides rather than the other.

Third, the community looking for rentals is under no obligation to reveal its plans in advance and cannot be expected to knowing it would increase their costs unfairly. They have the right to conduct their business wisely to get reasonable prices.

It was a silly claim in the first place suggesting Satmar had to give the owner the opportunity to take advantage of them. 

Smotritch has said he will not impose new taxes on the public (it is an election year) and when Netanyahu said he wants to increase the defense budget by 350 million shekels over the next ten years Smotritch basically said over my dead body and he wont agree to raising taxes to cover it - he said the PM himself can take responsibility for that.

The other day Smothritch signed an order allowing local municipalities to increase the arnona tax on residents. Today Smotitch explains himself saying that isnt a tax we put on residents, the local municipality does, so dont blame us - they are allowed to increase the arnona rate, but we suggested they dont. Blame them.

The other day Smotritch announced he will soon be signing an order to double the VAT exemption on personal imports (aka online shopping from Amazon and Ali Express, etc) to $150 or maybe even $200, though he has not yet signed the order, which make consumers happy. Then it becomes known that he is considering raising VAT to 19% (PM Netanyahu seems to be opposed to this at this time).

Recently the Ministry of Transportation announced prices are set to go up once again  in January after a very recent increase. After public outrage they cancelled that. Did they not think people would be upset when they initially announced it? 

This is very strange for an election year. I guess they feel confident their base will support them no matter what they do, even increasing already high taxes.

I dont really care how this would affect Melania and Barron Trump as the American news media sites do, but if this passes it could affect a lot of people who have made aliya to Israel. And more so it could affect a lot of people who are thinking of or even in the stages of planning and applying for their aliya to Israel. People who make aliya don't necessarily want to give up their original citizenship. They usually want to keep it, either simply to make travel easier as olim often travel a lot (eg to visit family left behind or for work, etc), and then there is the old Jewish thing about having two passports just in case...

According to the proposal, an American citizen with dual citizenship would have one year to renounce the second citizenship. If by the end of the year one did not renounce, that person would automatically be stripped of their US citizenship.

The article linked above points out that this is in conflict with the 14th Amendmentso it has hurdles to overcome.

I also think President Trump, considering the ramifications to his family, will put forth some effort in getting this bill buried. 

I also think they wont do this considering how it would affect many other people and, probably more importantly, losing all that foreign tax money by American citizen expats who have moved to other countries and taken up citizenship where they live. Strip them of their citizenship and suddenly tens/hundreds of thousands of people no longer have to file, and [sometimes] pay, US taxes.

Still, it is a worrying trend that this si being proposed, and form the Republican no less!

Yes, a People that is supposedly suffering from genocide and famine is tripping over itself to buy iPhone17s, including gold plated iphones with embedded diamonds. They can afford to pay upwards of $10000 for the newest fancy iPhone, or $2500 or so for more basic models, but they cant afford to buy food and are starving?

I hope Israel at least has these rigged for potential future "beeper" style use should it be necessary...

Netanyahu in an interview with the New York Times said he would ignore incoming Mayor of NY Mamdani's statement that if Netanyahu comes to NY he will arrest as per the international warrant. When asked if he will actaully test it, he said, wait and see, and reaffirmed that he plans to go to NY after Mamdani takes office.

Good for him.

I am not even sure the ICC ruling applies to the USA as the USA is not a signatory of the ICC. So I am not sure Netanyahu could be arrested there even if someone actually wanted to arrest him. Additionally, Mamdani is a mayor of a city - does that give him authority to make arrests?

Anyways, PM Netanyahu is talking big about going to NY. I assume it is because in the USA he feels he can rely on President Trump to intervene if Mamdani actually tries to do anything about that. He did not talk so big when he had the pilot change the route on his USA trip a little while back to avoid flying over European countries that said they would arrest him. He also did not talk so big when he canceled trips to European countries after they said they would adhere to the ICC ruling and arrest him...

ברכות לראש המוסד הנכנס האלוף רומן גרופמן.

רומן הוא קצין מצטיין שלא מפחד לומר את האמת ולחתור למגע.

רומן הוא בן חבורה מצומצמת מאד מהפיקוד הבכיר ערב השביעי באוקטובר שהתריע שוב ושוב על הקונספציה ועל הסכנה שיש בקניית שקט מדומה.

אני בטוח שהוא יקח את ההישגים המדהימים של המוסד…

— בצלאל סמוטריץ' (@bezalelsm) December 4, 2025

Best of luck to Roman Gofman in his new position (I think he only starts it in June 2026) and we all wish him much success. His success is our success, is Israel's success.

so Gofman warned them time and again before October 7 and they didn't listen?  And now they are planning to listen to him or only when he says what they want to hear?

As an aside, didn't they used to never announce the names of the heads of Shabak and Mossad? They always referred to them as an initial, until recently. Now they annoucne the names and who the candidates are and who has been selected and appointed, though other senior positions are still only referred to by a letter...

this is posted here to honor Jonathan Conricus

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Mayor Weiss told JNS she grew up Conservadox and after going to NCSY she became Orthodox.

She was already midway through her third term on City Council so is not new to the local politics. She says she wants to be nonpartisan and deal with the issues in a unifying way, unlike the previous mayor who was mroe divisive as is common in today's political climate.

When asked if she is going to ask her rabbi everything that coems up, she said she was involved in many laws and issues on city council for nearly 15 years and did not call her rabbi every time they discussed an issue. People need to calm down, I guess. Though she is getting rabbinical guidance in how to deal with situations that will arise on Shabbos and holidays, and is meeting with the emergency services to understand when they need to be in touch with her so she can be prepared for those eventualities.

It seems Michele Weiss is the first ever Jewish Orthodox Woman Mayor in the USA!

Good luck to the new Mayor!

today's TotD is actually from 2014...

Yes, Yahya Sinwar who was known as the Butcher of Khan Younis had a brother (now deceased) named Mohammed Sinwar who was considered even mroe hard line and more brutal than Yahya... and he worked for Btselem as a field researcher....

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