A colleague claimed that the ideal Jewish government was that of the time of the Judges; I agree with that view.
The Maimonidean viewpoint: although the Talmud says that Israel was commanded to both appoint a king and build the Temple, Maimonides’s formulations of these halachoth show that the kingdom does not have to be led by a hereditary king, but rather that the role of the king can also be filled by a prophet or judge, and thus we have Talmudic statements that Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Jephtah, and Samuel all counted as kings, and explains why Samuel himself felt that the arrangement that had existed until then should remain. Further, the Tabernacle at Shilo was considered a Temple for all intents and purposes, even if it was eventually relocated. Thus, the situation as described at the end of the Book of Joshua was an ideal and optimistic situation. The nation had a king and a Temple, and they had a golden opportunity to complete the conquest of the land.
As for the book of Judges and how it describes periods of backsliding into paganism, the book also makes clear that is was the judges themselves who brought about the return to proper worship, and the backsliding only happened once a judge was dead. If anything, the prophetic voice might be implicitly criticizing the leaders for not ensuring that they would be succeeded by other suitable leaders. Moses himself made sure he would be succeeded, but we do not find that Joshua or any others sought to do likewise. Samuel himself was the first to set the stage for his own succession, but it was his unpopular choices that partially led the people to request the appointment of an established hereditary monarch. The last chapters of Judges, which describe two catastrophies shortly after Joshua’s death, also have a refrain, almost like a chorus, that “in those days, there was no king in israel.” One could be excused if he were to understand this to mean that the people had an established idolatrous shrine and a disastrous civil war because they had no hereditary king to enforce Torah law. However, a closer look at the text indicates as the Redak and the other mideival commentators understood it: these tragedies happened because there was no “king” then. I.e., Joshua had died, and no judge had yet arisen, but had Joshua or one of the judges been around, it would not and could not have happened.
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As we prepare for yet more elections here in Israel, and as we see America reeling in the midst of a sweeping regime change, I wonder what people honestly expect from government. Too many people I know voted against Trump because they blamed him for Covid and all of its repercussions, that he should have done something, but they have yet to consider that had he done any of those somethings that they suggest, they would have hated him even more for restricting their freedoms. Trump is and was far from perfect, but at least he realized that certain things can and should not be in the hands of government, because not only can it not succeed, it will cause even more harm. Here is Israel, we should be held to a higher standard, and we will only have a proper government when, as a people we realize what government’s role should be: absolutely nothing except national security and the enforcement of the rule of law.
הוֹצִיאָה מִמַּסְגֵּר נַפְשִׁי לְהוֹדוֹת אֶת שְׁמֶךָ • הכניסה להר הבית תותר רק למתגוררים עד ק”מ מההר • 112 יהודים עלו היום לפני הסגר • תרעומת על סגירת ההר לתפילה דווקא בימי המגפה • רבים מהגרים בסמוך להר הבית הודיעו שיעלו בתכיפות, כדי לשמש כשליחי ציבור
בן למואל יום ראשון, י”ב טבת ה’תשפ”א
בעקבות הגבלת המרחק שהוטלה כחלק מהסגר, תותר הכניסה להר הבית למתגוררים במרחק של עד 1000 מטר מהכניסה להר הבית.
יהודים שמתגוררים במרחק רב יותר מההר לא יורשו להכנס להר הבית.
היום עלו 112 יהודים להר הבית, כדי לנצל את היום האחרון לפני הסגר.
בין העולים היום בלט חבר הכנסת החדש ניסים ואטורי, אשר כתב פוסט נרגש לאחר עלייתו.
היום התקיימו שלושה מנייני מנחה אל מול שער המזרח.
עולי הר הבית הביעו תרעומת רבה על כך שדווקא בעת המגפה נסגר הר הבית לתפילה של רוב עם ישראל.
יהודים רבים שמתגוררים סמוך להר הבית הודיעו שיקפידו לעלות בתדירות גבוה בעת הסגר ולשמש כשליחי ציבור נאמנים.
The American Medical Association has been adamantly against hydroxychloroquine as a therapeutic for COVID for the past year. Just a few days before the presidential election they reversed course, reversing their opposition. Did they suddenly realize HCQ might have benefit in certain patient groups or were they lying for the past year? How many individuals died as a result of being denied potential lifesaving treatment?
The AMA is synonymous with organized medicine, despite myriad specialty societies that may better represent the needs of its member physicians. In fact, only 12 percent of practicing physicians belong to the AMA due to concerns that the AMA is more interested in its own finances and politics than the concerns of doctors.
When the AMA talks, media and the public listen, due to their perceived clout. Last spring, the AMA issued a statement critical of hydroxychloroquine as it was being used off-label in the treatment of COVID, not FDA-approved for this purpose with supposed “dangerous side effects.”
Quietly at the end of October, the AMA issued a new statement, conveniently overlooked by the media, giving the green light to doctors prescribing HCQ to their COVID patients.
RESOLVED, that our American Medical Association rescind its statement calling for physicians to stop prescribing hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine until sufficient evidence becomes available to conclusively illustrate that the harm associated with use outweighs benefit early in the disease course.
An updated statement clarifying our support for a physician’s ability to prescribe an FDA-approved medication for off label use, if it is in her/his best clinical judgement, with specific reference to the use of hydroxychloroquine and combination therapies for the treatment of the earliest stage of COVID-19.
What changed since last spring? How many COVID deaths could have been prevented if doctors, using their professional and clinical judgement, could have prescribed HCQ without fear of ostracization or loss of their jobs?
HCQ has been around since the 1950s, approved as a malarial preventative and for treatment of lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. It is relatively safe, except for the one in a thousand with a rare cardiac arrhythmia, easily identified by a pretreatment EKG. In many African countries, HCQ is available without a prescription for malaria prevention.
The problem arose when President Trump touted HCQ as a “potential therapeutic,” based on early reports of doctors prescribing it with good results. He did not tell anyone to take it but held it out as hope to a country suffering under a pandemic with lockdowns, quarantines, hospitalizations, and deaths.
Trump also took HCQ himself, prescribed by the White House medical team. If Trump claimed drinking water was healthy, the media and medical establishment would have denounced it, citing cases of people dying from drinking too much water.
A perfect example was Fox News crank Neil Cavuto screaming how hydroxy “will kill you.” This was based on a flawed VA study finding no benefit for HCQ in a severely ill cohort of patients, and a higher death rate among those receiving HCQ. This was a retrospective study which did not address the possibility that HCQ was given to sicker patients, who were more likely to die anyway.
Prestigious medical journals, Lancet and New England Journal, retracted published studies raising alarms about HCQ due to bogus study data. It seemed there was a jihad against HCQ from the medical establishment, supported by the media, simply because the Orange Man suggested it.
Was the concern solely over off-label use of drugs? In my world, Avastin has been successfully used off-label for 15 years for the treatment of macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy, despite FDA approval only for cancer and a black box warning about gastrointestinal perforation, wound healing, and hemorrhage.
In relative terms, HCQ is a far safer drug compared to Avastin. Ketamine is another old drug similar to HCQ, FDA-approved in 1970 as a general anesthetic. Yet it is increasingly being used off-label to treat severe depression, anxiety, and PTSD. As a general anesthetic, it certainly can kill you if used improperly, but used under the considered judgment of a physician, it can literally save lives. Neil Cavuto hasn’t yet offered his expert medical opinion on ketamine.
There have been 187 hydroxy studies, 122 of which were peer-reviewed. 100 percent of these studies reported positive effects for early treatment of COVID, meaning, for those not yet in the hospital, and certainly not on a ventilator. These studies were performed and reported this year, while the AMA stayed mum, standing by their admonition against HCQ, until their “oh by the way” report at the end of October.
The AMA’s about-face is curious in terms of timing. They could have tempered their initial remarks last summer, when the “America’s Frontline Doctors” group was promoting HCQ, azithromycin, and zinc as an effective early treatment for COVID. All three components of their cocktail were off label. In fact, at the time there was no approved therapeutic for COVID and many people could have been treated earlier, potentially keeping them out of the hospital or worse.
Perfect is the enemy of good. Prospective randomized clinical trials would have been great, but they take time. Why not let physicians use their “best clinical judgment” as the recent AMA statement recommends?
Instead, the AMA waited until Oct. 30 to announce a more reasoned position, not coincidently just a few days before the presidential election. Democrats and the media blamed Trump for every COVID illness and death, accusing Trump of “misleading” on HCQ, as a prominent campaign issue.
Unraveling the Tangled Web of Deceit That Cost Jonathan Pollard His Freedom for 35 Years
For decades, Jonathan Pollard, the only American ever sentenced to life in prison for passing classified information to an ally — a crime with a median sentence of two to four years — and a small core group of loyal advocates, led by his wife, Mrs. Esther Pollard, fought a double, uphill battle. They sought to reverse what impartial observers have long referred to as a gross miscarriage of justice and obtain his freedom. Simultaneously, they also had to contend with a steady stream of misinformation seeking to distort the record.
Even now, after the draconian parole restrictions were finally lifted, 35 years after he was arrested, detractors seeking to promote their own agendas are still actively spreading false stories about what really happened all those years ago.
In this investigative report based on declassified government documents and exclusive interviews with a source close to Jonathan Pollard, Hamodia implodes old myths. The evidence reveals previously unknown details about the Pollard saga — details that expose a truth so sinister that some parties are still trying to obliterate it.
Two weeks have passed since attorneys for Jonathan Pollard finally received notice that the parole restrictions have been terminated, and his wife, Esther Pollard, received authorization to cut the infamous tracking device from his wrist. Through his lawyers, Jonathan released a statement of gratitude, and his wife wrote a statement of her own, as well as an exclusive, moving op-ed for Hamodia, based on the words of Nishmas.
Neither of them is giving interviews, but a close friend of the Pollards, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Hamodia that Jonathan is deeply hurt by the misinformation campaign that is still being waged against him.
“After 35 years of unspeakable suffering, they still won’t let him live in peace. It is high time, once and for all, to set the record straight.”
Perhaps the most painful and insidious of the slurs that has repeatedly been hurled against him is the claim that Jonathan first offered to sell classified material to South Africa and Pakistan, and only after they turned him down did he begin supplying material to Israel.
According to his detractors, this signifies that he was a paid mercenary, not someone acting out of concern for Israel.
The most compelling proof that refutes this baseless claim is found not in arguments that Pollard or defense attorneys have made, but in court filings by the prosecutors and declassified intelligence agency documents.
The Grand Jury Indictment
Sometime after his arrest, a grand jury returned a 14-page indictment against Pollard. Since the defense has no opportunity to take part in grand jury proceedings, these documents tell only the prosecutor’s side of the story. In addition, prosecutors often seek to include in the indictment as many relevant accusations of wrongdoing as possible in order to strengthen it.The indictment against Pollard, which was later made part of the court record and subsequently obtained by Hamodia, is harshly worded, and accuses him of a “conspiracy to commit espionage,” a crime more serious than what he ultimately pled guilty to as part of his plea agreement. What is telling about this document isn’t merely what it contains but what it doesn’t contain. The entire document refers solely to Pollard’s passing classified material to Israel, without even alluding to any dealings with any other countries. If at any time he had sought to illegally pass information to other countries, this would have been included in this indictment as well, as each attempt would have been considered a separate crime.
The CIA Damage Assessment Report
Another key document, which was mostly declassified many years after Pollard’s arrest, is an internal report prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency in 1987 to evaluate the damage caused by the Pollard affair.
The 166-page document, which was obtained by Hamodia, includes a section entitled “Pollard’s Assignments and Security-Clearance Actions With Naval Intelligence, 1979-85,” which details every significant aspect of Pollard’s employment history for the agency. The report, which, like the indictment, represents only the position of the government and does not give Pollard a possibility to challenge or refute any of their claims, presents a lengthy account of Mr. Pollard’s interactions with the Israelis.
Nowhere in this lengthy document does it even hint that Pollard attempted to sell classified information to Pakistan or South Africa, and it quotes Pollard — who had been polygraphed extensively during his post-arrest interrogations — as being motivated by a concern over Israel’s security, as American officials “failed to follow established disclosure guidance by withholding information releasable to Israel.”
The DeConcini Letter
In December of 2010, former U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini wrote a letter to then-President Barack Obama, urging him to commute Pollard’s sentence.
“I was on the Senate Intelligence Committee when Pollard was arrested, and subsequently became its chairman,” DeConcini wrote. “I am well aware of the classified information concerning the damage he caused. Pollard was charged with one count of giving classified information to an ally, Israel. He was never charged with nor to my knowledge did he ever give any information to a third country.”
The Real Story Behind the Pakistan Allegations
How did the debunked claim of a Pakistani connection start in the first place? In an exclusive interview with a source close to Pollard, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the extreme sensitivity of the case, we learned of a previously unknown detail of the case that helps provide one of few remaining pieces of the anguish-filled puzzle known as the Pollard saga.
“In the summer before his arrest,” the source related, “Pollard traveled to Israel, where he met with Rafael Eitan, who served as the head of Lakam, the intelligence agency under the auspices of the Israeli Defense Ministry that Pollard was working for. Eitan was recovering from eye surgery, and the meeting took place in the Beilinson Hospital in Tel Aviv.
“Eitan complimented him on the material he had given Israel, stating that it had been crucial to [maintaining] the security of Israel and had far exceeded expectations. He also gave him clear instructions that in case something [went] wrong, Pollard was to stall the investigators as long as possible by ‘confessing’ to being a Pakistani spy in order to give time for the Israelis on the team to get out of the country. Eitan pledged that Pollard himself would then be exfiltrated and taken to Israel, leaving the Pakistanis with the blame for running an agent in Washington.
“As part of this precautionary effort, Eitan told Pollard to get a hold of some hundred-dollar bills with bank of Karachi stamps on them and leave them around his apartment, as a red herring to throw the investigators off track,” the source continued. “At a routine work-related event, Pollard managed to get himself photographed with a Pakistani military attaché and made sure that the picture was placed prominently in his apartment.”
In November 1985, when it became clear that the Americans had become aware of the operation, Pollard followed the instructions he had been given. After he stalled the FBI long enough for the entire Israeli team to flee the country, Pollard called his contact number for his own instructions.
It was only then that he found out — to his utter shock — that there was no escape plan in place for him. Instead, he was told to come to the Israeli embassy in Washington.
The guards were awaiting him, and after he identified himself, the gates opened and he was allowed to drive into the embassy compound — an extraterritorial jurisdiction into which the FBI could not follow him.
For the first few moments, it appeared that all was well, that the Israelis would keep their word and offer refuge to their agent. Then someone came out of the embassy building and whispered something into the ear of the chief of security. He glanced at Pollard and then avoided his gaze.
What Pollard did not know at the time was that embassy officials had contacted Eitan and asked him what to do.
In a 2014 interview with Haaretz newspaper, Eitan recounted his response.
“I immediately said — ‘Throw him out,’” he recalled. “I don’t regret it.”
“Do you know who I am?” Pollard asked the guards who had been tasked with throwing out their own agent.
They nodded.
“Do you know what they are going to do to me?” he queried.
They nodded again.
“I have an instruction to ask for your last report,” the chief of security told Pollard.
For a moment, Pollard didn’t know whether the man was joking. He shrugged and gave in his last report.
The guard then pointed to the gate and told him, “You have to leave the embassy and walk in through the front door.” Dozens of FBI agents had now massed outside the embassy, awaiting their prey. Pollard pleaded with the guards, but to no avail. He was forced to leave the compound and was immediately taken into custody by the FBI.
Jonathan Pollard had kept his word, but Rafi Eitan had cruelly broken his promise.
Pollard subsequently learned that the FBI took the Pakistani red herring so seriously that they sent a considerable contingent of agents to the Pakistani embassy in Washington at the same time that they followed him to the Israeli embassy.
After months of polygraphing and ruthless interrogations, it became clear to the American investigators that a Pakistani connection never existed. Furthermore, even Judge Aubrey Robinson, who sentenced Pollard to an unprecedented life sentence — for a crime with a median sentence of two to four years — recognized and acknowledged that Pollard acted for ideological reasons and not because of money. This is made clear by the fact that Robinson did not fine Pollard, a penalty typically imposed on those who have spied for mercenary reasons. The other canard hurled against Pollard had to do with an allegation that he provided information to South Africa. Again, there is no mention of this in indictments or in any of the other court-related documents.
Moshe Feiglin calls for herd immunity and to protect at-risk populations, attacks government: ‘Worse failure than Yom Kippur War.’
Mordechai Sones , Oct 29 , 2020 11:49 AM
Former Knesset Member Moshe Feiglin called to introduce a “herd immunity” policy in Israel while protecting the elderly and at-risk populations, doubts the promised COVID-19 vaccine.
In a Facebook post today, Feiglin attacked government and coronavirus cabinet policies.
“This is a worse failure than that of the Yom Kippur War,” he wrote. “The number of deaths is already the same, but there, in 1973, the war ended and everyone understood there was a failure – a failure of the ‘conception’.
“The problem is that the coronavirus cabinet and decision-makers are physically blocking any other opinion. With real terror,” he said. “It’s forbidden to express another opinion there. And I know this mostly from the inside, from professionals who sit there on committees. There’s no humility or ability to hear opposing viewpoints.”
He called for a policy of herd immunity: “The doctors I met call to focus all resources and efforts on protecting the elderly and sensitive populations only,” he wrote. “In this way, it will be possible to continue the full functioning of the rest of the population, which will be exposed to the virus and develop resilience, with no significant morbidity or mortality. Like this: Overall mortality will decrease, a devastating economic crisis will be avoided, and the end of the crisis can be expected when ‘herd immunity’ is created.”
Even if there is a COVID-19 vaccine, Feiglin suspects it: “You’ll have to kill me before you stick a syringe in me with this vaccine,” he wrote.
In his remarks, Feiglin compared the situation in Israel today with the situation in Sweden, where a policy similar to the one he hopes for has been applied. He said that from now on he would continue to make comparisons between the countries and even promised: “To be continued.”
