אחר הדברים האלה גדל. הרהורי דברים היו שם, [ומי הרהר], רבי יהודה אמר המן הרהר, אמר הדא אסתר אי יהודית היא קרובתי היא שנאמר הלא אח עשו ליעקב, אי משאר עממיא היא כל עממיא קריבין דין לדין ראוי לי ליטול פרוקופי מתחת ידה, רבי יהודה אמר אחשורוש הרהר, אמר מרדכי מבקש לבנות בית המקדש, לבנות אי אפשר, ולהחזירו אי אפשר, אלא הריני מגרה בו את המן ויהא זה בונה וזה סותר, וחכמים אומרים הקב”ה הרהר, יבא המן ויכנוס ויכין רשע וצדיק ילבש, ואח”כ יבא מרדכי ויטלה הימנו ויבנה בו בית המקדש.
Apparently, he didn’t know about the decree to destroy the Jews, either.
Oh, when Achashverosh heard about it, he was furious, real furious!
Megilla 16a:
ותאמר אסתר איש צר ואויב המן הרע הזה, אמר ר’ אלעזר מלמד שהיתה מחווה כלפי אחשורוש ובא מלאך וסטר ידה כלפי המן.
ישיבת קבינט המומחים המליצה כי רק עובדי הוראה שיתחסנו יוכלו ללמד בכיתות בבתי הספר ומי שטרם התחסן ימשיך ללמד דרך הזום, אך יש להבהיר כי לא ברור בשלב זה האם למהלך יש היתכנות משפטית. נציין כי מנתוני משרד הבריאות עולה כי רק 53% מעובדי ההוראה קיבלו את המנה הראשונה של החיסון (27% את השנייה), על אף שקודמו בוועדת התעדוף של המשרד. עוד המליצו המומחים להתיר תפילות באוויר הפתוח במסגרת של יותר מ-20 איש, בהתנייה שהמשתתפים כבר מחוסנים.
(אדיר ינקו ותמר טרבלי חדד)
עשר אגורות (2¢):
מגילת אסתר The Scroll Of Esther
ומה קורה למורים [הבוחרים] שאין להם שרות אינטרנט בבית? עד כאן, המורים והתלמידים כאלה מתחברים לפגישות זום דרך מס׳ טלפון. וכן יש דבר כזה. זאת אומרת שהתלמידים החרדים ללא שרות אינטרנט בבית מקבלים שיעורים רק דרך קול המורה, בלי תמונות בלי כתיבת המורה על הלוח ובלי עוד הרבה. כל תלמיד הלומד דרך הטלפון מפסיד.
ומה עם התלמידים בעלי קושי לימוד? התלמידים כאלה כבר מתוסכלים. בעתיד פשוט יהיו יותר מתוסכלים. ומה קורה לתלמידים דתיים מתוסכלים? הם זורקים את הכיפה.
זה מה שכוחות שלטון רוצים? אני בכלל לא משוכנע שלא.
עוד המליצו המומחים להתיר תפילות באוויר הפתוח במסגרת של יותר מ-20 איש, בהתנייה שהמשתתפים כבר מחוסנים.
האם ימנעו מיהודים מלשמוע את קריאת מגילת אסתר בחג הפורים? המצוה הזו קודמת כל המצוות כולן חוץ ממת מצוה. אפילו מצות קריאת המגילה קודמת לתלמוד תורה ובזמן קיום בית המקדש קודמת לעבודת הכהנים בהר הבית.
האם הם יגידו לנו לשמוע את מגילת אסתר דרך זום למרות שלא יוצאים מידי חובה ככה?
במכתב שנשלח גם לשר הביטחון ולראש אכ”א, דרשה מועצת החירום למשבר הקורונה לטפל ב”לחצים פסולים” שמופעלים על חיילים. הורים טענו כי בשבועות האחרונים ילדיהם נתקלו באיומים שלא יישלחו לקורסי פיקוד אם לא יתחסנו ואף הוענשו בעיכוב היציאה לביתם. “מנוגד לחוק הבינלאומי”
בע״ה לא ילחצו לחיילי צה״ל להתחסן והחיילים המחליטים הלא להתחסן לא ייענשו.
אבל גם לאזרחים רגילים אמורים להיות אותן הזכויות. נכון?
YNET: Health experts back banning unvaccinated teachers from schools Teachers Union calls the proposal illegal and says those who choose not to get vaccinated, shouldn’t get punished; so far only 53% of teaching staff have received the first dose of the vaccine and 27% the second
Adir Yanko, Tamar Trabelsi-Hadad | 02.03.21
The panel of health experts advising the coronavirus cabinet formulated a series of recommendations for opening up Israel’s education system, including preventing teachers who have not received both doses of the coronavirus vaccine from teaching in class. (cont.)
Esser Agaroth (2¢):
זום Zoom
What happens to those teachers who choose not have Internet service at home? Until now, these teachers and students connect through the Zoom conferencing service through a local telephone number. (Yes. There is such a thing.) This means that Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) students without internet service at home receive material only by way of the teacher’s voice. This means no pictures nor graphics, save for what is included in their text books, no writing nor drawing diagrams on the board, etc. In other words, every student who learns over the phone loses out.
And what about students with learning difficulties? Such students are already frustrated. They are only destined to become even more frustrated. And what happens to frustrated religious students? They throw off their kippot (skullcap/religious observance).
“The experts also recommended allowing open-air prayers for up to 20 people, provided all participants have been vaccinated.“
Does this mean that Jews may be prevented from hearing the reading of Megillath Esther (Scroll of Esther) on the holiday of Purim? The reading of Megillath Esther takes precedence over all other mitzvoth (Torah commandments), save for burial of the dead. It even takes precedence over Torah study, and when the Beth HaMiqdash (Temple) stands, it takes precedence over the work of the Kohanim (Temple priests).
Will the government tell us to hear the Megillath Esther on Zoom, even though this does not fulfill this mitzvah?
Sure. Why not? What does the government the powers that be care about mitzvoth?
Arutz 7 reports that so far “…no sanctions will be taken against [IDF] soldiers who refuse to be vaccinated.” Nor should their be. But shouldn’t civilians also be entitled to the same rights?
Israelis celebrated the Pollards’ arrival. In contrast, American Jews bristled both at the news and the happiness with which Israelis greeted them.
The rift between Israeli and American Jews is palpable almost everywhere you turn today. The most glaring disparity surrounds how they view President Donald Trump. The vast majority of Israelis adore Trump. The vast majority of American Jews despise him.
But Trump isn’t the only thing or even the main thing that separates them. The main issue that separates Israelis from American Jews is the issue of exile. Israelis by and large hold to the traditional Jewish view that all Jewish communities outside of Israel are exile—or diaspora—communities. American Jews, by and large, believe that the exile exists in all Jewish communities outside Israel except in America. This disagreement is existential. It goes to the heart of what it means to be a Jew.
The divide between Israeli and American Jews is more apparent today than in the past, but has been around since the dawn of modern Zionism. However, if one date marks the point it became an irreversible rift it is Nov. 20, 1985, the day Jonathan Pollard was arrested outside Israel’s embassy in Washington, D.C.
From the day of his arrest, Pollard became not only the symbol of the divide, but to a degree also its cause. That divide was unmistakable on Wednesday morning when the news broke that in the middle of the previous night, Pollard and his wife, Esther, had landed in Israel.
Israelis celebrated the Pollards’ arrival. Many wept watching the footage of Pollard kiss the ground at the airport.
In contrast, American Jews bristled both at the news and the happiness with which Israelis greeted Pollard’s arrival.
One writer angrily wrote on Twitter, “As an American Jew this isn’t a bit exciting. He spied on America. There’s no reason to celebrate this.”
Once Pollard’s parole restrictions were removed in November, it was a foregone conclusion that he would quickly make aliyah. Many Jewish officials in both the Trump administration and previous administrations expressed concern about the upcoming event that resonated with the angry posters on Twitter.
“I really hope you Israelis aren’t going to turn his arrival into a carnival,” one said recently, in a burst of frustration.
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.
By the mid 18th century, separate communities of Ashkenazim and Sephardim developed in various parts of the Land of Israel. While there had been various Jewish communities in the Holy Land since the destruction of the Temple, the Sephardic community of the “Old Yishuv” owed its genesis to descendants of Spanish exiles who arrived in the years following the great expulsion in 1492. The Ashkenazim, on the other hand, arrived in several waves, the most well-known being the aliyah of the chasidic community on the one hand and those of the misnagdim—disciples of the Gaon of Vilna—on the other. The former began arriving in the mid 18th century while the latter came about a half century later.
The chasidim and perushim (as the misnagdim came to be known) formed their separate communities. Because of the very small size of both communities and the common challenges that they faced, it wasn’t long before there was a degree of intermixing (something unheard of back in Eastern Europe where the chasidic-misnagdic battles were still raging). Another interesting phenomenon is the slow and steady rate of intermingling between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. This was perhaps more evident among the chasidim (who as I mentioned in previous articles adopted a modified Sephardic rite based on the writings of the Arizal, who was himself of both Sephardic and Ashkenazic parentage).
The great chasidic leader R’ Menachem Mendel of Vitebsk, who in 1777 led a group of 300 chasidim to Eretz Yisrael, believed in melding the various Jewish communities in the Holy Land together and married off his son Moshe to a respected Sephardic family. The bride’s dowry was 800 Turkish groschen (a large sum for the time). He also married off his daughter to the Abulafia rabbinic family from Tiberias. Perhaps more interestingly, even before that, Rabbi Gershon of Kitov (1701-1761), brother-in-law of the Baal Shem Tov (founder of the chasidic movement), married his daughter to the son of the Sephardic Chacham of Hebron.
Rabbi Gershon of Kitov was an interesting personality. When his more famous brother-in-law began propagating his ideas, Rabbi Gershon became a vociferous opponent. He eventually came over to his side and became a chasid himself. Rabbi Gershon made aliyah in 1742, making him the first immigrant of the chasidic aliyah. He initially settled in Hebron, which had a small community consisting solely of Sephardim. He was treated with great reverence there and spent most of his time studying in the study hall. He grew dissatisfied, as he wrote in a letter: “Although the Sephardim treat me with great respect I have not found anyone here who is like me in nature.” He eventually moved to Jerusalem, where his wife passed away. He was encouraged to remarry by the local Sephardim who offered him a match from one of their own but he demurred, claiming in a letter that he was unused to their ways and temperament. In that same letter, interestingly enough, he mentions that his daughter Esther was engaged to marry the very learned son of Rabbi Mordechai Rubio, the Sephardic Chacham of Hebron.
