A heartening and widely discussed engagement was announced yesterday, Zos Chanukah 5786, involving a 25-year-old yeshiva bochur who took part last year in a well-known Chassidishe segulah for shidduchim — and is now celebrating his engagement.
The chosson, Shmuel Aharon Chazan, is among the talmidim of Yeshiva Kiryas Melech. He became engaged yesterday to a young woman from the Gutfarb family of Kiryat Sefer less than a year after traveling to Poland to participate in the traditional segulah associated with the yahrtzeit of rav Dovid of Lelov.
Each year, on 7 Shevat, dozens of unmarried men who are awaiting their zivug travel to Poland, where the Lelover Rebbe conducts a tish at the site of the yahrtzeit. As part of a long-standing custom regarded by many as a tried and tested segulah, participants dance atop a table during the tish, davening for salvation in their personal lives.
With the upcoming yahrtzeit only weeks away, another story of yeshuah has now emerged. The chosson lives in Beit Shemesh near the center of Lelover Chassidus. After hearing about the custom, he traveled last year on 7 Shevat to the tziyun of the Lelover Rebbe in Poland, took part in the dance, and yesterday — on Zos Chanukah — celebrated his engagement.
This is not the first such case. In Adar of last year, we reported on another engagement that followed the same segulah: a 29-year-old talmid of Yeshivas Oraysa who became engaged less than a month after participating in the Lelover yahrtzeit dance. He has since married, b’shaah tovah u’mutzlachas.
A striking detail in both cases is that neither chosson is a follower of Lelover Chassidus. Nonetheless, both traveled to Poland, fulfilled the segulah with complete faith, and were subsequently zocheh to see yeshuah.
{Matzav.com}
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie sharply criticized President Trump’s recent conduct, saying the past week reflected poorly on the administration and warning that Republicans could pay a political price if voters don’t feel tangible improvements in their daily lives.
Speaking during a panel segment on ABC News’s “This Week,” Christie dismissed any suggestion that recent developments were routine. “It’s not a strange week, Jon, it’s an awful week,” he told host Jonathan Karl.
Christie argued that the president needs to refocus on governing rather than staging appearances, cautioning that symbolic gestures won’t address public concerns. “And the president better wake up to the fact that going to Rocky Mount, N.C., is not going to solve his problems,” he said. “And that he better start solving the American people’s problems, or our party is going to have a big problem.”
The former governor, who mounted unsuccessful Republican presidential campaigns in 2016 and 2024, said Trump has failed to connect with voters, pointing to surveys indicating that most Americans believe the economy has not improved under Trump compared with the Biden administration.
Christie also took aim at Trump’s conduct over the last week, criticizing what he described as a “disgraceful post” about the reported deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Reiner, in which Trump suggested the noted Hollywood director and Democratic donor died due to hostility toward the president or from “Trump derangement syndrome.”
He went on to list a series of actions he found troubling, saying, “Then he puts his name on the building named after an assassinated President. Then he gives a frenetic national TV speech filled with inaccuracies and really sounded like he was yelling at the American people that they don’t get how great he’s done so far. And then he puts these plaques up underneath the presidential pictures he’s put on the colonnade, filled with things that you could tell just from reading them that he wrote them himself,” adding that Trump “even figured out a way to get himself into the Andrew Jackson plaque, but as a martyr, worse than whatever happened to Andrew Jackson.”
Christie further faulted the president for failing to secure an agreement to end the war in Ukraine and pointed to recent votes on Capitol Hill where some Republicans broke ranks with Trump, including efforts to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies and to release documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Despite the criticism, polling suggests Trump’s standing has improved modestly in recent weeks. According to Decision Desk HQ’s polling aggregate, his approval rating rebounded from a second-term low of 41 percent last month, recorded during the prolonged government shutdown, to about 45 percent — roughly in line with his average since taking office.
Still, signs of vulnerability remain as Trump approaches 2026. Recent surveys show him registering some of his weakest economic approval numbers, with voters citing tariffs, high prices, and persistent cost-of-living pressures as ongoing concerns.
WATCH:
{Matzav.com}
Israel’s defense minister moved quickly on Tuesday to clarify remarks he made earlier in the day regarding the northern Gaza Strip, stressing that the government is not planning to establish settlements there.
According to a statement from Yisroel Katz’s office, his earlier comments about creating military youth communities were intended “solely in a security context,” adding unequivocally that “the government has no intention of establishing settlements in the Gaza Strip.”
The statement further emphasized the government’s security doctrine, noting: “The Defense Minister emphasized the central principle of border protection in every arena: The IDF is the first and last line of defense for Israeli citizens, and the State of Israel relies for its defense only on it and the security forces.”
The clarification followed remarks Katz delivered earlier at an event in Beit El, where he spoke about plans for the security establishment to create military youth communities in northern Gaza and to restore IDF bases in northern Samaria that had been relocated in past years.
At that ceremony, Katz underscored the ideological and security importance of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria, declaring: “The State of Israel expresses, once again, in the clearest possible way, its commitment and trust in settlement in Judea and Samaria, which guards the heart of our land, connects us to our heritage, roots, and ideology. The past few years have proven that where there is settlement, there is security. Just as the settlement protects a large portion of Israel’s citizens, so our role is to ensure that we protect the protector.”
He continued by linking settlement policy to broader security operations, saying that “Settlement is a central part of a broader operation to remove threats throughout Judea and Samaria proactively.”
Katz also used the occasion to address the government’s decision announced a day earlier to shutter the IDF’s Galei Tzahal radio station. Referring to the move, he said, “We are ending this anomaly of a civilian broadcasting station inside the IDF that attacks the IDF and its soldiers relentlessly, even during the ongoing war. After I examined the matter, and following identical positions expressed by many defense ministers and chiefs of staff in the past, I will not be deterred and will continue to advance the decision.”
He went on to accuse opponents of politicizing the issue, adding, “Today, some have changed their position out of opposition to the government, and the judicial system has also enlisted to thwart the decision, as part of its struggle against the government. The summer camp is over.”
The Beit El gathering marked a milestone agreement to remove the Binyamin Regional Brigade base from the area’s civilian government compound, where it had been located for nearly four decades. In its place, a new residential neighborhood with 1,200 housing units is planned. The development has already received approval for planning and execution from the Supreme Planning Council.
Among those attending the ceremony were Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Government Secretary Yossi Fuchs, and senior officials from the Civil Administration. Beit El mayor Shai Alon recited a Shehecheyanu to mark the occasion and led participants in a celebratory toast for the project.
Despite the subsequent clarification from Katz’s office, the Yesha Council welcomed his initial remarks, saying, “We welcome Defense Minister Yisroel Katz on his important announcement on the establishment of new military youth communities in the Gaza Strip. The uprooting of the settlements and the expulsion of the Jews was a terrible injustice, and settlement in Gaza is the rectification. Settlement in the Strip has always strengthened the security of the south of the country and of the entire State of Israel. Now it will also make clear to the enemy that they will pay for the October 7th massacre with the permanent loss of their land.”
The proposed military youth communities, referred to in Hebrew as Garinim, are typically made up of young people or young families who commit to communal living and joint work, often centered on agriculture or structured volunteer frameworks. Members of these groups usually enlist in the IDF together upon reaching draft age, serve as a cohesive unit, and later return to their community to raise families and sustain future growth. Under the current framework, the communities would be affiliated with the Nachal Brigade, though individual military roles would continue to be assigned by the IDF at enlistment.
{Matzav.com}
