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Iranian authorities faced mounting pressure as demonstrations expanded across the country, even as the protests themselves showed no clear central leadership. Analysts say the absence of an organized alternative has historically weakened similar movements.

“The lack of a viable alternative has undermined past protests in Iran,” wrote Nate Swanson of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, who studies Iran.

“There may be a thousand Iranian dissident activists who, given a chance, could emerge as respected statesmen, as labor leader Lech Walesa did in Poland at the end of the Cold War. But so far, the Iranian security apparatus has arrested, persecuted and exiled all of the country’s potential transformational leaders.”

Despite that, unrest continued to grow. Demonstrations that erupted Wednesday in cities and small towns carried into Thursday, with additional markets and bazaars closing in solidarity with protesters. According to the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights, at least 45 demonstrators have been killed so far, among them eight minors.

12th day of anti-establishment protests in Iran

The crowd of protesters in Tehran got bigger. Same location as the one quoted here@GeoConfirmed https://t.co/zwOV0BvI4Q pic.twitter.com/oa5c6HNao6

— Ghoncheh Habibiazad | غنچه (@GhonchehAzad) January 8, 2026

The organization said Wednesday marked the deadliest day since the protests began.

“The evidence shows that the scope of the crackdown is becoming more violent and more extensive every day,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, adding that hundreds more have been wounded and over 2,000 arrested.

Thursday night brought a dramatic escalation in Tehran, where thousands of residents chanted from their homes and poured into the streets after a call for mass demonstrations by exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi, witnesses said. Almost immediately after the protests began, internet access and telephone service inside Iran went down.

CloudFlare and the monitoring group NetBlocks both reported the outage, attributing it to government interference. Calls placed from Dubai to Iranian landlines and mobile phones were still connecting. In previous waves of unrest, similar blackouts were often followed by harsh crackdowns.

Pahlavi’s appeal marked a key moment for the protest movement, testing whether Iranians would rally around the son of the late shah, who fled the country shortly before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Demonstrators in recent days have openly voiced support for the monarchy — once punishable by death — underscoring the depth of anger driven by Iran’s economic crisis.

Pahlavi urged people to take to the streets at 8 p.m. local time on Thursday and Friday. When the hour arrived, chants echoed through neighborhoods across Tehran, witnesses said, including “Death to the dictator!” and “Death to the Islamic Republic!” Others invoked the monarchy, shouting: “This is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!” Large crowds were visible in multiple areas of the capital.

“Great nation of Iran, the eyes of the world are upon you. Take to the streets and, as a united front, shout your demands,” Pahlavi said in a statement. “I warn the Islamic Republic, its leader and the [Revolutionary Guard] that the world and [President Donald Trump] are closely watching you. Suppression of the people will not go unanswered.”

Pahlavi has said he will outline further steps depending on the response to his call. His ties to Israel have drawn criticism in the past, particularly following the 12-day war Israel waged on Iran in June. While some protesters have praised the shah, it remains unclear whether those chants reflect support for Pahlavi himself or nostalgia for the period before the Islamic Revolution.

Iranian officials appeared to be preparing for unrest. The hard-line Kayhan newspaper posted a video online asserting that security forces would use drones to identify participants in the demonstrations.

Even so, authorities have not acknowledged the full scale of the protests, which flared across numerous locations on Thursday, including before the scheduled 8 p.m. rallies. At the same time, Iranian media reported casualties among security personnel.

The judiciary’s Mizan news agency said a police colonel died from stab wounds in a town near Tehran. The semiofficial Fars news agency reported that gunmen killed two security force members and wounded 30 others in a shooting in Lordegan, in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province. Separately, a deputy governor in Khorasan Razavi province told state television that an attack on a police station in Chenaran killed five people Wednesday night, roughly 700 kilometers northeast of Tehran.

Questions remain over why authorities have not yet unleashed a broader crackdown. Trump warned last week that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” the United States “will come to their rescue.”

That warning prompted a sharp response from Iran’s Foreign Ministry.

“Recalling the long history of criminal interventions by successive US administrations in Iran’s internal affairs, the Foreign Ministry considers claims of concern for the great Iranian nation to be hypocritical, aimed at deceiving public opinion and covering up the numerous crimes committed against Iranians,” it said.

Despite the rebuke, the US State Department has continued highlighting protest-related footage on the social platform X, including videos showing demonstrators renaming roads after Trump or discarding government-subsidized rice.

“When prices are set so high that neither consumers can afford to buy nor farmers can afford to sell, everyone loses,” the State Department said in one post. “It makes no difference if this rice is thrown away.”

{Matzav.com}

Federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in a vehicle outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon, on Thursday, a day after an officer shot and killed a driver in Minnesota, authorities said. The Department of Homeland Security described the vehicle’s passenger as “a Venezuelan illegal alien affiliated with the transnational Tren de Aragua prostitution ring” who […]

The Emes L’Yaakov organization sent an urgent warning letter on Wednesday to the head of the IDF Manpower Directorate, Maj. Gen. Dado Bar-Kalifa, demanding an immediate freeze on all recruitment, induction, arrest, and imprisonment procedures for physically and mentally ill Chareidi draft candidates (pre-enlistees). The letter states that the IDF is conducting a systematic, discriminatory, […]

After boasting publicly about blocking the construction of a large mikvah and a major shul in Yerushalayim’s Givat Masua neighborhood, Deputy Mayor Yossi Havilio is now pushing back against claims that the move was ideologically driven or anti-religious.

The controversy erupted after Havilio published a social media post celebrating what he described as a successful struggle to preserve the neighborhood’s “liberal character,” following efforts to stop the establishment of an expansive mikvah and shul complex. The language of the post quickly sparked a heated debate in Yerushalayim, with critics accusing him of framing the issue as a cultural or religious confrontation rather than a planning dispute.

In an interview on Kikar FM, Havilio sought to strip the decision of its ideological overtones and reframe it as a matter of urban planning. He stressed that he did not act alone, saying the opposition was led together with city council member Laura Wharton and local residents, who formally filed objections to the revised plan.

According to Havilio, the neighborhood is largely secular, with a presence of what he termed “moderate religious residents.” He said the original proposal involved a standard shul, which did not face opposition. The dispute began only after the plan was altered.

He explained that the municipality moved to replace a relatively small community structure with a four-story complex that would include a mikvah, a shul, and a multi-purpose hall, situated on a narrow, one-way dead-end street. “It simply doesn’t fit there,” Havilio argued, citing transportation concerns, planning limitations, and potential harm to residents’ quality of life.

Havilio said that when the majority of a neighborhood opposes a project of that scale, especially when alternative locations exist nearby, there is no justification for forcing it through. He rejected the idea that opposing the project amounted to religious coercion, noting that Yerushalayim is home to hundreds of mikva’os and shuls that he does not object to.

At the same time, he stood by his use of the term “liberal character,” saying neighborhoods have the right to protect their identity when faced with unusually large developments. “If most residents don’t want this mikvah and this shul, that needs to be respected,” he said. “This isn’t a fight against religion, it’s about fitting into the environment.”

Havilio also pointed out that additional mikva’os already operate in the surrounding area, including one in nearby Kiryat Menachem, which he said could serve residents of Givat Masua who are interested. He added that many women prefer not to use a mikvah in their immediate neighborhood in any case, questioning the need for what he called an oversized facility in a location ill-suited for it.

During the interview, criticism was raised over the way the struggle had been portrayed publicly, particularly the impression that it was an ideological victory over the religious or chareidi public rather than a narrowly defined planning objection. Havilio rejected that characterization, though he struggled to explain why his original post emphasized the neighborhood’s liberal identity.

“I didn’t say there shouldn’t be large shuls or mikva’os in Yerushalayim,” he said. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

Still, the tension between his technical explanations and the value-laden language of his social media post remained unresolved, leaving the sense that the issue extended beyond zoning and infrastructure and into the realm of identity politics.

{Matzav.com}

This morning, I walked into shul and counted a minyan of 20 people. What I also counted—painfully—were five people using their cell phones during davening. Let that sink in. Twenty-five percent of the shul was on their phones while standing before the Ribbono Shel Olam. This is not a minor issue or a personal chumra. […]

Two people were reportedly wounded Thursday afternoon during an encounter involving federal agents in Portland, coming less than 24 hours after an ICE agent fatally shot a woman in Minnesota during a volatile enforcement operation, according to published reports.

Authorities have not released details about the circumstances surrounding the Portland incident or the medical condition of the two individuals who were shot.

Portland City Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney said the two people who were hit were still alive, according to local reporting.

City councilors told KATU that the gunfire broke out near the intersection of East Burnside Street and 141st Avenue.

Sources cited by ABC News said the agents involved in the Portland shooting were members of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The Portland episode followed the killing of Renee Nicole Good, 37, who was shot and killed Wednesday afternoon by an ICE agent in Minnesota. Video from the scene appears to show Good striking the officer with her car moments before the agent fired through the vehicle’s window.

President Trump and Homeland Security officials said the agent who fired acted in self-defense after being hit by Good, whom they described as a “domestic terrorist.”

{Matzav.com}

The top United Nations official on Thursday said the United States has a “legal obligation” to keep paying its dues that fund U.N. agencies after the White House announced that it is withdrawing support from more than 30 initiatives operated by the world body. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he regretted President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from 31 […]

In a pointed interview with Eli Guthelf on Kikar FM, Dr. Yoav Heller, chairman of the Fourth Quarter movement, argued that the death of the child Yosef Eisenthal z”l was not only a personal tragedy but a warning sign of a collapsed civic contract between the State of Israel and its chareidi citizens.

Heller said he was not seeking to comfort listeners or align with any political camp. “I’m saying things that people may not like,” he said at the outset, “but the truth has to be said.”

According to Heller, the incident should not be viewed as an isolated event. He described it as part of a broader, ongoing pattern of systemic failure. When children are present at a protest, a driver repeatedly calls the police, and officers never arrive, Heller said, that is not a malfunction but a breakdown of sovereignty.

“In a state governed by law, there is no such thing as areas where the state simply isn’t present,” he said. “Even if it’s a radical group, even if they are lawbreakers, the police must respond. No citizen can be abandoned because of who they are.”

Heller rejected attempts to frame the case as an internal problem of the chareidi community alone. He drew a parallel to the Meron disaster, arguing that the state repeatedly shifts responsibility to intermediaries and power brokers, then distances itself when systems collapse.

“The State of Israel doesn’t speak to the chareidi citizen,” he said. “It speaks to chareidi mechanisms, to askanim, to mediating leadership — and then wonders why there is no control.”

While making clear that he has no tolerance for extremist factions, whom he described as criminals, Heller insisted that law enforcement cannot simply disappear. He compared the situation to violence in Arab society. “When there are murders in Arab communities, can the police say, ‘That’s your culture, deal with it yourselves’? Obviously not. The same applies here.”

Heller extended his critique beyond policing, saying the same dynamic exists in debates over military service and education. He argued that chareidi society is often portrayed as freely choosing its path, when in reality individual choice is severely constrained.

He cited data indicating that 61 percent of chareidi parents want their children to study English and mathematics, yet have little ability to make that happen because decisions are made at an institutional level rather than by parents themselves. “In a chareidi municipality, the authority decides whether such a school will exist or not,” he said. “The parent is left powerless.”

Turning to the past year’s events, and especially October 7, Heller said Israel can no longer rely on partial arrangements and ad hoc compromises with a population that is no longer marginal. He called for a new civic contract — not based on coercion, but also not on blanket exemptions.

“There are national missions — security, the economy, and the spirit,” he said. “Not everyone has to do the same thing, but everyone has to contribute something.”

Heller said he opposes arresting those who do not enlist, but argued there is no justification for full access to welfare systems for individuals who do not contribute to any national mission.

On the question of Torah study, Heller described Torah learning as a national asset that the state should formally recognize. At the same time, he warned against turning Torah into an exclusive, lifelong profession for an elite minority.

“For most of Eastern European Jewry, people worked and learned Torah,” he said. “The idea that everyone must sit in kollel all day is a modern innovation.”

Toward the end of the interview, Heller recounted conversations with senior rabbanim following October 7. One rabbi, he said, told him he viewed certain problems as unsolvable because of siyata diShmaya. Heller pushed back on that approach.

“I don’t think that’s Judaism,” he said. “The Chazon Ish went into a room with Ben-Gurion because he understood that there is a state, and there is responsibility.”

Despite his sharp criticism, Heller concluded with a clear warning against hatred. “It is forbidden to hate chareidim,” he said. “It is forbidden to deny them services and present that as an achievement.”

He summarized his vision simply, though he acknowledged its complexity: “Torah, work, army — each in their own way, while preserving identity.”

{Matzav.com}

Nationalist congresswoman Gladis Aurora López was struck by an explosive device outside the Congress of Honduras, after it was thrown by a protester. * The blast caused severe burns and possible damage to her hearing, according to reports.

It is with great sadness that Matzav.com reports the petirah of Rav Yosef Yehoshua Levi zt”l.

Rabbi Levi, who studied at the Ponevezh Yeshiva and later became a central pillar of the Torah community in Toronto, was widely known as a gifted and respected writer. For decades, he was a prominent contributor to the Hamodia newspaper, where his weekly columns earned broad acclaim.

He was born in Yerushalayimin 5698 (1938) to his father, Rav Shmuel Zev Levi, a respected member of the Gerer chassidus and a notable presence in the Beis Yisrael neighborhood. As a child, Rabbi Levi absorbed the spirit and Torah of Yerushalayim while studying at the Chayei Olam Talmud Torah.

He later continued his studies at Yeshiva Tiferes Tzion in Bnei Brak and then at Ponevezh Yeshiva, where he formed a close bond with the mashgiach, Rav Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, author of the Michtav M’Eliyahu. Known for his diligence and depth, Rabbi Levi stood out as a serious and thoughtful talmid chochom.

After reaching marriageable age, he wed his wife, Mrs. Malka Levi, daughter of Rav Mordechai Asher Friedman of Bnei Brak. She became his devoted partner in all his endeavors in chinuch and Torah dissemination, standing by his side with dedication and strength.

Following their marriage, the couple moved to Canada, beginning a significant chapter as communal emissaries in the field of education. Rabbi Levi served for many years as a beloved mechanech at a girls’ high school in Toronto, while his wife devoted herself to teaching first-grade students. Together, they were among the foundational figures of Toronto’s Torah community, opening their home as a center of warmth, chessed, guidance, and wisdom.

They merited raising generations of students who continued on the path of Torah and mitzvos, inspired by the personal care and radiant countenance they encountered. Alongside his educational work, Rabbi Levi became known as a prolific and talented writer.

For many years, he was a regular columnist for Hamodia, with his essays in the weekly supplement becoming widely read and appreciated. His writing was marked by clarity, rich language, and a deep Torah perspective on contemporary issues, with his passionate worldview clearly reflected in his words. Even in his later years, until only a few years ago, he continued to enrich readers with his insights through his weekly column.

In recent years, Rabbi Levi returned to Eretz Yisrael and lived in Yerushalayimin the home of his son, Rabbi Yeshayahu Levi. Approximately two years ago, during Sukkos, his wife, Mrs. Malka Levi, passed away. From that time, his strength gradually waned, and he accepted his yissurim with quiet dignity. On Wednesday night, he was niftar.

He is survived by his son Rabbi Yeshayahu Levi of Yerushalayim, author of the sefer Mikra Ani Doresh; his daughters, Mrs. Weisbaum of Toronto and Mrs. Klein of Flatbush; and his son, Rabbi Shmuel Levi of Lakewood, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Yehi zichro boruch. {Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump reacted forcefully on Thursday to a report claiming that Somali couriers transported unusually large sums of cash out of Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport, using social media to demand immediate action.

“Arrest them all. They are criminals!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social while sharing a Just the News report describing what it called a “Somali cash exodus” from Minneapolis, which the president said far exceeded similar activity at other major U.S. airports.

The repost drew attention to newly published reporting that quoted Homeland Security Department officials who said the volume of money leaving Minnesota was “substantially abnormal” and should have raised red flags during the Biden administration.

According to Just the News, Transportation Security Administration personnel detected and flagged close to $700 million in cash carried out of Minneapolis in luggage by Somali couriers during 2024 and 2025, an amount that averaged nearly $1 million per day.

The outlet reported that travelers departing Minneapolis alone accounted for $342.37 million in 2024 and $349.4 million in 2025, with officials saying some individual trips allegedly involved as much as $1 million in cash.

Investigators also raised concerns about the alleged routing of the money through Amsterdam before continuing on to Dubai, a pattern that has attracted heightened scrutiny from intelligence agencies and federal investigators.

One official familiar with the activity likened it to “like a cash ATM draining American dollars and moving them overseas,” noting that the transfers were openly carried out using legal cash declarations under customs regulations.

Just the News reported that the sums detected leaving Minneapolis were between 10 and 100 times greater than foreign cash totals seen at much larger airports and, in some cases, nearly unprecedented by comparison.

Officials told the outlet that the Minneapolis figures were “99% larger” than foreign cash detected or declared in 2025 at airports such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, or JFK, and still significantly higher than totals recorded at Seattle, another major international gateway.

Although the cash was reportedly declared legally, the outlet said the scale of the outbound money is now part of a broader Homeland Security Investigations probe connected to a multibillion-dollar fraud investigation centered in Minnesota’s Somali immigrant community, where dozens of people have already been charged or convicted in earlier schemes.

Trump has repeatedly argued that the alleged Somali-linked fraud in Minnesota could be far more extensive than what investigators initially uncover.

Speaking to reporters, Trump said that if authorities have identified $19 billion in fraud, “that means it could be 50,” calling the figures “astronomical” and declaring that the “gravy train is over.” He also said individuals found complicit should be deported.

The ramifications could widen beyond criminal cases.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said the administration is considering revoking the citizenship of Somali Americans convicted of fraud tied to Minnesota’s major welfare scandals, highlighting the administration’s broader effort to crack down on large-scale abuse of taxpayer-funded programs.

Among conservatives, the revelations surrounding the Minneapolis airport cash flows are prompting fresh questions about why the pattern was not flagged earlier, how much taxpayer fraud may be connected to it, and how long federal authorities may have failed to act while American dollars allegedly moved overseas in plain sight.

{Matzav.com}

Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that European governments should pay close attention to President Donald Trump’s statements about Greenland, as the White House escalates its rhetoric toward the Danish-controlled Arctic territory.

Speaking at a White House briefing, Vance faulted Denmark and other European allies for what he described as insufficient efforts to safeguard Greenland, a strategically important region he said is increasingly drawing interest from Russia and China.

“I guess my advice to European leaders and anybody else would be to take the president of the United States seriously,” Vance told reporters when asked about the administration’s posture toward Greenland.

His remarks came amid heightened diplomatic activity across Europe after the White House said earlier this week that Trump wants to buy Greenland and declined to rule out the use of military force. European capitals have been scrambling to coordinate a response to the statements.

Vance pointed specifically to Trump’s argument that the United States requires Greenland for national security reasons, including “missile defense,” citing growing military activity by Moscow and Beijing in the region as Arctic ice recedes.

“So what we’re asking our European friends to do is to take the security of that land mass more seriously, because if they’re not, the United States is going to have to do something about it,” Vance said.

“What that is, I’ll leave that to the president as we continue to engage in diplomacy with our European friends and everybody on this particular topic,” he added.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to meet with officials from Denmark and Greenland next week, as tensions continue to rise.

Trump has spoken for years about acquiring Greenland, but his language has intensified following last week’s U.S. military operation that removed Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from power.

The comments have angered Denmark, a founding member of NATO and a long-standing American ally, while setting off alarm across Europe. Any invasion of Greenland would put the United States in direct conflict with a fellow NATO country and could fracture the alliance’s mutual defense framework.

European leaders have launched a wave of diplomatic efforts aimed at defusing the situation, seeking to prevent a crisis while also avoiding a direct clash with Trump, who is approaching the end of his first year back in office.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer discussed Greenland during a call with Trump on Wednesday, “set out his position on Greenland,” and followed up with another call on Thursday in which he said more could be done to protect the “high Arctic” from Russian influence, according to Downing Street.

Vance was also meeting in Washington with British Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy for talks primarily focused on the war in Ukraine, though Greenland was expected to be part of the broader discussion.

European nations have publicly backed Denmark, with several leaders joining Copenhagen in a joint statement affirming that decisions about Greenland’s future rest solely with Denmark and Greenland.

French President Emmanuel Macron went further, warning Thursday that the United States was “turning away” from its allies in what marked some of his sharpest criticism yet of Trump’s approach.

Macron argued that “global governance” was essential at a moment when, he said, “every day people wonder whether Greenland is going to be invaded.”

Vance has previously taken a hard line on Europe’s defense posture, writing in a leaked group chat with senior U.S. officials last year that he hated “bailing out” the continent.

That sentiment was echoed in the Trump administration’s national security strategy released in December, which sharply criticized Europe, warning of “civilisational erasure” driven by migration and urging the United States to support “cultivating resistance” among right-wing political movements.

{Matzav.com}

More artificial intelligence is being implanted into Gmail as Google tries to turn the world’s most popular email service into a personal assistant that can improve writing, summarize far-flung information buried in inboxes and deliver daily to-do lists. The new AI features announced Thursday could herald a pivotal moment for Gmail, a service that transformed […]

Federal prosecutors have opened a review of financial activity connected to New York Attorney General Letitia James and a longtime associate, according to a report by The New York Times.

At the center of the inquiry is Iyesata Marsh, whom investigators reportedly want to question about past transactions involving James or her political operation. Those include payments from James’ 2018 attorney general campaign to Marsh for the rental of a Brooklyn studio Marsh owns.

Investigators are also examining other payments tied to Marsh, including compensation connected to a musical performance at a political event held in Albany, New York.

The renewed scrutiny is being driven by Department of Justice Special Attorney Edward Martin Jr., who previously pursued parallel mortgage fraud investigations involving James and Sen. Adam Schiff of California.

Those earlier efforts stalled last month, when the Department of Justice failed to obtain an indictment after determining that the U.S. attorney who brought the case, Lindsey Halligan, had been improperly appointed.

James’ lawyer told the Times that the latest investigation reflects irritation over “the string of failures in carrying out President [Donald] Trump’s political vendetta.”

He characterized the focus on Marsh as an effort “to shake down people based on their association with Ms. James.”

“Like their earlier attempts, this attack on Ms. James is doomed to fail,” he said. “The desperation of those working for Trump is palpable and makes indelible the stain already put on this Justice Department.”

James and President Trump have sparred for years in courtrooms and in public, with James overseeing prominent investigations into Trump’s business dealings and financial disclosures.

That long-running conflict has kept James in Trump’s crosshairs, while Trump’s legal battles in New York have highlighted the depth of the confrontation between the president and the state’s chief legal officer.

{Matzav.com}

A frum schoolgirl from Teaneck, NJ, in Bergen County, was seriously injured after a rock was thrown at her school bus while it was traveling on a New Jersey highway.

The incident occurred as two buses from a school were returning from a class trip. While driving on the highway, a rock roughly the size of a baseball was hurled at one of the buses, striking a third-grade girl, approximately nine years old, in the head and causing severe injuries.

The child sustained a skull injury and was transported by ambulance to a local medical center. Volunteers from Hatzalah of Bergen County also responded to the scene. She is currently in need of surgery. Her name for Tehillim is Gila Bracha bas Michal Ilana.

A joint investigation is being conducted by the Teaneck Police Department and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office. Authorities have not yet announced any arrests or identified suspects and are asking anyone with information to come forward.

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump is now on board with a hard-hitting sanctions package meant to economically cripple Moscow as his administration continues to negotiate a deal to end the war that began with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he met with Trump at the White House on Wednesday, during which the president […]

  This story goes back 15 years. My parents took my siblings and me on a trip to South Africa for vacation. It started out fun and enjoyable, but quickly turned into a nightmare. We were traveling through a dense forest in the hopes of finding our next destiantion. All of a sudden and out […]

The teachers at a Beis Yaakov school in Ramot approached the administration, asking what to be mechazeik in following the horrifying death of Ramot resident Yosef Eisenthal, z’l, who was killed at a Chareidi protest against the draft, and other recent tragedies in the neighborhood, Kikar H’Shabbos reported. The question was passed to the director […]

Peleg Yerushalmi issued a furious condemnation on Thursday following the decision of a Jerusalem District Court judge to release the driver who killed Yosef Eisenthal, z’l, to house arrest. The statement not only expressed outrage at the decision but also stated that the judge is completely unfamiliar with the technical details of the incident. “Deep […]

Vice President JD Vance said the White House will not accept violence directed at federal law enforcement and pledged to confront what the administration views as organized efforts to provoke attacks on immigration officers.

Speaking at a press conference, Vance said President Donald Trump and he fully support Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carrying out their duties. “The president stands with ICE. I stand with ICE. We stand with all of our law enforcement officers,” Vance said.

Vance warned that the administration will respond forcefully to any attempts to intimidate or attack federal officers. “These people should not feel emboldened because they have, for the first time, maybe in American history, an administration that is not going to tolerate political violence of any kind from anywhere,” he said.

Vance also cautioned state and local officials against attempting to pursue charges against the ICE officer involved in the Minneapolis incident. “You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That is a federal issue,” he said. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job.”

The vice president criticized Minnesota’s political leadership, singling out Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and city officials in Minneapolis, accusing them of fueling hostility toward federal agents. “What I would like Minnesota to focus on is the real issue, that they are encouraging people,” Vance said, while calling on the governor to resign. “Minneapolis officials are encouraging people to commit violence against ICE officials,” he added.

Vance said easing political tensions requires halting attacks on officers and enforcing the law, pointing to claims that violent crime has fallen by 20% over the past year. “Have your debates about policy. Attack me. Attack the President of the United States. Do not attack our law enforcement officers,” he said. “They are not policy actors. They are enforcing the law.”

He urged opponents of the administration’s immigration policies to pursue change through elections rather than confrontations with agents. “Why don’t you take this to the ballot box? Why don’t you vote? Why don’t you organize?” Vance said, adding that some activists are “encouraging people to get violent with our law enforcement officials.”

Turning to the Minneapolis shooting itself, Vance said federal investigators are reviewing the incident involving Renee Nicole Good, who was shot during an immigration enforcement operation. He repeatedly described the officer’s actions as self-defense and rejected claims that the shooting was unjustified.

“She was trying to ram this guy with her car. He shot back. He defended himself,” Vance said.

Vance said the officer had “every reason to think that he was under very serious threat for injury, or in fact, his life,” adding that the woman “accelerated in a way where she ran into the guy.”

Addressing questions about intent, Vance said the circumstances warranted scrutiny but dismissed allegations of wrongdoing by the officer. “Was she panicking when she drove into this officer, or was she actually trying to ram him? That is a reasonable conversation,” he said. “What is not reasonable is for so many of you to plaster all over the media that this was an innocent woman and that the ICE agent committed murder.”

He said he was careful in how he characterized the encounter. “And I say attack very, very intentionally because this was an attack on federal law enforcement. This was an attack on law and order. This was an attack on the American people,” Vance said.

Vance also sharply rebuked media coverage of the shooting, saying it misrepresented the facts and endangered officers. “The way that the media, by and large, has reported this story has been an absolute disgrace,” he said. “And it puts our law enforcement officers at risk every single day.”

He accused some reporters of promoting what he described as false narratives about the woman who was killed. “Everybody who has been repeating the lie that this is some innocent woman who was out for a drive in Minneapolis when a law enforcement officer shot at her, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Every single one of you,” Vance said.

Pressed on whether he was prejudging the investigation, Vance said he could not know what motivated the woman but said the officer’s response was justified. “Look, I do not know what is in a person’s heart or in a person’s head,” he said. “What I am certain of is that she violated the law.”

Vance said the administration believes the Minneapolis incident is part of a broader pattern aimed at disrupting immigration enforcement nationwide. “There is an entire network, and frankly, some of the media are participating in it, that is trying to incite violence against our law enforcement officers,” he said.

He said federal authorities are working to trace those efforts. “Part of our investigatory work is getting to the bottom of it. Who is funding it, who is supporting it, who is cheerleading it … who told protesters to show up and engage in violent activity against our law enforcement officers?” Vance said. “There’s an entire network.”

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