Rain fell across Jerusalem, the Judean Desert, and the Golan Heights on Saturday in amounts that have not been recorded at this time of year in over a century, breaking multiple all-time August records and sending flash floods through desert streambeds that had never flooded in August before. The Meteorological Service reported that total July-August precipitation in Jerusalem this year was the highest recorded in approximately 170 years. ...That ordinary dryness is not incidental to Jewish practice. It is built directly into the liturgy: the request for rain is inserted into the daily prayers only at the end of Sukkot in the autumn and continues until Passover in the spring, when the request shifts to dew instead. The practice traces back to the Bible’s own description of rainfall not as a weather pattern but as a direct response to the covenant between the Jewish people and Hashem. “If, then, you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day, loving Hashem your God and serving Him with all your heart and soul, I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late, and you shall gather in your new grain, wine, and oil” (Deuteronomy 11:13-14). This storm fell during Elul, the Hebrew month that immediately precedes Rosh Hashanah and the Yamim Noraim (the Days of Awe), and Chassidic teaching describes this specific month in strikingly intimate terms. Elul is the month, the teaching holds, when “the King goes out to the field to meet with His people, greeting them with kindness and tenderness, displaying a joyous face to all.” Unlike the rest of the year, when approaching a king requires formal audience through the throne room, Elul is described as the one stretch of the calendar when the King leaves the palace entirely and stands out in the open field among His people, approachable by anyone, regardless of standing, simply for having shown up. The appropriate response, in the same teaching, is that we in turn “open our hearts to Hashem.” A record-breaking, out-of-season rain arriving in the month the King comes out to meet His people, days before the world stands in judgment on Rosh Hashanah, is not proof of anything in itself. But in a tradition that has spent thousands of years reading rainfall as a direct message rather than a random event, it is not the kind of week that goes unnoticed either. Jewish worshipers were reportedly allowed to use prayer books at the Temple Mount on Sunday, marking the latest in a series of blows to a status quo arrangement that bans non-Muslim prayer at the flashpoint Jerusalem holy site. While in the past, police would eject or detain Jewish visitors caught praying on the Temple Mount, the policy has largely fallen to the wayside over the past three years under National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has repeatedly demanded that police allow Jews to pray there. On Sunday, Arnon Segal, a right-wing journalist and activist who seeks to expand Jewish religious freedom at the site, posted a picture of men praying on the Temple Mount while reading from siddurim, or books of Jewish liturgy. Under a fragile agreement between Israel and Jordan established after the 1967 Six Day War, only Muslims are permitted to worship on the Temple Mount itself, while Jews pray at the Western Wall, revered as a remnant of the Second Temple. Israel maintains overall security at the site, but the Muslim Waqf administers religious activities there. But that has drastically shifted since Ben Gvir took office. It took Bill Maher about 30 seconds to prove that the Palestinians have never really wanted a two-state solution. The topic came up on Maher’s “Club Random” podcast in the spring with Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania as his guest. A clip from that interview about Gaza was reposted over the weekend and went viral. Maher noted that “freeing” Palestine is the in-vogue cause that celebrities in Hollywood, where he lives, have grabbed ahold of lately. “As if Palestine would be liberated by living under Hamas,” he first quipped. “By the way, [Gaza], geniuses educated on TikTok, was liberated in 2005 by Israel. Israel gave it back and said, ‘Here, you have your land again. You do something with it.’ And this is what they did with it: They made it into a fortress, didn’t spend it on the people,” Maher said. “It could have been Dubai,” he argued, given its prime location on the Mediterranean Sea. Fetterman agreed. He noted that Bill Clinton, while he was president, helped negotiate a deal that would have given the Palestinians nearly all of the West Bank and East Jerusalem as their capital, but Palestinian President Yasser Arafat turned it down. “They did not want a two-state solution. Their one-state solution, as you always point out, is from the river [to the] sea. What’s in there?” the lawmaker asked Maher. The answer, of course, is all of modern-day Israel, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. As a brief history, Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, which included removing over 9,000 Israeli citizens living in settlements in the region to the pre-1967 Six-Day War boundary. Hamas used it as a base of operations for missile strikes against Israel and, ultimately, the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, during which they killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and took 250 people hostage. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2026/08/watch-just-30-seconds-bill-maher-uses-actual/ US envoy Jared Kushner issued a blunt warning to Hamas on Monday, saying the group has a limited opportunity to prove it is serious about surrendering its weapons before Washington gives Israel broader backing to resume military operations and “finish the job” in Gaza. Kushner delivered the warning after an intensive two-day diplomatic push that included a rare face-to-face meeting with Hamas leaders in Cairo followed by nearly four hours of talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel. “If they don’t follow through now on their commitment,” Kushner told Fox News, Hamas would demonstrate that it was not serious about peace, clearing the way for Israel to “finish the job in the appropriate way.” It was only Kushner’s second known meeting with Hamas representatives, following talks last year that helped produce the October 2025 ceasefire and the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. Kushner acknowledged profound doubts over whether Hamas would actually carry out those promises, saying its representatives had said “all the right things” but now needed to demonstrate their intentions through action. After months of relative quiet, the Syrian front came back into focus in Israel in recent days, as Jerusalem confirmed having struck an airport in northern Syria on Tuesday to prevent Turkey’s military from establishing itself there, rejecting criticism from the United States. At the same time, the government in Damascus announced its intention to retain nuclear material left over from the Assad regime, asserting its right to pursue a civilian nuclear power program. The announcement came shortly after new video footage emerged showing Syrian military units chanting antisemitic slogans.
“The King is in the Field”: Israel Broke a 170-Year Rainfall Record on Shabbat:
Jewish prayer books reportedly allowed onto Temple Mount for first time:
Watch: In Just 30 Seconds Bill Maher Uses Actual History to Defeat One of Palestinians’ Dirtiest Gaza Lies:
Kushner warns Hamas: US will allow Israel to ‘finish the job’ if disarmament fails:
Israel confirms striking Syrian airport to prevent Turkish entrenchment; Damascus claims right to keep nuclear material:
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