'Never underestimate' the 'highly intelligent' Israeli PM, says former US president after Likud leader's latest election victory; 'he understands his electorate'

Jerusalem – Four Jewish House Democrats known for their ties to AIPAC warned Israel not to annex West Bank territory days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s election-eve pledge to do that. The statement by Reps. Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey, both D-N.Y., Ted Deutch, D-Fla. and Brad Schneider, D-Ill., did not name Netanyahu, but alluded [...]

Albany, NY – New York’s governor says legislation that would end the ability of parents to object to vaccinations for their children on religious grounds is “legally questionable.” Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo during interviews this week called the recent surge in measles cases a serious public health concern but said eliminating the religious exemption to [...]

A 55-year-old man named Tzali Friedman recently recovered from the measles in Detroit, and has now gone public with this urgent message.
Read more on Yeshiva World News

South Korea – Just two hours after Lee Dong Kil’s daughter was born on New Year’s Eve, the clock struck midnight, 2019 was ushered in, and the infant became 2-years-old. She wasn’t alone, though it happened for her quicker than most: Every baby born in South Korea last year became 2 on Jan. 1. According [...]

The lead article Thursday on the opinion page of the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper compared Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the 1940 Nazi antisemitic movie The Eternal Jew.
The article was titled in the paper “The Eternal Netanyahu” in a word play in connection with the antisemitic pseudo-documentary organized by Adolf Hitler’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels and widely-considered to be the most violent anti-Jewish film ever made.
The Rundschau wrote in its apology it is “especially difficult” to find words that are not associated with antisemitism.
Read more at JPOST.
{Matzav.com}

President Reuven Rivlin will begin doing a round of consultations on Monday with all factions chosen for the Knesset, all of which will be broadcast live.
Rivlin will move from large to small factions that were elected for the Knesset in coordination with the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Judge Hanan Melzer.
As is customary, Rivlin will hear the parties’ recommendations and at the end will announce the member of the Knesset to whom he has entrusted the task of forming a government. Once this has been done, that person has 28 days to form a new government.
Read more at JPOST.
{Matzav.com}
 

Chicago – The number of young kids who went to U.S. emergency rooms because they swallowed toys, coins, batteries and other objects has more than doubled, a new study says. In 2015, there were nearly 43,000 such visits among kids under 6, compared with 22,000 in 1995, according to the study published Friday in the [...]

While the Israeli spacecraft didn't land on the moon, it did remind us to look beyond the borders of our own small worlds and let our imaginations soar