The incredible story of rapper Nissim Baruch Black with Beatles revolution

Can't see images? Click here... Yehuda Lave, Spiritual Advisor and Counselor Put Things In Perspective When you reflect on life, you will see that many of the things that happen to a person are not inherently good or bad. Rather, it is just a matter of how each person chooses to react to a given situation. Today, think of a problematic aspect of your life, and then try to imagine how life would be different - not if the situation changed, but if your attitude changed. Attitude is life as Rabbi Amnon learned in the famous prayer that we recite on Rosh Hahanna and again on Yom Kippur coming up on Shabbat. Love Yehuda Lave PARASHAT    Yom Ha Kippurim,      5778, 2017.   On both days of Rosh HaShana, at Chazarat HaShatz of Mussaf we recited the stirring Piyyut (poem) of U'netaneh Tokef. On Yom Kippur we will do likewise, so I would like to share an interesting perspective of this Piyyut.   It is said that this Piyyut was published by Kalonymus ben Meshullam of Mayence in the eleventh century. It has been the subject of a popular story, found in the Or Zaru'a, (2:276) by Rabbi Isaac of Vienna in the thirteenth century. The story goes as follows:   Rabbi Amnon, a wealth and prominent Talmud Chacham of noble descent, was repeatedly but fruitlessly pressured by the bishop and rulers of Mayence to convert. By successfully converting him they surmised that the majority of Jews would follow his example, as he was considered a "big fish". On one occasion, in order to gain a reprieve of time from the constant pressure Rabbi Amnon evasively asked to be given three days in which to consider the matter. Upon reaching home he became extremely distraught and begged HaShem's forgiveness for the grave sin which he had committed, for he had given the impression that he might renounce his belief in one G-d.   After three days, Rabbi Amnon refused to appear before the bishop, who then had him brought by force. When he publicly declared his refusal to convert, the bishop ordered all of his limbs to be severed, joint by joint. He was then sent home, along with his body parts, to die. Rabbi Amnon was able to cling to life until Rosh Hashana, and he asked to be brought to the synagogue before Kedusha of Mussaf. Before the chazzan began the Kedusha, Rabbi Amnon asked him to wait. He then recited "U'netaneh Tokef" and passed away. Three days later, Rabbi Amnon appeared in a dream to Rabbi Kalonymus ben Meshulam, asking him to record the Piyyut and to insure that all of Jewry would incorporate his prayer into the Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur davening.   Two questions we must ask, what was Rabbi Amnons' great sin that made him feel so distraught and why was it necessary to give up his life in order to avoid this particular transgression, since idol worshiping is a sin of the mind? Why couldn't he simply go through the motions without the intention of serving another deity?  The Rambam answers that even if a Jew does not actually believe in another deity, but goes through the motions, that perception alone, that he is willing to serve a foreign god, is in itself a chillul HaShem (Sefer HaMitzvot Asei #9)   Rabbi Amnon initially reasoned that he could stall for time and during that time he considered that option publicly satisfying the bishop while privately maintaining his loyalty to G-d. But when he saw that the bishop was satisfied with the knowledge that he was contemplating to give in to the bishop's demand, he realized that his perception alone, the perception that a Jew might forsake his Creator, was a Chillul HaShem.   The Sefer HaChinuch adds (Parshat Yitro #25) that it is not sufficient to believe in HaShem in thought alone. A person must verbalize this thought in order to concretize it. Conversely, if a person makes any statement which expresses a denial of HaShem's reality, even if he does not believe that what he is saying, it impacts him negatively, and can infuse within him a doubt as to HaShem's existence. Thus, when Rabbi Amnon uttered the words implying that he would consider becoming an apostate, he sensed the impact it had upon his own belief, and realized his great sin. Parenthetically, Rav Soloveitchik said it is prohibited to watch a live presentation of a church service on  your home TV screen.   We therefore, express our strong Emunah in HaShem by ending Ne'ilah with a resounding utterance of "HASHEM HU HA'ELOKIM", not once, but SEVEN TIMES.   A GEMAR CHATIMA TOVA TO ALL, Rabbi Aharon  Ziegler ------------------------------ The incredible story of rapper Nissim Baruch Black Depth Op-Eds Dan Shapiro, Advocate For The Palestinians By Stephen M. Flatow - 18 Elul 5777 – September 8, 2017 For many years, the State Department was known as the one U.S. government agency where it was almost impossible for a Jew to reach a senior position. In our era, that has changed, but with a twist. Since the late 1980s, a certain kind of Jew has become most welcome at the State Department – the kind devoted to creating a Palestinian state in Israel's back yard. The latest example is former president Obama's ambassador to Israel, Dan Shapiro. Since being replaced earlier this year, Shapiro has become one of the most frequently sought-after "talking heads" on Israel affairs. He is constantly quoted in major newspapers, interviewed on television, and invited to deliver lectures at prestigious venues. Daniel Kurtzer, Martin Indyk, and David Makovsky used to be the favorite Jewish ex-State Department officials whom CNN and The New York Times would trot out to call for more Israeli concessions. Now Dan Shapiro is giving them some competition. With all the tumult over the Trump administration's reluctance to demand the immediate establishment of a Palestinian state, it was inevitable that Shapiro would weigh in. And in true attention-grabbing fashion, Shapiro's contribution (in the online magazine Tablet) is headlined "The Two-State Solution Remains the Best Option, But We Need to Plan in Case It Fails." What? A former ambassador to Israel conceding that the Palestinian state idea might not work out? Is he forsaking the dream the State Department and the Jewish left have pursued for so many years? Has Dan Shapiro joined the Republican Party, or the Israeli Right? Not so fast. Shapiro began his essay with a remarkable confession: "I've been supporting the goal of Israel and a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security since 1988. It hit me early in the days of the first Intifada that there was no other solution, which made me something of an early adopter of that position among advocates for Israel." Wait a minute – 1988? In those days, the Palestinian leadership did not even pretend to accept Israel's right to exist. Yet Dan Shapiro believed a Palestinian state should be established a few miles from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Ben-Gurion Airport. Brilliant! Reading Shapiro's admission, one must laugh at his self-description as "an advocate for Israel." He is, according to his own words, an advocate for the Palestinians – and has been for the past 29 years. Then Shapiro introduced what we call the tease: "Maybe it's time that the United States consider options other than a two-state solution." Following that, he spent the next 30 paragraphs "considering" the other options. Big surprise: all those options would be terrible, he concluded. Any plan other than one ending in a Palestinian state is "exotic" or "unfeasible" or "zombie-like." Such plans either would lead to violence, or apartheid, or harm Israel's Jewish identity, or some other doomsday outcome – all the usual slogans and generalizations. Incredibly, Shapiro did not devote even a single paragraph to considering the dangers of a Palestinian state. No mention that Israel would be reduced to nine miles wide at its midsection. No acknowledgment that a terrorist standing inside "Palestine" would be able to fire a shoulder-launched missile at airplanes landing at Ben-Gurion Airport. No reference to the ability of "Palestine" to import Iranian "volunteers" and North Korean missiles. No allusion to the likelihood that "Palestine" would be a brutal dictatorship – exactly the kind of regime that throughout history has been most likely to invade its neighbors. Finally, at the end of his essay, Shapiro revealed that the preceding 30-plus paragraphs were essentially a ruse. "I hope discussion of the unpalatable alternatives will reinforce the importance of steering back to serious attempts to salvage the two-state solution," he wrote. And, as ex-State Department officials so often do, Shapiro added a veiled threat. If Israel fails to permit the rise of a Palestinian state, he warned, "it will affect [the America-Israel relationship] a significant number of Americans [will] conclude that Israel is not the democracy it once was, [and] our relationship will be…different. It will be different in ways I can't fully envision or describe." Of course, there is no reason Israel's position must result in Americans turning against the Jewish state. Israel has been resisting the Palestinian state idea for 60 years, yet most Americans are still pro-Israel. If U.S. public support erodes in the future, it will be because people like Dan Shapiro go around falsely accusing Israel of depriving the Palestinians of their democratic rights. In fact, the Palestinians gained their democratic rights in 1995, when then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin withdrew from the areas where 98 percent of the Palestinians reside. The Palestinians have no need to become Israeli citizens or vote in Israeli elections because for the past 22 years they have voted in the Palestinian Authority's elections. Shapiro knows that. The question is: Why does he pretend as if it never happened? Is it because acknowledging that fact would conflict with his efforts on behalf of Palestinian statehood? Why Anti-Zionism Is Anti-Semitism Rabbi Meir Kahane's last speech   "…So You Shoot The Messenger"   [Twenty six years after the Rabbi spoke the warnings written in this article was the start of a severe economic crises in America. Morality is at its lowest level. Racial tensions are high. Anti-Semitism took a dangerous escalation- the Jews fear for their future. Dangers rioting today, because the President that the Left wanted was not elected.   Will the Jews come home to Israel?]   Rabbi Meir Kahane's last speech urging American Jews to make emergency Aliyah (excerpts of speech) November 5, 1990 – Cheshvan, 18, 5751   I was born in this country, and I can't recall ever, in my life, as much open and vicious Jew-hatred as I have seen in our time right now, in this country.  I travel around from city to city, and in every city Jews tell me it is unbearable.  Attacks upon synagogues, attacks upon Jews, all of which are of course buried.  Because the synagogue doesn't want it to be know.  The ADL wants to report "there were 55 incidents this year in the United States", when actually, there were 55 incidents in one hour in the United States.  On radio programs which I am on – the telephone calls – open, open (anti-Semitism).   Two Reasons for Increased Anti-Semitism                         What has happened?  What has happened in natural terms?  Of course, in divine terms, the Almighty is ending it for us.  But what is happening in natural terms?  Two basic changes have taken place in this country over the last twenty years.  It began slowly, now it is reaching its crescendo.  We have seen the death of what I call the "Auschwitz syndrome".  What is the "Auschwitz syndrome"?  After World War II, it was hard to be an anti-Semite, even for an anti-Semite.  It was just difficult.  And then the years passed – ten years, twenty years, twenty-five years, thirty years, and a generation arose which was not born at that time.  And the "Auschwitz syndrome" began to fade away, and the guilt began to fade away.  No matter how many Holocaust programs were shown on television, every year they had less and less impact.  Indeed, they reach a point whereby they encourage anti-Semitism, whereupon the anti-Semite says: " Hey, you know, I know Jews, and the Nazis, and they were probably right." That's what happens today.  It fades away.  And to help things along, there was the rise of a strong Israel. Suddenly, Israel was winning.  And that allowed the anti-Semite to cut the albatross.  Now it was OK.  You see, the Jew are Nazis, and they persecute the Palestinians, and now it was OK.  So the "Auschwitz syndrome" faded, and it's gone for all practical purposes.  And you hear people speak about the holocaust that the Israelis are perpetrating upon the Palestinians. A Holocaust…So all the Israelis and all the Jews who ever called me a Nazi and didn't realize that when you call a Jew a Nazi, you cheapen the Holocaust.  And you cheapen the concept of Nazi, which is a very unique thing.  And by you calling a second Jew a Nazi, what you are telling the world is" Jews can also be Nazis.  Foolish people and tiny dwarfs and pygmies, grasshoppers.                    So the "Auschwitz syndrome" is gone. And another thing has happened.  After World War II, and until perhaps ten years ago, the American people lived in an economic luxury such as we have not seen ever in world history.  No Roman emperor lived as well as the average American did from World War II on, until fairly recently.  Life was good.  And when life is good, the anti-Semite hates Jews quietly.  It's not a big deal to him.  He hates Jews, but he's too interested in the Monday night football game.  I myself am amazed that so many people are here tonight that don't want to see the Giants massacre the Colts…   The Economic Crises                         So when times are good and he has his job, he has his beer and he has his TV set, he has everything – he hates Jews, but it's not that important to him.  But as the economic sands of time begin to run out, and as things get bad and they get worse and suddenly there is a chill, there is a fear.  I can sense a fear in this country – people are afraid of what is going to happen, and they have every right to fear it.  This is a country which is on the verge of economic horror, horror.  In two years they expect the national debt to go from 3.7 trillion to 5 trillion dollars, so they work for months and months – this fiasco between Congress and this administration – and they say, "we are going to cut 500 million dollars in five years".  Five years!  It is a joke – It's a drop in the bucket.  This is a country which is dying because the thing that was saving it was the fact that the Japanese are buying Rockefeller Center, Rockefeller Plaza – don't be angry.  If they stopped buying  it, no one is going to cover the national debt.  And they are stopping.   The dollar is a weak dollar today.  Can you imagine: The Israeli shekel has held its own against the dollar now for a year.  Don't clap!  It doesn't mean that the Israeli shekel is strong.  The shekel is weak; the dollar is just as weak.  The Japanese don't want dollars anymore, they want German marks.  And they're investing now in South Korea, Thailand, Singapore.  The banks here are shaking, they're tottering.  In their greed, in the 1960's and 70's, they gave loans to anybody.  The Congo came – you want money, take the money.  Mexico came – take 100 million dollars – take, take it, take.  Suddenly, the Congo couldn't pay back.  If that's what a banker is…did he expect the Congo to ever pay back in total?  So hundreds of millions of bad loans are being held by major banks:  Chase Manhattan, Citicorp – and they are in deep, deep trouble today.  And on top of that, suddenly the real estate market has collapsed and they are now holding several more hundred million dollars of bad mortgages.  That's the tragedy.  That's why suddenly, there's a hurry talk bout Chase merging with City.    There's a myth that your money is insured for $100,000. If the FDIC had 60 cents for every hundred dollars that you have, I'll swim back to Israel.  There is a myth that they are going to bail out the Savings & Loan with 40 billion dollars.  If they can make it with less than half a trillion, it will be a miracle.   So for years, the new economists said, "Don't worry about deficits, it doesn't matter.  Deficits don't matter?  I know that when my bank account is in deficit, it matters to me.  The bank calls me up and says, "Rav Kahane, we have a little problem.  Would you like to come and cover it?"  A city can go a little deeper into debt than I can, and a state deeper yet, and a country can go a little deeper yet; but, in the end you have to pay the piper.  So, America has lived beyond its means – extra credit, credit cards – and give anybody credit, give kids credit cards – anybody.  Now it's time to pay the piper, there is no money, there is no money.  And should the economic collapse come it is the Jew who will be blamed.  It is the Jew.  You can hear it already. You can small it in the air.   The Racial tension – In all Colors                         I was on a radio program in Chicago.  Every single caller blamed the Gulf oil crisis on the Jews.  Every single call.  What you have now is the getting together of all these crises – the economic crisis, the racial crisis – and there is a serious racial crisis in the country.  It's a serious one.  It is a dangerous one. Whites hate Blacks and Blacks hate Whites and they both hate Jews.  It is a terrible, terrible thing.  It's not just Whites and Blacks.  Now in the West, it's the Hispanics and the Anglos – tremendous crises, which only proves all the more the myth of the melting pot. Uh nechtiga tag –what melting pot? A melting pot is fine until there is a terrible crisis and then two "objects' occupy the same job at the same time.  That's a law of physics, which I've changed a bit…                         So it's not an accident that Jesse Helms is now putting on TV ads talking about the unfairness of quotas.  Quotas are unfair.  Of course, that is his trump card.  People are angry about quotas and affirmative action, etc.  And Blacks are angry.  You think that Blacks have no argument?  You think they are all bad? – that everything the Blacks do is wrong?  You think that Bob Grant is your kind of guy?  G-d forbid!  This Jew-hating fascist type.  That he says something good many, many times –you're right.  You think that bad people don't often say correct things?  Of course they do – but watch him, watch him and be careful of such people!  People who are anti-Black will always be anti-Jewish too.  One doesn't have to love Farrakhan or Jesse Jackson to realize that he should be careful of racism of all kinds – White and Black – be careful, because we get stuck in the middle.  Because the Whites and Blacks hate us both.   The Pre-War Depression: Not a Criteria                         We have a serious problem – the economic crisis cannot be averted. There is no way.  This country is in for terrible, terrible times.  People tell me in the depression it was also bad.  It's true.  But first of all, who knows what would have happened in this country if World War II had not ended the depression?  If you think that Roosevelt ended it, you don't know history.  World War II ended it.  It gave jobs finally, but more to the point, it was a different era back then.  The American people at that time were a much stronger people in character.  Today, after 40-50 years of good life and soft life, and the materialistic life, people are into themselves.  Unbelievable ego. Everything is me, me – my life, my body, my-me, my-mine.  People are incapable today of making sacrifices and that's the great, great difference between today and what happened in the depression.  The person who is fairly poor and gets poorer – not so terrible. The person who has it and lost it becomes a wild animal, a raging animal. He'll not accept it and will look for a scapegoat.  He'll look for some target to blame.  We Jews are the most visible, the most highly visible in terms of power, in terms of money.  Of course, Wasps have more money than Jews have.  Certainly, Jews are not into U.S. Steel and banking and so on, and the real, real money is not Jewish money, but that doesn't matter because Jews are in those professions that are most visible.   How to Gauge anti-Semitism: Go to a Bar                         So in the bars, it sits the jealousy and the envy of the Jews which leads to hate.  The tragedy as I've said a million times is that the average Jewish leader in this country has no idea what people say ago about Jews in bars, because the average Jew doesn't go into a bar – and he should; he should be compelled to go into a bar.  Every rabbi before getting "smicha", before being ordained, should be compelled to go into a bar and find out what the real world is like. It isn't a joke.  I'm serious.  To hide in some little ghetto, you never know what the world is.  They hate us with a passion out there, with a virulence which is frightening to see and to hear.  On every radio program I go on, I hear, "why should we give you guys three billion dollars a year"?  Anytime some fellow from the Israeli consulate is asked that question, he comes up with the answer, "well, we help you too, etc."  Baloney!  The only way to get rid of that question is to answer as I do, "I don't want the money!  I want Israel to be a free enterprise state and allow private enterprise to flourish and then we don't want your money, I don't want your charity."  So, that of course gets rid of the question, but it doesn't get rid of the anti-Semite.  He'll go home mutter in his beer and pretzels. He's still there.  He's still there.   Role of the Prophet – To See It and say It                         The rabbis tell us that G-d told Moses and Aaron.  "I'll make you Jewish leaders on one condition that if they throw stones at you, you'll accept it."  Rather to be pelted with stones and not with dollars.  That's what a Jewish leader has to be!  Say the bitter truth, even though they won't like you.  They won't like you; they'll attack you, but tell the Jews the truth if you love them.  If you love Jews, tell them the things which will make them angry, but which can save their lives.  That's what you have to do!  Think carefully about what I'm saying, and that is why we created this group called ZEERO, Zionist Emergency Evacuation Rescue Organization.  It's a name that provokes.  And we hope that as we spread this idea it will provoke Jewish leaders to attack so we can debate the controversy that arises.  People will say he's right; he's wrong, and so on.  Of course, this is probably the worst thing you can ever tell any Jewish leader, any Federation leader – that he should leave here, and go to Israel.  What'ill do there? .                         The rabbis say: "Who is wise?  He who sees the future".  It's no big deal to see "today."  A Jewish leader has to see tomorrow.   Living in Israel – Difficult; Living Elsewhere – Impossible                         It is coming here!  It is coming here!  Friday night I spoke in Brooklyn in shul, and I had to walk through Bensonhurst, a white neighborhood – nice people, because they're white…Watching the people, the kids, you can smell the violence, you can see the hate, you can see the envy – frustrated, bored, looking for action.  You can see it.  Those are the potential mobs.  And G-d forbid, we will see it.  So ZEERO is a very serious project of Kach, and I mean a serious one.  And I know how hard it is to go to Israel – it is really hard.  Hard to make a living.  My son goes into the army every single year.  It's dangerous and so on.  All of it is true.  Everything that's all true.  That's all true.  It's hard to live in Israel, but it will be impossible to live here, and if we go to Israel, at least there we can change the country.  Of course we can change it and make it better and make it tremendous and make it safe.  Of curse we can do that if we have the power in the government, but here there is nothing you can do to change it, it's out of our hands.  We are a minority and we are strangers here.  We're stranger in this land, no matter how many years we've been here.                           It's not an accident that so few German Jews survived the camps.  The Polish Jew did better.  Why?  Because the Polish Jew wasn't surprised.  It didn't shock him that gentiles could behave like this.  It didn't surprise him, so he wasn't shattered inside, he wasn't' broken.  But the German Jew was psychologically shattered.  How could this be?  I'm a German. I'm a German.  How could it be?  How can you do this to me?  The Pole knew he was a Jew.  The German was broken because his whole illusion was shattered.  And that's how the American Jew lives.  "I'm an American".  It's the gentile who will teach you so quickly that you're a Jew.                           It's no just in the bars, in the working class bars the anti-Semitism that you see.  When you see the news media and their attitude towards Israel; it's not anti-Israel – it's anti-Semitism.  Do you know why they hate Jews?  Because among intellectuals there is a jealousy of Jews.  When Truman Capote, the famous author, a sickness, a disease who represents all that is sick about Western culture – when he spoke about the publishing business being a Jewish mafia – you can see the jealousy.  [He writes] how Jews are over represented in publishing, in broadcast, in movies, etc.  Of course it's so – they have talent.  Untalented people don't like to think it is because of talent.  They like to think they run it because their friends, their uncles, their aunts and so on and so forth.  The hate runs across the board.  You can see Peter Jennings' anti-Semitism.  You can see it!  And when I hold press conferences in Israel and I see them sitting around, you can watch them all – the hatred. The Beatles - Revolution 27,540,256 views Get inspired by the stunning Northern Israel See you tomorrow Love Yehuda Lave Rabbi Yehuda Lave Your mailing address Contact Phone Website LIKE TWEET FORWARD You received this email because you signed up on our website or made purchase from us. Unsubscribe

Since life is a roller coaster, might as well try this one-Have a meaningful Yom Kippur

Can't see images? Click here... Yehuda Lave, Spiritual Advisor and Counselor Being Alive Be aware of the tremendous value of being alive. When you realize the great treasure that lies in every second of life, you will experience the great joy that is inherent in each moment. This awareness will motivate you to utilize each moment to its fulles.  Speaking of being Alive, see the video below of the famous BeeGees and the tragedies they had and of course their most famous song, Being Alive. Love Yehuda Lave Who wants to try this? Hundreds of Greek Orthodox Protest 'Judaization' of Western JerusalemBy David Israel What a joke they just want jump aboard the Arab Band wagon Hundreds of Greek Orthodox Protest 'Judaization' of Western JerusalemBy David Israel - 19 Elul 5777 –  Photo Credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90Bird's eye's view of the Knesset (foreground), Wolfson Towers, and the neighborhoods of Rehavia, Shaarei Chesed and downtown Jerusalem. Some 300 Greek Orthodox Christians demonstrated Saturday in the Old City of Jerusalem against the Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilus III, over his decision to sell a large part of the land and property owned by the Greek Orthodox Church in Israel, Ha'aretz reported. But unlike the common land sales that make headlines in the Israeli media, the sales in question are not of lands in Judea and Samaria or in eastern Jerusalem, where Arabs regularly note that Israel is attempting to "Jewify" what must remain ethnically pure Arab neighborhoods, in the case of the Greek Orthodox faithful the sales they protest were of land in Jerusalem's central, affluent neighborhoods of Nayot, Talbieh and Rehavia, in territory that has been under Israeli rule since the war of 1948. The church leased the land in western Jerusalem to JNF, but as those leases, pertaining to an estimated 1,000 housing units in these neighborhoods, will expire in the next one or two decades, depending on the location, few years, Patriarch Irenaios of Jerusalem and his successor, Patriarch Theophilos III, consented to selling the entire territory to an undisclosed group of private Jewish developers. Irenaios ruled over the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem from 2000 to 2005, when he was ousted for allegations of corruption. Theophilos III is now the subject of angry protest by his flock. The Greek church is run by exclusively Greek clergy who minister to an exclusively Arab congregation, hence the tension in the community over decisions made by its leaders. The Arab rank and file members have watched helplessly as their masters have been selling large swaths of land to the Jews not only in western Jerusalem, but in other parts of "green-line" Israel, such as Jaffa, Caesarea, Ramleh and T'veria. It is disturbing that the Arab protesters, many of whom are Israeli citizens, call the sale of church land to Jews in "green line" Israel an attempt to "Jewify" this territory, seeing as It has been part of Israel recognized by the entire world, including the Palestinian Authority as Jewish. The Saturday protestors also condemned the Patriarchate's sale of two large hotels near the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem to companies affiliated with Ateret Cohanim, a group that does redeem parts of post-1967 Israel, returning them to Jewish ownership. The sale of the two hotels and two additional buildings nearby was made during the reign of Patriarch Irineos, which was the reason for an appeal by Theophilus on the grounds that his predecessor was corrupt. The Jerusalem District Court rejected the suit. Two weeks ago, at a press conference in Jordan, Theoopoulos attacked the court's decision and called on the world to intervene to "protect church assets." Of course, the church should have thought about it before deciding to appoint corrupt patriarchs. Barry Gibb goes it alone, Being Alive Welcome to 1984: Big Brother Google now watching your every political move We aren't talking about your average car company here Google has taken the unprecedented step of burying material, mostly from websites on the political right, that it has deemed to be inappropriate. The problem, however, is that the world's largest search engine is a left-leaning company with an ax to grind. Let's face it, deep down in our heart of hearts we knew the honeymoon wouldn't last forever. Our willingness to place eternal faith in an earth-straddling company that oversees the largest collection of information ever assembled was doomed to end in a bitter divorce from the start. After all, each corporation, just like humans, has their own political proclivities, and Google is certainly no exception. But we aren't talking about your average car company here. The first sign Google would eventually become more of a political liability than a public utility was revealed in 2005 when CEO Eric Schmidt (who is now executive chairman of Alphabet, Inc, Google's parent company) sat down with interviewer Charlie Rose, who asked Schmidt to explain "where the future of search is going." Schmidt's response should have triggered alarm bells across the free world.   "Well, when you use Google, do you get more than one answer," Schmidt asked rhetorically, before answering deceptively. "Of course you do. Well, that's a bug. We have more bugs per second in the world. We should be able to give you the right answer just once… and we should never be wrong." Really? Think about that for a moment. Schmidt believes, counter-intuitively, that getting multiple possible choices for any one Google query is not the desirable prospect it should be (aren't consumers always in search of more variety?), but rather a "bug" that should be duly squashed underfoot. Silly mortal, you should not expect more than one answer for every question because the almighty Google, our modern-day Oz, "should never be wrong!" This is the epitome of corporate hubris. And it doesn't require much imagination to see that such a master plan will only lead to a colossal whitewashing of the historic record.   For example, if a Google user performs a search request for – oh, I don't know – 'what caused the Iraq War 2003,' he or she would be given, according to Schmidt's algorithmic wet dream, exactly one canned answer. Any guesses on what that answer would be? I think it's safe to say the only acceptable answer would be the state-sanctioned conspiracy theory that Saddam Hussein was harboring weapons of mass destruction, an oft-repeated claim we now know to be patently false. The list of other such complicated events that also demand more than one answer – from the Kennedy assassination to the Gulf of Tonkin incident – could be continued for many pages. Schmidt's grandiose vision, where there is just "one answer to every question," sounds like a chapter borrowed from Orwell's dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, where omnipresent Big Brother had an ironclad grip on history, news, information, everything. In such a intensely controlled, nightmarish world, individuals – as well as entire historical events – can be 'disappeared' down the memory hole without a trace. Though we've not quite reached that bad land yet, we're plodding along in that direction. That much became disturbingly clear ever since Donald Trump routed Hillary Clinton for the presidency. This surprise event became the bugle call for Google to wage war on 'fake news' outlets, predominantly on the political right. 'Like being gay in the 1950s' Just before Americans headed to the polls in last year's presidential election, WikiLeaks delivered a well-timed steaming dump, revealing that Eric Schmidt had been working with the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as early as April 2014. This news came courtesy of a leaked email from John Podesta, former chairman of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, who wrote: "I met with Eric Schmidt tonight. As David reported, he's ready to fund, advise recruit talent, etc. He was more deferential on structure than I expected. Wasn't pushing to run through one of his existing firms. Clearly wants to be head outside advisor, but didn't seem like he wanted to push others out. Clearly wants to get going…" via GIPHY The implications of the CEO of the world's most powerful company playing favorites in a presidential race are obvious, and make the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s resemble a rigged game of bingo at the local senior citizens center by comparison. Yet the dumbed-down world of American politics, which only seems to get excited when Republicans goof up, continued to turn on its wobbly axis as if nothing untold had occurred. Before continuing our trip down memory lane, let's fast forward a moment for a reality check. Google's romance with the US political left is not a matter of conjecture. In fact, it has just become the subject of a released internal memo penned by one James Damore, a former Google engineer. In the 10-point memo, Damore discussed at length the extreme liberal atmosphere that pervades Google, saying that being a conservative in the Silicon Valley sweat shop was like "being gay in the 1950s." "We have… this monolithic culture where anyone with a dissenting view can't even express themselves. Really, it's like being gay in the 1950s. These conservatives have to stay in the closet and have to mask who they really are. And that's a huge problem because there's open discrimination against anyone who comes out of the closet as a conservative." Beyond the quirky, laid back image of a Google campus, where 'Googlers' enjoy free food and foot massages, lies a "monolithic culture where anyone with a dissenting view can't even express themselves,"says Damore, who was very cynically fired from Google for daring to express a personal opinion. That is strange. Although Google loudly trumpets its multicultural diversity in terms of its hiring policy, it clearly has a problem dealing with a diversity of opinion. That attitude does not seem to bode well for a search engine company that must remain impartial on all matters – political or otherwise. Back to the 2016 campaign. Even CNN at the time was admitting that Google was Donald Trump's "biggest enemy." Indeed, not only was Schmidt apparently moonlighting for the DNC, his leftist company was actively shutting down information on the Republican front runner. At one point when Google users typed in a query for 'presidential candidates,' they got thousands of results for Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Missing in action from the search results, however, was, yes, Donald Trump. When NBC4 reached out to Google about the issue, a spokesperson said a "technical bug" was what caused Trump to disappear into the internet ether. Now, where have we heard the word "bug" before? It is worth wondering if this is what Eric Schmidt had in mind when he expressed his vision of a "one answer" Google search future? In any case, this brings to the surface another disturbing question that is directly linked to the 'fake news' accusations, which in turn is fueling Google's crackdown on the free flow of news from the political right today. In the run up to the 2016 presidential election, poll after poll predicted a Clinton landslide victory. Of course, nothing of the sort materialized, as even traditional Democratic strongholds, like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan pulled the lever for Trump. As the Economist reported: "On the eve of America's presidential election, national surveys gave Hillary Clinton a lead of around four percentage points, which betting markets and statistical models translated into a probability of victory ranging from 70 percent to 99 percent." The fact that Trump – in direct contradiction to what the polls had been long predicting – ended up winning by such a huge margin, there is a temptation to say the polls themselves were 'fake news,' designed to convince the US voter that a Clinton landslide victory was forthcoming. This could have been a ploy by the pollsters, many of whom are affiliated with left-leaning news corporations, by the way, for keeping opposition voters at home in the belief their vote wouldn't matter. In fact, statisticians were warning of a "systemic mainstream misinformation" in poll data favoring Clinton in the days and weeks before Election day. Yet the Leftist brigade, in cahoots with the Googlers, were busy nurturing their own fervent conspiracy theory that 'fake news' – with some help from the Russians, of course – was the reason for Hillary Clinton's devastating defeat. Who will guard us against the Google guardians? Just one month after Donald Trump became the 45th President of the United States, purportedly on the back of 'fake news,' Google quietly launched Project Owl, the goal of which was to devise a method to "demote misleading, false and offensive articles online," according to a Bloomberg report. The majority of the crackdown will be carried out by machines. Now here is where we enter the rat's nest. After all, what one news organization, or alternative news site, might consider legitimate news and information, another news group, possibly from the mainstream media, would dismiss as a conspiracy theory. And vice versa. In other words, what we have here is a battle for the misty mountain top of information, and Google appears to be paving the way for its preferred candidate, which is naturally the mainstream media. In other words, Google has a dog in this fight, but it shouldn't. Here is how they have succeeded in pushing for their crackdown on news and information.   The mainstream media almost immediately began peddling the fake news story as to why Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump. In fact, it even started before Clinton lost the election after Trump jokingly told a rally: "I will tell you this, Russia: If you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing… I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press." The Democrats, of course, found no humor in the remark. Indeed, they began pushing the fake news story, with help from the likes of Amazon-owned Washington Post, that it was Russians who hacked the DNC email system and passed along the information to WikiLeaks, who then dumped it at the most inopportune time for the Democrats. With this masterly sleight of hand, did you notice what happened? We are no longer talking about the whereabouts of Clinton's estimated 33,000 deleted emails, nor are we discussing how the DNC worked behind the scenes to derail Bernie Sanders' chances at being a presidential candidate. Far worse, we are not considering the tragic fate of a young man named Seth Rich, the now-deceased DNC staffer who was gunned down in Washington, DC on July 10, 2016. Some news sites say Rich was preparing to testify against the DNC for "voter fraud," while others say that was contrived nonsense. According to the mainstream media, in this case, Newsweek, only batshit crazy far-right conspiracy sites could ever believe Seth Rich leaked the Clinton emails. "In the months since his murder, Rich has become an obsession of the far right, an unwilling martyr to a discredited cause," Newsweek commented. "On social media sites like Reddit and news outlets like World Net Daily, it is all but an article of faith that Rich, who worked for the Democratic National Committee, was the source who gave DNC emails to WikiLeaks, for which he was slain, presumably, by Clinton operatives. If that were to be true—and it very clearly isn't—the faithful believe it would invalidate any accusations that Donald J. Trump's campaign colluded with Russia in tilting the election toward him." Blame Russia The reality is, we'll probably never know what happened to Mr. Rich, but what we do know is that Russia has become the convenient fall guy for Clinton's emails getting hacked and dumped in the public arena. We also know Google is taking advantage of this conspiracy theory (to this day not a thread of proof has been offered to prove Russia had anything to do with the release of the emails) to severely hinder the work of news sites – most of which sit on the right of the political spectrum. Last November, just two weeks after Trump's victory, Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, addressed the question of 'fake news' in a BBC interview, and whether it could have swayed the vote in Trump's favor. "You know, I think fake news as a whole could be an issue [in elections]. From our perspective, there should just be no situation where fake news gets distributed, so we are all for doing better here. So, I don't think we should debate it as much as work hard to make sure we drive news to its more trusted sources, have more fact checking and make our algorithms work better, absolutely," he said. Did you catch that? Following the tiresome rigmarole, the Google CEO said he doesn't think "we should debate it as much as we work hard to make sure we drive news to its more trusted sources…" That is a truly incredible comment, buried at the sea floor of the BBC article. How can the head of the largest search engine believe a democracy needn't debate how Google determines what information, and by whom, is allowed into the public realm, thus literally shaping our entire worldview? To ask the question is to answer it… "Just in the last two days we announced we will remove advertising from anything we identify as fake news," Pichai said. And how will Google decide who the Internet baddies are? It will rely on "more than 15 additional expert NGOs and institutions through our Trusted Flagger program, including the Anti-Defamation League, the No Hate Speech Movement, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue," to determine what should be flagged and what should not. Feeling better yet? This brings to mind the quaint Latin phrase, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guards themselves? especially since these groups also have their own heavy political axes to grind. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Pichai and his increasingly Orwellian company already stand accused of censorship, following the outrageous decision to bar former Congressman Ron Paul and his online news program, Liberty Report, from receiving advertising revenue for a number of videos which Paul recently posted.   Dr. Ron Paul would never be confused as a dangerous, far-right loony. Paul is a 12-term ex-congressman and three-time presidential candidate. However, he is popular among his supporters for views that often contradict those of Washington's political establishment, especially on issues of war and peace. Now if squeaky clean Ron Paul can't get a fair hearing before the Google/YouTube tribunal, what are chances for average commentators? "We have no violence, no foul language, no political extremism, no hate or intolerance," Daniel McAdams, co-producer of the Ron Paul Liberty Report, told RT America. "Our program is simply a news analysis discussion from a libertarian and antiwar perspective." McAdams added that the YouTube demonetization "creates enormous financial burdens for the program." Many other commentators have also been affected by the advert ban, including left-wing online blogger Tim Black and right-wing commentator Paul Joseph Watson. Their videos have registered millions of views. "Demonetization is a deliberate effort to stamp out independent political commentary – from the left or the right," Black toldthe Boston Globe's Hiawatha Bray. "It's not about specific videos… It's about pushing out the diversity of thought and uplifting major news networks such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC." In light of this inquisition against free speech and free thought, it is no surprise that more voices are calling for Google, and other massive online media, like Facebook and Amazon, to become nationalized for the public good. "If we don't take over today's platform monopolies, we risk letting them own and control the basic infrastructure of 21st-century society,"  wrote Nick Srnicek, a lecturer in the digital economy at King's College London. It's time for Google to take a stroll beyond its isolated Silicon Valley campus and realize there is a whole world of varying political opinion out there that demands a voice. Otherwise, it may find itself on the wrong side of history and time, a notoriously uninviting place known as 1984. The Beatles - Hey Jude 75,042,657 views See you Tomorrow have a meaningful Fast and Yom Kippur Love Yehuda Lave Rabbi Yehuda Lave Your mailing address Contact Phone Website LIKE TWEET FORWARD You received this email because you signed up on our website or made purchase from us. Unsubscribe