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Leaders of the Bobov community have introduced a revolutionary new wedding plan aimed at helping families marry off their children without accumulating crushing debt. The initiative, established at the request of the Rebbe, was announced Monday night and is set to drastically reduce wedding expenses. The new plan, developed by a committee led by Harav Chaim Shulem, the Rebbe’s oldest son, eliminates various expenses such as the tenoyim and Shabbos aufruf seuda. Additionally, the community’s new wedding hall, Oholei Frieda, will be available to participating families for a significantly reduced price of $16,000, covering all expenses including music, food, photography, and more. Furthermore, families who adhere to the new plan will be eligible for a $40,000 interest-free loan, repayable in manageable monthly installments of $300. This loan, provided by the community’s gemach fund, will help make wedding expenses more feasible to pay back over time. Additionally, the kehilla has also established a fund to provide mechutanim in need with a donation of $10-15,000 towards wedding expenses. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

A terrorist drone managed on Wednesday to infiltrate Israel from the Gaza Strip for the first time since November, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

“A short time ago, a suspicious aerial target crossed [into Israel] from the territory of the Gaza Strip” and fell in an open area near the border, said the IDF. The drone set off air-raid sirens in the towns of Kibbutz Holit, Nir Yitzhak and Sufa.

The Eshkol Regional Council, which administers the area, said the incident took place around 6 a.m. It claimed the drone was shot down, and no injuries or damages were reported.

The last time a terrorist UAV successfully infiltrated Israeli airspace from the Strip was on Nov. 11, according to IDF data. That drone was also intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense system.

Israeli ground forces entered Gaza on Oct. 27 following a weeks-long air campaign in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attacks in the northwestern Negev, in which terrorists massacred 1,200 people, wounded thousands more and abducted more than 250 men, women and children to Gaza.

According to IDF data last updated on May 15, some 9,300 launches have been detected towards Israel from Gaza since Oct. 7.

Yerushalayim’s stated war goals are to destroy Hamas as a military and governing force in Gaza, ensure that it can not threaten Israel again and return all hostages.

The IDF has dismantled most of Hamas’s 24 battalions in Gaza, and since May has been fighting the remaining four in the last Hamas stronghold of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.

The IDF’s 401st Brigade combat team have been engaging the terror group’s Tel Sultan Battalion in western Rafah, the military said on Tuesday afternoon.

Troops are “destroying terrorist infrastructure and eliminating dozens of armed terrorists in above- and below-ground encounters, fighting in precise and intelligence-based operations,” the IDF announced.

Out of the four battalions in Rafah before the IDF ground incursion, two—Yabna (south) and east Rafah—have been almost completely dismantled, while Israeli forces continue to engage the other two—Tel Sultan and Shaboura (north).

{Matzav.com}

/ Everyone knows and feels that a picture album is a piece of nostalgia. Magic flashes of sweet memories. Childhood memories, family and times of together are folded in and broadens the heart. Yudale, has a picture album too. His mother takes many pictures of him, that will be kept for days to come  Sometimes she takes the album in her hands and leafs through, looks at the pictures which brings back memories. Here is Yehuda at the hospital on his first day, a soft baby that only today has come into the world. A light blue balloon is tied to his cradle with soft ribbons and it waves high… In the next picture Yehuda is two months old, a first smile is shining on his angelic face. Here is another picture, her prince is embraced in both her hands in a strong hug, a hug that injects waves of endless warmth and love. Here Yehuda is crawling already and here he is clapping his hands, while tacking his first steps.  Pictures, happiness, love. Yehuda’s mother continues to leaf through the album, but… the pictures are not smiling at her anymore. She is leafing through the album and a sharp pain pierces her heart. Her Yudale is sick. The lovely prince that just celebrated his first birthday. Mommy’s darling baby is very sick. She is leafing through album and the salty tears that wet her cheeks are dripping on the pictures, very painful pictures. In this picture Yehuda is lying in a huge bed in the hospital and medical machines are connected to him from all over, and another picture, Yehuda is in the hospital corridor, pale and weak waiting near the operating room.  Here is another picture with Aba in MA’ARAT AMACHPELA. They traveled together to daven for him and to tear the heavens for their child that they love so much. They cried ” Kel na refa na…”  These pictures are very sad. They cause her to want to slam down the album, to close her eyes and forget the terrible sickness and dream… To dream about a day that will come. A day will come when Yehuda will be healthy, and his large smile will peep at her from the pages of the album.  And Yehuda, with sticky chubby hands will leaf through the album and say: Mommy, this picture is from long ago, isn’t it? When I was still sick. Today, I am healthy! Right mommy? And she will plant him a kiss on his cheek, take him in her hands and whisper in his hear: Yes, my Yehuda. You are healthy! Because all of those Jews that saw your sickness and pain, their hearts were full of mercy, people that couldn’t continue their lives as it was. They joined together. donated and gave you life! Yehuda very much needs your donation! The treatments cost a fortune of money and only they will save is life. Just because of you, he will continue to live, not only in the picture album on the shelf. Donate here. Help Yehuda live! Lemaan Achenu inc 383 KINGSTON AVE #36 BROOKLYN, NY 11213 Tax ID: 844572196 Contact Organizer lemaanachenu@gmail.com (347) 343-3919

A longtime peace activist who was kidnapped from southern Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7 and held hostage for 53 days told the BBC on Wednesday that she had lost her belief in coexistence with the Palestinians.

“I don’t believe in peace, I don’t, sorry,” Ada Sagi said in her first interview with the British press since being freed in November. “I understand Hamas don’t want it.”

Sagi, a 75-year-old member of Kibbutz Nir Oz on the border with Gaza, learned Arabic to make friends with nearby Palestinians and taught others the language as a way to promote reconciliation with Gaza.

On Oct. 7, Sagi was kidnapped from the kibbutz during the Hamas-led invasion and was held in a family home in Gaza until she was released as part of the hostage-for-ceasefire deal with Hamas on Nov. 28.

Sagi told the BBC on Wednesday that, in the wake of the worldwide response to Hamas’s massacre, she now believes the world hates Jews.

In interviews with Israeli media earlier this month, the former captive revealed that Hamas is paying Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip up to 70 shekels ($19) a day to watch over Israeli hostages taken on Oct. 7.

Asked on June 2 by Israel’s Channel 12 News what would motivate a Gaza family with children to imprison Jews, Sagi said: “Money.

“I asked the owner of the apartment twice; he and the children looked after us. I saw that the apartment owner was receiving Israeli cash,” she said. “He was pleased the day that [hostage] Elad Katzir came to us, after 33 days, because I understood he received [payment] per capita.”

Sagi recalled an exchange with her captor. “He said: ‘I want a better future for my children and wife. I want to buy visas and not stay here; I want to go to Europe.’ He said: ‘I am uninvolved.’ I said: ‘How do you mean uninvolved if you took my freedom and I’m sitting here in your apartment?’”

According to Sagi, Palestinians who also work receive 20 shekels ($5) a day to guard the hostages, while unemployed students get a payment of 70 shekels ($19) from the terrorist organization for doing the same.

Sagi told Channel 12 that the youth she encountered during her 52 days in Gaza were “thrilled to go to their parents and bring them the money.”

In March, Nir Oz resident Irit Lahav, who used to belong to a group of volunteers who would drive Palestinians in need of medical treatment from Gaza to Israeli hospitals, told local media that she had come to understand that Hamas terrorists represent the Palestinian people.

“I used to think Palestinians were good people, like you and me. That Hamas were thugs who got in the way of the population’s desire for a good life,” said Lahav. “After Oct. 7, I realized I was wrong.”

Kibbutz Nir Oz was among the hardest hit during Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault. One in every four residents was either killed or kidnapped.

{Matzav.com}

A female Israel Defense Forces soldier who handled classified documents and was arrested last week after illegally visiting Ramallah in the Shomron turned out to have a secret affair with a Palestinian resident of the city.

Palestinian Authority police detained the young woman after she entered Ramallah, which is located in Area A of the Shomron, where Israeli citizens are forbidden by law from entering for security reasons.

P.A. security forces transferred the woman into the custody of the Israel Police, who released her after she claimed to have taken a wrong turn.

On the same day, she entered the city for the second time, only to be arrested again. Following her repeated arrests, security forces learned she was a soldier in the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate serving in the Information Security Department, responsible for preventing classified files from being compromised by enemy elements.

During interrogations by the IDF Military Police officers, the soldier initially claimed to have gone to Ramallah in an attempt to buy drugs, before admitting to having a secret relationship with a Palestinian man.

The pair had allegedly been dating for around a year, and they had been meeting in Ramallah due to the P.A. resident being barred from entering Israel’s pre-1967 lines following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.

The army said that while the soldier was arrested due to serious charges of “exceeding authority to the point of harming the state’s security,” she was released pending the investigation into her actions.

The statement stressed that an initial probe found that the soldier had no intent to cause harm to the state’s security by dating the P.A. resident.

“The soldier served as a bureau clerk for several months. Following the report, she is now under investigation, and findings will be forwarded to the Military Advocate General’s Office after its conclusion,” the army said.

The suspect has been removed from her position in the Military Intelligence Directorate pending the criminal investigation.

In November, Yerishalayim announced it had foiled a network of Hamas terrorists using dozens of fake social media profiles to extract sensitive information from IDF troops, including on which army units would be sent into the Gaza Strip and when they would be deployed.

The accounts made contact with soldiers and “managed a kind of romantic relationship … through correspondence, voice recordings and video calls” in order to gather intel for the Gaza-based terrorist group.

{Matzav.com}

Three boys were indicted on Tuesday for the brutal assault of a 12-year-old Jewish girl a few days earlier in an incident that has shocked France’s Jewish community.

The teenagers, two aged 13 and one 12, were indicted for conducting the group brutal assault, death threats, anti-Semitic violence, attempted extortion, invasion of privacy, violence and insults, Le Figaro reported.

On Shabbos afternoon, the girl, who had spent the afternoon with friends, was crossing Henri Regnault Park in Courbevoie, a Paris suburb, when she came across two boys, one of whom she vaguely knew.

They blocked her way and forced her to follow them to an abandoned daycare center. A third boy joined them and started insulting the girl as a “dirty Jew,” the teenagers told police.

One of the attackers held a lighter next to her face and threatened to burn her. They used force to conduct multiple violent, disgusting, acts of assault, and threatened to kill her if she told anyone, Le Figaro reported.

Afterwards, the girl made her way home and told her parents what had happened. A friend who was with her when the boys took her was able to give a detailed description of the suspects, who police confirmed were at the crime scene through images from security cameras.

{Matzav.com}

Over 50 shuls across Florida were forced to evacuate on Tuesday after receiving bomb threats via email, sparking a massive response from law enforcement and concerns about rising antisemitism. The threats, which were deemed harmless after police sweeps and evacuations, targeted shuls in Miami, Broward County, Palm Beach County, and elsewhere. This incident is the latest in a string of antisemitic hate crimes in Florida, including a cyber attack on a synagogue last September and recent vandalism at a Miami kosher bagel shop. Paul Morris, 26, was arrested in Boca Raton on Tuesday for posting threats on social media, but it’s unclear if he’s connected to the bomb threats or other hate crimes. Governor Ron DeSantis has vowed to combat rising antisemitism, allocating tens of millions of dollars to address the issue. “If anyone attempts to bring it here, they’ll face significant resistance,” he said. The FBI is investigating the bomb threats and other incidents. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

Lawyers Boris Epshteyn and Jenna Ellis and former U.S. Senate candidate James Lamon have pleaded not guilty to nine felony charges in a case about trying to overturn former President Donald Trump’s Arizona election loss to Joe Biden. The hearing Tuesday in a Phoenix courtroom marked the last of 18 arraignments in the fake elector case. Fifteen other people, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, pleaded not guilty to the charges. Epshteyn, a Trump adviser, is accused of assisting Giuliani in carrying out the scheme to submit fake electors for Trump in Arizona and obstruct the certification of election results by Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors in Michigan, Nevada, Georgia and Wisconsin have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme. Arizona authorities unveiled the felony charges in late April against 11 Republicans who submitted a document to Congress falsely declaring Trump had won Arizona. The defendants include five lawyers connected to the former president and two former Trump aides. Biden won Arizona by more than 10,000 votes. Trump himself was not charged in the Arizona case but was referred to as an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment. Arizona authorities say Ellis made false claims of widespread election fraud in the state and six others, encouraged the Arizona Legislature to change the outcome of the election and encouraged then-Vice President Mike Pence to accept Arizona’s fake elector votes. Lamon, a businessman who lost a 2022 Republican primary for a U.S. Senate seat in Arizona, is accused of falsely stating he was a duly elected and qualified elector. Prosecutors have pointed out that Lamon didn’t withdraw his vote even though no legal challenge had successfully changed the outcome in Arizona. Last year, Ellis was charged in Georgia after she appeared with Giuliani at a December 2020 hearing hosted by state Republican lawmakers at the Georgia Capitol during which false allegations of election fraud were made. She pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of aiding and abetting false statements and writings after reaching a deal with prosecutors. The 11 people who claimed to be Arizona’s Republican electors met in Phoenix on Dec. 14, 2020, to sign a certificate saying they were “duly elected and qualified” electors and asserting that Trump carried the state. A one-minute video of the signing ceremony was posted on social media by the Arizona Republican Party at the time. The document was later sent to Congress and the National Archives, where it was ignored. (AP)

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) declared on Tuesday that she will not be attending Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s address to Congress, scheduled for July 24.

When asked by a reporter if she would be present at Netanyahu’s speech, Warren responded, “No.”

Explaining her decision, Warren said, “Prime Minister Netanyahu has created a humanitarian catastrophe. He has also made clear that he does not support US policy for a two-state solution that will let the people of Israel and the Palestinians develop their own nation, self-determination, live with dignity.”

Warren elaborated, “Look, we need a ceasefire, we need to get those hostages back, we need humanitarian relief, and we need to be giving both parties a big shove toward getting to the negotiating table and working out a peaceful solution.”

When questioned if President Joe Biden should intervene to prevent Netanyahu from addressing Congress, Warren replied, “That’s up to the President, but I’m not going.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) recently confirmed that Netanyahu will address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, July 24. Johnson had extended a formal invitation to Netanyahu, signed by all four Congressional leaders: Johnson, McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

According to Axios, many Democratic lawmakers are planning to protest or boycott Netanyahu’s speech, with some even considering counter-programming the event. The report noted that while some progressives intend to attend and disrupt the speech, others plan to skip it altogether.

Warren has been a consistent critic of Netanyahu. In 2019, she asserted that the United States should “call out” corruption in Israel under Netanyahu. Following Netanyahu’s indictment on charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, she accused him of being willing to do anything to maintain power. She stated, “This blatant corruption has no place in any democracy.”

After announcing her presidential candidacy, Warren advocated for the United States to push Israel and the Palestinian Authority towards a two-state solution. She later suggested that the US should consider withholding aid to Israel to pressure it to cease “settlement construction.”

In 2021, Warren launched a strong criticism of Netanyahu, accusing him of plunging Israel into a political crisis to shield himself from criminal prosecution.

{Dov T. Heller – Matzav.com}

Please say Tehillim for the Kossover Rebbe, whose condition has turned critical R”L as he continues to battle a terrible illness. The rebbe is in dire need of Rachmnei Shomayim. His name for Tehillim is שרגא פייבוש בן מלכה.

Senator Elizabeth Warren says she will not be attending Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress on July 24, citing humanitarian concerns and disagreement with Netanyahu’s policies. When asked about her decision, Warren said, “Prime Minister Netanyahu has created a humanitarian catastrophe. He has also made clear that he does not support US policy for a two-state solution that will let the people of Israel and the Palestinians develop their own nation, self-determination, live with dignity.” “We need a ceasefire, we need to get those hostages back, we need humanitarian relief, and we need to be giving both parties a big shove toward getting to the negotiating table and working out a peaceful solution,” she added, completely ignoring that it has been Hamas, not Israel, rejecting the ceasefire deals. Her decision comes amid reports that many Democratic lawmakers are planning to protest or boycott Netanyahu’s address to Congress, with some even discussing counter-programming the speech. Another prominent Democrat who has said they will skip Netanyahu’s address is Senator Bernie Sanders. Perhaps Warren and Sanders can spend their time skipping the speech by going on a scavenger hunt – Warren can search for her American Indian DNA and Sanders can search for his Jewish soul. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

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A 19-year-old with a history of praising Nazis was sentenced to eight years in prison for planning a suicide attack on an Orthodox Shul in Brighton, England.

The prosecutor told the court that Mason Reynolds, 19, “does not find himself here because he has political, racial or ideological views that some may find distasteful or indeed abhorrent,” the Jewish Chronicle reported. “He is here because he has not just held those political, racial and ideological views, he has acted on them.”

The prosecutor added that Reynolds “is a neo-Nazi who believed the white race was ‘destined to dominate the rest of mankind,’” the Chronicle continued.

The “violent antisemite,” as he was described in court, sought to carry out a suicide bombing attack at the Holland Road Shul, an Orthodox congregation in Brighton formally known as the Hove Hebrew Congregation.

Reynolds “had annotated diagrams of the synagogue on his phone with one entrance identified that would be ‘good for surprise attack’” and “wrote that he wished to ‘blow myself up inside a synagogue,’” the paper added.

“The Jewish holidays that tend to have the most people in synagogues are Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Passover,” he wrote, per the London-based paper.

The judge said during sentencing that Reynolds had a “‘startlingly extensive and very concerning collection’ of terrorism documents and she considered him dangerous,” the Guardian reported.

“One only has to look at the volume and extremity in views expressed in material shown to the court to understand the risk you pose,” she said.

The teen’s attorney said that Reynolds and his family believe that he would never have posed an actual threat.

“Reynolds showed no emotion as he was given an extended sentence made up of eight years in custody with a five-year period on license,” the Guardian reported.

{Matzav.com}

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed an agreement Wednesday that pledges mutual aid if either country faces “aggression,” a strategic pact that comes as both face escalating standoffs with the West. Details of the deal were not immediately clear, but it could mark the strongest connection between Moscow and Pyongyang since the end of the Cold War. Both leaders described it as a major upgrade of their relations, covering security, trade, investment, cultural and humanitarian ties. The summit came as Putin visited North Korea for the first time in 24 years and the U.S. and its allies expressed growing concerns over a possible arms arrangement in which Pyongyang provides Moscow with badly needed munitions for its war in Ukraine, in exchange for economic assistance and technology transfers that could enhance the threat posed by Kim’s nuclear weapons and missile program. Kim said the two countries had a “fiery friendship,” and that the deal was their “strongest ever treaty,” putting the relationship at the level of an alliance. He vowed full support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Putin called it a “breakthrough document” reflecting shared desires to move relations to a higher level. North Korea and the former Soviet Union signed a treaty in 1961, which experts say necessitated Moscow’s military intervention if the North came under attack. The deal was discarded after the collapse of the USSR, replaced by one in 2000 that offered weaker security assurances. It wasn’t immediately clear if the new deal provides a similar level of protection as the 1961 treaty. Kim met Putin at the airport, where the two shook hands, hugged twice and rode together in a limousine. The huge motorcade rolled through the capital’s brightly lit streets, where buildings were decorated with giant Russian flags and portraits of Putin. After spending the night at a state guest house, Putin was welcomed Wednesday morning in a ceremony at the city’s main square, filled with what appeared to be tens of thousands of spectators, including children with balloons and people in coordinated T-shirts of the red, white and blue national colors of both countries. Crowds lining the streets chanted “Welcome Putin,” and waved flowers and flags. Putin and Kim saluted an honor guard and walked across a red carpet. Kim introduced key members of his leadership including Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui; top aide and ruling party secretary Jo Yong Won; and the leader’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong. At their talks, Putin thanked Kim for North Korea’s support in Ukraine, part of what he said was a “fight against the imperialist hegemonistic policies of the U.S. and its satellites against the Russian Federation.” Putin praised ties that he traced to the Soviet army fighting the Japanese military on the Korean Peninsula at the end of World War II, and Moscow’s support for Pyongyang during the Korean War. What kind of support was pledged in the agreement was not spelled out. Kim has used similar language before, consistently saying North Korea supports what he describes as a just action to protect Russia’s interests and blaming the crisis on the West’s “hegemonic policy.” North Korea is under heavy U.N. Security Council sanctions over its weapons program, while Russia also faces sanctions by the U.S. and its Western partners over its […]

The White House is holding up delivery of a fleet of F-15 jet fighters to Israel.

The $18 billion sale of 50 fighter planes is “one of the largest arms deals with Israel in recent years,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

The sale had been delayed by two of four congressional leaders needed to sign off on major arms deals, but they removed their objections on May 22.

The next step was for the State Department to formally notify lawmakers about the sale. The administration hasn’t yet done that, White House and congressional officials said, according to the Journal.

The State Department denied it was holding up the sale, with an official telling the Journal, “There is no policy guidance to slow down transfers to Israel.”

The State Department official added, however, “We are looking tactically at the timing. It is not a question of whether, it is a question of when.”

Referring to last week’s Israel visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Prime Minister Netanyahu in a social media post on Tuesday told the Biden administration to stop slow-walking the delivery of vital arms for Israel’s war effort.

“When Secretary Blinken was recently here in Israel, we had a candid conversation. … I said it’s inconceivable that in the past few months, the administration has been withholding weapons and ammunitions to Israel,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu told Blinken during the June 10 meeting that Israel would fight even without U.S. support, but that the arms embargo gave Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah a strategic edge, raising the chances of a prolonged multi-front war in the Middle East.

Asked about Netanyahu’s remarks on Tuesday, Blinken didn’t refer to the F-15 sale, saying that a single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs remains under review, but that all of the other arms deliveries are moving forward.

On Wednesday afternoon, Prime Minister’s Office spokesman David Mencer told JNS that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew informed Netanyahu that the ammunition and weapons that he had referred to in the video are “in the process of being delivered to Israel.”

The White House, miffed by Netanyahu’s comments, reportedly called off a scheduled “strategic dialogue” on Iran between Israeli and U.S. officials in Washington.

Mencer wouldn’t confirm the report, saying only that the U.S.-Israel relationship “is an extremely close relationship. … There will be times in that partnership when issues come up which tests that relationship and it’s normal for there to be disagreements.”

In early May, Biden officials announced the administration would withhold the bombs delivery due to its opposition to a large-scale ground offensive in Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold.

President Joe Biden delivered that message to CNN, saying he would halt the shipment of offensive weapons if Jerusalem went ahead with its counterterrorism operation in Gaza’s southernmost city.

Israel launched its Rafah operation in early May, but not the large-scale assault that the White House had feared. Instead, the incursion was limited in scope. Israeli officials and analysts say Israel may be nearing the end of that operation, turning to a still less-intense phase of the conflict.

{Matzav.com}

The IDF Home Front Command has lifted some restrictions on residents of Gaza Strip border communities, following a new situational assessment. The decision comes after months of strict limitations on gatherings and educational activities in the region. Since October 7, outdoor gatherings in all Gaza border communities had been capped at 100 people, and educational activities were prohibited. However, the IDF had previously lifted some of these restrictions in select communities. Under the latest changes, several communities near the border will no longer have restrictions on educational activities, and gatherings can now be attended by up to 1,000 people. However, some communities will still have restrictions in place for educational activities, gatherings, workplaces, and essential economic activities. The IDF has provided a list of the affected towns and emphasized that the changes are intended to ease restrictions on the home front while preserving human life and reinforcing agriculture, economy, and education. (YWN World Headquarters – NYC)

As of April 1, 2024, the government of Israel froze stipends for bochurim and avreichei kollel between the ages of 18-26, totalling 50,546 people. This is an effective cut of NIS 32,770,468 per month across the Olam HaTorah.

These stipends had been a basic part of the funding of yeshivos and kollelim for more than forty years, covering between 20-30% of the Olam HaTorah‘s budget.

The result of these cuts is a new annual deficit of approximately $107,000,000 across the olam hayeshivos in Eretz Yisroel. This is on top of the existing deficit which every yeshiva and kollel had always needed to raise.

Gedolei Yisroel in Eretz Yisroel have tasked American machzikei Torah with creating a fund to raise the $107,000,000 twelve-month shortfall created by these cuts.

A group of senior gedolei Torah from Eretz Yisroel is traveling to the United States to raise the funds for the newly-formed “Keren Olam HaTorah.” The group includes Rav Dov Landau, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Salbodka; the senior mashgiach Rav Don Segal; Rav Yaakov Hillel, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Ahavat Shalom; and the Rachmastrivka Rebbe.

They are slated to arrive in the United States on Sunday. They will join Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Salbodka, who is already in the U.S., to spearhead this mission.

This Monday, June 24, a special evening to launch the Keren Olam HaTorah will be held at Meridian Capital Group in Manhattan. The event will be hosted by Ralph Herzka and co-hosted

Shimon Glick, the Schron family, the Wolfson family, the Karfunkel family, the Wolf family, Meir Birnbaum, Ari Bousbib, Ezra Erani, Boruch Jeremias, Jimmy Khezrie, Yossi Meystel, Chaim Rajchenbach, Yitzchok Rokowsky, Itche Rosenbaum, Shalom Stein, and Ari Stern.

{CB Frommer – Matzav.com}

The combat markings emblazoned on the F/A-18 fighter jet tell the story: 15 missiles and six drones, painted in black just below the cockpit windshield. As the jet sits on the deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier in the Red Sea, its markings illuminate the enemy targets that it’s destroyed in recent months and underscore the intensity of the fight to protect commercial shipping from persistent missile and drone attacks by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. But they also hint at the fatigue setting in, as the carrier, its strike group and about 7,000 sailors close in on their ninth month waging the most intense running sea battle since World War II. That raises difficult questions about what comes next as U.S. military and defense leaders wrangle over how they will replicate the carrier’s combat power if the ship returns home to Norfolk, Virginia. Already, the carrier’s deployment has been extended twice, and sailors post dark memes around the ship about only getting one short break during their steadily growing tour. Some worry they could be ordered to stay out even longer as the campaign drags on to protect global trade in the vital Red Sea corridor. At the Pentagon, leaders are wrestling with what has become a thorny but familiar debate. Do they bow to Navy pressure to bring the Eisenhower and the other three warships in its strike group home or heed U.S. Central Command’s plea to keep them there longer? And if they bring them home — what can replace them? U.S. officials say that they’re weighing all options and that a decision is expected in the coming weeks. U.S. commanders in the Middle East have long argued that they need an aircraft carrier in the volatile region. They say that it’s an effective deterrent to keep Iran in check and that the ship gives them critical and unique war-fighting capabilities against the Houthis, who say their attacks are aimed at bringing an end to the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The massive ship is a flexible, floating flight line that can launch fighter jets on a moment’s notice, without any of the limits that host nations in the Middle East can place on Air Force aircraft taking off from bases on their soil. And those carrier-based jets can get within striking distance of Houthi weapon systems quickly without crossing borders. “What the carrier brings is an offensive platform that’s mobile, agile and doesn’t have any access, basing or overflight restrictions,” said retired Marine Gen. Frank McKenzie, who headed U.S. Central Command for three years, ending in 2022. “It’s sovereign U.S. territory. You can do as you want with those airplanes on that carrier. So that gives you enormous flexibility when you consider response options across the region.” Rear Adm. Marc Miguez — who commands Carrier Strike Group Two, which includes the Eisenhower and supporting ships — agrees that the aircraft carrier is crucial to America’s military. “Every time that there’s a crisis on the globe, what’s the first thing the president asks? ‘Where are the U.S. aircraft carriers?’” Miguez told The Associated Press during a visit to the Eisenhower and the USS Laboon, one of the guided-missile destroyers accompanying it. On any given day, Navy F/A-18s roar off the Eisenhower and […]

Three kedoshei elyon had one common concept when it came to learning Torah – they were the Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh (Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar 1696-1743) when he came to Eretz Yisroel; the Ramchal (Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto 1707-1746) when he lived in Padua, Italy;  and Hagaon, Harav Chaim Volozhiner, (1749-1821) the famous talmid of the Gaon of Vilna. They each had a yeshiva with ‘around-the-clock’ Torah learning, 24-hours a day, so that there would be no minute when the sound of Torah learning would not be heard in this world. The 24-hour period would be divided into shifts, and as one ended the next would begin. Torah-24 A “Torah-24” Center has been opened in Yerushalayim and the Nasi is Maran Sar Hatorah, Harav Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l. Under ONE ROOF, from 6:00 am – 6:00 am, 10 kollelim fill successive learning shifts. Each kollel focuses on a specific area of in-depth Torah study. The “Torah-24” Kollelim include: Boker (Gemora), Yerushalmi, Bavli, Zeraim-Taharot, Dalet Chelkei Shulchan Aruch, Erev (Gemora), Chatzos- Zohar/Kabbolah, Erev Shabbos (Chumash / Medrash b’iyun).  Already there are 52 avreichim metzuyonim, and a large number of candidates are vying for the remaining slots in the kollelim. All the avreichim are required to take rigorous monthly tests. Endorsements & Letters Endorsements include Maranan Hagaonim shlit”a: Harav Gershon Edelstein, Harav Berel Povarsky, Harav Shimon Badani, Harav Dovid Cohen, Harav Boruch Mordechai Ezrachi, Harav Chaim Feinstein, Harav Shimon Galai, Harav Shraga Shteinman. Letters of support-encouragement have been received from Maranan Hagaonim, shlit”a: Hamekubal Harav David Bazri, Hamashpia Hagadol Reb Elimelech Biderman, Hamekubal Harav Yaakov Meir Schechter, Harav Moishe Sternbuch, Harav Yitzchak Tuvia Weiss. For more “Torah-24” information click on: www.torah-24.com or call 718-766-5022

Rav Tzvi Kushelefsky, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Heichal HaTorah, is a one-man chizuk and bitachon force, making his way across American communities, inspiring by his mere presence, bringing smiles and joy to all privileged to meet the senior rosh yeshiva and new father.

Rav Kushelefsky, age 88, famously recently celebrated the birth of his first child, a son, a simcha that brought joy to Jewish communities the world over.

Rav Kushelefsky is seen below speaking at the Lutzk Bais Medrash in Lakewood, at Bais Medrash Ohr Hachaim in Monsey, and at last night’s Nshei Adirei Hatorah event in Lakewood. Videos courtesy of Sparks of Nation.

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