Netanyahu Welcomes Back IDF Aid Team From Nepal as Major Aftershock Hits

(JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted the returning Israel Defense Forces (IDF) aid delegation from Nepal as news of a major aftershock earthquake hit the mountainous South Asian country on Tuesday.

“I am certain that you are already prepared for the next mission, wherever it may be needed, and it appears, according to the news, that this next mission is already in front of us,” Netanyahu told the delegation, referring to the aftershock.

The IDF aid team treated some 1,600 at its field hospital in Kathmandu, performing 85 surgeries and delivering eight infants.

“I told the Nepali ambassador just a few minutes ago that we are prepared to the best of our abilities to help now too,” Netanyahu said.

On Tuesday, a major 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit Nepal, which is still reeling from a 7.8-magnitude earthquake on April 25. According to Nepali authorities, 42 people have been reported dead and 1,117 have been injured in the latest earthquake. More than 8,000 people died in April’s earthquake.

Chabad-Lubavitch said that 133 Israelis have again taken shelter at its facility in Nepal.

“Although everyone we know appears to be safe, we are sad to report that there are many more casualties in Nepal again today,” said Rabbi Chezky Lifshitz, co-director of Chabad of Nepal. “There is so much more work that now needs to be done.”

In light of the aftershock, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) called on the Jewish and international communities to renew their efforts to provide aid for Nepal.

“This latest earthquake is a heart wrenching reminder of the urgency for the continued flow of aid to Nepal, a country that has not even begun to heal from the wounds of the first quake two weeks ago,” said Mandie Winston, Director of JDC’s International Development Program. “This new development exacerbates existing challenges on the ground and renews deep fears and widespread trauma. Our hearts once again go out to the people of Nepal at this time of disaster and sorrow.”

21-Year-Old Jewish Man From Far Rockaway Among Dead in Philly Amtrak Crash

(Yeshiva World News) Daylight on Wednesday revealed the devastation caused by an Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia that left at least six people dead and dozens injured, several critically, in a terrifying wreck that plunged passengers into darkness and chaos. Sources tell YWN that one of the victims is a 21-year-old Jewish man from Far Rockaway. His name is Justin (Avraham Yitzchak) Zemser z”l. Authorities are releasing the body to the family without any autopsy.

Justin was studying at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and on his way back home, his mother told NBC 4 New York. He was an only child, she said. The school in Annapolis, Maryland, notified the brigade of midshipman, staff and faculty on Wednesday morning.

Additionally, friends of a woman named Rachel Jacobs were showing her photo at the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. She is the CEO of ApprenNet, a Philadelphia technology firm. She texted her husband that she was on the train and has not been seen since.

Some passengers had to scramble through the windows of toppled cars to escape. One of the seven cars was severely mangled.

Train 188, a Northeast Regional, was en route from Washington to New York with 238 passengers and five crew members when it jumped the tracks as it was rounding a sharp curve in the city’s working-class Port Richmond section shortly after 9 p.m. Tuesday, authorities said.

The accident closed the nation’s busiest rail corridor between New York and Washington as federal investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived to begin examining the twisted wreckage and determine what went wrong.

Prosecutors Seek 17-Year Prison Sentence for Freundel Over Mikvah Scandal

(JNS.org) Barry Freundel, a prominent Washington, D.C.-based rabbi who has admitted to videotaping women during their preparations for mikvah (ritual bath) immersion, faced a sentencing hearing at press time on Friday. The prosecution in D.C. Superior Court is seeking a 17-year prison sentence for Freundel, according to court documents.

In February, the 63-year-old Freundel pleaded guilty to the 52 misdemeanor counts of voyeurism brought against him. He was arrested last October on charges that he secretly videotaped six nude women at the mikvah located on the premises of Washington’s Kesher Israel Congregation, hiding a camera in a clock radio in an area where women undress for the mikvah. But prosecutors have said that as many as 150 women were allegedly videotaped by Freundel.

The rabbi’s attorney, Jeffrey Harris, argued in a defense memo that Freundel deserves community service as his punishment rather than jail time. “He has already been punished in that he has lost his employment as a rabbi and is never likely to be so employed again,” Harris wrote, the Washington Post reported. “He has been publicly humiliated and his prior reputation as a Judaic scholar, teacher, and counselor have been destroyed.”

Study Shows High Jewish Engagement for Alumni of OU Teen Israel Experience

(JNS.org) A newly released study reveals that non-Orthodox participants of an Orthodox Union (OU) summertime Israel experience for teenagers are more engaged Jewishly than their peers in a number of key areas.

The study—authored by Professor Steven M. Cohen of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and Israeli researcher Dr. Ezra Kopelowitz—compared responses from alumni of OU’s The Anne Samson Jerusalem Journey (TJJ) to data from the Pew Research Center’s 2013 survey of Jewish Americans, the 2011 Jewish Community Study of New York, and a Taglit-Birthright Israel program survey of applicants who never participated.

According to the study by Cohen and Kopelowitz, 86 percent of TJJ alumni said it is very important to raise their children Jewish, compared to 69 percent of Birthright applicants. Eighty percent of TJJ alumni reported fasting for the entire duration of Yom Kippur, compared to 48 percent of Jews ages 18-29 polled in the 2013 Pew survey. Seventy-five percent of TJJ participants said it is very important to marry a Jew, compared to 55 percent of Birthright applicants. Seventy-five percent of TJJ alumni usually attend a Shabbat meal, compared to 34 percent of Birthright applicants.

A program of NCSY, the OU-affiliated international youth movement, TJJ is a four-week summer program “designed for public high school teens looking to learn more about their Jewish heritage through hands-on, meaningful experiences,” and to “gain an appreciation for all the historical and modern sites of Israel,” according to a press release.

Cohen said the survey results not only “testify to the power and potential of The Anne Samson Jerusalem Journey,” but also “testify to the educational power and potential of Israel and, specifically, of teen trips to Israel.”

“Not every teen will have the opportunity to take a Jerusalem Journey,” he said. “But in a world where they will soon be facing enormous challenges to their commitment to Jews, Judaism, and the Jewish people, young people before college need to have the opportunity to encounter Israel, its meaning, and its complexities.”

German and Israeli Leaders Visit Each Other’s Nations in Show of Close Ties

(JNS.org) German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen visited Israel on Monday and Tuesday as part of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Jewish state and Germany.

Von der Leyen was welcomed by an honor guard at the Israeli Defense Ministry’s headquarters in Tel Aviv, where she had a meeting with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on regional security issues and bilateral relations. That was followed by a joint press conference in which the defense leaders stressed the close relationship between their nations. Von der Leyen also met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem.

“In the 50 years since formalization of our diplomatic relations, Germany has proven in word and in deed its commitment to Israel’s security,” Netanyahu told Von der Leyen.

Von der Leyen’s visit took place at the same time that Israeli President Reuven Rivlin is visiting Berlin, where he was welcomed by German President Joachim Gauck at the Bellevue Palace on Monday in a ceremony that also included a military honor guard.

“You arrived on a sunny day, a symbolic tribute to our bright relationship,” Gauck said, Israel Hayom reported. “The new Germany is reaching out to you. We are here by your side to support you when you are surrounded by threats. The vast majority of Germans are against anti-Semitism and its consequences, and we are doing everything we can to work against this phenomenon.”

Yet despite the warm relations between leaders of the two countries, a Bertelsmann Foundation study conducted last October revealed that a majority of Germans ages 18-29 hold a negative view of Israel due to its conflict with the Palestinians.

“Many young Germans simply cannot internalize Israel’s self-defense wars against lethal anti-Semitic terroristic organizations such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad,” wrote Benjamin Weinthal, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, in the Jerusalem Post. “It seems to pain sizable numbers of young Germans to extend the German slogan ‘Never Again Auschwitz’ beyond the frontiers of their borders to the Jewish state… large numbers of Germans (also) feel they have worked through the crimes of the Holocaust and are now positioned to provide didactic lessons to Israelis about the need for peace.”

Palestinian Fatah Official to be Jailed Over Incitement on Facebook

(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court set a legal precedent on Tuesday by ruling that inflammatory statements expressed on Facebook constitute grounds for a criminal conviction.

Omar Shalabi, 44, the secretary-general of the Palestinian Fatah party’s Jerusalem branch and a resident of the Palestinian village of Eizariya, east of Jerusalem, was sentenced to nine months in prison for online incitement to violence and support of terrorism. He was convicted as part of a plea bargain reached with the Israeli State Attorney’s Office.

This marked the first time that an Israeli court has rendered a conviction over inflammatory statements made on social media. According to the indictment, Shalabi wrote dozens of Facebook posts supporting violence and terrorism, and lauding the actions of terrorists and terror groups. His comments were made last summer after Hamas’s June abduction and murder of Jewish teens Gilad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach, and Naftali Frenkel in Gush Etzion, which was followed by the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

At the time, Shalabi’s Facebook account had 5,000 friends and 755 followers. The indictment listed 10 posts inciting violence and lauding terrorism, including seven posts whose dates coincided with terrorist attacks and urged violence against Israelis, and three posts that lauded terrorists who murdered Israelis.

“The defendant’s acts abused the right of free speech, thus undermining the state as a democracy ensuring civil liberties,” prosecutor Yifat Pinhasi said.

The prosecution further argued that using a social media platform as popular as Facebook constituted aggravating circumstances, enabling Shalabi to easily spread his incitement.

Shalabi’s attorney, Tariq Barghout, argued that this was an uncharted legal realm, and that Facebook users should first be warned that their posts may exceed the limits of online free speech. But the court said that argument “carries only minimal weight, as this is not a new offense never before introduced in court, but rather a new application that makes use of innovative technology.”

Rivlin on Netanyahu Coalition: ‘Even a One-Vote Majority is a Majority’

(JNS.org) Asked if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s narrowly established 61-seat coalition government represented “what voters wanted” or “a missed opportunity,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said that “even a one-vote majority is a majority.” Netanyahu’s coalition contains the minimum number of Knesset members that Israeli law requires for a government.

“Our democracy says the Knesset must hold a vote of confidence before a government is sworn in,” Rivlin told Israel Hayom in an interview published Wednesday. “It is enough to have 61 votes for such a vote of confidence to pass, even if the government depends on a narrow, one-member majority. … That said, the world continues to have doubts as to whether this narrow government would last. People keep asking me about this, and I can feel the sense of bewilderment. But the Israeli democracy calls the shots. I believe that when it comes down to making decisions, it would be best if we had the widest possible consensus on existential issues. But even a one-vote majority is a majority.”

Pew Survey: As Christianity Declines, Judaism Rises—But Not as Fast as Islam

(JNS.org) The Pew Research Center’s newly released 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study revealed that while the Jewish population in the U.S. increased by 0.2 percent from 2007-13, the fastest-growing religion in the U.S. is currently Islam, with 0.5-percent growth during the same period. Islam is followed by Hinduism, which had 0.3-percent growth.

Non-Christian faiths as a whole, according the survey, grew by 1.2 percent during those years. Meanwhile, those who are unaffiliated with a particular faith, including those identifying as atheist or agnostic, grew by 6.7 percent. The population of those identifying as Christian went down by 7.8 percent, with the largest decline reported in the Evangelical population.

Among non-Christian religions, the survey said, Jews and Hindus are reported to be the most educated religious groups in the U.S. Fifty-nine percent of Jews and 77 percent of Hindus reported to have academic degrees. Those two religious groups are also reported to have the highest average household incomes, with 36 percent of Hindu families and 44 percent of Jewish families earning more than $100,000 annually.