A wave of dangerous winter weather combined with staffing problems tied to a TSA pay freeze caused widespread travel disruptions across the United States on Monday, forcing more than 2,000 flight cancellations and bringing operations at several major airports to a standstill.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that major hubs were heavily affected as ground stops were issued early Monday morning. Flights were halted at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport, while George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston experienced significant ground delays.
Beyond the thousands of canceled flights, the disruptions spread nationwide, with more than 9,500 additional flights delayed, Duffy said.
The aviation turmoil coincided with a powerful round of late-winter storms striking large portions of the country Monday and Tuesday.
In the Midwest, communities were contending with blizzard conditions, while states across the eastern United States faced severe thunderstorms expected to produce powerful winds and possible flooding, according to AccuWeather.
Meteorologists warned that the storm system could impact roughly 200 million people.
Air travelers were already struggling with airport delays before the storms intensified, as a pay freeze affecting airport security officers created staffing shortages. Because security personnel were working without pay during the partial government shutdown, roughly 300 TSA workers resigned.
The funding lapse occurred on Feb. 13 after Congress failed to reach an agreement on immigration enforcement changes sought by Democrats.
Scenes from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport showed long lines of passengers waiting outside the terminal early Monday morning as travelers attempted to pass through security checkpoints.
Airport officials advised passengers at the time to arrive at least two and a half hours before domestic departures. By late morning, however, security lines had returned to normal levels, according to a post from Austin-Bergstrom’s X account.
The Trump administration has laid the blame on the TSA hiccups on Democrats for the partial funding stop.
{Matzav.com}
President Donald Trump issued a pair of lengthy social media messages late Sunday sharply criticizing the Supreme Court and a federal district judge, accusing members of the judiciary of political bias and condemning a recent ruling that struck down tariffs he imposed under emergency economic authority.
Trump’s comments followed a Supreme Court decision issued last month that invalidated key tariffs he enacted using national emergency powers. The justices ruled by a 6–3 margin that the tariffs went beyond the authority granted to the president under a 1977 emergency economic law, determining that the Constitution assigns Congress—not the president—the authority to impose import duties.
In his first post on Truth Social, Trump expressed frustration with the court and took aim at justices who, in his view, fail to support the presidents who appointed them.
“The Democrats on the Court always ‘stick together,’ no matter how strong a case is put before them — There is rarely even a minor ‘waver,'” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “But Republicans do not do this.
“They openly disrespect the Presidents who nominate them to the highest position in the Land, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and go out of their way, with bad and wrongful rulings and intentions, to prove how ‘honest,’ ‘independent,’ and ‘legitimate’ they are.”
Trump emphasized that the ruling on tariffs was particularly significant to him, arguing that the decision could ultimately benefit foreign competitors that he says have exploited American markets for years.
“The decision that mattered most to me was TARIFFS!” Trump wrote. “The Court knew where I stood, how badly I wanted this Victory for our Country, and instead decided to, potentially, give away Trillions of Dollars to Countries and Companies who have been taking advantage of the United States for decades.”
Despite the ruling limiting the specific emergency powers he had relied upon, the decision noted that the president still has the ability to impose tariffs through other statutory avenues. Following the decision, administration officials began examining additional trade actions and potential investigations aimed at reinstating tariff protections and responding to foreign trade practices.
Trump also voiced appreciation for the three justices who dissented in the case—Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Brett Kavanaugh—praising what he described as their “Wisdom and Courage,” while accusing the court’s liberal members of voting in lockstep for political reasons.
“Our Supreme Court has made these Countries very happy,” Trump wrote, adding that he will “fight hard” to ensure American interests are protected.
In a separate Truth Social post, Trump shifted his focus to the federal court system and criticized a judge who recently blocked a Justice Department investigation related to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
The case involved subpoenas connected to a probe into Powell’s congressional testimony about the Federal Reserve’s costly renovation of its Washington headquarters. On Friday, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors had failed to present sufficient evidence to justify the subpoenas, writing that investigators produced “essentially zero evidence” of wrongdoing.
Trump responded by condemning the ruling and directly attacking the judge who issued it, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, accusing him of partisan hostility.
“I strongly criticized Jerome ‘Too Late’ for his horrible performance throughout his tenure, which is either gross incompetence, total dishonesty, or both,” Trump wrote, “and, in return for this well justified criticism, get viciously and wrongfully blamed by, as usual, a Wacky, Nasty, Crooked, and totally Out of Control Judge, named James Boasberg, a man who suffers from the highest level of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), and has been ‘after’ my people, and me, for years.”
Trump argued that the renovation of the Federal Reserve’s headquarters had ballooned into an expensive and unnecessary project that deserved further scrutiny by investigators.
He concluded by accusing the judge of allowing politics to shape his decisions from the bench.
“What Boasberg has done on the ‘Too Late’ Powell case, and many others, has little to do with the Law, and everything to do with Politics,” Trump wrote.
{Matzav.com}
Agudath Israel of America is pleased to announce the opening of its Holocaust collection on the Agudah Archive website (https://agudaharchive.org/holocaust/351).
The thousands of documents in this collection paint a picture of the Holocaust’s impact on the history of European Orthodox Jewry and World Jewry’s valiant rescue efforts during and immediately following the horrors of the Holocaust. This aspect of Holocaust history has been neglected in most public archives and collections.
Until now, these documents have only been available in physical form, in the Orthodox Jewish Archives at Agudah headquarters. With assistance from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, supported by the German Federal Ministry of Finance, these documents are being digitized, organized and uploaded, in many themed collections.
The first three collections are now up on the website. The first, Holocaust interviews, contains over 70 audio interviews with Holocaust survivors. The second and third collections feature two periodicals, Jewish Opinion and Orthodox Tribune (originally Orthodox Youth or Agudah Youth), which were published by Zeirei Agudath Israel of America in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. These publications, over 50 issues with hundreds of pages of news and articles, give a window into the progression of the war and its aftermath. For example, the Adar 1942 issue includes a front page with the headline “On Nazi Atrocities,” news about rescue and about Agudah’s efforts to help with religious education for children that were sent to the land of Israel, and an op-ed by Jacob (Moreinu Yaakov) Rosenheim, ”The Right Answer to Hitler’s Challenge.”
These collections are the first of many that will be available to readers and scholars in the Holocaust section of the Agudah archives.
Agudath Israel’s executive vice president Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel welcomed the on-line publication of the three collections as “an important milestone in the area of Holocaust education.”
“Our Gedolei Yisroel have encouraged us to know for ourselves what transpired during the Holocaust, and to teach it to our children, so that we will never forget this dark era, and so that we will forever be inspired by the spiritual heroism displayed by so many holy Jews . With the on-line publication of these three archival collections – and b’ezras Hashem many more collections to come — Agudath Israel is making a treasure trove of primary source materials accessible to the broad Jewish public. This is a truly historic achievement.”
Rabbi Zwiebel expressed Agudath Israel’s gratitude to the many people who were involved in this project, including Rabbi Moshe Kolodny, Agudah’s Archivist Emeritus, responsible for the founding and growth of the Orthodox Jewish Archives; Rabbi Yossi Aszkenazy, who has been funding and digitizing thousands of hours of historic Agudah recordings; the Levy and Cohen families, sponsors of the online archive; the Claims Conference and the German government, who are funding the Holocaust digitization project; Rabbi Labish Becker, Executive Director of Agudath Israel and Administrator of the Holocaust digitization project; and Ms. Judith Dinowitz, Project Lead.
Dear Matzav Inbox,
Before raising the concern that follows, it is important to make something very clear. The overwhelming majority of the Torah community conducts the shidduch process in a thoughtful, balanced, and healthy manner. Young men and women are introduced through shadchanim, they meet several times, they have the opportunity to speak and learn about one another, and when they become engaged they continue to communicate and prepare for marriage in appropriate and dignified ways. For most of our community, the system works remarkably well and has produced generations of strong Jewish homes.
The concern I am raising here does not refer to that mainstream shidduch system.
Rather, it refers to a much smaller number of insular communities that follow what is commonly referred to as the “bashow” model, where the process functions in a dramatically different way.
In those circles, a boy and girl may meet for an hour — sometimes even less. They sit together briefly, often with little privacy and under significant pressure. Shortly afterward, families and intermediaries push for an answer. Within a very short period of time, they become engaged. Then, astonishingly, the couple do not see one another again until the wedding day itself.
This is not the traditional shidduch system that most of Klal Yisroel recognizes. It is a highly compressed version of it, one that leaves two people making the most consequential decision of their lives with almost no meaningful opportunity to know each other.
Marriage is not a casual undertaking. It is the creation of a bayis ne’eman b’Yisroel, the foundation upon which an entire life will be built, emotionally, spiritually, and practically. It is difficult to understand how such a life-altering commitment can responsibly be made after a single short meeting. In many cases, it is a churban. I speak from experience.
Even more troubling is the expectation that once the engagement takes place, the couple must essentially remain strangers until the wedding. In many of these situations, they are discouraged or even prevented from seeing or meaningfully speaking with each other during the engagement period.
One must ask: What purpose does this serve?
The engagement period should be a time when a couple deepens their understanding of one another, discusses expectations, learns how the other thinks, and begins forming the communication that will sustain a lifetime together. Preventing that process does not strengthen a marriage. It risks weakening it before it even begins.
There is also reason to question whether such a structure truly reflects the spirit of halachah. The Gemara teaches that a person should not marry someone without seeing and knowing them in order to avoid later resentment. The Rambam emphasizes that marriage must be entered willingly and with clarity. The purpose of the shidduch process is not merely to arrange a match but to allow two individuals to determine that they can build a life together.
That requires some measure of real familiarity.
None of this is a criticism of the values these communities seek to protect. Modesty, dignity, and the involvement of family are all important elements of our mesorah. But good intentions alone cannot justify a system that places enormous life decisions on the shoulders of young people who barely know one another.
Too often, couples who went through such a process later admit privately that they entered marriage without truly understanding the person they were marrying. Some grow into compatibility over time, but others face enormous challenges that might have been avoided with a healthier and more thoughtful approach during the courtship period.
We must acknowledge when certain practices drift too far from both common sense and the values the system was meant to uphold.
The mainstream shidduch process, when conducted with care and wisdom, provides young people with guidance, structure, and the opportunity to build marriages grounded in understanding and respect.
But the “bashow” model — where a couple meets briefly, becomes engaged almost immediately, and then remains essentially separated until the wedding — deserves serious reflection.
Our community prides itself on building strong families and stable homes. If that is truly our goal, then we must ensure that the systems we create actually help young people build those homes, not force them into life-altering decisions with almost no opportunity to know the person they are about to marry. This leads to broken marriages, broken people, broken children – and broken pieces for others to pick up.
Respectfully,
Burech Yida F.
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Israel’s government is preparing for the possibility of a major escalation on its northern border, with officials considering a dramatic expansion of reserve forces as the military readies for intensified operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
According to a report broadcast Sunday evening by Kan 11 News, the government may soon be asked to authorize an increase in the ceiling for reserve mobilization, raising the maximum number of soldiers who can be called up to 450,000.
The proposal, submitted by the IDF together with the defense establishment, is intended to provide the military with greater operational flexibility as it prepares for the possibility of a ground incursion into Lebanon and the prospect of maintaining forces inside hostile territory for an extended period. If approved, the plan would raise the mobilization cap by approximately 190,000 troops beyond the level set in January.
The push to expand the reserve quota comes as the IDF has intensified its offensive activity in recent days, including the destruction of the key bridge spanning the Litani River.
Israeli officials in Yerushalayim are seeking to significantly widen the security buffer zone in southern Lebanon in order to move anti-tank missile threats and infiltration risks farther away from Israeli communities along the northern border. The matter is also currently under discussion with the US administration.
At the same time, Israel’s political leadership is sending a strong message to the Lebanese government. Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has directed the IDF to compile a list of infrastructure sites and civilian locations that Hezbollah uses for its operations, signaling that Beirut will be held accountable for terror activity launched from Lebanese territory.
{Matzav.com}
