If someone ran a business this way, he would go bankr--
Oh. Right.
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Amid Trump tweets, notable there is no FBI Director; no US Ambassador to London; and the State Department is missing leaders at all levels.
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Gershom Gorenberg 
@GershomG
Author, War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East
columnist
היסטוריון, עתונאי, ירושלמי
Gershom Gorenberg 🟣’s Tweets
I'm blessed to live in South Jerusalem, where I can often hear the beautiful sound of the Muslim call to prayer &the sounds of church bells. 40 days a year, I also hear the haunting morning call of the shofar. A symphony of the human spirit.
I'm so sad for you.
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Listening to the lovely bells of Winchester, one of our great mediaeval cathedrals. So much nicer than the aggressive-sounding “Allahu Akhbar.” Or is that just my cultural upbringing?
This is apocalyptic foreign policy in a nutshell: Israel not as a real country but as fantasyland, backdrop for Christian myth. We who live here are not people; we are hobbits or orcs, extras in crowd scenes of their story.
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Pompeo’s RNC speech will be a pre-recorded message delivered from a rooftop in Jerusalem, says a source familiar with the RNC planning. A private video crew paid from by RNC will record it. It’ll be tight, ~4 mins long.
1,000 people - Jews & Arabs - form human chain outside walls of Jerusalem Old City in call for partnership, hope & peace. "We won't let violence & hate destroy our home - this is a picture of victory for all of us."
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כאלף משתתפים, יהודים וערבים, שילבו ידיים היום מול חומות ירושלים במסר של שותפות, תקווה ושלום. "לא ניתן לאלימות והשנאה להרוס לנו את הבית- זו תמונת הניצחון של כולנו"
Hate to break this to you: There are no commas in the original Hebrew text of the Bible. No punctuation at all.
In fact, no vowels. Just consonants.
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Just so you know:
There is not a single edit you could make to Scripture to improve it.
Anything you would do to amend so much as a biblical comma would drastically demote it.
You can’t improve the Word of God. You’d only ruin perfection.
Keep your edits on the shelf.
Huckabee, stop lying. Don't present Israel as haven for gun ownership. Opposite is the case: gun control is strict here.
There is no "right to bear arms" in Israel. Licenses given only to those who can show need for self-defense. Police & health authorities have veto.
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Just waking up in Israel to news of heartbreaking school shooting in FL; Reminded that Israel pretty much eliminated it by placing highly trained people strategically to spot the one common thread--not the weapon, but a person with intent. #PrayForParkland
When it's good to be white, we're not.
When they it's bad to be white, we are.
When it's good to be European, we're Levantines.
When Europeans are colonialists, we're colonialists.
When they hate immigration, we brought immigrants.
When they hate capitalists, we're capitalists.
"I may have made an error of judgment," says Israel's environment minister, Gila Gamliel after
⦿ violating her own govt's lockdown by traveling 150 km b/f Yom Kippur
⦿ attending services indoors
⦿ catching Covid
⦿ telling contact tracer she got it from her driver to cover up
Written with all I've got left in me:
Israelis and Palestinians can’t go on like this. Weep for us.
In Israel we vote with little slips of paper & have the votes counted by morning. Takes another day to count votes from soldiers & prisoners, who don't vote at home.
Then no one wins, & we hold another election.
East Jerusalem Palestinian woman receives kidney of Jew lynched in Lod. Says, "Unbelievable that he was lynched by Arabs & we're Arabs. I want to thank the family."
[Don't try to learn simple lessons from this. The world defies simple lessons.]
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ניבין עויס, שאמה, תושבת מזרח ירושלים, קיבלה את הכליה של יגאל יהושע ז"ל שנרצח בלינץ' בלוד הבוקר בריאיון: הזוי שהלינץ' בוצע על ידי ערבים ואנחנו ערבים. אני מבקשת להגיד תודה למשפחת יהושע @radio103fm @AnatDavidov
On Jan 20, there were over 10K new cases of covid in Israel. Yesterday, 359.
Get vaccinated the moment you can.
Balfour under occupation: almost $2,000 worth of soft drinks delivered to PM residence just hours before Netanyahu ceased being prime minister & state stopped paying grocery bills ynet.co.il/news/article/r
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The Siege on Balfour, Day VI
Netanyahu refuses to leave the official residence.
I'm sure Herbert Hoover didn't like the 1932 being a referendum on his response to the Depression either.
Netanyahu is carrying out a palace coup. I don’t use the word “coup” lightly. But any weaker description of Netanyahu’s assault on Israeli democracy is a refusal to absorb & report the truth.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/
Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh raising funds for New Zealand Muslim community:
jewishpgh.org/new-zealand-is
Biden is proof people can learn continuously. In the last year, the former chatterbox learned the power of *just saying nothing.*
He's now using that power against Netanyahu.
I am enjoying immensely listening to Biden *not* calling Netanyahu.
Shorter VF story: Israelis took outrageous risk, got incredible intel. "Pro-Israel" Trump shared it with Russians, who may give it to Iran. vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/t
In light of fuss over Women's March, I'm reupping this:
Whether someone hates Jews for being white, or someone hates Jews for not being white, it's still hate.
And it's not about color or "race."
And having been oppressed does not give you a free pass to hate Jews.
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Replying to @Yair_Rosenberg
When it's good to be white, we're not.
When they it's bad to be white, we are.
When it's good to be European, we're Levantines.
When Europeans are colonialists, we're colonialists.
When they hate immigration, we brought immigrants.
When they hate capitalists, we're capitalists.
Also, in Kushner's plan: The chief rabbis of Israel will convert to Islam; the head of al-Azhar to Christianity, the Coptic Pope to Tibetan Buddhism, and the Dalai Lama to Judaism.
Then one chair is removed and the music begins again.
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Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and careless ease, but she did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. t.co/YIEolVx03p
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Removing Netanyahu is but a first step in the climb out of the abyss.Ahead of us is a long march to rebuild democracy, end the occupation, and restore the economic equality that Israel has lost. Say a blessing for his departure. Then we all need to get back to work.
I admit: I remain stunned that US Congress allowed itself to be used for foreign campaign speech.
Happened to remember, during Israel’s Operation Solomon airlift of Jews from Ethiopia, one plane took off with 1,016 passengers. Landed with 1,018. Two births on way.
Why in God's name can't Fox say it's a hate crime straight out as a fact?!!?
Stephen Miller is a white nationalist, & a man living entirely in denial of Jewish tradition & Jewish history. He is the embodiment of what Judaism calls hillul hashem, a desecration of God's name. Equating criticism of him with an attack on Jews is, in itself, unfair to Jews.
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During my time in Congress before @IlhanOmar got here, I didn't once witness another Member target Jewish people like this with the name calling & other personal attacks. In 2019 though, for @IlhanOmar, this is just called Monday. twitter.com/IlhanMN/status…
Stop all departures!
Head of airport workers union, Pinhas Iddan, gives order to stop all take-offs from Ben-Gurion Airport as part of Israel's general strike against anti-democratic legislation.
Iddan is a member of Likud central committee.
That's how much resistance has grown.
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רגע מטורף מהיום הזה:
מי זה?
הלו?
תעצרו מהרגע הזה את כל ההמראות!
פנחס עידן, ראש וועד העובדים של רש״ת וחבר מרכז ליכוד
0:59
Should note, though, that there was one occupied European country whose Jewish population *grew* during WWII: Albania.
Over & over, Albanians saved Jews, incl refugees.
yadvashem.org/articles/gener
America is apparently running a contest on whether it can treat coffee or hummus more cruelly.
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So evidently this exists, and I can’t be alone in my awareness of it, so I’m sharing this fact with you all.
No, I did not get one.
read image description
ALT
Bottom line: Anyone seeking a job from Trump will either be humiliated now or tainted later by serving in his administration.
Twenty-five years ago today, one of Meir Kahane's closest disciples (may his name be erased) walked into the Tomb of the Patriarchs/Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and murdered 29 people at Ramadan prayers. (1)
Shorter yet: A Russian stooge in the White House is bad for Israel. But we knew that.
Israel Health Ministry wants to add U.S. to list of countries from which travelers should self-quarantine. "Other ministries" don't want to because they don't want to upset Trump.
It's actually maximally timed to divert attention from at least 3 corruption investigations against him, & keep his base loyal.
Fantastic uplifting story: Israeli women organized at last moment to drive thousands of Beduin women voters to the polls yesterday.
French Jewish scholar Henry Rousso, born in Egypt, detained by US border control.
Judaism is not a prefix to Christianity. Not a preface, not a prequel.
Interfaith dialogue & religious freedom do not require erasing differences, but rather celebrating the diverse ways to serve God.
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Merry Christmas, and thank God America is a nation founded on Judea-Christian ideals! May that truth never change.
Not a dog whistle. Not a teenage ringtone. As loud and clear as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion printed on billboards.
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Soros. The dark force of Soros is responsible, says Mr. Very Fine People.
No one could have envisioned this, except anyone who understood geometric progressions or compound interest. That is, anyone who knew enough math to get into a mid-level university.
Maybe the rightwing also has its own math.
When I first saw this cat at the royal palace in Cairo, I thought he was a statue, cast in iron like the canon. Then he twitched his tail.
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Replying to @GershomG
The cat who rules Abdin Palace in Cairo.
Don't mess with him.
Cat & Cat, Purveyors of Fine Rugs and Tapestries.
Essaouira, Morocco.
(Photo: Yehonatan Gorenberg)
Rockwell would approve but he would have painted it stronger. Here's one of his late works, Murder in Mississippi.
Front page of leading Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot: “Netanyahu is now a clear, immediate, tangible danger to the country’s security”
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For an Israeli, America's attitude toward guns is insane and self-destructive. Gun nuts like slander Israel by using us a justification for their right-to-death views.
At least 130,000 Israelis demonstrated tonight against Netanyahu's attack on democracy. Equivalent of five million Americans protesting on a single night.
And the protests keep growing.
The Pompeo announcement is a simply bizarre development. Yes, he is again showing the Trump administration's determination to sink chance for peace and a two-state outcome. But he's also showing utter historical ignorance of US policy. Reporters should do better. 1-->
Tomorrrow, 1 June, is the 78h anniversary of the Farhud, the massive pogrom against the Jews of Baghdad.
Baghdad was then one-sixth Jewish.
Two months earlier, a coup had brought a pro-Nazi regime to power in Iraq. By the end of May, British troops approached Baghdad...
Israeli ambassador to France, Yael German, resigns rather than represent the new Netanyahu govt, which "endangers the State of Israel & its values... I cannot make a lie of my soul and continue to represent policies that are so radically different from that I believe."
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מכתב ההתפטרות מתפקידי כשגרירת ישראל בצרפת. מכתב ששלחתי לרוה"מ לפני כשעה.
Netanyahu knows that Ben-Gvir is a political pyromaniac. But Netanyahu is desperate—to return to power & to end the criminal case that could put him in prison. So he’s willing to hand the pyromaniac matches & gasoline.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/
Different as India is from Israel, this from points to shared element of our crises: The strongmen of the right rule by fanning hate, by dividing us.
This "fact check" brings me to tears and fury.
Suicides are deaths.
In a country with mental health background checks, my sister would not have been able to buy a gun.
36 years ago, and yesterday.
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.@davidhogg111 said at #Marchforourlives "Ninety-six people die every day from guns in our country." The majority of those deaths are suicides. bit.ly/2G2P6HN
In Hebrew “meta” means “died.”
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#BREAK Facebook's new company name is Meta
It still has all the same problems it had this morning.
In Judaism, the crime of Sodom was making it illegal to help strangers from another land.
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Scott Warren is facing 20 years in prison. His crime? Providing food and water to migrants in Arizona’s deadliest desert corridor. nyti.ms/2EHsb1N
Therefore, it is insufficient today to condemn the Kahanist party and the deal likely to put it in parliament. It is essential to condemn Netanyahu, by name, directly, for this travesty. (7/ends)
Put very simply, , boycotting a memorial for Yitzhak Rabin means boycotting change, boycotting the hope of changing minds in principled arguments, and boycotting courage.
There's nothing progressive about it...
Nothing learned since Auschwitz, Cambodia, Rwanda. Afterward they'll build a museum and bring school kids.
Application for gun license in Israel requires medical form signed by doctor who has treated applicant and seen her/his medical records. Questions include ones on neurological and psychiatric conditions.
Failed republic south of Canada: Crazed strongman calls on military to use unlimited force to suppress rising democratic protests. Regime forces escalate violence against media. Disease and hunger continue to spread. Former allies aghast.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/
When you are sitting in Mideast reading news from US & you think, 'Wow, will those people ever get over ancient tribal hatreds?"
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Someone was so angry at my piece on Lee that they wrote an angry letter about it to their local newspaper
Breaking: Likud expects Israel AG to indict Netanyahu next Tuesday
Dear @RonDeSantisFL - You are not defending Israel. You are defending the W. Bank settlement project, which is a self-made disaster for Israel. As an Israeli, I find your action damaging, anti-democratic and absurd.
prospect.org/article/airbnb
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Replying to @GovRonDeSantis
As long as I’m Governor of Florida, BDS will be DOA. We have a moral obligation to oppose Airbnb’s policy against Israel in the West Bank, and today I’m announcing we are suspending authorization for state employees to use Airbnb for reimbursable travel expenses.
New poll of U.S. Jews. Lest you had any doubts: Huge anti-Trump majority. Worried about rising anti-Semitism, see GOP as bearing heavy responsibility for rise.
Sum up in simple words: Most US Jews see Trump and GOP as a threat. Which is reasonable.
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Replying to @MicheleChabin1
Over to some folks who did a survey of U.S. Jews with a sample of close to 1300.
Donald Trump's viewed favorably by 22%, unfavorably by 76%.
ajc.org/AntisemitismSu
@sarahposner @yeselson @daveweigel @amirtibon @AnshelPfeffer @SarahAWildman
More precisely: in Hebrew "meta" means "died" or "is dead" in the feminine. The word for "company" is also feminine.
Your Hebrew lesson for today:
חברת פייסבוק מתה.
"Facebook died."
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In Hebrew “meta” means “died.” twitter.com/donie/status/1…
From a Ted Cruz lackey, truly the most foolish take on Israeli vaccination success.
Reality check: Socialized medicine system, created by state's socialist founders, survived cutbacks by Israel's free-market fools and is delivering vaccines at high speed.
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The Israelis can't hold a govt together but they still managed to roll out a COVID vaccine. It helps when policymakers aren't crippled by leftwing ideologues saying we need to address their woke grievances instead of getting medicine to old people. Our failures here are political twitter.com/GershomG/statu…
My Hanukkah miracle: 1 mo. after I flew off my bike & shattered my elbow, 2 wks after doctors at Shaare Zedek put it back together w/a titanium plate, the cast came off today.
Blessed be the One who gave human beings the miraculous ability to heal each other.
Dear @ADL_National - Airbnb pulling out of W. Bank settlements does not "isolate and delegitimize the state of Israel," and is not anti-Semitic - unless, like the Netanyahu govt, you equate the settlements with the state of Israel & the Jewish people. prospect.org/article/airbnb
When a leader rages against the very possibility that he has been democratically removed from power - so I hear - he may pose a threat to the health and life of the democracy. Rumors of this have reached us from distant lands.
21% of Israelis 60 & over vaccinated by yesterday, Israel Health Ministry reports.
Believe whatever you want, be whoever you want, look however you want. Love Israel or boycott it or anything in between. Go to shul or buy an Xmas tree. Just don't do it expecting that you'll be the extra-special Jew to whom this all won't apply.
Just because we Jews sometimes sound paranoid doesn't mean no one is out to get us.
edition.cnn.com/interactive/20
In Palestinian-Jewish conflict, standard arguments - "we were here first" & "indigenous people" - fail. Both are indigenous to same blessed/cursed homeland. Denial of other's history, link to land, status as nation, right to self-determination are dead ends - leading to deaths.
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For neanderthal hasbaristas, when they say "mine is longer than yours" they mean "history", although the machoism lends itself to more routine interpretations
Denying Jewish, Muslim or Christian equities in Jerusalem is reprehensible. The length of their histories is irrelevant. twitter.com/IMTIzionism/st…
When I lectured in the United States, I used to get asked why Israel had such a crazy electoral system and why we don't adopt the American system.
Hope that's over for good.
North American strongman: In a scene apparently taken from a lost manuscript of Gabriel García Márquez's 'Autumn of the Patriarch,' the crazed leader demands fireworks over a highly flammable forest.
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Trump wants to attend a fireworks show at Mt. Rushmore next week: "For 20 years it hasn’t been allowed for environmental reasons. You believe that one? It’s all stone."
But the area is "abnormally dry" and some fire experts are worried. argusleader.com/story/news/202
Yes. And when they hate both bankers and communists, then we have a conspiracy of bankers and communists going.
When the revolution in 1 country is truth, we're rootless cosmopolitans.
When universalism is in fashion, we're tribal.
Civilian can't own a weapon like AR-15 (really an M-16) in Israel. Even with a gun license, one can only buy a small number of bullets.
A pre-Yom Kippur note re Yitzhak Rabin & -
Every chapter of a book changes the meaning of all the chapters before.
Every day each of us writes a new chapter of our book.
Rabin's bio includes harsh chapters.
In the final chapter…
100-year-old Yedida Perlman demonstrates for democracy in Israel, against regime change in front of home of Israel's Economics Minister Nir Barkat.
Sign says, "I, a Hagana fighter in my hundredth year, am fighting again to defend the country."
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בגיל 100, ידידה פרלמן יצאה להפגין מול ביתו של השר ניר ברקת: "לחמתי בהגנה והיום שוב נלחמת להגנת המדינה". @N12News
Dear - the West Bank is not part of Israel. Even according to Israeli law. It's time you did your homework.
I can help. Read this and then we can talk.
amazon.com/Accidental-Emp
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Airbnb’s removal of its rental listings in the West Bank is a blatantly discriminatory decision that represents yet another instance of the double standard applied by the rest of the world to Israel. Airbnb should reverse this unfair policy immediately. @Airbnb
The Medics’ Prayer.
Emergency medical partners in southern Israel in morning prayer: one facing south toward Mecca, one north toward Jerusalem. Both facing same God, same purpose.
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Headlines I've seen this a.m. in U.S. press on Israel veer away from telling truth: Netanyahu is carrying out a palace coup, refusing to yield power after losing election. This isn't what "critics say." It's the reality.
Incredibly excited - bound galleys arrived today!
Out on January 19: War of Shadows: Codebreakers, Spies, and the Secret Struggle to Drive the Nazis from the Middle East.
Pre-order here: publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/gershom
Strolling down Jaffa Road in Jerusalem at night. City has put a piano at Zion Square. Someone is playing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. 50 random passers-by belting it out in harmonies. Life is good.
Suppose it's time to repeat: We have fairly contemporary testimony on the skin color of Jews of Jesus's time, from the Mishna: "Rabbi Yishmael says, 'The children of Israel... are [the color of] cedar wood, neither black nor white, but midway between.'"
(Nega'im 2:1)
Let me say it again: Trump has *not* returned to historic US policy on settlements. He has significantly softened it.
Eloquent teenager says he's demonstrating, "for my people, for the generation of the future, for us... We're fighting for our coutry."
Has to wade past stereotypes of interviewer who can't wrap head around religious kids from Bnei Akiva being at demo.
Last night #SiegeOnBalfour
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My grandparents were refugees. If Trump had been president then, I wouldn't exist.
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/
Netanyahu is already becoming the psycho ex, rage-stalking a nation.
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Netanyahu's latest is a doozy. Besuited, his face slathered in foundation, back to the tony Caesarea breakwater, he rails at an absent Naftali Bennett “Is there no end to cynicism? What a disgrace!” He apears genuinely appalled that anyone else could be PM
3:07
Latest from Putin, I mean Erdogan, I mean Trump.
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Trump says former GOP candidates who don't endorse him should be banned from running in 4 years:
When Christianity is the only truth, we killed him.
When Christianity is bad, it came from Judaism.
They didn’t dance? Or juggle flaming torches? Testify in rhyme? What did you want?
This headline is a journalistic obscenity.
Not to mention that about half of Israeli Jews have roots in Syria Iraq Yemen Tunisia Egypt Morocco Libya Lebanon Iran etc.
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It's increasingly common for supporters of the Palestinian cause to demand Israelis 'return to Europe'. Let's be clear: none of us, Jews or Palestinians, is going anywhere. This is our home. The only way to fight for freedom for all is Jews & Palestinians, side by side, TOGETHER.
Netanyahu's concession in delaying autocracy laws is purely tactical: The goal is to end energy of protests, and pull large opposition parties into negotiations with govt bills as starting point. Practically speaking, talks on opposition's terms of surrender.
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Netanyahu has barely pushed pause: Bill to eviscerate courts has been filed with Knesset, can be passed within 24 hours.
timesofisrael.com/despite-pause- via @timesofisrael
. 's 11-year-old daughter Orli needs a live liver donor. Now. blood type O or A, positive or negative, age 18-55. If that's you, please go to this link & see if you can save a life. Please.
caringbridge.org/visit/orli/jou
Organizers report 450,000 at protests against Netanyahu’s bid for autocracy.
Seems the would-be dictator’s bid to trick the public with fake negotiations has failed.
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ההתנגדות להפיכה הדיקטטורית - הספינים וניסיונות הרדמת המאבק כשלו. הציבור ער ונחוש ולא ממצמץ. מארגני ההפגנות: מעל ל-450,000 מפגינים בכל הארץ.
בהפגנת הענק בקפלן - 230,000
בשאר מוקדי המחאה מעל ל- 225,000
המארגנים: "תרגיל ההרדמה של נתניהו נכשל - ובענק!".
שרשור מספרי המפגינים במוקדים
It's a Talmudic principle: Kol haposel, bemumo posel. Someone who keeps finding a fault in others, that's his own fault.