Beit Shemesh Mayor Stops Payment on Ethiopian Seder

Rabbi Natan Slivkin reports: In Beit Shemesh, re-elected mayor Abutbul continues to disappoint. The municipality did not give its customary financial aid to the communal Ethiopian seders. There are allegations that this is due to the Ethiopians having strongly supported Abutbul’s nemesis Eli Cohen. Instead, the Anglo dati-leumi community contributed most of the funds, and Rabbi Dov Lipman asked Yair Lapid if the Finance Ministry could make up the remainder. Lapid gave the money from his personal account! To quote Michael Lipkin in The Times of Israel: “So, just to spell out it out, when our mayor, the vanguard of Torah in Beit Shemesh, has the first opportunity of his new term to do something truly religiously significant he strikes out and abdicates this, small but important, task to the “devil” himself, Yair Lapid. You can’t make this stuff up!”

Will David Geffen Buy The Clippers?

Billionaire media executive David Geffen is interested in buying the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, according to a person with knowledge of Geffen’s thinking, reports Reuters. Silver said he would urge other NBA team owners to force Sterling to sell. The NBA banned Sterling for life and fined him $2.5 million for his outrageous and racist comments.