יום רביעי, כ״ג תמוז תשפ״וWednesday, July 8, 2026
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There are few choices as personal and important as the educational environment in which our children are immersed for most of their waking hours. Yet in the United States, unless parents want to risk bankruptcy just to afford tuition, they are given no choice.
Legislation is being used to force a situation onto a significantly large minority sector that disagrees with the decision. Will it once again end in disaster for everyone?
There's a big difference between a free country and a country of free things. You can have one or the other, but not both. A free country isn’t obsessed with free riders; only a country of free things obsesses over making everyone pay their fair share to the people who want the free things. The rugged individualism of Colonial America has given way to stifling crowds, co-dependent on each other, clutching at each other’s wallets, crying, “Take from him and give to me.”
A government coalition effort to craft a revised version of the Tal Law, whereby a sizeable number of draft eligible haredi yeshiva students would be forced to choose between joining the Israel Defense Forces or partake in Sherut Leumi (alternative national service), could become a political quagmire for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as Kadima Party leader Shaul Mofaz is threatening to bolt the unity government over a lack of progress toward finding a solution.
By J. E. Dyer
We must not let our concept of the purpose and character of a tax be corrupted, precisely because taxing us is a power accorded Congress in the Constitution. The definition of “tax” is, in fact, the most important limit on what Congress can do with its power to tax. In the wake of the Obamacare ruling, defining “tax” is defending our liberty – or, from the opposite perspective, attacking it.
Our forefathers passed on to us a Bill of Rights, and we shall pass on to our descendants a Bill. A tremendous Bill which can be unrolled from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam... and all the way across the ocean to China.
By J. E. Dyer
Understand this: it doesn’t matter if ObamaCare is repealed next year. Repeat as necessary until understood. The SCOTUS ruling is on the books. Congress can make you buy anything, as long as it fines you if you don’t. The concept of constitutional limits on the power of government has been effectively removed from our guiding idea of law and jurisprudence.
By JTA
Peter Madoff, the younger brother of jailed Ponzi scheme operator Bernard Madoff, has been taken into custody by the FBI. Peter Madoff, 66, surrendered himself Friday morning at his lawyer’s office in midtown Manhattan ahead of an expected guilty plea to criminal charges related to the Ponzi scheme, according to the Wall Street Journal. He […]
The current raft of outsider-insiders, includes actors who play politicians, politicians who act like actors, billionaires who push class warfare, blue-eyed Cherokees, Nobel Peace Prize warmongers, fighting on behalf of outsider groups, like gay marriage advocates and illegal aliens, whose agendas are backed by some of the largest and well-financed lobbying groups in the country.
Their hopes that Beit El will swell in growth did not ease the pain of parting from the homes they had cultivated on the same mountain upon which Jewish tradition states Jacob had a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder – the mountain upon which the Jewish people earned the name Israel.
The French traveler Nicolay, who in 1551 accompanied Jews exiled from France to Constantinople, depicted the life, activities, trade and traffic, culture, and the social setting of the Jews in the following manner:
By Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON – Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi is the declared winner of Egypt’s presidential race and his predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, continues to lie near death in a coma – just like the legacy he tried to craft for himself and his country.
The United States has drifted into lawlessness, into laws that are the guns of government. Want to force everyone to buy health insurance? Pass a law. Ignore any questions of legality because legality doesn't matter. If people come out to protest, send out your SEIU thugs to beat them. If you lose your Senate majority, use Reconciliation to pass it. If the Supreme Court threatens to investigate the Constitutionality of the law, threaten the Court.
By JTA
Hungarian Jews "feel increasing danger" in a country with a government that condones anti-Semitism, the president of Hungary's Jewish community said. Peter Feldmajer, president of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, made the remarks Tuesday at a conference on anti-Semitism in the European Parliament in Brussels. Though Hungarian government officials say they want to combat […]
Mofaz, the Kadima leader who is in Washington this week for his first round of meetings since joining his party to the government, had a surprise meeting Thursday with the U.S. president when Obama interrupted a scheduled meeting with Tom Donilon, the national security adviser.
The government on Sunday voted to put a ministerial committee headed by the Prime Minister in charge of Jewish development in Judea and Samaria , the first time in 16 years that the establishment and expansion of Jewish communities in the biblical heartland will not come under the purview of the full government.
By Barry Rubin
While one can certainly sympathize with the idea of letting an elected parliament being allowed to take office, that's not necessarily such a clear call in strategic terms. The Egyptian parliament--which will write the constitution and thus define the powers of the president--is almost 75 percent rabidly anti-American and antisemitic.
By Frimet Roth
Why, we demand to know, did this government secretly delete the condition of the murderer Nazir al-Tamimi's release?
EJP reports that eight extreme-right politicians on Wednesday were expelled from the Saxony, Germany, state parliament for wearing neo-Nazi T-shirts. The lawmakers, from the controversial National Democratic Party (NDP), were forcibly removed by police after refusing to leave on their own. The speaker of the assembly in Saxony, in formerly communist eastern Germany where NDP […]
Although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal last week to block the dismantling of Givat Ulpana enraged the Right in Israel, it was his government’s announcement of the construction of hundreds of new housing units in Beit El, Ariel, Ma’aleh Adumim, Adam, Efrat and Kiryat Arba that caused much more tumult around the world.
By Aryeh Savir, Tazpit News Agency
Vardina Biton, resident of the Ulpana: "The fact that I live in Beit El doesn't make me a second rate citizen. We serve the country and pay taxes. My husband fought in the IDF during The Second Lebanon War, just weeks after his wedding. It seems that there was not a real desire to save the homes, and therefore they did not work hard enough to find a solution."
By Barry Rubin
It is really wonderful how every day I learn something new. Now I've learned that all government employees can be divided into three professions: teachers, police, and firefighters.
In line with the government’s plan to destroy 5 buildings in the Ulpana Hill neighborhood of Beit El, six caravilla mobile homes were delivered on Monday to house evicted families. Community leaders hope out of the ashes may come the biggest development in years.
Which investment scammer has you in his sights? Who knows? But one thing is for sure - if you start by asking the most basic questions and not believing the unbelievable, you're well on your way to protecting yourself. The scammer will just move on to his next victim.
Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz, is calling Syrian President Bashar Assad’s war against opposition a “genocide”, and said Israeli support is behind efforts to overthrow him.
With Congressman Steve Rothman being accused of dual loyalties simply over a pro-Israel voting record in government, what could I, who has a daughter serving in Israel’s military, expect from these same opponents? What charges would they lodge against me? How ugly would the attacks be?
By J. E. Dyer
For many people, especially younger ones, ideas about which government rules and “services” we can happily do without will be new and startling. But it is possible to slip the surly bonds of the Regulated Man construct and envision a better future. Wisconsin has taken an important step toward that future. Walker’s Wisconsin is what “Forward” looks like.
By JTA
Israel's housing and construction ministry announced plans for up to 851 new housing units for Judea and Samaria settlements. Wednesday's announcement came in the wake of the defeat of a bill in Knesset that would have retroactively legalized the Ulpana Hill neighborhood of Beit El. Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias said Wednesday evening that […]
The obesity epidemic is a convoluted way of saying that the problem with government health care is the people. But that's not the problem. Obesity may not be healthy, but if we ban sodas and force everyone to exercise in the yard before work, the numbers still won't balance. Because the real problem with government health care is government.
Unease. Déjà vu from Sharon's great Expulsion. It began with a column by Hagai Segal, who depicted the insistence of Migron’s residents not to move from their current location as a sort of childish stubbornness. After all, Kedumim was founded after it was moved from its original location and ultimately grew into a thriving community. So how dare those “children” of Migron, who never heard of settler leader Ze’ev “Zambish” Hever, think otherwise?
Last month we saw something historic in Israeli politics – the largest unity government ever formed. Unlike most unity governments, this one was born neither from a sense of national emergency nor from an era of national euphoria, where political differences fade. Instead, this coalition was induced by the threat of the ballot box and is a result of Israeli politicians’ strategic dedication to either keeping their seats or scoring the slot above them in the next coalition jig.
By JTA
The repatriation of the bodies is being called a good-will gesture to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Included among them was Ramez Aslim, the suicide bomber who attacked a Cafe Hillel in Jerusalem in 2003. Dual Israeli-American citizens Dr. David Applebaum, and his daughter Nava, who was to have been married the day after the bombing, were killed in that attack.
For many, the “surprise” which greeted Israelis on May 8th was yet another political dance in which the citizen is a spectator left to watch, wonder, and wait for another year and half to be heard from again. This scenario begs the question: when it comes to the state of Israel’s representative governance, is the tail wagging the dog? Put simply, is Israeli citizenry merely an accessory to the political decision-making of the day?
Austerity policies, which consist mainly of extra taxes, not only keep the European governments from finding long-term solutions to their overspending, while worsening the economic situation; they also make these government increasingly unpopular. Almost 40 years after Arthur Laffer drew his famous curve on a napkin, one wonders why European politicians keep closing their eyes to an evident truth instead of putting in place incentives for growth.
It was when Congressman Steve Rothman defended the rights of Former Libyan dictator Muammar Kaddafi’s personal envoy to live peacefully and tax-free next to me that I first thought of running against him. What was Rothman's purpose in defending the right of an envoy of a terror-sponsoring government to live in our midst?
Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story is a documentary about the life of a true Israeli hero. But the film is not a mere recounting of the famous Entebbe Raid, it is an honest retrospective of the life of the young, academic, passionate and poetic son, brother, friend, boyfriend, and husband Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu. And it shows a side of Israel that a 'Hasbara' campaign can't capture.
Two weeks ago, in my weekly column on the NRG website, I wrote, “Nobody really understands why Israel is going to early elections.” So when I heard that the election merry-go-round had been cancelled, I was pleased.
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to form a coalition government with Kadima and cancel planned early elections has inspired endless speculation as to his motives. Some maintain he was seeking a unity government in order to bolster his position with regard to Iran. Others point to his desire to be better able to deal with certain domestic issues such as election reform and changes to the Tal Law.
By Barry Rubin
In his recent speech in Afghanistan Obama made the deadly error of claiming that, in effect, al-Qaida is America's only real enemy in the world. Even the Taliban is redeemable, though it answered him with a suicide attack in Kabul. As for Obama's other claims, he can't even get Pakistan to stop supporting the Taliban and concealing al-Qaida leaders. And India has been treated by Obama in a manner reminiscent of his policy toward Israel.
By Moshe Herman
The Scoop on the New Government A new unity government was formed in Israel during the last week and in order to properly discuss the ins and outs of the new government and its foundation, the Jewish Press' Yishai Fleisher is joined by Jeremy Man Saltan, an insider on the Israeli Knesset and host of […]
Netanyahu: "By the end of July, we will pass a law that will divide the burden on a more equal, more egalitarian and more just basis for all Israelis, Jewish and Arab alike, without setting public against public."
By J. E. Dyer
When Romney speaks of the US auto industry recovering, he is speaking in the language of big, dirigiste government, accepting at face value the short-term effect of a bailout process that has served mainly to perpetuate unprofitable but politically entrenched conditions. It guarantees that more subsidies will be needed down the road.
When Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas tried to end run the PA’s treaty obligations to negotiate its statehood with Israel and instead secure recognition from the United Nations, Congress reacted by forbidding the transfer of State Department foreign aid funds to the PA. Several days ago, however, President Obama invoked a waiver provision in the law and authorized the funding to be resumed. And therein lies an important tale.
By Sarah Stern
The Koby Mandell Act created the Office of Justice of Victims for Overseas Terrorism in the Department of Justice, to ensure that all American citizens, irrespective of where they were killed or maimed, would get the justice under American law they deserve. I naively thought that the 54 American citizens who had been killed by Palestinian terrorists and the 83 who had been wounded would finally get a crack at the American justice they so richly deserved.
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Netanyahu’s bombshell announcement of a unity government agreement with new Kadima Party head Shaul Mofaz gives the Israeli leader an unshakeable government coalition for at least another year.
By Mati Wagner
JERUSALEM – Israelis went to sleep Monday night expecting early elections in September for the 19th Knesset. They woke up to the news that elections would take place as planned in October 2013.
More Israelis support the unexpected pact between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Kadima Chairman Shaul Mofaz than reject it, according to a News 10 poll. The poll, conducted by "Proyekt Ha'Midgam" ("Sample Project"), found that 44% of the public support Kadima's joining the broad coalition government. The move was rejected by 37% and 18% did […]
By Barry Rubin
People don’t want to be told to sacrifice, especially because they suspect that the elite isn’t doing so and that this same elite is responsible for the mess. So they can be—easily?—manipulated into voting for those who tell them to eat, drink and be merry, with a minimal tax on billionaires and millionaires paying off the caterer.
By Tibbi Singer
One of the questions posed to PM Netanyahu and his new coalition bride Shaul Mofaz by one of those pesky Israeli TV reporters was: Only a short while ago, Mofaz called Bibi a liar. Now the two of you are headed into a long-term marriage (a year and a half is eternity in Israeli politics). […]
By Rafi Harkham
Danny Goldstein, founder and chairman of 'Calcala' ('Finance'): “We are focused on making Israel a better place to live and a better place to invest by merging the best of Israel and America - representing Israelis, but with an eye on the American perspective.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Likud Party convention called for a four-month election campaign. Meanwhile, coalition partner Yisrael Beiteinu called for a delay of the Knesset dissolution to allow the government to pass its bill ordering mandatory enlistment in the Israel Defense Forces for all Israeli citizens.
For anyone with historical memory the expulsion of Jews – by the Romans, English, French, Spaniards, Nazis, and Muslims – instantly evokes tragic episodes in Jewish history. Now the state of Israel expels Jews from their homes. Something is amiss in Zion.
JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Netanyahu, faced with the unlikelihood of his coalition government passing a new law to end haredi military draft deferment or ratifying the 2013 state budget with its austerity measures that affect nearly every government ministry controlled by coalition partners, will call for new elections on his return to the Knesset next week after sitting shiva for his father.
In the wake of comments made yesterday by FM Avigdor Liberman, in which he suggested that Yisrael Beytenu may withdraw from the government if it fails to implement an alternative to the Tal Law, PM Binyamin Netanyahu said he refused to be "a victim of extortion by coalition partners."
According to Reuters, China's Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, who toured the Auschwitz death camp on Friday, said his visit introduced him to "an unforgettable, dark page in the history of humankind" which "cannot be forgotten." "Only those who remember history can build a good future," he added. Speculation is that Wen's visit to Auschwitz was […]
The government's decision this week to grant zoning permits to Rechelim Beruchin is nothing more then repairing a wrong. After seven years in limbo, once again the residents of these communities can fulfill their dreams and the corporate dream of their nation – they can finally build their homes in Eretz Yisrael.
The comparatively small Jewish population of India – after the census of 1921 there were hardly 20,000 out of a general population of 352 million – fell into four groups: the Cochin Jews of the Malabar Coast, the Bene Israel, the fore-Asian Jews, mostly of Sephardic ancestry, and immigrants from various regions of Europe.
By dvora
BEIT EL, ISRAEL – “Gush Katif number two.” “Another Amona.” “It will topple the government, split the nation, and drive an irrevocable wedge between the people and the leadership.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has legalized three Jewish outpost communities which were erected in the 1990s.
Responding to criticism from two government ministers who object to the demolition of Ulpana Hill homes, Defense Minister Ehud Barak mocked his detractors, accusing them of contracting the Feiglin germ. But whether or not Prime Minister Netanyahu accepts the turning of his rival's name into an adjective, he has been looking for ways to avoid the May 1 eviction.
By Tibbi Singer
Three young Hindu women who were kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam and married off to Muslim men, chose this week to live with their husbands instead of their families. It has been rumored that the three women had been threatened by Pakistan People's Party parliamentarian Mian Mithu with "dire consequences" if they decided to return to their parents.
PM Netanyahu explained that lowering taxes means shrinking the government, and, this time, cutting taxes means cutting public sector jobs. He emphasized that no one needs to be fired if enough workers embrace early retirement or quit, but conceded that this means the ministries will not be hiring for a long time.
By Barry Rubin
Romney must respond to attacks like Gingrich or New Jersey governor Chris Christie would. A gentlemanly, gloves-on strategy will not win this election. This does not mean Romney should call Obama a socialist or Marxist. Instead, he should show that he’s the mainstream candidate while the Obama administration is out of step with historic, successful American practice.
The recent Israeli High Court ruling striking down the compromise agreement between Israel’s government and the residents of Migron was logical. It was a realistic commentary on the state of affairs between the government and the court. In truth, the question that was laid at the High Court’s doorstep was not about Migron and not about property rights. It was much more basic than that. The question that the High Court was asked to decide was to whom the Land of Israel belongs.
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin says elections for Israel's next government will be held this coming September. There's one major reason why Rivlin is interested in going to the voter soon: he hopes that the in the next Knesset he'll get the votes to pass his new bill, seeking to level the playing field between the High Court and the Knesset. He also believes Peres will bring Pollard home.
Prospects for a cease-fire in Syria appear low, as Syria's conflict has been spilling over into Turkey and Lebanon, with government forces continuing to battle rebel fighters. According to reports, on Monday another 160 people were killed in Syria, as President Bashar Assad's military continued to shell buildings and to shoot at civilians in "rebellious" […]
By JTA
Hungarian Jewish leaders issued a strongly worded protest against a speech by a far-right lawmaker who claimed that Jews had been implicated in a notorious blood libel case in northern Hungary 130 years ago. In a five-minute speech before parliament Tuesday night, Zsolt Barath of the extreme-right Jobbik party cited the 1882 blood libel case […]
By JTA
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he will submit a plan to legalize several Judea and Samaria outposts and avoid the demolition of another. At Wednesday's Cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said he asked Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to "find a solution" for the Ulpana neighborhood in Beit El "that would obviate the need for demolition." The […]
Libya lies in North Africa between Egypt and Tunisia and consists of Cyrenica and Tripoli. Even in the 3rd century before the Common Era, Cyrenica was a destination for Jewish emigration. Over the next century the Jewish population grew in numbers but was strongly Hellenized.
By Barry Rubin
To view government as a form of deity or an inevitable friend of the poor and downtrodden is an illusion. Government is not a magic box, but a can of worms. To see it as a player, with its own interests, that should be as distrusted as any bank or corporation is the purest form of common sense, the very triumph of common sense over ideology and dogma that made America great, its people free, and real democracy possible.
There is no one definition of the term “pro-Israel.” It does not require anyone to be a cheerleader for Netanyahu or any other Israeli leader or party. But there are some things one cannot do and still claim to be within the pro-Israel camp. One of them is to adopt rhetoric that apes the efforts of Israel-haters to delegitimize supporters of Israel and which adopts the classic themes of anti-Semitism.
The US Second Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected Rabbi Milton Balkany's claim that jurors should have been allowed to consider if he was entrapped, saying "Balkany failed to present any evidence that the government 'induced' him to commit the crimes charged," Bloomberg reports. The NY Post reports Balkany, 65, is currently serving four years […]
By Rafi Harkham
PM Netanyahu: "Israel will do everything to help" find the killer, who had "strong murderous anti-Semitic motive"; UN Human Rights Council "should be ashamed" to host a Hamas official on the day of a terrorist attack.
Fundamental and far-reaching changes are coming that will have a profound effect on every individual in New York State who receives services under the current system for caring for individuals with developmental disabilities.
This past summer, Israel made headlines for something other than the peace process or fighting terrorism when hundreds of thousands of its citizens took to the streets to protest social inequality and rising living costs.
The riots and violence in Afghanistan over some accidentally burned Korans followed a script that by now is all too drearily familiar.
CNN reports that a man identifying himself as Abdo Hussam el Din, the country's Deputy Oil Minister, announced in a video posted on YouTube that he was defecting from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. "I am joining the revolution of this noble people who will not accept injustice," the man says in Arabic. "I've […]
MK Zeev Bielski, chairman of the Knesset subcommittee on Israel’s home defense: “The home front is not ready. We have made improvements over the situation since the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when the home front was completely unprepared, but the situation is not good.”
Why has it become the dream of many Arab Christians and Muslims to immigrate to the "Apartheid State"? Is it possible that all of these people are uninformed? Or do they really know the truth about Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East? In Egypt, Syria, and Iran, for example, government officials put journalists in jail, but Israel is the only country in the region where a single obscure journalist nobody can put a government official in jail.
Is an Estate Tax in Israel in the works? 30 years ago they tried, but it never took off. Will the new socio-political atmosphere make it possible?
Realizing that there was no backing out of college at this point, I resigned myself to my fate. I was in college, like it or not, but I didn’t believe that I really belonged in college.
The stories in this column are translations by Mr. Nollet from Die Juden In Der Welt (The Jews in the World) by Mark Wischnitzer, a long out-of-print book published more than seven decades ago in Germany. The book examines Jewish communities, one country at a time, as they existed in 1935.
Lapid proclaimed that the country belongs not to interest groups, lobbyists, business tycoons, ultra-orthodox parties, stone throwers, or those who threaten army officers, but to law-abiding middle class army-serving citizens. He unabashedly identified the three main problems with politics: the current electoral system, the ultra-orthodox parties and corruption.
By Rafi Harkham
Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Lau responds with dismay to a resolution passed by the Tel Aviv-Jaffa City Council to operate public transportation on Shabbat. He appealed to Mayor Ron Huldai, who supported the resolution, not to "allow the candle of Shabbat to burn out."
What will Syria look like the day after Bashar al-Assad's downfall?
The IDF has made contingency plans to deal with what may be large numbers of desperate Syrian citizens attempting to rush the border in order to seek refuge or attack Jewish and Druze communities in the area.
By Soeren Kern
A poll of Muslims in Britain found little support for freedom of speech. Nearly 80% of Muslims in Britain said that the publishers of the Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim Mohammed should be prosecuted; 68% said that those who insult Islam should be prosecuted; and 62% of Muslims in Britain disagree that freedom of speech should be allowed if it insults and offends religious groups.
Government should extend money to encourage aliyah – MK Danon.
Egypt's prosecution of pro-democracy NGOs reflects unresolved suspicions and hostilities towards the West and democracy.
By Tibbi Singer
Warsaw is moving the discussion over the transfer of possession to original owners to the courts.
Syrian press attaché at the UN: "American psyche can be easily manipulated when they hear that there are 'mistakes' done and now we are 'fixing it.'"
By Dov Gilor
Is it true that creatures from outer space visited New Mexico and that the U.S. government suppressed the story to avoid worldwide panic?
Kamal al-Ganzouri: Egypt "will not back down because of aid or other reasons."
The most dreaded status in Israeli society is to be considered a frier – a sucker, a boob, stupid and unable to withstand being taken advantage of.
The Histadrut is demanding that the government employ contracted workers so that their conditions are on par with workers on the government employees.
Senior Palestinian official denies that thousands of rockets and missiles that have been launched from the Gaza Strip.
The strike is expected to paralyze financial, government, and transportation sectors.
By Rafi Harkham
Mahmoud Abbas and Khaled Mashaal came to an agreement on an interim unity government on Sunday. Mashaal: We are seeking unity "to resist the enemy and achieve our national goal."
The Obama administration has expressed serious concern about these developments and has threatened to cut billions of dollars in American aid.
July 3, 2026 
