A bold challenge has been issued to New York City’s incoming mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Republican Councilwoman Inna Vernikov of Brooklyn has formally invited Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to visit the city on January 1 — the very day Mamdani is sworn into office — directly testing his campaign pledge to have the Israeli leader arrested.
Vernikov, who represents the 48th District in southern Brooklyn, home to one of the city’s largest Jewish populations, shared her invitation letter Tuesday on X. The move appeared designed to spotlight Mamdani’s controversial vow regarding Netanyahu, a statement that drew condemnation throughout the Jewish community and beyond.
The controversy stems from comments Mamdani made while campaigning, when he claimed that if Netanyahu were to step foot in New York City during his tenure, he would have him arrested. His remarks referenced a 2024 warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which accused Netanyahu of alleged “war crimes” in Gaza — a ruling the United States does not recognize.
Vernikov, who is Jewish, denounced Mamdani’s rhetoric in her letter. “In recent months, there have been irresponsible and frankly absurd statements made by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who has campaigned on the promise of ‘arresting’ you upon setting foot in our city,” she wrote to Netanyahu. She continued, “Whether individuals agree or disagree with your policies, you are the duly elected Prime Minister of the State of Israel: a democratic nation that stands as a beacon of hope, freedom, western values, resilience, and strength in a region surrounded by tyranny and terror.”
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Vernikov sharply criticized Mamdani’s agenda. “From ‘free’ buses to arresting Bibi Netanyahu, all of Mamdani’s ideas are fantasies from a utopian pipe dream that will never become reality. The spoiled kids who voted for him are going to realize very quickly that Zohran Mamdani is a scam,” she said.
Even some of Mamdani’s allies have distanced themselves from his threats against Netanyahu. Congressman Jerry Nadler, a Democrat and longtime supporter of Mamdani, dismissed the notion earlier this year. “The City of New York has no jurisdiction to do such a thing,” Nadler told the New York Times, calling the proposal “simply unrealistic.”
Mamdani, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, cruised to victory last week after a campaign that energized younger progressives but alienated large portions of the Jewish community. Despite fierce backlash over his statements about Israel, he defeated his opponents with a decisive margin.
That backlash had been mounting for months. In late October, more than 650 rabbis co-signed a public letter rebuking Mamdani’s remarks and positions on Israel, many of which they described as antisemitic. After the election, leading Jewish organizations — including the UJA-Federation of New York, JCRC-NY, ADL New York/New Jersey, AJC New York, and the New York Board of Rabbis — released a joint statement declaring, “New Yorkers have spoken, electing Zohran Mamdani as the next Mayor of New York City. We recognize that voters are animated by a range of issues, but we cannot ignore that the Mayor-elect holds core beliefs fundamentally at odds with our community’s deepest convictions and most cherished values.”
In response to the uproar, Mamdani has since tried to temper concerns and project a tone of reassurance. “We will build a City Hall that stands steadfast alongside Jewish New Yorkers and does not waver in the fight against the scourge of antisemitism,” he said in his victory speech. The next day, he reiterated that he takes the issue of antisemitism “incredibly seriously.”
{Matzav.com}
A moving maamad took place last night in the Groise Shtub of Belz, where hundreds of boys from the upper grades of Belzer chadorim throughout Eretz Yisroel gathered for the traditional Kollelos Kvittel event. The gathering, usually held in Elul, was postponed this year due to the Rebbe’s surgery and was rescheduled for after the Yamim Tovim.
The large hall in Kiryas Belz was filled with rows of young boys standing on the parentches, singing zemiros and waiting to receive a bracha from the Rebbe. The atmosphere was charged with emotion as the Rebbe entered and addressed the children directly, offering words of inspiration and encouragement.
In his remarks, the Rebbe spoke about the renewal of youth that can infuse vitality even into adults, encouraging everyone to use that energy to grow in avodas Hashem.
He began by saying, “They asked that the children learning in the Talmudei Torah be allowed to come in from time to time. Initially, this was planned for Elul, but it was postponed to Cheshvan. I thought this is actually a very good time — at the beginning of the year, when the learning is strongest. My hope is that the renewal and good kabbalos of the start of the year will continue throughout the entire year. In truth, it seems that this arrangement is also good for me. When one sees so many students, bli ayin hara, singing songs and accepting good resolutions — it gives a person renewed desire for more and more.”
Referring to the postponement, the Rebbe added, “When one sees that Hakadosh Baruch Hu arranged things in such a way that the children are coming at the start of the year, when they are learning well and preparing for the new year, I too am inspired to become better and better.”
Concluding his address, the Rebbe offered a heartfelt bracha: “May the Aibishter help that all of you — young bochurim just beginning your life’s path — should accept upon yourselves the yoke of Torah, mitzvos, and chassidus for the entire year and for your whole lives. May we, too, draw inspiration from you to learn, to daven, and to serve Hashem without hindrance. May Hashem bless you, your parents, and your melamdim to see from you good fruits, and that throughout this year and the years ahead you grow from your childhood upward, ever higher, taking upon yourselves the yoke of Torah.”
The Rebbe concluded with a stirring message: “May the Aibishter grant that parents and teachers see from you great Yiddishe nachas — that you not only be mushpa’im (those who receive influence), but also mashpi’im (those who influence others), to inspire me and all of us to awaken as one to learn Torah with yiras Shamayim and good middos, and to continue rising ever higher.”
{Matzav.com}Crowds of gedolim, bnei Torah, rabbonim, and public figures from across all circles and communities traveled to Telshe-Stone to be menachem avel Rav Shalom Ber Sorotzkin, rosh yeshiva of Ateres Shlomo, following the passing of his mother, Rebbetzin Leah Feiga Sorotzkin a”h, wife of Rav Binyomin Sorotzkin, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Ateres Shlomo.
Throughout the shivah, a steady stream of gedolei Yisroel, roshei yeshiva, dayanim, and public figures came to offer comfort, expressing admiration for the nifteres’s life of chesed, tzni’us, and devotion to Torah and lomdei Torah.
The following photo gallery captures moments from the shivah visits in Telshe-Stone and at the Ateres Shlomo yeshiva campus in Rishon LeTzion.
{Matzav.com}
The Supreme Court has agreed to prolong its temporary halt of a lower court ruling that would have compelled the Trump administration to immediately disburse full Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for November. The move marks a brief victory for the administration, coming just hours after it petitioned the high court for urgent intervention.
In a late Monday filing, administration lawyers urged the justices to preserve an emergency stay previously granted by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The Court’s latest decision ensures that the stay will remain in effect until 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, November 13. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer had asked the Court to step in, contending that the government should not be forced to release full SNAP payments before Congress resolves the ongoing shutdown.
At the heart of the dispute is whether the administration must fully restore food assistance payments that lapsed at the start of November due to the budget impasse. Several states filed suit, arguing that millions of low-income households would suffer immediate harm if the benefits were suspended. “Because of USDA’s actions, SNAP benefits will be delayed for the first time since the program’s inception,” the states said in court filings.
Federal judges initially sided with the states, ordering the administration to release the full payments. The ruling prompted Trump officials to appeal, insisting that the lower courts had overstepped their authority. They maintained that Justice Jackson’s earlier stay should remain intact while Congress works to reopen the government. In their filing, the administration argued, “the answer to this crisis is not for federal courts to reallocate resources without lawful authority.”
“The only way to end this crisis — which the Executive is adamant to end — is for Congress to reopen the government,” the filing continued, emphasizing that the impasse lies within legislative, not judicial, jurisdiction.
State officials accused Washington of politicizing a program that sustains roughly one in eight Americans. “Any further stay would prolong that irreparable harm and add to the chaos the government has unleashed, with lasting impacts on the administration of SNAP,” they told the Court Tuesday morning. “The government has offered no defensible justification for that result,” they added. “The administrative stay should be terminated, and no further stay should be granted.”
Tensions escalated after the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a directive over the weekend instructing states to “immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits,” instead limiting payments to 65% of the monthly amount. States that refused to comply were warned of steep financial consequences. The order triggered a swift response from U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, who paused the USDA’s directive, citing widespread confusion among state agencies.
New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin condemned the administration’s stance in blunt terms. Calling the decision “the most heinous thing” he had witnessed in office, Platkin underscored the scope of the program in his state. “There are more children in New Jersey on SNAP than consists of the entire population of our state’s largest city,” he said at a Monday press conference, highlighting the potential scale of the fallout if aid is withheld.
{Matzav.com}
The Israel Air Force has built a “target bank” of potential strike sites inside Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and along the Jordanian border as part of lessons learned from October 7, 2023. The aim, military sources say, is to enable a very high tempo of strikes during a mass raid even if the command-and-control picture collapses — a scenario that could see dozens of strikes in the first hour and hundreds more thereafter.
According to a report on i24NEWS, the target bank was created so that, in the event of a large coordinated attack, fire can be delivered quickly and at scale. For the first time, the IDF is testing the ability to activate that capability during a massive exercise in Judea and Samaria. Air Force planners estimate that by the end of the year the system will be operable at the press of a button in some brigades, allowing them to disrupt an assault on communities; over time the capability will be extended to the eastern border and additional sectors.
Security forces continued counterterror operations across Judea and Samaria in an effort to prevent escalation amid the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Dozens of suspects were detained, weapons were seized, and authorities uncovered a workshop used to manufacture weapons.
In several incidents the military said forces foiled attacks on IDF units conducting operations, neutralizing three attackers. In two other cases soldiers intercepted militants who hurled petrol bombs at a major civilian roadway.
The army also demolished the home of a gunman responsible for a shooting attack in May 2025 in which an Israeli mother and her infant son were murdered. The group’s military wing later confirmed that the individual killed in the Al-Far’a refugee camp was one of its operatives.
Tensions flared during the olive-harvest season across parts of Judea and Samaria, where violent clashes were reported between Israeli settlers and Palestinian olive pickers. Near the town of Beita, eleven Palestinians were wounded, including several journalists, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, describing the incident as a “settler attack.” Hamas claimed that journalists and emergency teams were among the injured and demanded international action against what it called “the murderous government.”
The concern that the West Bank could play a central role in a renewed multi-front campaign against Israel is not new. Military documents and materials captured by IDF forces during operations in Gaza indicate that Yahya Sinwar — Hamas’s head of its political bureau in the Gaza Strip — viewed Judea and Samaria as a key theater in any decisive campaign against Israel.
In a June 19, 2022 message to Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar reportedly outlined three scenarios for “uniting the arenas” once a campaign was launched; all included sparking unrest in the West Bank as a central front of terror. In a handwritten operational guidance dated August 24, 2022, Sinwar expressed confidence that a ground incursion into Israel would trigger a chain reaction that would bring fighting from the West Bank as well, and he urged the documentation of atrocities to stir “a wave of frenzy, madness and momentum” among Palestinians, Arab Israelis, Jerusalemites and the wider Muslim world — both to encourage them to rise and to sow fear among the enemy.
Israeli security planners say recent drills and the development of the target bank are direct responses to those lessons, aimed at ensuring that, if a mass raid occurs again, the IDF can generate immediate, distributed fires to blunt and disrupt the attackers even under the worst command-and-control conditions.
{Matzav.com}
Speaking defiantly from an underground bunker, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem on Tuesday night issued a sharp warning to Israel, asserting that his group will never lay down its arms despite mounting global pressure. “Israeli strikes cannot continue indefinitely—everything has its limits. We will not give up our weapons,” Qassem said.
His fiery address was delivered as part of Hezbollah’s annual Martyrs’ Day observance, a day the organization uses to honor its fallen fighters and rally support for its ongoing struggle against Israel. In his remarks, Qassem made clear that Hezbollah would resist all international efforts to disarm. “We will not relinquish our weapons, nor will we entrust the future of our generations to arrogant powers,” he declared. “It is our right to do whatever is necessary to defend our existence, our land, and our people.”
Qassem insisted that the existing ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, signed a year ago, applies solely to the region south of the Litani River. He accused Israel of breaching the spirit of that agreement and demanded that the Lebanese government take immediate action to address Israeli positions along the border. The government, he said, must push for Israel’s withdrawal from five outposts in southern Lebanon “by all legitimate and available means.”
He also cautioned against any attempt to modify the current ceasefire deal, claiming such efforts would only serve to legitimize Israeli aggression. “There will be no substitute for the ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel,” Qassem warned, “as that would amount to pardoning Israeli violations.”
His remarks come amid growing pressure within Lebanon to curb Hezbollah’s military power. The Lebanese cabinet recently directed the national army to draft a plan to disarm the group by the end of 2025—a move that has drawn criticism from Hezbollah leadership. Qassem made clear in his speech that such efforts would fail, denouncing the initiative and reiterating his long-standing position that the organization will never abandon its weapons under any circumstances.
{Matzav.com}
In a wide-ranging interview with the Washington Post, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa charged that Israel has broken a decades-old disengagement deal, accusing it of launching widespread airstrikes and seizing new territory inside Syria.
“Syria got into war with Israel 50 years ago. Then, in 1974, there was a disengagement agreement,” al-Sharaa told the paper following his historic visit to the White House and meeting with President Trump. “This agreement lasted for 50 years. But when the [Assad] regime fell, Israel revoked this agreement. They expanded their presence in Syria, expelled the UN [peacekeeping] mission and occupied new territory.”
The Syrian leader claimed that Israel’s military has intensified operations in the country since his rebel group, the Nusra Front, toppled the Assad government last December. According to al-Sharaa, Israeli jets have conducted more than 1,000 strikes since December 8, hitting the Presidential Palace and the Ministry of Defense among other strategic sites. “But because we want to rebuild Syria, we didn’t respond to these aggressions,” he said.
Rejecting Israel’s explanations that the strikes were motivated by security concerns, al-Sharaa asserted that the true goal is territorial expansion. “Israel has always claimed that it has concerns about Syria because it is afraid of the threats that the Iranian militias and [Lebanon’s] Hezbollah represent. We are the ones who expelled those forces out of Syria,” he declared.
In a surprising revelation, the Syrian president confirmed that direct talks are underway between Damascus and Jerusalem, facilitated by Washington and other international intermediaries. “We have gone a good distance on the way to reach an agreement. But to reach a final agreement, Israel should withdraw to their pre-Dec. 8 borders,” al-Sharaa told the Washington Post. “Today, we found that Mr. Trump supports our perspective as well, and he will push as quickly as possible in order to reach a solution for this.”
When asked about the possibility of establishing a demilitarized zone south of Damascus, al-Sharaa rejected the idea outright. “To talk about an entire region demilitarized, it will be difficult, because if there is any kind of chaos, who will protect it? If this demilitarized zone was used by some parties as a launching pad for hitting Israel, who is going to be responsible for that?” he asked. He insisted, “At the end of the day, this is Syrian territory, and Syria should have the freedom of dealing with their own territory.”
In a separate interview with Fox News, broadcast Monday, al-Sharaa addressed the notion of Syria joining the Abraham Accords but spoke cautiously. He declined to state whether his country would recognize Israel’s right to exist, saying only, “Syria has borders with Israel, and Israel occupies the Golan Heights since 1967. We are not going to enter into a negotiation directly right now. Maybe the United States administration, with President Trump, will help us reach this kind of negotiation.”
Just two months earlier, al-Sharaa had told journalists in Damascus that negotiations over a security pact with Israel could soon bear fruit. At that time, he hinted that if the pact succeeded, it might pave the way for “additional agreements,” though he emphasized that “normalization or peace” with Israel was not currently being discussed.
{Matzav.com}
President Donald Trump’s administration has rolled out new State Department instructions that could sharply limit visa approvals for foreigners with certain health conditions or limited financial means, the AP reports. The policy, outlined in a cable obtained by The Associated Press, orders consular officials to more aggressively evaluate applicants’ ability to remain self-sufficient without turning to public benefits. It marks another step in Trump’s broader immigration tightening since returning to office in January.
“The Trump Administration is putting the interests of the American people first,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott. “This includes enforcing policies that ensure our immigration system is not a burden on the American taxpayer.”
The cable, distributed to all U.S. embassies and consulates, expands on existing “public charge” standards — the principle allowing immigration officers to deny visas or residency to those deemed likely to depend on government assistance. While the concept has long existed in immigration law, Trump had previously widened its scope during his first term. The new directive builds on that precedent, adding new health and financial factors for officials to consider.
Among the medical issues that could now raise red flags are chronic illnesses, obesity, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, neurological and metabolic disorders, as well as mental health conditions like depression and anxiety. The memo reportedly notes that such conditions can require “hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of care.”
Julia Gelatt, associate director of the Migration Policy Institute’s immigration policy program, warned that this move could significantly narrow the pool of eligible applicants. “This could lead to a substantial narrowing of immigration,” she said. “The Trump administration is trying to go back to the policies that it worked to implement in its first term related to public charge.”
Applicants already undergo strict medical screenings before being granted entry. U.S.-approved physicians test for contagious diseases like tuberculosis, ask about drug or alcohol history, and verify vaccination records. But under the new order, consular officers must also weigh an individual’s age, education, work skills, health, family status, and detailed financial situation.
The instructions direct officers to verify evidence of applicants’ assets — including bank accounts, savings, investment portfolios, retirement funds, and trusts — whenever financial strength is cited to meet self-sufficiency requirements. Officials are even authorized to conduct interviews in English to gauge language proficiency.
Critics say the guidelines could particularly harm older applicants and those from lower-income backgrounds. Adriana Cadena, executive director of Protecting Immigrant Families, called the approach “dangerous” and harmful even to legal residents. “Its reported breadth and secrecy drive confusion and concern that deter lawfully present immigrants and U.S. citizens in immigrant families from getting help and care for which they qualify under federal law,” Cadena said.
Although the changes primarily target those applying from abroad or seeking visa renewals, immigration attorneys caution they could also affect family reunification. Loved ones of immigrants already living in the U.S. may find it harder to obtain permission to visit or relocate.
U.S. officials familiar with the policy clarified that it applies to immigrant visas — not to short-term B-2 visitor visas used for tourism or medical travel. Still, immigration lawyer Steven Heller said the practical effect could be sweeping, since the language gives consular officers broad discretion. “The new guidance is about messaging,” he said. “They are being given clearance to use the ‘totality of the circumstances’ as a sword, rather than a shield.”
Experts believe the directive signals an intent to reshape visa adjudication — shifting the presumption from approval to suspicion. With Trump’s administration focused on restricting entry for those deemed financially or medically “at risk,” advocates warn that thousands who once would have qualified could now find the door to America abruptly closed.
{Matzav.com}
