James Fishback, a Republican running for governor of Florida, is facing intense criticism after making a disparaging remark about the Kotel during a campaign appearance, drawing condemnation from Jewish organizations, civil rights advocates, and political commentators.
The controversy stems from comments Fishback delivered on February 5, 2026, during a speech at the University of Central Florida. While discussing his view that Florida should focus on strengthening economic relationships with countries such as Brazil rather than emphasizing diplomatic visits to Israel, Fishback declared, “I will not visit the state of Israel.” He continued, “I’d rather go to Brazil and other countries to bring jobs to Florida, and not visit countries just to kiss a stupid wall.”
Footage from the event shows members of the audience applauding and cheering following the remark.
WATCH:
James Fishback, candidate for Florida Governor at UCF:
“If you’re going to visit another country, you should be helping people, creating jobs, facilitating trade, not kissing a stupid wall.” pic.twitter.com/4we296VXHm
— Joan (@joanfromdc) February 5, 2026
StopAntisemitism, a U.S.-based organization dedicated to combating antisemitism, sharply criticized Fishback in a post on X, writing, “StopAntisemitism is disgusted to see James Fishback, candidate for Florida Governor, denigrate the Kotel, the holiest site to the Jewish people. Listen to the incel groypers he’s preaching to [respond] with applause.”
The organization pointed to the crowd’s reaction as evidence that the comment was calculated to appeal to specific online subcultures. Civil rights attorney and former Fox News contributor Leo Terrell also denounced the statement, saying it “made my blood boil.” Terrell urged the public to speak out, adding that similar language directed at sacred sites of other faiths would be unacceptable. He has previously described a visit to the Kotel as a defining moment in his career.
Bryan E. Leib, a former congressional candidate and Newsmax contributor, addressed the controversy in an op-ed published on February 6, 2026, describing Fishback’s words as “ignorant and offensive.” Leib called on Florida Republicans to reject the remarks, arguing that they revealed character rather than policy differences.
Leib also questioned the silence of party leaders, asking why the Florida GOP and other elected officials had not yet issued condemnations. He added that Fishback’s rhetoric suggested that millions of Florida voters who have visited the Kosel “are not worthy to be Americans.”
Fishback, a hedge fund manager who entered the governor’s race in 2025, has previously attracted attention for controversial statements. This latest episode, however, appears particularly damaging given Florida’s large and politically active Jewish population, one of the largest in the United States.
{Matzav.com}
The Skverer Rebbe has taken delivery of a new vehicle, marking a notable change after decades in which he was driven in a Cadillac. This time, the choice of his chassidim was a top-of-the-line Genesis luxury car, specially prepared to meet the Rebbe’s unique needs.
The new vehicle arrived at the Rebbe’s residence in New Square, New York, just before Shabbos.
Sources within the Skverer chassidus explained that the decision was driven not by aesthetics or branding, but by practical considerations tied to comfort and health.
Within Skver, it has long been customary to replace the Rebbe’s vehicle every year or two, a practice rooted in the immense distances the car once covered during frequent travel. In recent years, however, the Rebbe rarely leaves the confines of the village. As a result, the decision was made to invest in a vehicle that would provide maximum comfort and stability for the rare occasions when travel is necessary, with the Rebbe’s well-being as the primary concern.
Those close to the Rebbe emphasize that he had no involvement whatsoever in selecting the model, exterior appearance, or interior design. His only requests were purely functional and spiritual: the installation of a special reading light and a dedicated stand for seforim. The Rebbe is known to use every moment of travel for learning Torah, remaining fully immersed in his seforim without looking out the window or engaging with his surroundings.
The Genesis vehicle has been customized accordingly, ensuring that the Rebbe can continue his regular learning schedule even while on the road, with clarity of mind and optimal comfort.
{Matzav.com}
Dolev Davidovitz, an Israeli media personality and lecturer, shared a deeply personal and dramatic life story in a wide-ranging interview with Yossi Avdo on the popular Israeli program Hashem Echad, describing an extraordinary transformation from militant atheism and open hostility toward religious Jews to a life of faith and purpose that he now describes as becoming an “ambassador of God.”
Davidovitz, who grew up in the heart of Kiryat Gat in a thoroughly secular environment and went on to compete as part of Israel’s national boxing team, spoke candidly about a past defined by contempt for religion. He said he was convinced that science had disproven faith, spent his days training, partying, and socializing, and derived particular enjoyment from provoking religious Jews in public spaces.
He described his childhood as happy and full of friends, but intensely secular. “An amazing childhood packed with good experiences and good friends,” he recalled, adding that it was “more secular than probably the average secular home,” to the point that Yom Kippur and Shabbos were entirely absent from his life.
Davidovitz said his attitude went far beyond indifference. “I hated chareidim, I hated Judaism, I hated anything holy,” he admitted. He described deliberately harassing religious Jews on trains, confronting them with taunts about military service, the existence of God, and the Holocaust. He also recalled intentionally taking selfies with seminary girls in the street to disturb them. “I would come back from school and go take selfies with seminary girls. They would run away from the selfie. I was just bothering chareidim for fun,” he said.
On Yom Kippur, he said, he and his friends would deliberately eat sandwiches in front of traditional Jews to provoke them. “On Yom Kippur we would go out with sandwiches to annoy people. We did it especially near more traditional Jews, because they were more observant, so we would annoy them,” he said.
Academically, Davidovitz said he viewed himself as part of an intellectual elite. He studied in a gifted program and immersed himself in physics, mathematics, biology, and chemistry. That environment, he said, reinforced a sense of superiority. “You automatically create this feeling that I’m an atheist, there is no God, and anyone who claims there is a God is stupid. He’s stupid and his whole family is stupid. We were the enlightened, rational secular people who don’t believe in God,” he said.
Despite that worldview, he recalled an early childhood question that lingered in his memory. At around age five, he asked his mother how God could see people if there was a ceiling. “My mother told me that God sees even through the ceiling,” he said.
The first crack in his certainty came unexpectedly through one of his confrontations. Davidovitz recounted stopping a Gerer chassid and asking him deliberately rude questions, only for the encounter to turn into a friendship. “Something went wrong for me,” he said. “I stopped a Gerer chassid, asked him some cheeky questions, and we became friends.”
Their late-night arguments unsettled him. “Those debates made me realize that Judaism actually has answers,” he said. “There were many questions he could answer, and that scared me.” One explanation struck him in particular: “He told me that scientists discovered that the highest level of blood clotting is on the eighth day. Whoever wrote the Torah already knew the mechanisms of clotting.”
Davidovitz said his military service along the Gaza border provided the space for deeper reflection. Standing guard alone under the stars, far from the noise of daily life, he began to question everything. “You’re on guard duty, on the Gaza line, just you and the stars,” he said. “Suddenly I started asking questions and realized one thing: It can’t be that I came into this world for 120 years of ice cream, schnitzel, girls, parties, and drugs, and then you die and worms eat you. There has to be something beyond.”
He read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning but rejected the idea of inventing purpose for himself. “I said, wait, am I fooling myself? Either there is meaning and I need to discover it, or there is no meaning,” he said.
After becoming intellectually convinced that there was a Creator, Davidovitz asked for a sign. “I said to myself in my heart, Creator of the world, if You really exist, do a miracle for me. I’m starving,” he recalled.
What followed left a lasting imprint. “Not even half a minute passed,” he said, “and on my left there were bushes, and inside them was a blue bag — a huge bag of potato chips — just sitting there, waiting for me. I understood. There was a kiss from God. God was showing me the way. I exist. I want a relationship with you.”
Before committing to change, Davidovitz said he examined other belief systems. “I put Buddhism aside. I was left with Christianity and Islam,” he said. “And I understood that they are based on Judaism. If Judaism is true, they can’t be true, because Judaism claims exclusivity.”
That realization initially filled him with fear rather than joy. “My life was ruined,” he said. “I said, wow, this is a bummer.” He explained that he was afraid of returning to religion because he believed it meant giving up who he was. “Today I understand that returning to religion is not giving up who you are — it’s upgrading who you are,” he said.
He described emotional final drives to the beach on Shabbos in his old car, a 2001 Renault Megane, caught between belief and habit. “One of the last Shabbasos, I remember driving to the sea, and Avraham Fried’s song ‘Ribbon Ha’olamim’ was playing. I was just driving and crying. That dissonance between knowing there is a God and still driving to the sea on Shabbos because it’s hard for you.”
His first visit to a beis medrash shocked him. Seeing young men shouting questions at a rabbi, he initially thought it was disrespectful. “I didn’t understand — is this how chareidim speak to elders?” he recalled. “They told me, no, this is the fire of Torah.”
Asked how he would respond to a secular young man emerging from war who accuses Torah students of parasitism, Davidovitz answered bluntly. “As someone who felt that way in the past, I understand him,” he said. “But with all due respect, you’re standing here a complete atheist, without Torah and without Jewish identity, and you’re calling me a parasite? I’m a Jew in the land of the Jews who refuses to enlist in an army that wants to uproot my Jewish identity. Before talking about parasitism, what about your last Shabbos? Did you keep it?”
In closing, Davidovitz stressed that influence should come through example, not coercion. “Spread the light you were exposed to, but not through preaching or forcing — that only pushes people away,” he said. “Just be yourselves. When people see how good your life is, that’s what brings them closer. Understand that you have responsibility. You are ambassadors of the Creator.”
{Matzav.com}
Dor Shachar, born in Gaza as Ayman Abu Subouh, has come forward with a gripping personal account that spans life under terror rule, brutal imprisonment, and a long, arduous path to conversion to Judaism. His story offers a rare, firsthand look at daily life in Gaza, the methods Hamas uses against suspected collaborators, and the ideology that shaped the enclave long before the group formally seized power.
Shachar was born in Khan Younis and grew up in its alleyways and marketplaces, where Hamas and other terror factions already functioned as dominant local forces years before the January 2006 elections that brought the Islamist organization to power. As a teenager, he fled to Israel and found work as a guard at a construction site. Years later, at the age of 25, he completed a formal conversion to Judaism and changed his name.
Now 49, Shachar says his earliest lessons about Jews came from his grandfather, whose contradictory behavior left him deeply unsettled. The elderly man would invite Jewish guests for coffee and bread, yet in the same breath urge his grandson to one day “liberate the land” by killing Jews. “I said to myself, ‘How can this be? On the one hand he invites them for food and drink, and on the other hand he says to kill them.’ From a young age I understood that something was very wrong,” he said in an interview with the National Post.
Growing up in Gaza, Shachar says he personally knew figures who later became synonymous with terrorism, including Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Yahya Ayyash. He recalled that they were regarded as prominent community figures, alongside operatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, and the PLO. He added that even people close to him, including a brother, carried out attacks that killed Israelis.
He described scenes of extreme violence that unfolded openly in public. In one instance, he said he witnessed Sinwar beheading a Palestinian accused of collaborating with Israel as crowds in the marketplace cheered. On another occasion, he and his mother found a severed head lying in the market street. “They said he was suspected of collaborating with Israel,” he recalled. “The passersby and onlookers were indifferent.”
According to Shachar, incitement began early and was deeply embedded in Gaza’s education system. In schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, he said children were taught to hate Jews from a young age. “Jews were portrayed as pigs, dogs, and infidels who did not deserve to live, and children were told that Israelis had one eye in the middle of their forehead or three legs.”
Violence, he said, was not incidental but institutionalized. “Every child learned how to throw stones at Jews because that is what they taught us. The teacher would tell us to go out and throw stones, then come back and open books as if we were studying. When soldiers arrived, they saw small children learning. After the soldiers left, the teachers laughed and said, ‘Those pigs, those dogs, those traitors, those Jews — we will slaughter them the way Hitler did.’”
Disillusioned by the extremism surrounding him, Shachar escaped to Israel in his teens. For a period, he served as an informant for the Shin Bet, reporting on terror activity, and later supported himself working as a renovation laborer. An Israeli Jew took him under his protection, even as others repeatedly questioned his loyalty. Shachar says he endured suspicions, arrests, and an eight-year bureaucratic struggle to fulfill his lifelong dream of converting to Judaism.
“Yes, it would have been easier not to be Jewish,” he said, explaining that his motivation stemmed from what he described as a search for a “spark of the soul.” “I feel connected to the Jewish people,” he said. “I wanted to be Jewish because I chose life. I chose love and not hatred. I chose love, not darkness.”
For a time, Shachar lived in Israel without legal status. Immigration authorities eventually located him, brought him before a judge, and deported him back to Gaza. There, he spent seven months in prison, his legs shackled, enduring beatings, electric shocks, psychological abuse, cuts to his arms, and severe starvation. He said his captors knew about his interest in Judaism and his affinity for Israel and tortured him accordingly.
After his release, Shachar managed to escape Gaza via Egypt and Turkey, eventually reentering Israel clandestinely using a Palestinian Authority passport. Reflecting on Gaza today, he said the ideology promoted by Hamas is widely shared. “Between Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and every other terror group, and the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, they all share the same ideas about Jews,” he said. “And they say that Hamas will lift their heads and rebuild Gaza.”
The events of October 7, 2023, he said, only strengthened his conviction that a poisonous ideology has overtaken Gaza. He described watching civilians join the violence and celebrate in the streets, saying that no Gazan helped any Jew and that hospitals were used as military positions.
Today, Dor Shachar lives with the quiet clarity of someone who has seen the darkest corners of human cruelty and consciously chosen a different path. Having escaped a world built on fear, hatred, and coercion, he rebuilt his life around faith, moral responsibility, and the sanctity of life itself. His journey from Gaza’s streets to the embrace of the Jewish people stands as a stark counterpoint to the ideology he left behind, a testament to free will, personal courage, and the power of choosing light over darkness, even when the cost is unimaginably high.
{Matzav.com}
Lufthansa has publicly accepted responsibility for its involvement with the Nazi regime during World War II, marking a significant shift after years of downplaying or deflecting scrutiny. The acknowledgment follows the release of a commissioned historical study examining the airline’s origins and conduct during the period.
“Lufthansa was clearly part of the system,” Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said Tuesday at a press conference held at Frankfurt Airport. He disclosed that the company depended on forced labor to help create a “clandestine air force” for the National Socialist government, which he said was used to carry out “war crimes and criminal activities.”
The findings were produced as part of a broader reassessment tied to Lufthansa’s centennial, which also includes an upcoming book detailing the airline’s early history and wartime actions.
For many years, Lufthansa avoided direct responsibility by pointing to a corporate distinction. The original airline, Deutsche Luft Hansa AG, was established in 1926 as a state-backed carrier and arms manufacturer and was dismantled at the end of World War II. A separate entity, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, was founded in 1953 by former employees after purchasing the defunct company’s name and logo.
Historian Lutz Budrass, who has written extensively about Lufthansa’s past, addressed this issue in a 2020 interview with Deutsche Welle, saying, “Lufthansa, like most companies, was not held accountable for its actions.”
Budrass argued that despite the formal dissolution of the original company, there was significant overlap in leadership and personnel. He cited figures such as vice chairman Kurt Weigelt and Kurt Knipfer, a former Prussian officer who led Lufthansa until 1945, adding, “There was a strong continuity in its staff.”
He also noted that the postwar reestablishment of the airline was designed to sever its public association with Nazi-era crimes. “With the new founding, the company wanted to distance itself from the horrors of the past and the crimes committed under National Socialism, which were perpetrated by Lufthansa.”
At the time, Budrass criticized the airline’s reluctance to confront that history head-on, saying, “It’s clear that Lufthansa is not ready to take this step.”
In its statement released Tuesday, Lufthansa signaled a change in approach, writing, “In examining its history, Lufthansa does not limit itself to the post-war chapters of its history. The years from its founding to the decline of the first Lufthansa are also part of the company’s history.”
{Matzav.com}
Senior officials at the FBI, acting under the leadership of Director Kash Patel, instructed agents to shut down a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer, after concluding that the inquiry could conflict with public remarks made by President Donald Trump and other top administration figures, according to several people familiar with the decision.
The New York Times reported Saturday that federal prosecutors in Minnesota initially handled the case as they would any other fatal shooting by a federal agent, moving swiftly to open a standard civil rights use-of-force investigation.
As part of that early effort, Joseph H. Thompson, a senior federal prosecutor, sought a search warrant to examine Good’s SUV for forensic material, including bullet paths and blood evidence, and arranged for the FBI to coordinate its work with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
That plan was stopped just as agents were preparing to carry out the court-approved search.
According to sources cited by the Times, the order to halt the investigation came from senior leadership, including Patel, out of concern that pursuing a civil rights theory — and relying on a warrant obtained on that basis — could clash with Trump’s assertion that Good had “violently, willfully, and viciously” struck the ICE agent with her vehicle.
Rather than continue down that path, Justice Department leaders pressed prosecutors to consider other investigative angles, such as applying for a new warrant based on the claim that Good’s vehicle was used as a weapon against the officer, or redirecting attention toward a potential investigation of Good’s partner.
Career prosecutors pushed back, according to the report, arguing that the proposed shift rested on shaky legal grounds and risked inflaming political tensions in Minnesota, a state already unsettled by confrontations involving federal immigration enforcement.
The disagreement set off a cascade of resignations within the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota.
Thompson and five colleagues stepped down in protest, and further departures followed, leaving the office severely weakened and struggling to pursue major prosecutions involving fraud, drug trafficking, terrorism, and violent crime.
The turmoil has unfolded as Minnesota has emerged as a focal point in the administration’s intensified immigration enforcement campaign, with several fatal encounters involving federal officers sparking public outrage and deepening political strains.
Although the White House has sought to present an image of stability and restraint, critics argue that stepped-up enforcement is occurring alongside growing pressure on investigators to shape their work around official statements, heightening the risk of further unrest.
The Times also reported that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem publicly described Good as a “domestic terrorist,” language later repeated by Vice President JD Vance, even as prosecutors were reviewing video footage and anticipating a routine, independent assessment of whether the shooting was legally justified.
Local law enforcement leaders have warned that the fallout could damage long-standing working relationships between federal agencies and local police departments.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told the Times that the resignations and the perception of political influence over prosecutions threaten to derail progress against serious criminal activity.
Both the Justice Department and the FBI declined to comment to the Times, and it remains unknown whether prosecutors ultimately secured a new warrant to search Good’s vehicle.
{Matzav.com}
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard issued a sharp response to accusations that she concealed a classified whistleblower complaint, rejecting the claim outright and placing the blame on Sen. Mark Warner and what she described as allied media outlets for promoting false allegations.
In a public post, Gabbard said the charge that she personally hid a complaint was fabricated. “Senator Mark Warner and his friends in the Propaganda Media have repeatedly lied to the American people that I or the ODNI ‘hid’ a whistleblower complaint in a safe for eight months,” she wrote.
She followed with an unequivocal denial, stating, “This is a blatant lie.”
Gabbard emphasized that she never had custody of the complaint and therefore could not have concealed it. “I am not now, nor have I ever been, in possession or control of the Whistleblower’s complaint, so I obviously could not have ‘hidden’ it in a safe,” she wrote, adding that “Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson was in possession of and responsible for securing the complaint for months.”
According to Gabbard, her first exposure to the document occurred only recently and was limited in scope. “The first time I saw the whistleblower complaint was 2 weeks ago when I had to review it to provide guidance on how it should be securely shared with Congress,” she wrote.
Her remarks came after The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week on a top secret complaint submitted by an anonymous government insider, alleging that Gabbard had withheld classified material for political reasons and delayed transmitting the complaint to Congress.
Gabbard countered that the handling of the document was appropriate given its contents, arguing that the level of classification required strict security measures. “As Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Warner knows very well that whistleblower complaints that contain highly classified and compartmented intelligence, even if they contain baseless allegations like this one, must be secured in a safe,” she wrote.
She added that the security protocols did not change after congressional leaders were briefed. “After IC Inspector General Fox hand-delivered the complaint to the Gang of 8, the complaint was returned to a safe where it remains, consistent with any information of such sensitivity,” she said.
Gabbard went on to question Warner’s understanding of intelligence procedures, suggesting either deliberate dishonesty or incompetence. “Either Senator Warner knows these facts and is intentionally lying to the American people, or he doesn’t have a clue how these things work and is therefore not qualified to be in the U.S. Senate, and certainly not the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee,” she wrote.
Laying out a detailed chronology, Gabbard said she was first informed in June 2025 that a whistleblower complaint had been filed against her. She stated that after review, “neither Biden-era IC Inspector General Tamara Johnson nor current IC Inspector General Chris Fox found the complaint to be credible.”
She further explained that the document was stored securely because of the way it was drafted, saying it was locked away since “the complainant chose to include highly sensitive information within the complaint itself,” instead of citing intelligence at a lower classification level.
Addressing claims that she violated statutory deadlines, Gabbard argued that the legal requirements were misrepresented. “When a complaint is not found to be credible, there is no timeline under the law for the provision of security guidance,” she wrote, noting that the “21 day” rule applies only when a complaint is deemed “both urgent AND apparently credible.”
She stressed that those conditions were not met, adding, “That was NOT the case here.”
Gabbard said she received notice from Inspector General Chris Fox on Dec. 4, 2025, that security guidance was required and said she responded without delay. “I took immediate action to provide the security guidance,” she wrote, explaining that the inspector general then transmitted the complaint to Congress last week.
She closed her statement by accusing Warner of politicizing the issue, writing, “Senator Warner’s decision to spread lies and baseless accusations over the months for political gain, undermines our national security and is a disservice to the American people and the Intelligence Community.”
{Matzav.com}
