The nation is preparing for Knesset elections and the parties are beginning their campaigns. For Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party, this means continuing and stepping up the anti-chareidi propaganda, the incitement against the entire frum tzibur in Eretz Yisrael. While the incitement and collective hate campaign is despicable, what is worrisome is the fact the polls show Lieberman receiving 8-10 seats, which is representative of about 400,000 seats or more – signaling just how many Israelis are willing to back a party whose campaign rests in no small part and despising and delegitimizing an entire tzibur. In his most recent diatribe, Liberman is alleging that a deal is being closed between the chareidim and the Blue & White party headed by MK Benny Gantz.

According to a dayan at an Israeli beis din for monetary matters, Arabs occasionally approach batei din in Israel and request to be judged according to Jewish law, an Arutz Sheva report said on Sunday. Rav Ido Rechnitz serves as a dayan for the Eretz Chemdah Gazit Batei Din, which mainly serves the Dati Leumi community in Eretz Yisrael but other sectors use their services as well, including Chareidim, secular people, and Arabs! The Arabs specifically request that the dayanim adjudicate their case according to Jewish halacha. Is a Beis Din even allowed to adjudicate for a non-Jew according to halacha?

You know the expression, time heals all wounds? Or, forgive and forget? Well, sometimes that just doesn’t happen, try as you may. When I was a young teenager, I was enrolled in a new Yeshiva high school that had just formed a couple of years prior to my enrolling. My young, recently married teacher was also our Rosh Yeshiva. The yeshiva was very resolute in establishing a reputation in being second to none, and would thus place burdens upon the students to perform at very high levels. Yeshiva’s schedule was approximately from 7 am until 9 pm. I couldn’t learn at that level of intensity, so-needless to say-my minutes weren’t fully maximized. The vibes that I received from the faculty were that I was a liability to the institution. A pariah, if you will.

Seven Democratic presidential candidates will stand on stage this week in Los Angeles, a pool of survivors who have withstood almost a year on the campaign trail, sustained attacks from rivals in both major political parties and five rounds of high-pressure debates. And while the field has been effectively cut down from more than 20 in the span of six months, a deepening sense of volatility is settling over the Democratic primary on the eve of the sixth and final debate of 2019. The remaining candidates, those in the debate and some trying to compete from outside, are grappling with unprecedented distraction from Washington, questions about their core principles and new signs that the party’s energized factions are turning against each other.

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President Donald Trump made clear Monday that he intends to participate in at least three general election debates, but he is threatening to sidestep the nonprofit group charged with running them. “I look very much forward to debating whoever the lucky person is who stumbles across the finish line in the little watched Do Nothing Democrat Debates,” Trump tweeted Monday morning after The New York Times reported that he was considering skipping them entirely. Trump said his record “is so good” that “perhaps I would consider more than 3 debates.” But he also complained, without evidence, that the Commission on Presidential Debates is “stacked with Trump Haters & Never Trumpers” and threatened to bypass them.

The New Right was the first party to launch its election campaign for the upcoming election on March 2nd, revealing its new ads and fliers on Monday. Surprisingly, pictures on the campaign material showed only Defense Minister Naftali Bennett without former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked. Shaked has not yet decided whether she’s joining her long-time partner Bennett as co-leader of the New Right or she’s returning to her political allies in the National Religious parties. It’s well-known that Shaked was opposed to leaving Bayit Yehudi to form the New Right in the first place and feels a strong affinity with the Religious Zionist parties. She is expected to announce her plans in the next few days.

Mounted police on Monday morning came under attack with stones after entering the Meah Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem. one of the police officers was struck in the head and sustained light injury. The mounted police entered the community, the Meah Shearim Shuk area, checking identity cards of Arab laborers as is often done to find illegal workers; day workers from the PA (Palestinian Authority) inside ‘Israel proper’ illegally. After one policeman was injured, they left the shuk via Salant Street and the policeman was treated by medical personnel. Police are working to identify the attacker, who they say will be taken into custody in the future. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

Tariq Kurd, the 18-year old Arab driver, who caused the accident that devastated the Rimmel family, was re-arrested on Sunday morning when the police investigation showed that he had been speeding at 105 mph when he hit the Rimmel car. Israeli media reports said that the prosecution will indict Kurd later this week for reckless homicide, a charge that carries up to a 12-year prison sentence. Meanwhile, as YWN reported on Sunday, the father of the family, Ephraim Rimmel, regained consciousness on Sunday. (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

Britain’s new political landscape began to take shape Monday as triumphant Prime Minister Boris Johnson talked trade with President Donald Trump and gave a pep talk to his new Conservative Party lawmakers. The incoming class of new Conservative legislators was so big — 109 lawmakers — that organizers had to procure an extra 50 bottles of wine for the evening event, British tabloids said. Lawmakers from all parties will be sworn in on Tuesday, the first day of the new session in Parliament. Johnson’s Conservatives received a larger-than-expected majority in last week’s national election, galvanizing his efforts to secure parliamentary approval for his Brexit divorce deal with the European Union.