A senior Chareidi official involved in the ongoing negotiations over Israel’s proposed draft law has expressed deep skepticism that a final version will ever be approved. “There won’t be a draft law because there is no agreement on it,” he said Monday night in the Knesset. “It’s quite possible that it simply won’t pass.”
The official, who has been closely tracking developments around the legislation meant to define the status of yeshiva students, added, “It’s convenient for the Chareidim as well to delay the legislation, which probably wouldn’t have a majority in the Knesset and likely wouldn’t withstand a Supreme Court challenge.”
He predicted that after the failure to pass the bill, the Chareidi parties and Prime Minister Netanyahu would reach a mutual understanding on holding elections “after Pesach.”
This comes as the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, chaired by MK Boaz Bismuth, has not convened this week to discuss the latest draft of the proposed law. While in the past Chareidi MKs would have protested such delays, this time they have not pressed for renewed discussions. Sources indicate that despite appearances last week that rabbinic leaders had approved moving forward, prominent gedolim remain opposed to key clauses in the current draft, stalling the process further.
Behind the scenes, Shas leader Aryeh Deri and United Torah Judaism chairman Moshe Gafni have been consulting on possible revisions to the bill to address the demands of the committee’s legal adviser, Attorney Miri Frenkel-Shor. She has called for significant amendments, including raising first-year enlistment targets to around 5,700—a figure about a thousand higher than what the Chareidi side agreed to—and retaining a controversial clause requiring yeshiva students and kollel members to record attendance through fingerprint verification.
The disagreements over quotas and sanctions remain unresolved, and with the legislative window narrowing, Chareidi leaders now acknowledge that the chances of the draft law moving forward before elections are slim.
{Matzav.com}
President Donald Trump said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer overplayed his hand during the recent government shutdown, arguing that Democrats’ strategy backfired and left their party divided.
“I think he made a mistake in going too far,” Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on The Ingraham Angle. “He thought he could break the Republicans, and the Republicans broke him.”
The political standoff ended when eight Democratic senators crossed the aisle to support the House-passed plan reopening the government, which their own party had blocked multiple times. The Senate ultimately voted 60-40 to approve the measure, with final passage in the House expected later in the week.
The revolt has sparked tension within Democratic ranks, as lawmakers like Rep. Ro Khanna of California called for new leadership. Trump, reflecting on Schumer’s evolution, offered a pointed critique.
“I feel badly ‘cause I know Chuck Schumer,” he said. “I’ve known him since he was a person who loved Israel, and now he’s a Palestinian. He’s become a Palestinian… I’ve never seen a politician change so much.”
The shutdown—the longest in U.S. history—was fueled by debate over extending Obamacare subsidies, disrupting thousands of federal workers and halting major services, including flights and food aid programs.
Trump claimed Democrats’ real motivation was to fund benefits for illegal immigrants. “What they really wanted was $1.5 trillion for people that came in illegally, people that come in through and out of prisons,” he argued.
“We’re trying to get them out, because we don’t want 11,000 murderers in our country. You don’t it. Nobody wants it,” he continued. “And we have drug dealers, and we have everything else, and they wanted to make sure they got good healthcare.”
Covering healthcare costs for those in the country illegally, Trump warned, would have “hurt other people’s healthcare.”
Turning to the broader issue, Trump blasted Obamacare as “horrible” and overpriced. “The premiums have gone up like rocket ships,” he said. “And I’m not even talking about just recently, I’m talking about for years they’ve been going up.”
He said Americans should have more freedom to manage their coverage. “I want, instead of going to the insurance companies, I want the money to go to an account for people where the people buy their own health insurance,” Trump explained. “They’re actually able to go out and negotiate their own insurance.”
When asked how Republicans plan to prevent another shutdown when government funding expires on January 30, 2026, Trump hinted that legislation is in the works.
“Well, we’re trying to put in a bill, as you know, or a bill that you can never do that again,” he said. “You can’t just shut down the government because you’re trying renegotiate a deal that you didn’t.”
{Matzav.com}
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has urged that his agency be entrusted with leading Gaza’s postwar recovery, even as global scrutiny mounts over its links to Hamas.
“UNRWA, with its thousands of Palestinian personnel, has the capacity, expertise and community trust required to provide healthcare, education and other public services to a devastated population,” Lazzarini wrote in an opinion piece for The Guardian.
He emphasized that “for decades, the agency’s teachers, doctors and engineers have formed a vital part of a functioning system of public services for millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the region.”
Citing a recent International Court of Justice advisory opinion, Lazzarini said the court “reaffirmed the professionalism of UNRWA’s staff, underlined the agency’s indispensable humanitarian role and concluded that UNRWA remains an impartial and neutral actor.”
However, those assurances stand in stark contrast to the evidence Israel has presented linking UNRWA employees to the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre. Israeli intelligence revealed that several agency staffers participated in the slaughter, distributing ammunition, kidnapping a woman, and directly joining the attack at Kibbutz Be’eri, where 97 people were killed.
In response to the revelations, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed a panel headed by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna to review the allegations. When the group issued its findings in April, it admitted to identifying “neutrality-related issues” within UNRWA but argued that Israel had not yet provided sufficient proof that large numbers of its employees belonged to terror groups.
Testimonies have continued to emerge since then. Emily Damari, an Israeli woman freed after 470 days as a hostage in Gaza, disclosed that she was imprisoned in a facility operated by UNRWA.
Adding to the controversy, USAID reported in April 2025 that the United Nations had actively blocked an American probe into connections between UNRWA’s Gaza staff and Hamas.
Despite mounting evidence and criticism from both Israel and Washington, the International Court of Justice ruled last month that Israel must continue to permit humanitarian aid deliveries into Gaza through UN agencies — including UNRWA — a decision that reignited anger among Israeli officials and their allies.
{Matzav.com}
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is heading to Israel this Friday for a five-day visit that will extend through next Tuesday, his office confirmed.
According to the statement, the mayor’s agenda includes meetings with Israeli government officials, business and tech leaders, and other key figures in the country’s innovation and economic sectors.
“He will also visit religious sites and discuss efforts to combat antisemitism here in New York City and across the world,” the statement said.
Adams, long known for his outspoken support of both Israel and New York’s Jewish community, has made the issue of antisemitism a centerpiece of his administration. His upcoming trip marks his second to the Jewish state in just over a year. During his previous visit in August 2023, he met with Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu and other senior officials.
In May, Adams introduced the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism — the first such municipal department established anywhere in the United States. A month later, he took another step by signing an executive order officially adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism for New York City agencies.
Although Adams had planned to seek reelection as an independent candidate, he later dropped out of the race and threw his support behind Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo ultimately lost to Zohran Mamdani, a left-wing politician known for his anti-Israel positions.
At the time of his endorsement, Adams sounded the alarm about the growing hostility facing minority communities in the city. He also strongly condemned Mamdani’s public defense of the inflammatory slogan “Globalize the intifada.”
“When you tell Jewish residents that you need ‘globalize intifada,’ you’re saying you don’t care,” Adams said.
{Matzav.com}
The controversial death penalty for terrorists bill, sponsored by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, passed its first reading in the Knesset on Monday night with 39 votes in favor and 16 opposed. The legislation will now return to the Knesset’s National Security Committee for further deliberation.
Notably absent from the vote were members of the Shas party, led by Aryeh Deri, who did not participate in the roll call following approval from the party’s Council of Torah Sages. United Torah Judaism chairman MK Moshe Gafni was also absent, despite clear instructions from Slabodka Rosh Yeshiva Rav Dov Landau to vote against the bill. Gafni’s office later clarified that he had been paired with a coalition MK, a procedural arrangement that maintains vote balance when members are absent.
Ben-Gvir celebrated the bill’s passage with visible enthusiasm, handing out trays of baklava to fellow lawmakers in the Knesset plenum. Ushers, however, intervened and removed the pastries, asking him to stop distributing them inside the chamber.
The proposed law stipulates that anyone who intentionally—or with reckless disregard—causes the death of an Israeli citizen out of hatred, hostility, or in an attempt to harm the State of Israel or the Jewish people, would face the death penalty. The bill also allows military courts in Judea and Samaria to impose capital punishment by a simple majority of the panel, without the option of later commuting the sentence.
The session was tense, featuring heated exchanges between lawmakers. At one point, security guards had to separate Ben-Gvir and Arab MK Ayman Odeh during a sharp verbal confrontation over the bill.
{Matzav.com}
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Watch This SHOCKING Interview!
Rabbi Mendy Kenig leads the largest healing mission of its kind—and it all started with a phone call that changed his life
An Unprecedented Moment in Jewish History
Next Friday, approximately 170 families will arrive in Orlando, Florida, marking what may be the most significant gathering of its kind. A week and a half later, they’ll travel to Deal, New Jersey, for a transformative Shabbos featuring renowned speaker Rabbi YY Jacobson, special guest Sivan Meir, a deeply moving Hachnosas Sefer Torah, and a beautiful Bar Mitzvah celebration.
It’s an undertaking of staggering scope and emotional weight—170 almanos and yesomim who have lost their husbands and fathers in defense of Israel, coming together across an ocean to find comfort, connection, and the reassurance they desperately need: that they will never be forgotten.
Leading this historic mission is a soft-spoken Biale Chossid from Modiin Illit named Rabbi Mendy Kenig, whose organization Menucha V’Yeshuah has become a lifeline for thousands of Israel’s most vulnerable families. But the story of how this mission came to be begins not with triumph, but with tragedy—and a promise made through tears at a holy site thousands of miles from home.
The Phone Call That Changed Everything
Six years ago, Rabbi Mendy Kenig was aboard a plane bound for Hungary, heading to the Kever of R’ Yeshayele Karastirer. As the aircraft began its taxi toward the runway, his phone rang with the kind of call that shatters worlds.
“Your wife has been in a serious car accident. She’s being rushed to the hospital in serious condition.”
Trapped between heaven and earth as the plane continued its inexorable movement toward takeoff, Rabbi Kenig experienced a helplessness that would become the foundation of his life’s mission. He begged the flight attendants to let him off. They couldn’t. The plane was already in motion.
“I was a young, worried husband, stuck with no way to know my wife’s condition or what I should do,” he recalls. “The helplessness I felt at that moment was overwhelming.”
At the first layover, after learning his wife’s condition was serious but stable, he called his rabbi for guidance. The answer was unexpected: continue to the Kever, pray for her Refuah—and make a promise of something to take upon yourself.
Standing before the sacred site, tears streaming down his face, Rabbi Kenig made a neder that would eventually touch thousands of lives: “When my wife recovers, I will do everything I can to help people dealing with a crisis who need assistance.”
He had no idea how he would fulfill that promise. The landscape of Jewish organizations helping the sick and their families was already overcrowded. But in that moment of desperate tefillah, details didn’t matter. He only knew he had to try.
From Death’s Door to New Life
Within a month, through what Rabbi Kenig describes as “Zechus Avos and Koach Hatefillah,” his wife stood on her feet and was discharged from the hospital—given her life as a gift. But recovery was far from over.
As a father of five, including two children with autism spectrum disorder, Rabbi Kenig intimately understood the weight of caring for a family in crisis. During those grueling weeks of his wife’s recovery, he discovered a critical gap in Israel’s healthcare system that no one was addressing.
“I discovered the reality that thousands of patients in our country face,” he explains. “After medical treatment, they need ongoing support, some peace and rest to truly recover. But funding for ‘rest and recovery days’ isn’t included in any healthcare package, and many families cannot afford it themselves—especially when they’re already dealing with enormous medical expenses and challenges.”
Thus, Menucha V’Yeshuah—”Rest and Salvation”—was born.
Building a Revolution in Healing
What started as renting a single villa in Caesarea for families undergoing medical treatment has exploded into a comprehensive support network that transformed more than 250 families in its first year alone—a number that has grown exponentially since.
The organization operates on a profound understanding: physical healing is only part of recovery. “In every instance of pain or illness, alongside practical help—treatments, medications, bureaucratic assistance, financial support—there is another, no less important layer,” Rabbi Kenig explains. “Mental strength to cope with the entire situation.”
When families experiencing tragedy or critically ill patients receive the opportunity to disconnect, strengthen themselves, and receive professional help, it dramatically impacts every aspect of their healing process. Recovery improves. They process their difficulties more effectively. They find the strength to return to life, even from extraordinarily painful situations.
Today, Menucha V’Yeshuah’s services include subsidized recovery stays in hotels and guesthouses across Israel, professionally-guided therapeutic vacations, support groups for families, and the crown jewel: the “Menucha V’Yeshuah House” in Caesarea—a seaside villa where terminally ill patients and their families experience what Rabbi Kenig describes as “true miracles and transformations—Techiyas Hameisim!”
Every request is carefully examined by a senior medical and chessed team, with exceptional cases receiving approval from a medical committee—ensuring resources reach those who need them most.
When Tragedy Strikes a Nation
The organization’s reach has expanded far beyond its original scope. It now serves new mothers needing recovery, women at risk during pregnancy, families of terminally ill patients, and—in an era of unprecedented pain for the Jewish nation—evacuees, terror victims, and bereaved families who have lost loved ones defending Israel.
Following the 2021 Meron tragedy, Menucha V’Yeshuah rapidly scaled its operations to meet the surge in need. When October 7th shattered the nation and plunged Israel into ongoing war, the organization pivoted once again, becoming a lifeline for bereaved families.
Rabbi Kenig has hosted multiple Shabbosim bringing together widows, orphans, and parents of fallen soldiers—creating sacred spaces where they can find comfort, build bonds of understanding, and receive desperately needed respite during their darkest moments. Each Shabbaton costs approximately $100,000 and requires substantial support from Jewish communities worldwide.
“Unfortunately, the demand continues to grow,” Rabbi Kenig says quietly. “National tragedies, terror attacks, war—they all share a common theme: deep pain, great difficulty, and a need for immediate help. Every time someone needs us—we’ll be there for them.”
Breaking Down Barriers With a Hug
Despite his traditional black-and-white Chassidic garb and shtreimel, Rabbi Kenig has become beloved across the religious spectrum. His secret? Radical authenticity and breathtaking simplicity
“People see me and assume I’m here to make them religious,” he says with a gentle smile. “But the message behind my relationship with families is simple: All I care about is listening and offering support. Nothing more, nothing less.”
At every event, after sharing his personal story of tragedy and transformation, Rabbi Kenig is met with lines of people waiting to embrace him. When asked about his goals for these gatherings, his answer is beautifully uncomplicated: “My only goal is to give them—the widows, children, mothers, fathers—a hug and to feel loved. That’s it.”
This approach has built bridges where walls once stood, bringing together secular and religious, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, young and old—united in shared healing and hope.
The Fear That Drives the Mission
Which brings us back to this historic journey to America and the 170 widows and orphans who will soon arrive on these shores.
Now that all hostages have returned home, Baruch Hashem, these families face a profound and ongoing challenge that Rabbi Kenig understands intimately: the fear of being forgotten.
“Their sacrifice—having lost their husbands and fathers in defense of the Jewish people—is permanent,” he explains with quiet intensity. “Their pain doesn’t end when the headlines fade or when the immediate crisis passes. We need to show them they will never be forgotten. That their loved ones’ sacrifice will never be in vain. That the Jewish community stands with them, today and always.”
This mission represents the largest expression yet of Menucha V’Yeshuah’s sacred work. The families will spend their first week in Orlando for rest and rejuvenation, then travel to Deal, New Jersey, for an uplifting Shabbos featuring spiritual programming, communal celebration, and—most importantly—the embrace of a community that refuses to let them face their pain alone.
When one of his daughters once protested his constant fundraising trips abroad, Rabbi Kenig’s response captured the urgency driving everything he does: “Please understand that right now, there are hundreds of thousands of fathers, brothers, and sons in the army giving everything they have to defend the people of Israel. What I’m doing is the same as what they’re doing, and what we should all be doing—giving the best of ourselves to help Am Yisrael.”
A Promise Fulfilled, a Vision Realized
From a terrifying phone call on an airport runway to an organization that has helped thousands of families find hope in their darkest hours, Rabbi Mendy Kenig has transformed personal tragedy into a powerful force for healing.
His work has earned Brachos from Israel’s greatest Gedolei Hador. The late Belzer Rebbe Zt”l wrote: “Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kenig is engaged in public service with faith, and has set it as his goal to help and assist healing families, and more so to give them the strength to return to their original health. The necessity of this holy endeavor is indescribable.”
Rabbi Shimon Galai declared: “Menucha V’Yeshuah is a paradise on earth with their deeds. I have seen their programs firsthand.”
But perhaps the most powerful endorsement comes from the families themselves—the Almanos who find comfort, the sick who discover strength, the bereaved who learn they are not alone.
Rabbi Kenig’s vision for Menucha V’Yeshuah remains both ambitious and achingly simple: “To continue being here for families coping with hardship, offering support and strength, health, and life.”
The Journey Begins
As 170 families prepare to board planes to America, they carry with them the weight of unimaginable loss. But they also carry hope—hope that they will be embraced, that their sacrifice will be honored, that they will not walk this painful path alone.
Leading them is a man who knows what it means to receive a devastating phone call, to feel helpless in the face of crisis, to watch a loved one fight for life. A man who turned his darkest moment into a promise, and that promise into a lifeline for thousands.
In a world that often moves on too quickly from tragedy, Rabbi Mendy Kenig and Menucha V’Yeshuah remain steadfast: being there, especially when it’s tough. Offering not just material support, but something even more precious—the reassurance that no one will be forgotten, that every pain matters, that the Jewish people take care of their own.
One phone call. One promise. One historic mission. Thousands of lives transformed.
“Every time someone needs us—we’ll be there for them.”
Over these next 2 weeks, 170 families will discover he means it.
To support the historic mission or participate in the Shabbos in Deal, NJ, contact Mendy Kenig at 347.754.7473
Click HERE to donate towards this imortant cause!
Am Yisrael Chai. We Remember. We Stand Together.
Article from Jewish Links
LISTEN:
https://matzav.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Bitachon4Life-Shiur-1627-Chikuy-Part-27-Father.mp3For more info, email bitachon4life@gmail.com.
In a strongly worded letter, Rav Aharon Feldman, Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Yisrael in Baltimore, expressed his admiration and full support for former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Rav Yitzchok Yosef’s clear and uncompromising stance opposing the enlistment of bnei Torah into the Israeli army.
Dated the 11th of Marcheshvan 5786 and written in Baltimore, Rav Feldman’s letter begins with a warm greeting to “the great gaon, Rav Yitzchok Yosef shlit’a,” followed by words of profound appreciation for Rav Yosef’s courage in publicly stating that a Jew who observes Torah u’mitzvos must not place himself in the spiritually destructive environment of the army. Rav Feldman referenced “experience showing that at least half of those who enter the army cast off the yoke of Torah and mitzvos,” emphasizing the grave spiritual risks involved.
He praised Rav Yosef’s stance as “the only true position,” asserting that “only with truth will we succeed.”
Rav Feldman offered his heartfelt bracha that Rav Yosef’s hands be strengthened in “Hashem’s battle for the future of the Jewish people,” and that he be granted “strength and courage to stand firmly against those who refuse to recognize the truth and against the compromisers willing to sell out Klal Yisroel for money and power.”
Rav Feldman concluded his letter with a prayer that Rav Yosef continue to lead Sephardic Jewry “in the ways of Torah with health, strength, and illumination until the coming of the righteous redeemer, speedily in our days.” He signed the letter “with respect and sincere friendship.”
The letter is co-signed by Rav Elya Ber Wachtfogel, Rav Aryeh Malkiel Kotler, Rav Yerucham Olshin, Rav Dovid Tzvi Schustal, and Rav Yisroel Tzvi Neuman.
{Matzav.com}
Michelle Obama once again took aim at President Donald Trump’s controversial plan to replace the White House East Wing with a grand ballroom, arguing that the decision reflects a disregard for the traditional role and meaning of the first lady’s office.
Speaking during a live podcast recording in Brooklyn, as reported by the New York Times with quotes attributed to Vanity Fair, Obama criticized the demolition project as erasing an important piece of American civic heritage. “When we talk about the East Wing, it is the heart of the work” of a first lady, she said. “And to denigrate it, to tear it down, to pretend like it doesn’t matter — it’s a reflection of how you think of that role.”
Obama explained that during her husband’s administration, she often reminded West Wing aides that her office played a real political function. She told them her initiatives and presence helped President Barack Obama’s standing with voters, summarizing that value as “five extra approval points” thanks to what she called a “balanced image of the first family,” according to the Times.
The former first lady has voiced similar objections before. In a conversation with Stephen Colbert, she reminisced about the East Wing as the part of the White House that “you felt light,” describing it as a place filled with warmth, children, and even puppies. Expressing her disillusionment with the current political climate, she said she feels “confused” and “lost” about what matters to Americans today, adding, “I just feel like, what is important to us as a nation anymore? Because I’m lost.” She drew a parallel between the East Wing’s destruction and what she sees as the moral and cultural decay of Trump’s America.
The ballroom controversy has sparked commentary from other political figures as well. President Joe Biden, while campaigning in Omaha, quipped that he had predicted Trump would “take a wrecking ball to the country,” calling the ballroom “a perfect symbol of his presidency.” Chelsea Clinton also joined the criticism, penning an op-ed in USA Today that described the construction as “a wrecking ball to our heritage.” She wrote that the White House “belongs to the American people” and should stand as a “mirror of our democracy.” Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has turned the debate into a fundraising opportunity, selling themed merchandise through her Instagram page.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the uproar on Fox News as “fake outrage,” noting that almost every modern president has overseen their own renovations. She reminded viewers that Barack Obama had to hold a state dinner in a rented tent on the South Lawn, saying the new ballroom simply offers “the space needed for events that celebrate America.”
{Matzav.com}
