1.
More than all the previous weekend's newspapers, the piece that made the greatest impression on me about the Rosh Yeshiva, the late Rabbi Aryeh Finkel, was hidden this week in the margins of Eliezer Shulman's military column on the family.
""Last Thursday, late in the morning, A., a senior Shin Bet official, called. 'Tell me, has Rabbi Finkel of Kiryat Sefer passed away?' he asked. I replied that indeed, yes.
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To be honest, I was surprised. A., one of the heads of departments in the Shin Bet, is a person who is not close to the rabbis.
'Did you know Rabbi Finkel?' I asked.
''Of course,' he replied.
Silence fell on the phone line. A., a man whose silence was an art, didn't say another word.
Before he hung up, I turned to him and said, 'Well, tell me where you met?''
'"In 2011, the then head of the Shin Bet, Yuval Diskin, gave a tour of Kiryat Sefer together with all 36 Shin Bet division directors. The tour was at the invitation of Mayor Yaakov Guterman. Among other things, we visited the Mir Yeshiva, and during our tour he took us to visit the home of Rabbi Aryeh Finkel," said my interlocutor, apologizing that he had to hang up.
I heard the rest of the details from Yaakov Guterman, the mayor of Modi'in Illit. 'Indeed, at my request, a tour of 36 Shin Bet department heads was conducted in the city and in Yeshiva Mir. The Shin Bet head at the time, Yuval Sidkin, and the Shin Bet department heads came to see who the Haredi public was. Everything was done in great secrecy. I will never forget how Yuval Diskin, the tough man, was excited when he entered the Yeshiva hall. A fire came out of the Beit Midrash, the first time they had seen the 'Ritcha of the Torah.'.
"Then the entourage entered the yeshiva's head... He respected each one and asked me who they were. I told him it was impossible to say what their role was. Then he understood and talked to them about the degree of silence.".
stunning.
2.
Pay attention to the description of the political correspondent of that newspaper, "Mishpacha," about what is happening in the Prime Minister's Office.
'"'This is how it works with us,' one of the people who hang around the Prime Minister's Office recently confessed to me. 'When I want to lead a certain move, I say the opposite. Then I'm calm: my colleagues will make sure to do what I really wanted.' Ask the outgoing chief of staff, David Sharan, who almost got appointed as government secretary and at the last minute there were kind souls who made sure to push his feet out of the office.".
Interesting.
3.
I found the most fascinating article in Beted Ne'eman.
After the disappearance of field reporter Shmuel Greenwald (who rarely appears and then disappears again), this is definitely a refreshing article.
""I'm already an adult," his father told him, and decided to open all his cards to him, telling him that he and his mother were not his real parents.
""I was shocked, it was an earthquake for me," he tells R. Cole.
""It is commonly mistakenly believed that only Yemeni children were kidnapped by the authorities in those days. But in reality, many more were kidnapped - including from other Eastern communities.".
Rabbi Zvi Amiri is one of the children who were kidnapped, and he is the son of a Sephardic family that came to Israel from Tunisia.
""At the age of three months, I was transferred to Kibbutz Amir in the Upper Galilee, to Elchanan and Chiza Kempinski-Amiri," he says. He grew up with his adoptive parents, "one of the founders of the kibbutz and its pillars.".
When he was born, he was premature. His mother came to visit him repeatedly, and on one of those visits she couldn't find him. "Where my bed was, another baby was lying.".
""What, didn't they tell you? He passed away," was the explanation given to them.
At the age of 13, he went to the Naval Officers School in Acre, a military boarding school. Thus began his moving story, which eventually led to his return to his real mother. "My mother hasn't recovered since I was kidnapped. She's never recovered...My father died at the age of 36 and I never got to see him.
""Write about this," he asked the reporter (or reporter. Who knows what the name behind the letter R is).
4.
The laughter of fate.
Have you heard that MK Moishe Gafni's media advisor, Yarach Toker, is part of Donald Trump's campaign team in Israel?
I heard about it too (the man denies any ambiguity). That's why I was surprised to read in Beit Ne'eman, in reporter Aryeh Zisman's column "Mekor Ne'eman," a criticism of the candidate of color.
""It is a mistake to think that Trump is right-wing... Trump is not running as a right-winger and Clinton is not running as a left-winger. Those who testify to this most of all are members of Congress and loyalists of right-wing ideology in the US, for whom Trump has become a target. They do not think that he is right-wing and do not pin their hopes on him as someone who will act and act in the way preferred by the right.".
""According to those commentators, the struggle... is a struggle between openness and closure... between the view that the US should further assist its friends in the world and those who think that the friends can manage on their own... The one who is likely to suffer from this is Israel, which needs the Americans on its side and needs the intervention of the United States.".
Every extra word, the cliché goes, is unnecessary.
5.
Since commentator Yaakov Rivlin chose to write his column in the community loaded with hints, we will also maintain ambiguity and present the things as they are, including the hints. The wise among our readers will understand as well.
Even so, Rivlin needed a lot of courage to write what he wrote - and they aspired to it.
Rivlin recounts what Litzman told the Galatians: "There is a group of scammers who took two million shekels for three months to smear me and the Minister of Finance," was the shot.
""Litzman knew very well who the scammers were who made a two million dollar pot on him. Of course, he did not reveal their names. It is not state-related and there is no way to get a defamation lawsuit. There were those who partially filled in the gap when they confirmed to those who asked that it was a 'group of lobbyists, publicists, and religious and ultra-Orthodox media figures who worked together to threaten and influence him to back down from the idea of imposing the Shaban tax,'" Rivlin writes.
Rivlin said that Lior Horev, the finance minister's communications officer, went into even more detail and wrote the name of the "ultra-Orthodox publicist," but that the message was deleted after a few hours. "Here is the place to note that between Horev and the ultra-Orthodox publicist there is enough bad blood to fill three large tanks in Abu Kabir.".
If you were wondering who the PR man was, accept the following hint from Rivlin: "Even if he helped in some way with the insurance companies' campaign against the special levy - and that's not certain either - he had no hand in the media campaign against Litzman in the Haredi sector. The central faction has iron discipline and doesn't air dirty laundry, certainly not against Litzman.".
Now it won't be hard for you to guess who this is.
So who did they hire? "A media figure and ultra-Orthodox lobbyist who is far from the central faction, the TNA deployed on the TNA of its mother. He took on the project on a commercial basis, to be sure.".
A media figure who is also an ultra-Orthodox lobbyist. A perfectly sufficient clue.
6.
Speaking of the community.
How cute to find on page 3 of a newspaper an advertisement signed by "Israel Porush," the mayor of Elad, turn the page, and receive almost 4 pages of an interview with... you guessed it, Meir Porush, Deputy Minister of Education. The happy father.
One goat, one goat...
