THE BALTIMORE JEWISH HOME
OCTOBER 7, 2021
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The Week In News Arrests in Stone-Throwing Israel Police announced last Thursday that two people suspected of hurling stones at an Arab village were arrested. According to the police, the two suspects are an adult and a minor; their arrest follows the Wednesday arrest of three other Israelis who allegedly participated in the incident. In the incident, which occurred last Tuesday, dozens of masked assailants threw rocks at Palestinian Authority Arabs in the southern Hebron Hills, causing damage to cars and injuring over a dozen people, including a threeyear-old. Some of the Arabs threw rocks at the assailants, with clashes breaking out between the sides. Hebrew media reported that three Israelis were injured in the clashes. Meanwhile the Arab child, threeyear-old Mohammad Bakr Hussein, was evacuated to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, Israel, in moderate condition.
B A LT I M O R E J E W I S H H O M E . C O M
Tragic Bus Crash
Four members of a single family were killed in a collision between the taxi they were traveling in and a tour bus carrying Bnei Akiva youth returning from a field trip last Tuesday. The bus driver, 76-year-old Asher Bason, was also killed in the crash, which left Moran Ben Eli, 35, dead along with her children Dekel, 15; Liam, 11; and Anael, 5. Moran’s husband, Reuven Ben Eli, 36, suffered severe injuries in the crash, and initially was unconscious and on a respirator. However, the day following the collision, he regained consciousness and was informed of the deaths of his family. Initially, he denied the events, repeatedly demanding to call his wife on her cell phone. At the recommendation of the medical staff at Rambam Health Care Campus, Ben Eli was brought on a stretcher to his family’s funeral, which
took place in the family’s hometown of Maalot-Tarshiha. After the funeral, he was taken back to the hospital. Speaking at the funeral, Moran’s father emphasized the “unimaginable loss” and said, “I do not know how to bury four flowers next to each other. They were such a happy family. I don’t know how we will manage without them.” Bason, a resident of Kiryat Yam, is survived by his wife, four children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Police are investigating the cause of the crash, but initial analysis shows that the bus veered out of its lane in a no-pass zone, ramming into the guardrail before colliding with a truck and the taxi carrying the Ben Eli family. After these collisions, the bus overturned three times.
Threats for Iraqis at Pro-Israel Summit Over 300 Iraqis who participated last Friday in a conference calling for normalization with Israel have recanted or disavowed their statements after receiving death threats and arrest warrants. Some of the participants claimed they had been tricked into attending the conference. At the conference, which was held in the Kurdish capital of Erbil, speakers called for peace and reconciliation with Israel. The two countries have been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948. Iraq’s President and Prime Minister condemned the event, saying it was illegal and promising to prosecute those who attended. He also emphasized that the conference does not represent the positions of most Iraqis. While it is not yet clear if anyone was arrested, three arrest warrants were issued, for a tribal minister and for two Iraqi politicians who attended the event. However, the Iranian-backed Guardians of the Blood Brigades warned, “Those who adopted the idea of normalization in this gathering are all legitimate targets of the Islamic Resistance. “We shall not abate from pursuing those traitors wherever they are.”
Pro-Iran cleric and politician and commander of the Peace Brigade groups Muqtada al-Sadr warned on Thursday, “I repeat that if they are not arrested, we will take strict national measures against the normalizations and the recreant.” Meanwhile, Kurdish President Masoud Barazani said in a statement, “We were neither aware of the meeting nor of its contents. What was expressed there is not the opinion, policy or position of [Kurdistan].” Two tribal leaders who attended the conference were quoted as saying, “We’re against normalization. We’re asking the Prime Minister to get involved personally, because we’ve become targets for murder by every segment of the Iraqi people, and we’re innocent [of calling for normalization].” Tribal leader Wisam al-Hardan, one of those for whom an arrest warrant was issued, was a main speaker at the conference. Al-Hardan also signed an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, calling for normalization with Israel. But following the condemnations, he claimed that Joseph Braude, one of the conference’s organizers, wrote the column instead. Speaking to the Kurdish Rudaw media outlet, al-Hardan said, “I thought this conference would be a call for peace and affection between the members of the Iraqi people after the victories achieved against Islamic State terrorism. “I read the statement that was written for me, without knowledge of its contents. I was surprised to find that it aspired to normalization with the Zionist entity.”
Snail Mail Gets Even Slower Mail delivery for many Americans began slowing on Friday as part of a blueprint for overhauling the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The move is part of a plan by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s to slash costs, but critics say it could undermine the public’s faith in the U.S.
Postal Service while generating other problems at the government branch. Paul Steidler, a senior fellow at the Lexington Institute and an expert on the postal service, called the plan “disastrous” and said that nearly 40% of first-class mail will see slower delivery, taking up to five days instead of the current three. He added, “It’s the least fortunate who will be hurt hardest by this. Everything in American society is getting faster, it seems, except for the mail delivery — which is now going to get slower.” At the same time, a USPS spokeswoman said that the company will continue to offer two-day delivery for single-piece first-class mail within a local area. She added, “The postal service has shown steady improvements for all first-class mail, marketing and periodical mail categories over the last seven months. We have worked tirelessly to overcome challenges from recent storms and continue to recruit thousands of employees for the upcoming holiday peak season.” In a statement, USPS declared “We’ll make better use of our trucks and existing surface network to move the mail, relying less on costly air transportation. By improving service reliability and increasing efficiency, we can keep costs at reasonable levels and help keep postage rates affordable for our customers.”
Rabbi Moshe Tendler Dies at 95 Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a Jewish medical ethics expert and a biology professor at Yeshiva University, died on Tuesday at 95. An expert in Jewish law, Rabbi Tendler served as a dean of the rabbinical school and a professor of Jewish medical ethics and biology at Yeshiva University and was known for his fierceness in advocating for the Jewish legal position that brain death constituted death. Rabbi Tendler was born and raised on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, just a few blocks away from Reb Moshe Feinstein, zt”l. Rabbi Tendler studied under the tutelage of his father, head of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph Yeshiva, and his mother, a law school graduate. He married Reb Moshe’s daughter
