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Rabbi Moshe Chaim Hertzel z”l, a distinguished member of the Belzer community in Antwerp and one of the owners of the Hertzel-Gold dairy, widely known as Europe’s Jewish dairy, has passed away at the age of 70 following an illness.

Rabbi Hertzel was born in the month of Adar 5716 (1956) to his father, Rabbi Yosef Yisrael Hertzel z”l, one of the senior Belzer chassidim in Antwerp and among the founders and owners of the only Jewish-owned dairy in Europe. His mother was the daughter of Rabbi Shmuel Yosef Friedman.

As a youth, he studied in the educational institutions of Belzer chassidus. Upon reaching marriageable age, he married his wife, the daughter of Rabbi Tzvi Davidson.

Rabbi Hertzel was widely known as a man of extraordinary chessed. He donated significant sums of his personal wealth to Belz institutions worldwide, with particular dedication to the institutions in Antwerp. Among his many acts of generosity, he regularly covered the annual costs of refreshments on the first day of Selichos at the Beis Medrash in Kiryat Belz in Yerushalayim, an event that draws thousands of Belzer chassidim each year.

Despite his financial success, he was known for his humility and discretion, quietly assisting families in need and giving charity without seeking recognition.

His levayah will take place on Motzaei Shabbos in Antwerp. His aron will then be flown to Eretz Yisrael, where the levayah will be held on Sunday night, Leil Zos Chanukah, in Kiryat Belz in Yerushalayim. He will be laid to rest in the Kehillas Machzikei Hadas section of Har HaMenuchos.

Yehi zichro baruch.

{Matzav.com}

A homeless man who previously attended Brown University and lives in the basement of the Barus & Holley building provided the key tip that helped police identify the suspect in the deadly shooting.

Israeli authorities have arrested a Russian national on suspicion of spying for Iranian intelligence. According to investigators, the suspect allegedly photographed Israeli ports and sensitive infrastructure and transferred the material to an Iranian handler in exchange for payment. An indictment has been filed on serious national security charges.

The IDF has released new details about a Shayetet 13 naval commando raid carried out last year in northern Lebanon, along with interrogation footage of a senior Hezbollah terrorist captured in the operation. According to the military, the raid disrupted Hezbollah’s secret maritime terror program at a critical stage.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it carried out its first drone strike in the Mediterranean, targeting the oil tanker QENDIL. Ukrainian authorities said the vessel was empty at the time of the strike, posing no environmental threat, and was critically damaged in the attack.

Australian police confirm that the seven men arrested in Sydney this morning after allegedly ramming their vehicle have “ideological connections” to the Bondi Beach terrorists.

Senate Republicans confirmed nearly 100 of President Trump’s nominees earlier today, surpassing the confirmation pace from previous administrations. A 53–43 vote Thursday confirmed the 97 nominees, marking one of the final Senate floor actions of the year after Republicans took control of the chamber in January under Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

New police body camera video shows a dramatic rescue in Mount Holly NJ after students fell through the ice at Woolman Lake, Wednesday.

The U.S. Southern Command confirms that two vessels suspected of drug trafficking were targeted by U.S. forces earlier today in the eastern Pacific, resulting in the deaths of five traffickers.

Work crews began preparations at the Kennedy Center on Friday to reflect the board’s decision to add President Donald Trump’s name to the iconic performing arts complex, one day after the vote was taken.

Early in the morning, large blue tarps were draped across portions of the building’s exterior, shielding the activity from public view. Before the coverings were fully in place, a large letter “D” could be seen mounted on the structure, while workers operated from scaffolding along the façade of the building originally named for President John F. Kennedy.

Under the resolution approved by the board, the venue will now be known as The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Trump, a Republican, currently serves as chairman of the board.

The decision has drawn objections from critics, including Democrat members of Congress who sit on the board in an ex-officio capacity, as well as several historians. They argue that authority to alter the center’s official name rests solely with Congress, not the board.

The Kennedy Center now joins a growing list of Washington landmarks bearing Trump’s name. Earlier this year, his name was also added to the building that houses the U.S. Institute of Peace.

{Matzav.com}

Leadership changes are underway at the BBC after an internal assessment faulted the organization’s response to controversial edits made to a speech by US President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021, the day of the Capitol unrest.

At the center of the shake-up is the network’s editorial standards committee. BBC chairman Samir Shah, who faced criticism over the episode, will step aside from leading that body as part of the restructuring.

The review, released Friday, concluded that senior management failed to respond “quickly or decisively enough following the discovery” that edits to Trump’s remarks created the impression that he urged supporters to storm the US Capitol.

Those edits prompted Trump to file a $10 billion lawsuit against the broadcaster, escalating scrutiny of the BBC’s editorial practices and governance.

According to the report, the committee’s remit will be adjusted to “clarify and focus” its role, with the stated aim of adopting a “robust and transparent approach” to addressing editorial issues as they arise.

{Matzav.com}

President Trump moved late Thursday to halt the visa lottery program after it was disclosed that the suspect in the killing of two Brown University students and an MIT professor entered the United States through that system.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the decision in a statement posted overnight on X, saying, “This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country.” She added, “At President Trump’s direction, I am immediately directing USCIS to pause the DV1 program to ensure no more Americans are harmed by this disastrous program.”

The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old native of Portugal, received a Diversity Immigrant (DV1) Visa in 2017 and was granted a green card several months later. Authorities said he was found dead Thursday evening at a storage facility in Salem, New Hampshire, from what was described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Neves Valente was identified as the prime suspect in the December 13 mass shooting at Brown University that left students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov dead and nine others wounded. Investigators also linked him to the December 15 killing of MIT nuclear science professor Nuno Loureiro.

Records show that Neves Valente had previously enrolled in a graduate physics program at Brown during the 2000–01 academic year. He took a leave of absence in April of that year and officially withdrew from the university in 2003.

Authorities have not determined where Neves Valente lived or what he was doing in the years leading up to the shooting. His most recent known address was in Miami, Florida, and his activities between receiving his green card in 2017 and last weekend’s attack remain unclear.

The Diversity Immigrant Visa program was created under the Immigration Act of 1990 and allows for up to 50,000 visas each year. The lottery system prioritizes applicants from countries that have sent relatively few immigrants to the United States over the previous five years.

For the 2025 lottery cycle, nearly 20 million people submitted applications. More than 131,000 applicants and their spouses were selected worldwide, including 38 Portuguese nationals.

President Trump has criticized the visa lottery in the past, renewing calls to end it after a 2017 terror attack in Lower Manhattan. In that case, Uzbekistan national Sayfullo Saipov killed eight people and injured 11 others when he drove a pickup truck onto a crowded bike path along the Hudson River.

Saipov was convicted in January 2023 on murder and other charges and was sentenced to eight life terms plus an additional 260 years in prison.

{Matzav.com}

Debate over presidential war powers has resurfaced as President Donald Trump defended his authority to expand U.S. military action against drug traffickers linked to Venezuela, arguing that congressional approval is not required for such operations.

Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump dismissed the need to formally notify lawmakers if he chose to authorize strikes on land, saying he would not object to informing them but questioning the value of doing so. “I wouldn’t mind telling them, but you know, it’s not a big deal. I don’t have to tell them,” he said, adding that members of Congress “leak like a sieve.”

The comments came in response to a reporter’s question about whether Trump would seek authorization from Congress before targeting drug cartels inside Venezuela, following months of U.S. military activity aimed at trafficking operations at sea.

Since September, American forces have carried out a series of airstrikes against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, actions that have resulted in at least 99 deaths, according to U.S. figures.

Those operations have drawn criticism from both parties in Congress, with lawmakers pointing to constitutional limits on presidential authority. While the president serves as commander-in-chief, the Constitution grants Congress the sole power to declare war — a concern raised not only by Democrats but also by some Republicans, even as most members of Trump’s party have continued to back him.

During a House debate, New York Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks challenged the legal basis for the strikes, saying, “The president has failed to demonstrate the necessary authority under U.S. or international law to conduct lethal military strikes on these boats.”

Meeks went further, arguing that the threat justification does not hold up. “No one can credibly claim that these vessels, in some cases not even traveling to the United States and located thousands of miles from U.S. soil, posed an imminent threat to the American people warranting the use of military force,” he said.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused Washington of using anti-drug operations as a pretext for destabilizing his government, claiming the true objective of the campaign is regime change rather than narcotics enforcement.

Legal and military analysts note that a U.S. president may order limited strikes without congressional approval under certain conditions, but say such actions are generally expected to be short-term and narrowly defined, often framed as defensive measures.

After the September 11 attacks, Congress passed authorizations for the use of military force in Afghanistan and Iraq, which were later cited to justify counterterrorism missions in other parts of the world, a precedent now being referenced as lawmakers weigh the scope of Trump’s current actions.

{Matzav.com}

A fascinating letter in English signed with the holy signature of the Admor Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the seventh Rebbe in the Lubavitch dynasty, whose influence extended to the entire world.

A provocative protest installation was discovered Friday morning near the private residences of former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, retired Supreme Court Justice Uzi Fogelman, and Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai, drawing immediate attention for its graphic and accusatory imagery.

At each location, protesters placed cloth dolls with severed heads laid on the ground in pools meant to resemble blood. Accompanying signs delivered personal messages aimed directly at the figures associated with the homes, linking them to past legal decisions and public statements.

The placards referenced rulings and positions connected to immigration policy and the treatment of migrant populations. Each sign carried a different message. The one near Barak’s home stated: “You prided yourself on canceling the infiltration laws – we got decapitated heads.” Outside Fogelman’s residence, the sign read: “You wanted hobbies – we got decapitated heads.” The sign placed near Huldai’s home said: “You said a person is a person is a person – we got decapitated heads.”

The display was described by organizers as a reaction to a recent and shocking killing in south Tel Aviv, where a migrant murdered another migrant by beheading him. The protest was framed as an expression of anger over what organizers view as the deteriorating security and social conditions in the city’s southern neighborhoods.

In a statement issued by the group “The Front for the Liberation of South Tel Aviv,” headed by Sheffi Paz, the organization said: “When a resident of Kiryat Shalom can’t take her dog for a walk in the park for fear that a migrant will jump on her with a machete; when a child in the Shapira neighborhood can’t play in the playground for fear that migrant children will lynch him; and when an elderly person in the Hatikva neighborhood can’t withdraw money from the ATM for fear of being attacked and robbed violently – we remember the arrogant Supreme Court justices, who cared about the matchmaking and hobbies of the infiltrators, and the cowardly mayor who fosters a slave ghetto in the southern neighborhoods.”

Paz continued with further criticism of Israel’s judicial and municipal leadership, saying: “Their compassion is our disaster. Their embrace of border thieves is a spit in our faces. Their fake liberalism is the knife in our back. We know that the display won’t move their closed minds, but we thought there was no reason why only we should enjoy the cultural wealth they forced on us.”

{Matzav.com}

Airport officials at Ben Gurion located a 13-year-old boy on Thursday night who had previously drawn national attention after secretly boarding an El Al flight to New York last October without a ticket or passport. This time, he was identified before reaching the security screening areas.

The boy was noticed inside the terminal but outside the standard passenger flow. A deputy shift commander on duty observed behavior that raised suspicion and stopped him for questioning.

During the encounter, airport personnel confirmed the boy’s identity and determined that he was the same minor who had managed months earlier to fly abroad without authorization or identification.

Following this and other recent incidents, the Israel Airports Authority announced changes to security procedures at Ben Gurion Airport. Under the updated protocol, boarding passes will now be inspected earlier in the screening process rather than only near the departure gate.

The decision comes after another serious breach earlier this week, when an 18-year-old Israeli boarded an Austrian Airlines flight from Israel to Vienna without holding a valid ticket. The oversight was discovered only after the plane landed in Austria, and the passenger was returned to Israel.

Addressing that case, the Israel Airports Authority said, “A preliminary investigation of the incident revealed that the passenger underwent security screening but did not complete the border control procedure.”

Airport officials said an immediate review was carried out in coordination with the Population and Immigration Authority and the airline involved, and that the circumstances surrounding the incident remain under investigation.

{Matzav.com}

BREAKING IN KENSINGTON, BROOKLYN: A person was stabbed in the chest moments ago at the intersection of Coney Island Avenue and Beverly Road. Two suspects reportedly fled the scene. EMS is transporting the victim to a nearby hospital, while the NYPD has initiated a Level 1 mobilization in response to the fleeing suspects. A name […]

Video from the U.S. Coast Guard shows the moments when two boaters were rescued early Wednesday morning after their sailboat’s mast broke on the rough waters off Florida’s Coast.

Chanukah Mesiba by Reb Sruly Schubert, attended by HaRav Elya Brudny and a close group of Chaveirim, with Hartzig music by Sruly Wulliger.

The FBI’s special agent in charge confirmed that the suspect in both the Brown University shooting and the killing of the MIT professor attended the same university in Lisbon, Portugal, as the slain professor.