All roads in the area are closed, and traffic is backed up throughout the center of the city. Road 443 north of Jerusalem between Modi'in and the capital is also backed up, due to police activity. 

Evidence found in the raids will show whether the HNG's work violates Germany's constitution in an "aggressive and combative" manner that could lead to a ban, Deputy Interior Minister Klaus-Dieter Fritsche said. Investigators suspect the HNG is trying to strengthen Germany's scattered far-right groups by forging alliances among the organizations, he said.

The ministry accused HNG members of keeping in contact with imprisoned neo-Nazis to strengthen the members' ideology and "encourage them to commit further crimes."

German authorities are wary of neo-Nazi groups and several of them have been banned over the past years. Denying the Holocaust and displaying Nazi symbols or otherwise glorifying them are crimes in Germany.  Jpost

The bear was seen eating from garbage bins when one resident spotted the wild animal.

Bears are more common at this time of year they will look for food as they prepare to hybernate during the long winter month, It can go for as long as 100 days without eating, drinking. YiddishNayes

He called for a one week moratorium on the controversial debate as the country observes the anniversary of September 11 and as Muslims and Jews celebrate the end of Ramadan and the Jewish New Year.

Meantime, the imam who has become the public face of Park51, the proposed Islamic community center and mosque at Ground Zero and formerly named the Cordoba House, was back in the United States.

The religious leader had been on a 15-day trip to the Middle East to promote religious tolerance in the Gulf. CBS2

Rosenblatt was born in 1882 in a small Ukranian town in a house with a dirt floor. By the 1920s, he was a superstar cantor in the United States, often mentioned in the same breath as opera great Enrico Caruso. Reviewers sometimes described Rosenblatt as a man with two, even three voices: a warm baritone, a ringing tenor and a shimmering falsetto. What's more, he could navigate between them with ease.

People felt that he was authentic, that what he sang was real," says Cantor Bernard Beer, the director of the Belz School of Jewish Music at Yeshiva University in New York. "He was an Orthodox Jew. He meant what he was doing. His prayers came from the heart."

Rosenblatt seemed born to the cantor's life. The stories of him making beautiful musical sounds while still in the cradle are impossible to verify. But by the time he was 8 years old, he was being paid to sing at synagogues throughout Eastern Europe. He emigrated to New York in 1912 and when Rosenblatt sang, the synagogue was jam-packed. Every seat, every aisle, was filled, everyone there to hear the little man with the full dark beard.

"They treated ... these cantors like superstars, they were the superstars of their era," says Joseph Gole, a past president of the international Cantor's Assembly.

You have to think back to what life was like for Jews who emigrated to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he says. "These were people (who) found their culture and their art in the synagogue. … Going to hear a cantor was like maybe other people's experience of going to hear an opera or going to hear a concert."

Worshippers were drawn not only by Rosenblatt's voice, but by his compositions. He wrote most of what he sang. Gole explains that he included a little melody, a little something more concrete to hang onto than the traditional free-form cantorial chanting and "the congregation could .... join in and ... walk out humming."

Rosenblatt 's extensive recording career earned him exposure beyond the Jewish community, and his relentless schedule of concerts took him around the country and across Europe. But he rejected a generous offer to sing for the Chicago Opera Company. He didn't want to play a fictional character, wear make-up or sing on stage with women. "It probably helped his career," says Beer.

"Here's a cantor who feels that opera is not compatible with his calling as a cantor," Beer explains. "Because of that his engagements doubled and tripled. They wanted to hear and see this cantor who turned down in 1918 a thousand dollars a night to sing."

A few years later, Rosenblatt turned down $100,000 to play a part in the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer, for the same reasons that he said no to the opera. Still, Warner Brothers had to have him. So they threw a scene into the movie where Rosenblatt, playing himself, appears in concert.

Until recently, the only way you could hear Rosenblatt's extraordinary voice was on scratchy old recordings. But Mendel Werdyger, who runs a Jewish music store called Mostly Music in Brooklyn, N.Y., recently re-mastered the recordings to remove all the pops and hisses.

"I hope that the people who listen to it now will have the same pleasure of listening to his voice like when he was alive," says Werdyger. There are literally tens of thousands of fans throughout the world that he has now. They never knew him... but they still adore his music."

A Tragic Ending

Having legions of fans during his lifetime, however, was not enough to save Rosenblatt from his own folly. He made a disastrous investment in a Jewish newspaper that left him a ruined man. Then the Depression hit. His synagogue let him go. Concert bookings became scarce. Finally, he traveled to Palestine to sing in a documentary about the Holy Land. There, Rosenblatt died of a heart attack in 1933 at the age of 51. He's buried in Jerusalem.

And he is still revered. His compositions can occasionally be heard on the Jewish High Holidays, but not nearly as often as they used to be. What is more commonly heard is the style he popularized, that emotive sobbing sound associated with cantorial singing.

"It's a dialogue that Rosenblatt was having with God," says Gole. "It was a questioning and it was a struggle ... whatever he was struggling with in his life. And many of the prayers (have) that kind of feeling, a questioning feeling."

Rosenblatt once said that he prayed, not as a cantor, but as just another member of the congregation. "I pray," he said, "and listen to the prayer." 
NPR

Officials at Essex County's Turtle Back Zoo briefly shut it down late Sunday morning after staffers noticed Megan, an Amur leopard, did not appear to be in her enclosure.

She was soon found hiding behind a retaining wall in a zoo service building and officials say she was never out among the general public. But as a precaution, the West Orange zoo was put on lockdown and patrons were moved to safe areas.

The zoo was closed for about 45 minutes while staffers sedated the leopard, which has lived there for about four years. It was later taken to an animal hospital for evaluation.

No injuries were reported in the incident. AP

NYS Senator Eric Adams visited one of the injured patrol members in the hospital; we must do everything we can to protect these brave men who put themselves in harm’s way to protect us from danger. A bullet proof vest cannot guarantee safety, but it may save a life.

“The Boro Park safety patrol is named Shomrim because that word is the Hebrew for guardians; the individuals who comprise the volunteer civilian safety patrols are true stewards of their community, serving as vigilant eyes and ears for the residents and working in conjunction with the NYPD to promote a secure neighborhood environment.

The Shomrim risk their own security in their valiant effort to protect their fellow citizens, and I hold its members in the highest esteem.” the Senator said. NY Buff

According to Fox News, in 1999, Elzanaty donated more than $6,000 to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF).

Two years later, a federal court shut down the HLF and designated it as a terror-supporting entity. In 2008, five former HLF officials were indicted for actively aiding Hamas terrorist activity against Israel. Israel Today

The goals, according to the White House: “Rebuild 150,000 miles of roads — renewing our commitment to the backbone of our transportation system … . Construct and maintain 4,000 miles of rail — enough to go coast-to-coast … . Rehabilitate or reconstruct 150 miles of runway — while putting in place a NextGen system that will reduce travel time and delays.”

The measures include the “establishment of an Infrastructure Bank to leverage federal dollars and focus on investments of national and regional significance that often fall through the cracks in the current siloed transportation programs," and “the integration of high-speed rail on an equal footing into the surface transportation program.”

“To jumpstart job creation, this long-run policy front-loads — through a $50 billion up-front investment — a significant share of the new infrastructure resources,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “As with other long-run policies, the Administration is committed to working with Congress to fully pay for the plan.”

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has been pushing an infrastructure plan in West Wing meetings for weeks. But with the November midterms looming, officials were having trouble finding a way for the effects to be felt immediately.

A White House official said: “Today in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, President Barack Obama will announce a comprehensive infrastructure plan to expand and renew our nation’s roads, railways and runways. This proposal is among a set of targeted initiatives that the president will outline in Cleveland on Wednesday to support our economic recovery and ensure long-term sustainable growth.

“The plan builds upon the infrastructure investments the president has already made through the Recovery Act, includes principles the president put forth during the campaign, and emphasizes American competitiveness and innovation.”

At 3:10 p.m. Eastern time, Obama is to deliver remarks on the economy at Milwaukee Laborfest, in Henry Maier Festival Park.

Here is a White House fact sheet on the plan, “Renewing and Expanding America’s Roads, Railways, and Runways”:

The President today laid out a bold vision for renewing and expanding our transportation infrastructure – in a plan that combines a long-term vision for the future with new investments. A significant portion of the new investments would be front-loaded in the first year.

 A small group of family members and friends of the Bernstein family gathered at Har hemenuchos in Jerusalem for this somber event.

When the family saw the inscription across al the graves they cried uncontrollably,a site that could break any human heart, R' Dovid Tzvi Gottestein who still suffers serious injuries who lost his wife and child in the accident, was also at the hakomas Matzeivah and the first time at their graves.

May We only share Simchos In klal Yisroel. YiddishNayes

"She has more experience working in and with the White House than most living presidents. She is one of the most admired women in our nation's history. Let's make sure the president we should have elected in 2008 will be on the ballot in 2012. Hillary 2012: Hillary Clinton for President. Start now. Where there's a Hill there's a way," says an ad that began running on television in New Orleans Wednesday.

The commercial was paid for by a Chicago dentist named William DeJean.

When asked why he put the ad up, DeJean told CNN Thursday that "I'm a dentist and I don't think this country is headed in the right direction."

Regarding Clinton, DeJean says "I think she is the most qualified."

DeJean adds that he thinks people are having buyer's remorse about President Barack Obama and says the current administration is ruining the Democratic Party. He says he spent $5,000 to create the commercial and tells CNN that besides New Orleans, the ad will run in Washington, New York and Los Angeles, and possible Houston. DeJean says he chose to first run the ad in New Orleans because he's a native of the city and because the city's in the news due to the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

"I didn't expect to see any ads about 2012 before the midterms in 2010, although this will likely not be a big TV buy, Mr. DeJean clearly is motivated to see change," says Evan Tracey, Campaign Media Analysis Group and CNN's consultant on political TV ad spending.

According to data from CMAG, DeJean paid to run ads supporting Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign. Clinton, senator from New York at the time, battled then Sen. Obama of Illinois in a marathon and historic Democratic primary season, nearly becoming the woman to win a major party presidential nomination, before ending her bid and endorsing Obama in June 2008.

Since becoming secretary of state in the Obama administration, Clinton has squashed any talk of her either challenging Obama in 2012 or making another bid for the White House down the road.

In an interview with NBC last October, Clinton said "no" three times to the question "will you ever run for president again?"

At town hall in Saudi Arabia in February, Clinton said "I am very proud to support Barack Obama and I will continue to support Barack Obama." CNN

"Two years after we launched YouTube in Israel, during which Israeli users have become an integral part of the international YouTube community, we are pleased to launch the Hebrew interface today," Google Israel Vice President Riki Drori said in a statement.

"We believe that this will enable the Israeli user to share, search and view video content more easily," Drori said.

Recent surveys say viewers lately have put YouTube's local popularity at third place in the country, ahead of the Ynet Hebrew news site and Walla! portal.

The indictment says the haredim used violent threats against the security guards on the site and called them "Nazis".  Ynet

United Hatzolah were called to the accident scene and evacuated the wounded to the Hadassah Ein Kerem and Shaare Zedek Hospitals In Jerusalem .

According to reports , the min van crashed into a small car and the driver then tried to flee and hit a group of pedestrians injuring dozens. YiddishNayes