Tzedek-Tzedek

(I know this is long but I ask you to take just a few minutes to please read this and respond - Dov) Dear Friends,   I wanted to inform you about a recent exciting development in my life and ask for your help  - help for me personally but, even more importantly, for am yisrael.   For the last few years I have had a growing feeling that Israel is headed in a disastrous path. We have been so consumed by our enemies all around us that we have let ourselves decay from within.  The secular are becoming even more secular with almost no Jewish education.  This, of course, hurts who we are spiritually as a nation and as a country.  The more religious aren't training their sons for professions which is creating an economic crisis for the country and also cuts them off from the rest of the country.  Both extremes lead to frictions and tensions between populations and generate lack of unity.  That lack of unity will only increase in the coming years as over 300,000 Russian immigrants who ar

By Rabbi Dov Lipman From 2005-2009 the Bet Shemesh municipality charged more in arnona (city taxes) than they should have on the basis of a one year allowance which the government granted them in 2004. A resident of the city complained in court and the city came to a compromise with this person - half the amount and it will go to shuls. This is our money! We are are talking about between 300 NIS and 500 NIS for each of us. I assume that everyone could have a use for this money which belongs to you. Please write back to me with your name, zehut number, address, and phone number and I will add you to our objection which we are submitting to the judge tomorrow when he will make the compromise final. Please send me the information as early as possible today. If you can, please come to my home at 12/2 Maapilei Egoz apt. 2 to sign. Thank you and I hope to hear back from all of you. Dov

By Rabbi Dov Lipman CARMEL FIRES SHED LIGHT ON LOCAL FIREFIGHTING PROBLEMS Deputy Mayor Shmulik Greenberg (Degel Hatorah) sent a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu this past week, in which he outlined the inadequacies of the Bet Shemesh fire department, in light of the attention being given to the issue nationally.   According to the Jewish National Fund, the forests in the region under the responsibility of the Bet Shemesh Fire Department (the city, Mateh Yehuda, Mevaseret Tzion, Abu Gosh, and Kiryat Yearim) holds 30% of the country's forest land.   And yet, the station has less than 50% of the fire trucks mandated for that much land and an area with a population of around 200,000 residents and most of the trucks are 20-25 years old with no new acquisitions in the last 12 years.   Greenberg asked the Prime Minister to please take the Bet Shemesh region into account in any restructuring, upgrades, and general changes made in the wake of the Carmel tragedy . ---------------------