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A moving gathering took place tonight at the Chabad House in Yerushalayim’s Nachlaot-Rechavia neighborhood, where Rabbi Goldberg and Rabbi Marzel led a special ceremony marking the printing of the Tanya. Among those present were Eitan Mor, who was previously held hostage in Gaza, and Itzik Gvili, the father of Ran Gvili, who was killed after being taken captive.

Mor, who had been living in Nachlaot when he was abducted, arrived together with Gvili to an emotional reception from neighborhood residents, who greeted them with calls of “Am Yisrael Chai.” During the evening, Mor spoke candidly about his experiences in captivity and reflected on how they intersected with the teachings of the Tanya’s author.

He shared that before his abduction, his mother had often reminded him of the idea that “The mind rules over the heart.” Mor explained that after he later described his ordeal in Gaza to her, she told him, “‘In retrospect, you used that principle exactly there,’” noting how it had guided him during moments of danger.

Mor went on to describe a harrowing incident that occurred on the 33rd day of the war, while he was being moved through Gaza City. At one point, he said, he was left alone in a classroom inside a school. A man suddenly entered, shouted at him in Arabic, and Mor felt a wave of fear overwhelm him.

“In that moment, I used the Tanya’s teaching,” he said. “I told myself: don’t listen to your heartbeat. Think. I decided to pretend I was crazy. I started stammering without words, and that’s what saved me. He simply told me to go back to sleep and left.”

Looking back, Mor said the experience made clear to him how deeply those ideas had shaped his response. “In retrospect, I acted exactly as the Tanya teaches,” he said. “And I realized that even people who don’t know the Tanya live by its principles without knowing it. It’s a great joy to return to Nachlaot. Thank you all-and may Ran return quickly, amen.”

{Matzav.com}

Israel’s Holocaust Museum has accused Russia of Holocaust distortion over its decision to establish a new annual memorial day to commemorate the Nazi “Genocide of the Soviet People” while omitting any mention of their Jewish victims.

The new memorial day, which was signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin last month, will go into effect this year.

“Yad Vashem condemns this latest attempt to manipulate the historical facts of Nazi persecution for current political purposes,” Israel’s Holocaust Museum said in a Thursday post on X. “This new Russian law effectively erases the distinct Jewish dimension of the Shoah, despite the fact that they were the primary target of Nazi genocide.”

The Jerusalem Holocaust museum noted that while millions of Russians were killed during World War II, many of them in targeted murders, “the Holocaust is defined by the comprehensive campaign aimed at the total eradication of Jewish existence and the murder of six million Jewish men, women, and children, and as such must be recognized and remembered.”

The statement also added that the designated memorial date—April 19—set by the new Russian law has “profound significance” in Holocaust remembrance, as it marks the start of the famous uprising of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943.

Around 27 million Soviet citizens died in World War Two, including about 8.7 million military casualties, the highest death toll of any nation.

Israeli academics said on Monday that Yad Vashem was right to speak out.

“It is good that this statement came out, only too bad it did not come sooner because we are in the midst of a continued process of Putin’s manipulation of World War Two,” said Samuel Barnai of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “Like every other narrative, the Jewish Holocaust has to be sacrificed for the narrative of Soviet victory. where the victims are the Soviet nation.”

“The Russian law on the so-called genocide of the Soviet people is an outright fiction as the term ‘genocide’ has a narrow legal definition,” Leonid Smilovitsky, Senior Research Associate at Tel Aviv University, told JNS. “It was adopted by the Putin regime 80 years after the end of World War II to serve as a tool of political rhetoric to justify Russia’s current actions related to Ukraine and the Holocaust.”

“It is a strategy of ‘victimhood nationalism’ undertaken by the Russian government to portray Russia as the primary victim of Nazism,” Konstantin Pakhaliuk, Associate Researcher at Ruppin Academic Center, said in an interview with JNS. “The idea first emerged last decade, and since the aggression against Ukraine, it is now used to say that throughout history, Russians were always the victims of the West.”

He added that the new memorial day enacted by Russia was not a straightforward denial of the Holocaust as a Jewish genocide but a distortion of history to downplay the Jewish tragedy and to highlight the Soviet one.

“Its primary purpose is entirely political,” he said. JNS

{Matzav.com}

A jury has convicted a former Navy SEAL with neo-Nazi beliefs of transporting fireworks across state lines with plans to shoot explosives at police during last year’s “No Kings” protest in San Diego, federal prosecutors said. Following his conviction on Monday, Gregory Vandenberg was ordered held in custody until his sentencing hearing, which has not […]

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TRUMP: “We have a bad Fed Chairman… He’s bad because his interest rates [are] too high… What he also did, he’s renovating a small building — it’s the most expensive construction job in history, and it’s only a renovation!”

The Canadian government has updated its travel advisory for Iran, urging citizens to avoid all travel and advising those already in the country to leave immediately if it is safe to do so.

Ahead of the Fifth Annual Chinuch Conference of the Ha’azinu Center, set to take place this Thursday, Rosh Yeshiva and Torah leader HaGaon HaRav Dov Landau addressed the growing unrest surrounding the draft, offering firm direction to mechanchim, mashgichim, and yeshiva bochurim. In a question-and-answer session released ahead of the conference, Rav Landau was asked […]

Reporter: You said to Iran this morning that help is on the way. What did you mean by that? What kind of help? Trump: You’re gonna have to figure that one out. I’m sorry.

President Trump tours a Ford factory in the Detroit area prior to speaking at the Detroit Economic Club, where he is also expected to address Iran, including the ongoing protests and killings by Iranian security forces across the country.

The Democratic National Committee will spend millions of dollars to cement control of voter registration efforts that have traditionally been entrusted to nonprofit advocacy groups and individual political campaigns, a shift that party leaders hope will increase their chances in this year’s midterm elections. The initiative, being announced on Tuesday, will begin in Arizona and […]

Mazel Tov! The joy and bliss when an engagement is announced. The excitement is palpable. What a time of complete happiness & simcha! As the myriad details need to be arranged and the hectic whirlwind sets in, for some of these smiling families the smiles begin to falter, the dance slowly slips off-beat. The reason […]

The State and Treasury departments on Tuesday formally designated Muslim Brotherhood chapters operating in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon as foreign terrorist organizations, a sweeping move by the Trump administration that escalates Washington’s long-running confrontation with the Islamist network. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the action marks the opening phase of a broader campaign to […]

It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the petirah of Mr. Eliezer (Louis) Glick z”l.

Mr. Glick is survived by his son, renowned machzik Torah and baal tzedakah Reb Shimon Glick, along with extended family and friends who remember him with affection and respect.

The levayah will take place today, at 3 p.m., at Riverside Chapel, located at 180 West 76th Street in Manhattan. The kevurah will take place in Eretz Yisroel.

Yehi zichro baruch.

{Matzav.com}

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced Israel is withdrawing from seven United Nations agencies, effective immediately, citing anti-Israel bias and ineffective UN bureaucracy. * The agencies include UN Women, the UN office for Children and Armed Conflict, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, the UN Alliance […]

Footage from Modi’in Illit shows rescue forces continuing to search for a bocher who was swept away by floodwaters. The name for Tehillim is משה בן רייזל ורד.

TRUMP: “We’re going to Detroit, we’ll be talking about how well the economy is doing… the inflation numbers just came out, and we have very low inflation — so that would give ‘Too Late’ Powell the chance to give us a nice, beautiful, big rate cut, which would be great…”

Trump on investigation into Jerome Powell: Well, he’s billions of dollars over budget. So he either is incompetent or he’s crooked.

Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid on Monday sharply responded to remarks made by United Torah Judaism chairman MK Moshe Gafni, declaring that a proposed military draft law will not pass and accusing Gafni of crossing red lines.

Lapid’s comments came during a speech in the Knesset plenum, hours after Gafni referred to him in an interview using harsh language. Addressing the interview directly, Lapid said, “A few hours ago, in an interview with Kikar HaShabbat, MK Gafni called me ‘zero.’ I want to remind MK Gafni of what I told him here already 13 years ago — we are done taking orders from you.”

Turning to the substance of the dispute, Lapid added, “MK Gafni must understand, the draft law will not pass. Because it is an un-Jewish act to evade your obligation to fight alongside your brothers who are battling to save this homeland.”

Gafni’s remarks that sparked the response were made in an interview with journalist Yishai Cohen, in which he launched a broad attack on Lapid. Gafni accused Lapid of losing control and acting irresponsibly, claiming that delays in salary transfers and budget approvals that Lapid criticized were practices that also took place during Lapid’s own tenure as finance minister.

In the interview, Gafni escalated his rhetoric, accusing Lapid of obsessively targeting the chareidi public and using inflammatory language whenever related issues arise. “Now this brazen man comes along,” Gafni said, arguing that Lapid selectively ignored similar budget items benefiting religious state schools. He claimed that the accountant general had already explained that the same procedures existed under Lapid’s watch, and accused him of seeking to destabilize the government at any cost. Gafni concluded his remarks with a personal insult, saying of Lapid, “Who is he anyway? Zero.”

{Matzav.com}

The heads of the coalition parties—Ofir Katz, Betzalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben Gvir, and Gideon Sa’ar—sent a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday calling on him not to heed the Supreme Court if it rules in favor of the petitions seeking the dismissal of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. “We firmly reject the […]

An independent counsel has demanded a death sentence for former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on rebellion charges in connection with his short-lived imposition of martial law in December 2024. The Seoul Central District Court said independent counsel Cho Eun-suk’s team made the request at a hearing Tuesday. Yoon was expected to make remarks […]