Connecting Heaven and Earth

A Torah Thought for Parashat Shelach
By Moshe Feiglin

Our Sages consider the Sin of the Spies even worse than the Sin of the Golden Calf. What is the root cause of the sin of rejection of the Land of Israel? What is so terrible about “We will make a new leader and return to Egypt?” At the time of the sin, as Rashi explains, the spies were righteous Jews who had just experienced the myriad miracles of the Exodus from Egypt and the journey through the desert. Did they really believe that G-d could not humble the lowly Canaanites as He had the mighty Egyptian empire? How could they so severely miss the mark?

There is a difference between the Exodus from Egypt and the entry into the Land of Israel. The entry into the Land of Israel brings with it an entirely new reality. G-d took care of Pharaoh by Himself: “G-d will fight for you and you, remain silent,” G-d told the Israelites at the edge of the Red Sea. But for the Canaanites, the approach is different: Both the Israelites and G-d will be in the fight.

As soon as the Jewish People enters the Land of Israel, the manna stops falling from the heavens. In the Land of Israel, we must plow, plant and harvest. We must live a life of action and bring the manna down from heaven by ourselves – in full cooperation with the Creator. That is the message of the Jewish Nation. It is a message that cannot be applied without the Land of Israel. It is the message of perfection of the world – in the Kingdom of the Almighty.

The Sin of the Golden Calf, although totally unacceptable, was easier to rectify. The Israelites were punished, repented and returned to G-d. The Sin of the Spies is much more difficult to eradicate and rectify. It is not a tactical sin but a rejection of the entire purpose of the Jewish Nation. It is a strategic sin – a strategic error of cosmic proportions. It is a lack of understanding of the goal of the journey, the loss of the purpose for our very existence.

The resolution of the conflict between the material and spiritual has tormented humanity from time immemorial. The Western approach is to nullify the material in order to be holy. The Moslem approach is to wallow in the material in order to be holy. On the Festival of Tabernacles, the 70 nations of the world bring their holiday offerings to the House of G-d in Jerusalem. But there is one offering that only Israel can bring. It is the shlamim (wholeness) offering. Half of it is to be eaten by the people and half is for G-d. It is the offering that is irrelevant to a non-Jewish reality. The secret of the unification between the holy and the mundane was given to Israel alone.

There is only one way to resolve the conflict between the spiritual and the mundane. Only when the Jewish Nation lives in the unique Land chosen for it by the Master of the Universe and crowns the spiritual G-d over the material world at their fusion point – in Jerusalem, at the Royal Palace, the Holy Temple – will the world live in peace and serenity.

By attempting to return to Egypt, the Israelites effectively sent the entire world into a helter-skelter tailspin. No wonder that the consequences of that ill-conceived error are still plaguing us today.

The Sin of the Spies smolders in all sectors of Jewish society throughout the generations. It infects every person who excludes himself or G-d from even one aspect of our holistic reality. It infects those who cling to G-d to the exclusion of the Land of Israel and those who cling to the Land of Israel to the exclusion of G-d. It infects the person who studies Torah but does not work, the person who does not study Torah and only works, the person who does not settle the Land, the person who strictly settles the Land, the person disassociated from politics, the person who deals only with politics; any attachment to partial reality conceals within it a touch of the Sin of the Spies.

The solution is to open ourselves to the entire spectrum of our reality – and to perfect the world in the Kingdom of the Almighty.

Shabbat Shalom.

Liberty and Identity

By Moshe Feiglin

The values expressed by the European Union are the blurring of national identity and the neutering of democracy -which is dependent upon identity - from any real significance. In the European Union, democracy is exchanged for a type of ‘politburo’ of mid-level bureaucrats never elected by the citizens of Europe to run their state for them.  The blurring of identity and the compromising of democracy will necessarily lead to the erosion of liberty.

These are really two sides of the same coin: Without identity, there is no liberty and without liberty, identity is lost.

Ultimately, the inevitable result of the loss of liberty and identity will always be additional state interference in the lives of its citizens, economic downfall and greater loss of human rights.

The results of the vote in Britian express a backlash against the above process. They are good news for all those who aspire to liberty around the world. In the US, Donald Trump is riding the wave of similar disgust with the bureaucracy there and the loss of national identity in exchange for multiculturalism. It is the backlash  of citizens who have tasted liberty in the past and whom, for the past three decades, have seen it erode amidst a murky wave of attack against all identity: national, territorial, family, sexual and most recently human.

I have no doubt that Britain will gain from the fact that it has restored its liberty and that the threats of the parasitic elements in Europe and outside it will turn out to be hollow.

Will Israeli society know how to preserve its identity and liberty? Or will it continue to cave in to the multi-pronged attack against all the foundations upon which it was built? Israel has the tool with which to preserve its identity and liberty: The Zehut movement.

HaRav Nachman Kahana on Parashat Korach 5776: The Korachs of Today and The Descendants of Aisav

BS”D 
Parashat Korach 5776
HaRav Nachman Kahana

The Korachs of Today

In contrast to previous grass-root’s rebellions against Moshe, our parasha records a more potentially disastrous rebellion, instigated by Korach and other formidable personalities within the nation.

Korach was one of the four Levites who merited the task of holding the supporting poles of the holy Ark during the nation’s migration to each new encampment.

It is not clear from the text when this rebellion occurred. The suggestions range from before the Mishkan was erected, to after the Miraglim’s (spy’s) sin, to the end of the forty-year sojourn in the desert. It is also not clear what Korach’s claim was, since there were various allegations against Moshe in the text, each one voiced by a different special interest group within the rebellion.

However, we do know that one segment was swallowed up by the earth, another by fire, and another by sickness.

After the rebellion was crushed and all its participants were no longer alive, HaShem commanded Moshe to collect the staffs of the twelve tribal leaders, including Aharon, and place them near the holy ark in the Mishkan, overnight.

In the morning, Moshe entered the holy precinct to find that Aharon’s staff had blossomed, which was a Godly sign that Aharon’s appointment was absolute and no man had the right to question it.

Question: Why did HaShem wait until after the death of the rebels to prove that Aharon was the chosen one by HaShem to be the first Kohen Gadol (high priest)? Had HaShem performed the miracle of the staffs before punishing the rebels they would — certainly have done tshuva (repented), with no need for severe punishment.

I submit:

Short of HaShem appearing to an individual or a group, miracles have different effects on people.

HaShem knew that Korach was envenomed with jealousy, Datan and Aviram were obsessed in their opposition to Moshe Rabbeinu, and the remaining 250 leaders were too overwhelmed by their sense of importance for a miracle to have any effect on any of the rebels.

HaShem knew that when Moshe would leave the Mishkan with Aharon’s flowering staff in hand with all that it implied, then Korach, with his sharp mind and cynical tongue, would remove any and all semblance of spirituality from the unnatural flowering of a dry staff and explain the turn of events to his advantage. If the miracle was to influence people’s views, it would have to occur when all the “Korachs” would not be there to diminish the miracle’s effect.

In fact, we today, are witnessing a similar chain of events where HaShem’s miracles are being interpreted by contemporary “Korachs”, although of a lower spiritual stature than the Biblical Korach.

There is no end to the miracles that HaShem performs every moment for His people in Eretz Yisrael. If not for HaShem’s ongoing protection, we could not live here one day. We are surrounded by hundreds of millions of fanatical, bloodthirsty, primitive Moslems of all sorts who would not miss an opportunity to destroy the Jewish State. We are witnessing HaShem’s personal intervention for His people in the Holy Land as He creates the conditions whereby Arab hate is turning inward with all the wrath they have been nurturing for generations against the Jewish nation now directed at their “brothers”.

The Shoah (Holocaust) was the end of the 2000 years of anger and punishment of the Jewish people who were exiled from our holy land to be the victims of Yishmael’s and Aisav’s sadism.

From six hundred thousand people and a ragtag army 67 years ago, to close to 7 million Jews today, with the most resourceful army in the world, we are living a life of Biblical proportions. Torah life is flourishing as never before, despite the destruction of the great Torah centers in Europe and North Africa.

Yet there are the “Korachs” among us who, for personal interests, preach that the Medina is a mere political entity, a temporary historical quirk which has no bearing on the God – Yisrael relationship.

“One should not go to the Land, nor is it permissible to say Hallel or thanks to HaShem for the Medina”. The “dry staff” of Am Yisrael is flourishing with great abundance, but the cynical spiritual leaders of the galut continue to preach dissension before their naive congregants who are more influenced by a shtreimel (fur hat worn by some Haredi men) produced from treif (non-kosher) animals than by the miraculous entity called Medinat Yisrael.

Woe to those leaders. Woe to their adherents.

An ongoing miracle setting the final stage

We are witnessing the beginning of an ongoing miracle which might very well be the stepping stone for the final stage before the Mashiach’s appearance.

It is not a miracle directed at a single event or country, like the ten plagues of Egypt or the meteorites that fell from the sky to help Yehoshua in his battle with the five Amorite kings (chapter 10). This miracle will engulf nations and continents, and at its conclusion we shall see the State of Israel emerge as the world’s dominant nation.  But first some background sources:

1- Tehillim 92,8-10:

בפרח רשעים כמו עשב ויציצו כל פעלי און להשמדם עדי עד:

ואתה מרום לעלם ה’:

כי הנה איביך ה’ כי הנה איביך יאבדו יתפרדו כל פעלי און:

The wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, in order that they will be destroyed forever.

And You, HaShem, are forever exalted.

For surely Your enemies, HaShem, surely Your enemies will perish;

all evildoers will be detached (severed).


2- Bereishiet chapter 11 regarding the generation of the Tower of Bavel:

) ויהי כל הארץ שפה אחת ודברים אחדים:

(ב) ויהי בנסעם מקדם וימצאו בקעה בארץ שנער וישבו שם:

(ו) ויאמר ה’ הן עם אחד ושפה אחת לכלם וזה החלם לעשות ועתה לא יבצר מהם כל אשר יזמו לעשות:

(ז) הבה נרדה ונבלה שם שפתם אשר לא ישמעו איש שפת רעהו:

(ח) ויפץ ה’ אתם משם על פני כל הארץ ויחדלו לבנת העיר:

Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

HaShem said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

So HaShem scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.


3- Midrash Tanchuma (parshat Beha’alotcha)

…אמר ליה הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה אספה לי שבעים איש, למה שכנוסן של צדיקים הנייה להם הנייה לעולם אבל כנוסן של רשעים תקלה להם תקלה לעולם.

HaShem said to Moshe, “gather together for me 70 men (to serve as the Sanhedrin). And the midrash asks: “Why? (did HaShem say “for me”? and answered) to teach that the unity of righteous men is pleasurable for them and for the world, whereas the unity of evil men causes displeasure for them and for the world.

4- Midrash Yalkut Shimoni Micha (553):

ר’ ישמעאל אומר חמש אצבעות של יד ימינו של הקדוש ברוך הוא כולן לשם גאולה… וכל היד בה עתיד הקדוש ברוך הוא להשמיד את בני עשו שהם צריו ולהכרית את בני ישמעאל שהם אויביו שנאמר תרום ידך על צריך וכל אויביך יכרתו:

Rabbi Yishmael says, “The five fingers of HaShem’s right hand (as it would be) are intended to bring the final redemption (and the midrash enumerates what each finger will do) but the entire hand will be utilized to — destroy Aisav who are HaShem’s enemies, and to eradicate the children of Yishmael (Arab Muslims) who are HaShem’s enemies, etc.


5- Midrash Yalkut Chadash Eretz Yisrael 24

כשמת יצחק, אמר עשו ליעקב, בא ונחלק כל מה שהניח אבינו, ואני אברור לעצמי כי אני הבכור. אמר יעקב, רשע לא תשבע עינו בממון, מה עשה, הניח כל עזבון אביו לצד אחד, וארץ ישראל לצד אחד. הלך עשו אל ישמעאל להמלך בו, אמר ישמעאל, הכנעני והאמורי בארץ ויעקב חושב לירש את הארץ, טול אתה כל כסף וזהב שהניח אביך ולא יהיה ליעקב כלום. הלך עשו ועשה כן, והניח ארץ ישראל ליעקב. אמר לו יעקב, לך מארץ אחוזתי. מיד פנה עשו כל אשר לו והלך לו מפני יעקב אחיו,

And when Yitzchak passed away Aisav said to Ya’akov (his brother): “let us divide our father’s estate, and I as the first born have the right to choose first”. Ya’akov suggested to divide the entire estate in two. On the one side all of the material wealth and on the other side Eretz Yisrael. Ya’akov gave Aisav the right to choose first. Aisav went to Yishmael his father-in-law to seek advice. Yishmael said that the land of Canaan is filled with many nations so there is no chance that Ya’akov would ever be able to achieve its ownership. Therefore, take for yourself all the wealth and Ya’akov will be left with nothing.

From these sources we conclude:

1- HaShem permits evil peoples to rise in stature and power which will eventually cause their downfall.

2- The concentration of power by evil peoples will cause them and the world great pain.

3- The descendants of Aisav and Yishmael are the enemies of HaShem.

4- Yishmael and Aisav will never rest as long as Ya’akov is in Eretz Yisrael.


The Descendants of Aisav

The 28 nations that make up the European Union are for the most part descendants of Aisav (each one has the color red in its flag). Europe has been, and is, the seat of anti-Semitism in principle and in deed. The European intellectuals and politicians who would not soil their hands by putting a can of hydrogen cyanide into a gas chamber have no qualms about creating an Arab state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River to permit the Arabs to finish what Hitler began.

Again Aisav and Yishmael against Ya’akov.

The 28 States that compose the EU are now in the process of laying down a timetable for Israel’s retreat to the 1967 borders and to agree to an Arab State, under the threat of economic and political sanctions.

HaShem saw that the concentration of power brought about by these 28 rogue states has reached its limit, and the time has come for it to crumble and collapse from within.

The first domino to fall is the United Kingdom, chosen for this exclusive “honor” by virtue of its betrayal of the Jewish nation. During the Mandate period, the brutish-British encouraged the Arabs to riot and murder Jews in Hebron, Yerushalayim, Tzfat and Tiberius to be used as a pretense to limit or halt Jewish emigration to the holy land despite the Balfour Declaration and the San Remo conference. England was the willing partner of Hitler in the Shoah.

We shall soon see the slow and painful dismembering of the EU, which instead of realizing their intentions of joining the European countries into a United States of Europe, will deteriorate into individual nations with extreme fascist governments. And from there the world will be a different place.

Our rabbis have taught that Ya’akov and Aisav cannot co-exit; when one falters the other will gain power. The demise of Aisav is imminent, as is the rise of the Jewish nation to the greatest of heights as predicted by our prophets.

Shabbat Shalom,

Nachman Kahana

Copyright © 5776/2016 Nachman Kahana

Taking Versus Giving

By HaRav Dov Begon
Rosh HaYeshiva, Machon Meir

This week’s parasha in Eretz Yisrael begins, “Korach took” (Numbers 16:1). Korach’s whole interest in life was in taking. He yearned to take the leadership away from Moses and Aaron. His legendary wealth was the result of taking. He pursued honor and desired to take it away from others, as reflected in his telling Moses and Aaron, “You have gone too far” (16:3), interpreted by Rashi as meaning: “You have taken far too much greatness for yourselves.”

He generated controversies -- built upon insincere motives -- within the Jewish People, and these controversies brought tragedy upon himself, his family and his company: “The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their houses, along with all the men who were with Korach and their property” (16:32).

Moses, as opposed to Korach, was the embodiment of the trait of giving: “I did not take a single donkey from them” (16:16). He was humble, “more so than any man on the face of the earth” (13:3). When G-d sent him to lead Israel in their exodus from Egypt, Moses argued, “I beg you, O G-d, I am not a man of words... I find it difficult to speak and find the right language” (Exodus 4:10). Moses fled from honor, hence honor pursued him.

Right now, we must learn a lesson from the tragedy of Korach and his company. We must not be guided by selfish self-interest either on the personal or national level. Materialism must not stand at the center of our lives, since it leads to the moral breakdown of the individual and the community. Quite the contrary, we must yearn for and educate towards giving, towards altruism and morality, towards benefiting our fellow man, loving him and developing friendship with him.

It is true that we live in a materialistic generation: As Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook wrote:
“We have a tradition that spiritual rebellion will surface in Eretz Yisrael and among the Jewish People at large at the onset of their national rebirth. The material complacence which will beset part of the nation, thinking that they have already arrived at their final destination, will make them less spiritual... The longing for lofty, holy ideals will cease, and spirituality will automatically decline and wane” (Orot, page 94).

Yet the day is not far off when a revolution will transpire in the form of a great
movement of repentance which will revive the nation and bring redemption to them and to the whole world. This will be the sort of repentance which stems “from the holy spirit which will proliferate then” (Ibid.). Through this, we will merit with our own eyes to see “a new light shining over Zion” (morning prayers).

Looking forward to complete salvation,

Shabbat Shalom.

A Land Flowing with Milk and Honey

By HaRav Mordechai Greenberg
Rosh Yeshiva, Kerem B'Yavneh

It is said that a religious tourist complained to Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook about how frustrated he was to see the level of Shabbat desecration and other grave sins in Eretz Yisrael. He wondered why it was that so many Jews who observed the mitzvot when they were abroad became spoiled when they arrived in the holy land.

Rav Kook asked the man where he came from, and he told the Rav. That place had a reputation as a health resort. So the Rav asked him, "Then how can it be that from what I hear there are so many sick people in that city?" The man smiled and said, "It is not that the place made them sick. Rather, they were sick before they came to the resort, and that is why they came." Rav Kook told the man, "If so, then listen to the meaning of what you just said. The sick Jews who came here from afar came to be cured, it is not the place which made them sick."

And Rav Kook explained to the man the characteristic of the land which helps to mend faults. He said that this is included in the description of "a land flowing with milk and honey." I heard this story from Rav Kook's son, Rav Tzvi Yehuda.

With respect to milk, we have been taught that "blood becomes cloudy and is turned into milk" [Nidda 9b]. Rashi explains, "The blood of Nidda becomes cloudy because of the birth of a baby, and it becomes milk. This is thus a novel occurrence – at first it was blood and whoever drank it would be punished by Karet, and now it is permissible." This is the subject of the discussion in the Talmud: Why is milk permitted, since it comes from blood which is prohibited? And the Talmud finds a source for the halacha in the Torah.

A similar question can be asked about honey. While usually it is assumed that honey is produced from sweet nectar in flowers, it is seen in the Prophets that there is also honey which comes from the bees themselves. An example is the case of Shimshon: "Behold, there was a swarm of bees in the carcass of the lion, with honey" [Shoftim 14:8]. Similarly, when Shaul declared a fast his son Yehonatan dipped the end of his staff "in the honey." RADAK interprets this as "the honeycomb." The usual rule in the Torah is that what comes from an impure source is impure. However, even though the bee is an unclean bug, the Torah gave permission to eat the honey.

Thus we have seen two examples of transformation of a serious prohibition into something that is permitted. And that is the benefit of Eretz Yisrael. It is a land "flowing with milk and honey," which can transform impure material into something pure, and something bad into a good thing.

According to the Zohar, the head of the yeshiva in the palace of Mashiach will declare, "Whoever does not know how to transform bitterness into sweetness and dark into light shall not enter here" [Bereishit part 1,3].

This, in fact was the greatest sin performed by Datan and Aviram. They said, "Isn't it enough that you brought us up from a land flowing in milk and honey?" [Bamidbar 16:13]. But the expression "milk and honey" refers to the unique properties of Eretz Yisrael, which are not matched by any other site. It has the ability to change red into white, darkness into light, bitterness into sweetness, and bad into good. However, Datan and Aviram try to transfer this property to Egypt. Rav Tzvi Yehuda Kook added that the shock from this attempt is so great that the earth itself trembles and blows up – "And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them" [Bamidbar 16:32].

Turkey and Israel: Happy Together?

By Burak Bekdil

• Ironically, the futile Turkish effort to end the naval blockade of Gaza is ending in quite a different direction: Now that Turkey has agreed to send humanitarian aid through the Ashdod port, it accepts the legitimacy of the blockade.

The ups and downs of Turkey's relations with Israel -- what comes next?
Left: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (then Prime Minister) shakes hands with then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, on May 1, 2005. Right: Erdogan shakes hands with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on January 3, 2012.

Ostensibly, almost everyone is happy. After six years and countless rounds of secret and public negotiations Turkey and Israel have finally reached a landmark deal to normalize their downgraded diplomatic relations and ended their cold war. The détente is a regional necessity based on convergent interests: Divergent interests can wait until the next crisis.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon welcomed the deal, calling it a "hopeful signal for the stability of the region."

Secretary of State John Kerry, too, welcomed the agreement. "We are obviously pleased in the administration. This is a step we wanted to see happen," he said.

Continue Reading Article

Israel Apology to Turkey Nothing New

By Moshe Feiglin

There is nothing new about Israel apologizing to Turkey. Israel, bereft of vision and destiny is in a permanent posture of apologizing for its very existence. The average Israeli today feels like an unwanted guest in a foreign land – and apologizes all the time for every extra minute of ‘occupation’. Soon the world will demand that we compensate Germany for the damages caused to its army in the Warsaw Ghetto…

Below is a short film clip that we did with famous Israeli journalist Avri Gilad. It explains the dynamics of feeling like a guest in your own land.

This is the transcript:

AG: I am afraid of Moslem fury, Moshe.

MF: You are not afraid of Moslem fury.

AG: I am afraid of them. They frighten me.

MF: You are afraid because you feel that you are a guest here. That is what is scaring you. The average Israeli today, twenty years after Oslo, has grown up with the mentality of a guest here.

He has an apologist mentality. You are nodding your head because you understand what I am saying.

AG: Clearly.

MF: The average Israeli is happy to gain a few more years in which the homeowner will let him live quietly and will not knock on his door.

The homeowner is the Arab.

And then comes a hilltop youth and writes a graffiti on an Arab mosque.

And the Israeli in Tel Aviv says, “Wow, now I’m going to have a world war on my hands because he reminded the homeowner that I am here”. And that is the reason for the public outcry over the stupid and ridiculous graffiti. The problem is not the hilltop youth; the problem is the average Israeli.

The generation of hilltop youth that you are talking about – I see them connecting to their peers in Tel Aviv. The mandates in the elections that went back and forth from Bennett to Lapid had no regard for Left or Right. These were voters who were simply searching for meaning. They were searching for identity, for a new agenda. That is what connects the hilltop “crazies”, in your words, and the decadents in the nightclubs in Tel Aviv.

Moshe Feiglin discusses Radical Islam on the Steve Maltzberg Show

Moshe Feiglin’s discussion with interviewer Steve Maltzberg on radical Islam, ISIS and Israeli and US politics.

As Israel becomes more nationalistic, liberal US Jews become more distant

The report presented to the Israeli cabinet also focuses on the demographics of Israel’s capital, concluding that the government should consider new measures to ensure a Jewish majority in Jerusalem.

By DANIELLE ZIRI, JPOST

NEW YORK – The liberal, Reform, Conservative and secular parts of the American Jewish community may become more distant from Israel as the country’s demography becomes more Orthodox and nationalistic, according to a report presented to the Cabinet on Sunday.

Results from the 12th Annual Assessment of the Situation and Dynamics of the Jewish People, put together by The Jewish People Policy Institute, were offered by JPPI Co-Chairman Ambassador Dennis Ross and President Avinoam Bar-Yosef.

Bar-Yosef explained that while there is significant support for Israel in North America, it isn’t compensating for “the young generation of liberal and secular American Jews [which] is increasingly critical of the Jewish state, and concerned that Israeli society is becoming more religious and more right wing.

“Israel and the organized American Jewry should invest heavily in programs of inclusion that engage the ultra-Orthodox in the broader Jewish community and the general US society,” he stressed. “At the same time, follow-up initiatives for Birthright and Masa alumni must be drastically increased.”

The report also focuses on the demographics of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, concluding that the government should consider new measures to ensure a Jewish majority in the holy city.

Among the measures JPPI suggests are creating jobs and more affordable housing opportunities – especially for younger graduates of the city’s academic institutions – in order to reduce native migration from the capital and retain more people in Jerusalem.

“Related to this, the government should take any possible steps to raise and ensure the quality of life for non-Jewish citizens, especially in east Jerusalem,” the report added.

“Non-Jewish Jerusalemites must be better integrated into the city’s social, economic, and cultural fabric.”

The JPPI said it recommends “lowering tensions and strengthening the image of Jerusalem as a safe, developing, pleasant and special place to live.”

In addition, the report also discusses the possibility of expanding municipal boundaries westward by annexing existing Jewish towns, or shrinking the current municipal boundaries and adding more residents to Jerusalem.

“A policy that would strengthen the Jewish majority of Jerusalem while improving the life of the non-Jewish population could receive greater support from the Jewish Diaspora, and could even help strengthen its identification with Israel,” JPPI explained.

The Institute’s study also found problems with the aliya process, specifically from France, where aliya is down 30 percent in 2016 from the previous year.

“The main obstacles dissuading potential immigrants from France relate to employment, education for their children, and housing,” the report states.

“While 40 percent of French Jews still consider making aliya, it is incumbent upon the Israeli government to successfully overcome deficiencies in aliya processing, and to ease the absorption process for new immigrants from France.”

The 2015-2016 executive summary also examined geopolitical factors in Israel, Jewish pluralism in the country, foreign policy recommendations, the Arab-Christian community, as well as anti-Semitism in Europe.

UK Labour Party: Haven for Racists?

By Robbie Travers

• It is hard to believe that the party once led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who assisted President Bush in leading the war on terror and fighting expansionist Islamist movements, is now being fought over and led by a man who voted against banning Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization.
• The idea that a single totalitarian Caliphate would bring increased democracy and stability, let alone civil and political rights, to an increasingly factional, corrupt and unstable Middle East, appears more a childlike, logic-defying fantasy.
• Isn't it usually secular societies that protect the rights of religious minorities, including Muslims, to practice their faith?
• I am not a Jew, and I have no links to Judaism. But if being a Jew offends antisemitic racists, then I am happy to call myself Jew, and to stand up and be counted with the Jews as a minority facing increased persecution across Europe.

Labour Party MP Naz Shah (left), was recently suspended from the party for composing and sharing anti-Semitic tropes. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn (right), has a tendency to hang around with Holocaust deniers, anti-Semitic hate-preachers and others of a similar ilk, and is a self-declared "friend" of the terror outfits Hamas and Hezbollah.

The UK Labour Party, which once stood proudly in solidarity with the victims of terrorism, now, under the would-be leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, seems to have become a haven for anti-Semites, Islamists and their apologists.

It is hard to believe that the party once led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who assisted President Bush in leading the war on terror and fighting expansionist Islamist movements, is now led by a man who voted against banning Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization months after more than 200 people were killed in the 1998 terrorist attacks on the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

Jeremy Corbyn alleges that he stands on a platform where "There is no place for anti-semitism or any form of racism in the Labour Party, or anywhere in society." He also says that Labour have taken "decisive action."

Continue Reading Article

HOW BREXIT WILL CHANGE AMERICA AND THE WORLD

Britain is free of global government. America can be next.

By Daniel Greenfield, FPM

Yesterday the British people stood up for their freedom. Today the world is a different place.

Celebrities and politicians swarmed television studios to plead with voters to stay in the EU. Anyone who wanted to leave was a fascist. Economists warned of total collapse if Britain left the European Union. Alarmist broadcasts threatened that every family would lose thousands of pounds a year if Brexit won.

Even Obama came out to warn Brits of the economic consequences of leaving behind the EU.

Every propaganda gimmick was rolled out. Brexit was dismissed, mocked and ridiculed. It was for lunatics and madmen. Anyone who voted to leave the benevolent bosom of the European Union was an ignorant xenophobe who had no place in the modern world. And that turned out to be most of Britain.

While Londonistan, that post-British city of high financial stakes and low Muslim mobs, voted by a landslide to remain, a decisive majority of the English voted to wave goodbye to the EU. 67% of Tower Hamlets, the Islamic stronghold, voted to stay in the EU. But to no avail. The will of the people prevailed.

And the people did not want migrant rape mobs in their streets and Muslim massacres in their pubs. They were tired of Afghani migrants living in posh homes with their four wives while they worked hard and sick of seeing their daughters passed around by “Asian” cabbies from Pakistan in ways utterly indistinguishable from the ISIS slave trade while the police looked the other way so as not to appear racist. And, most of all, they were sick of the entire Eurocratic establishment that let it all happen.

British voters chose freedom. They decided to reclaim their destiny and their nation from the likes of Count Herman Von Rompuy, the former President of the European Council, selected at an “informal” meeting who has opposed direct elections for his job and insisted that, “the word of the future is union.”

When Nigel Farage of UKIP told Count Von Rompuy that “I can speak on behalf of the majority of British people in saying that we don’t know you, we don’t want you and the sooner you are put out to grass, the better,” he was fined for it by the Bureau of the European Parliament after refusing to apologize. But now it’s Farage and the Independence Party who have had the last laugh.

The majority of British people didn’t want Count Von Rompuy and his million-dollar pension, or Donald Tusk, Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and the rest of the monkeys squatting on Britain’s back.

Count Von Rompuy has lost his British provinces. And the British people have their nation back.

The word of the future isn’t “union.” It’s “freedom.” A process has begun that will not end in Britain. It will spread around the world liberating nations from multinational institutions.

During Obama’s first year in office, Count Von Rompuy grandly declared that “2009 is also the first year of global governance.” Like many such predictions, it proved to be dangerously wrong. And now it may just well be that 2016 will be the first year of the decline and fall of global governance.

An anti-establishment wind is blowing through the creaky house of global government. The peoples of the free world have seen how the choking mass of multilateral institutions failed them economically and politically. Global government is an expensive and totalitarian proposition that silences free speech and funnels rapists from Syria, Sudan and Afghanistan to the streets of European cities and American towns. It’s a boon for professional consultants, certain financial insiders and politicians who can hop around unelected offices and retire with vast unearned pensions while their constituents are told to work another decade. But global government is misery and malaise for everyone else.

The campaign to stay in the EU relied on fear and alarmism, on claims of bigotry and disdain for the working class voters who fought and won the right to decide their own destiny. But the campaign for independence asked Britons to believe in their own potential when unchained from the Eurocratic bureaucracy. And now Brexit will become a model for liberation campaigns across Europe.

And it will not end there.

Brexit showed that it is possible for a great nation to defy its leaders and its establishment thinkers to throw off its multinational chains. And while the European Union is one of the biggest prisons forged by global government, it is far from the only one. America and Britain are sleeping giants covered in the cold iron links of multinational organizations that limit their strength and their potential.

It is time to break those chains.

Americans who want to cut their ties with the United Nations have found Brexit inspiring. Leaving the EU was once also seen as a ridiculous idea at the margins that could never be taken seriously. Serious politicians refused to listen to it. Serious thinkers refused to discuss it. And then it gathered speed.

There is growing opposition even among Democrats to treaties like the TPP. Trump has challenged NAFTA. Americans across the political spectrum are suspicious of economic treaties and organizations. Support for Brexit came from Labour areas in the UK. Support for Trump’s challenge to multinational treaties and alliances could very well come from unexpected places, like Bernie Sanders backers.

Brexit has shown us the weakness of the multinational establishment. Its vast bureaucratic power rests on using the media to suppress political dissent. When the media’s special pleading fails to stop the democratic process, it is more helpless than any dictator when the outraged mob pours into his palace.

What was true of Britain, is also true of America. Our elites are just as impotent. The power they have illegally seized is defended zealously by a media palace guard that spends every minute of every day lecturing, hectoring and messaging Americans. But when no one listens to the media, then the men and women who run our lives, who feed off us like a colony of parasitic insects, are helpless.

Their power is purely persuasive. When we stop listening, then we are free.

That is the lesson of Brexit. It is the future.

The future is not a vast behemoth of global government that swallows up nations and individuals, that reduces democratic elections to a joke and eliminates freedom of speech, but the individual. The elites have gambled everything on big government, big media and big data. But all of those lost to Brexit.

They lost to Brexit in the UK. They can lose in the US too. And they will lose.

The power of the establishment is illusory. Like the naked emperor, it depends on no one challenging it. The harder it is challenged, the harder it will fall. Brexit was an impossible dream. Then it was reality.

Our impossible dreams, the policies that conservatives are told by the establishment are not even worth talking about, can be just as real as Brexit.

If we are willing to fight for them.

BREXIT – An Israeli perspective

By Garry Shaw

Money markets crashed as if some disaster had occurred. But what was seen by the unexpected “Leave the EU” vote is the beginning collapse of the EU, an unelected world of bureaucrats who regulate and control the lives of people in Europe.

At the moment the Brits were voting, I was having lunch with a group of Dutch men and women. They expressed their disgust about what is happening in their country and how the decision of their government is controlled by the gnomes of Brussels. They were adamant that their country would be better off away from the EU decision-makers who, they felt, were endangering the social fabric and security of their country over a wrong-headed immigration policy, a policy in chaos with the continuing wave of migrants washing on the shores of Europe from the Middle East and Africa. Many are finding their way to the Netherlands. They are frustrated with the feeling of losing control their country. Nationalism is being revived due to the utter failure of Europe to deal with the dual threats of the migrant crisis and the explosion of Islamic terror.

People are fearful and want out. This was clearly seen in the Brexit vote.

The economy and jobs are vitally important issues as Brits ponder their future outside of the EU. They can be reassured. Norway and Switzerland are two countries who have successful economies and are outside the European Union.

Britain is the second largest economic engine in Europe after Germany. It is an almost three trillion dollar powerhouse. It is hardly a weak horse as is Greece.

The biggest card played by the “Leave” campaigners was that Britain can regain its sovereignty and independence of decision-making and begin to control its own destiny. This confidence is essential at such a crucial time.

Britain will now be able to make free-trade deals with massive trading blocs such as America, China and India, something it was unable to do as part of the restrictions of EU membership. This will be a powerful kick starter to the British economy and jobs. Let’s be honest, Britain-made goods admired and required within Europe will still be in demand by nations within the EU.

Britain can follow the Swiss example. China has a trade agreement with wealthy Switzerland, a country that is European but outside the EU. China does not have a free-trade agreement with the EU. Like Israel, Britain should look eastward.

Israel, a non-EU country, has an Israel-EU Associate Agreement in force since June 2000. It began with services and the free movement of capital. It didn’t take long for this agreement to expand to include the free trade of industrial and later agricultural products. More recently the demand for Israeli technology led to Israel being invited into the Horizon 2020 program of research and innovation in 2014. This has led to a thirty two billion Euro trade in goods between the EU and Israel at the end of 2015.

Outside of Europe, Israel’s trade volume with the United States reached thirty eight billion dollars by the end of 2014.

China did not establish diplomatic relations with Israel until 1992. Trade was almost non-existent at that time, barely fifty million dollars. It has leapt in the last decade to reach over ten billion dollars by 2013, and growing fast. Today, Chinese businessman and government officials are constantly visiting Israel in search of partnerships and future trade agreements.

This is the rosy picture that can be Britain’s as it recaptures its independence of action. Surely, British entrepreneurs and innovators are as talented as ours – well, almost.

As for crashing markets, buy shares in British banks and industry, or buy more of your favorite stocks. You’ll make money when the markets bounce back.

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Affairs.

How and Why Government Forces You to Finance Illegal Immigration

By Michael Bargo, Jr.

As the Supreme Court rejects President Obama’s efforts to issue unconstitutional executive orders with regard to immigration law enforcement, the real issue for American voters is who pays for the benefits illegal immigrants receive. It’s an issue to consider this November.

Illegal immigration was not created by business. Businesses cannot give them drivers licenses, government benefits, or issue unconstitutional executive orders as President Obama has. Only government can get away with those actions. How it forces you to financially support illegal immigrants in the U.S. is the real story.

It costs just as much for illegal immigrants to live in the U.S. as it does for documented immigrants. The price of gasoline is the same, along with food, used cars, and housing. Public education is actually higher for illegal immigrants, up to 50% higher, since illegal immigrants use expensive programs such as English as a Second Language that English-speaking students do not. So the question then becomes, if it’s so expensive to live in the U.S., how do people working at low-paid jobs no one else will do afford cars, housing, education, insurance and other expenses necessary for daily living?

Anyone who states that people earning ten dollars an hour can pay their own way should do a brief review of the expenses of living in the U.S. The Kaiser Health Group states that today it costs $12,000 and more to have one baby. Mexicans make up the majority of illegal immigrants in the U.S., but there are many from Europe and other parts of the world who have overstayed their visas. With regard to family size, it’s important to note that Mexicans today have about twice as many children as white families and one more than black families. The Center for Immigration Studies has recently found that Mexicans are now having slightly smaller families, but regardless of family size, someone has to pay for that $12,000 per child. And, if you are aware of it or not, you are paying for it.

The other big cost is education. In Los Angeles it now costs $25,000 per year to teach one student, more for Hispanics since they use ESL programs. Chicago spends $16,000 per student and New York City $27,000. And these costs don’t include ESL. These three cities are all sanctuary cities that violate Federal law by encouraging illegal immigration. They constantly raise taxes and fees in order to provide illegal immigrants with subsidies for food, housing and education. Since illegal immigrants earn so little money, and are supported by a number of local, state, and Federal programs, you end up being forced to pay for these programs. The Center for Immigration Studies found in 2015 that the average illegal immigrant family receives $6,234 in different benefits, 41% more than native households.

While illegal immigration is based upon violations of the 1996 Immigration Law, there has been a complete lack of obedience to the Constitution in other ways. With regard to financial support the main way the Constitution is violated is through misappropriation of funds, a U.S. Code Title 18 felony.

The money spent on illegal immigrants comes from several main sources. Those ever-higher fees you have to pay for cable TV, utilities, gasoline, property taxes and the other necessities of daily life are in part subsidies for illegal immigration. And much of these higher costs go to pay for the government employees, particularly teacher union members, who are paid to teach the children. It’s a little known but very crucial fact that today one of every four children of school age is Hispanic and their number is the only number growing. If not for illegal immigrant children many school systems would have to cut back on the number of teachers. This also directly impacts their Federal and state subsidies. And since public-school teachers pay union dues, and these union dues are a major source of campaign contributions at local, state, and Federal levels, there is a direct connection between political power and the number of illegal immigrant children.

Recently there has been a dramatic increase in the number of children entering the U.S. illegally through the southern border. The reason for this is that children are the cash cow of public teacher unions. They then act as the foundation of political power. So the extra taxes, fees, and debt created by government to support illegal immigrants is a subsidy of political power. These taxes and fees then force you to support the one party, the Democrat Party, that is the sole beneficiary of all these public sector union campaign contributions.

This is why sanctuary cities and states, particularly those that created sanctuary policy in the beginning, are all run by Democrats. This is technically a violation of your First Amendment right of free speech since SCOTUS has already ruled that campaign contributions are a form of speech. This is another way that illegal immigration violates the Constitution, other than at the direct violation caused by the fact that only Congress has the authority to establish a uniform rule of naturalization.

Another way government has devised to pay for illegal immigrant is to divert money appropriated for city and state services to illegal immigrants. This creates a shortfall that states and cities make up by issuing  bonds. The explosion of spending on illegal immigrants, as well as the explosion of retirement costs of public sector workers, are the reasons why municipal bond debt has skyrocketed in the past ten years and is now driving some cities and states into bankruptcy. While no state has yet had to confront bankruptcy in Federal court, the passage of time only increases interest costs, it never reduces them.

Public sector union pension costs are also driven by illegal immigration. And in states like Illinois state law puts priority on payments to municipal pensions. These are enforced through state law. So a city that cannot afford its annual pension contributions will have the state declare it is delinquent and can divert state grant money to the pension funds. This is why Chicago’s mayor recently cut back on mental health facilities. Public pensions have, in IL state law, priority even though they say they are devoted to helping children and the disabled.

Other hidden costs are in property taxes. Illinois now has ten cities, including Chicago, where the entire property tax payment goes only to pensions, not services. This lack of revenue prompted Democrats to pass the stimulus programs and Recovery Act. So it ends up in the national debt. The exact amount of national debt created by illegal immigration has yet to be honestly audited.

Should Hillary Clinton become president there is no doubt that she will issue further executive orders to violate Federal law and force you to subsidize more illegal immigrants.

Western Universities: The Best Indoctrination Money Can Buy

By Denis MacEoin 

• The tendency of modern liberals to wring apologies out of governments for the actions of their ancestors, from the slave trade to Orientalist depictions of the peoples of Islam, is a pointless attempt to re-write history. There are, of course, no calls for Muslim governments to apologize for anything from their slave trade to the early Arab conquests.
• "The ethics of establishing a campus in an authoritarian country are murky, especially when it inhibits free expression." -- Professor Stephen F. Eisenman, Northwestern University (which has a branch in Qatar)
• Oxford and Cambridge, have accepted more than 233.5 million pounds sterling from Saudi and Muslim sources since 1995 -- the largest source of external funding to UK universities.
• "Several agreements made between the MEC [Oxford's Middle East Centre] and donors appear to indicate that funders have sought to influence the centre's output and activities." -- Robin Simcox, A Degree of Influence, 2009, p.35
• One of those "dilemmas" is the influence by teachers across the United States on impressionable students who organize Israel Apartheid Weeks. They join with assorted anti-Semitic demonstrators, condemn Israel for every sin under the sun, and use intimidation against Jewish and Zionist colleagues, but are never told any historical, legal, or political facts by their equally biased faculties.
• Fundamentalist Islam, backed by vast monetary power, is corrupting our dearest Enlightenment values.

Oxford's Middle East Centre "has received substantial sums of money from sources in the Middle East. The way in which this money has been used means there is a clear risk that donors will seek to influence the output and activities of the MEC. -- Robin Simcox, A Degree of Influence. (Image source: Zaha Hadid/Flickr)

In asking why Western civilization has been the greatest in history, many point to European and, later, American military power, the strength of the British, French, Spanish and Portuguese empires, their command of the oceans, or the progress brought about through the Industrial Revolution. Today, of course, there is a general trend to picture Western achievements in a uniformly negative light, often for valid reasons, including our use of slavery or the mistreatment of so many Native Americans. This negativity is, however, highly selective. Why, for example, are Western Christian empires considered a blight on mankind while the great many Muslim empires of the past -- which lasted over a much longer period, engaged in the largest and longest-lasting slave trade in history, sought to impose one religion over all others, and placed enormous barriers on rational thought from about the 10^thcentury -- regarded as a blessing?

Continue Reading Article