A7News: Right-wing government doesn't need Liberman, poll shows

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Friday, Jun. 07 '19, ד' בסיון תשע"ט





HEADLINES:
1. RIGHT-WING GOVERNMENT DOESN'T NEED LIBERMAN, POLL SHOWS
2. AHARON RAZEL: THE MELODY IS STILL BURNING
3. JEWS OF THE DIASPORA ASK: SHOULD ISRAEL BE RULED BY TORAH LAW?
4. REDEEMING HEVRON TOGETHER WITH THE WOMEN OF BEIT HADASSAH
5. US SENATORS AGAINST JUDEA AND SAMARIA ANNEXATION
6. VICTIMS OF FATAL CRASH WERE NEW IMMIGRANTS FROM FRANCE
7. FRENCH IMMIGRANT GIRLS KILLED IN CRASH IDENTIFIED
8. THE BIG PICTURE CONTINUES: THE WAR OF GOG AND MAGOG


1. RIGHT-WING GOVERNMENT DOESN'T NEED LIBERMAN, POLL SHOWS
by Arutz Sheva Staff

A new poll published in Maariv's weekend paper shows that if elections were to be held today, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would be able to form a coalition without the Yisrael Beytenu party.

The poll, conducted by Panels Politics, gave the leading Likud a whopping 37 Knesset seats and the center-left Blue and White party 33 Knesset seats.

Yisrael Beytenu, led by former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, would receive seven Knesset seats, the poll showed. The Ashkenazic-haredi UTJ party would receive eight seats, while the Sephardic-haredi Shas would receive seven.

Both the United Right and New Right parties would receive six Knesset seats.

The left-wing Meretz and Labor parties would receive four Knesset seats each, and the Arab Hadash-Ta'al would receive seven. Ra'am-Balad, the other Arab party, would not cross the electoral threshold.


2. AHARON RAZEL: THE MELODY IS STILL BURNING
by Yoni Rotenberg

"The people of Israel are like the burning bush - they fought and overcame, they return at dawn and they alone will remain." When I heard this line from the song "Am Yisrael" from Aharon Razel's new album, I didn't pay much attention but when I heard the same line on the way back from the interview with Razel, I understood its meaning and the story behind it.

"My grandmother, Grandma Fanny, was a Holocaust survivor," Razel told me. "She fled to the forests with my grandfather, jumped out of the train and survived the war. She would always tell me, 'Aharon, you sing, 'And the [burning bush] is not being consumed. My [burning] bush is being consumed.'"

"Just before she passed away two years ago - she already had 50 great-grandchildren - her children became religious and had many children, she called me. She already was in a wheelchair with a full-time aide but she was clear and sharp as a razor and said to me: 'Aharon, remember that I told you that my bush is being consumed? I was wrong, I want to take it back.'"

These two songs about the burning bush, the first of Aaron Razel's career and the latter a current song, symbolize the path the young Ba'al Teshuvah (a secular Jew who becomes Torah observant) took from the alleys of Tzfat twenty-two years ago, until he became a Torah scholar, living in Nachlaot with his wife and nine children. The topics of his songs changed and Torah verses replaced his original lyrics. But creative people always try to distance themselves from being "placed in a box."

"I'm a complex person," Razel said. "In my song, 'I Established My Place in the Beit Hamidrash' (Torah study center), I come across as an image of a Torah scholar. It's a song of salute to the Torah. People took it too far. If they saw me on the street, they would say, 'Hey Aharon, what are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in the Beit Hamidrash?'"

"But on the other hand, I also wrote a song with an opposite message, 'Come, let's go out to the street.' People approached me, saying, 'Once you said this and now you're contradicting yourself.' But the truth is that each song with its specific feeling represented a particular feeling I had at that moment. I feel 'this' but also feel 'that.'"

Still, people were a little surprised by the new type of person you presented yourself as in "I Established My Place in the Beit Hamidrash." People felt like you abandoned them?

"I moved a bit to the haredi sector," Razel admits, "even though I come from all the worlds because I'm a Ba'al Teshuvah. I would call it Chabakkol - Chabad, Breslov, Rabbi Kook and Litvak."

Razel pointed out that "I Established My Place in the Beit Hamidrash" isn't a contradiction to other approaches, but a song of praise of the Torah. "Our desire to believe in the Torah is not because it's better than being a doctor, but because it is the area that needs strengthening. Everything is important but there are things that feel natural to do because they 'set you up for life' like becoming a doctor. The nature of the Torah is that it's something that needs inspiration. This is the main goal for haredim."

"The whole song is a paraphrase of Arik Einstein's 'I Love to be at Home,' Razel explains. "There's a nice feeling here, like he says, 'I'm that kind of person.' I did cause some controversy, but it doesn't belittle all the other approaches. My wife was nervous when I released the song. She said to me that I'll be in conflict with Chabadniks and Breslovers and National Religious people."

"But ultimately people understood - that everyone loves Torah. I can't say she wasn't right because there were unpleasant incidents. I gave a ride to a teenager who was distributing Breslov pamphlets and he said, 'I love your songs, but you besmirched me in this song. I was insulted.' Or a Chabadnik who said, 'What, you're opposed to shelichus (teaching unaffiliated Jews about Judaism)?'"

"But I say - there are songs that glorify everything, love of Israel and other topics. Does it hurt that there's one song which glorifies the Torah? On the other hand, there was a Torah scholar who said to me, 'You gave us a feeling that we're worth something with this song.'"

Each song brought different tears

📹 To watch the video: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/264333

Razel's new album, "The Soul Wants More" reveals a rare variety of musical and textual styles. The listener meets Rahamim Nissan - a cantor from a Nachlaot synagogue, a newlywed Baa'eli Teshuvah couple from a kibbutz, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, a holy hunchback, and even a segment from Ashkenazi Selichos (prayers of repentance said prior to the High Holy Days).

"Yedidya Meir, a good friend of mine, accompanies me throughout the creative process. He has a good eye, he's a disciple of Rav Kook. He said he doesn't understand how there's one song about Rahamim Nissan, a second on teshuvah (repentance), another song about a Ba'al Teshuvah, and then a song about a person in the Holocaust. He left me a very moving message one night: 'I heard your CD, I cried during the first four songs - every song brought different tears.'"

Razel tells me a little bit about his world as a writer and composer. "I don't have a studio although friends have long told me that I have to get something like that for myself. Composing is part of my life, it fits into my daily schedule. At times I find myself writing in the car on a trip when my wife drives."

Razel adds that there is another factor which is very significant in the creative process. In contrast to the popular image of an artist being independent and free of restrictions, Razel says that the framework of family and Torah is what ensures continuity and balance of creativity rather than temporary bursts of inspiration that usually end up drying up.

"You need perspective," he says. "It's not like I'm sitting and creating all day and it's good for me like that. It gives power to the music because I control it. I don't drown in the chaos of Bohemian creativity. It's a part of my daily schedule of Torah and family, part of the privilege of being religious. There are many artists who become successful and get divorced or remain single, and they don't understand how religious people can be artists and have a family. The truth is that religion balances the creative work. Being religious is a great blessing in this sense."

"The Holy Hunchback"

One of Razel's most recent songs - which made waves recently before Holocaust Remembrance Day - is "The Holy Hunchback," a Carlebach story which Razel turned into a song. The song tells of an old street cleaner in Tel Aviv, a disciple of the Rebbe of Piaseczno during the Holocaust, and describes how he told Carlebach about a powerful message that the Rebbe taught in the ghetto. In addition to the song becoming very popular on social media before Holocaust Remembrance Day, Razel was inundated with videos and announcements about schools that used the song for their Holocaust Day ceremonies.

"The song became wildly popular, which I didn't expect. For me, it was a dream come true because I knew the story from long ago, but I always dreamed of composing it."

"Carlebach, with his ingenuity, succeeded in empowering the Holocaust to the most positive place - the Rebbe's message: 'To do a favor to someone else.' Our education about the Holocaust is about how important it is to be in the land of Israel, to take soldiers to Auschwitz to declare 'Never Again.' But it's not enough. It only explains what could have prevented the Holocaust. The story touches the holy Torah and our essence. Carlebach tells you, with all this pain, that what strengthens a Jew is to do favors for others."

Hajdu's rebellious student

Aharon Razel, 44, is no longer a child. At the beginning of his career, he rode on the wave of "a Ba'al Teshuvah who sang something that is not hasidic music," but over the years he proved that his work stands on its own, and has established a place of honor in the Jewish music world for over 20 years. What hasn't changed during all those years are the almost contradictory elements upon which his work is based, which are in fact the great teachers he studied under.

Razal began his musical career at the Conservatory and the Academy. He completed his master's degree in composition at an early age, while his teacher and guide along the way was the Israel Prize laureate for music, Professor André Hajdu. In those days his head was in Mozart and Vivaldi until one day he disappeared from the horizon to far away Tzfat. There, he released his first songs, which were far from what he had learned from Hajdu. Hajdu wasn't comfortable with the move, and he continued to follow his "rebellious" student and try to persuade him to return.

"It was a kind of rebellion," Razel recalled, "and also a return to simplicity from my master's degree in music. It was a journey of discovery after years of classical music. But to this day I listen to Mozart and Vivaldi - it's the music that excites me. You hear it in my work - my arrangements and harmonies are woven from this music. Classical music is the basic tool, it lends understanding to how music is built."

Those were the days of post-Carlebach. After he died, R 'Shlomo Carlebach's nature began to emerge in the world, and Razel joined the group of artists who echoed his work. "Jewish music was at a crossroads due to Carlebach's death. It was already at a turning point. Carlebach cleared the way and left a paved path behind him, which was the opening through which Jewish music entered the world of music."

This encounter, which never took place face-to-face, determined the fate of Razel's work. "Carlebach changed my life, gave me the license in which composing songs is a part of serving God. When Carlebach was alive he didn't interest anyone, was known to few. They didn't recognize his depth."

"André Hajdu was and remains my teacher and master of music. I connected very deeply to him and I feel like his main student. Many things I do, like writing in many different styles and releasing many CDs is from him. It's considered unusual to release a new CD every two years, but I feel that my mission is my songs. It doesn't interest me that I just released a CD - it comes from a non-commercial place. My songs are my mission," Razel concluded.


3. JEWS OF THE DIASPORA ASK: SHOULD ISRAEL BE RULED BY TORAH LAW?
by Dr. Sam Minskoff

[audio:2059017]

Dr. Sam Minskoff, a member of the Aliyah Team at Arutz Sheva, poses this delicate and sensitive issue of Torah Law as a guide for governing Israel, thus making Israel a truly free and joyous place to live if the laws are implemented properly (whatever that means).

In so doing, it would be the task of the Israelites (Jews) to continue forming Israel in ways that Hashem (G-d) commanded in His Torah.

[קישורים:11:Radio]


4. REDEEMING HEVRON TOGETHER WITH THE WOMEN OF BEIT HADASSAH
by With the 'Harhivi' Association

This week marks four years since the passing of Rabbi Moshe Levinger, a pioneer who blazed the path to settling Hevron, Judea, and Samaria.

The memorial held in Kiryat Arba-Hevron's Beit Hashalom (Peace House) also marked 40 years of Jewish women in Beit Hadassah, something which allowed Jews to settle in Hevron.

In 1973, ten women and approximately 40 children entered the first floor of the Beit Hadassah complex, aiming to re-establish a permanent Jewish presence in the center of Hevron.

The spirit and strength of these exemplary women, who against all odds blazed the path for settlement, gives future generations both the desire and power to continue redeeming Hevron and all of Israel. The evening was organized by the "Harhivi Makom Ohaleich" (literally, widen the place of your tent), which works to redeem Hevron.

The first four families have bought homes in Hevron's Peace House - CLICK HERE for more information

Speaking at the ceremony were Rabbi Dov Lior, who discussed the pioneers, who came inspired Rabbi Levinger's strength and his inner pride borne of deep faith that the People of Israel would reclaim their land.

"We need to do everything in order to redeem the Land and settle it," he said.

Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, who heads the Nir Yeshiva in Kiryat Arba-Hevron, was a close friend of Rabbi Levinger.

"When the women entered Beit Hadassah, it was a very significant revolution," he said. "They embodied the statement that, 'All parts of the Land of Israel, new and old, all belong to the Jewish nation."

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) said she hopes that "a government will be formed which believes that the People of Israel have a right to every single part of Israel" and that "the governments of Israel will no longer discuss dividing the land, and speak only of where else it can build."

Eliyahu Libman, who today heads the Kiryat Arba-Hevron local council, was one of the children who entered Beit Hadassah in 1973.

"We must take ourselves [in hand] and settle all parts of Israel," he said.

Towards the end of the evening, Rebbetzin Miriam Levinger spoke about some of the experiences and difficulties she had while living with her friends in Beit Hadassah.

"In the difficult reality of Beit Hadassah, the children never said, 'Mommy, let's go home.' They very much identified with the adults' efforts, because I tell you, if they would have cried and complained, I don't know if I would have had the strength to remain. But the fact that they were so excited about it helped us a lot," she concluded.


5. US SENATORS AGAINST JUDEA AND SAMARIA ANNEXATION
by Ben Ariel

A group of Democratic senators on Thursday presented a bill in the US Senate opposing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's election campaign promise to annex parts of Judea and Samaria to Israel, Channel 13 News reported.

According to the report, the group that signed the resolution includes some of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2020 election, including Senator Bernie Sanders, who has a history of problematic statements on Israel and has often made clear his views on a two-state solution and against Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

"Unilateral annexation of portions of the West Bank would jeopardize prospects for a two-state solution, harm Israel's relationship with its Arab neighbors, threaten Israel's Jewish and democratic identity, and undermine Israel's security," says the bill, which calls on the Trump administration to support the two-state solution.

The bill's chances of winning the approval of the Senate, where Republicans have a majority, are not high.


6. VICTIMS OF FATAL CRASH WERE NEW IMMIGRANTS FROM FRANCE
by Arutz Sheva Staff

The victims of a fatal accident Thursday afternoon in southern Israel have been identified as new immigrants, who moved from France to Israel three months ago.

Two girls, ages four and seven, were killed in the crash, which occurred on the Arava road, Route 90, near Ein Yahav.

Five other people were injured in the accident, including two in serious condition, two more who were moderately injured, and one in light condition. Initially, three people had been listed in serious condition.

According to a report by Channel 12, the two girls killed in the accident had immigrated with their family to Israel from France three months ago, and were driving down from Tel Aviv to Eilat for a vacation.

The girls' parents were both moderately injured, while their one-year-old brother was lightly injured.

Two people in the second vehicle involved in the accident were injured, one seriously the other critically.

The victims of the accident were treated at the scene by MDA and IDF emergency first responders before being evacuated by IDF and MDA helicopters to Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva.

"I was driving with my family back home from a vacation in Eilat," said MDA paramedic Raanan Hacham. "Near Paran I spotted a serious accident, with two cars which had collided head-on. In one car in the field near the road a man and woman were trapped, and next to the second car, which was on the shoulder, there were additional injured people lying on the ground. I immediately stopped and made a quick scan of the area to get an idea of the situation of the injured."

"With the help of an army medical team which arrived and an MDA unit from nearby towns, we provided medical treatment to the injured, performed extensive resuscitation techniques on two girls, ages four and seven, but in the end we were forced to declare them dead. An MDA helicopter and army helicopters landed at the scene and evacuated five injured to Soroka Hospital, including three people in serious condition and two more in moderate condition."

An initial investigation into the accident suggests that the head-on collision between the two cars occurred after one of the vehicles strayed from its lane and running into the second car, which was driving in the opposite direction.

📹 To watch the video: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/264275


7. FRENCH IMMIGRANT GIRLS KILLED IN CRASH IDENTIFIED
by Arutz Sheva Staff

The identities of the two young girls killed in a car accident Thursday afternoon were cleared for publication Thursday night.

Authorities say eight-year-old Shirel Ester Ben Simon and her three-year-old sister Sarah were the two fatalities in today's crash on Route 90, near Ein Yahav.

The family, which had recently immigrated to Israel from France, was driving down to the southern port city of Eilat from Tel Aviv for a vacation when their car collided head-on with another vehicle driving in the opposite direction.

An initial investigation into the crash suggests one of the cars strayed from its lane, resulting in the collision.

Five other people were injured in the accident, including two in serious condition, two more who were moderately injured, and one in light condition. Initially, three people had been listed in serious condition.

The girls' parents were both moderately injured, while their one-year-old brother was lightly injured.

Two people in the second vehicle involved in the accident were injured, one seriously the other critically.

The victims of the accident were treated at the scene by MDA and IDF emergency first responders before being evacuated by IDF and MDA helicopters to Soroka Hospital in Beer Sheva.

📹 To watch the video: https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/264295


8. THE BIG PICTURE CONTINUES: THE WAR OF GOG AND MAGOG
by Rabbi Pinchas Winston

[audio:2004875]

The prophets, when speaking about the End-of-Days, talk about a major war called "The War of Gog and Magog".

The Midrash speaks of three such wars and the Chofetz Chaim witnessed one and predicted the next two, including World War II.

Now, as the world heats up and chaos threatens the peace of daily life, especially for the Jews of Eretz Yisrael, the question becomes: Are we heading for the third and final one? If yes, what should one do to survive it?

[קישורים:8:Radio]