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Bringing the Israeli Home from Syria February 23, 2021 Rabbi Elie Weinstock

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Bringing the Israeli Home from Syria February 23, 2021 Rabbi Elie Weinstock Bringing the Israeli Home from Syria February 23, 2021 Rabbi Elie Weinstock Israel announces Russian-brokered prisoner swap with Syria Little is known about why the woman entered Syria. Israeli media have said she is a former resident of an ultra-Orthodox West Bank settlement, but she has not been publicly identified. Syrian media said she accidentally entered Syrian territory after crossing from the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Official Syrian media first reported the emerging deal on Wednesday, saying that two Syrians were to be exchanged for the Israeli woman. The two Syrians were identified as Nihal al-Makt, who had been under house arrest in her village in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, and Ziyab Qahmouz, detained in 2016 and serving 14 years in Israeli jails. But the deal ran into complications after al-Makt and Qahmouz, who are both from the Golan, refused to be transferred to Syria…Syria’s SANA said late Thursday that two more Syrians — apparently the two shepherds — returned home to their villages in Quneitra province. AP News 2/28/21 Russia brokers unusual prisoner exchange between Israel and Syria But then there was a snag. One of the prisoners said he would rather remain in an Israeli prison for the 14 years left in his term than be deported to Syria, the Israeli officials say. However, Israeli soldiers had already been sent to the buffer zone between Israel and Syria in search of bargaining chips. They had waited for two shepherds to cross into an Israeli enclave and captured them. Barak Ravid, Axios 2/18/21 Israel Dodges Questions Over Vaccine-for-Prisoner Swap With Syria Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sidestepped questions over whether his country agreed to pay Russia to provide coronavirus vaccines to Syria as a part of a prisoner swap between the two Middle Eastern countries…“I want to say that not even one Israeli vaccine went for this thing,” said Mr. Netanyahu. “We brought back the woman. I’m happy we did this. I thank President Putin that we did this. And more than this I won’t add because that was the Russian request…” Reports of the deal to provide vaccines to Syria intensified the criticism of Israel’s dealings with neighboring Palestinian territories over vaccines. Last week, Israel blocked and later released a shipment of 2,000 Russian-made vaccines on its way to Gaza. “Must we wait for a Jewish man/woman to cross the border into Gaza in order to merit vaccination?” tweeted Arab-Israeli lawmaker Ahmad Tibi on Friday. “Can we do this differently?” Israel controls the borders, airspace, population registry and other key aspects of life in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Israel has argued the Palestinian health ministries are responsible for vaccinating its citizens under the terms of previous bilateral agreements. Wall Street Journal 2/21/21 1) Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 157:2 It is forbidden for a man to claim that he is an idolater so that they will not kill him; if, however, so that they will not know he is a Jew, he changes his clothes during a time of legislation, this is permitted, since he does not say that he is an idolater. Rama: Even though it is forbidden to say that he is an idolater, nonetheless he may say things that can be interpreted multiple ways (Nimukei Yosef Bava Kama Perek haGozel) and the idolaters will understand that he has said that he is an idolater while he means something else. Likewise, if he can trick them so that they will think he is an idolater, this is permitted (Trumas HaDeshen Siman 197). 2) Teshuvot Ha-Rambam, #448 These Ishmaelites [i.e., Muslims] are not idolaters at all. [Idolatry] has been eradicated from their mouths and hearts. They unify God without question… Likewise all contemporary Muslims, including women and children, have eradicated idolatrous beliefs; their errors and foolishness are manifest in other matters… In respect of the unity of God, they are in no error at all. 3) Nazir 23b A transgression performed with good intention is greater than a mitzvah which is performed for an ulterior motive, as it is written (Shoftim 5:24), “Blessed above women shall Yael be, the wife of Chever the Kenite; above women in the tent shall she be blessed.” Who are the “women in the tent?” Sarah, Rivka, Rachel and Leah. Yael’s forbidden intercourse with Sisera for the sake of Heaven is compared to the sexual intercourse in which the Matriarchs engaged. The Gemara asks: How is it derived that Yael engaged in sexual intercourse with Sisera? As Rabbi Yoḥanan said: That wicked one, Sisera, engaged in seven acts of sexual intercourse with Yael at that time, as it is stated: “Between her feet he sunk, he fell, he lay; between her feet he sunk, he fell; where he sunk, there he fell down dead” (Judges 5:27). Each mention of falling is referring to another act of intercourse. 4) Beir HaBechirah (Meiri), Sanhedrin 74b אם תשיבני יעל שנשמעה לסיסרא אף ברצונה כמו שאמרו שבע בעילות בעל אותו רשע שנאמר בין רגליה כרע וכו' הצלת רבים שאני 5) Akiva Novick, “For the Love of God (and Country),” YNet 4/10/10 A new halachic study ruled that seducing an enemy agent for the sake of national security is an important mitzvah, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Monday. The ruling, made by Rabbi Ari Shvat, was included in the latest issue of "Tehumin," an annual collection of articles about Jewish law and modernity, which is published by the Zomet Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to seamlessly merging Halachic Judaism with modern Israeli life. Rabbi Shvat explores the issue of women used to seduce enemy agents in order to cajole information out of them or see them captured… "Naturally, an unmarried operative should be preferred in 'honey trap' cases, but if there is no other choice but to use a married women… her husband should divorce her and marry her again after the fact," the rabbi writes. Unfortunately, Shvat also rules that if a husband was unable to divorce his wife prior to her mission, he would have to do it afterwards, since according to the Halacha she would have committed adultery – even if it was for the sake of a national cause. Unfortunately, Shvat also rules that if a husband was unable to divorce his wife prior to her mission, he would have to do it afterwards, since according to the Halacha she would have committed adultery – even if it was for the sake of a national cause. Women interested in becoming "Valentine operatives," must realize they will not be able to marry a Cohen Jewish priest), the rabbi noted, adding that the matter would probably not deter such women, since "these missions may naturally be tasked to women who are already promiscuous." Rabbi Shvat concludes his article by saying that not only should such actions be sanctioned, "Our Sages of Blessed Memory elevate such acts of dedication to the top of the Halacha's mitzvah pyramid." Rabbi Yisrael Rosen, head of the Zomet Institute and editor in chief of "Tehumin," called the study "daring and important." 6) Times of Israel 8/30/17 A top minister is calling for Israel to reprise policies that included kidnapping troops from enemy countries in order to gain the release of people and soldiers’ remains being held captive in Gaza. Without directly calling for Israel to begin kidnapping members of Hamas, Education Minister Naftali Bennett says Israel needs to go on the offensive to get assets that the terror group will want back. “We need to go on an operational offensive to hurt Hamas and create assets,” the head of the hawkish Jewish Home party says in an interview with Walla news. “We knew how to do it in the ’50s and kidnap Jordanians, in the ’70s the Sayeret Matkal unit kidnapped Syrian officers in Lebanon. We need to return to the spirit of those initiatives and aggressiveness.” 7) Alan Dershowitz, “US citizen held hostage by Israeli rabbinical court” Jerusalem Post 11/1/18 An elderly, sick US citizen has been held hostage for three years by a rabbinical court in Israel. He is being threatened with imprisonment if he tries to leave Israel and return to his home in the US, where he needs medical treatment from his long-term doctors. Not only is this elderly man a US citizen, he has absolutely no connection to Israel: He is neither a citizen nor a resident of Israel. His crime? Having a son, from whom he is estranged and who lives in the US, who has refused to give a religious divorce (get) to his ex-wife who lives in Israel. Although the evidence proves that the hostage-father, who is religious, has absolutely no influence over his irreligious son, the rabbinical court, which is not really a court of law by any acceptable standards of justice, is holding the father as a bargaining chip to compel his American son to grant the get. The father is also being sanctioned with an astronomical sum of 5,000 shekels per day until his son gives a divorce… There can be little doubt that the Israeli rabbinical court is holding this American citizen as a hostage in violation of both Israeli law, Jewish law and basic humanitarian principles applicable to all nations. The Israeli Supreme Court has held that hostage-taking is unlawful even when national security interests are at stake. In the well-known case involving Lebanese hostages held as bargaining chips by Israeli authorities, former president Aaron Barak of the Israel Supreme Court ruled that there is absolutely no basis in Israeli law for holding hostages in order to influence the conduct of others.
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