Feed aggregator

A building collapsed in the city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon. Rescue efforts are ongoing, and it is currently unclear how many people are trapped beneath the rubble.

Russian state TV aired FSB footage showing agents escorting a suspect, identified as Ukrainian-born Russian citizen Lyubomir Korba, allegedly involved in the shooting of a top military-intelligence officer.

A banner was raised in Tehran’s Palestine Square, displaying a map of potential targets in the Greater Tel Aviv area, alongside a warning: In the face of a rain of missiles, this is a small area. You start… we finish it!

Trump: America’s Elections are Rigged, Stolen, and a Laughingstock all over the World. We are either going to fix them, or we won’t have a Country any longer.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi: I believe that if our conclusion is that this seriousness exists on the opposing side, these negotiations will continue. There are signs that this seriousness exists, but there are also signs that this seriousness is faint. The continuation of certain sanctions and some activities in the military sphere, well, create […]

TRAGEDY IN OFAKIM: A deadly road accident occurred on Sunday near Ofakim, in which a 5-year-old Chareidi boy was hit by a car and killed. The initial collision triggered a chain reaction involving three other vehicles that overturned at the scene. MDA and United Hatzalah teams arrived quickly and provided extensive medical treatment, but tragically […]

Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi: The missile issue and the regional issue (proxies) has never been on the agenda of foreign negotiations so it hasn’t been removed because it was never included…

Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi: We neither trust them (Americans) nor rule out the possibility of deception and trickery. We know very well this possibility exists… this might be a deception let no one be deceived. Everyone should go about their work and complete their regular tasks as if we were not negotiating at all, […]

US Investor Emerges in Talks to Buy Arkia After Costly War Losses Following tens of millions of dollars in losses during the war and a prolonged legal battle over Wizz Air’s effort to establish a hub in Israel, the Nakash brothers are holding advanced talks to sell control of Arkia Airlines. The negotiations are being […]

James Fishback, a Republican running for governor of Florida, is facing intense criticism after making a disparaging remark about the Kotel during a campaign appearance, drawing condemnation from Jewish organizations, civil rights advocates, and political commentators.

The controversy stems from comments Fishback delivered on February 5, 2026, during a speech at the University of Central Florida. While discussing his view that Florida should focus on strengthening economic relationships with countries such as Brazil rather than emphasizing diplomatic visits to Israel, Fishback declared, “I will not visit the state of Israel.” He continued, “I’d rather go to Brazil and other countries to bring jobs to Florida, and not visit countries just to kiss a stupid wall.”

Footage from the event shows members of the audience applauding and cheering following the remark.

WATCH:

James Fishback, candidate for Florida Governor at UCF:

“If you’re going to visit another country, you should be helping people, creating jobs, facilitating trade, not kissing a stupid wall.” pic.twitter.com/4we296VXHm

— Joan (@joanfromdc) February 5, 2026

StopAntisemitism, a U.S.-based organization dedicated to combating antisemitism, sharply criticized Fishback in a post on X, writing, “StopAntisemitism is disgusted to see James Fishback, candidate for Florida Governor, denigrate the Kotel, the holiest site to the Jewish people. Listen to the incel groypers he’s preaching to [respond] with applause.”

The organization pointed to the crowd’s reaction as evidence that the comment was calculated to appeal to specific online subcultures. Civil rights attorney and former Fox News contributor Leo Terrell also denounced the statement, saying it “made my blood boil.” Terrell urged the public to speak out, adding that similar language directed at sacred sites of other faiths would be unacceptable. He has previously described a visit to the Kotel as a defining moment in his career.

Bryan E. Leib, a former congressional candidate and Newsmax contributor, addressed the controversy in an op-ed published on February 6, 2026, describing Fishback’s words as “ignorant and offensive.” Leib called on Florida Republicans to reject the remarks, arguing that they revealed character rather than policy differences.

Leib also questioned the silence of party leaders, asking why the Florida GOP and other elected officials had not yet issued condemnations. He added that Fishback’s rhetoric suggested that millions of Florida voters who have visited the Kosel “are not worthy to be Americans.”

Fishback, a hedge fund manager who entered the governor’s race in 2025, has previously attracted attention for controversial statements. This latest episode, however, appears particularly damaging given Florida’s large and politically active Jewish population, one of the largest in the United States.

{Matzav.com}

President Donald Trump wants to keep home prices high, bypassing calls to ramp up construction so people can afford what has been a ticket to the middle class. Trump has instead argued for protecting existing owners who have watched the values of their homes climb. It’s a position that flies in the face of what many economists, the […]

The Skverer Rebbe has taken delivery of a new vehicle, marking a notable change after decades in which he was driven in a Cadillac. This time, the choice of his chassidim was a top-of-the-line Genesis luxury car, specially prepared to meet the Rebbe’s unique needs.

The new vehicle arrived at the Rebbe’s residence in New Square, New York, just before Shabbos.

Sources within the Skverer chassidus explained that the decision was driven not by aesthetics or branding, but by practical considerations tied to comfort and health.

Within Skver, it has long been customary to replace the Rebbe’s vehicle every year or two, a practice rooted in the immense distances the car once covered during frequent travel. In recent years, however, the Rebbe rarely leaves the confines of the village. As a result, the decision was made to invest in a vehicle that would provide maximum comfort and stability for the rare occasions when travel is necessary, with the Rebbe’s well-being as the primary concern.

Those close to the Rebbe emphasize that he had no involvement whatsoever in selecting the model, exterior appearance, or interior design. His only requests were purely functional and spiritual: the installation of a special reading light and a dedicated stand for seforim. The Rebbe is known to use every moment of travel for learning Torah, remaining fully immersed in his seforim without looking out the window or engaging with his surroundings.

The Genesis vehicle has been customized accordingly, ensuring that the Rebbe can continue his regular learning schedule even while on the road, with clarity of mind and optimal comfort.

{Matzav.com}

Dolev Davidovitz, an Israeli media personality and lecturer, shared a deeply personal and dramatic life story in a wide-ranging interview with Yossi Avdo on the popular Israeli program Hashem Echad, describing an extraordinary transformation from militant atheism and open hostility toward religious Jews to a life of faith and purpose that he now describes as becoming an “ambassador of God.”

Davidovitz, who grew up in the heart of Kiryat Gat in a thoroughly secular environment and went on to compete as part of Israel’s national boxing team, spoke candidly about a past defined by contempt for religion. He said he was convinced that science had disproven faith, spent his days training, partying, and socializing, and derived particular enjoyment from provoking religious Jews in public spaces.

He described his childhood as happy and full of friends, but intensely secular. “An amazing childhood packed with good experiences and good friends,” he recalled, adding that it was “more secular than probably the average secular home,” to the point that Yom Kippur and Shabbos were entirely absent from his life.

Davidovitz said his attitude went far beyond indifference. “I hated chareidim, I hated Judaism, I hated anything holy,” he admitted. He described deliberately harassing religious Jews on trains, confronting them with taunts about military service, the existence of God, and the Holocaust. He also recalled intentionally taking selfies with seminary girls in the street to disturb them. “I would come back from school and go take selfies with seminary girls. They would run away from the selfie. I was just bothering chareidim for fun,” he said.

On Yom Kippur, he said, he and his friends would deliberately eat sandwiches in front of traditional Jews to provoke them. “On Yom Kippur we would go out with sandwiches to annoy people. We did it especially near more traditional Jews, because they were more observant, so we would annoy them,” he said.

Academically, Davidovitz said he viewed himself as part of an intellectual elite. He studied in a gifted program and immersed himself in physics, mathematics, biology, and chemistry. That environment, he said, reinforced a sense of superiority. “You automatically create this feeling that I’m an atheist, there is no God, and anyone who claims there is a God is stupid. He’s stupid and his whole family is stupid. We were the enlightened, rational secular people who don’t believe in God,” he said.

Despite that worldview, he recalled an early childhood question that lingered in his memory. At around age five, he asked his mother how God could see people if there was a ceiling. “My mother told me that God sees even through the ceiling,” he said.

The first crack in his certainty came unexpectedly through one of his confrontations. Davidovitz recounted stopping a Gerer chassid and asking him deliberately rude questions, only for the encounter to turn into a friendship. “Something went wrong for me,” he said. “I stopped a Gerer chassid, asked him some cheeky questions, and we became friends.”

Their late-night arguments unsettled him. “Those debates made me realize that Judaism actually has answers,” he said. “There were many questions he could answer, and that scared me.” One explanation struck him in particular: “He told me that scientists discovered that the highest level of blood clotting is on the eighth day. Whoever wrote the Torah already knew the mechanisms of clotting.”

Davidovitz said his military service along the Gaza border provided the space for deeper reflection. Standing guard alone under the stars, far from the noise of daily life, he began to question everything. “You’re on guard duty, on the Gaza line, just you and the stars,” he said. “Suddenly I started asking questions and realized one thing: It can’t be that I came into this world for 120 years of ice cream, schnitzel, girls, parties, and drugs, and then you die and worms eat you. There has to be something beyond.”

He read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning but rejected the idea of inventing purpose for himself. “I said, wait, am I fooling myself? Either there is meaning and I need to discover it, or there is no meaning,” he said.

After becoming intellectually convinced that there was a Creator, Davidovitz asked for a sign. “I said to myself in my heart, Creator of the world, if You really exist, do a miracle for me. I’m starving,” he recalled.

What followed left a lasting imprint. “Not even half a minute passed,” he said, “and on my left there were bushes, and inside them was a blue bag — a huge bag of potato chips — just sitting there, waiting for me. I understood. There was a kiss from God. God was showing me the way. I exist. I want a relationship with you.”

Before committing to change, Davidovitz said he examined other belief systems. “I put Buddhism aside. I was left with Christianity and Islam,” he said. “And I understood that they are based on Judaism. If Judaism is true, they can’t be true, because Judaism claims exclusivity.”

That realization initially filled him with fear rather than joy. “My life was ruined,” he said. “I said, wow, this is a bummer.” He explained that he was afraid of returning to religion because he believed it meant giving up who he was. “Today I understand that returning to religion is not giving up who you are — it’s upgrading who you are,” he said.

He described emotional final drives to the beach on Shabbos in his old car, a 2001 Renault Megane, caught between belief and habit. “One of the last Shabbasos, I remember driving to the sea, and Avraham Fried’s song ‘Ribbon Ha’olamim’ was playing. I was just driving and crying. That dissonance between knowing there is a God and still driving to the sea on Shabbos because it’s hard for you.”

His first visit to a beis medrash shocked him. Seeing young men shouting questions at a rabbi, he initially thought it was disrespectful. “I didn’t understand — is this how chareidim speak to elders?” he recalled. “They told me, no, this is the fire of Torah.”

Asked how he would respond to a secular young man emerging from war who accuses Torah students of parasitism, Davidovitz answered bluntly. “As someone who felt that way in the past, I understand him,” he said. “But with all due respect, you’re standing here a complete atheist, without Torah and without Jewish identity, and you’re calling me a parasite? I’m a Jew in the land of the Jews who refuses to enlist in an army that wants to uproot my Jewish identity. Before talking about parasitism, what about your last Shabbos? Did you keep it?”

In closing, Davidovitz stressed that influence should come through example, not coercion. “Spread the light you were exposed to, but not through preaching or forcing — that only pushes people away,” he said. “Just be yourselves. When people see how good your life is, that’s what brings them closer. Understand that you have responsibility. You are ambassadors of the Creator.”

{Matzav.com}

Dor Shachar, born in Gaza as Ayman Abu Subouh, has come forward with a gripping personal account that spans life under terror rule, brutal imprisonment, and a long, arduous path to conversion to Judaism. His story offers a rare, firsthand look at daily life in Gaza, the methods Hamas uses against suspected collaborators, and the ideology that shaped the enclave long before the group formally seized power.

Shachar was born in Khan Younis and grew up in its alleyways and marketplaces, where Hamas and other terror factions already functioned as dominant local forces years before the January 2006 elections that brought the Islamist organization to power. As a teenager, he fled to Israel and found work as a guard at a construction site. Years later, at the age of 25, he completed a formal conversion to Judaism and changed his name.

Now 49, Shachar says his earliest lessons about Jews came from his grandfather, whose contradictory behavior left him deeply unsettled. The elderly man would invite Jewish guests for coffee and bread, yet in the same breath urge his grandson to one day “liberate the land” by killing Jews. “I said to myself, ‘How can this be? On the one hand he invites them for food and drink, and on the other hand he says to kill them.’ From a young age I understood that something was very wrong,” he said in an interview with the National Post.

Growing up in Gaza, Shachar says he personally knew figures who later became synonymous with terrorism, including Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Yahya Ayyash. He recalled that they were regarded as prominent community figures, alongside operatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah, and the PLO. He added that even people close to him, including a brother, carried out attacks that killed Israelis.

He described scenes of extreme violence that unfolded openly in public. In one instance, he said he witnessed Sinwar beheading a Palestinian accused of collaborating with Israel as crowds in the marketplace cheered. On another occasion, he and his mother found a severed head lying in the market street. “They said he was suspected of collaborating with Israel,” he recalled. “The passersby and onlookers were indifferent.”

According to Shachar, incitement began early and was deeply embedded in Gaza’s education system. In schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, he said children were taught to hate Jews from a young age. “Jews were portrayed as pigs, dogs, and infidels who did not deserve to live, and children were told that Israelis had one eye in the middle of their forehead or three legs.”

Violence, he said, was not incidental but institutionalized. “Every child learned how to throw stones at Jews because that is what they taught us. The teacher would tell us to go out and throw stones, then come back and open books as if we were studying. When soldiers arrived, they saw small children learning. After the soldiers left, the teachers laughed and said, ‘Those pigs, those dogs, those traitors, those Jews — we will slaughter them the way Hitler did.’”

Disillusioned by the extremism surrounding him, Shachar escaped to Israel in his teens. For a period, he served as an informant for the Shin Bet, reporting on terror activity, and later supported himself working as a renovation laborer. An Israeli Jew took him under his protection, even as others repeatedly questioned his loyalty. Shachar says he endured suspicions, arrests, and an eight-year bureaucratic struggle to fulfill his lifelong dream of converting to Judaism.

“Yes, it would have been easier not to be Jewish,” he said, explaining that his motivation stemmed from what he described as a search for a “spark of the soul.” “I feel connected to the Jewish people,” he said. “I wanted to be Jewish because I chose life. I chose love and not hatred. I chose love, not darkness.”

For a time, Shachar lived in Israel without legal status. Immigration authorities eventually located him, brought him before a judge, and deported him back to Gaza. There, he spent seven months in prison, his legs shackled, enduring beatings, electric shocks, psychological abuse, cuts to his arms, and severe starvation. He said his captors knew about his interest in Judaism and his affinity for Israel and tortured him accordingly.

After his release, Shachar managed to escape Gaza via Egypt and Turkey, eventually reentering Israel clandestinely using a Palestinian Authority passport. Reflecting on Gaza today, he said the ideology promoted by Hamas is widely shared. “Between Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and every other terror group, and the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, they all share the same ideas about Jews,” he said. “And they say that Hamas will lift their heads and rebuild Gaza.”

The events of October 7, 2023, he said, only strengthened his conviction that a poisonous ideology has overtaken Gaza. He described watching civilians join the violence and celebrate in the streets, saying that no Gazan helped any Jew and that hospitals were used as military positions.

Today, Dor Shachar lives with the quiet clarity of someone who has seen the darkest corners of human cruelty and consciously chosen a different path. Having escaped a world built on fear, hatred, and coercion, he rebuilt his life around faith, moral responsibility, and the sanctity of life itself. His journey from Gaza’s streets to the embrace of the Jewish people stands as a stark counterpoint to the ideology he left behind, a testament to free will, personal courage, and the power of choosing light over darkness, even when the cost is unimaginably high.

{Matzav.com}

Lufthansa has publicly accepted responsibility for its involvement with the Nazi regime during World War II, marking a significant shift after years of downplaying or deflecting scrutiny. The acknowledgment follows the release of a commissioned historical study examining the airline’s origins and conduct during the period.

“Lufthansa was clearly part of the system,” Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said Tuesday at a press conference held at Frankfurt Airport. He disclosed that the company depended on forced labor to help create a “clandestine air force” for the National Socialist government, which he said was used to carry out “war crimes and criminal activities.”

The findings were produced as part of a broader reassessment tied to Lufthansa’s centennial, which also includes an upcoming book detailing the airline’s early history and wartime actions.

For many years, Lufthansa avoided direct responsibility by pointing to a corporate distinction. The original airline, Deutsche Luft Hansa AG, was established in 1926 as a state-backed carrier and arms manufacturer and was dismantled at the end of World War II. A separate entity, Deutsche Lufthansa AG, was founded in 1953 by former employees after purchasing the defunct company’s name and logo.

Historian Lutz Budrass, who has written extensively about Lufthansa’s past, addressed this issue in a 2020 interview with Deutsche Welle, saying, “Lufthansa, like most companies, was not held accountable for its actions.”

Budrass argued that despite the formal dissolution of the original company, there was significant overlap in leadership and personnel. He cited figures such as vice chairman Kurt Weigelt and Kurt Knipfer, a former Prussian officer who led Lufthansa until 1945, adding, “There was a strong continuity in its staff.”

He also noted that the postwar reestablishment of the airline was designed to sever its public association with Nazi-era crimes. “With the new founding, the company wanted to distance itself from the horrors of the past and the crimes committed under National Socialism, which were perpetrated by Lufthansa.”

At the time, Budrass criticized the airline’s reluctance to confront that history head-on, saying, “It’s clear that Lufthansa is not ready to take this step.”

In its statement released Tuesday, Lufthansa signaled a change in approach, writing, “In examining its history, Lufthansa does not limit itself to the post-war chapters of its history. The years from its founding to the decline of the first Lufthansa are also part of the company’s history.”

{Matzav.com}

DEEP FREEZE: The Hudson River in NYC is frozen. People who live near the river say they haven’t seen it like this in decades.

TOTAL ANARCHY: Chaos erupted outside the Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy, as Antifa rioters went on a violent rampage, clashing with police for hours in scenes of total disorder. Authorities were forced to respond as agitators attacked officers and wreaked havoc in the surrounding areas, turning what should have been a celebration of international sports […]

Extreme cold grips the Northeast as temperatures feel below 25 degrees, keeping millions in deep freeze conditions.

American tells Nick Shirley he bought a pig to oppose the Islamic invasion of America in Texas: “I’m here because this is my home….These people just recently came here and they want to take over!” “They’ve already built their Muslim-only town. They want to expand it into a Muslim-only city and try to take over […]